Sept. 7, 2025

Navigating Truth in Deception: Biblical Lessons from Samuel

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When is deception morally justified? It's a question that challenges our understanding of biblical ethics. In this thought-provoking episode, Holland and Chris tackle the fascinating case of Samuel in 1 Samuel 16, where God himself instructs his prophet to conceal his true mission of anointing David as king.

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00:00 - Introduction and Sunday Sermon Recap

02:42 - Bible Question: Samuel's Peaceful Arrival

05:27 - Examining Righteous Deception in Scripture

10:57 - Biblical Examples of Deception for Good

16:17 - Truth-Telling vs. Protection of Life

32:07 - Cultivating Gentleness from Strength

44:30 - Practical Applications and Episode Closing

WEBVTT

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and welcome back to pastor plex podcast.

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I'm your host, pastor plec uh.

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Sitting in with me today is none other than pastor holland greg how you doing doing great thanks, chris all right now.

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First off, uh, holland preached for us this past sunday.

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And ho, what did you talk about?

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Talked about a little bit of Hebrews 4 and 5, jesus as our high priest.

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So talked about a lot about priests.

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Talked about the three offices of prophet, priest and king and how Hebrews focuses mainly on the priest, that kings rule under God over people.

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Prophets speak to people on behalf of God and priests plead with God on behalf of people.

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So the focus in Hebrews is Jesus as our high priest, who pleads with God on our behalf to forgive our sins and offers his own life as a sacrifice that doesn't just ceremonially or temporarily remove sin, but actually and eternally removes our sin.

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I love it, or temporarily remove sin, but actually and eternally removes our sin.

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I love it.

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Well, all right.

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So any key takeaway from that?

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Because it was like was the question like is Jesus actually your high priest or are you looking to someone else to be your high priest?

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Yeah, only by looking to Jesus can we you know what the author says go with confidence before the throne of grace.

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Good, if Jesus is your high priest, then you can go to God and know for sure you're not going to be judged or condemned, but there is grace and mercy for you in your time of need.

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Yeah, I thought it was great.

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I got a lot of positive feedback from it, specifically people saying like hey, one of the things you talked about was regular memories made with family for family vacations, regular memories made with family for family vacations, and so that was really encouraging that a bunch of people now are thinking about how are they going to create memories with their fam to do a family vacay that they can remember.

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That's fun.

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That was, you know, not like a major point.

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It's an illustration, for you know the point of Jesus sympathizing with us and our weaknesses, and something that happened with my father-in-law on vacation this past year.

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But, yeah, the fact that the Lord used that to encourage people, praise God.

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You know, sometimes when I preach, people decide to go to the army and I'm like that's not what it was about at all, but I'm glad that that's what you got from it.

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So the Lord works in mysterious ways through the proclamation of his word.

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Now we had a couple of questions come up that actually are not dealing with Jesus as high priest, but dealing with just someone reading God's word in their quiet time, which I 100% appreciate.

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That you would entrust us with a question like this.

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Here's a question I have a question about 1 Samuel 16, verse 4.

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The elders of the city came to meet him trembling and said Do you come peaceably?

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Now, this is rightly dividing the word of truth.

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I just want to say, because they are getting into, what does this verse mean?

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And it would seem like a verse that's pretty innocuous, but here's what the question is why did they ask if Samuel came peaceably?

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Was there any other way for him to come?

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I'm confused by this.

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All right, holland, in what reason do you think a person or a prophet like Samuel would come to a city and why would they be trembling?

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Well, so this is on the heels of 1 Samuel 15, where Saul sins against the Lord and forfeits the kingdom.

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Basically and so I think that is felt by everyone it's like, man, this was our king, we wanted a king, we wanted Saul, and now he's sinned before God, he's forfeited the kingdom.

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What does this mean?

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And it was a pretty public display Because remember he had King Agag of the.

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Was it the Amorites or Malachites?

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Yeah, of the Malachites.

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So King Agag of the Malachites isn't killed, he's brought before Samuel and Samuel hacks him literally to pieces with a sword.

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And you've got to imagine that.

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That story made it through social media really fast.

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People were like you're not going to believe it.

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I saw it with my own eyes.

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Just the prophet Samuel.

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He's pretty old.

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He pulled out a sword and just went to town on this king.

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Yeah, so when you have a reputation for hacking kings to pieces with a sword and then you show up in a city and you and everyone knows you know Saul has sinned Right, and I think there's just a little fear of like, are you coming here to hack more people to pieces, yep, or are you coming here in peace, right?

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So I think that's where the question is coming from.

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Yeah, and they're trembling because they're willing to do whatever, but they're kind of worried for their own families, worried for their own whatever.

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And okay, let's just talk about this because it gets kind of interesting.

