- 12 hours ago
Everything that exists, exists for God's purposes. You can't define creation, let alone the Creator. He sets the rules and declares the winners. Our job is to be who he has told us to be, and anyone who refuses has no right to complain that they will be condemned to eternal destruction in the end.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
Follow me on X: https://jaycarper.com/twitter
Follow me on Facebook: https://jaycarper.com/fbat
Follow me on Whole Bible Community: https://jaycarper.com/ttn
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LearningTranscript
00:00:01welcome back again we're starting on romans 11 verse 30 tonight and just as a review we are
00:00:11still right at the end of the section of romans where paul is primarily talking to the gentiles
00:00:17at the roman church the whole book is to both jews and gentiles there's no particular section
00:00:23that's only for gentiles or only for jews but he does have a primary audience that he's talking to
00:00:29in the first half and a primary audience he's talking to for most of the second half and we're
00:00:35right at the end of that section where he's primarily focusing on the gentiles we might get
00:00:40into the next section tonight starting in chapter 12 where he's talking about living at peace with
00:00:45god and man and that's the counterpoint to where what he talked about at the beginning where men
00:00:51are living in rebellion against god and abusing each other and themselves and creating all kinds
00:00:58problems so the second half is a little more hopeful than the beginning than the first half
00:01:04there's also a literary structure in this one it's not a real meaningful one but it's just kind of a
00:01:13neat little way that paul has arranged some words and i think really more it illustrates the way that
00:01:19ancient people's thought and express themselves more than it gives us any profound spiritual insights but
00:01:26that's going to flash across your screen here but don't look yet because i'm saving that for later
00:01:31where'd it go oh it's a little bit later it's a couple more slides down all right starting reading
00:01:37in verse 30 for just as you were at one time disobedient to god but now have received mercy
00:01:42because of their disobedience that's the jews so they too have now been disobedient in order that by
00:01:48the mercy shown to you they also may receive mercy for god has consigned all to disobedience that he may
00:01:54have mercy on all oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of god how unsearchable are his
00:02:00judgments and how inscrutable his ways for who has known the mind of the lord or who has been his
00:02:05counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through him
00:02:11and to him are all things to him be glory forever amen i appeal to you therefore brothers by the
00:02:17mercies
00:02:18of god to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to god which is your spiritual
00:02:23worship do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind
00:02:29that by testing you may discern what is the will of god and what is good and acceptable and perfect
00:02:35for by the grace given to me i say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly
00:02:39than he
00:02:40ought to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that god has
00:02:45a sign and we'll read further if we get that far but for now let's go back to chapter 11
00:02:52verse 30
00:02:54and in these verses i don't have a lot of references in other parts of the bible to pull up
00:03:00i mean there
00:03:01are there are other places in the bible that talk about similar things and paul is actually quoting
00:03:06other places in the scriptures but you know usually i have one or two references for every verse
00:03:13this time not so much but we do still have plenty to talk about so here in verses 30 to
00:03:2232 he's kind
00:03:24of recapping what he said about the jews and gentiles earlier in the chapter how you know the the jews
00:03:30may
00:03:31be god's chosen people and they have these covenants but because they rebelled and refused to accept the
00:03:37gospel he's able to bring the gospel to the gentiles and you know he was able to before of course
00:03:44because
00:03:44we saw that jonah did the same thing people were always able to bring the gospel to the nations and
00:03:51that's part of israel's original commission from god was to do that but paul wanted to bring his
00:03:57message to the jews just like jonah didn't want to go to the minivites he wanted to minister to his
00:04:02own
00:04:02people and so when they rejected him that kind of forced him to go out to the gentiles and so
00:04:10this
00:04:10is one of the reasons that we can say that by their disobedience the gentiles have been shown mercy
00:04:17and it's not that god couldn't show mercy to gentiles until the jews were disobedient
00:04:21but that their disobedience facilitated the spread of the gospel outside of israel and outside of
00:04:27just the jewish people so the but i think in order to understand what that mercy means
00:04:35we should probably go back and talk about the gospel a little bit more i know that we've talked
00:04:40about what the gospel is before but just to review for yourself who wants to tell me what the gospel
00:04:46is
00:04:47open mic night reconciliation to relationship which was broken in the garden
00:04:56yeah that's the probably the most important aspect of it but how does god do that and what does that
00:05:04relationship look like i think first he established that which is holy that which is
00:05:10set apart that which is expected and created a system which was a sacrificial system
00:05:18in the old testament to help to create a a process through which we could approach him and yeshua came
00:05:31and not that he replaced the sacrificial system but somehow his death and our relationship with him
00:05:41helped to help to establish that in a more permanent and a more effective way than than was before because
00:05:51what was before was was uh sort of like uh sunday go to mass uh say your go to confession
00:05:58confess your
00:05:59sins and then you have to come back next sunday or saturday whatever it was and do the same
00:06:03just using a catholic reference but you know it was a ongoing process which
00:06:08he kind of established he being yeshua and more permanent means yeah well that's that's a pretty
00:06:17good high level view i think and you know some of the i think the the aspect that you mentioned
00:06:23about
00:06:23separating the holy from the unholy or for the clean from the unclean that's a really big part of the
00:06:28gospel that i think is neglected a lot and that's it's actually pretty prominent in some of the prophecies
00:06:35about the millennial kingdom or and about eternity is that in in the new jerusalem there will be nothing
00:06:43unclean like nobody who eats mice and pigs none of those people will live there nobody who lies or
00:06:49commits murder nothing like that and you know one of the things that god commanded his people to do
00:06:56especially his priests who are also holy because they're set apart for a special purpose
00:07:01is to teach the people to separate the clean from the unclean and that's a big part of having a
00:07:08relationship with god and if we're going to restore our relationship with our creator then understanding
00:07:14the difference between clean and unclean and incorporating that into our lives is a big part of it
00:07:20there are several statements of partial statements i'd say of the gospel in both what we call the
00:07:28gospels and in the prophets and it's in the prophets it's mostly about establishing the kingdom the
00:07:37messiah comes sets up his kingdom on earth peace comes to israel and the we have god's presence there
00:07:46in the city with the people again that's kind of the core of it but in order for that to
00:07:51happen we
00:07:52have to have all this other stuff we have to have the the redemption we have to have the cleansing
00:07:57of
00:07:57the people and all of these other steps and one of the first things that you know john and yeshua
00:08:04both
00:08:05taught in their ministry like the first thing repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand
00:08:12and the gospels say that this is the gospel repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand
00:08:17and it's not that the kingdom of heaven is waiting for us to repent but that if you want to
00:08:22be in the
00:08:23kingdom of heaven repent and it's already growing among us it's already and not yet what was the
00:08:31question again jay what is the gospel my answer to that that's a message from the father which is a
00:08:43good
00:08:43good news about yeshua and how people can be saved and how people can be saved from judgment
00:08:55if they believe and accept him as a redeemer yeah and he is the king who establishes that kingdom
00:09:04and the kingdom is for the redeemed and there is no permanent redemption without him
00:09:12i saw your hand your hand up kevin do you still have something you wanted to add
00:09:16yeah i was just gonna say oh the gospel is it's a radical because many of the pharisees did not
00:09:30understand these are people who just have a wealth of wisdom knowledge but they could not understand
00:09:39the gospel pretty much and then nicodemus questioned god and asked or jesus and asked about how one must
