20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 29)

all right it is good to be with you guys today we're going to take 20 questions from the audience right now and may i introduce the question counter this is this is a new thing for us but many times in the live chat you guys are asking like hey what question is he on well we're on question number one and so now we can keep track of our 20 questions as we go through today's first question comes from dakota france and the question is what exactly does jesus mean in matthew 12 verses 1 through 8. when he says we must obey his commands do we receive special rewards for obeying the sabbath and are we jeopardized for not obeying the sabbath great question dakota okay let's look at this passage we're going to read it together all eight verses and let's see if we can think biblically about it um if you're new here my name is mike winger i am a pastor in southern california and my agenda and goal is to help people learn to think biblically about everything because i really think that it transforms and changes your life rewards you in so many ways when you know what god is telling you and how he would have you think and live and protects you against so many problems that could crop up in life and all anyway just countless blessings from the word of god if you're not sure what i'm talking about read psalm 119 today and you'll see all right so jesus as lord of the sabbath that's at least the title but here matthew chapter 12 the actual text of scripture not a title that uh you know a publisher put there it says at the time at that time jesus went through the grain fields on the sabbath his disciples were hungry and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat but when the pharisees saw this they said to him look your disciples are not doing or doing excuse me what is not lawful to do on the sabbath now they had a ritual where you had to wash your hands before you could eat and this is this is we'll call this religious nitpicking okay that's not to say that it's wrong for religious people to say hey that's a bad behavior that's a good behavior there's nothing wrong with that but this is this is this is taking things into a bad place in this particular case so this is not actually commanded in the old testament they're they're taking a tradition they say it's not lawful but it's not actually in the laws of the old testament this is their expansions of those laws the extra rules so the way that the they they considered these things some rabbis they would talk about this and they'd say like well there's there's the law there's the torah and then what the rabbis do with the with that's the written law is with the oral uh the traditions right the additions to scripture in fact the word addition is in tradition isn't it interestingly enough sort of anyway the that's like a fence that they put around the law to make sure you don't violate the law so they're going to make it even more strict and that's what they did with this so they're upset that jesus disciples aren't obeying this and here's his response he could easily just say keep in mind jesus could easily just say that's not in the law that's your tradition but he goes a lot further and he says something more profound verse three he said to them have you not read what david did when he was hungry and those who were with him how he entered the house of god and ate the bread of the presence which it is not lawful for him to eat nor for those who are with him but only for the priests or and here comes a second example have you not read in the law how the sabbath on the sabbath the priests in the temple profane the sabbath and are guiltless so these two examples what he's saying here is like here's an example of david he's fleeing from saul and he gets the bread from the temple him and his men have fled without food and they they take that bread so they won't starve so that they can have the energy to continue fleeing because saul's trying to kill them the the priest is the guy who gives them the bread and then he gets killed as a result saul persecutes and kills him but what's interesting about this is that that was a violation of the law and jesus is speaking about it as though it was okay and then the priests they're working on the sabbath on the sabbath when everyone's resting the priests actually have a lot of labor to do so they work on the sabbath just like a pastor today he's not resting when you go to church you might be chilling but for the people who are putting on the service it's a lot of work and labor and he says but they're guiltless now jesus is not this is where some reckless people i think want to take scripture and suggest that jesus is saying see the law you could just break the law don't worry about it la shmoo like no jesus thought every jot and tittle right was supposed to be obeyed every like dotted eye across t it was all important but there's a principle and many rabbis even in jesus time would have acknowledged it and the principle is the idea that um there are hierarchies of of importance okay and so david's being hunted and he'll be killed it's legitimate for him to violate the sabbath legitimate because life is just that complicated so if you're very much a very rules-minded very like very very strict rules-minded person this might be a little bit harder to wrap your head around most of the time your very rules-minded mentality keeps you safe because you're not playing games you're not you're not you know there's the people who are super flexible they're on the other end of the spectrum here it's there's always an excuse to break a rule it's always legit but really you know i would limit those excuses to like human life is at stake or there's a clear command of god you're obeying don't use the law to stop the work of god in that sense but let's read on and let's connect this to the sabbath because that's dakota's question do we receive special rewards for obeying the sabbath and are we jeopardized for not obeying the sabbath he goes on and says i tell you something greater than the temple is here he's talking about the kingdom of god that jesus is bringing the himself and the kingdom he's preaching it's greater than the temple that's a that's his huge theological bomb jesus himself is dropping right there and if you had known what this means i desire mercy not sacrifice you would not have condemned the guiltless for the son of man is lord of the sabbath so he's the boss of the sabbath this is these are such big words that jesus is claiming for himself um now to answer the rest of your question dakota i would actually go to other scripture okay i'll go to romans 14 i would go to galatians and i would tell tell us two things just just two things we are not under the law that's the first thing we're not under the law read the book of galatians romans 14 though specifically talks about observing days like the sabbath and here's where we need to be flexible you can observe the sabbath if you want you don't have to jesus is talking here in matthew 12 to a group of jewish people who are under the law like they're legit under the law so the debate about whether something's appropriate or not on the sabbath is legit for them but when we get to the gospel going to the gentiles in the book of acts and we look at it in romans galatians we see that we're not under the law so the sabbath is not binding upon you you can observe it if you like it's not required is there a blessing in it well there's definitely a blessing in taking time off okay there's a blessing in that there's also a nice thing in that you're doing it for the lord and romans 14 approves of this it's like hey if you observe the day observe it to the lord like go ahead and do that for the lord if you want but we can't bind it on people i don't want to look at the person who's not observing sabbath and tell them you're missing out on a blessing because that's not true that's not true they're just not observing the day and it's to the lord that they're not doing that and that's fine so it's completely in christian liberty whether we observe the sabbath and how we how we might go about doing that all right turka orenzova says dear mike i struggle a lot with bad thoughts popping into my head out of nowhere i'm kind of horrified and i don't agree with them is it possible they can come from the enemy any advice please um okay so my opinion i don't know if we have like really strong biblical teaching about what the limits of satan's abilities are my impression is that he can like throw ideas at us i think that that is possible i think satan can throw ideas at us um and you might be like well that sounds really weird mike but well you know i'm throwing ideas at you right now like i'm communicating to you and perhaps say there's a way in which satan can do something like this so i could give you an idea i could tell you an idea and i'm sort of forcing my thoughts upon you but you don't have to accept them they're just my thoughts you can reject them you can accept them you can think about them it's up to you i think that satan's like sort of fiery darts we read about in ephesians i think some of those are thoughts and ideas there's actually a scripture that says that satan quote put it into the heart of judas iscariot to betray jesus there's also jesus saying that when peter these are implications where satan perhaps can throw ideas or thoughts at you where satan tempts jesus he obviously does this in a very direct fashion right he's actually communicating with him in an audible way but there's other places too where jesus rebukes peter and he says get behind me satan there there may and this is very like i'm just this conjecture here but there might be a hint that satan's putting ideas into peter's mind and peter's leaning into those things that's possible i'm not saying that's my teaching it's just possible we also have you know things like a distressing spirit coming on on saul king saul in the old testament and so there's ideas and thoughts he's having we also have teachings there's a lot of actual scripture on this stuff we also have teaching that there's such things as doctrines of demons that implies that the people teaching these doctrines are receiving some sort of informational inspiration coming from demons all that to say i think that collectively is a pretty strong case that satan could put ideas in your head also we have on a very human level we have ideas that get in our heads because we've just thought things on our own in the past or we we observed things we were watching stuff you know kid watches a horror movie and then at night he's having dreams and and nightmares that were obviously inspired by the visuals and the horror movie that he watched okay well that's obviously we go through human experiences that do that to us as well so here's my counsel to you it's possible it's satan it's possible it's just your past and your history it's possible it's your own wicked heart it's possible it's just passing things you've heard in the day my thought is this is you can't control the initial thought coming into your mind but turco what i would recommend is try to control your response to it don't sit there and obsessively think about the thought we humans have despicable and terrible thoughts come to our minds i do too i'm with you there and i think the counsel is don't obsess over the thought don't live in that place like you know if if a bad image comes on screen the solution is to flick away from it as quickly as possible not to stop and just go let me just think about that image and that you know what i mean you want to move away from this thing so this is where you want to take on philippians in fact i'll take us to the passage in philippians