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1:18
This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
1:24
Welcome back to the forging table. The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back
1:28
darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. At the forging
1:33
table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience by digging into God's word.
1:37
And we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with us. We got the OG crew. We got
1:40
Matt, Eric, and Ryan. We're digging into Matthew 12. And there's a lot of different sections here
1:45
for us to get into. Obviously, we kind of left some stuff to be desired at the end of our discussion
1:50
last week. But over the next couple of weeks and even a little bit this week, we'll get more into
1:53
that. So Ryan, if you would mind, hit us off with this first section here. Let's read Matthew 12
1:59
versus 1 through 8. At the time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath,
2:03
his disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But then the Pharisee
2:08
saw it and said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath."
2:14
He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he was hungry and those who were with
2:20
him? How he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for
2:25
him to eat nor for those who are with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law
2:32
how the Sabbath, how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane, I can't read with the
2:40
microphone." You can and you're doing it. So keep doing it. No, it keeps, it keeps like, I'm like,
2:44
"Oh, man, my eyes. Okay. Or have you not read in the law, how in the law, how on the Sabbath the
2:51
priests in the temple profane, the Sabbath and ate guiltless? I tell you something greater than
2:55
the temple is, I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. And if you
3:00
had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the
3:06
guiltless for the sons of man is the Lord of the Sabbath." So obviously here we have at the very
3:13
beginning, we have this issue. Why are you giggling over there, right? I think Ryan's playing 3D chess
3:20
here and he's trying to not get asked to read again. Well, I'm also like, I'm going to be real
3:24
honest if we're getting close to it. I'm not getting the invitation anymore. And I'm okay with that
3:30
because like I have to talk directionally into the mic. And so now I'm afraid if I go over here to
3:34
Louise, look, we all have two eyes. Hey, look, watch this. You see this? See what I'm doing?
3:41
He said they hate guiltless. What exactly are they eating? What does guiltless taste like?
3:45
Yeah. What exactly was that? Sabbath and our guiltless. All right. Well, we're on.
3:50
Did I say they ate guiltless? Yeah. I can't read. Are you hungry? Yeah. Hey, we know forced.
3:56
So we'll keep, we'll keep going with this, but don't worry, Ryan, you'll never get asked to do
4:01
anything ever again. Thank you. This is my last time on the forging table. I'll miss you guys.
4:05
But so we have here, we have, you know, typically at this time the people were,
4:11
because of the law, they would keep, they would not, I can't think of the farming word, they would
4:17
not, you know, glean from the edges. Okay, you're backing everyone's good graces with a glean.
4:23
I really can read. No one's convinced of that. But they would leave the edges of the field for
4:29
the poor and the hungry to be able to eat. And it was like, you could almost just see the Pharisees
4:35
were lying in wait, watching Jesus and his crew and being like a wonder if they want to snack.
4:41
Because the thing is, is the law allowed for it. But the oral tradition from what I gather
4:46
made it kind of a little bit of a gray area. But they just took an inch, that inch of gray area,
4:52
and just ran with it. It's like you freaking nerds. There wasn't really a gray area though,
4:57
like they really wanted just to make it, like, to make it bad because what you were supposed to do
5:02
on the Sabbath is like farm your grain and make a profit. You weren't supposed to make a profit on
5:09
the Sabbath. Like you could feed yourself, you could go and get grain for yourself, but you
5:14
couldn't make a profit on it. And what they were doing was expressly permitted. Yeah,
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I mean, David went into the temple and ate the bread of the priests. Why? Because he had to fill
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his army, you know? So when I reach in for straws, what I hear is they're they're trying to like
5:32
grasp at authority. This is a challenge to authority. Who's authority? Are you going to listen to
5:36
ours or Jesus? Yeah, maybe maybe they were doing it for the people that were watching that interaction.
5:44
It's like, like, they know the law. If somebody if somebody doesn't know the law,
5:48
and you know, a doer of the law and a teacher of the law says, you're doing what is unlawful on the
5:55
Sabbath. One might go, Oh, yeah, yeah, they they would know. Oh, man, this guy, it's kind of like,
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I think this isn't for the information. This is an authority play here. Yeah, I think you're
6:05
really hitting on something that I hadn't really thought of before to where it's like how how often
6:08
do we default to something? Some dude in a white coat says, ah, you probably shouldn't eat this or
6:12
that. And you give no regard to the fact that they did like three weeks of nutrition training in
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their like 12 years of school to become a doctor. And it's like, okay, maybe don't listen to the
6:22
fat doctor about whether you should eat this or that. But it's just like, well, they're we're
6:25
in a white coat or they have a PhD or, you know, they're my pastor or whatever. And we just like
6:31
go brain dead. It's what Joe boot calls the cult of the expert. Yeah. And we just we just bow to
6:37
that because like they're wearing a white coat. Why would they lie? Well, it's the appeal to authority
6:41
when someone makes an argument and they're like, they're appealing. Well, this guy who is an expert
6:45
says this. It's like, correct. And experts used to tell us that the, you know, sound revolved around
6:51
the earth and that the earth was flat. Like these were the experts, the smartest people of their day
6:56
said these things that ended up being false. So you might be really smart, but they could
6:59
also be super wrong. I really love those people where they're like, why did this countless amounts
7:03
of research? And I wrote this paper and then it got published. And then it was this and like,
7:07
now you have to believe whatever I say, it's like sound, they sound like that. That's a very
7:11
much sound. They also look like actually, you know, there's absolutely no research behind
7:19
the eight, eight ounce glasses of water per day. Oh, really? Yeah, for that all your life, right?
7:25
Interesting. Yeah, I sure research. No research around it. But you should it. But why? Why should
7:30
we do it? If there's no research to your point, because the doctor said, the doctor said, and
7:37
hey, if we stay six feet apart from each other, we can't get each other sick. And also, COVID can't
7:41
get you if you're sitting, you know, sit it, sit it down, sit it down, sitting down, sitting down.
7:45
That's right. I can't read. So you're good. Sorry. You can't read. I don't talk so good.
7:51
Hey, but before we move off of this section to keep this going, I am guilty of this as we
7:55
proved in the last one where I talked about, hey, you can read something so many times and not get
8:00
something out of it. This time when I read verse eight, I was like, whoa, whenever Jesus said,
8:06
for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath, that had to have been just an absolutely shocking thing
8:14
for the Pharisees to hear like like nails on a chalkboard. Right. And it's just like, wait a
8:18
minute. It's almost like in the scene from from the chosen season three where, you know, people are
8:23
like, that's not in the Bible. And but it was basically where they're like, that's a violation
8:28
of the law of Moses. And then Jesus walks up to the Pharisee and says, I am the law of Moses. It was
8:33
that type of a moment. He said, I'm the Lord of the Sabbath. And then we basically don't get a
8:39
follow up on that as we move into verse nine. But it was just like, go ahead. One thing to talk
8:43
about the Sabbath though, why was it put together? It was put together as a gift from God for us,
8:48
relax, and then also to worship him and to know who he is. You know, that's what the Sabbath was
8:53
for. It was a gift. It wasn't like it wasn't something to break our backs. It wasn't something like,
8:58
Oh, you got to be on the lookout and make sure you don't do these certain things on the Sabbath.
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It was like, no, it gives you a day arrest. It's something that's good for you and your human body.
