Annual Question & Answer Service 2021 | Gary Hamrick

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh now this is the first time i'm doing the q a service with these two numb numbskulls who my wife gave birth to um and i had a small role in it but um but uh anyway these are my two cents if you don't know they both serve on staff here at cornerstone as pastors this is at the far end our oldest son tyler and then austin the middle child who has the middle seat right here and the middle child is always a little challenging in every family but anyway um and the older child always likes to tell the younger kids what to do yeah growing up so this is a this is a joy for me to be able to be here with with uh my two son we'll see how it goes maybe you guys won't be back next year maybe you won't be back now well you keep this up keep this up uh-huh all right you're fired go home um so anyway we're gonna we're gonna do the best we can to answer some of these questions and i'm gonna take um the first couple and uh and let's pray first and then we'll we'll dive into these we we have a lot of questions that people are texting in lord this is your day we just thank you for your your grace and um we ask lord for you to just guide us in all of these questions and answers we want this to be pleasing to you and we want it to be edifying to the body of christ today we thank you for a new year we just pray you go before us bless this year lord the good of it and the bad of it and continue to just glorify yourself uh we love you lord we thank you for your your many kindnesses to us as a church as just as individuals as families we just commit this time to you lord in jesus name and everyone said amen amen before you start all right before real quickly just want to take a moment to appreciate him so 2021 and he doesn't know i'm saying this but 2021 marks 30 years that you started cornerstone 1991 30 years thank you yeah i don't know where 30 years have gone but uh you weren't even a thought now tyler was just barely one just a lad just a young member at all but yeah you do yeah it's amazing that's amazing yeah um yeah so 30 years ago first first sunday of 1991 yeah yeah crazy all right um now that that's out of the way okay so right out of the gate so we've been getting this question and this this is not specifically a bible question but you're wanting to know um you know a biblical approach or uh a pastoral position on something and so many of you been asking you know what is the church's position on getting a covid vaccine vaccination but the part of this question is where cells involved are from abortions i have to be honest with you i didn't i had to look this up um this morning when i when i saw the question starting to come in there's there's some debate about that part about the cells involved from abortions the best i could tell in a quick overview is that um some cells from aborted fetuses a few decades ago were used in the testing of pfizer and both pfizer and moderna did that in the testing of the initial stages of the vaccination but there are no fetal tissue or cells used in the manufacturing of it so it's not like you're going to get injected with fetal cells but you know what to be honest it's so difficult these days to know what sources to trust and so i i don't want to you know say anything definitive about the use of these cells because in my quick review of it in just a few minutes before the service you know i saw some conflicting things and i don't honestly know what to believe about it here's here's what it always comes down to you know as a believer you and i have been given what is commonly referred to as a sanctified conscience there are a lot of things in life that you may not have chapter or verse about in the bible of course anybody who's been here for any length of time knows that as a church and me as a pastor we're very pro-life here life matters from the womb to the tomb and uncompromised positions we've taken on being pro-life but there are a lot of issues that happen in life where you may not have chapter and verse uh to give you clear guidance so what it comes down to is a you have to exercise your sanctified conscience there are there are some people who uh have problems with the covid vaccine then don't get it there are other people who are like i can't wait till it comes out then then get it um it really does come down to some things to a matter of personal conscience um and so um exercise that make a personal decision do your homework i need to do more homework myself about it um but it really should it's not we don't the church is not going to have a position about it um but as far as like what is beneficial to you personally do your homework make a personal decision about it and that comes down to your own sanctified conscience one more question i'll do before i throw it over to you guys somebody asked it seems impossible for noah to get a pair of every animal on the ark how can you believe that these stories are true aren't they just moral lessons i think it's more than moral lessons i take the bible literally and there are some allegorical uh passages of scripture but otherwise it's a literal book that should be taken literally read literally understood literally dr henry morris wrote a book years ago called i think it was called in the beginning and it's a commentary in the first 10 chapters of the book of genesis and he determined that based on the best scientific analysis that there were probably around 18 000 species back in the days of the ark of mammals and amphibians and reptiles and 18 000 species of animals the average size of which was a sheep and so you could get 36 then if you took a pair of 18 000 every species you could get 36 000 animals on one third of the ark so it's it's not far-fetched it's it i don't think these are fables um at all this is this is true and it's history and it's uh god's documented uh record of his involvement uh in not just creation but in mankind and the ultimate involvement is to redeem us from our sins all right who wants to take one over here i can take one but um i mean another reason you should know that question is because i thought you were there that day that's two i'm gonna take note right that's two all right so i'll take a question that came in is there any mention in roman history of jesus's resurrection and i love this question we have specifically i'm just going to list three quick roman resources that specifically talk about jesus and christianity they don't necessarily specify or speak about jesus's resurrection in full but suetonius he was a roman biographer of the day first second century a.d tacitus was a roman historian that speaks specifically about jesus and his followers and then pliny the younger pliny the younger was a roman governor in the roman province of bithynia and speaks about jesus as well but i'm actually going to direct you to some sources here and i'm going to list off a couple of you don't catch them all you can this will be posted tomorrow you can go back rewind pause it here but some some men in the faith who have done just some obviously more research than i have on this subject experts in their field a great book is the case for christ by lee strobel lee strobel was an atheist who was a a journalist for the chicago tribune i think in the 70s uh and his wife was a believer he went out there's a move there's been a motion picture movie done on this book that he wrote called the case for christ he went out to disprove his wife's faith his wife's christianity actually ended up going from an atheist to a believer in jesus because the evidence was uh just so overwhelming so the case for christ by lee strobel he details the research and the evidence that he um went through a great essay by aaron break called the facts of the resurrection i love william lane craig as well i'm great apologist william lee craig he has a video you can just google it on youtube what do scholars believe about the resurrection also another website i love is by stephen bancards is called reasonsforjesus.com reasonsforjesus.com goes into a lot of detail but i'm going to just quickly name two of the um of the the details that some of those scholars talk about and number one is the empty tomb the empty tomb being um such valuable evidence for the resurrection of jesus christ and um you know obviously an empty tomb you could say well they could have stole the body and that's exactly what jesus's uh enemies said back in the day but the interesting thing about the empty tomb is if you wanted to put that claim to bed real quickly that jesus rose from the dead you could have simply just gone and tried to find the body or said no the the stone is still covering uh the sepulcher the the tomb but they didn't say the disciples are drunk they didn't say the the tomb still has the body in it they said someone must have stolen the body so there is no debate there is an empty tomb there is an empty tomb so something happened to that empty tomb it's very interesting there's archaeological and archaeological archaeological discovery um from the time ad41 they found they call it the nazareth inscription the nazareth inscription from the time 1841 the roman emperor claudius wrote an edict to the roman world because of this this jewish uproar about this resurrected jesus and so it got all the way to the emperor of rome claudius at the time 80 41 and the nazareth inscription it's an edict from claudius that there will be capital punishment to those who remove a body from a tomb so something happened to the tomb that day it wasn't oh the disciples are drunk the disciples are crazy they're hallucinating it was no the tomb is empty and someone must have removed the body and that's exactly what matthew says in his gospel that the jewish leaders attempted to spread this rumor that someone must have stolen the body the disciples stole the body to um further perpetrate this lie that jesus somehow rose from the dead so the empty tomb and then number two the blood of the martyrs the blood of the martyrs i mean millions upon millions of believers have died for the faith specifically many of the apostles of jesus christ i mean i don't know about you but for me if someone you know peter was jewish history tells us that peter was crucified upside down uh he didn't want to be associated with jesus being crucified right side up but peter died for the faith james died for the faith um paul beheaded for the faith um if i'm put in that situation you can you can i'd be quick to tell the truth i don't think that many people would die for a lie so the blood of the martyrs those are just two quick things again research some of those sources that i mentioned they go into greater detail than i did in the quick two minutes that i gave but really good question and we celebrate a risen lord amen what you got down there at the end of the road tyler all right um so someone submitted a question texting and this person says their first time studying the bible but they refer to pastor gary and saying that you said that abraham was the first jew then how did he know who the jews were that needed to be rescued so simply put abraham was not the first jew he was a gentile and his name was originally abram and in genesis chapter 12 it happens after genesis 11 which is the tower of babel scene and if if you do your homework in the timeline scholars believe that it was a roughly 200 years after the tower of babel that god plucked abraham or abram first from mesopotamia and wanted to start a new people a nation through him so thus his son isaac and from there jacob and