0:00:00 - 0:00:25 I don't feel like since like video, I'm really tired and, uh, I have no idea how I could fit this in the books, but sitting and writing and thinking about the horse pasture next door, there used to be two horses over there and, uh, they were kind of, uh, lanky and hungry looking. So a lot of times when 0:00:24 - 0:00:44 I was out there in the garden, I pick some kale or carrots or whatever, it just kind of get some food one time. Um, you know, they really like being scratched and stuff. So one time I went over there through barbed wire and fed the one horse and I'm scratching him whatever. It's a little bit of joy in 0:00:44 - 0:01:07 his life and the dang horse stepped right on my foot and I, uh, you know, I'm not a horse guy, but I've ridden a horse at least once. Um, and that's kind of it. And so most of my experience with the horse is just feeding the horse next door horses and I had no idea how heavy these freaking animals are 0:01:07 - 0:01:31 . And it's like I went from a serene peaceful one with nature to just level 10 on the intensity. And I'm like shouting at this horse telling him to get off me and pushing him. And very quickly I had escalated to like just wailing on this horse to get him off my foot. And, uh which of course, didn't do 0:01:31 - 0:02:01 anything because it's a giant horse and giant horses just kind of do whatever they want to do. So, um I was thinking about that and it reminded me of uh a few things in life in the gospel. So uh there's this theme of intensity, how, how things that seem extreme, may or may not be extreme. The example 0:02:01 - 0:02:27 that I thought about and talked about before is is when the Lord made the whip and he cleared the temple, the money changers that happened twice and the onlookers thought it was the crowds, you know, they, no doubt they thought that was really interesting. I said before, how um if Jesus came and did 0:02:27 - 0:02:55 things in the modern setting that followed the same principles as is what he lived during his life, people would absolutely write him off this kind of we're extremist. However, in our time, in these ways are not extreme, they're the epitome of balanced, rational. Um It's just, it's just what is necessary 0:02:55 - 0:03:35 . So what is, what is fitting, what is uh no chatter mean? Um What's fitting, what's uh what's measured, what's justified. So when, when someone is engaged in things, it seem to be extreme, it's possible and likely that they are actually overreacting, but sometimes it's exactly what they ought to be 0:03:35 - 0:04:01 doing. The difference isn't so much the appropriateness of what they're doing or how they're doing it as if they understand more different than the observers. So there's this guy Phineas in the Old Testament and at one point, um, the Children of Israel, they're, they're attacking people conquering places 0:04:01 - 0:04:41 and they got the word that they had to take out a certain description of people, certain range of people. And um instead of listening to that one of the princes Israel, um he spared a princess alive and maybe man, I don't remember anyway, at least one person who was royalty in that uh city and Moses 0:04:40 - 0:05:12 finds out he's like, what the heck? That's a quote. It's a dude, right? So he's, he's like, what the heck. And uh you know, pretty forcefully explaining how this can't be. And this guy, Phineas, it's like most didn't even get to finish. Phineas grabs the is Aaron's son. He grabs a spear and he runs through 0:05:11 - 0:05:44 the woman and the Israelite who brought her back and the Lord commends him right then and there in a very significant way for his zeal. So it wasn't just zeal out into the Ether, it was sealed in obeying the specific commandment that they had received. Now, if you were there, maybe it'd be like, oh my 0:05:44 - 0:06:15 gosh, this Phineas guy, he's nuts. He's so over the top. He's like loose cannon with the spear all the time. But the fact is that in that situation, if that had not happened, very, very bad, things would have happened to the entire camp of Israel and many people who have borne the negative consequences 0:06:14 - 0:06:44 of that. No, did something about it. So let's go back to Jesus and why he was, he was flipping out in the temple, whipping people chasing them out, flipping over tables. Army. There are a lot of people in that area. The money changing area is a busy place and a lot of levels of understanding but not 0:06:44 - 0:07:07 mistaken. The gentiles could go into that part. I don't quite remember, but I think that's the case and there's animals all over the place. It's a bustling place. So in addition