Latest / Brandon Fogal Evolution / #155 - Per My Last Email, God Says, "I Change Not"

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#155 - Per My Last Email, God Says, "I Change Not" · Brandon Fogal Evolution

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  So per my last email, says God,
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  I always want to talk about this in a way that might be more relatable to our
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  day and age, because I always think of people get when they read the Old Testament in the Bible,
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  they always get so God, he's so harsh back then, as opposed to now,
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  why couldn't he have just been Jesus the whole time?
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  So I would say the Old Testament is more like God sending us an email,
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  just like in regular life,
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  if you read an email or anything like that you receive from somebody,
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  it always doesn't come through the exact way that maybe the person is on the other end.
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  And when we get to the New Testament, it's more like when Jesus is here,
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  he's making a phone call to us, a little bit more personal.
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  And then further on into the New Testament in the book of Acts,
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  Jesus sends the Holy Spirit who comes and dwells in believers.
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  And that is like God in person having a relationship with us,
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  having a conversation because there is that progression of revelation throughout the Bible.
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  And in the Old Testament, like, cause we all understand what it's like.
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  You get an email from someone and it's like, you're on blast.
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  And it's like, they are so harsh, but it might not be who they exactly are.
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  It might not be characterizing them in the best terms that we can receive until
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  we're actually talking to them in person.
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  All right. So I want to look at this and I'm going to take a look at a conversation
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  that Alex O'Connor had and was regarding a lot of this, this kind of,
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  he seems like when I'm looking at the God of the Old Testament,
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  I cannot, I cannot agree with that, but he's a little more cozy and up to Jesus.
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  It feels like, but let's just take a look.
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  And whenever I've listened to this a couple of times already,
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  it gives me goosebumps sometimes the way that Alex describes God.
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  And he's able to talk about God almost like he is almost in connection with God. It feels like it.
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  I've never, every time I've listen to this it feels like it and i've gotten
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  goosebumps almost every time rather than a sort of well we can never approach
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  an answer here it's too beyond us and what do you think where are you on that
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  spectrum i i kind of think both are true at once right in that i think if god
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  exists he's likely to meet you where you're at.
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  The thing that I think a lot of people miss is that particularly with a personal
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  God, like the Christian God, who's supposed to be someone,
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  a person who wants to come to know you, it's very unlikely that he would place
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  an intellectual barrier for entry to relationship with him.
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  So if the only way you could properly come to know God was through some technical
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  argument, some philosophical synergism or something, that wouldn't be the kind of God.
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  That embodies something like the Christian faith, because that would mean that
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  only smart people or people who have the brain for doing that philosophical
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  argument and that understanding get to believe.
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  That doesn't seem right. It has to be something much more personal.
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  And so I think that's a very good point. And I think a lot of people that just
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  debate and argue on in the internet and about God, and it's all about just word
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  games and having the upper hand, it's a pride issue.
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  A lot of times it becomes that of just making someone else look stupid.
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  But it seems like Alex, he understands that if there is a God and this Christian
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  God that is out there, if he is the one, you know, the bullseye in the center, they have it right,
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  it wouldn't seem like you would have to be argued or persuaded or have a reasoned
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  into the belief in him, but he could be met by anyone.
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  And I think that in Christianity, we do see that.
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  You don't have to be a brilliant, you know, rocket scientist to come to God,
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  But the littlest child can experience God and can know who God is just by that he connects with us.
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  He opens our eyes. He opens our hearts. And it is a supernatural thing.
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  It has to be because in the Bible, like it always talks about like that we are.
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  No one is righteous. No one seeks after God. This whole seeking after God is a fable.
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  That's a fairy tale. No one is truly seeking God.
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  Even if you think you're going to church and you're kind of,
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  you're kind of pursuing them really until God turns on the lights.
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  I don't think anybody actually is. And if you are a Christian,
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  if you can think of the time before you became, became a Christian,
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  were you, and were you genuinely, were you genuinely seeking God or was God
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  just kind of wooing you in?
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  And now it's like 2020 looking back, you look, you know, Monday morning quarterbacking.
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  Actually, I wasn't. God was bringing me in the whole time.
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  But this, that was a very smart point, you know, and it's kind of weak to say
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  that Alex O'Connor made a smart point.
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  He's very smart and he's able to tackle these issues.
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  But I want to continue what he says in the conversation.
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  I would say that you don't need argumentation.
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  And most people who I know who are religious don't say they believe in God or
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  didn't come to believe in God because of some syllogism that they've read.
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  As if after years and years of discussing this stuff, I'm finally going to come
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  across like premise 94 of Ed Fazer's massive argument and go,
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  oh, you know, there it is. There's God.
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  It's unlikely. However, I do think if God exists, then he would also be discoverable
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  through those philosophical methods.
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  So there are things that can be known about him.
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  But God would also be something which ultimately transcends full apprehension.
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  And that's not like a problem.
