May 23, 2025 • 61 mins
Living with the one you love is both wonderful and hard. It's wonderful sharing life together but it is hard when you disagree. It's not much different between us and God, the difference is that He is never wrong and so when we find ourselves wrestling with something He is teaching us, we need to lay aside our ego to learn. Jacob wrestled with God and was commended for it. God understands our limitations and wants us to grow which is why He has laid out His plan in the Bible for us, to believe in Christ and then receive the Holy Spirit so He can be with us.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
There's no theologians who, well, I reject
the virgin birth, but I believein the you know dividing of the
fish and lobe.
No, if you reject the one,you're going to reject all the
others too.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
When you love someone , you just want to be near them.
You want to be in theirpresence to talk with them.
This is what love is all aboutbeing with the one you love, not
being distant from them.
God is the same with us, heloves us and he wants to be with
(00:44):
us.
He wants to be in our presence.
This desire of his hasmanifested itself differently
throughout history.
You can look back and thinkabout the various times God came
into this creation to be withthe creatures he created.
It's a mind-boggling thing.
When you think about the extentto which God wants to be with
(01:07):
us.
And when you apply this idea toyour Christian relationship,
your relationship with God, andyou relate it to a marriage
relationship, you can see thatbeing this close to another
person sometimes creates strife.
It's a difference of opinionand in every good marriage there
(01:30):
is strife, because the man isnot always right and the woman
is not always right, andsometimes they are both wrong.
But by being together andtalking you learn and you grow.
Jacob did this with God.
It's how he got his namechanged to Israel.
He wrestled with God.
(01:50):
Now put these two conceptstogether.
We can't wrestle with God andlearn from him.
We can't correct our thinkingand our behavior unless we are
close to him, unless we areclose to him.
Close to him by reading theBible, studying, praying,
confessing sin, being in rightrelationship.
(02:19):
So today the encouragement isto dwell, to choose to dwell
with God, because he wants todwell with you, and to wrestle
with His Word, to learn moreabout Him and to deepen, really
deepen, your relationship.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Last time I went through the responses to the
event of the virgin birth andparticularly I looked at the
Jewish response and I looked atthe Gentile response.
You might remember that theJewish response is one of
basically initial excitement.
I took you to the shepherdsnear Bethlehem as they went and
they were excited and they toldother people about this and it
(02:56):
was an amazing thing and peoplewere all excited.
But then that initialexcitement wore off and you
wonder, through the early pagesof the Gospels, why there's
really nothing about Jesus'searly life or discussion of
people following his career inIsrael.
Because you know he is theMessiah, he's the Savior, he's
(03:17):
been born, so why is there notan interest?
And the next thing you see he's12 years old now.
At the temple, right, he'sshocking the teachers by his
understanding of the Hebrew OldTestament and of course the
excitement had worn off and sothey didn't have a very good
response and that response getsduplicated during his ministry.
(03:39):
But we'll talk more about that.
Then we also talked about theGentile response to the birth
and this is very interesting toobecause you see, in Matthew,
chapter 2, one of the sub-themesof the Gospel of Matthew is the
Gentile response.
So usually he's talking aboutthe Jewish response, but
periodically he'll inject astory about a Gentile or a group
of Gentiles.
And the interesting one at hisbirth is you know, the Magi, the
(04:02):
astronomers from the East whocome in Matthew, chapter 2,
looking for the king of the Jews.
Why are these Gentile nobilitycoming so far to see a Jewish
king?
And so there's this initialexcitement among Gentiles.
And then you have a great storyin chapter 8 of Matthew of the
(04:24):
centurion and the centurion whoneeded someone to be healed in
his home.
And he tells the Lord says well, take me to him and I'll see
about this matter.
And he says you don't have todo that, all you have to do is
say the word.
I'm a man like you, a man ofauthority.
If I tell someone in my ranks,you go and do this, he goes and
(04:45):
does it.
I tell another soldier, go, dothat, he goes and he does it.
He says all you have to do issay the word and he'll be healed
.
And Jesus says I haven't seensuch great faith, even in all
Israel.
So there's this shock andinterest among Gentiles in the
Jewish Messiah.
And then the Syrophoenicianwoman.
Remember, she's a Gentile andshe's asking for something from
(05:09):
him and he ignores her.
And she asks again and he saysyou know, we don't throw bread
to the dogs, to Gentiles, tounclean people.
And she says what she says.
Well, even the dogs eat thecrumbs from the master's table.
So there's this hunger amongthe gentile world for the jewish
(05:29):
messiah as we unfold the bookof matthew.
And so it's an interestingresponse that you have from both
groups, and we know that as thechurch began on pentecost, it
began all jewish right.
But not long after that you'vegot cornelius and Gentiles from
his household coming in, andthen Paul is going to the
Gentiles and you have atremendous Gentile response and
(05:50):
the book of Romans describesthis period as the fullness of
the Gentiles coming in.
And so the predominant groupwho has believed in the
Messiahship of Jesus, the JewishMessiah, have actually been
Gentiles, even though of courseJews can still of course, be
saved.
But this is the interestingthing that all kind of began at
the birth and the responses tothe birth, so we highlighted
(06:13):
those.
I wanted to give a fewprinciples of unbelief as we
start today and then get intothese three streams of
Revelation.
First of all, just asking aquestion.
You know why do men have aproblem with the virgin birth?
This wasn't just a problem, youknow, among Jews in the first
centuries.
It's, of course, come down toour own day.
(06:34):
If you turn to John, chapter 3,we get some principles of
unbelief in this gospel.
Actually, there's only onegospel, right?
Let me repeat that there's notfour gospels.
You didn't know that right.
Let me repeat that there's notfour gospels.
You didn't know that right.
I mean, everybody talks aboutthe four gospels, but actually
in the early church they wereknown as the fourfold gospel,
singular, because there's reallyonly one gospel.
(06:55):
It was only later that peoplediscussed them in terms of the
gospels.
But there's not four gospels,there's one, and that highlights
that all four of the Gospelactually agree with one another
in terms of what the Gospel is.
They're just looking at thelife of Jesus from different
perspectives and giving Histeachings and His works.
(07:19):
So John, chapter 3, we all knowverse 16, right, one of the most
famous verses in the world,probably the most famous, for
God so loved the world that hegave his only begotten Son that
whosoever believes in him shallnot perish but have everlasting
life.
This is in the story withNicodemus right, where Nicodemus
came to him at night because hedidn't want to be seen by the
other Pharisees.
He was ashamed and he wanted toknow what good thing he had to
(07:44):
do in order to enter into thekingdom.
And Jesus, of course, tells himyou cannot see the kingdom
unless you're born again.
You're born from above.
So this is in that context ofthe story with Nicodemus, and as
he gives him the answer of howsomeone can be born again here
in verse 16, you know, which issimply through believing right,
believing in Him, believing inJesus, who's the only begotten
(08:06):
Son of God, he then begins toexplain why he comes in verse 17
.
And that's obviously talkingabout the incarnation, the
virgin birth, for God did notsend His Son into the world to
judge the world, but that theworld might be saved through Him
.
He who believes in him is notjudged.
(08:26):
He who does not believe hasbeen judged already.
Why?
Because he's not believed inthe name of the only begotten
Son of God.
So this is highlighting like ifyou are in this world right now
and you not believe, you'restanding under a judgment of
condemnation and the reason isbecause you've not believed.
It's not because Jesus didn'tdie for your sins.
(08:49):
He did.
He died for your sins, butyou've yet to believe in him,
and so you're standing under adeath sentence, meaning you'll
be separated from God forever ifyou don't believe in him.
But you always have theopportunity to believe in him,
right?
I mean, even verse 17 says hedidn't come into the world to
judge, but to save the world.
Okay, he came to save men.
He didn't just come in herejust to judge people.
(09:10):
He wants people to believe inhim so they aren't judged, right
?
Verse 19,.
This is the judgment, and thisis why people in our modern day
and in the ancient world,ancient day, in our modern day
and in the ancient world,ancient day, have trouble with
the virgin birth.
This is the judgment that thelight has come into the world.
I mean, jesus is the light ofthe world.
(09:36):
Right, but men loved darknessrather than the light.
Men loved darkness rather thanthe light.
Why?
For their deeds were evil.
I'm going to share this.
Robin, she told me yesterday Idon't know this firsthand, this
is coming from her Countrywestern singer, jason Aldean.
I guess you all know what'sgoing on.
(09:59):
He wrote this story, this song.
It's a story about you know,you can't get away with stuff in
small towns.
I've lived in lots of smalltowns.
I grew up in Paris, texas.
We had 25,000 people.
I think there's still 25,000people there.
I lived in Fredericksburg had10,000 people.
I've lived in a lot of smalltowns.
You can't get away with stuffbecause everybody else holds you
(10:20):
accountable.
I mean, try stealing someone'scar and see how that works for
you.
It's not going to go over sowell, and then you're a marked
person in the whole community.
So you know, you just can't getaway with stuff, right?
Crime is low.
Well, he writes this song,right?
(10:43):
Apparently he's getting a lotof flack for it.
And I'm thinking why would yoube against?
You know this type of idea thatyou can't get away with evil.
Well, it's because of somethinglike verse 19.
Men love darkness rather thanlight, because their deeds are
evil.
See, they're a part of thiswickedness and they don't like
this accountability.
They don't like being caught.
They want to be able to do evilwhenever they want and not have
to suffer the consequences.
(11:04):
Don't like being caught.
They want to be able to do evilwhenever they want and not have
to suffer the consequences.
But this is citing why peopleare troubled by the Lord Jesus.
Okay, verse 20 also continuesthis theme For everyone who does
evil hates the light and doesnot come to the light.
Why?
For fear that his deeds will beexposed.
This is the number one problem.
I always use the example of theIRS.
If you don't pay your taxes,who are the last people you want
(11:33):
to see?
I mean, are you really going togo to the IRS and walk in the
building if you haven't beenpaying your taxes for the last
10 years?
No, why?
Because you're fearful thatyour failure to pay taxes will
be exposed and then you'll haveto pay them, that your failure
to pay taxes will be exposed andthen you'll have to pay them.
So people have short accountswith God.
They realize that they don'twant to be exposed.
They don't want to step intohis presence because that's a
(11:57):
fearful proposition.
And then verse 21,.
The converse for the believer.
But he who practices the truthcomes to the light.
Why do we come to the light?
Because so that our deeds maybe manifested as having been
wrought by God, in other words,god's at work in us.
So we're not ashamed to stepinto his presence to come to the
light.
So this is one of the basicreasons that people are opposed
(12:19):
to the virgin birth?
It's because, when you see thevirgin birth, you're looking at
a unique person who came intothe world.
This isn't just a normal birth.
This is a birth of someone whowas born of a virgin and avoided
, imputed sin, inherited sin and, through his life, avoided all
personal sin, being tempted inall things as we, and yet found
(12:41):
without sin.
So it's not just here's thething, it's not just the virgin
birth that has been so rejectedin history, because the virgin
birth is obviously a miracle.
Right, everybody agree it's amiracle, it's all miracles, it's
(13:01):
all miracles that are reallyopposed to.
There's no theologians who, well, I reject the virgin birth, but
I believe in the dividing ofthe fish and lobe.
No, if you reject the one,you're going to reject all the
others too.
Because of what?
Because of natural law.
(13:22):
That's why I was a scientist.
I had five years working inplant physiology, a degree in
biology and chemistry and veryfamiliar with evolutionary
theory, both in physics,chemistry and biology.
And there's all this talk aboutnatural law and how things must
(13:43):
work according to these laws andprinciples.
Right, in that view of reality,there's no room for miracles.
I mean, you can't have virginbirths, you can't have people
walking in water.
You can't have people turningwater into wine.
This just doesn't work in thatworldview.
(14:04):
So people with that conception,that worldview, when they come
to the virgin birth, theyautomatically reject it.
Why do they reject it?
Because they've rejected God.
They've rejected a God who, inthe Noahic covenant, said His
Word would control nature.
(14:24):
Isn't that one of the mostabundantly clear things in the
gospels?
As Jesus goes out on the Sea ofGalilee and it's all tossing
and it's crazy, because all thiswind would sweep over from the
eastern side down onto that lakeand it would stir it up and it
was dangerous.
A lot of people lost their lifeon that lake.
