Best of the Program | Guests: Max Lucado & Skip Moen | 10/5/23
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Listen and follow along
Transcript
Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless.
And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should.
One, it's $15 a month.
Two, seriously, it's $15 a month.
Three, no big contracts.
Four, I use it.
Five, my mom uses it.
Are you playing me off?
That's what's happening, right?
Okay.
Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.
Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, $15 per month equivalent required.
New customer offer first three months only.
Then full price plan options available.
Taxes and fees extra.
See Mintmobile.com.
Today is an amazing show.
I learned a ton today.
This is the first in the next 40 days that we are preparing for the covenant.
If you don't know what that is, it is something right out of American history and the Bible as well.
But our pilgrims made a covenant with God, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln.
And we are dangerously close to, well, cutting our hair.
You will understand that if you listen to today's podcast.
You'll learn things.
I mean,
I was blown away and I thought I knew things with the guests that were coming on the show.
It is fantastic.
Don't miss a second of it.
Brought to you by Relief Factor.
When somebody tries to explain what it's like to live in pain to somebody who doesn't live in pain,
it's not very comforting because you know they can't understand.
I understand.
I lived in pain for quite a while and almost gave up.
My wife said, try Relief Factor.
I'm like, it's not going to work.
It reduces inflammation.
I think that's hogwash because ibuprofen never works for me.
And she said, just try it.
I did.
Tried it for three weeks.
I was stubborn and I'm like, I don't think it's making any difference.
And then I stopped taking it.
And I'm like, okay, this makes a difference.
And I can paint.
I can play the piano.
I mean, it's amazing what I can do with my hands again thanks to Relief Factor.
Please try it for three weeks.
Give it a shot.
70% of the people who order Relief Factor and the trial pack go on to order more month after month.
Get the 1995 three-week quick start.
ReliefFactor.com, ReliefFactor.com, or call 800 the number for relief.
ReliefFactor.com.
Feel the difference.
You're listening to the best of the Blendback Program.
You and I are an awful lot alike.
We both worry about a future when we all feel like we have nothing to rely on.
We don't know where to turn because nothing is real.
Nothing is solid.
Hey,
what are you doing with your money?
You know, I saw the stock market's going down.
Bitcoin's going down.
Where are you putting your money?
I don't know.
You know, gold's a pretty good idea.
Yeah, really?
Is it?
Because I think I read some places.
The deeper you bury it, the more it'll slip through your fingers.
I mean,
I have no idea what tomorrow is going to bring.
Everything that I thought was solid is now liquid.
When our money, our food, our government, our culture has let us all down, what then?
The only reason that I'm not in a ditch somewhere or in total despair is because of two things.
My wife, who taught me about God.
And I know that God isn't going to let me down.
And I need that.
And it's not that he, it's not like, you know, Glenn, now, you know, you'd say you're a Christian, so now everything's going to be good.
It's not like that at all.
I need to know that God is there.
But when things go poorly, and I'm like, hey, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, and everything is like all of a sudden like a black abyss.
You're like, wait a minute.
I'm a Christian.
Remember, I'm a Christian.
That doesn't work that way.
When you really become mature in your faith, you know when things go poorly, it's not that just this too will pass.
I shut up with that.
I hurt.
But what gives you hope is that you know even the worst stuff that you've done or experienced is going to be used in miraculous ways.
You just got to get out of the way because,
Glenn, it ain't all about you.
And I hate that.
It's about
eternal truths.
A guy who has been up and down and down at his highest point, Max Lucato, is with us.
Hello, Max.
How are you?
Man, you can keep talking all day, Glenn.
I wanted to shout amen a few times, but I didn't know if I would interrupt you.
You're right on target, my friend.
It is.
Thank you.
How do we convince people who have not experienced, because I know you have, Max.
You've experienced the
reassurance, the knowingness
that God's got you either way.
And no matter what happens, it's like I can look at death and somebody dying and go, not that, you know, the normal, oh, well, they're in a better place.
