Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Lord's Day to you all. Yep. Sunday, we are picking up with marriage for the next two weeks. That sounds fun. So, and totally uncontroversial, run of the mill stuff that no one's gonna struggle with, even a little bit. Well. Yeah. Yeah. And, we talked about it at the very outset of our study of First Peter, but the idea of us being the church in Excel, not the church on vacation. And that has to do with our marriages too. We're gonna be called to a different role in marriage than the world is called to. And that's a good thing. And even as we're addressing marriage this week and next week if you're part of our church family and you're sitting there going, okay, but I'm not married, so why does this matter to me? I think it matters immensely. For many reasons. Number one, our husbands and wives need you praying for them and for their ability to follow what God has called them to, uh, be obedient to his word in these rules. The second thing is if you think about the young men, the young women in our midst who are not yet married, because they're not of marriageable age, it's important for them to know what to look for in a spouse and what that should be and who they should be looking for in that. The other thing too is that marriage is meant to image the gospel. So to be praying that our marriages in the church would really showcase the Gospel of Christ. And then the final thing is that we as a church are better when we have strong marriages. So regardless of where you're at, whether you're married or not. God has marriage in your future or maybe he doesn't. This is a series that, kind of a subseries within a series that matters still for us because, the church needs strong marriages. Two additional comments to that. Hebrews 13 says that marriage is to be held in honor among all. Yeah. It's not just the married, it's the single, it's everybody who has anything to do with church life. Marriage is meant to be held in honor among all, that's Hebrews chapter 13, verse four. And on top of that, there also is the likelihood that most of you who are listening, if not already married, will be married. Yeah. And the likelihood if we're gonna go by averages here is that you're gonna be. Longer married than you are single. You'll have most of your life to be married and maybe remarried if the Lord desires to take one of you sooner than you expect. So it's prudent for you to always be sharpening your skills in this department. And the thing is, none of us has arrived. And no matter how great a spouse you are, pastor pj, I'm sure you have even a little bit more to grow in. My guess, just a little bit. I mean, not much, just a little bit. Obviously there's a lot less for the rest of us, but you should always be seeking to improve if not. If not only for the love of your spouse, but actually for the love of the Lord, for love and the glory of God. We always wanna be improving in this area, and the Lord knows we need reminders. You might know it, but unless you're doing it, you really don't know it. Absolutely. I tell my kids that all the time. You might know what I'm saying, but if you're not doing it, you really don't know what I'm saying. So this is a great opportunity for us. This is a good time to bring in a friend who maybe needs a. Some help to learn what marriage is and what it's supposed to look like. This is gonna be the word of God. This is not Pastor PJ's best thoughts about God and marriage. It's not his best advice about these things. It is God's word about the institution of husband and wife, and perhaps the most foundational institution to all that we know in society. You could say that marriage is the foundation of family, is the foundation of community, is the foundation of the city, the states, the nation, et cetera. So I think this is a very important sermon that you should not miss. A set of sermons, I should say. Yeah. Yeah. I meant to that. I would echo all of that. Well, hey, let's get into our reading today. We are starting a new book and we're not gonna read this one all the way straight through. This is gonna be similar to, if you remember, and you've been tracking with us from back in the Old Testament, which if you have, and you're still with us. Well done. Good job. Finished Strong. We're closing in on the finish line here, but if you remember back in our times of, second Kings and Chronicles, we would jump into the prophets sometimes and jump back. And the reason being is because there were other books being written concurrently with these things. The Book of Acts is gonna be like. That for us. We're gonna get a running start with the first handful of chapters here, maybe through I think chapter 15 or so. And then we're gonna begin to mix in some other books because we're gonna be dealing with the different missionary journeys of Paul. And Paul was writing some of the epistles during those missionary journeys, as well as some other books that we'll encounter along the way. So, Axe is gonna be one of those where we're in it and then we're out of it, and then we're back in it again. But we get this running start and it's picked up and it's written by Theophilus. So we were talking about Luther and fourth, Theophilus fourth, the thank you. By Luke. And when we were in Luke, I asked the question if we thought Luke knew that he was gonna write this, and you said you think he does, and you said, when we get to Acts, I'll talk more about that. So what's your thoughts on his knowledge that he was going to write volume two? So I would point to two pieces of evidence. And the first being a historical piece of evidence. And the truth of the matter is that due to scroll length, they had to truncate what they were gonna write into multiple sections in order to make it fit. So I'm gonna say historically, that's