Bumby Bible Questions 11

Introduction

It’s the fourth Sunday again. Ready or not, here we come. We’re going on with our question and answers, and if you can believe it, it’s almost been one year of doing these types of special studies. We’re thankful for the opportunity to get these questions. I’m thankful for all your questions that stumped Ken. There’s been a lot of those. That wasn’t hard. And we’ve enjoyed working together on figuring out who’s right, who’s wrong, and the sad news for both of us that we think alike most of the time. So just know that if you’ll continue sending in questions, we we have gotten more in the past couple months, which we’re very thankful for. But there’s always more questions to examine and to kind of jigsaw together in the right format and timing for these sessions to go and to get as many questions in and well studied as possible.

1. What Is the Holy Spirit in John 7?

And we have those three ways for doing that. One of them is emailing them to Bumby BibleQuestions at gmail.com. Bumby BibleQuestions at gmail.com. We also have a box in the in the foyer of the lobby. If you write down your question on a note card right in front of it and stick it in, that usually does get to us. And then if you want to come tell us your question, please, please, please do us a large favor and also write it down and hand it to us. Otherwise, it may be a very long time or never before we get to it. So with that said, we’re going to get pretty well straight into our questions this morning. What is the Holy Spirit mentioned in John 7, 37 and 39?

And when was this promise fulfilled? Go ahead and turn to John chapter 7. Beginning in verse 37. Really, the question comes from verse 39, but to understand what Jesus is saying, we’ll go back to verse 37 where he’s speaking. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out: If anyone thirsts, let him come and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive. For as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. So the question of verse 39, of course, is what is the Spirit? What is its action?

And when would it be fulfilled? And so as we look at that, really, we need to think about what is said in the text. And if you notice, back in verse 37, Jesus starts this context saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. That, of course, is a pretty wide net he’s casting. And connects with verse 39 that those who believed in him were to receive that spirit. Not uncommon for Jesus to say, I provide living water. I am the bread of life. And that would not be some sort of Lord’s Supper reference, insofar as it would be referencing the words of salvation, the good news that Jesus was bringing in his mission to seek and save the lost. And so as we’re connecting these two tissues, we have to say, okay, well then in verse 39, what is the Spirit doing for those who believe?

How and when. And so for those, we see those who believed, and it makes our minds think, of course, of the Spirit being fully given to Acts chapter 2. And we remember in Acts chapter 2, not only the words of Peter when he says that everyone needed to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, but that he finished that phrase with, within you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And as you remember earlier in Acts chapter 2, well, how did that sermon begin? With the apostles receiving what miraculous gift or event? Well, the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. And so, Ken, as we look at this, we see there’s two different elements at play.

And we’ve got to try to balance the two. Yes, certainly the Holy Spirit was given, he says, if we look back in our context, John chapter 7, we see the when is easily identified in John 7, verse 39, this he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, not yet given in the way that he’s talking about, because Jesus was not yet glorified. So there’s our time element, which again is the easy part of this answer. That’s why that’s what the part I’m addressing. The time element is easy. It would come when Jesus was glorified. Other passages of Scripture help us to identify this glorification as being his resurrection and his ascension back to the Father.

And so we have the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus would be his glorification. That’s when this Holy Spirit would be given. Now the Holy Spirit had been active prior to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. In fact, the apostles themselves would have a measure of the Holy Spirit prior to then. And so whatever he’s talking about here is either a different giving of the Holy Spirit, or maybe in a greater measure of that. And certainly we saw, as Greg indicated, we saw that in its fullest and most observable sense on the day of Pentecost, when the apostles received that Holy Spirit on that day of Pentecost and began to preach by the Holy Spirit and perform those miracles. And so really the final step in answering this question is to see specifically is there an element we can draw that in John 7, Jesus is trying to teach those believers, who he said would be able to access the Holy Spirit.

And really, Acts 2 does see both of those events. If you notice at the beginning of Acts chapter 2, you see what we referenced before, the kind of coming of the Holy Spirit, the promised one, the full realization that the apostles would receive. And by the way, of course, noting in context, Acts chapter 2, coming, here’s some good math, after Acts chapter 1, when Jesus was resurrected, when he returned to the right hand of God, when he sits on his throne that he’s now reigning from. And in Acts 2, verse 1, when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. So you see that the apostles were receiving the Spirit, but that doesn’t fully match what Jesus is saying for all believers in John 7 until we look at what Peter did with that Spirit gift. As he now has this ability to preach, as he has this understanding, as he can communicate in tongues, in particular to the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2. Notice how he begins his message in verse 17.