this is a good pastoral counsel for all of us i think and it tells us what to think about and um philippians chapter four look i even have a highlight there okay i'll share this with you um it gives us our thought life like things to think about finally brothers and it gives us a list of things that you should be consciously thinking about whatever's true whatever is honorable whatever's just whatever's pure whatever is lovely whatever is commendable if there's any thing anything of excellence or if there's any excellence if there's anything praiseworthy think about these things that's the counsel so my advice to you my counselor you're just going to echo what the holy spirit inspired paul to write here stop and think when you have a bad thought think of a good thought think okay i i i realize i had that thought i reject that thought i'm not gonna overanalyze it i'm not gonna be like i have to figure out where it came from instead think of a good thought this is the same as getting a bad song out of your head right you get a song stuck in your head the way to get a bad song out of your head is to get another different song you like in your head the quickest way to dislodge this bad song you don't want your head is start singing a song you like and then boom it's gone start thinking of glorious things wonderful things truthful things don't meditate on the fact that you had the bad thought that that would be my counsel there don't become anxious about it realize it's a normal human struggle and quickly move on to things that are awesome so i i actually sometimes have sat down and made a list like i'll go through philippians 4 verse 8 and i'll actually make a list so i'll be like what is true and i'll think of something true jesus rose from the dead what is something that's honorable and i'll think like being a faithful husband is something that's honorable i want to be a faithful husband to my bride you know uh what is what is something that's just and i'll actually make a list and it's like pretty soon you find you flooded your mind with good things so that's something i'd recommend uh drew's b dad says drew by drooby's dad droopy's dad i think uh what is a local church and how should one be started many teach that it should be a plant under the authority of an existing church but is that a biblical mandate thanks um i think that a local church is when i'm very simplistic here there's just a group of christians and they gather together and they they identify with each other in a communal communal fashion like not that they live in a commune commune but they they have like a community they gather together on a regular basis and there's a sense of like mutual accountability here and they try to have like services or meetings where they where they focus upon the word of god and worship and prayer and minister to each other that's a local church that could happen in a living room that can happen in a big building it can be thousands of people it can be five people that's a local church does it have to be planted by a larger church nope no it's nice because there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors so anytime you're doing something in life it's nice to have people who've done it before who are experienced who are thoughtful who you respect so that's good because there is a slight danger in the home church movement um where the home church becomes like a strange totalitarian environment where there's like sort of little kings controlling everybody and their thoughts and everything's filtered through them like that can be but it doesn't have to happen i mean that can happen in a mega church too but sometimes through accountability to others outside of just those who are planting this fellowship there can be like a balancing effect but it can also be a choking effect because sometimes those overarching organizations are controlling the small churches in negative ways like even in in different movements there's times where you want to go plant a church and then your your your local church your local larger fellowship tells you oh you can't you can't because they see you as competition and to me this is this is crazy like this is i just don't get it but they they know from history from their lives that there's been times where a church is planted three miles away from another church and because they're coming from that local church they just take a bunch of really key members like of the of the of the serving community from that church and they go to the new church plant so we can get defensive we can be like i don't want you to plant a church you're just going to steal my people and i think that it's it's worth the risk of losing people to just be planting more churches like i think i default on just letting it all happen so but that can be an example of i think what's unhealthy control over um where fellowships and churches can start and if that happened to me let's say i was planning a church which i'm not i don't plan to but let's say i was planting a church and my local fellowship was like you're not allowed to go there i would just i would just be like well then i just won't identify with your fellowship like i'm gonna go where i think a church needs to be and i'm gonna do it anyway so so yeah um those are some thoughts on that the most important thing is that we just i think that we uh when we start churches those of us who do you avoid the the the temptations of pride and arrogance man it just creeps right in where you're right about everything and you know everything and you have to control everything and and then what happens shortly after church plants is often division within the very the leaders who started that very plant because they just got too power hungry right about controlling everything and then they don't agree on everything so then they end up in fighting and that happens a lot i think it's satan's way of trying to stop new movements and new things like that so the best thing a church plant person could have is not only an attitude of faith but humility just just humility about themselves and about their calling and about their knowledge and about all those things but i'm answering more than you asked so i'll move on oh i didn't do my encounter so that was question number three there we go and here's number four faith marie says how should and maybe i'll move that thing i'll figure out where i'm gonna put that in the long run here um how should we as christians re rest in the presence of the lord is there anything you do to be connected to him throughout the day that's an interesting phrase so faith marie um there's something to the idea of like resting in the lord and um and that's true but but we also sometimes can how do i say this i hope i'm not speaking in ways that are confusing right now we can sometimes oversimplify those things so i don't think resting in the lord means that you don't have any sort of anguish in your heart and and i didn't used to think that i used to think that you know the peace of god and i sort of imagined like jesus even going to the cross with like this super peaceful mentality but as i read and we're about to get there in the gospel of marcus i'm teaching it on mondays we're getting very close to the garden of gethsemane where jesus is like agonizing i mean he's he's he's in agony great agony and the rest in the lord that he has is the is the willingness to say i'm still going to march forward i'm still going to walk up and take the cross but there's still this agony and so i think those things can coexist i think you can be resting in the lord while still having a lot of internal turmoil because you're going through hard times it's okay to actually be feeling the hard times you're going through as a christian can i give you permission the way i look at it as a christian is my rest in god my peace in the lord it doesn't mean that i'm in a constant state of like buddhist you know like you know whatever transcendental kind of peaceful moments that's not really what it means i don't think and and i think if you do think this then it turns pastors into weird people who have to always pretend that they're in this perfect place um i don't think that's the case like we're real people we feel all these three-dimensional emotions and that's not a bad thing so to me imagine life is like a roller coaster it goes up and down you go up and down up and down and i think christian peace and the peace of the lord it's like it puts a a a bedrock on how low that roller coaster can go so in a sense here's my life it's roller coaster normally we go up and down but as a christian it goes down and it just kind of hits this spot where it's just there's certain things that no matter what's going on in my life it can't take away these truths right so i still know regardless of my current suffering which is bringing me down i know that god loves me i know that he has forgiven me i know that he has a plan even though i don't understand it and i i'm not going to try to figure it out right now it's just too confusing but at least i know he's still good like there's a good god who i trust i don't trust what's happening now but i trust in his character i know that my eternal joy is happening in the future and sometimes that joy feels so far away right it feels so distant but this is me sometimes i'm like not i've never been in in the garden like with jesus the agony he experienced i don't think i've ever felt that but i've definitely felt like the worst agony of my life right where i've been really low but even then there was a bedrock beneath it as a christian that's what i think kind of that resting in the lord is sometimes um we we fall we fall on god and we just lay there broken but we would have fallen a lot lower if it hadn't been for him and and that's kind of how i see that whole rest in the lord now there is scripture that that teaches there's examples i try to give you with jesus but also paul supports this right where he says like we're struck down but not destroyed he says we're perplexed but we're not in despair this is a really interesting phrase right we're perplexed we're going through such trials that we really are confused like paul's really confused he's like i'm perplexed i don't know what's going on i'm confused but i'm not in despair i haven't lost hope that's what i think i think he's low but he would be he'd be a lot lower if it wasn't for his christian hope that hope is my bedrock man i can't get any lower than that because i have i have eternal joy and life coming my way so that would be how i process that now um and i'd encourage you guys to uh be thinking about things like that let christians go through their hard times just realize that god gives us he's the rock we fall on and if it wasn't for him we would fall into the bottomless pit um so quick announcement before we go to the next question our questions are full we have no more questions for today i've got all 20 here given to me already so let's go to the next one question five a.d chan says does hebrews 6 verses 4 through 6 apply to judas iscariot how else could judas betray jesus even after he had been enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift and had partaken of the holy spirit this is a famous famous and extremely difficult passage true story about hebrews 6 and i'm not proud of it i was teaching hebrews many years ago it's not online it's not recorded or anything many years ago to to the young adults group at my church back when i before i was even a youth pastor i was leading the young adults and um this was like 15 years ago or something i'm teaching through hebrews and i got to hebrews 6 and i had such a hard time with the passage not knowing exactly how to interpret it properly that