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He doesn't give him the whole truth that he's there to anoint a king, yeah, so basically he's, you know Saul's forfeited the kingdom.

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And the Lord tells him you know, this is in chapter 16, verse where is it?

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Two verse?

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One I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.

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So the plan is for Samuel to be able to go and, you know, anoint a new king who would take the place of Saul.

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But he says, go and just tell him I'm here to sacrifice.

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Right.

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In fact he says I mean, this is God talking.

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And Samuel?

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Well, first Samuel says how can I go If Saul hears that he will kill me?

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And the Lord said take a heifer with you and say I have come to sacrifice to the Lord and invite Jesse to the sacrifice and I will show you what you shall do and you shall anoint for me him who I declared you.

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So he says don't give them the whole truth.

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Yeah, is that okay?

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If the Lord says it, then it is, you know, but it is like it's a, you could say it's like a form of deception, yeah, and that it is true he does come there to offer a sacrifice, but the whole reason of anointing a new king is a bit is veiled right.

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He doesn't give them the full reason, and so you know, this is.

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I think this is an example of how there is.

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There is a type of deception that can be moral and righteous, which sounds weird to say, but you just said, deception could be moral and righteous, yeah, and particularly in um times like uh, uh, situations of like war or um adversarial situations where you're coming up against an enemy, it's it's like deception is part of how you play the game and uh like, it's like deception is part of how you play the game Like, for example, in football.

00:07:07.187 --> 00:07:11.512
you could have a fake punt on fourth and long and launch a pass.

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You deceive the other team.

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Now do you have to confess that afterward?

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Should you confess that?

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Or is that okay In basketball?

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You fake left, you go right, you make the guy look like a fool as he jumps out of his shoes to stop you, and then you go and score.

00:07:27.562 --> 00:07:46.754
So the reason that that's not a sin is because that's part of the game, right and and in some sense, when it comes to you know the game of um, you know war, um, deception is part of the game all right, let's go back to 10 commandments because this seems like we're like justifying something to kind of fit our own.

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Like I like playing sports, I don't.

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I don't want to give the enemy my battle plans.

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I thought transparency in government or what God is doing was good, and so you're telling me that might not be always be the best thing.

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But the 10 commandments says thou shalt not lie, right, does it?

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Does it say that it doesn't actually say it says you shalt not bear false witness.

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And that's really meaning a court of law, isn't it Like when someone says, hey, did Bob throw the rock through the store window?

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And you're like, yes, bob threw the rock through the store window and he didn't.

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You are bearing false witness.

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Whenever they crucified Jesus, they got worthless fellows to dishonestly agree but testify against Jesus that he was doing something evil or illegitimate.

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Okay, so there you go.

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They have a very hyper-specific form of this commandment Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor.

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Now we would also say, you know, to kind of go on the other side a little bit, the Ten Commandments imply and require more than what they just explicitly say.

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We know this from Sermon on the Mount do not commit adultery, jesus said.

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That actually goes to the heart level of even looking lustfully at another woman that you're not married to.

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We also know that, um, you know the, the command to honor your mother and father.

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Um, this command extends out in principle to um, honoring all authority in your life.

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Um, that's kind of what you know honoring the emperor and the new Testament.

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Those commands are based on the principle of honoring your mother and father, those who have authority over you.

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So this is where you know you would go to statements in the Bible like God is not a man that he should lie Right.

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Or you know Titus I think it's Titus, chapter one.

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God who cannot lie promised this before the world began.

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God who cannot lie promised this before the world began.

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So you have these other statements that do show that the character of God is to tell the truth, to not lie, not just in the hyper-specific court case of bearing false witness.

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I mean Proverbs 12,.

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22 is pretty clear Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.

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Or how about this?

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There are six things the Lord hates.

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Seven that are an abomination to him Haughty eyes, a lying tongue.

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So he is not for lying Right.

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But Okay, now let's look at.

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So here I'm going to.

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I just pulled up the ESV study Bible note for this verse 1, Samuel 16.

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I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

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This was a true but incomplete statement of the reasons for Samuel to come to Bethlehem, and yet the Lord told him to say it.

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So it should not be considered morally wrong.

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It seems that telling part of what one knows to be true in order to conceal other information is morally right in some situations, particularly adversarial situations such as this one.

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There it is.

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Moreover, the Lord had the right to hide his intentions from Saul, who had proved himself faithless.

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So in this sense, it's like you don't owe the whole truth to faithless people who want to abuse you or kill you.

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Fair enough, but he's not—whenever Samuel goes, he talks to abuse you or kill you.

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Fair enough, but he's not whenever Samuel goes, he talks to the Bethlehem city.

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Now, granted, they would have told Right so so consider also like the situation with Rahab hiding the Hebrew spies and then lying, so they went another way.

