Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello, happy Sunday. We're we're back. We're back for another week at church, and we're still rolling in a series on suffering, which man, I'd like to give you a light at the end of the tunnel. I think there's a lot of really good, rich stuff in one peter about suffering. And the reality is he's gonna continue to talk about suffering for quite a while now, and it's, part of it is just this is the reality of what it means to follow Christ. And so this is a series I've been enjoying getting into the word and. Mining some things from it. Hopefully you're benefiting from the series. But we're talking about first Peter chapter three today at church continuing in verses 13 through 17 about why our suffering matters in the eyes of God and what he wants to do with it. So hopefully it'll be an encouraging message or hopefully it was an encouraging message to you if you've already been there and you are now back at home. But yeah, it's a long weekend. What is tomorrow? Is it President's Day tomorrow? Is that why? Schools are closed on Monday? Yes. Do we know which President's Day this is about? I think it's 2026 is President's Day, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Who was the president that was honored? I think they're all honored. I could be wrong. I don't, I don't. I, it probably all I've him a day. Yeah. It's the birthday of George Washington. I knew it was associated with something like that. Oh, is that right? Birthday of the original Gub. Oh, okay. He was born, I guess February 22nd, technically so we're a little early, but it's the third Monday of every February is the President's Day, so I know my kids are off school. I assume is Solana closed as well? That's right. Yeah. So, enjoy your Monday. If you've got the day off, enjoy that. We are in Leviticus 20 through 21 and Matthew 28, 1 through 20. Leviticus 20 through 21 has a lot more just getting into the rules and regulations. A lot of it has to do with the immorality. Of the kind between men and women and other things going on there. But before that, he gets into this whole thing on child sacrifice and the god, the false God mole. And I think there are parallels there that we can see between the death culture that we find prevalent in our society today. And the God molech, though those that go to the Planned Parenthood centers and others are not necessarily going there to offer their children in a sacrificial act to a demon God. They are s. Certainly engaging in something that is of the ilk. And even though the God is not identified certainly this is anything but some, a practice that honors the Lord. And during this time, this was an abomination to him. The person who did this was to be put to death, and the Lord was very serious about preserving the life of the unborn. There's also some instructions here about mediums and necro answers that's gonna come up with Saul as we get into the books of First Samuel specifically. But, this is goddess saying that babies the children, there's a value in their lives and we need to protect that value at all costs. And what would make this a New Testament principle in your estimation? Because clearly we would still hold to this. We believe that this is not just for Israel's religious worship. This is a binding, we would say this is a binding for all time situation. How would you know that? I think when we get into the category in the New Testament, when the command thou shalt not murder is reiterated. And we would look at this and say, this is a form of murder, and we can know that it's a form of murder. Because earlier in the law there was the command that if a child is born and dies premature, is born prematurely and dies, that is a life you've taken the life of that child. So, these are children that are born and then offered. To this God. And so this is a blatant act of murder that we know in the New Testament is still condemned as well. One of the ways that I remember learning about how Christians deal with some of the Old Testament regulations and statutes that we're reading here are the trifold division of civil, ceremonial, and moral. Do you subscribe to that? Is that something you feel comfortable with? And if so, can you explain it? Yeah. By and large I would this would certainly fall into the category of moral, something that we would look at and say, this is morally right or wrong. And there were laws about that. There were other laws that were civil or ceremonial, for example, that the law about not boiling a goat in its some mother's milk was probably not a moral law as much as it was. Part of the ceremonial law. And then they had things that were specific for them as a nation that would've fallen into the category of what was a law for their conduct together as the nation of Israel. And those things don't necessarily translate over to the New Testament either. But I do believe the moral laws are very clear for us to say, this is something that we're gonna preserve by and large. And that would include some of the things that we read about when it comes to sexual ethics and even the implications of. Of those things. When the text doesn't tell us civil, ceremonial, or moral, then how do you know where to draw the line? I think that's where resources are helpful for us. Like the ESV study Bible can be helpful for you on that. A commentary can be helpful for you on that. Looking to the outside resources to get wisdom and glean understanding as to what the laws are