20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 36)

all right question number one oh that's the finger i want up there back there we keep track of the questions when i remember to plug in the question counter and today's first question is from pinktree99 who asks my father recently died and i don't think he was a true christian i've been a christian for seven months and i didn't share the gospel with him would things have gone differently if i did and let's just start off with a heart-wrenching and very challenging very tough question um let me let me just dig into this this is how some people would answer the question and i'm gonna i'm gonna be very open with your pink tree i can't give you obviously a definitive answer on what would have happened had you done something obviously i don't know what would have happened but here's how someone answered the question and while i think it's somewhat heartwarming and helpful i don't know if it's entirely accurate and biblical so some would say look everyone who will be saved will be saved and your your lack of sharing the gospel with that person made no difference whatsoever in their life because if they were going to get saved they would get saved um now i'm not of that persuasion to say that and i know that's kind of an uncomfortable thing to hold to for me to say that i don't agree with that statement but i think that foreknowledge god's foreknowledge is factored into his election and so when he chooses us one of the things that's mixed in there is his knowledge of who will choose him so i think that we actually make real choices in life that really make a difference and that when we witness and don't witness that that can actually impact whether someone is really saved or not i think that's a really obvious thing but i also think it's biblical i think that there's a biblical precedence but that wouldn't answer your question that would just leave you with a lump in your throat and with this sense of like oh gosh so maybe so let me talk to you about some more issues okay um in matthew 11 21 we have jesus that kind of supports my point a little bit here matthew 11 21. here's the passage woe to you corazon woe to you besides for if the mighty works done in you have been done entire inside and they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes now why do i quote this verse in relation to your question because this is jesus presenting a hypothetical to a group of cities so the corazon and messiah are cities in galilee this is an area where jesus did all his miracles or many of his miracles in that area and he preached the gospel and he like you know the messiah was there present showing them who he was glorious miracles and everything then he tells them you guys are in a lot of trouble you're in judgment and then he gives him this hypothetical because if i had done this stuff in sodom and gomorrah or in tire and sidon in this case excuse me two other cities he he later talked about sodom and gomorrah as well down a couple verses but in tire and then they would have repented these are these are ancient cities jesus didn't physically go to those cities they had not that they had no one preaching to them because they had prophets who went to them but if they had this next level of these miracles they would have repented now some say jesus doesn't mean it like really they would have repented but i i'm inclined to think he does that there's a scenario where they would have repented now you can get into the debates about well then why didn't he go to tyron seiden well then but then he wouldn't have come in the first century so there's that would be like the snowball this sort of butterfly effect thing causing a bunch of other problems the point i want to make is that i think our actions really do matter and i think that the things that we do and don't do and the people we share the gospel with and don't share the gospel with i think it actually does make a difference a difference but it's not the only difference and this is where i want you i want you to really hopefully you really take this in luke chapter 16 verse 31 this is talking to people jesus giving another sort of um hypothetical about people that helps balance this out so we don't think that everyone's salvation depends solely upon us who are preaching the gospel because that's not the case he said to him if they do not hear moses in the prophets neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead now this is of course in jesus's parable of lazarus and the rich man and lazarus dies and the rich man's like hey abraham send lazarus back up to to warn my family about the judgment that that they're going to befall that they'll experience what i'm getting and he says look if they don't listen to moses and the prophets they won't be convinced if someone rises from the dead now this is a different this is a different situation where jesus is saying maybe you know this is like the other side of the coin hey don't act like you didn't get saved just because you didn't have enough people preaching at you you didn't listen to the in this case you didn't listen to moses and the prophets you didn't listen to what god had already revealed and that's why you would not have listened had jesus showed up or had had you seen him risen from the dead what i'm going to suggest here is that it's complicated and the humans are just complicated people is it possible that your dad would have given his life to christ had you shared the gospel with him it's possible but is it guaranteed no and is it the only thing your dad is accountable for well no actually your dad is accountable for his entire life not what he what you didn't tell him but what others did tell him and what the holy spirit revealed to him and what he saw in creation god judges us based on what we know not based on what we don't know that's why when jesus you know says woe to you corazon and messiah the two cities we talked about that's why jesus he gives him that warning and then later he says that they're going to get judged worse than sodom and gomorrah see sodom and gomorrah didn't repent tyrion simon didn't repent neither did corazon and messiah they didn't repent but they get worse judgment because they had much greater revelation so you don't get judged for never hearing about jesus if that was say your dad's situation it's implied differently because it's like you say i'm not convinced he was a real christian since since that's the scenario for you my counsel to you is this don't go there you don't have to apparently don't have the information to know whether he was legitimately a christian or not and and you don't need to make that decision nor do you need to start doing the blame game where you're like well if i had done this then he would be like he's not accountable for what you and you didn't didn't do he's accountable for what god did in his life so i know these are these are touchy subjects they come close to our hearts in the end of it all my counsel is trust god he is good he never judges unfairly he never holds people accountable for things they didn't know he only holds people accountable for what they didn't know and he gives everyone an opportunity i think to know the truth about god in some way or another so that's the first question we're going to go to question number two right now before we do that let me just tell you guys what we're doing i'm mike winger and this is 20 questions i take i do this every friday at 1 p.m pacific time that's in california time and we we take questions and i try to answer it from a biblical perspective my goal is to think biblically about everything my my desire is to find others who want to think the same way who want to say hey let's work this through do we have biblical clarity we can bring such as a tough question i just took offering sort of two different perspectives and saying these are both accurate making our application of the situation rather complicated but let's go to question number two this is from katie's online name who says i'm a christian who is married to a non-practicing mormon who still bases his beliefs on lds doctrine i think i want to go into apologetics largely inspired by you that's awesome but i don't think my husband will approve i also feel called to evangelize my mormon in-laws but i struggle to get past their feelings-based testimony and their beliefs about who jesus is and salvation in the advice on my apologetic aspirations and my specific circumstances and on the best way to surmount these lds hurdles thanks so much you are such a blessing thank you katie's online name which i wonder what you're real you're not online they might be um so the uh i think there's a principle here in in honoring your husband and that is you know wives honor your husband as the as to the lord children obey your parents in the lord for this is right there's always that little caveat about it being in the lord or as unto the lord the reason for the caveat is because whenever obedience to god is something that means you know conflicts with honoring that person or with obeying them or doing what they want you always follow god instead that is the biblical principle is i rebel against human authority or or people's roles in my life i only rebel against that when obedience to god requires my rebellion against them that gives us like a real balance as christians so we don't have a rebellious spirit i'm not looking for opportunities to rebel none of that kind of thing but it's just like hey i'm going to pay my taxes i'm gonna be a good citizen but the minute the world tells me you can't preach the gospel of christ i'm like oh well i'm gonna do that anyways because that's obedience to jesus and that's this is i obey jesus in fact i only obey you because i see the authority of god behind you and when you're going against him i'm not going to follow you in that that being said you can have a completely loving and submissive and kind and gracious attitude towards your husband while doing some things he does not approve of because you believe they honor christ so if you want to go into apologetics and you think this is a good and godly way to serve the lord and you like this is i'm not making the decision for you but if that's where you're like i feel that i should do this to honor god then whether your husband approves isn't the most important thing here that's challenging right but obedience to god obedience to jesus this is where jesus he he says like let me give you um i remember sharing this scripture with a family member one time and they they said jesus never said that i got halfway through reading the verse and then when jesus never said that but he did uh let me read it now great crowds accompanied him and he turned and said to them this is in luke 14 and i'm reading in verse 26 now if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and your case and husband and children and brothers and sisters yes and even his own life he cannot be my disciple this whole idea of hate um jesus definitely let me give you a short explanation to this because i know i'm going to cover a bunch of questions today we got 20 questions we're doing a short explanation is this the word hate doesn't always mean emotional hatred sometimes it's used even in scripture