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Yeah, um, and you know what she did.

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It's presented as being a morally righteous thing, um, and you know what she did.

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It are some situations, or a category of situations, where deception is at least acceptable and potentially morally right.

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It seems like Okay, okay, but this gets confusing.

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So Colossians 3, 9, 10, I think this is really huge.

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Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with this practice and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

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Now the lie to one another could be talking about lying to faithful people.

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Yeah, because it's obviously talking about the church.

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But man it it.

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This is where you know we.

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We talked about this earlier.

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Wayne Grudem would say never lie, ever.

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Yeah, and his, if I remember correctly, in his systematic theology, um and his contributions to, he's got a he co, I think, coauthored a book on um, christian ethics and I think he took a really hard stance on like no, it's never okay, ever based on God cannot lie and therefore, um, uh, you know, it's never morally right for us to do so.

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But here you have an example where God is literally.

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God is the one.

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It's not like Rahab, where she seems to decide herself to conceal the spies and lie about you know them being there.

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This is God explicitly commanding Samuel tell a portion of the truth and conceal other information for God's purposes.

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That's directly from the mouth of God there, yeah.

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Yeah, I think so.

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Wayne Grudem does.

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He creates a line between deception and lying.

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Oh, okay, all right, what does he?

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Say he says lying is a verbal or written statement that knowingly asserts falsehoods.

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Okay, but when I look at, so that's where he would not defend Rahab, then qualifies lying under his definition.

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So there you go.

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Yeah, I think this.

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You know it's kind of wild that it has like like again, at what point is lying okay?

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Like, because we would say like lying in a sense of deception in any sport is like part of the game.

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Fake left, go right, fake punt, all that stuff, like no one's sitting there, going like that is unethical.

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Even, you know, Jesus sought to kind of conceal his own identity, Right, If you read through the gospels, the parts where he's like hey, don't tell anyone about this.

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The purpose, you know, is that the fullness of his identity might not be known before the fullness of time, Right, when, when you know, um, uh, his hour had come and it's time for him to be betrayed, arrested, crucified, Um.

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But leading up to that, he would often intentionally try to conceal um aspects of his identity.

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Yeah, um, I think it's hard for me, just as a person like when, as such a black and white person, I'd say line always bad, always wrong, right, and then there's nuances where it's actually okay and maybe you know, you know if I were hiding Jews, for example, in Holland during World War II.

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And are there any Jews here?

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No, no Jews here.

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Or consider you know a private investigator who goes undercover.

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Yeah.

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Going undercover is intentionally deceptive.

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Yeah, you are pretending to be something you're not.

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The police do it all the time, right?

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Yeah, like they've got narcs or whatever.

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Yeah, but that's part, that's's.

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You know, no one questions the justice of that right you're.

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You are intentionally deceiving.

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But it's, you know, it's uh cia.

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I mean, yeah, where you live like almost a double life.

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For, for example, um, is it jay hood, uh, the left-handed assassin who killed, right, uh, egg lung e hood, e hood e hood, yeah, yeah.

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So he kills egg lung, kick egg lung, right, yeah.

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So, yeah, ehud ehud, he, he said he kind of he doesn't know, he's right hand, so he comes in, looks like he's unarmed and then he's I've got a secret message from god for you comes up and, just you know, stabs him and his sword or knife just gets lost in the guy's belly because he's so fat, right, that has that is seen as an act of faith and heroism.

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It might be because that's an act of war.

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That's uh, someone who's delivering israel from uh, oppression.

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Uh, kind of a wild deal there, yeah and I mean again and we in situations of war, it's common, right it's?

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It's like there's deception of like, all right, send your guys out this way, but we got another crew sneaking around the back to take them by surprise.

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It's just how.

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That's part of the strategy, in the same way that, whether basketball or chess- or undercover cops yeah.

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So that's like, that's something.

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I think that might be really a shock to the system for some people, but there are clear examples of it in scripture, where I think this is one of the clearest ones, where it's God himself commanding Samuel.

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Hey, say this, um, even though the full intention is more than what you're saying.

00:16:55.182 --> 00:16:55.624
Right, right, yeah, yeah.

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So I think, for the most part, you have to put some boundaries on this.

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You don't want anyone to hear this and um, even though the full intention is more than what you're saying, right, right, yeah, yeah.

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So I think, for the most part, we're.

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You have to put some boundaries on this, you don't want anyone to hear this and go.

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Oh, so I can lie to my wife, and you know, say I'm uh working late when really I'm like I'm playing video games for an hour.

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Right, there's actually um a bar called the office, uh, about two miles from here.

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And on the thing it says just tell her you're at the Office.

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Oh my God.

