Isaiah 40: Importance of Questions

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Sunday, January the twenty sixth, twenty twenty four. It is currently ten oh one am Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Yes, I'm not not coming to you live from Victory Baptist Church. Well, we haven't been able to go live at Victory Baptist Church for a very long time since we got rid of all the ability to do any live streaming from there. But I'm coming to you live from well where I typically come to you live from, right here in Abilene, Texas.

0:44 And I'm hoping there's a lot of hope going on here. I'm hoping that I'm going to be able to accomplish something that will be beneficial. There's a little bit of doubt there, because man, yesterday was bad. Today is bad. Man. My neurological headache issues, feeling and like I'm going to have a seizure at any moment is bad, Which means that you probably shouldn't be sitting in front of a microphone trying to talk about important things like theology, doctrine, Bible study, hermeneutics, church history. You probably shouldn't be doing that, right, that's probably the best idea. But here I am. I'm going to do my very best. We'll see, We'll see.

1:31 Sometimes sometimes I can have multiple feelings here, right, because sometimes I get done when I'm having really bad headache neurological issues, and people will be like that was awesome, that was great, and I'm like, so I actually do better when I feel like I'm you know, going to fall on the floor and have a seizure. That's troubling, right, that's bad news, right, Hey, you perform better when when you feel like you're going to die. So what you need to do is feel like you're going to die all the time, and then you'll be a better broadcaster. Okay with that that, you really don't want it to work that way, But yes, I'm going to do my very best and hopefully this will be beneficial. We have a lot to do. We are so far behind and our work on Isaiah forty, but we're gonna try to bring up We're going to try to bring a whole bunch of things together for this hour, right, so let's just if you haven't been listening to the podcast, here's all the things we have been working on really the entire month of January, right, we have been focusing on artificial intelligence over and over and over. We've kind of we looked at artificial intelligence in the future of the church, and I raise some very important questions about the future of the church. We're going to be doing even more discussing discussion about that kind of the direction churches are going and where we're We're going to continue to talk about that, but we have that has been a major focus, which that kind of that discussion about artificial intelligence really kind of turned into artificial intelligence versus sermons, And in every test that we have done, artificial intelligence has outperformed

3:07 every single sermon that we've listened to, we've reviewed, we've considered artificial intelligence not only can it predict what the sermons are going to get wrong, well, like, hey, this I'm about to listen to a sermon on this text. What do you think the sermon will do wrong with the text? And every single case, AI, even without being given the title of the sermon, has been able to predict all of the ways in which the text will be mishandled, misinterpreted. It is almost scary how quickly AI can go, oh, you're going to listen to a sermon on this, well, most likely it's going to do this wrong, this wrong, this wrong, this wrong. If you give it the name the title of the sermon, it then increases its correctness even more so, almost to one hundred percent.

3:53 If the title anything reflects what the sermon is about, AI is able to go well, based off that title, based off that text, based off everything I know about preaching, here's all the ways it's going to get it wrong. And it is crazy to have that list in front of you that AI provides. Listen to a sermon and be like check check check, check check. And then what is even to me even crazier is at the end of that list of everything AI says the sermon is going to get wrong. AI will say, here's the way it should be approached, and then AI will break down the text and you'll be like, well, that's exegetical, that avoids isogesis. It's actually exogesis. It's not Isa Jesus, it's handling this handle. And you're like, well, that's well, that makes preaching pretty much irrelevant. So we've been talking about that a lot, talking about artificial intelligence. Then we took artificial intelligence and we said, okay, artificial intelligence, here's this stillological system known as lordship salvation. Analyzed critique and it just ripped it apart. And as I have been saying forever, it basically artific social intelligence said, lordship Salvation is basically a form of Catholicism, which is what I've been saying forever. Then, also not just at the podcast, but this is where the focus has been at church is we've been working on Isaiah forty through fifty five. Why have we been working on Isaiah forty through fifty five? Not because of the health bad Ai handles Isaiah forty through fifty five, but because sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon that

5:28 we've listened to on any chapter between Isaiah forty and fifty five have been absolutely horrific. They have been train wrecks, They have been disasters, mishandling, twisting, removing the original recipients and moving them out and moving us in. In fact, just the other day I reviewed a sermon on Isaiah chapter forty, verse eleven. I know this is a shock to everyone. If you want to look at Isaiah chapter forty verse eleven, let me read it to you. Isaiah forty verse eleven. Now, if you'll just look at the context, because nine through eleven is where we're supposed to be today. If you look at Isaiah forty nine to eleven, I mean, you don't even need to go to Bible college to figure this out. This is just basic reading comprehension. Just look carefully at verse nine, Oh Zion, that bring us good tidings, Get thee up into the highest mountain, Oh Jerusalem, that bring us good tidings. Lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up. Be not afraid say unto the cities of Judah. Like what more can the author do to let you know who it's about. But we listen to a sermon that preached Isaiah chapter forty verse eleven, which we read, he shall feed his flock like a shepherd.

6:44 He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. And guess what we found out. That's about infant baptism, that's about baptizing babies. What in the world, how does that even happen, right. I mean that has nothing to do with the Church, has nothing to do with Christianity, has nothing to do has nothing to do with a New Testament church or the Christianity of the New Testament. It has nothing to do with baptism, has nothing to do with any of that. It's about what God is going to do for those in Babylonian captivity. But for some weird reason, humans can't seem to figure that out, so we have been taking it apart. Then we had a major discussion on the importance of asking difficult and hard questions. We started having this very important conversation about asking hard questions and how Christians and the Church, and the most part pushes back. The most part, the Church does not like hard questions or difficult questions. They get nervous, they get upset, they get frustrated, they get defensive, they get bothered. You're not supposed to ask hard questions because everything is just supposed to be. Everyone wants they want something that is sure. They would rather have something that is sure and simple than something that is difficult and that may not be so sure, that may leave

8:15 them a little unsure. They don't like that. They don't like anything. They just want certainty. They want certainty at the expense of truth. Let me state it that way, and the church does not like it. But there's times you've got to ask difficult questions. And for some weird reason, the church seems to think that when you ask tough questions, right, oh no, no, no, that's denying the faith, that's doubting the faith. And I will argue, no, it's asking hard questions. That's a demonstration of true faith. If your faith can't handle the tough questions, then your faith is just a facade. It's just a little disguise you put on to make yourself feel better because you just want a sense of sure something that is certain. You want to feel some sense of you're sure about this. It gives you some sense of security, even though it's all a facade. It's a fake, it's it's it's a mirage. But hey, as long as it makes you feel good, then that's okay.

