0:00:00 - 0:00:25 All right. So make a video here on two of my favorite topics. One is Jesus and the second is questions and the reason I like questions is because of the first reason um when it comes to revelation, question, the right question is like a key that unlocks a lock, you, you have to formulate the correct 0:00:25 - 0:00:46 question and ask it with the right motive and the right background. And that's how you get the revelation. So if you, if you ever hit something that you want to know and you don't want to know. The first question is why hasn't God told you or someone else? Why haven't you picked it up from the scriptures 0:00:45 - 0:01:12 ? And the answer um will always have to do with how you formulated the question, why you are asking it and how you're seeking for it. Um Not the topic of the video, but a very important thing to think about is what you're willing to do with the answer. So don't bother asking questions if you're not intent 0:01:11 - 0:01:39 on obeying what you're told when you get the answer. Um So uh let's get to it. Let's hit some scriptures here uh in this video, I'm going to reveal to you an aspect of jesus' character that you've probably never considered and don't know about. So, um I don't frequently give disclaimers like that or 0:01:38 - 0:02:02 calls to attention. I actually um make a concerted effort to hide the very valuable things that I say amongst things that are less valuable because that's one key to having permission to sharing things so openly that are of such great value. God does this all the time, you tuck the things of great value 0:02:02 - 0:02:23 in amongst other things or you couch it in such a way as to make it very difficult to sense the true value of what you're saying. And uh that's one way that you can get away with revealing things that have never been revealed since the foundation of the world without having people who necessarily are 0:02:23 - 0:02:47 anything close to worthy of that. So um there you go, I just did it. Um So this one I'm going to disclaim or call attention to because it's a very vital aspect of the character of Christ and I will be talking about this sort of thing in the books. Um Most of the time when I refer to topics that will 0:02:47 - 0:03:08 be in books that are not published yet or topics that are in books that have been published, the video versions are the low fidelity versions, the low resolution versions of the more full description in the books. In this case, in this particular idea, I'm going to lay it out more clearly in this video 0:03:07 - 0:03:32 than I'm going to do in books. Um It's very difficult to find justification to make a video that is interchangeable with what is in the books or what will be. OK. So let's get started. Um I'm gonna present this to you from three different angles. The first two angles are exchanges, Jesus has with the 0:03:32 - 0:04:02 crowd. Um So let's start with this one, which I think is the more famous of the three. So this is from Mark 12. Um So scribe comes to Jesus and he actually comes with the, with the intent to trip him up a little bit. Um I'm trying to find the beginning of this because I just highlighted the one verse 0:04:02 - 0:04:32 to share. Here we go. So a scribe comes along and um he says, which is the first commandment and um there are different levels of reasons people asked Jesus questions. One common. I think the most common uh that, that's my opinion. Uh The most common reason people ask him questions was to trip him up 0:04:32 - 0:04:52 to try to find a reason to disbelieve him. And um that's explicitly mentioned in, in many passages, sometimes it's ambiguous. This one's a little bit ambiguous. And then the third reason is because they actually wanna know, they believe that he knows something of value. And so they're asking a question 0:04:51 - 0:05:17 because they want to know something of value um but this scribe, he comes to Jesus and it says, um perceiving that he had answered them well, so the scribe um interpreted jesus' previous answer to previous question as denoting that he knew something about something. So he wasn't necessarily trying to 0:05:17 - 0:05:37 trip him up. But um he was exploring, OK, what else does this guy know? Which is fair enough. There's nothing bad about that. He said, which is the first commandment of all. And so th this guy was described, he knew the answer to this question, right? He already knew the answer to this question. But 0:05:37 - 0:05:58 he asked Jesus because he wanted to see what Jesus thought about him. And so this could go either way. It's a wedge situation where depending on what Jesus says, this guy in his mind is going to have more or less reason to believe him. And uh so let's read it and it's, we know this one, right? Jesus 0:05:58 - 0:06:16 answered him. The first of all, the commandments is here o Israel, the Lord, our God is one Lord and thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment and the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love 0:06:16 - 0:06:35 thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. So he could have answered with a whole bunch of other things. He could have said a lot of things here. And the scribe knew this and that's why he asked the question because he wanted to say, see which of the options Jesus went 0:06:34 - 0:06:54 with because if you've ever read The Old Testament, there's a whole lot of commandments, right? Um But Jesus imposes a priority here and he says, these are the two that are most important. Now, the scribe