Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello again, party people. Hello. Hello. We are back. All three of us in action here. Live in the office. It's Wednesday, so hopefully you're enjoying your midweek. We had bad storms and Pastor Mark's house is completely gone after last night. Oh, no. That's what I, it's a shame. It's really unfortunate. It is, but you know, God gives and he takes away, the insurance is there, so you're gonna buy something bigger and nicer and fancier. And is that how insurance works? I don't know. I don't know. No, we're, I mean obviously we're not profits. We're recording this on Tuesday, but we're supposed, and my house is intact. It is int well as as of right now. It is as know it is. I'm not trying to be a profit on that. This is gonna be really. A weird intro. If my house does destroy, be bad, you guys check on Pastor Mark right now. Shoot him a text. You number is your house, okay? Is your house okay? And lemme just say I had nothing to do with it if it's not, I was not praying that way. I was, you know, so, but yeah, first really bad storm of the spring, supposedly headed towards us tonight, although, we'll see. It seems like we're in an alley where everything just misses us. So, I don't know. We'll see. Baseball size, hail. I heard that be something else. I heard that. That sounds terrible. It does, yeah. Terrifying and terrible. Hey, we have a question that came in. Let's answer that question. This one is titled called to Be a Minister. 'cause it was a question. That's how they put it. Alright. I've heard past preachers say that they were called into the ministry that. Or to be a preacher called to be a preacher. I'm not sure if you all have said the same thing, however, I was wondering where the idea comes from and how it might or might not be theologically accurate. Because I don't see anything in the scriptures that shows that, rather it seems to be by appointment. So I can understand that God effectively calls everyone. But perhaps it's just a focus on one particular idea. And along these lines, if this is something that God does, it's a calling that's. Theologically sound, would it also apply to deacons as well? Can a deacon also say, I am called by God into that particular ministry? Yeah, so the idea of being called is a biblical concept and we can trace it back. Even in the Old Testament, some of our key leaders and key figures were called, they were actually audibly called by God. You think of Moses, you think of Abraham, so forth and so on. They're called by God and appointed by God into these positions of leadership. So we can go back there and see that there's a foundation in the Old Testament of saying there's a calling that somebody responds to take the mantle of leadership, the mantle of ministry, specifically ministry leadership in that context. Now, none of the three of us are gonna say, we received the audible call of God, just like Abraham or Moses did. We didn't have that. But there's a way that God does call one towards ministry. In fact, in one Timothy chapter three, verse one, we read this, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires. Desires. The office of Overseer, which is the office of elder or pastor, he desires a noble task. Now, that qualification there, if anyone aspires, if anyone desires, this means that not everybody is gonna have that desire. So a lot of people listening to this don't have the desire to be a pastor. Those that have that desire to be a pastor, that it may be at least if we're gonna read that into one Timothy three, one evidencing God's internal call on that person, meaning that person has an internal desire to say, I want to do this. I think we see. Some of the the idea later on where Paul will tell Timothy Fan, the flame fan into flame, the gift that God has given you, implying that God has equipped him for the work of ministry, that God has somehow set him apart for that work of ministry. So there's the internal call, but then there's also what we refer to as the external call. And the external call is important because that looks at other people who are recognizing the giftedness in you that is fit for the work in the ministry. Someone can have an. Internal desire for the wrong reasons or the wrong motives. In fact, we're gonna be talking a little bit about some of that this weekend in regards to service in general. To answer the second part of your question about feeling called to be a deacon called to serve in a specific capacity in the church, I think you can be, but you can also feel like I want to do this and have the wrong motivations, the wrong desires for that. In ministry, the external call is so important, and that is when you have other people in ministry, other pastors, mentors, elders that are gonna look at you and say, yeah, I think this is a good fit for you. That's why I'm so thankful for my time in seminary. I spent serving in the church at the same time, so I was getting trained in seminary and also having people look at me and say, yeah, I think there's something there. You need to be baked, you need to be seasoned. You need a lot more experience here. But there's at least something there. We can affirm that this is the right path. So calling comes from the Bible. And I think it's, you're right, sometimes the person who wrote