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Lessons from Biblical Kings: Faith, Failure, and the Reliability of Scripture · Wetumpka Church of Christ Online

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All right, everybody, good morning.
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Hope everyone's doing well this morning.
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I am excited to get to talk about this subject with you.
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I finally decided on a topic because that's difficult for me.
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And so I was like outsourcing it to my kids and Krista and I even
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asked, I asked Eric and all that.
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So we finally, finally rolled around enough stuff to where it
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came up with lessons from biblical kings and what I'd like
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to do. And it's sort of ambitious, I
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guess, because I want to talk about some of the spiritual
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lessons that we get from kings of the Bible, but I also want to
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throw some things in there. They're going to deal with the
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reliability of Scripture. And, and so we'll, we'll take,
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you know, some little side journeys from here and there to,
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to talk about some of these things because it is very
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important. And so, you know, we, we do live
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in a, a world where criticism of the Bible is continually getting
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more and more and more and more sophisticated.
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And, you know, there's, there's manuals, training websites all
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over the place for countering Christianity, criticizing the
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Bible, pointing out supposed mistakes and flaws and, and that
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kind of thing. So we won't spend a ton of time
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on that kind of stuff. I'll just hopefully work it
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naturally into to a lot of this stuff we'll be talking about.
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So, all right, so we'll be looking at lessons from biblical
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kings and we're going to start out, of course, with the very
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first one, and that's God himself.
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So in Scripture, God is identified as a king.
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He does things like a king has certain activities that he does.
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We're going to talk specifically about the covenant and that has
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got kingship written all over it.
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And we'll talk about that as we as we get there.
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It'll be kind of a major part of our of our, of our discussion,
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but we're also going to talk about some of the difficult
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sections of the Bible really where we get into the end of
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Joshua and through Judges where what happens if you don't have a
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king? What does society look like
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then? Because you know, Judges, it's
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kind of a dumpster fire through most of the book.
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And so that's what happens when you don't have one.
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And we don't just have to go back to Judges to find that we
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can go to the headlines of your favorite trusted news source for
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news and find that any time we want to get on the Internet.
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So we'll talk about a few things here first.
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Now, first of all, I want to mention that in the Bible when
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we talk about God being a king and, and acting and behaving
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like a king, I mean, he is the, the king of creation, right?
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And so he, he creates everything.
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He rules everything. And when humanity comes along,
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we are sort of like his governors, his viceroys in a
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way. Where is God king of everything?
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Absolutely, yes. But he has given us
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responsibilities as well. And so we carry out noble
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responsibilities to treat one another appropriately, to treat
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creation and nature appropriately as well.
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And so there's a lot of this that that makes it into, into
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Scripture, various places. God is not part of creation.
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He is not part of the created order.
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He rules over it. He is its creator, but he is not
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part of it in the sense that the ancient gods were.
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They always, you know, pagans, you know, the neighbors of
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Israel always thought of their gods as being part of creation.
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They always, you know, they needed to eat and sleep and they
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procreated and they, you know, they, they did all the kinds of
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things that you and I have to do, but they just had like
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superpowers. And that is not the biblical
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picture of God. It is, it is distinctively
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unique in, in the ancient world. And there are various places
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where we get passages that highlight God's kingship.
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So if you want to look at, you know, Psalms 93 to 99, we won't
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read all that obviously, but Psalms, so Psalms 93 to 99 are a
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place where you can see some of that, where God is extolled as
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you know, the ruler of everything, the king of heaven
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and earth and that and that sort of thing.
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Now, because he is king. One of the things that kings
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would do in the ancient world as they would give laws, they were
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responsible for law codes. And I don't have a picture, I
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should have put a picture in here of Hammurabi, his law code.
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But you've probably seen, I know you've seen somewhere the, the,
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the, the top of Hammurabi's law code, which is a big stone
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monument, cylindrical monument. And at the top there's a God
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sitting down handing him the laws and he's standing up and
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receiving them. Right.
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And so kings did that kind of stuff.
