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1:18
This is Undaunted Life a Man's Podcast.
1:21
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:23
Let's get into it.
1:25
Welcome back to The Forging Table, the mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push
1:28
back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:33
At The Forging Table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
1:36
by digging into God's Word, and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with
1:39
us.
1:40
I'm going out of order.
1:41
Winkler.
1:42
Caleb Zack.
1:43
Yeah, you like that.
1:44
I normally go in one area.
1:45
But before we get into Matthew 15, we need to play a game.
1:46
It's called How Many Lozenges.
1:48
Because right now, in front of Winkler, I currently, if my eyes are okay, I see six
1:53
racolas.
1:54
I don't even know what flavor those are, but I'm pretty sure there were 17 before the first
1:59
recording today.
2:00
Yeah, it's pretty extreme.
2:01
What exactly is happening?
2:02
I got sick.
2:03
I got the COVID.
2:04
I didn't think that was survivable.
2:06
I've been reliably informed.
2:08
I've been resurrected.
2:09
Okay.
2:10
Excellent.
2:11
Does anybody else remember the commercial, the Ricolo commercial?
2:15
Ricolo.
2:16
I hate how effective that was.
2:17
That's something I can think about.
2:18
It's like the best jingle.
2:19
That's not a jingle of all time.
2:21
But this is my fourth resurrection from COVID.
2:24
Good.
2:25
And so...
2:26
Stop licking people.
2:27
I love it.
2:28
Like, what in the world?
2:30
You know what?
2:31
Yeah.
2:32
I mean, Stacey's a good looking woman.
2:34
I don't know what to say.
2:37
But no.
2:38
We...
2:39
I mean, I got it.
2:40
And then I've been coughing and I can't laugh.
2:44
If you've been around me long enough and I've been on the show, I like to laugh.
2:47
I laugh a lot.
2:48
And every time I laugh right now, I try not to choke.
2:51
To death.
2:52
Yeah.
2:53
So these batches of episodes, if you hear like a black bear coughing in the corner, that's
2:56
Jake Winkler.
2:57
But can you at least tell us what?
2:58
Okay.
2:59
See, that was not even on cue.
3:00
What the world?
3:01
Hey.
3:02
So what flavor are we working with?
3:03
Like, we will judge you by your flavor.
3:04
What we got?
3:05
Uh, it's, it's like honey, lemon.
3:08
Okay.
3:09
Very good.
3:10
If you guys accepted for a guy that's had a lot of throat problems in his life.
3:14
If you need a little bit of reprieve from your throat issues, if you need some soothing,
3:18
it's honey and lemon.
3:19
That's the way to go.
3:20
But I guess.
3:21
By the way, thank you.
3:22
I appreciate it.
3:23
Just lately though.
3:24
Just not like normally.
3:25
Been a while since I've talked to you.
3:26
It has been a while.
3:27
And I know we record these a little bit out of out of whack, but just as a quick aside,
3:32
things obviously in 2022 or 2023 got kind of squirrely there for a little bit.
3:37
You know, I was planning to have one surgery and it not be botched and it was botched.
3:41
So I had to have that second surgery and the voice is not where I want it to be.
3:46
But I don't have anxiety coming in here about being able to perform anymore because for
3:52
those of you that don't realize we record a bunch of these at once because, you know,
3:55
we don't come in here every week to record.
3:58
And I wouldn't be worried about making sure to honor God with what I was going to say.
4:02
It was like, how many lozenges am I going to have to take?
4:04
Which by the way, is not good for your voice.
4:06
I found out it makes you feel good, but the menthol is deleterious for your voice, which
4:11
is not a great thing.
4:12
But just thank you to you three around the table because I know you guys and your communities
4:17
and your Sunday schools were praying for this.
4:19
And I know the guys in the audience were praying for this.
4:22
Again, it's not a finished product.
4:23
There's a lot of tension in different areas of my phonation that still need to be figured
4:28
out and loosened up and all this stuff.
4:30
But to be where I'm at now, especially after that first surgery, when I couldn't talk louder
4:35
than this, and my wife and I are having tangible conversations about, is this it for undaunted?
4:41
Because if I can't talk, there is no undaunted.
4:43
Was that look like?
4:44
Do I become a writer?
4:45
Do I become, you know, UPS driver?
4:47
Like what thing?
4:48
Can you, where can you make the most money without talking like that?
4:50
Those were some of the things that we were dealing with at the time.
4:53
So thank you for saying that.
4:54
And thank you everybody for all the prayers and stuff like that.
4:57
But enough of that sappy prayer garbage.
4:59
Let's dig into Matthew 16.
5:02
So again, with the world's smallest Bible, let's lead it off here.
5:05
We'll read verse, or starting at verse one through verse four.
5:11
All right, the Pharisees and Sadducees came up and testing Jesus.
5:15
They asked him to show them a sign from heaven, but he replied to them, "When it is evening,
5:20
you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red, and in the morning there will be a
5:24
storm today for the sky is red and threatening.
5:26
Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs at
5:30
the times?
5:31
An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign will not be given
5:35
except the sign of Jonah, and he left them and went away."
5:39
So what version is yours?
5:41
Is that an I.V.?
5:42
An A.S.B.
5:43
An A.S.B.
5:44
Okay.
5:45
So again, just writing the Pharisees and Sadducees.
5:48
This is the ESV title is that they demand a sign again.
5:51
I love when people demand things of Christ.
5:53
We got Peter doing the same thing.
5:55
Don't worry.
5:56
We'll talk more about him.
5:57
It's just always funny to me.
5:58
It's always funny to when people demand things.
6:00
But the thing I wanted to talk about here is it's clear that they didn't have a lack
6:03
of evidence problem.
6:04
They had a lack of recognition problem.
6:06
The signs were all around them, and I'm reminded of the guy who we can't name anymore, but
6:10
Robbie Zachari is pointing this out.
6:12
When people are like, "I just need a sign."
6:15
When you asked the Frank Turic question, "If Christianity were true, would you believe
6:18
it?"
6:19
And the next question is like, "Okay, what would you need to see to be able to believe
6:22
it?"
6:23
And people are like, "Why do you need to see a miracle?"
6:25
But then you could show them a million miracles, and they're going to be like, "A million
6:29
and one.
6:30
Give me another miracle."
6:31
And the thing is, is like, Jesus is not a cosmic genie, and he's not just a lined up
6:36
toy to where it's like, "Oh, you want a miracle?
6:38
Watch this.
6:39
I have seven fingers on one hand."
6:41
You know what I mean?
6:42
It's not one of those things, but I'm just wondering the corollary.
6:45
What you guys think about this?
6:46
The corollary and modernity for this type of action, where you see people, like you and
6:51
I have talked about this and we'll leave the context out because it's not appropriate
6:54
for public consumption.
6:56
But when you're depending on a sign so that someone will have faith, or you're depending
7:01
on things to go a certain way, and you're hoping they go that way so someone will see,
7:05
you see God is good, and God is for you.
7:08
I always get a little bit testy with that because it's like, "What if it doesn't work
7:11
out?"
7:12
Like, this person's going to be like, "I thought this God of yours was good, and then
7:14
I didn't get the job, or then I didn't do the thing, or whatever."
7:17
You know what I mean?
7:19
You look deep in thought.
7:20
Give it to a sec.
7:21
No.
7:22
Tell us the smart thing.
7:23
They're trying to understand your question.
7:24
So you're at, like, what is the modern miracle, or what do you mean?
7:26
No, like, in modernity, how does this manifest?
7:28
Because, like, back in this time, they're walking with Jesus, and they're looking at
7:31
him, and they're like, "Hey, give us a sign."
7:33
Right now, they had a bunch of reasons for doing that.
