In this episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, the hosts discuss the biblical account of Korah's rebellion from Numbers 16 and 17. They emphasize the podcast's goal to complement daily Bible reading rather than replace it. The episode delves into the rebellion and punishment of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and the ensuing grumbling of the Israelites. They also explore the significance of Aaron's staff budding as God's confirmation of his chosen leadership. The discussion extends to God's justice, the implications for leadership, and parallels with creation, encouraging listeners to remain humble and trust in God's righteous decisions.

00:00 Welcome and Introduction

00:42 Weekend Updates and Personal Stories

01:51 Discussion on Numbers 16: Korah's Rebellion

04:35 Theological Insights and Reflections

10:29 Science, Faith, and Creation

15:01 Closing Thoughts and Prayer

15:34 Outro and Podcast Information

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

What's up folks?

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It's Sunday, so hopefully you

are planning to be at church or

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you've been to church already, and

this is just icing on the cake.

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Yes.

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Icing on the cake of your

normal daily Bible reading.

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That's right on top of that too,

just a, a friendly reminder.

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This is not the replacement

for your Bible reading.

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This is not like cliff notes audio

CliffNotes of the Bible reading.

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This is meant to accompany

your Bible reading to help

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you with the Bible reading.

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But if you don't have time to do both,

then I would say read your Bible and leave

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us off because you're gonna get more out

of God's word than you are with with us.

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We're just here to help

and help you understand it.

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So make sure you're

spending time in God's word.

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Yeah, push comes to shove, but ordinarily.

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If you have time for

both, we're a good option.

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Yeah, no, I, if we do say so ourselves,

I mean, otherwise we'd just be wasting

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our time and we'd just be sitting here.

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We're not trying to do that.

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Right.

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This is the last time we're

recording in this office.

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That's exciting.

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Wow.

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Yeah, we're looking forward to that.

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You guys should come swing by and

take a look at it before we leave.

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Yeah, we're moving on Tuesday, so you've

got a little bit of time, everybody.

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Yeah.

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We're not gonna be here on Sunday.

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Nope.

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Nope, we won't.

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Yeah.

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So weekends finishing up my, my son

got to pitch in a JV game on Saturday.

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Very cool.

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How'd he do?

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He got, he got the win score, a home run.

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He did not very good.

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He did not hit a home run 'cause he

was pitching, so that would be hard.

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Maybe if he did, it would

be really impressive.

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If he could take runs

off of the other team.

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No, he went in, his team was

down one, nothing and he ended up

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going in pitching three innings

and they got to win four one.

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So that was kind cool.

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Wow.

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I didn't get to see it, but

Matt, Daniel was there, as was

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Morgan and Hudson was there.

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That's cool.

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So shout out to those guys for shout up.

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Well done.

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Those are three of your youth leaders.

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They're supporting one of the

the students in the youth group.

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That's awesome.

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That's right.

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Way to go guys.

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Yeah.

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But man, the weather's been amazing.

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Amazing.

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Yes, it has.

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Yeah.

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Which has been a blessing and hopefully

it'll stay that way for a while.

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I don't know.

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I thought, I thought I saw something

about storms maybe tonight Sunday

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night as you're listening to this

wait, that might be rolling in.

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Wait, you mean the weather's gonna change?

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Shock.

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I know.

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Especially in Texas.

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So weird.

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Unbelievable.

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Unbelievable.

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And yet strangely believable.

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Yeah.

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Let's I guess tackle

what's in front of us here.

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We've got a, a pretty.

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Big situation here in numbers

chapter 16, and then number

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17 is a little less involved.

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But number 16 is another doozy.

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And we're we're coming off of, you

remember, just the, the believing the

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10 over the, the, the two believing

the, the majority of the spies and,

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and refusing to go in the promised land

and the punishment that came there.

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Things are not gonna get better

for Israel in the short term.

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In fact, they're gonna get worse because

here you have somebody stepping up.

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Cora who notice in verse one is a Levite.

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And so there's some there's some, I

don't know what the word I'm looking for.

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Specialness.

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That's not the word I'm looking for.

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There's some significance.

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Danger.

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Yeah.

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Danger, truth.

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Dangerous.

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Just throw more random words out.

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Grass.

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One of them will hit goats.

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Goats.

