Back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. What's up folks? We are back with you on Saturday, so hopefully you're enjoying your weekend. Some beautiful, sunny, 70 plus degree weather here in Texas this weekend. We had. Below freezing temperatures for a week. Yes. And now we're back at mild spring temperatures and it's great. I love it. It's great. I love it. Windows open. This is what I signed up for. Everything else. Yeah. We got the Super Bowl coming tomorrow. Oh, you, I know you knew that. I know you. That's great. You got all your gear, all your swag. That's right, man. Go Chargers. They're not in it. They're okay. Well then I don't care. But although I do care I like to watch the Super Bowl. Yeah. I do think it's interesting, especially when it's a good game. I do find it the cultural. Conversations after the commercials. I find that to be fascinating and enjoyable and even what it says about us. Yeah, I think it's a really helpful mirror now. So I do enjoy I don't know where to find it. I'm hoping it's gonna be on one of the apps that I have currently. That'd be nice. Usually, usually it is, they try to make it accessible with local channels and stuff. I don't have any I have a streaming services, so hopefully one of those, actually I only have YouTube. I pay for YouTube. Even though you don't need to, I pay for that 'cause I don't like commercials. It's great. And do have the NFL app. It might be there. I hope it's, I hope it's there. That one would make sense. Okay. We have a question. Well, lemme tie it in. Okay. Okay. Super Bowl, the halftime performer. This Super Bowl. Oh, who is it? Is your favorite? My F Yeah. Justin Bieber. Bad bunny. Congrat. Oh. Oh yeah. That's my second favorite. To be clear. No, I, okay. Full disclosure, I have no idea who that is. I just never heard of one of his songs. Okay. So it's a his. I'm with you. Yes, it's a hym. I thought I was a woman at first, but the controversy. About this and it has led President Trump to even say, I'm not going to the Super Bowl. And it's led Turning Point USA to say, we're doing our own thing. Their own Super Bowl, their own Super Bowl halftime show. Oh, okay. So Turning Point USA is gonna offer their own Super Bowl halftime show. Kid Rock is performing at that one. Oh, I. It's because Bad Bunny has made it patently obvious, number one, just immoral as immoral can be. Number two, he's made it blatantly obvious that he is opposed to everything going on right now as far as immigration reform. And so there's actually betting lines on whether he will make a statement during the Super Bowl halftime show about ice specifically. Wow. And. The way that connects to this is the question that we had written in was a question about Christians and protesting. Mm. And so we've got a lot of people pro protesting today on multiple sides of many issues out there. But why don't you frame the question for us? Okay. So it is simply this, is it biblically supported to politically protest issues, whatever they happen to be? We know this is an American privilege. We have the freedom of speech, and part of that freedom of speech is to protest as long as it's lawful and peaceful. This happened famously, most recently during the during COVID lockdowns, the George Floyd riots and Protestings were taking place. And there was large gatherings where the government said, we're gonna let this happen because this is a freedom of speech issue. We're not gonna clamp down on this. It was famously an issue because churches were locked down. They weren't able to get together in a similar way. So the question is simply, is this okay for us to do? Is this lawful, is this biblical? Is this even encouraged? And some to some extent. Sure. How would you understand this? So a few thoughts. Number one, has given us our rights and he's given us the rights that we even have in this country. Now, let me distinguish that the rights that we enjoy as Americans are not biblically guaranteed rights. And so if we lose those rights, it's not that we can point to scripture and say, we are biblically guaranteed the rights that we have in this country. And we can't argue that because there are Christians all over the world that don't have the same rights that we do. Hmm. And so we get. Them and they're a stewardship from the Lord for us to use voting, so forth and so on. So as such, the right to go out and protest exercise, freedom of speech is something that we have as an American. We can steward that, right? As long as it is not leading us into sinful behavior. And so we need to make sure a couple things. Number one, what we're protesting is biblically supportable that we are going out to protest. For example, let's use the issue of ending the life of a preborn child. Okay. We would say it's biblically commendable to protest and to say We are against the termination of life. We are against that, that's wrong. And we would stand against that. And if we have the opportunity to go and rally and make our voice heard as a people and we're gonna stand up and say March for Life, things like that, yes, we're gonna participate in that. I think that's biblically commendable. I would say. Second, we need to make sure that