this in, people are appointed to those roles. But I don't think anybody's really appointed to those roles today without also that internal calling and that saying, yeah, I desire that at the same time. Yeah. I think another place you can look to substantiate what you're saying is one Peter five, which will be coming up in your sermon series later. Yes, it's later this year. But what does Peter talk about? He says and he calls the elders to shepherd the flock the. Of God that is among you. And he uses the word not under compulsion, but willingly. Yeah. So there is a sense in which willingly Yep. You yes, are appointed, but it's also an agreement with that appointment. It's willingly, right? It's not just, oh, you're the one now go. Right. There's that, that other part to it that's important. Yeah. God's not dragging anybody kicking and screaming into the pulpit. At least not usually. Yeah. The whole idea of being called by God applies both to saints and to pastors. Even the idea of vocation. The vocation comes from the Latin Voca, which is to be called, and it was Martin Luther, who popular is the idea that it's not just the pastors and the elders, the pres Buto who are called by God. And we do see that in scripture, but it's also the lay person, the lay person is called into the vocation of an executive or a lawyer, doctor, fisherman, et cetera. So calling is what God gives to mankind as a way to say, here's what I want you to do with my life. Now you can get paralyzed by that thought and say, well, what does God want me to do? I'm not sure if I'm fulfilling his calling for my life. And I don't think that's really the right posture, but whatever you're doing by God's providence is often the calling that God wants you to fulfill. You're going to do his will one way or the other. And part of this is also gonna be are am I called by God to be a Christian? Yes, I think that's true and you should embrace that. But beyond that, when it comes to the specific role that you play in the world and in life, that's also God's calling. We may not think of it that way. We don't think of the doctor as being called by God unless he's exceptionally good. He's a hand surgeon and he's really good at just the minor details. Sure we could say that, but I think everyone, as long as their occupation, their ARI is not inherently sinful. We could say everybody shares a vocation, a ARI from God, and you should embrace that calling. I think that's consistent with what Paul says in one Corinthians seven verse 17, where he says, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. Amen. Well, I think all of us are called to get into our daily Bible reading right now. Deuteronomy 14, 15 and 16. Starting in Deuteronomy 14, we get into a chapter that contains a lot of reminders about the laws of purification, including what the Israelites were gonna be allowed to eat, what they were to abstain from. And then the chapter concludes with a section on tithing that had been amended to now include the instructions on bringing the tithes. To the Lord's chosen place. So again, we're getting ready to enter the promised land and there's going to be a central place of worship there. And God, just like the sacrifices wanted the tithes and offerings brought to the central place. By the way, I was listening. I was driving around listening in on the radio the other day to somebody who is preaching locally here. I don't know. Who he was. 'cause he never said his name, but he was making the whole point that when he started tithing, God just opened the storehouses and he referred back to the Old Testament and I, I blanking on the book where it says, put me to the test and see if I won't overflow if you bring your tithe to me. And he was trying to make the point to those listening. If you start tithing and he was making the point of 10% and he was like, do you tithe on the grosser, on the net? All that to say, y'all, when we're talking about tithing in the Old Testament, we're not talking about the same thing as New Testament giving. And so that's worth reminding us here that New Testament giving is something that God commands us to do. It's something that's good, it's right to do. But when we talk about the tithe in the Old Testament, there were multiple different tithes that were brought at different times, and Moses is just reminding them of the importance, number one of the tithes. And also it needed to be brought to the place where the central place of worship was going to be. Beyond giving their money, and God did certainly require that of them. You'll notice in chapter 14 verse one, he says, you are the sons of the Lord your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. As things like this. On top of that, we passed by a while back. Tattoos. Can you talk about some of these things because other Christians will also struggle with some of. Some of the things like, obviously we're not doing this, we're not making baldness on our heads. At least unless it's kind of a hairstyle. Some people do that. Very few people cut themselves as a pagan ritual to the dead. But talk about these things and tattoos since we're on the subject. Yeah. Your body the central tenet is this, your body is a stewardship that God has given to you. So number one we have to be careful not to do anything to our bodies