Knowing, Loving, and Serving God: Ten Commandments

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. I'm Chris and I'm Jeff. Yes, and we have new digs. We do have new digs. This is a new studio for those who are watching. If you're listening, this has nothing to do with anything. So if you're watching, we have what like, we're back to a table, sort of our beginnings, back to a table. Yeah, that was like the HG Daily. Yeah, this is great. I love it. I love the look of it. I love anything about it. Yes, love. If you're listening to us, go on YouTube check us out. Yeah for sure. Well, hey today we are starting with I mean, talk about Mondays. You know how people say I hate Mondays? Well, talk about a wamp wamp. We're trying to stump the pastor right off the game on Monday. On Monday. My brain isn't even fired up. Okay, let's see what this one is. All right, this is from Meredith. S Hi'm Meredith, and Mardith says Meredith. Just the name Meredith sounds like it's gonna be a tough question. Ye, so that's a lot of credit giving to Meredith's right there. All right, So Meredith is just like a smart name. It is. Throughout this Milestones of the Old Testament series, there are multiple references to God designing the world perfectly and how pain and suffering exists because of sin. This is how this is not how God designed it. So my question is, wouldn't God have known the outcome of Satan tempting Eve? Wouldn't he have seen this coming question mark? So therefore did he design it perfectly since he included the serpent? Oh, it's actually it's actually worded very well, yes, very well written. Yes, because actually the concept of this question is is pretty common. Yeah, well it's Christians only been arguing about this for about five hundred years. Yes, so yeah, this is a big it's fundamental, I think, to what you would consider Reformation Christian Janity, Protestant Christianity. Even within the Catholic faith tradition, this has been a struggle. So the predisposition to the question is that God knows everything and the outcome of everything, which kind of means from from the perspective she's writing from, that would mean that God has everything scripted and the script is just playing right. You and I we were I was supposed to say that it was scripted and that the script just playing right right, and then and then I always like to have fun and say, did God know I'm going to do this? Because I didn't even know I was going to do it a second ago, but he did so. So the premise being that God knows everything before it happens, is I think a true concept. I think that God knows everything. The question is, is everything already pre planned? There there's a difference between those two ideas because we want to make God linear that A must lead to B, B mustly to C, C must lead to D. And God knew that we were going to eventually get to D, right, he knew it? As opposed to it kind of ignores the question, kind of ignores free will right, that free will is not as powerful as God's foreknowledge. And I would say that the free will of humanity is part of what it means that we were made in God's image, that we're free, we're free, autonomous individuals make our own choices. So the fact that God created a world that was supposed to be built on love and there is no love without a choice. So the fact that God decided to make the entire story of love story made sin possible, but it did not make it actual. Eaves bad choice made it actual. Adam's bad choice, sinful choice, made sin actual, and thus all of the bad things. So I believe that God could have looked into eternity and seeing that humanity would sin and that we also would not sin, right, and that he had plan for both directions on that right, And then through all the decisions of your life, the hundreds of millions, maybe billions of decisions that you've made in your life, God knew that you would and that you would not. And then God guides humanity within the framework of what we would and would not do, and he knows both sides of that that is possible we could and it's possible that we could not. So I believe that God works and possibilities rather than absolutes when it comes to fore knowledge. Yeah, and a lot of times, not always, but a lot of time, Yeah, a lot of times when he supernaturally intercedes and makes a thing happen. Yeah, but that's supernatural. So in the natural, which is how the universe really works nine percent of the time in the natural. Then decisions have consequences, and so we always say this for every stump past your question. But you know, we're going to take our best guesses, right, We're going to take our best uh, you know, uh, theology, our theories are are and what we're doing is we're piecing together every other thing we know about God. Yeah, the preponderance of evidence. That's exactly what you do in court. Yes, right, yes, so you're piecing together. But unless this question we're directly asked and answered by God himself about whether or not he knew Eve was going to, you know, sin and Adam was going to sin. Unless it was answered directly, the ultimate answer is we don't know, however, which is a huge difference between you and me. Yeah, huge difference. You are very content to live in the mystery. Yeah, and I need I need a plausible answer, right right, right, that's a huge I was I was taught in seminary that that's that's the that's the main component of the postmodern church. The postmodern church is one who is realizing that no matter how hard you try, that there is an element of we still don't know. Yeah, I would So I reject postmodernism on almost every level. H in case you're wondering, because I think the postmodernism leads out of the Enlightenment and back into the dark ages, the idea that we have this very fluid concept of right and wrong, this very fluid concept of morality, as opposed to the superior ideas of the Enlightenment. So I would I would push back against that even being viable in the church. That's so funny. I acknowledge that people exist with that mindset. I just reject the mindset itself. Yeah, and I always think to myself, if God wanted us to have a concrete, ironclad, one hundred point zero percent certainty of the answer to this question, he would have written like thirty one thousand verses. Oh no, he would have written thirty one