Transcription

Connor
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris
Well. Good morning. Wesley. Yeah.

Wesley
Good to be here. How are you?

Chris
Chris I’m really good. So, hey, let everybody know what you’re doing today. You’re filling.

Wesley
In. Yeah, I am filling in for Jeff. Yeah. He’s not feeling the best, so he said, Wesley, I couldn’t think of anybody else on earth who could command the microphone and stand in my place, so. No, it did not happen that way.

Chris
He’s not here. So you can say anything you want at this point. That’s great. So, hey, Wesley works at our church. We all work at a church. If you don’t attend, they’re called Heritage Church. And you’ve been there a long time. Yeah.

Wesley

2013. Chris
      Yeah. Wow. So that’s what, ten years? Yeah.

Wesley
Yeah, it doesn’t seem like. It seems like it’s been like five years, but yeah, it’s been ten.

Chris
Well, that’s. That means you’re old buddy. Yeah. So og og. That’s right. So hey, we’re going to start off with one of our favorite segments, which is a dad joke competition. Yeah. And this is my youngest daughter’s favorite, by the way. Yeah. I read these to her last night. Yeah. So I’ve got.

Wesley
Some good ones.

Chris
Oh, good. Good, good. We’ll take turns. My first one isn’t that great? I’m just. I’m just preparing everybody. So here it is. The earth is 70% uncarbonated water. Therefore the Earth is flat.

Wesley
Oh, yeah.

Chris
It’s pretty. It’s pretty bad. I told you it was bad.

Wesley
Okay, here we go. When I was little, my parents always fed me alphabet soup and claimed I like it. They were just putting words in my mouth.

Chris
Oh, that’s pretty good. I like that.

Wesley
That was pretty.

Chris
Good. That’s pretty good. I like this one, by the way. This one I’m about to read. You just had an officer say he was looking for a man with one eye. I told him to use both since he’d probably find him a lot quicker.

Wesley
Oh, no. That’s great. Here’s my second one. For her birthday, I bought my wife new beads for her abacus. It’s the little things that count. Oh.

Chris
That’s terrible. Now, now an abacus. That’s the thing where you. You slide the. Yeah.

Wesley
You’re sliding.

Chris
Yeah. To count. That’s so funny. Wow. That’s a that’s a that’s an original one.

Wesley
I was going.

Chris
To say that’s our generation and older joke. Yeah. Right. Because kids are like abacus. Yeah.

Wesley
Like what is that.

Chris
Yeah okay. Number three I like this one a lot. Okay. Ready? Did you hear what happened to the wooden car? It wouldn’t go.

Wesley
Oh.

Chris
I like that a lot.

Wesley
People are going to start tuning off.

Chris
No, come.

Chris
On, I like that. I actually really like that. It’s my favorite one so far.

Wesley
Yeah. My kids put together a PowerPoint presentation explaining why we should go to the water park. It had several slides.

Chris
Oh.

Chris
Actually, I like that one too. That’s pretty funny. Okay, someone just called my phone, sneezed and then hung up. I am sick and tired of giving getting all these cold calls.

Wesley
Oh geez.

Wesley
Here’s mine. Okay. Every morning I announce to my family that I’m going jogging, but then I don’t go. It’s a running joke.

Chris
Oh, that’s pretty good.

Chris
That’s okay. Oh goodness gracious. I just read this just now, and this could be the worst dad joke in the past.

Wesley
In the history of the dad jokes.

Wesley
This is.

Wesley
Off the Bible.

Wesley
Guys, this is.

Chris
Awful. Ready? I never oh, geez, I can’t even say it. I never understood why a set of false teeth is called dentures. They really missed an opportunity to call it substitutes.

Wesley
Oh yeah, that’s bad, that’s bad.

Chris
That is really bad. Okay. Wow.

Wesley
Number five, last one. What’s the difference between dad jokes and the Spanish language?

Chris
What’s that with.

Wesley
Spanish? You roll your r’s and with dad jokes, you roll your eyes.

Chris
Hey, ain’t that the truth?

Chris
Ain’t that the truth? Ladies and.

Wesley
Gentlemen would probably.

Wesley
Agree with that.

Wesley
Today. I think.