And then he just speaks to thewaters and he rebukes them,
right, and they become stillinstantaneously.
(14:47):
What's it saying?
It's saying that he, his word,controls nature.
There's no such thing asnatural law.
Okay, that's just there.
Besides, what would that beanyway?
Natural law?
I mean, as far as I can tellfrom everywhere I look, people
make laws, people make laws.
Nature doesn't make laws.
(15:08):
The question is, who made thelaws by which nature basically
functions in a normal sense?
Nobody asked that question.
Isn't there a person behindnature who is controlling it,
and the normal way he does so isif I step out of the boat I'm
going to sink.
But couldn't that person whocontrols nature also say that
when I step out of the boat I'mgoing to sink?
But couldn't that person whocontrols nature also say that
(15:28):
when I step out of the boat,like Peter, did I get to
actually stand on it?
If that person controls nature,then he can say what is and what
is not, and that creates theopportunity for what we might
call miracles.
Right, like a virgin birth.
But men don't want to face thatbecause that means there's a
supernatural realm, that meansthere's a God they're going to
(15:49):
have to face.
That means, because of theirshort accounts, they don't want
to face that God.
So there's this resistance tothe virgin birth, as well as all
the miraculous things in theBible.
So what they end up doing?
Turn to Romans 1.
What people end up doing isrejecting the truth of God, but
(16:12):
that doesn't come withoutaccepting a lie.
Okay, romans 1 is talking aboutthis concept in verses 18
through 32.
That everyone knows God.
Verse 18,.
The wrath of God is revealedfrom heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousnessof men who suppress the truth in
(16:32):
unrighteousness.
Men suppress the truth inunrighteousness.
That means they know it, butthey're suppressing it, they're
holding it down.
I used to use the example ofhave you ever been to the
swimming pool in the summer andthere's a bunch of kids with a
beach ball and they bat itaround and then after a while
they're trying to hold itunderwater, you know, and stuff
like that.
It keeps popping up.
(16:53):
It always comes back up, right?
That's the suppressiontechnique.
People try to hold down theirknowledge of God.
They try to suppress it it, butit keeps popping up in life.
They keep having littleconfrontations with him here and
there, sometimes through you,sometimes through me, sometimes
(17:13):
by the northern lights, right,where there's moments where they
just are in awe and they knowthat god is there.
But they're suppressing allthat.
They don't want to think aboutthat because men love darkness
rather than light, right?
So verse 19, he explainsbecause that which is known
about God is evident within them.
Okay, it's evident inside ofpeople, for God made it evident
(17:35):
to them.
In other words, people know Godbecause they have what is
called a God consciousness.
God creates that in everyindividual.
Is there anybody who doesn'tknow God exists, according to
these verses, no, everybodyknows God exists.
We don't have to prove God'sexistence.
We don't have to use the tenarguments for the existence of
God the teleological argument,the cosmological argument, all
(17:58):
these great.
The ontological argument.
You can go through all that.
It's very interesting things,but you don't really have to
prove the existence of God toanyone, because they already
know.
But what's happening is they'resuppressing.
So what you're trying to dowith people is get them to let
their guard down a minute sothat you can expose them to God,
so that they can understand thefree gift of salvation in
(18:19):
Christ and so they can believeand come to have eternal life.
But they know, god made itevident to them Verse 20,.
Then he explains for since thecreation of the world is that
kind of a long time ago, I mean,I think that encompasses
everybody right in the humanrace.
You know, nobody was before thecreation of the world.
So since the creation of theworld, his invisible attributes,
(18:40):
his eternal power and divinenature have been clearly seen.
I always love this partInvisible attributes, his
eternal power and divine naturehave been clearly seen.
I always love this partInvisible things have been
clearly seen.
Actually, the Greek is aiorita,kata, aiorita.
It's exactly the same word, butwith a prefix on the front of
the second word.
In other words, invisiblethings are visible to men.
That's what it's saying.
The invisible God is highlyvisible to everyone.
(19:02):
That's what this verse issaying.
How, through what he has made,through creation.
We've got God consciousness,verse 19.
We've got creation in verse 20.
It's understood, it's clearlyseen.
It's not just cloudy, it'sclearly seen, we would say, with
20-20 vision being understoodthrough what has been made, so
(19:26):
that they are without whatExcuse?
In other words, if people youknow do have to stand before God
at the great white thronejudgment, are they going to be
able to make the excuse?
You know, your existence justwasn't clear to me.
Is that going to work?
Is that going to be a goodargument?
Is God going to say you know, Ihaven't thought of that one,
(19:46):
you know, and nobody else hascome up here and said that
either.
A lot of people are going tosay that and he's going to say,
no, I made it clear.
Notice this occasion on yourlife where you're actually
looking at creation and you say,gosh, there's got to be
something greater than me,greater than all of this.
Who made this?
You this?
(20:12):
Who made this.
You know, everybody has lookedat it and has said that.
Whether they told you about itor not, they have looked at it
and realized there's a God.
So they're suppressing thatthough.
Okay, and that's why ideas likethe virgin birth are just not
tasteful to people who don'tbelieve.
They're not going to acceptthat.
What does that say about theevents like the virgin birth?
It doesn't say anything aboutthem.
What does it say about them?
It says they don't believe.
That's all it says.
They're giving aself-commentary.
(20:32):
They're saying I don't believein that.
I believe in natural law, Ibelieve all this is just there,
really.
But you know, you know, andthat's where you look for the
opportunities when they actuallyreveal that they do know, or
you challenge.
For example, when people sayand everybody does that's right.
As much as this culture is aboutrelativism, moral relativism
(20:55):
you will still hear every singleperson on the planet say that's
wrong or that's right.
How many people would like tocome out and stand up here on
stage and give a dissertation asto why what the Nazis did in
the 1930s and 40s was right?
Won't most people on the planetsay what happened was wrong?
(21:19):
Well, let me ask you a questionwhere does that come from, this
innate sense that that is wrong?
How can that be?
See, everybody knows, and thisis just an opportunity for you
to say well, if there's no suchthing as right and wrong and
everything's relative, thenwhat's right for you may be
(21:42):
wrong for me, and who cares?
Then you know.
But they obviously do care,because, jason Aldean, we can't
have songs like that.
That's wrong.
You don't have any basis formaking these moral judgments,
yet you make them all the time.
Where does that come from?
So everybody knows God?
(22:03):
Now I'll read a quote about andthis is coming from quite a long
time ago, in the 20th century,there was a move in theological
circles called liberalism, andliberalism was theological
liberalism.
These are people who didn'tbelieve in the virgin birth,
(22:23):
they didn't believe in themiracles and stuff and so forth.
Here is one famous Unitariantheologian.
Unitarians are people who arenot Trinitarian, so they're can
you say, christians that don'tbelieve in the Trinity, but
they're Unitarian.
Okay, he was the president ofHarvard in the Trinity, but
they're Unitarian.
Okay, he was the president ofHarvard at the time, charles
Eliot.
And this is what he says aboutthe new conception of God and
(22:47):
what it will be like in the 20thand 21st centuries.
He says the new thought of Godwill be its most characteristic
element.
This ideal will comprehend theJewish Jehovah, the Christian
universal father, the modernphysicist's omnipresent and
exhaustless energy and thebiological conception of a vital
(23:08):
force.
He says this is the newconception of God.
It's just melding of all thesethings together into what we
would just basically say God is.
You know, like the God ofEinstein.
Einstein said you know, godexists.
There's no possibility for Godnot to exist.
But the question is, what didhe mean by that?
He wasn't talking about theTrinity.
(23:30):
He wasn't talking about theChristian God.
He wasn't talking about theJewish God.
He wasn't talking aboutanything like that.
He was talking about he saidGod does not play dice with the
universe.
Remember that.
He meant the universe is God.
That's what he's talking about.
It's a conception of God thathe is the universe.
(23:52):
This is why it's so difficult totalk to people about God
anymore, because there are somany different conceptions of
who God is.
In biology, he's theevolutionary process.
In physics, he's exhaustiveenergy, see not the infinite
(24:13):
personal God.
They're talking aboutimpersonal processes.
This is why in the 1940s and50s, when Francis Schaeffer was
over in Switzerland at Labrie.
Labrie was basically a havenfor anyone to come and he would
address their issues as collegestudents in the area.
They would come and as long asthey pitched in and worked
around the house, they couldstay as long as they wanted.
Can you imagine opening yourhouse to like 55 college
(24:36):
students and you can stay aslong as you want.
You have to go to these eveningdiscussions and we'll discuss
anything, and he was open todiscuss any ideas and of course
he's a biblical theologian typeguy.
But he had people that camethrough there and here's what
they believed.
They had entrusted their livesto Jesus but they didn't believe
(25:01):
God existed.
In your mind you say what?
How can you entrust your lifeto Jesus but not believe in God,
in the existence of God?
The categories are so muddledin our world that when you
present Jesus to them, it's likethat song that came out in the
90s who's she Jesus, who's she?
They don't even know if they'remale or female.
(25:25):
This is why we're taking thetime to try to understand what
the Bible says about who Jesusis, because the world has been
very busy, under satanicinfluences, explaining God away
as just physics or exhaustiveenergy or evolutionary process,
and Jesus explained him or herright away with it, so that
(25:51):
people don't really know evenwho he is and definitely don't
know what he did.
So that said, how the worldexplains truth away and what
we're really up against when wetake the gospel.
Thankfully it's the power ofGod unto salvation, right.
But you still have to, when youtalk to people, explain who God
(26:12):
is.
You still have to, when youtalk to people, explain who
Jesus is and what he did.
These things have to beexplained because otherwise
you're just talking right pastpeople if you haven't defined
your term.
Defining terms is superimportant, especially today when
everything's been redefined.
So now I'm going to take you tothe Old Testament.
I'm going to show you how theworld should have been ready.
I want you to go to the book ofGenesis.
(26:35):
When I was in seminary, one ofmy professors said Stanley
Toussaint.
He said that the mostfundamental idea in the Bible is
this concept that God wants todwell with man.
(26:56):
So I'm going to talk aboutthree streams of evidence.
One is dwelling, this conceptof dwelling.
The other one is going to beGod and the other one will be
man.
But you put them all togetherthis concept that God wants to
dwell with man.
And these are three storiesthat are going on in the Old
Testament.
You will see these stories veryquickly.
(27:17):
Even if you've not been aChristian very long, you'll be
able to catch these ideas.
So the first one if you look atGenesis, chapter 2 and verse 6
and 7, we have the creation ofman.
Verse 6 and 7, a mist used torise from the earth and water
(27:39):
the whole surface of the ground.
We're talking about the earth.
Right.
Then the Lord God formed man ofdust from the ground and
breathed into his nostrils thebreath of life, and man became a
living being or soul.
And this being, this soul, ismade in the image of God.
Right, for what purpose?
(27:59):
Well, obviously, to have arelationship with God, the one
whose image he bears.
Now, if you look in verse 15,it says the Lord God took the
man and put him into the Gardenof Eden to cultivate and keep it
.
So question was the man made,created inside the Garden of
Eden or was he created outsidethe Garden of Eden, outside?
(28:22):
Now you have to start to thinkwith me, okay, about the Garden
of Eden itself, what it musthave been like.
So it's definitely within aspace and there's space outside
that garden, right, we know that, because he made Adam outside,
he put him in it, okay, and thequestion becomes what is this
garden really?
Is this not where God wants todwell with man?
(28:48):
In this garden, I'm going tocall it a garden temple.
In the ancient world they hadthe hanging gardens of Babylon.
It was basically a garden park.
Many kings of the ancient worldhad these to go and to relax in
, to enjoy times of respite.
They were gorgeous.
(29:08):
I mean, you can imagine.
What do you think the Garden ofEden is?
It's one of these pleasureparks.
It's a place where you coulddwell with God.
It's where you communed withGod.
In fact, chapter 3, verse 8says what?
Chapter 3, verse 8.
After the fall, they've sowedtheir fig leaves.
It says they heard the sound ofthe Lord God walking in the
(29:31):
garden in the cool of the day.
They heard the sound of theLord God walking the word for
movement, like to and fro.
We have a question what is this?
Is this a force?
Is this the person of God inpre-incarnate form as the
(29:54):
Messiah who would come daily tocommune with him, to walk with
him inside this garden, to dwellwith man.
It tempts us to think this wayVerses 22 to 24, 322.
