20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 48)

friday to you this is uh 20 questions with pastor mike and we're going to talk about the satanic temple briefly here as we open up the the live chat for questions you guys are loading in your questions the first one i'm i have ready to go about the satanic temple the other 19 are all going to come right now from well 19 that we can take from the live chat we can't take all the questions because there's just too many but hopefully you will find benefit and blessing as we discuss these things logically thoughtfully and biblically that's that's going to be our goal and here's the first question the satanic temple has been gaining popularity online due to their seven tenets of belief many people see these tenets as positive and morally good and are being drawn into their organization as a result how can we help people see through this dangerous deception let's talk about this so the um there's there's variety here's what you guys need to know like from a bird's eye view there's a variety of groups called satanic or satanists there's a number of different groups and they don't even necessarily have agreement on all sorts of things they're kind of all anti-christian i mean there's there's agreement there but but that's true of a lot of groups this particular group the satanic temple here's what you want to know they want you to freak out they want you to be like and spaz out and be worried about them and be irritated and bothered by them it's like their goal to do this let me give you an example of this this is something they did and i don't know how many people care about this but they something they did to the west borough baptist church now the westboro baptist church a lot of us know um they're not really they don't really represent christianity in any way shape or form they're just a hate group and um the these are the people who would go and pick at funerals military funerals with picket signs that say like that the person's in hell and stuff like that and they they basically think that just like 12 people on planet earth are saved and it's just them or something like that really messed up twisted group um very hateful very unbiblical but this the satanic temple that's their leader of the temple i'm sorry for putting this under this image on your screen i won't understand who this group is um did a ritual as you can read the text on your screen there they did a ritual at the gravesite of like the matriarch of you know the the westboro baptist church they're not really baptised by the way right like the baptists have asked them to stop calling themselves baptist anyway um listen to what they say about it after the boston marathon bombings claimed the lives of three people the westboro baptist announced their plans to picket the funerals of the victims to draw attention to their loathsome anti-gay agenda in response the satanic temple went to meridian mississippi to perform a pink mass there's a term they just made up okay literally made up for this purpose a ritual they made up for this purpose but i'm going to tell you what they did then i'll explain why they did it which is the part that you really want to understand to perform a pink mass at the gravesite of the mother of the westboro baptist founder fred phelps the ritual was conceived to make fred phelps believe that the satanic temple had turned his mother gay in the afterlife and succeeded in invoking the ire of the westboro baptists so pink mass is a made-up thing okay this isn't like a satanism thing that you can do okay they just made this up they sat there and thought what would be the most offensive thing we could do to irritate and bother fred phelps this was their plan this is satanism at least the satanic temple in a nutshell we will make up a religion just to irritate and bother christians in particular and religious people there that's one major side of the coin they don't think that this thing works they don't even believe in any of the rituals that they're doing they don't think that they're like having an effect in in reality except to irritate people and serve as a troll modern satanism a lot of it is meant to be a troll on christianity there's kind of like another deeper layer we'll get to in a minute i'll talk about um it's just meant to troll people oh i forgot to show you guys like we're on number one um so the um this is this is what they're about um they they want to try to like think of ways of dismantling or mocking right sometimes if it's just catharsis like i just want to feel good about how i reject christianity a lot of these people are going to be atheists in this but not like all atheists are like this but there's a significant number um the tenets that they spread around shock people because they think the satanic the satanic temple the satanic tenets that they're gonna be like these really evil things like killing children or something but what you have to understand about the the satanist group is they feel totally morally superior to you religious nuts you you you superstitious religious weirdos so here's their tenets one should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason notice that's a moral tenet it's a should okay within reason how they define that ends up being self-refuting in a minute here they say that the struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions notice the word should this is again this is a moral thing these tenets are about moral things they're not about um scientific facts not yet one's body number three one's body is inviolable subject to one's will one's own will alone only you can decide what happens to your body uh this isn't uh too broad of a brush obviously but they will absolutely completely become hypocrites on this in just a minute you'll wait and see because what they really care about one thing they truly advocate for is abortion which i know in the heads of pro-choice people they think that they've they've they're they're you know shooting for bodily autonomy but when they're you know inserting forceps into into a womb to crush the the head of a baby that's not that's a violation of bodily autonomy we'll come back to that the freedoms of others should be respected including the freedom to offend to willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forego one's own okay these are all moral moral statements and you could agree with at least significant parts of them okay you should try to act in compassionate with you towards all creatures of course they think that doesn't include god they think specifically it doesn't include any supernatural beings um and so don't love god right rebel against god that's that's where they get their name satanism they think satan doesn't exist but he sort of represents metaphorically rebellion against religion that's that's why they call themselves satanists this particular group here's the rest of their tenets beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world one should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs this sounds kind of good to people but this is really irrational and here's the reason why science doesn't inform us about moral things right it might give you a measure of like if you eat this kind of food and you exercise these ways you'll you'll live longer like i can tell you those things but it can't give you the moral facts that like it's morally good to take care of your body or morally good to be generous to others or morally good to forgive or morally good to to love right there this tenet is scientism i'm going to limit my beliefs right to my understanding of science but science is only able to measure certain things about reality like it can't measure that your mother loves you like there's just isn't science for this okay um nor can it measure any of the tenants we've seen so far science doesn't tell us to act with compassion and empathy okay so based on their own tenants we'd have to strike off number one science doesn't tell us that the struggle for justice is necessary or that it should prevail science doesn't tell you that it just tells you you know this is how things are in the natural physical world one's body is inviolable where does science tell you that right the freedoms of others should be respected where does science tell you this so the the the thing is once you remove god from the picture once you embrace an atheistic kind of or scientistic or materialistic naturalistic worldview you you lose the foundation for a lot of things that you hold dearly and you think are true but you don't realize that you can't hardly justify that with just science here's another thing about science science doesn't tell us science doesn't give us any reason to think that science is the only way to learn things where does science limit your ability to learn things through say other forms of philosophy i've had conversations with skeptics online where i try to encourage them that there's a philosophy behind science and that they might want to look into like the philosophy of science and i remember being mocked in comment sections you idiot there's no such thing as a philosophy of science and i just thought oh they don't even know they don't even know this isn't good like this is this is the really small um it's the world of somebody who only criticizes beliefs they don't like and doesn't turn and reflect upon the sand they're building their own beliefs on now and that's that's satanism in a nutshell they say people are fallible if one makes a mistake one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that may have been caused okay that's you don't learn that from science every tenet is guiding is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility and thought and action the spirit of compassion wisdom and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word um of course they wrote that so they're trying to think that the written really it's it's just a it's sort of a passive aggressive comment about christianity or about religious things that they don't like when it comes down to it the satanic temple the satanic tenets they're there as propaganda okay the the satanist has two things they do and one they put their first foot forward where they're like we're satanists we're here to freak you out we're here and then they put their next foot forward actually we're just very rational scientifically minded people satan is just a metaphor for rejecting the superstitions of religion and then then then you're like i don't know how i'm supposed to think but take it all in and realize this the moral principles that they su that they that you can agree with at least partly are going to be things that you find true in christianity and substantiated with god god gives you these morals right like his not the knowledge not just the knowledge of the morals but but he grounds them the fact of moral realities and moral obligations but you can't ground that in their own world view so what they've done is they're rebelling against god rebelling against the truth but they want to keep pieces of the truth and claim it as their own but it's not consistent with their own worldview that's satanism now the other angle of it is that it's very much a vehicle for political advocacy one of the reasons why a satanist would even want to call himself a satanist is because then they could try to say that they want their agendas to be recognized as religious rights so the most recent example of this that we find is their satanic reproductive freedom fundraiser that they're doing right now let me show you that okay they're raising money right now because of this major announcement they're saying we're going to tell okay they've invented a new ritual and the ritual is abortion they're calling it a satanic ritual do they believe in satan no they don't believe any of that they don't think anything spiritual is happening at this time but they're going to call it a ritual so they can go to the government and say the the adherers to our religion of satanism they have a ritual called abortion and so our religious right is to commit abortions and so we want you to give us protections that we can as the satanic temple can administer abortifacients to our