Day 196: Blasphemy 1

July 15
Today's Connected Passages: 

• Exodus 22:28 
• Leviticus 24:10-16 
• Numbers 22-24 
• [Deuteronomy 23:2-8; Joshua 24:8-10; Nehemiah 13:1-3; Micah 6:5; 2 Peter 2:15-16; Jude 1:11; Revelation 2:14] 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Canon Connected, where we read the connections, see the connections, and study the connections of the Bible. Thank you for joining us here on day number 196 of the Canon Connected as we begin to zero in on day number 200. Again, a very substantial benchmark, I think, in the course of a year. Over halfway, but also again, 200 days. That is a significant amount of time for any sort of daily habit. And even if you've fallen out of the plan and coming back or you're newer to it or whatever, for those of you, we still welcome you, of course, and I hope you continue to do it as much as God leads you to. But for those of you who have been here for 200 days almost, uh that's that means a lot. Okay, I know it means a lot to God because I really think this is a Bible study that is supposed to be centered on Him and even good things people can use for evil. I'm definitely capable of that. But I think again, it mean it means a lot to God. You would want to study the Bible and see these connections that He that prove that He wrote all of this and centered it around, you know, one major theme of Jesus, but in a thousand sub-themes under that. But it means a lot to me as well, because right now this is my job, and I am very thankful for those of you who are allowing that to that to be, because if nobody listened, I couldn't keep doing this. We'll start today on a two-day series on the biblical subject of blasphemy, which is something that you know we we could even kind of joke about, you know, when somebody says, Well, Chick-fil-A is just, you know, mediocre chicken, and I could say, blasphemy. Okay. That is something that we we do a lot, and that's okay. There's really nothing wrong with that. But this is a very serious subject, and not that anything we talk about during this year is not serious, but some things really are, you know, uber serious. I mean, they are things that we have to handle in a very reverent and very serious manner. And one of those things is blasphemy. And now there are many words, you know, that are that are similar to blasphemy, that that they all center around the same idea, words like sacrilege, you know, and heresy. But blasphemy in its simplest, you know, form, I think, you know, is even slightly distinct, I think, from from words that are like it, is when you just say wrong things about God, okay? And that is it proves, first of all, that um what we say does matter. Um talk is cheap. You know, I understand why people say that. Um they typically mean, you know, if you say one thing and do another, then what you say doesn't really matter. But no, may we never forget Christianity is big on how we talk. The tongue controls the whole body, James says. Our faith is confessional. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and James says, you know, or John says, you know, if you confess your sin, he's faithful to believe it. Confession with our words, and so far as we're able to speak, I know some people can't physically speak, but as far as we're able to use words, it does matter for the good and it absolutely matters for the bad. And we've talked about things like this all year, not just God's name in vain, but we did a whole study on lying. And blasphemy is a form of lying, but it also is distinct enough to where we're going to do two days of it, you know, separately. But just this idea that a person, Christian or not, would say wrong things about God, the fact that that is evil and that that is that has to be considered evil. It has to be dealt with seriously. And as I've talked about with the confrontation thing, uh being offended is not shouldn't be a bad thing, okay? Being offended is good when it helps a person realize they're a sinner, but it's also healthy for us as Christians to be offended when somebody misrepresents God. Should we expect it of the world? Yes. And should we, you know, handle it, you know, differently than if it comes within the church, of course. But it doesn't mean that if I hear somebody take God's name in vain or say something, you know, absolutely an atrocious way wrong about the Christian God, that I should just be like, oh well, that's okay. You know, I don't want to be that kind of person. Um, I want to take blasphemy quite seriously. So we'll look at it in a couple of days with several different readings. Tomorrow we're going to do blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which will be a very interesting study about what exactly that means. But today we just see from the law, you know, some stories and one law, and then we the big, the big reading today, the big connection is, you know, Balak and Balaam from Numbers 22 and 24, because it gets repeated, the idea, what happens there, the heart of it, does get brought up a lot. You can see Old and New Testament, Numbers 22 through 24 has a lot of connections all throughout the Bible because God keeps going back to that story, which proves again how serious it is what Balak was trying to do. And even Balaam and his unwillingness to follow God and do exactly what God said, how again God takes those things seriously. But Exodus 22, 28 says, You shall not revile God nor curse a ruler of your people. Um again, how we speak, not just about God, but even in this case it talks about being uh how we speak about rulers, um, you know, leaders in the Exodus context, again, because they're God's representatives. Um, again, God takes it very seriously. He's enough to spell it out not to do it. Then Leviticus 24, which is a lot of you know, laws and rituals and things that again are odd to us, it it talks about, you know, um an Israelite woman's son whose father was an Egyptian