9:12 But someone's got to ask hard questions and people don't like them. So I talked about the importance of hard questions, the type of hard questions we should ask. I gave a list of the type of questions categories of questions we should ask. And we saw that just the other day where we had another school shooting, this time I think Tennessee. A female student was shot and killed. All right, so we have another shooting. Someone is dead. Now, immediately, what did Christians didn't? Christians didn't ask any really difficult questions about the shooting. They just immediately say, well, we'll pray for the we'll pray for the victims. We'll pray for the victims. Now, wait a minute, anybody willing to ask hard questions is going to raise hand and wait a minute. So we're gonna pray to the very God to intervene to do what to bring some kind of sense of comfort to what if anybody was wounded and not killed, to intervene to heal. But that's the very The very God we're praying to is the very God who did nothing. He did not intervene to stop it from happening. So he didn't. We're gonna pray to the God who didn't stop it from happening to now intervene after it happened. Like that raises difficult questions, but nobody wants to talk about that. The church culture, there's there's it's it's almost an unspoken rule. Leave your questions outside the door. You come in here. You just say yes, you say amen, And the answer to everything is Jesus.

10:43 And when those questions challenge our understanding of God, when it challenges under our understanding of suffering, when it challenges our understanding of human beings, the Church does not like it. You are not welcomed here. Take your questions and walk on down the road. They may not say it that way, but you're gonna be told really quick. Are you gonna feel that? People are gonna push back, They're gonna get defensive. But it's asking questions that is ultimately vital for a deep, honest engagement with the Bible and faith. It's deep. That's how you have to be honest. You've got to be honest when you go huh okay, wait a minute. So all right, so let me make sure I understand this.

11:32 So there's a God, all powerful, all knowing, he creates satan. Well, you know where I'm gonna go with all of this. It's the same questions that I've been asking forever. Nobody likes those questions. So there's a god. He creates satan, but he knows Satan is going to fall. When Satan falls, he doesn't destroy Satan. He for some miraculous reason, lets him live. No, he len live. He lets him come to earth, and lets him come to earth. He lets him into the garden. Why he's a lemon into the garden because well, he created two people. But he knows that those two people he created are going to fall. Now once they fall, well he could get rid of them, get rid of Satan and it all. But no, no, no, none, only lets them live. He lets them leave the garden and produce children, knowing that every child born is going to be born a sinner. And guess what, they can go to hell for the way they were born, even though they didn't do anything to be born a sinner in the first place. And we don't become sinners by sinning, but we send because we are sinners, yet we're held accountable for doing that, which way is a part of our very nature. These are difficult questions. Nobody likes to ask them. The people who ask them are typically people outside of Christianity. So if you're within Christianity, you asked said questions, guess what happens now you're labeled almost an agnostic or an atheist, and that's not the case. It's simply that we have to be willing to face the very difficulty our faith, our belief in God and the scriptures should present to every mind that is willing to look to truth versus just no, no, no no, Just give me a little devotional say Jesus a bunch of times, and then we'll get to the pot luck. Hold hands.

13:02 See Kumbai yah. I never want to be happy. There's got to be a place for difficult questions. So when we ask questions, it reflects a genuine wrestling with the complexities of life and scripture that we have to be willing to wrestle with it. We have to be. If we don't, someone else will. And so many times this is what happens. Someone raised in church, you know, the deepest question they ever asked was what time is the pizza party? They've never been challenged with a deep question. They walk into a situation where someone asks them hard questions and they're like, uh, I don't know, Jesus, and everyone just kind of looks at them, going, that's the best you've got eighteen years and that's the best you've got Now that's okay. If the young person is not a believer and that don't accept Christianity, okay, that's okay.

13:56 They didn't have to answer the question. But if they still hold onto Christianity, why can they not because they've been brought up in a church where you we don't have any hard questions. Everything is just supposedly simple, and we like, in many cases, you know what I kind of call, you know, apologetic Sunday School apologetics just where oh we get a couple of easy answers and we think we've got it all figured out, but in many cases it doesn't work. Now, so we've been so we talked about we've been talking about artificial intelligence. We've been talking about artificial intelligence versus sermons. We've been talking about art official intelligence versus worship salvation. We've been talking about Isaiah forty through fifty five, and we've been talking about the importance of questions. Well, in that discussion about questions, I turned the concept not just asking questions in general about God and about life and about everything. That the next stage and talking about questions, was that a great Bible student well ask hard and difficult questions of the text itself. If you are going to be a good Bible student, you will ask good questions. Here's the thing.

15:09 The quality of your Bible study is dependent upon your quality and asking questions and your ability to ask questions. If you ask great questions, you will be a great Bible student. If you just are no good, you stink at asking questions, then you're never going to get anywhere. You've got to ask questions that push past the surface, meaning you've got to engage with the deeper implications, the tensions, and the realities of Scripture. You've got to be able to embrace it. Going wait a minute, Wait a minute, what is this with This doesn't make any sense. So if we're going to be good at asking questions, if we're going to be a good Bible student, that we need a solid and kind of a We need a good framework and where do we put the questions and how do we do this? So I'm just going to briefly go through this. We've talked about this a number of times. If you want to, if you're going to be a good Bible student, we really need these things.

16:12 Here's here's the things we absolutely need. We have to be well trained, we have to be great at doing observational work. Observation is the foundation to being a good Bible study. We got to have the questions, but we got to know where to put the question. So if we're going to put this in some kind of order, you start with observation. Now, these questions come with observation, but we'll just say observation alone. First, you have to be great at observing the text. You've got to be able to see what is there. We have to we have to understand that observation is the foundational step in Bible study. It is crucial because observing or observation allows the text to speak on its own term. It prevents premature interpretation. And if a student bypasses observation, they typically risk imposing their own ideas onto the text rather than discovering what it actually says. And that's what we've seen over and over in and looking at Isaiah forty through fifty five. People don't come to the text and observe what's there. They just read us into it. They read you, me, us, instead of they and them, it's us. And how did we get there? We didn't get there from observing the text.

17:31 We got there by reading into it. See, if we emphasize observation, this should encourage students to notice details such as the word choice that's being used, the grammar, the literary structure, the historical or cultural context. And how do we do this observational outlines. And that's what we did in our study of Isaiah forty through fifty five. We did basically an observational outline of forty all the way through Isaiah fifty five. Why because now if once we observe what's there, then we can move on to the next step. But guess what to do observation It requires discipline, it requires patience, and sadly, without proper training, many students probably will overlook key details. They will fail to recognize the patterns in the text. They will often fail to recognize the themes. They will often fail to recognize repeated ideas.