had only asked him for one and that's very interesting, but we won't go into that right now. So 0:06:54 - 0:07:16 verse 32 again, this is Mark 12 and the scribe said unto him, well, master thou hast said the truth for there is one God and there is none other, but he now they're vibing a little bit. So this guy is less confrontational now because he's sensing that Jesus has wisdom and that Jesus is more of a man 0:07:16 - 0:07:40 of God than he thought. And he's sensing the overlap between their two perspectives and he's also sensing that Jesus has more than he does. Uh But he's judging the value of what Jesus has that he does not have based on what he has that Jesus has as well. Um Anyway, so the shared value is implying not 0:07:40 - 0:08:03 shared value. Um So the scribe continues and to love him with all the heart and with the understanding and with all the soul and with all the strength and to love his neighbor as himself is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And so basically what the scribe is saying is, wow, you get 0:08:03 - 0:08:26 that there's more than the letter of the law that there are higher principles that actually of, of where those came from. And that if you can transcend to understanding those, it makes everything more valuable, more, it makes everything better. And that's really the reason for all of this. And so Jesus 0:08:26 - 0:08:59 answers back verse 34 and when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, in other words, that the scribe was correct and sincere. He said unto him, thou art not far from the Kingdom of God. OK? And that I'm pausing there. It's not the end of the verse. Um That's a very important phrase. And that man knew 0:08:58 - 0:09:24 what Jesus was implying by saying that and so did the crowd or if, let me rephrase that if they didn't know exactly what he meant, they had enough of a sense that what Jesus had just done was it was like a tennis match and the guy not competitively, right? Competitive. Uh tennis matches are competitive 0:09:24 - 0:09:47 , obviously, but that's not the application of this analogy. They were volleying back and forth and that scribe had a really fast serve, tricky serve and he thought for sure the ball was gonna bounce out and Jesus had no chance of hitting it. Jesus responded and scribe was surprised but scribes really 0:09:47 - 0:10:17 good. He got to the ball and returned it again and then Jesus smashed the ball right in his face. So what do I mean by that? Because it's not competitive. Right? Jesus answered him in such a way that he made it abundantly obvious that his, his awareness of God circumscribed or eclipsed scribes. That's 0:10:17 - 0:10:37 what he did. He said I'm matching everything you're showing, you know, about God. I matched it and now I just blasted you with light and truth that far exceeds anything that's ever crossed your path. That's what he was doing when he said, you're not far from the kingdom of God. Now, if you wanna know 0:10:37 - 0:11:08 why that is, it has to do with and this is important for this video. It has to do with who the heck you would have to be to say that to somebody. So ascribe by vocation, they were the ones that copied the scriptures. They knew them so well that many times they could write them from memory so uh authoritatively 0:11:07 - 0:11:25 , right? So imagine it like the job description would be you come in and someone's got a copy of the scriptures and they turn it to a random place and they say recite Isaiah 43 and you just say it from memory, right? And you do that a bunch of times and they say, OK, you're hired and if you fail, you 0:11:25 - 0:11:47 can't have the job. I'm not saying every scribe had all the scriptures memorized. I'm saying these were the people renowned for being experts in what the scriptures have to say about whatever they were living, indexes, indices of uh of the scriptures, right? So, um like a book index is what I mean by 0:11:47 - 0:12:10 that, you turn to the back of a book and it's got all these topics in which page they're referenced on. So, um in fact, a lot of modern Bibles have that and these were the living version, right? And so what Jesus did was, he said, you're a scribe. That's nice. I know where this stuff came from and I 0:12:10 - 0:12:43 can reproduce it from my heart and my character, you can only quote it from a page that's very important. Hm. I'd like to say a lot more there, but it's not a good time. Ok. Now finishing the verse and no man, after that, durst, ask him any question. If there's a theme to this video, that's the theme 0:12:42 - 0:13:07 . And no man, after that, durst ask him any question, no person dared to ask him any questions after that. Why? Because he smashed the tennis ball right in their face. And the only time you're gonna ask a follow up question in that situation is when you're willing to believe that this person who's speaking 0:13:06 - 0:00:00 to you is credibly in possession of massively more greater light and truth than you. So that's why they didn't ask him any question. Let me go deeper into that. If you look in John three, let's just read it. We'll hop over there. We could go to a lot of different places to illustrate this principle. 0:00:00 - 0:14:02 But let's do this. Um 316, everybody quotes it right. Let's just start at 17. