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[01:00:13:03 - 01:00:17:15]
Chris
 That's why we've got to know God's word. And my theology really, truly does matter.

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Chris
 Why I love to preach God's word and why I try to do it so passionately, because it's not just facts or things that don't really matter to the day-to-day of our lives. They literally matter in everything we do, every environment. We live every relationship that we are in.

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[01:00:41:23 - 01:00:46:04]
Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Chris Carr, welcome. How are you doing?

[01:00:46:04 - 01:00:48:00]
Chris
 Hot. It's hot.

[01:00:49:08 - 01:00:52:17]
Chris
 We were done with this. It is not. I'm ready for fall.

[01:00:52:17 - 01:00:54:23]
Brenton
 Anybody ready for fall? Kind of cold in your office.

[01:00:54:23 - 01:00:57:05]
Chris
 Yeah, that's intentional.

[01:00:57:05 - 01:00:57:23]
Brenton
 You're making up for it.

[01:00:57:23 - 01:00:58:07]
Chris
 But

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Chris
 don't tell Jim.

[01:01:00:22 - 01:01:02:05]
Brenton
 Yeah, right?

[01:01:02:05 - 01:01:03:01]
Chris
 Get upset.

[01:01:03:01 - 01:01:06:04]
Brenton
 Put a blanket on. All right, well,

[01:01:07:06 - 01:01:11:17]
Brenton
 we got kind of a lot to talk about today. So we're just going to jump right into it.

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Brenton
 We're going to give the people what you

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Brenton
 said you'd give them. So in verse 5-- We're going to

[01:01:18:11 - 01:01:24:02]
Chris
 try making a template. It's not over-promised. That's under-promised and over-delivered.

[01:01:24:02 - 01:01:27:19]
Brenton
 Fair enough. All right. So in verse 5, right as Abraham

[01:01:28:20 - 01:01:36:14]
Brenton
 sets out, we're told that he takes Sarah lot and the people that they had acquired in Haran.

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Brenton
 So that was the phrase that you wanted to dig into. And you made a vague reference to slavery. What is going on here?

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Chris
 Well, first of all, I will point out that one commentator says that--

[01:01:55:07 - 01:02:17:14]
Chris
 and really translates the phrase as the souls that they had won in Haran. And he argues that this translation is better exegetically. It's also in line with rabbinic interpretation and teaching. And that means that the passage would actually be referring to making proselytes. So Abraham is like sharing

[01:02:18:15 - 01:02:19:09]
Chris
 his faith.

[01:02:20:14 - 01:02:21:10]
Chris
 So

[01:02:23:22 - 01:02:26:12]
Chris
 obviously, there are other interpretations of that.

[01:02:27:19 - 01:02:45:15]
Chris
 But I do think it's very possible, given the fact that we see Abraham setting up orders calling on the name of the Lord, that that certainly is in line with that. But nevertheless, we do know that later Abraham actually acquires

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Chris
 slaves or servants. Chapter 17, right? Right. So if it's not there in chapter 12, it is later.

[01:02:58:19 - 01:02:58:19]
Chris
 So

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Chris
 it's a tough-- this is a really, really tough topic to cover. And I think that we've got to be very careful that we don't say something that scripture doesn't say.

[01:03:13:07 - 01:03:36:09]
Chris
 Or don't say more than scripture says. Don't say less than scripture says. And just we really have to come at this very, very humbly. And also, I think this is one of those topics where we might just find ourselves having to say, being honest and saying, we really wish that the scripture would address something-- in our minds,

[01:03:37:10 - 01:03:50:17]
Chris
 that the scripture would address something than perhaps that it does. Why doesn't the Old Testament come right out and condemn this? Oh, sure.

[01:03:52:00 - 01:04:05:05]
Chris
 Like polygamy. Why doesn't the Bible come right out and condemn polygamy? Now, we can go-- for both of those, we can go to Genesis chapter 1 and 2. And we can say, if we truly understand

[01:04:06:06 - 01:04:12:16]
Chris
 what the Bible teaches about people being God and about marriage, then there

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Chris
 will be no polygamy. And there will be no

[01:04:17:05 - 01:04:18:19]
Chris
 slavery of any kind.

[01:04:20:17 - 01:04:21:03]
Chris
 But

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Chris
 the problem is, is we live in a fallen world.

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Chris
 And

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Chris
 sometimes the Bible actually

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Chris
 takes

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Chris
 situations and

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Chris
 things like-- even like divorce. And we see that and regulates it.

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Chris
 Instead of outright condemning it. And now, I'm not saying by the Bible doesn't condemn divorce. But we do know that Jesus very clearly says, like in Matthew 19, that God gave you divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. And then there's other regulations on it because of human sinfulness. And that's the basic principle that I'm talking about.

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Chris
 But we can say that there are some differences, of course,

[01:05:06:13 - 01:05:13:14]
Chris
 in regards to slavery in the Old Testament and what we think about the slavery in our country. For sure. Yeah.

[01:05:13:14 - 01:05:19:15]
Brenton
 OK. So some of this is kind of difficult to talk about because all of the

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Brenton
 laws, all of the

[01:05:23:22 - 01:05:40:10]
Brenton
 way God deals with slavery is at least 400 years after this. Right. Sure. So there is this period of this kind of patriarchal period under Abraham that we don't have a lot of the restraints that God put on it, a lot of the

[01:05:41:18 - 01:05:51:09]
Brenton
 laws put around it. Weren't there yet. So do we really have any information as to what slavery actually would have looked like in that period?

