Can someone explain to me how a passage in the book of Proverbs that uses a certain phrase numerous times. That phrase is, there is a generation. There is a generation. There is a generation. There is a generation. It uses that phrase multiple times. It repeats it over and over and over. How can a passage in Proverbs that uses the phrase, there is a generation, turn into a discussion about people eating people? Can someone explain that to me? How is that even possible? It was such like, oh, this is a sermon on Proverbs 30, verses 11 through 17. Okay, let me look at the passage. Let's see, verse 11, there is a generation. Verse 12, there is a generation. Verse 13, there is a generation. Verse 14, there is a generation. there is a generation, there is a generation, this generation, I know what I'll do. I'll write out multiple pages of notes on outlining this passage and looking at this phrase, there is a generation, because it's very close to the phrase that a lot of older people use, which will be this generation, this generation. And we can kind of talk about that. All right, I think I'm ready to go. I've got all my notes. I've got this section outlined. I've got it broken down. I've done some exegetical work. I've got the entire history of one generation talking about another generation. I've got it all ready to go. All right, are we ready? Okay, welcome everyone. We're going to review a sermon that's on Proverbs 30, verses 11-17. We're going to make it all about, there is a generation or this generation. This should be fun. Let's hit play. We hit play. And the next thing you know, we're talking about people eating people. Are you baffled? I'm baffled. And we're going to talk about all of that. But first, I guess I should go ahead and give you a proper introduction. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Friday. Yes, we're kicking off the weekend. We're going to kick off the weekend with talking about people eating people right here on the Theology Central podcast. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Friday, October the 18th, 2024. It is currently 1 10 p.m. Central Time. And I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio, I was going to say headquarters, Theology Central Studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. And right here in this studio, we've got to figure out, is Proverbs chapter 30, verses 11 through 17, at least one of the verses in that section, is it talking about literally people eating people, or is it using some form of metaphorical language? I know it sounds crazy because, again, what the text would scream at me is, there is a generation. Let's talk about that. I mean, it's only repeated, what, four times? Let's let, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can't go there. So we're gonna go back to the sermon. So just so that everyone's on the same page, just in case you didn't hear the last message, let me try to explain. One of the things I've been doing recently is obviously for the entire year, I've been trying to challenge and encourage people each day to take the Sermons 2.0 app, find a random sermon, listen to it, write down the name of the sermon, maybe write down the name of the church, and then just write out a summary of what the sermon was about. And the goal is by the end of the year, you'll have one sermon for every single day of 2024. What a great challenge. What a great way to get people listening to sermons, right? And so that's what we've been trying to do. And one of the things I have done is to demonstrate everyone that I'm participating, is I'm finding random sermons and then have been reviewing them. Now, most cases, I was going into the reviews completely blind, right? I just chose the random sermon, hit play, and we listened to it together. And I had no idea where things were going. I had no notes ready to go. I just had to rely on just wherever it went. Now, in some cases, it worked out pretty well. In other cases, it went really, really, really, really, really, really, really bad because By the time the sermon was over, we would be like, I don't even know what that was about. I don't know if it even actually dealt with the text. What was that? And I had no, I felt like in many cases I wasn't able to offer a lot of. you know, interesting or beneficial insight. So recently I started changing it up. I would like choose the random sermon, hit play, find out what passage it was about, okay, then hit pause, then go do my own work, come up with all of my notes, outline on the passage. That's where if the sermon just kind of just went off the track, it left the road, I could then just revert back and just basically do a teaching on the passage that the sermon presented. In some cases, I would allow them to give me the Scripture and give me their basic hypotheses on how they handled the Scripture. Then we would listen to it, and then if I felt that their hypothesis was way off the mark, then I would come in and offer mine. So that's been kind of interesting. I think it's kind of mixing it up, changing it up a little bit. So today, it was the same type of thing. Oh, here's a sermon. It's called Bible Study. Oh, let's hit play. Oh, it's on Proverbs chapter 30. Oh, let me look at this section. Oh, there is a generation. There is a generation. Okay, well, obviously anyone preaching on Proverbs 30, 11 through 17 is going to be really working on that phrase, there is a generation. There is a generation. My prediction was at some point they were going to say in the sermon, there is a generation. Ladies and gentlemen, that generation is now, it's this generation. And so I was all ready to go. We were gonna analyze it, we were ready to go. So we started it, we made it, I don't even know how far, 15, 20 minutes in, and all of a sudden it turned into a discussion about people literally eating other people, that there's going to come a time when people are going to eat poor folk. They're going to eat poor people. And I'm like, what is happening right now? So even though my mind was, we're going to focus on there is a generation, I had to pivot in the middle of the broadcast and say, OK, we're going to talk about metaphorical language versus literal language. So I gave everyone kind of an assignment. I know I didn't give you much time. And I gave you some scriptures to look at. And I'm like, OK, what are the rules that determines if language is metaphorical? And what are the rules to determine if language is literal? And who gets to determine which is which? So what we're going to do is I had to get back to this, right? I mean, now, one of the things that happened in the last episode is I had to kind of cut it short because the next thing you know, my food had arrived way earlier than I anticipated. So I had to end the broadcast and run downstairs to get my food. So that kind of messed everything up. But at the same time, it kind of ended in a perfect way, right? Because we ended with the question, basically, metaphorical language or literal language, what are the rules? And I told you to gather around the dinner table and have a discussion about, so, do these passages teach that people are going to literally eat people or not? And I apologize for offending anyone, but I mean, the Bible is the one that's leading to this discussion. But I knew I had to come back. So what we're going