Welcome back to the Daily Bible Podcast, the eighth edition, according to Pastor Mark, the eighth edition. 'cause it's January 8th. Let's make a smooth transition into our daily Bible reading for today. How am I gonna do that? I'm not, let's just jump into Genesis 20. Genesis 20. This is, fascinating. We are into a story about Abraham and Alec and we've already seen something like this happen back in Genesis 12. So yeah, some deja vu when you are reading this probably. And you're gonna get some more later on in Genesis. That's right. That's right. So why do you think. This repeats for, why do you think we have a similar story as we did before? Yeah. So Abraham goes to Aek and says, Sarah is not his wife. He is her brother. Why, why does this happen again? I think you can probably relate in your own life to. Frankly, the foolishness of sin. Mm-hmm. And how we are so often enticed back by the same things that caused us problems before. I know for myself, definitely sin has power and we. Sometimes when we're not, when we're not faithful, we're not careful, we're not diligent. We can fall to the exact same thing again. And this is just to demonstrate that Abraham is indeed a sinful guy. Mm-hmm. And I think Moses, as he writes Genesis is helping us see that sin is foolish and frankly Abraham is. Foolish despite the fact that he really should know better. Yeah, and kinda like we mentioned in the last episode with Lot God saves people, whether it's Abraham or Lot, or us, in spite of ourselves, even though that we're sinful, that we don't make the right decisions even after. Being in a relationship with God, we still sin and fall short, but God is so faithful to, to save us, and that's what he does here in this situation. Even though it's Abraham gets himself in this mess, AB Bialek ends up taking Sarah into his home. God gets them out of this situation. Despite Abraham's sin. Yeah. What a kindness of God. Definitely. What a kindness of God that he is willing to forgive us when we make the same mistake a second time. Mm-hmm. The salvation that God provides is not contingent on us, never making the same mistake twice. But instead we see here that God is actually very gracious. I think there's also an incredible contrast here that. Moses wants us to see between Abraham, God's chosen person, God's chosen man. Mm-hmm. And this kind of random guy, a bialek. Yeah. And Abraham is deceitful and doesn't trust the Lord, but a bialek, it says in verse five that he's quoted as saying, in the integrity of my heart, in the innocence of my hands, I have done this. Meaning. Mm-hmm. He is not, and God agrees with him. He is not. Gotten married effectively to Sarah. Let me put it. That way. Yeah. And God agrees with him. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Isn't that amazing? And it is, I think, really helpful to see the contrast there. But man, what a good thing that God is in his kindness willing to keep ab bialek from sin, right? He's willing to help. When there's really no reason that he ought to help. Mm-hmm. But he's willing to help ab Bialek and ultimately he's willing to protect Abraham and Sarah and the promise of the son that they will soon receive. Right. Because if Ab Bialek and Sarah do get together, then we wouldn't know in Chapter 21 when Isaac's born, we wouldn't know if AEK was his father or if Abraham was his father. Right. It would actually maybe seem like Aek was his father. Maybe Abraham was the problem this whole time. So God is making sure it's. Very clear and evident that Isaac is the son of Abraham and Sarah, and making sure that he shows himself to be faithful to his promises. Yeah. And let's get to chapter 21, where we actually see the fulfillment, the incredible fulfillment of that promise. They actually get a baby. Mm-hmm. Against all odds? Yeah. Against everything that worldly is going against them. God fulfills his promise. What? What an incredibly good thing. And they name their son Isaac. Which, what does that mean? It means that he laughs and that's a callback to Sarah laughing when God told her mm-hmm. That she was gonna bear. Mm-hmm. A sun and then we have some more laughing that happens later on in this passage, but it's probably a different type of laughing. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. I think we see. A lot of irony in Isaac's name as someone who laughs. I think at this point he's named that because they're joyful, they're thankful and I think they are also calling back to when they both laughed as you already said. But then, yeah, there's more laughter that happens. In this passage and that laughter is, I'm gonna go out on a limb a little bit and suggest that that laughter is Hagar and Ishmael. Really trying to usurp Isaac as the promised one. Now there's lots to be said there. There's different interpretations on this, but I think that suggestion of him laughing is not just like some sort of funny joke that was said, but you can see the response of Sarah as a result of that laughter. And I'm gonna contend that that laughter is actually. Their attempt to undo mm-hmm. What is promised to Isaac. Now, does that mean that their response is right? Is what Sarah suggests a morally good thing to do? What do you think? I, that's really tough. That's really it's tough, especially when there's not really any comment from the narrator on what Sarah did. And what does she do? Just to refresh her memory. So, yeah, so Sarah tells Abraham, Hey, get this. Get this lady and her son outta here, they're making fun of me and Isaac. They're as you'd say, maybe trying to take back what they would see as the rightful place, as the child of promise. And so she sends 'em packing