20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 26)

well the thumbnail says that's a hard question and the first question we have today is a hard question it's about um how do we biblically grieve the death of a loved one who wasn't saved now before we jump into that just a reminder if it's your first time here i'm pastor mike winger i'm just a pastor in southern california and i make content online helping people learn to think biblically about everything because i believe that that's going to really transform your life and it will make you into someone who will change the lives of people around you as well and so part of that learning to think biblically about everything is the realization that while i have you know mondays i do verse by verse teaching and i also do topical videos and other other times yet i don't cover everything in those videos and so the q a on fridays which we're doing right now this gives me a chance to answer your guys questions so you're loading your questions as many the regulars already are doing we're loading our questions in the chat we'll pick 20 of them we'll select 20. i'm going to answer 20 today and we'll just see how it goes i am answering off the cuff i haven't had a chance to spend hours working on these questions and yeah i often like to do that spend hours working on questions but the first question that i'm going to take which i saw just a couple minutes ago is from megan chan who asks how do we biblically grieve the death of a loved one who wasn't saved since we don't believe in purgatory and therefore we don't pray for deceased people what is an appropriate but still loving response in this situation and how can we kindly correct those who make a well-meaning offer to pray for a dead loved one without being harsh um let's talk about this so let's set aside the purgatory issue and praying for a loved one i'll answer that too but i'm going to start by answering this first question uh what you know how do i biblically grieve the death of a loved one who wasn't saved and here i want to say um as i try to get clarity on this issue i think grief is good blame is bad and let me explain what i mean by that um in the bible even people who like we look at god's attitude towards the unsaved in scripture old testament and new testament his attitude towards the unsaved is one of like uh arms reaching out desperately wanting to see them come of their own decision to come to the love of god to come to the truth of christ he wants them to be forgiven and we see this in the in the um in the prophets we see them reaching out and and just like in isaiah where he's like oh look look how messed up your life is i'm going to paraphrase here he's like the whole head is struck the whole body is ill but he's like look how messed up your life is would you just turn and repent like how bad does it have to get for you to give your life to god you've been going against him doing your own thing and there is at the same time as there is this threat of judgment there is this desperation that the person would avoid judgment and i think christians if we if we have god's heart towards people we often find ourselves in a place where we are more worried about somebody's salvation than they are and that's kind of what the old testament prophets often are they're like i'm more afraid and fearful and concerned and grieved by your rejection of god than you are that's pretty typical i think that's a good thing and i think the grief of someone who's a lot who has died and we know for some some reason you have really good reason to believe that they were not a christian they did not give their life to christ they and some people if you're not a believer you're hearing me say they didn't have the right religion that's not what i'm saying what i'm saying is we all have sin we've all failed we've all fallen short of god's glory like i have this debt of sin imagine every crime you've ever committed there's like a log book for it well all your moral crimes god has all of them known and one day you'll stand before him and you'll have to have justice for that well jesus he took that justice on the cross we see jesus as the solution to the sin problem of mankind and if you reject jesus if you don't have his covering then you have to stand based on your goodness and you're not good and i'm not good not truly good not not god's version of good right the true version of good so my attitude towards them is grief and sorrow and it's it's totally appropriate to have that attitude to say this is such a tragedy this is such a tragedy but oftentimes grief in those moments of grief and those moments of hardship we often have distorted thinking at those times i've seen it over and over again i've been there in hard moments where somebody died suddenly okay i've been there there's been a couple of times in my life where i was there at that moment where somebody suddenly died you never forget it you don't sleep that night you know and what was crazy is how fast people automatically start to just blame they want to blame and it's not because they're trying to be jerks or something like that i think it's a natural human thing so when somebody suddenly passes whether it's a car accident or a heart attack or a suicide the natural human thing is to immediately try to like assign whose fault it was now some people assign it to themselves this was my fault i didn't do more to stop them i don't think that's a healthy thing to do sometimes they assign blame towards others right this you shouldn't have said what you said or or or on them they shouldn't have done what they did in the case of a christian the danger is that you might assign blame to god right so here's someone who who did not come to christ and i'm grieved rightfully grieved that they are that they are apart from god that they do not know him that they've died without that that relationship with god i'm totally and rightly grieved by that but to then turn and blame god which is i think a natural human thing to do but it's natural in the same sense that it's very bad it's it's we have lots of natural things we do that are not good that's where i would caution someone not to go so grief here is is appropriate and proper blame though especially towards god is is wrong here i want to say take your grieving heart and realize that it has to be coupled with faith in god's goodness right this is about god's justice god's rightness and here you go i don't have to feel great about all this stuff i just have to know that god's character is untainted by all the situations of mankind it's so important that you know god is good and to me this is one of the most obvious facts of reality the goodness of god is unchangeable a god can't be something other than good and to think that the circumstances of this person not knowing christ reflects on christ and not on them when i make them the victim of christ this is what our culture does all the time when they want to basically talk down to christian beliefs they want to make people the victim of christ instead of him being our rescuer who was rejected and that would be my counsel there when it comes to the issue of purgatory um here again when people are in great seasons of grief when they're thinking very very emotionally it's not always the best time to try to do like theological surgery on them and so that's something i've not only been told but this is something i think is accurate i think it's true when people are here's a here's one way to put it and life isn't really this way but this helps think of people around the thinking level or the feeling level okay this isn't reality but this is like a helpful way of looking at things if they're on the thinking level then you can approach them with thoughtful responses to help correct thinking but if they're on the feeling level and they're responding in feelings then you you want to sort of communicate on that level to them or if you can build a bridge from one to the other that's fine nothing's inherently wrong with being on the feeling level except that sometimes we say things without thinking now if someone's like um i'm so sorry you know you lost so and so i'll pray for them at that moment i'm not like well let's talk about that like this is not the moment where i want to correct their theology i just think it's bad timing and so i care about it i think it's an issue i think i want to deal with it but i'm certainly not going to pick that moment let's let's make an object lesson at this moment right here about this issue i just think it's the wrong time so i would just be like thank you i appreciate your sentiment you know and then i'd move on um yeah the more you know christ the more you know about the word of god the more opportunities you have to correct everybody who gets everything a little bit wrong or even in a big way wrong so the more self-control you have to have about when that correction should come you might see me doing the stuff online i'm correcting people all the time all day long i'm just correcting correct and correcting or whatever trying to give correct theology even if i'm not addressing it towards anybody but i don't do this in my personal relationships because i want to be patient with people the same way god is patient with me and that would be my counsel on that uh question number two is from tony oshikonlu who says what does plato have to do with christianity i recently read that plato had as much influence on christianity as the bible thanks um tony i'm a little out of my depth on the answer to this question so i'm only going to say a couple little things this is what i've gleaned and i say gleaned because i haven't looked deeply into it there are those who suggest that a lot of the stuff that we see in the new testament right or or perhaps even post new testament that we see developing in the church that it comes from greek philosophy and greek thought in my bit of experience in this i think that this often comes through having a really shallow sort of understanding of what jewish thought and greek thought really are like and so if this happens a lot when people are looking at ancient history they have a really sort of caricature version like if you think about what the germans were like during during world war ii you have you probably have a caricature version of the germans in your head that's pretty pretty villainous now it's true there was a lot of villainy going on there but there's a there's also a bigger story going on there i'm not defending anybody i'm just saying that our understanding of history is often based on these caricatures and that can be the same way with jewish thought greek thought ancient near eastern thought we often have caricatures of them so i would just say this my short answer what does plato have to do with christianity well there may have been some influence there but that doesn't mean that he is like the influencer for their thought right and and even if he helped define some terms and to find some ideas that some of the new testament authors or or that later christians would have talked about that doesn't mean that they are like his original concepts right because there's a there's a popularizer of an idea an originally different idea and anyway i know i'm speaking rather vaguely but that's because again this is an area i don't have as much experience in so um i'll give you one example i know a little bit more about philo for instance philo he's a jewish guy but he was very