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You're listening to the Bible guys,
a podcast where a couple of friends talk

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about the Bible in fun in practical
ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to

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the Bible guys. Well this better
be either fun and or practical. Well

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yeah, and exciting, Yes,
that's right, exciting ways. Which,

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by the way, exciting ways?
Is that what he said, in fun

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and practical ways? Oh? I
see, I see. Yeah, I'm

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not listening to our own role in
So. Hey, my name is Chris,

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this is Jeff, and today we
are diving into the Book of Numbers.

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But before we do that, we
have a segment called mail Bags.

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Mailbags. This is from Lisa Dhi. Lisa, so you probably have an

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answer at raps up your head.
It says obviously, this is what Lisa

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says. Obviously, besides the Bible, obviously obviously. What is a book

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or a movie or a TV show
that had a big impact on you?

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Uh, you could probably you probably
have ten answers. There's terms of books.

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Probably, I would say, uh, the original Looney Tunes, the

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idea, that's all folks. By
the way, the original Looney Tunes was

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gruesome. I know, I know, I mean, that's great. They

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have nothing back, buddy. It
was anvils and yes, explosions. Well

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I mean worse than that. I
mean they didn't care. Man it good

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classical music, yeah, good classical
music. Yes, nothing like little Chaikowsky

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soften the blow well bugs, bunny. Right. So okay, so so

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let's start with the book book.
What's the Lord of the Rings? For

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me? Lord of the Rings?
Yeah, the entire everything, from the

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first Hobbit all the way through the
Silmarillion, so all seven books. Okay,

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yeah, all right, so for
me, goodness gracious, it's really

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hard to pick one, but ill, but I'll go obviously, since I'm

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the movie guy, I'll pick a
movie. And honestly, I can't believe

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i'm gonna say this, but I'm
gonna go with the old The Count of

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Monte Cristo. Yeah, okay.
And the reason why is that, I

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know, but because it really truly
did make a profound impact on me,

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because it was it was a story
that absolutely everything. It was a story

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that wasn't about faith. It wasn't
a Christian movie, but yet the entire

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thing was about faith and and and
it had it had you know, is

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God fair in the whole thing?
It had revenge. It had you know,

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human tendency to want to you know, doubt God, forget God,

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run away from God, can't escape
God. All of that stuff is in

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there, you know, sort of
intertwined with adventure, love story, plots,

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surprises. I mean, you know, great acting. It was,

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it was awesome. So I mentioned
Lord of the Rings and it was about

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the the adventure and uh, it's
the battle between good and evil. Sure

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that that was a lot of that
and the struggle. So I enjoyed us.

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But so you were talking about revenge
and that immediately made me think of

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the impact that the Princess Bride has
had on me. Yes, yes,

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right, so revenge, right,
that's a you know, my name is

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Jennoya. That's right. You prepared
to die and me like, stop saying

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that inconthievable. I do not think
that word means what you think that means,

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Well, you could probably quote that
old movie. So yeah, I've

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seen that quite a few times.
So so what else has had an impact

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on me? So from a serious
standpoint, I would say mere Christianity by

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C. S. Lewis, which, by the way, I loved his

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Chronicles and Narnia books too. I
read all those as a kid. But

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yeah, C. S. Lewis's
Mere Christianity just gave me a logical apologetic

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for you know, it's not unreasonable
to be to be intelligent and a person

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of faith at the same time.
And he was the first writer that I

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ever read that caught my attention that
way. I would say I read a

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lot of Christian books obviously over the
years, but I would have to say

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the one that has impacted me the
most based on what I do for a

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living, would have to be Communicating
for a change by Understanding, because it

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reshaped my entire thinking in such an
unbelievably drastic way about the way to communicate,

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and it us also resonate with the
fact that that I believe and still

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believe that it's the most effective way
to reach people who are not close to

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God or far from God, because
you know, you already have the Christians

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as soon as you open your mouth. The Christians already you know, dialed

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in. And so the idea of
even trying to capture the attention of those

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who are far from God was a
brand new concept for me, and I

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had never really considered that in my
communicating Wow, So it was great that's

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powerful. I thought that was a
really good question. Yeah, it's a

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great tu Do you have any more
any other ones that jump out your So

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you mentioned books, you mentioned movies, how about TV show? Yeah,

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you know, there's been so many
it's just unbelievable. But honestly, I

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would say I I appreciate almost more
than anything, the kind of stuff that

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it's the opposite of you, what
your preference is to shoot them up,

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you know, kind like I like
Parenthood. I thought Parenthood was just an

