The NXR Podcast - BONUS EPISODE - Is The Earth Flat？

00:00:00.580 Join Douglas Wilson, Dr. Joseph Boot, Brian Sauve, Eric Kahn, and myself on March 1st,

00:00:07.260 2nd, and 3rd for our 2024 conference.

00:00:10.480 It's called Blueprints for Chrysidom 2.0.

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00:00:25.600 All right, welcome to another Monday Live with yours truly, Pastor Joel Webbin. I'm the host

00:00:33.260 of Right Response Ministries. We do this every Monday at 2 p.m. Central Time, and then our

00:00:38.080 flagship shows every Tuesday, also at 2 p.m. Central Time. That's called Theology Applied,

00:00:43.220 where I have notable guests. It's an interview show. I have guys like Doug Wilson or guys like

00:00:48.020 Aaron Wren, guys like Michael Foster, and we talk about important topics and doctrines that serve

00:00:53.880 your everyday Christians in the church today, all of Christ for all of life, applying theology,

00:01:00.160 not just to the home and to the church, but to politics, to culture, to markets, to economies

00:01:06.480 and vocation and school and education, the whole nine yards. So today is our live with Pastor Joel,

00:01:12.420 and I'm going to be dealing with a text to address our topic at hand, which deals with

00:01:18.120 is the earth round or is it flat? I've got a few guys even in my church who would prescribe to a

00:01:25.020 flat earth theory. They're solid men who love the Lord. I know that that might sound funny to a few

00:01:31.040 of us today. We think that we're very sophisticated and that we're the most intelligent people to ever

00:01:35.440 live. But all that being said, I'll get into it. I personally don't prescribe to flat earth,

00:01:41.200 but I think that there are some legitimate things that should be discussed from a biblical

00:01:45.460 worldview. Real quick before I hop into the topic, let me mention our conference. We have

00:01:50.700 our early bird rate. It's ending August 31st. So this is Blueprints for Christendom 2.0.

00:01:57.660 We've got Pastor Douglas Wilson from Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. He's going to be with us. We've

00:02:02.200 got Brian Sauve, Pastor Brian Sauve from Refuge Church in Ogden, Utah. Also Pastor Eric Kahn. He's

00:02:08.400 also there with Brian Sauve, same church in Ogden, Utah. And we've got Dr. Joseph Boot. He's going to

00:02:14.140 be joining us from the Ezra Institute, and I'll be there as well. We're going to have

00:02:17.900 some live panels. We're going to do a live Theology Applied podcast show 90 minutes long

00:02:23.940 on the topic of biblical patriarchy with myself, Eric Kahn, and Doug Wilson. And we're also going

00:02:29.160 to be doing kind of like a live Haunted Cosmos theme conversation for an hour and a half with

00:02:35.080 Brian Silvey and myself, and also with Ben Garrett. He's a deacon at Refuge Church in

00:02:40.100 Ogden, Utah. He's going to come for this event as well. Aidy Rowless has just informed me that

00:02:45.060 he'll be there. So there's a lot of guys who are coming out. I think William Wolfe is going to try

00:02:49.340 to make it. John Harris is going to try to make it. So if you'd like to meet some of your favorite

00:02:53.660 Christian podcasters and be with us for an incredible event, then make sure that you go

00:02:58.720 and register at rightresponseconference.com. Not Right Response Ministries, but go to

00:03:03.780 right response conference.com. Again, the early bird rate is ending, uh, on the last day of this

00:03:10.180 month. So that's August 31st at 11 59 PM. It's done. So August 31st, that is your very last

00:03:18.120 opportunity, uh, to register for this conference. And that, I think that's like two weeks away,

00:03:22.760 Nathan, is that right? I think 10 days away. What, uh, August 31st, what date is that? Is

00:03:30.460 that a thursday probably a thursday or friday maybe it's a thursday okay so not this thursday

00:03:38.440 but next thursday a week and a half so it's not very long you got a week and a half next thursday

00:03:43.820 not this thursday but next thursday august 31st 11 59 p.m end of the day that's that's it the early

00:03:50.560 bird is going away so go ahead and go to right response conference.com to register as soon as

00:03:56.120 possible for blueprints for Christendom 2.0. All right, let's go ahead and hop into our text.

00:04:00.660 So the text that I want us to look at is Joshua chapter 10 verses 8 through 25. If you're not

00:04:05.940 familiar with this passage, this is, you're probably familiar with at least the narrative,

00:04:10.080 the events that take place in this passage. This is where Joshua petitions the Lord to

00:04:15.800 lengthen the literal time of the day, that the day would pause and that it would extend longer

00:04:22.780 than a normal 24-hour period day. To speak quite literally, as the text does, we'll get into it here

00:04:29.220 in just a moment, Joshua calls for the sun and the moon to stand still in the sky. And the Lord

00:04:35.900 makes this actually happen. This is a supernatural miracle. This is not a metaphor. It's something

00:04:40.780 that literally happens. There has been no day before or no day since like it, so says the text.