7:35
But in modernity, we have people that will, outside the faith and inside the faith, try
7:40
to test God by saying, "Hey, show me something.
7:43
Like show me something good.
7:44
Show me something real."
7:45
Well, I don't know about that specifically, but one thing I would say is, you know, there
7:51
are lots of, I think there's a lot of evidence, and probably more evidence today than we've
7:56
ever had, I mean, aside from, if you were there talking to, you know, a witness of Christ
8:00
that saw this.
8:01
I mean, now we have sort of scientific evidence that seems to say that, you know, everything
8:06
came from nothing.
8:07
We have all of this history.
8:08
We have archeology, et cetera, and it seems like you have people that might deal with
8:12
one of those elements and maybe grapple with it and say, "Well, I don't know if I really
8:15
believe that."
8:16
But when you step back and look at holistically all of the evidence that we have that underscores
8:22
this, it's really difficult as an atheist or, you know, somebody along those lines to argue
8:28
against it.
8:29
But many people do, probably the majority of people do.
8:33
And so I'm just reminded of the passage where, you know, you have essentially Lazarus up
8:37
in Abraham's bosom, and you have the guy that's essentially in Hades.
8:40
And, you know, he says, you know, sends somebody to my brother so they have a sign, and he basically
8:44
says, "Look, they have the prophets."
8:46
You know, that won't convince him.
8:50
To me, the modern equivalent of this seems like it's, you know, the no true Scotsman argument
8:56
that you will hear, like somebody will purport that there's this certain way that we should
9:00
be doing things.
9:01
And I think you hear a lot of it with, you know, people who talk about wanting to move
9:07
towards communism or socialism.
9:09
And then you highlight like, "Well, look at this problem here and look at this problem
9:13
here and look at this problem here."
9:14
And they're like, "Well, that hasn't really been tried yet.
9:17
That wasn't real socialism, that was a real communism."
9:21
And to me, if you're going to look at like the worldly equivalent of this, it's that.
9:26
There's a faithful movement, and you can, you know, it's almost like I'm talking to this
9:31
person, and I'm trying to show the, no, here's this evidence, here's this thing, here's another
9:37
country that this didn't work, here's how this power corrupted this individual.
9:42
I can show you all of that, but you have not, it's like, okay, but none of this is going
9:47
to be enough to convince you otherwise.
9:49
I can talk until I'm blue in the face.
9:51
That's why I think you actually said this in a previous podcast, and I've started doing
9:56
this.
9:57
And it's like, okay, is there anything I can say, like if I had evidence that could convince
10:01
you otherwise, would you, would you want to hear it, and would you be receptive to changing
10:06
your mind?
10:07
Because if the answer to that is no, then you're wasting your breath.
10:10
Yeah, and the inverse of that is what I typically do when someone says something that is factually
10:14
inaccurate as opposed to me bludgeoning them to death with true things, I will say, hey,
10:18
if you were wrong about that, would you want me to tell you?
10:22
Like if you were wrong about that, would you want to know?
10:24
And their response will give you your answer, because if they're like, well, yeah, I guess,
10:28
you know, if I said something that was factually inaccurate, I would want to be able to speak
10:31
correctly.
10:32
That's a great, that's fertile soil.
10:33
Yeah.
10:34
But if they're like, I'm not wrong, like, why would you even say that?
10:37
It's so judgmental.
10:38
Well, that's you already kind of mentioned it, what I had written down was that they didn't
10:43
lack evidence.
10:44
They lacked honesty and humility.
10:45
Oh, yeah.
10:46
For sure.
10:47
Meaning that, you know, they knew they had already heard of every single miracle he had
10:51
ever done.
10:52
Right?
10:53
They knew about them all.
10:54
They didn't care about that.
10:55
You know, they were trying to corner him again.
10:58
You know, so I mean, and I think I actually feel like the modern equivalent is actually
11:02
the same.
11:03
And I don't know that there's any one thing that people are saying, you know, we all
11:06
agree and this is what we would need to see.
11:08
But at the end of the day, it probably is show me something like that I can see with
11:12
my own eyes, right?
11:13
But even when something happens that you could call a miracle or you could call God's
11:18
blessing or whatever, it's explained away.
11:20
I read a quote from Dallas Willard as I was researching this chapter and I really like
11:24
it.
11:25
It was perhaps we did not hear the voice of God because we do not expect to hear it.
11:29
Then again, perhaps we do not expect it because we know that we fully intend to run our own
11:35
lives on our own and have never seriously considered anything else.
11:39
Like, I'm over here, you know, you're looking for signs.
11:42
You're looking for God to speak to you.
11:43
He probably is, but you have no intention of hearing it because I'm going to do it on
11:47
my own.
11:48
Well, that's like when people respond to that question, like, what would you need to see
11:53
to believe?
11:54
And you know, I even I think Justin barely asked him, but I can't remember who, but like
11:57
what if God wrote in the sky and clouds like, Hey, John, it's me, like believe in me, that
12:03
type of thing, well, the person's response was, well, I would think that I had a mental
12:07
break.
12:08
Like my brain was broken.
12:09
It's like, so what you're saying is there's nothing that could convince you, and then that
12:12
bleeds into the whole sovereignty of God, God giving you faith and giving you understanding
12:17
which we'll get to.
12:18
But I don't want to belabor that because in Matthew 15, we front loaded and basically
12:21
talked about the beginning of the whole chapter, but I feel like there's a lot of meat at the
12:25
end of 16.
12:26
So let's keep this going.
12:27
But before we do that, I did want to remind you guys that we now have a forging table starter
12:30
set through crossway, that is that stack of books at the end of the table, a lot of you
12:34
guys are starting your own forging table, I want to make sure that you have the resources
12:37
that you need.
12:38
So we partnered up with crossway to give you a five book set to help you with that.
12:41
The new ESV men's study Bible, the book of Roman scripture journal study edition, new
12:46
morning mercies, which is by Paul David trip, which I think who who did that at this table,
12:50
Caleb, you've done that before.
12:51
So a great devotional, the beauty and power of biblical exposition by Douglas O'Donnell
12:54
kind of explains the different types of writings, the different things that are included in
12:58
the Bible, and then family shepherds by the one and only voting bacham.
13:02
So easy three step process to get that.
13:04
Go to crossway.org and create your own free crossway plus account.
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Make sure you register the account.
13:09
Again, all this is in the show notes guys, step two, put all those books in your cart.
13:13
And then at checkout, step three, put in this code bssp 50 to get 50% off that entire stack.
13:20
You cannot get a better deal online for that stack of books.
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No way of making it happen.
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You have to do it this way.
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It's Bravo Sierra Sierra, Papa five zero.
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That is what you put in at checkout.
13:30
So guys, make sure that you go ahead and do that.
13:33
Winkler, if you can hit the next section here, so Matthew 16 verses five through 12th.
13:38
I see something right quick.
13:39
Do it.
13:40
It is a segue.
13:41
It's the last part of it, but I learned it said at the end, a sign will not be given
13:45
it except the sign of Jonah, which is talking about the death, the death burial resurrection.
13:51
Yeah, right.
13:52
It's just like, it's coming, you know, they don't, they may not even know what that meant.
13:56
I'm not sure.
13:57
Um, but he's saying like, Oh, a science science coming.
13:59
It's going to be a really big one.
14:01
That's another example of Jesus referring to one of the most hard to understand and hard
14:06
to believe stories and all the Old Testament.
14:08
So you're telling me a human being lived in the belly of well for three days and then
14:12
the well, just spit them out on the beach.
14:14
I believe it.
14:15
Again, Jesus is referring to it again.
14:18
Yeah.