18:35 And guess. The way you get trained in observation is you do observation. The more you do it, the better you get at it. But the problem is Christians don't want to do the work of observation. We just want to do the work of This is what it means. I'm right, you're wrong, the end. But no, no, no, You can't say that until you do observation, show me your observational work before you give me your interpretation. And nobody wants to do that because it requires hours and hours and hours of work. Now we could go back to our AI discussion and sadly though AI takes it away, you can say sadly or because hey, it's for the good, you no longer have to do observational work. You can now go to AI and say, give me an observational outline. Boom, and it'll give you an observational outline of Isaiah forty and about five seconds. But will people even use that tool?

19:28 I doubt it. They don't care to use the tool. They just want to be able to tell everyone that what they believe about Isaiah forty is right. Hey, Isaiah forty eleven is about infant baptism, even though that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. Now, not only do we have to do observation of the text, we do, and I'm just gonna briefly mention this, we have to do observation about what's inside of us. See, all students must observe and admit our own preconceptions every person approaches the text with preconceptions. We have to acknowledge this.

20:09 Observation may help mitigate this and hopefully stop this. To some degree, agree, it's just better to explicitly acknowledge what your preconceptions are. What are those preconceived ideas you have? You just have to acknowledge that. You have to observe that. You've got to observe what's in the text, but you got to acknowledge. Hey, I'm coming. And this is why I always say, what do we do with our preconceived ideas? We take them out back and we put it down because we can't bring it to the study. I know that people don't like that because they like their preconceived ideas because it gives them a sense of certainty that they know what the text is. You take away their preconceived ideas and they're like, oh no. And even when you try to take away their preconceived ideas, they become defensive and they immediately start pushing back. But what about what about You're like, can you can we study the text? Now?

20:59 What about can we study the text? So we've got to do the observational work. Now this brings so we have the observation as foundational. But then we've got to ask difficult questions. We've got to ask the difficult questions about the text. So once you do the observational work in fact, and to help you in your observational work, it's gonna be how well do you ask questions? I'm sometimes baffled, and I do it all the time at church and sermons. I'll be like, so, what questions should come to mind from this text? And I'll be baffled sometimes that nobody And I'm like, nobody has that question, Like nobody has nobody has that question. Like I'll be just kind of like I'll be baffled, like how do you not have that question? It's it's great. It jumps off the page and slaps you three times and says this is a problem, and like, there's no problem, just Jesus.

21:56 It's like, no, there's a problem here. It doesn't make any sense. But see you're not supposed to say it doesn't make any sense. Everything just makes sense even if it doesn't make sense, because that's what we're trained to do in church. So we have to ask questions, and we should The text should force us to wrestle with it. The text should force us to wrestle with what it is saying, and it should hopefully confront us with things in it that makes us we have to work on trying to figure it out. So we do the observation, then we do the questioning, so then we have to ask difficult questions, and then we do the interpretation. Now I could break all of this down into far greater detail, but we've already spent twenty two minutes and I don't want to go any further. But just if you want the three basic steps, you've got to do observation, You've got to do questioning, You've got to do interpretation. Everybody wants to get to the application. I almost want to remove that as a step, to the point that, just because I'm so tired of every sermon running the application and ignoring everything else. We've got to do observation, We've got to do questions, and then we've got to do interpretation.

23:14 The questions are important. So now let's bring all of this together. We're studying Isaiah forty through fifty five. Isaiah forty is the chapter they were on. We're in verses nine through eleven. So what I want to do is give you a comprehensive list of questions that are built around Isaiah chapter forty. Based on this principle of questions are essential to Bible study. The principles questions are essential to Bible study Isaiah forty. Then we need to know what these We need to know what kind of questions we should ask. So I'm going to do this. I'm going to give you the basic category of questions so that you can go ahead and write them down and when they're And this applies to not only Askaya chapter forty, Isaiah forty one, forty two, forty three, forty four, forty five, forty six, Psalms chapter one, you name the chapter. You need to have a list of questions that you ask the text before you do anything, well, after you've done maybe you do an observational you know, outline first, but you've got to ask the text questions, right, So the first category would be your general contextual questions, the context type questions, all right, and context questions will really fall into basically two basic categories historical context and literary context.

24:48 So you're gonna ask some context questions. Now here's what I'm so sick of. Everyone says, Amen, to that, everyone's like, you're right, we got to ask context questions. You're right, we got to ask context questions. Ever one will say amen, Everyone will at least give lip services and say and their sermons will be like, well, here's the context, here's the context, here's the context. It doesn't it's a waste of time for you to point out the context if the next five minutes you're going to ignore that context and insert us into it. In that sermon where they used Isaiah forty eleven to insert infant baptism, they do a great job in that sermon and giving you the historical context, but it's all for show. Just because a pastor gives you the historical and literary context, that's irrelevant if that doesn't become the controlling principle in the interpretive process.

25:40 But you've got to ask context questions the historical context, in the literary context. Let's look at some specific questions in these categories for Isaiah forty. Right, let's start with just a simple one. Right, here's historical context. Who wrote Isaiah forty and to who? Who was it written? All right, so we we've talked about this Isaiah, he's written writing these words about one hundred years prior to them even going into Babylonian captivity. And whom is it written to? It is written to those in Babylonian captivity. Now you can say this is historical context we got. Basically, if you want to say, when it comes to the historical context, you want the who, the who, and who who wrote the book? To whom was it written? You want to know the who and the whom? Right who wrote it?

26:39 And to whom was it written? You want to know the when. You want to know the why. You may want to know the where. You want to know these questions. These are basic questions. Now people are gonna say I already know this. Everyone thinks they know it. But then when they start arguing about the text, you kind of go, well, if you know it, then why is it not having end any impact on you arguing with me about the scriptures, because it should make you stop and go, wait, who, what, where? When? That type of thing. Who wrote Isaiah forty Isaiah? And to whom was it written? We know to those in Babylonian captivity. Well, if it's written to those in Babylonian captivity, I can assure you Isaiah wasn't saying go take your baby and sprinkle it with some water. I can guarantee you that has nothing to do with Isaiah forty eleven.

