June 26, 2024 • 32 mins
Welcome to another episode of "Current Events and Christian Expectations." Today, we delve into the concept of the "unworthy" God. We discuss the modern trend among Christians to dismiss the Old Testament and its God, a view that has historical roots going back to the heretic Marcion.
We examine statements from contemporary Christian leaders and contrast them with Jesus' own words, affirming His connection to the God of the Old Testament. We discuss the importance of the Old Testament in understanding Jesus' mission and character, and how dismissing it undermines the foundation of the New Testament.
The episode also highlights various scriptures that showcase the merciful nature of God, both in the Old and New Testaments. We discuss the hermeneutics of interpreting the Bible, emphasizing that some Old Testament truths, like God's mercy, outweigh others. We conclude by affirming that the God of the Old Testament is worthy, merciful, and central to the Christian faith, just as Jesus taught.
Join us as we uncover the continuity between the Old and New Testaments and reaffirm the worthiness of God in both. Stay tuned for a deeper understanding of how Jesus and the apostles viewed the God of the Old Testament and what that means for us today.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Music.
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Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be speaking about the unworthy God.
We'll start off with John 5, verse 39, and we'll have several other scriptures
that we reference and read today, and we'll put those in the overview.
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But whether we serve an unworthy God or not, let's just dig right in.
Good day or evening, depending on when you're listening to everybody out there in podcast land.
Doctrinally speaking, this podcast is the following. Jesus is the revelation
of the Old Testament God.
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Well, what current event brings that to pass? Well, currently dismissing the
God of the Old Testament as unworthy as a God.
A lot of people, Christians, are
doing that. I know a lot of people in my personal life. I don't say a lot.
I know more than a few people that dismiss the Old Testament.
They won't read it. Right.
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Exactly. And this is bad news.
Bad news. The problem that we're looking at has a long history, almost 2,000 years.
It goes all the way back to a fellow named Marcion. He was hailed in the second
century AD, and he was an early heretic.
Here is a little bit on Marcion from Wikipedia.
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Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the gospel who sent Jesus Christ
into the world as the Savior was the true supreme being, different and opposed
to the malevolent creator God of the Old Testament.
Identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament. He considered himself a
follower of Paul, this Marcion, the apostle, and whom he believed to have been
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the only true apostle of Jesus Christ.
How he arrived at that, I have no idea. Well, malevolent, that says it all.
Here's a quote now bringing up today. This is from August of 2018 on Albert Moeller. That's Dr.
Albert Moeller, used to be the head of Southern Seminary down there in Kentucky.
Oh, I guess I should say north of that. Yeah, that's right. It is north. Of Kentucky, yeah.
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He's quoting an interview that Andy Stanley had on a podcast with a fellow named Jonathan Merritt.
Andy Stanley is the son of Charles Stanley, who recently passed away.
Stanley says in this podcast, quote, I'm convinced that we make a better case
for Jesus if we leave the Old Testament out of the argument.
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I am convinced for the sake of this generation and the next generation,
we have to rethink our apologetic as Christians.
And the less we depend on the Old Testament to prop up our New Testament,
faith will be the better because of where we are in this culture. End quote.
And he goes on to say that there are those who have left the faith over the Old Testament God.
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And my response to that is, well, then they surely will leave the faith in the
New Testament, because as we will see, Jesus is just fine with the God he calls
his father of the Old Testament.
So where's the problem? Listen to this from John 5, 39.
You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life,
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And it is they that bear witness about me.
It is they that bear witness about me.
The scripture was mentioned there, meaning the Old Testament.
The Old Testament reference.
Of course, there was no New Testament scriptures at this time as we understand they.
So without the Old Testament, here's the problem. How do you explain Jesus?
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If he cuts the New Testament, all of a sudden, Jesus shows up and does this
and says, where's the backstory?
We all are familiar with movies and backstories.
Everybody has a backstory. We need an origin story. An origin story, yeah.
There are those who do not see the God of the Old Testament as Jesus did. Let me repeat that.
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There are those, and they are Christians, who do not see the God of the Old Testament as Jesus did.
Jesus' own disciples, his chosen apostles, were the first to have this real, varied problem.
So listen to this from John 14, 1, and then verses 8, 9, and 10.
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.
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Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.
Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?
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The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority,
but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
Jesus is caught by surprise.
If you've seen me, you've seen a Father. What was their conception of God of
the Old Testament if they did not get this?
The Father who dwells in me does his works. The works that Jesus does,
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primarily 99% are merciful.
I mean, he cleansed the temple twice, and he cursed the fig tree once.
Yeah, that was the only destructive miracle he had. Exactly.
But everything else was raising the dead, healing the blind,
death, preaching the good news to the poor, and so forth and so on.
It was restorative miracles.
Absolutely. So to see Jesus, according to this text we just read,
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Randy read, to see Jesus is to see the Father.
To see Jesus' works of mercy is to behold the Father, the God of the Old Testament, John 10, 37 and 38.
If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.
But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works,
that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
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Right, these good works of mercy, apparently, so many people of Jesus' time
who should have known better did not get this.
Why did the disciples, his apostles, not get this? What were they looking for or who?
Better yet, how did they totally misinterpret the Old Testament? And they did, you know.
Later, the authors of the New Testament assert this truth of which Jesus speaks.
