Participants:
Series Code: AU
Program Code: AU000020S
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00:01 - Historians have long noticed the remarkable similarities
00:03 between the world's major religions. 00:06 So today we're going to drill down just a little bit 00:09 and ask ourselves why that is 00:11 and whether or not the whole human race is sharing 00:14 a collective memory of something really important. 00:19 [upbeat music] 00:39 Visiting Machu Picchu down in South America 00:42 was always one of the biggest items 00:43 on my personal bucket list 00:45 because well, I've always found the Inca Empire 00:48 really, really fascinating. 00:51 I mean, here was this stunning kingdom 00:53 that at its peak was in some ways comparable 00:55 to the Roman empire 00:57 and they built it without the use of a written alphabet 01:00 and even without the use of the wheel. 01:03 So a few years back 01:05 I was working in the city of Lima, Peru 01:07 and I finally got my chance to travel up 01:09 to the city of Cusco. 01:11 And from there, I made my way out into the Andes 01:13 into the ancient world of the Incas. 01:16 And I've got to tell you, 01:18 this is one of those things you really can't experience 01:21 through books or pictures 01:22 because first of all, the physical setting 01:25 for these ancient ruins is absolutely stunning. 01:29 I'm talking storybook beautiful. 01:32 And then secondly, the cities themselves 01:35 they're nothing short of amazing. 01:37 Now, I'm pretty sure that most of you 01:39 will recognize a picture of Machu Picchu 01:41 because it's one of the most photographed spots 01:44 anywhere on the planet. 01:45 Scholars believe it was built as an estate 01:48 for the great Inca Emperor Pachacuti, 01:51 built in the early 15th century. 01:54 So the city is roughly 600 years old now, 01:57 and except for the wooden roofs 01:59 that used to cover the buildings 02:00 it's still pretty much intact. 02:04 Now if you're gonna visit Machu Picchu, 02:06 you really wanna get to these ruins before sunrise 02:10 because the whole city is situated 02:11 around the practice of sun worship, 02:14 the rising of the sun. 02:16 The Inca sun god was named Inti. 02:18 And there's a stone at the top of the city 02:20 known as the Intihuatana 02:22 or the hitching post of the sun. 02:25 There's also a solar temple just down the hill 02:27 and the whole city was positioned 02:29 to line up with the sun on the winter solstice 02:32 which takes place in June down there 02:34 because they're in the Southern hemisphere. 02:37 At the winter solstice, 02:38 the days are getting shorter 02:40 and it looks like their sun god 02:42 is wandering away from his people. 02:45 In the south the sun keeps moving north. 02:47 So once a year the Incas would celebrate the winter solstice 02:51 and perform rituals to convince this sun god Inti 02:55 to come back in their direction. 02:57 Now in the solar observatory, 02:59 just down the hill from the hitching post of the sun 03:02 there was a mark on a stone, right by a window. 03:05 And when the sun was at its lowest point in the sky, 03:09 the patch of light from the window frame 03:11 would line up with that mark 03:13 and the priests of the sun god would know for sure 03:16 that it was the very moment of the solstice. 03:19 And of course then they could inform the people 03:21 that Inti had heard all their petitions 03:24 and he'd be coming back. 03:26 Now, what I find fascinating is the way 03:28 that most ancient cultures on this planet 03:30 have something similar. 03:33 If you head to the other side of the world 03:34 and visit the Boyne Valley of Ireland 03:36 you'll find ancient passage tombs 03:38 that date back thousands of years, 03:41 and maybe the most famous of these tombs 03:43 is the one found at Newgrange 03:45 which appears to be more of an astronomical structure 03:48 than a grave 03:50 because on the winter solstice 03:51 when the sun sits low in the sky 03:54 a beam of light suddenly pierces 03:56 through to the very center of the structure 03:59 and lights up the back wall. 04:01 And again, this is what you find 04:03 with a lot of ancient cultures, 04:05 a fascination with the sun, the moon, the stars 04:08 and the seasons. 