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Hope Channel

InVerse 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

Sikhu Daco

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Jonathan Walter

01 The Author of Evil

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Hey everyone, my name's Justin and you're on Inverse.

And in the studio we have Jonathan and Siku and Israel and we also have you guys and we are very excited to look at the topic of the nature of existence, the philosophical questions of life, the meta-narrative of the universe.

And if you're totally wondering where I'm going with this, we're looking at the nature of good and evil and how that plays in scripture and in our daily lives.

So I wanna welcome each 1 of you and I wanna say hey guys.

And so glad that you guys could trudge through the, well, when we were at the time of this recording, a big snowstorm was happening right now.

I think by the time this records, it might be in the middle of the summer and you guys are wondering like, what's new?

But we are here in the studio and we're so grateful to the Lord that everything came together for this to happen.

We'll have a word of prayer and we'll get into Matthew 13 and we'll talk about the great controversy.

We are on week 1 on our topical arc on the great controversy.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you wanna go to inversebible.org, well go to the main page and look for Bible studies and look for the section on the great controversy there.

The author is actually with us, who is Jonathan Walter here.

And he's the 1 who trudge along and he'll be giving us some additional insight.

So, Siku, if you can start us off with prayer.

Loving Father, we're so thankful for the gift of your word that you communicate to us and that you call us to study it.

You promise us the Holy Spirit will enlighten our understanding so that when we read what you have written, we will understand the import of the words that you are trying to communicate to us.

We pray now for the Holy Spirit to guide our thinking and our study now in Jesus name, Amen.

I want to ask Jonathan the first question before we actually get into scripture because the scripture actually gets into the first part.

It makes you sound smarter, it makes you sound like a philosopher.

Meta narratives is the idea that there are stories, narratives, that kind of guide our lives.

So there's stories out there, there's ideas that we follow, whether we do it consciously or subconsciously.

And so everyone has some kind of meta-narrative, something that is the guiding direction, the reason why they do things or don't do things.

The decision-making stems from those narratives that we tell ourselves.

It could be connected to your identity of where you're coming from, what your heritage is, or what your family is doing, or we've always been doing this, or this is just who we are, or whatever it is.

We have little ones, we have big ones, things change.

But the meta narrative of scripture, or the meta narrative that we're looking at today is kind of like meta, meaning is above everything.

It's like the grand story that guides everything that's going on in the universe right now.

And so that's kind of where that comes from.

Yeah, it seems like we all have these narratives that we have individually.

Yeah, Siku originally from Zimbabwe, came through Canada, came down to the United States.

Your narrative originally from Austria, came through Canada, Israel from the United States, via, well, I mean, we all have these narratives that we have, right?

And then we meet our spouses, we have children, we have our careers, these micro, Then we have these like cultural or social narratives that we talk a lot about in the news, you know Especially with Black Lives Matter or with MAGA with the political narrative that there's a context We used to live in the 1800s where there was slavery and now we have civil rights movement in the 1950s, which brings us to this cultural political narrative that we have.

And then we have meta-narrative, which combines metaphysics.

It gets into this story that's way beyond individual, way beyond politics, way beyond society, and it goes into the individual components.

I love the fact that, well, let's get into scripture because we can get really philosophical in this, and you guys are gonna have to help me not get into too much philosophy, but the nature of existence and time and reality, is it cyclical?

And there are meta-narratives that are cyclical, that hey, if ABC happens, eventually ABC will happen again in different manifestations throughout history.

There's others versions that believe in linear, where it's just kind of like it's going on and there's a beginning, middle, and the end.

And then there's others that believe that there's a beginning, middle, and the end, and there is a finite end, and then what happens afterwards?

And these all are not meant to just be philosophical for philosophical sake, but they have an implication for what we believe, where we came from, where we're going, how we treat each other, what the values, the purpose of life, these are all real tangible questions that emerge of this rather than just waxing eloquently.