And certainly he would go on to emphasize Jesus and how Jesus came at the plan of God, that he was crucified not by men, but by men at the predetermined plan of God. That he was resurrected by the power of God, and that the Jews were the ones who were guilty of crucifying God’s Son. They needed to repent, and in so doing, they received that good news from Peter. They could be forgiven of their sins. And they would do so not only repenting and being baptized, but receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so to answer the question of John 7, when would the Holy Spirit be given? That part is going to be after Jesus was properly glorified, after he was crucified and resurrected.

But the what is the message that would go through the apostles with the good news for not only the Jews in Acts chapter 2, but here’s some good news for us today that we too can share in that salvation. We can share in that life, the full giving of the Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit, as revealed through a miraculous working, even of the Holy Spirit. And the benefits of that Holy Spirit were described again in John 7 as this spring of living water, similar language that Jesus had used earlier in John 4 to the Samaritan woman at the well, that he would be able to give her and really all people water that would cause them never to thirst again. She thought that was some kind of miraculous physical water.

2. Why Is Gambling Sinful?

We understand that to be the same thing that’s being talked about here, is this life-giving water. And so this Holy Spirit that all Christians have now is the life that we experience through the salvation of Jesus Christ, that spring of life that is within us. And that of course began, as Greg said, on the day of Pentecost in that demonstrable giving of the Spirit. And now all Christians reap in the benefit of that, of the life that we have through the Father, the Son, and even the Holy Spirit. I think as we think about summarizing this question, it’s do we trust in and have we accessed that great gift? That’s a powerful opportunity, as Ken is outlining there for us. Alright, question number two is can you discuss gambling?

Why is it sinful and what all is considered gambling? Now let’s analyze the question before we start getting to the answer. Uh the question is really two parts. First one, first, the last part, what is considered gambling? We refer to some things we obviously think of gambling, like the lottery, games of chance, betting on a poker game, betting upon the outcome of a football or a basketball game this time of year. But then some people think of, well, what about the stock market? What about even farming or buying of insurance? All of those things involve a risk, and by definition, a risk is a gamble. And so are those things gambling, or how do we distinguish between those? And then, of course, the first part of the question is why are any of those activities sinful from a biblical standpoint?

So that’s the question. And now let’s look at the answer, Greg. As we think about what gambling is, defining it would be obviously of crucial importance here. Uh dictionary definitions go something like to play a game for property or money, to bet on an uncertain outcome. That’s kind of our normal go to definition. If you are putting something at stake over something you don’t have control of or don’t have certainty for, uh, to take a chance, an act having an element of risk, or something chancy. Now, some of these definitions kind of have weaved their way into our language, even, uh, not meaning gambling in the sense of putting down money on a football game or uh on the lottery. We might say, I’m going to take a gamble and drive on I-4 today.

That is, in fact, very risky, probably more so than gambling on a football game, but we know that that’s not what we mean by this. So, really, as we define this, while the word has a lot of different connotations and maybe even some wiggle room in its definition, we’re really thinking about number one and two. The idea of putting something of yours at stake for something else when you have no control or certainty over the outcome. That’s really how we’re kind of defining this for the sake of this Bible based discussion, not what road we drive on, although we have opinions on that too. Yes, yes. And so there’s kind of the definition of gambling, which Greg said is kind of the catch all definition. But that really brings us to really the way we’ve tried to approach all of the questions in these QA sessions, and that is what does the Bible say?

And when we think about what the Bible says about gambling, you can do a concordant search, a Google search, and you realize that the word gambling in this context at least is not used in the scripture. And so our first point would simply be scripture does not explicitly condemn gambling. Now, don’t get ahead of us. But the scripture doesn’t explicitly say thou shalt not gamble, or betting upon a game of chance is a sin. And so that we have to approach this question in a little bit different way. I want to warn against a pattern that becomes easy but not is not always a safe pattern. Sometimes we take some umbrella word like gambling and say, gambling is a sin, and we label this box gambling, and we’ve declared that gambling is a sin, and anything I decide that goes in that box is therefore sinful, and anything I decide doesn’t go in that box is allowed.