00:09:50be born again just from experience you know like it's definitely you have you must be born again and of
00:10:03course that you know what what does that mean or again you know when i when i became when i
00:10:12when i
00:10:12became a christian uh i forsook everything that i knew i i i it was like i was starting from
00:10:20scratch
00:10:21like i just wanted the lord to teach me so there was that rebirth and but the good news the
00:10:32gift of
00:10:33eternal life was not through anything that i can do like you can do all these things
00:10:42and it means nothing if you don't know yeshua like it it means absolutely nothing because the pharisees
00:10:52they they they knew a lot and they they followed the law the best they could and they also followed
00:10:56their own laws which got them into trouble because they didn't really understand what the torah was all
00:11:04about they added to the torah they added these things and so they were following their own rules
00:11:09which is uh which is what i catch jesus and then sinning which he didn't send you know they kind
00:11:15of catch
00:11:16him on the sabbath but i would say it's it's it's not on our own it's not on our own
00:11:24effort
00:11:26it's based on what yahshua has done on the cross he did the work for us he said it's finished
00:11:34and those who come to christ uh are going to do good works because the holy spirit
00:11:45is within them and as and the holy spirit our temple right the temple is is our bodies and holy
00:11:52spirits there and one more thing i want to mention is the holy of holies back then they had the
00:11:58tabernacle
00:11:58in the temple like you there was a there you didn't mess around you will die if you did something
00:12:05wrong and what was it aaron's sons that did something wrong and then they yeah they played
00:12:10with the choir and they died like you don't mess you there is there is a particular way of doing
00:12:17things
00:12:18and the holy of holies what only the priest could enter in there at one time a year or something
00:12:24like
00:12:24that so now because yeshua has done this we have access to the father we don't need to go to
00:12:35the
00:12:35temple we don't need to go through the holy of holies like we have access to him yeah those are
00:12:41some
00:12:42really important points that it's important that we don't skip over that because like you're saying
00:12:47the pharisees believed that because they were jews because they were born into israel therefore they were
00:12:52saved they had a place in the kingdom and you know they had the covenants and they had the prophets
00:12:58and the torah but that doesn't necessarily mean they had a place in the kingdom and it was
00:13:06you know like you're saying you can't earn your way into the kingdom you know repentance is a necessary
00:13:12prerequisite but all of the things that come with repentance come later there's nothing i mean our gut says
00:13:18well i have to be good enough but you're never going to be good enough so that's impossible it's
00:13:26more of a heart condition of i want to be good enough and i am committing to submitting and doing
00:13:31whatever he says and without having done anything yet and that's the entrance and one of the things that
00:13:40pharisees really did not understand was that the kingdom wasn't just an ethnic political state it was
00:13:49a spiritual reality that grew not just among genetic israelites but among anybody who would put all of
00:13:58their faith into yahweh when you do that is and you commit to keeping his commandments you become
00:14:07one of his people now i'm i suspect that there were people all over the world who knew that there
00:14:13was a
00:14:13creator and were really wanting to obey him and committed their lives to doing so and i think that
00:14:19god honors that even if nobody came to them and taught them all of god's commandments and so that's
00:14:26just part of it being a heart state rather than you know a series of you know a checklist a
00:14:33bunch of
00:14:33stuff you have to do as an entrance exam or something but it does come with some requirements
00:14:39then once you are a citizen of the kingdom well now you've got some things that god expects of you
00:14:46and it's not like you will be kicked out of the kingdom if you don't live up to it because
00:14:51none of
00:14:51us probably will at least not until the resurrection it's more of a matter of do you accept the requirements
00:14:58or do you reject them and you have to accept them even if you don't live up to them
00:15:05if you're not willing to accept them then you haven't really submitted to god in the first place
00:15:10do you think the whole sir i don't know who was first there
00:15:14oh she can go go ahead jim the father had intended from the very beginning in genesis 3 15
00:15:28that is sure was going to be the fulfillment of the gospel the message was all about him
00:15:37and what he was going to accomplish when he comes on the first the um the initial visit upon the
00:15:52face of
00:15:52the sword first as a human being what he was going to accomplish and it was he was the center
00:16:00of
00:16:01everything so i believe the core the gospel at its core is yeshua he promises in him that we can
00:16:15benefit from through forgiveness because it says in is in first john 1 and 9 if we confess
00:16:23our sins his faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness right so
00:16:33it's about us knowing where we are acknowledging where we are and that the only way we can get access
00:16:46forgiveness to the father is through the son by us seeking forgiveness accepting him as our savior
00:16:59so the father will accept us so everything surrounds him everything yeah it is all covenants between
00:17:11between god and his people follow a similar pattern in that they if god's presence is going to be among
00:17:18his people you know establishing that relationship that scott mentioned then that requires some things
00:17:24to happen you have to have somebody's blood has to be shed for a covenant you know in most cases
00:17:30it's
00:17:31an animal for the new covenant it's yeshua and then there has to be a mediator of the covenant
00:17:36and that's somebody who negotiates the terms and in the first the old covenant at sinai that was moses
00:17:42in the new covenant once again that's yeshua and then there has to be an ongoing mediator someone who
00:17:49is a go-between for the relationship you know depending on how the relationship is working
00:17:54and in the old covenant that is aaron and his sons in the new covenant that's yeshua and then you
00:18:02have
00:18:02to have a relationship with somebody because that's what a covenant is it's a description of a
00:18:06relationship and with the old covenant that is you know the god of fire and smoke and thunder from the
00:18:14mountaintop and in the new covenant it's the same god but he has presented himself as a humble servant
00:18:20you know he will present himself as you know more of the fire and and you know lightning and thunder
00:18:27but that's not the permanent state the permanent state you know as he said in the prophets that
00:18:32you know no longer will you simply call me master but you will call me husband and that's because he
00:18:39wants a more gentle loving relationship than what has been necessary to keep his people in line
00:18:45and every one of those is about yeshua he really is at the center of every role in this covenant
00:18:52and you know the covenant is really what the gospel is all about is the establishment of that new
00:18:56covenant and all of the things that come with it the kingdom and the commandments and the mediator and
00:19:03the groom and the bride and all of those things that's all part of the new covenant and the gospel
00:19:10when you when you hear that the disciples were preaching the gospel were they preaching yeshua or were they
00:19:19preaching reconciliation well i think before the cross before they really understood what was going on
00:19:27they were preaching repentance and reconciliation with god even if they didn't necessarily know all of
00:19:33them know yet that yeshua was the messiah and they certainly didn't understand how the that
00:19:39reconciliation was going to happen they were preaching the same gospel that john and yeshua preached
00:19:46and it was repent for the kingdom of god is at hand and of course repentance didn't mean
00:19:52go check with the pharisees or the scribes or whoever and you know get all the lists of things you
00:19:58have to
00:19:58do make sure you're tzitzioed at the right length and that you know you're wearing the right color on
00:20:03tuesdays it wasn't any of that it was these are god's commandments and are you submitted to him or not
00:20:11so that's why in the next chapter he said we got to present our bodies as living sacrifice
00:20:20i must be holy and acceptable unto the father yep i was thinking of something
00:20:28i have to go to a different room i guess okay i was thinking of something about the kingdom and
00:20:37just
00:20:37thinking about analogies and thinking that if if the pharisees could just become could be part of
00:20:45the kingdom or become part of the kingdom with just their rules and laws it just doesn't really make
00:20:51sense with with the analogy and the setup that god is the language he's using about kings and kingdoms and
