Old Testament, New Doubts // Help! I’m Losing My Religion! - Read

In a world where things change minute by minute, one thing is consistent—we’re losing our faith. Every year, the percentage of people identifying as “Christian” drops lower and lower. People just aren’t buying what the Christian faith is selling...maybe you aren’t buying it. Maybe it’s the Church’s treatment of people groups. Maybe it’s your own past trauma. Maybe it’s the injection of politics into the pulpit. Whatever the reason, the Christianity you knew began to crumble, and so did you. But if you’re walking this difficult path, there’s good news—God is not afraid of your deconstruction. In fact, your deconstructing faith could be the doorway to a deeper faith. One richer, stronger, and more profound than you could ever imagine.

How do we wrestle with the idea that one of the biggest drivers of deconstruction is the Bible? The violence in the Old Testament, the examples of slavery and polygamy...these are difficult to reconcile. When you were little, someone telling you, “...because the Bible says so…” may have been good enough. Not anymore. Now you’re a grown up with grown up doubts—and those grown up doubts deserve grown up answers.

Amen, amen. Can we give King Jesus some praise this morning as we grab our seats?

Man oh man, I am so happy you guys are here today you guys happy to be in church today everybody online you happy as well, man oh man I am I've been looking forward to today to being able to share with you, especially after last week, man last week touched a nerve with some people's we kicked off this series helped I'm losing my religion, I got to talk to so many people throughout the week who were saying, Man, this is exactly what I needed to hear. This is really connecting with stuff. I've been seeing online stuff that I know my kids are going through stuff that I know my friends are going through or stuff that I know, I'm going through different doubts that I've had about faith. And it's cool, cuz some people I've even talked to this week, we're kind of explaining how they've been looking forward to this series because they're there in the faith, but they're kind of just like dipping their toe in, right? Because they're, they're afraid to go all into faith because there's a little bit of them that they're kind of afraid of what they might find. If they do, they're a little bit afraid of what they might find if they do just go whole hog into the faith walk with Jesus. And since last week, we had an illustration with Easter lilies and it works so well. I thought you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna use it as another visual aid. today. I will warn you going in this one is going to be a whole lot less sanctified than last week's. So just roll with me. All right, just roll with me on this. So as we jumped in today, I want to show you this beautiful piece of cake. It looks good, right? You guys see it looks good. Nice way to start off the morning. Right? Some cake. Nice, hefty slice of cake looks like it's a nice little white cake. It's got a little rose on top. It's just beautiful. I would wager that if I would just offer this probably, like 75% of the auditorium would be down to just chow down on it. Right. Am I Am I right? Is that a safe assumption to make? Absolutely right. Yeah. I love that. We're getting the clapping for cake like Yes. Hey, yeah. Okay. All right.

In that would be the case, the majority of people would be all about it. What if I told you though, that this slice of cake that looks so good, and looks so appealing? What if I told you that this is actually what the full cake looks like?

You can't read the writing on there, I'll tell you what it says it says find the toenail.

Find the toner who's hungry, who's hungry, who's looking forward to lunch, after church, I just ruined your appetite. Now you can completely focus on the sermon, you don't got to worry about where you're going out to eat afterward. Now, because you don't have an appetite.

Right? I've seen those pictures floating around online and people doing that like jokingly bringing a cake that says find the toenail. There's not actually a toenail in it. But as we're talking about deconstruction, and as we're talking about faith, I believe, we're seeing a little sliver of why people are afraid to jump into faith. They're afraid they're gonna find a toenail.

They're afraid to take the big bites because they're afraid. What's really going on with faith? What's really going on? If I trust Jesus, and I believe this stuff, am I going to start diving into Scripture? And then I started seeing some stuff that I can't reconcile, am I gonna start falling into Scripture and start reading it and start seeing some things that make me uncomfortable, or I'm like, Man, I can't really, I can't reconcile this with this. And I just don't know what to do with it. I think that's what we see a lot. In deconstruction, I think it's what we see a lot, and people leaving the faith, they're afraid to jump in, and they're afraid to take a bite because of what they may find in the cake. And what I want us to do today as we talk is, I want us if that's you, or if that's someone you know, I want us to take that fear away. I don't want you to be afraid of what you'll find. If you dive too deep into scripture, I don't want you to be afraid of what you'll find. If you take too big of a bite of cake. I want to remove all of that fear today and have God replace it with confidence. Now, this is what I'm gonna say, as we dive into the rest of the sermon. This is a hard sermon today.

