40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 166 (Deuteronomy 11:1-31)

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

God reminds His people that He does not wink at sin. Why is it so important for us to remember all the things God has done in scripture? How do we participate in these stories now? Is it ever ok to read yourself into the Old Testament? God says the Promised Land will be different than Egypt in an interesting way. God puts forward a blessing and a curse based on hearing His word. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Conference Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 podcast network podcast. you can go over to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that we've got going on over there. Whatever you're into, we've got something for you. You don't want to just listen to this podcast. I mean, it's really 40 minutes a week enough. Is that enough 1517 podcasts for you?

Unless you work from home, your commute's got to be longer than that. You need something else. You've got to go over to 1517.org slash podcast and get some more podcasts to listen to. While you're over there, you might want to click on that conference link. There's a tab. You want to click on that? Or maybe you're at Chrysler Fast.

You want to click on that banner, that one that says, Here We Still Stand. That's the one that you want to click on because that conference is the greatest of all conferences. And it's out there in San Diego, California, where Narnia is a reality, where Eden doesn't seem that far off. It's all of these things.

If you want a good view of what the new heavens and new earth might just be like, you can come out to San Diego, California with us, Me and Chad will be there. We're going to be doing a bunch of talks. We're going to be doing a bunch of hanging out, a bunch of eating, a bunch of fellowship, all the things. I mean, the communion of the saints is going pretty hard out there at that conference. It's full display out there. So come hear the gospel.

Come hang out. You can do it. And we don't have that many tickets left. We are almost out of hotel rooms, too. I mean, we are, like, very short on the hotel rooms, and you don't want that. you don't want to be waiting to get your conference ticket and then find out that you can't stay in the hotel at the at the place at the resort you don't want to not you don't want to be while we're all hanging out not having to worry about driving back to the hotel you don't want to be saying well

i've got to get that uber back to that motel six like that's not what you want so you want to get that ticket now and here's the thing we got your back because if you enter the code p as in podcast net as in network 19 p net 19 in the promo box you can get 25 off each and every ticket you buy so do that go get that discount go get that ticket reserve that room it's not like they're gonna make a pay you're not gonna make it pay for it right this second but you got to reserve it now and come hang out with me and chad and a whole bunch of other people i there's so many people it's not like a city event where i go down the list every time there's so many people i can't even go down the list but everyone that you would like to hear they're probably there chad how's it

going good good i just was thinking i was like dwelling in san diego in my mind i always remember what elise fitzpatrick told me that out there when they say it's two below that means it's 68 degrees like 70 degrees is like what it is most of the time so it's either two above or two below it's 68 or 72 you know i i think yeah i can't remember i think it i think it was jared wilson who said normally talking about the world is a fallen place is not difficult unless you're in san diego and then everyone's like i don't know what you're talking about it's amazing we're able to do such good theology out there because it's such ideal edenic conditions it's true it's true yeah well hopefully uh people who are on the fence will jump off that fence buy the ticket and

come join us yeah man it's a fantastic time it is it is so where are we at in the uh in the old book of deuteronomy well we're not in san diego uh we're not even the promised land we're still hanging out here uh on the other side of the jordan we're in deuteronomy chapter 11 we uh we were in high gear last time we uh we impressed ourselves by covering two chapters so we'll see what we can do today i know we're going to cover 11 and hopefully a little bit of 12 too because we're getting right here to the edge of the main section of deuteronomy if you look at the outline of deuteronomy usually you'll see that it's divided up with kind of a prologue preamble some of this stuff we've been looking at the last few chapters but the core of it begins in chapter

12. or if you want to get technical sometimes people begin with chapter 11 verse 31 but anyway we'll say just for for round number 12 and that takes us then through 26 so 12 to 26 is kind of the legal core of deuteronomy so we'll be we'll be talking about actually a lot of the the stuff that we covered in in leviticus and uh in exodus once we get there so i think we'll probably keep moving at a pretty high rate of speed once we get to to that as well kind of how deuteronomy works right it's the uh the zoomed in look at a whole bunch of other stuff that we already covered Yeah, in many ways, it's positioned well as the fifth book of the Torah for a number of reasons. First of all, historically, because this is like the end of kind of the Exodus story.