thousand, one hundred explained it right. So yeah, he doesn't answer it directly, so we are left to piece together everything else that we know. Now. No, I did not say that we couldn't be ninety nine percent sure, right, I did not say that. So my answer you would view as being plausible. I would view it to be you could you could certainly likely? Yeah, very likely. Yeah, So you know again, I mean, I can't presume to put a percentage on how right we are about God. But were the Bible guys, so she asked the Bible questions question, but you that were ninety five percent right about who God is? It will take on it when in the nature of how he works. But truly, I really do believe that I believe that there are which is why I sort of to be honest with you, I sort of I think all debate is important, always, right. It's just that we have to understand, you know, the evidence that we're given. It's it's that whole idea of even predestination and all that kind of stuff, right, you know, the just that whole conversation. You look at how many verses there are about that, right? Not too many, right, just a handful. And even you know, anyway, it doesn't matter. There's a whole other topic altogether. And I would just say, I would just say, jeez, if God really wanted us to know everything there is to know, then he would have given us more verses. Right, So the idea that you know, so in her questions, she's asking, wouldn't God have known the outcome of Satan tempting Eve. Yes, So if the outcome is already known, then it's not actually temptation. You're just being led down a path. So, whether that's with Adam and Eve's temptation or jesus temptation, either it's an actual temptation or it's not. Right. So then if temptation is real, there's an actual, real choice that is not predetermined. That that's the nature of the word temptation, and I think it's also the nature of the original Hebrew and Greek words as well. But there's an actual temptation. Yeah, but you could argue that those are two different planes. You're talking about the actual versus the real According to the perspective of Jesus with the human yes and God yes yes, yeah, he became humans, so he transcended the two the two planes, right, because if that were true, then what you're saying is it would transfer into Jesus walking on the air. Right. The Book of Hebrew says that Jesus was tempted in every way as we are. Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a legitimate temptation, right, because if it were not, if it were known, right, then then he'd be like, oh, it's really not temptation. I know I'm strong enough, right, So I think that the words that we translate into the word temptation means that it's up in the air. There's an actual, one hundred percent autonomous choice that has concepts. H Yeah, I like that. I like that idea, the idea that Jesus is the one who knows both sides of the equation, and the word temptation is something that he is. It says to us that he legitimately was dumpted in every way, in every way like you and me, that's great and not that's great. And so I really do believe that free will. What we do is we tend to minimize free will and maximize God's foreknowledge. And what I would say is it's possible to live in the tension of both that God has complete and told foreknowledge and humanity has complete and total free will. And then we just have to settle in on this idea that you know, God says, my ways aren't your ways, My thoughts aren't your thoughts. There is mystery and absolutely sure. But God also says, the same God who says that says, come, let's reason together, says the Lord, and so I think that it's it's great for Meredith to have a question like this or she's wrestling with I'm trying to trying to wrap my head around. If God knew it was going to happen, then why did he do it in the first place, as opposed to the fact that it was possible didn't make it actual. That's great, right, it was possible for Adam. I need to skip it, so we need to move on because that was a that was a time. Yeah, today is a summary of something we've already talked about. So yeah, I thought we don't need more time on today's talk. Well, no, you know what, Meredith's question is one of those I wrestle with it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's there's two sides of this theologically. There's the Armenian side, which is more free will. There's the Calvinists side, which is more sovereignty of God. And you and I both tend to kind of land right in the middle. Means it makes both Armenian and Calvinist friends kind of frustrated with us, right, you're half right, right now, all of our friends are type and angry texts and emails to us, you guys are screwing it up. Well, hey, we are in Deuteronomy. So the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses. As best as we know, Deuteronomy is the last of those five. It's called the Pentateuch, and it makes up all of the law. And so in Genesis it establishes the fact that God created everything, and that he set this story of redemption in motion through Abraham's family, ultimately the Messiah coming from there. Then Exodus unpacks the story of Israel escaping, and then the law of God Leviticus and Numbers re established. Leviticus establishes the religious law for Israel. How all the sacrifices are supposed to go, and the tabernacle was supposed to be built, and the priests are supposed to function all those things. Numbers focuses a little bit more on the social law, although it still reaffirms the religious law. And Deuteronomy is like a summary of Exodus. Leviticus Numbers right, it really is. And so actually Deuteronomy comes back and resummarizes the ten Commandments, restates them. Yes, and this is if you look at Deuteronomy. Much of Deuteronomy is like the last big speech from Moses. He's one hundred and twenty years old and he's standing up there going, okay, let me remind you again because it's been wandering around for forty years, and remind you again what God said. And that's that's where we're at. So in Deuteronomy chapter five, we're going to read verses one through twenty two. He said, pentituck, Pentituc. It's also called the Torah, right, yes, so it's Torah and penituck. That's correct. Okay, So the Penta is five five books. Oh yeah, yeah, right, and Torah would be the law that the that the Jews