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Introduction and purpose

Amen. Samuel, thank you so much for that wonderful prayer. Guys, welcome back. Welcome everyone to today’s Shabbat discussion. A biblical response to Dr. Todd Phillips. Why am I doing this lesson? Well, Brother Randy, I believe Brother Loven Lyens is his name, but I call him Loveven pointed this video out to me. And uh when I watched it, I I felt like, okay, this video this needs a discussion. What is the video? Well, I sent it to you all earlier this week so you could watch it and kind of get a feel for where we’re going. He’s got 10 passages that he lists that he couldn’t defend and he is a ex pastor who has deconstructed his Christian faith largely in part because he didn’t know how to answer these questions or gave up trying to answer these questions. So, I know because I’m a student of the word that some of these questions are difficult. And as a student of scripture, I felt like it was my duty to find appropriate answers because when you’re looking at some of the questions, you will arrive at two possibilities. either there’s some other explanation here that I’m not aware of or my God is a baby killer or my God is unjust. And of course that doesn’t set with me and I’m sure it doesn’t set with you. It certainly didn’t set with Dr. Phillips. So this is why I’m doing this lesson to hopefully help Dr. Phillips and his audience and to help some of us in our group who may have had some of the same questions. So let’s get into this. Why am I doing this lesson? After watching Dr. Phillip’s video, I found myself feeling drawn to him on a personal level. I did not sense the arrogance or dismissive attitude that often accompanies those attempting to refute the scriptures or expose what they believe are flaws within them. Instead, I saw a man who appears to be wrestling honestly with some of the most difficult questions in the Bible. Those questions deserve to be taken seriously and not brushed aside with shallow answers or cliches, something that he points out in great detail in his video. For that reason, my goal in this lesson is not to attack Dr. Phillips or question his sincerity, but rather to examine the biblical claims he has made and to test them carefully against the whole council of scripture. If our faith is rooted in truth, then it should never fear honest questions. At the same time, our answers must come from the scriptures themselves, not from emotion or personal preference or certainly not human philosophy. My prayer is that this study will not only address the questions he has raised, but also strengthen the faith of those who have struggled with many of these same issues. And there’s a very important disclaimer that needs to be made here this morning. I am not the answer man. Nor do I claim to possess a deeper understanding of the questions that Dr. Phillips raises than the many thoughtful believers who have wrestled with them before me. Like him, I have struggled to understand passage of scripture and aspects of the father’s character that at first glance seem to stand in tension with my own sense of justice and morality. Those struggles are not unique and they should not be dismissed. This is simply one man’s response. My desire is not to win argument or to prove a point, but to faithfully represent the word of Yahw and encourage others to continue seeking him with humility, honesty, and perseverance.

The nature of kingship

Here’s where we need to start. As I was listening to Todd, may I call you Todd? I’m going to be addressing you personally a few times during this lesson. So, I hope you don’t mind that I call you Todd. As I was listening to his video and as I’ve listened to other people in the past uh ask some similar questions, there was one thing that just kept popping into my brain. And it’s about this. It’s about understanding who your God is. And it needs to start here. This whole discussion needs to start here. So Todd, I understand your concerns regarding appeals to the sovereignty of God and why they can sound like cliche in a discussion like this. When those questions are left unexplained, God’s sovereignty can be reduced to the notion that he has the right to act unjustly or contrary to the perfect morality simply because he is God. I don’t believe that’s what the scriptures teach. nor do I believe it’s a faithful representation of his character. And I wanted to start with that. And if I could put it into layman’s terms, I’d say this. Sometimes people pull the sovereignty card in a way that justifies a seemingly unjust or unmoral act by Yhovah. And they say, well, he is sovereign, so he gets to do whatever he wants to do. And in doing that, you explain away a much deeper truth. You not only assign yehovah to injustice or to immorality of some kind, you excuse away what you don’t understand. So here’s where we start. We don’t understand kingship in the west. We just don’t. The western mind has been shaped by democracy. We are taught from birth that authority is accountable to us. We elect leaders. We criticize leaders. We remove leaders. We debate leaders. We vote against them. The Bible was written in a world of kings. The king was the highest earthly authority. His subjects did not place him on the throne like we do in the west through elections. Nor could they remove him from it. They did not judge his wisdom. They approached him with fear, reverence, and humility. Yhovah is not just another one of these kings. He is the king of kings. Every human king answers to him. And that changes and it should change how we approach difficult questions as it pertains to the character of this king of kings. We are not approaching an equal. We are not approaching someone whose morality can be measured against our own. We are approaching the one who is the very definition of justice, righteousness, goodness, and truth. Unlike the kings of the west, we call them presidents. We don’t elect the father. We can’t remove the father. We can’t debate the father. And we certainly can’t vote against the father as the king of kings. And I just don’t think that we in the west especially understand this. There are millions of people around the world who are daily subject to a king or a queen royalty. And they live under this individual’s rule. Sometimes it’s a good king, sometimes not so much. Think about Saddam Hussein. There are people in the world that understand what this is like. And they would never ever in their wildest dreams even fathom accusing that king of wrongdoing. And yet we do it so much in the West because of this western mentality that we have. Psalm 991 reigns. Let the peoples tremble. He dwells between the cherubam and let the earth be moved. This is the king of kings. No other human king could this these words be spoken of. If anyone in scripture could have claimed from a human perspective of justice the right to question the almighty, it was Job. And I see so much of the job story in Todd, your video and in the questions that arise like Todd’s in the believer’s heart makes you wonder why the book of Job is in the Bible. It makes you wonder why the book of Job is perhaps the oldest written book in all of the Bible. I believe that to be intentional. The Holy Spirit knowing that questions like Todd’s will surface in the human heart in one way or the other. Hence the whole story of Job. Job 38:es 1-4. Job had all kinds of questions about the father’s justice. As you know, the entire book is riddled with them and we’re going to get into some of them this morning. But I wanted to look at Job 38 because we need to understand how the father responded to these questions. Now, for the record, I have written a book on Job that I have never published because Job was one of the hardest books for me to understand in all of my life as a believer. I kept coming back to it and back to it and back to it because my paradigm on it constantly changed. But here’s a a few things that I know to be true about the story of Job. We all know what happened to Job. And as a result of what happened to Job, he spends the entire narrative, the entire book wondering what in the world could have happened. and as a result began subtly and sometimes not so subtly accusing the father of wrongdoing. And this is the father’s response. Yah answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, “Who is this who darkens my counsel by words without knowledge? Prepare yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, Job, if you have this understanding. That single sentence right there, two sentences, tells us so much about not only Job’s story, but the story that we’re getting ready to get into with Dr. Todd Phillips. We speak words without knowledge. We ask questions without knowledge. And we don’t have the understanding. Tell me if you have this understanding, Job. That’s the opening question. I laid the foundations of the earth. Can you tell me how I did that, Job? No, he couldn’t. And neither can we. We have no idea of the majesty and the glory of who the father is. It is beyond our understanding. It’s like me trying to explain my authority in this house to my dog. She just doesn’t understand. And neither do we. Neither will we ever truly. And what was Job’s response? I’m vile. What shall I answer you? I lay my hand over my mouth. In other words, I’m shutting myself up. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer. Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further. What happened between Job 38 and Job 40? Well, if you know the book, beginning in Job 38 is when the father answered Job out of the storm and gave this long speech about just who he is. And one of the things that Job says at the end of the book was, “I had only heard of you, but now my eyes see.” There was a moment in Job where his questions began to appear futile because of who the King of Kings is. Not because the Father answered his questions. You won’t find that in the book. You won’t find the the answers to Job’s questions in the book. The father didn’t deem it necessary to answer any one of Job’s questions. He just introduced himself and that was enough for Job to finally have a dose of humility of human humility. And I say this for you, Todd, but I’m also saying this to me, to anyone who’s hearing these words, who have difficult questions in their heart about what they think they see Yahw doing in scripture that somehow doesn’t line up with our idea of morality and justice. We like Job need to be truly introduced to who he is and to never forget that. Now, it just so happens that there are answers to his questions that we’re going to get to in the course of this lesson. Imagine that tomorrow you were told that you had a private audience with the king of England. Most of us would immediately begin asking questions, wouldn’t we? I would. What do I wear? How do I address him? Do I bow? Can I speak first? Can I shake his hand? Can I sit before he sits? Can I disagree with him? Why? Why would we ask these questions? All of us would because instinctively we recognize that he occupies a position of authority far above our own. It would be the same with meeting the American president. Even though he’s not a king, we would still have these questions. And the only reason that we have these questions is because down deep inside of us, we recognize that there is a huge chasm between his authority and my life. And that always needs to happen with the father. Now imagine standing before an absolute monarch like Nebuchadnezzar, Pharaoh, or Xerxes. They weren’t just ceremonial kings. This was a man who possessed the legal authority to imprison you, confiscate your property, execute you on the spot. Every word that came out of your mouth mattered. Every gesture mattered. Every facial expression mattered. You did not stroll into the throne room demanding explanations. You entered with fear, humility, and reverence. And this is just with human kings. Esther 4. All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king who has not been called has but one law but all to death except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter that he may live. And Queen Esther, the king’s own wife, knew that even she could be executed simply by approaching the throne without permission. And this is a human king. Where do human kings get this idea of such laws, of such reverence, of such fear, of such respect, of such authority. only one source and that’s because they understood what kingship meant because of who Yah is. We have to understand

Humility before the judge

these things. The proximity to the king did not eliminate the need for humility and reverence. And why is that important? Esther h how much proximity uh proximity did she have? Quite a lot. But that proximity did not eliminate the need for her humility and reverence for the law that was in place about this king. Hebrews 10 tells us that we having boldness now to enter the holiest of holies by the blood of Yeshua by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh. We’re taught in the book of Hebrews that because that veil has come down because of the cross, we now have direct access to the father via our faith and prayer and supplication. Boldness, the word is used boldness because it still requires a certain degree of boldness to do so. No matter how much access you have, no matter how much freedom you think you have, and sometimes we can treat this access to the holiest like we’re casually dropping by a friend’s house, rather than being invited into the very presence of the sovereign king of all creation, consider meeting King Charles. Visitors meeting King Charles III are instructed to not initiate phys. This is real life now. We all know who King Charles is. They are instructed never to initiate physical contact, not to speak until spoken to, and to address him according to his established protocol, whatever that is. I don’t even know what that is. I definitely know you wouldn’t go in there and say, “Hey, king.” [laughter] Or, “Hey, Charlie.” Oh. And no one would accuse these customs of making the king unloving. Why? because they recognize that honor, reverence, and no small degree of fear accompanies kingly authority. So, I wanted to start with this and I wanted to stop for a moment and just perhaps get Samuel and David’s initial thoughts on on this slide and hear what they have to say. It’s interesting um brother Ed what you brought forth on this slide because and I know it’s the the power of the ru that’s working because I made the connection between what happened with Adasa and the king in the book of Esther and that very passage in Hebrews and what it means for us to go boldly before the throne. It’s not just us going in whistling Dixie. There is a protocol. There’s a requirement. Some of this we also see within one of the parables of Yeshua with respect to the waiting wedding feast where a person who comes in is not dressed appropriately because you are entering sacred space. So what you wear has to be pristine. You have to wear the clothes of righteousness. You cannot come in the filthy rags of your own righteousness. Even with an invitation, there are still protocols that have to be followed. And what I’m submitting to you and to everyone who hears this is yes, we still have kings even in the West. Not just King Charles, and I wouldn’t call him Chucky to his face, not just King Charles, but but here in the United States, we do have princes. We do have rulers. We do have so-called kings. We just give them different names. But you test the limits and you’ll see what happened. We just have the we have the the the nice dressings of those things that are bound by words on paper. But the reality is something different when you face it. And if you go in just as a man and you think that you’re just dealing with another human being and not with the full power, institutional power that certain individuals may bring to bear on the situation. You’re going to test it and you’re going to find out. So that’s all I’ll share for now, brother Ed. Thank you. Thank you, Samuel. David, any thoughts? No, I I also when you put forth this this kind of trying to understand and comprehend the full authority of a king, even the some of these examples that we have in the West, they have the king in title, but most of them, you know, at least in the West again, are very they’re ceremonial. They’re symbolic. They don’t have the type of authority that we’re talking about over here. And so even King Charles with all due respect uh still is not in full control of his country. He’s a very symbolic type of king. So I think again the point of of you know also to Samuel’s point of trying to compare someone who carries the title of a king today especially in the west is far removed from the type of king that we’re talking about here both in the past and the east and and who God is. So again, sometimes if we we give this example as someone that we would, you know, here’s an example of a king, but even this king is nowhere near what a true king with full authority was in the past and and God and who God is. Thank you, brothers. Yes. If sinful earthly kings deserved reverence because of the office they held, how much greater reverences do the one from whom every king derives his authority? If we instinctively choose our words carefully before earthly royalty, should we not approach the throne of the king of the universe with even greater humility, recognizing that his wisdom, justice, and righteousness infinitely exceed our own. And this is a very important passage in this argument because at the end of the day, what are we talking about, Dr. Phillips? We’re talking about you and others. I’m not excluding myself. Judging the creator of the universe according to our understanding of morality and justice. My thoughts are not your thoughts. Not your thoughts, says the father speaking. Nor are my ways your ways, says Yhovah. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than yours, and my thoughts than your thoughts. So, not only are his thoughts so much higher than any one of ours, we could not in any way, shape, or form ever, never never ever ever presume to know what’s in the mind of Yah in these questionable situations in scripture. We just cannot. And it’s the ultimate pride to think that we can or to think that we can altogether understand the reasoning behind the things that he does. We simply cannot hold our definition of morality and justice against his. So on to Todd’s defenseless questions.