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unbelievable reality sort of thing. There
was what six or eight seasons whatever it

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was, and it was just it
was just a family who they were just

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a big mess, and they loved
each other dearly and there was always good

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that came out of it. So
it was just like it was so relatable

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because we all are a mess,
and I think that at the end you

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always saw the good come. And
even though it wasn't necessarily a Christian in

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fact, it was not a Christian
series at all, but it's so profound

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in the way that we are supposed
to, you know, endure, and

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it was a Christian show with that
trying to be a Christian show, right,

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you know what I mean, so
I thought that was really impactful for

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me. Oh good. Yeah,
well there you go. You got books,

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movies, and TV shows there.
It is good question, Lisa,

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Yes, yes, and so yeah. I mean I'm trying to think of

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more, but I don't think we
should spend any time any more time on

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it. Yeah, because I'm sartin
my brain's going with all these different responses.

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I've got tons of stuff to say, right, I've watched so many

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shows. Yeah, well you have. Okay, So we are going to

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be diving into numbers now. We
touched on Leviticus for a couple of podcasts.

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We hit it on Friday, we
hit it on Monday, which was

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yesterday, and if you're following day
by day, today is Tuesday, and

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we are jumping ahead to numbers.
Chapter eleven. That's correct. So there's

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so much more to have talked about
in the Book of Leviticus, right,

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the Levitical loss. So much of
what drove the general religious portion of the

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society of Israel is out of the
Book of of Leviticus, and Jesus is

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the fulfillment of the Book of Leviticus. Right, So all those Levitical laws,

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all those sacrifices, all those sacrifices
for atonement. Everything Jesus is the

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fulfillment of the book of Leviticus.
So while Leviticus can seem tedious, it

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just shows the thoroughness of what God
did in Christ. You and I think,

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oh, it's a day on the
calendar that we happen to celebrate,

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and in reality there was. It
literally sufficed and solved every issue of humanity

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sin, right, It's really phenomenal. So that's what Leviticus is about.

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Numbers moves into more of the humanity
of Israel. Again, just very similar

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to the first half of the Book
of Exodus. And so here in Leviticus

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in Numbers, I'm sorry, chapter
eleven, we're going to jump forward and

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this is we're gonna read about this. This is a recurring theme that almost

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never ends in the rest of the
life of Moses, right right, and

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never ends in the lives of pastors. You know, it's true any any

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spiritual leader at all, that's correct
because there's always new people. There's there's

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new people coming in, there's always
new complaints. So God has been providing

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for the people of Israel as they're
wandering around trying to head towards the promised

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land. He's been dropping mana from
heaven. The word mana means what is

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it? What is it? That's
what it means. And it was sweet,

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it was fulfilling, It was sufficient
for everything that they needed for them.

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I really don't don't even really know
the consistency, right, we don't

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even know what it was. Yeah. I think it was probably like a

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box lunch. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like a Chick fil a

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box, right, just fall from
heaven with one of those chunky chocolate chip

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cookies in at there. So you
never know, you never know, nice

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diet coke. Whatever it was.
You can't prove it wasn't it be or

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could be, Like to bully,
it could be. But so it was

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some kind of a cracker thing,
some kind of a bread thing. It

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was something like that. Anyways,
miraculously every day, all the food they

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could eat, God's just dropping from
heaven from them, right right. But

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the Bible says soon the people began
to complain about their hardship, and the

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Lord heard everything they said. Then
the Lord's anger blazed against them. Wow,

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and he sent a fire to rage
among them, and he destroyed some

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of the people in the outskirts of
the camp. That's don't mess with God.

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I mean, I'm sorry to laugh
there, but holy God, that's

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it blazed. His anger blazed.
Wow, we don't we don't care for

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how you're taking care of us.
God's like, oh yeah, right,

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so this says. Then the people
screamed to Moses for help, and when

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he prayed to the Lord, the
fire stopped. And after that the area

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was known as Tabero, which means
the place of burning, because fire from

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the Lord had burned among them there. Then the foreign rabble who were traveling

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with the Israelites began to crave the
good things of Egypt. The people of

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Israel also began to complain, Oh, for some meat, They explained,

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we remember the fish we used to
eat for free in Egypt. We had

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all the cucumbers and melons and leaks
and onions and garlic we wanted, But

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now our appetites are gone. All
we ever see is this manna. The

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mana looked like small coriander seeds,
and it was pale yellow like gum.

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Resin. The people would go out
and gather it from the ground, and

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they made flour by grinding it with
hand mills or pounding it in mortars,

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and then they boiled it in the
pot and made it into flat cakes.

