20 Questions with Pastor Mike (Episode 8) Fixed and Reuploaded

all right we are live and the first question today is um calvinism and it's about the five points of calvinism let me share with you guys what i was asked it's somewhere there it is from paul rem on facebook um this question was actually asked a little bit ago um but i went back into the logs to find a question for today to start with and he says of the five points of calvinism are there any you a firm or what is the one point you see that is the hardest to reconcile um sidebar while i personally resisted for years what is reformed theology by rc sprole was what ultimately pushed me over the edge and side note um i couldn't sleep well last night as the bags under my eyes probably declare but i actually listened because i i just listened to the whole thing from rc sprole on uh what is reformed theology i've heard a lot of it in the past but i listened to it again here is my answer to your question paul um and i i'm surprised because i'm you know kind of what our suspect is what i'm going to do here he didn't really defend reform theology there he just presented it right he just explained it to find it and that it moved on interesting that him simply explaining it is what convinced you i find that really interesting now here is the idea of tulip tulip is a for those who don't know tulip is a a way to summarize calvinistic theology the distinctives of calvinistic theology and while in many ways i am reformed in many ways and and i get along so great with my calvinist brothers and sisters we agree on so many things you would find that most most the time if i'm not talking about calvinism we're probably in agreement on stuff and i think it's an in-house discussion we shouldn't argue and all that but but in so many ways i'm reformed i believe in the solas i believe in um you know especially solar scriptura right and i believe in grace grace alone solo gratia so i believe in the solas all five i think they're extremely important and it's just how they play out in our theology that makes me not a calvinist ultimately that's the thing so let me answer paul's question by running through tulip point by point the t-u-l-i-n-p and then giving you guys uh just a quick explanation at least of where my position is on this now i'm not going to try and do a full teaching on calvinism here today that's not my goal i have links in the description where i go into a lot more detail on these issues this is just a summary then i'm going to your questions because this is the friday q a and i'm going to try to take up to 20 questions today hopefully we'll get that far now the the the tulip the acronym tulip it let me just give you what it stands for t stands for total depravity u stands for unconditional election l limited atonement i irresistible grace and then p perseverance of the saints and this is the idea that um that that grounds sort of identifies calvinistic theology and its distinctives a lot of calvinists are five point calvinist they mean they hold all five of those points some are four-point calvinists in which case they probably don't hold limited atonement that's probably the most commonly rejected one amongst calvinists but let me walk through them and tell you why i actually would say i don't hold two now i don't outright reject all of them but i don't hold to any of the five points of calvinism and if i explain why then maybe it'll make good sense for everybody who's listening in the first one and the one that everybody seems to agree on or at least a lot of people seem to agree on is total depravity the t of tulip total depravity is the first one that i actually reject but the reason why i reject it is because it's not what a lot of people casually think they think that calvinism is teaching that people are are really sinful and they need jesus in which case everyone agrees like oh well then i affirm total depravity you can't be saved without jesus you're lost in your sin you're a rebel against the truth of god you need you need to be regenerated you need to be born again and jesus is the way and there's no salvation apart from him like these are all things i would affirm but that's not total depravity total depravity what makes it distinctive what makes it calvinistic is the idea that an unregenerate person when the gospel is being preached when the holy spirit is is not regenerating them but is striving with mankind as we read about in genesis where god says my spirit will not strive with man forever so his spirit striving with the unsaved when this is happening the holy spirit's bringing conviction of sin righteousness judgment to come the light of the gospel is being preached into a person's life that they will always say no that's th that's what makes total depravity total of gravity another way to interpret this is to say total inability another way to put it if if you get the gospel with the holy spirit working on you you will always always always reject god and say no that's total depravity it's not just saying that man is sinful it's saying more than that it's not just saying that every man needs a savior it's more than that it's not saying that that nobody can work their way to salvation it's far more indifferent than that total inability is something i reject because i do think that a person can respond to the work of the holy spirit and to the preaching of the gospel before they are born again and then when they believe they are then born again and this is a major distinctive with calvinistic theology and it basically says in calvinist teaching that regeneration precedes faith and this is profound when you understand this this this honestly of all the points of calvinism this reality of calvinism is where the light bulb went on in my head and i went oh i see it there aren't even five points there's just like one point said five different ways calvinist theology is just really very much about how regeneration precedes faith so total depravity the the statement is all will reject the gospel in every situation no matter how much god is reaching out no matter how much the holy spirit's working on them unless that work is that he regenerates you you become born again you become a new person and now you can't help but believe and i do reject that i reject that regeneration precedes faith um now there there is some armenians who hold to prevenient grace and then they do affirm total depravity i'm confused by how they do that to be honest because it seems to me that i just don't i don't affirm total of gravity to begin with and i have a video where i deal with the the issue of divine hardening how god hardens hearts and i think i think this is something that challenges calvinism real specifically the idea that god hardens a person's heart specifically in relation to the presentation of the gospel it doesn't work on calvinism yet we see this consistently in the gospel of john so in john's gospel we have we have god hardening people's hearts in relation to the gospel that doesn't make sense if we're totally depraved and there is we're already ultimately hard to the gospel of christ to the point where we'll reject it so i've asked calvinist on this like how do you explain divine hardening in relation to the gospel how do you explain that on calvinism and i've never heard a good answer so i've linked below my video on divine hardening i hope you guys will consider it it's actually a full teaching on the topic of divine hardening through scripture like why did god heart and pharaoh's heart that kind of thing in it i also address