It's hard, hard to preach. I'll tell you that much. So what I need from you. Preaching was never meant to just be a one-sided dialogue it's not supposed to or one-sided communication is supposed to be a dialogue back and forth. I need you to be engaged. I need you to be listening. I need you to be hearing what I'm saying and not what I'm not saying if you follow me so can you guys do that for me if you can just tell me I got your pastor.

Thank you, guys. You guys are giving me the confidence I need let's pray and then let's hop into today's sermon. Heavenly Father please bless my words during these next moments help me to communicate what has seemed so clear during my time to study this week helped me to communicate that clearly today help my words to be your words, and help all of us who have ears to hear today. We love you. We pray this in Your name, amen. Amen. I want us to start we're going to read from the book of John to kick off today I want to read you just four short verses from the book of John. This is John chapter five. This is Jesus talking to some Pharisees, some elders of the law, and he's rebuking them, he's rebuking them for missing him for missing God's revelation in Jesus. This is what he says, starting in verse 37, of chapter five. And the Father who sent me has testified about me himself. You've never heard his voice or seen him face to face, and you do not have his message in your hearts, because you do not believe me, the one he has sent to you, he's saying this to people who know the Scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, well, that's what we call an Old Testament scriptures. At this time, they were just the scriptures, right? Jesus is saying this to people who know the Scriptures like the palm of their hand. They know them inside and out in Jesus saying, You do not have the message of God in your heart, because you don't believe me. The one he has sent to you, verse 39, you search the Scriptures, because you think they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to me, yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life. Jesus says the scriptures point to me. Today, if you're taking notes, the title that we're working with today is Old Testament, New doubts, Old Testament, New doubts, we have got to wrestle with the fact last year we set up this idea of what deconstruction is and why we need to talk about it. And today, we're diving in headfirst. One of the biggest reasons people deconstruct why they leave the faith. And we have got to wrestle with the fact that one of the biggest drivers of deconstruction is the Bible.

I told you, you better buckle up today because we're getting into it today. One of the biggest drivers for deconstruction is the Bible. There's a whole lot of people that if we tell them, man, I know you're having doubts with your faith, but just read the Bible. They're like, well, that's the problem. I did. I Have I used to just go off what pastors would tell me. But then I started reading for myself, and there's some stuff in there, man, how do I reconcile this and it started driving me into doubt. I want to kind of label these into two different categories. Okay, atrocities and the astonishing, the atrocities and the astonishing. These are the two biggest things that kind of give people hangups, specifically about the Old Testament of the Bible, they see what they think are atrocities they see things like slavery, they see polygamy, see one guy with multiple wives, they see violence and war, and they see all of this and they go, man, these atrocities, how can this be real? How can this be legit? They look at the astonishing, they look at these miracles, they see the crossing of the Red Sea, they see the plagues. In Egypt, they see Jonah in the belly of a whale for three days, they look at six days of 24-hour creation, and they go really like it's a little too astonishing. For me. It's a little too wild for me, can I really believe this? I don't want you to raise your hand. I'm not trying to, you know, put anybody on the spot today. But have you ever considered that? I hope you have. I really hope you have. I hope you are not just blindly walking in faith because God has never asked us for that. God doesn't ask us for blind faith. He's given us logic, He's given us a reason. If you've never considered that, you should probably ask yourself why you haven't? Because those are legitimate questions, legitimate questions that we shouldn't just dismiss or throw off or say, Don't worry about that. Those are real questions. So here's the fact of the matter. If the Bible was just the New Testament, like if that's all we had, right?

Then we could just ignore it and be like, Yeah, whatever. But it's not. We do have an Old Testament. And not only do we have an Old Testament, but we also have an Old Testament that Jesus himself affirmed.

Matthew, chapter five, Jesus has saved the law and the prophets. The main thing that makes up our Old Testament of Scripture, the Hebrew Scriptures, he says, the law in the prophets, I didn't come to do away with them. I didn't come to abolish them. I came to fulfill them. Jesus affirms everything we read. So what that means for us, is we either ignore it to our own peril, or we wrestle with it and wrestle with the tension of how some of the stuff in here that seems so um, Christ-like actually fits in Scripture actually fits with Jesus, we have to reconcile it. You know, what, how the Church used to reconcile it. We used to reconcile the stuff in the Old Testament that was like, oh, that's kind of hard.

How we used to reconcile it was we didn't we just didn't write. If you ever have a legitimate question and you ask your parents or maybe if you've said this, don't feel bad because I've said it too. You've had a legitimate question about faith. And someone's response to you was, the Bible says though it says it's just it's so or maybe they had a more catchy phrase. So it sounded good. And you believe it because they're like, Well, you know what? For me, the Bible says it, and that settles it. Amen. The Bible Bible says it, and that settles it, it's done. And it's over with now, and without meaning to well-intentioned people. And I've said those before, but without meaning to well-intentioned people, when we say things like that, you know what we're basically saying, we're telling people yeah, there's supposed to be a toenail on the cake.