00:04:47.280 So this is Joshua chapter 10. We'll focus our attention on verses 8 through 15. It says this,

00:04:54.040 And the Lord said to Joshua, Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands. Not a man of

00:05:00.180 them shall stand before you. So Joshua came upon them suddenly, having marched up all night from

00:05:06.380 Gilgal. And the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel. Let's pause there, leave it up on the

00:05:11.720 screen. There's three things that the Lord does supernaturally in this passage that we're reading

00:05:16.640 right now in order for Israel to be victorious in this battle. The particular battle at hand,

00:05:22.620 Israel has now had, this is their third battle since crossing the Jordan River into the promised

00:05:27.780 land of Canaan. So Moses had died. Joshua is the successor. He replaces Moses and he leads Israel

00:05:35.860 over the Jordan River supernaturally. The water heaps up in a pile because the Levitical priests,

00:05:41.820 They go into the water first, and the water stops as they're carrying the ark,

00:05:46.100 and they stay right there in the middle of the river, and it dries up, and the water heaps up

00:05:50.560 in a pile. All of Israel crosses over, and the priests come up last. Since crossing the Jordan

00:05:56.200 River, there's been, now this is the third battle, there's been two significant battles before this.

00:06:00.560 The first battle that Israel engages in after crossing the Jordan River into the land of

00:06:06.200 promise is the battle at Jericho. And this is a battle that Israel wins, again, supernaturally.

00:06:12.200 That's the common theme, is that Israel emerges victorious in all of these battles because

00:06:17.140 the battle is the Lord's, because God is a mighty fortress. God is a strong tower, because the Lord

00:06:24.780 of hosts is with them, with Israel. Israel does not do this in their own strength, or their own

00:06:30.580 numbers, or their own expertise. It's always God giving them the victory. So, in the first battle,

00:06:35.880 the case of Jericho. They march around. You're probably familiar with the story. They march

00:06:40.900 around the city once for six days. And then on the seventh day, they march around the city seven

00:06:46.200 times after having completed the seventh time. Then they give a great shout to the Lord. They

00:06:50.940 blow on the trumpets and shofars. And all of a sudden, the walls, they don't just crack and

00:06:56.440 crumble. But what happens, according to the text, is that the earth swallows them up. That God

00:07:01.240 actually opens up the ground, the mouth of the earth, and it swallows up these outer walls of

00:07:06.920 Jericho, except for the house of Rahab, which we know was in the wall. It could have been adjacent

00:07:12.880 to the wall, but the text says that her house was in the outer wall, so much so that she could hang

00:07:18.440 a scarlet thread out of the window and it could be seen from outside the city. So her house remains

00:07:23.740 intact. That section of the wall, we're meant to assume, doesn't crumble, but the earth opens up

00:07:29.000 and swallows the rest of the walls and then Israel runs them down. They go into Jericho and they

00:07:34.420 destroy the city. Now the second battle is with Ai. Ai was a much smaller tribe and they didn't

00:07:41.200 have, at least they probably had defensive walls, but not to the same stature as Jericho. In the

00:07:47.740 case of Ai, what takes place is that because they're a smaller tribe, the Bible says about

00:07:53.020 12,000 in total number. So that would be the fighting men, including the elderly, the women

00:07:57.900 and the children. And so Joshua sends up about 3,000 or a little bit more of his fighting men

00:08:03.840 to take on the city, and they get decimated by God's providence and his mercy. Not many of the

00:08:10.140 Israelite fighting men die, but they quickly have to tuck tail and run away. They have to retreat.

00:08:17.320 And then Joshua knows that their defeat is supernatural as their victory was over Jericho.

00:08:22.600 their defeat from ai is also supernatural joshua instinctually knows and he's right about this

00:08:28.280 that there is sin in the camp and he falls in his face before the lord he's praying and the lord

00:08:33.700 says stop weeping um you you've been grieved into repentance that's great but that's as far as the

00:08:39.920 grief needs to go the grief has a purpose god never gives us grief for the sake of grieving

00:08:44.680 it's not grief is not an end in itself we don't just grieve to grieve but god grieves joshua into

00:08:50.840 action, into repentance, changing course, and God reveals them. There's sin in the camp. They find

00:08:57.060 out that Achan and his household had taken some of the devoted things from the previous battle

00:09:01.920 in Jericho that were supposed to be devoted to destruction, or that if they were articles of

00:09:06.640 gold and things that were used in pagan worship in Jericho, they were supposed to be devoted to

