20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 1)

all right we're live welcome to the friday q a this is um 20 questions or it's you ask or something i don't know i'm still thinking about what i'm going to call it i got a ton of your guys suggestions but before anything else i say let's just launch into the first question this question is because last week i said that i was going to um be asking uh taking a question from the live chat on youtube before we went live now normally i don't do that so know this i normally do not take any questions from the live chat before we go live but i had said i was going to do that and then i took it from facebook because i forgot a few days after i'd said it so this question is taken from that group of questions and the question is about whether or not we will remember um excuse me put it the way they put it um since there is no marriage in heaven are married couples going to be strangers in heaven and so this is the question um i didn't i i'm just i was in a co not a car accident but a traffic jam due to a car accident on the way home so i just rushed into the live stream anyway matthew 22 30 jesus says for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage now this is interesting so there there isn't the giving in marriage and there isn't marriage so you're not going to get married post resurrection and you're not going to be married in the resurrection but are like angels of god in heaven so this is um part of a larger discussion jesus is having with a whole group of guys on the topic of marriage and the resurrection and all that dealing with first injury skepticism about the resurrection but here's the question okay so will i know my spouse like what will the relationship between me and my wife be in heaven and i think that the answer is we're going to have a more intimate relationship but it won't be the same as marriage i think it'll be a better relationship and this is this is the thing we assume if you're not married then that means you've been demoted you've lost something but i think instead we should be thinking about the resurrection as in every possible way being better than the current state of affairs and so just like i'm in dwelt with the spirit yet in eternity in the resurrection in in heaven right when heaven meets earth and i'm living with god for eternity i'm going to have an even closer relationship with god than i do right now more intimate more present more awareness of god more interaction with god and in the same sense even though me and my wife right now have a great relationship it'll be even better in the resurrection it won't be a husband-and-wife relationship but it'll be a stronger better closer relationship i think that's that's my understanding of it and there's hints at this in scripture when it talks about how we're growing towards oneness and how in christ we're not only being made one with god we're being made one with each other and that this is part of the goal of sanctification and of the work of the spirit in our lives is to create a sense of love deep personal love between believers between humans and that that will find its fullest fruition in the resurrection when the world the flesh and the devil are gone out of the way and we're just in god's very presence in total and close relationship with each other now i'll just mention as um as i'm on this kind of side topic here the there's a teaching out there that people will not have any memories when they're in heaven because it says in isaiah that the former things will not be remembered nor called to mind and what here what we have to understand is that when the scripture says that things won't be remembered or called to mind it doesn't mean like literally you can't remember it instead it means that it will not be like thrown in your face or it won't be a bitter memory that weighs you down it's speaking about a negative type of remembrance that's what it's talking about and that is the context in the hebrew and all that this is something we should look at the culture and understand so that when scripture talks about not things not being remembered it doesn't mean we won't have memories in heaven otherwise how would you even thank god thank you lord for saving us or you know so we've been told we don't remember it or in revelation the saints are actually calling out to god that he would take vengeance on the earth because of their martyrdom so they're they're in the presence of the lord yet they remember their martyrdom and they're asking for god to bring uh judgment and so there's not going to be a lack of recollection intellectual recall of earthly events rather there's not going to be the bitter pain that we currently have associated with even the things of this earth many of the hardships that we've experienced no no there'll be such a comfort from god such a comfort in his presence and and finally realizing we're at the end of the story we're we're at the happily ever after so that now we can look at the hardship on the way and we can see it without that bitterness and so that's uh going to be good news all right so our first question from the live stream and i am taking your guys questions this is a real live stream i'm pastor mike and i'm going to do this every friday at 1pm pacific time taking your guys questions from the live chat and what i um what i would like for you to do if you're interested in asking questions is is expand the video description and read like the little four little or five little rules that i've put in there so you can understand how to ask questions properly so that i can help as many of you as possible i always get more questions than i can answer but i do my best jason staub asks if i'm not mistaken you hold the view of conditional election prevenient grace and total depravity though maybe not to the extent of calvinist my question is if christ dies for all people and all sins why does a sinner have to overcome the sin of unbelief on their own okay so jason um this question i think there's i'm glad you asked it this way because you're saying hey here's my impression of your teaching on this and i get it i have hundreds of videos online but you don't know where you're going to find where i talk about conditional election or something like that i think that election um is at least partly in some sense is is dependent upon foreknowledge i do think that's the case and so i so then you could call that conditional election in that is conditioned upon faith but it wouldn't be works based in any sense so i think that that's fair prevenient grace um as i've understood it and i haven't read a lot on the on the armenian doctrine of provincial grace as i've understood it i'm not inclined to believe it but i haven't really looked into it enough probably to be completely honest um i don't and and this is probably going to help answer how is that possible that you don't believe that might well i don't hold to total depravity i don't hold to now i think humans are very depraved and i think we're all desperate in need of a savior and none of us is going to ever work their way to heaven mankind is never going to be good enough like be like jesus and live a perfect sinless life it's never once gonna happen except for in the case of christ and so i hold that but the the the idea between behind total depravity it seems to me the key idea that i disagree with that if it's not total total depravity if you don't have this as i understand it from my calves brothers feel free to correct me here if you think i'm wrong um but i think the key idea is that humans are they're depraved to a specific degree and the degree is that even if god by his holy spirit is reaching out to you giving you the message of the gospel convicting you of sin righteousness and judgment to come and telling you of them of the christ that you still will not have the ability to even say yes lord save me save me lord like that you lack that ability see this isn't just a depravity in in that man has sin or does sinful things this is a depravity and that man will always always say no to god even the grace of god presented by in the gospel of christ with the power of the spirit that i don't agree with and so then of course maybe i don't either i don't see a need for prevention grace or i would define prevenient grace as that very calling of the holy spirit not some kind of partial regeneration forgive me for anybody who feels like you just got lost in the mix there it's kind of an in-house question about calvinism here so your question was if christ dies for all people and all sins why does the sinner have to overcome the sin of unbelief on their own um even in my scenario they're not doing it on their own nobody's overcoming anything