03 Jul 2026 (Q&A)

0:00 It is the 3rd of July 2026. I am Cory J. Mahler, and this is at any cost. This is a QA episode. It is episode 34, and I was fairly busy this week, so I didn't prepare any of the longer questions, but I will get to the pending ones at least on the pops up in the chat. I know that obviously it's a holiday tomorrow and so probably not as many people are going to tune into this certainly live, but that's not exactly the point of these anyway. As I don't have any housekeeping, I will just go ahead and move into the questions and questions and I believe everything is work, so everything should be fine. Hopefully the music did not continue playing over my introduction there. Looks like it might have tried to do that.

0:51 At any rate, the OBS plugin is working this week, so I should be able to see chat, which is great news and novel. Question one. Sleep in paradise. Will there be sleep in paradise? Is the need for sleep a consequence of the fall? Is it significant that man must sleep one third of his day? So this is one of those questions where I have to start by saying, I don't know absolutely certain, right? However, I think that we can look at a very clear verse in scripture about sleep. There's one that I'm sure has already come to mind for some of you. Let me go ahead and pull that up here. I'll pull it up on the screen as well. 120 twenty seven one twenty one twenty seven in the Mazericness of one twenty six.

1:52 Let me pull that up Transition to that. Okay. Psalm one twenty six in the Septuagint numbering one twenty seven in most your Bibles if they're based on the Masoretic. And verse 2, It is in vain for you to rise up early, to get up after sitting down, O you who eat bread of pain, when he gives sleep to his beloved ones. Now admittedly there are two ways Right. You can interpret it just on its face and take it and say, Okay, sleep is a gift from God, it's a blessing, it's a good thing, therefore, it will still exist in paradise, because good things are not destroyed. But I will admit that you could look at it I think this is the weaker argument, but I'm just sake of completeness. I think it is the the weaker argument.

2:43 You could look at it as sleep being a good thing within the bounds of this fallen creation, so a blessing to man in his current state. I don't think, like I said, I don't think that's the stronger argument. I think the stronger argument very clearly is that sleep is a good thing, it's a blessing and it will still exist in paradise. And for those of us who don't like sleep, and I'm certainly in that camp, I hate sleep. It interrupts things, it's obnoxious, it s feels like a waste of time. For us, it will be a different thing. Because just like everything else in this life where it's with you know strings attached or caveats, things in paradise are perfect, and so sleep will be exactly what God intended for it to

3:27 be for man. I don't like it personally because if I'm working on a a writing project or some task, whatever it happens to be, I like to get very much into the thing and get it Now, obviously there are things that take multiple days or weeks or months or even years, and I don't have a problem breaking those up. But if it's something that is going to take, you know, twenty hours of dedicated effort, I would rather just get it done And the necessity of sleep breaks that up, and so of course do other things like you know, taking your pet out, and exercise, eating. But that's sort of a personal preference. Not everyone is that way. But I do think that most likely sleep will still exist. I think it's a good thing.

4:09 It's a blessing from God. It just won't have the negatives that it has here in time. In this creation. I'm not saying time won't exist in the next creation. Measurement of change is basically a measurement of time. So question two is about Babel. By what means do you believe God God dispersed the nations at Babel. Migration is the normally used is the normal explanation for the dispersion, but I have heard divine exportation used as well. I have heard that that maybe once or twice. That's sort of an edge opinion we'll call it. It does not come up very often. I'll pull up Genesis 11 here. And is the narrative of the Tower of Babel. Very short, so let's go ahead and read it. And the whole earth was one lip, and there was one speech

5:07 for all. And it came about as they moved from the east that they found a plain in the land of Senar, called Shinar in most of your Bibles, and settled there. And one person said to the next, Come let us make black with fire. And the brick became stone for them, and they were And the clay for them was bitumen. And they said Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top shall be as far as heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves before we are scattered abroad upon the face And the Lord said, Look, one race and one lip of all, and this they have begun to do, And nothing that they undertake to do will now be wanting from them. Come and let us go down, and confuse their tongue there, so

5:55 that they will not hear, each one the speech of the next. Scatter them abroad from there, over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city and the tower. Therefore its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confused the lips of all the earth, and from there the Lord God scattered them abroad, over the face of all the earth. So it obviously doesn't explicitly state God used ex means, however it very strongly implies it. And that's confusion of language. And incidentally it's worth noting two things. First I'll note the little bit of irony here, because God does like irony, he does employ it, and our into the heavens. What does God have to do to look at it? Come let us go down and look at this thing.

6:46 God's mocking mankind's effort to build a tower into the heavens, because God, who resides in the heavens, has to come down to look at it. That's God mocking them, and it's ironic. But I would point out here is the context, because obviously chapter eleven comes after chapter ten. Chapter ten is the Table of Nations. And anyone who's really paid attention, that seems out of order, right? Because the Table of Nations doesn't come to pass. These nations don't really come to pass until until Babel. This is a telling of what happens with the sons and the grandsons and the great grandsons, etc. etc. of Noah after the Tower of Babel, after the dispersion. Obviously some of these men are around at the time of the

7:33 Tower of Babel, right, and there's some argument one way, argument other way about which individual involved, and most of that's speculation. But the fact that the table of nations comes before the Tower of Babel kind of gives us our hint here. Because God is telling us what is going to happen, the means that He is going to use, and how He is going to employ those means Jesus means the narrative the Tower of Babel. Because what does he do? Because what does it say about these tribes, right? So for instance here in verse thirty one, these are the sons of Shem in their tribes, according to their languages. That's the means that God uses to disperse them, and he does it according to their race, according to the

8:20 man, and then the subraces according to the grandsons of Noah And so in the context there, because remember the verse and chapter numbers don't really exist, they're for our convenience. In the context there, it's pretty clear that the way that God divided up the earth and spread people abroad was that He simply made it impossible to communicate and they naturally drifted apart. I do happen to agree with Luther and some other exegetes that Japheth seems like he wasn't really as involved here. It seems like it was really mostly the sons of Ham and the Sons of Shem, at least some of them helping him. And it's from archaeology and history pans out as well, and also from what little we get We get in Scripture because the sons

9:05 of Japheth kind of leave the narrative early on, which maybe is an indication. Because they left earlier. I agree with the exegetes who think that. I think that Japheth was obedient. I think he was loyal to God and God commanded and moved north. And you can also see that in the fact that European languages are less confused, as it were, less distant from one another than many languages in other parts of the world. You know, you're not going to really be able to speak, say, Chinese and converse with someone who knows Arabic. Is that the case necessarily if you know German and Dutch? The answer is no. Is it the case necessarily even German and English? You can kinda get by with German and English because the core

9:50 is still the same. There's more overlap, more similarity among the languages of the sons of Japheth. And so I think that that is a reasonable conclusion in the text, but I think there is sufficient warrant for it. But to answer the question directly again, I believe that he just used the the standard means that is the standard interpretation. Confusing their languages cause them naturally to separate and move apart from one another. And note before I get into the the chat and some other questions that I have here. I did notice when I was setting up the stream and such that there are pending questions in the comments on the streams. I will try to get through at least some of those, not necessarily in this episode, but I will