calvinism as a side note because once i establish the doctrine i go yeah this isn't consistent with calvinist teaching the next one is unconditional election so that's t total depravity i rejected unconditional election well you know i could affirm unconditional election if it meant we're saved by grace apart from works god doesn't choose us because of any goodness in us or any good thing we do i would totally agree right but i also define good thing as a work and faith is not a work so faith is not a good thing you do for which god returns you know gives you salvation you're not earning anything with faith the whole idea of faith is you're nothing god does all the work so unconditional election on calvinism is to say that for whatever reason god simply chooses who will be saved and this doesn't have anything to do with their faith or their believing in him it doesn't have anything to do with other other factors that might be like if you guys have heard of molanism that might be like that those kinds of factors the difference between and forgive me guys you don't need to learn this but if you know these terms it doesn't have anything to do with possible and feasible worlds it doesn't have anything to do with that kind of thing and it's just utterly irrelevant all that stuff god simply chooses some to be saved and they're going to be saved so unconditional election is is more it's less about saying that god chooses who will be saved because i actually would affirm that it's more about denying that you have an actual free will choice in the matter as well meaning that you could choose to accept christ or reject christ which is really the same as total depravity which is the same as irresistible grace these are all the same point so i i think that um god's foreknowledge does in a sense depend upon our faith i also think there's a case to be made for a corporate view of election in a lot of the scriptures that deal with it though not all of them i don't think um but a corporate view of election is like we're being chosen in christ so as in a sense you know here's here's those who will trust in christ and god chooses us in christ because you're in christ you're the elect in other words you trust in jesus you will be saved and just so you guys know i'm pastor mike winger and this is the friday q a where we do 20 questions with pastor mike i answer your questions from the live chat today i'm starting with a bit of a longer more involved question to intro the whole q and a thing and we're collecting your questions now which once we get 20 which will be very soon here we will stop collecting them and i'll just keep i'll just answer them today all right let's talk about limited atonement so we've got total depravity unconditional election i don't think either of those are true if if by unconditional you mean it's not at all conditioned upon things like possible feasible worlds or the free will choices of man that these aren't considered in the plan of god then um i i don't believe that if you mean it's not conditioned upon works i fully affirm it which is not what it means um now limited atonement is the next one and i absolutely reject this one limited atonement is the idea that jesus didn't really die to pay for the sin of the unsaved he only really died to pay for certain people's sins and this one gets hairy when you ask a calvinist to explain it it often gets very hairy and very complicated and you start getting really terminology new terminology you have to learn and try to understand what are they saying here but let me just say this i'm not going to unpack it in detail i have done this already i have a video where i deal with how limited atonement and universalism are both wrong i've linked that below and then i have a video where um after dr james white responded to my video and he brought all these arguments from guys like john owen who's like a calvinist heavyweight if there ever was one and i went and studied john owen's work on this topic and i brought a response video where we go deep into the theology of why i am rejecting limited atonement so those are two videos down below and um calvinist can listen to them you know you won't be bashed you guys you know if those who know me know that that's not gonna happen i i think the atonement is limited in application and the application is based upon those who believe in trust in christ see if you trust in christ then it's applied to you but the payment was made for everyone and i talk in more detail about that in that video those two videos the next one of the the tulip is irresistible grace and again if you start hopefully you're starting to click these are all the same point they're all the same point they're basically the idea that free will is somehow mankind choosing to to trust god is somehow in conflict with the sovereignty of god or with the grace of god so all these points are ultimately rejecting free will total depravity rejects the free will of man to choose to receive the gospel until after he's regenerated unconditional election rejects the idea that we are receiving salvation at all dependent upon our choices that god's factoring in our choices limited atonement rejects the idea that jesus even offered or truly offered truly paid the price made made provision for all people in his death and so your your will and your decision-making is ruled out irresistible grace does the same thing so just like total depravity says when you're not saved you you will always say no to god irresistible grace is the other side of the coin and when you are born again when you're regenerated you will always say yes to god so you're in one of two scenarios where ultimately you you only have one option to you know unsaved say no to god save to say yes to god and how do you get from one to the other god just regenerates you before you even have faith he just regenerates you and then you can't help but have faith and again i reject that as well i think that's that seems to be contrary to just the obvious teaching in scripture about people making real choices and then living with those real choices where they could have made a different choice the perseverance of the saints is the final letter in tulip p perseverance of the saints and this is the one i'm i'm not staunchly against i'm not i just can't totally affirm it and part of this is because when it comes to the perseverance of the saints the idea that um the saved cannot under any circumstances fall away under any circumstances so let me offer the one that i have the hardest time with even apostasy even somebody who says i don't want you god i reject the gospel i reject jesus christ i don't want you this is not a work issue this is a faith issue they've actually they've recanted their faith in christ that that that just either doesn't happen or doesn't work uh in their in calvinism usually they would probably just say it doesn't happen at all i'm actually not really sure of what my conclusion is on the topic of perseverance of the saints and after i finish the mark series verse by verse i'm gonna be going probably into hebrews the book of hebrews in that series i'm gonna do what i've done in the past with other topics at some point in hebrews maybe when we hit chapter six or four or ten i'm gonna stop and i'm gonna just do a long thoughtful careful study on the topic of can you lose your salvation and then i'm going to bring a long exhaustive video on the topic so that'll come out i don't know when that will be that might be a year out it'll happen when it when i get to it so that's the topic of