then you got the 12 tribes of israel would have been the the first jewish people the nation of israel coming from that but abraham himself was a gentile there was no israel in the first 11 chapters first 12 chapters of genesis there was no jewish people there was no jewish race and so abraham we have to remember that he was not a jew he's the father of the jewish nation he's the father of the the hebrew people but he himself was a gentile and god used him for his glory and for his purposes to begin a nation through this one man and uh it's just an amazing miracle how god birthed a nation through this this man and how he told him if your nation will be blessed and those that bless you will be blessed and those that curse you will be cursed and that is the same for us today those that bless israel will be blessed and those that curse israel will be cursed so god keeps the promises and he's still the god of israel and israel was was to be the the vocal the spokesperson for everyone um to know who jesus is and so um yeah that's about it yeah yeah it um you know technically abraham was a gentile it was there wasn't there were no jewish people the jewish race came from his seed and and the jews today see him as the father of their faith um but he technically was a gentile and the jewish race came from his seed okay a couple questions here what does cornerstone believe about the catholic church being built upon peter and it being the one true faith as catholics believe we have a lot of people who have left the roman catholic church are attending here at cornerstone i i don't have any uh hard statistics on it but i my guess is about a third of our congregation is made up of those who have catholic backgrounds the the question really arises out of matthew chapter 16 when jesus takes his disciples up to caesarea philippi and he says who do men say that i am and they offer these different opinions about the word on the street some say you're jeremiah some say elijah some say another prophet of old and jesus says well who do you say that i am and peter says you are the christ the son of the living god and he makes this profession of faith that jesus is the messiah that he is the christ jesus then says to him simon barjona simon son of jonah flesh and blood did not reveal this to you but my father which is in heaven in other words you're not smart enough to have gotten that on your own my father revealed this to you supernaturally and then jesus goes on to say in matthew chapter 16 verse 18 and i tell you that you are peter and on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hades will not overcome it or will not prevail against it roman catholic tradition takes that statement and says jesus founded the church on peter when you look at the greek language of the original language of the new testament it's not possible that that's what jesus meant and here's why when jesus said you are peter the greek word is petros and it means pebble he says you are peter and upon this rock and then the word there is petra i will build my church and petra means boulder something much larger than a pebble and what is significant about the language is that when jesus says you are peter petros is masculine and upon this rock petra is feminine i will build my church anybody who knows ancient languages knows that you cannot have a feminine word that modifies a masculine word in other words petra does not modify peter peter does not modify petra there are two distinct things there he's not saying upon peter i will build this church he's saying upon a much larger rock boulder i will build this my church and what he's referring to is the confession or the profession of faith that peter uttered you are the christ the son of the living god the church of jesus christ is founded upon the profession of believing that jesus is the christ the son of the living god not a man not peter you know if if the church of jesus christ is built upon a human being we're in big trouble it is built on the profession of faith that peter uttered but not on peter himself then one other quick question somebody asked can you clarify when we receive our glorified bodies and so it is true that as christians we will receive a glorified body meaning a body similar to the one that jesus had after he rose from the dead his body was imperishable and it was a glorified body so he still had physical attributes but he but it was an imperishable body that would not die again or would not um become frail or sick and so we get a similar body now paul will write in first corinthians 15 verse 50 he says or 51 he says behold i tell you a mystery we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible or imperishable and we shall be changed so here's the deal if you know christ as your savior and you were to die today your spirit separates from your body and your spirit goes to be with the lord in heaven your body goes into the ground and will decompose but when your spirit goes to be with the lord you don't have a glorified body it's just your spirit so when do we get a glorified body well that's what paul says there in first corinthians 15 there's going to be a moment when christ returns for the church and a trumpet blast is sounded and when the trumpet blast is sounded the people who are still alive the generation of people of believers who are alive at the time of the lord's second coming only in the clouds when he blows the trumpet will get their glorified bodies on the way up to heaven because that's why paul writes there that we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet so in a split second in the twinkling of an eye believers who are currently on the earth when christ returns in the clouds will get a glorified body on the way up but he also says there the dead shall be raised imperishable so those who have already gone on to be with the lord before his second coming they don't have a glorified body yet but at the sound of the trumpet the graves will open up and those glorified bodies will be risen up and reunited with the spirits that are presently with the lord in heaven so there will be some kind of a union of of a of a perishable body that is raised imperishable glorified and there's this reunion with the spirit of the individual who is in heaven so that then everybody at that time has a glorified body now there's another time that people get a glorified body those who died during the millennial period but that's that's for another bible study but um right now if you were to die you don't get a glorified body until the second coming of christ your spirit goes to be with the lord but you but the body is something different and it is raised imperishable at the last trumpet so that's that's when we get a glorified body a question that kind of is similar to piggybacks off of that so someone asks does scripture indicate that a person can only be saved during their time on earth is there any biblical evidence that suggests that one cannot be saved following the death of their worldly body they also ask what about unborn children toddlers and the cognitively disabled so yeah this is it one chance one shot one lifetime hebrews the writer of hebrews says in hebrews 9 27 just as people are destined to die once and after that not you get a second chance another moment but after death comes the judgment that's what the writer of hebrews says second corinthians chapter five paul says to be absent from the body is to be present with the lord so if you're a believer as dad previously mentioned if you're a believer when your spirit leaves your body to be absent from the body to be present with the lord i've heard a lot of conversation around this topic about soul sleep you just go to the ground and you sleep until christ comes back to be absent from the body paul says is to be present with the lord and so um you know we we need to take our time here on earth seriously um this is by god's grace that we have an opportunity here on earth to come to accept christ but um after this time on earth you bought your body goes into the ground then comes the judgment and have you surrendered your life to jesus christ have you given your life to christ and if you haven't there's punishment and if you have there's eternal life with christ and then to finish this question what about unborn children toddlers and the cognitively disabled scripture doesn't specifically directly answer that question but we see a a a passage in scripture where david many of you know the story where david has a an affair with bathsheba and they have a child together but as consequence of that affair the child dies and david mourns and prays to the lord and cries out to the lord lord please preserve the life of this child and the lord basically gives him a no because of the sin that david committed and then when david is done mourning after the child's death people come to him and say why are you not still mourning and he says my child will not come to be with me but i know that i will go to be with my child and so it implies you know there in scripture that um the unborn those who are not cognitively able to make a decision for christ maybe because of some disability it implies there that god's grace covers that and god's grace covers them because those we see in scripture those who are punished for their sin those who are punished and experience god's wrath are those who outright reject the lord they are able to cognitively make that decision to reject god reject jesus christ reject the gospel and i don't believe that children obviously and those who don't have the cognitive capability i don't believe that that they're able to outright you know reject the lord and and cognitively make that decision so i i believe in from that story with david's child i believe that god's grace covers covers them yeah awesome i have a end times question um this question says do you envision the new babylon as being figurative or literal and so what they mean by new babylon is mystery babylon and it's referenced in revelation 17 and 18. and people have speculated this mystery babylon of you know is it literal is it figurative for those that take the figurative side they've thought that it could perhaps be rome um saudi arabia new york city or even america itself as this mystery babylon babylon the city is mentioned second most all-time cities mentioned in the bible only to jerusalem jerusalem's number one babylon number two and there's two prophecies isaiah chapter 13 and jeremiah 50 that talk about the final destruction of babylon and this hasn't happened literally in all of history babylon has never been utterly destroyed it was it was really a slow death and it actually remained in some form until about a thousand a.d so jeremiah and isaiah's prophecies if they're to be taken literal has not even happened yet it has not come to utter destruction it's just been a slow death now if you remember in the 1980s saddam hussein attempted to revive and bring back babylon and he himself believed he was like the next nebuchadnezzar nebuchadnezzar 2.0 if you will and he it failed it didn't work but he he tried it and i do believe um my opinion and we hear it at cornerstone if we're going to take the prophecies to be literally fulfilled then i believe a literal babylon must be brought back to life only to be destroyed at the end of the tribulation revelation again 18 talk about this and i think it'll be a the literal babylon that's in iraq right now to be revived the mystery part is very interesting why is it called a mystery then i think it just may indicate that there's going to be something new that