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This is Undaunted Life Man's Podcast.
0:53
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
0:55
Let's get into it.
0:57
Welcome back to the Forging Table.
0:58
The mission of Undaunted Life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
1:01
forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.
1:04
At the Forging Table, you'll see a group of regular guys forging spiritual resilience
1:08
by digging into God's Word, and we're welcoming all of you to come along on that journey with
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us.
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That's Zach.
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That's Eric.
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Guys, we're digging into Matthew 9 today, and I'm kind of having flashbacks of trying
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to set up Matthew 7, and I'm like, there's just too much here.
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There's too much here to kind of really dig into.
1:25
But I will say of all the stories that are not Golgotha from the Gospels, Matthew 9 records
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my favorite story in the Gospels, again, that don't have to do with the actual crucifixion
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and resurrection.
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So we will get there here in a second, but we need to start off with another healing.
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So Zach, if you wouldn't mind kicking us off, let's get Matthew 9 verses 1 through 8.
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And getting into a boat, do we need to bring in someone in from the bullpen, or are you
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doing okay?
1:57
Guys, if you're wondering that wasn't your track skipping in your car, that was Zach's
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brain skipping.
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You doing okay?
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I'm good.
2:04
Did you?
2:05
I lost it for a minute.
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I'm back now.
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Three, two, one.
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And getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city, and behold, some people
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brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed, and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to
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the paralytic, "Take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven."
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And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, "This man is blaspheming, but Jesus, knowing
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their thoughts, said, 'Why do you think evil in your hearts, for which is easier to say?
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Your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise and walk.'"
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But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he then
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said to the paralytic, "Rise, pick up your bed, and go home," and he rose and went home.
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And the crowd saw it, they were afraid, and then they glorified God who had given such
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authority to men.
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Now, I may have mixed some stuff up.
2:54
This isn't the same paralytic as the one where they destroyed the roof and lowered him
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down.
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This is different, or is it the same one?
3:02
I think it's the same one.
3:03
Just with that detail?
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Yeah, Matthew just leaves that out.
3:06
Okay.
3:07
Because again, a lot of the stuff is still the exact same, but anyway, I was just trying
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to kind of think through that, because I think for me, guys, just to kick off this discussion
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here is in verse two, "And when Jesus saw their faith," because I remember when you
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look at that whole situation with the friends that carry a man to Jesus, I love that story,
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because they literally destroyed someone's house, right?
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Like imagine someone trying to, that's only your roof, trying to get through your shingles
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and all that other stuff, just to get their friend to Jesus, and it's like, I forget what
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the ghost fifth member of this podcast, Joby Martin, says to me, it's like, you know, you
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need to have a four corners type of a friend, like somebody that's going to be on one of
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the four corners of your mouth that's going to do everything that they can to get you
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to Jesus, but it's like, those are the types of guys that you want, but Jesus isn't talking
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about the faith of the paralytic, he's talking about their group faith, and so that's interesting
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in light of what we know about personally, what salvation means, it's your personal faith
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in Christ, because again, God doesn't have grandkids and God also doesn't have buddies
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or second cousins either.
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So it's your faith that saves you, but it is interesting that, Matthew, make sure to
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discuss their faith collectively here.
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Yeah, I think that speaks towards the power of prayer, like we pray in intercession for
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our friends and the people that we love, and we bring those things to God.
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So I think, yeah, I think that's just a good call to pray for those you love.
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And also, this is one of the first sections here where we see Jesus knowing their thoughts.
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Like it's just kind of mentioned here in Matthew, but it's like, wait a minute, like that had
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to be pretty freaky for, you know, the Pharisees and Sadducees of the day to be like, they
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think this thing.
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And then Jesus answers a question that they didn't speak out loud, like you, there's not
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really a corollary for us, like to where someone, because you can be good at the power of suggestion
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and kind of know what someone's going to say next, like a lot of magic tricks is kind
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of suggestion, they're kind of getting you to pick a particular number between one and
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whatever and pick a particular elephant that starts with an, or a particular animal that
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starts with an E, I just said it elephant, like they're trying to get you there.
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But this is just something completely different.
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And I think it's just, it's easy to skip over as you're reading it.
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He's got to.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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They're they're having trouble understanding that right now at the moment.
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Zach, were you going to say something on that?
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No, just something small.
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I guess, I guess they're saying that it could be the reason why he talked about sins are
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forgiven first was just because that may have been the primary issue.
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And I guess in some cases, they're kind of linking in this case, send to the sickness
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that could be related, maybe not, but I guess they're acknowledging that that could be possible
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in terms of the people that are writing about what Jesus is.
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He's literally proclaiming himself as God here, like people that say Jesus never said
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he was God.
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This is a perfect example, like no one has authority to forgive sins, but God is also
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interesting that he calls him son.
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There's not a lot of places where he uses that sort of language.
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He says, take heart, my son.
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Your sins are forgiven like that is a very God like thing to say.
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And so I think he's, he's putting that out there.
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Hey, this is why I'm here.
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Right.
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I mean, verse six and verse eight, that's, that's the authority piece.
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That's like, that's a huge portion of this part of Matthew.
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Yeah.
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We assume that maybe he was depressed.
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And so, you know, mine says cheer up as he was giving him a hope about that.
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I had written down Isaiah 50 or Isaiah 35, five through six as a fulfillment of prophecy
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says eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, the lame
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shall leap like deer in the tongue of the dumb should sing.
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Yeah, I wrote, I underlined this man is blaspheming because they literally see him heal a guy
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and he takes away his sins, he forgives him for his sins.
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And I just put a little note here that says Romans one.
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I think you can find areas all throughout Jesus' ministry where he's like, he's not trying
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to convince them like, hey, come follow me like, come, come on, come on.
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You got it.
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You got to get on this train.
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He's letting them do what they want to do.
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And what does, what does Frank Turk say?
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God's not going to force anybody to, to heaven like I guess that's, yeah.
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So like he's, I mean, I think that's a Romans one just playing out right there in front
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of us saying, all right, cool, you, you think that I'm blaspheming, cool.
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I, like go on, go on and live in your life.
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Not to go on too much of a Calvinist diatribe, even though that's what we do on the show.
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That's kind of like the subcategory of what this is.
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To that point to the Frank Turk point, I think most people are like, yeah, makes sense.
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God's not going to take you kicking and screaming to heaven, right against your will and see
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us lose kind of talks about that as well, to where it's like, you know, the ultimate form
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of hell is not like it's, hey, yeah, go ahead.
