20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 17)

well welcome back to 2021 i'm pastor mike winger i'm going to be trying to answer your questions about the bible christian life christian world view issues that sort of thing and i just want to start by saying god is good today god is good today right now he's good his promises absolutely remain his glorious kingdom is on its way and we those who are in christ we belong to him our permanent eternal un corruptible unfading kingdom is preserved with god in christ and that everything we see on earth and our involvement in the things on earth it's just should be seen through the lens of how can this be useful in my service to christ and that's my encouragement to you to remember who you belong to remember who you belong to today whose kingdom you're part of if if if anything has happened in the past couple years with people at the polarization and the the trenching the entrenching entrenchment of people and um well this could be good in a sense i think it's generally bad but it could be good in the sense that if a christian is entrenched in their christian worldview entrenched in their commitment to christ entrenched in the fact that they'll filter every single thing through the lens of their obedience to and their their love for christ and their commitment to his eternal kingdom remember that the first disciples one of the things that they were confused about and i'm going to go to your guys questions we're already getting a ton in the chat there i'm just talking for a minute first uh remember the first disciples one of the issues they had was they had overly associated the kingdom of christ with events of the day political events of the day and i don't want to make that mistake as a christian and so um anyway there's a couple encouraging things i do want to start with this question and that is um a tip on when should you when should you reference secondary bible translations when should you as you're reading and you're doing your say daily reading you're studying the word when is like a trigger moment where you go you know what i should look that up in another translation because i am dealing with the translation i'm not reading the original language here and so i do rely on translators and sometimes i read stuff and i wonder is now a good time to reference a second translation chances are you're not going to read everything in multiple translations but at least you can get some trigger points sometimes where you go okay now is a good time right now is a good moment for me to look up a second translation and i think i'll give you two two tips on when you should look these up these after i say them they'll seem like common sense to you but i want them to become common sense so as you're reading the bible one of the times you look up another translation is simply when you read a passage you read it once you read it twice and you still don't understand right you it's not like you're struggling with the in-depth interpretation of the passage it's more that you like legitimately don't understand what you're reading that is when you want to look up a second translation and if you still don't understand after reading a second translation i'm going to recommend you go towards even a looser translation like a something more like the new living translation which is which is a very much it's kind of inhabits the middle place between paraphrase and translation and so you're reading it as an aid as a help but that's a great time to do it when you read and you i don't get it i don't get it i don't get it check another translation a different wording may really help you and the second one and this is actually pretty important especially for teachers when you are hanging your interpretation on the nuance of the way a passage is read that's a really good time to read an additional translation right so maybe you don't know greek and hebrew you're not looking it up and that but you know that your interpretation of this passage hangs on it being worded just this way that's when you want to read another translation and see if in other translations it preserves that unique wording that particular wording of that passage if it does then you can feel more confident in your interpretation if it doesn't it might lead you to say wait a minute maybe i'm making too much out of the way this is worded here in this particular translation this would save a lot of pastors i think actually to be honest because you'll you're teaching and as you're teaching you're drawing out points from the text and then you you do like a whole little segment of your study you know hammering in on that one issue or that one point but if you recognize that perhaps there's a a question of translation here because you're reading multiple versions you can avoid causing confusion for your congregation do you see what i'm saying here is we don't want to cause people confusion as we're teaching and we're like this is what this is this and this and this and they just look at a different translation and it's not there anymore because it was the nuance so yeah if you don't understand a passage or if you're hanging your view on a nuance that's when you want to look at other translations and if you still are confused there that's when you go to commentaries that's when you look up commentaries and i know blueletterbible.org who has not sponsored me nobody sponsors me um the uh i think they're a great resource uh for looking up different um commentaries and you can see the discussion and debates about those types of things there so we're gonna go to your guys questions now i'm taking pretty much any question you guys asked today um including issues related to honestly to politics so if those questions are coming i'm not i'm not i'm not your guru on politics but um i thought it might be healthy to have open discussion about some things so here we are let's take question numero dos this is from mariano rogers who says how do we reach a fellow believer who's not only believing in the lies but sliding into siding with them in the msm when it comes to politics msm mainstream media is that msm's mainstream media or about any conservative viewpoint okay um i'm gonna read this one more time let's all understand this question and here's my caveat i am again not a political commentary commentator i actually struggle to care about politics very much but in a sense that might help me to have a different perspective than a lot of the people that are commenting right now who have a very strong agenda on one particular side and they're trying to promote and push forward a movement and i'm just not interested so but i do care i realize i have responsibility to at least be enough aware of these things to make a choices so here's some of my thoughts um marion rogers says how do we reach a fellow believer who's not only believing in the lies but siding with them in the msm when it comes to politics i.e trump or about any conservative viewpoint um let me say mariano i don't know if i actually agree with you or not on what the lies are that are going on in the mainstream media i don't know if i would agree with you or not on that i do think there are some pervasive issues for sure but that doesn't mean that we're all in have the same sort of background knowledge there how do we reach a fellow believer who's doing that the first thing i want to say is this is you don't need to reach them in the sense of them becoming a believer like like as if you have to stop having fellowship with them over these issues you can if you can't disagree on donald trump and still be brothers and sisters in christ then something seriously wrong with your heart and i'm not i'm not targeting you mariano at all but that's true like this has been uh current we're in a culture that is creating massive amounts of division and that division can can trickle very quickly into our christian fellowship where it doesn't belong and so i think that we need to be able to fellowship with and and and disagree with each other without breaking each other's hearts on these issues um i think that's just healthy i think it's healthy and i know a number of believers and you guys do probably too where if they were to ask you about politics you were thinking can i even say what i think without them dividing from me as a brother or sister in christ are they really interested in my thoughts my opinions are they interested in having a real conversation where we try to you know iron sharpen iron or are they really just testing me to see if they'll choose to hate me now or not yeah that's that's if that's you if when you ask people about their political views you're really just testing them to see if you will now hate them you're just being terribly ungodly and very worldly if if that's you if that's you um then that's just the reality of what's going on um yeah so when it comes to those things the first thing i would say is we don't need to reach them in the sense of changing their minds on those issues what we need to do is prioritize christian fellowship commitment to christ the doctrines of the christian faith up here and views about how the media is misleading people about things down here right because jesus says my kingdom is not of this world otherwise my servants would fight that's an important verse for today my kingdom's not of this world otherwise my servants would fight so to try to establish a governmental kingdom that is christian in in its enforcement of some in some sense is not something jesus is interested in us doing so that's why we don't storm in and cause violence in the name of christ on either side of the aisle we don't do that so i i hope that helps somewhat mariano answering your question forgive me if i'm not catching some of the nuance behind what you're asking uh lungil zandi has a question how can we look at psalm 37 4 without falling into a word of faith trap how do i look at psalm 37 4 great um i like looking at these verses these passages that deal with like the word of faith stuff that goes on um because they quote these passages and then it's you you're going i want to reject word of faith teaching but i'm certainly i want to believe what scripture says so here we go um psalm 37 4 delight yourself in the lord and he will give you the desires of your heart i'm going to back up now we're going to read a larger section first let's see how people use it out of context out of context it's used like a formula like if i rejoice in god then god will give me what i want and then what i want becomes kind of a blank check not for carnal and people don't usually use it for like well i want carnal pleasures and wickedness but but they often will use it for material excess which can be a carnal pleasure um for financial prosperity like god's gonna give me the desires of my heart like well i want that house i want that car and i'm gonna delight in him and he's gonna give me that thing and here we're actually using the verse to encourage coveting to encourage covetousness and in lack of contentment which the new testament clearly tells us to have uh no covetousness and have contentment so that's a problem but let's back up and read it in more in context so psalm 37 of david fret not yourselves because of evil doers nor be not envious of wrongdoers for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb so immediately we're talking about temporary pleasures temporary um exaltation of the wicked and then the eventual context spoiler here in psalm 37 the eventual future blessings that will come upon those who serve god even though it's not getting them the immediate