10:40 into my notes for future episodes so that those don't get lost. As always, if I don't notice a question at some point, go ahead and ask it again. There are too many notifications, I don't notice them all. So I'll look at chat first and then I will go ahead and look at And perhaps some of the other questions from the backlog on the forum. So one of the questions from chat: where do you chronologically, this is question three, where do you chronologically place Job? Why is God letting Satan dictate how Job should be tested? I will go ahead and paste this into the Lose the question. Granted, I can always just go and pull it from the transcript later, but it's nice to have it. So it's really two questions, but I'll go ahead and answer them

11:29 both both as question three. Chronologically, I agree with Wo. I believe that Job is the one who is interacting with the ancient Israelites when they're coming out of Egypt, crossing through that territory into the promised land, into Canaan, into Palestine, whatever you want to call it, depending on what it's been called down through history. I think that timeline is correct. I believe it bears out if you make some fairly minor assumptions and other than that just Because it doesn't give you all the exact information. There are some things where you have to it can be one man or another, and I think Job is the stronger argument. I agree with Wo on that one. That's what we said in Stone Choir, we've said it elsewhere as

12:14 well. So I think Job is actually the king who came out against the Israelites and crossed through our territory. And that would have been a righteous thing for him to do because they had just been engaged in idolatry and all sorts of wickedness and he did not want that for his people. Granted, they later on fall to idolatry, but at the time they were righteous people, look at Job. But why would God let sort of decide how much he can be tested, right? That's sort of the big question from Job. There are some other questions there as well, obviously. You know, we appeal to it, for instance, for the fact that creation is God's greater book, because God himself, when he is talking to Job of Job of his greatness appeals to creation.

12:57 He does not say look at these things I've written or I have inspired men to write. He says look at these things I have made, look at the greatness of my majesty, my glory, my power in creation, because it's reflected in creation. But insofar as the extent of the temptation, that's always true. It's not just with because Satan would love to destroy you personally. He would love to destroy any Christian personally. He probably doesn't care that much about those who are not currently believers because sure they could be more wicked, they could do more evil, but as long as they're not Christian and they're not doing good, does it ultimately really matter to Satan? He has other things to do, right?

13:42 If he has to choose between trying to further tempt someone who is already on the wrong path, versus versus trying to get a Christian to apostatize, it's kind of better use of his time to mess with the Christian, right? But it's always the case that you are permitted to be tempted, to be tried, to be tested, insofar and only insofar as God permits. That is true for every single man. It's just in Job's case it happened to be extreme. But there are other men who have been extremely tested, right? There are Christians who have gone to the lions, there are Christians who have been twice for months, for years in some cases, to try to get them to renounce their faith. God knows how much you can bear.

14:28 And as a Christian, as a child of God, as a member of the elect, God is not going to give you tests that exceed what you can bear. Strength to bear up under it. In Job's case, he's proving a point, and he's proving a point not necessarily to Job as sort of the primary target, as it were. He's obviously the primary in the sense of he's first, but it's for us. Job is written for our comfort everything in scripture. Because everything in scripture is ultimately written for our comfort. And of course it only is for your comfort if you are a member of the elect, right? If you are Christian, if you have faith. And I think I'm going to write more on that this coming week. I think I will actually type up the I I do

15:18 it. I just don't always type it up and then publish it. I think I will do that and it's a related subject, so I'll put that in the the show notes for this when I do that. So take a look at that. But with regard to your temptation, like I said, God is only going to let you be tempted as far as He knows you can withstand. He will give you order to withstand it. So He did not permit Job to test him so far that he broke. He gave him the strength to stand up under that. And he was proving that point for us. It's a point that ultimately God is in control of all things, and the glory of God's alone. And it's also comforting because we can look at Job and see that no matter how much Satan tried, no matter how great the

16:08 temptation and the suffering and all those things, God didn't let Job ultimately fall. So that's comforting to us because most likely our temptations most right are not going to be as bad as Job because we aren't going to have Satan personally trying to ruin our lives. Generally speaking. Maybe that's going to be an exception for some individuals, but generally speaking, you're not going to be tested to the same degree as Job. And if God gave Job the stand up under that sort of testing, he can certainly do the same for you. So it you can read the story of Job as a gospel promise. It is comforting for Christians. But yes, it's certainly you're going to be tested in this life, right? It's very clear that God disciplines and tests and prunes, right?

17:00 The plant metaphor, prunes those who are his so they produce more fruit. It's ultimately for your good, like it says in scripture, all things work together for the good of those who are called. Right. I see someone asked the same one of the questions that I did notice in the comment to a video to that one now and hopefully remember that I answered it when I see it later. There's no way to mark anything in Anything as answered in YouTube's interface. So the only thing you can do is you can reply and then you can filter by reply, but you can't just I'm not going to reply, like if you've answered it previously. It's not a great design. It's very obnoxious. Same problem for Stone Choir and everything else.

17:49 But question four What is your take on the members of Hitler's party who betrayed and tried to assassinate him. He says he's thinking of the German general Irwin Traitors deserve to be hanged. That's just how that goes. Now obviously that comes with the sort of huge caveat that the person has to be a traitor, right? It has to be someone whose betrayal would in fact be treason. And Example, right let's say you're living under one of the extremely wicked communist governments, torturing Christ Christians, burning monasteries, just generally being as bad, as evil, as wicked as possible. Would turning against that government be treason? I would say no. Because we pointed out in Stone Choir, I pointed out elsewhere, Romans thirteen

18:44 is polemical because Romans thirteen actually lists the qualifications of what a rightful government will do. And incidentally when you list what something will do, you're also listing what it will not do, right? Just like the Ten Commandments are both positive in the sense of there's an inverse of it. You know, if you're not supposed to do X, then you do the things that avoid X, stuff like that. So in the case of a truly wicked and evil government, it would not be treason, it would not be morally wrongful to oppose that government. That starts to get back into you know, Magdeburg go look at listen to that episode or read the transcript, whichever you prefer. But in the case of the National Socialists, yes, those who were

19:29 trying to assassinate him were definitely in the wrong. They had a very wrong-headed opinion about the whole thing. They thought that they could topple their current gun and surrender to the Allies and get good treatment. And we all know what happened to the Germans who surrendered to the Allies. Many of them were starved to death. So they were very clearly wrong. Granted that's hindsight, but I think it was also pretty obvious at the time considering the behavior of the Allied powers. Question from X here, question five. Let me copy and paste that. Is it better to go to a reformed church that confesses true things about race and society or a Lutheran church that preaches against them but believes true things about the sacraments?