much like a very influential thought person and this is a guy who was alive during the time of christ at least during the birth in the birth of christ like philo's alive and he's active then and he develops this idea of the logos that the logos that and this is what john talks about in john 1 in the beginning was the logos the word and there was with god the word was god and there's some connection between john's way of using logos and philo's way of using logos there's some connection there but what i see in john is john taking the idea and making sure it has his own meaning that might be have some similarities to philo right but it has its own meaning like this is the the pure version of this and so if someone wants to say um try to do something weird with the connection between john and philo that's what i'm going to say hold on slow down john isn't just copying and pasting here there may even be some similar ideas going on but he has his own thoughts and if we just look at the new testament as if they're borrowing from this other philosophy over here and don't realize they have their own thoughts then we have that caricature of them so let them stand alone is my thought question number three from adidam i i can't pronounce your name uh aydah damola ayaji i'm so sorry i butchered your name uh is or was christianity guilty of impeding critical thinking and exploring the mysteries of the cosmos and physics of the natural world how would you advise a believer involved in both worlds let me take a drink of my coffee as i ponder this deep deep historical philosophical scientifical thought okay i've pondered it and am i ready um i would reword it like this i would say was christianity guilty no i think this is a dangerous thing to say this and i'll explain why in our modern culture christianity is is used in a way where okay let's put this away open the bible look at jesus look at authentic christianity that comes from christ and the disciples the apostles the writings of the scriptures this is authentic christianity this is true christianity now look at our our culture and gather 10 christians together and look at their behavior and notice this their attitudes their behavior even maybe some of their beliefs is not the same thing as this authentic christianity so when we say was christianity guilty of something let's say these ten people rob a liquor store could i say christianity's guilty of robbing a liquor store what if but what if these 10 christians supposedly they use christian teachings they use the bible to try to support their robbery of the liquor store right we go into the land and take it right and you know this is they marched around the liquor store for 40 40 days before they went in and took everything if that's what they did do i blame christianity no because this is not authentic biblical true christ-like christianity and i think this is something that our culture has missed right now our culture is really really um critical of christianity but they make no difference between any christian they pick out that they hate versus what scripture actually says so you have people breaking into the white house or into the um the chambers that happened not too long ago in january and there they are and they're praying and i'm like to me someone who who cares about authentic true christianity according to following jesus i look at that and i go that's not this but many people thought that is this like that is christianity so when you say is christianity guilty of hindering scientific progress in the past i think no because true christianity doesn't hinder scientific progress it provides a lot of the philosophical background and grounding that we need for instance true biblical christianity teaches that the world runs by laws that god has set up why is that important science is based on the idea that you can do repeatable experiments because there are generally rules for how the universe works and it's and it happens the same way pretty much every time and this is why you can you could test and experiment and rely on the answers to those experiments christianity suggests that a that god he more than suggests right but it says that god created all these things that means a highly intelligent creator designed all the universe and so as we look and evaluate it scientifically we can we can evaluate it as things have um function and inter interconnectivity and these different things that this is predictable on christianity now when you go to say the time of galileo or something like that there's a lot of myths about it was was the were christians holding back galileo from his theories and the answer is uh not exactly no you see science of the day that is the people who studied the natural the natural world they were opposed to galileo's theories the church right had connected itself in some ways to those people but that's not because of scripture that's because it was a prevailing scientific theory and scientific theories once popular are very hard to dethrone and you can get persecuted by science right because it's not science doesn't even exist right science is just whatever this group of people say science says all that to say christianity provides the the the fountain spring from which science can function well and it doesn't hinder it in that fashion and there's countless christian scientists and brilliant physicists and all this sort of thing to help support this idea um there was something else i wanted to say let me read your question one more time make sure i answered everything i wanted to about it you said was christianity guilty of impeding critical thinking and exploring the mysteries of the cosmos and physics of the natural world how would you advise a believer involved in both worlds so yeah i would i would say we i don't think christianity is naturally guilty of that plenty of people claiming christ could be guilty of that but really okay i'll speak for myself as a christian if i was also deep in science i'd be thinking that i have i have to have integrity to be honest with the evidence i see i have my my faith and trust in god in christ i don't separate the two right but i i see that god is the maker of this world and i'm going to deal with um with science in a way that is worshipful like i i look at the thing i'm discovering and finding out about is something that reveals god's glory i don't see the conflict here and if you want to deal with young earth old earth stuff and evolution stuff like that i'm that's too much for today and probably too much for me to deal with it's not really my area i would want to follow the evidence where it leads i think that my christian worldview wants me to do that silas abrahamson says deep theological and philosophical question does god have a sense of humor um and it kind of is deep and it's kind of like just interesting at the same time so does god have a sense of humor um scripture says god laughs like that's i'm quoting scripture like god laughs and so if the bible tells us that god laughs then there must be something he finds humorous so ergo vis-a-vis therefore god has a sense of humor he finds things humorous which implies that some things are objectively fun i think right because god has a sense of moral right and wrong but that's because things are really morally right and wrong i think some things are objectively funny it's actually funny and um and that's interesting now also in scripture there's various things that imply this as well like when jesus talks about the plank in your eye uh you know you're you're saying to your brother i'm going to help you with a speck in your eye this is matthew 7 but you have a plank in your own eye the plank is like the size of like a 2x4 and he says you have this two by four sticking out of your eye i think that was meant to be humorous i think it was meant to be funny um and it is funny and usually pastors joke about it when they teach that passage for that very reason there's other various things god does he he uses humor actually god uses mockery i know this might be a surprise to people but he uses mockery he talks about the idols of the nations he goes they have eyes but they cannot see they have ears but they cannot hear these wooden idols or these gold idols that they would make and so he actually mocks and ridicules them and rightly so it doesn't mean you have permission to mock anybody you want we tend to do these things poorly even if they can occasionally be done we tend to do them wrong god doesn't write but but yeah so i think that there is legitimacy for humor i think laughter is absolutely fine and good um and healthy um so yeah humor man humor now there are those who like they they treat pleasure as though it's sinful this is not true right so pleasure is treated as sinful so like a husband and wife being intimate together there's something sort of bad about that like there are some who have in the name of christ but not not consistent with christianity they have acted like the only time a husband and wife can be together is to procreate like if if you're not doing this to have a kid you shouldn't even do it because there's just like something wrong with it this is not like here's an example of greek philosophy entering into christianity here's an example of it right because there were those who there was different types of greek philosophies but one of them was the idea that all this stuff in the natural was wicked and so you should abstain from it and so you would abstain you don't don't eat any good food don't laugh don't have a good time don't play any games i don't think that's consistent with christianity i think the biblical view remember we come starting from old testament to new is that all these pleasures of life are given by god for us to thoroughly enjoy and just rejoice in and give him glory pleasure does present an open door to sin because if something tastes good you might be tempted to eat too much of it but you should still be able to eat it and say thank you god right so like here's something i thank the lord for right here i'm gonna show it to you guys i'm not sponsored here but orange tic tacs orange tic tacs are fantastic thank god for them but if i eat that whole box the next five minutes perhaps perhaps i've gone too far with it and so we want to have that balance of pleasure's good pleasure something you should be enjoying go too far with it um humor is like that too humor is good it's something to enjoy but humor also has a dangerous side this is if i joke about the nature of god if i joke about the glory of christ if i joke about things that ought not be joked about that devalues those things if i've perverted humor these things is this is where it turns to sin right but it's not sinful naturally i think humor is inherently a wonderful thing and it can be turned towards sin i think that should be our attitude towards pretty much all areas of pleasure i think that's a biblical view right that the carnality wickedness sinfulness isn't pleasure it's pleasure out of context pleasure in the wrong way pleasure out of proportion stephanie morse says are there biblical examples of people being baptized more than once i was baptized lds but don't consider it to be a legitimate baptism i want to be re-baptized now that i've found christ is it okay oh i wonder if i could find this passage there is there's one actually an example um and it is in act let me find it real quick acts 19. so in acts 19 let's read this together and i'm before i