Hey everybody. Welcome back. It is Monday and so hopefully your week's off to a fantastic start. I have no doubt. Yeah, I'm sure it is. Yeah. I should say, because Mondays are always great, right? Yeah. They're always great. I should say welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Yes. Yeah. 'cause I always say that, and if you're not aware by now that you're listening to the Daily Bible Podcast, well it is Monday, so. I might allow that one. You could. That's understandable. Yeah. If you don't do your typical intros and outros, nobody's gonna know. People don't know what to do. Gonna be lost. Should show you right there that they're live. We don't precan our intros and outros. They happen on the fly for a while. You did? Like a year ago. Like a long time ago we had a bumper on the front and a bumper on the back. Yeah, that's true. We don't do that anymore. I don't even know who talks on the back anymore.

I can't believe you don't remember my name is Bernard! Pastor Rod controls all that stuff and it's ai. He puts a lot of exciting things. He does. Yeah. Well, and now we've got Matthew and Hannah and they're doing our editing for us. They're doing our producing. We have producers by way. We're big time on the podcast now. We have producers. And so I have no idea what they're putting on there either. I should, probably, should, probably, should probably. You should probably know. I should probably know. I don't though. That's okay, there's nothing weird going on, PJ.

Alright.

Nothing weird at all.

I'm gonna put you on the spot. Okay. Have you started listening to Christmas music yet? Nope. Oh, are you a Scrooge? I am. Ooh, I am. I wish I had known that a while ago. I know. I've heard you and pr talk about this on the previous two years, and I was waiting for you to ask and fearing the day you would ask, but it is arrived. It's here. Yeah, it's here. And the people demand an answer. Everybody's been asking why. Does Pastor Mark hate Christmas? I have heard that. I've gotten letters. I've gotten letters, so I understand the letters. I, and listen, I fought for you, but I just want you to know it's getting hard to fight. I don't know how much fight I have left in me to defend your scrooge ness. Yeah. On this yeah. I'm sorry. It's just not Christmas yet. It's not Christmas. Okay, but Christmas is like the, one of the greatest times of the year. That's true. Admittable. Yes. So I don't like only giving it one month. There has to be boundaries though. 'cause why not three months be because that's too much. 'cause then the Christmas music loses its significance. There's a sweet spot. And that sweet spot is November through December. After December. I'm done with it. I'm moving on in January. We're done. We're not doing 12 days of Christmas into January that's not happening. We're December 26th. It's like, okay, Christmas is over. Let's start planning for next year, thinking about the new Year, things like that. But the two months is an appropriate amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. I will say, I think there's some. Hymns that we categorize as Christmas hymns. Okay? That really ought to be sung all year round, and I think it's a shame that some of those are, cordoned off just for a couple months. So I'm with you. In that sense. So what I hear you saying is that you are committing before your church family and the Lord God Almighty, the Lord of all creation, the God of the universe, that you are changing your ways, you are amending your ways, and you will become one who embraces Christmas music starting in November. Is that what I hear? Sure, sure. If that lets me keep my job, then sure. Hey, you heard it here first, folks. So if you're around, if you're riding in the car with Pastor Mark in his Tesla and he's not blasting, oh, come all you faithful, then you have grounds to say, Hey, let your yes, be yes and your no be no alright and no judgment when I'm doing it in May. Then. No, no judgment here. That's fine. I'd rather that than just confining it to the month of December. I just think, Hey let's expand things. And I know the argument it takes away from Thanksgiving. No, it doesn't. The Cowboys losing everything. That's what takes away from Thanksgiving. But not Christmas music. So what I think it comes from for me is that I did the orchestra, the world and the world system, but yeah, yeah. Pretty much. Okay. I did orchestra. Okay. In high school, middle school. And you start doing Christmas music Oh, yeah. A nauseum way before even November. Yeah. And it just, it was too much. So maybe I'm just recovering. Maybe I'm just recovering and I'll come around. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And that was a long time ago. We have the Kids' Christmas musical, which has been going. Now rehearsals since October. So yeah, end of October. You're perpetuating the problem that you are blaming your anti Christmas ness on. Yeah. So anyways, whatever you're doing, enjoy it. If you choose to wait to listen to Christmas music, I mean you're wrong, but we love you anyways, and you can do that. Let's jump into our Bible reading today. We are in Mark chapter 11, and John chapter 12. Mark 11. In John 12. I know this gets confusing. It's almost more confusing than reading the prophets in keeping with First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles. There's so much back and forth and it's like Mark 11, John 12. Wait, John 11. John Mark 12. So keep your bookmark out there your card out there and track along with where we're falling here. But Mark 11 is a lot of familiar territory stuff that we have talked about recently. It starts with the triumphal entry here. Mark adds the detail that he went to the temple first. And so that's interesting. He comes into the triumphal entry, goes to the temple, but then before the cleansing goes back home because it was late and it was late in the