Chris
So too. Wow. So, hey, that was. That was a good segment. I love dad jokes. And like my daughter, I’m telling you, I read these to her. Not not these particular ones, but in the past I’ve read these to her. And I’m telling you, she just laughs until she cries. Yeah, she thinks it’s the funniest thing. And it’s.

Wesley
Funny. Yeah.

Chris
And she said to me, she goes, that’s just that’s just proof that my humor is lame. And I said, no, honey, you’re awesome. So love you Tori.

Wesley
It is funny.

Chris
So. Well, hey, just in case you’re wondering. So we are in a series and we have been for quite a while going through the 250 events in Jesus’s life and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the Gospels. And a lot of them repeat or, you know, cover the same accounts. And so oftentimes what we’ll do is we’ll read from both Gospels, or maybe even three or even four gospels telling the same story. And then sometimes there’s, there’s there’s a story that’s only recorded by one author. Well, today is the case, right? Jesus calls the people to repent. It’s only recorded in the book of Luke, and Luke was a physician. And anyway, so verses one through nine, do you want to take it away?

Wesley
Yeah, I’ll read that. Luke 13 and we’re reading out of the New Living Translation, and it says in verse one about this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the temple. Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee? Jesus asked, is that why they suffered? Not at all. And you will perish too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God. And what about the 18 people who died when the top of the tower in Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? No. And I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish too. Verse six. Then Jesus told this story. A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and again to see if there was any fruit on it. But he was always disappointed. Finally he said to his gardener, I’ve waited three years and there hasn’t been a single fig. Cut it down. It’s just taking up space in the garden. The gardener answered, sir, give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and I’ll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. If we get figs next year, fine. If not, then you can cut it down.

Chris
Yeah, that’s actually a pretty obscure passage. Yeah, and pretty awesome at the same time. So he told this story about people sinning and trying to compare sins one to the other, and then told this random story about a fig tree that the gardener said, cut it down. And then and then they said, well, actually it was the owner, the the owner who said, cut it down. And then the gardener who took care of it says, now give it one more chance. Yeah. And then that’s it then. Then there’s no application. There’s no obvious like, explanation. Sometimes you know, where they say, Jesus, tell us what you meant. Yeah. And then Jesus would actually say what they meant. You know what he meant. So I’d love to read the notes from my life application study Bible. We always promote life application study Bible. It says this pilot may have killed the Galileans because they because he thought they were rebelling against Rome. Those killed by the Tower of Siloam may have been working for the Romans on the aqueduct there. The Pharisees, who were opposed to using force to deal with Rome, would have said that he that he Galilee, said that the Galileans killed by Pilate deserved to die for rebelling. The zealots, a group of anti-Roman terrorists, would have said that the aqueduct workers deserve to die for cooperating. Jesus dismissed the idea that accidents or human cruelties were God’s judgment on especially bad sinners. Neither the Galileans nor the workers should be blamed for their calamities. Whether a person is killed by a tragic accident or miraculously survives is not a measure of righteousness. Everyone has to die. Jesus does not explain why some live, while others die tragically. Instead, he pointed to everyone’s need for repentance. Chris
No matter how or when it occurs. Death is not the end. Jesus promises to those who believe in him that they will not perish but have eternal life. John 316. Yeah, so. And that’s really cool, isn’t it?

Wesley
Yeah.

Wesley
There’s one thing that I get out of this just as like an, an overarching thing theme, and that’s what I’m looking at verses one through five, the concept of how we all have our preferred sin. Yeah, we all do. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, we all have our preferred sin area, and we tend to think that sin area is not as bad as what other people do. So, you know, I got this sin area, but Chris, yours is ten times worse than mine, right? Right. And you know, mine isn’t that bad. And how we tend to try to diminish the log.

Chris
In the speck.

Wesley
Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly that’s a perfect example of that. So when I’m reading through this, that was the first thing that popped out to me. How and it doesn’t this verse section isn’t talking about being judgmental, but that’s the first thing that I thought about with this sin is that, you know what? We do that a lot where we judge other people. How many times have you been at the mall and you judge someone for what they had on, or you judge someone for how they reacted in a situation, or you judge someone? We are quick to point our finger at the other person, but how quick are we to highlight the flaws in our own life, right? Are we just as quick in that manner? And the answer is no, we never do it that way.

