Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Max Lucado & Skip Moen ｜ 10⧸5⧸23
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
158.13313
Summary
Max Lucado joins Glenn Beck on the Glenn Beck Show to talk about his experience with back pain and how God uses it to do amazing things in our lives. God bless! Glenn Beck is a conservative Christian radio host and host of the radio show "The Glenn Beck Program" on the Christian Network.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Today is an amazing show. I learned a ton today. This is the first in the next 40 days
00:00:08.840
that we are preparing for the covenant. If you don't know what that is, it is something
00:00:13.100
right out of American history and the Bible as well. But our pilgrims made a covenant with God,
00:00:20.080
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and we are dangerously close to, well, cutting our hair.
00:00:27.720
You will understand that if you listen to today's podcast. You'll learn things. I mean,
00:00:32.160
I was blown away and I thought I knew things with the guests that were coming on the show.
00:00:38.000
It is fantastic. Don't miss a second of it. Brought to you by Relief Factor. When somebody
00:00:43.160
tries to explain what it's like to live in pain to somebody who doesn't live in pain,
00:00:47.940
it's not very comforting because you know they can't understand. I understand. I lived in pain
00:00:54.000
for quite a while and almost gave up. My wife said, try Relief Factor. I'm like,
00:01:00.420
it's not going to work. It reduces inflammation. I think that's hogwash because ibuprofen never works
00:01:05.020
for me. And she said, just try it. I did. Try it for three weeks. I was stubborn and I'm like,
00:01:11.060
I don't think it's making any difference. And then I stopped taking it and I was like, okay,
00:01:14.600
this makes a difference. And I can paint. I can play the piano. I mean, it's amazing what I can do
00:01:20.820
with my hands again. Thanks to Relief Factor. Please try it for three weeks. Give it a shot.
00:01:25.620
70% of the people who order Relief Factor and the trial pack go on to order more month after month.
00:01:31.740
Get the 1995 three-week quick start. ReliefFactor.com. ReliefFactor.com or call 800 the number
00:01:38.240
four relief. ReliefFactor.com. Feel the difference.
00:01:48.720
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:01:55.980
You and I are an awful lot alike. We both worry about a future when we all feel like we have
00:02:01.380
nothing to rely on. We don't know where to turn because nothing is real. Nothing is solid.
00:02:08.460
Hey, where are you going? What are you doing with your money? You know, I saw the stock markets going
00:02:12.120
down. Bitcoin's going down. Where are you putting your money? I don't know. You know, gold's a pretty
00:02:16.940
good idea. Yeah, really? Is it? Because I think I read some places, the deeper you bury it, the more
00:02:22.740
it'll slip through your fingers. I mean, I have no idea what tomorrow is going to bring. Everything
00:02:27.980
that I thought was solid is now liquid. When our money, our food, our government, our culture
00:02:33.340
has let us all down, what then? The only reason that I'm not in a ditch somewhere or in total despair
00:02:42.800
is because of two things. My wife, who taught me about God. And I know that God isn't going to let
00:02:51.400
me down. And I need that. And it's not that he, it's not like, you know, Glenn, now, you know,
00:02:57.000
you'd say you're a Christian. So now everything's going to be good. It's not like that at all.
00:03:01.820
I need to know that God is there. But when things go poorly and I'm like, hey, I'm doing
00:03:09.080
everything I'm supposed to do. And everything is like all of a sudden, like a black abyss.
00:03:13.760
You're like, wait a minute. I'm a Christian. Remember, I'm a Christian. That doesn't work
00:03:18.720
that way. When you really become mature in your faith, you know, when things go poorly, it's
00:03:25.420
not that just this too will pass. I shut up with that. I hurt. But what gives you hope
00:03:32.280
is that, you know, even the worst stuff that you've done or experienced is going to be used
00:03:39.220
in miraculous ways. You just got to get out of the way because Glennon ain't all about you.
00:03:45.800
And I hate that. It's about eternal truths. A guy who has been up and down and down at his
00:03:55.260
highest point. Max Lucado is with us. Hello, Max. How are you, man? I just, you can keep
00:04:03.340
talking all day, Glenn. I wanted to shout amen a few times, but I didn't know if I would
00:04:09.900
interrupt you. You're right on target, my friend. Thank you.
