Bible Guys Classics: Luke 23:32-49

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and

practical ways. Hey, everybody. Happy Thursday.

Happy Thursday.

Sure. Why not?

We're so excited. We can hardly stand it.

Make this day the best Thursday ever.

Okay.

And by the way, it could be the end of

the day.

Yeah, I think Thursday doesn't get very good attention. Right.

I mean, there's Monday. Everybody hates Mondays.

Yeah, yeah.

Wednesday's hump day, you're like, hey, we're over the hump now.

We're halfway to the good part of the week.

Yeah, Fridays are- Fridays are, thank God, it's Friday. Weekends

are great.

Weekends are amazing.

So really, Tuesday and Thursday are the redheaded stepchilds of

the week.

We get forgotten. So hey, it's time for us to

give honor to whom honor is due. Thursday's been standing

there for us all this time. If it weren't for Thursday,

we wouldn't have anything to do between Wednesday and Friday.

Aw, little buddy Thursdays. All right. All right. Well, hey,

today we are, before we jump into what is titled

as the hardest prayer.

The hardest prayer.

How about that?

Okay.

We have a segment, and this is Stump the Pastor.

Oh, cool.

And Stump the Pastor is actually something that we actually

collect questions. We enjoy them, and we encourage you to

email us right now. So go to info, actually send

an email to info at thebibleguys.com. Yeah. It'll get to us.

Or just comment on YouTube. And we'll try to grab

your question right there.

I love questions like this. I love like just open

forum Q & A kind of stuff. Do you enjoy that?

Yes. Well, it shows that people are thinking. Yeah. And

it shows that people care. And they're like, hey, I

have a question about the Bible and I really want

to know this answer.

Yeah. Several times, a couple times a year, usually I'll

meet with our high schoolers and just take an hour

or two and say, hey, it's just any question you

want to ask. And it's amazing how they'll stay sometimes

for hours and hours just asking questions. So I'll tell them,

I'll stay as long as your parents will let you stay.

And so then they start, then all of a sudden

mom and dad are all standing around. We got the

crowd of people standing around just asking Bible questions. Done

it a few times with our young adults. We got

a hundred and something young adults in our church and

we do the same thing there. We got a fly

flying around us. And so do the same thing with

our interns and residents will do it. I just, I

love it when people are using their minds. They've come

across the thing. They're not sure what the answer is.

And instead of just giving up, Like I think a

lot of people have grown up with a religious view

or belief of don't ask questions. It offends God.

Right.

Right. Instead, I love it. The book of Jeremiah says,

come now, let's reason together, says the Lord. God wants

us to use our minds. God invented your mind.

That's right. He did. Right.

And he knows that you have this ability to have

big questions and he's not offended when we have questions.

So I love it. I love this segment. And so

what's our question today?

By the way, I recently learned. that Chad is more

reluctant to let me do a public Q & A

than you.

Our executive pastor?

Our executive pastor.

Our executive pastor is very protective.

Do you know why?

Because he's— Because you go rogue?

Well, he's not afraid of my theology of the answer.

Right.

He's afraid of my diplomacy. Oh. Or lack of it.

Yeah.

Right? So he's like— and I'm not even sure afraid is

the word.

He's just a little bit more cautious. Cautious.

More cautious.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's like, we don't really know if Chris is going

to be as diplomatic as Jeff. Oh, you would do fine.

You would do fine.

Because we all know that you're diplomatic. Well, it's definitely

clear that you're way more diplomatic than me.

At times. At times.

Okay. Publicly.

I can also be a bigger jerk than you.

At times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my lows are lower and my

highs are higher.

What? My lows are low and my eyes are harder. Yeah, yeah.

That's pretty good.

All right.

Yeah. So this question is written by Bill T.

Bill. Bill T.

Yes. Hey, Bill. Yes. Not Bill T, but Bill T.

Bill T.