to our members and to become a member you just sign up pay a fee you're you're good um so you see what they're doing is they they don't actually believe in satan they're not it's not a religion in any sense that you might recognize it's meant to be a mockery it's a giant troll it's just a troll on religious people and a troll meant to try to like throw a monkey wrench into religious rights so whenever you see a christian like say say we can have after school clubs bible clubs well they're going to be like well we're going to have like satan clubs after school and we're going to call it religious and we're really just going to teach against religion in those groups ah now you see that that makes it a strong political advocacy thing it's just a giant troll um there's one more thing to consider with satanism though which is this and i think a satanist if you're listening you're a satanist i want you to consider this possibility if there really is a god then then you guys are the ones being trolled so massively because here you are saying hail satan and doing rituals and you think it's all a joke and you think it's all just a mockery of beliefs you don't like and you don't you know approve of but but in reality at the same time you're then denying all of the negative implications of what you're doing thinking it's a holy and wonderful and positive thing and yet satan's just laughing at you there's the troll you you're trolling everybody but you're really being trolled and that's that's satanism the thing about the tenants is that you can affirm much of what's said there but not all of it for sure because it's self-refuting um but it's not really what satanism's actually about satanism is actually about rebelling against religious beliefs that's if they have a tenant that's that should be on the list but it's not there because that's that's part of the propaganda machine all right we're gonna go to the next question this is question two from amanda i'm sorry from jonathan nunez amanda will get to you next you'll be three jonathan nunez says hey mike i appreciate your ministry does isaiah 9 6 disprove the trinity because it calls jesus the father many oneness and unitarians use this verse to support oneness and modalism help i'm confused um isaiah 9 6. i was asked about this one a while ago and i meant to like spend some time looking into it to give you a better answer sometimes i just think i don't i don't have the right answer for you already on on an issue and so i don't make stuff up so so um this is this is how i do a q a which is um i don't feel the pressure that i have to know every single random thing in the world but i try to know as much as i can but um but i want to do one of these days i want to do a video on this topic because i think this is a really relevant and important issue but i'll read it to you guys and i'll admit ahead of time that i don't know what my answer to this is quite yet i'll share a couple points for unto us a child is born to us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father prince of peace of the increase of his government and of his peace there will be no end and on the throne of david and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore the zeal the lord of hosts will do this the idea here is that the for those who aren't familiar with the passage that that this is speaking um ultimately of of jesus who comes and takes on the the throne of david so he's going to come in in line in the davidic line and david was the king of israel he's going to be the king of israel but it's going to extend beyond that the of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end so his government will just grow and and it will never stop he will be um on the throne forever from this time forth forevermore and he'll be righteous and perfect unlike any of the kings that they had had after david none of them were quite right they all failed in some way so god's going to do this so the son is born the child is given which is interesting because those are two things he's born but he's also given god so loved the world that he gave his only son and the government's upon his shoulder that's about that that authority he has now his name is called a number of things wonderful counselor now some people separate this they say his name is called wonderful and his name is called counselor but look at the things his name is called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father prince of peace when you look at these at least i'm gonna super quick run down this at least my current thinking on it is that i see all of the trinity here represented as well as just deity in general so wonderful counselor right that this this could be the holy spirit he becomes the counselor for us everlasting father could be of the referencing the father and then prince of peace the son so a father spirit son and then mighty god just a reference to deity that's possible that this is what's here others okay if that's the case does that mean jesus is the father well i i think we have a lot of other problems that come up if we do that first off what we have here is um one verse that doesn't quite give you a lot of details right like just admit this isaiah 9 6 you need more info from other passages of scripture to fill in the details here and what we see in the new testament is that jesus talks to the father right he talks to the father and he says things like the father's greater than i so wait if he is the father if he just just is and that's the whole story the whole story is he just is the father how does that make sense well there's another sense in which jesus can be called everlasting father and that is that he is the one who comes and shows you the father right he is the one who comes and brings you the knowledge of the father relationship with the father and then the indwelling of the spirit comes through him he's not the holy spirit he's not the father but he is the access to all of these things he is the one who opens the door to us to know god okay there's a there's an important thing there um the uh there's other views and some say everlasting father's the wrong translation that what it should say is father of eternity okay well then it could be talking not about him being the father like in the trinity but rather him just simply being um eternal that he is eternal that he's he's he is the one who pre-exists time and starts time okay well then that's a different issue altogether isn't it i don't know exactly where i landed all that but there's a couple thoughts that i would share with you yeah i think when when someone tries to use this phrase to disprove the trinity i think they're going way beyond isaiah 9 6. isaiah 9 6 says his name will be called and it lists these things so whatever our doctrines of christ are they need to include a valid application of isaiah 9 6 and i think that the trinity doctrine does that perfectly fine so i don't really see the problem there but i'd like to give you a more of a s like conclusion one of these days uh number three amanda says what exactly is a soul or a spirit ah well i i just just you guys know i do this every friday at 1 pm california time that's one piece of pm pacific time and i um i also like to bring my cat along occasionally there she is that's moxie [Laughter] yeah um and i say all this because amanda i'm not gonna really answer this question very well at all uh what exactly is a solar spirit i wonder the same thing i don't know and um when uh okay obviously humans have an im we have an immaterial element to us okay and that immaterial element it it exists beyond uh the death of our body so that could be your soul that could also be your spirit there's there's a connection that's going on there i i don't know though how to like discern exactly the difference between a soul and a spirit and here's the challenge i'd have for those of you who are like oh that's easy and you're like i got it the answer is so easy what you should do is you know come up with your definition of soul and your definition of spirit and then look up all the passages in the bible where soul or spirit referring to mankind is is referenced and ask yourself if your definition makes sense in all those contexts and that's the thing i don't quite have the answer for it um the soul and the spirit are immaterial that's that much we can we can say i think with great confidence um the soul and spirit are personal there's there's not separate persons i just mean that they have a there's where you have a spirit there's there's a personhood there where you have a soul there's personhood there um but there's other times where the bible talks about soul and like david says oh my soul why are you cast down within me okay well well your soul's cast out in what sense does he mean soul in that verse like things like that i don't know i don't know amanda sorry all right let's go number four blind vision says what things should a high school student consider in deciding if or how to date a godly woman um [Music] that's a good question the first thing i recommend is is just be a little patient the the first stage of liking somebody um i've been there many times i'm sure you have is you you suddenly become very unrealistic right there was this old like song that became extremely popular where in the song the guy saying like everything she does is lovely and everything she does is right i can't remember what song it was this was many years ago and um the phrase everything she does is right i remember thinking that's puppy love right there right when you think every single thing a person does is just oh it's just it's just everything's right even when they're wrong they're just so cute when they're wrong like you were not thinking clearly at this moment so what i'm gonna suggest is um if you don't know what you don't like about somebody you're probably not really ready to seriously date them that would be some advice i'd have for you the reason why i say this is because when you want to enter into a relationship with somebody it it's it's doomed to failure if you have like this super ridiculous high view of them like they're just this unrealistic human being that's just perfect in every way and will always make you smile but if you see some of their problems and flaws and yet you go no i see it i'm sober and i understand that and you move forward you won't see them all of course but that's a good sign um i would recommend talking to like openly to people who are older and wiser than you about this relationship like find people to talk to whether that be parents or somebody who's older than you because they can often have the wisdom of experience the wisdom of years that might be able to give you some counsel on these things um some of the things that i'd you know would want to see is that the person is stable they're stable in their life they're stable in their relationship with god if you're going to date them that they don't just say i'm a christian but there's there's a sense of like they're not just christian because they happen to be in a christian environment around church or something like that but they carry that those christian beliefs that conviction when they're outside of those environments that's an important thing because you want to see that that's consistent um yeah other things it could be like how soon can you get married okay because i don't really personally this is just a side issue but i i'm not going to tell someone they can't date if they're not ready to get married right away but you know 12 years of dating is usually a negative thing there's people who've done it and they've and they've stayed pure and they've built a relationship but even then i've talked to students who like totally stayed pure dated since like junior high and then they later looked back and we're like that was so dumb that we were dating at that age what were we thinking you know so there's like a sense of is this a good season of life okay and you might be afraid but they'll find somebody else and you're like well i wouldn't worry too much about that um so yeah there's a few things to think about pray obviously read proverbs look at the godliness of a person that's there the wisdom of a