20:15 I would probably go to the Reformed Church, just go ahead and give the Would not partake of the sacrament, most likely. And the reason that I say most likely, and I know some Lutherans will bristle at that, but m you go ahead, have fun. And the reason that I would say most likely is I think there are two ways you can look at participation in the sacrament. And I do think the context matters. So for instance, if you were at a Lutheran church, a Lutheran church should have closed communion because of what Lutherans believe about the sacrament, and we believe it is actually harmful for individuals to come to the sacrament with wrong beliefs about the sacrament because it is to feigning the body and blood of the Lord.

21:02 So we practice close communion. However, there is also you can look at it, for instance, as and this is how Lutherans generally look at it, particularly in the Lutheran case, we are saying that those who participate in the sacrament are giving a public confession things. And so that's why we have closed communion, because you should believe the same things if you are going to participate in the Lord's Supper at a Lutheran church. That's one way you can look at it. The other way that you can look at it, and I would say that I would be inclined to look at it this way in some cases, from my probably certain among the Reformed and maybe certain Anglican churches I think would be the ones that would initially come to mind for me.

21:49 You can look at it as a confession that these individuals are Christian brothers. And if I am confessing that these men are Christian brothers, even if I believe they are in error with regard to then I wouldn't necessarily object to participating in the sacrament with them. I would not admit them to the table in a Lutheran church, but if they invited me to the table in their church, I wouldn't have that immediate necessary no response to that because I think that second argument, that second way of looking at it in confession they are Christian brothers, is a legitimate way to look at it. So most Lutheran teachers are probably going to say they would just not participate in the sacrament in a non-Lutheran church because of the differences in

22:36 theology, the difference in doctrine. But I think to some of them, they would see both sides of that. So But definitely these days I would pick the church that is least likely to call the police on you, which in this hypothetical is going to be the Reformed Church that teaches correctly on race versus the Lutheran Church that in this hypothetical teaches against these things might very So even if you don't participate In the Lord's Supper, if you don't go to the sacrament of the table at the Reformed Church, and you know your conscience obviously is going to lead you as well. If your conscience is bothered by doing that, then by all means don't participate. Even if you don't participate in you're no longer having that regularly, you still hear the word, you

23:26 will still hear the fact that you are forgiven, you will hear the gospel. You don't actually have to have the sacrament every Sunday. It is better to, it is best to have it at least every Sunday. That's how it should be. But with ideal conditions and under not ideal conditions, I think you just go for the best thing that is currently available. So in the hypothetical, go to the Reform Church. Sort of a follow-up question here to the earlier question about the dispersion across the world after the Tower of Babel or the Tower of Confusion, whichever name you want to use there. And that is did Noah and Japheth speak Pi, which for those who don't know is Pro, which is the more or less hypothetical

24:26 parent language of all of the Indo European languages, the ones that are under that large family tree. It's reconstructed because obviously there are no speakers of it still. It is reconstructed from what we know and obvious what we have from archaeology and things like that. It's mostly philology. But I don't know if they spoke Pi. I think there's a pretty strong argument that Japheth probably spoke something that was roughly like Pi. I don't know what happened in Noah's case, right? I don't know if Noah was suddenly to a bunch of his grandchildren. That may have been the case. Or you know, Noah may not have been around, depending on the exact timeline here. But I think it's pretty likely that J Fith spoke something roughly like

25:15 pi or what pi would be if we were able to reconstruct it perfect. I think that's a strong argument. Obviously it's not in scripture, you aren't bound to believe this, but I think there's a very strong argument for it. I think it is correct to conclude that A follow-up question about let's see related to the question about Job. So question seven. Is James 113 in conflict with the idea of God allowing Satan to tempt us? So let's pull up James 113.

26:29 Let's get logos to there we go. So I think we'll just go ahead and read that paragraph I think is sufficient. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crowd of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is Christ by his own desire. Then desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. So I think the answer to your question there is really in the subsequent verse, right? You're ultimately tempted by your own concupiscence, your own original sin, your

27:18 own inward desire evil. The only exception, of course, being Adam, who was in a state of State of perfection, and so his will is not tarnished in the same way that ours is, right? Human will exists in a number of different states, and that would be you know Adam before the fall, and then us after the fall before regeneration, us after the fall, after. After regeneration and the Eternity, right? We're dealing with Christians after the fall, so regenerated, but not perfected. And so we still have concupiscence, we still have that desire to sin, and Satan plays on that, right? We have sinful desires. Satan fans the flames and tries to cause problems there. God doesn't tempt anyone, right? But God will permit you to be tempted, permit you to be

28:07 tested. God is not going to say, Hey, you should sin. That's not what God is going to do. But he does permit the devil to do that, and God is in control of has him on a leash. He's only allowed to do as much as God permits him to do. So I don't think those there's no real conflict there. It's saying that God is not the cause of sin, which we know that God is neither the cause of sin nor does he cause others to sin. So he's not the source and he doesn't cause you to sin. That man that's just the standard teaching of basically well it is the standard teaching of all Christian denominations. Some are a little wobbly on exactly how they interpret that interaction and how the human will works, right?

28:51 The it's the bondage of the will question and how far that extend how far How far that extends or does not extend? How much free will you have? The quick rundown of that, the Lutheran answer of course, and I believe the correct answer according to scripture, with regard to spiritual things, before you're regenerated, you have no free will, because you're dead in your sins and your trespasses and corpses don't act. After regeneration, you cooperate with the Holy Spirit in sanctification. Justification in your regeneration, it's monergism, you play no role, it's God alone. Monergism just means monogism only one actor, right? God is the only actor. Synergism means that working together, acting together.

29:36 Because it's just with plus work. So with sanctification you are working with the spirit. With justification, it is God alone mono working, mono ergos. So let me make sure I put that one in the show notes. Okay. I think I got the current questions from chat, so let me turn to some of the other questions I have here. Let me have YouTube Studio Refresh so that I lose where I had them. That's helpful. I think I will probably go through the comments and try to

30:38 get to those perhaps Weak. I just answered this one. I found this one. And there's still no way to flag it as having been answered. So I think I've actually got most of those questions. So I'll pull up my backlog here that I have on the forum and get through some of those unless something else comes in in the chat. I don't know if I'll go the full hour necessarily Tomorrow's a holiday, let people go early, right? Let myself go early. I'll pick a hard question just because it happens.

31:41 Question eight. How do we reconcile a love of country with the reality of the nation we live in? Can we do so? And that's an important question. Because obviously we currently live in a wicked country, right? Perhaps as considering tomorrow is the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the United States, for anyone who is listening from the rest of the world but doesn't doesn't happen to know that I feel like you probably have by now. You've probably seen in the media. At any rate. I think part of it is the distinction here between country and nation. And you use both terms, but those terms should not be used interchangeably because they're not equivalent. And so your country is the political entity.

