Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello and what's up in eight Days Men's Bible Study Saturday. So we hope you are planning to join us men that we're gonna be over at Lighthouse Church at eight 30 this morning, right? I believe that's our time. Eight 30. It's 10 o'clock, I believe is the men's Bible study time, and we're still in the, the Resolved series, if I'm mistaken. Who looking for the rest of the year? Who today? Well, the rest of this year. Not the calendar year, but the whatever you'd call this school year, I guess. So, yeah. That, yeah. Who's on the docket today? I am on the docket today, so God willing, and the creek don't rise. I will be there in full force and this will be my first time at the Lighthouse Christian Bookstore, or the the church Church. And I'm excited to see what we're working with here. Kristen told me last week when she was preaching to the gals at the Thunder and the lightning made it really hard for people to hear. Can't imagine why. Yeah. But she said, yeah, we should probably bring some amplification. Was her suggestion. 'cause you never know. True. True. And who are you preaching on Joshua Who fit the Battle of Jericho? He did. Yes, he did. That's what I heard. And the Walls. It's a great song. Tumbling down, great song. Yeah. So I, I've always loved Joshua. He's one of those guys that sits in the background for a long season. 'cause you hear about him and you have the sense that he's a godly dude. He takes enter stage. And one of the things I wanted to figure out about his life is what makes him him, what made him special? Right. And so we don't have time to comprehensively deal with his life. So we're gonna just look at chapter one and draw some connections between his life under Moses and then his life post Moses, how God commissions him to lead and hopefully draw some applications that help us to grow into the kind of men that are strong and courageous. That's awesome. Those are the same kinda men who are resolved and that's what we're looking for. Great. Also, we're announcing, I believe this morning Amen's Bible study men's retreat. It's true. Yeah. So you wanna announce, tell us what the theme's gonna be this year. Yeah. I'm really excited for this one. We've got a great graphic that you're gonna see soon. We're calling it Rooted and we're gonna look at the parable of the soils and look at the one that bears fruit and the one that is. Bearing bearing fruit is one that's rooted in Christ. That's where the title comes from. So we're gonna look at each of 'em. We're gonna have four sermons on each of those different soils, and talk about the dangers that are inherent with each of 'em. And then the last sermon will deal with the one that is fruitful, the one that God commends, the one who bears fruit. And I think this is to point that every Christian is fruitful to some degree. Some of us are 30, some of us are 60, some of us are a hundred, some of us are all over the place. The point is not the. Quantity. The point is that the quality of the Christian produces fruit regardless. The number of the fruit is always a variable. So we're gonna look at that. Those who are most fruitful, surprise, surprise are those who are rooted or grounded in Christ, and I'm gonna hopefully try to connect that to John Chapter 15. Those who are abiding in Christ are the ones who produce fruit, as Jesus would say. So this is gonna be a great one. I'm excited about it. I'm. Pumped because I think these little self-contained units are really potent and useful and also working on some, some cool stuff for the retreat itself. So we'd love to invite you to be there. And as always, the sooner you sign yourself up, the better for our planning. We have until April, the middle of April sometime to finalize our room count. So the sooner you tell us the easier it is for us to coordinate, organize, to ask for more rooms if we need them. And we'd love to have that problem. Please give us that problem. And then on top of that, there's also a new registration option. This year you can choose to do a double room, which is slightly cheaper, or you can choose to do your own single room and know for some people that is a breath of fresh air. Yep. So sign up sooner than later. Those single rooms, by the way, are limited, so if you want one, you wanna sign up sooner than later. And the date on that is April 24th through the 25th. That sounds right. Yeah, that's what our registration form says. That's probably it. So I would agree. Yeah, I would agree with the registration form. Yeah. April 24th, 25th. So we wanna see you there, man. It's only one night. Sign up early. Yeah, it's 3:00 PM on the Friday. Through Saturday after dinner. And then you get to go back home and be with your wife. Yeah. And kids and ladies, listen to this. You hear me say this every year. Encourage your men to go. Yeah, send 'em. They need to be there. Sign them up for themselves. Yes. Don't even be an option. Hey, normally I'm supposed to submit, I took some leadership here. You're going Well, because if your pastors are encouraging you to do, can you just ride that wave? Pastors told me to. It's not my fault. It's not my fault. Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. So men's Bible study, men's retreat, a lot of good things going on. But let's jump into our Old Testament reading. Numbers five and six. And then Mark chapter four for our New Testament, one through 20. So numbers five, we get into some more of the rules for the camp and how they were to deal with sin in the camp. They didn't want sin in the camp, so they were to put that which is unclean outside the camp. And that is gonna be something that's gonna be a common theme there. The person that has committed sin is gonna be. Eligible for restoration so long as they confess the sin that they've committed and make full restitution. So this is confession, repentance. This is verse seven here. This is very similar to what we read about in Second Corinthians seven, where Paul's gonna talk about there's a worldly grief and a godly grief. And the godly grief is not just gonna say, I'm sorry, but is going to show by their life and by their response to their sin that they don't. They're done with that. They don't wanna go back to that. And what can I do to clear myself? What can I do to make things right? And that is this person who has realized their sin and then they're restored back to the community here. And then there's a prolonged section here, which initially for our ladies reading, this might seem off-putting because it seems like this is arbitrary where a husband suspects his wife of infidelity and is just able to bring charges, whereas we don't see that the wife had the same ability with her husband. And so while it initially feels untoward, it feels like it's not a fair situation. What I hope to see here is that God provides an opportunity for her to be vindicated. And her to be proven pure and for her husband to be shown to be wrong in his accusation. That God is actually going to, through the prescription of chapter five, provide protection for the woman that he does this through the concoction that she's made to drink, and that if she's guilty, that it causes her to swell. And that's an interesting thing in and of itself there as far as why did that happen? What was going on there? What was in that, that would cause that to happen? Or was this just God was going to cause this to happen if it was true? But this is really meant to protect the woman so that she couldn't just be accused and immediately stoned. There was a process that was gonna happen whereby she could be cleared. Yeah. And it fits with the context here. Confession, restitution. The goal would be to have the sinner confess and repent. And I just wanna point out one thing here between the verses five and 10. What I think you should notice is that even sin that is not something that you're aware of can still cause a rift between you and the Lord. Mm. There can be an impact between you and your relationship with with the Lord if there's sin, even if you're unaware of it, which is why the Psalm is praise. Search me and know me. O God. Mm-hmm. See if there's any wicked way in me. Test me. And this is an appropriate place for you to sit as well. You may not know your Bible well enough to know if you're sinning against the Lord, which is why he says here, if they commit the sin by breaking faith and that person realizes his guilt, then you offer these things. But that doesn't mean the relationship still hasn't been damaged. Just means that you're not aware of it. So one of the first things I would encourage you to do if you're having a dry season with the Lord, is perhaps examine your heart. Mm. The Lord search me and know me. Is there a sin in my life that I'm just not seeing? And if so, please help me to see that so I can confess and repent of that sin and, and, and work myself closer to you so that I don't have to have anything hindering us in terms of adultery here I think a couple things that are worth noting. I think the reason why this is here and not the opposite. People have asked, well, why is your only one for the husband? Right? Does a wife not get a say in this? And I think the Lord answers that in verse 19 and verse 29. Both of them speak about being under your husband's authority, she's under his authority and not vice versa. Now, that may not be especially helpful to hear, but you should notice this is how God has arranged the relationship to work. She's under his authority, not vice versa. Doesn't mean she has no recourse. I do think it limits her recourse. I don't think she can do the same thing and say, well, let's go to the priest and we're gonna have you drink this and see if your thigh falls away. Right? This is more about her. I think she would have to go to the priest and say, can you help me with this? There. It doesn't say that, but it doesn't not say that either. So again, there are some things that are that, that go without being said in the text. Like the women at the tent of, of the tabernacle who are helping, we don't know what they're doing. Right. But they're there. So I'm wondering if there's something perhaps. I can't say that there is for sure. 