pleasures of um the wrongdoers trust in the lord and do good dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness or like the new king james says feed on his faithfulness so you're just you just do what's right you trust yourself to god you just do what's right don't let yourself in the lord and he will and can i eventually give you the desires of your heart but here's why i can't use this verse to just you know i claim that car in christ's name i claim that house in christ's name because i'm delighting in god i'm i'm enjoying him and he's going to give me the desires of my heart which are him it's him he's the desire of my heart he ends up being the thing that i inherit that i receive that i am blessed by it's my relationship with him it's my the joys that come alongside with that that's the primary thing and he's going to give me that my job is to make sure i'm delighting myself right because if i delight myself in god then what is the desire of my heart well it's the lord it's his glory his goodness and relationship with him so yeah then you can receive that commit your way to the lord trust in him and he will act he will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noon day this is an eventually thing because in the scenario you're looking at the wicked they're prospering you're not trust in the lord and don't worry about them they're going to fade and you're going to be exalted in that in that due time be still before the lord and wait patiently for him it's a delay fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way over the man who carries out evil devices refrain from anger and forsake wrath fret not yourself it tends only to evil um like new king james here says do not worry it only causes harm which is a great little bible study right there um yeah like your your anxiety this is good good word for today you're anxious because of the prosperity of the wicked because the plans of the wicked are coming to pass don't worry about it the coming future kingdom of god that is unstoppable is on its way you just delight yourself in him he will grant you those things that you're craving that you're hoping for in him in time yeah evildoer shall be cut off but but those who wait for the lord shall inherit the land just a little while in just a little while the wicked will be no more though you will look carefully at his place and he will not be there but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundance of peace like jesus says um blessed are the meek you know this is this is similar to that the wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him but the lord laughs at the wicked for he sees that his day is coming the wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy to slay those whose way is upright their sword shall enter their own heart and their bow shall be broken this is a zoom-out view of future final justice and judgment from god and it's going to come and you just delight yourself in him and eventually you'll receive all those things better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of the many wickets so you see psalm 37 is meant to encourage the righteous who are not experiencing abundance it's one of the encouragements is there's future abundance another encouragement is that if you just look at your life correctly from a biblical and godly and you know christian worldview right now you can look around and see that the little you have that's better than the abundance that your neighbor over there has because what you have is in righteousness what you have is in christ that this is better is the little that the righteous has in the abundance of many wicked so it's encouragement in having little not just in getting much so prosperity preaching flips this psalm upside down verse 17 for the arms of the wicked shall be broken but the lord upholds the righteous right that's that future reality the lord knows the days of the blameless and their heritage will remain forever they are not put to shame in the in evil times in the eve in the days of famine they have abundance god being able to provide when there's uh ultimate lack god takes care of his own but the wicked will perish but the the enemies of the lord are like the glory of the pastors they vanish like smoke they vanish away the wicked borrows but does not pay back but the righteous is generous and gives for the blessed by the by the way if you've borrowed money and not paid back that is wicked i think that weighs into the whole idea of loan forgiveness um demanding loan forgiveness because you don't want to give back the money you borrowed i think that's a this is forget politics this is a biblical moral issue anyway for those blessed by the lord shall inherit the land but those cursed by him shall be cut off anyway i could read on psalm 37 is kind of long and we could go on and on but you guys get the idea they flipped it upside down in word of faith teaching when they quote that verse to feed their own desires um mike and oreo mick making oreo1113 says can a christian work in the cia nsa and when lying and deception is part of the job you lie to enemies other times you lie to your family for example saying you work for the state department to make maintain cover um i don't know okay i don't know how much you know about inside knowledge about cia or nsa um i don't know if cia or nsa lie to their family members is that like a thing are they required to like or do they just not tell they just say yeah i have i have a job that's top secret i can't talk about i don't really know what the policy is there i don't so i'm not gonna comment on that but let's talk about spying spying is does involve deceit um like the nature of spying is unless you're just sneaking around right but if in your spying you're interacting with humans on the other side then that there's deceit is involved in that inherently you can't really do it without some measure of deceit so interestingly enough when in in joshua bringing the people of israel into the land that god promised them they come across jericho and they send in spies this is this is something that the lord instigates this is interesting um now i'm going to share something i think it's controversial i know it's controversial and i know a lot of people are going to maybe have hard time swallowing it but here's my opinion okay i'm not the bible this is me just sharing my opinion and just so you don't get too mad at me look moxie just showed up so there you go this is to keep you from hating me for what i'm about to say right there there's the kitty yeah okay well you don't have to clean yourself right now though do you okay well i guess so um at any rate there's there's moxie maybe i'll show you her later and she settles herself down a bit um so here's my thought um is that the spies entering the land um and other events show that not it's not always always wrong to mislead people i i know this is controversial but when i look at rey and i didn't used to feel this way it really is the examination of scripture that's changed my mind when i look at rahab and the way she covers for the spies and then she deceives people about where they are and then in hebrews where it commends her and it doesn't just commend her for having faith like that's true she had faith but specifically in fact let's let's look at this because this is about spies and protecting she's protecting spies right let's look at what it says specifically about rahab here um hebrews chapter 12 or 11 sorry i should know that um so hebrews 11 i'm scanning through just looking for the verse on rahab i can't remember exactly what verse it is if you're like me you actually have a terrible time remembering verse numbers there's something about numbers that it's just i just never remember numbers so um she's oh i know i'm scanning and i can't find it this is what happens in your life um oh there it is verse 31 by faith rahab here it is the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient because she'd given a friendly welcome to the spies okay so for one thing she's welcoming spies like if it's inherently wrong to do what they're doing how is she welcoming them and that's something she's rewarded for and encouraged for right this is this was a great thing she did but then um there's a let me see here yeah well i'll just hang it on that i'm trying i'm trying to find some other verses that i'm just i'm just spacing on at the moment and i did a little study on this a while back but basically my my short version is this rahab is encouraged specifically for protecting the spies i and god's the one who instigates the spies if murray serves i think that that spying can be an appropriate thing and it feels wrong because generally speaking that stuff is wrong and this is the problem is once people realize that any sort of misleading can be justified in some sense that they immediately think oh so you're justifying all lying and all misleading and all i want to say is well you're being misleading now because that's not what i'm saying and i don't know anybody who says that i've never met anyone who says that um even those who would think um that not all deception or lying is wrong would still think that 99.99999 percent of it is and so if you use this to lie to your family because you're you're on protecting them but really you're just covering for yourself to protect your own reputation that kind of thing that's dishonest and not honoring christ but i do think that at least in principle somebody who works for a secret service or sorry i shouldn't say that a cia or spy agency that in principle that can be appropriate and then they still have to ask themselves if the particular work they're doing is godly or ungodly and yes there may come a time where somebody's working for the government like that would have to say i can't do this i have to resign i can't do this job i can't do this task i think it's wrong and but that's true in every job in every job that's true you always have moral standards and if someone asks you to cross that you have to say no regardless of the consequences so there's some thoughts on that uh talk to me tv says um okay he says over the past year my wife has gained a lot of weight which is uh actually i think a lot of people haven't and and just not been moving around a lot in the past year she wanted to have more intimacy but lately i don't feel any and guys this is spoiler warning if you have kids this is a good time to go watch something else sorry i'm going to answer this question very openly honestly because i feel like this these kinds of answers help not only one person but they help many people but okay i'll give you i'll give you a moment there um she wanted so she's wanting to have more intimacy but lately i don't feel any sexual desire or lust towards her is sexual deprivation toward a spouse a sin um so let me break this down into a few different individual issues um is sexual deprivation towards a spouse a sin yes um you're you're you are not expressing your love and your your unity your oneness together it's wrong and there are times and listen we have to have grace towards each other there's times where one spouse will struggle right one part of the marriage couple will struggle with intimacy with the other part maybe because they've gone through hard things in the past maybe because they've they've done something to themselves that is messing up their own sexual mentality about things or maybe because they have bitterness in their heart towards their spouse on an issue or maybe because blah blah blah uh maybe because of physical changes that have caused them to not be as desirable