00:00 Intro Banter

00:37 Weather Talk and Personal Preferences

02:32 Ezekiel 21: God's Indiscriminate Judgment

09:29 Ezekiel 22: Reasons for God's Judgment

12:07 Conclusion and Reflections

12:44 Podcast Outro and Announcements

Find out more about Compass Bible Church.

Learn more about our Bible Reading Plan.

Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

Hey everybody.

2

Welcome back to another edition

of the Daily Bible Podcast.

3

Hello.

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Yeah, we I don't even

know what you just heard.

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I have no idea what you just heard.

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I haven you got no clue

what you talking about.

7

I have no idea.

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What would I be talking about?

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I don't know what I'd be talking about.

10

I don't know.

11

You've been having a

stuttering problem lately.

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I do remember that.

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That's.

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What I mean?

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Yeah.

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Rod: What, we

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PJ: talked about medication

on the last episode.

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Yeah.

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Maybe we ought to, take a look at that.

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Get some medication for stuttering.

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Rod: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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We'll see.

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PJ: Okay.

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As long as you don't gimme Tourettes in

the podcast, then I think we'll be okay.

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I will.

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I will not let that happen.

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If you got the shot collar we recorded

during the podcast, that's true.

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Yeah.

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Anyways, it's it's Tuesday, man.

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The weather's been great.

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I looked the other day

at a 10 day forecast.

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We don't have any temps in the nineties.

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That's amazing.

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For this time of year.

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You know what, I'm gonna say it,

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Rod: you're gonna be surprised when

I say it, but I kinda like the heat.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Here's why though.

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Here's why.

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Okay.

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The weather is so bitterly cold.

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That I enjoy the hot now 'cause it's,

and then when the cold comes, I'm like,

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okay, I think I might be ready for it.

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I feel like the summer went too quickly

for me to be ready for the winter.

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No, dude, I'm always winter.

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Gimme winter all the time.

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I, so in my office at home,

when I wake up in the morning.

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Like for whatever reason, that

particular room in the house doesn't

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get heated very well or cooled.

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So it's either really hot in the

summer or really cold in the winter.

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And if I have to choose, I'd

rather have the warm 'cause in,

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in the winter it's really cold.

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I have the space heater

right in front of me.

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Yeah.

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And I'm shivering as I read my Bible.

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I don't like that, but you can get a

blanket, you can put on sweatshirts,

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you can put on, no, I don't.

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I like doing it in a certain way and it

includes none of those things because

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then the blanket gets in my way.

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I'm trying to read my Bible and the,

my blanket's hanging over my shoulder,

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and then I can't move my arms as well.

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I look like a tyrannosaurus rex trying

to hold my Bible in a certain way.

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All right.

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No, somebody out there

bypass around a snuggy.

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He needs a snuggy.

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I don't think I you

know what, if it was a.

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Compass, NTX branded Snuggie

with your face on that.

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I would love it.

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I would model it.

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Oh man, we would sell it.

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People would love it.

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Danny Mayer is already on it.

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I guarantee you.

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We'll at least price it.

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We'll look at it guys.

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If you want a Snuggie with

Pastor PJ's face and our church

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logo on it, you let us know.

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I'll look into it.

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If it's a good price we'll

think about producing it.

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Ain't nobody got time for that, man.

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Nobody wants that.

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I know at least one person in

your family who would want one.

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No, she wouldn't.

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And I was talking about Annie, but

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PJ: I don't even know that

Annie would want that.

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She would take it to school.

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She would take it because

she would feel bad.

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She'd be like, oh, I don't want

dad to feel bad that I don't want

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the blanket with his face on it.

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I know what you guys are

getting for Christmas now.

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I'm just gonna say it.

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Come on Danny, you and me.

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Let's make it happen.

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Alright?

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Yeah.

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There's gonna be a cat

on it somewhere too.

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Hidden Cat.

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Alright.

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Hey, Ezekiel.

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21, 22, Ezekiel 21.

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We've got a difficult section in here.

