Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Church sermon Q and a pastor Michael, here with you. I am in the studio of pastor
Speaker 2 00:00:11 Craig, August 22nd, 2021. We preach a sermon on the tabernacle and specifically on the blood that was shed in the tabernacle is a little bit gruesome kind of buddy, if you will. So pastor Craig, um, I have a question for you that I, I know that people ask, but it's actually really hard question for me to hear people ask because often the same kind of people who ask it, um, don't really love God and actually violate the very thing they're asking about. So I kind of teed this up, but here's the question is God barbaric for killing so many animals. So I come up to you and I'm, I'm kind of jaded. Like, what do you, what do you say to me? Well, first of all, there were a lot of animals killed thousands, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands. And, and this has done thousands of years.
Speaker 2 00:01:02 So, I mean, this is really, um, this is a process that was in their culture. It was bred into their culture. Um, and they, they did sacrifices for all kinds of stuff. I mean, there was purification sacrifices. There were, um, cleansing sacrifices. There were, uh, forgiveness sacrifices, you know, for the forgiveness of sins, atonement sacrifices on the, on the day of atonement, there were so many sacrifices at the temple Mount that they actually, when they built the thing, they created a trench that went through the city and down through a goalie and ended up in the valley of Hinnom where there was just constant burning, burning time. So this is a, it's a very bloody concept and it only grew through time. Um, by the time Jesus is there, obviously the temple is built heritage temple, and they're, they're sacrificing an enormous amount of animals.
Speaker 2 00:01:51 Yep. Uh, so, um, so the question is, is God barbaric for this? Well, if you look at each one of the sacrifices, it is interesting that the details of the sacrifices are given to the priest. There's an enormous amount of scripture that is given to this, so that, um, the sacrifices, it's not just a matter of showing up with a goat and throwing it up there and burning the whole thing up. There was a process that they went through to divide fat from meat. And, uh, most of the times actually the family went home with a doggy bag. They go home with parts of the animal and the rest of the animal that was edible largely went to the Levi priests. So this animal is being eaten. Uh, what's being burned up is parts of the animal parts of the meat, but mostly the fat and some things like that.
Speaker 2 00:02:36 So, um, if you look at the process, uh, it really the, the temple keepers, the tabernacle keepers, the priests were really good butchers. They would separate the meat and then, uh, utilize most of the animals most of the time. Now, other times they're shoving goats off cliffs and stuff like that. So there's, there's different things that they did. Uh, but each one of these is, um, is done specifically for, um, for a purpose. And usually most of the animal is being used for nourishment. Can I just chime in here? Yeah, but I hear you saying is that the vast majority of these were already going to be killed anyways, but God put an entire system in place that really required humaneness. And the way it happened, intentionality, they had the reduced waste, provided food and also taught them, taught them really powerful principles about blood and death and sin and all that stuff. And you can read about this, uh, all the way through the old Testament. In fact, when Eli sons, uh, were sacrificing on behalf of the people, they were cheating because they were keeping the best of the meat for themselves. And so, so this is the same principle
Speaker 1 00:03:45 Is being done. Do you know, that would do that.
Speaker 2 00:03:48 I know a person won a bunch of buttheads my goodness. So, um, so, so we have a tendency to just think the whole thing's being wasted. That's not the case. Like you said, the animals are going to die. Anyway, there were nourishment for people. This is how God fed his people and still get the point across for, uh, have how to have a relationship with him that something had to bleed. Oh yeah. I, I, I wish I would have preached on this as you're talking it's, it's hitting me. All these scriptures are going through my brain, that there were not many animals that wouldn't have died anyways, but now they died with intentionality right now, the dad with humor, like just a humaneness to them, that many people didn't know how to do. Imagine how many people don't know how to kill an animal, right.
