Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussions and try to add a little insight and unique perspective. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with my friend and this show's producer, Nate the great Piper.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: What's up?
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Hey, Nate.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Dude, that was a very animated intro from you.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: You've been working on that. You've been taking some podcasting classes, watching some YouTube videos?
[00:00:43] Speaker A: No. I don't know. Some nights just a high energy and some nights a little lower energy.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: It's the first night that we've done this in some time that I haven't just been, like, beat tired myself. So, I mean, I'm feeling you. I'm feeling that we've got some energy
[00:00:56] Speaker A: and we got a lot to talk about.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: We do. I just want to add a quick bump, though. Real quick or a quick bump, A quick little throw in here.
The little intro music that you hear coming in is from a project that I kind of steer or kind of, I don't know, head in some way. And it's called Eastward.
We do religious based music, but not like Sunday school sounding religious bass music, I guess. Anyways, we just released a track. Not the track that is actually the intro music. We will be releasing that soon, but if any of you would like to go check it out.
The song is called Let, let you in, let you in, let you in by eastward. You can listen to it on various streaming, Apple music, Spotify. Anyways, just a little quick bump.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: I'm excited. I'm going to go check it out.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Let you in, let you in by eastward. And then, yeah, let us know if you hate the song. But I don't care. All right, maybe don't let me know because I don't care.
I do care. I really care.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: And for what it's worth, all of you out there, thanks for listening. We appreciate you guys.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: We do appreciate you guys.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: All right, let's jump into it.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Let's jump into it because we do have a lot to talk about. So this is another lesson that I maybe struggle with a little bit in that it is the entire book of numbers. So last week, we did the entire book of Leviticus, and maybe not as fair a job as I would have liked to have done. In fact, as last week went on, I just kept looking at Leviticus and thinking, man, we should have talked about this. Man, we should have talked about that.
And I have to whittle this down to maybe two Things that I wanted to mention from last week that we didn't quite get to. So let me just dive into those real quick. And then we're going to go into numbers and try to get as much of numbers as we can tonight.
For you guys listening in Leviticus, let's first talk about Aaron's sons. And I know this wasn't part of the Come follow me chapters per se, but I still think it's a significant enough event that it should be talked about. Aaron has two sons that he takes to the door of the tabernacle and he anoints them and puts them, dresses them, washes them, clothes them, and makes them priests. And they are priests and supposed to be officiating in the temple.
And something happens. They offer strange fire and then the Lord strikes them dead.
And then Aaron has to anoint two other sons to take their place. And it's kind of a harsh thing. I think you look at examples like this and say, this is why the Old Testament to me looks like the God is a very harsh God.
And when we talked last week, we talked about the law of treason and how treason even today is still viewed with capital punishment. And so we go back just to quickly understand the context of this.
The God, excuse me, the king of Israel, the ruler of Israel is supposed to be God. This is the purpose of building the tabernacle. That's his house. He is going to rule and preside over Israel from his mercy seat, the Ark of the Covenant inside of there.
If he is the ruler and he is establishing the rules and having the priest represent him in his authority, ruling over the people, he gives them very specific details and tells them that they are supposed to be burning incense twice a day, once in the morning, once in the night. And the source for the fire to burn the incense is supposed to be the altar itself. So they go to the altar to light the incense at the two appointed times throughout the day.
Now, accepting the tabernacle, God had just made a huge theophoric manifestation. He had accepted the tabernacle. His presence was there. It was a very joyous occasion. And the people were shouting for joy. And the priest called an audible and decided to celebrate this event, it says, by lighting the incense. And it's not in the morning, it's not in the evening. This is on their own timeline, doing their own thing. They're going to be taking it, and they're not taking the fire from the altar. And just barely, we've read about how the fire came down from heaven. It was God's fire himself. Now this is very symbolic. You have God as the light for the people. And now these priests who are supposed to be guiding the people and leading the people to God, start their own light.
Now they're putting themselves as a light to the people in contest or in competition to the light that God has on the altar. And they are changing the ordinances instead of doing it twice a day. They're going to do it now because they feel like it. And they early on are misguiding the people to follow them instead of following God. This is very similar to the golden calf. Let's find something else that we can channel the people through. And if you have God as the ruler of the people and you're trying to replace God as the ruler, then this is a treasonous act.
And so they're making themselves a light.
They are offering their own fire, they're offering their own solutions. And just one last comment to this. Remember that the stones of the altar were supposed to be unhewn stones, not cut. Because we're not supposed to be taking man's interpretation and putting it on the stones.
And yet here they have their interpretation to the ordinances and changing the ordinances already. If you change the ordinances already, you're going to be taking these people down to an apostasy very quickly. And God stops that early on.
All right, next. Nate?
[00:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah, buddy?
[00:06:53] Speaker A: If you lose something, where do you go to find it?
And I know that's a very open ended question.
Ideally the last place you looked, right. Or the last place you saw it.
So this is what I think is so significant about the tabernacle.
Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day. And so here you're going to have God with them again. The last place that mankind had seen God was in the garden. Paradise. So this tabernacle which is recreating paradise, is recreating the place where God was lost to mankind. It is recreating a paradise. Okay, you look at the curtains as we're going through all these details. Cherubim is sewn into the curtains. So you have to pass through the cherubims that were placed there with the flaming sword to guard the way to the presence. And inside there you have the menorah which is shaped like a tree with the different branches and the knobs. And you read the description, it is very tree like. Okay, so you're passing through the cherubim to get to the tree of life. But then you have a temple within the temple. You have the holy place. And then you have the Holy of Holies, where once again, you're going to be passing through the cherubim that are sewn through the curtains. But instead of a tree being there, the tree is an image of God. God himself will be sitting between the cherubims on the mercy seat, the Ark of the Covenant.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: So, for me, as I look at this tabernacle, and I know we've talked about this a lot, and maybe that's why it didn't come up last week as we were talking about this, I think it's important to note that the tabernacle for them is almost as a journey back into garden, back to the presence of God, trying to restore to Israel what was lost when man fell, leaving the garden.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Love it. Very cool.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: And maybe one last note on that imagery is the atonement itself.
We've talked about the Garden of Eden being on a hill because the water flew out.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Flowed, flewed.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: It flew, flowed out of the garden and split into four streams. So here we have this elevated position. Right. Golgotha was on a hill.
And on that hill, just as in the garden, you had these trees, you had crosses that were symbolic of trees.
And as the Tree of Life, Christ, we partake of his flesh and we partake of his blood in an idea that he will raise us and give us everlasting life. He is the fruit of the Tree of Life. And so you have that in the garden being recreated in Golgotha.
And to protect people from taking the body of Christ down, you have these Roman centurions, almost like cherubim. And so this crucifixion is set up almost to recreate the garden, and that what was lost is now being restored. Let's recreate the fall in order to cancel the effects of the fall and give you life instead of death.
