Welcome to the Love and Context podcast, engaging in unscripted conversations with your hosts,
Ben and Spencer.
Whether you're tuning in from your car, your office, your home, or anywhere in between,
we are so happy to have you join us today.
Our mission is simple, to explore the Bible through a powerful lens of love.
Together we'll uncover fresh insights and gain deeper understandings of how we can love
God and love the people in our everyday lives.
So buckle up and join us on the spiritual journey as we discover timeless wisdom that
is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
Without further ado, let's dive right in.
We're back, Love and Context podcast.
I'm Spencer.
I'm Ben.
I'm Sarah.
And Sarah's back with us, just in case you all are wondering.
Yeah, two weeks in a row.
We didn't scare her off last time.
No, no.
We were actually, before we started recording, we were just talking about how we all have
our own little things, little quirks.
So it's just funny because you guys are saying that.
And then as you're saying these little quirks that you have, I'm sitting here and I'm legitimately
like, what are mine?
Because my brain was just having a legitimate brain fart of what are my little quirks,
but I don't know.
Probably just need to ask your wife.
Probably.
I was just going to say, I'm not falling for that trap.
Yeah, I'm not falling for that trap.
Nope, nope.
Go talk to your wife.
I'm not falling for that trap, especially when we're recording.
No.
I wasn't asking you to tell me.
I was just like, my brain was just farting as you guys were talking about that.
I was like, okay.
So we are still in Deuteronomy.
Last week we talked about this idea of worship.
What is proper worship?
What's improper worship?
What does worship actually create in you, which is generosity, to be a generous type
of person, because that's the kind of person God wants to bless, right?
If God is Genesis 12, it says, I'm going to bless you so that all nations would be blessed.
So that is contingent on you actually doing something with that blessing.
Often we like to, as Christians, we like to live in the land of the blessed ones rather
than actually realizing we're a conduit of grace and mercy and goodness from heaven to
earth.
Right?
So in Deuteronomy, Moses has been going through and he says, remember, remember the 5th of
November.
No, that's not it.
Sorry.
I did that the other day too.
That's a different, that's something else.
You know what's so sad is the fact that like kids just don't understand what that even
means.
I know.
It's so sad.
Oh, I know.
Look, and now we're old people talking about the old days.
I'm going to tell this story really quick here because this is great.
So we were at the Art Walk and we're walking around and we stopped at the chocolate shop.
And of course, James had to have chocolate, right?
And they said, do you have a phone number to put in?
I said, yes, 8675309.
And they're like, that's not enough numbers.
And I was like, well, it's from a song.
And they're like, oh really?
What song?
And I was like, you know what?
At this point, I feel too old to continue this conversation.
I had a kid tell me I was ancient the other day because I was born in the 19s.
And I was like, yeah, we're done with this conversation now.
Oh man.
All right.
So we come into Deuteronomy 16.
So if you have not read Deuteronomy 16 through 18, which by the way, Spencer, last week we
forgot to say that to people, there's this new fangle technology called a pause button.
Click.
You just, boop, pause.
You read that and then you come back because we're going to assume you've read that when
we're talking about it.
So it's 16 through 18 was what we're going to be covering today.
And now that you're back, it's a miracle of pause button.
It's coming on the heels of last week, right?
Remember in the Levi's, not forsaken the Levi's leading into generosity that every seven years
you're going to set your captives free.
You're going to let the debts be freed.
And then he says, Hey, I want to ground you a little bit more in your history, help you
remember things a little bit better.
Right?
Now, once again, this is to the next generation because the first generation is dying out
in the desert.
This is the next generation that Moses is speaking to.
Remember where you come from.
Remember what God did at Egypt.
Remember what he did in the desert because you're going to go into the slant and take
over it.
He's commissioning this new generation as well.
So the first one he wants, he brings up is he talks about Passover and why is Passover
important?
Because they remember that you were a slave in Egypt, that it was by God's mighty hand
that you were brought out and that his name was given to you there.
The name of God, Yahweh.
I always was, I always am, I always will be.
It's an important thing to remember.
The next festival he talks about is a festival of weeks.
We also call that Shavuot and in the New Testament church, we call that Pentecost because they
occur at the same time and it celebrates the giving of the law or in the New Testament,
the giving of the spirit.
It reminds them of who they've committed themselves to and it reminds them of the ceremony between
them and God where he gives them the 10 words and he says, this is who I am.
A few episodes ago in Deuteronomy, we talked about the 10 words and we talked about how
there are actually 10 commandments.
There's actually five commandments expressed two different ways, right?
And this interconnectedness of like learning to respect God and respect the people around
you, which will eventually lead to you loving the people around you, right?
This is the celebration.
So they have Passover, remembering where you came from, Festival of Weeks, remembering
this ceremony with God, right?
Remembering your identity that is being forged in the nation.
And then there's the Festival of Tabernacles, right?
So the Festival of Tabernacles is where they go out into the desert and they're building
these.
Sukkots.
Sukkots, yep.
Also known as Sukkots.
And they remember how God provided for them in the desert.
Isaiah is going to say how he led you like a bride.
About how his cloud of protection surrounded them the entire time.
Probably also remembering how their shoes and clothes didn't wear out and they're like,
man.
One of my favorite ones.
Look at your sandals.
They never wore out.
Could you imagine if you had like, because you've probably got some favorite shoes, right?
