The Bible, Art and Imaging

Transcript

So let me kind of tell you the genesis of this class and how it came about. I apologize to Jason. I didn't really put a blurb together because I wasn't quite sure how I was gonna present it.

But this is really how it started. As some of you know, who have seen a lot of my talks and stuff, I gather a lot of images. I've been doing that for quite a long time. The reason I do it is not, the images aren't usually the focus of what I'm doing. Usually I'm just gathering images to give people something to look at as I talk. I've learned over the years that a lot of people are visual learners. In fact, Sister Cindy, my wife, is a visual learner. When she's watching a Bible class, it's easier for her to concentrate on what's going on if she has something to look at. So a lot of times the images that I collect have just been present are really just there as something for you to see so that you have something to consider rather than just looking at my pus. Now, that's just what I do. I don't judge other people if you don't like to use images or you prefer to, you do you and not to me. But that's the way that I've done it for many years. But as a result, I have a lot of pictures. So I was at work one day and in my office at work, I have a small office at work, but in my office, on my desk, I have three widescreen monitors. And I'm looking at the monitors one day and I'm thinking, you know, wouldn't it be interesting if I put some of the Bible images on my desktop and then maybe if somebody came in and they asked me about it, I might be able to fill them in as to what they're looking at. Now, we all want to be able to preach the word in season and out of season and all that kind of stuff. And some people are really good at bringing up the Bible in public settings or that kind of stuff. I'm not, to be truthful. I love talking about the word of God, but I'm far more comfortable talking about it with you than bringing it up with people I grew up with or people at work. And the situation in your job, generally speaking, is it's really not appropriate to be preaching at work. Nobody wants to get preached to, generally speaking anyway, but you don't really want to, you know, I can tell you as an HR guy, you don't really want to be preaching on the job. People don't appreciate it. But this might come as a surprise to you, but I might not be the best preacher, but I do like to tell stories. And so I thought to myself, you know, if I put up some of these images that have corresponding stories to it, if somebody were to come in and say, well, what is that? I might have a nice story to tell, and then I'm not really preaching as much as telling a story. And everybody likes to hear a good story. And so that's what I did. I gathered a bunch of pictures I thought were interesting enough and pictures that I could easily tell a story from the picture and see if people maybe would come and say, you know, geez, what is that on your screen? So this is just an example of one of the pictures that I put on there. I tried to pick pictures that were, like I say, that were interesting so that, you know, people would notice them. And then also pictures where I could have a story behind it. Now, this picture is interesting in and of itself without telling the story behind it, because this is a picture by a painter by the name of William Blake. He painted this in 1800. He actually painted four pictures very similar to this one. They're all basically the same image, just some of them have different color tones and that kind of stuff. One of them is missing. The other three are still around, and actually one of them is actually at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Now I've never seen it, but I can assure you the next time I go to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I'm gonna look for it, because it's a fascinating picture. You'll notice that Blake entitled it Nebuchadnezzar. So this is his take on what Nebuchadnezzar looked like when he went crazy. We all know the story of Nebuchadnezzar and he goes to Daniel and he's had this dream. And Daniel says, you're going to crawl on your belly until you recognize, as a beast, until you recognize that God rules in the kingdoms of men. And of course we know that Nebuchadnezzar made it a full 12 months before he did exactly what Daniel said he would do and he praised himself for all that he had. And sure enough, he was crawling around like a beast for seven years. And so this is Blake's depiction of that. So what's the story that goes with it? Well, I would start any story about that by pointing out that Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man who ever lived. That's actually what he represents in my mind. He was the most powerful man who ever lived because he was the ruler of the then known world and he was answerable to no one. Unlike the other kings that came before and after him, like the Persians were answered to the law and the Romans were answerable to the Senate and the Greeks were answerable to logic and all that kind of stuff. Nebuchadnezzar was answerable to absolutely no one. If Nebuchadnezzar said, kill him, that's what happened. If Nebuchadnezzar said, you're gonna go here instead of there, that's what happened. He had absolute complete and total power except he couldn't control his own mind because that's the way the flesh is. And so if you said that if we just had the absolute perfect person in charge, not perfect like Jesus was perfect, but smart enough and powerful enough and able to make all the right decisions and all of that, well, you had that guy with Nebuchadnezzar and he went crazy because that's what the flesh does. It drives people crazy because that is the essence of who we really are. What Nebuchadnezzar became

