The Deep Sleep Problem

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Friday, December sixth, twenty twenty four. It is currently nine point fifty two am Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I was debating how to begin this. I was going to Sometimes I start with that typical intro. Sometimes I start with something a little different. Then I give you the date and all of that. I was really debating because I want to jump right into the topic. But I do want to take a couple of seconds and just throw out some things that you may already be seeing some discussion about, or at least one thing that you may already be seeing discussion about. Another thing you would have no idea, So just going to throw it a little, just kind of items here that I think may be important. First, you may have already started seeing the news articles about it.

1:06 Some Christian websites are promoting it. Today is the day that Netflix dropped their movie about Mary, all right, and so there's gonna be there's already debate about it, you know, and people will argue. It will either be it'll be two Christian or not Christian enough, or there'll be some argument but it's about Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Or we could get into church history. See if I say, marry the Mother of God, you have people who will lose their absolute minds. But actually that terminology was used in church history to support and to argue for the deity of Christ. But we can get into an entire discussion about that. But yes, Netflix dropped their movie. I think it's just called Mary, and there'll be lots of discussion about it. Here's what I would challenge you to do.

1:56 If you're gonna have an opinion, if you're gonna argue one or the other, just watch it yourself and don't listen to anybody else. Just watch it yourself and draw your own conclusions. A lot of people will probably email me and ask me about it. I'm gonna say, watch it and draw your own conclusion. You don't necessarily need me to tell you about it. Most likely it's gonna have the same I mean, look, I got all those emails years ago about the Chosen, the Chosen, that Chosen. I ticked off all of those people who emailed me because I'm like, well, I don't know where how people don't understand the possible problem with any movie based off anything in the Bible is that what happens when you make a movie or a television show about anything in the Bible. First you create dialogue that's not in scripture, so you're already adding to the story. No, there's no record of this person saying that or this person saying that, So you've got added dialogue. Well, then can kind of shape the way the narrative is being told. Not only that the director, the writers are given a certain emotion to the to the actors to show what's happening in that story. But that's it's almost you know, the actor's choice, the director's choice, and in many cases it's giving you a feeling and emotion that maybe the text gives or maybe we're just insinuating. We're placing it upon the text.

3:23 So basically, you get dialogue that's not in the Bible. You get emotion, feelings, facial you know, expressions, you get all of this that's not necessarily in the Bible, and all of that from that point forward will shape how you read the text. And in many cases it will lead you to maybe reading something into the text that's not actually there. Because I hate to say it, people tend to remember the movie more than they remember the book. And you can't read the Bible and light of your favorite Bible movie or Bible television show. So I always have problems with it. When you point that out, people think you're just being a jerk, or you don't like art.

4:05 It's like, no, make all the art you want, leave the Bible alone. If the Bible is the inerrant, inspired word of God, then we just need to leave it alone. I know Christians like, ooh, I want to see that in a movie, and I want to see why. It's The Bible is supposed to be something different and unique. It's not your favorite novel that you want to see brought to the big screen. The Bible is the If it's the inspired and errant word of God, it's supposed to be read. It's supposed to be meditated upon, it's supposed to be memorized. It's supposed to be studied. It's not supposed to be dramatized. It's not supposed to be turned into a play. It's not supposed to be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster. It's not to be turned into a you know, ooh this this television show, the shows.

4:48 And has gone viral. Everyone thinks it's amazing, Okay, great, And then what bothers me is as soon as you offer just the slightest amount of criticism, whether it's The Chosen, this new movie on Netflix, Mary, No, no matter what it is, everybody loses their mind. They get so defensive, they don't want to hear that. They get mad at you, and it's like, why are you getting mad? My critique is just reasonable. Do not add, sub do not add or subtract from the Word of God. I mean, that's a basic principle, right. What we need to do is stay true to the text. Well, when you dramatize it, you add dialogue, you add emotion.

5:32 I mean I've seen scenes from The Chosen. I'm like, where in the world did they get any of this? Where is that? But and in many cases I've seen it being shown in churches and you're like, what You've got the Bible, why do you need this? Well, because we're not content with the Bible. We want more. We want it to be entertained, so people will be talking about it It just drives me crazy. It just drives me crazy all because again, you're gonna have people who are gonna either support it, you're gonna have people who hate it. It just becomes this big controversy controversy. The more controversy, the more people will watch it. So, but it's there if you need to know about it. I received an email from crosswalk dot com this morning promoting it.

6:17 Then I saw an article I can't remember. I've already probably seen three articles and maybe I've received two emails from different ministries mentioning it. So it's there. If you have a Netflix account, open it up, you'll probably see it. Mary. I mean, it's that time of year, right, if you're going to release a movie or anything about dealing with the Bible, you do it usually around Christmas or Easter. That's when they typically release things. So you go watch it. I'm not I'm not interested one way or the other. I know this. I know this if I would, if I would have woken up immediately Rando Netflix, watched the movie, then immediately ran to the microphone and start recording about it first, I could probably beat any of the other Christian podcasters to it. And so I could probably increase my download numbers by you know, a few thousand, if not more. But I wasn't. You know, It's like I watch it, Oh, well this is not in the Bible.

7:17 Well this is not in the Bible. Oh this is in the Bible. Oh it's good or it's bad. And I don't know. It just seems so that's so easy to do, but you go decide. But I guess I'll take this. And oh and one other thing I was going to say, so keep the merry thing in mind. One other thing, we are having weird number We're not we're having weird issues with the numbers that reflect how many people are listening or downloading the podcast. We were at forty nine thousand for the Sermon's two point zero platform and the Sermon Audio platform. We were at forty nine thousand for like the first three days of December. Then that number magically dropped all the way to like twenty two to twenty three thousand. We're now fast approaching back to twenty five thousand. I don't know what the real number is, so that's just I don't know what's going on. So but I think I mentioned it in a podcast. I just want you to know that the number is fluctuating dramatically, So I don't really know what the number actually is. Since I have mentioned it on the podcast, I will update you so that we have some idea how we Maybe it'll be a good sign that we're going to finish twenty twenty four out relatively strong.