Addressing difficult passages

Six of the 10 questions are direct challenges to Yahw’s justice in punishment. As I said in the fellowship, I wanted desperately to put this all into one lesson. It’s not going to happen because like I said, there’s so much that needs to be understood long before we ever breach the questions. Deuteronomy 32, he is the rock, his work perfect. All his ways are justice. A God of truth without injustice. Righteous and upright is he. Psalm 18. As for Yah, his way is perfect. Psalm 89. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Mercy and truth go before your face. Justice and righteousness are the foundation of his throne. If we cannot trust the Bible’s repeated declaration that Yhovah is perfectly just, perfectly righteous, and incapable of wrongdoing, then there’s nothing left in scripture that can be trusted. The very foundation upon which our faith rests is the character of Yahw. If his character is uncertain, then every promise, every command, every prophecy, and every act of salvation becomes uncertain as well. There are simply too many accounts throughout scripture that testify to the perfect justice of Yhovah for us to conclude that he has acted unjustly simply because we don’t understand a particular event. The consistent witness of his word is that he is righteous in all of his ways. That testimony should compel us to give him the benefit of the doubt whenever we encounter something that does not fit within our limited understanding of justice. And you have heard me say on this channel many times, you and I do not understand perfect justice. We just don’t. It is beyond our understanding. It is beyond our ability to embrace intellectually what perfect justice actually is. And when I say giving him the benefit of the doubt, I’m not trying to say that we throw the word sovereign on it and hide the questionable actions under that title. No, what I’m saying is because of the myriad of examples throughout scripture where we can see this perfect justice, this perfect righteousness in action. You have to be willing to stop and go, “Okay, wait a minute. This doesn’t sound like my God. There’s there’s something has to be going on here that I don’t understand.” That’s where the humility begins by admitting that there’s something here that you’re missing instead of leveraging accusation against the king. Even Abraham understood this in Genesis 18. Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from you. Shall not the judge of the earth do right? So this was a moment in Abraham’s heart where he was working this out in the way that I just suggested to you that we should. What’s he doing? He’s appealing to what he knows to be absolutely true about Yhovah. He is the judge of all the earth. Far be it from him to do something that we are accusing him of doing. There’s got to be something more. And there always is something more. The right question is biblical question is not whether we understand every act of Yhovah, but whether our limited understanding is sufficient, highlighted those two words on purpose, but whether our limited understanding is sufficient grounds to indict the judge whom scripture consistently declares as perfectly righteous. We have to be able to we must be able to distinguish between I don’t understand this and this is just unjust because those two statements are radically different. The first acknowledges a limitation in our knowledge in our understanding. The second makes a moral judgment against Yah and the scripture repeatedly warns us against confusing these two issues. Job 40, we’re back at Job where he says, “Prepare yourself like a man. I will question you and you shall answer me. Would you indeed nullify my judgment? Would you condemn me that you may be justified?” And Todd, isn’t that what you’re doing in your video? Again, I’m not here to argue with you. I’m here to help, but I’m I’m a direct guy, and I don’t beat around people’s bushes. So, forgive me if I seem direct. But but doesn’t this verse, these two verses here, seven and 8, apply directly to you and your audience or you and those who think like you and feel like you do? Father’s asking Job if his judgment is nullified simply because he can be justified. And that’s kind of what we’re doing in this argument when we’re putting the father on trial. We’re nullifying his judgment to somehow make us feel better about our decision or the lack thereof. But this is what we do when we levy these questions against the father. We’re nullifying his judgment, his act, his decision. be it discipline, death or otherwise so that we can make ourselves feel justified in the questions that we ask. And I ask why did Yahw respond like this to Job? Why did he say these words? Why did he ask Job if he is nullifying his judgment to justify himself? Well, it’s really simple. Job increasingly defended his own righteousness in a way that implied that God’s treatment of him was unjust. And it is subtle. Most of the time, I should say, sometimes Job just comes right out and says whatever he’s feeling, but most of the time the accusations are subtle, but the father sees through that. Job 32. So these three men ceased answering Job. Why? Because he was righteous in his own eyes. Have you ever been there trying to help somebody through their issue? Now, we all know that the guys trying to help Job through his issue ended up getting rebuked at the end, but they were there trying to help Job through his issue and they couldn’t get anywhere because Job was righteous in his own eyes. Then the wrath of Elihu, the son of Berel, the Bite of the family of Ram, was aroused against Job. His wrath was aroused because he justified himself rather than Yahw. And again, that’s what we do when we put him on trial. We’re justifying our sense of morality, our sense of justice while impugning his. So Job’s error was not his insistence that his suffering was not punishment for some hidden life of wickedness. His error developed when he moved from defending his innocence to questioning the justice of Yah’s governance. Because if you know the book of Job, the brothers that were with him were all trying to prove that he was somehow wicked. He was somehow in sin. So much of his book is Job defending himself against that accusation. But at some point in the book, he moved away from defending his innocence and began questioning the justice of Yah, which again is what Dr. Phillip’s video does. Job 9. This is Job speaking. Therefore, I say he destroys the blameless. Stop. That’s an accusation of injustice. He destroys the blameless and the wicked. If the scourge slays suddenly, he laughs at the plight of the innocent. Stop. That’s an accusation of cruelty. Laughing at the pain of others. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked. He covers the face of its judges, blinds the face of his judges. Also an accusation. If it’s not he, who else could it be? Do you see this? Job is coming to a rational conclusion when he looks at the injustice of the world. The answer to this question that I’m asking myself, I’m speaking like Job, is that only Yahw is guilty of this. It could be nobody else. And so he’s levying this accusation against the father and in the similar way, Todd, as you do in your video. And again, I don’t think you’re doing this arrogantly or proudly or I think they’re honest questions. But as sincere and honest as our questions can be, we have to understand what those questions are doing as it pertains to impuging the father of his decisions. And when you do that, you got to slow down and go, “Oh, hang on. Who am I addressing here? I’m not just trying to convince my wife that she’s wrong about point A or point B. No, I’m talking to the king of the universe here. Todd, you admitted in your video that or you’ve taught these things. You’ve preached these things, the things that I’m telling you and defended these things from the pulpit for years. You admitted that you spent a lot of time defending these things that you didn’t understand. And just like Job, I believe you uttered things that you did not fully understand. Even when you were defending them, you were doing it because you were a good soldier. You were defending them because you were the pastor. And far be it from you in front of your