is really the image of a man without God. He became a brute beast. And that's why Daniel had said to him, this is what's going to happen to you. And sure enough, that's what happened. So there's a story behind this painting of Nebuchadnezzar and it's an interesting story. So if somebody were to come in and see that picture and say to me, oh, that's an interesting picture. What is it? Oh, let me tell you, I get a story and I would tell the story. This is the verse that goes with it, by the way. The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar and he was driven from men and did eat grass as oxen and his body was wet with the dew of heaven with his hairs till his hairs were grown like eagle's feathers and his nails like bird's claws. And I think Blake has actually done a darn good job of depicting that very thing. In fact, one of the interesting things about Blake is one of his biographers said that Blake saw a direct connection between Nebuchadnezzar as the beast and the beast in Revelation. And of course there is a connection. The beasts don't necessarily look alike but there is definitely a connection between what Nebuchadnezzar represented and what the beast in Revelation represented. So that was really telling of Blake. The other thing about it is that he didn't name it the beast or Nebuchadnezzar when he goes crazy, he named it Nebuchadnezzar. In other words, this is really who this guy is. And that's pretty insightful if you ask me on his part. So all those things are one of the reasons why I really like this painting. And it's obviously captivating and grabbing. Some of you probably recognize that I've used it in talks before.

So what happened? So I put pictures like Nebuchadnezzar here on my screen for quite a period of time and people came into my office on a regular basis and the pictures would be there and nobody paid any attention to them whatsoever. That's just because nobody really pays attention to what you have on your computer screen. I thought about it later on about, do I go to somebody else's desk and pay any attention to what they have on their screen? And the answer is no, I do not. I really don't. Even though I have three screens and basically my entire room is a computer screen, it looks like, I don't know, it looks like Flight Central in my office, I guess. But nobody really pays attention. And partially because it's your own business, but also because nobody cares. So nobody came in and looked at a picture like that or any of the other images I show today or any other image for that matter and said, geez, what is that? And then I could tell them the story. So instead of telling them the stories, I'm gonna tell you a story. But there is one exception and this is the one exception to pictures on my screen where I was able to tell a story. And it was this picture. And this is not even that particularly graphic a picture or exciting a picture. In fact, it's just an odd shaped building. And most of you who have heard any of my classes or seen any of my classes, I should say, probably recognize what that is. But this is what happened one day. We have an IT guy, he works for another company, but he's in our office every once in a while, maybe a couple of times a month. And he was sitting at my desk and his name is Faustin. And he was doing something on my computer. I don't know, I think he was doing an upgrade or something. I don't know what he was doing. But anyway, this picture was on my screen and he didn't ask about it. He just continued to do what he was doing. So I asked him, which kind of breaks the rules of the way this is supposed to work, but I was curious to see what would happen. So the picture was there and I said to him, Faustin, do you know what that's a picture of? And he says, no. And I said to him, that is a picture of a place called the Pool of Bethesda. And he immediately responds by saying to me, oh, where Jesus healed the impotent man. Well, of course, that's what you live for. You don't expect anybody to have any idea what the Pool of Bethesda would be. And he immediately knows that is the place where Jesus healed the impotent man. I was duly impressed and also quite excited. So we started talking about this story in the Bible. And he even knew, or I'm pretty sure he knew, I wish I could remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure, he certainly knew that the man had been there in that condition for a long time. But I do think he knew. 38 years. Which is incredible that anybody would know that fact. As you know, let alone that somebody would know this story or that the man had been there for 38 years. So I just said to him, so why do you suppose he had been there for 38 years?

