Math In The Bible - Ben Shanks - 08-03-2025

Good morning, everyone. I often enjoy having these opportunities to ah cover a nerdy subject in the morning. So you can't get much nerdier than math, so we're going to talk math this morning. ah When you look in the Bible, there are several numbers that have a lot of significance in the Bible. 40. ah 12, seven, three, six, all these numbers have their own significance. And I wanna look at one that creates some interesting math in the Bible. So when you look at the number three in the Bible.

There were three patriarchs. So you have the promise that's delivered to uh Abram, the promise that's delivered to his son Isaac, and the promise that's delivered to Jacob. You have three sons that survived the flood and repopulated the entire planet. You have God when he appears to Abraham and Sarah, he appears as three men. In the New Testament, you have three gifts that the wise men bring Jesus. When Jesus goes missing as a child, he's missing for three days about his father's work.

He's tempted three times while fasting. oh You have three witnesses at the transfiguration. You have three witnesses in the garden. You have three prayers in the garden. When Paul is struck blind, on the third day he recovers his sight. But there's a couple of examples in the Old Testament and a pretty significant one in the New Testament where the math gets a little interesting. Three plus three equals seven. So seven's another number that has significance in the Bible.

Seven is the number of perfection. It's the number that implies wholeness or purity. There's seven days in a week. On the seventh day, God rested, and on the seventh day, the Israelites were to rest. There's seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls in Revelation. Would you look at creation? It's one of the first ones we see in the Bible that sets the precedent for what is going to become significant one day.

When you look at creation, creation is three plus three equals seven. If you look at our creation, how God created the earth, he spends the first three days landscaping and the second three days populating. He's building the world we're gonna live on. the physical surface separating the water, the light we see during those first three days. And during the second three days, he starts to populate it with life.

Then you get a little further, and this concept of formless and void is applied to a profit. It's one of my favorite prophets. It's the only prophet who was successful in spite of himself. When you get to Jonah, Jonah spends three days in a sea creature and then he spends three days walking Nineveh. So you have... Jonah being trapped, being contained, being forced into doing God's will. And then when he finally submits and goes and does God's will, the entire city repents.

So we have this 3 plus 3 equals 7, 7 being the idea of perfection. Three is an interesting number by itself. If you ever, uh geometrically, the only way you can have the most number of circles you can have all touching each other is three. Three implies that there's unity. The most number of people you can have in holding hands, where they're each touching each other, is three. It's the idea that there's unity in what we're seeing.

So when you look at the unity in Jonah, he was buried in a sea creature for three days, and then he was made to work for three days, and it created success. Creation, three days to build the world, three days to populate it. But there is a very interesting one when we get to the book of John. One, we're gonna talk about all the gospels on, but then in John, in chapter 18 of John, we'll read mostly from there today. You see in verse 12, Jesus brought before Annas.

In Annas, in verse 12, so the Roman cohort and commander of the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him and led him to Annas first, for he was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year. Now Caiaphas was the one who advised the Jews that it was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people. So in here we see Jesus brought before the Jewish leadership.

And the Jewish leadership declares him guilty. There's a total of six trials that happened in this one day. Where Jesus is drug before leader after leader after leader. Eventually he's drug before for Caiaphas in Matthew chapter 26. Caiaphas. Delay declares him guilty also and says we should exterminate him. We should kill him. Eventually he's drug in Matthew chapter 27 before the Sanhedrin, who deliver the same verdict. Jesus is guilty. We can't kill him. Let's find somebody who can.

uh And then you see Jesus on trial before the world. First with Pilate, then with Herod, then with Pilate again. And each time he's declared faultless, not guilty. The world declared Jesus not guilty three times. While the Jews, who are the people of God, declared Jesus guilty three times. This three plus three equals seven. Because there's one more trial Jesus is going to go through.

After Annas declares him guilty and Pilate finds no fault and Caiaphas declares him guilty and Herod finds no fault. Remember, this is the same Herod who beheaded John the Baptist. He wasn't one who was easy to persuade innocence for. Then the Sanhedrin finds him guilty and drags him back before Pilate. Where Pilate declares him not guilty again. And Pilate's wife warns him that something terrible is going to come out of this.

That he washes his hands of the problem and he turns Jesus over to the soldiers to be sacrificed. And that sacrifice is our number seven. When Jesus is placed on the cross, he's tried before God and found flawless. And through his sacrifice, salvation enters the world. So once again, three plus three equals seven.

At the same time, these trials are going on, picking up in the next verse in John chapter 18. And Simon and Peter was following Jesus, and so was another disciple. Now that disciple was known to the high priest and entered with Jesus into the court of the high priest. But Peter was standing at the door outside, and so the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out and spoke to the doorkeeper and brought in Peter.

The slave, therefore, who had kept the door said to Peter, you are not also one of the man's disciples are you? And he said, I am not. Now the slaves and the officers were standing there having made a charcoal fire for it was cold and they were wearing themselves and Peter was also with them standing and warming himself. Here we see. another trial of faith that's going on for Peter. And in Peter, We see him deny Jesus three times in Mark before the cock crows twice.

And you can see why putting yourself in Peter's shoes, why it happened. He wanted to stay near Jesus and truth would have prevented that from happening. He wanted to follow Jesus. He wanted to see what was happening, what was going on. So he was doing everything he could verbally to stay near him. But in that process, he was denying who he really was, that he was a follower of Jesus. That he was a man that loved Jesus deeply. And Jesus glances at him at the end and he waits.