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Chris
 I think it's very little. And I think that's where it gets dangerous for us to say, this is what was happening. This is what was happening. Especially in terms of Abraham. I mentioned last week there's no historical documentation about Abraham outside of the Bible and Jewish

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Chris
 tradition. And so yeah.

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Chris
 But I want to go back. I think we have to understand here, we even see this on Sunday. Abraham had just come out of a very pagan background. In some ways that would

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Chris
 impact him over the entire course of his life. So he would live somewhere around 130 years after he leaves, after God calls him.

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Chris
 Yeah, in fact, exactly 130 years if we go by the dates given in there. But to think that we ever fully get

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Chris
 away from our past. And our

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Chris
 family and sins pass down from generation to generation. The Bible even talks about that. And to think that especially given the great pagan background that he came from,

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Chris
 for us to expect he was going to be like this...

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Chris
 He is a saint, but like this perfect saint with no issue. And of course, the Old Testament doesn't give us any of those. Right? Yeah.

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Chris
 And I actually believe that one of the reasons for that is to make us see that we all, everybody needs Jesus. And the hero of Abraham's story or David's story or you take any of them, Solomon. It's not them.

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Chris
 It's Christ. So I'm not trying to distract from the subject here, but I think it's really easy for us to take modern, relatively modern, our context and these issues that we care deeply about. And it is certainly an issue that I believe Americans should care about

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Chris
 deeply. And to

[01:08:13:09 - 01:08:19:16]
Chris
 take that back 4,000 years. And we got to be just really careful about how to think about these things.

[01:08:19:16 - 01:08:29:04]
Brenton
 Okay. So yeah, on that topic and you mentioned at the beginning of what you were saying that the difference between

[01:08:30:16 - 01:08:33:00]
Brenton
 what we see in Leviticus,

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Brenton
 Deuteronomy, all this time under the Mosaic law and what we had in America is chattel slavery. Right? I think it's pretty common notion that those are very different. But I don't know if we would, most people would know why. Sure. So what would be the differences between those two different institutions of slavery?

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Chris
 So it wasn't race-based.

[01:09:02:22 - 01:09:05:03]
Chris
 And I mean, pretty much like

[01:09:06:23 - 01:09:07:23]
Chris
 anybody could

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Chris
 experience some type of slavery. And there were different types. Like it wasn't just one form. The Mosaic law. Now again, we're not talking about Abraham here like you pointed out. This is after. This is speaking more broadly about Old Testament. But regulated it in such a way

[01:09:31:10 - 01:09:44:01]
Chris
 that would be much different than what was experienced here by African-Americans in our country or even Africans at that point in our country and other

[01:09:45:04 - 01:09:45:18]
Chris
 races

[01:09:47:02 - 01:09:49:17]
Chris
 too. So those would be the

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Chris
 big two.

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Chris
 I mean, if we want to go to the New Testament, Paul actually, 1 Timothy, roundly condemns and slavers.

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Chris
 So it's not like this idea that the Bible never condemns slavery. And we actually,

[01:10:11:11 - 01:10:23:21]
Chris
 if we understand what Paul says in Galatians 3, we keep going back to Galatians 3. But in Christ, there's no male, female, slave, or free. The gospel actually,

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Chris
 when it really gets into people's hearts and is really transformative, it will transform all kinds of people and institutions

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Chris
 as well.

[01:10:38:23 - 01:10:53:05]
Brenton
 For, yeah, you mentioned New Testament. But we also see like Paul either reinforcing restraints on-- so obviously, it was something that was still around, still practiced, and still within the church, right?

[01:10:53:05 - 01:11:01:02]
Chris
 Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, we have a whole book, Philemon, right? And which, Anesimus is

[01:11:03:21 - 01:11:10:15]
Chris
 being addressed in that. And Paul's literally addressing what he

[01:11:11:20 - 01:11:16:07]
Chris
 would want to see happen, although he's not telling him he has to. Right?

[01:11:18:09 - 01:11:19:09]
Chris
 So yeah.

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Chris
 Yeah, it's one of those

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Chris
 things where, again, I think we have to--

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Chris
 are we going to come submit ourselves to the Lord? And are we going to say, OK, I wish that there were-- I do.

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Chris
 Personally, I wish the Old Testament, God would have come out and say, hey, this is wrong.

[01:11:47:14 - 01:11:57:07]
Chris
 I wish in the New Testament, even there were some clear-- and I'm talking about-- I'm not trying to stand in judgment on the scriptures. I'm just saying, like, that's my--

[01:11:59:00 - 01:12:08:17]
Chris
 in my humanness and what I think would be right, I think that slavery is wrong.

[01:12:10:00 - 01:12:45:11]
Chris
 I know you do. I'm sure all of our listeners here. But are we going to-- and this is what too many people do today. And this is not only on this issue, but we place ourselves over scripture and over the Lord. And we're like, something's-- we stand in judgment of Him. And are we going to be humble enough to say, yeah, I mean, why doesn't it? And I think it's fine to say, why doesn't it? Restlessly, I didn't want it to. But then to say, maybe I don't know everything and understand everything. And maybe I'm missing something. And

[01:12:47:17 - 01:12:48:16]
Chris
 yeah, which is hard.