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  But that's almost an argument against the structure of religion as well, isn't it?
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  Because it seems like people, everybody has this view, and I don't want to come
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  across ignorant about this or arrogant or anything like that.
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  But it seems like there's always this dichotomy between the church and then reasonable faith.
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  And everybody has the Catholic church either gots it right or,
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  you know, or God's a myth.
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  I don't think the Catholic church has everything right. And because there is
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  this authoritarianism that comes up in that.
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  And I think a lot of with Catholicism, they do have a lot of things,
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  right. But I don't think that they are the epitome of the true church.
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  Like we are either choosing God by choosing the church of Roman Catholicism
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  or not, you know, and anybody out there, everybody, the best way to describe it is Christianity.
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  It has all these different flavors, you know, and it's like not one of them,
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  I would say, and is the, like, this is the true church that you either come in this way or not.
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  And I think that is what the interviewer is getting at when he says about church,
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  because that it becomes a structure, a way, like a barrier almost,
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  or a medium to come to God. You got to go through the church.
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  Rather, I think that is, that is a wrong view because the whole way the churches
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  are set up now, they weren't like that in Jesus's day. And they didn't become
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  that until years and years later.
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  It wasn't that there is always been one medium between God or one mediator between
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  God and it is Jesus Christ.
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  That is crystal clear in the New Testament, that we don't approach God,
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  this God that dwells in unapproachable light, as it is described,
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  we don't approach him through any regular person or through some regular priest,
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  but it is all through one priest,
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  all through one person, Jesus Christ.
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  This is where Alex he goes into this
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  where he's describing Saint Thomas Aquinas and him complete
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  not completing the sumo theologica or
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  whatever this grand masterpiece that he didn't have that he didn't complete
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  because he had a a crazy religious experience at the end of his life where he's
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  like what I've said I cannot what I've experienced there is no words to express this.
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  Ineffable God that is out there.
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  There's nothing I could say. Everything that I have written so far and that
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  anybody writes is all straw.
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  It's all straw. And even the Bible itself, I would argue, is baby talk.
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  It is baby talk. It is God the Father communicating to us, his children,
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  in baby talk, because it's the only way that it can describe to us.
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  And this is where it's going to go into, Alex is going to say,
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  I kind of agree a little bit.
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  It seems like he, he's kind of hitting towards that of the Christian God of
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  in Jesus Christ, that that makes somewhat sense.
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  But this God of the old Testament, it, it does, it is, it is unlike it's beneath
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  that this God that I would hold to be the real God.
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  If there is one that he, this God of the old Testament It seems like he just
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  has outbursts of anger and just he explodes and he it's almost like he's just
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  a man in the sky kind of thing that he is just human characteristics.
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  Rather, I think that that is the email version. That's the email version of God.
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  You know, it's not to say that it's not true, but it's like that same God is
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  the same one that came in and is dwelling, is tabernacling inside of Jesus Christ.
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  The man Jesus Christ who lived 2000 years ago, that is the same God of the Old
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  Testament who put on flesh and he walks among us.
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  And it's not like, oh, he got some, he had an anger problem in the Old Testament
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  and the New Testament. He's all good. He's meek and mild.
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  Rather, in the New Testament, Jesus was.
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  He goes crazy on religious leaders.
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  He says just things that are just hostile. Like, really, Jesus?
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  That's kind of mean to say, man.
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  These are the people that we
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  hold up and esteem the most. And you're just like, just beating on them.
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  And he literally beat on them. He wove together a whip and just drove out the
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  money changers in the New Testament.
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  That was Jesus turning tables over. Just whipping people out of the temple because
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  they were turning his father's house into a house of corruption and just regular
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  business and how to just make money.
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  So that's the same God. That's the same God, but that's the in-person version of it.
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  And I would say Jesus just walking amongst us, that is the phone call version
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  of you having a conversation with somebody else out there.
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  You see that they're more of a person, and you can relate to them even more,
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  but it's still not perfect, and it doesn't become perfect.
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  I guess it won't become perfect ultimately until we are before God face-to-face,
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  but it becomes more perfect when the Holy Spirit is outpoured.
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  But I want to continue of this, what Alex brings up, because he's going to talk
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  about he cannot almost stand the God of the Old Testament.
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  I mean, I'm doing my best to, I suppose, describe or define the God that I think we're talking about.
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  Like I'm describing God as ineffable and the foundation of being.
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  I'm not on that boat, but what I'm trying to do is describe a position that
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  some people hold to give people an idea that the kind of God that they're thinking
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  about might not be the kind of God that the person they're talking to believes in, right?
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  So like you say, if you believe in the man in the sky, broadly speaking,
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  like for example, the characterization of God in the Hebrew Bible or the Old
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  Testament as Christians call it,
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  I think describes a kind of god who i think
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  doesn't exist um i'm an atheist as regards to that
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  god yeah because it is a much more firstly
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  the old testament seems to have some indications of like of polytheism
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  in the early jewish belief it's quite interesting or possibly a thing called
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  henotheism which is the belief that there are multiple gods but only one of
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  them is worthy of worship yeah this is why it seems like that but it's not it's
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  not it's the god is in revealing himself into a culture you know that had gods
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  everywhere, everywhere.