14:19
Okay, so, let's see, 16, five, when the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten
14:26
to bring any bread, Jesus said to them, watch and be aware of the leaven of the Pharisees
14:30
and Sadducees.
14:32
And they began discussing it among themselves saying we brought no bread, but Jesus aware
14:37
of this said, Oh, you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact
14:42
that you have no bread?
14:44
Do you not yet perceive, do you not remember the five loaves for the 5000 or how many baskets
14:50
you gathered, or the seven loaves for the 4000 and how many baskets you gathered?
14:54
How is it that you failed to understand that I did not speak about bread, be aware of the
14:59
leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees?
15:03
Then they understood that he did not tell them to be aware of the leaven of the bread, but
15:07
of the teaching of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
15:10
So I'll let y'all discuss whatever portion you want.
15:12
The one thing I want to talk about is obviously the 11 of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that's
15:17
false teaching.
15:18
Like that's basically what we're talking about.
15:19
Again, there's a whole lot more that can be discussed about leaven and the ritualistic
15:24
way that the bread was used and how it had to be prepared for Old Testament and all that.
15:27
Like we could get into that.
15:29
I don't think we should do that now because we have so much more to go.
15:31
But on five through 12, anything that y'all want to add to that?
15:35
Yeah, I just want to read this.
15:36
This is from Wears B. It just says often the ministry of Jesus, people misconstrued his
15:40
words by interpreting them literally, rather than spiritually.
15:44
Nicodemus had thought that Jesus was talking about an actual physical birth.
15:47
The Samaritan woman had thought he was referring to material water from the well.
15:52
The Jewish crowd in the synagogue had thought Jesus was speaking about eating actual flesh
15:55
and blood when he was describing a spiritual experience.
16:00
So here are the disciples thought Jesus was talking about making bread with his comment
16:05
about leaven.
16:08
This highlights some things from the last episode for me, which were how do you think
16:11
about spirituality in your everyday life?
16:14
How does it manifest itself?
16:17
What's the impact of that?
16:18
I think in the world today, it can be so physical and tangible and when you leave a conversation
16:24
like this and go into the real world quote unquote, it seems to me that Jesus put this
16:30
first throughout his everyday experience and that's how he conveyed it.
16:36
So what are some ways that that you guys think about this or do you think about this?
16:40
And if you're talking with a strictly naturalist person, for instance, how do you convey the
16:45
importance of something like this to them?
16:47
I'm looking at you all, say something smart, do it three, two, one, go to clarify.
16:56
Yeah.
16:57
I need clarification.
16:58
Do.
16:59
Yeah.
17:00
Maybe reset your question for me real quick.
17:01
So.
17:02
Importance of.
17:03
When you think about spiritual matters, it just seems to me that it's something that you
17:07
can kind of skip over.
17:10
Not taking the time, for instance, to read your Bible to pray to consider the state of
17:15
what you have inside the heart like we talked about earlier and how that's going to manifest
17:20
itself in your reality around you.
17:22
If you think about some of the examples of things that come from spirituality, I would
17:27
call it and be things like suicide, murder, love, the way you treat your family.
17:35
So I guess what I'm kind of grappling with is more of a question than anything else's.
17:38
As I go further and further down my walk, I spend more and more time thinking about this
17:43
probably than I did previously.
17:46
And given the fact that Jesus spent so much time putting this as his priority over whatever
17:51
physical ailment he was dealing with tells me that I should be paying attention to it.
17:56
And I think a lot of wisdom comes out of that.
17:58
And I think eventually probably joy and rest in life in some sense, because you're kind
18:02
of walking along the path, you're playing the game the way God designed it to be played.
18:08
So I guess my question would be again, is do you think about spiritual matters as a course
18:12
of your everyday life?
18:14
And if so, how does that manifest itself in your reality around you?
18:19
Great question.
18:20
So I mean, I think as I get older, if you have a relationship with your parents, you hear
18:27
about, they'll talk to you about how fast things go in life.
18:31
I do feel like as I get older, the scripture that when he talks about our life as a vapor,
18:37
just becomes more real.
18:40
So I mean, it's obviously comes back to a worldview thing, and I know you're asking
18:44
how it manifests in our life.
18:45
But even if I'm talking to someone else, it's like, well, what are you?
18:49
What's your worldview on what we are, or is it, are we strictly material or is this like,
18:55
is there something beyond it?
18:58
But thinking about, I mean, I think just the way the world is now, it's hard not to think
19:02
about spiritual things, honestly.
19:04
Yeah.
19:05
And I think if you're, I mean, if you're walking with the Lord, it's, and even if it's something
19:10
that you're just wrestling with, like it's, it's all around us.
19:13
So I'm personally just the feeling like I'm living in a, a battle of, you know, principalities
19:21
is just becomes more real all the time.
19:23
That's what I was going to say.
19:24
Like when you pass that, that rambling crazy person on the street, it's easy to just go
19:30
to the other side of the street and be like, Hey, like, glad I avoided that situation or
19:34
something like that.
19:35
But I can't get over the fact it's like this person is under attack, under attack at minimum,
19:43
perhaps possessed at maximum, and it's like, man, what do you, what do you do with that?
19:48
Because, you know, there's not a conservative policy, Republican, you know, prescription
19:52
or liberal law.
19:54
There's nothing that could solve that problem.
19:56
So whether you think, Hey, go up to them and give them a good talking to about pulling
20:01
themselves up by their bootstraps, like a good conservative American kitchen could do.
20:04
It's not going to work.
20:05
If you go around to them and say, Hey, look, we know, we know you have a housing problem.
20:09
That's your main problem.
20:10
So we're going to put you in housing and give you clean needles to shoot up with and
20:12
all that.
20:13
None of that.
20:14
Nothing in between is going to work.
20:15
Right.
20:16
There's something way, way deeper.
20:17
That's that's happening.
20:18
And you can't fight it with, you know, normal American human means, I guess, well, I'm just
20:24
thinking of a recent word from our pastor to talking about issues in the Middle East saying
20:29
that there is there is not a political solution to this spiritual problem.
20:33
Right.
20:34
Yeah.
20:35
And it's that yeah, it is just being faced with things that you're like, that's just that's
20:39
not, you know, some specific sin necessarily, maybe in that person's life.
20:43
That's just the word, the fallen world that we live in showing up on the side of the road.
20:49
It's interesting to me how willing we are now to try and contextualize and provide nuance
20:56
to situations that have none.
20:59
I mean, you know, the amount of times that I've heard people try and, you know, provide
21:08
nuance on this situation with hummus.
21:10
It's one of the most annoying words and you used it twice.
21:13
It's like when people say moist and everyone's like, ew, bro, but you're exactly right.
21:18
Yeah.
21:19
It's so bloody annoying.
21:21
I mean, I literally sat down, I've sat down with different people and I, I've looked at
21:25
them like I can't even believe that you are saying what you're saying.
21:30
I mean, do you know what they did this?
21:33
This seems like so crystal clear and clear cut like, you know, you're trying to fight
21:38
and find some sort of gray area so that you can look what like you have wisdom.
21:44
And I am actually looking at you like, I actually thought you were smarter than this.
21:50
Like this is one of those things.
21:51
It's clearly black and white.
21:53
And you know, you should be able to look at and go, this is truly this is true evil.
21:58
It's these third way people.
21:59
Yeah.
22:00
Try to find this mythical third way and I try to be like, what's the middle ground on chopping
22:04
off a little boy's penis?
22:05
What's the middle ground?
22:06
What's the, what's the middle position on something like that?
22:09
But whenever, I think last week I mentioned that I taught Sunday school, you know, a week
22:12
after the attacks, I spent a good amount of time describing in detail, not showing pictures
22:18
or videos, but the atrocities that happened.