00:04:14.540
How do we convince people who have not experienced, because I know you have, Max, you've experienced
00:04:23.280
the reassurance, the knowingness that God's got you either way. And no matter what happens,
00:04:32.360
it's like I can look at death and somebody dying and go, not that, you know, the normal,
00:04:39.880
oh, well, they're in a better place. I know that. But actually having faith, I'm going to see him
00:04:45.620
again. It's all going to be good. How do you teach that? Yeah. And it needs to be taught because
00:04:54.140
we're living in a day of despair. Did you know the suicide rate in America has increased 24%
00:05:01.700
since 1999? You know, if a disease saw a 24% spike, we would call it an epidemic.
00:05:10.760
Yes, we would. So how do we explain the increase? I mean, we've never been more educated.
00:05:16.380
We have tools of technology our parents would only dream of. We're saturated with entertainment and
00:05:23.040
recreation. And yet more people are orchestrating their own deaths than ever. And I think the answer
00:05:30.620
is people are dying for lack of hope. You know, secularism just sucks the hope out of the heart.
00:05:37.720
But the idea that there is no God or if there is a God, he's distant. That secularistic viewpoint or
00:05:45.700
worldview reduces the world to just a few decades on earth, just that dash between the dates on the
00:05:53.300
gravestone. And people believe that this world is as good as it gets. And let's face it, it's not that
00:05:59.160
good. But people of the promise, people who begin to build their lives on the promises of God,
00:06:07.200
have a huge advantage. And that is when problems surface, they can be heard telling themselves,
00:06:14.580
but I read something in the scripture, or but God told me, or but I know that God got me through this
00:06:22.080
before. They make a deliberate choice to build their lives on the promises of God, not the circumstances
00:06:32.160
of life. And as a result, they have a leg up, they have they have a they they have an advantage,
00:06:40.240
they have an inside track, because they lift up their eyes, and they get hope, find hope outside
00:06:47.920
of this world. So I'm all over what you're saying. And thank you so much for saying.
00:06:53.680
So, you know, I just remembered Ben Sherwood is a friend of mine, he used to be a producer at ABC.
00:07:00.200
And that's what I got to know him. And then he eventually ended up being the head of ABC for a
00:07:04.440
while or ABC Disney, I think. And he wrote a book called The Survivors Club. And what it what he found
00:07:11.520
in this, and he wasn't taking it from a, you know, spiritual point of view when he started the book,
00:07:17.200
he wasn't looking for something he wanted to know, what do all survivors have in common? And he found
00:07:22.320
survivors have hope in God. And if they have that hope, no matter how bad it gets, they survive when
00:07:32.560
most don't. Absolutely. That narrows it down right there. And one of the great discoveries that people
00:07:44.420
who attempt to find faith discover is that we have a God who makes promises and who keeps promises.
00:07:54.800
And understanding how our God is a covenant making and covenant keeping God is just such a source of
00:08:05.240
strength. I read one person who spent a year and a half attempting to tally up the number of promises
00:08:13.380
that God made to humanity. His list, 7,487 promises. Promises about fear, promises about sin,
00:08:24.440
promises about death, promises about provision, just every single area of life. God has spoken a promise.
00:08:33.620
He's spoken a promise. So give us some examples of promises that he has kept.
00:08:40.320
Yes, sir. Absolutely. When he created the earth, he said, and God said, Genesis chapter one says,
00:08:51.300
and God said, and God said, and God said, and every time God said something, something happened.
00:08:57.900
So when God speaks, that is a decree. It's not a desire. It's a decree. And because our God keeps his
00:09:08.340
promises, the fact of the matter is, his promises are irrevocable, because he's unchanging. He's not
00:09:16.420
victimized by moods or weather. He's faithful. He's strong. He never over promises and under delivers.
00:09:24.580
Romans 4, 21 says God is able to do whatever he promises. Hebrews 6, 18 says it's impossible for God to
00:09:33.020
lie. Doesn't say it's unlikely that God will lie or improbable, but it is impossible. He cannot lie.
00:09:41.240
A rock cannot swim. A hippo cannot fly. A butterfly cannot eat a bowl of spaghetti. Well, I can't sleep
00:09:47.680
on the cloud and God cannot lie. So, so he never exaggerates. He never manipulates. He never flatters.