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  But, and he makes it clear that there are other, these other gods,
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  lowercase g gods, which are almost like just messengers that are his,
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  his fallen angels, his, his, his children that rebelled and that they are truly there.
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  They're the gods came down to earth at one point.
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  And that's like, it's in the background, but it's background noise to a reality that happened.
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  And so that these gods are just trying to rule this world and have influence over people.
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  And that's why these fallen angels that happened in the Old Testament,
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  why they are consigned to just everlasting chains and they're awaiting the great day of judgment.
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  But one of them that we have a perfect example of is Satan.
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  He is a God of this world. He is called a God of this world.
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  So even though it seems like it's a little more blurry in the Old Testament,
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  it becomes crystal clear who this serpent is that was in the Garden of Eden
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  and into the New Testament.
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  There are these beings that are out there.
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  So God is saying that almost all these nations, they have a God of their own.
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  They're creating these gods.
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  But it's not to say that they're not worshiping something real.
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  They are worshiping something real.
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  I used to always just say it's demons, but it's not demons. I don't think it's demons at this time.
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  It's specifically these fallen, we call them angels, these fallen sons of God
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  that rebelled, and they had influence over these nations. That's what they're doing.
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  So it's, and even in the New Testament, it talks about what people are sacrificing.
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  They're sacrificing their children. They're sacrificing all these things.
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  They're sacrificing them to demons, to demons.
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  But in the New Testament itself, it says in the, in first Corinthians,
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  I actually wanted to read this because even, so you, because Alex is saying
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  right here, oh, it seems in like the Old Testament, that's when they had all these other gods.
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  And it seemed like Yahweh just wanted to insert himself and just say,
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  don't have any other gods before me. And it's not a matter of priority.
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  It's a matter of God's presence. Don't have these other gods that are out there in front of me.
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  But it's even in the New Testament, it says the Apostle Paul,
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  1 Corinthians 8, verse 4, he says, therefore, as to the eating of food offered
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  to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and there is no God but one.
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  For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth.
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  As indeed there are many gods, quotes, and many lords.
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  Yet for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom
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  we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
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  I don't know if I should be saying quotes in the Bible because there are no quotes.
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  The actual writing of the scripture, there are no quotes, but in our rendition
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  of it, I guess it's an interpretation of how this person who wrote the ESV,
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  how they put it together, that they're interpreting what Paul is getting at here.
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  But Paul is crystal clear if you just read the words itself.
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  He says, for although there are so many gods, he says, which there are,
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  but for us, there is one God there and there is one Lord Jesus Christ.
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  It gets kind of confusing, but the Bible, I'm just saying throughout Genesis
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  to Revelation, it is the same God revealing himself.
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  It's the same God, and he wants to be on the throne of a heart as opposed to
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  all these influencing gods, these influencers that are out there that are all these.
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  Fallen messengers, these fallen sons of God that are out there trying to deceive us.
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  But when we get to the talking about Jesus and like we say, Jesus,
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  he's this meek and mild character of what we can we can get on board with.
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  And it seems like the Old Testament God was the harsh one.
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  And he was the one striking people down dead, as opposed to throughout the even
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  in the New Testament, we haven't seen a bloodbath yet until even in Revelation.
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  And that is Jesus Christ when he comes back in judgment.
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  That is the, everything in the Old Testament, we thought God was harsh.
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  His patience will run up at the very end.
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  And that's when it says the sword goes out of Jesus's mouth as he comes and
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  executes judgment at all.
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  There is this temporary period in time right now that we can come to him.
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  This is the day of salvation that we can approach God.
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  We can get in. We can jump into the ark before the storm comes.
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  And so it's not like, oh, God was all harsh in the Old Testament and he becomes nice in the New.
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  It's the same God beginning to end. But it's like, but I would characterize
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  it as in the Old Testament, it's that email version.
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  God sent us an email per my last email. Have you read? I changed not.
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  But even in the Old Testament, he says, I love you. I'm doing this because I
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  love you and I care about you.
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  And I want to redeem you and have a relationship with you. And in the New Testament,
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  it becomes clearer and clearer until God, the Holy Spirit is poured out on believers
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  once they trust in Christ. There's a lot there.
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  You know, you could say it sounds kind of kooky at times, but man,
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  it is kind of kooky at times.
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  And it is because it doesn't align with our natural world.
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  And would you expect a God outside of our universe to align perfectly with our world.
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  He's communicated to us. He's reached out to us and he's in baby talk.
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  He's telling us he loves us and he does it perfectly through his son,
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  Jesus Christ coming into the world. All right.
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  So if you've enjoyed this video, hit this video over here and I'll see you all on the other side.