8:25 We will see. And again I don't really know what the numbers actually mean. I mean, you hope it means people are listening and engaged and like what you're doing. But in many cases, you'll never hear from any of those individuals. You won't see it. You won't you won't see you won't see any evidence that they're there other than that number. So you always hope that it means, oh, they really like it, they want to support it. You really hope that, but you never know. So those are some things that are going on. But let's use the Mary movie controversy that you know already is kind of happening. I guess I want to I want to do. I want to set this up this way. As an individual, I'm speaking now to the people listening to all the listeners, as listeners who sit in a pew, who go if you go to church, you sit in a pew, you walk into a building, whether Sunday school church, Well, we'll just we'll say the sanctuary. We'll just say, you sit in a pew, you're there looking at the pulpit, right, So we'll take it out of the Sunday school class.

9:30 We'll put it right mainly in the sanctuary. Right. When you go to church, what is your expectation, what is your want? What is your desire for? What occurs behind the pulpit? What do you want? What do you desire? What do you think is appropriate? What do you think is inappropriate behind the pulpit? And I'm not saying approp it or inappropriate like oh the pastor throws out some cussword or he does. I'm not talking like that. I'm saying, when it comes to the preaching of God's word, what are you looking for? Now? What I feel is that what most people who sit in the pew, what they what they ultimate Now. I don't care what they say, but when it comes to practice, what the people in the pews actually want is more of a just very practical message. They want to they want to make it.

10:30 They want to feel like they're doing something of great significance. They want to feel like they're having great studies. But I think when it really comes down to something practical, when it comes down to to how it really works. I think people that don't really want the pastor to stand behind the pulpit and do theology right. They don't want to him be sitting there. Okay, we're gonna work on this, we're gonna challenge this, we're gonna we're gonna question this, We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna try to work on this interpretation. We're gonna challenge this interpretation, we're gonna question this where and almost kind of just we do theology, creating philological hypotheses and testing them. I don't think people really want that in church. It makes them uncomfortable. I think people want to be taught theology like, hey, just tell me what we're supposed to believe, this is what our team believes, and just basically reinforce what we believe and don't don't do any questioning or challenging, right.

11:23 I think I think people want it. They want it safe, they want it somewhat simple. I don't think they want it too academic. They don't want it too deep they don't want. I think they have a very almost kind of an expectation that I think, to me, it's somewhat sad what people actually want. And I think this is why. I mean, people constantly claim, well, Christians are theologically illiterate, biblically illiterate. But at the same time everyone gripes about that, but the church can do very little about it because the people really don't want that much depth. They don't want it to be too academic. They don't want it to be they don't want it to feel like a university classroom. They don't want it to feel like a seminary.

12:11 They want something spiritual. They they want practical, they want an experience. They don't really want philological depth and exegetical you know, content. They may say that, but it has to be done in a very in a very specific way. That that's I really believe that that is true. I don't believe a pastor can stand behind the pulpit on most churches and say, hey, guys, look at this text. This makes absolutely no sense. Wait what about this? Wait? Did you ever know that this does this not bother anybody?

12:52 Well? Wait a minute, well what about this? Wait? So God sets job up? What about that? Like, there's all these kinds of things that in the Bible I think should bother the average reader. I think if anyone reads the Bible, they should come across these things that they should be like that makes no sense, Like wait, what is going on? That seems contradictory or that seems illogical, and that seems no But you're not allowed to do that in church. Christians will get defensive, they get very sensitive, and I think that that's a problem. I think it's a problem. And we have a great example. We mentioned this yesterday, but we're gonna return to it again. So we were reviewing a sermon on First Samuel twenty six, right, and in that sermon, he created a hypothetical situation. He basically took this idea, here's Saul, he's asleep, his spear is stuck in the ground right next to his head, and David sneaks in, and David could take that spear, kill Saul, and solve all of his problems. So then the hypothetical situation the pastor creates is, hey, in your life, sometimes there's a in a sense, there's a spear there. You could take the spear and do this or do that.

14:07 It would take away all of your problems, all of your suffering, but it would require you to send to do that. And we talked about the problems with the entire sermon, because it completely ignored for Samuel twenty seven, and we worked through all of that. But in first Samuel twenty six, I pointed out that there's a there's a problem. There's a deep problem. In fact, it's called a deep sleep problem. Because there's a problem here about people sleeping. That should disturb every single person who reads the text. It didn't bother the pastor who preached it. He didn't even mention it. You know why I didn't mention it because if he mentioned it, it would make everyone in the pew very very, very very uncomfortable, and many people would probably either leave the church, threaten to leave the church, or would want the pastor to leave the church. Let's explore it. You ready it this morning? Okay, let's explore this. I've got lots of notes here, I've got lots of notes, and we're gonna just take this apart.

15:07 We're gonna consider it. Well, let's consider the text, and then we'll consider a lot of the things that I've put together. All right, if you go to first Samuel, chapter twenty six, we start in verse one. We now we read this. Now the Zif fights came to Saul at Gibea, saying, is David not hiding in the hill of Haikala opposite Jessemon. Then Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Zif, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him to seek David in the wilderness of Zif. Please note, Saul has three thousand men. I want write that down, three thousand men. Saul has three thousand men that he's taking to hunt down David. Right, everybody got that. And saw and camped in the hill of Hakkala, which is opposite of Jessamon by the road.