we are not that, that we are not certainly. Crossing the line with our heart attitude and our heart posture in this, that we're not sinful in the manner in which we protest. Certainly they're not protesting necessarily. Something I would say is biblical supportable, but everything going up in Min Minneapolis right now, the protests that are happening right now, the violence, the vitriol, the hatred, the language that's spewing forth a Christian would have a very hard time participating in that protest in a way that is biblically something that you would say, yes, this is a good and right thing to do. And then third we have to understand that we are. Strangers and aliens in this world that we're never going to get to a place where we would probably say, as Christians, I don't have anything that I would protest against. I think as long as we are in this world and this world is governed by the prince of the power of the air, we as Christians are gonna always say, there's something here that isn't right. And so we can't be those that are always looking for opportunities to protest, that are always looking under every rock to find something to protest and stand up against. So I guess that's a long answer to say, is it biblically permissible? I think so. Permissible, yeah. But not necessarily biblically encouraged. I don't know that I would say that it's a necessity for somebody to participate in protest. That it would be something that I would say, yeah, you should, you need to go do that. I suppose it in part for me would rely upon what you mean by protesting. Protesting can be done in a few different ways. And the way that I think we're most often familiar with, the way that we're tempted to think about is the one where people march. They hold signs and they chant things together in unison, and they do so in a place that is highly symbolic. Usually it's peaceful and it's ideal form. It's peaceful. Yeah. And so if that's what you mean, I would say, I don't think there's a category for that in scripture. I don't think they even knew what that was. They had riots, right. And I think about the riot and Ephesus. So we have a category for. Unpeaceful protesting and non peaceful protesting a riot where when Paul's preaching the gospel and he's speaking against their gods and so they say, we need to go away with this guy, kill this guy. Or even something similar to what was happening in Jerusalem or yeah, Jerusalem, when Jesus is being tried there was close to a riot. So PIL wants to t it down by saying, all right, I'll release him to you. You killed this guy, but I want nothing to do with it. Right? So I see riots in the Bible and those are frowned upon. Obviously those are not good situations. Anytime they show up, they're not for good reasons. Protesting as we understand it today in 2026 as Americans. I don't think it has a category in scripture, so I would, I'm gonna have to do some work here, which tells me does God want us to voice his truth in venues that are public? Absolutely and clearly in the ministry of Paul in his first, second, third missionary journeys. Part of his mo. He wants to go to places where he can be heard and be given an audience. Now, this is not protesting in the strictest sense, but you see public profession taking place in an area where he can get maximal bandwidth. Jesus, if you want to call it this, did something very similar. He wanted public attention for what he was saying. Paul, at the Opus, he's in front of the Greeks and they're saying, well, he'll you more about this. Tell us more about this religion that you believe in. That said, I think it's appropriate for Christians to use their voice if they have one to make inroads for for change, whatever that looks like. And I know there's lots of different ways that we can approach that. So I don't think protesting is biblical in the sense that it's there, but the principles that underlie it, speaking for truth, speaking up for those who have no voice using your political power, and Christians as a voting block do have it. And I think we're crazy not to use it. We should use it. If we can agree about what we should use it for, I guess that's a different conversation. But absolutely. I think scriptures would encourage us to use the resources and the stewardship even in Matthew 25, the talents, what we think about talents in terms of what our, what we can do. Well, all of us have a talent, a resource of voting power, and we'd be crazy not to utilize that. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. I'm with you. Let's turn to our DBR for today. We're in Leviticus one through three. If you've got more questions on that clarifying questions in that, we'd be happy to pull the thread on that a little bit more Rebuttals. Rebuttals, Leviticus one through three, and then we'll be in the rest of Matthew Chapter 24. So we're starting a brand new book, dude, Leviticus, this is fun. It is. And this is such a fun book. There's a lot in here, man. There's a lot in here. I you say it was your favorite book. I don't know this. Still your favorite? I don't know if I'd go that far. Number one, Leviticus, number two. Song as solo. Yeah. Clearly as a heads up, if you're reading through this with your family, if this is your first time in Leviticus in a long time, or if your kids are reading it on their own, just know Leviticus deals with some pretty adult level conversations, adult level things. It's probably wise if you're. Having your kids read through the Old Testament to read through these sections with them to be able to help them understand what's going on. And maybe you wanna read ahead of them a little bit on that too. Leviticus one through three. What stood out to me this time as we're getting into this is, here's how you're gonna do this. So the Tabernacle's now set up here's how you're gonna do everything. Here's the instructions for all the offerings and the sacrifices that are gonna need to be done here. And God has very specific instructions because he wants Israel to be different. He wants them to stand out. So he's gonna begin talking about the bowls, and he's gonna talk about sheeps and goats and birds and all kinds of different offerings here. What I found fascinating this time is with. Specifically the burnt offering here that the worshiper is the one that kills the animal. I was in my head, I don't know why I didn't see this before, thought that the worshiper brings the animal, but the priest is the one that kills the animal. But in verse five, it says, then he shall kill the bull before the Lord. That's the worshiper. That's the one that brings the bull. And so the priest is the one that's gonna take the carcass then and go and offer it. But the worshiper is the one that has to participate in the bloodletting in the execution of the animal itself. Yeah. Which is interesting because the title of the book would lead you to believe that this is primarily for the Levites, and I guess you could say that Yeah. Leviticus comes from the Greek subin, which is a, which means that the word means pertaining to the Levites. Yeah. So most of these religious cultic instructions and cultic, not in a negative sense, cultic as pertaining to the cult, the religious cult of. Judaism this is pertaining to what they're to do, and it is primarily ink spilled for how they're to conduct worship. In the Hebrew Bible it's not as complicated as that. It's just any cult, which is I think, is. Pretty bad name, but that's what they called it. We call it Leviticus because it relates mostly to the tribe of Levi, who by the way, don't forget. The reason that they're given these instructions is because they are now in place of the firstborn. Remember we looked at this in the book of at Exodus where God says, the firstborns, you have to redeem, but now he's saying instead of the firstborns, I'm just gonna let the. Tribe of Levi is spec, specifically the men over 20 and up, I think through 50. They're gonna take the place of the firstborn in Israel and they'll be the ones who conduct worship services at the tabernacle. Yeah. Notice that God does give permission and you've brought this out before for those that can't necessarily afford to bring the full bull or the goat or the other animals that he provides. Caveats for that. He says, look, if you can't do this, bring something, bring what you can bring. And for many it looks like that was the turtle doves or the pigeons that they would bring to, to offer in place of the larger animals that maybe the family couldn't afford or they didn't have access to at the time. Yeah, this is the pattern and this is what God is calling us to and or not calling us to, but calling Israel to at the time. And it's important to know that this is not completely unique to Israel offerings and sacrifices were offered by other nations, but this is God saying, this is the way I want you to do it. This is how you're gonna do it with me, and this is what's successful. Acceptable, and this is what's not acceptable. I think it's interesting in chapter two that God tells them to season all of their grain offerings with salt. God is not eating this food as it's being offered. God is not eating the grain here, and yet he calls it, seasoning it and he says, you shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be missing from your grain offering. There were those that. Pointed out, or at least some of the commentaries that I read, that salt was impervious to the heat of the offering. And so the salt would remain. And so it was almost a reminder of God's covenant love and the persistence of his covenant, so that after the, that was gone, the Israelites would be left to, to see the salt leftover and be reminded of God's covenant faithfulness to them. Peace offerings in chapter three. You've got all kinds of these different categories here. And so the categories are notable for us, burn offerings, sin offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, wave offerings so much sin offerings. We're gonna get to, I guess in chapter four. But this was something that. Essentially suggested that Israel was gonna be perpetually offering animals on an ongoing basis here at the Tabernacle. Yeah. And one of your favorite verses here, verse 16, all fat is the Lord's. What's that about? It is my favorite verse. No, there were some things that the priest were not to eat, so they were given specific instructions. You can eat