20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 44)

20 questions with pastor mike i am mike winger and this is my cap moxie who sometimes joins us live that's actually her oops i kicked her camera there she is that scared her um anyway i'm here to answer you guys questions not about cats sadly but about something even better actually that's the bad news the good news is it's about jesus christianity the bible the christian faith apologetics like defending the truth of the christian faith basically whatever you have on deck i'm going to talk to you about and i'm going to start with the first question which when i find ah my button my big red button question number one is from robert t who asks about the wives of the apostles and you might be surprised to know we do have a bit of information about them in the in the bible so robert t says were christ's disciples married did they have families i believe there's a reference to peter's in-law but i find it to be an interesting question what would it be like for them how would that fit with what the lord tells us about the role of a husband and father the love for god trumps all so did that override their responsibilities as a husband father so i take this question to have like sort of two sides to it one side is you know the facts about their wives were they married and what was going on with them back then and then the second side is hey um sometimes people feel a a tension between their responsibilities to their family and their responsibilities to the kingdom of god and they there have even been those who've done missionary work where they've abandoned family in order to do missions or say a pastor who spends so much time doing things for his local church that he is not there for his own family and then there can be like a conflict between those so we'll talk about that too first the apostles were they in fact married and the answer is going to be a resounding yes in spite of what some people will say let me walk you through a few places in scripture you already mentioned um peter's mother-in-law but let's just look real quick at that this is in luke chapter 4 verse 38. as you guys are loading in the other questions i'll take 20 of them today and it says um this is early in jesus ministry and he is there at peter's house who he shares with his brother andrew and the mother-in-law seems to live there as well and he arose and left the synagogue and entered simon's house now simon's mother-in-law was ill with a high fever and they appealed to him on her behalf and he stood over her and rebuked the fever and it left her and immediately she rose and began to serve them this is recorded a few times in the gospels and it's real consistent it's peter's mother-in-law which means that peter was married he had a wife right and some would suggest that his wife was was dead or died sometime after this or something like that i think we have an argument against that in scripture but let me just give you guys a little bit of a clue as to how their culture's so different than ours in our culture right now this is weird in human history what's happening right now people stay single for really long periods of time not because they have a mission their life is on where like they're single to say serve jesus or single to be a missionary single for some function they're just single because it's just we're delaying adulthood and marriage as part of that delay so that i'm not saying like if you get married at a later age there's something's wrong with you i'm not suggesting that um i got married at the age of 30. so i'm not saying something's wrong with you what i am saying is that we can use ireland to look at ancient culture and in their culture no that's not happening like everybody's getting married it was considered like a jewish obligation to get married and to have children this was like normal in their culture everybody does it you get married you have lots of kids this is what you're supposed to do it was part of the command to be fruitful and multiply or at least that was their understanding of the command and the apostles reflect this attitude in matthew 19 when they're talking with jesus about marriage they sarcastically bring up singleness as if it's like an option nobody would pick right and jesus is like actually it's a real option you can do that but but that was counterculture they were going to get married then we have more specific info in first corinthians 9 5. and this is where paul this is like real detailed right um he lays out the idea that all of the apostles were married all of them so this is in first corinthians 9 5 he's kind of building a case for though he has rights as an apostle he lays them down to serve others but he doesn't want that to make people think he has no rights so that's the short version but in first corinthians 9 5 he says do we not have the right to take along a believing wife as do the other apostles and the brothers of the lord and cephas or caiphus or peter that he's talking about peter so this some say that this phrase believing wife is really um a sister partner in ministry and so that like like as if peter's going around and the other apostles are going around with with somebody who is just a woman who's a ministry partner but they're not actually married um except here's the problem paul seems to have had women ministry partners and he's saying he doesn't have what these what this is a believing wife which is probably talking i think we are safe and saying is talking about a marriage partner and so um he gives you a list of who actually has a wife right the other apostles and the brothers of the lord james and john and cephas or peter so he lists them all as as having wives and they're his example of like hey i could take a wife with me on my journey paul it seems was not married at the time he was probably married when he was younger in in paul's case a case can be made that his wife had died um another case you could say that his wife had left him that's also possible we really don't know okay he didn't have a wife that he was taking with him um he didn't seem to be married at all because he talks about singleness and identifies himself with singleness but to be a pharisee and in their culture you would have expected him to be married at some point so that's why they guessed maybe she left him or maybe she died but here's the thing this leaves us with the impression that maybe the apostles being married when they followed jesus they just abandoned their families and and that's why i brought first corinthians 9 5 up no they didn't because peter and the other apostles they traveled on missions with their wives and what's implied is any children under their care would obviously travel with them as well they're not talked about there but they would travel with them as well if they were young enough if they weren't old enough to be on their own and so um they're they're they were on family ministry trips right they weren't the the leaders of the church necessarily but they were traveling with their husbands and they were um involved in going wherever their husbands went which means that for a season peter had left his it seems okay this is a guess he may have left his family and the other apostles may have left their family during that that three year period of time where jesus is doing ministry they frequently came back to galilee so it's not like they weren't around at all they probably were bringing funds i'm guessing bringing funds and supplies because they were supplied by the the ministry of others to them remember jesus sends them out empty-handed but they don't they don't stay empty-handed and if you read the gospels you know i'm talking about um so i'm not saying they weren't providing for their family but there's a good chance that during the during the ministry of jesus if they weren't that they weren't uh traveling with the apostles and jesus during that three-year period that's entirely possible and i would look at this as a temporary situation if that's the case it's possibly traveled with jesus it's odd that they're never mentioned at any point if they were traveling so i would lean towards thinking they weren't but after this when the gospel is going out into the world and when the apostles are traveling and all that their their their wives come with them at that point so this helps us answer the question um abandoning your family to do ministry is that a thing and the answer is no just like with say military you go on deployment you're not abandoning your family you're still sending funds to them you're providing and you do plan on coming back right there's temporary deployment moments like say the three years with jesus right you're still visiting you're still seeing them they come back to capernaum over and over again and probably bring in supplies and stuff for them as well but they're not actually abandoning the family because then the wives are traveling with them later this is also reinforced in first timothy 5 8 where it says this if anyone does not provide for his relatives especially for the members of his household his own home he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever there is no biblical idea of abandon your family now there is a strong teaching of if your family rejects you because of christ you still say stay loyal to christ that was them rejecting you though just like the gospel that's people rejecting god it's not the other way around and um otherwise yeah you take care of your family you're with your family you're blessing your family you're providing for your family that that is something we're called to do and those pastors who have and there are some pastors some missionary people and stuff who have actually seen their family as a liability in the service of the lord not because their family is rebellious against god not because their family is leaving them because of their faith in christ but rather because they just want to invest all their time and not have any attachments to take care of outside of the ministry stuff they're doing i think that the council i've heard and i would give is your family is your first ministry your min your ministry to others must overflow from your ministry to your family this is why the requirements for leadership in the church involves someone who is a good husband and a good father because if you're not taking care of your family how will you help the church that's actually what first timothy says so i hope that answers that question we're going to go to question number two which is coming from grayson fuller grayson says i've had multiple encounters where people directly approach me and my wife on the street or at a gas station asking for money food or a ride i know most people would say don't give anything because you're you're feeding their bad habit implying drugs here and i know there's also the risk that if you do help or give they may try to push for even more favors but it's obvious that jesus was compassionate toward beggars what are some biblical principles for this in today's age um grayson i i'm going to give you my opinion on this um my opinion is that people go through to they get too extreme on this issue or okay actually let me rephrase that because i think christians should be extreme so the problem isn't the extremity of their view the problem is that their view lacks wisdom okay we're to be as as general as doves but as wise as a serpent jesus says right so we're supposed to be very thoughtful and wise um yes you're to give give to him who asks of you right but imagine if we took that role with no wisdom so when simon the sorcerer comes to the apostles and he says hey um i want to have the power you have this is his version his understanding of them he goes i want to be able to lay hands on people that they receive the spirit because simon's probably going to try to sell this to others and you know he give