[01:12:48:16 - 01:13:00:22]
Brenton
 What would you say to this notion of-- in the Old Testament, God was slowly breaking Israel of the

[01:13:02:04 - 01:13:14:17]
Brenton
 customs that were around them. So it wasn't an immediate abolition of this thing. But God didn't want to pull them straight out of it, but was working them toward something better. What would you say to that notion?

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Chris
 Well, I mean,

[01:13:18:17 - 01:13:28:18]
Chris
 I think it goes pretty well in line with what I was trying to get us to yesterday or on Sunday in terms of--

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Chris
 our journey with God is--

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Chris
 let's just use the New Testament. It's sanctification. So it's not like we're saved and we do become new creatures. But that doesn't mean that we don't still have room to grow and that all of a sudden we are perfectly like Christ. And God, for whatever reason, chooses to do that in a process rather than instantaneously. And so I think that that's right in line with perhaps what you're talking about

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Chris
 God doing to-- I mean, because

[01:14:08:20 - 01:14:14:09]
Chris
 would they have been able to-- OK, you have to be here right now.

[01:14:15:12 - 01:14:18:15]
Chris
 Like, here's where you have to be. Sure. I mean,

[01:14:19:17 - 01:14:24:22]
Chris
 how would have that-- I mean, it didn't go well anyway, right? I don't know.

[01:14:24:22 - 01:14:35:06]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah, I have a hard time squaring that a little bit. Just personally, I think even in-- Isaiah 10 kind of stands out to me. And it says,

[01:14:39:06 - 01:14:45:14]
Brenton
 essentially, woe unto them the decree on righteous decrees. And so is God

[01:14:47:13 - 01:14:58:13]
Brenton
 allowing for what would be sin in some of those decrees but still trying to curb it in some way? I don't know. Just as I think through this, it brings up some interesting questions.

[01:14:58:13 - 01:15:01:12]
Chris
 Yeah. I mean, again, I tried to start this with

[01:15:03:05 - 01:15:11:18]
Chris
 this issue. Again, I think that the polygamy one is another one that's very similar to this. Like, why

[01:15:14:02 - 01:15:14:21]
Chris
 Abraham--

[01:15:16:03 - 01:15:33:19]
Chris
 I mean, you pretty much go down the line. Why don't we have a clear statement of condemnation to these men about this? No, we go to Malachi. We saw this in Malachi about the people of Israel were not guarding their spirits.

[01:15:34:19 - 01:15:37:10]
Chris
 And they were divorcing their wives

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Chris
 to marry other foreign women. But yeah.

[01:15:42:16 - 01:15:47:13]
Brenton
 OK. I guess just to end this section, practically, why would it--

[01:15:49:00 - 01:15:58:00]
Brenton
 why does getting this issue right or understanding it better, why is that important for believers today?

[01:15:59:02 - 01:16:03:14]
Chris
 So clarify for me what you mean by what is the issue specifically here?

[01:16:03:14 - 01:16:09:20]
Brenton
 Is it slavery or is it-- Yeah, I mean, maybe more broadly, just things that-- one

[01:16:10:23 - 01:16:44:17]
Brenton
 of my answers to this question would be the apologetic issue of we're going to face people that are going to throw this stuff in our face, right? Like the slavery issue, the polygamy issue, all these things. So is that the main reason why we would want Christians to understand some of these more complex issues? Or maybe the other one is what you're talking about, the ability to view the Bible as a moral authority without these questions or trying to take care of some of these questions that we see.

[01:16:44:17 - 01:16:55:05]
Chris
 Yeah, I'm quite sure that there are other people who have better answers to this than I do. And I just simply have it and come across them.

[01:16:56:11 - 01:17:20:09]
Chris
 Yet I do want to go back again, though, to Genesis 1 and 2 and to recognize that if people truly understand what God had laid out from the beginning about human dignity and marriage, that both of those issues-- God could rightly say, no, this is how I created it. And I

[01:17:21:11 - 01:17:31:15]
Chris
 laid this down pretty clearly. And so these are the result of human sinfulness. And so don't put-- it's not on-- this is not on me.

[01:17:32:19 - 01:17:48:08]
Chris
 And I think it's why, again, we should come at this humbly is, yeah, we're kind of blame shifting when we say, God, why didn't you specifically point this out? And so I think the apologetic argument goes back to creation.

[01:17:52:14 - 01:17:52:19]
Chris
 But

[01:17:54:00 - 01:18:04:16]
Chris
 this is-- if you want to know why it's so important for us to get the issues of polygamy, marriage, and this slavery issue right is because--

[01:18:07:12 - 01:18:10:23]
Chris
 how did we miss this? It--

[01:18:12:12 - 01:18:21:00]
Chris
 so I want to-- real quick, and then we'll move on. But on one hand, I want to say, how did guys like Jonathan Edwards

[01:18:22:08 - 01:18:22:23]
Chris
 miss this?

[01:18:25:09 - 01:18:29:15]
Chris
 But then in the same respect, this is the history of the world.

[01:18:31:17 - 01:18:37:11]
Chris
 It's been around-- Still happening. Since the beginning. And it's still happening today. That's the other thing.