person look for those things now there's a lot more to say but those are a few thoughts for you hope they help number five jessica e says hello pastor mike thank you and the mods for this ministry you're very very welcome jessica what does james 4 13 mean should we always say god willing in our plans all right let's look at this passage james chapter 4 verse 13. james is kind of the kick in the rear end new testament epistle i guess there's maybe more than one but james is like big time very much like calling you to live live according to what you say um here we go this section does start with verse 13. come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring what is your life you for you are a mist that appears for a little time and vanishes instead you ought to say if the lord wills we will live and do this or that as it is you boast in your arrogance all such boasts pardon me all such boasting is evil so whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him it is sin um this idea here um let me tell you what i think might be a clumsy interpretation or application of the passage the clumsy application would be every time i say something about a plan i have to follow up with the phrase if the lord wills the reason why i think this is a clumsy application is because it's just a phrase you say right it's almost like saying knock on wood which people will often say and they have they don't actually think knocking on what doesn't like it's just an empty phrase that people say because they're like i hope so um instead i think that the the internal issues is what he's getting at is they're boasting an arrogance and that kind of boasting is evil what's the boasting the boasting is the idea that that i am ultimately totally in control of my life and it's not subject to the will of god finally now most christians are not going to say they think this the point is they're not acting like it they don't behave as though the decisions that you make the plans that you have are just that's it that's all there is to it where it doesn't ultimately depend on whether god wills or not a whole bunch of things that you can't control so the idea is a sense of constant awareness that not only will my plans fail apart from god's will but i also want god's will like there's a sense when i say a god willing i'm not just saying humbly you know because i could be wrong it's not just that there's another element which is because i want god's will right like hey we're gonna we're gonna go to such-and-such town we're gonna spend a year there we're gonna try and trade and make a profit but but i just want god's will and i'm yielded to god's will i'm ready to to make a change to change directions to have my my heart open to be to get my mind changed on these issues that that i think is what's being taught here the example is the way a person arrogantly goes about their life making their own plans focused on their own benefits and then the other person turns and says lord i want what you want ultimately i have plans but but let them be according to your will and of course your will trumps whatever i've got planned that's just a different heart and attitude so when you pray do you have to say god's will be done all the time no you have to you have to be that way though like that's just a thing you have to have in your heart and it doesn't hurt to say it but if you don't mean it doesn't help either all right number six and we are full upon questions we've got all 20 questions for you guys today i'll be answering all 20 those however long that takes um let's go to number six ariana says can you give me uh more examples about the doctrines of demons mentioned in 1st timothy 4 1. let's look at it together first timothy 4 1. now the spirit expressly says this is interesting i mean interesting that in the embedded in this letter from paul is like hey here's something the spirit has revealed to us um makes you wonder like when that was that the spirit revealed that where was it it seems to be something that was not just revealed to paul but was has been revealed to a community interesting and now the spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons so the faith often times when you in fact just about every time when you see the phrase the in front of the word faith in the new testament just about every time it doesn't mean a person's personal belief but rather like the list of things they believe so it means doctrines so the faith would be like jesus is lord right he's god with us he died on the cross for our sins he rose again from the dead bodily on the third day if you trust in him you'll be forgiven for your sins um the this is like the faith is like those list of things you believe so like say a muslim has faith in islam but they don't have the faith because it's not christian doctrines biblical truth about christ anyway so some will depart from the faith they will they will have other false teachings false doctrines they will leave behind these doctrines that gives us a clue as to what those other examples would be uh ariana there's ariana sorry i don't know ariana um they'll depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through whose ins through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared who forbid marriage okay we'll go through some examples here in verse three in a second but the idea is deceitful spirits don't ever come and say hey i'm a deceitful spirit just so you know like it's the irony of satanism we dealt with earlier how there's like they say hail satan but they think to themselves we just mean it metaphorically we're just saying this to freak out christians and and the deceit is ultimately upon them because he really is um being served by them um so deceitful spirits aren't announcing themselves they're disguising themselves as what angels of light right these these new doctrines these false doctrines that aren't according to the faith the truths of christianity the right teachings of christ these doctrines are being replaced by false doctrines so jesus maybe he didn't die on the cross for your sins maybe he died for some other purpose maybe he didn't rise from the dead and it doesn't really matter you know it's all a metaphor anyways that would be a i would say that's a deceitful spirit a teaching of demons i think anything would be thrown into this into this list potentially that is not according to the faith number two it says through his insincerity through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that god created to receive with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth um the idea of forbidding marriage and requiring people not to eat certain foods is the idea of like um kind of like an asceticism or a early gnosticism type stuff it's connected to al those things kind of interweave with each other the idea i think is this is we're gonna move from the doctrines of of truly abstaining from sin and we're going to focus on abstaining from other things that treat the in this case the body like it's inherently wicked so marriage you have to abstain from marriage like you know there are even those who thought even though you're you're married you know you're even more godly if you choose to never be together gandhi was like this gandhi had a belief like this he was married but he wouldn't be with his wife intimately and he believed that it was like somehow wrong right like it was immoral in some way um he laid down and slept with a lot of other ladies um not his wife that's another story gandhi was not really gandhi when you think about it but um but that would be an example of that kind of a thing abstinence from certain foods this is this is replacing true righteousness with external things that aren't actually making you righteous that are actually causing you to miss out on something that god wants you to be thankful for and to enjoy it says for everything created by god is good and nothing's to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for it is made wholly by the word of god in prayer so the specific examples of these deceitful doctrines are these ones the forbidding of marriage that goes on in roman catholicism i think it does apply uh many many roman catholics will push back uh and sometimes get pretty upset about it and they'll say no the priests are not required to not be married because they could just not be priests and i'm like that's some nice kung fu you got there but yeah they don't marry and it doesn't it seems like it applies pretty well to me so yeah the uh the broad statement here is in 1st timothy four there's gonna be um doctrines of the faith that are replaced with other things other emphasis on things that aren't really about godliness but they have the appearance of godliness and that we need to watch out for let's go to number seven this is from kenneth lynch who says how do you become a disciple in light of matthew 28 19. can you be unsaved and a disciple i haven't found the greek word uh mate mateu elsewhere that's the word for disciple seems to normally be mates okay so i obviously don't have time to do like a word greek word study for you right here so let me try to share a few thoughts let's look at matthew 28 19. and it says here go therefore and make the disciple make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit so make disciples your question is how do you become a disciple in light of matthew 28 19 can you be unsaved and a disciple yes and no you so let me let me back off the greek for a second here because you might be making an unnecessary separation between mathew and ma mate that might be the case here disciple think of it like um in a real in real simplistic terms a disciple is somebody who follows others john the baptist had disciples the pharisees have their disciples jesus has his disciples you can be a disciple but not a disciple of christ so in that sense you could be a disciple make disciples of all nations means making those who become followers of christ out of all nations so if you're a genuine disciple you can't be a genuine disciple and not be saved no you can you be unsaved and be a disciple no can you be a tear amongst the wheat though well yeah i mean jesus says that there would be tears amongst the wheat the the illustration jesus gives here with this parable is that there are those who um who uh who look like christians right so so the the short version of the parable is that a farmer plants good wheat in his field an enemy comes and plants what's called tares t-a-r-e tears in the field and they grow up together and you can't tell because they look the same tares look a lot like wheat but when they bud and they produce their actual fruit the the the part you can actually you know eat then you realize it's a tear that's when it becomes obvious so tears here are like into false believers mixed in with the church so they look like disciples are they really disciples now the lord knows the lord knows god knows who's truly a follower of christ and who's who's fake um yeah yeah as far as the mate 200 and mate tastes i'd have to like do a word study on those individually to see how they relate to each other um they're obviously from the same you know word for disciple initially but yeah all right i will have to move forward number eight an anonymous question coming in how do we know when to speak up about the truth of christ versus when not to i'm grieved by what i see being claimed as truth today but i don't want to just sit back and say i'm not supposed to judge this is one of those questions where a a simple answer threatens us see if i if i tell you always speak up about the truth then you're going to be reckless about when you speak up right um you're gonna interrupt like people while they're in the middle of a sentence you're gonna you're gonna hijack your business meeting at work that you're you guys are trying to figure out how you're gonna handle this this tech problem you guys have got and you're like oh i speak to mike said always speak the truth right um and if i say oh yeah you know we'll you know find the right time you got to know the right time to say the truth well then our timidity is going to take over and we're pretty much never going to share the gospel we're pretty much