hasn't happened before with this with this babylon one of the new things will be that the antichrist in revelation tells us that he will control the world's economy by the mark the mark of the beast and babylon will be the capital of commerce in the end times and i i don't i personally don't believe it'll be figurative i think that this will be a literal um rebirth of babylon in iraq right now and and if you see iraq now in the past 20 years on headlines now never before was was iraq really mentioned now you see things in the middle east really coming to life and we're talking about the middle east all the time now in our news and i think personally if god brings back the nation of israel which was a barren dead wasteland and god brought it back to life then i think god can bring back babylon and he's going to use it as his vessel for the end times during the judgment time and so um is it literal figurative we honestly don't know but i think the bible leans heavily i think toward a literal babylon in iraq to be resurrected once again and the antichrist will use it as his headquarters for for part of the time yeah i think so too keep your eye on babylon it's about 50 miles south of baghdad and i think it's going to be revived again okay i've gotten several questions about elders one person asked first timothy 5 mentions the elders who direct the affairs of the church as cornerstone have elders we do we have eight elders who help to direct the affairs of the church which are different from pastoral elders every pastor is an elder not every elder is a pastor there are some elders we have in our congregation who are not called to be pastors but who still qualify as elders based on 1st timothy chapter 3 titus chapter 1 who helped direct the affairs of the church primarily in relation to the financial end of things the accountability of the finances and matters of building and acquisition and that kind of thing but then along that line a couple people have asked why doesn't cornerstone have members how do the elders know who they are responsible for shepherding if they don't know who is part of the flock how can you implement church discipline if you don't have members and it is true we don't have an official membership roster here at cornerstone i'm more concerned about you being a member of the body of christ and going to heaven then to have your name on a list as a quote member of cornerstone chapel it's more important that we know that you are a part of the family of god that's the more important membership you know i grew up in a mainline church where membership was only as good as someone decided to stay at a church and as soon as they decided they didn't like the way the pastor was they left and the membership really meant nothing how the elders of a church our size keep track of what is going on and potentially have to exercise church discipline we do have to exercise church discipline from time to time but that doesn't really have anything to do with membership that has to do with knowing your flock and and i'll be honest uh in a large church it is harder to do that but what usually happens is to the to the degree that it rises um to the attention of in small group leaders we have we have quantitative groups it comes to our attention uh the way that you know we have 14 full-time pastors on staff the way that they are integrated in the life of the church they find out you know you'll be surprised how a network of a communication happens in a church and and so we will learn of situations that have to sometimes be addressed and church discipline does have to sometimes be exercised but that is exercised whether or not there's membership or not that's based on something you're doing needs to be corrected and if it is not going to be corrected because it's a violation an overt violation of scripture then you're going to be asked to leave the church there is such a thing as church discipline it's a very fine line though because we want the holy spirit to work in people's hearts too and and so we're not going to just you know be examining everybody's life and then begin to say you need to leave because your life isn't right in this way or in that way we want people to come who have no knowledge of what is right and what is wrong and to have a chance for the holy spirit to begin to move and redirect their lives so we have to monitor it very carefully as elders and pastors to make sure that we are allowing room for the holy spirit to work but at the same time keeping a careful watch on the flock to make sure that there's not something that is detrimental to the body because there are those who are comfortable in in their sin and they know it's wrong and they continue to do it and they continue to pray on other people and so it is a difficult thing to monitor but it doesn't have anything to do with church membership membership is is typically only as good as what the member wants it to be and the moment they don't like something they'll leave anyway so it's not binding and so in that sense we have to just make a careful examination of the flock in general and do the best we can to address issues that need to be addressed the beautiful thing about and i don't i don't say this to just skirt the issue at all but i sincerely say this as glory unto the lord the beautiful thing about going straight through the bible which is what we do here when when a church teaches the word of god the word of god does its surgical work in the hearts and lives of people and what will typically happen that i've noticed over now 30 years here cornerstone is when god's word goes forth it convicts and people either then change or because of the conviction and they don't want to change they leave we've had to do very little personal confrontation because god's word goes forth and it does the confronting work on its own and the power in the word of god does his good surgical work in the lives of people and so we don't have to go around doing too much of that to be honest with you people either change because of conviction or they leave because of conviction and the holy spirit typically takes care of that all right we've already gone over time so what i want to do is real rapid fire if you see some questions that have like a 10 second answer let's do that real quickly and then we'll we'll pray all right i'll take a quick one the bible refers to james and jude james and jude as brothers of jesus were they actual brothers or is this a reference to them as apostles of jesus yes they were actual brothers they were half brothers same mom different dad obviously um that's good next okay all right but this is rapid fire we gotta go um how many times in biblical history before the resurrection of jesus manifest himself as a christophany exodus 3 genesis 14 and you have the book of joshua he's the commander of the army and also gideon so there's four right there is jesus's real name yeshua yeah i mean jesus is a greek transliteration of his hebrew given name which was yahushua the lord of salvation often abbreviated as yeshua so that would that was his original hebrew name next are christians the body of christ or the bride of christ you've used both those terms as synonymous are they synonymous yes they're synonymous in the sense that they both describe the collective uh body of believers um watch before the wrath i think the ladies watched it at one of their gatherings before the wrath with kevin sorbo the old hercules guy nice what a hunk okay um okay but yes body of christ that's the bride of christ both both talk about believers in jesus all right you want to do one what version of the bible do you use for your teachings i use new king james now i switch it a couple years ago because the niv went out of print and i don't like the revised niv so i went to new king james yes must i do all this well we'll leave you the east i've asked jesus yeah i've asked jesus to come into my heart and become my savior privately i did not stand up or come to the front of the church when invited by pastor gary is that okay yeah it's okay you can you can make a personal decision for christ without having to come forward i sometimes ask people to come forward as i do it uh often well as i did this past christmas um because i believe that the the call to follow christ is a public decision and so i don't want people to um to be ashamed about that and so it helps stretch you by coming forward and making a public decision for christ but you you can i didn't walk forward in the church when i came to know christ i was at a youth camp when i was a teenager so you can make that decision without actually having to walk forward anyone else one last um this one's from an eight-year-old son when we pray why do we why do we have to put our hands together i've always learned that because it helps you concentrate and not pick your nose all right you guys are not and is it this way or is it this way [Laughter] question what's the old you know here's the church there's these people open the door sealed all the people yeah you don't have to you don't have to clasp your hands when you when you pray um we can take different it does help me focus yeah are you do you have one other it's not serious though i can tell by your look no it is how can we plant more calvary chapels there are no calvary chapels in montgomery county maryland yeah montgomery county mayor is not that far they can drive here but amen somebody drives for how far do you drive gaithersburg gaithersburg c yeah brother but you know listen if you have a desire to plant a church you know in montgomery county let us know we'll we'll see what we can do you'll now thinking i should never should have texted maybe you guys can go to montgomery county after those answers all right let's drive yeah you'll still try can you drive yet all right this has been fun thank you for your questions now listen we have a lot of questions some of your questions might get answered in the next service or the one after so when we splice all this together for the archives on the teaching library we will put all three services together with all as many questions as we can get to but thank you for your questions let's pray so i'm going to address a question i'm not i'm not exaggerating we probably got a dozen questions on this and i don't know if there was just like a a run at cemeteries about cremation i but we've gotten like a dozen questions about cremation and is is it okay uh for christians to be uh cremated um and in in genesis 3 19 it tells us that from dust you were created into dust you shall return there cremation just speeds up the process there's really there's really no difference cremation takes about two to two and a half hours at about 1600 degrees fahrenheit natural decomposition takes a couple of decades so it's a couple of hours or a couple of decades you're going back to dust either way but there's nothing some people think well there's you know something sacrilegious about it in first samuel chapter 31 the book of first samuel ends by telling us that after king saul had been captured by the philistines he and his sons that they hung saul's body uh on on the walls of beishan and that the the hebrew men from jabesh gilead came in the night and uh and took down the bodies of saul and and his sons and you know the philistines were doing it to disgrace their bodies about hanging them on a wall you know the city wall to disgrace them but the men of jabash gilead came and retrieved the bodies of saul and his sons and then it tells us that then they burned saul's bodies so you see that they cremated him at the end