Because he realizes what he's done. At the same time, a few verses over. 18, John 18 38. Pilate said to him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he went out to the Jews and said to them, I find no guilt in him. Few verses later, chapter 19, verse four, and Pilate came out again and said to them, behold, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.

And in verse six, when therefore the chief priest and the officers saw him, they cried out saying, crucify, crucify. Pilate said to him, take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.

While Peter is denying Christ, Pilate is denying Christ guilt. He washes his hands of the responsibility. He has him hung on a tree, but he blames the Jews. And in Matthew, the Jews accept the blame. May his blood be on us and our children. They're completely severing ties with their faith. So this trial that's going on, or these denials that are going on, once again, grouped together to show the other thing that's going on here. There's a different denial that's happening at the same time.

Three plus three equals seven. While Peter is denying Christ. While... The the world is denying Christ guilt. God is embracing humanity. He's taking it away from heads of families. He's taking authority away from Moses. and he is putting that authority all on Jesus. He is giving it to all of humanity, no longer individual families, no longer one family of people who became a nation. This is God embracing humanity, thereby completing it, making it perfect.

If you look at where we are as a people, as all of humanity. God has offered us three trials in the past as human beings. He started with this idea of going directly to families, going directly to Adam, going directly to Noah. And we see failure after failure in that relationship. We see Adam and Eve having the first failure and being removed from a situation where God walked in the garden with them. We see Noah.

Who's apparently the only holy man left on earth, the only person worth saving him and his family. We see God having him spend years building a monument to what's coming. Not that they understood it, but years building this ark. Preaching the entire time. And yet. Mankind refuses to repent. And the flood comes. After the flood, see NOAA fail. And then you see mankind fell again, so much that our language is confused.

Mankind gets the idea that we can be as great as God, as long as if we build a tall enough tower. But God destroys that unity that humanity has by confusing the languages. So you get to the father of the faithful. You get to Abraham, who becomes Abraham. And God works directly with Abram through his journey. And you see Abram fail. You see Abraham fail over and over and over. So the promise passes through Abraham to Isaac. And in Isaac you see another failure of a man in his service to God.

So the promise passes through to Jacob, where the tribes are founded. And you see Jacob, yet another failure of a human to serve God. Eventually, that tribe, those tribes are brought into slavery in Egypt. Can you see God raise a savior from amongst them in Moses? Moses delivers. the law of God to the people. and they turn against the law.

You see him contend with his brother and sister in his journey to serve God so much that his sister is struck with leprosy and cast out of the camp for a week. But along this journey, along this timeline, God delivers his second trial. If I tell you exactly what to do, will you be able to do it? And that's what the law of Moses was. It was detailed instructions, exactly what humanity needed to do. And they still couldn't get it right.

You see God deliver the instructions directly to the Israelites. In Exodus chapter 20. And the only thing they say is, tell him to stop speaking to us. We can't take it. one of the first of their series of betrayals. Just a few chapters later, Aaron, Moses's brother, is leading the charge to build an idol. It gets eventually to the judges who frequently are not good people. It gets to the kings, who consistently were not good people. The kingdom falls apart, three kings in.

After Solomon, they can't even hold the kingdom together anymore. It gets so bad that the northern tribes are taken into captivity first and the southern tribes are taken to a captivity a few years later. But during all this, there does seem to be something happening as they get filtered more and more till eventually the roughly 42,000 Jews that returned from exile. seem to care for the first time.

They seem to be devoted to God as a people, but it doesn't take them long before things like the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees consolidate power. So by the time Jesus shows up, even the returns, those that returned from exile, have rejected God. So all throughout history, we see. God extending his hand to us. God trying over and over. But we're in our third trial now. We're at the point.

where there is nothing else coming. This is the last opportunity God's going to give us. And we see during his offering of that opportunity, we see Jesus get rejected by the Jews who saw him perform miracles, by the Jews who heard the words of God spoken aloud for them again, but this time in a voice they could bear. We see. them rejecting him so much that they release themselves from the promise in the words, let his blood be upon us and our children.

We've seen centuries of Christians rejecting God. We've seen Christians come up with their own version. Even in the first century, when you look at the seven churches in Revelation, what were they contending against? They were contending against false teaching. They were contending against a false prophetess who was even trying to drive immoral behavior into the church. So it's not something that has recently happened. It happened even when the apostles were still alive.

That the Christians rejected Christ even while claiming to bear his name. So. Are we embracing Christ? Are we doing everything we can? to follow him, to worship him, to know him. John chapter 21. We see... uh the way Jesus loves us. Simon, you know, bore an immense amount of grief and an immense amount of guilt after the denials. And Jesus. In Chapter 21, verse 15. um So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter Simon, son of John. Do you agape me? More than these.

And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I fillet you. And he said to him, 10 mile amps. Jesus wants Peter to actively love. And Peter says, I love you like family. And he said to him again a second time, Simon, son of John, you agape me? And he said to you, yes, Lord, you know that I phileo you. And he said to him, shepherd my sheep. In verse he said to him a third time, Simon, son of John, do you filet me? And Peter was grieved because he said to him a third time, do you do you filet me?

And he said to him, Lord, you know all things, you know that I filet you. And Jesus said to him, tend my sheep. Jesus is extending this acknowledgement. that he knows Peter won't deny him again. And he's turning his work over to his apostles in this statement. He's saying to Peter, trust you. That did my sheep. I trust you to look after my kingdom. wonder how long it took Peter to realize it because he wasn't getting it during the conversation.

But Jesus loved and cared for his disciples so much that in his last few moments on earth. He's showing them his love. There's anybody that needs that love from Jesus, that needs to re-embrace God or embrace Him for the first time. Please come forward as we stand and sing.