to give to him who asks you well why didn't they why didn't they say well we have to be generous and give so we want to try to pray that god would give you this ability too simon instead they kick him out right because there's wisdom here it's not meant to be a rule that we take with no wisdom of any kind so um the uh the the rules actually in let me give you another example first timothy 5 8 which talks about helping others this is a community of believers who have have funds they use to to distribute to the poor right and he talks about taking care of widows but notice this paul doesn't use such a clumsy rule as give to him who asks no other wisdom is ever added to this con you know thing he doesn't do that he says let a widow be enrolled this is in the list of widows who get funds from the church let her be enrolled if she's not less than 60 years of age having been the wife of one husband and having a reputation for good works wait so the church isn't just supposed to take care of every widow on earth no he's like hey you know if they're young they can get married to somebody else and someone else is providing for them we're not trying to burden the church while it does take care of people who are needy um and she has to have been a faithful wife wife of one husband right she has a reputation for good works like otherwise the church isn't going to this regular taking care of her this gives us wisdom because as a as a pastor right i know firsthand that pretty much every church that's not maybe in a really tiny community is going to have people calling and regularly going to the church asking for money because to the world and to the worldly people they think the church is a rich institution and it's usually not usually they're just struggling to get by for the most part and they just come and ask for handouts ask for handouts ask for handouts and so what i'm suggesting here is that here's a here's a teaching of jesus right give to him who asks you that's a general posture and attitude it doesn't mean you don't have any wisdom about how you put that into practice here's an example from the new testament in first timothy 5 9 that proves that they're not just give to him who asks you in all scenarios no wisdom applied no no there's wisdom being implied so being applied so that being said let me look at your question one more time um i know most people would say don't give anything because you're feeding their bad habit okay that is actually wisdom if you know your the money you're giving somebody is being used to buy drugs and enable them to stay on the street and not be accountable for the life they're living then i don't see how i'm helping them by giving them money all giving isn't helping right sometimes giving is harming and there's it's good to have wisdom on that so yeah but if you do give and they spend it poorly i think that's more on them than you i'm not not that it's all your fault but you don't want to become an enabler in a real negative sense you said i know there's also the risk that if you help they may push for even more favors okay i don't care about that uh personally if if i help somebody and then they come up and they start asking for me all the time i can just say no so i'm not too worried about that you just give because this is the right time and moment to give you says obvious jesus was compassionate towards beggars and absolutely um in a couple ways one the early church they would they would often take care of people that were poor not just beggars but poor see there's a difference you could be a beggar but not be poor you could be poor and not be a beggar so they didn't just squeaky wheel gets the grease but they would would try to help people who had needs and there was some wisdom there um but in another sense the early church and jesus was compassionate to the poor in that they treated him as equals they didn't treat them as a lesser lesser status individual those who were poor so what are some biblical principles yeah um the number one biblical principle is this you you won't think clearly on this issue of money if you aren't um if you aren't considering all your money as belonging to god and your ultimate provider being god not your job not not those other things that's important because you don't want personal greed weighing in that's not wisdom my greed is not wisdom wisdom is is this a good time to give does that person need help am i am i the one who should support and help them all that is is good but boy i i want my money i want my money that's not good that's not healthy and um that can be very harmful for people so there's a few uh important things that i think you should consider i hope that that helps grace and fuller and number three doug shannon what is a miracle if it can be explained is it still a miracle this is actually a real like debate that people have is how do you define the term miracle so some define the term miracle as a violation of the laws of physics i reject that definition i have there's a lot of problems with it one of the problems with that definition is that when a miracle happens is this a violation of laws for instance um you know here's my coffee cup gravity would pull it down i lift it up um now this isn't a violation of the law of gravity this is just other other laws coming into play so i think i think a a better analogy would be this um well actually let me give you a story this is from john lennox john lennox he's an interesting very interesting apologist he has a lot of interesting content he tells a story about uh you know like let's say he's at a hotel and there's he has his wallet in a drawer in his hotel room and it's got like say 50 bucks in it and he goes out and you know the maid comes and cleans the room and then he comes back later and he goes and he opens the drawer and he checks and his wallet is missing the fifty dollars now you could say you know in this closed system of the drawer this this this area here there's a violation of the laws of physics in the drawer right like like nothing within the drawer would cause this to happen this doesn't make any sense you you can't suggest gravity or or inertia or or anything the second law of thermodynamics caused the 50 bucks to go away and so the obvious solution is you don't you don't conclude the laws of physics were violated instead you conclude somebody opened the system open the drawer and and from outside came and changed things and that would be a better understanding of how god does miracles one of one of the ways of understanding a miracle is something that would not have happened without god's intervention that's a pretty loose term but i i think it works well so i'm suggesting um jesus jesus's birth through mary a virgin she would never have become pregnant without god's intervention now you could say it violated the laws of physics that's strange it's not like the laws of physics actually work that way they're not like it's not like some judge some police officer with the physics badge is like no you can't do that like it's just a weird way to think about things but obviously it wouldn't have happened without god's intervention right merely if the stuff in the drawer was affecting the stuff in the drawer that 50 never would have disappeared but if something from outside the door came in that certainly that thing has the natural power to do all that stuff well god it's not that he's unnatural he's just not part of the created order right so if something outside the creator order is needed to cause this to happen you may call that miraculous that could be or some would say just a supernatural event um but there's another type of miracle and i'm open to this being from god as well and and saying and calling this a miracle and that would be a miracle of god's providence that is this happened through natural things natural events or or or perhaps you'd say events all part of the created order can explain this thing happening but we see god's ultimate providential planning and intention behind it and then you can call that miraculous because it shows some sort of involvement of god in the thing that's happening so an example could be you know you you uh you you've lost your job you need to pay your bills you have this big bill that's due it's a thousand eighty three dollars and 12 cents and you know you've got to pay this by the end of the month and you're like praying and you're like lord i need i need help i don't know what else to do i've tried everything i can and then in the mail like that next day there comes a check from someone who's who just says something like maybe it says something like hey um you know i i i sold this thing that i that i that we bought together 20 years ago and i finally sold it this is half of what it was and it's exactly a thousand 18 and 83 cents or whatever the number i was it's like to the penny it's exactly the same now you could trace back the series of events that caused this pretty easily in a natural or you know according to the creator order sense you guys bought something together many years ago you guys sort of separated as friends you forgot all about it he sold it he cut the selling price in half and sent you a check but the timing the timing the exact amount to the penny the day or the next day right when you needed it then you start to think okay god's involved here right so there's something of a of an obviousness to god's providence in what's happening here and i'm okay with calling that miraculous as well but you see that the word miracle can be a squirrely term a difficult thing to apply do you apply the term miracle to something that satan does like if it's demonic well it's not really part of the normal created order even though they're part of the created order but they're in the spiritual part of the created order so i okay i guess you could call that a miracle so satan has lying signs and wonders okay that's possible all right let's go to number four uh this is from follower of christ forever who says should christians be worried about government control i have friends not getting the covet vaccine because it's a way to be controlled by the government i want to think biblically about this thanks mike um okay so let me just start by saying this i don't have the super strong confident opinions that a lot of people have on this topic so what i'm going to do is not try to give you guys all here's what you need to think about the coveted vaccine and how it relates to government i'm i i don't i try not to comment on things that i don't think i understand well enough this is one of those things but let me approach just this micro issue of should um should i be worried about the government because a vaccine a mandatory vaccine is a way to be controlled by the government should i be bothered by that as a christian let's suppose it wasn't a vaccine let's suppose it was a new id card that you had to have for whatever purpose so this this could apply to various things um because i i feel those though some people are going to answer this question based upon what camp they find themselves in about vaccines instead of actually analyzing the issue from a hopefully biblical perspective okay as a christian i am generally not worried about government control um don't get me wrong don't get me wrong government control can that is can lead down horrible horrible avenues and to terrible terrible things but i especially want to emphasize as a christian i don't see that it is my main thing to worry about that my main thing is to worry about the propagation of the gospel of jesus christ right that jesus he is god with us he came he he died on the cross for your sins and my sins that you could be forgiven if you put your trust in him that his death and resurrection was on your behalf because god loves you and he wants to restore you to himself as you trust in him right this is this is a big deal that you send jesus paid for it and