00:09:53.780
He just doesn't break promises. And we're seeing, I know you, you gave a speech for one,
00:10:02.000
one for Israel ministries, and you said, promises God made to Israel thousands of years ago are being
00:10:08.180
fulfilled in our generation. Most people are not, that's not making news. Can you give us example of
00:10:14.500
the promises there that are coming true? Exactly. Well, God promised Abraham seed and
00:10:23.520
soil. He said, through your seed or through your lineage, the entire world would be blessed.
00:10:30.640
And boy, is that not a promise that's been kept? Yes. I mean, look, we have the, we have the Bible.
00:10:37.420
We have the, we have the church. We have Jesus Christ. I think we have much reason from the Jews
00:10:44.580
as well, the way they study and debate and wrestle. And I think that's, stands out. And look at all the
00:10:51.380
Nobel Prize winners that are Jewish. Yeah. It's just the most extraordinary nation in history. And
00:10:58.200
they're the only nation who has had their land taken from them and then returned to them. And that's the
00:11:04.500
second part of that promise. And that is soil. God promised Abraham a region, a territory. And in 1948,
00:11:13.080
when they were reinstated or when they were regathered to their homeland, I think we saw one of the greatest
00:11:20.460
miracles in all of history. And for centuries, theologians would read those promises and say, well, God can't
00:11:27.560
keep that one. In fact, I think one of the reasons that anti-Semitism got so much fuel in the fire is because
00:11:37.360
people thought, well, God made a promise to the Jews and he's not going to keep it. But then in 1948,
00:11:43.180
he kept it. It's just extraordinary. It's a super sign that God keeps, keeps his promises and he'll
00:11:51.500
continue to keep those promises. So I'm starting today a 40-day devotional series that will teach
00:11:57.020
biblical covenants that I, I think it's the only way to combat total despair and also to restore our
00:12:06.260
nation. We have to, we have to turn towards, uh, towards that. Um, any thought on explaining a
00:12:16.140
covenant and, uh, and how it can be uniquely used to hold our country together? Well, God makes
00:12:24.300
unilateral and bilateral covenants. Uh, he made a unilateral covenant with Abraham, the one that we just
00:12:31.660
spoke, uh, he made a bilateral, uh, covenant with Adam and Eve and they broke it. You know, he said
00:12:38.860
there, you can have all of this creation, all of this paradise, just don't eat from that one tree.
00:12:43.940
And that was an agreement. They, you know, their lives and all of human history would have been
00:12:49.800
different had they honored that covenant. And so it is with us today. Uh, God makes covenants with us.
00:12:56.700
He talks to us about the value of life, about respecting one another. And these are conditional
00:13:02.900
covenants. And if we break those covenants, if we violate, then there's consequences, not that he
00:13:09.600
doesn't love us, but he is a good father. And the good father says, here's where, here's the path you
00:13:16.120
should walk. And if you get off of it, it's not going to be pleasant. Right. Not, not as a punishment,
00:13:21.660
but as a, a natural consequence. Yes. Natural consequence. Yeah. And what you're urging us to
00:13:27.520
do is go back to these basic covenants. And, uh, and, and when we do, and if we do, if we repent and
00:13:35.920
turn and turn back to God, then we can expect blessings. But if we continue to isolate God or
00:13:43.140
shove God out, uh, there will be burdens. It's, it's really just that simple.
00:13:47.760
Max, my friend, I, I would be remiss if I didn't say hello from my sister. She is,
00:13:54.100
you are just a giant in her, in her spiritual life and, and, uh, mine as well. And I just love
00:13:59.780
you so much. Thank you, Max. Thank you, my friend. I appreciate it. And go get them. You're doing the
00:14:05.020
right thing. Uh, Max Lucado. He is, uh, got a new book out. God never gives up on you. Uh, and he also
00:14:12.600
has his free online Bible study starting October 23rd. You can find everything at max lucado.com.
00:14:18.720
That's max lucado.com. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. America has always
00:14:26.280
fought itself. Are we from Jamestown? Are we the pilgrims? Are we from those people that came here
00:14:34.820
from religious persecution or those who came and persecuted people, uh, by taking them from Africa
00:14:41.620
or persecuting people here? That has been the great debate. I choose to follow the pilgrims path.