And yet death was what was exacted to give you life.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Fantastic insight as always. It's great.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Let's keep going.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Let's move into numbers.
[00:10:08] Speaker B: Numbers it is. I've always been bad at math, so I've never really been very stoked on this book.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Well, it starts off kind of dry as what we just came from with Exodus.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: And Leviticus.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: So in Exodus, we had all of the description of the temple, how many tattoos, how many cubits, the length, the breadth and whatnot. What whatnot? Leviticus. We have all of the details on the sacrifice, what's going to make you holy and how many measures of flour and how many animals and what you need to do it for and what you don't need to do it for and how it all needs to work.
And we talked about measurement being important and going through all those details and that we need to measure up. And let me just read. We talked about this, so I'm not going to spend much time. But we talked about the vision that Ezekiel had when he was given the measuring stick and had to go measure the temple. And we talked about the vision that John had on the isle of Patmos. So I just want to read from John's vision real quick.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: This is Revelation, chapter 11, verse 1. And there was given me a reed like unto a rod. And the angel stood saying, rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and them that worship therein.
So when God commands Moses to number Israel, I look at this as measuring the people that worship therein. We're giving them a measurement, accounting for these people.
That's his way of trying to preserve them and say that this is who we save. So it fits with the laws being the measurement that God's giving that people need to measure up to the Tabernacle with all of its specific measurements, and everything that he measures, he wants to preserve. And now he's also measuring his people, expressing his interest that everyone in Israel is important, everyone has a value, and everyone needs to be preserved. Okay, that's. That's really the whole value I get out of that. Because really, reading all of the numbers is kind of hard and not very fun. And if you want to skip a little. What is that old Monty Python? Skip a little brother.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: I don't remember.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: I mean, I've only watched Search for the Holy Grail. Is it in that?
[00:12:20] Speaker A: Yes, sir. Where when they're reading the directions for the Holy Hanger. Nut. Bring out the Holy Hanger.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Okay, that actually is dope. Yeah, now I remember.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: And he's reading, like, the tools, the rules on how to use it, and he's like, fast forward a little bit.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Yes, that's actually amazing. Here's a quick. Here's just a little quick side question. Okay. Does Leviticus and Leviathan have any.
Have any connection there? Because we're about ready to talk about a whale eventually coming up here, right? Jonah and the Leviathan.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Jonah and the Leviathan.
That's a good question. I mean, they probably have similar roots.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: That's how I was wondering if there's a similar root there, because sometimes trying to get through Leviticus feels like I'm trying battling a Leviathan, like I'm freaking battling Moby Dick.
All right, let's keep going.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Let's move forward.
Skip a little ahead.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Skip a little.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Okay, so we're gonna skip past the numbers. We've covered everything we want to say about those numbers, okay?
Okay. There's a number of stories. I don't know if I'm gonna put these in the right order of when they appear. I'm just gonna go through a bunch of stories in the Book of Numbers and see if I can't cover as much as I can before we run out of time and Nate cuts me off.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: I'm never cutting you off. Not today. We got a lot to talk about today.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Okay?
Moses sends two spies out to the well. Here, Nate, let's do this.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Okay, I'm ready.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: I'm going to give you a list of stories. You tell me what you want to talk about.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: I've given to you in the order that I want to talk about them, because I know we're talking about a talking donkey today. And yes, sir, that. That's at the top of my list. But let's. Let's just give me. Give me the options.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Okay, you got the two spies versus the ten spies.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Okay, that's an important one.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: You've got the bronze snake.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: That's also an important one. Okay, so those are two for sures.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Aaron's staff, that gets when the people say we want the priesthood, and so they have them all lay out their staffs, and Aaron's staff sprouts.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: I mean, we should probably just briefly talk about that. Okay.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Talking donkey.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah, baby.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Shrek. Shrek.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Shrek.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Well, that's the talking donkey.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Okay, but he's not really the donkey, is he?
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Keep going.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Fire burns the fringes of the people. The rebellions. There's a lot of rebellions that go. So I'm just going to sum all of these rebellions up into one story.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, do we should just talk about all this? Let's just start at the top, dude. Let's just go. Let's just start burning through these Phineas. Phineas Nax. Claviak. Little Hump for Red October reference there for you.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Oh, very nice.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: All right, like, three people are gonna get that reference.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: I like Hump for Red October.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: I love Hump for Red October. It was my favorite movie, and I was like, 10.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: All right, did you. Do you have one of those stories you wanted to start talking about?
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. Let's start. Let's just start with the first three.
The Spies. Let's get into the Snake. And then let's do talking donkey. And then let's see where we're at.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
So you've got 12 tribes, and you have one representative from each tribe that's going to act to go spy out the land and. And see what they can do and how this looks, and just kind of bring the report back to Moses and the people, and they go there and the land is very bounty as they cut off branches of the grapes and bring it back reports, this land is flowing with milk and honey. It is a very good land.
This is great. But 10 of the two say, although the land is great, the people in them are great, and we are like grasshoppers compared to them being giants.
We do not stand a chance. We can't do it. And they bring back an unfavorable report, and their unfavorable report taints the people to where they say, we are afraid. We don't think the Lord's going to take us through this. We better not do it yet.
Okay, so Moses is upset and God is upset, and God says, that's fine. Guess what?
Nobody but the two people who brought back the favorable report are going to see the land. Everybody else is going to die before you get there.
And remember, we are talking about a mass of people. You know, 600,000 men.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: It is an army.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yes.
There are over a million people here.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Not every one of the million people thought that they shouldn't go into the land to go fight.
In fact, as soon as Moses says, we're not doing this, Thanks a lot. We're going to go wander in the wilderness now for 40 years and wait until you all die off before we try again.
There's a group of people that say, yeah, no, we are not on board with that. We're going in to go take this land for ourselves.
And here's where I think it's interesting.
You have the one extreme, and we were talking about this a little earlier today. Nate, when you have your extremes, sometimes we like to look at the extremes as a very linear line, where you have one extreme on the far left and another extreme on the far right. But as you pointed out, often it's not a line, but rather a circle.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: And so you have one extreme saying, we can't do this. We're not going to do this. And listening to the majority report of the spies and Moses being upset. So the other extreme decides to voice their opinion and say, we're going to go take this land now anyways. And Moses says, no, you can't go take the land because God said that he's not going to give it to you because you weren't willing to go take it at the time that he said, go and do it.
And they go to go fight them anyways.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: How'd that go?
[00:17:56] Speaker A: And the scripture says, but Moses and the ark stayed back in the camp.
And so the ark being symbolic of God himself, God was not with them. They go to fight and they get wiped out.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Rest in peace.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Now, you could look at that and say, what did they do wrong? Weren't they righteous? Like, they were supposed to go take the land, Right? Isn't that what God wanted them to do anyways?
Why is what they did so bad?