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And we'll find this that we find in John's gospel.
And we'll start with Hebrews 1, verse 3.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,
and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty
on high. Yes, he's the radiance of the glory of God.
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That's Jesus. And he's the exact imprint of his nature.
We see the very nature of God, who Jesus calls his Father, in Jesus.
And we know the works of Jesus were merciful, saving, blessed.
Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father's divine nature.
Paul as well asserts this same truth, 2 Corinthians 4, verses 3 and 4.
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And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case.
Christ, who is the image of God.
You behold Christ, you behold God, God the Father, because that's what Jesus
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said the God of the Old Testament was to him, his Father.
Again, with Paul, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 and 6.
Because in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.
Everything God the Father is, so is the Son.
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Yet he didn't hold on to that equality, didn't hoard to himself.
He gave that glory up, made himself unequal by being the one who leaves heaven
and the glory that was his as God.
He leaves all that for earth.
And here again, Paul in Colossians 1, verses 15 and 19 and 20.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
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For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to
reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross.
He's the image of the invisible God, and the fullness of God dwells in him.
That's the fullness of God the Father, which is what?
Warning reconciliation, warning all things to be reconciled.
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We see God the Father in Jesus, and what we see is the Father's merciful ways, which become Jesus's.
This truth was always there in the Old Testament, but according to Jesus,
and he's right in this, God's people so often didn't get the mercies of God in the Old Testament.
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Listen to Matthew 9, verses 10 through 13.
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and
sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples,
Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
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Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Right. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. That's ironic,
because the righteous just refers to the Pharisees and their followers.
They think that's what they are. But Jesus says, I've come for sinners because
the whole purpose of God and his existence is to help sinners.
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I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
So listen to this. Very important. Here we have a lesson in hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics means the approach of interpreting the Bible. How do you approach
the Bible? How do you interpret it?
In doctrinal terms, it's called hermeneutics.
Here's the truth. Some biblical Old Testament truths outweigh all others.
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We don't go by amount of verses in a book in the Old Testament as to how important
it is or what it has to say about God.
We must have a center from which we work from.
Again, some biblical Old Testament truths outweigh all others,
and the mercy of God is one such example.
For example, Hosea 6, 4, 5, and 6.
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What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets.
I have slain them by the words of my mouth. And my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
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Yes, I want steadfast love, not sacrifice.
Now, he ordained sacrifice, but the point he's making is, although that's necessary
because I command you to do it, it's not sufficient.
What is sufficient is mercy. Only mercy.
So, the father speaks through Jesus. He wants mercy to be the basis of his kingdom,
not sacrifice, especially sacrifice that is hypocritical religion.
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His judgments come not willingly, but out of necessity because of the sins of his people.
Even as he, Jeremiah, sits among the judgment in Jerusalem.
The death and destruction that became Jerusalem, the scene of horror,
because it had been, of course, leveled by the Babylonians, Jeremiah Affirms
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the Mercy of God Lamentations 3, 22-24,
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Therefore I will hope in Him.
Great is your faithfulness, his promise to ultimately always be merciful,
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and his mercies never come to an end, even with the judgment.
We're going to see that if you look at the verses and sections of scripture
that you've got to use to understand who God is,
you're going to have to come back time and time again to the fact that he's
not into judgment, it's only necessity, what he wants and always is to be merciful, merciful, merciful.
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So, So, the God of the Old Testament's faithfulness outweighs his judgments.
Rejecting the Old Testament God because he judges shows we totally do not understand
that his faithfulness is to be merciful.
Because six verses later, in the same book of Lamentations, chapter 3,
we hear this in 31 through 33.
For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he cause grief,
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he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
The Lord will cast off forever, but though he causes grief, he will have compassion.
You know, when people talk about the Old Testament, they talk about hell,
fire, brimstone, judgment.
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But they've missed the point. They've missed the point. Yeah,
if you use that as your center, you will come out with a warped view when you hit the New Testament.
Yeah. Which is exactly what the Pharisees did. Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, so it's very important to understand this.
The Christian Standard Bible translate this, for he does not enjoy bringing
affliction or suffering on humanity.
And yet one gets the impression that's sort of what the Pharisees thought.
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They certainly got joy from it. And we're gonna have a podcast on this schadenfreude problem.
I don't know, a few weeks from now, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.
So God the Father certainly causes grief, but grief is brief.
Love is lasting. We already just heard that in Lamentations.
Listen to this, one of my favorite passages from the book of Psalms,
Psalms 30, verses 4 and 5.
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Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.
For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime.
Weepy may carry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Right.
Anger is but for a moment and it's favor for a lifetime.
This sentiment is the pattern of truth throughout the Old Testament.
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We turn once again to Hosea.
This time we're in chapter 11, verses 7, first of all.
My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the
Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.
However, his compassions then well up within him.
And God, the God of the Old Testament, Father of Jesus, cries out in the next following verses.
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How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Adma? How can I treat you like Zeboim?
My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim,
for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
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I am God, not a man, who basically always wants to make sure,
destroy, destroy, destroy.
But I'm holy and my holiness means and is completely compatible with and wants
above all to have mercy, mercy, mercy.
If the Jews of the Old Testament in majority didn't get these great truths about
God for they're certainly there as we've seen them it's because of their desires
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and wants which obscured them from seeing his glory.
