Spiritual Insights from the Chaos of Everyday

Speaker 1: 0:06

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pure Faith Podcast, a podcast where we discuss all things Bible. This is our host, mitchell, and I am the co-host, michelle. Brilliant, beautiful Michelle. Oh, excuse me. We ask that you like this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification icon when new episodes are released. So the cold air has me delirious.

Speaker 2: 0:34

Sure, that's what it is. It's the cold weather.

Speaker 1: 0:36

Oh shoot, I told Mitchell. I said I come in here tonight and I've got three shirts on two pairs of pants. I left my car running. I live, I live a block and a half from the church and I left my car running.

Speaker 2: 0:53

She told me it's because she doesn't drive very far.

Speaker 1: 0:55

so I don't drive very far and in this cold weather you should have your vehicle running a little bit is what I'm told. So that's what I'm doing. But yeah, I've got lots of layers on.

Speaker 2: 1:05

I just realized I never checked her camera. We're a little off-center.

Speaker 1: 1:08

Oh well, why don't you fix it real quick? Okay good enough. So what you thought was off-center didn't even. I looked at it and it looked fine to me. So I just a little, because I'm a little cock-eyed.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Yeah, you said it.

Speaker 1: 1:22

I did say it, but it runs in the family.

Speaker 2: 1:27

I got nothing.

Speaker 1: 1:32

We all know that was a little bit off.

Speaker 2: 1:37

It's how it was with tilted. Oh shoot, All right.

Speaker 1: 1:41

So let me set my alarm, because our battery life is not very much either. On the laptop, because I did not plug it in, because we were recording on Monday instead of our usual Thursday, because we also got military weekend this weekend. Things change, life goes on, so we're here tonight.

Speaker 2: 2:01

So yeah, I'm sure I was talking about how it's cold outside, so I went to work early this morning.

Speaker 1: 2:05

How early did you go to work?

Speaker 2: 2:08

Like 6.15. I guess it really wasn't that early.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Was your car in the garage?

Speaker 2: 2:12

No, oh, and it was negative five degrees. Fahrenheit so cold, it was really cold.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:23

We're not used to that kind of cold here in Ohio.

Speaker 1: 2:26

So you started your car.

Speaker 2: 2:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:28

You got it all warmed up so you could leave. I went to work this morning. I didn't have to report till 8. But I don't drive to work because that's only one block instead of a block and a half.

Speaker 2: 2:38

So much closer.

Speaker 1: 2:39

It's so much closer. So I walked to work this morning. It probably was cold. It was really cold, but that's why I have two pairs of pants on and three shirts and I just kept them on all day, because you know.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Why not?

Speaker 1: 2:55

Why not? I didn't complain, I was cold today.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Well, that's good.

Speaker 1: 3:00

I know, because it's cold outside, so we stumbled through last week's episode. It's a good way to say it. How did the editing go for that? I haven't done it yet. Okay, so we don't know. The results are from that, so I don't know if we apologize.

Speaker 2: 3:18

I'm going to. I think it was a flop.

Speaker 1: 3:24

Yeah, Well, and that's what you know. We look at it and you know some nights flow and some nights don't. You know, God puts in us the words that he wants us to hear, he wants us to say what he wants us to see, and for some reason it just wasn't flowing for you in our last episode.

Speaker 2: 3:42

No.

Speaker 1: 3:43

But, like I told mom, it all came together in the end, no matter how much we fumbled through it, it all came together because at the end of the day or at the end of the episode, I should say, you know, I told mom, I said to take the words that you had and to put in the words that you put in, to come to that verse, for it to make sense. I've been doing that with my devotion in the morning. You know I've been. What I do is I take my week of, I take a month, a picture screenshot of a month of Bible verses and you know, each morning now I'm reading this Bible verse and I am, you know, doing my research on it to see what it says, and that's the first thing I look for. What is? You know? What's another way of this coming across? So, even though we could think it was a flop, I can tell you that it was good for me.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Okay.

Speaker 1: 4:33

I got something out of it.

Speaker 2: 4:34

Well, there's a lot of times where I think I really dropped the ball on an episode. Then I go to edit it. I'm like really wasn't that bad.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Yeah, and I get those messages every once in a while. I hate the message that says I really think we need to record this one.

Speaker 2: 4:48

Re-record.