00:14:49.260
Let me take you back to 1630. It's a group of families. They just finished making a compact or
00:14:56.240
covenant. They're aboard the ship named the Arabella. This is the future Massachusetts Bay Colony.
00:15:03.760
It's right in the distance. And John Winthrop delivers a speech that everybody used to know.
00:15:12.820
He said, thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into a covenant with him for this
00:15:22.080
work. We've taken out a commission. The Lord has given us leave to draw our own articles, to make our
00:15:31.520
own promises, to make our own laws. Now, if the Lord shall please to hear us and bring us in peace to
00:15:41.040
the place we desire, then he has ratified this covenant and sealed our commission. Now think of
00:15:49.300
that. The survival rate of people coming to the Americas was very, very low. He's saying,
00:15:56.360
we're making this covenant. And if the Lord will hear us and bring us peace so we can just live,
00:16:05.420
then he's ratified his side of the bargain. And he will expect a strict performance of the articles
00:16:13.260
and promises contained in it. But if we shall neglect the observation of these articles and promises,
00:16:21.380
and we dissemble with our God, fall into embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal
00:16:31.240
intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in
00:16:38.380
wrath against us and be revenged of such people and make us know the price of the breach of such a
00:16:47.700
covenant. The price of the breach of such a covenant. I know you didn't make a covenant,
00:16:59.740
didn't maybe didn't know, but this is a covenant land and we are deep in the breach.
00:17:07.360
I have Bill cloud with me and Bill, uh, is a Bible scholar. He is a teacher and author. Take me to
00:17:22.660
Samson, uh, and the covenant with Samson and why that's important to us.
00:17:30.820
Well, before he was born, and this is kind of addressing a point that you just made before he
00:17:40.480
was born, his mother was visited by an angel. The Lord said, you're going to have a child and here's
00:17:46.100
his purpose. He's going to begin to deliver Israel from the oppression of their enemies. And, and so
00:17:54.860
the very reason for Samson's existence was to bring relief to oppression. And he was to be born a
00:18:02.780
Nazirite, um, which is a very, uh, there's some very specific, uh, components of that vow that
00:18:11.800
was a Nazirite would make. But the point here at the beginning is his reason for existence was to,
00:18:18.520
to deliver the people, to bring relief from oppression. And he was born into it. He didn't
00:18:24.840
ask to be a Nazirite. He didn't ask for that. It was something that was decided for him.
00:18:30.220
What is it? What is a Nazirite? What did you have to, how did you have to live? You are going
00:18:33.740
to be a Nazirite. Yeah. Well, if you're a Nazirite, you're consecrated, you're set apart. You're kind
00:18:38.980
of above and beyond the rest and in terms of your relationship with God and what he requires of you.
00:18:45.460
And you couldn't, for instance, you couldn't drink wine. You couldn't, uh, partake of anything
00:18:50.480
pertaining to the grave. You couldn't touch, touch a dead body, a corpse. You'd be rendered
00:18:54.380
unclean. And of course, a Nazirite also could not cut their hair. And that's what probably
00:19:00.520
most people associate with Samson is his strength and the story of Delilah and the hair and everything.
00:19:06.460
But he was expected to live up to the vows of a Nazirite. Of course, there's a lot of examples
00:19:12.940
in the Bible where he wasn't always that good at it. He consorted, he consorted with all these
00:19:17.540
strange women. Uh, he's touching dead lions and all these kinds of things. And yet God's spirit would
00:19:23.780
come upon him, use him to bring deliverance. However, you know, there was a point where
00:19:29.060
he crossed a line and that's, that's when he allowed Delilah to cut his hair. And how does
00:19:36.080
that relate to us? The hair of a Nazirite was considered sacred. In fact, if, if in a normal
00:19:43.920
circumstance, if a Nazirite completed a vow, he would cut his hair and that hair would be burned
00:19:49.320
on the altar. It couldn't be used for anything common because it was considered holy. The word
00:19:54.520
in Hebrew that describes his hair is the same word that describes the crown of the high priest
00:20:01.560
of Israel, the crown that said holy unto the Lord, same word. So imagine a scenario where the high
00:20:08.120
priest of Israel used to be the mediator between God and his people. And he's to represent what is set
00:20:14.180
apart in the holy. If he were to take that crown and then throw it before pagans and idolaters and
00:20:19.780
let them desecrate it and trample it under feet. In essence, that's what Samson did when he allowed
00:20:27.080
Delilah to cut his hair. So my point would be this, where Samson's concerned relating it to America.