9:06
And two, you can use that to worship God for who he is. It is a representation of what Jesus talks
9:11
about in chapter 11. Like take, take my yoke because it's easy and light. The Sabbath was to
9:15
be that to the Jewish people and they kept adding. Look, they took the easiest yoke
9:20
that they could possibly have in the law and they added to it. And we do that today still.
9:24
You know why I think I always thought that people are saying it was saying yoke instead of yoke is
9:29
because everybody mispronounces it. Like you just did. Eric, you did it last time. I freaking did it.
9:34
I can't just say yoke for whatever reason. I always throw it and I say yoke. You probably did.
9:39
I probably said yoke. I don't think so. Yoked. Yoked. No, yoked is what happens when you go to the
9:44
gym all the time. You get yoked. Right. That's different. Right. Now, we didn't have to go that
9:49
far. Well, hey, we need to read the next section. So who should we have read? Not Ryan. I'll do it.
9:53
I'll do it. Let me read. Let me redo myself. No, you're absolutely fired. Let me redeem myself.
9:57
You want to read nine through 14? Yes, I'll do it. That's like a whole paragraph now.
10:01
Okay. All right. Scared and says devolved. He went on from there and entered the synagogue.
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And a man was there with a withered hand and they asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath
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so that they might accuse him? He said to them, which one of you who has as sheep, if it falls
10:19
into a pit on the Sabbath, will it will not take hold of it and lift it out? Oh, of how much more
10:27
value is a man than a sheep? So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man,
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stretch out your hand and the man stretched it out and it was restored healthy like the other.
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But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him and how to conspired against him,
10:44
how to destroy him. I feel like I work for Make-A-Wish. It's like, no, I'm not.
10:51
I look like a recipient of Make-A-Wish. I am not allowing that again. You almost got there and
10:58
then you just stepped on your own. It's because I highlighted. No, no, that's not to do it. Speaking
11:03
of highlighters, I've been watching Matt over here. Is this a crayon? Is this a highlighter?
11:07
It's a gel. Those are good. Okay, so shout out to Salt and Light for their dry gel highlighter.
11:13
They're great. It's like a crayon. Okay, they're not a sponsor of the show. Just wanted to point
11:16
that out. Okay, so let's talk about this section here. There's nothing in the Old Testament that
11:20
prohibits healing on the Sabbath, like at all, that there's nothing there. So again, we have the
11:25
Pharisees kind of hopping on something. And Ryan, that was actually a really good point. Like I said,
11:29
it was kind of a gray area when it really wasn't. It really wasn't a gray area. This also is in a
11:32
gray area. But let's just talk a little bit about the hypocrisy of... And I love how Jesus puts it.
11:39
It's like, okay, if a sheep falls in somewhere, you're going to pull that sheep out, no big deal,
11:44
but you don't care about humans. And he's baiting the Pharisees to be like, yeah, we would save our
11:50
sheep, but almost like screw those humans. It's a Sabbath. And it's just like, wait a minute, like,
11:55
they know the value proposition of protecting and saving a human versus an animal. And yet they're
12:01
on the side of the animal here. He's showing their greed. Because with them having sheep,
12:07
their sheep creates profit. So yeah, they'll jump into the pit and save the sheep because the sheep's
12:13
going to give them profit after the Sabbath. But is healing somebody going to bring them any type
12:18
of profit? No, it is always lawful to do good. Yeah, always. Yeah. Well, the thing, the thing is so
12:24
interesting here with this story, because obviously we could talk about this whole story and not talk
12:28
about how amazing it was that a guy had a jacked up hand and then also on his hand was cool. Like,
12:32
again, like that, that's pretty awesome. But in verse 14, so the Pharisees see this sign. They
12:39
see a dude with, you know, the messed up hand and his hands healed in their first reaction,
12:44
their meaty reaction. We got to get rid of this guy. We got to destroy this guy.
12:48
Again, I don't want to ever seem so naive as to believe that if I were a Pharisee in that day,
12:54
that I would act the exact same way and try to find a way to get rid of this, you know,
12:59
this Jewish carpenter because he's, you know, just making me feel funny. But at the same time,
13:04
it's hard to read that and be like, how is that your reaction? How was that your default mechanism
13:08
to go there? I don't get it. Well, that should be convicting to us too. Because like, if we,
13:12
if we are reading the Bible and we, and we really do want to put ourselves in the story,
13:17
I think that's natural. But most often, we are the Pharisees in, in those situations where
13:25
how many times have you seen something in your first reaction was, uh, that guy,
13:30
that guy's not a, not a godly man or you question that or you critique something that's happening.
13:37
So I don't know. I think, I think we should, we should go into those types of situations
13:42
with an open mind. I think it comes down to what you talked about the last episode with
13:46
circumstances. It's like, what kind of circumstance are you in? What circumstances are these Pharisees
13:52
and Sadduas in? And so I think they're, they're looking at Christ based upon their own circumstance
13:57
and their own pride, and they are looking at themselves. And I think that's what it comes down
14:01
to with the saving grace of Christ is that one, we have to look at our total depravity.
14:07
We got to look at how depraved we are in these Pharisees and Sadduases don't see themselves as
14:11
depraved. They see themselves as godly. No, all power and authority had been given to them within
14:16
the Jewish community. And Jesus is literally saying all power and authority has been given to me by
14:21
God because he is my father and I am the son. Yeah. So they're, they're, they're, their whole
14:28
position is being challenged. Yeah. And they're, and they're taking this, there's like a level
14:33
investment with each one of these, either things that Jesus says or does, they're, they're investing
14:39
a little bit more kind of based on what power they have. And they're kind of getting to a point
14:44
where they're going to the just pure lack of logic. And so Jesus is answering very logically,
14:49
but they're just, they're going to double and down. And I wonder if it's a pragmatism for them
14:54
because their jobs are being potentially undermined, right? And so if you think about it, like I've
15:01
talked about this before, a lot of people that are in the abolitionist movement for abortion,
15:07
they will point to other people that are in the supposedly pro life movement, that they will
15:13
be an activist in a way that would never lead to the full diminishment of the process of abortion
15:20
here in America. Because the thing is, is let's say that we got abortion criminalized across the
15:26
board and we convinced everybody that they shouldn't get abortions no matter what, even if it were
15:30
illegal. And none of these people have jobs anymore. They can't raise funds. They can't, you know,
15:35
live their lavish lifestyles that some of them are living. And so it's kind of the same thing.
15:39
This almost feels like, let's say you could prove that me driving my Silverado is going to help the
15:45
earth, you know, basically get swallowed up by the universe in the next 12 years or whatever the
15:49
new timeline is. Well, like, if I work in oil and gas, that would be, and I were convinced of that.
15:55
Oh, man, I've got this, this tension now, because it's like I'm working in an industry that is
16:00
actively going to kill the planet. And so it's almost like here, they're like, wait a minute.
16:04
Maybe they think this guy's legit, but they're just like to a degree. It's like, I want my job. I
16:08
want people to look at me look to me. And to your appointment, it's like, they're not going to be
16:12
looking to me if this guy's legit. Like, we got to get this guy out of here. So there's, there's
16:16
certainly more that we can discuss right there. But real quick, I did want to take a quick aside
16:21
to talk about the guys out there that want to start their own forging table, which everyone at this
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table would highly suggest that you do that. So if you're going to do that, let Crossway help
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also devotional by Paul David trip. There's also a book by Douglas O'Donnell, where it talks about
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the different aspects or different types of writings in the Bible and how to kind of view them.