[00:18:29] Speaker B: I mean, for me, it seems obvious that it always still comes down to when we try to do things our way.
It's going to be a tough. It's going to be tough going.
And again, like, yes, they. They, I think probably had the right intentions.
We can see right from the text that they had the right intentions. But that doesn't get you out of having to still do it the way that God tells you to do it. Right? You still got to do it God's way. We still, I mean, we will continue to harp on this theme for as long as we continue to do this podcast.
When we try to do things our way, we're setting ourselves up to basically be doing it alone and come what may. Right?
When God tells you a certain way to do it or to not do it, it's kind of one of those, you know, I'll go where you want me to go, dear Lord, or I'll stay where you want me to stay. Like, we kind of forget that side of it at times. Right?
[00:19:26] Speaker A: I'm glad you said that.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: I'm just saying, like, you know, again, we.
It's. And again, it doesn't even mean that we had bad intentions. If you look at the. If you look at the people that wanted to go and take it, isn't that what God really wanted them to do when they first came back to give the report?
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: Is to freaking be like, hey, we've got God on our side.
You know, I'm trying to think of a saying that I can use on a podcast that's supposed to be reverent, but buck up, young ones. You know what I mean?
Take some courage and go do something. Go do something hard. You've got God on your side. What are you worried about?
So again, the intention was correct.
Would have been correct.
But then when Moses said, nope, we're not going to do it. That's the answer.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: That's the answer.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: That's the answer.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Okay, stop trying to change the answer to what you want the answer to be.
[00:20:22] Speaker B: There you go. Even with the best of intentions and
[00:20:25] Speaker A: it's hard for one extreme to take that answer and it becomes very hard for the other extreme to take that answer. And really both extremes end up being on the same side of the coin.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Exactly. Right. They're one foot step away from each other, which, by the way, you see a lot in life, right. And this is kind of maybe a lesson that you learned from this a little bit. Even per our conversation earlier, there's a lot of people that can be very overzealous and overbearing with their.
Their religious. Like, you have to do this as intensely and exactly as I do it.
So many times. Those people end up being the same ones, like leave the church and then are just as like they're the exact same person. They're just on the other side of it now. Right. Like, they didn't run down a linear line from going super religious zealot to like super, super antagonistic in most cases, they literally just took a step sideways, you know, like they're literally just the same person now. They're just fighting with the.
The same amount of zeal for the other side of it. Right.
And, and I think that again, when you look at, when you look at this story, that is kind of the lesson to be learned from this, right? Is that, is that you're either going to, I mean, you're either going to constantly be like, hey, I'm going to try to do my best to follow what the spirit tells me to do, what my leaders tell me to do, even if it's hard, even if I don't understand, you know, even if it feels weird or seems whatever.
I think that that's just the safer place to be than, you know, I don't know, than extreme, I guess.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: And you see this also when Moses goes on the mountain and he sets the limit, the barrier, and says, don't let anyone cross, lest they touch the mountain of the rocks and they die. Right? You can't rush on to the presence of God. So you had that extreme group that wanted to just run into the presence of God, who weren't prepared to be in his presence, who weren't sanctified, who weren't in the right frame of mind to be in his presence and approaching God. When you're not ready, there's a reason why there's cherubim and a flaming sword to protect the way to the tree of life. Right? It's death for those who are not prepared to go there and life to those who do it righteously. So you have that one extreme that's like, no, excuse me, the one extreme that wants to push their way through.
And then the very next day when they're saying, we don't want to see God, we want you to do the talking, you've got the other extreme that's like, we don't ever want to come close to God.
We keep seeing this in Israel. And unfortunately, anytime you have a large group of people, you're always going to have a spectrum. And with any spectrum, you're going to have ends of the spectrum. And as you said, oftentimes those ends just meet.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Let's keep going.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Let's go to the Brass Serpent. I feel like this story is probably best to put after that story.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: I love that. This story.
I love this story because there's, there's a lot of.
There's a lot of applicable, interesting things to talk about with it.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: The. Absolutely.
So the, the, the people murmur over and over and over again. And God's getting pretty tired of their murmuring and, and their lack of patience and their, and their, their rebellions.
You know, you, you have the, the group that, no, we can't go take the land. Oh, we're going to go take the land anyways, even without you, and whatever the case may be.
And so God sends fiery serpents.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: It's time to thin the herd a little bit. Right?
[00:23:58] Speaker A: And the herd gets thinned several times because you have the fiery serpents. You had a fire break out. And it's interesting. Maybe I'll just mention this real quick before we get into the Brass Serpent. When the fire breaks out and kills the most rebellious people, guess where the most rebellious people are or where the fire breaks out.
The fringe of the camp.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Oh, baby, Preach right now, Jason. Preach, dude. By the way, back to exactly what we were just talking about.
Just the fringe, man. Okay, keep going.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Well, at the center of Israel is the Tabernacle. At the center of the Tabernacle is God. And everybody has a place based on their location to within the Tabernacle. And you have the 12 tribes, and three tribes are on the east, three tribes are on the north, three tribes are on the west, three tribes are on the south. So depending on the.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: That sounds a lot like bulls around a baptismal font in the temple.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: It is the same set up as the baptismal font. Yes. And I Love the symbolism there, because you have 3 and 4. 3 and 4 combine to give you this idea of 7 perfection.
But 12 is also this number representing Israel, the complete, all of Israel. But then three is also a symbol of heavenly, spiritual, realm, God, the Godhead, where four is the earthly, the compass, north, east, southwest, the four corners of the earth. So where the physical and the spiritual combine, you get perfection. Because we are not perfect without them. Neither are they perfect without us. It fits with the baptismal font. It fits with the temple. It fits with Israel. It fits with a lot. It's a very beautiful symbolism.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Sweet.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: But they locate themselves based on their position to this temple. And it's not like they're all lined up like one tribe gets to be closer. All the tribes get to be equally close. But within those tribes, you have the people that choose to distance themselves as much as possible from the temple. And it's there at the fringes that the fire breaks out that you have these rebellions. It's just kind of interesting.
And maybe a cool little side note while we're talking about this, the Salt Lake Temple and the Salt Lake City, the way it's set up is one of the most fascinating things to me because the temple itself is supposedly at the center, but the temple has the Big Dipper on it, which, if you look at night, the Big Dipper carved onto the temple points to the North Star in the sky. It is a line to the heavens saying that that temple is centered around heaven itself and then the whole grid system. So if you live at 104th south, you live 104,000, or, excuse me, 100400 blocks south of the Temple. 13th west is going to be 1300 blocks west of the temple. Your whole address is based on your geolocation in reference to the temple itself, which I find pretty cool.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: It's very cool.
Anyhow, good job. Good job. Pioneers. Yeah.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Basing ourselves on the temple.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: And why couldn't they have done the same down here in Utah County?
[00:27:09] Speaker A: What temple do you use?