16:08 So Saul finds a place to encamp in this hill. David stayed in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness. David therefore sent out spies and understood that Saul had indeed come Verse five. So David arose and came to the place where Saul had encamped. And David saw the place where Saul lay, and Abner, the son of Ner, the commander of his army. So we have saw there, we have his commander. There, we have three thousand men there. Now Saul lay within the camp with the people and camped all around him. So there's David, there's this commander. There are three.

16:49 Thousand men with him. They're all camping. Then David answered and said to Abimelech the hit type, and to Abashi, the son of Zarui, brother of Joe, ab saying, who will go down with me to Saul in the camp. And Abishai said, I will go down with you. So David and Abashi came to the people by night, and their Saul lay sleeping within the camp with his spear stuck in the ground by his head, and Abner and the people lay all around him. Then Abashi said to David, God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day. Now, therefore, please let me strike him at once with the spear right to the earth, and I will not have to strike him a second time. So please, we're gonna focus on the fact everyone is sleeping. They were able to just walk all the way in, all the way up to Saul, pass his commander past. Three thousand men were right up to Saul. Now, how did they pull this off? How were they just very good? Were they very quiet? Were they very sneaky? How did they pull this off? Well?

18:01 Look at verse nine. But David said to Abishai, do not destroy him. For who can stretch out his hand against the Lord's anointed and be guiltless? David said, furthermore, as the Lord lives, the Lord shall strike him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed. There's any here having a full blown conversation where there's three thousand men asleep, and David's are Saul's commanders there, Saul's there, and they're just having this back and forth philological debate of etter whether they should kill Saul or not kill Saul. But look what he says, take now the spear and the jug of water that are by his head, and let us go. So David took the spear and the jug of water by Saul's head and they got away, and no man saw it or knew it or awoke.

18:52 Now anyone reading this, we're like, come on, how did this even happen? They sneak all the way in, they have a philological discussion, a spear, they take a jug of water, and no man woke up, no one. Everyone was just sound asleep. How is this possible? Look at the next verse, for they were all asleep because a deep sleep from the Lord had fallen on them. Now I call this the deep sleep problem, because anyone reading this should be like, okay, wait, come on, come on, now, come on. Saul has been hunting David for chapter after chapter after chapter after chapter. And for Samuel, this has been going on. People have died, There's all these horrible things that have taken place, and nothing stops it. But then all of a sudden, we just read in first Samuel twenty six, God takes three thousand men, puts them all to sleep, three thousand men. They are all asleep, Saul's asleep, the Commander's asleep, three thousand men gone, night night.

19:58 And you're like, well, that's awesome. That shows the sovereign power of God. Doesn't anyone in the church would raise their hand and go, wait a minute, if he could just put them all to sleep here, why didn't he put them all to sleep at the very beginning and just stop all of this conflict. Why when Saul was going to kill other people, he would just put these put all these men to sleep where they wouldn't kill the people. When Saul had eighty five priests killed, and then they slaughtered everyone in the city, man, woman, boy, girl, child, infant, animal, No, no, no, they get to stay awake for that. But here God just says night night, and they're all gone, they're all asleep. But he couldn't do this at any other point in time to bring this to some kind of conclusion, to bring this to an end. That should raise some questions to you, Well, that makes no sense. If God can intervene here, why didn't he intervene there so that people did not die? Why didn't he intervene here so that this whole thing would stop? Now, of course, and the sermon we reviewed, they didn't even bother to address this, So it seems to me that it is very common.

21:15 In fact, I think it seems to me it's the norm that pastors and sermons will ignore these glaring philosophical issues, these glaring philosophical problems, Like most sermons would completely ignore the problem and the philological problem. In First Samuel twenty six. As we've just read, the text says that God puts Saul and his entire army basically into a deep sleep. It seems to me that anyone who even cares about the actual text should be immediately bothered. If God can just put them all to sleep, he could have done this from the very start, brought the entire conflict to an end. He could have intervened in a similar way to stop Saul from killing all the priests and all the people and all the children, and that particular city where that occurred. God could have intervened countless times. But no, no, no intervention there, No, But here's there's intervention. Three thousand menu of sleep go in, David, just to set up this entire situation. So I asked artificial intelligence, Hey, is this a problem? Is this a problem?

22:42 Ai said? This passage in this verse for Samuel twenty six twelve raises significant philological and philosophical problems. It raises significant and philological and philosophical questions about divine intervention, the problem of evil, and the nature of God's sovereignty. Ai says this is a critical issue that has often overlooked in sermons. So Ai acknowledges. Hey, yeah, you're right this verse about this deep sleep. This raises deep theological problems, deep theological questions.

23:26 This raises deep philosophical questions and problems, but most people will not address them. Why what do people actually want to happen when they go to church? See, everyone talks a big game. I want to go to church where the Word of God is preached, and as soon as the pastor starts raising questions or difficulties imposing problems, people don't like that. When I raise questions about well, wait a minute, we say we believe in solo scriptor, but is scripture really the authority? I think the authority is the individual who interprets the Bible, and then their interpretation becomes the authority. They become their own pope, their own images sterium. When I say that, Christians get furious at me.

24:12 When I call in to question the unintended consequences of the of the Reformation, people get upset. Whenever I raise these questions. People get bothered because Christians don't really want this, and they definitely don't want it at church. They'll say church is not the place for it, Church is not the time for well where is the place and the time? Is it only a special class held on a you know, a top secret night and an underground basement with all the windows covered up so that nobody knows what's going on, Because sh we can't talk about these difficult things in church.