[01:18:38:19 - 01:18:54:06]
Chris
 And even, like, Bill Maher, OK? Right. You've got a-- But the more-- he points this out is, like, everybody has-- every race has enslaved-- For sure. Has practiced slavery.

[01:18:55:13 - 01:19:01:00]
Chris
 And it's still happening today. And so what-- my point is, is there is, like,

[01:19:02:04 - 01:19:24:08]
Chris
 how have we gotten it wrong? Well, almost everybody always has gotten this wrong. This is some degree. And so we want to affirm what the Bible says and strive not to get it wrong ourselves, but then to recognize that maybe human sinfulness is deeper than we recognize that it is. And this is a prime example of that.

[01:19:25:10 - 01:19:35:00]
Chris
 And then I would just-- we'll also add that I didn't talk-- like, we-- because I brought up Jonathan Edwards and Abraham, David, all these things. It's just, like,

[01:19:36:17 - 01:19:44:20]
Chris
 we should not be surprised when even the heroes of the faith fall because

[01:19:46:08 - 01:19:47:02]
Chris
 we're sinners.

[01:19:47:02 - 01:19:47:23]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[01:19:49:09 - 01:20:04:12]
Chris
 And sometimes I think we've got-- we just don't recognize how, again, deep sin goes and how prone we are all, apart from the grace of God, to give in to these things.

[01:20:04:12 - 01:20:06:09]
Brenton
 Well, I think just

[01:20:07:16 - 01:20:16:17]
Brenton
 as you talk about Jonathan Edwards, not everyone is going to be 100% on every issue, right? There's always a different issue to focus on, too, right?

[01:20:16:17 - 01:20:23:17]
Chris
 Well, yeah. I mean, we look back at Christians in the South and say, how in the world in the 1800s there? But

[01:20:24:21 - 01:20:25:22]
Chris
 I promise you--

[01:20:25:22 - 01:20:26:15]
Brenton
 Common placed.

[01:20:26:15 - 01:20:28:04]
Chris
 I promise you, if the Lord

[01:20:29:21 - 01:20:40:02]
Chris
 tarries in 150 years from now, he hasn't come back yet, the people are going to look at Americans in 2026 and are going to say, how in the world were you guys so--

[01:20:41:02 - 01:20:46:14]
Chris
 probably materialist. How did you spend up so much money on yourself and win the world--

[01:20:48:05 - 01:20:50:18]
Chris
 all the poverty and all the spiritual poverty?

[01:20:50:18 - 01:20:54:11]
Brenton
 I think the modern topic is pretty obvious. It's abortion, right?

[01:20:54:11 - 01:20:58:01]
Chris
 OK. I mean, there's maybe a better example.

[01:20:59:13 - 01:21:03:12]
Brenton
 OK, moving on. We did have a listener submit a question.

[01:21:05:03 - 01:21:19:11]
Brenton
 He says, Abraham leaves Egypt with flocks and herds, donkeys, slaves, and camels. But Pharaoh in his household receives severe plagues. Why does God punish Pharaoh when Abraham is the one who deceived him? And I know that that's going to be a hard question to answer.

[01:21:20:14 - 01:21:21:10]
Brenton
 What are your thoughts?

[01:21:21:10 - 01:21:23:08]
 (Laughs)

[01:21:23:08 - 01:21:24:07]
Chris
 Well,

[01:21:27:22 - 01:21:29:16]
Chris
 so God had promised--

[01:21:30:23 - 01:21:43:00]
Chris
 oh, well, so step back first. Pharaoh's not without fault. Yeah, right. OK. So maybe he isn't wrong in this situation in the sense that, OK, Abraham

[01:21:44:07 - 01:21:46:17]
Chris
 lied to him. But

[01:21:48:04 - 01:21:53:05]
Chris
 he had a harem. So they were gross idolaters.

[01:21:54:09 - 01:22:00:11]
Chris
 His descendants will enslave-- we know that story.

[01:22:01:14 - 01:22:02:12]
Chris
 And so

[01:22:05:04 - 01:22:11:17]
Chris
 sometimes I really think that the Lord's punishment doesn't necessarily come in a straight line.

[01:22:14:22 - 01:22:21:06]
Chris
 And so that would be part of my answer. The answer is that God had given his word that

[01:22:22:15 - 01:22:28:16]
Chris
 Abraham-- he was going to bless Abraham. And it was unconditional. That's an unconditional promise.

[01:22:31:03 - 01:22:32:23]
Chris
 And so Pharaoh--

[01:22:34:03 - 01:22:44:13]
Chris
 a good question is, why didn't Pharaoh just kill Abraham when he finds this out? Why does he send him off and take-- why? Well, because this

[01:22:47:04 - 01:22:53:13]
Chris
 plague was so great that he was probably fearing for his life. And Pharaoh is getting a taste of

[01:22:55:03 - 01:23:30:22]
Chris
 how powerful Abraham's God is. But it also, I think, teaches us the nature of-- one of the things that we're supposed to learn from Abraham's story is the nature of God's grace. And again, I said the blessing isn't based upon our conduct but on God's character. The blessing, that's great grace. And we're supposed to-- and we can marvel-- I was thinking about this this morning. We can just marvel, like, why would God bless Abraham? It doesn't seem like-- that's not what we would do. It's just not what we would do. But grace is scandalous.