congregation to do anything otherwise. I get that. I’ve been in your shoes. But when you were defending them, you were uttering things you didn’t fully understand then. And I would suggest that you still don’t understand today. The difference is that Job eventually recognized the limitations of his own knowledge. When you read the book, he gets there. He discovered that what appeared unjust from where he stood was not evidence that Yahw had acted unjustly. It was evidence that Job did not possess all the information that Yahw had possessed or possesses. And Todd, I believe that is precisely where you find yourself with many of these questions. You’re looking at passages that trouble you. And because you cannot presently reconcile them with your understanding of justice and morality, you’ve concluded that they cannot be reconciled at all. And unlike Job, you have deconstructed your faith. Job didn’t deconstruct his faith. One of the things that I that concerns me, you as a man, as a brother, is that you’ve concluded, you’ve you’ve arrived at a point in your faith where you’ve accepted that these questions cannot be answered properly. And I get that in one sense. You have admitted several times in your video the number of times that people have tried to help you with these things. Some of them giving the cliché type answers like Job’s friends were doing with him and they didn’t make sense to you or that it wasn’t good enough for you. And I get that. I’m not saying that that’s wrong. What I’m faulting you for is arriving at the conclusion that there is no answer. There is no proper answer. The the fundamental issue is this Elohim of the scriptures does not match the Elohim of the Christian church. It does not square with the theology of the church. Which is why when you dig into your Bibles and you read it, you see inconsistencies between what is being shared by pastors on Sunday morning and what the word actually says. Because when you break it all down, what Dr. Phillips was really about in his what he considers defense of the word, whatever that may may be, is apologetics. look up the edmology and get the understanding of what apologetics are and what I’m saying to not to Dr. Phillips. I’m you’re doing an exceptional job of addressing Dr. Phillips, but this is for the brothers and sisters in the faith who may see something like this and may feel shaken. This is for you and this is coming from me. I don’t engage in apologetics because I do not justify the justifier. I do not Rest assured, there are sons of Israel who are sages who have understanding of exactly what went down. They have understanding of what took place, but it’s not things that are readily shared with the public. Some people just won’t get it. Some people hear it and they’ll still revolt against it. But rest assured, there’s nothing that the father does that is unjust. And I’ll add, brother Ed, if people have the time to to those wonderful passages that you shared before speaking to the justice and righteousness of the father, Psalms 91, verses 13-15. It’s it’s a wonderful verse that just strengthens what brother Ed is is bringing forth. Thank you. Appreciate you. So Todd, today we hope to help you finally reconcile because that’s the goal, right? Hopefully you have not deconstructed your faith in such a way that you will never return to the God of the Bible. You may never return to the God of the Christian church is what Samuel was just saying. [laughter] And and in that that’s fine. I I applaud you for that because of all the reasons that Samuel gave. But I I do hope that we can help you and some of your listeners finally reconcile uh some of the things that you’ve struggled with. So let’s begin with this. The man if I could just say one more comment. Sorry. Yes please. I think another we were trying to give an example of how we should approach a king for example and again as we said about earlier our understanding of what kingship truly means is is limited by examples that we have today. I want I want to propose another analogy that might help others is the analogy of of a parent and a young child. You mentioned the fact about uh lack of information. You mentioned the fact about lack of understanding. And I think that it’s this is a similar situation where you know when you have a child and a parent tells them you know that they shouldn’t be doing something the child response is well that’s not fair. Right? Mhm. And and that is based on his limited understanding of what fairness is, right? And the parent most of the times will say, well, when you grow up, you’ll understand, right? And you will see why I’m asking you to do such a thing, right? And and when we do grow up and we mature, uh then we do now gain a different perspective on what has happened over there, right? and and most of the times I would put forth that what is happening there is done for the benefit of the child right and and I think that that is also a very uh important theme in the Bible. So all that to say is that we have to understand our limitations and where we are and recognize that God has a lot more information has a wider and broader perspective and context. Uh and he uses the word context a lot in his video but context of what is happening as well as you know his understanding is a lot deeper than ours. And we may never reach that point, right, of having well, we will never reach that point of having that same perspective and understanding of God is. But hopefully that gives maybe another example of analogy of how we would today consider it so childish, if you will, right? That a child would object to something that an adult tells them what to do. It’s kind of similar relation and what we have with our relationship with Lou. Amen. Thank you, David. Okay, so let’s get into some of these things. is the man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. We know this story, right? The man was gathering sticks on the Shabbat and he ended up losing his life. And one of the things that Todd says in his lesson in his video is the moral problem never goes away. The moral problem of this man losing his life for seemingly doing nothing more than a chore. Todd says he didn’t murder anybody. He didn’t abuse anyone. He never harmed a child or attacked a neighbor or exploited the poor. He just gathered sticks on the wrong day. And that is the knee-jerk reaction to this story. That’s what a person could rationally come away with if they don’t understand everything else. So, it’s important to mention that immediately before this incident in Numbers 15, it distinguishes between this thing called unintentional sin and deliberate rebellion right before this story. And I know you’ve heard people cry context, context, context, but context matters and it can’t be ignored in this situation. He says, “But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is nativeorn or a stranger, that one brings reproach on Yhovah, and he shall be cut off from among his people.” That is the sentence of death because he has despised the word of Yhovah and has broken his commandment. Now, when we read that verse which came right before the story, we have to ask ourselves some questions. David, this speaks to what you just said. Imagine instructing your children on what not to do, and you give them a warning about what happens if they do it. I’m a parent. Many of you are parents. You know how this ends. You’ve instructed your child of what not to do. You looked them dead in the eye and you said, “If you do this, this will happen.” Right? Immediately after receiving these instructions, your child defiantly does the very thing he or she was told not to do. Clearly, the child’s understanding of what is right, fair, or justified does not align with that of the parent. If it did, the child would have recognized the wisdom and authority behind the instruction rather than choosing to violate it. And that’s a very important statement here. Can a child, can a man or a woman simply defiantly do something in the spirit of rebellion? Yes, we’ve all done that. But the issue as to why a person can so easily defiantly rebel is because that person’s understanding of what is right, fair or justified does not align with the authority and that makes it easier. So the question is what do you