Let's open in our Bibles to Psalms 82. This is on page 492. Psalm 82, page 492. And this is what the word of God says. God has taken his place in the divine council. This is verse one. Now the second passage might cause you to, I don't know, what do you say, raise an eyebrow because there is a reference to, there is a reference to gods here. Let me just change the sleep on my, so it doesn't do like you guys after 15 minutes, go to sleep. I'm totally kidding. Ouch. That's when you know the sermon's good, right? When he just puts you at rest and sleep and you just... But it says in verse 1, God has taken his place in the divine council. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgments. Now, immediately, You might think something as in Greek mythology that you have a multiplicity of gods overlooking the earth, but that is not at all what is happening here. So I will try to explain what it means, and it should become clear because we believe in this principle of that the Bible is self-interpreting, that if you just simply keep reading, the biblical authors typically clarify each other, interpret each other, but here in this psalm, it becomes clear that those who are called gods really are not called gods, but the question is, why are they called gods? So it says, God has taken his place in the divine council. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They neither have knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. Nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations. Now, the context clarified itself. We have here, not gods in the sense of real gods, but these are human judges who had been given the law of Moses and were to exercise judgments within ethnic Israel, national Israel. Now the question is, why are they referred to as gods? Well, if we turn to Exodus, let's turn to Exodus, so you can get an idea of the mentality that is at work here. Ephesians, I'm sorry, Exodus chapter four. Now we see this principle emerge in scripture early in Exodus when God appears to Moses and sends him to appear to Pharaoh. Moses is a representative of God. So listen to what God says in Exodus chapter four. Verse 16, He shall speak, well I have to back up for the sake of context, I always do that right? In verse 13 it says, But he said, O my Lord, now this is Moses objecting to God's call upon his life to appear before Pharaoh, that Moses might be God's instrument in delivering the people out of slavery. But Moses initially objects and Moses, for whatever reason, he doesn't want to go. There are some reasons that Moses offers, but I'll spare you that. It says in verse 13, but he said, Oh my Lord, please send someone else. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and said, Is there not Aaron your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you both what to do. shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as God to him now that's not the only time that sentiment is expressed turn to Exodus chapter 7 verse 1 Exodus 7 Exodus chapter 7 verse 1 reads this way and the Lord said to Moses see I I have made you like God to Pharaoh and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet. Now we know that Moses is a mere man. And we know that the judges of Israel were also mere men. They do not belong to some different stock. As in, they didn't come from Adam. All men are descendants of Adam, and all men are fallen, and all men are sinful. However, what we know from biblical revelation is that God appeared to, the word of God came to men, men of like nature, okay? So let me explain what I mean by men of like nature. For example, in 1 Thessalonians chapter four, not 1 Thessalonians, Acts chapter 14, I got my notes crossed here. The question is, how would the prophets have seen themselves in light of other people whom the word of God didn't come to them directly? So, and how did the apostles see themselves as concerns their human nature? How did they see themselves? Contrasted with those whom the word of God did not come to. Well, you see that they still maintain that they are just men. Now look at this narrative in Acts chapter 14. Acts 14 verse 8, Now at Lystra there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking, and Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, Stand upright on your feet. And he sprang up and began walking. And when the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lyconian, The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. They saw these events, these pagans, and they did not rightly interpret was happening. They came to the conclusion that Paul was not a man as they were men. They said Paul is God, is a God come down appearing as a man. That's what it says, right? The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. Barnabas they called Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd, crying, Why are you doing these things? We are also men of like nature with you, and we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. Paul had to correct their misunderstanding. Paul was saying, I am just a man like you are a man, The difference is that we are messengers and we bring you a message from the true God. So, the apostles saw themselves as men just like all other men except they had been designated or chosen by God to be apostles. Now, in James 5.17, James demonstrates that he has the same view The prophets of the Old Testament and he points out one in particular James chapter 5 verse 17 where he is encouraging the church to pray and He says therefore in verse 16, this is page 1013 Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed and And so as to demonstrate the efficacy of prayer, particularly that of a righteous person, it says, the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. Okay, so that's a qualification to point out what should be commonly understood, that Elijah, as great as he was, as a prophet, he was still a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Elijah was a man with a like nature like ours. And so if the Bible is