Oh, I've got some that are mine.
I've got some that were, I'm like, yeah, yeah, like don't judge.
But yes, I have them.
If I could have them forever and never have them wear out, right?
Oh, for sure.
Yes.
One of the most popular shoes in Alaska is something called an extra tough.
It's a fancy rubber boot.
It's really brown and they are not like adorable, but everybody has them.
And so they've kind of become like a fashion statement.
Right.
But you can get the ones that have like the designer on the inside and then you, then
you roll the extra tough down and then it's like a church shoe.
Or a colored extra tough.
It's actually not uncommon in Alaska to see people lead worship in extra toughs.
Just so you know.
Or preach in extra toughs.
There are people who if they could buy one pair of extra toughs and they would never
wear out, it would be like a dream come true for them.
Right.
I was thinking about the clothes thing.
Right.
So they're remembering three, the three major, these are the three major pilgrimage festivals
as well.
Passover, festival of weeks and festival of tabernacles.
Right.
So Passover, Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot.
So Moses is making sure that they remember where they come from.
The next section is actually a really interesting section.
He's actually talking about authority and like how to make sure there's proper authority
in place for judgment, for regular life.
Because as opposed to being a wandering bunch of nomads, they're actually going to be sitting
in one spot.
And if you think your kids fight in the car when you're driving, wait until you put them
in a room together.
Right.
Like it's just, it's just happening.
Like we were talking about with Pastor Nick and we were talking about how the Israelites
were grumbling and I was like, you know, grumbling is like, and I was like, you've been driving
the car and you just hear this rumble in your backseat and you're like, you know, it's coming.
You know, it's coming.
Yeah.
And like that's, that's how I often look at these, this whole thing about grumbling in
the desert is like, there's just this low hum and Moses was like, can we get some like
quail maybe that'll calm them down.
So, so he says a couple of things.
He says, Hey, first thing you need to do is you got to appoint some judges.
Right.
There you want one from every tribe.
It makes sense because you don't want to deal with being like, Hey, you know, the Judah guy,
he said blah, blah, blah.
And I'm from the tribe of Benjamin and they have always had it out for us.
I mean, you can't have that Baptist judge judging me as a Nazarene.
Not that we would ever run into those problems.
Right?
Yeah.
He says you actually need to have some, some in every town.
Now, one of the things that I love that he talks about the judges, and this is really
important for us to understand as Christians and as we talk about justice in the world,
they are not supposed to pervert justice.
They're not supposed to show partiality because of wealth specifically.
They don't accept bribes and they follow justice and justice alone for this key, key phrase
that you may live long and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Now what is the implication if they don't do those things or if they rather they do
those things, you're not going to possess that land long, right?
Right.
Because you're going to actually start to eat yourself with corruption.
And an interesting thing about corruption, it usually starts small, but it rarely stays
small.
Right.
I mean, because we were just talking about all these Passover or all of these Jewish
festivals, I had the, I would say a blessing being a nanny to an Orthodox Jewish family
in college.
And so I got to learn about what it meant to be living by the Torah and, you know, to
walk to the shul on Saturday and get ready for service and, and to, to realize that we
all had to be within a mile radius because you were walking to your shul and, and to
have the congregation split.
And it was very rare for women to ever be in there because Orthodox Jewish women don't.
But one of the things I got to do during Yom Kippur is, I believe it's pronounced Yom Kippur.
You can say whatever you want to say.
I'll say it my way because I lived with them for two years.
No she's definitely right by the way I'm being facetious.
But the family I lived with, her name was Linda, the mom, and she was getting all the
yeast out of the house.
And I was like, Linda, what are you doing?
And immediately I was brought to that scripture where we talk about, you got to get the yeast
out because that little tiny bit.
I love to bake bread and take seriously that scripture where it talks about Jesus is the
bread of life.
And I'm like, bread's good for you.
So carbs are carbs in me.
We have a great relationship, but it grows.
And that's what God is telling Moses to tell the Israelites to do.
You can't have any of that.
No seed, not even a little tiny morsel.
Have you seen yeast?
Yeah, it's tiny.
It's tiny.
But it's going to work it through everything.
You have to maintain, especially if you're going to be a person who administers justice,
which plays into the fact that he then says, don't worship the gods around you, specifically
Asherah and Baal.
Because Asherah and Baal are definitely the ones that are going to deal with the most.
There's going to be some Dagon, there's going to be some Melek, but mostly they're going
to be dealing with Baal and Asherah.
Trust God with your fertility.
Trust God with your harvest.
There's going to be no sacred stones.
And if you do see somebody doing evil, if you're not the judge, but if you see somebody
doing evil, leading people astray, serving other gods, I love that he says, hey, you
got to investigate it actually thoroughly.
These are not baseless accusations that are being made.
And then if it is actually proved, you're going to take them outside of your community.
It's a testimony of two and three witnesses and no one by the word of one alone.
The witness, by the way, must be the first involved in the carrying out of the sentence.
So back in the book of Numbers, we had this conversation about the test for the unfaithful
wife.
One of the things that you have to do is you have to come and bring them before the priest.
Now, if you are a wife and you know that you haven't been faithful, you're like, sure,
let's go eat the dirt.
You know before you even get there that nothing's going to happen because you didn't just like
you didn't step out.
So then you have to bring it to the priest and you actually have to go and do this.