I know that.
But actually having faith, I'm going to see them again, it's all going to be good.
How do you teach that?
Yeah, and it needs to be taught because we're living in a day of despair.
Did you know the suicide rate in America has increased 24%
since 1999?
You know, if a disease saw a 24% spike, we would call it an epidemic.
Yes, we would.
So how do we explain the increase?
I mean, we've never been more educated.
We have tools of technology our parents would only dream of.
We're saturated with entertainment and recreation.
And yet more people are orchestrating their own deaths than ever.
And I think the the answer is people are dying for lack of hope.
You know, secularism just sucks the hope out of the heart.
The idea that there is no God or if there is a God, he's distant, that secularistic viewpoint or worldview reduces the world to just a few decades on earth, just that dash between the dates on the gravestone.
And people believe that this world is as good as it get.
And let's face it, it's not that good.
But people of the promise, people who begin to build their lives on the promises of God, have a huge advantage.
And that is when problems surface, they can be heard telling themselves, but I read something in the scripture, or but God told me, or but I know that God got me through this before.
They make a deliberate choice to build their lives on the promises of God, not the circumstances of life.
And as a result, they have a leg up.
They have an advantage.
They have an inside track
because they lift up their eyes and they get hope, find hope outside of this world.
So I'm all over what you're saying, Ben.
Thank you so much for saying it.
So, you know, I just remembered Ben Sherwood is a friend of mine.
He used to be a producer at ABC, and that's when I got to know him.
And then he eventually ended up being the head of ABC for a while, or ABC Disney, I think.
And he wrote a book called The Survivors Club.
And what he found in this, and he wasn't taking it from a
spiritual point of view when he started the book.
He wasn't looking for something.
He wanted to know, what do all survivors have in common?
And he found survivors have hope in God.
And if they have that hope, no matter how bad it gets, they survive when most don't.
Absolutely.
That narrows it down right there.
And one of the great discoveries that people who attempt to find faith discover is that we have a God who makes promises and who keeps promises.
And understanding
how our God is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God
is
just such a source of strength.
I read one person who spent a year and a half attempting to tally up the number of promises that God made to humanity.
His list, 7,487 promises.
Promises about fear, promises about sin, promises about death, promises about
provision, just every single area of life.
God has spoken a promise.
He's spoken a promise.
So
give us some examples of promises that he has kept.
Yes, sir, absolutely.
When he created the earth,
he said, and God said, Genesis chapter 1 says, and God said, and God said, and God said, and every time God said something, something happened.
So when God speaks, that is a decree.
It's not a desire.
It's a decree.
And because our God keeps his promises, the fact of the matter is
his promises are
irrevocable because he's unchanging.
He's not victimized by moods or weather.
He's faithful.
He's strong.
He never over-promises and under-delivers.
Romans 4, 21 says, God is able to do whatever he promises.
Hebrews 6.18 says it's impossible for God to lie.
Doesn't say it's unlikely that God will lie or improbable, but it is impossible.
He cannot lie.
A rock cannot swim.
A hippo cannot fly.
A butterfly cannot eat a bowl of spaghetti.
I can't sleep on the cloud, and God cannot lie.
So he never exaggerates.
He never manipulates.
He never flatters.
He just doesn't break promises.
And we're seeing promise.
I know you gave a speech for
one for Israel ministries, and you said, promises God made to Israel thousands of years ago are being fulfilled in our generation.
Most people are not, that's not making news.
Give us an example of the promises there that are coming true.
Exactly.
Well, God promised Abraham
seed and soil.
He said, through your seed or through your lineage, the entire world would be blessed.
And boy, is that not a promise that's been kept?
Yes.
I mean, look, we have the Bible.
We have the church.
We have Jesus Christ.
I think we have much reason from the Jews as well, the way they study and debate and wrestle.
And I think that's
what stands out.
And look at all the Nobel Prize winners that are Jewish.
