20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 47)

here we go this is the friday q a and we call it 20 questions and i'm pastor mike winger here from southern california ready to answer your questions about jesus god the bible christianity gummy bears and whatever else earth shaking important issues there are to talk about let's go to question number one this is from michael savannah and melanie and they ask uh hi pastor mike greetings from switzerland it was re it has recently been scientifically proven that many psychopaths have a physical brain alteration that doesn't allow their synapses to receive the neuron chemicals for emotions such as sympathy oftentimes they become violent criminals or even murderers now here's the question on all that will they be judged by god the same as any other person even though they have something physiologically wrong with them and um boy this is a question that i think is in a sense is easy to answer i'm going to give you my easy answer up front and then i want to explain some pitfalls of of that potential answer like things that i see people making mistakes on at least i think are mistakes that i want us to be aware of and not fall into so the uh the simple answer is um i don't think god would judge them the same i think that uh or ornis let me put it this way let me make it more complicated he will judge them the same which is perfectly fairly he judges everyone differently in a sense i believe um so each person god is aware not only of what they did right what they did wrong he's aware of what they knew what they didn't know what opportunities they did have what opportunities they didn't have the situation they were in when they did those things right or wrong he's aware of all of those things god judges us perfectly fairly with all the information he considers every factor and so will he consider a physiological problem that somebody has i think absolutely yes okay to me that that that seems like it adjusts the way they're judged somewhat now the pitfalls which i don't think you guys are falling into because you you worded your question pretty carefully here but the pitfalls that i would want to avoid others from falling into is thinking that this is like some sort of like clumsy excuse for sinful behavior um hey god judges us differently and then in the back of their head what they're kind of thinking is oh so i don't get judged if i have like a physiological problem that that lends me towards sin that pushes me or makes it easier to sin or something like that and and for that i'm going to push back really hard and say oh no no no no no no that is not biblical at all jesus even says that like the one who sinned without knowing will be beaten with few stripes the one who sinned with knowing beaten with many stripes what does that imply it implies that there's a different a measured judgment for those who sin with less knowledge such as less sympathy but that doesn't mean that they're not judged for the sins they commit because they're still committing sins they're still doing things that are wrong now i'm going to add some more things onto this i hope that that helps keep us from that really bad pitfall of thinking that we will not have these judgment for our sins because we have some tendency in us i mean that would backfire so fast on everything in christian theology um like that it almost comes down to saying well i've seen nature so god won't try to punish me for my sin and that's the danger i'm worried about people falling into um other dangers are things like um real you know forgetting that just because somebody may lack sympathy and i'm just granting that they do okay i'm not gonna argue on that it's over my head as far as the science goes but let's just grant that they're lacking sympathy and they lack the ability to have an emotional sympathy it from what i've read on this which is very little the psychopath does not lack the ability to recognize the situation for what it is that is they they a they understand that what they're doing has a moral problem with it right they understand that it's there's moral problems hey that's actually wrong um even if they aren't feeling the guilt and feeling the sympathy and stuff like that and two they're able to look at somebody and and be aware that they're hurting them they're injuring them they're causing them harm they're causing them pain where you're you know the the research that i've little bit that i looked at was suggesting if they're right that the psychopath simply doesn't you know feel the person's pain so to speak they don't look at them and go oh boy that hurts um but even that the little bit of research i looked into was was a lot more diverse and it it didn't fit a real simplistic kind of like um cop show version of psychopaths that didn't really quite fit so i'll also add a few other things here um before i go to the next question tackling 20 questions today even if it takes a little bit of time to do it and the next thing is this is i want us to be aware that in in the study of psychology and in the study of like behavioral therapy and all these different sciences about human nature about the way humans are and they operate you know sociology they they have two sort of tools in their tool bag for assessing why people act the way they do and the tools generally the way i've seen it are nature and nurture nature and nurture right so you've got nature like the way you're wired the way your dna is the way you know the brain chemistry is functioning for you and they have nurture which is going to be oh the way you were raised the environment you're in you know there's things internal to you is is dna in nature external to you is the way that you are um raised in an environment and they will often speak as though they're assuming these are the only two factors involved in the development of a person and their personality and their behaviors the problem with this from a christian worldview is not that it's totally wrong it's that it it only has two of three important factors and the third one is the most important one and that is free will that is human choice so if i uh have a rebellious child and i go okay well maybe his brain is making him rebellious okay that maybe that's a nature thing okay well maybe it's his environment the way his family's raising him that's making him rebellious that's a nurture thing but also somewhere in there he's making decisions so i want to factor in nature and nurture but i don't want to exclude free will this the psychopath would have a free will choice to commit the sins he's committing and he is therefore culpable even if there are external and internal factors that make it more likely for him like to fall into that kind of stuff so free will means when you commit a murder you're not off the hook because you didn't feel emotionally the way most people do about murder like uh yeah that doesn't work and the last thing i'll say is this is that the way that the bible describes societies that that that trend towards wickedness and sin a lot of the descriptions lovers of self right they care about themselves but not others that's like a narcissistic type viewpoint which is i think common for a psychopath um those are described as not neurological conditions that someone is suffering with but rather the behavior of i love me not you that's the issue that's what we focus on so the free will thing becomes the emphasis the and yeah i yeah there's other stuff that could be said about that but i hope that that helps look yeah it would be measured in judgment as will everything else but that doesn't mean we're off the hook that's the important part we make our choices before god i've made my choices and i even if my upbringing lent me towards sinful behaviors of a certain kind um oh my goodness like i've seen this growing up i've seen people do this where they're like yeah i'm not a good father i'm not very loving to my kids but it's not my fault because my father wasn't good and loving to me and and what does their kids say when they grow up i know i'm not a good father but my dad wasn't loving to me and then they grow up i know i'm not a good dad but my dad wasn't loving to me and it's like we can't keep playing this game we are each responsible for our choices number two this is samuel carvalho who says if one were to pray over someone for a miracle healing what would the chances of it working depend on that's what an interesting question samuel jesus said that it depends on faith does it also depend on being relatively righteous as a person okay um so it's almost like uh analyzing the formula for uh for achieving a successful yes answer while you're praying for a miracle that's kind of what we're looking at here and so you could we we let's let's kind of like let's try to grant this experiment that we could analyze it like a formula um so obviously faith is very important that there's faith is involved this is clear in the in the in the new testament in particular in the gospels jesus continually is like hey you know all things are possible for him who believes you know ask him my name if you believe you'll receive all those types of things so faith is definitely a factor um another one you mention is is being righteous now that's a challenge to to address because we have examples um going sort of both ways in scripture there's examples of like people who are not godly they're not like the only thing they have is is faith all they offer is faith and then their prayers are answered and then we have examples of very godly very people we would look very much up to as their righteous examples and but even there a mixed bag because you get guys like saul paul right the apostle who had many mighty miracles going through his life but when he talked about his apostolic ministry and the miracles and all that stuff he called it god's grace to him so clearly he's not thinking he's earning a miracle so i'm gonna i'm gonna suggest that um that righteousness is not like a qualifier for earning a miracle although i would based on my understanding of scripture i would dial that back a little bit with some nuance and say but if there's sin in a person's life that might be the cause of problems so righteousness doesn't earn miracles but sin does cause problems and israel when they sin and then they're punished as a result or uh in first corinthians when paul talks about many of them falling asleep because of the lack of love that they're showing to one another there's an implication here that sin can be a cause of of issues physical issues spiritual issues and even perhaps a cause of unanswered prayer i say perhaps but i think that this is this is this is in scripture this is taught but that isn't to say um that the solution is i live perfectly righteously and then god answers my prayers because i don't think that's it i think that sin is me let me put it in more modern terms sin is me walking away from god and so that prayer connection is is messed up but i don't get my way back to god through righteousness i i just i just repent and trust in christ for his his grace and his love and his kindness so i'm not earning the answers to prayers that's the idea i'm not earning miracles uh that's the danger of speaking of righteousness there the other issue though that we haven't added is the issue of god's will and this is the big like this is the wild card that gets thrown in that destroys all prayer formula because if it's god's will to heal if it's not god's will to heal this has nothing to do with you it has nothing to do with what your situation is or what you're thinking about it or what you're aware of at the time like if it's god's will to heal for whatever purposes he has that's that's a necessary element okay so faith is necessary i think that not actively being in rebellion against god that's really important um although it's not that your righteousness is earning a yes answer but god's will is like the ultimate thing and we see this in the gospels as well in my study through the gospel of mark i think this came out big time at least to me as i was studying and teaching it and that is that jesus is like healing healing miracle raise the dead cast out the demons heal the sick the lepers and all this stuff and it's just everything's possible everything's possible and then we get to the garden of gethsemane and jesus is like to the the son god the son says to the father you know if this is if there's any other way let's cut past from me nevertheless not my will be done but yours see there's there's no lack of god's ability to save the son the father to save the son from the cross there's no lack in ability there what's what's the lack the lack is it's not