It gives them like this recourse in the same way right here.
What I'm seeing in this, in this conversation is like, you can't just make a baseless accusation.
If you're actually saying, Hey, this person stepped out or this person is like leading
people astray.
You actually have to put your faithfulness to God on display because if you're lying
and you take up arms against him and you pick up a stone to stone them, you've actually
just committed murder and God's going to know that.
And you're going to be the one who throws the first stone.
So you actually have to be involved in the process, which makes it so much more poignant
in the book of John when there's this woman caught in adultery, which by the way, the
man's not there because apparently they caught them in the act, but he wasn't there.
I listen, I've been married long enough that you're caught in the act.
Two people are there.
Right.
At least at least two people.
Yeah.
And so they brought out and he says, whoever is without sin, you go ahead and cast the
first stone.
Now they know they can't throw the stone because they're actually be testifying against themselves
because they're trying to pin the sin on her and they were actually witnesses to the whole
thing.
They're trying to hold one person accountable and leave the other one off scot-free.
Right?
Now there's, there's a ton of different places you can go with that passage, but they just
dropped their stones with the oldest being the wisest dropping at first and being like,
yeah, we don't have a case.
We got to drop it.
Right.
But same thing here.
You can't pervert justice, which is exactly what's happening in that section of John.
They're trying to pervert justice to catch Jesus in a gotcha moment.
Yeah.
And I just, it's, it's so crazy to me that he just uses Torah against them.
Right?
Because like, if you're actually going to be the one who's the witness, you got to throw
the first stone.
I just, I think that it's, it's really important with justice.
Like there, there's a, there's an accountability that if you're going to be the one accusing,
you actually have to come forward and actually do something about it.
Right?
Right.
Now I want to caveat this and talk about, there are crimes in America where there are
people who are the weaker party that are abused and they're like, well, why don't they just
step forward?
It's really hard and you need to support people who are going to step forward and talk and
you need to believe them and you need to do whatever you can to reach out to them in their,
in their circumstance.
You know, I'm not going to get super specific because I don't, I don't think that's necessarily
appropriate for the conversation, but it is like a whole nother podcast.
That's a whole nother podcast, but it is also our responsibility to make sure that those
who are being marginalized are not.
So I want to make sure that caveat is in there for anybody who's listening, who may have
dealt with that situation.
We are not saying that every single person, like they had the responsibility to speak
up because they didn't, it was nothing.
It is still something.
And I think we also just need to add one more, just a little caveat as followers of Jesus,
we are called to stand up for those less fortunate, right?
We are called to do that.
Now we want in doing that, part of that is empowering those people to be able to speak
up for themselves.
Correct.
Because a lot of times what I've seen, at least in my life is I've seen people stand
up and say, well, this is going on.
This is going on.
You need to step in and do something.
When reality, when that's brought to my attention, I'm like, okay, right now it's just one person
said something against somebody else saying something else.
Right.
So if we are going to stand up for people, we have to come alongside them and empower
them to actually be able to speak for themselves.
Even though that's going to be very difficult and probably very painful.
Right.
I do appreciate that it's like you have to be, you have to thoroughly investigate.
Now I, there's also a caveat here that Moses gives them.
He says, Hey, by the way, if it's too difficult for you to figure out, bring it to the priest
or an appointed judge above them to actually figure it out.
It's interesting that the American legal system actually has like the court, Supreme Court,
and then the Supreme Court.
Right.
It's not that dissimilar from what Moses is talking about.
He's like the Supreme Court doesn't hear every case, but they do hear cases where they can't
figure out what to do with in a lower courts.
And then it says you have to do whatever they tell you to do, which at that point you're
just like, it also, let's, let's make sure that it's a good accusation because you're
also bringing it to the priest who is over and maybe a couple of tribes over an entire
region.
Like, let's make sure we're actually bringing some things that actually matter here.
Right.
My favorite section of what comes up is next is talks about Kings very quickly in Israel.
They're going to say, we want a King just like everyone else.
Yep.
Right.
And this whole thing that's going to come up a lot of times, I want this like everyone
else.
I want this like everyone else, like all the other nations around us.
Look at them over there.
What's the problem with that?
You're not supposed to be like everyone else.
Torah has been saying this over and over again.
You are supposed to be a holy nation, a kingdom of priests.
You're set apart.
You're different than everybody else because you're putting a story on display.
But Moses does give us some guidelines.
He says, Hey, you're probably going to end up with the King anyways, because well, he
recognizes the stiff neck, stubborn nature of Israel.
And he says, but if you do, you're going to point who God chooses, not who you want.
And he has to be from Israel, not from outside.
Okay.
Those are good categories, right?
Now this is what I love to, love to point out.
Okay.
He says, but he should not be from outside Israel or get a lot of horses or send people
down to Egypt to get those horses or take many wives or accumulate large amounts of
silver and gold.
But he should write himself a copy of the law, read it every day, study and revere God
and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites.
Now some of you who are listening, as I read that list, you're like, man, that's, that
sounds really familiar.
Well, let's, let's talk about second Chronicles one 14.
Spencer, can you pull up second Chronicles one 14 through 17 and read the head for us?
So second Chronicles one 14 through 17, Solomon built a huge force of chariots and horses.
He had about 1400 chariots and about 12,000 horses.
He stationed some of them in the chariot cities and some near Jerusalem.