Isaiah says it well and we could quote many passages but this is one of my favorite.
Isaiah 1 verses 2 and 3. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its owner, and the donkeys its master's crib.
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But Israel does not know. My people do not understand.
No, they don't. They don't. The world focuses on the God of the Old Testament
and his judgments and then says, that's who he is. That's right.
And that's central to who he is. Everything else is peripheral. feel.
And they got it absolutely backwards.
You know, that's the one thing, our concept of God and who he is,
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is the most important thing that shapes everything else in our lives. Absolutely.
It shapes how we read scripture. If we see him as a God of anger and wrath, we will read it that way.
If we see him of God of mercy and love, we will read it that way.
True. Exactly. Absolutely.
The Christian expectation focuses on God's acts and declarations of his true nature.
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The prophetic proclamation that his anger is but for a moment,
his favor for a lifetime.
But, but, but, the God of the Old Testament, the flood. Well, yes, there was a flood.
But listen to Genesis 8, verses 20 and 21.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and
some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
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And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart,
I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's
heart is evil from his youth.
Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
It's so interesting that people who want to point out to the flood,
making God some kind of malevolent being who just wants to destroy, destroy,
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fail to read this passage, which is in the context of the flood,
and understand a confession made by God and the concession made by God.
I will never again curse the ground because of man. Well, why not, Lord?
Because the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
There's no point in doing it.
Now, if God were the way some people think and the Pharisees thought,
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then the flood would have been the end of the human race and project experiment is over.
So, but he didn't do that. Given the evil nature of human beings,
the fact that from the flood onward, God limits his judgments of death is a
testimony to his reluctance to afflict humankind as lamentations highlights.
If we accept the testimony of the flood destroying all life except eight people,
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then we must accept God's promise that he'll never judge again that way.
Time and time again, God will restrain his judgment, which shows mercy to people,
even when it doesn't lead to their repentance, because man's heart is evil from his youth.
Psalm 78, verses 37 through 39.
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Their heart was not steadfast toward him. They were not faithful to his covenant.
Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them.
He restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath.
He remembered that they They were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.
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He atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them.
He restrained his anger and didn't stir up all of his wrath.
He could have done it legitimately.
He didn't. And he remembers that we are but flesh. How many times in my prayer,
after I've done some stupid, foolish, sinful things, have I said,
Lord, remember I'm just flesh, please.
A wind that just goes and it will not come again. in.
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However, the humble know this truth, that this is the way God really is,
and they praise God for it.
Listen to Psalm 103, verses 6 through 9.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
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He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. ever.
Right. He doesn't deal with us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities.
Why does his anger have a limit? This is important. Scripture affirms time and
time again his anger has a limit.
Because his love lasts forever and outlasts his anger. And love is what is going to have the final word.
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Love will always finally conquer because, as Paul tells us, love never fails.
Psalm 136, verse 1. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
This refrain, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his steadfast love endures
forever, is repeated 26 times in this Psalm of 26 verses. You don't have that
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kind of thing with His wrath.
You don't have that kind of song with His anger. It's just not there.
Now, remember, we're talking about God the Father, God of the Old Testament,
and He's the fount of all blessings flowing from Him through His Son.
We know this theologically. Paul lays it out in 1 Corinthians 8, verses 5 and 6.
For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth,
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as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God.
Okay, the Father is the fount. All things come from Him and flow to us through Jesus.
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Whatever flows from the Father also flows harmoniously through our Lord Jesus.
Thus, God the Father's plan is not to condemn the world, but to save it.
We're all familiar with John 3, 16.
But how many times have I heard that quoted, and I keep saying to myself,
please do the next verse. Finish it. Finish it. John 3, 17.
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For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Yes, that word in order. The Greek word is hena, and it's usually called a hena
purpose, meaning the purpose stated.
Why did he do this? To save the world.
Some translations have might, but that's not the might of doubt.
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It's the might of making a thing possible. Because with God,
all things are possible.
So, to save the world. Now, this is not chasing a rabbit.
This is pertinent to this because I've seen it come up time and time again,
so we're just going to address it.
Going to say, how many? Few?
A small number, is God out to condemn as many as possible because he's an angry God?
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That's the picture many have of the Old Testament God. There's limited seating
in heaven, I guess. Yes. He's trying to quiet down.
Yes. Right. Where does this come from?
All right. Here's a passage. And just recently, I heard a preacher use this
verse on TV and did with it what others do.
And I just dissent from this kind of understanding of this verse.
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So we're going to take a look at it, but it has to do with your view of God. So it's important.
Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide
and the way is easy that leads to destruction.
And those who enter by it are many, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard
that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
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All right. And the few, of course, means the whole human race.
So the majority of people go to hell, only a few, limited seating, in heaven.
So, we've got to ask the question, is Jesus talking about all time here?
Because is that the context? Or is he talking about the people of his own generation?
Now, easy way to figure this out, we go to chapter 8, very next chapter in Matthew.
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And there's a passage about this Roman centurion. It's very interesting.
So, listen to this passage, a little longer, but it's worth hearing.
Matthew 8, verses 5-12.
When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him,
Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.
And he said to him, I will come and heal him. But the centurion replied,
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Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word,
and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one,
go, and he goes, and another, come, and he comes.
