WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.600 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.600 --> 00:00:40.480 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:44.160 Mahler. And I'm still Woe. 00:00:44.160 --> 00:00:47.680 On today's Stone Choir, we're going to begin the first of what 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:52.240 will be at least a three part series on the Jews. 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:55.040 As I said last week, towards the end of the episode, in 00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:57.680 the next few weeks, we're going to get be getting into some 00:00:57.680 --> 00:01:00.720 stuff that will probably cross some red lines for some people, probably 00:01:00.720 --> 00:01:02.880 make some of you uncomfortable. 00:01:02.880 --> 00:01:06.560 The reason that we're tackling it is that that's a problem. 00:01:06.560 --> 00:01:10.640 The fact that someone simply saying the Jews may have made you 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:14.320 squirm, maybe you turned down the volume a little bit, that's a 00:01:14.320 --> 00:01:15.280 big deal. 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:17.280 Because that came from somewhere. 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:22.160 And as Christians, we can't talk about our own religion without talking 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.360 about the Jews. 00:01:23.360 --> 00:01:26.880 There's no way to talk about the history of the faith without 00:01:26.880 --> 00:01:28.960 talking about these people. 00:01:28.960 --> 00:01:34.000 The ethnicity, the religious beliefs, the history are all relevant to us 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:38.080 today, both in time and in the current year. 00:01:38.080 --> 00:01:43.440 And so the fact that there's this sort of inherent requesting that 00:01:43.520 --> 00:01:46.480 I think has been put in in many of our hearts to 00:01:46.480 --> 00:01:49.360 even hear the word, you sort of flinch and think something's something 00:01:49.360 --> 00:01:50.160 bad's gonna happen. 00:01:50.160 --> 00:01:51.840 I I don't wanna be here anymore. 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:53.840 That's not an adult response. 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:56.400 That that's not something that should be the case. 00:01:56.400 --> 00:01:59.600 And so today and over the next couple weeks, we're going to 00:01:59.600 --> 00:02:04.320 be going through the history of the Jews in terms of scripture, 00:02:04.320 --> 00:02:08.080 in terms of post-scriptural history, and then modern history, things that some 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:10.720 of the things have happened in living memory. 00:02:10.720 --> 00:02:13.840 This first episode is going to be entirely focused around scripture, so 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:16.720 we're going to be begin in the garden and we're going to 00:02:16.720 --> 00:02:18.000 take it all the way through the end. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:21.760 And then you know uh obviously the Bible basically ends with some 00:02:21.760 --> 00:02:24.640 prophecies and the destruction of the temple. 00:02:24.640 --> 00:02:28.080 We're gonna be talking about some a few post temple destruction events 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:31.520 that are relevant to some of the points we're gonna make today, 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:34.400 but for the most part this will be ending right around the 00:02:34.400 --> 00:02:36.240 second century. 00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:39.120 The episode is going to be in three distinct parts. 00:02:39.200 --> 00:02:41.120 They'll sort of flow into each other because we're going to do 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:43.280 this in chronological order. 00:02:43.280 --> 00:02:48.560 The first part, the first third, will be basically the timeline of 00:02:48.640 --> 00:02:53.840 you know from Adam through Noah to Abraham through Moses to Jesus 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:56.320 when did the Jews appear? 00:02:56.320 --> 00:02:57.200 What did they do? 00:02:57.200 --> 00:02:58.080 How did they act? 00:02:58.080 --> 00:02:59.280 What was promised to them? 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:00.560 What was commanded to them? 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:04.480 How did they respond to all those things? 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:07.280 That basically takes us to the roughly the end of the Old 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:10.240 Testament, which is also called the Intertestamental period. 00:03:10.240 --> 00:03:14.160 There's some things that happened in that time frame from the from 00:03:14.160 --> 00:03:19.040 the conquering of the Northern Northern kingdom through the birth of Christ 00:03:19.360 --> 00:03:23.040 that I think some Christians who know a little bit know some 00:03:23.040 --> 00:03:26.320 bits and pieces, but I think we're gonna put some of those 00:03:26.320 --> 00:03:29.920 details together in a way that will actually make sense for why 00:03:29.920 --> 00:03:33.360 we talk about things like for example the Septuagint, why is there 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:35.120 a Greek old testament? 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:36.160 That's relevant. 00:03:36.160 --> 00:03:39.200 So the second part is going to be the fact that many 00:03:39.200 --> 00:03:41.840 of you would probably recognize the Hebrew language. 00:03:42.080 --> 00:03:44.000 If you saw it written, you see a picture, and you're like, 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:45.120 yes, Hebrew. 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:47.840 What you don't know is that that's not Hebrew. 00:03:48.160 --> 00:03:52.400 That is it's an Aramaic script and it's a language that is 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:56.320 disconnected from the original language of the Israelites. 00:03:56.320 --> 00:03:59.200 And so we're going to talk about what happened in that time 00:03:59.200 --> 00:04:04.800 period and why it's relevant today that we have these these confusions 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:08.080 about what happened in the past because some of the claims that 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:12.240 we're trying to disabuse in this episode are that when someone today 00:04:12.320 --> 00:04:15.360 says I am a Jew and I speak Hebrew and I live 00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:19.680 in Israel, those are all words from the Bible, and those are 00:04:19.760 --> 00:04:25.920 therefore borrowing whatever affections we have as Christians for our connection to 00:04:25.920 --> 00:04:27.600 those words in the Bible. 00:04:27.600 --> 00:04:30.240 And the reason for going over some of the history is that 00:04:30.240 --> 00:04:35.600 there is a not only a profound discontinuity between what we have 00:04:35.600 --> 00:04:38.800 and what we see and what we hear today and what was 00:04:38.800 --> 00:04:43.840 happening thousands of years ago, but the discontinuity is the result of 00:04:43.840 --> 00:04:45.600 God's judgment against those people. 00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:50.720 And that's mate what makes it a profoundly important religious matter. 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:53.840 This is this is a matter of the faith when God pronounces 00:04:53.840 --> 00:04:57.920 judgment upon people and they're scattered and destroyed. 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:00.240 Every nation is to take that as a warning. 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:03.600 Whenever there's any sort of calamity that befalls someone, that should be 00:05:03.600 --> 00:05:06.880 taken as a warning that this is God's judgment. 00:05:06.880 --> 00:05:09.920 They did something bad, whatever it was, I should pay attention. 00:05:10.320 --> 00:05:12.320 I should not do the bad thing that they did. 00:05:12.320 --> 00:05:16.640 So it's important to learn, you know, from everything in scripture, when 00:05:16.640 --> 00:05:20.640 God visits his wrath, let's make sure that doesn't happen to us 00:05:20.640 --> 00:05:23.680 too. And that might involve not listening to the people to whom 00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:28.080 God's wrath was poured out by the bucket load. 00:05:28.080 --> 00:05:31.040 So the second part will be the intertestamental period and the the 00:05:31.040 --> 00:05:32.560 fiction of the Hebrew language. 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:35.760 And third part is going to specifically deal with the time of 00:05:35.760 --> 00:05:39.520 Christ in the New Testament as he was preaching, as he was 00:05:39.520 --> 00:05:45.920 going around in Judea and Samaria, what did he encounter and how 00:05:45.920 --> 00:05:47.600 do the Jews treat him? 00:05:48.080 --> 00:05:51.760 One of the overarching themes of of all three of these sections 00:05:51.760 --> 00:05:54.960 is that we're going to be saying many things that your pastors 00:05:54.960 --> 00:05:56.640 probably are afraid to say. 00:05:56.640 --> 00:05:58.240 And in some cases, your pastors don't know. 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:02.800 I've had pastors who literally didn't know that Jesus wasn't speaking Hebrew 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:03.520 every day. 00:06:03.520 --> 00:06:05.040 Nobody spoke Hebrew every day. 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:06.240 It was a dead language. 00:06:06.240 --> 00:06:08.240 It was like Latin is dead today. 00:06:08.240 --> 00:06:12.720 It still existed in tiny corners, but it wasn't a going concern 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:13.520 at all. 00:06:13.520 --> 00:06:14.560 That's relevant. 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:17.440 And the fact the pastors don't know is a big deal. 00:06:17.440 --> 00:06:22.480 And in particular, pastors are terrified of telling people the Jews killed 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:26.480 God. Scripture makes that so clear that no one could possibly reach 00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:29.840 any other conclusion other than by listening to voices that do not 00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:30.880 come from scripture. 00:06:30.880 --> 00:06:33.680 So the last third of this is going to go through many 00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:38.800 verses that make it abundantly clear that the Pharisees were the leaders, 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:42.960 the Jews were the people, the angry crowd that was continuously chasing 00:06:42.960 --> 00:06:47.360 Jesus around hundreds of miles or running in sandals, continuously trying to 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:47.920 kill him. 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:49.360 It wasn't the Pharisees. 00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:50.640 It was the Jews. 00:06:50.640 --> 00:06:51.520 Not all of them. 00:06:51.520 --> 00:06:52.880 There were some Jews who were faithful. 00:06:52.880 --> 00:06:54.320 His followers were Jews. 00:06:54.320 --> 00:06:55.680 The disciples were Jews. 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:59.360 It's so again, you know, the knacks all things come into play. 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:01.040 Not all acts are like that. 00:07:01.040 --> 00:07:05.280 There were Jews in that day who believed the promise. 00:07:05.280 --> 00:07:07.360 Mary believed the promise of the Christ. 00:07:07.360 --> 00:07:10.000 And so when the angels came to her and said that she 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.720 would be the vessel for that promise, she wasn't confused. 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:14.720 She knew exactly what the angel was talking about. 00:07:14.720 --> 00:07:17.040 She couldn't believe that it was going to be her, but she 00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:21.600 received it in faith because she was a faithful Christian. 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:24.400 She was a Christian who was a Jew. 00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:27.680 And we've talked about that in the past, that the belief and 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:30.720 the promise from the garden is what makes one a Christian. 00:07:30.720 --> 00:07:33.680 And so we're going to end as we're talking about me particularly 00:07:33.680 --> 00:07:38.400 from Acts and from Romans where scripture discusses who are the true 00:07:38.400 --> 00:07:43.440 children of Abraham because that's one of the fundamental questions that unfortunately 00:07:43.520 --> 00:07:45.600 today it's a political question somehow. 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:46.960 That'll be a future episode. 00:07:46.960 --> 00:07:49.920 We talk about how children of Abraham, how could that possibly be 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:53.120 a political live issue in the twenty-first century? 00:07:53.120 --> 00:07:57.360 That's why saying the Jews makes people nervous, because something that should 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:03.520 be a scriptural historical term and concept has political ramifications today. 00:08:03.520 --> 00:08:05.360 So today's episode is scripture. 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:09.360 Future episodes will deal with history and some politics, but we have 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:13.760 to lay the foundation first for the subject in what God reveals 00:08:13.760 --> 00:08:14.640 in scripture. 00:08:14.640 --> 00:08:18.480 So I think we'll begin at the very beginning just with who 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:21.600 is a Jew in the old testament. 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:24.640 I think one of the lazy things that we do is to 00:08:24.720 --> 00:08:27.040 just kind of assume that well everybody in the Old Testament's a 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:29.760 Jew. Like that's the Jewish book and then the New Testament book 00:08:29.760 --> 00:08:30.640 is a Christian book. 00:08:30.640 --> 00:08:33.200 And there were some Jews who became Christians, but that was that 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:34.160 transition period. 00:08:34.160 --> 00:08:36.320 And then post New Testament, everybody's Christian. 00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:39.280 Or you're a Jew, but you went off in the other direction. 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:42.800 But the key element is that the misconception that everyone in the 00:08:42.800 --> 00:08:46.880 Old Testament is a Jew opens the door to all sorts of 00:08:46.880 --> 00:08:48.000 errors downstream. 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:49.440 We're not going to get to those errors today. 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:52.640 We're just going to make the case that Jews came into the 00:08:52.880 --> 00:08:58.080 timeline by God's design at a certain time for a certain purpose. 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.880 And prior to that, there were no Jews. 00:09:00.880 --> 00:09:02.240 Adam was not a Jew. 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:04.880 I think one of the tricky things about that is that Adam 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:06.480 is a Hebrew word. 00:09:06.480 --> 00:09:10.400 And so it's just we're just sort of intellectually lazy and we 00:09:10.400 --> 00:09:13.360 think, well, if if the name was Hebrew and that make must 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:14.400 make him a Jew, right? 00:09:14.400 --> 00:09:17.600 They're Adam, they're Adams today who are Jews, many who are not, 00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:21.360 because it's you know it's an ancient it's the oldest name we 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:25.680 have. When you start making these small errors, they don't seem to 00:09:25.920 --> 00:09:30.080 have any consequence at the moment, but they will accumulate over time. 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:33.280 And that's a recurring theme on Stone Choir. 00:09:33.280 --> 00:09:37.360 These small errors are doors that are being opened to make big 00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:38.480 errors later. 00:09:38.480 --> 00:09:41.760 So as we go through this, we're gonna nitpick seemingly small things, 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:44.320 but they're all going to point in the same direction to say 00:09:44.800 --> 00:09:47.120 this man was a Jew, this man was not a Jew, here's 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:50.640 what the Jews were doing, and why all those things matter. 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:51.280 When 00:09:51.280 --> 00:09:55.360 you mention that the name is in Hebrew, it brings to mind 00:09:55.360 --> 00:10:00.880 a favorite argument that I've seen primarily from leftists, Marxists and others 00:10:00.880 --> 00:10:04.240 like that, but you'll see it on posters and things that rallies 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:05.840 sometimes for them. 00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:08.400 Because they like to appeal to scripture even though they don't believe 00:10:08.400 --> 00:10:09.040 in it. 00:10:09.040 --> 00:10:12.320 That should bring a certain meme to mind for certain people. 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:17.440 But they'll argue there are no white people in scripture. 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:23.120 Which of course just betrays a staggering ignorance of scripture because Japheth 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:25.280 is the father of all of Europe. 00:10:25.280 --> 00:10:27.120 Obviously then he was white. 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:30.480 There are Romans in Scripture, there are Greeks in Scripture. 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:32.320 It's a complete nonsense argument. 00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:36.480 It just betrays stunning ignorance of Scripture, and that's what we're dealing 00:10:36.480 --> 00:10:40.160 with when it comes to pastors and many others who will say, 00:10:40.160 --> 00:10:43.520 Well, no, all these people they were Jews. 00:10:43.520 --> 00:10:46.720 Adam was not a Jew. 00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:48.480 Noah was not a Jew. 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:52.000 Abraham was not a Jew. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:59.520 You don't have any Jews in scripture until you get to Judah. 00:10:59.520 --> 00:11:03.760 Because that is how you derive the term Jew is from the 00:11:03.760 --> 00:11:05.200 tribe of Judah. 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:08.320 That's where that comes from, and from Judean. 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:12.080 So the modern term in English anyway enters basically through Latin. 00:11:12.080 --> 00:11:12.880 The term for the people 00:11:13.920 --> 00:11:19.920 living in Palestine, as the Romans renamed it, who were living in 00:11:19.920 --> 00:11:24.080 Palestine at the time that Rome controlled the area. 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:24.560 And 00:11:24.560 --> 00:11:26.560 it wasn't even a term that they used for themselves. 00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:29.040 they didn't call themselves Jews. 00:11:29.040 --> 00:11:32.800 It was it was just shorthand because the the northern kingdom had 00:11:33.040 --> 00:11:33.920 been destroyed. 00:11:33.920 --> 00:11:37.040 You had these people in the south and in Judah, so they 00:11:37.040 --> 00:11:38.640 got called Jews by their conquerors. 00:11:39.280 --> 00:11:41.600 Like it it wasn't out if it was a slur, but it 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:44.560 was just i it was a term applied to a group of 00:11:44.560 --> 00:11:46.720 people that was alien to the people naming them. 00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:48.960 They saidn care like oh yeah those are the the Jews down 00:11:48.960 --> 00:11:51.280 there in in Judea. 00:11:51.520 --> 00:11:52.080 Exactly. 00:11:53.040 --> 00:11:53.360 And 00:11:54.560 --> 00:11:59.280 there are some who will argue that the etymology for Hebrew, which 00:11:59.280 --> 00:12:02.080 is the term they would have used before that, and still of 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:05.600 course, do use for themselves and for their language, which we'll get 00:12:05.600 --> 00:12:07.920 into the language more. 00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:14.720 That's derived either from Eber, which can have, of course, that initial 00:12:14.720 --> 00:12:20.480 H sound in the Greek, Heber, or it is derived from an 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:24.720 older term from I can't remember which language it was now. 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:27.040 I think it was related to a handful of languages in the 00:12:27.040 --> 00:12:30.720 area, so it's not necessarily just one, but it means across the 00:12:30.720 --> 00:12:34.000 river. Or one who lives across the river. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:37.760 And so it was just a term of place, essentially. 00:12:37.760 --> 00:12:41.840 Also a person's name, obviously Eber being the son of Shela, son 00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:44.160 of Arpakshad, son of Shem. 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:51.440 Shem being the the ultimate father after Noah, of course, after Adam, 00:12:51.440 --> 00:12:55.360 after Noah, of the line from which Christ came. 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:59.200 And so the people who would become known as Jews, at least 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:01.840 a part of them would become known as Jews, because as was 00:13:01.840 --> 00:13:04.800 said, the northern kingdom was destroyed. 00:13:04.800 --> 00:13:09.520 The Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom took those ten tribes, and 00:13:09.600 --> 00:13:14.080 yes, there's some fuzz there, some gray area when it comes to 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:16.160 the numbering of the tribes, how many tribes exactly were in the 00:13:16.160 --> 00:13:18.160 south, how many were in the the north, because you have ten 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:23.440 in the north, but then you have Judah, Benjamin, and Levi in 00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:25.120 the south. 00:13:25.120 --> 00:13:30.720 That aside, the Assyrian captivity is what took the northern kingdom and 00:13:30.720 --> 00:13:32.640 destroyed it. 00:13:32.640 --> 00:13:37.120 The people of the northern kingdom were destroyed because how the Assyrians 00:13:37.120 --> 00:13:40.960 destroyed a conquered people was they would take some of those out 00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:44.960 of the conquered territory, move them elsewhere in their empire, and then 00:13:44.960 --> 00:13:47.440 take people from elsewhere in the empire and move them into the 00:13:47.920 --> 00:13:49.680 conquered territory. 