you can be forgiven just by trusting in him turning to him that's what i worry about okay that's what i care about when it comes to government control i'm mostly concerned that government control would stop me from preaching that message that's my biggest concern and everything else is secondary when it comes to that worry as a christian that being said as a christian if there's something that i'm called to do and the government tells me not to i'm gonna do it anyways let me say this again if there's something that i am called to do as a christian like i have an obligation to god to do this thing and the government tells me not to i am going to do it anyways so in a sense the government control should never work on a christian if the thing violates what god is calling you to do do vaccines do that i i'm not gonna no i in general vaccines no okay is is a mandatory vaccine the very idea of a mandatory vaccine is violating my christian principles no it's not i don't see the problem there now if you have other concerns about health and safety and all this other stuff i'm not gonna try to weigh in on all that because it's a little over my head and i'm personally sick of everybody knowing everything about things they don't know all that much about so should i as a christian on the basis of rejecting government control should i reject a vaccine simply because it's being demanded of me and i think my answer is going to be no here that generally speaking the christian view allows for a lot of government control up not it doesn't ask for it it allows for it up until the point where government asks you to do something god doesn't want you to do or government tells you not to do something god does want you to do that is the christians are not committed to fight for libertarian values okay i'm not saying i don't like libertarian values i'm not saying they're bad values i'm saying a christian commitment is not a commitment to fight for those values the earliest christians had much less freedom than say we have in the us today and even if things continue to trend towards less freedom we will still have more freedom than what they had in the first century and they did not make it their obsession to fix or change those things you can but i'm saying it's not a christian obligation um no their obligation was to preach the gospel to follow jesus and if there's a violation between the will of man and the will of god that is government control when it violates god's commands for my life that's when i i just do what i'm going to do and serve the lord there's my thoughts on that um i hope it's helpful for somebody we got no more questions for today i've got all 20 listed i'm going i'm on number five now and i hope that you guys find it a blessing we do this every friday at 1 pm pacific time that is in california and you're welcome to join and put your questions in the live chat and when you have an anonymous question you put a in q those three letters anonymous question a and q and we'll keep it that way as well william hall says does living in the spirit mean fighting the flesh how do you fight something that is already dead all right does living in the spirit mean fighting the flesh um so the the terminology fighting the flesh you know okay off the top of my head in my little whatever available catalog there is in my head of scripture i don't know of a scripture that says fight the flesh so perhaps you're now it's an analogy it's an analogy your flesh is not physically dead okay but there's the flesh is considered crucified with christ right so let's um let's look at some scriptures on this and let's let's let's try to draw from the biblical way that the flesh is discussed so here's an example um through the law i died to the law so that i might live to god this is galatians 2 19 and moving on to 20 now i have been crucified with christ it is no longer i who live but christ lives in me and the life i now live in the flesh i live by faith in the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me this has to do partly with an identification okay uh because i believe in jesus it's it's like i've been crucified with jesus which is to say that the penalty for my sin has been paid because he already was judged and sentenced for me or i should say my sins were judged and he was sentenced for me i don't think jesus was judged in that sense but um my sins were judged and he was sentenced for me and um and i'm like i identify with him okay and now the life that i do live right i live by faith in the son of god so not not by my power or anything like that now later on in galatians uh we're going to get a discussion of the works of the flesh the fruit of the spirit and the interaction that i have with the flesh and the spirit so let me read through this and and ask yourself what is our interaction okay you know let's avoid the terminology right now fighting the flesh let's just say what is our interaction with that flesh stuff but i say walk in the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh okay the first thing i'll notice is this is that and i've mentioned this recently in a q a but i'll mention it again here and i'm not just rehashing the same info this is a little different um but there is our flesh my sinful nature that is the life the lifestyle the attitudes that that go against god those things are still desires i experience only i assign them to something called the flesh right like i say hey that those desires stem from the carnal nature the sinful self the flesh but i still have them so if the flesh was dead in every sense of the word then there would be no desires coming from the flesh okay verse 17 for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do so there is a battle you could call it a fight um i guess between the spirit and the flesh but they're battling like the battle that that's there is just conflicting desires okay that's the battle that's there just it's all in the realm of desire okay so it's not like the flesh is you know having some sort of like if you could put on spiritual goggles that let you see spiritual things it's not like the flesh is like you know pulls out a brass knuckles and socks the spirit and the spirit you know like uppercuts the flesh like no no this is all the wrong desires i have desires that are bad and then i have desires that are good and these bad desires come from the flesh the good desires are coming from the holy spirit but if you are led by the spirit you are not under the law then it talks about the works of the flesh so these things are very much alive in the sense of desires i have i still get from the flesh some christians deny this this is why i emphasize this they suggest that you you don't have these anymore like you as a christian you don't even desire say to do idolatry like you would never have an inkling in you that would want to do idolatry well it's like well yeah but it would be supplied by the flesh um sexual immorality impurity sensuality jealousy rivalries fits of anger these these things are things christians will will struggle with they will feel those desires so let me read your question again in light of this he says does living in the spirit mean fighting the flesh how do you fight something that's already dead okay the flesh is dead kind of like adam and eve were in the garden death doesn't mean it's they don't it doesn't exist anymore death means it no longer has that place of of uh authority or or it doesn't control my life doesn't have to control my life i now have the spirit so the flesh is dead right i've died to myself but yet i'm told to mortify myself or basically kill it again in other words it's an ongoing battle of some kind whether you want to use the term fighting or not there's a battle in myself in my desires between the desires of the spirit and the desires of the flesh and i get to pick which desires i'll obey when i feed one it grows you walk in the flesh the flesh becomes stronger and more dominant and more uh control in your thought processes right the walking in the spirit you grow the spirit becomes more in power more dominant and and ephesians uses this language because it talks about how the desires become increasingly corrupt and how walking in the spirit we get renewed renewed and we're in the new man in the new person that god is making us so yeah you have an ongoing battle as a christian with the flesh because dead isn't meant to be used in a clumsy sense of the flesh but in a careful sense um i'm just getting a lot of text messages right now y'all i'm just making sure nothing's in emergency all right all right william hall has a quote no that was william hall sorry william i hope that helped catalina islands says hi mike what did john mean in first john by perfect love cast out fear and that whoever fears has not been made perfect thank you so much this one's been coming up a lot in different ways um let's go to the passage and i'm not going to answer everything about the passage i've talked about it recently but let's just ask what does the phrase mean perfect love casts out fear all right so there's no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been made perfect has not been perfected in love first thing i want to point out is the word perfect in your bibles often often like a lot of the time it's a word that tends to mean something like mature mature and we tend to use the word perfect to refer to something that's like like um oh it's perfect therefore it's it couldn't be any better like it's it's perfection like a perfect circle if you zoomed in on it it would be absolutely perfect no no bumps or squiggles or you know the angles are actually absolutely right but that's not what the scripture term tends to mean right when they say perfect they tend to mean complete or mature like full age grown up in that light there's no fear in love but perfect love or mature love casts out fear well why because fear has to do with punishment and where fears has not been made perfect or not been perfected and loved let me let me rephrase this in my own terminology with my interpretation mixed in okay this is not a quote it's my interpretation if you if you know god's love for you and you are living out god's love for others you will have incredible confidence you will have maturity in your love and you will understand that when you stand before god there will be no condemnation for you so there will be no fear of punishment with you right because having that mature love both in your knowledge of god's love for you and your love for others that that love casts out fear because the same attitude of love you see in god towards you and that you have towards others you realize that in judgment god's gonna be looking at you that way and so you're not scared you're not scared of that future punishment but if you are if you are scared well then you haven't been made perfect in love you have not yet achieved this christian maturity it doesn't mean you're not saved it means you have not reached that level of maturity you haven't yet seen right like john says behold the love the father has for us that god has given to us that we be called children of god and when you see and understand the love that god has for you and you exhibit that love towards others you too will not be fearful of future punishment i think that's what it's talking about and i hope it helps number seven from elle sloggle who says pastor mike hi um hi why didn't luke mention the time gap that took place during acts 9 20-26 that paul mentioned in galatians 1 17-18 thanks for the answers um this is a a a tough issue because we're guessing at the motives that writers may have had for not including time gaps okay so let me um let me just preface it with this and i won't get into all the details but i'll mention okay actually let me just do it this way galatians one we'll start with that because that'll be the easier passage to wrap our heads around paul