27:36 So to whom, who wrote it? To whom was it written? What was going on? Those are some basic question. These are you can call them the historical context questions. Another one, what historical situation? What historical situation were the original recipients facing? What historical setting was the original recipient facing? You all know the answer to this. It's found in Isaiah thirty nine five through eight, Babylonian captivity. That's what they were facing. It's not about you having a rough day. It's not about me having a rough day. It's not about your problems.

28:16 It's not about my problems. It's not about my need to have some comfort and some assurance, because it has nothing to do with me. So who wrote it? To whom was a written? What is the historical situation? Babylonian captivity? Here's a question, what promises or warnings had God already given Israel before Isaiah Chapter forty happens? What promises or warnings had God already given Israel before Isaiah forty What are the promises and what are the warnings that have already been given to Isaiah chapter forty. Now I'm kind of waiting like I'm in church waiting for someone to answer this. What are the warnings? What are the promises?

29:12 You want to go through them quickly. Let's just go through them quickly, just to show you. This is the type of questions you have to be asking the text. And this is even really before you even start reading the text. These are questions you're asking before you even start reading. See before Isaiah forty and we know, what do we call Isaiah forty through fifty five? It's the Book of Comfort, right, We've talked about it a million times. God had already given Israel a series of promises and warnings and chapters one through thirty nine. Now, these chapters, we know focus primarily on sin and judgment, a call to repentance, but there's also promises of a future hope in chapters one through thirty nine. Here's some of the brain.

29:59 Here's a of a breakdown of some of the promises and warnings. For example, let's go the warnings given to Israel prior to chapter forty. There's warnings of judgment for sin, warnings of judgment for sin, we have rebellion and idolatry. Isaiah opens with a harsh indictment of Israel's rebellion, Ah sinful nation of people laden with iniquity Isaiah chapter one, verse four. Their persistent idolatry and abandonment of God would bring severe judgment. We read that in Isaiah two eight through eleven. Now we could go to each passage here and look these up. But the first thing is there is a warning against judgment, and it's their rebellion and their idolatry. They are condemned for it. That is very important because that sets up things. If you know these warnings and promises that precede Isaiah chapter forty, you're gonna see things in Isaiah forty that clearly reflect back to these warnings about their and their idolatry. Another warning not only about the rebellion idolatry. They're warned of the coming judgment from Assyria. God warns that the northern kingdom of Israel and Judah would face judgment from the Assyrians for their disobedience. Look at Isaiah chapter eight, verses seven. The Lord brings against you a mighty flood. The king of Assyria.

31:23 That's Isaiah eighty seven. Why is all this important Because it's Judah, it's Israel, it's Assyria, it's the Babylonians, it's idolatry, it's rebellion, all put within a historical context. So number one way of rebellion and idolatry, there's warnings of judgments of sin. There's a warning of judgment coming. And so the first thing they're warned about is the rebellion idolatry. Second, they're warned about the coming judgment from Assyria. Number three, they're warned about the corruption of leaders and injustice. The leaders and rulers of Israel were condemned for oppressing the poor and neglecting justice. Woe to those who decree basically an unrighteous or an ungodly kind of decree to rob the poor of my people. That's Isaiah ten one through two. Hey, these decrees that the government leaders are offering, they're not just, they're not right. A fourth thing they're warned about is eminent Babylonian exile. Isaiah predicts that Babylon would eventually rise to power and take Judah into exile. We see this in Isaiah thirty nine to six. Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house should be carried to Babylon. That's Isaiah thirty nine six. All of those warnings are in Isaiah one through thirty nine, and they set the stage for Isaiah forty, where all of a sudden we read comfort ye, comfort yee. They have been warned, they have been warned, they have been warned,

32:55 and ultimately they are taken into Babylonian captivity. And then there's comfort given here. So there's warnings given to Israel. There's a call to repentance given to Israel. God repeatedly calls Israel to repentance, urging them to turn from sin and return to Him Isaiah one p. Eighteen. Come now let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow Isaiah one p. Eighteen. So there is a warning of there's warnings given to Israel, warnings of judgment for sin. We talked about the rebellion and idolatry. There's a warning about the coming judgment from Assyria.

33:35 There's a warning about the corruption of their leaders and injustice. There's a warning about the imminent Babylon to exile. There's a call to repentance. There's a warning against turning to human powers. Israel and Juda are warned against relying on alliance with foreign nations like Egypt or Assyria for protection, a set of trusting God Isaiah thirty one to one. Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel Isaiah thirty one to one. All of those warnings, all of that is right there, and Isaiah one through thirty nine, that all precedes it. You've got you should be asking that question before you even get to chapter forty. You're like, what is the context here? Well, okay, if Isaiah forty is comfort, hm, why do they need comfort? Well, because there's been warnings of judgment and there's been issues, and if you know that, then the comfort becomes that much more important. And guess what. The comfort then is directed to a specific people who who gets the comfort the people who have been warned and told of all these bad things that are happening and what is coming not you, not me. But also there's promises given to Israel. All right, here's some of the promises given to Israel. The promise of a future king. God promises a future king from David's line who will rule with justice and righteousness. See this in Isaiah nine six through seven. To us, a child is born of the increase of his government and

35:05 of peace, there will be no end. Isaiah eleven one through two, A shoot from the stump of Jesse. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. There is some promise of a future king. Now we could get into all kinds of discussions here. Future king says there. Now these are more questions. Say once you ask questions, and then more questions arise. Wait, does this king have anything to do with anyone at the time of all of this mess going on in Isaiah? Does a point to someone like Cyrus? Does it point to or does it ultimately point to Christ? If it points to Christ, how does this offer any comfort for the people in Babylonian captivity? Lots of questions. The more you ask the more the more questions you ask, the more questions you should have. If you questions don't lead to more questions, then you're not really asking questions. You're just going through some steps in a Bible study and you don't really care about the text. But there is a promise of a future king. There's a promise of a remnant. God promises that a faithful remnant will be preserved even as the majority of the nation faces judgment Isaiah ten twenty two.