[00:27:10] Speaker B: I don't even care if you use a temple. Use my house, whatever. I'm just saying, like the fact that you can go from city to city and they're all on different grids.
We blew it with Utah County.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: It's true. Every little city restarts their numbers. And every city has its own little center point that. That they go out Center Street, Main street, and then you kind of move.
[00:27:30] Speaker B: There's usually a barber shop or a gas station that's at the center, too. So it's like Come on. What are we doing?
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Come on. Not every city has a temple, but at least in Salt Lake City, all the subsequent cities abused Salt Lake's grid system rather than restarting the order.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Anyhow, going back to this serpent.
So with all of the rebellions that they have, God sends these fiery serpents and they say, flying fiery.
The fiery might just be the burning sensation that you feel when it bites you.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Because they're.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Yes, venomous. Right.
So these Venibus serpents are biting the people. So again, you have another plague that's kind of helping them come to senses and turn to God. You know, you stir them up in the ways of remembrance and try to help them turn to God.
And as they're dying from these serpents that are invading the people, Moses creates a brazen serpent and lifts it up on a rod and just commands the people to look at this serpent and they will live.
And it even becomes significant because Christ quotes this in the New Testament and saying, just as the serpent was lifted up, so shall I be lifted up. Almost connecting himself with the serpent.
So what is going on with the story? Why is Christ associating himself with the serpent? Or is he even associating himself with the serpent? What's the purpose of this? What's going on?
As you're thinking about that, Nate, let me just make another reference.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:29:10] Speaker A: How is this different from the brazen calf?
Right? They make it. Well, it's not even a brazen. A golden calf, if you will.
Because Israel makes a golden calf and the calf is supposed to be an image of God and they're deciding to worship it.
And then God says, no, I told you, don't make any image. Don't bow down to any image, don't do anything, and then treat some harshly for their disobedience. And then God says, okay, now it's time to create a graven image, and I want you to worship it, look at it so that you can be healed.
What's the difference?
Why is it okay now that God creates an image of a serpent when it wasn't okay for Israel to create an image of a calf? Was it just because the animals are different?
Would Israel be treated any less harshly had they created a golden serpent instead of a golden calf?
[00:30:11] Speaker B: I mean, I feel like the obvious part of this that is probably not the super deep thought part of this is Moses was the one that was commanded to do it as the prophet and did it versus people on their own, or Israel on their own, deciding that they were going to create their own version of it is kind of the easy answer. But I'm sure that you have something way more.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: No, I think that's. That. I think that's the most profound answer right there, Nate. That's. That's it. For. For me. It's because. Who told them to do it? Was it because they decided that they were going to do it and they were going to tell God how they were going to approach him? Or was it God saying, this is how I want you to approach me? I think the lesson here is the law cannot save you.
If I go and sacrifice a sheep, what is that going to do? How is that sheep dying literally going to raise me from the grave?
How is it going to purge my sins? How is it going to have any kind of impact on me? The law cannot save me. There's no value in the law other than God asked me to do it.
God can save me. Salvation is not in the law. It's in following Christ.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: I mean, that could then relate to so many things.
Baptism, you know, any sort of, I guess, other. Other like, similar ordinances from, like, maybe one religion to another, right?
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Is that just. It's like you and I, even back in the time of Israel, in theory, could go kill an animal, put it up on an altar and say, okay, okay, this counts. Right. But it's like, well, do you have the priesthood?
Are you. Are you.
Are you. Have you been given permission to be.
You know what I mean, administering this ordinance for other people? Right. You look at the idea of. Of baptism is such a simple thing, right? It's. You go underwater and you come back out. Well, in theory, anybody can do that, right?
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Go take a bath. Yeah.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Am I safe because I took a bath? Because I did the same thing as baptism every day of my life.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: So there's kind of the.
Maybe that's kind of how it's anchored, is that. It's not what you just said, which I totally agree with. It's not the action of. It's not going through the motions of something as much as it is doing it with the correct authority and with God's blessing.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah, go back to the people that said, okay, you wanted us to go conquer this land, and you told us that we're going to die because we weren't willing to go. Well, we're willing to go. We're going to go do it. Well, no, no, no. God didn't command you to go anymore. In fact, you. He told us to stay, and you go and do the same exact Thing salvation wasn't in fulfilling that commandment, not going in and fighting. Salvation was in doing what the Lord asked you to do.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: So here's kind of a good follow up, maybe rhetorical question is how are we supposed to know?
How are we supposed to know if we're doing it with the Lord's whatever it is that we're doing, if we're doing it with the Lord's blessing or not?
Right. And the thing is, what I like about this question is it's.
And the more and more that even the church kind of moves away from very, I don't know, outlined practices like home teaching versus ministry or church for a certain amount of time versus hey, we're not going to do it for X amount of time, but we're putting the responsibility on you, right? What do all what. What has the church continued to do? And in moving away from, hey, we're going to give you. This is exactly how many steps you can take on the Sabbath versus keep the Sabbath day holy.
Instead of you need to go and visit your families each month.
No, you need to go visit your families as often as they need you. You know, I mean, it's like, what, what is a common theme with all of these?
[00:34:08] Speaker A: And it's actually a story here in Numbers going to. Another story that we need to talk about was when Moses gets so tired of having to tell the people everything they have to do. And God says, okay, pick 70 elders and we'll have the Spirit fall upon them and they'll prophesy. But two of the 70 didn't show up, right?
And somebody sees them later on, those two that didn't show up prophesying in the camp and they come back and tell Moses like, hey, will you tell these people to stop prophesying? Because they weren't there when they were supposed to be there. And Moses says, I would. That everybody would prophesy.
I wish everyone had the Spirit.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: I wish everyone would, instead of going to this church meeting that they were supposed to go to, if prompted by the Spirit, would go out and visit somebody that needed them to go visit them. Right? I mean, that's what this comes down to. Right? And I think that we're both saying the same thing, which is that's how, you know. And by the way, that's harder than having somebody just give you a specific outline. Here's exactly what you need to do to be in the right. It's harder to go.
I'm not going to tell you that you're going to have to rely on your relationship with God and the Spirit. Because what does that do? That puts the onus on us to be living in a way that we are open to that stuff. Right? Like, that's harder. That's harder because it's easy to be distracted.
It's easy to be, you know, to have the noise of the earth and the world around us crowd out the voices that we should be listening to. Right.
It is harder, at least in my opinion, to not have somebody say, hey, here's exactly how many steps you need to take this day. And instead go, no, live right, Live right. So that you'll know in your heart if you're acting right or if you're not.
[00:36:15] Speaker A: And it gets a little bit dangerous. Because, you see, when God calls a prophet in our time, when he raises Joseph Smith to be a prophet, and then you have other people who start to prophesy as well, contrary things to what Joseph Smith is saying, or different prophets that are coming up and how do you.