00:20:35.460
There's no doubt in my mind that God raised this nation up for a reason, for a purpose. And I believe
00:20:40.880
it was to bring relief from oppression. You know, those people you were just talking about came
00:20:46.600
to this nation to be delivered, to be free from that oppression, and to found a nation that would
00:20:53.920
represent that relief from oppression. And Winthrop said, if God does this and he allows us to do that,
00:21:02.420
then we will take that as evidence that he's ratified this covenant. But he has expectations.
00:21:07.000
And we have not always lived up to those expectations. We have failed many times.
00:21:12.720
And yet, we still stand reasonably strong. But here is where I believe we are at. We're at the risk
00:21:21.460
of taking what is sacred, desecrating it, saying it is, you know, of no regard to us,
00:21:28.160
and casting it down, so to speak, to be trampled underfoot by people who have no regard for
00:21:32.800
God and the covenant and these kinds of things. And if we ever get to that place,
00:21:37.840
if we cross that line, then what? When Samson woke up, he thought he would just go out like he'd
00:21:43.220
always done. But he didn't realize that the Spirit of God had departed from him. And then he was turned
00:21:51.020
So hang on just a second. So Bill, he had, because he had violated many things, and he still kept going.
00:21:56.920
And that's kind of like us. We violated many things. We just kept going. But then that last
00:22:02.940
straw, the sacredness of who he was, that representation, when he discarded it, cut it and
00:22:11.060
discarded it, that's when it wasn't all of a sudden. He just didn't notice it. It wasn't because of one
00:22:17.480
thing. It was many. But this was the last straw. So if I understand your parallel correctly, at least
00:22:25.000
this is the way I'm interpreting it. So I don't know. But I feel like what is sacred is our
00:22:31.200
declaration of independence, our constitution, and our place in the world. And I don't mean that,
00:22:40.620
you know, we're supposed to dominate everybody. We're supposed to be a place of refuge and law and
00:22:48.940
order based on the Judeo-Christian principles that we were founded on.
00:22:56.800
Right? So as we are saying, this country is nothing but garbage. We are cutting our hair.
00:23:05.080
I would agree. I mean, those documents you mentioned, they were based on those principles
00:23:10.560
that we find in the Bible. I mean, Winthrop went on to say, in that model of Christian charity,
00:23:17.220
that if we don't keep our end of the bargain, to paraphrase, that we will become a byword
00:23:22.800
and a parable. And he's quoting Moses, who was saying to Israel, if you don't uphold your
00:23:28.900
end of the bargain in this covenant with God, here's what's going to happen. You're going
00:23:31.960
to be turned over to your enemies because you considered what was sacred to be less than.
00:23:39.420
You desired other things. You desired your flesh and your whims and whatever it is you wanted.
00:23:45.060
You turned to those things and you cast what was sacred to the ground. So, yes, I believe that if
00:23:51.560
we're not already doing it, our head is going down into Delilah's lap, so to speak.
00:23:58.480
Okay. Hang on just a sec, Bill. I want to do one more segment with you as we talk about the meaning
00:24:06.300
of the covenant. And, you know, I know there'll be people that don't agree with this. This is not
00:24:13.160
this is not religion. It is scriptural, but it's not anybody's faith per se. It's not doctrinal.
00:24:22.900
It is universal and eternal. And we're supposed to take the scriptures and learn from them and see
00:24:30.240
the patterns. And I think that was a pretty eye-opening pattern, at least for me, that now
00:24:38.060
is the time we are running out of time. And if you want to save our country, then we need to change
00:24:47.840
our ways immediately and do not know. We need to stand for those things that are sacred, not just
00:25:01.620
fight against those things that are evil, but stand for those things that are sacred. This has got to be
00:25:10.840
about action. It has to be about how you live your life and what are you willing to say? What are you
00:25:20.000
willing? Are you willing to stand up for these things? Because if we don't, we cut our hair.
00:25:25.140
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Skip Moen is here. Hi, Skip.