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he, that believeth not, is condemned already because he hath not believed 0:14:01 - 0:14:27 in the name of the only begotten son. Now, we could go through this in a much plainer way. But how it's written in the King James is sufficient for our current purposes. So, um this is 19, this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world. And men loved darkness rather than light because their 0:14:27 - 0:14:49 deeds were evil. Um I'll be speaking about trials at some point, but um I'll just kind of bookmark that for now and then when you hear me talking about it or you read about it, hopefully you'll remember this because it's totally related. But the point is that everything that rolls out from God to you 0:14:49 - 0:15:08 is a wedge. Every single thing, you either move closer to him or further away all the time, it never stops. So, and if you don't know which way you're going, you're going in reverse. That's the rule of thumb. There's no neutral. If you're not positive that you're going forward, you're going negative 0:15:08 - 0:15:35 , you're going backwards. Uh You're moving away from him. So how does this work well, you get exposed to greater increment of light and then you decide what you're gonna do with it. And if you uh perceive receive value and become, then you draw closer to God. If you don't do any of those things, um you 0:15:34 - 0:15:57 move further away from God and if you break contact along the way and you don't get through that whole chain, you move further away from God. So you, you can perceive something. That's the 1st, 1st step and then not receive it. Move away, you can perceive and receive but not value. You move away, you 0:15:57 - 0:16:24 can perceive, receive value and not become you. Move away makes sense. So it turns out that it takes a lot to get through all that and it's a cycle and it just keeps going. It's a continuous thing. So um going back to these questions, once someone throws down an increment of light, you get to decide 0:16:24 - 0:16:50 how to respond. And in many cases, it was the case for that entire crowd. Now, one person dared to ask him another question. Now, we have this funny idea in our heads that if Jesus were to pop up in this room right now, face to face, we would be super comfortable. We'd be full of warm and fuzzy feelings 0:16:49 - 0:17:12 and you know that you've seen the pictures, we would just go hug him and it'd be hunky dory, right? Puppy dogs and rainbows. And that's all a load of rubbish. That is not at all. What would happen. You can read, I've got a chapter and Seek ye this Jesus called Terrible or glorious. And that's probably 0:17:11 - 0:17:39 the most concise um representation of what would really happen and what would make the difference in what would happen. Um But anyway, one thing that would be very different from that is you would not dare ask him anything unless you were a very different person. And you've gone through some very different 0:17:39 - 0:18:05 experiences with him continuously, right? Because everything is incremental and you've been through the cycle of perceiving, receiving valuing and becoming many, many, many, many, many, many times. So continuing. Uh Here are the people that do come to the light. He that doeth truth cometh to the light 0:18:04 - 0:18:27 that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God. Now, we will tell you something that I haven't told you before and that is the meaning of He that doeth truth. What does that mean? It means you live in complete accordance to what you understand is best. Those are the only people who 0:18:26 - 0:18:52 in the face of greater light do not recoil and turn away reliably, which makes sense if you've turned away or you're still repulsed by or you're still fighting against lesser light and truth. You're absolutely not going to accept greater light and truth, right? Everything is progressive, incremental 0:18:51 - 0:19:12 , successive, continuous. So um think of a child who's not eating their salad and, um, their salad that you gave them, it wasn't a lot because you knew they're not big on the salad. So you just gave them a little, it's sitting there on their plate and then you take the salad bowl and you dump the whole 0:19:12 - 0:19:26 thing on their plate. So, if they've been sitting there for two hours and you've been fighting them and they're not eating any of their salad, what do you think is gonna happen when you dump the whole bowl of salad on their plate? They're probably gonna cry, right. But they sure as heck are not gonna 0:19:26 - 0:19:52 then eat an entire bowl of salad. It doesn't work that way. So, um, God sees how much salad we have on our plates, but we tend to perceive far less salad being on our plates than actually is maybe our whole plate is full of salad. But all we see is one leaf or one little slice of carrot. And that's because 0:19:51 - 0:20:24 our ability to see our awareness is tied to our obedience and our desire and some other things too. And so what we perceive as what's on the plate is way less than what actually is on the plate. That's true across b breath depth and value. So if someone with great light came to you and did some kind 0:20:23 - 0:20:52 of like Vulcan mind meld and could see your life and look at all the same things that you look at be aware of the same things you're aware of. They would see 10, 100 or 1000 times the opportunities in all of the same stuff you're familiar with that you do the value they see in the things in your life 0:20:52 - 0:21:17 would be vastly different than the value. You see some things that you think are massively important. They would utterly disregard and many things that you utterly disregard they would see is massively