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Voddie Baucham - Preaching Christ From All of Scripture · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Breakout session number one. In this breakout session, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to be talking about the issue of preaching Christ from
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  Speaker 1: all of Scripture. And as we speak about this issue
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  Speaker 1: of preaching Christ from all of Scripture, I recognize that
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  Speaker 1: not everybody in here is a preacher. In fact, the
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  Speaker 1: overwhelming majority of the people in here are not preachers.
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  Speaker 1: So what I'm going to do is I'm not going
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  Speaker 1: to assume anything. We're going to take this from the
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  Speaker 1: most basic level. We're going to talk about basic hermeneutics,
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  Speaker 1: which is the art and science of interpreting the Bible
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  Speaker 1: and how we apply that to the way we teach
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  Speaker 1: the scriptures. Let me tell you about how this issue
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  Speaker 1: of redemptive historic preaching became significant to me. It was
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  Speaker 1: several years ago. Several years ago, I received a letter.
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  Speaker 1: It was a glowing letter, just a syrupy, sappy, sweet,
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  Speaker 1: almost love letter from an Orthodox Jewish woman. And this
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  Speaker 1: Orthodox Jewish woman had heard a message that I had
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  Speaker 1: preached from the Old Testament. And she thought it was
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  Speaker 1: the greatest thing in the world. And when I got
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  Speaker 1: finished reading this syrupy, sweet, almost love letter from this
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  Speaker 1: Orthodox Jewish woman who had heard me preach a message
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  Speaker 1: from the Old Testament and loved it, I wept. Not
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  Speaker 1: because the letter was so sweet, but because she was
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  Speaker 1: not offended. And the reason she was not offended is
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  Speaker 1: because I did not preach the Gospels. I preached the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament the way I'd been taught to preach the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament. I went to a particular text and I
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  Speaker 1: treated it like it was the only thing in the Bible.
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  Speaker 1: And I did an exposition of that particular text. And
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  Speaker 1: that particular text didn't talk about Christ. So I didn't
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  Speaker 1: talk about Christ. And I just did what I had
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  Speaker 1: been taught to do. Not what I've been called to do.
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  Speaker 1: What I've been called to do is preach the gospel.
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  Speaker 1: Regardless of where I am in scripture, I'm called to
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  Speaker 1: preach the gospel. And as we begin, here's what I
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  Speaker 1: want you to grasp. There are very few people in
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  Speaker 1: our culture today, very few people in our context today
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  Speaker 1: that preach Christ from all of Scripture. In fact, there
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  Speaker 1: are very few that even preach Christ when they're preaching
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  Speaker 1: New Testament texts. Unless you're in the Gospels. And in
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  Speaker 1: some parts of the Gospels, you get people in some
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  Speaker 1: parts of the Gospels. And they won't preach Christ. They
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  Speaker 1: won't preach to God unless it's Jesus in their paragraph.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it just it it just doesn't happen. And
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  Speaker 1: we're not scandalized by it because that's the way we're
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  Speaker 1: used to hearing the texts proclaim. Also, because the predominant
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  Speaker 1: perspective from which we approach the scriptures is a dispensational hermeneutic.
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  Speaker 1: Now there are two major hermeneutics. There is a dispensational
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  Speaker 1: hermeneutic and there's a traditional covenantal hermeneutic. The traditional covenantal
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  Speaker 1: hermeneutic is a hermeneutic that views scripture as basically one
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  Speaker 1: main major storyline as God having one people and God
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  Speaker 1: redeeming that one people. approach, which is the predominant approach,
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  Speaker 1: so much so that it's just assumed people who don't
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  Speaker 1: even know the word dispensational are dispensationalists. And because of that,
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  Speaker 1: we have this idea that there is this hard break
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  Speaker 1: between the New Testament and the Old Testament, this hard
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  Speaker 1: break between Israel and the church, and God has two
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  Speaker 1: peoples and two plans. One of the reasons that you
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  Speaker 1: have to have, for example, this idea of you know,
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  Speaker 1: the dispensational premillennialism and the rapture and all this sort
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  Speaker 1: of stuff is because God started with plan A. Plan
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  Speaker 1: A was Israel. Plan A didn't work. Because plan A
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  Speaker 1: didn't work, God went to plan B, which was the church. Now,
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  Speaker 1: God didn't completely give up on Israel. He's going to
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  Speaker 1: go back to plan A. But before he goes back
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  Speaker 1: to plan A, plan B has got to be taken
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  Speaker 1: out of here so that he can reinstitute plan A
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  Speaker 1: with Israel. Okay? Okay? That's the left behind series. That's
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  Speaker 1: classical dispensationalism. And we don't realize that that's not just
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  Speaker 1: a way of looking at your eschatology. It's a way
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  Speaker 1: of looking at the Bible as a whole. And when
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  Speaker 1: we look at the Bible in that way and we
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  Speaker 1: open up to the Old Testament, what we see is
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  Speaker 1: God's word to the people of plan A. And so
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  Speaker 1: what do you get when you're in the Old Testament?
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  Speaker 1: You get character studies and that's all just character studies.
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  Speaker 1: And so here's the character Noah. Noah did this and
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  Speaker 1: it was good. Noah did that and it was bad.
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  Speaker 1: Do the good stuff that Noah did. Don't do the
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  Speaker 1: bad stuff that Noah did. Now, the problem with that
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  Speaker 1: is that when we read the Old Testament that way,
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  Speaker 1: what we end up emphasizing is works righteousness. Because we're
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  Speaker 1: going to the Old Testament and we're saying that basically
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament exists to teach you how to be
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  Speaker 1: a better person. That is flexing your works righteousness muscle.