Speaker 2 00:04:35 And God teaches the entire civilization of slaves to come out and to basically provide for themselves how to do this, how to worship, and then redeems all of this to show people culturally, to build this cultural principle, that this is the cost of your sin as well. So he redeemed a thing that's already happening, gives it purpose and intentionality. And then I even love how in the law, he puts restrictions on how, how long you can eat the food for us. So like some food can only be eaten for one day. Some food can be in the next day, but most food has to be burned on the third day because it didn't have refrigerators. The more I even processed the question I'm thinking, God's not barbaric, he's genius. He's practical. It's like, how do you live in this time? As you're talking about that, I'm, I'm also thinking about like, why was it the, the, the spotless animals that they brought the spotless lamb, right?
Speaker 2 00:05:26 So even in the process of providing food and nourishment for all these different people, uh, there's also the, the, the emotional and spiritual teaching that you got to bring your best to God. So even in the process, people are being required to really hurt, like to sacrifice something important to them in the process of honoring God, obeying God, and also providing food for their families and for the priest. And to be clear, the best was going to be killed. Anyways, the only difference is they brought it to God, give to him. He gave it to him. Yeah. And I think that's really huge. So when people ask me this question, and I have personally not been asked it a ton of times, maybe three or four times, but when you kind of look online, you see this as sort of like a, an accusation against the God of the old Testament.
Speaker 2 00:06:12 He's brutal, he's vial, whatever. And I think to myself, and I mentioned this in my sermon, I said, the only difference between all of these priests, butchering, chopping, et cetera, and 98% of you in this room is that they have the guts to kill what they eat. You don't. And you go to you go to a supermarket, you know, and it's a finely tuned butcher shop. You know, that's what it is. You just don't have to watch the blood drain. You know, I go fly fishing. Yeah. So I'll travel for hours. I'll fly fish, I'll catch these pretty little trout. I'll, you know, look them over, take some pictures and let them gently off into the water. And then on the way home, I'll buy some salmon on the,
Speaker 1 00:06:46 Get ready for the family. Remember when I'm in fishing and you
Speaker 2 00:06:49 Were like, you can <inaudible>, it's not possible purely it's illegal. And so I was like, I thought you were telling me, I can't like, you're not fast.
Speaker 1 00:06:58 And I was like, forget you. They're almost dead. You were telling me, no, you can't because it's illegal. So you and I like a hundred yards away from each other or whatever. And I'm like, Greg, I got one. And you're like, what are you doing? But I remember we took it. It was freezing cold.
Speaker 2 00:07:12 Yeah. The salmon we caught and we cut them up and we took home the filets. And, uh, I got a little bones in my mouth when I cooked it anyways. But like, I honestly, that's the main difference. The other part of me that is a little bit irritated by the question culturally, and I know they don't see this, but the, the amount of animals killed pales in comparison to the amount of babies have boarded in a mother's womb. And, and the idea that people are okay with that mass slaughter, which is a hundred X over all of the animals killed and temple sacrifice over millennia, um, that they're, they're upset about this. And they can't see the own, they own advocation a butchery and their own culture that they're advocating, applauding, making legal, you know? And so in my brain, the question is a deflection from real issues.
Speaker 2 00:07:59 It's not a real question. Uh, in the moment you kind of double click on it and go a little bit deeper. You're like, wow, I'm the same word, the same culturally, I'm worse. In fact, God got entered into a system that was already happening, the butchering of animals, and he brought purpose and redemption and sanity and health to it and respect for the animals, which are already going to die anyways. And on every level, I just think actually asking and clicking on this question makes me think God's a genius. He's kind he's. He is so intentional. And he redeems our broken methods of doing things. And we felt as people in the desert for
Speaker 3 00:08:32 40 years. Amen. Amen. Amen. That was, that was one of the most fun processing I actually am processing, as you were talking, I was like, holy moly. This is kind of coming alive in my brain. So I want to thank you for joining us. We've got many more questions than sermon Q and a. It is our joy to open up God's word and give you a little glimpse into what we do behind the scenes.