important. A lot of things that you see as exceedingly costly, we'll say, or unpleasant even, they 0:21:16 - 0:21:40 would actually see as tremendously valuable and maybe the very definition of heaven. And that's how messed up we are as fallen human beings. We're very far from God, as he said in Isaiah, his thoughts are much higher than our thoughts. And he's as different and far away from us in differences as the 0:21:40 - 0:22:06 heavens are from the earth. And that's not as artistic a phrase as it seems because uh the quality of being heavenly in terms of who you've become and what you value and by how much it really is that different than being earthly, they are completely different things. It's like oil and water. So anyway 0:22:05 - 0:22:27 , let's keep rolling with this idea of why people didn't dare to ask Jesus questions. So you would only do that if you had been living up to the light you already had in every way across the board in your life. So if you're not the kind of person that can say I've repented of all my sins. I've forsaken 0:22:26 - 0:22:48 them. I do not sin. All I ever do is all I imagine God would do in my place in anything. I don't think he would do. I don't do if I think he would wake up at 4 a.m. because of this, that and the other thing I wake up at 4 a.m. If I think he would sleep in for this reason, I would sleep in. If I think 0:22:48 - 0:23:06 he would say this really uncomfortable thing to someone, I barely know. I'm going to say that if I think he would spend more time with his kids, I'm going to spend more time with my kids and so on and so forth. And if you're not fully reconciled to that, you can bet your butt that if a being a further 0:23:06 - 0:23:35 light and truth came your way at best, you would suddenly disregard them at best. It's much more likely that you would actually actively attack them in various ways that I could explain. But let's move on. Ok. Next one similar but different. I'm sorry, I didn't really sleep at all last night. So I'm 0:23:34 - 0:24:00 quite congested. Luke 20. Um Therefore we're, we're starting in verse 33 and this is the whole, you know, they, these guys are trying to trap him and they come to him. These are sadducees and this is the whole, if a guy dies and he has a wife and he doesn't have kids and he marries all these other, she 0:24:00 - 0:24:19 marries all these other people and then all these other guys die too. There's no, you know whose wife is she? And this is one of these funny puzzles that people come up with. Have you ever heard of the Gordian Knot? So, this is, uh, I don't know if it actually happened or not, but historically, Alexander 0:24:19 - 0:24:40 , the Great uh came to this knot, I guess it was on display. I don't know. And there was this big puzzle to see who could untie this knot that couldn't be untied and he just took out his sword and chopped it in half and said, done and walked away. Um Pretty much that's the Rob Smith translation of that 0:24:40 - 0:25:00 story. So, uh Jesus cuts the Gordian knot here and he says, the Children of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they, which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. And a lot could be said about that. Then 0:25:00 - 0:25:25 I'm not saying right now. Um But he continues and he says now that the debtor raised, so he's now he's gonna direct attack the false tradition of the sadducees who had some issues with the idea of resurrection. He says now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush when he called the, the 0:25:25 - 0:25:56 Lord, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob for he is not a God of the dead, but of the living for all live unto him. So, um he, he totally bypassed their trap and then he also direct attack their false tradition. And he did so in a way that was irrefutable and uh so clear that there 0:25:56 - 0:26:27 was nothing about it that they could uh argue with. So verse 39 then certain of the scribes answering said, master thou hast well said and after that, they durst not ask him any question at all. Do you see the pattern? Why not? Because they knew that he could show them what parts of their beliefs, even 0:26:26 - 0:26:51 their most cherished beliefs, even the very things that they would um use to characterize their belief, their core belief, their self identity, even as sadducees, this was how this was what made you a sad duy and that he would crush it and he would crush it in a way that it was abundantly obvious that 0:26:51 - 0:27:13 he was right. Do you see the connection to John three now? And we could go a lot of other places to, to show the same thing. So we think in our heads, if we got exposed to further light and truth be the greatest thing in the world, we'd be so happy about it. It feels so good. That's not true. If you're 0:27:13 - 0:27:39 a fallen person, that's the last thing you actually want in life. And if you tell yourself that you'd be excited or happy or feel good or whatever, you're lying. That's not true. If you claim that you better also say because I have walked in the light, I'm free from sin. As far as I know. If you can't 0:27:38 - 0:28:03 say the one, you can't say the other, they go together, you can't separate the two. And if you're not in that place, if you're not in that place, uh As far as sinless goes, you're not in that place as far as desiring for light and truth, either they go together and you can accurately predict how you 0:28:03 - 0:28:25 would respond to additional light. It wouldn't be good at best. You would