00:13:49.680 --> 00:13:55.200 So in other words, what they did was they used interbreeding, interracial 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:59.040 relationships as a means of destruction of a nation. 00:13:59.040 --> 00:14:01.840 And that's exactly what they did to the Northern Kingdom. 00:14:02.080 --> 00:14:07.600 So the Northern Kingdom was completely and utterly destroyed, which of course 00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:12.960 is the beginning of an argument against so-called Christian Zionism and many 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:13.280 other 00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:18.880 well, heretical theologies that have sprung up more recently. 00:14:18.880 --> 00:14:24.320 You can't have a restoration of the twelve tribes because ten of 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:26.480 them no longer exist. 00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.120 They were destroyed by the Assyrians. 00:14:29.120 --> 00:14:32.960 As opposed to the Southern Kingdom, the Kingdom of Judah, which was 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:37.120 taken into partial captivity by the Babylonians, but the Babylonians did not 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:40.080 destroy their conquered peoples in the same way the Assyrians did. 00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:42.800 So the Southern Kingdom was not destroyed. 00:14:42.800 --> 00:14:45.840 That would become the Judeans. 00:14:45.840 --> 00:14:48.240 That would be the people who were living in the area, when 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:51.760 the Romans came and conquered them, those are the people who would 00:14:51.760 --> 00:14:53.600 come to be called Jews. 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:57.600 And so earlier on in scripture, all of these men are not 00:14:57.600 --> 00:15:02.800 Jews. Jews don't exist in the earliest parts of scripture. 00:15:02.800 --> 00:15:05.520 There are no Jews in Genesis. 00:15:05.520 --> 00:15:09.520 Unless you're talking just about names, in which case, yes, you have 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.720 obviously the genealogies. 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:17.360 But if your pastor is telling you that Abraham was a Jew, 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:18.880 your pastor is just wrong. 00:15:18.880 --> 00:15:21.520 He needs to go back and read scripture. 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:28.080 The first occurrence in both the Septuagint and the Masoretic text for 00:15:28.080 --> 00:15:32.480 the Old Testament of the word Hebrew is in Genesis thirty-nine when 00:15:32.480 --> 00:15:37.840 Potiphar's wife describes Joseph as the Hebrew slave. 00:15:37.840 --> 00:15:41.840 So that was several generations removed from Abraham. 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:44.880 That's not Jew, but it's the first instance of Hebrew. 00:15:44.880 --> 00:15:49.840 There is one instance that's worth noting in Genesis thirteen where when 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:54.800 Abram has not yet received the name Abraham from God, the text, 00:15:54.800 --> 00:15:58.480 the Masoretic text, that is the Hebrew text that is much newer 00:15:58.720 --> 00:16:02.800 incidentally than the Septuagint, even though it's technically written to Hebrew and 00:16:02.800 --> 00:16:04.320 we'll get to that later. 00:16:04.320 --> 00:16:08.960 In Genesis thirteen, the Masoretic text does refer to or maybe it's 00:16:08.880 --> 00:16:13.680 Genesis fourteen, I think it's fourteen thirteen, refers to Abram as the 00:16:13.680 --> 00:16:18.400 Hebrew. Interestingly, in the Septuagint, the word Hebrew does not appear. 00:16:18.400 --> 00:16:23.680 That word was added in the Hebrew text, which is notable I 00:16:23.680 --> 00:16:26.960 think, because while we're not going to get into the disputation between 00:16:26.960 --> 00:16:32.080 the Masoretic text and the Septuagint, it is important to acknowledge that 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:38.400 there are a few places where the Masoretic text is demonstrably corrupted. 00:16:38.400 --> 00:16:43.040 The most prominent example is the prophecy in Isaiah of the Virgin 00:16:43.040 --> 00:16:44.160 giving birth. 00:16:44.160 --> 00:16:48.000 That is changed in what we call the Hebrew Bible today to 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:49.440 a young girl. 00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:52.240 Septuagin doesn't have that error. 00:16:52.240 --> 00:16:57.440 And if you remember from our genealogy episode, that's a particularly interesting 00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:02.960 one because we actually have evidence from post Babel 00:17:04.400 --> 00:17:08.000 expansion of humanity in all different directions. 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:12.720 People who were never part of any of this story had the 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:16.000 story of a virgin birth of a god That is something that 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:20.560 is a widespread story, a myth, a legend that exists in far 00:17:20.560 --> 00:17:23.040 flung places like Vietnam, well 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:27.680 separated from any contact with anyone who would have known what was 00:17:27.680 --> 00:17:29.760 going on in the days of Abraham. 00:17:29.760 --> 00:17:33.040 So or Isaiah for that matter, because Isaiah was fairly late. 00:17:33.040 --> 00:17:37.600 So it's crucially important to note that we know from outside of 00:17:37.600 --> 00:17:42.640 Scripture that some notion of a virgin born God was a prophecy 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:46.720 that was given prior to Isaiah and it was shared among believers 00:17:46.800 --> 00:17:49.040 and then corrupted among unbelievers. 00:17:49.040 --> 00:17:52.880 So we can know with absolute certainty as Christians that when the 00:17:52.880 --> 00:17:56.720 Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic text that we are told to believe is 00:17:57.040 --> 00:18:03.360 older says young girl instead of virgin, it's not correct. 00:18:03.360 --> 00:18:06.560 So I think it's worth acknowledging that the word Hebrew does occur 00:18:06.560 --> 00:18:10.480 one time in Abram's day, but I I I I I just 00:18:10.480 --> 00:18:11.760 found this you know a couple hours ago. 00:18:11.760 --> 00:18:15.040 I haven't had a chance to really dig into it too much. 00:18:15.040 --> 00:18:17.920 Based on what I know of a couple of the other errors, 00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:21.600 it's my assumption as I go digging into that that that was 00:18:21.600 --> 00:18:26.960 probably added in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth century AD. 00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:30.560 It was added well after by Jews who had been expelled from 00:18:30.560 --> 00:18:32.640 Jerusalem, who hated the Christians and 00:18:33.600 --> 00:18:37.920 were beginning to concoct this story that Hebrews are eternal. 00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:38.000 You 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:38.320 know, 00:18:38.320 --> 00:18:40.160 Noah's a Hebrew, Noah was a Jew. 00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:44.400 No. Abraham wasn't a Jew, it was his grandson who was named 00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:48.560 Israel by God.'s the other term that comes up that's very important. 00:18:48.560 --> 00:18:52.000 Basically you have Jew, you have Hebrew, and you have Israel or 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:56.800 Israelite, all more or less used interchangeably at different places and different 00:18:56.800 --> 00:18:59.840 times. Sometimes they mean the same thing, sometimes they don't. 00:18:59.840 --> 00:19:02.160 Sometimes they mean different things. 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:07.840 And so when God wrestles with Jacob and then names him Israel, 00:19:07.840 --> 00:19:10.000 that's the very first time that that word was used. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.560 It was given to him by God as a new name. 00:19:12.560 --> 00:19:15.600 And that name was carried by his descendants. 00:19:15.600 --> 00:19:16.560 That's very important. 00:19:16.560 --> 00:19:17.520 It's from God. 00:19:17.520 --> 00:19:20.640 No Christian would ever besmirch that in the slightest. 00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:23.760 But as we'll get to it in the last part, what does 00:19:23.760 --> 00:19:24.480 that mean? 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:26.880 What does it mean to be a child of Abraham, to be 00:19:26.880 --> 00:19:28.800 a child of the covenant? 00:19:29.040 --> 00:19:31.680 When we get into the some of the later texts in the 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:34.800 New Testament, pointing back to the Old Testament makes it very clear, 00:19:34.800 --> 00:19:38.000 it means those who have faith that it is not a genetic 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:40.480 lineage, it is a lineage of faith. 00:19:40.480 --> 00:19:43.520 As we discussed in the election episode, which is very much a 00:19:43.520 --> 00:19:46.240 part of this episode, please go back and listen to that if 00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:48.080 you haven't listened to it in the last couple months. 00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:52.080 It is key to understanding this episode because one of the other 00:19:52.080 --> 00:19:54.720 terms that gets thrown around a lot is chosen. 00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:57.600 You hear of the Jews called God's chosen people. 00:19:57.600 --> 00:19:59.200 It's a word that God uses. 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:01.520 God says, I chose these people. 00:20:01.520 --> 00:20:04.800 Many times that's how it's referred to, how how the Israelites are 00:20:04.800 --> 00:20:06.640 referred to. 00:20:06.640 --> 00:20:10.160 Chosen and elect are synonyms. 00:20:10.160 --> 00:20:13.440 And this is something that we've completely lost sight of today. 00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:18.640 When God says I chose you, doesn't that's literally saying I elected 00:20:18.640 --> 00:20:22.480 you. And so in the election episode we exp explain in detail 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:25.840 that election is not a new doctrine that Calvin came up with. 00:20:25.840 --> 00:20:29.520 Yeah, there's most people think that oh election or predestination, that's that 00:20:29.520 --> 00:20:35.760 Calvinist stuff As Lutherans, we call what Calvinists hold double predestination, where 00:20:36.080 --> 00:20:39.920 God elected some to be saved and God elected others to be 00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:42.800 damned. We believe that Scripture doesn't say that. 00:20:42.800 --> 00:20:46.400 Scripture says that God elected some to be saved, and that God 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:49.360 desires that all men be saved, and that God's sacrifice on the 00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:50.640 cross was for all men. 00:20:50.640 --> 00:20:53.440 And so those men who are damned are damned of their own 00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:57.840 volition. They choose to remain evil, they reject God. 00:20:57.840 --> 00:21:00.560 Those who are elect do not reject God. 00:21:00.560 --> 00:21:03.920 And so we spend a couple hours dealing with how does that 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:04.400 make sense? 00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:05.600 Because it sounds irrational. 00:21:05.600 --> 00:21:07.120 Frankly, it is irrational. 00:21:07.120 --> 00:21:12.720 You can't make a reasonable case for predestination that doesn't sound crazy. 00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:15.120 So we do it there as best we can. 00:21:15.120 --> 00:21:16.880 It makes sense if you believe scripture. 00:21:16.880 --> 00:21:18.960 What you can believe is your own reason. 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:21.520 But the important thing to carry away is that whenever you hear 00:21:21.520 --> 00:21:25.920 someone saying, particularly in the Old Testament, these people were the chosen 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:28.640 people of God, they were elect. 00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:33.280 And that applied not only to the lineal descendants of Abraham, because 00:21:33.360 --> 00:21:37.920 remember Jonah, who was a Jewish prophet, was sent by God to 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:40.880 go to Nineveh, which was one of the greatest of the Gentile 00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:44.000 cities, was one of the largest cities on the planet at the 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:47.120 time. Jonah wouldn't go because he knew they would believe, and they 00:21:47.120 --> 00:21:50.000 would repent and they would become children of God. 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:53.200 God said, The people of Nineveh are elect, go to them and 00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:54.240 proclaim my word. 00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:57.120 And Jonah's like, No, if I go, they'll believe me, and they'll 00:21:57.120 --> 00:21:59.760 repent. I don't want that, because they're not Jews. 00:21:59.760 --> 00:22:03.840 And so the whole story of Jonah is about him refusing to 00:22:03.840 --> 00:22:06.400 go to people who weren't Jews because he didn't want to give 00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:07.440 them the gospel. 00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:08.640 God elected them. 00:22:08.640 --> 00:22:10.080 Jonah disobeyed. 00:22:10.080 --> 00:22:10.880 God won. 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:12.320 Because that's how election works. 00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:13.280 God doesn't lose. 00:22:13.440 --> 00:22:15.600 He doesn't lose any of us. 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:22.240 So these terms like Jew, chosen, Israelite, Hebrew, it's important to understand 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:26.320 which term you're using and why and where it's coming from, etymologically 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:29.920 because sometimes they do serve different purposes. 00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:35.520 And for those who are maybe not particularly familiar with these source 00:22:35.520 --> 00:22:41.200 texts, the Masoretic text is from roughly the earliest would be the 00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:46.000 sixth century, and that's AD, not BC notably. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:50.960 It wasn't completed until the ninth or the tenth century. 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:56.400 That is, say, as opposed to the Septuagint, which is from I 00:22:56.400 --> 00:23:01.680 think the earliest copies we have are the third century BC. 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:08.960 So there's a significant difference in age between these two manuscript 00:23:08.960 --> 00:23:16.000 sources. Notably, of course, the Masoretic text also has the so-called 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:17.200 Star of David all over it. 00:23:17.200 --> 00:23:20.000 We see that see that in many of the copies of things 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:25.360 that we have related to that line of sources. 00:23:25.360 --> 00:23:29.760 We'll get into that perhaps perhaps not in this episode, but soon 00:23:29.760 --> 00:23:32.880 enough. That'll be for the next episode. 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:33.760 That's what I figured. 00:23:33.760 --> 00:23:37.520 Yeah. That symbol does date back before that. 00:23:37.520 --> 00:23:42.320 I think the earliest instance of that in a religious context is 00:23:42.320 --> 00:23:44.240 the third or the fourth century. 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:49.440 Again, AD, not BC, but at any rate. 00:23:49.440 --> 00:23:54.480 So it is arguably the more reliable text is the Greek text. 00:23:54.480 --> 00:23:57.280 And that is the text the church has used for a very 00:23:57.280 --> 00:24:02.160 long time until modern translations started using the Masoretic. 00:24:02.800 --> 00:24:02.960 I 00:24:02.960 --> 00:24:03.680 think it's important. 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:08.720 We're not going to get into textual criticism or anything today, but 00:24:08.800 --> 00:24:08.880 uh 00:24:10.320 --> 00:24:14.800 when people are hearing these things, one of the most common responses 00:24:15.040 --> 00:24:20.000 internally in someone's mind will probably be to have their confidence undermined 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:22.880 and well is my Bible really the word of God? 00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:23.440 I think that 00:24:25.520 --> 00:24:30.080 the more manuscripts we get access to, the more clear it is 00:24:30.080 --> 00:24:34.800 how much God has preserved his word through the millennia. 00:24:34.800 --> 00:24:38.960 There's very few differences between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint in 00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:43.920 Greek. There's very little difference between all the various manuscripts in Greek. 00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:46.880 They're overwhelmingly almost identical. 00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:50.160 The changes are typically small and incidental. 00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:54.000 Oftentimes they're it's clear that they're just copyist errors. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:57.920 Occasionally you will have things that were in the margin that then 00:24:57.920 --> 00:25:01.280 got migrated where someone had made a note to himself and someone 00:25:01.280 --> 00:25:04.160 said, Well that sounds good and ended up inserting it into the 00:25:04.160 --> 00:25:09.120 text. So the reason it's important I don't want anyone who's hearing 00:25:09.120 --> 00:25:12.480 us talk about these two different textual sources to think, oh no, 00:25:12.480 --> 00:25:13.840 my Bible is wrong. 00:25:13.840 --> 00:25:15.680 You're reading your Bible in English. 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:18.480 It's far removed from these languages. 00:25:18.480 --> 00:25:20.640 It's translated by men for the most part. 00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:22.240 We're doing the best they could. 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:25.520 Every translation today has some problems. 00:25:25.520 --> 00:25:26.640 That's okay. 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:29.040 It's not going to destroy your faith. 00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:31.360 God has preserved his word for thousands of years. 00:25:31.360 --> 00:25:32.960 He will continue to do so. 00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:36.240 Yes, we should seek to have the most reliable books of the 00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:38.240 Bible that we can get our hands on. 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:40.240 We should seek to have faithful translations. 00:25:40.400 --> 00:25:43.760 When errors are discovered, we should figure out why and how and 00:25:43.760 --> 00:25:45.280 we should get rid of them. 00:25:45.280 --> 00:25:48.800 But none of these conversations should ever be an excuse for you 00:25:48.800 --> 00:25:51.840 to think, oh man, I I just I can't trust any of 00:25:51.840 --> 00:25:52.240 this now. 00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:54.000 I don't know what's going on. 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:55.760 I don't have confidence. 00:25:55.760 --> 00:25:57.200 God has preserved his word. 00:25:57.200 --> 00:26:00.320 He preserved it in the Masoretic text, even in spite of the 00:26:00.320 --> 00:26:02.400 interference of the 00:26:03.360 --> 00:26:09.840 post Christian Jews who were rabidly against the Christians, they still preserved 00:26:09.840 --> 00:26:12.640 almost all the text completely intact. 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:16.400 So when there are variations, that should not be a source to 00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:19.200 think, oh no, something terrible has gone wrong. 00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:22.240 In a few cases, like yeah, this it's clear why this change 00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:23.040 was made. 00:26:23.040 --> 00:26:24.880 It's almost never the case otherwise. 00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:28.800 So please don't conclude from listening to this episode I need to 00:26:28.800 --> 00:26:30.400 get rid of my Bible and get a different one. 00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:32.640 I have to learn about this or I'm not gonna have confidence. 00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:33.440 That's not the case. 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:37.040 Whatever Bible you have, God is going to use for your edification. 00:26:37.040 --> 00:26:40.320 As if you want to learn more about this stuff, there's plenty 00:26:40.320 --> 00:26:42.560 to to learn and study and dig into it. 00:26:42.560 --> 00:26:45.440 And to be enriched, I think that's the important part, is that 00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:48.160 learning about these variations is enriching. 00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:51.360 It doesn't undermine faith because the more you look at the different 00:26:51.360 --> 00:26:54.480 copies, the more you realize how much they're on the same page, 00:26:54.480 --> 00:26:55.760 which is miraculous. 00:26:55.760 --> 00:26:58.960 The only way that this stuff could have been preserved across across 00:26:58.960 --> 00:27:04.400 thousands of examples across millennia is if God was intervening in time 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:09.760 and space with the copias with the manuscripts with the papyri only 00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:11.200 God could have done this. 00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:13.920 So even when we find things like that doesn't seem quite right, 00:27:14.080 --> 00:27:16.240 doesn't mean God didn't do this stuff. 00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:18.880 It just means that when humans are involved, we have to pay 00:27:18.880 --> 00:27:22.880 attention. That's why this podcast exists, because humans are involved, we have 00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:23.920 to pay attention to stuff. 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:28.320 So please do not lose confidence in whatever Bible you have because 00:27:28.320 --> 00:27:31.520 that is God's word given to you for your edification. 