280: Pastor James Foster joins Pastor Plek on the podcast this week to recap Sunday's Sermon on Exodus 22:16-20. Together they probe the depths of historical and cultural context, unraveling the intricacies of legislative laws that shaped a society striving to reflect God's purity. Discover how these ancient ordinances, far from being outdated, provided a framework for human dignity and the sanctity of marriage, and hear how they resonate with our contemporary issues.
Got questions? Text us at 737-231-0605!
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Support the show: https://wbcc.churchcenter.com/giving
280: Pastor James Foster joins Pastor Plek on the podcast this week to recap Sunday's Sermon on Exodus 22:16-20. Together they probe the depths of historical and cultural context, unraveling the intricacies of legislative laws that shaped a society striving to reflect God's purity. Discover how these ancient ordinances, far from being outdated, provided a framework for human dignity and the sanctity of marriage, and hear how they resonate with our contemporary issues.
Got questions? Text us at 737-231-0605!
Like, share, and subscribe! We love seeing and responding to your reviews and comments.
Support the show: https://wbcc.churchcenter.com/giving
And welcome back to Pastor Plex podcast. We are live right here in Austin, texas, streaming on, I guess, youtube and Facebook and everywhere this platform is just being expressed. So so glad to have all of you joining us. And the us is none other than former elder and pastor here at Wells Branch Community Church and current church planner at Taylor Bible Church, none other than James the man foster.
Speaker 2:How are we doing? Doing? Great Thanks for having me. Yeah, so James.
Speaker 1:I had to bring you in for multiple reasons. You're astute ability to be theologically aware and I just wanted to kind of I don't know if you plan on preaching this passage anytime soon but definitely not like a heads up of what awaits you if you go through Exodus chapter 22, verses 16 through 20.
Speaker 1:And I'm just going to read it real quickly because it's it's only four verses, but it's kind of a fun for four verses. And so if you, if you're not familiar with this, better prepare yourself. If a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall give the bride prize for her and make her his wife. If her father utterly refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the bride prize for virgins. You shall not permit a sorceress to live. Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death. Whoever sacrifices to any God other than the Lord alone shall be devoted to destruction. Okay, so that's what we preach through this weekend. Tell me, james, if you were to approach this text, how would you approach it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, positive, encouraging, just really uplifting set of verses. Here, I would say, let's look at the context in which this is written, and what is God trying to do in this context? He's trying to have his people look different than the rest of the world, and so these laws are very strange to us in a culture that these are frowned upon, right? These, these things? Well, most of these things are frowned upon, other than the first one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the back in the day they're frowned upon. Probably up until like 1940 is frowned upon.
Speaker 2:There you go, yeah, so definitely things that are still happening and normal in that culture. So you've got to have or normative in that culture. I should say Nice and you should. You've got to have some sort of regulations to allow God's people to act right instead of and being set apart.
Speaker 1:Hey, producer, cody, is there any way you can pull up my little chart? Alright, so I want you guys to take a look at this, and James has it in front of him. But what I did was I went through with these legislative laws and I started with slavery and murder, then went to like. It just felt like there was so random If anyone curses his father, mother must be put to death. Anyone who steals a man must be put to death. Anyone who punches his father or mother must be put to death, and so I was like these are so random. And then you get into. You know no source or supermitted to live.
Speaker 1:And what I did is I was like, okay, let me, let me organize these. And so the Imago day is sort of human dignity is sort of seen in exits 21, one through 11, which gives like slavery laws for the Hebrew people, israel people, israelite people, and then murder. And so all that was encompassed about how God views the Imago day and that's the baseline. Then the family was brought in with the laws on not cursing your father, not punching your father or mother, not cursing your father or mother and kidnapping a kid. So if you disrupt the family, the basic core, you know, most subsidiary unit in the culture, the fabric of society, you'd be put to death for that, because that is core to the society moving forward. And then the community laws which there is the stuff within these community laws exits 21, 18, all the way through 22, 20, which is like if you're ox goers, your neighbor, here's what you have to pay. If you punch your neighbor and then they lose a tooth or they're you know out, you have to do workers comp, which is sort of while there's HR applied back to, you know, roughly 4000 years ago. It's sort of wild sort of think about that.