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  Speaker 1: You need to be a better person. No, you need Christ. Amen.
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  Speaker 1: But if that's the way that we view the Old
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  Speaker 1: Testament and we just go there and all we're doing
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  Speaker 1: is character studies, you don't come away with the idea
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  Speaker 1: that what you need is Christ. You come away with
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  Speaker 1: the idea that there are people in the Old Testament
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  Speaker 1: who were successful and they were successful because of the
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  Speaker 1: things that they did that were obedient or that were good.
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  Speaker 1: There were other people that weren't successful. They were unsuccessful
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  Speaker 1: because of the things that they did that were disobedient
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  Speaker 1: or that were bad. And so when we go to
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  Speaker 1: the Old Testament, all we can come away with is
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  Speaker 1: do this. Don't do that. Be like this person, not
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  Speaker 1: like that person. And that's generally what we get. But
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  Speaker 1: from a redemptive historic perspective, we recognize that God has
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  Speaker 1: one people. He has one story. He has one plan.
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  Speaker 1: And if he has one people and one story and
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  Speaker 1: one plan, then there is a continuity there. So the
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  Speaker 1: answer to man's problem is not do better. Nor is
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  Speaker 1: the answer to man's problem being more like Noah, more
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  Speaker 1: like Moses, more like Abraham. By the way, if those
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  Speaker 1: guys and being like them were sufficient, we would not
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  Speaker 1: have needed Christ. Amen. Be more like Abraham. Yes, he
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  Speaker 1: needed Jesus to die for his sin and so do you. Amen.
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  Speaker 1: And so what we're going to do here It's begin
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  Speaker 1: from the very basics and address this issue to help
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  Speaker 1: us understand why it is difficult for us to even
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  Speaker 1: think about Christ being preached from all of scripture and
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  Speaker 1: then turn the corner to where we understand the necessity
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  Speaker 1: of it. And then perhaps understand a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: how we do it. And like I said, we're going
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  Speaker 1: to go real slow, not taking anything for granted. We
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  Speaker 1: realize that the overwhelming majority of the people in the room,
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  Speaker 1: not preachers. So we're starting at ground zero. 2 Timothy
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  Speaker 1: chapter 2 and verse 15. Do your best to present
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  Speaker 1: yourself to God as one approved. A worker who has
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  Speaker 1: no need to be ashamed. Rightly handling the word of truth.
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  Speaker 1: That is our call. It's a call for all of us.
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  Speaker 1: And here's what we're going to do. In order to
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  Speaker 1: handle the word rightly. There are several things that we
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  Speaker 1: need to have in place. Five. I'll give you five
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  Speaker 1: for the time that we have. One. We must know
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  Speaker 1: the Bible's storyline. We must know the Bible's storyline, which
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  Speaker 1: again is something that we don't get. For the most part,
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  Speaker 1: we haven't looked at the Bible in that way. We
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  Speaker 1: haven't looked at the Bible as a story with a storyline.
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  Speaker 1: We've looked at the Bible as these sort of segments.
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  Speaker 1: And as a result of that, we don't have an
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  Speaker 1: overarching picture of the Bible's There is a storyline in
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  Speaker 1: the Bible. And that's the first thing that we need
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  Speaker 1: to do if we're going to handle the scriptures rightly.
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  Speaker 1: Know the Bible's storyline. Two, know the Bible's divisions. Know
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  Speaker 1: the Bible's divisions. We need to know the Bible's divisions. Three,
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  Speaker 1: we need to know the different types of literature in
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  Speaker 1: the Bible. We need to know the different types of
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  Speaker 1: literature in the Bible. It's very important to know that.
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  Speaker 1: For example, if... If you were reading Shakespeare, but you
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  Speaker 1: were reading it as though, or in the same way
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  Speaker 1: that you read Blackstone's Commentary on the Law, just because,
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  Speaker 1: you know, linguistically, kind of, you know, similar in period, well,
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  Speaker 1: you'd have a problem if you tried to read Shakespeare
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  Speaker 1: as though it were Blackstone's Commentary on the Law. Why?
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  Speaker 1: Because it's a different type of literature. And if you're
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  Speaker 1: reading poetry... As though it's law, you're going to misread
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  Speaker 1: the poetry. Guess what? That's also true when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to Psalms and Exodus. Amen, somebody. If I'm reading the
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  Speaker 1: Psalms the same way I read Exodus, that is the
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  Speaker 1: exact same thing as reading Shakespeare as though I'm reading
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  Speaker 1: Blackstone's commentary on the law. Different types of literature are
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  Speaker 1: to be read differently. Okay. That's why, you know, in
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, people are always, do you take the Bible literally?
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  Speaker 1: Now that's a trick question. It's a trap. Kind of
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  Speaker 1: like when Pharisees tried to trap Jesus, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: love it. Jesus, they tried to trap Jesus and he always,
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  Speaker 1: I just, it's beautiful. He's our example. What do you
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  Speaker 1: do when people try to trap you? Oh, I don't know.
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  Speaker 1: What does Jesus do? Jesus, what is the greatest commandment?
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  Speaker 1: That's a trap. It was a trap. What's the greatest commandment?
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  Speaker 1: Because they either thought, you know, he's antinomian. He's promoting lawlessness.