loving and hating is used as a way of describing i choose you not you when i'm put between two people i choose you not you so when god loved esau loved jacob hated esau and romans i think there's that's a language of choosing love meaning choice hate meaning not choosing the other when he says if you don't hate your own father and mother i think he means if you don't choose me over all others in your life then you can't be my disciple jesus says if you're going to follow me i have to be your all in all i've got to be the whole thing to you jesus is god and if he is if we don't if we treat him as like a good guide a nice teacher that doesn't work for him like he wants our total loving submission to christ above all others and so that's why the cry of the early church is jesus is lord jesus is lord of all so here if obedience to jesus in your life means witnessing to family members means learning apologetics and theology because you're in the in the middle of it right and you need this information or to share with others and to be part of your own witnessing and sharing of the gospel then i think go for it but be as gracious as possible husband i i love you i don't want to hurt you i just i have to do what i think god wants me to do and um you said you also feel um called but you're dealing with their feelings-based testimony that is one of the biggest challenges i've had with mormons is dealing with the fact that in many mormons real like okay maybe not in the mormon theology but in the real life mormon experience when you just talk to a bunch of mormons you find that a lot of their beliefs are based on feelings and it is reinforced because they the burning in the bosom that whole kind of thing is kind of taught as if it were like a feeling experience and a purely emotional kind of sensation um what i would do with them is i would take them just take them to scriptures that warn about the heart so jeremiah that says um you know the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked who can know it and scriptures that warn us about following our hearts jeremiah that talks about how false prophets they prophesied from their own hearts and specifically he says like they think they have a word from me but they're really prophesying the deceit of their own heart so when you show them these consistently in scripture that your heart isn't the best guide god's word is the best guide that might be a way to approach that i hope that helps katie's online name all right let's take the next question number three this is from faith marie faith marie says hi pastor mike i was wondering how do you remember scripture i will read in the morning and by the the time of night or the next day um i forget what i read what i read i know where to meditate on it but how do we do this so faith i don't usually focus on memorizing scripture uh not that that's not a great thing sometimes i feel like i should do that more okay i think that there's huge value memorizing scripture so don't follow me as your example here i probably should memorize scripture more but what i tend to do is i tend to actually just study scripture and then i end up remembering it like on accident and so an example of this is hobbyists um people who are just are nerds about a specific topic you end up memorizing tons of info about that area of nerd nerdiness that that others are like how do you even remember all that and the truth is you remember it because you not just because you love it that's part of it you love it but you also spend so much time on it that you just automatically remember it so there's times where i would study a passage for like you know 15 hours and then i go teach it that sunday and then i'm like practically memorizing this this passage of scripture because i've just spent so much time looking at it thinking about it going over it again and again and again that i think is a great way to meditate and memorize scripture you read something in the morning if you haven't thought about it through the day there's a good chance you won't remember it in the evening but if you read it in the morning and then maybe you read it again at lunch and between morning and lunch you're just meditating on it like whenever you have a little bit of free time you're just kind of like casually thinking about it think of it as a hobby that meditating on the bible is like your little side hobby it's just for fun it's you're going to nerd out on scripture so you read it and so like say you take this cost of discipleship like if anyone comes to me and doesn't hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters yes and even his own life he cannot be my disciple and you and you think of this verse then you're thinking about it as you as you encounter maybe your wife or children or your mother or somebody that day and you're thinking wow how powerful did jesus use it so you're meditating on it at lunch you read it again and because you've been meditating on it you may notice different things so this is what i'm going to recommend the more time you spend in a particular scripture the more it's going to be committed to your memory and not just memory because anybody can just memorize and quote a scripture but it'll be committed to your heart because you will have meditated on it you know so that's um scripture meditation causes scripture memory or memorization look it's even i can i can be even more pastoral here scripture meditation causes scripture memorization next question um scott craig i find it very difficult to pray for the current administration i know they need it desperately how do i overcome this struggle so let me actually take you to scripture and give you some guidance that a lot of people don't notice um i think it's in first timothy three no where is where the scripture paul's telling us to pray um is it titus um let me find it real quick just a moment no first timothy 2 okay first timothy 2 and in this passage what we're going to read is the instruction we have on praying for leaders all right here we go therefore i exhort first of all that supplications prayers and intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men and then he's going to describe what kinds of men for kings and all who are in authority okay so here's where you might get like i know i should be praying for the administration like the president the vice president the the congress and um and everybody involved in in you know different governmental positions but look at the purpose of the prayers it's interesting that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence so the prayer it seems at least part of the reason to pray not the only reason part of the reason to pray for those who are in leadership is that they might make good choices so that the people under their leadership can live quiet and peaceful lives in godliness and reverence lord i pray that you help our president and vice president and our congress right that you help the the senate and the house of representatives to make choices that will allow us to live in quiet and peaceful lives in godliness and reverence to not restrict our religious freedoms to to not uh cause oppression to to basically clears a way for people to live good lives that would be a focus of prayer so there's also prayers for their to be saved for them to be converted and that's also important to pray but i think it's interesting that when they're brought up specifically here in 1st timothy 2 it seems to be prayers because these people influence everyone so we're praying for all people let's pray for the leaders of all people that people would be blessed god please help our country that we as a people would be helped to be able to live godly lives so that's that's an interesting angle of prayer you can pray that you can pray for the current administration that they make better choices and good godly decisions for people um yeah now on the other hand scott if there's bitterness in your heart towards them what i would encourage you to do is model um the early church who who like with jesus praying father forgive them for they know not what they do like there's there needs to be an attitude in my heart as a christian of gracious love even towards those who may have earned my bitterness because that's god's attitude towards me gracious love even towards me who has earned his bitterness and that's very important to do one of the ways we do this is we commit judgment to the lord okay so god is going to deal with all leaders and every decision they make and every president of the country we've ever had will one day stand before god and be judged according to his holiness and goodness and according to the truth of christ knowing that should give you the peace to say you know what lord i'm going to be gracious and kind they will stand before you i'm not their judge i don't have to have any angst about any of this stuff you're going to deal with it lord let me just have a right and godly christian attitude that would be my advice on on that one i sure hope it helps okay number five jay kane has a question is deliverance for today is deliverance for today should we be praying for each other to be set free from demonic bondage in our lives along with seeking medical assistance and counseling where needed uh let me kind of approach this from the back so first off should we see counseling where needed um absolutely i asked a question on facebook i'm not trying to call anybody out i just think that real life examples help us learn i asked a question on facebook the other day um asking for your guys counsel on my on my uh mike winger facebook page and a lot of people gave different advice and now proverb says there's wisdom and a multitude of counselors but one person or maybe a couple replied you know mike you really should be asking god not us and that's i think i think it's well intentioned but i think that it's very unwise to think that asking people is like the other option of asking god either god or people whereas scripture proverbs like tells us there's wisdom in a multitude of counselors that it's good to have wisdom to seek i mean why does why is one of the things the holy spirit gives us a word of wisdom if we aren't supposed to go to each other for wisdom on things so that i think that's a good godly thing of course you go to people for wisdom we don't pick god or people you pray you seek the lord and you get counsel and you make a choice um so yeah we should get counsel where needed medical assistant absolutely medical assistant is a great thing it's a very good thing i think there's actually a biblical case that can be made for using medicine there is there's also the dangers of the abuse of medicine so it's a mixed bag but medical assistance good now what about being free from demonic bondage that is a very loaded statement demonic bondage because demonic bondage could be like actually some kind of demonic attack in a person's life that's legit or it could be blaming demons for every wrong thing you do and think and that's the one that i'm more worried about because that's what i've been exposed to more or less i've seen floating around sort of in like some places so what i want to say is this um alcoholism i don't have any reason to think it's a demon adultery not a demon homosexual behavior