Okay. So he writes this. Is there a distinction in

the Bible between justifiable and unjustifiable anger? Can Christians express

anger in a righteous way, as Jesus did in the temple,

or should all anger be avoided entirely?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'm afraid to answer this question. I want Bill

to be mad at me.

I see what you did there. So, yeah, I mean, like,

so I remember a sermon, you know, some sermons you

remember forever, right? I don't know if you do. I do.

But I remember a sermon that Bill Hybels gave at

a leadership summit back in like 2006. And so we

were actually at the leadership summit and he actually talked

about righteous indignation. And he talked about how Jesus had

righteous indignation and how he flipped over the money changers

tables at the temple. So, and by the way, because-

He made a whip. Yeah, because that's correct.

Yes, he did.

Because that's been mentioned twice, we might as well at

least explain that. Sure. So Jesus actually in the Bible

got angry and he got angry at the fact that

He actually said, you have made my house into a

den of thieves. Right. And he was referring to people

who were abusing what? It was like selling sacrifices and

making a profit, an unreasonable profit.

Oh, yeah. It was exorbitant. They had kind of a

monopoly on the... If you were traveling hundreds and hundreds

of miles to the temple, normally you wouldn't bring your sacrifice.

You would take that perfect sacrificial animal. You would sell it.

Bring the money to Jerusalem and buy another animal that

you could do rather than trying to bring it the

whole way.

Right.

Well, what was happening was the money changers and then

the people running businesses at the temple, they were, you know, five, six, 10,

20 times more expensive than what you could have gotten

in your village for the same animal. And it's because

they had a monopoly on it. They were abusing people

just to make money. Right. And it really made Jesus mad.

So he makes a whip, he flips over the tables

and sets all the animals free and spills all their

money everywhere and really chews them out. Yeah.

Well, I mean, Jesus with a whip is not a

common painting. Yeah.

Usually it's like a sad Jesus with long hair and

blue eyes looking up into the stars.

Who's Caucasian.

Yeah, yeah, the stars. And he's holding a lamb and

hugging a child.

Right, right, right.

You don't usually think of Jesus with his sleeves rolled up,

whipping people, flipping tables.

Yeah, and not only that, but like he was a

strong man.

Yeah, yeah. He was a carpenter. Right, that's right.

And so he was a specimen. I mean, we know

that just from the physical, you know, brutality of even,

you know, what he endured and he endured it. Right. So. So, yeah. So,

I mean, this the picture would be a strong, muscular man. Right.

Angry with a whip flipping over tables. And so I

almost wonder, because, again, everything to me is Hollywood, not

for the sake of Hollywood, by the way, for the

sake of reality.

Right.

Right. So Hollywood, meaning when I say Hollywood, I mean like.

I can picture the whole entire scene right now. That's

what I mean. Right. But I don't mean Hollywood fake

or Hollywood dramatization. I don't mean any of those terms

when I say Hollywood. What I mean is. You can

see a movie of this event. I can see this

being played out. And so oftentimes when I Hollywoodize a narrative,

I will try to suppose or wonder and think to myself, like,

did somebody try to oppose him? Like it doesn't say so, right?

No, not at all.

It does not say that somebody came up to him

and he pushed them out of the way or three

men were thinking about charging him and then he held

up the whip and looked at them and they knew

he was serious and so they backed off, right? But

I'm sure those things happen, right? Because guess what? You

don't come into a place and destroy people's profitability and

their livelihood without opposition. Right. You just don't, right? I'm

sure they caught him by surprise. And I'm sure that

everybody knew who Jesus was. Right. I mean, they certainly

knew who he was. So there might have been a

fear of like, I don't know what to do right now.

Just get out of here.

I don't know. I'm a nobody. I'm a guy who's

making a profit off animal sacrifices. And here's that. And

I know who that is. That's Jesus. And so I

don't know what to do right now. But those are

the kind of things when I say a Hollywood, I

think to myself, like, how did that play out?

Yeah.

Because certainly people had to have a reaction. To Jesus. Anyway. Right.

Well, in Ephesians 4, 26. Is it 26? Ephesians 4 something.