i asked my senior pastor pastor gary ansdell i was like can you can you teach for me that day and he taught it for me and i just moved on to the next passage it's the only time i've ever done that where i was just like i'm just not gonna teach this passage i just i studied it and studied it and studied and just was like i don't know i'm not sure so allow me to share some of my pain with you hebrews chapter six verses four through six um for it is impossible in the case of those who've been once enlightened who've tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the holy spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of god and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance since they're crucifying once again the son of god to their own harm and holding him up to contempt okay let me offer i think i have more clarity than i did years ago 15 years ago but i'm still not confident um i may do hebrews x after mark actually there's a good chance i'll do the book of hebrews and then we will go through this passage and i'll spend as many hours as i have to to come to the strongest conclusions i can but let me just say this first let's ask this question what does falling away mean in hebrews 6 this is my tentative thing if i teach this in the future please take my future teaching as more thorough than what i'm about to tell you so they've fallen away what does that mean i think the fallen away is they've fallen away from christianity as an apostasy i don't think it's about sin in the sense of like oh you sin too much like you you you looked at bad images you looked at pornography or you you committed adultery i don't think those are the terms here i think falling away here is about apostasy so that's that's why he's like hey we're gonna to intro this he goes i'm not gonna re-teach you all the basic doctrines of christianity that's what we get in verses one through three i'm not gonna reteach you all the basic doctrines of christianity all over again because if you fall away from this if you abandon it fall away meaning leave apostate you become apostate from the faith okay so that's a faith issue not a sin issue although it's a sin to be apostate yes but just for clarity's sake it's about doctrines they've fallen away from that okay now if they do then you can't restore them to repentance which doesn't mean god won't forgive them actually the text seems to be saying that they will never repent i think it's a hardness in their hearts i used to think when i first read this passage that it was like god will never forgive you no no it's you'll never repent okay so it's impossible to restore them to repentance why because the level of the hardness of their heart is as though they have rejected jesus all over again it's as though they crucified him again when the jews rejected christ it's as though they're doing this a second time and at this point it's like there's nothing left for you okay so who's that being said hebrews 6 who is this about um is this about individuals who if you leave the faith you know then you can't come back well no i mean that's not that's not realistic because we see repentant people who were christians right at least in name and they claimed the doctrines of christianity and then they apostasized and then later they came back so obviously they were renewed to repentance they repented so obviously they were back that's not just them no it seems like a really elevated degree of leaving the faith right they've they've done certain things they've tasted the heavenly gift they were enlightened they have shared in the holy spirit which seems to imply being born again right they tasted the goodness of the word of god and the powers of the age to come and then they fell away okay so these are like christians that have experienced like such intense work of the spirit in their lives and they know it and they know it and they know it and they reject it and now they're stuck in their sin they're so self-hardened that they're not going to turn back to god okay here's another possible view of this is that in hebrews he may be talking about um israel as a nation and not individuals this is this is a possibility okay one possible understanding of hebrew six i'm not confident about it but let me just give it to you since you asked it maybe this is not about judas or your buddy joe or you if you've turned an apostasized guess what you're welcome back come back man come back don't make any excuses just come back to jesus he loves you like a lot but rather this could be about israel right israel experienced these things israel experienced they were the enlightenment right they were given god's word god spoke to them directly they tasted the heavenly gift right they they experience this right this is um the tasting of the heavenly gift could refer to like um the red sea crossing the manna in the wilderness it could refer to um the messiah coming to them they tasted this they had him in their midst and some people were following him somewhere not it could be more national than individual they've shared in the holy spirit have they well yeah i mean israel at least as a nation they had a share in the holy spirit that there's there's at pentecost they were all jews who were filled with the spirit in the in the eyes of a bunch of jews so they had this evidence before them so this may not refer to people that were saved and lost it might refer to a nation that received a certain amount of revelation and then is walked away they tasted the goodness of the word of god and the power of the age to come these could all apply to israel nationally now if that's the case hebrews 6 might be saying there's might and i may well change my mind please consider this conjecture it may be that israel is saying of israel as a nation we're not able to get them all back on board there are just those who have departed and we can't renew them to repentance there's a great hardness of heart nationally that's in israel okay that might sound weak to some people and maybe it is it is consistent though with romans that speaks of a general hardness of heart that has come upon israel because they've rejected the messiah and it's because they've had all this enlightenment and experience and so that is actually consistent and very much hebrews is the theology of paul whether he wrote it or not and so um there's a possible explanation does it apply to judas is it about judas i don't think it's about judas i don't think it's about any individual specifically it seems very generic about those some group of people and so i'm applying that probably to israel maybe and um uh judas i i would i would hope judas could repent and my theory is this unless your heart is so hard you can't repent god will forgive you it's it's me and my hardness of heart that means i'm never going to be saved it's not god in his hardness of heart towards me it's when my heart is so hard i'm immovably stuck in my sin and that is a possibility we impact ourselves by our choices including our own potentially hardened hearts but i assume everyone's not there because why why else would i what if i encounter someone who's hard and i assume they're completely hardened forever and then i mistreat them no i'm gonna put the invitation out to everybody and i think that we all should all right let's go to the next question number six new testament theologist says how do you square romans 5 18 and 1st corinthians 15 22 among others with 2 thessalonians 1 9 and matthew 25 46 among others regarding the universe the issue of universal salvation i have my own thoughts but i'm curious about yours okay so when it comes to questions like this where you're asking about four different texts and related texts obviously this is too much to cover in a q a so i'm just going to go to a couple of the verses you did bring up and i'll give some thoughts on this the nature of q a is that i'm able to answer questions quickly because i'm not answering them thoroughly where i'm going to do a whole like hour long video on a passage so i have to stick to that but romans 5 18 it says therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men um so the the universalist is going to suggest okay this this is everyone in adam fell and everyone in christ will be saved um what i'm going to suggest my short answer is this and i don't i won't be able to go to all the verses for you is that in this passage in particular right it's in romans that it makes it clear that there are people that are not coming to christ they are rejecting christ so romans conditions i mean look at romans back up zoom out right paul's going to say take me in context romans conditioned salvation on faith in christ here he's speaking about the universal ability of christ to save about how everyone who's in adam falls and everyone who's in christ will rise but he also makes it clear in romans that not everyone is in christ because you don't get in christ without faith in christ so yes adam's fall applies to all of us because we're all in adam but not everyone's actually in christ so you could say everyone in adam falls and everyone in christ rises but not everyone's in christ even though everyone is in adam that's the that's the imbalance that's there not that i don't want to be a universalist i mean wouldn't we all love that to be the case i just think it's not what scripture is teaching um in 15 first corinthians 15 22 another verse you bring up as in adam all die so in christ shall all be made alive again that's all those who are in christ okay we're all in adam everybody's in adam whether you like it or not but you have a choice about being in christ again that would be my understanding there and it's these same these same passages these same books where he limits the benefits of christ to those who have faith in christ so that's all consistent let's look at second thessalonians 1 9 since i'm able to move these through these pretty quick right now they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the lord from the glory of his might this is referring to those who rejected christ and so so yeah my view is that's consistent because they're not in christ this may sound simplistic but honestly sometimes simple answers are simple because they're true matthew 25 46 last verse and these will go into internal punishment the righteous into eternal life yeah i i do think so i think that that's the typical christian perspective on things but i think it's also what scripture's telling us because even the very books even in the context where it talks about all you know in adam all die and christ all right that kind of concept it limits it to those who trust in christ right it's you know romans the first chap the first one you brought up romans chapter 10 will say remember this is the same book and if this and if romans is teaching universalism it's weird that then he says brothers my heart's desire and prayer to god for them is that they may be saved he's wishing they would be saved if he had confidence they would be saved this is exactly where paul would be like delighting in it right paul would be like oh i'm so grateful that all of them are going to be saved anyways no matter what they do right now they'll eventually come to christ i'm so grateful for that so if paul in romans 5 is trying to say that everyone's going to come to salvation then why in romans 10 is he agonizing he says in fact um oh where's the passage where he says that he he would wish himself a curse from christ if it would bring them to christ like his heart is broken because of their rejection of christ and so they're missing out all right we'll go to the next question now and the number seven actually helps me keep track too i like that um the new uh okay the invisible hand sorry