not a ask any other question. Ok. Now, I've mentioned this verse in Isaiah before that I won't look up right now, but kings and Queens shut their mouths when they're told the truth, things that they couldn't imagine before that 0:28:25 - 0:28:47 they didn't know before. Um This is exactly what happens in the end times. And a lot of supposedly religious people are gonna be surprised because they're not gonna like what happens. It's gonna be a surprise to them and they will not respond well to it. And, and it is the revelation, the cascading revelation 0:28:46 - 0:29:13 of all things in cascading, plainness, cascading increasing plainness. Ok? So they did not dare to ask him any question at all. Now, if you're clever and you're keeping score at home. You've heard me say these two things and maybe you don't disagree with anything that I've said. But if we're face to 0:29:13 - 0:29:39 face, I could more uh, persuasively convince you. But, um, of the following, you're probably cleverly winding around this in your head saying, yeah, but I'm not a scribe. I'm not a sad. You see, I believe Jesus, I actually like him. And so I wouldn't do that and you can say this, Rob. But, uh I don't 0:29:39 - 0:30:07 believe you that I don't believe that I would be in that boat. Ok. Well, let's continue then. So by the way, I will give you a little tidbit here. Uh, one very useful tool for keeping yourself honest is making a record of what you think and why. And then when, uh, someone smashes the tennis ball in your 0:30:07 - 0:30:30 face, um, one thing that people do to squeeze out of that is they pretend that they knew those things before. So people come to Jesus, they ask him a question and they pretend that they knew what he then tells them that actually has never been revealed since the foundation of the world or maybe it has 0:30:29 - 0:30:48 , but these people had no clue. And so by convincing themselves that they already knew that when they, when the person says the new thing or after the person says the new thing, they can then dismiss anything else that person says, when in reality, the greatest value of what they've already delivered 0:30:47 - 0:31:12 is informing a preconceived belief in what they haven't said yet because truth is progressive. That's the most valuable thing about any light and truth that anyone gives you is the indication how it can prime you to be more willing to receive. The greater thing they haven't told you yet. So that's a 0:31:12 - 0:31:35 little tidbit if you, if you do whatever you can to keep yourself honest about what you do and don't know now and then when someone just lays it out to you, you say, wow, this is new stuff. It's very valuable. I never would have got here myself in a million years. What else do you have? Ok. So you say 0:31:35 - 0:31:56 , but I'm not a sad. You see, and I'm not a scribe. Ok. Well, the, the fact is you'd probably be better off if you were now. I'm broad brushing here. So if that doesn't fit you fine. But uh at least those guys were pretty serious about what they believed. At least they actually read the scriptures. So 0:31:55 - 0:32:18 they didn't really believe what they read. Uh The scribes were quite confused. The sades were just wrong and the Pharisees had their hearts in the wrong place. But um it's a start, it's better than professing these things, but then doing absolutely nothing to actually learn about and live them. So, Mark 0:32:17 - 0:32:39 Nine, of course, if you're watching this, it's less likely that you're in that though. So, here's, here's the rub. So you say you're not a sadist and you're not a scribe. OK? Are you an apostle? So you will probably consider yourself as less than an apostle. But let's just promote you. OK? So I hereby 0:32:38 - 0:33:08 promote you if I had a sword, you know, I'd knight you uh an apostle, whatever the heck that means, right? But let's check this out. So um Mark nine for he taught his disciples, Jesus and said unto them, the son of man is delivered into the hands of men and they shall kill him. And after that, he is 0:33:08 - 0:33:39 killed, he shall rise the third day. That's pretty plain, verse 32. But they understood not the saying and were afraid to ask him. Hm, they durst not ask him any questions is what it said about the sadducees and the scribes in those particular cases where they got the ball swatted in their face here 0:33:38 - 0:34:08 , Jesus tells the apostles. Basically the last thing they want to hear, which is, hey, uh I'm not gonna be an earthly king and actually they're gonna kill me and then I'm gonna be resurrected. What? Right now these guys had given everything they had abandoned their former lives and they're following 0:34:07 - 0:34:31 him every day, 24 7, whatever, whatever it looked like. He said this, it was so far from what they expected to happen that they couldn't even connect it to their current beliefs. He was right there and they knew him better than anybody. If anyone was well positioned to ask him a question, it would have 0:34:31 - 0:34:52 been those guys at that moment. What does it say they were afraid to ask him? Is this the only time this happened? Remember when they were arguing about who's greatest in the kingdom, they weren't talking to Jesus. You'd think that that'd be something that you just bring up to the boss, right? But they 0:34:52 - 0:35:13 were fighting amongst themselves and I think it says murmuring. So there and there were times where they thought things in their minds, but they wouldn't dare say them to Jesus. Why is that? See, it