00:21:00all that kind of stuff because just like if you were gonna if you're gonna come to america you were
00:21:06going to immigrate to america you could before you get to america and become a citizen you could live
00:21:13like an american in another country or you could try all you want but you still wouldn't be an american
00:21:20and you still wouldn't be free and able to live by the laws of america because you'd be in a
00:21:29different
00:21:29country and your allegiance is different and so it's just really interesting to think that like
00:21:35god was really saying like you have an opportunity to become part of a new kingdom almost like the borders
00:21:41are open and you get to come into this country and become a citizen of this country and give your
00:21:47allegiance to this king and draw near and actually be there and actually you know live under that rule
00:21:54and so i just think it's interesting how you know i know i know that um june wasn't born here
00:22:01but it's
00:22:01like for those of us who were i think it's oftentimes we don't think about what that would be like
00:22:05to be
00:22:05like going from one country to another and i think that's a big part of what god is trying to
00:22:13illustrate it's like you're you're changing your citizenship you're changing your allegiance you're
00:22:20and you're drawing near to this thing that's so amazing just like the rest of the world for many
00:22:25years now at least before now has thought you know becoming an american or coming to america would be this
00:22:30great opportunity to be in that place would be amazing you know the thing about it is
00:22:37you don't become a citizen of america just like that it's a process and for you to even get your
00:22:46citizenship you got to be tested and you have to pass that test yeah to carry the analogy a little
00:22:55bit
00:22:56further um the open borders analogy is you know even in the kingdom with this idea of open borders there
00:23:04are border crossers all the time people coming into the kingdom under false pretenses but god knows
00:23:09who they are and this is what the parable of the wheat and the tares and the parable of the
00:23:15wedding
00:23:15guest is about that there are people who are coming in and are not citizens of the kingdom but they
00:23:22are
00:23:22sneaking in and maybe some of them even think that they're they are citizens but they're not and they're
00:23:28not behaving like it they're not following the rules they're not really submitted to the king
00:23:33and eventually he's going to weed those people out he will exile them but paul speaks in in ephesians
00:23:41i think it's in it's either one or two about those that become citizens are no longer alien to the
00:23:52commonwealth of israel yeah ephesians 2 yeah because even when you come into this country
00:23:59country you get an alien card you are resident but not a citizen i'm thinking about the the legal
00:24:09process right so you have to be an alien first and then you go to the process certain amount of
00:24:20years
00:24:22and you can apply for citizenship then you have to do a test once you pass that test then you
00:24:29go and
00:24:30you swear and you become a citizen and i i believe this is a paul was referring to this when
00:24:38he talked
00:24:38about we are no longer aliens to the commonwealth of israel because we become part of the household
00:24:49yeah the big difference with with our citizenship in the kingdom of god is that you are granted that
00:24:57citizenship presumptuously that yeshua has passed the test for you and now once you're in now you have
00:25:04obligations there are rules you're supposed to keep and if you refuse to keep them that citizenship will
00:25:10be revoked well yeah yep the other thing to consider is that it costs you something to get here
00:25:18it costs you financially to get here it costs you lots of things to get here if you immigrate
00:25:25but technically it's free in the sense that if you can get here and you can work through that process
00:25:32yes and yet i know that process does cost money but it's not the government necessarily trying to make
00:25:38you pay all this tons of money to them like to buy your citizenship and so i think that's another
00:25:48part of where you can see that it's the opportunity that people have seen in coming to this country
00:25:54it's very similar to i think what the opportunity that
00:25:59people who want to join here to god would see that that oh my gosh i can actually
00:26:05let me move heaven and earth to go do that like let me let me go be part of that
00:26:09and so
00:26:12there's a cost but it's a different kind of cost i guess
00:26:17i'm in agreement with you but the thing about it we have to learn the laws of the land this
00:26:23is always
00:26:23we are supposed to learn the laws or the torah of the kingdom absolutely absolutely
00:26:31interestingly enough people who become naturalized citizens in this country
00:26:36often know more about the laws and the rules and the
00:26:40the country than people who are born here it's the same thing in the kingdom of god
00:26:45people that's what i was about to say from foreign religions or no religion at all frequently
00:26:52understand the scriptures better than those who grew up in it because we have so many traditions and
00:27:00doctrines of men that we have mistaken for actual scriptural doctrines
00:27:06okay specifically on our verses here in verse 31 it says they too have now been disobedient
00:27:15in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy the way that paul words
00:27:21this
00:27:22it almost sounds like he is saying that um they had to become disobedient so that then god could show
00:27:28them mercy but that's it's easy to misunderstand what paul is actually saying here what's happening is
00:27:37i mean they were already disobedient all people all men have sinned all women all children whatever
00:27:42all people have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god it's not like the jews that paul went
00:27:47to
00:27:47weren't already sinners but because they were not ready to repent god had to allow them to continue
00:27:55down that road of rejection and sin and then allow you know send paul and apollos and timothy and all
00:28:02of these other people out to the gentiles to bring the gospel to them so that then the gospel could
00:28:07come
00:28:08back to the jews when they were ready for it so it's not that they had to become disobedient in
00:28:14order
00:28:14for god to show mercy but that they had to continue in their disobedience before they would be ready for
00:28:20that mercy does that make sense yeah it's it's a it's a um a parallel to what happened in the
00:28:28garden
00:28:29not sure mercy was extended mercy was extended to adam eve and that they weren't wiped out
00:28:35they had been disobedient i think the jews were reliant upon their heritage upon their
00:28:46they lost sight of the fact that they were saved from what many in the world struggle with that's
00:28:55being disobedience and the importance of that mercy i think was highlighted and it's highlighted
00:29:02because of disobedience so it's sort of a reminder to the jews that hey listen yeah i'd like you to
00:29:10be
00:29:10obedient but we all struggle with disobedience and it's it's my gift to you to relate with you despite
00:29:19you know the static that's developed between us yeah good and then in verse 32 god has consigned all to
00:29:29disobedience i think that consigned is the wrong terminology there i don't know why the esp translators
00:29:36decided on that word looking up that's in verse 32 in the king james says god has concluded them all
00:29:45in unbelief that you might have mercy upon all i think the point isn't that god is i mean consigned
00:29:52kind of sounds like god sent them out to it like he gave them up or deliberately made them disobedient
00:30:01and that's not what he's saying this consigned i think it misses both the literal and the dynamic
00:30:08meaning of what paul is saying he's not talking about giving people up or condemning them to
00:30:14disobedience but sorry i'm trying to looking for the right words here i think it means that god's justice
00:30:20is equally applied to everyone who has sinned he allowed them to continue sinning so that then
00:30:28when the when they were able when they had gotten to bottom you know how they say with an alcoholic
00:30:34or
00:30:34an addict of any kind that you're really not ready to recover until you've hit bottom well he's letting
00:30:40the jews hit bottom he has consigned them to hitting bottom like okay this is what you guys want here
00:30:46you
00:30:46go so because they won't be ready to repent until the pain is enough uh what's that that famous saying
00:30:55i don't
00:30:55remember who said it but people don't change until the pain of of change is exceeded by the pain of
00:31:02staying
00:31:02the same i'm sure i'm getting that wrong a little bit but you know it is it's true that what's
00:31:09the greek
00:31:10word jay for consigned it is subcleo subcleo which means what let me look at the literal meaning here
00:31:22in thayer's dictionary it says to shut up together or kind of like fish in a net or to close
00:31:33up
00:31:33completely and probably abandoning might be a better right word like he has kind of given them up to let
00:31:41them finish out their this course so that they will understand just how bad the effects are of what the