talks about after he was um after he got saved he says that he did not immediately consult with anyone that means the apostles he's in the context he's talking about the apostles he doesn't mean he didn't talk to anybody because he obviously talked to christians but not the apostles he didn't go to jerusalem to talk to the apostles um but he went into a way into arabia and returned again to damascus then after three years he goes up to jerusalem to visit cephas and it's kind of a private thing where he talks to peter and james then later on with the debate he goes back to jerusalem again and your thought is in acts 9 let's look at that passage now verse 20 through 26 why doesn't luke talk about this how did i get acts 28 let's try that again 9 20. okay um so it's this is after uh paul gets saved he says for some days he was with the disciples at damascus and immediately he proclaimed jesus in the synagogues saying he is the son of god and all who heard him were amazed and said is not this the man who made havoc in jerusalem of those who called who called upon this name wasn't he persecuting them first and he has has he not come here for the purpose for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priests but saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the jews who lived in damascus by proving that jesus was the christ he was doing some prophetic apologetics let me just point that out verse 23 when many days had passed the jews plotted to kill him but their plot became known to saul they were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall lowering him in a basket and when he had come to jerusalem he attempted to join the disciples and they were not all afraid of him they were all afraid of him excuse me and then barnabas and all this other stuff but let's just say this like nine um before i get into why doesn't he include more details like like galatians has a couple different things here uh first off i'll say they seem to harmonize well okay he stays in damascus for some time he's proclaiming jesus and then he has this moment where in acts he says he increased in strength he confounds the jews who live in damascus he proves that jesus is the christ then they plot to kill him and here's the transition they took him by night let him down through an opening in the wall lowering him in a basket period and when he had come to jerusalem okay so it doesn't say in acts 9 that he went directly to jerusalem he didn't go anywhere else it doesn't say that he in damascus he didn't have a hub in damascus and preach in other locations and come back to damascus it doesn't tell us a lot of things there's lots of room here for a variety of other things to happen in the apostle paul's life there's just a and then and here's another episode in the paul in the life of paul and when he had come to jerusalem this is what happened now let me come back to the question because so in other words there's lots of holes where all sorts of things could happen in the book of acts that he didn't talk about luke didn't talk about but now let me come to your question why didn't luke more carefully align his like data with the same stuff that paul's saying in galatians one and i think the answer here is simple uh luke is writing i think act has like 15 years worth of content in 28 chapters 15 years and 28 chapters here's a challenge for you summarize 15 years of your life and do it with only the space that luke has in the book of acts 28 chapters go for it summarize 15 years you will find that exactly like luke you have tons of places where you could later tell a story and it would have happened in between this chapter and that chapter and you didn't have time or space to mention it but it wasn't super relevant acts in acts 9 he just wants to say paul got saved and then he started preaching the gospel and then he eventually and they persecuted him their turn against him but he was proving that jesus was the christ and then he comes to jerusalem and he's got conflict with the apostles because they're scared they don't know that they can trust him i think that we have to realize um every story section in the new testament is summarizing very large portions in very small spaces and so there's going to be lots of room for all kinds of other events that happen john admits this at the end of his gospel where he's like hey jesus did so many other things i picked these of all that happened you know to instill faith in you to encourage you but there's so much more jesus did yeah i think it makes a lot of sense number eight helen jessica indries says can you pray for me i've battled depression my whole life and the last two weeks i've gotten so low i need some prayer if you have the time um helen we're gonna pray for you right now let's pray for helen lord we lift up helen and we ask that you help her help her lord to think clearly that's part of the hardest thing right now is for her to think clearly about what's going on to be able to decide to trust what is true and not to believe everything else to be able to appreciate your goodness we pray that she could turn to you and be joyful about salvation that you'd restore to her the joy of her salvation that regardless what else is going on whether other things are contributing we just pray that her her heart would be lifted up by you and we ask god for courage to move forward knowing that things will improve um absolutely improve for christians especially and we we pray that your your strength would be there your wisdom would be there your discernment would be there in jesus name amen um helen if i can give you an encouragement i don't know your situation and i'm not a quick fix kind of person um i'm not the kind of person who tends to be like oh we'll just do this and you're fine i do have a video on the topic of depression that may have some things that will help you okay again i'm not suggesting it's quick fix i mean maybe god does that sometimes but to pretend that that's always going to happen is is reckless on our part uh so what i want to encourage you with is that you you may not be able to control how you feel you can control what you choose to believe what you choose to believe and you can control perhaps even easier than that what you do so there's times where depression enhances temptation temptation to abandon responsibilities to set aside things that we know we should be doing that are very important and it's okay sometimes to take a step back from things and slow down a bit have a vacation or a day off that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about when you're actually abandoning things you know you need to do and then it turns into like a downward spiral so my encouragement to you is keep pressing on get up get out of bed go do good things in the name of the lord and don't do it for a quick fix do it because it's it's really important and worth doing but i hope that you that other video i do on depression maybe one of the mods mods could one of you guys find the video i did on depression not too long ago or maybe it was a long time ago i don't know and share it there and hopefully helen you find some some things there that might also assist you and uh god give you wisdom on everything else related to that yeah but uh i think there's a lot of hope and courage and help in our christian faith if nothing else can you just right now stop and say lord thank you that my sins are forgiven and put on thankfulness it doesn't mean you feel better but it's a good thing to do all right number nine our fish says why did jesus god need to be filled led or anointed by the spirit troubled by some saying that jesus did everything as a man through the spirit so we should be able to do everything jesus did okay that is like a teaching currently being popularized by bill johnson from bethel that jesus did everything as a man who was filled with the spirit so it's true that jesus did everything as a man who's filled with the spirit that's true but is that the whole story uh jesus was also god with us he never stopped being god with us there was no point in which jesus was not god with us like at no point so when when here's an example this when the demons look at jesus they don't look at jesus and go egad there's did they say god he god there's there's a man who's filled with the spirit they were in horror because they knew who jesus was because he wasn't just a man filled with the spirit right he's he is the lord of all creation come to the earth in human form but he's still god and this brought terror to the demons when they see him and they fall down they're like oh lord lord lord don't don't torment us before the time they're not responding as though it's just to a man filled with the spirit they're responding because it's jesus you know what i'm saying is jesus's identity never stopped being god he wasn't just a man filled with the spirit he was a man filled with the spirit and that's important but what i don't want to do is take the two natures of christ human and divine and split them apart and that's what uh bethel and bill johnson tend to do now they're not doing it in the heretical sense as far as i can tell let me preface this as far as i can tell i haven't read everything they've written but as far as i can tell they're tr they're trying to be careful so that they're not denying the deity of christ and that's why they use the phrase as a man so jesus does everything as a man filled with the spirit not as god and then it becomes oh you're not denying that he was god and man you're saying that he um he operated as a man filled with the spirit so that we could and this is this is the important part to bethel okay don't think it's about jesus theology it's really about you so that you can can do all the same miracles jesus did and expect even more in your life right now today right so this this is the real agenda for bethel and bill johnson those guys and i don't think that that is is present in scripture like nothing i'm aware of is there like a biblical passage i can go to that says here's how jesus did his miracles and therefore here's your model for your miracles and here's your expectation for miracles like i don't see that in scripture i think this comes from outside of scripture and they're trying to find a place for it so um that being said my response to this is not to deny that jesus was anointed led and filled by the spirit i don't deny that my my response is to to not isolate that from the fact that he's also god with us i just don't want to isolate it so i i don't swallow the teaching there that i hear from bethel and bill johnson and those guys i realize it has an agenda that's miracle-driven it's their version understanding of revival and i think that it is a distorted understanding of miracles in the new testament and in the early church okay so i don't swallow that but i don't reject it jesus was filled with the spirit and part of that is because he's an example to us part of that is because then we can be filled with the spirit but similar and the same are not this are not the same thing in a similar way that jesus was filled with a spirit i can be filled with the spirit but is it the same and that's the argument from bethel it's identical which is why they're going to say jesus as a man and all that stuff a lot of it's rhetorical and it's not really based on clear teachings of scripture it's like implications of this and that drawn out to this and that and i want solid teachings from scripture and my response to that would be that no we don't expect all believers to walk on water to raise the dead to do all those things and i don't see that expectation in scripture even in the like go look at the book of acts and ask yourself this do all believers operate in regularly in these signs and wonders or is it mostly just the apostles you're going to find it's mostly just the apostles and it's to establish the doctrines of the christian