the invisible hand i started reading that last one how absolute is the instruction in hebrews 10 25 about meeting together are churches who go online only due to covid and or government rules failing to live up to it okay i on these kinds of questions i usually have a lot of caveats and so i don't have a blanket yes no answer for you i think life is very complicated and i think we have to acknowledge that just like i think jesus did when he's like hey yes on the sabbath you don't you don't do this you don't do that but yet the priests are working and everybody understands that's a different scenario yet you know david went in and everybody understands that was a different scenario human life is elevated above the value of the rest on the sabbath or the assuming the show bread the issue of the show bread in the temple or the tabernacle at the time um so let's read the passage and let's say this there's a general principle that's true applying it into the into the very complicated life situations we find ourselves in that's not always super easy so we'll talk about that that we are to not neglect to meet together as is the habit of some it's acknowledged in scripture that it's a habit of people to stop gathering as christians and this usually happens in your local fellowship your local church on sunday mornings or whatever but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near so we need to have like specifically not just christians that meet so if you get lunch with buddies and they're christians that's not the same as gathering as a church i think to apply this verse to what we're doing we have to be gathering four religious purposes we're gathering as a church for you know us to use our spiritual gifts to build each other up that's something that we miss a lot with our congregational gatherings nowadays they're more stage based and less individual based but i think there's also a stage thing i think there's also a preaching of the word a teaching of the word it's assumed in churches that there are elders who are teaching the people so teaching's going on worship of god should be going on prayer should be going on ministering to the needs of the saints all of that stuff's going on should be going on for it to be considered this meet together thing i think it has to be like something that looks a lot like a church service for it to qualify as this it can happen in the living room it can be four christians together in a basement of a house in a corn field in china it can happen anywhere it's just the intent and the some of the things you do it may or may not look like the same liturgy as one group versus another i don't think that's that important i think the structure of the service is less important than having some key things right teaching of the truth of the gospel of christ um worshiping the lord together singing songs hymns and spiritual songs right as ephesians tells us and then the body building each other up so that as well now what about covet um i think with covid there's or with any situation in life where you cannot gather for some reason you cannot gather then god knows lord understands this let me give an example let's say that you live in an isolated area and there's nobody within 50 miles of you that's just where you live like you literally cannot meet weekly with other christians and so you gather maybe once a month you make the big trek out to go and be with believers and be part of a church service and that's the best you can do and i think you're trying to honor the lord as you do that maybe you're you're unable to leave your home for some reason like you physically can't leave the house maybe you have an autoimmune disorder and you can't leave the house and so you've been doing zoom church services for like years because you literally can't leave the house you can't bring people over because of some medical condition i think you're doing the best you can and the lord knows but what about with kovid and if you're thinking they're telling me my church can't gather they're telling me i shouldn't be able to even in some places states or different states or different different countries are different should i just gather with my family and we do like a church focused church service i think that would be a way to honor god should i gather with like one or two other families should we go to church and rebellion to the government this is where i'm going to bow out of this conversation and say look you guys are in i don't know if you know this less than half my audience is in the u.s you guys are all over the place and there are very different restrictions and rules in your different countries and i'm going to ask you just try to honor god the best you can here i can't give you the hard and fast you have to meet as a church you're not even a christian if you're not meeting pastors are failing if they're not doing big bold open rebellion to the government rules that are going on i don't know if that's the right answer and i would leave it up to individual pastors and individual christians to seriously evaluate their situations weigh all the pros and cons and seek to honor god the best way they can right now and follow their conscience on those issues and um and i already know i'm going to get comments if people go mike you you're upsetting me because you're not answering the way i think you should answer here please share your answer let me ask you this don't just say i'm wrong in the comments i mean that's fine you guys can do that all day long it doesn't bother me at all tell us what your reasoning is get us on your side by walking us through carefully not just claims right if you're not gathering you're not a church okay thanks buddy you didn't help anybody but like walk us through your reasoning here tell us why you think everybody should go or why you think it's okay to not why do you think it's okay to spend the next eight months not gathering as a church like i know this hurts people man i feel like we have to try to do at least something but how strongly do i rebel against current standards that i i don't know exactly the right answers there uh lindsey kelso question number eight says in the old testament i struggle with why god had israel kill thousands of people to take the promised land rather than just driving them out or trying to convert them thanks so much um yeah you're right to struggle with it i think that that's all kinds of reasons to struggle with with the stuff that's going on there um it's especially hard when we with our current culture i don't think that we handle these things well let me let me just criticize our culture for a little bit here um when we show a video of and and you're going to think that i'm trying to weigh in on um on being pro cop anti-cop and that's actually not my point i ask you to transcend that discussion for a moment so when you see a video of a cop and they're they're violently taking down a criminal and some people react they know nothing about the situation they don't know what the guy did ahead of time they don't know why the cops doing it they just know that the cops violently grabbing the guy and i'm not talking about um killing someone i'm talking about violently restraining somebody according to like the correct procedures that they have in the police department all that uh when you see that there's a lot of our people who respond as though that was wrong because there's somewhat of an this is kind of weird but there's somewhat of like an allergy to the issues of dealing with any kind of violence especially violence that's coming from authorities that's like a current cultural thing we're going through and i don't think it's very healthy i think we're overreacting i think police abuse is a real very real thing we should react to but i think that the way people react to videos that have no context whatsoever and they cast major judgments i think it's showing that they're not thinking clearly about these issues now when we take this and we go to the old testament and it's basically watching a video and you're you're highlighting the video moment where god's sending his own people in and they're eradicating individuals in the land like they're killing people if you read the text at least the way i think it's it is to be read i think they're we're probably exaggerating how much it was happening or how uh how many people it was that those were probably we're probably exaggerating that when we talk about it but i think it happened that being said i get why it's a struggle i still get why it's a struggle when you take all of scripture when you look at the okay let's look at the the the body cam footage so to speak if you take it all you see that the people are very very wicked there's all kinds of things going on say the canaanites because it's the only time this happens really in the bible where he commands the things you're talking about it's only happens one time when they're entering the land and then that's it so in that moment when that's happening the people of the the canaanites are horribly wicked so they have like for instance this this god this idol that they would take is a large idol with its arms out like this and it's seated and sitting there with its hands out made of bronze and they would heat this thing up they put a fire under the hands of the idol and they would heat it up until they were red-hot and then they would take their living children and put them on the hand burning hands of this idol this was like a practice they were doing in the land at the time it was normal this is one of the reasons why in the law god's like you will never offer your children to me like i i won't allow it because you're like who would even think to do that you're like no that was their culture they're doing that uh bestiality was very common in the land i wonder if stds were running through the land i wonder if one of the reasons why god wanted to just like eradicate this nobody can be left in the land from these people is because of other issues like disease being spread and that being the way of quarantining or fixing that that's possible there was also major ungodliness going on that god had given them hundreds of years to repent if you zoom out at the dash cam footage or the body cam footage god had given them hundreds of years to repent he told abraham years before he's like he had been working on them and god doesn't just kill people he sends his spirit to strive with man scripture tells us so it's not like god wasn't working with them i would assume god sent them people and prophets and individuals who responded to god who then just became persecuted by the people around them so that being said it was god's judgment on the people god was judging a group of people and if you think as a christian that god has a right to judge people then i think that's totally understandable i think the part we have a hard time with is that he used people to do it but then god does this with other things too when he when he tells a government that they should enact the death penalty on a murderer this is pretty strong he's telling people to kill other people that this is this is pretty strong now in our current culture where our we don't like that i think that's biblical i have a whole video on the death penalty you could you could check that out too i think when you zoom out you realize it's not man just killing man in the name of god right this is god saying your people are wicked i've been striving with you for years your depravity has gotten to such a point that i'm eradicating your society i don't want it to infect and mess up others i also think for children who would have died at this time that they went to be eternally in the presence of god so they had a temporary