of first samuel chapter 31 it there's nothing wrong with it it becomes a personal conviction a personal choice but we were uh created from dust and to dust we shall return uh another uh question i'll take real quickly and then i'll toss it over to you guys and you know we don't we don't avoid the hard questions so i get this every year why don't we have a woman pastor in our church and so you know i don't usually uh skate around controversial things so why should i with this one either you know what the reality and it is true that we don't have women pastors we don't have uh women elders um and the short answer but i'll give an explanation is because you know the bible is is our handbook here for faith and practice and um the problem that we have right now in our culture is that the differences between men and women are trying to be erased and we're trying to go with the gender neutral culture which denies the uniqueness of both genders when we try to just you know blend it all together and and and deny the differences uh dr michelle cretella who is the head of the american college of pediatricians she was on a radio interview with family research council a couple of years ago and she from a medical standpoint made the comment that there are more than 6500 genetic differences between men and women we accept the physical differences but we need to also recognize spiritual differences in this sense that we are all as men and women equal in god's eyes there's no question about that our worth and value is absolutely the same not just between genders but between all races all people in galatians chapter 3 28 paul said there is neither jew nor greek slave nor free male nor female for we are all one in christ the bible makes it clear that we are equal in importance but we are different in performance what do i mean god has assigned some responsibilities to men some responsibilities to women and just like biologically nobody's going to argue with the fact that women were selected as the ones to give birth physically biologically there are some things that god says spiritually i've reserved for a man and one of those things is spiritual leadership spiritual leadership in the church and in the home and in first timothy chapter 2 12 paul spells out how he doesn't permit in this instant when he speaks about spiritual leadership he talks about how he doesn't permit women to teach or have authority over men in the church that isn't an antiquated thing that is just recognizing that we're all equal in importance different in performance and god is assigned different tasks and responsibilities now i know this is different from the way a lot of churches function but when i'm asked the question i want to give you the straight answer um that the bible gives the guidelines in in respect to certain roles and certain responsibilities and when it comes to laying down doctrine and spiritual leadership in the church this is what god has designed in in the handbook and we just don't mess with the handbook the culture changes right culture you know evolves and they start to embrace things or or they start to you know value things differently perhaps but you know the word of god is constant and it is unchanging because truth is unchanging and that doesn't mean it's out of date or it's antiquated it just means that when culture goes and veers in a certain direction whatever the subject might be not not necessarily on this subject in particular but when culture goes certain direction the one thing that is the anchor for our souls is the truth of god's word and so we always defer to the bible and say okay it may not be popular in the culture it may not be you know what a lot of people or majority of people think or do in regard to whatever the subject matter is but the bible remains our constant handbook for life and faith and practice and so that's the way it is here we do have women on staff we have women on staff we have we have women in in different uh managerial roles uh for sure um but when it comes to pastors and elders we don't that's a good point um i'll take a question i'll do my best to keep it brief what is your view on the apocrypha so the apocrypha was written between the years 200 bc 400 a.d i believe they are books that you will not find in our protestant bibles books though that will be found in the catholic bible at the end of the old testament i don't believe that these were inspired books the apocrypha endorses many doctrines that are just simply incompatible with scripture i'll name three giving money to atone for sins we don't find that in scripture number two praying for the dead and giving money to atone for their sins we don't see that in scripture as well and then number three praying to saints in heaven and asking them for prayer we don't see that in scripture as well doctrines taught in the apocrypha that are incompatible with scripture the apocryphal books weren't thought of as inspired even by the authors who wrote the apocrypha paul doesn't quote the apocrypha none of jesus's disciples quote the apocrypha jesus never refers to the apocrypha so in short don't believe they were inspired books many people from the early church saw them as having some good moral lessons and value and that may be true but inspired no so i think we need to tread very cautiously with the apocrypha uh we had a lot of end times questions come in so i'm going to tackle this one where is the united states in end times prophecy here we go so the united states two minutes see if you can get this in two minutes i can do it america's never specifically mentioned in scripture anywhere and if if you found it tell me um but in regard to the end times the only nation that the bible seems to be concerned with specifically is israel now in revelation the only nations or cities or countries that are mentioned in revelation are only israel and babylon ezekiel 38 they're going to mention more nations north africa middle east and parts of europe there may be a small reference to america in ezekiel 38 13. it's very small very minor it's only found in the king james and new king james version where it talks about america as young lions but again it's very up in the air we we honestly can't point the finger that that's america definitively here's four scenarios that i think of why or where united states is going to end up in end times prophecy because we don't see it really in scripture as a um a big nation that's a part of the end times i think that there's four scenarios that perhaps the united states does not play an important role in the end times at all something happens america maybe declines from within and we're just no longer a superpower anymore number two since the rapture is going to take place before the tribulation we believe scripture is clear perhaps america is not going to be so powerful once the church is taken out if you think about the rapture happening right before the tribulation america is no longer the church is gone america is no longer its powerful uh country anymore a third one is perhaps the united states does not exist anymore once the end times begin again it kind of goes handy with number one and number four perhaps the united states is included with all the other nations that god rejects in the end times and god does reject a few nations in revelation chapters 10 11 12 14 and 15 and so on he will reject certain nations maybe america is part of that that god judges um you know i heard one time billy graham gave an awesome quote he said if if god does not judge america then he has to apologize to sodom and gomorrah we our our nation um founded over 200 years ago almost not even almost 300 years now um and the sins that we've committed um you know what does god think of us now are we are we really a christian nation anymore so the united states of america we're one of the biggest supporters of israel as in the world today but this might not be the case anymore um you know down the road and so i personally don't think that usa will will play a major role in the end times because scripture does not mention it um the biggest nation that god is keeping his eye on is israel and so i pray that we support israel as long as we as long as we do um and those that bless israel are blessed those that curse israel are cursed um but there is no definitive answer in scripture per se but just keep your eye on the news we'll see what happens um i've gotten several questions here um concerning worship music from bethel elevation and hillsong what does cornerstone believe about worship music from bethel elevation hill song another question very similar to that for those of you who may not be familiar with why some might ask the question there's i would have some theological problems with some of the doctrine that comes out of bethel or elevation or hillsong churches as far as um you know the teaching goes um but what we try to do here at cornerstone is you know examine music our our worship leaders are are very careful in examining music to see if it would stand doctrinally and musically on its own now i understand the argument and and this could be a longer answer than it needs to be i do understand the argument where some would say anything associated with bethel elevation or hillsong because they have bad uh let me rephrase that because they have some questionable um and i i would say uh erroneous theology not all of it but just some that therefore you shouldn't even sing any of the worship music that is produced from those fellowships we tend to look at it a little bit differently in the sense that we are guarded about the the error of doctrine but if we examine a song for itself to see is it theologically sound is it doctrinally sound um then we'll permit it to be sung here and and we do um but you know there there are some is his name ron johnson who's ahead of uh bill johnson bill johnson who's um it's bethel right so he retweeted my election day sermon um you know i i don't know the guy i've never met him um you know so some people thought that we you know were buddies because of that like i i don't know him we've never met so while i have some concerns doctrinally about some of the things that they teach if a song by itself is doctrinally sound we'll sing it now there's other arguments around that but you know sometimes we um for example an old an old hymn that if you've been around for a while a mighty fortress is our god that's you know wonderful hymn of our faith the same controversy existed then when that was written that was actually us a tune that was taken from a bar a pub and they put christian music to this bar song and at the time it was controversial now today people sing what a mighty fortress is our god and they really don't have any clue that it was once connected to something that was controversial so if a song can stand by itself we'll we'll we'll evaluate it for for what it is and theologically sound we will sing it here but i understand the question and i don't um i i don't have issues with pastors who who would think differently than what i just said um there is tyler i know you you read a lot of michael heiser's books there's a question there you might want to get to in a little bit um i've been getting a lot of questions too about communion and baptism what does your church believe about practicing communion and baptism do we practice baptism by immersion we do practice baptism by immersion which means we we fully dunk someone and depending on how much sin i think is in their life i'll hold them down no no i no i don't i won't i won't do that when i see bubbles i'll let them up but um they