00:09:10.620 the treasury of the Lord. Achan had hidden these things in the earth, under the ground, under his

00:09:16.200 tent and he and his household is put to death. I am of the persuasion that he did not have young

00:09:21.980 children or infants, but that he had grown children and that they were actually, they were

00:09:28.020 complicit in that they actually joined their father in this sin. That it wasn't just the

00:09:33.380 children being put to death for the sin of the father, because the Bible, God says that that's

00:09:37.880 something that should not take place. And so I believe that the children were actually involved

00:09:42.700 in the sin. They committed the sin alongside with their father, his wife and his grown children. So

00:09:48.160 he's put to death. Then they go back up against AI. And in this instance, now Joshua is taking

00:09:53.240 like 30,000. So 10 times the amount of men, but they don't just win because of the men. There's

00:09:58.120 still a supernatural element, even in this battle. Now you're talking about AI having 12,000 people

00:10:03.660 total, again, including the women and children. Now 30,000 of the Israelites are going against

00:10:08.720 them, but even in this instance, there's a reliance on the supernatural power of the Lord.

00:10:13.520 The Lord is the one who grants the victory. Joshua, in this instance, he holds out, stretches

00:10:18.520 out his javelin, and I think implicitly in the text, we're meant to assume that he's doing

00:10:23.340 something not of his own accord, but something that God instructed him to do. He points his

00:10:27.980 javelin towards the city of Ai, and he holds it out until Ai is completely decimated and defeated.

00:10:34.040 And as he's stretching out his javelin, God is granting supernatural strength and victory to

00:10:39.800 Israel. It's kind of reminiscent of what happens in a battle with Moses, where Moses is holding up

00:10:45.740 both of his hands. And as he holds up his hands outstretched, Israel is granted victory. And if

00:10:51.980 he starts to droop his hands, they start to lose. He holds them up again. He's getting tired. And so

00:10:56.480 two men on either side are holding up his arms for him because as his arms are outstretched,

00:11:01.880 there's something supernatural going on where God is actually, he's aiding and giving strength

00:11:08.640 and ability and skill to Israel to overcome that particular battle. So the same kind of

00:11:15.600 thing is happening with AI. So Jericho's supernatural, the walls sink into the earth,

00:11:21.080 right? That's supernatural. The walls crumble, the earth swallows them up. AI, the javelin

00:11:25.860 outstretched, God gives strength to Israel. Now the third battle, this is unique in the sense that

00:11:30.840 This is the biggest battle that Israel has faced thus far on this side of the Jordan

00:11:35.220 River as they're driving out all the pagan peoples in the land of Canaan.

00:11:39.800 This is the most difficult battle because it's not just up against one tribe, but you

00:11:46.500 have five Amorite tribes that unite together, and they're actually not going after Israel

00:11:52.500 directly, but after Gibeon.

00:11:54.700 Gibeon was another Amorite tribe that made peace with Israel, and they did it under pretense.

00:11:59.440 they lied and said, oh, we're from a far distant land. And we've just heard of the power of Yahweh

00:12:05.500 and what he did to the Egyptians and what he did here and what he did there. And so we wanted to

00:12:10.120 enter into a covenant with Israel so that we would be at peace with you so that you would not destroy

00:12:15.480 us. Now they lied to Joshua and the chiefs of Israel, because if Joshua and the leaders of

00:12:21.480 Israel knew that Gibeon was a neighboring tribe actually in the land of Canaan, then they would

00:12:26.780 have known that Gibeon is one of the very tribes that God commissioned them to remove from the

00:12:32.780 land. And so, they would not have entered into a covenant. But again, this was under pretense,

00:12:37.860 under deception. And it's also Israel's fault, particularly Joshua's fault, because he did not

00:12:43.520 consult the Lord, is what the text says. He didn't consult the Lord. So, they made a vow,

00:12:48.480 a covenant rashly. Then they realized that, okay, well, this is actually a neighboring tribe. We

00:12:53.560 shouldn't have done this. However, we've already made a covenant and two wrongs don't make a right.