00:17:21.160 --> 00:17:24.307
So that's, yeah, that's exactly what you can't say.

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That's righteous deception and honestly, you would not be lying.

00:17:27.728 --> 00:17:30.670
Hey, I'm going to the Office, which is technically the name of the place.

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Now I do think it's wrong, in the sense that what you're trying to mask I think that's where it gets into the thoughts and intentions of the heart Like this is where the word of God convicts you, the Holy Spirit would convict you of.

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Like this is a line that you've crossed, a moral line that is evil and is an abomination to the Lord.

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And again this goes into don't lie to one another.

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Colossians 3.9,.

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You've taken off the old self, put on the new self.

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3.9.

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You've taken off the old self, put on the new self.

00:18:00.584 --> 00:18:12.573
So if you're in, you know, the family of God, you're not trying to like arrest somebody, or you know, but I guess you could lie to your wife if you were playing Settlers of Catan, right?

00:18:12.573 --> 00:18:26.872
I think that's that's like you know, if you're like oh, I promise I won't put the robber on you, yeah, Another example that comes to mind I was just reading it in Second Kings the other day.

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What is the king who?

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He tells all the prophets of Baal like, hey, we're going to do a big sacrifice to Baal.

00:18:36.315 --> 00:18:43.846
Come on over here and gets them all, the priests and prophets of Baal, into one room, locks the doors, slaughters them all.

00:18:43.846 --> 00:18:49.186
Yeah, and God is like good job, you rid the land of Baal worship.

00:18:49.186 --> 00:18:50.932
Yeah, which king was that?

00:18:50.932 --> 00:19:01.029
It's pre-Hezekiah, it's pre-Josiah, it's got to be like chapter 7 or 8 or something like that.

00:19:01.029 --> 00:19:08.113
Anyway, but that would be another example of like complete deception for a righteous reason.

00:19:08.113 --> 00:19:10.404
You know what I'm talking about.

00:19:10.404 --> 00:19:11.805
You're in 2 Kings right now as well.

00:19:11.825 --> 00:19:13.000
Yeah, I am, but there's.

00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:17.856
Yeah, this is where Jehu doesn't he gather?

00:19:17.856 --> 00:19:18.900
It's Jehu, it's Jehu.

00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:24.092
He gathers all the prophets of Baal into the temple of Baal and then slaughtered him, has the temple destroyed.

00:19:24.092 --> 00:19:28.851
Yes and yeah, it was just sort of wild.

00:19:28.851 --> 00:19:29.942
That's 2.

00:19:30.001 --> 00:19:30.604
Kings 10.

00:19:30.604 --> 00:19:32.509
Okay, 2 Kings 10.

00:19:32.509 --> 00:19:34.185
Yeah, I just read that the other day.

00:19:34.185 --> 00:19:42.394
So Jehu gets all the power.

00:19:42.394 --> 00:19:48.231
He assembled all the people and said Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu will serve him much.

00:19:48.231 --> 00:19:54.031
Right Now, call to me all the prophets of Baal, all his worshipers and all his priests.

00:19:54.031 --> 00:19:55.363
Let none be missing.

00:19:55.363 --> 00:19:56.846
And so they all come in.

00:19:56.846 --> 00:20:10.365
Jehu stationed 80 men outside and then it says where is it?

00:20:10.384 --> 00:20:11.347
It's 18 through 28.

00:20:11.347 --> 00:20:12.770
2 Kings 10, 18 through 28.

00:20:14.660 --> 00:20:17.470
The man who allows any of those whom I give into your hands to escape shall forfeit his life.

00:20:17.470 --> 00:20:21.170
And so go in and strike them down, Let not a man escape.

00:20:21.170 --> 00:20:27.833
So he brings them all in there, stations his men outside and then just has them all slaughtered.

00:20:27.833 --> 00:20:33.009
And it's similar to when Elijah slaughtered all the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel.

00:20:33.009 --> 00:20:33.369
Right.

00:20:33.369 --> 00:20:35.413
So slaughtering— he says, hey, we're just going to have a contest.

00:20:35.594 --> 00:20:37.303
Yeah, whoever wins, he is God.

00:20:37.303 --> 00:20:37.743
Yeah.

00:20:37.743 --> 00:20:44.786
And then, okay, since my God is God, I'm going to wipe out all 400 of you, which is kind of wild, which is kind of weird.

00:20:44.786 --> 00:20:52.528
I mean, they were so exhausted from all their slashing themselves and chanting for hours.

00:20:52.528 --> 00:20:57.465
They couldn't resist one dude going around the sword and just hacking people to death.

00:20:57.465 --> 00:20:58.804
Yeah, uh.

00:20:58.804 --> 00:21:01.634
So he probably knew that god would answer by fire.