nearly killed me yeah well that's cause that's exactly right um but um here's and we practice we have been practicing communion generally once a month on sundays once a month on wednesday nights since covid we've had to table some of this i mean you know who wants to climb into a you know a baptismal pool well the first person doesn't mind but everybody else who comes behind them you know i don't want to get in this water so that's been difficult for us and communion passing the trays and touching elements has been difficult for us too yes jesus was the one who ordained those two practices for the church communion and baptism but because they're not salvation issues we're we're just putting that on hold for a little while till we can get through this pandemic a little better and then you know people aren't so concerned about touching the plates and being dunked in the same baptismal so for now those things are somewhat on hold but we normally would practice communion once a month on sundays once a month and wednesday nights and we we practice baptisms every month through the summer and even through the fall so on a wednesday night typically but right now it's kind of tabled all right guys uh this question came in is it okay for christians to look toward the heavens for signs of the times and genesis chapter 1 verse 14 it does say then god said this is the creation story then god said let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years so the bible does talk about the stars the moon the sun god created them for signs now what does it really mean by signs well mainly two things they're meant to mark time for us and seasons for us but they're also signs in the sense of navigational indicators people throughout history have used the stars to navigate their course around the globe the danger comes when we look to stars or the heavens as signs particularly with astrology astrology is a form of divination specifically condemned in scripture and i know it's super trendy especially like i feel like with the our young adult generation like i don't know how many times i've heard people say i'm a capricorn i'm a leo i'm a virgo um and we we really should stay away from astrology uh it is a form of divination condemned in isaiah condemned in the book of daniel as well now however we can look to the heavens we can look to the stars and moons mainly to praise the lord to humble ourselves david says uh when i consider your heavens the work of your fingers the moon and the stars which you've set in place what is mankind that you're even mindful of them human beings that you care for them so the stars anything i'll put it this way anything that is created that we have more interest in the creation than the creator it's it's dangerous and that's what paul talks about in the book of romans that people will begin to worship creation more than they even do the creator and so anything that we look to i think that the stars and look gazing out in a beautiful night sky is amazing but it should bring our attention more to the glory of the lord focusing on the lord and not having too much of an unhealthy interest in those things specifically like astrology and and astrology teaches that the stars are aligned in such a way that now it um it's it's speaking and incorporating itself into our destiny okay that's that's wrong that's that's not what the bible teaches so we should stay away from that unhealthy interest but use them as signs to proclaim the goodness of god in our lives you know and when you were talking there i could just piggyback on that a minute um you know about an unhealthy interest in creation um i there was a question somewhere buried in here i i can't find it now but some you know people will ask me you know why does pastor gary seem to be cavalier about you know the planet and his jokes about recycling and stuff um you know it's because look i know how it turns out i've read the bible this is all going to burn it's all going to burn now that said i'm not advocating destroying the planet i just don't want to elevate planet worship and we're living in a day when that's what it's become people are now worshiping creation instead of the creator it's an inverted problem and it's under the guise of go green carbon footprint recycle all this stuff okay it it's it's when when people start talking about how to save the spotted owl more than how to save an unborn baby that's twisted [Music] so so there's a warning in romans about that about you know the the world is going to start to worship creation more than the creator so again i'm not advocating destroy the planet i'm just advocating we don't worship the planet and we can get caught up in all this environmentalism and all of this saved this and saved that and uh and it's it's just it's it's not it's not right it's inverting god's design so um and then eventually this planet does burn you talk about global warming i mean it's gonna it's gonna burn so don't get too attached to it there's gonna be a new heaven a new earth where we won't have to recycle i guarantee it all right um i'll take this one daddy mentioned that there was a question came in with michael heiser's book the unseen realm and the deuteronomy 32 world view has anybody heard of michael heiser or this book the unseen realm very few i have read this book and i've read it multiple times i love it i'm reading his books angels and another book demons as well that kind of are taken out of unseen realm but michael heiser is a doctor has a doctorate in semitic and hebrew languages and he's kind of like pretty new on the scene now um but his whole um study and book is really based on genesis chapter 1 through 11. so creation to the tower of babel and digging deep into like what what do we not know about the unseen realm and that's not a scary word to say we can say that there's an unseen spiritual realm that we can't see but is there and there are things going on behind the scenes in regards to spiritual beings versus humans and he just goes into deeper dialogue of that and he's done his research he'll he'll cite all his all his work um you know i take some things with a grain of salt like he's pretty dogmatic with some things it's like okay well i'm i'm open to it but let's let's see what the bible says and but he he he is a believer and um he's got a podcast called the naked bible podcast he goes in deeper on different scripture references um but the deuteronomy 32 world view is found in his book the unseen realm and it's it's based off in deuteronomy 32 verses 8 through 10 um as like a commentary for the tower of babel scene so if you know the tower of babel scene in genesis 11 it's just a kind of a random passage in there and then it jumps right to abraham and the deuteronomy 32 world view is basically when the sons of god in genesis 6 came down and had sexual relations with the women they produced this giant race the nephilim and then it jumps into the flood and that scene is just so odd to us it sounds like science fiction but it's in the bible it happened and these sons of god these angelic beings came down and created this race of giants called the nephilim and the 32 world view is that when god came down to witness the tower of babel being set up it was not a good thing it was a bad thing and god came to thwart their plans and basically when he scattered the nations he allotted the nations to different um in a way angelic beings and we actually can find this in daniel's book the book of daniel mentions a term the prince of persia there was a movie about it with jake gyllenhaal that has nothing to do with this but the prince of persia is a reference to a governing spiritual being that governs that land and i i personally do believe that there are governing spiritual beings that are that are not good that are um influencing um different powers governments and world leaders um god reigns supremely over all spiritual beings and mankind amen he is he is the alpha omega and and the almighty um but everything with the unseen realm and spiritual things it just it does seem odd but if you look at hollywood hollywood's actually doing a interesting job with that because they're making all these movies that have to do with spiritual beings unseen around demons angels but the the bad stuff they try to make it seem good um you know and years ago on abc family which is just garbage it's free form now it's garbage don't watch it they have all these shows about different fallen angels that come and date women and you've seen twilight with the vampires just weird stuff but they're doing it because it's it's actually in the bible and it's it's something where now america's like gravitated toward there's something fascinating about the unseen realm but if you dig too deep in any and think everything is good um yeah people are interested with the supernatural and they're the supernatural exists but the problem is if they're not discerning you don't know what part of the supernatural you're getting you know and so there's demonic parts of the supernatural there's there's god's part of the supernatural and so people have to be discerning we're almost out of time so let's try to run through some quick questions somebody asked this is a question that probably applies to all of us i'm sure how do we know whether god is disciplining us or we are going through a trial that's always a difficult thing to figure out sometimes you don't know is this something i've brought on myself is this something that god is allowing is this something not related to any sin in my life but it's just you know the sinful fallen world in which i live one of the things i've just always tried to do since you can't always know which it is is to always pray and ask the lord lord what are you trying to teach me in this because regardless of whether i've brought it on myself or god's trying to show me something or just because i live in a fallen world there's something to be learned and god will use it to teach us and to draw us closer to himself so it's a good thing just to always pray and say lord what are you trying to teach me through this the other the other question i wanted to answer real quickly and um is somebody said with mental illness such as schizoaffective disorder am i according to scripture supposed to come off all medication and believe in the lord to give me a fully sound mind as in before my illness began and um listen i just want to encourage you whoever wrote this question and others who might be in similar situations where you're you're on some kind of prescribed medication but you're thinking you know should i just trust the miracle and not get off the medication listen stay on your medication okay um there's there's nothing even jesus said in matthew 9 verse 12 it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick it's not like when you become a christian you throw out the benefit of doctors and medicine i mean god has worked in the medical field to bring about good things for us and so it should be something that you are you know always discussing with your doctor but don't think that you're less spiritual because you're on medication for something that you might need medication for this if you're a type 1 diabetic you need insulin and if you stop taking your insulin you will die and don't look at it as well then i'm not really trusting the lord if i'm taking insulin god can do miracles and and there are different ways that god has physically healed people but you also need to make sure that if you're wanting to see well has god healed me that you work closely with your doctor don't don't just i'm