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And it's no great surprise that God is the great moral lawgiver
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of creation, right? And so when you and, and one of
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the things I think when we look at people, one, one of the, I
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guess if you want to say one of the evidences of a, a divine
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moral standard is look at people.
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And I mean, unless they've got some, you know, very odd,
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aberrant cultural views or a seared conscience, everybody
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knows the difference between right and wrong.
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Humanity, for as long as we've been on this earth, we have,
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generally speaking, unbelievably, unmistakably
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similar ideas about what right and wrong constitute.
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And if that's the case, there must be some kind of moral law
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that we're sort of naturally appealing to.
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And if there's a moral law, then there's a moral law giver.
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And that's what God, that's what that's what kings did.
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They gave laws. God does that.
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God is the great moral law giver of, of creation.
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Now, one of the things that we see with with God is he makes
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covenants all right. And so when we look at the
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ancient world, people make covenants a lot.
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We've got probably over 100 examples of covenants outside
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the Bible that are written on, you know, various from various
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places. And, and I want to take a, just
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a quick preview of that and, and look at a few of these places.
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So very, the, the very oldest examples come from southern
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Mesopotamia. So this, so we're talking about
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the world's oldest civilizations.
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If you want to look at sort of that, that olive green, kind of
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if you took sea green and olive green and married them, this is
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their baby, right? So down there, the right above
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the top of the right at the top of the Persian Gulf, it's where
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a lot of these things come from, the very earliest ones.
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After that you go up. So the Tigris and Euphrates
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rivers, you go up to, to right, almost right in the very middle
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of that map. And there's a place called
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Mauri. And Mauri was a very important
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city in the time of Abraham. And we, when we look at the
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covenants there and, and there was a, there was a, there were
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archives that were found there. Archaeologists have found and
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they shed an incredible amount of light on the patriarchal
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stories. And so if you want to know the
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background of Abraham and the patriarchs and inheritance laws
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of what covenants looked like, what kind of customs they
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practice, how they married and all these, all these other kinds
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of things, that's where you would go to find the background
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for what the, for the world that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and
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all the patriarchs lived in. Now, if we go a little bit
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farther and again, a little bit north to where the green area,
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the lighter green area is in Asia Minor, right?
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That's where the Hittites were. And Hittites, of course, we are
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familiar with Uriah, the Hittite.
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There aren't very many of them in the Bible.
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They only show up a few places. Abraham talks to 1.
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You know, David has one as one of his mighty men, Uriah.
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So there's not a lot of these guys that are running around,
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but when you look at the Hittites, they made covenants
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too. And we have examples of their
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covenants. It looks unmistakably similar to
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the covenant we find that God makes with Israel.
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And it's from the same time. So these covenants come from
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about 1400 to 1200 BC. That is exactly the time of
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Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, right?
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And so, you know, and, and this has been recognized by secular
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scholars for, I would say probably, I mean, this is
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probably recognized in the 1930s, over 100 years.
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People have, this is just common knowledge.
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People know this. The biblical covenant looks just
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like covenants at the time. Now, I do want to point, point
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something out here for us. There's a couple of different
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kinds of covenants. 1 is a parody or or treaties, right?
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So parody treaty. This is a covenant made between
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rulers of equal status. So Egypt with Assyria with
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Babylon, the Hittites and all that kind of stuff.
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But it could be guys who were a little lower down the totem
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pole. So Ahab makes one of these
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covenants with a guy named Bin Haddad and in First Kings 20,
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so, so he defeats the Syrians. So Ahab defeats the Ahab, his
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very powerful king, his his father Omri and he were very,
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very powerful. And so they defeat the Syrians
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in battle. Ahab like he just owns this guy.
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Like he like he beats him multiple times.
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And, and they decide that they're going to go basically
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sort of sue for peace. And it says they tied the
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representatives from this guy. So they tied sackcloth around
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their waist and put ropes on their heads and went to the king
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of Israel and said, your servant Ben Haddad says, please let me
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live. And he, Ahab, said, does he
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still live? He is my brother.