And to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this,
he marveled, and he said to those who followed him, Truly I tell you that no
one in Israel have I found such faith.
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I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at the table with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom
will be thrown into the outer darkness, in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Right. So this, just to rehearse here, Jesus says of this centurion's faith,
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truly, I tell you, there's no one in Israel that I've found that has such a faith.
Not just few, we're down to nobody now.
And then he says, I tell you, many will come from the east and the west.
All right. That's all the way around the world. That's Gentiles.
And recline at the table of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
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That's what Jews were looking for too, the coming of the messianic kingdom.
And Jesus says, there's going to be a lot of people there, many people there,
but the sons of the kingdom, and I'm telling you that means the generation that
Jesus is addressing, will be thrown into outer darkness.
The sons of the kingdom are told later on in Matthew, the kingdom of God is
going to be taken from you and given to a people.
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Gentiles, churches, and the Jews who are also part of that ecclesiastical truth
that Jesus is going to create, they're going to have that kingdom of God to
administer. You're going to lose it.
This is where the many means everyone in the world, the few meaning the Jewish nation.
Yeah. Yes. That's the way I understand it. And we're going to take a look at
a few more passages to tie a bow on this and make it complete.
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Few or many. In Matthew six times, the phrase is used by Jesus,
this generation, this generation, this generation.
For example, Matthew 12 verses 41 and 42.
The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn
it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold,
something greater than Jonah is here.
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The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and
condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
This generation is the generation that Jesus and that, yes, and this generation
is the one who has so many who'll be on the road to destruction.
And that generation is the one that killed him.
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And exactly. So this generation, meaning the many of Matthew 7.
This generation, meaning the many of Matthew 7, those on the broad of destruction.
The fear of this generation will be left, talking of the Jews here,
of his generation, together around the kingdom table.
Of course, the world will be judged, absolutely. But as Jesus says,
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that judgment will be done this way, John 12, 46 through 48.
I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him.
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The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. I did not come to
judge the world, but to save the world.
And it seems to me, and I settled this problem way back in the 70s,
not too long after I'd been a Christian, because the loop I was in,
the ecclesiastical loop, was very big on only a few are going to make it,
so we've got to do our… Yeah. Reach as many as we can.
Yeah, got to do it, got to do it, got to do it. Yeah. But as I continue to read
the Bible, it's like the purpose was to save the world.
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So at least if the majority aren't saved, it's like God failed at his purpose.
I'm sorry. I cannot accept that.
So let's go a little further. The word is the word of the Father that Jesus is talking about.
The word I've spoken, that's the word of the Father. And he concurs with that word.
Let's hear the next two verses from the passages that Randy just read, which is John 12.
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Now these two verses, 49 and 50. For I have not spoken on my own authority,
but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment,
what to say and what to speak.
And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say,
therefore, I say as the Father has told me.
Right. The Father is speaking from his heart, and Jesus has the Father's heart
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and mind, and Jesus speaks what the Father gives him.
It's always been that way. It's always been that way.
The so-called God of the Old Testament is in complete harmony with God the Son
of the New Testament because God the Son of the New Testament is in complete
harmony with his Father.
In fact, Jesus is having no problems with the God of the Old Testament because
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we see that he uses Noah's flood as the model for how he will return.
So listen to this from Matthew 24, verses 36 through 42.
But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father only.
For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
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For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,
and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away,
so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, and the other left.
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Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
So, Jesus says, as it was with the flood of Noah, which the God of the Old Testament
brought to pass, this is the way of the coming of the Son of Man.
Now, of course, we know there were only eight people, few were saved.
But now, is that the paradigm? Is that where we're headed?
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Let's continue. The judgment will be worldwide, and there'll be a great separation,
and some will will be swept away like Noah's flood.
Others left to enter the kingdom of God. Well, who will be left? A few or many.
When we get through the Old Testament and the New, listen to how things are.
Hebrews chapter 2 verses 9 and 10.
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But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels,
namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist,
in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
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He suffered by the grace of God and tasted death for everyone.
That means everyone.
And that's going back to the cross. And then looking ahead to the kingdom to come.
God is working through Jesus, his son, to bring many sons, and of course, and daughters to glory.
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So that's what the book of Hebrews tells us. So how will that happen?
How is it that there'll be many there and not few?
Well, there's a lot more to that. And if there's interest out there in podcast
land, maybe we'll follow that up with a podcast or two.
For now, this is what I say. The Bible states it, that the God of the Old Testament
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has always purposed to save the world.
And we find time and time again, illustrations in the Bible,
and they're in the Old Testament.
We could spend another half an hour just quoting text from the Old Testament,
which shows this is the case.
The end of Psalm 22, for instance, where all the families of the earth will
turn to God and those going down to the dust will turn to him.
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And everybody will be proclaiming. You have all those kinds of passages like that.
So, and we have in the book of Revelation, people coming out of that great tribulation,
the number that nobody can number, all about huge numbers.
The Bible states what we've just looked at, that God is merciful.
His purpose is to save the world.
Now, he says it, the Bible says it, and that settles it. The only question is,
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do we believe it? And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, thanks, Jim. We serve a worthy God. At least Jesus thought so.
Absolutely. Hopefully, all of you think so now, too.
And if you happen to have a question or comment about today's podcast,
please drop that question or comment in the comments section or shoot us an
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email at eventsandexpectations, that's all one word, at gmail.com.