Well, I hope we can see the problem with that approach to scriptures and to our Christian activity is that I don’t get to decide. I don’t get to decide what’s a sin, and I don’t get to decide what goes in or outside of the box. And so rather than making a blanket condemnation about gambling or whatever topic we may be talking about, it’s better to look closer at what the Bible says about particular things. And while there’s great wisdom in maybe drawing lines ahead of where the Bible would, saying, okay, maybe this exact thing isn’t mentioned, but I’ll be safe or smart and make sure I don’t get even close to that temptation. That’s also the line of thinking that the Pharisees used, and eventually in passages like Matthew 15 led to their binding of traditions.

Obviously, was there more going on with them? Of course. They had different motives and agendas. But the idea of our study is to say what does the Bible say? And while it’s not explicitly condemned, there are some activities and principles inherent in certain types of gambling that would violate Scripture in a very clear and concise way. For example, just to look at one passage kind of quickly in Luke chapter 12. This won’t be of any surprise, but in Luke chapter 12, if you think about the parable of the rich fool, the one who said, Well, he was just going to sit back and he was going to make sure that I had enough to store up forever. I’m going to tear down my barns, I’m going to build bigger barns, and then it will all be good.

But in Luke 12, 15, notice what Jesus says before even getting to the story. Take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. You see, of course, the fool would build up his barns and then sit back and say, all right, now I can sit back. But of course, we know in Jesus’ parable what happened to that fool. His life was required. But Jesus says the heart of the matter was not planning. It wasn’t barns. It wasn’t preparing for a time where he might be in need. It was being covetous, having his life consisting in the abundance of his possessions. So coveting, wanting more from a physical standpoint is not a scriptural idea.

And if we think about all the implications of Scripture, to set our mind on things above, to be content, to be thankful, to give all glory to God. The idea that I’m going to put money at risk to get more money for free certainly is something that is on edge, if not outright condemned, if that attitude or heart crosses the line. And we talked about many different questions through the months here about getting close to the line, avoiding the line. But as we think about that, we say, okay, if this is a risk and Jesus says this is a sin, then why am I doing this activity that I know could very well become a sin quickly, even if it might not be the first time I think about something?

Other considerations of Scripture, Jesus says, you will know a good tree by its fruit. Now think about gambling for a moment. Think about where people tend to gamble. Are those places that you think of a lot of Christians hanging around and good things happening? No, generally, gambling is associated with all kinds of drinking, with casinos, with all kinds of addiction problems. Does that in and of itself prove it’s wrong? No, but it should be a couple of big red flags. If there’s all these problems and clear sins surrounding a topic, it should give me pause in what I’m considering to do. And Greg read the one verse there in Luke 12 of condemning covetousness. There are numerous places. In fact, covetousness maybe is one of those sins or greed’s another word for covetousness.

Maybe we don’t talk and we don’t preach enough about. We think about the obvious sins, drunkenness, adultery, those kind of things. But I think a good Bible student could probably find more passages about greed and covetousness than he could about those other sins. That doesn’t mean it’s a worse sin. It just means it’s clearly condemned in Scripture. And so we need to be thinking seriously if we want to be pleasing to God. What is covetousness? What is greed? And am I guilty of those in my heart and as we’re talking this morning about in my actions and activities? And so our approach would be this: rather than making some blanket condemnation where God has not, let’s examine each activity and compare it to Scripture. So again, instead of saying, I declare that gambling is sin.

So here’s my gambling box, and I decide what goes in that gambling box and what doesn’t, and it’s usually determined by what I want to do and what I don’t want to do. Let’s take everything out of that box and look at it individually. Here’s the purchasing of insurance. Am I violating any biblical principles by buying insurance to protect my family? Here’s me investing in the stock market for my future for my retirement. Am I grievous? And it might be. Then in either one of those activities. I could look at my heart and say, well, I’m doing that out of greed and covetousness. And then we look at the idea of what we typically think of as gambling, the idea of a lottery or placing amounts of money for chance.

Ask myself, that activity. It’s wrong, not because it’s gambling. It’s wrong because it violates the principle of Scripture. Or maybe just a black and white condemnation of Scripture, the covetousness, of greed, other principles. And so I think that would be the not just the safe approach, but the biblical approach is to look at every activity and not try to lap label it as gambling or not gambling, because that really doesn’t get us anywhere when it comes to the Word of God. But to look at each activity and to look at my participation in activity and say, does this violate a commandment of God? Does this violate some principle of God that is outlined in Scripture? That seems to be the correct approach to whether we’re talking about dancing, about gambling, about whatever else.