ultimately part of god's will right so the father's like i've sent my son and now the son is submitting and yielding with this this picture of of the way that the father and son behave right here during the incarnation in particular the father is like i'm sending you to the cross the son is like i don't like this but i don't enjoy this like think of the pain and the suffering it was but i yield i'm gonna i'm gonna go forward and so um i think that this is a beautiful thing and it's a great picture for us in our prayer life too this is the thing that is the hardest pill to swallow when you're thinking lord i i have faith i believe you and i've been praying for this thing and there's no like sin that i'm aware of in my life there's nothing like that would be blocking my you know not walking away from you in my in my in my life with open sin so all i do is i look at this this horribly hard situation and i think you could fix this you could do this but you're not all i can think is that for some reason you don't want to and then we look to the cross and we say jesus on the cross he was faced with the same situation put in in human form and then walking walking through it for an example for us to say look guys look to jesus there there was good there was purpose there was need for the cross and it was not perceived by the disciples they just thought it was all bad news christ knew he knew about the glory that was coming and he knew about the joy step before him in the same way like you might be like the disciples where i don't see why god won't heal my child i don't see god why god won't raise this person up i feel like it would be a perfect testimony of his power and his grace and all these good things would happen and this is where you realize that there's faith for miracles but then there's also faith that simply trusts god's will and trusts god's character and to me that's what we really encounter on a very regular basis do i just trust that god is good in the midst of the times when he when his will is not to do the thing that i want him to do it seems like the most obvious thing until you're in the middle of it until you're standing there and you're looking at a thing you want god to do and he's not doing it and you're like okay now now i i see why this is a challenge when when you trust god for miracles but you don't trust god's will that's when this problem becomes a problem so we gotta trust his goodness trust his will um so that being said i don't think there's a formula for prayer because it depends on god's will ultimately um although it does involve faith and it does involve not being an open rebellion against god number three zacchaeus says if our bodies are glorified at the rapture what happens to those people who are saved post-rapture is there a second resurrection um so there's going to be different views on this it's been a little while since i've looked freshly into this jackie so let me just think for a second um like just for you guys to know like in my maybe you'll realize that that some of you go through the same thing as me is your mind can only carry so much data and so uh the topic of the rapture is something i haven't looked into in a long time and so it's just not fresh on my mind um just started my prep for the study on women in ministry it's going to be a long long prep weeks maybe even maybe even into months we'll see i'm just going to take as long as it takes to teach that thoroughly and thoughtfully but uh but yes um i'm trying to remember if i've heard someone who's a proponent of the rapture discuss this specifically if our bodies are glorified at the rapture what happens to those who are safe post-rapture is there a second resurrection i guess that depends on whether they think those people get like a glorified body shortly after that's it that's a good question jackie i'm not sure how they would answer that because what's going to happen is you guys are going to think i speak for the pro-rapture position here when the truth is that i'm a little bit on the fence on some of this stuff a lot a bit on the fence and so i don't want to be seen as like oh if mike doesn't know that answers then there is no answer there i just don't remember off the top of my head how they would answer that um if there say post rapture as i second it seems like you have two options right you either have the the rapture maybe three options the rapture you get your your new body as you're taken up and you're transformed right so that that would be a rapture with with a resurrection right but then there's going to be those who died during the tribulation they either individually get new bodies after their death or there's a second resurrection experience which would be a strange thing to be teaching to be honest when you look at the texts i'll just put it out there number four um oh by the way i want to share with you guys something as we go to number four here the um okay so i never use bing this is just a personal funny thing i never use bing bing is like the search engine that um that i always find to not help me find what i'm looking for online but somebody who follows our our ministry the ministry i do online does use bing and they had searched for my name looking probably for the website or something like that and bing does this thing i'll put on your screen hold on it does this thing where it like auto fills um hold on a second i'll get it for you all right and there it is it like autofills it it just searches the internet and grabs data about people and then creates these little things so this is on the bing page this is like what automatically pops up and this was over a week ago it's still there today i just checked for fun and it says about me mike winger the description is the atheist geek is a former jehovah's witness turned atheist along a lifelong sci-fi geek writer wannabe and moderate liberal pro-science and then it has data there that's like not accurate at all i just think it's hilarious oh here i can make it a little bigger for those of you that want to see it there you go this is the description right down the bottom um so what what what this is there's apparently there's like an actual atheist who has a twitter profile called the atheist geek and being somehow thinks that's me uh it's funny for like 10 different reasons if i just side note because i just think this is hilarious so i'm not a former jehovah's witness but i've actually had multiple jehovah's witnesses or those who are on the fence or those who are former jw's come up to me you know in person to ask me like were you jehovah's witness because they think i'm just hiding that i was because i just did a lot of work and i tried to use their internal language when i talked about that religious group and um as a way of making sure that i got things accurately and and all that so i've had a number of people ask me if i was a former jw um sci-fi geek writer want to be moderate liberal liberal and the irony of pro science this pro science is like anyway it i won't get into it all um my my thoughts about modern funny atheism um internet atheism that just just no offense to the atheists it's just um pro science okay so look at the next question this is going to be number four um this is from nunia business oh nunya business none of your business my brother has a very biblical worldview despite being an agnostic in terms of homosexuality and celibacy etc based on science how do i prove that morality though comes from god um okay so nanya business all right so you're dealing with someone who's who's got a pretty consistently biblical perspective on moral issues right that's pretty cool i like that and other and also then your brother is going to have very strong moral opinions he obviously thinks there's moral truth and there's objective moral truth so nanya i'm going to suggest that you to start with that you you consider looking into like um uh potentially cs lewis okay i'm gonna give you different tiers okay you think about which tier is best for you and your brother c.s lewis talks about the moral argument and what i really like about c.s lewis is he talks about how the moral argument shows that there is that there is a god and he does it very thoughtfully but he also does it like in language that connects with normal people not like just like a no offense my scholarly friends out there but not like a scholar who who has it have tendencies to talk just they nuance things so much that nobody knows what they're talking about and um cs lewis really connected with people so if you look up his moral argument you could look it up in mere christianity this nice little book maybe that's a great book to address and bring to your your atheist brother or your agnostic brother excuse me so um c.s lewis is mere christianity that'd be a nice thing to consider that'd be like tier one okay that is if he's not like say versed in philosophy deep in those types of discussions if he's more versed in philosophy stuff um you could look up there's a number of christian philosophers who put forward moral arguments and one of them is um uh william lane craig who's talked about the moral argument and i like he's very accessible his content um another one i don't know who to recommend on it but would be someone who's put out what's called the um the argument from moral knowledge okay these are different arguments let me give you guys the lay of the land and a couple of these things at least as i understand it the moral argument is first off it's not this it's not you're aware of morality because of christianity that is not the argument this is like um annoying that it always comes up but we're not suggesting this like this is not the moral argument for god's existence nor is it an argument that because god exists therefore we should believe in morals like because you believe in god you should believe in morals that is not the argument either that is not the argument we're not saying because god exists you should believe in morals now that would be true but that's not the point we're making right it's true that like peanut butter and honey sandwiches are good but we're not talking about that right now i've never had one i'm just saying you let the honey you just put the honey on the sandwich bread you let it sit there for like two minutes and it like does this thing this like magical honey and bread thing and then you know so yeah but we're not talking about that right now no we're moving on and uh the argument instead is not so from god to morals but it's from morals to god that's the argument so somehow we're talking about the fact that morals exist means that or the best explanation for that is the fact that god exists and so c.s lewis gives thoughtful stuff on this and william craig has a good argument on this you could just google him don't use bing and uh and um the uh the argument then from morality would be that your brother recognizes that there are moral truths but how does he explain and maybe this would be one way you could approach it how does he explain the fact that he that it not only is wrong right to say um say homosexuality or something like that or something like murder take something really we don't have to debate about okay murder well except when it's abortion all of a sudden it's confusing right um yeah right so let's take murder and say everyone agrees murder is wrong but just the fact that it is wrong why does that mean i shouldn't do it this is an interesting question to ask it's it's what the philosophers call the is ought problem okay just because murder is wrong why is it that i ought not do it should parents take care of the kids yes they should why because it's good for parents to take care of their kids yes okay just because it's good for them to take care of their kids why does that mean they have to do it see these are things we assume in our world view and we should they should be in our worldview but we don't think about them we don't reflect on them when you start to like nail this down you realize that like gosh if there's no god it's difficult to figure out why i should do things just because they morally are good this is not uh to argue that atheists don't believe in morals or that atheists don't feel like compulsion to do good things or something like that that again that's just a distraction so that's like the is odd problem you could talk about that and basically we're going to suggest that moral moral outness it comes from persons it's a personal quality and it ultimately is going to come from god who god who who gives us who is good right that establishes what is god's nature being good gives us a grounding for morals just existing in reality but then god's commands to us god's