on their own and i would say this is thoroughly taught in scripture both because creation's declaring the glory of god so we have this external revelation of who god is this isn't something i'm doing on my own i'm being told about god conscience romans 1 conscience is telling me that i'm a sinner and so that i'm in need of a savior so i have an internal wiring given to me by god to send off the red alarms that i need to be saved there's a god and i need salvation and then they hear the message of the gospel well they're certainly not overcoming unbelief on their own because it's the holy spirit who's who's calling them through that so i don't think they're on their own in that case so number two pat hobbs has a question a friend at age 12 signed is uh signed his soul over in a blood pact to satan um in an at-home ceremony he was a kid but he now feels that he cannot be saved please comment on this deal with the devil okay first off i'll say pat i don't i don't make light of these kinds of things at all okay so your friend i wouldn't make light of it i wouldn't joke about it and for those who would i think that that would i think that that's foolish um so my my answer would be this whatever claims even if they are somehow legitimate that satan could have had on your friend they are taken care of by forgive the terminology by the blood pact of jesus christ on the cross that jesus broke the power of satan on the cross that he overcame him he bought us back and so in whatever sense we were sold over to sin or satan all of us were purchased by christ and when we put our faith in christ we experience all the benefits of that salvation so it is merely a um a death rattle of satan to tell your friend that they cannot be saved because ultimately satan has no power over those who are in christ because they're a new creation all things have made are made new so yeah absolutely jesus is the solution to this problem tobias sadness says what are your thoughts on proverbs 16 4 does it suggest that god created perhaps predestined the unsaved for judgment or condemnation okay let's go to that passage proverbs 16 4. and here you go i'll give it to you guys as well it says the lord has made all for himself yes even the wicked for the day of doom god made all for himself even the wicked for the day of doom now the um this is actually probably a good example of a passage where it doesn't give us an answer to your question it's more like you're not going to draw out of this calvinist theology and you're not going to draw out of it like non-calvinist or arminian or whatever other you know theology you're not going to get that out of it instead you're going to come with your theological commitment and then you're going to read this and probably process it according to what you already think is the case so in other words it's it's a text that is that is um interpreted through your theological grid it is not the text that gives you the grid that would be my impression so let me give you a calvinist reading of this passage the lord's made all for himself yes even the wicked for the day of doom so i think that a calvinist reading would say look see god's created you as and this would be like a strong determinist view like he's made you and he's made you wicked so that you will be destroyed for his own glory that would be like a super super strong not all calvinists would agree with that would many wouldn't want to say it that way but you could you could read it that way through that grid let me give you an um a more of a my perspective on on this first on this verse so the lord is made all for himself okay that's the overarching theme of of of the proverb and it's wisdom it's not meant to give us tons of details but they're all made for himself so god will use everyone for his own purposes and for his own glory right even the wicked for the day of doom and we see that even those who are wicked god has an intention and a purpose in their life that he will use for his own purposes and we see this in things like jesus shooting using judas the judas the betrayer for his own purposes now woe to the one who does it it's judas's fault he chose to do it but god's going to use it for his purposes and so i i don't think that it says that god makes them wicked and they don't have free will it just says that god has a purpose even for the wicked yet proverbs is full of an assumption that you make choices on whether or not you will walk that path of wickedness or walk the path of righteousness what it seems to be saying here is that god's sovereignty over mankind is such that he will even use the rebellion of the wicked for his own purposes he's just that good at navigating reality and making sure that things take place the way he wants them to he's sovereign and so this is this is more of like a um middle-knowledge molina's kind of perspective that would be forgive me for those who have not heard these terms that would that would be my perspective on this verse but notice this the verse didn't actually solidly give us either of those interpretations all it ultimately gives us is hey god is in charge and even the wicked he has things he's going to do when he judges them that will bring him glory and so those who see the wicked prospering and see the wicked thriving and doing their thing and getting away with it we know that god will have his day even in their lives and so that brings us a measure of the sense of justice of god it doesn't actually intend i think to teach or answer the question either way we sort of bring our theological grid to that verse let's see here we've got another question this is naomi yurkov who says you inspire me to study my bible verse by verse but i don't know where to start i was wondering what study resources you use or would recommend for someone not familiar with the original languages um yeah you definitely don't know me you don't need to be familiar with the original languages or feel that you're out of sorts because you don't know original languages one of the things you can do for not knowing original languages is have a variety of translations so if you're worried if you're you know interested i'll put it this way if you're interested in getting in this verse like is there other ways to translate this are they picking between options the easiest way to do this in english is to just look at four or five translations and so if you look at say the nasb and the esv and the niv and um you know maybe you maybe you pick up a couple others as well those are great resources that you could do you just you just refer to a few different translations and you can tell by the way they render things you can pick up in english okay they're rendering it differently because they're making decisions going from one language to another another resource you might be interested in is net bible netbible.org i think is the website um let me just confirm that because i don't want to send a whole bunch of people to the to the wrong link is that right yeah netbible.org and th this is actually a fantastic uh resource you can use um maybe i maybe i can actually show it to you let me see if i have yeah i can show it to you i know what screen's black just give me a sec okay this is netbible.org so here you are you know the default is matthew chapter one and so in netbible.org which i find to be a pretty useful resource i'm sorry for the size of the font i'll try to enlarge it for you guys a bit no it's too big okay we'll go with this so here you have their translation of the bible the net which which is a decent translation of the bible it really is but you've also got what's nice about this webpage is you've got a ton of free resources footnotes and so you have textual notes that's where it says tn and these are all tied to the verses on the left so the verses on the left you have this is the record of the genealogy of jesus christ the son of david well there's a little blue one here and i can go and hide and highlight it and okay it takes me over the textual note which is why it says t in there and this is going to be a note dealing with the the text of the ancient languages so the book of the genealogy the noun biblis though it is without the article is to be translated as a definite due to apollonius's corollary and the use of um and the normal use of an arthritis nouns in titles so that's more of a textual note that's more of a of a geek thing right but you you also get um what are s in which are study notes which are probably more what um beginners are more interested in study notes these are these are just like interesting things that refer you to other other places in scripture and then you get the tc which i think stands for text critical note which has to do with why did we