how they treated longer volumes of work. They would separate into two volumes in order to make it more accessible on the scrolling. So that's gonna be my first argument. The second argument is textual. So one historical, one textual, and I think. I can make a decent case from Luke chapter one where he's doing this introduction and he's writing two Theophilus, and he says here, it seemed good to me also having followed all things closely from some time past, read an orderly account for you most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you've been taught. So given the fact that Luke is trying to present him a whole case, it makes sense to me that he'd have a whole lot to say besides the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Because he's saying if we're trying to help you feel certainty about the things that you've been taught, let me give you the whole picture, starting from the beginning of the church now to a spread so it makes sense to me, but logically and textually that he would say This is part one. And then at the beginning of acts, in his prologue, he says. In the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. So it seems like he's saying, I had the intention of writing to you. Here's the front end part one, and here's now part two, the continuation and the spread of the gospel. So I think Luke being who he is as a scholar of scholars, he's an intelligent man. He's thoughtful, he's careful to write what's clear and true and scroll length end. Textual support. I mean, it's weak, but it is there. I would say he had the intention of doing this. Yeah, I think that's fair and yeah, I'm with you. All those things. Amen. Yes. Yes. Well, as he opens up, he opens up with the ascension and we talked about that. And at the end of Luke 24, he kind of tax on the ascension to the end of the gospel. But here he's gonna go into it in more depth. And he talks about the post-resurrection of appearances of Jesus. He was there for 40 days and he was preaching about the kingdom at that time too, which is what leads the disciples to ask him the question. There when they come together in verse six, when they say, Lord, are you gonna restore the kingdom at this point? If you'll recall, Luke 24, you had the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They were so disappointed because they thought Jesus was gonna restore the kingdom before his death. Well, now that he's resurrected, surely now is the time he's gonna restore the kingdom. He's been preaching about the kingdom too. That's the expectation. But Jesus is gonna say there's other things in play here, and this is where we get the theme of the book of Acts, and that's in verse eight. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, into the ends of the earth. And if you read the book of acts, if you pay attention to the geographical locales, especially in these opening chapters, you're gonna see that God really works things together to cause this mission to get the gospel out far and wide to happen. And even in a way that isn't necessarily the best way that these followers of Jesus would've chosen through persecution even but this is what's happening As he, commissions them and then he's caught up into the clouds and the angels say he's gonna come in the same way, which is an illusion, I think, to Daniel Chapter seven, which talks about the son of man coming again in power with the clouds. Remind us again why the kingdom idea is important here. Christians, clearly, we're looking forward to the future kingdom. Yeah. The new heavens and new earth where Jesus rules and reigns, and so we can understand what kingdom means in that perspective. What did they think it meant? They were anticipating the restoration of the kingdom as it was under David. So the Davidic Kingdom 2.0. Right. Yeah. Okay. And that would mean then the conquering of the Romans, or at least the throwing off of the Roman oppression as they understood it, establishing the Davidic king in Jerusalem, right? Where he would rule and reign and expand their territory beyond what Solomon himself experienced. Is that kind of the idea here? Totally. And they expected that this would be a divine person who would do this. Is that fair? Or is there any debate on that? Yeah, there's enough in the Old Testament to point to the fact that they probably should have expected. Even Psalm chapter two, when it says, why do the nation's rage? And the Lord scoffs, today, I have installed my son. And so there's enough in the Old Testament, in other prophecies as well. Even I believe it's seven or nine. I always get those two confused. The government will be on his shoulders. He'll be called wonderful counselor, mighty God. So. If they're paying attention to old Testament prophecy, they should have expected a divine Davidic king. The Lord said to my Lord, Jesus even uses that to point to the fact that how could David call one of his offspring, his Lord, unless the implication is he's greater than David. How can he be greater than David? Well, if he's, God is greater than David, but whether or not they all did expect the divine Messiah is a different question. And I guess to add to that, Jesus doesn't say we're not doing the kingdom. He says, we're not doing that yet. Right. It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, he says in verse seven, so it's not that there's no kingdom to be experienced, it's that they're not gonna get it when they thought they were gonna get it. Right. And that's the, that's a big shakeup for them. That's a perspective changer because they weren't expecting two advents. For you and I, this is obvious, it's as plain as a nose in our face, but that's because we grew up being taught this for them. This is a earth shattering idea. What you're coming. Back. You're not gonna do it. So wait, the first time you're coming, you're coming to die. And then you're coming back to Conquer. Right? How does this work? And even then as Dispensationalist, we don't believe he's coming back to Conquer necessarily. At least not yet. He's coming back to take his people right in a rapture. That's what we call the rapture. We're gonna get there soon enough and First Thessalonians. But all this to say what we take for granted was not taken for granted by them. For sure. And. The rapture is not the same thing as his second coming, right? Yes. 