never we're only going to wait till someone asks us in fact i mean how many christians out there your philosophy for sharing the gospel is well when they ask me like there's this mystical moment where you expect non-believers to go hey what's different about you right and i'm just like that doesn't happen very much guys like like that doesn't happen very much so so if we have that kind of like timidity where we sort of wait until the perfect moment we've waited too long and if we um interrupt everything and hijack every moment then we uh we aren't walking in wisdom so jesus some examples jesus gave he went into the religious environments and he specifically openly talked about those issues he went out and he taught in public the disciples maybe maybe they're a good example of this they would they would go around and they would initially tell everybody the gospel message like so they might go from like houses hey go to a public area like a marketplace uh basically the marketplace was a place where it was acceptable in their culture to go out and speak openly like about the gospel or about whatever right it was it was considered like this is the open square for debate and discussion about things so they might go to those places they would cast a broad net like let's tell everybody the message and then those who want to hear more we will aside we will teach them more and so there's there's this sort of like two-tier thing we see happening in the book of acts the wide net cast as far as possible paul going into the areopagus um paul going into synagogues and he shares it with everybody there but then later on he's in somebody's home and they're hosting him as he as he gives them more of the message so i would say the initial gospel message needs to go out wide and broad and far and further discipleship takes place for those who want to hear more that means that when we share the gospel with somebody and they reject it we allow them to reject it this is not an oppressive forced religious thing it's up to them so one big factor in when you share the gospel is have they heard it yet has this person heard it yet because if they have not then i'm going to be much more aggressive in finding that opportunity to share with them and if they have then it may be the decision that they've made and i may be less likely to bring it up over and over and over again in every conversation jesus also warned us things like don't cast your pearls before swine right unless they turn and tear you to pieces that there are times where you you look and you go i'm not gonna share with that person but then there are other times where you go out and share with everybody one of the rules for the early church that was countercultural was they did not restrict sharing the gospel to like rich people or to influential people they'd share it with everybody equally and the message would go out and everybody was invited in so tennessee nowadays is that we tend to like gravitate towards the lowly and the poor and that's probably because of the history we have as a church just seeing that the people that are down are often more open to hearing the gospel and those who are there are not many of you rich and wise so there's a few thoughts for you there's no one blanket rule um that i can give you on this it's gonna take wisdom and thought self-awareness so where's awareness of your scenario but if you're if you're like me and you're on the fence and you're not sure if you should share or not and you're kind of going like wobbling like you feel motives and reasons to share and you might have a couple reasons you're concerned about not doing it i think most of us would do good to air a little bit on the side of sharing unless you are one of those people okay let me just speak very humanly if you enjoy confrontation none of my advice works for you if you just enjoy confrontation there's a process going on in your mind that's not present for a lot of us um and i don't know how to cancel you exactly on how to work through that some people actually enjoy confrontation if you don't if you're like me and you don't then you probably should push your mouth open more often than not if you do maybe you need to go the other way number nine jerry hughes h-u-g-g-e-s says does the fear of the lord mean scared if not why is fear still used in today's bibles translation problem confused here and were dinosaur bones slash fossils created by the devil to cast doubt all right jerry you cheated a little bit because that was like 17 questions all wrapped up into one two completely unrelated to each other all right i'm gonna answer them though all of them all right does the fear of the lord mean scared sometimes but no inherently it does not mean scared in some contexts you could you could be afraid of god right there are those who have proper fear god holds them in derision or that you know they're scared because judgment's coming upon them but the phrase fear of the lord as something that simply all people should have as a proper thing that does not mean scared if not then you say if not why is fear still used in today's bibles um because here's okay we are simply it seems to me in english we are lacking a concept we used to have right so we have new words coming in all the time you can google something okay well that's a new word i mean that concept didn't exist but now it does and the word exists for it as well but fear of the lord that's a concept we've we've lost we've kept the term but we've lost the meaning we tend to think of fear as being terror as being primarily like oh you scared me or what are you afraid and um horror movies and scary stuff like that like that's what we think of as fear fear is um uh somebody jumping out to scare you that's fear but there's another concept fear of the lord and the way fear has been used historically and in scripture that means reverence and awe and and not just reverence like i'm totally safe reverence reverence that includes the idea that you're the boss in charge of me and you have the right and power to judge me now if you think that means afraid i'm gonna i'm gonna push back a little bit and say not quite because afraid implies that you god that god is unreliable or not trustworthy or he flies off the handle that's a different kind of fear those who were raised with parents who were were angry and harmful and hurtful because of of their irritations that's the kind of fear you don't want to project on god because those parents you you couldn't like you had to i know the feeling okay you had to look them in the eye and think are they in a bad mood i better not talk to them tonight because they're not rational and they're they're gonna i'm potentially giving them a reason to get mad at me and so i'll wait till they're in a good mood and when they're in a good mood you maybe you wait a day a week and now you ask them the thing okay that's not what we're talking about with god god's not like this he's unstable so i'm scared rather he's holy and righteous and he's the judge of all things so i have a proper fear of him as in reverence awareness of his goodness of his holiness and of the fact that i will stand before him accountable for my my decisions in my life so the fear of the lord is all about giving god his proper glory and his proper place in my awareness that's what the fear of the lord's all about um so it is it a translation problem it's becoming a translation problem but let me ask you like what would you if you just said if you said the reverence of god i mean i guess you could say that would it really carry all the connotations i don't know um so i don't really know how translators are supposed to handle that moving forward um then you say are were dinosaur dinosaur bones and fossils created by the devil to cast doubt um i think this is a terrible terrible terrible thing for people to think as christians um you will make you will embarrass christianity if if you as a christian go around telling people that dinosaur bones and fossils were made by satan to cast doubt i want you to imagine for a second what you would think if you heard a christian say that and you were not a christian you would think i knew it i knew it they're all insane so um no i don't think that they were created by the devil to cast doubt um our view of whatever we think about the world around us and ancient history and all that is going to need to include the fact that those fossils were from animals that once lived okay that that's important that we deal with reality so yeah that that's my thought on that jerry uh let's go to number 10 nick thompson says do you think the denominations are a concession from god in that he knew we would disagree on doctrine or is it more of a of differing members of the body reaching different people in different ways well i i don't nick sort of you're kind of asking me to guess at like what god's heart is behind a reality that's present today and i'm always hesitant to do this to be the one saying i think this is why god allows this or god doesn't allow that i find that my track record guessing at god's motives for current things that confuse me is not very good right um that's a failing of mine and i'm not going to step into that what i will say is this i think that when it comes to topics of denominations we would do well as christians to recognize a few things i'm going to give you several things one a lot of the differences in denominations are secondary issues right so like baptists and presbyterians can fellowship and get along and not and realize that that the disagreements there at least initial denominational issues are secondary issues right so this is why um i would consider myself um okay the the old term used to be non-denominational and by non-denominational like i can tell you i'm from i'm a calvary chapel guy right so within calvary chapels were non-denominational initially what non-denominational was supposed to be was saying hey guys there's lots of denominations we don't want to emphasize those secondary differences so we're instead going to just try to say like hey as long as you hold to the essentials of the faith we're your brothers and sisters in christ so we want to we're not saying denominations are bad we just want to make sure we're not we're not falling into the divisive nature that sometimes it falls into um later non-denominational slowly turned into like um this attitude of like you know i'm non-denominational so it means like um the non the non-denoms thought so we're like you know better than you guys we're contemporary we're relevant and then the denominations looked at them were like you say you're non-denominational but you're really just a denomination and uh you're just pretending and it's just it's weird and this is exactly the problem we create the problem this is a human issue right this is why scripture says that we have to endeavor like with the strive to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace it's like you have to work at it as a christian that the unity is provided by the holy spirit but is divided by humans and we've got to work at that so maybe a better term is just accept the fact that there's denominations and then ask whether the differences are secondary or tertiary or primary another issue you have to i told you i'll tell you several another issue you've got to recognize is this is that denominations change over time right and so like say within the united methodists compare what some of the some of them are doing now to what they were doing when they found it and you realize they carry the name but in some ways some of the mainline denominations have become like they they're leaving the faith like core doctrines of the christian faith are just being cut right out and so then you look at it and you go oh so what you've you've done is you've carried on the name of a denominational group but not the legacy they would all look at you and say you guys are not us like you don't hold to our actual fundamentals so um now not all united methodists are like that but but it's it's a trend for sure within that group and there's others as well where they're just becoming these super super like theologically liberal progressive become christianity has