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it will be in the show notes. But let's go ahead and get into verses 15 through 21. So Ryan,
17:33
you're fired. Eric Brown, you're 15 to crossway have a deal of those books like on like I can
17:39
listen to them. Since I can't. Well, I guess the question is, would you even be able to understand
17:42
them? Like should we send them to you in English? Because I'm not sure it matters at this point.
17:46
I read very slow. No one's shocked by that. All right, 15 through 21. Yes, sir. Jesus aware of
17:52
this withdrew from there and many followed him and he healed them all and ordered them not to make
17:58
him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah behold my servant whom I have
18:05
chosen my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim
18:12
justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the
18:18
streets. A bruised read, he will not break in a smoldering wick. He will not quench until he brings
18:26
justice to victory. And in his name, the Gentiles will hope. So Isaiah again, you know, throughout
18:32
Matthew, we continue to get a bunch of Isaiah, the very next section of scripture is where I
18:38
want us to camp out a little bit. But what do y'all have anything specific on 15 through 21?
18:42
Because obviously he ordered them not to make it known that he had done all these things. But
18:46
nobody would ever abide by that. They always violated it and caused him to kind of leave his
18:51
ministry for a bit. Yeah, this is very interesting to me because he's basically telling them like
18:57
what he is here to do and what he is not here to do. And when he talks about he will not quarrel
19:02
or cry aloud, nor anyone hear his voice in the streets. That's a specific call to starting up
19:09
revolution. And he's not going to do that. He's not going to like militarily challenge authority
19:17
and start a revolution. And he's literally telling people, hey, I'm not here to do that.
19:22
People still are like, wait, but I thought you were here to do that. Right. Right. Can you please do
19:27
that? Yeah. Well, and I liked the the two things that says he'll heal the bruised reed or he won't
19:35
break the bruised reed and the smoldering wick. He will not quench. I liked that image. The bruised
19:43
reed couldn't produce grain. So he's a healer of that. And it just refers me back to Matthew 11
19:49
that we talked about before about him being gentle and lowly and that we should take his
19:54
yoke upon him. And then just the whole idea that smoldering wick, I was just thinking of that
19:59
candle that's just about to go out, you know, and he's not he's not going to allow it to go out.
20:05
And he's going to he's not going to give up on Israel. There was that the pronouncement of judgment
20:10
on Judah by Isaiah. But at the same time, he said, there will be a rim and a will restore.
20:19
And then ultimately, you know, is that last little bit in 20 more, he says, the Gentiles will hope
20:25
as I've got a buddy that he calls himself a hope dealer. I'm like, well, Jesus is a hope dealer.
20:30
I would like to just point out one more thing to just just look at this. Like many followed him
20:36
and he healed them all. That's like what I highlighted. And here's the thing. He physically
20:44
healed them, which is very rare in the Old Testament. You don't see physical healing really in the
20:47
Old Testament. And so that's one thing that I highlighted was like, if you followed them,
20:52
he healed you. Yeah, it's like with the faith that you talked about in the last episode,
20:56
the ones that had faith he healed. Yeah, that's good stuff there. Let's keep this
20:59
Paul Roland because there's other good stuff in Matthew 12, Matt, if you could read Matthew 12
21:04
verses 22 through 32. Then a demon oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him.
21:11
And he healed him so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said,
21:16
"Can this be the son of David?" But when the Pharisees heard it, they said,
21:20
"It is only by Beelzebub the prince of demons that this man casts out demons.
21:25
Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste,
21:30
and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan,
21:35
he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebub,
21:43
by whom do you do your sons cast them out? By the spirit of God that I cast out demons,
21:49
oh, sorry, therefore there will be your judges. But if it is the spirit of God that I cast out
21:54
demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house
21:59
and plunder his goods unless he first binds a strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.
22:04
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
22:10
Therefore I tell you, every sin in blasphemy will be forgiven people. But the blasphemy against
22:16
the spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the son of man will be forgiven.
22:21
But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or the age to come."
22:27
So we probably could have done the whole hour just on this section, but you know,
22:32
just kind of the way that we've set up the forging table. Well, who? Who? We? Me? I set the
22:37
forging table up like this, so I'm ruining the discussion by saying that we have to keep going
22:40
after this. So much here to discuss a couple of highlights and then I'll throw it to you guys.
22:45
Obviously verse 30, "Whoever is not with me is against me." These people that think that there
22:49
is a third way or that there is a different road. I just don't understand that. If you're a Christian
22:56
and you read something like that and you advocate for things that are literally contrary to the words
23:00
of Jesus, if you care about the words of Jesus, even if you consider yourself to be a red letter
23:05
Christian, these are red letters as well. Whoever is not with me is against me and whoever does not
23:09
gather with me scatters. That is an active thing by saying, "Okay, just by you not doing what I'm
23:15
telling you to do, that doesn't mean everything stays neutral. Things get scattered. It creates
23:20
chaos disorder." But obviously the big thing here is the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit and
23:27
we always talk gospel on this show. Certainly on the forging table, we talk about the gospel.
23:32
If you go to a good expository church like you're going to get full-throated description of the
23:37
gospel at all times. Typically when we talk about the gospel, it talks about, "Hey, it doesn't matter
23:42
what you've done. It doesn't matter the depravity that you've done. Look at King David." He was a
23:47
murderer and a rapist and he was a terrible guy. Look what came from him. You have the
23:54
line of Judah coming from the line of David. Then we get here into verse 31 and 32 and it's like,
24:01
"Wait a minute, blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven." As a lot of people have
24:06
couched, it's like, "Wait, there is an unforgivable sin." I think Catholics believe that you can't
24:11
commit suicide and then go to heaven or maybe you go to purgatory, which is not scriptural at all.
24:16
Purgatory doesn't exist. That doesn't make even make sense. Let's just talk about the unforgivable
24:22
sin part because I've read a lot about this section of all the things in Matthew 12. This is a part
24:29
where I read the most commentary about and I think I got more confused as I was reading through that
24:34
because I would feel like I'm trying to describe it in a way that's going to actually make sense.
24:39
But I knew this would happen too. It's like, "Ting it, I'm going to spin myself into a bunch
24:44
of webs here, but maybe y'all can help me pull myself out." But it's like, "Okay, the gospel covers
24:48
all sins, but what exactly is blaspheming the Holy Spirit as an individual?" So John Doe does
24:56
this. He has blasphemed the Holy Spirit. What exactly has he done to make it to where the gospel
25:03
cannot apply to him anymore? Does that make sense? Yeah, okay. All three y'all
25:08
talk about it. Everybody gets to go first. Aww. Because he can read. Go Eric. He can't read.
25:13
I could read. You had a couple of spots there. Okay, so your voice is sultry.
25:18
I was just reading this, just face value. What are these guys saying? They're basically saying
25:28
evil is doing the good, and the good is evil. We go on, we'll see that by our words,
25:36
we're defiled. It's not what goes in our body, but it's what comes out. So they are basically
25:44
saying our hearts are hardened. What I was saying earlier is they're digging in when they were
25:51
doubling down. At the beginning, it was like, "Here's a power play. We're going to say that's
25:56
unlawful." And then Jesus says, "No, it actually is not because I'm Lord of the Sabbath." And then
26:01
they're like, "Well, then okay, so tell us then, is it lawful to heal on this Sabbath? Since you're
26:07
the teacher, you tell us." And so he deals with that. Now, they're really, really doubling down
26:14
to the point where they're showing the hardness of their heart and just speaking pure evil by
26:20
saying that it is by Satan that you're doing these things. I want to go because you probably
26:26
want to add to this. But as a Calvinist, did y'all just do a secret handshake across the table without
26:32
actually touching each other? Is that super wink? It was a wink and a signal. Yeah. God,
26:36
the overuse. Let's go. Well, this, this verse has gotten me. All right. You can do it right now.