24:53 So let's look at some of the issues with this deep sleep problem. Let's look at the philosophical problem, right, I think we could summarize the philosophical problem like this, Why didn't God intervene earlier? If he can intervene here and make everyone go to sleep, why didn't he intervene earlier and have everyone go to sleep, and just find a way to bring this to a conclusion. Stop all of this madness, stop the death, stop the threats, stop the pursuit, stop it all. Because this narrative in one Samuel twenty six to twelve explicitly states that God caused the deep sleep. Nobody can argue that the text explicitly says God caused the deep sleep, which allowed David to approach Saul without any danger. Now, this would demonstrate logically that God, that God has the ability to intervene in human affairs in a decisive and miraculous way, and everybody's like, Amen, God can intervene in a decisive and miraculous way.

26:02 Amen, that's my God. Is how many Christians would say, Well, wait a minute. If God can does intervene to prevent harm here, why didn't he do so earlier in this story or in any other instance of injustice, justice Saul's massacre at Nobin for Samuel twenty two. If he can intervene here so that David is not harmed, and that no and that Abishai is not harmed, that they can sneak in and sneak out and nobody ever knows what's going on. If God can provide that much safety and that miraculous intervention, he couldn't be bothered to intervene to stop all the people being slaughtered in just a few chapters before this.

26:50 He couldn't intervene to stop David from having a woman's husband killed. He could and intervene, and passages in the Bible where we have rape, murder, deceit, destruction, slid, I mean, all kinds of horrible things. But he can intervene here to cost three thousand people just to go to sleep. So what do we do with this? Well, first we have to be able to acknowledge. Look, if the church is the place where these things should be acknowledged, it should not be you know, on some podcast with some atheists.

27:32 It should be behind the pulpit, going ladies and gentlemen. This is disturbing. I don't know how we handle this. So since most pastors don't even want to get anywhere near this, now you look, you can do a you can you can test my theory here because I could be proven to be wrong. You can. You can take this sermon's two point oh app this weekend. Look for sermon after sermon on First Samuel, chapter twenty six, and see if anyone brings up this major full of problem. Wait a minute, God intervenes here, has three thousand people go to sleep? Few chapters earlier, he didn't bother to do anything. Well, on an entire solidity, a city is slaughtered, he didn't bother to do anything, and all the other situations in the Bible, what do you do with that?

28:19 So I so since pastors, for the most part, I'm not saying there aren't any obviously, I mean that would be a ridiculous comment. But there I think the majority, I think many will ignore it. Overlook. It really won't say much about it or see it. It's like, see, there's our God. See how powerful are God? Is? Okay, well, great, but it's great that God is powerful. But why does his power only used in certain certain situations and that same power is not used in this situation or this situation or this situation or this situation. That's everyone has to struggle with that. So I asked Ai, So what do I do with this? What do I do with this? Ai started with this, and I'm not sure that this is even a solution, but this is where AI started. It gives me divine sovereignty and human free will. Now I'm not a fan of this. I don't even know how this is a Remember, any free will that exists is because God gave free will, and God can obviously intervene and override someone's free will whenever he wants. Because these men did not choose to go to sleep, he put them to sleep.

29:28 Okay, he didn't follow their will, all right, I mean there's plenty of situations where God imposes his will upon other people, right, But it says this is what AI tried to explain God's sovereignty, his ability to control events and human free will allowing individuals to make moral. Choices coexist throughout scripture and the case of Saul. God allows Saul to act. Freely for much of the narrative, even when his actions lead to significant suffering. But again God, he said, well, God allowed him to do it. God is the one who gave man free will in the first place. And of course God can still intervene and stop me. If Pharaoh's free will Mayo went after Israel, God had them all drowned. So God can intervene at any point. Right, So it's like, well, there's a tension here. God's in control, but then he allows people's free will, but he only allows free will to fit within his sovereign plan. Because if He's just allowing free will to run and God's not controlling it, then God's not really sovereign. Right. You can't say, well, God is sovereign, but he lets man does exactly what he wants. Well, then God's not controlling the situation. He's just like, okay, he's controlling it only in to say, man, you're free to do whatever you want, but I'm not controlling it. But if God is somehow structuring it, guiding it, controlling it, directing it. Well, then

30:58 is your will really free? And again, God's knowledge of what you're going to do pre existed before you even existed, So don't you have to do what God knew you were going to do? Oh it gets really complicated, But people love to say even AI free will somehow is the free will doesn't answer anything here. Now, AI goes on to say, by allowing human choices to play out, God demonstrates the consequences of rebellion, sin, and broken leadership. So it's like, hey, because God allows this to happen, it demonstrates I mean, I don't even understand this. It demonstrates the consequences of rebellion, sin, and broken leadership? How many?

31:42 How many people have to suffer? How many people have to die so that I can see the consequences of rebellion, sin and broken leadership? How many? How many? How many stories do I need in the Bible? Go, well, God allowed this to happen to demonstrate the negativity of sin. Well, guess what God can give me an entire Bible demonstrating the negativity of sin. It's not going to change the fact that we are all born with the sinful nature, So me seeing the negative consequences of sin is not going to change my sinful nature. So what point does it do? What is the value in demonstrating it? Hey, God, God allowed this happened to demonstrate it. Aren't you glad that you get to see this demonstration of let me see here? Aren't you? Aren't you so fortunate to be able to see?