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Goats.

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That's it.

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That's it.

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A goat Not the greatest of all time.

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No, but he's, he's a Levi.

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He has some.

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Clout when it comes to the

religious system of Israel

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and yet not what he wants.

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He not, not satisfied in this position.

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Right, exactly.

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And, and similarly, although to a

greater extremity to, to what Aaron

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and Miriam did, they Cora, along with

Dathan and a Bym and on, and 250 other

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men from the people they're gonna

challenge Aaron's authority and they're

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gonna say, why is Aaron the guy?

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Why can't we be?

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And so they're going to.

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Grumble and complain and challenge.

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And, and Moses hears it.

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And notice in verse four

again, the humility of Moses.

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He just, he falls on his face.

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Moses could have bowed up and said,

Hey, okay, God, wipe him out right now.

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But, but Moses grieves and tells

them essentially, Hey, you,

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you don't know what's coming.

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And, and says, God will choose and

he's gonna choose in the morning.

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And the, the long story short

in the, the chapter is God makes

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it very clear who is his chosen.

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Authority, his chosen mouthpiece,

his chosen priest, and that is Aaron.

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And he differentiates not only from

Cora and Dathan and a Byman on,

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but also from the 250 men that they

had persuaded to join their ranks.

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And Cora and Dathan and their families,

they, they are swallowed up by the ground.

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In fact, Moses says, look, if, if they

don't die in this unique way, then

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you can know that God's not with us.

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But if they do, then you need to

know that God is with us and that

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he has made his decision here.

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And sure enough, the ground opens up and.

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This is one of those just super difficult

sections in scripture because it says the,

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their family and even the, the part that.

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That I just, it is just hard is when

it says they're little ones with them.

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Right.

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And it's, it's all of them are, are

swallowed up by the ground there.

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And you just think to yourself,

man, that that's rough.

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We just talked yesterday or the day before

about those 19 and, and under were shown

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a special mercy from God because they

didn't participate in the, the grumbling

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perhaps, or the refusal to take the

promised land the way the others did.

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Here you have the, the it.

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It appears the children of

these men who were challenging

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Aaron's authority who are dying.

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Because of their dad standing up

and challenging Aaron's authority.

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That's a difficult one, admittedly, to,

to wrap our minds around Pastor Rod.

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Do you, do you have thoughts?

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Do you have answers?

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Can you clarify?

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Can you alleviate our

consciousness on that one?

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I can, I can totally alleviate

all of your problems.

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Good.

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Number one, God is just, and

so I always start with that.

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I always have to remind myself that what

I read is always informed by a just and

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holy God, which tells me that even if I'm

particularly perturbed by what I read.

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There's probably more happening

than what's being said.

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Yeah.

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And so I trust that God's

gonna make the right decision.

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Now, the scripture here says little

ones and I, and I'll note the little

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ones are for Dathan and a Byram.

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They're doing something different.

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It's related to Cora Rebellion, but

their relationship to this, I don't

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know why they stay in their tents.

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Cora and his gang, they come

to the the tabernacle to do

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the thing with the incense.

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Yeah.

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But Dathan and Ab Byron are especially.

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Rebellious.

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I'm not sure what to do with them

other than they get a different

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response from God than Cora.

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Cora's sons stay alive.

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Yeah.

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And that's notable because eventually

they're gonna be used to write

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some of the songs that we love.

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But Dathan and a Byron's family

are different, so I have to wonder.

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Okay.

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Maybe the little ones

are somehow involved.

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I know it's hard to think

about if they're young.

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The term here is little ones

that it, it designates a, a young

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person, so that's the first thing.

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Maybe they're involved in ways

that I can't see from the text.

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Number two.

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If God does take them out.

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I I have a, a small conviction that

for the young, I think God saves them.

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Yeah.

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I think God regenerates them and so

will not the judge of all the Earth do.

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Right.

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It's what, that's what is said about God.

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And of course the rhetorical answer to

that question is, of course he will.

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Right.

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So this might bother me, but

I entrust their care to God's.

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To God's justice and his mercy, and

I trust him to do the right thing.

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Even though for me reading it is hard,

I trust that he did the right thing

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and there's their end is better than,

than what it would've been otherwise.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I, I, I'm with you on that.