to just common people and then uh Israelites are coming in there to worship money changers who were there all the time. Guess 0:07:07 - 0:07:41 who else was there? Rulers? The Pharisees, the dudes in charge. Now, priests, all these people were there scribes Pharisees priests. Now let me ask you something. This was the place that the priests ruled the roost. They had complete control of that area. Why didn't they arrest Jesus? I say it will be 0:07:41 - 0:08:05 able to cause an uproar. OK. Why didn't they say anything to him? If someone walked into your front door and like went straight to your living room or kitchen or entryway, whatever you got right there and just started messing up your bookshelves, pulling out all your dishes from your cupboards, whatever 0:08:04 - 0:08:25 just trashing. Would you just stand there and a and just be like, oh, I don't know what's going on just peacefully allow this dude to do whatever he wants. Of course not. You lose your mind, right? You just call people and try to tackle this crazy person trash in your house. So why did the priest just 0:08:24 - 0:08:56 let this happen? The answer is they knew he was right. They knew he was right. It was their job to make sure that what was going on never happened and they absolutely failed to do their job. So the priests duties include and I'm just talking in general now, not just what Moses priest, but the priest's 0:08:55 - 0:09:22 job is to discern between what is good and what is evil and to teach the people the same. So that's across the board. But now they were in the temple in their domain. They ruled that roost and they had allowed this to decay and corrupt for their eyes. You see? So it wasn't just that they were failing 0:09:21 - 0:09:52 and teaching the people if you want a good example of how they were supposed to do this, go read what John, the Baptist says during his sermon that's recorded there in the New Testament need. Um These, these people come to him and he um roughly rather, roughly he lays into people helping them see that 0:09:51 - 0:10:23 they're not so, uh, not in such a great place spiritually as they thought. And the, the more the, the people in the crowd should have known that the harsher he is, he lets loose on the ph calls him vipers who has warned the of the judgment to come. So, uh, but he talks to soldiers and he talks to taxmen 0:10:23 - 0:10:49 . They, what are they asking him? They say, what should I change in my life to be straight with God? And he says, here's what you do. Here's what you do. Here's what you do. These priests are the sword cut. They discern what was not previously uh distinguished. They make a difference between right and 0:10:48 - 0:11:14 wrong. That's what priests are meant to do with people. That's what priests definitely are meant to do in their family's own house. The temple was the Lord's house. They were the ones in charge of it. They were the ones appointed to keep it. Let's, you know, go back to Moses. Um God commands him to set 0:11:13 - 0:11:39 apart the priests. They all have a duty in the house of the Lord to keep the thing running when the Lord. So the the they all backed down, they all stood down, let Jesus do it twice. He did it two separate times. He did it because they knew he was right. But, and this is just, you know, we read things 0:11:39 - 0:12:01 like this, we hear things like this and we think. Oh, well, this is a really bad person. It's really bad people. No, go look in the mirror, go look in the mirror. These are people. It's a human problem. It's not a pharisee problem. It's not, um, whatever. It's not a bad guy, bro. It's a human problem 0:12:00 - 0:12:24 . It's something all of us have to overcome. So they stood. So, you know, what, what am I talking about specifically with this example? They stood back because they knew it was right. But did it stop them from hating him? No, they hated him even more. Go read some just pick a random chunk of the New 0:12:23 - 0:12:47 Testament. The gospels, you know, the gospels take a random chunk of water and just read it real quick. And here's the thing to look for, look at how people reacted to Jesus when they saw obvious signs of God's power because you might think. Oh well, yeah, well, they, they're doing happy dance, right 0:12:46 - 0:13:11 ? Glory to God because his powers come among us. No or oh man, whoever is working these miracles must be someone who we can learn something about God from. No, some people reacted that way. But it was rare. It was the minority of people what happened instead fear. People reacting with fear that they 0:13:11 - 0:00:00 coiled from these things. Hatred, you'll see time and