They are right there at the promised land. But it's also positioned well as the conclusion. because if you know if you're reading uh not not fiction but non-fiction usually your last chapter is sort of a wrapping everything up restating things kind of you know focusing in on the essentials of many of the things that were covered in the previous chapters and that's more or less what deuteronomy does i mean there's a there's a lot of historical overview of what had been what had happened leading up to deuteronomy and then there's a whole lot of grouping together of the laws that we've heard about before and intermingled with all of these

groupings of laws is something which is distinct from a lot of other legal codes, and that is just this constant, ongoing encouragement from Moses to pay attention, to give ear, to be careful, to take heed. So, I mean, if you were to gather up all of the words and phrases in Deuteronomy that are like that, that are an exhortation, it'd be overwhelming, the percentage of the book that's comprised of words like that. This is Moses trying with all his heart and all his soul and all his might to stamp these words on the Israelite, because of course he's at his own life's end, and they're really at the beginning of a new life, a new life for Israel as they cross over into this promised land. So he's trying to leave them as much as he can with the unforgettable

impression of how important it is to have these words stamped on their hearts and minds to lead them and guide them individually and familially and nationally as they move forward. And we're going to hear more of that here in chapter 11. Yeah, I kind of think of Deuteronomy as Moses's uh academy class on the exodus that's not this other this is what is how he views this whole thing that's a good analogy yeah that's really what it is i mean he's a he's got a few lectures that he wants to give and he's gonna pack as much into those lectures as he as he can it's too bad we can't get moses to teach one of our 15 17 academy classes yeah we gotta settle we gotta settle for chad but it's fine i had to go on down the list none of the prophets were available

Moses was taken. So we'll get this guy. He'll do it. That's it. We start out here at the beginning of 11 with a few verses that are reminding the Israelites who are standing there of a few of the things they've seen over the last few years. I mean, this is the, this is of course the younger generation, the older generation having, having died out. So everybody who was 20 years old or younger lived and everybody was 20 years old and older died so they are there except for moses is the last one left and of course joshua and caleb those those two exceptions but he goes to this list in these first few verses to remind them of some of the things they've seen and a lot of it is actually not so much focused on what god did in a blessing sort of way for israel

It's what God did in a punishing sort of way to their adversaries. So he talks in verse 3 about the signs and the works that God did to Egypt and to Pharaoh and to all his army. That's verses 3 and 4. And then in 5 and 6, he shifts the attention to the wilderness and some of the bad things that happened there. If you remember way back in the book of Numbers, we had the rebellion of Korah. And then in the midst of that rebellion, we also had a couple of other guys mentioned named Dathan and Avaram, who also rebelled at that same time as Korah did. And we have that particular incident referred to as well and how the earth opened up and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that belonged to them. so this is this is sort of a of a of a long introductory sentence if you will to moses

main point so he says all right you guys have seen all this stuff you saw what i did to egypt you saw what i did to dathan and avaram you've seen how i deal with those who transgress my laws and afflict my people verse 8 therefore you shall therefore keep every command which i'm commanding you today as you're crossing over into this land. So in other words, look, you have seen everything that I did to your enemies, but you've also seen what I did to those in Israel itself who rebelled against me. So you know, basically, that I don't wink at evil, that I am a God of justice, and I have given you laws, and I have threatened to punish those who transgress these laws. And I have demonstrated in very unforgettable sorts of ways what can happen when individuals or

families or leaders rebel against these. So bear that in mind. Keep that in mind as you're crossing over into this promised land. I was reflecting upon this this morning, going through this story. This is a challenge that's always present for the church that lives after the conclusion of the Scriptures, just as it was a challenge for people who lived after certain generations where God was performing mighty acts for Israel. For instance, if you look at the book of Judges, the stories that are there, it'll talk about how God raises up Gideon or raises up Samson or raises up whoever the judge might be. And toward the end of the judge's life, it'll say that during the whole time the judge was ruling Israel, then everything was pretty good. But then the judge dies and the people

kind of forget about him and what God was doing through him. And then this cycle of rebellion and retribution, and all of this starts over again, and this is ongoing repetition. And as I was thinking about that and thinking about the situation of the church today, I mean, it's a constant challenge for us who, with our own eyes, have not seen the exodus, with our own eyes, have not seen all of these things that happen in the scriptures, to continue to live in these stories so that even though our eyes have not seen them, our eyes in a way do see them through the narratives which recount them. And I think this is the reason I'm bringing this up.