And that's when he said, I don't know. Probably just because Jesus just kind of knew that sort of thing. And so I was able to point out to him that it's actually wasn't Jesus that pointed it out. It was John in the scriptures. Jesus says that he had been there for a long time. And I was able from there to sort of talk about the story of the impotent man. Now I'm not gonna do that tonight because I just talked about that a few weeks ago in Sunday school. But it was really kind of a nice situation

that I could actually, and then that's when I came to understand that Faustin was a pretty good Bible student. We've had three or four different Bible conversations since then, sometimes based upon what I have on my computer screen when he comes in. But that's, as you know, that's not normally what we run into when we have something on our screen or when people know that we're a person of faith. Most of the people that I work with at work know that I'm a man of faith. I'll talk to them about, they'll say, where are you going on summer vacation? And I'll say, I'm going to Bible school. And they'll go, oh, Bible camp, that's interesting. I'll say, well, it's not Bible camp, it's Bible school. Oh yeah, yeah. So who goes, your kids? And I'll have to explain to them what Bible school is and that kind of stuff. And everybody's response or most people's response is the same. They'll say, oh, that's nice. And what, oh, that's nice means is,

well, if you need that sort of thing. That's the way people see people who have a commitment to their faith. They'll think to themselves, well, you know, life is hard. So if that's what somebody needs, that's fine. They're sympathetic because everybody knows that life is hard, but they can't see

that there was something beyond the idea of needing something to feel better about yourself. That's the way they see people who are religious. That obviously you must need something to feel better about yourself. And so if that's what you need, that's perfectly fine. But of course, that's not what faith is all about. So what's the answer? Well, really, interestingly enough, one of the great answers comes right from Jesus and right after the healing of the impotent man. So he heals the impotent man. Of course, he does it, you know, on a Sabbath day and everybody is furious that he does it on a Sabbath day. So what Jesus does is he starts talking to them about really about seeking beyond human limitations. People were stuck in the idea that you couldn't do this on the Sabbath day. You couldn't do that and all about human limitations. And Jesus says, our faith is beyond human limitations. You are selling yourself short and selling God short by doing it. And this is what he says. He says it in verse 24 of John chapter five.

He says, verily, verily, I say unto you, in other words, this is what truth is.

He says, verily, verily, I say unto you, that he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death onto life.

That's really what our faith is about. It's not about feeling better about ourselves. It's not about needing a crutch. It's about literally passing from death onto life. Our faith, no matter what the world thinks of us, should reflect what this sentence says, where he says, he that believeth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life. He that heareth my word, don't ever focus, don't ever take your focus off the word of God. The word of God has the power to transform.

