Welcome back to the Daily Bible Podcast! We're so glad you've joined us. And now your hosts, Pastor PJ and Pastor Rod.

Hey everybody. Bernard, appreciate your intro there and it's Sunday. And so we are back at church today. We are gonna be continuing first Peter. So first Peter one, three through seven today as we actually launch a new series called Our Living Hope. It's gonna be a two week series within our broader series of the book of one Peter. So excited about getting in and preaching that. And I heard you, you're dressing up in a pretty flamboyant jumpsuit. Is that. Is that to be expected? I don't know. I'm still undecided. Okay. If it's Sunday morning as you're listening to this, I'm deliberating right now. Yeah. We have the press coming today to take pictures of You do a headshot, glam shots. They wanna put you on the cover of a magazine as they understand it. So that's why we're all thinking about what we're gonna wear. 'cause we might end up in the background of one of Pastor PJ's photo shoot. I don't think that's accurate. I think it's no. We are having Salina Living Magazine come out to do a, a story on our church, which is pretty exciting. A glamor shot of you? No. Not a glamor shot. Not a glamor shot. But they're gonna come out and do a story on our church. And this is something to be praying for. So if you see people today, if you're listening to this before you go to church, if you see people with cameras today please don't get the wrong idea. This is not a hey we're trying to be, all glitzy and glamorous and servicey here. This is a local publication that goes out to, I believe, 22,000 homes, I think is what we found out about this. I thought it was 22 million, but, okay. Million thousand, same thing, but 22,000 homes in the area. And it's an opportunity for us. They're gonna do an interview this week. They're gonna talk to us about the church. It's an opportunity for us to get our name out in those 22,000 homes in the area around our our church here. So we're jumping at this opportunity, this chance, and should be a great time. But that's what. You're seeing, if you notice people around with cameras and stuff, they're there as part of this article that they're gonna run in the Salina Living Magazine. If you don't see anybody, that's fine too. We'd actually love if all this was in the background, they will definitely be there after church. After church, yes. We don't know if they're gonna be there before church. Or during church. But they will be there. So at some point, if we're, if we escape from you, it's not because we're trying to be rude, it's because Pastor PG needs a glam shot. This is not, make sure that we get those in there. That's only half true. It's not a glam shot. But they do need you 'cause they're taking photos of you. Is that not true? That is true. No, that is true. So we are also working on a. TV pilot. We're not, we're trying to do a real, what's that called? A reality show TV thing. Real house pastors Of North Texas. Real house pastors of North Texas. Yes. We're working on it. We're pitching it. We think it has potential. Oh, we're not sure if it'll fly, but we'll see. So if you see TV cameras in addition to the. Cameras that are taking photos of Pastor PJ and the team, that's what's happening here. Yeah. And that may all not be accurate at all. That may be totally fabricated. So not all of it actually. It's only some of it. Only some of it. Hey, we got a couple questions just about the TV show. The TV show is not true, but the photos and the glam shots, most of that is true. Yeah. Questions. Questions. Okay. So I got one here from someone A. A young listener. Young listener. Her dad sends it in on her behalf, and I think it feels like Al Mueller when Mueller's I love when the children answer the ask the questions. We love when the children ask the questions. That's exactly what I was gonna get to. So here's the question and I'm gonna pitch it to you. Okay? Knock it outta the park. Here it goes. In the Bible. Satan uses scripture to try to tempt Jesus. Does that mean Satan has memorized the whole Bible and should we be worried about people that know, but misused the Bible? Yeah. So first thing that we should know, and this is a great question, insightful question from somebody especially so young, is let me establish Satan's limitations before I talk. His power. Satan is not omniscient. Okay? Only God is omnisci. What does that mean? Omni meaning knows all things. God is the only one that knows all things. God is the only one that is omnipresent, which means he's everywhere all at once. Satan is bound by space. He's bound by time. He does not exist outside of time. He's a created being. And though he's an immortal being, he's a created being. Nonetheless. And so Satan is not like God, however. The power that Satan possesses is that Satan is a very intelligent being. Satan was one of God's angels, one of the chief angels that God created at the outset of the dawn of time. And Satan fell due to his pride. We believe if some of the descriptions in the Old Testament are accurate of his fall, which we don't have any reason to doubt that it would be and because of that Satan. With his knowledge of God would know God's word as well. And so Satan knows that one of the best ways that he can come after the followers of God's people is to take the word of God and twist it. In fact, he's been doing that from the very beginning. That's what he came to Eve with and he said, did. Did God really say don't eat from that tree. Don't touch it. And he begins to pervert God's word. And so Satan has been doing that from the very beginning, and he's known as the father of lies. And so he's also gonna lie when it comes to how he uses the Bible. And so when he comes to Jesus and the wilderness, yeah, he knows the Bible, he knows the word