perseverance now why do i ultimately reject all these points why is it am i just being antagonistic to calvinism it's no i just see that they're all one point they're all the same point that free will mankind making a free choice to accept or reject the gospel that that that is somehow in conflict with god's sovereignty or in conflict with god's grace and and to me right total depravity denies free will to choose to accept the gospel as an unsafe person then we have unconditional election it denies that god would consider human free will choices when choosing who is elect limited atonement it denies that jesus jesus's death was ever truly for all people implying they all have a free choice to accept or reject it right they're all just denying the same thing um then the irresistible grace it denies that the sinner can say yes or excuse me deny that's that's totally the property denies the sinner can say yes irresistible grace denies the saved can say no and there is no decision making in between it's like you just yeah you get you get the point really it's just that's about regeneration preceding faith and then perseverance of the saints denies the ability to choose to reject christ after being saved and um and that like i said i'm not sure resolved on that issue but i won't affirm it for the reason the calvinist does yeah and why because i think and this is why i did a video a long time ago that brought a lot of attention from calvinist where i just shared look this is what i think is one of the key issues in the debate between calvinists who are my brothers and sisters in christ who i love who i don't demonize nor do i demonize calvinist theology like a lot of people do i i just think that they're wrong and one misstep that's made in relation to free will is how free will is often treated as a work in calvinism and i have a video linked below where i deal with that as well all right i'm i'm going to go to your guys questions now so i do have some questions already loaded and i will take them all i think we probably have all 20 questions at this point so yeah we're not going to be able to keep receiving questions and i'll just continue talking as though as though you can hear me only in antarctica says jesus cast out many demon-possessed people on earth with the explosion of the human population and religions one would think this phenomenon would be more prevalent today but it's not any insight um only in antarctica i think that one of the differences that goes on between the ancient time right and our present time and between say third world countries where we see we they say we see a lot more demon possession and i think we do well maybe we do i'll talk about that in a second um and now so jesus's day and now one of the big differences is the belief in demons right now if they're believing that things are a result of demonic possession but our default in a westernized culture is to say no this isn't about demon possession this is this is just a purely a psychological problem this person's having then we're going to experience seeing a lot of things that are the result of demonic oppression or possession and we're going to call it a merely a medical ailment and that doesn't mean everything that's medical ailment is demonic possession but i think we've definitely gone overboard in overreacting to you know those who are uh too quick to call things demonic okay we still have people who doing this today of course but so i in my opinion there's probably more demonic stuff going on in the first world countries than first world countries are admitting and people are more inc you know being controlled ultimately by the power of satan in their lives than they're giving credit for and that may be just part of the plan of satan right you don't have people rebelling against you as much if they don't know you're controlling them and in third world countries there may just be more of an awareness of these things but it also may have to do with the particular things that are going on see in american or first world countries we often have not paganism although that's on the rise we don't have paganism in the worship of idols and personally purposely exposing ourselves to demonic things as much as in the third world where if it's not christianity it's some other more demonically inspired religion so you're directly encountering demons and demonic things more often in those third world countries because of the religions that are prevalent in them so that's another reason why you might see more going on in those types of worlds all right skeptic reviews has a question what's your response to the idea that isaiah was written by multiple authors um well i mean my initial response is i'm very opposed to it because partially because i've just always thought it was written by one author that's not probably a good enough reason to just reject it outright but i will say this one argument against it goes like this and i know people have responses to it but i still think it's a pretty strong argument and it would be that jesus quotes from okay and for those who don't know right there are some scholars who are saying you know isaiah through chapter 39 i think it is is written by one author we call that and they call that first isaiah and then second isaiah is written by a different author and it wasn't isaiah and it was written much later that would be that would be the statement there now as far as how this affects our understanding of prophecy as relates to christ it doesn't actually affect it because wherever you put second isaiah it's still long before the time of jesus okay that's that's pretty significant so it's still all the isaiah 53 stuff 52 this important prophetic stuff comes long before the time of christ but here's one argument i'll offer against it is that jesus quotes from both parts of isaiah from the early and latter part of isaiah and jesus still calls it isaiah and he doesn't just say from the book of isaiah but he says like isaiah said the implication is that he understood it to have one author and that he was carrying forward that idea and i think that that's kind of important for us to consider um i have looked into some of the other specifics on this but i can't remember them off the top of my head so i won't try to dig in haruhi anderson says do you believe in god as a matchmaker for christian couples oh this is a great question the doctrine of waiting on the one whom god has chosen as your spouse some pastors say this is a waste of time or unrealistic um okay i will there's two extremes and i don't agree with either one one extreme is that god has one person for everyone out there and you just have to find the one person the one and if you find that one then it now this is where it gets bad if you find that one you will have a good marriage and that is just this is very unhealthy very unhealthy that second part that if you find the one it'll be a good marriage that's very unhealthy a lot of christians walk into marriage thinking i did things right therefore i should have a good relationship with my spouse a fulfilling marriage and a very happily ever after and i think this is very unwise and it all it really does is it sets people up to grow very bitter towards their spouse and even bitter towards god because they had all these high expectations of fulfillment because they were they were such and think about this i did so good that god was going to reward me with good experiences in this life i mean this is prosperity gospel applied to marriage i think that's unwise and i don't think that