I think this is why it's so necessary for the church to continually tell and retell and retell once more the stories of the scriptures so that they do, as it were, happen before our eyes. so that even though we haven't experienced these personally, it's like we have because they form so much of our understanding of who God is and how he works among his people so that they become not just old, old stories, but ever new stories that are shaping our perception of the world and how God is at work in the church today,

lest we forget what God has done, lest his words pass away from us. So that's one of the reasons that we return again and again to these stories. And it's one of the reasons also why the Church has their ways, ritually, of trying to get us to participate in the story itself. I think, for instance, of what the early Church would do when they baptized adults. adults. I mean, to us, it would be really strange, but I think this was the early church's way of helping people to physically, with their senses, to participate in the story of God's salvation of them, that He is bringing them into by means of baptism. So in the early church, you would be baptized. Well, first of all, you would strip, and then you would be baptized in

the nude. So the idea is you're completely leaving behind everything, and you're now entering into the baptismal waters, and you are washed. You are, as it were, put in the Red Sea. You're drowned in the flood. You cross the Jordan. All these water stories happen to you in baptism. And then you emerge from that into this brilliant room full of light, because now you have left the darkness, and you're entering into the brightness of God's light in Christ, and you're clothed with a clean white garment, which is, of course, iconic of the righteousness that we have in Christ. You're anointed with oil because you have now been joined to him

who is the anointed one himself. And then you would leave that baptismal area and process into the church where you would join in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. Now, just imagine going through all of that ritually, a very sense-oriented, very physical kind of ritual that was intended, I think, was intended to make sure that you didn't just kind of have this in your head that you were part of the story, but that you actually participated in this biblical story through this present-day ritual. And I think that's one of the ways, and we could, of course, multiply those examples,

But that's one of the ways that the church throughout the ages has tried to bring the biblical narratives into the life of the church so that we understand we're still part of the story of what God is doing. Yeah, this is one of the reasons why I think, I'm not a liturgy Nazi, I don't think you have, everyone has to do everything the exact same way or anything like this, but one of the reasons I think that some form of liturgy is useful is because things like Old Testament readings and things like that are helpful so that we stay connected to this stuff. And so there'll be times where you'll go into a church and you'll have an Old Testament reading, and then you'll have a New Testament reading, you'll have a gospel reading. Those are kind of the three readings that you'll have. So you'll have like an epistle, an Old Testament text, and a gospel text. The reason I think that that's helpful is for this exact reason, that regardless of whatever, you know, in liturgical churches, usually then the pastor will pick one of those. If you're following a lectionary or something like that, again, I'm not saying you have to do that. I used to have the readings, and then I usually would work my way through books of the Bible, but I would actually keep the readings anyway.

And the reason I would do that is because I actually think that there's value in reminding people that this is where we came from and this is what God has done. And so I think that's the thought process behind that sort of stuff. It's not just like, hey, let's show you how these texts all connect together, but also just remind you of the stories. Yeah, so I think that that kind of stuff is good. even when uh you know reading plans um i think they can be helpful if you don't turn them into a law i used to read the bible just like cover to cover and so i've done that a bunch of times but what i do now is i read a little bit of old testament i read a psalm and i read a little bit of new testament and i try to do that every day and the reason i do that is because um i actually

when i don't want to read the whole old testament and then read the whole new testament and not there's too much separation so i might read i might spend half the year reading the old testament and then the other second half of the year reading the gospels and the epistles and i don't actually don't even like that six months to go by without like revisiting one or the other so i don't want to read i don't want to be reading some you know judges uh or whatever uh chronicles or whatever and uh and not sort of have a little bit about the life of christ or a little bit about what the apostles are saying, but also I don't want to read those other things removed from the Old Testament narrative either.

And so, yeah, I think it's very helpful for us to constantly be going back to the entirety of scriptures, both Old and New Testament, and reminding ourselves, yeah, this is what God has done to make us who we are. And yeah, it's very important. And that's exactly what, what Deuteronomy is, is a, he's dealing, you know, Moses is, you have to remember that when Moses does this, he's speaking by and large to a group of people that did not experience most of the things that he's talking about. It wasn't like they're like, oh yeah, I remember when we went through the Red Sea.