That individual activity, is that what a child of God should be involved in in light of what the scripture says? And then this would apply in almost every QA we’ve had. Romans 14 is a worthy study, but two concepts from Romans 14 again to pull out on this topic. One is we have to be convinced that what we’re doing is right. If you’re not sure, if you’ve taken all the activities out of the out of your own quote unquote gambling box and you’re unsure, then the scripture is clear on that too. Stay away, avoid. But also be careful about judging others who are fully convinced unless there is clear scriptural room for condemnation. And then be a brother, be a sister, correct with gentleness and kindness.

3. Who Were the Nephilim?

But sometimes we’ll realize that as we go and think about my life or others’ lives, the scripture’s not as clear as my thoughts are or I wish the scripture would be. And so as we’re answering this question, are we for gambling? Well no, we’re not for gambling. Are we saying all things that everybody has ever called gambling are sinful? No. But we need to let the Bible speak where it speaks and that includes not labeling things that we’re unsure about sin when the Bible hasn’t itself. So switching gears almost entirely, our next question is in Genesis chapter 6, who are or were the Nephilim? And were these just regular men? Were they special in some way? What about their genealogy? What about their size? Were they just normal people?

Who were the Nephilim? And Greg, I bet, pardon the pun, the answer is going to be found in the Old Testament. Let’s go to Genesis chapter 6 and look at the text and see what we’re talking about when we talk about this strange word, the Nephilim. Genesis chapter 6 immediately brings to mind to the Bible student the the story of the flood. Well verses 1 through 4 kind of get us to the flood. Get us really to the point of why God felt that he needed to destroy the whole world with this worldwide flood. And so let’s just read the text Genesis 6, beginning in verse 1. I’m reading from the New King James Version. It says, Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, and they took for themselves of all whom they chose.

And the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Now, you say, wait a minute, you read that whole four verses, and I didn’t hear the word Nephilim in there once. Well, if we go back to verse 4 of Genesis chapter 6, the new King James inserts the word giants there, the word is really the word Nephilim that’s being asked about. And so it’s not the word giant should be there.

And your translation may bear that out, or may have that word translated a different way. But that word in Genesis chapter 4 that says, Then there were Nephilim on the earth in those days and also afterward. That’s the question of who are those people whom the new King James calls giants who were around in that day prior to the flood. And of course, if if you take out that word giant and just translate it Nephilim, it leaves the question a little bit more nebulous. And that’s what we’re trying to examine without having put an interpretation on the text, just who were the Nephilim as it stands. So interestingly, in addition to Genesis chapter 6 before the flood, if you look at one other mention of them in particular right now, Numbers chapter 13, this would be after the flood.

This is when the people of Israel are about to go conquer the promised land, or they should have been, and they sent out spies, and remember Joshua and Caleb were committed. They knew whatever they saw there, whether it was giants or lots of people or regular people, or you name it, that we would be able to win because God’s on our side. But the other ten didn’t see it that way, in fact. And if you look at their report, we’re not going to read all of these, but note that this is the report of the ten other spies saying, we’re not going to be able to take the land. Verse 31, they’re stronger than we are. So verse 32 of Numbers 13. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report out of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants.

And all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim, and we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them. And again, at the end of verse 32, you say, well, there’s a proof of great height. That word doesn’t have that direct only meaning. That’s supplied in the same way the King James or New King James provided giants where the word Nephilim is. Great height. Height isn’t necessarily specified either. But you can see why they’d get there from verse 33. Because the ten spies said, look, we can’t go after them because we seem like grasshoppers to them. But we want to slow things down as we usually do and see what does the Bible say, not working backwards to front, but just what is the point of this message and who are those Nephilim people.

So we’ve got two texts, Genesis chapter 6, prior to the flood, Numbers chapter 13, the spying out of the land, which these Nephilim are referred to. Now I want us to back up and think a little bit about Genesis chapter 6 again. And they’re mentioned in the context of the sons of God intermingling with the daughters of men, and in the context of the wickedness of man that brought about this worldwide flood is a judgment from God. And so let’s go back to Genesis 6, and we’ll have some more comments about Numbers 13 as well. I think we have to be careful in Genesis 6 and connecting some dots. Sometimes we connect dots correctly, but sometimes we connect dots that maybe God never intended us to connect.

It says in Genesis chapter 6 again in verse 2, the sons of God saw the daughters of men, and they were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves of all whom they had chose. Then skip down to verse 4. There were Nephilim on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and bore children to them. One thing we need to understand as we look at this is that they weren’t necessarily, the text isn’t necessarily saying these Nephilim came into existence as a result of the intermarrying of the sons of God with the daughters of men. It’s a time frame. They were there at the same time. It says, when, now they may have been the result of that intermingling, but that’s not a necessary conclusion from the text that these sons of God and these daughters of men had relations, and as a result from that union were born these Nephilim.