instructions to us god's expectations of us these are the things that make it so that we ought to do it so it's there's an is and an odd and now that makes sense on god i never really hear people rarely are you against that what's weird is when you take god out of the picture and you look at the world around you if if there is no god and you're like wait why is it bad to commit murder like why actually if we're just an explosion not not that we are have been you know there's an explosion in our history no no but that's all it is it's just a random event undirected with no intentionality chemicals just happen to collide together in a way that eventually led to human thought your consciousness doesn't make sense on on atheism on the materialistic world view your your the moral truth doesn't make sense where does it come from where where do just where is like here's a piece of paper right where does how does moral truth arise out of this matter it just doesn't make sense god makes a lot of sense atheism doesn't there i think that's a one way in which god has wired us to know that he is real so none of your business those are the things i'd recommend check those out and we will go to question number five no more questions we've got all 20 loaded up i'm just going to read through them now the next one is from fox dot dude who says paul washer said that matthew 7 13 to 14 is not about christians and unbelievers but rather real christians and christians who think they're saved he says many who think they are saved aren't thoughts okay so there's two different things going on here one of them is a question about this interpretation of matthew 7. so let's look at this and let's ask the first question should we think this is about christians and people who claim to be christians or should we think it's about christians and non-believers all right let's let's look at the passage um jesus says enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and there and those who enter by it are many for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few um i'm trying to think of how i'm sure he has some contextual reason for suggesting that that he's okay paul washer is going to say apparent from from okay i haven't listened to paul washer on this i don't know a lot of his teaching so i can't comment on that let me just say from your characterization of him fox.dude his teaching is that there's two groups of people one that enters by the narrow gate and then there's one that enters by uh the wide gate and that these two represent are all christians in name and some of them are true christians and some of them are false christians i i'm going to push back on this and just say initially if there's only two categories one of them leads to salvation one leads to condemnation i don't know why i would say the people on this second category that the wide path are named christians why do i add that quality to them now certainly some of them are some of them are pretend christians or they believe they think they are but there's deception going on they don't really trust in christ they call themselves christians but they're not really holding to the true doctrines of christianity um or there hasn't been a real true conversion certainly some of them are but why would i say all of them are like is there a reason in the passage to think that i i i don't think so i'm not that i'm aware of maybe if you read back and you look at the whole sermon on the mount you're going to see that but i i don't think you are personally i think jesus is trying to talk about the urgency the urgency of making the real and right choice to truly enter ultimately through christ that it's not going to be this just simple easy path your cur your and it's true that your cultural christianity is not going to work if if christianity for you is easy then maybe it's not christianity that that would be a true application of this right because it's a wide easy way the narrow gate i'm going to trust in christ i'm going to die to myself i'm going to take up my cross and follow jesus that i recognize that this is a a giving up of one life for the receiving of another that that that is important so i i would not isolate that second category to just christians who are fake um now you also said the second thing you mentioned is he says many who think they're saved are not thoughts um this let me back up out of christianity for a second and say this is true universally many think that they will be fine when they stand before god on judgment day when in fact they will not not just christians human beings most human beings will find a way to be the good guy in the end we will find a way to look at our this is just my analysis of human nature from my own life experiences i realize i i have a tendency to want to affirm myself in the end no matter what and i've seen this working with guys that are like in the domestic violence program years ago when i was doing that um they're always the good guy even when they're the bad guy it's just it's like a human nature thing it's i i want the catharsis of knowing of thinking that i'm okay in the end on the other hand there are some who who never ever feel okay they always they're fearful of judgment to the point of nothing can solve that fear not even the cross of christ and they don't just trust in jesus but but i'm just aware that human nature is such that we we want to say like whatever we are we're okay in the end and i'm just driven to want to say that i want to say that when i die i'm going to be fine so if i'm buddhist i'm going to convince myself that i'm going to be fine if i'm if i'm catholic i'm going to be fine if i'm muslim i'm going to be fine if i'm protestant i'm going to be fine so i think that human issue bleeds into christianity very much and that what we need to do is think biblically about everything we need to like take scripture and like actually let the scary stuff stand in scripture right where jesus says that you know why do you call me lord but you don't do the things i say or he says i never knew you right these these are scary things but they're real and they're meant to not to condemn us they're meant to wake us up that we might really truly put our trust in christ that we might be depending not on um ourselves but simply and totally on him and his grace and his kindness and his goodness so yeah i would agree that there's a major issue there and it's human-wide it's not just in the church it just bleeds into the church um i love wayne's world says if salvation is a free gift and not by works then why does jesus say those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples how do we know when we have given up everything um let's let's go to a passage where christ says this luke 9 and let's read it and let's consider it he said to them all if anyone would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me for whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it for what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself for whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of his father of the father and of the holy angels but i tell you truly there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of god let me just mention because this comes up so often the next thing that happens after jesus predicts that there's some people alive who will see the kingdom coming is the transfiguration in every gospel it's always the transfiguration because i think that was the fulfillment of that some people right and then all people will see in the future okay so luke nine let's first let me do what some people have been doing on my facebook page recently and and there there's a there's a youtube channel i can't uh voice in the desert voice of the desert voice in the desert i think it's called like you know isaiah referenced and um they've been uh doing a number of videos trying to respond to me to refute me um i don't give them the time of day to be completely honest not because i'm better than them or something like that but because there's no desire or attempt to rightly understand me it and there's a ton of false teaching in their in their stuff one of the teachings is of course that you're gonna you have to you have to um give up everything you own in order to be saved like this is like a salvation requirement to sell all you have in order to be saved and um and i've got teaching going through the gospel of mark where we deal with jesus teaching on this in detail but let me give you some thoughts today that i hope you will find helpful don't just take my word for it consider what i'm saying here let's grant hypothetically that although salvation is is a gift somehow you have to do all the stuff that jesus put on the list literally and fully okay in order to be safe let's walk through that and see if that's what jesus wanted us to do with this passage so if anyone would come after me let him deny himself take up his cross daily and follow me okay what does that mean let's start with the first sentence here i have to deny myself take up my cross daily and follow jesus so if i'm gonna take up my cross okay the cross don't don't be don't don't think it's like a pendant you put on right like the cross here is is like an electric chair in the first century it's a it's a device of torture and execution so if i'm gonna take up my cross daily what is what am i what am i getting at here jesus obviously doesn't mean it literally there's something metaphorical about the concept of taking up your cross and jesus is requiring you to do that this is the idea of saying jesus my life belongs to you even if it costs me my death that's a decision this is like a wholehearted commitment if you're going to come after me you must be fully committed but if you take it like overly literally then you literally think you have to get crucified every day or you carry a cross around physically every day and i've seen people do this every once in a while there's someone walking around with the actual cross i don't think that was the point so um yeah not meant to be taken literally but seriously taken seriously it's not just like oh it's fluffy metaphor no it's serious whoever would save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it when what does this mean like if you save your life like i took life-saving medicine oh now i'm gonna die because i have to take jesus literally so if i save my life like by by feeding myself when i'm starving i saved my life no i can't do that i have to take jesus literally you see the problem with with interpreting it that way what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself okay do you get the idea here this is this is the real decision jesus is giving us you have to decide that you are for his life for eternal life and not for this world and when you're confronted this is the application i think when you're confronted with opportunities to choose between the christian christ following life and the world you under any pain of suffering choose christ and what would be the benefit of of gaining the world and losing yourself what would the point of that be anyways that's that's how i take this here um so your question is is salvation a free gift and not by works if i have to like give everything like lose everything like this and the answer is this is not to earn salvation this is simply the decision you're making there's a difference right i'm not giving jesus everything i own to purchase my salvation i'm realizing that when i choose to follow christ i'm choosing to not be part of this world anymore and part of his eternal kingdom forever and that this world will then become something of um enemy territory that i'm doing evangelism and to bring more people into the light i realize i'm stepping into that zone that that i think is the idea here it's not giving what i have to purchase something jesus also talks about um selling all you have um and i've talked about this recently as well you might be thinking of that as well but this was more isolated uh jesus doesn't tell every single christian to sell all they have i've dealt with this recently a number of times so you can uh go to go to biblethinker.org and and type in like in the search engine you can search the q a you could type in like money or something like that or sell all or something like that you search the terms there and you should find exactly the links where i get into more detail there i hope you understand that distinction though a cost for following jesus isn't a cost to purchase salvation there's just different things number seven jordan filar says where do you draw the line between honest communication about things that bother you about something someone does and dying to