and how they should be interpreted is not something that you should be ashamed to do if you have to go outside to understand some of these things, especially in the Old Testament law, especially in a book like Leviticus. That can be helpful for you. That's right. I would also suggest to you too, that when you're reading your Old Testament, I would read it in light of the new. You see two pieces put together where those who received the law for the first time, the Israelites, they didn't have a New Testament to refer to and say, oh, I see Jesus is gonna affirm this in Matthew chapter such and such. But we can do that though. We can look at the New Testament and say, okay, how do we put these two pieces together such that they harmonize? And the threefold division of the law is a helpful one. It has a bit of pushback here and there from different scholars for different reasons. In other words it's not a. This is the only way to look at this. There's lots of people who see it differently. In part because everything God says has moral implications is the idea. You can't say, well, this is only moral and this is only civil and ceremonial. There's overlap. It's not clean, but it is a helpful metric, a helpful framing to look at the Old Testament law, and by and large, if you can look at the Old Testament, put it together with a new there's a lot of symbiosis. They both work together and they help complete each other. There are times when we have questions and those questions have difficult answers that we have to do a lot of heavy lifting with, but to. We have lots of resources that help with these things we do for sure. In the last section here of chapter 20, he, God does, reminds the people of, again, why all of these rules, why all these regulations? Because he wants them to be separate. He wants them to be consecrated and he doesn't want them to do the things that caused him to di. Test the people that were in the land before them, and granted they're not in the land yet, but as he's preparing them to go to the land, he's saying, this is, these are the things they did. You shall not be like them. Instead, you should be holy. You should be set apart, you should be different consecrated, and you shall be those things for me. And so God is calling them out from all of those practices. One thing I wanna bring your attention to is in verse four of this chapter, he says, if the people of the land do at all, close their eyes to the man. When he gives one of his children a mole and do not put him to death. Then I will set my face against that man and against his clan and cut them off. That is all the people from among the people, him and all who follow him in doing these things after Molech. So I think there's a really helpful principle here to learn, and it's that God does hold us culpable and responsible if we sit back and let a moral evil persist without taking action against it. In fact, he prescribes the same penalty that the one who committed the crime received and obviously in our laws, there's different ways to look at this, but I do think you should feel some of the weight of this. If you have the ability to act against evil and you don't there's problems with that. God wants you to feel a moral compunction to do something. When you have the ability to do that and to fail to do that is a moral failure as God sees it. Would we carry that over into the realm of voting? We don't wanna be. Necessarily accused of favoring one party over the other. He's such a Christian nationalist, tongue and cheek. I think so. I mean, it's different. It's very different. These are not the same thing. Yeah. But principally, I would say, yeah, if you have a vote to cast, you should use your vote wisely. And with a clear conscience, there's a lot of, hurdles to jump over, but I think that's an application. Sure. Or an implication of the text, but maybe not a specific like, oh, A plus B equals C situation. Yeah, no, for sure. I would agree with you. I think for a lot of people, this is one of the ways that they can do something there. There's a lot of people who otherwise don't. Who don't have the means to be able to give a ton of money towards companies or organ organizations that fight against these things. So I think casting our vote is a good way for us as Christians to be involved, which makes it important for you to know the issues at stake. And a lot of times I think we just vote party lines because that's what we've always done. But knowing the issues, taking the stance and or even volunteering your time. We brought up that crisis pregnancy center a couple weeks ago going and volunteering somewhere like that. Being a counselor or being somebody that can meet with the ladies, helping with intake, whatever that looks like, that's another way to get involved. But I'm with you. I think we have an obligation as believers, as those that stand for what's right to be engaged in trying to push back the darkness by participating in those things. Chapter 21. Then we get into the priests, and he's going to talk specifically about the separate regulations and rules for why the priests need to be holy. And in fact, sometimes even holier more separate than the common man. The high priest that the chief priest who's mentioned in verse 10, he's not even allowed to go while he's on duty at least, and mourn his family. If somebody in his family dies, he's not even allowed to be present with them because he would be. Contaminated, he would then defile himself and not