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Now. He's not saying, hey, he's my
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brother, right? This is actually diplomatic
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language. When kings would make covenants
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with other kings of equal status, they would call them
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brother. And so he says he is my brother,
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says now the men were watching for a sign and they quickly took
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it up from him and said, yes, your brother bin Haddad, right?
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So this is it. So before he has time to change
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his mind and really put it on these guys, they say, oh, well
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this sounds great Ahab, yes, he is your brother.
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And he said go. And the Ahab says go and bring
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him. Bin Haddad came out to him and
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he caused him to come up into the Chariots.
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Ben Haddad said to him, the cities that my father took from
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your father I will restore, and you may establish bazaars for
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yourself in Damascus as my father did in Samaria.
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And they have said I will let you go on these terms.
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So he made a covenant with him and let him go.
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All right. Well, the problem with this, of
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course, is Ahab is making a covenant with this guy who is by
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saying he's his brother, he's my equal.
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Well, ideally, that is absolutely not the case because
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Ahab should be a guy. Ahab should be a guy who
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worships the God of Israel. And Ben Haddad is a Pagan, would
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necessarily be somebody who was going to fall under God's wrath.
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His nation as a Pagan nation should have been something that
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fell under God's wrath and Israel should have been a nation
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that was premier exalted because it served God.
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Of course, we know that that is not the case.
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Ahab was basically on virtually Pagan himself and ruled over a
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country that had a lot of Pagan influences.
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We're going to get to Ahab in a few weeks.
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We're going to talk about that a little bit more because there's
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actually the very interesting find that came out last year
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that a discovery that verifies that the Northern Kingdom was in
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fact, exactly the way it's presented in scripture, very
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cosmopolitan, very religiously diverse.
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They did not, they did not follow God the way they should
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have. And we have actually have proof
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of that. OK.
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So very quickly we're going to look at one more thing, a
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suzerante treaty or a Lord vassal treaty that was made by
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rulers of unequal standing. So the king of Egypt and the
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king of Israel or the king of Assyria and the king of Judah,
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right? So those would be kind of the,
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the covenants that would be made there.
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That's the one God always makes with people, right?
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Because God is God is in a category of one.
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There is no one who is his equal.
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And so by definition, every covenant he makes is as a king
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with someone who is of lower status than him.
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Now, that's not to put that person down.
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It's not to put humanity down. It's just he's gone and we're
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not. I mean, that's that's that's a
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pretty simple observation to make.
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All right. So when we look at covenants,
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and this would be the last kind of technical thing I'll look at
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on this, when we look at covenants, they actually have
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patterns to them, right? So I may have used this example
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before. And if I have, I apologize.
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But if you go and get a will today, wherever it is that you
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go to dothislawyerlegalzoom.com or something, your will is
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almost certainly not going to look like one that your
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grandparents would have gotten. And it's not going to look like
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one that their grandparents would have gotten.
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It certainly wouldn't look like one from you several hundreds of
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years ago. And so legal documents change
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over time. All right?
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They, they have a form and a structure and sometimes it
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changes. You're not going to go back 100
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years and find a will that talks about intellectual property,
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right? You're not going to go back a
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couple 100 years and find a will that's going to talk about
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royalties from something that you've published, right?
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I mean, this is, you're just not going to get that.
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And so, so legal documents have a form that changes over time.
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And if you look at this, this little chart, there's, there's
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two, there's two sections that are highlighted in yellow.
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Unfortunately, it's kind of faint, but there's two sections
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I want you to look at. 1 is the section right under the well,
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it's under the 9 on the timer on this one, but the early 2nd
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Millennium BC, OK, this is the covenants.
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This is the type of covenant that God makes with Abraham, and
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it looks just like this covenants that we find at that
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city that I mentioned called Mari.
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So those are the kinds of covenants that were made around
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1800 or so BC funny, they look just like the covenants that
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Abraham makes with God in Genesis 15 and 17.