00:12:57.760 Even though we should not have entered into covenant with a neighboring tribe that lives

00:13:02.720 in this land that God is giving to us as an inheritance, it would be even worse for us to

00:13:08.480 break a covenant that we've made before the Lord than to let this tribe live. And so they let

00:13:14.640 Gibeon live. And it seems as though from the text, it's only a few days later, right? So it's not

00:13:19.660 years and years have passed. But pretty quickly after this covenant is made and Israel is now

00:13:24.960 aware that they were lied to, but choose to honor the covenant anyways, now five other Amorite kings

00:13:31.660 form an alliance to go and get Gibeon because Gibeon made a treaty with Israel. And so they're

00:13:37.560 like, Gibeon's a traitor. They sold out. We're going to take out Gibeon. Now Joshua and Israel,

00:13:41.900 they're saying, we're not going to kill you, Gibeon. We made a covenant. It's one thing to

00:13:45.480 say, we won't kill you. It's another, though, to say, we will actually come to your defense

00:13:49.720 and protect you from other guys who are trying to kill you. And yet that's precisely what Joshua

00:13:55.400 in Israel does. Gibeon sends word and says, five different Amorite tribes have formed an alliance

00:14:02.320 that are coming to destroy us. Quickly, please come to the aid of your servants. We're in a

00:14:07.300 covenant with you. And Joshua honors the covenant, not merely to the degree of not inflicting

00:14:13.500 destruction upon Gibeon, but actually coming to protect Gibeon from others that would seek to

00:14:19.120 destroy them, which is a remarkable thing. But from what we can tell, it seems like that was

00:14:23.520 the right decision and that the Lord honored it. So now you have Israel going to the aid of Gibeon

00:14:30.140 up against not just Jericho, one tribe, or Ai, one tribe, but five different united Amorite

00:14:36.660 tribes. And so again, there's this supernatural element with Jericho, the walls are swallowed up

00:14:41.640 into the earth with AI, the javelin is outstretched. And now we're going to see three

00:14:46.420 different supernatural signs. One of them, the third being the sun and the moon standing still

00:14:51.380 in the sky. But three different supernatural elements that God gives to Israel so that they

00:14:57.440 might overcome these five United Amorite tribes. All right, back to the text. So here we go. So

00:15:02.300 verse eight again, and the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear them for I have given them into your

00:15:06.980 hands, not a man of them shall stand before you. That's the five different tribes that are united

00:15:11.880 against Gibeon and Israel is coming to Gibeon's aid. Verse nine, so Joshua came upon them suddenly

00:15:18.100 having marched up all night from Gilgal and the Lord threw them into a panic before Israel. That's

00:15:24.780 number one. So the first, and this is supernatural, the first thing that God does, and we see this

00:15:29.220 multiple times throughout the scripture, but the first thing that God does supernaturally, this is

00:15:34.080 not just the normal nervous jitters that someone might have as they're about to go into war,

00:15:39.860 because anyone who goes into war is going at the risk of losing their own life. No, this is a

00:15:44.380 supernatural sense of dread, a spirit of fear and panic for the enemies of Israel. The Lord threw

00:15:52.120 them into a panic before Israel, who struck them. So now Israel is fighting their enemies, but their

00:15:58.040 enemies are supernaturally afraid. And so it gives Israel the upper hand. They strike them with a

00:16:03.640 great blow at Gibeon and chased them by the way of the ascent to Beth Horon and struck them as far

00:16:09.860 as Ezekiah and Makeda. Let's go ahead. Verse 11 now. Now, so picture this. Let's pause for a

00:16:16.300 second. Go ahead and leave the text up on the screen. But what you have going on is five Amorite

00:16:20.860 tribes united, going against Gibeon. Israel's coming to Gibeon's aid and God, boom, he strikes

00:16:27.020 these five Amorite tribes, every single one of the men with a supernatural terror and dread

00:16:32.360 right before Israel falls upon them so that Israel now is calm and collected and confident

00:16:38.260 and their opponents are in fear and panic.

00:16:42.380 And so Israel immediately already has the advantage and is beginning to slaughter the

00:16:47.380 enemy.

00:16:47.640 But now what we're supposed to be sensing at this point of the text is that Israel is winning

00:16:53.660 the battle and they're winning it handedly, but that many of these Amorite tribes, their

00:16:59.340 their fighting men are now retreating, going back to their fortified cities. And so here comes in

00:17:04.280 the Lord with the second supernatural element. The first is to throw them into a panic so that

00:17:09.020 Israel is killing them. But now all the ones that Israel is not killing, they're running away. But 0.98

00:17:14.980 God wants to be thorough here. Remember that some of these tribes have talked about it before, but

00:17:19.060 we know that the Nephilim were among them, that these aren't just evil people. That would be

00:17:24.820 bad enough in itself, pagan, idolatry, human sacrifice, the whole nine yards. God is judging

00:17:31.320 them through Israel, using Israel as his instrument of judgment. It's not just about giving Israel the

00:17:36.880 land. It's also about removing these pagan tribes who for 400 years, what God said to Abraham

00:17:42.740 previously for 400 years, were filling up the full measure of their iniquity so that God's

00:17:48.060 just judgment would be justified. And so these are bad people, but not just bad people. The

00:17:54.920 Nephilim are among them, or descendants of the Nephilim, men of renown, giants. So we have people

00:18:00.840 who, some of them at least, maybe not all, but some of them are descendants of these fallen angel