to do is we're going to go back to the sermon that we were listening to. We're going to let him once again put forth his hypotheses that he believes that it's at least possible. In fact, he kind of seems to argue that it's more probable that these passages need to be interpreted literally, not metaphorically. Then what we're going to do is we're going to step back and we're going to look at—this is what we're going to do—we're going to look at the rules the hermeneutical rules to determine if language is metaphorical or literal, right? So we're going to do that. Then we're going to go through a number of the passages he cites in this section of the sermon, which he interprets as being literal. And then we're going to apply those rules to those passages to see if the rules would lead us to determine that they're metaphorical or literal. Are you ready for this? I mean, this is just crazy stuff. I never, in a million years, when I got to Proverbs 30, 11 through 17, would have ever... I mean, again, the phrase that's repeated, verse 11, there is a generation. Verse 12, there is a generation. Verse 13, there is a generation. Verse 14, there is a generation. I would have never just ignored the repeated phrase to get to, they're eating people. I don't even know. Now, let me be very fair. Let me be very clear here. I'm not criticizing the pastor who goes for the, this pastor that we're listening to, make the argument that this is literal. This just demonstrates how crazy hermeneutics can be within Christianity. You've got someone looking at the same passage of scripture that I'm looking at, and their mind is, this could be literal. And my mind is, it's obvious, it's metaphorical. So, it's just different approaches to Scripture. Who is right? Well, obviously, both can't be right. So, are there any rules? I'm not implying that this pastor is doing anything evil or there's nothing wrong about it. It's just his approach to Scripture. I may not quite understand it. I'm a little baffled and taken by it. But I'm not making any accusation. He put forth his hypotheses. Now what we're going to do is listen to him present it one more time. And then we're going to go all in with a hermeneutical study. So just imagine that it's Friday. The weekend is almost here. And you've got one more class today. And you walk into class, and you're in hermeneutics class. And I look at everyone like, all right, today, before the weekend kicks off in hermeneutics 101. Today we're going to talk about eating people or not really eating people. Which is it? Eating the people or not eating the people? Literal or metaphorical? And then that will be your last class and then the bell will ring and you can say it's Friday and you can run off and have your weekend. Or you could run off and go, guys, meet in the day room. We got to talk about this. Hey, is this literal or metaphorical? No, nobody's going to go there. You're going to go have a good weekend. I understand. But so before the weekend begins, one more class. Are you ready? It's hermeneutics 101. Here we go. Here is the sermon that kicked all of this off. I thought it was going to be a discussion about there is a generation. I guess what this has turned into, there is a generation that will eat, literally eat poor people. That is what this has turned into. Are you ready? Here we go. Now, I just backed this up a little bit. I don't know if I've got everything, but I think we've got enough here to get us where we need to go. We just need him to basically establish his basic hypotheses and then we're off to the races. How did we end up here? I'm telling you. See, listening to sermons, much more fun. It's more fun. It's more entertaining. It's what you've been looking for your whole life. You've been like, I keep looking for something to do. Just listen to sermons, and then you'll have a discussion about literally people eating people. Like, what is, okay, all right, here we go. And there's a generation that's full of pride, verse number 13. Isn't that interesting? That's verse 13. Look at 14. I didn't quite understand that. Because verse 13 is about pride, it's interesting that it's verse 13. Is 13 associated with pride? I'm not getting it. What's the significance of 13? Am I missing something here? Because everyone in the congregation was like, yeah, like, am I missing something here? What are the... Well, I'm gonna look it up. Okay, what are the superstitions around the... I know it's supposedly bad luck, Okay, Friday the 13th, many of you Friday the 13th as an unlucky day. Okay, there's a fear of the number 13 itself. Some people have an actual phobia. In Norse mythology, the, whoa, I got the C. Oh, the god Loki was the 13th Ghis as a dinner party in Valhalla, leading to the death of the god Balder, which caused widespread grief among gods. Ancient Rome, they believed the witches gathered in groups of 12, and the 13th member of the group was the devil. and numerological beliefs, number 12 is often considered a complete number, so 13 being one number beyond completeness is seen as irregular and disconcerting. Western weddings, some superstitions discourage 13 guests at a dinner party or wedding. I don't know what, is 13, is the number 13 in the Bible, associated with pride. Everybody in the church seemed to get it. Yeah, the number 13 is not directly associated with pride in the Bible in a way that stands out as a recurring theme or symbol, while numbers like 7, 12, and 40 have more clear biblical significance. 13 doesn't carry the same consistent symbolic meaning. However, some interpretations from biblical numerology claim that 13 is connected to rebellion, lawlessness, oh, which can relate to pride. Ah, okay. All right. I guess that's where it was coming from. I was like, where's the—he says, isn't that interesting? It's the 13th verse. Just remember, first, the verses were not a part of the original. They were added later. So he's acting like the numbers are somehow—you see, isn't it interesting that that's verse 13 and it's about pride? The chapter-verse division was not part of the original. They were added, what, was it the I have to look at the, I thought it was like, it was late. It was much later. I don't have the year in front of me. I don't want to state it, but you can look it up. So, yeah, that's just weird. But all right. But that's not what we want to get to. All right. Remember, we're in Proverbs chapter 30. I thought that this entire discussion would be about this generation, this generation, or there is a generation. We found ourselves talking about now. People eating people, and that's about to happen in the next verse. Are you ready? Here we go. This is where things are going to get a little weird. Just hold on, buckle up. Here we go. There's a generation whose teeth are as swords and their jaw teeth as knives. Well, what for? To devour the poor from off the earth. and the needy from among men." You could just read that and say, well, that's just metaphorically speaking, but there is coming a time on the earth when men will eat poor folks. Okay, he's like, you could just read this and say it's metaphorical language, but there is a time. Now he speaks of it dogmatic. There is a time coming upon this earth. There is a time. So he's saying prophetically that people will eat poor folks. There's coming a time where people on this earth