22:20
And it was everything that I knew up to that point, including 40 babies that had been beheaded
22:25
or burned alive, a pregnant woman that was killed and her baby was expelled from her
22:29
body, died beside her, still attached to the umbilical cord.
22:32
It's still hard for me to say that sentence every time I say it because it's so unbelievably
22:36
infuriating.
22:38
But the reason why I talked about that in my Sunday school is I said, look, within two
22:43
or three weeks, there's going to be calls for peace, for ceasefire, for why is Israel
22:49
being so mean?
22:50
Look at all the civilians that they're killing.
22:52
Oh, it's this both sides BS and it's just like, that's going to happen.
22:57
And it's like, I want you to remember this.
23:00
And since then we learned about, oh, they, they had a family of four and they put these
23:05
families on their knees, had them face each other and then they tortured them.
23:09
They cut off fingers, ripped out eyeballs, cut off feet, brutally raped the mother in
23:14
front of the people and then they shot them all in the back of the head and then they
23:17
ate their Shabbat dinner, right?
23:19
They sat there with the mutilated murdered bodies and then they, they had dinner before
23:22
they moved on to the next house.
23:24
There were people that took the time to preheat the oven before they put the baby in it to
23:28
cook it alive.
23:29
Okay.
23:30
So that's one of those things, like these nuance people, these, let's just try to think
23:34
it's like, no, you're trying to find this mythical third way that does not exist.
23:39
And we just get so uncomfortable with calling a spade a spade.
23:42
I don't get it.
23:43
Especially whenever there's one side that's not interested in any sort of third way whatsoever.
23:46
Right.
23:47
Oh, we need a two state solution.
23:48
Who are the two states exactly?
23:50
One state says, yeah, sure, two states.
23:52
The other state says, no, we don't want your state to exist.
23:54
Right.
23:55
You don't negotiate.
23:56
Like I know, Zach, you've done a lot of high level negotiation and training and stuff
23:58
like that.
23:59
You don't have two parties that actually want to get a deal done.
24:02
You can't strike a deal.
24:04
Like, just think about it in a business context.
24:06
This group wants to buy this company for X amount.
24:09
The other group will not sell the company like it.
24:12
There's no negotiating price.
24:14
Why are we haggling about price?
24:15
This group's not going to sell.
24:17
Not they don't want to sell.
24:19
They want to be wooed.
24:20
It's not possible.
24:21
Yeah.
24:22
The question would just be, why are you here?
24:24
You know, what caused you to come to the table and then you'd have to ferret that out
24:27
if that was the case.
24:28
There's no, there's no sense in talking.
24:30
I know from like the FBI negotiator standpoint, you know, there's always some reason why things
24:35
are occurring.
24:36
But what I think when real evil comes in that form and fashion, there's no negotiating.
24:42
It's, and it's just difficult for me to even hear those things.
24:46
It's, I'm so thankful the Bible says that you can have righteous anger because that's
24:49
all I can express.
24:50
You know, you're not supposed to have that in many cases, but in that case, it just [inaudible]
24:54
me off to the point that it's hard to articulate anything.
24:57
Yeah.
24:58
I actually asked my pastor Terry Fakes and I asked him, I was like, okay, like right
25:02
after the incident happened.
25:03
I was like, okay, help me, help me, help me kind of figure out like where my line needs
25:10
to be because I know where I'm thinking is like, I think Gaza could just be one large
25:18
parking lot.
25:19
And that's kind of where I like, that was my immediate emotional reaction.
25:23
I'm also going, but that's probably not a godly reaction that I'm thinking in my head.
25:29
So help me kind of figure this out.
25:30
And then he just said, yeah, we'll talk about that on Sunday.
25:34
And then, you know, my daughter's had a horse riding competition.
25:37
Right.
25:38
And here's the thing.
25:39
And we got to move on.
25:40
This is my fault because we keep getting off onto this is, this is good stuff, but I do
25:43
want to make sure we give some reverence to the text.
25:46
But by saying that you agree, and again, guys, this is coming out, you know, months after
25:51
we record it, there could be other countries that get involved right now.
25:55
There could be any number of things.
25:56
So we're just taking, let's just look at the initial, the initial attack.
26:00
You can support Israel defending themselves and counter attacking and trying to wipe
26:05
Hamas out.
26:06
But if you hear about an actual atrocity committed by an Israeli soldier, that doesn't mean that
26:10
you just wrote Lee say, yeah, yeah, I support that because of what Hamas did.
26:15
No, you don't, you don't go atrocity for atrocity.
26:18
That's not how this game works.
26:19
But there's one side that is actively targeting civilians for murder and slaughter and the
26:24
other side that is bending over backwards to take pauses to allow humanitarian aid to people
26:30
that hate them that are literally guarding the pathway for these people to get out of
26:34
a particular area of their own BS country.
26:37
So these are not equivalent sides, but we, we got to move on and talk about the next
26:42
section.
26:43
Just one thing I think the most difficult thing for me is it's not a geographic thing
26:46
so much as a people group thing, right, it's a boss.
26:49
I mean, there's a lot of, I'm sure there's good people in Gaza that are trapped, you
26:52
know, so as our world continues to get more complex, we just have to deal with things
26:56
that we never had to contend with before and it's, it's complicated.
26:59
All right, let's get into Peter being a moron.
27:01
So whoever wants to read a versus 13 through 20, let's hit it.
27:05
I got a, okay.
27:10
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he was asking his disciples, who do
27:14
people say that the Son of Man is, and they said, some say John the Baptist and others
27:21
Elijah, but still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
27:25
He said to them, but who do you say I am?
27:27
Simon Peter answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
27:31
Jesus said to him, blessed are you Simon or Jonah because flesh and blood did not reveal
27:36
this to you, but my father who is, who is in heaven.
27:39
I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates
27:43
of Hades will not overpower it.
27:45
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth shall
27:49
have been shall have been bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall have been
27:53
loosed in heaven.
27:54
And he warned the disciples that they should tell no one that he was the Christ.
27:58
A lot here, but let's talk just quickly about Caesarea Philippi, it's about 25 miles north
28:02
of Galilee.
28:03
This is like the center of Baal worship.
28:06
This is an incredibly pagan city where the where this was going down.
28:09
But then we go down to, you know, when Christ says, but who do you say that I am, he's talking
28:14
to all of them, all the apostles, and then Peter pipes up as like the voice of the apostles.
28:19
And so this is where Peter gets his new name.
28:23
So I want to get into that because I have some Catholic questions, Jake here in a second,
28:26
but verse 17, this is like, like a wet dream verse for Calvinists.
28:30
This is like their favorite thing in the entire world.
28:32
They're like, Oh, yeah, you don't think that Calvinism is true will suck on this one because
28:36
verse 17, and Jesus answered them, blessed are you Simon Barjona for flesh and blood
28:40
has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven.
28:44
So this is an argument against the people that are like, wait a minute, you didn't study
28:48
your way to that revelation.
28:50
You didn't listen to the right Christian apologist podcast.
28:53
You didn't figure this out.
28:55
It's like it was revealed to you in your modernity as it's revealed to a child.
29:00
I remember recently, Matt Chandler had a sermon where he's like, some of you are like double
29:03
PhD people, you had to spend two years digging into the historicity of the Bible and how
29:08
we got the scripture and the translations and the, and all that stuff.
29:12
And then my wife, she became a Christian when she was five, and God revealed himself to
29:18
her when she was five.
29:20
And that five year old could barely make it through the day without soiling their britches,
29:24
but they believed in the same way the double PhD does, who's using all their faculties.
29:29
But basically, you know, they're, you know, this is not flesh and blood.