00:18:09.220 human hybrids, where the sons of God, fallen angels, watchers, they were thrown down from

00:18:16.000 heaven, inhabited the earth, saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and took them as wives and

00:18:21.480 created this hybrid offspring that's not even entirely human. And then down the line from the

00:18:26.640 Nephilim, first generation of these hybrid fallen angel, watcher, you know, half-human daughter of

00:18:32.320 men, from their descendants, that's where you get the Rephaim and different, you know, Nephilim

00:18:38.200 or Nephilim tribes that some of them were giants. And then there was a lot of intermarriage with

00:18:44.880 them because they wanted to keep their bloodline pure, this fallen angel bloodline. And so you get

00:18:49.980 giants, but you also get deformities, right? You may have heard of, you know, with Goliath and his

00:18:55.860 brothers, the sons of Anak, that they had six fingers and six toes. There's even stories,

00:19:03.440 and I can't collaborate this, but of Native Americans that they originated waving as a

00:19:10.160 gesture as you're coming close to someone, waving to say hello, that maybe part of that might have

00:19:15.480 been in order to show that you had five fingers and not more. Because there are rumors that some

00:19:21.480 of the Nephilim offspring, that when they were expelled out of the land of Canaan under Joshua,

00:19:28.880 you know, Moses in the wilderness and then Joshua in the land of Canaan, and then further expelled

00:19:34.320 with Israel, especially underneath David and his kingship, killing some of the last remnants like

00:19:40.140 Goliath and his brothers. There were still giants, Nephilim descendants. But some have said that

00:19:46.100 some of them were able to get to the Americas somehow. We don't know if maybe there was

00:19:52.620 actually a land passage at that time. We know that the world has changed drastically,

00:19:58.480 certainly since the days of Noah before the flood, but even after the flood. And so there are some

00:20:04.400 reports and testimonies of people finding giant bones in places like Kentucky or places like

00:20:11.160 even Texas, places in the United States. And these giants were smaller, you know, maybe eight, nine,

00:20:17.200 10 feet. In some cases, there are some reports of larger giants. So you see that bloodline already

00:20:22.600 being diluted. But all that being said, my point is that the Canaanite tribes that Israel is facing,

00:20:29.300 they're not just bad people. And hear me, if they were only merely bad pagan people who filled up

00:20:36.520 the fullness of their iniquity over 400 years of human sacrifice and worshiping idols, that would

00:20:41.940 be plenty sufficient for God to use Israel as his instrument to judge every single one of them.

00:20:48.860 In addition, though, that would be enough. But in addition, you have bad people and then you have

00:20:54.220 bad kind of people, meaning they're not entirely human, that they have some sense of this fallen

00:21:01.860 angel watcher blood in their DNA. They are wicked, heinous, giant people that are out for blood, 0.96

00:21:11.360 that are violent. And so this is what's happening. And God's supernatural power is necessary in order 0.97

00:21:18.360 for Israel to win. So in the first instance, God throws them into the enemies of Israel into a

00:21:24.480 supernatural panic. Israel gets the upper hand, but now some of them are running away. If they

00:21:28.460 can successfully retreat all the way back to their fortified cities, then they can regroup

00:21:33.120 and they would be very difficult for Israel to siege, or they could mount a counter-attack in

00:21:41.120 the coming months or coming years. But again, the name of the game is thoroughness, and this is God

00:21:46.700 judging these pagan tribes for their evil, malice, and idolatry. And it's also God wiping out these

00:21:54.900 perverse, corrupt bloodlines of people that descended from fallen angels marrying the 0.63

00:22:01.520 daughters of men. There's all of these different supernatural elements going on. So it's not

00:22:06.020 enough for God just to give Israel the victory by throwing their opponents into a panic so that

00:22:12.340 Israel can win in the moment. No, God wants every single one of these Amorite tribes, these fighting

00:22:19.580 men from the Amorites, the wicked pagans, to be taken out. So it's not just Israel being given

00:22:25.340 the power by God supernaturally to win the battle while some of them get away. God wants to follow

00:22:30.580 through. He wants all of them to be put to death. So now we're ready for verse 11. As they fled before 1.00

00:22:36.280 Israel. While they were going down the ascent to Beth Haran, the Lord threw down large stones from

00:22:42.840 heaven on them as far as Ezekiah, and they died. There were actually, there were more who died

00:22:50.380 because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed by the sword, with the sword. So God

00:22:57.420 actually supernaturally kills more of these Amorite soldiers by the hailstones, the ones that

00:23:03.700 running away from Israel, then Israel even killed by the sword, which just goes to support my

00:23:08.340 previous point. If it was only Israel and the sword, then more of them actually would have