turns out that humans are really good at forming correct expectations of other humans behavior. Now, we 0:35:13 - 0:35:35 get it wrong every once in a while and that's painful, but it's kind of shocking how much you can correctly extract from how brief an interchange with another person. We're really good at it as humans. Like if you had to build a program to do this, it'd be much more difficult, right? So, um if they knew 0:35:35 - 0:36:00 Jesus so well, why would they be afraid to ask him a question? Well, the answer comes down to, they had a clue as to what he might say and they didn't want to hear it. So this kind of inverts the whole idea we have about his disciples. But um I don't say this to incriminate them. I say it to incriminate 0:36:00 - 0:36:22 you So, if that was true for the disciples who have sacrificed much more in the name of following Jesus than you have. What's true for you? And where are you on this scale? If you think you're so far from what the scribes and the sadducees did, well, even if you're right, close up to the disciples, which 0:36:22 - 0:36:53 are not, then aren't you capable of doing as badly as they did with this? So again, I just want to crush this idea that we have of the approachability of Jesus. It's not that he's not approachable. It's that humans are abundantly unwilling to approach him in the only way you can, which is on your knees 0:36:52 - 0:37:37 . We don't stand in the presence of God until and unless he invites us to do so. And even then if you want to talk about a test of faith, maybe the greatest test of faith is believing Jesus when he says you're forgiven and people treat that as a light thing because they don't know him. And maybe that's 0:37:37 - 0:38:01 a dead giveaway when people treat that flippantly, you know, that they have no idea what they're talking about and they absolutely don't have what they claim to have. One of the hardest things to believe is uh when Jesus says you're forgiven because if you're in his presence, everything about you that 0:38:01 - 0:38:30 you thought was good becomes worse than insignificant compared to him. And that's even with all the controls in place that absolutely limit how much of his glory you see, because you can't, you can't comprehend that very far beyond how much you've become like him. There's a very narrow window there before 0:38:29 - 0:38:50 you're just saturated. Like staring at the sun. You can't comprehend how much brighter the sun is than a candle. You can just say it's a lot brighter because it just saturates your visual sensors and that's how it is with God's glory And that's why he appears in a flame of fire. And this is uh he can 0:38:50 - 0:39:18 dial that down, he can dial that down. But the information that comes with it also has to be dialed down. It's like a filter. So to be able to stand in the presence of God and see him plainly to see as you're seen and know as you are known. That's, that takes a process anyway, back to this idea of asking 0:39:17 - 0:39:50 questions. So I think you get what my point is with all of that. And now I'm gonna tie this into something that might be more relevant to your day to day. So from time to time now let's start with the scripture. So uh at some point, God, uh God promised this guy, Oliver Cowdrey, details are unimportant 0:39:49 - 0:40:15 that uh he could uh have a better understanding of what's in the scriptures and just trying to keep this brief and high level. And then he tried, he tried to ask about uh what was before him and it didn't work out so well. And so then he asked about that, he said, God, you promised me that I'd be able 0:40:15 - 0:40:43 to do this. And I tried, it didn't work. So this is what the Lord said to him in reply. He said, you've supposed that I would give it unto you when you took no thought, save it was to ask me. So we get back to this idea that it turns out that how you ask questions and why you ask questions and what you 0:40:43 - 0:41:17 do outside of the asking of the questions all matters a lot. It all matters a lot and a shocking amount of all that other stuff filters through how you ask the question and what you do as a result. So there's much more in play than we think or than we suppose in the way that we approach this. All right 0:41:17 - 0:41:36 now, I'm gonna throw somebody under the bus. It is always fun. Um It's not always fun. So there have been many times in my life where I'd have, I've had to quote people and it's not so much to point fingers at folks. It's just if you say things in a generic way, no one will believe you. They'll just 0:41:36 - 0:42:02 sort of dodge what you're saying by saying, but no one says that right? So in the, in recent history, just in the last week or so, I've been hit by two of these kinds of questions and uh at the end of this long video, now I'm finally gonna get to this part of my point. Um So someone asked on the youtube 0:42:01 - 0:42:26 channel, I got it pulled up here so I can get it right. How does the end time servant in David Covenant fall into all this thoughts on the restoration of the New Jerusalem now to the that person or people can't tell if there's a couple are single person. Um You know, no hard feelings about what I'm going 0:42:25 - 0:42:53 to say. It promises nothing. I have no idea who you are as the first time we've interacted. Um But this is a generic thing. It happens a lot and so I need to address it to help you all when that was in response to this, when the fig leaves Sprout video where I shared publicly some prophecies. Um