Most of these people do not remember that. Yeah. So their situation is, is very much like ours. When we hear the stories of the gospels or when we read anything, anything that's, uh, that's written in the scriptures you know we're we're separated from the stories but we still participate in them the more that they become our stories the more they become real to us yeah when we immerse ourselves in them yeah i mean when when moses says things when god brought you through this or whatever you do get to read yourself into that this is one of the times

where it's okay to do that because the people he's talking about they they weren't there either so when he says you he's talking to people who did not who did not that had not physically happened to and so we didn't have permission to say like god brought me through that because what what he's referencing is god brought a people that he's going to bring christ through i'm in christ and so i also was i was also brought through this uh he did he did this for me. Yeah, absolutely. We're part of that story as much as the Israelites are part of the story when they're hearing about what happened to their grandfather's generation. So by repetition of these stories, by doing what Deuteronomy talks about, how you bind them on your hand, you bind

them on your forehead, you teach them to your sons, when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down when you rise up as it, as it says in verses 18 through 21, then these stories, uh, are become my story. And then I teach them to my children and they become my children's stories. And they're, they're passed down this sort of way. I mean, it's people know this, but it's worth what it's worth saying again, uh, because we are, we live in such a, a textual society, such a book society that it's always worth reminding ourselves that at this time and for basically all of biblical history people did not possess copies of the scriptures at most at the very most they might have had a verse or two written on something that's it so everything

was oral so everything they knew the scriptures had been learned not through the eyes but through but through the ears. And it was like this for most of the church's history. I mean, to have in your possession a book that we just simply take for granted was something that was almost unheard of. It was so incredibly expensive to have anything, to have a book copied and to have it in your possession than it was a possession of just very few people. You know, Only the rich would have had copies of scrolls, because to get that copy, you had to hire somebody, or do it yourself, to copy by hand the whole thing. So we take it for granted that we can just grab a Bible and open it up and read anytime we want to, but in the vast spectrum of history, that is a relatively modern phenomenon. Everything was learned by ear.

Yeah, I have a leaf. It's just one page from an original first edition Geneva Bible. I had a friend gave it to me. He bought it at an auction. He was at an auction, and he thought, I'm going to buy that for Dan. He spent too much money on it, I thought. I said, I was like, dude, that's—so I asked him. I was like, how much was it? And he told me, and I was like, that's ridiculous. You shouldn't have done that. And his response was, for the vast majority of church history,

people would have given a lot more than that. And what he was saying was that people would have given just about anything that they had for one page, front and back of the scriptures, that it is valuable. And that is absolutely true. I mean, for the vast majority of history, the people of God did not even have that, which i have just framed and you know and uh they didn't but they didn't have that they didn't have

just even one page so yeah there's a good reminder um and this is what moses is doing is under there's no printing press there's not this he's he's telling the people here that you're gonna have to orally pass this stuff down or else it's gonna be forgotten that's why he says in verse 19 teach him to your children talk to them when you sit when you walk along the road when you lie down and you rise up so if you if you want the next generation to be able to pass this on to their generation then don't waste any time make sure that it is the the ongoing topic of conversation i'm sure people right now are like are you guys going to get into this text just so you know this is what this text is about that's why we're not just making this stuff up yeah it's actually

it's about passing it down this is about uh it's about knowing the scriptures even if you don't have the scriptures yeah yeah i mean that is chapter 11 of deuteronomy verses 18 through 21 that is what he's what he's what he's talking about and what what what leads up to that is he's saying listen you've seen all this that i've done now i'm about to bring you to the promised land and it's going to be a great place i mean it's it's going to be uh the san diego right it's going to be uh an ideal location in fact it's going to be very different from egypt he said in Egypt, well, you know the way it works in Egypt. If you're going to have a crop, there's only one way you're going to have a crop in Egypt. It's through the annual flooding of the Nile, right?

The snows melt in Ethiopia and the floods that happen there, they all work their way down into the Nile. And so once a year in the summer and fall, the Nile floods and the waters just go everywhere. And then it gradually begins to dissipate and leaves behind creeks and rivers and ponds and whatnot. And in that soil is where the crops are grown. So that's the way it works in Egypt. But he says, it's not going to work that way in Israel, because Israel is a place of hills and valleys. Well, you can't have flooding that way with hills and valleys. So the only way you're going to get crops in the promised land, which is a great place. I mean, it's a fertile land, but the only way it's going to happen is by rain. And God is telling them,

look, my eyes are going to be on this land from the beginning of the year to the end, and I will give you rain. However, if you rebel against me, if you forget my words, then verse 17, then I will shut up the heavens. I'm going to close it, close the door. There will be no rain and the ground won't yield its fruit and you will perish quickly from the good land which the lord your god is giving you so this is god's way of reminding the israelites through in the agricultural sort of way that yeah it's a fantastic land i mean all sorts of crops will grow there they already know this from the spies from from uh the spies are bringing back all the fruits of the land but it doesn't matter how good the land is if it doesn't get any rain it's not