[01:23:33:05 - 01:23:51:22]
Chris
 Literally, in Paul talks, that's the word he uses. The gospel is a scandalon is the Greek-- literally the Greek word. It's scandalous is how great God's grace is. So to say that Pharaoh doesn't deserve punishment, OK, I think we can actually debate whether he deserves punishment for what he did.

[01:23:54:14 - 01:24:06:22]
Chris
 Yes, Abraham deserves punishment too. He does. And yet, he's in God's favor and under his care and protection. And so God's going to be faithful to his word.

[01:24:06:22 - 01:24:31:03]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah, I had this as I was prepping for this. I was thinking, it's like Psalm 73 came to mind. Like, Asaph is questioning why the wicked are escaping judgment, right? But the assumption here is that the author of that is somewhat righteous or justified, at least, in some way. And I just don't think that's true of Pharaoh. So it's not a one-to-one.

[01:24:32:07 - 01:24:42:05]
Chris
 Again, our listener asks, why does the wicked-looking decision appear to work in quotes? And part of the point is it doesn't work.

[01:24:43:13 - 01:25:02:23]
Chris
 OK, yes, he leaves richer than he arrived. But those riches are going to cause him a lot of problems. It's kind of like the-- I know I'm going back to this again. It's kind of like the polygamy thing, the way that the stories in the Old Testament are told around these multiple

[01:25:05:09 - 01:25:06:09]
Chris
 marriages

[01:25:07:15 - 01:25:15:10]
Chris
 or to show, like, it's not a good idea. Here's what happens. OK? Hegar is, again, an example. But you can see this as Rachel and Leah.

[01:25:16:20 - 01:25:18:20]
Chris
 OK, you're just going to go on down

[01:25:19:22 - 01:25:22:16]
Chris
 the road here. And it doesn't-- so it doesn't really work.

[01:25:22:16 - 01:25:25:22]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah, Solomon is a good example of that.

[01:25:25:22 - 01:25:26:07]
Chris
 Yeah.

[01:25:27:14 - 01:25:30:02]
Chris
 The perfect thing, but not the perfect, but the best example.

[01:25:30:02 - 01:25:37:08]
Brenton
 OK, this also did bring up, for me, this idea of corporate punishment in general.

[01:25:38:23 - 01:25:40:14]
Brenton
 So kind of the--

[01:25:40:14 - 01:25:43:23]
Chris
 Not corporal punishment, but corporate punishment.

[01:25:43:23 - 01:25:46:13]
Brenton
 So kind of what we were talking about aside,

[01:25:47:22 - 01:26:04:07]
Brenton
 this is something that we see throughout the Old Testament. Situations like Achan in Joshua 7, he steals something from Jericho after they destroy it that God told them to destroy. This resulted in Israel losing a battle

[01:26:05:12 - 01:26:10:23]
Brenton
 against a smaller army. Yeah, I mentioned in our story. Right?

[01:26:12:04 - 01:26:31:23]
Brenton
 Second Samuel 24, David orders the census. And this idea that he's not really trusting God for their deliverance ends up with pestilence, where 70,000 men die. And so we see these examples of one person sinning many other people taking the brunt of that punishment.

[01:26:33:17 - 01:26:41:10]
Brenton
 How can we square that with our modern view of fairness today? How should we actually look at that issue?

[01:26:43:05 - 01:26:45:06]
Chris
 Well, our modern

[01:26:46:11 - 01:26:47:23]
Chris
 view of fairness

[01:26:49:03 - 01:26:51:18]
Chris
 is perhaps not the right view of fairness.

[01:26:53:23 - 01:26:54:19]
Chris
 So

[01:26:56:16 - 01:27:03:12]
Chris
 you have the first Adam, second Adam, and my friend Chris Bronze.

[01:27:06:22 - 01:27:11:16]
Chris
 He's a pastor over near Rockford. He's actually from southeast Iowa.

[01:27:13:06 - 01:27:14:07]
Chris
 Yeah, but--

[01:27:15:12 - 01:27:23:22]
Chris
 and he's spoken here before, but he has a book called Bound Together, where he's talking about how we are bound together through Adam.

[01:27:25:16 - 01:27:33:16]
Chris
 And the gospel enables us to be in some ways unbound from him and rebound with Christ.

[01:27:35:02 - 01:27:39:01]
Chris
 So the whole zane is in Adam's fall, we sinned all.

[01:27:41:05 - 01:27:50:20]
Chris
 But being in Christ means that his-- and I talk about this all the time, what is true for him becomes true for us.

[01:27:52:10 - 01:27:57:04]
Chris
 And so when we get to this view of fairness,

[01:27:58:16 - 01:28:01:23]
Chris
 in reality is, if God was fair,

[01:28:03:05 - 01:28:05:18]
Chris
 everybody would be punished.

[01:28:07:12 - 01:28:14:00]
Chris
 So we don't really-- our idea of fairness, we don't really want our idea of fairness. Right?

[01:28:15:03 - 01:28:21:13]
Chris
 We need what we want, and what we need is mercy. But we also want justice.

[01:28:22:21 - 01:28:24:06]
Chris
 Everybody wants justice.

[01:28:26:23 - 01:28:28:23]
Chris
 Because who wants to live-- For others, at least.