do as the parent in this situation? You do what you warned would happen, right? Yep. You follow through. you follow through. If you don’t follow through, then everything that comes out of your mouth after that is just hot air because they don’t trust that you’re going to follow through. So, no, you follow through. And that’s exactly what the father did. Sin brings death. Violating a king’s command is death, especially when it’s deliberate. And in this case, it was deliberate defiance. Humanity was warned from the very beginning in the garden what the penalty of sin would be. Like a child who defiantly disobys his father after being clearly warned of the consequences, Adam received the punishment that Yahw had declared. But why was that sentence not executed as swiftly as it was upon this man gathering sticks on the Sabbath? That’s an important question. Because Adam was not living under the covenantal judicial system. later established at Sinai where Yahw prescribed specific civil penalties including immediate execution for certain offenses committed within the covenant nation of Israel. This is important. We have to remember must always remember that the law as given at Mount Si was not just for their morality. It was also their judicial system as a nation. And just like every other nation in the world has specific civil penalties that deserve death, so does Yas. And in this case, Brother Phillips, this is what you’re seeing. You’re not seeing a God who gets angry at somebody picking up sticks as a chore. No, you’re seeing what happens when you defiantly rebel against this king who just gave you specific instructions and then just told you what would happen as a result of breaking those instructions. That wasn’t important to you, so you did it anyways. I think what you touched on in terms of the presumptuousness of the man who went to to gather sticks was in and of itself something that was deserving of the death penalty of immediate corrective action for the whole benefit of the children of Israel because man does not live by bread alone but by every word that is uttered from the mouth of Yahovah. What a lot of people also miss, they think that it was just a man going about gathering twigs. No, there’s much more depth to the story. And we’re not even getting into whether or not the man did anything which was wrongheaded, mischievous, wicked while in misraim before they went into the desert of Sinai. I won’t even touch on that because we don’t know what his condition was when he left with the other children of Israel. But furthermore, do you think he was just gathering sticks just to gather sticks? Because when we when we honor Shabbat, it is to cease. What was he gathering sticks for? How many was he gathering? And for what purpose? What was he actually going about and doing? Not just the presumptuous of disobeying the word of the king, but at a much deeper level. What was happening? And then what people forget is what happened subsequently. He was not immediately executed. He was held and then he was placed on trial and the word of Yhovah came with the sentence. It was not them coming up with their own random decisions. He had to be tried. He was found guilty because it takes two or more witnesses for a thing to be proved out. And he was doing it blatantly in front of all of Israel. And then lastly, if you look at the very last passage, you see the mercy of Yahovah because what does he command Moshe to tell the children of Israel? Tell the sons of Israel to play zitz on the corners of their garments. So when they see it, they will remember my commands. So the purpose is wear the zitz. So you understand and see not just on yourself but when you see your brother walking around you and you see his you remember that you need to obey the commands and you need to bear fruit. Amen brother. Thank you Samuel. Very good stuff. This is typology. Okay. And you’ve heard me say that a hundred times again in my lessons when reading stories

Typology and scriptural context

of the Old Testament. The physical death penalties prescribed within the Sinai covenant can be understood as functioning typologically. We should define this carefully. Scripture does not explicitly call every Torah death penalty a type. But the broader biblical pattern establishes that temporal physical judgments under the covenant visibly demonstrate the ultimate consequence of sin before Yahw. What does that mean? Well, in Genesis chapter 2, we see the warning that when you the day that you eat this, you shall surely die. Now, did he die immediately? No, he didn’t die immediately. But he did die. He did incur the ability to die. And of course, we see it in Romans 6. The wages of sin is death. So, when I say this is typology, what am I saying? I’m saying that there were things that happened to Israel in very real fashion and form that are pointing to ultimate realities in our faith. And it’s important that we understand those things. Sin ultimately produces death. Yet throughout ordinary human experience, that connection is not immediately visible. A man can violate Yahw’s commandments and continue living for decades. Solomon understood this. Ecclesiastes 8. Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. [laughter] You understood this. Under the Sinai covenant, however, Yahw made the relationship between sin and death dramatically visible. Typology. Certain acts of covenant rebellion resulted in immediate physical death. The sinner committed that the prescribed offense. The judgment was pronounced and death followed. Yes, there was a trial. Yes, there were elders involved like Samuel said, but it was still immediate. He didn’t sit on death row for 10 years. This creates a visible earthly representation of an otherwise larger spiritual and esqueological reality. Todd, I hope you’re following this because one of the things, one of the mistakes that so many believers make when reading the Old Testament is this issue of typology and what these things are pointing to, what greater things these things are pointing to. And in this case, sin leads to judgment, which leads to death. Physical judgment makes visible what rebellion against Yahw ultimately produces. This becomes even clearer when compared with the final judgment. Torah repeatedly describes condemned offenders as being cut off. We saw it in the story just a moment ago. They would be cut off from Israel, removed from Israel. being cut off was a tangible reality for Israel which points to the ultimate fate of the unrepentant sinner in eternal judgment. So you see Dr. Phillips, this story wasn’t just about a single man making a a single defiant sin or rebellion. No, this story is there to tell us a much bigger story. Stories like his and others are there to tell us about a much bigger story about what it’s like for the unrepentant sinner in their eternal judgment. They are cut off. The death penalty for sin existed before the covenant at Sinai. And let me tell you where you can find it in Bearish um in multiple places. Um and this is not addressing Adam and what he was told in terms he will die on on the day that he that he ate the fruit. There are other deeper things that are happening there, but I’m not going to go into that. Um, if you look at what transpired with um, AMC when he he took um, Sarah before he had the opportunity to defile her in an act of adultery, um, Yahovah stopped him and told him, “If you do this thing, you will die.” We see that when um the king of Egypt um took Sarah and was about to defile her that he had issues in his household. That was immediate judgment for a purpose for a reason. And then also we can look at what transpired or took place with Onan when he failed to perform his duty in order to raise seed in his brother’s behalf. when it comes to the situation with Tamar, he was killed. So this is prior to what was established at Syinai. And there are other things that you can also see in Beerit where the law and the judgments with respect to going against Yhovah’s commands, those things that that were known by by by the people at that time um ended with a sentence being carried out. Um, but those are just some instances um, brother Ed that I wanted to share with you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. But you know