self if the person is a very close friend loved one spouse thanks jordan i don't know if there's an easy way to answer this question i'll give you some thoughts that i have on it one is matthew 15. so one time it's good to talk to somebody at least in general um or matthew 18. sorry let me find the passage yeah okay here we go matthew 18 if your brother sins against you go and tell him his fault between you and him alone there's a procedure here in matthew 18 and it's about individual relational issues of sin right so go and tell him his fault between you and him alone if he listens to you you've gained your brother now that's that's one of the keys here is that in this whole process your goal is to restore relationship not just to voice grievances a lot of times what we do is we we we do open up jordan to tell somebody about how they've hurt us because we're just so upset that we're just gonna tell them i don't think that's exactly healthy um not that it's always wrong to tell people i i mean that that motive that reason that the trigger being that's it i'm so upset i'm just gonna tell you what i think like that is not i think what we're reading here this is hey your sin against me hurt our relationship and it's hurting our relationship i would like to restore that relationship so let's see if we can overcome this i want to talk to you about this there's a there's a restoration that's in the heart of it so where do i draw the line i i make sure am i seeking restoration or am i seeking merely to voice grievances there's there's an important question if he does not listen take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses okay verse 16 and 17 and on is going to reveal that this actually the context of matthew 18 is not just little nitpicky things i hate that my husband leaves his laundry on the floor like that is it's not at that level not that that's not annoying or irresponsible for him to do that because it is but but it's not at this level here it's a significant enough sin issue that you don't just leave it you actually go to the the church one or two others along with you then if he refuses to listen to them tell it to the church and if he refuses to listen to the church let him beat you as a gentile or tax collector first corinthians does this in particular there's like major sin going on so um the uh and there's a a statement from paul about like hey you need to kick this guy out he's unrepentant he's on remorseful he's living in gross sin he needs to be asked to leave he was sleeping with his father's wife as his stepmother maybe and whoa yeah not going to happen in the church so um so this this is an extreme sin issue so jordan where do i draw the line between honest communication and things that bother me about something someone does first i want to die to myself and realize that there's a term that's not biblical but it's a helpful term called sandpaper people that sometimes people are they they they rub you the wrong way because you need to be rubbed down you know you'd be ground down like like like a piece of wood that's just all you know hard and and unpleasant on one side and and so you're you're being ground down and it's that person who is you know clashing against you in this area that is helping you to grow and mature and become a more godly person um so that's the first question i'd have is is this part of that should i just let that go um but another question is is this going to cause division between me and them long term and if it is not just because i'm bitter but but it's just like this is a relationship damaging thing that keeps going on then i'm going to address it with them but after a number of addresses i'm going to give up most likely i am i'm not going to try to keep fixing things that i think are not going to be fixed and so in a major sin issue it can cause division as it does in the matthew 18 passage they won't repent but if it's anything minor anything secondary i'm going to try to to just say lord they're you're they're your servant not mine and um yeah yeah that that's pretty much how i do it i don't view it as my job to fix everybody um especially for me the awkward thing about being a teacher who teaches online or teaches the bible is um that i don't run around teaching people everywhere i go all the time i'm not like standing over people's shoulders like oh technically well actually more accurately like i just don't do that like this is me serving in my ministry right now but that wouldn't be good for a relationship so i also recommend not trying to fix every little nitpicky thing about a person is to have some grace on them as well um yeah it's tough it's tough let love be your primary motive jordan love for god love for them and yourself last and that'll give you some wisdom elijah says are demons the spirits of dead nephilim genesis 6 explains nephilim are the offspring of women and angels demons never materialize we know angels can luke 22 3 is not convincing to me elijah you're obviously neck deep in a pretty involved theological debate or issue so you say luke 22 3 is not convincing to you let's look at that passage and we'll see how it might relate to what you're talking about here with nephilim and demons and all that then satan entered into judas called iscariot who was one of the uh who was of the number of the twelve so satan enters into judas okay i'm not sure what's not convincing their elijah obviously in the debate this is a proof text someone uses to make a point that you disagree with are demons the spirits of dead nephilim um i am not convinced that they are okay i'm just gonna speak as i've not fully vetted all these issues here's how i see it when i look at just the scripture i don't think that demons are the spirits of dead nephilim i think demons are just like satan's minions so to speak they they could just be they could be these fallen angels we know that the angels fell so i would maybe lean that way okay there's not a lot of details about them given in scripture um so with the available you know available beings to try to say what are these demons i'm gonna i'm gonna look at the um the uh the fallen angels that's gonna be my my inclination um somebody might bring up luke 22 3 to suggest hey if satan can enter judas iscariot then angel we know he's an angel then angels can enter or possess and therefore that gives more credence to the idea that demons are angels since they have that ability too and that that's quite possible so um i'm not i'm not sure that it answers the question fully but it certainly makes it leaves the door open for that possibility now just looking at the bible i'm thinking that's my conclusion on demons if you add inter-testamental literature stuff that was written that's not scripture but gives us a clue as to the historical context of some of the scriptures right the background the historical background of people in the new testament times there are those who think as i understand it think this about demons and if if my memory here is correct that they're thinking at least some demons are like the spawn of angels and women then you could say well if that's what some people are thinking in the first century then when in the new testament the authors write the word demon that's what they're thinking too i'm a little hesitant to do this though um for a few reasons but one it hasn't been well established to me that it's that unilateral in in the inter-testamental period and during the new testament times that that concept of demons is is so widely held that i should assume it's what's meant in the new testament i i'm not saying it's not just it hasn't been demonstrated yet so i'm not going to absorb that until that time another problem is that um we're adding tons of really detailed teaching about the nature of the spiritual realm and we're getting it from extra biblical sources and this just seems like a concerning method of getting our theology so i would hesitate to do that for those reasons elijah um i don't think scripture gives you that demons are the offspring of women and angels i don't think it gives you that i think that that comes from somewhere else whether it's true or not i i'm hesitant but it's not coming from scripture so i wouldn't i would certainly not make it a dogmatic christian thing i would be like here's my conjecture on this number nine um anonymous question can i be a truth seeker and a good christian is it possible to love the truth more than god considering that jesus is the truth okay so this is a great fantastic some are going to be irritated by it hearing it but i i'm not um so a truth seeker and a good christian um you can't be a good christian without being a truth seeker but there's prob i'm just gonna guess forgive me if i get this wrong it's not intentional don't remember i'm not i don't know you so i'm not trying to assume things about you i'm trying to guess things about what comes behind the question there may be some assumptions in the background of this question which are the idea that being a truth seeker is going to potentially cause conflict with your christian commitments let me say the conflict ultimately is going to be that i am not that great of a truth seeker right we tend to overestimate our ability to seek truth and sometimes when you know just a little bit more than other people on a topic you feel like you understand the topic better than you do merely because you're more knowledgeable than everyone you talk to but i like what paul says when he says i don't understand anything as i ought right let's let's take let's think about this for a moment that a truth seeker should before they evaluate all this other evidence they should also consider the lack in their own ability to evaluate evidence so um uh i wonder if i could find this text where he says this um no i um i can't remember where it is i'm not probably gonna be able to find it um man paul's paul's uh man maybe could someone help me in the in the live chat help me find the verse because i'm just not i'm just i'm i'm i'm just a horrible bible thinker um but i don't measure people on their ability to recall locations in the bible and people should not measure themselves in such ways this this causes many uh many young christians who are in bible bees to greatly overestimate their spirituality [Laughter] um but yeah where does where paul talks about not being not understanding things as he should somebody help me in the live chat it takes like a full minute probably for it to process through there so i'm gonna wait and come back to um yeah first corinthians that helps except that you know that's a whole book so you may write down um yeah paul's just talking about his lack of his understanding and his knowledge um man i can't i can't think of it where it is okay so the um okay well one person says first corinthians eight two i'd like us to look at this verse because if i can ground my answer to you here in scripture ah that's it perfect thank you very much audience of one i appreciate that and by audience of one you obviously meant me i was your audience just i'm kidding okay so um let me take us there there is okay truth seeker good agenda with dangers that come from lack of awareness and how good you are at it and lack of awareness on the the the danger of knowledge of at least thinking you know things okay so first corinthians 8 1 now concerning food offered idols we know that all of us possess knowledge but this knowledge puffs up but love builds up knowledge puffs up this is a danger where paul wants to remind us of this and and he takes it personally himself as well i believe that your knowing things is a danger of you thinking you know more than you do or thinking that what you know is the whole story right like i can objectively know okay so i see a car accident i objectively know it was that person's fault it was not that person's fault so i run up to the car accident and i tell them you're at fault you're going to be in trouble and all this other stuff and what i don't know is like that it's like some teen girl who just got her driver's license and she's absolutely freaked out and she just went through some kind of really difficult issue in her life and then yes the car accidents her fault but i don't know the whole story you know and that's all i'm saying knowledge puffs up knowledge we feel like we know more than we do and then we think i'm just a truth seeker but we're really standing on half the information that's the danger of truth seeking when it comes into conflict with christian truth or with trusting in christ with trusting in god where you think you're a truth seeker and so you withhold faith in the word of god because you have to be open to the possibility