Asking Mike Winger Those Controversial Questions

what's up guys nate and sutton back with another video and today we have a very special guest most of you already know me i'm mike winger a pastor in southern california i like to answer hard questions about christianity but this is nate and sutton they're christian vloggers who recently interviewed me on their youtube channel they actually gave me a bunch of difficult questions pretty hard questions that they got from their audience and i've got time stamps down below in this video to specific spots and questions and you can find exactly what you want just check it out there there's also some other links down there below including a link to nate and sutton's channel if you think you may be interested in their content i sure am all right enjoy this is this is someone who we personally listen to a lot and it's kind of like our go-to uh when it comes to questions around faith and you know our christianity and questions difficult questions that you guys throw at us a lot of the time so um a lot of times you'll ask us questions like let's go see what mike wiener has to say now you're getting the source directly because he's here today and he's answering your questions that you guys gave us on instagram yeah yeah so i i would consider mike someone that out of all the christian um figures out there and uh influencers i probably respect his opinion on a topic more than uh any other person i listen to you know so i really am excited to have mike on the call today so welcome to our channel mike hey it's really good to be with you guys what little i've i've had a chance to get to know you just a bit and uh i'm excited to be here with you and and i just want to give the caveat which is to let everybody else know what you know already about me which is i definitely don't know everything i just give my best answers uh not always the best answer i just do my best you know i try to study these things a lot i care a lot about that but i also know my human limitations and and i know that it's the word of god that's the truth and i'm i'm here just a normal human trying to figure it out and share it with others so um so yeah thanks for having me yeah yeah and that's one of the things i love so much about when i listen to your videos it seems you seem to come from such a grounded approach and just like when i listen to you i feel like i walk away with more knowledge than before where a lot of times i hear speakers and they sound really intelligent but i walk away from the videos and i'm just like i don't know how much of that i actually soaked in but when i listen to your content it's just like wow i feel like i just became way more knowledgeable got wisdom yeah yeah so here's god that's awesome to hear yeah so we're really excited we asked our viewers we asked you guys uh some of the toughest questions revolving christianity and faith and um and we were gonna throw them at you today mike if that's okay yep yeah i'll do my best these are some tough questions yeah before we jump in i'm just like do you do you consider do you like research like unprecedented amounts or does this knowledge just come naturally or how would you how would you yeah the the only thing that that i yeah i do research a lot um not probably more than anybody else but the truth is that even when i'm on staff when i was on staff as a high school pastor i would like study side issues and i'm sitting there thinking i'm never even going to teach this i'm just studying it because i just want to know you know and so i just kept piling and all this information just kept chasing all these rabbits you know about god about jesus about different religions about tough questions and there i am like on yahoo answers you know trying to back in the day trying to like give people answers to their challenging questions and stuff anyway long story short uh now that i'm time doing this i'm i literally i literally can study for 30 hours for one bible study and i've i love that so i it's okay for me to do that i could do this on a weekly basis i can take a topic and just chase it down i you know i did a a study on the topic of divorce and remarriage and i i put over 200 hours of of research into that um and that's very exciting because then i get to feel really grounded about the answers and then i summarize it in a way that i go because you know what you do is you read a whole book and you go i read the whole book for for these two ideas and then i just share those two ideas with people and not necessarily the entire process but but yeah so um i'm not the smartest christian but uh but maybe i feel like i kind of to be honest and this might sound like i'm patting myself on it but i'm just trying to understand myself and know where i fit in the body of christ i think i fit somewhere in between the average person and the scholar so that you know scholars they learn all this stuff but then they they sometimes aren't good at sharing it with others and the average person's like i know i have these convictions right but i don't have the time to dig into all those issues and go really deep on everything and so i try to find that middle ground where i just talk to normal people but from a place of having tried to access the best information i can yeah yeah i i feel like you're the epitome of why we created our channel is because one day you know me and sutton are like well we have this gift of videography and we have a message that we'd like to share with the world and youtube seems like i'm such an amazing outlet for it and we posted a video and i got like 500 views you know we're like 500 people saw that video and that's right and then i i see you're you're what you're doing and i just i feel like the impact that you probably have on the world is so large that it's it's just amazing so i just love what you're doing yeah well praise god for his grace because i'm just a knucklehead in california i'm i'm amazed i'm just constantly amazed the size of the channel and the growth of the content is such now that i'm just it's like if it shrunk by like 90 i'd still be happy i'd still be more than content it just blows me but it just blows me away yeah all right here we go get your smart pants on okay so okay so what are your thoughts on divorce and remarriage as a christian and if it's biblical and i know you at the beginning you just said you did a whole thing about this with all this time spent so maybe you want to direct all that video or you could just give a short answer here and then direct them to the video yeah i'll give a short answer but it is a three hour long video and it's not for everybody i fully admit that but there are some people who go man i want to honor god with my life but i'm going through some really hard stuff and i need some help answering a lot of tough questions that's what that video is for i go through tons of scripture historical analysis linguistic analysis but on a level people can follow but let me give you some of my conclusions that i think we can stand on right which is uh first marriage is sacred right we should seek to keep marriages and this is so key this is something as a counselor this is like the number one thing i try to try to get couples to realize individuals to realize is that we should unilaterally fulfill our calling to serve christ through being a good spouse and being gracious and forgiving and loving and i say unilaterally because that means like nate if sutton's not doing it you still have to do it like as a christian you don't use their failures to excuse your misbehavior or bad attitudes and that is probably the hardest part for me i mean i'm married we've been for 11 years and it's always when i feel i'm mistreated that i start to mistreat and so as christians yeah like i have to just say okay this is i just gotta die to myself and honor god unilaterally no christians gonna think clearly about their marriage and if if anybody's listening you're struggling with your marriage you will not you like you're thinking foggy right now unless you've really given over your being a spouse your husband or wife you've given that over to the lordship of christ in your marriage if this is about serving christ and not just fulfilling your needs now you can start to think clearly and until you get that going it won't happen um i would say also scripture indicates that unjustified and ahmed is that word carefully unjustified divorce is morally wrong and it doesn't remove our obligation to just get back together as soon as possible so wrongly divorcing guess what you're still tied together morally god wants you to restore that marriage he still wants you to get back together i would say remarriage if you marry somebody after force wrongly it's a wrong divorce and then you remarry that was a wrong thing you shouldn't have done that but now you did it like this is now your marriage you need to be faithful to this you need to honor god in this and that that marriage constitutes like an adulterous moment that finally broke the first marriage so now you need to serve god and move forward and this is a sanctified and holy marriage now like like don't just ruin the second one go forward and honor god with it um i would say that there are justifications for divorce and remarriage like divorce and remarriage to somebody else and that would be adultery like a serious very very serious sexual sin you don't have to get divorced if someone comes adultery but that is jesus talks about that as a justification or a partner uh who chooses to leave you and they will not submit to christ or the church like through repeated attempts for