again, where Jesus does this really obvious miracle or preaches really obvious wisdom and someone there and this is how you know the other folks are, are in big trouble. You can't excuse them thinking, well, maybe it just wasn't so obvious to us. 0:00:00 - 0:13:59 People there would say no one has ever said anything so wise, no one has ever opened the eyes of the blind, born blind. No one's ever done this or that. And yet other people react to the same exact experience immediately plotting how they're going to kill him. This is not the spirit of people who are 0:13:59 - 0:14:29 , you know, magical levels of evil. This is human nature and it's in all of us and that's what we have to overcome. This is the natural way to react to themselves. Ok. So Jen asked, they knew he was Jesus or he was the Christ, right? No, they didn't. Um Some of the Sanhedrin of believed that he was at 0:14:28 - 0:14:53 least an important prophet, at least, did they believe more? Maybe someone did in the end, at least some of them. But um that there wasn't a majority of folks by any means and you gotta understand it. It's like uh the tide going out. You know, people come in, old people go out. It's just a constant cycle 0:14:52 - 0:15:12 . That's the way it goes. So, so you can read how Pharisees invited him to dinner and what did he do? He immediately started ripping them apart and they say pastor, um people are gonna think that, that you're saying bad things about us is what you're saying. And he's like make no mistake. Let it make 0:15:12 - 0:15:36 it even clear. Guys are dirtbags and uh imagine that, imagine being invited to dinner at someone's house and then you start tearing them apart and criticizing the beyond belief and they think that they're good and special and successful, righteous and you, you pepper them with, with irrefutable logical 0:15:35 - 0:15:59 arguments that they're actually garbage. Not only should you think about how, how they would react to you, right? Um But also imagine that the more like God, someone is, the more you should expect that your interactions with that person will be like the the the interactions of people with Jesus. And 0:15:59 - 0:16:22 so if, if uh if that happened today, people would not walk away from that saying like my goodness, this is just like it was in the New Testament, right? Praise to God because his glory is here again. That's not how people would react to this. They'd say what an arrogant a hole, right? Get out of my house 0:16:21 - 0:00:00 , never talk to me again. And then they put you in full blast for the world to see in any avenue they had, they hit up blogs and comment boards and make videos about how much of a scoundrel, right? Which is exactly what they did to Jesus minus the technology to use the channels of your work. Anyhoo. 0:00:00 - 0:17:08 So back to this horse, right? There's more we can extract from this true story. OK? So suppose you walk outside just as I'm punching the horse. If you just start catching, you're just tuning in like we watch this from the beginning. But you come outside just as I'm punching this horse to weigh on the 0:17:08 - 0:17:27 line as hard as I can. You're probably gonna think something really weird is going on and something bad. Right. Because poor horse, right. You, you won't be able to see from the distance that my foot's getting crushed. You certainly don't know how that feels because, um, I guess from experience you don't 0:17:27 - 0:17:50 know how it feels to get stomped on by horse into the heart. You certainly wouldn't know that the whole reason I'm in this mess is because I'm taking pity on this poor starving horse and I'm feeding it stuff that I grew going out of my way across the fence across the safety line to keep this horse. And 0:17:49 - 0:18:14 , uh, even if you did that sort of thing from time to time, I mean, I did that 100 times before this thing hit, uh, stepped on my foot, right. So there's like all these levels of learning that can happen from this, this true story. That's also an analogy. Um, because most people won't even feed the horse 0:18:13 - 0:18:40 once they just won't care. We had this tendency as humans to, to evaluate whether we're gonna attempt to do something without a problem. Um, let me, let me back that up. We evaluate situations and decide whether we want to care about them. Uh, in part based on what good we think we can do about it. And 0:18:40 - 0:18:57 that's, that's, I mean, I guess that's an ok survival strategy, but we're supposed to care about people who are suffering, the more they're suffering, the more we're meant to care. And, uh, and we're supposed to do whatever we can to help them. But