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These cakes tasted like pastries baked with
olive oil. The mana came down on

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the camp, and the dew during
the night sounded like croissants. Yeah,

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isn't that what it sounds like.
I'm not a chef, but sure,

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sure, sure, some kind of
French pastry kind of a thing. Anyways,

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Moses heard all the families standing in
the doorways of their tents whining,

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and the Lord became extremely angry.
Moses was also very aggravated, and Moses

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said to the Lord, why are
you treating me your servants so harshly?

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Have mercy on me. What did
I do to deserve the burden of all

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these people it is? Did I
give birth to them? Did I bring

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them into this world? Why did
you tell me to carry them in my

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arms like a mother carries a nursing
baby. How can I carry them to

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the land you swore to give their
ancestors? Where am I supposed to get

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meat for all these people? They
keep whinding to me, saying, give

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us meat to eat. I can't
carry all these people by myself. The

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load is far too heavy. If
this is how you intended treat me,

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just go ahead and kill me,
which is it done in favor, and

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spare me this misery. Let me
jump just a couple more verses, because

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it says, and the Lord said
to Moses, gathered before me seventy men

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who are recognize as elders and leaders
of Israel. Bring them to the tabernacle

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to stand there with you. I'll
come down and talk to you there.

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I will take some of the spirit
that is upon you. I will put

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the spirit upon them also, and
they will bear the burden of the people

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along with you, so you'll not
have to carry it alone, which is

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God's part of God's solution. But
yeah, so from this point on,

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this is what they do all the
time, is just complain it is.

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It is a very well known favorite
passage of pastors. Yes, right,

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just kill me, Just just kill
me. Yeah. So you know,

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obviously we're joking, but sometimes it
can feel this way, and you know

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it's so funny. Is It's like, so, I'm sure you started in

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smaller churches, right o, y, just like I did, And I

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spent my first seven years in ministry. Actually, after a college graduation,

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I was a pastor before that.
But when I was when I was actually

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graduated from college, my first church, I was there for seven and a

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half years. It was one hundred
and eighty people the day I started,

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and it was one hundred and eighty
people the day I left. Okay,

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and yet we had grown by leaps
and bouts. Yeah, well I did.

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I did. Then the other guy
ran them off. But anyway,

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the point is is that it's like, it's like we just saw this turn,

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you know. You know, anyway, it doesn't matter. The point

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is is that some of the smaller
church experiences to this day are some of

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the best experiences of my life.
I mean, they're just wonderful, right,

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But at the same time, they
can be the most taxing, absolutely

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right, because because for some reason, that whole small church experience is like

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all two hundred people plus had access
to me. Yeah, and then and

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it's and it's like and all of
a sudden, you're the only answer to

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everything, right, and so it's
like it's like, so sometimes the smaller

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the church is, the more burdens
to me can be because now all of

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a sudden, you, as the
pastor, you have to go to every

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funeral, every wedding, every hospital
visit, every counseling session. You're you're

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doing everything right because you're not quite
big enough to you know, to sort

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of disperse, which is exactly what
God's answer is, isn't that. Yeah?

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Right, So we find ourselves in
the first fifteen version to share the

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responsibility, to share the load,
right, But we find ourselves like Moses,

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like like, oh my goodness,
Like, come on, you're getting

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free food and you're mad about it? Right? Right? Well, you

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know, I mean, I mean
I as a foodie, I could understand

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what they're saying. Right. We
had we had garlic, we had onions,

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we had leaks, we had we
had all these different things, and

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now we have what is it?
Yeah? Well, so it's so funny

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because it says we used to have
We remember the fish we used to eat

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for free in Egypt? Was it
free? Yeah? It was it free?

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I'm pretty sure what was it?
You were? Ah, what's the

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word? I'm looking for? Slave? Right? Right? Nothing's free,

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but nothing's free. And so they're
thinking about all the cucumbers and the melons

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and the leaks and the onions and
the garlic, and they're forgetting about the

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whips and the chains, right,
and the making mud bricks with no no

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resources necessary to do it, the
beatings, the oppression, the abject poverty

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that they were living in. Right, and now they're free people, able

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to determine their their own futures.
But no, we we missed the watermelons.

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That's that's what we missed. You
know there's a sermon in there too,

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isn't it, Because like you know, when we we are rescued from

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our lives, from our old lives
of sin and destruction and all these different

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things. If you've lived life long
enough without Christ, you sort of have

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that story, right, you experience
life without Christ. Sometimes, if we

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miss that old life, we seem
to only remember the fun part of it,

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or the or the you know,
the good part of it. I

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guess I could say, right,
the experiential part. And yet we don't

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miss we don't remember the misery.
We don't remember the change of the whips,

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or the or the slavery. We
don't remember the depression, of the

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emptiness or how about this the consequences, right, we don't. We don't.

