Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. I hope you're having a hello and good morning. Fantastic Saturday. In fact, it is Christket Saturday Christmas brisket. That's right, yeah. Yeah. We're meeting tonight which is different 'cause normally we meet in the mornings. So men, if you're on your way there and it's the morning turn around because we're not meeting there yet. Come back later. Yeah, come back later. But man, we've got good numbers for this. In fact, I saw that we are actually using the lobby. Just like our Women's Bible study did because we have had record numbers of registrations for our men, for our Christket dinner. That's fantastic news. I'm so thankful that our guys really bought the message. They. Talk to people. They're bringing lots of people. I think it helps that we're bringing lots of brisket and we're giving 'em a gift for showing up. So I'm not saying that's everything, but I do think that plays a role and we're loving it. We can't wait to see all the guys that are there and hopefully it's a great time and we'd love to see those guys who show up on this particular Saturday show up for consecutive Saturdays. We have such a great series that we're working through, in fact, next month. We're gonna have a guest preacher. That'll be fun. I'm not gonna tell you who's gonna let you show up. We're gonna have a guest preacher, and in the months following, we're still gonna be tracking through some of the godly men in the scriptures who can show us what Godly resolution looks like. So this Christmas or this particular Men's Bible study, Christmas edition, is gonna be different, but a lot of the same elements will be carried over to the months following. So we hope that you'll join us. We hope you love it, and it'll come back. We do hope you love it and that you come back. We don't have brisket. Every single time. You know what, we could change that though. If you guys demand it. I think Pastor PJ would be very pressured to make it happen. He would be forced to make his own brisket every month and deliver it to us. Do you think so? Think, do you think so? I think you love people enough to be willing to do that. PPJ man, I am preaching this Sunday about how we need to love, like Jesus loved us so ooh and sacrificially, and you always say, you're not gonna wash our feet, but you could make his brisket, you know, you could make his brisket. I always say that is people are like, what does pastor PJ say always? I'm never gonna wash their feet. I'm not gonna wash your feet. But Jesus did make people breakfast. That was evidence. That's in the gospel of John. He did. You preached it. He made him breakfast. So I feel like you should be doing this for us. He, in fact, why are we buying Chick-fil-A? It should be you making us breakfast. Wait a, wait a minute though. Aren't we all supposed to be like Jesus? I think Yeah, but you're supposed to be leading the way. You're the one who's setting the pace for this church, so we're gonna lay this down at your feet. Ah, I'm not making anybody breakfast until you do, man. That's, that's, that's a lot of weight. That's a lot of pressure on me, me, I'm not gonna lie, mean, hey, you decided to plant the church with great power comes great responsibility. And that's exactly what Spider-Man's grandpa meant, or uncle and yeah, I mean, yeah, it comes a great brisket too, I hope. I hope so. I hope so. At least tomorrow night Will or tonight will. I mean, we've got Dan Danny Mayers in the run for three years. Consecutive winning The best. Someone is to knock him off that throne. Yes. Yes. Oh, throne. Yes. I just thought you meant knock him. Knock him out. Yeah. No, but I mean, well, maybe little of this, little of that. Yeah, little, little both. Maybe he just mysteriously can't participate tomorrow or tonight because you know. Yeah. We don't, Hey, I wanna ask you a question that has been making its way around the interwebs burning question. Okay. Well, that's the apt description. It is a burning question. Kurt Cameron is under fire. Yes. For espousing a belief. Called conditional immortality. Yeah. Or annihilationism. So talk to us about A, what to think about that. Yeah. And B, how to respond to someone who holds a belief like that. Yeah. First, let me respond to B before I respond to a, let's not be cage stage in this. In other words let's be willing to have conversations with people in a way that's winsome and still loving and kind. There have been theologians that are strong, that have embraced this position. John Stott is one of them. He wrote a book called The Cross of Christ, which is a great treatment of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus' death on our behalf. Yeah, he wrote a book on preaching. That's excellent as well. Kurt Cameron has done a lot obviously for those that like the way the master gospel presentations, things like that. It's dangerous ground. Let me, I will say that to, to call into question the nature of eternal punishment and to call into question the nature of hell does put one on some pretty dangerous ground. But I think we need to be careful about using the words heretic, things like that. In situations like this, we can strongly disagree with someone's position and not label them. Somebody who is left the faith or not believer. We can believe that someone's position. It hurts the gospel and still not believe that they have left the faith or become a heretic. We're gonna make wise choices to say, okay I'm probably gonna adjust how much of his teaching and his influence, I'm exposing myself to. But I think we need to be careful about this. Why is this such a big deal? Why does it matter? Well, I think it matters because of the testimony of scripture and the character of God. Kirk actually argues that the character of God is such that he believes it favors annihilationism. That