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Your will be done.
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Yeah.
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We'll go and let you have your will and you can create the world for yourself.
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But in light of, and I, there's no snarkiness here, but in light of what Calvinist believe
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in their version of theology is like, he can do that indeed.
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He can drag people kicking and screaming to heaven like because I would disagree with
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that because he gives us a new will.
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He gives us a new, he, we are a new creation.
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So our old, which, which part are you disagreeing with?
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Sorry, like the, the, the Calvinist would say God can drag someone to, to heaven kicking
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and screaming.
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I, I think I would disagree with that.
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Like God, I mean, I guess God can cause he's sovereign, like, if you're going to, I mean,
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how sovereign is God?
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Is he kind of sovereign?
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Or is he all sovereign?
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Like he could do that, but I don't think that's.
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Is that where we get into the discussion of the combination of sovereignty and human
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will to where it's like, what, what am I?
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Oh, it's like a pharaoh when it's, when it says it got hardened, pharaoh's heart.
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We think, Oh, God made pharaoh act the way that he did.
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No, God took the way that pharaoh was choosing to act and said, great.
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Now it's in concrete, right?
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So it's like he hardened his heart.
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Like this is what you want to do.
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We're going to solidify it.
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Is that kind of like what you're saying or most of the time, didn't pharaoh harden his
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own heart?
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And then there's, and then God says, okay, cool.
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That's what you want.
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But that was kind of what I'm saying, like when it says God hardened pharaoh's heart,
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or, you know, it's, let me get the exact language as you kind of make your point.
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I don't think I had a point.
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I just, I think that when we're talking about God's sovereignty versus man's responsibility,
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I think we are, we inherit, we inherit Adam's sin through the flesh.
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So we can do nothing in our own, like for our own salvation.
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We can't save ourselves.
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But when God, when God gives us or makes us a new creation, like our, our want is to pursue
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holiness, our want is to pursue the things of God.
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And what do you mean by will?
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Our will.
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Yeah.
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In that sense, like who God calls and justifies is not going to be someone who wants to continue
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sinning, who wants to be their old self.
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So like they're not, like God's not dragging anybody kicking and screaming because he's,
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he's made you a new creation.
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So you would disagree with that to her statement then.
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Is that fair?
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Well, I think that's still a true statement.
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He's not dragging anybody kicking and screaming to heaven.
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That's true.
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I think you could be a Calvinist and believe that.
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Okay.
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I regret even doing this because now I'm working on this and I was going to start.
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I can, I think I'll go back, I'll go back to the, we can be so dogmatic about some of
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the theological underpinnings of our thoughts that those in themselves can become idolatry.
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Sure.
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And I really like what Ryan says about it.
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Like I'm just going to be rejoiced whether somebody says, I gave my life to Christ or
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God snatched me out of my sin. It doesn't really matter.
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I'm going to rejoice in the fact that this person is now a new creation.
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I think the way that it matters, and I don't want to go any further down this rabbit trail
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because there's so much here in Matthew nine.
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But I think where it matters is how people take the great commission because it's like,
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I even had this out the other day.
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I wasn't going to share the story, but I think it's, it's kind of relevant to just
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responding to a whisper as it were.
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I'm walking through Walmart and I see a lady that's probably in her late 30s, early 40s,
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but she was bald. She was wearing a hat. She was walking around with a woman that looked to be
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the age of probably her mother. And it was clear that she was fighting cancer.
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And I had James with me and we're just walking and immediately it's like, you need to go pray for her.
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I was like, no, I don't. And then I kept walking in about two seconds later.
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I was like, uh, okay, I do. Inside turnaround, I go up to this one.
11:50
I kind of type on show. I was like, excuse me. I know this might be a little weird from a stranger,
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but would it be okay if I prayed for you? And she didn't go, why? That's weird.
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Like she knew. And so I put my hand on her shoulder and I kind of prayed for her, prayed for healing.
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And her mom wasn't there at that time, but by the time I was done praying, her mom was there.
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And she kind of got to explain to me, oh, it's breast cancer. And, you know, this is my second
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round of treatment. And I was able to explain, Hey, my mom has fought breast cancer and my dad
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as a cancer survivor and all that. And so it was just kind of one of those moments.
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But it was like, you could very easily have just said, yeah, I'm not going to do that.
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That's weird. I don't want to do it. And so a lot of people miss out on those opportunities to
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share the gospel. And I feel like if you do have that deep calvin of theology, it's like, well,
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I guess I wasn't the one that was supposed to share them. Or like, if they're chosen,
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they're going to be brought in anyway. Well, I think we'd be an heir. If you were to say,
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it's not my responsibility to preach and always go back to Esther on this, like,
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you've been commanded and called by God to go speak to the king and save your people. If not you,
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God's going to raise somebody else up. It's your responsibility. It is to your detriment to not do
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that. It is to your detriment and to your eternal, obviously, this is paraphrasing, but your eternal
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damnation to not be obedient to God. And I were called to, to go preach. And I,
13:05
if I may, Zach has had a poo eating grin on his face for like the last two minutes. What in the
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world do you have to say speak man? It's nothing profound. I just,
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I think about Joby because he made a comment. I fly around a lot for business. And he said,
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I know I fly around a lot for what he does. He said, I'll sit down next to somebody and I'll try
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to share the gospel. And if they don't respond, then I just figure, well, you ain't part of the
13:31
elect and I just start typing whatever I'm going to type, you know, and every time I think about
13:35
this, for some reason, that's what I have in my head. First of all, I'm like, if Joby ever sits
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next to me, I'm going to, that'd be a lot of fun. Secondly, we can maybe make that. You know,
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CS Lewis says that, you know, from his perspective, and he's not Paul, but he says that hell is locked
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from the inside, which just, you know, implies, I think there's always going to be this dynamic
13:55
pool between the two. I think I'd continue to stand that we just don't know. We just don't know.
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Ultimately, it calls you to do things with your life and to be intentional about who you're
14:05
sharing with and all those sorts of things. And at the same time, God's will sovereign.