comment on it let me refresh my mind because i haven't actually read the passage with your question in mind is this an example of being baptized more than once sorta let's let's read through the passage and let's let's think about it i'll answer your question about your own situation and it happened that while apollos was at corinth paul passed through the inland country and came to ephesus there he found some disciples so there's already people believing while he's there in ephesus and he said to them did you receive the holy spirit when you believed and they said no we have not even heard that there is a holy spirit so he's like wait a minute you're disciples you're believers you haven't even heard of the holy spirit then verse 3 and he said into what then let me help you find the spot into what then were you baptized they said into john's baptism okay so there's there's more going on this is just a truncated version of their of their conversation right so they they know he knows they were baptized right and they're believers they're disciples but they don't really know about the holy spirit they don't seem to know that much about jesus even why is this it's probably apollos in the in the book of acts apollos was if if memory serves me here was at ephesus prior and he was the guy that was preaching but only up till the up till the baptism of john so he's like preaching repentance and all that but he doesn't know about the resurrection of christ he doesn't know about all those things so he's later pulled aside by a couple a woman and a man who helped educate him in better theology they give him the fuller message and then apollos is like a powerful person who is as far as evangelism and debate he does debate with jews goes to the synagogues and he proves mightily proves that jesus is the christ using old testament prophecy which is like one of my favorite things okay i think likely i'm putting two and two together here paul's running into some of apollos's previous people either people he preached to or people he was maybe associated with they've been baptized by john they're expecting the messiah but they just don't know all the story of jesus this is in ephesus okay they haven't heard the whole story and so he's like well what were you baptizing to if you don't know about the holy spirit jesus gave us the holy spirit from the beginning of the church you baptizing to jesus you know about the holy spirit and then paul says john baptized he's differentiating between john's baptism and what he's telling them john baptized with the baptism of repentance telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him that is jesus okay that much they knew they were going to believe in one who's coming after but they didn't know maybe he didn't know it was jesus on hearing this they were baptized in the name of the lord jesus now that sounds like they were water baptized that's what it sounds like to me because john all the term baptized is being used in a water sense what were you baptizing to we were baptized into repentance by john's baptism oh well john baptized with water into repentance then they heard this and they get it seems re-baptized because now they've got the fuller message they heard something that was true but it was incomplete and now they want the rest of the story they seem to get water baptized again and if that's true if i'm right there this may have bearing on your situation and when paul had laid his hands on them the holy spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying they were about 12 men in all which is exciting uh do you have to speak in tongues every time you know you get baptized or the spirit comes upon you no you don't have to the bible doesn't say that don't believe people who say it says that it doesn't say that it just says they did it it doesn't say everyone always has to do this but it's neat and it's neat because it's showing like confirmation to them that jesus truly is the one that john was he was a forerunner for okay so how does all this apply to you i'm gonna read your question again stephanie are there biblical examples of people being baptized more than once well yes that's the only one i'm aware of is that one right there that i think would be applicable at all so that's one i was baptized to lds but don't consider it to be a legitimate baptism i want to be re-baptized now that i found christ is that okay i would say absolutely like here's this group they don't have like false theology they just have incomplete theology but in the lds church you were actually baptized into false theology so you're even a step further back i think it's entirely wonderful and good and appropriate for you to then get baptized for the first time in the name of the true son of god jesus christ for for your belief in the true gospel of christ i think this is a wonderful thing i would highly recommend it um please go for it stephanie and i think it's the right thing to do loretta taylor has a question and she asks in numbers 33 verses 3 through 4 yahweh never denies other gods are we then to understand gods of other religions allah zeus etc as very much real gods albeit demons thank you mike god bless you this i have my answer and i'm going to share it with you but this is an issue that is debated but let me offer you three views one which is absolutely false one which is one i don't agree with but which is is supported by a growing number of people right now especially with the work of dr michael heiser and then um my own perspective on that which does have some similarities right there's some things obviously i'm going to agree with with dr heiser but um i'm not on board so here we are let's look at the passage and we'll talk about it oh and if you guys see the strawberries in the live chat that means we have all 20 questions selected i've got all 20 in front of me i'm just working through them now so i mean you could keep if you keep posting questions we're not going to reprimand you for it but there's no need um i won't be able to do more than the 20. so numbers 33 3 it says they set out from ramses in the first month on the 15th day of the first month on the day after past the passover the people of israel went out triumphantly in the sight of all the egyptians while the egyptians were burying all their firstborn whom the lord had struck down among them on their gods also the lord executed judgments so this is the theme in exodus uh the exodus is all these plagues that come upon egypt and it specifically says in scripture as commentary on on the plagues themselves one of the functions of the plagues is god executing judgment on the gods the gods of the egyptians and so if you look at the plagues like the nile river they worship the nile river and it represented a deity to them and he turns it to blood they worship the the livestock and he kills the livestock they worship the firstborn of pharaoh as a god and he slays the firstborn so all of the different plagues were like attacking specific deities that they believed it excuse me now ah man this this deserves a very long an exhaustive video response but here's my short answer the one wrong view the view you cannot hold as a christian is that there is and for instance osiris there is a zeus there is these other gods they actually exist as beings that have the attributes of osiris or zeus or you name it that is the that is the one view no christian can have no biblical believer no bible believer should have that view zeus with the attributes of zeus does not exist now there are two other views i said i mentioned three there's two other views i'll get my view and then i'll share michael heiser's view or maybe i'll do michael heiser's first and forgive me if i get this wrong this is my best understanding of it and you can read he has tons of free resources online you can check him out um i although i'm not on board with his perspective on this but if i understand him right the perspective is that there are these things that are elohim they're not exactly angels they're not exactly demons they are they're like they're like gods with the lower case g his view is that these elohim these things are not they're not different like here's yahweh here's here's god the god of the bible right the god created all things he's not like them they're ontologically completely different beings okay so they're not it's not like god and then he has these other equals rather god has created various spiritual beings of different powers now when they claim to be gods this is in that context lowercase g these just sort of powerful spiritual beings the ones that might be impersonating thor or osiris they're not really like thor and osiris but they do exist these beings now my view is to categorize these much more like in a flat sense when paul writes about them and suggests that there aren't they don't exist but they're actually just demons um i wonder if i could find the passage real quick this like i said deserves a lot more um a lot more discussion than i'm gonna be able to give you today but here's the passage in in first corinthians 10 um let all back up just a bit consider the people of israel the verse 19. what do i imply then that food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything no i'm implying or i imply that what pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to god i don't want you to be participants with demons and that's a pretty flat way to look at it like oh well what's behind the idols is demons there's a demonic spirit that's behind these false religions different demonic spirits behind different ones and so behind dagon behind but all there's these spiritual beings that are trying to reinforce and push forward these false religions they want to receive the worship to themselves they want to be like god themselves so they're called gods but that's what they're called because that's what the people are calling them but if you pull back the spiritual curtain they're just demons that would be man i i really should do a long thing on this one of these days because i feel like i'm just sometimes when you summarize things you just know that you haven't given it the three-dimensional treatment it deserves um so yeah thorn zeus and all that no they don't exist not on a christian worldview some spiritual being behind them probably does the question is what exactly is the nature of that being what's the right term for them but in no way does any christian rightful christian think that any of those beings is like yahweh like the ontologically god is ultimate he's he's eternal he's he's god capital g is the easy way to put it uh number seven earl grey says ask after forgiveness all sin is wiped clean can a person then claim to have never taken part in certain sin in the past if the lord remembers our sin no more why should we okay great question earl grey i'm excited to have you ask this so i went to a a church a very big church locally one time and much larger than my church and much much larger and the sermon there was by like a guest pastor a guest teacher and he taught that we can actually forget sin because if god forgets our sin then we can forget the sin of others and he literally taught that you guys you and me we can actually not remember the sins so if you have a spouse that committed adultery you're like they did i don't remember that and i thought this was a reckless irresponsible and harmful message that is not what the scripture means when it says that god doesn't