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I, I think I agree with the,

that take, the, the wives.

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I, I remember last year reading through

one of the commentaries said that

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when you remember the situation with,

in, in, its in the future for, from

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this point, but we know it because

we've read it before Abigail, right.

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Abigail Nal.

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At, at some point Abigail separated

herself from the folly of nal.

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She recognized that he was a fool and

went and interceded and intervened when

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David was on his way to, to wipe out

Naval and all the, the men in the family.

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And these women here, at least

don't, they don't appear to do that.

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So I think at least with the wives,

it, I, I think we can read some

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between the lines and see that

there's some, they're complicit with

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this rebellion in, in that sense.

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They're not coming forward

going, Hey, our husbands are,

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are not speaking for us on this.

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We, we.

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Trust the Lord.

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We, we wanna follow Aaron, we

wanna follow Moses on this.

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So I think with the wives, you can

at least get there and, and maybe

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to your point with, with the kids

somehow, but I would agree with you.

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I think there is that special dispensation

of God's grace to save the little ones.

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Those that that are not

able to make that decision.

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I.

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To repent from their sins and put their

trust in Christ that, at least in today's

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language, as, as we would define it.

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And, and that gets to what we talked about

previously with the age of accountability.

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Well, but then you have to think

about the fact that in scripture there

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are evidences that God regenerates

people even before they're born.

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That's the case with John the Baptist.

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Yeah.

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Which tells me that there doesn't have

to be a traditional walk the altar, throw

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the pine gun in the fire kind of response.

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God can create faith in

the heart of a person.

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Which then they will articulate

and profess faith in Christ.

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You have to remember that in our theology.

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I'm not talking to you, PPG,

I'm talking to our listeners.

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I I was ready.

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I was gonna remember, oh yeah.

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Thank you Pastor Rod.

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Yeah.

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Now you have to remember that we believe

regeneration takes place first, right?

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Which is to say that God has to

make someone alive in order for

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them to respond to the gospel call.

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So in that, if we understand this

rightly, regeneration happens before.

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Faith and repentance, which is a big deal.

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Yeah.

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'cause then it puts it all

squarely in God's camp.

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John the Baptist, when he heard about

Jesus through his, his aunt Mary,

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he leaps in, in his mother's womb.

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Mm-hmm.

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He's excited.

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Mm-hmm.

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And scripture says that he was

filled with the spirit of God,

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even from his mother's womb.

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That's fascinating to me.

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And that tells me God's the

one behind our salvation.

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And you might say, well,

John's a special case.

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And that might be the case.

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That might be the case, but I suspect

that God's operating this way.

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In many ways beyond what we might assume.

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And so I, I'm gonna take comfort in that.

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But I would also say on top of all this,

this kind of event still happens today.

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Father sin and the whole family suffers.

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I.

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Yeah.

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That's still taking place every day.

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Yeah.

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I mean, so this is a, even though

this is a situation hard to read,

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this is happening every day.

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Yeah.

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And I think it's an important for

thing, an important thing for us to

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remember as leaders, as fathers, as

mothers, as whatever role that we

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have to recognize, the people that are

underneath our care and provision will

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suffer because of our sin, or they'll

be blessed because of our righteousness.

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Don't forget that.

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Yeah.

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And, and what happens to the rest

here with these 250 other men?

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They've got their sensors and,

and they're consumed by divine

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fire and it's, it's unique.

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Sound familiar.

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Yeah.

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We should know what what happens here

because these sensors that are left,

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Moses takes them and, and under the

instruction from the Lord, hammers

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them as a covering for the altar.

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In other words, God wanted the people

every time they came to the altar

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to be reminded of this rebellion.

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Be reminded of what happens

when you choose to rebel

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against God and disobey God.

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And so they're using this tragic

reminder, this painful reminder

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for the people of Israel to, to.

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Who tell them, Hey, be careful.

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Be careful not to challenge and,

and, and go outside of the bounds of

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what God has defined as far as his

leadership and his authority here.

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aNd, and unfortunately that doesn't work.

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'cause in verse 41, right after

this, the people are grumbling again

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against Moses and Aaron saying,

you killed the people of the Lord.

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I, I just, it's, it's.

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You used the phrase that has come

to mind so many times recently.

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My flab is gassed.