00:31:49route they've chosen to take because until you know that you have a problem how will you know to
00:31:56look for the solution is there a free will connotation of that or well you know i think that
00:32:03i think this whole process of you know abandoning people to their disobedience until they're ready
00:32:10for forgiveness i think that kind of requires a certain amount of free will i mean we can debate what
00:32:16exactly free will means when we're you know the we're like chemical jelly in a in a bowl
00:32:25subjected to all of these out external processes or external stimuli you know exactly where does
00:32:33nurture end in nature and you know yourself where all of these things converge somewhere in there
00:32:41there's some free will but what god is what paul is saying here is that god allows circumstances to
00:32:49continue until you are ready to choose the right thing does that mean that god forces you into
00:32:55circumstances that will make you repent i don't think so i think he it means that he just lets you
00:33:00go
00:33:00he lets you do your thing until you have figured out that your thing doesn't work
00:33:05and most people never figure it out there anything else in these three verses that we need to talk
00:33:10about okay well let's go on to the next ones then the next three or four oh the depth of
00:33:18the riches
00:33:18and wisdom and knowledge of god how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways
00:33:24for who has known the mind of the lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a
00:33:28gift to him that
00:33:28he might be repaid for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be glory
00:33:34forever amen
00:33:36all right there are two quotes in here that i want us to look up excuse me uh the first
00:33:43one
00:33:44is from isaiah 40 verse 13 anybody wants to call that up isaiah isaiah what isaiah chapter 40
00:33:56verse and read verses 12 to 14 who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and measures
00:34:10and measured the heavens with a spam and calculated the dust of the earth with a measure
00:34:22and weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pier of scales who has directed the spirit
00:34:36of the lord
00:34:38or as his counselor has informed him with whom did he consult and who gave him understanding
00:34:51and who taught him in the path of justice and taught him knowledge and informed him of the way of
00:35:04understanding
00:35:06behold the nations are like a drop from a bucket and are regarded as a speck of dust on the
00:35:17scales
00:35:19behold he lifts up the islands like fine dust even lebanon is not enough to burn
00:35:30no um i'm supposed to stop at 15 right am i supposed to continue i'm sorry i was muted
00:35:39no that's that's good all of that was relevant um that was a little bit more than i had asked
00:35:43you to
00:35:43read but it was all good and it was all you know part of the main point and you think
00:35:48about this
00:35:49description of god here and marked off the heavens by his span so god can hold up his hands and
00:35:56you know
00:35:56measure the entire universe and weighed the mountains in a balance now he didn't hasn't literally put the
00:36:02mountains of you know in a scale and balance them against something but it's it's just kind of a poetic
00:36:08description of just how big and powerful god is just as an illustration who here understands how neutron
00:36:20stars work or black holes or gravity can anyone describe the actual mechanism behind gravity
00:36:30well nobody alive can do that nobody understands how gravity works it's all kind of mysterious in
00:36:38you know you can think about things like light and there's so much we don't know about light
00:36:44and we learn more about it all the time and it's kind of like it acts sometimes like a particle
00:36:48like a
00:36:49wave and we can kind of measure its speed and it goes at a different speed through different materials
00:36:57but then gravity gravity has no speed it's instantaneous at all distances it gets weaker with distance
00:37:06but there's like if some large thing were to materialize in space its gravitational effects would be felt
00:37:15instantaneously at all distances there's no time lag between the object and the edge of its gravitational
00:37:22force it just is which is a lot like god and nobody understands how it works
00:37:31except god because god made it so people like to say that you know god is whatever you believe he
00:37:39is
00:37:40and we actually had a conversation about that recently and somebody actually said that he's got
00:37:45his own personal relationship with you and god is whatever you believe he is and god is whatever i believe
00:37:51he is
00:37:53but god is what he is none of our beliefs are relevant it doesn't matter what you think about god
00:38:00god is who he is
00:38:02which is his name he is the one who is nobody can give him a name because nobody can define
00:38:07him
00:38:07i was i was i was just thinking about the last lunar eclipse
00:38:17and you know when we see the wonders of yahweh's hand
00:38:26and still there are people with so much knowledge but still cannot begin to comprehend
00:38:36the wonders of his hand yeah and people think that uh you know there are some scientists
00:38:44who at least at some points in time have thought we we've got it all figured out we've pretty much
00:38:50made
00:38:50every discovery that we're going to make and then somebody makes some discovery that opens up a whole
00:38:56new field of science that nobody even thought about you know it's like the development of quantum physics
00:39:01back in the mid-20th century and now we're getting into things like quantum entanglement where just
00:39:08like gravity doesn't have a speed it interacts with everything instantly quantum entanglement help
00:39:16makes two particles that could be on opposite sides of the universe interact with each other instantly
00:39:21with no time lag how is that even possible people can do math and kind of
00:39:29make some formulas that describe it but nobody really knows what it's how this works but god not only
00:39:36knows how it works he invented it all i mean this is child's play to god and then we've got
00:39:44theories like
00:39:45you know unitarianism and trinitarianism and jesus can't be god because he talked to the father he
00:39:53prayed to god so how can he be god how can one particle on earth be interacting with a particle
00:39:59on alpha centauri at exactly the same moment with no time lag answer me that and then we'll talk about
00:40:05whether god can be a trinity or not the people who think that they can wrap their minds around god
00:40:11and make him make sense are they're being arrogant they're trying to make god into their own image
00:40:18instead of the other way around and then to think about his plans his covenants and his plans with
00:40:24people we want god to make sense within our framework but that's not the way god works we have to
00:40:34make we
00:40:35have to conform our minds to his we have to conform our expectations to what he has said is reality
00:40:42and not try to make god fit into what we want to be real you know he's got a purpose
00:40:48and a plan for
00:40:49everything he does and we only know the little bits that he reveals and what we can discern from
00:40:55the physical natural world around us and everything that we could ever possibly know
00:41:02is just a tiny little fraction compared to what there is to know um that reminds me
00:41:10i made a pie graph and shared it on facebook recently paula knows i think exactly what i'm
00:41:15talking about let me find it a scout probably knows too yep here it is all the stuff that's true
00:41:23the big purple area is the stuff that you can never know test or observe but it's still true you'll
00:41:29never understand it you'll never even know about it and then this other big piece this is the stuff
00:41:35that you don't know but maybe someday you could or it's possible that you could encounter it and then
00:41:42these tiny little bits these are the stuff that you know the stuff that you know that you can't prove
00:41:46the stuff that you know that you can prove and the stuff that you believe is true but isn't
00:41:52that and all of this out here this is all stuff that we will well this is stuff that we
00:41:57will never
00:41:58know and this is stuff that you know some of it we might discover someday and that's how the whole
00:42:05universe is that's how god is 90 of everything that god is and has ever done in thought we couldn't
00:42:12understand it even if he did tell us so it's kind of silly to think that we can really know
00:42:18the mind
00:42:18of god and understand everything about his will and his his internal workings yeah he's he's playing
00:42:26a very long game because you know we we are born we grow up we mature we live and we
00:42:33die god doesn't
00:42:35he has existed for all eternity and he will continue to exist for all eternity so his strategy is so
00:42:43much
00:42:43broader than anything we could ever conceive every time we think that we really know god and if
00:42:49finally figured them all out we are you can pretty much guarantee you're wrong so
00:42:56and the second the second quote that one is from job 41 somebody want to look that one up job
00:43:0441
00:43:06a very similar passage to isaiah start in job 41 verse 9 and read down to verse 11 anybody got