reconciliation and restoration they won't listen to the church they won't listen to to the teachings of jesus they they reject you they're abandoning you and and your hearts open your hearts trying to seek restoration like there's a point at which you go okay i'm letting them go now and that's i i did i do teach through the scripture on this first corinthians 7 and all that and um i'd also say anything that's like crazy situations we need to be serious like like it's extreme abuse a man's like beating and beating and beating his wife and his kids i'm like you can flee that person you can divorce that person if necessary my fear is that sometimes after someone becomes embittered all of a sudden their past that they never thought was abuse like extreme abuse they start talking as if it was right and so then they start but i was emotionally abused and like there is extreme emotional abuse like i was a domestic violence counselor for years so there is like legitimate extreme emotional abuse and i there's no excuse for that and you should you should you know get yourself to safety if that's you but a lot of times i've heard people sort of magnify how bad the marriage was to try to justify where their heart is now i just want to divorce and so there's a danger for us there things that do not justify a divorce i'm bitter i'm not happy we've grown apart i hate them i found happiness with someone else or maybe i found happiness alone i don't care anymore i got married too young it's like no suck it up stay married go go go honor the lord in this and this is not our popular culture i think this is what biblical teaching is is giving us though and um i go through it in great detail in that in the video i will uh i'll send you guys a link to it if you're interested yeah for sure yeah all of these questions that we're asking mike i know he he does really in-depth videos on his channel and mike you can feel free to plug those at any given point if you're like yeah i did a three hour video on this but here's the short answer so for this purpose of this video we're trying to get as much meat and potatoes as we can with all these questions but to dive really deep uh mike does a lot of really amazing content on his channel so um yeah speaking of kind of like going off that question i know that one of them was you said something about like fleeing a relationship and i know one of the questions was you know god calls us to forgive 70 times 7 or whatever and when is it okay to be like i'm done i'm done trying to like make this work whether it be a marriage or a friendship or with your parents or whoever yeah um i think something that helps me hear a lot with this question and it clicked when i thought of this or had someone else share it with me actually was the difference between forgiveness um and restoration or perhaps one way to say it is the difference between forgiveness offered and forgiveness received and a relationship being healed and these are not all the same things so scripture tells us in ephesians that we should forgive others even as god in christ forgave us that's really interesting i don't think people notice that there's a qualifier for how we should forgive the same way that god in christ forgave us so in christ god has a certain posture towards us like i had one old teacher who used to call it the cross posture he goes on the cross jesus arms are wide open and this is just you know an allegory for the idea that he's like saying i'm welcoming you my arms are open but jesus still requires them to turn from their sin to come to christ like there's an attitude change about a life of sin like i don't lord i want you as my lord i don't just want your forgiveness i want you i want relationship with you and you're holy and i want that in my life and so um as a christian i think that my attitude is that of christ where i go in my heart forgiveness is fully like set and ready to go but if they're ongoing in their behaviors there is no restoration of relationship and if does that make sense like okay i'm ready to forgive that person they were abusive to me they took advantage of me in the past let's say you get a business partner that embezzled and lied to you and then later they're like hey let's do another business together and you could be like you know you've never even really repented of the past like i i'm not bitter i'm totally ready to forgive you but this that doesn't mean we're restored all right because you're you're still ongoing with the same behaviors and so then the next step would be to say um and there's wisdom here right like god doesn't want us to be fools so it's it's great to be forgiving to people like and to say i forgive you but at the same time to be like but i'm not going to let you borrow my car right now like that would be foolish i'm not going to start a second business with you after the last time you embezzled and caused all these problems so yeah i think that we forgive the way that god forgives us in my heart there's no bitterness but that doesn't mean that restoration's automatic and that hopefully keeps us from being in these ongoing abusive situations um although where i think the world takes it too far is they turn it into like you got to do what's right for you you got you got to take care of yourself there's a certain place there where it becomes like a pride thing and a selfish thing and we're excusing our selfishness i think as christians we have to think of it as a wisdom thing i forgive them it's just not wise to get into that again right what do you guys think about that man i i love that analogy or i guess it's not even an analogy i guess it's scripture what you're saying is uh forgive how christ forgave you and meaning like forgiveness is not necessarily automatic but it's uh it's like i'm here to forgive you like let's let's do this but if they're not willing to restore then there isn't or come to restore there isn't forgiveness there is that kind of what you're saying yeah exactly so i've dealt with my bitterness but i haven't fixed your issues right and i guess i've never viewed it really like that how you know i mean that's pretty that's how it works with us and christ is like you know we are forgiven as long as we ask for forgiveness right i mean is that was that how you would yeah i mean yeah we we we say yes we say yes god and there's conditions he has that it doesn't involve us doing any work but it involves our attitudes changing about our sin yeah yeah i mean i thought that was great that's just like just continued to be mind-blowing and i'm like is anyone else hearing this this is good stuff um yeah so five uh what is this five okay so switching gears here a little bit a lot what are your thoughts on the kova vaccine um okay so i'm not a medical guy and i i haven't even spent the time researching it okay so i can't like comment on what to me look like conspiracy theories okay i could be wrong i'm just saying they look like conspiracy theories maybe they're not um i know there's some people who i normally would respect and they're like dude this is a problem so maybe they're right there all i'm gonna say is this pastorally as a guy that studies the bible cares about scripture as a guy who believes in that the second coming is future that there's there's a tribulation period i do think those things are real i'm going to say the covet vaccine is not the mark of the beast that's the only thing i want to say is it's not the mark of the beast and if people think but it could lead to the mark of the beast then i'm just going to say stop jesus didn't tell you to watch out for things that might lead to the things that might lead that could cause that could be the snowball effect of the it's just we look weird when we do this stuff we do and there's holy christian youth christian youtube channels that like their whole thing is just sensationalizing end times prophecy and making weird connections to modern events that i uh just gets me i talk about that a lot so so i'm just gonna say i just don't think it's the mark of the beast that's all i've got to say and if someone wants to take the vaccine now if they have questions about say um it being related to like a abortion and you know um uh what are the what are the cells called the um the specific cells that came from aborted babies um i totally experienced i can't remember the name yeah i don't know the name of it anyway there was like a board of babies in the past in like i don't know the 80s or something like that and they keep using those same cells and if they go i have a moral problem with it look i'm not going to argue with you there okay i'm just saying don't call it the mark of the beast yeah well that's reassuring because i've questioned i'm like is this this is getting kind of weird um and i agree it's a little weird yeah do you i don't know the rules in california um do you personally wear a mask uh in public places that aren't necessarily you have to wear a mask at i wear i wear seven masks i wear one over my eyes too and um no i i do wear a mask i wear so i pretty much wear a mask wherever it's expected of me and at first it was i really hated it because the mask i had like i couldn't breathe i don't know what mask i got it was like i'm like i can't get oxygen so i'm like and then we we found one that it's like no trouble at all so i i uh i don't care it doesn't really bother me that much and i think that uh if you're gonna ask my i hate to have an opinion about things people are angry about here but but if you're asking me i would say masks seem like they have some measurable effect on the transmission of different things okay i'm