26:43
You can do it. Be serious. You said I'm to read it. That's true.
26:45
This verse has always gotten me as a person who believes in God's sovereignty and believes that
26:52
there's more to his sovereignty than there is free will. And it's like, I hear exactly where Eric's
26:58
coming from. Like these guys are basically saying what God is doing through the Spirit, through his
27:03
healing and what Christ is doing is of the devil and they know the truth. They know who God is and
27:09
they can see what he's doing, that it's not through the devil. It's through God, but they want to,
27:15
they want to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. So it's basically unforgivable, which makes me think of
27:21
free will. So we know that God is sovereign over who he saves. We know through scripture
27:31
that he opens our eyes to the beauty of the gospel, but maybe, which has made me thought,
27:39
what if we've seen the beauty of the gospel and this comes, kind of comes back to the
27:44
sower of the seed, we receive it, but then we blaspheme it later by saying, we don't believe like,
27:51
we've seen the beauty of the gospel, but maybe there's people out there that believe that said
27:56
they believed and no longer believe the beauty of the gospel. But I think I've heard you say,
28:00
or at least I've heard, you know, MacArthur, different people say, like, if somebody claims to be a
28:05
Christian, but then later they walk away from the faith, they usually just say, well, they never had
28:11
the faith. And John, John talks about that. Yeah. And then I see that too, but then also see,
28:15
like, God's opened your eyes to the beauty of it. Maybe you had the choice to say, you know what,
28:20
I'm like, these Pharisees and Sadducees did. God's opened their eyes. They know that Christ is doing
28:26
this through God and not through the devil, but they're choosing to say, John says they departed
28:31
from us because they were not of us. And that's how he puts it. And I get that, but I'm saying,
28:36
does your free will kind of play a role in blaspheming the Holy Spirit if you walk away?
28:41
I think we got to define some terms here. Okay. We got to start with, who is the arbiter of the
28:46
law? Who is who is the creator of the law? Who gets to make the decision? God is holy.
28:50
Yes. A really helpful book for some of these hard passages in the Old Old Testament and in
28:55
seven, the New Testament is the Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul. If you want to understand
29:01
some of the things that you can have real heartburn about, the Holiness of God is a great place
29:07
to start. So who is the definer of this? God gets to make the decision.
29:12
J.C. Ryle is also helpful in understanding, because I think you look at this and you go,
29:17
oh gosh, have I ever done this? Have I ever blasphemed the Holy Spirit? And J.C. Ryle,
29:23
the great theologian from Liverpool, England said, and I'll paraphrase because I don't have
29:27
the quote in front of me. If those who are who are worried that they have blasphemed the Holy
29:33
Spirit are probably not in danger of blaspheming the Holy Spirit because they're thinking about it
29:39
and they're concerned with it because they are concerned with the things of Christ.
29:42
Those who would never admit to it are so blinded by their evil that it doesn't even matter.
29:49
But when we look at that and we look at what what is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit
29:57
and like like you guys are saying, like it's they know the truth. They see the truth,
30:01
yet they are saying that it is not God. It is it is Satan who is doing these things.
30:06
We want to see justice and we want to see justice played out. And if you think,
30:13
well, I would love to see justice for Satan. This is literally why he will spend eternity
30:21
in a pit because he blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. He sat next to God
30:27
and said, no, I want the power. I want the throne. Like that's unforgivable.
30:35
So let me let me ask you because I feel like we could because again, like I said, we could
30:39
just philosophize about this entire thing for for an hour. But on a on a practical level,
30:44
on the on an actual practical level, I want to know is blaspheming the Holy Spirit a thing you do?
30:51
Like, or is it a posture of your heart or is it both? Because it's like, if I'm an arsonist,
30:56
I have to set fire to something like there's not a posture of my heart to be called.
31:00
I think this goes back to how Proverbs lays out the three segments of people.
31:06
And I don't remember exactly but the third most the most of vile is the foolish. Like they know
31:11
or they are actively going against the truth. They know the truth, but they're actively going
31:18
against it. And so they are they are being fools. And I think Proverbs, I don't remember exactly
31:24
that. I hear what I hear what you're saying on that. But like me as somebody who believes in God's
31:28
sovereignty, like we will we will both say that God opens your eyes to the gospel.
31:33
Yeah. You would agree that. Right. So then can somebody whose eyes are open to the gospel
31:40
know the truth and say it's not true in blaspheming it? You're going to have to you're going to have
31:46
to make the case that the Pharisees eyes were open to the gospel. Were they? But I'm just like,
31:54
let's not even we can talk about the Pharisees and say, I think their eyes were because Nicodemus
31:59
was open to it. But he but that he's one guy. I believe in the Bible right now,
32:04
Christ is calling them out for blaspheming the Holy Spirit because he's moving them.
32:08
I don't think that they've done that yet. I don't think there's there's not a hey,
32:10
this is you guys will spend eternity in hell. I think he is warning them
32:16
that this is this is an unforgivable thing. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
32:20
But if they've done it, then there is no hope for them. I mean, they've already done it.
32:25
Sure. Right. Yeah. Like if they haven't already done it, why would he talk about it?
32:29
See, that's my conundrum. I don't know.
32:38
But but but does. Okay. So my my question, though, again, is has God opened their eyes
32:44
to the good news? Has he opened their eyes to see?
32:47
But so you're you are you saying that they that he hasn't? No, I'm asking.
32:53
I'm asking a question. I don't know why I land on this because if he that's where
32:56
that's where I'm coming from. I don't know where I land. Wait. So if if God hasn't opened their eyes,
33:00
I thought about it halfway, but are they are they are they pharaoh?
33:07
Well, it's exactly what I was thinking earlier. I mean, they're they're hard.
33:12
They have a heart posture, but like we again, we see we see the out the overflow of their heart
33:18
through what they're saying. That's why I think it just naturally flows into the next section
33:22
that we'll get to is that they're going to be there. They're saying that out loud. They're saying,
33:26
this is this is our heart posture. And we're saying that this what you're doing is by Satan.
33:31
And so Jesus is like, well, you're damning yourself. You're blaspheming the Holy
33:37
Spirit right now. And so that's where it makes me wonder about nowadays is that we have many
33:42
people that call themselves Christians who say that they're saved and they have salvation. And like,
33:49
maybe, you know, we want to go to the sewer, the sewer of the seed, which we'll get into.
33:53
I mean, there's certain things that happen that the root takes hold, but withers, the birds come
33:58
and eat it. So like when the root takes hold, somebody's hearing the message, their eyes are open to it.
34:03
Now, through discipleship or through whatever they're doing and their circumstances of life,
34:07
can they just see the truth, but just not believe it?
34:13
Yeah, my commentary talks about they're they're exposed. They're exposed to the truth,
34:19
not necessarily that they are believing it. Okay, that makes sense to me then.