They're supposed to be stoned to cake. Enjoy.

It's supposed to be there like, Hey, I found this thing. And it's hard. And I'm having a difficult time reconciling. What's it mean? Oh, it's supposed to be there, the Bible says it, that settles it, just take it just go with it. That is hard for a lot of people to do a lot of people who don't want to feel like they have to sacrifice their intellect or logic, people who think that wouldn't God be a rational, logical God? So how does this make sense? What I want to tell you is that whenever you were a kid, maybe that worked, the Bible says, So the Bible says that that settles it. Maybe it worked. When you're a kid, you're not a kid anymore. You're a grown-up with grown-up doubts, and you deserve grown-up answers. You deserve grown-up answers. And so that's what we're going to look at today. What I want us to do, I'm going to, I'm going to give you my grownup answers, okay, what today is is Pastor Jacobs, personal Bible study on how I wrestled with this, I shared with you last week that I've had doubts in my past. And these are answers that I felt God, direct me towards. There are things that I've seen in Scripture and through talking with other people. So what I want you to do today is not take me at my word, okay? I'm sharing my personal study notes, I don't want you to take my word, I want you to check my work throughout the week. All right, I want you to check my work. I want you to look into this and investigate this for yourself, as well. But here we go. These are my grown-up answers for my grown-up doubts specifically when it comes to the things in the Old Testament that are just frankly, hard to reconcile now, a starting point that I feel like we have to hit on but we'll get to the astonishing and the atrocities later on in the sermon, but we have to lay some groundwork first, one of the most important things I think we need to do, we just need to understand this as Christians and as non-Christians, I'm speaking to both today. We need to let the Bible be the Bible.

I'm gonna say it again, we need to let the Bible be the Bible. We need to stop trying to make it what it never claimed to be. Did you know The Bible never claimed to be a science book?

Did you know The Bible never claimed to be a book of contemporary modern law?

Did you know The Bible never claimed any of those things? Right? He never made those claims about stuff. What the Bible is, is 66 books written by 40 plus different authors over a period of about 3000 years. And most vital, most important to remember is that this is multiple genres, multiple genres. There's law, there's history, there's poetry, there's wisdom, literature, there are letters, letters sitting by sent by one man to an entire church body, or like, we have the book of Philemon, we have a letter that was sent from one man to another man. There are multiple genres in Scripture. Now, why is that so important? It's important because whenever we remember, there are different genres. It reminds us we have to read in context, we have to, you have to understand that's why some of the best Bibles you can get are the study Bibles that at the beginning of each book, it gives you a breakdown of the book letting you know who wrote this, who were they writing to? What was the culture like at the time, when was this written? What was the primary aim of this buy of this book? Those are so helpful because they give us that context that we so badly and so sorely need. context matters. You want me to show you how I know context matters. The two phrases, I'm sorry, and my bad, can mean the same thing, right? I'm sorry, my bad that can mean the same thing. Except that a funeral? Do you guys get it? There we go.

Except that the funeral means a little bit different than right. I'm sorry, is my bad. I didn't mean to. They mean two completely different things. All of a sudden, because of the context, the context has changed. And it's changed the meaning of the word we have got to take into account context. When we read scripture, when we see the wars that King David fought in context, that is history. That's not a directive for you to now go make war against your neighbors, right? Like it's history. We will read Leviticus and we read the Mosaic Law. We're reading a law book for ancient Israel. We're not reading something for us today.

We've got to take context into account. If we want to read Scripture correctly. Sadly, and this has not been going on forever, let's not act like this is how we read the Bible for 2000 years, this is not how we've done it. This is a very modern thing that we've done. Sadly, many people push a total literal reading of Scripture, no context, just throw context out the window, total literal reading of Scripture. And what happens then is we miss the forest, for the trees. We miss it, we miss what Scripture is actually trying to say. Let me give you an example of this Genesis, chapters one and two, the creation account of the creation of the world, God made the world. Now the main point, the main point, and this are not just me, again, check my work. Throughout the week, theologians throughout centuries have said if you want to know what Genesis one and two are trying to communicate, trying to communicate the fact that there is a God, that our world was created by this god that our world was created, not randomly, but with purpose, with intention with potential there is a purpose behind the creation of God, that is what Genesis one and two are trying to communicate. But you know, what we have turned this dialogue into and it is just cannot be frank, it's so stupid. We've turned this dialogue that what God is trying to communicate is, hey, I'm here. I'm creator, God, I made you with the purpose. I love you I have an intention and plan for the world that I've created. Instead, we've turned it into what was it six, literal 24-hour periods of creation. It's important. It's important how you believe on that, who says a lot about what you believe, as a Christian, it's so dumb. It is. And we shipwreck so many people's faith over dumb arguments that don't matter. We are missing the forest for the trees. That is not what's trying to be communicated there at all. But we have this literal reading. And again, there's a very modern thing that we've done a very literal reading, and we take zero context into account. And this is kind of an aside. But by the way, if you are someone in here who believes it was 624 literal days, that is fine. That's fine. There are a lot of people who believe that and if you're someone who does not believe that who thinks I don't think it was actually six literal 24-hour periods, you want to know what that's fine, too. You're in good company. You know who you're in company with.