not like not like they're a cure but but more importantly than that to me personally is that i'm encountering people all the time and if i'm wearing this thing it's not a stumbling block to them but if i'm not wearing it even though there's this expectation especially in california then it's a stumbling block to them and i just i'm like it's not that inconvenient for me i don't care i'm just going to wear this thing i actually have encountered some people who judge me for wearing a mask the way others would judge me if i didn't and that that kind of concerns me as a christian i'm like these seem like secondary issues i just don't want to divide on that stuff you know yeah yeah i i personally have a hard time wearing a mask even in places where it's like mass required and i don't know if it's like coming from a place of rebellion or it's like sometimes i genuinely feel like it's unhealthy for me like to be breathing in my own carbon dioxide you know and i i tell myself that wearing a mask is actually uh more harmful than it is beneficial and that i may be completely wrong and i'm open to that but that's something that i personally struggle with is like i'm definitely angry about the whole thing and i don't know if i'm wearing if i'm not wearing it because of that or if it's just like i think this is not the right yeah i gotta admit nate i don't i don't know the right answers to these questions i really don't probably i'm looking at it like like pastorally and going you know what if i had a room of people and some of them were drinkers and some were not drinkers i'd be like let's not have drinking here so that we can all fellowship together and it won't cause problems and i'm kind of like i so i would default to what i call like the weaker conscience or the person who has the most strict conscience for their sake i think that's what romans 14 tells us and so if i look at masks in that in that vein i go okay i'm going to wear this thing even if it's just to like appeal to the person who has the more strict conscience about these issues but i but at the same time like if someone walks up to me they're not wearing a mask and they're like i'm not wearing a mask is that okay i just tell them i don't care because i just care more about the relationship with the person than stuff but maybe maybe that's maybe i've just got the wrong answer there i don't know that's that's how i do it yeah yeah and i i definitely consider myself like a strict rule follower like i always i even question if breaking the speed limit is like sinful um but something about the mask is like it's like man i can't i can't do it um speaking of rules do you what do you think about that abiding by government um laws rules even things such as little is like breaking the speed limit compared to yeah you know when i was younger i thought if y'all if i broke the speed limit i was i was sinning and it's just like there's a law you're breaking it like it just seemed like really simple to me um but then i also realized there's a difference between the letter i mean it sounds sketchy here i know it's gonna sound sketchy some people but i think there's a difference between the the letter of the law and and what we understand it means and so um like if if if cops enforcing the law are like if you go three miles over the speed limit we don't care like if they're saying that then i go okay well maybe it's the letters there but but the strictness isn't quite as strict so i tend to think that about that issue um and i'll give you an example um you can't you can't go out of the carpool lane california right you can't go out of carpooling because it's got that double solid yellow and and i do obey that like i have like driven like miles out of the way because i got stuck in the carpool lane and i'm like i can't break the solid yell because i don't feel like that's very flexible i think that's just the way it is but if there's a car accident in front of me and the lane is stopped i'm probably going to go ahead and break that and i think if a cop was right behind me they would be like come on get out of the lane keep going we got to keep traffic moving so i i think that there's something to that i think that if you're driving the speed limit you're saying you're going 55 and everyone's going 68 um and you're you could actually cause a traffic problem like that could be potentially dangerous because you sh there is a principle about keeping up with traffic so so i'm a little more flexible on that now cool he's getting into his own personal life now okay this was actually asked a lot of what do you think of women in positions of christian leadership this is one of the most common questions i get that i don't answer very well um the truth is that okay i i think and i'm gonna really preface this this some of some answers i feel much more confident my talks on divorce and remarriage i did all the homework i think i'm very confident about my answers there women in ministry i think that um the the role the one role of past store like like senior pastor type role right there's different path like if someone was i'm the children's pastor i go okay well i wouldn't have a problem with that but but like kind of like the pastor for adults for adults and men in particular i don't think that that's something god has for women i think that's not something he has planned there as i understand scripture okay all that being said women can still prophesy women can still speak in church it's not like it's not like the whole women are silent thing is not meant to be taken that strictly but this is an issue where i really haven't vetted my own views very well here and i have to acknowledge that so i'm in the middle of teaching the mark series we're going through the gospel mark when that's done i'm going to stop and do a research project on the topic of women in ministry and i'm going to try to come down to all the nitty gritty issues i've got like several books here written by like people who have different views than me they're like sitting in my little quick bookshelf i got and i'm going to read through them and i'm going to study all the issues and then try to come up with i hope god willing real clarity and real solid ground because it's a question i get asked all the time and i feel a little bit i feel a little bit weak on how much work i've done to understand it well um yeah yeah so i might change my mind and i might not and we'll see one question i'm not sure i think it's on here about uh living in prosperity like you know jesus talking about giving sell all your possessions give them away like what's your perspective on like us living in this house is this like are we considered the rich i mean out of the world i feel like you know we definitely are considered one of the richest percent percentile so how do you know i might come back to the heart thing but i am curious your perspective on uh riches and having possessions and all of that uh well i'll throw a few things at you i i think it's an individual issue not a corporate issue i don't think there's a rule for christians on how much money they can have i think that the christian church involves the rich and the poor just acknowledging that reality means that you it's hard to like sort of put a cap on how little or how much a christian can have but let me give you some examples of of different types of people we see in the bible so there's this like rich young ruler that we read about and jesus tells him sell all that you have and give it to the poor now some think okay so i should sell all i have and give it to the poor except jesus didn't tell most people that he just told this one guy that why because that guy needed that that that guy needed that and i would just kind of say like yeah if you need to do that do that you know this or if you just want to go ahead and do that but don't tell the whole church to do it because what's going to happen is we're going to be a super generous church for about two weeks and then we're all going to be out with our hands out right because now we're all poor like nate you and sutton are gonna be super generous and you're gonna give away all that you own and you're gonna be on the street begging now multiply that by every christian in your community that is not a good look for the church like you know we we don't want to just be a bunch of people asking for money this is not like how we order and how then are we going to be generous and give if we don't have anything left because we've given everything away so there's places for the the poor in the body of christ the you know poverty should not limit your involvement but there's also places for the rich like jesus his own ministry was supported according to luke by these women who were well off there were wealthy women and they traveled and supported him financially so they didn't sell all they owned right they seems like they had ongoing income streams and they used that to support his ministry paul the apostle was supported by people too we read about one lady her name's lydia and lydia in the book of acts she's a seller of purple now purple was like an expensive clothing to get just getting the color purple was difficult back then it was it was just very costly and the um this is why purple's associated with royalty and so the uh the woman she's a seller of purple which means she's like she's like high-end clothing sales is what she does and she actually supports other ministries out of her funds in fact she actually houses a church let me just say this every christian gathering was in a home back then all the christians were gathering in homes but