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And then you go forward to the time of the Exodus and in the
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again, another section of the biblical period, you've got late
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second Millennium BC, it's got later Hittites and then Exodus,
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Deuteronomy and Joshua. And if you notice, they look
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very similar to one another, right?
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Well, this is this is 400 years, 5-6 hundred years later.
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And so it looks different than the other ones, but like others
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that were made at the same time. OK, So, so when you look at
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those covenants that the Hittites made and the one that
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God makes with Israel, they look very similar to each other
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because they came from the same time, right?
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And so we have evidence of this. Those are the kinds of things
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that that I find to be kind of exciting about this because it
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allows you to go and place the biblical stories right at the
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time when they would have happened.
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OK, Now the type of the form of the covenant is this.
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And so this is what these covenants looked like.
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All right, So you got the preamble that tells you who's
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making the covenant tells you, OK, so I am the Lord your God,
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right? Exodus 20 verse one, the
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historical prologue is how did we get here?
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What is what are the circumstances that led to this
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covenant being made? And so in Exodus 20, verse 2, it
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is I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt, out
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of the House of bondage, right? So God's the one making,
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initiating this covenant. It's because the, the, the basis
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of the covenant is I delivered you out of Egypt, out of the
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House of bondage, you're out of the House of slavery.
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And then so that's why Israel is going to obey.
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And so the next one is the stipulations.
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These are the things that Israel is going to be required to do.
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You've got the deposition, so you're going to have the, you're
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going to have it deposited. So the, the the law is this
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covenant is going to be deposited and read publicly.
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OK, so that's Deuteronomy 31. Every seven years, priests are
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to read the law and the hearing of the people so that they know
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what the law says. They know what they as a nation
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have agreed to do, right? So they're familiar with it,
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should be familiar with it, right?
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Because then, well, I mean, you get to the time of Josiah and,
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you know, it's like, hey, man, we found like the book of the
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law on the temple when we were doing these renovations.
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It's like, that's weird. It's like, hey, man, we're doing
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renovations at church. We found a Bible.
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It's like you guys are supposed to know this stuff.
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This stuff is supposed to be read for you every seven years.
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So the whole nation, right? And so you've got divine
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witnesses that are called in Pagan covenants, covenants made
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by Pagan people, they always call gods God Marduk or the God
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Ashura or whoever it was is going to be called as a witness.
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And they're going to be the ones to do all the smiting if the
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person doesn't hold up their end of the deal.
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All right. So the person who the, the, the,
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the party that that violates the stipulations, the guy's going to
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come in as the enforcer and smite you.
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So, but The thing is in the biblical text, there are no
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other gods. And So what do you do?
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Well, God calls heavens and earth as a witness to the
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covenant. And so, and this will get
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mentioned multiple times throughout throughout here,
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throughout the prophets, because we'll talk about this in just a
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minute. There's a very special thing
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called a covenant lawsuit. Sometimes God takes his people
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to court and so. And so, but, but you have to
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have witnesses to do that, right?
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Heavens and earth are the witnesses that are called.
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There's blessings and then there's curses.
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All right? So blessings if you keep the
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covenant, curses if you don't. All right.
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So I want to, I want to go back to this just one second.
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And I want to make one, one observation here.
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And I want you to look with me at the, the, the biblical
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covenants from around the time of Moses, so Exodus,
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Deuteronomy, Joshua 24, and then compare it to the, to the
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Hittite covenant right there in that, in that one column with
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that pair, if you look at the very bottom of it, at the very
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bottom of the Hittite covenant, curses come first and then
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blessings for some reason in the biblical covenants, blessings
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come first, curses come after. I don't know this for sure, and
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I can't really say this for certain, but my impression is
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what this tells you is God is more interested in blessing than
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he is cursing. He is much, much more interested
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in blessing people than he is punishing them for disobedience.
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Now, that is the very opposite of what we get in our world
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today, where we have God described as this sadist, A
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genocidal monster, right? A divine torturer.
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We get all these kind of outrageous things.
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And that doesn't seem to be what the Bible is saying at all.