of God, and he's trying to. Think maybe I can trip up the son of God by quoting the Bible to him and making him do what I want him to do. Now he underestimates his opponent there and doesn't understand that the one that he is addressing is the very author of the word, or at least if he did, he underestimated his ability to withstand the temptation. So the second part of the question that should we be concerned about people today who know the Bible but misuse it? Yes. Absolutely unqualified yes to that, and that is why it's so important to find a good church that's gonna teach the Bible faithfully. That's why it's so important to find pastors that are knowledgeable. I know a lot of young men who have had the desire to go into the ministry, but have thoughts to themselves, you know what, I don't need seminary. I don't need Bible College. I don't need this training. I just wanna go tell people about Jesus. The passion is commendable. The zeal is commendable, but the impetuousness that the desire to go and just start doing it is concerning because you can fall into error that way. And so we need to be following leaders who. Have been well-trained to handle the word of God and are doing it in a good way. And then also, you need to know your Bible. And so as this young listener asks, you're being raised to, to know your Bible in a young age, you need to know your Bible really well, because then you're gonna know when you're sitting under someone's teaching whether or not that's biblically faithful. That's to be a berean, as it's talked about in the Book of Acts. So yes, Satan does know the Bible. Yes, Satan twists the Bible. And yes, we also need to be concerned about other people that claim to know the Bible, but mishandle it at the same time. Did the devil have to memorize the Bible then, or was this just something that he knew because he was around God, the Father? At some point in time I think he probably had to apply himself to know it, to study it, and to learn it. Ooh. So just like we should, right? He mastered it. In fact, by all accounts, he probably knows it better than we do, right? He's had a lot more time at it, and therefore we should not be surprised when he uses the Bible in bad ways. So we should be really prayerfully knowledgeable about the Bible so that we avoid people that misuse it. What a great question Ri. Yep. Thank you for sending that in. Yep. Excellent. Do we want to address this other clarification question or do we want to Oh, take that one tomorrow. I throw that one in there. That's fine. Okay. So another young listener says in today's DBR, you said, God is just, but not fair. I believe. Understand what you're saying and agree, but would be appreciated if you could expound on what it means or what you mean by God not being fair. Go for it. PPGA you're the one who made this comment, so I have an answer, but I wanna hear from you since you're the one that, that put this out there. Then let me clarify it after you take a shot. 'cause maybe we would say it differently. Okay. Yeah. He, his justice is not always gonna seem like it's fair to us, and there's no guarantee that it's going to be fair to us. In fact, we talked about it recently, God will never give you more than you can handle. That's not a true statement. In fact, I'm, we're gonna talk about that even today in church this morning as we're talking about trials and how God brings trials into our lives there are gonna be things that we're gonna have situations where we're gonna feel like this is not fair. But that does not mean that God is not just, that he's not doing the right thing from our point of view, bound by the limitations of our finitude as the creature. Not the creator. We may sit here and say, this is not fair. And yet God knows as he's working out things from his point of view, from an eternal perspective, that what he's doing is the just act. What he's doing is the right act. What he's doing is working in accordance with his plan, ultimately for his glory. And I think when we get to eternity, we will, part of the privilege and blessing of being in eternity is we'll have the opportunity to look back on different situations in our life. Just like we can't even already before we get to eternity and see the way that God was doing things and at work in situations that maybe at that time we thought, man, this isn't fair, and yet we see the good that he was working, that it was still just, even though from our perspective maybe it felt man this seems not fair. Amen to that. I would say probably the easiest way to wrap your mind around this is the way that God designs people. Some are taller, some are shorter, some are faster, some are slower, some are incredibly intelligent. They have to do so little work to memorize facts and figures, and they just knock it outta the ballpark when they're tested, and yet others have to work really hard just to memorize the basics and get a C on the test. Those inequalities are not morally. Significant for God to say that he's in some way wrong, but they're unfair. There's unfair advantages and there's unfair disadvantages that all of us can be born into the fact that we're Americans, most of us I trust listening to this, we have an unfair advantage over most people who live in other places. We have an unfair advantage being English speakers where we have a plethora of Bible. Translations to choose from. We have commentaries and all these wonderful resources. So I would say those are unfair things that we could say God's okay with, that. God has designed unfairness. He gives more blessings here and less blessings there. The people of Israel are probably one of the best examples. The people of Israel were chosen among all the different people groups that lived at that point in time. He chose Abraham. He could have chosen anybody. He