What happened after the cursesare given to the serpent, to the
woman, to the man, it says?
(30:15):
Then the Lord God said Behold,the man has become like one of
us, knowing good and evil.
Now he might stretch out hishand and take also from the tree
of life and eat and liveforever.
And you see, usually a dashedline there, which is what
there's three indications of themeaning in Hebrew, one of which
is that the sentence does notcomplete, which is basically my
(30:36):
perspective.
It's like saying something andyou stop mid-sentence because
everybody knows the rest of thesentence.
You don't need to say it, butit's a very horrible thing, so
just don't say it.
In other words, the veryhorrible thing is that if man
could eat from this tree andlive forever in a sinful body,
(30:56):
how terrible would that be, thatwe would always go on living in
these sinful body.
How terrible would that be thatwe would always go on living in
these sinful bodies.
How terrible would the worldbecome, as we just acted on our
sinful impulses.
So it's just kind of left off.
And so what did he do?
Verse 24, so he drove the manout out of what?
Out of the garden right and atthe east of the garden of Eden.
(31:17):
He stationed the cherry beeangels and the flaming sword
which turned every direction toguard the way to the tree of
life.
So, in other words, no access,but isn't it interesting?
He drove them out east.
When you get to the end of thestory with Cain and Abel, cain
murders his brother Abel.
He goes east to the land of Nod.
(31:40):
Throughout the Bible.
If you study east, well, let'ssay more about east the
tabernacle that is later set upby Israelites in the wilderness
and later the temple that wasbuilt in Jerusalem.
How many entrances were thereto the tabernacle in the temple?
Just one, and you entered fromthe east and you were going west
(32:03):
.
Moving west was moving towardGod in the most holy place.
But if you moved east, you weregoing which way?
Away from God, away from God.
He put them out of the garden,away to the east.
Cain went east to the land,away from God.
Where did the Gentileastronomers come from?
(32:23):
They come from the east, butthey went which way West toward
God.
This is significant in biblicalideas and the idea here is that
now you've got a garden templewhere God dwelled with man,
(32:43):
communed with man, and now he isremoved from that garden area,
that garden temple, and hecannot come in to enter to
commune with God there.
Right, because there's theseangels that are stationed there
with a flaming sword, which is asign for capital punishment.
Try to come in here and that'sit.
You're dead.
(33:04):
Right?
They're guarding the way to thetree of life.
So there's this concept thatGod wants to dwell with man from
the very beginning of theScripture.
Now go to Genesis 12.
Genesis 12.
I'm trying, but probably notsucceeding, at enlarging your
(33:25):
views of ideas in the Bible.
One of the things God promisedIsrael, well, three of the
things.
I'll give you a land, a seed,and I'll make you a worldwide
blessing.
Right, these aren't justpromises that are put into a
covenant.
Verse 1,.
Now the Lord said to Abram Goforth from your country, from
your relatives, from yourfather's house, to the land.
(33:48):
I will show you why does hewant him to go to a land, to
dwell with him in that land, inwhat will eventually be the
tabernacle.
Isn't that the whole purpose ofthe land?
Isn't it like he's almostsetting up another garden?
(34:10):
Let's go to Exodus 3, verse 8.
Exodus 3, verse 8.
To see a little bit about thisland, it's described this way
Exodus 3, verse 8.
To see a little bit about thisland, it's described this way
Exodus 3, verse 8, the story ofMoses.
Moses has already fled Egyptand he's down in the Sinai
(34:31):
tending his father-in-law'ssheep.
In Exodus 3, verse 8,.
In the story of the burningbush, it says in verse 8, so I
have come down to deliver them.
In the story of the burningbush, it says in verse 8, so I
have come down to deliver themfrom the power of the Egyptians
and bring them up from that landto a good and spacious land, to
a land flowing with what?
Milk and honey.
(34:51):
Don't you get the sense thatthis is like a restored Eden?
It's a place for Israel todwell that is full of abundance
of fruits and goodness, right,and cows and goats for milk and
all these bees to make honey.
Okay, don't you see that thisland is a little different from
all the other land on the earth,kind of like the Garden of Eden
(35:12):
was different from every otherplace outside of it.
That God is setting up a space.
He calls it a spacious land, aplace to dwell with man.
That's what's going on with theland thing.
It's not incidental.
And then Exodus 25, verse 8.
What are they supposed toconstruct?
(35:33):
Exodus 25, verse 8.
They're supposed to construct asanctuary, a tabernacle, right,
exodus 25, verse 8.
Let them construct a sanctuaryfor me, that I may.
What dwell among this is one ofthe most basic themes of the
(35:55):
bible is God's desire to dwellamong men and the way that he
eventually makes that possible.
So this word dwell from skene,this root, the word shekinah is
actually from this root too,shekinah.
So, like the shekinah glorythat dwelled in the temple, you
know the fire by night, thecloud by day.
(36:16):
Okay, this same root here.
So he's setting up a place todwell with man, and it's his
house.
The tabernacle is God's house,right, it has furniture.
You know the lampstand it's gotyou know all these things.
It's basically like furniture,it's like his home, so to speak.
But he wants to dwell among men.
Now, it is actually a reallystrange thing, isn't it?
(36:38):
I mean, why would god want todwell with us?
Um, but he made us in his ownimage and now, now that we're
fallen, that relationship hasbeen breached.
And the rest of the story ofthe bible is how god is trying
to bring us back into union withhim, so we can commune with him
.
Okay, so, garden, temple,abrahamic covenant, the land in
(36:59):
the land, there's going to be atabernacle.
God is going to dwell in thattabernacle, among them.
And then we come to 1 Kings 8.
1 Kings 8.
1 Kings 8.
This is the dedication of thetemple.
Remember, david wanted to buildthe temple, right, but the Lord
said he wouldn't do it becausehe was a bloody man, he was a
(37:20):
man of war.
So it would be left to his son,solomon, to build the temple.
Now, david got pretty mucheverything ready In builder's
terminology.
He'd had all the constructionmaterials on site, almost just
waiting, you know.
But it was to be left toSolomon to build the temple.
This is the day of thededication of the temple.
In chapter 8, verse 9, there wasnothing in the ark except the
(37:44):
two tablets of stone which Mosesput there at Horeb, where the
Lord made a covenant with thesons of Israel when they came
out of the land of Egypt.
It happened that when thepriest came from the holy place,
the cloud filled the house ofthe Lord, so that the priest
could not stand to ministerbecause of the cloud, for the
glory of the Lord filled thehouse of the Lord.
What is the Lord doing?
Isn't he dwelling?
Isn't he coming to dwell amongthem in the form of the cloud,
(38:07):
the Shekinah glory, come down toverse 12.
Then Solomon said the Lord hassaid that he would what Dwell?
Dwell in the thick cloud.
Who do you think was in thatthick cloud?
There's another good one Ican't remember if it's in
Numbers, or I think it's inNumbers when you get a really
(38:31):
good indication that thepre-incarnate Christ may have
been in the cloud and it was thelight shining out of the cloud.
That was his glory.
Verse 13, I have surely builtyou a lofty house, a place for
your dwelling forever.
(38:54):
This is a major theme in theBible, one of the most basic
themes God's desire to dwellamong men.
Verse 23, at the dedication,solomon, standing before the
altar of the Lord, in thepresence of all the assembly of
Israel.
He spreads out his hands, inverse 22, toward heaven and he
said now he's speaking towardheaven, so he's not stupid to
think that God is just stuck inthis little house here, this
(39:15):
little temple that he built.
He said O Lord, the God ofIsrael, there is no God like you
in heaven, above or on earth,beneath the God, who keeps
covenant and shows love andkindness to your servants, who
walk before you with all theirheart, who have kept with your
servant, my father David, thatwhich you promised him.
Verse 2.
Question, verse 27.
Well, I mean in a way, in a way, a way, sure, right, but look
(40:14):
at his answer.
Behold, he says no way, no way.
Heaven and the highest heavencannot contain you, how much
less this house which I havebuilt.
You see, he had the rightperspective of the temple in the
gospels, oh my, they're thesadducees who controlled the
temple, the pharisees, no, no,no.
They did not have the rightperspective of the temple.
In the Gospels, oh my, theSadducees who controlled the
temple, the Pharisees, no, no,no, they did not have the proper
view of the temple.
(40:34):
That's why, whenever Jesustalked about the temple in a way
, they usually didn't like it.
They were the guardians.
They were going to keep God in abox right there in Jerusalem.
They actually thought he was inthere and that's where he is,
in this little box.
And God's saying to them noguys, you're the one that's in a
box I created you.
You're in this little boxcalled earth.
(40:56):
I'm above all, that I sit inthe heavens.
Okay, you can't put me in a box, but solomon didn't have any
such notion.
He knew that god wasn'tcontained in that little temple
Verse 28,.
Yet have regard for the prayerof your servant and to his
supplication.
O Lord, my God, listen to thecry and to the prayer which your
servant prays before you today,that your eyes may be opened
(41:18):
toward this house, night and day, the place which you have said.
My name shall be there Tolisten to the prayer which your
servant shall pray toward thisplace.
In a sense, the best I've seenfrom the rabbis on this concept
of the temple that's accurate isthe temple was for them like a
portal that reached to heaven toaccess God through.
(41:40):
This is why, when you read thebook of Daniel, it says that
three times a day he would go tothis window that faced
Jerusalem, and he would go tothis window that faced Jerusalem
and he would pray, symbolically, showing we believe that if we
pray toward the temple, that ourprayers go to the temple and
then up through a portal to Godin heaven, so to speak.
This is a way to think about it.
(42:01):
Okay, it's a human way, butit's a way to think about it.
But they weren't under theimpression that, oh, god is
stuck in this little house.
But it was where God sought toset his house among men, so he
could dwell with them, becauseGod is interesting in dwelling
with man.
Now we go to the incarnation.
Let's just go to Isaiah 7, 14.
(42:23):
We've been here before.
Right, it's one of the mostprecious passages in the whole
Bible because it predicts, orprophesies, the Messiah would be
born of a virgin.
Right, we dealt with this a fewweeks ago.
Isaiah 7, 14.
The Lord giving a sign here tothe whole house of David, not
(42:45):
just to King Ahaz.
Therefore, the Lord himselfwill give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin will be withchild and bear a son, and she
will call his name what Emmanuel.
Now I'm going to ask you one ofthe most basic Bible questions
in the world.
What does that name mean?
Is that not the dwellingconcept when the virgin birth
(43:07):
happens?
You do know what that was right.
That is God who has taken tohimself a true humanity.
This is not just a little thing.
He is in this moment in timecome into the world to dwell
(43:29):
with man, to save man.
It is a remarkable moment.
And the liberal theologians saywe don't really need that.
Okay, I guess we don't needgreat things from God, do we?
We just need the universalpathos or some kind of
evolutionary process, and I betthat really turns you on,
(43:56):
doesn't it?
That really does it for you.
When you die, you're just goingto go into nothingness.
How does that do it for you?
Does that make sense of thesesouls that you look around and
see we're nothing but justmolecules thrown together in a
chance way, that you're nothingmore than that, that you're
basically dirt.
That's all you ever have beenand all you ever will be.
That is the evolutionaryeschatology.
(44:21):
You're nothing, so they treatus like nothing.
That's how they treat people.
That's why the times of theGentiles in the book of Daniel
is characterized as a time ofoppression and treatment of
humanity like they are nothings,and that's how we're treated in
this world.
(44:41):
So that's a lesson on politics.
The incarnation is the coming ofGod to dwell with man, emmanuel
, god with us.
Now I say this is how the Biblethis theme, goes all the way
through.
So go to Revelation, chapter 21, and see that the Bible doesn't
leave us without an expectationthat what God intended
(45:06):
originally will in fact come topass.
Revelation, chapter 21.
If you're ever down, read thesetwo chapters.
If you ever get down, you canread these chapters.
You can read Isaiah 40s, butthese are great chapters.
Then I saw a new heaven and anew earth, for the first heaven
and the first earth passed away.
There is no longer any seaInteresting and I saw the holy
(45:29):
city, the new Jerusalem, comingdown out of heaven from God,
made ready as a bride adornedfor her husband, and I heard a
loud voice from the thronesaying Behold the tabernacle of
God.
Didn't we see the tabernacle aminute ago?
The tabernacle of God is amongmen and he will dwell among them
(45:51):
.