00:27:32.080 --> 00:27:34.960 I personally primarily make use of the ESV. 00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:38.080 That's I have most of my Bibles are ESV. 00:27:38.080 --> 00:27:40.880 I have I don't even know how many Bibles at this point, 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:45.600 but that is in the Old Testament primarily relying on the Masoretic. 00:27:45.600 --> 00:27:48.640 I have no problem trusting the text of the ESV. 00:27:48.640 --> 00:27:51.280 Yes, there are some little problems here and there, they play some 00:27:51.280 --> 00:27:53.040 games with a couple words. 00:27:53.040 --> 00:27:54.720 But I'm not worried about it. 00:27:54.720 --> 00:27:58.320 It is still God's word, it is still reliable. 00:27:58.320 --> 00:28:03.120 And to give listeners an idea of the sort of differences between 00:28:04.320 --> 00:28:10.400 the Greek source documents we use for translating the scriptures. 00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:14.480 One of the more famous examples is the announcement of the angels 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:15.920 to the shepherds. 00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:20.320 In some of the manuscripts, there's an iota missing. 00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:22.400 Literally the smallest letter in Greek. 00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:24.080 It's just a scribal error. 00:28:24.080 --> 00:28:25.920 It was dropped. 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:29.360 It changes the meaning in terms of nuance, but it does not 00:28:29.360 --> 00:28:32.640 change the meaning in terms of content. 00:28:32.640 --> 00:28:38.480 It basically shifts from the angels announcing peace on earth and goodwill 00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:42.160 toward men to peace on earth and goodwill toward men on whom 00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:43.600 God's favor rests. 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:49.360 It's a minor thing, and obviously again, smallest letter in Greek, scribal 00:28:49.520 --> 00:28:54.160 error. That's the sort of thing you're seeing when you see disagreements 00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:55.360 between the manuscripts. 00:28:55.360 --> 00:28:59.440 These are not big disagreements, they're usually relatively minor things. 00:28:59.440 --> 00:29:05.520 So again, yes, your Bible in English or whatever language you're reading 00:29:05.520 --> 00:29:07.680 it in is reliable. 00:29:07.680 --> 00:29:08.880 You can rely on that. 00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:13.040 Yes, it's helpful to have some resort to the underlying languages, but 00:29:13.040 --> 00:29:15.360 you don't even actually have to know them in this day and 00:29:15.360 --> 00:29:19.680 age, because you can go and find websites online where you can 00:29:19.680 --> 00:29:21.280 click on a word in a verse and it will tell you 00:29:21.680 --> 00:29:23.680 exactly what it means in the underlying language. 00:29:23.680 --> 00:29:26.160 So you can verify for yourself. 00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:32.080 if something you read, you have questions, talk to your pastor, talk 00:29:32.080 --> 00:29:35.120 to someone who understands it, or find one of these sites and 00:29:35.120 --> 00:29:36.480 do the study on your own. 00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:40.880 There is a wealth of information and tools at our disposal today 00:29:40.880 --> 00:29:45.280 that would have made scholars in the past incredibly envious. 00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:48.720 So on the subject of language, as we As we you know 00:29:48.800 --> 00:29:52.080 we mentioned, as I'm sure you all know, the the northern kingdom 00:29:52.080 --> 00:29:56.480 of Israel was conquered in seven twenty two BC by the Assyrians. 00:29:56.480 --> 00:30:01.120 As Cory mentioned, when the Assyrians conquered them, they used the importation 00:30:01.120 --> 00:30:07.040 of foreigners to basically impose race mixing to wipe out those tribes. 00:30:07.040 --> 00:30:09.440 And the result was the Samaritans. 00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:13.840 Which is why in scripture we are all familiar with the notions 00:30:13.840 --> 00:30:18.800 that the Samaritans were treated as as filthy as less than as 00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:23.280 as half breeds, because they had been Israelites, they had been Hebrews 00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:24.160 at one point. 00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:28.080 But then when the Assyrians forcibly mixed them with other races, they 00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:31.760 ceased to have the Israelite bloodline. 00:30:31.760 --> 00:30:36.480 And the Jews of the first century found that disgusting. 00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:38.080 They had they had always been disgusted by them. 00:30:38.080 --> 00:30:40.960 The Samaritans in the And the Jews had disliked each other for 00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:42.560 many centuries to that point. 00:30:42.560 --> 00:30:46.160 The Samaritans were created by having been conquered. 00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:48.640 What's important about the conquering is that 00:30:49.840 --> 00:30:54.320 the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Persians and then the Greeks 00:30:54.400 --> 00:30:57.920 and then the Romans in turn each conquering them, by the way, 00:30:57.920 --> 00:31:02.000 all judgment from God, when you get conquered five times in almost 00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:07.040 as many centuries by disparate people who were crushing you, that's a 00:31:07.040 --> 00:31:07.840 bad sign. 00:31:07.840 --> 00:31:09.680 God has turned his back on you. 00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:11.360 And scripture makes that clear. 00:31:11.360 --> 00:31:15.040 There were there was a sea of of prophets coming to them 00:31:15.120 --> 00:31:18.880 calling to them the r to repent for their wickedness that had 00:31:18.880 --> 00:31:22.880 led to the destruction of the two kingdoms in the first place. 00:31:22.880 --> 00:31:27.840 One of the things that occurred under Assyrian then Persian rule is 00:31:27.840 --> 00:31:35.680 that the original Hebrew language in which Moses had written the Torah, 00:31:35.680 --> 00:31:40.800 when God transcribed the Torah for Moses and he wrote it down, 00:31:40.800 --> 00:31:44.720 he used what is today called proto- Proto-Hebrew. 00:31:44.960 --> 00:31:49.920 The Proto-Hebrew alphabet is similar to hieroglyphs. 00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:51.360 They think is probably derived. 00:31:51.360 --> 00:31:52.800 It's kind of downstream. 00:31:52.800 --> 00:31:55.920 It's not it's not pictograms, but it's sort of similar in that 00:31:55.920 --> 00:32:00.960 vein of kind of simple geometric shapes uh and some symbols, but 00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:02.880 it's a fairly primitive language. 00:32:02.880 --> 00:32:07.680 Today it's called proto-Hebrew because what replaced it just gets called Hebrew. 00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:10.800 And that's one of the first big things that's really important to 00:32:10.800 --> 00:32:14.080 to learn in this episode is that as I said earlier, what 00:32:14.080 --> 00:32:17.760 you see today when you think, Oh yeah, that's Hebrew, it isn't. 00:32:17.760 --> 00:32:22.000 It is an alphabet that was imposed. 00:32:22.320 --> 00:32:27.840 it's the Aramaic alphabet, they're related, but it's related through the Persian 00:32:27.840 --> 00:32:33.600 conquest. It has no relation whatsoever to the language of Moses. 00:32:33.600 --> 00:32:35.120 And I think that's important. 00:32:36.160 --> 00:32:37.280 Just as a fact. 00:32:37.520 --> 00:32:42.320 You don't need to derive any particular theological conclusion from it, but 00:32:42.320 --> 00:32:46.080 simply as a fact, when Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on the 00:32:46.080 --> 00:32:49.760 stone tablets, it was not in what we call Hebrew today. 00:32:49.760 --> 00:32:52.160 In fact, I think if if it's not the show art, we'll 00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:53.680 definitely include the image. 00:32:53.680 --> 00:32:58.720 Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments movie, the poster with him holding the Ten 00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:02.960 Commandments actually has proto Hebrew on it. 00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:05.840 It has the proto-Hebraic alphabet. 00:33:05.840 --> 00:33:07.440 They got that detail right. 00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:10.800 If they were to remake that today, they would never do that. 00:33:10.800 --> 00:33:15.040 They would use the fake Hebrew script that's actually Aramaic today that 00:33:15.040 --> 00:33:17.840 came from Persia. 00:33:17.840 --> 00:33:21.760 Why? Because we think that we think that there's a direct continuity 00:33:21.760 --> 00:33:26.400 between Abraham and Moses and Jesus and us. 00:33:26.400 --> 00:33:29.040 And And languages go through those evolutions. 00:33:29.040 --> 00:33:31.680 I was just looking earlier today at uh middle English and old 00:33:31.680 --> 00:33:35.760 English, just to see for example, could I comprehend something that was, 00:33:35.760 --> 00:33:38.240 you know, a thousand, twelve hundred years old? 00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:39.280 Middle English. 00:33:39.280 --> 00:33:40.800 I can I can read most of it. 00:33:41.520 --> 00:33:43.520 Some of the vocabulary is strange. 00:33:43.520 --> 00:33:46.880 There are a few symbols, a few letters that have been transposed 00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:51.120 into other letters today, but it's intelligible for the most part. 00:33:51.120 --> 00:33:52.080 That's still English. 00:33:52.080 --> 00:33:55.360 And that's something that's from you know seven, eight hundred years ago. 00:33:55.360 --> 00:33:58.080 You go back to old English that's you know over a thousand 00:33:58.080 --> 00:34:00.000 years old, I can't read it. 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:02.000 I can pick out a few words if I know how to 00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:04.160 phonetically describe them. 00:34:04.160 --> 00:34:07.040 I can maybe guess at what some of them are, but although 00:34:07.040 --> 00:34:10.320 it's called old English as an English speaker, it's not accessible to 00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:12.400 me. So this happens all the time in language. 00:34:12.400 --> 00:34:17.200 It's not it's not inherently that something is up, something is sneaky 00:34:17.520 --> 00:34:22.240 for the Hebrew of today, what is called modern Hebrew, to not 00:34:22.240 --> 00:34:26.000 match what existed in the first century or what existed five hundred 00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:27.360 years before Christ. 00:34:27.360 --> 00:34:30.720 But it is important because I think almost everyone thinks that's not 00:34:30.720 --> 00:34:31.280 the case. 00:34:31.280 --> 00:34:33.920 We think that we have this ancient stuff and that the you 00:34:33.920 --> 00:34:39.360 know, the sort of scripted square, almost calligraphic letters that you know 00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:40.800 is the Hebrew language. 00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:43.360 You think that that's what Moses was reading and writing. 00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:45.360 And probably what you know Adam was reading, right? 00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:47.360 'Cause obviously Adam was a Jew too. 00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:48.240 Well no. 00:34:48.240 --> 00:34:52.160 The first Jew, you know, was Jacob, maybe, if you want to 00:34:52.160 --> 00:34:53.680 say all Israelites are Jews. 00:34:53.680 --> 00:34:54.400 I don't care. 00:34:54.560 --> 00:34:56.880 We'll talk about some of the history of the terminology in the 00:34:56.880 --> 00:34:59.360 next episode, but the important part Important part is that there's a 00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:01.440 fundamental discontinuity. 00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:05.120 And when they were conquered and they had their alphabet replaced, they 00:35:05.120 --> 00:35:08.960 had their language replaced, the Hebrew language was lost. 00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:11.600 It was completely lost in the Northern Kingdom. 00:35:11.600 --> 00:35:18.480 They the Samaritans they preserved the uh interestingly, the Samaritan alphabet is 00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:21.040 basically the Proto-Hebraic alphabet. 00:35:21.040 --> 00:35:23.360 It preserves many of those same symbols. 00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:25.040 It looks very similar. 00:35:25.040 --> 00:35:29.600 It's completely disconnected from what is modern Hebrew or Aramaic. 00:35:29.600 --> 00:35:29.760 If 00:35:29.760 --> 00:35:33.280 you look at Old Hebrew or Proto Hebrew or whichever term you 00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:38.080 want to use for it, it looks very similar to Phoenician. 00:35:38.080 --> 00:35:43.200 So if you have seen Phoenician lettering before somewhere, museum or whatnot, 00:35:43.200 --> 00:35:46.000 you know exactly what old Hebrew looked like. 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:50.160 And they are both derived from Protosenaic, which was Which was even 00:35:50.160 --> 00:35:52.000 older than that. 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:56.880 That looks very similar, it's missing some letters, but as was mentioned, 00:35:56.880 --> 00:36:03.040 modern Hebrew is not what scripture it's not the language in which 00:36:03.040 --> 00:36:07.280 scripture was written, it's not the text the alphabet in which scripture 00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:11.520 was written, because this is actually an alphabet that was written in 00:36:11.520 --> 00:36:15.600 Old Hebrew, which actually another thing to which you could compare it 00:36:15.600 --> 00:36:19.200 if you know runic, it looks much more similar to runic than 00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:27.760 say modern Hebrew slash Aramaic or modern English Latin lettering. 00:36:27.760 --> 00:36:34.960 But Hebrew itself, the language, was basically dead by the time of 00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:41.040 Christ. It was still used to some degree in what would be 00:36:41.040 --> 00:36:44.240 considered today perhaps academic circles. 00:36:44.240 --> 00:36:48.640 So you would have had some handful of priests in Jerusalem who 00:36:48.640 --> 00:36:50.320 could still read this language. 00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:53.360 They didn't use the language, they didn't speak the language. 00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:58.080 Maybe they read the language aloud at certain services on high holy 00:36:58.160 --> 00:37:01.600 days. They would have had someone there to translate it into Aramaic 00:37:01.600 --> 00:37:04.800 for the common people, because the common people did not know any 00:37:04.800 --> 00:37:08.000 Hebrew. So at least they had more decency than the medieval Roman 00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:12.160 church, which didn't even bother to translate from Latin. 00:37:12.160 --> 00:37:15.600 But you can think of it in that same sort of light. 00:37:15.600 --> 00:37:21.200 In the medieval era, you had church services being conducted in Latin. 00:37:21.200 --> 00:37:25.040 The common people did not know Latin anymore. 00:37:25.040 --> 00:37:29.200 Some of the educated class knew Latin, so it's not directly comparable, 00:37:29.200 --> 00:37:32.080 because you did have Europeans who still knew Latin, who still learned 00:37:32.080 --> 00:37:35.920 Latin, the sons The sons of noble houses and such, but the 00:37:35.920 --> 00:37:38.080 common people did not know what was going on in the church 00:37:38.080 --> 00:37:41.520 service because it was conducted in Latin, and they did not translate 00:37:41.520 --> 00:37:43.600 it into the vernacular. 00:37:43.600 --> 00:37:48.880 You had a similar thing happening around the the switchover, as it 00:37:48.880 --> 00:37:54.240 were, from BC to AD, where Hebrew was no longer understood by 00:37:54.240 --> 00:37:56.640 the common people. 00:37:56.640 --> 00:38:00.800 They spoke Aramaic because they had been conquered a number of times 00:38:01.120 --> 00:38:06.080 by Aramaic speaking peoples, and so they had used Aramaic in order 00:38:06.080 --> 00:38:10.960 to deal with their new neighbors as it were, to handle trade. 00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:14.400 All of these various things were conducted in Aramaic. 00:38:14.640 --> 00:38:16.960 And so they lost their language over time. 00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:17.760 That's what happens. 00:38:17.760 --> 00:38:21.120 If you stop using your language, you lose your language. 00:38:21.280 --> 00:38:25.360 And when they were conquered by Alexander around 330 BC, they began 00:38:25.360 --> 00:38:26.320 to speak Greek. 00:38:26.320 --> 00:38:28.560 They were probably speaking some before that, but 00:38:29.520 --> 00:38:32.880 If you look at the original languages of the Apocrypha, the books 00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:37.280 that were written in the intertestamental period after Malachi and before Matthew, 00:38:37.280 --> 00:38:39.520 none of them were written Hebrew, none of them were written in 00:38:39.600 --> 00:38:42.080 Aramaic. They're written in Greek. 00:38:42.080 --> 00:38:45.920 The Septuagint was translated around 250 BC. 00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:48.560 Now, this was in part because I believe it was Ptolemy II 00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:53.360 had requested that the laws of the Hebrews be translated so that 00:38:53.360 --> 00:38:56.960 they were accessible, but it was also because the people needed it. 00:38:57.600 --> 00:39:01.600 There were certainly some Aramaic texts of of scripture that were available 00:39:01.600 --> 00:39:07.600 to them, but increasingly there were people who were Jews ethnically who 00:39:07.840 --> 00:39:10.640 in some cases may not have spoken Aramaic either. 00:39:10.640 --> 00:39:16.320 The r the translation of Scripture and the Septuagint into Greek was 00:39:16.320 --> 00:39:18.080 also for accessibility. 00:39:18.080 --> 00:39:21.680 And so by the first century when Jesus was born and the 00:39:21.680 --> 00:39:27.760 disciples were alive and were writing and speaking, they were, as Corey 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:31.760 said, none of virtually none of them would have been conversant in 00:39:31.760 --> 00:39:32.560 Hebrew at all. 00:39:32.560 --> 00:39:34.160 'Cause it would have been no point. 00:39:34.160 --> 00:39:38.880 For someone to be speaking Hebrew would be identical to someone today 00:39:39.120 --> 00:39:43.280 speaking maybe Latin or Old English. 00:39:43.280 --> 00:39:46.400 You know, it's a dead language that isn't used at all. 00:39:46.400 --> 00:39:48.240 So it's a party trick. 00:39:48.240 --> 00:39:51.920 Maybe you can have an interesting conversation where you teach someone something, 00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:53.280 but you can't converse. 00:39:53.280 --> 00:39:56.000 It's not a language of commerce. 00:39:56.000 --> 00:40:00.240 The The languages that were used were Greek, Latin, and Aramaic, and 00:40:00.240 --> 00:40:03.200 that's reflected at Christ's crucifixion. 00:40:03.200 --> 00:40:03.520 In 00:40:04.480 --> 00:40:08.640 John nineteen, Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the 00:40:08.640 --> 00:40:11.920 cross. It read Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. 00:40:11.920 --> 00:40:14.720 May of the Jews read this inscription for the place where Jesus 00:40:14.720 --> 00:40:17.920 was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic 00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:19.680 and Latin and in Greek. 00:40:19.680 --> 00:40:22.560 It was not written incidentally in Hebrew, 'cause there would have been 00:40:22.560 --> 00:40:22.960 no point. 00:40:22.960 --> 00:40:24.560 It wasn't they ran out of room. 00:40:24.560 --> 00:40:27.600 It was if they put Hebrew above Christ's head, no one would 00:40:27.600 --> 00:40:29.280 have been able to read it. 00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:30.480 That's a big deal. 00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:32.080 Like it's a small detail. 00:40:32.320 --> 00:40:35.600 I I don't think it's like some huge profound interest. 00:40:35.600 --> 00:40:37.920 But oh by the way, did you know that no one who 00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:40.000 is speaking Hebrew in Jesus Day? 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:41.520 Most people probably don't know that. 00:40:41.520 --> 00:40:42.800 Please go look this stuff up. 00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:46.880 I can tell you, you can spend hours just on Wikipedia going 00:40:46.960 --> 00:40:52.400 through the various articles about the language of Jesus on Aramaic, on 00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:56.560 Proto Hebrew, go do some reading and you know, go do some 00:40:56.560 --> 00:40:59.520 wiki holding where you dig down and dig through. 00:40:59.520 --> 00:41:03.680 You will find some places where some of the articles disagree, usually 00:41:03.680 --> 00:41:07.760 around some of these sensitive areas that we're talking about directly. 00:41:07.760 --> 00:41:11.680 Where they disagree th I would give the benefit of the doubt 00:41:11.680 --> 00:41:16.480 to the version that's less friendly to the modern narrative, to the 00:41:16.480 --> 00:41:20.880 idea everyone from Adam to Jesus just spoke Hebrew and wrote in 00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:22.960 Hebrew because that was the universal language. 00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:26.880 No. These Semitic languages were basically a dead end. 00:41:26.880 --> 00:41:28.720 They're pretty primitive languages. 00:41:28.720 --> 00:41:33.440 They're not remotely as sophisticated as something like Greek or Latin. 00:41:33.440 --> 00:41:36.480 And nothing almost nothing is really downstream from 'em. 00:41:36.480 --> 00:41:40.880 Like they they ran their course and then the civilizations went away, 00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:42.400 and the languages went away. 00:41:42.400 --> 00:41:45.680 So there was nothing that they contributed to later. 00:41:45.680 --> 00:41:48.480 That's not the case with the languages we're speaking today. 00:41:48.480 --> 00:41:53.360 English has had tributaries from many other languages, and they're languages of 00:41:53.280 --> 00:41:53.840 the winners. 00:41:54.000 --> 00:41:56.160 Hebrew is not a language of the winners. 00:41:56.160 --> 00:41:59.760 It's a language of the conquered and of the losers. 00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:04.960 It's worth putting special emphasis on the term that was actually on 00:42:05.120 --> 00:42:08.880 the cross what Pilate actually put on the cross and that was 00:42:08.880 --> 00:42:15.680 Yesus Nazarenus Rex Yudaiorum that last word Yudorum is Judeans. 