Let me find it. Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4.

I know Ephesians 4, 32. I know Ephesians 4, 20. Oh, yeah.

There you go. 4, 26. And don't let sin. And

don't sin by letting anger control you. Right. Don't let

the sun go down while you're still angry. For anger

gives a foothold to the devil. Another translation says, be

angry and sin not. And then don't let the sun

go down on your anger. And your anger does not sin.

So anger isn't the sin. Right, right.

Anger is just an emotion. Where it becomes sinful is

when it's self-centered. I'm angry at you because you offended me.

If you just let that fester, that's why he says,

don't let the sun go down on your anger. You

let that fester, it's going to turn into bitterness. This

bitterness gives a foothold to the devil. So you talked

about righteous indignation. Man, if somebody was coming through the

door to hurt my wife and my daughter in the

middle of the night.

That's correct.

Believe me, they're going to get the full force of Jeff.

Right?

And the anger then is driven by the threat to

what I love so dearly. So first of all, I

have to really make sure I love the right things.

It's not just me. It's not just my happiness and

my comfort. But I love my wife. I love my daughter.

I love my freedom. I love, right? There's a lot

of those things. And so because of that major threats

to those things, it's not a sinful thing to have

that anger feeling, that rush come into you saying, I

need to defend this. The Bible talks multiple times that

it's the responsibility of the strong to protect the weak.

to speak up for those who don't have a voice,

to protect those who can't protect themselves, right? So Jesus

talks about at one point, you know, the kingdom he's

putting violent men will have to seize it, right? And

he's not talking about like violence, like you and I

think of blood and gore, but by men that just

stand up in their strength and grab a hold of

this thing. So I'm always cautious when people start to ask,

is it sometimes okay for me to be angry? Because

on occasion, I'm not saying Bill T is this guy,

but on occasion, it's people who have trouble with their

anger and they're trying to justify it and win an

argument with their spouse later.

Right.

Right.

Or if they're an angry person in general, they may

be generally concerned about their demeanor.

If you are having trustworthy people, spouses, children, friends saying, boy,

you seem like you're pretty angry lately. Then maybe you're

starting to cross the line between being angry and sinning not.

Right.

You need to get back to that don't sin. So

let your anger drive you to do something good. So

right now, for instance, one of the ministries you're really

focusing a lot on lately has been child trafficking.

Right. Right?

So how does that make you feel? You drive through

those neighborhoods and you know what's happening. In Dominican Republic,

their parents are selling their own children.

I'll actually make a statement. When I went on a

tour and I actually saw, I saw it with my eyes.

I saw it. I saw the child. I saw what

was happening and the men protecting it. And I saw

a person go up and inquire about it. I have

never felt more anger in my entire life, in my

whole life. And I've gotten angry about a lot of things,

but I've never felt more anger than that.

So God is not calling you to be Batman, become

some vigilante, come swooping in, kick the doors down necessarily.

But that anger has driven you to start helping build

a system to rescue those kids, raise the money through

Transform One and actively begin working towards a good solution.

And that may not be repaying evil with evil, right?

It's repaying evil with good. And so how do you

go solve that?

Which by the way, since you already mentioned it, I

wasn't going to say it, but by the time this

goes on the air, we will be two weeks out

from our 5k. And if you want to make a small.

Donation, Or a big donation.

Or a big donation.

We don't want to limit your donation. If you'd like

to make a donation.

I would love it. If somebody who normally isn't a

part of Heritage, because, you know, a lot of people

who listen to this are part of our community anyway,

and they're like, I've already heard about this. Yes. But

there has to be thousands.

Thousands of people who don't know what we're talking about.

Who don't know what we're talking about. Would you do

me a favor? Go to HeritageChurch.com slash 5K. Everything's on there.

So if to donate or watch the video, find out

more about it, heritagechurch.com slash 5k, make a donation. That'd

be awesome.

Yeah. So if you're asking the question because you've had

people tell you, you seem really angry lately, then let

that be God's way of saying, hey, you're starting to

cross a line.