and I don't know, right? Because God has compassion on Hagar, right? He. Rescues her. He saves their lives when they're out wandering. But yeah, there's not really a verdict on what Sarah did. Yeah. And in fact, God even tells Abraham to do what Sarah says to do. Mm-hmm. And that's to throw Hagar and Ishmael out. I think at the very least we can agree that this is a messy. Bad situation. Yeah. And usually those messy situations are the result of sin. Yeah. And that's very much the case here, right? Because why? Why are Hagar and Ishmael around? Ultimately 'cause they didn't trust Abraham and Sarah didn't trust in the promise that God gave them. And so the reason that this is even a problem is because of their sin. Mm-hmm. And I think we can so often assume that a sin just ends with that sin. Mm. But. Sin never ends well, there is never ever a point where any sin ends. Well, yeah, we don't sin in a vacuum either, right? Yeah. There's always consequences. There's always downstream effects, whether it's making that sin easier in the future for us or whether there's consequences of that sin later on. And that's a helpful way to resist temptation, right? Is to remember even though God might forgive me, my sin won't just end. That's right there. There might be consequences later on. And some sort of impact. That's right. I think just to put it simply, I think every sin will produce more sin in the future. At the worst, at the best, it will produce a greater temptation than you would've otherwise faced. Mm-hmm. That has to be overcome. So that's what's going on here. They have a messy situation that is a product of their sin and God is gracious in this, but. Wouldn't it be nice to have avoided this altogether? And I think we can say the same thing for our lives when we look back at sins that we've committed and we look back at the consequences of those sins. So we see this situation happen with Ishmael and. Hagar. Mm-hmm. But God is also kind to them. Yeah. And what specifically does he do to be kind to them as they get thrown out of Abraham's house? Yeah. Which that's a, this is a crazy thing that God shows so much kindness to Hagar and Ishmael because like we said, they're not the result of something. Good that was done. They're actually, the reason they're in this story is because of distrust in God on Sarah and Abraham's part, but then God still decides to bless. Even Ishmael's descendants. Mm-hmm. And to make him into a great nation. And he shows compassion on Sarah and her or on Hagar and her son. And I think something a lot of Christians might not know is that the Prophet Muhammad is, and there's no direct evidence of this, at least as far as I know. Maybe somebody can. Let me know if there is otherwise, but as far as I know, there's no actual evidence of this. But the claim is this, the prophet Muhammad is in the direct lineage of Ishmael, and at the very least you can see the nations that come from Ishmael and God does fulfill this promise. Mm-hmm. There are, nations that are very much directly related to Ishmael and are big and are important and I think arguably. Even to this day, the Muslim faith, I think is rightly attributed to Ishmael. What do you think? Yeah, I think it, it makes sense when you see what's said about his descendants and even just the idea of. The, in genesis, there's a lot of contrast mm-hmm. Between the, going back to Genesis three, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, the offspring of the woman, and the offspring of the serpent. So there's almost a good guise and bad guys situation throughout Genesis. Yep. Starting with Cain and Abel. Yep. And you see this conflict and this tension throughout the rest of the book. And I think this is one example of that. Yep, that's right. That's right. Alright. There's a section here with the treaty on Abe. We are going to pass it over. Not that you should pass it over in your daily Bible reading and not that we're the angel of the Lord either. But we are going to pass over. The one thing about this section that I would note is that it's a callback to the land promise. God doesn't want us to forget that he's not just promised Abraham offspring, but he's promised him land. And that's what's so important about this section. Is it showing more of God's faithfulness, reminding us of the narrative flow of Genesis, which is God's faithfulness to his promises, to Abraham. Alright. Genesis 22. All right, pastor Mark and I would like to spend 45 minutes on this chapter, but unfortunately we might not be able to record another episode if we do. So we're gonna try to keep this as brief as we can, but what are your big takeaways from chapter 22? Pastor Mark? There are so many. It's tough, but I think this is my favorite. Chapter in Genesis. Oh, I thought you were gonna say in the Bible it's gonna really not quite the Bible. You're not quite in the Bible, but in Genesis. So more You like this more than Genesis one? I think so. You like this more than Genesis? I think so because, because it is, there's so much in here that looks forward Yes to Christ. And what an incredible account this is. So what happens in Genesis 22? This is the sacrifice of Isaac. The attempted sacrifice of Isaac, because mm-hmm. What we're gonna see in here is God working, he is working to save. Man, there are so many good things in here. What I think is incredible is this is a test of Abraham's faith. This is an extreme test of Abraham's faith. We are not tested like this. Maybe there's. Parallels, maybe there's some close equivalencies, but this is an extreme test of his faith. This is Isaac who was born to them in old age. Mm-hmm. Incredible circumstances. And then God