People who don't know the Bible and don't understand what it says looks at faith as being something limited. There's no limitations to what the word can teach us about life, about who we are, and about who God is. So you don't wanna ever take your mind off the true hearing of the word of God. Jesus represents what that word is over and over and over again. And it's not about feeling better about yourself. In fact, like the image of Nebuchadnezzar, it's really, in many respects, about the opposite. It's about getting over feeling good about yourself, but it's about truth. And then, in believing on him that sent me, well, of course, that's about the Father, but more than that, it's about our unique and true understanding of why Jesus was sent, our understanding of atonement, our understanding of his obedience, our understanding of his nature, our understanding of our own nature, our understanding of God's mercy, our understanding of God's judgment. All those are encapsulated inside that one sentence. Truth, faith, we know is not a crutch. It is passing from life to death. In fact, Peter put it this way. Peter said, because of what we believe, and the way he says it, because of the precious promises that we've been given, which encapsulate all those things, we can be partakers of the divine nature. That's an incredible opportunity that is so much grander than what the world has to offer, and then what religion in that sort of like artificial sense has to offer. Now, that all being said, the pictures on my desktop hasn't really served much of any purpose at all, although I keep them there nonetheless, but one of the things it did do is it started tweaking my curiosity about what some pictures represent and what they're trying to say. So as some of you know, a couple of years ago, I did a class on Da Vinci's The Last Supper. The reason I did it is because it's an interesting story about how it was created, about what he went through both artistically, but also politically, all the different intrigue that kind of goes into creating this, really artistic masterpiece really is what it is. It might not be a spiritual masterpiece, but certainly an artistic masterpiece, and that was really interesting. And some of the subtle points that are made in the picture, some of the subtle biblical points that are made in the picture for me were really quite surprising. Just as an example, if you can see this picture, there's a man to the right of Jesus. He's got his elbow on the table, which would horrify my mother because she used to always tell us, keep your elbows off the table. But if you notice, his elbow is knocking over the salt. Now that's an pretty insightful piece of art that Da Vinci shows there, because of course, Judas is about to betray Jesus. His salt, if you will, is about to lose its savor, and Da Vinci shows that by showing him knocking over the salt. So there was a lot of interesting aspects to this painting, and I'm not gonna go through the whole painting again, but I just want to point out what it was about it that grabbed me. What it grabbed me was the fact that Da Vinci chose this specific moment in his painting. This, by the way, is an extremely specific moment. This moment that you're seeing right here only exists for a second. It's almost like a snapshot of a certain second in time, and I'll even show you where that is. That takes place in John chapter 13, and notice what it says. In verse 23, it says, "'Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom "'one of his disciples whom Jesus loved.'" Well, that one leaning on Jesus' bosom in verse 23 is the person directly to the right of Jesus, the one that's made to look like a woman, which is a whole other story I won't go into, but you notice that that person, that's actually John in the painting, but you notice he's not leaning on Jesus' bosom at that moment. He's leaning the other way, and that's what it says in verse 24. In verse 24, it says, "'Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him "'that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.'" That's what's taking place right there. That's Simon Peter with the white beard and his hand on his shoulder, and he's asking him, saying to him, "'Ask him who it is.'" And that's really the turning point of the dinner. When you take a look at the closeness of the dinner, you would expect in an artistic painting that they would show something like Jesus breaking the bread or offering the wine, but Da Vinci has chosen this moment, the moment where they're going to try to figure out who it was that was going to betray him. It's that moment that he depicts, and I find that fascinating. Notice in verse 25, it says, "'He then lying on Jesus' breast that John again "'sayeth unto him, Who is it?' So that doesn't exist in this painting. So it's literally just that moment in verse 24, and you'll see all the other disciples responding to the fact that Jesus says, "'One of you is going to betray me.'" But here's the fascination and the importance of understanding this moment. I doubt highly Da Vinci understood that, but we can understand it, and it's this. Jesus had to get across to his disciples. I know I made this point in another class before, but because this painting sort of amplifies it, I want to make it again. Jesus had to get across to them their own weakness. Remember, these are the disciples who were constantly arguing about who is the greatest, and what they had to understand was exactly what Nebuchadnezzar needed to understand, and that is that in reality, our natural nature is betrayal and deceit, and that is who we are, and failure. That is who we are. It was vital that they understood that, and it was vital for two reasons, because they needed to know what their true nature was in order to be able to turn to their savior when they knew they needed a redeemer, rather than think about who the greatness of them was. And the other thing is they were going to need it when they abandoned Jesus, or when they denied him. They're going to need that understanding of who they really are. I'll show you what I mean. And this is how important it was for Jesus that they understood it, and it comes from the Gospel of Mark. It says, this is the same moment, and it says, they began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him,

one by one,

is it I? And another, and of course, the other is Judas. Matthew does it differently. Matthew says, they all asked, and Judas answered, but that's why there's two here. Each of them, one by one, says, is it I? And then another said, is it I? That's the way Mark puts it. So in other words, Jesus made sure that every single disciple in that room said to him, is it me? Am I the one who's going to betray you? That is a confession from every single one of these guys, that they could be the betrayer. Now think about what that means when they deny him, and when they abandon him.