[01:28:30:13 - 01:28:50:23]
Chris
 Yeah, well, yeah, sure. But who wants to live in an unjust world? And to be honest with you, so let's talk about justice in terms of right being righteousness. Because those two things are-- you can't pull us apart. And righteousness means being right.

[01:28:52:05 - 01:29:09:01]
Chris
 It's actually a relational-- it's a relational term, being right ourselves. But then that's in relationship to God. That's what we really long form that we really, really want. And the only way that is possible

[01:29:10:13 - 01:29:18:22]
Chris
 is through justice. God has to punish sin. And the great-- one may be the greatest verse in the Bible,

[01:29:20:12 - 01:29:50:05]
Chris
 Romans 3, 25, which talks about-- and which says, where Paul says, so that God could be just and the justifier of those who have faith in Christ Jesus. And before that, verse 24, he put Jesus forward as a perpetuation to be received by faith. Perpetitiation means to turn aside God's wrath so that God could be just. And just means he has to punish sin. But he could be the justifier, think love. He could express his love for humanity, for us.

[01:29:51:19 - 01:29:55:14]
Chris
 And God can do both only because of Christ.

[01:29:57:00 - 01:30:00:18]
Chris
 So I don't know if that answers your question or not.

[01:30:00:18 - 01:30:15:08]
Brenton
 No, it's good. I think the connection to Adam and then to Jesus is right here. I think it's still, as we read those stories, I think it can bring up questions. What the heck? Why are they getting punished for this?

[01:30:16:23 - 01:30:17:23]
Chris
 Yeah, I mean,

[01:30:20:13 - 01:30:25:05]
Chris
 sure. Sure. And again, it's one of these things where we have to approach it.

[01:30:27:02 - 01:30:29:13]
Chris
 It's not like we are humbly.

[01:30:30:18 - 01:30:45:16]
Chris
 For sure. Because it's hard. Because why do children suffer for the choices of parents? And why do people suffer for the choices of leaders, like the David example?

[01:30:45:16 - 01:30:46:14]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah.

[01:30:48:13 - 01:31:05:02]
Brenton
 OK, so you also, there was one other thing that you said you wanted to follow up on from Sunday. And that was Sarah's marriage to Pharaoh. You had mentioned that you don't think, or at least in all likelihood, that that hadn't been consummated yet. What makes you say that?

[01:31:06:22 - 01:31:07:10]
Chris
 Yeah.

[01:31:09:11 - 01:31:13:08]
Chris
 So one of the really good commentator

[01:31:14:10 - 01:31:25:07]
Chris
 on Genesis is a guy named Alan Ross. And he points out that it would have taken time for Sarah to actually come before Pharaoh.

[01:31:27:10 - 01:31:36:17]
Chris
 You think Esther, so she selected, and it's a year before she actually is given as a wife. So she spends a year basically in the harem before

[01:31:38:06 - 01:31:46:09]
Chris
 that marriage is consummated. And that's pretty much standard practice. So there's that.

[01:31:47:14 - 01:31:49:00]
Chris
 There's also that

[01:31:50:03 - 01:31:53:04]
Chris
 Pharaoh says, "Here's your wife, take her and go."

[01:31:54:11 - 01:31:57:01]
Chris
 In other words, like there.

[01:31:58:04 - 01:31:59:01]
Chris
 The plagues

[01:32:00:12 - 01:32:02:01]
Chris
 are, I think,

[01:32:03:04 - 01:32:08:04]
Chris
 I think we're meant to see, like God is doing that too, because of Sarah,

[01:32:09:15 - 01:32:18:05]
Chris
 partly to spare her. I think we could also think of this in terms of God's, the offspring coming and

[01:32:19:18 - 01:32:22:12]
Chris
 God wanting there to be no questions about

[01:32:23:14 - 01:32:29:12]
Chris
 that issue. Now that's years down the road, but

[01:32:31:01 - 01:32:41:06]
Chris
 it's very clear that God intends that Sarah is going to be the mother of this offspring. The

[01:32:43:20 - 01:32:58:09]
Chris
 line is going to go not only through Abraham, but through her. So maybe that's the weakest example. But then we could, I think it's also fair to ask if she actually had happened,

[01:33:02:02 - 01:33:09:01]
Chris
 but she have agreed to do the same thing again later on in the story. She actually agrees.

[01:33:10:02 - 01:33:16:02]
Chris
 I say agree, it's probably not the right word, because I wonder like how

[01:33:17:06 - 01:33:21:13]
Chris
 much agency does Sarah even have in this situation?

[01:33:22:14 - 01:33:24:22]
Chris
 The text says to her, does that mean

[01:33:25:23 - 01:33:33:14]
Chris
 told her this is what you're going to do or ask her to do this, let she go along? I don't think we can know.

[01:33:33:14 - 01:33:36:12]
Brenton
 Well, we see the same thing a third time with Rebecca.

[01:33:36:12 - 01:33:37:04]
Chris
 Yes.

[01:33:38:12 - 01:33:46:20]
Chris
 But I just don't, I mean, would she have really gone along? And we know that Sarah is more than willing to share her

[01:33:48:16 - 01:33:55:05]
Chris
 thoughts and opinions. We're going to see that in the story. She's not a weak woman by any stretch of the imagination. So

[01:33:56:12 - 01:34:01:02]
Chris
 again, we can't be definitive, but I think it's pretty strong evidence that she wasn't.