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I will own that diatribe. Let's get back into Matthew nine because there's so much. And by the way, I
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looked up it was Exodus 912, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and then it kind of goes on from
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there. And so anyway, that kind of goes into that point. So when when we go back into Matthew nine,
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well, Matt, actually, could you read verses nine through 13? Because this is actually
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the first calling of one of the apostles here. Sure. As Jesus passed on from there,
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he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, follow me and he rose
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and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners
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came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this,
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they said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
14:56
But when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
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Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice for I came not to call the righteous,
15:09
but sinners. So there's a lot there obviously kind of a bold move here to call a financial
15:14
extortionist to be part of your your inner crew here. But I just want your guests us here because
15:20
it's impossible to know is it safe to assume because Matthew has been so what is the opposite
15:26
of verbose, but he's been so quick with details. He doesn't really below V8 on details. Could we
15:31
assume that Matthew and Jesus had a bunch of other interactions before this one? Could you define
15:37
below V8 first? That's a big word. Like when you below V8, it's like you're just kind of you're
15:44
just talking. You just have a lot of words to describe a situation or a happening. You're just
15:48
kind of bloviating. You're just kind of going on and on with a situation. So verbose is the same.
15:52
You're just very wordy in your description. Matthew's like the opposite of that. Like he's just
15:56
basically, Hey, here are the details even earlier, like this, he left out the details of them like
16:02
doing, you know, damaged property damage that would cause stay farm to come out, you know, to
16:07
someone's house because he just left the detail out. Can we assume that him and Matthew had more
16:12
interactions than this? Or was Matthew at least tangentially aware of Jesus and was able to kind
16:18
of see from his booth stuff that was happening? Because yes, can Jesus just walk up to the booth
16:24
first time ever seeing the guy and go follow me and that dude be like, yeah, okay, let's do it.
16:28
I wonder about that. Well, you know, this is a thought. I know that Jesus went to one or two
16:38
towns and found like at least half of his disciples from the same town, like brothers and it went
16:42
not. And what I understand about the Jewish culture at the time is that when these kids were really
16:51
young, they would memorize what existed at the Bible at the time. And then later on, a rabbi would
16:57
test them on their knowledge of the Bible. But in the reason for that is because they were looking
17:05
for one or two that they could take another wing to then groom to become teachers and what not.
17:11
But most of the most of them that passed over and the ones that they did bring in typically were
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the ones that not only had it memorized, but also had some degree of understanding of how the
17:21
scripture is flowed and the practical applications of that. So all of the disciples that Jesus
17:27
called at least the ones that the fishermen and whatnot from the small towns were assumed or presumed
17:35
to have been people that had been passed over at one point. And so they just gone back to learn
17:40
their father's job and location. And then that's what they were doing. And so when this presumed
17:45
teacher or rabbi or, you know, authority figure walks in and says, follow me, they saw that
17:51
potentially as a second chance. Like I have a second chance to learn underneath the rabbi.
17:56
You know, so anyway, I was just kind of curious on that, like what you would think that the other
18:00
thing I wanted to talk about in this particular section is, well, go to verse 11. Why does your
18:07
teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? I've heard it said this way and I'm sensitive to the
18:11
argument. But Jesus didn't hang out with sinners, sinners hung out with Jesus. And I think that
18:17
that is an important distinction because it, it, you can extrapolate that out into a conversation
18:23
about where should we go as sinners to be where the sinners are? Because really you could, this
18:30
is a good discussion. This is what I want you guys to discuss versus 10 through 13. This is,
18:34
you know, hey, why, why are you hanging around these people? Because then we get into these
18:39
discussions about what is the limit to what extent are we to hang out with sinners? Because there
18:44
are people that like, no, no, you need to go to brothels and preach the gospel to these women,
18:47
you need to go strip clubs. Like you need to go to the roughest parts of your city, you need to go
18:51
to the gang neighborhoods, you need to go to the where the kingpins houses, you need to go to those
18:54
places. And it gets into this really interesting territory is when is your presence? I don't know
19:02
if I want to say that was like, when is your presence sinful? But it's like, if you're there
19:06
while somebody is committing a crime, and you're saying, well, it's because I'm trying to gain
19:10
trust with these people so that I can share the gospel with them. This is where there's there's
19:14
a great discussion to be had that I would like to hear y'all's thoughts because, you know, I remember
19:19
triple X church back in the day, they would go to these porn conventions and they would hand out
19:23
Bible support stars. And it said Jesus loves porn stars on these Bibles. And people were like,
19:28
Oh my gosh, like talk about going into the lines, then you can't, you can't bounce your eyes at an
19:34
event like that. Like it's just, you know, body parts everywhere. But it's like other people would
19:39
say, well, we're like, it's not the healthy that need a doctor. It's the sick and what's more to
19:43
pray and sick than a porn convention. Like that's, that's right for the gospel. So what do y'all's
19:47
thoughts on that? Well, I think I would first say we are not Jesus and Jesus could go wherever he
19:55
wanted. He wasn't going to sin. And so I think we've got to start with that frame of reference,
20:01
right? Like we're not Jesus. I also think we're called to not go like how to put this. I would say
20:10
we're not we're not called to go into strip clubs to preach. Like because people that are at strip
20:16
clubs, they're not a trip clubs 24 seven. So like to say, well, that's where all the sinners are.
20:22
That's not the only place they are. So if I want to reach the people in strip clubs, that doesn't
20:25
mean I have to go to strip clubs or brothels or wherever. So I think our own, our own spiritual
20:33
health would take precedent over quote unquote, trying to reach the lost there. So, okay, yeah,
20:42
I'm not a biblical expert or scholar, but I cannot remember in the New Testament, anybody
20:47
representing God going to a brothel, which absolutely existed at the time, maybe not.
20:54
It seems like there's always some sort of a community environment where they're interacting
20:58
with people that may, you know, becoming from bad backgrounds, but they're not going into those
21:03
environments knowingly. Right. Yeah. And I was trying to remember the name of this, the author,
21:11
but there was a book called the one thing you can't do in heaven. And I remember him telling
21:19
stories about him driving around in areas where known prostitutes were. And he would stop and they,
21:27
of course, come with would come up because they thought they had business and he would,
21:30
he would tell them about Jesus and then say, if I can I pay you to take this Bible and will you
21:38
read it? You know, that sort of thing. I mean, it went went no further than that. It was an
21:43
interesting and he got some backlash on that. I understand. So, you know, one of the things that
21:49
I interpreted from this, and you actually get to it again in chapter 10. So I'm sure we'll discuss
21:54
it again is, you know, Matthew became a person of peace in that moment. And he had some sort,
22:02
we would assume he had some sway with the other tax collectors. So as they were meeting together
22:07
and eating or hanging out or whatever, almost wonder if Jesus didn't see that as an opportunity
22:14
for him, Matthew, to have a an influence on the on the other guys in that same profession. So,
22:23
yeah, I would say kind of where I land on that, Matt, to your point. So for me, as I've, I've
22:28
said before, he's have a problem with pornography and masturbation and all that and that just hasn't
22:31
been a part of my life for a very, very long time. But the temptation has not gone away at all.