calls them, calls Abraham to go and sacrifice Isaac to go and kill him. And abraham rises early in the morning, saddles his donkey and goes and does it well, and that's a testament obviously, to Abraham's faith. Right? Yeah, I know a phrase that some parents use with their kids about obedience is all the way right away with a happy heart. There's three things to it, but the idea is right away. Yes. Right. Abraham goes right away in the morning, yes. And Abraham does that. He goes right away in the morning. He doesn't hesitate. You don't see him wavering. You don't see him talking to Sarah about it. He just says I need to do this. God asked me to do it. One of the things I think is amazing is that Isaac identifies the lack of. An offering, right? Mm-hmm. Isaac is trained by his dad. Yeah. On how to worship the Lord. We don't do sacrifices in our day, but Abraham is sacrificing the Lord and Isaac knows that all the components of sacrifice are there except for the actual thing that will be sacrificed. Mm-hmm. I think that's a testament to Abraham and his faithfulness to teach Isaac and also good that Isaac can identify that missing component. Why is that important? The missing component to that? Yes. Well, because even when Isaac asks about it, Abraham says something really interesting. He says, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burn offering my son. Now this is one of the coolest sentences in this chapter. Why is that? Pastor Mark, you just pun it right back to me. That's my job. My job is to set you up to, to be the star of the show. This is loaded with the foretelling of when God will provide. The lamb, not just a lamb, but the lamb. And in fact, he'll provide it in this place. This place is where they will build the temple, and this will be the future Jerusalem. And so where the pastor mark's getting that from is from verse two. In verse two, it says, go to the land of Mariah. And that word, Mariah. It shows up in two Chronicles chapter three when they're building the temple. That's where David builds the temple where all of those sacrifices are gonna be made. And the temple mount we know is where Jesus, the only son of his father carries. His. And if you notice here, Isaac, he's carrying the wood up to the top of the mountain. Jesus carries his wooden cross up the mountain and he is sacrificed in the place of us. That's right. That's right. And on the third day. On the third day, right in verse four, on the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place far off, right? There's just so many rich illusions to what's going to happen here many years later. Yeah. God, the father. Abraham the father. Yes. Jesus the Son. Mm-hmm. Isaac, the son. Incredible. Yeah, absolutely incredible. And there's not just allusions to the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ, but that third day also shows us some allusions that point forward to resurrection. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think, you could tell me if you think otherwise. But what I think we see evidenced here is that Abraham actually believes in the resurrection power of God. I think that's evidence from Hebrews, but I think even in this narrative account, you can see that Abraham is convinced that God is gonna resurrect Isaac. He doesn't quite know how, yeah, he doesn't quite know what the function of God's power is going to take, but he's convinced that God is gonna fulfill his promise to make his. Family, a great nation, and he knows that's gonna be done through Isaac. And if he is to kill Isaac, then he knows and he trusts that God is going to use resurrection power. I think part of the reason he is confident in this belief is that he's already seen that in his own life. Now you might be wondering, what do you mean? What do you mean? Yeah, I don't see any empty news in Genesis one through 19. There's no resurrection, at least as we may initially think of it. But consider Sarah. Proverbs 30 16 says, Sheol the barren womb. The barren womb, she. The barren womb equi equated, right the land. Would you mind explain? Never satisfied with water. Water. She, for our listeners, why don't you, but let me finish. Verse 16, the land never satisfied with water and the fire. That never says enough. So I think there's an equivalence between barrenness. And death. What do you wanna add? Anything? Yeah. So SHEEO is the place of the dead in the Old Testament, that's the word for it. It could be the, just the holding place that we all go and we die. Or it could be the more of the realm of death, which is apart from God's goodness. And so what Pastor Mark is saying is that they're equating those two things. The writer of Proverbs 30 is saying. A barren womb is like the place of the dead. That's right. And Abraham, in a way that we might not today equates those two things. Sarah equates those two things. And so in some sense, and the apostle Paul does too, right? That's right. In Romans four he says that Abraham is as good as dead. Yeah. And so God has already brought life from the dead deadness of Abraham and Sarah, and he's brought life that Isaac from their. He's resurrected Isaac in a sense. He's That's right. He's given them new life. So Abraham has already seen in his estimation, the resurrection power of God. Of what? And so he, he sees this command from God and assumes. That God is going to use that same power again to continue to provide for his promise, which is amazing. That is, again, we go back to this being such an incredible test of Abraham's faith. And his faith is. Proven true. Amongst many other times in Genesis where we see it falter here is an incredible testimony of his faith holding True. Yeah. And