04:09 Now, I know we like to think that people 04:11 in the distant past worshiped the sun 04:14 because they were ignorant and superstitious 04:18 but the picture that emerges out of the ancient world 04:20 is not quite that easy. 04:22 It turns out that most of these cultures 04:24 were no more ignorant than we are. 04:26 And in some ways they were surprisingly sophisticated. 04:30 The night sky provided them with a very detailed calendar 04:34 and they could mark the passage of time 04:36 and seasonal cycles with remarkable precision. 04:40 Somehow some of these ancient cultures 04:42 actually knew things about astronomy 04:44 that you and I didn't figure out until the 20th century. 04:48 For example the ancient Egyptians 04:50 revered the dog star Sirius 04:53 because when it appeared on the horizon 04:55 right before sunrise, 04:57 it meant the Nile was about to flood 04:59 and it was time to get off the lowlands. 05:02 And somehow, apparently the Egyptians also knew 05:04 that Sirius was actually a star system, 05:07 it had more than one star. 05:10 And that's something we didn't notice 05:11 till the middle of the 20th century. 05:14 The same was true of the Dogon tribes 05:16 some 2000 miles south of Egypt in modern day, Mali. 05:20 They knew it too. 05:21 And according to some sources, this is disputed 05:24 but some sources say the Dogons apparently also knew 05:27 that Saturn had rings. 05:29 And there's just enough circumstantial evidence 05:32 to suggest that maybe they did. 05:36 So I know we have this assumption 05:38 that our high-tech age is far more sophisticated 05:40 than the people who came before us. 05:42 But I would guess 05:43 that your average ancient human 05:45 had a far better understanding of the night sky 05:48 than you or I do. 05:50 And it turns out that very few ancient people 05:52 actually thought that the sun, the moon or the planets, 05:55 the stars were gods. 05:58 They thought of these things more like a point of contact 06:01 with the spirit world. 06:02 Kind of like, I don't know the payphone of the universe. 06:05 A lot of ancient cultures believed that the cosmos 06:08 started out as a non-material place. 06:10 It was actually, they said made out of thoughts 06:13 and then slowly over time, those thoughts condensed 06:16 into gases and finally physical matter, 06:19 which now makes up the world that you and I live in. 06:23 So to the ancient pagan mind 06:24 the universe was split into these two realms of being. 06:27 You had the great mind of the cosmos, the spiritual world. 06:30 And then you had down here this imperfect world 06:34 that we live in. 06:36 Now, most of the time 06:38 people give Plato a lot of credit for this idea. 06:40 We even called it Greek dualism. 06:43 But in reality, this system of thinking 06:45 dates back a lot further than his famous school of Athens. 06:49 The Greeks actually revered an ancient Egyptian philosopher 06:53 by the name of Thoth. 06:55 The man, they said invented the art of writing. 06:58 Eventually Thoth was deified as an Egyptian God 07:01 and the Greeks renamed him Hermes Trismegistus 07:04 or Hermes the great times three. 07:07 And it was from this fountain of ancient knowledge 07:10 from Egypt that most of the world's spiritualism 07:14 and dualism made its way into our thinking. 07:17 So we can give Plato high marks for systematizing it 07:21 but not for inventing it. 07:22 It didn't originate with him. 07:26 So what we had in the ancient world 07:28 was a dualistic universe, 07:30 the higher realm of disembodied spirits, 07:32 the gods if you will, 07:33 and then the lower realm of physical existence. 07:37 Now in Greek culture 07:38 if you were a good philosopher, 07:39 you wanted to escape the limitations of a physical life 07:42 and rise up to the spirit world 07:44 where you could go and join the great cosmic mind. 07:47 This is what you find in Plato's account 07:49 of the death of Socrates 07:51 who tells his students as he sits on death row 07:54 not to feel bad about his impending death 07:57 because he's about to achieve 07:59 the highest goal of a philosopher, 08:01 total release from this imperfect physical world. 