they weren't just random homes they were whatever person in the congregation had a big old house right they gathered in the wealthy christians homes and so what i think we've got going on here is an example of a variety of wealth levels in the body of christ and how we all just contribute in different ways so if if you were to sell all the homes sell all the values valuables in the early church there would have been no local home fellowships where are they gathering so yeah there's a there's a variety of things to do if god lays it on your heart to sell all you have go ahead and sell it if not then don't and be generous and certain god some people are called to be business leaders and be wealthy and honor god with wealth yeah gotcha yeah i really like that answer it seems like the more i personally study scripture it seems like the more it's in it's vital to when jesus was speaking to certain people paying attention like who he was speaking to not necessarily it doesn't not necess that it doesn't necessarily apply to everybody or that it does uh or that it doesn't but it just seems like an important thing to remember like sometimes he's speaking to certain people no i i totally it's dangerous to take what jesus says to any random person and just go do it like he he sends the disciples go out into all the cities of israel i got all right babe we're going on a trip you know it's like now we have billions of people all going to israel at the same time yeah a really very commonly asked question that i feel like it's a hard one to answer but people wanted to know how to share the gospel to gay friends and then also if you believe there is such a thing as like a gay christian that continues to act on their temptations but they call themselves a christian okay so uh partly i just want to say we share the gospel with a gay friend the same way you share the gospel with anybody um it's not like gay people are dealing with a different set of issues like we're all sinners we've all fallen short of god's glory so like we all have our sin baggage and we all need to take that baggage to jesus uh so in a sense you could i might sound like well like you're just kind of being kind of dumb here but no i actually think it's pretty simple you just tell them like like you got sin jesus got crossed like he takes in the cross jesus takes into grave jesus rise you believe you live forever you know i mean it's pretty basic just gospel presentation there okay so there's another issue related to this though that makes it that does make it hard to talk about and complicated i won't acknowledge that and that is um our culture it talks about gay or homosexuality as though it's an identity and scripture and i think the christian worldview talks about it like it's a habitual behavior and so when you talk about it like it's a behavior it's not like that big of a deal you're like oh it's just on a big laundry list of things you don't want to be doing right like but the the world talks about like it's an identity like you're discovering your true nature this is who you are which is a strange thing it's it's foreign to the christian worldview to think that your your sexual desires identify like your true self um and it is a dangerous thing for people to think this too uh from the christian worldview i think i think we need to let people know this and remind them that there's tons of desires you've got that are just bad that are just overblown out of proportion aimed at the wrong things there's tons of desires there's so many things that we have to deny that we want that jesus just says die to yourself like it's a pretty harsh statement when you think about it like you're going to die to yourself you're going to take up your cross and it's going to be a self-death or to put off that old nature and that kind of thing so these are these are christian terms so when scripture says things like homosexuals along with thieves and greedy and drunkards and idolaters and adulterers and anybody who's sexually immoral that they're not going to inherit the kingdom of god when it says this what it's what it's saying is people who are living in practicing those habits it's not talking about identities the identity language is foreign to scripture it's not talking about that so someone goes i'm tempted with homosexual you know desires therefore i consider myself homosexual then i'll go well there's tons of gay christians because there's tons of christians that have those desires but are you living that lifestyle that's when that's what the scripture is talking about so i know some christians who will say i'm sure i'm i'm gay like that i have these desires but i'm not engaging in them and therefore i'm i'm considering myself a christian others want to say i'm a gay christian and they use the term in in a different sense they mean i'm gay and this is my lifestyle and i'm going to engage in these behaviors and in that i would say if the person said i'm a drunkard christian or i'm a sexually immoral christian i'm an adulterer christian i'm a thief christian i would say that's inconsistent with christian commitments because jesus is lord it means he's lord like it means he's he's in charge of my life so yeah um the the thing that makes it really hard is that these other areas adultery drunkenness like people don't champion this like it's a civil rights group the way that homosexuality's champion like it's a civil rights group like almost like it's a racial class um i think that that just creates a lot of confusion for people so are you saying that the people that say that they're a christian but they go to church they go to church and everything say they're christian but they're acting on their gay desires which are you saying that they are like not going to go to heaven so i i here's why our time with this question is because we all have sins that we still act on even as christians so there's there's some there's some christian who struggles with homosexuality and they're still saved and they just have a serious sin issue they're struggling with like you and me do i'm sure but but at some point let me read this i'll read the text to you this is first corinthians 6 9 through 11. let me just read and notice there's a laundry list of a bunch of people here we're not just highlighting homosexuality but this is what we're being asked about uh paul writes do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god just the unrighteous just people who are just generally unrighteous do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral or idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality notice the way they translate it as practice because they're not talking about identity they're talking about behaviors nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of god and then he says and such were some of you like you many of you in the congregation you this was you you did all this stuff in your past but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the lord jesus christ and by the spirit of our god so there's a sense in which i want to say i acknowledge that as as a a a human even a saved christian i'm still going to struggle with regular temptations daily and i'm going to fail at times so i don't want to say oh if you but if you fail in gay ways you're not saved i'm like wait a minute no no no because then that means i'm not saved because i fail in other ways that are on this list so so there's some sense in which this is about lifestyle like i'm committed to the ongoing lifestyle of sin and that may be an indicator that a person's commitment to christ is not genuine and that's how i look at it like a lifestyle of ongoing sin it's not like you sin so much you can't be saved it's rather your lifestyle is a symptom that shows that there may not be a genuine commitment to christ and it's something that's hard for all of us because i look at my own life and you've got to go is my lifestyle showing those symptoms and i i don't know always how to i don't always how to help people through that struggle i kind of want to say we have to struggle with this because it's that big of an issue where is my where's my heart really with god with with salvation with jesus yeah we've also had people going off of that ask us like if they have the homosexual tendencies of like wanting to be with the same sex then they say why do you deserve to like have love and have someone to show your affection to but i can't just because mine isn't like yours or something like that what would you say to that question um there are some people who i'm going to use an analogy here i'm not comparing the two things i'm just using an analogy so homosexuality is not like pedophilia these are very different categories but let me give an example of the prince analyzing the principle is it is it does it justify what i want to do if it's the only thing i want to do that's all i'm really saying so i don't want opposite sex relations i only want same-sex relations is that enough to make me sort of like i'm being victimized by this it's unfair um that i can't have what you have kind of thing but what what about someone who the only thing they want is is children and you're like okay we all agree still not okay i'm sorry you got that struggle this is the depravity of man we got issues what about someone who the only thing they want the only person they've ever wanted is married to somebody else and like they're just not even interested in anybody else they're not nobody's even on their radar and they're like it's not fair that you get to have your husband and i'm over here and the only person i i want is that person's