32:29 Your nation is your race. It's blood and soil and and myth, which I've gone into that before. Your nation you cannot choose. You kind of can a little bit, because obviously you could emigrate, you can immigrate, there are things like that. Without touching on the morality of whether or not you should, right? And so you love your nation because your nation is a gift from God. You are what you are intrinsically because that is how God made you. Your people are they are yours, the same as your parents are yours because they gave birth to you, your mother gave birth to you, your father was involved earlier, right? So your nation you must love because your nation are the people who are closest to you, the people God has entrusted to your care,

33:17 and those who do not care for your own family and your nation's an extended family, and particularly those of their own household, are worse than an unbeliever. So you don't want to run afoul of that, certainly. But when it comes to sort of the it's really kind of a patriotism question, right? But with regard to the country. And even that's a Because patriotism is derived from the Latin for father. And so to love your patrimony is to love your forefathers, is to love your nation, is to love your race. But in the usual sort of lay sense, as it were, the generic use of the term patriotism with regard to a country. So the United States. Do you I think you love your nation insofar as it is a It

34:05 is a representation or an outgrowth of your people, and you do the best you can to try to improve it. That doesn't mean that you can't critique your country when it does evil things. In fact, it's often to do that as a Christian man, at least if God has put you in a position to do that. And so I don't think given the current set of conditions that we necessarily have to love the United States, because the United States has done an immense amount of evil, it is still doing an immense amount of evil. It is bringing in hostile foreigners, every destroy us, destroy our nation, make our lives more difficult, make the future significantly more difficult. And so we can love the good things about our country and the good

34:53 things in the history of our country. And even the good there are good things that exist today, right? There's there are good things about the United States bad. But ultimately the focus of our care our concern should be our nation and bringing the country, the political entity back in line with being an expression of the will and something that seeks the good of the nation, of the race. So can we a love of country in sort of the absolute sense with what our country is currently doing? Probably not. But ultimately our allegiance isn't to our country first, it's to our nations, to our people. Because that's created by God and and the country is just so obviously the creation of God has to stand, it's more important.

36:02 There's a difficult question here that I don't know that I necessarily want to get into tonight, but maybe I will because it's an important question. I think it should be answered. So And it's one of those questions where it seems like the right is easy, but at the same time it's not easy because of the the consequences of it. And I don't think an appeal to consequences is always wrongful. But anyway, question nine. There is a transgender person at my workplace and I am being forced to use its pronouns. What is the Christian thing to do here? The issue with this is that ultimately speaking, transgenderism is part of the pernicious wicked anti-Christian religion that we could perhaps class under

36:55 the umbrella of Marxism in the sort of broad sense ultimately it's Satanism, right? But Marxism sort of captures the idea better for most people. And so the question then is that is this a participation in that wicked religion? I think the answer is yes, because confession because it is a confession against reality, it is a confession against God's good ordering of creation. And also there's you know the psychology of it you're building up and feeding into the delusions of someone who will probably eventually do something violent to else, as the statistics clearly show. So I don't think as a Christian that you are in fact permitted to do that. Because I think it would be counted as something even worse than

37:52 say the pinch of incense to Caesar, right? Because there were Christians went to the lions in order to avoid that. I think this is a This is a than that. And so I would say that practically speaking, because there obviously there's a consideration the theology, right? The theology answer I think is pretty easy. Don't participate in the evil religion of the world. But the practical considerations obviously are more difficult, right? You are we'll take the extreme example, as it were, right? Let's say you're a father and you have a whole bunch of young children, you really need this job, it'd be difficult to get a new job. So it's the worst case scenario, and you're going to get fired, right? If you stand up and do anything about this.

38:40 scenario. And so does wisdom play a role? I think the answer is yes. Wisdom has to play a role because in that case there are those who have been entrusted to your care. So if you can just avoid the problem, I think that's permissible in those circumstances where you are trying trying to preserve what God has entrusted to your care, etc., etc. But But obviously less of an issue if you don't have those considerations. So the way you can avoid it, right, is you don't necessarily have to use pronouns You can talk around that. That's perfectly possible. In fact, just like you don't ever have to use another person's name when you are talking to or about the person. I have friends that probably haven't said their names in years because

39:32 you just you know just talk to the friend. You don't have to announce that you're talking to that person. So if you can get around exercising wisdom but not participating in the evil, I I think that is a permissible way if you have those sort of countervailing concerns. The alternative, right? If you think that that is going to be viable in your case, I don't know even where you are in the world. So I don't I don't know you're not giving legal advice, despite the fact that I'm an attorney, you know, the usual caveat. You may be able to go to your HR department and say, This is against my religion. This is a violation of my religious rights, which you probably have wherever you are if this sort of thing is happening, right?

40:17 And there's some protection for that. I would go to an attorney first. Have the attorney give you the exact language you're going to want to use with HR. You're building a paper trail. And the reason that you're building that is that if they fire you The attorney versed in your local laws would be able to give you better advice on that because he would know what sort of case you need and what evidence you need. I think that's probably the wisest way to proceed if you can't avoid the issue. And who knows, maybe it it may actually turn out to your benefit if you get a wrongful termination. because if they just blatantly violate the law, those suits are usually pretty easy and they usually get you a decent check.

41:07 So maybe you can find some way to punish them for trying to get you to make a false confession. There's nothing wrong with that. Pull another question here from X. Since I see there's some questions in the chat, I'll try to get to those. This is question now I left a comment a few days ago about my cousins and his wife adopting a Mexican child, so I assume that's typo there on the plural. Would you say that I have a duty to my blood being I think there's a typo there being over my disdain for him and his wife's poor choice to aid in the displacement of

42:09 my children and his. So I assume that means he has other children in addition to the one that he's adopted. This is one of those cases because of this is sin, I'll just go ahead and say it's sin. You should not be doing that. When you have your own people are in dire straits, there are many children of your own nation who should be adopted, and you are going out of your way to adopt the foreigner instead, you are failing to rightly care first and foremost for those care, and that is sin. So what he did was sinful. And you know, a a Mexican child should be in Mexico with Mexican parents. Uh you shouldn't be adopting random children from other parts of the world. Just like I don't believe people should be adopting Chinese children

42:55 or Russian children, doing stuff like that. They should be cared for by What you're doing is removing them from their own country. You're doing harm to your country and their country. Because you're doing it for the approval and the praise of the wicked world that says this is a good thing because we all we all know ultimately why. The goal is the destruction of the distinct nations that are God's good creation, because Satan hates God's creation and he will do anything he can to try to destroy it. So in this case, I'm going to say it's going to be fact-specific, as it were. Because if there are other children in this picture, right, you still want to be whatever I don't know what the exact blood relationship is here, so

43:43 you're the equivalent of an uncle, basically, because you basically call any other male in the family who's not a grandpa or something, an uncle, right? You all wind up being called an uncle. So you still care for those other children as best and that doesn't mean that you're going to treat this child poorly or single them out for bad treatment because the reality is your family, your cousin, has left you in a position where you don't have a perfect course of action, so you take the best one that you can. This is their only child, then you don't have to have the same concerns because there are no other children in the picture, you don't have the same duties. You have you know in theory at least, spoken your peace, told

44:31 him this was wrongful, you should not have done this, this was deeply unwise, you've caused problems. You are increasing the harm to our nation by what you and then to some degree you can cut that person out of your life. I'm not saying, you know, cut and dry, we're done forever, right? But you can sort of withdraw, you can draw back. That is something that is morally permissible when a family member is is doing something that is sinful and refuses to stop, which in this case they've created a where there's no good solution, right? Now if we had a wise and righteous government, they would be deporting people back to their home countries, and then there would be a solution, this would be more easily resolved.