faith now i'm not a cessationist but to realize there is at least a highlight of these miraculous things happening among a certain group of people who went extinct in the first century and were never replaced by others there's no apostolic succession there's just elders and stuff who come in afterwards all right number 10 a lot more can be said about that but keys of the kingdom says since there is finite and since life is finite and heaven is infinite how do we justify spending any amount of time not working to influence eternity where is the balance between relaxation and work ephesians 5 let's go to the scriptures that you that you reference here there's two of them ephesians 5 verses 15 and 16. well i hope i can bring some wisdom to this it's a good question look carefully than how you walk not as unwise but as wise hold on i gotta cough just thought i'd spare you guys that loud burst in your ears um making the best use of your time because the days are evil okay that's the first reference the second one is first thessalonians 4 11. and aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you this is interesting because these are two different kind of topics in these verses the the second one is about normal uh not even um ministry-focused living but normal like daily christian life that you you are just to be a good worker like say you work at the post office okay well go mind your own affairs don't be trying to read other people's mail like we're just saying like take care of your own responsibilities work with your hands be a hard worker be a good person who contributes to society but you might the way your questions asked here you might um keys of the kingdom you might see that kind of work like what some would call secular work which in my view if you're a christian and you have a job it's not secular it's sacred in the sense that you're doing it unto the lord that makes it sacred not the work itself but the what the reason you're doing it um but this is talking about that kind of work but but your your question might be hey how can i how can i do this if it's not helping eternity somehow and um and then the other one would be look carefully than how you walk not as unwise but as wise okay let's be wise with our time make the best use of the time because the days are evil this i would say definitely applies to leisure activities okay this one's more closely aligned to your question um leisure activities are a danger for us and we live in a world with so many leisure opportunities i used to be bored when i was a kid right i would have time where i had nothing to do and i didn't i just i was bored it doesn't really happen that much anymore in that you've always got something else you can look at or go to or or go experience or enjoy or whatever and that can be a bit of a danger so that's a legitimate danger for us i don't want to ignore that okay keys of the kingdom most christians are probably spending too much time being entertained i'm not suggesting it's like the ultimate sin of their lives but it's probably true that we spend less time reading you know i watched you know five hours of tv shows and movies and youtube videos today um that were just pure entertainment and i spent zero time in the word like okay obviously there's a problem there this is not redeeming the time but let's get to the other part of your question which is how do we justify spending any time not working to influence eternity where's the balance between relaxation and work my thought is this in the scriptures god not just gives them rest he demands rest right to the jews in particular he says like you will rest on the sabbath and they rest and the apostles probably continued this habit in their ministries for the most part maybe paul might have been an exception in some cases at least depending on where he was um when the gentleman's with the gentiles he may not have when he was with the jews he probably did um but that was just relaxation like they're just taking it easy so our danger is not that we would um don't ever relax you know that's not the the issue the danger is not that you relax at all or that you take it easy at all the danger is that you would just take it easy too much so yes lay down but also get back up but also go take a nap but also get your work done and there's a balance there's a balance and god understands that balance for us as humans and i think that this is a good thing um he god wants us to be able to rest and there is even eternal value in our rest because you are the one resting and you are eternally valuable and so so if i go with my wife to like get lunch somewhere and we just sit there and have lunch and talk and chat and have a relaxing time or we go to the park and just sit there and relax like there's nothing wrong with this this is healthy it's relationship building i'm appreciating god's creation i'm thanking him for it there's nothing wrong with that the only question is that i don't do it too much and that's definitely a problem we have today number 11 gabriel martinez says how do you answer a catholic who uses revelation 12 to argue mary's queenship thank you for your work you have helped me in my face so much god bless love from venezuela okay boy this is an issue um it's not fresh in my mind i would want to go and spend time like developing my argument so i could give you a specific you know these five points that are really strong but let's just read through the text here and i'll offer a few thoughts because i'm not gonna have time to do that anytime soon i'm still just obsessed with the ending of the gospel of mark and i'll be obsessed with that for a few weeks still um romans revelation 12 verses one through well we'll see how far we read and a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the sun and with a moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars she was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth and another sign appeared in heaven behold a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems seven crowns his tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before the child before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child he might devour it she gave birth to a male child one who is to rule and the nation all the nations with a rod of iron but her child was caught up to god into his throne and the woman fled into the wilderness where she was has a place prepared by god in which she is to be nourished for 1260 days then there's this fight um and uh satan goes and he attacks the the children of the the woman her other children interestingly uh the woman was given wait when the great dragon saw that he'd been thrown down to the earth verse 13 he pursued the woman who had been who had given birth to the male child but the woman was given the two wings of a great the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to be to the place where she is to be nourished for a time and times and half a time probably three and a half years the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with a flood but the earth came to the help of the woman and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river and the dragon had the dragon had poured from its mouth then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring on those who keep the commandments of god and hold to the testimony of jesus and he stood on the sand of the sea okay the um uh the first thing i want to just say is there's an obvious connection where you could say this is about mary right a woman gives birth to a child right like that's that's like the obvious part the child seems to be jesus right that that would be implied as well but i think that the woman and i think most commentators agree is that the woman is more likely israel israel and this is because not just of the um the woman giving birth but there's a lot more going on let's let's look at some specifics okay the woman's clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet on her head a crown of 12 stars this may hearken back to jacob joseph and his dream right about the sun and the moon and the stars all bowing down to him right he is to become like a leader for for israel and for israel right not the nations of the world the this is this is about israel so there's a woman close with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars that this this is israel language not um mary language she was pregnant was crying out in birth pains in the and the agony of giving birth this could be seen as israel who has been delivering the christ child to the nations in great agony right over time and finally jesus comes forth israel's israel's gone through all kinds of things as as the ones who will be the christ-bearing nation okay and another sign appeared in heaven the great dragon okay the dragon hates the woman specifically now we don't know of any place where we read about okay we read about herod trying to kill jesus we don't read about the targeting of mary by anybody that i'm aware of in history in scripture um but we do read about satan trying to destroy the nation of israel absolutely right we read about this for sure and this seems to be what's going on here it's satan's agenda to destroy israel because they will bring forth the child christ that i think is a better understanding of these things um the battle between uh satan and the woman or the attacks between unstate and the woman after she gives birth to the male child she she goes out into the wilderness um she's nourished and then he continues to fight he tries to put a flood out after her i'm just scanning some of the passage here and then she's she's protected and so the dragon turns and attacks her other children that is those who in this case are grafted into israel through christ so he attacks israel and then he attacks other believers because god's protecting israel that's how i understand the passage let me just say this the the teaching that some would give here that she's the queen of heaven doesn't connect well with the passage in my opinion the stars and the moon and the sun connect more to joseph and language about israel as a whole not heaven do you catch the disconnect there that language the stars and the sun and moon and the stuff that happens after the child and you could say well that's her fling to egypt and she's being but she flees after she gives birth she flees not the child flees so that doesn't make sense it doesn't connect to this what happened with jesus oh there we go it connects to what happened with israel all right anyway that would be my short answer to that question and i'm sure that more time could be spent on it jonathan wick says hi how can one ever be sure that the arguments for god's existence are truly sound is it because all current objections fail maybe there's an achilles heel that has not come up yet blessings um jonathan wick my response to you here is there's a difference between um uh confidence and what some people call like absolute certainty and i think william lane craig put it this way he said certainty is a will of the wisp a will of the wisp or in other words it's something that you're going to look for and never find if i'm persuaded by the idea what if there's a problem with my argument for god's existence that i have not yet found and this causes me to to just the if just a pure hypothetical if that causes me to doubt god's existence all i have to do is respond with exactly the same amount of iffyness and say what if there's a problem with the hypothetical if that i just haven't found yet either and then i'm back to trusting in god if we're gonna waver in our faith in jesus because of completely unevidenced ifs what ifs we're gonna waver in our faith in everything like i'm gonna drink this water but what what if it's poisoned i mean i don't think it's poison i have no reason to think it's poison but what if there's a reason to think it's poison that i have not