We will use your commentary where possible, but we will always answer you.
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations. And until next time, keep looking up.
Music.
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Good day to you, brothers, sisters, friends, and new faces, and welcome to Current
Events and Christian Expectations.
And today in this podcast, we're going to be speaking about the unworthy God.
We'll start off with John 5, verse 39, and we'll have several other scriptures
that we reference and read today, and we'll put those in the overview.
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But whether we serve an unworthy God or not, let's just dig right in.
Good day or evening, depending on when you're listening to everybody out there in podcast land.
Doctrinally speaking, this podcast is the following. Jesus is the revelation
of the Old Testament God.
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Well, what current event brings that to pass? Well, currently dismissing the
God of the Old Testament as unworthy as a God.
A lot of people, Christians, are
doing that. I know a lot of people in my personal life. I don't say a lot.
I know more than a few people that dismiss the Old Testament.
They won't read it. Right.
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Exactly. And this is bad news.
Bad news. The problem that we're looking at has a long history, almost 2,000 years.
It goes all the way back to a fellow named Marcion. He was hailed in the second
century AD, and he was an early heretic.
Here is a little bit on Marcion from Wikipedia.
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Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the gospel who sent Jesus Christ
into the world as the Savior was the true supreme being, different and opposed
to the malevolent creator God of the Old Testament.
Identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament. He considered himself a
follower of Paul, this Marcion, the apostle, and whom he believed to have been
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the only true apostle of Jesus Christ.
How he arrived at that, I have no idea. Well, malevolent, that says it all.
Here's a quote now bringing up today. This is from August of 2018 on Albert Moeller. That's Dr.
Albert Moeller, used to be the head of Southern Seminary down there in Kentucky.
Oh, I guess I should say north of that. Yeah, that's right. It is north. Of Kentucky, yeah.
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He's quoting an interview that Andy Stanley had on a podcast with a fellow named Jonathan Merritt.
Andy Stanley is the son of Charles Stanley, who recently passed away.
Stanley says in this podcast, quote, I'm convinced that we make a better case
for Jesus if we leave the Old Testament out of the argument.
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I am convinced for the sake of this generation and the next generation,
we have to rethink our apologetic as Christians.
And the less we depend on the Old Testament to prop up our New Testament,
faith will be the better because of where we are in this culture. End quote.
And he goes on to say that there are those who have left the faith over the Old Testament God.
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And my response to that is, well, then they surely will leave the faith in the
New Testament, because as we will see, Jesus is just fine with the God he calls
his father of the Old Testament.
So where's the problem? Listen to this from John 5, 39.
You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life,
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And it is they that bear witness about me.
It is they that bear witness about me.
The scripture was mentioned there, meaning the Old Testament.
The Old Testament reference.
Of course, there was no New Testament scriptures at this time as we understand they.
So without the Old Testament, here's the problem. How do you explain Jesus?
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If he cuts the New Testament, all of a sudden, Jesus shows up and does this
and says, where's the backstory?
We all are familiar with movies and backstories.
Everybody has a backstory. We need an origin story. An origin story, yeah.
There are those who do not see the God of the Old Testament as Jesus did. Let me repeat that.
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There are those, and they are Christians, who do not see the God of the Old Testament as Jesus did.
Jesus' own disciples, his chosen apostles, were the first to have this real, varied problem.
So listen to this from John 14, 1, and then verses 8, 9, and 10.
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.
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Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.
Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?
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The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority,
but the Father who dwells in me does his works.
Jesus is caught by surprise.
If you've seen me, you've seen a Father. What was their conception of God of
the Old Testament if they did not get this?
The Father who dwells in me does his works. The works that Jesus does,
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primarily 99% are merciful.
I mean, he cleansed the temple twice, and he cursed the fig tree once.
Yeah, that was the only destructive miracle he had. Exactly.
But everything else was raising the dead, healing the blind,
death, preaching the good news to the poor, and so forth and so on.
It was restorative miracles.
Absolutely. So to see Jesus, according to this text we just read,
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Randy read, to see Jesus is to see the Father.
To see Jesus' works of mercy is to behold the Father, the God of the Old Testament, John 10, 37 and 38.
If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.
But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works,
that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
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Right, these good works of mercy, apparently, so many people of Jesus' time
who should have known better did not get this.
Why did the disciples, his apostles, not get this? What were they looking for or who?
Better yet, how did they totally misinterpret the Old Testament? And they did, you know.
Later, the authors of the New Testament assert this truth of which Jesus speaks.
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And we'll find this that we find in John's gospel.
And we'll start with Hebrews 1, verse 3.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,
and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty
on high. Yes, he's the radiance of the glory of God.
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That's Jesus. And he's the exact imprint of his nature.
We see the very nature of God, who Jesus calls his Father, in Jesus.
And we know the works of Jesus were merciful, saving, blessed.
Jesus is the exact imprint of the Father's divine nature.
Paul as well asserts this same truth, 2 Corinthians 4, verses 3 and 4.
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And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case.
Christ, who is the image of God.
You behold Christ, you behold God, God the Father, because that's what Jesus
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said the God of the Old Testament was to him, his Father.
Again, with Paul, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 and 6.
Because in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.
Everything God the Father is, so is the Son.