There is a chain of command and clarity.
The people that are prophesying aren't going against what Moses is saying and giving conflicting, confusing commandments, saying, okay, now we're going to take the ark of the Covenant and invade Egypt. Right? You still have this clear chain of command that you need to follow in certain aspects. But if everyone were to have the Spirit, and it was really the Spirit, God is not a God of confusion. He's not going to be giving you those conflicting. He's going to be confirming those directions to you and adding to it, adding context, adding, teaching you along the way.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Well, and if I might. And again, please feel free to jump in and be like, you're a little off on this, but. Because I'm open to it. But when I hear the commandment of Moses to these, I would that everybody should be out prophesying, right?
What is it that those of us who aren't given certain keys or responsibilities, what is our responsibility to be preaching and testifying of, specifically?
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Christ.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: Christ. That's right.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: That's it.
And in Revelation, it says, the spirit of prophecy is a testimony of Jesus Christ.
That's my point. Right?
[00:37:58] Speaker B: That's my whole point in this, is we're not supposed to be out there rewriting church policy.
We're not supposed to be out there. So when you say, hey, there's people in Joseph Smith time out doing X, Y and Z, Yeah, these knuckleheads were out there going, no, no, no, I'm receiving new revelation. That's way outside of my calling's pay Grade.
They're out there. A lot of these people were out there saying, no, here are these bizarre, deep, strange mysteries of the universe. It's like, bro, that's the easiest. This is the easiest way to see how out of line somebody might be.
Is like, what are you actually out here prophesying of?
If it's you bearing your testimony of Christ, you are right down the line of what you're supposed to be doing, and you have all of the angels of heaven and the Spirit to back you up, right? If you're out prophesying of just various random things that may or may not come to you, look, you may even be right. All I'm saying is that that's where you start walking that dangerous line.
[00:39:05] Speaker A: And this takes me back to Leviticus, if I may, for just one minute here, and I'll come back to the
[00:39:11] Speaker B: brass, what we're doing.
[00:39:12] Speaker A: Okay, Leviticus. I found this was fascinating. Leviticus 19:26. And you shall not eat anything with the blood. Neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe times.
And I thought this was kind of a weird thing to say. When they're talking about eating. They say, you shall not use enchantment. And you're like, enchantment?
What are blessings over the food? Is that not like an enchantment? Like, please bless this food? And it gets especially ridiculous when you're. When you're blessing, like, these donuts that they can nourish and strengthen our bodies. Does that not seem like an enchantment?
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Like, it used to be something that I actually, like, took an issue with, and now I actually just find it hilarious. I'm sorry. Like, I used to be like, what are we doing? And now I'm like, go for it, bro.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: So it made me wonder when it says, don't use enchantment. And I'm like, what are we doing then? Why do we bless our food? But I think. I mean, we've talked about this in previous episodes, Nate, but I think blessing a food, we're blessing whatever life it was that gave its life to us. Like, we're showing gratitude and asking God to bless that sacrifice that was given for us. Anyhow, when we talk about this enchantment, I looked up the Hebrew word for it, and interesting enough, tying this almost kind of back into this story that we're talking about, the word was nahash, which is the Hebrew word for snake.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: Okay? So don't snake your food.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Don't snake your food. And you're like, why would you say, don't snake your food? And so they would say, like snakes, they would use them for divination. And that's where it kind of gets in this enchantment. But another word is the Hebrew word for snake comes from nachash, which means a hiss or a whisper.
So then you get the enchantment side of things like this whispering or this hissing about your food. And it's not hissing or whispering like a blessing type where you're blessing the food, but rather you don't be casting these spells and these weird divinations, especially as you're talking about pouring out blood. But. But what this took me to is if the word for snake just means a hiss or a whisper, go back to the Garden of Eden.
Was it a serpent that beguiled Eve, or was it a hiss or a whisper, contrary to the ruach or the wind or whispering of God? So you had a ruach, a wind or a spirit that God breathed and spoke, and then you had another whispering subversion, another voice.
[00:41:39] Speaker B: The false version of that.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: The cheap version of that.
[00:41:42] Speaker A: Yes. This is the imitation of God's words, God's spirit. And then you have this little hissing or spirit that's trying to speak, encounter,
[00:41:53] Speaker B: to deceive, which, by the way, would clarify kind of a lot of even like the temple and a lot of things like that. Right. Where, you know, maybe instead of a snake, it was just a counter, still small voice. But it was a counter fit, still small voice.
[00:42:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
And I feel like, yeah, it plays on our emotions. Right. Oftentimes we get fired up and we feel strongly about things and get riled into a cause, and all it takes is to switch our focus away from Christ. If it's no longer about Christ, but it's about the justice of the thing or the cause of the thing that that voice can come in and get his whole self fired up for.
Let's go redeem Israel, even though the time's not right. Isn't that what God wants us to do? Anyways,
[00:42:43] Speaker B: I'll stay where you want me to stay. Dear Lord. How hard is that sometimes?
Great stuff. Let's keep moving.
[00:42:50] Speaker A: Okay. I find it interesting when we're talking about this brass serpent, okay, that you're taking Israel's sin and you're recreating it. You're taking the golden calf. This is what caused you guys to fail.
And now I'm going to use that same thing to cause you guys to live.
Go back again to the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden as we're talking about the temple, and then golgotha recreating that moment with the Atonement. And it's fascinating how the Atonement can take those images and have us come face to face with our mistakes and showing us that it can cover, that it can fix, that it's addressing the issue, not running away from it or ignoring the issue. But by coming face to face with the issue, we're going to deal with it and overcome it and make it right.
So I find that fascinating.
[00:43:42] Speaker B: It's awesome.
[00:43:44] Speaker A: All right.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: I love the duality though obviously too of the thing that the thing that is going to potentially kill you, kill
[00:43:52] Speaker A: you is also the same one that's going to save you.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: We kind of talked a little bit about it. This will have the power to bruise your heel, but you'll have the power to crush its head.
You even briefly mentioned again, we don't need to go super into it. But again, like the cornerstone, the head cornerstone can also be the thing that's a stumbling block.
It's like, you know, I guess I'm just saying it's like so many things and when you look at that in very real life context, so many things that are sacred and special and potentially huge faith builders for some can be the maybe doctrinal hiccups for others that, that really kind of damn people or stop their progression. And that's, I mean this, this kind of illustrates that. The story illustrates that fairly well.
[00:44:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. I mean we look at Leviticus, chapter 20. One more thing that we can talk about here. The death penalty is prescribed for sacrificing children to Molech. Don't sacrifice your kids to God.
Well, what did God tell Abraham to do?
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Dude, the OT's great, baby, because I
[00:44:58] Speaker A: mean, thou shalt not kill.
[00:44:59] Speaker B: I know, that's why I said that's exactly where I was going.