00:42:15.680 --> 00:42:20.720 That's the word from which we get Jews, as previously mentioned in 00:42:20.720 --> 00:42:25.360 English. We ultimately derive it from the Latin. 00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:27.440 It's a demonym, basically. 00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:30.800 It is a term related to the people of a particular place. 00:42:30.800 --> 00:42:34.240 That's how the Romans named that's how the Romans named everyone they 00:42:34.240 --> 00:42:38.400 encountered was according to the land where they found them. 00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:40.560 And so that's where we get this term. 00:42:40.560 --> 00:42:44.400 It's not even the word Jew isn't even in scripture in the 00:42:44.400 --> 00:42:45.520 original languages. 00:42:45.520 --> 00:42:48.960 That's the term that we use in English. 00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:51.840 Because in Scripture, it's Judean. 00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:56.080 And as we mentioned the history, these are some of the tribes 00:42:56.400 --> 00:42:58.400 descended from Israel. 00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:02.080 On the subject of terms, I think it's important to note that 00:43:02.080 --> 00:43:05.760 this is the one of the key places, particularly in scripture and 00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:10.800 in conversation, where Hebrew ceases to mean the same thing. 00:43:10.880 --> 00:43:16.320 So the the key example for this is John nineteen seventeen. 00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:19.440 In the ESV it says and he went out, bearing his own 00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:22.560 cross to the place called the place of the skull, which in 00:43:22.560 --> 00:43:25.040 Aramaic is called Golgotha. 00:43:25.040 --> 00:43:29.120 Now if you're a King James reader, you know that is and 00:43:29.120 --> 00:43:32.240 he bearing his cross went forth into the place called the place 00:43:32.240 --> 00:43:35.680 of the skull which is called in Hebrew Golgotha. 00:43:35.680 --> 00:43:39.680 Now one of those is wrong because Hebrew and Aramaic are two 00:43:39.680 --> 00:43:41.120 different languages. 00:43:41.120 --> 00:43:44.800 I think it's notable that in many of the cases in Scripture 00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:49.040 in the New Testament, when Jesus is quoted, when he says things 00:43:49.040 --> 00:43:54.800 like Abba Father or Eloy, Eloi, Lama Saba Kfani, he's speaking Aramaic. 00:43:54.800 --> 00:43:57.280 And growing up, no one ever taught me why. 00:43:57.280 --> 00:44:00.000 I thought, wow, why like why did he slip into some other 00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:01.120 language? It's Jesus. 00:44:01.120 --> 00:44:01.680 He's a Jew. 00:44:02.160 --> 00:44:05.120 he's why is this Hebrew guy talking Aramaic all of a sudden. 00:44:05.120 --> 00:44:07.680 Did like did he speak Aramaic when he got excited? 00:44:07.680 --> 00:44:11.120 No. He was always speaking Aramaic to those around him. 00:44:11.120 --> 00:44:15.280 He's these things were recorded and God through the Holy the Holy 00:44:15.280 --> 00:44:19.840 Spirit recorded these in the actual words that Jesus spoke, because there 00:44:19.840 --> 00:44:22.400 were the words he was speaking all the time, but 00:44:23.520 --> 00:44:25.840 they weren't translated even today. 00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:30.240 So we hear Abba and we hear Eloi instead of the translated 00:44:30.240 --> 00:44:32.560 word from the Aramaic. 00:44:32.560 --> 00:44:35.600 The reason that the King James gets this wrong, and yes, sorry 00:44:35.680 --> 00:44:38.320 guys, if you're a King James only, it gets a lot of 00:44:38.320 --> 00:44:39.120 things wrong. 00:44:39.120 --> 00:44:41.120 They're not hugely impactful. 00:44:41.120 --> 00:44:42.720 They did the best they could. 00:44:42.720 --> 00:44:45.840 If they had had more manuscripts, they would have translated a different 00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:47.840 Bible than the one they translated. 00:44:47.840 --> 00:44:49.120 It's useful. 00:44:49.120 --> 00:44:50.880 I think it's outlived its use. 00:44:50.880 --> 00:44:53.120 That's conversation for another day. 00:44:53.360 --> 00:44:58.000 The important thing is if you look in Greek in John 19:17, 00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:04.080 the word that King James translates in Hebrew is Hebraisty. 00:45:04.080 --> 00:45:09.120 The problem here is that Hebrew means one of two things. 00:45:09.120 --> 00:45:13.360 Either Hebrew language means the Hebrew language, as you would say the 00:45:13.360 --> 00:45:14.080 English language. 00:45:14.080 --> 00:45:17.600 You know, when when I say English language, you know that I 00:45:17.600 --> 00:45:19.280 don't mean an Englishman. 00:45:19.280 --> 00:45:20.800 And see, that's the distinction. 00:45:21.040 --> 00:45:24.560 It could be the language of the Hebrew people, as in the 00:45:24.560 --> 00:45:29.760 language of the English people, or it could be the specific language. 00:45:29.760 --> 00:45:36.480 Now the distinction is that in Judah, in Judea, they were the 00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:41.360 Hebrew people, and so whatever language they were speaking in Judea was 00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:44.560 the Hebrew language because they were the Hebrew people. 00:45:44.560 --> 00:45:48.400 The I hope making this clear, but the Hebrew language of the 00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:50.960 Judean people was Aramaic. 00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:53.680 When it says the Hebrew language, it doesn't mean they were speaking 00:45:53.680 --> 00:45:59.440 Hebrew. It means the Hebrews were speaking their language, which was Aramaic. 00:45:59.520 --> 00:46:03.200 And this is something that Josephus, who was the famous historian from 00:46:03.200 --> 00:46:05.760 the first century AD, he said himself. 00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:08.400 He was a Jew, he was he was well connected, he was 00:46:08.400 --> 00:46:12.480 well favored, he is viewed by Jews today as a traitor. 00:46:12.720 --> 00:46:16.480 For 1900 years they wouldn't translate anything he would said because they 00:46:16.480 --> 00:46:21.360 were so angry at him for siding with the Romans. 00:46:21.360 --> 00:46:25.920 Josephus differentiated Hebrew from his language and that of the first century 00:46:25.920 --> 00:46:30.080 Israel. He refers to Hebrew words as belonging to the Hebrew tongue, 00:46:30.080 --> 00:46:34.640 but refers to Aramaic words as belonging to our tongue, or our 00:46:34.640 --> 00:46:37.280 language, or the language of our country. 00:46:37.280 --> 00:46:42.160 So when Josephus, the Hebrew, the Jew of the first century, refers 00:46:42.160 --> 00:46:46.800 to his language in the possessive, he always refers to Aramaic. 00:46:46.800 --> 00:46:51.120 He never refers to Hebrew as in the Hebrew that was spoken 00:46:51.120 --> 00:46:54.560 by Moses, or the Hebrew that was spoken in eight hundred BC, 00:46:54.560 --> 00:46:56.000 because nobody spoke it anymore. 00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:57.200 He was very well educated. 00:46:57.520 --> 00:47:00.560 he may have known it, perhaps, because he was so well educated, 00:47:00.560 --> 00:47:03.440 but again, it would have been an academic exercise and not a 00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:04.480 social one. 00:47:04.880 --> 00:47:05.200 And 00:47:06.080 --> 00:47:10.080 this is also borne out as we find texts, for example, from 00:47:10.080 --> 00:47:12.800 the Qumran Caves and other places. 00:47:12.800 --> 00:47:17.840 When we find texts, if it's using what we see today as 00:47:17.840 --> 00:47:23.360 the what we call the Hebrew alphabet, it's always written in Aramaic. 00:47:23.360 --> 00:47:27.440 There's nothing written in Hebrew in what we call the Hebrew language 00:47:27.520 --> 00:47:29.280 or the Hebrew alphabet today. 00:47:29.280 --> 00:47:32.080 I realize some of this is probably getting confusing because that that's 00:47:32.080 --> 00:47:33.040 the point of discussing it. 00:47:33.040 --> 00:47:36.400 The same word is used t in different contexts to mean different 00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:41.600 things and while that's not necessarily duplicitous, it's very easy to get 00:47:41.600 --> 00:47:45.200 lazy or to get sloppy and then to make errors that downstream 00:47:45.200 --> 00:47:46.800 have serious problems. 00:47:46.800 --> 00:47:50.000 Because when you look in a place like the Qumran Cave and 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:53.520 you don't find much, if any Hebrew, there's a little bit in 00:47:53.520 --> 00:47:55.280 there, but I think it's some of the the newer stuff. 00:47:56.160 --> 00:47:58.080 It's important because this was an archive. 00:47:58.080 --> 00:48:01.600 Like this was I think today when we think, oh, well, you 00:48:01.600 --> 00:48:04.880 found something in one language and something in in another language, you 00:48:04.880 --> 00:48:07.040 probably have hundreds of books in your homes. 00:48:07.040 --> 00:48:11.040 Most people listening easily have many dozens, probably hundreds of books in 00:48:11.040 --> 00:48:11.760 your home. 00:48:11.760 --> 00:48:15.120 The threshold for writing something down today for s putting something on 00:48:15.120 --> 00:48:17.120 paper is basically zero. 00:48:17.120 --> 00:48:20.240 I have probably eight hundred books in my house. 00:48:20.240 --> 00:48:21.440 A lot of them are crap. 00:48:21.440 --> 00:48:23.040 They were things that didn't need to be put down on paper. 00:48:23.840 --> 00:48:26.000 That wasn't the case two thousand years ago. 00:48:26.000 --> 00:48:30.800 It was so incredibly expensive to record anything that for something to 00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:34.800 be written down, whether on parchment or on papyrus, meant that it 00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:36.640 was profoundly important. 00:48:36.640 --> 00:48:39.520 And so the preponderance of the evidence when you're looking at whatever 00:48:39.520 --> 00:48:42.800 was written tells you about the languages that they spoke. 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:46.240 If no one was speaking what we call Hebrew, then you're not 00:48:46.240 --> 00:48:47.600 going to find much, if any, of it. 00:48:47.600 --> 00:48:48.560 And that's what we find. 00:48:48.560 --> 00:48:51.200 We find Aramaic in some of the other languages we do not 00:48:51.200 --> 00:48:53.760 find what is called Hebrew today. 00:48:53.760 --> 00:48:58.240 And it seems like this is somewhat confusing perhaps, but we really 00:48:58.240 --> 00:49:00.720 have the same thing in English. 00:49:00.720 --> 00:49:03.520 Typically a German will speak German. 00:49:04.240 --> 00:49:08.800 Exact same noun, used in two very different ways. 00:49:08.800 --> 00:49:11.360 The English speak English. 00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:14.720 However, Americans speak English. 00:49:15.200 --> 00:49:20.080 And perhaps one of the best examples, the Belgians, who live in 00:49:20.080 --> 00:49:22.960 Belgium, don't speak Belgian. 00:49:22.960 --> 00:49:25.600 They speak Dutch, French, and German. 00:49:26.640 --> 00:49:31.920 So just because a term has multiple different meanings doesn't mean that 00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:33.840 the meanings are identical. 00:49:33.840 --> 00:49:36.400 Doesn't mean the term is always used in the same way. 00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:40.240 And scripture also doesn't always record the language of the of the 00:49:40.240 --> 00:49:42.400 original interactions. 00:49:42.400 --> 00:49:45.280 So it is worth noting, Christ knew Greek. 00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:50.480 He probably used Greek a lot in his ministry, because do remember 00:49:50.640 --> 00:49:55.280 he was ministering at times in the vicinity vicinity 00:49:56.160 --> 00:49:58.960 of Greek speaking cities. 00:49:58.960 --> 00:50:02.400 He would probably have used Greek to speak to those people because 00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:06.160 many of them probably were not particularly good at Aramaic. 00:50:06.160 --> 00:50:10.240 They were, in some cases, Greeks who had moved from Greece to 00:50:10.240 --> 00:50:15.440 these Greek colonies, or had moved to Roman colonies. 00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:18.160 Perhaps they were from somewhere else in the Roman Empire, but the 00:50:18.160 --> 00:50:22.160 language of everyday life in the Roman Empire at that time was 00:50:22.160 --> 00:50:28.000 Greek. Yes, that seems confusing as well, but the Romans used Greek 00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:32.960 because some of the peoples they had conquered, in particular the Greeks, 00:50:32.960 --> 00:50:34.080 spoke Greek. 00:50:34.080 --> 00:50:38.080 It was an easy language to use for everyday interactions, for commerce 00:50:38.160 --> 00:50:40.960 and all the things you need to run everyday life in an 00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:44.880 empire. Latin was still the language of the empire at the higher 00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:48.640 level, so in the Senate, the laws and things like that, but 00:50:48.640 --> 00:50:50.160 they spoke Greek. 00:50:50.160 --> 00:50:55.760 And so Christ again would also have used Greek. 00:50:55.760 --> 00:50:56.160 And this 00:50:56.160 --> 00:50:59.600 is something that's made very clear in the New Testament itself. 00:50:59.600 --> 00:51:03.760 As we all know, New Testament quotes the Old Testament over and 00:51:03.760 --> 00:51:04.880 over and over again. 00:51:04.880 --> 00:51:07.840 You can find numerous web pages that show all the connections of 00:51:07.840 --> 00:51:11.600 direct quotes of the New Testament quoting the Old Testament. 00:51:11.600 --> 00:51:15.200 The reason that's important is that many, I I think perhaps the 00:51:15.200 --> 00:51:17.200 majority, you can correct me if I'm wrong, if you know off 00:51:17.200 --> 00:51:19.200 the top of your head, but I think the majority of the 00:51:19.200 --> 00:51:23.840 quotes of the Old Testament in the New Testament quote the Septuagint, 00:51:23.840 --> 00:51:24.880 they quote the Greek. 00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:27.680 Now it's not that it's two different Bibles, it's just that they're 00:51:27.680 --> 00:51:31.040 different ways of phrasing things and perhaps different word order that would 00:51:31.040 --> 00:51:35.520 be preserved differently in Aramaic or Hebrew versus Greek. 00:51:35.520 --> 00:51:39.520 And so we know that that the writers of the New Testament, 00:51:39.520 --> 00:51:43.520 that the men who are recorded as speaking, spoke Greek because they 00:51:43.520 --> 00:51:45.680 quote scripture in Greek. 00:51:45.680 --> 00:51:50.640 They frequently quote the Septuagint, not exclusively, which is important, as we 00:51:50.640 --> 00:51:55.440 said earlier, I don't reject one over the other because scripture doesn't, 00:51:55.440 --> 00:51:58.160 so I'm not going to do something that God didn't do. 00:51:58.160 --> 00:52:02.560 But it's important to know that Greek is frequently used in as 00:52:02.560 --> 00:52:05.280 the reference of the Old Testament in the New. 00:52:05.280 --> 00:52:06.400 That is substantial. 00:52:06.400 --> 00:52:07.360 That's important. 00:52:07.360 --> 00:52:10.160 And it's something that you don't you don't hear very much unless 00:52:10.160 --> 00:52:13.680 you actually get into these fiddly arguments about which one is better. 00:52:13.680 --> 00:52:16.560 We're not trying to make the argument for which one is better. 00:52:16.560 --> 00:52:19.760 I personally I I wish that Hebrew no longer existed. 00:52:19.760 --> 00:52:21.520 I think it's doing more harm than good. 00:52:21.520 --> 00:52:23.360 It's not an argument I'm gonna make here. 00:52:23.360 --> 00:52:28.240 It's simply important to note that Greek is what Jesus spoke, it's 00:52:28.240 --> 00:52:30.000 what Paul spoke, they all spoke it. 00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:31.440 They spoke other languages too. 00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:32.960 They're not like the average American. 00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:35.120 They could hold more than one language in their head. 00:52:35.120 --> 00:52:37.120 And they did so on a daily basis. 00:52:37.120 --> 00:52:40.480 And so when scripture quotes scripture from the new to the old 00:52:40.480 --> 00:52:45.040 the old, it frequently quotes Scripture, God in Greek 00:52:47.600 --> 00:52:47.760 For 00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:52.400 the percentage of quotes that come from the Septuagint versus other translations, 00:52:52.400 --> 00:52:56.720 it would depend on whether you're counting direct or also indirect and 00:52:56.720 --> 00:52:59.600 indirect starts to get difficult because there are a lot of those. 00:52:59.600 --> 00:53:04.720 I believe the the standard number as it were for direct quotations 00:53:04.720 --> 00:53:08.240 from the Old Testament is 283. 00:53:08.240 --> 00:53:13.360 And 170 of those are essentially from the Septuagint. 00:53:13.360 --> 00:53:15.200 So 60%. 00:53:15.200 --> 00:53:19.440 So yes, the majority of the quotations that are direct quotations from 00:53:19.760 --> 00:53:24.960 the Old Testament in the New Testament are from the Greek. 00:53:24.960 --> 00:53:30.720 But just to emphasize what I said about scripture not always recording 00:53:30.720 --> 00:53:35.680 the original language in which something took place, in what language did 00:53:35.680 --> 00:53:37.840 Moses interact with Pharaoh? 00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:39.760 Well scripture doesn't tell us. 00:53:39.760 --> 00:53:44.640 It was probably Egyptian, because he was educated in Pharaoh's household, he 00:53:44.640 --> 00:53:47.840 spoke Egyptian, it would have made sense for him to deal in 00:53:47.840 --> 00:53:52.080 the language of the Egyptian court when he was dealing with the 00:53:52.080 --> 00:53:53.920 Egyptian court. 00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:57.600 Scripture doesn't tell us that, but from context we can of course 00:53:57.680 --> 00:54:01.280 infer that as a reasonable conclusion. 00:54:01.280 --> 00:54:05.360 Another thing that we can infer as a reasonable conclusion 00:54:06.400 --> 00:54:09.360 from the New Testament, from what it actually tells us, when it 00:54:09.360 --> 00:54:13.680 does tell us the language of the original, when Christ is speaking 00:54:13.680 --> 00:54:17.680 Aramaic, in the cases where he is in Scripture, we are told 00:54:17.680 --> 00:54:21.120 specifically that this was in Aramaic. 00:54:21.120 --> 00:54:23.840 Well that implies he was not always using Aramaic. 00:54:23.840 --> 00:54:26.640 He may have been using Greek Using Greek more than Aramaic, in 00:54:26.640 --> 00:54:31.760 fact, because it is specifically noted when he used Aramaic. 00:54:31.760 --> 00:54:34.560 Now you don't have to necessarily draw that conclusion. 00:54:34.560 --> 00:54:36.640 I'm not saying this is a tenet of the faith, and you 00:54:36.640 --> 00:54:40.560 absolutely have to believe Christ spent most of his time speaking Koina 00:54:40.800 --> 00:54:43.120 Greek. I'm not saying that. 00:54:43.120 --> 00:54:47.200 But it is a reasonable inference to draw from what Scripture does 00:54:47.200 --> 00:54:48.560 tell us. 00:54:48.560 --> 00:54:50.720 We know that he would have used Greek. 00:54:50.720 --> 00:54:53.680 He lived in an area that spoke Greek. 00:54:53.680 --> 00:54:56.320 He lived around people who spoke Greek. 00:54:56.320 --> 00:54:58.320 He dealt with people who spoke Greek. 00:54:58.320 --> 00:55:00.160 He undoubtedly used Greek. 00:55:00.480 --> 00:55:00.720 And 00:55:00.720 --> 00:55:02.720 the last point to Hammer Home is that the reason that was 00:55:02.720 --> 00:55:05.120 happening is that nobody spoke Hebrew. 00:55:05.120 --> 00:55:06.960 Nobody spoke Hebrew. 00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:10.400 It may have been done ceremonially in the in the temple, that's 00:55:10.400 --> 00:55:13.840 likely. It may be that a few of the educated men, including 00:55:13.840 --> 00:55:16.320 probably Christ himself, because he was educated in the temple in the 00:55:16.320 --> 00:55:23.200 temple would have been able to read the original Hebrew language actual 00:55:23.200 --> 00:55:29.280 Hebrew alphabet scrolls, but they had to be translated because apart from 00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:32.400 the few experts, nobody else knew it. 00:55:32.400 --> 00:55:35.040 And yes, this is a small point. 00:55:35.040 --> 00:55:37.920 This isn't this isn't earth shattering. 00:55:37.920 --> 00:55:41.840 But it's really interesting that most people don't know this. 00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:46.720 Because again, you see the what's called the Hebrew language smacked on 00:55:46.720 --> 00:55:47.680 everything today. 00:55:47.680 --> 00:55:49.520 And it's like, oh, that's the Bible language. 00:55:49.520 --> 00:55:50.880 That's the language of Jesus. 00:55:50.880 --> 00:55:52.320 That's what we automatically think. 00:55:52.320 --> 00:55:54.960 I thought that until a couple of years ago when I learned 00:55:54.960 --> 00:55:55.440 about this. 00:55:55.520 --> 00:55:56.560 like what's going on? 00:55:56.720 --> 00:55:59.040 Like, why didn't someone just tell me the truth? 00:55:59.040 --> 00:56:03.600 What's the difference between the true version and the made up version? 00:56:03.600 --> 00:56:07.200 Well, there are things downstream for the made up version that turned 00:56:07.200 --> 00:56:08.800 out not to be very good for Christians. 00:56:08.800 --> 00:56:12.800 I'll be in future episodes, but we're just making the case today 00:56:12.800 --> 00:56:16.640 that just know for a fact that Jesus was not running around 00:56:16.640 --> 00:56:19.360 talking Hebrew because no one would have understood him. 00:56:19.360 --> 00:56:21.520 The Hebrews didn't speak Hebrew. 00:56:22.240 --> 00:56:23.440 They were still Hebrew. 00:56:23.440 --> 00:56:28.080 They were still descended from Abraham, which is is one of the 00:56:28.080 --> 00:56:30.720 last things that we're going to get into here today. 00:56:30.960 --> 00:56:34.240 The we're going to conclude this just by reading a number of 00:56:34.240 --> 00:56:35.280 passages from the New Testament 00:56:36.240 --> 00:56:40.160 that specifically refute the claim that's very often made. 00:56:40.160 --> 00:56:43.360 It usually flares up around Easter during Holy Week. 00:56:43.360 --> 00:56:48.800 Usually by Good Friday there have been think pieces and people fretting, 00:56:48.800 --> 00:56:53.040 saying it's so anti Semitic for people to say that the Jews 00:56:53.040 --> 00:56:54.240 killed Christ. 00:56:54.240 --> 00:56:58.720 The Romans killed Christ, our sins killed Christ, anything killed Christ except 00:56:58.720 --> 00:57:00.080 for the Jews. 00:57:01.040 --> 00:57:02.400 It is true. 00:57:02.400 --> 00:57:03.840 Your sins killed Christ. 00:57:03.840 --> 00:57:05.280 My sins killed Christ. 00:57:05.280 --> 00:57:08.640 Jesus died on the cross for our sins. 00:57:08.640 --> 00:57:14.000 Saying how that happened does not diminish the soteriological aspect of it. 00:57:14.000 --> 00:57:17.440 So there's no point in making any argument about the facts that 00:57:17.440 --> 00:57:22.560 try to defend soteriology against men who don't dispute the soteriology. 