god has picked a one for every person i think that that's un that's not just not taught in scripture you may have a personal conviction that that's true but at least recognize this your personal conviction is not based on the clear teachings of scripture you may go and say well god chose rebecca for isaac right he did and chose eve for adam right absolutely there was he was the one for sure no one can doubt that but where's the teaching that god will do this for everyone right god told abraham where to live but does that mean he'll tell all of us where to live no and if you think god chose you know rebecca for isaac well does that mean that you have to actually you don't even you don't even date you actually hire a matchmaker like a liaison to go to a foreign land to find your wife do you follow that pattern you're just arbitrarily picking things out of the text that that aren't clear proverbs says he who finds a wife finds a good thing i say don't find the one find a good one there's lots of good ones there's lots of good ones and your chances are gonna be better if you pick a good one i picked a good one i don't think my wife was the one i had to marry and i had no choice for someone else but i think she was a good choice that's but i think now the minute we get married she's the one the second we get married guess what now she's the one you thought if she's the one then our marriage would work that was wrong instead what you should think is i married her now she's the one there's no one else i'm stuck we're gonna be happy together or we're gonna be miserable together i may as well make it work and so that that's that extreme the other extreme is to think that god never has a one for you there isn't ever a1 but yet we have examples like isaac and rebecca where god seems to be selecting this and this is part of the genealogy of jesus and it seems like there is a one for some people okay that's how i would interpret that isaac passage in some cases there is just one person that god really wants you and to be with but that doesn't mean that you'll have a perfect marriage thereafter so that does happen sometimes but it doesn't mean that you're going to get a perfect marriage thereafter and it doesn't even mean that they're the only one it might be a plan a but god knows that you're going to reject that and you end up doing something else and so he factors in i mean we're all probably on plan f 47 in in our lives right now as we walk with god we're probably not on the best and most ideal path for our lives and we often want to idealize all our choices in the past but the reality is god's just able to use it all for good it doesn't mean that every choice i made was ideal and the same may come with marriage you you might have a one that god has for you you might not we're not commanded to wait on the one and god has to show us that they're the one i used to feel the same way and on a very more personal level i when i was going through this i really felt like the lord told me that my my my wife was my future wife allison wasn't the one she was a one she was a good choice because she was a believer she loved the lord she had a good relationship and respected me i think that's very important that respect thing and we had that relationship she loved ministry she was interested in ministry i didn't want to be hindered by being married to somebody who would fight against me serving the lord and so it was a good choice she was a good choice so i picked her so uh yeah ash cash says is it biblically okay for a trinitarian christian to marry a oneness christian um i think that it's no you probably sh i'm just going to give my quick answer here ash cash you probably shouldn't um because of the theological baggage that comes with oneness that is you're that's going to make a compromise with your loyalty to god i always think about the kids okay when you have you think oh we have theological disagreements but we're okay we're just gonna we're just gonna disagree and be okay with it yeah that all sounds fine until you have kids and all of a sudden it's like no we're gonna take him to my church no we're gonna teach him what i think not what you think and then it then you realize there's going to be a tug of war on this topic you're just asking me about wisdom here i don't think that that seems like wisdom i think god can use that marriage and god can be glorified in it of course but i'm not going to suggest it quiet says or quent uh nick you know i know nick i just can't remember how your last name is pronounced quint quiet in constructing a biblical theology where do we start how do we construct a biblical method for doing theology um that's a huge question nick and you probably have some real specific things in your mind so my answer might not be on target here but here's my thought that when we use the word biblical what we mean is according to the bible or consistent with the bible so it all has to start with studying passages in context to try to understand their original meaning but not only that sometimes it's going to sound weird but sometimes the focus on original meaning becomes a damaging way a damaging thing by ignoring the unity of the bible as though mark has his own theology paul has his own theology and we and you know um moses and the law has its own theology and that these things aren't part of a continued ultimate cohesive revelation of god so i would say study passages in context but in context we'll include the doctrine of inspiration and that we see god's revealing things throughout all the scripture which means that i can take passages like paul teaching on justification and i will understand that that gives me a better understanding of justification for interpreting uh things like uh the preaching of jesus and knowing the difference in the jews and the gentiles is important for like the whole bible actually so i say we start with learning how to read things in context which is just basic english skills interpreting stuff in you know in its actual context as the not just as the original audience would understand it that's part of it part of it but i really think inspiration takes us beyond that not in contradiction with that exactly but beyond that knowing that there was in the mind of god and agenda behind the text when isaiah wrote isaiah 52 and 53 he didn't understand it as well as we do now and that's part of the doctrine of inspiration why because in the mind of god who was inspiring the writing it meant more than it did in the mind of isaiah or even his original audience so inspiration should affect our biblical theology um soul has a question hi mike and any advice for a christian who lives with parents that are always swearing drinking and watching vulgar things when i give them my opinion they think i'm being judgmental am i um well in a sense you're being judgmental but not necessarily bad judgment i mean you're you're discerning right and wrong of the things going on around you well let me say this soul [Music] first your obedience to christ doesn't mean their obedience to christ and i'm not saying you should just be okay it doesn't matter if they're living with major compromises in their lives but your obedience isn't theirs it's entirely possible for your you to walk in holiness where they're watching a show and you're like this is inappropriate and you just quietly get up and step out they already know how you feel about it you've already told them about it you don't have to tell them every single time and create that that tension that's there where every single time