will eat poor folks. He's saying it dogmatically. He's asserting it's a dogmatic certainty, which then calls into question, should we read this as a metaphor? Now, he's going to develop this hypothesis, he's going to develop his theory by doing some cross-referencing, okay? Just write down all of these cross-references. So Proverbs 30, 14, he says, hey, you could read this as metaphorical language, but there is coming a time, he states it adogmatic, it's an adogmatic assertion, that on this earth, men are going to, or people are going to eat poor folk. Again, I would have never, and the last message, that's why you hear in my introduction, oh, this generation. I had the whole discussion about this generation ready to go. Well, I had no idea that Proverbs 30 was gonna turn into a discussion about people eating people. This is like really, I've got, we gotta figure this out. So again, let's just keep going. I've already given you all the questions. I mean, you're as ready as you can be for this. We just, we gotta bring this to some kind of conclusion. I mean, we cannot start our weekend until we figure this out. All right. So are you ready? Here we go. With their teeth and with their jaws, just like that proverb says, uh, just a few places. Look at Psalms 14, Psalms 14. Coming through the book of Proverbs, all 31 chapters, there is just all kind of prophetic stuff in there about the tribulation, the Antichrist. You know how we kept running across verses that says, the wicked, the wicked, the wicked. And I could have run off and taught y'all a bunch of stuff about the wicked being the devil, the Antichrist. Okay, so in Proverbs, there's all kinds of prophetic passages. And when it says, the wicked, the wicked, the wicked, he could have taught us that the wicked is the devil or the antichrist. Now this, ladies and gentlemen, I don't even know what's happening right here. Okay, first of all, how much prophecy is in the book of Proverbs? I mean, it's a completely different literary genre. So I'm already baffled. And so the wicked and Proverbs, whenever you see that, that's referring to the devil and the Antichrist? So when it says the wicked, the wicked, that's the devil and the Antichrist. I mean, there's so many directions we can go even trying to follow this, but we're going to get to the eating of the people, all right? So just, oh man, I am trying to follow this. We're going to get to the eating of the people. Let's see where this goes. and got you a doctrinal truth there. I've been coming through here just trying to get a practical application that we can apply to ourselves, okay? Well, I guess we could do the same thing in Proverbs 30, 14 and just get a practical application, but it's just pretty evident here the thing is literal. Look at Psalms Did you hear that? It's pretty evident that it's literal. So he's not just now making, he's just not throwing out kind of a hypothesis. He's making it much more dogmatic. He's being much more assertive. That it's clear that it's literal. It's not metaphorical. It's literal. Now, the way he seems to approach this, his hermeneutic seems to be, well, let's not look at the literary genre, let's not look at the context. His hermeneutical approach is, let's just go from Proverbs 30, I think he said verse 14. Let me go back to Proverbs here. I want to make sure I quote the right verse. Proverbs 30.14, his hermeneutic seems to be this. Proverbs 30.14 uses this kind of language. Now let's go look at other passages that use the same kind of language, and now let's just make the assertion all of them are literal. That's not really proving that they're literal. He's just asserting that they're literal. He's not offering, like, so what are the hermeneutical principles that would lead him to determine that this language isn't metaphorical, that it's literal? What are the rules? What are the rules? Are there hermeneutical rules? See, that's the direction. His argument is, it uses this language. Let's look up other scriptures that use similar language, and now let's just assert that all of them are literal. But is that the way you do this? Let's see where he's going to go. Psalm 14, right? The book of Psalms, Psalm 14. All right, let's see where he's going to go here. When you put it with some other verses in the Bible, I'm just going to show you three and we'll move on. Psalms 14 and four, have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? That's a good question. We're studying right now about adding knowledge, ain't we? I guess without it, you become a worker of iniquity. And look what it says after that. Who eat up my people as they eat bread and call not upon the Lord. So there's some people that don't call on the Lord, they're workers of iniquity, they don't have no knowledge, and they eat people just like they eat bread. Say, well, that's probably just metaphoric. I don't know. Look at Isaiah 6. Okay, so now there he seems not as conclusive, right? But he's already seemed to made a dogmatic assertion that these verses are talking about people eating people, like he's saying it in a very literal way. Now he says Isaiah 6. Now, this is the one I think I missed in our last message, because, well, I knew that, one, I was running out of time, and two, I was all discombobulated, because I thought we were going to be talking about, there is a generation, there is a generation, because that's repeated four times in just a few verses. I'm like, okay, that's what we're going to be talking about. I would have never predicted that this is going to turn into a discussion about cannibalism and people eating people, literal or metaphorical. But here we are. So, Danny says go to Isaiah 6. Now, again, I want you to see his hermeneutical approach. This is why sometimes when people make a comment when they talk about hermeneutics, well, you interpret Scripture with Scripture. Well, that sounds so wonderful, but that just means people will just start cross-referencing anything. Well, I looked at this verse, I looked at this verse, I looked at this verse, I've got three verses, boom! I've proven my point." And you just kind of want to look at them like, what are you even talking about? That's not hermeneutics. Just grabbing random verses and connecting them together doesn't prove anything. That's what I sometimes refer to as death by cross-reference. Now, he's looking up similar verses. I'm not saying we should not look up to similar verses, but his argument is, if I find similar verses that use similar language, then I can just then argue that they're all to be interpreted literal and not metaphorical. Well, please note where we've gone so far. We've been in Proverbs, we've been in Psalms. Hmm, what literary genre is that? And is that literary genre known for metaphor? I mean, just Proverbs, Psalms, those two books, what literary genre is that? And is it known for the use of metaphor? Now we're in Isaiah. What type of literary genre is Isaiah? Is it known for metaphor? I'm just asking the question, all right? I mean, this is hermeneutics 101 class, right? This is the last class before you start your weekend, right? So you guys are in hermeneutics class. You should already know this. You should be able to know all the literary genres and what are the characteristics of each literary genre. I mean, that's like basic 101. If you know Christians who can identify the literary genre of each book of the Bible and know the basic characteristics of each literary genre, they probably shouldn't be telling you they know what the Bible means. All right, but let's see what Isaiah 6, what is he gonna do with Isaiah 6? Isaiah 6. In the Bible, when it says, my people, who is that? That's Israel. Now, again, my people, does it always mean Israel? Now, when you say my people in the Old Testament, I think we can say that's reference to Israel. If it says my people in the New Testament, now does the New Testament use the phrase my people? All right. Lots of hermeneutical questions we would have here, interpretive questions, but okay. So he's gonna go to Isaiah 6. Obviously, whichever verse he's going to find, I'm assuming it's going to use the phrase, my people, and I'm assuming it's going to have something to do with people being eaten according to him. That's where he seems to be going. Let's see where this goes. We're in Isaiah 6. Let's see where he goes here. Isaiah 6, 13. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return and shall be eaten as a teal tree and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves. So the holy seed shall be the substance thereof." That holy seed is Israel. That's the children of Israel. He's talking about a tenth of those people returning, and it says they'll be eaten. I think about, he says, as this oak tree, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves, right now the sap is going down. And when that sap goes down, the leaves fall off the trees. See? He says, the holy seed shall be the substance thereof. It's the substance of those tenths right there. Turn to Micah. So his argument in Isaiah 6.13 but yet in it shall a tenth and and it shall return and shall be eaten as a as teal tree and as an oak whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves so the holy seed shall be substance thereof." Now, he's saying the eating there is an eating literally of a part of Israel. He's saying it's literal, but just look at the verse. We got, as a till tree, is the till tree literal? As an oak? Now there you're clearly, that as an, that's literally showing that there's some metaphorical language. There's this is like this. So do we, We will have to break this down more, but just so he goes to Isaiah 6.13 and his argument is Isaiah 6.13, that's literally people being literally eaten. Psalm 14.4, that's people literally being eaten. And Proverbs 30.14, that's people literally being eaten. So he believes all of these passages. Now he's not proven why he's approaching it this way. He's just arguing, I've got cross-references and cross-references prove my point. And my point is people are literally being eaten. He's not offering This is just so hard to follow, but we're going to break this down. I've got lots of notes here in Isaiah. The Isaiah passage would take us a long time to break down. I want to break it down now. Maybe we'll get to it. Maybe we'll have to do three, four, five parts on this. I didn't want this to turn into a series, but here we are. I mean, this all was going to be like a little, hey, here's a message on Proverbs 30, 11 through 17. It talks about there is a generation, let's have that discussion, and it'd be almost like a devotional thing. I didn't know it was going to turn into a full-blown hermeneutic on people eating people, but now he's going to go to Micah. Now he's going to go to Micah. He's going to go to Micah, so if you want to go ahead and turn to Micah, it's going to be chapter 3. I believe it's like verses 1 through 5, if I remember. Yeah, Micah chapter three, I got it right here. Yeah, it's verses one, one through four, Micah three verses one through four. That's where he's gonna go. It's gonna take him a while to get there. I think he can't find it at first, which is perfectly okay. I mean, that can happen to anyone, but he's gonna ultimately get there and then he's gonna go to Micah three. And once again, he's gonna make an argument that this is literally people eating people. Here we go. Micah chapter number three. Then we'll go to revelations. Daniel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, that away. Micah 3, 1, and I said, here, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and you princes of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know judgment? who hate the good and love the evil, who pluck off their skin from off them and their flesh from off their bones, who also eat the flesh of my people and flay their skin from off them, and they break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot and as flesh within the cauldron. Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not hear them. He will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings." Now just a note, so after this happens, then they will cry unto the Lord. If you've been eaten, you can't cry unto the Lord. Now you could argue, well, the people crying to the Lord are the people left over. They're the people who didn't get eaten. Okay, I guess you could go there, but all right. Now he kind of laughs right there. Now he's getting ready to once again make an argument that this is not metaphorical, that this is literal. Here we go. You see all this stuff about eating people? Yeah, that's gross. So when he says there's a generation whose teeth are like swords, you know, and their jaw teeth is nice, and it's for devouring poor people. There's coming a time on the, a generation on this earth, okay, a time period, in that great tribulation, to where if you don't take the mark of the beast, you don't buy and sell. So you're automatically poor, you understand? And we turn to Revelation 17, So his argument is that all these passages are pointing to a time coming, the Great Tribulation, where people are going to eat people. They're going to eat the poor folk. Now, even in the Proverbs 30, if you're going to take the eating as literal, if you're going to take the eating as literal, just go back to Proverbs 30. Proverbs 30, even if you're going to take this as literal, look at what you would have. is a generation whose teeth are as swords and their jaw teeth as knives." See, the knives, all of that, clearly their teeth are not going to be like knives. It's a metaphor. They're not going to be swords. So, clearly, the text itself is showing you, I'm using metaphorical language. So, he would argue that that is metaphor, but the eating is literal. And that just becomes Okay, so now we're in the book of Revelation. I don't know which chapter he's going to go to yet. He may have said, and I may have missed it. Hopefully he repeats it. I think we'll see. He's going to go to Revelation. Now, what he's going to argue is that all of these passages are prophecy pointing to the fact that a generation is coming, which will be during the Great Tribulation. People are going to be poor because they don't take the mark, and these people are going to be eaten. Now, If the poor people are being eaten by someone else, who are the people eating the poor people? And if the other people aren't poor, why are they eating the poor people? Wouldn't it be the argument that poor people are eating poor people? Let's see how he breaks this down. There's going to be a system set up over there in Jerusalem with the Antichrist in charge. He's gonna want people to take the