08:05 But I digress, 08:06 and I want to get back to this business about the sun god. 08:10 The Egyptians called him Ra. 08:12 The Incas called him Inti. 08:14 The Romans called him Sol Invictus, or the invincible sun. 08:18 But very few of these people actually thought 08:21 the sun itself was a literal deity. 08:24 It was more like a point of contact, 08:25 a portal through which the spirit world 08:27 could communicate with the human race 08:29 and exert its influence on this planet. 08:32 Maybe the best analogy would be a radio or TV set. 08:36 When you and I watch the evening news, 08:37 it's not really the TV that's doing all the talking, 08:40 it's just a medium, if you'll pardon the pun, 08:42 a medium through which a news anchor can talk to you. 08:47 The sun would be that medium of communication for a deity 08:50 who lived out there somewhere in the spirit world. 08:53 And all those stories, 08:55 the mythology of the Greeks, the Romans, 08:57 the Norse, the Celts, the Babylonians, 09:00 the Egyptians, the Incas, 09:02 well, they didn't really believe 09:03 that these were literal historical accounts. 09:06 They were metaphors meant to teach important lessons 09:09 about how they thought the universe was structured 09:12 and how human beings should relate to each other 09:14 and what might constitute a good life. 09:18 Now all over the world, 09:20 we have different mythologies with different names, 09:23 but it's absolutely remarkable how similar 09:26 all the stories are. 09:28 It's almost as if the whole human race 09:30 shares a common set of information, 09:32 as if at some point in the very distant past 09:35 we were all telling the same story. 09:38 Then over time as we went our separate ways 09:40 and spread across the face of the planet 09:42 those stories changed just a little bit 09:46 and it created the natural diversification 09:48 that comes with time and distance. 09:51 That's kind of the way it is with human languages. 09:53 Once upon a time, for example, 09:54 Dutch and English were very, 09:56 very close, almost indistinguishable 09:58 because both were Germanic languages in their origin. 10:02 But then with time and distance 10:03 they went their separate ways 10:05 and today they sound to us like separate languages. 10:08 Look at them closely, though, 10:09 and you can see they share a common root. 10:13 The same appears to be true of the world's mythology. 10:16 The various gods seemed to line up with each other 10:19 across any number of cultures 10:21 and the stories appear to suggest 10:23 that we all share a common past. 10:26 Now I've got to take a super quick break, 10:28 but in a moment, I want to show you something else 10:30 that all these ancient cultures had in common. 10:32 And I promise this is gonna give you a lot to think about. 10:37 [upbeat music] 10:39 - [Male Narrator] Are you searching for answers 10:40 to life's toughest questions 10:41 like where is God when we suffer? 10:44 Can I find real happiness? 10:45 Or is there any hope for our chaotic world? 10:49 The DISCOVER Bible guides will help you 10:50 find the answers you're looking for. 10:52 Visit us @BibleStudies.com 10:55 or give us a call at [888] 456-7933 11:00 for your free DISCOVER Bible guides. 11:03 Study online on our secure website 11:06 or have the free guides mailed right to your home. 11:08 There is never a cost or obligation. 11:11 The DISCOVER Bible guides are our free gift to you. 11:14 Find answers in guides like, 11:16 "Does My Life Really Matter to God?" 11:18 And "A Second Chance at Life." 11:20 You'll find answers to the things that matter 11:22 most to you in each of the 26 DISCOVER Bible guides. 11:25 Visit BibleStudies.com 11:27 and begin your journey today to discover answers 11:30 to life's deepest questions. 11:38 - It's a pretty common theory 11:39 that most of the world's ancient cultures 11:41 moved away from polytheism, the worship of many gods, 11:45 to monotheism, the worship of one God. 11:48 And it's a pretty good theory in a lot of ways. 11:52 For example, the Greek philosopher Xenophanes 11:55 who lived some 500 years before Christ, 11:58 well, he became embarrassed by the behavior 12:00 of his Greek gods. 12:02 We don't have a lot of his writings 12:03 but the few fragments we do have 12:05 tell an interesting story. 