34:23
They're exposed to the truth. They can kind of see what's being said, but they don't take on true
34:28
belief. I mean, this is a stark warning. And I think it plays out. Like, I think we can all
34:32
understand where where they go, where they end up in eternity, because I mean, the rest of the
34:38
gospel plays out where they're, yeah, I mean, they just kind of continue along that same path.
34:41
And then you think about the cities that they talked about in the last episode. And like, I think
34:46
it comes down to like, there's variable degrees in hell. Like, you're going to, some are going to
34:52
suffer more in hell than that than others. And so I think that maybe he's talking about this as well,
34:59
that there's very degrees of sin, but those who blaspheme the Holy Spirit,
35:03
one, don't have the chance at salvation. And two, hit the pits of hell. I don't know.
35:09
No, I think it's, I think those are good things to wrestle with. And my Sunday school talks about
35:14
it in this way. There are things in the Bible that we don't understand. So we throw them in a closet.
35:19
And we think, okay, one day I'll put it on a hanger, but then we go in there and there's so
35:22
many things in the closet that it's just a jumbled mess. And we don't know what to do with it. So
35:25
we just close the closet door. So like, this is one of those things that like, we should wrestle
35:29
with and we should discuss. And I don't, maybe, maybe we won't. It's like Spurgeon's quote that
35:34
you ended with, you know, it's like, we're never going to understand these things until we're at
35:38
the throat of God. I guess I'm wanting to just give a warning to people like, because it's almost
35:44
like, Hey, don't do this. And it would like, what is the this exactly? I feel like we haven't been
35:49
able to grass. It's like trying to grab a fistful of water. We haven't like fully grasped like what
35:53
the this is. The this is from what I'm seeing is that if, if through the Holy Spirit, you are seeing
36:01
God's truth being done, whether it's through miracles or through, through whatever, be careful
36:08
on blaspheming that, you know, be careful on saying that's of Satan. Because you, you know,
36:14
one, you should already know, you shouldn't see that. But even through like, you're, you know,
36:19
it's like, let's go back to the revival. The revival, it's really hard for me to say that
36:24
revival was of Satan. I would never say that. Asbury. Yeah, asbury revival.
36:28
Do I think the fruit of the asbury revival is going to be seen? Yes, there's going to be some
36:34
fruit out of that. Hopefully there's fruit out of it. But like, those people coming out and saying,
36:39
well, this is something of Satan, they might want to be careful. Yeah, that's, that's, that's,
36:43
well, it, do you know it to be of God? You do know it to be of God, but you're still rejecting it?
36:48
Yeah. That is what, yeah, the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit is.
36:52
And I hope you know it to be unique. You know it to be true that it is of God that this is
36:57
happening, but you are rejecting that. Yeah. Eric, get the last word on this.
37:01
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, and I'm just thinking of it as layers of hardening, just so you know,
37:06
like, and so I was going, I went to Hebrews, Hebrews three. I'll read this seven through,
37:14
I won't read the whole thing says this. So as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice,
37:18
do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion. I think it's talking about when they
37:22
were taken out of Egypt and then rebelled in the wilderness during the time of testing in the
37:26
wilderness where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for 40 years, they saw what I did.
37:32
This is why I was angry with that generation. I said, their hearts are always going astray,
37:37
and they have not known my ways. So I declared an oath in my anger that they shall never
37:45
enter my rest. And so we know that they all perished before they actually went into the promise
37:50
promise lane that goes on. It says in verse 12, see to it, brothers and sisters that none
37:55
of you has a sinful and believing heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage
37:59
one another daily as long as it is called today so that none of you may be hardened by sins to
38:03
deceitfulness. So I'll stop there and keeps going for the rest of the chapter on the same vein.
38:10
But then I remember this verse and you guys help me if you've read this before and have a similar
38:16
thought. But Proverbs 29 1 says, whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly
38:24
be destroyed without remedy. And so I just, and I don't know, I just know that
38:32
when we're exposed to something and we don't respond to it, I don't know that that's enough
38:36
to be like, okay, where are you going to hell now? But I feel like as we're exposed to it
38:42
repeatedly and we don't respond to it, we get layer upon layer of hardening until there's a final
38:48
hardening almost similar to this Proverbs 29 1 where it's like, all right, enough.
38:54
It's almost like Christ is like Pharaoh. Well, yeah, and I was thinking of Christopher Hitchens,
39:00
where he would even towards the end of his life. Excuse me. You know, he kept being asked these
39:06
questions at these debates and it's like, Hey, man, what would it take for you to actually believe
39:11
like if, you know, God moved all the clouds and spelled out in the sky like, Hey, Christopher,
39:16
I'm here, I'm real, that kind of thing, he'd be like, no, that wouldn't do anything because I
39:19
would just think that I had had a mental breakdown and that kind of thing. It's like, okay, at that
39:23
point, it's like, it's not that that person is completely helpless, but it's like, he's made his
39:29
decision like he has put his flag in the ground and then poured concrete around it.
39:33
And God gives us up. He lets us make the exchange. Yeah, he's like, go ahead, play him. You can,
39:37
you can rock with that world. That's like God showing grace and not doing that to him. Yeah,
39:43
you know, that's like God's grace. And well, also, like, look at Paul, look at Paul, like,
39:48
Paul was, I mean, killed a bunch of people killed a bunch of people who are proclaiming Christ.
39:54
He was forgiven. But when he was confronted by Christ and he knew, oh my gosh, this is God.
40:01
Then what did he do? He believed, he believed, he repented and believed. And then he went on to
40:06
become obviously everybody knows who Paul is, like, wrote a third of the New Testament or maybe
40:12
more. I don't know. All right. There's certainly more we can get into there, but we got to keep
40:16
this train moving at least a little bit. Eric, if you can hit 33 through 37, please.
40:21
Certainly. Either make the tree good and its fruit good or make the tree bad and its fruit bad
40:30
for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers. How can you speak good when you are evil
40:37
for out of the abundance of the heart of the mouth speaks? The good person out of his good
40:43
treasure brings forth good. And the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
40:49
I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak,
40:55
for by your words, you will be justified and by your words, you will be condemned.
41:00
Some reminded every time I read in scripture and I see the word fruit of like,
41:05
John MacArthur doesn't think any of his fruit is sweet enough. And it's like that gum and he
41:09
must have the best pomegranates in existence. But you know, you can take out any way you want to.
41:14
I read that because it thought of you the whole time I was reading it. I was like,
41:17
you bet you Kyle is just like, I just can't listen to John MacArthur talk about fruit and
41:23
think that you've got good enough fruit. It's just impossible. Like, I just don't get it. Why
41:27
you just come away. I think that's why he does it. Because he wants everyone to know. So he knows
41:32
that you need to clean to Christ to bear more fruit or keep pushing that rocket board. I'll say
41:38
I'll say it again. No one is less assured of their salvation than someone who's listening to
41:41
John MacArthur preach about the assurance of salvation. And you shouldn't be assured about
41:46
your salvation. Hey, what's the funniest thing you strive for Jesus on the shelf,
41:49
which is over your shoulder, Eric, there's a John MacArthur book called Sade Without a Doubt.
41:53
And if you get into that book and your doubts aren't bigger, you didn't read it correctly,
41:58
you need to go back and read it again. But I don't really want to talk about that. I want to talk
42:01
about there's an interesting dichotomy here. So Jesus calls these these men, you brood of vipers.