00:21:01.634 --> 00:21:02.356
So he riles him up.

00:21:02.356 --> 00:21:03.138
Hey, chant louder.

00:21:03.138 --> 00:21:07.279
Maybe he's on the toilet, maybe you know he can't hear you all to get them exhausted, so he can all kill them.

00:21:07.500 --> 00:21:11.728
Yep so there you go and that's you know.

00:21:11.728 --> 00:21:22.259
That is, uh, god's judgment through him on, and similarly god's judgment through another prophet, samuel, on the king Agag or whatever.

00:21:22.259 --> 00:21:47.903
And so you have God's judgment coming upon these false prophets, and that being a righteous thing, and you also have some deception here, in multiple situations with Samuel and then later with Jehu really being put forward as like, yeah, this is, there's nothing wrong with this.

00:21:48.065 --> 00:21:51.506
Yeah, okay, there's another one, and I think this is sort of wild.

00:21:51.506 --> 00:21:57.606
We were actually, I think, talking about this the other day with Grant when we were talking about Unseen Realm.

00:21:57.606 --> 00:22:12.539
Oh yeah, yeah, that God is in his divine council, in 1 Kings 22, I think, and the Lord asked the council who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramath Gilead and going to his death there?

00:22:12.539 --> 00:22:20.193
And then the different spirits, or angels, or council, or demons, I don't know all give different ideas.

00:22:20.339 --> 00:22:24.491
And one said I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of his prophets.

00:22:24.491 --> 00:22:28.046
And the Lord said you will succeed in Titus, go and do it.

00:22:28.046 --> 00:22:40.445
And then, of course, which maybe it's not lying, because then God tells Ahab through Micaiah the prophet so the Lord put a lying spirit in his mouth and all these prophets of yours, the Lord has decreed disaster for you.

00:22:40.445 --> 00:22:49.807
So he does tell him, but he puts a lying spirit into the prophets of Baal, and maybe that's the point is that you can't trust the evil prophets.

00:22:49.807 --> 00:22:52.626
Yeah, but it's wild.

00:22:52.626 --> 00:22:59.692
I don't know if I ever thought this much about deception and lying and war, and there's a spiritual battle that's happening.

00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:03.209
Yeah, it's a very interesting topic.

00:23:03.209 --> 00:23:15.276
There's a lot of examples of it, you know, and I think you know maybe it would come up more if there was more New Testament examples, but most people just don't read the Old Testament, so they've never heard of this stuff.

00:23:15.276 --> 00:23:17.968
Right, so good for the person who asked this question.

00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:22.029
Yeah, wait, I mean like seriously, you are a Bible scholar so you get extra credit.

00:23:22.029 --> 00:23:26.309
But here's the thing At West Point we had a huge big deal on honor code, all right.

00:23:26.309 --> 00:23:34.249
So honor code looked like this Whenever you went to a hotel, you had to tell the hotel people you know, because in college you know a bunch of guys.

00:23:34.249 --> 00:23:39.656
No one has any money, so you so a bunch of guys go to New York city and you get a hotel and you have like 50 people in there.

00:23:39.656 --> 00:23:47.741
You had to tell them how many people you had, and if you didn't, then, um, that would be considered lying, and if you lied you were kicked out.

00:23:47.781 --> 00:24:09.688
So, for example, someone did that, where they lied about how many people they had in a hotel room, and so this is a different situation than you're going into a hotel room and you have you're trying to safely rescue someone who's been trafficked great, and if you tell them about this person, you know that they're linked up with the mafia or whatever.

00:24:09.688 --> 00:24:11.271
You know, that's this.

00:24:11.271 --> 00:24:13.909
One way is like we don't want to spend any money.

00:24:13.909 --> 00:24:17.342
You know, because we're broke and so we're going to lie about how many people are there.

00:24:17.342 --> 00:24:20.111
The other way is we are trying to money.

00:24:20.111 --> 00:24:21.997
You know because we're broke and so we're going to lie about how many people are there.

00:24:22.017 --> 00:24:23.079
The other way is we are trying to protect life.

00:24:23.079 --> 00:24:30.559
You know, back to the Ten Commandments thou shalt not murder Again.

00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:33.805
Implicit within this is the sanctity of human life and that human life should be protected.

00:24:33.805 --> 00:24:41.102
This is actually where, like self-defense, the right to defend yourself or go to war, is to protect the sanctity of life of, you know, those who are innocent.

00:24:41.102 --> 00:24:52.712
So deception for the purpose of protecting the sanctity of human life, protecting the innocent, that's different If it's an act of war, I guess.

00:24:53.721 --> 00:24:58.921
Yeah, it's in an adversarial situation where deception would save life, right?