The King made silver and gold as plentiful in Jerusalem as stone.
The valuable cedar timber was common in the sycamore figs that grew in the foothills of
Judah.
Solomon's horses were imported from Egypt and from Sicilia.
The King's traders acquired them from Sicilia.
At that time, chariots from Egypt would be purchased for 600 pieces of silver and the
horses for 150 pieces of silver.
They were then exported, exported to the King of the Hittites and the Kings of Aram.
So where do you get those horses from?
Egypt.
And I wonder if the writers of Chronicles have read Torah.
Maybe when they're writing that book, when they're, when they're pointing out these things,
huh?
You and your sarcasm.
Oh man.
Let's be honest.
If we were 39 episodes in and people still haven't gotten that I'm sarcastic.
It's true.
They, we, I don't know what to do for them.
It's true.
Sarah, I think I asked, can you look up second Chronicles 9 13?
Yeah.
The scripture says that each year Solomon received about 25 tons of gold.
Hmm.
25 tons of gold.
It's a lot of gold.
Not only that, one of the things we know about Solomon is he has a massive number of wives
and horses.
And so if you know Torah, which the authors of Chronicles would, this is Chronicles, by
the way, I don't know if you guys are familiar.
It's actually speculated to be one of the last books written.
There's a reason why in the Hebrew Bible, it's actually the last book of their Bible.
Right.
It's looking back over their entire history.
When they look at Solomon, they're actually talking about, Hey, Solomon was not doing
what Kings were supposed to do.
Like he was doing a lot of things that Kings were supposed to do.
Now, that does not mean that everything Solomon did was bad.
Because they also talk about Solomon asking for wisdom.
Right.
And Solomon opening the temple and how they fell on joyful faces and that they said the
Lord, he is good.
The Lord endures forever, which is actually a position that we as Americans actually find
ourselves in frequently where there's a lot of things that we do really well, but there
are also pieces that we have betrayed our very calling.
Right?
It's really tempting to try to demonize a person over one thing.
Yeah.
A woman is a pastor.
Somebody is a charismatic.
Somebody speaks in tongues or does not speak in tongues.
I've seen it from both the Pentecostal and the non-Pentecostal perspective.
We try to demonize people because of a theological perspective that they have.
The reality is nobody, everything that they do is right, nor is everything they do wrong.
We are all justified by the grace of Jesus Christ and trusting in his faithfulness.
We couldn't do anything about it.
And once we've done that, the job for us is to figure out how to get along and work together,
right?
Follow after him.
So this is going to seem really silly, but it ties in a little bit.
No, I like it.
Do it.
All right.
So I actually have a litmus test for churches when I go visit them.
And what that simply is, is I just wear a hat and see how they respond.
Because I've got legitimately have gone into churches where you walk in with a hat on and
they're like, who's going to go tell him to take that off because he's in the house of
God type thing.
And I've gone to churches who welcome you with open arms.
Yeah.
Right.
The reason I do this is because when you go into a church, I'm going in with the assumption
that they don't know me.
They don't know if I know Jesus.
They don't know who I am.
So are they going to be welcoming?
Are they going to, are they going to say, Hey, here's an outsider that we want to welcome
in?
Or are they immediately going to be like, Hey, we want you to look like, look and act
like the rest of us because this is our standard, which in most cases when they do the latter
of the two, it shows that their standards not necessarily love.
Right.
Yeah.
Standard being love is a really big deal.
I want to point out, like, if you don't think that people should wear hats and doors, you
are totally justified in having that feeling.
You're just not justified in judging other people by it.
Like, so if you don't believe that you should wear hats and doors, don't wear hats and
doors.
Teach your kids not to wear hats and stores.
I'm a hundred percent for that.
Right.
I like, you should instill your values into your kids.
Yeah.
The problem is you shouldn't instill your values into other people.
You need to instill God's principles into other people.
One of the places that we tend to get ourselves in trouble is we tend to take our convictions
and we turn them into commandments.
And that's a really dangerous place to be.
And I think that you should live by your convictions.
If you don't believe that eating meat is an appropriate thing to do, you should live by
that conviction.
It is not a commandment though.
Right.
Or like pork.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
I think that's a non-controversial things that we've got a couple in our church that
they keep kosher because they're not Jewish, but they believe that the Torah had some understanding.
And so they refuse to eat pork.
And so she'll say, Hey, you know, what are you serving at tonight's dinner?
Right.
And she's not asking me going, Oh, I can't believe that you wouldn't take into consideration
me and my spouse's dietary belief.
Right.
But she's just saying, okay, I just need to know.
Right.
I'm still going to come.
Yeah.
I'm just going to make sure I'm going to eat beforehand.
And I'm not going to let that divide what's supposed to be taking place at this event.
I'm not going to let this cause a break a fellowship between us.
I'm not going to let my personal conviction cause a break a fellowship between us.
Yep.
Boy, if that there's not a politically charged message in there.
I mean, how many times in our churches are we dividing ourselves over silly politics
when those are convictions and you need to actually figure out ways to live in unity despite
your convictions?
Yeah.
Well, even within marriage, there's things that maybe there's a conviction one spouse
has that the other doesn't.
When my wife and I got married, she was a vegetarian.
And I, and if you don't need to know me long to know that like hamburgers, you give me,
you give me a pack of hot dogs and they can't fire that pack of hot dogs will disappear
so fast in our marriage.