not a demon the bible treats these like sins and there are sins that come from somewhere other than demons so let me take you to a couple places this is where i say demonic bondage can be a problem so this is the part i want to push back there can be real demonic attacks in people's lives and we should definitely seek for deliverance prayer fasting going gathering elders i mean we should be doing those things if that's real but the problem is there's a lot of false positives a lot of pushing my issues onto demons and then trying to cast demons out and creating all kinds of weird weird moments in people's lives but let's look at what james says in james chapter one look at a couple scriptures here if i can remember because i just catalogued a couple and i can remember him as we go james chapter 1 verse 12 blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he's been approved he'll receive the crown of life which lord's promise to those who who love him let no one say let no one say when he's tempted i'm tempted by god for god cannot be tempted by evil nor does he himself tempt anyone okay so god's not causing you to be tempted but and then this is where i would expect him to say but you have these sin issues in your life because you have demonic bondage going on you're angry at your wife and you keep yelling at her and you can't stop cussing at her because of a demon of rage a demon of bitterness a demon of anger i think that is not biblical i think that that's gotten its root for various reasons in the church and we need to like exercise it so verse 14 he says each one is tempted when when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed look when i sin it's because something in me wanted to sin like sin isn't a demonic bondage sin is a result of my sinful desires satan may tempt in a sense but he only accesses the things that are in us that we want that are wicked in the first place sin is always a problem with me when i commit sin i can't blame it on an external source in galatians we have other examples of this so walk in the spirit and you'll not fulfill the lusts of the flesh now the spirit is contra contrasted with the flesh in this case the spirit being being the the the labor and the work of the holy spirit in my life and then if i walk in the spirit then i'm gonna be doing good things but if the flesh it's not a demon it's my flesh that leads to these other things so let's let's look at the list of things that come from the flesh and i forgive me if um uh jay kane if this is not what you were thinking when you said demonic bondage i have to kind of read between the lines a little bit on questions so i hope this lands um for this for the flesh less against the spirit the spirit against the flesh so there's like desires within me against against the spirit but they're not demonic they're just my flesh and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish but if you're led by the spirit you're not under the law now the works of the flesh are evident now all these things they're works of the flesh they come from where my flesh right adultery so it's not a demon of adultery it's me fornication that's not a demon of fornication that's just me wanting to fornicate uncleanness lewdness idolatry is even worship of demons but it's coming from my flesh a demon's not making me do it i'm doing it myself sorcery that involves dark spiritual things but it's coming from my flesh as well so there's always some self-issue i can't just put my sin on on a demonic thing even if there's demonic things involved hatred contentions jealousies outbursts of wrath selfish ambitions dissensions heresies envy murders drunkenness revelries and the like and he goes on all this stuff there's the flesh there and that's the focus i want to have the christian battle is it the first and primary battle every christian faces is internal dying to yourself and then external there's these there's these things about principalities and powers and things like that that are real that we need to deal with but they never absolve me of dying to my own flesh so um you know demonic alcohol you know alcoholism is not a thing so if so that's what i mean my concern with being free from demonic bondage is that we first make sure it is actually demonic bondage and not something else we're gonna go to question number six but before we do that there are no more questions today this is we've got our full 20 for a list of 20 questions we i do 20 each friday i'm sorry i can't get to all of them like i am it's just not physically possible but here's number six joyful blessings how literally should we follow the qualifications for pastors and elders in first timothy and titus oh man i've actually given this some thought because real life is not ideal and and when you're looking around and your church especially smaller churches and they're looking around and they're like we need a leader they're often slim pickings and so how strictly do we take these very strict things okay so first timothy three here's the chapter i went to earlier but now now i'm doing it on purpose qualifications of overseers this is a faithful saying if a man desires let's look at what these qualifications are we'll see why this is challenging if a man desires the position of a bishop a bishop a bishop is an elder uh who who teaches an elder in the church um uh basically a modern we usually use the term pastor to talk about somebody who's in this position um and that's fine so bishop though it has nothing to do with say like roman catholic has a special term for bishop or people who have like bishops or over many churches and pastors over single churches that's all just made up hogwash it's not biblical okay so not that there can't be someone who's over multiple churches i'm saying that it doesn't tie itself to the term so the position of a bishop he desires a good work a bishop then must be blameless that means nobody can can come up and say this guy has this problem he has this like real like character issue so there's no you know he has that good good reputation um the husband of one wife one wife okay so now there's a debate on whether that means he can never be divorced or if if it's against polygamy and i actually talked about that in another video i'll just reference you just you'll have to look that up but he's also temperate sober-minded of of good behavior hospitable he's got to be hospitable so like pastors should be kind of not just people persons like they make you happy when you but rather they're they're giving they they cater to others needs this is a natural thing that they do they're able to teach they have to be able to teach that's required that's a tough one sometimes not given to wine this doesn't mean they can't drink at all but they can't be given to wine they can't be given over to it right that which is really interesting way it's phrased not violent not greedy for money that's a big deal gentle not quarrelsome are they quarrelsome do they tend to get into arguments all the time they bicker and argue and they create division because they have this staunch and rude attitude about things are they covetous one who rules and out here gets even harder he rules his own house well having his children in submission with all reverence he he's like a good dad who has control of his home his home's not chaos oh wow okay for if a man does not know how uh to rule his own house how will he take care of the church of god now so in other words there's an example there like if you can't take care of your family you know this is a cool thing side note that ministry towards the church it seems to be a priority to first have ministry towards your home you're honoring god in your home first and there are some people who use ministry or their jobs or their careers and they do really good in their job or their career or their ministry as a way of just ignoring the fact that at home they're totally failing that is that is that is the wrong priority like i would rather fail outside the home than inside the home like this is the number one priority it's also a lot more difficult than succeeding in business anyway not a novice okay you can't be a newbie like if you're if you've been saved for two years like you should not be a pastor like wait be patient and if you can't be patient you don't understand why you have to be chat disconnected yeah man something's going on with the internet so i'm just slowing down a bit i may come back and delete this section if there's like a big issue here oh yeah we're having problems it's down oh man okay well i'm gonna we'll see what i'll do maybe what i'll do is i'll upload i'll i'll figure something out but just be watching my channel for how i handle this later i'm going to go ahead and keep going through the questions because i have all 20 and maybe this will be uploaded as a separate video if you're watching this video later maybe this is my my second half thrown up because i simply ran out of internet so um yeah that got really bad really quick okay all right so um uh yeah how strict do we take this how strict do we take all these these demands for pastoral leaders and the answer is we're supposed to take it like that these are the qualifications like this is just this is how it is now what if literally nobody matches that description that you know then i think i would go with the best option i had but because you need leaders you need people to serve and maybe even make them temporary leaders as we continue to pursue and look for someone who has these better qualifications maybe that's like a good middle ground like hey you're sort of the interim person until we can find someone who's who is fully qualified to meet this position that might be a good a good um balance all right we'll go to question seven susie ann stapper says is it okay for a christian to marry a non-christian like a buddhist atheist or muslim and what if they already have children how would you counsel the christian may god bless you and your wife um yeah this is a i'm really glad you're asking this question susie before i answer it i want to ask you the whole audience to really seriously consider one thing are you willing to follow what god says on this topic because to me the will of god i only want what you want is the biggest single issue in this whole thing i've seen many christians go down the road of partnering um marrying people that they probably never should have because they simply it didn't matter what scripture said there was such a desire i want what i want and somebody somebody tell me how to reinterpret these verses so let me go to the scripture that actually talks about it um it's in first corinthians and it talks about being unequally yoked and many of you are familiar with this passage so first second corinthians sorry second corinthians 6 14. here we go do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers now a yoke this is an old school farming analogy the the analogy is that of a of a the yolk is is like a a piece of wood that's placed pieces of wood that are placed on an ox or some animal and he's yoked or attached to another animal so they could pull plows or or or cart together they're yolked together so they could work together so the yoke here is talking i think about marriage and sexual