Chris
One time I did a we did not I, but we did a drama at my previous church and it was a live action drama on stage. And there was like a guy who’d walked up and took communion, and he was like a churchy guy. And then the other guy in line had walked up, and he was he was dressed like a slob. Yeah. Right. And and he and he was very unchurched in terms of culture. So he didn’t know what to do. And so, like, he grabbed the bread and was like, no, no, no, not started eating it and all this kind of stuff.

Wesley
Everyone else is.

Wesley
Horrified, right, right, right.

Chris
Everybody else is sort of horrified. Yeah. But then what ended up happening was the drama took a turn and then you heard on tape sort of their inner thoughts. Yeah. And then the inner thoughts of the church guys were bad, you know, just hypocritical and everything else. And then the church of the guy who was dressed like a slob and he didn’t know how to take communion. So he started like, you know, like eating the bread. He just thought he was trying to, you know, do what was right or whatever. Yeah. And anyway, but I actually thought to myself, you know, because I have a anybody who knows me knows I have sort of a disdain for judging Christians. Right. Yeah. I really do like, I, I just literally have a visceral reaction to, to Christians that are just dumb and, you know, just just judging people. Right? Yeah. Always condemning them, which is like, hey, what they have on or whatever. Anyway, so here’s what I thought. So I remember and gosh, this was ten years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday. Yeah. And I remember thinking, as I’m watching this drama, I actually said, who would be who? Who’s going to fall for this drama? Like, who’s going to fall? Who’s going to actually. Judge this poor guy for dressing poorly and eating communion in the improper way because he took the bread and he’s like, he started eating it. I thought I thought, come on, man, everybody in my church watching this is going to give that guy a bunch of grace, and it’s not going to be a powerful drama. And at the end, I remember there’s a guy and and actually, I could I could tell you this now he’s a dear friend. Chris
In fact, he just passed away from cancer. So like, just this year at Jimmy John’s, remember, remember when we went to Jimmy John’s. Oh, yeah. It was that.

Wesley
Big summer.

Wesley
Baptism that.

Chris
Actually day that.

Wesley
That day.

Chris
He passed away. So it was just recently, this summer. Anyway, his name was Jerry. And Jerry comes up to me after the service, and he and he was older, you know, he’s 65 or whatever. And he comes up to me and he goes, man, he goes, that drama really convicted me. He goes, I was judging that guy. He goes, I was thinking, what a what a jerk for coming, like dressed like a slob. And where’s his respect? And I can’t believe that he’s eating too much bread. And he. And he goes, man, he goes. And then when those voices came on, he goes, I just thought to myself, I cannot believe that I judged him. And I remember thinking like, Holy cow! Like that was really an effective drama because I can’t relate, you know what I mean? Like, like my brain doesn’t go there, you know what I mean? But but it really does, even though it doesn’t say it specifically to your point. Yeah, it is implied there, isn’t it? It’s completely implied because Jesus is talking about perhaps what they’re thinking. Yeah, right. Which is the inner inner thoughts of judging people. And in this case, you know, he’s talking about God’s judgment on whether people get killed or not, which, by the way, brings up a whole different topic, which is and by the way, this would be a good something for you to speak into, which is there are people today that think that God still punishes sins in the moment. Like, for instance, I’ll give you an example. I remember when I was in college, I remember I was supposed to tithe $90. Yeah. And I remember I did not tithe $90. Yeah. And I was like, oh no, I didn’t tithe, you know, and I meant to and I forgot. Chris
And now it’s the end of the month and I don’t have enough money. And, you know, like, I just, I didn’t tithe, I forgot I blew it, you know, and all of a sudden I was driving with my wife, who back then was my girlfriend. And the rock flies up and hits my windshield.

Wesley
Oh, man.

Chris
And then I go to get it appraised and it cost me $90.

Wesley
Yeah.

Chris
Okay. So the comments she makes to me is, well, looks like God got his $90 either way.

Wesley
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Chris
Okay. So so what is your thought on that? Do you believe that God sometimes does those things. Do you believe that that is pure coincidence and that God doesn’t act that way because we disobey or whatever? Like what are your thoughts?