00:43:17it are you
00:43:17getting it no go for it june behold your expectation is false will you be heard down even at the
00:43:28sight of him
00:43:29no one no one is so reckless that he dares to stir him who then is he who opposes me
00:43:41who has been first to
00:43:44give to me that i should repay him whatever is under the entire heaven is mine yeah is it is
00:43:57it isn't he
00:43:58speaking about the this sea creature here is leviathan leviathan yeah the the chapter started talking
00:44:08about leviathan or leviathan and yeah god is saying that you know i made this creature who is bigger and
00:44:16more powerful than anything on earth and then he goes on to say that you know this this creature is
00:44:22fierce
00:44:23and you know nothing can stand before it but then who has given me anything that that i would owe
00:44:30him
00:44:30because everything under heaven is already mine you know if i can create leviathan and i created you
00:44:38who are you to think that i could ever owe you anything and that's what verse 35 is i mean
00:44:45it's a
00:44:46quote probably from the septuagint i didn't verify that but who has given a gift to him that he might
00:44:51be
00:44:52repaid it's paraphrased obviously because job is in the first person and this is in the third person
00:44:59um but paul's point here is that nobody has ever taught god anything or contributed anything
00:45:06meaningful to his plans nobody's qualified to advise him nobody he doesn't need anybody's help to do
00:45:13anything he wants our service he wants us to be to have a relationship with him and to be his
00:45:19companions
00:45:20but he doesn't need us he doesn't need our company and he doesn't owe us anything for enabling us to
00:45:28be
00:45:28his servants he has created a way for us to have a relationship with him but really the benefit is
00:45:35all ours and since we didn't we didn't we couldn't create that relationship on our own he created it as
00:45:42a
00:45:42divine action on our behalf so even though we are giving him something in the sense that we are
00:45:51participating in this relationship that he wants with us we still owe him everything we're not giving
00:45:58him anything that wasn't his already so all that makes sense yep anybody have any questions or comments
00:46:05on these verses okay well let's talk about that literary structure then triads you know we've talked
00:46:12about chiasms and parallelisms now we have a now we have a a chiasm that incorporates a triad of
00:46:20parallelisms and triads are another literary thing that are used in pretty much every culture in the
00:46:27world and i don't know why people want to group things in threes but we have every culture has a
00:46:33tendency to do this and so paul has grouped multiple things in sets of threes first there's the
00:46:40riches wisdom and knowledge and then there are three parallelisms and then at the end let me find the
00:46:48verse here he says for from him and through him and to him are all things so then we've got
00:46:54another set
00:46:55of three so it's just a kind of a cool way that paul has arranged this these thoughts and i
00:47:01don't know if
00:47:02he actually planned to do it this way and i don't think it necessarily adds a lot of extra meaning
00:47:07or any
00:47:08extra meaning it's just kind of an interesting observation on how people like to group ideas
00:47:14and think about things and the section begins and ends with a measure of god the depth of his wisdom
00:47:22and at the end his glory glory is something that is big and high whereas depth is something that is
00:47:29deep
00:47:30so they're kind of opposite sorry opposite metrics but both of them are measurements of how
00:47:37great god is well it's impressive and mainly have a uh the largest lake is called moosehead lake
00:47:46and there's a cliff it's kineo and the cliff goes right into the water the depth of the water is
00:47:54300 feet
00:47:55the height of the height of the mount kineo i think 600 i could be wrong but when you you
00:48:01you you see a
00:48:02portion of it but when you reflect upon the totality of it it's it's impressive and it's the same with
00:48:10it's sort of like giving a a dimensional three-dimension type of a a feel to it it just it
00:48:17adds to the
00:48:17gravity of what you're exploring yeah i saw i don't know if it's directly relevant to the topic but
00:48:25i saw a graph uh well in illustration of the the deepest fresh water bodies of water in the world
00:48:34and uh you know most of them were the great lakes in some lakes in canada and then there was
00:48:41a lake
00:48:41by call out in siberia and it's you know it's in size it's comparable to the great lakes but in
00:48:49depth
00:48:49it is the deepest body of water in the world and it's also one of the highest in elevation so
00:48:55it's
00:48:55it's up in the mountains so the top of the water is way up here but the depth is way
00:49:01below anything
00:49:02else and so and it's kind of a narrow lake so i mean it's kind of like a scottish lock
00:49:08it's down in
00:49:09a valley between two mountain ranges so it's so dark that it is pitch black at the bottom kind of
00:49:16like the bottom of the ocean and nobody really knows what's down there except a lot of garbage
00:49:20left over from the soviet union from dumping all their trash in it but this depth and glory of god
00:49:27kind of reminds me of that is that you know there are like you know the cliff that goes way
00:49:31up high
00:49:32and then the lake bottom that is so far down that nobody can measure it i remember we used to
00:49:39sing this
00:49:40little song that god is so high we can't go over him he is so deep we can't go under
00:49:53him and he is so
00:49:55wide that we can't go around him come on june finish it no we're talking about his height his depth
00:50:03and
00:50:04the width well the song continues though it says you must go through the door uh if anybody was
00:50:12interested and i know this isn't really relevant geography and geology i love all this stuff
00:50:18this is an illustration of of three lakes in the pacific ocean so this one is on the left is
00:50:25the
00:50:25depth of the pacific ocean and this is the caspian sea the next one and then lake baikal which starts
00:50:34way up higher than the caspian sea and goes way down lower and then finally is uh lake tanganyika
00:50:44which is that in africa not really sure where that is but apparently it's another really deep
00:50:50lake from a higher elevation and if you put the uh the great lakes they would all be less than
00:50:56half
00:50:56as deep as any of these i'm not sure about the caspian sea but it would be less than half
00:51:03as deep as
00:51:03lake baikal anyways neither here nor there but all right so maybe back to the lesson chapter 12
00:51:13we are on a new chapter and this is a new section of romans and we're talking about the
00:51:19living at peace with both god and man so i appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of god
00:51:25to
00:51:26present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to god which is your spiritual worship
00:51:32june alluded to this verse earlier so what does it mean do you think to present your bodies as a
00:51:38living sacrifice kevin got any thoughts me yep yeah before we used to sacrifice the lambs and now
00:51:51he's telling us to sacrifice our body present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to
00:51:59god so i would assume that there's some relation there between the old testament but it's with our
00:52:07our bodies and our bodies are we are sacrificing our bodies not physically actually sacrificing them
00:52:20but metaphorically speaking is what he's getting at i assume yeah and sometimes it may be actually
00:52:29physically but you know not as a purposeful sacrifice where there's an altar and blood splattered on the
00:52:35altar that kind of thing yeah that's what i meant um you know i did i wrote an article earlier
00:52:41this week
00:52:42on the the red heifer and you know one of the points is that the red heifer is completely consumed
00:52:48it's totally burned up into ash organs skin everything and you know this is prophetic of yeshua who gave
00:52:58his everything you know he lived this pure sinless life he did not consider his divinity to be something
00:53:06to held on to uh but gave it all up so that he could become a man and suffer and
00:53:12die he was completely
00:53:14consumed with his mission and that's what paul is saying that we're supposed to do not necessarily
00:53:20that we're supposed to go out and find a way to be martyred but that we are supposed to be
00:53:25completely
00:53:26devoted to our mission for god that if it comes down to it that's what we do that you know
00:53:33if it comes
00:53:33down to a choice between obedience to god or being martyred well we choose martyrdom because we are wholly
00:53:40given over to god what did david say in psalm 51 from verse 51 verse 11 and now 11 or
00:53:5816 i'm sorry
00:53:59i don't have my glasses 16 and 17 he says for you don't delight in sacrifice or else i would
00:54:09give it
00:54:10you have no pleasure in burnt offering the sacrifices of god are a broken spirit
00:54:19a broken and contrite heart oh god you will not despise
00:54:27yep yeah that is what god wants and then he went on to say in 19 the last verse then
00:54:36you will delight