'cause he's not coming back to Earth at that point. We're being caught up to be with him. He is coming back for us, but not in the way that he will come back. Right. In his second advent. Right. Which I thank you for clarifying that. That could be confusing. I don't mean he is coming back, as in, it's an official coming back to Perusia. This is him coming back to take his people, which means he's coming back to earth but not touching ground. Right. Yeah. 'cause that touching ground is that Mount of Olives that Zacharia talks about and, so forth and so on. So, amen. Yeah. The rest in chapter one, we need a new disciple or a new apostle because we don't have Judas anymore. And so lots are cast. I think we talked about this a little bit last year. Roland Yeah. Matthias has chosen, in accordance with that and they commissioned him to be with them and they number him among the 12. Paul is also considered an apostle. I think we kicked this around as well. Or not. He's an apostle, right? Whether or not Matthias was truly an apostle. He's numbered with the apostles, is what it says in the text. Does that mean that he was commissioned as an official apostle or not? I guess is up for debate, but Matthias is there to take Judas. Acts chapter two is a lot going on here. Day of Pentecost. Now it's important we think of Day of Pentecost as the events of Acts chapter two, but Pentecost itself was not, that it was the 50th, day after the Passover, and this was the day of the first fruits. So this has Old Testament roots to it. This is not about the birth of the church. We associate it with that because it took place on Pentecost. And you should. And you should. Yes. But it had significance to the Jews even prior. Prior to that. Yes. Yes, that's right. Yeah. This is a big deal for us. Acts chapter two is the birthday of the church. This is when we are formally constituted by the Lord through the giving of his spirit. So this is a massively significant chapter for us. It's one of those things that you should remember in your mind when you think about the church. The church was born. Acts Chapter two, de of Pentecost. Let's talk about the tongues though. Yeah. And this is the fun one. I come from a background where tongues meant something different than I think you and I presently understand it, right? So let's explain what they are and what they're not. Right. Let's start with what they're not. People will, appeal to tongues as ecstatic utterances that are. Unintelligible. By and large though, the instructions in scripture are given to have an interpreter there. But anyways, sometimes people will talk about it as a private prayer language, something that's for them and God. But what we see, at least here in Acts chapter two, and we can point to the text, which I think is what's most helpful for us. So, acts two, six, it says, each one was hearing them in his own. Language Acts two, eight in his own native language, acts two 11. We hear them telling in our own tongues. So the tongues here specifically in Acts two, and I think we'll see this elsewhere too, were known languages. And so the miracle was that the apostles were preaching, Peter was preaching and he wasn't preaching just like you and I can't speak in 10 different languages at the same time. Peter couldn't do that either. And yet the miracle, the God thing one, was that God was enabling everybody there to hear the message from Peter in a way that was in their own language. Wait, this is different than I think what I understood. Okay. Let's pause and rewind on that for a second. Okay. Are you saying that when Peter speaking Aramaic? Yes. You and I would hear English and my friend Pablo would hear Spanish, right. And my friend. Non Pablo would hear Greek or whatever else. Right. So is the gift of tongues then a speaking gift or a hearing gift? 'cause it sounds like you're suggesting this is more of a hearing gift than it is a speaking gift. I think here appears to be more of a hearing gift because Peter's the one speaking, and yet they're all hearing. In their own language. Okay. That's, that's I, I, wow. Okay. That's cool. I totally understood this differently. Here's how I understood it. Speaking in tongues, because it is a speaking gift, I would say. They're all speaking different tongues. The language that they had no prior training or understanding in, they're using that language to testify to the glory of God at some point. Peter speaks his normal language and he's speaking in Aramaic and he's preaching, and everyone's hearing him speak. His Aramaic tongue. But there's enough people among the disciples who are speaking in those tongues that people around are hearing their dialect and their native language, and they're responding to that. So I would have to say, I think at least that's the way I've understood it, unless it's primarily a hearing. Which I have entertained. I have entertained that thought. I just thought that would not make sense to call it speaking in tongues if it's primarily a gift of you're hearing something as opposed to you're speaking something. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, totally. Yeah, that's the way I understood it. Oh, wow. I, I, that's funny. Yeah. This is not the first time we've covered this. That's true. And yet, and yet here we learn new things all the time. Yeah. Y Yeah. Either way we can say that this is God's super intending this, the circumstances, and we would both agree that it's not speaking in an ecstatic tongue. Right. Some people will say it's speaking gibberish and all those things. I don't appreciate that language. I know what we're trying to communicate, but let's just be fair here. We're suggesting that the ecstatic. Tongues that are often experienced or suggested in charismatic circles. I don't think we see that here because they're intelligible. And I think that's the biggest thing here, right? It's intelligible to somebody such that there can be interpretations given, which we'll get to later when we get to some of Paul's commentary on it. But I would agree this is a supernatural gift that God gives to the church to, to do what, what is the purpose of this sign? Yeah. It's to get the gospel out as far and wide as possible, as fast as possible. Because you had a metropolitan conglomeration of a lot of different people, as the text says there from many different regions, and again, acts one, eight, God's mission here for the church is to get the gospel out beyond Jerusalem, beyond Judea, beyond Samaritan, to the ends of the earth. This is one of the ways he's gonna do that if he can turn converts from all these different people that are gathered here. So the gift of tongues was such that. They didn't need to go through an interpreter. They didn't need to go through the translation of the texts and the scrolls. They could do that. People were hearing it and they were getting saved that way. So this is what we would call a sign gift, right? Uh, we, we sometimes will use the terminology gifted to us by our sending pastor of a GT one God thing, level one, right? What does this sign? Signify, I'm trying to use that word to connect the dots here for you guys. Sign gift signify. What is it signify? Well, I think it's in part what we're gonna see develop later in the book of Acts, and that is that the gospel is not just for the Jewish people anymore. That the gospel is for the Gentiles, the gospel's for the world. And so we're see that with Cornelius and we're gonna see that with some others in the Book of Acts as well. We've also talked about this being, one of God's signature moves. This is something that only God can do. Therefore, this is one way that God was able to cut through the noise of the competing truth claims of the day. They could say, look, how could we do this otherwise, if this is not God giving us the ability to do this, how could we operate? So this is important, because a lot of people today will say, well, the sign gifts are still necessary because there are also today competing truth claims. And if God would just do a sign, then it would make it a lot easier to believe some of the truth claims of scripture. How might we respond to that? I think we point to what we've already seen that that's not always the case. In fact, we're gonna meet a guy in just a little while here, Simon, the magician, who sees some pretty amazing things. Yeah. And yet it appears he doesn't actually believe he has a spurious faith there. Mm. You go back to John chapter two, you've got Jesus turning the water to wine, and then you've got Jesus turning over the tables in the temple. And it said many believed in him, but Jesus didn't believe in their belief. Because he knew what was in the heart of men. In other words, he knew that their faith was more in the external than it was the internal. They weren't trusting in Jesus. They were trusting in what Jesus could do. So it's not just the signs that are necessary for faith, but it's God changing the heart that's necessary for it. That's right. In the rest of Acts, chapter two, Peter preaches a transformational sermon. And I say that because of the impact on the audience, but also the evidence of the impact in Peter too. Peter was the one that had denied. Jesus. We just talked, I think, one of our last few episodes about the restoration of Peter, and here we see that restoration bearing fruit. This is a transformed Peter. This is a different guy. The boldness that he has, not just here, but throughout the book of Acts. He is a different man. Not perfect, not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. When we get to Galatians, we're gonna see that Paul has to take issue with Peter on some things. But Peter is definitely willing to put his life on the line here and ultimately will give his life to preach truth. And he does that here and he preaches about Christ and he's bold to, to look at the Jewish people and say, you're the ones that crucified him according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God. So this is all part of God's plan that you were carrying out, and yet you're responsible for it again. God's fully sovereign man's fully responsible. He preaches with such power that so many of them in the end are going, what do we need to do to be saved? They're cut to the heart and that's when he calls for 'em to be saved, to put their faith in Christ. And it says that 3000 souls are added to the church that day, which is just phenomenal. That's awesome. Now. Peter preached a very short sermon. It seems. This takes all of a minute to read. Yeah. What's up with that? Are you trying to tell me something? I, I, I guess I'm setting you up. Yes. Did Peter only preach for a minute? No, I, I was asking if you were trying to say something about my preaching. No. Hey, Peter only preached for a minute and 3000 got saved. Come on, put the pieces together, buddy. You don't need to preach for 55 minutes. Yeah. This is what we have recorded. I imagine there was more to it. There has to be, right? Yeah. There has to be this, there's no way every Peter I know just talks incessantly for such a long length of time. I'm just kidding. But