progressed right out of christianity in many cases so that's another issue that's going on there keeping the name of a denomination but not actually its distinctives um at all so yeah and now is it okay that we're we have different views and secondary issues if if over here someone has infinite baptism i don't think in baptism is biblical i also don't think it's gonna destroy christianity if you baptize your infant i just think hey that i don't think that's the way it's supposed to be done but i'm not going to personally create division over that so if there's different fellowships people are in as long as they're not like casting ugly glances at each other over it i think it's fine number 11 kitty's online name says what is your best answer to a mormon responding there is only one god by saying yes only one god for us only one god we are to worship and that's our heavenly father but there are others elsewhere um i like that you asked for my best answer i like asking people for their best answer on things i would want to sit i mean like i just want to sit and think for like several minutes about my best answer so i'm gonna throw some things out there to think about since this is the live q a off the top of my head um the isaiah passage uh the eyes in the 40s isaiah in the 40s right you have a lot of this monotheistic stuff going on in the 40s and god says things like i'll give you some specifics um let me it's going to take me a second to find um uh okay so isaiah 40 is one um i'm not finding the verse off really that fast so let me go to deuteronomy here's another scripture for you jeremy 4 39 therefore know this day and consider it in your heart that the lord himself is god in heaven above and on the earth beneath there is no other the monotheism of um judaism is kind of a big deal and what you want to understand is what mormons are really claiming they're not even just claiming there's other spiritual beings out there that can be called gods in some sense they're they're actually going to claim and it gets super complicated because mormonism their defense against their bad theology is nowadays to get ridiculously complicated so that it's super hard to talk about um but biblically speaking right there's one god and there is no other right there's there's no one like god god this is like even even michael heiser who holds to like his whole divine counsel thing for those who are familiar with that he likes to use the phrase yahweh is species unique okay so even on the the if you could stretch the the the discussion of gods as far as possible and mormons all the time like to use michael heiser this is what you'll encounter they like to quote him he doesn't like it and he has teaching where he explains why they're misusing his stuff but his point is yahweh is species unique god there's only one god there's only one yahweh there's only one well god is multiple in his personhood but there's only one yahweh there's only one yahweh in that sense when you look at mormonism though what you actually have is go back go back go back what's eternal in in all of creation what is the thing that's eternal you know christians would say god right just god just god that's it just god is eternal everything else is created in temporal it came into being god himself never came into being creation itself the universe all this stuff came into being this is christian theology long before big bang theory ever came around and said yeah that's right um mormonism though teaches that matter time and space are eternal do you catch that matter time and space are eternal and there is something that was very ill defined in mormonism called intelligences it's never really explained but they think that god's history works this way god initially was not god that's super important they believe god was not god god was once a man the way that i am a man on a different planet either a planet or near a star called kolob and then he lived a human life and guess what he had he had a god his own god that he worshipped and he served and he did so good living that life and did the right things that he became exalted and turned into a god and got his own planet and now he populated the earth with his spirit babies and you guys can become gods too in mormonism there are more gods than in just about any religion out there because there's just no it's just like you who knows how many there are and there's always going to be in more in the future there will be you know on into infinity there will be more gods because every you know if you become a god you have a planet with a bunch of people on it and then they can become a god too so in light of scripture compared to that mormon teaching they try to shrink it down like well god's the only god we worship but what they're saying is that in the ontology of the universe there are countless other gods including god once had once was it was not god and he had his own god that he worshipped that is completely incompatible with biblical teachings like completely irrevocably incompatible you go to genesis you go to hebrews and you see that god created all things and he is the one who is always existent in fact genesis 1 reads like a refutation of polytheism of the idea of this multiplicity of gods because it tells the creation account in a way that was directly conflicting with all the other ancient near eastern uh ways of looking at creation so my best answer to a mormon saying this is that isn't what scripture tells us where does scripture tell us that god wasn't always god that he had a god that he worshipped and then now he's saying there's there is no other um yeah specifically in isaiah god says that he doesn't know any other gods that's the um here we go isaiah 44 verse 8 there's another verse i'll give you is there a god besides me there is no rock and then he has this i know not any so it's one thing to say you guys have no other god but this would involve on mormon theology god's saying that he's not aware of any other gods yet the only way he became exalted is by having a god that he was he was faithful to so that would be one of the things i would share as well but i guarantee you mormonism the response is going to be oh but it's way more complicated than that because it always gets more complicated um not like nothing's complicated but sometimes complexity is just being used as a disguise sr sr's creations says what is the mark of the beast as described in revelation 13. i've heard and read so many things and i'm not sure how to make sense of it i don't know um so here's a couple thoughts on this one is in revelation 13 we have a well let's look at it you guys let's look at it for those who maybe need a little refresher reminder about the mark um i'll read a section here from revelation and i saw a beast revelation 13. rising out of the sea with ten horns and seven heads with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads and the beast that i saw was like a leopard its feet were like a bears and its mouth was like a lion's mouth and to it the dragon gave his power and his throne in great authority the dragon is satan here and one of his heads seemed to have a mortal wound but its mortal wound was healed and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast and they worshipped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast and they worshipped the beast saying who is like the beast and who can fight against it and the beast was given a mouth uttering hotty and blasphemous words and it was allowed to exercise authority for 42 months it opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against god blaspheming his name and his dwelling that is those who dwell in heaven also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them and authority was given given it over every tribe and people and language and nation and all who dwell on the earth will worship it everyone whose name has not been found written before the foundation of the world in the book of the life of the lamb who was slain if anyone has an ear let him hear if anyone is to be taken captive to captivity he goes if anyone is to be slain with a sword with a sword he must be slain here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints okay so there's going to be this um world world ruler or kingdom and i won't even try to get into the symbolism all this stuff what it represents i don't think it's going to physically look like these things i think these are all symbolic representations so far and the saints need to endure through this time of persecution and suffering the second beast i saw another beast rising out of the earth it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon it exercised all the authority of the first beast in its presence so the first beast exercises satan's authority then the second beast exercises the first beast's authority so it's like tearing down it exercises all the authority the first beast in its presence and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast okay so some would call this the false prophet whose mortal wound was healed he's doing this sort of like stirring up the worship of this of this uh beast it performs great signs even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on the earth telling them to make an image for the beast okay so the people make an image of some kind for the beast you can think back about nebuchadnezzar there was a big literal image made of him and they did literally worship it that was wounded by the sword and yet lived verse 15. it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that even the image of the beast might even speak it might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain okay now it's easy to think of technology as being the way this is fulfilled and i mean that's possible but i just i'm just gonna not tell you how i think it's gonna be fulfilled i think that i don't know and just because it could be that way and in my culture in my moment it looks like it might be that way if it happened right now doesn't mean that i'm right about it because i've read too many people from 10 50 80 100 years ago who got it all wrong because they thought if it happened today it would look this way and they made assumptions but the important thing is is that there's like a religion now around this thing and the image of the beast has some function of speaking communicating and if you don't worship it you'll be slain also and then this is the reason why i read all that is because in the the mark is in the context of those things we tend to think of the mark as being like its own separate thing like there's like you might accidentally take the mark right like um you know you go to disneyland and you're on your way out and they're like you want the stamp you know you can't come back in without the stamp and you can't buy or sell in here without the stamp and so you get the stamp and then you no i didn't know it was the mark disney you know um this is this is not what we should be thinking verse 16 also it causes all both small and great both rich and poor both free and slave to be marked on the right hand or the forehead this mark seems to be in relation to what the religious worship of this beast that that's in the image of the beast the mark is connected to the worship that's that's my point here so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of its name this implies what um either that john doesn't know exactly what this mark's going to be or he's just telling you the mark will be associated with the name of the beast or the number of its name in some the earlier reference to the number of a name right um is interesting here this calls for wisdom let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast for it is the number of a man and his number is 666. uh now preteris would say that that represents a nero um and others would say oh it represents and they would name anybody they want like you can pick a president of the u.s you can make a way to make their name come out to 666 it's just always gonna be everybody my point is this since people emphasize buying and selling and requiring a mark and then that's kind of all they talk about this has led to people thinking that the mark of the beast is um barcodes