They would be able to then go back and say, I am ashamed, as certainly Peter was, but Jesus already told me who I was. Judas couldn't do that, because Judas never said it the way they said it. They were making a confession. Judas was making an admission. And what did Judas do? Judas could not deal with the reality of who he was based upon who he thought he was, and he killed himself. They now had an understanding from Jesus, as deep in the back of their minds as it was, because they still argued about who was the greatest. They had an understanding of who they were, and they had a confession that admitted it, and that confession was, I could be the betrayer.

And of course, that's a confession we all need to make, that we could be. That's one of the most frightening and the most overwhelming parts of what we believe in, is an understanding of our own sinful nature, that most people don't have. Most people say, I'm a good person, sometimes I do bad things. That'll kill you. This will save you. And remember, in John 14, before they ever betray Jesus, in John 14, Jesus prays to his father, and he says, thank you that for all that you have given me, I have lost nothing. He now knows that because they're able to admit who they really are, they will not lose them when they go through the trial that they're about to go through. So you've got the truth, and you've got the grace of God happening both in this remarkable moment, and this is the moment that Da Vinci has chosen

as his moment in time as he makes this now one of the most infamous paintings that have ever been done.

So that's sort of the story, if you will, behind the story. There was, I'm gonna show you some others that'll, hopefully will be at least interesting in some way. This is an interesting picture. Now, unfortunately, I don't know where this picture came from. I have no idea, but it's an interesting picture. It's actually a lovely picture, to be perfectly honest with you. I think it captures the majesty. Of course, it's the wise men coming to Jesus, but I think it captures the majesty of the moment with the stars in the sky and the one star directing their way, and the wise men coming, and the silhouette, and the solemnity of it. It captures all that. Of course, there's so many things wrong with this picture that if I was doing a class on the wise men coming to Jesus, I probably wouldn't show this picture because you'd be saying to me, that's not the way it was at all. I know it's not the way it was. But think about not just all the things. Well, first of all, how many things are wrong with it? Well, you got the three wise men on cameras. We know it could have been three, but it very well might not have been three. People are just obsessed with the fact that it's three. You look at the, I'm leery to call it a house. It's not really a house. It almost looks like a gazebo, or I think it's supposed to be the manger because so often in art, they'll put the wise men coming in the same situation with the shepherds coming, whereas we know the shepherds came when Jesus was born. The wise men came when he was probably around two.

It's just a weird building. And they were actually in a house. In fact, this is the verse that goes with it.

When they were coming to the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him. Now, the reason why I'm showing this picture is because we can easily point out the error in the picture as far as the wise men or the house, or the infant in some sort of a manger or whatever that's supposed to be when actually it was, as it says there, the young child. He was probably closer to two. But there's something else wrong with the picture that you wouldn't generally pick up on that's an interesting twist. I don't know if you can see it, but notice what it says again. And when they're coming to the house, yeah, we know it's not a house. At least the picture's not a house. It was a house that they were in. It was a house in Bethlehem, so it was probably a house in the neighborhood. And they saw the young child with Mary his mother. And because the young child was with Mary his mother, they fell down and worshiped him. Do you see who's not there?

In the picture, Joseph is there. We're gonna assume Joseph is one of those two, probably the one on the left. But in Matthew's account,

Joseph is not mentioned. Now, isn't that interesting? Why would Joseph not be mentioned? We know Joseph was alive, right? Because it's after this picture that he takes him to Egypt. So why isn't he mentioned? They saw the young child with Mary his mother. So what they were expecting to find

was exactly what they found. They expected to find a mother with a child. And Joseph isn't there.

But the father is there. The father is there in the star that guided them to the house. So what they expected to find was a human child with a divine father. And that's exactly what they find. They find the son of man and the son of God. And so Joseph, whether he was there or not, is taken out of the picture because he's not appropriate to what they were looking for. And you wouldn't really think about that unless you were paying attention to what the word says. And yet when you see what the word says, you can appreciate the magnitude of how much these wise men understood. They would have had to have understood that he was both the son of God and the son of a woman. And that's really fascinating when we think about where these men came from and what they understood. So that's the fascination, I think, of that picture only because it puts Joseph in there when in actual fact he shouldn't even be there. So that's why I like that picture. Here's another picture. This is a really a remarkable picture of both the story of the painting itself and what the painting shows.