'cause it doesn't say that. But that's the first thing. She's under his authority. Secondly, I don't think that she's drinking a poison. It's not something that's intended to, to harm her, per se. It's actually based on what he says, it's he's putting in it is, is harmless. What's happening is that the Lord is intervening in this, I think, and he's making her barren. Yeah. And that's why he says in verse 28. If the woman has not defiled herself and she's clean, then she shall be free and she shall conceive. In other words, you're, you're not gonna have any hindrance to your ability to bear kids because you're not guilty. Then the, the ability to have kids. As you might remember, Hannah wrestles with this, this is a, a deep wound to a woman even today, but especially in eastern cultures where family was everything, right? If you can't have a kid, that really puts you in a bad spot. So this whole thing, you have to read with the eyes of the culture and an understanding. The Lord has established the authority structure. This is how it works, and I, I don't think you need to be put off by this. So today, if somebody in the church suspects, man, I, I feel like maybe my spouse is being unfaithful to me. We don't have a situation where we're gonna bring anybody in and let's just apply numbers five, bro. Cause them to drink or anything, some of this stuff here. What would, what would you say would be the, the right approach to that though? What, what would you say would be a helpful approach, whether it's the husband or the the wife? Sam? Man, I've, I've got questions. I've, I'm suspicious. I don't necessarily have any hard evidence, but I'm, I've got concerns. So, yeah, this is challenging for, for several reasons, and I think the first one is that every individual situation is individual, and the specifics can be a bit, they can be helpful and determinative, but. If I could be general, here's what I would say, generalized advice that I think you could say to everybody. And the first one is is I would say, you need to take this to the Lord and say, Lord, if I'm wrong about this, I need you to help me see that. Mm-hmm. But I would also say it's appropriate if you see things that you're concerned about, I would bring it up. I would bring it up, and if you're concerned about doing that by yourself, one-on-one, say, Hey, can we, can we go see the pastor? I'd like for us to go and have a conversation. It's so important and it's important that I respond well. It's important that you respond well, that I would be really happy to do this with a third party. Maybe it's not the pastor. Maybe it's a trusted friend who can be a godly referee. I think going to the Lord first, searching your own heart and then going to the person second would be a really good order. What would you add? Yeah, I would agree with that. I think my council would be the same. Man, this is such an important subject and an important topic, and I think we can get in our Christian community where we feel like everything's sanitized on a Sunday morning and, and be blind to the fact that unfortunately things like this are happening. Things like this are, are happening in the church too. And I would even say to the person if, if you're in a situation where this has happened and you're the the guilty party that the best thing to do. My wife was reading a book recently that, that talked about when you are in a car, if somebody hijacks your car and you're driving it and they get in the car with you, the best thing that you can do is wreck the car as quickly as you can. That, that, that's the safest thing, rather than driving further away and putting yourself in in greater danger because of the person and what they're doing. You wanna reckon, you wanna reckon in a public way. What is Amanda reading? It's a book called No Time to be Done, but no kidding. That's good advice. Say, I would say similarly, when you're in sin, the best thing you can do is wreck that sin publicly as, as quickly as you possibly can. Bring it to the light, expose it. Oh, that's good. And and, and come meet with the pastor. Come meet with, 'cause there's hope in any of these circumstances and situations. Mm-hmm. But mm-hmm. We're dealing with the subject of adultery. I don't want us, I don't want you listening here to, to think that we think we're sanitized as a church and we're above this. We pray for the marriages in our church and we pray that God will protect the marriages in our church. But man, we, we also wanna deal biblically with sin when sin needs to be dealt with. So. And the last thing you wanna do is wait for the Lord to reveal you. Yeah. If the Lord loves either you or your spouse, he will ensure that your sin is exposed. Yeah. At some point. Yeah. And I, I bank on that. That's one of the things that keeps me from acting a fool. 