mark of the beast, and if they don't, and they're captured, and many will, many Jews will. We kept reading about my people. There's another place in Revelation where it says they're gonna die the death, and it's defined as decapitation, cutting their heads off. And I'll tell you what it looks like to me. It looks like they're drinking their blood and eating their bodies. All right, so the people killing the poor are going to chop off their heads, drink their blood, and eat their bodies. I don't want any Christians to ever say that, you know, Netflix movies are bad, okay, and that Harry Potter shouldn't be read. What in the world is happening here? So, supposedly in the book of Revelation, people's heads are going to be chopped off, and they're going to drink their blood and eat their bodies. And this is a fulfillment of the prophecy, I guess, in Proverbs 30, 14, Psalm 14, 4, Micah 3, 1-5, Isaiah 6, whatever verse that was. And that all of these are saying that there's going to come a time where people are going to eat poor folk. And the people that are going to be eating the poor folk are the people who don't really need to eat the poor folk because they're not poor. They're just going to be doing it because I guess they're wicked and they just want to eat human flesh. I guess that's where this is going. Let's see how this all... Let's see how this all plays out here. Here we go. See it in Revelation 17, 6. And I saw the woman. Who's that? That's right, Rome. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. Remember how, what is it, Matthew 24, he talks about the abomination of desolation. It's prophesied in Daniel, in the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter number 11. In Daniel chapter number 12, he says he's going to take away, the Antichrist is going to come in, he's going to take away the daily sacrifice in the temple. And they're going to place the abomination that maketh desolate. This is what it looks like is going to happen. All right, Matthew 24 is dealing with what's going to happen leading up to 70 AD, so we're already all over the place, okay? Throwing in Daniel passages, now he's saying that this is what it's going to look like. So he's saying the abomination that leads to desolation is Rome eating actual people? Is that where this is going? Well, if you're going to connect it to Matthew 24, then that would be what happened leading up to 70 AD. Oh boy. Okay. All right. So we got to keep this straight. So let's see how he explains this, and then we can have kind of a hermeneutical discussion about this. All right, here we go. They're going to take humans, poor people, instead of offering lambs and sheep, and doves and cows on those altars like God told them to in the temple, they're going to take Jews and martyrs for Jesus Christ in the tribulation period, and they're going to chop off their head. And as part of the worship service, they're going to drink their blood. That's what you just read in Revelation 17, drunken with the blood. You say, well, that's just figurative. That's just a metaphor. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. OK, well, he goes back to maybe. Now he goes back to maybe. He got kind of very dogmatic earlier. Now he's kind of backing up a little bit to the maybe. So I don't know if it's definite. Now, at least he's offering the opportunity that it could possibly be metaphor. Now, the thing is, once you get into the discussion about literal or metaphorical, why would he not then go into the hermeneutical principles to demonstrate if it's metaphorical or literal? because there are hermeneutical principles that address this subject that's been talked about throughout all of church history. Why would you not then pull in those principles, right? I mean, he's just throwing out the speculation. I guess that's okay, but at some point, maybe the next week, he offered up the issues. We're going to get into it. I'm going to let him finish his point because I don't want it to be like I'm taking anything out of context here. And all those verses about eating the flesh and filleting them. I told you last Sunday, since it's October, about this holiday that's coming up. That is the Satanist holiday of the year. It just is. And I've read books about what they do to people on that day. Oh, for crying out loud. Where's my satanic Bible? Hang on, I'm looking here. Oh, here it is. All right, okay. I get so tired of pastors. I read about what they do to people. Who are the they? Are you referring to Satanists, like the Church of Satan? What they do for people, because you clearly don't understand Satanism. And if you're gonna say it's the holiday for Satanists, let me go to the actual chapter. Oh man, live. Hang on, let me find the actual chapter here. It is, I always forget which chapter, it's page 96, page 96. The chapters don't have numbers. Religious holidays, page 96. Satanic Bible. I always make sure I have this round in October because you always know Christian's gonna start saying wacky things. Okay. All right, here we go. The highest, the highest holiday. The number one holiday for a Satanist. The number one, the highest, the most holy day for a Satanist is not Halloween. Any pastor who tells you that is misrepresenting everything. Let me read it to you. This is page 96 of the Satanic Bible. If I had video, I would show you. If I need to, I can take a picture and post it. I can send it out. I'll put it as an article on the Sermon Audio website, but I'll probably get in trouble for doing that. But Here it is. There's Anton LaVey. He's in the back, standing in front of a pentagram. Okay, here we go. Here we go. All right. The highest of all holidays in the satanic religion is the date of one's own birth. This is in direct contradiction to the holy of holy days of other religions, which deify a particular God who has been created in an anthropomorphic form of their own image, thereby allowing that the ego is not really buried. The Satanist feels, why not really be honest? And if you're going to create a God in your image, why not create that God as yourself? Every man is a god if he chooses to recognize himself as one. So the satanist celebrates his own birthday as the most important holiday of the year. If you're going to get all upset about satanic holidays, stop celebrating birthdays. Man, every year I gotta do that exact same thing. I've been doing it for now, it feels like my entire Christian life. I mean, you know what's hilarious? My salvation is very much linked to a discussion about the Satanic Bible. I've told the story a million times. I'm in high school. There's a guy who claims to be a Satanist, right? He claims to be a Satanist, and he's talking to all these Christian girls, right? And they're trying to invite him to the fall revival going on that night. And he's just saying all these things, I'm a Satanist, and Satanist this, and Satanist that, and Satanist do this, and Satanist do that. And I'm like, dude, stop. So I just kind of get involved. It's not that I'm taking up for the Christian girls, because I think they're all, you know, I hate to say it, I thought they were all idiots, so, you know, whatever. And I'm just like, dude, come on, man, the Satanic Bible doesn't say this. You're just making up stuff. You sound like you got it from a horror movie. That's not Satanism, all right? Satanism