and uh i've heard this that i was gonna hold up a barcode but i don't think i have a barcode in front of me um the that the mark of the beast is is barcodes and barcodes the two long ones represent six and the two long ones in the middle represent six and the two extra long ones on each side six six and it's barcodes and so this was like caused paranoia amongst christians in an embarrassing and unhealthy fashion in the 70s and in the 80s then it became credit cards credit cards and they started figuring out how credit cards were all associated with 666 somehow right and why is this because barcodes were needed for buying and selling now you didn't get them on you yet but they but they thought maybe they will that's all it just takes one little thing it just takes one little step and then it's on you and this is what i'm gonna say christians um i am not your guide here but let me tell you what my experience has been personally i have seen more christians spazzing out and and causing fear unnecessary fear in others as well as making themselves look silly because of them trying to predict where the mark of the beast is going to be what it's going to be and when it's going to happen i don't think you should do this i think as a christian you you need to stop look at the context of revelation 13 and here's what here's my point it's not just buying and selling it's the worst it's the presence of this beast the presence of the second beast the image that speaks that you must worship and then the buying and selling is now attached to that and until that happens personally if you anybody out there christians i love you but if you come to me and tell me that you think the vaccine is the mark of the beast and you think that the um getting a chip put in your hands so you can you can access your work your work computer is the mark of the beast please don't i don't even want to hear it like i'm so so beyond it i i can't shake you of this opinion maybe fine consider me to be someone who doesn't care unless this mark is associated with the worship of the beast right and his image then the fact that you can't buy or sell without fill in the blank doesn't impress me that much because there are always there's in any society there's always something that's associated with buying and selling a currency right a credit card a digital currency there's always going to be something and then there's going to be a group of christians in that society freaking out about that thing embarrassing other christians and making it harder to preach the gospel in that culture and i y'all you need to stop number 13 uh do we have jesus in our hearts as believers what about worship songs about jesus in the room john 16 verses 5 through 10 acts 1 verses 9 through 11 and basically all of revelation seemed to say that jesus is in heaven now thanks okay so yes jesus is in heaven is let's answer the first question first is jesus like with me right now um well the answer is not one or the other it's both okay so um even in this passage john 16 he says i'm going to him who sent me and none of you asks where are you going because i've said these things your heart has filled you with sorrow has filled your heart nevertheless i tell you the truth it is to your advantage that i go away for if i do not go away the helper will not come so jesus now speaks of how he's departing he's on the earth still he's about to die at the end of john this is like right at the end of jesus's earthly life and he's like when i depart after he dies right then rises and then ascends after the ascension he sends the holy spirit so he's going to send the holy spirit but what you have to understand is the function of the holy spirit is that that is how the father and the son are with us so um this is where i say jesus is in heaven but his presence is somehow with us even as the holy spirit is with us there's an overlap here there's something going on here that we need to understand and that helps answer your question a little bit so when the spirit of truth comes he'll guide you into all truth he will not speak on his own authority for whatever he hears he will speak to you and he will declare to you things that are to come um uh let me see there's a passage i want to find real quick and it is in the bible um uh let me oh man where is it it's in john and he talks about the father and the son making their home in you and this is through the holy spirit that this happens john 14 23 oh i was almost there just two chapters off okay john 14 23 okay uh listen to what jesus says here yes he's gonna ascend okay he physically ascends but jesus answered him if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him the father and the son whoever does not love me does not uh does not keep my words and the word that you hear is not mine but the fathers who sent me then he goes on to explain this in more detail these things i've spoken to you while i'm still with you but the helper the holy spirit whom the father will send in my name he'll teach you all these things and so he starts talk he says look if you love me then then the father and me are gonna make our home in you and then he says and the holy spirit's gonna come this is to me i think these are related the way that the father and the son are with us is in the holy spirit it's through the holy spirit doesn't mean the holy spirit is the father is the son i think scripture works hard so we know there's a difference but there's also a unity in god right it's not that there's three different gods or something like this there's one god when we have the holy spirit we do have the presence of ultimately the spirit of christ right and the spirit of the father so there's there's an interrelationship in in the trinity that should be acknowledged here so when i say like do i have jesus in my heart as a believer i think it's it's perhaps it's slightly clumsy to say it that way but i think it's true yes jesus is with me and there are some preachers who would say um don't teach your kids that jesus is in here teach them that jesus is there and the holy spirit's here and i'll be like well that's that's accurate too the thing is they're both true i think the problem is trying to make them exclusive that would be creating the confusion what about worship songs that say that jesus is in the room um the statement where jesus says where two or three are gathered in my name there i am in their midst um so you could you could say jesus is in the room so to speak i mean the presence of the holy spirit means that god is wherever you are because you have the holy spirit and when you're gathered as a group there you have like the church's authority present where two or three believers are gathered in his name there's like that's that was an authority related passage so um i think that what i'm suggesting here is worship songs sometimes treat these things a little clumsily but that doesn't mean that i should cast them out entirely that would be my balance i just want to provide a more thoughtful approach to it but i would be able to if someone's like man here we are we're gathered in his name and he is with us i'll be like yeah that's true that's true so here's my cat again just because i know she's cuter than me [Laughter] yeah all right i'm gonna go to the next question and this is number 14 i think 13 14. kevin lionel who has a question that says frank turek said paraphrasing that in heaven we will have free will but we won't sin because we won't have sin nature if that's the case why didn't god just make us like that on earth uh kevin two things um i think i do agree with frank on this okay we have free will but we won't sin because we don't have sin nature um two i should three things i'll try to answer the question before i do here's the second thing i just want christians to know this what if we have no good answer here we'll have free will and we won't sin why didn't god just make us that way right now and the and the answer we just throw our hands up and go i have no idea like this shouldn't bother you christian like sometimes the world or even yourself you act like you have to know everything to be confident about anything and that is a very unwise thing because you will never know everything so then the result is you'd never be confident about anything ever which we can be confident is a bad way to live your life so i'm gonna suggest is like just for anybody who's like every time you have a question about christianity that you don't know the answer to you're like on the edge of a cliff like there's a there's a different problem there than the question think about that why do i say this because i know because i've been there it took me a long time of answering questions to realize that i had this tendency to like be afraid of this is if i can't answer this then i i i everything's in question and i just slowly learned how dumb i am and how many things i don't i don't have answers for and i shouldn't expect myself to i do have good answers for many very important things and the foundational truths of christianity are very well established so this kind of stuff shouldn't bother you but it's it's a good question still so um why didn't god make the world like this to start with i think one of the most obvious answers is for free will okay when you go to heaven you have made a decision to accept and embrace god and reject a godless life now god aids you in that choice when he removes the flesh from you and he's granted you a new spirit and all this but this was all part of a decision you made and so in response to a choice you made but what but if you were just all we were just all in heaven in perfect experiences with no temptations of any kind ever then that would mean we never made that choice so if you want to preserve the choice you do need to give us an opportunity to get there and not just to be there the other thing is that we actually learn a lot of good things through this time of difficulty so philosophers i'm not making this up some of you think i'll make stuff uh not at the moment anyway so philosophers will think about how to make a perfect world and there are some philosophers who will argue and i think that this is interesting that there's no way to make a perfect world without first making an imperfect world because there are certain benefits that come from an imperfect state that will then be needed in the perfect state now that might sound weird but struggles produce character and hardship produces benefits um along with things like free will who wants to be in that perfect world who wants to be with god because nobody wants to be in hell but a lot of people don't really want heaven they don't really want to be where god is lord of all they do right they don't look forward to that they don't want to worship god for all eternity i've met plenty of people who say that even if god was real they would reject him and i was like well he is real and you are but and it's that's terribly sad but there's something positive about you even being able to make that choice so that when we stand before him in all eternity it's only those who've decided that they want that um so there's benefits that come from it um one of the benefits is christ so like i don't know about you kevin but the the weight of god of how much god loves me the reason why i'm aware of it is because of the cross of christ and when i look at my failures and my sins and my overwhelming wickedness that i've committed in my life and i look at him coming and taking on human form and living a good life a perfect life but then dying and suffering the shame of what i've done the guilt for what i've done being placed upon him the punishment for what i've done being experienced by him him dying and then rising again i this is this is the thing i always come back to to tell me that god does love me right now and to encourage me to love others whether they deserve it or not it's the cross now if if god just made us all in heaven there would be no cross there would be no massive demonstration of the love of god for people there's there's a number of things that we would miss if god did do that i think though that what we are is we're still in the middle of the story and we have to like let