choose to to translate it um let's say in the original manuscript we had multiple different uh variants of of a word in that verse and here's why we picked the word we picked and went with it and it gives you a bunch of details there so this is like a really interesting and free resource there's other stuff here too you have the greek if you want to look at the greek you have other bible translations i think available so anyhow that's netbible i find that to be a great resource another resource i've looked into a little bit is called stepbible.org stepbible.org another free resource that i think has some pretty good um and free content on it so those are great places to look but another thing i'd recommend is find maybe a few maybe maybe two or three different resources that are like commentaries through like the whole bible because you just can't afford to buy commentaries for everything all the time so you can do that and you'd have your own bookshelf case if you have and if if you um if you have i don't know off the top i had a recommendation of which one to go with sorry but if you want another resource that has a lot of commentaries that i think many of them are good commentaries it's blueletterbible.org and they're a little bit safer because when you're reading commentaries you're asking someone to give you their interpretation of scripture and you want to have reliable and orthodox biblical resources for that so blueletterbible.org there's another one for you so yeah naomi tho those are some things to get started with um and so i would pick a book of the bible that you're interested in and start working through it verse by verse okay we have a question from alex m how should i speak to someone who's going to die because of cancer while another christian got her hopes up that her cancer wouldn't return claiming that god said it wouldn't and how should i speak about evil and suffering to her okay so there's there's three people there's you there's a person who has cancer and there's another person who's a christian that told that person you're going to be healed god said you'll you'll be healed let me tell you a true story that this this really happened and um it's it's unfortunate so my mom had a friend who had cancer and she asked me to head over there and pray for her friend now i i had done this years ago with my grandmother when she had cancer i drove out like out to see my grandmother um with my mom gathered with some friends and we prayed over her and um or her my grandmother's friend excuse me my grandmother's friend and the lord actually did heal her she got over the cancer it seemed as though it was a god thing and we're all just rejoicing in it and so this friend had cancer and went to pray with her and i don't have any special super frequent miracles or something like that in my prayers not that i'm aware of it happened but it i wouldn't it's not like a regular thing so we went and prayed for them and i brought a friend with me who was someone i was discipling and we're there praying for um for her and i i just saw her and something i saw on her that was amazing to me was she just had this total spiritual renewal i'd never seen her i'd known her for years my mom's friend never seen her so focused on god and content in the lord and it just it was really sweet it was really amazing to see the work that god had done they're in the midst of all this craziness and the friend i brought full of zeal genuine zeal love for the lord he while we pray he stops and he says i know god's going to heal you i know god's gonna heal you now i i didn't have any sense that that was something god was like revealing to us at the time my impression and i kept it to myself because what do i know my impression was that this was just zeal turning into an assumption turning into a promise that i didn't think god was actually saying at the time and um and it's interesting as i looked at this friend having known her a little bit it didn't look like it she she thought she just saw through it she saw it for what it was like this he's just zealous it's okay and it didn't really impact her much and so i didn't worry about that too much we moved on um she went home to be with the lord and i kick myself that i didn't years ago pull the guy aside and say hey remember when you said that god was telling her i mean i should have done this this was my failure should have should have pulled him aside and said remember when you said that well she's passed away and i need you to to not freak out but to realize that you were speaking things that were from you that you thought were from god and you need to never do that it's a really big deal this is something that i wish i had done and i would encourage you if the time comes pull that person aside pull that person aside and deal with them and if you have to involve a leader you can involve a leader but do it as a gracious way of trying to help disciple them not just tear them down but as far as the person goes um unless you know one way or the other unless you have a good reason to think that this is like from god not from god unless you have some good indication then maybe you need to just hold your peace for now and be praying for them and and wait and see and wait on wisdom wait for god to give you wisdom on how you might interact with them so that's my counsel i know it's incomplete but i think i'd be in sort of a wait and see mode um stay stay connected with the person who has cancer so that you can be there for them if the time comes where they need someone to like help them process something yeah because it may not have been the lord and i know the tendency that the human tendency especially in the climate we're in right now people will very easily say they're speaking on god's behalf when they just feel something strongly and those are not the same thing guys non-believers who do not have the holy spirit they feel things strongly that doesn't mean god's speaking to them unless you have some reason to think this is god not me then you shouldn't say it's god not me but um but i know some people are so zealous that it's hard to talk to them about these things let's see zanet weissman says you mentioned in part two the mark of the mark series that john the baptist was the ones setting the way for the lord yahweh logos the hebrew is kurios confused because that changes the meaning in asb all right zanna i just want to remind everybody you got to like reread what you're writing and i don't know if if you type it faster if english is your second language and i totally want to be gracious but i just want to make sure i get your question and this is a little bit gob garbled so here's what i think you're asking xana and i appreciate your question um so in the um in the original language it says it's kurios and i know it's pronounced it's spelled with a y but in the in the greek it's kurios not yahweh in the greek but so let me explain that that's because in the mark passage where it says that he's preparing the way of the lord and it's yahweh it's quoting the old testament and it's the old testament that says preparing the way of yahweh make straight the way of the lord that's that's actually the word yahweh now in the first century in the greek whenever they wrote down god's name they would generally not write his name this is like something that has stopped doing so in the greek they would use the word kurios or lord instead of the word yahweh we actually do the same thing in english now in our old testament in most bibles when you read l-o-r-d but it's a capital l-o-r-d or a g-o-d but it's g and then a capital o and a capital d even though they're small they're capitalized anytime you see a full fully capitalized lord or fully capitalized god you're actually seeing that to hint that the translator is giving you that behind the text in the hebrew is the word yahweh so yes the the verse they're quoting the old testament is yahweh in the new testament it says kurios which was the normal way they would write you know yahweh and they would translate it in the new testament so i hope that that helps you um brandy medved has a question verses like jeremiah 29 11 is quoted a lot for us i get confused on these types of scripture because god was speaking to someone or some group not the u.s are these types of verses meant for us now so let's go to that verse and let's talk about it this is a very commonly quoted verse and i think there's two flaws two problems we can fall into personally i think that we fall into with this scripture and i'll just let you guys know we do have all of our 20 questions for today i'll try to get through all 20 if i can but we're not going to be able to take more we always get more questions than i can answer