going to go off all my medication and trust the lord he can do miracles and i've seen him do miracles to heal to heal people but at the same time we we thank god for medical advancement for our benefit god has gifted people and researchers to to help us so um don't don't get off your medicines all right you want to do rapid fire yeah because we've only got a couple all right i'll touch two quick ones could you please recommend a study bible three resources i love the nlt application study bible nlt application study bible warren weirsby's study bible where he's now gone to be with the lord but great study bible by warren weirsby and then a website blue letter bible blue letter bible dot org i use it all the time look up the greek look up the hebrew all that good stuff and good commentaries blueletterbible.org and then one more question how do you have a personal relationship with jesus i love this question you ask the lord to be your savior ask jesus into your heart surrender your life to him the bible says if you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you shall be saved it's the best decision you can ever make just surrendering your life to jesus christ and believing on him that he died for your sins and rose from the dead and if you want to talk more learn more about it i'd love to talk with you and you can shoot me an email my email's on the website so shoot me an email i'd love to talk to you more about it is god and jesus the same yes they are but they are also distinct from each other jesus said in john chapter 10 verse 30 i and the father are one and then the the jews tried to stone him for the very reason where they said you a mere man claimed to be god so he did claim to be god so is he god yes he declared himself to be god his followers believe that he was god and the only way of salvation works if jesus is god however he is still distinct in the trinity yeah one one god three distinct personalities um somebody asked do we have guardian angels uh jesus said in matthew 18 10 take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones meaning children for i say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my father who was in heaven so he seemed to indicate there in matthew 18 10 that that children have specific angels assigned to them i think i don't think at one point you know they leave you so i think probably all of us do have guardian angels of some kind one other quick one can you tell us the difference if any between hell hades sheol and the lake of fire so sheol is hell in the hebrew hades is the greek equivalent and then the lake of fire is the eternal judgment revelation speaks about the lake of fire so this current earth the current heaven and current hell are all going to be destroyed the bible tells us from revelation there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth created and then the lake of fire is the eternal hell the eternal judgment so um is that advice okay does your church perform weddings and funerals yes um although there's limited you know right now with covid um as far as the size of the weddings go and we only perform um heterosexual weddings why do i have to say that anymore but that's what we do we don't perform any same-sex weddings um are you a pentecostal church only in the sense that we do believe the gifts are still available today but we would be different from a pentecostal church in the truest sense of the word where the gifts of the spirit are free-flowing somewhat but regulated in the church services we look at what paul said of the corinthian church who said if everybody speaks in tongues and some come into your church who are not saved or don't understand won't they think that you're out of your mind so we think there's a place for it we believe in the gifts just not in the corporate setting and then someone said that they're new to our church this is the last one they're new to our church don't know what denomination we belong to baptist inner denominational or assembly of god we we're we don't belong to a denomination but we do belong to an affiliation of churches the calvary chapel association chuck smith um was my pastor until he died about it's been about six years now i guess when chuck died so we were part of the calvary chapel association of churches that are really across the country across the world and it's been a great fellowship for us chuck's the one that always emphasized and taught me you teach straight through the bible go cover to cover what other book do you read that you hop around chapter to chapter go cover to cover and that's what we've done here and so that's what we'll continue to do let me dive into a couple of the questions that have been submitted uh why do people worship on sunday instead of saturday isn't friday night to saturday night god's day to worship him it is one of his commandments to worship him on the sabbath isn't the sabbath friday night to saturday night sundown so technically the sabbath is a friday night sundown to saturday night sundown god doesn't command us to worship him he commands us to rest and the reason why um the church today by and large with the exception of seventh-day adventist um protestant church's worship on sunday is because it's consistent with the resurrection of christ we know that christ rose the first day of the week first day of the week is not monday it is sunday the first day of your work week might be monday but the first day of the week on the calendar is sunday we know that jesus rose on the first day of the week he rose from the dead on a sunday and when you look at the book of acts you see the early church continued to meet on sunday to commemorate the resurrection of christ and that just has never ceased so even though the sabbath still is technically saturday the day of worship has been ongoing since the book of acts you see the pattern happening in the book of acts where the early church continued to gather on sunday in commemoration of the resurrection of christ so that's why we do that another quick question why do we believe the bible is complete and accurate when it was assembled by humans hundreds of years after christ uh well okay a couple of things first of all the compilation of the scriptures might have been pulled together a couple hundred years afterwards but the eyewitness account was at the time of and so nothing was lost in terms of the integrity of scripture just because which books and which manuscripts were decided a few hundred years after christ the the manuscripts were were written and recorded by eyewitnesses um when you look at the bible and you think about you know um textual integrity and you know well it was it was arranged by humans but you you know it has to pass a test that is similar to other works of antiquity why do you believe in julius caesar's gallic wars he recorded it over seven years and he wrote a volume each of the seven years but how do we know that that's reliable and yet it's taught in classrooms and people accept julius caesar's eyewitness account of his own gallic wars as historical but all of a sudden because the bible is written then people are are suspicious about its integrity and reliability but when you look at the bible the bible was written over a period of about 600 years by 40 different authors inspired by the spirit in three different languages on three different continents and yet all of it is uh consistent and harmonious in terms of the unity of the message sixteen hundred years forty authors three continents three languages i mean seriously think about you know getting 40 writers together from the new york times and telling them an event that happened over a period of like 48 hours and see how consistent that would be so the fact that the bible has withstood the test of antiquity and time with a consistent message even though it was written over 1600 years 40 authors three continents three languages is a testimony to its inspiration so there's always that question of you know human involvement but the bible talks about how that men were carried along by the holy spirit that they were inspired now it wasn't this you know thing where they were under a trance and they were just you know writing but god used their personalities and god used their intellect and god used their heart to bear witness to his ultimate message and the whole theme of the bible is consistent it was graham scroggy who said if you cut the bible anywhere it bleeds because it's all about jesus christ and the sacrifice of god's son on the cross old testament to new jesus is revealed in the old as well as the new he is somewhat veiled in the old testament but revealed in the new but it's all about jesus and god's ultimate plan to redeem mankind if you want to amen if you uh if you want to go deeper into the study of the manuscripts and the compilation and who wrote what and how it was compiled it's a large book i think they've edited it or trimmed it down but josh mcdowell's book evidence that demands a verdict such a good book and a great apologist and his son sean mcdowell has done a lot of great stuff as well but evidence that demands a verdict is a great read about that i'll take a practical question it says this person writes in the bible signs from god were more recognizable how can we recognize or determine god's signs to us today for example they give a hypothetical example i want to move to another state but my husband doesn't i get a job offer in that other state is this the lord paving our way for the move or is it my way of justifying the move so basically to summarize that question how can i still hear god's voice today i mean i don't know about you but so many times in my life i've wondered or i've just i've asked could you just speak to me like audibly and clearly because i have important decisions to make and how can i still hear god's voice today can god still speak audibly and if not how can i clearly hear from him to make some of these different important decisions god spoke audibly in scripture plenty of times in the old testament just to name a few spoke to moses at the burning bush exodus chapter 3 spoke to joshua and joshua 1 spoke to gideon in judges chapter 6. uh spoke to samuel in first samuel 13 jesus spoke audibly to paul or saul on the road to damascus acts chapter 9. so it's not that god still can't speak audibly to us today i think he very well could but we have to remember that god speaking audibly is always the exception never the rule i mean you have to think god's speaking audibly all of those different instances i named those five examples that happened over a period of four thousand years of human history so it's easy for us to thumb through our bible and see all the different times that god audibly spoke to believers and then wonder what god why aren't you audibly speaking to me but it was always the exception in scripture it's never the rule but i don't discount that god may choose to still audibly speak but i've never audibly heard god speak and so i think it's more of the exception and not the rule so with this question about how can i still clearly hear god speak well i can't tell you what to do but here are some questions that i think might be beneficial for you to ask yourself when making any important decision in life the first question is is this within the bounds of scripture does will this decision contradict what scripture tells me to do is this decision being made within the boundaries of scripture number two have you prayed about your decision so many times i've worried and become so anxious about decisions in my life and it was usually my mom growing