no, I guess my point is only that we have a. Snippet of what Peter said. I think Luke is compressing the account and just giving us the gist of what Peter said and acknowledging some of the high points. And the point is not to highlight Peter. I don't think we're doing any disservice to Peter. We're showing that the spirits is using the preaching of the word of God to bring thousands to saving faith in Christ. And we see this, this is shrewd. They counted. They counted. Counted, yeah. Did you notice that? They counted? They counted. They've said there's 3000 people here, which is not a bad thing. If you care about people, you care about those numbers. And so it's not inherently bad to start counting and saying, how many people did we baptize this year? How many people have been taken through partners? How many people did we bring through the doors and keep? Those are important things because people are important to God. So notice here. They counted and that counts. Yeah. In fact, later on, they're gonna count again. They're gonna say there's 5,000 men later on. And so they keep counting. That's right. It's not just, Hey, day of Pentecost. Wow, this is amazing. Let's figure out how many people were here. Yeah. They're gonna keep counting. Jesus counted. Jesus counted. He was counting how many people were fed by the bread. Yep. Yep. To make a point. Yep. All right. Well, we get into Acts chapter three. Well, okay. Real quick. Yeah. Were you going to highlight the repentance thing? I, well, yeah. In baptism? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So is now a good time? Yeah, I think so. All right. So it says here in verse 38. In chapter two, this is a big. Problem text for a lot of people. Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Yeah. Yeah. And then you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Please explain. Yeah. You have to be baptized to be saved. Okay. Thank you. Chapter three. That's only partially, false. You have to be baptized by the Holy Spirit to be saved, which takes place at the moment of conversion. Hmm. That's not, I don't think what Peter's talking about here, rather the concept of an unbaptized convert. During the early church was really an albatross. It wasn't really a thing because it's a big fish, right? It's a bird. Oh yeah, that's right. It's a rare bird. We did, we did talk about that. Yeah. It's a rare bird. It's a rare bird. Um, because what kind of fish sounds like albatross then. Al Alba Alcore tuna. That's what it is. It's not a tuna. It's not a tuna. All right, go ahead Peter. Peter was a big tuna, but yeah. Yeah, it's rare, because the cost of following Jesus was so high, and so when somebody came to faith in Christ to identify what the church was the next natural step to take, and so there wasn't a delay. Whereas today, we will encourage people, Hey, you know what? You made a profession in faith. That's great. We're gonna encourage you let's wait for a minute because we wanna make sure that your faith is in the savior, not the act of baptism. We don't want you to stand before Jesus someday and say, well, pastor Rod baptized me, or Pastor PJ baptized me. So that's why I get to get into heaven, because that's not it. So when Peter says, repent and be baptized, this is, I think it's a ton. metonymy Is that the word where meeny? Yeah. Meeny. Thank you. Where the singular represents the whole. And here there's two parts. There's repent and be Baptized, but I think it's referring to the whole act of conversion here, which was kind of packaged together. Saving faith is what saves us, period, end of story. And the rest of the New Testament makes that abundantly clear. And so we understand as we read this, that Peter had that in mind as well. Okay, so then a few verses later, he says, the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off. Everyone whom the Lord. Our God calls to himself. Lots of people will use that passage as a proof text or as a piece of evidence for why they should baptize babies. Can you comment on whether you think that argument has any weight? Yeah. I think the promise is the promise of forgiveness of sins for faith in Christ, but you have to put your faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins to be extended. So, the promise is for you and your children in the sense that they are. Those that are qualified to hear the gospel and to receive the call, to repent and believe in Christ, just as anyone else's. But this is not necessarily to connect this back to say, the promise of baptism is for you and your children. Because that's not the connection there in the text. That's doesn't fit contextually here, nor does it fit contextually with the rest of, what we know of the New Testament. It's also not hard to say too that Peter himself qualifies it. In other words, it is for children as you're saying, but he says in verse 39, the second half, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. So it's not necessarily every child ever, right. It's whoever the Lord calls to himself. Right. And it's not unheard of that you have young people who are saved. You know, young ages who for sure as young as single digits can put their true faith in Christ and have a true salvation. And so we would say that's, it's a good text, but it's not a good proof text for baptizing babies. I agree. This is a text that says Everyone whom the Lord calls, it's not including every single child in every family. Agree. Yep. A hundred percent. Acts chapter three. We have a situation here with Peter and John as they are approaching the temple. The church was gathering still at the Temple Mount at this point. This is not, you didn't have First Baptist Church, Jerusalem. And so they're still going up to the temple for worship and other things like this. And so on the way up there, they encounter