22:37
And when I mean at all, I mean, at all, I mean, daily, I am tempted to look at pornography and to
22:43
check out good looking women, like every single day. And so like, it's easier whenever you've done
22:48
it every day for thousands of days in a row to just add another tally to the list. But for me,
22:54
I would never be the person to raise my hand to volunteer to go to the porn convention,
22:59
ever, because it would just be too dangerous for me for the same reason that if you like,
23:03
I don't have a chemical bend in my personality, where, you know, pills or alcohol or anything like
23:08
that gets a grip on me, like, at all, like, I just don't have that, like when people have to be very
23:13
careful after surgery with, you know, how many opioids they take or whatever, like, I just don't
23:16
have that. But if I did, I wouldn't be in the ministries that would, you know, hey, I'm going to
23:21
go to bars and preach the gospel, or I'm going to go to those types of places because I, I just
23:25
don't trust myself to be able to overcome. Well, and I remember that, correct me if I'm wrong,
23:32
but I, I don't know of any other sin or temptation in the Bible where it says to flee, flee all
23:39
sexual, you know, so if we were to take that and extrapolate it to a command, then it would make
23:46
sense that we should not be going to those places where sexual immorality exists in order to preach
23:51
the gospel. I think that's a good way to sum up that part. Before we get into the next section
23:55
here, I did want to remind you guys that, you know, we've been asked by a lot of people to, you know,
24:00
give them some resources like, Hey, I want to start my own forging table. How do I do that?
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Well, if you're watching this on YouTube, that stack right there, we have partnered with Crossway
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to put together kind of a forging table starter set. It is five incredible books that if you order
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includes their brand new ESV men's study Bible. So it's kind of like their ESV study Bible, which is
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their best selling Bible ever, along with stuff that is just basically focused directly on men.
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It's a fantastic resource. Also, the book of Romans scripture journal study edition. So it's
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kind of like the journals I talk about often where you have the scripture on the left and the notes
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on section on the right. But in the bottom, this has the actual like ESV study Bible notes on the
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bottom there. There is a great devotional by Paul David trip called new morning mercies. That's
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included here as well. Douglas O'Donnell has a resource called the beauty and power of biblical
24:53
exposition. This allows you to understand the different categories of writing inside of the Bible. So
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that helps you as you're studying. And then an extra one calls family shepherds by Vody Bockum.
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That is a book that will help you understand. Hey, this is how I'm supposed to categorize my
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catechize my kids. This is how I'm supposed to be the leader, how I'm supposed to perform headship
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We just want to partner with a legit partner to get these resources in your hand. So easy
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to get these resources in your hand. And if you're driving right now, don't worry all those resources
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and the steps and all that will be in the show notes for this particular episode. So let's go
25:53
ahead and move on inside of Matthew nine. Eric, if you will start with verse 14 and take us to verse
25:58
17, please. Then the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we all and the Pharisees fast,
26:07
but your disciples do not fast. And Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests mourn as long as
26:13
the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them.
26:18
And then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, but the patch
26:25
tears away from the garment. And the worst tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wine skins.
26:32
If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put
26:40
into fresh wine skins. And so both are preserved. And so there's certainly a lot to discuss here,
26:46
but I have ants in my pants to get to the next section, which is my maybe my favorite story in
26:50
the gospels. But the thing that I'm struck by in this section, fellas is that the disciples,
26:55
it's easy for us reading this because we know the end of the story. But the disciples that are
27:00
living this right now, this is likely in the first or second year of Jesus's ministry when
27:04
this is happening, the disciples never see this coming. They had to have heard the apostles and
27:09
the disciples had to have heard him talk about this. They had did they know that he was referring to
27:15
himself like they had to have known that he was referring to himself as the bridegroom. But then
27:20
he just slips in there. The day will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. But they had
27:25
to have just have been taking for granted that Jesus was just going to be there. Right? Like,
27:29
we're not going to follow this guy this Messiah. Again, at this time, they likely thought that he
27:33
was going to be a conquering hero that eventually they would create some sort of a ground swell
27:38
and take on the Roman Empire or take on the the Jewish andhedrin or something like that. They
27:42
certainly didn't think it would come this way. I think there's a lot to be said.
27:47
I think this is the first time where he talks about himself as the bridegroom,
27:53
right? Yeah, I believe so, yeah. I believe so. I think too, he's calling that he's like fasting
28:02
isn't a bad thing. Like, I'm I didn't come here to say don't fast anymore. I mean, he says there
28:07
will be a time for fasting, but it's not while you're with the king. It's not while you're with
28:11
the bridegroom. Like, I'm here. Be be present here. There will be a time for fasting later,
28:19
but my disciples understand that they're with me now. And I don't know. That's that's kind of
28:25
what I got out of that. But to your point, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what it was like.
28:29
Is that the you think that's the same time when John sent folks to say, Hey, are you the one that
28:37
we have been expecting or are we needing to wait for someone else? I want to say that comes. Well,
28:42
in Matthew, that comes in chapter 11 or 12, maybe? Oh, it does. Yeah. And again, this is not the
28:49
book of Matthew is not seen as the chronological book. So I'm not quite sure for the answer on that
28:53
one. But I just thought that was an interesting point with that section right there is again,
28:58
Matt, to what you were saying, this is not like, Hey, I'm rebuking people that choose to fast.
29:02
It's he's making a point about who he is in reference to the people that would be fasting,
29:07
because that was the question. But also, they're the ones that are bringing up fasting as if
29:12
that's what is getting you places that you want to go. Like, they're so fixated. And I think
29:19
this can be us too. We're so fixated on the do and like, what Zach has said, I,
29:25
like what I am doing, what I am bringing to the table. And that's just, I mean,
29:31
that's all they're concerned with is rather not fasting like us. We're good, good religious
29:36
people. We're fasting. They're the whitewash tunes. So you would expect them to say stuff like that.
29:40
Well, answer my pants no longer. We're getting to this section here. So we're going to read
29:45
verses eight through 26. So Zach, you're up 18 through 26, 18 through 26.
29:51
While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him saying,
29:57
my daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live. And Jesus rose and
30:03
followed him with his disciples and behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood
30:08
for 12 years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment. For she said to herself,
30:14
if only I touch his garment, I will be made well. Jesus turned and seeing her, he said,
30:20
take heart daughter, your faith has made you well. And instantly, the woman was made well.