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  Speaker 1: He's promoting lawlessness. Because according to them, they're breaking all
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  Speaker 1: kind of laws. Or they're trying to, you know, trick
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  Speaker 1: him into putting one part of the law against the other.
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  Speaker 1: It was a trap. Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? Well,
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  Speaker 1: the greatest commandment is love the Lord your God with
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  Speaker 1: all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Now,
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  Speaker 1: here's the deal. Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? He's supposed
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  Speaker 1: to go to Deuteronomy chapter 5. He quotes Deuteronomy chapter 6.
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  Speaker 1: messes them all up. Second one is like it, love
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  Speaker 1: your neighbor as yourself. Now here's the other thing that's
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  Speaker 1: amazing about that. What he says in the first one
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  Speaker 1: is actually a summary of the first table of the law,
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  Speaker 1: our vertical commandments. What he says in the second one
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  Speaker 1: is actually a summary of the second table of the law,
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  Speaker 1: our horizontal commandments. So the trick question is, Jesus, what's
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  Speaker 1: the greatest commandment? His answer, I'm going to have to
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  Speaker 1: say one through four, followed closely by five through ten.
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  Speaker 1: Laughter So when people ask, do you take the Bible literally?
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  Speaker 1: My answer, where I'm supposed to. They don't like that.
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  Speaker 1: It's a trick question. You're supposed to say yes so
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  Speaker 1: that they can go and grab something out of Scripture
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  Speaker 1: that would be completely ridiculous if it took it literally.
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  Speaker 1: Or no, wherein you're giving up your ground. You're giving
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  Speaker 1: up the Bible. You take the Bible literally where I'm
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  Speaker 1: supposed to. And then they go, and before they finish,
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  Speaker 1: I say, when the Bible says you shall not kill,
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  Speaker 1: I think it means I shouldn't murder you no matter
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  Speaker 1: how mad you make me. But when it says God
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  Speaker 1: covers me with his wings, I don't think that makes
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  Speaker 1: him a big chicken. You have to know what type
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  Speaker 1: of literature you're reading. Four. You need to know some
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  Speaker 1: basic skills. And five, you need to have some basic tools,
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  Speaker 1: all right? So whether you are a pastor preaching the
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  Speaker 1: Bible or whether you're a homeschool mom, homeschool dad who's
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  Speaker 1: teaching the scriptures at home, this is incredibly important. Now,
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  Speaker 1: let me tell you why this is important, especially on
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  Speaker 1: that second level, because here's what happens. If we are
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  Speaker 1: teaching the Bible, and this is, by the way, this
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  Speaker 1: is what's wrong with the way the Bible's taught in
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  Speaker 1: Sunday school, okay? This has nothing to do with whether
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  Speaker 1: or not we agree with Sunday school on the whole,
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  Speaker 1: but I'm just talking about the way the Bible is
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  Speaker 1: taught in Sunday school. Children go to Sunday school and
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  Speaker 1: what do they get? They get moralisms, okay? They go
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  Speaker 1: to Sunday school and they get, here's the story of Jonah.
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  Speaker 1: This is the story of David, you know? And the
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  Speaker 1: story of David, David was small and he was a
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  Speaker 1: small boy, but he believed God. And so because of
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  Speaker 1: David's great faith, David goes out and he fights against
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  Speaker 1: the giant and you need to be like David. And
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  Speaker 1: when there are giants in your life, you need to
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  Speaker 1: go out and slay the giants like David. It's great.
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  Speaker 1: That's self-righteousness. It's works righteousness. Sounds good. But if that's
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  Speaker 1: what you get week after week after week after week,
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  Speaker 1: let me ask you a question. What's the Bible about?
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  Speaker 1: The Bible's about working hard to be like the good
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  Speaker 1: characters and not like the bad characters. You don't need
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  Speaker 1: Jesus for that. And they learn Christlessness. They learn Christ-less-ness
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  Speaker 1: through the Bible being taught in that way. Okay? So, first,
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  Speaker 1: knowing the Bible storyline. How do we know the Bible storyline?
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  Speaker 1: Number one, okay? This one is, this was, you need
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  Speaker 1: to write this one down. Number one, read the whole Bible. Amen.
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  Speaker 1: That's number one. Read the whole Bible. All of it.
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  Speaker 1: From Genesis to maps. Okay. Number two, study the timeline.
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  Speaker 1: The Bible is not written chronologically. So in addition to
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  Speaker 1: reading the whole Bible, you need to study the Bible's
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  Speaker 1: timeline so that you know when things are happening. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Study the Bible's timeline. Number three, study biblical theology. Study
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  Speaker 1: biblical theology. It's a lost art, a lost science, biblical theology.
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  Speaker 1: Systematic theology we know about. What does systematic theology do? Well,
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  Speaker 1: systematic theology takes all the great doctrines and looks through
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  Speaker 1: all of Scripture to see what Scriptures have to say
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  Speaker 1: about these great doctrines. Now, systematic theology is important. However,
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  Speaker 1: if you have systematic theology and not biblical theology, then
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  Speaker 1: you don't have the overarching storyline of scripture, but just
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  Speaker 1: these doctrines that you find in scripture and you don't
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  Speaker 1: put them into a context. Also, if you don't have
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  Speaker 1: a good biblical theology, it will mess up your systematic
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  Speaker 1: theology because you don't know the overarching story of redemptive history. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: you're not looking at things in their proper context. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: So read the whole Bible, study the timeline, and study
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  Speaker 1: biblical theology so that you know what is happening in
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  Speaker 1: the overarching story of the Bible. Now, just briefly, let
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  Speaker 1: me give this to you. For example, okay, when we
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  Speaker 1: talk about this overarching story of the Bible and knowing
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  Speaker 1: this overarching story of the Bible and thinking about it
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  Speaker 1: from a Christocentric redemptive historic approach, Here's how it changes things.