00:25:31.760
How are you, Glenn? It's a great honor to be on your program. I was quite surprised that anyone would
00:25:38.460
even ask, but thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. No, you're, I mean, you're, you're teaching just on the
00:25:45.000
mistranslation of the Beatitudes is some of the best stuff I've ever seen. So thank you so much.
00:25:52.860
You're welcome. So let's go there. Okay. So the Beatitudes, they're blessings. You know, if we do these
00:26:04.500
spiritual things, we're going to be blessed and get some reward. Blessed are the poor for the kingdom
00:26:10.400
of heaven is theirs. You say, uh-uh. Yes. No, no. The problem is, of course, that our idea of Beatitudes
00:26:19.800
comes from the Latin translation, which makes it sound like a blessing. But in both Greek and in Hebrew,
00:26:26.780
the more proper translation would be lucky. And of course, the Christian world, Christian publishers
00:26:34.560
don't like, you know, the idea of luck in a religion. Right. So they don't use that. But both
00:26:41.340
makarioi, which is the Greek term, and ashray, which is the Hebrew term, are all about how lucky you are
00:26:48.100
when these things happen to you. It has nothing to do with you getting something. It's just a description
00:26:53.460
of what it is like when you live these kinds of experiences. And of course, every one of us
00:26:59.420
can identify with some of this experience, because it's all, as I say in my book, sacred paradoxes,
00:27:05.220
things that are upside down, that seem like the exact opposite of what they should be. And God uses
00:27:10.480
all of those to, you know, move us in his direction. So tell me about the word lucky here. I just want to
00:27:16.060
dwell on this for a second. Okay. You know, because I used to say, oh, I'm so lucky. And I believe we,
00:27:23.180
I was in a conversation with this with a bunch of people just the other day, you know, how lucky
00:27:27.480
we are to live at these times, because we get to see who we really can be, because our back is up
00:27:32.740
against the wall. So we're lucky to live at this time. That's different than I'm blessed. And I now say
00:27:41.640
I'm blessed, or I'm lucky, and I mean two different things. Tell me, is there a difference
00:27:49.540
like that in these translations from Hebrew? Or... Yes. Go ahead.
00:27:57.340
Yes. Actually, you know, Hebrew is a very tactile, earthy kind of language. It's about the land,
00:28:05.780
it's about the people, it's about the dirt, it's about all the things that come into life and
00:28:10.380
ordinary living. So luck plays a big part of that, because good things happen, and you think,
00:28:17.100
oh my gosh, how lucky, how blessed I am to be, you know, alive during this time. When the rain comes,
00:28:23.600
it's a blessing. It's also lucky, by the way, because it means that I'll have crops, okay? So in
00:28:29.440
that sense, luck and blessing are pretty much the same. But that's not what happened when the
00:28:37.000
translation started changing the concept of this Greek and Hebrew idea. By the time you get to the
00:28:44.540
Vulgate, the Latin translation, you move in the direction of a blessing given by someone else.
00:28:51.080
So for, as I suggest in my book, there might be an ecclesiastical reason for this, because
00:28:55.420
in those, in ancient times, you had to go to the priest to get a blessing. And the idea is that he
00:29:01.220
would bless you for some spiritual, you know, exercise or some attitude that you had, and you
00:29:06.980
would be rewarded for that. So now you become dependent upon the religious aristocracy to give you the
00:29:13.880
blessing that you need in order to survive. But that's not what the biblical text is all about.
00:29:19.080
The biblical text is about how lucky you are when these really terrible things happen to you.
00:29:25.260
Okay, so wait, let me just take one. Blessed are the poor, for there is the kingdom of heaven.