that it's definitely wrong and that every christian is wrong and that jesus isn't even real that's not truth-seeking this is like a dangerous type of um puffing up so knowledge puffs up but love builds up if anyone imagines that he knows something he does not yet know as he ought to know if you know this in your truth seeking if verse two is is enshrined and like embedded in your mind then you will have wisdom and truth seeking because you just have to know i you know i know there's a question here there's an issue there i know there's things i don't know though and that shouldn't make you agnostic in the sense of i have no conclusions because i'll never know anything that itself is is a is a place of sitting with um lack of knowledge like unhealthily um like the guy that gets to the intersection and never decides to turn left right or go straight because he doesn't want to make a wrong turn well if we know you're wrong now like he went nowhere um so yeah this is the thing that i'd recommend um i see many people digging into apologetics and they think okay i just have to be committed to the truth committed to truth committed to truth committed to truth um i'm gonna recommend that once you know that jesus is real once you know that christianity is true in the at least the broad sense you may be confused about certain doctrines you might have questions about certain theology issues but you know christianity is true in the broad sense at that point you need to rest your trust in christ it is not wise to withhold trust in the person of christ because of theoretical possibilities that you feel you have to entertain until you die it it's relational it's not just informational and so i don't know if this helps um is it possible to love the truth more than god no not in reality but it's possible to idolize your own pursuit of truth in such a way that you make god subservient to your pursuit it's not truth that's actually conflicting with god here it's your pursuit your imagined pursuit where you're on a hero journey of seeking truth and god is merely he's merely like the the window dressing attached to that and and it's like wait a minute no no no this is yeah that can be dangerous i don't think truth itself can conflict with god but you could be thinking you're conflicting with god for what you think is true number 10 upside down dreamer says mike what do you think really happened during the long day in joshua 10 during the battle between israel and the armies of the five kings when the sun stood still and the moon stopped um so i don't know what really happened during that time um i've read the passage and i've sat and like kind of like meditated through it and sort of like worked through it and tried to kind of have a theory and then lay it on top of the passage and see if it was consistent or not um my best guess at the moment is that in joshua 10 when it describes the events happening there the sun's standing still the moon is stopping that it's using language of appearance at least to the people that's how it appeared i don't and i think this is safe to say this i don't think we're i'm not trying to like do revision i think this fits the context of the text when when joshua looks and sees the sun standing still i don't think he's he's saying and i really want you all to know what i really mean here is that 93 million miles away there is a gigantic ball of fire many times larger than earth and that thing that thing its relationship to the entire planet earth is now fixed during this period of time and later it will begin to be apparently moving again i don't think that joshua was doing all that there is some kind of appearance thing happening to them could it have been like uh a localized illusion yes like god i don't see any reason why god couldn't do that he's just he's just demonstrating his power to them that that could be an explanation um could it have been a a global experience like the earth actually stopped rotating then people were like well then mountains would go flying and all this other stuff would happen the tides and everything like that and it's like well it's it would be strange i know i don't think that's what happened but it's possible and what i want to say is this it would be weird to push back against that by saying well if god did that miracle it would cause these natural disasters like uh like the context is if god did this miracle it would cause natural this like nature would react this way to such a miracle you don't know how nature reacts to miracles god is the one controlling how nature is reacting at that moment so i think that that's a weird objection yeah so i lean towards language of appearance but um but either way this would be a miracle and someone said well why wasn't it recorded in other in other uh histories and other places well we don't have a lot of data from back then in the first place but that could be evidence that it was that it was a localized appearance thing that's possible joshua bolton has a question why was the old covenant law set up in which atonement was achieved via animal sacrifice as we see abraham was atoned for by his faith in the promise to come of what was jesus dimly perceived okay so for those who want to be up on the same page here is joshua um abraham he's he you know he's according to joshua he's a tone for a certain way and then in the law they're a tone for a different way so let me first say i don't know if the term atoned for should be applied to abraham so abraham it says in genesis that he was counted righteous i don't know of a scripture that says that abraham was atoned for atoning is a little different the atoning implies like the sin was dealt with god overcame uh and fixed his washed him of his sins like judicially and brought him into right relationship with god that dealt with the wrath that was against him and all that it doesn't say that right um let me just go to the text that you're thinking about abraham here and if i couch it this way and it's not about atonement then perhaps it will it will stand out as being about um about something else how abraham was actually righteous which is different so genesis 15 6 god makes a promise to abraham about his future about his offspring which by the way is going to include jesus embedded in that promise so this is like in a sense it's like a uh in utero gospel message kind of like that um undeveloped but it's embedded in here and then in verse six it says and he believes the lord and he counted it to him as righteousness so abraham believes god and god accounts counts what counts belief as righteousness so abraham was made righteous by faith this is what paul talks about in romans four it's like a really important theological point that a lot of people just miss that's super beautiful and wonderful and harmonizing the entire gospel message through scripture but i wouldn't say abraham was then atoned for that way i think that abraham was actually we don't see how he's atoned for in the old testament i think that he's he believes and he's counted righteous and then he's atoned for by jesus on the cross that's the atonement for abraham now the next question next part of your question is this now that i think i've hopefully i've separated those two conceptually abraham's not doing an atonement thing he's just doing a faith righteousness thing um the question is then why is the loss set up with animal sacrifice bringing atonement and i think that the examples here there's a there's a number of good reasons and as i'm going to be studying in a couple months i'll start my book of hebrews study we're going to get into tons of detail on this very specific stuff i'm looking forward to that but a few of the points are this um there's animals required to to achieve atonement that atonement is temporary these are problems with that covenant right the atonement is temporary that is you have to continually sacrifice more and more animals the atonement is limited in that it can only pay for certain sins and certain issues and cover certain things not all things and um and then the people constantly fall short they're they're this is all part of a covenant they continually break and so they end up just being condemned condemned condemned and the atonement also involves some pretty rough things like having to bring an animal sacrifice it and it dies in your place so that's that's hard and it hurts to think about these animals being sacrificed and i think it's supposed to i don't think it's supposed to be like we don't care about those animals i think you're supposed to care because you're supposed to care about jesus because ultimately it all represents christ jesus comes and he doesn't just do what that did he does what that couldn't do so the the atonement is there to show hey you fall short and there is these these sort of like concepts in place in the culture of the jews that jesus will take and fulfill that he'll use to show what he's what his purpose is so he takes the idea of animal sacrifice and he's like yes it'll ultimately be a massive sacrifice i'm making the animal's in your place well i'm going to go in your place and die for your sins but but the animals they would they wouldn't uh they wouldn't cleanse you permanently they had to keep sacrificing over and over again and jesus comes and he dies once and for all sin he never dies again because he has permanently dealt with our salvation so that we're secure in christ we're not losing it and gaining it losing and gaining it um and then the animal only covered certain sins certain sins and many people couldn't even find any covering through the law jesus comes he covers all sin and so you see how jesus is seen as a fulfillment but also as better and he is the one i would say who atoned for abraham and the one who ultimately atoned for anybody who was even under the law who was just trusting in christ as they did they found the law insufficient to bring them peace christ ultimately brought them peace let's go to number 12 this is jasmine gage can i keep listening to bethel's music given the intent as far as i understand to invoke emotional responses i want to avoid the idol of emotional highs but still see value in their music jasmine let me share with you my thoughts on this my short answer is yes you can but um but i would encourage you to do this with wisdom so one of the things with bethel is there's there's concern that a lot of us would have with the um some of the strange teachings that have gone on in the church and the response to those teachings it's it's when bethel when when bethel finally does speak out about the weird teachings they don't really deal with it fairly and openly it's more like they're just doing to be honest it feels like they're doing damage control and they're just kind of like trying to create space so people will stop arguing about it and not really actually create a lot of clarity i think there's a problem there bethel's music is used as a bridge to promote that teaching that's the concern with the music that i have for the most part it's used as a bridge right to to increase the teaching i mean think of hillsong hillsong became famous and then finally their teachers widely known and and people listening to them on the back of the music that was super popular and bethel is doing the same thing so that's a concern but does that mean the music itself like that that's an implication the music itself is all bad and the answer i have here is absolutely not some of the bethel songs you guys are gonna not be happy with me for saying this some of you aren't um but if you just go and read the lyrics of the bethel songs some of them are great fantastic i'm like that's a really good song and do you have to like find the guy that wrote it or the label that it's carried on and then say i can't enjoy this i can't use this because of its associations and that's where i'm gonna say i'm not gonna put that requirement on the body of christ around the world okay if you have reasons why you think you should do that go ahead and if you don't that's up to you like i'm not going to make that decision for everybody i'm going to be more libertarian on that on that issue um some of the guys in bethel they bethel allows listen to this bethel allows for a lot of theological disagreement within their camp which means that there's going to be people who have theology a lot more like mine than they do like bill johnson's and they're still in the bethel camp because as long as they don't make waves nobody cares that's just the way they are and i'm going to realize that and say i'm not going to cut off every believer in that camp or associated with that record label that that music label because of the mirror