'cause I, I don't want the Lord to have to do that. I'd I, I'd rather confess my sin and let the Lord deal with me versus having shame brought on our church and Christ Of course. More importantly. So yeah, confess your sins 'cause he's faithful and just forgive us. He is. Well, chapter six, we get the, this Nazarite vow and na nazarite vow is, is interesting. It's, it's an optional vow. It's not something that is imposed upon anyone, although it, it does appear that parents could perhaps sign their kids up for this. But this is gonna involve abstaining from different things. There was gonna be a, a high priest like holiness that they were going to be called to, including, not defiling themselves with dead bodies or anything else for the extent of their vow. They're gonna grow their hair out, they're going to abstain from alcohol. And if at any point they transgress in any of these issues, they, they had to come and they had to offer sacrifices and offerings, and then, then they had to start back over again. They had to renew their, their vow and, and start the timer over again, so to speak. And so the, the NAZARITE vows an an interesting one. We don't today see people walking around as nazarites, at least not to our knowledge. B, but it was serious. So serious that even contact with a dead body is described as sin. In verse 11, it says, make atonement affirm because he sinned by reason of the dead body. So this is somebody that accidentally comes into contact with the dead body. They're describing this as as sin, and they've gotta go back and they've gotta offer their sacrifice because apparently they weren't being careful enough with regards to their vow that they had made before the Lord to avoid these things and these circumstances, and they've gotta start back over again. Would you say that there's a parallel between the Nazarite vow and anything under the new covenants? Now, this is a, obviously this is for laypeople. This is not for priests or Levites. This is for someone who's not those things and maybe desires to have a greater closer relationship with the Lord. I wonder if these kinds of people are, the kind of people that became. Monastics went to the desert and did things with the Lord to be private and, and solo. I don't know. I, I I think it's really commendable. I'm just trying to, I'm struggling to say, okay. What, what would be the New Testament parallel? Or is there a parallel, I guess ministers and people who join the ministry are similar. We, we naturally limit ourselves. Maybe we, some of us don't drink alcohol. I think all of us get haircuts, so we're not gonna, we're not gonna get any gold stars there. Right. I'm not hanging out with the dead, not under normal circumstances. Is there any parallel? That's my question, man. And that's a great. Observation, maybe the, the monastic society. I think we see bits and pieces of this. I, to your point there, you said at the end, I think there are people in Christians who will say, you know what? I'm not gonna drink any alcohol for my lifetime. I'm not going to do this. I'm not, the only difference I would say is this seems to be connected with a particular season for a reason. There's something going on that they're saying, I'm gonna vow this vow and dedicate myself towards this holiness for the Lord for this particular. Timeframe, and it's not necessarily lifelong although for some it was, but not for all. Yeah. So there's a period of time where they're like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna set myself, myself aside for this, for this particular reason. So maybe there's some parallels on a lesser sense to some New Testament fasting and what we do when we fast and why we fast and, and what's going on there. But, yeah, because when we fast, we fast. Not just that, God will look at us fast and go, oh look, you're fasting. I'm gonna do something for you. We fast so that when we feel the, the desire to have what we're fasting from, it causes us to pray or it causes us to worship God or it causes us to reflect on something just like we talked about with Lent yet a few days ago. But so that might be a parallel that I could think of. That's a great parallel and I think. I, I think the impulse is good if you desire to consecrate yourself to the Lord for a season or for life. Some of, some of us are, nazarites for life. You had Samson and Samuel and the closest thing I can think of would be people who go into the ministry. Yeah. You're gonna limit yourself in a lot of areas often by your contract for employment, but sometimes it's just, I, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna cause anyone to stumble, so I'm not gonna smoke. I could smoke now. Spurgeon smoke cigars. I'm gonna smoke cigars, but I choose not to because I don't want to cause anyone to think poorly about. Christ or about me, even though it's totally not sinful. I choose to abstain from these things. So I wanna commend you. If your impulse is, I wanna be close to the Lord, I wanna know him, I wanna draw close, I wanna do something. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's a fantastic thing and it's a impulse that should be nurtured. Although I would agree with you. Perhaps it's a seasonal thing, for six months you do a thing or for, three weeks or doing something. For some people it will, it will mean ministry life perhaps. But what do you think about that someone is interested in ministry? What would be the next step you'd say? I would seek your, the guidance of your pastors. So I'd stop. Number one would be sitting down with your pastors and saying, Hey, I'm, I'm feeling a, a pull, I'm feeling a tug towards ministry. What, what did that look like for you? What would you recommend for me? What could, should I be doing right now? What books should I be reading right now? Things like that. We would be happy to have those conversations with you. We would love to do that. And then you're gonna hear us push you towards education. I, I'm, I. Big on education, seminary. I know there's different views on that, and a lot of churches, people will say, you don't need seminary to be a pastor. Right. I don't even like seminary. fair. Theoretically. Do. Is there anything in scripture that says thou must go to seminary and get a, a degree to, to be a Pastor? Spurgeon didn't go to seminary. Spurgeon didn't go. Yeah. Well, the general tenor should be, man, I want to be as, as prepared and honed, well honed as I possibly can be for the, the task at hand. And seminary does a great job with that. It's not all. And so we're gonna also take you and say, and we want you serving in the church. 'cause there's a lot of street knowledge that comes from just doing the work of the ministry that you're not gonna get in the seminary classroom. Right? But we wanna get you trained. We wanna make sure that you're, you're adequate for this, and then we want you to do this in community. Because one of the things, it's not just the internal call, it's the external call, which means you need to be around people that also are looking at your life and recognizing the call as well on you, recognizing your giftedness, your qualifications. If you say, man, I feel called to be in the ministry, but listening to you preach is like watching paint dry. We're gonna say, okay, well maybe there's a different, maybe you're better in the counseling room than you are in the pulpit. I, who knows? You need that external call too, and, and not just the, the internal call of, Hey, I want to go do that. So in community is a huge part of it too. I Amen to that. I echo all those things. The church needs the best people. I'm just gonna say that. Amen. We, we, the world doesn't need another lawyer, another doctor, although God bless you if you are those things. Yep. The church needs the best and the brightest. In fact, it used to be that the church had these people. Yep. If you were gifted, skilled, it was almost a guarantee. Like the, the church was gonna get the best and the brightest and now the church gets something, something different. Yeah. Not always. Obviously that's not always the case. But we, we want to give our very best the church, and that would include our resources, our time, our attention, our energy. And so if you have the gift for ministry, people have noticed it laid hands on you and said, man, we just, we see something in you. That's a good, that's a good place to start. Yeah. It's certainly not the final place. There's, there's things to learn. There's, there's. There's strategies to employ. But if that's your heart and that's your desire, usually not always, but usually that's a good sign that the Lord is doing something in you. Amen. Well, hey, our New Testament of reading, we probably won't dive in too much in because we, we talked about it a little bit at the outset. This is again, the theme for our men's. Okay, man, I'm, we're not giving anything away here. This is, this thing is. It is deep for sure. It's deep. But you hear that rumble in my voice of the soer. Do what? Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, the parable of the sower. So Mark chapter four, verse one through 20. We find the parable given the purpose for why Jesus teaches in parables, which again was, we talked about this in Matthew. I think it's, part of it is passive judgment and part of it is protection. He's protecting those that. Are unbelievers, that they won't be held more accountable for what they've, they've heard. And then he's also passively judging some by keeping them from understanding these things. That's why Mark quotes in Isaiah chapter six here in verse 12, that they may see, but not perceive, may hear, but not understand less. They should turn and be forgiven. There's, there's a judgment factor to parables here. And then Jesus gives to his disciples the specific interpretation of the parable of the sower. What I find interesting about this as I was reading it through this time is in verse 17, they have no root in, in themselves, but they endure for a while. And what stood out to me that time was self-deception can last for a a time. Sometimes we read this and we think, oh, well, they fall away pretty quickly. That's not necessarily the case. Sometimes self-deception is something that can last for months and and even years. And unfortunately, if we understand that another parable that Jesus tells the parable of the weeds where there's tears and weeds sewn together, sometimes self-deception can last until the very end. And that person is there saying, Lord, Lord, I'm one of yours, and Jesus is gonna say, depart from me. I never knew you. So. This is is in the parable indicating that they will eventually fall away, but it's not, it's not immediate. Sometimes they're with us, they're in the church with us, and so there are some that are in the rocky soil that are here in the church. There are