pretty clear that we are mere men, and by men I'm referring both to male and female, I use men even though it's not politically correct today and it's kind of off-putting to people, we use men as in all humans, both male and female, then why would God call them gods? And I hope that you know the answer. It should be pretty obvious because in the same way that when Moses was sent to speak to Pharaoh, Moses went not as a superhuman, not as a little God in the ontological sense. He went as a man who had been sent by God to speak the words of God. And listen, so when Moses tells Pharaoh, let my people go he wasn't he did not mean let my fellow israelites go or let my fellow hebrew he wasn't using let my people as and when people of a certain ethnicity says oh man those are my people right like fellow mexican or blacks might say that's my bro that's my people he doesn't mean it ethnically he's speaking in the first person in other words when when moses tells god let my people go god is telling pharaoh let my people go so pharaoh was to understand that he had a man before him speaking in the first person on behalf of god let my people go and it's in that respect that moses was as god Pharaoh not that he is God or a God but he was as God to Pharaoh so Moses one day is judging Israel and they're bringing all these cases of dispute among the people and and Moses has the law that God gave him the penal code and Moses is the Supreme Court the problem is that he's the only court and And his father-in-law comes to Moses and says, what you're doing is not good. It's not practical because you're sitting here from morning till evening judging cases. You need to recruit other men and appoint them as judges that they might help you judge the people. Let them judge the smaller cases. But if the cases are too difficult, have them bring them to you who would be the Supreme Court to judge the more difficult cases. And therefore, you spread the responsibility. That's what ended up happening in Israel, their judicial system. Is that they set up multiple judges and in Psalm 82 not just there But throughout the scriptures God makes very clear what he expected of the judges God presupposes that judges Should understand his law There is there is an assumption that God's law should be read by these judges and that they should understand the difference between what is just and what is unjust, that they should not exercise partiality, that they are appointed, that they may give justice to the weak and the fatherless, to maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute, to rescue the weak and the needy, to deliver them from the hand of the wicked. But they thoroughly failed in their job description. All the foundations of the earth are shaken, the most basic things they have not carried out. And God affirmed on one hand, it's like he's saying, I know that I have called you gods. Small g that's not a reference to their ontology. That is their their being It's a reference to their job description They were to to judge in the place of god and the new testament still carries this idea I don't know all the particulars or what this will look like but jesus told his apostles that at the second coming There is an appointed future day and people are ignorant in this respect. They say only god can judge me Yes, God is going to judge you, but the New Testament continues this Old Testament pattern that God will appoint human judges. I don't know exactly what that looks like. But I affirm the principle because even Paul says, do you not know that we are to judge angels? Now, if we are to judge angels, why can't you settle the smaller matters within church? Now, again, I don't know the details, but I know that that principle is laid down, but they had failed miserably. And so God says, God concedes, look, I understand that I called you gods before, but you've not lived up to Properly representing me. I know that I called you sons of the Most High But you're going to die like the men that you are Because you failed to properly represent me. Okay now What do I say that because a very interesting? conversation comes up Jesus and the Pharisees now let me just reiterate this point I believe it's in 1st Samuel chapter 8 you may turn there if you'd like you don't need to it's just a passing reference 1st Samuel chapter 8 you know the story God had a particular God had a particular manner in which he wanted to rule Israel and that is that he wanted to rule Israel unlike the other nations were ruled with no particular king no human representative as a king God's God's intention was that his law his word would rule Israel and the judges place was to represent God instead of having a single figure but Israel wanting to be like the rest of the nations they saw themselves and they saw their structure the way that they were a constitute as a nation and they look very different from the other nations and they weren't happy with that because they wanted to be like the world. And God told them no, and God warned them, and God said, finally, fine, I'll give you a king, but here's what's going to happen. And unfortunately, it played out exactly how God said it would play out because, well, he's God and he knows what he's talking about. There's a parallel to be learned from there. Churches ought not to look or be run like the world. I'm just gonna leave that there, but sometimes we want to do that and we do so only to our own peril But listen to what God says in 1st Samuel chapter 8 when he warns them It says in verse 4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him behold you are old and And your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, now Samuel took it personally. He's hurt, but God gives him perspective. They did have a king. They did have a king who came to their rescue through a messenger. Moses was not that king. God was that king. This king went out and rescued his people and brought them out of Egypt and single-handedly defeated the most powerful nation in the then known world. The only difference is they could not see this king. But he was a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. There were signs that pointed to the presence of this king, but they told Samuel, we want a king like all the other nations have a king. And God said, they've not rejected you, Samuel, they've rejected me. So there's a sense in which Samuel was a god to the people in that he represented God, okay? That is the understanding that we have concerning men to whom the word of God came. Now the apostles themselves, they have this same attitude in how they see themselves. Okay, so for example, in 1 Thessalonians chapter four, let's turn there very quickly. 