was sent out among went out among the people of Israel, and the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel fought in the camp, and the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name. And the ESV has name and capitals, uh capital letters, presumably meaning God's name, which we've talked about before. I am Yahweh. The name matters, even the name Jesus that causes demons to tremble. And the and there's like woman's uh son uh cur blaspheme the name and cursed, and they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shalomith and daughter of Dibri and the tribe of Dan, and they put him in custody till the will of the Lord should be clear to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Bring out the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. Is this serious enough for you? And speak with the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. Again, God is truth, okay? That's that's essential to his nature. It's why that's one of Jesus' names, the way, the truth, and the life. All right. And so anything that's contrary to that, that's why lying we talked about. You know, we did the Ten Commandments is such a serious offense. And this is lying specifically about God. It is so serious. God cannot and will not tolerate it. Um all the congregation has to stone him, the sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death. Anybody in the Israelite camp, it didn't matter where they were from, um, they had to take this seriously. How we speak about God, the things we say about God, I mean, they have to be right. This is why we rightly divide the word of truth and why Jesus warned us, you know, we'll be accountable to every idle word we say. This is ex this is true of all speech, but it's especially true in how we speak about God. As a pastor, a Bible teacher, preacher, whatever, but even if you're not, even if you're witnessing or or or whatever you're doing, making a Facebook post, you have to be careful what you say about God. It has to be biblical, all right? We cannot be flippant, you know, about this topic. Um sometimes we say things about God that are wrong and out of ignorance, and it's not because we're, you know, willfully being ignorant, it's just we don't know what we don't know. That's a different sort of thing, I think. But especially when you live in a place like America, we have a lot of resources, we have churches, we have leaders, we have you know online, you know, things, you know, there's blogs, there's podcasts, way many outside of this one that can help us, but we need to be very careful about how we speak about God. And then the last one again, the the series of connections, because there's so many references back to Balak trying to use Balaam to curse God's people, to say things wrong about God in the sense of, you know, of blaspheming him through the cursing of his people. God always intended to bless his people, generally speaking, although many of them received, you know, judgment and punishments. This was way outside of God's will. So it was an affront and offense to God in the sense I would say accurately as blasphemy what Balak is trying to do here. And so, of course, it gets turned on his own head. And this story is known for the donkey talking, but there's so much more to it than that, and it all does center again how we speak about God, and in this case, even how we speak about God's people. And of course, this doesn't mean people like now can't critique the church or offer criticisms of the church. It's not that sort of thing. But if we do speak about God's people, it better be correct. Okay, it better be true. All right. But here we know that Balak here is doing something that is utterly sinful, it's very selfish, it is against God because it's against his people, and so it's the like the major story. Again, we read it all in one sitting. Connected readings doesn't always mean we don't read great sweeps of the Bible, you know, large, large chunks of the Bible at a time. Because I wanted you to read that all together because of what um what Balak at what Balak did here, and how Balaam even, you know, didn't didn't obey completely, and he had to have the the donkey to get him to realize I have sinned, for I didn't know who stood on the road against me. Now therefore, if it is evil in your sight, I will turn back. And so, as I as I've said, there are let's see how how many different connections there were. Deuteronomy um uh mentions it, uh John Joshua 24 mentions it, Nehemiah 13, Micah 6, 2 Peter 2, Jude 1 and Revelation 2, all hearken back, all they all recall this story of Balak and Balaam and the blasphemy that Balak tried to to uh um to to speak through a prophet on God's people and how you know how he was judged for it, and how this the fact that Numbers takes the spotlight away from God's people for three whole chapters. There's no story, you know, you know, as far as one, you know, you know, one complete narrative in the book of Numbers is as long as this. And so God, you know, shifts the focus of that whole book away from what's happening, you know, with the spies and and the and the fallout from that to this story because it's that important how we speak about God. Um blasphemy is is is extremely serious, and I think these these next two days will will hopefully highlight that for us. So we've got another day of this, and again, the ones tomorrow are you know are more more practical, I would say. There's definitely a lot in, you know, in the in the in the history books, and there's one in the history books, one in the Psalms, a lot in the prophets of the Old Testament, but then we do get to the New Testament teachings of things like you know, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? You know, and what can we learn about it? So come back and be with us again tomorrow as we continue to read the connections, see the connections, study the connections. Thank you.