29:33
This wasn't your brain, right?
29:35
This wasn't any part or any part of you that was doing this.
29:38
And so yeah, shout out to the Calvinist.
29:41
I get what you're saying.
29:42
It is literally right there.
29:43
And I think it means what it means.
29:45
It means what it says right there.
29:46
What do you think?
29:47
You don't want to talk about it.
29:48
No, we can talk about it.
29:49
We can certainly talk about, but it gets me back to that confusion of you got sovereignty
29:53
and you got free will and how in the world of those things coalesce and divine and super
29:58
duper smart, people say they don't know how.
30:00
So I'm going to pretend like they're right because it's easier.
30:03
What do you think?
30:04
I agree with me on my heels and you don't have anything to say.
30:07
Come on.
30:08
Yeah.
30:09
I mean, I mean, I don't know.
30:10
It's so tough to reconcile the those two.
30:12
I mean, if you truly do have free will and can make the decisions on your own, I mean,
30:18
I always used to say like, you know, God has a plan for everybody, right?
30:21
But at the same time, you know, I don't know that God ever said this person is meant to
30:26
be a crack head and they're going to be addicted to drugs and, you know, I don't know that
30:30
that's necessarily the truth.
30:33
I it's so to me, it's always one of those things where I go, okay, we have this free
30:38
will and God has a plan.
30:41
And I think there's an, I mean, I've always said, well, I think there's a beginning point
30:45
and there's an end point and those are the two concrete things.
30:48
And then beyond that, there's a branching decision tree where we're making decisions
30:53
and God knows everything that will happen if we go down certain paths.
30:58
He knows it.
30:59
It's like, but there are these points in time, you know, to your point on the previous podcast,
31:05
like, you know, when you pray for humility, does he give you, does he give you humility
31:10
or does he give you the opportunity to be in a position where you could show it?
31:15
You pray for courage.
31:16
Do you get the opportunity to show courage or does he just magically endow you with it?
31:21
So I actually think it's more of a note, he will put us in situations to fail or to test
31:27
our faith.
31:28
And in those tests, we either succeed or we fall short.
31:32
And the more times that we succeed, the more times we're walking down that path with Christ,
31:37
that's always the way I've looked at it.
31:39
And I don't know that I mean, but that's the gospel of Jake Winkler, I think I don't think
31:43
it's necessarily correct.
31:44
Well, every time I look across table, I see Zach curling up the edges of his mouth when
31:49
he has something really, really smart to say, like, no, it happens and it's usually the
31:52
exact opposite of what I've said.
31:54
So just hate us with it.
31:55
Let's go.
31:56
I don't have anything.
31:57
We've talked about this.
31:58
I'm nauseam with so many people and I think I'm where you started off.
32:01
I think they're both true and I think they both coexist.
32:08
I just think by definition, they do.
32:10
I think what's so difficult for me is I know so many people that are troubled by the predestination
32:17
thing and creating people that are predestined for hell and I get really sad about that.
32:23
I mean, I have to contend with it with family members and I don't know how to just solve
32:32
that by saying something.
32:33
I mean, unfortunately, God does know and God did create you and ultimately you can understand
32:38
what history in the future are going, but he had to make a decision to have free will
32:45
in order to have something that could love him by definition.
32:47
Right.
32:48
And see, that's the problem that I run into as well is when I ask Calvinist, why do you
32:51
have kids?
32:52
I remember like, because Bible says we're supposed to, I was like, okay, but you were
32:55
literally creating things that might be destined elected for hell.
33:00
They don't like that question very much.
33:02
That's why I ask it.
33:03
But that's they were predestined to create them though.
33:06
See, see, that's the thing that you get into is it's again, we've I've watched hours long
33:12
debates on this exact subject and nobody gets the end having changed their mind.
33:16
It's just it is a rough one for me because like, you mentioned Winkler, you mentioned,
33:21
you know, this thing with Hamas and all that and then people are pointing to Old Testament
33:24
prophecies and they're explaining how it's like, blah, blah, blah.
33:27
And I'm like, dad, come on, I have a three year old to one year old, like they barely
33:31
understand what that what a name is, not even how to spell their own.
33:34
And it's just like, crap, did I have them at the exact wrong time?
33:38
They're not going to have a chance to accept.
33:39
You know what I mean?
33:40
Yeah.
33:41
I think the other thing with the predestination idea, the entire concept of predestination,
33:47
I have, I have severe heartburn over it because I'm going, okay, there's this entire call
33:53
to discipleship and our mission and what we're supposed to be doing as Christians.
33:59
And if God has already made up his mind on everybody, then what is the point of discipleship?
34:03
Was the point of missionary work?
34:05
Correct.
34:06
If they're already going where they're going, despite anything I say do, you know, and live
34:12
out literally what Christ tells us to do, go out and make more disciples.
34:17
And we're just basically what fruit?
34:20
Is this a fruitless endeavor?
34:22
And that's why I always, I always have had heartburn over predestination.
34:25
It's like, well, then then literally nothing we do matters.
34:29
Well, Caleb, in the cult, your family used to be in.
34:31
What did y'all teach?
34:32
As well as shout out to anyone that's been listening to this for a while.
34:37
We were in time for that.
34:39
Okay.
34:40
Fair.
34:41
I do have a thought though.
34:42
Let's go.
34:43
So I mean, this was something I used to think about a lot.
34:44
And I've kind of decided that this is just falls under the category of like his ways
34:48
or higher than mine.
34:49
Yeah.
34:50
Right.
34:51
Yeah.
34:52
Right.
34:53
But I do find it interesting and from a discipleship ship standpoint, like you just mentioned, the
34:57
question in, in this verse that's the most important is who do you say I am?
35:02
Right.
35:03
Yeah.
35:04
Right.
35:05
So that's, that's the thing that I find it kind of funny that it's in that same little
35:08
section there is that it's like, okay, let's set that aside.
35:13
Who do you say I am?
35:14
You know, and that's really what like I have, I have two sisters that are, that are far
35:18
from the Lord right now.
35:20
And that's what I talked to them about.
35:23
It's like I don't care what problems you have with church or Christians or me or whoever.
35:29
Who do you think Jesus is?
35:31
Let's just start there.
35:33
You know, so, I mean, that, that to me is the thing that stands out the most in this
35:36
passage.
35:37
Well, that also helps in someone's like, what about the dinosaurs?
35:39
It's like, okay, we can talk about dinosaurs.
35:42
What about young earth people?
35:44
We can certainly talk about them, but we need to figure out who Jesus is to you.
35:48
Like do you believe that his death on the cross somehow accounted for you?
35:52
Like that's the starting point.
35:53
That's, that's, that's the point that the un-hitch people like an Andy Stanley, like what, if
36:00
he had made the point like, look, we need to start with this, but we don't un-hitch it
36:03
from the Old Testament because without the Old Testament, we don't even know what we're
36:06
looking at type of a thing.
36:08
That's where I think that they were going.
36:09
Just real quickly on, because I did the world's worst segue because it's not this section
36:13
where Peter is an idiot.
36:14
It's an excellent, but this is the section in verse 18 where it says, and I tell you,
36:18
you are Peter.
36:19
So he gives him his new name.
36:20
So he's no longer Simon.
36:21
He's Peter.
36:22
If you're a rock, I will build my church in the gates of hell shall not prevail against
36:24
it.
36:25
Of all the study for getting ready for today's recording, that one scripture had more notes
36:32
to it about what do they mean by rock and what was the verb tense and what was the everything
36:37
about rock.
36:38
But one of the things I was talked about here is like, when people say Peter was the first
36:42
pope, Catholics are like, no, Peter was the first pope.