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Even if something is small, small detail like this, God is
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more interested in blessing people, much more interested in
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blessing them than he is in cursing them.
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All right, now what happens? What happens if you don't have a
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king? And we're going to look at
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judges because at the very end of the book, we've got several
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things here. And it's like this drum beat.
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There was no king in Israel. There was no king in Israel.
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There was no king in Israel. And there's actually kind of a
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kind of a formula, kind of a structure to it, right?
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So Judges 176IN those days, there was no king in Israel.
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Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
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The next one, there was no in those days, there was no king in
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Israel. In those days when there was no
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king in Israel, the very last one, it repeats Genesis repeats
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Judges 17, six. So what he's telling you is
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there's no king in Israel, OK? I mean, that's pretty clear.
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OK, We got that right. And there's and there's no king
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yet, right? Wrong.
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There is a king. There is a king.
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He just nobody wants to listen to him.
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Nobody wants to follow his his will, nobody wants to follow his
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law. And so when you have no kid,
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when, when people don't recognize a king and everything
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is anarchy and everything is everybody does what they want to
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do, what does society look like? So the question question is what
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happens when there's no king? What happens when there is no
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law that's being observed? And the answer is all of these
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things, right? And so now you guys know,
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sometimes I'm, I'm, I'm tough on these guys.
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And, and so I'm, I'm, I'm going to, I'm not going to use up on
23:54
them. But but The thing is, I'm not
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just like going over these these very harsh details to say, oh,
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man, it wasn't just so awful that these guys.
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No, it's a consequence, right? When you don't have a moral law
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giver that's in charge and everyone does what they want, is
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it any surprise that the bottom is going to fall out of society?
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Right. And so you have things like
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Joshua rebukes the unfaithful in his final public address.
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Put away your gods, right? This is a group of people who
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knew the stories of the 10 plagues.
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These are the people who knew the stories about being fed in
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the wilderness and being watered in the wilderness and all the
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things that God did for his people, how he defeated the
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mightiest army and the most powerful king on earth.
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And Joshua is still having to spend his time telling people to
24:54
put their idols away from them. Gideon, the very end of his
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life, unfortunately leads people into idolatry.
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Martha offers his own daughters a sacrifice.
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I know there's a debate over that.
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It was she a burnt offering? Was she just simply giving up?
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But but whatever the case is, there was actually an out that
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he could have used in Leviticus 5.
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Whether you believe he sacrificed his daughter or just
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or just gave her over to temple service where she was, you know,
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basically consigned to a life where she would never be married
25:28
and have children. Whichever the case is, Jephthah
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had a law that could have freed him from that, from that, from
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from that dumb vow that he made. And out of his.
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Ignorance. He doesn't do it.
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All right, Samson, There's almost nothing commendable about
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Samson's life. There's in Judges 17 you got and
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this. Now this is where everything
25:55
just kind of falls apart. Like 17 to 21.
25:57
Pagan influence, corruption in the priesthood, The tribe of
26:02
Dan, at least we don't know how many of them.
26:05
If it was like a big piece, a small piece, all of them, the
26:08
whole tribe. We don't really know exact
26:11
numbers on that, but at least a major portion of them are just
26:16
wandering around at the beginning of the book and at the
26:19
end of the book. They're not doing their job.
26:21
They're not taking the territory that's allotted to them.
26:24
You've got. Very difficult story.
26:36
Where a woman is abused and murdered, her Levite husband
26:41
does not appear to even care about it.
26:45
And I'll, I'll, we'll turn there very quickly because I, because
26:49
I want you guys, I want us to, I want us to look at this together
26:53
and look at his response. So here these guys, they this,
26:56
this guy goes and they, they throw this woman out to these
27:03
animals and it said verse 27, chapter 19, verse 27.
27:11
And her Master rose up in the morning, and when?
27:15
He opened the doors of. The house and went out to go on
27:17
his way. Behold, there was this concubine
27:20
lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold.
27:23
He said to her. Get up.
27:29
Let us be going. Maybe it's just because as a
27:36
husband and a girl dad. This story makes my.