association instead i'm going to let it be a little more complicated and say if you want to take it song per song go for it now some of the songs um are weird um and that needs to be acknowledged and dealt with but others are just wonderful there's a variety there if the association with bethel bothers you don't use their music if you feel like you can overcome it fine if you want to put your music in front of others if you want to use it for worship in your church now you have to ask another question not how it affects me not am i okay with it how is it affecting my congregation how is affecting my people what impact is it having on them is art if i play bethel songs am i creating a bridge for my my church people my my body and brothers and sisters that are here a bridge for them to the teachings that i have problems with and if the answer is yes then you shouldn't do it if you know am i bringing these songs to them where i know that my body is divided on bethel and they're just going to argue and bicker about the worship songs well then don't do it like why would why would i create these problems for my local fellowship instead of worshiping a pure and wonderful time those are some of my thoughts on that jasmine i hope they help number 13 michael mull says hi pastor mike in john 21 it is written that peter caught 153 large fish and although there were so many the net was not torn is there a message or a theme john was conveying here michael there has been a lot of ink spilt from people trying to like figure out why there were 153 fish in john 21 um now you didn't specifically you know highlight the number but you did mention it so i'll just i'll just mention this uh we'll go to the passage here um so this is this is the last appearance in the gospel of john and and the theme is let's back up and just give you the theme the theme is the restoration of peter ultimately right peter has denied christ he weeps bitterly he didn't just flee like the other disciples he openly denied jesus that is such a huge deal it is such a huge deal so after christ's resurrection he is getting reinstated mark hints at this when when the angel's like go tell the disciples and peter right that that he's risen that he's gonna appear and you'll see him and so like and peter like there's like the sense in which peter's like being restored i think um so john 21 uh let me just read the whole passage after this jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the sea of tiberias and he revealed himself in this way simon peter thomas called the twin nathaniel of cana in galilee the sons of zebedee pardon me and two others of his disciples were together simon peter said to them i'm going fishing they said to him we will go with you they went out and got into the boat but that night they caught nothing this is similar to an experience they had earlier when they first met jesus or at least when they were first called just as day was breaking jesus stood on the shore yet the disciples did not know that it was jesus jesus said to them children do you have any fish they answered him no he said to them cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some again this is like a mirror of what they went through before so they cast it and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish that disciple whom jesus loved therefore said to peter it is the lord when simon peter heard that it was the lord he put on his outer garment for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea the other disciples came in the boat dragging the net full of fish for they were not far from the land but about a hundred yards off which is why they probably didn't recognize jesus uh when they got out on the land they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread and jesus said to them bring some of the fish that you've just caught and here's the part you brought up so simon peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore full of large fish 153 of them and although there were so many the net was not torn okay let me just go big picture first then we'll come back to the 153 fish big picture this is just like when they were called before it's almost as though this is hearkening back to their first calling so that jesus can affirm yes i'm restoring you yes i'm calling you the conversation that they're that they also have after this moment um after they finish breakfast is where jesus has like this restoration moment with peter simon do you love me and he tells him like feed my lambs because do you love me and then he tells him you know you know lord i love you tend my sheep do you love me and then he says again he says feed my sheep so simon's being called again and being restored okay there's other connotations here so jesus when he called him he says i'm going to make you fishers of men and initially when he called them he used the big catch of fish as a way of suggesting a few things a god can provide your needs b there's going to be a big harvest of souls in your ministry peter now when he does it again it's affirming especially the second one there's going to be a bit you have a big ministry ahead of you peter you feel like you've blown it you feel like it's you know you're ashamed i'm restoring you i'm calling you i'm using you that that's what i take that to be some have said the 153 fish though are representative of since they seem to be representative of people coming to christ right not only god's provision he can take care of your needs but also you're gonna have a harvest you're gonna be fishers of men that 153 fish represents the 153 nations in the world now i really liked this i thought this was great first time i heard it here's a problem um there aren't 153 nations in the world and the nations in the world change so frequently that it's difficult to give you a number that's going to last any length of time and if i tell you how many nations there are today a year from now it might be a different number so that's a little bit of a challenge um and it's weird to think that it was talking about nations that none of them knew of at the time uh which would be included in that number as well others try to do other things with 153 i personally don't know except to say it was a very large number of fish they remembered it there may be a numerical thing going on there but i have not yet been convinced of what it is yeah there's my uh my thoughts number 14 mgyl says pastor mike how do i go about leaving my church oh that's rough stuff man do i talk to my leaders do i have to explain why what do i need to do to make sure that i do it the right way um okay in my view life is really complicated and i don't have a pat answer for you um let me give you a few things that you might be able to apply in your situation if you're leaving your church because of serious heresy in your church i'm much more inclined to say go talk to somebody about it go deal with it in detail try to reform um sit down with the the thought leaders in your church and you know prepare walk them through scripture and have have yourself ready to have those discussions if it's real heresy that's being taught if it's other things that aren't heresy but maybe they have to do with the health of the church then the question i have is can my leaders hear me some leaders and this is a message for all of us in leadership all of us anybody who has any leadership position in someone else's life is that you will you will teach people over the years whether they can talk to you or not by whether you'll receive it when they have something they don't agree with you on now it's already very intimidating for people to talk to leaders when they don't agree most often they'll i'm not trying to complain about people guys this this is i think just a human nature thing we should be aware of most often if someone disagrees with you as a leader they won't talk to you about it ever they will probably just talk to other people about you that's that's more often what happens um this can create paranoid leaders and we shouldn't go down that road we should just ignore it and move on and don't worry about it like ecclesiastes i think it's ecclesiastes says like don't always listen into what if your what your servant says about you not that they're your servants i'm saying there's a principle that we're learning from the text there about um people react negatively and complaining to those who are in leadership in general and those in leadership need to not obsess about that and just let it go that's just wisdom but if you react really harshly when people do correct you as a leader you will train them to never correct you and i don't blame them okay look if your leader um just attacks you personally when you tell them hey i think this is wrong and they don't listen and they won't hear you and there's no humility and there's just uh self-defense and arrogance and pride it's understandable that as you're leaving the church you're like do i really want to tell them all this stuff like i understand that and i don't know the right answer i just understand the dilemma i understand the dilemma um if it's discussions you've now another question to ask is is it discussions i've already had have i already gone down the road with this person we've already talked about this we've talked about it and talked about it and now it's just time where i realize it's time for me to go then then i don't know that you have that much to talk about because there's another concern sometimes like you you want to you don't just want to leave with knowledge of why you left in the wake sometimes you want to leave and preserve as much brotherhood as possible and that's another overarching concern that i understand oh yeah i want to have as much brotherhood as i can have as i leave and if i leave and all i leave them with is a list of the reasons i'm leaving on things that i think are reason enough that i'm gonna go somewhere else but but there's not like rank heresy and it's things where i don't think that it'll be fixed i don't think anyone's gonna listen to me on this stuff i don't think they'll hear me maybe i'll just try and be as gentle as possible and i can't think there's a case for that okay so god give you wisdom if it's ranked heresy i think it should be confronted if the pastor and the staff and those are teachable and there are significant issues they're going to continue to plague the church you may be able to help them by telling them your reasons if you've already been down that road many times you've already had these discussions then it may be time to stop having them and to try to just leave as graciously as possible um yeah it's complicated and i my uh my heart goes out to you guys and anybody who's thinking about leaving a church pray pray pray make sure there's no bitterness in your heart you just have wise and good reasons why you're leaving from one you know gathering of believers to a different one and there are times when that can be a good thing to do but i just say be very slow to do it number 15 jay towels says hi pastor mike where did all the people that jesus and the disciples raised from the dead go while they were dead i would hate to think they were in paradise somewhere then had to come back excuse me um i don't know [Laughter] um what i tend to think my current thoughts and i hold this slightly loosely but i do hold it like i think this is the case but i i could see you know space for me to change my mind on this at some point if i was persuaded by scripture um so my current thought is that when somebody dies they um now whether this happens instantaneously or over a period of time or whatever right but they go down to basically one of two locations one is a place of comfort which the bible calls at least you know king james style abraham's bosom or let me let me put this in modern modern terms abraham's comforts as in abraham had a was gathered into a good location of waiting on the ultimate you know future resurrection and deliverance and you'll be gathered to the same place that's the idea of abraham's position and the other one i'm referring to like as hades not hell different terms different meanings which is like a place of discomfort awaiting final judgment and um i tend to think that that's that's the case the question is how soon after someone dies are they assigned to one of these locations i don't know the answer to that question um jewish tradition in the first century and i'm not do not put this on scripture but it's a weird interesting thing i learned as i was studying recently jewish tradition held that um a spirit person spirit would be around the body for three days until they uh they finally left interesting huh um don't put that on