and for those who are like i i have to get mike to answer my question just know there's only one of me and that's why i'm doing these weekly things to answer at least some of the questions that come in on a daily basis um jeremiah 20 29 11 says for i know the thoughts that i think toward you says the lord thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and hope so this scripture is quoted a lot as like a personal promise and oftentimes and here's there's two flaws i want us to avoid so let me talk about both flaws one flaw is and this is probably the more dominant one we quote this scripture as though it's an individualized promise and it applies to this life in this world and and it applies to physical and financial prosperity that is a major mistake this verse is not written to me it's this is actually written to israel and if i took everything that jeremiah writes to israel and i and i applied it directly to me then that would be actually a big problem um because in a lot of places jeremiah is telling israel like you're going to be destroyed you're going to your enemies are going to come and tear down your house like i'm not quoting that to me i'm only quoting this kind of out of context like just this is for me i throw away the verses don't app that i don't like and i apply the ones i do like and this is not a right handling of god's word also it's it's not about your physical prosperity and all that which the bible tells us we may well suffer and lose things like family and friends and homes and lives in this world so what do i do with the verse then well then we get on the other side then people are like see jeremiah 29 11 it doesn't apply to you take it out of your out of your quotable verses list it just doesn't apply to you and then i think they make the second error which is to have no application of a beautiful scripture that does teach us something about god's heart towards us and so i want to kind of have that middle ground the middle ground is this god does have thoughts that he thinks towards me and what are those he loves me and he's offered his grace to me and he has a hope and a future for me but what is it what does the future hope well i look at the new testament to tell me how this applies to me the future hope is heaven eternity with jesus christ eternal life where every every tear is wiped away and i'm in the comfort of the presence of god forever where there's no no more aches and pains and death and dying and all that that's the future and the hope that he has for me and so if i if i interpret it with in in context of the promises i've been given in the new testament for all believers today i can see how his thoughts towards me are good they are thoughts of peace and not of evil it's a future and a hope but it's different than what he was talking uh in jeremiah to the israelites about so i think that that's a way to quote it and remind ourselves of our eternal hope because this is a huge deal in the new testament the christians hope is not in kingdoms of this world the israelis you know in jeremiah's time they're thinking about god taking care of them as part of the the covenant you know the mosaic covenant and all that and this is we're just under a new covenant that has a new and longer and better promise all right so i hope that helps brandi uh nathanael h says i go to a liberal christian university and the bible teaching here is untrue i pro it probably is scripture and the gospel are undermined consistently how do i properly address these issues in my bible class well nathaniel let me offer you one piece of advice that i hope helps and it's this sometimes you can think because you're the student and you're thinking okay they're teach they're going through the bible but they're teaching things that are false you can think that it's your job to fight that teacher that semester and this can kind of shift gears for you because you're also there to get a degree and that degree is part of your overall service to god in your life and you're not in a position to actually fight the teacher um and so the more you try the more you you put yourself in difficult and perhaps unnecessarily difficult scenarios not only that you probably don't have the education i mean you might but let me just say most people in your situation don't have the education and knowledge to actually properly push back on those teachers and so my thought is this push back when you have a good time to push back the this is a good opportunity there's wisdom in this right now and you have the knowledge of the scripture and the knowledge of the issue in order to be able to push back because if you push back ineffectively it can be worse than not pushing back at all you know you open your mouth to say that's not right and then you but you don't actually know anything about the subject you just know that he's wrong well the problem there is that then you just give them another opportunity to showcase their um their liberal and um ungodly theology so that would be some advice for you i i think that it's it's okay to say look um my goal here perhaps is to prepare me to push back not just against this teacher but to push back against this kind of teaching wherever i find it so as i hear from their lips the reason they believe this and the reason they hold to it and i start to identify more and more the um the challenges i can bring to it and the ways to refute it then i'm preparing myself for ministry so in a sense i would rather you think of this opportunity in class as practice practice for the future so i hope that that's wisdom for you nathaniel that's what i have to share let's see we have a pig with 100 subscribers that's the name of the youtube channel i am not that mean and he says why does paul teach being saved by faith not of works but jesus teaches getting into the kingdom of god by works like following the commandments i don't think jesus does teach that actually i think that you've misunderstood jesus and i would recommend you check out my mark series just a few weeks ago we dealt with jesus and the rich man when the rich man's like how will i enter heaven and and jesus says um the you know keep the commandments and then he says all these i've kept from my youth and then jesus says oh the one thing you lack now i actually verse by verse taught throughout the whole passage very carefully trying to show that he's he demonstrates that it's impossible right the the beginning and end of the passage are what people forget the beginning where he says good teacher and jesus is like you don't know what good is your very your very standard of good is too low and then at the end of the passage jesus says it's actually impossible not possible for the rich man to get into heaven it is only going to be possible through god somehow there will be an alternate path not of works that jesus is going to provide and that is the context of mark 10 jesus is there giving us his sacrifice he's revealing that he's these he's not just there is the messiah he's not just god with us he's also going to be the sacrifice to take away our sin so that we can be forgiven so this is in the flow of mark it's very important um please check that out uh jesus and the rich man uh the verse passage i taught very recently uh cass magnuson says how does matthew 28 18-20 apply to each individual christian and how does one make a disciple is it just evangelism and baptism of a lost person or is it overseeing their growth okay so matthew 28 18-20 i think the verse is gonna answer the second part of your question for you here you go and jesus came and spoke to them saying all authority's been given to me in heaven and on earth go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit teaching them to observe all things that i've commanded you and lo i'm with you always even to the end of the age so we're told to make disciples of all nations and then i think jesus is then and let me ask the first part of your question first let me answer that i do think this has application to all christians i think it was a specific command given to the to the disciples to the 12 they're they're the fountainheads of this of the beginning of this ministry but it is there is some application of it into every believer's life we're all to be um sharing and trying to make disciples but not all in the same level uh not everybody's discipling where they're like a leader in the church and that kind of it's not like everybody's a leader if everybody's a leader nobody is and um that's not what i'm saying but if this is the mission of the church as a whole let me put it this way we should at least try to find ourselves as part of that mission am i doing something to help with the making disciples of all nations am i