Speaker 1: 4:49

Yeah Right, I'm sorry. We need to re-record this one. It's only happened a couple of times, it's only happened a couple of times, but I don't like that message. So whenever I sent you a message last night like hey, you know when you want to record this week with your weekend, I was really hoping you were going to say well, I really think we need to re-record.

Speaker 2: 5:08

I haven't even listened to it yet. Normally we're recording on Monday night. Normally Monday night is my editing night. That's when I sit down and go through it and do all my editing, and then Tuesday night is my Release night, isn't it my upload? And re-release. Yeah, so I give myself a lot of spare time to make sure everything Right, oh shoot.

Speaker 1: 5:35

It is one of those. Yeah, we know that so, but we have we've been battling some sickness in the family. So, hopefully everyone gets back to healthy.

Speaker 2: 5:47

So if I cough, I'm sorry, just don't cough on me. I'll cough this way and sneeze that way, great.

Speaker 1: 5:56

I feel like there's always something going on. There's sickness everywhere, it seems like, but it's kind of hit your household a little harder than some of them.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Really it only hit Zika's page.

Speaker 1: 6:08

Well, yeah, that you know of. Like you said, you weren't feeling well, but you don't know if it's a thing?

Speaker 2: 6:13

Yeah, but it never. I mean I felt bad, but, like I was telling you, I thought it was because of surgery, recovery, pushing it too hard, and couldn't find out. It was probably the sickness, but I worked through it, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:31

And I know that there's things going around school. I mean Daniel's battling bronchitis. I got a co-worker whose family's been down with influenza A. So you know, I just know there's a lot of stuff going around, so we pray that everyone can stay healthy. Maybe this negative four temperature will just kill everything off.

Speaker 2: 6:49

I mean, okay, soê, I hope so. We'll see that I am ready to get started.

Speaker 1: 6:57

So what are we? Thank you. So what are we doing here? Last week we did Hebrews 11, 1 through 3.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Move forward through 2. We have to finish, oh 1 through 2. Okay, so we've got to finish Hebrews 11 3. Okay, and we'll get through that and we'll probably at least get started on Hebrews 11 4.

Speaker 1: 7:14

Okay, that sounds like a plan.

Speaker 2: 7:16

So Hebrews 11 3. This reads by faith, we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Speaker 1: 7:32

By faith we understand the universe was created by the Word of.

Speaker 2: 7:35

God. So, just to break this down, the universe was created. So by faith, we understand that the universe was created. This is just taking us back to Genesis 1. Genesis 1. To the creation story. Yeah, like I said through Hebrews, there's gonna be a lot of a lot of flashbacks Jumping around, a lot of going back to Old Testament to look at different events.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 8:03

And this one is just a creation story, where after this, we're gonna start getting into actual individuals.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Okay.

Speaker 2: 8:13

So this is, just like I said, the creation story, genesis 1. And so we understand that the universe was created Right.

Speaker 1: 8:22

We didn't see it created we didn't see it created.

Speaker 2: 8:25

That's where the faith comes into play, exactly Because we weren't there, right? And actually, if you watch my sermon that I did, where I went through Genesis 1, like really fast, like all Genesis 1, like 1 20-some-minute sermon, if you're gonna call it that, yeah, I think in that I mentioned that I lost my train of thought. So this episode is starting out like very good. So what were we talking about?

Speaker 1: 9:08

We're talking about the universe and I said by faith. And I told like we weren't, we did not see the creation of the universe?

Speaker 2: 9:15

We did not, yes. So my point I made in that sermon was how do we know that the universe was created exactly the way it says in Genesis? 1. Because this was when we were doing the Young Earth Creationists.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Oh, yes, I remember.

Speaker 2: 9:36

Yep, like how do we know that Genesis 1 is 100% factual and it's not metaphorical? And one of my arguments was who was there to actually see it?

Speaker 1: 9:54

Right, it was, it was day one.

Speaker 2: 9:57

Yes, god's the only one, yep, god and his angels. Yeah, so yeah. This story was given to Moses because Moses is the one accredited for writing Genesis. So this story was given to Moses by God. Moses didn't witness this happening. This was just a story told to him by God.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Right.

Speaker 2: 10:22

So, again, like I said, there, could Genesis, the creation story, happen exactly the way it's written? Yes, do I believe that? Not really, but I do believe, like what this is saying, that the universe was created by the word of God. And I just want to hit on this word of God, this concept of the word of God.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Okay.