And this is one of the paintings, by the way, that I would have on my screen. And I think if somebody's gonna come in my office and see this on my screen, they gotta be asking, what in the world do you have on your screen? Nah, couldn't have cared less. But that's okay. It did give me time to look at it and really understood what it's about. This painting, which is about the flood, obviously, is entitled The Day Leage. It's done by an artist by the name of Francis Danby in 1840. It's located in the Tate England or Tate Museum in Boston, I mean in London. The painting itself is more than nine feet high and more than 15 feet wide. So it is a gigantic piece of art, much like we found when we looked at The Last Supper on that wall in the monastery, it was gigantic. This is another gigantic piece of art. And graphic and so many remarkable pieces and ways. You can see all the different people who are drowning and trying to get up to the top of that rock to save themselves.

Even though there's no actual rain, it would have been really hard to paint in rain. It would have wiped out a lot of what you would see in the picture. But you see the people sort of like scrambling. And notice how small the people are too, which is really interesting, especially when you get up to the top of the rock, you can barely see them at all. Of course, they're not going to be safe even on the top of the rock. But there's two things I want to point out. The first thing is the obvious sort of whatever in the lower right with what's clearly a winged angel. Of course, one of the things that we know Christian art gets wrong or biblical art in general gets wrong is the depiction of angels. They're always shown as flying babies or winged, glowing people or that kind of stuff. But what the angel is doing is she is bemoaning the fact that there's a child there who is dying. And that's really, really interesting for me because even though an angel wouldn't probably be doing that, it does reflect something about the magnitude of what's going on here. This is the verse that corresponds with it. It's from Genesis chapter seven, verse 23. And notice what it says. And every living substance was destroyed, which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle and the creeping things and the fouls of the heaven, and they were destroyed from the earth. No, and Noah only remained alive,

and they that were with them in the ark. So the other thing you can see on here, if you look really close up beyond the rock, you'll see the only calm part of the whole picture because the waves are rushing and the people are drowning and the lion there is holding on by the, barely holding on to the limb. But way up in the upper right, you can see the ark. I'm sorry, the upper middle rather. The water back there is calm and the ark is slowly floating away. So one of this picture says to me is you wanna be on that ark, but you wanna also understand what the angel represents, whether the artist meant for it to represent that at all or not. And it is this, and this comes from understanding why this flood happened, because one of the obvious questions you would ask, especially with the angel being there, is why would God allow the innocent to die? And here's the answer. I believe anyway. And this comes from just the chapter before, an explanation as to why the flood came. And notice what it says. It says, and God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was evil continually. There it is again. Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually and it grieved him in his heart. So that's what that angel represents. This has to happen because every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is evil continually, but it grieved God in his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy, and notice what he says. I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth because every imagination is evil. Both man and beast and the creeping things and the fall of the air and it lists off a whole bunch of other things. All those things are innocent to man's evil, by the way. And yet it all has to go except for one thing, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So the initial creation is destroyed