Yeah. Right.

Don't use Bible verses to justify your anger. But if

you're feeling a holy anger or a righteous indignation towards

some kind of wrong thing in society, and you're wondering,

am I sinning? Well, no, you're not sinning necessarily as

long as you direct that in a way that causes

you to then address this issue in a healthy, godly way, right?

So people are not your enemy. Satan is our enemy.

That's right.

And so we don't fight people. We fight the actions

of Satan in society. And that's what we do.

So yeah. That's great.

That's great. Hey, thanks, Bill. Good question, Bill.

Yeah, it's great. All of those answers are people... People

wonder about those. So that's why they're called Stump the Pastors.

And sometimes Stump the Pastors are, I don't know. Right.

Because depending on the question, but this is something I've

heard so many times. So thanks, Bill, for asking.

I've thought several times it would be fun to do

a Stump the Pastor week.

Oh, yeah.

If we could get enough people to write in questions.

If we could get like 100 questions, we could do

three or four a day.

Let's announce it right now. After the Dangerous Prayers series,

let's do a five-day stint where we do a Stump

the Pastor. Make the whole episode. I was going to

say the one question may not carry us the whole episode.

Yeah, but if we get 100 questions, we could just

filter through them and find the ones that would fill

up the 25 minutes every day. I think it'd be fun.

Yeah, it'd be fun. Okay, so there it is. There's

your assignment, people. If you want to see this series

come into fruition, then comment on YouTube right now. Or

comment online or email us at info at thebibleguys.com. And

we would love to get your Stump the Pastor questions.

Cool. Wow.

That's neat.

Well, there you go.

All right.

Now we have permission from Des.

Right. Right.

Because we only have the appearance of being in control

of this podcast, but we know who the real puppet

master is.

Yes. Yeah. You know, even no matter how angry we get,

we are still commanded to forgive.

Oh, you're right.

And that leads us to this next segment or this

next passage where Jesus forgives.

Yeah. Well, good transition.

That was actually a good transition. That was not a

bad transition.

No, that was a very good one. So we're going

to pick up on Luke chapter 23, verse 32. It says,

Luke 23:32

two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed

with him. Talking about Jesus. Yeah.

Right.

And when they came to a place called the skull

or Golgotha, they nailed him to the cross. And the

criminals were also crucified, one on his right and one

on his left. Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they

don't know what they are doing. And the soldiers gambled

for his clothes by throwing dice. The crowd watched and

the leader scoffed. He saved others, they said. Let him

save himself as if he really is God's Messiah, the

chosen one. The soldiers mocked him too by offering him

a drink of sour wine. They called out to him,

If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

A sign was fashioned above him with these words, This

is the King of the Jews. One of the criminals

hanging beside him scoffed, so you're the Messiah, are you?

Prove it by saving yourself and us too while you're

at it. But the other criminal protested, don't you fear

God even when you've been sentenced to die? We deserve

to die for our crimes, but this man hasn't done

anything wrong. And then he said, Jesus, remember me when

you come into your kingdom. And Jesus replied, I assure

you today, you'll be with me in paradise. By this time,

it was about noon and darkness fell across the whole

land until three o'clock. The light from the sun was

gone as suddenly the curtain in the sanctuary of the

temple was torn down the middle. Then Jesus shouted, Father,

I entrust my spirit into your hands. And with those words,

he breathed his last.

Wow. There's a lot in there. Yes.

Well, I think the big, the dangerous prayer is Father,

forgive them.

Yeah, that is definitely the focus of the topic. And

we can go on forever about everything else that's in there. Uh, but, uh,

I don't know why I just got super emotional thinking

about the criminal, you know, he, you know, here's this

criminal who's doesn't have a name. He's just known as

the criminal. Yeah.

And, uh, one day we're going to one and criminal too, right.

We're going to get to heaven. And I'm, you know,

there's a lot of questions. I think that God will

indulge us with these questions. I do.

I do.