is atheistic. You worship yourself, right? It's, come on, Satan is just a symbol of these things. Can you get it right? And so I kind of jump in. Well, then afterwards the girls are like, Oh, thank you so much for taking up for us. We really appreciate it. OK, and I know I'm kind of mocking, but yeah, that's kind of how I felt. And I'm like, just leave me alone and go jump off a bridge somewhere. Just don't bother me. And they're like, you need to come to our fall revival. And I'm like, no, I'm not coming to your fall revival. Leave me alone. Right. So I went home and then, well, chaos erupted in my house and it was crazy and violent. And so I'm like, well, I'm going somewhere. And guess where I ended up? At the fall revival. And guess what happened? I got saved. So, my salvation is connected to me arguing about what Satanism really is. And now, all of these years later, I'm still arguing about what Satanism really is. Now, if you want to identify a certain form of Satanism, then please identify. And when you say, I've been reading some books, please give me the name of said books. I would love to know those books and which Satanism they are referencing. whenever it gets around Halloween, Christians just say the most ridiculous things about Satanism. I remember being at Grace University. I don't even know what class I was in, and everybody was just saying—it was around October—and everybody was saying these ridiculous things about Satanism, and I'm like, would you people just stop talking? And I think I had with me my Satanic Bible, and I pulled it out, and everybody— Oh my goodness, somebody hit the floor like I pulled out a gun. I'm like, look, if you're going to talk about it, how about you actually open it up? So let me say it again. If you got Christians running around saying, Halloween is a satanic holiday. It's the highest holiday of a satanist. No, birthday is. Now, if you want to talk about Halloween, if you want to just talk about it, if you want to talk about it, if you want to be, you know, if you want to be really, really, really, really fair with it. Halloween is mentioned, all right? So, after one's own birthday, the two major satanic holidays is, and I don't even know how to pronounce the next one, and then the third. So, Halloween is the third most important holiday to a satanist. The third, not the first, not even the second. The third, okay? The third! So can we at least get it? Look, and you know why this bothers me? Because we're not supposed to bear false witness, right? And you can get a paperback copy of the Satanic Bible for probably about five dollars, all right? You can probably buy it for use for a dollar fifty probably, all right? Have one, okay? And people are like, but it has demons on it! The satanism of Anton LaVey is atheistic. All right, come on now. Let's see what he's going to say here, what they do to people. This reminds me of the 80s, the great satanic scare of the 80s, where we thought we're all going to be kidnapped and sacrificed by satanists. They were all supposedly roaming around. Okay, remember that, okay. There's entire articles written about the subject. I lived through it, I know. You know what they do? They drink their blood. They chop their bodies up. They actually use a hamburger grinder. I have one. I make sausage with it. I make hamburger meat. And they grind them up in that thing and mix it with their drink and drink it. It gives them demonic powers, they say. So it's nothing new. Grinds people up in a hamburger or whatever thing he called and mixes it with their drink and to give them to my work where oh Man Let's see here. I think I have the chapter Hang on. I think I have the chapter I May not hear Let's see, 87, okay, is it chapter 87? Okay. Yeah, just right here, contrary to all established magical theory, the release of this force is not affected in the actual spilling of blood, but in the death throes of the living creature. This discharge of bioelectrical energy is the very same phenomenon which occurs during any profound heightening of the emotions such as, and I can't go into what they say next, blind anger, mortal terror, consuming grief. Of these emotions, the easiest entered into is one's own violation or, well, I won't go into that, or anger with grief running a close third. Remembering that the two most readily available of these three anger, I'll just go with that one, have been burned into man's unconscious as sinful by religionists. It is small wonder that they are shunned by the white magician who plods along carrying the greatest of all millstone, guilt. All right, what goes in here, and basically what it says, here we go. The use of human sacrifice in satanic ritual does not imply that the sacrifice is slaughtered to appease the gods. Symbolically, the victim is destroyed through the working of a hex or curse, which in turn leads to physical, mental, or emotional destruction of the sacrifice in ways and means not attributed to the magician. All right? So, this would be going against the idea of human sacrifice. Now, it does get into some things here that are very disturbing, by all means, right? It gets into some things that we would be completely against. I'm not saying it's not I'm not saying Satanism in its form is Christian or we would agree with it. I'm just saying we have to represent it correctly, all right? Okay. Under no circumstance would a Satanist sacrifice any animal or baby. For centuries, propagandists of the right path have been prattling over the supposed sacrifices of small children and voluptuous maidens at the hands of diabolists. It would be thought that anyone reading or hearing of these heinous accounts would immediately question their authenticity, taking into consideration the biased sources of these stories. On the contrary, as with all holy lies, which are accepted without reservation, this assumed modus operandi of the Satanists persists to this day." See, they say that under no circumstances would that happen. Yet it's continued promotion. They even call it propaganda. They even tell you that this is what religious people do. And religious people go around doing the very thing Satanists say religious people do, and not even realize they're doing what the satanic Bible even says they do. Now look, if you know of a specific group that does this, identify the group by name. Say where they're headquartered. Where are they at? And if you just say, well, I read it in a book. What book? I can read anything in a book. Well, if you quote a book, I can quote a book. You quote a book about a group, I'll quote the book by the group. Now, if you've got inside information, then OK, then give me the evidence. But in many cases, in most cases, you're just making accusations and you could be bearing false witness. All right, now this turned in, now see, we're not gonna even get, we're not even gonna get where we need to go, all right? We need to get to metaphorical language. But here, you know, and hey, if the Bible, oh, nevermind, we could go into all kinds of directions with that. All right, but let's see if he wraps this up and then we'll, Yeah, we kind of almost have to stop and do another part to get to the actual rules, but this just gets getting more and more just way off topic here. All right. See, that's what the devil is all about. And it looks like that abomination