this, you can't eat this. And the fat, I don't know if it's the richness of the fat. I don't know if it's the, this is some of the choice. Parts of it, and we're saying we're giving the best to the Lord. And so that's why the Lord gets this. But the priests were prohibited from engaging in the fat. So the gristle, if you let gristle on your meat, which I'm not a big fan of, that you couldn't have been a priest. I don't mind it if it's good. So, is it okay then if someone, if a Christian company takes this and puts us on a workout shirt, is this okay for them to do that? All fat is the Lord's, as tongue in cheek, as a joke. As long as they're ready to explain that's not exactly what that means. All right, well notice here, and you guys have seen this, right? This is a violent, this is a violent religion. Violent as in, there's lots of blood being Chad here. And there's animals being burnt. They're being filet, they're being cut open and certain things are being taken out and other things being sacrificed here and there. I need you to see this in part and not be, not immediately recoil. I know as Americans, we don't slaughter any of our own meat, and so we're not used to seeing animal death in this particular way, but I want you to see that God institutes this because this is how they're going to relate to their God. Sin is the problem. The sacrifices are the temporary, immediate solution. This is God making a picture for them to say, your sin is so grievous that. Something else innocent, and I'm using air quotes here, innocent needs to die in your place to keep our fellowship working. And this is how there to dwell with God. This is how God's going to dwell with them. And so all these things that you're seeing that probably repulse you a little bit, need to be internalized as this is what sin does. It creates barriers between me and God, and something has to die in my place for me to enjoy this fellowship with God. So as you read this, if you get a little queasy reading this stuff, I just need you to see this is important because we don't do. And it's not because this isn't necessary, it's because Jesus was the necessary sacrifice on our behalf. Praise God. We don't have to apply Leviticus in its sacrificial code, but the only reason why is because the lamb of God was sacrificed once and for all. If it weren't for that, these would all still be binding. Yeah. And thankfully, thankfully they're not. And that was a violent death too. Yes. Jesus did not go out peacefully. Yes. He went out peacefully. He didn't go out without. A lot of trouble. Yeah. Alright, let's flip over to Matthew chapter 24. As we finish up here, Matthew chapter 24, we are continuing to talk about the signs of the times and he's going to give us some more on the tribulation period here, as well as give us. Some parables about the coming end here, the coming of the son of man, the lesson of the fig tree. Maybe not parables so much as some explanations here, but you brought up verse 24 and you couldn't get there 'cause we weren't there yet. So why don't you unpack verse 24 a little bit for us. You were gonna talk about this yesterday. Verse 24, the false Christ false prophets are gonna arise. Was that the one I was looking at? You. I could talk about it. The one you mentioned. I don't know if that's the one that you had in mind. Alright, well, false Christ and false prophets will arise and perform great. Si. This is scary. Great signs and wonders so as to lead astray if possible. Even the elect. Okay, let's cut to the quick here. Jesus is calling the shots and he needs you to see that there's going to be a time, a period of human history and hopefully you're not around for this, where there's gonna be convincing Christ. And convincing prophets, why are they convincing? Well, because they arise and perform great signs and wonders. Jesus warns us that the next time that we should experience and expect a rash of signs and wonders are during this particular time of human history. The eschaton the last days. And so he says, you gotta be aware of this because these guys are seriously threatening in terms of their deception ability if you're performing science. Beyond what David blamed and what he does, by the way, it's pretty remarkable Sometimes I wonder if whether or not he's made a deal behind the scenes with somebody, but. Jesus says beware. And so what you see here is pretty scary unless he says in the second part of the verse so as to lead astray if possible, even the elect, which tells us that it's not possible. If it were possible, they would even be led astray because this is how powerful the delusion is. That's something to be aware of. I don't think it's something you personally have to be aware of unless you're around for that time. But hopefully you're not. Yeah, hopefully none of us are. And the way you make sure that you're not gonna be there is getting right with the Lord. Now, before that time comes, that's a good call. He talks about the second coming, what it's gonna be like. He says, look it's going to be after the tribulation period. The days the sun is gonna be dark. The moon is not gonna give its light. The stars are gonna fall from heaven. And then it says