husband i would just say um this is a way of recasting my temptations as if like i'm the i'm the victim of of my situation and i'm being kept from love like this is this is just a way of turning me into a victim so that i can then have a case for why i should be able to do what i want to do so teenagers get really good at this it's not fair you know and i i acknowledge it but we just got to deal with facts like i'm a human i'm a broken human humans are messed up like if you're a human you should know this about us we're we're messed up in lots of ways god's guiding us in his truth and his real design for us and being being single isn't the worst thing in the world okay it's not like this is hell just being single and not not being with somebody now you can live a fulfilling and wonderful life as a single person many people do we just we just can't find these i'm a victim excuses for doing things that are morally wrong and i don't really know what else to tell somebody on that i don't know if i would change their mind to be honest i think that it just comes down to whether we're willing to submit to what god's saying or not yeah and kind of on that topic what you're talking about not these certain people not inheriting the kingdom of god um how do you how do you deal with that in your own life and uh like i've had that question before like okay there's this line of um you know being saved from like a ongoing habitual sin versus like sinning every once in a while because you know he says it says like you know drunkard swindler is sexually immoral those people will not inherit the kingdom of god so when are you classified as a an idolater like do you just do it once or do you do it five times a day or do you do it you know how do you deal with that yeah well i don't think it's super strict to be completely honest so even if even in first corinthians the the passage i wrote was first corinthians so paul talks about them and um okay if you take first and second corinthians together i'm just going to give you my summary of all this because it would be like a whole bible study to go through it all of it but here's the basic thought i have on it for what it's worth paul names several of those same issues that are in first corinthians 6 9-11 that i just read as things that they're dealing with in their church um he then goes on to just throw this out like a general warning like if this is your lifestyle you know that these kinds of people aren't saved and i think it's just meant to hang there as like a scary moment for them he later goes on to say things like i hope you're not disqualified i hope i'll put it in my own terms i hope that this isn't true about you like i'm seeing sins in your community like your church has got major sins going on i hope that doesn't mean you're not christians and it seems like paul himself didn't know how to answer this question with these guys and i think that that's what happens so if you have a christian whose um ongoing lifestyle of practicing sin i don't know for sure they're not saved i just don't know that they are like they're in this gray area to me where i can't have confidence about them so i'm scared and i think they should be scared too i think they should repent and they should get right with the lord now when it comes to like applying it into your life like but is that me i think you you have to you're evaluating your life you have to just look at your life and say do i have real faith in jesus like do i really believe christianity okay i affirm the doctrines of christianity really trust in him personally okay i do have i seen my life changed like the work of the holy spirit okay that's confirmatory this is like yeah am i on the path of sanctification and if your answer is yes then i think you should feel comfortable and confident in your salvation you're still going to struggle with sin every day because you're you that's gonna be and i'm me um so i struggle with sin doesn't mean i'm not saved but i'm living a lifestyle of it i'm giving over to it i'm unrepentant about it my attitude is just embracing it yeah that's different but the person who's beating themselves up oh man i'm so messed up oh lord i'm so sorry i don't question their salvation i just think that they're they need to get help you know mm-hmm right yeah cool so i i got a lot of questions about this because we get asked about this all the time and i'm going off the script but so earlier when we were talking about divorce you were saying that if you messed up your original marriage and you got remarried and like that was wrong but now you need to honor your marriage like a new thing so say someone is watching this and they are in a gay marriage right now like do you think they should get divorced or do you think that they should honor their marriage yeah um so the i would honestly this is this is the thing where it feels crass because i'm i'm touching on something that's so sacred and important to somebody and i'm talking about them in the third person i don't even know their name i'd rather sit down with them and give them counsel and be their friend and talk to them through these through these issues my my answer to this though is i don't think they should be married i think they should get divorced not because i support divorce but because it's not truly biblical marriage like this we're calling this marriage we're saying it's marriage but it's not so to get divorced is to stop telling a lie about this relationship that that's my perspective on this is i'm not saying it's not a relationship i'm not saying it's not real and catch this and this is where i anger some christians because i don't think they understand what i'm saying i'm not saying you don't even love each other i'm not saying that you guys don't have incredible benefits in your relationship where you're like i have i love them and i i get so many personal benefits in our relationship what i'm saying is that all the goodness that you're feeling there is mixed in with with about the nature of the relationship right that if this is not healthy this is not right so if you had um to give another parallel that i'll say is not it's not the same thing i admit that but if you had a father who's who's with his daughter sexually and they're they're like they want to get married and the daughter and the dad they seem like they get tons of really good benefits out of the relationship like you watch them together and you go it's weird it's like they have a really healthy relationship except that it's father daughter like you would say all those healthy all those nice things that you guys are experiencing they're just part of the the the tangled mess that happens when we involve sin in the middle of our relationships so yeah i think get divorced because it's not a real marriage stop it because the nature of the relationship is not is not right but the the compassion and the love the non-sexual connections that you guys have those are not bad things those are just friendship taken into a place where it doesn't belong so uh there if i haven't made everybody mad i've got a lot of people mad in this video so far but yeah that's what i think i think is the right perspective it's okay you gotta be okay with uh with that in this in this little line of work um so i'm not sure how many videos of ours that you watch beforehand or if you or like which ones you watched but i thought kind of a fun question was based on what you had seen about us or like you know certain videos that we created uh i would love to hear as honest as you're willing to get just kind of your thoughts your judgments like you know wow these guys are doing a good thing or they might want to be careful on that or you know i'm just really curious your your perspective man if i knew this was coming i would have watched more of your content i hate to say it but i only i only caught like when you first contacted me like i think it was a couple months ago i watched a couple of your videos just to kind of like get an idea you know and i feel like you guys are very real on camera and so it was pretty quick and easy to get a vibe for you and so i just was like okay they seem like they're not like trying to trick me or something like that like some people want to interview me and it's it really is an elaborate trick and i'm i'm like not interested in that so i that was pretty much my concern i'm like oh we just see okay they just seem like genuine believers um i could tell you were i saw a video it was a q a video and people were asking you questions about your life and stuff and i could tell that you were like pretty strong and opinionated which is not an insult by the way i have a lot of opinionated too uh but i could tell you and you wore all that on your sleeve i like that i think that's a good thing um i don't really have criticism story but i didn't watch enough of your stuff to even go oh man my ego i was hoping you're gonna be like yeah i've watched like hours i even knew about you guys way long way long ago before y'all even contacted me i feel hoping y'all would reach out for an interview no i'm just joking great great i understood that okay why do we worship on sundays when the ten commandments talk about the sabbath and even jesus kept the sabbath yeah jesus totally kept the sabbath and the ten commandments totally talks about it and it's such a big deal in the old testament under the law that it was like the death penalty for violating the sabbath that is if you're in israel god never actually gave a law for the entire world to obey the ten commandments or the sabbath and as christians under the law this is