Agustin probably the outside of Scripture, the greatest Christian theologian to have ever lived. Agustin didn't believe that he didn't see that. So let's throw away this whole idea that man unless who lets you line up here? I don't know where you're really at. Man. Do you have a low view of Scripture? I don't know if you're really seeing things the right way. It's ridiculous. Let the Bible be the Bible. Read things in proper context. It matters. It matters. We shipwreck people's faith for no reason. Speaking of letting the Bible be the Bible. Now, this is you know, you've been hanging with me, I'm gonna need you to really buckle up now. All right, are you guys still with me? We're good. Okay. All right, because this, this next statement is one that could be honest, I certainly pastor Brenda, after the Saturday service is one that could be big enough and bold enough for like a 10-week sermon series, all on its own. But we're going to try to cram it in here in this next little bit.

Following the idea that we need to let the Bible be the Bible, we need to remember this. And this is so so vital. When it comes to Scripture and follow me just listen to me on this. Perfection is not a requirement for the Bible to be God's word, especially in the context of what we call perfection.

I'm gonna say it one more time, these things are so important. It's so vital, and I'm going to show my work here in just a moment. But perfection, perfection as we understand perfection is not a requirement for the Bible to be God's word. It never makes that claim about itself. And we need to stop making that claim for it. Can I tell you, you can't even identify what perfect is.

You don't even know. You? You don't even know if you're someone who said that. You don't even know what you mean by saying the Bible is perfect. You don't even know what that means. We can't even articulate it. perfection.

Perfection is not a requirement for the Bible to be God's word. And can I tell you are perfect? is not God's perfect. What you call perfect seldom is what God would call perfect. I want to show you what I mean. Can we jump back a few weeks to Easter to what we talked about on Easter we talked about the cross of Christ. We talked about Jesus's crucifixion on Golgotha. Did you know crucifixion was specifically designed to be as horrific and as humiliating as it could possibly be? That's the reason nowadays we use capital punishment and we tried to do it, you know, as humane as you can do that. Back then that wasn't even a thought. We didn't want to be humane. We want to show people this is what happens when you cross Rome. So they would hang people up on crosses, kill them, and just the most excruciating, terrible way you could possibly imagine just dehumanizing in every single sense. And this is what happened to Jesus, this awful, terrible thing, the worst thing possible happening to the best person possible. But guess what? It was perfect.

It was perfect. It was perfectly imperfect. This terrible moment that any of us if we were there, let me tell you, you couldn't even keep your eyes on Jesus, the beaten shell of a man that you saw hanging on the cross, you probably couldn't even look at him. It would have just horrified you so much. But it was perfect. You wouldn't have called it perfect. No one there certainly calls it a perfect but it was perfect this moment where God and mankind interacted with each other in this terribly beautiful way. We have our salvation via this imperfection on the cross. So with that in mind, let me ask you again, why does the Bible need to be perfect?

Why does the Bible need to look and be so polished and be everything like this when the cross was anything but that it doesn't need to be? And most importantly, it never makes that claim about itself. It doesn't say it's perfect. Let me read to you. This is what it says in Second Timothy 316, through 17, probably the most popular verses of scripture where scripture is talking about scripture, this, the apostle Paul writing is what he says, All Scripture is inspired by God, and is useful to teach us what is true, and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong. And it teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. And to all of that, I and Cornerstone Church say yes and amen. Absolutely. Absolutely. That is true. But did you hear anything about perfection? In the sense that we understand perfection? No, the Bible does not make that claim about itself. It just doesn't. Like I've told you we've taken things to such a weird place like we, you know, we say hey, if you add even a job or Scripture, you you've messed with it irreparably, right. And people take that as a misinterpretation of what it says in the Book of Revelation, where the apostle John is talking specifically about just the book of Revelation saying, Hey, don't add to the prophecies of this one book. Don't do it. But we take that and we then say, oh, yeah, you add one java to anywhere in Scripture. And You mess with it. You've messed with it, because it was perfect, and you've messed with it. Now, I told you, this guy told you guys this a few weeks ago, we have added dots and dots to it. A lot of them. I don't know if you know this, ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek have no punctuation none. We added it in every comment. You see every exclamation point, every period, every question mark translators added in me and the ancient Hebrew doesn't even have vowels. We added the vowels.