up who always would challenge me have you prayed about it it was always so annoying i was like no mom i haven't prayed about it but it's so true have you prayed about this decision have you maybe prayed with your your husband or your wife and just prayed together about this decision uh james 1 5 says if any of you lacks wisdom you should ask god he gives generously to all without finding fault so ask the lord for wisdom lord just give me wisdom about this decision third will this decision bring god glory first corinthians 10 31 says what whatever you do whether you eat or drink do it all for the glory of god so am i making this decision will this decision bring god ultimate glory um question number four you ask you have to ask yourself are you over emphasizing a coincidence you know sometimes we see what we want to see out there um and so you know scripture says god's thoughts are not our thoughts his ways are higher than our ways and sometimes i overemphasize a coincidence in my life and then finally have you sought counsel from other people proverbs 15 22 says plans fall for lack of counsel but with many advisers they succeed so make a decision and trust god if you pass it through the grid of god's word seek some good godly counsel make a decision and trust that god is in control um a great book is the four wills of god by emerson egritch emerson egrets was here and did a love and respect conference and he wrote a book called the four wills of god and it's a great great book just to better understand practically how can i make decisions that honor the lord and how can i clearly hear from the lord so that's a good book by emerson egrets here's a question that's come in why did jesus choose 12 disciples and then a question that kind of correlates with it what is your opinion on the chosen series um who's who's heard of the chosen series it's uh okay awesome i highly recommend it if you don't know about it look it up it's probably on youtube but the dvds are out but the chosen series is i think very accurate i haven't seen anything heretical with it and it's just the life of jesus in his early ministry days and i think the creator dallas jenkins is doing a great job season two is in the making it's it's going to be coming soon but if you don't know about it you need to look up the chosen and it's just all about jesus with his disciples and his early ministry days here on earth so we highly recommend it i love it and then why did jesus choose 12 disciples it doesn't really say but we know in that culture that ancient time you know jesus was known as a teacher people call him teacher or rabbi in the scriptures and he was he was a teacher and teachers in that time would have pupils or students or followers or disciples he would he would teach them and so he had a following of 12 john the baptist actually had disciples as well why did jesus choose 12 we don't really know maybe it's symbolic of the 12 tribes of israel 12 is is a symbolic number but be that as it may jesus chooses 12 disciples because he's a teacher and he's the best teacher of all and so right now we're all considered disciples as followers of christ but great question and yeah check out the chosen it's a great series um we you know there are a lot of people in our church and those who are texting in i suppose too with catholic backgrounds and we get a lot of questions about catholicism and this one person said i was raised catholic left the catholic church a few years ago after a close friend introduced me to cornerstone by doing so have i thrown away by doing so have i thrown away all of the sacraments i have received baptism communion confirmation do i need to be baptized again as a part of a non-denominational christian church others asked are catholics considered christians slash are they saved we get many questions about catholicism and um you know i want to be careful because um you know there are there are catholics who are born again believers i'm convinced um there are methodists who are born again believers there are baptists who are born again believers and then there are some within each of those circles or denominations that that are not and think they are i mean you know at the end of the day of course it's about do you have a personal relationship with jesus um heresy falls into two camps one type of heresy is the denial and the of the deity and the um personal lordship of jesus christ another camp of heresy is the addition of any requirement for salvation other than faith in the finished work of christ's death on the cross catholics um are okay with number one as far as like you know they they accept that jesus christ is the son of god who died on the cross for our sins the problem is with number two the addition of requirements um in terms of the necessity for salvation and and then you get into penance and and you and you get into uh works and you get into different things that then corrupt the simplicity of the message which is salvation is through faith alone in christ alone and the moment that you start to add anything to that um you've just corrupted the message and of of the cross and it basically is heresy but you could say that about a lot of things too you know people who say um you know it's it's it's baptism and believing in jesus well that corrupts it too or if it or it's speaking in tongues and believing in jesus well that that corrupts it too so anything you add to the simplicity of its faith alone in christ alone you've just made it a works oriented thing and so in that way the roman catholic church is is has has a problem and and yet there are people who don't necessarily understand um some of the ins and outs of the doctrine of the roman catholic church who who love jesus and um have trusted him as lord and savior so um you know it's it's difficult for us we can we can look at certain doctrines and dogmas and say well this is not biblical and that's not biblical um and and and yet people who aren't necessarily familiar with their own doctrine and doc i mean i've had i've talked about for example transubstantiation which is the belief that um that when roman catholics believe when you take the wafer and drink of the wine that it actually it molecularly changes within your system and you actually ingest the body and blood of jesus and i've had catholics email me and say we do not believe that and i'm like i got to point to your own catechism then because it says that and so there are people who who don't understand their own dogma but yet they just love jesus and so you know it's difficult to answer those kind of questions because then you start making judgments sometimes based on heart issues and i know people who are very dogmatic on both sides and and yet it's uh it's something that we have to you know um recognize that there's um there's some challenging doctrines and dogmas in a lot of circles um at the end of the day it's about a personal relationship with jesus and you can't add to that or improve upon it there was another question does this mean that we have to be baptized to enter heaven no you and it's in response to a question jesus answered most assuredly i say to you unless one is born of water in the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of god um that is not a question about water baptism when jesus said unless you were born of water in the spirit he's talking about two types of birth being born of water is physical birth it's when a child is born and the mother's water breaks it's being born physically and then being born spiritually which is to say that one confesses sin has a personal relationship with jesus trusts him as lord and savior so that verse is not about water baptism that verse is about physical birth and spiritual birth if you're only born once you will die twice but if you are born twice you die once does everybody follow that if you are born uh once just physical birth but you don't experience a spiritual birth then you will die physically and you will die spiritually you will be punished eternally there's two types of death involved there but if one is is uh born twice that is you're born physically and then you're born again you have a personal relationship with jesus then you might die physically but you will pass from death to life and you will always be with the lord forever and ever guys i'll take a question and um i want to you know answer this question sensitively but also biblically the question is please define social justice how are we to respond to current culture's expectation please define social justice um especially the churches you know of late the church's obsession with social justice become very trendy i think to hop on the train of social justice and and it's equated with how the bible refers to justice there are a lot of scripture verses about justice and the lord is a god of justice social justice is not biblical justice social justice is not biblical justice i'm going to refer you to a great podcast called uh relatable it's by ali b stuckey great podcast she goes deeper into this eloquently explains it and and she makes some very valid points justice is getting what you deserve without favor social justice is getting what you don't deserve because you are favored there's a big difference justice is blind social justice is not blind let's say a man robs a story a store and uh man rob's the story's caught justice would ask is he guilty would he'd go before he or she'd go before a court of justice is she is he or she guilty if yes then they would be appropriate appropriately punished social justice does not ask only is he or she guilty but it asks litany of other questions what about their economic status what about their upbringing what kind of childhood do they have what kind of uh what it what's their ethnicity um and so it doesn't always just ask it is he or she guilty of the crime and then yes if not if yes then they must be appropriately punished justice demands that everyone be equal under the law social justice demands that some be favored and others not depending on their status about who who they are maybe their upbringing maybe their economic status poor rich this is biblic biblical justice is much different than social justice biblically this is what the bible says about justice do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit here's one in leviticus don't pervert justice do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great but judge your neighbor justly moses in deuteronomy he said follow justice and justice alone and the new testament declares in the book of romans god shows no partiality now this doesn't mean that we still can't have compassion god is a god of compassion we should be his children and be children of compassion to other people but just because we're compassionate doesn't mean we have to pervert justice or redefine what biblical justice is and i believe that the social justice movement is creeping in and twisting biblical justice biblical justice and and this is what ali b stuckey says just pulled a quote however justice in and of itself is compassionate first to the victims of crime into their loved ones and second to the criminal how can you become a better human being if you don't first recognize that you've done something wrong so i think that we can still hold compassion and justice they're not contradictory but they go hand in hand hand in glove and so we should be people of compassion people who love other people people who um treat one another with the love of jesus christ that we've first been shown but at the same time uphold a biblical definition of what justice truly