Israel, oh no, I think you're grunting because you want to.

Okay, let's get into scripture and let's go to Matthew chapter 13.

And Israel, if you can read chapter 13 verses 24 through 30, because each lesson colors 1 aspect in this meta-narrative.

Each lesson builds upon each other, but the first couple weeks that we're gonna talk about this, we're gonna, in the first couple lessons, it's kind of like the foundational elements of existence.

And then we're gonna go into some details and implications for our lives.

And in the first lesson, the first week, the first episode, we're looking at that there is such thing as evil, and there's an author to evil, and it's clearly found in Jesus' teachings in Matthew 13, verse 24 through 30, Israel.

It says, But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.

So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field?

How then does this have, how then does it have tares?

The servant said to him, do you want us then to go and gather them up?

But he said, no, lest while you gather up the tares, you also uproot the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest.

And at the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, first gather together the tares and bind them up in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.

Okay, so it was really predicated that we're trying to establish that evil does exist.

There are other meta narratives that believe that evil does not exist, or that there's another meta-narrative that God is the 1 that allows for all this evil.

So maybe you guys are out there and you're asking, you've had this question, or you've talked to somebody that has raised this question, why do bad things happen to really anyone at all?

And this is kind of 1 of the practical questions that emerges, and depending on what metanarrative you have, you'll have a different answer to this.

And so we're trying to get into Scripture for that metanarrative.

What are some things we can mine out and how can we build up this meta-narrative that comes from scripture from this passage?

I think 1 important element in this story is that evil was never in the original plan.

Like it's like, you know, in the parable, it's saying, did you not sow good seeds in your field?

It shows us that God's original plan never included evil.

It was not something he wanted to happen, he didn't desire it, he didn't think, you know, it would be good if this happens because then we can whatever, whatever.

It's like, no, this was never his intention.

Everything was good, Everything was good.

And so that is an important fact to understand because knowing that he is not the author of evil, we're gonna get to who it is and so on, but him saying an enemy has done this shows us that God is only good, okay?

This is important because there are metanarratives and ideas about God that say, you know, God is mostly good, but he also has flaws, or these gods have flaws.

These ideas float out there that God is not perfect, but there's, He may have well intentions, but there's also some bad sides.

But there are reasons why evil was allowed or why evil could take place.

And that's kind of, as we go along, we're gonna see more of that.

That was essentially what I wanted to say, but pointing to Genesis chapter, no, no, apology, Nessie.

But pointing to Genesis chapter 1, that when God created every single day of creation, he says, and it was good.

02 The Genesis of Satan

We have all these superheroes and super villains and their origin stories on this episode.

We're looking at the origin story of the greatest villain of all found in scripture.

Hey everyone, my name is Justin and you're on Inverse.

And in the studio we have Jonathan, Sikhu, and Israel.

All right, we're gonna go into Isaiah 14.

Isaiah 14 and we are in the topical arc on the great controversy.

Great controversy is a motif, it's a theme, it's a title for the meta-narrative, the great story that flows throughout scripture.

And last week, in our last episode, and if you didn't watch it, you wanna go to hopetv.org slash inverse, and you wanna watch that last episode.

So we're building each character, each scene, in this great drama of scripture, and we looked at God, we looked at Satan, but now, in this episode, and today, we're gonna look a little bit deeper on who this character is and how did he get there?

I've noticed that I don't know if you guys follow pop culture, but there are a lot of origin stories into the villains now It's a lot more of a more complex story and if anything it garners sympathy for the villain to show in this postmodern world that hey villains aren't really villains.

There's actually a good in them to show forth why they're doing it and their motives and it gets into complex character analysis.

I hope we're not gonna do that here for Satan, not to garner sympathy, but to really show how he is the epitome of evil, and look at how did he get to be how he is, yeah?

We'll have a prayer, and Israel, if you can pray for us, and then we'll get into scripture.