yet discovered i guess i can't drink the water like this is not a reasonable way to approach things um so i i think that yeah the arguments for god are sound and then therefore you should conclude that you're going to believe that god exists like it's that simple it's that simple please jonathan don't be persuaded by what-ifs another person has put it this way possibilities are cheap like but is it possible that jesus was really put here by aliens who who you know when he died they resurrected him with their advanced technology and they were just playing doing an experiment on on our planet like if this persuades you it's because you're just an unreasonable human and in which case there's not a lot of reason that can be applied to this except to show that it's not reasonable to show this is unreasonable what if like some of you guys watch me you look at my teaching what if everything mike says he just makes up on the spot what if what if well that's sure that's a possibility but if you live your life like that you will have a lot of psychological problems so yeah um i will i will add this that not only do we have sound philosophical arguments for god's existence jonathan if you're like me you look at creation and it's obvious that god exists this is not just a philosophical argument this is simply a perception like yeah there's a god like it's just obvious there's a god like look look at my cat well that's her tail look at this look at this kitty look at this fuzzy she's not as fat as she looks she's like mostly hair all right like i'm just saying like god exists consider the fact that that you are a thinking living reasoning being you're not just a machine but like you have self-awareness like there's something in you that is like a soul like whether you have a philosophical argument to go with this or not there's a god and yeah i think that the fact that of god's existence is a starting point for other things um not just a conclusion we cannot arrive at with philosophical arguments which we can't r lund has a question arlen 3 says i just heard about prevenient grace i've looked it up and just don't understand it can you explain it probably not that well because i don't hold the proving grace and haven't spent much time on it um my understanding and informed armenians in the comments can you know respond to this as well but my understanding is that prevenient grace would be um starting with the belief of affirming total depravity or that mankind um let me say this carefully i'm not i'm not saying mankind is incapable of being aware of any truths about god i'm not saying that but but total depravity would hold that mankind one of the things that would hold is that mankind even when the gospel's being preached even if the holy spirit is like doing some sort of work in the life of the person like or in the mind of the person in the conscience of the person that they will always say no to the gospel they're so depraved that they're just always going to reject the gospel reject christ reject god they're so disposed against god that they'll say no always to the gospel and calvinists this is not a proven graceful calvinist would solve this by saying you see what happens is the holy spirit comes and regenerates you gives you a new a new heart so to speak you're regenerated you're effectively born again and as a result of that you always say yes to jesus just like you would have always said no now you always say yes and that's part of the heart of calvinism is that regeneration precedes faith you get regenerated before you believe at least logically um the regeneration put it this way is the cause of your belief arminians as i understand it would respond to this with prevenient grace so someone described preventing grace as someone well you're not regenerated you're like sort of brought from a state of totally i hate god to like okay i'm at least i at least have the potential to accept the gospel now and they would suggest that this is like some sort of an actual work where you go from one state to another like you you you would always say no to the gospel and now you're at least open to saying yes to the gospel now the reason why i and they would hold that this happens across the board to everybody so calvinist would would only hold that that regeneration thing happens to the saved so this is connects to a bunch of other calvinist doctrines in tulip like uh limited atonement and stuff um but the armenian would suggest that this prevenient grace thing this like what some call partial regeneration which i think is a clumsy phrase which if i was arminian i would not like that term they're going to hold that this happens to all of humanity so that even those who end up rejecting christ they still experience the prevenient grace now you could argue that what what i believe is a proven grace thing because i do think the holy spirit's working on people but i don't think he's taking them from a state of spiritual deadness to a state of spiritual ability that they didn't have i just don't think it's that particular work so i reject prevent grace at least at the moment uh forgive me if i said that wrong i did my best number 14. jonathan beckham says how do you interpret the hopelessness of psalm 88 can you comfort someone who feels what psalm 88 18 b implies oof i would have to like i would really want to like just look at the whole psalm and really work through it but for the sake of time no we're going to read the whole song for the sake of thinking biblically about everything okay a song a psalm of the sons of korah to the choir master according to mahalath leonath a mass kill of hemon the azerite ezra height sorry uh yeah you you try saying that three times fast all right oh lord god of my salvation i cry out day and night before you let my prayer come before you incline your ear to my cry for my soul is full of troubles and my life draws near to sheol or at the grave death i'm counted among those who go down to the pit i'm a man who has no strength like ones set loose among the dead like the slain that lie in the grave like those who you remember no more for they are cut off from your hand you have put me in the depths of the pit in the regions of dark and deep your wrath lies heavy upon me and you overwhelm me with all your waves salah so everything's gloom and doom so far usually the psalms will have some light significant light in them they'll have these affirmations but i'm still going to trust you god but i have this future hope in you god psalm 88 goes on like this though verse 8. you have caused my companions to shun me you've made me a horror to them i'm shut in so that i cannot escape my eye grows dim through sorrow every day i call upon you lord i spread out my hands to you do you work wonders for the dead do the departed rise up to praise you this feels like a doubting question not like a confident question about but god you do work wonders for the dead it feels like a doubting it's not a claim that god doesn't but it feels like the psalmist is like confused or unsure about this is your steadfast love declared in the grave or your faithfulness in abaddon are your wonders known in the darkness of your or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness but oh lord but i o lord cry to you in the morning my prayer comes before you that's the most hopeful thing we've seen so far but i'm still gonna pray to you god i'm still crying out to you oh lord why do you cast my soul away why do you hide your face from me afflicted and close to death from my youth up i suffer your terrors i am helpless your wrath has swept over me your dreadful assaults destroy me they surround me like a like a flood all day long they close me in they close in on me together you've caused my beloved and my friend to shun me my companions have become darkness now um is that the end of the story for the psalmist it doesn't say okay it doesn't say that's the end of the story look this is a low point in the person's life and there are people who are going through these low points and if nothing else they can at least know that in the scripture it shows that this does happen like it seems as though he has his own problems that have that have caused this because it's it says in verse 16 your wrath has swept over me um and the implication is that there's something that he's done that's wrong but there's another side of this where it feels like the other way around he's like i've been close from my youth up like it's always been this way but psalm 88 what i think redeems this psalm i'm gonna use a very clumsy phrase here forgive me is jesus in my studies of jesus in the old testament psalm 88 which some have called the saddest psalm in the bible the lowest psalm the most depressing psalm in the whole bible takes on completely new light in the light of jesus christ and this is this is my encouragement to you uh jonathan beckham okay listen i'm gonna walk through this psalm and i'm gonna mention a few of the things of how it relates to jesus oh lord god of my salvation i cry out day and night before you let my prayer come before you incline your ear to my cry okay this is this is uh the one consistent good thing in the song there's a crying out to god help help help this is my situation it's all doom and gloom but i want help for my soul is full of troubles and my life draws near to sheol jesus in the garden of gethsemane jesus on the on the path to the cross jesus on the cross these are all quite true of him he even says that his soul was troubled when he's in the garden and he's deeply grieved to the point of death okay that sounds kind of like psalm 88 3. i'm counted among those who go down to the pit i'm a man who has no strength he's literally counted among not just those who died jesus is counted among the wicked who were killed for their sins i'm a man who has no strength his strength was dried up like a potsherd as psalm 22 says and jesus actually had no strength he couldn't carry his own cross successfully the whole way so they had to have simon of cyrene help like one set loose among the dead like the slain that lie in the grave like those whom you remember no more for they are cut off from your hand this speaks of a hopelessness in death this is me it's as though i'm going to die in hopelessness jesus he experiences our hopeless death the death that the psalmist writes about jesus ends up also experiencing you've put me in the depths of the pit in the regions of in the regions dark and deep jesus was actually put in a tomb in a dark tomb that is not only physically in the earth but metaphorically it's its shield the grave it is he's he's placed in the place of death that's where he is your wrath lies heavy upon me and you overwhelm me with all your waves again waves and screams worship songs we tend to think of waves as being like god like positive things coming our way um waves here are are seen as like trials and pain in the book of psalms um but your wrath lies heavy upon me see god's wrath for what i did ended up being experienced by jesus not that the father was angry at the son that's not what i'm saying but if i see wrath as god openly punishing sin well jesus experienced the punishment for my sin so we could say that his wrath lied upon him or say you've caused my companions to shun me right how did you feel if you were a disciple and you were following jesus you're all happy oh he's the messiah oh he's look he raises the dead he heals the sick and there he is being rejected and crucified he's walking forward to his killers and now you're shunning him hiding scattering pretending that you don't know him you've caused my companions to shun me this is all part of the plan god caused it part of the plan that they would the you know as uh jesus quotes the old testament saying i will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered you've made me a horror to them and indeed that's what it was jesus was a horror