to them but that is the the problem here is that you're one of two you're one of two and you do need to be together you know what i'm getting the concern that people are going to think i'm speaking out of my own wisdom here this is what scripture says it's not just me scripture suggests that well i'll read it to you here in first corinthians seven verse three the husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights and likewise the wife to her husband and this is this is controversial in in paul's day he says this well this is what people would be like i'm mad about today for the wife does not have authority over her own body but the husband does and they'd be like oh this is this is that you know patriarchal you know men rule the world kind of stuff in the bible and and actually this is this is why it was so controversial because then he says and likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body but the wife does he's not speaking about authority like um go here do this he's talking about sexual privileges he's talking about in the marriage relationship your body is committed to your spouse for the unity that happens in marriage and he says it goes both ways the the wife doesn't have authority over whom her own body her husband does the husband doesn't have now here's why it's crazy this rules out things like polygamy well if the wife has authority over the husband's body how can polygamy be justified like first corinthians 7 4 seems to just assume that this is inappropriate it seems to push that it is um because then you have multiple wives sharing authority over that doesn't make any sense um then he says this and here's your answer your question do not deprive one another right now it seems to me speaking man and man you're depriving your wife of an important part of your wedding of your ceremony of your of your of your marriage of the the intimacy and the oneness that happens in your marriage you're depriving her right now and so you can do it by agreement by agreement so it's not just one person i'm just resisting you silent treatment i don't want to be with you but it's by agreement and it's for a limited time that you may devote yourselves to prayer but then come together again because they were dealing with this like anti-sex mentality in corinth at least part of the church was and paul's trying to undo that so scripture's telling you here in this situation um yes you owe your wife you owe your body is for her and you out of love for her should go and bless her so that's one of the issues yeah that's that's black and white to me yeah you she wants to be with you go be with her now you're like but i'm not feeling the desires okay well let me just say this um for one thing you're being overly selfish because you feeling a desire to do it isn't the rule in marriage right you do these things to bless her how many times have you promised you just i love you i want to bless you i want to take care of you i want to encourage you i want to help you would you do would you go and do a day of labor to fix something that just to bless her probably and i think you should consider this a and honestly i just love you and do this because i love you but there's other issues i want to unpack here too i realize i'm going long i'm probably going to do a long stream today warning to the mods we might be going long i just feel like going along so um there's other issues okay so yes uh is sexual deprivation toward a spouse a sin yes it is i think it is yeah because there's a moral imperative to be together second why is it that you don't feel desire towards her in our i have to mention this i'm not accusing you of anything and please if anybody knows this individual don't assume this about him i'm speaking to everybody here if you are enjoying lusting at other women it's going to decrease your love and your desire for your spouse if you cut off every source every source of lust towards others other than your your spouse you will find your desire for your spouse going up that's the exclusivity right there there's a beauty contest going on and there's always somebody more beautiful and more attractive than your spouse unless your spouse is the only person in the contest in your mind right it's a beauty contest with one contestant right and it's let me give you a really dumb analogy okay like when you are at school you're young and especially if your school is small the the prettiest girl in the school is super pretty but then when another girl comes and moves in and then she's prettier than that other pretty girl now she's the prettiest girl and the other one's been demoted do you see like in your mind for men and women you need your spouse to be the only boy in school the only girl in school the only person that you even look at because then they're the prettiest and they're the most beautiful and the most wonderful um that would be one of the things i would recommend and uh beyond that it would just be you need to um do some hard work and some mental work but your desires aren't always required they're nice but they're not necessary to love in marriage there can be a love that just says i'm just gonna do this because i love you and i do love you and there's my advice so moving on uh gorilla christianity with pat hobb says mike any comments for christians us congress convened in the name of the hindu god brahma it's been a weird week already and all the other monotheistic gods called by other names then they said amen a woman idolatry this is straight blasphemy this is pagan worship of false gods this is this is insanity from a christian perspective and from the real world like in reality what what happened with that prayer that most of you guys are aware of i could have made a video on it just to get views but i just i don't care that's not what i'm about but my goodness this is just um yeah it's it's horrific it's horrific but let me say this we have a first century example of how christians can respond to this kind of thing because in the early church we dealt with we as in christians i wasn't there but the christians dealt with the fact that the roman government was even more pagan than that prayer was the roman government had installed officially different religious groups and religions and the worship of false gods there was not only the oppression of christianity at different levels in different areas at different times but there was also things like you had to pinch incense to caesar and proclaim that he was a god and the church refused to do that so but here's the line the church found i think that is appropriate i think it honors christ and it follows our biblical mandate okay the line is i will honor and serve the government as much as possible i will not cross the line of saying amen to a prayer like that i will not acquiesce to that kind of ungodly wickedness i think it's being done with this heart of i'm trying to unify everybody but like unity around nothing isn't really unity right it's just rebellion against what should be causing our unity which is the truth of god but but i think that what we don't want to do as christians and i really do think this is true is what you don't want to do is say okay that's the last straw i no longer have to listen to congress i no longer have to listen to my government i can now officially rebel against anything i want because they have so much elements of ungodliness in there that's not a biblical thing they were dealing with a more wicked government and a more pagan institution than we are even today and they didn't do that and jesus didn't want them to do that they're crucifying the messiah if there's a last straw is that not it yet jesus tells peter to put away his sword okay so his kingdom's not of this world so i think that i hope that i'm gonna read this question again to make sure i got at the heart of it i hope um any comments for christians us congress convened in the name of hindu god the hindu god brahma they didn't convene in the name he well i guess they kind of did because it was the opening prayer right and all other monotheistic gods call by other name and they said amen a woman idolatry yeah okay i hope i've answered that um now if you were in the congress um if i was in the congress i think what i probably would have done which i'm not would be to um want to make make sure to make a statement as a christian at some point there and say i utterly reject that prayer i don't think that this that you know senator whatever knows how blasphemous that was um and and i utterly reject that it's a shame that it happened or something i mean i would want to differentiate myself in some sense but it doesn't mean i wouldn't be a congressman anymore that would cut off government next question is from derry draws says how can my relationship with god grow even more i've felt so many times that i'm not there yet or as if the fire i used to have is gone and something is wrong between me and god so derry uh i have talked to countless christians in fact if we were in an audience with people i would actually ask the audience to raise their hands so that you would know you're not alone and i would ask them how many of you guys feel like there's this like level of christian faith or the level of the christian walk that you're just you've never been out but you feel like some people have and you don't and i feel like most of the room would raise their hand and i don't think this is dependent upon them all being backslidden ungodly christians let me throw something out that maybe you haven't considered as a christian i have a calling that is the likeness of christ that is absolute holiness in my life that is total selflessness that calling is so high i will probably always feel i fall short of it now i never changed the calling i never changed the calling to fit my life okay i've arrived i've arrived like i've never arrived like you know paul is talk talks about this and he's like you know i'm not it's not as though i've already arrived right but i press on i press on in fact let me take us to that that passage this philippians 3 14 and i want to i want to share this with you there's a great mentality for us to all have brothers i do not consider that i have made it my own he he's talking about this like ultimate that high degree of christianity you're talking about but one thing i do forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead i press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of god in christ jesus let those of us who are mature think this way this is what i'm going to suggest for you is that that sense of i'm not there yet is healthy because it encourages us to press on when it becomes unhealthy is when it becomes i'm unqualified right like oh i'm discouraged because when paul saw that he wasn't there yet he pushed harder when you see you're not there yet do you push harder or do you pull back if you're pulling back that's a deception you're experiencing it's ungodly it's unhealthy it's unhelpful if it causes you to pull back instead of push forward there's something you're thinking about wrong maybe you're thinking you have a qualification instead of a calling because a qualification is i don't i don't measure up to the quals therefore i'm not good enough i'm discouraged but if it's not a qualification if it's a calling i'm the calling the upward calling of christ then then it's something i always press on for because i'm qualified by jesus and his sacrifice i'm qualified by grace i'm qualified by pure forgiveness and kindness and love so when i see that i fall short it's encouraging to press on it's never encouragement to quit or to