1 Thessalonians chapter four, Now man naturally resists authority, particularly divine authority. And there's different ways to do this. So part of the challenges that Timothy had in his day is that, listen, I know it's been your experience. It's certainly my experience that when you communicate something that is true to someone, particularly divine truth, and that person understands that what you're saying is true, but they don't like it. It's a natural, sinful human response to try to find a way to undermine or excuse what you're saying. They try to find some faults, not in what you're communicating, but in some other point. In the case of Timothy, Paul understood his predicament that people at that time, they valued age. They valued age, and so if you were a young person in Israel at the time, there was a tendency to disregard and not really take young people too seriously. It was a culture when you wanted to look to older people, seasoned people, wise people. And Timothy's problem was that he was a little younger than your average person. Nevertheless, he was a legitimate coworker and representative of the Apostle Paul. And so Paul reminded him, let no one disregard you on the basis of your youth. That's sort of paraphrasing. Or let no one despise your youth. What exactly does that mean? It means let no one dismiss you the basis of the fact that you're younger understand that you are a legitimately called man to oversee and your authority doesn't come from your age whether you're old and your authority doesn't come from the fact that you're young your authority is outside of yourself but some people are not going to accept that they're going to say well you're young I mean what do you know Timothy has to be able to be bold and with gentleness and with respect because the man of not the man of God says he ought not to quarrel or be quarrelsome He says you are to correct your opponents with gentleness and with respect and he tells Timothy older men treat them as fathers older women treat them as mothers younger women treat them as sisters brothers as brothers and so there so he is to take his youth into account and Relate to people accordingly, but his authority doesn't come from anything in him. It comes from another and that's what he needed to Assert to the people that nobody might do and so people today dismiss people on all kinds of grounds. I Some people might dismiss someone because they don't have the proper education. Well, I mean, who's gonna listen to you, Chris? You don't even have a degree, okay? I do have a degree. I have initials at the end of my last name. It's G-E-D, right? It's not Ph.D. It's G-E-D, right? My uncle used to call it the good enough diploma, okay? I remember having an online debate with a man who had this hunting organization, and I lived in San Antonio, and I was looking at the belief statements, because even as an early believer, I didn't really want to be involved with believers who had the wrong view of God and Scripture, because it just leads you astray. And I read their statements, and they denied the Trinity. And so I contacted him, and I said, hey, I noticed that you guys deny the Trinity. And he said, yes. And he was offended that I questioned his belief statement because this man had initials at the end of his last name. I don't remember if it was M. Dave or Pete or something like that. And so in his first correspondence to me, he answered me like any normal person, right? With no initials at the end of the name, no titles. But then when I questioned him, the following email had PhD or something like that at the end of his name. so then so as to assert his authority as in as if your authority comes from your credentials education is good and we ought to pursue it because it it's from god we ought to pursue knowledge but never should we think that our education is the basis of our authority it just means that we've studied in a way so as to become skillful okay with the the tools that that god has given us and so i responded with my own initials and I cited scripture and explained it and I put GD at the end of my name and responded back. And so he responded back and then finally I added more initials because he added something else and so I put GD BLT and whatever, you know, I just threw some initials in there. So our authority doesn't come from our, and the opposite error can be made as well. In certain Christian circles, people boast about the fact that they're not educated, at least not in a formal way. I would not boast about that. Now there's an advantage to it in that it makes you more humble and it keeps you from becoming prideful and you're sort of forced Just rely on biblical arguments as and we'll look listen. Look I know I know that I don't have any formal Seminary education and so you know don't don't I have no initials to offer you but just reason with me from the scripture So you're kind of forced, right? I was listening to a particular Without getting into too much detail, but he totally got everything he was saying wrong and I produced a video about it during the week and and he says that all he had to offer his congregation was his opinion and because we ultimately cannot know what the scriptures are telling us because you cannot arrive at any degree of certainty. You cannot arrive at objectivity. And so the best I can do, he