It's the same exact theme thatwe saw in Genesis, that we saw
in Exodus, that we saw in Kings,that we saw in the Emmanuel and
what we saw in the virgin birth.
And they shall be his peopleand God himself will be among
them and he will wipe away everytear from their eyes and there
will no longer be any death,there will no longer be any
(46:11):
mourning or crying or pain, forthe first things have passed
away.
Amen to that.
So that theme, the dwellingtheme, is throughout the whole
Bible, from Genesis toRevelation.
Now I'm going to take you toanother theme is throughout the
whole Bible, from Genesis toRevelation.
Now I'm going to take you toanother theme.
(46:35):
Go to Genesis, chapter 32.
These all converge and look tothe Messiah, genesis 32.
This is the story of Jacobfighting this figure.
(46:57):
Remember this story On the hipand the socket, genesis 32,
verse 24.
Then Jacob was left alone and aman wrestled with him until
daybreak.
Take note of the word man.
A man wrestled with him untildaybreak.
Take note of the word man.
A man wrestled with him.
When he saw that he had notprevailed against him, he
(47:17):
touched the socket of his thigh.
The man touched Jacob's thigh.
So the socket of Jacob's thighwas dislocated while he wrestled
with him.
Then he said let me go, but thedawn is breaking.
But he said I will not let yougo unless you bless me.
That's Jacob saying I'm notgoing to let you go unless you
bless me.
So he said to him what is yourname?
And he said Jacob.
And he said your name shall nolonger be Jacob, but Israel.
This is the origin of the nameIsrael, which is assigned to the
(47:43):
nation of Israel, composed ofthe 12 tribes.
What does the name Israel mean?
Well, he tells us next, for youhave wrestled with God.
It says striven, but I wouldjust translate it wrestle.
You have wrestled with God andwith men and you have prevailed.
What in the world does thatmean?
(48:03):
I thought he was wrestling aman.
Now you've wrestled with God,and what is this?
Now, you've wrestled with God,and what is this?
People say, oh, it's good,pre-incarnate Christ.
I like to say I prefer to saythese are this is the God, this
(48:24):
is God as man.
This is God as man.
Is it pre-incarnate Christ?
Yes, probably, okay, but I likethe idea of God as man because
it helps you understand in theNew Testament that when Jesus is
born, he's God as man.
It helps you understand that.
So, god as man?
Now it keeps going.
And, by the way, so Israelmeans what?
Wrestles with God?
(48:45):
This is a nation that wrestleswith God.
They're still wrestling withGod.
They keep striving with God,wrestling with God.
They won't give up and they'regoing to keep doing it until God
finally breaks their will andthen, okay, they'll accept him
and he'll solve his plan forthem.
Verse where was I?
(49:05):
Verse 30, no 27.
So he said to him what's yourname, jacob.
He said your name shall nolonger be Jacob, but Israel.
You've striven with God andwith men and have prevailed.
Then Jacob asked him and saidplease tell me your name.
But he said why is it that youask my name?
And he blessed him there.
So Jacob named the place Peniel.
(49:25):
There used to be a camp inTexas named Camp Peniel, for
Christians in the hill countrynear where we lived, where he
said I have seen God face toface, yet my life has been
preserved.
See, he saw God as man.
He saw the pre-incarnate Christ.
That's who he was wrestlingwith.
This figure, this strange figurethrough the Old Testament we
see multiple times.
(49:46):
We even saw in the garden withAdam and Eve.
Right, it says they heard thesound of the Lord, god walking
in the garden.
It's the same person, but we'regiven these what we call
theophanies.
Okay, also, angel of the Lord,don't have time for that one.
But Genesis 16.1.
Who is this strange figure?
(50:07):
The angel of the Lord that yousee all through the Old
Testament show up on variousoccasions, but then suddenly, at
the birth of Christ, the angelof the Lord never shows up
anymore.
Was that also the pre-incarnateChrist or was it just an angel.
People who de-messianize theOld Testament.
They will just oh, it's just anangel.
No, this was the Messiah.
(50:29):
Why are you downplaying Messiah?
We don't want to look at thatNow.
Part of this theme of Godshowing up as man is another
theme called kingship, thatthere would be a king from the
house of David right.
And a king from the house ofDavid has obviously got to be a
(50:49):
man right, a descendant of David.
So look at 2 Samuel, 7.
Now let's go to 1 Chronicles.
That one's harder to find, butyou got 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2
Kings and you got 1 and 2Chronicles, in that order.
So 1 Chronicles, 17, 10.
(51:11):
This is where David David wantedto build the temple.
Remember, he says I want tobuild you a house, you know God.
And God says you know, you'renot going to build me a house,
I'm going to build you a house.
David David says well, Ialready got a house.
I built a nice house of cedarover there.
I already got a house.
Well, it's a different type ofhouse 1710.
(51:32):
Moreover, I tell you that theLord will build a house for you
when your days are fulfilled,david, that you must go to be
with your fathers that I willset up one of your descendants
after you.
Who?
will be of your sons and I willestablish his kingdom.
He shall build for me a houseand I will establish his throne
forever.
I will be his father and heshall be my son, and I will not
(51:52):
take my loving kindness awayfrom him, as I took it away from
him who was before you, but Iwill settle him in my house and
in my kingdom forever and histhrone shall be established
forever.
So someone from David's linewill sit on a throne and rule as
king forever.
Right, that's a story in theBible, a theme.
(52:13):
Now look at Psalm 98.
I'm running out of time, you'vegot lots of passages here you
can look at Now.
The Bible teaches then thatthere's going to be a human king
who will come to rule forever.
So once he takes the throne,he's going to rule forever and
(52:35):
ever and ever.
A human.
But then we have passages likethis psalm, this enthronement
psalm, psalm 98.
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song,for he has done wonderful
things.
His right hand, his holy armhave gained the victory for him.
The Lord has made known hissalvation.
He has revealed hisrighteousness in the sight of
(52:56):
the nations.
He has remembered his lovingkindness and his faithfulness to
the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth haveseen the salvation of our God.
Okay, when's that?
Not yet.
Shout joyfully to the Lord, allthe earth, break forth and sing
for joy and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord withthe lyre.
With the lyre and the sound ofmelody, with trumpets and sound
(53:18):
of the horn.
Shout joyfully before who?
The king, the Lord.
Now I thought, now this isYahweh, yahweh, lord, god.
I thought man was king.
Now you're telling me there's atheme in the Old Testament that
God is going to be the king.
(53:38):
How can this work?
Hint, emmanuel, emmanuel, godwith us, right, god as man
ruling this theme.
(53:59):
Isaiah 52, 7,.
Also Psalm 93, 1, psalm 97, 1.
Verse 9, he is coming, the Lordbefore the Lord, for he is
coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world withrighteousness and the peoples
with equity, justice.
Finally, finally, at long last,what we all, finally, at long
last, what we all long for hewill rule.
God will rule as king duringthe messianic kingdom, in the
(54:24):
land that he has set apart forIsrael to dwell among men.
He will do that.
That's a theme.
Last one, we're in Psalms, so goto Psalm 110, verse 1.
Psalm 110, 1 and 2, the mostquoted verses by the New
Testament authors.
They go back to this passageover and over and over, and this
one is a little enigmatic, alittle difficult if you think
about it.
Verse 1, psalm 110, the Lordsays to my Lord Now, there's two
(54:47):
different words for Lord there.
The first one is Yahweh, thesecond one's Adonai.
The Lord says to my Adonai sitat my right hand.
Now David's saying this.
Okay, so the Lord says to myLord.
The question is, who is David'sLord?
I mean, david's the king ofIsrael.
Who's over him?
Well, apparently there's thisother Lord, and the Lord Yahweh
(55:11):
is talking to this Lord of David, this Adonai.
Do you start to see there'smore than one person in God in a
passage like this, like there'smore going on, there's just one
God, but there's more than oneperson in this one God.
You start to see that happeningwhen we get to the doctrine for
the virgin birth.
(55:31):
Trinity is the first one we'lltalk about, because it's all
being set up for us in the OldTestament.
I mean this should have beenobvious To a Jew, this should be
obvious.
The Lord says Yahweh says toAdonai says David, sit at my
right hand.
So there's somebody sitting atthe right hand, we're going sit
at my right hand.
So there's somebody sitting atthe right hand, we're going to
sit at the right hand of theFather and obviously we would
(55:52):
all say, well, it's the Son, wewouldn't have trouble with that.
But do you see this theme of Godcoming as a man?
He's the Lord of David, he'ssomehow over all.
Yet David's also going to havean offspring and this offspring
is going to rule and sit on thethrone of David.
Well, who is it?
They're the same person, theyconverge in the same person.
(56:15):
And that's why I said thesethree themes dwelling, god's
desire to dwell, god Himselfdwelling and God as man all
coming together in the Messiah,born in Bethlehem, just five
miles down the road fromJerusalem, announced to the
(56:37):
shepherds, told among the people, and they lost interest.
They lost interest.
Isn't it like one of thesaddest stories ever?
Isn't it sad that by the end ofthe story he's come back at
John the Baptist.
He enters his ministry.
He obviously shows that he'sthe king.
(56:58):
He's not just the king ofIsrael, he's the king of the
whole world, and they don't wantto have anything to do with him
and they say we'll have no kingbut Caesar.
Away with this man Crucify.
I'm going to talk about theserious sin committed by that
generation.
That's why it's called inMatthew 12, the unpardonable sin
(57:20):
.
It was a generational sincommitted by that generation of
Israel.
Because they said, oh, he didall these things by the power of
Satan.
Well, and Jesus said thenSatan's house is divided against
itself, and a house divideditself can't stand, can it?
So he logically refuted himfrom Scripture.
But they still said away withthis man, give us Barabbas, we'd
(57:43):
rather have him, and we'drather have Caesar's king than
this one.
And don't put that sign overhis head that says Jesus, king
of the Jews.
Don't put that up there.
I have written.
What I have written says Pilateand he wrote truth.
Just as God spoke through anass in the book of Numbers, he
spoke through a Gentile,caiaphas ruler, in the New
Testament.
He spoke truth because he isthe king, god as man.
(58:09):
And guess what folks?
He and you and I will alwaysdwell together, doesn't the end
of the psalm, psalm 23, end likethat and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.
That is why we are not going tothrow the virgin birth out.
(58:32):
We cling to it and every churchin America has got to get back
to this type of truth and notplay these games anymore because
it's not making God happy.
And you can go, listen to thoseliberal ministers and you
wouldn't know it 90% of the timeunless you are keyed in and you
(58:52):
are listening to what they say,because a lot of those guys
they don't believe it for asecond.
They don't believe it for asecond.
Well, I'm going to tell youthat if we don't believe that
we're all wasting our time, weneed to just go do something
else, because this is a totalwaste.
This is totally true.
(59:13):
This is what my mentor taughtme.
He said he was a graduate atMIT my mentor in mathematics and
he became a believer when hewas at MIT.
And he said he came to theconclusion he's kind of a smart
guy MIT.
You know you can't pick andchoose what's true in here.
(59:33):
It's either all true or it'sall false, and that's right.
But he says you can't play therubber Bible technique game.
You know, stretch this versethat way, stretch this in that
way to all make it fit like howyou want it.
It is what it is.
I'll tell you, the best thingabout it is the way it is is the
(59:54):
best it gets.
It's not what you think, or Ithink that's the best.
It's what this says.
That is the absolute best storyever, and the reason is because
it's written by an infiniteauthor, one who speaks to our
hearts, one who speaks to youhere today and says you know,
this is true.
You know I want to dwell withyou.
(01:00:16):
You know that I have doneeverything, even coming as man
myself, so that God and manmight be reconciled to God
through the God-man.
And all you have to do to havea relationship with him is what?
Just believe.
That's what the Philippianjailer asked.
What must I do to be saved?
Was it that difficult when Pauland Silas said believe in the
(01:00:39):
Lord Jesus and you shall besaved?
That's it.
That's all you have to do.
You don't have to promise you'regoing to live a better life.
This isn't about promising tolive a better life.
Jesus christ lived the perfectlife.
He's not asking you to do it.
He's saying I did it.
Will you accept my merits givento you?
(01:00:59):
It's a free gift, totally free.
So if you haven't believed inhim today, accept his free gift.
I don't offer.