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You talked about the.

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Indiscriminate nature of

God's judgment sometimes.

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And that's one of the things that

we come across in Chapter 21, is

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God's talking about his judgment.

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And that's really what

Chapter 21 is all about.

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He mentions the word sword so many

times in the opening here, but I think

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the big thing that we need to address

shows up here in verse what verses verse

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three, he says, I'm gonna cut off from

you both the righteous and the wicked.

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Yep.

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And that one's tough

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Rod: because, 'cause he just said.

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He would not kill people

for their righteousness.

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But for their sin.

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So resolve it for us, please.

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Thank

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PJ: you.

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Absolutely easy.

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Ready?

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Here we go.

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Now it's one of those that, there's

multiple views out there from commentators

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because it is such a difficult concept

here, and there's a few options out there.

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One of them is that, this is a mem,

so Aism in Hebrew is a literary

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device where the author will use.

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Two extremes to communicate that this

in includes everything in between.

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And so in this case, the two extremes

would be the righteous and the wicked,

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and then everything in between.

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So the author, God through Ezekiel,

would be saying, you know what?

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I'm gonna wipe out everybody.

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I'm not gonna be, there's not a, a, a.

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Sliding scale for me.

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There's not some people that are gonna

escape because they're more righteous

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than these people are over here,

even though they are still wicked.

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So in that sense, this could still be God

saying, I'm gonna judge the unrighteous,

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the wicked, but I'm gonna judge those

that are closer to the side of the

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righteousness scale and those that are

all the way on the side of the evil scale,

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that this is a mes including everybody.

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That's an option.

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I think that's an attractive

option personally.

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Others believe that this was just a

shock value that got the Ezekiel saying.

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This is how severe my wrath is

and how significant my wrath is.

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I don't find that one as compelling.

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And then others are saying this is

just simply a, an allusion to the indis

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discriminatory nature of war that is

Nebuchadnezzar came through, that he

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was going to take people out regardless.

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He wasn't going to look at whether

or not they were righteous or

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unrighteous on God's scales.

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That when Nebuchadnezzar came through

as the wicked and cruel, rebellious.

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King that he was gonna

do what he always does.

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And that is if somebody's in his way

and if somebody's standing against him,

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he's gonna take them out regardless of

where they stand in the eyes of God.

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I think that one undercuts the sovereignty

of God a little bit too much for me.

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So that's why for me I would lean

towards the mannerism side of things.

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But pr what would

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Rod: you say?

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So I've wrestled with this one,

and I don't have a conclusive, I'm

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standing on this hill, this is what

I'm gonna say for forever, but I think

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the end of 22 gives me a sense of.

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God is saying there actually

is no one righteous.

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So the end of chapter 22 says, I sought

for a man among them who should build

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up the wall, stand in the breach.

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That makes me feel like that one

probably makes the most sense.

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He's looking for someone

righteous, who's truly righteous,

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what really no one's righteous.

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And so cutting off the wicked and

the righteous is at the level of

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the human perspective from the.

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Horizontal perspective.

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I could say that guy over there,

he's more righteous than I.

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But from God's perspective,

there's nobody.

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Here's why I hesitate on that.

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'cause I would love to say that's the

one that's the right interpretation.

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Is that here I think he's probably

referring to someone in the form

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of leadership, because clearly

Ezekiel, I mean he's in Babylon,

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but he, Ezekiel, Jeremiah would

qualify as one of those people.

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I think Jeremiah's still

on location in Jerusalem.

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So I think Jeremiah would

be one of those people.

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So I think he's talking

about leaders here.

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A second attractive one to me.

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Is that what I was pointing out

earlier is that you have individual

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responsibility in chapter 18 before

God, and that you have corporate

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responsibility in Chapter 21, where there

is a form of indiscriminate suffering.

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And I don't mean that

from God's perspective.

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It's him choosing, but it's, from our

perspective, it would look as though.

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It is random and I'm using air quotes.