you mention it and there's a balance here may god give you wisdom but my advice is you don't sin and that's your top priority which includes bitterness towards your parents uh rudeness towards them irresi being disrespectful towards them these are the things you will not do even in response to their sin and beyond that there will be some discomfort because in my experience for people who are young enough that they're living at home when they get saved their parents initially love it man he's just she's just a better person now like more joyful more responsible more just good just a better person i love this but then you know a month two months six months goes by and now they're like yeah but now now he or she's not approving of the things i'm doing this is bothering me and so i often find doing youth ministry that a kid would get saved his parents would love it at first and a few months down the road the parent would be fighting against their christian teachings because the kid's like yeah i don't think i'm going to watch that i'm not going to play that game oh i'm not going to laugh at that joke and it was just irritating to the parents because they're not following christ so that irritation may remain just make sure it's not coupled with any sin on your part yeah dan dan says hi mike my country armenia a christian nation since 3018 is defending their lives from genocide by turkey and azerbaijan what are actions i can take as a christian that is can i go to war if it is to defend dan dan my philosophy theology on war is pretty simple there is such a thing as a just war there is such a thing as rightful defense that does involve violence towards others that's such a thing that's a real thing and i don't know how anyone can affirm the bible and deny that there are pacifists and i think pacifism is when you draw it out to its full conclusion when you're pacifist in every scenario i think it's actually evil i think if a cop stands by and watches you being beaten down and killed and they realize well i yelled at the guy to stop but only violence will stop his violence and the cop says well i'm a pacifist i think he's being evil and abdigate abdicating his duty to protect his fellow man there are times now what when is when is the right time of adjust wards i mean that's a huge topic but basically right when it's legitimately justified self-defense that would be a just war problem with war is that sometimes it's it's both sides are wrong sometimes you don't have a right side and i think it gets you get into situations are very difficult to analyze and figure out am i supposed to fight or not and i think that's extremely difficult and i can't just walk someone through that in a q a here but in principle yes just war is a real thing and we see this in the text of scripture we actually see battles where there's clearly a good and clearly a bad and god is clearly on someone's side but we also see in scripture read the book of judges a number of battles where god's on nobody's side they're all just a bunch of knuckleheads just sitting against each other and so it's not like every war has a right side there are somewhere just everyone's wrong brent smith says hi mike what separates us from an angel they had or have free will too right is it possible for them to fall from grace or heaven if they choose thanks bren my my understanding of this is that they do have free will and they have the they had the ability to choose to rebel against god or to choose to be loyal to god and what makes us different than angels i think is that we're in the image of god and they are not in that sense um we are then indwelt by the holy spirit i think that the in side note i think the indwelling of the holy spirit is something that's connected to being in the image of god that the way we've been created we can connect with god on a in a way that they cannot and also we're born fallen we're born with these sinful proclivities whereas angels would have been initially created holy and then chosen to fall now adam in a sense was made that way but not the rest of us we're all we're all just born this way so there's a couple of the differences and um i'm inclined to think that while angels have a time when they can fall they could choose to reject and fall that there is also a time when that seems that decision that choice seems to have been made right so they're presented with the choice to accept or reject they accept they're going to stay that way they're going to continue to accept because they've made the choice and and a way to put it is this way a person who chooses to steal when they're young is more likely to steal when they're older a person who never steals as a kid is very unlikely to steal in the future because we're um yeah we're we're getting locked into our decisions because we sort of become the thing we choose so i think that there's a sense in which they're probably not going to be choosing anything like that in the future enigma deplete says hi mike have you heard of the bereshit prophecy in genesis 1 1 regarding end times it is something i've run into a lot recently i wanted to know if you have any thoughts on it so enigma bearish sheet is just a word that means uh beginning in the beginning right so we see in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth there's a bearish that that's what that word is if memory serves if someone calls that a prophecy in genesis 1 1 they're probably making stuff up i'm just going to say i i haven't looked into this i haven't heard their case but i'm like 95 sure they're just making stuff up and using hebrew to trick people into thinking that they found something this is the kind of thing we see online man 2020 is like the year for false prophets and made-up stuff um so that's my honest answer and i haven't looked into it in detail maybe it's a lot more respectable than that but probably not just today i have some experience in these things grace lou 22 says my jw friend says the greek for soul just refers to any living person or any living being person or animal and that the immortal soul is taken from the greeks and was not a jewish belief how would you respond this is like a historical argument about the definition not just the definition of the word soul but the concept of a soul and the those who preach um annihilationism or conditional immortality they i've heard at least some of them say that those who who die they just they just you just stop existing this is just what happens okay and the idea that you live on after death was a later idea that was imported from greek teaching greek philosophies and then brought into the christian church but it's not in the text of scripture that you automatically live on after death i'm probably sharing this clumsily but but that's the basic idea what's my response to that is it just doesn't seem to be the case when i read things like samuel coming back from rest and he's disembodied and he's interacting with saul and with this this witch in in in the whole passage of the witch of indore which sounds like a star wars movie right at any rate like that doesn't seem consistent um there's there's other passages also that don't seem consistent i think there's a lot more after life hope than a lot of people admit in the old testament that seems to push against this idea but maybe i'll study into this topic more in more detail in the future don korotko has a question do you plan to do more verse by verse studies other than the books of oh on other books of the bible mark is great thank you don i'm really glad that you're