Speaker 1:And then what we just read was the landing point of the community laws that sort of established the set apartness of the community. So, yeah, you know, specifically on the set of partners to the source, or if you put someone to death, if they allowed a sorceress to live, or, sorry, you put a sorceress to death, you would kill someone for having sex with an animal. Those two things were actually dealing with worshiping another God. In fact, all those three are worshiping another God. If you part of the community of faith, they broke faith with the community and then the reason why I was so bad is that you might. The reason why you're a sorceress is you're trying to get other people you're going to go, do readings, read the tea leaves, the tarot cards, do the whatever to take other people into your own worship of another God. Now, the thing I always get, I get excited about on this James is God is literally present with them. He's like talking to them from the mountain.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then Moses goes up. They say, hey, don't let Moses talk or don't let God talk to us. Our chest is going to explode. God's like, yeah, that's probably a good idea. So Moses goes up the mountain for 40 days and he's getting all these laws and here's a huge chunk of them. Are these legislative laws? So you've got the Mago Day, the family, the community. This is what we're, you know. This is the establishing the basic framework of the society.
Speaker 1:And then after that so this next week we're gonna talk about the marginalized, which is gonna be the migrant, the orphan, the widow and the poor. The following week is leaders, which is sort of interesting on the leaders part. Like leaders, you last you take care of the marginalized before you take care of the leaders. And then what I thought was weird about the next one is that you also have to have an aspect of don't join the wicked, but you should be kind to the wicked which I thought was sort of an interesting thing.
Speaker 1:If your enemy has his ox fall into a pit, you have to help him pull out the ox, which then Jesus gets into. You know, you've heard it said I for an eye tooth, for a tooth. But I tell you, you know, don't treat people like that.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, remembering the covenant with God in the last part of the three trips, that everyone would come together and remember all that they're coveting to be, and even though the wicked people be a part of that, which is sort of wow, anyway. So, james, I'm not sure if you've ever dabbled in outlining exodus legislative laws. Any thoughts here on any of that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I like the organization. I think this chart is helpful to kind of put it together. This section within the standards of community is kind of like maybe the people that might go into that wicked category too, which is interesting. And obviously these laws were given for the protection and provision of all of the people as a whole. But I like how you've got it marked out in this as well. So I think this chart's really helpful. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:And I think that it's kind of for me at least, it helped me kind of see that the Old Testament, like when Jesus refers back to all these laws, he doesn't, he expounds on them specifically with all this and he doesn't abolish them right the part that he would sort of fulfill, or clearly did fulfill, with the ceremonial laws, which were not these. This is like how to treat people with basic decency and what it means to be a covenant community. And so he didn't. He fulfills the law. I always say he fulfills a ceremonial law, forgives the moral law and then empowers us to live under the current civil law, which in Romans 13,. And even Jesus, when he's on the cross, talks about how God gave Pontius Pilate power to kill him and that is his authoritative right to bear the sword, anyway.
Speaker 1:So that's where we went with that and yeah, so that's been fun. So let's talk specifically now about these laws of sorcery, or first let's go off seducing the Virgin. When you read that, james, let's just put our Joe Pugh sitter. How would they respond? Do you think? To the seducing of Virgin you have to marry them or pay the bride price.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say initially reading through the Bible as a baby Christian, I'd be like man. This is so old school like how dare they you're gonna have to marry this guy that just seduced you. What's this all about? Because I had zero understanding of the context and how few rights women would have, especially women that weren't virgins.
Speaker 1:Right and I think, if you think about that, is protecting women and protecting families, and so there's a couple examples of this. I think at one point there's like 50 shekels that you have to pay for a virgin. That's one spot, but other places it's just like with Jacob and Laban, which Jacob would become Israel. He's the one that he stole his brother's birthright. His brother wants to kill him. He flees to his uncle Laban.
Speaker 1:Uncle Laban says, hey, I've got these two daughters, and Jacob's like I'm in love with Rachel, I will do whatever I need to do. He's like well, the bride price for her, which is like you'd think this is like that's his uncle, so he would get the family discount on the bride. But no, it's seven years that he has to work for Rachel. And then Laban pulls the old switcheroo on the wedding night and like, just kidding, you consummated the marriage with Leah and that was awkward. And then he works another seven years for Rachel again. So again, his bride price was seven years wages.