We've had to cook differently, right?
Cause I still, I still eat meat.
She, she eats some now, but she used to not.
And when she didn't, we just cooked meals differently, right?
We would look at meals, be like, okay, we're going to cook this for dinner and we're going
to cook meat on the side and the meat can be added into it for myself or anybody else
who was over who wants it.
And then for my wife, she's like, then she has the vegetarian option, right?
It's it's we take these things.
We often can cause division with them when really it's like, when it's really like, we
don't need to divide over this.
Right.
There are simple solutions that can often resolve these issues.
Yeah.
It's perfectly okay for people to have different convictions.
Like we, even in the last episode, we were talking about giving like Sarah and I have
different perspectives on giving, like we're going to live in grace, but we both agree
that as Christians we're supposed to be generous.
That's who we're supposed to be.
Right.
Because we're going all the way back to the very most basic, the two things.
We're loving God.
Yep.
So we're saying, okay, God, you're going to convict us of what to do with this exchange
of trusting you and wrestling with giving you 10%, 13%, 5%, calling it a tithe, calling
it an offering.
We don't need to get stuck in that, but what we're wanting to ask one another is Ben, are
you loving God with your possessions?
And then are you loving others with what God has entrusted to you?
If your answer is yes and yes, I'm done.
Yep.
Exactly.
All right.
Then we're like, sweet.
Everything else is noise.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And there was dictates here saying that you should not get from these places.
And specifically, he's the king.
So he has very specific instructions.
And when you have higher authority, you have a higher responsibility.
To whom much is given.
And in Solomon's life, if you look at his life, it wasn't like he woke up one night
and he's like, I'm going to order 12,000 horses from Egypt.
It was a gradual...
You can get on Amazon Prime.
It wasn't a 2 AM bad decision.
Not a sponsor.
Right?
It wasn't a 2 AM bad decision.
But it was a gradual thing in Solomon's life.
It wasn't an overnight like, hey, I'm going to go have multiple hundreds of wives and
concubines and order 12,000 horses from a country I'm not supposed to order them from
and all this stuff.
Right?
Right.
And there's so many things he could have used to justify.
He could have been like, oh, I need to marry this person for this political alliance because
it's going to help the nation.
Because you justify a lot of the things that you do where you're doing these types of things.
Right?
You justify stepping out from what God calls you to be.
Well, let's just take it even a step farther because it's in numbers where we're told that
the things that we don't deal with, the generations that come from us are going to deal with them
later on for up to three generations.
So if we knew that David had a hard time complying with these commands and directions for David
to consecrate himself and to strip off all those things that were going to cause him
not to fully trust God, we're seeing that the things that David wasn't willing to trust,
he let things just sit and grow.
He let the yeast get into his home and that got to Solomon.
Well, and on a personal note, I think we all have kids, right?
We can all think of things in our life that we're saying that stops with me and it's not
being given to my kids.
Correct.
Yes.
That's the responsibility of parenthood is to recognize, to do the hard work of recognizing
generational things in your family and say, hey, it stops here because I would hope that
I like, my parents raised me well.
All three of the kids turned out.
One of them turned out real well and the other two, yeah, they don't listen.
But then the-
They got it right towards the end.
But then here's the thing.
It's like because they were good parents, it enables me to be a better parent.
Does that make sense?
It is because of them I can be a good parent.
And I would hope that my kids, when they grow up and they become parents, they are better
parents than I am.
And we keep pushing that down so that we get better and better, glory to glory, as we would
say, right?
So that they're not dealing with generational things that I dealt with or things that came
up in my life or hurt that came up in my life or bitterness that came up in my life.
I don't want to pass that on.
I want to make sure that stops with me.
Now to your point, you talked about the third generation.
I want to tell this quick story before we get into chapter 18 about a guy by the name
of Josiah, right?
In the Bible.
He reads the book of the law and he's like, oh man, we haven't been doing any of this.
Now this is after God has said, it's already, you've reached the breaking point and that
it's going, it's going to end here.
When God is about to bring judgment and Josiah reads the law and he goes, oh, we haven't
been doing any of this.
So he cleans house.
Like he goes through and he cleans house.
Now the interesting thing is God says, I've already spoken, so it's going to come.
But because of your faithfulness, Josiah, one person for an entire nation, because of
your faithfulness, it's not coming in your time because of one person.
It was delayed 40 plus years because of one person.
So what happens when the people of God turn and serve, repent and live for righteousness
as a nation, as a nation?
Yeah.
What happens when we do that?
I'll tell you what happens.
It's called revival and it shook the very foundations of the earth.
Come on.
Right?
Yeah.
Like this is why people pray for revival, right?
But you have to be willing to have less of yourself in order for revival to happen because
we're pursuing something greater than ourselves.
Right?
So one of the things we've talked about frequently about the priests is the priests don't have
an allotment.
Don't neglect the priests.
I want to point out that you actually don't need to feel too bad for the priest though,
because they don't have an inheritance in the land because God is their inheritance.
Sounds pretty good.
That sounds like a pretty good like trade off to me, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I don't get land, but I get God.
Like the guy who spoke it into existence, I get him.
Like that sounds pretty good to me, but you do need to keep making, make sure they get
their fair share so they don't go hungry.
So if you see Sarah Harney on the road, she needs a hot dog or a hamburger or something.
Cause me and my 88 children need food.