remember our sins what it means is a better way to say it in modern english is he won't put it in your face he won't bring it to remembrance again so for instance in scripture when it says and god you know the people of israel were crying out and then god remembered the people of israel or in prayers and psalms where it's like remember us lord they don't actually mean that he's forgotten them this is their way of saying you're gonna you know deal with me now turn and turn to me now help me now and so when we say god won't remember our sins he remembers them no more the idea they're forgotten the idea is that he won't bring it up again it's never going to come up again he's never going to throw it back in your face he's not going to punish you and judge you for the thing you did that's what's meant by not remembered in that sense we want to extend forgiveness the way christ has forgiven us but i can't like actually forget the stuff people have done to me right i mean if you actually start forgetting all the things people have ever done to you in your life there's probably a problem in your brain that you don't remember this stuff that's actually what's going on there so that is i think obvious when you read the scripture and you know god knows everything and this guy was this guy's message was based on the idea god literally he literally doesn't know he's literally i don't i don't know you you committed sin i don't i don't even remember and if you forget your own sin how are you how thankful are you to god in heaven god thank you so much for saving me i mean i guess i don't remember whatever you saved me from all i remember is being good you know that would uh that would decrease our love and appreciation of god yeah so off after forgiveness all sin is wiped clean um that might be a broad way to say that i mean my sin is not held against me positionally in my relationship with god but yet i still suffer sometimes the the pain of sin and the regret of sin and sometimes that's a healthy thing that's like that's a good thing can a person claim to have never taken part in certain sins in the past no that's ridiculous first john says if we say we have not sinned we're a liar and the truth is not in us if i go around telling people well i'm forgiven therefore i never did that that's not true or if they go um some version of i'm not responsible for what i've done in the past and they're trying to have a relationship with other people like that i think that that is a manipulative thing and it's not biblical so there's my honest answer on that that sounds like a very dangerous perspective to start to teach john doe has a question the church i grew up at had extra biblical traditions women wear dresses men are clean-shaven and justify this with proverbs 22 28 and matthew 18 18. is it biblical to mandate adherence to tradition let's look at those passages i'm very interested to see how these passages might be used in that way ah here we go do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set okay first thing we'll notice about proverbs 20 28 is it's a proverb proverbs aren't rules they're often things like it's wisdom i mean it's wisdom literature so the idea of proverbs and this is important is that this is just wisdom probably the best example of this of why proverbs aren't rules is when it says train up a child in the way he should go when he's old he'll not depart from it some people think this means that if i raise my kid as a christian then they can't fall away they can't reject the gospel of christ or or if they do they'll have to come back because this proverb says they will what i would say is the proverb means it's more likely that they will turn to christ it's more likely that they will do the right thing because you've instilled these good things in them from a young age but it's not a rule about life that you have to do this all the time because that's not the nature of the genre of wisdom literature these are proverbs proverbs are riddles they're sayings of the wise a saying of the wise is don't move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set what's an ancient landmark in their context we're talking about property lines that's what we're talking about we're saying like the tribe of of joseph is here right or say ephraim and nasa are here gad is over here dan is over here when they entered the land they set the markers for the different places in which god gave them he divided the land right we read the book of joshua judges we see them dividing the land particularly in joshua right this is the landmark you don't move why because god has given you this and you don't move it it's not to say whatever your grandpa said you have to say the same thing that's not what it's saying i think that would be a misunderstanding so proverbs 20 28 is just in other words my conclusion is that's too little information to say when my pastor says i i have to wear a dress therefore i have to wear a dress proverbs tells me i have to not i can't move the ancient landmark um no um matthew 18 18 jesus says truly i say to you whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven what i wasn't expecting that this verse is probably about exorcism to be honest it's possibly about forgiveness of sin and it's specifically the disciples if it is it's about the disciples being given authority to declare the gospel to people right they're they're being given a powerful thing this this this ability to say to people if you trust in christ you'll be forgiven if you reject christ you will not this is this is possibly what they're saying it also there's uh um inter testamental literature that suggests that maybe may and and this is something i've only listened to a paper being read on this so um so i'm going off that my current thought is the other possibilities that this means exorcism binding and loosing is are terms related to exorcism and this is him reminding the disciples you will be able to go into the territory of the enemy and cast him out because the gospel gospel's gonna be that powerful you know what it doesn't mean for sure it doesn't mean that your pastors can tell you what to wear and if they've bound you to wear dresses you have to wear dresses this if this is honestly like you're in a church that uses those two verses to say that they can tell you what clothes to wear um i'm not saying you have to leave your fellowship but it's definitely you don't want to be under the authority of people who abuse the scripture like this to control other people's lives that's weird and i would um i would not want to propagate that kind of thing i don't think it's going to ruin your christian walk if you fall into that leadership and you do everything they say but it's definitely not biblical this is you know so your final question john doe was is it biblical to mandate adherence to tradition no no it's not and and this is the very nature of we get the ministry of jesus where he's like so hard on them teaching as commands of god the traditions of man this is a really significant issue i worry at what about a church like this i worry what other things do they teach as if they're the commands of god that are really the teachings of man you can't mandate tradition like in this sense when we say tradition versus the the teaching of god's word um maybe a better term because the word tradition sometimes paul uses the word tradition to sometimes refer to god's word it's the spoken or written word of god and so the word tradition is flexible in the scripture let me put it in a different way man-made rules being taught as if they're god-given rules is a very big problem that jesus is very much opposed to and christians have to be opposed to as well man-made rules taught as god made rules is a very very big problem and we should be pushing back against that graciously but confidently pushing back uh let's see here dora ashby says i've been trying to reach skeptics online dora that is rough work but it's good work but they've told me belief in god is irrational and that i must believe rape and torture are okay since i'm a christian because that's what we teach right dora that's it that's all day that's all i teach is guys i just want you to rape and torture totally cool that's christianity no this is you know what but i'm gonna read you have more of your question i'll read in a second but i want to say this while i'm thinking about it dora just like the church quoted proverbs 22 and matthew 18 in the last question just like they they quoted those out of context to support their man-made traditions atheists and skeptics online have have a sort of group think thing going on where they tend to quote scripture out of context distort things in order to support the ugliest version of christianity they can come up with because if they can make christianity ugly it helps their case i care about true christianity i don't think they do not the ones i deal with online usually generally speaking there's very little concern for authentic christianity being dealt with it's more how can i weaponize this verse against christians and things are taken so out of context it's embarrassingly bad your regular conversation with skeptics online starts with them making a claim and you responding that's not what we believe and then you repeat that as you go now you want to be gracious and slow and patient and thoughtful towards them because you want to reach them with the gospel of christ but you are generally trying to tell people it's not what you believe i remember the skeptic i ran into that told me the bible taught we should be cannibals and i was like you know try not to be a scoffer towards the guy i'm just like can you show me the verse and we went through verses for like an hour and a half verse after verse after verse and every verse i just read the context and showed him that's not what it says and then um he didn't care all he wanted was weaponized verses to use against christians uh here we go you say they also say god they also call god evil i'm quoting uh dora here a murderer and a megalomaniac and say christians are wasting their time believing in fairy tales how should i respond to these claims how can i tell when a debate is not going to even be fruitful that's a tough one experience will tell you that like honestly dora you you'll just go for it and then reflect back and say was that worthwhile one of the things i ask myself with online debates is is there an audience if there's an audience even if i can't get through to the person i'm typing with and talking to the audience there's people lookie-looing or is that can i use that as a verb like looky-looing now i'm not even sure but they're rubbernecking what's the term here they they're watching the conversation right they're like just reading it reading it reading it and i've seen this many times where i have like a debate you know back even when my content was had less reach i have a discussion with somebody a skeptic on facebook or on on social media or something and then i'd have people come up a few days later go hey i read that whole conversation i thought it was really good so if there's an audience it may be worth drawing out the debate for the sake of the audience now if you're having a one-on-one conversation you have to ask yourself am i reaching this person and if you're thinking that this is not helping then it's fine to move on may god give you wisdom you learn over time one thing i would say is here's here's what i'm going to guess