actually a really clear teaching in scripture and i know a lot of churches maybe it's an american tradition thing i don't know but there's a lot of churches that really feel like we're supposed to like keep the sabbath but they'll talk about it like it's sunday but sunday is not the sabbath anyways so they're keeping the the the next day or the first day of the week instead of the last day of the week but it ended up being about going to church and not just not working and it just gets confusing but let me read some scripture to you that i think talks about this um and it has to do with our our relationship to the law of moses so the ten commandments it didn't it's not existed for all time it was given to moses to the people of israel as they're leaving egypt and they're starting a new nation so it's very much about national israel about god's work and his his covenant with them it's the law of moses is one giant unit and i'm suggesting that whole thing we're not under it which doesn't mean we live sinful lives and don't it just means we're not under this this is not our rule set so galatians 3 verses 24 and 25 it says the law was our guardian until christ came in order that we might be justified by faith but now the faith has come we're no longer under a guardian or another word translator translation is used there is tutor like a i used to teach guitar lessons to people and i'm teaching them guitar but once they get to a certain point they don't need me anymore that's the law the law is like hey i'm going to show you through israel i'm going to show you guys the how bad sin is and how broken people are but after christ comes and he fulfills all of that the symbolism and the pictures and the ceremonies you're not under that anymore now you're under what the new testament calls the law of christ which has to do with really the heart of what was behind the law so yeah don't uh you know basically love god with all your heart soul mind and strength love your neighbor as yourself there's certain ethics we're going to keep that are going to be similar to the law but not because they're in the law it's because they're just moral truths about god another verse that talks about this real specifically is romans 14 where paul's dealing in romans with people in the christian church who some of them feel like they want to observe sabbath or certain special feast days that are in the law and other people don't and so he talks about those two groups and he says and i'll quote romans 14 5 and 6. one person regards one day above another another regards every day alike and now so he's describing their situation some of you guys are like sabbath and some of you are like man whatever i don't care and here's his answer each person must be fully convinced in his own mind he who observes the day observe it observes it for the lord so it's a it's a liberty issue like you want to rest on the sabbath go ahead you're going to work go ahead it might be healthy to rest on a regular basis but let's not call it a religious duty right i know it's healthy to rest i've learned by not resting a lot i need to rest but i don't call it a religious duty so lots of room for disagreement here we just don't want to put a yoke upon christians that requires them to observe a sabbath that we're not under according to scripture yeah that's interesting man i don't know about you guys but i feel like just when you speak you have such a gift i don't and i don't know if you ever doubt this but i just want to like affirm you that i mean for me at least like when you speak i feel like it's just like a sponge soaking in knowledge and i don't know what it is it's so interesting it's like i awkwardly appreciate it yeah it's great yes so did you reset the alarm yeah okay all right um i actually had two questions come up during that i want to make sure we ask i don't know if they're written down there uh the first question was so your perspective on um tongues and speaking in tongues uh prophetic words you know uh words of knowledge um it was in here somewhere it was yeah what is your opinion on that um so i i am not what's called a cessationist and that's a fancy christian term that means someone who thinks that the the use of this the sign gifts like speaking in tongues prophecy word of wisdom or knowledge like uh miracles that generally speaking those things have stopped like god's not really doing that anymore i'm not in that camp i i think that scripture in the new testament it it initiates all these things happening in the church including tongues prophecy and then it never seems to stop it never talks about it stopping i think there's no biblical case for that personally so i would call myself like um cautiously charismatic in that sense like i'm open to those things i want in fact i feel like we should be asking god for prophecy i feel like i should be asking god to speak to me but here's my here's where i hit the breaks right i have seen people so often misconstrue their hearts desire for the word of the lord like it happens all the time i've so many times there's someone i mean haven't you ever had someone tell you like you're the one we're gonna get married like i've had that my wife never did that to me but other girls did that to me and i'm like i think he would have told me too if that was the case you know and it was just that our hearts desires sometimes we want it so bad we just think it must be god and so that's a scary thing that we can fall into on the other hand what if god's speaking to you and you're thinking nah nah nah but god's trying to show you something and i've had times where like starting my youtube ministry i felt like it was something the lord laid upon my heart and if i had just disregarded that i don't know would would it have ever happened so i think that's important um i believe in speaking in tongues but but i also think there's a lot of abuses in that camp so i kind of like hit that middle ground personally where i want to be open and but i want to test all things to hold fast to what is good and i want to do it according to the to the to the rules in scripture about how these things are supposed to function in the church um i asked go and ask a follow-up question if you have one on that you know did you have one you told me oh well yeah follow-up question on this topic is so have you personally ever spoken in tongues have you felt like you have experienced any of the spiritual gifts uh let me let me tell you this you're one of the only people who's asked me this out of a genuine like i just want to know i'm curious usually i get this question from basically strange spiritual people who who um who i say hey your theology's got problems and they go do you even speak in tongues mike and in some circles speaking in tongues is like proof that you're really spiritual or even proof that you're a christian that's wrong like this is not biblical so i always push back against those people and i i might push back really hard i usually try to be aggressive but in that case i do i'll say this is spiritual abuse you're using tongues as like a a a rod to test people to like check and see if they're like spiritual enough for you and this is abusive scripture actually says that not everyone speaks in tongues there's like in first corinthians he's like you know is everyone a prophet is everyone an apostle well obviously everyone's not an apostle and he goes does everyone speak in tongues so not everybody speaks in tongues okay all that having been said yes i've spoken in tongues i just don't use it as like a pedigree it's just i've had those moments and for me it's not personally it wasn't with interpretation it was very much a private uh experience and it's only it hasn't happened a whole lot but it was very important spiritually in my life at the time it had great spiritual benefits for me so yeah it has happened to me but but i would never look down upon a christian who hasn't had that experience because even scripture says not everybody will yeah yeah yeah really i agree with you wholeheartedly there about how people test the waters with the that question that that's not at all what i was doing but um yeah that's yeah that's really uh fascinating i i too have had a an experience where i felt like i was just overwhelmed with god's presence that i started speaking in tongues and i was actually very close i didn't really believe it was going to happen and i've always been really skeptical of it and i just kind of became overwhelmed with it and i i've only had that experience one time um but yeah it's an interesting topic for sure yeah yeah it is yeah it is man i really want to see more of the gifts of the spirit in the church i just it's just that a lot of the groups that are practicing it a whole lot i i look at and i go i don't know about that you know yeah yeah and i have been to a service before they said that uh yeah if you don't if you're not speaking in tongues you don't have the holy spirit they said it in the service there and uh that just felt so like wrong i i think it's spiritual abuse i think it's really horrible spiritual abuse to say that to people yeah um and then oh yeah so the other question i had was as far as so weird business owners i'm assuming you probably are to some degree um when it comes to tithing and uh like giving money as a business owner do you hold yourself to any kind of tithing percentages like i must give 10 percent or i feel like i should give 10 should i get 10 of my profits or 10 of my gross revenue i i think that's an interesting topic for me as a business owner for sure and i would think other people who are in