what? You got a fine bare sheet for people because [laughter] I’m sorry. I’m not sure. Yes, that’s that’s Hebrew for Genesis for anybody wondering. Okay. So, how do we know this is typology? Well, 1 Corinthians 10, Paul speaking of Israel. Most of them Yahw was not well pleased. Their bodies scattered in the wilderness. These things became our examples. They were there to teach us greater lessons. Same thing in 1 Corinthians 10 10:11. All these things happened to them as examples. They were written for our admonition. So again, there’s more examples of this in Paul’s writings where he’s continuing to point back to these stories in the Old Testament that are there to teach us bigger realities. Okay? So that’s very important. That explanation of that story is also applicable to Uzziah. Same it’s the same thing. I’m not going to go through that story because it’s very similar to that. Let’s get to this youths that were mauled by bears. This is very important. The answers offered for the man gathering sticks still applicable here, but I still wanted to go through it. Just like before, there was a warning, there was a prophecy, there was judgment. Leviticus 26. If that’s the condition, if you walk contrary to me and you are not willing, also very important, to obey me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues according to your sins. I will also send what? Wild beasts among you, which you shall which shall rob you of your children children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number, and your highway shall be desolate. Israel was warned that certain things would happen to them if they were rebellious, if they were not willing to obey. And in the story of the bears mauling these youths, Bethl had become one of the greatest centers of Israel’s apostasy. Hopefully, you all know about Jeroboam, the king through whom which all kings were measured because of his evil, established the golden calf there. So Elisha is entering a center of institutionalized rebellion against Yhovah. Now remember what just happened? Elijah had just given Elisha a double portion of his spirit. What did Elijah do? Elijah killed all those prophets of Bal and called down the fires from heaven to prove that God was God. But now Elisha is the man and people knew who he was. He wasn’t a newbie. He’s entering this institutionalized rebellion against Yhovah at Bethl. And a large group emerges from that city to ridicule and reject the prophet of Yah. Hey, this is a big deal. You have to understand actually what’s happening. And what do they say? Go up, Baldi. [laughter] Go up, Baldi. Go up where? What were they saying? Well, what happened to Elijah? Elijah was taken away into the heavens. He went up. And what were these people saying? Go away just like Elijah Baldy. Was this just teenagers mocking an old man, which happens to also be forbidden in Torah? Or is this something much more serious? At minimum, they are contemptuously telling Yhovah’s newly appointed prophet to hit the road, Jack. Go up by mocking Elijah’s departure and telling him, “You need to go up, too. We don’t want you here. You have to understand the times. You have to understand what was going on there. And this this whole story that I’m explaining to you changes the nature of the offense. The issue isn’t Elisha’s feelings. The issue is contempt for Yhovah and contempt for his authorized representative. So the biblical defense here, Dr. Phillips is not God is sovereign, therefore he can kill children for insulting someone. That’s not the biblical defense. The biblical defense is actually much stronger. This was a large group emerging from an apostate city. The Bible says the the bear mauled 42 people, but should we believe that only 42 came out? I don’t know. This was a large group emerging from an apostate city, contentiously rejecting Yhovah’s newly appointed prophet immediately after the prophetic office had passed from Elijah to Elisha. Israel had already been explicitly warned in Torah that persistent covenant rebellion would bring judgment through wild animals. Duh. Elisha simply invoked Yhovah’s covenant authority, not personal vengeance. And Yhovah answered in a matter already prescribed within the covenant. This goes back to the question about parents. When your child does what is not supposed to be done, what do you do? In this case, they were warned. It was prophesied to them that they would be attacked by wild animals if they rebelled. They are rebelling. Elisha simply invoked that promise. And then the text says 42 were mauled. It doesn’t say 42 were killed. And that’s kind of where we go with this story. We think that 42 children were killed to death by a bear. No, the word for youths in the Hebrew could mean anything. Anyone from a toddler to a young man of 20 up to that age. More than likely, these were older teenagers. So the bears of Bethl were not Yhovah’s execution of 42 little children for making a bald joke. They were a covenant judgment against a hostile group publicly rejecting Yhovah’s prophets and one of Israel’s centers of apostasy using the very form of judgment Yhovah had already warned Israel about in Leviticus 26. You see, when you have the full measure of scripture in dealing with these individual stories, it makes it make sense. What about the priest’s daughter burned with fire? Leviticus 21:9, the daughter of any priest, if she profains herself by playing the harlot, she profains her father, she shall be burned with fire. H, that’s pretty scary. And the way that it was described in Dr. Philip’s uh video was that basically what is happening here is that if this woman plays a harlot, she gets lit on fire and she’s burned to death. And I believe he likened it to some of the acts of of [snorts] uh eastern terrorists. Leviticus 21 is not legislation governing ordinary Israelite families. The entire chapter concerns the priesthood and the extraordinary holiness required of those who approached Yah’s sanctuary. The daughter of any priest. Okay, that’s where we have to start in Leviticus 21. The daughter of any priest. Leviticus 21:6. They the priests shall be holy to their Elohim and not profane the name of their Elohim. For they offer the offerings of Yhovah made by fire and the bread of their Elohim. Therefore, they the priest shall be holy. This is the governing principle. The priesthood occupied sacred space and represented Yhovah before Israel. The behavior of the priest and his household carried implications beyond private morality. What does that mean? That means greater holiness, greater responsibility. And in this case, we’re talking about a priest and his daughter. And she’s profaining her father, the priest who spends his days in sacred space representing Yah before Israel. Leviticus 10. You know this story. Naab and Abaiu, the sons of Aaron, who took strange fire before the altar and lost their lives because of it. Why? They like this daughter were sons of a priest and faced that harsher discipline. An ordinary Israelite was not struck dead for incorrectly burning incense at home. Nab and Abaiu died because they violated holiness while functioning as priests before Yeva. That same principle helps explain Leviticus 21:9. The priest’s daughter belonged to a household uniquely identified with holiness. Her prostitution publicly desecrated the household of the man who represented Yhovah before Israel. And we understand this even in the New Testament. For everyone to whom much is given, much will be required. James, the teachers are held to a stricter judgment. It was true in the days of the New Testament and true in the days of the Old. And here’s a couple of noteworthy observations about this situation. A woman dying in this fashion because she disrespected her father. Thus, Yah actually never happened in scripture. There’s never an actual event of this actually happening to any daughter of any priest. And I think because it’s the story of Naab and Abaiu that taught the lesson. And secondly, the verse does not say she was burned alive. The custom of execution was stoning and then the body was burned. We see this in Joshua 7:25. So she wasn’t lit on fire and everyone was forced to watch her writhe in pain as she burned. No, she was stoned. The execution was pretty quick and then the body