so that the foundation of the new creation with Noah is grace. The initial creation was just natural, right? Adam wasn't born by the grace of God, he was created. But now we have this new creation. This is the first time, by the way, the word grace is ever used. This creation, once Noah's established, is based upon grace, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. So surely God grieved that because of the evil of man, the beasts and the birds and the lion who had no responsibility, or the child who had no responsibility for it, had to die. But the foundation of the new was gonna be founded upon grace. And that is a great message to tell anybody who wants to ask you, what is that picture and why does it look that way? So that's why I like that picture very much. I don't know that this is actually the name of this painting. I'll go through this one fairly quickly because I've shown this picture before. I call it, I tried to find where this painting came from, but I couldn't find it. I could find the painting, but I couldn't find any explanation as to where it came from. I call it the liar, the liar, and the lion. And I call it the liar, the liar, and the lion because you have the liar, L-I-A-R, is of course the false prophet. This comes from 1 Kings 13, and that story where the man of God from Judah comes up into now the divided kingdom, and he goes to Jeroboam, who's got his altar, and he curses the altar, and the altar cuts in two. And then the man of God leaves, and he's supposed to go straight back to Judah, and he gets stopped by a prophet of Israel. And the prophet says, oh, the Lord told me to invite you to lunch. And so the man of Judah goes. And so the liar is the false prophet. That's the guy on the right with his horse or donkey there behind him. Of course, the liar, the man lying down is the dead man of God. And then you have the lion. And of course, the intrigue,

besides the fact that this whole story is really a metaphor for the split kingdoms, this story comes at the start of the kingdoms being split, and everything you see in this picture and everything you see in this story is really a metaphor for what happens with the two kingdoms. Israel is a lying kingdom to the north. They always lived a lie. That's how an Ahab can come along. The man of God of Judah is great representative of Judah. He curses the northern kingdom for their lies, and then he gets entangled with them anyway through Jehoshaphat and the others. And he starts to believe the lies as it is or believe that their connection still exists when it really doesn't. So they both represent both Israel and Judah. And then you have the lion there. So what does the lion represent? Well, the lion really represents the lion of the tribe of Judah. It is a spiritual lion. And here's how we know that, because it says this. This is in 1 Kings 13, verse 28. And he went and found, this is the man of God, this is the false prophet from Israel. And he went and found his carcass, that's the man of God, cast in the way, and the ass, this is the ass, which represents the witnesses, by the way, and the lion standing by the carcass. And the lion had not eaten the carcass, nor torn the ass. So you see what the lion represents. The lion represents Christ.

Because the lion, a lion naturally kills for one reason. It kills to eat, that's why it killed. It can't be bothered with killing if it ain't eating. And yet this lion didn't eat. And this lion didn't eat because this is a spiritual lion, because this lion is representative of Christ, who by coming, by the way, eliminates the law of Judah, completely eliminates the false kingdom in Israel, and kills those things and creates a greater truth that you and I have come to know, and we're there as well as the donkeys, we're there as the witnesses that recognize that this is what all of this represents. So that's a spiritual lion. So we can then take that and use it in other areas. If we see a lion that kills but doesn't devour, you get a pretty good idea that's the same type of lion, and that's exactly what you see here in 2 Kings chapter 17. Remember the story in 2 Kings chapter 17, when they bring down the people from the different nations, the Assyrians drive out the Israelites and bring down the people from different nations. And it says, when they come into the land, verse 25, it says, and so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there that they feared not the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them. So they then send a message, excuse me, back to the King of Assyria and says, the God of these people is sending lions among us. Well, we know that he's sending lions because it says there that the Lord sent them, but how do they know? How could they possibly know that just because some people are getting attacked by lions, that it is the God of the land? Well, you could say it's superstition, but it's not about superstition. It's about the fact that the lions were slewing some of them, but they weren't devouring them.

You see the difference? So they recognize that there was divine intervention because that's not what a lion does. So whenever we see that, and you can use it also with, you know, Daniel and the lion's den if you want, whenever you see that, you see a lion that devours or kills, but doesn't eat, that's the lion of the tribe of Judah. Okay, moving on quickly, because we're running out of time. You might recognize this painting. If you live here around Boston, this painting has been in the news recently. This is Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt in 1633. This painting is famous for a few different reasons. First of all, it is one of Rembrandt's, in fact, it's Rembrandt's only seascape. He didn't paint people at sea. That was not something that he did, but he did it once. And this is the one that he did it with. It's a very famous painting. He also does something which is not unusual for a painter, and that is that he puts himself in the painting. If you look closely at this painting, you'll see a guy in blue with his hand on his head, and what he looks like he's doing, it looks like he's looking back into the camera. Of course, there is no camera, but that's what it looks like he's doing. That's actually Rembrandt. He's actually painted a self-portrait of himself and stuck himself as one of the 12 disciples, which I think is kind of interesting. But it's an exciting painting. The sea is washing over, and it's, of course, depicting that point where Jesus is asleep in the boat, and the disciples are afraid for their lives. They think the boat's going to sink and all that kind of stuff. It's famous for another reason, of course. It's famous because this is one of the 13 paintings, and the most important one, if you will, if you want to rate those things, that got stolen from a place called the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston back in March of 1990, exactly 35 years ago this month. That's why it's actually in the news. They're cleaning up the room that it got stolen from in preparation for it to come back. Of course, if you know the story, you know the painting has never been found. None of the 13 paintings have ever been recovered.