We take things to this weird conclusion we make claims about the Bible, it doesn't even make and people have doubts that they see us and like, well, it's, I mean, it's verifiably not true. Like, that's what the Bible and, yada, yada. I mean, we have though, and people shipwreck their faith over stupid claims that we make that are not true in their claims the Bible doesn't even make about itself.

The Bible does not need to be perfect in the sense that we describe things as perfect. Can I show you one of my favorite sets of verses that I think are so just powerful when it comes to this point? This is the apostle Paul, who's writing to the church in the city of Corinth. Listen to what he says and think about it this way. Would you expect to find a piece of scripture in the Bible? If the Bible is perfect in the sense that you think it is where you know, essentially, the authors had a moment where God possessed them, their eyes roll in the back of their heads, and they just started writing everything down. And then they came to after the book was finished, like, Well, what happened? Where, where it was I Oh, it's perfect. It's perfect. Now, no, God inspired you just heard it yourself from scripture, God inspired men. And they wrote what God inspired them to write, but their humanity was still there. God partnered with us, just like he partnered with mankind on the cross. He partnered with us to listen to this section of verses. I love this because this feels like something I would write. This is what the Apostle Paul says. First Corinthians chapter one starts in verse 14. I think God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius for now no one can say they were baptized in my name. Then look at this verse 16. Oh, yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanus but I don't remember baptizing anyone else.

All right, like come on.

Hey guys, what are we doing here? What do we do here? If you have a literal if you're not letting the Bible be the Bible, and you have a literal note, everything is perfect. Everything's perfect. Everything was just what do you do with that? That is inspired by God. God is inspiring the Apostle Paul. And as he's writing it down, Paul's having a moment where it's like, hey, look, I didn't baptize. Oh, wait, yeah, I did baptize these people. So let me correct that. But I don't remember if I baptized anyone else, though, right? I love that moment. Because that moment in Scripture is a beautifully God-inspired human moment. And I love it. Because and the reason I love that, you know, I love that because that is the Bible is what the Bible is. And when you realize that you appreciate the Bible more than when you make it into the idol it never claimed to be, you actually appreciate what God has actually given you, rather than creating the Bible and kind of just say, creating it in your own image, trying to make it say and be what you want it to be what it makes it comfortable for you to be the Bible never made that claim about itself. And it's not just there in First Corinthians, I'm not just proof-texting one piece of scripture. In the Gospels, all four gospels account, Jesus, cleansing the temple, right? Whenever Jesus clears out the money changes, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all position, that event at the end of Jesus's ministry, John puts it right at the beginning of Jesus's ministry. Now, if you're a literal person who takes everything literally, then you're going, Okay, well, now I have to do some gymnastics, I have to say, Well, Jesus cleared the temple twice. He did it two times. That's why he did it late in his ministry. And that's why these gospels recorded it and then did it early. And that's why this gospel recorded it. Or you know, what else it could be? Is that John, as he was writing his gospel, which we know John would have been, in his later years, getting ready to pass away whenever he recorded his gospel, it couldn't be that John just positioned this thing that actually happened earlier in his gospel than the other guys did. Because if you've Has anyone ever read an autobiography, or a biography, or an autobiography of somebody's life, did it start with the person's birth, and then just follow a linear track all the way to their death? No, it jumps around. It's all true about their life. But it jumps around to different moments because they're trying to make different points. So if you're reading about a political leader, it may talk about their politics.

Whenever it comes to domestic policy, and it will cover a whole span of years, but that'll be early on, then we'll move on to a different subject. Why couldn't that be what's happening in the book of John? All real stuff, all things that actually happened, but just positioned differently. You see, whenever we don't have to make the Bible into something. It's not suddenly it's what we talked about last week, we're a lot more flexible. We're not a house of cards that tips over the second somebody points something out, and we go, I don't know. Let me try to do some mental gymnastics to make this makes sense. All of a sudden, it's more beautiful when we let scripture be what Scripture actually is now telling me how many people have lost faith because of just those two things, just that groundwork that we set. How many people have lost faith because someone wouldn't just let the Bible be the Bible?