chose Abraham. And some could say, man, that's. Unfair, and I would agree with that, but it's not unjust because God's justice means he will always do what's right. But when it comes to our understanding of fairness, we think all people, if we if my kid gets one ice cream scoop, the other kid should get one ice cream scoop. If if one kid is six foot five, the other kid should be six foot five. It's one of those things that's a childish way to look at fairness. But God's okay with distributing gifts as he sees fit. Righteous. Good. Perfect. But he does certainly give some people more than others. We ought to be okay with that. I think God's okay with that. As is evidenced by the fact that all of us have different bank account numbers. All of us have different intelligence. All of us have different skill sets that God has baked into our DNA. And that's all I was trying to say. Yep. Yep. Thanks for asking the clarifying question though. If we ever say anything like that and you guys are going, wait a minute write in, ask the follow up for us. We'd love to, to clarify 'cause you're probably not the only one that has that question. Yeah. Two young listeners asking two great questions. Thank you guys for doing that. We are so grateful for those. Jeremiah 35 through 37 is our DBR for today, chapter 35. We find ourselves back in the reign of Eze Kaya. Before the reign of Zaka, sorry, during Johan Jo Hoya Kim's reign, which is 6 0 9 to 5 97 bc and the only reason I bring that up is because the people that are mentioned in this chapter that God uses to provide a stark contrast between faithfulness and the unfaithfulness of Israel are this people called the record bytes. And the record bytes were descendants of Jon Dab who lived towards the end of Ahab's Reign. So we're back in about. Eight 50 BC was when Jon Daab was living. So Jon Daab gave his descendants this charge to live in accordance with his wishes. In the recites for over 200 years, had been faithful to what this man, Jon Daab had tasked his descendants with being faithful to, and so God. Sends Jeremiah to commend them and also to point out to the rest of the people there to say, look, how, if they could be faithful to their father a mere man, how much more should you, Israel have been faithful to me, the God of everyone. And so this is a lesser to the greater argument that God is going to use. It's similar to the living parables that he does with Jeremiah, except this time Jeremiah doesn't have to get a loin cloth or a yoke or anything else like that. He's pointing to a family saying they've been faithful. To a man's wishes for over 200 years. And yet Israel, we have been faithless to our God. And there's judgment that's coming. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with human tradition. Clearly. God held them up as at least worthy of emulation. Yeah. So I think that's interesting and important to see. Tradition has its place and we're not against tradition even as. Bible believing evangelicals, a lot of us carry traditions through. The problem is not tradition per se, as such, the problem is when tradition circumvents or even usurps God's word, and that's the problem that we see here. The record bytes were awesome for what they did. God honors them. At least by way of using them as an example, saying, look how they honor their father, and am I not worthy of much more honor? And of course the answer is yes, and Jesus will later charge the Pharisees and the scribes with putting tradition over the word of God. And that's a danger for us today as well. The problem is that most of us are unaware of the traditions that we iib upon. We go through the. The formality of our religion, we go through the routine of it, and rarely do we think about why. Why do we do it that way? Why do we not sit, stand and kneel as some other Christian traditions do? Why do we sing the songs that we do? Why do we preach the Bible the way that we do? Or why do we not have these big cathedral like buildings, like other traditions do? And there's a lot of answers to that, and many of them, many are biblically reasoned answers. I would encourage you as you go through your Christian life, to ask questions of yourself and maybe of others to say, why do we do the things that we do? When did that start? What's behind that? That'd be a really good thing for you to do. Yeah. The trouble we get into is when our answer is because we've always done it that way. Exactly. Yeah. Or if it says, we like it this way, even though the Bible says something different, we want to do it this way instead because we're more comfortable with it. Yeah. Chapter 36, we we found a bad scene unfold in chapter 34. 36. In the, it says in the fourth year of Jo Hoya Kim, so we're 6 0 5 to 6 0 4 bc Jeremiah has given the instructions that he needs to write down the things that the Lord has been dictating to him, the things that the Lord has been prophesying through him. And so the Lord is gonna, through Jeremiah, use a man named bar. And Baruch is gonna be Jeremiah's scribe. And Baruch is gonna write down on the scroll everything that the Lord desired for him to write down the things that the Jeremiah had been prophesying because he wanted it to be recorded so that more people could read it and come to understand it, and even hear it as it's read out loud and. Perhaps potentially respond to it in repentance, the way that God had desired that they should. It's finished there, verse nine. In the fifth year of Jo Hoya Kim. And that Cro scroll is going to be read aloud. And this is, it reminded me though this contrast again, is stark here between the faithfulness and unfaithfulness motif. It reminded me of when Josiah found the scroll in the temple and he read it out loud to the people. And yet the responses are dramatically different. When this scroll is read