says, everything I'm telling you, and he's telling his congregation this, he says, all I've got is my opinion for you. And so as to make them feel better, he says, but you know, I have spent years, you know, studying the Bible. And I said, that's sad because you condemn yourself and that you're saying you've spent years studying and reading the Bible and you still cannot get the most basic things. Your experience is not a basis for authority either. Reminds me of A friend of mine who has a lawn business years ago, he's still doing it to this day, he's expanded. I called him up because our church attendance back then was like it is now. And so I said, man, I got to go out and get a job. It's a jab at myself, okay? And I said, I got to go out and get a job, but I need to find some kind of vocation where I can make some money to supplement the income from here because I'm not here for the money as you guys know that. So, I went out and I said, well, I need to go and partner with somebody who's already doing this lawn business thing because it seems to be you invest in some equipment, go out and in an hour you can make 45, 50, $60 an hour with a yard. And I'm like, that's quick money. course you're at the mercy of the weather and there's all these other things as long as you don't break down so so he said well come on Chris and I said I need to learn how to weed eat because man I saw his guys and they would weed eat and they would blend make these perfect lines and they were just like what are you doing and so he they taught me so I was watching them and I'm learning but my friend who owns this lawn business I noticed that he was at his trailer and messing with the weed eater head. And he had been there a while, and he pulled the string out, and it was taking him quite a while, and I've got my weed eater, and I'm looking, and so I was curious. So I walked over there, and I said, hey, what are you doing? And the mere fact that I questioned him as the rookie, he didn't, maybe I was wrong, but I perceived that he sort of seemed kind of offended. that I asked him what he was doing because what he was doing should be obvious. Dude, come on. What do you mean? I'm putting weed eater in the head. I'm putting weed eater string in the head. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking, but you're doing it wrong. But what do I know? And I just, I couldn't help myself. And I said, I said, Mike, there's a, there's actually a better way to do that than hire. So there's this, listen, I've had this lawn business for five years. That's an appeal to experience. I've been doing this for five years, but you know what I had over him? I had gone and bought a weed eater just like the one he had, and let you tell you, I am notorious for reading manuals that come with products. Yeah, because why would I engage in trial and error and make mistakes, which is a good way to learn sometimes. It reinforces that you should have listened to your wife in the first place, right? Or sometimes you can just, you can follow instructions. So I'd open, so what got me curious is that the weed eater, it had a designation, it had a designation that said speed feed. Speed feed. And I'm looking at my friend and I'm thinking, he's not feeding it with any kind of speed. So I had remembered that the reason that the weed eater head is called speed feed is because it did away with the traditional, you grab the head of the weed eater and you disassemble it, and you stick weed eater string in it, and then you start doing this, and then you try to hold the weed eater string, and then you put it, and if you don't put it in right, it'll bird nest on you, and you're sitting there, well, they did this new weed eater head, and all you do, you don't even take it apart, you grab some weed eater string, you go one, two, about three arms length, you could even be weed eating, all right? And then you could have your reload right here on your hip, and then the weed eater comes out, you flip the weed eater, you stick a string, and you go like that, and you keep going. Speed feed. You know how I knew that? I didn't have any initials at the end of my name when it came to lawn care. I didn't have any experience. I just happened to read the manual. the person who designed the weed eater explained this is the reason why it's called speed feed it'll save you time the advantage that I had over my friend at that moment as he hadn't bothered to read the manual because he relied on his experience which is experience is not a bad thing but our authority ultimately must come from the one who made us and he's given us a manual so That's the position of the prophets and that's the position of people like the apostles. Now 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 Paul has to remind them about the nature of what he is instructing them. Okay. says therefore 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 therefore whoever disregards this and the this is a reference to the entire letter up to this point he's been giving them instructions about faith and practice and church and all of these things right but if anyone on the receiving end of the letter within the church if they decide that they're going to disregard Paul that they don't really need to listen to Paul Paul clarifies Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man, but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you." So, all pastors in all churches, down to even your non-pastor, your Christian, whenever they rightly read Rightly interpret God's Word. They are rightly representing God because their authority doesn't come from them Their authority comes from not their authority, but the authority itself comes from outside of them It comes from the Word of God. And so therefore people who reject the Word of God are not rejecting the messenger. They're ultimately rejecting God and so This is repeated several times in scripture where the biblical authors themselves demonstrated self-awareness that they were mere messengers. But a very interesting