36:11 Though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. That's Isaiah ten twenty two. Then there's promises of restoration after exile, hope beyond judgment. God assures Israel that exile will not be the end of the story. A time of restoration and renewal will come. We see this in Isaiah eleven eleven. In that day, the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains. There's a promise of comfort and healing. Even in judgment, God promises to be a source of comfort and healing for his people Isaiah thirty twenty six. The Lord will bind up the brokenness of his people and heal the wounds inflicted by his blow. But note all of these promises are directly related to a specific people, which are those in Babylonian captivity. Pastors, do we run in there, smack their hand and say I'm sorry. That promises for me and forget you. How dare we do that? Now? I could go through and talk a lot more about it, but I just want you to see we're just asking a few questions. And look at how much information we've already found just a short amount of time moving through that quickly. I didn't even go through everything that I have written down here. So what are the first type of questions we need? Contextual questions? Questions about context, the

37:41 historical context. Who wrote Isaiah forty? Into whom was it written? You should know that answer, what historical situation were the original recipient's facing. You should know that what promises of warnings had God already given Israel before this chapter? You already know that. And I cannot stress that enough, because if you go through the Old Testament over and over and over, you're like, wait, to whom was this written? Who was this written by? And to whom? Hmmm, this was written by this individual? And to whom was it written on? In almost every single case in the Old Testament, it's written to Israel or to depending on if you're in the Divided Kingdom or the Unified Kingdom, it's to Israel just as a general term, or to a specific referring to the Northern Kingdom or Judah specifically referring to the Southern Kingdom. But it's to Israel over and over.

38:29 I mean, I think it would be very difficult to say that there's passages they're not written to Israel in some way, shape or form. Well, guess what those passages then contain that contain promises? Well, what are these promises related to? These promises are related to covenants made with Israel. Okay, so we have a specific group of people, Israel, we have all kinds of promises given to them. But what are these promises based off the covenant? So does that now allow me as a preacher to go in still these promises offer them to you even though they were specifically given to Israel on the basis of covenant given to Israel. That covenant promises don't belong to us. We talked about this yesterday in the message I did when we talked about what do we do with our troubles?

39:12 And it was from an article in the Sword of the Lord newspaper? And guess what what do who I do with my trouble? Well, I guess I grew into the Book of Psalms and rip verses out of context and say, oh, this brings me some kind of comfort. It's not comfort for you, because many of those promises are given to specific people in specific situations and based off what covenants made with them. Israel was given specific covenants where God promised provision, protection. But we want to take that and say that it belongs to us, which then you give people a false sense of hope and then when it all falls apart, they don't know what to do with their life. Well, you know what you are lied to by Christianity who told you that you can get these promises in They were never for you in the first place. And when you go look at this the historical context, it drives this point home, all of these promises that we're going to And so guess what these promises that were made prior to Isaiah forty was two specific people. So when you get to Isaiah forty through fifty five, if we see specific promises, those promises would be to that very specific group of people, those in Babylonian captivity. So those are the historical context questions you can just the I'm just trying to give you an example of the kind of questions you should be asking the who, the what, the where, the when, the how to whom it was written to? Though, if you will just do even just if you're even remotely concerned about being a good Bible student, if you care

40:44 at all. And I don't think most Christians care, because if they did, a lot of this nonsense would stop. But the fact that this is so promoted behind the pulpit clearly the people in the view don't care, because if they cared, they'd be like, what this is ridiculous. There's no way I'm going to tolerate this. But they tolerate it. But if you ask the hard questions, it's such a everything is turned upside down. But those are the historical context questions. I could give you a lot more the ones I just suggested for Isaiah fortys, Who wrote and to whom was it written? What historical situation were the original recipient's facing? And what promises and warnings had God already given Israel before this chapter? You could come up with more historical context questions. Those are just a couple from Isaiah forty. Now what some people want is, well, you've got to give me the specific questions each chapter different.

41:38 I mean some questions are going to be normal, right, who wrote it, to whom was a written? What was going on? Was what led up to this chapter? I mean those are basic historical type questions. Next, that's historical context questions. The next literary context questions literary context. How does Isaiah forty fit with the broader Book of Isaiah? How does Isaiah forty fit with the broader Book of Isaiah? Well, Isaiah one through thirty nine are about promises and warnings of judgment, and that coming judgment forty through fifty five offers the comfort in the midst of said judgment. So how does Isaiah forty fit within the broader Book of Isaiah?

42:27 That's a literary context question. You can ask any chapter, how does this chapter fit with the broader book of the broader book? How does it fit in? What is the relationship between Isaiah forty through fifty five and the earlier chapters of Isaiah? What is the relationship? One through thirty nine is a tone of judgment and warning. Forty through fifty five is about comfort to a specific people. That's addressed in chapters one through thirty nine. How does Isaiah forty verses one through two transition from the themes of judgment in Isaiah one through thirty nine to comfort and hope. Well, how does it transition? Comfort? Ye? Comfort, ye my people, saith your God, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry under her that are warfare is accomplished.

43:17 I mean, you see the transition immediately, all right. So there's the historical context, there's the literary context. The literary context offers us questions about how does Isaiah forty fit in with the broader book? What is the relationship, how does Isaiah forty one through two transition? We could ask questions what is the literary genre that is being We could ask other literary questions. So when it comes to contextual questions historical literary, I guess. We could either put this under literary I guess, or we could make number this next one. We can make it its own separate category.

43:58 We could probably break this down different ways. But we want to ask questions about the structure and flow of the chapter itself. Right, Maybe there's a little separate than literary context. So you've got to ask historical context questions. We've got to ask literary context questions, and we have to ask questions about the structure and flow of the chapter. For example, how is Isaiah chapter forty structured? Are there distinct sections within the chapter? Now we've already outlined Isaiah forty. I could go through the outline again, we've already outlined it. If you outline it, we think that it breaks down into very specific sections. I'm not going to go through all the I mean, I was going to. I have the entire outline ready to go here. I was going to go through the entire thing, But I feel like if I do that, that's going to take up a lot of time. I mean, I went through the warnings as quickly as I could, and the promises as quickly as I could. I didn't even finish all of those. Here.

44:56 I've got the entire basically breaking down the structure of Isaiah forty Isaiah forty one through two. A Message of comfort and Hope Isaiah forty three through five. The Proclamation of the Coming Glory of God Isaiah forty six to eight, The Enduring Word of God Isaiah forty nine through eleven, The proclamation Behold your God Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen. The Incomparable Greatness of God Isaiah forty eighteen through twenty The futility of idols Isaiah forty twenty one through twenty six. God's sovereignty over creation Isaiah forty twenty seven through thirty one. Trusting in the Everlasting God. I could break it down into sections, and I could give you themes I could.

45:37 I mean, I can break it down one hundred different ways. We've talked about that. But though that's the kind of question you would want to ask before you even start going verse by verse, before you even start trying to interpret it, you would be like, hmm, what is the structure here? What is the flow? And if you can't point out the structure in the flow of a chapter, but yet you're arguing with someone about how to interpret a verse with insaid chapter, so sorry, you're disqualified. Nobody should even listen to you. Now see, you're not supposed to say that, because Christians will get offended in mesh due you say that, I can tell you what it means anytime I want, Because that's the Protestant mindset. You don't have to study, you don't have to do anything.