12:07 This comes from fragment B11, 12:09 just in case you're ever motivated to go and look it up. 12:11 He says, "Homer and Hesiod had have attributed to the gods 12:16 all sorts of things that are matters of reproach 12:18 and censure among men, 12:20 theft, adultery, and mutual deception." 12:24 So in other words, Xenophanes is challenging the idea 12:28 that God should be exhibiting such horrible behavior. 12:32 And he suggests that maybe the Greeks 12:34 and other cultures have been actually inventing gods 12:37 in their own image, 12:38 that maybe these gods are nothing 12:40 but the creation of the human imagination. 12:43 And then he suggests that worshiping one god 12:47 makes a lot more sense. 12:50 So historically there is this slow movement 12:52 away from many gods to one God 12:55 and the religious historians often give Abraham 12:58 and the Hebrews credit for being the first. 13:01 But what I find interesting is the fact 13:03 that most ancient cultures, 13:05 no matter how many gods they worshiped, 13:07 still appear to have the idea that there must be one 13:11 supreme being who reigns above all other gods. 13:15 The rest of the pantheon was simply a collection 13:18 of emanations coming from this one supreme being 13:21 or lesser gods who somehow answer to this one, 13:24 true supreme being. 13:26 Now, if that's the case, 13:27 it's possible that the worship of many gods 13:30 was actually a deterioration, 13:33 an ancient move away from a more ancient religion 13:37 that had a one true creator. 13:40 What happened is that the ancient cultures 13:42 as they studied the heaven, 13:43 started to associate the sun, 13:45 moon and planets with lesser deities. 13:48 And then in time they abandoned the one true God. 13:52 Personally, I believe that we didn't all come 13:55 from different starting points. 13:57 We all branched out from the same starting point. 14:02 So now let's get back to the Incas 14:04 because Machu Picchu isn't the only place 14:07 the Incas acknowledged the winter solstice. 14:10 The capital of Pachacuti's empire was Cusco, 14:12 a city that sits up in the mountains above 11,000 feet. 14:16 Today the city looks like a Spanish colony, 14:19 but if you look at the bottoms of some of the buildings 14:22 you'll notice the foundations look different from the tops. 14:26 That's because the Spanish actually put their buildings 14:28 on Inca foundations. 14:30 But the original design of the city was not Spanish, 14:34 it was Inca. 14:35 This was the place where Pachacuti ruled 14:38 his incredible empire, made up of four provinces 14:41 spread across the backbone of South America. 14:44 And to this day in the month of June 14:48 you can witness the celebration of something 14:50 called Inti Rayami, 14:51 if I'm pronouncing it correctly. 14:53 It's this ancient festival connected 14:56 with the winter solstice. 14:57 And at one point in the festivities, 15:00 the crowd makes its way to the ancient fortress 15:02 of Sacsayhuaman, just outside of town. 15:05 And one of the things they do when they get there 15:08 is sacrifice a llama. 15:11 Now, today they don't actually kill an animal, not anymore. 15:13 They just go through the motions, 15:16 but in the past they would cut the heart 15:18 out of the llama and present it to the sun god. 15:22 And if all went well, the sun would quit wandering north 15:25 and the days would start getting longer. 15:29 And I guess I find this fascinating 15:31 because this is also something that I find 15:33 in almost every culture on the face of the planet. 15:36 This idea of making peace with the gods through sacrifice. 15:42 Where did that come from? 15:43 And why is it so incredibly present 15:45 in the records of our collective human past? 15:48 If you go back to the Shang dynasty of ancient China 15:51 an era that started some six or 700 years before Christ, 15:55 you find some of these same elements. 15:58 They had one supreme god by the name of Shangdi. 16:01 And once a year, I could be wrong, 16:03 but I believe it was at the winter solstice. 