Bible Questions and Answers, Part 76

hi pastor john my name is maria leach my friends call me mia um i wanted to say that all you're talking that you we're doing right now and you've taught us to be bereans so we've all been really doing a lot of research about the covid vaccines and everything that you were just talking about um i was from michigan originally and i had four children home educated them and at night we would put six cds and a player all your all your cds and we'd go to sleep listening to them and that's how i did our evening devotions i have put a lot of people to sleep anyway um i'm guilty sometimes sitting here falling asleep anyways i love you so much and thank you so much for teaching us to to study and show that i self-approve in everything that you do i i couldn't thank you enough and uh my family and hundreds of families are very concerned about the the vaccine to take or not to take if you have family out of the country you know you have to get it if you want to go see them they say they're putting different things in there like human fetuses and trackers all kinds of stuff you hear my question is in romans 13 um in relation to romans 13 what should a christian do if they are against vaccines if the government tries to force us to take yeah this is a big question and let me let me just make a quick and obvious statement as it is now you have a 99.998 chance of having no lasting effect from covin from what we hear the vaccine is 94 percent effective so why reduce your odds what about going out of the country if you have family and you make it mandatory i'm being a little bit facetious that's that's the same choice you would have uh with the flu vaccine some of you have taken the flu i took the flu vaccine twice and both times i got the flu so there are no guarantees with that except that they're injecting you with the illness so again um that's a that's a choice you're going to have to make if you're compelled to go out of the country to visit family i can see where the airlines may restrict flight to those who have had the vaccine going to other places who knows i mean any kind of draconian approach could be coming that's just a decision you'd have to make as you weigh it i'm neither for or against the vaccine i don't want to play doctor with that there's not any record yet of its effectiveness but we do know this that we've had flu vaccines for years and years and years and years and the numbers in terms of its effectiveness don't even approach 50 percent so it's something that you can choose to do at the point at which it's required by the government for you to do that then you're going to have to make a decision whether the trip is important enough to get that and and make that choice may i be so bold as to ask what would you do um it would depend that's a good question it would depend if it would depend on what i needed to to do and where i needed to be if i needed to go somewhere in the world for the sake of the gospel and the purpose of the kingdom and they said you can't come unless you have that i've had that happen through my travels around the world i've had all kinds of injections before i've gone lots of places in the world i don't know what they're putting in me i have no idea um so i i just have to decide if that's where i'm going to go and that those are the rules then that's what i'm going to do amen thank you i said to my kids you know you guys are young you don't want to do it don't do it i'm 60 i'm going to italy i'm taking it to live is christ to die is gain i'm going yeah you'll if you're a healthy person from all that we know look what you have to understand about about the vaccine is this it's all about money it's all about two massive corporations becoming more wealthy than you can even comprehend i mean we all we all get the medical field don't we a tiny little pill like this sometimes twenty dollars ten dollars this is a massive big pharma is a massive massive industry and they've they've just hit they've just hit the gold vein literally with this vaccine if there are going to be millions of vaccines they're going to be so rich and that money ends up in the pockets of the people who are behind that kind of system so economics drives that there's a net there's a health element yes and i think that's why there's a certain required testing so that they can't unleash on us something that's deadly but it's driven by the economics of it again this is treating this is treating covet the same way you a flu shot treated other viruses so you can you can make your own choices to whether you want to use that yes hi pastor john this is aldo um i just want to thank you i know i speak on behalf of many of us this year um i know god has used you and our elders as a living proof of what trusting in the lord is all about in a very very practical way so i just want to thank you and the elders for that we've learned a great lesson at least myself in that area but my question is this i've i've worked with young people for many years now back in my home country in guatemala and out here is there a point in which you and i know some of my friends who are students or counselors from tmu we've talked about this is there a point in which after you deal with one person over and over and over and you don't see a lot of fruit in them that you just let go at some point i say this because i know when i was in the world christians were reaching out to me and good brothers in christ now but i guess i need it because of my stubbornness and my pride to fall into the sins that i did and i think i'm the person that i am today because of the grace of god shown to me sure through my sinfulness so is there a point as a counselor as a um you know brother in christ where you say sure it's good that's it that's a good question although the answer is of course there is because in the end any work of god in the heart is the work of god there there's an end to your exhausting counsel there's an end to your exhaustive warnings there's an end to the process of trying to pick the people up and and call them back to faithfulness that there's an end to that even god runs out of patience according to scripture but since the work is god's work anyway there doesn't have to be an end to your prayers so when in my life when i've exhausted all that i can do and there are people in my life about whom i can say that i have done everything i can do i have exhausted every possibility personally and in ministry i can't do any more and i ask the question are they getting closer or are they getting harder and if i see the hardness then i i i have to move on to to ripe fruit but i don't have to stop praying and prayer is the is the power that moves god amen and just put them on your prayer list and and uh after a certain point if you feel they're coming toward the truth then you continue if you feel that you're just reaching the same resistance and the same sun that melts the wax hardens the clay so you're shining the light of god's truth on some hearts and they melt and on some hearts and they harden when you see that put them on the prayer list and go on to someone else who's more responsive thank you so much richard yes hello pastor john my name is dawn hi don and in a sense you somewhat answered my question through this gentleman here however i'm a mother of two adult daughters