give up man that's a big deal i hope that that help i hope that lands for you all right next question uh trumdial the epistle of jude cites i guess trump does the name okay the epistle of jude cites enoch and the testament of moses how do we know this letter isn't a fabrication of sorts like from gnostic sex and sneaked in during the council that established the new testament um you know what i haven't off the top of my head i haven't got any immediate thoughts on the canonicity of jude um yeah let me say um oh gosh it's a little bit reckless to do things without having usually i'm answering questions i've already thought these things through sometimes i i'm going well that's a new question let me just kind of like invite you into my process as i'm thinking and you consider me as a brother talking about an issue and not as some kind of ultimate authority on it um let me say this i don't have any doubts personally on the canonicity of jude and your basic question centers around the idea that um that um references in jude to extra biblical works would make it gnostic um i don't think that's a qualification for making a book gnostic i think gnostic books wouldn't be gnostic because they reference enoch or something else i think that they're gnostic because they're um their view of of like sort of the pleroma and these different like the demiurge and these different deities and then they've got their view of the old testament they think the old testament's wicked um jude actually encourages believing that the old testament and the the wrath of god in the old testament was something that was appropriate and right and this is something where the the developed gnosticism would have said that the old testament god was somehow wicked and so that doesn't fit with gnosticism um yeah now as far as jude quoting enoch um that's complicated because i'm not okay the history of enoch is that enoch is actually multiple different works over time so there may be something that that has some legitimate historicity there and there may be other things that are just added later i honestly don't think i'm knowledgeable enough on that to comment on it off the top of my head so there's a couple thoughts i wouldn't i wouldn't at all question the canonicity of it i would reject enoch's canonicity just like the early jews did and the stuff i've heard online trying to encourage us to all think enoch is canonicity stuff it strikes me as conspiratorial like where there's little tiny bits of evidence that are blown out of proportion and i don't wanna i don't wanna be trying to change the bible from that so let's move on um lacey fix please says or lacey fix says please recommend reading for marriage counseling christian counselors say to submissive equals codependent biblical counselors say if you're submissive enough your spouse will repent about first peter 3 1. biblical counselors do not say that unbiblical counselors say that everything there is wrong okay laci everything everyone's telling you is wrong about marriage okay so you said christian counselors say um two to two submissive equals codependent okay two there is such thing as too submissive right and that's when you yield to your spouse in rebellion to god right where they're asking you to do things that are ungodly um or they're requiring more of you than what god would want you to do that kind of thing and you still yield it's possible to be too submissive it's possibly unhealthily too submissive that's possible right daniel david is an example of struggling with proper submission because he cannot properly submit to the author the proper authority of saul who's trying to kill him he flees from him he plots to try to get around him but he also won't strike him down so he's trying to find this balance right but if if david was too submissive he would have stood still so that the spear that saul threw would kill him right that would be too submissive and there is such a thing as too submissive and people who are in serial heavy abuse situations are sometimes too submissive because they're continuing to to stay there and enable that stuff to happen when they should be fleeing or or calling the police or pressing charges that kind of thing on the other side the you say biblical counselors say if you're submissive enough your spouse will repent that's just not true um and neither does scripture say that but first peter 3 1 is the verse you're referencing so let's suppose i'm responding to a counselor who goes wife if you submit enough your husband will be a godly christian he will be better he'll he'll repent you just need to be more submissive i utterly reject this i think it's demonstrably false it causes harm to people but it also removes accountability personal accountability because guess what wife your husband's behavior is not your responsibility husband your wife's behavior is not your responsibility this is why in scripture instructions about husbands are always two husbands instructions about wives are always two wives because i'm not telling the husband what his wife has to do i'm not telling the wife what her husband has to do right scripture's telling the husband what to do with the wife what to do and it's kind of like what you tell your kids right we have two kids in their fridge like you just do what i say you just do what i say and don't worry about them right this is this is really how we should look at our marriage sometimes um first peter 3 1 likewise wives be subject to your own husband so that even if some do not obey the word they may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see respectful and pure conduct do not let your dormant be external and the braiding of hair and putting on a gold jewelry or the clothing you wear but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is in god in god's sight is very precious for this is how the holy women of i'm reading a larger section i'll show you why in a second hoped in god to use to use to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as sarah obeyed abraham calling him lord by the way when sarah called abraham lord it was normal for a wife to call her husband that in english three thousand four thousand years removed from that scenario my wife calling me lord it doesn't even mean what sarah meant back then it was appropriate when she called him lord she was saying that you are the master of our home you you to use a phrase that people are going to hate you wear the pants in the family like that that's not wrong right she still is an authority in the house she still has authority she still makes decisions all those sorts of things but she yields to the husband's leadership in the marriage relationship that's all it means there in our culture if if if my wife called me lord it would be weird and inappropriate and i wouldn't really want her to call me that and my husband's like you have to call me lord and be like well first off you're speaking different languages like it doesn't mean you don't call anybody lord like when i go to work do i call my boss lord no but i want my wife to call me yeah anyway um different cultures we got to recognize this um and you are her children if you do good or do not fear anything that is frightening so um there's the one word that was missed may wives be subject to your own husband so that even if some do not obey the word they may be one without a word by the conduct of your wives now some would replace that word may with will oh have i not showed you guys the scripture oh what a punk all right they may there it is up on your screen they might they could it's possible it's giving hope to a wife to know that in your godliness in your unrelenting godliness that no matter how ungodly that man is i will serve christ i will be godly i will honor him in my marriage and in the way i conduct myself even in how i relate to him that they may be one now there is a story i'll tell you of a friend of mine uh i haven't seen him many years but he was very ungodly his wife got saved she's living for christ she's honoring christ and he tells a story about when when her conduct changed his life and it was because he got home from work and he was angry he's kind of an angry type of person and he wanted to take it out on somebody and so he walked in the door and he started treating her rudely which was his routine in the past she would respond in kind and then they could have a fight and he would get his aggression out not a fist fight but that would get there he would get his aggression out on her so he comes home and he's like and she does not respond at all and she's just very gracious and kind and then he sits down and to just offer him a kindness not because she's a slave not because unless we shouldn't overreact to these things to offer him a kindness as a as a wife to her husband she goes and she takes his boots off because of his long day of work and it was he's sitting there and i'm not saying why he says i'll do this like i hear in my head like the um hyper feminist overreaction to all this stuff because the way hyper feminism is is they reduce relationships to power dynamics and they uh they remove love from the equation and servanthood is is offensive and this is antithetical to all relationships you just can't look at the world that way at any rate she goes and takes his shoes off and he says that his heart just broke and he just all of his all of his he wanted to direct his irritation to her it all came back at him and he realized what a punk he was what a jerk he was he ended up coming to christ ends up serving the lord it has been for many many years since there's an example of her conduct but it's a may it might happen it might not happen so counselors who are suggesting that the husband's behavior depends on the wife is is ungodly the husband's responsible for his own behavior wife you may be honoring christ and the husband may never ever change that's a real that's a very real possibility still worth honoring christ but his behavior is not on you any more than my wife's behaviors on me it's not it's on them my interaction with them is on me all right where on earth am i in our questions um okay telly kaler has a question what happens to all of the people who lived and died before jesus was born how will they be judged and saved great question uh telly kaler i um i wonder if your name's really kelly taylor i just can't help but immediately think that i wonder if everybody thinks that when they see your uh your thing i have a whole video where i teach on this and and i specifically worded it what about those who never hear the gospel right not just who haven't heard it yet what about those who live and then die and they have never heard the gospel so i've got to reference you to that video but i will say abraham is an example we have some other examples in the old testament and um uh the leper from syria whose name totally escapes me naaman was it naaman anyway that uh he's another example and here's examples of people who put their faith in god they did respond to god right they trusted in him but they didn't have the full knowledge of the gospel of christ so i think there can't there is room for that but i think we have to watch out for error that we can slip into because we turn it into universalism this is not an endorsement of false religions like if you're a sincere buddhist now you're going to be saved i think that that is that is incorrect i think that's fundamentally flawed and the participation our participation in false religions is evidence that we have rejected the revelation of god you see that that's that's why that doesn't work for those things but there