conversation comes up, dialogue, even debate, a heated debate. Okay, where the Pharisees want to do more than unfriend Jesus for his theological speech. They want to cancel him as in kill him. Let's turn to John chapter 10. Verse 22. Now, to understand this in context, you'd have to read all the chapter, but I'm not going to do that, but they had already had a pretty heated discussion with Jesus, and so they run into Him. They dismissed Him as someone who was demon-possessed and crazy. Why listen to Him? John chapter 10, okay? I can't see you because I don't have my glasses, but I can see your hand motions. Look at verse 19. Look at verse 19, John chapter 10. There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, he has a demon. In the original Greek it says, taloco, right? I mean, that's the sense of it. Like, he has a demon and is insane. In other words, he's crazy. Why listen to him? Others said, these are not the words of one who's oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? Now that's the more sensible group. Now look at verse 22. At that time, The Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Now, Jesus rejects their premise, namely, that he had not been clear and that his message had not been plain. Jesus had spoken. Now, do you remember when the pagans misinterpreted the events with Paul when they said the gods have come down? This is a very important principle that you see in the scriptures, that God will cause an event, like a miracle, But if that event is unaccompanied by a clarifying voice, as in interpreting that event, then people will almost always come to different conclusions because they'll draw conclusions from within their own worldview. So like these were pagans and when they saw this miracle, they drew from within their own worldview, the gods have come down to us, they called Paul Hermes. So whatever worldview you have in place, If you see a phenomenon, right, without an accompanying word from God to explain it, you're going to assign meaning, and it's almost always going to be wrong. But in the case of Jesus, he performed miracles, and then he assumed that within their worldview that was from the scriptures, as in Nicodemus demonstrated that he understood this, from the Jewish worldview, Rabbi, We know that you are a teacher come from God because no one could do these miracles unless were with them. They had understood that principle back from the Old Testament when Moses tells God, look, if I come to the people of Israel and I say that you appear to me, they're not going to believe me. And God gave them the ability to perform miracles as His credentials, as a way to certify the man of God or the prophet of God. And this is kind of what the people are grasping at in verse 21. The first group is not being rational by dismissing Jesus as someone who's demon-possessed and crazy, and you shouldn't listen to him. And the people in verse 21 of John chapter 10, they're reasoning the way they should reason. They're saying, you cannot dismiss him as someone who has a demon, because can a demon open the eyes of the blind? And so the Pharisees are Making the charge that Jesus hasn't been cleared, but Jesus disagrees with that charge in verse 25, and he says, I told you. And you do not believe. Now here's how he says he told them the works that I do, meaning the miracles, the miracles that I do in my father's name, bear witness about me. Now here's the reason they don't believe this is astonishing. He says, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. That is interesting because if I read this verse on purpose and changed it, most people today wouldn't catch it. If I read it, but you are not of my flock because you do not believe. No, he says you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. He says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. And as you continue reading this, what emerges is this. The apostles described the Old Testament prophets as men with a like nature, okay, and they said, hey, we're not, we're just men, and also they're described as people as to whom the word of God came, but Jesus stands out very differently because the manner in which he describes himself and the manner in which the apostles speak of Christ, he is not a prophet among a long list of prophets. This is what some religions do, especially in Islam, that Jesus is sort of like the final prophet, But listen to how the Jews respond. Sometimes we say that the Jews, and in this context the Jews means the religious leaders, we say that they misunderstood Jesus. And that's true in many cases. They misunderstood Jesus, but there were other times when they were so infuriated with Jesus, not because they misunderstood Jesus, they were so infuriated with him because they understood what he said. And that's the problem with a lot of people is that they say, well, there's many parts of the Bible. I think it was, what is the, is it Mark Twain? Is he the author of, yeah, he was an author. He said, it's not, he said, it's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that bother me. He said, it's the parts of the Bible that I do understand that bother me. And this is a case in point, because Jesus said, I and the Father are one. There's no distinction here between, I am a man of like nature with you, God appeared to me, the word of God came, okay? He says, I and the Father are one. The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father, for which one of them Are you going to stone me? The Jews answered him, It is not for good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God. Now, this is a hard, it's not so hard, but I've seen people struggle with the reasoning that Jesus engages in here. Jesus answered them, It is not, is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods? Did it sound familiar? That's Psalm 82. And Jesus is saying, first of all, don't object to the idea that someone who is a man is called God. Don't object to that, because I can demonstrate from your own law, which is the