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  Speaker 1: Listen to this, for example, in Luke chapter 24. Luke
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  Speaker 1: chapter 24, beginning of verse 22. They were at the
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  Speaker 1: tomb early in the morning. And when they did not
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  Speaker 1: find his body, they came back saying that they had
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  Speaker 1: seen a vision of angels. Now these are the men
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  Speaker 1: on the road to Emmaus. Telling Jesus, who they do
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  Speaker 1: not recognize because he has not allowed them to recognize him. Uh-oh.
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  Speaker 1: telling Jesus about the events that have transpired since he
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  Speaker 1: seems to be the only man in Jerusalem that is
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  Speaker 1: unaware of what has happened, which is quite ironic because
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  Speaker 1: he's actually the only man in Jerusalem who really knows
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  Speaker 1: what happened. And they're recounting for him what happened. Some
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  Speaker 1: of those who were with us went to the tomb
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  Speaker 1: and found it just as the woman had said. but
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  Speaker 1: him they did not see. And he said to them,
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  Speaker 1: O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all
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  Speaker 1: that the prophets have spoken. Notice he didn't say, O
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  Speaker 1: foolish one, and slow of heart, because that was the
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  Speaker 1: Old Testament, and there's no way for you to know
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  Speaker 1: me from the Old Testament, but now I'm here, so I, no,
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  Speaker 1: that's not what he said. Your problem is you don't
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  Speaker 1: believe what was written in the Old Testament. You don't
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  Speaker 1: get my death, burial, and resurrection because of what You
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  Speaker 1: believe about the Old Testament. Did you catch that? Was
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  Speaker 1: it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
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  Speaker 1: and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and
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  Speaker 1: all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the
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  Speaker 1: scriptures the things concerning himself. Jesus says the whole Bible
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  Speaker 1: is about him. All of the Bible is about him.
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  Speaker 1: John 1, 45. Philip found Nathanael and said to him,
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  Speaker 1: we have found him of whom Moses in the law
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  Speaker 1: and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son
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  Speaker 1: of Joseph. Philip finds his brother Nathanael, and what does
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  Speaker 1: Philip say? Philip doesn't say, man, that stuff we've been
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  Speaker 1: reading about in the Old Testament, that's been blown out
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  Speaker 1: of the water. No, Philip, after having met Jesus... Goes
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  Speaker 1: and finds his brother Nathanael and says, this is the
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  Speaker 1: one about whom Moses, the law, and the prophets. This
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  Speaker 1: is the one about whom the Old Testament spoke. John 5, 46.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus says, for if you believed Moses, you would believe me.
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  Speaker 1: For he wrote of me. What did Moses write? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
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  Speaker 1: What are those books about? Jesus. Jesus. I didn't say that.
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  Speaker 1: Jesus said that. Acts chapter 8, verses 34 to 36.
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  Speaker 1: And the eunuch said to Philip, remember Philip, the Ethiopian eunuch,
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  Speaker 1: he runs alongside the chariot. The eunuch said to Philip,
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  Speaker 1: he's reading, what is he reading? Isaiah. Isaiah. About whom,
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  Speaker 1: I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself
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  Speaker 1: or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and said,
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  Speaker 1: that's the Old Testament, brother. Let me give you some
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  Speaker 1: new stuff so that you can get saved. And beginning
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  Speaker 1: with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: He preached the gospel from the book of Isaiah. Philip did.
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  Speaker 1: We have to know the Bible storyline in order for
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  Speaker 1: this to make sense. Quickly, short version. God creates the world.
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  Speaker 1: God creates man, crowning glory of his creation. That's Genesis
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  Speaker 1: chapter 1, Genesis chapter 2. We get to Genesis chapter 3,
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  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden there in Genesis chapter 3,
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  Speaker 1: things go very badly. In Genesis chapter 3, the serpent
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  Speaker 1: deceives the woman. The woman gives the fruit to her husband.