45:13 But because of the circumstances under which we currently live, there's no good solution for you here, right? Mess, but it's a mess that he's created and you don't have to suffer because of that mess. Except for the fact that it looks like based on your wording at least I'm going off. It seems like there's those other children in the picture. And so continue to be the best uncle that you can, particularly for the And I don't think it's necessarily wrong to preference those other children. Don't you know be mean to this adopted child. Don't go out of your way to make his life miserable. But showing a preference for those who are your own blood is actually what you're supposed to do. So there's nothing wrong with doing that, assuming that there are these

45:58 other children in the future. Tea would be nice, but I think it's still 90 degrees outside here, so I do not want tea. Question eleven is from YouTube. I'm glad the plugin is working again. It aggregates everything for me. It's quite nice. Question eleven. How can we combat Bible apps or sites like Bible Hub that present anonymous translations and commentaries as the word. I'm actually not super familiar with exactly how that pans out because most of the time when I've used something like Bible Hub, I've

46:58 seen the commentaries and such have said the name of the author. So I don't know. I I don't use it that much. I mostly use Logos, so I use an app. I don't know if they've added that feature or something. Let me just look at Bible hubier real quick. So at least for my say I'm not signed in, so I don't have any custom settings or anything, but it didn't pop up anonymous commentary, so I exactly what you're asking. If you can ask a follow-up question that might be helpful here. Insofar I can answer the sort of the more general question. Don't read random anonymous commentaries. It's good to know something about the author because author because you at least want to know probably the denomination and the tradition, right?

48:01 Presbyterian you probably mostly want to read Presbyterian authors. It's good to read from other sometimes from other denominations too. I read the Reformed, I read Roman Catholics, I read others, I don't just read Lutherans, but you have to be careful what you read. that's not just for scripture, not just for common and excuse me. Maybe that's something that women need to hear more than men sometimes because of the current state of women's will be c will be charitable, so-called literature. But certainly don't go reading random unattributed commentaries on the taking them at face value. That goes without saying, right? Because you have to compare everything against the Word of God and make sure that it is consonant with the word of God.

48:49 Which is why I encourage people any time I say something about scripture, go read it for yourself, see if what I said is in agreement with the word of God. If it is, great. If it's not The same thing is true here. I think most of the apps like BibleHub and others, the individuals behind them usually seem like they're well-intentioned. They're just sort of of the libertarian mindset of the caseism and someone on X X, who has deleted her his, I don't know, account at this point, partly because of something I said. But the comment was, you know, go read all of the Marxist literature. In theory the argument is you'll be convinced, and I've read a bunch of it, right? It's insane to think that the literature is, but my comment is

49:48 it's insane to think that anyone would read all that stuff, synthesize it, and then come up with a refutation. You don't need to do that. The same with regard to the Word of God. Commentaries are useful place, but the core of the Word of God is obvious on its face. There are many doctrines where you don't need a commentary to explain it to you. There are things that are more complicated, there are things that are more difficult. You know, if you're talking about the communication of attributes to the person of the two natures in Christ, something like that, okay, yes, a commentary is going to be helpful, that's more complicated, insofar as you're going to look into that and research, as it were, to

50:29 study that, right? But for many things in scripture you don't need a commentary. That doesn't mean they're not useful, because they certainly are. But you know read it with a grain of salt. But what can be done about done about them under existing law and existing government nothing. Under an ideal Christian government, things that are open heresy would be burned. They would not be permitted. Blasphemy laws and anti-heresy laws are a good thing. There are just be open and free to do whatever they want. Looking at the chat for the next question here.

51:44 Guess I'll answer this one since it's sort of r related to the holiday tomorrow, right? On a related note, do you or woe plan to do a breakdown of your critiques of the American Revolution or is that already scattered across your corpus of work? So I don't know that either one of us necessarily intends to do a sort of full breakdown of the American Revolution. I have some things that I'm writing that are related to it, but more focused on the problems we face today and where we need to go. Because that's more relevant right now, right? And so I know there's a pending question about like the French Revolution and some stuff like that. I've commented on that a little bit before, and the American Revolution

52:30 was similar to the French Revolution, except it did not go as far. It was a it was Satan A B testing again, and it turns out the American Revolution was the much So I don't think overall that the the American Revolution obviously was not ideal. I can certainly say that just bluntly. Was it warranted is a more nuanced, complicated question. I don't want to get into the full answer. Here's not even the question necessarily, but just sort of an overview. Was the taxation bad enough to warrant revolution? No. I'm just going to go ahead and say bluntly, no, the taxation was not. Was the support the British Crown gave to the Amerindians who were raping raping and murdering and causing other mayhem, the colonists warrant for revolution.

53:26 There I think yes. And so was there sufficient warrant for what happened in the American Revolution? I think there was. Was that the best way to solve the problem? I don't think I think that they should have tried politics and diplomacy first. And they should have done more of it than they did. I recognize they did some. There were petitions, all of that stuff. I recognize that took place. I don't think they tried hard enough with that. Because anytime you're talking about war, you need to have extremely solid warrant, not just, you know, sufficient warrant because you want to avoid it if at all possible. There are times where it's unavoidable, right? There are times where you absolutely must go to war, you have

54:17 no choice. And sort of situation in which we find ourselves today. I don't necessarily think that things were bad enough yet for that to happen. I think that probably the clearer line would have been, you know, call up militias in the colonies, go to the problem, and then gauge your response to the British based on the British response to what you did. But as for going in depth into the American Revolution, I don't know that I'll necessarily write that. I'm there are plenty of things that have been written about that. And that that answer sort of the thirty thousand foot view of What I believe about it.

55:30 Have a question about collective punishment. I think I I'll go ahead and answer that. I was tempted to put that off until next week, but I'll go ahead and answer. Question thirteen Was Genesis thirty four twenty five through thirty one prescriptive? What legitimizes collective punishment outside specific justified racial annihilation? How should Christians view Tulsa, Rosewood, and such massacres? So I don't know that I'll comment on the historical incidents. By and large, they're generally blown out of proportion by modern media because they've sort of become leftist totems, right? They're used to attack whites and lie about Americans, which I of course mean whites. So that's the general thing you should think about though.