similar boat might find that question interesting okay so on a personal level um we've always given like 10 percent plus so like 10 is kind of like where we started our giving at and then in addition to that we just give whenever we want to whatever we want to support and um i want to say this though biblically there is no percentage given so again this is this is again like the sabbath issue it's where the old testament law did have israel giving 10 um that's true the new testament does not mandate this for believers and i've i mean i will hammer on this because it's just it's where a lot of teachers who otherwise are great bible teachers they suddenly start taking verses out of context on this one issue it's not just because of greed i think it's just tradition i think traditionally like look at me i'm giving ten percent yet i'm telling you you don't have to i just have a tradition that i've just i've always since i was a teenager getting my two dollars allowance right and i i'd give my you know two dollars a day it was for lunch hello it's not two dollars like a month i'm like can i symbol soon but um but i would give my my tithe on that you know so i think that's healthy i think it's good but scripture i would say it doesn't require 10 and it doesn't limit to 10 either it just says that god wants us to be cheerful givers it never mandates how much christians should give it it sort of implies giving based upon like your ability to give like that's kind of implied in various places that you're giving based upon how much you can give and that's interesting to me that that that's in there generally speaking if somebody comes to church and they're and they're very poor i i would expect them to give much less right i also think that scripture doesn't limit our giving to our local fellowship it does include supporting those who are ministering to us spiritually but it talks about us caring for the poor and i don't have to always do that through my local church like i could just just go take care of somebody i could just go help somebody just give them money i could loan him money and and then forget about it you know i could do whatever it is that needs to be done there i also think supporting missions and then supporting persecuted christians like i've been recently thinking about trying to find a ministry the trick is finding one you trust right but finding a ministry that's that reaches out and helps impoverished and persecuted christians outside the u.s where they need it the most because i feel like i feel there's a biblical example of this in the scripture where they're they're taking money from corinth and they're sending a basically a care package of financial resources to jerusalem where they're poor and persecuted christians you know and i think that's a good example for us so i think we should be very generous people i just will not put a percentage on it and our goal is to give cheerfully and joyfully and not limit the giving to the local fellowship um so yeah i want to support my local church i don't think the church owns 10 of your income i think that's a a crass and it's not the right way to look at it but if you want to give 10 to your church that's fantastic you know do it cheerfully do you feel like there's any scripture to support the idea that the more you give the more you will receive or uh i know that's you know not where we should be coming from but yeah is there do you feel like there's uh you know there's a verse i have for you guys here and let me read it yeah let me see if i can find it real quick you have to hold me back i just can't stop i can't stop other questions he's right over there strolling through his stuff like oh my gosh okay this is a text of scripture that i think people would quote that i love doing this take an actual passage read through it this is something people would quote to say if you give then god's gonna like financially bless you like keep keep in mind it's financially bless you and this is where i'm gonna have some questions about that i'm gonna push back and the question we're gonna ask is what exactly is okay i sow that's me giving that's like i'm planting seeds i'm giving money financially um what is it that i'm reaping is it more money is that what scripture says or is scripture saying something else so let me read this passage to us the point is this i'm reading to the from the esv 2nd corinthians 9 6. the point is this whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully each one must give as he has decided in his heart not reluctantly or under compulsion for god loves a cheerful giver just so you know that's the you can't give under compulsion so churches can't be going where's your ten percent right there's no compulsion in the in the giving of christians it's it's all out of the love and generosity of your heart um and god is able to make all grace abound to you so the having all sufficiency in all things at all times you may abound in every good work that's the key there is bounding in good works not abounding in finances as it is written he's distributed freely he's given to the poor his righteousness endures forever he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of now before i finish that sentence god's gonna god's gonna provide what you what you have he's all the money i have he gave me and then i'm going to sow it and then i'm going to harvest what what am i going to harvest is it more money let me read it again full sentence he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness wait so wait when i give the benefit is my godly character yeah that's it that's your that's your big benefit is your godly character the idea that i'll always get money if i give money if you really believe this then there is giving it's just a financial investment whenever i give i'm just i'm gonna get more back i think that there's an element of giving where you give and you just trust god to take care of your needs but to realize that in the text here like what god provides is the initial money you already have as you give as you're generous with it what you get back is a harvest of righteousness or basically your godly character you're obeying jesus you're giving you're serving god with good works in your life and it's blessing others and and that is more important than the money so i think that that's the biblical teaching there is god supplies before you give not a windfall of extra cash after you give so you may actually give and have less money as a result math still functions for christians you know cool yeah that's interesting about the ten percent i've always heard my whole life you know like give ten percent give ten percent and that's not really not even a rule yeah it just seems like the more and more i learn about you know christianity and what jesus the kind of lives he intended for us it just seems like it's all focused on the heart like you know not kind of doing away with rules but more so just he wants your heart yeah yeah and i still give 10 as like a starting point of giving because maybe it's just habit nothing wrong with that like any christian that takes i don't have to give 10 percent then they think i don't have to give it all like i mean most christians who think they have to give 10 don't anyways there's an issue going on there anyhow so uh yeah to the heart stop the first question that people asked was how did satan have the ability to sin before the fall they wanted a good answer to how sin came to exist yeah um well let me just say this that sin appears to have two origin stories uh in scripture like adam has talked about like he's the beginning of the sin of man you know and when we talk about the sin in the world of mankind it's it's adam but when you look at the garden story you're like wait the serpent is deceiving eve before they actually commit the sin so the serpent is sinning originally and then jesus says he's the father of lies that's like a really interesting phrase jesus uses about satan he's the father of lies which implies that not only is he sinning before adam and eve here but he's the first liar he's the first one to tell lies now if you take i this is a lot of detail but if you take isaiah 14 as i do to be talking about satan where he's like i will ascend and i will be like god i will be like the most high and it has all these phrases that i think is referring to satan and people disagree on that but that's my opinion so if you take it that way then it implies that before he lied in the garden he was lying to himself that there was these these lies about about himself about his ego and his glory he was he was also called um the anointed cherub that covers so it seems as though satan is like very close to god like he's one of those angels around the throne that's very near to god and okay that that all just talking about the origin of of his sin but but how right how did he have the ability i get that's a tough question um the short simple answer is well he just had free will and he made a choice and we could either look for a cause external to satan like something happened to him that made him sin or we can look for a cause internal where it was like he just chose it and i think that's just what happened i think he just simply chose to sin i think angels have the ability to make choices like we do it's a little different than us because we we after adam we're like born in the fall like we're born and we live and exist in the fall with sin and with issues but with angels it's like they're in glory and then when they make a choice to turn from christ to turn from god that choice is a different one than ours and it seems