some that are in the thorns that are here in the church, and we just need to be aware of that as we gather together and not take one another's professions for granted. What would you say then, because that raises so many. Questions, especially for those who are tender in the conscience. people that are always saying, did I commit the blasphemy of the spirit? Right? Am I one of the soils that wasn't fruitful? Talk to that person who Right. Is concerned that they're self-deceived. Yeah. The concern is a good start. I, I remember hearing John MacArthur preach a sermon a, a long time ago on eternal security, and he said, if you're a Christian who's. Wrestling over eternal security. He said that's a good start because typically the unbeliever's not really worried about whether or not they're secure in Christ. I don't think that's the silver bullet. But I do think it is, it's noteworthy to say, Hey, okay, if you're, if you're thinking about these things wrestling with these things, then that's a good thing. And then I would just go back to reminding yourself daily of what the gospel really is. What, what are you choosing to believe? You're, you're choosing to believe that Christ died in your place so that your sins could be forgiven and rose against so that you could live with him forever. That you needed his righteousness, that he gave you his righteousness. So if you can go back to those things and affirm them on a regular basis, and then if you look at your life and go, man, second Peter one says that we need to supplement our faith with virtue and godliness and, and these things like that. And he says, by, by doing these things, you'll prove to be fruitful and secure for yourself, your entrance into eternity. And this is what he means by confirming our calling and election. So if you can look at your life, if you can get trusted brothers or sisters to, to speak into your life and say, Hey, do you see the spirit at work in my life? Do you see growth in my life? I'd love to be encouraged. I'm not asking you to flatter me or anything else like that. I just want to know, like, do you see me stagnating? Do you see. Growing. Where, where can I, is there sin that I, I'm not aware of that I could put off? Those are all signs of active faith that I think we can be encouraged by. If you do have that, that tender conscience, it's like, man, what if I'm not? Yeah. And again, I dunno if I, there was this podcast for the last one, Psalm 1 39, search me in no Nom O God. This is such a good and wise prayer to, to utter at least with some regularity. Yeah. We need God to show us what we can't see and, and self-deception is one of the most pernicious. Worse things that we deal with. Yeah. All of us have the capacity for this and I think I, I would go so far as to say that all of us do this to some degree. Mm-hmm. We just don't realize it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. Right. So you should pray to the Lord often, God a, help me see myself accurately. B, give me good friends that can help me with this and c let me be brave enough to do something about it. Yeah. 'cause it's one thing to know, oh, I've got this secret sin, or I've got this tendency that people know everyone, everyone around me can smell my breath. I can't smell it. And it takes a, a brave person to say, Hey, I want you to know your breath is awful. Yeah. And you need that friend. But then once you know that it takes some, some humiliation and some o openness, say, I should go brush my teeth now. I'm going to go do that or gimme some gum until I can go do that. So we need a whole host of roadblocks to keep us from doing damage to ourselves. So pray for that. Ask the Lord to show you. Ask God to give you the people to do that, and then ask God to give you the, the bravery and the cor, the courageousness, the courage rather. To do something once you're exposed to those blind areas of sin. Is that why you keep backing further away from me during the podcast? Well, I was hoping you would get the hint, the hint without me saying it ex explicitly, but now that you brought it up anyways, yeah. Alright, well hey, let's let's pray and then we'll be done with another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Lord, we wanna be a church free from self-deception individually or corporately. And so help us to have these types of relationships where we love one another well enough to speak truth into each other's lives and where we are introspective enough to be able to pray with honesty and integrity like David did, and say, search me and know me and see if there's any grievous way in me that I might repent from it. And then Lord help us as Pastor Rob was just saying to do the heavy lifting of, of repenting. Of getting rid of the sin, of putting it off from us so that it doesn't continue to hinder our relationship with you. God, we want to be a fruitful church. I pray that you'd make us, that we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep bringing those Bibles and tune in again tomorrow, which is gonna be Sunday for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Amen. See you then. Bye You.

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