was burned. But you see, here’s the thing, Dr. Phillips and those who ask these questions, you don’t know this unless you know the full council of scripture. And although you are a doctor, I’m assuming they call you Dr. Phillips because you have a doctorate in your theology, there’s a pretty good chance that even in your doctorate, you didn’t spend too much time understanding all of the Old Testament. just a stab in the dark in my experience doesn’t mean it’s yours, but it’s possible that you have to understand all these things to properly understand what’s happening. And then this one, the Bible commands a rape victim to marry her rapist is basically what you said in your video. Many of the most disturbing accusations made against the Old Testament survive only because people do not read the text carefully. They do not understand its language or its legal context which we discussed earlier or approach it already determined to find something morally objectionable such as this phrase. Did you know the Bible commands a rape victim to marry her rapist? That’s basically what’s happening here. It’s a perfect example. Once the passage is examined within the context of Torah itself, the accusation is not merely misleading. It fundamentally misrepresents what the text actually says. In order for us to understand this, we need to compare one verse against another. Both of these are found in Deuteronomy 22. But let’s read verses 25- 26. If a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. Why? because this is basically rape. But you shall do nothing to the young woman. There is in the young woman no sin deserving of death. Why? Because she was raped. She was a betrothed young woman to another man and she was raped. So there is no sin deserving of death. That’s important. When we read the next story, Torah explicitly declares the rape victim innocent. Few verses later 28-29. If a man finds a young woman who’s a virgin who is not betrothed, and he seizes her and lies with her, and they are found out, then the man who lay with her shall give to the young woman’s father 50 shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her. He shall not be permitted to divorce her all his days. You read that verse all by yourself and it makes it sound like the Bible’s commanding a rape victim to marry her rapist and never divorce him. Is that what’s happening here? No. The text says, “And they are found out.” What is that? What this means is that she was complicit in this scenario. He wasn’t acting all by himself. It doesn’t say he was found out. It says they are found out. The verb is plural. The text says they are discovered, not just he is discovered assaulting her. So no, this was not a woman being forced to marry her rapist and never divorce him. No, she was somehow complicit in this story. And of course, we know how that works in the world. Works the same then as it does now. But in this situation, she’s forced to marry him because she was complicit. She she was involved somehow. Now, she’s not supposed to divorce him all her days. Is that kind of a forced a forced uh marriage that can ever be absolved? Well, hence the the the question at the end. Does this mean that there’s no way out for the woman? Well, no, there’s not. Exodus 22. If a man entices a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall surely pay the bride price for her to be his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money according to the bride price of virgins. What’s happening here? She doesn’t want to go. All she has to do is lean over to her father and say, “I don’t want to go.” Now, you have to understand something about the fatherdaughter relationship in this day and age. Kids weren’t like they are today who move out of the house when they’re 17 or 18 and on their own. No, wasn’t like that. But here’s an out for that woman. Even though she was complicit, we have to understand the full council of scripture. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, so sexual intercourse did not automatically give the man a legal right to the woman. This is extremely important when answering the claim that Torah simply handed rape victims over to their attackers. The broader Torah legislation does not permit a man to acquire a woman merely by having intercourse with her. The sexual legislation of Deuteronomy 22 should not be read as though Yahw is somehow indifferent toward women. The chapter actually establishes distinctions that were extraordinarily important for justice. False sexual accusations against women are punished. Adultery condemns both participants equally. Consensual sexual immorality assigns culpability to both participants. Rape assigns culpability exclusively to the attacker and explicitly declares the woman innocent. So, Dr. Phillips. The Bible does not command a rape victim to marry her rapist. We have to understand everything that the scripture has to say in these situations.

Discussion and conclusion

Now, that is the answer to the first five questions. I wanted to do this in one lesson, but I’m already two hours in, hour and a half, and I can’t keep you guys too much longer, but I wanted to open this up to your thoughts and questions. I had to shut Cordon down early because he had a thought, but I knew if I didn’t keep the comments down, we were going to go long and we did. So, Cordon, if you’re still here, let’s have you go first. Are you still here, brother? But one of the things I found interesting was when it was talking about the man who was actually gathering sticks. I know that Ed Doss more than anything else, uh, not Ed Doss, um, Doug Camp did a lesson on it one time and he was talking about how this wasn’t the condition of like, hey, I’m gathering sticks for wood to make a fire. It was based all upon work. Every intention of it was based on work. And one of the biggest things that he said is that in the daytime um Yahawah put over basically a cloud over the camp and at night there was a fire and like I live in Oklahoma, Ed lives in uh Texas and if it gets to be at night time the heat basically doesn’t go down. It like stays like 95 to 100° basically at night. But during that time, they just had perfect AC in the afternoon and perfect heat because it would just drop because it was all desert climate at that time. So, it can’t be just the condition of just like, hey, I’m gathering wood because my family is going to have a problem with heat. No, it was a condition all upon work. It had nothing to do with the intention of climate control. God had already provided that for Israel. So there was no intention of actually going and doing anything on the Sabbath when intentionally it was for the purpose of rest and relaxation. And that’s one of the things I just want to throw out. Everything was climate controlled and everything he did was purposely done for the sake of work of work and by work. And u that’s one of the other things. And the second thing I just want to make in super clear is that when a person who was stoned like Mary Magdalene, that passage as far as that goes, they did that to test him because they brought her but not the other husband, not the other person with them. And I think it’s just one of those things of just trying to say that, hey, um, you know, based upon the law, two people have to be together, not just one person. Anyhoo, that’s my two cents. Sorry. Nope. Amen, brother. Thank you. Okay, Jim, you’re up next. Okay. Uh, yeah. Thanks, Ted. Uh, appreciate your teaching as always. Don’t you know, I don’t know where to end on some of my thoughts as as you go through your stuff, but um, just in passing, uh, gathering sticks on the Sabbath is there’s ancient Jewish midrash on this passage. I mean, this goes, this goes way back. Southern houses preserved a teaching for us about the gathering of the sticks. And what they actually suggest is that this was an example of suicide by cop that here was a guy who’s wandering around in the wilderness with a 40-year prison term ahead of him and he just couldn’t do the time. He knew that gathering sticks on the Sabbath was going to be a death penalty. He’d heard the law and he was, “I’m done. I’m done.” Um, and he he actually was pushing Yahovah into a corner. And um, that I found to be incredibly interesting. And there’s