Speaker 1:Imagine if you had, when you thought about marrying somebody you would be like seven years wages, yeah, that you'd have to pay the father. Now what you have to realize is like, whenever that father died, you'd probably get that money back. So it's not like completely gone, but it's in a huge investment. You're investing your personal equity into the family equity of this family. So that's a big deal, and so what I think ultimately is that you're going to get protected women from the dude let's go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you would realize that that would be a huge price to pay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Word for David. 100 Philistines and Foreskins, that's a lot of. If you're a warrior you have to go and kill 100 dudes to pay the price, to make the way A big bag of Foreskins and that, yeah, that would be a.
Speaker 1:I mean just imagine dumping those out on the floor. Look, look, saul, look what I brought you. Count them up. Count them up. And I think he'd be like no, I'm good. Yeah, somebody put the. Oh my God. I think, Saul in his mind thought there's no way David's going to kill 100 Philistines and be able to get their Foreskins. But he did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so lots of fun making this one weird too, yeah, but this is it's obviously protecting women and empowering them and giving them rights that otherwise would be not.
Speaker 1:They would not have it.
Speaker 1:You would just trade them as property.
Speaker 1:And what I love about this, like, the father has a real protective responsibility for his daughter, and I think that that's the part where, like, that's his daughter, he loves his daughter.
Speaker 1:He doesn't, you know, she makes a, you know, a teenage decision, and now there's a consequence that the father might say, no, you cannot marry him because I know you're no good and I utterly refuse, which here would be the the bad part for that, for the woman, is that probably nobody else would want to marry her. And the other hard part for the father is that if that was his only daughter, you know, then that might mean that there's a risk that she won't be able to take care of him when he gets older, and so there's a this is like risky on all ends, and so the father has to weigh that carefully. It is, you know, obviously there's a trust in God aspect, and you know people, you know this is where, like, kids fall in love, and I think it's not like they're killed. They're not killed. He seduced her, meaning it wasn't like she said no, because if she said no then he would be put to death.
Speaker 1:So, later in is a little bit of, because if a woman screams like that during like a rape or something, then that man is instantly killed, or if he has sex with her in the open country. And she said, like, this kind of like goes into the me too movement. She said, like he raped me, he was done Like there was nothing like. And they said, oh, she's not a virgin, he's like no, but she wanted it, didn't matter, she's, he's dead, she lives on another day, you know, to be available for marriage. But again, in that time you really wanted the virgin and that was like a big deal, all right. So that's on the virgin part. We didn't get any questions on this. I was sort of shocked by that that nobody I mean, would your congregation over at Taylor Bible Church, would they be more of a question asking on like the seducing the virgin one?
Speaker 2:There should be some questions on. I would imagine there'd be some questions on at least a couple of these verses. Yeah, Like everyone's like.
Speaker 1:Well, pastor Moe are one of our elite preachers here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like he preached it so perfectly that nobody had any questions. So when you're that good generally and he is that good almost every time Well, every time, I shouldn't say almost, he's that good every time it's like there are some times where he's not that good, he's that good every time. So therefore there were no questions. So the next part. Then let's get into this one. All of sorceresses or sorceress, must you shall not permit a sorceress to live. All right, give me your reaction. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say initial reaction. I would be curious, on OK as Joe Schmoe, what does sorcery look like back then?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is this like MCU stuff, like where you've got the weird hand moving and the magic coming out? What's going on? Exactly what does it look like to engage in sorcery? And so I'm sure Moe did a great job breaking that down.
Speaker 1:He did do a great job, and I think what he really brought out here at the Sorceress is that sorcerers back then, or sorceresses back then, were more like drug dealers. In fact, the word here in the Greek that's the same word in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament is pharmacaea, which is where we get the current word pharmacy or pharmaceuticals, and so you would induce somebody into some sort of drug-like trance.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's the right word, but some drug induced state where you could experience the spiritual realm. We've always said drugs are the gateway to the dark spiritual realm and I'm not saying all drugs do that. There's probably very much proper uses for Vicodin in pain killing at the appropriate time.
Speaker 1:However, if that is where you're going for recreation, or that is where you're addicted to whatever pain killing drug, because now you need that to sort of cope, it does open you up to a different state of mind where you're able to encounter the demonic. Have you encountered any of that in your walking with the Lord, or rather your experience with people?