30:25
And when Jesus came to the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a
30:30
commotion, he said, go away for the girl is not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him. But
30:36
when the crowd had put had been put outside, he went in and took her hand and the girl arose.
30:42
And the report of this went through all that district.
30:45
So this is what I want to say about this story before I open it up. So there are a lot of people
30:51
I can complain about the show the chosen. There are some people that have some legitimate gripes,
30:55
and there are some people that have gripes that are just based on their own tastes.
30:58
They're the chosen. I think this would be season three is one of the only reasons why this story
31:06
gets me choked up even thinking about it, because they set this up so well over episodes and episodes
31:14
in episodes, hours and hours and hours to get to that crescendo episode where Jesus brings this
31:20
girl back to life, where Jesus has an interaction with this woman that's had the problem of blood.
31:24
And the thing for me is I'm such a fast paced person and reader. So I like the book of Matthew,
31:30
because it's like, yep, just give me the high points. Like, let's just keep moving. It's like,
31:33
this is my action movie, right? But the chosen was able to help me slow down and think about
31:38
for 12 years, this woman emptied her bank accounts and did everything she could to get
31:45
well from this thing. And again, as men, we don't really understand what, you know,
31:51
a period lasting 12 years is like, we don't have any really concept of that. But this woman was
31:57
constantly unclean. She was completely outside of culture. She was completely outside of society.
32:04
She would very almost certainly have been disowned by her family. But she knew that if she could
32:10
just get to his garment, like I get, again, I'm getting upset now, if she could just touch his
32:15
clothing, that it would make her well, this is 12 years of suffering. We don't, we don't do well
32:21
with 12 minutes of suffering in our modern moment. Her entire life is suffering, basically, at this
32:26
point. And then when he turns to her and says, daughter, she doesn't have a dad probably at this
32:32
point, because she's been disowned. And he calls her daughter. That's not just a loose word. You
32:37
know what I mean? And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Wait a minute, the little girl's 12,
32:42
and she's been struggling for 12 years. Do you want to take a guess as to what day
32:47
that woman started having the problem with blood? You want to, you want to bet it's the
32:51
day that little girl was born. And on the same day, Jesus healed them from, from their ailments.
32:57
Again, it's just, there's just so much here and it's so rich. And I am very, very thankful to that
33:03
television show, if for nothing else, to show me this, to slow me down, to be like, no,
33:08
this was not like a, oh, she just walked through the crowd and touched it. This was
33:13
everything to tons and tons of people that were connected to these two stories. Like it's, it's
33:19
unreal. It's the first thing my, my mind goes to is that scene. Yeah, I mean, it's powerful.
33:24
I've never watched the chosen, but I did underline daughter that that title is only bestowed on one
33:30
person in the gospels. And that's this woman right here by Jesus. Yeah. Wow. Like it is a very
33:36
powerful moment. 12 years is a long time. Having a period, you were ceremonial,
33:42
ceremonially unclean for not just the month, but mosaic law required a period of waiting even after
33:51
that. So she doesn't even have a chance to wait. It's just 12 years, like you said, of just,
33:56
she can't even go in the temple. And no one could be in her presence at risk of being defiled as
34:01
well. Mosaic law, like called for that. And so for him, for him to call her daughter, like that,
34:07
you talk about offensive. That's offensive. But here's my point. Yeah.
34:11
There's a lot of superstition in her attempt, right, to get to Jesus. And I wrote, I wrote
34:19
this is something we talked about a couple of episodes ago too, I think, is that you can find a
34:26
lot of flaws in the way she comes to Jesus. She's seeking the healing and not the healer.
34:33
She's seeking the salvation and not the savior. And he didn't rebuke her for it. Even though
34:40
theologically, she probably is way off base and touching someone's garment. That's a very,
34:45
there's a very superstitious thing to do. And, you know, we could talk for days about Catholics
34:51
in there. What do they call them? Rosary. They're little, no, they're little objects. Yeah. Yeah.
34:57
Like bones, relics, relics. Yeah. And so there's a lot of superstition in that, but he didn't
35:03
rebuke her, but he did call out. He did call her out in a very loving way to where he made it a
35:09
public thing where it wasn't just a, she thought, I think she thought she'd be, I'm just going to
35:13
touch it. I'm a piece. I'm going to be on my way. And Jesus didn't going to know. He didn't,
35:17
he didn't unknowingly heal this woman. This is a divine appointment. God has got to details.
35:22
12 year old girl, 12 year old flow of blood, like, but he called her out publicly so she could
35:27
experience him. She could taste and see that he was good. And she wasn't going to get a fast one
35:32
on him. And he calls her daughter. And she like there, I can't even imagine what was going through
35:39
her head there. But I think that's a call to us to not separate Jesus from what he gives us,
35:47
because he is that like, like he is our salvation. He doesn't give us salvation. He is our salvation.
35:53
Well, and I don't, I don't know that I would categorize it as like superstitious, but I think
35:57
we're given more details in the other gospels when it talks about how, how Jesus stopped, like,
36:02
hey, power has gone out from me. It's like he knew where, where it came from. The thing that I think
36:06
about in terms of like, again, I can't put myself in her shoes. It's just I don't have the lived
36:12
experience. I guess to use a famous phrase from modern modern times or whatever. But we have to
36:17
look at it. We already talked about so she's been completely outside society. Jesus was probably
36:22
surrounded by people at this moment. That's at least how it's depicted in the chosen. And you have to
36:26
look at the context of the time he was likely surrounded. So she was elbowing her way through
36:32
the crowd while bleeding. I don't want to be crass here, but she's she's bleeding. And it's
36:38
perhaps it's not a controlled bleed at this point. She's touching people and making them
36:44
ritualistically unclean. And we have nothing here in the text that that shows us that there was any
36:49
rebuke for making people unclean or any of that type of thing just because she had the faith
36:55
that that is what she needed to do was to get to him. And we actually don't know that she was aiming
36:59
for his clothing, right? Necessarily, like was she like aiming for the clothing or was she just
37:04
aiming for his presence, right? And that was like an extension of it or something like that. So that
37:08
again, there's just there's a lot there in terms of, and again, he's on his way to Jairus's house
37:15
to do another miracle. And this is like, no one that's with him in his entourage is even thinking
37:21
about anything other than Jairus. And then we have this life defining moment right in the middle
37:25
of the crowd. Like man, Spurgeon puts it this way. This is he says she was ignorant. Did not heal
37:32
her unconsciously yet. Her faith lived despite this. And faith is a big part of the Bible. And,
37:40
you know, God counted righteousness to Abram or counted his faith as righteousness. And I like,
37:44
there's a lot to be said there. Like, we can Theo bro, our way through lots of conversations, but
37:52
faith, man, that is a big, big part of our life and having that faith or trust, trust would be
37:59
the best way to put that. Yeah, you don't have to have it all figured out, you know, but when you
38:05
can have faith, you know, that goes a very long way. And I was kind of with you on that. I thought
38:10
it was kind of a superstitious kind of thing, but she was just, she just didn't know. She didn't
38:14
know what she didn't know. She just knew that this man is somebody that she needed for healing.