intimacy so don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers for what part partnership has righteousness with lawlessness or what fellowship has light with darkness what a court has christ with belial or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever what agreement has the temple of god with idols for we are the temple of the living god as god said i will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and i will be their god and they shall be my people therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them says the lord and touch no unclean thing now we can we can read on but i think the context of this is second corinthians 6 he's talking here about ultimately who are you connecting yourself to and the yoking of marriage that is probably the number one biggest way in which you could yoke yourself with somebody is you get married now the biblical teaching on this without getting into a lot of detail i think is pretty clear christians are not to marry non-believers now that doesn't mean just atheists who believe nothing or believe you know and know god but it means people who are not following christ people who don't believe in and truly truly believe in jesus christ right they don't hold the gospel that's the rule for christians now if you're already married to a non-believer you're counseled in first corinthians 7 stay married and honor the lord in that marriage first peter even talks about it he's like stay there so we're not counseling divorce here what we're doing is we're saying don't start that marriage but if it's if it's begun or if you did it mistakenly in the past now honor god this is not your excuse for divorce honor god seek to bless the lord have a wonderful have the best marriage you possibly can right now but yeah it's not okay for a christian to marry a non-christian like a buddhist atheist or muslim like it's definitely not and um what if they already have children i mean i'm assuming you mean they're they have kids together but they're not married um well they shouldn't have had kids together i mean that's a complicated and tough situation i feel like i might counsel them like like at that point that that marriage might be like you're just solidifying something that you've already done maybe it would be a good idea in that scenario if if like say you and a buddhist had kids already maybe there's a scenario there where marriage is a good idea that's a tough one i'd have to really really think about that and listen to hours of people telling me their life story before i could give counsel so i hope that the um stream is better now maybe possibly all right don't know what happened there we're gonna go to question eight hannah butterfield says does luke 20 verses 27 through 36 teach that people who are married on earth won't be married anymore in heaven i feel sad that my husband and i might not be together still in heaven thanks for all your work hannah totally understand this look i'm married now for 11 years and i um get it like like you know the the the idea of us not having our special relationship would just be like the weirdest thing there's like a yeah it's just weird that would be strange but here's what jesus says there came to him some sadducees those who deny that there's a resurrection and they ask him this weird riddle i'll summarize it basically they're like teacher this woman she married seven different guys whose husband is she gonna be in the afterlife and they're trying to say that therefore there is no there is no real afterlife ha ha here's a tricky question about the resurrection and you can't answer it so therefore there is no resurrection and then jesus answers them and says the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage this age this time we're in now but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age that's the resurrection and to the resurrection from the dead neither mary nor are given in marriage that's interesting now you might say so you don't marry in the afterlife or in the new i say after life but that makes you think of a disembodied state jesus is talking about the final state like we're all resurrected we have a new heaven and new earth revelation the end of revelation talks about this he's like in that state you could say in that state like we're not going to have additional marriages if you die single you stay single but that's not the context jesus is actually saying this in response to which husband that she did have in in life will she have in the resurrection and he's just like there won't be that that's a non-question there's no marriage there's no giving in marriage they cannot die anymore because they're equal to angels and their sons of god being the sons of the resurrection then he goes on and builds another really cool old testament biblical case for um for the resurrection and the afterlife now um what am i going to think of this as as a as a man who's married and who loves my wife does that mean like we go we we're unmarried like in the resurrection we're no longer connected we're unmarried so like we don't have this deep connection that we've been living in and enjoying and building for years no i don't think so i think that we're not married that doesn't mean we don't love each other doesn't mean we're not incredibly close um i think the implication is that there isn't going to be like sexual relations in the resurrection i'm just being speaking bluntly here for everybody i don't think that that's going to be part of the new order of things but i would suppose that we're probably not going to have desires for that either but we'll have this beautiful intimate fellowship this is a theme in in in revelation this is a theme throughout the scriptures that human unity and love is better in the resurrection or in the new life than it is now i don't think i'll be married to my wife but i think we'll be closer than ever we won't have marriage typical human marriage but i think we'll have closeness and love and intimacy and fellowship i just don't think it'll be like sexual in that nature i mean some people think that that will be i think that that's probably not the case um that's where he's like they're like the angels okay so i think that we're not gonna be experiencing that kind of stuff so i think yeah we should probably hold to that but closeness intimacy yes you will not lose the love and the fellowship and the and the the the connection the two of you have it'll just be different now why is it that we wouldn't just call it marriage well maybe partly because there isn't the the function of like continuing to have kids continuing to like um uh be together intimately physically in that sense but also possibly because there won't be the limits of relationship you won't have just this one person who you're super close with but there'll be such a closeness across a community of people that there wouldn't be the need for exclusivity in that sense either in other words i think we're closer not further apart and i hope that that helps i just muted my mic to cough briefly there let's go to question number nine this is from dan spelled d-a-a-n in my church holy communion is postponed because of the measures surrounding kova drinking from one cup is not possible to justify this they use joshua 5 1-8 is this biblical reasoning well there's a lot to unpack there but let's just look at joshua 5 first and then we'll talk as i take a drink from my bible thinker mug which you can get your own bible thinker mug and i'm not making a penny off of it but for the month of june for each month i'm probably going to pick different ministries but for the month of june we're going to take five dollars from every mug the most of it goes to the potter who makes it which is great that's his business it's how he makes his living and there's links down below to the to the mugs but we'll take five bucks from each mug and i'm going to donate them to george jordanian rep actually there's syrian refugees who came to jordan and they're living there and then they're under a lot of oppression and a lot of poverty extreme poverty right now so we're going to be giving that money to a ministry that's helping support them and it won't be a whole lot but it'll be something and it'll be something good so you can check that out if you like um joshua five one let me take my drink here it says as soon as all the kings of the amorites who were beyond the jordan to the west and all the kings of the canaanites who were by the sea heard that the lord had dried up the waters of the jordan for the people of israel until they had crossed over their hearts melted and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of israel and verse two at that time the lord said to joshua make flint knives and circumcise the sons of israel a second time so joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of israel at gibeth they did this because obviously they weren't already circumcising everybody they weren't really following the commands they've been given and this is the reason why joshua circumcised them all the males out of the people who came out of egypt all the men of war had died in the wilderness on the way after they come out of egypt that while the people who came out had been circumcised yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they'd come out of egypt had not been circumcised for the people of israel walked 40 years in the wilderness until all the nation the men of war who came out of egypt perished because they did not obey the voice of the lord the lord swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the lord had sworn to their fathers to give to us a land flowing with milk and honey so it was their children whom he raised up in their place that joshua circumcised for they were uncircumcised because they'd not been circumcised on the way and you said verse 8 as well when the circumcision circumcising of the whole nation was finished they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed and the lord said to joshua today i've rolled away their approach and he has you know he's going to send them all out okay now i'm having a hard time even thinking of how a church is using this to relate to the issue of communion during covid so let me try to unpack like what is going on here so you say in my church holy communion is postponed because of the measures surrounding covet okay i understand that drinking from one cup is not possible which means that in your church you guys have a you all drink from one cup this is this is um i think this is a tradition of man i think that that's a tradition that's not necessary yeah so i never in scripture we like commanded that when we repeat communion everyone has to have the same cup it seems to me that they were doing this as like early church feasts it was like it was like a whole meal going on they obviously weren't all drinking from the same cup anyway even if even if there was potentially uh one cup at the original you know when that when it was just the 12. but you said to justify this they use joshua 5. so joshua 5 it seems they postponed circumcising until they were entering the land but joshua five and maybe that maybe you could relate that to covet say hey they waited to circumcise until they were entering the land but joshua