36:45
And when I talked to Catholics today, they're like, no, there's a direct line from Pope Francis
36:50
all the way back to St. Peter.
36:52
And it's like, so you're telling me no one along the way wasn't supposed to be the pope.
36:57
Like they've gotten it right that little, the dudes in the funny hats and stupid shoes,
37:01
like they've always picked the right guy.
37:03
So help me a little bit with your Catholic experience here.
37:06
So the way that they would, they will say that Peter was the first pope and that there
37:13
is this direct line.
37:16
But if you were going to say, oh, they've absolutely batted a thousand, no, they have
37:21
not, you know, you know, look, there's been, there's been some popes throughout history
37:28
that I think have been, you know, great men and lived a godly life and are very respectable
37:35
and someone that I would say could you could even emulate them and use them as a good example.
37:42
However, you know, there's, there's popes throughout history that, you know, I would
37:47
say that like there was one that this back in the dark ages, but one that got upset that
37:55
he was not elected pope and a different one was actually elected pope.
38:00
And after that pope died, this guy that lost, I can't remember which pope it was, but he
38:06
lost and he decided that when he won and he became, when he was elected pope, he actually
38:14
went back and said and put the previous pope on trial, brought his actual, actual corpse
38:20
up and excommunicated him from the church.
38:25
I don't know that I would say, well, from Peter to that guy, perfect or the, the, the
38:33
Medici pope, Pope Leo, go read about him, what he was doing at the Vatican.
38:42
Definitely some things that I would say was not Christ like behavior.
38:46
So or the Borgia pope, you could do the same thing with them.
38:49
There's definitely been some ones that I would actually probably throw Pope Francis in there
38:54
right now.
38:55
I mean, you're, you're, you're saying some things that I think are heretical and what's
38:58
interesting is I still have a whole lot of family members who are Catholic right now.
39:03
I've never heard them speak about the pope, the way that they speak about Pope Francis.
39:08
So there is this realization that I think is starting to happen that okay, this is a person,
39:13
but they're clearly a person and they're flawed like a person.
39:18
So but at the same time, you know, Peter was himself flawed as we're about to find out
39:23
in the next couple of verses here, but yeah, hopefully that provides some clarification.
39:28
What is, what is direct line mean?
39:30
I mean, there was a human person think of it think of it like sequentially.
39:33
So it's kind of funny.
39:35
So think of it in the same way like there's the Shia and the Sunni Muslims, right?
39:39
So the Sunni Muslims actually have like, they have like their version of a pope where they
39:47
are electing them over and over and over again.
39:49
And they would say, well, their first was Muhammad.
39:53
And then they were elected after that, whereas the Shia actually look at it and say it's Muhammad.
39:58
And then his, it's more of a royalty position.
40:03
And they are basically taking bloodline relatives of Muhammad.
40:06
So they both trace it back to Muhammad, but one was a bloodline relative and the other
40:10
one is elected.
40:11
The Catholics.
40:12
Yeah, like a general.
40:13
Right.
40:14
Right.
40:15
And the Catholics are electing theirs just like the Sunnis would.
40:17
So they're basically it's, it's kind of like saying each one of our presidents can be traced
40:21
back to George Washington, but that's the extent of it.
40:24
And this is my ignorance, but are you saying that there's an element of bloodline to Pope
40:27
election?
40:28
There's an element of bloodline.
40:29
Okay.
40:30
So it's just a person.
40:31
God ordainment.
40:32
Yeah.
40:33
Of the person selected and chosen that there's no accidental pope.
40:34
It's indefensible.
40:35
I mean, well, we can get in that.
40:37
Well, I mean, yes, you can get into that.
40:39
So I, I, you know, it's a, it's a good discussion for a different day, but not necessarily here,
40:43
but I did want to just kind of put that out there.
40:45
So we all kind of understand.
40:47
And then at the end, of course, Christ tells them, don't tell anyone.
40:49
We don't want to turn into a political movement, like, let's keep, you know, the important things,
40:53
the important things.
40:54
But when we get to verse 21, this next section, this is where Matthew shifts his focus.
40:58
Away from, you know, the ministry in Galilee to the beginning of Jesus's journey to Jerusalem,
41:05
where he will eventually, you know, find his fate.
41:07
And so somebody please read at 21 through 23.
41:13
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many
41:17
things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed.
41:22
And on the third day be raised.
41:24
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him saying, far be it from you, Lord, this
41:29
shall never happen to you.
41:31
But he turned and said to Peter, get behind me Satan.
41:34
You are a hindrance to me, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but
41:39
on the things of man.
41:40
A lot of things talk about here, number one, if you read it like a robot, you get no personality
41:45
from Jesus.
41:46
Number two, there is not a way to read this where it sounds nice, right?
41:50
In sounds uplifting and any of those types of things, the only way that you can read this
41:54
is that he is getting after Peter, like he is coach into a days grabbing you by your
42:00
face mask.
42:01
This is that moment.
42:03
But the interesting thing here is, you know, I just kind of giggle because I see a lot of
42:07
myself and Peter and it's like, you know, there's always cart before the horse.
42:10
There's always mouth before thinking there's always those types of things.
42:13
But in this exact moment, Peter should have taken the hint and it was like he was incapable
42:17
of doing so.
42:19
And Jesus had to rebuke Peter the entire way from the moment he called him until the Garden
42:26
of Gethsemane.
42:27
He had to rebuke Peter for this exact stuff because if we, you know, fast forward to the
42:31
Garden of Gethsemane, Peter still doesn't get it.
42:34
He thinks that this is a political thing that they're about to win.
42:37
He thinks Jesus is a conquering hero.
42:39
He doesn't think he's going to die.
42:41
And you know, morons will say that whenever Jesus rebuked Peter in the garden for using
42:45
the sword to cut off the Roman soldiers, the centurion's ear or whatever, that that was
42:50
him repudiating any type of violence.
42:52
And it's like, no, he was getting in Peter's butt because he's like, bro, you keep getting
42:57
in the way.
42:59
Like I don't want to do this.
43:00
You saw me, you know, you know, dripping, sweating blood, you know, I don't want to
43:03
do this.
43:04
But this is the way.
43:05
Can you please get out of the way?
43:07
So this is kind of that first bit of kindling towards that fire that Jesus has to just keep
43:12
going this entire way.
43:13
If I'm not mistaken to the previous verse, there was the first time that Christ was the
43:19
first time the church is mentioned.
43:21
So he kind of said, yeah, there's just one of two places where it's you.
43:24
So Matthew 18 17 is the other right where the word church is actually used.
43:29
So he was he was, and I think this says, and it was probably within sight of Caesar's temple
43:33
that Jesus announced a surprise.
43:35
He would not yet establish his kingdom, but he would build his church.
43:40
And so Peter's mindset is certainly kind of kingdom mindset.
43:43
We're going to fight against, you know, the Romans and all that, but it's really a church
43:46
mindset.
43:47
He's trying to get him dialed into other thoughts here on, on this section here.
43:53
Because again, it's, it's a very famous, a bit of scripture, but, you know, it's kind
43:58
of hard for some people to understand.
43:59
I think some people try to ignore it because Jesus sounds so mean pants during it.
44:02
I think it's, I think it's kind of interesting.
44:05
I mean, I think everybody would probably say that Peter among the disciples is probably
44:09
the leader.
44:11
And yet he seems like in terms of like the flaws and character and the times that, you
44:17
know, he gets repudiated.
44:18
I mean, it's not like he's, you know, John and James, I mean, Jesus is, you don't hear
44:23
him giving a butchoo into John and James very, you know, very much.
44:26
I mean, it's, it's Peter's the one that gets called out frequently in the Bible.