growing any crops and the one who's in control of the rain is the god who's giving them his words and so he wants them to to stick by those by those words and then uh picking up here with verse 22 he's uh he's reminding them again to be careful to keep the commandments to love the lord your god to walk in his ways and he's going to drive out all the nations who are before you and he says every place on which the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours so from the from the north in in the lebanon area to the river euphrates to the mediterranean sea and and so forth this is wherever your foot sets down that is going to be the place the place for you by the way this is i think we've talked about this on the show before that this idea of wherever your

foot treads. It's going to be yours. That's actually based upon an ancient practice where in order to claim title to land, you walked the borders of the land. So by physically stepping on the borders of that land, that was the way that you claim that territory as your own. So for instance, in Egypt, on occasion, the pharaohs would have to make a journey around the land of Egypt so as to symbolically claim this land as their own again. And some people speculate too that, you know, in the book of Ruth, if you remember when the land is purchased and a sandal is given in exchange for the land, some people think that's the reason that a sandal was chosen was because this sandal had been what the owner, the previous owner of the land had used to walk

upon this land so this is him as it were by handing over the sandal that had tread upon this soil he's now passing on that soil itself he's passing ownership over to to the new owner so that's why it talks about the need for the that wherever the foot treads that is going to be your that is going to be your land in later years we got lazy and just did this through the clever use of flags yeah we just stuck a flag on a piece of land and said yep that's that's ours that's it sail up on the shore stick a flag in the ground and uh that's that's how you do it we did that with the moon that's how that's that's how arrogant we are you can't walk this whole moon and then stick a flag in it call it good oh man i'm i'm i'm drawing a blank here but

I did some research on this a while back, but there was actually up until maybe the time of the colonization of America in England, there was still a practice on, I think it was around Ascension Day, when the congregation would walk the borders of the parish and sing hymns and whatnot as a way of kind of commemorating the borders of their land, the borders of the parish. And so it became sort of an annual ritual that the pastor and his people would engage in. Just a little bit of trivia there for you, history buffs. But anyway, to pick it up here with Deuteronomy again, verse 26, we really begin to transition into what we're going to see in 12 and following. He sets a stark contrast here. He says, i'm setting before you today a blessing and a curse so that this there's not like multiple options here there's a blessing and there's a curse the blessing if you listen to the commandments of the lord your god which i'm commanding you and the curse if you don't listen so there's nothing

complicated about this you you listen to the voice of the lord your god and you you conduct yourself in a way that is in keeping with what that voice says, and you have a blessing. You don't listen to the voice of the Lord your God. His words don't have their way with you, and you end up going the direction that you want to go, contrary to what God says, and a curse will come upon you. So it's very black and white when you get to matters of the law. There's a blessing, and there's a curse. And actually, one of the ways that he wanted to impress this upon the Israelites is, to get back to what we were talking about earlier, ritually.

So what's going to happen, and we'll read about this in the book of Joshua, chapter 8, when the Israelites went into the Promised Land and conquered it, what they did is they stationed about half of the tribes on Mount Gerizim and half of the tribes on Mount Ebal,

and part of the tribes on Mount Gerizim spoke the words of blessing, and the other tribes at Mount Ebal spoke the words of cursing. They were sort of preaching back and forth to one another as they were divided there between those two mountains with the valley in between. So this was the way in which the nation as a whole reminded themselves, not just verbally,

but through this ritual enactment, as it were, of the importance of listening to God's word and keeping his covenant now that he'd brought them into into the promised land yeah this is one of those things where uh one you have that that word obey which i think is just too bit too simple um as we've stated before so obey is not really a word for the hebrew this is to listen or to hear um the commandments of god uh in some ways obey i think it's too static uh where it's just like just you know just do just do these things and this will happen. If you don't do them, that'll happen. But this is about God having the people's

ear. If he doesn't have their ear, bad things are going to happen. If he does have their ear, good things are going to happen. In a lot of ways, the rest of the Old Testament, you could almost apply this text as a hermeneutic as you read the rest of the Old Testament and as you read what's happening to Israel in any given spot and be like, have these people stopped listening to God? Because it seems like things are going really bad. And does God have these people's ear? Because it seems like things are going pretty good. And that is absolutely the case over and over and over again. So you will see them vacillate between these, and there's probably more bad than good, but you will see that sometimes things are going great and it's