The 0:42:53 - 0:43:15 thing is, is that nothing about that video, talked about the end time servant, the David covenant or the restoration of the New Jerusalem. So I, I am actually gonna tie in a couple of ideas here. Ok. So my kids have a giant, ridiculously large puzzle on our ping pong table right now and it's just in 0:43:15 - 0:43:39 various piles. They have a whole strategy for doing these things. Unfortunately, they don't have a strategy for cleaning it up. But regardless, um, suppose we had a picture of a puzzle, but instead of, you know, the normal clear picture, it was a really blurry picture. And so that would make it a lot 0:43:39 - 0:44:01 harder to do this puzzle, right. So, I suppose it's a really blurry picture and maybe there's a couple little pieces of that picture that are really clear or we at least suppose they are like, uh, this puzzle is a picture of a cathedral with a lamppost or something and a, a sunset, I think. So, let's 0:44:01 - 0:44:26 suppose that the light post was really clear, but the rest is blurry. OK. And, and I think there's a flock of birds flying across the sky. So let's say one of those birds is really clear and the lamp posts and everything else is blurry. OK. Now, um that puzzle will be a lot harder to put together. But 0:44:26 - 0:00:00 suppose you went up to a person and you said, hey, can you tell me about how this lamp post fits into this picture and tell me about the burden. There's nothing wrong with asking that question. But it is abundantly absurd to ask that to someone who you don't think has put together the puzzle, right? 0:00:00 - 0:45:27 Because why would it be any less blurry for them unless they put the puzzle together? They don't know what the picture is any better than you do. But what does it mean if they have if they have that's a really big deal. So in terms of the end times puzzle, no one has put that together yet publicly. So 0:45:26 - 0:45:51 if you want to ask someone questions about the end times, you're either supposing they've put together the whole puzzle or you're supposing that somehow they put together some other piece of it that you don't have yet. I will tell you the reason no one has solved the end times puzzle publicly is because 0:45:50 - 0:46:17 they're looking at each individual piece and thinking they can figure it out just by looking at little clusters of contiguous pieces and you can't. But, and, and that's intentional. It was designed that way for a reason and all of these things will become clear in time. But that's not my point. My point 0:46:17 - 0:46:39 is whether you think this person has solved the whole puzzle or whether they have some piece that you don't, doesn't matter. But those are the only two logical ways, reasons you'd ever ask anybody about the end times because otherwise all you're asking them for is to quote you scriptures that maybe you 0:46:39 - 0:46:59 don't know the reference to and that just means that you've been lazier than them and you haven't searched it out yourself, right? Which admittedly takes a lot of time, a lot of time. But in that case, you're looking for scribe, right? We get back to that. You're looking for scribe, you're not looking 0:46:59 - 0:47:18 for someone who solved the puzzle. You're just looking for someone who can give you pieces when you ask for the next piece, give me the next piece. They have no special information. About it. So let's suppose that they have solved some piece of the puzzle which is actually impossible. Uh That's my claim 0:47:18 - 0:47:42 . I guess I, I'm not gonna prove it to you. Not right now. But suppose so for the sake of argument, they've solved some piece of the puzzle and you believe that which you'd have to believe, to ask anybody about this, what level of earnestness is appropriate to asking someone who knows that? In other 0:47:42 - 0:48:08 words, when the rich young ruler went to Jesus and said, what need, what do I need to do to obtain eternal life? That's not a question. You ask your school bus driver, right? You would only ask that question to a person who you believed knew the answer and what would it mean that they knew the answer 0:48:07 - 0:48:36 ? So that account of that rich young ruler, it says he straight up ran to Jesus to ask him, he didn't just like bump into Jesus at the mall. Are there even malls anymore? Um He, he knew who he was, you know, the, the public version of who he was and he came running and he said, master, good master. He 0:48:36 - 0:48:54 said, good master. What must I do to obtain eternal life? And Jesus said, first off, no one's good. But the father and people don't understand what he meant by that. They think this is some sign of humility from G I don't know what they've, there's explanations and they're wonky but I'll tell you what 0:48:54 - 0:49:16 was actually going on. It's very important. I'll mention it again some other time. But Jesus already knew this guy's heart and what he was helping him. See, it's not that he was saying that he wasn't good. Jesus wasn't good or that he was saying he was drawing attention to the distinctions between him 0:49:16 - 0:49:44 and the father because that was actually the opposite of what his ministry did. He was demonstrating the father in everything he said and did what he was doing was saying, do you think that I'm good? In other words, do you accept me as a representative of the father? That's a big deal, right? And he 0:49:44 - 0:50:09 was saying, you're asking me a really serious question that implies that I'm much closer to the father