44:32
You know, like he's the, he's the difficult child and I keep having to minister to him
44:37
and tell him like, no, this is not the right way except I'm going to go ahead and make
44:41
you the leader of the church, which is so fascinating to me because, you know, but I
44:47
think when you look at him as an example, I mean, Peter, Peter's bold, Peter's very bold.
44:55
He confesses and wants forgiveness of sin and he will, he does those things, but at the
45:00
same time, he is a constant reminder of our failures as well, where it's here's my plan
45:08
and that should supersede God's plan.
45:11
And that's exactly what's happening here.
45:13
It's like, well, I don't want you to die.
45:15
So you can't and I'm going to stop it and it's like, no, you won't.
45:20
And you shouldn't because this is God's plan.
45:24
He's also the one that gets off the boat and tries to walk on the water and confesses that
45:28
Christ is Lord.
45:29
And so it seems like the heart position of Peter is attempting to be in the right place.
45:35
You know, he's he's all in, even if he's going in the wrong direction, which just like the
45:38
Lord said, you know, David is a man after my heart.
45:41
Peter seems like a guy that would his life verse, if it were a verse would be like, if
45:45
it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
45:47
Like that just seems like there's something that he really enjoyed, but like he's not
45:52
a doer.
45:53
He's an overdoer.
45:54
And it's just like, it seems like he's constantly doing that, but he's constantly running into
45:57
these mistakes.
45:58
Well, I think the other thing that's interesting with Peter and I think this speaks to his humility
46:02
a little bit.
46:03
He is.
46:04
I mean, it's clear he's the leader of the disciples, but Peter never rises above any
46:09
of the other disciples, like he's not over them and saying, well, you know, like after
46:13
Jesus dies in his resurrected in the sins of heaven, Peter is not going like, here's
46:18
how we're going to do things, guys.
46:20
It's no, he's a leader.
46:22
He's guiding them, but it's very clear to me that he's not trying to rise above any
46:26
of them and put himself first and say, I am in charge, which again kind of makes the Catholic
46:31
pope thing kind of laughable a little bit, but the, the, the idea that leadership is,
46:40
is he's, he's trying to be a first among equals and not trying to get above them and which
46:46
would create that prideful, that pride that can kind of sometimes come from being a leader.
46:52
I think it is a good mark of his humility as that leader.
46:55
Especially when your leader is going to his death, that's kind of a humbling situation.
47:00
Yeah, I mean, you got to love him.
47:02
You know, I mean, he's emotional.
47:03
He's passionate.
47:04
He's like, he's the guy that, you know, is up and everybody else has sit on the bench.
47:08
And he's like, what the heck?
47:10
You know, I mean, I, so I'll say that, but then also I was going to mention that it,
47:17
one of the notes I had written from a little bit earlier was that he had declared his person,
47:22
but now he has to declare his work.
47:23
And he was just starting Jesus, I mean, he was just getting into, okay, this is going
47:27
to happen.
47:29
You know, and it's, and it's Peter obviously loving him and thinking he's loving him and
47:32
doing good, saying no, Peter, like this is, it's time.
47:36
This is going to happen.
47:37
There's nothing you can do about it.
47:38
And it's, and it's Satan that's telling you to stop this, you know, and, and that arrogance
47:43
that can come.
47:44
I mean, I begin this in my room, arrogance, cockiness and self-sufficiency.
47:47
This idea that my plan supersedes God's plan, arrogance, cockiness and self-sufficiency
47:52
are all counterfeits of confidence.
47:56
Confidence is the recognition of what God has given us to do and that we can do it with
48:00
his strength.
48:01
So if God has given you a plan and you are looking for his guidance, you can have confidence
48:06
in what you're doing.
48:07
But if you're just trying to follow your own path and you say, well, I should be confident
48:11
in what I'm doing.
48:12
Cause I got this.
48:13
Well, when Jesus gives him a hint, you know, at the end of verse 23, for you are not sitting
48:16
your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man, it's like, dude, like, I love
48:21
your passion.
48:23
I need it.
48:24
He doesn't need it.
48:25
But you know what I mean?
48:26
Like he called him because of his passion, right?
48:28
He didn't call Peter in spite of his passion.
48:30
But the thing is, is like, you know, you could have a race car and put the wrong fuel in
48:34
it.
48:35
And it's going to be a problem.
48:36
You could have a race car with the right fuel in it and point it in the wrong direction.
48:40
And you've now got a problem, right?
48:41
And so I think, you know, obviously he's, he's trying to help him.
48:45
And this is another thing.
48:46
Like this doesn't mean that every time you rebuke somebody, it's got to be in the cutest
48:49
tone and wait until you're not angry and then, you know, talk about it with your spouse and
48:54
then you can approach the kid.
48:55
And then that's not the way that it always needs to be.
48:57
This was immediate, aggressive rebuke.
49:00
Now, this is not a license to only rebuke in that way.
49:03
But to anyone that's, you know, read these 17 different parenting books or all these other
49:07
different relational or counseling books and everything is like, Oh, we got to wait to
49:10
your call and you got blah, blah.
49:12
Sometimes you rebuke in the moment and that's exactly what's needed and that's what's necessary.
49:16
So let's close out Matthew 16 with reading of 24 through 28, Zach hit it.
49:24
Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take
49:29
up the cross and follow me or whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
49:33
his life for my sake will find it for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole
49:38
world and forfeits his soul or what shall a man give and return for his soul for the
49:44
son of man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his father.
49:48
And then he will repay each person according to what he has done.
49:52
Truly I say to you, there is some standing here who will not taste death until they see
49:57
the son of man coming in his kingdom.
50:00
So versus time, you don't think we have enough time, but let's do our best here in our in
50:05
our last little bit versus 24 and 25.
50:09
Don't make sense at all.
50:10
We don't believe the gospel, but we'll read them again.
50:14
Then Jesus told his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, not live
50:20
his best life, not find his true, not whatever, but to deny himself, the take up his cross
50:25
and follow me again.
50:26
That's alluding to the crucifixion to something I was foretold in the Old Testament before
50:31
crucifixion and was even, you know, decided upon yet it alludes to the fact that Jesus
50:35
was going to have trouble carrying his own cross after his flogging and scourging.
50:40
So it's pointing to all that.
50:42
And then verse 25, for whoever would save his life will lose it.
50:45
That doesn't make any sense, but whoever loses his life for my sake, we'll find it.
50:48
That doesn't make any sense unless you have the gospel, which goes back to what was it
50:53
verse 17, where it's, you know, you're trying to figure out, like, okay, was this was this
50:57
revelatory because it was given to me as a gift or did I find myself there?
51:01
Like there's all that we're not going to reopen that we already put a band-aid on it.
51:05
But this is just so interesting to me because as a Christian, because I've been a Christian
51:08
since high school, I can read through this verse and it's like, yeah, yeah, that's what
51:11
it says.
51:12
It's no big deal.
51:13
But if you're reading this for the first time, right, and you're not a believer, you're
51:16
like, what do you, you have to be like, I try to look through the lens of an unbeliever
51:20
and be like, how would they read this?
51:22
Because it's got to seem completely anathema to like everything they've ever operated.
51:27
You know what I mean?
51:28
Absolutely.
51:29
And I think, I think it's the spirit, obviously, that gives you that perspective.
51:33
You know, I mean, I think that, you know, if you don't, if you don't have the Holy Spirit
51:37
and you read that, not only will you not understand it, but you can also, I would think it would
51:41
make perfect sense just to read it in a bad way, right?
51:44
Meaning like deny myself, like, what does that, you know, no, like I'm supposed to just not
51:50
take care of myself and not do, you know, do anything that the world would look at as
51:54
good for myself.