liking the gospel of mark so i think what's next is the book of hebrews and i've also done romans and i've done first peter that's all on my youtube channel and available i think on the podcast i hope it should be we want it to be the um the next thing's hebrews after that and i say after that this is like forever after that's gonna be like two years from now but maybe after that i'll go to an old testament book i just feel like we need more teaching on the old testament available out there woolpack says is it a sin for christian for a christian not to vote in elections will not voting negatively affect one's relationship with god thoughts or advice thank you very much mike i actually was thinking about this earlier this week here's my thought here's my theory i'm going to put this to you guys as a theory okay um rulers have responsibilities in god's eyes if they abdicate their responsibility and they're they're like leaders like presidents kings governors bosses parents like anybody who's an authority over others they have responsibility and if they don't do the job they're abdicating that responsibility and they're guilty of moral failing i think that in democratic countries where you have a vote i think that you are a ruler too you're a tiny little microscopic ruler and if you don't vote i think you're abdicating your responsibility that god has given you to influence the the people around you and the government and try to push them towards godly righteous things to legislate morality and you can't legislate morality that's the most self unaware statement i've ever heard that literally all all legislation is is almost all of it is legislating morality in fact the idea that you can't legislate morality is a moral claim about what you can legislate it's immoral to legislate morality which you can't do because it's immoral which is self-refuting anyway so i do think we have a responsibility to vote because we have a rulership role in a democratic nation and so yeah i think we have i think it's a moral issue you need to vote and you need to vote godly um yeah so folky says is is it better not to give if you can do it oh if you can't do it cheerfully or lovingly or would it be better to give even if reluctantly in order to pick up your cross and try to imitate jesus i don't mean just money yeah i think um the lord loves a cheerful giver and we're told not not to give grudgingly nor to give by force so no one can force you to give and this is in first corinthians nor are we supposed to give grudgingly meaning that it's like oh i really don't want to give and now you could interpret that to be so if i'm grudging i shouldn't give but giving isn't the thing you're supposed to stop it's the grudgingly part you're supposed to stop so the right application is to give generously and to give cheerfully but what if my emotions aren't there what if i just i'm not feeling this giving thing i think that that's where there's a balance between okay i'm just going to die to myself i'm going to i'm going to with the acts of will i'm going to choose to give and i'm choosing to do so in as cheerful a manner as i can if this giving is good this giving's appropriate maybe it's serving in a ministry but if you don't if you say well if i'm grudging then i should stop then i think that tens of thousands of pastors have to quit tomorrow because they're struggling and serving the lord because it's hard for them to get up and go on trip to church on sunday and preach another study because they're having a difficult time going to do counseling and they find that they just don't feel like it and the answer is never to follow your flesh it's always to follow the spirit so it's sort of like a will decision i'm going to give and i'm going to fight the grudge that is inside my heart about giving or serving or whatever and i'm just going to do the right thing and do my best to do with the right attitude so yeah that would be my counsel on that don't let my bad attitude keep me from doing good things that's a good principle austin hallman says what is the purpose of a church service should it primarily be for believers or should it be intentionally inclusive of those in attendance who are not saved i don't know if we have a hard and fast rule on this um i will say this that the purpose of the church the body of christ is both evangelism and discipleship both it seems appropriate that the church has some measure of both of those things going on but in reality if your church is the majority of your church is believers then you probably need to focus on discipleship not evangelism on your sunday service if you have the majority of people showing up on sunday are non-believers then you probably want to focus on evangelism not as much on discipleship because you're just trying to meet the needs of the people you see the people you see their needs and you try to meet them so i think that there's some flexibility we can have here most churches the emphasis should probably be discipleship right doesn't mean that's all you do you can still do evangelism you can even have services that are focused on evangelism you should always be aware that people are you know what i want to do is teach on a regular basis on sundays although i'm not teaching sunday mornings anywhere anymore but uh i want to teach on a regular basis on a sunday morning service if i know that's the one where people are bringing their unsafe family and friends where they because of my regular weekly habits as i preach and teach where they think i would want my unsaved co-worker to come i would want my unsaved family member to be here because he's not only discipling me but he's trying to keep an olive branch out to them so it's at least you know the gospel is like salt that flavors everything else i do that to me seems like a smart way to do it um and it what it does is it creates because as a pastor no matter how many times you tell people bring your unsaved family and friends it doesn't matter okay it just doesn't matter very much what matters is that your congregants listen to your teaching week to week and they think to themselves i would want my unsaved family or friend to hear that message i'm gonna bring him you inspire people to bring people for evangelism by the way you teach on sunday morning which means being mindful of those listeners so yeah there's some balance there i hope that some of those thoughts were helpful for you austin um nat atheist this is question number 16 says hello pastor mike how do you respond to people who use the verses like first john 3 6 to say that as they mature in the faith christians come to a point where they have completely stopped sinning all right let's go to the text first john 3 6. it says no one who abides in him keeps on sinning no one who keeps on sinning has ever seen him or known him okay so first let's say this this verse i'm going to highlight it because there's just a block of text on your screen but this verse can't be used like i like legitimately think it can't be used for the way that people are using it that you're talking about they're using it like this you get saved and then you slowly progress to a point of sinlessness but that's not what the verse says it says if you're sinning if you interpret keeps on sinning as you're going to be sinless right any sin keep keeping on continuing any sin in your life as a christian if you interpret it to mean that you have to be sinless to qualify here then you have to say that it happens at the moment of salvation it's not a process from day one as soon as you've seen him