42:07
You guys don't even fully appreciate how rough it would have been at that time to hear someone call
42:15
you a brood of vipers, especially if you were exactly. But especially if you were like is people
42:20
like, you know, Jesus never ruffled feathers like you never really did any of those things. It's like,
42:24
how? Like I can't think of a modern corollary that would be appropriate for me to say into this
42:29
microphone right now. But if you were to call a group of people a certain thing, like they would
42:34
have just been completely aghast. But in this same paragraph, he says that we will have to give
42:40
an account for every careless word. And he is excluding what he just said in that argument that
42:48
he's making or in that declared, if I guess you could say. And so what I mean, chill out, right?
42:53
I'm sorry, not quite done. But that's what I want to say to people that these I want to be
42:59
known for what I'm for not when I'm against people. These I don't want to ruffle any feathers, people,
43:03
these tone police people that Vodie Bock and likes to talk about to where it's like, well,
43:08
what you're saying is probably OK, but it just makes me feel bad. So can you come up with different
43:14
phraseology? Please like those types of people. I want them to read this section and think to
43:20
themselves, Jesus said to this group of people, you brutal vipers. And that was enough to get those
43:26
are fighting words back in those days. And in the same breath, he's saying, Hey, you're gonna have
43:31
to give an account for every careless word. And he doesn't consider that to be careless in the way
43:36
that he did it. Well, nothing Jesus did was careless. And I think that's that's a call to it's not,
43:40
it's not that you can't say those things. It's the, Oh, you did something bad to me. So I'm just
43:47
going to pop off and say something mean. The fact that it is taken as being mean is not the point,
43:54
but he was very calculated and careful with what he said and what he said. He meant what he said.
44:01
So I, he was righteous in what he did. I mean, you brutal vipers, he basically called them snakes.
44:07
And that's what they are. What did the snake do in the garden? Did God really say that? Did
44:12
God really say this? What just happened in the, in the part we talked about beforehand, they
44:18
called him out and said that his miracles were done by the alzabab, you know, by the devil. And so
44:25
their, their snakes are trying to say what God is doing is, is what the devil is doing. And you
44:32
know, that's the house divided before itself will not stand. And so he's basically just calling
44:37
them out. And he's calling them out on the careless words that they use. And he's not using careless
44:43
words when he calls them snakes, because that's exactly what they are. Yeah, I think that that's a,
44:48
that's a great point there with that. And I think that we have to be very careful here,
44:52
because I don't necessarily want to get into a discussion about what words we can and cannot say.
44:56
That's, that's something that, you know, a lot of people have kind of said, because it's like,
45:00
okay, a cuss word to you is not a cuss word to somebody else. And there are words that are dirty,
45:05
like we had, we had a, my first youth leader, my second youth leader, his wife hated the word
45:13
suck. So if you're like, oh, man, that sucks. She'd be like, no, absolutely not, you cannot say that.
45:18
And then you can say that in front of, you know, married of other people and they're, they just
45:22
don't really respond to that. And so I think it's just the carelessness of our words. And I think we
45:27
see this throughout scripture, obviously here, whenever you're talking to somebody in a judgmental
45:32
way where you're assuming the judgment seat of God over their life, that would be fairly careless
45:38
on your end. You know, when you demean people in your life where you are meaning to, to put them
45:43
down or to say rude things to them, it's not necessarily like, hey, here's the words that you
45:49
can't say on television or radio. And that also applies to the Bible. But you know, I don't really
45:53
want to go too much farther into that. I'm going to get into this next section here. Well, I don't
45:58
necessarily want us to read it. But this will actually let let's go ahead and read it. So,
46:02
Matt, if you can hit verse 38 through 42, the sign of Jonah.
46:09
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him saying, teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.
46:13
But he answered them, an evil and adulterous generation seek for a sign, but no sign will be
46:18
given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights
46:23
in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart
46:27
of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it,
46:34
or they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
46:39
The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it,
46:43
or she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold,
46:47
something greater than Solomon is here. Okay, so what I want to discuss here,
46:53
and I want y'all to give me your opinions, is can we take this section to mean that Jesus
47:00
took the story of Jonah literally as history? Because I've seen some people say, hey,
47:08
you have a problem with the story of Jonah and the whale? Well, you have a problem with Jesus
47:11
because Jesus believes in the literal, you know, swallowing of a human being and living inside of
47:16
an animal for three days. Like that that's you're basically going against that. But I've heard other
47:21
people say, Jesus saying this, he's referring to a story that had been passed down in oral tradition
47:28
that nobody took literally. It's more like a myth that that is kind of passed on through culture.
47:34
It could be kind of like a parable of Jonah. I've seen both arguments. I don't find the second one
47:40
to be as, um, as legitimate as the first one. It seems like Jesus is saying, hey, yeah, this is
47:48
something that actually happened and he's making reference to it. What do y'all's thoughts?
47:53
I mean, I don't know. I don't. I don't think it really matters to me. Like that. Like if that's
48:01
true or not, like the point is that he's literally predicting his death and resurrection.
48:07
Oh, that's the, that's the key takeaway for me. Yeah, I don't know where I laid down.
48:14
I didn't, I didn't get hung up on that either. I just kind of get forwarded to this.
48:18
Hey, wait a minute. Why do people get hung up on it? That's my question.
48:21
You want to know why people get hung up on it? Because it's the same people that
48:25
want to dismiss the entire Bible because, hey, we have no evidence of the great flood or, hey,
48:31
this idea that a man lived inside the belly of a whale, I'm not going to listen to the words of
48:36
Jesus because it's in the same book as something that literally could not happen. So that's the
48:41
reason why it's like, did he take this literally? Same thing. People don't believe in the literal
48:46
six day or seven day creation or how 24 hour days were constructed or blah, blah, blah, or
48:51
all those types of things. And it'd be, it's a stumbling block for people to the rest of the book.
48:55
But this, those same people believe that a man died and was resurrected three days later,
49:00
which has been proven, like you can believe that part, but you can't believe anything else.
49:04
No, no, no, I'm talking about nonbelievers. Oh, nonbelievers.
49:06
I'm talking about now, there are certainly Christians that just they do not want to talk
49:10
about Jonah because they're like, crap, I have no idea what to say about this. I don't know how
49:13
to respond to dinosaurs. I don't know about any of this kind of stuff. I'm talking about people that
49:16
are like somewhere between completely atheistic and maybe on the fence. And then they go into some
49:22
of these Old Testament stories and they're like, okay, if this is history, and this is a critique
49:27
of William Lane Craig, because some people are like, William Lane Craig is softening some of the
49:32
things in the Bible by calling it like mytho history. So like the story about him and Eve is
49:36
mytho history. So it didn't happen exactly as it was described there because it was written in a
49:41
particular way to where it would be artistically accepted, I guess you could say. And so that's
49:46
that's the problem that that people are having is like, wait, is this a myth? Is this mytho history?
49:51
Is this history? Like did this exactly happen this way? Because again, if you're reading the book,
49:57
the book filled with miracles, what's one more miracle? But the living in the belly of a whale
50:01
for multiple days, it's like, come on, like there's all I have to say is that when Christ
50:06
brought this up, I don't think he was bringing it up as this is what really happened. I think
50:11
he believes that it happened. But I think we're missing the overall message if we're reading
50:16
this and we're trying to say, hey, Christ brought this up because it is true or he thinks it's true.