scriptures, that God himself calls human judges gods. And the reason that he calls them gods, listen to verse 33, Is it not for a good work, I'm sorry, verse 34, Jesus answered them, is it not written in your law, I said, you are gods. If he called them gods, and you should underline this, to whom the word of God came. That's why they're called gods. They are men to whom the word of God came. And as such, God appointed them to represent God and judge people. The context is national Israel. The word of God came like as in it came to Samuel, but it also came by way in written form through the law of Moses. Now, Jesus is not saying he's one of them. He's engaging in a lesser to greater argument. In other words, don't object to the fact that the title God has been assigned to mere men because I can demonstrate that from your own scriptures that you accept Psalm 82. But listen to how Jesus contrasts himself to those prophets and sets himself apart. He says, do you say of him, and he doesn't say to whom the word of God came also, and that's why I'm calling myself God, I'm just, no, he says, and do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I am the Son of God? You see the contrast there? Jesus is saying that When the Word of God came, it was through the Spirit of God, and people heard from God, and yet those men still understood that they were men. So the God's speech, God's revelation came from heaven, but Jesus here is saying, you should not be objecting that I am one with the Father because He's been one with the Father in eternity past, and the Word of God came in human form as a person. He broke into this world, and so it is right for me to say that I and the Father are one, and you're not misunderstanding me. I am indeed making myself to be God. Do you understand? That's what's happening here. Now, The reason for this particular message, oh my goodness, I've gotten way over the normal time, but that's okay, because you guys paid extra last week, so. Look at verse 35, if he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming? Because I said I am the son of God? Verse 37, if I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me, which is absolutely interesting. What he's saying is, if I am not providing sufficient evidence, then I do not blame you for not believing me, because no one should believe any claim without the accompanying evidence for that claim. So Jesus concedes that point. Church, faith does not mean believing in something or believing in someone with no reason to do so. That's blind faith, and the Bible does not call us to engage in blind faith. Jesus says, if I am not doing the works of my Father, then don't believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father. Again, they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands. They had a problem with Jesus, not because they misunderstood Him. They understood precisely what He was saying. Now, there is so much more that I want to say, but one of the things that I wanted to point out that perhaps we'll cover next week is that we must allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves, okay? We absolutely must allow for the, and it's the task of the preacher to allow the Bible to speak. I'm hearing so many, Unbiblical crazy People say just unbiblical things and People are impressed by them because they sound different and cool and so-called academic and on all of that. Thank you and You know one of the things that I heard this past week is that I The people in the Bible who spoke for God, they didn't know they were speaking for God. And so when we read accounts of Moses talking about an encounter with God, we need to understand that these people, God really was not communicating with them. They thought, they interpreted phenomenon like a burning bush, and they interpreted that experience they so what we have in Scripture are the the writings of men who thought they had experiences with God and so Christianity isn't about reading the Bible and receiving the Word of God as if it is a an objective intended communication through human instruments it's more like like I just explained and so the way that you practice your Christianity this this view says is that you too have experiences and you're going to have to just interpret for yourself with what you know what God is trying to communicate to you and so that the problem is that it's so I wanted to demonstrate that you can read through the Bible and if you just adopt the view of Jesus okay for example Does it sound like Jesus thinks these were men who thought they had an experience with God, but they were incorrect? No, Jesus says these were men to whom the Word of God came. And that's the view that I adopt when I read through the Old Testament. These are the writings of men to whom the Word of God did come because God sent it and we can trust. that they're saying exactly what God told them to say. Amen. There's so much more to cover, but I will leave it there. And so let's stand. Father, we thank you for this message. We thank you that through Christ, who is the ultimate revelation of you, Father, for the scriptures tell us that for in bodily form, all the fullness of deity dwells. And so we know that Jesus is the exact representation of who God is. We know you to be triune. That you are that within your triune being there is the father the son and the holy spirit. We didn't make up this doctrine We believe it is a a clear teaching of scripture So father help us to to have the right thoughts after you that When we read the bible we come to a correct understanding of who you are. Otherwise, we'll read the bible and come to False images of you which fall over into idolatry Lord We trust you we trust in your ability to preserve your word and we trust in the Holy Spirit's ability to work that Word into our hearts that we might apply it in a way that is appropriate And so father help us to remain faithful and walk with wisdom Among outsiders, especially under these perilous times in Jesus name and everyone says Amen