doing something to push forward baptizing them in the name of the father son and spirit teaching them to observe all things that i've commanded you what am i doing to help push forward the the call of of uh evangelism and discipleship that that jesus gave the church although here he combines the two so make disciples a disciple is someone who's like a learner follower one who is a regular regular um devoted follower and then he tells us how to make disciples right baptizing them in the name of the father son of the holy spirit that is the initial beginning of being a disciple of christ the early church in the book of acts i mean the actual early church not a hundred years later by 130 a.d is not the early church certainly when you were if you were alive in 130 a.d you weren't like we're the early church you'd be like well the apostles of all are all dead and gone and we're like the late comers that's how you would feel we sometimes look at church history through weird lenses but the actual early church book of acts right when you got saved you got baptized right away salvation baptism so that was like initiation the beginning of this this this proclamation i am i'm a i believe in jesus i'm a follower of jesus he is i've died with him and risen with him i've identified with his death and resurrection so that's step one and the next teach them to observe all the things that i've commanded you so that's the second part of discipleship right is so evangelism that makes you initially a disciple but being a disciple means continuing to learn and grow in christ and so you're going to teach them to observe all the things i've commanded you so that involves the teaching thing and i do obviously i do a whole lot of the teaching thing that's that's my thing i occasionally do baptisms but i do a whole lot of this teaching thing that would be my my contribution uh oh look at that i moved my thing around shh don't tell anybody okay all right let's take the next question could you please share your testimony uh and your struggles as a new believer um so zeezy this is from zz i don't share um my testimony too much online or really much at all and only give pieces of it and the reason is this is that some of the things that that are in my testimony are embarrassing to my family and i love them and wouldn't want to share those things so why because there's a million people watching in youth ministry i would share these things with the students because it's individually and i thought of my minister to them but but all you'll know of the of those people who are still alive right is some of the darkest days of their lives and i don't want to do that to my family i love them and care about them and you'll get a wrong impression because you'll think that's all that they were is that those those mistakes and those problems and stuff like that so bottom line is i was about 12 when i first heard the gospel uh knew i needed god received it went to church on my own and nobody nobody else was going in my family and and i um entered into a relationship with god and i did feel like i had a real relationship with god and it totally changed my life and then my discipleship was very very slow and partially because i was like the only guy who was serious about being a christian in my family and you might look at me and sometimes i wonder how serious i was about it um so yeah i'm sorry that i'm not going to share you with you a whole lot more right now today but at least hopefully you'll understand why it's not about hiding things it's about loving people uh guppy life says it is said that jacob fought against god in the scripture but the text refers to a fight with an angel is god the angel of the lord why guppy life i'm so glad you asked that's a great question i just so happen to have a whole teaching on the angel of the lord and i deal with that passage in particular and i'm going to ask one of my mods to link it in the live chat please put it there i'll leave this live chat up afterwards too for people watching after the fact yes um i think that he struggled with god and part of the reason is that later on he he's talking about how he struggled with god in other verses later on and he refers to it as as struggling with god and so then when he's blessing his kids he has this really interesting let me see if i can find the passage real quick um let me see if i can find it i probably can't because i'm just doing this like really off the cuff um no there it is okay so uh i'm very fortunate okay so this is in genesis 48 16. um this this angel that he's speaking of um he says the angel who has redeemed me from all evil the angel bless the boys and in them let my name be carried on oh hold on oh this is not it oh no this is it this is it yeah sorry okay it's been a while since i looked at this verse um okay so it starts in verse 15. and he blessed joseph jacob's blessing his one of his sons he says the god the god before whom my fathers abraham and isaac walked the god who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day the angel who has redeemed me from all evil and then singular bless the boys so there's one being doing the blessing and the being that's doing the blessing is the god before whom my father's abraham walked the god who has been my shepherd all my life and then the angel who's redeeming from all evil and so he's probably speaking here of the angel of the lord he wrestled with i think that just about every time you see the phrase the angel of the lord just about it's going to be a reference to jesus ultimately the second person of the trinity so i get into tons more detail in that video on the angel of the lord tons more because i know that brings up a bunch of questions and i deal with that as well all right miguel ponce says can someone who commits suicide go to heaven i've heard it argue that if there were true believers who just happened to commit that act in a moment of weakness or confusion they're still saved yeah miguel i um i do i i have a video on it i will answer the question here today but i do have a video on this where i talk about it in much more detail on the topic of suicide and um maybe one of my mods can link that find that and link it in the live chat i'd appreciate it and thank you sir i see you put the angel lord video in the live chat so um i don't think suicide if we have any reason to think that the act of suicide means you've lost your salvation i don't think we have any good reason to think that i think the real question we have to ask is the same question we have to ask of everybody is am i actually saved but that's not you know it's not like and if you commit suicide you reveal that you were never really truly a christian i think christians can can and do do horrible things i think absolutely this stuff can happen the new testament warns us about this stuff as well so it's the fear here is that by saying this i'm somehow encouraging someone who's considering suicide to go ahead and do it and but but here's the thought am i supposed to like just make stuff up to scare people out of committing suicide like is that what i'm supposed to do is that how like we're gonna handle reality now we're just we'll just lie to people about things in order to keep them from doing stuff and i think that that's unwise i think it's ungodly and i think it does terrible harm to the loved ones of those who are struggling with the fact that their friend or their their brother their husband or wife committed suicide i i don't i think we do them harm when we uh when we over do things like that but i do have a video teaching on this topic i know it's a heavy issue and it gets into all sorts of problems i do think that we we think too too lightly of suicide especially our culture our culture is kind of becoming more like indian culture like in india um where suicide is just more of an accepted thing in society and more and more because we just talk about people who commit suicide like they're total victims and oh just we understand and it's not their fault um we we we rightly want to sympathize with the person who commits suicide we rightly don't want to push on the painful wounds of those who are left behind but we go so far as to not show people how much they destroy and hurt and harm the lives of everybody around them when they do these things and i almost feel like we need to highlight the people who remain when this husband commits suicide look at his son for the next 10 years of his life and how much harm he caused to that guy to that kid i think if we would highlight the harm that suicide causes to the people around you that you love then we might actually help prevent more suicides but usually when someone suicidal they become at that point fairly narcissistic