56:20 Those cases are complete nonsense or they were completely justified, as is the case with some of the historical we'll call them extrajudicial killings, because that probably will not get this video banned. But of course the passage about which he is asking is the so called rape of Dina, and it's worth noting first off that we call rape is not what happened here. This is more like the previous episode where I spoke about those verses about a man who lies with a virgin, you know, out in the field and then has to marry her unless her father objects, right? This is what's happening here. the term because it's something very specific in our culture and particularly in our laws. And the laws have informed what our culture believes about it because

57:07 that's there's a feedback loop there. I don't read the passage because everyone's familiar with it, right? You have Dina goes out, wanders around, does things a woman's not supposed to do in a strange city, a man sleeps with her and then says, I love her, I want to marry her, and they say, Only if you are circumcised, and so they get circumcised and then they slaughter them all when they're sore from being circumcised. So Israel later on, Jacob, renamed Israel later on, when he is Flash prophesying about his sons, because not everything he says is a blessing. He condemns them for this. He condemns them for it here as well. He says that they've created a stink among the people. So clearly he is He's a mixed bag, so he's not necessarily

57:55 always a source of absolute truth, right? But he's when he is speaking about the future of his sons in Egypt. And so in that case, it's pretty clear that this is not what you're supposed to do. They overreacted and the problem again that we have is we don't use that term. We don't in the same way that they do. And in fact it's not even necessarily called rape here, right? So if you have that mindset, you think, oh well then what they were doing was probably still a little excessive, right, because they killed everyone in the city, not just the responsible party and you know, maybe his father who was involved and this is the king's son, so on and so forth. They went too far. What they did was not morally permissible.

58:49 We're not looking at the same sort of situation today because we're looking at an invasion by foreign armies. This is not Because these are cousins here. You're not totally different situation, so it's not prescriptive, it's descriptive, which is to give the short answer to your question there. The difference between the two, for those who aren't aware, is prescriptive passages are saying God wants you to do this, they're commanding you to do something or not to do something depending are just describing history. There's lots of descriptive stuff in scripture that is definitely not something you should do, because there are descriptions of human sacrifice. There are descriptions of worshiping idols, there are plenty of descriptions of

59:36 prostitutes. There are many things in scripture described that are not prescribed because they are not something you should do. This is descriptive. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't punish those who do these sorts of sorts of things. Certainly we can punish them, but you don't usually annihilate a city because someone didn't go through the proper channel to ask to marry your sister. Because that's really what's going on here. So they're condemned very clearly by a prophet in scripture. So no, this is not prescriptive. But insofar as like I said, viewing historical extrajudicial of those were absolutely justified in the American context. And if you read the actual factual accounts of what those individuals

1:00:26 did before their life was cut short, they deserved it. Person who said sorry about the typos mobile app is terrible, I absolutely agree. And that's why I usually check things three times to try not to have weird typos when I post on X. Doesn't always work out. I have few typos, but they exist. Someone asked me about speaking at an RTTL event. You can go ahead and just have Arville message me. we've spoken before, so if if that's something he can go ahead and just let me know.

1:01:32 The question is specifically about the Berean Study Bible or Berean Standard Bible. I actually don't know which actu I had no idea what that was until someone told me they used it. The funding is very opaque. I've heard mixed things about it. I don't know enough about it personally. I don't use it. I don't have a copy of it. I have a PDF, but that hardly counts. I have it in Logos, but I don't really use it, so I don't have a firm opinion on it. I one way or the other because I just don't know enough about it. So if you find that something about it pricks your conscience, then go ahead and avoid it. There's no reason you have to use that one. There are plenty of good study Bibles out there.

1:02:16 The Lutheran study Bible is excellent. There are some things with which I disagree in the footnotes, but very few and usually minor and nothing about core doctrines. The footnotes, the essays, explanatory materials are generally quite good. So I can definitely still recommend that one. And I would actually recommend volume as well, which I thought was on my desk. Maybe it's not, because it has explanatory essays and information about the history and things like that that a modern reader will not have as part of his information his knowledge store because we're not living in that context and so that's very helpful for a modern reader to those explanatory materials. So if you want to read the Apocrypha, I would definitely say

1:03:05 grab the study version from CPH. Better if you can get it secondhand so it's actually reasonably priced. But it's also fairly well made, which is nice. Because not everything from CPH these days is as we know with every have sort of a hierarchy of volume. Some are good, some are crap. Answer uh a few more questions I think and then call it a night so people can go out and enjoy the early fireworks I'm sure are starting I can hear them starting here. I go check on my dogs and see. He's not in the study with me right now and he hates fireworks. So sort of been a two for one for him tonight because we had a little bit of thunder and lightning earlier and now we have fireworks and he likes neither of those things.

1:04:00 sixteen question fifteen, rather I should answer that one first. Should we be mourning as Nineveh did this weekend. I think we should do that in the future. This weekend is the two hundred and fiftieth. I think it is right to celebrate our nation, focus on celebrate our nation is older than two hundred and fifty, right? Because it's the United States, it's two hundred and fifty. Our nation was here significantly before the Declaration of Independence was written and signed. But no, I think go ahead and celebrate. There are times you know, think of Proverbs and Ecclesiastics, right? There are times to mourn and times to celebrate. This is a time to celebrate, not a time to mourn. So I don't think focus and dwell on the bad right now.

1:04:49 Go ahead and focus and dwell on the good and enjoy time with family and friends and fireworks and all that stuff. That's what should be done this weekend. A follow-up question. Someone asked about my answering of a question on adultery. Did I answer that one? I did answer that in a previous episode. I don't remember which episode. I think it's an old enough one. The transcript should be up on the website so you can go ahead and search and it should easily. Also it will be list it should be listed. I won't say will. It should be listed in the show notes where I have the questions listed. I know I don't know the all the questions from last week. That was earlier than that. Because my draft got lost because the browser crashed.

1:05:38 But that one I did answer. I answered about what should be done with adulterers and how they should be punished. Someone is asking about zoos. That has actually come up a number of times recently. I had someone ask me about that in person recently too. I like zoos. I think that they should definitely be improved in many cases. I was a member of the San Diego Zoological Society for many years and San Diego has an excellent zoo. It actually has two parks. There's the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Safari Park, which is out where it is unbelievably hot. Beautiful area, great for a lot of the animals out there. Because of the breeding program at that zoo, at those two parks, not just the one park, there are animals that we probably wouldn't

1:06:32 have today without those programs. Now the obviously problems in the wild that we should perhaps solve. Zoo is at least a stopgap measure, and I think it's one of the only real ways that you are going to get the mass of people exposed to these animals, to nature, to learn about these things, and to have that developed care for the natural world. So I think it's good for children to go to zoos, but the animals should be treated well designed by those who understand the animals and try to build something that is, if not obviously entirely natural, at least doesn't cause the animal stress is good for the animal. They should be treated well according to you know what you do and do not permit visitors to do.