five seems to present this like it was a rebellion against god like these are just them being knuckleheads they didn't circumcise even though they were supposed to and god's like before you come in you guys need to get on the right foot with me you need to be obeying the commands i'm bringing you in to follow me to bring my laws with you so you need to be obeying them so joshua 5 does not seem to me unless i miss something it doesn't seem to be presenting any justification for delaying obedience to god on the other hand i feel that communion can be done in very flexible fashions and so like at our own church we have these little commun tiny things they're they're annoying and you know they don't taste good but but you you have like a little a little cup like a little two ounce one ounce cup of liquid there probably grape about grape juice in our case um and if you peel it back the just the lid in the lid is a tiny little wafer so you have the wafer and you have that it's not broken from one piece which i like that symbolism but i still think we can honor the lord in this situation in these other ways how important is that right now i don't think it's super important i mean if you've got somebody who's not infected and then they break bread i mean why can't your church just say hey let's maybe i'm just being too reckless here let's let's have one giant pitcher or cup or whatever we pour the communion in there and we thank god for the communion and then we have people who are masked and they've been tested and they poured into individual cups and everybody partakes it sounds like a church is so stuck on their tradition on how they do communion how they and not the universal church for all time has how they do communion that they won't do it at all because they can't do it their way that's the part that i would change is the method so those are just my honest thoughts i'm not trying to i know i'm like a bull in a china shop sometimes all right number 10 positive vibes has a question hey pastor mike i'm an ex-muslim and i became christian in 2020 and i've secretly been christian but i still have to have to do muslim practices will god understand that i have to keep it secret oh i gotta let me tell you true story i got a call one time from a muslim former muslim he's calling from england and he called our church i had already started doing youtube stuff at the time so maybe he saw something online although my channel was like probably 2 000 subscribers if that you know um so nobody knew me but he called and he got me on the phone i answered the phone i was still working in the office at the time and uh and you can't call hosanna and talk to me now you can go to my website if you want to try to reach out to us but um which is biblethinker.org but um but yeah i just can't even keep up with anything anymore but the um uh the thing is he was calling because he wanted to talk about jesus like i'm not even kidding it was one of those rare beautiful phone calls that's he was like i just want to talk about jesus can we just talk about jesus like he wants to learn more about the gospel he was looking for resources he'd been raised in islam and he had all these questions about jesus but he didn't really know jesus very well because he hadn't really read the bible very much and didn't know how to understand it he just had kind of islamic propaganda about christ why did he call me from england and the truth is it was because he had asked his brothers it's a true story he'd asked his brothers about jesus and he was telling him i just want to know more about jesus like he was just getting kind of obsessed with jesus and it bothered them because they felt like this was somehow a challenge to their islamic faith and his brothers beat him up like because he kept talking about jesus he wasn't even a christian yet he just kept talking about jesus and he they beat him up so bad that he was crippled literally crippled like can't walk up a flight of stairs which is why in england he called all the way to bellflower california to talk to somebody because he wanted to talk to somebody who was safe who wasn't around him long story short ended up giving him lots of resources sending him a bunch of books and stuff like that for from a former muslim and he ended up like holding up signs on street corners and telling people and he told his family and they were like we're gonna we're gonna take you out if you don't stop one of his brothers told him though hey i'm proud of you you know if jesus really has changed your life like that then then you shouldn't be ashamed of it that was really interesting i share that story for one reason i understand that there could be serious and drastic consequences depending on how you how you handle yourself right now this is why you secretly are a christian and you've been doing muslim practices because if people find out like i know in egypt it's illegal to change your on your paperwork to change your religion from islam to christianity it's actually illegal and you could be in a lot of trouble i don't know all the right ways for you to handle this but i do know that generally speaking our biblical counsel is to have boldness and courage and to [Music] be open about our faith in christ and i i want to encourage you to read the book of acts read the book of acts they did go through suffering they did go through hardship because they were open about their faith and i don't know what pain you might go through and i'm not i'm not trying to cause that pain look i'm not the one persecuting you i'm not the one doing any harm to you i support you you're my brother you're my sister but when you read the book of acts when you look at the life of jesus like please go look there and all the direction and all the inspiration it seems to be in the direction of being open and real and honest and immediately the cessation of any practices you see as not honoring christ um so praying towards mecca things like that where you go like i can't do this this does not honor jesus christ like that seems to be where you draw the line and i know at least for me i hope i would have the courage to honor the lord in those things to speak up and to stand on the truth regardless of the of the cost because like jesus said if any man follows me he doesn't hate even his own life compared to me then he can't be my disciple so what i'm gonna encourage you to do is to stand that requires more courage for you than it does for me but you have jesus as your example not me you have paul you have peter look at look at the book of acts look at how they responded to the persecution look at what read first peter and what he says about persecution about the suffering that they were going through for standing up and proclaiming the name of christ you know they were getting kicked out of their synagogues i mean it was persecution from from uh jews they were many jews themselves but there were other jews that were persecuting them uh in in many cases so yes will god understand that i have to keep it a secret i'm not sure you have to it's just a cost god help you god give you wisdom god give you courage read the scripture and follow christ yeah and we'll pray for you let's pray for positive vibes right now lord we lift up our brother our sister to you right now we pray for courage we pray that your holy spirit like like in acts when peter said to you lord look on their threats you see the threats they're making now give us courage and you gave him them the holy spirit that gave them boldness that they would be able to stand up and speak to we pray the same thing for for him or her for positive vibes that you would give this this fellow believer courage by the power of your holy spirit and wisdom to be able to stand up and protection according to your will in jesus name amen amen away from here says this has a question todd friel of wretched radio and i do know who todd is said the bible doesn't teach that we can feel god's presence and the warm fuzzies that some people feel are only an emotional response when our minds receive biblical truths is this true i'm just thinking so let me tackle this in pieces the first piece is this if the bible doesn't teach we can feel god's presence if that's not a biblical teaching does that mean we cannot feel god's presence well no it would just mean it's not a biblical thing that we're all supposed to hold to and believe it would be a potential but not something that should be a doctrine so a church if that's right the bible doesn't teach we can feel god's presence means we can't feel god's presence then that would mean um that that every church that that is talking about feeling god's presence is actually wrong but if what i'm saying seems to me that one doesn't lead to the other the bible doesn't expressly talk about feeling god's presence that doesn't mean you can't or nobody ever would right so so there's there's there's a disconnect there um but as a church i wouldn't want to make this something we should watch for in churches is churches that make minors into majors so if your church's service and your church's method of doing ministry is primarily focused upon feeling god's having god's felt presence if that's the main focus when it's not a main focus in scripture which i would agree with then you could it could lead down strange places because what you end up doing is you end up trying to fabricate these feelings by changing the way the service functions by changing the way the preaching is and all that and it can end up being a little weird any church that majors on a minor tends to be a little a little problematic it tends to lead to its abdominal effects but does the bible talk about feeling god's presence and here's a question i don't think i've ever really like just sort of surveyed scripture thinking about this particular issue so um you know in adam and eve they hear the sound of the lord god walking in the garden they don't doesn't talk about a felt presence um when some of the prophets go before god in his presence um there's an there's an impact it has in them and you could say did they feel like isaiah when he's like he sees the lord of hosts this isn't a felt presence but he sees the lord in some sense and then he feels this incredible awareness of his own sinfulness okay so that's actually interesting um the holy spirit jesus said so that's not a felt presence but it's interesting the holy jesus said that the holy spirit would come and we convict people of sin righteousness and judgment to come now does that speak of the holy spirit's presence creating a feeling of conviction no no no it's actually different than that this i'm just surveying a scripture here with you this would be different because this is the holy spirit giving information to non-believers who aren't filled with the spirit right they're not filled so this isn't a i'm i'm feeling filled and i have these feelings rather rather giving information to people to make them aware of sin of righteousness and of judgment to come so it's informational that seems to cause hopefully feelings of of guilt that would lead them to repentance and lead them to the joy and faith of christ we do have when i just alluded to it earlier in acts chapter four um i think it's acts chapter four let me see if i can