out loud by Baruch the officials, they get Baruch and they say, Hey, look, you guys need to run and hide because this is not gonna go well for you when the king hears of this and catch his word of what you're prophesying and all the judgment that's coming. And so they tell Jeremiah there in verse 19 you need to go and take cover. You need to get outta here because the king's going to be mad. And so the scroll is taken. The scroll is. Put away and the king requests it. And this is where just this fear inducing scene takes place where the king has the scroll red. And as the scroll is being read, the king pulls out his sword and or has one of his servants do this and cuts off. Portions of this scroll and throws it in the fire pot nearby and burns God's word as it is being read out loud to him. And the end of it is Jeremiah then takes out another scroll, gives it to Baruch and records everything over again. But this is one of the final nails in the coffin for the judgment of God coming against the people. Chapter 37. Then we get into an in interesting scene here is Zeki had a love-hate relationship with Jeremiah Zeki is enraged at him. He's cutting up the scroll. He's throwing it in the fire pot. But then the other thing here is Zeki is going to be sorry, JE Joa. Kim was throwing it in the fire pot. My bad. That was my mistake. Zetia still has a love-hate relationship with Jeremiah. 'cause he's gonna see him imprisoned and pull him out and everything else like that. Jeremiah goes to Zetia. So we're 5 97 BC right now. And he's gonna warn him and he's gonna say, Hey look, this is what's happening. And he's gonna say up at. It. The verse 10, he says, even if you should defeat the whole army of the Chaldeans who are fighting against you, and there remained of them, only wounded men, every man in his tent, they would rise up and burn the city with fire. In other words, God's judgment is inevitable at this point. It's inescapable. It's going to happen. There's nothing you can do about it. As that Aki gets upsets with Jeremiah and has him imprisoned, and so he's gonna be imprisoned there in the house of Jonathan, the secretary for it had been made. It says there in verse 15 into a prison. King Zaka later is gonna give orders about Jeremiah. He's gonna be committed there to the court of the guard. He had said, do not send me back to the house of Jonathan, lest I die there. And Jeremiah and Zika begin this relationship that we're gonna find out more about as the the chapters continue here in Jeremiah. I really appreciate the facts that it was the very thing that Jeremiah did not want, that God uses to provide for Jeremiah. Verse 21. That a loaf of bread was given him daily from the Baker Street until all the bread of the city was gone. God did that by delivering Jeremiah to the prison. And it's amazing. God provided through prison and God protected him through prison. God preserved his life by sending him through a very terrible situation, and it is this very thing that God uses to bless and preserve Jeremiah. I think that's fascinating and I think it's really worth us. Taking to heart the fact that if you're in a difficult season, that might be the very thing that's God, that God is using to protect you and PR preserve you. The challenge is we have our Bible. We could look at what's happening here. We know the end for Jeremiah's story. You don't know the end of your story. You don't have a Bible that you can read that says, okay, in the year 2027, pastor pj, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of us have that. And that's probably a good thing. Honestly, you don't want information about your future, let God handle that. But the point is you need to be able to trust that God is using every circumstance for better and for worse to accomplish his good purposes in your life. Even if that means, like Jeremiah, you're in prison situation, God used prison to bless Jeremiah. And I wonder if Jeremiah knew it in the moment or if he had to wait for his book to be written to say, you know what? On second thought, that was actually a good thing. And to bring things full circle. Jeremiah probably sat there and thought to himself in prison, this isn't fair. Oh, yeah. And yet God was just, and it was still a good situation, even though from Jeremiah's perspective early on, this isn't fair, Daniel h and i, Azariah, Misha, this isn't fair. We've been taken away from our family, from the temple, from everything else, and we're here. And yet God was using that to spare them, put them in positions to be able to influence nations and and preserve his people too. Yeah. All, let's pray and then we will wrap up this episode. God, we confess our limitations, even just as we're talking about that of our inability to know exactly how you're at work. And so help us to trust you. Increase our faith in those situations when times are difficult. Even as we're gonna talk about today at church that you bring trials in our lives, that the tested genuineness of our faith, which is more precious than gold may be found to result in praise and honor and glory of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Lord, what an amazing reality that is. And it's so hard for us to. Embrace that mindset. When we're in the midst of the trial, on the backside of the trial, or when we're not in a trial, we can think about that and think sure, that makes all the sense in the world, but when we find ourselves suffering so often, we can be so tempted to get out of it by any means possible instead of enduring it and asking, okay, God, what are you doing in the midst of this? And so increase our faith to be able to do that. We ask and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Bye.

Well, thank you for listening to another POWERFUL episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said