like it has permanent final consequences like there isn't a redemption or a transformation that's gonna happen later so yeah um the short answer is it was he just had free will he had free will and he made that choice and and that's something we also have we just have it from a different perspective we're in the gore and he was in the glory you know yeah very interesting yeah i've never i've never heard that perspective before but i love it i've never even thought about that before like how satan was the first one to sin you know everyone always thinks it's out of me but really it was him yeah yeah okay next question why should we pray for unbelievers to be saved when god has already or when god already has his elect chosen all right so yeah should we pray for unbelievers to be saved when god's already chosen his elect i'm gonna acknowledge that this this answer i'm gonna give you will not be acceptable to some people because it's hard to understand it's hard to comprehend and if if you disagree with my answer here that's okay i will give you a second response if you disagree that's that's how i'm going to handle this but i'm going to suggest that god's election his choosing of us it depends on something called foreknowledge that is god knowing ahead of time who is going to choose him so i chose my wife when we got married but i i i knew her very well i knew she was going to say yes like there was no fear that she would turn me down when i proposed i already knew that the answer was going to be yes but i still chose her now imagine if i had known that from eternity past okay i i would have been i would have been choosing her long before she was even existing yet she still had a real decision to make to accept my proposal and so it's the same kind of thing with god god's election includes this is when scripture says we are elect according to the foreknowledge of god um now some people aren't going to like that answer like calvinists are going to push back on that answer because they're going to define foreign knowledge differently but i think that they're mistaken on that so i don't have to go down that road so god knows what we do this is a simple principle but that doesn't mean that we had to do that just because he knows what you'll do doesn't mean you have to do that my wife knows i will get up and make a cup of coffee in the morning that doesn't mean i have no choice about the issue and god knows but we still have a choice i'd also say this that in scripture this is great because even if you don't understand any of this stuff even if you're like you know that's kind of weird and complex ideas i know this in scripture we are given examples of praying for the unsaved and that it might affect them and impact them that they might come to christ this doesn't mean they don't make a choice but there's things that do happen so in romans 10 1 paul's talking about the israelites who've rejected jesus and he says brothers my heart's desire and prayer to god for them is that they may be saved so he's ongoing his ongoing prayer to god is for their salvation even though he knows they have very hard hearts right now this particular group right so he's praying that god would just like do stuff like lord you know what's going on in their lives i just pray that they come to you also um jesus he counseled us in matthew 9 verses 37 and 38 he told us to pray for workers to be sent into the harvest field so one of the ways we can pray for those who don't know christ is we can pray god send them somebody to preach to them i do this with my own family sometimes because i feel like they won't like families sometimes won't hear you like they just you're too familiar it's too easy to dismiss some of your opinions and thoughts and so i pray lord send somebody else send somebody else and i did this with my own dad who was uh me and him have a long story of a broken relationship in the past and now we're now we're good now we're now actually friends which is beautiful and a big work of god but in the past he was very resistant to the whole idea of god and i remember just praying he won't listen to me i can't reach him i can't talk to him about these things he literally just gives me the silent treatment and so i just prayed and i find out like a few years later that he started riding with bikers for christ this like motorcycle organization bikers for christ and his his like best buddies like a sold out christian and i'm and i'm sitting there going like he's answering my prayers just sending others to someone i am having a hard time reaching and then the third way we can pray for people is to just ask that god would keep a door open for the word of god to be declared to them so this is in colossians 4 3 where it says pray that god may open a door for the word to declare the mystery of christ and may i say like that's youtube this is this is a massive open door to tell people about the truth of christianity at least for now and some are worried about persecution and i'm just like dude the door's open right now let's like walk through it and and proclaim the truth so these are things we can we can pray for for the unsaved you know that god would just do a work in their life to save them that he'd send people to save them they'd open doors for the gospel to go out and my last encouragement is as christians beware attacks on your personal prayer life these are very common it's very easy to get discouraged don't let uncertainty and confusion stop you from praying to god this is this is so valuable and so important so if i i'm gonna try to summarize your perspective on that question you can tell me if i'm right so are you basically saying that you think uh by elect it means like god know knew that your his elect was going to accept him or believe in him but he didn't necessarily force it down their throat yeah i absolutely absolutely think so okay and then as far as like uh god moving on our behalf do you feel like like prayer moves god in that sense like say someone is like destined or maybe they weren't going to believe in jesus uh but if we we pray we pray god might answer that prayer and then open their heart to now accepting them yeah i think so um like imagine here's the situation like you look at your day and you're going lord you know whether i'm going to go to work or not you know whether i'm going to pay my bills or not like i'm just going to stay in bed and not do any of that stuff but you are an agent that's causing those things to happen now and you're just kind of blaming it on god right so i think we need to take action we need to act like the things that we do really matter in life and not think of ways to cheese out on our spiritual responsibilities so that because we're like what's the point anyways what's the point anyways i'm gonna go play video games like i don't think that that's the attitude i want to have like i think that our actions really change the world and really change people's lives and our prayers are really heard and god really acts and i think god wants us to have that attitude as well was there any other anything that we wanted to ask for sure i mean we didn't we didn't finish them all but you answered the ones you answered really great so we're thankful that you took all the time to be here and do this with us that was awesome yeah well honestly thank you you guys because i'm excited that what you're doing is you're taking your what a lot of people are going to look at is just purely a a money making like thing to be on youtube and be doing what you're doing and you want to use it to impact people's lives like you're not really getting i think a reward for uh bringing me on to talk about a bunch of controversial stuff and say things that will probably possibly get all of us in trouble and um you know with people who want to misconstrue it so i'm just i'm grateful that you're out there doing that i'm a big fan of christians who are just doing whatever it is they do best online just wearing their christianity right on their sleeve i think that's so powerful i think it's so wonderful you're just i'm not ashamed like i'm just not ashamed what am i going to do this this is this is the beautiful truth and i want everybody to know it and uh you don't have to be a pastor or something like that i just love just real christians just being real online so in that sense i'm stoked that you guys are doing what you're doing all right guys well we hope you enjoyed that uh so grateful for mike coming on and definitely go check out his channel it's called the bible thinker is that well my youtube channel is called mike winger um and my website's biblethinker.org gotcha gotcha yeah i have you saved in my subscriptions i get the little notification bell every time so i don't have to search your channel uh but cool uh that was awesome i know i got so much value out of that right oh yeah that was a good one yeah it was fun talking to you we were always listening to you so it's fun to like be talking to yeah well it's it's my privilege and just joy to get to see you guys faces and talk to you and stuff and yeah thank you so much for having me yeah thanks for being here this is nathan sutton and mike winger sowing seeds of truth love and inspiration one view at a time and that was our q a with mike

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 96,754

Rating: 4.9102526 out of 5

Keywords: mike winger, nate and sutton, mike winger nate and sutton, q and A, Question and answer, hard questions, asking Mike Winger the Hard Questions

Id: -ruLXoqaSF8

Length: 73min 11sec (4391 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 22 2021