00:54:37in the sacrifices of righteousness in burnt offerings and in whole burnt offerings then they will offer
00:54:48bulls on your altar now i understand verse 16 and 17 but verse 19 it says
00:55:00then you will delight in the sacrifices then you will delight in the sacrifices of righteousness
00:55:05that is when we present our bodies as living sacrifice by having a broken and a contrite heart
00:55:14and he went on to say in burnt offerings and burnt offerings then they will offer bulls on your altar
00:55:25so in other words he says that once you have a broken and the contrite heart it's like offering
00:55:34born offerings on the yahweh whole born that's like presenting bulls on the altar yeah well it's
00:55:45certainly like presenting yourself i mean your whole being and not just part okay when god told the
00:55:53prophets that i don't want your sacrifices and you know i don't want all this stuff because
00:55:57i hate it and what he really wants is this broken and contrite heart and it's to an extent it's
00:56:06hyperbole
00:56:06because god commanded sacrifices and if he didn't want them he wouldn't have commanded them
00:56:11but what he doesn't want is someone bringing a sacrifice thinking that that makes up for all of
00:56:16his sins you know you can you despise god and you cheat people and you commit all these terrible sins
00:56:24you're not sorry for it but then you go and you make a sacrifice thinking that you're appeasing god
00:56:28or making him happy by uh killing an animal and burning it up on his altar that's what he hates
00:56:35he wants
00:56:36your heart to be right first go and forgive your brother go and you know get forgiveness from your
00:56:42brother make things right with people then go and make your sacrifice and worship and that's not
00:56:49about salvation that's about how do you approach god are you going to approach him like i don't really
00:56:56care what you want god i'm going to do my own thing but you know i'm just going through the
00:57:00motions i'm
00:57:00going to go to church and sing some songs and put some money in the offering plate and then i'm
00:57:04going to
00:57:04go go back to my usual life or do you dedicate your life to his service and then go to
00:57:12church
00:57:13and sing songs and put money in the offering plate and do whatever else you do which which one of
00:57:19those
00:57:19people at church is god going to be more pleased with they're doing the exact same thing when they're
00:57:23at church but one of them god is going to despise and the other one he is going to be
00:57:30pleased with
00:57:30and it's not because of what they're doing it's because of the heart that they're bringing with
00:57:35them when they're doing it so to appease him is making peace with your brother or your sister
00:57:50before you you give him the gift because you don't give him the gift and your heart is not right
00:57:59you have unforgiveness in your heart you have hatred in your heart but you still want to go
00:58:09and give a gift unto god he will not accept that gift from you because your heart is not right
00:58:19yeah and that's one of the big flaws with the prosperity gospel teachings and i know that there's a
00:58:28a huge spectrum in what people teach around these ideas but a lot of people approach like tithing and
00:58:35offerings as if i'm going to bring this tithe as a seed you know the seed of faith and because
00:58:42i give
00:58:43money to this ministry god's going to give me something even better god's not going to give you
00:58:48much of anything except a lower bank account because god doesn't want you to give stuff to him
00:58:54expecting that he owes you something back i mean that's exactly what paul was talking about in the
00:58:59previous verses you can't give anything to god like that i'm sorry what was that the phrase they use
00:59:06is test me yeah i i've heard that from benny in in particular yep and james motivational speaker
00:59:19yeah yeah that is that is really what it's about it's about personal aggrandizement instead of
00:59:26kingdom aggrandizement go ahead kevin you know uh benny hints i don't know is it nephew
00:59:34yeah costy yeah it's interesting because he's related to him and he knows how bad he is
00:59:44but according to what june said you know i know people who are christian by name and they
00:59:53they can't forgive or they have hatred in their heart just like june was saying
01:00:00it's i don't know if we're reading the same bible sometimes or maybe it seems like it it just feels
01:00:08so
01:00:09clear because it's very you know how some verses are not clear i mean they're kind of okay we're
01:00:16going to have this age-old debate are you chosen by god or do you have something to do with
01:00:22it like
01:00:22that that's more difficult but if you don't forgive then i will not forgive you i mean it's pretty clear
01:00:29and you know hatred in your heart is equal to murder the ten commandments he upped the ante and said
01:00:40i say whoever has hatred in their heart and i just it's just crazy to me and it doesn't matter
01:00:48if
01:00:48you're if you're from the prosperity line or you know you could be baptist you could be whatever you
01:00:56and still you know you could probably even be messianic reformed whatever god doesn't work in
01:01:05denominations but it's just it's just scary and that's why we should read our bibles and when people
01:01:12say knowledge you know i know they mean well when they say don't want knowledge are you uh
01:01:19too much knowledge is bad it's like no i don't think that will what's that's what god was saying
01:01:25i think you're saying it can puff up like i i can be very prideful with knowledge the more i
01:01:33gain
01:01:33i have the more ability i have to be prideful and i could stumble but who would say knowing god
01:01:46is a bad thing like that's not if i want to know god and read his word every day i
01:01:52had someone tell me
01:01:53that reading the bible could be an idol maybe for the unbeliever if they're which i you know
01:02:00that could happen but reading the bible is an idol that's how i know god i'm serving you so
01:02:11gotta be careful out there yeah well yeah it really just depends on why you're doing it i mean why
01:02:18are you
01:02:18looking for knowledge why are you studying the scriptures are you doing it so you can feel special
01:02:24or so that you can prove to people how much you know well that's when it becomes a problem because
01:02:29then it's something you're using as a weapon against other people instead of as a means to
01:02:35understand your creator and enhance your relationship with him so it you know reading your bible can be a
01:02:42problem if you're reading it for the wrong reasons just like bringing a sacrifice it's a problem if you're
01:02:48doing it because you think you're going to manipulate god or you're going to show off to all your friends
01:02:52or something which is actually a real thing and in a culture that does sacrifices the bigger and the
01:02:59grander the more respect and honor you get from other people and that's just not appropriate
01:03:07in verse 12 um i suspect this is just a a function of grammar back then but
01:03:16why is there the little side by the mercies of god because you can take that out of there and
01:03:22it
01:03:22makes perfect sense and i appeal to you therefore brothers verse 12 i'm sorry verse 1 in chapter 12
01:03:31oh okay i appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of god you could say it i appeal to
01:03:36you
01:03:36brothers either i appeal to you therefore brothers to present your bodies as a living it makes perfect
01:03:42sense without by the mercies of god is that you think there's just a phraseology that was used back
01:03:48then or is there something separate or different we're highlighting that particular phrase yeah it could
01:03:55be some kind of idiom like you know for god's sake do this or it could be because of the
01:04:03mercies of god
01:04:04as a response to his mercy then present your bodies as a living sacrifice yeah i don't know
01:04:12i'm not exactly sure could be one of those things or something else i don't know uh in the holy
01:04:18and acceptable you know going back to the sacrificial system most sacrifices were required
01:04:25to be spotless you couldn't bring the the one animal that you had to get rid of anyways because
01:04:32you were calling it from your herd you couldn't bring that to god as a sacrifice unless it was part
01:04:38of you know like the first fruits offering or the tithe or something like that where you're counting
01:04:43every 50th animal in those cases you don't you don't pick and choose you just whichever one is
01:04:49the 50th one of the rod that's the one you the ghost but here he's talking about just like with
01:04:55the
01:04:55red heifer and the passover lamb and you know a burnt offering you don't bring the worst you bring
01:05:03the best and to make a holy and acceptable sacrifice to god it needs to be spotless and this goes
01:05:10right back to that same idea of you don't bring your service to god or your worship to god
01:05:16with the with your heart in the wrong place i'm not sure how else to say that probably one of
01:05:23the
01:05:23classic examples is the you know the scribe or whoever it was standing on the corner with his long
01:05:30ttio and praying loudly god thank you for not making me like this tax collector over here i don't think