00:24:58.921 --> 00:25:05.442
Um, that's different than oh shoot, we can save a hundred bucks if we lie about how many of us there are.

00:25:05.482 --> 00:25:16.484
So so the way that West Point, we had this little teeny card that we I kept in my wallet and it was the three rules of thumb is it was does this action attempt to deceive anyone or allow anyone to be deceived?

00:25:16.484 --> 00:25:18.877
Two was does this action attempt to deceive anyone or allow anyone to be deceived?

00:25:18.877 --> 00:25:24.743
Two was does this action gain or allow the gain of privilege or advantage to which I or someone else would not otherwise be entitled?

00:25:24.743 --> 00:25:29.703
And the third one was would I be satisfied with the outcome if I were on the receiving end of this action?

00:25:29.703 --> 00:25:39.807
And so the grid of truth or action was kind of placed through that, and so we actually had honor classes, like so that was like part of it.

00:25:40.260 --> 00:25:48.945
And then so the question came up if your grandma bakes you a pie and she asks how do you like it, are you allowed to lie?

00:25:48.945 --> 00:25:56.924
We spent hours on this one and it was like it's your grandma, like you can't.

00:25:56.924 --> 00:25:58.250
You can't let her know.

00:25:58.250 --> 00:25:59.686
You've got to say it was amazing.

00:25:59.686 --> 00:26:03.487
Grandma, thanks for the pie, it was awesome, and you eat every bite even though you hate it.

00:26:03.859 --> 00:26:05.487
Yeah, because that preserves her life.

00:26:05.606 --> 00:26:09.324
Right, but other people.

00:26:09.324 --> 00:26:18.921
That was a gray area Of all the things that became like the big thing, like what about you know, if you don't like something like man?

00:26:18.941 --> 00:26:24.353
people were brutally honest because like I can't lie when your kid draws you a picture and hands it to you and says daddy, do you like my picture?

00:26:24.353 --> 00:26:26.788
And it's just this kind of like Scribbles.

00:26:26.788 --> 00:26:28.122
Yeah, scribble You're like.

00:26:28.423 --> 00:26:32.890
I love the effort, I love the colors, I love.

00:26:33.820 --> 00:26:37.090
You don't say you know it's not the greatest thing I've ever seen.

00:26:37.090 --> 00:26:38.339
Love.

00:26:38.339 --> 00:26:39.747
You don't say you know it's not the greatest thing I've ever seen.

00:26:39.747 --> 00:26:40.087
Um, you're not.

00:26:40.087 --> 00:26:40.509
You're no, picasso.

00:26:40.509 --> 00:26:41.796
There's nothing super impressive about this.

00:26:41.796 --> 00:26:42.057
It's not my.

00:26:42.057 --> 00:26:42.558
You know pretty much.

00:26:42.558 --> 00:26:44.585
You are a failure, yeah, at art um try again.

00:26:44.724 --> 00:26:47.311
Yeah, like go back and do something actually worth my time.

00:26:47.311 --> 00:26:48.803
You say it's beautiful, sweetie.

00:26:48.803 --> 00:26:49.223
I love it.

00:26:49.223 --> 00:26:50.508
Thank you, it's beautiful because you made it.

00:26:50.508 --> 00:26:52.039
I think that's hard.

00:26:52.039 --> 00:26:52.622
I think again.

00:26:52.622 --> 00:26:53.824
I think there's nuance here.

00:26:53.824 --> 00:26:57.833
I think's it's wild how big of a deal it is.

00:26:59.320 --> 00:27:12.055
Yeah, especially people who are, again, especially, I think, men who are very black, white, justice-oriented, righteousness-oriented, for all good things, you're like I don't want to break a rule, even in the slightest.

00:27:12.055 --> 00:27:15.409
I don't want to tell a lie, I don't want to be dishonest even in the tiniest bit.

00:27:15.409 --> 00:27:16.385
I want to have integrity.

00:27:16.606 --> 00:27:27.483
Because, like with Rahab, for example, what Rahab did when she hid the spies that were spying out Jericho, she hid them in faith, which is why she's talked about in.

00:27:27.483 --> 00:27:29.125
Is it Romans?

00:27:29.125 --> 00:27:32.720
Hebrews when she talked about in Romans, hebrews, hebrews.

00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:33.602
She talked about Hebrews.

00:27:33.602 --> 00:27:35.584
We're about to go over that, or did we already go over that?

00:27:35.584 --> 00:27:36.244
Chapter 11.

00:27:36.244 --> 00:27:36.806
Chapter 11.

00:27:36.806 --> 00:27:38.268
Okay, so she talked about in Hebrews.

00:27:38.268 --> 00:27:53.259
Where, like, she is justified by lying, also James, also James, okay, so then.