46:22 You just get to tell everyone that you're right and they're wrong, and it doesn't require any you have no requirement on your part other than just to tell someone they're wrong. It is the Protestant system is. It cannot be reversed. It is so broken it will never be fixed again. But I did want to go to if I go back to my questions here we have the structure and flow. What themes are repeated throughout Isaiah forty? Are there specific things repeated through Isaiah forty? So I did a little work on this one, all right, So let's look at some of the key themes in Isaiah forty and you can tell me where it, whether you agree or disagree. I think God's sovereignty is a key theme in Isaiah chapter forty. Right, look at verses ten and eleven. Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arms shall rule for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with his arm, carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. I mean this is God's sovereignty. He comes with might, comes with ruling power, yet he comes tenderly shepherding his people. How

47:54 about verses twelve through fourteen. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meet it out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains and scales, and the hills and balance. Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, are being his counselor hath taught him. God's sovereignty over creation is highlighted even though and it's asking rhetorical questions about his unmatched wisdom and power. So god sovereignty shows up in verses ten through eleven of Isaiah forty, shows us up, and shows up in verses twelve through fourteen, verses twenty one through twenty six. God is exalted as the creator who rules over all the earth and calls the stars by name. That's twenty one through twenty six. We see what is the theme that is repeated, God's sovereignty ten through eleven, twelve through fourteen, twenty one through twenty six. Now the question could be, well, why is this theme repeated? Why is it repeated? Why is God's sovereignty repeated right out of the gate? And I forty, why come on? You know the answer right It's to reassure whom those in Babylonian captivity that despite their exile and the seemingly dominance of Babylon, God is in control of history. God is in control of creation.

49:21 God is in control. Hey, God is in control, irregardless of what you see, irregardless of what you feel, irregardless of what you experience. God is in control, even if it doesn't feel like it, even if it doesn't look like it, even if it doesn't appear to be that way, even if every circumstance screams God died and move and is no longer there. The God is in control. Who needs to hear that? Well, they need to hear it in their situation because it doesn't look like God is anywhere. So that's why the theme is repeated. And where is it repeated in Isaiah forty? Why there, because that's immediately the beginning of the comfort. Maybe it's to help re establish trust in God's ability to deliver his people. Hey, they may need to be reassured that, Hey, you need to trust God can deliver and God will keep his covenant promises even though it's been almost seventy years. Maybe there's another reason. If you look at verses eighteen through twenty.

50:23 Verses eighteen through twenty to whom then will you to whom? Then will ye liken God? Or what likeness will you compare unto him? The workman melteth a graven image, and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold and casteth silver chains. Right. So another reason why his sovereignty is repeated numerous time is to contrast God's power with the futility of idols and human rulers. This theme is being repeated because it's got to demonstrate to them God is not only greater than the rulers of Babylon, is also greater than the idols of Babylon. So then this would raise another question, what was the religious culture and the idolatry of Babylon.

51:09 Now I don't have time to go through all of it, but we could spend and we could spend three hours just discussing that. And by discussing that, then these texts makes more sense. But we want to go to Isaiah forty and make it about us, and well, it's about that. We got to understand it's about them. So the structure and flow. Seeing this repeated theme, then you know you're the question is not What does the repeated theme mean to me? What does a repeated theme mean to the people to whom it was written? Another repeated theme, God's tender care for his people Verses one through two. God speaks words of comfort to his people, assuring them that their sins are part and their exile will end. Verse eleven.

51:52 God has depicted as a shepherd who gathers, carries, and gently leads his flock. Verses twenty nine through thirty one. God gives strength to the weary and renews the strength of those who trust in him. God's tender care is repeated again in verses one through two, Verse eleven, Verses twenty nine through thirty one. Why is the theme repeated to counterbalance the emphasis on God's transcendent power by showing his eminence and his personal care. So it's giving you a balance. Hey, On one hand, God a sovereign, he's all powerful, yet he's also tender and he cares. He's like a shepherd. So that the people and their situation can understand both concepts of God. All right, now, I could go through a lot more here I've got if we wanted to go to the flow and the structure and the themes of it I've got. These are some of the themes that are repeated numerous times in Isaiah forty.

52:52 God's sovereignty, God's tender care, the incomparable greatness of God, how great he is. We see this in verse twelve through seventeen. God's infinite power is contrasted with the insignificance of nations and human wisdom. Eighteen through twenty. God's greatness is contrasted with the futility of idols Verses twenty one through twenty six. God uniqueness as creator is the stainder of the universe is emphasized. Why is this seem emphasized? We could go through the reasons why, you could probably figure it out. We have the reliability and permanence of God's word. We had disappears in verses six to eight. Humanity is like grass that withers. God's word stands forever.

53:34 Could I mean, I could go through all all of this, but you get the idea. It is repeated. God's word is permanent. God's word is reliable. God's word will last. We have the futility of idols and verses eighteen through twenty, we have human weakness and dependence upon God in verses six through seven, Verses twenty nine through thirty one. We have the call to behold your God. We have the power of renewal and strength in verses twenty nine through thirty one. Now, ultimately, why are all these things being repeated? To bring comfort, to refocus the people, to focus on God not their circumstances, to challenge the idolatry, and to bring about trust in God. See, if you ask the questions and then you do the work, you see the structure, you see the flow of the text. So let's go back to these questions we need. The first category is general contextual questions. This is historical context questions, literary context questions.

54:47 And then we'll talk about structure and flow. Structure and flow and which I gave you? How is Isaiah forty structured? What themes are repeated throughout Isaiah forty? And why? What are the themes of the chapter? What are the themes that are repeated? Why are they repeated? Why? Why? In many cases, the why lead you away from you. Sometimes when you ask the why, then you are removed from the text and the why you realize it's not about you. It's not about your problems, your difficulties, your frustrations. It's about theirs. It's about them. I say it all the time. I get so sick and tired of Christians whining about pronouns. I'm gonna use only the right pronouns because I care about reality. Well, if you want to worry about pronouns, how about you worry about the pronouns and the Bible.