01:05:38that god hears those prayers or if he does he doesn't hear what you want him to hear he's hearing
01:05:42what's really in your heart instead of what you're actually saying you think about things other things
01:05:48that are holy and acceptable to god things like the vessels and the implements used in the functions of
01:05:53the tabernacle those all had to be kept in a condition to be useful and maintained in a holy state
01:06:00so
01:06:03if a leper for some reason were to come into contact one of these things with one of these vessels
01:06:08they would be made unsuitable and it's the same thing with sin if you're going to go and do some
01:06:14service for god or if you're going to go worship then you should you know the more significant it is
01:06:21the more you should be paying attention to the state of your heart and maybe spending some time ahead of
01:06:26time in uh prayer fasting repentance whatever it is it takes to get yourself in the right place to
01:06:34worship god which doesn't mean that you can't worship god anytime no matter what state god wants
01:06:41you to come to him what he doesn't want is for you to pretend like you're coming to him to
01:06:47not repent
01:06:48of your sins and then go worship god and say god you don't really i know that you don't want
01:06:54me to do
01:06:54this i don't really care i'm going to do this anyways and but i you know i know you want
01:06:59worship
01:06:59so i'm going to come and do that too that is not the kind of holy and acceptable that god
01:07:05wants because
01:07:06it's not holy and acceptable at all hopefully i'm making some sense there i have a thought it
01:07:13it is it's it's it's not a nugget it's a thought now representing our bodies onto god we
01:07:25our nature is sin right but it's through the mercies of god that the sacrifices that we make
01:07:41by having a contrite heart that god will accept the the sacrifice the sacrifices that we bring onto him
01:07:54through his mercy because his grace is already free and his mercy is when he looks beyond
01:08:03our faults and should i say sees our need looks beyond our faults because of our full nature and accept
01:08:16the sacrifice that we bring onto him through his mercy because it wouldn't be through his grace he has
01:08:26already given us his grace freely it's an unmerited gift as some explains you know some people explain it but
01:08:39with the grace now is when we should be punished because of his mercy right he overlooks our sin
01:08:52and accept the sacrifice we bring onto him if we come with a contrite heart i mean it's a thought
01:09:02does that make sense yeah and it's really it's really the contrite heart it's not that that god
01:09:09expects us to be perfectly sinless or anything like that it's it's our willingness to you know that
01:09:17that humility of saying i know i'm not perfect and i want to be please forgive me i mean that's
01:09:25the
01:09:25broken and contrite heart that he really wants and you know we're never going to be we're never going
01:09:31to reach that perfection so i mean it's not like you have to wait before you come to god wait
01:09:37until
01:09:38you've got all your sins sorted out before you come to god in worship or service in some way because
01:09:44you're never going to get there but we rely on his mercy to overlook our flaws the flaws that we
01:09:51want
01:09:51to resolve and not hold on to last phrase in this verse which is your spiritual worship
01:10:01there's some difference in the way that this verse is translated uh the king james translates it as
01:10:09uh which is your reasonable service and the which is actually isn't even in the greek but it makes
01:10:16sense in context i don't i don't think that part is wrong the tree of life version translates it as
01:10:22spiritual service reasonable worship people different translators pick and choose from just a handful of
01:10:30words but they like swap them out almost indiscriminately so i'd like to look at the greek words there
01:10:37the word for that's translated as spiritual in the esv and reasonable in the king james
01:10:45is logikos which is related to words and it has it's anything related to speech or speaking
01:10:52or reasoning and logic yeah the the practice of of logic in greek culture was related to speaking
01:11:00you know oratory you you speak through an argument and you you talk out all of the
01:11:09the argue or the reasons you get from point a to point b and that's why it's called logikos
01:11:16because it has to do with talking through a problem and so spiritual is not an unreasonable
01:11:24translation because apparently in greek thought the ability to think and to reason is because you
01:11:33have a spirit and they're probably not entirely wrong with that so therefore it has to do with
01:11:39spiritual things too and they connected the ability to think rationally with having a higher order
01:11:46spirit and we can look at the difference between humans and animals and obviously humans have a
01:11:54much higher order of reasoning capacity than animals do and whether that's because our brains are bigger
01:12:00and smarter or because we have a different kind of spirit that god has given us you know that breath
01:12:06of
01:12:06life from creation and being made in his image i don't really know but from a greek way of of
01:12:14expressing
01:12:15things there isn't a whole lot of difference between the ability to reason and the and having a spirit
01:12:21so spiritual worship reasonable worship and the second word that's translated worship in the esb and
01:12:30service in the king james as latria which means ministering to somebody but more specifically it means
01:12:40ministering to a god or a deity so therefore worship and it would be in the sense of like a
01:12:47priest
01:12:47at a at a temple the priest worships god through service by handling the sacrifices and maintaining the
01:12:55altar and all of the other stuff at the temple so reasonable service spiritual worship
01:13:02all of that works spiritual worship doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me it doesn't
01:13:07doesn't really mean anything to me so i really like the king james translation better that this is your
01:13:13reasonable service it's the thing that you owe god to maintain the temple that is your body you know
01:13:19paul also said that the holy spirit now dwells in you so you're supposed to behave like it so presenting
01:13:25yourself as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to god your reasonable service it's like saying that
01:13:35in this living temple that you are you are both a living sacrifice you were talking about yeshua's
01:13:41role in the new covenant earlier where he is the sacrifice and the high priest and the mediator
01:13:46he is all these things in that new covenant well on a lower order of that same priesthood
01:13:52you are these things too because you are in his image and god is remaking you even more in the
01:14:00image
01:14:00of his son to be just like him i mean you'll never be exactly like him of course because you're
01:14:04never
01:14:04going to be god but we are supposed to be more like him and with the holy spirit living in
01:14:11us
01:14:11we really have become like a living temple of god and so we have to behave like a priest for
01:14:18that temple
01:14:19by maintaining it and keeping it holy and acceptable to god we are both the sacrifice and the altar and
01:14:25the
01:14:25temple the whole structure of the temple and the priesthood does that make sense the amplified version
01:14:33so therefore therefore i urge you brothers and sisters by the mercies of god to present your bodies
01:14:47and they have in bracket dedicating all of yourself set apart as a living sacrifice holy and well pleasing to
01:15:00god
01:15:00which is your rational logical and intelligent they have bracketed act of worship
01:15:09yeah i think that's pretty good and i got this by downloading the the you have sent it to us
01:15:19the other day the um there is the blue letter all right yeah i downloaded it and i downloaded a
01:15:32couple of
01:15:33versions um and that was the amplified version that i downloaded with it yeah in the ample amplified bibles
01:15:44are a lot of commentary so they're not literal translations but they can be very helpful in you know
01:15:50understanding the nuances of some words and i think that that one is pretty good all right any other thoughts
01:15:57on verse one all right well it is well one one thing i do want to point out before we
01:16:02quit
01:16:02is that if you remember back in chapter one in the first part of chapter two paul was talking about
01:16:08how people who have rejected god they abuse their bodies you know they they you know commit all kinds
01:16:16of sins with their bodies and so by going to this by bringing this up by presenting your bodies
01:16:22you know he's already we've already talked about the heart and the heart is a prerequisite to the body
01:16:29it doesn't do you any good to present your body as a living sacrifice to god if you don't already
01:16:34have
01:16:34your heart in order or your heart as a living sacrifice but he's specifying the body because
01:16:41it's through the body that the conditions of the heart come out into the world the things that are
01:16:46in your heart come out through your your mouth and your hands and your feet they're the things that