I think, I think we'll have time obviously to explore

every question that we have and, uh, that we have

now on this earth. And I think that, uh, I would,

I would love to talk to this criminal. The, the

idea that, that one of them, you know, is scoffing.

And then the other is completely recognizing that in believing

that he's the son of God and saying, don't you

fear God? He's saying, how dare you talk to God

this way? I mean, he is, he is a believer.

You know, keep in mind that it did say that

there were so many people there at that, uh, What

am I trying to say? Passover week?

Yes.

Passover festival?

Yeah, the city was just bursting at the seams at

this point.

And it said many were there because they had heard

that he had raised Lazarus from the dead. So his

popularity had grown to such a degree to where people

had heard his claims to be the Messiah. At this time,

he held nothing back. And so he had done nothing wrong.

Everybody knew it. This is even a testament of the public.

You know, sometimes... When something happens and there's a patsy,

it's like you can't sort of, I just watched it yesterday.

I watched a movie where everybody knew that what was

happening was unjust. And this person who was the patsy

didn't deserve to get fired from his job. But everybody

knew it. Everybody knew it. But nobody wanted to talk

about it because everybody was afraid of the authorities. That

happened just last night. And so here it is. This

man makes a statement that represents, like, everybody here knows

that this man is innocent. Everybody here knows he's done

nothing wrong. And this man recognizes Jesus. Anyway, that's not

the focus of the dangerous prayer.

I want to point out one interesting thing to me.

This guy on the cross, maybe in this specific moment

in history, had the most faith of maybe everybody else

on the planet. Because Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God.

And when you're naked and nailed to the cross, the

kingdom seems like it should be over.

Yeah, everybody lost hope. All the disciples lost hope.

And only the guy on the cross next to him said,

I still believe in your kingdom.

Is that an original thought right now?

Isn't that neat?

Because that's incredible. Yeah. That's incredible.

Peter lied and denied. James and the Marys, they're standing

back in the crowd.

Out of fear. Yeah. And everybody can't believe or understand.

Yeah.

And it says that they didn't understand. They didn't remember

his words. They didn't know what was happening. Right. And

it says only after he was resurrected, then they remembered

the promise he told them, right? So they had lost

all hope. They were motivated out of fear. They all ran.

They were all in hiding.

Wow. And this guy, this one guy said, Jesus, remember

me when you show up in paradise.

Before the veil rents into, before the earthquake. Yeah. Because

the Roman soldier made a statement.

The only thing he had heard Jesus say was, Father,

forgive them. They don't know what they've done. And he

had no hope for forgiveness except that. Wow, Jeff. What

a thought.

What a thought. Yeah.

What a thought. Anyways, Jesus says, Father.

Now I really want to meet this guy.

This is kind of clear.

I really want to meet this guy. I'm going to

find this guy.

So, yeah, maybe you guys will be neighbors in heaven, maybe.

Yes, maybe so. Maybe God will honor that. So the prayer, Father,

forgive them for they don't know what they are doing.

Charlie Kirk's wife prayed that. Yes. Yeah, we saw it

all over social media. Yeah. And what an unbelievable thing.

So the nation right now reacted and are marveling at

the fact, like, how can anybody forgive God? The shooter

of your husband.

Yeah.

And we've heard stories like this. I mean, it doesn't

even have to be Charlie Kirk's wife, which is in

recent news. But it could be, you know, like, I'm

sure you've heard this. Have you read or seen YouTube

or even documentaries where the victim's wife forgives the criminal?

Sure.

I've actually seen a documentary where they became best friends

and she led him to Christ. And he was on

death row. And she mentored him and walked him through.

And he was there for a couple of years. And

eventually she was a part of the appeal to get

him off of death row.

Yeah.

I mean, like, which is an honor.

It's hard to wrap your head around that kind of thing.

So forgiveness. And I've told my story many times coming

from a life of abuse and those kinds of things.

Early on, my biological father was a very bad man

before he became a Christian. And my My dad adopted

me and my life changed, right? So everything was different

between my biological father and my dad. And my dad

just went to heaven here recently. So I miss him.