of desolation, and that's what that thing is all about. It's cannibalism. You want to hear the figurative part? There's a group of people from Rome that do that every Sunday. That's what they teach. I don't believe they're eating the literal body of Jesus, but that's what they say. In fact, they say if you don't believe that, you're damned. That they drink in the literal blood and eat in the literal body of Jesus for their salvation. That priest stands up and says, Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, or whatever he says in Latin. They call it trans-something, substance, yeah, whatever that long word is. And what it means is he's turning that cup of wine into literal blood and the people drink it. He's turning the wafer into a literal body and you digest it in your system. So there is a generation Now, isn't it funny? In Proverbs, when it talks about eating flesh, it's literal. Psalm 14, when it talks about eating, it's literal. Isaiah 6, when it talks about eating, literal. Micah 3, when it talks about eating, literal. When Jesus says, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, all of a sudden now that's metaphorical. See, that's the figurative part. All of these verses are literal, but that's metaphorical. You see why nobody can agree on anything in the Bible? You see? He says those verses are metaphorical, where Roman Catholicism would say, wait, wait, wait, we think we have to take this more literal, right? It says, eat my flesh, drink my blood. That's what it says, right? And we're like, no, no, no, that's metaphorical. Then he goes over here to Proverbs, where most people would say these are metaphorical. He's like, no, that's literal. There's going to be people who literally are eating people. This is why biblical interpretation, in many cases, is just literally a free-for-all. It's just anarchy. Anyone can make it say whatever they want, whenever they want. You want to make it metaphorical? You can make it metaphorical. You want to make it literal? You can make it literal. And then everyone does what they want in their own eyes. It's just total, complete, and utter anarchy. And if you don't believe—just the more sermons you listen to, the more you see this, the more you read, the more Christian books you read, the more commentaries you read, the more sermons you listen to, the more at some point you're just like, you know what? You can just say whatever you want. And someone's going to criticize you, of course. They're going to tell you you're wrong. But who cares if they tell you you're wrong, right? Who are they to tell me they're wrong? Go through 2,000 years of church history. There's not an interpretation that you can think of that hasn't been suggested. It's out there. So you can tell me I'm wrong? So what? So what? There's a million people will tell you you're wrong. Everyone thinks, you're right, you're right, you're wrong, you're wrong. It's just utter, complete, total anarchy. But it's just funny. He's going to condemn and mock Roman Catholicism because he doesn't like their interpretation. See, they take where Jesus says, you must eat my body and drink my blood and eat my flesh or you have no part of me. Oh, no, no, no, no. That's metaphorical. And he mocks them. He mocks them. Inni, minni, manni, mo. Mocking the Latin phrase. Just mocking. So he's going to mock and make fun of people who say this passage is literal. Well, then he goes and look at all these other passages where everyone would say they're metaphorical and he says they're literal. How do you? And then he completely misrepresents Satanism. saying that Halloween's the most holy day, which is just not true, it's birthday. I mean, literally, it's right here in the Satanic Bible. Puts forth some of the same satanic propaganda, or anti-Satanism propaganda that's been put forth forever, that even Satanists mock. Literally, they're gonna come, and they're gonna eat poor folks. It's because they refuse the mark of the beast that they're poor. It looks like they're beheaded at an altar as part of a worship service. Because what the devil wants is worship. Strange way to get worship, ain't it? Look at the next verse, Proverbs 30. Okay, that's where we're going to stop. Now what we need to do What we need to do, ladies and gentlemen, is I have here in front of me one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I have seven basic, we'll call them, um, kind of an outline for determining when the Bible is using metaphor versus literal language. Since we have about just like two minutes, I'll just go through these quickly, just so that you can write these down. And we're going to have to spend some more time going through this, all right? Obviously, the first thing you have to do is you've got to understand the genre of the passage. Whatever passage you're reading, what genre, what literary genre is that? For example, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon tends to use metaphorical and symbolic language. Why? What genre is it? Poetry. Hmm. It's using poetry. And poetry uses metaphor. So that should at least give you pause. Wait a minute. The first passage was in Proverbs. The second one was in Psalms. Hmm. That's poetry. Poetry uses metaphor. Throughout Proverbs, throughout Psalms, metaphor is used. So immediately that would give me pause. Prophetic literature, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Revelation, or just a few, uses vivid imagery and metaphors to convey spiritual truths. Where was the next passage he went to? Isaiah 6. And Micah, the minor prophets, are they not prophetic? Hmm. So the two literary genres, poetry and prophecy, are utilized. And he never bothered to say, wait, the literary genre here could make an argument that this is a metaphor. Historical narratives. Genesis, Exodus, Acts generally describe literal events, but still may include figurative speech or literary devices within the narrative. So even within a historical narrative, you could have figurative speech. Wisdom literature. Job in Ecclesiastes frequently uses metaphor and comparisons to express deeper truths about life and God. So the first thing you have to do, you've got to understand the genre. Let me say it this way. I will say it this way. You have to identify the literary type, the literary genre. Now, once you've got a passage of Scripture, what's the literary genre? Now, is this literary genre known for metaphor? Yes. Hmm. Okay. Now, I'm not saying that means it's metaphor. I'm not saying that that means you don't take it literal. I'm saying that that means, hmm, what do I do here? What do I look for here? What do I do? That at least gets you started, right? That at least gets you started. Another thing is you consider immediate context. What are the adjacent verses say? Examine the verses around the passage. If the surrounding text is clearly symbolic or figurative, the passage in question is likely metaphorical. Well, go to Proverbs chapter 30. Look at the very verse, Proverbs chapter 30, verse 12. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes and yet is not washed from their filthiness. Now, obviously washed from your filthiness, It's got to be somewhat of a metaphor. You don't literally wash yourself to get rid of your filthiness. There's, I think, a little bit of a metaphor there. There's a generation, oh, how lofty are their eyes and their eyelids are lifted up. Well, the eyes and eyelids, it's not talking about, oh, your eye and your eyelid is lifted up. That's symbolic or metaphorical for what? Pride. So then you come to the next verse, there is a generation whose teeth are as swords, clearly using a metaphor, and their jaw teeth as knives, clearly using a metaphor, to devour the poor from off the earth. Clearly, it's a metaphor and how they're going to treat the poor. I think the verses before seem to establish some metaphorical language is being used, or at least we should say this. Based off the immediate context, it seems to imply that this could be metaphorical. Right? I think that that's fair. Right? So, number one, we identify the literary genre. Number two, we look at the immediate context. All right? And what do we look for in the immediate context? The adjacent verses, which we just did. The subject of the passage. Is the writer addressing a concept such as God's power or human sinfulness that is difficult to depict literally? If so, metaphorical language may be employed to help explain complex ideas. So, we just look at the context. Number three, we evaluate the nature of the statement. And possibility of literal interpretation. If a literal reading leads to an absurd or impossible scenario, Jesus is the door. It is more likely to be metaphorical. Well, we're going to eat the poor. What is the exact verse? Devour the poor from off the earth. There's not going to be any poor people left. All the poor people are going to be devoured. That seems a little absurd to take it that way, correct? I think that that's saying that the poor people are going to be horribly treated, right? I mean, I think we would have to at least consider that, right? Figure of speech indicators. Look for words that suggest a comparison or figure of speech such as like, as, or is like. These often signify metaphors or similes. Well, look what we have. There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, their jaws teeth as knives. So now, so all of the clues that you typically would find in a basic hermeneutical instruction on how to interpret the Bible, They're giving you that this is all yelling and screaming, simile, metaphor, figurative language. All right? So, number one, we have understand the genre. Number two, we have consider the immediate context. Number three, evaluate the nature of the statement, right? And possibility of literal interpretation, that kind of thing, figurative speech indicators. How about examine the use of common biblical metaphors? Recurrent themes, certain metaphors are used consistently throughout the Bible. Light representing holiness, shepherd representing leadership. Identifying these patterns helps determine if a passage uses a familiar metaphor. Well, he just demonstrated that this is somewhat of a familiar metaphor used in numerous places. In his mind, these other verses proved that it was literal. It could be argued that all of these verses would show that this was a common metaphor. Cultural idioms. Many metaphors reflect the cultural context of the time. Agricultural imagery, understanding ancient cultural references help in identifying a metaphorical language. Now, is this a cultural idiom? When you talk about eating the poor, eating people, is that a cultural idiom? I don't know. At this point, I cannot be dogmatic about that, but it would be something we would have to look for. Yeah, I'll just stop there. I got more here. I got more here that we could get into, but just I want you to see if we just start looking at the basic principles, we immediately are like, wait a minute. This seems to have all the classic marks. of metaphorical language. I'm not saying it is. Look, I'm still allowing for it to be possibly taking literal some way. Now, my issue would be, he went to Matthew 24, applied that to the future when Matthew 24 primarily is about 70 AD. that's a problem. He went to that passage in Revelation and immediately turned it into a religious ceremony where people's heads are chopped off and then you drink the blood and you eat the body. That was reading a lot into the text. Not only that, he's taking these other passages in Proverbs, Isaiah, Psalm, and Micah and saying that it's prophetic about something that's going to happen in the tribulation period, I don't think you can take any of those passages to be pointing to anything happening in the tribulation period. There's nothing in these passages that would say it's going to happen in the tribulation. These all have clear historical context. So already that seems to be, already we're having problems. And then to call into question someone's accuracy, he completely misrepresented basic facts about basic Satanism. All right, we'll have to stop there. 66 minutes. Yeah, I got pages of notes here, pages. I also have literally 10 specific rules, right? So we have kind of the basic principles, then we're gonna break it down into specific rules. I got a lot of information here. And well, obviously we're gonna have to do a part three. We're gonna have to do a part three. Man, I just, I've got all of my notes on, there is a generation. I got all my notes. I got that entire, I got it, Proverbs 30, what is it? 11 through 17, is that what it is? Let me make sure here. We've looked at so many passages here. I don't wanna give you wrong information. I have, Yeah, 11 through 17, I have an entire outline for it, I have it broken down, I have an exegesis of it, I have so much, and we didn't get to any of that. We didn't get to any of that, because it turned into this, who would have thought? So, here's the key. Are Christians ever going to agree? Obviously not, on anything. But I believe there has to be basic hermeneutical rules that govern what we do. And you can just see, he condemned Catholics for taking a passage literally, while he's running to another passage and he's taking it literally. So he's making an argument for the literal reading, but then he condemns them for their literal reading. Well, why is his literal reading right and their literal reading wrong? And who gets to determine who's right and who's wrong? When you offer an interpretation, does the Bible go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, warning you that it's wrong? Or does it go ding, you got it right? We get to determine if we're right. We get to determine if we're wrong. We do. We say, no, the Bible does. No, multiple people using the same Bible coming to different conclusions. All right. Well, that was fun. Thank you for listening. Now, your free class. The bell rings. Do I have a bell? Do I have a bell sound? Do I have a bell sound? I think I have a bell sound. Here we go. There you go, class is over, the weekend is here. Now you can run out going, wow, that was some crazy stuff. That was crazy stuff. We talked about chopping up bodies and chopping off heads, drinking blood, eating flesh. What a class that was today. You said, what school do you go to? Oh, I go to the Bible college and the seminary and that was my hermeneutics class. All right, well, there you go. You don't need a horror movie tonight. You've got to... Well, you can have a good discussion about metaphor versus literal. And, well, you can let me know what you think. Everyone have a great afternoon, a great evening, and a great weekend. And, well, God bless.