Speaker 2:You know, I would say that once you start going down this path of being open to these experiences, or seeking out these types of experiences, whether it be through alcohol, even not to be Mr T Totaler over here but even opening yourself up through drinking, I feel like there are moments that you will be compromised and not so reminded, and then you're more vulnerable to spiritual attacks in those regards, right, and so I think going like psychotropics, other sort of drugs that kind of come in in that regard can obviously go further that way, and I think you'd be even more vulnerable than you're. Just, you know, having a sip of some sort of alcohol it's not like that all of a sudden opens up, Right it's gateway.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is where it's like such a weird thing, and so the experience that we talked about on Sunday is Leah, and you know Leah.
Speaker 2:Leah.
Speaker 1:Brown shared about her story about her brother, Andrew, and Andrew grew up in Leah's household, which is like a reformed household love Jesus, all that they needed to charismatic experiences. So they would. You know, this sort of thing would be out of bounds in reality. Well, Andrew moves to, I want to say, Phoenix, and he was married to his first wife or wife, and while he's there, he's playing a video game and at the end of the video game, online, there's this chant of demons, demons, demons. And then a voice that I don't know if it was only audible to him, but it was clearly audible said hey, I've got the actual truth, I want to share it with you, and you should probably test this, and the way that you should test this is I'm going to have, like these several things happen to you and you will. You will see that I'm not lying, that I have this power and you can have this power as well.
Speaker 1:And so he was seduced by this demon.
Speaker 1:And then, all of a sudden, when he accepted the demon and this is where I'm, this is the part where, like, I don't know if he was saved before that I don't know how the whole thing works, because he grew up, you know, professing Jesus but may not have, I don't know.
Speaker 1:This is the part where it got a little weird. And so he has this all of a sudden, he's been given these memories of this Roman soldier from, like you know, either BC or just after Christ, and he's got all these memories of the it's like killing these people of, of having memories, having literal memories of a different life in Roman times and it was wild and for seven years, you know, the family would tell him you need to repent, but Leah would be like not but. But Leah would listen and kind of just kind of hear him out on what he was experiencing, ask questions and anyway, at a certain point he he gets real sick and Leah felt like she needed to go and visit him and she does and he went downhill real fast and the doctors couldn't find anything wrong. It wasn't like a oh, it's your pancreas.
Speaker 1:It's just like his slew, slowly losing his life it was a while.
Speaker 1:And so she starts talking to him and he gets, at some points, gets real demonic with her, like you know. It kind of looks at her like like that creepy way and says how's it going to be feel to be the oldest child? I mean, just like weird stuff. She's like what are you talking about? You know Andrew? And then eventually it comes this point where he's he's like I want to be me, I want to be me, and you know, leah was praying over him and they had him in hospice because he was clearly dying. And then her dad came and prayed over Andrew for like seven days, like they had kind of a team of people just constantly praying over him, and then at the very end of it he started convulsing like you would see in a I don't know an exorcism experience. And then he was peaceful at the very end and he died. And so I don't know what to do with that Do?
Speaker 2:you want to do this with you. All I know is I don't want to mess with anything demonic.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's the main theme from that is and if and if you've been messing with the demonic, it's a very scarce, scary place to be. It'd be really wise for you to get covering of elders, whether you're at Taylor Bible or you're at our church, to kind of people pray the gospel over you.
Speaker 1:Because, remember the one thing about demons they can't under, they can't handle it. When you proclaim Jesus as Lord, there's the name, there's, there's power in the name of Jesus. In fact, that's what Leah's dad was praying over just the name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus over his life. Again, we're we're not necessarily a charismatic, crazy church that's kind of into this sort of stuff it just sort of like there it is Clearly this is thing and if you walk in the power of Christ, you have authority over the demonic. But dang, that's a real thing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, I think in our Bible church is what we can. The mistake that we can make oftentimes is we can downplay the spiritual realm and even thinking about or talking about angels and demons in much depth. And so then, if you, if you're never allowed to go there, right and then you all of a sudden are excited to go there when you're free. Yeah, that there could be some. It could have just started in this exploratory way, right, which then just gets dark real fast, and that's a great point, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I yeah, and you know, in my own biblical view and I think you probably agree with this is that a follower of Christ who has been dwelt by the Holy Spirit can't be possessed by a demon right, because the spirit of God and demons can't possess the same person. But you can be oppressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so again, I, I don't know. And this people this is where I, if someone said like well, was he saved when he had this demon experience? I don't know, but clearly in the end he came to trust Jesus. From what their story was shared.