They've been trying to figure it out for 35 years. And just to show you a picture, that's where the painting is supposed to be. We went to the Gardner Museum three or four years ago, I guess, and I took a picture of the spot where the boat on the Sea of Galilee is supposed to be. I think if the picture was there, I don't think you'd have the chairs in front of it, but no pictures, so you might as well sit down and take a break. They are always hopeful that the painting is gonna come back, but it's been stolen. But what's the fascination of the picture? And the fascination is this.

They awake Jesus and he rebukes the wind and says to the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And the wonder of this picture is the total helplessness

that they are feeling as the boat is being overwhelmed by wind and by waves.

And the story is, have you ever felt that way? Like the wind and the waves of life are completely consuming you and you have no place to turn. And yet if Jesus is in the boat, there's always a place to turn. Because Jesus says, peace be still, and there is total calm. No storm in your life is ever too extreme if Jesus is in that boat. And so you wanna keep him in the boat. In fact, you wanna recognize, as I pointed out in the class recently, it's his boat that you're in. And that's the wonder of that painting. We certainly hope that they find it and come back. I will, they don't know where it is. They've looked and looked and investigations and all that kind of stuff. But I will suggest this. This is also a Rembrandt from 1666. This is called The Return of the Prodigal Son. This one is located in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. So our chances of going and seeing it in person are probably pretty slim. There's a lot of interesting things about the creation of this painting. And one of them is this. He painted it almost towards the end of his life. But it wasn't the first time he ever considered the concept, Rembrandt ever thought about the Prodigal Son. In fact, one of his biographers said it consumed him for his entire life. There's another very famous painting called The Prodigal Son in the Tavern that shows him when he is living on the high end. And there's all kinds of sketches of this son and the other son. It was something that Rembrandt worked on for his whole life. And then at the very end of his life, he creates this painting. And many people who study this kind of stuff say it is one of the most profound paintings

that's ever been done. Possibly the most profound Christian painting that's ever been created.

One guy says it stands as a powerful depiction of forgiveness and unconditional love. But, and all that's fascinating, but all it really does is capture the essence of what the story itself actually says. So take a look at what the words say. And this is from Luke chapter 15. Y'all know the story of the Prodigal Son. We want to point just a couple of things out just to sort of highlight why the painting is considered so special because we see it in the word. And he rose and he came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost. And is found. There was one reviewer that described what this says this way. He said it better than I could. This is what he said. He said, the whole of this painting represents a symbol of coming home, of the darkness of the human experience illuminated by tenderness and of weary and sinful mankind

taking refuge in the shelter of God's mercy. That is exactly what the prodigal son is all about. That's also exactly why our faith is so unique and so wonderful. You and I brothers and sisters have come to know and have been changed by the shelter of God's mercy. We live in a world that generally speaking doesn't know about it. Either they can't see it at all or it's something philosophical or something that shows emotional weakness. Well, if you need that kind of thing. But for us, it's something real. It's something profound.

It's something transformative. It's something eternal and everybody needs it. So I will continue to display my pictures in the hope that one of those whom I work with and whom I care about will ask me, what in the world is that? And I can say, well, you know, there's an interesting story about that picture.