Don't offer it.
I offer it from him to you, butI can't give it to you.
He's the one who gives youeverlasting, just believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(01:01:37):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New TestamentFramework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
There's no theologians who, well, I reject
the virgin birth, but I believein the you know dividing of the
fish and lobe.
No, if you reject the one,you're going to reject all the
others too.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
When you love someone , you just want to be near them.
You want to be in theirpresence to talk with them.
This is what love is all aboutbeing with the one you love, not
being distant from them.
God is the same with us, heloves us and he wants to be with
(00:44):
us.
He wants to be in our presence.
This desire of his hasmanifested itself differently
throughout history.
You can look back and thinkabout the various times God came
into this creation to be withthe creatures he created.
It's a mind-boggling thing.
When you think about the extentto which God wants to be with
(01:07):
us.
And when you apply this idea toyour Christian relationship,
your relationship with God, andyou relate it to a marriage
relationship, you can see thatbeing this close to another
person sometimes creates strife.
It's a difference of opinionand in every good marriage there
(01:30):
is strife, because the man isnot always right and the woman
is not always right, andsometimes they are both wrong.
But by being together andtalking you learn and you grow.
Jacob did this with God.
It's how he got his namechanged to Israel.
He wrestled with God.
(01:50):
Now put these two conceptstogether.
We can't wrestle with God andlearn from him.
We can't correct our thinkingand our behavior unless we are
close to him, unless we areclose to him.
Close to him by reading theBible, studying, praying,
confessing sin, being in rightrelationship.
(02:19):
So today the encouragement isto dwell, to choose to dwell
with God, because he wants todwell with you, and to wrestle
with His Word, to learn moreabout Him and to deepen, really
deepen, your relationship.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Last time I went through the responses to the
event of the virgin birth andparticularly I looked at the
Jewish response and I looked atthe Gentile response.
You might remember that theJewish response is one of
basically initial excitement.
I took you to the shepherdsnear Bethlehem as they went and
they were excited and they toldother people about this and it
(02:56):
was an amazing thing and peoplewere all excited.
But then that initialexcitement wore off and you
wonder, through the early pagesof the Gospels, why there's
really nothing about Jesus'searly life or discussion of
people following his career inIsrael.
Because you know he is theMessiah, he's the Savior, he's
(03:17):
been born, so why is there notan interest?
And the next thing you see he's12 years old now.
At the temple, right, he'sshocking the teachers by his
understanding of the Hebrew OldTestament and of course the
excitement had worn off and sothey didn't have a very good
response and that response getsduplicated during his ministry.
(03:39):
But we'll talk more about that.
Then we also talked about theGentile response to the birth
and this is very interesting toobecause you see, in Matthew,
chapter 2, one of the sub-themesof the Gospel of Matthew is the
Gentile response.
So usually he's talking aboutthe Jewish response, but
periodically he'll inject astory about a Gentile or a group
of Gentiles.
And the interesting one at hisbirth is you know, the Magi, the
(04:02):
astronomers from the East whocome in Matthew, chapter 2,
looking for the king of the Jews.
Why are these Gentile nobilitycoming so far to see a Jewish
king?
And so there's this initialexcitement among Gentiles.
And then you have a great storyin chapter 8 of Matthew of the
(04:24):
centurion and the centurion whoneeded someone to be healed in
his home.
And he tells the Lord says well, take me to him and I'll see
about this matter.
And he says you don't have todo that, all you have to do is
say the word.
I'm a man like you, a man ofauthority.
If I tell someone in my ranks,you go and do this, he goes and
(04:45):
does it.
I tell another soldier, go, dothat, he goes and he does it.
He says all you have to do issay the word and he'll be healed
.
And Jesus says I haven't seensuch great faith, even in all
Israel.
So there's this shock andinterest among Gentiles in the
Jewish Messiah.
And then the Syrophoenicianwoman.
Remember, she's a Gentile andshe's asking for something from
(05:09):
him and he ignores her.
And she asks again and he saysyou know, we don't throw bread
to the dogs, to Gentiles, tounclean people.
And she says what she says.
Well, even the dogs eat thecrumbs from the master's table.
So there's this hunger amongthe gentile world for the jewish
(05:29):
messiah as we unfold the bookof matthew.
And so it's an interestingresponse that you have from both
groups, and we know that as thechurch began on pentecost, it
began all jewish right.
But not long after that you'vegot cornelius and Gentiles from
his household coming in, andthen Paul is going to the
Gentiles and you have atremendous Gentile response and
(05:50):
the book of Romans describesthis period as the fullness of
the Gentiles coming in.
And so the predominant groupwho has believed in the
Messiahship of Jesus, the JewishMessiah, have actually been
Gentiles, even though of courseJews can still of course, be
saved.
But this is the interestingthing that all kind of began at
the birth and the responses tothe birth, so we highlighted
(06:13):
those.
I wanted to give a fewprinciples of unbelief as we
start today and then get intothese three streams of
Revelation.
First of all, just asking aquestion.
You know why do men have aproblem with the virgin birth?
This wasn't just a problem, youknow, among Jews in the first
centuries.
It's, of course, come down toour own day.
(06:34):
If you turn to John, chapter 3,we get some principles of
unbelief in this gospel.
Actually, there's only onegospel, right?
Let me repeat that there's notfour gospels.
You didn't know that right.
Let me repeat that there's notfour gospels.
You didn't know that right.
I mean, everybody talks aboutthe four gospels, but actually
in the early church they wereknown as the fourfold gospel,
singular, because there's reallyonly one gospel.
(06:55):
It was only later that peoplediscussed them in terms of the
gospels.
But there's not four gospels,there's one, and that highlights
that all four of the Gospelactually agree with one another
in terms of what the Gospel is.
They're just looking at thelife of Jesus from different
perspectives and giving Histeachings and His works.
(07:19):
So John, chapter 3, we all knowverse 16, right, one of the most
famous verses in the world,probably the most famous, for
God so loved the world that hegave his only begotten Son that
whosoever believes in him shallnot perish but have everlasting
life.
This is in the story withNicodemus right, where Nicodemus
came to him at night because hedidn't want to be seen by the
other Pharisees.
He was ashamed and he wanted toknow what good thing he had to
(07:44):
do in order to enter into thekingdom.
And Jesus, of course, tells himyou cannot see the kingdom
unless you're born again.
You're born from above.
So this is in that context ofthe story with Nicodemus, and as
he gives him the answer of howsomeone can be born again here
in verse 16, you know, which issimply through believing right,
believing in Him, believing inJesus, who's the only begotten
(08:06):
Son of God, he then begins toexplain why he comes in verse 17
.
And that's obviously talkingabout the incarnation, the
virgin birth, for God did notsend His Son into the world to
judge the world, but that theworld might be saved through Him
.
He who believes in him is notjudged.
(08:26):
He who does not believe hasbeen judged already.
Why?
Because he's not believed inthe name of the only begotten
Son of God.
So this is highlighting like ifyou are in this world right now
and you not believe, you'restanding under a judgment of
condemnation and the reason isbecause you've not believed.
It's not because Jesus didn'tdie for your sins.
(08:49):
He did.
He died for your sins, butyou've yet to believe in him,
and so you're standing under adeath sentence, meaning you'll
be separated from God forever ifyou don't believe in him.
But you always have theopportunity to believe in him,
right?
I mean, even verse 17 says hedidn't come into the world to
judge, but to save the world.
Okay, he came to save men.
He didn't just come in herejust to judge people.
(09:10):
He wants people to believe inhim so they aren't judged, right
?
Verse 19,.
This is the judgment, and thisis why people in our modern day
and in the ancient world,ancient day, in our modern day
and in the ancient world,ancient day, have trouble with
the virgin birth.
This is the judgment that thelight has come into the world.
I mean, jesus is the light ofthe world.
(09:36):
Right, but men loved darknessrather than the light.
Men loved darkness rather thanthe light.
Why?
For their deeds were evil.
I'm going to share this.
Robin, she told me yesterday Idon't know this firsthand, this
is coming from her Countrywestern singer, jason Aldean.
I guess you all know what'sgoing on.
(09:59):
He wrote this story, this song.
It's a story about you know,you can't get away with stuff in
small towns.
I've lived in lots of smalltowns.
I grew up in Paris, texas.
We had 25,000 people.
I think there's still 25,000people there.
I lived in Fredericksburg had10,000 people.
I've lived in a lot of smalltowns.
You can't get away with stuffbecause everybody else holds you
(10:20):
accountable.
I mean, try stealing someone'scar and see how that works for
you.
It's not going to go over sowell, and then you're a marked
person in the whole community.
So you know, you just can't getaway with stuff, right?
Crime is low.
Well, he writes this song,right?
(10:43):
Apparently he's getting a lotof flack for it.
And I'm thinking why would yoube against?
You know this type of idea thatyou can't get away with evil.
Well, it's because of somethinglike verse 19.
Men love darkness rather thanlight, because their deeds are
evil.
See, they're a part of thiswickedness and they don't like
this accountability.
They don't like being caught.
They want to be able to do evilwhenever they want and not have
to suffer the consequences.
(11:04):
Don't like being caught.
They want to be able to do evilwhenever they want and not have
to suffer the consequences.
But this is citing why peopleare troubled by the Lord Jesus.
Okay, verse 20 also continuesthis theme For everyone who does
evil hates the light and doesnot come to the light.
Why?
For fear that his deeds will beexposed.
This is the number one problem.
I always use the example of theIRS.
If you don't pay your taxes,who are the last people you want
(11:33):
to see?
I mean, are you really going togo to the IRS and walk in the
building if you haven't beenpaying your taxes for the last
10 years?
No, why?
Because you're fearful thatyour failure to pay taxes will
be exposed and then you'll haveto pay them, that your failure
to pay taxes will be exposed andthen you'll have to pay them.
So people have short accountswith God.
They realize that they don'twant to be exposed.
They don't want to step intohis presence because that's a
(11:57):
fearful proposition.
And then verse 21,.
The converse for the believer.
But he who practices the truthcomes to the light.
Why do we come to the light?
Because so that our deeds maybe manifested as having been
wrought by God, in other words,god's at work in us.
So we're not ashamed to stepinto his presence to come to the
light.
So this is one of the basicreasons that people are opposed
(12:19):
to the virgin birth?
It's because, when you see thevirgin birth, you're looking at
a unique person who came intothe world.
This isn't just a normal birth.
This is a birth of someone whowas born of a virgin and avoided
, imputed sin, inherited sin and, through his life, avoided all
personal sin, being tempted inall things as we, and yet found
(12:41):
without sin.
So it's not just here's thething, it's not just the virgin
birth that has been so rejectedin history, because the virgin
birth is obviously a miracle.
Right, everybody agree it's amiracle, it's all miracles, it's
(13:01):
all miracles that are reallyopposed to.
There's no theologians who, well, I reject the virgin birth, but
I believe in the dividing ofthe fish and lobe.
No, if you reject the one,you're going to reject all the
others too.
Because of what?
Because of natural law.
(13:22):
That's why I was a scientist.
I had five years working inplant physiology, a degree in
biology and chemistry and veryfamiliar with evolutionary
theory, both in physics,chemistry and biology.
And there's all this talk aboutnatural law and how things must
(13:43):
work according to these laws andprinciples.
Right, in that view of reality,there's no room for miracles.
I mean, you can't have virginbirths, you can't have people
walking in water.
You can't have people turningwater into wine.
This just doesn't work in thatworldview.
(14:04):
So people with that conception,that worldview, when they come
to the virgin birth, theyautomatically reject it.
Why do they reject it?
Because they've rejected God.
They've rejected a God who, inthe Noahic covenant, said His
Word would control nature.
(14:24):
Isn't that one of the mostabundantly clear things in the
gospels?
As Jesus goes out on the Sea ofGalilee and it's all tossing
and it's crazy, because all thiswind would sweep over from the
eastern side down onto that lakeand it would stir it up and it
was dangerous.
A lot of people lost their lifeon that lake.
And then he just speaks to thewaters and he rebukes them,
right, and they become stillinstantaneously.
(14:47):
What's it saying?
It's saying that he, his word,controls nature.
There's no such thing asnatural law.
Okay, that's just there.
Besides, what would that beanyway?
Natural law?
I mean, as far as I can tellfrom everywhere I look, people
make laws, people make laws.