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We don't remember all that and so
so and so. What we do

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is, you know, some of
us who like to go back and dip

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our toe in the old lives.
We think we could do it better this

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time because we can just you know, experience what we want to experience without

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the consequences, without the bad part. But that's not the way that life

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works, right. Life without God
is not something that we want a toy

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with. And you can try,
and you could, you could try to

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do it. You know, I
think you're successful at it. But in

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the end you're going to find it
in this life and especially in the next

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you're gonna be pretty empty. Romans
twelve tells us that we need God to

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renew our minds right, and we
need to have a new way of thinking.

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I had a friend several years ago, a number of years ago that

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he about my age, so in
your age, so we graduated when Guns

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n' Roses was really hitting it right. It was bon Jovi and guns n'

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Roses were thesurants back in the day. And he said, you know,

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I found this dad. He was
about a eleven or twelve year old boys,

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and this dad told me, he
said, I've had to quit listening

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to guns n' Roses and bon Jovi. I'm like, why, he said,

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I only listened to what working on
my car out in the garage.

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But he said, dude, I
start remembering, like, you know,

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when I was kind of buck wild, And he said, it was always

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like fist fights and drinking and carousing
and chasing the girls. And he said,

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I start telling the stories. Oh, let me tell you because boys

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going, oh, this is cool
music. Dad was, oh, this

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is what we used to listen to
when I was in high school. Blah

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blah blah this stuff. Right.
Yeah. So then he'd started telling stories

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about being a tough guy and about
fight and about you know, the first

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time I smoked a cigarette, blah
blah the stuff. Next thing, you

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know, his eleven twelve year old
boy getting in trouble at school, starting

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to fight, got out, he
tried his first cigarette and he's like,

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what are you doing? Man?
It was in this short little window of

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time, and the little boy,
his argument was dead. You did it

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right, and you made a sound
great, and it sound amazing right now.

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He also spent several nights in jail. He had a whole bunch of

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hangovers. See, he really messed
up a lot of his life early on

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in his life. But at that
point, all he can remember was like

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those fun moments. He didn't remember
the fallout and the tragedy of the rest

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of his life at the time,
and he's like, I had to turn

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it off. I can't listen to
music in my garage anymore because every time

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I listened to music, it takes
me back there. But I only remember

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the good, the fun side of
it, not the bad side of it.

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And that's kind of where it is
here. They remember the watermelons and

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the garlic, right, but they
don't remember the slavery, and so they're

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complaining. They're whining, Oh,
we just want some meat. Whoere's the

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meat? Right? And Moses is
like, God, I can't put up

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with these people a minute, Like, just just kill me if you don't

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came jump off a bridge. I
remember my pastor in nineteen eighty nine preaching

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this exact passage, and guess what
he called the message, where's the beef?

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Where's the that's clever. Yeah.
So for those of you who are

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super old like us, you remember
that old Wendy's commercial wears the beef back

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in the day, And this is
them, this is you know, the

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crowd of Israel saying, you say, I just want some meat? You

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know, where's the beef? And
it was actually, uh, just like

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the commercial, it's a it's a
whole sermon about complaining. But at the

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same time, again, we have
to realize that, you know. It

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reminds me of the scripture where the
apostle Paul goes to God and says,

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you know, can you take my
affliction from me? Whatever afflicted Paul?

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And what does God say? God
says, well, my grace is sufficient

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for you rightower hours made perfect in
weakness. And so God, may you

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know, not necessarily give us exactly
everything that we want. But we have

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to realize we're a whole lot better
off with God, you know, with

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our affliction. You know that we
hold the things that we face than we

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are without a life without God.
Yeah, that's for sure. I also

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wonder how often we miss the miracles
because we get used to the miracles.

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We miss the miracle of the sunset
sunrise. We missed the miracle of experiencing

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real love from your child or your
spouse or you know, your grandchild or

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something. We miss so many amazing
miracles, and then we want God to

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do more miracles. I need another
miracle. I need you to do something

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amazing. We can't just rely on
the miracle He's already done for us.