because they are listening to the voice of God. And a lot of the time you will see things are going very poorly and the reason god gives is gotten adulterous people here they're still stubborn they're not listening to me at all they disregarded my commands they disregarded my voice and so this this text i think is a thing you could layer on top of the rest of the of the old testament narratives and it will tell you exactly what's going on there and be like oh god wasn't joking around when he's when he said this to them yeah that's a great point i mean there is that it's it's a very clear consistency and if you want to see it very starkly go to the go to the the books of first and second kings or really first and second samuel first and second

kings because you see there over and over that's exactly what happened with in the in the in the whole nation for instance things were going very very poorly up until king josiah and all of a sudden josiah well there was this amazing find during the reign of king josiah there were some priests who were kind of cleaning up the the temple i mean it just was like a church work day right you go in a little clean up and and this is amazing story one of the guys found this book and he brings it to the king and he's like hey i found this book oh well what what what is this book and they start reading it well it's the book of the law of the lord it's like i'd just been forgotten it's like gathering dust somewhere somebody's stuck in some broom closet in the

temple and they find it and they read it and king josiah tears his clothes and begins mourning because hearing the words of god he realizes that they weren't doing what god had given them to do and believing what God had given them to believe. And so he initiates what's sometimes called the Old Testament Reformation, in which he cleans up all of the idolatrous worship. He cleans up the temple. And lo and behold, things go really well for Israel. Yeah, when I read that story, very much I read this as rediscovering the voice of the Lord.

All of a sudden, God has the ear of the king through his word. And yeah, and things start going great. uh things things turn around uh because josiah is it looks at this and says well this is this is god's word to us uh so we should listen and yeah they had gone a long time not hearing the voice of god they're just making it up as they went along i guess so it's it's a bizarre thing man yeah and that's a good example and this happens you read the you know the minor prophets And that sort of thing Yeah, you read what they say

And they are over and over again Complaining about What God is complaining to the prophet about Is These people are hard of hearing This is their problem And now These go down the list

And they're like, so I guess some Assyrians are going to have to come Or I guess some Babylonian Captivity is going to have to go down And this is all They're hard of hearing, they're stiff necked, rejected me They've abandoned me over and over and over again. And so, yeah, this little one verse where God sort of says, I'm putting before you something, He does not compromise on this.

This is how things go. That's why, you know, when in the jumping forward to the life of the church, that's why anytime there's a reinvigoration of the church's life or reformation of the church, it's always connected with once more actually giving serious attention to the Word of God. Yeah. I mean, that's why, for instance, in the reformation that began with Luther, what's one of the first things that he did?

Well, he made sure that he translated the scriptures into vernacular so that people would be able to actually hear the Word of God. But so anytime that there's, look throughout church history, anytime that there is a serious reinvigoration of the life of the church, it's by giving heed once more to the voice of God, because we're always going to be following voices. I mean, that's just a fact of human life, whether it's the voice in our head or the voices of those around us or the voices of our culture. We are never deaf to the voices that are constantly speaking to us. And these voices have their way with us. They pull us one direction or another. They push us forward.

They push us back. They push us outward or inward. So it's inescapable to listen to voices. But the question is, which one is going to be determinate for how we understand who we are and how we're to live with our neighbor and especially how we stand with God? and if it's the voice of the Lord in his word that's telling us that then there will be blessing because we're actually listening to the one

who is blessedness himself and he's going to be the one who's actually able to give us the good things we need and the direction we need so that we can live a life that is actually best for us and best for everybody around us yeah I mean in a lot of ways you know the sola scriptura

which is scripture alone part of the solas of the reformation and it's really sort of the thing that catapults the reformation is the scriptures i mean so luther starts reading the scriptures and says hey hold on a second right uh but soliscriptora is just another way of saying it's scripture of alone but it's another way of saying the voice of god alone that's that's the voice we listen to so when we when we figure out what it is exactly that we confess and teach and believe we say the voice of god alone scripture alone. Amen. Amen. And that is it, man. We are out of time. I think we got through 11. We didn't

get into 12, but that's okay. And we'll get it next week. Guys, if you want to support the work over here at the podcast, well, it's real simple. You just go over to Christ Will Fast. You go to 15 to 17. You go over to the donate page and you can become a contributor. You can. And there's a bunch of people that did that. And they are the reason that this can be free and that we can keep doing this and all the other things that we do so if you have benefited from it and would like to you know do that thing then we would definitely appreciate you doing it chad i will see you next week all right see you there thanks We'll be right back.