be eligible to carry out the service that he needed to carry out for the people. And so, they had a job and their job was to serve the greater nation. And as such, they need to be ready to do that work. They need to be ready to do the work in the ministry in front of them. So they were called to a different standard of holiness here, or at least a more intense standard of holiness here in Chapter 21. One of the things that you should know is that holiness is symbolized by wholeness. So when you see some of these physical things, again, you're seeing 'em at verse 16 and following. I won't read those for the obvious reasons that you'll know once you read through that. But the physical blemishes we're not inherently wrong. It's not that there was something. Morally deficient. It was symbolically deficient. What God does here is focus on the physicality of somebody because it speaks, it's a symbol of what it conveying, which is holiness and wholeness go together. In fact, there's something interesting there. There is a connection there linguistically, obviously, you hear holiness and holiness. I think biblically the idea of holiness does speak to the completeness and the fullness of God. Holiness does speak to at least two things, and the first one being his transcendence that God's godness. Is a way that we talk about his holiness. I think that's what Isaiah six is, has in mind when he calls him Holy, holy, holy. But there is a secondary meaning that we typically think of when we think of holiness, and that has to do with moral perfection. Mm-hmm. Spotlessness the unblemished vitality of God. His perfect wholeness and completeness. Jesus says in Matthew chapter seven, that you're to be perfect. You're to be the tell us. You're to be. That word also speaks to wholeness, completeness. You're to be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. Jesus says, and I think that's kind of the idea here of what's happening. Holiness is symbolized in this particular text as physical wholeness, and that's why you see some of these restrictions here. Nothing inherently wrong with them. Again, there's issues. All of us have physical imperfections, but the point was, oh, you're not good enough. Physically. It was meant to symbolize. Holiness. Let's flip over to our New Testament reading for today. We're in Matthew 28, and we are picking up after the crucifixion. After the burial, the guard has been placed at the tomb, and now we get to the Sunday morning, and this is resurrection Sunday. This is the account where Jesus is gonna leave the tomb never to enter again. And it's interesting here that Matthew records the first ones to show up. The first witnesses of his resurrection are these women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary. Now, if you jump back. In your Bibles to chapter 27, verse 61, you'll see that, that they were there sitting opposite the tomb. They were there. They knew where the tomb was. One of the arguments against the resurrection of Christ is, well, they went to the wrong tomb and that's probably one of the more flimsy arguments, but still it is made. And I think here we see that that can be set aside because these women were present when Jesus was buried. They knew where he had been laid. And so they come back to that spot. They find that the tomb has been opened. There are the angels. The angels greet them and say, he's not here for he, he has risen, as he said, and then he instruct them to go and tell the others and go to Galilee. Well, meanwhile, Jesus is going to encounter them and he's going to show up there with these women and he's gonna greet them. And he's gonna instruct them, Hey, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and I will meet them there. Meanwhile we get this back in, in Jerusalem, flashback to the guards and the Pharisees and the leaders, and the report of the resurrection gets back to them. And the unbelief is so thick with them that they say that Here's what you need to do. You need to tell his followers and tell other people, well, his closest followers came and stole the body. And that's why the tomb is empty. But you just wonder. What were they thinking? What really were they thinking at this point? Because they, they couldn't have actually believed that here's the guard's bearing witness, giving testimony to the fact that these angels showed up. There was a blinding light. There was all of this happening, and they're being told here, we're gonna pay you off to tell people that you fell asleep and that his disciples came and stole the body. They knew that wasn't true and the guards knew that wasn't true, but it's just an interesting indication of the thickness of unbelief here. Th this is the single most important miracle in the whole corpus of scripture. And one of the things that can give you confidence about so many of the other things that you may struggle with in the Bible is this specific, miraculous event. If Jesus is who he says he is and what he said was true, then this is the linchpin for everything else that we believe in. If the resurrection is true, there's a lot of things about scripture and about how the world works and about evil and things like that that can cause my soul to be grieved and concerned and confused. But if Jesus rose from the dead. As he called, as he predicted, then I can at least look at those other things and say, I'll figure it out at some point. I don't need to be fretful or worrisome about it because Jesus rose from the dead and