Sure Our gracious Father in heaven We're thankful for your word that it gives to us a lens by which we can see this world through your through your eyes through your perspective As we study this great theme of the meta narrative of the great controversy, the conflict between God and Satan, good and evil, we pray that you'd give us an understanding to be able to see the role that we play on being on God's side.

And Isaiah 14, Jonathan, if you could read from verse 12 through 17, please.

How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations, for you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

I will also sit on a mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high.

Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit.

Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you saying, is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of its prisoners?

There are, there's a lot of elements here.

You look at Isaiah 14 and it's talking about, you know, Babylon, the king of Babylon.

It's talking about all these other nations and how they're really fallen and how they're really bad.

And all of a sudden it goes into Babylon and then goes into Lucifer.

And then some people say, like the author of this lesson thinks that it's, who's sitting right next to you to your right, thinks this is like some kind of funeral song and what?

Like, give us some literary background on this and we can actually get into the practice of the passage.

I'll start and then the author can continue.

But you know, you have, like you were mentioning, you've got Babylon and the fall of the King of Babylon.

And it seems like in the Bible, it talks about, Yes, the king of Babylon and the evil and the wickedness, but then it goes to a character behind that.

And then, what's really undergirding that?

And when he starts talking in verse 12, just to point out that this is no longer the King of Babylon that is talking about.

And the language that it's using now, it's like heavenly language.

These events are not taking place in an earthly kingdom of Babylon.

This is now stuff that's taking place in heaven.

And the words that are used in verse 12, for how are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, it's not a rebuke.

It's not, you know, it doesn't come off angry.

It's more like, like you said, a lament, like a cry.

How are you fallen from heaven, you know?

And so just even on the introduction to talking about the fall of this great angel, this Lucifer, it's spoken of with a sadness, with a sense of remorse that this has transpired as opposed to anger or fury.

It's really coming from a place of, heartache?

I think that's a great, great perspective when we read scripture.

A lot of times when we're reading the prophetic books and then God is condemning, he is still condemning but it's not out of anger some moments.

He is out of anger and for a good reason.

But a lot of times it's out of heartache, a lot of out of mourning, a lament, and kind of a pleading, like you're gonna be destroyed so come back.

It's very difficult to kind of decipher through it.

So yeah, there are elements of funeral tones to it.

Jonathan, any other funeral tones that you can give us?

Because I've never seen that before and then like that, and thought it totally makes sense.

From my understanding from studying it, it was that the word used here for how is connected to lamentation.

It's this sigh and this sadness, profound sadness that comes through in the original language here and then some other structural elements.

But what that teaches us is to show us that the heart of God in a way, because what we find in this prophetic, poetic description is this cry almost, when you put yourself into God's shoes, he created every living being, right?

And he loves every individual living being.

And Lucifer, in this passage and other passages, you know, as we're gonna study in the next couple of weeks as well, He was 1 of the highest, most important angelic beings.

God carefully chose a name for him, Lightbearer.

This was, he was- That's what Lucifer means, huh?

And so it's just, if you are a father or a mother, you know, or if you have a close friend or somebody that you really love and something, you know, they make bad decisions or it goes into a bad direction, of course your heart aches.

Of course, when we think of Satan, we only think of evil, evil, evil.

And so I think it's beautiful to see that side of God, who in other passages of scripture, I think it's Ezekiel 18, where it says that God has no, he doesn't enjoy destroying the wicked.

Even though he will destroy the wicked and justice will prevail, he doesn't delight in, oh, you know, finally, I'm gonna destroy this.

And that's something, maybe a side of God we don't often recognize in these kind of passages.

Yeah, we gotta be very careful, I love that.

Often as readers, we put our emotional context and we impose our personality upon God.

So if we are someone who's impatient and we hate things that are not organized and we want things to be resolved, we actually impose that upon God.

If we think that God, if we are lackadaisical and lax and whatever, we impose that upon God.

And so that's something that when we look at the structural elements of how the word is constructed, we can elicit some of these things.