it play out and trust god that he's going to work all things together for good and not try to make judgment calls on things before we get there number 15 lisa versus the cassandra effect versus perilous times that's just her youtube name okay she has a question i lost a good friend of over 20 years he was recovering from a heroin addiction he called his parents saying he couldn't take it anymore and shot himself what can i say to comfort them um lisa there's obviously a lot more going on in that scenario um sometimes with comforting people one of the things you can do is just be around them like can you go visit them can you just go get lunch with them sit with them if they're open for that maybe some people need to be left alone some people it's better to be around them one thing to encourage all of us with is to recognize job's miserable comforters in the book of job they they felt that they had to come and assess the situation with joe right they first they just sat with him that was probably the best thing they did they sat with him and he cried and they were silent and finally job speaks up and he's like this shouldn't happen to me this wasn't my fault and then they speak up and they're like well actually you know and so then it turns into this like why did this whole thing need to be said right i mean we learned a lot from jokes i'm glad it happened in that sense but we don't want to be those who enter into people's sorrows and then try to provide them an analysis well let me let me tell you what you should think about all the stuff that has just happened often oftentimes i feel like i have to do that but i just hold my tongue and i just hug somebody and tell them i'm so so sorry you know and then you you know you could ask is there anything i can do for you and there almost never is so sometimes just be with somebody spend a little time with them um send them a gift write them a card just try to be there and show them that you care about them that's one of the greatest comforts that you can give if they're looking for an assessment lisa if you're i actually have a video that talks about suicide and the topic of suicide from a christian and biblical perspective and i go through tons of details on it i recommend that maybe mods one of the mods could put my video on the topic of suicide in the live chat and i will after the stream i'll put a link to it down below as well that you guys can find it in the video description um for those who are watching on youtube and otherwise just go to like biblethinker.org and type the word suicide you will see that video pop up yeah that'll help with the assessment i i do not think suicide means someone's automatically barred from heaven or something like that but but lisa there's the first thing is just you're not going to fix anything you just want to provide comfort right you just want to be a blanket in the cold and and and help in that sense my my thoughts there learning from job johann pretorius johann says some characters are heroes of in the faith but not mentioned much in the bible people like enoch and melchizedek how can i find out more about what was so special about their relationship with god oh man yo the reason why i laugh is because um in ancient jewish writings they were wondering the same thing like man i want to know more about enoch and so they wrote a lot of more stuff about enoch a lot of extra legendary stuff about him we just don't know that's the thing i mean uh you could go to the book of enoch right first enoch or there's other stuff as well but i i don't think it's telling you the truth about enoch and i know there's a very very um like serious group of people who think enoch should be in scripture that book and all this other thing and i i disagree okay i'm not on that page with you on that so i don't i don't hold to that but uh but yeah you could go to that but i think what you're finding is in many of the sections of that writing not all of them you're going to find that it's people trying to fill in the gaps so one of the modern things people do is they look at jesus and they go hey we have information from when he was 30 we have information a tiny little one day of info from when he was 12 we have information when he's an infant what else happened and so we have fiction authors who make stuff up and write it the big warning for us johann is we're not learning about these people if you want to know for sure what you can know about enoch you look up the word enoch and you find every verse that refers to him and that's what you know that's and we just have to live with it um yeah we don't know that much about enoch we don't know that much about melchizedek and later traditions are spawned often by the same desire you have i want to know more about these guys they look amazing um but let me tell you one thing about melchizedek in particular that i think is exciting melchizedek is a picture of christ and it in in hebrews it talks about how he's a picture of christ but the picture depends in a lot of ways on what we don't know about melchizedek so i have a video on this if you just search melchizedek and my name it'll pop up you'll find it but um hebrew says that melchizedek was without genealogy okay when you read genesis he's not like without genealogy like it doesn't say melchizedek had no genealogy it just doesn't give you his genealogy it says that he was out without um father or mother he didn't have beginning of life or end of days it doesn't mean he was eternal that's my interpretation of this it doesn't mean that it means that in the text you're not told when he was born or when he died because the bible's drawing a picture of jesus with this person named melchizedek that being said johan sometimes there's lessons we learn by the things we don't know about somebody and that's what i would be more interested in when it comes to enoch melchizedek is what's what's not said might not be said for a reason and for a lesson for us to learn there in the case of melchizedek it's a beautiful picture of christ number 17 rick h says why did jesus mention eating drinking buying selling planting building and getting married in luke 17. thanks pastor mike and sarah and sarah is uh my assistant the only other person that works for bible thinker and so that just so you guys know luke 17. let me find let's just read a big section of scripture here get the full context and he said to his disciples temptations to sin are sure to come but woe to the one through whom they come it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea then that he should cause one of these little ones to sin pay attention to yourselves if your brother's sins rebuke him and if he repents forgive him and if he sins against you seven times in the day turns to you seven times saying i repent you must forgive him guys this is a side note i can't pass this up this is a huge thing can you imagine somebody sitting against you seven times in a day and seven times he comes and says hey i repent and you have to forgive him here's the cool encouraging thing this means that if you had this relationship with god that that would be his attitude to you lord i blew it seven times today but seven times today i came to you and said number repent i'm sorry he forgives i yeah it's two sides to that coin verse five the apostle said to the lord increase our faith and the lord said if you had faith like a grain of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree be uprooted and planted into the sea and it would obey you um ah then he talks about servants let me let me get to the passage are you sure it was luke 17 yeah here it is okay being asked by the pharisees when the kingdom of god would come here's where the passage comes up the topic he answered them the kingdom of god is not coming in ways that can be observed nor will they say look here it is or there for behold the kingdom of god is in the midst of you this is a huge revelation of the nature of jesus's kingdom is that it comes um to individuals not as an organizational like government which is what they were thinking of but just individuals this is why his kingdom's not in this world so his servants don't fight then he talks about the future the days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the son of man you will not see it and they will say to you look there or look here do not go out or follow them for as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other so will the son of man be in his day we get more details about this in other places in the gospel so i can fill in some gaps you might see when they say look here look there they're they're saying look we found the messiah oh the messiah is here the messiah is there jesus is like don't listen to people saying that christ has come his second coming will be public and everyone will see it so anybody claiming to be the second coming of jesus anybody is wrong because no one will have to tell you because jesus will it'll be like lightning that flashes the whole sky everyone's gonna see but first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation just uh as it was in the days of noah so it will be in the days of the son of man they were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when noah entered the ark and now we come to the to the question and the flood came and destroyed them these are the things they're doing they're living their normal lives with no awareness that judgment is coming that's the point of eating drinking marrying giving in marriage likewise just as it was in the days of lot they were what eating and drinking buying and selling planting and building but on the day when lot went out from sodom fire and sulfur rain from heaven and destroyed them all so it will be on the day when the son of man is revealed on that day let the one who's on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away and likewise let the one who's in the field not turn back remember lot's wife whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it but whoever loses his life will keep it i tell you in that night there will be two in one bed one will be left and the other taken i read that backwards but same meaning there will be two women grinding together one will be taken and the other left and they said where lord and he said to them where the corpses they're the vultures gather how enigmatic jesus is sometimes very enigmatic interesting though okay um let me just focus on your question instead of like a whole thing on in stuff right now your question is why did jesus mention these things eating drinking buying selling planting building getting married in this passage what he's saying is there will be those who are living in this world as though it's just going to keep going and then he comes and judgment comes and they're not ready for it and so the thing is for the application for us simply is this is not that you can't get married or buy and sell or any of that but rather that you first get your life right with god your number one your number one priority is that you are in the kingdom of christ his invisible kingdom in this world that is in the midst of us that you are part of that kingdom you belong to christ your security in in your eternal security is in him that's the idea and um uh i'm not meaning to allude to uh tulip there but anyway the uh the the idea here is for us to realize that a lot of times when people hear the gospel of christ what they're really doing is making a decision between living for his eternal kingdom or living for this world now you might get saved and still have a job and still build and plant and stuff like that but you're doing it all in light of the fact that it's all going to burn and that you want to store treasures in heaven and that's the main focus so he's warning us about a worldly mentality that doesn't take into consideration that the kingdom's coming the kingdom's coming and you're either ready for it or you're not number 18 trent lancaster has a question says how do you interpret the day of the lord the phrase day of the lord do you understand it as a single day or do you see it as the whole tribulation period people seem to have differing views on this yeah trent i did a thing a long time ago on