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It's unthinkable.

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It's inconceivable, and yet.

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I, I have to guard against my own

pride and, and ask myself would I

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have been there with the masses?

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Yeah, dude.

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You'd be with Cora for sure.

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Thanks, man.

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Yeah, Moses, appreciate that.

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I wanna be the pastor.

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Appreciate that.

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That's, that's that's encouraging.

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Just kidding.

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Yeah.

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No.

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And so, God, God's not gonna let this off.

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He, he sends a plague that wipes out

almost 15,000 people in response to this.

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At the end of chapter 16, and

then in chapter 17, chapter 17

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is kind of the stamp on this.

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Basically in chapter 17, God is, is

telling the people, look, if, if what

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I've already done is not enough for you,

let me do something in addition to this.

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And so Aaron's staff has put in, in

the the Holy Holies in the tabernacle,

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along with the other staffs from,

from other men in the, the tribes.

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And, and Aaron staff alone is the

one that buds as a sign from God to

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say he's the one that I've chosen.

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And again, we think, okay, is that enough?

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Are the people gonna now trust God now

that he's done all of these things?

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And the answer is

unfortunately gonna be no.

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As we'll see as the, the book of Numbers

continues to play out, one thing that

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stands out to me is that the staff

budding is not just a miracle of a

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branch disconnected from everything

being fruitful and productive.

325

That is the miracle for sure.

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Sure.

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But I also clocked the fact

that there's an appearance

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of age in this thing as well.

329

That's another miracle that is tied

to the creation of the universe.

330

Boom.

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We believe that it was created ex

nihilo and then it was made mature.

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And for that to happen, people will

say, well then is God lying when he

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creates the earth with the appearance

of being billions of years old?

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And I would say no, because you

have a similar situation playing

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out here, or Aaron staff buds and

it produces what looks like was

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something that took months to produce.

337

He does this overnight.

338

Again, there's a miracle here to

say, this is my leader, but the other

339

miracle is that God is able to do

what, what in our minds is impossible.

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It's, and he's not lying.

341

Yeah.

342

He's using it as a sign to

indicate you're not alone.

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I, I'm, I'm the Lord.

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I'm real.

345

I'm here, the one doing the work,

and I'm ordaining in this case,

346

Aaron, as the one to be the leader.

347

Yeah.

348

I, I would agree with you and, and

even thinking about that with creation.

349

It, it's not, God didn't create the,

the Grand Canyon so that scientists

350

could do their study of the geological

layers and try to figure out, you know,

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carbon dating and, and compression of

layers and what age was this and that.

352

He created it so that we

would look at it and say, wow.

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God's massive.

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God's huge.

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God's amazing.

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God's majestic.

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That's, that's the point.

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Now, did he know those

things were gonna happen?

359

That, that God was going to, that

the scientists were gonna study these

360

things and, and draw their conclusions?

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Sure he did.

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But he's creating the universe to glorify

himself and to give himself glory.

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And to do that with a parent age is

not because he's trying to fool people.

364

It's trying, it's because he's

saying, look how, look how strong

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I'm, look how powerful I'm, look

how amazing I am, how big everything

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is as I create it for my glory.

367

Yeah.

368

And that's not to say that science

in and of itself is not helpful when

369

you follow the scientific method.

370

Things all.

371

Science is horrible.

372

I hate science.

373

Right.

374

I could tell that that's

what you were saying.

375

I just wanna qualify it a little bit.

376

Yeah.

377

Science is helpful and

we're not against science.

378

Christians are not anti-science.

379

It's just that so much of science

today, at least what's done in

380

the name of science, it's so.

381

anti-Christian, anti scripture,

anti-God, that we have a hard time

382

swallowing some of the presuppositions

that go into their calculations.

383

And this is what makes it hard

to be a Christian today, right?

384

And still be thoughtful and careful

and nuanced, is that we want to embrace

385

what is genuine general revelation.

386

Hmm, that's true.

387

We should say, Hey, go

to the ant o slugger.

388

That's what the proverbs say.

389

In other words, he's saying go to

general revelation and learn from it.

390

There's our endorsement for science.

391

We should do true genuine science.

392

The challenge today for you is not to

be bamboozled by their presuppositions.

393

Maybe their calculations are accurate.