[01:34:02:05 - 01:34:02:12]
Brenton
 All right.

[01:34:04:15 - 01:34:24:12]
Brenton
 I guess moving on from that, you said the main lesson of this passage is that God's blessing doesn't depend on Abraham's conduct, but on God's character. But you did make it clear that that doesn't mean conduct doesn't matter. And I want to spend some time on the conduct side of this.

[01:34:25:22 - 01:34:45:12]
Brenton
 I guess as I was kind of thinking through this, do you think there's a danger in like a gospel-first, gospel-centered church like ours that people can come away from these conversations with a sort of like cheap grace view of sin? Is that a danger? Is that something that you consider?

[01:34:45:12 - 01:34:48:21]
Chris
 Sure. That's why I brought it up the last two weeks.

[01:34:49:21 - 01:34:58:16]
Chris
 You know, it's really, this is one of the dilemmas of past-stranded church like Harmony Bible Church.

[01:34:58:16 - 01:34:59:10]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[01:34:59:10 - 01:35:01:00]
Chris
 Okay. Because

[01:35:02:01 - 01:35:07:18]
Chris
 we have on the one hand a lot of people that come from legalistic backgrounds,

[01:35:09:12 - 01:35:16:05]
Chris
 where it's all about your conduct, and that's the focus. And so it's the legalism.

[01:35:17:06 - 01:35:24:09]
Chris
 And then we have other people who come from the big term is, you like this term, I know, antinomianism.

[01:35:25:15 - 01:35:36:03]
Chris
 Common term. But which is another word for cheap, basically. It doesn't matter how we live because God's gracious, and both are

[01:35:37:07 - 01:35:38:04]
Chris
 problematic.

[01:35:39:04 - 01:35:41:11]
Chris
 But at the end of the day,

[01:35:42:13 - 01:35:45:03]
Chris
 I really, I think

[01:35:48:13 - 01:36:26:15]
Chris
 I am more just from my experience, both personally prior to Harmony, but even more so probably in terms of my time here, and people's experience with Christianity in the church. I'm more inclined to believe that the greater danger is the legalism or the moralism, not even always legalism, so to speak, is just moralism, is that God blesses us based upon what we do, how we act.

[01:36:27:21 - 01:36:28:16]
Chris
 And

[01:36:30:03 - 01:36:39:06]
Chris
 that's why I bring up this. The gospel of God's grace is scandalous. And I truly believe, though, when we really get this,

[01:36:40:12 - 01:36:44:01]
Chris
 we're never going to say it doesn't matter

[01:36:45:09 - 01:36:46:21]
Chris
 how I live and what I do.

[01:36:48:06 - 01:37:04:12]
Chris
 My conduct doesn't matter. Because if that's the case, then you don't really understand the gospel because the gospel is that we were so evil and wicked that nothing less than the Son of God dying in our place would save us. Okay, well, I mean,

[01:37:06:13 - 01:37:22:04]
Chris
 so if you don't, like if you're going to go out and say, "Oh, well, it doesn't matter what I do," then you don't really understand who Jesus is and what he's done. So, yeah. But to go back to your question, yes,

[01:37:23:13 - 01:37:30:06]
Chris
 it's very possible that God could take what we've talked about on Sunday and think, "Well,

[01:37:32:09 - 01:37:33:12]
Chris
 adultery, no big deal.

[01:37:34:21 - 01:37:40:21]
Chris
 Being a bad husband, bad ending in your life, nah, God will forgive. I'm okay."

[01:37:41:23 - 01:37:49:03]
Chris
 And I just think Paul talks about this. Your condemnation is deserved is basically what he says.

[01:37:49:03 - 01:37:56:23]
Brenton
 Well, and I doubt it has played out as brazenly as that either. I think it could be a lot more subtle, right? Just

[01:37:58:11 - 01:38:04:08]
Brenton
 this one thing or one time or whatever. I think there's different ways that can play out.

[01:38:04:08 - 01:38:10:23]
Chris
 But I also want to emphasize this as I try to hit this.

[01:38:12:04 - 01:38:19:17]
Chris
 It's like this idea that our conduct doesn't matter is detrimental to us.

[01:38:19:17 - 01:38:20:20]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[01:38:21:20 - 01:38:25:12]
Chris
 Paul talks about this, like, "Should I sin that grace may abound?"

[01:38:26:20 - 01:38:35:23]
Chris
 No, you die to sin. That's his whole argument. But I would add, not that I can add the Paul on the Bible, but it was just like, it's not good.

[01:38:37:04 - 01:38:41:19]
Chris
 Who has been through a divorce

[01:38:43:15 - 01:38:44:16]
Chris
 would say that's a...

[01:38:45:20 - 01:38:47:08]
Chris
 They want to go through that again.

[01:38:48:20 - 01:38:57:06]
Chris
 Whether they were the innocent party or the offender or a little bit of both, it's just sin isn't good for us.

[01:38:59:09 - 01:39:06:19]
Chris
 Yes, God will forgive. Okay? I can literally, I can say as a believer that God's

[01:39:09:12 - 01:39:26:19]
Chris
 forgiveness is going to stand in my life regardless of the choices that I make. Now, actually, but I don't think that that's the right... If I have that attitude, A, I don't think that I have actually understood the gospel.