day. And so he's going to come back the following day for the cleansing of the temple. So, triumphal entry here, he comes in just like we've been talking about the past couple of days, goes straight to the temple mount, looks around, observes what's going on there, and. This is a small shred of it, but I think this is some of his humanity here. Mm-hmm. Because he does have to go and observe. He does have to go and see the status of things being God, being omniscient. He could have known what was going on, and yet in his humanity, I think he goes and observes mm-hmm. Makes the decision, I'm not gonna deal with this today. I'm gonna come back tomorrow and deal with it. Yeah. Even the fact he needs rest, that's not just evidence here. True. But evidence in other places, it's pretty, pretty stunning if you think about it that Jesus, the God man. Needs to go take a nap. Yeah. Needs to go sleep. Yeah. Needs to get some respite. That is remarkable. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely it is. And then the next day is when he comes back to the temple mount, but on his way he finds this fig tree and he ends up again, like we talked about previously, he curses the fig tree. We read about this in Matthew chapter 21. Mark 1113 says that there was no figs for, it wasn't. The season, and now Jesus would've clearly known that growing up in Jerusalem, growing up in the nearby area in Israel there, he knew when it was. Season for figs or not, but he was gonna seize upon this opportunity as a chance to teach the disciples a lesson. And so running, even in the background of this is Jeremiah, probably chapter eight verse 13 says, when I would gather them, declares the Lord, there were no grapes on the vine nor figs on the tree. So the disciples, if they're paying attention, may have even thought back to Jeremiah chapter eight and thought, okay, this is about. Israel, this is an indictment of Israel. And so as Jeremiah was prophesying that Jesus is now saying this is the reality of that here as he curses the fig tree on the way up to the temple mount. Yeah. Can you help us understand kind of his conclusion there at, in verses like 25? It some, it might initially seem like it is kind of disjointed from. He's talking about, and this is under, at least in the ESV section that's titled the lesson from the withered fig tree. What does that have to do with when you stand praying, forgive? Yeah. Well, I think if we back up before that, he's talking about faith. The lesson is that there's no faith that the problem with Israel was that there was no faith there in God, and that faithlessness was producing an. Empty, manmade religious system. Mm-hmm. In that empty, manmade religious system, just like the fig tree was barren, it was not producing any genuine fruit. And so Jesus says in verse 22, have faith in God. And that's when he then says, I say to you, if you look at this mountain and say, be taken up, that the faith that you're supposed to have is gonna move this mountain. And then in verse 24, therefore whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it. And it will be yours. And then he says, and whenever you stand praying if you have anything against anyone so that the father who is in heaven may forgive you or trespasses. So this just, I think, magnifies the almost. Apparent non sequitur of him turning to forgiveness here magnifies the importance of forgiveness. Yeah, because he's really giving the lesson to the fixture. The lesson to the fixture is you need to have faith, and if you have that faith, then you're gonna have this dynamic relationship with the Lord. You're gonna ask things that are gonna be pleasing to him so that he's gonna give those things to you. However caveat, if you're not gonna forgive, then you're not gonna have that relationship with God. Then your sins aren't gonna be forgiven. So. It's interesting that he does put it in here. It does feel like a little bit of whiplash here. Yeah. As you're reading through this, it's like, wait a minute, why are we talking about, why are we talking about forgiveness when he's talking about this fig tree? But it's in that context of faith and that's when he goes back and gives the lesson to the fig tree. After the temple cleansing, the disciples are on their way back out and he says, they say to him what's the story with the fig tree? And he gives this response and says it's about faith. And the fact that Israel has no faith in what God's promise had been. And that's clarifying too for when he says, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it. Because that is not just an open blank check. That's not just whatever, whenever God will serve you and provide whatever you want, it's specifically in the context of this faith that you're talking about. And somebody who has faith will make mistakes, but we'll be praying things that honor God that will be in alignment with the things that he says we ought to be caring about and wanting for sure. Absolutely. The Mark chapter 11 ends with, again, that, that question from the Jewish leaders after the cleansing of the temple, Hey, on what grounds are you doing this? Who gives you the right? What authority do you have to do this? And Jesus says, I'm gonna ask you that question. He asked that question like we talked about a couple of days ago, was the baptism of John, was that from heaven or from men? And they answer we don't know because they don't want to find themselves in a sticky situation with the crowds. And so he says, well, then I'm not gonna tell you either. And again, the reason is not because Jesus was afraid, but because he didn't, it wasn't his hour yet. And somebody asked a question. We talked about the interference of men even as Jesus with the triumphal entry and the prediction of his death pre prevented the disciples from understanding things. And I said. That was to keep them from interfering with