find it this is where peter is praying um here we go 4 23 after being threatened and told not to speak in the name of jesus is when they were released they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them and when they heard it they lifted their voices together to god and said sovereign lord who made the heaven and earth and the sea and everything that's in them and then he goes on and prays like there there you hear their threats lord verse 29 and now lord look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant jesus and when they had prayed the palace the palace the place in which they were gathered was shaken and they were all filled with the spirit and continued to speak the word of god with boldness so the holy spirit gave them boldness now boldness is a feeling like i feel bold i i seems connected to my emotions in some respect and so that came from the holy spirit filling them does that teach that whenever you have the holy spirit you will have boldness no that would be going way too far but there is a connection with being filled with the spirit and then having something of a emotional response okay i think that's kind of interesting um i wonder hmm oh well i should do more study on this topic but that's a really interesting question at least one example there in acts seems to be leaning towards the possibility of having the holy spirit who gives you a sense of emotions um paul says that when we don't know how to pray for as we ought the spirit intercedes for us with words that that um with groans that words cannot express and so there's a connection between the things that i'm emotionally going through in the work of the spirit but that doesn't mean it backwards gives me feelings uh when i have the spirit but we do cry out abba father by the spirit and he said the spirit of his of of um of his son into our hearts crying out abba father so there's a that is a relational sense a sense of relationship with god i get from the filling of the spirit so i'm open to the holy spirit providing you with emotional experiences but not being a perfect every time you have the spirit working you feel this way because i think other things can produce those feelings too you can be bold because of sin you can be zealous because of the lord you could be zealous because of your wickedness you could have all that stuff so warm fuzzies are an emotional response when our minds receive biblical truths they can be they could also be the work of the spirit i just don't want to make it a major in my own fellowship probably went on too long on that but number 12 the xenomorph man says hi mike what is your view on the comp comparison between jesus and the tree of life it came to me in a dream and i googled it and found out it was exclusively an orthodox belief have a good day well um i don't know uh the orthodox teaching on the comparison between jesus and the tree of life i'm open to biblical comparisons but here's my rule when it comes to this type of thing allegory analogy typology that's the term i usually use when it comes to typology here's my rule and this is what i'll just give this to you and move on start with theology and then use typology to help see that theology throughout the scripture you do not start with typology and then turn that into theology let me give you an example there are there's good reason for us to think the bronze serpent represents jesus as he's lifted up on the cross but we get our doctrine of what it means for jesus to be on the cross from the clear teachings of scripture we don't we don't go and find things and then develop new theology from typology that's dangerous so the the example of this is like um catholic teachings on mary one of the best in fact the single best example of what i think is bad typology you the things where they get weird is saying that they find mariology in typology in the old testament mary's the ark of the covenant because she was carrying jesus she's the ark of the covenant which is why she has to be sinless therefore mary is born without sin perpetually a virgin and never sinned in her life because she has to be the ark of the covenant that's that's me starting with typology and then developing theology out of it like dude that's weird give me clear scriptural teaching that says mary's without sin then you can try to build the typology i have clear biblical teaching that says jesus is the new adam this is jesus is the one who dies on the cross for our sin like all this stuff about jesus i get from the clear teaching of scripture then i can find the typology that's that where i see how god has woven this story throughout the old testament and i have a video on this i'll recommend you guys on um i think the title the video might be like catholic apologists abuse typology to teach mariology i think that's the title of the video you guys could check it out i go into lots of detail give lots of examples even play clips from famous catholic sources on that number 13 this is from crystal white who says 11 years went by from the time paul was saved till his first missionary journey i always thought that was only a few months what did paul do in those 11 years other than fasting and praying um crystal i'm not clear on the timeline there 11 years um i'm not clear on the timeline there so i just honestly can't answer i've looked at paul's missionary he has multiple missionary journeys we all know that or many of us know that and i've looked at the timeline and constructed you know when you compare galatians to the book of acts um and to other sources where we're reading about these things so i've looked at all that but it was like it's not fresh on my mind at all so i apologize crystal i'm not gonna be able to give you help on your answer i'm sorry very sorry number 14 sun and moon says hi job 14 5 says a person's days are determined yet in isaiah 38 god extends hezekiah's life it almost seems that with enough prayer and faith we can persuade god to change his mind let's look at job 14 5. um i'll read starting verse four uh who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean there is not one since his days are determined and the number of his months is with you and you've appointed his limits that he cannot pass so um this is from a very large section in job which is job and his friends bantering back and forth except for eli who who starts like i don't know maybe chapter 26 or something like that or maybe it was probably later than that he starts he starts way late in the book eli who starts except for elihu um everybody else in the book of job is rebuked later on by god as their words are being foolish so what we have to look at with job say 14 is we see that job is the one talking here and we see his personality we see what he's going through we learn from that but we're not necessarily digging out theological principles so a man who's born of a woman is a few his few of days and full of trouble right is that just plain true well not exactly but it's how job feels right now he comes out like a flower and withers he flees like a shadow and continues not and do you not uh do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you like no does god say hey come here joe let me talk with you you can help plan out this person's life who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean there's not one since his days are determined and the number of his months is with you so like i kind of like have a hopeless life this is what job's getting at like my life is hopeless later on job himself says i spoke words without knowledge i was a fool so i just wouldn't take job 14 5 as giving you this full scope full orb understanding of god's sovereignty and man's free will or anything like that in hezekiah we do have an example where god says to hezekiah you're going to die hezekiah prays and prays and prays and god grants him an extended life and it seems to go kind of sour in the end and you could try to draw your applications there you say it seems like with prayer and faith we can persuade god to change his mind sort of here's my view on this i know it sounds complex but here's like in my understanding and i'll move quick because we're going so far on time today um i guess we're doing normal on time but this always happens towards the end so um the the idea is this that god has what he knows he'll do in the end but what he knows he will do involves what he knows you will do and so there he is hezekiah you're going to die god knows there's going to be prayers and then he's going to answer those prayers but just because he knows it doesn't mean he's not going to live it out and you might think oh so he's playing a game with us no he's actually having a relationship with us so like imagine you tell your kid hey you wanna go out for your birthday and you already know what they want like when i was a kid we would go out for my birthday and i got to pick the restaurant so one time i got a pick every time i picked sizzler because even though now as an adult i think sizzler is kind of yeah i loved it when i was a kid and they knew mike dear birthday where do you want to go they knew i was going to pick sizzler but there was something in the process of me getting the option and then me asking sizzler and them saying okay we'll go to sizzler that made me happy and it was relational with us so in a sense like god knows what we're going to pray but there's a relational thing happening when we do pray so yes uh you know from god's ultimate perspective hezekiah he knows exactly how many days he'll live and they're all god's got a plan for all of them but that plan includes those moments of interaction where if we hadn't done this he wouldn't have done that and so we are really relating with god he's really taking action he just knows it all ahead of time that's my shortest possible answer now when audrey addison says we know that we will eventually gain glorified bodies but about glorified what about glorified minds will someone who suffers from a mental disorder like down syndrome be healed um i believe the answer that is yes so part of the reason is because i think down syndrome is a is a symptom of the fault down syndrome i would include along with cancer or or dementia like later on in life things like that as part of what's wrong with reality this is not how we're supposed to be this is how we are in the midst of the fall in the midst of the sufferings now jesus he restores all of creation he's gonna he's gonna make things not just as if there was no fall but better than before right it's not just restored to before but it's better than before and we have a glorified body because we because the body we have now the theology this is the body you have now is not fit for it's a body of corruption and is not fit for eternity and glory so you will have a body of incorruption that is fit for eternal glory down syndrome it seems to me is a is is something that would be fixed in the glorified body here's a scripture that is interesting um let me see first corinthians 13 12 for now we see in a mere dimly but then face to face now i know in part but then i shall full know fully even even as i've been fully known there's a knowledge that is accessible to us in that exalted final state this is going to be this is debated passage among