That’s not stated in the text. That’s a conclusion that we have to come to. That may be a correct conclusion, it may be an incorrect conclusion. And so let’s spend just a little bit of time talking about the sons of God and the daughters of men. Who are these people? Two basic interpretations of that is the sons of God or some kind of spiritual beings, angels or demons, or fallen angels who came to the earth and had relationships with human women. And they gave rise to this kind of super race of the Nephilim, who, when you mix those two kind of DNAs, you end up with a giant, is the conclusion. The second interpretation is that the sons of God were just the good guys, the godly people who were pursuing God, and the daughters of men were the bad guys, the ones who were not pursuing God, that they were more worldly.

And this intermarrying, it’s the intermarrying that’s later condemned of God’s people marrying those who are not God’s people. And that resulted not in the race of the Nephilim, but that resulted in the wickedness that caused God to destroy the earth. And he simply says that they were some Nephilim in the earth at the same time. And this word Nephilim just really means the fallen. The fallen ones, probably with the idea, it could mean that these were big guys, these were ruffians who fell on somebody in a figurative sense.

It could mean in that sense. But we take it to mean it’s the idea that these are men who had fallen from God in some way. And so here’s two reasons why God would destroy the earth, or two reasons why the world got to such wickedness. Number one is they were Nephilim. They were these fallen ones, those who had fallen from God, and they were these sons of God, intermingling with those who were worldly, and as a result, as often is the case, they turned to worldliness or to ungodliness and unrighteousness. And that resulted in the wickedness that caused God to destroy the world by a flood. And that’s not only a pattern, as Ken was alluding to in Genesis 5 and 6, but even after the flood.

And so when you think about in Genesis, nothing being said about them being giant, that leaves us with Numbers 13. But as you think about all the generations that had to get there, remember in Genesis 6, God’s telling Noah he has to build an ark. Why? Because the world’s about to be destroyed, everybody but Noah and his family. Which means that the Nephilim in Numbers 13 have come about again. Now, is it possible that the first interpretation of some sort of angelic beings mixing with humans happened a second time or that many times to have an entire race? It’s possible. But as you start adding up these consequences, it becomes more and more unlikely. And so as you look at Numbers 13 again, really the only clear reference to a size matter would be when the Israelite spies who were cowardly said, well, we seem like grasshoppers to them.

Now it’s easy to look at that and say, okay, we assume that means small, but again, that idea of height or greatness could mean anything. It could mean they are mighty men of battle or of valor, that these they’re strong. It could mean that they are larger than normal without being some sort of superhuman. There’s all kinds of possibilities that don’t mandate having been straight out of heaven and mixing with human DNA in that sense. And so as we think about that, and we try to be clear with the text, we want to make sure we don’t supply what the Bible text doesn’t. And operating safely, I think you can see the conclusion is warranted. And when we see another biblical character who was obviously what we would consider a giant, Goliath, there’s nothing said about his parentage and how he got to be of such great stature.

And so, as we said, nothing is said about who these Nephilim parents were. They weren’t necessarily the descendants of the sons of God and the daughters of men, whoever that was. They were just present at that time and contributed to the wickedness. And they may or may not have been men of great height, as the ESV says. But what we do know from that text is that they were fallen. They were wicked. And they again contributed to the wickedness of man that was so great that God saw the only remedy was to destroy them. Do you think we have time for one more quick one? Right on the edge. We’re on the edge. So I say we wait. Alright, we’ll hold off. It’s a good one, though.

Conclusion

Yeah. How’s that for a cliffhanger for next month? Ken, will you dismiss us in a word of prayer before we go to our Bible classes? Our dear God and holy Father who art in heaven, we’re so thankful for the bountiful ways in which you’ve loved us and blessed us. High on that list of blessings, Father, would be your holy word. We’re so thankful that we live in a time and a culture where that word is so easily accessible to us, that we have the resources and the education that we can read and understand your will for our lives. And we’re so thankful that we know that the answers to life are found in your word. Bless us in that study. Bless us as we share these saving truths to a dying world around us.

Bless us as we worship you this day. We pray that you will be honored as you so deserve. Bless those who won’t be able to be with us. Whatever obstacles preventing them, we pray that it’ll be removed. Father, continue to love us, care for us, bless us, and most importantly, Father, own us on that day of judgment. This is our prayer in Christ’s name. Amen.