suffering moment and eternal joy afterward and who knows what their life would be like if they were actually raised up in that environment now i don't have the authority to do that to kids but god god does god has the authority to say no i'm just going to take you i'm going to take you i have a video on children and their fate if they die you know below a certain age of awareness and i have a video teaching on that i believe they're in the presence of god for eternity so they were spared in a sense now i know if you want to use that as an excuse to go kill children i'm just sorry you're a moral like fool like if you think that's what i'm saying that's not what i'm saying you're you're making some wild leaps you're basically making yourself god to say that so um uh finally lindsay i'll say this the emphasis in scripture and i say this to the end because i wanted to deal head-on with the things you're saying the emphasis in scripture is not killing groups of people the emphasis is actually driving them out and this is the command over and over again drive them out of the land drive them out of the land and it seems that god put by his spirit and awareness in the people that they were going to lose these battles right when rahab comes she's like i already know we're going to lose like we know we're going to lose so there's this active rebellion against god that they're experiencing when they when they don't just get out and leave so the emphasis is driving out of the land and many of the places where like the i'll get rid of all the amalekites over here in the city those were actually like fortress cities like they're not just city cities their military outposts is more what they are these are some things to help soften our understanding of what's going on there finally i'll say this if you guys are thinking mike those are interesting thoughtful i want to hear more about it but i'm not really satisfied that's okay you don't have to be satisfied by what i said my last thought is this at least trust in god's goodness and say god you're both the authority of the universe the authority over life and death like rightly so you could say i'm taking you out i'm giving you life god has the authority to do this and i trust your goodness you've revealed your goodness and loving christ i'm not going to doubt that you tell me you made these judgments i don't understand them i'm just going to reserve judgment on that and i'm going to trust in your goodness and i think that's fair if that's the only thing you can do left for your own heart lindsay or others who might feel the same way i think god had justifications for the things he did even though they are tough for us especially in our modern culture to swallow um and hopefully some of the stuff i've shared with you has helped terry defilo has a question and uh it's funny is always mentioned i was recently criticized by somebody who um will go unnamed that i i'm afraid of people questioning christian beliefs and that and then i'm scared i'm scared i want you to be scared to question your beliefs or to question things that you think and it was just hilarious to me i thought of just now as i was answering this last very hard question uh terry drafilo says or dr philho i don't know how to pronounce your name sorry terry in luke 18 and 34 both zacharias and mary oh luke 1 verses 18 and 34 zacharias and mary questioned gabriel when he told them of their future offspring so why is zacharias disciplined for his question love your teaching ministry thank you you're very welcome terry let's look at these and i think it's actually so human i love this stuff this is one of the things i love about scripture most religious groups when you read into their doctrines and beliefs it's like people turn into like these um these caricatures it's like people aren't real it's like life isn't really three-dimensional and and it's all just i don't know how else to describe it but i look at other religious writings and things and i'm like what kind of version of people do you think you're dealing with here but scripture often deals with like the nuances of humanity and the way we feel about things and how we're how we are real and this is a good example of that so luke 1 18 zechariah is told that he's gonna have a kid and his his wife is old and he's like um you know how's this gonna be so you know he's told by an angel this is this is this is john the baptist dad he's told that he's gonna have a kid and he's like i don't understand how is this how is this even gonna happen how will this be and so he asks the question how shall i know this for i'm an old man and my wife has advanced in years an angel from god has appeared to zechariah when he says how shall i know this it's implied that he's doubting he doesn't believe it's true so he's an angel from god and he doesn't believe it okay if i had an angel from god appear to me and speak to me and he's and he's and he's ministering in the temple at the time like it is clear the context clearly shows him this is god speaking it and then the angel says i'm gabriel i stand in the presence of god i was sent to speak to you and bring to you this good news and behold you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place because you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in their time so zechariah his his question how shall i know this was based on i don't believe you prove it to me i don't believe you um and and in the face of seeing a messenger okay it's fine when someone goes mike i don't believe you that's fine i'm talking about like an angel from the presence of god reveals himself to you in glory and says this is gonna happen and you're like that seems unlikely to me you know so then as we go down to verse 33 um the the angel gabriel same angel comes and tells mary that she's gonna have a son not john the baptist that's what zechariah his kid's going to be but um she's going to have a son and it will be jesus right the most high and her response her response is different verse 34 how will this be since i'm a virgin i mean you know john says something really similar he goes all right john's dad zacharias he's like how will i know this i'm an old man she goes how will this be since i'm a virgin she actually is different than john then john zechariah she's not saying prove it to me i don't believe you she's saying like what's the process here i'm a virgin do you get it's a question about comprehension it's not a question about belief she believes him she just doesn't understand and so she's asking questions about it she's not questioning it in that negative kind of critical sense and this is so human of us online i get questions all the time from people and even even right now some of the questions today might be from people who are like help me understand this like the last one it was a very tough question but i think it was a help me understand this question whereas this question um with with mary is just like that and then zechariah has questions like oh you prove it prove it it's kind of the skeptical response so there's a heart issue that's going on there um and we can have our heart issues even in our questions so it's good to ask questions but the question is what's behind my question so then the angel explains okay the holy spirit's going to come upon you mary god's going to god's going to supernaturally make you pregnant this is what's going to happen you will still be a virgin in other words and and then mary's response is i'm the servant of the lord let it be done to me according to your word she just believes him at his word whereas that wasn't the case with zechariah all right let's go to the next question dominique cohn says can we anger god to the point where he never forgives um i i would say my answer that is going to be no and let me explain when i say i'm so angry i'll never forgive you that means regardless of what you do regardless of your apologies regardless of your repentance regardless of your future kindness i still will not forgive you because the reason for my unforgiveness is rooted in my anger and i'm going to suggest that never happens to god that the the reason for him not forgiving is us rejecting his forgiveness that the the cross go i mean look at jesus on the cross and he says father forgive them they know not what they do look at the father sending his son to israel who is a rebellious nation jesus in the flesh when he's there living his life on the earth he says how long will i help will i be with this rebellious generation i mean there's just so much to just and i mean to the eyes of jesus his perfectly holy eyes right the more godly you are the more you you notice ungodliness i can't even imagine how much sin jesus is constantly aware of around him from his disciples from his own followers from those who were like hey jesus i'm following you i'm doing great and he's just like thinking i know all your issues you got so many problems god's anger towards us turned away the moment we put our faith in christ and if we reject the forgiveness of christ it is his justice and his goodness not like a petty angry response like god's emotionally overwhelmed i'm just mad at you but rather it's his goodness and justice like a just judge dropping the gavel okay here comes the judgment of your sin it even says in scripture that god does not delight in the death of the wicked he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked even if he's the one destroying the wicked he's not enjoying that there's no sort of maliciousness malicious intent in god it's justice that goes on there so can we anger god to the point where he never forgives no i think we can get ourselves so hardened to the point where we would never accept his forgiveness that's the scary thing it's the human heart that's the scary thing not god's heart next question it's flawless says i'm an agnostic i'm an agnostic trying to believe how would you recommend someone should approach this i'm reading through the bible i started with john as some recommend but my heart hasn't changed yet any advice um uh first is flawless you guys pray for it's flawless pray for this person this man or woman i'm very excited to hear that okay i'm happy i'm very glad you're on this journey you said you're you're an agnostic is trying to believe which i'm assuming you mean i want to believe like because it's true like i don't just want to like have a religion here i want to have solid factual truth so um one of the things you might consider doing i'm going to give you a list of things you might consider is first just continue reading the word continue reading john i wouldn't um hang too much on having like a special moment like a zapping kind of moment that's going on read john as though you're learning about who jesus is you're learning what he said you're learning what he's done you're learning the story of who christ is that's important i would start praying start praying i mean you know from you as an agnostic worst case scenario you're just talking to yourself best case scenario you're reaching out to the god of creation and you're praying and you're asking him for help and you're just going to patiently continue in that not trying to stir up just your emotions right you're actually asking god help me to understand who you are help me to see the truth help take the blinders off my eyes i would know the reality of who you are i want to know the truth just start praying start asking god for help start seeking god i would encourage you to start attending church start going to a church they don't know everything they might not get everything right but at least it's in the right direction you know what i mean so those are things i would encourage you to do um if you have intellectual challenges