is hope for those who've never heard the gospel and they would be saved through christ and not through other things it's kind of a complicated issue um telekiller i would encourage you to watch that video i'm sure it's probably going to be in the live chat if it hasn't been yet and i'll put it in the video link down below after this video goes live or is done going live i'll put a link to that teaching what about those who never hear the gospel yes there's hope for them it doesn't seem to be super often very often at all that it actually happens no it doesn't endorse false religions and they are yes they would be saved through jesus christ the same way that enoch was in the same way that abraham was in the same way that i think it's naaman was that they were saved because they responded to the true god put faith and trust in him and when christ is revealed they'll realize that what they were believing in in the fog while the fog is cleared it was this christ who was saving you all along there's my short answer next question from calm 23 i'm an ex-catholic still doing a daily rosary i understand the theological problems can you suggest a replacement daily devotional well let me suggest this the rosary because there's specific prayers with the rosary there's there's a couple you understand the theological problems i'll share it with the rest of the audience here um so they can too um some of the prayers are to marry and those those are probably the most problematic ones right so like you know mary she's called uh you're praying to mary initially that's a problem praying to mary in itself is a problem um for reasons i've discussed in my in my videos on catholicism then you've got the statements about mary that are that are made the types of prayers to mary exalt her into a place that is inappropriate and that i think mary would be offended by so but things like our father saying that our father prayer there's nothing wrong with that you can say our father you could say that every day if you want you could even say it multiple times i guess but we do have a second caution about praying the rosary and it's not about using beads that's just incidental this isn't like the thing that you have to be worried about like i i use bees to count my prayers okay well my concern with using b's to count your prayers is like you might be slip sliding into more and more unbiblical extra biblical traditions that might be leading you into extra biblical beliefs that's my fear there the beads themselves aren't really a problem but here's the problem is that jesus warned about prayer that we should not use vain repetition as the heathens do and and that's that's my other concern with the rosary and with wrote prayers i think sometimes we've overreacted to this i'm gonna take you guys there um matthew chapter six and let's look at the teaching of jesus on this oh hold on software issues matthew 6 consider the rosary consider not just the beads but consider the attitude of praying 20 times maybe our father who art in heaven okay that's this prayer it's from this passage right here jesus says pray like this our father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread this implies you can pray this prayer every day and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil okay this is a beautiful prayer it's from the words of jesus how can you go wrong i'm just repeating the prayer literally jesus says pray like this and he gives us a prayer how do i not endorse repeating this prayer well i do i think it's great and i do pray this on occasion i will pray the exact prayer i'll use it as a launch pad for other prayers i'll pray our father you know father in heaven hallowed be your name lord you are you were good you were holy you were wise you were wonderful your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven lord i'm being pulled apart by all these different political agendas right now i just help me see your kingdom help my heart to be committed to your kingdom so i use these to topically launch my mind and my heart into other issues give us to stay our daily bread lord i pray you provide for me and for my family and my loved ones you give my mom protection as she's uh got copd and i don't want to see her get get covered and have something bad happen to her like so i it launches me into all sorts of different prayers okay forgiving i as i forgive our debtors lord i forgive this person who sinned against me in the comment section today on youtube that kind of thing but here's the problem he starts this whole thing by saying when you pray you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners that they may be seen by others truly i say to you they receive their reward okay so don't don't don't pray to be seen praying okay well probably you're not doing that if you're just doing this in private okay so let's move on but when you pray go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who's in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you and when you pray here's the one that really hits home do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do why they think that they'll be heard because of their many words the the natural inclination of religious man like i'm religious we're all everybody's religious in a sense but um our natural inclination apart from true religion apart from truly worshiping god is to start to turn the rituals into the substance and what i do is i i think i'm going to be heard because of my many words i'm going to be heard because of my many words i'll repeat it over and over and over and over again hence the beats right to count how many times i'm praying when you pray the the the prayer our father in heaven and you pray it 17 times in one sitting i have to wonder if you think you're heard because of your many words and you're not actually praying without vanity but with substance one time through i recommend to be clear i'd recommend praying it once not many times maybe using this as a launch pad for other things to be praying for that's fine um but there's something to be said for when you need direction in prayer when you need focus in prayer to being able to take a guide like the scriptural prayer of jesus and then pray through it word for word i think that's totally appropriate and fine i wouldn't recommend doing it over and over and over again and thinking that you're heard because of your many words that's my concern there can i suggest a replacement daily devotional that you do perhaps instead of doing the rosary um i don't use daily devotionals so this is a struggle for me um what i'd recommend is read just doing a bible reading just you read a chapter two three however much from the bible and maybe you're reading with a highlighter high or underlying or putting question marks on things you don't understand i would recommend incorporating bible reading into your daily worship and prayer is what i'd recommend if you find a devotional that will help you do that that's that's great maybe a bible reading plan that will help keep you on track there's apps that do that as well next question is from troy mulberry does hebrews 2 17 like them in every respect that's a quote from hebrews 2 17 indicate that jesus had the same human nature as we do in every way so if so can we conclude that we like him are born with an innocent human nature okay i think that actually i can answer this question um even though i've never thought about it before as far as this verse goes hebrews 2 17. let's understand the question the verse and get the answer therefore jesus had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of god to make propitiation for the sins of the people for he himself has also suffered when tempted he is able to help those who are being tempted so the question is how how far do i take the every respect if he's like us in every respect in every possible way in every conceivable fashion he's like me well then that would mean he's not god but scripture even hebrews clearly teaches jesus as god so at least there is some sense in which jesus is not like me but he was made like us in the sense that he was genuinely human he was genuinely human he was also divine now one of the differences hebrew says is that he was like us in every way or he was tempted like us in every way but without sin so we know clearly jesus didn't ever sin he felt temptation in some sense i have a video on that how jesus was tempted in the mark series when we get to mark two talked about how jesus was tempted but i don't want to push the the sweeping nature of every respect too far because it would seem to affect the deity of christ so i don't want to push that too far but i will also say this um does that mean humans are born with an innocent human nature um i don't think we can conclude that because i don't think i don't i don't want to comment on is our nature innocent i want to say this something's wrong with our nature in that we're tempted i'm tempted by nature like it's just kind of the way i'm wired i get tempted and then when i sin it becomes bigger and it becomes worse and it grows and i feed it and i create the monster jesus was tempted so he at least was born with temptation he was born with some you know some problem that we faced which is temptation it was tempted in every way as we are except without sin so when you say innocent i i mean if you mean i'm not guilty when i'm born i would agree with that already my understanding of sin nature which is not i think the same as augustine on this topic is that we're not guilty when born but not by virtue of having a good perfect nature but by virtue of just not being guilty i have a video on that you might look it up on sin nature actually i dealt with it when i talked about the theological problems caused by the view of infant salvation uh there's an interesting video for you second one in that series rocketman sean has a question christians are using john 16 13 to qualify a wide variety of claims believing the holy spirit led them to particular beliefs or practices so what extent to what extent is the supply to christians today john 16 13. i do think that and i'm slowly honestly i'm just slowly coming to realize this and maybe you guys are with me here maybe not we have set the bar too low for confirmation that the holy spirit is speaking to us so that we are and this is this is in charismatic movements like like where i i am we set the bar so low that we basically have false positives we falsely think the holy spirit is guiding us in a particular area issue thought or action when in reality we're just false positive i have a strong feeling here i had an idea i thought was great so therefore it was the holy spirit and i think that we need to raise that bar a little bit higher we need to raise that higher john 16 13 says when the spirit of the truth of truth comes he will guide you into all truth for he will not speak on his own authority but whatever he hears he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come so jesus here in john 16 is speaking about a major change that's coming he's going to leave them he's going to depart he dies and then he's going to rise and ascend and then the holy spirit will come he's speaking his disciples he talks about them bringing to remembrance the things that he said this to me has special application to the apostles themselves it applies to all of us in a sense but a very special application of the apostles themselves and so they're going to receive the guidance of the holy spirit this is part of the case for the inspiration of the new testament and he declares things that are to come i don't know