Oh, I always joke.
Five kids, right?
Five.
Yeah.
Ranging from how old to how old?
My oldest is going to be 16 in March.
Oh my goodness.
My oldest just turned seven.
Oh, your oldest is going to be driving?
Yeah.
Don't.
It is, it is a lot for me right now to manage.
Okay.
By the way, this whole section about you need to make sure that they're taken care of because
they don't go hungry.
It's actually interesting if you look at the beginning of Samuel and talked about Eli and
his sons and how they were actually abusing this.
They were abusing it.
Right?
Like they, the priest actually abused this thing that was actually supposed to feed them.
Right.
And so they started to view- To the most marginalized population.
To the most marginalized population.
Let's not even, let's, let's leave.
Let's get to the, what Phineas was doing with what God had entrusted him to do.
Right.
Okay.
This was with the least of, the least of the least.
Yeah.
Let's screw over the widows and the orphans.
Right.
Exactly.
Let's go ahead.
They, they're flush.
Yeah.
So one of the reasons we wanted to start in Torah with love and context is everything
that comes after this is built on it.
Like when you get to Samuel and you see what Phineas is doing, you're like, well, hold
on a second.
What?
Have you not read Torah?
Yeah.
Like you're a priest.
Are you not familiar with Leviticus?
What are your job is?
Right.
It's just, it's one of those things that's like, Hey, I had this conversation with Spencer,
I think a few, few episodes ago when we're talking to people who say, they're like, Oh,
I read the Bible all the time.
And then you talk to them and you're like, I'm not sure you do because they're like,
there's some pretty important stories that you seem to not know about.
Or how many times have we been in a conversation where someone takes a verse completely out
of context and we're like, Oh, did we read what was mentioned before that?
Or just right after that, before we're going to use that.
Okay.
I don't know if you know this, but Paul actually said I can do all things.
The verse taken out of context.
It's so good.
So good.
Well, but I mean, there's examples of, so an example of this, Jeremiah 29, 11, right?
Right.
Where, where everyone's like, Oh yeah, it's great.
And then they take it as like blessing.
I was like, read the verses before.
Yeah.
And God is saying, this is going to be miserable for you, but you're going to find me in the
misery.
Yeah.
It's like, Oh, he's the, he goes and he's like, uh, I know the plans I have for you
plans to prosper you.
And it's like, because you're going into captivity and you're, you're going to feel pretty miserable.
You're going to live in homes.
This is the hope in the midst of captivity, right?
Which God always gives people hope even in their captivity.
You know what he also does though, that even in his discipline or judgment, you know, as,
as these are coming and, and these are commands, these are actually calls.
When we read these passages in the Bible, each chapter actually says a call, like Moses
is giving a call.
He's standing up in front of them and he's basically telling them, God's telling us the
right way to do it.
Yeah.
And it's going back to that relationship of you get, well, and, and to our point, when
we talk about Leviticus, when we talked about the law, a lot of times when we interpret
law, we're like, Hey, this is a thing that if you violate, you go to jail.
Right.
And the law isn't for you to know what you're doing is right or wrong.
It's actually, it's meant to create you into a more ethical, righteous driven person that
if you actually follow the law of Torah, your nation would be full of justice and equality
and mercy and mercy and grace.
And that you would actually love people.
Well, there would be no one hungry because every three years you would be making sure
that allotment went to the widows and the orphans.
And here's the thing that happens in the new Testament.
You know what ends up happening in the new Testament when they start selling their things
and feeding people and taking care of people whenever they have need revival happen.
People saw what was happening.
They're like, I want to be a part of this.
I want to be a part of the people who legitimately care about each other.
Yeah.
Francis Chan, who we talked about, we've talked about a couple of times and I do love me some
Francis Chan.
He made a statement.
He says, have you ever gone into a church and you were overwhelmed by the presence of
love?
He's like, what would be, what would it be like if you walked into a church and you could
actually, you're like, oh, I know those are Christians because of how they love.
I'll tell you what happened.
Shake the very foundation of the earth.
It's called revival.
It's driven by love God and love other people.
And out of those things, you start seeing miraculous signs and wonders break out because
you love people and God pours into you and then it flows out of you.
So as you, as we continue through 18, you get where you get to where he says, Hey, don't
do these things.
Yeah.
Don't do these other things.
Like don't do these other things like offer children in the fire.
Like in, and you read, if you read this from a Westernized context, you're like, you're
like, Oh, you're like, okay, easy, done.
No problem.
Right.
Go do some painful homework and do some research of the worship of Malek and a few other things
like that.
You'll see what we're talking about.
Don't practice witchcraft.
Yep.
Don't practice humans or deviation cast spells.
I believe that's division.
It's no, I'm not playing with you.
Don't practice division.
Those mathematical.
Oh, that's true.
Don't practice mediums or spiritualists or consult with the dead.
Yeah.
And why are all these things being mentioned?
Cause people really want to point out these and they're like, they're like, Oh, we got
to, but this is what the worship of the other nations looked like.
Okay.
Well, we need to look for these.
No, stop looking like everybody else.
That is what Moses is saying.
Yeah.
Look like who God called you to look like.
Yeah.
I, one of the things I find, so your kid just started sports, right?
Some of your kids have started sports.
Okay.