cessationists but i i take it to mean um when when we were in that glorified state so i'm going to be knowing as i'm known now god knows me pretty well and it's saying that my mental abilities will be exalted but not just knowing facts and numbers but the ability to even relate with god on a much deeper level is going to be there so so the love is going to be elevated um those who have lower capacities also miss out on pieces of a relationship that they might be able to have otherwise if they had more capacity so i think there's a case that can be made there for knowing uh having our minds glorified both in the redemption of creation and and specifically in order for me to know as i'm known i'd have to have an expanded mental capacity giant mushroom tree says i struggle with emotional emptiness abandonment issues and having low self-worth this makes my walk hard because my cup is always empty god won't answer my prayers any advice yeah uh giant mushroom tree i don't know you i have to just guess at a couple things here so forgive me if i'm off base at all it's not my intention but i also don't like pat advice that doesn't help people and i've seen enough of that i've seen the kind of advice where people hear me saying this to you they would go oh good answer my good answer and you'd be like thanks no i didn't help at all so i'm interested in what might actually help so let me take some guesses fill in your background info on my head a little bit and i'll suggest a couple things um one of the biggest issues for for i think for people who deal with like emotional emptiness abandonment issues low self-worth um believing that god's not answering your prayer that kind of thing is is in the faith category but not maybe not like you think i'm not saying you lack faith you're just not having enough faith you'd feel better if you believed more i'm not really i don't mean that sometimes okay i remember thinking that after i sinned when i was younger that i was like my relationship with god was broken and i i kind of had to live good for a few days or a week or whatever before we were okay again and during that time where i felt like it was broken i didn't want to pray i felt uncomfortable praying i felt ashamed in praying and all that i wondered if god still loved me i genuinely did i was like does he still love me and then i would go to church there'd be a time of worship and i just felt like god loved me and i i don't know it was the teaching or reading the word or the worship time and i just was like god you do love me and i felt relieved and i felt like now i can pray to you all of that was all in my head god loved me the whole time and what changed it for me was when i got to screen i'm giving this story for a reason but when i got to scripture that told me that and it sunk in so hard but it stuck with me forever that the cross is god's message that he still loves me constantly loves me we know he loves us because he gave his son to die for us and that love is constant he knew all your sin from the beginning when i realized this this was a theological fact of reality that god's love for me is continually is is is continual and is is constant and that in christ that is as i as i have christ i have god's love for me and he gives his spirit to me he gave his son to die for me and any time after that i started to doubt does god really care about me he really loved me maybe because of my own issues maybe because my own family issues not feeling loved not feeling cared for you know in the past and having major problems stuff i don't talk about too much because i don't want to embarrass my family members i love them and i don't want to get into the stories but let's just say i get it um but um but when i when i go through that stuff i go but i have this anchor i know god loves me because his word tells me he does and this is where faith comes in because faith says i don't feel like you love me but i know you love me so i'm going to choose to believe that and trust you what i see a lot of times people who deal with low self-worth it's not that they haven't been told the right things it's that they don't trust those things they think because i don't feel like i'm loved therefore i'm not but that's a way of believing your own heart your own admittedly stupid heart over the fact of god's word and the demonstration of his love in the cross of christ you're believing your emotional fears and it's you that's causing your whole issue now maybe those emotional fears have been fed into through trauma and suffering of the past but can you allow the truth of god's love through the cross of christ to tell you this is the constant love of god for you this is the value that he placed in you it wasn't in you to start but he placed in you as he purchased you and bought you and he put the blood of christ on you so you have christ righteousness and you're his what i'm saying is when you struggle with emotional emptiness abandonment issues low self-worth thinking that god doesn't hear your prayers these things are answered by the clear teachings of scripture and there's a battle to just believe what god has said and to tell yourself so what if my emotions don't agree i'm choosing to trust this anyways that to me is real actionable and real helpful advice i think and i hope that it blesses you it blesses me thomas brownlee says hey mike can you better explain luke 14 33 where jesus tells the crowd so that none of you can be my disciples who does not give up all his own possessions let's go to luke 14 33. and we'll back up a bit so we can get more context um now great crowds accompanied him and he turned to some of them and said this is great because this is a another example of jesus like shrinking his own audience jesus did things that would like make modern churches pr firms like really freak out right he does things that shrink his own audience because he wants authentic discipleship he says if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children we read this earlier and brothers and sisters yes and even his own life he can't be my disciple now that's in context isn't it the context is choosing christ over all other things because following christ means you're going to love people more you'll love your mom and your sister you'll love them more it's just that jesus will be caring about them whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple for which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost whether he has enough to complete it otherwise when he's laid a foundation and is not able to be able to finish all who see it begin to mock him saying this man began to bill but he was not able to finish or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he's able to with ten thousand men to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand and if not while the other is yet a great way off he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace so this is this is um jesus saying here's the cost of following me i want you to think about this before you try this task we get safe for free but following jesus has a cost it doesn't you're not earning salvation through that cost but rather you're making a choice and that choice means jesus over all else so he concludes it all all that he said by saying so there therefore anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple now the the way your question was worded in out of context it sounded kind of like you had to um sell all your stuff and give it to the poor but that's not the context so you put um and you're probably just quoting from a different version uh thomas brownlee you said so then none of you can be my disciples who does not give up all his own possessions own prison sounds like these are financial possessions you give up all your own possessions let me see if there's another translation that's similar to that um 1333 yeah that's the nasb not give up all his own possessions and the say the niv puts it this way i was reading esv earlier in the same way those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples okay new king james let's uh let's look at this one too so likewise whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple okay forsaking all yeah so only the nasb kind of makes it sound like it's giving up your possessions as more of a financial thing i think when you look at what jesus says here in context of the whole paragraph the cost of discipleship he's like mothers father wife children brother sister and your own life and go take up a cross that's what you gotta be able to give up to follow me the thing is i am over everything in your life that's the point now later on as much as jesus says you have to hate your wife yet yet jesus you know through the apostles is teaching us love your wife as christ loved the church and gave himself for her so it's only in the context of choosing between them and jesus i always pick jesus because he's my lord so that that's all i think that that passage is getting at jesus lord over all you have i don't think it's about all of us being in being uh in poverty selling all we have i think that's actually unwise if everyone does that searching servant has a question what is your understanding of second thessalonians 7 uh 215 excuse me second thessalonians 2 15. as many orthodox christians point to this as evidence of the legitimacy of traditions that are not explicitly written in scripture oh i like when we talk about this one second thessalonians 2 15. um so then let me read it to you guys now remember okay back up here's how it comes up you're talking to say usually for me as a roman catholic uh it could be an orthodox person here you're talking to somebody when you say orthodox we mean eastern orthodox we don't just mean they hold to orthodox christian beliefs that's a different use of the term so you're talking to them and and they're like i have i have the apostolic traditions that you don't have that are that are not written in the bible but they're they're given from the apostles and they say well look we're supposed to hold scripture i go we're supposed to hold scripture man i'm gonna let scripture guide me and be my ultimate you know decider about what i'm going to believe no you're missing it even paul said this look at what paul said so then brothers stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us either by our spoken word or by our letter and boom like they they drop the microphone and they walk away basically because it's like dude the bible is telling you you shouldn't have sola scriptura you need the traditions too and here we have our traditions now the problem here is an equivocation equivocation for those anybody who might not know is using the same word to mean different things in an argument so if the argument goes i'm orthodox or i'm catholic and i have these traditions not in the bible you should believe these traditions and the bible and you say i have the bible and not those traditions because i'm going to stick to what the apostles gave us from the new testament and they say but we see even paul telling us to follow the traditions but the word tradition doesn't mean the same thing anymore because when paul uses it first off eastern orthodox traditions don't exist yet many of them roman catholic traditions the vast majority