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  Speaker 1: They both do this so that they could be like God, which,
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  Speaker 1: by the way, overturned all of the authority structures that
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  Speaker 1: God had put into creation. It was God, the man,
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  Speaker 1: the woman, then creation, which the serpent was part of.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: What happens? Creation, the serpent, deceives the woman, gives it
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: to her husband. Why? So that they can be like God.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Flipped everything upside down on its head. And it's a
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: wreck from that moment on. But in Genesis chapter 3
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: and verse 15, we have hope for the first time
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the gospel is proclaimed. In Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the serpent is cursed and God says, I will put
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: enmity between you and the woman and between your seed
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: and her seed. That's Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 4,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: we have the first murder. What is the first murder?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: The first murder is the serpent saying loud and clear,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I believe what God said. Therefore, the seed of the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: serpent came. Why do I know that he's the seed
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: of the serpent? Because 1 John chapter 3 tells me so.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: The seed of the serpent came, kills the seed of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the woman Abel. Why? Because the serpent believed what God said.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But that's okay. In Genesis chapter 5, we get one
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: of those things in scriptures that we hate. A genealogy.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: We don't like genealogies because we do not understand the gospel.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Why is it important we get a genealogy in chapter 5? Well,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the seed of the serpent Cain killed the seed of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the woman Abel. The promised seed is the one who
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: is going to deliver mankind as a result of the fall.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Promised seed is gone, right? No. Seth is born. And
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: there are 10 generations between Seth and a man by
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the name of Noah. Noah is important because the world
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: has gone haywire. And there in Genesis chapter 6 and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: 7 and 8, we realize God judges the world, floods
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: the world, but the seed is preserved as Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and their wives get on the ark. Later on, we're
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: introduced to a man by the name of Abraham. There
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: is a promise made to him, a covenant in Genesis
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: chapter 12. It involves a promised seed. Abraham's old. He
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: gets worried. His wife gets worried. They decide they're going
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: to have a son. They can't trust God, so they
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: go to Hagar. They go to Hagar and they have Ishmael.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Here's where we discover something. It's not just a seed.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It's the seed. Not Ishmael or Hagar. It's Sarah, your wife.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Ishmael is sent off. Sarah conceives she has a son
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: by the name of Isaac. Isaac goes and has twins.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: He has twins by the name of Jacob and Esau.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Will the promised seed be the older? Absolutely not. It
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: will be the younger. The older will serve the younger.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Jacob is the promised seed. Jacob continues on. The promised
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: seed is going to go forth. Jacob goes and decides
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: he's going to get married. We think it's a love story,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: but it's not a love story. It's a seed story.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: He finds Rachel, who is the one, one, one. Seven
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: years he gives up for this girl. Goes to bed
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: on his wedding night and wakes up next to the
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: other one, one, one. He gets Leah. Has to promise
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: another seven years to get the one he wants. But
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: that's okay because it's a love story, right? He gets
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the one he wants. No, the one he wants can't
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: have children. The one he didn't want in the first
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: place proceeds to give birth to Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Now,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the one he wants is very important because she eventually
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: gives birth to a little boy by the name of Joseph.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Why is Joseph important? Well, Joseph is important because Joseph
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: is going to go into Egypt. What purpose does Joseph
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: serve in Egypt? Well, Joseph, through his own mouth, tells
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: his brothers when he reveals himself to them. Do not
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: be angry with yourselves. God sent me here. Why? To
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: preserve your lives. Story of Joseph is not about Joseph.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: The story of Joseph is about the promised seed. The
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: promised seed, by the way, is Judah. Well, eventually we
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: have a nation like God promised. They get a law.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Do they keep the law? No, the law doesn't do
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: it for them. After that, they get a conquering general.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Does the conquering general defeat all their foes? No, he doesn't.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Eventually they get judges. Do the judges do it for them? No,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: they don't. Eventually they get a kingdom and they get
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: a king. Do the kings do it for them? No,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: they don't. But there's one king who's a special king.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: And that king gets another covenant in 2 Samuel chapter 7.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: And that covenant entails the fact that he will have
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a son who will reign on his throne for all
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of eternity. That king is a great king by the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: name of David. And eventually we go on. The kingdom
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: is divided up. And they go into captivity. The prophets
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: come as God's covenant lawyers, reminding God's people of God's
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: word and God's faithfulness. And all of a sudden, things
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: go dark. That is until we get to the New Testament,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: which begins with what? A list of names. Why? In
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the book of Matthew, God screams. I made a promise
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15 that the promised
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: seed was going to come and crush the head of
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the snake. Here is the line of the promised seed.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And here is the promised seed. His name is Yeshua.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Just like the Yeshua of the Old Testament who was
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: a conquering king. But that conquering king did not defeat
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: all foes. This, however, is going to be a conquering
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: king who defeats all foes. There was a people. Now
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: he is the people. There was a law. You couldn't
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: keep the law. He's going to keep the law. There
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: were judges. They were insufficient. He is going to be
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the righteous judge who will judge the living and the dead.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: We had a kingdom. It was divided and conquered. He
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: has a kingdom that will reign forevermore. The serpent indeed
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: bruised him on the heel, but he indeed crushed the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: serpent's head. And that in a nutshell. is the one
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: single story of the Bible. And everything in Scripture has
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to be interpreted through that grid. So if I plop
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: down and I'm looking at the story of Jacob and Esau,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: and it's just about sibling rivalry, I just missed the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: most important story in the entire world for something minute.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: May there be some important things there about sibling rivalry? Yes,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: but I better not teach them at the expense of
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: the greater truth. The greater truth is Christ himself. Well,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: this means we avoid moralizing Old Testament texts. This also
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: means we ask the question, what does this text teach
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: us about God's redemptive plans? This does not mean that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: every verse in the Bible is allegorized as a story
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: about Jesus. Remember the story of the little boy in
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: the Sunday school class? What small, furry, has a long
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: furry tail, lives in a tree and collects nuts? Little
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: boy raises his hand. Jesus? No, it's a squirrel. No.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we do that with the Bible. We get committed
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to redemptive historic exposition. And we go to every verse
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: of the Bible trying to force it and contort it
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: so that it, no. Sometimes what you're reading is just
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: connected to Christ in that it's connected to the broader
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: story of redemptive history. You don't have to allegorize every verse.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: This does not mean that there is no value in
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the moral examples we see in the Old Testament. But
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: here's the difference. when we see Abraham and his righteousness.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Here's the question. What do the New Testament writers do
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: with that? I don't have to guess. I can just
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: go to Romans. And Romans will tell me what is
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: significant about Abraham and his life. Here's what's ironic. We
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: go to Abraham and we see Abraham do some great
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: thing and we say, there you go, be like Abraham.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: What does Paul say? Abraham believed God and it was
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: credited to him as righteousness. You want to be like Abraham?