It is because they told people to expect perfection out of it. Let me tell you, it's heartbreaking to think of heartbreaking there are so many men, there are so many people in my youth group I can remember who aren't following Jesus anymore. I guarantee you know it, too. If you were in Sunday school, how many people from your own classes are still following Jesus today. And a big reason maybe because of this. Because we have set up standards that scripture didn't even stand for itself. And what we do when we do those things, when we don't let the Bible be the Bible, and we expect perfection in the sense that we define perfection, we set up a shaky foundation for people's faith, completely shaky. So then bring us back to what we talked about in the beginning. So they have a shaky foundation, to begin with. And then we say, by the way, here are some astonishing miracles in the Old Testament that make no sense. And here are some atrocities. There you go. There's slavery and polygamy and violence and war. What do you think's going to happen to their faith? Of course, it's going to fall apart. Of course, it's going to shipwrecks, of course, they're not going to continue following Jesus and not because they want to go sin, not because they want to go live it up, because it doesn't make any sense to them. They can't reconcile it. They can't reconcile what they see in Scripture. They can't reconcile what they see and the Old Testament and let me tell you that it's heartbreaking. It's infuriating. We're losing people for no reason. We're losing people over things that Scripture doesn't even say about itself. Why are we doing this?

So I want to tell you in our last, you know, about 10 minutes together if you are someone who you've had that shaky foundation set for you, I am sorry. And if you're dealing with how do I reconcile the atrocities that I see how do I reconcile the astonishing things that I see in Scripture that just seem too fanciful and too myth-like to believe, how do I handle these things? I want to kind of share with you where I'm at where I have fallen on these things. So first off, let's talk about the atrocities that we see in Scripture, especially again, especially, and the Old Testament, the things like slavery, polygamy, and war.

Why? Why is the Old Testament so different? And it is, like it is if you don't think it is all you're telling me is you haven't read it. It's all you're telling me, right? And the thing that's frustrating is there's a whole lot of gaslighting going on, you'll have really good people, but you'll have people out there who are saying now there's no difference. Like there's no difference. I don't know how why you see it that way. In fact, there's this one video on YouTube, and it's really good. But the guy makes a comment, and I'm like, oh, man, that no, he's saying, Well, I know it looks like the God of the Old Testament, and the God of the New Testament are different gods, but they're not. And honestly, if you just read Scripture correctly, you would see that for yourself.

I'm like, Well, dude, you got about 1000 comments under your video, and all of the people going wow, never saw it that way before. Wow. Never. Like if you got 1000 people telling you I've never thought of it that way before. Maybe it's not as obvious as you think it is. Maybe it does look like there's a big difference for a lot of people. Maybe it does look like it's two different gods we know it's not we know God is one in the same Father, Son spirit. They're all one and the same. So how do we reconcile that when the Old Testament seems so different from the New Testament, especially when it comes to atrocities? I think one thing we need to do is, is we need to acknowledge and realize that God hasn't changed, like, morally, God hasn't changed, but our understanding of God has changed. Right? Like God, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His morals don't change. But our understanding of God has changed. Let me build this idea out a little bit. So my kids right now are eight, five, and 285 and two, so you know, they're getting better like eat and she reads really good. You know, they're funny, they're quick-witted. But let me tell you, they are all prefrontal there is no prefrontal cortex. They're all the amygdala. They're all feeling. They're all emotion. That's it. Like these kids are immature, that one of them still poops his pants. I mean, come on now like they're, these are immature kids. So let me ask you how well do they understand their father?

A little bit only? Absolutely. Only so well. They know I love them. They have no idea what that means. None. They have no idea that I take a bullet for him. They have no idea that I would jump in front of a car for them. They have no clue about any of that. The commands I give them, man. They don't totally understand it. They think I'm harsh. They think they think sometimes that like I'm asking them things that make no sense. They don't understand because they're only getting a picture of what their dad is like they're too immature.

It's an incomplete view of their father. They don't understand my love. They don't understand my nature. They don't understand my decisions, because they're eight, five, and two. But let me tell you when they're 38,35 and 32, things are going to be different.

They're going to suddenly realize the love that I've had for them this whole time, how the decisions and the things that I asked them to do that once seemed Wow, oppressive and hard and difficult. Were for their good. They're going to have a completely different understanding of me because they have matured.

What I believe we see in the Old Testament with all these atrocities, I think we see immature people trying to understand God, and only seeing glimpses of him.