I just ran across some photos of him at my

desk yesterday. Thought about him for a while. But my

biological father was violent towards my mother and I. Very,

very abusive for a very long time. For 30-something years,

I never heard anything from him at all after he

gave me up for adoption. One day he reached out.

He sent me an email. said that he'd seen all

my messages online, seen what God was doing in my life.

And he said, I hope that you believe in redemption

because God's changed me over the last several years. He

got sober and gave his life to Christ and his

life had changed. And he said, I hope you can

forgive me. So then when I met him, met him

one time, he confessed how he treated me and my

mom and that it was wrong and that And he said,

you know, I don't think you could have been who

you grew up to be if you'd stayed in my life.

You know, I would have destroyed that. But God had

to take you away from me. And that was the

best thing. But I hope you can forgive me. And

I told him the words, I do forgive you. But

I don't know that I felt like I forgave him

until I found out after that conversation, maybe 30 minutes later,

he told me that he was dying of cancer and

asked me to do his funeral. And then I was

faced with that when he did die of cancer. I

was faced with that whether or not I was going

to do his funeral. And I realized forgiveness, like Charlie

Kirk's wife just did or whatever publicly, is not saying

what you did is okay.

Correct.

It's not. It's not saying, oh, no biggie. It was

a big deal. It was a devastatingly big deal. This

is the most devastating thing. You nearly ruined my life.

Right?

That kind of thing.

And then your mom.

But what I realized was in Romans chapter 12, he says,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

don't repay evil with evil, repay evil with good. And

then he says, because vengeance is mine, says the Lord,

I will repay. What I realized is forgiveness really is

just me giving up my right to prosecute you and

judge you and execute you.

Right.

And I'll give that over to God. God, you do

what you need to do with him. You know what

he did? He did die and he did have to

go stand before his maker. And he did have to

give an account.

Right. Right.

And that released me on that day when I realized

I'm not saying it's okay. I'm saying it's God's business,

not mine anymore. I'm giving them. And dude, I got

set free from the bitterness and the resentment that I'd

had in all that time prior when I finally realized, okay,

I'm not God. I'm going to give him over to

God and God's going to do what God's going to

do for justice. Not me.

Right. Yeah.

And that's what sets free. And so, When Jesus says, Father,

forgive them, they don't know what they're doing. Jesus is

actually leading on behalf of those who deserve judgment. And

that's a whole other level, man.

Yeah. Right?

Personal forgiveness is, I don't have to judge you. But

this is, he's advocating for them now.

Yeah.

And that's next level.

Yeah, that's definitely next level. And really, there's so much

in that statement because he's saying they don't understand. Almost

implying like if they understood. Yeah, yeah. it would be

a whole different thing. Yeah. Right? So Father, forgive them

because they're acting in ignorance.

Yeah.

Right?

It was the alcohol in him that was doing it.

He wasn't that way when he was sober. He was

just that way when he was drunk. It was just

the problem was he was drunk all the time.

Right. Right?

And Jesus is understanding we're drunk on our sin. We

are consumed by the evil that is in us to

the point we don't even really know the depths of

our hearts. Really.

Right?

We're not very self-aware. And Jesus is just like, they

have no idea what they're doing. So forgive them. He

looked at us. He looked at the soldiers, his killers.

He looked at them with a compassion that I hope

we can find in our own hearts. They're like children.

They're just stumbling around, consumed by evil. They have no

idea how this is ruining them and everything around them.

And if we can start to have that kind of

compassion towards the evils we see in society... Maybe we

can come with far more power because it was right

after that prayer that this criminal goes, Jesus, I want

what you have.

Yeah. Right?

Man, the world will want what we have when we

step up and we're able to say, God, you fix it. Yeah.

Wow. What a great podcast. I rate this top notch.

All right. That was a good one.

Yeah.

It was a good conversation.

Good conversation. All right. Well, hey, hopefully we will see

you tomorrow on The Bible Guys.