00:23:13.540 gotten away than Israel put to death. And there would be a future battle that Israel would have

00:23:17.540 to have later on because they would have killed the minority of the fighting men, the majority

00:23:22.800 having gotten away to their fortified cities, regrouping and being able to mount a counter

00:23:27.840 attack later on. But God is getting it done. He's getting it done thoroughly because these are

00:23:32.780 wicked, idolatrous, pagan people. And at least with some of them, the Nephilim being among them 0.68

00:23:38.600 is what Numbers says. These are not just pagan people, but these are hybrid, demonic, fallen

00:23:45.400 angel people, or at least the descendants of them. So God begins to wipe out those who are running

00:23:51.460 with hailstones and those who didn't run. Israel is wiping out with the sword. And the reason why

00:23:57.860 Israel has the upper hand is because of the first instance of supernatural power from the Lord.

00:24:01.900 he throws them into a panic. So the first thing, God throws them into a panic. The second thing,

00:24:06.840 he rains down hailstones and kills more than Israel can even kill with a sword. Now the third 0.69

00:24:12.760 and final supernatural element of this battle, verse 12, it says, at that time, Joshua spoke to

00:24:18.680 the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel. And he said in the

00:24:24.560 sight of Israel, sun stands still at Gibeon and moon in the valley of Ajalon. Let's go ahead and

00:24:31.840 continue. And the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on their

00:24:37.800 enemies. So again, think of this. Here's the theme. It's the thoroughness. It's not just

00:24:43.620 Israel needs to win, right? The goal is not just winning the battle. The goal is wiping out and

00:24:50.200 destroying entirely these pagan, wicked people because God is just and Israel is his designated 0.99

00:24:57.380 instrument in this moment to bring his just judgment on people who for centuries have been 0.99

00:25:04.440 doing wicked, heinous, idolatrous things. So God gives Israel the upper hand by throwing them into

00:25:10.380 a panic. That would be enough for Israel to win the battle, but not necessarily enough to thoroughly

00:25:15.460 wipe them all out. So God makes sure that the ones who are running away, they get crushed by giant

00:25:20.620 hailstones being thrown down from the heavens. And God supernaturally lengthens the day,

00:25:27.120 the hours of the day literally lengthen so that Israel can do more warfare, more killing with a

00:25:34.040 sword, and God can kill more with hailstones. That's the theme that we're seeing go on. It's

00:25:38.620 not just that God is committed to ensuring that Israel is protected, that the Israelites don't

00:25:45.780 die themselves and that they win the battle. No, God is ensuring that not just that Israel wins

00:25:52.520 and that Israel is sustained and protected, but that all these Amorite tribes are dead, 0.70

00:25:59.840 every single one of them. And how does he do that? Well, the ones that Israel missed,

00:26:03.920 the ones that are running away, hailstones. And not only that, he lengthens the day,

00:26:09.280 literally grants the request of Joshua to cause the sun and the moon to stand still

00:26:13.560 so that the day is lengthened. All right. The text continues. It says,

00:26:18.360 is this not written in the book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not

00:26:23.260 hurry to set for about a whole day. There has been no day like it before or after or since

00:26:31.260 when the Lord heeded the voice of a man for the Lord fought for Israel. So Joshua returned and

00:26:36.920 all Israel with him to the camp at Gilgal. Again, that was Joshua chapter 10, verse eight through

00:26:42.500 15. Here's the final thing that I want us to see, and we're going to talk about this flat earth

00:26:46.860 theory. The final thing that I want us to see is this. The Bible says in Joshua 10 verse 14,

00:26:52.940 there has never been a day like it before or since. Meaning after this day, when the sun and

00:26:59.720 the moon stood still in the sky and the day was literally lengthened in its time and hours,

00:27:04.920 there has never been a day since then that has been longer than 24 hours. And likewise,

00:27:10.460 verse 14 says, there has been no day like it before or since. So has there only not been a day

00:27:18.820 longer than 24 hours since this day? But the text says also before this day, which means this and

00:27:26.840 plenty of other biblical texts, but it's worth mentioning here that the six days that God created

00:27:32.500 the heavens and earth were days. They were not thousand year long days. There has never been a

00:27:38.440 day before or after this, that the sun and the moon stayed still in the sky and the literal hours

00:27:46.540 of the day were elongated and lengthened. Every day since this day has been 24 hours, a normal day.

00:27:54.200 And according to verse 14, every day before this day, which would include the first six days of

00:28:00.600 worldly history of the earth's existence, those first six days where God created the heavens and

00:28:07.800 the earth were literal 24-hour days. Every day before this day with Joshua and every day after

00:28:15.120 has been a day. Now, how did God do this? I mean, he's God. He can do whatever he wants.