to the christian faith i would encourage you to do this write out the most important ones because it's oftentimes people have kind of a scatter brained list of challenges to the christian faith where it's like i've got a thousand things a million objections potential objections to christianity and i think those aren't helpful because most of them are petty and and the reality is that once you start answering them you realize you didn't care so write out the things you actually care about you know maybe it's like two or three things maybe it's five things and ask yourself make your list maybe it's five just really strong important issues and then ask yourself this does the truth of christianity really depend on that question and then cross off any on your list that don't actually have to do with whether christianity is true right like like let's say on your list is i don't know the right way to interpret genesis okay but that's not about the truth of christianity christianity's factualness or truthfulness is based upon the death and resurrection of christ is not based upon proving every piece of scripture is factually true although i think it's all factually true i'm just saying that that's not the same thing so i would actually write down what are my real issues here and then chase those down now that you have just a couple just three things two things one thing chase that down look for good research look for strong christians who made a real good case on that issue as well those are my pieces of advice for you it's flawless and um god bless you i mean really god bless you and help you as you're on this journey as you're on this journey be aware of yourself too um the reality is i'm speaking out just as a convinced christian that the choice to follow christ is not merely an intellectual thing about choosing to believe that the facts of christianity are true it's a decision that jesus is going to be your lord right it's like you know this would be wonderful and terrible in your life it would bring costs right of of a changed life and changed attitudes about things maybe even embarrassment in some cases as some people would look down upon you for your new faith but it would also bring the blessings and the benefits of knowing god for all eternity of being forgiven of your sin of finally having finally landed on something you can say is true and be honest with yourself that these these really are things that weigh at you like the longing for the goodness of christianity but also the desire to not have to conform to it the desire to not be embarrassed perhaps in front of others these might be affecting you only you know your heart i'm just throwing some stuff out there for you to think about there's my advice and i'd love to hear an update on how you're doing at some point next question comes from joshua stuckey who has a question mike how do you read first peter 1 3 in light of your rejection of the doctrine of total depravity many thanks for your thoughts your ministry is a huge blessing in my life thank you josh i do reject total depravity doesn't mean i don't think people are depraved for those who don't know um i think people are pretty messed up and all men have sinned and fallen through the glory of god we cannot work our way to heaven it's only by god's grace that we can be saved which is good news because it means all i do is trust all i do is believe right all i do is trust and cry personal relational trust in christ but i don't think total depravity is right which is this idea this calvinist doctrine although many armenians hold to it as well the t is the most widely agreed upon peace in calvinism and it's it's something i don't agree on so it would hold that you are so depraved that when god's reaching out you hear the gospel the holy spirit might be pulling on you in some fashion drawing you but you will always say no you'll reject the gospel every time and the only reason you'll say in calvinism the only reason you'll say yes to the gospel is because god actually regenerates you so this might sound weird to non-calvinist but according to calvinism this is key in calvinism and if you're a calvinist do not tell me i'm misrepresenting calvinism here because then rc sprole said that the key issue of calvinism and he got it all wrong but um but the the key issue here is you're regenerated before you're saved before you have faith excuse me regeneration comes before faith that's where total depravity leads regeneration you get regenerated first then you have faith arminians handle this with something they call prevenient grace um but i reject total property so i don't handle it at all blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ here's the verse according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again he has caused us to be born into a living hope through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead um so i think this is based upon a maybe a misunderstanding of what i mean when i reject total depravity i do think god causes us to be born again because i don't when i trust when i say yes to jesus when i go yes i want the gospel yes i want salvation yes i want to be saved i am not causing myself to be born again my faith isn't causal here it's not causing anything it's required but it's not causal what makes me born again is god god he he regenerates me he saves me my faith doesn't like cause my salvation in that sense so i with my doctor and i would just affirm this without much caveat i would just say according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again and there you go that'd be my response um 13 next question kate channel says can someone be justified without being sanctified in other words can someone live a lifestyle of habitual sin and still be saved okay to the first question i'm going to say ish can someone be justified without being sanctified well like ish okay being sanctified is an ongoing process right but but justification in the sense that now there's different ways to use the term justification there's a sense in which in the future we will be justified right i'll stand before god as i'm like entering into eternal life and i will be justified by christ at that moment there's a sense in which that's true but there's also a sense in which i'm justified now the bible uses these terms in different ways and we have to just acknowledge that like it's not it's not like justification is only ever used for the first moment you get saved it's used in other ways as well sanctification is also used in other ways there's a sense in which every christian is sanctified as in set apart every believer has been set apart by god for his purposes there's another sense in which we've been sanctified this is just the words not used in the same way all the time we're we're being sanctified like i'm growing in holiness i'm growing in righteousness as i live this life okay so i'm being refined i'm being changed i'm a more mature christian today than yesterday okay so in that sense i go can someone be justified without being sanctified well yes and no it depends on what you mean by the terms i think everybody who's truly saved is on the process of sanctification god is working in your life you've been given the holy spirit and the holy spirit has fruit right love joy peace patience gentle goodness faithfulness i think that when you when you think about what salvation is i'm born again i have a new life i am in dwelt by the holy spirit i have an intimate relationship with god jesus is my lord and i'm now freed from sin because whom the sun sets free is free indeed so to say that this has no effect on my life seems odd seems very strange and i think the apostles thought that was strange too so the next question you have and this one's more specific can someone live a lifestyle of habitual sin and still be saved i want to say this salvation changes you and if you show no changes in your life it doesn't mean you're not saved it means you don't have the evidence that you're saved so i'm going to be very careful here i don't mean that if somebody gives their life to christ and they show no fruit i'm gonna say you are not saved rather what i'm gonna say is i don't have the proof that you're saved i'm curious i don't know anymore if you're saved or not i don't and it's not my job to figure it out so i'm not stressing about it but but i can't have confidence in your salvation and if i was you i wouldn't have confidence in my own that is a scary thing we should be on a path of sanctification in some sense we should ideally should be able to look at our lives and say god since you entered my life things have been changing but when i say what about habitual sin i think most christians do have habitual sin in their lives there's still pride that you're struggling with 20 30 years later i mean the biggest sin issue that i deal with in all honesty is just lack of love towards people i'm amazed and my poor wife i'm amazed at how often i not that i abuse her or something like that i think i'm a good husband but i'm amazed at how often like i do something i i me i give her a harsh word or i miss just just don't think of her mistreat her in some fashion i mean i'll put my hands on my wife or anything like that i never have i don't call her names we don't yell at each other none of those things but i still look back at it and i go like a moment later that wasn't loving i wasn't very thoughtful and if i was aware of all the sins and all the failures all the shortcomings i have every day i would probably call that habitual sin too so i don't know how to draw the line i just know there's some kind of line there's there's you know if i was living if i look at my life honestly and i just ask does it look like i'm a christian and if the answer is no it looks like i'm not then maybe i should just honestly say maybe something's wrong in my commitment to christ maybe i'm not being genuine here what's the solution then get your yourself genuine follow christ for real live out this christian faith for real and then bear the fruit of a genuine faith in christ and it's just fruit we're just examining fruit here we're not really sure what the root is we're looking at the fruit but yeah so my answer is um if someone's in that habitual lifestyle of sin it depends on what you mean by that someone's sweating bullets over stuff that is we would all look at them and say dude you're obviously saved you're just still growing in christ and somebody else is living in like they've had a 10-year long affair they're sleeping around with other women instead of their wife they're they're embezzling they lie all the time and they're like i'm a christian i go to church and it's so weird that we're so bad at assessing ourselves in this so that's what makes me cautious about answering a question like this very clearly is that we're all terrible at self-assessment but yet at some point you have to self-assess you got to test yourself whether you're in the faith do you not know that you're in christ and ask has my life been transformed by jesus and if not don't give up just get serious about jesus that's the only solution our next question ethan hawking says this is purely hypothetical but how would you respond to the suggestion that the disciples confidence in the resurrection was produced by the mandela effect okay i think full disclosure i'm gonna be very honest i think people who believe the mandela effect are very foolish i really believe that and i want you to think if you have fallen for the mandela effect stuff there's something wrong in your reasoning like you don't think clearly about things this doesn't mean you're a bad person compared to other people or something like that rather it just means like you gotta stop you have to