Again, that's not pastor Jacob's opinion. We see in Old Testament scripture, God's saying multiple times, you cannot fully set eyes on me. You can't handle it. All we could see were glimpses of him. Moses asked, Can I just see your back? Can I just see your back as he passed by because we were only getting glimpses of him. But what's so beautiful is in these moments being passed Werner talking about this, there are some moments where we do get to see what was coming. Right. So we see what looks like an atrocity at first Abraham and Isaac and God asking Abraham to sacrifice his son. And guess what that sounds like? It sounds like every other ancient Near Eastern War God, sacrifice someone that you love so you so I know that you love me and that you'll follow me? It's exactly what it sounds like. It sounds like Yahweh is just like every other god. But then guess what happens? The moment the sacrifice is getting ready to go through God stops it. And in doing so what theologians see as we study this scripture is that God is one he showing Hey, I know what you thought I'm gonna look like every other ancient Ancient Near East war god just like all the people around you. I'm not I'm not a God of asking for sacrifices like this. That's that's not what I'm about, I'm sparing your son, unlike all these other gods would do.

But he wasn't just doing that God was also giving a glimpse of what was to come saying, I'm not going to ask you to give your son, but I'm gonna go that far, I'm gonna give you mine, I'm going to make the sacrifice for you one of these days. And so at this moment, it's like, we get to peek through the veil and see what's coming, we get a glimpse. And that's what we see in the Old Testament the most we get our glimpses. And that's why we see in the New Testament, maturity, God's people are at a completely different level because they have seen God in Jesus. God, Jesus is God fully revealed the book of Colossians tells us that God was pleased to have the fullness of His deity rest in Jesus. That's what God looks like. That's what God looks like. And so he has been fully revealed in Jesus. And so we're not getting glimpses anymore. The Old Testament was a bunch of eight, five, and two-year-olds trying to understand their father, the New Testament are fully grown-up people saying that Tim, that's what he looks like. This is actually what he's been asking us to do. This is actually what he's been wanting us to do. We have now seen God fully revealed in Jesus Christ, we cannot miss him now. We can't. And let me tell you, I know we're in church. So Jesus is the perfect segue for anything, right? Like speaking of Jesus, my next point.

That's the atrocity. That's how I at least look at the things in the Old Testament that are confusing to me. And I go, man, we were we weren't, we were just getting a glimpse of God. We're not really seeing what he was up to back then. But in the New Testament, the New Testament after Jesus, everything changes, not just the atrocities, but the astonishing, the miracles, the things that just we can't comprehend. We can't comprehend Jonah being income on that sound. Can we be real today? And say that that sounds crazy, right? That sounds nuts. This dude. Like, I know, there was that story about a lobster fisherman who got swallowed by a whale and people like See, see, he got small die. Well, the dude was in there for like 10 minutes. And then he was back out. Jonah, was there three days? It sounds nuts. If we heard this story, but you know, from the Koran, we'd be like, I can't believe these people believe this stuff. This is ludicrous.

It's hard to believe. So what do we do with that? What do we do with the astonishing how do we reconcile the astonishing what I want to say to you today, you don't need to believe all the miracles. You don't. You don't need to believe all the miracles. But you do need to believe the miracle. There's one miracle that you have got to believe that you have got to be confident and you don't need to believe all of them. Just the miracle, the Garden of Eden six literal days, that does not matter. Your faith, whenever you get to heaven, they're not going to check to make sure that you believed in a six literal 24-hour day creation, to make sure that you get in. That's not how it's going to work. You don't need to understand how the plagues work. You need to understand how the red sea split, you need to understand any of that. What matters is the miracle. Are you confident that Jesus died and rose again if that is a box that is checked off? That's all that matters. Again, don't take my word for it. Listen to the Apostle Paul. This is him writing in First Corinthians chapter 15, verse 14, and if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is said it with me useless, and your faith is useless.

He didn't say hey if it wasn't really just 6, 24-hour days, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? And you know, if Jonah wasn't really in that whale's belly for three days, I mean, what is our faith? None of that no, if Christ has not been raised in all our preaching is useless and your faith is useless. The resurrection of Jesus is what bridges the gap between my faith and my doubt. It's what bridges the gap. It makes up for everything. I can still have doubts because that's big enough to bridge the gap between the two. I think if you ever go to a Browns game you go to a Browns game this fall. Don't you love my illustrations? Of course, he had to fit in a sports analogy, right? If you go to a Browns game this fall, you're gonna see an entire cross-section of people in the stands, right? All wearing Browns jerseys, but man, there's going to be Democrats. There's going to be Republicans, there's gonna be vegetarians. There's gonna be vegans and there's gonna be carnivores right there's gonna be people who like pizza people who don't like pizza and people who sleep with the covers off. People, who sleep with the covers on people all over the spectrum, who honestly probably don't really agree on anything, right? Like just gigantic gaps between these people. But you know what, the moment miles Garrett tears off the edge and drives Kenny Pickett into the ground. That is all these people, all these people in the stadium are gonna erupt. They're gonna go nuts, all these people with all these differences, because this one thing, rooting for the browns, being a Browns fan bridges the gap, it makes up the difference. When it comes to our faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ bridges the gap. It's all that matters. It makes all the difference in the world. And that is what we hinge everything on. So that's why I can tell you today as a pastor, I joke with Pastor Brenda, I'm like, Man, some of the questions I have. If I asked him some of the people in congregation guy, this dude's lead pastor, like, he's, he's unsure of what he doesn't know about what, that's just the closer I get to Jesus, the more confident I get in him and the less certain I get about everything else. And the more I realize that, okay, like that is okay, that's, that's all, it is required that we have confidence in Jesus, we don't need to believe in all the miracles just the miracle. And that's why I can tell you today with complete and utter confidence, you can take a bite of the cake. There's no toenail.