Yeah.
It's just the most extraordinary nation in history.
And they're the only nation who has had their land taken from them and then returned to them.
And that's the second part of that promise, and that is soil.
God promised Abraham a region, a territory.
And in 1948, when they were reinstated or when they were regathered to their homeland, I think we saw one of the greatest miracles in all of history.
And for centuries, theologians would read those promises and say, well, God can't keep that one.
In fact, I think one of the reasons that
anti-Semitism got
so much fuel in the fire is because people thought, well, God made a promise to the Jews and he's not going to keep it.
But then in 1948, he kept it.
It's just extraordinary.
It's a super sign that God keeps his promises and he'll continue to keep those promises.
So I'm starting today a 40-day devotional series that will teach biblical covenants that
I think it's the only way to combat total despair and also to restore our nation.
We have to turn
towards that.
Yes, sir.
Any thought on explaining a covenant and
how it can be uniquely used to hold our country together?
Well, God makes unilateral and bilateral covenants.
He made a unilateral covenant with Abraham, the one that we just spoke.
He made a bilateral covenant with Adam and Eve, and they broke it.
You know, he said, you can have all of this creation, all of this paradise, just don't eat from that one tree.
And that was an agreement.
You know, their lives and all of human history would have been different had they honored that covenant.
And so it is with us today.
God makes covenants with us.
He talks to us about the value of life, about respecting one another.
And these are conditional covenants.
And if we break those covenants, if we violate, then there's consequences.
Not that he doesn't love us, but he is a good father.
And the good father says,
here's the path you should walk.
And if you get off of it, it's not going to be pleasant.
Right.
Not as a punishment, but as a natural consequence.
A natural consequence.
And what you're urging us to do is go back to these basic covenants.
And
when we do, and if we do, if we repent and turn and turn back to God, then we can expect blessings.
But if we continue to isolate God or shove God out, there will be burdens.
It's really just that simple.
Max, my friend.
I would be remiss if I didn't say hello from my sister.
You are just a giant in her spiritual life and
mine as well.
And I just love you so much.
Thank you, Max.
Thank you, my friend.
I appreciate it.
And go get them.
You're doing the right thing.
Max Lucato, he has got a new book out, God Never Gives Up on You.
And he also has his free online Bible study starting October 23rd.
You can find everything at maxlucato.com.
That's maxlucado.com.
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
America has always
fought itself.
Are we from Jamestown?
Are are we the pilgrims?
Are we from
those people that came here from religious persecution or those who came and persecuted people by taking them from Africa or persecuting people here?
That has been the great debate.
I choose to follow the pilgrims path.
Let me take you back to 1630.
It's a group of families.
They just finished making a compact or covenant.
They're aboard the ship named the Arabella.
This is the future Massachusetts Bay Colony.
It's right in the distance.
And John Winthrop delivers a speech that everybody used to know.
He said, Thus stands the cause between God and us.
We are entered into a covenant with Him for this work.
We've taken out a commission.
The Lord has given us leave to draw our own articles, to make our own promises, to make our own laws.
Now, if the Lord shall please to hear us and bring us in peace to the place we desire,
then he has ratified this covenant and sealed our commission.
Now think of that.
The survival rate of people coming to the Americas was very, very low.
He's saying, we are making this covenant, and if the Lord will hear us and bring us peace so we can just live, then he's ratified his side of the bargain, and he will expect a strict performance of the articles and promises contained in it.
But
if we shall neglect the observation of these articles and promises and we dissemble with our God,
fall into embrace this present world
and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us and be revenged of such people and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.
The price of the breach of such a covenant.
I know you didn't make a covenant, maybe didn't know, but this is a covenant land,
and we are deep in the breach.
I have Bill Cloud with me, and Bill
is a Bible scholar, he is a teacher, an author.
Take me to Samson.
and the covenant with Samson and why that's important to us.