stop i was with a family member recently and they said i'm not kidding you this is this is what mandela effect sounds like to me they said and i love my family i love them but this was silly um so one of my relatives said this younger person said um have you noticed that we haven't seen any ants recently i haven't seen any ants recently yeah somebody was telling me they thought that the solution to this strange phenomenon is that we have entered into a parallel reality where there are no ants this is ridiculousness like i don't know how to help somebody who thinks this like if you believe in the mandela effect like you're just a gullible person like i'm sorry you guys slow down you're just being very very gullible so here's the hypothetical how would you respond to the suggestion the disciples confidence in the resurrection was produced by the mandela effect i would respond that that is very foolish and it doesn't fit reality in any way shape or form the mandela effect isn't real can't be proven is and if you're going to tell me well but darth vader didn't say luke i'm your father he said no i'm your father and i'm like what we're all quoting a movie wrong and now you believe that reality is fundamentally like glitchy all right i'm moving on so yeah i i i would what i would do is i would turn the tables on the person in ethan if you're having a conversation with someone who says this make them prove it okay there is a mountain of historical evidence to prove the resurrection of christ there is literally a phrase mandela effect that's the proof that we've got so make them prove it make them meet the burden of evidence we have for the resurrection all this evidence make them meet that with the mandela effect and see if you can break through but it's hard to talk to somebody when their reasoning is that flimsy all right moving on i hope i haven't hurt anybody's feelings but you needed it if it was your creative liberty do the non-believers who have died or will get their physical bodies back um oh do the non-believers who have died or will die get their physical bodies back at the final judgment i know we will but does scripture mention this about those who reject christ um sort of yeah let me take you to a passage revelation chapter 20. we're going to read some of revelation 20 here then i saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit in the great chain and there's a lot of symbolism here and he sees the dragon the ancient serpent who's called the devil in satan and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended after that he must be released for a little while then we get to like the sort of like final judgment moment verse four then i saw thrones and um seated on them were those who to whom the authority to judge was committed also i saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of jesus and for the word of god and those who had been and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands these are the saved these are the saved he saw their souls they came to life and reigned with christ for a thousand years the rest of the dead these would be the unsaved did not come to life until the thousand years were ended so we know for sure like the resurrection we experience as believers is bodily we're gonna get a new body it'll be a different body it'll be it'll be an eternal body fit for heaven fit for the heavens is what first corinthians 15 teaches us so there's a parallel of some kind of resurrection that these other unsafe people are going to get the rest of them they come to life later at the end of the thousand years this is the first resurrection blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection over such the second death has no power but they will be priests and um i think actually i might be mistaking my maybe my memory is just flat here the way i'm reading the texture this phrase the first resurrection seems like it's speaking of i need to look at this more carefully actually i hate to do that live on camera here but i really do look more carefully because the blessed are whole and holy are those who share in the first resurrection and i was taking this to be a reference to those who are receiving a physical resurrection of after death and they're not saved where's the verse i'm looking for here well i mean there's a little bit more in revelation 2011 i saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it from his presence earth and sky fled away and no place was found for them and i saw the dead great and small standing before the throne and books were open and another book was open which was the book of life and the dead were judged by what was written in the books and the sea gave up the dead who were in it death and hades gave up the dead and this is this is clearly okay this is clearly the unsaved i'm gonna have to pause on the other one i'm gonna have to go look at it freshly when i'm not uh on camera like trying to grab all my random all my random thoughts then death and hades were thrown into the lake of fire this is the second death of lake of fire and um man i i want to give you a specific first to answer your question i'm just going to hold off on this like yeah i'm convinced that i'm convinced that and forgive me i'm just stumbling over my lack of memory here that the the dead who are not in christ they do receive a physical body there's a debate on what is that physical body like is it the same as their previous physical body is it not obviously i'm not really able to answer that question in detail right now because my mastery over this passage is really weak sauce so i'm just going to move on yeah i think they get a body what's that body like exactly i'm not sure and um man i wish i could answer that one better i'm i'm uh 14 good ones and one really lame one all right 16 elijah roman says jesus says to peter get behind me satan when peter tries to rebuke him from deny or dying in jerusalem but satan entered into judas leading him to betray jesus was satan divided against himself um so that's a great question yeah um that this is why i'm very cautious with the peter i used peter as an example earlier of somebody who may have had like a demonic thought put into his head that's possible um does this mean that if that's the case if peter is getting this idea from satan when he says to jesus no lord no lord i don't want you to go down that road i want you to die um is it possible that this is like an actual demon putting this idea in his head the answer to this would be if so then i would i would venture a guess that the demon just wants peter to argue with jesus like the whole plan here isn't that satan doesn't want to kill jesus he just wants division by satan just he's the uh he's he is definitely one who causes division in the body of christ so it's not that he cares about what jesus is like i'm going to die in jerusalem satan wants that to happen he wants peter to argue with jesus publicly he wants to create division amongst jesus and the disciples i think that would be the agenda there so satan may have inspired the thought or or perhaps inspired him being so urgent about it that he would openly rebuke jesus that may have been the case or it's possible that jesus is just saying get behind me satan is just you're an adversary to the plans of god right now peter if you fight against this you're fighting against god like satan does so may not have been assigning spiritual motive or spiritual sources behind it may have just been saying this is just a demonic thing like it's evil it's like the demons not from the demons does that make sense so yeah um satan then enters judas he obviously wants to kill jesus that's his motive for sure all right question 17 susan says a friend is afraid to have kids because she's afraid they'll reject jesus she would feel guilty for having them if they went to hell and doesn't want to take the chance how should i respond um uh well i mean this is challenging because what you're dealing with here is human fear and not rational it's not like there's a biblical reason going on here i understand the fear what if my kids reject christ the worst case scenario what i would say to people is that god thinks it's worth it to take this chance with us he made you god thinks it's worth it to take this chance i'd also say that your kids as they grow up as much as you think of them as your babies and you want to protect them from making choices this is not good parenting good parenting prepares them for choices it doesn't forbid them from choices and if they make choices to be drug addicts and to commit suicide and this would wreck your heart it would damage your life it would really be hard to live with that kind of scenario but it was their choice it was still their choice and robbing from them the ability to make choices is itself wrong i think so i think that god's willing to give us those choices and we should be willing to give those choices to others that's my opinion about that i think that we have evidence from it from scripture that god does this with us choose you this day who you will serve there's such a value in choosing the life you'll live it's so valuable when you make the right choices that it's worth the risk of you making the wrong ones that would be my encouragement um and i would also want to if it was my buddy my friend i'd want to talk to her um about what other motives she might have for not wanting to have kids like if you could just have like a real open conversation where you're not trying to be judgmental you're just trying to kind of pull out the details like you know let me understand you don't have to force her to have kids she doesn't have to have kids but that that seems like a strange reasoning to go on there number 18 true west says what is your take on scholarship that attempts to alter our common understanding of the old testament by questioning the traditions or our understanding of the culture they want to alter understanding of the old testament by questioning translations or our understanding of the culture i have no problem with that if they're right but if they're wrong it's really messed up and so this is the danger of scholarship because for most human beings most of you listening not everybody but most of you when someone says scholars say or scholarship says or in the original language it really means you probably have to extend them some level of trust because you're not able to vet and research all the all the claims they're about to make so if they're giving you good info it's fantastic you're getting better understanding you're carefully understanding and knowing the word of god this is great if they're giving you bad info they're talking over your head and using your trust to deceive you about the scriptures oh so it's either really good or really bad i i think this is why it tells us in scripture that teachers are judged more strictly i'm judged more strictly because as i give you advice i give you input i give you statements about the word of god like i better be right and if i'm wrong i'm accountable for you now believing and behaving based upon wrong thinking that this is this is a big thing and so i know from reading scholars that scholarship is a very mixed bag and there's plenty of scholars out there who are going to use their prestige and the authority you place on them to give you a wrong image of scripture in the wrong image of god and there's others who will use their prestige and the trust you give them to give you a right image of christ in the right image of god i want to know things like um you know when paul says about those who were circumcised don't seek to be uncircumcised okay he says this in galatians really strange phrase i want to know that culturally there was an actual