But thou shalt chop off Laban's head so you can trick his servant and go get the scriptures.
Just saying, baby, there's a lot of fun. This is why back to kind of what I was saying before, which is if you're not in tune, you are running a very dangerous game. That's it.
[00:45:24] Speaker A: It's all about following God. And I think that's what they're telling us. That's what the Bible keeps telling us over and over and over again. No amount of laws are going to save you.
The water isn't magic.
The commandments aren't. The only reason that the law saves you is, is because you're following what Christ told you to do and he can save you. There's really only one law, and that is. Follow me.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: That's exactly right.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: If I tell you to do that, do it.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: That's right.
Fantastic.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: And then you also take intent into the deal, as we've been talking about this, because I think maybe it's worth mentioning the poor guy who dies gathering sticks on the Sabbath.
[00:46:09] Speaker B: Oh, no.
What happened to our friend here?
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Well, the story tells us that it's really based on intent. And let's look at the context of this real quick. So this is Numbers, chapter 28. 28. I'm looking at verse 28, as I said that chapter 15, verse 29. You shall have one law for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him and him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among thee. But the soul that doeth aught presumptuously, whether he be born in the land or a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord. And that soul shall be cut off from among the people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord and hath broken his commandment that his soul shall utterly be cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him. So they're telling you there's two differences here. Someone who does it ignorantly, that's one thing. But if this guy intentionally and presumptuously does this to try to spite the Lord, that's different.
So they find this guy who's catching gathering sticks.
They says, verse 33.
And they found him gathering sticks, brought him unto Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation, verse 34. And they put him inward because it was not declared what should be done to him. So they didn't just stone him because they saw him gathering sticks, they looked at him, they gathered, they took him. They put him kind of in a ward in a little prison, if you will, and said, what do we do? They brought him to Aaron and Moses. And Moses takes us to lord in verse 35. And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all the congregation brought him without the camp and stoned him with the stones.
So the context is not that just some guy was out gathering sticks, and the people saw him and stoned him instantly. The context was there is different laws based on intent.
And they didn't know what the intent of this guy was. So they took him to Aaron and to Moses. And Moses asked God what to do.
It was God that judged the man that God was willfully doing this to spite God and to actively try to destroy what God was doing. In which case, God looks at this and says, death.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: No bueno.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: No bueno.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: No me gusta.
How about that for a little Spanish for you?
[00:48:42] Speaker A: I like it.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Mrs. Beck's class up at Logan High. Sophomore Spanish. No me gusta.
I learned something, Mrs. Beck, if you ever listen to this podcast, and you never will, but just know that it's out there in the universe. All right. Okay, let's keep going.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: Should we go to the talking donkey?
[00:49:03] Speaker B: You know, I've been waiting all day for this.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: All right, so Israel, after having the fire burning their fringes, after having plagues sent and destroying them and fiery serpents eating them up.
[00:49:15] Speaker B: Are you, like, announcing, like, a movie trailer or something right now?
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Wow. They've been.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: They've been dealt with. Now the intro and now this. They've been dealt with.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: They've been dealt with.
No, they're ready. They've learned their lessons. And after having gone through this 40 years of wandering and preparing to kind of finally do what the Lord wants them to do, when the Lord wants them to do it, they're aligned.
They're on the same page.
[00:49:43] Speaker B: We're all on the same page.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: And they're ready to go, and. And they go to the city to go fight it. And the king looks out and sees all of the host of Israel, and he says, we're toast.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: This is.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: This is no bueno to go back to your.
So there. There is another prophet in the land. Balaam.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Balaam, baby.
[00:50:07] Speaker A: And he says, hey, Balaam. Whatever he blesses, God blesses. And whatever he curses, God curses. He is our only chance. Let's get him. So he sends a messenger to Balaam, and the messenger says, hey, Balak, the king would love you to come and curse this people that are about to destroy us so that we can prosper in this war.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: So Balaam, by the way, is not part of Israel.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: Not part of Israel, Yeah, but he does. It shows that he worships God. Okay, so here you have another outsider here that, for what it's worth, is on the same page.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: Ish. Well, ish. Yes, ish.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: So he says, I can only do what the Lord wants me to do. So he knows the lesson that Israel's been trying to learn over and over and over again.
So you have Israel coming from a place where they don't do what the Lord wants them to do. They're always doing whatever. And now, finally they're learning their lesson. They're going to march along. This guy already knows the lesson. He says, I can only say what God will allow me to say. I can't say more, I can't say less. I can't go against what he will say.
So if you want, you know, to spend the night and I'll ask the Lord what he wants me to do, and I will have an answer for you in the morning.
And in the morning he goes to God and God says, do not curse this people. I will prosper this people.
And so in the morning he tells the servant, I'm sorry, God told me not to, I'm out.
So the servant goes back to Balak and says, hey, he's out, he's not going to do it. And he says, okay, let's get some more money on this, everybody's got a price.
And go back and ask him again.
Now the guy knows the answer from God, but you can almost kind of see Balaam's justification in this thing. Maybe God told me no because he knew I needed more money. And with this more money, I can support my family a little bit better.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: What an amazing, like, mental gymnastics job that Balaam just did with that one, right?
[00:52:15] Speaker A: And I'm not saying he did, but you can almost see that, right?
[00:52:19] Speaker B: You can.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: You know, I've been, I would wonder the same thing. Maybe the reason he said no is just because he was sweetening the pot for me.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Anyhow, so he decides to take this decision back to the Lord and the Lord tells him, okay, listen here, you can go, but I need to make sure you understand that you can't be cursing this people. You need to do what I say and you can't. Maybe I should be reading this here.
[00:52:53] Speaker B: Well, no, you're doing a good job.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: We'll just go through this.
You can do it, but don't do anything other than what I tell you to. And he says, okay. He arises early the next morning, anxious to, like, become his. Yes, because not only is he going to get paid all of this money, but now he's going to be Balak's advisor. He's got like, job security, right? He's got money for life.
And he saddles his donkey, and I think it's important that they reference the donkey in two separate ways. One, it's a dumb donkey. Why do you call in the scriptures it says this a few times? Dumb ass.
Why would you refer to your as dumb? Like, don't talk, they're all dumb anyways. That seems redundant, but in this case, obviously that's Not.
And it also refers to the donkey as a she donkey, which is, I think, also important. For better or for worse.
The saddles are up and he's going to ride.
And as he's going, an angel of the Lord is trying to get him a warning. Like, it's important that you do what I say.
And the donkey sees the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and it keeps stopping and keeps trying to prevent Balaam from going to his destruction, his ruin. Because we know this story does not end well for Balaam.
The donkey falls. The donkey crushes his foot against the wall, and finally Balaam starts beating that.
[00:54:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:54:29] Speaker A: Yes, he does.
[00:54:31] Speaker B: I can only imagine how many perfect, like, sensor beeps are gonna be through this whole section. I'm just gonna throw that out there right now, Jason.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: We might need a few.