dora last piece of advice for you they say god's irrational you must believe in rape torture that they're okay that god's evil murderer megalomaniac christians are wasting their time believing in fairy tales this sounds like what i call dumping right i have a video where i two videos where i deal with aaron raw who does this a lot he's just just dumping just dumping when they give out 500 objections to christianity and they don't want to look closely at any of them that's oftentimes an unfruitful conversation so i like to just pick one i'll say okay you said 10 things you hate about god or christianity or my beliefs that's fine let's just pick one and sometimes i'll even let them pick i'll say what do you think is your your biggest reason your biggest issue i'll say what's what's your biggest beef with christianity what is it and then i want to just pick the one issue and talk about that and have a longer conversation about it because i want to really push on that a little bit and get them to think about it but if i can't get them to stay focused enough to have a conversation about one issue if instead if the conversation goes like this um god bless and torture okay well here's the reason why that's not torture god said rape's okay okay that's completely wrong with scripture like you you rape someone you get the death penalty um okay i'm just changing the subject god's megalomaniac okay but you have to understand the nature of god in the universe it's like the dad's not a megalomaniac because he decides whether the kid can use the car or not he's just the dad right and god's the god of the universe okay well fine skip that one bible's full of fairy tales actually there's a lot of historical support for scripture and and they just keep changing the the conversation if they don't care about the answers and they only care about the questions then maybe it's time to move on all right our fish has a question and um i fully admit i'm moving moving slow here but i don't think you guys care arfish says is it biblical to pray against spirits the spirit of offense the spirit of laziness the spirit of depression confusion what is the jezebel spirit and is it real okay is it biblical to pray against spirits in general yes however does the bible support the idea that there is a spirit of offense a spirit of laziness a spirit of depression or confusion i don't think so i don't think so at all i think these are i'm gonna i'm gonna start fires right now i think these are ways that people avoid responsibility for their own issues i'm not lazy i have the spirit of laziness you have to pray for me to overcome my life we are really tempted and i am too look i'm really tempted to externalize my own issues right it's not me choosing to do this over and over and over again it's like it's almost like it's some other version of me this other guy over here keeps doing this i don't know why i do that and um and that's a human thing and when we spiritualize that like i'm not lazy it's the spirit of laziness like no maybe you're just lazy maybe there's no spirit it's you scripture says that when we're tempted it's because we're drawn away by our own desires and enticed so laziness depression that could i'm going to set depression on a different issue um offense okay offense being personally offended by things i don't think that's a spirit that's making you that way i think that laziness i think lust i think cruelty malice bitterness all of those things paul when he writes about this stuff he says put that stuff off put off all wrath malice bitterness clamor dissension he just tells you to put it off he never says it's a spirit that you have to cast out he tells you to put it off that should be my attitude towards sin there are spirits they're actually spirits spirits aren't like um like lust isn't a spirit that goes around and lands on people right no that's lust comes from you that's you put it off that would be my attitude towards those things um confusion depression those are issues that i would say like i could see how like a spirit could cause somebody confusion i could see how um see i see because confusion and depression are not sins whereas laziness lust carnal things those are actually sinful depression and confusion are not sinful i consider those more like struggles and trials you're going through trial don't sin while you're in it but you're not sinning just by experiencing it okay so that's why i want to separate those two um finally you said what's a jezebel spirit and my answer is i don't know that there is such a thing as a jezebel spirit um i mean where is that in in scripture exactly i mean let me just double check something real quick because as far as i know the whole jezebel thing is pretty sparse in scripture okay so we read historically about jezebel in the old testament and i'm just doing a quick search so in first kings we read about her a little bit in second kings as it's talking about the same person as well okay it's all just historical she's just a person in the past then we have revelation 2 20. this is the only other time in the bible that the word jezebel comes up and let me read it to you now revelation 2 20 but i have this against you that you tolerate the woman jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and she teaches and leads my bond servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols jezebel may have been the woman's actual name um it seems likely to me that this is a a slight uh goddess jesus is name-calling this woman she's like jezebel jezebel was was the wife of ahab she was a wicked woman queen of israel and she brought in idolatry and false prophets and she helped push all of israel towards apostasy and so he's like this woman is doing this in the church she calls herself a prophetess she teaches and leads my bond servants astray they commit acts of immorality and eating sacrifice to idols so they're doing horrible wicked things and it's happening in the church and they tolerate her it doesn't mean they support her even they just allow her to be there like she's gotta get her out um so jesus says does this didn't give us warrant to have a term spirit of jezebel no no and there's some churches where it's like that's the spirit of jezebel that's the spirit of jezebel now we're sort of implying there's actually like a disembodied being who's going around and is causing things and you're seeing the 3d spirit world and you're like that's the spirit of jezebel this to me like i'd rather speak in language of right and wrong okay what you're doing is wrong jesus doesn't even call her spirit of jezebel she may be like jezebel calls her jezebel maybe her name is jezebel i don't i don't imagine too many jews were naming their daughters jezebel at the time but um but anyway the uh yeah the facts of it like hey you're leading people astray they're committing acts of immorality you're eating things sacrificed to idols if you want to call someone a jezebel then they've got to be doing those things it can't be a woman who disagrees with you or maybe they're a contentious woman they like to argue and debate they have a spirit of jezebel no that's just um that strikes me as just spiritual bullying of people and i would never do that and if that's been done to you if you're out there it's always a woman because it's jezebel right so if you're out there and you're a lady who's like maybe i am a little strong willed about things maybe i have strong opinions i don't agree with everybody all the time but you don't deserve to be called a spirit of jezebel that's that is disgusting and and not right all right the next one is uh lovisa bengsten bengtsen i think so la lavissa says did mary remain a virgin i heard that the brothers of jesus that are mentioned were actually his cousins and that if she had other sons john wouldn't have needed to care for her all right let's dig in i actually have a video on this topic okay did jesus really have other brothers and i i'd ask if any of the mods can find that and share a link there i'll put a link in the video description below for you guys to check out if you want after this this stream is over i go into a lot of detail on that right like i actually read catholic apologist trying to defend the idea this is a pretty big deal because um it's clear in scripture that mary was not a virgin forever that mary had other children with joseph that's very very clear in scripture however that is completely against the authoritative claims of roman catholicism that mary remained a virgin and it goes against a lot of people's um love of mary right they love mary and i don't mind that you love me i love mary i think mary's great like if protestants respond to catholic exaltation of mary by thinking that we have to like bring her down so to speak now we just have to remind them that she's she's wonderful but she's never exalted like that so did mary remain a virgin no um she had other kids the brothers of jesus the sisters of jesus i go through this in great detail in the video i've got to refer you to it like great detail we actually go through the specific reasons why yeah it's only roman catholic people who would suggest as far as even scholars who suggest that mary didn't have any other kids with joseph this is being driven by their traditions not by reading scripture and letting the bible speak it's just not the reality there's nothing wrong there's nothing wrong with her having other kids there's nothing wrong with that right there's many who think that mary was violated or she was somehow impure if she slept with joseph the marriage bed's undefiled guys there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing impure it's a beautiful wonderful thing so um you've heard the brothers of jesus that are mentioned were actually his cousins no there doesn't seem to be any reason to think that and you can actually look at luke in particular when luke uses the terms he uses the term cousin right he uses brothers and sisters he uses these different terms and uses them in very technical ways luke is a very careful writer so i look at the greek in that video i'm mentioning and we see that she she had she had other sons and daughters sons and daughters um now finally there's the argument in john 19 26 like if jesus had other brothers and sisters then john 19 26 doesn't make any sense so let's read the passage and let's talk through this a bit when jesus then saw his mother now he's on the cross at this point and the disciple whom he loved that's john standing nearby he said to his woman woman behold your son then he said to the disciple behold your mother from that hour the disciple took her into his own household now what is going on here um how let me tell you how catholic would read it typically i i hope i'm getting this right like i often am accused of misrepresenting whoever i disagree with i'm always accused of misrepresenting them i think i'm understanding correctly and i'm trying to be gracious and careful here i think a catholic view would be typically when jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby this represents this disciple john represents all of us and he says to this woman behold your your son she's he's telling mary she's the mother of the whole church she's everyone's mom and then he said to the disciple behold your mother he's saying to all disciples everybody she's the mother for all of us and then from that hour the disciple took her into his own household i don't know what the application