is that a person is not gonna spend an eternity under the punishment of God in Hell, but rather that God is going to bring them to an end of existence at some point in time. He argues that that's more in keeping with the character of God. I would side on the side of God's holiness to say that the depth and the magnitude of God's holiness is such that I don't believe that there is a period of time that could be sufficient to account for the measure to which we have fallen short of his holiness. And so that's why I believe that hell is a place of eternal conscious torment. That's the position that we embrace. ECT. We don't have time in the podcast to get into all the nuance of that. But it is. There are passages in scripture, including even in Revelation at the very end when the false prophet and the beast, who by the way, are human beings. Okay? So sometimes the argument is, well, the lake of fire in the end, which is the eternal opposite of the new earth, the lake of fires is only for Satan and is angelic beings, except that you have two human agents that the Bible talks about at the book of Ev. Revelation that are going to be thrown into the lake of fire together with Satan and the rest. And I believe that also those that are the inhabitants of hell and the great white throne judgment are also going to be cast into this lake of fire. And that's gonna be a place of unending torment. Their smoke goes up forever and ever. Man, this is a podcast by itself. That would probably be 20, 30, 40 an hour, two hours long to get into all the nuance there. But that in short, from a 30,000 foot view, is kind of how I would respond to this situation. That's helpful and I think it's important that you understand dear listeners, that the traditional view, the view that most people have held throughout church history is eternal conscious torment. That's the view that most of church history has espoused as being the way that we understand God's righteous judgment. There are some that do hold to conditionalism and some notable evangelical scholars, as you've mentioned, but they're still in the minority. Yeah. And not that majority always means that's the truth, but I would be very slow to change my ideas and opinions based on a handful of people. And granted, I'm hyperbolizing this, it's actually more than a handful, obviously, but this is one of those beliefs that has stuck around for the majority of Christian history that have believed these things for the reasons that Pastor PJ mentions, but more importantly, perhaps even most importantly. It is the testimony of scripture that most shapes our understanding of what the afterlife is and less how we feel about it. Now, I understand Kirk completely. I still love and appreciate his ministry and the things that he's done. I do not like eternal conscious torment. I don't like it. I don't like the idea of hell, I don't like the eternality of hell I that scares me. It terrifies me. It does not lead me feeling good in my stomach. Hmm. But because I'm a Christian, I don't allow my feelings to make the decision for me. I allow my scripture to make the decision for me, and I allow God to shape my understanding, and even to trust that when I go to, when I go into the next life, I am going to think differently about these things that I feel very. Icky about right now. So at the end of the day, it's a matter of our trusting him to reveal to us what to believe and how to believe it, and not to let our emotions, however heavy and strong they are to influence us too much. If you want more on that I actually, I want more on that. I preached a breakout session at our last equipped conference. So if you go to equippedconference.com, equippedconference.com, up at the top, there's a link for 2024 recorded sessions. If you click on that, I preached a message called The Importance of a Biblical Understanding of Hell. And so you can go to that, you can watch it. It's more in depth there. It will give you a broader treatment of the subject. It's an hour long breakout session there on the importance of a biblical understanding of health. So, you can find that again, equippedconference.com. Are you dealing with conditionalism in that? I do lecture, I do, I do with conditionalism and eternal conscious torment. So both. Alright. All right. Acts 24, 25 and 26 is our DVR for today. I know we're 10 minutes in on this. I think that was a helpful conversation though, because it is in the news, it's in on the social media sphere out there as well. But the good news is. Acts 24, 25, 26 is really a lot more of Paul being moved around different places while staying in the same spot. Moved around under different leaders, I should say, who are ultimately gonna set him up to get to where he is trying to get to, which is Rome. So the first one is Felix .And Felix, felix is an interesting character. He is intrigued by Paul and wants to find out what's going on, and so Paul has an opportunity to bear witness before Felix here, and he does so, and he talks about what Felix knows himself, but also appeals to Felix's. Personal knowledge of Christianity. He says in verse 22, Luke records for us, actually Felix having a rather accurate knowledge of the way that is Christianity. He is engaging with Paul about a lot of these things and debating. But it says there after some days, Felix came with his wife, Silla, who is Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about the faith in Jesus Christ. And he reasoned about righteousness and self-control in the coming judgment. And then it says Felix was alarmed and said, go away for the present. I think at some point in time. Felix got to the place of conviction and decided to run from it rather than to lean into it. And Felix had an opportunity, I think, at this point, to bow the knee and he doesn't. Felix is gonna end up being taken outta