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You can't see random suffering, and

I think that's the idea of the rain

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falling on the just, and the unjust.

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It's the opposite side of that.

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In the same way that the rain

falls on the just and the unjust.

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So does the tornado.

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And in that sense, there can be

suffering at the human level that

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is not tied to one's personal

righteousness or unrighteousness.

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It's the same as though if Russia or

China were to bomb the United States

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and they did it in Dallas, we would all

suffer, even though personally before

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God we're righteous in his sight.

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But we would all feel

the impact of that hit.

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I think that's another one that

I find attractive, but push me.

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I don't feel great about either

because I feel like it, it's really

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sits in tangent with chapter 18.

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PJ: Yeah.

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It does.

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I like your view.

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This seems to be perhaps the

leaders and view that fits

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with the context of chapter 20.

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Chapter 20 is he's confronting the elders

for daring to have the presumption to come

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and seek his guidance on things, right?

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He's also been talking

about the princes of Israel.

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He's gonna talk about the princes of

Israel again in chapter 22 and verse six.

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These are the kings,

these are the leaders.

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Behold, the Prince of Israel, every

one of you, according to his power,

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have been bent on shedding blood.

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So there is a lot.

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Dealing with the leaders where

he's indicting them specifically.

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And so I could see that even though

the difficulty there is in chapter

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21 he just addresses Jerusalem.

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He doesn't specifically call

out the leaders, the elders,

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the princes, anything like that.

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Yeah,

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Rod: but I think that goes back

to a theme that we've talked about

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before, which is as goes the leader,

so goes the people, and so there is

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a sense of shared responsibility.

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Again, I think America,

it makes sense to us.

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We could say, yeah, we as people

are Americans, and if someone

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were to bomb us, we would feel a

corporate responsibility for that.

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We would also feel a corporate sadness

much in the way like September 11th.

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2001.

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So I think that's probably, that works.

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I could see and understand that

one resonates and makes sense to me

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as a 2025, person who's trying to

understand things from my perspective.

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But again, God's view is different

and we have to say, what does God say?

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I wanna believe what God believes.

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I want to, I wanna understand what God

is saying and trust that as opposed

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to trusting my instincts from 2025.

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PJ: Yeah.

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Rod: Yeah.

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PJ: Corporate.

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Something that came to mind there.

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I remember.

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I think it was, yeah, it was, MacArthur

wrote a book, small book, a long time

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ago called Can God Bless America?

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And one of the things that he

was talking about there is he

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was talking about baseball games.

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We go to seventh inning stretch,

we stand up and everybody sings.

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God Bless America, right?

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Yeah.

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And basically he said, why would he.

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And that, that was the question looking

at the state of our nation at the time

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and saying, should we look at our nation?

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Should we as Christians sing God

bless America rather than, God humble

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America, God caused us to repent.

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God lead us into a brokenness over our

sinfulness rather than presuming upon

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God much like the elders of Israel

at this time to say, Hey God, can you

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bless us right now while we've got.

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Things running rampant and sin

happening all over the place.

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Unchecked and rebellion and

pridefulness and all of these things.

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So that's a connection to

this idea, maybe of corporate

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judgment, corporate responsibility

that we might be able to say.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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To your point, if there was

something that happened here.

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To our nation, we might be able to

point to that and say, you know what?

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That's not a judgment against Christians

and churches necessarily, but it is a

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judgment against the nation in which we

live and we're a part of that nation, and

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so we're gonna suffer as a result of that.

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Rod: That's right.

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And the book that you just mentioned,

can God Bless America, is Still Out and

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Available Hardcover, looks like it's not

in print, but it is available in Kindle

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for five bucks if you're interested.

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Published in 2000 and.

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There you go.

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Yeah.

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By the lates, John

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PJ: MacArthur, the late John MacArthur.

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Yeah.

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Chapter 22.

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Chapter 22.

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We've already alluded to some of

the things that we find in here but

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this is really God running down.

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Here's what you're being judged for

again and specifically the violence that

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was done, the injustice that was done.