people rightly attack this. Because if you wanna dismantle our religion, this is how you do it. Paul's gonna affirm that in one Corinthians 15 and say, look, if this is not true, then this is a sham. Let's eat and drink and be mery. So Matthew 28, along with the other gospels that talk about Jesus resurrection is massively important. It doesn't get a lot of ink here. Surprisingly, it's surprising, as you say, even about the crucifixion, it doesn't get a lot of ink, but it is worth you knowing and studying. You mentioned one of the arguments against the resurrection being they misplaced him. There's a few others out there. Mm-hmm. But one book I'd recommend that I've read, and this is an older book now the research hasn't improved a whole lot. But one book that I could commend to you is called The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Mike Laona. Mm-hmm. It's kind of a thicker book. It's 352 pages. But it is worth having in your library and perhaps referencing, and maybe as we get closer to Easter this year, maybe you wanna knock it out before Easter so that you can more appreciate what we're dealing with here. This is the linchpin of our religion. This is everything for us. There's a lot of things we might quibble about and things that we might not be. As, as clear or certain on, but this is it. If Jesus rose from the dead, I can trust him. If Jesus rose from the dead, my salvation is secure. If Jesus rose from the dead as he predicted, I can be confident that all the other lesser miracles that the Bible speaks about, those are fine. I can drink that in because Jesus rose from the dead. This is everything guys. This is why we celebrate Easter. This is why we call it Resurrection Sunday. This is the Super Bowl of the church. For this reason, this is everything. If you're interested in something that's. A little bit more pop level, and it's the same title. The Case for the Resurrection is written by Lee Strobel and Lee's an interesting guy. He's written quite a few books out there. The Case For Christ the case for, I think a Creator Case for the Resurrection is another one that he wrote, and he is a former journalist who is an atheist who set out to disprove Christianity by doing investigative journalism and came to faith in the process. So he has one that's also in defense of the resurrection that is a little bit more pop level if you're interested in that. Maybe wet your appetite, start there and see if that gets you interested, and if so, go for the larger volume. For sure. Well, because this is the most significant thing. He didn't leave his disciples just wondering, okay, what's next? He then goes on to tell them, this is what you should do in light of the resurrection, in light of what this is all about. In light of the reality of this, you need to go and. This is the great commission preached on this just recently, but you need to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and name the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded with you, commanded you. And he says, and behold, I'm with you to the end of the age. This is where we get the mission of our church reaching, teaching, and training. It's from this. This is the great commission. This is the mission of every church and of every follower of Jesus. I love that because one of the things that we find is that it's not just our the mission or the great commission. This is a comprehensive call and we see that from the use of the word all. See if you catch them. Verse 18, Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven on earth be given to me. Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the tri triune Godhead, teaching them to observe. All that I've commanded you, and behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age. So there's a comprehensiveness to Jesus presence. And his promises with us and for us this is such an important mission that he gives us every assurance that he's gonna be there with us, guiding us the whole step, every single step of the way. And it's for us. I know some people have argued this was really about his original followers, that he was telling them to go and do this, and yet that last clause. Teach them to obey all that I've commanded you that would include this great commission. And so this is the mission that has been passed down from the church throughout the ages. It's our mission today, and it will continue to be our mission until Christ comes back. Well, let's pray and they'll be done with this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. God, we are so thankful for the resurrection. It is the reason why we can have any confidence in our standing before you. It is the linchpin to our faith. It is the foundation of everything that we believe in. And so we are thankful for it's it's reality. We're thankful that it can be verified. We're thankful for the evidences, the proof that we see in scripture and ultimately God, we're thankful that you gave us the eyes to see and to believe that Jesus Christ did indeed raise from the dead forest. And so we're grateful for that. We thank you that Sunday is the day. You that we celebrate week after week, the resurrection of Christ as we did this morning, as we gather together as the church, and we will do so until Christ comes back for us. And so we pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep your new Bibles and tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See it. Bye.

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