16:06 Once a year, the emperor would sacrifice a bull 16:10 to the one supreme god at the Temple of Heaven. 16:13 It was a ritual that persisted right up to the 20th century. 16:18 And what's kind of interesting is the fact 16:20 that archeologists do not find any statues of this Shangdi 16:25 so we suspect that nobody ever made any 16:28 and if they didn't, 16:30 that would be something they had in common with the Hebrews 16:32 who actually forbid the use of statues 16:35 to represent their god. 16:37 And the Hebrews also sacrificed a bull to the one, true God 16:41 as well as goats and lambs. 16:43 And from what I can tell, 16:45 the worshipers of Shangdi also offered sheep. 16:48 So we have the same sacrificial animals 16:50 being used to worship a supreme god 16:53 in two different cultures, in two different places. 16:58 Maybe that's a coincidence. 16:59 I mean, it could be, but the more you look at this 17:03 the less a coincidence seems likely. 17:06 Among the Greeks and the Romans 17:08 there was something known as the mystery schools, 17:10 byproducts of the ancient system of dualism 17:13 that we mentioned a few minutes ago. 17:16 The teachings of these mystery schools 17:17 were a carefully guarded secret. 17:19 And you had to be an initiate, 17:21 a member of the group to learn about them. 17:24 About the same time that Christianity was starting 17:27 to take root in the Roman Empire 17:28 one of these ancient mystery cults 17:30 practiced something known as the Taurobolium. 17:34 If you listen, it's got the word taurus in it, 17:36 which is Latin for bull. 17:38 And what happened during the taurobolium is 17:40 a priest of the Great Mother of the Gods 17:42 would climb down into a pit 17:44 and they would cover the pit with a wooden grate. 17:47 Then they would lead a bull on top of that grate 17:49 and slaughter it so that the blood ran down into the pit 17:52 and covered the priest. 17:54 We actually still have a description of this ritual 17:56 from a fourth century Christian named Prudentius 17:58 who witnessed it. 17:59 He writes, the high priest, you know, 18:02 goes down into a trench, dug deep in the ground 18:04 to be made holy. 18:06 Above him they lay planks to make a stage. 18:08 When the beast for sacrifice has been stationed here, 18:11 they cut his breast open with a consecrated hunting spear 18:14 and the great wound disgorges a stream of hot blood, 18:17 pouring on the plank bridge below a streaming river 18:20 which spreads billowing out. 18:23 Then through the many ways afforded by the thousand chinks, 18:25 it passes in a shower, dripping a foul rain, 18:29 and the priest in the pit below catches it, 18:32 holding his filthy head to meet every drop 18:34 and getting his robe and his whole body 18:36 covered with corruption. 18:39 It was nasty and obviously Prudentius didn't care for it. 18:45 But again, you have the idea of sacrifice, 18:47 that somehow an animal needs to die to make things right. 18:51 So where in the world did we get this idea 18:54 and why is it so incredibly pervasive? 18:58 I'll be right back after this. 19:02 - [Male Narrator] Dragons, beasts, cryptic statues. 19:06 Bible prophecy can be incredibly vivid and confusing. 19:10 If you've ever read Daniel, the Revelation 19:13 and come away scratching your head, 19:14 you're not alone. 19:16 Our free focus on prophecy guides are designed 19:19 to help you unlock the mysteries of the Bible 19:21 and deepen your understanding of God's plan 19:23 for you and our world. 19:25 Study online, or request them by mail 19:27 and start bringing prophecy into focus today. 19:31 - Here in the Western world, 19:32 the story of sacrifice that most of us are familiar with 19:35 comes from the pages of the Bible 19:37 and a significant portion of the Old Testament 19:39 deals with that specific phenomenon. 19:42 There's an incredible level of detail 19:45 and this is well worth your time reading. 19:47 But maybe today let's go back to the root of the concept 19:50 and look at what the Bible says is the reason 19:52 that sacrifice started. 