Speaker 2: 10:48

A little bit, because this is what I'm going to be doing my next February 11th and 18th.

Speaker 1: 10:56

Yeah, your quote, unquote, sermons that you're doing for the church.

Speaker 2: 10:59

I don't like sermons.

Speaker 1: 11:00

I know really Sermons, you really don't.

Speaker 2: 11:03

I do Bible study, yeah, but whatever, I haven't figured out a good word yet, call them Anyways. So whenever I do those, I want to do a deep dive into this concept of word of God. But I do want to hit now, or kind of hit on in a little bit, now that there are three basic understandings of the word of God In our modern day context. We view the word as God, the word of God as the Bible.

Speaker 1: 11:39

Right, yes.

Speaker 2: 11:40

And I call this kind of like the representative word of God, because the Bible is God's representative for us. We don't have prophets today, we don't have, we don't have God speaking to us, so all we have is the Bible. Right, and the Bible represents the word of God Then. But the thing is, the Bible didn't create the universe, so that's not this word of God that they're talking about. The second type of word of God is I haven't decided if I want to call it the literal word of God or the actual word of God, kind of both the same meaning.

Speaker 1: 12:26

Yeah, kind of.

Speaker 2: 12:27

And that is. You know, we don't have God's word today, god verbally speaking to us today, but he did speak in the Bible and that is recorded in the Bible. Sorry.

Speaker 1: 12:42

That's okay.

Speaker 2: 12:44

And so that word of God, that literal word of God, is what was used to create the world, the universe. So that's what the author of Hebrews is talking about. Here is the literal word of God that created the universe. But there is another version of the word of God.

Speaker 1: 13:07

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2: 13:08

Yeah, and this is the one I'm really going to hit on whenever we talk about it, and it is the I think I don't remember what use I word I used in my head. So listen to this. What's how you then?

Speaker 1: 13:31

He's got too much going on up there for us to know that right now, so let's move forward on this.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Meta metamorphis, metamorphis. I see now I don't know what it is.

Speaker 1: 13:42

I hope you make notes.

Speaker 2: 13:45

I will for that, oh goodness, so yeah, so this is the literal word of God that created the universe. So, moving on, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible, again, this is kind of this isn't the type of wording that we would use today. This doesn't make much sense. I mean it does if you think about it. What they're really trying to say here is that what we see in the world today, what we see around us, everything, everything that was created Okay, was created from nothing.

Speaker 2: 14:30

We see this in Genesis 1, 1 and 2, and I want to read that. This reads in the beginning, god created the heavens in the earth. The earth was without form and void, and Darkness was over the face of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So First, it's talking about hovering over the face of the waters. That would imply that there were waters here, but again, I think this is metaphorical and a lot of people will say the same things, isn't just me. And actually, if you go to the Bible project here, recently on their podcast they had this huge long series and I think they called it something like something about dragons or something along that those lines, but it was about the different forms of chaos that we see in the Bible and a lot of times, waters are used to represent chaos, and it's not literal water that we're talking about, and the whole idea of this, this correlation between waters and chaos, is, if you are out in open water during a storm, it is.

Speaker 2: 15:58

I Personally have not been in that situation and I personally don't ever want to be in that situation, but I can imagine it and that's bad enough, and so it's just this whole concept of chaos and and Hopefully you're you're understanding what I'm trying to say here so waters in the Bible is used as a metaphor for just that unorganized chaos, right?

Speaker 1: 16:26

so we're not thinking of simple waters like a stream and a and a waterfall and that you're talking like in the, the middle of anywhere where things can go terribly wrong, is the type of water that we're. We are comparing chaos to rogue waves.

Speaker 2: 16:41

Yes, the unpredictable, yes, not the beauty but this isn't Literal waters that they're talking about here. This is just right chaos and we know that because it's saying that the earth was without form and void. Another way that I've heard that represent and again I get this from the Bible project guys is that it was to whoo-hoo. Which is it just basically means it was wild and waste. It was. It was chaos.

Speaker 2: 17:14

Hmm and that's. That's what it was. It was just a Bunch of chaos going on with no form, no, nothing, like there was nothing there. It was just Complete chaos. And then God spoke and. This chaos all came together. Chaos, so I got. So yeah, our computer died.