Well,
before he was born, and this is kind of addressing a point that you just made, before he was born, his mother was visited by an angel.
The Lord said, You're going to have a child.
And here's his purpose.
He's going to begin to deliver Israel from the oppression of their enemies.
And so the very reason for Samson's existence was to bring relief to oppression.
And he was to be born a Nazarite,
which is a very, there's some very specific
components of that vow that
a Nazarite would make.
But the point here at the beginning is his reason for existence was to deliver the people, to bring relief from oppression.
And he was born into it.
He didn't ask to be a Nazarite.
He didn't ask for that.
It was something that was decided for him.
him.
What is a Nazarite?
What did you have to, how did you have to live if you were going to be a Nazarite?
Well, if you're a Nazarite, you're consecrated.
You're set apart.
You're kind of above and beyond the rest in terms of your relationship with God and what he requires of you.
And you couldn't, for instance, you couldn't drink wine.
You couldn't partake of anything pertaining to the grave.
You couldn't touch a dead body.
A corpse should be rendered unclean.
Of course, a Nazarite also could not cut their hair.
And that's what probably most people associate with Samson, is his strength and the story of Delilah and the hair and everything.
But he was expected to live up to the vows of the Nazarite.
Of course, there's a lot of examples in the Bible where he wasn't always that good at it.
He consorted with all these strange women.
He's touching dead lions and all these kinds of things.
And yet, God's spirit would come upon him, use him to bring deliverance.
However,
there was a point where he crossed a line, and that's when he allowed Delilah to cut his hair.
And how does that relate to us?
The hair of a Nazarite was considered sacred.
In fact,
in a normal
circumstance, if a Nazarite completed a vow, he would cut his hair and that hair would be burned on the altar.
It couldn't be used for anything common because it was considered holy.
The word in Hebrew that describes his hair is the same word that describes the crown of the high priest of Israel, the crown that said holy unto the Lord.
Same word.
So imagine a scenario where the high priest of Israel, who is to be the mediator between God and his people, and he's to represent what is set apart in the holy, if he were to take that crown and then throw it before pagans and idolaters and let them desecrate it and trample it under feet, in essence, that's what Samson did when he allowed
Delilah to cut his hair.
So my point would be this, where Samson's concern, relating it to America.
There's no doubt in my mind that God raised this nation up for a reason, for a purpose, and I believe it was to bring relief from oppression.
You know, those people you were just talking about came to this nation to be delivered, to be free from that oppression, and to found a nation that would represent that relief from oppression.
And Winthrop said, if God does this and he allows us to do that, then we will take that as evidence that he has ratified this covenant.
But he has expectations.
And we have not always lived up to those expectations.
We have failed many times.
And yet, we still stand reasonably strong.
But here is where I believe we are at.
We're at the risk of taking what is sacred,
desecrating it, saying it is, you know, of no regard to us, and casting it down, so to speak, speak, to be trampled underfoot by people who have no regard for God and the covenant and these kinds of things.
And if we ever get to that place, if we cross that line, then what?
When Samson woke up, he thought he would just go out like he'd always done, but he didn't realize that the Spirit of God had departed from him, and then he was turned over to his enemies.
So hang on just a second.
So, Bill, he had, because he had violated many things and he still kept going.
And that's kind of like us.
We violated many things, we just kept going.
But then that last straw, the sacredness of who he was, that representation,
when he discarded it, cut it and discarded it, that's when it wasn't all of a sudden.
He just didn't notice it.
It wasn't because of one thing.
It was many, but this was the last straw.
So if I understand your parallel correctly, at least this is the way I'm interpreting it.
So I don't know.
But I feel like what is sacred is our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and
our place in the world.
And I don't mean that we're supposed to dominate everybody.
We're supposed to be a place of refuge
and
law and order based on the
Judeo-Christian principles that we were founded on.
And we're
right?
So as we are saying, this country is nothing but garbage,
we are cutting our hair.
I would agree.