would view. So yep, there's not no penta meant five. Look at you with your knowledge. So Moses called all the people of Israel together and said, listen carefully, Israel. Hear the decrees and regulations I'm giving you today, so you may learned them and obey them. The Lord, our God, made a covenant with us at Mount Sinai. The Lord did not make this covenant with our ancestors, but with all of us who are alive today. At the mountain, the Lord spoke to you face to face from the heart of the fire I stood as an intermediary between you and the Lord, for you were afraid of the fire and did not want to approach the mountain. He spoke to me, and I passed his words on to you. This is what he said. I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other god but me. You must not make for yourself any idol of any kind, or any image of anything in the heavens, or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous god who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children, the entire families, affected, even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commandments. You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name. Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath day of rest, dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day, no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and other livestock, and any foreigners living among you. All your male and female servants must rest as you do. Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, with the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the Lord your God commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day. Honor your father and mother as the Lord your God commanded you, then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you. He must not murder, You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not testify falsely against your neighbor. You must not covet your neighbor's wife. You must not covet your neighbor's house or land, male or female, servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor. The Lord spoke these words to all of you assembled here at the foot of the mountain. He spoke the loud voice from the heart of the fire, surrounded by out and darkness, deep darkness. This was all he said at that time, And he wrote his words on two stone tablets and gave them to me. There you go, Well, I say, there you go almost every time when I'm done reading, Yeah, there you go, there you go, And I don't say it because you do the reading and I'm and I'm very there you go, and I'm very content with you doing the reading. When we started the Bible, guys, I said, Jeff, I said, I think you have a better reading voice than I do. Plus I I think that you tackle, you tackle the hard words. So I, uh, that was just read the hard words. Yeah. Well, to be honest with you, I you know, those weird like city names and things, and honestly, they don't matter, right in terms of they matter in terms of knowledge and you know history and all that, But in terms of like pronouncing them correctly, that doesn't matter, right. So sometimes in church even I'll say and then the people of Israel were encamped between that city and this city, and on the screen it says both you know, I'm like, you know that weird town and that weird town, you know, and I just move on and people people laugh, but I'm just like why even try it? Sometimes? Right? But hey, So, so I went to Israel on two thousand and nine, and I know that you also went last year, right, yeah? Year? Yeah, yeah, lest Man. And now did you get a chance to visit the Dead Sea Scroll Museum museum? Yeah? Yeah? And were you there? You were there where they discovered them. You heard the story about the caves and everything else. It's super cool. And they found over six hundred manuscripts in the caves overlooking the Dead Sea. And these manuscripts were dated between two hundred BC and one hundred BC or one hundred AD. And it's the text of the Old Testament, one thousand earlier that the manuscripts were available. And this was in nineteen forty seven, it says, right, in nineteen forty seven. Yes, the oldest manuscripts we have we had up to that point. Yes, we're one thousand years newer than what they found in Kumra. Yeah, and that crazy, right. So the oldest ones we had up to that point were for many of these things were from one thousand and eighty well, and then all of a sudden, this discovery is found in nineteen forty seven and Kumran, and now of a sudden, there are a thousand years older than the oldest ones we had up to that point. It's really incredible. Yeah. And then there was and there was an actual village like that they believed to be some sort of a monastery or something where where people were like either yeah, yeah, it was a religious cult. It it was like a Jewish cult that lived out there. They were almost like a monk type of thay, yeah, that lived in that area, and they just copied the Bible and they were looking for the end of the world, right, Yeah. And there was a little boy who had apparently lost a sheep or a ram or a goat or something and he couldn't find it. And of course back then, you know still today, there's so many caves over there, and so he grabbed a rock and he threw the rock trying to throw it in because you didn't want to climb the mountain and to check each cave. So he's throwing rocks in the caves to hear of animal's reaction. So he throws a rock into a cave, and here's breaking a pottery and then thinks, oh, what did I do? Or whatever he's thinking, and he climbs the mountain and sees and discovers all you know of these scrolls that were sealed with like a wax in pottery so that they were able to survive. And there's two hundred of them, which is pretty six six hundred of this, yeah, which is crazy. And then what's incredible. What was so special about that discovery was the accuracy. Right, So there's almost a thousand year gap between the oldest ones we had up to that point and these brand new ones that we found that were a thousand years older, and then they're almost exactly the same. The Book of Isaiah, for instance, the Scroll of Isaiah is one of the most complete scrolls out of all of that is almost exactly word for word. When we're talking variances, you're not talking any theological or historical changes. You're talking maybe a spelling or like