that is going to degrade or denigrate the image of God that he has created within us. So we need to. Honor and treat our bodies well as stewards. I was gonna have you expand on that. Yeah. Because that's I think what you said is loaded Sure. With all sorts of ideas, Uhhuh putting contact lenses in with a different color. So I think that's where we have to come back to, for example, tattoos, tattoos. Today may not have the same implications that they did back in the day of Israel, where they were more connected with the worship of false gods and false idols. So when you def defaced your body with a tattoo, you were engaging in the worship of these false gods. And so that's why God is saying, Hey, don't do that. So today, if a Christian came to me and said, Hey, I wanna get a tattoo, I wanna get the word Grace Karis in Greek, and I wanna get it tattooed on my arm I'm not gonna say you're in sin to do that. But if they came to me and they said, I wanna get the face of Satan tattooed on my back, I'm gonna say, Hey, you're in sin to do that. You really shouldn't get the face of Satan tattooed on your back. I think there's freedom that needs to be balanced by wisdom in saying my body is a representative of the image of God, and as a believer I need to be careful to steward it as such. So, changing our appearance, physical appearance, things like that. I think if your motive is, I'm angry at who God made me to be, I'm angry at the person the. Form that God created me in the person that I am. I think the greatest expression of that is when people say, I, God made me be the wrong gender, so I'm gonna go through something to totally transform myself there. But even more minorly, if you get into a lot of work on yourself, plastic surgery on yourself, because You're upset with the person that God made you to be. I think we can cross lines still today in that, and I think we need to be careful on that. That doesn't mean if I get green contact lenses because I'd rather have green eyes than brown eyes, that I'm defacing my body necessarily. A lot of it comes down to where the heart is in all of this. That's right. And that's why. This passage begins with you are the sons of the Lord your God. And that is a clarifying perspective that we can take even today, right? What do you see yourself as? Do you see yourself as somebody who needs to fit into the culture, into the world, into this and that club, or with your sports team, or do you see yourself as a son of God or a daughter of God and that. Perspective is a heart attitude, which is what you're talking about, right? It's a heart attitude that will help us make good decisions about that. Amen. The next verse is says for you are a people holy to the Lord your God, which is exactly what you're talking about here. It's hard to be as precise as we might want be or even as prescriptive. Yeah. Eye color, ear piercings, piercings. There's all sorts of piercings today, actually. You can do a lot more with that. Even tattoos can be controversial because you can say, well, yeah, it's nothing in scripture. But then they can say, well, here it says here, you know, don't make carvings on your body. Right? And don't do these kinds of things, right. I think there's a lot of room for debate there, but the heart of the matter is who do you belong to? And does that show on your body and in your person that doesn't clarify it entirely. 'cause there's still lots of room in that. That section, that part of the arena. But that's a really helpful place for us to start. Yep. Well, chapter 15 is a little bit of a downer chapter, even though it's talking about something that's really good. And that is because this is a chapter that describes something that to our knowledge, God or Israel never did in obedience to the Lord. And this is the rules for observing the Sabbath year and for how to treat the poor in the destitute and those enslaved among them. Especially the releasing part of that and freeing part of that. Again, we don't know, we don't have anything recorded that Israel ever did this. It was to be every seven years. People were to be let free the land was to rest and this will eventually factor into the 70 years of the exile for Israel as they're gonna spend that time for all of the times that they didn't do this between entering the promised land and when they go into exile. And in fact, and I don't have the math right in front of me. I had it in my notes earlier, but the timing of when they go into exile and the number of years actually lines up pretty well here. Yes. So if you go to Second Chronicles 36, it talks about it very clearly being the result of the lack of these Sabbath years occurring. And the math actually adds up really nicely. Yeah. Well, let me, speaking of math, let me ask you guys a question here. We're looking at chapter 15 and there's three passages here in chapter 15 that I wanna help us square. For people who might have caught some of the difficulty with this, the starting of verse four, he says, this is God but there will be no poor among you for the Lord, your God will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess. Drop down to verse seven. It says, if among you, one of your brothers or sisters should become poor in any of your towns within your land, that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart and then skip on down to verse 11. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Okay so what is it? Is it, there's not gonna be poor, there is gonna be poor. There's never gonna be poor. How do we put these pieces together when it's in the same chapter? What do we do with that? I think in verse five it helps us to understand here, there's a lot of contingencies in the law where it's, this will happen if you do this. And so in verse five, he follows up by that statement of saying there won't be any port. If only you will strictly obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today. God will say, Hey, if you don't, if you obey, then all of these blessings are gonna be yours. And then he will also show his cards and reveal, but you're not gonna obey. And because you're not gonna obey, here's rules for how you should operate and the fact in the reality that you're gonna undergo when you're not obeying. 'cause there are gonna be poor among you because you're not gonna strictly obey these things. So when there are poor among you, this is how you should treat them. And so it's, I think the balance there of saying this was contingent. There wouldn't be any poor and this was a real offer. This wasn't God, holding something out that he wasn't willing to do. It was a real offer. But he also knew at the same time, Israel wasn't gonna follow through and obeying him perfectly that way. But also if they're obedient to him. Then they're gonna do what verse 10 says, which is you shall give to him the poor person freely and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him because the of, because for this, the Lord your God will bless you in all your work. And in all that you undertake. So there is an element in which if you're obedient to the Lord, then you will be freely giving to the poor, which will mean that there aren't poor. Right. But that's not inconsistent with what you're saying. Right, right. Yeah. Those are both great answers and I think both, I both have a place I don't want to ride the fence here, but I think there was the ideal that God presents to them on the condition of A, B, C, and D. And then he also says, and by the way, here's how you're gonna resolve this. Mm-hmm. It's not gonna be miraculous GT or God thing number one. But it's gonna be through the providential means of you. Yeah. I want you to serve your brother so that there is no poor, however, because I know you're not gonna obey this. That's why he says in verse 11, there's never going to cease to be poor in your land. So I think there's a both and here interplay. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Chapter 16, we get into a lot of the feasts and other civil matters, including establishing judges to hear cases and render judgements. And so we're gonna get into that in the next. Era of Israel here. In fact, we're gonna turn the page pretty quickly here into the book of Joshua. Joshua's gonna give away to the judges, and so we're seeing some of the polity that is gonna be established with the people of Israel. But these feast are listed again, including Passover to begin with here, feast to boost, so forth and so on. Why? Because this is the brand new generation. So again, as you're reading things that you're saying, this is redundant. We've been here before. Remember, this is Deuteronomy. It's the book, the Second Giving of the Law here. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that we're repeating a lot. We're repeating it because this is a brand new generation, and Moses wanted to prepare them for their entrance into the promised land. He's also calling them multiple times here in chapter 16, but also back into chapter 14 to rejoice. There is a command when it relates to the tithing that they are to rejoice, and then you see that with the Feast of Weeks and then the Feast of Booths. You see a call to rejoice. Amen. That's great because that tells us that God can command our emotions. Yeah, that's a good point. And that are respon. We are responsible to do that. Dude that's convicting. I'm convicted for Pastor PJ right now. Just oof feelings. Well, why do you think I brought it up? I appreciate both of you greatly in that. Let's flip over to our New Testament reading. Matthew or Mark chapter 13 values rejoicing because of our relationship. 14th through the end of the chapter here. This is going back to a lot of what we read in Matthew as well towards the end there. I believe it was 24 gives the signs of the times there. And so Mark is gonna give us a lot of the same material here from Jesus. And we talked about a lot of this in that context, the abomination and of de desolation the, these signs and when they're gonna take place and what it's referring to there. And again, I would point out a verse like verse 19. In those days there will be such tribulation as has not been. From the beginning of creation that God created until now and never will be again. And so those that wanna argue that this has already taken place at some point in time in history, past, be it within TKI or Nero, whatever it may be, I think they've got a difficult time overcoming a statement like that because this is pretty. Pretty overwhelming that this is gonna make such waves that nothing in history can ever be compared to what this is gonna be like. That's