38:18
I don't want to belabor this point, but now that we're talking about it a lot, the other
38:21
account, if I remember correctly, he says, he stops middle of the crowd, says I felt a power go out.
38:27
But he actually does kind of confront her. And he, he asks her a question that she then has to
38:33
very publicly respond to. It's a different, it's kind of a different flavor than what we're reading
38:37
here. And I just remember being struck by, it kind of felt like, like he was calling her out,
38:44
maybe a little bit unnecessarily. There was a deeper point. I just don't remember what it was.
38:48
Let me actually go. It's in Luke eight. Let me just kind of read this out. It defaulted to the
38:54
King James aversion. Should I read it? Let's do it. All right. And a woman having an issue of blood
39:00
12 years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any
39:05
came behind him and touched the border of his garment. And immediately her issue of blood stanched.
39:10
What is that stanched? Is that a word? It is in the King James. All right, let's keep going.
39:15
And Jesus said, who touched me? When all denied Peter and they that were with him said, master,
39:20
the multitude throng, the impresity and sayest thou who touched me. And Jesus said,
39:26
something hath touched me for I perceive that virtue has gone out of me. And when the woman saw
39:31
that she was not hid, she came trembling and falling down before him. She declared on to him
39:36
before all the people for what cause she had touched him and how she was healed immediately.
39:42
And he said unto her daughter, be of good comfort thy faith hath made the whole go in peace.
39:48
So that's the entirety of it in in Luke. Is it in any of the other accounts? Do you guys know?
39:53
I think it's in Mark, Mark five. Let's see. This is important. So I'm good to take a little bit
40:01
here. Okay, Mark five actually has the longest passage on it. So I'm going to read that. So guys,
40:06
if you were following along, Mark five, Matt, do you actually have it? Mark five, are you on that?
40:12
I'll read it. I'm not silky smooth like you. Okay, so I'll freaking read it. Mark five. And this is
40:17
25 through 34. So I'll let you guys get there so you can come along with it as well. A woman in
40:22
the crowd had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from
40:26
many doctors and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them. And she had gotten
40:30
no better. Is this the fricking message? I don't know what version this is. I'm just going to keep
40:34
going. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus. So she came up behind him
40:38
through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, if I can touch his robe, I will
40:42
be healed immediately the bleeding stopped and she could feel in her body that she had been healed
40:46
of her terrible condition. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out of him. So he
40:51
turned around the crowd to ask who touched my robe. His disciple said to him, look at this crowd
40:55
pressing around you. How can you ask who touched me? But he kept on looking around to see who had
41:00
done it. Then they then the frightened woman trembling at the realization of what had happened to her
41:05
came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her,
41:09
daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over. So if I'm reading
41:15
this correctly, she was terrified because she maybe thought, you know, she'd gotten what she
41:20
wanted. But maybe she she took the wrong route to get there. And so she came to Jesus trembling and
41:25
fearful. And he basically lifted her face, called her daughter and said her faith that made her well
41:30
go in peace, like almost like nothing more need be said. Yeah. Yeah, she was healed. And then he
41:39
stopped everything, posed the question so that she would have to come up. And then he had an
41:44
opportunity, I think, to let her know that it was going to be okay. You know what, as you say that,
41:49
I wonder, again, I'm reading something into the text. So I wonder what y'all think about this.
41:52
Do you think maybe he stopped to acknowledge her because wouldn't there be people in the crowd that
41:57
would have recognized her as the woman, maybe with the problem of blood to almost so almost like
42:03
earlier whenever he healed that paralytic and then said, Hey, go and tell the the priests or whatever
42:08
so that you could be brought back into society. I wonder if this is that moment for that girl,
42:13
where it's like, Hey, we're just going to do this now. Like, we are going to acknowledge
42:17
publicly that you have been healed. And she came before him humbly, expecting rebuke. And he just
42:23
said, go in peace. Your faith is healed. I wonder if that's if that was that moment, maybe.
42:29
I think another thing to not forget is that he's he's currently on a mission to go do something
42:36
incredibly important. We haven't talked about that yet. And stops to take care of this. Yeah,
42:39
so can we I guess talk about him raising a girl from the dead? Well, no, to the next point,
42:44
like this guy who stopped him, he's he's in Matthew. He's called a ruler. Like, so he obviously had
42:51
some clout and some some some position in life. And I wonder what what's going through his head.
42:58
Like, you're coming to heal my daughter and then you stopped to talk to this. I mean, I know that
43:03
woman see her. Like, what the heck? So I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of there's a lot of social
43:10
dynamics going on here. I'm sorry. I can't say social in here. But no, the interesting thing here.
43:19
So Jesus shows up and there are professional mourners at this time. I think a lot of people
43:23
know that these are people that are paid to to wail and the more that they wail, the more they get
43:27
paid and all those things. And I thought it was funny because Jesus tells these people go away.
43:32
The girl's not dead, but sleeping. And you can almost viscerally feel and they laughed at him,
43:37
right? Because we are professional mourners. Hey, Jesus, we're professionals. Like, we know what
43:43
dead looks like, like everyone at this time, like, it's okay, you can be an adult American and have
43:47
never seen a real like dead body, not so in this culture. They were familiar with what what dead
43:52
people look like. And they laughed at him. And gosh, what a bad time to laugh. Right? Again,
43:57
they didn't know who Jesus was. But you know, in hindsight, that's like a ridiculous situation.