01:16:51you do with what's in your heart and so paul is saying that this body that has become a temple
01:16:57of god
01:16:58these are the things that you have to be take control of now that god has given you a a
01:17:05new heart
01:17:05and you want to be submitted to him now it's time to start reining your your flesh in and making
01:17:12it
01:17:15obey what your heart wants it to do that constant conflict that he talked about a couple of chapters
01:17:21ago about how you know he he knows what the right thing to do is and he wants to do
01:17:26it but his flesh is
01:17:27always leading him to do these other things and so it's a constant struggle but that is what we have
01:17:34to do to make our bodies a living sacrifice it really does have a lot to do with what you
01:17:38do
01:17:39with your body hands feet mouth everything and he's doing this as a conscious counterpoint to that
01:17:47to those earlier sins that he described in the first part of the book go ahead june
01:17:52no i was just asking what about your mind well your mind is you know in in hebrew thought your
01:17:59mind and your heart are really the same thing and of course all the sin all sins start in the
01:18:05mind
01:18:06you're you know you have thoughts of things that you want to do that you know you're not supposed to
01:18:11do
01:18:12and you have habits and ways of thinking about things that have to be remade and you know when
01:18:20you come to faith in yeshua god doesn't at least for most people god doesn't automatically change all
01:18:25of your old ways of thinking there's a process of studying the scriptures in prayer in the indwelling of
01:18:34the spirit in practice is very important that over time he conforms you your mind more and more into
01:18:43that image of yeshua so that the balance of control shifts more into that that new man inside of you
01:18:52rather than the old man that's still stuck in the old ways of doing things and is more under the
01:18:59control of your flesh the sinful part of your mind the things that that automatically want to do the
01:19:05wrong things these things are under control of the sinful nature that's in your flesh whereas the new
01:19:13you is warring with that and trying to take over so the long-term goal is that your flesh is
01:19:21subjected
01:19:22to the righteous inclinations that god has planted in your mind through the holy spirit and the
01:19:28scriptures but it is a constant battle and you know think whenever you read heart in scripture
01:19:35you can include mind in that it's all part of the same idea all right okay this thought
01:19:42in ephesia i won't be long that's okay in ephesians 6 it talks about putting on the entire
01:19:51armor so it says about the helmet of salvation right doesn't it refer to that helmet it's not to cover
01:20:09the thoughts the mind i don't i don't know what paul meant by it i don't know exactly what paul
01:20:18meant by it but
01:20:20in ancient thought they didn't think about the brain being the source of thoughts they thought
01:20:27that you know all of your mind is in your heart and in your gut you know different parts of
01:20:31your
01:20:31mind were controlled by different parts of your body you know like courage might be in your liver
01:20:37and or something like that and the seed of your emotions and intellect is in your heart
01:20:46so when paul but the head is usually the source of authority so like if you've got something on your
01:20:53head it means that you are submitted to some kind of authority or you've got a sign of authority on
01:20:59your
01:20:59head so a helmet of salvation is probably more talking about being under the authority of yeshua
01:21:08that you know because he has saved you he is that protection that he has over you is guarding you
01:21:14at least that's that's my suspicion i don't really know exactly what paul was saying by that i mean
01:21:20maybe he was just making a list of armor pieces and he thought it sounded poetic i don't know
01:21:27so the renewal of your mind is renewal of your heart the condition of your heart yeah the condition
01:21:35of your heart and thinking everything that we think of is the mind is also the heart in ancient thought
01:21:41and that is in let's see that's in chapter 12 what verse is that looking it up sorry it is
01:21:51in verse 2
01:21:52wow the very next verse yeah but we transform by the renewing of your mind
01:21:59yeah let me see what it says there the actual word is
01:22:06noose which means the intellect or understanding your reasoning so it's not talking about your brain
01:22:12necessarily but it is talking about your thought processes i mean obviously we know that the brain is
01:22:19where most of your your chemical thinking happens not all of it because there's also some thinking
01:22:24that goes on in other organs of your body but the mind isn't really talking about a part of your
01:22:31body
01:22:31so much as just the intellectual capacity thinking and feeling emotions that kind of thing all of those
01:22:40things together go ahead kevin yeah i just want to speak about the mind you know it says in romans
01:22:49right renewing
01:22:50of the mind there's a lot of references on putting off and putting on like just being mindful and
01:23:00it's no how do i say this in in our culture we have taught people to just do and not
01:23:12think and
01:23:14so so many people go living through life without thinking and if you're a thinker you're that's just too much
01:23:24for some people they don't like i believe it's just because the way our culture has has ingrained us
01:23:33and how they have you know with the school system just all these things that with a test right you
01:23:41do
01:23:41a test and you're doing a multiple choice test there's not that much thought it's a b c or b
01:23:49i don't want to see because that just seems logical but thinking through it having more
01:23:58understanding and it's more than just an ac you know a b c d test it's thinking through critically
01:24:08thinking through the problems and how to solve stuff so it's just interesting how god i mean it
01:24:16doesn't take much for us to uh stop it in the mind like okay look i feel like i want
01:24:25to verbally
01:24:26express myself with frustration and that means i'm going to cuss but that means i'm going to do this
01:24:32use profanity i'm going to get angry you have a chance to lay that in your head
01:24:40do i want to do that no i don't that's dishonoring god like so it's it's pretty cool how god
01:24:48made us
01:24:48where we we you know we can do that if we wanted to we could with the help of the
01:24:53spirit it starts in
01:24:56in the head like sad in the mind but too many people nowadays are just they're mindless they just walk
01:25:02around and just doing what the government tells them to do and there's no thought process you know
01:25:08let's let's do whatever they feel like doing yeah like people knew there was a shooter up there you
01:25:14know it doesn't take that much to to think about but i would be scared to go to the doctors
01:25:22you know
01:25:23if i had to go to the doctor my life was on the line i i i probably would rather
01:25:28be up because of how
01:25:31bad our culture is with thinking with
01:25:35they're just programmed to give you
01:25:38pills and things that they they all know
01:25:41so i don't know if i'm making any sense but oh yeah
01:25:45yeah and i know exactly what you mean and i think that
01:25:49kind of in modern western culture we tend to try to divide up
01:25:53the logical mind from the emotional mind
01:25:57and in ancient thought they really didn't do that so much i mean the greeks did more than other
01:26:02people probably
01:26:04but
01:26:06they're supposed to work together i mean it's all one one unit and supposed to work in kind of a
01:26:11balance but it really does seem like most people today have just completely outsourced the logical
01:26:19part of their brains just let somebody else take over i'm gonna stop thinking i'm just gonna
01:26:26let my feelings run everything and that's essentially what paul talks about when he talks
01:26:32about you know being being run by your passions in solomon talked about that a lot in the proverbs too
01:26:38that a person who is controlled by his passions is like a city with no walls
01:26:44and you're open to be to anything you can be easily manipulated taken advantage of
01:26:49you ruin your own life because you have no self-control
01:26:53you have to be able to control your passions with your rational mind
01:26:58and your rational mind has to be tempered with
01:27:02emotions that are
01:27:04conformed to god's commandments and you know the patterns that god wants us to live in
01:27:10and you know some of us i suspect kevin that you may be in the same boat with me on
01:27:14this one
01:27:14you know being both kind of technical professions and i tend to put a whole lot more weight on
01:27:23rational processes than on emotional ones and i think i'm getting better about it but sometimes that
01:27:31it really harms relationships because it makes it really difficult to relate to people and empathize
01:27:36so there's a balance to be struck and it's difficult to figure out where that is and
01:27:44it's impossible to try to make other people figure it out they just they have to experience their own
01:27:52they're suffering the results of their own bad choices before they get there
01:27:56you
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