00:29:33.080
There's no priest there that is blessing you there, the poor. And what is the real, what's the real
00:29:45.460
Okay, so the Greek term starts with this predicate adjective, makarios, which we've translated as
00:29:53.420
blessed, as though it's a verb, but it's not a verb. It's just a description of the character of a
00:30:00.100
person who is, in this case, poor before God. Now, the interesting thing about that word is that
00:30:06.580
there are multiple definitions for, or multiple terms in Greek and Hebrew for what poor means. And
00:30:13.160
in this case, it means destitute. So it's not the day laborer, it's not the guy who lives from paycheck
00:30:20.040
to paycheck. The idea is that the poor here is someone who's so, he's the beggar, he's the one who's
00:30:26.660
laying in the street. He's so, so destitute that unless somebody comes and helps him, he's going to
00:30:32.780
die, right? So now, now what Jesus is saying is, how lucky you are to be completely destitute,
00:30:41.600
which seems completely backwards. But then he goes on to say, the paradox is, that when you're that
00:30:48.560
desperate for God, God shows up, the kingdom of God arrives, right? He basically says, the reason that
00:30:56.440
the kingdom of God even shows up in life is because people are desperate for God. If you're not
00:31:02.260
desperate, you're not going to see the kingdom. So your comment about the world is on fire is the
00:31:08.060
perfect time for us to say, wait a minute, everything is falling apart. We're in desperate
00:31:13.480
situations, desperate straits. Now is the time when we should be looking for the kingdom, because that's
00:31:19.440
when God arrives, when people are desperate for him. When we don't need God, you know, it's like
00:31:24.020
Heschel says, we put him in exile, and then we think, oh, we can survive without him. But in fact,
00:31:30.040
what actually happens is that the world starts to collapse as it is, and it's done many times before,
00:31:36.460
and that's when desperation takes over, and that's when God starts looking to our hearts to see,
00:31:42.960
you know, what to do next. So the attitude is all about that kind of thing.
00:31:48.720
So you're lucky, and I speak as a recovering alcoholic. I look at all of the tragedies in my
00:31:57.220
life, and I look at them and say, and it took me a while to get here, but I look at them and go,
00:32:04.380
you know, if that wouldn't have happened, then I wouldn't have been here, and I wouldn't have been
00:32:07.720
here, and I wouldn't have learned that, and I wouldn't have done that. And you can look at all
00:32:13.520
of the horrible things in your life, and if you view them as a blessing, or lucky would be a better
00:32:21.140
word in that case, you're looking at the things that you fail, and where you have really gone down
00:32:28.180
to the bottom, you are lucky if you view it that way. And you're, and you're, because your heart is
00:32:38.360
open now. It's not like God comes, and he's like, well, I'm waiting for you to be humble, and I'm not
00:32:43.260
going to show, I've got some other thing. I've got to, I've got to play some pool at three this
00:32:46.460
afternoon. He's, what he's, he's always trying to get you, but you won't listen. So you're lucky
00:32:53.600
because God's there, right? The kingdom of heaven is, isn't that the full translation? The kingdom of
00:33:00.180
heaven is, so he's there, but now you're open to him. Yeah, now you see it. I mean, look, I often say
00:33:09.380
it this way, the best resume you can have is your failure resume, because God can't work with your
00:33:14.760
success resume. You did that. He's working with your failure resume, the things that you collapsed
00:33:20.340
over, the things that drove you to the ground, the things that put you on your knees, those are the
00:33:25.800
times when, you know, God becomes the only solution to your life, and that's when he, when he really
00:33:33.620
shows up. So I, I write two resumes when, when people ask for my stuff. I, you know, I send them
00:33:40.420
the, you know, the five degrees and all the books and everything, and then I say, okay, wait a minute,
00:33:44.260
there's another resume that you need to know about, and that's the one of all of my failures. All the
00:33:48.700
things that I, that I couldn't do became the part of me that, that makes me who I am.
00:33:55.800
So, give me, so let me just go back to this one, and then can you, can you show us the different
00:34:02.440
Beatitudes and what they really say? Lucky are those who are desperate, because, because of them,
00:34:09.640
the kingdom of heaven is. That's the actual translation?
00:34:13.880
Exactly. Yeah, actually, there is a word, and it means because of them. No scholar will tell you
00:34:20.620
that it should be translated for theirs is, because then it makes it sound like we get a piece
00:34:25.700
of the real estate of heaven. Correct. That's not what happens at all, right? What happens is,
00:34:30.980
because I'm desperate, the kingdom of God arrives. I mean, look what Jesus says. The kingdom is at
00:34:37.440
hand, and what he means is, he's dealing with people who are finally desperate enough to see
00:34:42.440
that God is ready to answer them, that he's going to show up, right? And it's because of their
00:34:47.860
desperation that God shows up, and you can see that in the history of Israel. I mean, think about the
00:34:52.680
number of times that the prophets excoriate Israel over being too fat, too happy, too comfortable,
00:35:00.440
that they ignore their social responsibility, they ignore the poor, and what happens? They collapse,
00:35:06.540
and then when they collapse, they plead God, you know, forgive us, bring us back, and then he,
00:35:12.460
you know, he shows up, right? That's the kind of thing that goes on in this Beatitude.