50:21
I think that's not the overall message of this. But this guy, our Lord and Savior probably believes
50:29
I would say believes this because anything can happen. He was a man that was raised from the dead
50:34
three days later and resurrected and then ascended to heaven. Anything is possible.
50:40
Anything is possible. Yeah. Anything. Why does nobody want to answer my damn question?
50:45
I just turned into a Caleb ad and I'm over here just basically talking like, did Jonah
50:52
act? Was this a real story or was it not? I believe it's a real story. I believe it's a real story.
50:55
Okay. There's one. There's one. Okay. I'll be too. I'll believe it's a real story as well.
51:01
And I will give some context to why I think that there are lots of things in the Old Testament that
51:08
are dress rehearsals for Christ. And I think that's just that falls in line with another dress rehearsal
51:14
for Christ. And Joseph, Moses, David, Jonah, these are dress rehearsals for what is ultimately our
51:24
salvation. So I believe that it happened. And I think the most important thing, are we going to
51:29
still discuss this passage? Do you have any questions on it or can I go? Oh, are you just
51:33
going to answer them all this time? I'm going to ask them the first time. I already asked them.
51:37
I just want to go. You just talk to me like I was your second grade student. Like, come on.
51:41
Well, I'm just saying like, I want to go into it. I mean, sometimes you have to talk to atheists
51:44
as a second grade student. But I wanted to go into what they just call me an atheist.
51:49
Hey, you were to give an account for all your careless words. You were asking an atheistic
51:55
question. I didn't say you were an atheist. I'm just saying your question was even your CEO broke
51:59
kind of good. A little second grade question deserved a second grade answer.
52:03
Explain it to me like I'm three. Okay, let's move on because I don't want to move away from this.
52:09
Move on. Hold on. Hold on. Like Kyle is bringing up some really good things that we should wrestle
52:16
with as Christians. Yeah, Ryan, because those like we don't get to, we don't get to pick the
52:23
questions that are asked of us. But we do get to decide whether we wrestle with those and try
52:29
to think about them logically and biblically. So these are good things for us to think about
52:35
and formulate some some opinions on and we have to give an account for the hope that is within us.
52:40
And the thing about it is you're going to run into those questions with somebody to where they're
52:43
like, okay, yeah, yeah, the resurrection and all that fine. What about dinosaurs? What do you think
52:48
about dinosaurs? And the way you answer that question is going to affect. And again, maybe this
52:52
doesn't matter because they're either elect or not. But at the same time, it's like, you have to have
52:57
this doesn't mean you need to be an expert on everything. But how you answer the question about
53:02
Jonah and the whale matters whenever you're witnessing to people. I don't see how it couldn't.
53:06
And I hear you. I did one, I didn't insult your question. I insulted.
53:10
He called me an atheist. So he assaulted me for answering his question.
53:14
I just wanted an answer. I gave a kind sending answers. No, I said he gave a K love commercial
53:19
answer. That's even worse. It is worse. I really encourage that. That's worse than saying.
53:26
I'd rather be a scarf guy. I think yes and no. Yes, it matters how we respond. But I think it
53:36
more matters how we respond in faith in a biblical way. It's not our responsibility to convince
53:44
somebody of something. But we should feel convicted to give a faithful and truthful, well thought
53:54
out biblical response. That's our responsibility. And I think I did that because it was positive and
54:00
it was encouraging. Now, is there a better time to transition than that? Do we have any
54:05
occurs? I don't have any ads I could read. I would definitely like to read and add here.
54:08
Hey, just real quick, we're not really going to discuss this section because we're running out
54:12
of time. But Eric, if you can read 43 through 45 real quick, the return of the unclean spirit.
54:17
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places,
54:22
seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came.
54:28
And when it comes, it finds that house empty swept and put an order. Then it goes and brings
54:36
with it seven other spirits more evil than itself. And they enter and dwell there. And the last
54:42
state of that person is worse than the first. So also it will be with this evil generation.
54:48
Oh, yeah, trauma. I like this is a good this is a good section of the of the chapter.
54:54
Well, I was about to just kind of glaze over it. So how about you tell us why go for it?
54:58
Well, so we were talking about an unclean spirit leaving comes back. It's put an order. Somebody
55:04
had to put it in order. So what I think he's describing here is this generation that thinks
55:11
the moral the moral way to do things. I'm going to clean up my life. And that and that is good.
55:17
And that will get me in because I've cleaned up my life. What they're missing is being
55:24
indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Because a demon is not I don't believe that Christians who are in
55:30
Christ can be indwelled by can be demon possessed or you can't like and I don't like I think the
55:36
Bible is pretty clear on that. But if you just think, okay, I'm going to stop sinning and I'm
55:43
going to clean up my life. There's nothing wrong with that. That's good. You like there that you
55:48
could say you can see get a lot of positives out of that. But if you're not indwelled by the
55:52
Holy Spirit, it's just coming back and it's going to be worse than it was before. Well,
55:56
addictive personalities. Just think about that. I mean, you've got a lot of these books to help
56:00
you get rid of addiction, right? But if it if it doesn't insert Jesus somewhere in there,
56:06
it's incomplete. Yeah. And oftentimes we'll see people just go from one addiction to another kind
56:11
of addiction. Or they'll get they'll clean up their drug addiction and they'll go back to that
56:16
same drug addiction, but it will get 10 times worse. And I think that's kind of what is being eluded
56:22
to here. It's attempts at moral reform. Yeah, moral reform. Exactly. They're just trying to
56:27
be more moral in their life. And but they don't know where that morality exists. They don't know
56:32
who that morality comes from. It's just kind of what they know and kind of what they're wanting to
56:36
develop on their own. You know, I have family and friends that have gone through substance abuse.
56:42
And I've gone through a lot of those classes with them. And I feel like everything that's always
56:49
missing is Christ. They want you to have some higher power, but that higher power is never
56:53
Christ. You develop that higher power. And sadly, that higher power that they're developing is another
56:58
addiction. Yeah, I would agree with that. A lot of problems with the way that those types of programs
57:05
can play out. They're missing out on this verse. They're missing out on this section, which also
57:10
identity, that's what some different people that are from really good recovery programs is like
57:15
they're missing out on like, you don't start by saying, Hi, my name is Kyle. I'm an alcoholic.
57:20
It's high. My name is Kyle. I'm covered by the blood of Christ. And it's in him that I, you know,
57:24
that I live in those types of things. And it's like, okay, those are important things to remember.
57:28
Because if you actually believe that, Oh, you know, I haven't had a drink in 20 years,
57:32
but hey, I'm still an alcoholic. It's like, man, that's just the wrong posture for how you would
57:37
discuss something. Excellent point. You should have a podcast. Oh, you know what? That'd be great.
57:40
And maybe I can be 500 episodes in at this point. I'll listen to it.