of that would be i think that this actually helps us see this is not um some vaguely symbolic thing i think that you can you could you guys can tell right you study the bible you read it carefully all that stuff i just added i just made up when jesus saw his mother and the disciples whom he left standing nearby he said to his mother when we hold your son where does it say that this is extended beyond where do we see in the bible in the book of acts where they call her mother where everybody starts calling her mother where she's taking a leadership role in the church we don't see any of these things then he said to his disciple behold your mother this is just john he just wants john to take care of her and then the proof is in the application which is what i've highlighted on your screen from that hour the disciple took her into his own household jesus was the oldest son for sure he tells john take care of my mom he's dying and he's like john take care of my mom that's what this is take care of my mom probably joseph had already passed away at this point in time this is one of the reasons why we would think he probably had now the only pushback that's consistent with the passage it's what jesus said taking it literally it's what john did took her into his own household now the question is why would john do this if there were other brothers and sisters why wouldn't they take care of her well let me offer several possible answers one they're jerks he doesn't trust them that's possible he doesn't trust them they're not they're not trustworthy to take care of her there's something wrong with them that's possible i don't know if you've had a family before but family dynamics can involve a lot of weird things um another possibility is they financially couldn't take care of her and maybe john could maybe john was able to for whatever reason he had a situation where he could take care of her maybe jesus knew that she wasn't gonna leave um that particular area and she was gonna end up living in the particular where john needed her for some reason or maybe there's something else too according to you know the only resources we've got for for church history on these topics all of the other followers of jesus including the brothers of jesus james and john uh yeah the brothers of jesus including those guys james and jude jude yeah they all died at a younger age from persecution and suffering for the name of christ but john the apostle is the only one of the 12 that we have at least some information to think lived to an old age he lived and lived and lived now why is that significant because jesus having insight into the future grabs the one guy who will be around for years and years to come to make sure that his mom is taken care of and he says take care of her i think that at least makes sense it it maybe we just don't know why he asked john to do it that's fine i don't think you can get from this that jesus uh didn't have any brothers and that's what we should get from this that that's not supported by scripture and again i'll put the link for that video down below and hopefully it's there somewhere in the chat yeah this is a weak point in catholic roman catholic theology some of the stuff is uh a lot easier to support with scripture some of it's a lot harder this is one of the very difficult ones in my opinion and all the attempts to support it just fall short and they fall short because it's not biblical it's tradition um number 12 crystalline sloan says pastor mike thank you for your ministry you're very very welcome crystalline i'm very glad that you get to do it can you please define persecution and speak to whether these pastors imprisoned or penalized for defying public health orders are in fact being persecuted uh crystalline i don't know that i have the insight for you guys on this one i'm struggling with the same questions as you um are are our governments overstepping overreacting or are they reacting properly to the covid stuff i don't actually have the wisdom to know the right answer to that question um when so when a pastor says i feel like convicted i feel like i'm honoring the lord i'm doing the right thing i think i'm doing the right thing to the best of my knowledge and they open their doors even even though they're told not to and i look at it and i go i don't know if that's the right call to make or not i'm just not sure okay i just i'm sorry and there's plenty of you who are very confident and you're probably upset with me for not being sure because you want me to echo your confidence about your answer i'm sorry look my answer my point here is don't look at me for the answer on this question because i myself wish i understood it better just don't know it's super tough for me right now if i had to guess i would i would lean towards the idea that the that the churches staying open is a good thing and they're doing the right thing okay but also the recklessness with which some of them have decided to do these things i think is hurtful for the cause of christ and i think that um if you were to stay open you should at least stay open with as many protections in place as possible but again i feel like i shouldn't be speaking so much about this like i'm talking too much [Laughter] so let me say this um what i see is a pastor who keeps his doors open because he feels like he has to to honor god and i see the government throwing him in prison or jail for that and that does at least it feels like persecution even if the guy shouldn't open his doors does that mean he should be punished with prison because he did or do we give people enough freedom of conscience to honor god in a way that they feel is right and i would lean towards thinking that that is a persecution but i oh man i i feel like you guys should look to someone else who understands this better than me so i apologize that i can't be of greater help rohin john says what are your thoughts on using secular music as a form of worship music where half the lyrics are secular words and the other half is supposedly jesus words i think it's a little strange but i wouldn't say that it's evil or wrong we used to have a guy at our church who would rewrite secular worship songs or music music all the time to turn them into christian songs sometimes worship songs sometimes other things there's one song that gets rewritten a lot in christian circles and that is the song hallelujah where it's actually a really perverted song if you read all the lyrics um i heard there was a secret chord that david played that pleased the lord oh it sounds christian right and it has the chorus hallelujah hallelujah as you listen on the song becomes sexually perverse it's it's just exactly the kind of thing satan likes to do and um and so some have actually taken the because they loved the melody the melody's beautiful and just singing hallelujah is beautiful and so they just rework the words and then they can worship to it initially i would i struggled hearing that being able to join in in worship um over time i realized i didn't bother me anymore for whatever reason so i was able to but i also recognize others might be going through that struggle so if you're going to take secular songs and rewrite them and use them in church you're placing them in front of a large group of people some of whom are going to have a hard time with this and we should at least be gracious to those people and say look i'm not going to be like you're sticks in the mud you're a bunch of legalists like no no i i want to create worship that is as helpful to as many people as possible when they gather together to worship the lord so i don't want to be making worship the time of worship into a controversial time unnecessarily it should be a time of just expressing praise and glory to god so my my answer there is i don't think it's wrong but there's an answer of the question of wisdom about doing it in your local fellowship is my fellowship able to enjoy this and be blessed by this and worship through it or am i creating problems where worship becomes an area a time to debate about instead of a time to praise shauna whitting has a question does 1st john 3 verses 4 through 10 mean you aren't a real christian if you still struggle with sin at face value it's how it sounds but then nobody would qualify for grace so i'm confused um yeah we wouldn't qualify okay let's look at the passage this is a very commonly asked question or passage people ask about i've been asked about it a many a time i'll share some thoughts and i hope you find it and peaceful and and uh grace inducing i hope so um my first rule is this scripture is king here i am looking to understand what it says not force it to say what i want so here let me read it in the new king james first here's the new king james whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin is lawlessness and you know that he was manifested away manifested jesus to take away our sins and in him there is no sin whoever abides in him does not sin if i abide in christ and you have to abide in christ to be saved right if i abide in christ i do not sin whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him this would mean now if you take it with this translation the way it sounds if you sin you've not only are you not saved you've never been saved this would imply if you want to go the sinless perfection route this would imply that christians either lived sinless lives or they were never christians that's not what it's teaching but i can understand how it feels that way especially with this translation little children let no one deceive you he who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous he whose sins is of the devil for the devil his sin from the beginning for this purpose the son of god was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil and did you have another verse you mentioned there all the way to verse 10 whoever has been born of god does not sin for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin if you've been born of god you don't sin and you can't sin because he's been born of god in this the children of the of god and the children of the devil are manifest in other words this is how you know who's christian who's not whoever does not practice righteousness is not of god nor is he who does not love his brother okay very strong words now let me offer you a couple theories i'm gonna share it with you in the new american standard or esv i don't know which whichever we'll look at a couple translations here um so some theories one sinless perfectionism when you get saved you quit sinning or else you're not even a christian now most people don't actually go that route even the sinless perfection people they think you get saved and then you grow in sinlessness until you kind of reach a point of not sinning anymore i don't think that point is real i think that point is what we call heaven that's what we call the you know when i am raised in an incorruptible body and then then i no longer sin there's my sinless perfectionism so it does exist it's just it just depends on getting delivered from this flesh finally um so that's one route to go others would actually say oh yeah well we don't sin in the sense that it's not me doing the sin it's my flesh and so they actually this verse kind of ends up having no application in life because they go okay when it says we don't sin that's because that's my new nature my new nature is not sinning that's my flesh doing the sin and this sort of separates