they will appear, then will appear in the sky, the sign of the sun of man, and all the tribes on earth will mourn. This is a picture of Daniel seven with Jesus coming back on the clouds and he's coming with the power. He's coming with the glory. He's coming with redemption. For him and his followers he's not coming back as the one that is the meek and lowly one, the way he came at the first appearance. And so then he goes on here and he's encouraging his disciples. He's gonna say this, he's gonna say, look you need to be ready for this. And so you need to look. To the fig tree. You need to look to, to find out. You need to see the sign of the times. As you can interpret these things on the tree, you need to be able to interpret the things that are coming. Then he makes this fascinating statement in verse 34. He says, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. That may lead you to think He's talking about the immediate context of those disciples, but rather, I think he's talking about the interpret the generation that begins to see these signs, that generation is not gonna pass away before everything else takes place as the tribulation begins. That generation is not gonna. Disappear. It's not gonna be a prolonged, drawn out, multiple, decades thing. And that goes back to, I think he cuts it short for the sake of the elect. But rather, all of this is gonna happen within the time of those that begin to witness these things as they're taking place. Notice Jesus pairs special revelation with general revelation. And you just talked about it, verse 32. Jesus says, look at the fig tree. Learn from the fig tree and for the fig tree would've been general revelation. This is how God explains himself in creation. Look at the sunrise and the sunset. Look at the birds of the air. Go look at the ant. Scripture says, scripture constantly points us to general revelation. We're not we're not the kind of people that we only look at our Bible and say that's all we're gonna use to, to develop our understanding of the world around us. It is our primary lens, but we use this primary lens to look at. Everything else around us. So we should be studying things that God gives us access to. General revelation is a gift of God that we should make use of, but again, we study and we learn through the lens of scripture. Verse 36, concerning that day in hour, no one knows even the angels in heaven with a son, but the Father only. Do you think Jesus now knows when he's coming back? Hmm. What is, I don't know, for 200, man, I'm with you on that. Part of me thinks he does because I wonder if this was an admission during his kenosis. He's still got the human form though. He still has the human form, but Philippians two, he's been exalted and given the name that's above all names. Well, if you want to go like that he knew here too then. 'cause he was still deity. He chose in his humanity not to know. Right. But in his deity, he could not not know. Right. Right. But I would say part of the kenosis was the veiling of his glory. And so I believe the kenosis if not fully is undone now in his exalted, resurrected form that he's no longer humbled to the point of, I, I don't think the kenosis, in other words, is a permanent state of Christ. I think it, I agree. It was the purpose of the work that he came to do. I agree with that and a hundred percent I would agree. I would, I'm just making the point. I don't know if he's received the highest level of his exalted glory that he has promised to receive at the end of the ages, and so, right. Whether he has it now or whether he has it. After the great white throne judgment where he is exalted and all of his enemies are crushed under his feet. I don't know. I guess I'm ambivalent in terms of when he gets it, but I don't know if he does. I just say He knew here too. Yeah. He chose not to know. And I think when we talk about the kenosis, Jesus emptying himself out. Taking on the form of a servant and veiling his deity, doesn't mean that he didn't have access to those things. He chose not to make use of that access. As I understand it. Yeah, that's fair. Rest of the chapter, he's gonna convey this need to be ready that we should be ready for his return. And he talks about the faithful and wise servant is the one that is found doing what his master has given him to do so that when the master returns, he has nothing to be ashamed of. He's ready for the return of the master. And that's a good word to us as the church, that we should be ready for that as well. Let's pray towards that end and then we'll be done with this episode. God, make us such a church that's busy, about the work that you have for us to do that's busy, about the great commission that's busy about seeing disciples made for your glory and for the kingdom. And so we thank you for the opportunity to do that, the opportunity to serve you. We pray that we be faithful towards that end. In Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, keeping you reading your Bibles, y'all, and if Jesus doesn't come back tonight, we'll catch you again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. We'll see you then. Bye.

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