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Believe God. Because Abraham was a sinner from the word go.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Horrible husband. Don't be like him. You want to be
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: like Abraham? Believe God. Believe God. Even when we see
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: great feats in the Old Testament. The only way we
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: can interpret those as great feats is by interpreting them
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: in light of the person and work of Jesus Christ,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: who is perfection. And we're seeing a small window into
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: his character when we see something done the right way. Well,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: here's some mistakes that we make in the Old Testament.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: And I know there were five of those points that
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I wanted to give you. And I gave you those
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: five points for those of you who are sitting there
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: hoping that we're going to get up through all those five. No,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: we're just going to do number one. I just thought
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: I'd let you know. I want you to know the five,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: but we just have time for number one. All right.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Here are the mistakes that we make when we get
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: to the Old Testament. Number one, we assume the irrelevance
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of the Old Testament. We assume the irrelevance of the
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Old Testament. That's the left side of the book. It's irrelevant.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It's not important. We're not under law. We're under grace. True.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: But you can't understand grace unless you understand the Old Testament.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: You can't understand grace unless you understand the law. Here's
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: the other thing. Don't make this mistake. We're no longer
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: under law. We're under grace, which means that law, bad. Grace, good. Really?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Because if that's true, then in the Old Testament, it says...
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: You should have northern gods before me, but that was
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the law. Go get you another god. If you can't
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: say amen, you ought to say ouch. Old Testament says
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: don't make any graven images, but that was the law.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: You go carve you an ox and bow down. Are
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: you smelling what I'm stepping in? We could go through
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: all 10, folks. It is absolutely ridiculous to somehow believe
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: that God tried to give a law that was good.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Couldn't do it. So Christ came so that he know
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: God gave a law that was good. Man could not
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: keep that law. Part of the goodness of Christ is
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: that he did keep that law. That law is perfect.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: And not only did he keep that law. But it
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: is him who works in us both to will and
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: to do his good pleasure. And you better believe that
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: his good pleasure is tied to those absolute moral truths
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: that he has given us throughout the scriptures. Well, does
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: that mean that we need to go sacrifice in lambs
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: and goats? No. But we're saved because of a lamb
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: that was sacrificed. Amen. That was good. It was all good.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: It was a shadow, but it was good. Okay? It
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: was good. Two, missing Christ altogether. Missing Christ altogether. That's
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: another mistake we make in the Old Testament. We just
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: miss Christ altogether. Three, getting to Christ too fast. Getting
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to Christ too fast. Sometimes there's some stuff there that
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: we need to wade through in order that we might
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: understand the significance that Christ brings to bear on the text.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And fourthly, flattening Christ's redemptive historic significance. Flattening Christ's redemptive
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: historic significance. In other words, we just make it a
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: moralism but bring Christ to the center of the moralism.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Here's some examples. One example there is the patriarchs. We've
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: talked about the patriarchs before, but we can go and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: look at the life of the patriarchs. We look at
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the life of Abraham, for example, and when we look
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: there at the life of Abraham, we end up going through,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: here's what Abraham did good, here's what Abraham did bad.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Do the things that Abraham did good. Don't do the
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: things that Abraham did bad. No, the life of Abraham
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: is about the covenant and God keeping his covenant with
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Abraham in spite of Abraham. Amen. It's about God. If
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: you come away from the life of Abraham going, oh Abraham,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: you have missed it. You come away from the life
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: of Abraham going, oh God, you are so good. You
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: can redeem me. Because you redeemed that dude. He gave
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: his wife away. Twice. Twice. God is good. God is good.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: You look at the life of Abraham, you see a
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: picture of redemption and resurrection. And the sacrifice of his son.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: You see that in the life of Abraham. The exodus
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: and the mosaic law. The exodus and the mosaic law.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Most people will absolutely stay away from the Exodus and
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the Mosaic Law. We want nothing to do with the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Exodus and the Mosaic Law. We don't understand that what
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: you see there in the Exodus is God calling out
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a people for himself and saying very clearly, my people
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: are going to be distinct because of the covenant that
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: I make with my people and the purity that I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: bring upon my people. But you also see my people
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: are not going to be able to achieve that purity
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: in and of themselves. Eventually, there's going to have to
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: be a snake raised up in the wilderness. The Exodus is,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: they miss it. And they miss it again and again
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: and again and again. Kind of like you and me.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Missing it again and again and again. God, would you
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: please feed me? Followed by, I don't like quail anymore.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: That's you. That's me. That's us. Speak to the rock.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I know you told me to speak to the rock,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: but I'm angry. That's you. That's me. God redeems his people.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: David and Goliath. That's another one. It's the classic example.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: This picture here of David and Goliath. And all of
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: a sudden, here's David and Goliath. And we've come away
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: from David and Goliath. Basically, here's what we do. We
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: come away from the David and Goliath story, basically feeling
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: charged up and I can conquer anything. You know what's
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: interesting about that? David is going to be the king
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: of God's people. David comes to this place where there's
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a man by the name of Goliath and Goliath is
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: a champion of the Philistines. Now, a champion is one
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: who represents his people in battle. And what the champion
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: does is issue a challenge to the opponent. The champion says,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: you send your champion to fight me. I will represent
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: my people. He will represent his people. If I defeat him,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I win victory on behalf of all of my people
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: and your people will serve us. If your champion defeats me,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: then he will win victory on behalf of his people
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: and our people will serve him. David, God's shepherd king.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: represents God's people as a substitute goes and defeats their
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: adversary and thus as a substitute champion wins victory for
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: all of his people even though they didn't have to