or known him now you are sinless okay so this is not a progression this is not sanctification and some people reach a point of sinlessness and others have not this this can't be used for that now why wouldn't i use it to say that everyone who gets saved is always sinless therein you know from then on from then on out well first off we have lots of other scriptures that would refute that very clearly we have plenty of christians who sin i mean read the letter in revelation the letters that jesus writes to the churches he's constantly accusing them of sin issues we have um galatians 6 that tells us like if any of you falls into a trespass if any of you is caught up in sin let like you christians let you restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness so believers who deal with sins is an expected taught thing even in first john in first john chapter two verse one it says if any of us sin we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous but if you interpret this to mean saved equal sinless then first john 2 1 makes no sense because he would have to say none of us sin period so what does it mean well in the in the greek this is a and they do this in the english in the esv they try to give it to you he keeps on sinning the idea here is that in first genre there's those who are in darkness living in a life of rebellion against god and then when you're saved you're not doing that anymore it doesn't mean you're sinless it just doesn't mean you you just don't keep on going in that same path of godless life but if you do if you keep on if you're living that same life the ungodly unsaved lifestyle it's because you don't know him and that's a strong emphasis in first john but here keeps on sinning means i think continues in the unsaved lifestyle they had before they proclaim themselves as christians if you say a prayer and your life doesn't change then it may be that it wasn't genuine salvation to begin with that would be my interpretation of that proverbs 17 11 has a question mike i've been told by christians that their relationship with god is personal and that they don't wish to discuss anything in regard to religion is this biblical um no no no not at all it's utterly unbiblical and it's terribly embarrassing imagine if you will that i said my relationship with my family is personal so i never want to talk about my wife or kids or i don't have kids but but i never want to talk about my family i never want to talk about anything that goes on with my family because it's personal or if i said my my love for football is deeply personal and therefore i never want to talk about football or if i said i man i'm really minecraft is so great and i love it so much and my experience with minecraft is deeply personal which is why i never ever want to talk about minecraft please don't talk to me about minecraft i find it very offensive this is some kind of weird spiritual deception that's going on if you love god you want to talk about him you want to think about him you want to enjoy others who like talking and thinking about him you want to delight in him it's like fans of football get together and what do they start talking about quarterbacks and football and fantasy football and they're just delighting in it because they love it if you hate talking about god and jesus it's because you probably don't love god in jesus this isn't this is like a no-brainer to me or or is because you've bought some some sort of horrible lie that it's immoral to talk about the most important thing in the universe it's immoral to discuss the person who saved you from your sin who loves you and died for you the one who was nakedly put to open shame in order to save you but you wouldn't want to experience the discomfort of discussing him in public so embarrassing so embarrassing then there's a million scriptures that jesus says go into all the world preach the gospel to every creature he didn't say go into all the world but don't say anything because this stuff is deeply personal this is just one of the craziest things i've ever heard and it kills evangelism and it kills fellowship because you don't fellowship with christians if you don't actually talk to them about the lord anyway number 18 eighth day adventist says hey mike uh god bless you and thank you and all that you do my question is what is your uh what's your favorite bible verse a verse that you would look at daily that gives you courage or strengthens you or multiple let me just give you one i don't have a favorite verse one of my favorite verses and i don't at all cringe at sharing something that others talk about all the time as well is trust in the lord with all your heart lean not on your own understanding i know that it continues in all your ways acknowledge him and he'll direct your past but the part that just i meditate on is trust in the lord with all your heart only not on your own understanding i think this is foundational for so much of every every day of your life um another one is psalm 62 verse 8 trust in the lord at all times oh you people pour out your hearts to him god is a refuge for us beautiful beautiful beautiful this is this is the verse that was on the sign back when i was teaching in the church when we were allowed to be inside and um and the sign behind me had that verse on it hugely encouraging verse and i think that the most important verses are the ones that get our hearts at least for daily versus to be reminding ourselves of are the ones that get our hearts in the right place to live our lives in the right way for god to me faith trusting in not just believing christian truths but trusting in god i mean i trust him it's person this is deeply personal which is why i love talking about it i trust him i don't just believe that christianity is true i believe in god i believe in christ i trust and because of that i can i can walk in his ways and i can all of the uncertainties and stresses and worries of life are impacted by that nathan p says where's god's help when fighting a porn addiction why does it seem that crying out in prayer yields little help and even when resisting the temptation i'm left exhausted i'll offer two thoughts on this nathan one pardon me one thought is this you are probably um not acknowledging all the help that god's already given you first corinthians 10 13 says no temptation has overtaken you except that um here it is except that it is i haven't memorized in the new king james i'll just read to you in my head because this is going to mess me up no temptations overtaken you except that which is common to man but god is faithful he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able this applies to pornography he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but with the temptation he'll provide a way of escape that you may be able to bear it or endure it god is already helping you according to scripture if you feel powerless it's because you just keep making the same choices and that's my second point the thing i find that in my own fight against lust against sin but but in particular as a as a human being dealing with lust is i find this that we try to fight lust long after we have already started the fire burning quite brightly in our hearts and because of this we find ourselves powerless to put it out so you know when i was a kid we we went up and visited family up in las vegas and we'd spend time up there and it's in the desert it's super hot me and another knucklehead i was like i must have been well i probably was like 12. anyway uh we we went up and uh we started starting