that we can say that we're going to get this to the same degree in all of our lives um in the end it's totally this false positive issue it's like at what point do you say boom now i'm being led by the spirit versus you know the other thought wasn't and if you have a very low bar for confirming that the holy spirit is guiding you then you're going to apply john 16 13 more often and if you have a very high bar you're going to apply it less often and in my experience where do you set your bar is a massive massive issue and one way you can test this is have a rear view mirror in in europe i'm just making stuff up here like i would as have a rear view mirror in your in your holy spirit led me moments where when you say god's guiding me with this guys direct me to this let me give you an example an extreme example i knew a guy who proclaimed to the rest of us that god had directed him to marry this girl and move to mexico and this was totally sudden she had just had a bad breakup after having a really a bad unhealthy relationship and he was like she's available right and he got all excited he's god's telling me to marry her and move to mexico and within a year he was back in california and they were divorced okay i can't fix the past but i can actually have you ask you to have a rear view mirror and to look back and say there's me there's me back there a year ago saying god led me this and i i now look at it and i go what on earth was i thinking i took my heart and put it in as you know basically there was a impersonation happening my heart was impersonating the holy spirit and i will not let that happen again and this is the review mirror that we need the 2020 prophets who all proclaimed that trump was going to win the presidency and um i've been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for the confirmation which just came through so i could finally say put up your rear view mirror guys and and set all of those men aside they are not reliable sources and sometimes you have to do this to yourself maybe i'm not a reliable source and if that's been you be encouraged that at least now you know it you are much safer now to the body of christ that you're aware that you had been in the past an unreliable source and now you can be real sober about things and recognize that sometimes you're you have false positives and you need to stop um anyway there's some thoughts on that mr miss spazzy jazzy says i watched the conscience video um and romans 14 23 confuses me my conscience is so weak at the moment that i doubt just about everything basic things should i obey my anxious inklings every time okay let's let's talk about this so the issue of conscience is like and i think what you're getting at miss spazzy jazzy does that mean that he's he's really spazzy jazzy and you're identifying maybe like my wife saying she's mrs dork because i'm a dork and she's although she's more become more dorky than me over the years um romans 14 23 back to the text uh it seems to me that what you're saying is i wonder things like um oh i just i want to i want a piece of chocolate this is something my my gifts on christmas are always candy and food related right this is him as pigs and taters milk chocolate with bacon flavored bits and potato chips it's a little weird but maybe i'm eating this and i'm thinking am i over indulging by eating this if i have this piece of chocolate right here is this is this is this comp is this like indulgence is it carnal indulgence that i'm enjoying this right now i don't know if it is but maybe it is i'm scared and so then you read romans 14 23 and it says um whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats because he's eating not from faith for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin and you're like but i doubt everything i doubt everything and so does that mean everything i'm doing is sin uh what i'm gonna say is this is that first off romans 14 23 wasn't actually talking about your scenario specifically um if you're dealing with hyper fears and doubts where every shadow is is a monster where every possible issue is an issue and you're and you're getting triggered by romans 14 23 i all i can say to you is that paul obviously here is dealing with people who are struggling with very specific issues should i eat meat that has been offered to idols right well it's offered to idols but idols are nothing and i have faith in christ and i thank god for this food so i can eat it and someone else goes i'm not participating in anything those people give give to their idols i don't want to touch it right there's a a buddhist restaurant that i like to order food from and i've had questions about like well you know like it's it's just like the meat offered idols thing right like there's like overtly buddhist buddhist stuff inside the restaurant you know and and i'm like you know how do i struggle with this okay that's one issue but what if you're dealing with everything everything's like oh yeah can i drive my car in faith can i do this in faith can i do that in faith all i can counsel is that you you have got to find a way to be reasonable you've got to find a way to be reasonable there's no wisdom in believing every fear you have there's no wisdom if you don't have a legitimate way of testing your fears maybe you hear you have a false positive issue when it comes to fear and doubt if you don't have a way to work through that it will not only [ __ ] you in your daily life it will also cause you to push that same fear onto others because as you talk about as you address these issues you'll project them onto your kids onto your onto your friends onto others around you and it's very much an unhealthy place to be so what what do i want to suggest is that if the answer is faith whatever's not perceived from faith is sin is that maybe the solution is faith like more faith and confidence in christ right there that what you need here is more faith faith to say that you've overreacted to some questionable things and you can just believe that your own conscience is sometimes too sensitive and move forward in life if you're anxious about everything that's how you know you're wrong in romans 14 he's not even addressing everything because everything's not even a questionable issue some things are and as soon as you get into everything category you know you're going too far all right number 15 israel garcia says what are your thoughts about going to church during pandemic my thoughts in short are that i am not going to be judging everyone on what they do here um here's a conscience issue romans 14. i'm going to suggest that those who feel like they're going to go to church and they and they need to and it's super important they're going to go regardless and they're open to whatever the consequences are i'm going to say you honor the lord do what you want to do there i'm going to support you doing that and those who say i know i just can't go right now i don't feel right about it i have this list of reasons why i'm not going whether it's my health concerns or other health concerns or because i believe this about this honor christ go ahead and do that i think that the thing about christian maturity is sometimes realizing that you can make a decision for yourself without making a decision for everybody else and you can as a pastor you can make a decision for your church without making a decision for everyone's church and pointing fingers and accusing people of not serving god by doing x y or z i am firmly decided to not cause division on this topic and i'd encourage others to try to take that same position jason and alana says in judges 20 verse 18 why did god appear to deceive israel and judah as they sought his help in bringing justice on the tribe of benjamin they lost 40 000 people before he actually helped them um let me read this again judges 2018 why did god appear to deceive israel and judah that's quite an interpretation you got there i'm scanning the passage real quick because i'm trying to remember it um i'm still scanning it's a long passage i'll just read it with you guys how's that sound and i may or may not have an answer for you because i i don't off the top of my head remember it i've talked to judges before but that was quite a while ago all right um the people of israel arose and went up to bethel and inquired of god who shall be who shall go up first for us to fight against the people of benjamin and as i recall this has to do with the killing of this man the man's concubine and then she was uh pieces of her body are sent out it's horrific the whole idea in the book of judges is the end of the book is to show and maybe this will answer your question nobody's the good guy okay everybody's corrupt in israel this is like the book of judges is like part of the old testament case for the depravity of man that everyone's messed up and wicked and they're all bad guys all of israel is just falling short of the glory of god and the chaos that ensues as a result of this right even the deliverers like samson is like you don't look up to the guy right not at all um you know gideon does good and then fails jeff that does good and then fails like it's just progression towards failure and as you approach the end of the book like judges 20 it's just at its worst at its lowest point here we are verse 18. the people arise and they go to bethel in choir of god um who's going to go to fight against benjamin first this is groups of israel gathered against benjamin because the benjamin tribe has been um perverting justice they allowed this wound to be abused and killed and and so then they're saying like we're bringing justice against you you've effectively attacked us and the lord said judah shall go up first this is probably the way they inquired of god is probably through the use of like a priest who inquired of the lord this was there actually had a form of doing this you know might it may have involved a roman thuman some suggest i don't know but they inquire and the answer is okay judas judah goes first then the people of israel rose in the morning and camped against gibeah and the men of israel went out to fight against benjamin and the men of israel drew up to battle up the battle line against them at gibia the people of benjamin came out and gibbia out of gibia and destroyed on that day 22 000 men of the israelites but the people the men of israel took courage and again formed the battle line in the same place where they had formed it on the first day and the people of israel went up and went before the lord until the evening and they inquired of the lord shall we again draw near to fight against our brothers and the people of benjamin and the lord said go up against them so the people of israel came near against the people of benjamin the second day and benjamin went against them out of gibeah the second day and destroyed 18 000 men of the people of israel so we're only getting the casualties on the on the on the non-benjaminite side because obviously the tribe of benjamin is getting the better end of the battle here all these were men who drew the sword then all the people of israel the whole army went up and came to bethel and wept there they sat there before the lord and fasted unt that day until evening and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before the lord so there's like a spiritual thing going on now they're like you tell us to go up but we're not having victory or we're crying we're fasting we're weeping and they're wicked right now like the whole nation's just totally messed up and this failure is bringing them to their knees that's there's a positive thing happening here