27:40
Blood boil. Because the last thing.
27:46
I think you would say to a woman that you just threw out to be
27:50
sexually assaulted all night long is get up, let us be going.
27:57
Says there was no answer. He put her hand, he put her on
28:00
the donkey, and the man rose up and went away to his home.
28:04
The real tragedy of this is that she actually tries to go back to
28:11
the guy that sent her out to these monsters, and that is
28:20
where we are in Israelite society.
28:24
At the end of Judges. And of course, at the very end
28:28
of it, this sort of prompts this, this warfare, inter tribal
28:30
warfare, and the tribe of Benjamin is almost wiped out.
28:35
That is, I think the. First time there.
28:40
Are other examples in Judges of the first time Israelites attack
28:43
other Israelites? I think this is the first time a
28:46
tribes go against other tribes. So Judges is a book of firsts.
28:51
Genesis is a book of firsts. Judges is a book of firsts for
28:55
all the wrong things, right? So this kind of thing, I think
29:01
is not is not unusual, not surprising.
29:07
And what the author Judges basically is telling us is all
29:11
these things. Well, they're all possible in a
29:14
nation where there is no king and there is no God, right?
29:21
And so we, I think, could look at other cultures around the
29:26
world and see similar things. So one thing that I noticed, and
29:31
I'm I'm sure I'm not the only one that's noticed this, but the
29:36
a little while back, you know, I was doing some work, I think
29:39
years ago for a book on militant atheism.
29:42
I was going to do a book on the new atheist you when they were a
29:44
big thing. They've kind of fallen off the
29:47
radar now. But but I was looking at because
29:51
the charge always was, look at what Christianity has done.
29:56
Christianity is responsible for all the wars.
29:58
Christianity is responsible for human suffering.
29:59
Christianity has done all these terrible things, keeping women
30:01
down, taking people's rights and all this stuff, right?
30:04
All these things, outrageous things that are clearly
30:06
demonstrably, you know, proven false by by evidence.
30:10
And I thought, OK, well, let's let's just kind of take a look.
30:14
What about countries where the Gospels never gone?
30:18
What about countries where areas of human society where the
30:23
gospel and Christianity have never really had much influence
30:25
or places or, or, or times when they've not had a lot of
30:28
influence? And it's not hard to find,
30:31
right? And so we don't have to go, We
30:33
don't have to leave the 20th century in our in our travel,
30:37
our time travel back through the past to find atrocities that
30:41
have been committed by people who were operating in ways that
30:46
were decidedly anti Christian, anti Bible.
30:49
Right. And so two things that have been
30:54
just AAI don't want to say it's an area of interest because that
31:00
that kind of makes it weird. But two historical figures that
31:05
have that have caught my attention.
31:08
And you may you may know these two guys.
31:12
One is Yosef Mengele and the other one is Shiro.
31:18
Ishi Mingala, of course, dubbed the Angel of Death, was in
31:24
charge of Nazi experimentation, human experiments.
31:30
Ishi was in charge of Imperial Japanese Army unit 731.
31:41
And if you know anything about that, there's, there's museums
31:44
dedicated to it there. There have been historic
31:47
apologies issued by surviving members of that unit too, like
31:53
Chinese and other people that they experimented on because
31:55
they, they did sort of like what Mingle did, but worse.
31:58
You know, they would cut people open alive with no anesthesia
32:02
just to do experiments, just to see what would happen and things
32:04
like that. Just gruesome, gruesome things.
32:09
Well, these are places where the gospel did not have any impact.
32:16
Historically. Sometimes historically and
32:20
sometimes actually, because I mean, you know, Nazi Germany was
32:24
I think 97% Christian divided between Protestant and Catholic.
32:29
I think there's only like maybe 3% something else that at the
32:32
time of World War 2. But but you guys know and you
32:37
guys know the stories of you know, for in many of these
32:40
places in Germany, Christians just sort of kept their heads
32:43
down to stay off the Fuhrer's radar is sort of self
32:48
preservation. So Christianity really didn't do
32:50
very much, at least at least not in Nazi Germany.