Nature doesn't make laws.
(15:08):
The question is, who made thelaws by which nature basically
functions in a normal sense?
Nobody asked that question.
Isn't there a person behindnature who is controlling it,
and the normal way he does so isif I step out of the boat I'm
going to sink.
But couldn't that person whocontrols nature also say that
when I step out of the boat I'mgoing to sink?
But couldn't that person whocontrols nature also say that
(15:28):
when I step out of the boat,like Peter, did I get to
actually stand on it?
If that person controls nature,then he can say what is and what
is not, and that creates theopportunity for what we might
call miracles.
Right, like a virgin birth.
But men don't want to face thatbecause that means there's a
supernatural realm, that meansthere's a God they're going to
(15:49):
have to face.
That means, because of theirshort accounts, they don't want
to face that God.
So there's this resistance tothe virgin birth, as well as all
the miraculous things in theBible.
So what they end up doing?
Turn to Romans 1.
What people end up doing isrejecting the truth of God, but
(16:12):
that doesn't come withoutaccepting a lie.
Okay, romans 1 is talking aboutthis concept in verses 18
through 32.
That everyone knows God.
Verse 18,.
The wrath of God is revealedfrom heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousnessof men who suppress the truth in
(16:32):
unrighteousness.
Men suppress the truth inunrighteousness.
That means they know it, butthey're suppressing it, they're
holding it down.
I used to use the example ofhave you ever been to the
swimming pool in the summer andthere's a bunch of kids with a
beach ball and they bat itaround and then after a while
they're trying to hold itunderwater, you know, and stuff
like that.
It keeps popping up.
(16:53):
It always comes back up, right?
That's the suppressiontechnique.
People try to hold down theirknowledge of God.
They try to suppress it it, butit keeps popping up in life.
They keep having littleconfrontations with him here and
there, sometimes through you,sometimes through me, sometimes
(17:13):
by the northern lights, right,where there's moments where they
just are in awe and they knowthat god is there.
But they're suppressing allthat.
They don't want to think aboutthat because men love darkness
rather than light, right?
So verse 19, he explainsbecause that which is known
about God is evident within them.
Okay, it's evident inside ofpeople, for God made it evident
(17:35):
to them.
In other words, people know Godbecause they have what is
called a God consciousness.
God creates that in everyindividual.
Is there anybody who doesn'tknow God exists, according to
these verses, no, everybodyknows God exists.
We don't have to prove God'sexistence.
We don't have to use the tenarguments for the existence of
God the teleological argument,the cosmological argument, all
(17:58):
these great.
The ontological argument.
You can go through all that.
It's very interesting things,but you don't really have to
prove the existence of God toanyone, because they already
know.
But what's happening is they'resuppressing.
So what you're trying to dowith people is get them to let
their guard down a minute sothat you can expose them to God,
so that they can understand thefree gift of salvation in
(18:19):
Christ and so they can believeand come to have eternal life.
But they know, god made itevident to them Verse 20,.
Then he explains for since thecreation of the world is that
kind of a long time ago, I mean,I think that encompasses
everybody right in the humanrace.
You know, nobody was before thecreation of the world.
So since the creation of theworld, his invisible attributes,
(18:40):
his eternal power and divinenature have been clearly seen.
I always love this partInvisible attributes, his
eternal power and divine naturehave been clearly seen.
I always love this partInvisible things have been
clearly seen.
Actually, the Greek is aiorita,kata, aiorita.
It's exactly the same word, butwith a prefix on the front of
the second word.
In other words, invisiblethings are visible to men.
That's what it's saying.
The invisible God is highlyvisible to everyone.
(19:02):
That's what this verse issaying.
How, through what he has made,through creation.
We've got God consciousness,verse 19.
We've got creation in verse 20.
It's understood, it's clearlyseen.
It's not just cloudy, it'sclearly seen, we would say, with
20-20 vision being understoodthrough what has been made, so
(19:26):
that they are without whatExcuse?
In other words, if people youknow do have to stand before God
at the great white thronejudgment, are they going to be
able to make the excuse?
You know, your existence justwasn't clear to me.
Is that going to work?
Is that going to be a goodargument?
Is God going to say you know, Ihaven't thought of that one,
(19:46):
you know, and nobody else hascome up here and said that
either.
A lot of people are going tosay that and he's going to say,
no, I made it clear.
Notice this occasion on yourlife where you're actually
looking at creation and you say,gosh, there's got to be
something greater than me,greater than all of this.
Who made this?
You this?
(20:12):
Who made this.
You know, everybody has lookedat it and has said that.
Whether they told you about itor not, they have looked at it
and realized there's a God.
So they're suppressing thatthough.
Okay, and that's why ideas likethe virgin birth are just not
tasteful to people who don'tbelieve.
They're not going to acceptthat.
What does that say about theevents like the virgin birth?
It doesn't say anything aboutthem.
What does it say about them?
It says they don't believe.
That's all it says.
They're giving aself-commentary.
(20:32):
They're saying I don't believein that.
I believe in natural law, Ibelieve all this is just there,
really.
But you know, you know, andthat's where you look for the
opportunities when they actuallyreveal that they do know, or
you challenge.
For example, when people sayand everybody does that's right.
As much as this culture is aboutrelativism, moral relativism
(20:55):
you will still hear every singleperson on the planet say that's
wrong or that's right.
How many people would like tocome out and stand up here on
stage and give a dissertation asto why what the Nazis did in
the 1930s and 40s was right?
Won't most people on the planetsay what happened was wrong?
(21:19):
Well, let me ask you a questionwhere does that come from, this
innate sense that that is wrong?
How can that be?
See, everybody knows, and thisis just an opportunity for you
to say well, if there's no suchthing as right and wrong and
everything's relative, thenwhat's right for you may be
(21:42):
wrong for me, and who cares?
Then you know.
But they obviously do care,because, jason Aldean, we can't
have songs like that.
That's wrong.
You don't have any basis formaking these moral judgments,
yet you make them all the time.
Where does that come from?
So everybody knows God?
(22:03):
Now I'll read a quote about andthis is coming from quite a long
time ago, in the 20th century,there was a move in theological
circles called liberalism, andliberalism was theological
liberalism.
These are people who didn'tbelieve in the virgin birth,
(22:23):
they didn't believe in themiracles and stuff and so forth.
Here is one famous Unitariantheologian.
Unitarians are people who arenot Trinitarian, so they're can
you say, christians that don'tbelieve in the Trinity, but
they're Unitarian.
Okay, he was the president ofHarvard in the Trinity, but
they're Unitarian.
Okay, he was the president ofHarvard at the time, charles
Eliot.
And this is what he says aboutthe new conception of God and
(22:47):
what it will be like in the 20thand 21st centuries.
He says the new thought of Godwill be its most characteristic
element.
This ideal will comprehend theJewish Jehovah, the Christian
universal father, the modernphysicist's omnipresent and
exhaustless energy and thebiological conception of a vital
(23:08):
force.
He says this is the newconception of God.
It's just melding of all thesethings together into what we
would just basically say God is.
You know, like the God ofEinstein.
Einstein said you know, godexists.
There's no possibility for Godnot to exist.
But the question is, what didhe mean by that?
He wasn't talking about theTrinity.
(23:30):
He wasn't talking about theChristian God.
He wasn't talking about theJewish God.
He wasn't talking aboutanything like that.
He was talking about he saidGod does not play dice with the
universe.
Remember that.
He meant the universe is God.
That's what he's talking about.
It's a conception of God thathe is the universe.
(23:52):
This is why it's so difficult totalk to people about God
anymore, because there are somany different conceptions of
who God is.
In biology, he's theevolutionary process.
In physics, he's exhaustiveenergy, see not the infinite
(24:13):
personal God.
They're talking aboutimpersonal processes.
This is why in the 1940s and50s, when Francis Schaeffer was
over in Switzerland at Labrie.
Labrie was basically a havenfor anyone to come and he would
address their issues as collegestudents in the area.
They would come and as long asthey pitched in and worked
around the house, they couldstay as long as they wanted.
Can you imagine opening yourhouse to like 55 college
(24:36):
students and you can stay aslong as you want.
You have to go to these eveningdiscussions and we'll discuss
anything, and he was open todiscuss any ideas and of course
he's a biblical theologian typeguy.
But he had people that camethrough there and here's what
they believed.
They had entrusted their livesto Jesus but they didn't believe
(25:01):
God existed.
In your mind you say what?
How can you entrust your lifeto Jesus but not believe in God,
in the existence of God?
The categories are so muddledin our world that when you
present Jesus to them, it's likethat song that came out in the
90s who's she Jesus, who's she?
They don't even know if they'remale or female.
(25:25):
This is why we're taking thetime to try to understand what
the Bible says about who Jesusis, because the world has been
very busy, under satanicinfluences, explaining God away
as just physics or exhaustiveenergy or evolutionary process,
and Jesus explained him or herright away with it, so that
(25:51):
people don't really know evenwho he is and definitely don't
know what he did.
So that said, how the worldexplains truth away and what
we're really up against when wetake the gospel.
Thankfully it's the power ofGod unto salvation, right.
But you still have to, when youtalk to people, explain who God
(26:12):
is.
You still have to, when youtalk to people, explain who
Jesus is and what he did.
These things have to beexplained because otherwise
you're just talking right pastpeople if you haven't defined
your term.
Defining terms is superimportant, especially today when
everything's been redefined.
So now I'm going to take you tothe Old Testament.
I'm going to show you how theworld should have been ready.
I want you to go to the book ofGenesis.
(26:35):
When I was in seminary, one ofmy professors said Stanley
Toussaint.
He said that the mostfundamental idea in the Bible is
this concept that God wants todwell with man.
(26:56):
So I'm going to talk aboutthree streams of evidence.
One is dwelling, this conceptof dwelling.
The other one is going to beGod and the other one will be
man.
But you put them all togetherthis concept that God wants to
dwell with man.
And these are three storiesthat are going on in the Old
Testament.
You will see these stories veryquickly.
(27:17):
Even if you've not been aChristian very long, you'll be
able to catch these ideas.
So the first one if you look atGenesis, chapter 2 and verse 6
and 7, we have the creation ofman.
Verse 6 and 7, a mist used torise from the earth and water
(27:39):
the whole surface of the ground.
We're talking about the earth.
Right.
Then the Lord God formed man ofdust from the ground and
breathed into his nostrils thebreath of life, and man became a
living being or soul.
And this being, this soul, ismade in the image of God.
Right, for what purpose?
(27:59):
Well, obviously, to have arelationship with God, the one
whose image he bears.
Now, if you look in verse 15,it says the Lord God took the
man and put him into the Gardenof Eden to cultivate and keep it
.
So question was the man made,created inside the Garden of
Eden or was he created outsidethe Garden of Eden, outside?
(28:22):
Now you have to start to thinkwith me, okay, about the Garden
of Eden itself, what it musthave been like.
So it's definitely within aspace and there's space outside
that garden, right, we know that, because he made Adam outside,
he put him in it, okay, and thequestion becomes what is this
garden really?
Is this not where God wants todwell with man?
(28:48):
In this garden, I'm going tocall it a garden temple.
In the ancient world they hadthe hanging gardens of Babylon.
It was basically a garden park.
Many kings of the ancient worldhad these to go and to relax in
, to enjoy times of respite.
They were gorgeous.
(29:08):
I mean, you can imagine.
What do you think the Garden ofEden is?
It's one of these pleasureparks.
It's a place where you coulddwell with God.
It's where you communed withGod.
In fact, chapter 3, verse 8says what?
Chapter 3, verse 8.
After the fall, they've sowedtheir fig leaves.
It says they heard the sound ofthe Lord God walking in the
(29:31):
garden in the cool of the day.
They heard the sound of theLord God walking the word for
movement, like to and fro.
We have a question what is this?
Is this a force?
Is this the person of God inpre-incarnate form as the
(29:54):
Messiah who would come daily tocommune with him, to walk with
him inside this garden, to dwellwith man.
It tempts us to think this wayVerses 22 to 24, 322.
What happened after the cursesare given to the serpent, to the
woman, to the man, it says?
(30:15):
Then the Lord God said Behold,the man has become like one of
us, knowing good and evil.
Now he might stretch out hishand and take also from the tree
of life and eat and liveforever.