um and the people of israel inquired of the lord for the ark of the covenant was there in those days and phineas the son of eliezer son of aaron ministered before it in those days saying shall we go out once more to battle against our brothers the people of benjamin or shall we cease and the lord said go up for tomorrow i will give them into your hand okay so the question so far is why did god you said appear to deceive them i don't think he did appear to deceive them he told him to go up they fought and they had a lot of casualties he says go up again they have a lot of casualties again now they fall and they get on their knees and they fast and they pray and then god says okay next time i'll give you victory so he had them fight a battle they didn't have victory that's not deception there's just something else going on there god's bringing them to their knees failure brings us to our knees in ways that victory never does just because god tells you to do something doesn't mean you're going to have victory you might tell you go be a missionary and you may not have a revival you might have a jeremiah ministry still honoring to god preaching preaching preaching and people don't listen or repent that's victory is what we assume when we get the word to go but it's not always the plan even though eventually god's doing it he's doing his ultimate work but sometimes we're just we only think of success as one thing and god has other things in mind so israel set me in an ambush around gibeah and the people of israel went up again against people benjamin on the third day and set themselves in a ray as at other times and the people of benjamin went out against the people and were drawn away from the city this time they're pulled away from the city away from their protection their walls and all that and as at other times they begin to strike and kill some of the people on the highways one of which goes up to bethel and the other to gibbeya and in the open country about 30 men of israel and the people of benjamin said they are routed before us as at first so they feel emboldened but the people of israel said let us flee and draw them away from the city to the highways so the battle tactic is to change the battleground and all the men of israel rose up out of their place and set themselves an array at baal tamar and the men of israel who were in ambush rushed out of their place from mara gebba and there came against gibeah ten thousand chosen men out of all israel and the battle was hard but the benjamites did not know that the disaster disaster was close upon them so the lord defeated benjamin they they lose and the people of israel destroyed 25 100 minute benjamin and all those were those who drew the sword so the people of benjamin saw that they were defeated so i think that the answer to your question is you've interpreted it wrong if you think god appeared to deceive israel and judah as they sought his help in bringing justice to the tribe of benjamin so you say the last just they lost 40 000 before he actually helped them that's that's accurate from the text right but not that he deceived them so i hope that answers your question um we often turn things into problems that aren't problems even though the passages the whole thing's horrific because it's just showing the depravity and rebellion of israel against god and that's what judges is meant to show so you're looking for heroes and people to root for it's like even in this story as you read on you don't even know who to root for and that's the point they're all messed up god's the god's the good guy in judges not the people the people are those who are constantly rebellious and god is patient and god still cares for them he's going to send them a deliver even the deliverers fall short because jesus is the ultimate one who will do that question number 17 angela what be doing over there angela anyway if the man in the gospel of mark was born blind how did he even know what trees look like this troubles me a bit thank you for your awesome ministry and service to the lord angela great question and i can i'll try to answer move a little more quickly i don't know how much we're good on time we're fine you guys you don't mind like a two-hour video um okay so the blind man he's initially jesus heals him kind of in two stages right he he touches him once and the guy's like i see men as trees walking around right so the ants are marching it's it's he sees an int moot burarum and and then then he you know he he gets the complete healing from jesus and now he sees everything just fine um how could the man know what trees look like well i think that we underestimate the knowledge of blind people here blind people know lots of things right so they know what trees are right they know that trees are very tall it's not like they're unaware so like you may be like if i if i was blind i suddenly had sight and then you asked me to identify um where is the camera in the room maybe i've never seen a camera but i probably touched one i could i could i could go oh it's this device right here it has a lens that has i'm aware of those things it's easy enough for him to look around and see people like trees so he just sees tall objects and he goes they're like what i've imagined trees would would would be like so i don't think that should be a problem for us at all uh lior has a question do we have extra biblical evidence for the earthquakes and darkness that took place in the time of the crucifixion and the answer is i think we do and i'm trying to remember the details of this um there is a there is a historical source i think it might have been tacitus that talks about the darkness in particular um and i just the details escape me right now but it's something you're welcome to google and check out on your own we do have a source that's extra biblical that does talk about that and yeah yeah although i'm not sure how worldwide the darkness was or if it was just more local or i don't know but um but yeah there's something at least um as far as earthquakes i don't i mean there's earthquakes that don't don't get recorded i don't know if we would have had a record of it or not if we should expect one uh jared's story says in the uk covet 19 laws are getting stricter as christians are we obligated to follow these rules even when we think some of them are pointless and could put a strain on our relationships um yeah probably based on your question okay your your question is not should we obey these rules period but can we disobey based upon thinking that's a pointless rule okay no that's not a legitimate justification for for rebellion is that rule's dumb that's not legitimate um the other one is it can put a strain on my relationships okay well that's not enough of a reason to rebel against government it's like well you know you guys are putting a strain on my relationships but but is there any point at which you can rebel against the government commands of restrictions with covet yes i think when it becomes to a certain degree of oppression you have the ability to say okay i'm reluctantly drawing the line here some people are already drawing that line and they're saying you're telling me um i can't i can't go to my neighbor to to pray for them when they're sick i can't um i can't gather in my fellowship in my my church and they're drawing the line there and again here i just want to say i am not the authority to tell everybody in the church what they have to do here and neither are you i'm honestly not really sure how to answer all these questions and so i'm going to honor god and honor him with in my conscience the best of my ability and i'm going to respect that a lot of other believers are doing that in ways that are different than the way i would do it and may god give us wisdom and may he help us i'm not causing division on those topics that's my biggest fear is the division that gets caused on there so there there can come a time to rebel and i'm not entirely sure in our current scenario when to do it i mean it'd be easy if the church if the government was just like going around murdering people it's like oh rebel that's different um this is this is weird it's tough like you're measuring like economic issues and all these things and i just don't think i think i'm qualified to weigh in on that forever for other people i just want to respect their conscience april b says hi pastor mike what are your thoughts on baptizing children my eight-year-old has made a profession of faith that we feel is genuine should we wait until he's older say 12 or 13. um i don't think that age numbers are the issue here i think it's um awareness and thoughtfulness of the person and so your eight-year-old has made a profession of faith that you say you believe is genuine should you wait till he's older say 12 or 13. i don't see why you should wait if you believe it's genuine i i wouldn't feel compelled to wait if you're like no i really believe this is a very genuine thing he's doing this with knowledge with with awareness i don't know why you would wait um that's just my two cents but if you choose to wait i would honor that i i don't think baptism actually saves so it's not like i think there's like an issue of him his actual salvation at stake here it's more about the meaning of baptism that's going on there and i do have some videos on that stuff too you guys can look up my name in baptism if you're interested now here's the thing i had actually um got extra questions sent to me today and i think i'm going to run through some of these because i'm very happy to do so and have a good time with you guys and i'm glad you guys have joined me and i'm hoping that this will encourage your hearts in some way there's something encouraging about just thinking biblically about things about just processing things biblically and calmly and as best we can reasonably and hopefully this has given you some encouragement you need i don't know what kind of content you've been consuming recently but it's nice to um here let me give you a weird analogy in the hobbit films there is a moment where the the uh the party the hobbit party is traveling through the forest and this forest casts a fog and creates confusion and even division amongst the the party and there's this one moment where to get a clear head and to get vision you have you have bilbo who climbs up a tree and he gets up to the top of the tree and he gets out of the fog of the forest and his the sunlight's there his head clears he can see the mountain in the distance he knows the destination he knows what way to go and then he's like i know and all of a sudden it's all clear i think that when we just get in the word when we get in prayer and when we sit down and we have discussions and listen to videos that are teaching encouraging us in our christian faith it's like we've raised our heads above the cloud of the fog of the moment and we're like ah there's the there's the destination i know which way to go now so i'm hoping that this brings you guys that kind of encouragement to remember um we don't have a message that everything's okay as christians we have a message that there's a kingdom that is unshakable that we're living for and that we're guaranteed and that changes how we view the fact that everything's not okay down here and we get perspective and vision and direction okay so here we go um two messianic jews has a question have you reached out to dr michael brown to discuss the passion translation i believe he endorsed it i've been loving the passion project by the way um i think uh well here's here's the story uh dr michael brown reached out to me months ago and