Wesley
Just in a general sense, I would say I believe that there are very few coincidences in life. You know, I’m not one of those people that believes that, oh, it just coincidentally happened that that person was there. Give you a prime example. Then I’ll come back to the my point. There was a lady who came to our well, first she was at the gas station near our church crying in the car. This literally just happened yesterday. She had a very small bill that was due but was flat out of money. Didn’t know what to do. She was. She’s literally crying at the gas station. Someone comes up to her and says, hey, I know you don’t know me, but I just want to let you know you need to call Heritage Church. We don’t know who that person was, where that person came from. Wow. So she called Heritage Church and spoke to Pastor Kevin, one of the pastors at our church. Kevin and I talked and we were able to help her with that bill. And the lady was amazed when I called her back that God was able to turn all of this around in a matter of a couple of hours, and she was so thankful. And she’s crying and she’s hugging us. And and it was a very small bill. It wasn’t anything significant. But the point is that her being at that gas station at that moment and having that person walk over to her and tell her about heritage, that is not a coincidence.

Wesley
Oh, but.

Wesley
But people would say that from a scientific perspective. Oh, there was just an alignment in the stars.

Wesley
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Chris
Karma.

Wesley
Yeah. Right, right.

Chris
Yeah, yeah. You know, by the way, I 1,000% agree with everything you’re saying. Yeah, I believe that most of the time when it seems like it’s a quote unquote coincidence, but it’s for God’s glory and great things happen. We believe those are divine appointments, right? Uh, now, the story I gave to you. Yeah. Carried with it almost an exact. Coincidence like that. The $90. Right. But but it carried with it something that your story didn’t carry which is God’s judgment. Yeah. Okay. So so which which by the way, is is so I agree with your story, but but but my but my question I think was a little bit different, which is does God punish us. Like for instance, you know if we. So I used to speak to a lot of NFL chaplains, you know, chapels. Yeah. So Dave Wilson, a good friend of ours who’s speaking this week, by the way, at Heritage Church, he was the Detroit Lions chaplain for like 35 years or whatever. It was 36 years. And anyway, for years, what would happen is if a visiting team who was coming to Detroit, if their chaplain couldn’t travel, they would ask Dave to find somebody to speak for their visiting team. So consequently, I’ve spoken to about 30 NFL teams, and when I was speaking in August, right before the cuts happened, before the season started, um, every single person there thought they all they all flooded chapel.

Wesley
Right.

Chris
Now, later on in the season.

Wesley
Yeah. When there’s a crisis, everybody everyone runs to.

Wesley
Yeah. And I’m.

Chris
Telling you, chapel was.

Wesley
Packed. Yeah.

Chris
And the reason why they thought is they thought if I go to chapel I won’t get cut. Right. If I do good, I won’t be punished. Yeah, but if I ignore God, I might be cut. Yeah. And that’s what I’m talking about. Yeah, I’m talking about. Does God punish us in our sins while we sin, even though we might be Christians? Yeah. And so again, there’s, there’s there’s many different thoughts on this.

Wesley
So I would say. And this might help some people. God isn’t standing around kind of like on a hill, just striking people down for doing wrong. Well you’re bad. I’m going to strike you down. Oh, you over there. I’m going to strike you down, too. I believe that there is a spiritual law that exists, and the Bible talks about that in the New Testament, that you will reap what you sow. Yeah. So whether that’s good or whether it’s bad, it’s kind of like putting marbles in a jar. You know, you just keep adding to that jar whether it’s good or bad. So oftentimes when we do wrong, it’s just a matter of us reaping what we sowed. Yeah yeah yeah. And when we do good and it’s like natural consequences. It’s natural consequences. But it’s tied into that concept of seed time and harvest time. When you plant something, you’re going to reap something. If I plant an orange seed, I’m going to reap an orange seed. So if you do wrong, wrong is going to come back to you again. That’s how God set up this entire world system. So I don’t think it’s as much God pointing fingers. And okay, tomorrow you’re going down, Wednesday you’re going down. It’s I don’t think that’s happening. I think a lot of it is you’re just reaping what you sow. According to the biblical principle that God established in the earth realm.