this um i don't think the term day of the lord is is means any specific time period so i think the term day of the lord represents any time where god is actively usually in judgment is actively like engaging in a very dramatic way in history so there's been many day of the lord moments in the old testament and in israel's history and there is a future day of the lord there's multiple day of the lord things coming but there is a particular day of the lord that's coming that is that tribulation time okay and so in that sense the day of the lord is not that specific of a term it can be used to apply to lots of things so trying to say every time you hear day of the lord it refers to the to the one day or a season it it's just it's just too flexible to be given a a limit like that um i would i would easily say that the tribulation period is the day of the lord and then the the moment christ sets his foot back on the earth is also the day of the lord like these it can be used in a flexible way so that that's my view on that number 19 dustin hoover says big fan thanks dustin just wanted to clarity on john 15 1-8 is jesus talking about people losing their salvation or people walking away from him and the faith can't wait for your teaching on hebrews god bless i'm looking forward to it as well dustin um as i go to the john passage and we'll look at it together i am currently doing my massive prep study on women in ministry and all the related passages i have tons of stuff coming you guys away from that i'm not really sure how i'm going to teach it whether it's just one giant teaching or probably a couple different videos we'll we'll see we'll see i have tons of research still to do um that may take weeks or even possibly months sorry i appreciate your guys patience um just want to do a real good job with it and then we'll do hebrews after that is over um so john 15 i am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that does does bear fruit he prunes okay so takes away we'll talk about that in a second already you are clean because of the word that i've spoken to you abide in me and i in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine neither can you unless you abide in me i am the brain i am the vine you are the branches whoever abides in me and i in him he it is that bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing i always thought this was really interesting the way it's worded he's like you can do nothing it's up to you you want your life to amount to ultimately nothing like that's what you can do apart from him it's just you can do a lot but it ends up being nothing if anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned okay that does not seem to be referring to people who are saved right okay so that's like is that suggesting you could lose your salvation i'm not going to talk right now about the too much about that he takes away there's a debate on this does it takes away or lifts up let's just skip because whatever we answer there we still have to deal with this um that if anyone does not abide in me he's thrown away like a branch and withers to abide in means to remain so some would say this this is evidence that you can lose your salvation because you were originally in christ but you didn't remain in christ you didn't abide in christ but one of the problems i think with john in particular um or really the gospels when when we approach the gospels from a um christian perspective is that sometimes we forget that they were introducing the gospel to a group of jewish people and then it sometimes takes on a different connotation some of the passages we're reading and this this is one of them so the vine terminology in the old testament israel is the vine but jesus he is like the true vine he's like true israel and your connection to god has to do with you being connected to him that's the big reveal moment for the for the gospel of john here hey israel you're not just saved by you being israel you need no you were all about me and you individually are not part of this kingdom unless you're plugged into me into christ not not mike winger he was no he's not necessary in anybody's life um so john 15 i'm the true vine my father's the vine dresser he calls god his father he says that he's the true vine it's all about christ it's all about him israel was all about him and you're not truly going to be part of israel unless you are part of him so every branch of me that does not bear fruity takes away every branch that does bear fruity prunes this is all about like hey it's gonna all going to depend on your connection to christ so then who are the branches that don't abide well here's where i i think we've gone sometimes a little beyond the text here okay if anyone does not abide in me he's thrown away like a branch in withers i think this represents the same thing john has been dealing with all along which is he came to his own john 1 but his own did not receive him right or you don't believe me because you don't believe moses right jesus is coming into a jewish community that should be primed and ready to trust the messiah some of them do many of them don't and that's i think what he's talking about hey israel you've been you've been used to carry the promise of the messiah and now you've borne the messiah and now will you abide in the messiah will you be in christ so when you look at it like that that he's coming from a community of people who some ex accept christ and summer jet christ but they all were supposed to because he's the true vine i think it just doesn't relate to whether you can lose your salvation or not that that's my view on the john passage it just doesn't relate um my my opinion i encourage you to read through all of john and recognize that jesus is in throughout john entering into a community of people who in one sense are the people of god but are they really are they really individually part of god's kingdom truly and that will depend on how they treat jesus and that i think is what you're getting there number 20 km says you said that we should leave in the longer ending of mark's gospel because removing it could upset some christians okay i'm gonna i'm gonna read the rest of your question in a second but km that's not what i say at all i definitely don't say that um so definitely just and i'm sure you're not trying to misrepresent me here it's just a misunderstanding sometimes i'll i'll see things and i'll think did i not say that well enough because i because i see someone commenting like i don't know how they got that i don't think that so i do not think you should leave the longer ending in because it would upset christians my concern about it upsetting christians is that i care about people and i don't want something to stumble them or hurt them or harm them okay but that doesn't mean i'm making a decision about what should happen to the longer ending because of that like i'm not doing that i think we should leave the long ending of mark's gospel in because of my view of canon canonization like how we get our scripture from god and um i tried to make this case in a video i did a few weeks ago on the longer ending of mark and you guys can find that on my website or on on my youtube channel and it's just uh it's it's it's the mark series part 69 that's the part this session that we did here's the short version of it um i don't think that mark authored these last 12 verses i don't think they were originally part of mark's gospel okay that you might think is two reasons to not include it in your bible but i do think it's very very early and it has that testation very early like like early second century it was part of mark's gospel and i i don't mean it became part in the early second century it's just like probably by the early second century it's part of mark's gospel it's being it's being put there but where did it actually come from it could be that it came from teaching of the apostles it could be that it came from teaching of trusted elders who were who sat under the apostles i don't know but what i do know is when you look at the manuscript evidence over time you see that it more and more becomes a dominant feature in mark's gospel and my understanding of canonicity is that the canon the the the books of the new testament and the old testament this is just what happened to us like we didn't pick them they just they picked us like they picked the church so to speak god just gave it to us and the church just looked around and went here they are and um uh when i look at the way that the long range of mark takes place it it feels like it may be that case i don't know for sure but it may just be that this is what the holy spirit had for us now i have a little theory as to why it was you know the way it was and that is that mark was writing for um communities that would hear the gospel they'd see it end at verse eight and then immediately living witnesses would would appeal to them their own eyewitness appearance of seeing jesus or them having met peter having met paul or having met james or someone who had seen christ risen and the communities would then that would be more impactful than having a written account at the time because those witnesses were accessible and then some time went by those witnesses are no longer accessible and so then the summary of the appearances of christ and of the going out of the gospel becomes attached to mark and it may well be apostolic it's consistent with the other teachings in the scripture so i'm suggesting that it's there right um it looks like maybe that's what the holy spirit had intended for us and i don't have the guts to cut it out because i'm so confident it doesn't belong that's it it's not because of removing it would upset christians then the rest of your statement is uh if this is so then should we begin including things like the comma johannam that's that's the story of the first john 5 where it talks about the it's a trinitarian verse and that probably is not almost certainly was not originally in the passage um and uh it's good doctrine it just wasn't probably there should we include that because removing it would upset some christians no because that's not my philosophy here uh where do you believe we should draw the line and why i think we should draw the line that uh when a text is part of the overall new testament very early on very very early on right but you know by the time it's universally known to the church it's like part of the text like that that's that to me is a big deal okay and i don't think the kami ohana fits that description so so yeah yeah okay i hope that that helped clarify um tough stuff all these things thank you guys for joining i will not be with you monday i was going to try and pull together a video for monday but i'm just not going to be able to do it in time and i'm going to i want to devote i was going to do a random thing but i'm going to devote my time to prepping for women in ministry which means you won't be hearing from me on mondays as much for a little bit maybe here and there we shall see but i will be doing every friday every friday without fail except for next friday there's there's nothing happening next friday no stream it may be two weeks before i have another live stream um but i will have a few other little videos that will pop up here and there that you guys can see anyway just giving you a heads up thank you for joining i hope i've given you something to think about the goal here is to think biblically about everything not just to learn what mike thinks about things i'm more interested in you learning the process of looking at a passage in context and grabbing its different elements and trying to compare it to other scriptures that is invaluable and i hope that it is equipping you to do your own thinking to answer your own questions and answer the questions of others so thank you thank you thank you you guys have a wonderful day lord bless you

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 35,199

Rating: 4.9251208 out of 5

Keywords: 20 questions, BibleThinker, Mike Winger, question and answer, think biblically, Q and A, episode 48, ep 48, part 48

Id: 6_WWDooGj1s

Length: 97min 16sec (5836 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 10 2021