1:07:17 People shouldn't be throwing things at them. There are some very bad zoos in the world, but there are also some very good ones. So I I definitely think zoos are overall a good thing. Someone asked two related questions about evolution so I think I'll just go ahead and answer those generally instead of specifically. Let me go ahead and paste those into the show notes first. So the question is how did we get from Adam and Eve, right, to the wild differences among humanity today? Or really more accurately, how do we go from Noah to the wild differences. It doesn't actually take that long for

1:08:20 in the sense that evolutionists mean because obviously that's a very specific thing and it's not what we generally believe. Now can you get to the point where two members obviously not the members themselves, but their progeny down the line, are so far distant from each other that they can no longer interbreed and produce In theory that could happen, but I think the degeneration necessary for the distance to be so great that they would no longer be able to reproduce would mean they wouldn't be able to reproduce anyway, because they would be too degenerate, too corrupted genetically. But to answer the the c I said, it does not take that long for these things to entrench. You can get From I don't know how far I want to go into this question

1:09:12 because it gets not complicated, but it takes a while to explain. I think probably go listen to the episode that we the episode, the series that we did, on race for Stone Choir, particularly the episode about the fundamentals and genetics and all that things, how that works, because that's a longer explanation instead of taking the time to restate that here. It's through information loss, which is the fundamentally important point to information gain. And it's also theoretically impossible, but without getting into that philosophy. You start off with an individual or individuals, because it's Adam and Eve, right, who have they're pluripotent as it were. They have the possibility in their genome to create all of the

1:09:58 offspring modulo some harmful mutations that have occurred along the way and corruptions that end in things like you know, cancer and missing limbs and things like that. Because obviously that's not evolution in the sense of something changing and getting better, that's just a loss of information, right? If your genome no longer produces your left arm, you're not You're not better off. So what happens is that loss of information, this is how God designed it, you have the parents of the species start off with all the possibility, and then because of selective breeding down through the generations and the loss of information, have certain attributes that entrench certain phenotypes being an expression of the genotype that express themselves in and entrench

1:10:49 in certain subpopulations. To give a concrete example that's easier to grasp than the explanation itself, abstracted out, European Africans are not. That is due to that loss of information. You are not going to go from an African to a European no matter how many generations you have. You're not going to go from a European to an African no matter how many generations you have. Because that loss of genetic information is what created those distinctions and then those populations. Adam and Eve had the genetic potential for both. That's how that happened. And it happens quite quickly. And the best way to look at how quickly it can happen would be to look at professional dog breeding programs of created, obviously just through selective breeding, God created the material, but

1:11:45 we have selectively bred dogs over a course of only a couple centuries in some cases, to be wildly different breeds. So So this is not something that takes a great deal of time. It is certainly something that is possible scale presented in scripture. But the key part, bear in mind, like I said, one way street. You are not going from a Pomeranian, my dog that's downstairs probably unhapp about the fireworks, back to whatever the proto-dog was on the arc That was a one-way trip. That's just how God designed it, because obviously he designed the species to do exactly what he wanted us to do. Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. And so that loss of genetic information leading to those specializations and

1:12:36 differentiations among the subspecies made them fit for different niches along different parts of the planet. It all fits in with God's design. This one because someone just has thoughts on the LCMS selection. Like I've said, all of the currently existing denominations are going to go under and we're going to have to build new churches, new bodies, and there's nothing wrong with that. These things this point they are too corrupted, they're too far gone.

1:13:40 I think I will answer one more question for tonight since we're we're basically at the the hour mark now. So a little little bit over, but I I tend to run just a little bit over. And if there are any additional questions that pop up in chat between answering this one and the end, I'll try to put them in for one. Question 18. At what point do you think it is a good idea for someone to move, seeing the massive influx of foreigners in parts of America, Dallas in this case, I have lived, that I have considered moving to Poland. Any thoughts? So I guess there are really two things here, right? There's the when is it wise to move question based on the invasion, changing demographics, things like that, problems in wherever it is that

1:14:36 you live. I'll answer that one first. the Poland question as it were. I think that it is a matter of wisdom. And obviously I moved, right? I lived in Southern California. Yeah, I now live in East Tennessee, so I did move. I moved granted, I moved back then for three hundred years or something here in the hills, but I think there are times where it is the wise call, it is the wisdom call which you are commanded to exercise as a Christian, the measure of it that God is entrusted to you to use on behalf of yourself and others, and of course his word for you. There are times where that demands that you move from an area because it is no longer safe for you, for your family, whatever it happens to be.

1:15:29 I think that was the case when I moved from Southern California because it was just kept getting worse. California has its own problems. Southern California has massive demographic problems. Getting better. They were going in the wrong direction. This is a better place to be because of the reality on the ground. So So if areas like Dallas, and I know some parts of Texas are certainly having massive problems, if those areas are becoming untenable to live there and your duty to your family, and you have duties to yourself as well, right? God does command you take care of yourself. Then I think that wisdom would say you should move somewhere else. Should it be Poland? I think the answer is no.

1:16:13 Because in theory, if you're asking me this question, you are an American and so you should America is your homeland. Now if you're asking about Poland because you know your parents are Polish immigrants and you're first generation here in America, okay fine, you can move to Poland. In your case, that makes sense. I don't get that feeling from your question though. So I don't think that you should abandon the United States. I don't think that that is be clear by the United States, I mean our territory and our people. I don't think the United States as a political entity is going to survive the next twenty years. At least not in any recognizable form, right? So no you shouldn't move to Poland if you are an American, but

1:16:58 you can move in American territory to get away from those problems as best you can under present circumstances, I don't think that's an unwise or an impermissible thing to do. But making the the wild leap of moving to a truly foreign country, let's say in this case you're not right, a first generation Polish person living here. Think that that is what you should be doing. Because you're not Polish. Why would you be living in Poland? And should they even admit you? They probably shouldn't even admit you. Because the same as we shouldn't be admitting foreigners here, they shouldn't be doing it there. And granted, you know there's the small influx some of our European brothers is fine, that's a different thing.

1:17:44 But we shouldn't be letting random foreigners come here and live here and just pretend that they're American. And the Europeans shouldn't be doing that with their countries either. And j the Japanese shouldn't. The Koreans shouldn't it. People have their own lands entrusted by God who set the boundaries in the times of the nation, so geographical and chronological boundaries, and those should be respected and defended. So if you want to move somewhere else in America to get away from some of those problems because they're becoming too much of a problem to continue living there, by all means go ahead. And we're not saying that just because it's Poland, right? If you asked about France or Russia, I'd say the same thing.