a comma kind of a kind of a thing, right, pluctuation. It's really phenomenal how accurate, how accurate these are, and you're talking there's six So the reason why you told that whole story is this exact passage is one of the passages that was found. Right, that's exactly what we read Dudonomy chapter five, verse one through Duteronomy sixth verse one. That's right, that was found and it's exactly the same, Right, it's exactly the same as what we already knew it, which again, you know, I do love the fact that sometimes if you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John uh and sometimes if you're reading them chronologically, you'll say, well, hey, didn't I just read this? You know? And uh and so you know, the Bible uh, you know, goes out of its way to sometimes repeat events. And it seems to me like the series that we just got out of supported the fact that the bigger the event was, and the more important that it was, it seemed like it was in all four gospels, right, Sometimes it's in two, sometimes it's in one. And uh and and and here we have Deuteronomy. Moses is speech, and it's word for word covering what we would assume would be some of the most important things that God ever spoke, right, which in this case obviously is the ten Commandments. Yeah, the top ten, the top ten top ten list right here. Yes, pretty much if you look at these again, I think it's important. You know, God, God, There's so many things God could teach us, but there are some fundamental things God keeps teaching us over and over and over and over again. So it would have been easy for the Jews to go or the Israelites to go, oh, we already know this part. But instead Moses said, hey, listen, it's been a while. Let's remind ourselves again to this. And there are some fundamental things. The fact that Jesus is a virgin born side of God, that he lived a sinless life, that he taught us the best way to live, the fact that he paid the price for our sin with his blood, and he took the punishment for our sin and his body, and he rose again, and he gave us a mission. He established his church, he has sent it back to heaven. Some day, he's going to come and judge the world again. We're all going to stand and give account before God, right, and that salvation is by through faith. Those things are important. We have to remind ourselves often these How to live our life is incredibly important. And you know you've mentioned this before. There's six hundred and what thirteen six hundred and thirteen laws in the Bible, but they can all be summed up in these right, right, And Jesus gets even simpler. So they're six hundred and thirteen. God gives the top ten. Hey, if you keep these, you're probably keeping most of them. Jesus gets down to actually there's just two, which he quotes from Deuteronomy, which is great right in the book we're reading in right now, and he goes, hey, listen, you want a real summary. Love God with everything that you are. You know things like, don't have any other God before me, don't have any idols, don't take my name in vain, have a Sabbath day and set it aside for me. Right, So, love God with all of who you are. And then the other head, Jesus says, the other half is the flip side of that coin. You can't separate it is love your neighbors yourself. So that's the don't kill, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't cove it, don't covet what your neighbor has, right, don't lie. And so even Jesus comes back and read affirms you know these things, and that's interesting. He reaffirms all of the ten commandments in teachings as well. Well. He actually said, all the law and all the profits hang on these two summaries and these two new commands, you know, And it's, uh, you just said something that was actually incredibly profound. Congratulations. Every once in a while you do that. Yeah, but you said there are things that there are things that you said, say it again, there are things that he teaches you. Then there's things that he keeps teaching you. What did you say? Yeah, I said, yeah, yeah, Well that is so that is really a brilliant concept because sometimes we as Christians, the more mature that we get, the longer that we've been in church world, we think that spiritual growth is acquiring new knowledge now, but actually spiritual growth is applying the knowledge that we have. That's right. Right, So if you if you know one hundred things, spiritual growth is not learning two hundred things, right, It is to master the one hundred things. That's right. And so if you if so, if you you can learn a thousand things and still not do eight hundred of them, and you're just as shallow as right. I'm not saying you personally, I'm saying that's how it's defined. Right. So our lives are defined by application and obedience. They're defined by our relationship with our heavenly Father and our maturity and our understanding because the more that we love God. Wait, let me, I just thought of something. When I was just a teenager, I remember my youth pastor said, Hey, I'm going to teach you, as high school students, three things, And I didn't realize how profound those three things were. He said, I'm going to teach you to know God, to love God, and to serve God. And he said, because you can't really serve him unless you know him, and you can't unless you love him, and you can't really love him as much as you should unless you know who he is. And so to know God is to love God is to serve God, and those things in that order. I realized when I'm older, I'm like, Wow, that really truly is the whole entire Christian life in those three phrases. Yeah, so we should celebrate when God reminds us of a thing that's right. And getting frustered, I already heard this part. The service wasn't for me. Gosh, that is such a good word. I'm gonna have to find another. I'm gonna have to find another nation to hang out with, another leader to follow, because I've already heard this story, right, yeah, I've heard this yeah yeah, yeah, as if, as if you know, that's the that's the goal. The goal is, Hey, do you need an encouraging reminder from it? Right? And and we and we say it every single week in so many different ways. So yeah, that's a that's a great word from today. Good well, hey, that's a good place to end and hopefully we will see you next time on the Bible gosh,