to them all the pride they felt in christ they felt shame now in being associated with christ as they were hiding i'm shut in so that it cannot escape so he's trapped as jesus was um trapped in the tomb but he was also trapped on the cross there was a point at which he was it was his death was inescapable my eye grows dim through sorrow every day i call upon you o lord i spread out my hands to you and we see this vividly just experienced by jesus in the garden of gethsemane he's crying out lord if there's any other way father's in any other way let this cut pass from me do you work wonders for the dead do the departed rise up to praise you and this is beautiful to me because what was a question in the psalmist like is there really even hope after this is answered by jesus yes he works wonders for the dead jesus rises from the dead right the departed rise up to praise you and then we in christ join with that resurrection that even in our deepest darkest moments the hope of christ meets us there and says yes god does wonders for you yes god loves you yes you have a hope verse 11 is your steadfast love declared in the grave or your faithfulness in abaddon yes jesus god so loved the world he gave his only begotten son right gave him to death is the point that his god steadfast love is declared in the grave of christ right and his faithfulness to those who have died is proven by his resurrection of jesus that because he lives we will live too are your wonders known in the darkness or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness jesus according to peter jesus um preached unto the dead those the spirit the departed spirits he preached in the in what we would call the afterlife probably clumsily but he preached to them about the truth of of his redemption the gospel he preached to them that means that the dead found out about um what jesus had done in a sense before the living understood it uh that's an interesting study in first peter but i o lord cry to you in the morning my prayer comes before you and this is your encouragement for your friend maybe they feel like they identify everything with psalm 88 they feel like it all is them but notice this the psalmist won't stop praying i'm not going to stop praying i'm not going to stop seeking god i'm totally unsure i'm insecure but i will not quit seeking the lord that's an admonition from this saddest psalm o lord why do you cast my soul away why do you hide your face from me right jesus on the cross psalm 22 he quotes it and it's very similar to this my god my god why have you forsaken me indeed jesus suffers and dies because we all will experience the punishment of our sins and death and separation from god if he doesn't afflicted and close to death from my youth up jesus indeed was targeted from the time he was a baby for assassination for death so he's from his youth up he was afflicted and close to death i suffer your terrors i am helpless but he sees this as ultimately god's design and jesus saw it that way as well your wrath has swept over me um again verse 16 is about the fact that not only am i suffering these things but they're the consequence of sin so jesus is not just dying to die right he's dying to pay for my sin it's he's taking the place of my myself in suffering punishment for sin verse 17 they surround me like a flood all day long they close in on me together you've caused my beloved and my friend to shun me my companions have become darkness jesus was alone he was alone peter judas all the apostles betrayed him turned their back on him and his companions became darkness but that wasn't the whole story that was just the low point so that would my encouragement to your friend is this isn't your whole story this is your low point keep seeking the lord keep trusting in him look to christ as your hope and don't give up number fifteen bridges josh he says hi pastor mike love the content thank you and you say is it a sin for christians to see a mental health therapist or psychiatrist is biblical counseling the only option for christians um i see no sin here okay every mental health therapist and psychiatrist is going to be individual and some of them are going to give you wonderful godly advice and some are going to give you ungodly advice do you have to go to a quote biblical counselor look i've known enough people to know this that when you when you go to a psychiatrist there's the stuff they had in their books there's the stuff they've experienced and you know as they've tried to help people and how that's changed them and then there's their commitment to worldview issues and if they have a biblical worldview that will impact their psychiatry unless they are inconsistent with themselves that being said i'm open to going to anybody anybody but i obviously want a want a christian to be the one helping me work through issues that touch my christian world views that would be my preference yeah i want i would like that right but that doesn't mean that um even a secular counselor who's not a believer wouldn't be able to have some good advice for you it's just that it might be mixed in with other secular um or i should say unbiblical values and you'd have to figure that out you'd have to figure that out generally speaking though if anybody who goes to a therapist including a christian counselor they need to make sure that they are not letting that person become like let them help you but don't let them become your new bible is all i'm suggesting okay like there's gonna be times where even if it's a christian counselor they may suggest things that are not helpful or not consistent with your christian commitments more than anything i want to be biblical i want to be committed to christ i want to be committed to thinking biblically about things that doesn't mean though that i would spur help from somebody else maybe even who has less of a biblical knowledge than i do but they have a lot of experience helping people work through some of the struggles i'm going through there is wisdom and a multitude of counselors that's that's scripture that says that so it's okay to get various counselors um i i don't i don't see a problem with that at all a mental health therapist psychiatrist i would test them by what they say not by their position as a psychiatrist or a mental health therapist right so then i'm open very open to anybody potentially helping anybody number 16 daxton h says is it possible to be 100 certain in christianity and the bible is believing but also having doubt a sin i would like to have 100 certainty but there's always that doubt it all could be a lie daxton um is it possible to have 100 certainty um probably not for you [Laughter] probably not for you um so let me ask you this daxton what are you 100 certain of i want you to really think of it take christianity uh uh you know in a minute right now let's just ask what are you 100 certain of in life at all well i'm 100 certain i exist like there's i mean there's something i'm super certain of right but how do you know maybe you're just a program that's being wired to you could be in a simulation in a computer somewhere and you're just you're just wired to say you exist and to reflect back and think you exist but maybe i mean isn't there a chance that that's true well i'm 100 certain that that my mom that raised me that that's actually my biological mom are you really though i mean do you really look that much like them are you sure i mean you've seen a birth certificate but how hard would that be to fake like you've seen some pictures but what if what if they just took the wrong baby home from the hospital are you sure are you 100 sure like really 100 certain so my point here jackson this this touches an issue we brought up earlier is that the problem isn't that you fail to be 100 certain in christianity the problem is that you think 100 certainty is something that is reachable or that is needed in order to have trust in faith and that's where i'm going to push back and say daxton for you it is probably not possible to be 100 certain because even if you had god himself reveal himself to you show you things do wonderful things you at the end of the day you could still say but what if i'm delusional what if i mean what if i'm delusional what if it was all part of a weird alien experiment so this should help you because what it gets you to do is realize that 100 certainty is not very valuable and that if you want to hold back belief until you're 100 certain if that's your standard then you're actually the irrational one it's irrational to think for me to think that my mom is not my biological mother even though i haven't run a dna test even though i don't have a total perfect proof i have every good reason to think she is and no good reason to think she's not i would be a fool not to not to call her mom so with christianity you have so many good reasons to trust in christ you should just trust in christ and this idea of 100 certainty is um like i said earlier will of the wisp or it's it's yeah and um you said is believing but also having doubt a sin no no absolutely not believing but also having doubt is is and often times a normal thing for many people but but you realize that happens all the time like when you get on an airplane you you believe it's going to successfully carry you to your destination but you might feel a little scared while you're on it but you still got on the airplane you're still on it you're still traveling right you're just experiencing psychological fear or worry that's a normal human condition i think jesus receives us he says to the man who says lord i believe help my own belief the man had belief and doubt at the same time and jesus healed healed the the person the man was asking to be healed so god accepts that um yeah what you need to do is learn how to how to doubt your doubts because irrational doubts like but i'm only 98 sure like that's an irrational doubt and you need to learn to apply um skepticism towards those things all right let's go to number 17 which is kathy who says my husband yells and curses at me i always tell him i don't deserve it but he continues can this be corrected if so how and would i dishonor god if i stop being physically intimate with him okay kathy um i don't know how to correct your husband nobody does he's a jerk he's just a jerk i'm sorry a husband that yells and curses at his wife is a horrible person they are and if you're if you do it and you think it's no big deal this is the way we always are you have problems anybody listening to me now you yell and curse at your wife something's seriously wrong with you and the way that you treat your beloved the way that you treat the one who stands in the place of the church in christ in the church he died for her he gave himself for her and you treat her that way that's you yell and cuss at your spouse husband or wife something seriously wrong in your marriage does this mean you should get divorced no i'm not saying that i'm saying you should stop right so yeah he needs to stop but the problem here is this as a pastor i've had many many times kathy where somebody like you would come to me and what they really want is they want me to help them change someone else and i can't do that i don't know how to change your husband obviously you could have levels of confrontation right you confront him you confront him with someone he respects or you would address the issue with your kids you address the issue with your kids and him you know dad we all want to tell you you have to stop talking to mom like that this is wrong or maybe you would if he's a christian and use the church you can bring it up with church leaders which might help or he might freak out and leave the church because i don't know what kind of guy he is okay those are those are things you can do but i don't know how to make him do anything or make you do anything all i can do is give you counsel so my counsel to you