I mean, those documents you mentioned, they were based on those principles that we find in the Bible.
I mean, Winthrop went on to say in that model of Christian charity, that if we don't keep our end of the bargain, to paraphrase, that we will become a byword and a parable.
And he's quoting Moses, who is saying to Israel, if you don't uphold your end of the bargain in this covenant with God, here's what's going to happen.
You're going to be turned over to your enemies because
you considered what was sacred to be
less than, you desired other things.
You desired your flesh and your whims and whatever it is you wanted.
You turned to those things and you cast what was sacred to the ground.
So yes, I believe that if we're not already doing it,
our head is going down into Delilah's lap, so to speak.
Okay.
Hang on just a sec, Bill.
I want to do one more segment with you as we talk about the meaning of the covenant.
And, you know, I know there be people that don't agree with this.
This is not religion.
It is scriptural, but it's not anybody's faith per se.
It's not doctrinal.
It is universal and eternal.
And we're supposed to take the scriptures and learn from them and see the patterns and i think that was a pretty eye-opening pattern at least for me that now
is the time we are running out of time and if you want to save our country then we need to change our ways immediately and do not
no
We need to stand
for those things that are sacred,
Not just fight against those things that are evil, but stand for those things that are sacred.
This has got to be about
action.
It has to be about how you live your life and what are you willing to say.
What are you willing?
Are you willing to stand up for these things?
Because if we don't, we cut our hair.
You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
Skip Mowen is here.
Hi, Skip.
How are you, Glenn?
It's a great honor to be on your program.
Oh, I was quite surprised that anyone would even ask, but thank you so much.
Oh, my gosh.
No, you're, I mean, you're
teaching just on the mistranslation of the Beatitudes is some of the best stuff I've ever seen.
So, thank you so much.
You're welcome.
So, let's go there.
Okay.
So, the Beatitudes, they're blessings.
You know, if we do these spiritual things, we're going to be blessed and get some reward.
Blessed are the poor, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
You say, uh-uh.
Yes.
No, no.
The problem is, of course, that our idea of Beatitudes comes from the Latin translation, which makes it sound like a blessing.
But in both Greek and in Hebrew, the more proper translation would be be lucky.
And of course, the Christian world, Christian publishers don't like the idea of luck in a religion.
Right.
So they don't use that.
But both Makarioi, which is the Greek term, and Ashrei, which is the Hebrew term, are all about how lucky you are when these things happen to you.
It has nothing to do with you getting something.
It's just a description.
of what it is like when you live these kinds of experiences.
And of course, every one of us can identify with some of this experience because it's all, as I say in my book, sacred paradoxes, things that are upside down, that seem like the exact opposite of what they should be.
And God uses all of those to move us in his direction.
So tell me about the word lucky here.
I just want to dwell on this for a second.
Because I used to say, oh, I'm so lucky.
And I believe we, I was in a conversation with this, with some bunch of people just the other day.
You know how lucky we are to live at these times?
Because we get to see who we really can be because our back is up against the wall.
So we're lucky to live at this time.
That's different than I'm blessed.
And I now say I'm blessed or I'm lucky, and I mean two different things.
Tell me,
is there a difference like that in these translations from Hebrew?
Or
go ahead.
Yes, actually,
Hebrew is a very tactile, earthy kind of language.
It's about the land.
It's about the people.
It's about the dirt.
It's about all the things that come into life and ordinary living.
So luck plays a big part of that because good things happen and you think, oh my gosh, how lucky, how blessed I am to be
alive during this time.
When the rain comes, it's a blessing.
It's also lucky, by the way, because it means that I'll have crops.
So in that sense luck and blessing are pretty much the same but that's not what happened when the translation started changing the concept of this Greek and Hebrew idea by the time you get to the Vulgate the Latin translation you move in the direction of a blessing given by someone else So as I suggest in my book, there might be an ecclesiastical reason for this because
in ancient times, you had to go to the priest to get a blessing.