00:57:22.560 --> 00:57:23.840 We know how we are saved. 00:57:23.840 --> 00:57:25.680 And we know why we need to be saved. 00:57:25.680 --> 00:57:27.680 We need to be saved from our own sin. 00:57:27.680 --> 00:57:28.960 God did that on the cross. 00:57:29.200 --> 00:57:32.800 God's sacrifice on the cross was for us, and it was our 00:57:32.800 --> 00:57:34.720 sins that caused it. 00:57:34.720 --> 00:57:37.280 Our sins are the ultimate cause. 00:57:37.280 --> 00:57:43.040 The penultimate cause was Was the Jews. 00:57:43.040 --> 00:57:46.000 The Jews who had been trying to kill Christ for three and 00:57:46.000 --> 00:57:48.240 a half years finally succeeded. 00:57:48.240 --> 00:57:51.040 And then the proximate cause was the Romans. 00:57:51.040 --> 00:57:55.120 Of course it was Pilate, Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate, you know, 00:57:55.120 --> 00:57:58.320 that's his epitaph for eternity in the creeds. 00:57:58.640 --> 00:58:00.240 Talk about a legacy. 00:58:00.240 --> 00:58:03.360 The guy shows up briefly in history and he's known as the 00:58:03.360 --> 00:58:05.920 man who scourges the son of God. 00:58:05.920 --> 00:58:12.320 And yet his actions are less egregious than what the Jews did. 00:58:12.320 --> 00:58:15.680 And I can say that because that's literally what Jesus says. 00:58:15.680 --> 00:58:18.640 He says that those who turn me over to you have the 00:58:18.640 --> 00:58:19.760 greater sin. 00:58:21.200 --> 00:58:23.680 When God says that, we don't get to disagree. 00:58:23.680 --> 00:58:28.400 So when there are the hysterics around who killed Jesus, it is 00:58:28.400 --> 00:58:29.040 not lying. 00:58:29.040 --> 00:58:31.440 It's not lying to say if the Romans killed Christ, they crucified 00:58:31.440 --> 00:58:32.080 him. Why? 00:58:32.080 --> 00:58:34.560 Because they were the only ones with the legal authority to do 00:58:34.560 --> 00:58:38.160 so. The Jews had been trying to murder Christ for years. 00:58:38.160 --> 00:58:40.320 They had been trying to stone him, anything they could do to 00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:40.960 kill him. 00:58:40.960 --> 00:58:45.360 They finally got their ducks in a row politically and coerced Herod 00:58:45.360 --> 00:58:47.680 and Pontius Pilate into doing it for them. 00:58:47.680 --> 00:58:50.480 Not because they wouldn't have done it themselves, because they didn't have 00:58:50.480 --> 00:58:52.720 the legal authority to do it. 00:58:52.720 --> 00:58:56.320 And obviously Jesus was incarnate for our sins. 00:58:56.320 --> 00:59:00.560 It's not dismissing or minimizing or taking anything away from the fact 00:59:00.560 --> 00:59:03.120 that we are the reason that Christ had to die on the 00:59:03.120 --> 00:59:04.000 cross for us. 00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:05.680 It still matters who did it. 00:59:05.680 --> 00:59:09.280 And when you when the reason we're doing these episodes is that 00:59:10.080 --> 00:59:11.040 Christians have been 00:59:11.920 --> 00:59:15.440 put in this box where we're not allowed to speak as God 00:59:15.440 --> 00:59:17.600 speaks. And why? 00:59:17.600 --> 00:59:21.120 Because the Jews, to say the Jews, again, as I said the 00:59:21.120 --> 00:59:25.600 very beginning, maybe Makes people frightened, makes them nervous and scared, and 00:59:25.600 --> 00:59:28.080 they don't know what's going to happen next, but they know it's 00:59:28.080 --> 00:59:29.600 not going to be good. 00:59:29.600 --> 00:59:32.240 That is not the Christian response to anything. 00:59:32.240 --> 00:59:35.600 We should be fearless and we should be confident in our God 00:59:35.680 --> 00:59:39.280 and in the truth, and especially the truth as it's found in 00:59:39.280 --> 00:59:43.200 Scripture. And so these next passages we're gonna look at are specifically 00:59:43.200 --> 00:59:46.480 all the cases that we're just cherry picking some some of the 00:59:46.480 --> 00:59:50.880 myriad passages in the New Testament where it explicitly says that it 00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:53.920 was the Jews who were trying to kill Christ because when they 00:59:53.920 --> 00:59:59.120 ultimately succeeded in killing Christ, mission accomplished, you can't possibly look at 00:59:59.120 --> 01:00:02.720 all these passages and then get to the crucifixion and think, wow, 01:00:02.720 --> 01:00:05.200 I can't believe the Romans did that just out of nowhere. 01:00:05.200 --> 01:00:06.800 It's just it would be laughable. 01:00:06.800 --> 01:00:10.080 No Christian reading the Bible would ever reach that conclusion. 01:00:10.080 --> 01:00:14.000 And yet so many Christians and pastors reach that conclusion today. 01:00:14.000 --> 01:00:18.560 I've heard things that we're gonna read here refuted from pulpits, where 01:00:18.560 --> 01:00:23.360 pastors are afraid to attribute to the Jews, to the crowd, to 01:00:23.360 --> 01:00:28.400 the masses, to the group, that which scripture attributes to them 01:00:29.360 --> 01:00:31.600 So one of the first ones is the the very beginning of 01:00:31.600 --> 01:00:35.440 Matthew, at the at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. 01:00:35.680 --> 01:00:39.120 Interestingly, this is actually sorry, this is prior to his ministry, the 01:00:39.120 --> 01:00:42.320 very first time the Jew tried to kill him was Herod the 01:00:42.320 --> 01:00:46.080 Great. As soon as he was born, and and the news came, 01:00:46.080 --> 01:00:48.640 Herod the Great, who was a ruler, but he was also a 01:00:48.640 --> 01:00:51.680 Jew, said the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a 01:00:51.680 --> 01:00:54.320 dream and said, Rise, take this child and his mother, and flee 01:00:54.320 --> 01:00:56.160 to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you. 01:00:56.160 --> 01:00:58.640 For Herod the Great is about to search for the child to 01:00:58.640 --> 01:00:59.840 destroy him. 01:00:59.840 --> 01:01:04.800 So literally Jesus' entire life on earth was bookended by Jews trying 01:01:04.800 --> 01:01:06.000 to kill him. 01:01:06.000 --> 01:01:09.760 And I think that's important because one of the conversations that frequently 01:01:09.760 --> 01:01:13.440 comes up is to try to shift the emphasis to the political. 01:01:13.440 --> 01:01:15.920 In Herod's case, it was undoubtedly political. 01:01:15.920 --> 01:01:19.040 All he knew was that someone was saying maybe some prophecy had 01:01:19.040 --> 01:01:22.480 been fulfilled and maybe some messiah or something is happening. 01:01:22.480 --> 01:01:24.800 I you know, he he knew the prophecies. 01:01:24.800 --> 01:01:26.160 He just didn't competition. 01:01:26.160 --> 01:01:27.440 He didn't want uprisings. 01:01:27.440 --> 01:01:28.720 He'd had enough of that. 01:01:28.720 --> 01:01:32.640 And so the easy thing was to go kill a few babies. 01:01:32.640 --> 01:01:36.960 Later on, when the Jews are chasing Jesus around trying to stone 01:01:36.960 --> 01:01:40.400 him repeatedly, it's not for political reasons. 01:01:40.400 --> 01:01:41.840 It's for blasphemy. 01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:44.480 It's for when he says he's the Son of God, that's when 01:01:44.480 --> 01:01:45.760 they try to kill him. 01:01:45.760 --> 01:01:49.440 And so when we finally get to the crucifixion on Good Friday 01:01:49.680 --> 01:01:53.440 and everyone wants to line up and say it was the Pharisees 01:01:53.440 --> 01:01:56.800 who were entirely responsible and it was because they were jealous of 01:01:56.800 --> 01:01:59.920 the power, it doesn't bear out when you actually look at the 01:01:59.920 --> 01:02:02.480 verses that lead up to that for three and a half years 01:02:02.560 --> 01:02:04.080 that say the complete opposite. 01:02:04.480 --> 01:02:04.640 Now 01:02:04.720 --> 01:02:07.360 of course that is not to deny that the Pharisees did in 01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:09.280 fact seek to destroy him. 01:02:09.280 --> 01:02:13.680 The point is that when pastors and others try to minimize the 01:02:13.680 --> 01:02:17.520 participation of the people, they are perverting scripture. 01:02:17.520 --> 01:02:21.040 And so this next one does say that the Pharisees were seeking 01:02:21.040 --> 01:02:23.600 to destroy him, Matthew twelve, fourteen. 01:02:23.600 --> 01:02:27.680 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him how to destroy 01:02:27.680 --> 01:02:31.680 him. We should note the context of this, because this is what 01:02:31.680 --> 01:02:34.240 often happens in the pages of Scripture. 01:02:34.240 --> 01:02:38.000 Christ performs a miracle, and then the Jews seek to kill him 01:02:38.160 --> 01:02:45.360 because of the miracle or some extraneous matter related to the miracle. 01:02:45.360 --> 01:02:48.160 In this case, it is when Christ healed the man with the 01:02:48.160 --> 01:02:49.120 withered hand. 01:02:49.120 --> 01:02:52.800 Well he healed him on the Sabbath, and so the Pharisees decided 01:02:52.800 --> 01:02:59.200 that that was prohibited by Scripture related to the keeping of the 01:02:59.200 --> 01:03:03.360 Sabbath, the third commandment, and so they conspired to kill him. 01:03:03.360 --> 01:03:06.160 Of course they had other reasons as well. 01:03:06.160 --> 01:03:11.120 But Christ very clearly explained It is permissible to do good on 01:03:11.120 --> 01:03:12.080 the Sabbath. 01:03:12.080 --> 01:03:14.880 The point of this Sabbath is not to sit on your couch 01:03:14.880 --> 01:03:16.400 and stare at the ceiling. 01:03:16.400 --> 01:03:19.840 That's not what it means to keep the Sabbath, but that is 01:03:19.840 --> 01:03:21.840 a discussion for another time. 01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:26.080 The same thing played out when Jesus healed the blind man and 01:03:26.080 --> 01:03:29.040 told him to go and wash his eyes and when he when 01:03:29.040 --> 01:03:32.080 the people saw that he was healed, they became very upset. 01:03:32.080 --> 01:03:35.680 And there was a long scene there where they interrogate his parents, 01:03:35.680 --> 01:03:40.400 they interrogate all the witnesses, and they're angry that Jesus had healed 01:03:40.400 --> 01:03:40.960 a blind man 01:03:41.840 --> 01:03:42.960 on the Sabbath. 01:03:42.960 --> 01:03:45.040 They it infuriated them. 01:03:45.040 --> 01:03:49.840 And that's a particularly interesting one because in I think it's Isaiah 01:03:49.920 --> 01:03:55.440 37 and Isaiah 42, healing the blind is one of the prophecies 01:03:56.640 --> 01:04:00.560 of God, one of the prophecies pointing to the Messiah. 01:04:00.560 --> 01:04:06.160 And when the scene erupts where Jesus healed the blind man and 01:04:06.800 --> 01:04:09.840 people are exclaiming, one of them says this has never happened in 01:04:09.840 --> 01:04:11.040 the history of the world. 01:04:11.040 --> 01:04:13.600 So it wasn't that there had been other prophets in the past 01:04:13.600 --> 01:04:14.960 who had healed the blind. 01:04:14.960 --> 01:04:16.880 There have been other healings. 01:04:16.880 --> 01:04:20.720 But Jesus was the first to ever heal the blind. 01:04:20.720 --> 01:04:25.280 And that's profoundly important because it's a fulfillment of a messianic prophecy. 01:04:25.280 --> 01:04:29.440 And yet what was the concern of the Jews? 01:04:29.440 --> 01:04:34.800 Not that the the messianic prophecy had been fulfilled before their eyes, 01:04:34.800 --> 01:04:38.480 not that a miracle had occurred, but that some guy broke the 01:04:38.480 --> 01:04:44.400 rules, broke their rules as they interpreted them, which is crucial because 01:04:44.400 --> 01:04:48.800 their interpretations of the Sabbath, as Jesus makes clear in those passages, 01:04:48.800 --> 01:04:50.320 is not scriptural. 01:04:50.320 --> 01:04:52.400 It's not a godly interpretation. 01:04:52.400 --> 01:04:55.440 Jesus says if your ox falls in a ditch on the Sabbath, 01:04:55.440 --> 01:04:56.480 are you not going to get it out? 01:04:56.640 --> 01:04:58.640 Someone falls in a well, you're not going to get him out. 01:04:58.640 --> 01:04:59.760 Of course you are. 01:04:59.760 --> 01:05:02.480 Their definition of work was nonsense. 01:05:02.480 --> 01:05:08.160 And so Jesus demonstrates through acting justly and in a godly fashion, 01:05:08.160 --> 01:05:13.200 the hypocrisy and the evil of the Jews, who became incensed at 01:05:13.200 --> 01:05:16.320 this miracle, at this blessing, for for a man who'd been blind 01:05:16.320 --> 01:05:17.120 from birth. 01:05:17.120 --> 01:05:19.440 That was one of the questions they who sinned, this man or 01:05:19.440 --> 01:05:20.480 his parents? 01:05:20.480 --> 01:05:24.400 And the when the man was healed, suddenly they don't care about, 01:05:24.400 --> 01:05:26.240 you know, the the trick question. 01:05:26.240 --> 01:05:28.640 Now they care about the gotcha question. 01:05:28.640 --> 01:05:31.680 Because all that they ever wanted to do was to trip him 01:05:31.680 --> 01:05:34.160 up to destroy him. 01:05:34.160 --> 01:05:36.880 I don't think that any other people on the planet would have 01:05:36.880 --> 01:05:37.840 acted this way. 01:05:38.080 --> 01:05:41.840 If Jesus had come to the Japanese or to the Germans or 01:05:41.840 --> 01:05:45.920 to the Ugandans and started performing miracles and healing them, I don't 01:05:45.840 --> 01:05:47.840 think anyone else would have murdered him. 01:05:47.840 --> 01:05:50.560 I think part of the reason that Jesus was born a Jew 01:05:50.560 --> 01:05:53.760 among Jews was that no one else would behave in this way. 01:05:53.760 --> 01:05:54.720 That's speculative. 01:05:54.720 --> 01:05:57.440 Maybe I'm being unfair, but I sincerely believe it. 01:05:57.440 --> 01:06:00.240 I don't think anyone else who shows up and can heal the 01:06:00.240 --> 01:06:03.760 blind and the deaf and the lame is going to be murdered 01:06:03.760 --> 01:06:05.840 by people f for what? 01:06:05.840 --> 01:06:07.760 For fulfilling prophecy? 01:06:07.760 --> 01:06:10.000 Like they were told that these things would happen, and when they 01:06:10.000 --> 01:06:11.920 did, they became enraged. 01:06:11.920 --> 01:06:14.880 And in fact, they frequently said, You have a demon. 01:06:14.880 --> 01:06:17.680 One of the common refrains, I think it was in John, of 01:06:17.680 --> 01:06:20.800 the crowds of Jews to scream at Jesus is you have a 01:06:20.800 --> 01:06:22.800 demon. How could you say this? 01:06:23.040 --> 01:06:28.000 I think it's very profound in exemplifying the spiritual nature of the 01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:29.520 people to whom he was going. 01:06:29.680 --> 01:06:31.680 Now, obviously it wasn't all of them. 01:06:31.680 --> 01:06:34.480 There were followers, there were disciples who were Jews. 01:06:34.480 --> 01:06:38.000 Just like the others, the difference was that they believed. 01:06:38.000 --> 01:06:40.960 They believed in the promise of the Messiah, and when they saw 01:06:40.960 --> 01:06:43.280 the promises fulfilled, they rejoiced. 01:06:43.280 --> 01:06:44.320 That's the difference. 01:06:44.880 --> 01:06:48.080 It's not that all Jews are bad or that all Jews are 01:06:48.080 --> 01:06:52.800 saved. It's that when the promise of Scripture is fulfilled in Christ, 01:06:52.800 --> 01:06:56.240 those with faith, those who are elect will receive it with gladness, 01:06:56.240 --> 01:06:58.880 and the rest will shout he has a demon and try to 01:06:58.880 --> 01:06:59.440 kill him. 01:06:59.440 --> 01:07:01.760 And we see that sort of energy to this day. 01:07:01.840 --> 01:07:02.000 And 01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:06.160 yes, that is the same sort of accusation we see today. 01:07:06.160 --> 01:07:10.240 Freud did not get the idea of projection from nowhere. 01:07:10.240 --> 01:07:10.960 This is something 01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:16.240 that the Jews and Satan have been doing for a very long 01:07:16.240 --> 01:07:18.320 time. It is to accuse 01:07:19.600 --> 01:07:22.720 the enemy of exactly what you yourself are doing. 01:07:22.720 --> 01:07:26.480 This is Alinsky again as well, because all of this has the 01:07:26.480 --> 01:07:28.320 same father. 01:07:28.320 --> 01:07:32.560 And so that is why the Jews are flinging the accusation of 01:07:32.560 --> 01:07:34.640 you have a demon at Christ. 01:07:34.640 --> 01:07:39.520 Well, no, because the demon is on the other side, Satan's on 01:07:39.520 --> 01:07:40.400 the other side. 01:07:40.400 --> 01:07:44.240 Look at how many times Christ had to cast out demons during 01:07:44.240 --> 01:07:46.080 his ministry. 01:07:46.080 --> 01:07:51.760 There was a very real and active and widespread problem with possession 01:07:51.760 --> 01:07:57.040 and demon oppression in this part of the world at this time. 01:07:57.040 --> 01:07:59.920 And that's why they fling the accusation at Christ. 01:07:59.920 --> 01:08:02.320 Of course, it's also an insult they like to fling at the 01:08:02.320 --> 01:08:05.440 Samaritans, which is why at one point they accuse him of being 01:08:05.440 --> 01:08:07.200 a Samaritan and having a demon. 01:08:07.200 --> 01:08:09.120 Now there are other overtones there as well. 01:08:09.120 --> 01:08:12.480 They're trying to gin up an excuse to murder him, because a 01:08:12.480 --> 01:08:15.440 Samaritan was not allowed to be where he was located in the 01:08:15.440 --> 01:08:17.760 temple at the time. 01:08:17.760 --> 01:08:22.240 But that accusation of having a demon we see that all down 01:08:22.240 --> 01:08:22.880 through history. 01:08:22.880 --> 01:08:25.120 We see it here in the pages of scripture, and we see 01:08:25.120 --> 01:08:28.960 it today on social media and elsewhere. 01:08:28.960 --> 01:08:34.240 But the next reading we have is one of the most famous 01:08:34.240 --> 01:08:38.640 or infamous, of course, and that's the crowd in Pilate's Courtyard. 01:08:38.640 --> 01:08:40.640 I'll just read the whole section. 01:08:41.280 --> 01:08:44.160 Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the 01:08:44.160 --> 01:08:47.920 crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted, and they had then a 01:08:47.920 --> 01:08:50.160 notorious prisoner called Barabbas. 01:08:50.160 --> 01:08:53.520 So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, Whom do you 01:08:53.520 --> 01:08:57.200 want me to release for you, Barabbas, or Jesus who is called 01:08:57.200 --> 01:09:00.480 Christ? For he knew that it was out of envy that they 01:09:00.480 --> 01:09:02.000 had delivered him up. 01:09:02.000 --> 01:09:05.360 Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent 01:09:05.360 --> 01:09:08.480 word to him, have nothing to do with that righteous man, for 01:09:08.480 --> 01:09:11.600 I have suffered much because of him today in a dream. 01:09:11.600 --> 01:09:14.640 Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask 01:09:14.640 --> 01:09:17.120 for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. 01:09:17.120 --> 01:09:20.320 The governor again said to them, Which of the two do you 01:09:20.320 --> 01:09:21.680 want me to release for you? 01:09:21.680 --> 01:09:23.600 And they said, Barabbas. 01:09:23.600 --> 01:09:26.800 Pilate said to them, Then what shall I do with Jesus who 01:09:26.800 --> 01:09:28.000 is called Christ? 01:09:28.000 --> 01:09:30.720 They all said, Let him be crucified. 01:09:30.720 --> 01:09:34.000 And he said, Why, what evil has he done? 01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:40.000 But they shouted all the more, let him be crucified. 01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:43.440 It is not just the Pharisees, it is not just the leaders 01:09:43.440 --> 01:09:47.840 of the Jews who scream for Christ to be crucified, and we'll 01:09:47.840 --> 01:09:51.840 read another section that adds more to this as well. 01:09:51.840 --> 01:09:55.760 It is the Jews themselves, it is the crowd that screams for 01:09:55.760 --> 01:09:58.400 Barabbas for the murderer over Christ 01:10:01.920 --> 01:10:05.840 That cannot be avoided, and we are not permitted to minimize that. 01:10:05.840 --> 01:10:09.360 That is what Scripture says, that is what we are required to 01:10:09.360 --> 01:10:13.680 believe. You don't subtract from Scripture, you don't add to Scripture. 01:10:13.680 --> 01:10:16.960 Revelation is very clear about the warning for those who would do 01:10:16.960 --> 01:10:20.080 either of those things. 01:10:20.080 --> 01:10:27.040 And it is worth especially noting, Pilate tries repeatedly to free Christ. 01:10:27.040 --> 01:10:31.120 Pilate asks multiple times why they want to kill Christ. 01:10:31.120 --> 01:10:34.320 He picks Barabbas as the option. 01:10:34.320 --> 01:10:36.960 Because do note that Pilate is the one who selects Barabbas. 01:10:37.200 --> 01:10:40.320 Pilate doesn't just select a prisoner at random. 01:10:40.320 --> 01:10:43.120 He doesn't say, Would you like me to free any prisoner? 01:10:43.120 --> 01:10:46.720 He says would you like this murderous rebel who is probably going 01:10:46.720 --> 01:10:49.120 to go out and murder someone the same day he's released? 01:10:49.120 --> 01:10:52.240 Christ, or do you want Christ? 01:10:52.240 --> 01:10:55.840 He stacks the deck as much as he possibly can to try 01:10:55.840 --> 01:10:57.440 to free Christ. 01:10:57.920 --> 01:10:59.840 The crowd will have none of it. 01:10:59.840 --> 01:11:02.960 The crowd wants his blood. 01:11:03.280 --> 01:11:03.440 And 01:11:03.440 --> 01:11:06.560 I think that's the chief reason that we focus so much on 01:11:06.560 --> 01:11:10.800 pastors and teachers, because the crowd was doing what they had been 01:11:10.800 --> 01:11:13.120 taught, but the crowd did it. 01:11:13.120 --> 01:11:18.720 The Pharisees and the high priests absolutely ginned up hatred against Christ. 01:11:18.720 --> 01:11:20.240 Just as we see today. 01:11:20.240 --> 01:11:25.040 We see church leaders on our own J ginning up hatred against 01:11:25.040 --> 01:11:27.360 men, seeking their murder. 01:11:27.600 --> 01:11:29.120 And people go along with it. 01:11:29.120 --> 01:11:30.720 People will happily go along with it. 01:11:30.720 --> 01:11:31.360 Because you know what? 01:11:31.360 --> 01:11:34.320 When your church leader stands up and said, This man is a 01:11:34.320 --> 01:11:36.880 Nazi, he needs to be thrown out and destroyed. 01:11:36.880 --> 01:11:38.000 He needs to be killed. 01:11:38.000 --> 01:11:39.280 Who's gonna argue? 01:11:39.280 --> 01:11:40.800 Nobody likes that. 01:11:40.800 --> 01:11:44.400 And so it's very easy for the crowd to go along. 01:11:44.400 --> 01:11:48.160 God doesn't care what your station is, whether you were the leader 01:11:48.320 --> 01:11:51.040 or you were someone at the very bottom in the crowd, just 01:11:51.040 --> 01:11:55.920 a nameless face, if your voice speaks in opposition to that which 01:11:55.920 --> 01:12:01.440 is godly, you were guilty of the same murder as everyone else. 01:12:01.440 --> 01:12:06.000 In John five, it's written The man went away and told the 01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:08.800 Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him, and this was 01:12:08.800 --> 01:12:12.400 why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things 01:12:12.400 --> 01:12:13.360 on the Sabbath. 01:12:13.360 --> 01:12:16.880 But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now and I 01:12:16.880 --> 01:12:17.600 am working. 01:12:17.600 --> 01:12:20.320 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill 01:12:20.320 --> 01:12:23.360 him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but he was 01:12:23.360 --> 01:12:28.480 even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. 