they only i'm speaking i'm just speaking honestly here they're only thinking about themselves narcissists aren't necessarily outwardly mean or evil to others they just don't care about you okay your concerns your issues don't matter to me as much as what i'm worried about for myself so my concern with the suicide issues is that is that hyper self-focus that we don't tend to talk about that that incredible narcissism that usually more often precedes suicide now other weird things happen right when someone comes off medication suddenly and then their body's freaking out and those are there's all kinds of other issues going on there i know i know it's complicated threads of hope says regarding the biblical idea of the elect i don't understand does that mean some people cannot be saved no matter what uh no i don't think so at all i i mean my view would be um if if they if they're going to trust in christ then they're going to also be part of the elect but since election is in some sense and i'm going to be i want to carefully say in some sense because i don't have this like what often you hear against the idea of foreknowledge election being connected to foreign is a sort of overly simplistic view of foreknowledge equals election and i don't think it's that simple i think it's a little more complicated but i do think that foreknowledge is involved in election let me just throw that out there that way and um and so yeah no absolutely this is not determinism election does not mean determinism that's that's what foreknowledge does when you put it into the mix you go oh so god knows all those who choose him and he also is going to be choosing them and i would add he also chose the the to create this particular world with these particular people that ended up being those ones that chose him but this preserves god's free choice and my free choice and that's what i'm interested in i'm interested in a conclusion that includes both of those things i think that that's very important lindsey pinkard says my husband grew up catholic and his family keeps telling us we aren't really married because we aren't married by the catholic church how can we lovingly respond to them with biblical truth well that is definitely not catholic teaching um so your marriage is real it's just not sacramental and so that does devalue your marriage to a sense because in catholicism marriage became a sacrament and news flash though the official councils of the roman catholic church declare infallibly i'm using air quotes for anybody who's listening to the audio infallibly they say that jesus himself instituted all seven sacraments so marriage was instituted by christ and it was taught by the apostles and it was all three of these things are claimed in the councils and then it was universally known by the church fathers which doesn't mean every individual church father knew but it means it was like the accepted belief and acknowledged belief of the church fathers now that is what's taught in the councils in reality in actual historical research marriage didn't become an actual sacrament in the current yeah the word sacrament may have been used but not in the current catholic theological sense for over a thousand years that's super significant first time we see lists of seven sacraments is so long after the time of christ and of the apostolic fathers that no one can claim that they had this universal belief in the sacrament sacramental nature of marriage and so when it comes to catholic theology um marriage is now considered a sacrament it has been for like a thousand years um almost a thousand years and it is considered you know one of those things that that imparts grace it brings grace into our lives and your marriage to a non-catholic isn't considered sacramental it's still considered a marriage at least that's my understanding of the teaching there so what would your response be to them um i mean you could go dig up some catholic teaching that says that marriages to non-catholics are still are still marriages they're just not sacramental you could go find teaching that says that and then and then let them know see you know you're misunderstanding your own theology here but there's obviously bigger bigger doctrinal issues and concerns going on between you and them at that point um but i understand how awkward it would be you know to have your husband's family saying those kinds of things about your marriage that's kind of embarrassing yeah so carmen cali says uh what if you did an unbiblical divorce but your ex-spouse is already remarried so reconciliation is impossible are you then free to remarry i think and i'll give you my short answer here uh carmen my short answer is uh y you are free to remarry but like technically yes i think you're free to remarry but make sure that you do that hard work i'm assuming that to you it could be someone else you're talking to me with someone you're counseling so make sure that that the person does this hard work where they say have i really come to terms with where i have failed not where they failed where i failed have i come to a place of forgiveness even of my former spouse am i in a place where i'm going to have a healthy life submitted to god and able to enter into this new relationship with a new attitude of of of honoring the marriage and of doing it unto the lord not to carry the same attitude that was part of that divorce that happened before that's a very important issue so i have a teaching on husbands and wives teaching for husbands on how to be a husband and teaching for wives and how to be a wife not drawn from my wisdom but drawn from what the teaching of scripture is on those different roles and i would recommend checking those out you can just google them seanya m says i have a question about 1st timothy 2 12-15 due to the text does this make coed bible studies unbiblical what about women's ministry thanks mike i get questions like this awful lot and it's going to be an area of focus one of these days right so i'm going to give you my current understanding really quickly i'll try to answer this first timothy 2 12 through 15 and i will just say that i um 2 12 through 15. and maybe in two years i'll have like a whole teaching on this topic that's available online you might try googling for it if you're watching this two years from now where i might even change my opinions on some of these things because i'm giving you what i think based on my study of the scripture at the moment and that's all we can go with as well scripture seems to be saying this i'm going to go with that he says i do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man rather she's to remain quiet for adam was formed first than eve and adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived became and became a transgressor yet she will be safe through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control short shortest teaching on this topic you've ever heard here you go um i think that teaching and exercising authority over the man has to do with um the role of um of being like a in a pastoral role and i do think scripture is saying that that is not to be you know inhabited by a woman right i think that's what scripture is teaching a whole bunch of issues there about oh is are you saying women are less valuable or less capable no not at all um but it's saying that it's somehow part of the fall um adam and eve he connects it to adam and eve and the fall and it seems to be part of the created order for now right there in in christ in heaven eternally there won't be any sort of male female role distinctions i don't think right i don't think there's any eternity can be any of that but i think it does continue to persist for now in the church part partly maybe as our witness to the world partly maybe as as the interaction of angels there's other verses talk about that and adam was not deceived yet shall be saved through childbearing i think that that refers to not salvation we assume salvation refers to being saved from sin and hell or something but i think it refers here to an elevation of a woman's status in motherhood that this has like always been the wonderful elevation of women that um you could get in we could talk about for days about how much that that very fact of motherhood elevates the appreciation and and respect of women but what about doing a coed bible study i i'm definitely personally i'm more flexible to like open discussion and code bible studies we're all just kind of talking that kind of thing but if you're talking about someone who's like take coming into a pastoral role right where they're beginning to become like a pastor for that community of people i don't think that that's a role that god has for women and i think it becomes