32:53
And of course in the Far East, I historical, there has not been
32:57
a, a lot of a lot of inroads made by, by missionaries there.
33:02
But we don't have to go back to the 20th century.
33:04
We can go to something that happened only a month ago.
33:07
And there was a, an article that came out.
33:12
There's a husband in Canada who had caregiver burnout and it
33:18
seemed at the time that she wanted to be euthanized because
33:24
she was suffering from a terminal disease.
33:26
And, and it was, it was not going to, it was not going to
33:29
look good. You know, it was, it was going
33:31
to be a just a just a very sad, very sad ending for this, for
33:34
this lady. But what seems to be the case is
33:38
now the reports are coming out that this fellow sort of coerced
33:42
his wife into being euthanized. We have a word for that.
33:49
Right. Murder.
33:49
Right. Same thing in the Netherlands,
33:52
historian, and this is some of the stuff that I've talked about
33:54
in my Christian ethics class, where in the Netherlands where
33:59
euthanasia is is legal. And one year there were some,
34:04
there were some investigations done and about 25% of the people
34:10
who were euthanized were euthanized involuntarily.
34:16
So they also. Did not have any consent.
34:19
They also were murdered. So we don't have to go very far
34:22
to find what happens when God as King.
34:29
Is not served. I went and got a, a list of the,
34:35
of the top 20 places where human rights abuses take place.
34:42
I'm, I'm sorry, this is not really the very positive,
34:44
positive part of my lesson this morning.
34:47
But, but, but you know, worse places for freedom, human rights
34:51
abuses, religious expression, that kind of thing.
34:55
And so I'm, I'm sorry. And so, OK, so when I brought it
35:00
into my PowerPoint slide it, it doesn't look awesome, but on
35:04
the, on the left side is the top 10.
35:07
On the right side is 11 through 20.
35:10
So we've got the the area, the dominant religious perspective,
35:17
and then the influence of Christianity, all right, so #1
35:22
is on the top left there is Turkmenistan.
35:25
Islam is the dominant religion. Christianity influence very
35:28
little typically persecuted. All right.
35:31
If you go down to North Korea, that's number four.
35:35
It is an officially atheist state.
35:37
Of course, extremely heavy state sponsored persecution of this
35:41
religion in general, but especially Christianity.
35:45
Some of these have official religions and all that, but I
35:48
but I want them. But I wanted to to show this
35:50
because you look at all these places, these are places for.
35:57
The. Worst treatment of people.
36:00
They have no influence from the gospel or very little.
36:05
That's not a coincidence, right? And so now a couple of these.
36:11
So if you look at the bottom, sort of like 9 and 10 on the
36:14
left there, you've got Equatorial Ghanae dominant
36:17
religion is Roman Catholicism, Central African Republic.
36:21
There's a Christian majority. And when I say Christian in this
36:23
list, I mean in the biggest, biggest possible since for for
36:29
Equatorial Ghanae, it's dominant Roman Catholicism, but the state
36:35
itself is extremely corrupt. And because of that,
36:38
Christianity doesn't have a lot of influence, even though most
36:41
people seem to identify as Roman Catholic in the Central African
36:45
Republic, Christian majority, again, very little, very little
36:51
influence because Christianity is blended with indigenous
36:56
religions. And so it's diluted and it's
36:58
watered down the distinctiveness, the
37:01
distinctiveness of the gospel is lost.
37:04
And so when you look at all of these, all of these places, Cuba
37:07
would be #20 on the list, Roman Catholic majority, some
37:11
influence. There is a growing community of,
37:15
and again, I say Christian in the largest possible sense,
37:17
right, in the broadest sense. But it has a very authoritarian
37:22
regime that that prohibits a lot of a lot of influence from, from
37:25
believers. And so when you look at the
37:28
worst places in the world for human rights violations,
37:33
religious freedom, women's rights, religious expression,
37:38
you know, whole 9 yards, there are places where the gospel
37:41
hasn't really gone and isn't very effective.