scripture there's all kinds of weird things jews believed during the time of jesus everybody believed doesn't mean that that's what scripture's teaching so yeah where did the people that jesus and disciples raised them to go while they were dead well the little girl that was raised um she was dead very briefly it seems so who knows maybe nowhere um others lazarus lazarus was dead for four days so it would seem that he would have had some kind of afterlife experience would he have remembered it afterwards i wish we had an account of him talking about it good question i don't know i don't know jay towels that's something interesting maybe one day i'll know it better elo says a popular internet ministry says jesus never said we need to ask for forgiveness and the bible doesn't mention it is that true they also say it's impossible for a christian to take the mark of the beast is that true okay let me start with the mark of the beast question i think it's irrelevant um and here's the reason why if a christian who who you think is a christian who looks like a christian who seems to act like a christian if they on a futurist perspective and you're in the tribulation if they take the mark of the beast you're just going to turn and say if you hold this view well then they weren't christians but it's not actually going to affect the real world in any way you're just going to be assigning whether they were or were not a real christian based on whether they take the mark so you know what i mean is i'm i'm like i don't see how this helps anything this is like the disquiet the discussion of once saved always saved like someone who looked like a christian act like a christian talk like a christian and then they apostasize they they um they deconvert they leave the faith they reject jesus and then people on the internet go on the comment section you were never really a christian and i'm like what's your point all you're doing is analyzing their past and all they hear you saying is i i'm not sincere i was lying i'm a liar and i'm and i'm like this is not the best way to talk to people is trying to figure out whether they were really a christian or not just assume that as far as they know they were sincere and talk to them in that way and don't worry about the details of what was going on inside their actual spirit that you don't see and you can't you can't evaluate so so yeah i consider this in that realm now it may be that someone's saying this because they want christians to feel comfortable you won't don't worry you won't take the mark of the beast because you're a true christian but that does also depend on you being a true christian which is the thing that we have to assume at that point so i don't know it just seems like a pointless thing to talk about the other issue is um the popular internet ministry says jesus never said we have to ask for forgiveness and the bible doesn't mention that no that's not true um that's utterly foolish like now maybe there's more context and they're like you don't have to ask for forgiveness each time you sin in order to be forgiven like in order to have salvation but there's a difference between being saved and just having a healthy relationship with god so i do think we should continually be seeking to like be restored if we have if we backslidden if we failed in some way if we sin that we should be seeking to do that um and and the bible speaks of this right um let me let me just take you to a passage you will be familiar with this passage you may have read it before but we'll be looking at it again matthew chapter 6 verse 5. and when you pray don't be like the hypocrites and all this other stuff but then jesus gives us instruction on how to pray verse 9 pray like this our father in heaven hallowed be your name your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread which implies what that this could be a daily prayer this is a kind of either either the thing you pray or the way you pray on a regular basis that's an important point i'd like to make and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors this is a regular prayer just like you need food daily your give us this day our daily bread that's a regular you pray this every day or something like it you could be you could you could look at it as repeat these words or you could also which is fine or you could also just consider these things in you know in the lord's prayer as elements of prayer right start with worship of who god is recognizing who he was of setting his kingdom first in your prayers like ultimately god i want your will to be done not mine this is the main goal of my prayers not just to get you to answer my requests and then i'm depending on you for my daily needs and for my forgiveness right and i recognize that i'm in a constant battle with sin and so i want to be forgiven i want to be led by you and then he adds this if you forgive others your heavenly father will forgive you if you don't he won't this is a daunting passage but to act like it just doesn't occur in the passage of scripture at all would be weird so internet ministry whatever it is um it it sounds like they're weird there's my conclusion let's go to the cat cam this is my cab moxie and she's sleeping as usual yeah she uh yeah she's just 93 fur and we have question number 17. steve perry says if the long ending of mark is not original or written by mark how is keeping it in the bible not deluding the word of god and cheapening the meaning of scripture steve i think that you have an assumption that i don't have maybe you could be right i i don't think you're right though um so here's here's my answer the assumption seems to be that um stuff should only be in scripture as as a book of the bible if it was written by a single author now the easiest pushback against this would be like the book of psalms which we know was written by multiple authors like nobody doubts this in any way shape or form it even gives attribution to different authors in the text of the book of psalms so you know it was written by different authors uh we have like deuteronomy where well moses wrote deuteronomy well like what he's i think he's drowning where he's or is it numbers where he's dead at the end you're like well he obviously didn't write that part but nobody's like well cut that part out somebody else wrote that perhaps joshua did it right we don't have to cut it out like this was written by somebody else but it was given ultimately by god and received by the community so what i'm suggesting is that rule of um we can only have in scripture works that are wholly pinned by one author like i just don't have that rule instead i think that the bible just kind of happened to the church like we just look at it and we go well this is just what god gave us i don't think the church decided this book's in that books out i think but they looked around and said look this is what we've received like this is just what happened we're just going to acknowledge what god has done and i think that the longer ending of mark has very early and wide attestation and it spreads and is received so universally in the church that i'm suggesting that might be evidence that it's just what god did that even if it was not originally part of mark it's what god intended to have there at that at that spot and so um that to me doesn't cause a problem it doesn't cheapen the meaning of scripture so yeah that would that would be my thoughts on that armond esther who who is an esther boy i i have no idea our mind how to pronounce your last name esther hughson who is in we'll go with esther hughes why can't i trust christ for complete forgiveness even though i fully believe every word in the bible why won't my heart allow me to enter salvation why doesn't god seem to want to help me armand you're going through it man please please sir reach out to a godly believer who is wise who you can sit down with who cares about you or find one that make them care about you and sit down with them and pray with them and talk to them about this thing i think that you really need personal thoughtful someone to listen to you someone to hear what's going on with you know your thought process and walk you through this stuff i can tell you having done a lot of counseling that if i hear this the first thing i do is i sit and i ask you questions for like an hour and a half just to understand you and then i give you counsel that's not possible i couldn't imagine 20 questions in each one i spent an hour and a half on but but instead what i'll do is give you a few thoughts that i do hope will give you some direction i notice there's a there's a in your thought process there's a progression first you start with why can't i trust christ for complete forgiveness even though i fully believe every word in the bible this tells me that there is an intellectual aspect of belief and there's a psychological or emotional aspect and these two seem to be in conflict if i'm reading you correctly you're saying intellectually like i think it's all true i believe it's all true but i don't feel like i'm fully forgiven i don't feel fully satisfied emotionally even though i think it's all true um the second thing you say is why won't my uh why won't my heart allow me to enter salvation now this is interesting because you in your three questions you've asked you step further and further away from yourself and your emotional issues and i'm just going to point this out for your sake so at first it's a it's a i have a problem i i'm i want to trust in christ like his forgiveness but i'm just not feeling emotionally satisfied that i am forgiven that i'm really trusting there's something not right there then i depersonalize myself why won't my heart as though it's external to me allow me to enter salvation as though here i am wanting to enter salvation and then my heart has the ultimate veto power and it's not letting me i think armand i think you're confused here and i think this is to show your confusion if you want salvation how is that not your heart wanting salvation where is the part where your heart is something separate from you that's keeping you from trusting in christ or something like that i i think there's some confusion going on here and i don't know the right answers for it but i i want you to recognize that you are struggling with conflicting emotions and thoughts and you're trying to process this and it's causing you to sort of like think strangely about some of these issues the final step you take is the scary one and the final step is why doesn't god seem to want to help me that's your third question i've taken my internal conflict and i've projected it to god he doesn't want to help me he must not care about me that much notice in your first question you said i fully believe every word in the bible but your later questions indicate that there isn't really clarity on that god doesn't want to help me well the bible certainly teaches he does so you're dealing with conflicting internal emotions and thoughts and what i'm going to suggest is meet with somebody talk with them i'm not here i'm not condemning you for these things i just want you to have clarity and recognize you first you you see i have conflicting issues in myself then you depersonalize the part you don't like why won't my heart let me do that now i'm a victim of my heart and it's not like i'm actually the one who's conflicted it's like something is happening to me and then you depersonalize it more god doesn't want to help me it's god's fault and so um that is a concerning and scary process that you're going through there instead you should say honestly you should be like the guy that comes to jesus says lord i believe help my own belief i'm going to recognize i've got issues i've got struggles i believe you i think it's true but i also struggle and sometimes i feel like i don't believe and and i'm just going to be honest and say lord this is me i'm i'm a bit of a mess but i'm deciding my will power is saying i'm choosing to trust in you will you help me and meet me here even though i'll continue to struggle and do not think armand do not think victory here is you feeling better victory here is you making right choices not feeling better i mean i want you to feel better but if you feel you're unsatisfied and unsettled until you feel better you will probably never feel better but if you come to the resolution that whether you feel better or not you can navigate this in a way that glorifies god it honors christ and you say i know i have these thoughts and these thoughts i'm choosing these ones and i'm going to trust in christ lord i believe help my own belief and now i will move forward but please meet with someone pray with someone talk to