And you see, usually a dashedline there, which is what
there's three indications of themeaning in Hebrew, one of which
is that the sentence does notcomplete, which is basically my
(30:36):
perspective.
It's like saying something andyou stop mid-sentence because
everybody knows the rest of thesentence.
You don't need to say it, butit's a very horrible thing, so
just don't say it.
In other words, the veryhorrible thing is that if man
could eat from this tree andlive forever in a sinful body,
(30:56):
how terrible would that be, thatwe would always go on living in
these sinful body.
How terrible would that be thatwe would always go on living in
these sinful bodies.
How terrible would the worldbecome, as we just acted on our
sinful impulses.
So it's just kind of left off.
And so what did he do?
Verse 24, so he drove the manout out of what?
Out of the garden right and atthe east of the garden of Eden.
(31:17):
He stationed the cherry beeangels and the flaming sword
which turned every direction toguard the way to the tree of
life.
So, in other words, no access,but isn't it interesting?
He drove them out east.
When you get to the end of thestory with Cain and Abel, cain
murders his brother Abel.
He goes east to the land of Nod.
(31:40):
Throughout the Bible.
If you study east, well, let'ssay more about east the
tabernacle that is later set upby Israelites in the wilderness
and later the temple that wasbuilt in Jerusalem.
How many entrances were thereto the tabernacle in the temple?
Just one, and you entered fromthe east and you were going west
(32:03):
.
Moving west was moving towardGod in the most holy place.
But if you moved east, you weregoing which way?
Away from God, away from God.
He put them out of the garden,away to the east.
Cain went east to the land,away from God.
Where did the Gentileastronomers come from?
(32:23):
They come from the east, butthey went which way West toward
God.
This is significant in biblicalideas and the idea here is that
now you've got a garden templewhere God dwelled with man,
(32:43):
communed with man, and now he isremoved from that garden area,
that garden temple, and hecannot come in to enter to
commune with God there.
Right, because there's theseangels that are stationed there
with a flaming sword, which is asign for capital punishment.
Try to come in here and that'sit.
You're dead.
(33:04):
Right?
They're guarding the way to thetree of life.
So there's this concept thatGod wants to dwell with man from
the very beginning of theScripture.
Now go to Genesis 12.
Genesis 12.
I'm trying, but probably notsucceeding, at enlarging your
(33:25):
views of ideas in the Bible.
One of the things God promisedIsrael, well, three of the
things.
I'll give you a land, a seed,and I'll make you a worldwide
blessing.
Right, these aren't justpromises that are put into a
covenant.
Verse 1,.
Now the Lord said to Abram Goforth from your country, from
your relatives, from yourfather's house, to the land.
(33:48):
I will show you why does hewant him to go to a land, to
dwell with him in that land, inwhat will eventually be the
tabernacle.
Isn't that the whole purpose ofthe land?
Isn't it like he's almostsetting up another garden?
(34:10):
Let's go to Exodus 3, verse 8.
Exodus 3, verse 8.
To see a little bit about thisland, it's described this way
Exodus 3, verse 8.
To see a little bit about thisland, it's described this way
Exodus 3, verse 8, the story ofMoses.
Moses has already fled Egyptand he's down in the Sinai
(34:31):
tending his father-in-law'ssheep.
In Exodus 3, verse 8,.
In the story of the burningbush, it says in verse 8, so I
have come down to deliver them.
In the story of the burningbush, it says in verse 8, so I
have come down to deliver themfrom the power of the Egyptians
and bring them up from that landto a good and spacious land, to
a land flowing with what?
Milk and honey.
(34:51):
Don't you get the sense thatthis is like a restored Eden?
It's a place for Israel todwell that is full of abundance
of fruits and goodness, right,and cows and goats for milk and
all these bees to make honey.
Okay, don't you see that thisland is a little different from
all the other land on the earth,kind of like the Garden of Eden
(35:12):
was different from every otherplace outside of it.
That God is setting up a space.
He calls it a spacious land, aplace to dwell with man.
That's what's going on with theland thing.
It's not incidental.
And then Exodus 25, verse 8.
What are they supposed toconstruct?
(35:33):
Exodus 25, verse 8.
They're supposed to construct asanctuary, a tabernacle, right,
exodus 25, verse 8.
Let them construct a sanctuaryfor me, that I may.
What dwell among this is one ofthe most basic themes of the
(35:55):
bible is God's desire to dwellamong men and the way that he
eventually makes that possible.
So this word dwell from skene,this root, the word shekinah is
actually from this root too,shekinah.
So, like the shekinah glorythat dwelled in the temple, you
know the fire by night, thecloud by day.
(36:16):
Okay, this same root here.
So he's setting up a place todwell with man, and it's his
house.
The tabernacle is God's house,right, it has furniture.
You know the lampstand it's gotyou know all these things.
It's basically like furniture,it's like his home, so to speak.
But he wants to dwell among men.
Now, it is actually a reallystrange thing, isn't it?
(36:38):
I mean, why would god want todwell with us?
Um, but he made us in his ownimage and now, now that we're
fallen, that relationship hasbeen breached.
And the rest of the story ofthe bible is how god is trying
to bring us back into union withhim, so we can commune with him
.
Okay, so, garden, temple,abrahamic covenant, the land in
(36:59):
the land, there's going to be atabernacle.
God is going to dwell in thattabernacle, among them.
And then we come to 1 Kings 8.
1 Kings 8.
1 Kings 8.
This is the dedication of thetemple.
Remember, david wanted to buildthe temple, right, but the Lord
said he wouldn't do it becausehe was a bloody man, he was a
(37:20):
man of war.
So it would be left to his son,solomon, to build the temple.
Now, david got pretty mucheverything ready In builder's
terminology.
He'd had all the constructionmaterials on site, almost just
waiting, you know.
But it was to be left toSolomon to build the temple.
This is the day of thededication of the temple.
In chapter 8, verse 9, there wasnothing in the ark except the
(37:44):
two tablets of stone which Mosesput there at Horeb, where the
Lord made a covenant with thesons of Israel when they came
out of the land of Egypt.
It happened that when thepriest came from the holy place,
the cloud filled the house ofthe Lord, so that the priest
could not stand to ministerbecause of the cloud, for the
glory of the Lord filled thehouse of the Lord.
What is the Lord doing?
Isn't he dwelling?
Isn't he coming to dwell amongthem in the form of the cloud,
(38:07):
the Shekinah glory, come down toverse 12.
Then Solomon said the Lord hassaid that he would what Dwell?
Dwell in the thick cloud.
Who do you think was in thatthick cloud?
There's another good one Ican't remember if it's in
Numbers, or I think it's inNumbers when you get a really
(38:31):
good indication that thepre-incarnate Christ may have
been in the cloud and it was thelight shining out of the cloud.
That was his glory.
Verse 13, I have surely builtyou a lofty house, a place for
your dwelling forever.
(38:54):
This is a major theme in theBible, one of the most basic
themes God's desire to dwellamong men.
Verse 23, at the dedication,solomon, standing before the
altar of the Lord, in thepresence of all the assembly of
Israel.
He spreads out his hands, inverse 22, toward heaven and he
said now he's speaking towardheaven, so he's not stupid to
think that God is just stuck inthis little house here, this
(39:15):
little temple that he built.
He said O Lord, the God ofIsrael, there is no God like you
in heaven, above or on earth,beneath the God, who keeps
covenant and shows love andkindness to your servants, who
walk before you with all theirheart, who have kept with your
servant, my father David, thatwhich you promised him.
Verse 2.
Question, verse 27.
Well, I mean in a way, in a way, a way, sure, right, but look
(40:14):
at his answer.
Behold, he says no way, no way.
Heaven and the highest heavencannot contain you, how much
less this house which I havebuilt.
You see, he had the rightperspective of the temple in the
gospels, oh my, they're thesadducees who controlled the
temple, the pharisees, no, no,no.
They did not have the rightperspective of the temple.
In the Gospels, oh my, theSadducees who controlled the
temple, the Pharisees, no, no,no, they did not have the proper
view of the temple.
(40:34):
That's why, whenever Jesustalked about the temple in a way
, they usually didn't like it.
They were the guardians.
They were going to keep God in abox right there in Jerusalem.
They actually thought he was inthere and that's where he is,
in this little box.
And God's saying to them noguys, you're the one that's in a
box I created you.
You're in this little boxcalled earth.
(40:56):
I'm above all, that I sit inthe heavens.
Okay, you can't put me in a box, but solomon didn't have any
such notion.
He knew that god wasn'tcontained in that little temple
Verse 28,.
Yet have regard for the prayerof your servant and to his
supplication.
O Lord, my God, listen to thecry and to the prayer which your
servant prays before you today,that your eyes may be opened
(41:18):
toward this house, night and day, the place which you have said.
My name shall be there Tolisten to the prayer which your
servant shall pray toward thisplace.
In a sense, the best I've seenfrom the rabbis on this concept
of the temple that's accurate isthe temple was for them like a
portal that reached to heaven toaccess God through.
(41:40):
This is why, when you read thebook of Daniel, it says that
three times a day he would go tothis window that faced
Jerusalem, and he would go tothis window that faced Jerusalem
and he would pray, symbolically, showing we believe that if we
pray toward the temple, that ourprayers go to the temple and
then up through a portal to Godin heaven, so to speak.
This is a way to think about it.
(42:01):
Okay, it's a human way, butit's a way to think about it.
But they weren't under theimpression that, oh, god is
stuck in this little house.
But it was where God sought toset his house among men, so he
could dwell with them, becauseGod is interesting in dwelling
with man.
Now we go to the incarnation.
Let's just go to Isaiah 7, 14.
(42:23):
We've been here before.
Right, it's one of the mostprecious passages in the whole
Bible because it predicts, orprophesies, the Messiah would be
born of a virgin.
Right, we dealt with this a fewweeks ago.
Isaiah 7, 14.
The Lord giving a sign here tothe whole house of David, not
(42:45):
just to King Ahaz.
Therefore, the Lord himselfwill give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin will be withchild and bear a son, and she
will call his name what Emmanuel.
Now I'm going to ask you one ofthe most basic Bible questions
in the world.
What does that name mean?
Is that not the dwellingconcept when the virgin birth
(43:07):
happens?
You do know what that was right.
That is God who has taken tohimself a true humanity.
This is not just a little thing.
He is in this moment in timecome into the world to dwell
(43:29):
with man, to save man.
It is a remarkable moment.
And the liberal theologians saywe don't really need that.
Okay, I guess we don't needgreat things from God, do we?
We just need the universalpathos or some kind of
evolutionary process, and I betthat really turns you on,
(43:56):
doesn't it?
That really does it for you.
When you die, you're just goingto go into nothingness.
How does that do it for you?
Does that make sense of thesesouls that you look around and
see we're nothing but justmolecules thrown together in a
chance way, that you're nothingmore than that, that you're
basically dirt.
That's all you ever have beenand all you ever will be.
That is the evolutionaryeschatology.
(44:21):
You're nothing, so they treatus like nothing.
That's how they treat people.
That's why the times of theGentiles in the book of Daniel
is characterized as a time ofoppression and treatment of
humanity like they are nothings,and that's how we're treated in
this world.
(44:41):
So that's a lesson on politics.
The incarnation is the coming ofGod to dwell with man, emmanuel
, god with us.
Now I say this is how the Biblethis theme, goes all the way
through.
So go to Revelation, chapter 21, and see that the Bible doesn't
leave us without an expectationthat what God intended
(45:06):
originally will in fact come topass.
Revelation, chapter 21.
If you're ever down, read thesetwo chapters.
If you ever get down, you canread these chapters.
You can read Isaiah 40s, butthese are great chapters.
Then I saw a new heaven and anew earth, for the first heaven
and the first earth passed away.
There is no longer any seaInteresting and I saw the holy
(45:29):
city, the new Jerusalem, comingdown out of heaven from God,
made ready as a bride adornedfor her husband, and I heard a
loud voice from the thronesaying Behold the tabernacle of
God.
Didn't we see the tabernacle aminute ago?
The tabernacle of God is amongmen and he will dwell among them
(45:51):
.
It's the same exact theme thatwe saw in Genesis, that we saw
in Exodus, that we saw in Kings,that we saw in the Emmanuel and
what we saw in the virgin birth.
And they shall be his peopleand God himself will be among
them and he will wipe away everytear from their eyes and there
will no longer be any death,there will no longer be any
(46:11):
mourning or crying or pain, forthe first things have passed
away.