00:27:53.279 --> 00:28:05.214
So then, when you look at that, her intentions were to say but you could have said what if she said um, I trust God so much that I know that he could deliver them, and I don't have to worry about lying, because my God is more powerful to strike them dead when they try to take the spies.

00:28:05.536 --> 00:28:10.367
Yeah, that also would have been an act of faith.

00:28:10.367 --> 00:28:31.117
I think you know her in James she's given as an example of faith without works is dead, and so her works, just, you know, in a sense demonstrated her faith, right, she said you know, I have my faith in God is going to lead me to essentially choose the side of his people rather than these people.

00:28:31.117 --> 00:28:47.849
And that might be that, and I'm going to risk my own life because if she were to be found out she's dead, right, the safer route would have been to say they're down there, go get them, and then she would have been honored by her people, the Canaanites, the God, the God denying God, hating people.

00:28:48.351 --> 00:28:55.467
So she chose rather, um, to risk her life by, because if she's found out she lied, she's dead yeah.

00:28:55.988 --> 00:29:05.859
But she is willing to risk her life to essentially give her allegiance to God and his people Right, and so that's the way that it was an act of faith.

00:29:06.260 --> 00:29:13.192
So maybe the best way to put this is your loyalty to God or loyalty to yourself in your truth telling.

00:29:13.574 --> 00:29:16.788
Yeah, and I think most of the time you're going to know.

00:29:16.788 --> 00:29:21.907
Yeah, you know this wasn't about Samuel, the original situation that brought this up.

00:29:21.907 --> 00:29:27.228
This wasn't about him like saving a few bucks or not getting in trouble with his wife, or you know.

00:29:27.228 --> 00:29:43.596
This is about how to effectively um anoint a new King, um, without you know, um causing a a disruption, without unnecessarily costing any lives.

00:29:43.596 --> 00:29:48.012
Right, he's coming in by saying I come in peace and I'm here to offer a sacrifice.

00:29:48.012 --> 00:30:01.163
He's able to effectively kind of accomplish God's purposes without unnecessary loss of life for a war that could have broken out if his true intentions were known.

00:30:01.163 --> 00:30:01.926
Does that make sense?

00:30:01.926 --> 00:30:03.530
Yeah, do you agree with that?

00:30:04.162 --> 00:30:05.226
Yeah, I agree.

00:30:05.226 --> 00:30:14.519
It is one of those things where I think sometimes we can get so caught up in a principle that we can miss the person of Christ.

00:30:14.519 --> 00:30:25.531
And I don't want to get overly, you know, because every situation is going to have a different again.

00:30:25.531 --> 00:30:27.057
I think Rahab is a perfect example of that.

00:30:27.057 --> 00:30:32.719
I think that she's a perfect example of I'm showing my allegiance to God and to his people.

00:30:32.719 --> 00:30:35.179
I fear the Lord more than I fear these people.

00:30:35.179 --> 00:30:44.832
I want to protect their lives and if I tell them the truth, then they are going to die and I am going to be shown as as I'm not going to be faithful to Yahweh.

00:30:45.574 --> 00:30:55.480
Yeah, I just think if someone breaks into my house and my kids are hiding in a secret place and someone's like, tell me where they are, I don't owe you that knowledge.

00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:56.281
Right, right, right.

00:30:56.281 --> 00:31:00.096
I don't have any obligation to tell you the truth.

00:31:00.096 --> 00:31:11.759
In that situation, obviously, I'm going to seek the protection of my family's life, and one of the things that came up- with police, for example, you're allowed to say like, hey, I talked to your buddy, they just confessed.

00:31:11.798 --> 00:31:13.222
They told me the whole deal, you did it.

00:31:13.222 --> 00:31:29.717
You're allowed to make up a whole story about them to get a confession from the other guy, which is sort of wild, but that again is an adversarial situation, and so yeah hopefully that Adversarial meaning you're dealing with someone who is faithless and who is against you.

00:31:29.910 --> 00:31:32.019
Yeah, who's not for.

00:31:32.090 --> 00:31:32.292
God.

00:31:32.292 --> 00:31:33.405
I think that's who's not for God.

00:31:33.405 --> 00:31:33.689
Exactly.

00:31:33.689 --> 00:31:40.758
They're not for God, and so what you're trying to get to is like how will this best bring righteousness to a situation?

00:31:40.758 --> 00:31:43.968
Don't play poker.

00:31:43.968 --> 00:31:44.569
Very interesting topic.

00:31:44.569 --> 00:31:47.078
Yeah, that's a challenging one.

00:31:47.109 --> 00:31:48.316
All right, here's the next question.