32:35 Let me? I can't find it here? You can see the consequences of rebellion, sin, and broken leadership. How many stories do I need to see? I mean, would only need one story in the Bible, but story after story after story that then involves people suffering and dying. I need to see people suffer and die. So I now will know the consequences of rebellion, sin, and broken leadership. But having all of the stories doesn't change the fact that we're still We're still going to be rebellious, We're still going to sin, and we still will demonstrate broken leadership because we're still sinners. Now, AI says, well, this underscores the need for a righteous king ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Okay, well, I agree. The Bible does demonstrate to me that we ultimately need Christ because no human being can pull it off because we're all sinners. I do agree that with that, AI does admit this does not fully resolve the tension when divine intervention does occur as in the deep Sleep, so AI tries to offer some kind of solution, it doesn't really offer solution. But AI itself has to admit, well, this doesn't really resolve the problem. No kidding, it doesn't resolve anything. Oh there's God, there's man's free will. Okay, but then he overrides their free will here, so it doesn't really And I can give you other examples where he over He did not follow man, and he didn't allow man's will to continue. He intervened, and just so saying that he allowed it to happen to demonstrate a

34:08 moral lesson for us makes no sense. So I don't know if that really helped. I don't think that really helped. So I was like, okay, Ai, I need a little bit more. So AI then gave me the selectivity of divine intervention, all right. So now AI was like, okay, I don't know if I got an answer, but we do have to at least look at, well, how God can be very selective when he decides to intervene. See Now, the philosophical question would be, if God intervened selectively, does that imply he is complicit in the events he chooses not to prevent. That's a good question. If God intervened selectively, does that imply he is complicit in the events he chooses not to prevent.

34:54 If God will. Intervene in this event and stop it, but he won't intervene, and this is God's somehow complicit. And what happens God God knew it was going to happen. God in a census omnipresent, so he's present wallet's happening, and he has the power to intervene to stop it from happening. But he doesn't stop it. He doesn't intervene, even though that he's present there in some way, because he's omnipresent and because he knew it was going to happen before it happened, is he. Not complicit to some level? This is I mean, I know we're not supposed to talk about this in church, but we have to be willing to acknowledge this. This is a problem. In One Samuel with twenty two, when Saul slaughtering all, having all those people killed, God was present. God knew it was going to happen. He could have stepped in at any point.

35:46 Is he not complicit? I can go from thing after thing in the Bible. God sent in Now, just think about this. God sent in angels to remove Lot and his family. He intervened. They even they even stopped all the men from breaking down the door, and all of those they there was divine intervention. God intervened, He destroyed those cities. That's divine intervention. But he could not be bothered to intervene when Lott's daughters were getting him drunk and about to commit incest or in other situations where there was murder or rape. Is God complicit? God did not stop Saul from maskering, mask killing, and basically a complete maskering of the of the priests and their families and nob for Samuel twenty two. He did. There was a complete massacre that occurred. He didn't stop, He didn't intervene.

36:58 Yet he intervenes here to assure David's safety and to reinforce David's role as his chosen king. Hey, I'm not going to stop people from dying, but I'm gonna I'm gonna intervene here. So David can walk all the way up to Saul has the potential to kill him, but not don't do it. But I'm gonna make sure no one wakes up and no one nothing happens. So I said, okay ai, that's great. Yeah. The selectivity of divine intervention, it is. It is a philosophical problem. I agree. What's the explanation, Hey, I said, God's actions and first Samuel twenty six may serve a broader redemptive purpose. By preserving David.

37:42 Through this specific intervention, God ensures the unfolding of his covenant promise to establish David's lineage as a line of the Messiah. So what he's saying is like, Hey, since David is the it's from his line the Messiah is going to come. So he hass to intervene to protect David. But all those other people in Knab, sorry, you're not in the lineage of the Messiah. You all die. Hey, I'm sorry. Your baby's gonna be slaughtered and your wife's gonna be killed, and all your property's gonna be stolen because you just don't happen to be in the lineage of the Messiah. But David does. So I'm gonna make I'm gonna make three thousand people go to sleep to preserve him. But other people you can just suffer and die. Does that help? Does that make you feel any better?

38:28 So AI doesn't really have any answers. So then AI gives me the philological problems God's justice and goodness. So then AI gives me the problem of evil. The text forces us to confront the classic problem of evil. If God is all powerful, he could prevent suffering and evil. If God is all good, he would desire to prevent suffering and evil. Yet suffering and evil pursuit. Well, I'm like, thank you AI for giving me the classic problem. So let me outline the classic problem again. If God is all powerful, he could prevent suffering and evil. If God is all good, he would desire to present suffering and evil. Yeah, suffering and evil persist. Now what most people would do? Say? Well, since suffering and evil persists, then either God is either not all powerful so he can't prevent it, or God is either not all good because he would desire to do.

39:28 Something about it. Now, someone said, well, he did desire to do something about it by sending his son. But yeah, but that okay, we could go that direction. So I'm like, okay, Ai, what has this got to do with this situation? AI says, The selective intervention of God putting Saul's camp to sleep, but not preventing earlier atrocities, challenges our understanding of his justice and goodness. Yeah, I think it does. Now. Guess what. AI doesn't bother to give me any solution here at all. AI doesn't really know what to do here, so it does say, it does give me this God's purpose in history. The events at first Samuel are not isolated. They're part of a larger narrative in which God is preparing David for kingship and ultimately pointing towards Christ. Saul's actions reveal the consequences of rejecting God's authority and choosing human kingship.