57:43
There's an interesting thing here that where it says it passes through waterless places,
57:48
reminded me of the time when Jesus was in the Gatorines and the two
57:52
demonic, whatever, demoniacs, ammonia. Yeah. He cast the evil spirits out and they said,
58:01
well, let's go to the swine. And then where did the swine go? They went into the, into the water
58:05
and died. I feel like if I've read this somewhere with that community or that in that time period,
58:13
like water was kind of like people were fearful of the water. Was that because that's where they
58:17
felt like evil spirits lived? Or what? Did you all know? I don't, I don't really want to go into
58:25
to that here. I think there is a case to be made for that. I think there's people who would try
58:32
to give evidence to that. I think water has always been something where we don't know what is going
58:38
like we, we are not naturally water people. Like we've got to build ships to go in there. We can't
58:45
be under for long periods of time. There's this mystery to water. So I think to your point,
58:50
yeah, I think there's a lot there. There could be a lot of that. Yeah, there's some things that I
58:53
don't know. There's some mysteries and probably some of them are demonic. I never really looked at it
58:58
at all, but I mean, could they have thought that? Yeah, but obviously water is cleansing. We're
59:04
baptized in the water. So, you know, it's just, I don't know. That's just something I never really
59:10
thought about. Thank you. There was, there was one commentary read that kind of went into that.
59:14
I completely forget the point that they made. So in between, I'll try to find, find that one and
59:18
get it over to you. But considering the ups and downs of this particular podcast and the things
59:23
that we've kind of come to here at the end, I feel like it would be remiss if Ryan, we didn't
59:27
have you read the last section. All the words are easy. We need to come back and totally redeem
59:32
myself. This is your moment. You can do it. Close out Matthew 12. Let's go.
59:37
While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brother stood outside,
59:41
asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, who is my mother and who are my
59:46
brothers and stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, here are my mother and my
59:52
brothers or whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
59:59
He did it. You guys, I read without mercy. He's not the first slow clap we've ever had on the
1:00:04
14 days. I thought about doing slow clap, but then I just sped it up because he got weird.
1:00:08
The old man knows how to read. He got weird almost immediately. The funny thing as I wrote in my
1:00:13
notes is attention Catholics, Mary definitely had sex after having Jesus, because like Jesus
1:00:17
had had brothers. It's just kind of like, like, I don't understand why these people and Orthodox
1:00:22
people think that, you know, like Mary was undefiled her entire life, like give me a break.
1:00:26
And Jesus also didn't have any older brothers because for him to be legally David's line,
1:00:32
he had to be honest. Right. But I think the point being here, because some people are like,
1:00:36
Oh my gosh, this is kind of rude to his mother. Like he's saying that Mary's not his mom,
1:00:40
but here is my mother and my brothers. That's not the point. The point is, is that there is a
1:00:45
family that is above your earthly family. And he's basically describing the disciples that includes
1:00:51
Judas as part of that family. And like, wait, these are my family. And it goes back to what was
1:00:56
in Matthew 11 to where it's like, you know, John was the best, you know, person born of woman,
1:01:01
but even he, if he didn't have Christ would have nothing. And it's like, imagine having a great
1:01:07
family here on earth, but then not having a Christian family, not having a family in heaven,
1:01:14
those types of things. I think it's just important for us to to think about anything else real quick,
1:01:17
quick. Everybody's got something. All right, we'll go in order. All right. Oh, in order. No, no,
1:01:24
I guess not. You're like, go ahead Browning. So this reminded me of a book I read by C.S.
1:01:30
Louis called Till We All or Till We Have Faces. I don't know if you've read that you read that.
1:01:35
Interesting book. And it's it's kind of a redo of an older like myth, I think. But there's it's
1:01:42
basic interaction between a girl named psyche and her sister, I think it's oriole, oriole,
1:01:49
and I'm not sure. But anyways, I want Oreos off the side. That's right. But psyche has to be
1:01:54
sacrificed. I won't go into details to the God of the mountain. She goes there and she's convicted
1:02:02
that this isn't this is where she needs actually needs to needs to be. She's not sacrificed. She's
1:02:07
taken in by the God of the mountain. Her sister is like, wait a second. What? And tries to talk her
1:02:13
out of staying with the God of the mountain, because the God of mountain won't show his face
1:02:17
and comes to her in the night. So she's like, man, something's really weird here. You've got to get
1:02:22
away from this God of the mountain. And so does the story goes on that tries to convince
1:02:28
psyche to to leave. And eventually there's a disruption and she gets kicked out, blah, blah,
1:02:34
anyways. But my point is, is that I don't know what's going on here. And maybe I'm reading way
1:02:39
way too much into it, because I was kind of perplexed. Was this a time period where his brother,
1:02:46
brothers, and his mom were kind of like, listen, I don't know what you're doing, Jesus. But you're
1:02:52
really stirring things up. And we are fearful, not only for our own family, but for your life.
1:02:58
So we need you to consider stopping. I don't I don't know what's going on there. But I know that he
1:03:03
must have said that for a reason, right? He was like, so right now my mom and my brothers are
1:03:08
are not following me, but these guys are. You think that's what's going on there?
1:03:12
I think there's there's some I think there's probably some evidence to that because James,
1:03:16
he came around pretty late. He was a he was a latecomer to the to the game, right? Like he was a
1:03:21
opposed in the beginning. So I think that that's probably a pretty good speculation.
1:03:26
I think there's a good speculation there for that. I think what it comes down to is he's not
1:03:30
trying to repudiate the family, the earthly family. He's just trying to draw
1:03:34
into spiritual family. And so I kind of look at that as like he's encouraging believers in him
1:03:40
to believe rather than, you know, I think this is encouragement for our believers
1:03:46
that are listening to this podcast right now that may maybe live among people who don't believe
1:03:50
and probably get a lot of animosity towards that and to stay strong in their belief because
1:03:55
there is a spiritual family there for them rather than their earthly family. So which kind of goes
1:04:00
back to what you were saying that maybe he was dealing with some animosity. Well, sure.
1:04:04
And I think the point of that book was that there are times where people that even love us
1:04:08
dearly think they know the best for us and they don't necessarily because the point in that book
1:04:14
was that the God of the mountain was a good dude and that psyche was supposed to be there.
1:04:18
And here here was sister trying to in a loving way draw her away from where she needed to be.
1:04:24
Yeah, it's also it's encouraging, I think, because through the adoption into God's family,
1:04:34
we receive the sonship. And so obviously we should pray and hope that our earthly family
1:04:41
is in Christ and we should preach to our children and lead them to Christ.
1:04:49
But how great is it that we also have a spiritual family that we're not quote,
1:04:55
unquote, blood related to blood? God is all about adoption. And we're if we're in Christ,
1:05:01
we receive the sonship and adoption into the family and we get the inheritance.
1:05:08
And that's pretty cool. It's cool.
1:05:11
Anybody got anything else on that for a wrap up? No, we're good.
1:05:15
The last two sections, I was like, Oh, we'll kind of move through these. And it's like,
1:05:18
crap, I completely didn't read the room. So that one's on me.
1:05:21
But we're gonna have to win more on Jonah. That's all I'm going to say.
1:05:23
There's a whole thing to talk about. Did you? Yes, I did. Okay. Well, you want to do that now?
1:05:28
Okay, I can do it right now. I don't want to do it right now. I don't want to. I don't.
1:05:33
I don't want to get in trouble. I just don't want anything else coming out here.
1:05:35
So it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. I just wanted to leave everybody disappointed.
1:05:39
So we're going to have to leave it there for now, but make sure you come back here next
1:05:42
Sunday where we're going to dig into Matthew 13. So make sure you're read through Matthew 13.
1:05:47
But before I let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost and adopted life.
1:05:50
Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual
1:05:54
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if you want to start your own forging table, all the links are there for that. But also link to
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please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want to come speak live
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Just go to www.undonton.life. And also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use
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Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual mental and physical resilience,
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