roman like or greco-roman procedure where they would try to uncircumcise somebody they would do a medical procedure and he goes don't do that and so i realized oh this was like an actual thing like that's a cultural understanding that helps me understand the passage better i like that when they're reclining at the table with jesus and and john's laying against him or he leans against him i want to know that at fancy dinners they would recline in particular at passover the jews would be at a like a reclined kind of relaxed long long meal very long meal and they'd sit there and recline and they might lean against each other and that was culturally normal i want to know that because then it helps me basically to refute the people who are going to act like maybe john and jesus had like intimate things going on because everybody wants to read their perversions into scripture and so that that helps protect against that so i want to know these things but but yeah um scholarship is a mixed bag the best you can do is try to um as a christian if you don't know scholars you don't if you can't read and research it on your own is try to make sure you have teachers you feel you can trust and also realize this realize when you're about to change your whole belief system because you just trust some scholars word that's a scary moment because your entire faith is hanging upon this one scholar and their views on things and and that just notice that notice that when in doubt ignore everybody and just read your bible and you'll you'll be better off than just taking somebody's random word for it number 19 skeptic reviews says in the gospel of marx and jesus since jesus talked about the son of man in the third person that means jesus was talking about someone else where in the book of mark does jesus directly say he is the son of man well let's take a look so um i don't have a verse right off the top of my head like i know of all the son of man phrases and mark ready to go but give me a second to pull out a few just a moment okay um let's read these and let's test the hypothesis that jesus does not mean himself when he says son of man so the first one we'll look at is mark 2 10. um but you but that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins he says to the paralytic i say to you arise rise take your bed and go home or pick up your bed and go home okay that's the first occurrence of son of man in the gospel of mark how does jesus use it um he's talking about himself it's very clear actually so this man wants to be healed the paralytic wants to be healed he comes down jesus sees him and he tells him son your sins are forgiven they freak out who do you think you are who can forgive sins but god alone like you don't have the authority to forgive sins and then jesus says what do you think is easier to say to this paralytic the guy right here your sins are forgiven or rise take up your bed and walk but that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins i say to you rise pick up your bed and go home to argue that jesus is not referring to himself i think is impossible to do it well and he tells the guy you're forgiven you guys claim i can't forgive oh yeah the son of man can forgive i'll prove it get up take your bed and go home the guy gets up he has he takes his bed and he goes home so there's the first occurrence of son of man in the gospel of mark jesus is obviously using it about himself then in mark 8 31 we have another occurrence of son of man and it says here and he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things be rejected by the elders and chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again that's clearly about himself jesus clearly is thinking he's the one that's going to suffer be rejected die and then rise again he repeats this several times in the gospel of mark he says it plainly peter knows he's talking about himself which is why he rebukes jesus then he says get behind me you're not you're not a you're not following you're not following me and let's see that that's another occurrence uh we have other ones so in mark chapter 9 now as they came down from the mountain he commanded them that they should tell uh tell no one the things they had seen till the son of man had risen from the dead he's obviously talking about himself i don't know how anybody oh i'm sorry the text is so small mark 9 9. there you go but jesus is obviously speaking about himself he's predicting his own death and resurrection he's talking about his death and resurrection mark is all about his death and resurrection so jesus in this i mean if you're gonna take mark as even remotely reliable jesus obviously thinks that the son of man is is jesus he obviously thinks it's himself i could go on we could read other places in the gospel of mark um in mark 14 21 this is a passage i'll be teaching here this this week jesus says about himself he goes that one of them is going to betray him right truly i say to you one of you will betray me he means the disciples one of the disciples will betray him then in verse 20 they're at they're asking him in verse 19 is it i they're all like who is it who's going to betray you and he says is somebody dipping the bread in the dish with me it's one of you here at this passover meal then he says for the son of man goes as it is written of him but woe to the man by whom the son of man is betrayed but he just said someone's going to betray me and then he says and woe to the person who betrays the son of man it's very obvious he's talking about himself so i don't think on any even casual reading of the gospel of mark we could get the idea that the son of man is someone other than jesus i think that seems pretty solid there and question number 20 the potter by the way uh skeptic grievous thank you very much for your question i'm glad you're here and i'm grateful that you you sent that in uh the potter's daughter says will sins be publicly exposed to an assembly or those we've sinned against at the bema seat uh before being erased or forgiven i've heard people say this before let's look at the you gave two verses let's look at those two verses real quick the first one you gave is first corinthians 5 10. and the bama seed is the we all will stand before the judgment seat of christ that word bema is the greek word and it refers to like this this judgment seat of christ that we'll all stand before um and um first corinthians 5 10 was the first verse you used and this is about who's not going to be saved is the people who are living lifestyles of ongoing sin which is again why that brings into question your salvation if you're if you're living this extreme lifestyle of sin um i don't see how that weighs into the current discussion the other verse you gave is luke 12 verses 2 through 3. jesus says nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops so yeah this is talking about like yeah there's so there's some sense here's this verse very much relates there's a sense and i think jesus is talking about future judgment that's my impression on this passage there's a sense in which things that happen in secret are publicly known however let me add something this seems to be to be more talking about the unsaved than the saved it's possible it could apply to the saved the bama seat which is something that the save to go to which is like a judgment for rewards um it may also apply to them but but i think that the text is specifically about the unsaved here he's he's watching out the leaven of the pharisees and he's like it's all going to be uncovered everything's going to be known you could say it's about christians too as a christian it's i mean i have heard pastors say that like when we die like we're gonna be effectively i've even heard this description given that we're all gonna sort of be brought up one at a time during judgment now this isn't maybe a popular teaching but i heard a pastor say this and on our on a tv screen everything's going to play everything in your life is going to play and everyone's going to see it and so i don't know if he really meant like a tv screen but but he obviously thought everything i've done will be very public and publicly known i don't know it might be there's a chance and if it is it's going to be a really shameful moment for all of us but then we'll all be in the same playing field i mean if that were to happen to everybody and all of the sinful thoughts and deeds that i've ever committed were known fully to those i'm in heaven with and i knew all theirs i mean it would be horrible at the moment but at the same time afterwards it would be like we're all just so aware of the grace of god at that point so i i don't i wouldn't even complain i mean i wouldn't like it but i wouldn't complain it would be like look at what his grace has covered or will we be in heaven and i'll privately know what i've been forgiven of but maybe others won't i don't know i don't know um this phrase that nothing's covered that will not be revealed it could be a reference to perhaps not so much public knowledge but god's going to uncover it like between you and god everything will be known god will know all of your issues all of your sins all of it but maybe that's not about it being known to everybody publicly maybe that doesn't emphasize that so much because it just says nothing's covered up that will not be revealed so yeah yeah i'm not sure that the scripture answers that question or maybe it doesn't i just haven't seen that answer so the potter's daughter there's my thoughts if it happens i'm okay with it i don't like it but but i think it will increase in the end our grace our attitude towards god's grace and each other and um and if it doesn't happen then that's nice too okay all right we got a little bonus question and the bonus question is from spazzyjazzy who says is israel is a real is a real realm of rest but is israel really real okay sort of a question it's real is a real realm of rest but is israel really real is this just i think it's the tongue twister all right here's my parting tongue twister for you guys a box of biscuits a box of mixed biscuits and a biscuit mixer can you can you say that fast can you say it as fast as i do a box of biscuits a box of mixed biscuits and a biscuit mixer i challenge you i challenge you to do that have fun with that today all right that's it god bless you i will see you monday at 1 pm for the mark live stream we're going to go through the gospel mark we're in the passover meal right at the end and in the meantime here's one passing thought for you one parting thought other than my horrible tongue twister um everything that you're seeing in your life right now you're seeing from from today and you know when you look back at your life like you look back 10 years from 10 years ago you look at 10 years ago so much differently than you do that you do now well now you're in now now is the worst time to figure out what's going on now now if you're going through hard times hardships difficult things now is not the time to have tenure pretend you have the perspective of 10 years from now but as christians our ultimate perspective will come in eternity you'll be in glory and in great joy forever that's when you will know what was going on today that's when it will make more sense to you until then you just you just walk in faith you just trust in god and you rest in him giving you that bedrock that keeps you from getting down too low all right god bless you

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 66,161

Rating: 4.9188094 out of 5

Keywords: 20 questions, BibleThinker, Mike Winger, question and answer, think biblically, episode 29, part 29, Q and A

Id: MXxqY5b5RtQ

Length: 86min 54sec (5214 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021