So he's being first of all.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: The reason I always they said dumb in the scriptures was so that it justified what I yelled at people as I was driving in the car. And then when my wife inevitably looked at me sideways, I could say, it says it in the scriptures.
[00:55:00] Speaker A: Well, I think there's a reason it comes from the scriptures. Continue.
So we'll get to that here in a second.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: I'm just looking up my. My sensor beep right now as we're even going. Go ahead, keep going, Jason.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: Oh, dear. All right, so he's smiting the donkey and he's saying, you know, what's the deal? And all of a sudden, the donkey talks back and says, you know me to have been a good donkey.
And there's an angel with the sword drawn in front of the. In the way.
[00:55:32] Speaker B: I'm saving your bro.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: I'm saving your life. And then his eyes are open and he sees the angel and the sword and like, yeah, I would have smote you if it snows, not for your donkey.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: And the angel's like, this is super, like, you know, bunny foo foo style. Like, why are you picking up this donkey and just beating him?
[00:55:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: The angel's like, come on, bro.
Yeah, this donkey's saving your life, bro. You should maybe stop whacking it.
[00:55:58] Speaker A: And. And you see here this. There's a lot of role reversal going on as he is going to be beating this donkey. He is. He is going there to beat this poor, dumb Israel who's trying to rise up. They're humbled. They've been humiliated by the Lord. They've had to learn their lesson. They were not super obedient this way or that, but they're kind of finally pulling it together. And he is going to beat them down. They're the ones that are seeing God and seeing the angel and coming and acting on what the Lord wants them to do. He was the one that knew what he was supposed to do and yet is going to unlearn that lesson and devolve into this.
We'll see what he does here in a second. But note this, there is a hierarchy in the Bible.
God, obviously, at the top of that hierarchy, angels underneath God and then prophets underneath angels, because they can see and speak with God and they can communicate for God. And really the hierarchy is going to go with your ability to speak.
To speak in the name of the Lord gives you status above just every average men. And then the men have an ability to speak where the women don't own property. They're kind of subverted a little bit. And then even lower than that is the slave. And the slave not being. Just because they're enslaved by the race, but there's no prison system. Someone who steals is sold into slavery for six years until they're liberated. So it's almost like our version of people imprisoned. They don't have the rights or the freedom. They can't speak or vote or have a voice among the people as they're serving out their term, their sentence.
And then below that, even you have animals that can't speak at all. And even within the animal kingdom, you have, like the beasts of prey, the lions and the bears and the leopards. And then you have the beast of burden, which is like the low of the lows. And as you get even low, like you have a beast of burden, and then you have the she version of the beast of burden, like, this is the bottom of the stack. And I'm trying not to say this disrespectfully. I'm not trying to be sexist. I'm just trying to.
[00:58:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we're not. We're not making commentary on it. We're just saying this is how it was.
[00:58:15] Speaker A: This was the system. And as you look at this for their.
They're taking the lowest of the low.
And now the lowest of the low is seeing heavenly beings and speaking in the name of the Lord to the prophet who is a donkey.
[00:58:35] Speaker B: Make sure to put a little beep right there. Okay, keep going.
[00:58:39] Speaker A: They've switched roles because now Balaam's donkey is the prophet to Balaam and speaking to him in the name of the Lord and he is the beast of burden, blinded by greed.
[00:58:51] Speaker B: You would have thought that at any point along this way, he would have gone. Enough crazy things have happened at this point. Maybe I should reconsider what's going on right now. Nope.
[00:59:02] Speaker A: Yeah. The real miracle is that he takes the talking donkey in stride and doesn't even think twice.
[00:59:06] Speaker B: That's what I mean. He's just like, oh, is this Dolittle? This is like, this is another Wednesday, Mr. Ed. This is no problem. Okay. Anyways, keep going.
[00:59:15] Speaker A: No. Yeah. This whole role reversal is interesting, but he gets to the city and the king says, okay, here's all this treasure. Here's the animals to make the sacrifice. Make your sacrifice to God and curse them. And so he makes the sacrifice, looks out on Israel and blesses them. And the king's like, what are you doing?
I am undone.
That's not what I'm paying you to do. Perhaps we can find a better vantage point for you to curse this people. And he takes them and he raises his status a little bit more. But you see what's going on. As man is raising his status just like the donkey, really, God is lowering his status, and he goes to the next place, and again he blesses Israel.
And then this is the amazing thing of all of this. When he takes them to even a higher place and he offers the sacrifice and he looks on Israel, he blesses them a third time. And not only does he bless them, but this outsider who just had his donkey talking to him prophesies the coming of the Messiah through this line.
Think of what he knew.
And understanding that this is the line that the Messiah is going to come through and that Israel has to be preserved, he gives the following advice.
The king knowing that he is undone, and the prophet knowing that he can't speak, prophesying any curses. He can only bless because it has to come from God. He tells Balak this, Israel is on God's side. God will preserve them. You can take me as high as you want, and I can only bless them all day long. The only way you can win this war is, is if you're to get Israel to not be on God's side.
What you need to do is take all of your prostitutes out and send them to Israel.
And when Israel sees them and starts to fornicate with them, then they're going to fall from grace. God won't be on their side anymore, and then you can win the war.
Can you believe that a man who saw the coming of the Messiah, the redemption of the world through the line of Israel, is now conniving to destroy this people for a little bit of money?
[01:01:36] Speaker B: Well, it's obvious what he's trying to do. He's trying to play both sides here, right?
He's like, hey, look, God, I'm not technically cursing them, but also Balak. All you got to do really is, you know, appeal to the carnal nature.
But it's almost like he's just. He's trying to. He's trying to appease both sides.
[01:01:59] Speaker A: And what happens when you try to please both sides?
[01:02:02] Speaker B: You end up blowing it with both sides. But, yes, I mean, this is pretty cut and dry.
What happens when you try to, you know, play off of technicalities?
[01:02:15] Speaker A: And do you know how close his plan almost worked?
[01:02:18] Speaker B: Tell us.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: The prostitutes went out to the camp of Israel, and the men instantly started to lay with them.
Not only did they instantly start to lay with them, but one guy sleeping. Where does it say in the tabernacle with the woman?
[01:02:34] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh.
[01:02:35] Speaker A: Just a second. Let me. Let me make sure I'm not quoting this wrong.
[01:02:39] Speaker B: I hope that you are. I hope that you're misremembering this, because if not all of my distaste for the children of Israel is just right back.
[01:02:48] Speaker A: It's bad.
Okay, here we go.
Found it.
Not only are they fornicating. Let me just read a little bit of how this goes.
And Moses said, let's see, verse six. This is chapter 25.
And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses.
So when he says, in the sight of Moses, he's not doing it in his own tent. He's not hiding.
And in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle. Of the congregation.