why one of the reasons why we believe this is still future we're gonna be talking this weekend and Peter, he's gonna say, the end of all things is at hand. So Peter is trying to prepare his people and by extension us for the imminence of these things taking place. Now, we believe as those that are pre-millennial, pre tribulational, rapture. The, those that, that adhere to the rapture, we believe that the church will be taken out before this. But Jesus is preparing his followers at the time, Jews, for the reality that this is going to happen. They need to be aware and be prepared for the coming, the second coming of the son of man. What does let the reader understand mean is, who's that? Mark talking to us? Is that Jesus saying this to people who's saying this? I think that's I'm the reader, right? Yeah. I think it's an editorial comment by Mark because as Jesus is proclaiming this, he's proclaiming it. He's not writing it down, so it's inspired. It's from the Lord, but I think it's from Mark. I remember being a kid and reading this and being like, I don't understand, and feeling quite bad about that. Yeah. Poor childhood, mark. I know. He didn't know how difficult this was. Yeah and that's why, again. People, especially in today's culture and society, and you've got war going on, you've got all these things. The blood moon happened and then now we've got war with Iran and the sensationalists are going to be out there that are gonna say it's it. This is it. This is the end. This is the coming, this is the time. Maybe it is, but we have to balance that with the idea that no one knows the day or hour. And yet as Christians, we have to be careful not to be overly comforted by either reality. We have to live ready for the return of Christ at any minute. We can't be so comforted by the idea that no one knows the hour that we're like, oh man, wolf. At least because that guy said he's gonna come back next week. I know for sure he is not coming back next week 'cause nobody knows the hour. So I can live for my flesh for the next week and not have to be ready. No, we have to be ready at all times. But the other person, we also can't be that person that's obsessing over all of these things so much that we're not busy doing the work that he has for us to do as the church in the meantime until he comes back for us. We can't be the Heaven's Gate cult. That's all gonna just get together and put on our. Foil hats and drink the Kool-Aid because it's time. We have to still be busy about what he's given us to do, and yet we have to watch and look and interpret the signs and the times to be ready for his return at any point. So when it says here, let the reader understand, which, by the way, this is also in the gospel of Matthew. Matthew 24 15 says the same thing. Matthew and Mark, we believe are written very closely together in terms of their content and they're called as synoptic gospels, Matthew, mark, and Luke. Because they share a lot of the same content, synoptic information let the reader understand is a note to those who are reading, including you, to make sure that you read with awareness of the context. And I think some of the best context you could keep in mind would be Daniel nine 11 and 12. Yes. If you could read. Daniel nine 10 or Daniel nine 11 and 12. That'll give you a little bit of context as to what Jesus is referring to because this is a multiple process fulfillment. It doesn't just happen one time. It's gonna happen multiple times. And then the fact that you'll know this will help you make heads and tails of what you're about to read. I'd include Daniel seven and that as well. Daniel seven would be good. Yeah. 7, 14, 13, and 14 about the son of Man and what his job is. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure this creates questions. Eschatology always does. That's the study, the end times. And so if you've got questions about this, you want us to hit moron in detail, please write those in. We'd love to be able to do that. Yeah. Rod. rod@compassntx.org. That's great. I was gonna didn't even call you calling them a moron. Do what? I was just gonna call you out on calling them a moron. Why? Because you said if you have questions on this, moron eschatology, more space on, it's not gonna be what the transcript shows, buddy. Yeah. Well love believes the best. Right. Alright. Alright, let's pray. Lord, we wanna be a church ready for your return at any time. We wanna be that church that is on guard that is awake. But because we don't know when the day or hour is, and so help us to be faithful help us to be those that are doing what we should be doing when you come back for your bride. And we want that to be true of us corporately as a church. And if that's gonna be true corporately as a church, it has to be true of us individually as well. And so, God, I pray that you'd guard us against Slothfulness or seeking too much comfort here or taking our eyes off of where we're ultimately gonna be, but help us to set our minds on. On heaven where Christ is and be useful. In the meantime as we await his return, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Keeping your Bibles tune again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ttu Lu, please come back. I don't think you're morons. Bye.

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