is before tyler goes um with a question i want to piggyback on that because social justice also has the root word you know social in it and we've been getting questions about socialism and um you know the question is um sometimes phrase like wasn't jesus a socialist um like like he was bernie sanders and a toga no let me let me just clarify some things because this is also a very trendy thing like socialism and you know making sure that everybody is equally served and you know the and the government basically then has a lot more control over the equal distribution of wealth and there's various aspects of socialism communism marxism okay um first of all the bible does say in acts 2 45 that the early church sold their possessions and distributed to anyone in need and it sounds like a very you know society there this communal way of taking your possession selling it and then distributing it to everybody in need but you have to always understand context because a text out of context is is heresy and so you have to know what's the text in the context here's the text in the context when the early church and the early church are for the first 10 years when you look at the book of acts those who put their faith and trust in jesus christ we're all jews all right there wasn't a gentile that got saved until acts chapter 10. so for the first 10 years the early church was comprised of believers in jesus in yeshua who were jews let me tell you what happened and still happens today in some circles of judaism but back in those days in particular when jews trusted jesus and believed he was meshiach was messiah they were shunned by the rest of society and they would have funerals for you i know i know a jewish family in israel today the husband's a believer the wife is not and when asked you know why don't you believe in jesus um she said because my family would disown me and i'm going to wait till my parents basically die so that i can graciously you know um be more vocal about about coming to faith in christ okay so um that that's what her husband has has uh told me so there's this pressure if you accept christ you're going to be shunned and disowned so the early church when jews accepted christ nobody bought any from their shops families disowned them they became destitute they became poor as a matter of survival the early jews of the early church pooled their resources and distributed among themselves in order to survive because they have been completely shunned and as outcasts of society that was a matter of survival it was not intended to be a practice or a principle or a pattern it was a unique time as a matter of survival people look at acts 245 and think well we should be more socialistic and distribute all our wealth no no that's out of context we also need to understand that hard work is what is honored in the bible paul would write in first timothy 5 8 that anyone who does not provide for his own family is worse than an unbeliever it talks about hard work and in second thessalonians 3 verse 10 it says paul says a man who does not work shall not eat okay so we have to look out for the poor the the church has a responsibility to look out for the poor and the needy and proverbs talks about rewards for for looking out for the poor and needy we have a benevolent fund and we've we've given away hundreds of thousands of dollars to the poor and to the needy in our own community and we've done these food drives and outreaches because we do have a privilege and a responsibility to look out for those who are less privileged and those who need help um but that's very different from a socialist kind of a society so again you know social justice is is very trendy and the other the problem with social justice too can be that it becomes a gospel of itself and that people begin to feel like that they are assuaging their own personal guilt because they're doing good and wonderful and noble things it's called moralistic um i'm going to get the moralistic moralistic theistic deism it's it's the idea of people who feel like they're doing a service to god because they're engaged in all these wonderful social justice outreaches look out for the poor look out for the needy do wonderful things but it should never supplant it should never replace the gospel unfortunately some people have made it a gospel of their own we need to look out for the poor needy without compromising the truth of the gospel and without making social justice more central than the gospel itself okay tyler let's jump into end times take it right to the end because we're almost out of time anyway with all that so one question says there there have been several peace deals that have been made with israel this year and last year and were these peace deals expected prophetically and how do they relate to the work of the antichrist yes there have been several peace deals that have been happening now the antichrist really has nothing to do with this part um this is all god's doing and a chapter we all need to be reading right now is ezekiel 38 and 39 because i think it is um the stage is being set and ezekiel 37 is about the valley of the dry bones that ezekiel sees and israel becoming a nation again that's already happened that's been fulfilled that was fulfilled 70 years ago the next chapter is this prophecy about an invading nation that comes against israel but that god basically just destroys them with cataclysmic events and by the wrath of his fury um and there's there's three verses that you can take note of ezekiel 38 14 uh 38 16 and 38 18. in ezekiel 38 14 it talks about god is telling us to ezekiel therefore son of man prophesy and say to gog this is what the sovereign lord says in that day when my people israel are living in safety or peace will you not take notice of it all these peace deals that are happening with israel right now under the trump administration i think the stage is being set for ezekiel 38 to be fulfilled sometime soon because this had to happen in order for peace what people have been speculating what is that peace that israel is living in well my my personal thought is that it's these peace deals that are happening with the nation of israel and they're going to be living in peace verse 16 ezekiel 38 says you will advance this is talking about this gog you will advance against my people israel like a cloud that covers the land in days to come og i will bring you against my land israel so that the nations may know me when i show myself holy through you before their very eyes so god is doing this god's bringing them against his people it's going to happen and in verse 18 it talks about when gog whoever god might be and there's speculation that is it is this russia because it talks about the distant north when gog attacks israel god will reveal his wrath and judgment on gog and the nations the end of ezekiel 38 is awesome because the nations will know that god is the lord all caps all the nations will revere and and see that the lord is god and scholars debate on is will this happen in um you know in the lifetime before the rapture will this happen after the rapture we don't really know there's there's debates on that but i do think it is no coincidence that all these peace deals are happening right now concerning the nation of israel because israel is the number one nation that's going to be that's that's the nation that's all about the end times is israel and so i do think it is somewhat prophetic and i think the stage is being set um so keep your eye on on israel the news and ezekiel 38 all right we have to do rapid fire because the time has already escaped us so you guys want to look at any of these questions and quick answers sure um c1 what is your view about confession and why the concept of confession to a priest we just don't see it in scripture you know we're a bible teaching church bible's our handbook i don't see confession to a priest taught in scripture thank the lord the bible says in first john 1 9 if we confess our sins to the lord then he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins cleanse us from all unrighteousness so we have a direct line to the lord when when jesus was crucified on the cross the temple curtain split in two so that now man has direct access to god you don't have to go to the pope or a priest or pastor gary thank the lord you can just go straight me too i don't want to hear your business just go straight to the lord uh that's why paul said there is one mediator one mediator between a holy god and sinful man the man christ jesus and so jesus is our lifeline to the father is baptism a requirement to receive the salvation of christ no again you don't need to add anything you should be baptized because it identifies you with the finished work of christ but it's not a requirement for salvation you can't add anything to again it's faith alone in christ alone a lot of questions about are there any biblical insight on whether or not aliens exist oh that's not a quick answer it is right here no um but the bible does talk about people from an unseen realm called the spiritual world read genesis chapter six and it's called demons there you go [Applause] should i read my bible yes a lot of questions about the holy spirit a great book is by chuck smith it's called living waters the power of the holy spirit in your life read that book chuck smith living waters also a.w tozer wrote a great book called how to be filled with the holy spirit two great books talking about the holy spirit is there any sin that god will not forgive no and in fact i got a very precious uh question from somebody i can't find a question right now but they basically asked um about how jesus said it's better to tie a millstone around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to ever lead a little one astray and then the next part of it was can a woman be forgiven for abortion and yes jesus died for all sins for all people there's forgiveness in the name of jesus and aren't we glad that he died on a cross to forgive us from all our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness amen amen amen all right well they just texted me that we have now uh exceeded a thousand questions and obviously we um we got to 998 so uh we did pretty good um but uh thank you for your questions let's pray and then we'll be dismissed uh lord even though we couldn't get to um most of these questions we just thank you lord that our eyes are fixed on you the author and finisher of our faith we look to you lord especially in these days when there's so much confusion and what is true and what is not and we just lean on you lord and look to your word and we thank you that you love us and that you've given us your word that we might have truth lord in a very relative world bless this new year we pray go before us thank you for your goodness and your grace in our lives and for our church we love you in jesus name and everybody said amen amen you

Channel: Cornerstone Chapel - Leesburg, VA

Views: 118,000

Rating: 4.7527089 out of 5

Keywords: Cornerstone Chapel, Gary Hamrick, leesburg va, cornerstone chapel leesburg virginia, Question and Answer Service, Q&A, Questions for pastors, ask the pastor, i've got questions about the bible, How do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?, Do we have guardian angels, What's the church’s stance on socialism, are jesus and god the same thing, did every animal get on the ark, bible q&A, i have, i have bible questions, can i, how can I have a personal relationship with jesus

Id: UdLBlDzl9DI

Length: 101min 48sec (6108 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021