37:43
Is isn't very influential. OK, there's AI.
37:46
Think there's a reason for that now?
37:50
If you go to the. Countries that are at the top of
37:54
the list and I I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll give you I'll give you a
37:57
map here that should kind of bring some things into focus.
38:00
Green. This is a this is a freedom in
38:03
the world, 2025 freedom in the world.
38:06
All the green areas are like the best places.
38:09
All right, all of the yellow areas are they're they're not
38:14
great. All the purple areas there that
38:16
like, you know, kind of the bottom.
38:18
And if you notice, I mean, I mean, you can you can notice the
38:23
at the list. If you think about all the
38:25
places Christianity is gone. I mean.
38:31
Western civilization is built on Christianity all.
38:35
Those places are the green. Areas right now, I will say in
38:41
the Middle East, it's the worst, but we're also talking about
38:46
areas that used to be heavily Christian.
38:48
These, these were that the, the centers, these are the places
38:51
where the apostles preached, right?
38:53
These are the places where the apostles and, and, and and the
38:56
people they preached to went on missionary journeys.
38:59
Well, I mean, you guys know what happened around the 7th century
39:02
ADA guy named Muhammad came along and kind of he and his
39:06
successors squashed all that. So that's why that part of the
39:09
world is in purple where everything else is in the is in
39:14
the green. All right.
39:16
So if you look at all the best places, top ten list I got for
39:23
for freedom of religion a couple years ago, Netherlands, Canada,
39:28
United Kingdom, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, United
39:31
States, Finland, New Zealand. All Western countries.
39:37
All countries where their culture was founded upon
39:43
biblical. Christianity Is it any surprise
39:47
that. Those are the best for human
39:49
flourishing, and places where the gospel has not gone are some
39:53
of the worst. I say this.
39:56
With no malice, I say this with no delight in trying to skewer
40:01
anybody, but I do say it with concern because these are places
40:07
that desperately need to hear about Jesus.
40:19
Because Jesus will. Only improve their lives.
40:24
All right. Just a couple more things I want
40:27
to mention. Well, we just got like a thing
40:29
or two. I'll just ask my last question
40:31
here. My last question that I've got
40:35
for you is who's your king? Right, we're talking about
40:41
biblical. Kings, We mentioned several,
40:44
several guys at the end. Of course we're going to get to
40:46
Jesus, right? The King of kings, the Lord of
40:48
Lords. It'd be kind of like bad to
40:50
leave him off the list, but we're going to deal with some
40:52
human guys. But ultimately this is the
40:55
question of Scripture. Who is your king?
40:57
Who is your sovereign? Who is it that you follow and
41:02
that you serve? We know what happens in places
41:06
where God is not served. We see it in Judges.
41:08
We can see it in our world right now.
41:11
But when you look at God as king, it sort of changes
41:14
everything, right? So prayer, we normally think of
41:17
prayer as well. This is time that I communicate
41:20
with God. But in a sense, it also tells us
41:23
that we're dependent on Him, doesn't it?
41:25
What about sexual ethics and sexual purity?
41:28
Well, these are things that are that are given to to to humanity
41:32
for our enjoyment. But it also says that our bodies
41:38
are not our own and that we should use them according to
41:41
God's design, right. And so all these kinds of things
41:46
do tell us it sort of revolutionizes how we see
41:51
individual things that we do because we may not bow down to
41:55
idols today of wood and stone, but we do have idols like
42:00
comfort and approval and ambition.
42:03
And so while we can complain about all these, you know,
42:06
Israel and they did all these things, made judges would have
42:08
been an awful place to live in. Yeah.
42:10
But The thing is all the things that created those conditions in
42:14
miniature. Sometimes you can find them.
42:17
Right here. We have to be very careful about
42:19
that and make sure God is our king.
42:22
All right, All right, thanks so much.
42:25
Well, I'm looking forward to getting into some more of these
42:27
guys with you and we'll pick up next week.
42:29
Thanks so much.