00:31:48.316 --> 00:32:13.935
The next question that came in is stand by, okay, how does one foster a spirit of gentleness on a foundation of strength versus becoming gentle from a place of weakness or fear of man, which, in my opinion and y'all may both disagree is cowardice masquerading as being gentle and kind?

00:32:13.935 --> 00:32:22.881
I would appreciate y'all going to tangible things a person can do in order to grow this foundation versus the most obvious, founded on Christ and his strength.

00:32:22.881 --> 00:32:24.804
All right, so what do you think?

00:32:24.804 --> 00:32:36.445
First off, let's kind of like how do we foster a spirit of gentleness on the foundation of strength versus becoming gentle from a place of weakness or fear of man?

00:32:36.445 --> 00:32:43.501
So let's talk about I think there's, let's just talk about the difference between the two.

00:32:43.501 --> 00:32:51.544
So gentleness based on strength is meekness where it's strength under control.

00:32:51.710 --> 00:32:52.815
Jesus was clearly meek.

00:32:52.815 --> 00:32:59.002
He had all the power of the world, yet set to serve and very gentle.

00:32:59.002 --> 00:33:11.674
In other moments he was very strong and very flipping tables and outright just anger, rebuking Pharisees you know calling people very harsh things uh, in sort of the tradition of John, like he was not.

00:33:11.674 --> 00:33:18.075
It just depended on the situation for him, of how, of who he was being gentle with.

00:33:18.075 --> 00:33:28.332
It wasn't just a I treat everybody the same it wasn't just a I treat everybody the same.

00:33:28.352 --> 00:33:28.893
Yeah, yeah, that's true.

00:33:28.893 --> 00:33:34.751
Um, one thing that comes to mind for me there's like a you probably like, seem this, like you know kind of meme type, uh, image.

00:33:34.751 --> 00:33:44.057
It's a quote that's, um, I don't know, I've seen for a long time kind of passed around, but it says you can't truly call yourself peaceful unless you're capable of great violence.

00:33:44.057 --> 00:33:48.569
If you're not capable of violence, you're not peaceful, you're harmless, Right.

00:33:48.569 --> 00:34:00.019
And so to what I think the question is asking is saying, like, the goal is not to be harmless but peaceful, yeah, Right.

00:34:00.019 --> 00:34:01.020
So how do you do that?

00:34:01.020 --> 00:34:12.275
How do you cultivate strength but use it in such a way where, um, you're gentle with others from a place of strength and wisdom and knowing, like you're bringing up?

00:34:12.677 --> 00:34:14.601
This is a situation that needs gentleness.

00:34:14.601 --> 00:34:23.251
This is a situation that needs, you know, um, a harshness or a directness, Right and um, you know wisdom tells you the difference, Right, Harshness is.

00:34:23.251 --> 00:34:24.322
You know wisdom tells you the difference, Right, Harshness is.

00:34:24.322 --> 00:34:34.686
You know, any time Jesus was ever more blunt, more harsh, more, whatever those kind of situations.

00:34:34.686 --> 00:34:59.298
It was righteous, Right, out of a lack of self-control, but a full possession of self-control for righteous reasons, whether to protect the weak from foolish or corrupt leaders, or to demonstrate God's zeal for holiness when the temple had become corrupt.

00:34:59.298 --> 00:35:01.523
So it was always about Jesus essentially.

00:35:01.523 --> 00:35:06.715
The temple had become corrupt, so it was always about Jesus Essentially.

00:35:06.715 --> 00:35:10.367
Um, he, he had the wisdom, the perfect wisdom, to know who to be gentle with and who to be direct or forceful with.

00:35:10.367 --> 00:35:14.797
Um, but he, he had the ability to be forceful.

00:35:14.797 --> 00:35:17.362
You know, um, he wasn't a harmless person.

00:35:18.309 --> 00:35:19.050
Yeah, does that make sense?

00:35:19.050 --> 00:35:20.952
Yeah, so let's, so, let's get practical.

00:35:20.952 --> 00:35:22.934
So I, I get Jesus right, we're all.

00:35:22.934 --> 00:35:23.456
I think.

00:35:23.456 --> 00:35:27.179
Once we go to Jesus, then everyone sort of checks out because like okay, I'm not Jesus.

00:35:27.940 --> 00:35:28.922
Well, you shouldn't do that.

00:35:29.143 --> 00:35:32.226
Right, but I do think there's some things that we could learn.

00:35:32.226 --> 00:35:42.342
So Jesus knew God's word and we know that God's word is powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, divided between joint and marrow, discerning between the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

00:35:42.342 --> 00:35:44.625
So we know how powerful God's word is.

00:35:44.625 --> 00:35:58.438
I think when a person doesn't know God's word they run to snappy put-downs quick, whatever they're not based upon God's word.

00:35:58.438 --> 00:36:01.969