55:35 Stop using the me I. You. We know it's about them. It's about they. Rarely it's about you or me or I or us or we or anything like that. It's about them, over and over and over and over again. But we can't tolerate that. I don't like that them they pronoun It's got to be me. It's got to be I. It's got to be all about me. Now, well, you can go do that, and you can claim promises not given to you, and then you can convince yourself that somehow those promises are happening. But when reality hits you in the phase fifteen times, you may go, what's wrong here? God? But thought you were gonna do this or you were gonna do that, and a you know, illustrated way, you almost can just you know, it's almost as if God would be like, I didn't say any of that to you, None of that, not one thing.

56:34 What are you talking about? The Structure and flow brings us back? So what are the kinds of questions? General? Contextual questions? Will break them into three basic categories, historical, literary, and we'll just say structure and flow. I kind of want to put that with a literary, but we'll structure and flow. Now you can ask specific questions like that. So let's go some to some verse specific questions. I know we're almost at an hour. Let's go to some verse specific questions. I don't have time to give you the answers to all of these, but just try to give you some ideas. Right Isaiah forty one through two, we know that's a message of comfort, right, comfort ye, comfort ye? What is the significance of the command comfort comfort my people? Why does God describe Israel's warfare as ended and her iniquity as pardoned? How does this verse reflect God's covenant faithfulness to Israel? So you those are some questions you should have about Isaiah forty one through two.

57:39 And I tried to answer all of those questions already. I'm not going to have time to go through it. Comfort ye, comfort ye. What is the significance of that? Well, the significance is well found in chapter Thirtyeh, okay, we can go on, okay, speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, crying to her her warfare is accomplished. What does that mean? She's received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins? What does that mean? I mean anybody who should have these questions? But how does all of that reflect God's covenant promises to Israel? Now, see over and over and over when whenever I read, when people read Psalms or read whatever, I'm always like, well, stop, stop, stop, you just made that about all of us. Who is that too?

58:22 Clearly Israel? But how does those promises reflect God's promises made? And it's covenant? If they're almost identical, that you can say then this is covenantal promises given to a specific people, Israel. That's why you got to keep Israel in the church distinct, because if you don't, everything falls apart. In your hermeneutic versus how about Isaiah forty three through five, the Voice in the wilderness? Well, who is the voice? And what is the immediate context? Now, if we jump and go all the way. We talked about when you can jump and go to the New Testament. But wait a minute, John the Baptist's not going to do much for these people in Babylonian captivity. So then we brought up the idea of possibly Cyrus, and we talked about all of that.

59:09 What is the significance of preparing a highway, especially in that particular geographical setting, And we talked about that Isaiah forty six to eight. And these are just questions that you have to learn to ask the text Isaiah forty six to eight. The word of the Lord stands forever. What is the meaning of the comparison between humanity and grass? How does the permanence of God's word contrast with the frailty of human life? How does this section provide comfort to Israel during their exile? These are the kinds of questions you should be asking of the text Isaiah forty nine to eleven. That's where we're supposed to be right.

59:59 What is the significance of the command to lift up your voice with strength? What do you think that means? How does the phrase behold your God capture the message of the chapter. Is that really the message of your chapter Behold your God? How does Verses ten through eleven balance God's might with his tenderness? And verse eleven? What does the shepherd in imagery and verse eleven teach about God's care for his people, specifically Judah Israel? Now I could also ask those questions, Behold your God? Is this beholding my God seeing him move in a supernatural way?

1:00:53 Or beholding God moving in an ordinary way, which we did a lot of work on ordinary versus supernatural means Isaiah forty twelve through seventeen The incomparable God. What is the purpose of the rhetorical questions in verses twelve through fourteen? What are these rhetorical questions in twelve through fourteen? How do these verses emphasize God's sovereignty over creation? What does the insignificance of the nations and what does the insignificant insignificance of nations and verse seventeen teach about God's power and authority? What does this insignificance show Verses eighteen through twenty The folly of idols? How does verse eighteen contrast God with idols? What does the description of idol making Verses nineteen twenty reveal about the futility of idolatry. How does this passage challenge the temptation to trust in man made solutions rather than God. Now again, I could also I could add my I mean, I've got so many questions I could add here It was the key of trying to figure out which questions to ask, which questions not to ask. But just for you know, instructive purposes, just giving you some basic examples. But I mean, when it comes to the idols, well, then what was the when it comes to this, what was the idolatry of Babylon?

1:02:26 Considering this is written to people in Babylonian captivity, obviously God is concerned that idolatry may greatly impact them. They've been there for seventy years. Now. Once you read about all of the idolatry and Babylon, you can be like, WHOA, Okay, no, wonder there's there's discussion about this. Isaiah forty twenty one through twenty six The Greatness of God? Why does Isaiah ask have you not known? Have you not heard? In verse twenty one, what does the imagery of God sitting above the circle of the earth convey about his transcendence? How does verse twenty six emphasize God's power as creator?

1:03:07 Those are questions about the greatness of God in verses twenty one through twenty six. Verses twenty seven through thirty one. What does verse twenty seven reveal about Israel's doubts and complaints during exile? Verses twenty eight through twenty one are twenty nine. How does Isaiah respond to these doubts in verses twenty eight through twenty nine. What does it mean to wait on the Lord? And how does this produce strength? Verse thirty one. What is the significance of the imagery of mounting up with wings like eagles? How does this section encourage perseverance in difficult times for Israel? Those are just some of the questions you should be asking about the text itself. Now, I've got one, two, three, four, five.

1:04:04 I've got five philological questions that could be asked about the text. I'm not going to go through those. I've got five application questions we could ask about the text. I'm not going to go through those. I've got three comparative questions that could be asked about the text. I'm not going to go through that. In other words, i've got question after question after question after question after question after question. That's why I'm constantly in preaching going so what question comes to mind here? What question should that bring to mind? Here? I ask you, guys that question those questions are I ask you to identify the questions because your ability to identify the questions is what you need to learn, because that's your ability to study the text for yourself. If you don't know how to ask the questions of the text, then you have to rely on someone else to ask the questions of the text. Well, then that's not you doing study. There's plenty. There's plenty of questions. I mean, Isaiah forty is a good chapter to practice all of this on. This is one of the reasons I did it for Isaiah forty because everything is pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Everything makes once you put Isaiah forty in its historical context. There really there's not any significant problems other than wait a minute, how did John the Baptist get brought up in here? Wait a minute, why do we forget Cyrus and Isaiah forty? Okay, where do we put Cyrus? Where do we not put Cyrus?