44:02
And he goes in and he took her by the hand and the girl arose. We can assume that we don't see
44:07
that here in the text of Matthew, that mother and father are there in the room watching this happen,
44:12
like one, if not both of the parents watch their daughter die, they see her cold, lifeless body,
44:18
and then some random Jewish carpenter walks into their house, touches her girl's hand and she's
44:22
brought up from the dead. And I mean, again, Lazarus gets all the play in terms of, you know,
44:28
people being raised from the dead other than Jesus. But I mean, again, this story by itself
44:33
is enormous, but attached to the story of the woman of the problem with blood. And again,
44:38
we talked about Joby's commentary a lot, but he's like, why does what can we not get a better name
44:43
for the woman who had the problem of blood? Like, why do we always define these people by their
44:47
ailment? Like not the woman who was healed from her problem of blood. She's a woman with a problem
44:52
of blood type of a thing. But yeah, like these two stories are so inextricably linked to where we
44:57
spent 15 minutes just on the girl with the problem of blood. And there was a dead girl that's not
45:01
anymore. Well, I think to that point, they're like, you were known by your greatest or your your
45:09
worst day. Yeah, like we're going to there's a there's a renaming here. He calls her daughter,
45:15
whereas everyone else would say, Oh, that's the that's the lady who's got the the bleeding problem.
45:20
And there's a renaming. And I think renaming is very powerful in the Bible. And I think this is
45:27
this is one of those times. And I think it's just a really cool thing to think like Jesus,
45:32
Jesus renamed her. He called he called her daughter bestowed that title to no one else.
45:36
But her and just continuing this this theme of unclean and being made clean. You know,
45:44
it says touching a corpse rendered a person unclean for seven days. But Jesus brings the
45:49
girl to life transforming uncleanliness into purity. Jesus or Jesus power over death anticipates
45:56
his later raising of Lazarus and his own resurrection. So again, he's just he so many times as we've
46:03
read just today, he's going in and, you know, just unfray to touch heal, touch heal clean. And he's
46:10
doing the same thing with us today inside and outside. And I think about this kind of as it relates to
46:17
revelation and the and how God's going to restore the earth. You know, it's it's a very unnatural
46:24
thing. It's all because of sin, of course, that we have death at all. But God promises the restoration
46:30
of everything to as it was, as he had planned it originally, and it created originally. And so it's
46:36
amazing to see just these wonderful acts that he's performing. You know, how many people do
46:44
did he heal in the in this ministry? Who knows? But just kind of the comforting kind of foreshadowing
46:51
what God's ultimately going to do when he remakes John, John says the things that Jesus has done.
46:56
I could it would take me. I'm not this paraphrasing. Obviously it would take me days to write. Like,
47:01
there's so many things I can't even write of them all. Right. So we get just a very short
47:06
glimpse of what his ministry actually looked like. But man, well, isn't it interesting that Jesus
47:12
specifically gives people the ability to be born for a second time? But in the instance of this
47:17
girl and Lazarus and whoever else that's not named, he gives them the opportunity to die for a second
47:21
time. Like, isn't that kind of weird? Where it's just like, because I always think of it in terms of
47:25
Lazarus, because you I was probably around Lazarus's age when he died, perhaps somewhere in that,
47:29
and imagine me dying, knowing I was dead, seeing how much people that knew I was dead. It's like,
47:33
well, it's cool that I'm alive, but I'm gonna have to die again someday. That's going to be weird.
47:37
Like, you know, most people just get to die once, right? And then they're dead for eternity in a way,
47:42
it being removed from God. But that's an interesting thing on this story. We do have quite a bit more
47:47
left in Matthew nine, but are there any other thoughts on this? Because I think it's worth
47:50
camping out on not to, you know, pick and choose favorites in the Bible, but this is super duper,
47:55
my favorite. Well, I mean, this really speaks towards the personal nature of Christ and
48:03
God is I mean, he created the earth. He hung the stars. The fact that he would like, there is a lot
48:12
of power in that story. The fact that he would turn around and have this experience with this
48:17
woman and that touched her very personally is a great encapsulation of what Jesus wants to do
48:26
for us and how he wants to reconcile us personally. Like he wants to reconcile us as a people group,
48:32
but then, man, he knows the number of hairs on our head. That's how personally he knows us.
48:38
And I think we should, we should get emotional reading this story because that's us.
48:45
Like that's me. You know, and I, I think so much about, I talk about resilience all time. I'm
48:51
the resilience guy. I got to be resilient. This woman, 12 years, like again, like I constantly
48:58
am reminded about how much of a push I am by looking at real stories of the actual resilience.
49:02
Like for 12 years, she, she tried and she had to have had her ups and downs, but she found a way
49:08
to the, to the Lord, like she found a way and so I guess that's my encouragement to people in our
49:13
audience that are, you know, you're in a situation where you're fighting some sort of health element,
49:18
or you feel like you're stuck in them in a loveless marriage or you're having problems or,
49:22
and you're just, you're not counting the days since this problem started, you're starting to
49:25
count the years, and you're wondering like if there is any hope, like my goodness, like what
49:29
more do you need to see? Like 12 decade plus elements and death in a paragraph, right?
49:37
Again, I would feel silly, but here we are almost, you know, 50 minutes in and we've been camped out
49:42
here for a while. So I guess we should continue on with our study of Matthew 20 or Matthew 9 here.
49:48
So don't know who read last. So Matt, you're up. Jesus heals two blind men. Let's read verse 27
49:54
through 31, please. Sure. And Jesus passed on from there. Two blind men followed him,
49:59
trying aloud, have mercy on us, son of David. When he entered the house, the blind men came to him,
50:05
and Jesus said to them, do you believe that I am to do this? They said to him,
50:09
yes, Lord, and he touched their eyes saying, according to your faith, be it done to you,
50:14
and their eyes were opened. And Jesus sternly warned them, see that no one knows about it,
50:20
but they went away and spread his fame through all the district.
50:25
It's funny when you read it out loud, it's like, hey, hey, don't frickin tell anybody,
50:29
but one moment later, and then it's just right. And then they just spread his fame through all
50:33
the district. I mean, this is the exact same result that we saw in Matthew 8, verse four.
50:37
One thing that isn't interesting here is they do use a messianic title here, calling him have
50:41
mercy on a son of David. So that does harken back to the fact that he is of the messianic line.
50:48
And so this does give us evidence that there are people at this time that recognize exactly who
50:54
this man is, because in this day, correct me if I'm wrong, you don't just call someone a son of David,
51:00
right? This isn't like a random, oh, hey, you know, hey, I really like you. So you're a son of David,
51:04
you're a minch. Nope. Nope. They're literally giving him this title that is not given to anyone.
51:10
Like it's not a name that is spoken, right? You know, this is this is a really, really big deal.