40:20 God allows these consequences to unfold, even though they result in suffering. By not intervening earlier, God creates opportunities for David and others to trust Him in the midst of hardship. This is a reoccurring theme in scripture. That doesn't help me at all, That doesn't resolve one problem, It doesn't that doesn't fix anything, and so many times When pastors or theologians attempt to try to answer some of this to me, they give these almost like pat answers, cliches, little bumper sticker solutions. It doesn't fix the problem. And one Samuel twenty six, God causes three thousand people to go to sleep. David walks in, they walk out, nobody is harmed, Everything is good. But just a few chapters later, God couldn't bother to intervene to stop a city from being completely slaughtered. Not only that, if God could just cause an entire three thousand people to go to sleep when Israel came in, why didn't he just have all the bad people just go to sleep and then Israel just captures them and exiles them or what? But no, in many cases, God told him to go in and slaughter everyone. I mean, there's so many issues and looking at all at so many of these stories. So I'm like, Okay, Ai, you're not really providing me many answers because I don't think Ai has an answer, because I don't think anybody has an answer. So I'm like, okay, well, Ai, if

41:51 you don't have an answer, nobody really has an answer that why don't sermons address this well, then Ai was more than willing to address this part problem. AI says many sermons fail to address these theological and philosophical tensions for several reasons. Focus on practical application. Sermons often prioritize moral or spiritual lessons. Trust God like David did over grappling with difficult philological questions. See pastors when they hey, be like David, trust God. Don't use the spear. We turn it into a morality tale. We turn it into a morality lesson. Nobody wants to deal with. Wait a minute, Wait a minute, God costs three thousand people to go to sleep. Doesn't that raise some serious questions? Sh We don't talk about that in church. You just come to get a little Bible lesson. Be like David, Be a good little boy, be a good little girl. I mean, not much has changed from when you went to Sunday school as a kid to you going to church as an adult. It's simply little Bible lessons with moral lessons put into it, and you get three little points and you get to go home and get to go to the potlug. So the church wants people to focus on the practical application. They don't want to deal with all of this. Another reason sermons don't address it is because

43:22 these issues require delving into complex theological and philosophical debates that may feel too abstract for a sermon setting. Why is it too abstract for a sermon setting? Where are you going to address these things? What happens is nobody addressed these things, some kid goes off to university, the professor addresses it. Then the church is like, oh, oh, we don't know what to do. We got to help little Johnny who's losing his faith and he's deconstructing. So then we have to create parachurch ministries who focuses supposedly on apologetics to provide some kind of answer so that little Johnny can make it through university. Why does little Johnny need an apologetics ministry? And the church requires how much money per year to operate? The church can't do the job, so that we need a second ministry that needs all kinds of moneys to operate so that they can help Johnny with his answers. Because when he was in church, he didn't get any answers. He got little morality teals, he got little lessons, he got pizza parties, he got locks in lock ins, But nobody wanted to address the issues behind the bulpit because we don't do that in church. It's too complex, it's too difficult, it'll make people uncomfortable.

44:30 It's too academic. So now the kid is not prepared to answer because someone's going to ask these questions. But he should have heard the questions first in church. But you can't do it behind the bulpit. So then the church fails to do the job, even though it just during Johnny's lifetime, from the time he was one to eighteen, all of that time, how for those eighteen years? How much money did it cost for that church to operate for eighteen years? And at the end of eight teen years. Little Johnny is not even equipped to handle basic philosophical and philological issues that arise from the text itself. Why because the church spent all of that money doing everything other than equipping, which he then calls in a question, why does the church even't exist in the first place? Yeah, come on, I think I think we should have to have this conversation. So AI doesn't really have an answer to the problem. But AI's like, hey, well the church, Hey, they focus on practical application. They're not going to address it.

45:46 They're they're fearful of the complex and difficult and only that I love this, Ai said. Most pastors may feel hesitant to raise hard questions about the biblical narrative, fearing that it could undermine the congregation's faith. Sh we don't want to make someone uncomfortable. We don't want to possibly undermine their faith. Is it undermining someone's faith to go God put these people to sleep? Doesn't that cause some of you to have some questions? How does that undermine someone's faith? It doesn't undermine someone's faith. To look at the text going does that make any sense? Does that make any sense? Does that make any sense? That's just being willing to critique the text. And when I say critique the text, I'm just saying being honest about that reasonable, how a reasonable reading of the text, what it should cause you to think, and how it should cause you to struggle. But sid the church, we can't do that.

47:01 We can't do that. So church just becomes this little game we play that requires a whole lot of money to keep it operating, and in the end result, nobody's equipped. Nobody really understands anything. Now, when the church does these things, they ignore the real issues. See, when churches do this, they undermine intellectual integrity thoughtful listeners. Those who really will listen will notice the tension and may feel frustrated when their questions go unacknowledged. Many people go to church and they do notice this, they do struggle with this, but in church they're just like, no, no, no, we're not going to address this, and so they're like, where is the intellectual integrity from the pulpit, going wait a minute, guys, we've got to talk about this. This is difficult here.

47:55 And when the church bypasses and just skips these issues, they leave believers ill equipped to wrestle with the problem of evil and God's selective intervention in their own lives. Say, when you won't address it from the pulpit, guess what the people leave, and guess what they discover in their life. Evil and pain and suffering and death exists and it happens to them, and then God doesn't show up, God doesn't intervene, and then they sometimes are left going, well, wait a minute, I don't understand. Well, yeah, I know you don't understand, but you should have already been confronted with this five seconds after being a Christian ten seconds after reading the Bible. But you're not. You're told to read the Bible and never see these problems, never question these things. So now you're ill equipped. When it actually happens in your life, you don't know what to do, and you fall apart because you're like, well, I don't get it. Well you should have gotten it a long time ago, but the church said with playing little reindeer games and wouldn't really address what was going on. This first Semuel twenty six should cause everyone to go.

49:00 I don't get it. So I asked AI, how could this then be addressed? AI tries to give me some ways to be AI. Look, the bottom line is AI doesn't know what to do. AI doesn't know what to do. It doesn't, It doesn't. I really wanted to press AI further and say, hey, come on, come on, talk talk to me. What do we do with the deep sleep problem? And maybe I will push it a little bit, maybe here in a minute, I'll ask it a question in real time and see. But so AI tried to say, Well, to engage with these questions, you need a robust, stillological framework. So here's what it tries to give me. It tries to give me.