I always think it's really interesting as I can you imagine if when we taught kids to
play basketball, we, we only stressed what out of bounds was and not how to properly
stay in bounds instead of teaching how to dribble and how to move and how to shoot and
all these things we only talked about out of bounds.
Yeah.
Like they would never learn anything.
In fact, what we would tell them, we said, these are the things that you need to do.
And then if they step out, we're like, Hey, that's something you need to avoid.
And this is what you should do in order to avoid this.
Right.
We have a tendency in the church, we say, Oh, you need to avoid this behavior rather
than talking to them about what they're actually supposed to be doing instead.
If you actually are worshiping God properly, you're not going to find yourself worshiping
God like the other nations.
So maybe instead of talking about the ways you shouldn't worship, you should actually
emphasize the ways to worship and trust the spirit of God to actually do his work.
Amen.
To your point, Spencer, like as you look just looking further, let's talk about the prophet
that God's going to send.
Right?
Because if these things happen, if you keep going astray, God's going to raise up somebody
who's going to come and talk about it.
Yeah.
Like that's forewarning or Moses forewarning, God's going to send you prophets when you
get off track.
Which can we just pause for a second because so often people can look at the Old Testament
and I have fallen trapped to this that when I was in the crux of people wanting to remove
me out of ministry for whatever reason it was, I was like, I'm waiting for the God of
judges.
You know, the God that comes and just smites them and it's just like decimate them, kill
them, get rid of it.
We're seeing God come and give some very clear guidelines and we know that he disciplines
those whom he loves.
So we're supposed to be going, okay, these are going to be kind of painful.
They're not going to be easy because we're looking over here and we're like, we kind
of want that over there.
That looks way better than what we have here.
But God is saying, no, listen, I need you to do this.
You've got to look different.
There's got to be something different where people are going, what's happening over there?
Right.
When I think about this story and I go all the way back to Abraham when God is going
down to see if Sodom is as bad as everybody says it is.
And Abraham has a conversation with God and he says, he's a, what if there's 50 righteous
people and he talks them all the way down to 10?
Now the question I've asked and when we were on the podcast, I said, well, what if Abraham
talked all the way down to one?
If he kept engaging God on coming down.
I was like, but the thing is the conservative estimates on Sodom and Gomorrah is that there
was around 250,000 people in that region.
And God says if there's 10 righteous people, he can turn the city.
10.
And so when we think about the state of Alaska has like 750,000 people.
If there is 30 people who are dedicated to the righteousness of God in this, in this
state, you can turn the state, you can turn the entire state.
Those of you that are living in California, there's 39 million people and God says, it's
going to take maybe a thousand, maybe a thousand in that entire city.
What, which a lot of like Christian people will call out and they'll say, oh, it's a
cesspool of immorality.
And I was like, but if there's a thousand righteous people there, you turn the entire
state.
There's 375 million people in the United States of America.
This is coming and it's actually revealing God's character that it doesn't take much
with me.
So often when we come in our worship, if we're not careful, we can come with scarcity mindset.
I mean, going back to prior conversations that we had about tithing and judging people
and how they worship is that a lot of times we come with like, Ooh, I don't know if I
can trust God with this.
I don't want to come undone like David did when, when the arc was coming back or I don't
want to be like Hannah.
When Samuel shows up and goes, what are you doing woman?
You're drunk and it's midday.
And she's like, I, she's coming undone.
Yeah, she's come.
She's, she's telling God she's not coming undone just to the air.
Yeah.
She went to the temple.
She went to tell God directly, I'm undone.
Can you imagine if you were at Shavuot Pentecost and the, and there start speaking in strange
tongues and they're like, and he's like, guys, we're not drunk.
It's nine o'clock in the morning.
We literally just started Shavuot.
Like, there's no way that's not what's happening here.
This is not Purim right now.
This is not Purim.
Like that is not what's happening.
And so like to your point in talking about like the judgment, like people look at the
prophets, they're like, Oh, they're here to prescribe judgment.
No, they're actually here to provide hope if you turn around.
Because God always has an exit plan for us.
That's what he tells us.
The prophets not there to condemn you.
They're saying if you keep on this path, this is where you're headed.
God's not going to stop it.
It's time to turn around and God will bring you back.
Well, and God has gone as far as to say, Hey, I'm going to provide proof through some of
the most ridiculous battle plans you can think of.
Hey, why don't you take the nation and march around this city one time a day.
And then on seventh day, do it seven times, then yell.
Right.
Here's the thing, Joshua.
I need you to go and lead the fight.
Yeah.
Because Jesus is going to stand on the mountain and as long as his arms are in the air, you're
going to kick butt.
You're like, no worries.
It's going to be great.
Yeah.
Right.
Soon as his arms get tired or Gideon where it's like, Hey, there's an army of about 120,000
people or so.
And then Gideon's army gets whittled down to 300 and God's like, all right, now we're
ready.
Yeah.
Right.
Or Jehoshaphat.
Hey, I'm going to just lay here and prostrate myself as the king and I'm going to call
all of you guys and we're going to fast and we're going to pray and then we're going to
show up tomorrow morning and we're going to go and look and see that the entire enemy
has been defeated before our eyes.
I think it's Oswald Chambers.
He has this quote where he says, the only way to be successful in ministry is to be disinterested
in ministry and profoundly interested in Jesus.
I think it's sometimes interesting.
