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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Speaker 2: 0:20

All right, guys, I don't know about you, but I am super excited for the next two days. But this week we are using John Eldridge's book Beautiful Outlaw to help us get to know the personality of Jesus better, and before preparing these episodes for this week, I did ask John what were the five chapters that really encapsulate his point about bringing out the personality of Jesus, and he said chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7. So that's what we're going to put our focus on, and seven. So that's what we're going to put our focus on. Yesterday we talked about chapters two and three, where we began to see many of us. You know what we've been missing this entire time, and that's that Jesus had a personality, and then we look specifically at the playfulness of Jesus the man. But for the next two days we're going to look at chapter four of John Eldredge's book, and that's fierce intention. And so the beginning of chapter four dovetails nicely with the conclusion of chapter 3, so I'll go ahead and read it here. And so he's going to start with Matthew 16, verses 21 through 23.

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From that time on, jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and, on the third day, be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Never, Lord, he said. This shall never happen to you. Jesus turned and said to Peter get behind me, satan. You are a stumbling block to me. You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men. Hold on now.

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This doesn't sound very playful. What are we to make of the sudden mood change that erupts from Jesus like thunder from a clear sky? If your children acted this way, you'd send them into their rooms. Whatever we have here, we certainly don't have a man of mild emotion or two-dimensional passivity. For some reason, we keep forgetting that Jesus is operating in enemy territory. We project into the gospel stories a pastoral backdrop, that quaint charm of the Middle Eastern travel brochure picturesque villages, bustling markets, smiling children and Jesus wandering through it all like a son come home from college. We forget the context of his life and mission.

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His story begins with genocide, the massacre of the innocents, herod's attempt to murder Jesus by ordering the systematic execution of all young boys around Bethlehem. I've never seen this included in any crochet scene ever. Who could bear it? You must picture ethnic cleansing, as the 20th century saw in Bosnia, rwanda, burma, atrocity the ground soaked with the blood of children who five minutes earlier were laughing and playing.

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Now this is where Beautiful Outlaw really starts to get my attention. I'm even getting a little upset here just reading that line, because I have very, very young children just thinking about that. But again, remember how we always think about Jesus being portrayed in the Gospels just this kind of, you know, wispy-haired Danish guy just going through with his soft features, telling everyone how much he loves them and how cute the women look in their tunics and all that. And so at this point in the book I'm getting very, very pumped to dig into this chapter because of where I figured John Eldridge was going and more on that tomorrow. But he caught my attention with an occurrence recorded in the book of John that had never struck me in the way that it did until reading Beautiful Outlaw, and that's the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. So let's go back to Beautiful Outlaw here.

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Oh, jesus could be soft and he certainly was humble, but his fierce intentionality is riveting to watch. Look at him before Lazarus's tomb. This is John 11, verses 17, and then 32 and 33. On his arrival, jesus found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in the spirit and troubled.

Speaker 2: 3:50

This expression deeply moved in spirit and troubled seems unhelpfully vague. I'm deeply moved when someone remembers my birthday and Oxford Don, who loses his notes, is troubled. We're not even close to the true nature of his mood. Yet the root of the Greek word here means to snort with anger like a war horse. So let me explain that line to you well adjusted men out there, because me, as a crazy ginger with a crazy personality, I understand what snorting with anger is. I totally understand that where you can't even like get words to come out of your face because you are so angry. Jesus hates sin and he hates death and and he knows what he's there to do, but he's so angry that he's snorting in anger. Right? Does that sound like the wispy haired guy that I was talking about a second ago. Let's go back to beautiful outlaw here. Something fierce is rising up in him. A second round of this war horse anger wells up, and this is verses 38 through 43.

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Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. Take away the stone, he said. But Lord said, martha, the sister of the dead man, by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days. Then Jesus said did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.

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When he said this, jesus called out in a loud voice Lazarus, come out. Oh, to have heard this command, heard the mightiness in his voice. John uses the word loud to describe it. He uses this very same word to describe the ferocity of a storm that nearly sank their boat. Apparently, jesus' command here reminded John of the intensity of a storm. Jesus doesn't ask Lazarus to come out. He doesn't suggest that he do it, he commands him to life. With the rumble of thunder and the crack of lightning, obediently, lazarus comes hopping out like a mummy, and this is verse 44. The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth wrapped around his face. Jesus said to them take off the grave clothes and let him go. Jesus finishes his business here with, you know, very business-like order to take off the grave clothes and let him go, like a hostage negotiator who has just freed a victim.

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Now, guys, could Jesus have just snapped his fingers and raised Lazarus from the dead? Yep, sure could have. Could Jesus have just called out in a calm, soothing and safe for the whole family voice and raised Lazarus from the dead? Yeah, absolutely. But he didn't. He called out in a loud voice Because he's got a flair for the dramatic. No, it's because it was, in his perfect, omniscient view, completely necessary to do it that way. Sometimes, especially when it comes to pushing back the darkness of sin, we have to get loud because Jesus got loud. All right, guys, come back here tomorrow where we are going to be doing part two of Fierce Intention and, guys, we're covering some of my favorite stories in all the Bible, so don't miss tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 7:05

Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.