1:05:35 The text does everything in its power to make sure you know who it's referring to. We went through. Remember early on, I had you count how many you know, look right there in verse two, speaky comfortably to Jerusalem, right, I had these different I made you go through and point out the cities of Judah. And verse nine, I made you go through and count and figure out how many times the text itself reminds you who is being spoken to you, Because not only should we be asking that question, will you look for the answers as well. The point in all of this, now that we've gone sixty six minutes, is this, you must learn the art of observation. And one of the things to help you in your observation is then the art of asking questions.

1:06:27 So you must observe that's your foundation. Then you must learn to ask the text questions. And you've got to ask questions. And sometimes when you ask the text questions it irritates everyone. They get irritated. Who cares? Christians get irritated if you do anything other than basically give them three points, get out by noon and say Jesus loves you. Yes, I know, for the Bible tells me so. And that's basically the depth of your sermon. They say they want more, But the minutes you get into more, they get offended and they get mad because you start asking hard questions. But we have to ask hard questions, So we have to observe, we have to to ask hard questions. Then we interpret The interpretation must flow from the observation and from the answers of those questions that hopefully we answered in a very honest text based way, leaving aside our preconceived ideas, our preconceptions, believing all of that aside, and just approaching the text. Now, once we've observed, once we've asked questions, and once we've interpreted, then we can discuss somehow a possible application. But the application must be consistent with the observation, with the answers to those questions, and with the interpretation. You don't get infant baptism in Isaiah forty that's insane. That's ridiculous, And that came from a church that would emphasize we teach the Bible verse by verse.

1:07:54 We believe in expositional preaching, and we also believe babies are to be baptized according to Isaiah forty eleven, or at least use it and a baptismal service to somehow justify baptizing babies. It's ridiculous, has nothing to do with it. So either you treat the text as Plato to make it what you want, or you learn these basic skills. What I want us to do is learn these skills and asking the text questions, which we have been doing all the way through Isaiah forty. I think we've already been doing this. I just wanted to really emphasize this.

1:08:34 So my challenge would be is you can go ahead and start Isaiah forty one, or you can just start in Isaiah forty. Start in Isaiah forty verse twelve, twelve through thirty one. I kind of already gave it away, but actually start in Isaiah forty twelve, go all the way through forty one, and start just formulating questions about the text. Keep silence verse chapter forty one, Verse one, keep silence before me, oh islands, and let the people renew their strength, Let them come near, then let them speak, Let us come near together to judgment. Now wait a minute, wait, okay, why is there a call to keep silent? Is there something is what's calling this to keep silent? And O islands?

1:09:25 What in the world. Where did the islands come from? What's happening here? Why is there islands? Is there an issue here? What is that word translated? Islands? And every I mean, I already got questions right, start asking questions. Just formulate your questions. If you formulate your questions, then you're preparing yourself to actually study the text. Now, you could do an observational outline of Isaiah forty where you don't try to answer anything, you don't try to interpret anything, and then once you have your option outline, then you can formulate your questions. Between your observation and your questions, then you can either go back start working on answering your questions that will possibly then start leading to your interpretation.

1:10:15 But see, the interpretation is being based off answering actual questions about the actual text. And no point do you add in your preconceived ideas, your presuppositions, your preconceptions. However, what phrase you would like to use? There we go. I wanted I had to make a decision. I wanted to walk through all these questions in a much slower way and then try to answer each one. But then I realized that that would take us six months. So this is to throw it all out there. I know that was a lot, but we went through the chapter.

1:10:58 If you really looked at what we did, we kind of went we we went through one through thirty nine to look at all the promises and warnings right, and then we went kind of through Isaiah forty. We looked at the themes that were repeated, so we kind of worked through the whole chapter multiple times. In all of this, I don't know if anyone caught on, but if you paid attention, we went through it all. So this is only getting us ready to go. So hopefully now we have nine through eleven to work through, but we now have the chapter kind of put back together for us again. We'll do a quick reminder of the chapter again next Sunday and then we'll work through nine through eleven. Most likely this week we'll do another sermon review on Isaiah forty. Don't you know, I don't have many more I can do before I lose my mind, But yeah, there you have it. The importance of questions, questions, questions, questions. Now, questions can be irritating. I understand, just as a parent can get irritated when he kid's like, why what have I this, Why? Why? Why? Stop asking me why? Well, sometimes when it comes to Bible study, people can get really irritated about the why questions and why and what about this? And what about this? And what about this?

1:12:12 The key is always the time in the place, right, Like, if you're in the middle of a sermon, you don't necessarily need someone in the middle of you know, you're you're you're trying to you're in verse four, trying to try and preach verse four to get the verse five, and you all of a sudden it's like, well, why what about this? And what about this? Well? Can I kind of finish the sermon? Right of can of finish? Okay? But then there's there's a time in the place. So I understand they can be irritating, but they have to be asked. Now. Sometimes you'll definitely learn this as a preacher when a person asks a question. I hate this, but as a preacher you almost have to be like, be very careful how I answer this, because you almost inevitably think you I know it's it's it's sad to be so jaded. You can feel like, oh, I'm being set up here. If I answer it this way, they're gonna be like, well what about this, and you're like, oh, so they're leading me. So then you kind of have to play the game like, oh, you're you know the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Do you really want to learn the text or you're just trying to set up because you have a preconceived idea and you're trying that. You're not supposed to use questions that way. We're supposed to be asking questions to try to figure out the text, not win a debate. But some people love to play the game with They're never asked the text questions until they don't like what you have to say, then they're really ready to ask questions. You got to look at your motivations for asking questions as well or asking questions.

1:13:38 When the Pharisees and Sadducees asked Jesus questions, they never cared to find truth. They just tried to trap him. And if you just want to ask questions to win a debate, then you can play that game. I always hate I always hate that. Sometimes I get asked a question like oh boy, what's the set up here? Like I have to start thinking, Okay, I got to be thinking like you know, play chess. So if I answer it this way, then they're going to come this way. Then if I go then they're going to come this way. And you don't like That's how you hate that? Like? Can we just do you really want to know? Or we are? Am I being set up here? How you hate that? That's the wrong way to use the question concept.

1:14:20 But we want to ask the question to learn the text, so we need the observation. We need the questions with the interpretation. Forget application at this point. Just remove application from Bible study. And the only reason I say that is I'm so sick and tired of the way everyone just goes to application and ignores everything else. All right, there we go, not it quite exactly the way I wanted it to go, but had to figure out a way to pull this off. So we pulled it off. Thanks for listening everyone, Have a great day. God bless