a scripture not because i'm bigoted not that the world cares they're going to see what they want to see michael francisco has a question oh and you said what about women in ministry i don't know where to draw all the lines i'm just talking about the official like sort of i'm a pastor that role i do think is forbidden open to changing my mind one day i'll study this topic and maybe i will change my mind or maybe i'll just become more hard-nosed michael francisco says how do i address lack of plurality in leadership we have one pastor who teaches every sermon in class no elders how do i bring up this issue at the church we're too reliant on one person michael i it sounds like you're right i probably agree with you you are too reliant on one person um that can still be a healthy church it can still function well it's all going to go according to that one guy if he's incredibly godly incredibly godly humble faithful then then you know wit wise knowledgeable you're going to have you're going to be blessed right if he has flaws those flaws are going to permeate you know throughout the ministry multiple people is a stop gap against that um i think that if i were to talk to you if i were you i would want to sit down and prepare a short short like defense of plurality and of the need for multiple leaders short because your pastor when you go to talk to him about this is probably not going to give you three hours to make your case so short boom boom boom here's my three most important points i'm going to make those and then i'll have other things i can share and i'm going to go to him and say hey can we get together and talk i have something i'm concerned about and i want to i want to take it to you and start by endorsing his leadership i respect you i endorse your leadership and i want you to be where you are but i think we're missing something else i think we're missing other leaders who are also part of the ministry in a in a significant capacity so i would recommend doing it that way you're asking for my advice that's that's i think how i would do it and then let the chips fall where they may what i don't recommend is talking to everybody else about it him hearing through the grapevine that you're talking about how we have wrong leadership or we need different leaders because that's going to just put the walls right up and then when you do finally talk to him he's already in defense mode and so that's a problem so take it to him and do it that way admittedly you guys a lot of your churches where you've got one sort of monarchical leader and you don't know how to change it and maybe you can't this doesn't invalidate your church and if you can't change it you can't change it you work within within the structure that god has given and you submit and you do it joyfully now things may come down the road there may be harm that is caused by this that's not your fault if you can make a change in a godly and positive way not in a rebellious way then go for it there's my council for what it's worth uh cetl p has a question and we're almost done i think i'm going to get to all 20. this is number 19. why do we christians not keep the sabbath even though it is part of the moral law it is written by the finger of god on stone not just spoken to moses like the mosaic law shouldn't we keep it let me let me tackle this one step at a time so i i do teach sidle that we don't have to um rest on the sabbath as though we are underneath under the law of moses but i see the law of moses as being something over all we're not under so i don't just cherry-pick pieces of the law of moses to be under i don't think we're under the law of moses as a general rule does that mean i'm without law i think i'm i am under the law of christ and i think that my emphasis is going to be walking in the spirit not fulfilling the lust of the flesh i think that i'm no longer worried about about the outward things i'm worried very much very much about the inward things and very much about the godliness of a person's heart and a person's character in a person's life so i'm going to have love joy peace patience gentleness faithfulness goodness self-control i want to avoid the works of the flesh that paul enumerates in galatians and the things like that and this is my task now let me answer some of the specific things you said um it was written by god by his finger on stone okay so i get that right the ten commandments were written by god's own finger on stone not spoken does that mean that they're to apply to gentiles later on who put their trust in christ i don't think so i i just don't think so i don't think there's anything about it being written by god's finger that means it applies to a different group of people than the rest of the law applied to i don't think that's the case now there are things in the law of moses that definitely god will judge all nations for but that's not because they're in the law of moses it's because they're part of the natural moral law which god has revealed to all people catch that they're not coming from the law of moses it's just the way god judges all nations of all people at all times things that are peculiar to the law of moses i think we're not under not necessary to be under you can obey it if you want that's an option and i do have a whole teaching on this on how to understand the old testament um law the law of the old testament i have two videos on this topic and i've had really good feedback from people they said it really helped them the first video is all about how the jews understood it the second video is all about how we can understand and apply it as christians i give examples in the new testament so i have two videos on that old series one of the first series i did on youtube how to understand the old testament law let's see the the sabbath in particular romans 14 i think you just casually read romans 14 you see that we're not under the requirement to follow the sabbath and i'm gonna actually read for you guys too because i don't expect everyone to just go click all my old videos so romans 14 i'm gonna read a big chunk of scripture with a little bit of commentary question is you know when paul was writing to the romans is he trying to get them to obey the sabbath telling they don't have to what's going on romans 14 as for the one who's weak in the faith we can faith welcome him but not to quarrel over opinions the weak faith in romans 14 the one is weak in faith it's not an insult they're not lesser christians they're not weaker christians rather they have a lot more things that they feel they can't do even though they could do those things but they feel they can't this for example is someone who like me doesn't drink alcohol even though they could but i have like this i don't really feel right about it you know and so i don't even though it's okay and i would never judge someone else for doing it i don't for me right that's an area where i'm weak i don't feel like insulted by that but that's the terminology here so the one who's weak in faith welcome him but not to quarrel over opinions don't argue about this stuff one person believes he may eat anything while the weak person eats only vegetables let not and this is probably because they thought the meat had been offered to idols and they felt like they couldn't eat the meat because they were participating in idolatry while some other christians like it all belongs to god anyway and they're gobbling it down and so his conclusion is let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains let not the one who abstains past judgment on the one who eats for god has welcomed him it's up to you this is not an issue who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another it is before his own master that he stands or falls and he will be upheld for the lord is able to make him stand one person another example that was about food this is about drink or this is about days excuse me one person esteems one day as better than another while another esteems all days alike what is the person who esteems one day better than another this is probably about the sabbath most likely this is the most this is the key issue of of esteeming days weekly is the sabbath so one person just steams it is better than another one it steams all days alike each one should be fully convinced in his own mind go ahead he who observes the day observes it in honor of the lord the one who eats eats in honor of the lord since he gives thanks to god while the one who abstains abstains in honor of the lord and give thanks gives thanks to god for none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself for if we live we live to the lord and if we die we die to the lord so then whether we live or whether we die we are the lords