51:14
A hundred percent. Yeah, I can't remember what was it last chapter in chapter eight is when I
51:19
think that was the first time that somebody called him Lord. So you can see that there's a quick
51:24
progression happening where he's starting to kind of create a name for himself.
51:30
Absolutely. Let's on the note that says it's referencing, you know, tell nobody about this.
51:35
Mine says also see note eight, four, 12, 16, 16, 20, and 17, nine. So see the note where people
51:42
didn't do it. Jesus. It's almost like God knows our nature. Right. And he's like, man,
51:48
they're going to do the exact opposite of what I tell them. So if I say, Hey, go tell everybody
51:52
about this, they're not going to do it. So I'll just say, Hey, don't say anything. Because I know
51:56
you're going to just tell everybody about it. Like Jesus knows they're just going to go
52:01
blast that everywhere and not just chuckling in the neighborhood. The whole district,
52:06
however big district is, but yeah, these dudes went far and wide and spreaded this around. So
52:10
let's get into Eric. If you don't mind hit versus 32 through 34. Okay.
52:16
As they were going away, behold, a demon oppressed man who was mute was brought to him. And when
52:24
the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke and the crowds marveled saying never was anything
52:31
like the scene in Israel. But the Pharisees said he casts out demons by the Prince of demons.
52:37
So other places in the gospels, obviously we've, this is a theme now, there's a whole lot more
52:43
detail to this other places in the gospel. But it's like, again, why would Satan give the power to
52:50
somebody to cast out demons via his power? Like that's, that would be, you know, saying basically
52:56
cutting off his own legs, right type of a situation. Anything else there, I didn't really have anything
53:02
to add on those verses. Did y'all have anything else to add there? Because it's a little bit
53:05
straightforward. Well, the only thing that comes to mind is really from our last chapter. And it
53:11
had to do with the demons just in general, how whenever they were being cast out of the two men
53:18
that were demon possessed, they didn't, they didn't remain idle. They said, put us somewhere,
53:24
get put us in the pig. And I think the point was, is that, or that I was trying to make was that
53:29
that demons are, they're on a mission, they have a mission, they don't remain idle, and they
53:34
they continually fight for their superior Satan. You know, and so, anyways, just something I'm
53:43
noting that, that there's always, we're always getting pushed back from, from Satan on one level
53:51
another. I think there's a lot that I think we, in our sanitized culture, don't give a lot of
53:59
credence to the demonic or the spiritual, the spiritual realm, I would say. So I mean, obviously
54:06
Jesus believed in demons. Like he's casting them out. And he created them. I think that's why reading
54:17
the Bible is very important, because like, there is definitely a spiritual realm that we are in,
54:22
we just don't see that. Well, I feel like as Christians, we give that whole realm short shrith,
54:27
very, very quick story. I wish I'd come up with this idea. So I can't do it live,
54:31
especially after I tell the story now, because everyone will know that I'm plagiarizing. But there
54:34
was this guy who was speaking in front of a group of people out of church, and he bring,
54:38
and he has this book. And from the stage, you can't see what's written on the book, but it just looks
54:43
like a kind of an old leatherbound book. And he was weaving this tale about, yeah, I was, you know,
54:47
walking through this, this town, I went in this used bookstore, and I found this, this book of
54:52
of spells, and, you know, witchcraft and wicking and stuff like that. And then he opens up the book,
54:57
and he's like, I just want to read some of this so y'all can kind of see what it's looking. And you
55:00
can hear audible gasps in the crowd, which gave this man exactly what he wanted. He closed the book.
55:07
He's like, by the way, guys, this is a copy of Othello, and he just kind of sets it down. He goes,
55:12
that's the problem with the modern church. Y'all think that spells and the occult and all that
55:18
is super powerful. And yet you've got your Bible sitting right there on your lap. And he's like,
55:24
you think that this book that I made, it's not a book of spells, but let's say it was, and let's
55:28
say I did read it in here. You're telling me you're scared of that power, but you have like the
55:33
the gospel right there in front of you. And it's like, again, that's kind of like we don't give
55:38
creams to we don't assign the power and influence to the right authority. Oh, we say we sanitize it
55:44
because I got God speaks very clearly against witchcraft and and all of those things, the occult,
55:51
which he didn't say don't practice those things because they're just
55:56
boo-foo, and they don't exist. Like, things are very real. But I think we sanitize it and we tell
56:02
our kids, well, it's just make that just made up stuff. No, it's not. It's a very serious thing.
56:08
And there there, you could find dozens of stories of people who I mean, we had one here in Edmond.
56:14
Yeah, Mike Lehan. Yeah, we talked about that on a previous episode. Yeah, went down that that
56:19
path and got into the demonic and the satanic. And there are forces at play, none of them to your
56:26
point are more powerful than God. But yeah, we sanitize it doesn't make believe. It's not make
56:33
believe. And we would be doing ourselves a disservice to treat it like it's just a made up fairy tale
56:39
thing because it's not right. Yeah, I mean, how many how many of you guys had maybe I'm the only
56:45
one that friends that had a Ouija board growing up, you know, someone had it in our in the group,
56:50
you know, and everybody's like, well, come on over and go play the Ouija board. I was like,
56:54
the prince and the power of the air is out there and Paul tells us to fight against that. So he's
56:59
not telling us to fight against nothing. Right. Exactly. Hey, Zach, how about you wrap us up on
57:04
Matthew nine read 35 through 38, please. And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages,
57:10
teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease
57:14
and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed
57:20
and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful,
57:27
but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers
57:33
into his harvest. So but the laborers are few this alludes to exactly what we're going to get into
57:40
with Matthew 10. One thing I did want to point out before we wrap, when he talks about the harassed
57:45
and helpless, again, a sheep is exactly that. That is a harassed animal that is a helpless
57:49
animal. There is no defensive mechanism for a common sheep to be able to protect themselves.
57:54
That's why they need a shepherd. That's why they need a sheep dog. But guys, we're going to leave
57:57
that there even though there's more to say we're going to come back next week and talk about Matthew
58:01
10. So make sure that you're prepared for that discussion by reading through Matthew 10. But
58:06
before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost at undaunted life. Our mission
58:09
is equipping men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience
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right there in the show notes again for you guys that are driving or working out everything you
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there. Guys, you should definitely check it out. All these resources are amazing. And then also,
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59:16
I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual
59:22
mental and physical resilience, keep seeking the lion of Judah.
59:42
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