We're going to talk about prophets in just one second, but I think it's sometimes interesting
when people talk about, they're like, Oh, well you need to make sure that you're doing
things for the church.
And I was like, well, you do realize that the church isn't the building.
It's actually the people.
Like you here with us today, you're part of our church.
We're part of the church of our city.
And just because we fellowship in different buildings, we're part of the same family,
even though we disagree at times.
We're the ecclesia.
That's what we are.
Yeah.
I want to point out this section on prophets because I think this is something, especially
when we talk in our mini series about prophecy, people are going to come back to this section
and misapply it constantly.
He's talking about how do you test to see whether a prophet is from God or not?
And he says, you know, does it come to pass or does it not come to pass?
And if it doesn't come to pass and you need to put them to death.
Okay.
Once again, this is, this is conquest language.
This is Torah language and it's not necessarily literally mean put to death.
Why do we know that?
Because we look at traditional Judaism and it doesn't happen.
Okay.
Now does death mean death?
Of course it means death, but it also just means they need to be done away with.
They need to be put outside.
And I know I get a lot of people who really disagree with me that they're like, ah, no,
it's about, you know, we're and I was like, okay, but you can't completely decimate a
population and still have foreigners among you.
So we're missing something in the context of this conversation.
And a lot of literature at that time will say when they're, where they say something
very serious to say put to death.
It doesn't always mean literally put to death.
If you want to believe it means a little bit to death, that's fine.
But you got to square how that means, how that fits with love, got in love with other
people.
But there's things you put to death in your life, right?
And it's in your, and, and we're obviously not dead, right?
Right.
Like I've put to death some bad habits in my life.
We're told to do that.
Yeah.
And the only reason I bring that up is because I want to make sure that like there is, there's
a very serious strain of militant Christianity and we need to be very careful that we actually
look like Jesus and not what we want Jesus to look like.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
So this whole thing about prophets, we're going to talk about this more in our mini
series, but the point of prophecy is actually to bring hope of correction.
Amen.
Not condemnation.
Amen.
Even the prophets of the old Testament are not responsible for the condemnation.
They only bring what God has said.
I have known people in the churches who use prophetic words to speak condemnations into
the kingdom of God.
Yep.
That is not your job.
Yep.
Holy spirit is perfectly able to convict.
Your job is to bring hope and purpose into the people around you.
Amen.
Yeah.
And I'm going to leave it at that because we're going to talk about that in the future.
If you have further questions, put them in our Q&A.
Sarah, we've liked having you.
So write into us if you really liked having Sarah here.
If you didn't like having Sarah here, we're just going to delete that email.
So just for warning.
We'll pray for you though.
Like we will pray.
Bless your heart.
We will pray for you.
Yes.
We love you.
And we really enjoyed having you.
We're going to pray for you in that mini-series and for some other things.
Is there anything that we can be praying for you for or something we can do to be supporting
you for our listeners?
I think that just being willing to have these conversations and wrestle with them.
I love it.
I'm glad that we can have these conversations, Ben, because I know that just like what happened
today where you and I can clearly disagree over our personal convictions with what God
has asked us to do with what He's given.
I think that this is when iron is sharpening iron, we actually get to see the heart of
God.
Right.
And I get to see that the uniqueness of you and your bend and your understanding and your
convictions are actually coming from the heart of the God that created you to be that way
and created me to be this way.
And he's just delighting because he's going, yeah, iron sharpens iron.
Yeah.
Ben, you got some things to learn from Mama Sarah.
So suck it up when she corrects you.
And hey, Sarah, you got some things to learn from Ben and Spencer.
And it's okay to be corrected and have to rethink that.
Mostly from Spencer, not much from Ben.
So no, I just encourage listeners, don't surround yourself with people that only agree with
you because you're going to have a very, very limited understanding of yourself, of God,
of others.
Love it.
Thanks, guys.
So if you are looking to find more of us, you can find us on the wonderful podcast places
such as Apple, Amazon, Spotify, not Google.
Sorry.
You can also find us on Tickety Talk, the Instagram, the Facebook.
Ironically, if you do Google us, you will find us, but you're not going to find us on
Google podcast.
It's true.
If you Google us, you will find us.
There is a website, loveandcontext.com that you can email us at loveandcontext.gmail.com.
There is also a little merch store if you want to buy merch, loveandcontext.store, I
believe.
Yeah.
And so if you want to buy merch, you can do that as well.
So you know if you do buy merch, all those proceeds just go to supporting local ministries
in our area.
Correct.
So we don't keep any of it.
And if we have any of our prayer warriors that are listening, pray for Pastor Sarah.
It's hard to be a faithful disciple that is female and a pastor.
It's a hard road because you're supposed to love people and oftentimes they're not loving
you well.
And so we want to love her well.
So if you've got a prayer warrior out there, add her to your list.
She would definitely love for you to intercede for her.
Yeah.
Thanks, Ben.
You're welcome.
So until next time, see ya.
See you guys.
Bye.
That's a wrap for today's episode.
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Are we recording?
Yeah, we've been recording for 19 seconds.
Oh, sweet.
I did the last intro.
Just give me a second.
I got to scratch my head.
Oh, I burned myself.
What are you laughing about?
No, keep going.
He's got some, no, you got to tell me now.
No, keep going.
It is not pertinent to the conversation.
Sorry, I was getting, I'm amped up now.
I had my coffee and I'm feeling good.
Here he goes.