Amen to that.
So that theme, the dwellingtheme, is throughout the whole
Bible, from Genesis toRevelation.
Now I'm going to take you toanother theme is throughout the
whole Bible, from Genesis toRevelation.
Now I'm going to take you toanother theme.
(46:35):
Go to Genesis, chapter 32.
These all converge and look tothe Messiah, genesis 32.
This is the story of Jacobfighting this figure.
(46:57):
Remember this story On the hipand the socket, genesis 32,
verse 24.
Then Jacob was left alone and aman wrestled with him until
daybreak.
Take note of the word man.
A man wrestled with him untildaybreak.
Take note of the word man.
A man wrestled with him.
When he saw that he had notprevailed against him, he
(47:17):
touched the socket of his thigh.
The man touched Jacob's thigh.
So the socket of Jacob's thighwas dislocated while he wrestled
with him.
Then he said let me go, but thedawn is breaking.
But he said I will not let yougo unless you bless me.
That's Jacob saying I'm notgoing to let you go unless you
bless me.
So he said to him what is yourname?
And he said Jacob.
And he said your name shall nolonger be Jacob, but Israel.
This is the origin of the nameIsrael, which is assigned to the
(47:43):
nation of Israel, composed ofthe 12 tribes.
What does the name Israel mean?
Well, he tells us next, for youhave wrestled with God.
It says striven, but I wouldjust translate it wrestle.
You have wrestled with God andwith men and you have prevailed.
What in the world does thatmean?
(48:03):
I thought he was wrestling aman.
Now you've wrestled with God,and what is this?
Now, you've wrestled with God,and what is this?
People say, oh, it's good,pre-incarnate Christ.
I like to say I prefer to saythese are this is the God, this
(48:24):
is God as man.
This is God as man.
Is it pre-incarnate Christ?
Yes, probably, okay, but I likethe idea of God as man because
it helps you understand in theNew Testament that when Jesus is
born, he's God as man.
It helps you understand that.
So, god as man?
Now it keeps going.
And, by the way, so Israelmeans what?
Wrestles with God?
(48:45):
This is a nation that wrestleswith God.
They're still wrestling withGod.
They keep striving with God,wrestling with God.
They won't give up and they'regoing to keep doing it until God
finally breaks their will andthen, okay, they'll accept him
and he'll solve his plan forthem.
Verse where was I?
(49:05):
Verse 30, no 27.
So he said to him what's yourname, jacob.
He said your name shall nolonger be Jacob, but Israel.
You've striven with God andwith men and have prevailed.
Then Jacob asked him and saidplease tell me your name.
But he said why is it that youask my name?
And he blessed him there.
So Jacob named the place Peniel.
(49:25):
There used to be a camp inTexas named Camp Peniel, for
Christians in the hill countrynear where we lived, where he
said I have seen God face toface, yet my life has been
preserved.
See, he saw God as man.
He saw the pre-incarnate Christ.
That's who he was wrestlingwith.
This figure, this strange figurethrough the Old Testament we
see multiple times.
(49:46):
We even saw in the garden withAdam and Eve.
Right, it says they heard thesound of the Lord, god walking
in the garden.
It's the same person, but we'regiven these what we call
theophanies.
Okay, also, angel of the Lord,don't have time for that one.
But Genesis 16.1.
Who is this strange figure?
(50:07):
The angel of the Lord that yousee all through the Old
Testament show up on variousoccasions, but then suddenly, at
the birth of Christ, the angelof the Lord never shows up
anymore.
Was that also the pre-incarnateChrist or was it just an angel.
People who de-messianize theOld Testament.
They will just oh, it's just anangel.
No, this was the Messiah.
(50:29):
Why are you downplaying Messiah?
We don't want to look at thatNow.
Part of this theme of Godshowing up as man is another
theme called kingship, thatthere would be a king from the
house of David right.
And a king from the house ofDavid has obviously got to be a
(50:49):
man right, a descendant of David.
So look at 2 Samuel, 7.
Now let's go to 1 Chronicles.
That one's harder to find, butyou got 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2
Kings and you got 1 and 2Chronicles, in that order.
So 1 Chronicles, 17, 10.
(51:11):
This is where David David wantedto build the temple.
Remember, he says I want tobuild you a house, you know God.
And God says you know, you'renot going to build me a house,
I'm going to build you a house.
David David says well, Ialready got a house.
I built a nice house of cedarover there.
I already got a house.
Well, it's a different type ofhouse 1710.
(51:32):
Moreover, I tell you that theLord will build a house for you
when your days are fulfilled,david, that you must go to be
with your fathers that I willset up one of your descendants
after you.
Who?
will be of your sons and I willestablish his kingdom.
He shall build for me a houseand I will establish his throne
forever.
I will be his father and heshall be my son, and I will not
(51:52):
take my loving kindness awayfrom him, as I took it away from
him who was before you, but Iwill settle him in my house and
in my kingdom forever and histhrone shall be established
forever.
So someone from David's linewill sit on a throne and rule as
king forever.
Right, that's a story in theBible, a theme.
(52:13):
Now look at Psalm 98.
I'm running out of time, you'vegot lots of passages here you
can look at Now.
The Bible teaches then thatthere's going to be a human king
who will come to rule forever.
So once he takes the throne,he's going to rule forever and
(52:35):
ever and ever.
A human.
But then we have passages likethis psalm, this enthronement
psalm, psalm 98.
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song,for he has done wonderful
things.
His right hand, his holy armhave gained the victory for him.
The Lord has made known hissalvation.
He has revealed hisrighteousness in the sight of
(52:56):
the nations.
He has remembered his lovingkindness and his faithfulness to
the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth haveseen the salvation of our God.
Okay, when's that?
Not yet.
Shout joyfully to the Lord, allthe earth, break forth and sing
for joy and sing praises.
Sing praises to the Lord withthe lyre.
With the lyre and the sound ofmelody, with trumpets and sound
(53:18):
of the horn.
Shout joyfully before who?
The king, the Lord.
Now I thought, now this isYahweh, yahweh, lord, god.
I thought man was king.
Now you're telling me there's atheme in the Old Testament that
God is going to be the king.
(53:38):
How can this work?
Hint, emmanuel, emmanuel, godwith us, right, god as man
ruling this theme.
(53:59):
Isaiah 52, 7,.
Also Psalm 93, 1, psalm 97, 1.
Verse 9, he is coming, the Lordbefore the Lord, for he is
coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world withrighteousness and the peoples
with equity, justice.
Finally, finally, at long last,what we all, finally, at long
last, what we all long for hewill rule.
God will rule as king duringthe messianic kingdom, in the
(54:24):
land that he has set apart forIsrael to dwell among men.
He will do that.
That's a theme.
Last one, we're in Psalms, so goto Psalm 110, verse 1.
Psalm 110, 1 and 2, the mostquoted verses by the New
Testament authors.
They go back to this passageover and over and over, and this
one is a little enigmatic, alittle difficult if you think
about it.
Verse 1, psalm 110, the Lordsays to my Lord Now, there's two
(54:47):
different words for Lord there.
The first one is Yahweh, thesecond one's Adonai.
The Lord says to my Adonai sitat my right hand.
Now David's saying this.
Okay, so the Lord says to myLord.
The question is, who is David'sLord?
I mean, david's the king ofIsrael.
Who's over him?
Well, apparently there's thisother Lord, and the Lord Yahweh
(55:11):
is talking to this Lord of David, this Adonai.
Do you start to see there'smore than one person in God in a
passage like this, like there'smore going on, there's just one
God, but there's more than oneperson in this one God.
You start to see that happeningwhen we get to the doctrine for
the virgin birth.
(55:31):
Trinity is the first one we'lltalk about, because it's all
being set up for us in the OldTestament.
I mean this should have beenobvious To a Jew, this should be
obvious.
The Lord says Yahweh says toAdonai says David, sit at my
right hand.
So there's somebody sitting atthe right hand, we're going sit
at my right hand.
So there's somebody sitting atthe right hand, we're going to
sit at the right hand of theFather and obviously we would
(55:52):
all say, well, it's the Son, wewouldn't have trouble with that.
But do you see this theme of Godcoming as a man?
He's the Lord of David, he'ssomehow over all.
Yet David's also going to havean offspring and this offspring
is going to rule and sit on thethrone of David.
Well, who is it?
They're the same person, theyconverge in the same person.
(56:15):
And that's why I said thesethree themes dwelling, god's
desire to dwell, god Himselfdwelling and God as man all
coming together in the Messiah,born in Bethlehem, just five
miles down the road fromJerusalem, announced to the
(56:37):
shepherds, told among the people, and they lost interest.
They lost interest.
Isn't it like one of thesaddest stories ever?
Isn't it sad that by the end ofthe story he's come back at
John the Baptist.
He enters his ministry.
He obviously shows that he'sthe king.
(56:58):
He's not just the king ofIsrael, he's the king of the
whole world, and they don't wantto have anything to do with him
and they say we'll have no kingbut Caesar.
Away with this man Crucify.
I'm going to talk about theserious sin committed by that
generation.
That's why it's called inMatthew 12, the unpardonable sin
(57:20):
.
It was a generational sincommitted by that generation of
Israel.
Because they said, oh, he didall these things by the power of
Satan.
Well, and Jesus said thenSatan's house is divided against
itself, and a house divideditself can't stand, can it?
So he logically refuted himfrom Scripture.
But they still said away withthis man, give us Barabbas, we'd
(57:43):
rather have him, and we'drather have Caesar's king than
this one.
And don't put that sign overhis head that says Jesus, king
of the Jews.
Don't put that up there.
I have written.
What I have written says Pilateand he wrote truth.
Just as God spoke through anass in the book of Numbers, he
spoke through a Gentile,caiaphas ruler, in the New
Testament.
He spoke truth because he isthe king, god as man.
(58:09):
And guess what folks?
He and you and I will alwaysdwell together, doesn't the end
of the psalm, psalm 23, end likethat and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.
That is why we are not going tothrow the virgin birth out.
(58:32):
We cling to it and every churchin America has got to get back
to this type of truth and notplay these games anymore because
it's not making God happy.
And you can go, listen to thoseliberal ministers and you
wouldn't know it 90% of the timeunless you are keyed in and you
(58:52):
are listening to what they say,because a lot of those guys
they don't believe it for asecond.
They don't believe it for asecond.
Well, I'm going to tell youthat if we don't believe that
we're all wasting our time, weneed to just go do something
else, because this is a totalwaste.
This is totally true.
(59:13):
This is what my mentor taughtme.
He said he was a graduate atMIT my mentor in mathematics and
he became a believer when hewas at MIT.
And he said he came to theconclusion he's kind of a smart
guy MIT.
You know you can't pick andchoose what's true in here.
(59:33):
It's either all true or it'sall false, and that's right.
But he says you can't play therubber Bible technique game.
You know, stretch this versethat way, stretch this in that
way to all make it fit like howyou want it.
It is what it is.
I'll tell you, the best thingabout it is the way it is is the
(59:54):
best it gets.
It's not what you think, or Ithink that's the best.
It's what this says.
That is the absolute best storyever, and the reason is because
it's written by an infiniteauthor, one who speaks to our
hearts, one who speaks to youhere today and says you know,
this is true.
You know I want to dwell withyou.
(01:00:16):
You know that I have doneeverything, even coming as man
myself, so that God and manmight be reconciled to God
through the God-man.
And all you have to do to havea relationship with him is what?
Just believe.
That's what the Philippianjailer asked.
What must I do to be saved?
Was it that difficult when Pauland Silas said believe in the
(01:00:39):
Lord Jesus and you shall besaved?
That's it.
That's all you have to do.
You don't have to promise you'regoing to live a better life.
This isn't about promising tolive a better life.
Jesus christ lived the perfectlife.
He's not asking you to do it.
He's saying I did it.
Will you accept my merits givento you?
(01:00:59):
It's a free gift, totally free.
So if you haven't believed inhim today, accept his free gift.
I don't offer.
Don't offer it.
I offer it from him to you, butI can't give it to you.
He's the one who gives youeverlasting, just believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls with
Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today'slesson productive and useful in
(01:01:37):
growing closer to God andwalking more obediently with Him
.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app, and until
next time, we hope you have ablessed and wonderful day.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.