394

Maybe their thinking is somewhat

accurate, but don't be tricked

395

by what they're bringing into it.

396

Yeah.

397

They're not just telling you,

here's the way that science works.

398

They're also bringing

in Darwinian evolution.

399

They're bringing an absent God worldview.

400

Yep.

401

There's a lot of problems with

that and it takes a wise Christian.

402

To be able to take the

meat, spit out the bones.

403

'cause there's a lot of bones.

404

Yeah, for sure.

405

For sure.

406

Everything.

407

And that's why I can't remember who it is.

408

I don't know if it's Turk or somebody

else, but especially when we get into

409

the realm of creation, everything is

a theory because it's not repeatable.

410

Right.

411

Right.

412

Nobody can repeat the creation acts.

413

And so whether you're embracing

evolution or creationism as, as we do.

414

It's, it's a theory at the end of the day.

415

And, and we have to, even as Christians,

I say that to Christians too, to say,

416

we've gotta hold that loosely and know

that we, we can't wrap our minds around

417

everything that took place in creation.

418

We can try to understand the

scriptures as best as we possibly

419

can, and we should, and we should.

420

But at the end of the day, you know,

I, I, I can't pretend that I know

421

exactly what creation was like.

422

Right.

423

I have my convictions again

based on the scriptures.

424

But we have to hold it loosely because

it's not repeatable and we're not God.

425

We can't recreate that.

426

And there's also I mean both positions,

the God worldview and the anti-God

427

worldview are positions of faith.

428

Totally.

429

I think that's what you're getting at.

430

Yeah.

431

We're people of faith

and we acknowledge that.

432

Yep.

433

What I wish honest scientists

would do is say, well, this

434

is as much faith as your guys.

435

We just believe in chance and

randomness and infinity beyond us.

436

It.

437

It's almost ridiculous because

at least we're honest about it.

438

We believe in what the word of God says.

439

They believe in what the word

of science, capital s as in

440

idolatry says and and promotes.

441

The thing is, it's not genuine

science because you can't test it.

442

You can't repeat it.

443

This was Ken Hamm's argument

against Bill Knight, the science

444

guy, when they had that debate.

445

I don't know, five, 10 years back.

446

Yeah.

447

His argument, Kens.

448

Was essentially there's observable

science that you can do today that's

449

repeatable and then there's non

repeatable science that this is what

450

you guys are calling your science.

451

And, and we, we would re reject

that and say, you can't say that

452

this is the same level as A squared

plus B squared equal C square.

453

They're not the same thing.

454

Pyre and theorem bringing that out,

nobody had that on their, no one did.

455

On Bingo card.

456

Bingo card.

457

No, that's true.

458

Yeah.

459

Well, and and Turk has that

book that he wrote, I don't have

460

enough faith to be an atheist.

461

And that's his, that's his his thing.

462

There is, his point is, man, it takes

more faith to be an atheist when

463

you consider, and he provides some

apologetic arguments there than it

464

takes to be a, a follower of Christ.

465

Anyways, y'all let's pray and then

we'll be done with this this episode.

466

God help us to have humility when

we read about things like this

467

and, and to think to ourselves,

but for the grace of God, go, I.

468

Lord, we want to be careful to recognize

and realize our own human frailty and our

469

dependence upon Christ, our dependence

upon the spirit, to walk by faith and to

470

trust you and not to rebel against you,

not to go outside the bounds of what

471

you've set and what you've declared.

472

And so help us to be humble in that I

pray, and that we would continue to have

473

that consistent dependence upon you.

474

So we ask this in Christ name, amen.

475

Amen.

476

Keep reading your Bibles.

477

Tune it again tomorrow for another

edition of the Daily Bible Podcast.

478

See you then folks.

479

Bye.

480

Speaker: Hey, thanks for

joining us for another episode

481

of the daily Bible podcast.

482

We hope and pray this has been a blessing

to you and your time in the word.

483

If it has, if you would subscribe to this

podcast, leave a like, leave a comment

484

and share it with some friends and family.

485

That would be awesome.

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If you need more information about

Compass Bible Church here in North

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Texas, you can go to compassntx.

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org.

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Again, that's compassntx.

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org.

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And we'll be back with you

tomorrow for another episode

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of the daily Bible podcast.