was like i'd love to have you on to talk about the passion translation onto his program and i was like oh man i really want to but and this is my decision i said wait till i've done this passion project more more thoroughly i want to get further down the road i didn't even have the papers written by the scholars yet i really wanted that information to be able to come and talk so he's waiting on me to reach out to him i have not done that yet i've just been so inundated and busy and so i i haven't done it yet but i intend to at some point we'll see what happens with that i don't want i don't want to create any people harassing him to get me on i don't want you guys to bug him like that i've got his number so i can i can do that myself um and i will in the future um andrew green has a question are re-baptisms biblical are rebaptisms biblical well i'll say this andrew we don't have any examples in the bible of people being baptized like multiple times in the name of christ where they get baptized in the name of jesus and then later again in his name i've we don't see that anywhere in the bible are read baptism is biblical in that sense uh no and i i want to avoid two extremes one extreme is where we we we sort of have a routine everyone gets baptized twice right we baptize you once when you're really little and then later on or anytime you feel like you've fallen away and you've kind of come back we're gonna do it again um and i think that's that's that's wrong i think it's weird and i think it creates a strange thing in the culture of the church on the other side we could have people who go you know when i got baptized and i was young i don't know what i was thinking it's like i did it like as a ritual but i feel like i haven't done it with the substance of knowing what it means and i'd like to get baptized i would i would totally baptize that person again and because they're saying there was a problem with them when they went through the initial ritual of baptism that they think is over now and they like to do it with all their heart and it does something too because it alleviates some anxieties about their past so they go i know where i'm at i know who i am and so in a sense i'm open to doing it for that reason but i don't want to create a culture where it's just like something that's always happening i think that's unhealthy um because it might it might imply a insufficient view of the grace of christ right like something i have to do in order to like get forgiveness for the sins i just recently committed that sort of thing i think no um you know in second corinthians paul writes about a man who was basically kicked out of the church and then he's repented and they're welcoming him back that's it you're welcoming him back we'll come back he's repented we rejoice over that there is no neces necessity for like a second baptism after repentance from backsliding i don't think so taylor paris says what do i do if i have to be around someone who's easily angered and i have to walk on eggshells that's a very broad question taylor so i can only probably give you very broad answers um if you have to walk around someone is easily angered you have to walk on eggshells um is here's the thing there's a way of letting guiding your behavior to adapt to angry people around you in a way that's healthy and there's a way that's unhealthy the healthy way is you you realize that this person is just petty and you're just not going to trigger them i'm not going to i'm not going to feed them things that trigger them even more i'm just not going to go down that road the unhealthy thing is when there's like a in my opinion here totally just my opinion is when there's like a fear in my heart of that person right so there's one thing i don't want to i don't want to trigger the fool in their folly i don't want to throw something at them that starts a fire but i also don't want to walk around in fear of that individual right i'm not part of whatever they've got going on i'm just i'm just going to keep myself separate from it from their anger and their overreactions and when they respond and they get mad i'm not going to involve myself in that whole thing but you don't want to have a fearful thing in your heart where you're doing this out of out of fear and oppression you want to be doing it in other words out of wisdom not fear maybe that's the distinction there's wisdom that says i'm not going to trigger them but then there's fear that says i'm scared of them and that's not a healthy place to be um and so i would encourage you to try to have the wisdom and not the fear to be very broad all right logan maddox i'm going to do a couple more here i recently started posting christian youtube videos logan says and i've really enjoyed your second channel where you give advice for youtube do you still plan on doing that channel in the future yes i totally do i just haven't had the time and i kind of warned you guys on that channel i was like it's my second channel this is not my main thing i do it as time allows as i have the time and i have not had the time like at all but i will do more content on there um it's coming and i would recommend you follow other christian youtube or other youtube guru people who are like giving you tips and advice on how to do youtube well and learn from it um i don't need don't make me your only source there because i just it was not my full-time thing it's just a little side thing because i just want to inspire other christians to make youtube content and if you're just hearing about this channel for the first time it's youtube tactics with mike winger that's the name of the youtube channel and you guys can check that out if you're interested i just want to help other christians do well online and we're seeing more and more of them come up and i think with a little encouragement we'll we'll get to see more of that so good for you logan i'm glad you're doing it and god give you wisdom sandra has a question what uh why does the holy spirit grieve and not the father or jesus um that's great okay so here's here's where we don't want to there's a good example where we we don't want to go too far with our with our implications of a verse so the scripture tells us do not grieve the holy spirit of god by whom you were sealed why is it say the holy spirit and not the father or the son well does the father grieve yes right does jesus grieve yes right jesus jerusalem how many times how long to gather you gather your children and so there's a grief in jesus heart there jesus wept at the tomb of lazarus he wept and so we we we see this throughout scripture the father and the son both do grieve there is a weeping or grieving that goes on and i'd imagine when the holy spirit is grieved you could say the father is also grieved right there is the unity of the whole of the trinity but why then does ephesians specifically say grieve the holy spirit i'm going to take us to the passage there ephesians 4 30. i'll put it on your screen too um it says do not grieve the holy spirit of god by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption well there's a there's a hint here it's that you're sealed by the holy spirit your this holy spirit is indwelling you your relationship with god is in the spirit it's accessed through the sun but it's in the spirit and so you have him in you so your grief of the holy spirit there's a reason why jesus is grieved as he's weeping over over jerusalem there's there's he's the he's the second person training but he's the one there right there at that moment reaching out calling out to jerusalem i'm sure the spirit was grieved too but we we focused on the sun at that moment because of what was going on the focus on the grieving of the spirit here in ephesians is because of what is grieving the spirit right and it's our bitterness our wrath and anger our clamor and slander these things that are inside of us all malice right it's when we're not kind and tender to one another when we're not forgiving one another as god has forgiven us because the holy spirit is in us in our division and there is this the unifying thing in the church is the holy spirit he's what unifies us and when we cause division over our anger bitterness wrath selfishness pettiness our plank eye issues it grieves the spirit because he is the one unifying us so that's the reason why i think this verse specifically calls out the holy spirit because he's the unifying force in the church he's the one who does that and we mess that up when we um when we are bitter wrathful angry glamorous remember this that in the midst of all the things that are going on in our country right now one of my concerns is that christians remain christian and one of the biggest issues that i see is the plank eye thing where we are bitter clamorous slandering towards others because all we see are their issues and we don't see our own if i can't first see my issues i won't be able to deal with the others issues if i don't see the issues in my own views in my own heart in my own self and my behavior i will not see clearly to try to address the issues going on in our government and in our culture and in politics and in the news and in the media if you speak out against those things without dealing with your own carnality first you will be part of the problem as people so often like to say about whoever they don't like well you're part of the problem um yeah we gotta be part of that kingdom that is holy righteous not just really good at pointing out the flaws of others so thank you guys so much for joining this has been twenty four five questions 2600 how many questions we've done and um i hope you've enjoyed it i will be with you guys next friday this is our normal friday q a i do this all the time but also on monday we got the next mark bible study coming up i'm teaching that live at 1 pm on my channel on monday and then wednesday next wednesday we have dr craig blomberg i interviewed him on the passion translation it's a long interview really informative stuff and that's going to be the last interview for the passion translation for quite a while actually i'm putting pause on that because i need other people to write papers but also because i have a whole bunch of other projects i'm going to start working on if you are new to my channel you may want to subscribe i just want to help you learn to think biblically about everything and everything i do is all about doing that i think that there's immeasurable immeasurable value in the word of god and in understanding it and applying it to our lives it is the way the holy spirit sanctifies us it is um brings us comfort the comfort of the scriptures wisdom man if in fact if you're struggling with dealing with all the stuff that's going on in our government and our culture and in the the extremes the two sides being so extreme and you're kind of wondering where the christianity falls read proverbs because this is what gives you wisdom in discerning these things because i feel like on the far extreme sides of either left or right right now we've got a lack of wisdom and utter lack of wisdom on the most extreme sides and that doesn't mean that we should be plop in the middle because that's just not how reality works but but we do need wisdom so god help us thank you all for being with me and i will see you monday wednesday friday one or the other

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 46,130

Keywords: 20 questions, Mike Winger, q and a, question and answer, think biblically, BibleThinker, episode 17, part 17

Id: n7aVfyWeVYo

Length: 89min 14sec (5354 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021