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Yet he didn't hold on to that equality, didn't hoard to himself.
He gave that glory up, made himself unequal by being the one who leaves heaven
and the glory that was his as God.
He leaves all that for earth.
And here again, Paul in Colossians 1, verses 15 and 19 and 20.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
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For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to
reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross.
He's the image of the invisible God, and the fullness of God dwells in him.
That's the fullness of God the Father, which is what?
Warning reconciliation, warning all things to be reconciled.
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We see God the Father in Jesus, and what we see is the Father's merciful ways, which become Jesus's.
This truth was always there in the Old Testament, but according to Jesus,
and he's right in this, God's people so often didn't get the mercies of God in the Old Testament.
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Listen to Matthew 9, verses 10 through 13.
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and
sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples,
Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
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Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
Right. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. That's ironic,
because the righteous just refers to the Pharisees and their followers.
They think that's what they are. But Jesus says, I've come for sinners because
the whole purpose of God and his existence is to help sinners.
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I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
So listen to this. Very important. Here we have a lesson in hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics means the approach of interpreting the Bible. How do you approach
the Bible? How do you interpret it?
In doctrinal terms, it's called hermeneutics.
Here's the truth. Some biblical Old Testament truths outweigh all others.
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We don't go by amount of verses in a book in the Old Testament as to how important
it is or what it has to say about God.
We must have a center from which we work from.
Again, some biblical Old Testament truths outweigh all others,
and the mercy of God is one such example.
For example, Hosea 6, 4, 5, and 6.
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What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?
Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.
Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets.
I have slain them by the words of my mouth. And my judgment goes forth as the light.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
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Yes, I want steadfast love, not sacrifice.
Now, he ordained sacrifice, but the point he's making is, although that's necessary
because I command you to do it, it's not sufficient.
What is sufficient is mercy. Only mercy.
So, the father speaks through Jesus. He wants mercy to be the basis of his kingdom,
not sacrifice, especially sacrifice that is hypocritical religion.
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His judgments come not willingly, but out of necessity because of the sins of his people.
Even as he, Jeremiah, sits among the judgment in Jerusalem.
The death and destruction that became Jerusalem, the scene of horror,
because it had been, of course, leveled by the Babylonians, Jeremiah Affirms
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the Mercy of God Lamentations 3, 22-24,
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Therefore I will hope in Him.
Great is your faithfulness, his promise to ultimately always be merciful,
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and his mercies never come to an end, even with the judgment.
We're going to see that if you look at the verses and sections of scripture
that you've got to use to understand who God is,
you're going to have to come back time and time again to the fact that he's
not into judgment, it's only necessity, what he wants and always is to be merciful, merciful, merciful.
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So, So, the God of the Old Testament's faithfulness outweighs his judgments.
Rejecting the Old Testament God because he judges shows we totally do not understand
that his faithfulness is to be merciful.
Because six verses later, in the same book of Lamentations, chapter 3,
we hear this in 31 through 33.
For the Lord will not cast off forever, but though he cause grief,
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he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
The Lord will cast off forever, but though he causes grief, he will have compassion.
You know, when people talk about the Old Testament, they talk about hell,
fire, brimstone, judgment.
(13:14):
But they've missed the point. They've missed the point. Yeah,
if you use that as your center, you will come out with a warped view when you hit the New Testament.
Yeah. Which is exactly what the Pharisees did. Exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, so it's very important to understand this.
The Christian Standard Bible translate this, for he does not enjoy bringing
affliction or suffering on humanity.
And yet one gets the impression that's sort of what the Pharisees thought.
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They certainly got joy from it. And we're gonna have a podcast on this schadenfreude problem.
I don't know, a few weeks from now, maybe. Yeah. Yeah.
So God the Father certainly causes grief, but grief is brief.
Love is lasting. We already just heard that in Lamentations.
Listen to this, one of my favorite passages from the book of Psalms,
Psalms 30, verses 4 and 5.
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Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy name.
For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime.
Weepy may carry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Right.
Anger is but for a moment and it's favor for a lifetime.
This sentiment is the pattern of truth throughout the Old Testament.
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We turn once again to Hosea.
This time we're in chapter 11, verses 7, first of all.
My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the
Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.
However, his compassions then well up within him.
And God, the God of the Old Testament, Father of Jesus, cries out in the next following verses.
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How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Adma? How can I treat you like Zeboim?
My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my burning anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim,
for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.
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I am God, not a man, who basically always wants to make sure,
destroy, destroy, destroy.
But I'm holy and my holiness means and is completely compatible with and wants
above all to have mercy, mercy, mercy.
If the Jews of the Old Testament in majority didn't get these great truths about
God for they're certainly there as we've seen them it's because of their desires
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and wants which obscured them from seeing his glory.
Isaiah says it well and we could quote many passages but this is one of my favorite.
Isaiah 1 verses 2 and 3. Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.
Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its owner, and the donkeys its master's crib.
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But Israel does not know. My people do not understand.
No, they don't. They don't. The world focuses on the God of the Old Testament
and his judgments and then says, that's who he is. That's right.
And that's central to who he is. Everything else is peripheral. feel.
And they got it absolutely backwards.
You know, that's the one thing, our concept of God and who he is,
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is the most important thing that shapes everything else in our lives. Absolutely.