the scene and there's a new voice coming in named Festus, who is gonna be dealt with in chapter 25. Chapter 25. You have Paul reasoning here with this new one who is in here, and this is Festus. And Festus is trying to figure out what's happened here. And Paul's going to argue and give his defense and say in verse eight, there neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar. Have I committed any offense? But Festus is a friend of the Jewish people. He wants to do them a favor. And so he's trying to get Paul back in the custody of the Jews, but he has to do so in a legal way according to the Roman law. So he says, well, why don't I just send you back to the Jewish people and you can make your defense before them since they're the ones that have this problem with you. And this is where Paul makes his statement. He says, I'm before Caesar's Tribu. This is where I ought to be tried. So I appeal to Caesar. He says that in verse 11. So basically he's saying, as a Roman citizen, I'm exercising my rights to appear before Caesar, instead of going back to the Jewish people. And that's why Festus says, okay, well you appealed to Caesar. Into Caesar, you shall go. So that's the first part of Chapter 25. Now Paul is going to be sent to Rome. He's gonna be sent to Caesar, and that's ultimately where he's gonna meet his end as a martyr for his faith. I appreciate the fact that what you see here in Paul is not a willingness to be conniving. He's not trying to be, I don't know. He's not trying to escape judgment. You notice that he says here in verse 11 if I'm a wrongdoer and I've done anything for which I deserve to die, I don't seek to escape death. You have to see that what Paul's doing here is not just. Finagling with the law. He's willing to accept the consequences, and I think that's important because as Christians we're not trying to use the law to our advantage to hide sin. We're not trying to cover sin over what we're doing is actually utilizing the right structures of law. To our most advantageous ends, whatever those happen to be here, Paul is making it evident. I'm not just trying to use a law to, to get out of some kind of justified consequence. I'm using the law to protect myself against the things that I'm being falsely charged about. And in fact, that's the whole issue here. Jewish leaders are charging Paul with sedition and rebellion and they have no evidence for this whatsoever. So the whole reason that the, he's kind of stuck in legal limbo is because he has no one who's opposing him in a legal way. Now the Romans are stuck. What do we let him go? What do we do here? They're trying to placate their political basis while at the same time trying to finagle with Paul, who's also a Roman citizen. And that's a big no-no. If you're a Roman citizen, you don't have any. Legal standing to be held. So it's a really interesting situation here. It's political theater. On the one hand, it's also political maneuvering on the other. It's really fascinating if you step back from the biblical narrative and say, what's happening here? Well, what's really interesting is how these two nations, the Jewish people and the Roman people are working together to, to deal with people. Now, Paul's not the first one they're gonna do this with or the last. They have a long history of dealing with people in these ways, which is what makes it so fascinating. Yeah. Rest of chapter 25 Festus Entertains, Agrippa, and this is I believe her Agrippa ii, who is on the scene here. And so Festus is talking with Agrippa and Bernice here and lays out the story with him. And so you can kind of get the picture. They're having dinner together, whatnot. And Festus is saying, aa, I, I wanna. Pick your brain. I've got this situation, this guy Paul, and here's what's happened. And the Jews have brought these charges about him, but there's nothing that sticks. There's nothing that I find here that is legitimate for me to say, this is why this guy ought to go to Rome. In fact, it seems to all be about their own Jewish religion. And so I was trying to get him back to them to just deal with it themselves. But Paul appealed to Rome, and so now I have to send him to Rome. But I don't know what charge to attach. And it seems foolish for me to send him to Rome, to Caesar when there's nothing that I can send to say, this is why I'm sending him to you. So what do you think Agrippa and Agrippa says? Well, I want to hear from him myself. And so that sets up chapter 26. In chapter 26 Paul starts out by saying how fortunate he finds it to make his appeal before king, a grip. I find it fascinating if we go back to Jesus' words, to his disciples. He said, you're going to testify before kings. Now, Paul wasn't there for that statement that Jesus made, but here's Paul testifying before a king, though it's a puppet king, still, it's a king in that sense. And Paul says I'm fortunate to be here. And I'm here on trial because of my hope. And the promise made to God to our fathers, verse six, to which the 12 tribes hope to attain is they earnestly worship both day and night. And this hope is why I'm accused by the Jews, oh, king. And so he appeals back to the Jewish prophecy, says, I'm here because I know the one that's fulfilled the promise that God made to the Jews. And then he goes on, he gives his testimony again. He talks about this in verse, 14 down through verse 18. This is his testimony is mission. So again, Luke records this for us, where Paul is before Agrippa saying, this is what happened to Agrippa. I was persecuting the church and then I met Jesus and now I'm planting the churches. I'm serving him. And so Paul's making this implored plea with Agrippa that even results in him saying, look, I'm persuaded Agrippa in verse 26. That none of this has escaped. Your notice for this has not been done in a corner. These things that we're talking about, these things that I'm preaching, these things that I'm claiming, the resurrection of Christ a Agrippa, you yourself have heard of these things, but because they weren't done hidden in a corner and a Agrippa gets it, he says, Paul, are you trying to convince me to be a follower of Jesus now? And Paul says, look, you and everybody else within a earshot, except for the chains that I'm in right now, I would love for all of y'all to become followers of Jesus. All y'all the Texas version. Yeah, I did read that as well. That's under, that's in the Greek it says there. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I love about Paul and I really want more of this is this kind of boldness, this courage. It's not fearlessness. I know he's got fear. he talks to the Corinthians saying, please pray for me that I'd have boldness to say these things. And we see these little vignettes of Paul and we think, man, this guy was just a total rock star. He's an alpha. He's out there doing the thing. I know that that's part of it. Like he is truly a rockstar, but there's also a really real human element where he's asking his friends, please pray for me, that I'd have the boldness to speak, as I ought to speak. So I know that Paul wasn't always this way. It was, and that's what's more impressive to me about these things is that he still did it. He still went out there and says, yes, I want you to be a Christian. Of course I do. I would that you and everybody else be a Christian minus these chains. That would be awesome. And one of my takeaways for this year and maybe for the next year as well, is I just wanna be more bold about this. I don't wanna couch my Christianity. There's a. There is a subtle temptation when you're trying to be wise with people that you're so wise, that you're too wise for your own good, and that you don't get to the gospel, that you don't get to your testimony, you don't get to your faith because you're trying to find just the right opportunity and to say it in just the right way and I can understand that can come from a good place, but the danger is that you end up never saying anything. Because you're always looking for just the right time at just the right place, and you're looking at saying it in just the right temperament and it's never gonna be that. You'll never find that perfect moment. Maybe those will come at some point. Maybe I. But what you see in Paul is just, it's not the perfect time. He's in prison. It's not the perfect moment. This guy has the ability to release him or to keep him. Now, if he's a discerning man, which I know he is, he might've been thinking, well, if I talk to him kindly and I show Christian Love and I smile at him in just the right way, maybe he'll let me go and we won't have to go through this whole rigmarole anymore. But he doesn't do that. He's still talking to him. He's still encouraging people to turn to Christ through the gospel. And I think all of us could take a lesson from Paul's playbook and just say, just do it. Just say the thing. Just go out there, put it out there, get going. I saw someone do that this week, and I was just so impressed that the conversation got to where it needed to go within a matter of minutes, and it didn't take a lot of effort. It just took someone saying, oh, whatever. You know this. They jumped into the conversation and they were there and the other person went along with it. People are far more willing than we realize, and maybe we should be less conservative and cautious and far more bold like Paul and just throw it out there. Yeah, and I think the more you do it, the easier it becomes. If it's something that intimidates you. It, you're not gonna wake up tomorrow and all of a sudden have it not intimidate you. But if you go out and you do it and you realize, oh, okay. Yeah. To your point, people are willing to have these conversations, willing to talk to me about these things. It becomes easier to do it. And for me that realization happened back in California, going out to college campuses, IVC Irvine Valley Community College, there UCI, places like that, where. You think, oh, all these college students, they all are atheists and they all hate God and they all hate Jesus. And some of them do, but even they were willing to talk. They were. Not the most friendly people, but they were willing to talk, they were willing to have a conversation, but a lot of them were just willing to talk to you. Oh, yeah, I don't go to church anymore. I used to. I don't anymore. Oh, here's why I don't go to church anymore. people are willing to have these conversations and I think a lot of the reason why people are willing to is because of what Psalmist says in Ecclesiastes that eternities on the heart of every man, and also because God wants us to have these conversations, and so he's going to create opportunities for us to talk with people that want to talk to us as well. Let's pray and then we'll be done with another episode. God I pray for more opportunities for us as a church to talk with people that need to hear the gospel. Thank you for the example that we see in Paul, even that he uses different approaches, different tactics with different people. And I pray that you give us that wisdom and shrewdness to know how best to do that. What's the most effective approach? The most effective tactics gonna be with people as we talk to them about Christ and faith in Christ and salvation. And so we want to be a church that grows. Lord, we want to be a church that grows with conversions. We've talked about that quite a bit and prayed for that, and we wanna continue to ask for that. We pray that you'd enable us and our people to be used towards that end. So we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. Keep your Bibles tuned again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said