49:47 God's sovereignty and human history. God works through history to accomplish his redemptive purpose. His interventions are not random, but are tied to his overarching plan of salvation and First Samuel twenty six. God's intervention underscores David's jgitimacy as the future king, preserving the line through which the Messiah would come. So what it basically seems to say, and I'm going to translate that God intervenes when God wants to intervene for his purpose, and he doesn't intervene when it doesn't fit his purpose. So guess what. Sometimes God may intervene, but it's for a deeper, bigger purpose than probably just the immediate situation. And if it doesn't fit God's purpose, then God doesn't intervene. And that may mean, well, your family gets slaughtered. Now that may make some people feel good. So I can read it in a way that sounds more spiritual. God's sovereignty and human history. God intervenes as it fits his redemptive purpose.

50:45 Everybody in the pup will say amen, but nobody really understands what that means. What that means is, see, God will intervene when it fits his redemptive purpose, and if it doesn't fit his redemptive purpose, you get to get slaughtered, and you get to get killed, and you get to suffer. Hey, hey, but he'll intervene over here. Does that make you feel better? Maybe it does. Then AI brings up the role of human responsibility. While God intervenes at times, he often allows human sin to play out to demonstrate its consequences and the need for redemption. Now I can't stand that explanation. How many times does he need to demonstrate the consequences and the need for redemption. It's been demonstrated a million times. So, hey, you get to suffer because God wants to demonstrate, how you know, the consequences of sin. The atrocities committed by Saul at the massacret Knob reflect the tragic reality of human rebellion and the brokenness of the world. Yeah, but how many times do we need to see the tragic reality of human rebellion? It doesn't really help me. Then, of course AI loves this one, the already not yet of redemption, God's ultimate plan to deal with evils fulfilled in Christ. I do agree with that. Well, there are glimpses of divine intervention in the Old Testament, the full resolution of evil awaits of Christ's second coming. I do

52:17 agree with that, Hey, ultimately Christ all this intervention to stop this or to stop that. It happened at specific times, you could say, argue for specific reasons, but God's plan was never to intervene to fix all of this until the end. In the meantime, there's going to be pain, suffering, and death, and we just have to expect that without God intervening. So then AI gave some pastoral implications. It says pastors should acknowledge the tension. Preachers should acknowledge the apparent inconsistencies and invite listeners to wrestle with these questions. Modeling of faith that seeks understanding. I agree with that pastors should say, hey, guys, we got a problem here.

53:03 Now what the people in the pew? That the problem is that people in the pew will get defensive and they'll be like, oh, it's not a problem. Oh, it makes perfect sense because they've never been in a church where the pastor will say, hey, this is a problem. They're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, there is no problem. It's simple, it's easy. What is wrong with you, there's no difficulty, and they just plug their ears. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't hear you. I don't hear you. Everything makes perfect sense, Everything makes perfect sense. Everything makes perfect sense. They don't. They don't know what to do with it. They have no clue what to do with it. Right, So we have to acknowledge the tension, even though it's gonna make people uncomfortable. It's gonna make people uncomfortable. We have to acknowledge it. Goes on to us say we need to emphasize trust in God's character and don't really know how that helps. We need to connect it to the gospel. Don't know how that ultimately helps. So AI really doesn't have any good answers. So I'm gonna ask.

54:07 I'm gonna say something to AI. Hear. So, the bottom line is God intervenes when he wants and doesn't when when he doesn't want to, when he doesn't want to. And people may die and suffer.

54:54 All right, I'm gonna see what a I is going to say to that. Yeah, AI says, yes, that is the bottom line. I put the bottom line as God intervenes when he wants and doesn't when he doesn't want to, and people may die and suffer, and Ai says, yes, that's the bottom line, but it reflects a profound theological reality that requires careful thought and sensitivity. The idea that God intervenes when he chooses and refrains when he chooses, even when it results in suffering and death is consistent with the Bible's betrayal of God's sovereignty and human history. The reality raises deep questions about God's character, justice, and purpose. Here's a closer look, all right, the Bible's support for divine sovereignty and selective intervention God's absolute control. The Bible consistently affirms that God is sovereign over all things. He has the power to intervene in human affairs, but does so according to his will and purpose. For Samuel twenty six, God puts Saul and his men into a deep sleep and Job. God permits Satan to afflict Job, but sets boundaries on his actions. Right God selective actions. God maractuously rescues Peter from prison, but allows Stephen to be martyred.

56:05 God parts the Red Sea for Israel's deliverance, but allows other nations to remain under opposition and judgment, so the tension. Why doesn't God always intervene? The selective nature of God's intervention raises philosophical and theological questions. Why allow evil and suffering? If God can prevent suffering, why does he allow it to happen? And in some cases and not in others? This is the classic problem of evil. Why didn't God intervene to stop Solve from mastering the people at Knob but chose to intervene in David's favor In First Samuel twenty six, God's purposes are beyond human understanding. God's purposes are often hidden from us, and we are called a trust in his wisdom even when we don't understand why he acts or doesn't act in a certain way. God's allowance of suffering and death as a consequence of human humanity's rebellion and the fallen state of creation, But that doesn't really answer anything. God allows suffering and death as a consequence for human rebellion, but he creates the people, and he created the very being Satan who would bring the temptation into the garden. And then once they fail, he could have stopped everything instead of allowing people to continue to you know, to populate the world with sinful natures, knowing it's going to bring about all these consequences. So that doesn't really help anything at all. I don't even know that. That doesn't really help anything, all right. Philological justifications for selective intervention, free will, and responsibility. God allows human beings to act freely even when their choices lead to suffering. This preserves human responsibility and the meaningfulness of moral choices. Okay, well, hey God, but God is the

57:39 one who allowing it to happen. God created the world, gives people free will, knowing all these people are going to suffer. But yet he still will intervene and override people's free will in some situation. So that doesn't Even if you go with a hardcore free will view, it still doesn't answer any problem. God's interventions are often tied to his overreaching plan of redeta. It doesn't really help, all right. God's sovereignty does not remove human responsibility. The mystery of God's will all right, Yeah, So bottom line is Ai acknowledges that's just the way it works. God may. God intervenes when he wants, doesn't when he doesn't. In the bottom line, you may suffer and die as a result.