01:12:28.480 --> 01:12:31.600 In the beginning of John seven it says after this Jesus went 01:12:31.600 --> 01:12:35.200 about to Galilee, he would not go into Judea because the Jews 01:12:35.200 --> 01:12:36.880 were seeking to kill him. 01:12:36.880 --> 01:12:40.080 And then later in John seven he says, Has not Moses given 01:12:40.080 --> 01:12:40.720 you the law? 01:12:40.720 --> 01:12:42.400 Yet none of you keeps the law. 01:12:42.400 --> 01:12:44.320 Why do you seek to kill me? 01:12:44.320 --> 01:12:46.160 The crowd answered, You have a demon. 01:12:46.160 --> 01:12:47.040 Who is seeking to kill you? 01:12:47.760 --> 01:12:51.040 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the 01:12:51.040 --> 01:12:55.120 chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. 01:12:55.120 --> 01:12:58.880 I think that's an interesting passage because it was the crowd that 01:12:58.880 --> 01:13:02.880 wanted Jesus dead, and it was the Pharisees and the Chief Priests 01:13:02.880 --> 01:13:04.960 who responded to the demand. 01:13:04.960 --> 01:13:07.600 See, we're always told that oh, it was the it was the 01:13:07.600 --> 01:13:09.840 chief priests that were the gang leaders. 01:13:09.840 --> 01:13:11.440 It was a team effort. 01:13:11.440 --> 01:13:14.560 The because the chief police and the Pharisees, they had their own 01:13:14.560 --> 01:13:19.840 agenda, and it was a wicked one, but they often followed the 01:13:19.840 --> 01:13:21.120 lead of the crowd. 01:13:21.120 --> 01:13:22.000 The crowd of what? 01:13:22.000 --> 01:13:23.280 The crowd of Jews. 01:13:23.280 --> 01:13:28.320 Not every Jew, because obviously when Jesus went around in Galilee, he 01:13:28.320 --> 01:13:29.520 was with Jews. 01:13:29.520 --> 01:13:31.680 He was with his disciples, they were Jews. 01:13:31.680 --> 01:13:34.480 It wasn't all of them, but it was a small minority who 01:13:34.480 --> 01:13:35.680 were faithful. 01:13:35.680 --> 01:13:39.440 The rest were either confused or they were murderous. 01:13:39.440 --> 01:13:42.960 And the confused he'd preach to and the murderous he typically fled. 01:13:42.960 --> 01:13:45.120 He would go to a place and speak for a little while, 01:13:45.120 --> 01:13:48.160 and then he would disappear because they were trying to murder him 01:13:48.400 --> 01:13:50.080 continuously for three years. 01:13:50.080 --> 01:13:52.720 I mean it's it's like a Benny Hill skit where you have 01:13:52.720 --> 01:13:55.600 a like three times speed and somebody's just running back and f 01:13:55.680 --> 01:13:58.800 forth across the screen and you have the crowd chasing and waving 01:13:58.800 --> 01:14:00.560 pitchforks and torches. 01:14:00.560 --> 01:14:02.320 That was basically Jesus ministry. 01:14:02.320 --> 01:14:05.760 He would go and do something miraculous and preach something wonderful and 01:14:05.760 --> 01:14:08.080 then everyone tried to murder him and he had to flee with 01:14:08.080 --> 01:14:10.560 a few followers he had that he could trust not to try 01:14:10.560 --> 01:14:11.600 to murder him. 01:14:11.600 --> 01:14:17.600 That was his entire life as Jesus the the minister to his 01:14:17.840 --> 01:14:20.080 people. And for three and a half years he did that. 01:14:20.080 --> 01:14:25.440 And finally, God permitted them to fulfill their murderous goal. 01:14:25.440 --> 01:14:27.680 Because it was also God's goal. 01:14:27.680 --> 01:14:31.600 Their evil, what they meant for evil, God intended for good. 01:14:31.600 --> 01:14:34.080 God used the evil of the Jews. 01:14:34.080 --> 01:14:38.080 He used the cowardice of Pilate, who knew that he was doing 01:14:38.080 --> 01:14:40.960 something wrong, but he didn't want to take the political risk. 01:14:40.960 --> 01:14:43.760 So he stacked the deck and then let the chips fall where 01:14:43.760 --> 01:14:45.120 they may. 01:14:45.120 --> 01:14:49.840 God used all of those failings to pour out the punishment for 01:14:49.840 --> 01:14:51.680 our sins on Jesus on the cross. 01:14:51.680 --> 01:14:53.520 All this was done for our benefit. 01:14:53.520 --> 01:14:56.000 And that doesn't change the fact that all of it was evil 01:14:56.000 --> 01:14:57.280 when it was happening. 01:14:57.760 --> 01:15:03.840 To add to the narrative of the Jews in Pilate's courtyard, Pilate 01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:08.160 at least twice in this narrative says that he will punish Christ 01:15:08.640 --> 01:15:10.000 and then release him. 01:15:10.000 --> 01:15:16.000 He is attempting to appease the Jews by punishing Christ, but attempting 01:15:16.000 --> 01:15:19.040 not to have this innocent man's blood on his hands, and yes 01:15:19.120 --> 01:15:21.600 he does wash his hands of the matter. 01:15:21.760 --> 01:15:25.840 By releasing Christ, and so from Luke twenty-three. 01:15:25.840 --> 01:15:28.960 When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean, 01:15:28.960 --> 01:15:31.760 and when he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent 01:15:31.760 --> 01:15:35.280 him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time. 01:15:35.280 --> 01:15:38.560 When Herod saw Jesus he was very glad, for he had long 01:15:38.560 --> 01:15:41.680 desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he 01:15:41.680 --> 01:15:44.240 was hoping to see some sign done by him. 01:15:44.240 --> 01:15:47.600 So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer. 01:15:47.600 --> 01:15:51.760 The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him, and 01:15:51.760 --> 01:15:55.200 Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him. 01:15:55.200 --> 01:15:59.120 Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate. 01:15:59.120 --> 01:16:02.400 And Herod and Pilate became friends with each other that very day, 01:16:02.400 --> 01:16:05.520 for before this they had been at enmity with each other. 01:16:05.520 --> 01:16:08.640 Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers of the 01:16:08.640 --> 01:16:12.160 people, and said to them, You brought me this man as one 01:16:12.160 --> 01:16:16.720 who was misleading the people, and after examining him before you, I 01:16:16.720 --> 01:16:19.920 do not find this man guilty of any of your charges against 01:16:19.920 --> 01:16:23.440 him. neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. 01:16:23.440 --> 01:16:27.520 Look, Nothing deserving death has been done by him I will therefore 01:16:27.520 --> 01:16:30.160 punish and release him. 01:16:30.160 --> 01:16:33.760 So again you see in this narrative, Pilate is attempting to do 01:16:33.760 --> 01:16:37.840 anything he can to not kill Christ, to not have to deal 01:16:37.840 --> 01:16:40.880 with this issue He sends him over to Herod, hoping that Herod 01:16:40.880 --> 01:16:42.320 will be able to deal with it. 01:16:42.320 --> 01:16:46.400 And so Christ stands before a Jewish ruler, accused by the Jews 01:16:46.560 --> 01:16:47.680 standing by. 01:16:47.680 --> 01:16:51.200 And so they treat him shamefully and send him back, after mocking 01:16:51.200 --> 01:16:52.640 him, send him back to Pilate. 01:16:52.880 --> 01:16:58.240 Pilate again tries to not have to crucify Christ, says, I will 01:16:58.240 --> 01:17:00.800 punish the man and then release him. 01:17:00.800 --> 01:17:04.480 And then to continue reading, but they all cried out together, Away 01:17:04.640 --> 01:17:07.680 with this man, and release to us Barabbas, a man A man 01:17:07.680 --> 01:17:10.400 who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the 01:17:10.400 --> 01:17:11.840 city and for murder. 01:17:11.840 --> 01:17:16.160 Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus. 01:17:16.160 --> 01:17:17.520 But they kept shouting, 01:17:18.480 --> 01:17:19.760 crucify him. 01:17:19.760 --> 01:17:22.800 A third time he said to them, Why, what evil has he 01:17:22.800 --> 01:17:26.320 done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. 01:17:26.320 --> 01:17:28.800 I will therefore punish and release him. 01:17:28.800 --> 01:17:32.160 But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be 01:17:32.160 --> 01:17:35.040 crucified, and their voices prevailed. 01:17:35.040 --> 01:17:38.080 So Pilate decided that their demand should be granted. 01:17:38.080 --> 01:17:41.040 He released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection 01:17:41.040 --> 01:17:44.400 and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus over to 01:17:44.400 --> 01:17:46.880 their will. 01:17:46.880 --> 01:17:49.920 Scripture is very clear again. 01:17:49.920 --> 01:17:55.520 It says that Pilate desires to release Jesus, but the crowd, the 01:17:55.520 --> 01:17:57.680 Jews, want him crucified. 01:17:58.720 --> 01:18:02.560 And more than that, because of course we have, from Matthew, in 01:18:02.560 --> 01:18:07.120 Matthew twenty seven, and all the people answered, His blood be on 01:18:07.120 --> 01:18:09.840 us and on our children. 01:18:09.840 --> 01:18:13.440 That is in response to Pilate saying, I am innocent of this 01:18:13.440 --> 01:18:16.400 man's blood, see to it yourselves. 01:18:16.880 --> 01:18:23.280 The Jews call down a generational curse for Christ's blood on themselves, 01:18:23.280 --> 01:18:26.400 on themselves and on their children. 01:18:26.400 --> 01:18:29.280 That is what Scripture says. 01:18:29.280 --> 01:18:34.720 So Christians are not, again, Christians are not permitted to minimize what 01:18:34.720 --> 01:18:39.520 Scripture says about the guilt and the evil of the Jews? 01:18:39.520 --> 01:18:42.480 That does not mean they can't be Christian, because of course they 01:18:42.480 --> 01:18:43.520 can repent. 01:18:43.520 --> 01:18:47.520 Even crucifying Christ isn't the unforgivable sin. 01:18:47.520 --> 01:18:52.880 However, being impenitent is unforgivable. 01:18:52.880 --> 01:18:56.400 And the Jews by and large are impenitent. 01:18:56.400 --> 01:18:58.240 Ask them today. 01:18:58.240 --> 01:19:01.200 You will see, even just go on social media and search for 01:19:01.200 --> 01:19:04.320 it. There are many of them who will say if Christ came 01:19:04.320 --> 01:19:08.160 back we'd crucify him again. 01:19:08.160 --> 01:19:10.960 To this day they are proud of what they did in Pilate's 01:19:10.960 --> 01:19:15.840 courtyard. Now again that does not apply to those who have repented, 01:19:15.840 --> 01:19:19.360 who have converted, who have ceased to be Jews, and become Christians, 01:19:19.360 --> 01:19:22.000 because that is what that in this case is what it takes. 01:19:22.000 --> 01:19:26.640 You have to cease to be a Jew to be a Christian. 01:19:26.640 --> 01:19:30.880 But many of them are proud of what their ancestors did. 01:19:30.880 --> 01:19:32.880 That's the generational curse. 01:19:32.880 --> 01:19:38.800 His blood on those in that courtyard and on their children. 01:19:38.800 --> 01:19:41.040 That is the word of God, that is what scripture says, that 01:19:41.040 --> 01:19:44.240 is what Christians are required to believe. 01:19:44.240 --> 01:19:50.240 And it's of course the most ironic blasphemy imaginable because we too 01:19:50.240 --> 01:19:53.520 pray for Christ's blood to be upon us and upon our children, 01:19:53.520 --> 01:19:56.000 but from the complete opposite direction. 01:19:56.000 --> 01:20:01.280 We wish to receive the forgiveness of sins found in that blood. 01:20:01.280 --> 01:20:04.000 They had nothing but contempt for it, and they have nothing but 01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:05.760 contempt for it to this day. 01:20:05.760 --> 01:20:10.160 So the blood of Christ is upon everyone, but it doesn't mean 01:20:10.160 --> 01:20:11.120 the same thing. 01:20:11.120 --> 01:20:14.240 When the blood of Christ is upon the elect, it is for 01:20:14.240 --> 01:20:15.360 their salvation. 01:20:15.360 --> 01:20:19.040 When the blood of Christ is upon those who despise him, it 01:20:19.040 --> 01:20:22.080 is for their eternal damnation, which is tragic. 01:20:22.080 --> 01:20:26.000 And I think that we'll get into it in a future episode, 01:20:26.000 --> 01:20:29.760 but I think it's worth noting that today you have the Zionists 01:20:29.840 --> 01:20:33.120 and you have the John Hagees and even the Pope himself in 01:20:33.120 --> 01:20:37.360 the sixties effectively saying we don't need to evangelize the Jews, they're 01:20:37.280 --> 01:20:39.200 just fine the way they are. 01:20:39.200 --> 01:20:44.640 Not only is that blasphemy, not only is it absolutely false doctrine, 01:20:44.640 --> 01:20:47.680 but it's the worst possible thing for the Jews. 01:20:47.680 --> 01:20:51.360 If you hate Jews, then yeah, leave them alone. 01:20:51.360 --> 01:20:52.880 Don't tell them about God. 01:20:52.880 --> 01:20:55.360 If you hate Jews and want to see them burning in turn 01:20:55.360 --> 01:20:59.280 in eternity, then just let them be, because that's the track that 01:20:59.280 --> 01:20:59.680 they're on. 01:21:00.480 --> 01:21:04.400 The only loving thing that can be possibly done for this group 01:21:04.400 --> 01:21:06.960 of people is to bring the gospel to them. 01:21:06.960 --> 01:21:09.120 Something incidentally is illegal in Israel. 01:21:09.120 --> 01:21:11.680 You'll be deported if you try to do that. 01:21:11.680 --> 01:21:13.280 And that spirit 01:21:14.480 --> 01:21:17.680 is exemplified after Christ's crucifixion. 01:21:17.680 --> 01:21:20.080 I think it's important, like we said, part of the reason we're 01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:23.280 talking about this particular thing is that there are many pastors who 01:21:23.280 --> 01:21:25.600 are afraid to say this stuff from the pulpit or in Bible 01:21:25.680 --> 01:21:29.280 starter. They want to hem and haw and try to deflect blame 01:21:29.280 --> 01:21:33.120 from the crowd of Jews to the small group of people. 01:21:33.120 --> 01:21:36.320 Listen to the preaching of Peter in Acts three. 01:21:36.320 --> 01:21:38.720 While he clung to Peter and John and all the people, utterly 01:21:38.720 --> 01:21:42.320 astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's, and when 01:21:42.320 --> 01:21:46.160 Peter saw it he addressed the people, Men of Israel, why do 01:21:46.160 --> 01:21:48.560 you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us? 01:21:48.560 --> 01:21:51.280 Is though by our own power or piety we have made him 01:21:51.280 --> 01:21:54.000 walk. The god of Abraham, the god of Isaac and the God 01:21:54.000 --> 01:21:58.240 of Jacob, the god of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus, whom 01:21:58.240 --> 01:22:02.080 you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he 01:22:02.080 --> 01:22:03.440 had decided to release him. 01:22:03.920 --> 01:22:07.360 But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a 01:22:07.360 --> 01:22:10.800 murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the author of 01:22:10.800 --> 01:22:13.200 life, whom God raised from the dead. 01:22:13.200 --> 01:22:14.720 To this we are witnesses. 01:22:14.720 --> 01:22:17.760 In his name, by faith in his name has made this man 01:22:17.760 --> 01:22:21.120 strong whom you see and know, in the faith that is through 01:22:21.120 --> 01:22:24.240 Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of 01:22:24.240 --> 01:22:24.960 you all. 01:22:24.960 --> 01:22:28.240 And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did 01:22:28.240 --> 01:22:31.680 also your rulers, but what God foretold by the mouth of all 01:22:31.680 --> 01:22:35.440 the prophets that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 01:22:35.440 --> 01:22:38.880 Repent therefore, and turn back. 01:22:38.880 --> 01:22:41.920 This is everything the Cory and I just said. 01:22:41.920 --> 01:22:45.920 Peter, as soon as he gets us and preaches, he doesn't say 01:22:45.920 --> 01:22:47.360 it was the Pharisees that did it. 01:22:47.360 --> 01:22:50.080 He doesn't say your rulers were bad, that you're all right. 01:22:50.080 --> 01:22:54.480 He says, Men of Israel, you murdered God. 01:22:54.480 --> 01:22:57.760 And he also offers forgiveness. 01:22:57.760 --> 01:23:01.040 He says, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also 01:23:01.040 --> 01:23:02.000 your rulers. 01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:04.800 As Corey just said, it wasn't the unforgivable sin. 01:23:04.800 --> 01:23:08.000 Even murdering God on the cross was not unforgivable. 01:23:08.000 --> 01:23:12.000 And yet they continued by and large to persist in their evil. 01:23:12.000 --> 01:23:15.120 That is what the law and the gospel are for. 01:23:15.120 --> 01:23:18.640 You must deliver the law to those who are impenitent in their 01:23:18.640 --> 01:23:23.520 sins. Peter was looking at this crowd of Jews and saying you 01:23:23.520 --> 01:23:26.640 murdered Christ, you must repent of this. 01:23:26.640 --> 01:23:30.400 He wasn't begging them, but that was that was it. 01:23:30.400 --> 01:23:31.520 You murdered Christ. 01:23:31.520 --> 01:23:35.680 What possibly could be more horrific to a believer than to hear 01:23:35.680 --> 01:23:38.320 that. And that's precisely why he told them. 01:23:38.320 --> 01:23:40.720 When we have pastors today and we have leaders and we have 01:23:40.720 --> 01:23:44.160 teachers who are afraid to say that, what happens to the Christian 01:23:44.160 --> 01:23:47.120 faith when we become so ashamed of it that we have to 01:23:47.120 --> 01:23:49.760 hide it in a corner and we can't proclaim it in its 01:23:49.760 --> 01:23:54.320 fullness as scripture itself proclaims it, we don't get a vote on 01:23:54.320 --> 01:23:55.040 this stuff. 01:23:55.040 --> 01:23:57.520 We don't get to say it was the Pharisees, it wasn't the 01:23:57.520 --> 01:24:00.960 crowds. We don't get to just blame the crowds either, because there 01:24:00.960 --> 01:24:03.840 are numerous passages that say that the Pharisees, the rulers, the high 01:24:03.840 --> 01:24:07.280 priests conspired off on their own. 01:24:07.280 --> 01:24:12.320 Everyone was guilty, and everyone had the opportunity to be forgiven. 01:24:13.200 --> 01:24:15.520 God says it, we have to say it. 01:24:15.520 --> 01:24:17.520 We have to say it about the Jews, and we have to 01:24:17.520 --> 01:24:18.960 say it about the Jews today. 01:24:18.960 --> 01:24:22.000 And the fact that today, when you say the Jews, people get 01:24:22.000 --> 01:24:25.360 really nervous and suddenly pastors have to get up in the pulpit. 01:24:25.360 --> 01:24:30.240 I've actually heard pastors change the text to avoid saying the Jews, 01:24:30.240 --> 01:24:33.680 they will say the Pharisees or some other thing to deflect blame 01:24:33.840 --> 01:24:37.440 to that one little outgroup, to blame the leaders, to blame the 01:24:37.440 --> 01:24:38.880 president of the synod. 01:24:38.880 --> 01:24:41.440 It's not that guy, it's everyone who's listening. 01:24:41.440 --> 01:24:44.800 It's everyone who's following evil that is equally evil. 01:24:44.800 --> 01:24:47.760 You don't get an out because you're not senior. 01:24:47.760 --> 01:24:51.040 The only out is forgiveness through repentance. 01:24:51.040 --> 01:24:55.360 And in case anyone thinks that we are going beyond the bounds 01:24:55.360 --> 01:24:58.960 of the evidence as it were, in our comments about what the 01:24:58.960 --> 01:25:04.480 Jews believe today, I will read for you in English translation a 01:25:04.480 --> 01:25:08.000 prayer from the Talmud, this one is from the Jerusalem version instead 01:25:08.000 --> 01:25:10.800 of the Babylonian, but they are nearly identical. 01:25:10.800 --> 01:25:15.120 The Jews traditionally pray three times per day. 01:25:15.120 --> 01:25:19.920 This is the Birkat Haminim, and here is the prayer in English. 01:25:19.920 --> 01:25:23.840 For the apostates, let there be no hope, and uproot the kingdom 01:25:23.840 --> 01:25:26.640 of arrogance, speedily and in our days. 01:25:26.640 --> 01:25:30.800 May the Nazarenes and the sectarians perish as in a moment. 01:25:30.800 --> 01:25:33.200 Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not 01:25:33.200 --> 01:25:35.200 be written together with the righteous. 01:25:35.200 --> 01:25:39.600 You are praised, O Lord, who subdues the arrogant. 01:25:39.600 --> 01:25:42.160 You are a Nazarene, if you're a Christian. 01:25:42.160 --> 01:25:44.720 That's what that means what that means. 01:25:44.720 --> 01:25:51.120 Traditionally, and still today, Jews pray three times per day, cursing you 01:25:51.120 --> 01:25:54.240 specifically because you are a Christian. 01:25:54.240 --> 01:25:56.880 That is something they've been doing for centuries? 01:25:56.880 --> 01:26:00.400 Thank you That is something again they still do today. 01:26:00.400 --> 01:26:03.920 This was something they hid for a very long time. 01:26:03.920 --> 01:26:08.000 But then I believe it was originally a German academic who got 01:26:08.000 --> 01:26:10.880 a hold of a copy of some of these documents and started 01:26:10.880 --> 01:26:11.440 translating them. 01:26:11.440 --> 01:26:15.200 And as the Talmud has been translated, we've found more and worse 01:26:15.200 --> 01:26:17.120 things, and I'm sure at some point we will go over the 01:26:17.120 --> 01:26:21.360 Talmud in greater depth. 01:26:21.360 --> 01:26:25.600 But this is the mindset of modern Jews. 01:26:25.600 --> 01:26:28.560 They hate Christians. 01:26:28.560 --> 01:26:33.760 And incidentally, when they're talking about apostates, they are cursing Jews who 01:26:33.760 --> 01:26:35.760 have converted to Christianity. 01:26:35.760 --> 01:26:40.640 They hold a particular hatred for Jews who convert. 01:26:40.640 --> 01:26:42.480 But they hate Christians. 01:26:42.480 --> 01:26:45.680 And they pray and curse you multiple times per day. 01:26:45.680 --> 01:26:49.440 Now, of course, they are not praying to the Lord God, because 01:26:49.440 --> 01:26:52.240 those who do not have the Son do not have the Father. 01:26:52.240 --> 01:26:55.200 And they reject the Son, so they are not praying to God 01:26:55.200 --> 01:26:55.680 the Father. 01:26:55.760 --> 01:26:57.120 That is an important point. 01:26:57.120 --> 01:27:00.400 There are many pastors and others who will say, Well, no, the 01:27:00.160 --> 01:27:03.840 the Jews worship God, they just don't worship him correctly. 01:27:03.840 --> 01:27:07.440 No. Scripture says that those who do not have the Son do 01:27:07.440 --> 01:27:08.480 not have the Father. 01:27:08.480 --> 01:27:11.040 The Jews do not worship the Lord God. 01:27:11.040 --> 01:27:13.920 They do not worship the Father, they do not worship the Trinity, 01:27:13.920 --> 01:27:19.200 they are not in any way, shape, or form, related to Christians 01:27:19.840 --> 01:27:21.680 or Christianity. 01:27:21.680 --> 01:27:26.080 They are vile pagans, and they pray to curse you three times 01:27:26.080 --> 01:27:28.800 per day, at least there are other prayers they say that are 01:27:28.800 --> 01:27:33.360 daily prayers that also call down curses. 01:27:33.360 --> 01:27:35.680 That is the reality of the situation. 01:27:35.680 --> 01:27:36.400 Yes, exactly. 01:27:36.400 --> 01:27:37.600 Their prayers are to Satan. 01:27:37.600 --> 01:27:40.400 They are praying to Satan to curse you. 01:27:40.400 --> 01:27:44.560 There are so many pastors and leaders and others who are afraid 01:27:44.560 --> 01:27:46.800 to say these things. 01:27:46.800 --> 01:27:48.080 But this is the reality. 01:27:48.080 --> 01:27:51.920 This is exactly what their own holy books say, so called holy 01:27:51.920 --> 01:27:57.040 books. And this is just grazing the surface. 01:27:57.040 --> 01:28:01.680 Incidentally, Christ responds to the Talmud in Scripture. 