19:54 Over in the Book of Genesis 19:56 we have The Story of the Fall, 19:57 the fatal moment when human beings decided 20:00 to turn their backs on the creator 20:02 and chart their own course in this world. 20:04 And calling that a fatal moment is very appropriate 20:07 because the end result when you separate yourself 20:10 from the only source of life in the universe, 20:13 well, that would be death. 20:14 Well, let's just read a little bit of the story. 20:16 This comes from Genesis 2. 20:19 It says, "Then the Lord God took the man 20:22 and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 20:24 And the Lord God commanded the man saying, 20:27 'Of every tree of the garden, 20:28 you may freely eat, 20:30 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil 20:32 you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it 20:35 you shall surely die.'" 20:38 Now the key message there is 20:41 that not all knowledge is worth pursuing. 20:43 Some things in this universe are dangerous 20:46 and the exercise of freewill can get you into trouble. 20:50 Human beings were free in the beginning 20:52 to make their own decisions, right out of the gate. 20:54 But just in case, God put a guard rail 20:57 around certain experiences that would take us 20:59 in the wrong direction. 21:01 We were perfectly free to climb over that guard rail 21:04 because God does not force the human conscience 21:08 but at the same time he warned that there would be 21:10 drastic penalties if we did it. 21:13 "If you separate yourself from the living God," 21:16 he said "the consequence would be death." 21:20 So from the moment the human race decided to go its own way 21:23 something fundamental about our nature changed. 21:27 We began to operate from the perspective of self 21:29 and the loving character of God got harder 21:31 and harder to find just by watching people live. 21:35 We were made in the image of God 21:37 which means that the human race was intended 21:40 as a showcase of God's goodness. 21:42 But now after the fall, 21:43 we exhibited something else, a selfish nature 21:47 and our lives became a lie about the nature 21:50 of the one who made us. 21:52 You and I today are essentially selfish 21:54 and our lives do not suggest we were made by a God of love. 21:59 The image of the creator is barely discernible 22:01 in the human race. 22:03 And the God of love cannot just let pain 22:05 and suffering go on indefinitely 22:07 or it might suggest that God is not love 22:09 and that the university he made is a horrible place. 22:13 And I know we don't like to think of a God who judges, 22:16 but if we're really honest 22:18 how many of us could really pledge allegiance 22:20 to a God who didn't judge? 22:22 We absolutely want them to judge the wickedness 22:25 of other people. 22:26 We just don't want him to deal with us. 22:29 There's still a sense in which we understand 22:32 that something is completely out of whack with all of us. 22:36 Millions of books have been written 22:38 trying to figure out what's wrong with humanity. 22:40 Why are we so fatally flawed? 22:43 Why do we keep doing the wrong thing over and over 22:46 and over, generation after generation? 22:49 And why are we so painfully aware 22:51 of our shortcomings? 22:53 By rights, a loving and just God 22:56 should just wipe the human race out, 22:58 remove us from his perfect universe. 23:01 And if we're really honest, we would admit we deserve it. 23:05 And yet here we are still existing 23:07 with the specter of death hanging ominously 23:10 over every one of our lives. 23:13 And it's at this juncture that we find 23:15 the notion of sacrifice showing up for the very first time. 23:18 Let's go to Genesis 3:21. 23:22 It says, "Also for Adam and his wife, 23:25 the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them." 23:31 After the fall, we were no longer a perfect representation 23:33 of God's character 23:34 and this horrible imperfection 23:36 was something that had to be covered, 23:38 either that or we had to be destroyed. 23:42 And here's what I want you to notice. 