It shapes how we read scripture. If we see him as a God of anger and wrath, we will read it that way.
If we see him of God of mercy and love, we will read it that way.
True. Exactly. Absolutely.
The Christian expectation focuses on God's acts and declarations of his true nature.
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The prophetic proclamation that his anger is but for a moment,
his favor for a lifetime.
But, but, but, the God of the Old Testament, the flood. Well, yes, there was a flood.
But listen to Genesis 8, verses 20 and 21.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and
some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
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And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart,
I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's
heart is evil from his youth.
Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
It's so interesting that people who want to point out to the flood,
making God some kind of malevolent being who just wants to destroy, destroy,
(17:26):
fail to read this passage, which is in the context of the flood,
and understand a confession made by God and the concession made by God.
I will never again curse the ground because of man. Well, why not, Lord?
Because the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
There's no point in doing it.
Now, if God were the way some people think and the Pharisees thought,
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then the flood would have been the end of the human race and project experiment is over.
So, but he didn't do that. Given the evil nature of human beings,
the fact that from the flood onward, God limits his judgments of death is a
testimony to his reluctance to afflict humankind as lamentations highlights.
If we accept the testimony of the flood destroying all life except eight people,
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then we must accept God's promise that he'll never judge again that way.
Time and time again, God will restrain his judgment, which shows mercy to people,
even when it doesn't lead to their repentance, because man's heart is evil from his youth.
Psalm 78, verses 37 through 39.
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Their heart was not steadfast toward him. They were not faithful to his covenant.
Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them.
He restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath.
He remembered that they They were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.
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He atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them.
He restrained his anger and didn't stir up all of his wrath.
He could have done it legitimately.
He didn't. And he remembers that we are but flesh. How many times in my prayer,
after I've done some stupid, foolish, sinful things, have I said,
Lord, remember I'm just flesh, please.
A wind that just goes and it will not come again. in.
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However, the humble know this truth, that this is the way God really is,
and they praise God for it.
Listen to Psalm 103, verses 6 through 9.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
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He will not always chide, nor will He keep His anger forever. ever.
Right. He doesn't deal with us according to our sins or repay us according to our iniquities.
Why does his anger have a limit? This is important. Scripture affirms time and
time again his anger has a limit.
Because his love lasts forever and outlasts his anger. And love is what is going to have the final word.
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Love will always finally conquer because, as Paul tells us, love never fails.
Psalm 136, verse 1. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
This refrain, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his steadfast love endures
forever, is repeated 26 times in this Psalm of 26 verses. You don't have that
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kind of thing with His wrath.
You don't have that kind of song with His anger. It's just not there.
Now, remember, we're talking about God the Father, God of the Old Testament,
and He's the fount of all blessings flowing from Him through His Son.
We know this theologically. Paul lays it out in 1 Corinthians 8, verses 5 and 6.
For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth,
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as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is one God.
Okay, the Father is the fount. All things come from Him and flow to us through Jesus.
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Whatever flows from the Father also flows harmoniously through our Lord Jesus.
Thus, God the Father's plan is not to condemn the world, but to save it.
We're all familiar with John 3, 16.
But how many times have I heard that quoted, and I keep saying to myself,
please do the next verse. Finish it. Finish it. John 3, 17.
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For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Yes, that word in order. The Greek word is hena, and it's usually called a hena
purpose, meaning the purpose stated.
Why did he do this? To save the world.
Some translations have might, but that's not the might of doubt.
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It's the might of making a thing possible. Because with God,
all things are possible.
So, to save the world. Now, this is not chasing a rabbit.
This is pertinent to this because I've seen it come up time and time again,
so we're just going to address it.
Going to say, how many? Few?
A small number, is God out to condemn as many as possible because he's an angry God?
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That's the picture many have of the Old Testament God. There's limited seating
in heaven, I guess. Yes. He's trying to quiet down.
Yes. Right. Where does this come from?
All right. Here's a passage. And just recently, I heard a preacher use this
verse on TV and did with it what others do.
And I just dissent from this kind of understanding of this verse.
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So we're going to take a look at it, but it has to do with your view of God. So it's important.
Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide
and the way is easy that leads to destruction.
And those who enter by it are many, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard
that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
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All right. And the few, of course, means the whole human race.
So the majority of people go to hell, only a few, limited seating, in heaven.
So, we've got to ask the question, is Jesus talking about all time here?
Because is that the context? Or is he talking about the people of his own generation?
Now, easy way to figure this out, we go to chapter 8, very next chapter in Matthew.
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And there's a passage about this Roman centurion. It's very interesting.
So, listen to this passage, a little longer, but it's worth hearing.
Matthew 8, verses 5-12.
When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him,
Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.
And he said to him, I will come and heal him. But the centurion replied,
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Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word,
and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one,
go, and he goes, and another, come, and he comes.
And to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this,
he marveled, and he said to those who followed him, Truly I tell you that no
one in Israel have I found such faith.
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I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at the table with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom
will be thrown into the outer darkness, in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Right. So this, just to rehearse here, Jesus says of this centurion's faith,
(24:32):
truly, I tell you, there's no one in Israel that I've found that has such a faith.
Not just few, we're down to nobody now.
And then he says, I tell you, many will come from the east and the west.
All right. That's all the way around the world. That's Gentiles.