01:28:01.680 --> 01:28:05.840 One of the most abused passages in Scripture is in part a 01:28:05.840 --> 01:28:11.440 response to a wicked Jewish prayer from proto-versions of the Talmud, because 01:28:11.440 --> 01:28:14.800 one of the prayers that is said by Jewish men traditionally, at 01:28:14.800 --> 01:28:19.280 least once per day, sometimes multiple times per day, is a prayer 01:28:19.520 --> 01:28:24.320 that basically says, thank you to God that I was not made 01:28:24.320 --> 01:28:28.560 a Gentile, thank you to God that I was not made a 01:28:28.560 --> 01:28:34.480 woman. And so you should be thinking of Galatians 3:28. 01:28:34.480 --> 01:28:38.400 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free. 01:28:38.400 --> 01:28:40.640 There is not male and female. 01:28:40.640 --> 01:28:43.120 Well they also add to their prayer that thank you God for 01:28:43.120 --> 01:28:45.040 not making me a slave. 01:28:45.040 --> 01:28:48.640 Well, there are the three categories that Christ uses 01:28:49.840 --> 01:28:52.240 right there in a Jewish prayer. 01:28:52.240 --> 01:28:56.160 He is responding in part to the evil of the Talmud as 01:28:56.160 --> 01:28:59.200 it is taking form, because it was not finished until around the 01:28:59.200 --> 01:29:04.720 five hundreds, perhaps a little earlier, but right around that time. 01:29:04.720 --> 01:29:08.160 But some of the materials were obviously coalescing at the time of 01:29:08.160 --> 01:29:11.360 Christ's ministry. 01:29:11.360 --> 01:29:15.120 So Christians Christians should have some familiarity with these things because it 01:29:15.120 --> 01:29:19.920 is responded to in our own holy documents, in scripture. 01:29:19.920 --> 01:29:24.560 This is not just some esoteric issue that's off on the sidelines. 01:29:24.560 --> 01:29:29.520 This is of the utmost importance because this deals with a very 01:29:29.520 --> 01:29:34.800 real, very live controversy in our time. 01:29:35.200 --> 01:29:38.000 And the reason for pointing these things out in time is that 01:29:38.000 --> 01:29:39.440 none of these are flukes. 01:29:39.600 --> 01:29:43.440 It wasn't a fluke that they just happened to be really mean 01:29:43.760 --> 01:29:46.800 in the year that Jesus was ministering. 01:29:46.800 --> 01:29:49.040 And it doesn't so happen that they just happen to be really 01:29:49.040 --> 01:29:52.880 mean, you know, when they wrote those prayers, or that they're really 01:29:52.880 --> 01:29:54.320 mean today. 01:29:54.480 --> 01:29:58.480 First Thessalonians two says, For you brothers became imitators of the church 01:29:58.480 --> 01:30:02.160 of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered 01:30:02.160 --> 01:30:05.920 the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the 01:30:05.920 --> 01:30:10.000 Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove 01:30:10.000 --> 01:30:14.400 us out and displeased God and oppose all mankind by hindering us 01:30:14.400 --> 01:30:18.080 from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved, so as 01:30:18.080 --> 01:30:21.200 always to fill up the measure of their sins, but wrath has 01:30:21.200 --> 01:30:23.040 come upon them at last. 01:30:23.040 --> 01:30:27.200 This is Paul writing to a Greek city, but he's talking not 01:30:27.200 --> 01:30:29.600 only about the murder of Christ, but how the Jews have been 01:30:29.600 --> 01:30:32.000 murdering prophets for centuries. 01:30:32.000 --> 01:30:34.240 This was not new behavior for them. 01:30:34.240 --> 01:30:38.160 God kept sending prophets and they kept getting killed or ignored. 01:30:38.160 --> 01:30:42.320 You know, profit being selected as a prophet is never good news. 01:30:42.720 --> 01:30:44.880 it never went ends well. 01:30:44.880 --> 01:30:47.120 I mean, the I think the one who got off the best 01:30:47.120 --> 01:30:48.240 was Elijah. 01:30:48.480 --> 01:30:49.120 he didn't die. 01:30:49.120 --> 01:30:52.240 He was just taken up in a whirlwind or on a chariot. 01:30:52.240 --> 01:30:56.560 He wasn't he didn't have to suffer as many others did in 01:30:56.560 --> 01:31:01.040 death, but his life was no bowl of roses. 01:31:01.040 --> 01:31:04.000 It's I think it's important to hearken back to something that we 01:31:04.000 --> 01:31:05.600 have mentioned on previous episodes. 01:31:05.600 --> 01:31:09.680 We didn't we were talking about the Old Testament today.. 01:31:09.680 --> 01:31:14.320 When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they were in the 01:31:14.320 --> 01:31:18.720 desert, he went up on the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments 01:31:18.720 --> 01:31:19.600 from God. 01:31:19.600 --> 01:31:20.960 He was gone for forty days. 01:31:21.280 --> 01:31:24.480 he That was when he received the books. 01:31:24.480 --> 01:31:27.280 He was up there for forty days. 01:31:27.280 --> 01:31:30.960 There was a pillar of fire at night and pillar of smoke 01:31:30.960 --> 01:31:31.920 during the day. 01:31:31.920 --> 01:31:33.440 It was a huge scene. 01:31:33.440 --> 01:31:34.400 It was very visible. 01:31:34.960 --> 01:31:38.080 The Israelites were down at the base of the mountain. 01:31:38.080 --> 01:31:41.840 In the forty days that Moses was up there, they descended into 01:31:41.840 --> 01:31:46.160 idolatry. They had Aaron melt down their gold and make a golden 01:31:46.160 --> 01:31:51.440 calf for them, which was as Corey said previously, was almost certainly 01:31:51.440 --> 01:31:55.120 one of the gods of Egypt that they chose to worship, and 01:31:55.120 --> 01:31:58.000 they said to Aaron, make a god for us, make the god 01:31:58.000 --> 01:31:59.040 that led us out of Egypt. 01:31:59.680 --> 01:32:01.280 God's right there on the mountain. 01:32:01.280 --> 01:32:04.320 God's in a pillar of fire talking to Moses, talking to the 01:32:04.320 --> 01:32:06.640 prophet who led them out of captivity. 01:32:06.640 --> 01:32:07.760 And what do they do? 01:32:07.760 --> 01:32:10.640 They turn their back on him and say, No, we want to 01:32:10.640 --> 01:32:11.760 make shift God. 01:32:11.760 --> 01:32:13.200 We're going to worship this instead. 01:32:13.200 --> 01:32:14.240 And they did. 01:32:14.240 --> 01:32:19.040 Moses comes down and they're having a big party worshiping pagan gods. 01:32:19.040 --> 01:32:21.440 In they just left Egypt. 01:32:21.440 --> 01:32:23.440 They just seen all of these miracles. 01:32:23.440 --> 01:32:27.520 They're be they're before a miracle with the physical special presence of 01:32:27.520 --> 01:32:31.520 God through the fire and the smoke, and they apostatize. 01:32:31.520 --> 01:32:33.840 This was the spirit of these people. 01:32:33.840 --> 01:32:37.920 So I think one of the key things to understand about the 01:32:38.080 --> 01:32:40.960 the Jewish period of time in scripture is that 01:32:41.840 --> 01:32:45.280 I I think a good analog for it is a message in 01:32:45.280 --> 01:32:46.880 a bottle. 01:32:46.880 --> 01:32:53.040 The gospel was given to Adam in the garden, Genesis 3:15. 01:32:53.040 --> 01:32:57.440 There was a promise made that God was going to fix this. 01:32:57.440 --> 01:33:01.520 That was expand upon in future generations. 01:33:01.520 --> 01:33:05.440 When the day came that God came to Abraham and made the 01:33:05.440 --> 01:33:09.520 special promise to him and then wrestled with Jacob and named him 01:33:09.520 --> 01:33:17.680 Israel. And then when Moses was given the books of God, 01:33:17.680 --> 01:33:18.640 something changed. 01:33:19.520 --> 01:33:22.640 What changed was that what had been a 01:33:23.600 --> 01:33:29.440 broadly defined promise became much more narrowly defined in terms of additional 01:33:29.440 --> 01:33:30.880 promises were being made. 01:33:30.880 --> 01:33:35.200 A covenant was specifically made with Abraham and was renewed with his 01:33:35.200 --> 01:33:40.080 descendants. And I think that in some ways that covenant and the 01:33:40.080 --> 01:33:44.160 laws, the Levitical laws in particular, were were like the bottle. 01:33:44.160 --> 01:33:46.320 You know, you throw a message in the bottle and you throw 01:33:46.320 --> 01:33:51.280 it in the ocean, it's gonna bob away and then get somewhere. 01:33:51.280 --> 01:33:56.400 The function that the Levitical laws or that the the ceremonial laws 01:33:56.400 --> 01:34:01.600 had for the Israelites is that it made them weird. 01:34:01.600 --> 01:34:04.160 They had to do weird stuff with their clothing and with their 01:34:04.160 --> 01:34:06.560 food and with their their appearance. 01:34:06.560 --> 01:34:10.720 They weren't going to be permitted to mix with their neighbors because 01:34:10.960 --> 01:34:15.520 God knew that every time his people mixed with their pagan neighbors, 01:34:15.520 --> 01:34:16.720 they became pagan. 01:34:16.720 --> 01:34:18.720 There wasn't it didn't work the other way. 01:34:18.720 --> 01:34:21.920 It should have worked the other way, but they were not faithful. 01:34:21.920 --> 01:34:25.760 And so any exposure to foreign gods caused them to whore after 01:34:25.760 --> 01:34:26.640 foreign gods. 01:34:26.640 --> 01:34:28.800 That's how God describes it as whoring. 01:34:28.800 --> 01:34:30.000 And that's what it is. 01:34:30.000 --> 01:34:34.720 It's spiritual lust after that which is forbidden, which is a cheap 01:34:34.720 --> 01:34:40.160 imitation, but people's passions get inflamed and they chase that which is 01:34:40.160 --> 01:34:42.640 fake and they turn their back on that which is real. 01:34:42.640 --> 01:34:43.680 And so God knew this. 01:34:43.680 --> 01:34:47.520 And so He wrapped them in this bottle of these Levitical laws 01:34:47.520 --> 01:34:49.920 that said you have to do this with your beard and you 01:34:49.920 --> 01:34:53.440 can't eat these foods and you can't sow your grains like this 01:34:53.840 --> 01:34:58.640 and the isolation that that caused from them relative to their neighbors 01:34:58.880 --> 01:35:02.800 helped to preserve the message, which was the gospel. 01:35:02.800 --> 01:35:05.360 It was the word of God and it was the promises of 01:35:05.360 --> 01:35:09.360 the Messiah that were to be preserved through the people as well 01:35:09.360 --> 01:35:10.880 as through the bloodline. 01:35:10.880 --> 01:35:16.480 And so the word that was basically their DNA, the ACTG in 01:35:16.480 --> 01:35:21.360 their genes, that would be passed down to Jesus in the flesh, 01:35:21.360 --> 01:35:24.000 that was from Abraham's seed. 01:35:24.000 --> 01:35:28.400 And there was also the word, the spoken word, the promises of 01:35:28.400 --> 01:35:30.080 God were also passed. 01:35:30.080 --> 01:35:33.200 And that was the function that the Jews served for two thousand 01:35:33.280 --> 01:35:36.160 years. Now for two thousand years there were no Jews. 01:35:36.160 --> 01:35:40.480 And then for two thousand years from Abraham to Jesus, The Jews 01:35:40.480 --> 01:35:46.560 were in varying states of evolution preserving these messages from God so 01:35:46.560 --> 01:35:51.280 that in the day when the Messiah came and fulfilled the prophecies, 01:35:51.280 --> 01:35:52.480 everyone would know. 01:35:52.480 --> 01:35:55.040 They would have a list and they would have been studying and 01:35:55.040 --> 01:35:58.320 looking for it and being excited to see it come. 01:35:58.320 --> 01:36:01.680 So that when a man appears and heals the blind and the 01:36:01.680 --> 01:36:05.600 lame, you rejoice and you say at last the Messiah has come. 01:36:05.600 --> 01:36:07.520 That was the purpose. 01:36:07.520 --> 01:36:11.360 They did everything in their power to fail that purpose. 01:36:11.360 --> 01:36:14.560 And yet God preserved them for his ends. 01:36:14.560 --> 01:36:19.520 Because they were chosen not to be special in in some sense 01:36:19.520 --> 01:36:23.040 of its own, but to be the vessel that would preserve these 01:36:23.040 --> 01:36:26.000 promises until they were fulfilled. 01:36:26.000 --> 01:36:31.760 And one of the things it's emphasized repeatedly, particularly in Paul's epistles, 01:36:31.760 --> 01:36:36.960 is because the promises had been given to the Jews, they knew 01:36:36.960 --> 01:36:37.680 about them. 01:36:37.680 --> 01:36:43.040 Paul's very clear that when there's no knowledge, sin does not attach 01:36:43.040 --> 01:36:45.040 in the same way as when there's knowledge. 01:36:45.040 --> 01:36:49.280 And so the urgency of reaching the Jews with the gospel, especially 01:36:49.280 --> 01:36:52.720 in his day, was but they had become apostate. 01:36:52.720 --> 01:36:56.400 When the prophecies were not yet fulfilled, they could hope in their 01:36:56.400 --> 01:36:59.680 future fulfillment, but now that they had been fulfilled, it was urgent 01:37:00.320 --> 01:37:04.000 that the Jews would be told the prophecies are fulfilled, the Messiah 01:37:04.000 --> 01:37:07.680 has come, and he has died and he is living again. 01:37:07.680 --> 01:37:10.400 It was urgent for them to hear that because they were now 01:37:10.400 --> 01:37:13.280 under condemnation for refusing to believe. 01:37:13.280 --> 01:37:18.000 That's a fundamentally different thing than the the Greek or the Roman 01:37:18.160 --> 01:37:21.040 or the Ugandan or the Indian who's never heard any of this 01:37:21.040 --> 01:37:25.280 stuff. He's not in the same spiritual state as these people who 01:37:25.440 --> 01:37:29.200 for hundreds and thousands of years had been told these stories, who'd 01:37:29.200 --> 01:37:32.960 been given these promises, because the promises were made to them and 01:37:32.960 --> 01:37:34.960 through them for all. 01:37:34.960 --> 01:37:38.080 When Jesus came and fulfilled them and then they rejected them and 01:37:38.080 --> 01:37:40.640 said, His blood be on us and our children, that was the 01:37:40.640 --> 01:37:42.560 worst possible thing for them. 01:37:42.560 --> 01:37:47.040 And part of Paul's urgency to reach the Jews was to try 01:37:47.040 --> 01:37:50.320 to save them from their own wickedness, just as Peter did in 01:37:50.320 --> 01:37:55.040 this sermon, where he said, You unknowingly did this, repent. 01:37:55.040 --> 01:37:57.280 Because when they die, that's it. 01:37:57.280 --> 01:38:01.040 There's there we get to read the book today that says here's 01:38:01.040 --> 01:38:03.280 what happened bad two thousand years ago. 01:38:03.280 --> 01:38:04.400 It wasn't written yet. 01:38:04.400 --> 01:38:05.440 They were living it. 01:38:05.440 --> 01:38:08.640 And so they had the choice in their lifetime, do I believe 01:38:08.640 --> 01:38:12.400 in the promise that God has fulfilled or do I continue in 01:38:12.400 --> 01:38:14.240 my hatred of those promises? 01:38:14.240 --> 01:38:17.280 And it might not have been hatred before Christ came, but once 01:38:17.280 --> 01:38:21.600 he came, that was the proof of who was elect and who 01:38:21.600 --> 01:38:23.680 was faithless. 01:38:23.760 --> 01:38:28.240 And so on the topic of the Jews and whether or not 01:38:28.240 --> 01:38:31.600 they can convert to be Christian. 01:38:31.600 --> 01:38:35.920 We should, of course, read Romans 9, the words of Paul here, 01:38:35.920 --> 01:38:40.160 the words of the Holy Spirit, spoken, written through Paul. 01:38:40.960 --> 01:38:44.320 I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying. 01:38:44.320 --> 01:38:48.000 My conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have 01:38:48.000 --> 01:38:52.000 great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish 01:38:52.000 --> 01:38:55.040 that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the 01:38:55.040 --> 01:38:59.280 sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 01:38:59.520 --> 01:39:03.440 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory the 01:39:03.440 --> 01:39:07.280 covenants, the giving of the law, the worship and the promises. 01:39:07.520 --> 01:39:11.600 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the 01:39:11.600 --> 01:39:15.280 flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever 01:39:15.520 --> 01:39:19.440 Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has 01:39:19.440 --> 01:39:22.080 failed, for not all who are descended from Israel 01:39:22.960 --> 01:39:27.200 belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham, because they 01:39:27.200 --> 01:39:28.640 are his offspring. 01:39:28.640 --> 01:39:32.160 But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. 01:39:32.160 --> 01:39:35.120 This means that it is not the children of the flesh, who 01:39:35.120 --> 01:39:38.080 are the children of God, but the children of the promise are 01:39:38.080 --> 01:39:39.680 counted as offspring. 01:39:39.680 --> 01:39:43.280 For this is what the promise said about this time next year 01:39:43.280 --> 01:39:46.000 I will return, and Sarah shall have a son. 01:39:46.000 --> 01:39:50.000 And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by 01:39:50.000 --> 01:39:54.080 one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born, and 01:39:54.080 --> 01:39:57.680 had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose 01:39:57.680 --> 01:40:01.680 of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him 01:40:01.840 --> 01:40:04.000 who calls, she was told. 01:40:04.000 --> 01:40:07.920 The older will serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob I 01:40:07.920 --> 01:40:10.480 loved, but Esau I hated. 01:40:10.480 --> 01:40:11.920 What shall we say then? 01:40:11.920 --> 01:40:13.680 Is there injustice on God's part? 01:40:13.680 --> 01:40:17.600 By no means, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy 01:40:17.600 --> 01:40:20.640 on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom 01:40:20.640 --> 01:40:22.000 I have compassion. 01:40:22.000 --> 01:40:24.720 So then it depends not on human will or exertion but on 01:40:24.720 --> 01:40:26.800 God but on God who has mercy. 01:40:26.800 --> 01:40:30.320 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, For this very purpose I have 01:40:30.320 --> 01:40:33.760 raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and 01:40:33.760 --> 01:40:36.800 that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. 01:40:36.800 --> 01:40:40.320 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens 01:40:40.480 --> 01:40:42.080 whomever he wills. 01:40:42.400 --> 01:40:45.920 I think that ties back perfectly into the the election episode that 01:40:45.920 --> 01:40:46.800 we mentioned earlier. 01:40:46.800 --> 01:40:50.080 Again, it's it's really an important one to understand this, and many 01:40:50.080 --> 01:40:53.040 of the other things we say a lot of a lot of 01:40:53.040 --> 01:40:58.240 what is misunderstood in twenty first century Christian theology is the result 01:40:58.240 --> 01:41:00.800 of a bad understanding of election. 01:41:00.800 --> 01:41:02.000 We don't take it seriously. 01:41:02.000 --> 01:41:04.160 We don't we don't think it means anything. 01:41:04.160 --> 01:41:06.080 And And neither did the Jews. 01:41:06.080 --> 01:41:07.920 I mean, that was part of the problem. 01:41:07.920 --> 01:41:12.080 They thought that being lineal sons of Abraham was all it took. 01:41:12.080 --> 01:41:13.280 That and obeying the law. 01:41:13.280 --> 01:41:15.280 You know, you keep the law and you're a child of Abraham 01:41:15.360 --> 01:41:16.320 and you're in. 01:41:16.320 --> 01:41:18.240 And everyone else is out no matter what. 01:41:18.240 --> 01:41:19.520 That's not what God said. 01:41:19.520 --> 01:41:22.480 It was never what God promised. 01:41:22.480 --> 01:41:23.120 And so 01:41:24.080 --> 01:41:26.880 as we look at these things, it's just important to remember how 01:41:26.880 --> 01:41:27.840 God speaks. 01:41:27.840 --> 01:41:32.880 He talks about them being important for these purposes, but it wasn't 01:41:32.880 --> 01:41:34.800 they were not a purpose unto themselves. 01:41:34.800 --> 01:41:37.520 The Jews didn't exist for the sake of the Jews. 01:41:37.520 --> 01:41:38.880 They do today. 01:41:38.880 --> 01:41:43.120 And frankly, in most times in history they did. 01:41:43.120 --> 01:41:47.200 The few glory days that Israel had were the few days when 01:41:47.200 --> 01:41:48.720 they were being faithful. 01:41:48.720 --> 01:41:50.000 It wasn't much. 01:41:50.000 --> 01:41:55.040 You had a period under David, a period under Solomon, and precious 01:41:55.040 --> 01:41:57.760 few other times where there were really glory periods. 01:41:57.760 --> 01:42:03.040 The rest was punishment from God for faithlessness. 01:42:03.440 --> 01:42:06.720 I want to end here with a passage from John 8 that 01:42:06.720 --> 01:42:11.360 um it comes up every year when Easter rolls around because it's 01:42:11.680 --> 01:42:16.080 something that the Jews to this day explicitly condemn. 01:42:16.080 --> 01:42:20.560 Whenever you hear a Jew talking about Christianity, they will bring up 01:42:20.560 --> 01:42:23.760 John, John 8, particularly John eight forty four, but I'm going to 01:42:23.760 --> 01:42:26.480 read the whole passage to put it in context. 01:42:26.480 --> 01:42:29.360 We're going to talk next week about some of the early church 01:42:29.360 --> 01:42:34.960 fathers and some of the quotes and sermons that are called anti-Semitic, 01:42:34.960 --> 01:42:38.320 where were the notion arose that 01:42:39.840 --> 01:42:43.520 you know that that's basically a a term of blasphemy to say 01:42:43.520 --> 01:42:45.440 you were blaspheming against something. 01:42:45.440 --> 01:42:49.600 And when something is called anti-Semitic, you're saying you're blaspheming the Jews. 01:42:49.600 --> 01:42:51.600 Well, that is a religion. 01:42:51.840 --> 01:42:54.720 to have that sort of blasphemy law is indeed a religion, but 01:42:54.720 --> 01:42:56.400 it's not the Christian religion. 01:42:56.400 --> 01:42:58.320 A Christian can only blaspheme God. 01:42:58.320 --> 01:43:00.000 We can't blaspheme anything else. 01:43:00.000 --> 01:43:04.000 No Now, there are ways that we can blaspheme God that don't 01:43:04.000 --> 01:43:06.800 necessarily involve that which is overt. 01:43:06.800 --> 01:43:09.920 So I'm not trying to draw a fuzzy line here where there's 01:43:09.840 --> 01:43:11.200 a clear one. 01:43:11.200 --> 01:43:11.520 But 01:43:12.480 --> 01:43:14.800 we don't get to speak in ways that God doesn't speak. 01:43:14.960 --> 01:43:18.720 So I'm gonna read this passage from John eight to close because 01:43:19.120 --> 01:43:24.240 it's one that's despised and it's one that frankly makes Christians uncomfortable 01:43:24.240 --> 01:43:25.200 this day. 01:43:25.200 --> 01:43:26.880 And that really concerns us. 01:43:26.880 --> 01:43:28.880 I mean that's why Stone Choir exists. 01:43:28.880 --> 01:43:31.440 If there's a passage in scripture that you can read to Christians 01:43:31.600 --> 01:43:35.280 and Christians start squirming, you have a problem. 01:43:35.280 --> 01:43:39.360 Forget anybody else in the world, forget any other opinions you might 01:43:39.360 --> 01:43:43.360 have. If If you are uncomfortable us about something in Scripture, you 01:43:43.360 --> 01:43:46.880 have a spiritual problem. 01:43:46.880 --> 01:43:48.560 So John eight. 01:43:48.720 --> 01:43:51.840 Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide 01:43:51.840 --> 01:43:54.320 in my word you are truly my disciples, and you will know 01:43:54.320 --> 01:43:56.480 the truth, and the truth will set you free. 01:43:56.480 --> 01:43:57.520 They answered him. 01:43:57.520 --> 01:44:00.960 We are offspring of Abraham, and have never been enslaved to anyone. 01:44:00.960 --> 01:44:03.600 How is it you say you will become free? 01:44:03.600 --> 01:44:04.960 Jesus answers them. 01:44:05.440 --> 01:44:09.120 truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave 01:44:09.120 --> 01:44:09.840 to sin. 01:44:09.840 --> 01:44:12.960 The slave does not remain in the house forever, the sun remains 01:44:12.960 --> 01:44:16.240 forever. So if the sun sets you free you will be free 01:44:16.240 --> 01:44:20.240 indeed. I know that you're offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to 01:44:20.240 --> 01:44:23.440 kill me, because my word finds no place in you. 01:44:23.440 --> 01:44:26.400 I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you 01:44:26.400 --> 01:44:29.040 do what you have heard from your father. 