So you've got these people who are weeping. Why are they weeping? They just spent 40 years learning this lesson.
[01:03:57] Speaker B: They're like, dang it, we're going to get sent off for another 40.
[01:04:00] Speaker A: And now they're seeing these guys that are fornicating. And, yeah, we're going to send another 40. They are weeping at the tabernacle, the door of the tabernacle, weeping for God, please deliver us. Don't make us go back for another 40 years because of these jerks that can't control themselves. And here this guy is doing it in their sight, in the presence of the tabernacle, in the presence of Moses, in the presence of them. And Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest saw it. He rose up from among the congregation, took a javelin in his Hand went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both them through the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
[01:04:50] Speaker B: Slow clap for this guy. Phineas.
[01:04:53] Speaker A: Phineas.
[01:04:53] Speaker B: Phineas.
[01:04:55] Speaker A: Not often can you say that one man saved the fate of a nation.
[01:04:59] Speaker B: One man, dude. Thank goodness for Phineas.
[01:05:03] Speaker A: But this one man said, enough.
[01:05:06] Speaker B: He's like, I'm not doing this for another 40.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: We are not doing another 40 years. He stood up and he rammed a spear right through the guy and the girl in the act of fornication in the eyes of Moses and the eyes of all the congregation and saying, no, we're not going to leave this to God.
And there's a lesson here. There too, all of these people coming to God and saying, please get rid of this evil so we don't get punished and wander another 40 years. And Finney is saying, no, we will cleanse this evil from ourselves so that God won't cleanse it for us. We've learned we don't want this. We're not putting up with this. And single handedly saved a nation that day.
[01:05:47] Speaker B: I want to throw this out there.
[01:05:49] Speaker A: Okay?
[01:05:51] Speaker B: There had to at least be a part of Phinehas that's thinking, I may be condemning myself to death because of this. Right. Because again, thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill is still the law. Right.
And especially if you're not a. In a position of authority to. Where you get to basically cast judgment in these situations. What I do appreciate about Phinehas in this story is that he was.
He was bold enough and willing enough to.
[01:06:20] Speaker A: To sacrifice himself.
[01:06:22] Speaker B: That's exactly right.
To even say, this may cost me my life, but no way, no way.
This isn't gonna. We're not. I'm not. We're not gonna have to do this again.
And I will make sure that we don't have to do this again. Even if it cost me my own life. It makes me like Phineas that much more.
[01:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: Am I out of line with this?
[01:06:45] Speaker A: No.
[01:06:47] Speaker B: Because in theory, he could have gotten in trouble for this too. Right? If you're looking at the letter of
[01:06:51] Speaker A: the law, I mean, you look at the. He was a priest, but you look at Aaron's sons. They were also priests, and they offered strange fire and they were killed from the Lord for doing it.
I think your explanation is very reasonable.
[01:07:05] Speaker B: Good job, Phineas, man.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: He's one of my heroes. And I know it's kind of a gruesome story, and it's something that you don't necessarily look at and say, this is.
[01:07:13] Speaker B: There's life lessons to take from that even now, right? I know we talk about this, we talk about this a lot off air. And again, I don't necessarily want to get too much into it. We could let people obviously draw their own conclusions. But what the world needs right now is some more leaders the world needs right now, in my opinion. I feel like, in our opinion, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, Jason, but the world needs right now more people that are willing to stand up, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's probably not convenient, and just take a stand for something, just plant a flag.
[01:07:48] Speaker A: Well, compare that to Balaam, who's trying to walk both worlds.
[01:07:52] Speaker B: It's the exact opposite of that. Coward.
Phinehas is the exact opposite of that coward.
Man, can you imagine if we just had more leaders in this world? Because the other thing is too, is that, at least in my experience, when you have somebody willing to stand up to the mob and say, no, that's not how it's going to go down. It truly can light a fire in so many more people and give them something to also look to and follow and support. It's like so many people almost just need that one brave leader to say, no, we're not about that.
And so many people can rush to, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm with this guy. I'm with this guy or girl or whatever, right?
And how easy the mob can be swayed, unfortunately, sometimes the other way, right? The same people that were putting palm leafs at Christ's feet were the same people yelling, crucify him a few days later.
It's. It's just, man, if the world just had a few more leaders that could just be willing to go, no, I don't care how unacceptable this might appear to the rest of the world. That's not how I roll.
[01:09:11] Speaker A: Well, and to your point, when you look at Balaam and Phinehas being the opposite, and when you said, if the world had a few more leaders, if we had leaders that weren't looking out for themselves, oh, preach, baby. But leaders that looked at it and said, even if it means sacrificing myself
[01:09:30] Speaker B: or my career or my future, whatever
[01:09:34] Speaker A: that is, I'm willing to do this because this is what the people need.
[01:09:37] Speaker B: Because it's the right thing.
Because it's the right thing, man, there's a. I'm really glad we talked about this story. It lights the fire in me. And again, I don't I? We're out of time. And so I don't want to go off on another tangent, but as, as listeners obviously draw your own conclusions to that, but hopefully it's. Hopefully it's not unclear of where I stand on this.
[01:10:02] Speaker A: Well, and the end of the story is because Phinehas was able to put an end to the fornication in Israel, and Israel were able to clean up their act and stop.
God was on their side.
They destroyed Balaam, they took Balak. Or they destroyed Balak and his kingdom. They took Balaam. If I remember right, the reference in the New Testament, they take him captive and he ends up paying the price for what he did to Israel. They hold him accountable for that.
[01:10:32] Speaker B: Rest in peace.
[01:10:33] Speaker A: And the line of Israel is preserved to where we have the rest of the Old Testament, to the New Testament, to the birth of Christ. The coming of our Savior and what was meant for their ruin actually leaves a mark of testifying of the coming of a star, a star that is going to be born. Christ, who's going to be coming into the world.
[01:10:53] Speaker B: Unreal. Anything else?
[01:10:55] Speaker A: There's so much else, but we don't have time to get to it. I mean, we've got the red heifer, we've got Aaron's rods that blossom versus the other ones. I mean, if we've got time next week, maybe we can hit them. If you guys want to talk some more about numbers, you know, you know where to reach us. We'd love to chat with you guys.
[01:11:10] Speaker B: Please do. And by the way, we do love getting texts, emails, and even those that stop us and talk to us about stuff. We love chatting about this stuff and getting everybody else's perspective on it too. That's what's so amazing about the Old Testament, is that, that you, so many people can draw so many amazing lessons and connections from it, even more than what we're talking about. Right. And, and so we do really love hearing all of your, you know, anecdotal thoughts and, and insights on these things. So please continue to, to, to give them to us.
[01:11:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:11:48] Speaker B: All right, let's. Because we're really out of time. We'll let everybody figure out what we're talking about next week. Next week. So until next week.
[01:11:55] Speaker A: See ya.