And the idea is that he would bless you for some spiritual
exercise or some attitude that you had, and you would be rewarded for that.
So now you become dependent upon the religious aristocracy to give you the blessing that you need in order to survive.
But that's not what the biblical text is all about.
The biblical text is about how lucky you are when these really terrible things happen to you.
Okay, so wait.
Let me just take one:
Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
There's no priest there that is blessing you
there, the poor.
And
what's the real translation is that?
Okay, so
the Greek term starts with this predicate adjective, makarios, which we've translated as blessed, as though it's a verb, but it's not a verb.
It's just a description of the character of a person who is, in this case, poor before God.
Now, the interesting thing about that word is that there are multiple definitions for, or multiple terms in Greek and Hebrew for what poor means.
And in this case, it means destitute.
So it's not the day laborer.
It's not the guy who lives from paycheck to paycheck.
The idea is that the poor here is someone who's so, he's the beggar.
He's the one who's laying in the street.
He's so, so destitute that unless somebody comes and helps him, he's going to die.
So
now what Jesus is saying is how lucky you are to be completely destitute,
which seems completely backwards.
But then he goes on to say the paradox is that when you're that desperate for God,
God shows up.
The kingdom of God arrives.
He basically says the reason that the kingdom of God even shows up in life is because people are are desperate for God.
If you're not desperate, you're not going to see the kingdom.
So your comment about the world is on fire is the perfect time for us to say, wait a minute, everything is falling apart.
We're in desperate situations, desperate straits.
Now is the time when we should be looking for the kingdom because that's when God arrives, when people are desperate for him.
When we don't need God, Yeah, it's like Keschel says, we put him in exile and then we think, oh, we can survive without him.
But in fact, what actually happens is that the world starts to collapse as it is, and it's done many times before.
And that's when desperation takes over and that's when God starts looking to our hearts to see, you know, what to do next.
So what the attitude is all about, that kind of thing.
So
you're lucky.
And I speak as a recovering alcoholic.
I look at all of the tragedies in my life and I look at them and say,
and it took me a while to get here, but I look at them and go, you know, if that wouldn't have happened, then I wouldn't have been here and I wouldn't have been here and I wouldn't have learned that and I wouldn't have done that.
And you can look at all of the horrible things in your life.
And if you view them as a blessing or lucky would be a better word in that case, you're looking at the things that you fail
and where you have really gone down to the bottom.
you are lucky if you view it that way.
And
because your heart is 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 going to show.
I've got some other thing.
I've got to play some pool at three this afternoon.
He's always trying to get you, but you won't listen.
So you're lucky because God's there, right?
The kingdom of heaven is.
Isn't that the full translation?
The kingdom of heaven is.
So he's there, but now you're open to him.
Yeah, now you see it.
I mean, look, I often say it this way.
The best resume you can have is your failure resume.
Because God can't work with your success resume.
You did that.
He's working with your failure resume.
The things that you collapsed over, the things that drove you to the ground, the things that put you on your knees, those are the times when, you know, God becomes
the only solution to your life, and that's
when he really shows up.
So
I write two resumes when people ask for my stuff.
I send them
the five degrees and all the books and everything.
And then I say, okay, wait a minute, there's another resume that you need to know about, and that's the one of all of my failures.
All the things
that I couldn't do became the part of me that makes me who I am.
So give me, so let me just go back to this one, and then
can you show us the different beatitudes and what they really say?
Lucky are those who are desperate, because
of them, the kingdom of heaven is.
That's the actual translation.
Exactly.
Yeah, actually,
there is a word hoti, and it means because of them.
No scholar will tell you that it should be translated for theirs is, because then it makes it sound like we get a piece of the real estate of heaven.
Correct.
That's not what happens at all, right?
What happens is, because I'm desperate, the kingdom of God arrives.
I mean, look what Jesus says.
The kingdom is at hand.