1:18:40 I I'll answer two more questions just because they're here. We'll run over a little bit, it's fine. People can watch this whenever they want or tune out if they are done for the evening. Question nineteen. You have mentioned Jews must repent of their blood. Do non whites or those who are mixed not need to do the current time or in their current state. So the short answer to your question is no. You don't need to repent of being African, right? You don't need to repent of being Korean or half Korean, half African, right? You don't have to repent of that. That's I have said, and Woe has said, and the reason that we have continued to teach that Jews have to repent of being Jewish is because Jewish identity is rejection of Christ that has become so

1:19:35 central to who and what they are that you can't pop Christian without ceasing to be a Jew as far as is possible. I'm not saying they get to live here once they repent of that and become Christian. They're still alien, they're still foreign, they shouldn't be here. But in order to become a Christian, which is certainly better for them, and what they should do, and what I would prefer that they do, virtually none of them will, but what I would prefer that they would do is repent of being Jewish, turn away from the wickedness of their people, because they have made their racial identity and just become a Christian who has Hebrew ancestry or Israelite ancestry, whatever they want to call themselves.

1:20:29 I think Hebrew is probably the fine term to use. Or you want to say Palestinian, that's not an accurate either, because they're pretty closely related. So repent of being that is because their identity as a race is the hatred of Christ, is the hatred of God. And you have to reject that, pretty obviously, to become a Christian. You can't hold on to hatred of Christ as sort of a core part of who and what you are to be a Christian. At least not without being a liar. And the final question is sort of a quick question as he says. And it's one of those ones where I almost want to give the easy answer, as it were, but I'll go ahead and give the the longer answer. I won't do the the full exegesis here because that takes a

1:21:28 while and actually have that in some notes when I finally get back to my class that I was working on for the old testament, hopefully soon. But question twenty. Given that God cannot will evil what is the one who hardens Pharaoh's heart during the plagues. My first answer to that, and the initial way that I always answer that one that comes up and it comes up relatively frequently, or at least it has in the past. Go read the narrative. Who Pharaoh's heart first? Pharaoh does. Pharaoh hardens his heart. God confirms him in his wickedness. And that is entirely God's right to do because the regeneration, the repentance, right? Back to the earlier question, the earlier answer, monarchism. God is the one who gives you the free gift of faith.

1:22:21 God is the one who renews, who regenerates you, and that is God's action alone. Pharaoh hardens his heart. God simply says, Fine, that's who you want to be, that's what you want to do. I will go ahead and confirm you in your wickedness. God is not the one who in some cases some people will try to say that you know oh well God didn't let Pharaoh repent and it God damned him and he was right people try to make it into a double predestination sort of thing, and the narrative, the text does not support it. Does is confirm Pharaoh in his wickedness, lets Pharaoh continue on his merry way, dancing along down the road to hell. God isn't the one who says, You're Pharaoh and I damn you because your number came up wrong or I flipped a coin.

1:23:16 That's not how it works. Pharaoh sins is sin Does God harden his heart? Yes he does. And there are times where that happens, just as you can sear your conscience or you can harden your own heart. So don't do that. It's one of the reasons that I We'll many times point out to people, don't try to do the like deathbed conf like get out of jail free card, oh I'll live a dissolute life and be a horrible person and do all this stuff and then I'll repent on my deathbed and I'll get into heaven. You could die tomorrow. God could stop giving you chances to repent. God doesn't have to give you an infinite number of chances to repent. So don't try to game the odds like that. The same as I've often described things in terms of use hiking

1:24:08 metaphors, but if you are hiking along a cliff, you don't hike right on the edge. You don't get as close to the cliff as possible. You stay back from it. Safety buffer. The same thing with regard to sinful behavior and things like don't come as close to the sin as you possibly can without committing it. Because eventually you're going to stumble over that line. So don't try the deathbed confession. Don't harden your heart like Pharaoh did, because maybe God giving you additional chances to repent. God doesn't have to do that. It's not required of him. Pharaoh heard the word of God from Moses and said, Nope, no thank you. That's on Pharaoh. He's the one who made the choice. He chose he chose damnation.

1:24:59 And is unfortunate because he had a chance. He God does not begrudge anyone faith. God does not begrudge anyone the chance to be regenerated. I'm obviously a Lutheran, I don't believe in double predestination. God does not make anyone for the purpose of damning him. Men are damned because of their own sin, because of their own impenitence, because of their own hardened hearts, not because God did not desire that they would be saved. Because Scripture is abundantly clear God desires that all men would come to repentance and be saved. And that means all men. So I think that will be for this week. I'll just go ahead and answer this last question because I see it briefly and I answer quickly. Are you making a class on the Old Testament?

1:25:48 Before COVID hit and I moved, I was teaching a class on Genesis at my church. So I have a bunch of notes for that. I got through I think chapter forty in my You know, I was pretty much done. And I had some work to do on some things, but at this point, I do want to refresh the notes because I was not relying on the Septuagint at the time, which I certainly should have been doing, but I hadn't I hadn't done Stone Choir yet. I had and my notes are still pretty well solid, but there are some things where I would like to note some differences that should be there in my notes. So I had the class on Genesis that I was teaching, those notes were largely done, but like I said I want to go through those, refresh them.

1:26:37 Hopefully I will get the time to do that and then start recording sort of short lectures as it were, one per chapter perhaps. And I'll just put those on YouTube and my site and elsewhere. That's the goal. And I did have a little bit of Exodus already done as well. I didn't just start with Genesis. I was working on both the same time. Hopefully I do get back to that when I have the time to do so. But at any rate, that is it for this week. Thank you to those who submitted questions. It's always good to be able to answer these. Thank you for participating in the chat. And if I missed your question, by all means, please ask it again. Go ahead and put it on the always the best way because it's my site.

1:27:23 And then I can keep the show notes and things updated. Anyone participating on the full On the forum, who has been participating for a while, can edit the show notes. So if I miss something, please feel free to add it. Go right ahead and do that. That's why it's editable as a wiki. But if you don't want to sign up for the forum, completely fine. Again, it's my site, so you're not giving your information to some random third party. It's just me. And I don't care if you use fake information. Have fun. But if you don't want to use the forum, go ahead and ask on Telegram or X or in the chat or the comments and hopefully I will notice it. If I do notice it, I have an topic slash thread on the forum for the pending questions.

1:28:05 If it's there, I noticed it. If it's not there, I probably missed it. Like I said, I have tons of notifications, some things just slip by. If I missed it, please ask it again. It's not that I'm avoiding it, I just didn't see it. Or in the case of X last week I had some people ask questions on a thread and then X sent them into the void. These things happen. At any rate, I hope that you all have a great 4th of July and I will give my usual caveat that I give, the sort of warning, useful for those who are watching Perhaps too late for those who are not watching the stream. Try to have the same number of fingers when you go to church on Sunday that you have right now. Fireworks are great. Fire is fun.

1:28:53 I'm not saying don't have fun. Just you know, wear eye protection if necessary and some gloves and be careful. God doesn't want you to hurt yourself. It's better for your people if you have all your fingers when you're done with the weekend. But have fun. I have fireworks, I'm gonna go set some off. Not right now, but tomorrow modulo keeping the dog away from the explosions. But do be careful and arrive at church on Sunday and you should go with the same number of digits you have now, whether it's ten or fewer, depending on your on your past history as a woodworker. At any rate, have a great weekend and God bless until next week. I will see you all then.