even if we can't do anything about it, we're not supposed 0:18:57 - 0:19:18 to just go on the merry way, not caring. And, um, but that's what people do and they say, you know, this is just too big for me. I can't even put this on my plate, whatever. So, um, some people actually get in the octagon and try to do something about it. And in order to do that, like you said, you gotta 0:19:18 - 0:19:38 cross the barbed wire fence and all of a sudden this, you, you're in harm's way because horses are big and they wanted to jack you up, they're gonna jack you up, they're way bigger than you are. And it turns out that you can't love someone without giving them weapons to hurt you. That's a very, very 0:19:38 - 0:20:07 , very important the action. It's a fact. So if you're not in the arena and you're not out there helping people who are in need, you're probably like the last person on the planet who can accurately assess the appropriateness of punching a horse, right? So, um, ok, so that's kind of extreme, but what 0:20:07 - 0:20:27 if, what if, um, what if you've got like, rules where you can never cross the fence because you've been stomped on by a horse before where you keep your distance. You know, people could, could think. Wow, this is a cold person. They don't care when, in reality they actually care more than you and they've 0:20:26 - 0:20:53 done things you'd never do. And that's how they've learned the boundaries that they currently have. Right. So, um going back to Jesus, um which is always a good thing and then we go forward to him, which is even better, but going back to understanding the accounts of his life, um there were countless 0:20:53 - 0:21:14 times where he was, what people would say is overly harsh with others. Now, it's shocking to, to reflect on how few people think that way. Um because that just goes to show you how few people are actually read descriptions. It's very abundantly story after story after story, he just lights people up 0:21:13 - 0:21:47 and, you know, we could give examples but whatever. So how do you get that way? Why did he act in many cases? Uh That harshness was a precondition to unlocking certain laws of heaven. They're not weird cryptic secrets. It's just that um and they're, they're just related to faith honestly. So, um if you 0:21:47 - 0:22:08 want someone to receive something good that can only be done against resistance, right? So, um if you give people really nice things for free, all the time, they're not gonna appreciate it. And although factually, they're better off experientially, they're not because they won't have greater joy because 0:22:08 - 0:22:35 you can't have joy from the gift that you don't appreciate. So in being very interested in giving the gift, poke them a little bit to give them the opportunity to sense a little of the cost of it and to have a way of appreciating more of the value. But um, there's, there are other facets of this, of 0:22:35 - 0:23:01 why he was how he was, why he is, how he is. And one of those facets is that he's been stomped on by a lot of horses, right? And so, um, it's not a fear of being hurt or anything like that, but he understands that horses don't care and they'll just step on, right. And uh, this is mildly related to the 0:23:01 - 0:23:27 last verse, um, the, the end of John chapter three where we see that he was not affected by compliments from people. He completely disregarded. The reason is he'd spent his whole life receiving compliments from people from time to time and then being shown shortly thereafter that it really doesn't matter 0:23:26 - 0:23:54 what a person does to say. Thanks in the very next second or shortly thereafter, they could be there with a knife to twist it right in your back because humans are very unreliable creatures. And so, um, you didn't let it get to him anyway. Those are some thoughts on feeding horses and getting stumped 0:23:53 - 0:24:26 time as time winds on, there are going to be uh more opportunities for people to help each other. And um, as that unfolds many of you see, there are channels now to feed the horses and those who do that get stopped. But if you don't do that, then you don't have these experiences yet. But you will, and 0:24:25 - 0:24:57 at that time, it's going to become pretty important to have access to, you know, and live these uh why I won't call it boundaries. But wise is principles of interaction so that you don't get hurt in ways that uh that aren't the most beneficial. So it is very helpful to get, it is very helpful to suffer 0:24:56 - 0:25:07 sometimes. Um But there, there are types of suffering that just weren't very helpful. So anyway, that's it. See, you.