that's confirmed in Hebrews 11, right? Hebrews 11, 17 through 20 is the 19. Those are the verses that were pulling from to, to see these illusions that we think Moses is making in Genesis. Yeah. And it's through Abraham's faith in God's resurrecting power that he's blessed. Mm-hmm. It's through our faith in God's resurrecting power that we are blessed, right? We know that it's Christ who's resurrected and that's the pinnacle of God's work. But it's through the, that faith in the resurrection, in God's ability and his. Actual carrying out of that ability that we have a blessing and that blessing is even greater than the blessing that was promised to Abraham. Exactly. Yeah. And Paul makes that connection. Romans four, Romans five, the ending of Romans four. He talks about the resurrection. It doesn't seem like it fits. He's been talking about Christ's death the whole time. He just throws in the resurrection and then That's right. Romans five is all about the benefits of a new relationship with God because of Jesus and because of faith in Jesus. Yeah. And so just an incredible chapter, just an incredible, incredible chapter. What a blessing from God that he has given us this account. Alright. Onto the New Testament. Yes. Let's do it. Are you satisfied? It wasn't 45 minutes? No, but it was pretty good. Alright. We are in Matthew seven in the New Testament. Well, you know, I think I've figured out how I can avoid the judgment of gone as long as I don't judge. Yeah. I won't be judged. Right. I was actually thinking about getting this tattooed, only God can judge me, or something along those lines. Mm-hmm. Why would that not be a good idea, pastor Mark? Talk me out of it. Well, it's, it's just totally taking this out of. Context. And often this passage is wildly taken out of context. Verse five, right? First, take the log out of your own eye and then you will seek clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. We ought to love, we what? We ought to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. And part of that is making. Making judgment calls. Is this judgment in the sense of God's final judgment? No, we're not necessarily making that final judgment, but we do need, and we're called here, right, to take the log out of our own eye, then we'll see clearly and be able to. Help our brother. Exactly. Yeah. The purpose of this passage is not to tell us not to make any judgements at all, but rather to help us lovingly help each other. And we need that. We need that. We need our brothers and sisters in Christ to help us in our Christian faith. It is part of God's sanct sanctifying plan that we are part of a church, we are part of a community where this sort of thing can happen and be carried out. Alright, well I also see here that I can just ask God for anything and he'll give it to me. Verse seven, right? Ask. And it will be given to you. Absolutely right? Yep. I've been praying for a Ferrari for the past. No, that's not what this past is about. Right. So what is this passage about then? It feels very open-ended, right? Ask and it'll be given. See, you'll find knocking. You'll be open. It just, it seems like whatever you want will happen. I think the key filter for does this mean I can ask God for a Ferrari? Does it mean I can ask God for anything? The idea here is that God gives good gifts. We see that repeated in verses or in verse 10 and 11, right? That God gives good gifts to his children. And so anything that's good for you, God will give it to you. God doesn't hold back anything good from you. Now, here's the thing. The difference between something that's good, a good gift means that it has to be the right time for me to have it. It has to be the right context for me to have it. There can be a thing that's good in a vacuum that might not be good for me to have right now. It would actually be bad for me to have. Let's use the example of a Ferrari right now, because maybe I would drive it irresponsibly and get speeding tickets and that wouldn't be good for me. So that would be I can't see that happening quite with you. Maybe not. Maybe not. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket? No, I have not. So I, I don't know. I just don't, I don't see that in your future, even if you were to have a Ferrari. So it has to be something else. It has to be another reason why God has an answer to your prayer. Yeah. About your Ferrari. So, and sometimes right? God doesn't answer prayers because he wants us to keep praying. He wants us to build our persistence in prayer. He wants us to build our trust in him. Yeah. So there's many reasons why God doesn't give us things, but the core that we can always come back to is that if it would be good for us at this time, in this moment. We can trust that God will give it to us, and if he's withholding it, then we know that it's not good for me right now. Yeah, and we can have a lot of confidence when we pray because of that truth, right? We can ask boldly for things that maybe God won't give us because we know he's going to filter those things because he's going to give us answers to those prayers based on his criteria and not our own criteria. Another criteria look at that smooth transition. Wow. That a lot of people use is the golden rule. You should be a podcaster. Golden rule. The golden rule. Maybe the best known verse in all of the Bible except the second half. That's what you were telling me earlier. Yeah. There's verse 12, right? Everybody knows this. What, whatever you wish that others would do to you do also to them. But there's a phrase that nobody else seems to remember, which is for this is the law. And the prophets. Nobody remembers that. Why