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: fight and that's about you no that's about David's greater
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: son Jesus if you miss substitutionary atonement in David and
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Goliath you've missed the bible You don't come away from
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: David and Goliath going, yeah, I can do anything. No,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: you come away from David and Goliath going, yes, I
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: have been redeemed by a champion who represented me and
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: won victory on my behalf. One is works righteousness and self-righteousness.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: The other one is all praise to God. Do you
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: see this? Sometimes that's more difficult to do or to
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: see than at others. For example, when we get to
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the wisdom literature, it's very difficult when we get to
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the Proverbs, unless we understand that Christ is the repository
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: of all wisdom and knowledge. And when we look at
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the Proverbs, we see that all wisdom and all knowledge
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: are to and through and from christ himself and what
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: we are looking at in the book of proverbs is
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: what christ produces in those who walk with him changes
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: the entire way we look at the book of proverbs
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: now rather than obey this principle so that your business
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: will be better. Amen. Because that's what a lot of
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: people have done with Proverbs. Let's just pull it out
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: of its redemptive historic context. Put it into a business
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: book and tell people here are some principles that God
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: has given you to manipulate the universe so that you
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: can be all powerful. Instead of here's a picture of
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: pure wisdom. By the way, Christ is pure wisdom. And
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: this is what he produces in his people. Here's a
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: picture of the wise man. Here's a picture of the fool.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Which one are you? You're the fool apart from Christ.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Don't be the fool. Call to Christ. That's way different
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: from you need to do this and not that. Your
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: life is messed up because you did that and you
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: should have done this. Huge difference. Okay. All right. We
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: have 10 minutes. I promised that I was going to
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: let you ask me questions. So I have to stop here.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: So not only do we not do numbers two, three, four,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: and five, we don't get to finish number one completely.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: But ask me your questions and we'll cover a lot
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: of that stuff that we need to cover anyway. All right.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: We got 10 minutes. You can't be bashful. Go. Yes. Yes.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: you recommend for studying biblical theology? A couple of things
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: for studying biblical theology. The question was, what would I
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: recommend for studying biblical theology? Gerhardus Voss, his biblical theology is,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: it's just, it's the biblical theology. But also, there's a
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: guy named Graham Goldsworthy, and Graham Goldsworthy has a book
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: called According to Plan, which is another wonderful biblical theology.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: And I would recommend both of those. Goldsworthy also has
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: a book called Christ centered hermeneutics, which is is a
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: great companion to his book, According to Plan. So I
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: would I would recommend those if you want to study
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: biblical theology. Yes. How do I handle songs? It depends
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: on the song. There are different types of songs. So
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: the first thing you have to know is what type
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: of song are you reading? Some of the Psalms are
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: messianic Psalms. Those become real easy, you know, because those
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: are about Christ. Now, here's the problem there. If we don't,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: if we're not thinking about preaching Christ's moral scripture and
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: we go to the Psalms, then all of a sudden
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: God says something about his Christ. And because we're reading
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the Psalms out of context, because again, normally we read
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the Bible like you read a yearbook. How do you
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: read a yearbook? When you get your yearbook, you go
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: to the index, find out what page you're on, and
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: then you go look at that page. And we read
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: the Bible the same way. This is all about me.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: And so God says something about his Christ and the
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: power of his Christ and the authority of his Christ.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, because we're reading out of
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: the context, we think it's a promise to us instead
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: of being something that is gloriously about Christ. So the
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: way you have to read the Psalms is you have
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: to understand what type of Psalm you're reading. You also
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: have to understand the historical significance of the Psalm. So
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: if I'm reading Psalm 51, for example, I need to
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: understand that that's connected to David's fall with Bathsheba. I
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: need to understand that so that I put the Psalm
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: in its proper context. So the other thing is I
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: need to understand poetry. I need to understand Hebrew poetry
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: so that I understand what's happening there in the particular Psalms.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And finally, I would say Look at the New Testament.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: The Psalms are quoted all over the New Testament. The
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: New Testament writers teach us how to interpret the Psalms.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: So we put those things together, we will do a
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: pretty good job of interpreting the Psalms. But yeah, that's
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: part of the wisdom literature. Anywhere in the wisdom literature, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Song of Solomon, Job, when you get to the wisdom literature,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: it becomes very difficult because it's wisdom literature. Yes? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Great question. You know, when you get to when you
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: get to the law and, you know, I would ascribe to,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you have your you have your civil, ceremonial,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: and moral law there in the Old Testament. And if
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: you have your moral law, which is your transcendent universal law,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: basically summed up in the Ten Commandments, then what we
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: have in the Exodus and Leviticus in particular, and then
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: in Deuteronomy getting repeated again, what we have is a
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: sort of exposition of those Ten Commandments and the way
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: that they are applied in the life of God's people
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: in an ancient Near Eastern context. That's very important that
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: we have to understand ancient Near Eastern context. When it
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: comes to their civil laws and when it comes to
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: their ceremonial laws, one of the things we have to
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: understand is that God is calling his people to be distinct,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: to be distinguished from those around them. So if I
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: take certain markings on the body or certain markings on
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: your clothes and things like that, and don't put them
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: in an ancient Near Eastern context where I don't understand
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the peoples who surrounded them who did many of these
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: things for religious reasons that were connected to the gods
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: whom they worshiped, then I really don't get that at all.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: So I've got to understand why it was important for
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: God's people to be distinguished by that particular application in
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: a case law to his overarching principles in the moral
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: law so that I understand how to apply that in