Speaker 2:Anyway, praise be to God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, praise God. It just and I think the beauty of that is Leah was like I want to share this story as much as humanly possible because I feel like that's the beauty is that I feel like I'm going to see my brother again in heaven and that's a real sweet ending. But it doesn't always end like that, like I think this, this is the part where demonic stuff is real.
Speaker 1:And we've seen it probably more, more so in third world countries, but I think recently I mean honestly I think recently in America, specifically, as our I don't want to be like our country is going to hell in a hand basket.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be like I'm not that guy but as as more darkness prevails, as you see, like sexual sin and perversity, being, you know, brought up to normative, I think you're, you're, you're having more demonic activity being. I think it was. It was the world economic forum. They had a shaman like like praying over the world economic forum, doing some weird, like spitting over people and and pronouncing some sort of like. I don't know if it's a curse or just a seance or whatever it was. I think there's a real it's becoming more public, where evil is able to kind of be expressed more, which shouldn't cause us to fear, but rather this is a more of an opportunity for us to be able to say I have the power of God and the Holy spirit in Jesus and now I can kind of lean into that. Any thoughts there? Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, as as there's more darkness, there's an opportunity for us, to our faith, to shine brighter. Obviously, um, any sort of thing like whatever, whatever sorcery might look like, um, running from that and then um, um, I'm looking at a text note on it from the Net Bible and it says there were many who wished to follow pagan beliefs and consort with the dead. Yeah, the sorceress was someone who dealt with drugs or herbs for occult purposes. Right references Deuteronomy 1810 through 11, which then is talking about human sacrifice. There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, anyone practices divination, an Omen reader, a soothsayer, a sorcerer, one who cast spells or conjures up spirits, a practitioner of the occult or a necromancer. So obviously there's some other categories that you do.
Speaker 2:Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law. It's kind of expanded there, but any, anything where you're at the level of sacrificing a child or Getting in that deep that's a whole nother level.
Speaker 1:And here's interesting. So Saul, you know the first Chronicles, 10, 13. Saul died, and it gives it because because he was unfaithful to the Lord. Well, he did not keep the word of the Lord to and even consulted a medium for guidance. So, like in the cause of death, it's like one, two, three and you're like, consulted a medium, is it? I'm yeah, anyways, it's sort of wild. So I feel like don't mess with the occult. Is In fact you want to? If someone you know, somebody you want to, I would pray for them. You know what I heard recently and I was, I think I was listening to a commercial. I think might have been on just normal talk radio, and it was like warlock garage.
Speaker 1:Like I'm not kidding, it was like oh, you know, we love all sorts of bikes and you know, and we're warlock rock. I'm like warlock that's a witch, that's a male witch, and I'm like Maybe it's that they thought it was a cool sounding name, but I think there's usually probably some occult stuff behind that, absolutely like you wouldn't call yourself the Jesus garage without you know, unless you were just like wow you know, my name say soos.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you go that direction, but yeah, you're probably gonna call yourself the Jesus garage because you believe in Jesus, and so I think you would call yourself the warlock garage because you have some occultic stuff. So it's prevalent, it's not hidden anymore. This is like it's being exposed more and more and as people of God, I think it's our duty is sort of like hey, listen, the occult is real and we need to be on guard against absolutely, even in Bible churches. Even in Bible churches. All right, the next one is even more fun. This is why anyone who lies with an animal will be put to death, and what generally would happen I think this is where the bestiality factor comes in is that during this time, what you would do is you would, you would have sex with an animal sort of prime, the pump for fertility. Is that makes sense?
Speaker 1:not, not to me, yeah yeah, yeah, so that's what you would do and so that would be part of idolatry, kind of go experience a fertility right, which is like what people do worship other gods and so therefore don't do it. But on this one, I think you can pretty much it's safe to say it's, and that's not just a A Fertility right. I think that's pretty wise.
Speaker 2:That you don't want to have sex with an animal, yeah, absolutely and even even from a sheer practical perspective of okay, where's, where's medicine at in this time frame? What kind of disease or other affliction will come with this experience for these people? Just not a good way to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I not a good look for God's people. Yeah, so it's not just an exit 2219, so it's not just a Like Idolatry issue, which it clearly was but, living as 1823's.
Speaker 1:Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defy yourself with it. A woman, not, must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it. This is a perversion, and if a man has sexual relations with an animal, must be put to death. You must kill the animal. It's pretty clear that this is bad news for everybody, and Even even the laws of the day.