not? Why not? Yeah. I can't imagine why people wouldn't want to tie this to God and his word. But no, I think it's such an important caveat here because it helps us see that, we love others best when we love God most, right? Mm-hmm. Our relationship with God is gonna help us love other people. So the best way we can love each other, and we see this with the greatest commandment that Jesus gives, is by loving God. That's right. And I think it's fascinating that this callback to the law and the prophets. It shows that we worship the same God that was around in the Old Testament. Yes. So often we want to separate these two things. Right. And I think a lot of people turn to this verse when they're trying to come up with the kind of warm, squishy, God that isn't of the Old Testament they're missing this very clear direct call back to the law and the prophets and the God of the Old Testament, which is the same God of the New Testament. The gate is wide and the way is easy. That leads to destruction. Also not very well known. Nobody follows up the golden rule with that. Definitely not. It would be wise, it would be wise for us to heed that warning. Alright, verse 15. Talks about the tree and its fruit. Verse 19, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. What kind of warning is that? I think it's a really sobering warning, and I think the warnings in the Bible are really important, right? Warnings in the Bible are often in guardrails, even for genuine Christians to help keep us on the right path. And in this case it's warning us to protect us from false profits, right? Mm-hmm. That's the context of this. Yeah, and we also see a very clear delineation that there are Christians and non-Christians, right? There's good trees and bad trees. There's not a blend of the two. There's not a halfway point. I think you can see this throughout all of the Sermon on the Mount very clearly. But here's just a great place where it's very clear that we are either of Christ or of the flesh. We are of the world, right? We are either a good tree that bears good fruit or a bad tree that bears. Bad fruit. And then, and that makes this really, this next section really interesting, right? Yes. Because it seems like there's people who are bearing good fruit that God says I never knew you. Right? This is one of the scariest passages in the Bible. There's people who seem convinced that they're bearing good fruit. And if we looked at them, we would say, man, that's a great Christian. Yeah. But unfortunately, and very sadly, that is not the case. Why is that? Yeah, it's because these people are hoping in what they did. They say, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name? Do we not cast out demons in your name? Do we not do many mighty works in your name? What do you hear missing from that? You hear any sort of. Humility. You're missing any sort of trust in the work of Christ. They are counting on the things that they did in the Lord's name, and I think this is very clearly somebody who knows the Christian God, right? I think we could apply this perhaps to a Buddhist or to somebody else, but I think this person recognizes. God, they recognize God as the true God. And they're saying, I did these things in your name. Mm-hmm. Not in the name of Buddha, not in somebody else's name, but in your name. And then the terrifying thing is God replies and says, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. That's terrifying. That's terrifying. And it should be terrifying to us. But also, don't just be purely terrified by this. Remember that if you are somebody who. Professes salvation because of the work of Christ on the cross, then this is not something that you're gonna hear if you do rely on your mighty works and that you're casting out demons and prophesying in his name. This is something you should be worried about. But if you believe, as we've been talking about in the, you have the faith of Abraham that believes in the resurrection power of God and what he did through Jesus, this is not something that we will hear. But this last section of the Sermon on the mount right here again, I think what Jesus is really focusing on is he's focusing on outward fake religion versus inward. Heart religion. Right. And in this mini parable, there's two people, they both hear God's word. They both did their DBR. They both heard the same sermons. They both know the Bible. But the, their response to it is the differentiating factor. Yeah. And then some of the most amazing words in. Matthew, at least in my estimation, is that when Jesus finished saying these things in verse 28, the crowds were astonished at his teachings. For, he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as describes. Man, we should be astonished when we read this. Yeah, we should be astonished. Not in the sense that we've never read this before and we're like, whoa, what is this? But we should be amazed at the authority of that Jesus has. Alright, let me pray for us. We promised a shorter episode and failed to deliver that, so thanks for bearing with us. Let me pray for us as we wrap up another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you that you are a God who has resurrection power. What a hope that we have in you because of who you are and the power that you have. Thank you that you raised Jesus from the dead. Thank you. That Jesus Christ can be our hope, can be our salvation. And Lord, thank you that we can have the faith like Abraham that will give us by your grace and mercy, the blessings that you have promised. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Alright, see you all tomorrow.

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