There's no toenail in this cake. There's only a toenail if you have believed the wrong things. If you thought that the Bible had to be something other than what the Bible claimed to be. There's only a toenail. If people told you that you have to expect perfection in the sense that we define perfection in the Bible. That's the only way it's there. Other than that, you cannot point out one thing in the Bible, one, suppose in contradiction, or inconsistency or thing, you're gonna what about this, that will ever shake my faith because my confidence isn't in any of those things, to begin with. It's always been in Jesus, it's been in Jesus. And so there's never going to be a toenail in my cake. There doesn't need to be one in here either.

This last thing I'll say is the last heretical statement before you guys can bludgeon me with stones up here.

This last thing, if Jesus is right, then everything else checks out, including the Old Testament, even if you don't fully understand it, and this is why, because the Bible if you are a Christian and speaking directly to Christians, if you are a Christian, the Bible was never is never supposed to be your final authority. Jesus's Bible was never intended to be your final authority. Jesus is, and there is a difference. Don't tell me it's semantics or a word game of Well, yeah, Jesus is our authority. But how do we know about Jesus the Bible and so it's just circle reason. It's not, there is a huge difference. And you can hear it in people's preaching and in people's thought processes when they think that there is no difference between Jesus and the Bible. I've heard it. I've heard I won't say who because he's a good person. But man, I've heard people preaching and talking and saying, Well, yes, Jesus, we see what He commands. In the Sermon on the Mount, we see this way of non-violence, we see this way of turning the other cheek. But King David was a man of war, Moses commanded war. So of course, Jesus's command isn't a command for all time in all places, we need to balance, balance that out, right, we need to balance that out. You balance out Jesus with nothing. You never balance him out. And I'm not talking about Red Letter Christianity. We're what Jesus says is the only thing that matters. I don't believe that the whole Bible is the inspired Word of God. But Jesus has to be your interpretive lens, to all the Scripture, he has to be. If he's not, you're reading it wrong. He has got to be how you interpret and how you see everything because he is the final authority. Matthew 2018, when Jesus says, All authority has been given, he hasn't said All authority has been given to this book, that in about 300 years, you guys are gonna have fully collected. That's where all the authority lies. Just go to that Jesus says All authority has been given to meet. He has the authority. He is the interpretive lens for everything that we read in Scripture. And that's why Jesus said to the Pharisees and the scribes, you search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the scriptures point to me, yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life. It's all about Jesus. It all points to Jesus. And so if you have doubts, if you have questions, if you have concerns, I want to tell you to take them to the person who has the authority to answer them. The person who has the authority to handle them, Jesus, let's bow our heads let's pray together All right, Father God. Man, this is a heavy topic. God I honestly feel Like I could talk for another hour up here on this.

Got thank you so much that we can just have confidence in you and confidence in your son Jesus, that that's where our faith utterly hangs. God, we love the Bible. We preach the Bible, we read the Bible. But we are so thankful that it is not our final authority. Because of God then what would separate us from any other religion in the world that claims that their holy book is the final authority. There is one thing that separates us and it's an actual historical event, the resurrection of Jesus, that's what we hang everything on. That's what we hang our faith on. That's what we hang our beliefs on. That's what I got. I'm willing to bet my life on the resurrection of Jesus. Thank you for that, thank you that we have something better, to put our faith and our hope in. And that allows us to truly value and see your word for what it really is, and not make it into the idol that we want it to be. Help us to do that God helps us to repent of any ways that we have done that and that we may have led other people astray other people into doubt other people into questions or God help us to repent from the ways we've dismissed other people's doubts.

Help us God help us to be more compassionate, more loving, and more understanding, and in doing so drive more and more people to you. We pray this in Your name, amen.