do not exist yet they simply don't historically exist yet so they're not apostolic to start with they're church traditions but they're not apostolic from the apostles but let's look at the context paul says brothers stand firm and hold to the traditions that were taught to us taught top bias either by our spoken word or by our letter paul is not using the word tradition to mean something other than scripture paul is using the word tradition to refer to apostolic teaching period and and there is no debate going on about non-written apostolic traditions there's no debate going on he says hold fast to the things the apostles taught you that's all this verse is saying and whether we said it in your presence or we gave you a letter from one of us true apostles and it's there you're going to hold fast to it so the only way this could apply is if and this is a big giant if if you can show me there's a tradition that truly and genuinely traces back to the apostles and i'm going to add was originally taught by them and not some later deviation from things they taught which paul warned about even if we or an angel from heaven comes preaching a different gospel to you don't receive it so if it's truly from the apostles and not a deviation from the things that they taught early on then i'll receive it and that's where things fall apart because they're going to go to the church fathers and they're going to say well this church father says what i like and this church father says what i like but consistently the orthodox and in my experience more often roman catholic teachings they will often have these very edited versions of church fathers whether using them out of context or they're using a minority of the church fathers here a majority of the church fathers there they'll be like we have a majority of the church fathers that agree with us here and i'll go oh so you need a majority of the church fathers but you have this other doctrine that you don't have a majority of the church fathers for what about that one oh that one counts because we tell you it counts see there's no it's like there's no rules it's like we have these things we believe and we just tell you they came from the apostles yeah i'm not really favorable to that um so yeah the traditions that were taught by paul the apostles by them period end of story which included the written word this is this is really in context second thessalonians is saying stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that include his written his written letters which means that if i have biblical warrant this is important biblical warrant for disagreeing with orthodox or roman catholic teachings then i should do that because paul always acts like normal pew christians normal christians have the authority to say i'm going to stand or i should say they they um their authority is the scripture and they can say i'm going to stand on what we know the apostles gave us not what you say you heard from down through the century stuff what we know came from them we're going to stand on that and we're going to disagree with any authority so that would actually disagree with the roman or perhaps eastern orthodox positions on that yeah it's just the word tradition equivocation on that word number 19 with stephen with passenger ministries says how is isaiah 52 and 53 evidence for the bible if most of the stuff in there is theology and not testable historically thanks love your videos um so um isaac okay so psalm 22 is a great passage for prophecy about the cross historically speaking it gives tons i mean more than anybody seems to realize it gives specific details not just about the cross but about the events after the cross like a bunch of gentiles around the world worshiping the god of israel because of this thing that's psalm 22. isaiah 52 and 53 like you say stephen is very theological in nature how does that give evidence um well i would say it gives evidence in a couple ways um though it's different though i would i would lean towards psalm 22 or i would go to like other more historical passages to build a bridge with a non-believer but isaiah 52 and 53 is still very powerful it gives evidence towards something that is a neglected apologetics argument which is the unity of the bible you see if the new testament if the theology and the details about jesus really match this ancient prophecy and it what and here's the crazy thing it wasn't even what the jews were looking for but you can show that it was genuinely there and then it seems to have just happened that's evidence that there's a mind behind the works of christ and behind him being on the cross and that mind is god himself that's actually pretty strong evidence it's difficult to make that argument in like sort of a syllogism but what you do is you try to show isaiah 52 and 53 show distance between the the jewish people even the disciples of jesus between them and the theology of what jesus was doing which was embedded in isaiah 52 53 and you show that then then where is this theology coming from right because it it seems to happen what what jesus does on the cross does happen and it seems to be very consistent with that theology so you're just trying to and here's where i want to build a cumulative case for the unity of the bible i want to show over and over again that this is like there's a mind behind the text of scripture that is not just the mind of the human authors in the scripture there's one mind who's pulling the puppet strings of the whole thing who's like orchestrating and designing and putting all this stuff together just so so i think it's evidence in that sense also there are many people who do already think that the bible is true at least the old testament there are those who are many jewish people who believe that the old testament is true and when they see that this jesus who they've been told was not the messiah was prophesied in isaiah 52 and 53. that's very powerful for bringing them to christ there's lots of people who at least have like this kind of superstitious sort of perspective of the bible in jesus and showing them something like isaiah 52 and 3 can drive them to christ it can it can open the door and you tell them look this was written and their minds even if they don't have a syllogism their minds can put it together like this is not a this is not a coincidence now some would respond here's the pushback from this more skeptical community mike the the uh the gospel authors made the story of jesus look like isaiah 53 on purpose this was like intentional they're fabricating it they're doing it after the fact here's the problem they don't have evidence for this it's just an assumption jesus is dying his words when he talks about like so some of the most historically reliable according to even even skeptical historians historically reliable statements of jesus in the gospels are son of man statements where he's like the son of man will do this and that and it's in those statements where he's invoking the imagery of isaiah 53. this has led some scholars to support the idea that it was after jesus died on the cross that they looked not before it wasn't before it wasn't fabricated it's not that they then their genius figured it out but it was after jesus died on the cross that the disciples looked back and they saw isaiah 53 and were like that was that and they're actually getting their theology from the fulfillment of the prophecy so anyway there's a couple things um when you say it's not testable historically i mean in a sense it is um but it's just theological all right let's look at uh number 20. last question lil mik nick says what is or does your person personal time with god look like mike how do you do how do you differentiate it from your study time um i mean i i try to merge them in a sense i don't want to have them like this cold difference between my studying and my walk so i try to have both but usually like personal time with god i i mean since i'm praying and studying and reading the word i mean that's personal time with the lord too so i don't really know what to tell you there i'm blessed in that what i do for a living has me studying scriptures and preparing bible studies and and the benefits that come with that but um but yeah i hesitate to answer questions like this for a couple reasons though before without giving you guys a bunch of details because i don't want to be the standard by which you judge yourselves i don't think that's wise for several reasons i also don't want to be like trying to like boost myself up by trying to prove my spirituality to others i think that's weird and it's a scary place for me to go as soon as i step into that realm i feel like that's a dangerous place to be so i mean i could tell like oh i'll go on a walk and i'll pray on a walk i'll i'll just stop what i'm doing i'll go pick up my guitar and worship and stuff like that but but here's where i'm like tempted to paint a picture of me like like seeking the lord and praying and just being this godly man and all this and truth is you probably a lot of you probably think of too highly of me to start with and i'm just not going to feed into that so um most likely lil mik nick my personal time with god looks just like yours most likely i just stop when i'm doing other things and i seek the lord and i pray maybe i get on my knees maybe i go on a walk maybe i since i do music i'll pull a guitar out and involve that i just think um i want to avoid you know giving i get questions like how many how many hours you've been reading the bible how much time you've been praying things like that and i'm like i don't think this is healthy i'm not gonna go down that road so that's gonna be it for you guys um i i will have um this monday i'm gonna have a uh the next video for the mark series coming out and we're approaching the end of the gospel of mark but then for three mondays in a row i don't intend to do a monday teaching three in a row no monday teachings that's the intention um i will still have videos on my channel just not the monday video after that the we're gonna finish the mark series and then i'm gonna take another break where i'm gonna stop everything i'm doing well not everything i'll still do the friday q a and i'm going to study in detail the topic of women in ministry i'm going to do like a whole research project on it i don't know if it's going to take weeks or over a month or something we'll see we'll see i'm just going to get deep into it and produce a very long thorough teaching on the topic hopefully it'll be a blessing to pray for me that god will give me wisdom as i do that and thank you guys for your questions for joining for the q a sorry for the glitch the internet issue earlier i'm gonna have to go back and edit this video so it's going to take a while to get the time stamps up if you're waiting for that yeah that's about it lord bless you thanks

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 53,907

Rating: 4.9284678 out of 5

Keywords: 20 questions, BibleThinker, Mike Winger, question and answer, think biblically, Q and A, episode 35, part 35, 35, adam's skull, was adam buried beneath the cross, adam and Jesus, adam's grave, adam's bones

Id: OGMLIWzXXtU

Length: 88min 11sec (5291 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021