23:43 The covering was made by God, 23:46 because there was no way we could fix 23:48 this problem we created, 23:50 we were already fundamentally flawed too far gone. 23:53 And the other thing I want you to notice, 23:55 the coverings were made by skin 23:58 and that meant something had to give its life. 24:03 Now in all the pagan cultures of the world 24:06 this story got twisted to make God look 24:08 like a blood thirsty tyrant 24:09 who demands blood in order to turn off his hatred for us. 24:14 But that's not the way it's taught in the Bible, 24:15 not even close. 24:17 What this book teaches is 24:19 that God made the ultimate sacrifice 24:20 and all those sacrificial animals 24:22 were merely symbols that pointed forward 24:25 to a solution that only God could come up with. 24:28 That solution was the incarnation. 24:31 God became one of us and he lived the perfect life, 24:34 the only life that has ever perfectly 24:35 reflected the real nature of God. 24:38 And then he took our consequences on himself. 24:43 I'll be right back after this. 24:47 - [Female Narrator] Life can throw a lot at us. 24:49 Sometimes we don't have all the answers 24:53 but that's where the Bible comes in. 24:55 It's our guide to a more fulfilling life. 24:58 You're at the Voice of Prophecy 25:00 we've created the DISCOVER Bible guides 25:02 to be your guide to the Bible. 25:03 They're designed to be simple, easy to use 25:06 and provide answers to many of life's toughest questions 25:09 and they're absolutely free. 25:11 So jump online now, or give us a call 25:13 and start your journey of discovery. 25:17 - [Female Narrator] Here at the Voice of Prophecy, 25:18 we're committed to creating top quality programming 25:20 for the whole family. 25:22 Like our audio adventure series, "Discovery Mountain." 25:25 Discovery Mountain is a Bible-based program 25:27 for kids of all ages and backgrounds. 25:30 Your family will enjoy the faith-building stories 25:33 from this small mountain summer camp and town. 25:35 With 24 seasonal episodes every year 25:38 and fresh content every week, 25:40 there's always a new adventure just on the horizon. 25:47 - Let me get the old bifocals on 25:48 because I wanna read you something 25:50 out of the Book of Hebrews. 25:52 This is really interesting. 25:53 You need to pay attention to it. 25:54 It's pertinent to this whole idea 25:55 of where sacrifice comes from. 25:57 You'll find this in Hebrews 10 26:01 where the Bible says, "But in those sacrifices," 26:04 we're talking animal sacrifices here, 26:06 "But in those sacrifices, 26:08 there is a reminder of sins every year. 26:11 For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats 26:15 could take away sins." 26:17 Now, I hope you caught that because this is really critical. 26:21 Not one sacrificial animal ever actually paid for anything. 26:26 They didn't solve the sin problem. 26:29 The real sacrifice in this story is not being made by us, 26:33 that's all symbolic. 26:34 God makes the real sacrifice. 26:37 The animals were just this painful reminder 26:40 of how serious our situation is, how dire it is 26:44 and how much God is willing to sacrifice to save us 26:48 from a fate that we frankly brought on ourselves. 26:53 So why do we have this universal concept of sin and guilt? 26:58 Why is it found in all these cultures? 27:00 Why is the phenomenon of sacrifice 27:02 found all over the planet? 27:06 Is it possible that it all comes back to this, 27:09 that maybe we all came from a common root 27:12 somewhere in the very distant past? 27:14 Is this the real story of what actually happened? 27:18 Is it possible that human beings have distorted this account 27:23 and turned it into a monstrosity over the centuries? 27:29 Here's what I wanna suggest. 27:30 I submit that maybe it's time to just brush aside 27:34 all of the superstition 27:36 and maybe it's time for all of us to go back 27:38 to the very beginning, 27:40 the account of where this all started 27:42 and ask ourselves, what do we all have in common? 27:45 Why do we all seem to share a common history 27:49 a common root, a common story? 27:51 Why do we all seem to be remembering the very same thing? 27:55 I think if you get to the bottom of that question 27:58 you might be remarkably surprised by what you find 28:02 and what you discover about living an authentic life. 28:05 [upbeat music] |
Revised 2021-06-24