Speaker 1: 17:45

Yeah, of course Our battery was low, because I didn't plug it in. We tried to start where we were, where we left off, but we tried to get through it.

Speaker 2: 17:54

That's why we never plugged it in. Well, cause, it's told us, we had an hour.

Speaker 1: 17:58

But then we had to plug in all this equipment, so it's not an hour.

Speaker 2: 18:01

So you know that for the future. Now.

Speaker 1: 18:02

Now we know.

Speaker 2: 18:04

Anyways, okay, so, yeah, so I don't know where it cut out.

Speaker 1: 18:06

I mean, yeah, we don't know, but we can start back up with.

Speaker 2: 18:11

So, yes, we were going through Genesis one and two. So, yes, the earth was without form and void. There was nothing here. God spoke through speaking. He created the entire universe out of nothing. And everything that we see here now today, every animal, every and everything, no matter what you look at, just look around, everything that you see was created either directly by God or indirectly, indirectly, right Cause you know, I see chairs. Well, god didn't necessarily create that chair directly, but he created the people. Who created the chair?

Speaker 1: 18:56

Mm-hmm Right.

Speaker 2: 18:58

So everything was created by God.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Right.

Speaker 2: 19:03

So do we even know how much time we have left?

Speaker 1: 19:06

Well, I have 10 minutes, cause I paused it, okay.

Speaker 2: 19:09

So I don't know if I covered everything I wanted to cover there, but we're just going to move on. So we'll go to Hebrews 11, four.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 19:18

So this reads by faith, abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous God, commending him by accepting his gifts and through his faith. Though he died, he still speaks.

Speaker 1: 19:36

All that Woo too many words.

Speaker 2: 19:39

So this is the first person that we actually have in this hall of records and it's Abel. Well, the only evidence that we really have of this sacrifice is in Genesis four, one through five. So this is one instance where we don't have a whole lot of background to go off of. So I'm going to read Genesis four, one through five, and we're going to break that down. So Genesis four, one through five reads now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And again she bore his brother, abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time, cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell.

Speaker 1: 20:51

Mm.

Speaker 2: 20:54

So this is literally all we have on this story. This is the entire story. As far as the sacrifices go, I mean, obviously the Cain and Abel story goes on, because Cain goes on to kill Abel because he was jealous, but as far as this offering, this, is it so out of this? We have to figure out why Abel's sacrifice was highly regarded by God and Cain's wasn't, and the only thing that we can really get from this is that the fact that Cain brought fruit from the ground for his offering, but Abel brought the firstborn of his flock and the fat portions for his offering.

Speaker 2: 21:49

So Abel was bringing the choicest meat and also bringing the fat portion. So he is bringing a more choice selection. I mean now, grannie, you can't really compare. You know, fruits of the ground, which distance your crops, grains, your whatever you can grow in the ground. I mean you can't really it's comparing apples and oranges but you can still have the choicest of the fruits of the ground as well as the choicest of your meat Right right, yes, you can.

Speaker 2: 22:29

So I mean again, we kind of have to read into this a little bit to try to figure out what's really going on. But the fact that Cain just brought fruit from the ground, that implies that he didn't take the time to choose the best fruit, the first fruit, the choicest fruit, he just hey, I need to bring an offering. Well, here I'll just take some of this that's laying here and offer that to God.

Speaker 1: 23:04

Right.

Speaker 2: 23:05

Where Abel actually made the effort to choose the firstborn and to bring the fat portions with it, you know, really up in the game a little bit. So that's the only thing that we can really kind of that's the only basis really have for why Abel's offering was regarded and Cain's wasn't. So we're going to come back to the Cain and Abel story, but taking it back to Hebrews 11 and 4, the next portion is through which he was commended as righteous. So through this offering that Abel made I remember that commended was that special praise so through that offering that Abel offered to God, god gave him a special praise and regarded him as righteous. Well, you don't see the word righteous in that original Cain and Abel story. It's not there. So this is being added in. So if you remember, you know we talked a lot about righteousness.

Speaker 1: 24:30

Right.

Speaker 2: 24:32

Well, righteousness is doing what is right in the eyes of.

Speaker 1: 24:35

God Right, right.

Speaker 2: 24:36

So the author of Hebrews is reading into the story a little bit the Cain and Abel story and saying that the offering that Abel offered to God was right in the eyes of God.