almost like you're two people um and we're not two persons i'm one person and but it's all your two people and one of them is the sinful person you called the old self i think that would be a distortion of what paul means when he talks about the put off the old man at any rate um taking it too far but that's the old man sinning i'm not actually sinning so there there we go like my life might look sinful but that's the old person i am not sinning because whoever's born of god doesn't sin that's another approach i don't think that really fits with the scripture here um like for instance he says here's how you can tell who's a christian and who's not right in in this the children of god and the children of the devil are manifest whoever does not practice righteousness is not of god now if if the if it's a positional thing if it's the idea of it's my righteous person that's doing good it's my old man that's doing bad or my old woman then then how does anyone know how does anyone tell that the children of god are being manifest there's nothing to manifest you look the same as the world so here's my understanding of this passage and let's check back to first john 2. the interpretation that i think we have to rule out i already kind of ruled out the second one the first one is the idea that we ne we don't sin anymore right but look at what the same book this is the same context same author he's not going to contradict himself three minutes later he says my little children these things i write to you so that you may not sin wait so christians don't automatically not sin he's writing you this letter as a way of helping you learn to not sin then he says if anyone sins if anyone sins and now if if you take the um the really strict sinless perfection view of the first john 3 verses 4 through 10 then you don't think christians sin so the way you'd finish this sentence would be if anyone sins he's not a christian he's not saved he's not born again but instead john writes if anyone sins we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous ah children christians i don't want you to sin but if you christian if you sin we have an advocate jesus he's the one who stands on our behalf he makes propitiation for our sin and he is the propitiation and not for ours only but also for the whole world which is why limited atonement is false and little quick swipe and then um let's go back and say okay well how do i reconcile first john 2 that says clearly that christians can sin and that jesus covers us if we do how do i reconcile that with the idea that believers don't sin and i think we go back to first john three and um we look at the context or really the the greek although you don't have to know greek to look at the greek you know there's a way to look at the greek without looking at the greek and that's by just looking at other translations and so here new american standard bible it says instead of like the new king james whoever commits sin it says everyone who practices sin that's different isn't it that practicing sin is not the same as committing because if you do one thing it's a sin but is it a practice so how i understand first john three is it's talking about the person who's living in habitual sinful lifestyle they're not living a life that demonstrates their christian they're living a life that demonstrates they're just living in sin habitual sinful lifestyle doesn't mean that oh christians don't have sins they struggle with regularly that's not what i'm saying but there's an extreme there's definitely a person who names christ but who just lives like the world and first john is suggesting that you you cannot say that person is saved you can't have confidence in that i know this scares people but i think it's what scripture is teaching everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness sin is lawlessness this has to do with the greek tense the greek tense of the verb is the idea that it's an ongoing action it's ongoing action and so first john 2 if you sin we have an advocate but what if you're just you live sin is your life you just live an ungodly wicked lifestyle and you pre and you say you're a christian well he's like oh well then you're not a christian make sure no one deceives you here we have in verse seven make sure no one deceives you the one who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous because if you are born again then the life of god is in you and you naturally live out a godly life perfectly godly no children if you sin you have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous but there is a change there is a difference the way to apply this into our lives and you can see this consistently nasb is probably a good translation for it you can see the it constantly uses the word practice sin the one who's born of god doesn't practice live the lifestyle of sin right he cannot sin not that he never sins but he he doesn't live that lifestyle of sin that's my understanding of first john could i be incorrect um it's possible i think it's consistent though first john 3 8 here's the esv whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil i guess the esv makes it even more clear they make a practice whoever does not practice righteousness down there in verse 10 is not of god okay so it's a lifestyle it's not just an action of sin i think this means that you can look at your life and you can say i claim to be a christian does it look like i'm a christian in my life and if your answer is no i completely look unsaved then you have to really wonder if you've made that true profession in christ and the answer then is to get right with god not to give up i'll go so i guess i'm lost i'm like well apparently you don't know theology very well the answer here is to get your life right with jesus christ if you've been living this backslidden like you you're in a place where you're like i don't even know if i'm christian or not because the way i'm living the only answer is repent and start following jesus in your life that's the only solution to this so i hope you find that helpful let's go to our next question i should move a little quicker um because we're oh no all right jill sworzal stix is that your real name jill that's fantastic swirzel stix if it's not your real name i i wish it was um it looks like a real name the way it's spelled it looks like swirl sticks like you should open up a candy company i'd buy your candy my 12 year old daughter asked me after reading exodus 32 28 if god gives us free will to worship him why did he have moses command the levites to kill those 3 000 people who chose not to oh that's interesting so exodus 32 28 i'll give you guys a little bit of background here what happened in this passage real quick summary um and the sons of levi did according to the word of moses in that day about 3000 men of israel of the people fell uh why okay this is i guess i won't read it all to you but this this passage they they leave egypt to the exodus right there's a new people they've they've done the passover they've covenanted with god and they're making an agreement we're going to obey god we're going to worship god and what happens next is moses goes up the mountain he's gone for a while at this time aaron who's supposed to be like moses his right hand guy aaron his brother builds a golden calf right because they're fearful they're without their leader and they're not really trusting in god there's no faith yet right there's there's just isn't faith so what they do is they build this golden calf and the weirdest thing happens aaron tells the people of this golden idol he says this is yahweh who led you out of egypt he calls the idol yahweh like this blows my mind he made an idol to god right this was this was wrong and they worshipped the idol and they start it it says that they they were playing they rose up to play the implication there is they were doing the sexual behaviors that happened in cult groups at the time they were doing all kinds of wicked things so they're worshiping a false idol they're being perverse and moses comes down the mountain with the ten commandments and he finds them and he throws the commandments down and breaks them big epic scene right the consequence of this is that a lot of people who rebelled against god and even when moses came down they didn't rush back over to moses they still didn't repent then they are killed for their rebellion because god is not going to create a nation of idolaters he's trying to create a people for himself and they're agreeing to go with him and be his so why if god gives us free will does do they get punished and i think the answer is this and this is what i would tell your daughter um is that free will doesn't mean you don't get consequences for your choices they made a free choice to worship this idol and to rebel against god they made a freewill choice but that doesn't mean you have no consequences so your daughter maybe she has a brother she has the free will to punch him in the nose she can do that you're not going to hold her arms behind your back the rest of her life like she could do it but there will be consequences if she does it and so we have free will to make choices we make our decisions but god is going to deal with us so we have freedom but freedom isn't right freedom isn't isn't permission even um freedom is just is the ability to do things and we we suffer consequences based on what we do mary strickland question 16 says even though i know people as a whole who were made by god because god made adam how do i know that i or people individually are also made by god especially when they are conceived out of sin oh this is an interesting question mary so you're like okay you know god made adam but you know he made adam like made made adam me i'm just sort of like the consequence of biology right and and my parents coming together okay so there's a different couple different ways to try to answer this question one's a very interesting question about where does the human soul come from now some people think the human soul is purely biologically created like there's something that happens when you know sperm and egg come together and a new human is created in that moment that a soul is developed naturally okay but there are a lot of other people who would suggest that at some point later on a soul is is is created god like specifically does a creation moment creating a soul either at that moment of conception or at some later time now if that's true if if it's that kind of view of the creation of the soul happening in the womb then god has a direct miraculous hand in the life of every human being that's interesting isn't it so then you were made like that there is a sense of your your creation is happening individually or each made by god okay i don't know the answer to that question where i don't know how to answer the question of our souls like that um you can have your opinions about that i'm not sure what the right answer is so there's another sense and that is that god foreknew you he's known all things and he created the world this way now the world is so intricate and there's so many like butterfly effect things going on in the world that if he had made the world slightly different you would never have existed right because if if the world was a little different then my mom might not have met my dad and i never would have come into being which means that my existence is part of the plan of god's creation god he intentionally knew me like he