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We can't. Why why do we
do that? Right? And so it

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actually makes God mad too, So
it makes Moses mad, it makes God

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mad. It makes them both mad. Every morning they drew back their tent

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doors and they witness a miracle,
but then they begin to feel like that

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wasn't enough, and they felt it
was their right to have more. And

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talking about spiritual entitlement, a lot
of times we begin to feel the same

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way. God, You've done amazing
things for me. I feel like I

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deserve more. I need to How
come you didn't heal that person? How

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come you didn't answer this prayer?
How dare you? And this is really

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where they're at is they're looking miracles
right in the face. They're not even

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seeing them anymore. And there I
rate with God that he's not doing how

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dare he not do more miracles,
specifically the miracle we're demanding, which is

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meat. And a lot of times
we do that with regard to our unanswered

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prayers. We forget the fact that
God has answered so many prayers. You

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know, that reminds me of a
sermon that I did in the past where

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I bring up like four suitcases,
like the baggage that we carry around.

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In fact, we did this,
We did this on at a series that

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we did called Baggage you remember at
Heritage Church. But anger, you know,

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we carry around anger, we carry
around greed, we carry around guilt,

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we carry on jealousy. Were the
four that I kind of put up

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there. And anger says you owe
me, right, you owe me an

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explanation, you owe me a debt, Guilt says I owe you, and

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then greed says I owe me.
But then jealousy says God os me.

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And that's really profound, right,
because because that's really the heart of comparing

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ourselves and looking at others. Right, what does the Bible say comparing ourselves

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and measuring ourselves among ourselves is not
wise? And that's what we do.

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We say, God, I'm your
faithful servant. I've tried to serve you,

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and I'm looking around and other people
have garlic, other people have leaks

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and onions. Right, You've blessed
other people with things that I want,

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and yet I'm your servant, So
you know, why are you unfair?

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God? Be kind to your servants. And by the way, there's a

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lot of people that are there.
There's a lot of people that are there.

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Sure, there's just like God,
throw me a bone, right,

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But that's really what it is.
It's it's not that we you know that.

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Then we're reminded that God's grace is
enough, his grace is sufficient.

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We're reminded of the miracles of life. We're reminded of everything that we do

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have, but we're but we're wanting
cheese, just a reasonable amount of what

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what that guy down the street has, right, All my friends have this,

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and yet I don't have this,
you know. And really what it

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comes down to is it's it's saying, God, you owe me. Yeah,

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yeah, So you know in Philippians, Paul says in the King James,

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he says, for I've learned whatsoever
state I am therewith to be content

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right, And and there is something
about this that their lack of contentment caused

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the rage of God against them blazed, right, It was blazing against them,

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blazing And I wonder how much blessing
we are we really do have in

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our life, but we can't see
it because we're resentful, or we're angry,

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or we're jealous about a thing that
we do not have, and we're

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blaming God for it. And I
wonder how much struggle and extra heat we

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have in our life because we're not
thankful for what we do have. We're

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just grumpy about what we don't yet
have and God hasn't given to us yet.

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And I don't think that that's an
excuse or reason to not keep pushing

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forward and bettering our lives. We
just can't be resentful or angry towards God

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about it, right, Yeah,
And I wonder, I just wonder sometimes

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how often are the fires in our
life the result of a lack of contentment

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and thankfulness, Because when the people
do come to God in thankful ways,

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God blesses them. Right, So
you either have Moses is going to end

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the Book of Deuteronomy with I'm going
to give you a choice between life and

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death. Oh, that you would
choose life. Right. There's a better

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way to go than this resentful,
jealous way that is so natural for us.

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The better way to go is having
a contentment and a thankfulness for what

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God has done and then let Him
keep showing up and blessing us in that

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context, Yeah, rather than taking
the heat of our own jealousy and resentment.

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Yeah, so let me sort of
tag onto that thought we could wrap

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00:23:57.039 --> 00:24:00.039
up with this because we're at our
time. But what you just said,

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I just saw an Instagram really literally
last night as I was scrolling, you

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know, and just right before I
go into bed, I just scroll for

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about fifteen minutes or so, and
there was a celebrity and this person what

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was Reeche Witherspoon. I don't care, I'll just tell you who was.

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What's the big deal? But anyway, but she said that she had heard

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somebody that day change the word have
to get and it's like, oh,

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I have to watch my grandkids today. And then and then he says,

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you know what, I'm going to
change it to. I get to watch

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my grandkids today, and he says, and I get to breathe, and

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I get to do this, and
I get to do this. And she

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says, if we just changed the
halves to gets, that's a whole different

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perspective on the days. And it's
just one word. And I just thought

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that was a really cool thing.
Yep. And we can shift from the

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rage of God to the blessing of
God here it is all right, Well,

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that's all of our time, so
we will see you next time,

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hopefully on the Bible gus