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: a broader context. And you're absolutely right. Social gospel people,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: they will run, you know, to the Old Testament for,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: you know, things about welfare and, you know, things of
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that nature. And just you can't get there from here.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: You know, it just doesn't work, especially when you recognize
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: that they were a theocracy and we're not. You know,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: you can't get there from here. Usually what I say
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: to the social gospel people is I will give you
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: welfare if you give me the stoning of homosexuals. They
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: usually don't want to make that trade, so. Yeah, I
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: read the Bible naturally. Yeah, yeah, very good. I read
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: the Bible naturally, the way it's supposed to be read.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: You naturally read poetry the way you read poetry. You
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: naturally read law the way you read law. Yeah, yeah. Yes.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Are there books that can help you study the timeline
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: of Scripture? Yeah, there are actually timeline charts. I can't
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: think of names off my head. I mean, there are
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: a bunch of timeline charts. And a good study Bible
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: is going to give you some timelines and charts and
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: things like that. But you can actually get books that
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: will be timelines and charts. There are charts of the
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Old Testament, charts of the New Testament. There's a series.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: They're paperback. kind of larger paperback books, charts of the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Old Testament, charts of the New Testament, and they're great
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: at giving you the timelines and different charts to sort
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: of put things in those perspectives for you. But yeah,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of tools out there like that. I
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: can't think of the... Yeah, big Adams, yeah, Adams chart. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: Here's a question. He said, you know, you think about
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: things like VeggieTales and those kind of cartoons, which is
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: just absolute moralizing the text. It is Sunday school on steroids,
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, that's our view of the Old Testament.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: It's the morals of the story. The question is, do
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: we abandon those types of things, or do we just
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: keep them but put other sorts of things in their
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: place or to support or whatever? Here's my thing. I'll
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: answer it this way, and this will be the last
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: one I have time to answer, so let me answer
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: it this way. I was with a guy who was
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: an apologist, and he's a boxer. He's a Former boxer,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: now he trains boxers. A guy from back east, you know,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: so he's got the, you know, kind of New joys
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: the accent you know he's got the flat nose and
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: all you know and he's talking about he's a great
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: apologist the wonderful apologist and he was talking about boxing
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: and he was talking about this young fighter and how
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: he was you know helping train this young fighter and
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: he says you know what's interesting I'm sitting there and
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: you train these young fighters and one of the things
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: you have to figure out is how to bring a
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: young fighter along you know sort of slowly he says
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: because as old as I am I'm not as fast
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: as I used to be, not as quick as I
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: used to be. He said, but if I get a
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: young fighter at a certain stage before he's had a
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: lot of experience and he's got some bad habits, I
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: could beat him. He's stronger than me. He's faster than me.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: He's eventually going to be a better boxer than me.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: But if I can get him before he fills those
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: sort of holes, I can beat him just because of
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: the stuff that I know. Now, sometimes that window can
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: close in like a week where in a week, He's
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: got enough things to where, okay, now he's cleaned up
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: all that stuff that I would have taken advantage of.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: There's no way in the world I'd ever be able
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: to defeat this fighter. And his point was, when we're
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: equipping people in apologetics, we don't send them out to
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: be defeated. We make them as strong as we can,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: and then we send them out to fight. So the question,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: just instead of that particular issue, what do you do
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: with VeggieTales, what do you do with anything The question
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: is are my children at a point where they are
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: able to interact with this material in a mature way
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: with their eyes open because they understand what is right
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: and be able to sort of pick this thing apart,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: or are we at a place where that will cause
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: some compromise? And I think we make a mistake. There's
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: a ditch on both sides of the road. On one
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: side of the road there's the legalistic ditch. We will
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: not have anything in our life, in our home, in
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: our future, in our, you know, there will be nothing
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: like that because it's unclean, unpure, going to be real
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: hard to be effective communicators of the gospel if that's
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: our approach. On the other side, it's this sort of all,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: you know, bets are off, any and everything. I want
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: my kids exposed so that they can through their exposure,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: be strong enough. No, not at all. What we have
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: to do is we have to bring our children to
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: a place of maturity. We have to help them understand
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the scriptures. We have to help them understand how to
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: think biblically and sort of take things like that apart.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: And only then will there be a time when they
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: can be exposed to some things very purposefully, okay? Unfortunately,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: when it comes to VeggieTales, they are designed for children
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: in that phase of life when they are not able
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: to discern. And that's what makes them dangerous. So I
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: would show VeggieTales to my teenagers, but I don't want
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to show it to my little kids. Because my teenagers,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: we can look at VeggieTales and we can go, VeggieTales,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: you know. And we can sit around and we can go, wow,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: that was really neat. I really, you know, it's kind of,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you know, moralized the text or whatever. But, you know,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: that was really, you know, we can do that. My
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: little boys... They can't do that. So you have to
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: be careful. You have to be discerning. But not just VeggieTales.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Nine out of ten Sunday school curriculums or homeschool curriculums
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: will have the same problem. Nine out of ten. They're
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: going to have the same problem. So I'm not just
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: picking on VeggieTales here. This is everywhere. It is the norm.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Almost nobody is doing this in a redemptive historic way. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Wonderful.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Show me that ways. Yeah. Good deal. All right. Our
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: time has passed. Let me pray for you. Father, thank
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: you for the time that we've had over the course
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: of this weekend, for the things that you continue to
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: teach us. May we continue to strive to know you,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: to love you, to serve you. We pray this in
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.