00:28:23.880 But I will admit that from a flat earth perspective, the idea of the sun and the moon

00:28:29.440 standing still in the sky, that's really easy for most of church history until fairly recently,

00:28:36.380 the last few centuries, for them to answer that question. If anybody said, you know, well, how did

00:28:40.900 God supernaturally cause, you know, the day to be lengthened and the sun to stop and the moon to

00:28:47.460 stop in the sky? Well, he just caused the sun and the moon to stop. But from our perspective,

00:28:52.920 with the earth being a sphere and rotating on its axis, we know that in order for this to be

00:28:58.720 accomplished in a physical sense, it wouldn't be that the sun and the moon stopped, or certainly

00:29:04.900 not the sun, but if the earth is rotating around the sun, and it's also rotating on its own axis,

00:29:11.120 for the sun to stand still is not for God to cause the sun to stop, but to cause the earth

00:29:16.920 in its rotation to stop. And if God caused the earth in its rotation to stop, to stop spinning,

00:29:23.240 wouldn't that upset the entire environment of the earth? Wouldn't we fly off the surface of

00:29:28.420 the earth, wouldn't that kill all of creation? Right? But again, for a flat earther, you know,

00:29:35.260 they say, well, you know how God did this, Joel? The earth is flat. It's not revolving around the

00:29:40.880 sun. The sun and the moon, God just calls them to stop in the sky. Pretty easy answer. Just saying.

00:29:48.060 Now, I'll get a little bit more into this whole flat earth thing. Again, it's not my purview. It's

00:29:53.440 not the position that I hold. But I want to say something that I think is important for us to

00:29:59.660 understand for those who do hold to this view, because a lot of times people give them, you know,

00:30:05.100 they give them grief. And I think that that's wrong. So we're going to deal with that when we

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00:33:15.000 So the last thing I want to say is this, theistic evolution. I believe that theistic evolution is

00:33:22.540 a heresy i do the reason why is because it doesn't just tamper with our idea of creation the way that

00:33:29.080 god made the heavens and the earth but it actually disrupts and dismantles the gospel of jesus christ

00:33:36.160 the bible is very clear in romans chapter 5 that sin entered the world by one man and through sin

00:33:44.080 death. And so too, by one man, namely the second and final Adam, Jesus Christ, by his obedience

00:33:53.260 comes life. But theistic evolution teaches that death did not come into the world through sin,

00:34:02.040 the sin of man, but death actually came into the world by God's order and design before sin or even

00:34:10.500 man, the creation of man for that instance, before any of that even came about. See, evolution

00:34:17.960 essentially teaches this. It teaches many things, but in a nutshell, what we should understand from

00:34:22.620 a biblical worldview is this, that you have Adam and Eve happy and healthy, but they're standing

00:34:29.420 on top of a pile of billions and billions of skulls. That's the whole idea of evolution.

00:34:37.620 the idea of evolution is that anything that is made anything that comes about comes about as

00:34:44.240 the product of a bunch of other things before that thing dying living dying living dying out

00:34:50.960 of the primordial soup come these little fish slash tadpoles slash you know frogs that turn

00:34:56.700 into lizards that turn into squirrels that turn into this that turn into that you know all the

00:35:01.780 way down and they die and they die and they die. And it's not just a pair of them. It's millions

00:35:07.640 and millions and millions. It's all these different species, but millions of each of those species

00:35:13.800 leading up to Homo erectus and all these pre-man biped, you know, pseudo type, you know, human

00:35:20.420 beings that eventually lend towards Homo sapiens, Adam and Eve. And Adam and Eve are there in the

00:35:26.820 garden. They're smiling, they're happy and God's walking with them in the cool of the day. But

00:35:31.400 underneath their feet, buried just a little bit under the ground, is a mountain of skulls. Death,

00:35:37.560 the Bible teaches, death is the result of sin. Death is the result of sin. And that's why Jesus,

00:35:46.060 through his obedience, by his perfect righteousness and obedience, he is the only one who can grant

00:35:52.660 to us, by grace alone, through faith alone, in him alone, eternal life. Jesus is the one who

00:35:58.420 conquers death. The last Adam, he conquers death. And the first Adam introduces death by his sin.