58:23 Now we can wrap it up in philological language and say, well, trust and trust and believe you can do that. But the bottom line is we are left with this problem. And first Samuel twenty six, God puts over three thousand people tonight night, nobody wakes up, David goes in, goes out, nobody's armed. Few chapters before entire city is slaughtered. God does nothing. Now that tension exists, whether you like it or not. You can try to explain it away. You can say it doesn't bother you. You can be all it's usually Christian men who'll get all like.

59:16 Whatever, gods sovereign who can do what it re wants. I don't really care. Yeah, you talk all big game until I don't know. You get a phone call that your child is dead because it would have been murdered, and then you may want to know where God was. This is the tension. This is Christianity exists within this reality. Christianity exists within a reality where we believe in a God whom we cannot see what we are surrounded, and we experience circumstances that constantly scream where is God? Does God even exist? Does God even care? That's the tension. Now we want to create a Christianity where oh, oh, don't worry, God will intervene.

59:58 God will intervene. You can't tell God's going to intervene in any way, shape or form. Until you get you can say God will intervene at the end, and then he will make all things right and it will be a new heaven and new earth, no more pain, no more suffering, and no more death. But in the meantime, you can't promise God's intervening in any way, shape or form, just like he did not intervene in One Samuel twenty two and let all those people be slaughtered. And I could go from page after page, at the page where God doesn't seem to intervene, John the Baptist, Sorry you die, Steven, Sorry you die, and these other situations God intervenes. And that's even during the pages of the Bible where God is intervening in very dramatic, miraculous, visible ways. Clearly we don't see that happening today. AI doesn't have an answer.

1:00:57 Nobody has an answer. I don't care if you go free will sovereignty, I don't care where you go. You're gonna be left with the same problems. So all right, I'll stop there. It's sixty been sixty one minutes. It is freezing, freezing in this in this studio. I do apologize. Yeah, my voice was having problems at the beginning. I think I was having problems with the word maskering, maskered, maskered. I think I was having a problem with there. I apologize for that, probably because I was trying to speak and freezing to that, or I'm not I can't make any excuse whether it was warm or cold, I can still mess up words. But yeah, I think, really what my problem is is just trying to come up with a solution here, and I don't have one. But I think I think what we take from this is what should happen behind the pulpit. See, there's lots of debate.

1:01:58 I just I got a message from or an email from. I think it's Sermons Central. They send all kinds of emails. They're a ministry, are supposed to help pastors and how to write their sermons. And I love to just see what advice they're going to give me. And they very critical. They send out an email the other day, very critical of pastors who don't turn your pulpit into a you know, seminary classroom. Don't don't make it so academic. It needs to be devotional. It needs to be emotional, it needs to be experiential. And it's like, okay, well great, and then the people are still going to be biblically and theologically illiterate, and but that's okay. We don't ever want to address that problem. So all right, I'm going to stop there. I'm going to turn the heat on. Thanks for listening. I wish I know what you're saying. Well, what's the answer. The answer is, you have to embrace this reality. Christianity exists within this very difficult reality. And until you embrace that, you either are going to create a fake Christianity and a fake idea how it works.

1:03:01 And that will last you for a very long time, until all of a sudden you open the door and get punched in the face by reality. And then you may go, wait a minute, what happened. I know someone who's charismatic, part of a big charismatic church in this city. His father got very, very sick, and everybody in the church said God was going to intervene. God was going to heal his father because by his stripes. You know, we are healed, and all of those things, all the typical charismatic nonsense. Well, the man's father died wet. Guess what. He abandoned completely, the charismatic world. He left it couldn't take it anymore because he realized it was all fraud. See it's all you can believe stuff until you get hit with reality. Christianity is supposed to exist within reality, not create a fake reality that only lasts until you get hit with reality. And sometimes the text forces us to go, wait a minute, this is not This doesn't work the way we want it to work. Even the whole way we heard that sermon on First Samuel twenty six, it seemed to forget all the things David does wrong.

1:04:06 In the next chapter, David slaughters people. And here's the crazy thing. God put three thousand people asleep and First Samuel twenty six to preserve David. But in chapter twenty seven, God doesn't intervene to stop David from slaughtering people and stilling their property. Go figure that one out. Hey, it's great if you're David. God puts three thousand people to sleep to preserve you. But in the next chapter, David gets to slaughter people. Hey didn't put David to sleep to stop that. Oh and David has a woman's husband killed, he doesn't do anything to stop that, or he doesn't do anything to stop David's adultery.

1:04:51 I hope. But he can put three thousand people to sleep. I mean, he could have just kept a certain woman. He could have just said, go to sleep, don't go take a bath on the roof right now. I always got to do is just mess up the timing a little bit. Oh no, can't you can't. But here he can put three thousand people to sleep. These are the questions that should do just make you sometimes go, I don't get it. And it's okay to say that. I know. Look, I know you're not allowed to say that in church. You gotta be ssh no no, no, no, no, no, we don't talk that way here. I understand that you can you when you go to church, play the reindeer games. But at least here, see we can be honest. Right, nobody's looking. It's a podcast. We're haul in secret, okay, ssh.

1:05:37 Hey do you kind of struggle? Yeah? Do you sometimes not understand? Yeah? Does it sometimes not make any sense to you? Yeah, okay, we're on the same page. Sh don't tell anyone you listen to this podcast. Ssh. God bless