51:55
Well, that's not it.
51:57
But I mean, I, and we see, obviously, this is the opposite of everything that's described
52:01
in 24 through 28 is like the new religion, and I realize it's not new, right?
52:07
It seems like it, you know, I mean, it's the virtuous thing is to do the opposite of this,
52:12
right?
52:13
And it goes counter.
52:14
It goes counter to every other world religion that's ever, except for, you know, but what
52:19
is it, where it's Buddhism, where you try to find this nothingness and, you know, this
52:24
nirvana or whatever.
52:26
So you try to find where you're not doing anything.
52:29
But yeah, that like nothing else, everything was about conquering and overcoming and like
52:33
none of this language would have made sense.
52:35
And that's the, the dichotomy of Jesus to where, again, he's not all lion, but he is
52:40
lamb and you don't have lion without lamb, you don't have lamb without lion.
52:44
And certainly when you get into this, it's being able to understand that tension.
52:48
We've talked so much about that tension, even in this episode of sovereignty and free will,
52:52
but there's also tension here between like caring enough for oneself that you honor God
52:58
by how you care for yourself, but then also not caring about yourself so much that you're
53:02
willing to deny him in order to cater to yourself, making yourself sure.
53:07
Yeah.
53:08
That's how I think about it.
53:10
I think that the one of the things that I took from this whole section was the how often
53:16
I think we can allow our circumstances to dictate our faithfulness, you know, we have
53:23
some bad things happen to us and then suddenly God is against us or, you know, the, you know,
53:30
I think the fact is that no one has failed so many times in their life that God still
53:37
cannot use them for his purposes.
53:39
Again, going back to that, have confidence that if you have that right relationship with
53:44
God, if you are going to him consistently, that he will help you guide your path, that
53:49
he will put you on his purpose and, and you will be able to walk with him, but you have
53:55
to be consistent in that relationship.
53:58
Do not allow the circumstances of your own life.
54:01
The mess that you probably made of it yourself, sorry Calvinists and maybe sorry, Toby too,
54:05
but the, the mess you've made of your own life is not God's fault.
54:12
Don't let that circumstance, when you are in that scenario, you have to turn to God.
54:17
I guess Mike, I'm always curious, like, how often and when do you decide to turn to God?
54:24
And, and I mean, for me, it's like, you know, is it when it's really bad or, you know, when
54:29
I have a big decision to make, you know, how often is it like, okay, you know, I had a
54:34
disciplinary problem with my kid.
54:37
Should I be praying before that?
54:38
How do I handle this?
54:40
You know, sometimes even the most mundane and, and easy decisions that you should be
54:44
making in your everyday life, we may be making them outside of God's will and trying to be
54:49
a little bit more consistent.
54:51
You asked in the last episode, I hear from God.
54:53
It's because I consistently am going to him and it's like, no, I know when he's talking
54:58
to me.
54:59
And it's like, and sometimes he says nothing and it's like, well, I guess I'm just going
55:01
to have to try and make a decision on my own here.
55:04
When I would agree with what Matt Chandler said when he went in television church and
55:08
burned Stephen Furtick's down church down around him, but he's like, you're not David.
55:12
When you read about David, you're not David.
55:15
You didn't kill Goliath.
55:16
You know, your boss at work is not Goliath.
55:19
Okay.
55:20
Like, let's stop with that.
55:21
But I do think it is important to go back to the point you were just making Jacob out.
55:24
Well, can God use me?
55:26
Yes.
55:27
He used David.
55:29
Now people, they love to think of themselves as David whenever he's slaying Goliath, right?
55:33
And there's a great TikTok account of this, this Israeli guy that's like shows how people
55:39
used to use whips and rocks as I'm like, how are you going to use like a slingshot to kill
55:42
like a giant, but how they like spin their entire body around.
55:45
It's like this big thing.
55:46
It's like, Oh, it's perfect.
55:47
It's like Randy Johnson throwing a baseball at a bird.
55:49
Like that's basically how this worked out.
55:52
But I think about David, the murderer, David, the rapist, potentially calling Bathsheba
55:58
to his chambers.
56:00
She doesn't really have an option of not doing what he wants her to do and probably surviving
56:05
and to ensure that his deeds aren't found out, at least to his knowledge, he kills her
56:09
husband, like not with his own hand.
56:12
But basically he does it kind of in the mafia way where he puts him in a situation where
56:16
there was no way where Uriah was going to make it out.
56:19
That's what I think about.
56:20
So when I start feeling down on the dumps and I can't believe it.
56:23
I'm so stupid and blah, blah.
56:24
I'm like, he used David and he's in the line of David, right?
56:29
Like this depravity and the sin provided the continuation of the line to get to the king.
56:35
The real king.
56:36
That's what I think about.
56:37
I like thinking about Jonah too.
56:38
I mean, in that same way, Jonah gets told, go to Nineveh.
56:43
Go to Nineveh.
56:44
And it's like, I am not going to Nineveh.
56:46
I am not doing that.
56:48
And then yeah, and then I'm going the opposite way of going to Nineveh.
56:52
And then, okay, well, then I will put you in the belly of a whale and I will spit you
56:57
out on the shores of Nineveh.
57:00
Again, you may not think you can be used for his plan, but sometimes, and in a lot of ways,
57:06
and I think the example of David is like, yes, he can still use you no matter what you've
57:09
done.
57:10
In the example of Jonah, it's like, you may be going, I am not following you.
57:14
You may be actively working against his plan.
57:16
And guess what?
57:18
It's fruitless.
57:19
You're going to end up as part of his plan.
57:22
Yeah.
57:23
One thing I like about Frank Turic, he listened to some of his stuff when he's going back
57:26
and forth with these college campus kids that are asking all these questions and one that
57:29
will come up a lot is, well, I had whatever circumstance in my life, you know, blow up
57:34
and now I don't believe in God.
57:35
And he's like, well, your personal circumstances don't dictate God's existence.
57:39
That's why this faith is great because it's evidence based.
57:42
You know, for me, I didn't come to faith from like a scientific evidence perspective per
57:48
se.
57:49
It was, it was other personal circumstances.
57:51
But then once I was exposed to all that information, it was like, wow, this is crazy.
57:57
And now anytime there's a storm, you just go back to that rock that there's just overwhelming
58:03
evidence that this is the case.
58:05
And so from that perspective, then once you get to Christ and you realize that it's real
58:10
and you realize that you have the ability to pray to the creator of the universe and read
58:14
his word, then absolutely you should be praying and going to it every day.
58:19
You know, I think for me, that's kind of the big thing.
58:21
So for anybody out there that does feel like you're going through something that causes
58:26
your faith to waver, make sure that you're looking at your evidence.
58:28
Well, there's more to say, but I think that's a great place to leave it.
58:31
So guys, we are going to be back here next Sunday and we're going to dig into Matthew
58:34
17.
58:35
So make sure you're red up through there.
58:37
But before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost added on to life
58:40
permission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and
58:45
physical resilience.
58:46
So I've got links to the stuff I talked about earlier, the forging table starter set through
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crossway, all the stuff is right there in the show notes and also linked to our donation
58:53
page.
58:54
Thank you to all the donors, the people that support us financially.
58:57
We can't pull off what we pull off without you guys, everything we do costs money.
59:01
That's just the way the world is, but we need more guys like you to come on board to support
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us financially so that we can increase what we're doing to equipment around the globe
59:09
to push back darkness.
59:30
So that link is there as well.
59:33
Go to www.undaunted.life and also we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to
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use their music for our content.
59:40
The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self titled debut album
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on face down records.
59:46
The links are in the description.
59:47
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
59:49
Remember keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
59:55
Keep seeking the lion of Judah.