somebody and share this stuff with them thank you for opening up with me thank you for being willing to to let me share with you because i know there's gonna be others who go through the same thing as you you're not alone and then hopefully the council i've given them given you will help them as well so thank you for sharing number 19 josiah allen's wife says if jesus is god then why do paul and the gospels often speak of them separately what is the significant significance about the phrase son of god being used for jesus since it is used for others too okay well take these two questions very separately one is the issue of there's lots of verses where jesus is we have like jesus and then god in the sentence but they're not the same i mean you know god and jesus god and jesus like as opposed to god the father and god the son which is how often trinitarians will phrase it okay so i think that if we back up and we look at the jewish context of the scriptures this might make more sense in the in the uh in the in the words of jesus and in the jewish mind right god is father and when they say typically when they say god they're usually referring to the father or at least often referring to the father jesus does this too sometimes he does it by just saying god he's referring to the father other times he'll say the father right now the new testament comes into this monotheistic environment where there's only one god and god is the father but wants to make it clear that jesus is god but that he's not the father so how does he how do they handle this and one of the ways they handle this is by referring to jesus as lord jesus as the son of god to create the distinction between the father and the son right the son of god term is understood in the first century in the early church as jesus's deity he's god he's not like a greco-roman son of god thing he's not an angel book of hebrews right no no he's the son of god in the context of him being god but not being the father and so if you realize that uh let me put it this way this might help even more um the new testament if it did it the way that maybe you would want it to or first your 21st century christians would want it to which is oh always be like calling jesus god over and over and over just all the time like it does it occasionally but and that's enough by the way but but it doesn't do it all the time but if it did it all the time in the first century jewish context it would have created modalism right or some kind of unitarian theology it would have created a belief that the father and the son were not distinct they were just simply the same so in order to teach us that there's one god in three persons we have the terminology of the new testament god usually referring to the father sometimes referring to the son sometimes referring to the holy spirit but usually the father and then the son of god the lord the holy spirit referring to the other persons of the trinity the other statement you had in here um the son of god is used for others not just for jesus yeah yeah but these are different contexts so we're talking about like books written like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years apart by different authors even in the bible so son of god in job is not the way son of god is used in the new testament right so we just look at these terms and see them in their context i hope that helps why do they speak of them separately to to make sure we don't think the father and the son are the same person um but yet there are times where the bible just straight up calls jesus god so that's the doctrine of the trinity being pushed upon us number 20 steve costen has a question and he says when we pray how do we hear god's reply how do we hear god's reply how can someone differentiate the voice of god when i pray i feel like it's just me how can i make decisions if i don't know what god wants me to do okay steve i have a rule and here's my here's my let me give you an analogy from my dream life as a kid i was one of those people who would wake up like sort of wake up in a dream like i'd be dreaming but i'd become aware that i was dreaming and there's um and of course you know if you do become aware of your dreaming you immediately just start to fly that was always the goal try to fly well maybe i'm gonna beat the mic while i cough just for a sec problem solved um so um in my dreams i sometimes would have a dilemma i'd be dreaming and i'd be thinking is this a dream or is this real and i'd be trying to figure it out while i was dreaming now over time i started to realize something and the thing i realized was when i'm awake i never ask this question right and so i i started to come up with this rule for myself like i was like i don't know it's like 10 year old kid and my rule was i would think about things i was a weird kid my rule was if i think am i dreaming i'm dreaming because when i'm awake i never think that now i'm going to take this rule and i want to apply it a little bit to the question of hearing god's voice and my my answer is this if you think i wonder if that's the lord then i think you're better off treating it as though it is not that doesn't mean it's evil that doesn't mean it's a bad idea even i think you just shouldn't treat it as though it's a divine command you should be like i don't know maybe could be could be not um you should assign more doubt to that moment and the moment where you're like no this is definitely the lord i'm i'm really convinced this is god speaking to me i have good reason to think so that that's when you can run with that now this is annoying because it means that for a lot of people who think that god is leading them all the time every little step like i'm gonna bring an extra napkin with me to lunch because i don't know i feel like i just had a random thought to bring an extra napkin and that's that's probably the lord that maybe the lord that's exciting but it also makes you weird because i don't think that god's telling you to bring an extra napkin to lunch i think that what you're doing is you're coming up with ideas and thinking maybe god's guiding that maybe god's guiding that but this this makes you an unstable person to be around i'm just gonna be frank right the people who are depending on you to make decisions that impact their lives they deserve something a little more careful than that and i never see people in the bible saying like you know god speaks to abraham god god communicates to something he lays something on someone's heart you never see them going i'm like 30 sure this is the lord right now so i'm gonna go ahead and try we'll see what like you just don't see that like how about we just stop this maybe this is god thing and we go like this instead your final question was this how can i make decisions if i don't know what god wants of me my thought is this is human life this is the christian life you constantly make decisions not knowing what god wants you to do but knowing how god wants you to live he wants you to love others and put their needs above your own he wants you to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness these are principles you can apply into the decisions you make you know that he's given gifts into the body and that we should be exercising them to for the benefit of others so how do you make decisions like should i move over here or not what impact is it going to have on you on your family on those around you on the ministry opportunities that you have to serve god what impact will it have on the future and how you can be a helpful and positive and godly impact on those around you these are questions you can ask the majority of our decisions as christians are you not knowing what god wants you to do but often knowing how god wants you to live and you can make decisions based on that and i think that that raises up mature believers who may not be as excited because they don't feel like god deleting every moment of their life every directed decision but who are who are better people right more godly people because they're not just being guided they're they're learning to make choices they're learning to be making wise decisions now to give you an illustration think about an employee if you're a boss and you have an employee and the employee wants you to make every single decision for them that's annoying but it's not just that it's annoying it's that it's incompetent so so um it's an extreme okay but if you want if i want and i do i kind of do want god to guide me every single little step of the way um with specific clear direction but if you want that there's a problem there that leads to your own incompetence as a human in that you're not able to make good choices take the data and just go for it and realize that things may or may not all pan out perfectly but you're serving the lord of the best your ability you're making the best choices you can and you're seeking to honor him so the book of proverbs is written because people don't always get led by the spirit in every decision they make on the other hand i am absolutely open to and praying for god to lead my decisions but there's times where i decide to do things like when i decide to do the mark the mark series i want the lord to like just tell me mike this is the book you'll do next i didn't have some sort of clear direction from god i thought i'm going to do the gospel of mark right because i want groundwork theology like you know christianity 101 theology in my teaching to be out there to impact people in basic stuff i also think the the gospel of mark of the gospels is the most attacked mark and john kind of split the two but it's one of the most attacked when it comes to apologetics and i'm going to do a defense of it and i had some other reasons why i'm looking through marko and i think this is a good idea i made a decision that i thought was a good idea i think god allows that i think god likes that uh when we do those things but be open pray for the lord to guide and direct your steps but if you're not sure just just just say i don't know i'm not sure i feel like maybe the lord's telling me this but since that's a maybe i'm not going to treat it like it's a command from god i'm going to make a decision based upon what seems what seems to be the best thing i think that that's good good stuff um this last bonus comment comes in from milind demers who says moxie heightens the coziness of these sessions doesn't she though doesn't she though yeah yeah yeah she sure does yep well that's it for 20 questions i do not have a video coming for you guys monday i don't have much uh planned well i i'll put up a video it won't be um it won't be a uh a live stream i'll have a video i upload for you guys monday um other than that thank you for joining me please give consideration to things i've shared today um if you have thoughts please share them you're welcome to share them in the comments as well and if you got nothing else to do can i encourage you to go to biblethinker.org because the website has been revamped and redone and we have search functions on there that's actually one of the best things about it is the is the search functions let me just show it to you biblethinker.org if you go to the website everything's free there's no ads even on the site um and you can have one of two different search functions here one is the teaching video search where you search for whole videos the next one is search now this is a clip search i just clicked it so it'll load up this allows you to search for things like say um what were we talking about earlier like let's say you had questions about abraham we mentioned abraham this not only gives you videos where i've talked about it but it gives you like say clips taking you to exact moments where i've talked about an issue so here's you know at uh 25 minutes 49 seconds into the text or into the video i answered a specific question about abraham and you you could find all that stuff navigate this is because of a bunch of volunteers that have helped our um bible thinker website to be improved and stuff and things and whatnot and stuff and i'm looking for a button there it is all right all right you all thank you so much god bless you keep your eyes on jesus and continue growing in wisdom learning to think biblically about everything so you can make good choices in your life

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 48,579

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Keywords: 20 questions, BibleThinker, Mike Winger, question and answer, think biblically, Q and A, episode 47, ep 47, part 47

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Length: 104min 16sec (6256 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 03 2021