fires i'm not kidding in this like sort of flat open area right in the city but it was just this unimproved lot with a bunch of just brambles and weeds and stuff like that and we found a lighter in the ground so we started breaking off dried pieces of tinder and we started starting these little fires and then we would put it out and then we start another fire put it out start a fire put it out at one point we decided to make the fire a little bigger and all of a sudden the fire was just too big and we're standing there and i look around and i see there's houses here this oh my gosh i can't believe this i'm starting a fire in the desert what was i thinking now i realize what a fool i am and this fire is getting big i mean the flames are like coming up to my head and we're looking around and we're like what are we gonna do we're not able to stop the fire we notice a pair of jeans sitting like 20 feet away and one of us i don't remember who grabs the jeans and we start batting the fire because we just couldn't stomp on it with our feet we started batting the fire with the jeans and fought it and put the fire out barely i mean if we had waited 10 more seconds i think it would have been a massive like loss of homes because kids are stupid right like sorry kids you just don't know how dumb you are neither did i i wonder how dumb i am now that and i don't know it um at any rate that's what i think temptation is like i think that guys they or girls they start by looking at like just an image that's just attractive to them and then maybe i'm gonna go examine somebody's facebook profile because i see images i'm gonna go on instagram or tick tock or one of those other cesspools and i'm gonna i'm gonna go on here and i'm just i'm just looking at things that i find i find exciting or titillating a little bit in my heart but it's not like full-blown lust right like it's just you know it's it's starting a fire now that fire would have been easy to put out when your temptation was just to go on instagram it would have been easy to put out when the temptation was just to watch a show or a movie that probably you shouldn't that would have been easy to fight there but by waiting hours or minutes even until that fire has grown then you're trying to fight it and now you're like where's the help where's the help and it's like the lord was there helping you when you first decided to yield to the little inclinations towards lustful sin and that's where god was helping you and that's where you lost the battle and now you're dealing with the results and you feel like he's not helping you but you forgot that you didn't even start fighting until the battle was half over and that's why you're being overwhelmed i speak this as a human to other humans you have to fight sin at its root you have to make no provision for the flesh you have to say no at the very first inkling of temptation or then it can become overwhelming and i think that that i think that's huge um trust in god's provision trust that god is holding it back from you and just realized maybe you need to fight it a lot sooner last question for today ashley koenig says should christians follow old testament dietary laws many people point to acts but i'm stuck on the prophecy in isaiah 66 verses 16 and 17 where eating pork is still it uh still seems to be detestable to god even in end times well um let me set aside isaiah for two seconds and we'll come back to that in a minute in the new testament it's abundantly clear i mean abundantly clear and i i will please point you to this and if anybody hears me in the live chat right now while we're live please post my hebrew roots playlist in the live chat if one of my mods can do that and i will also put it in the video description after which i'll be logging off real soon here so that's a great thing to follow up on please because i go into tons of detail on this stuff tons in like four videos i mean tons we do a whole video like an hour and 20 minutes on the book of acts or we just survey it jewish gentile issues another video is just on like all of the stuff we get um i think from from paul like on colossians and all these passages that people who who say we have to obey the dietary laws are generally ignoring or misinterpreting in my opinion so i deal with all that in that video so that's clear that's just just clear right it's it's clear in the new testament we are not under the law of the old testament which includes not having dietary restrictions now if you voluntarily want to not eat pork go ahead you're totally able to do that if your conscience is like i just feel wrong eating pork or eating this or eating that go ahead that's totally okay you'll be vegetarian if you want you'd be vegan if you want there's nothing wrong with that it's just not required right that's just your conscience issue that's what romans 14 is all about what about isaiah though why does isaiah seem to speak prophetically about a time far in the future when the people are obser they're observing dietary laws well let's just say this i i don't know for sure how i interpret that as well as ezekiel ezekiel which talks about sacrifices taking place in the temple in the future temple that's coming and being approved and positive a positive thing um this may just be a like let's say most extreme answer would be a there's a reinstatement of the law for some purposes right maybe in in in israel where the nation of israel is during the millennium there's a um a place where there is no pork there is there are sacrifices or all that stuff and maybe it's not being applied to everywhere else in the world that's a hypothetical possibility there's also possibility god just for some reason reinstates those things for some picture some teaching lesson that he wants us to experience as a way of bringing jew and gentile together maybe that's the case or maybe there's some other interpretation that it's symbolic in some respect all that is is irrelevant to the clear teaching of the new testament that right now we are not under the law and we are not required to observe the dietary principles so by saying i think my interpretation of future prophecy is that there is a future time when these dietary laws are put back on people if that's true which i'm not sure that it is if that's true it still doesn't apply to what's happening now right because we're clear teaching about today so that would be like saying there's a future time when you have to flee jerusalem because of the judgment that's coming okay but do i apply that today should everyone just flee jerusalem every day all day long well no this is a prophetic future reality it's not an instruction for us right now i hope that that helps at any rate i will see you guys hopefully monday at 1 p.m pacific time where i'm going to be doing the mark series continuing that verse by verse study next week i have another video i'm hoping to get out on the um mirror bible translation that should be next week which is the worst translation i've ever seen in my life and then friday pacific time 1 pm we're gonna be having another q a hopefully without all the glitches that's it lord bless you and keep you make his space to shine upon you lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 78,527

Rating: 4.8663812 out of 5

Keywords: 20 questions with pastor mike episode 8, episode 8, 20 questions with pastor Mike, 20 questions, pastor Q and A, Q and A, question and answer, calvinism, 5 points of calvinism, tulip

Id: MEC36Rw1LJ4

Length: 58min 49sec (3529 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020