And what he means is he's dealing with people who are finally desperate enough to see that God is ready to answer them, that he's going to show up, right?
And it's because of their desperation that God shows up.
And you can see that in the history of Israel.
I mean, think about the number of times that the prophets excoriate Israel over being too fat, too happy, too comfortable that they ignore their social responsibility, they ignore the poor.
And what happens?
They collapse.
And then when they collapse, they plead, God, you know, forgive us, bring us back.
And then he, you know, he shows up.
That's the kind of thing that goes on in this beatitude.
All right.
So
let's go through these.
Okay.
Go ahead.
So the first one, of course, we've talked about.
You know, the lucky ones are the destitute because the kingdom of God shows up.
The second one we read as, I'll read it from the
New American Standard Bible.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they should be comforted.
But think about that.
The term that's used there is the term for a person who's at a funeral.
So why are people at funerals lucky?
You would think that's the last place on earth that you would ever say, oh, I'm so lucky I'm at this funeral.
Because you're alive.
The point, yeah, yeah.
Well, but the point is that once you are at, when you're at a funeral, you experience the fragility of life.
Yeah.
The first time you come into contact with the fact that you're not in charge, right?
That you can't make your life go on by yourself.
You can't just decide I'm going to live longer.
You don't have any control over that issue of life and death.
And when you're at a funeral, it smacks you in the face.
The point there is, I'm really lucky because now I get to confront the fact that I'm not in control.
It is the same feeling that we had on 9-11.
If you're old enough to remember, it was the worst day.
But it was the first day in my life where I went, oh my gosh, this is so fragile.
This could come down overnight.
And I had never felt that before.
And we're feeling that, I think, as a society, we're we're feeling that again.
We're not quite sure how it's working yet.
We know that there's something really wrong, but we haven't been able to put our finger on it like an attack on the Twin Towers.
But we know that something is happening that's destroying things and it's making us feel out of control.
All you have to do is look at the craziness of the politics that's going on in Washington.
Those people are out of control.
And that makes me feel very vulnerable.
And that's the time,
because of this language, it says,
when you confront death, especially the death of a loved one, you realize
how absolutely dependent you are on God.
And that feeling of dependence goes right along with my desperateness for God.
So the two beatitudes work together.
The third one is even better.
Because the third one, you know, just let me back up for a second.
Jesus doesn't deliver these in Greek.
He delivers them in Hebrew.
So in order for me to really understand what's happening, I can't just read the Greek.
I have to say, okay, well, what would happen if he was speaking this in Hebrew?
And the word that he uses in Hebrew is Anna,
which we translate sometimes as gentle, but it really means humble.
But it means more than that because that word is about people who are oppressed.
In fact, it's used for women who have been raped.
Okay, so look at the third beatitude.
Blessed are those who are oppressed, for they shall inherit the earth.
I mean the whole point is no one would think that they're lucky because they were oppressed.
No woman thinks she's lucky to be raped.
No country thinks it's lucky to be bombarded and overrun.
But what Yeshua is saying is, no, wait, there's a paradox here.
When you come to the point where your life is not only not in your control, but where everything is happening that seems destructive, that's when something happens with God and you recognize that
there's a hope, a future, something that's going to happen afterwards.
And you can build on that because God's promises are always true.
So
even if I'm in the worst possible condition, as David is often in the Psalms, he will say, but you, Lord, are my rescue.
In other words, yeah, life is short,
but
it's not going to continue like that because I trust God will redeem.
God will rescue.
So the Beatitude takes this horrible situation and turns it upside down.
Skip Mowen.
He's an international Bible teacher.
You can find him at skipmowen.com.
Thank you so much, Skip.
We'll talk again.
I'm a kid.
So am I going to surprise you with a poster board I need for the science fair tomorrow?
Probably.
But can you get up to 40% off back to school centrals on Uber Eats?
Definitely.
So order on Uber Eats and get up to 40% off.
Exclusions may apply.
Check out for availability.