this man who's lame, who's asking for alms. And Peter says, I don't have anything money wise to give you, but this is what I have. And he heals the man. And this is another one of those sign gifts. And so we pointed this and said, well, should we expect this today? And we would say no. Why? Because again, the message was new and so it needed the validation. So this was validating the message and the messenger for those that were around to go, okay, we need to listen to this guy, because what he did is unique. And I think that's even more so. Evidence and in support of the fact that this was unique to this time because people were amazed at this at this time. They were recognizing, this is unique. This doesn't happen. People don't just go around healing people. Mm-hmm. And so we should listen to what this guy has to say because of what he's just done. We stand and we preach the word of God that we have contained in the scriptures. And that's the authority that we have and the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the way the Spirit is in operation today. Is, the source of the conviction and the enlightenment and the opening up the eyes of the lost as well. So Peter is gonna do this and then turn and seize the platform to preach, which again points to the fact that this was to set up and validate the message as well as the messenger. Substantially the difference between us and the first century audience. What would you say to someone who says, well, I still want that proof. I would love to see someone healed. I would love for someone to speak in tongues to me, and I don't know, something like that. If someone were to ask the Lord or one of his messengers, his emissaries to say, Hey, I, I believe what you're saying and. I, I think, I think I wanna do what you're asking me to do, but how do I know for a fact that this is true? Could God give me a sign? Does God do that? Should we expect God to give signs today? Can we ask God to show us something miraculous and supernatural? Can we ask? Yes. Should we expect it? I think that's a different question. I would say probably we shouldn't expect it. Yeah. It has happened. We've all heard the stories of somebody that says, I was at rock bottom and I said, God, if you are real, you're gonna have to make yourself known to me. Yeah. Then this happened. Mm-hmm. So it's not that God never does things to cause that to happen, but the normative. Operation is he uses the preached word and the written word in his spirit to open blind eyes and give them to faith, the belief. And that's what he was doing, Peter didn't have a New Testament pocket edition that he could hand to the person that he was preaching to and say, Hey, turn to first Peter with me and let's read from the text together. Yeah. We have that availability today, and so the spirit is able to use the written word to be able to bring that change, even when that's not taking place on a Sunday morning in the pew. In fact, it'd be interesting to know, but my guess is there's probably more conversions that are taking place outside of the context of a Sunday morning than there are. In the context of the church. Yeah. One of the dangers about signs and wonders is that Jesus promises they're gonna make a comeback, and the comeback is during a time where there's a lot of confusion and there's deliberate false teachers who are trying to deceive you into believing the thing that they're pedaling. Right? So signs and wonders are awesome, right? When they're done. In the right place for the right reasons under God's right leadership. But again, Jesus is promising us that there's gonna come a time when false signs and wonders are gonna be done to deceive even the elect if it were possible. Right? So I would ask cautiously if that is you, but I would also say, look at what Thomas did. He said, I, I need these things. And God didn't necessarily spank him for that. He met him where he was. And I think we're never gonna get certainty when we ask for the evidence, certainty in the sense of concrete. I can validate this in a scientific laboratory. I can repeat the experiment. God doesn't meet us like that. He asks us for faith, but it is not foolish faith. It's a faith built on the foundation of truth, and that truth is sufficient enough for us to believe. In fact, Peter says, we have everything we need for life and for godliness. And that would include faith to believe. So if you're struggling with your faith, ask the Lord to show you, but ask him to show you through His word, through the means that he's ordained his word and his church. I would say, all of those things together that he's provided for you. And I think the Lord will answer. Yeah. Well, he, let's pray and then we'll be done with a little bit of a longer edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. No, we need to point it out. We don't need to say that they know. God, we are so grateful for your word written that we have in our hands and the ability to read it. Your spirit that opens our eyes to understand it. Yes. That gives us the faith to believe to begin with, but then also continues to enlighten us and sanctify us and make us more like Christ as we give ourselves a word to its study. Just pray that we would be a church that is known for our love, for the word, and make us that church, Lord, even as we finish up this year and as we look towards a new year right around the corner, we want to be a church that loves your word and that studies it and. Devours it and internalizes it, memorizes it Lord, and is known by it. And so we pray that that would be true of us. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Keep our new Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast! 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.

Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said