Chris
Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. There is there is a there is a there’s a dance, there’s a fine line, I think and I think that there are times I think the answer is complicated. I just thought it’d be fun to ask you. Yeah, I think I think it’s there are times where the book of Romans tells us where God is going to get our attention right. And I’ve always said that God will get our attention through either his main way is conviction and then, God forbid, through misery. Yeah, he’ll make us miserable or through tragedy. Yeah, right. And so and so let’s let’s all respond to conviction first. Let’s let’s all respond to the to the power of the Holy Spirit. That that speaks to us, nudges us, encourages us, because God forbid, we go down the line and we and we get to misery or tragedy. So I think that I think there is that principle. At the same time there’s, there’s there’s people who sort of demonize everything. Yeah, right. And so like my, my.

Wesley
Wife, I know.

Wesley
Some my wife, sister has a friend and everything has an evil component.

Wesley
To it. Right, right.

Wesley
Like like literally you can meet a waitress in the, in a restaurant and she doesn’t have the most pleasant demeanor. Maybe it’s because her feet are hurting, right? It’s not like a.

Wesley
Right, right? Right. Yeah. Right.

Chris
Because just it’s not it doesn’t have to.

Wesley
Be a demon. Yes.

Wesley
Everything’s not a demon. But she is like that with everything. It doesn’t matter what it is.

Chris
Well, well, see, here’s here’s my ultimate conclusion. I don’t think that it was God who made the rock chip up. And I don’t think it was God, coincidentally, who made it cost $90 as a reminder that I should tithe and look at me. I blew it, even though it was an accident. Yeah, so. But I do believe that God will use. So there’s a fine line there because God will use tragedy. Yeah. Always for good. Yeah. So so so I believe that there was a spiritual component to what my wife said, which is, hey, something bad happened. And this is a good reminder that God is using to remind us, you know, to put him first or whatever. Yeah, but did God cause or punish me? I believe no. And so I looked over at my wife and I said, I’m not sure I want to serve a God who who when I try to be perfect and I blow it every time I blow it, he’s going to punish me. And I think that that’s inconsistent with almost every single scripture about our sin. Because, you know God, God gives us grace. He gives us mercy. But at the same time he wants us to obey. So there’s that dance where it’s like, God’s not going to punish you for your sins. They’ve already been forgiven. But at the same time, God’s going to use everything bad in our lives for for something good right now.

Wesley
Throw a curve ball. What do you think about disobedience in relation to disobedient to a direct command from God in relation to.

Wesley
Willful sin.

Wesley
A negative consequence happening?

Chris
Yeah. Well, again, I think, I think that instead of, in other words, like instead of not tithing by accident, I not tithe on purpose.

Wesley
Or any other thing. Not not just tithing, but you’ve made a conscious decision that you’re going left when God specifically said go right.

Chris
So I don’t think that God specifies whether the sin is intentional or not, intentional or accidental, whether we sin and we know it, or whether we sin and we accidentally do it. I think that God, you know, when he speaks of sin, he has no differentiation, differentiation between the two. Yeah. So there’s.

Wesley
Not a big one or a little one.

Wesley
Or a but.

Chris
But but intentional willful versus unintentional. Yeah. He doesn’t classify. Us. He just says, your sins are forgiven. They’re covered. We’re on the receiving end of grace. Right. So? So there’s. So there’s mercy and grace, right? So mercy means that God gives us what we what we, uh. Excuse me. Hang on. Let me let me get this right. Mercy means he doesn’t give us what we deserve. Right. Because we deserve punishment. Yeah. He does not give us what we deserve. That’s called mercy. Grace is. He gives us what we don’t deserve, which is his unmerited favor. Right? So God gives mercy and grace with sin every time. So he holds back his punishment and he gives it to us unmerited favor. So, so so there it is. Yeah. But at the same time, there are natural consequences of sin. Yeah, I believe that God does remind us through sin. I believe that God will use circumstances. And I believe that there is a fine line where where if we if we do something to such a degree for an extended period of time or to to a very extreme measure, I believe that God will bring upon us sometimes hardship and tragedy.

Wesley
Yeah, but if I can just put the cherry on top really quick. One thing that you said, grace and mercy. Yeah. The fact that grace and mercy, the Bible tells us, will follow you all the days of your life.

Wesley
Yeah.

Chris
That’s great. So I love that aspect about God that he’s not dispensing it once. He wants you to have it each and every day.

Wesley
That’s awesome.

Chris
Yeah, well, hey, that’s our time. And so we will see you next time on The Bible Guys.