00:35:18.180
All right, so let's go through these. Okay. Go ahead. So the first one, of course,
00:35:27.320
we've now talked about, but, you know, the lucky ones are the destitute, because the kingdom of God
00:35:32.840
shows up. The second one we read as, I'll read it from the New American Standard Bible,
00:35:40.180
blessed are those who mourn, for they should be comforted. But think about that. The term that's
00:35:45.620
used there is the term for a person who's at a funeral. So why are people at funerals lucky?
00:35:52.520
You would think that's the last place on earth that you would ever say, oh, I'm so lucky I'm at
00:35:57.600
this funeral. Because you're alive. The point, yeah, yeah. Well, but the point is that once you are at,
00:36:04.180
when you're at a funeral, you experience the fragility of life. Yes. For the first time you come
00:36:10.280
into contact with the fact that you're not in charge, right? That you can't make your life go
00:36:16.260
on by yourself. You can't just decide I'm going to live longer. You don't have any control over
00:36:21.980
that issue of life and death. And when you're at a funeral, it smacks you in the face. The point there
00:36:28.500
is, I'm really lucky because now I get to confront the fact that I'm not in control.
00:36:35.240
It is the same feeling that we had on 9-11, if you're old enough to remember. It was the worst
00:36:44.300
day. But it was the first day in my life where I went, oh my gosh, this is so fragile. This could
00:36:51.640
come down overnight. And I had never felt that before. And we're feeling that, I think, as a society,
00:36:59.660
we're feeling that again. Yes. I'm not quite sure how it's working yet. We know that there's
00:37:05.220
something really wrong, but we haven't been able to put our finger on it like an attack on the Twin
00:37:10.640
Towers. But we know that something is happening that's destroying things, and it's making us feel
00:37:16.800
out of control. All you have to do is look at the craziness of the politics that's going on in
00:37:22.600
Washington. Those people are out of control. And that makes me feel very vulnerable. And that's the
00:37:28.680
time, because of this language that says, when you confront death, especially death of a loved
00:37:37.100
one, you realize how absolutely dependent you are on God. And that feeling of dependence goes right
00:37:47.220
along with my desperateness for God. So the two Beatitudes work together. The third one is even
00:37:53.080
better. Because the third one, you know, just run back up for a second. Jesus doesn't deliver these
00:37:59.240
in Greek. He delivers them in Hebrew. So in order for me to really understand what's happening, I can't
00:38:03.680
just read the Greek. I have to say, okay, well, what would happen if he was speaking this in Hebrew?
00:38:08.080
And the word that he uses in Hebrew is anah, which we translate sometimes as gentle, but it really means
00:38:13.920
humble. But it means more than that, because that word is about people who are oppressed. In fact,
00:38:20.580
it's used for women who have been raped. Okay? So look at the third Beatitude. Lesson are those who
00:38:27.260
are oppressed, but they shall inherit the earth. I mean, the whole point is, no one would think that
00:38:32.740
they're lucky because they were oppressed. No woman thinks she's lucky to be raped. No country thinks
00:38:38.720
it's lucky to be bombarded and overrun. But what Yeshua is saying is, no, wait, there's a paradox here.
00:38:44.840
When you come to the point where your life is not only not in your control, but where everything is
00:38:52.460
happening that seems destructive, that's when something happens with God and you recognize
00:38:59.580
that there's a hope, a future, something that's going to happen afterwards. And you can build on
00:39:06.080
that because God's promises are always true, right? So even if I'm in the worst possible condition,
00:39:15.700
as David is often in the Psalms, he will say, but you, Lord, are my rescue. In other words,
00:39:21.760
yeah, life is short, but it's not going to continue like that because I trust God will redeem,
00:39:32.260
God will rescue. So the beatitude takes this horrible situation and turns it upside down.
00:39:38.620
Skip Moen, he's an international Bible teacher. You can find him at skipmoen.com. Thank you so much,