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That starts in verse six,

goes down through verse 12.

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God lists off some pretty awful

things that were committed by the

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kings and allowed to happen there

under the reign of the kings there.

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Immorality, there there's just awful.

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Perversions that are taking

place here in the nation.

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And this is why God is

going to bring the judgment.

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And I found it fascinating because

God has talked about at times on the

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positive side, you know what, I'm

gonna gather you from the nations.

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I'm gonna gather you back to

myself for good and for the

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millennial kingdom in the future.

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But instead here he talks about gathering,

but he talks about gathering for.

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And so we find that beginning of verse 20,

he says, as one gathered silver and bronze

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and iron and lead and tin into a furnace

to blow fire on it in order to melt it.

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So I will gather you in my anger and

in my wrath, I will gather you and blow

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on you with fire of my wrath, and you

shall be melted in the midst of it.

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So God is comparing his judgment

that's coming to the furnace that

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is going to be used to, um, to smelt

metal and to remove draws from things.

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And yet in this.

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This case, there's nothing

precious left over.

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It's all dros and it's all gonna be

destroyed under the wrath of God.

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Rod: Chapters like this make me

incredibly thankful for the fact that

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all of God's wrath has been exhausted.

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On Christ instead of me.

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Yes.

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Because this is what I deserve.

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This is what we deserve.

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I can't help but feel for the

tender conscience that reads

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this and still feels this.

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That, that God thinks this

about them and it's true.

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I suppose if you're in your sin, if

you're walking contrary to the Lord

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and you don't have that relationship

with Christ where you're trusting

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in him for your salvation, this is

something that you should tremble at.

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You should not take God's

threats as being empty.

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He hates sin, and we've talked about that.

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He uses graphic depictions to

shock us into becoming aware of

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our sin and how he feels about it.

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But for those of us in Christ, man, the

comfort from this is that we will never.

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Ever see this ever.

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We will only see delight in the

father's face because Jesus has

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born the wrath that we deserve.

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And chapters like this should

give us great gratitude for that

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PJ: very thing.

324

Yeah.

325

Even as the chapter ends you referenced

this verse, but verse 30, I sought

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for a man among them who should build

up the law and stand in the breach

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before me for the land that I should

not destroy it, but I found none.

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That's Christ for us.

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That's right.

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And so Christ is the one

that stood in the breach.

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Christ is the one that stood up

so that God would not destroy us.

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And so he wasn't able to find it in

Israel, but he has found it for us.

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If you have repented from your sins and

put your faith in trust in Jesus, he's the

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one that's standing in the breach for you.

335

That's right.

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That's, we're celebrating.

337

Yeah, it's, yeah, it's let's pray and

then we'll be done with this episode.

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God, we do celebrate Christ

and the fact that he is the one

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standing in the breach for us.

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He's the one as the writer of Hebrew

says, who's at your right hand

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interceding for us still today,

so that we might be confident that

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we can be saved to the uttermost

because we're drawn nearing to you.

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We are drawing near to you

through him, through Jesus.

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So God, we pray that we would have a

great confidence in that, that we'd

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read passages like this and tremble.

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Over sin and over the seriousness of sin,

but not tremble out in fear that you are

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gonna judge us because of what we know

to be true about us, because of Jesus.

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So we thank you so much for Christ

and the hope we have in Him.

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In Jesus name, amen.

350

Amen.

351

Keep reading your Bibles.

352

Tune in again tomorrow for another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

353

See you folks.

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Bye.

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Bernard: Well, thank you for

listening to another episode of

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the Daily Bible Podcast, folks!

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We're honored to have you join us.

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This is a ministry of Compass

Bible Church in north Texas.

359

You can find out more information

about our Church at compassntx.org.

360

We would love for you to leave a

review, to rate, or to share this

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podcast on whatever platform you're

listening on, and we hope to see

362

you again tomorrow for another

episode of the Daily Bible Podcast.

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Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

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PJ: Yeah.

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I would agree with

everything that you said