kathy is is um remember the grace that god's given you and try to extend as much grace as possible your husband okay what he's doing is mean and wrong and horrible he's wronging you and when somebody's wronging you that's when you can show them the love of christ that is the greatest time to show them the love of christ where you you don't know you're not you're not taking responsibility as though his yelling and cussing is your fault because it's not but you're not responding to it with more of the same you're not going to respond in the flesh to him being in the flesh this is your call as a christian walk in the spirit this is not be given the advice that if you're just a good wife he won't do that i don't believe that okay um this is my counsel to any christian when someone's hurting you make sure that it doesn't cause you to be in the flesh and for you to sin and this is probably not the advice you wanted because your advice is you you want advice to help change him and i'm suggesting that this is my general advice to anybody in relationships in marriage especially we always want the other person to change and god is always working in our hearts to change us let this change you let it cause you to be more gracious you to be more humble finally you said can i stop being physically intimate with him um based on what you've told me i i don't think that that's a good thing to do um i think you're gonna exacerbate the problems then and first corinthians seven suggests that husbands and wives shouldn't do this they shouldn't withhold each other physically because it just leads to more temptation and more problems and but if this if if the abuse becomes more and more extreme and dangerous you can flee but which would obviously involve not physical intimacy but it's not just a tool to manipulate in that sense so kathy yeah those are my pieces of advice for you please sit down with with other godly people in your circle who you can talk to about this and my only counsel finally is this kathy tell them the whole truth and nothing but the truth don't hold back anything because it feels embarrassing obviously you're not going to share everything in a little youtube chat comment thank you for sharing what you did and i hope that the council helped you number 18 this is daniel louis who says hi mike is god actively judging the world today or is all judgment held out till the second coming when negative things happen like natural disasters how much of this can we say is god's judgment so god is actively judging the world in a variety of ways today i would affirm that because a in the old testament he often uses natural disasters as ways of judging b in the new testament jesus even predicts the destruction of towns and stuff like that see in revelation we have discussions of god's future judgment on the world as bowls of judgment are poured out and that takes the form of natural disasters so old new and prophetic about the future we have good reasons to think that god does that but is here's here's where it gets challenging is every natural disaster a judgment of god no like for instance look at the book of job in the book of job we have some of those are natural disasters a wind comes and knocks the house down right lightning strikes and destroys these are natural disasters but they're actually satanically being orchestrated okay so there weren't judgment right there was something else going on we also have um jesus who talks about how a man there were there were a group of people who were killed when this tower fell a building fell down and killed people a tower and i can't really name where it was salome anyway this tower fell kill people and jesus challenges those who think that this is because they were being judged for their sin and he pushes back and suggests no and his argument is interesting because it sounds like he says hey if god was just judging if every time somebody's getting punished they're getting punished for sin well god would just kill you all because because if judgment was just ongoing constant always perfect perfectly suited to to sin we would all just be slain so so yeah god's actually not judging in the sense of final judgment right now but natural disasters can and are used by god the tough part for me and you daniel is knowing when that is so if there's a hurricane and someone dies in the hurricane am i supposed to be like god cause that that was judgment or do i take a perhaps a humble approach knowing job knowing the story of the destruction of this um of the killing of the people from that tower falling and i take the humble approach and say i don't know i'm not there i'm not in the mind of god i'm not seeing the spiritual realm i just don't know so i tend to take the more humble approach and let me just say this there's a sort of arrogance of thinking that i can vaguely hear about a disaster somewhere else in the world and just spiritually know why it happened that is not a biblical thing that is a spiritual arrogance thing and that i've seen too many times all right alana alana quinones says is there any hidden meaning behind ruth uncovering boaz's feet in scripture i have heard that and what i've heard is that um the idea is that she was doing something very like it's a euphemism where she basically became very sexual with him um i don't take it that way personally and i would and i my bar for taking it that would be pretty high i i would think that she just uncovered his feet and it was like a like she literally just uncovered his feet and it was a sign some would argue otherwise i haven't heard the a good case for that maybe it exists i haven't spent a lot of time on it alana so what i'm going to say is this um on a similar note there are those who want to i mean they just want to sexualize everything in scripture right so jonathan and david they weren't just really deeply close friends like scripture says they were sexual so john the baptist when he leans upon jesus you know in the in the um in the in this meal at a meal that it implies they had some sexual relationship because he's like i was the disciple jesus loved except they didn't use the word love to mean sex the way that some people nowadays do there are those who want to sexualize everything in scripture and um that tends to make me very hesitant to read that sort of stuff into the text doesn't mean it's not possible but i have a bit of a hesitancy about it if it feels like a rumor then don't soak it up so quick number 20. final question for today this is from damie oh who says how do i get better in my relationship with god i'm slipping away what do i do damie my encouragement is it's probably obvious to everyone else what you need to do and you need to maybe look around and ask yourself think of this as a friend telling you this and ask yourself what in my life are the obvious steps everyone else would tell me to do that i'm just ignoring that's key here this is like a big deal because these are very simple obvious things that obviously i could say things like read the bible okay pray go to church be in fellowship with other christians stop sleeping with your your other boyfriend girlfriend or whatever i could say those types of things right but there's also like just those who know you those who know you where if you just actually surveyed spirit truly spiritual christians in your life and you asked what do i have to do to get closer to god they would just immediately say what because they know you and sometimes we need to remember how others see us because we're blind to some of our own issues um so dami yeah that's my thought um seek the lord and you'll find them but don't base your closeness with god on how strong your emotions are right now so i'm married me and my wife have i think a very healthy relationship but when i evaluate this might help when i evaluate my relationship with my wife i don't think of how strong my butterflies are at the moment it doesn't even occur to me not even on my radar what i think of is the way that we talk to each other whether or not we tell each other about deep things that are going on in our lives whether or not we can get along for extended periods of time like we can hang out and spend time together these are like measures of a relationship whether or not she's the go-to i have for when i have something on my heart i need to tell somebody do i tell her do i tell someone else whether or not i'm the go-to she has does she tell me or someone else these are actually ways of measuring a relationship that are not based on how i feel but often we measure our relationship with god based on our butterflies this is dangerous because you can have butterflies and have no relationship with god you can have a great relationship with god and have no butterflies so it's not a very good measure so i'm going to suggest this measure your relationship with god in this those who love me will obey my commands jesus says am i walking in a way that shows that jesus is lord of my life that's one of the easiest things to do it may not be fun but it's very revealing and it shows us what's really going on and i'm not saying only highlight areas you fail and that's all that's all you pay attention to but look at your lifestyle and the life choices you make and say are you walking with christ in a visible way in your life it should be obvious don't measure by butterflies because butterflies fluttered byes is that does that make any sense anyway all right davey um then consequently how you would get a better relationship is to walk and greater appreciation of god in love for what he's done for you which is going to be helped and increased by things like going to church and reading the bible and praying but also in putting off sin because these are other loves these are other commitments that are fighting for your commitment to god so i hope that helps lord bless you all thanks so much for joining on monday the next video in the mark series is coming and this one's actually here's what i'm going to do i'm going to be doing a how would i interpret the longer ending of mark if it is if it does belong in the text i'm just going to say how would i interpret it we're going to walk through it um i'm actually going to do the full teaching on whether or not it should be in the text or at least all of what i've learned about that over the past few weeks the following week the following monday that's the plan anyhow it's just taking way way way more time than i keep thinking it will and i'm hopefully going to be able to make sense of it and bring it to you in a way that's helpful and we will deal with this longer ending of mark passage this is the passage where the snake handling verse is the drinking poison verses and the idea that signs and wonders are going to follow the believers is also in this passage um other than that it's largely uncontroversial but most the most controversial stuff is the signs and wonders related stuff and the snake handling verse which is hijacked by a very small minority of weird country preachers in the midwest of the united states who have suffered the fate of death because of their obvious folly this is so sad it's so sad to see it happening um but we'll talk about that as well so that's coming up on monday and i hope you all have a wonderful day keep your eyes on the lord trust in him even when the time is dark it's a temporary dark before the light and that alone the future that we have as christians alone should be able to help us a lot in those times take care

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 58,495

Rating: 4.9032106 out of 5

Keywords: 20 questions, BibleThinker, Mike Winger, question and answer, think biblically, Q and A, episode 44, part 44, 44, the apostles' wives, the wives of the apostles, did the apostles have wives, were the apostles married

Id: BqB5LtJFQU0

Length: 97min 2sec (5822 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 13 2021