Speaker 2:The Canaanites of Mesopotamians Attributed this to their gods, in which they practice and worshiping those gods it was. It was why they would practice the bestiality. And then Some law codes impose the death penalty for having intercourse with certain animals. The Torah prohibited this practice completely, so going even further, saying hey, don't do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think Catherine the great actually has, though I don't know if it's an urban legend, but I think she died having sex with a horse. So there you go. I know that pretty much she was a, I guess, an empress of Russia. There you go, there you go, all right. So Moving that forward, did you know?
Speaker 1:Here's the stat that Pastor Mo brought up in our in his sermon. There's like 1.5 to 2 million, right the registered Zula files, people that are into Bcality in the US. So it it like that, I think one of the point he brought up. He says it seems silly that would need to have to bring this up of like, don't do this, but clearly there's about 2 million people that are wanting to influence you and you could have influence over them. I don't know if necessarily saying hey, the Bible says this is evil, or that this is idolatry, or this is not how God designed it. But some way to communicate that God loves them and has a design for them and they're rebelling against God's design, I think would be helpful. And there's four states where it is not illegal. Yeah, I see that that's wild. It's not illegal in Hawaii and West Virginia, which probably everyone assumed. But yeah, there's two other states, wyoming and Utah.
Speaker 2:Hawaii, wyoming oh, hawaiian Wyoming are at least moving towards it now. Oh, good for them. Good, that's progress. Yeah, unfortunate.
Speaker 1:Hawaii, new Mexico, west Virginia, wyoming but here's the thing now I know that again, I don't want to get like our sex. Christian sex ethic used to be the law of the land, okay, like it used to be illegal to Be homosexual. I Think we're gonna see at some point People saying like, listen, I'm in love with my horse, or I'm in love with my dog, or whatever, whatever. And people are going to say, no, this seems like a law that is outdated and.
Speaker 1:I think CS Lewis called it chronological Snobbery where we look look at our how far we've come, and we look back at those people who didn't understand. We look oh, beastie alley, nobody would do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, a hundred years ago, people would say, like Gay marriage being the law, the land, nobody's gonna do that. And here we are. Or you know, like someone be able to say, like I'm not a man, I'm actually a woman trapped inside a man's body and that changed my sex, we would say that would never happen. And what I want you to see like this isn't like, hey, this is no way you can be forgiven from this, but the reality is it is sin and that God's calling us to repent and Align ourselves with his sex ethic. And this other reason why, like when people want to kind of point to, like modern day times, there is no mention of homosexuality. Or, like the Old Testament, sexuality was done away with the law. And I'm like, no, that's moral law, mm-hmm, not ceremonial law.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so, and even when acts 15, whenever Jesus, or rather Jesus, whenever the Jerusalem Council meets and they're trying to figure out what we should make Gentiles do when it comes the Old Testament, they're like listen, don't let them eat blood, don't eat blood and then don't commit sexual morality. So it took the same standard sexual morality and just imposed it into the New Testament in the Jerusalem Council, in Acts 15. Yeah any thoughts on that sex ethic?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I would agree with you that once you start to open up that door and I don't wanna say oh, it's a slippery slope for everything but truly we see more. Once since gay marriage has been legalized, we've seen a progression into more of these other obscure groups of people that are unashamed and pedophiles, or people that are unashamed and bestiality practicers, people that wanna marry multiple people, like. There will be more and more of this of an abomination.
Speaker 1:Perverse, yeah, perverse.