So I'm not trying to get literary for literary's sake.

03 The Choice is Yours

Should we be completely rebellious or mindlessly obedient?

That's the question we're going to answer in this episode.

Hey everyone, my name is Justin and you're on Inverse and on this Inverse Roundtable are my friends, we have Israel and Siku and our author, the author of this quarter, Jonathan Walter.

We are looking at the author of the Bible study guide, the Inverse Bible Study Guide, of which you can go to at inversebible.org and look at the study guides there.

We do 4 a year, and there's just a gazillion Bible study guides.

So if you don't like this topic, just choose another topic.

And you can actually watch the episodes if you go to hopetv.org slash inverse, and you can see those episodes that correspond with that topic.

We are all about the Bible and we want to get into the Bible and this topical arc we're looking at great controversy.

Which means the great drama between good and evil, the great conflict, the drama that flows all throughout scripture.

We're gonna spend some time in Deuteronomy 30.

And Jonathan, and you are the author of this lesson.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to study your word again.

We pray that you will give us fresh insights, good practical things that we can implement in our lives and that you will teach us how to live for you, but that we will do it out of a heart of love for you.

So just work in our lives right now and teach us through your word, not just us here, but everyone watching as well and listening.

Deuteronomy, we spent a whole quarter on Deuteronomy, did we not?

13 weeks, 3 months on Deuteronomy, of which you can go to the websites that I mentioned before.

Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 30, and Siku, can you read verse 15 through 30, please?

See, I have said before you today, life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.

But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them.

I announce to you today that you shall surely perish.

You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.

Therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live, that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey his voice, and that you may cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days, and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them." Great.

Israel, what do you see in this passage, and how does it help in building in us painting?

We pretty much painted the controversy, but this just gives us more additional insight in a certain aspect of the great conflict.

Yeah, it speaks about our choice in the matter.

The conflict is definitely between God and Satan, but we have a role to play and our choices are that role.

I love this, when I read this passage, what kind of comes into my mind, I did not do very well in school, and oftentimes when I had exams, it was a very, very stressful time.

You know, you guys cannot relate, but I can.

So with me, I mean, so of course I can relate because it's about me.

Yeah, so I'm taking a test and, you know, There were often times when I had to get tutors in order to help me with the test.

And my mind was so dull that they would have to, they would go to the question, they'd say, all right, this is the question.

Before I'm gonna give you the question, I'm gonna give you the answer to the question, okay?

And then they'll say, what is 2 plus 3, right?

So I got that example from somewhere else.

So many times people would give me the answer before they gave me the question, hoping that I would be able to connect the 2 by knowing the answer first.

And I feel like this is kind of what God is telling Israel.

He's giving Israel the final charge through 1 of his last messages.

And as he's recounting the way that God has been with them, he's recounting the fact that over and over and over and over again, God has been with his people and has had nothing but good intentions for them.

And the conclusion of all of this, he says, is that I've set before you this great exam.

And then he, I love his, Therefore, choose life.

And so he gives us the answer to the test.

And the role that we play is each of our lives, you know, is that we are all involved in some kind of test.

Are we on Satan's side or are we on God's side?

God says, look, I have throughout my whole entire, throughout your whole entire existence, I've been with you.

I've given you the greatest gift, which is the gift of my presence.

But I love how it says, therefore, it's almost like the obvious choice, therefore, choose life.

I think it's nuts that God gives us the choice.

That he being all powerful and he can do anything, right?

He constrains himself by his own character.

He is capable, if we're talking about capability, like he is capable of doing anything.

He could just completely recreate everything and we would cease to exist and we would never know it because we don't exist, you know?

But the fact that he chooses to put himself in a situation where he is demonstrating himself to us, right, that he's demonstrating his love to us and allowing us the opportunity to choose him or reject him.

Series

InVerse 2nd Quarter 2024: The Great Controversy

06 The Victory of the Cross

Transcript

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