01:44:29.200 --> 01:44:33.440 They answered him Abraham is our father, Jesus said to them, If 01:44:33.440 --> 01:44:36.720 you were Abraham's children you would be doing the works Abraham did, 01:44:36.720 --> 01:44:39.600 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told 01:44:39.600 --> 01:44:41.520 you the truth that I heard from God. 01:44:41.520 --> 01:44:43.360 This is not what Abraham did. 01:44:43.360 --> 01:44:45.840 You were doing the works your father did. 01:44:45.840 --> 01:44:49.280 They said to him, We are not born of sexual immorality, we 01:44:49.280 --> 01:44:51.120 have one Father, even God. 01:44:51.120 --> 01:44:54.400 Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love 01:44:54.400 --> 01:44:56.720 me, for I came from God and I am here. 01:44:56.720 --> 01:44:59.360 I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 01:44:59.360 --> 01:45:01.600 Why do you not understand what I say? 01:45:01.600 --> 01:45:04.320 It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 01:45:04.320 --> 01:45:07.360 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to 01:45:07.360 --> 01:45:08.960 do your father's desires. 01:45:08.960 --> 01:45:11.360 He was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand 01:45:12.000 --> 01:45:14.640 in the truth, because there is no truth in him. 01:45:14.640 --> 01:45:17.440 When he lies he speaks out of his own character, for he 01:45:17.440 --> 01:45:21.120 is a liar and the father of lies. 01:45:21.120 --> 01:45:24.080 But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. 01:45:24.080 --> 01:45:26.480 Which one of you convicts me of sin if I tell the 01:45:26.480 --> 01:45:28.480 truth? Why do you not believe me? 01:45:28.480 --> 01:45:31.120 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. 01:45:31.120 --> 01:45:34.000 The reason why you do not hear them is that you are 01:45:34.000 --> 01:45:34.960 not of God 01:45:38.000 --> 01:45:42.000 This is a profound passage because Jesus is speaking directly to a 01:45:42.000 --> 01:45:46.960 crowd of Jews and He's telling them, You are Satan's children. 01:45:46.960 --> 01:45:50.240 You are deaf to my voice because you were born of the 01:45:50.240 --> 01:45:51.600 father of lies. 01:45:51.600 --> 01:45:54.960 Even as they stand there and they make claims of lineage, and 01:45:54.960 --> 01:45:59.360 claims of being sons of Abraham, and claims of righteousness, he says 01:45:59.440 --> 01:46:00.720 you have none of those things. 01:46:00.720 --> 01:46:04.080 You do not do Abraham's works because you do not have Abraham's 01:46:04.080 --> 01:46:07.280 faith, which was the root of election. 01:46:07.280 --> 01:46:11.760 Abraham had faith, and it was counted to him as righteousness. 01:46:11.760 --> 01:46:13.680 The circumcision came after. 01:46:13.680 --> 01:46:17.520 The circumcision was not what made him righteous, he was circumcised because 01:46:17.520 --> 01:46:18.400 he was righteous. 01:46:18.400 --> 01:46:21.600 He was righteous and therefore he obeyed God. 01:46:21.600 --> 01:46:24.000 The order of operations matters. 01:46:24.000 --> 01:46:27.360 And Jesus understood that Jesus is God, as he said, when he 01:46:27.360 --> 01:46:30.240 came to him and he did his father's things and they hated 01:46:30.240 --> 01:46:33.120 it, it's because they are of their father. 01:46:33.120 --> 01:46:37.600 When there is a man today, whether it's two thousand years ago 01:46:37.600 --> 01:46:41.760 or today, when a man hates the things of God, that man 01:46:41.760 --> 01:46:42.800 is of Satan. 01:46:44.000 --> 01:46:45.680 It's not all Jews today. 01:46:45.680 --> 01:46:48.560 There are a few Jews who actually become Christian and cease to 01:46:48.560 --> 01:46:51.920 be Jews, and there are many who are not Jews who are 01:46:51.920 --> 01:46:53.520 enemies of God today. 01:46:53.520 --> 01:46:56.560 And today in our own churches, we have these same Jews. 01:46:56.560 --> 01:46:59.600 They don't go by the name Jew, but they hate God just 01:46:59.600 --> 01:47:00.320 as much. 01:47:00.320 --> 01:47:02.480 They will thump their genealogy. 01:47:02.480 --> 01:47:04.640 It won't be the genealogy of Abraham. 01:47:04.640 --> 01:47:08.480 It will be the genealogy of some confession, a confession which points 01:47:08.640 --> 01:47:11.360 God faithfully, but they will ignore that part. 01:47:11.360 --> 01:47:15.680 They will just use whatever they can as an anchor to make 01:47:15.680 --> 01:47:18.880 themselves a participant in something where they are not participants. 01:47:18.880 --> 01:47:22.640 You can only participate in God's things if you were God's child. 01:47:22.640 --> 01:47:25.600 And you're only his child by adoption through faith. 01:47:25.600 --> 01:47:28.720 Those who do not have faith are not adopted sons of God. 01:47:28.720 --> 01:47:31.200 They remain children of Satan. 01:47:31.200 --> 01:47:35.200 And so as you see people in the world reacting to God's 01:47:35.200 --> 01:47:39.440 things, many times in this preaching, whether it's from Jesus or Peter 01:47:39.440 --> 01:47:42.720 or Paul or any other man, when they preach, some of the 01:47:42.720 --> 01:47:43.920 people were confused. 01:47:43.920 --> 01:47:47.760 They it wasn't ignorant confusion, it wasn't a confusion born of a 01:47:47.760 --> 01:47:48.880 lack of faith. 01:47:48.880 --> 01:47:51.120 They were hearing something for the first time and they didn't know 01:47:51.120 --> 01:47:52.400 what to make of it. 01:47:52.400 --> 01:47:53.920 That's okay. 01:47:53.920 --> 01:47:56.400 That there's hope for that man. 01:47:56.400 --> 01:48:00.000 Some believed immediately, some all already believed. 01:48:00.000 --> 01:48:01.840 Those are saved. 01:48:01.840 --> 01:48:05.840 The rest, and frankly the majority, in Jesus' day and in our 01:48:05.840 --> 01:48:09.200 day, hear the things of God and they react by saying, You 01:48:09.200 --> 01:48:13.840 have a demon, you are evil There's no middle ground when you're 01:48:13.840 --> 01:48:16.480 dealing with people who are possessed by the devil. 01:48:16.480 --> 01:48:19.840 They know when they're dealing with the Son of God, and their 01:48:19.840 --> 01:48:21.440 reactions are violent. 01:48:21.440 --> 01:48:23.920 They're filled with hatred. 01:48:23.920 --> 01:48:27.520 We should expect that when we are faithful to God, there will 01:48:27.520 --> 01:48:30.320 be times when it elicits those same responses. 01:48:30.320 --> 01:48:33.760 That is not that there's been some miscommunication. 01:48:33.760 --> 01:48:36.480 It's not that we should have been more winsome, we should have 01:48:36.480 --> 01:48:37.280 been nicer. 01:48:37.280 --> 01:48:41.280 It's not that if we'd only use different words they would understand. 01:48:41.280 --> 01:48:44.800 It's that we are of our Father in heaven and they are 01:48:44.800 --> 01:48:46.560 of their Father the devil. 01:48:46.560 --> 01:48:49.520 You will face this in your lives if you're faithful Christians. 01:48:49.520 --> 01:48:51.920 If you just if you hide and and try to ride it 01:48:51.920 --> 01:48:55.600 out, it's not gonna work, but you'll you'll learn that the hard 01:48:55.600 --> 01:48:57.840 way. You are going to have to take a stand for Christ 01:48:57.920 --> 01:49:00.240 and there there will be days when that hurts. 01:49:00.240 --> 01:49:03.840 There will be days where you suffer for it and you were 01:49:03.840 --> 01:49:04.960 hated to your face 01:49:05.840 --> 01:49:08.960 because that is the state that the world is in. 01:49:08.960 --> 01:49:13.120 The father of lies, the father of Jews is running the show 01:49:13.120 --> 01:49:16.800 today. There's not much left of the faithful remnant. 01:49:16.800 --> 01:49:20.720 It exists and it will always exist, but only because God promised 01:49:20.720 --> 01:49:22.480 it and God will preserve it. 01:49:22.480 --> 01:49:24.480 God will preserve his people. 01:49:24.480 --> 01:49:27.680 Everyone else is gonna try to kill us. 01:49:27.680 --> 01:49:28.880 That's good news. 01:49:28.880 --> 01:49:30.480 It means that we're on the right side. 01:49:30.480 --> 01:49:33.200 It means that we're on God's side and God is on our 01:49:33.200 --> 01:49:36.240 side. That's the thing we have to worry about. 01:49:36.240 --> 01:49:39.120 So don't be afraid of topics that seem scary. 01:49:39.120 --> 01:49:41.920 Be afraid of the fact that a topic that seems scary is 01:49:41.920 --> 01:49:44.560 scary in the first place, because it shouldn't be. 01:49:44.560 --> 01:49:46.960 The truth should not scare Christians. 01:49:46.960 --> 01:49:51.200 When someone's afraid of the truth, that person has a bigger problem. 01:49:51.200 --> 01:49:54.800 And we've said before, these are not problems that a podcast can 01:49:54.800 --> 01:49:57.040 solve. You need to spend time in the Word. 01:49:57.040 --> 01:50:01.600 You need to spend time studying scripture and contemplating and meditating on 01:50:01.600 --> 01:50:02.320 these things. 01:50:02.320 --> 01:50:05.360 And be aware in your life, not just on Sunday, not just 01:50:05.360 --> 01:50:08.560 in Bible class, be aware every every day of where you're seeing 01:50:08.560 --> 01:50:10.000 these things playing out. 01:50:10.000 --> 01:50:13.680 And you will find that there's a spiritual tenor to things that 01:50:13.680 --> 01:50:16.640 don't necessarily have a spiritual context. 01:50:16.640 --> 01:50:20.720 Your workplace is going to have a spiritual tenor to things where 01:50:21.040 --> 01:50:23.920 maybe 20 years ago it didn't, or if it did, it wasn't 01:50:23.920 --> 01:50:24.880 at all obvious. 01:50:24.880 --> 01:50:26.640 Today it's gonna be obvious. 01:50:26.640 --> 01:50:30.080 This is where the battleground is, and this is where we will 01:50:30.080 --> 01:50:33.360 prove ourselves to either be faithful children of God or to be 01:50:33.360 --> 01:50:34.320 sons of Satan. 01:50:34.320 --> 01:50:37.040 As Christians, we have only one choice. 01:50:37.040 --> 01:50:40.720 And as we see others respond, we see them choosing as well. 01:50:40.720 --> 01:50:43.200 All these sermons that were delivered in the old in the New 01:50:43.360 --> 01:50:46.240 Testament served a winnowing function. 01:50:46.240 --> 01:50:51.360 Many wandered away from Jesus preaching, upset or confused or angry, a 01:50:51.360 --> 01:50:53.600 few stuck around because they believed. 01:50:53.600 --> 01:50:56.080 The same math is going to work out today. 01:50:56.080 --> 01:50:58.560 Be one of the few who sticks around and believes in God, 01:50:58.560 --> 01:51:01.360 because on the last day he is going to welcome each of 01:51:01.360 --> 01:51:02.480 us. 01:51:02.480 --> 01:51:02.640 And 01:51:02.640 --> 01:51:05.360 so I want to close out this episode by going over 01:51:06.640 --> 01:51:13.280 a seemingly minor technical matter, but something that is really at the 01:51:13.280 --> 01:51:17.920 foundation of all of this for this series of episodes and many 01:51:17.920 --> 01:51:24.000 of the others as well, and that is the word concept fallacy. 01:51:24.000 --> 01:51:28.320 This is really in a sense, related to the idea of essence 01:51:28.320 --> 01:51:29.200 and accident. 01:51:29.200 --> 01:51:31.600 Those who understand those terms can tie that together. 01:51:31.600 --> 01:51:33.520 I won't go over that bit. 01:51:33.520 --> 01:51:37.760 But the word concept fallacy has two essential forms. 01:51:37.760 --> 01:51:41.840 The first one is that you believe you've studied a word and 01:51:41.840 --> 01:51:44.000 therefore you understand the concept. 01:51:44.000 --> 01:51:47.200 That's a fallacy you can study a word without understanding the concept 01:51:47.200 --> 01:51:48.800 to which it refers. 01:51:48.800 --> 01:51:52.400 But the second one, and perhaps the more important one here, is 01:51:53.120 --> 01:51:56.160 the conflation of the two things. 01:51:56.160 --> 01:52:01.120 The conflation of the word that symbolizes the concept and the concept 01:52:01.120 --> 01:52:06.640 itself. That is what we have happening in many of these issues. 01:52:06.640 --> 01:52:10.960 For instance, with the term Jew, there are those who will use 01:52:11.200 --> 01:52:16.000 the term and then conflate it with the concept, and there are 01:52:16.000 --> 01:52:18.080 several different concepts it covers. 01:52:18.080 --> 01:52:23.120 You can be Jewish by blood, you can be Jewish by religion. 01:52:23.120 --> 01:52:25.040 Those are not the same thing. 01:52:25.040 --> 01:52:29.920 If you conflate those and then say the term always refers to 01:52:30.080 --> 01:52:33.840 one or the other or both, you are You are running afoul 01:52:34.000 --> 01:52:37.840 of this fallacy, you are committing this error. 01:52:37.840 --> 01:52:41.200 And so it is important to understand the sense in which the 01:52:41.200 --> 01:52:46.400 terms are being used, but perhaps more relevant to us as Christians 01:52:46.560 --> 01:52:49.840 and more in our own backyard. 01:52:49.840 --> 01:52:52.800 For instance, if you are holding a Bible and the book of 01:52:52.800 --> 01:52:56.640 Concord, that doesn't make you a Lutheran. 01:52:56.640 --> 01:53:00.720 If you just say that, well, I have these and I believe 01:53:00.720 --> 01:53:04.480 them, that still doesn't make you a Lutheran. 01:53:04.480 --> 01:53:08.960 If you believe them, that makes you a Lutheran. 01:53:09.280 --> 01:53:14.080 Now, some will have brought to mind the idea of well, that's 01:53:14.080 --> 01:53:17.760 no true Scotsman fallacy, but it's not. 01:53:17.760 --> 01:53:22.080 And that's where that accident and essence issue comes in. 01:53:22.080 --> 01:53:26.720 There are things that you are essentially, and there are things that 01:53:26.720 --> 01:53:30.720 you are not essentially, they can change. 01:53:30.720 --> 01:53:35.680 If you are male, you are essentially male, that cannot change. 01:53:35.680 --> 01:53:38.080 You aren't male because you believe you're male. 01:53:38.080 --> 01:53:40.560 You aren't male because you call yourself male. 01:53:40.560 --> 01:53:43.200 You aren't male because you put pronouns at the end of your 01:53:43.200 --> 01:53:44.160 email signature. 01:53:44.160 --> 01:53:45.360 That's not how that works. 01:53:45.360 --> 01:53:47.280 That is something you are essentially. 01:53:47.280 --> 01:53:48.960 The same is true of your race. 01:53:49.840 --> 01:53:53.600 If you are German, you are German because your parents were German. 01:53:53.600 --> 01:53:56.480 If you are English, you are English because your parents were English, 01:53:56.480 --> 01:53:58.160 the same for any race. 01:53:58.160 --> 01:54:01.120 That is something you are essentially. 01:54:01.120 --> 01:54:01.680 You are not 01:54:02.640 --> 01:54:05.200 essentially a Christian 01:54:06.160 --> 01:54:09.920 because you may not have been a Christian as a child. 01:54:09.920 --> 01:54:11.760 You could apostatize. 01:54:11.760 --> 01:54:15.120 That can change, and therefore it is not in this sense of 01:54:15.120 --> 01:54:18.000 the term essential. 01:54:18.000 --> 01:54:22.480 And so when you are dealing with the no true Scotsman issue, 01:54:22.480 --> 01:54:26.800 that only applies to things that are essential, and that's why it's 01:54:26.800 --> 01:54:28.800 no true Scotsman. 01:54:28.800 --> 01:54:30.320 Because that is race. 01:54:30.320 --> 01:54:30.960 That is blood. 01:54:30.960 --> 01:54:32.240 You cannot change that. 01:54:32.240 --> 01:54:35.120 And so if you say no true Scotsman would wear pink and 01:54:35.120 --> 01:54:38.720 you find a Scotsman by blood who's wearing pink, well you can't 01:54:38.720 --> 01:54:40.880 just say, well no true Scotsman. 01:54:41.600 --> 01:54:44.480 Because you found a true Scotsman who's wearing pink. 01:54:44.480 --> 01:54:48.080 Now there are other issues here, there's some nuance I could go 01:54:48.080 --> 01:54:52.000 into, but we'll leave that aside for now. 01:54:52.000 --> 01:54:56.480 The issue here is that when you are dealing with Christianity, when 01:54:56.480 --> 01:54:59.200 you are dealing with religion, when you're dealing with a confession or 01:54:59.200 --> 01:55:04.160 a political party, anything like that, these things have tenets. 01:55:04.160 --> 01:55:08.240 They have doctrines, they have things they profess, things they assert that 01:55:08.240 --> 01:55:08.800 are true. 01:55:08.800 --> 01:55:12.960 If you believe those things, you belong to that group. 01:55:12.960 --> 01:55:15.440 Because that is what defines the group. 01:55:15.440 --> 01:55:20.400 Being a Scotsman is defined by blood, not by what color you 01:55:20.400 --> 01:55:25.440 wear or which pattern you wear, whatever it happens to be. 01:55:25.440 --> 01:55:29.200 That is not the case with Christianity. 01:55:29.200 --> 01:55:34.160 To be a Christian, you must believe the things that scripture teaches. 01:55:34.160 --> 01:55:36.480 That is what it means to be a Christian. 01:55:36.480 --> 01:55:41.040 A Christian has faith in Christ, in the saving blood of Christ, 01:55:41.040 --> 01:55:43.760 in his atonement, in his sacrifice. 01:55:43.760 --> 01:55:45.600 That is what it means to be a Christian. 01:55:45.920 --> 01:55:48.720 Being a Christian does not mean holding up the Bible and waving 01:55:48.720 --> 01:55:49.520 it at people. 01:55:49.520 --> 01:55:51.040 That doesn't make you a Christian. 01:55:51.040 --> 01:55:54.080 Being a Lutheran doesn't mean holding up the book of Concord and 01:55:54.080 --> 01:55:55.040 waving it at people. 01:55:55.040 --> 01:55:58.320 Being reformed doesn't mean holding up the Westminster Confession and waving it 01:55:58.320 --> 01:55:58.560 at people. 01:55:58.720 --> 01:56:02.400 People, whichever group it is, you have to actually believe the contents 01:56:02.400 --> 01:56:04.560 of that book. 01:56:04.560 --> 01:56:07.920 And so if someone tells you, well of course I'm ex 01:56:09.040 --> 01:56:11.200 of course I'm this kind of Christian. 01:56:11.200 --> 01:56:14.000 Look, I have the collar and the book, and that's not what 01:56:14.000 --> 01:56:15.040 it means. 01:56:15.040 --> 01:56:16.560 What does he actually believe? 01:56:16.560 --> 01:56:17.760 What does he actually teach? 01:56:17.760 --> 01:56:19.920 What does he do in his life? 01:56:20.240 --> 01:56:22.240 It is the same thing with the Jews. 01:56:22.240 --> 01:56:25.600 There are Jews who can convert to Christianity and no longer be 01:56:25.600 --> 01:56:27.200 a Jew and be Christian. 01:56:27.200 --> 01:56:31.600 There are Christians who can be apostate in everything they do and 01:56:31.600 --> 01:56:34.560 still claim to be Christian. 01:56:34.560 --> 01:56:36.800 Simply labeling yourself with the term 01:56:37.760 --> 01:56:39.600 does not make you the thing. 01:56:39.600 --> 01:56:43.280 One would think that Christians living in an era when we have 01:56:43.280 --> 01:56:46.000 men claiming to be women and women claiming to be men and 01:56:46.000 --> 01:56:49.520 people claiming to be dogs and whatever else is happening out there, 01:56:49.520 --> 01:56:52.800 one would think it would be obvious that simply claiming to be 01:56:52.800 --> 01:56:57.360 a thing does not make you the thing. 01:56:57.360 --> 01:57:02.160 And yet pastors and many others constantly get away with doing so. 01:57:02.160 --> 01:57:05.440 That not let them get away with it. 01:57:05.440 --> 01:57:09.440 Simply claiming that you are X does not make you X. 01:57:09.440 --> 01:57:13.440 Simply claiming that you are Christian does not make you Christian. 01:57:13.440 --> 01:57:17.840 Being a Christian means believing the Word of God, trusting in Christ 01:57:17.840 --> 01:57:20.720 as your Lord and Savior. 01:57:20.720 --> 01:57:25.520 And yes, it does also mean rejecting the various teachings of the 01:57:25.520 --> 01:57:31.600 devil. That is why, as Lutherans, for instance, in our confirmation oath, 01:57:31.600 --> 01:57:34.880 we reject the devil in all his works and all his ways 01:57:35.680 --> 01:57:39.120 because that is part of what it means to be a Christian. 01:57:39.120 --> 01:57:43.760 And so when the Jews told Christ, We're descended from Abraham, we've 01:57:43.760 --> 01:57:47.600 never been slaves, of course we're saved, of course we're elect. 01:57:47.600 --> 01:57:49.840 That's not what it means. 01:57:49.840 --> 01:57:53.600 That's why in Romans it says not all who are descended from 01:57:53.600 --> 01:57:57.920 Israel belong to Israel, those are two different things. 01:57:57.920 --> 01:58:03.280 The first is the essential, that's race, descended from Israel. 01:58:03.280 --> 01:58:06.240 The second is belong to Israel. 01:58:06.240 --> 01:58:09.680 That's Christians, that's the church. 01:58:09.680 --> 01:58:14.480 You can be descended from Israel by blood and not belong to 01:58:14.480 --> 01:58:17.440 Israel, the church by faith. 01:58:17.440 --> 01:58:21.520 You can belong to Israel, the church by faith, and not be 01:58:21.520 --> 01:58:26.480 descended from Israel, the man by blood. 01:58:26.480 --> 01:58:30.720 Being a Christian is a matter of faith. 01:58:30.720 --> 01:58:32.800 That is the core of what we believe. 01:58:32.800 --> 01:58:34.720 That is why we call it of faith 01:58:36.480 --> 01:58:41.520 Believe the words of God as they are written in his book. 01:58:41.520 --> 01:58:43.920 Don't water them down for the world. 01:58:43.920 --> 01:58:46.720 Don't ignore them because they're uncomfortable. 01:58:46.720 --> 01:58:49.440 Don't start editing the scripture because it makes you uncomfortable 01:58:50.320 --> 01:58:52.160 or it makes your life more difficult. 01:58:52.160 --> 01:58:55.280 As Christians we are called to proclaim the truth in season and 01:58:55.280 --> 01:58:56.960 out of season. 01:58:56.960 --> 01:59:00.480 And that is, in fact, regardless of the consequences. 01:59:00.480 --> 01:59:04.800 Yes, we may apply wisdom to these things, but we do not 01:59:04.800 --> 01:59:07.360 get to deny the truth. 01:59:07.360 --> 01:59:11.760 Because denying God's truth is denying Christ before men. 01:59:16.480 --> 01:59:19.840 We as Christians are going to spend eternity with Adam and with 01:59:19.840 --> 01:59:24.560 Noah and with Abraham and with Moses and with Elijah and with 01:59:24.560 --> 01:59:28.960 Jesus. We're going to spend eternity with them because they were Christian. 01:59:28.960 --> 01:59:30.240 They are Christian. 01:59:30.240 --> 01:59:31.600 We are Christian. 01:59:31.600 --> 01:59:35.920 The essence of the Christian faith is belief in the gospel, belief 01:59:35.920 --> 01:59:38.080 and the promise of the Messiah. 01:59:38.080 --> 01:59:40.400 Those who lived before the Messiah believed in the promise 01:59:41.280 --> 01:59:43.360 as it was yet to be fulfilled. 01:59:43.360 --> 01:59:46.320 Those who lived in Christ's day believed in the promise of the 01:59:46.320 --> 01:59:50.800 Messiah as they witnessed its fulfillment, and we who lived two thousand 01:59:50.800 --> 01:59:52.800 years after the fulfillment of the Messiah's promise 01:59:53.680 --> 01:59:56.000 believe it in retrospect. 01:59:56.000 --> 01:59:59.360 We believe that which has been fulfilled and transmitted to us through 01:59:59.360 --> 02:00:03.840 time, and in eternity, we will all be united as Christians because 02:00:03.840 --> 02:00:08.080 every single person in heaven, every single person who will be in 02:00:08.080 --> 02:00:12.560 the new earth is a Christian in essence. 02:00:12.560 --> 02:00:16.160 The essence of the Christian faith is belief in the Messiah who 02:00:16.160 --> 02:00:18.480 has delivered the eternal life to us. 02:00:18.880 --> 02:00:22.960 Every man in fa in heaven believed that and received it. 02:00:22.960 --> 02:00:26.160 That is how the Christian faith works. 02:00:26.160 --> 02:00:27.440 Amen.