[01:39:27:20 - 01:39:30:18]
Chris
 And that's Paul's argument. If you're going to say that,

[01:39:31:20 - 01:39:32:06]
Chris
 even

[01:39:33:12 - 01:39:36:00]
Chris
 as I say it, I'm like, that's not a good way to say it.

[01:39:37:09 - 01:39:37:21]
Chris
 But

[01:39:39:15 - 01:39:53:12]
Chris
 apart from that, it's just like, if I have that attitude, it's not going to be good for me because then I'm going to be at the mercy of my sin, which is going to wreak

[01:39:55:04 - 01:39:57:16]
Chris
 havoc in my life and a lot of other people's lives.

[01:39:59:08 - 01:40:19:05]
Brenton
 So when you think of... You said that is at least a concern of yours as you pastor this church, as you think about how to guard against that. Really, the solution is to point back to the cross, right? To show that this wasn't cheap grace at all.

[01:40:19:05 - 01:40:19:09]
Chris
 Yeah.

[01:40:20:15 - 01:40:31:00]
Chris
 Sure. That's part of it. That's a big part of it. That's the first part of it. But this is also why people probably think it's sometimes Pastor Chris's

[01:40:33:09 - 01:40:38:04]
Chris
 schizophrenic a little bit in the sense that some weeks it's what,

[01:40:39:06 - 01:40:51:03]
Chris
 here, God's grace, and then the next week it's a little bit firearm prims, so maybe it's probably not fine. That's probably not the right way. But you know what I'm talking about is there's sometimes it's like, hey,

[01:40:52:12 - 01:41:01:20]
Chris
 it is grace, and it's grace and grace. And then there are other times where it's like, this is dead serious. Okay. So for example, Malachi,

[01:41:03:06 - 01:41:09:11]
Chris
 we're going to talk about greed and we're going to talk about divorce, and we're going to talk about

[01:41:10:18 - 01:41:18:03]
Chris
 these symptoms of spiritual apathy. That's a hit there. And then

[01:41:19:10 - 01:41:22:21]
Chris
 other times it's going to be leaning heavy, heavy, heavy on the grace.

[01:41:24:06 - 01:41:24:12]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[01:41:25:18 - 01:41:33:05]
Brenton
 When you mentioned that sometimes you come off as schizophrenic, right? And a lot of that's going to be dependent on the text. But

[01:41:34:10 - 01:41:34:23]
Brenton
 if you're

[01:41:37:16 - 01:41:52:10]
Brenton
 counseling someone that's kind of in the situation that's made a mess of their life, how would you decide whether someone needs the assurance or needs the seriousness of the cost of it?

[01:41:52:10 - 01:41:55:22]
Chris
 Well, they're going to need both at some point. Yeah.

[01:41:57:14 - 01:41:58:20]
Chris
 It's not an either or.

[01:41:59:22 - 01:42:17:09]
Chris
 The question is, is what do they need to hear the most and or first? And that will depend upon where they are coming in at. Are they broken? Are they feeling shame and guilt? Are they like,

[01:42:18:14 - 01:42:29:11]
Chris
 I'm hopeless? Or are they coming in and they are taking things lightly and they just don't think that this is all that big of a deal?

[01:42:31:00 - 01:42:32:23]
Chris
 And that's

[01:42:35:13 - 01:42:36:14]
Chris
 where it takes

[01:42:37:15 - 01:42:44:16]
Chris
 sometimes experience and wisdom to try to discern. Is this person coming in broken or are they coming in proud?

[01:42:47:02 - 01:42:47:03]
Chris
 And

[01:42:48:06 - 01:42:49:08]
Chris
 so sometimes

[01:42:50:16 - 01:42:56:15]
Chris
 I will pray, "Lord, afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." And so

[01:42:57:21 - 01:42:58:22]
Chris
 I might have to

[01:43:00:13 - 01:43:12:19]
Chris
 be the means by which he does that is to comfort if they're afflicted here or they're comfortable and I need to afflict them. That's even the pre...like that goes back to the preaching and it's like...

[01:43:15:00 - 01:43:15:15]
Chris
 And again, it may

[01:43:16:16 - 01:43:32:04]
Chris
 be difficult at times because you got people on all sides of those who are listening to this message, which is why I think the gospel is so important because if we are preaching the gospel, the gospel is not simply about God's grace. It's about God's grace to the sinner.

[01:43:35:00 - 01:43:39:04]
Chris
 It's not God's grace to the person who hasn't done anything wrong.

[01:43:42:00 - 01:43:45:21]
Brenton
 Okay, we'll wrap there. I appreciate it. We'll be back next week.

[01:43:45:21 - 01:43:48:06]
Chris
 Yeah, that was a tough one. Yeah, there's a lot

[01:43:49:08 - 01:43:49:14]
Chris
 there.

[01:43:49:14 - 01:43:53:19]
Brenton
 Maybe next week we'll calm down. Clay next week. Yes, and Mr.

[01:43:53:19 - 01:43:54:03]
Chris
 Mitchell.

[01:43:54:03 - 01:44:00:15]
Brenton
 Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, if you have any questions, ask it further, podcast.com. We'll talk to you next week.