for this end christ died and lived again that he might be lord both of the dead and of the living why do you pass judgment on your brother or why do you despise your brother for we will all stand before the judgment seat of god for it is written as i live says the lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue confessed to god so then each of us will give an account of himself to god personal accountability god i'm going to follow what my conscience says in serving you the best way i can and trust you with all the details therefore let us not pass judgment on another this is this is the do not judge part right on controversial issues not just controversial sorry because some issues are not disputed but they're but they're controversial like like the topic of scripture and homosexuality there's there should be no uh dispute on this the scripture's clear it's just controversial but we're talking about issues of conscience issues that are really open you want to be more strict go ahead it's okay don't judge but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother i know and i'm persuaded in the lord jesus that nothing is unclean in itself he's talking about food or days or whatever but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean if your brother is grieved by what you eat you are no longer walking in love but what you eat do not destroy by what you eat do not destroy the one for whom christ died so do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil this is the person who let's say they drink alcohol in america is a big issue here so you know say they drink and they enjoy it and they enjoy under the lord they don't get drunk it's just a total liberty for them but by throwing it in the face unnecessarily throwing into the face of the ones who can't drink and don't drink they create a problem for that person that is not a charitable and loving thing to do and so that should change not the ability for you to have a liberty but how you interact with your brothers and sisters in love with your liberty whoever that serves christ is acceptable to god and approved by men so then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding do not for the sake of food destroy the work of god everything you need is clean but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble the faith that you have keep between yourself and god blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves but whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because the eating is not from faith for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin so um there's another scripture in colossians that mentions the same thing he actually is bothered when the colossians are observing days and weeks and months and years specifically days and weeks which is the sabbath that's an observance of the sabbath and he's bothered that the colossians are finding themselves bound by it if you want to observe it fine but you think that this is a requirement that's a misunderstanding of what it means to be in christ so there's my uh my answer to that question more teaching in my stuff on the old testament elizabeth remins final question today i will do 20. in first samuel 28 saul talks to samuel and asks for his help i think it's sinful to pray to the dead but am i right in thinking this catholics pray to mary and other saints too is this biblical um so in first samuel 28 it is this like wild story of sam you know saul goes to a medium now this is clearly an ungodly woman and she tries to contact the dead samuel on saul's behalf samuel actually shows up now a few things that we need to note first off it does seem to be the real samuel not some sort of phantasm or impression of samuel it seems like the real you know it wasn't fake like this was samuel actually showed up not in a body but he showed up so that's one thing two um the medium is surprised she's shocked by this and so it doesn't seem that this is normally what happens when she does this right this is something god did as a way of like sort of slapping saul on the back of the head so he shows up and he rebukes saul and rebukes everybody and everybody there um so three this is not an example for us to follow if people want to use this as an example of contacting the dead then they're saying that we can go to pagan unbelieving mediums to contact the dead right because that's the example and so if this is going to be used as an example for contacting the dead they're getting the verse completely inside out like this is clearly forbidden saul is uh king saul is clearly doing something that god doesn't want him to do and he's using this to correct him in that thing he gets condemned and he gets told that he's going to die so this is like not a good scenario to follow as far as contacting the dead the blanket rule in the scripture is don't don't try to contact the dead don't don't make those attempts this is something that god forbids even for pagan nations which means it's not just an old testament law thing that we have liberty in today even pagan nations don't do that when it comes to christians contacting the dead i uh and when i say they're dead i mean their physical bodies are dead they're physical they're not they didn't disappear from reality like they exist they're in the presence of the lord but you're not to contact them because they're in that category of being those who have died and so we're not we're not to do that that's the blanket rule in the old testament god forbid every nation every human in the world from doing it um in the new testament we certainly don't have any examples of it we don't have anything like where would paul write it or where he says hey brethren concerning those who follow who've fallen asleep in 1st thessalonians 4 he says i don't want you to grieve as others who have no hope and he tries to give him hope and comfort why doesn't paul say right there but pray to them because they can hear you like talk about comfort tell me that they can hear me and i can pray to them why doesn't paul say that because it's not even anywhere in his mind the only hope for those who've got who've gone on to be with the lord is that we'll see them in the resurrection that's when we'll contact them again when the resurrection happens when the second coming of christ happens or when i go to be with the lord that's when it'll happen so this whole praying to the dead thing it's often like well you ask humans to pray for you on earth don't you why can't you ask the dead well for the same reason that you couldn't do it in the old testament for the same reason that you couldn't do it even as a non-jew why god would judge your nation for doing this because god has forbidden it because this is ultimately a kind of witchcraft and something that god does not approve of god has the power he could communicate our prayers to the to relatives who've gone on before us right he could but he could also use harry potter spells to do miracles and just because he could do something doesn't mean that he will or that we should act like he will he will or we should build doctrines and theology based on it which is what roman catholicism has done on this topic so if that's not controversial enough then uh come back next friday and we'll do more um i hope that this has been fruitful and helpful and a blessing to you i hope it's helping you learn to think biblically about everything and grow you in your walk with christ if you're a non-believer i hope that you're watching i'm glad you're watching this i hope you're seeing that there is a a reasonableness to taking christianity seriously and some of the the silliness that you associate with christianity is because you've only seen it in a non-serious way but there is a real serious christianity that you should consider and beyond that um next week next monday i'm doing the mark series on wednesday i have a video about polygamy that's going to probably put me in a little bit of hot water with people i admittedly i don't fully know the answer this this question i'm being asked about what if a polygamist gets saved so i spent a lot of time like several hours many hours working on just trying to answer this question and i'm bringing that on wednesday the next friday you know the normal time 1 pm pacific time i will be answering your questions live and thank you so much god bless

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 62,000

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Keywords: 20 questions with pastor mike episode 1, 20 questions with pastor mike, 20 questions, You Ask, You Ask #1, You ask episode 1, episode 1

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Length: 65min 59sec (3959 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020