than you. But do you really believe that? And if you don't, you shouldn't ask me this. Do you understand? So don't ask people questions that require having solved the puzzle if you're not prepared to 0:50:09 - 0:50:35 treat them as you would, if they've solved the puzzle. So this guy demonstrated tremendous uh veneration of Jesus. He came and he ran. I think he even like kneeled down before him when he asked the question. I don't remember, but he did come running that part I remember. So that's one piece of what I'm 0:50:35 - 0:50:58 trying to say. Hopefully, that's obvious enough. Second part of what I'm trying to say nothing in that video was about the end time servant, the David covenant or the restoration of the New Jerusalem. So this gets into what I would call and I'm sorry for that person or people that I'm picking on here 0:50:58 - 0:51:23 , I'm telling you this is a generic thing that happens all the time. So I'm trying to address it here and hopefully I can just put links to this video instead of ever saying it again. Um Two words to consider are flippant and frivolous. So these words convey a sense of not understanding the seriousness 0:51:22 - 0:51:42 of what you're engaged in or um taking something lightly or treating something like it's far less than what it is. Do you know what the definition of blasphemy actually? Is? This is an interesting one. There's all kinds of words that we think we know, but it helps to actually look up the definition and 0:51:41 - 0:52:07 sometimes it helps to come up with a better definition because our definitions these days are pretty weak sauce intentionally. So, but anyway, so blasphemy is basically uh degradation of the holiness of God. So of course, you can't degrade God's holiness, but you can degrade how it's perceived. And so 0:52:06 - 0:52:38 um people got mad at Jesus when he said uh when he expressed um a similarity to the father because they assumed that in order for a human being, a living human being to be something like the father that would require making the father something much less than he actually is, which is super interesting 0:52:37 - 0:53:07 because a massive part of God's glory is the fact that he's willing to condescend to come here, which is, uh I don't even know what words you could use to describe that except love. But, um anyway, we should not take things lightly that are serious or very valuable. Um It's good to be lighthearted. You 0:53:07 - 0:53:34 know, it's actually, I, I've made sideways allusions to this idea of hidden holiness. That's one of them is the ability to crack a joke about something, not something that's sacred, but to be lighthearted about things and not, uh It's a strange, it's a strange thing to navigate the lines of what can 0:53:34 - 0:54:02 be when it's appropriate to not take yourself so seriously. You know, and there are things that have been said about God that I'm sure he finds hilarious actually. And there are things that hurt him deeply that people don't think are a big deal. So, you know, with all these things, with value, um with 0:54:02 - 0:54:22 reverence, with holiness as you approach God, you're in for some surprises, folks. It's not the way you assume it is. That's the whole point. If we could figure it out from scratch, e everything would be different here. Yeah, we had none of this would be necessary, right? But it is cause we're that far 0:54:22 - 0:54:42 off anyway. I've burned like an hour and a half making videos and I'm supposed to be working out. So, um let me get on with my day here. But hopefully, I've addressed this, this a, a couple of things here. But the conclusion part of this video has been about asking questions, please don't ask me questions 0:54:41 - 0:55:05 that require you seeing me as much differently than you do and please don't treat lightly topics that are really important and serious. Uh, a flippant question from a random person on youtube. That's not the right way to approach these sorts of things. Now, it's a different story. If you come at me and 0:55:05 - 0:55:24 you say, you know, I've read all your books, I've, I think I've read all your blogs. I've watched all your videos. You've got my attention if you say that because at a minimum, you've invested a massive amount of time and I appreciate that. But um that doesn't matter. The point is you're really serious 0:55:24 - 0:55:45 . You're sincere if you want to know things that no one else knows. The question is, what have you done that no one else has done because otherwise you don't deserve to know everything in God's Kingdom is a meritocracy. And if you don't know, it's because you, you haven't become these things are all 0:55:45 - 0:56:07 connected and there's no way around that. A lot of things can be navigated through what other people have done, but you can't just ruck up and say like, all right, just give it to me, you know, these things cost everything, but I expect you to just lob them at me, like, they're free candy at a parade 0:56:06 - 0:56:28 . It doesn't work like that. So, anyway, and again, like, I, I don't, nothing about this is personal. I don't think anyone who asks these sorts of questions is bad because they do. They've just been poorly trained by people who have no idea what they're talking about. But when you encounter someone who 0:56:28 - 0:56:49 does, you need to take a different tack and these things are serious, you know, they require sincerity and real intent. It's a very important topic anyway, cutting this out before an hour. So take care. We'll see you.