God's plan. So somebody said, can we can humans really even interfere with God's plan? And the answer is no. But part of the way that God executes his plan is by preventing us from interfering with this plan. Mm-hmm. And that's through doing things like preventing us from understanding everything that he's doing right now. There may even be things. Right now that God is doing that, he's keeping you from fully understanding about what's going on in your life because if you knew, you might try to stop what he's gonna end up doing in your life. Yeah. Because maybe what he's doing is getting ready to lead you into a trial that's going to be sanctifying for you. Mm-hmm. It's gonna be good for you, Allah, Romans 8, 28 and 29. But if you had to choose you'd be like, Hey, I'm out. I don't want this. Yeah I'm not into this at all. And I'm gonna do everything I can to avoid going into that trial. And God's saying, no. You need to be in that trial. And I think that's what we're really driving at here. The disciples would've done everything they could to keep Jesus from being killed. And yet God is saying no, he needs to go to the cross. The father is saying he needs to go to the cross. Jesus is saying I need to go to the cross. So that's what I mean by saying, keeping us from meddling with what God is doing. Not that we would be able to, but part of the way that he keeps us from interfering is keeping some things from us that otherwise we would want to evade or escape. Yeah. And you've used this example before and I think it's really helpful in terms of election and that God doesn't necessarily reveal everything about who is elect and who is not. And you make the point and have a couple times, and I think it's helpful that he does that in a act of kindness towards us because how difficult would it be to have a kid who isn't elect and to know that and to continue to be obedient to his commands and stuff? That would be really difficult. And so there's examples like. That I think I can think of dozens of them, honestly. Where God is kind to to act in that way. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let's go to John chapter 12, which is our second chapter today. And I wanna focus in on the things that are unique to John here. 'cause there's some, again, common ground here. We do have the triumphal entry again. But before this, we have the anointing of Jesus. And so, this is Sunday or Saturday, rather before passion week. So this is right before the triumphal entry. Jesus has been staying with Lazarus. And the Mary and Martha. And on that occasion there's a dinner that happens here and Martha's serving and Lazarus is there and Mary comes. And Mary takes this expensive ointment, this expensive perfume, and she anoints the feet of Jesus and wipes his feet with her hair. We find out that this was perfume that was worth about a year's salary. Stunning. Which is crazy. Yeah. Can you imagine? Can you imagine that? No. Taking a year's salary and spending it on a one time thing, I can't imagine buying perfume for a year's salary. Let's just put it that way too. And Judas, of course, is the one that's incensed by this. And that's some pleasant irony here that he is incensed by this. And he says we could have sold this and given it to the poor. And Jesus tells him, you're always gonna have the poor. But this was good. She's preparing me for burial again. It's something the disciples aren't gonna understand at this point in time. But this is a sweet act of Mary, and this is again, Mary in her devotion to Christ. Mm-hmm. Martha is there, but notice again, Martha is serving and just like back when Martha told the Lord, Hey Lord, tell my sister to help me. Martha's busy serving. Mary is again, at the feet of literally this time at the feet of Jesus anointing Jesus' feet with this perfume, wiping his feet with her hair. Mary is commendable for her devotion and love for Christ. And even she didn't understand that she's anointing him for burial. But Jesus is saying this is something that, that God's purpose is superseding what's actually taking place here. This is to prepare me for what's in front of me. Yeah it really is an amazing story amazing account. And we can so easily just skip over a passage like this because there's significant things, parables that come before it, and significant accounts of what happens after it. But this really is an amazing account. And again fulfilling God's purpose and plan. He has Mary do this, right? This is part of, right. Everything that's part of this week. And this is an incredible act of faithfulness in it. At least Martha isn't Judas. No, for sure. At least Martha's not Judas. And Martha's not the bad guy in this either. No. I don't mean to imply that this is not the same as when Jesus said Mary has chosen the better thing. Yeah. I just, it's commendable what we see from Mary there. Yeah, it is. It's fascinating, man. Isn't God an amazing storyteller? Talk about foreshadowing and this isn't the only place we see these things, but you know, the scriptures are just amazing in even their. Their construction. Yeah. And their storytelling. And don't miss those things. Yeah. That's something that you should be in awe about as you read your Bible. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, Jesus comes in and has this triumphal entry, and the Jews are perplexed. They're saying the world has gone after him. And then John in his masterful John is again a great storyteller. And that's one unique things about John's gospel. Mm-hmm. John is writing almost. Towards the end of the first century ad sometime probably in the nineties he's writing this, so it's quite removed from these events and that's one of the reasons why John is so deep and has such a theological bent to his gospel because he's had the years to reflect on this and also to learn more. And he's had interaction probably with Paul's writings and Peter and others. And so he's so much more intentional about the arrangement of things. Not that he puts things out of order or that he messes with the historicity of things, but here he includes this the Pharisee saying the whole world's going after him. And then he has these Greeks come up to, to talk with Philip and say, we want to see Jesus. And so the Pharisees are saying the world, the Gentiles, those that are not part of Israel, they're going after Jesus. And John's like, and here they are. Here's some Greeks that want to see Jesus, which is just really cool. It is. And Jesus though, in, in verse 27, finally gets to what he's been dancing around for much of John's gospel, and that is the arrival of his hour. He says, now, as my soul troubled he says that the hour has come. I, for this purpose, I've come to this hour. He says, I'm not gonna ask to be delivered, but this is where we begin to see. Angst. Right. You know, this is passion week, and so this is gonna culminate in the garden as Jesus is praying and sweating, as Luke is gonna say. Mm-hmm. Like drops of blood and praying. Father, let this cut pass from me. He's already feeling the angst of that moment here right after the triumphal entry. Right after this time, he's beginning to dread what's in front of him in his humanity, and yet he doesn't. Ever waver. He says, what am I supposed to do? Say Father, deliver me. Save me from this hour for this purpose. I came. And so instead he's gonna say, instead, verse 28, father glorify your name. And then this voice comes from heaven. I have glorified it. I will glorify it again. And this is public and the voice is there and the crowd hears something and they think, man, it's thundered. And others hear at least a voice. 'cause they say an angel has spoken to 'em. So, this is Jesus that is just saying, look, this is I love scenes like this with Christ because we see the humanity and the deity of Christ on full display here. Not wrestling with each other, but just honestly, working through the travails that we're awaiting in. Yeah. And that's how we can get. Writing, like in Hebrews, it says We have a high priest who's able to sympathize with us because yeah he knows in a hundred percent genuine, real way what it's like to be a human. It's what it's like to be like you and I and he goes through even more intense things than you and I do. But he knows what it's like and that's an amazing thing that the God of the universe who creates and upholds and is holy can also. Perhaps have these sort of emotions. Yeah. And in his humanity, to be clear. Yeah, yeah. No doubt. No doubt. From here he talks about the fact that there are going to be many who profess faith but don't actually believe, and he quotes Isaiah six and that, that idea of. Blinding the eyes and keeping them from hearing as part of God's passive judgment against those that have rejected him and those that even have the spurious faith, which is hard. Verses 42 and 43 it says many of even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue for they love the glory that comes from man, more than the glory that comes from God. I go back and forth on whether or not this is genuine. Only because Jesus has said multiple times, if you are ashamed to confess me before men, I'm not gonna confess you before my father. And that seems to be exactly the problem that's facing the Pharisees here, and the fact that they love the glory that comes from men more than they love the glory that comes from God. So this seems to be. I don't know. It's a certainly an immature faith, perhaps even a spurious faith. Yeah. I think that John writes a lot of First John because of what Jesus says, obviously throughout his ministry, but in, in this chapter in particular, I can see a lot of similarities and I think First John is a helpful place to go where we can see some of that answered. Well, to your, to your question. So yeah if you're wondering about how some of this works, I think First John is a great place to go to, to further understand what Jesus is talking about here with a little bit more clarity, I suppose. Not that he's not being clear here, but I think you know what I mean. Yeah. Then almost anticipating the question than what is saving faith look like? That's how the chapter ends. Jesus cries out and says, whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me. I've come into the world, verse 46. As lights that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. And then he says, the one in verse 48 who rejects me and does not receive my words, has a judge. The word that I've spoken will judge him on the last day. And so Jesus has come in order to bring life. And that life comes from receiving his words and believing in him, which is a great and poignant reminder for us today as well. Yeah, that's right. Walking the light as he's in the light. Yep. Let's pray. God, we thank you for salvation that we have in Christ and that he came to save us not to judge. We thank you that you didn't just take the paper ball of creation and wadd it up and throw it in the giant trash back bucket and. Say, well, we tried. That didn't work out, but we thank you that you have worked all of redemptive history, even up until this point, to bring people to salvation and to give us an opportunity to repent from our sins and to trust in your forgiveness that we have as we know now through Jesus Christ, through his death on the cross which was atoning, substitutionary, which paid our penalty for our sins and through his resurrection that we might have life eternal on. So we thank you for that glorious reality. May we live in the light in response to it. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Keep bringing Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Merry Christmas. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear? Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said