further intertextual connections between this man who was gathering sticks. And the the the ancient Jewish midrash on this is that this guy’s name was Zerapath. That Zerapath had five daughters. and they say, “Why should our name perish from the earth?” And there’s intertextual connections in the language between the man gathering sticks on the Sabbath and the redemptive passage in um the five daughters being able to have a plot of land. I it’s an incredibly merciful story when you actually have full understanding. And so much of this is lost to us in the Christian church because we don’t we we’ve we’ve rejected the Torah. we’ve rejected the wisdom of the ancient um you know even if they don’t accept Yeshua as Messiah the wisdom that they’ve collected around Torah is mind-boggling it it’s beautiful it’s wonderful and um anyhow I I’ve I’ve been thrilled with some of my um explorations into Jewish rabbis and I don’t know Ed if you will allow me I can maybe email you but there’s a Jewish rabbi who does not believe in Jesus that I have gathered so much wisdom from. I’d like to share with the group, but I’ll put it past you. And if you don’t want me to share a name on your platform, I understand. I’ll I’ll bring it to you an email. No, that’s that’s fine, brother. Uh listen, you know, I’m of the mind that, you know, I’m I’m friends with and have spent time with and have sat at the feet of Dr. Nhemia Gordon. Oh, right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So, uh he he is a man that is on a journey. He is a Jew. He does not accept Christ as Yeshua yet. I believe he will. I believe he will too. He is masterful of his understanding of the text, the language, the ancient text. And to say I can’t learn from him because he doesn’t accept Yeshua is stupid. And okay, I pray, you know, I pray for him and, you know, he he would never ever dare try to challenge your faith in Christ. Um, that’s just not who he is. But so, yeah, mention him briefly so we can move on. Okay. Okay. U very, very briefly, uh, the name of the channel is ALF A L E P Beta. Alf Beta, the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Um, they have a limited but wonderful YouTube channel. They have um uh a a subscriptionbased and I I’ve spent the $15 a month. Best best $15 a month I’ve ever spent um with their actual you um uh website. But real quickly, the reason for my um raising my hand is uh uh I don’t know if Dr. Todd will have an a chance to actually listen to this, but I actually think he’s in a very hopeful place. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to uh disengage from what you’ve been brought up in. And we all understand this as Hebrew roots, um ancient path, whatever you want to call us. We’ve all had to disengage and have this moment of realization and truth and say, “Wait a minute, you know, is there anything in my whole head that’s true?” You know, I need to explore that. I need to take a time out. And so I think there’s a tremendously hopeful place for Todd. And the the position I would take, not is not from Job’s position, but from Jacob’s. Um Jacob was a man who struggled with God and refused to let go. I will not let go. And I think this is the place where we need to find ourselves. It’s like, I don’t get you, God. Everything that I do doesn’t make any sense. Nothing is making sense in my whole life, but I will not let go. And so with that, I’ll just leave it leave it to to you guys. And maybe this will reach Dr. Phillips. Don’t let I trust that that it will. I’m going to try and make sure that it will. Okay, Amy, you’re up next. Okay. Good morning. Um, one thing I wanted to um remind everyone and especially anybody who comes on hopefully this Dr. Todd, but um others that you know don’t understand the ancient path. Um the definition of sin um 1 John 3:4 says sin is a transgression of the law which is the Torah. And in Christianity, we were taught such a negative um understanding of the Torah and the law when really it is God’s instructions to his people to be able to live um a a righteous life, a good life to be blessed by him. um his desire is not to punish or curse, but there is consequences to our sins. And um I think you brought all of that together beautifully today. Um the fuller understanding of all of these things. Um the other scripture that always, you know, I’m reminded of is 1 John 2 3-6. By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.” Um we’re to follow Yeshua’s ways and he was obeying the father’s commands. He showed us how to do so perfectly. um you know scripture actually Deuteronomy 30 30:11 and uh 1 John 5:2 both indicate that it is not impossible for us to follow God’s Torah his commands. A loving father is not going to give his children commands or instructions that are impossible to follow. That is twisted. Um and that’s what Christianity has taught. So I just encourage everyone to understand how loving our heavenly father is and how he has established the these instructions for us for our betterment and um that yeah he you know you have to follow through as a parent with your consequences and so does you know our father in heaven. So that’s all I have to say. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. Okay, brother Baronson, you’re going to close us out because we’re running long. What say you? Sorry, I was just responding to Amy’s uh Amy’s comment. Appreciate what she shared. I I don’t have anything to add. Oh, well, now you’re on camera. Now you close us out. So, I’m not going to let you go. Yeah. No, I appreciate I think you know again you and I were kind of exchanging uh text about this topic and uh I appreciate how you uh went about doing this and and providing some really strong uh evidence biblical scriptural evidence on how to look at uh at each one of these things. Uh I know that again Dr. Phillips uh had continuously in many you know kept on referencing the word context context and kind of dismissing that as you know that’s not a that’s not good enough to explain some of the things and I think you really uh brought forth uh and and really in in some cases things that I wasn’t aware of exactly that God warned very specifically that he will bring wild beasts if you do not do something and then the actual fulfillment of that right? It’s hard to deny when you actually see that in scripture. And so I really appreciate how you uh went about it and looking forward to the next uh uh sermon on this. Thanks. Amen, brother. Thank you. Okay, Luke, you got about one minute, bro. Well, shalom, brother Ed. Um amazing teaching. Um, who else thought his ways or wanted to be better than the most high? Who else can we point to? Lucifer. Mhm. His pride. This is a this is an entity that was right beside him on his holy mountain had full access to the most high and still he thought I can do this better. What does it boil down to? Pride. I know better. I know better. We don’t. We don’t. We can’t create a single atom. We can’t. We are so dependent on him for everything, especially his instruction, his Torah. If we don’t rely on that, we can rely on nothing. That’s it. Amen, brother. Thank you. Well, guys, listen. Wow. This was a heavy topic, a heavy lesson, a heavy discussion. I will do everything in my power to get this video in front of Dr. Phillips’s eyes. We will have part two to answer the rest of his questions. And I’m so thankful for all of you patiently sitting and watching this long lesson. But so many of you guys said you wanted to be longer lessons, longer lessons. So here it is. You know, we’re having longer lessons. So I hope I didn’t u I hope I didn’t bore you. But I hope you do have a fantastic Shabbat, a rest of your great weekend, and we’ll see you guys on Monday for a short form video, but definitely next weekend for the completion of this series. Love you all. Shabbat shalom. Shabbat shalom everyone. Brother James, thank you. Thank you, Ed. Love you guys. Very deep. Shalom. I will definitely be sharing this when you send it out. See everybody over on WhatsApp. Bye Emily. [laughter] Love you. Love you all. Hi, Emily. How do you do WhatsApp? I don’t I’ve downloaded it, but I can’t find you guys. Oh, sending the We’ll send you the invite. I did that. We’ll send you the invite. Send you the invite. Okay. Shalom, everyone. Okay.