00:36:06.160 God is not the author or the originator of death. Now, here's my point. My point is that I would

00:36:14.620 much rather you believe that the world is flat and look at a text like Joshua chapter 10 verses

00:36:22.160 8 through 15 and say, oh, I know how God did this. The sun goes around the world and the moon goes

00:36:30.300 around the world. And the world itself is like a basin, like a bowl concave. God's holding it up

00:36:38.740 and there are waters under the earth and a canopy of water above the earth. And the earth is sitting

00:36:44.120 there flat in the center of the universe. God's masterpiece is magnum opus and everything else

00:36:51.120 is revolving around that. And on this particular day in Joshua 10, verses 8-15, God calls these

00:36:58.620 things that are in the heavens, these stars, these planets that are orbiting the earth and

00:37:05.760 going around the earth, he calls them to stop in the sky. If you believe that, then I'll see you

00:37:12.480 in heaven. If you believe that, plus you also believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and your faith

00:37:17.940 is in him, then I will see you in heaven, along with pretty much every other Christian until,

00:37:23.980 again, a few hundred years ago. You can believe that and be a faithful Christian. I'll tell you

00:37:30.760 what you can't believe. You can't believe evolution. And yet, you know, we'll mock somebody

00:37:37.940 who thinks that the earth is flat, but we get real sophisticated, real intellectual,

00:37:44.660 and carve out safe spaces, these spiritual doctrinal safe spaces, to make room for pagans

00:37:56.280 who hate the Word of God, who believe that it wasn't six literal days. They don't believe in

00:38:03.640 a young earth. They believe that the earth is billions of years old, or at least millions of

00:38:08.440 years old, and that God, you know, if there is a God, he made everything not by his power and not

00:38:14.960 as the author of life, but he made it through his chief scalpel, his chief instrument in creating

00:38:20.280 anything, which is death. If you believe that, if you believe that death was originated and authored

00:38:28.640 by God, and that millions, if not billions of species, including very human-like species,

00:38:36.020 missing link type species, were all put to death by God and his plan to eventually bring about

00:38:43.680 Homo sapiens, human beings, as we know them today. If that is your view, you cannot hold that

00:38:51.780 and reconcile it with texts like Romans 5 and the gospel of Jesus Christ. So, again,

00:39:00.360 if you believe the world is flat and that the sun is rotating around the world and that God,

00:39:05.120 on this particular day with Joshua calls the sun and the moon to stand still in the sky, great.

00:39:11.260 If you're looking for a church with a pastor who's going to welcome you and say, hey, I'm glad you're

00:39:15.180 here, brother, and I'm glad that you love the Word of God, then come check out Covenant Bible Church

00:39:19.940 where I pastor in Central Texas, Georgetown, Texas. You'll feel right at home. But if you're

00:39:26.400 going to be sophisticated. And you're going to, you know, you're going to be too smart for the

00:39:35.100 word of God. My point is that is a much bigger problem. That's a much bigger problem. You can

00:39:43.080 defend a flat earth from scripture. I think personally, you can also defend the world as

00:39:49.080 many people, modern people know it today. I personally believe that the earth is a sphere.

00:39:52.900 I believe that it's rotating. And my answer, well, then how did God make this happen? Well,

00:39:56.700 my answer, how did God make anything happen? He's God. I know that may not be an answer that

00:40:01.300 satisfies you, but that's the kindergarten answer in your Sunday school class. What's the answer

00:40:07.080 to this question? Jesus. Jesus is always the answer. That's my answer. My answer is that if

00:40:12.280 God could create everything out of nothing, ex nihilo, then I think he could cause the earth

00:40:20.100 to stop rotating in such a way that the day was lengthened while at the same time simultaneously

00:40:26.800 making sure that every person and animal didn't fly off the face of the earth. So that I hold to

00:40:33.080 that the earth is a sphere that is rotating on its axis. I believe that those things are true.

00:40:38.080 I certainly don't believe everything that our modern day scientists would posit, but I do

00:40:43.320 believe that. But if you don't believe that and you think the earth is flat, well, then again,

00:40:48.480 you're in good company. Plenty of Christians have believed that, and that doesn't contradict

00:40:53.200 the Scripture. It does not contradict the Gospel. What you can't believe is the hogwash

00:41:00.280 that scientists, modern-day God-hating scientists, Scripture-hating scientists,

00:41:05.400 try to shove down our throats today, and not just our throats, but the throats of children

00:41:09.820 in public schools, state-run, God-hating public schools. And to be completely honest, again,

00:41:16.320 And I guess I'm just, you know, this is the episode where I stand up for flat earthers, but flat earth makes way more sense, way more sense than people coming from fish. 0.99

00:41:28.100 So if we're going to poke fun at someone for being stupid, find somebody who believes in evolution, right? 0.98

00:41:33.920 I mean, that's what April 1st is all about. 1.00

00:41:35.720 April Fool's Day, the Proverbs say, the fool says in his heart, there is no God, right? 0.93

00:41:39.880 Who says there is no God? 0.99

00:41:40.940 An atheist.

00:41:41.360 So April 1st, April Fool's Day, that's National Atheist Day.

00:41:46.320 All right. Thanks for tuned in.

The NXR Podcast - August 25, 2023

BONUS EPISODE - Is The Earth Flat？

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