And recline at the table of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
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That's what Jews were looking for too, the coming of the messianic kingdom.
And Jesus says, there's going to be a lot of people there, many people there,
but the sons of the kingdom, and I'm telling you that means the generation that
Jesus is addressing, will be thrown into outer darkness.
The sons of the kingdom are told later on in Matthew, the kingdom of God is
going to be taken from you and given to a people.
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Gentiles, churches, and the Jews who are also part of that ecclesiastical truth
that Jesus is going to create, they're going to have that kingdom of God to
administer. You're going to lose it.
This is where the many means everyone in the world, the few meaning the Jewish nation.
Yeah. Yes. That's the way I understand it. And we're going to take a look at
a few more passages to tie a bow on this and make it complete.
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Few or many. In Matthew six times, the phrase is used by Jesus,
this generation, this generation, this generation.
For example, Matthew 12 verses 41 and 42.
The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn
it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold,
something greater than Jonah is here.
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The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and
condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,
and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
This generation is the generation that Jesus and that, yes, and this generation
is the one who has so many who'll be on the road to destruction.
And that generation is the one that killed him.
(26:22):
And exactly. So this generation, meaning the many of Matthew 7.
This generation, meaning the many of Matthew 7, those on the broad of destruction.
The fear of this generation will be left, talking of the Jews here,
of his generation, together around the kingdom table.
Of course, the world will be judged, absolutely. But as Jesus says,
(26:43):
that judgment will be done this way, John 12, 46 through 48.
I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him.
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The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. I did not come to
judge the world, but to save the world.
And it seems to me, and I settled this problem way back in the 70s,
not too long after I'd been a Christian, because the loop I was in,
the ecclesiastical loop, was very big on only a few are going to make it,
so we've got to do our… Yeah. Reach as many as we can.
Yeah, got to do it, got to do it, got to do it. Yeah. But as I continue to read
the Bible, it's like the purpose was to save the world.
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So at least if the majority aren't saved, it's like God failed at his purpose.
I'm sorry. I cannot accept that.
So let's go a little further. The word is the word of the Father that Jesus is talking about.
The word I've spoken, that's the word of the Father. And he concurs with that word.
Let's hear the next two verses from the passages that Randy just read, which is John 12.
(27:54):
Now these two verses, 49 and 50. For I have not spoken on my own authority,
but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment,
what to say and what to speak.
And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say,
therefore, I say as the Father has told me.
Right. The Father is speaking from his heart, and Jesus has the Father's heart
(28:16):
and mind, and Jesus speaks what the Father gives him.
It's always been that way. It's always been that way.
The so-called God of the Old Testament is in complete harmony with God the Son
of the New Testament because God the Son of the New Testament is in complete
harmony with his Father.
In fact, Jesus is having no problems with the God of the Old Testament because
(28:39):
we see that he uses Noah's flood as the model for how he will return.
So listen to this from Matthew 24, verses 36 through 42.
But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father only.
For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
(29:00):
For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,
and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away,
so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken and one left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, and the other left.
(29:22):
Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
So, Jesus says, as it was with the flood of Noah, which the God of the Old Testament
brought to pass, this is the way of the coming of the Son of Man.
Now, of course, we know there were only eight people, few were saved.
But now, is that the paradigm? Is that where we're headed?
(29:42):
Let's continue. The judgment will be worldwide, and there'll be a great separation,
and some will will be swept away like Noah's flood.
Others left to enter the kingdom of God. Well, who will be left? A few or many.
When we get through the Old Testament and the New, listen to how things are.
Hebrews chapter 2 verses 9 and 10.
(30:03):
But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels,
namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist,
in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.
(30:27):
He suffered by the grace of God and tasted death for everyone.
That means everyone.
And that's going back to the cross. And then looking ahead to the kingdom to come.
God is working through Jesus, his son, to bring many sons, and of course, and daughters to glory.
(30:47):
So that's what the book of Hebrews tells us. So how will that happen?
How is it that there'll be many there and not few?
Well, there's a lot more to that. And if there's interest out there in podcast
land, maybe we'll follow that up with a podcast or two.
For now, this is what I say. The Bible states it, that the God of the Old Testament
(31:09):
has always purposed to save the world.
And we find time and time again, illustrations in the Bible,
and they're in the Old Testament.
We could spend another half an hour just quoting text from the Old Testament,
which shows this is the case.
The end of Psalm 22, for instance, where all the families of the earth will
turn to God and those going down to the dust will turn to him.
(31:29):
And everybody will be proclaiming. You have all those kinds of passages like that.
So, and we have in the book of Revelation, people coming out of that great tribulation,
the number that nobody can number, all about huge numbers.
The Bible states what we've just looked at, that God is merciful.
His purpose is to save the world.
Now, he says it, the Bible says it, and that settles it. The only question is,
(31:52):
do we believe it? And that's the Christian expectation.
Well, thanks, Jim. We serve a worthy God. At least Jesus thought so.
Absolutely. Hopefully, all of you think so now, too.
And if you happen to have a question or comment about today's podcast,
please drop that question or comment in the comments section or shoot us an
(32:12):
email at eventsandexpectations, that's all one word, at gmail.com.
We will use your commentary where possible, but we will always answer you.
This has been Current Events and Christian Expectations. And until next time, keep looking up.
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