said to jeremiah before before i formed you in the womb i knew you so yes there is a personal intimate thing um so what i'm suggesting is that when it comes to our existence it's like the pushing of dominoes the same guy that's set up and pushed the first domino can be can be given credit for the intentionality of all the dominoes now within that he allows us to make free will choices but he knew all those free will choices and so at least when it comes to your eternal soul existing i think that god is deliberate god god knows you you were you were more part of his plan than you were part of your parents plan and that's encouraging langille zandi says hi pastor mike hi langille how would you counsel someone who feels their passion for the lord dying not praying anymore not reading the bible my first counsel is consider this a red flag pray that god would restore your passion pray that the lord would help you in this but i would also then start to evaluate my life if this is me i've been there if this is me i'd start to ask is there specific like sin in my life that is sucking the passion out of my life are there specific issues that are like weighing on me that are causing me to go through this now if you know what those are address those let's say you have no idea i i don't know i don't know of any sin i'm doing i don't know of anything that's wrong except when you say i'm not praying anymore not reading the bible i'm going to suggest that those are problems in themselves so do spiritual things scripture says in in james draw near to god and he will draw near to you and what's interesting in james is that it talks about people who are sinning and it says for them to to to ring their hands to like repent to weep and to mourn now it's weird to tell somebody weep and mourn now back in the olden days they would do mourning a little differently than we do we we tend to just be like i'm mourning because i'm crying so i guess my morning but they would be very deliberate about it like they put on sackcloth or dark clothing and they would go around in like outward acts of mourning that weren't necessarily connected to their feelings but which probably helped promote feelings i'm going to suggest that you take some outward actions of coming to god that it might draw your heart to him as well read the bible pray go to church put on some worship music and worship the lord ask god to restore your heart i'm saying that when our hearts are all funky we don't have necessarily a switch to flip to fix our hearts but what we can do is direct our steps and let our hearts follow afterwards the heart often the emotions often they they trail behind us there's a lag okay there's like where we are and there's where our hearts are and if you keep walking towards the lord your heart will follow eventually so seek the lord draw near to him he'll draw near to you another way to put this in read the letter that jesus gave for the church in ephesus in the book of revelation to them he said like they lost their first love and so we told him to go back and do the first works so i'd ask you langille what was that first stuff you did when you first when you were at the highest moment of your love for god and your passion for god what were you doing then go back and do those things chris levy says my question is how do you bring together an inerrancy and preservation to modern translations which say verses have been added and taken away end of marx acts 8 37 um okay inerrancy and preservation have to do with the word of god but when you say um i i guess okay so i'm going to answer this from my perspective which is that in these passages there's verses where how do i summarize all this this is kind of a big issue there's verses where we where okay now let me start over false start most of the bible the vast vast majority of the bible there's no question about it okay you pick up the bible open to a page put your finger on the page like that verse is original we know it's original there are occasionally places where you go the ending of mark is that original i'm going to do a whole thing on that when we get to mark 16. or you or you have acts 8 37 or something you have these different passages is that does that belong or does that not belong now when in doubt translators will usually put the verse in the text with a footnote or if they feel like more likely it's not original then they'll put it in the footnote with a little number next to it so you can go to the footnote to find it generally speaking textual criticism says sometimes we move those footnotes around we go oh you know we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna put that verse up here now instead of down here now how do i as a practical christian deal with all this i say this that what i have is the whole bible for sure there may be additional verses in my bible they're not heretical in no case are they teaching theology that gives me different theology and this is important to know because practically speaking you're like am i being misled no there's no place where these extra verses would be teaching you bad theology there's none of that going on so really i've got the whole bible inherent and preserved the question is do i also have a little bit of extra stuff in there and if when they're not sure they tend to include it because what would you rather do if i'm not sure about this verse of course i'll include it i'm not going to get rid of it if i'm not sure and that's the right attitude to take so there's my short answer on this chris i don't think this infects affects preservation or inerrancy because it's about extra not less so if i have the whole bible plus some well i've preserved inerrant and more okay i don't want more exactly to be honest i don't but that's not an inerrancy issue um number 19 we're almost done stephen richeson guitar says how do we know parts of the new testament are reliable that narrate jesus when he's alone without witnesses example being tempted in the wilderness prayer in the garden of gethsemane thank you so i'll give a couple answers um one jesus could easily have simply told people what happened when he was alone he could have easily just told somebody right he goes to the wilderness they come back hey what happened jesus and he could tell them i was tempted by the devil like he could just tell them the story so there's there's there's plenty of things people know about you that happened when you were alone um with the garden of gethsemane i think people could hear him he actually he left but he drew peter james john he drew them a little closer to him he went a little further i think they could hear him as he was agonizing in prayer so i think that he wasn't alone there um yeah he could told him now now that be on a very natural human level easy he tells them what happened they ask or they or somebody did witness it you thought he was alone but somebody was close enough to hear it or see it another answer is that the new testament authors are writing under inspiration of the holy spirit jesus himself tells them like the the holy spirit will bring to remembrance everything i've told you and so we we see the activity of the holy spirit in the authors of the gospels um now would i jump there immediately like oh so like mark's writing and he just goes i just know what jesus said there i just know it um no my first thought would be to look for a natural explanation for that like they asked him what happened in the wilderness jesus and he just told them that would be my my thought yeah last question from bluegreen you don't know if you're blue or green yeah one of those colors could kill you what happens to people who become unclean impure in leviticus the whole day bad or negative things or they just can't go into the temple yeah this is just like a ritual impurity or uncleanness they touch something and they're unclean until the end of the day that means that they would not want to touch someone else to spread that uncleanness and that they're they're ritually unclean so they're not going to be able to go perform certain activities in the temple that's all that means so the funny thing about this is that a lot of people like to mock the old testament for its purity and cleanliness laws but many of these laws have incredible pragmatic value like there is for instance the recipe that god gave for this water of cleansing they had to use the special water of cleansing the recipe they gave it looks like it's a recipe for soap like it renders its rendered soap is what it looks like and i'm i'm curious i mean i think it's probably soap as you look at the recipe and you look at the ingredients and you look at how to make soap on your own you're like that looks the same and i think this is so neat because it would have been like a hand washing cleanliness thing you know if you touch a dead body you can't touch anything else for a while i'm like this is actually really healthy for their culture now not every law was made for sanitation and health but like the jews they if they went number two they got to go outside the camp to do it they can't just go in the camp yet like during the civil war one of the problems was that these guys were digging little holes and just going right next to their own tents and this creates an unsanitary environment so that wounds get infected more often and more likely and it's just neat this is neat that god in many ways was protecting them through those very laws and they just through obedience just saying i don't understand the spell just do what god says that they were actually being preserved and protected i think that's a great a great lesson just trust god do what he says if you don't understand it that's okay you just understand that he said it and you trust him in it all right y'all check this out monday monday i'm teaching 1 p.m i'll be joining you to talk about why didn't jesus know the day or the hour we'll get in through that next wednesday i have an interview i did with a 16 year old i think he was 16 but he's a teenager from belgium who gave his life to christ because of not only my ministry because of other online ministries like what do you mean drama craze ministry cameron bertuzzi's capturing christianity and david wood and then william lane craig so all of those ministries all helped lead him to christ he went from atheist to christian now he's this is kind of cool he's written a paper and in the paper he defended the resurrection of christ he then his teacher pushed back on it he then took the questions his teacher had and he did an interview with me on the topic um we just did this a few days ago and i've edited the video and it's gonna go live on wednesday you get to see the interview you go to meet mario and i think that'll be pretty neat um let's see other than that i will put a link down below and i'll put one here as well to the video i was talking about on did mary have other kids the virginity of mary is that like a perpetual virginity thing and i'll get into great detail there for you i hope you'll check it out otherwise god bless you keep you make his face to shine upon you lift his countenance upon you and give you peace

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 59,396

Rating: 4.9186163 out of 5

Keywords: 20 questions, BibleThinker, Mike Winger, question and answer, episode 26, part 26, learn to think biblically about everything

Id: DdTdA_hXEGM

Length: 86min 42sec (5202 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021