Speaker 1:Perverseness that becomes more prevalent as we allow yeah there's already an organization called NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, and that they actively lobby Congress on behalf of that perversion. And so you think about that like this is where you go, like the Jeffrey Epstein stuff that's real, like sex trafficking on that level and that high up and the perversity that you see, that's a real thing. Evil is real, and so I think I just want us to kind of be aware of that and that God's moral law and the standard from the Old Testament isn't unhitched from the New Testament. In fact Jesus accentuates it and lifts up the law and we realize we can't fulfill it on our own. We need his help.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay. Then the last one was just a simple look at idolatry which we kind of to frame it. Moe put it like hey, there's idolatry of sex ethic and then there's idolatry of worshiping other gods, and they sort of fall in the same category, and I think that that's where he really helped walk us through that on Sunday, which was really a fun experience, I think, for us to kind of go, wow, it is all idolatry. When we take God's design, we say, nah, I'm good, I'm gonna do it my way. How are you just at Taylor Bible, how do you experience idolatry? And I know it's all the way up in Taylor, so far from here in Austin but how are you experiencing idolatry? What's the thing that you think people go to Cause? I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2:idolaters were equally put to death with the bestiality people, and I think there's modern day idolatry where we put our hope and our heart in money materialism, whatever, absolutely yeah, I would say within the same vein of stewardship, and we consider where are you spending your time and your talents and your treasure? Those are the things that you're serving. So, as disciples of Jesus, we can take these biblical practices and the way that we can be reshaped and reformed and made to become more and more like Jesus, and we can start practicing these life patterns that help us to recognize our identity and like oh, now I know what it means to be a worshiper, now I know what it means to be a steward, now I know what it means to be a servant. And as I'm practicing that, I'm being reshaped to become more like him. But if, on our own, we kind of have a drift right and where you're drifting is what you're loving more than God, yeah, I love that Cause.
Speaker 1:I just think in our culture, when we think idols, we think like someone bowing down to a statue somewhere.
Speaker 2:And we've all gone.
Speaker 1:Eye roll no one would do that. But we will bow down for our favorite football team and we'll put on all the outfits and wear the face paint and scream for hours and invest a lot of money in supporting that and it's not. I'm not saying those things are evil. It just becomes evil when it becomes the sole focus of your heart.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And whether it's binging a TV show or binging a sport or binging something that isn't Jesus, that becomes problematic.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. And another way to identify what some of these other idols might be would just be when the lights go out, when you close your eyes, what are you dreaming about? What are you hoping for? What are you wishing for the most? And those kind of will surface that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for me, like for a while here, the big idol that I would have is like God, let's get this building going. And it took me a while to be like cause we're in the middle of a capital campaign. It's like, oh, the Lord wants me to wait, even though I think it would bless our church, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, oh, the God's working on me to help me let go of an idol that I might have, which is like I want to have our own space and have our own building, and blah, blah, blah, and everyone's at different spots with that right. I think it reminds me of like when I was growing up, my mom drove me to school and like one day I was like, okay, I'm gonna ride the bus, that's gonna be really cool to ride the bus. And then I ride the bus and I was like, okay, once I get to the back of the bus now, that's gonna be really cause I will have that little two-seater seat, you know, at the very back and it was like the golden seat.
Speaker 1:And then I got there and I looked behind and I saw a teenager driving. I was like oh, when I could be driving my own car. And then I got in my own car and then I was like, once I graduate high school, now that's. And then I graduated high school and I went to West Point and I was like, once I stop being a plebe, that's gonna be awesome. And then I finally, and then once I get and there was always another thing that with my hopes and my dreams were set on.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't until I got a Ranger tab in the Army that I was like nothing matters. It literally was like just the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. If you're a future oriented person, you kind of think in those terms and then and so now, like there's this part of me, like once my kids stop wearing pull-ups at night.
Speaker 2:You know, like there's, still, like there's still something oh yeah, yeah, once the kids get out of the bed, once they, it just keeps going.
Speaker 1:It just keeps going Once I get in the grave, that's you know. So I think our hope always has to be on being with Jesus. And you put the thing that I don't know. It's trick, trick seems like like hook. You know magic. But I think that the mindset for myself is I've got to invite Jesus into the present and be present with him as I'm going through hard things or difficult things or not having my wants met and trusting him in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's really good Cause it'd be easy in those moments to just escape and say give me the comfort, cause I can't feel this right now. It's too. It's too much, too much. God, let me help you out, cause the longer we wait, the more it's going to cost, and the more it's going to cost, the harder it's going to be.
Speaker 1:And yeah, just easy to spiral. All that, all that, all that spiraling, thank you, that's right, spiral, cause I think we spiral sometime. God don't you understand? And he's like, yeah, this is what I do. Yeah, hey, thanks so much for watching. If you got any questions or comments, you feel free to text at 737-231-06 or 5, or go to pastorplekcom. We would love to hear from you and, if you're watching live, make sure you put some comments into wherever you're watching, and we would love to maybe take some of those questions as well, and we'll bring Pastor James back for another podcast to you to listen to. So, from our house to yours, have an awesome week of worship. We'll see you next time.