Speaker 1: 24:57

Okay.

Speaker 2: 24:58

So before we get on to that too much, let's read the next section, because this commended continues, because the next section says God commending him by accepting his gifts. So we know that this form of commendation, this form of praise, was in the form of regarding the offering that Abel made and therefore the offering that Cain made was not regarded, so he did not receive any kind of special praise for that. But now we really have to kind of go on this, this mental trip here, because there's a lot of things we don't know, especially about the story. Because, well, first of all they're bringing offerings and sacrifices.

Speaker 2: 25:57

Yeah, God exactly why, at this point, we have no Backstory to where God commanded them to bring sacrifice right, right. So we don't know what their rules. Were they just doing this to do this? Well, if so, how does I mean? How can Kane be punished? For only bringing what he can if he doesn't know what he's supposed to be bringing right right so there has to be some sort of Of guidelines that was given to them that we just we don't have recorded right in in the Bible there.

Speaker 2: 26:41

There has to be more to this story, but again we weren't there. We have to live by faith. Mm-hmm, we don't know what that is. We have to trust that God was just here in in accepting Abel's offering and not Cain's. But some of the other things we don't know is Well, did God tell them to bring the choicest fruit? Well, that's the case, then. Kane obviously didn't do what he was told. Going back to the Hebrews and you offer, the author of Hebrews talks about the fact that Abel's offering was righteous, so therefore it was right in the eyes of God. So how could it be right in the eyes of God unless there is some form of Guidelines saying, hey, this is what I want you to do?

Speaker 1: 27:34

right.

Speaker 2: 27:35

So again, we have to read a lot into this, we have to make a lot of assumptions.

Speaker 2: 27:40

Yeah because the actual text doesn't give us any of this information. Yeah, but judging by the fact that Abel's offering was accepted by God and Cain's wasn't the fact that he is mentioned, that Abel is mentioned here in the Hall of Records In Hebrews 11, with all these others who are commended further faith, we have to assume that Abel was doing what God was telling him to do to do, so he was following the commandments, even though this was before we had commandment, right? So, again, there's just a lot there that we kind of. And another thing is when were the offerings given?

Speaker 1: 28:30

but my question is okay. So you know, abel brings his the first, the first of his flock right. Yeah, the first born which you know is understandable, but that's so much more precious, I think then, unless he's bringing his first fruit, like if you're just bringing our, your, I should say fruit, but you know you're, it's like you said it, there's no comparison here.

Speaker 2: 28:58

Yeah, there's comparison but, like I said, you're comparing apples and oranges. There's two different things, so you have to to Go by the standards in each category right.

Speaker 2: 29:11

So, even though you know, even though later on right, never God does actually give the the commands for the sacrifices and offerings, it is supposed to be of the first fruits. So that's where it's like well, when are they actually doing this? Because is this going to be at harvest time? So is King going to have his first fruits? Again, there's a lot we don't know. Yeah, I mean we can Read a lot into this.

Speaker 1: 29:43

Yeah, a lot of assumptions but we really don't know.

Speaker 2: 29:48

I got hold on, I got, I got, that's a go for it, because we got into the last part of of Hebrews 11 for mm-hmm. And through his faith, though he died, he still yes. So this is just saying that again, we don't have a whole lot in this actual able story from Genesis and we don't really know much about these guys Because the text is pretty thin, like we just spent how much time talking about right, we have to read a lot into the story to Know what was actually going on exactly but the fact that he is mentioned here in Hebrews 11 he able was faithful mm-hmm able did what he was supposed to do, we have to assume that, based on the commendation that he got from God because God accepted his offering.

Speaker 2: 30:51

That's what Hebrews 11 is telling us. So, even though able was killed by King shortly after this, we still have the story of Abel's offering being accepted by God when Cain's wasn't. So we still have that story of his faithfulness and it's through that faith that he is being commended now.

Speaker 1: 31:15

And Hebrews 11 All right, fantastic, all right. So, even though we had a couple interruptions with our computer and our recording, we thank you for joining us. Please leave a comment on this video or go to our contact page at purefaithlivingcom and you can send us a message there. And, as always, if you like our show, then we ask that you share it with others, and so we all work together and spreading the good word of Jesus Christ. Don't forget to subscribe and we will chat with you next time.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Have a blessed day everybody.

Speaker 1: 31:50

Thank you.