who are unsaved both have significant others who happen to come from christian homes i'm not allowed to mention christ to them at various times i've been informed that i'm not to mention god or i will not be welcomed in their home interestingly enough these christian in-laws are respectful of this request as my daughter tells me they only have to pray over meals in their homes why is this such an urgent burden upon my heart and how do i resign myself to honoring the requests i don't think you have to honor that request why would you honor that request because they won't let me in their home if i don't that's their choice that's their choice i i where i go christ goes when i open my mouth i speak of him i i don't have a language without him if you tell me i can't come into your place and speak to the honor of christ then i can't be in your place and i think that kind of alienation is more stark than you conforming to them it is not it's not lovelessness on your part to do that it is faithfulness you you are you belong to the lord you can't even live life without speaking of christ where do they get the testimony then that the the testimony will come if that is the purpose of god their salvation isn't left in your hands that that belongs to god to save them um you know jesus talked about casting your pearls before swine you you just don't throw away holy things in front of people who tread on them and to silence yourself about that is to acquiesce to that that makes them feel more justified i think they need to pay the full price of that kind of demand on your life and you need to be continually reminding them i want to be in your life i want to be a part of your life i want to be with you but i will and i must talk of christ because he is the one you need if you don't want me to do that then i can't be with you tell me when you're ready for me to speak the things that are most important to me okay thank you pastor [Music] hi good morning pastor john my name is jose delgado and where everything is going on how can we pray for you thank you jose uh i'll just pray for me all the time you know i i feel like the lord has just surrounded my life in amazing ways in this period i i it's hard for me to understand how it is that the city of los angeles state of california tries to shut us down they've been trying to shut us down for nine months and they can't do it and the health department finding us every week 500 500 500 every week for a violation here and uh we haven't had to pay them because until there's a full trial on the first amendment that they can't receive the 500 so we just keep dumping in an escrow account we haven't paid any of it and now the supreme court out of nowhere for some catholics and some jewish rabbis in new york rules in favor of us and then in california a couple of charismatic churches uh get a ruling from the supreme court that further protects us and i think this is probably the third sunday in a row and the health department hasn't been here is that true they don't come anymore they were [Music] we actually got an inside message from someone in the health department and they said most of the people in the health department are embarrassed about how the health department is treating grace church there are some people here on sundays have been in the past with the health department who are sitting in the back singing hymns with us because they know the lord the the the police sent out a memo in the city a few months ago that said in the event that you should take any action to the city fathers against grace community church the lapd will not be involved [Applause] so so i think we're having police training here this week we are they come all the time they come all the time they love grace church and we love them so the lord has really protected us hasn't he and you all look better than you've ever looked you look healthy and you know we all feel like a bunch of daniels don't we take a look at us we're lord sustaining us pastor john my name is richard i'm richard thank you for signing my book i know you're busy man i had to send it to you thank you is that one that i wrote no so it's called the almost christian by matthew me that's what i thought yeah that's a great book when i sent it to you i asked for um conviction this is a book of conviction and uh so my question is it was written by the way back in the 1600s that's right and so with that in mind express your the the importance of the puritans in terms of this church the history back then of the 17th century and where we are now how important are the puritans to this particular church richard that's such a good question if you go to the bookstore off go to go to wherever the puritan books are and start reading the puritans um we had planned when was the date of the puritan conference supposed to be here october joel biki was we were going to have a conference here at a national conference it was supposed to be in october yeah october yeah so we were supposed to have the first national conference on the puritans right here at grace church joel beaky everything he writes about the puritans is just phenomenal and coveted ended all that it was all planned and you all would have been exposed mega exposed to the puritans so we hope that that's going to be reinstated as soon as whatever happens is going to happen people ask me when are we when are they going to stop treating us like this the government and my answer usually is when you stop letting them and until people re respond by saying we're not going to do that we want to be submissive to the government in an orderly way in a legal way but they don't have laws that allow them to destroy our lives so no you need to you need to go to the bookstore get some of this start with some of the paperbacks or matthew mead on the almost christian discovered or thomas watson's body of divinity or any of those i i think what makes the puritans so profoundly rich is they lived in an uncluttered era [Music] life was slower media was non-existent and they thought more deeply than people do today in the mad panic of our lives they thought profoundly and deeply about the word of god the things of god i just um just finished a book an oxford book on the the company of pastors who were part of geneva during calvin's era 1546 to 1609 about 120 or 130 of these men and all they did all week long in the city of geneva was exposed the word of god day after day after day after day it was in the saint pierre the great cathedral where i preached in calvin's pulpit when they introduced the french study bible and then la detroit a little auditorium next door all day long all day long they're expositing the word of god there the book says how devoted they were to the discipling of people how serious they were about church discipline um the the puritans were so fully engaged in sound doctrine teaching the bible and applying it to people's lives in a very personal way from house to house like the apostles uh there's a richness in the writings of the puritans it's uncluttered by the philosophies of modern era it's like going back to some pure stream because they're they're not influenced by all the all the things that have influenced the centuries in between so if you if you don't know the puritans uh look at the bookstore find something on the puritan start reading and you will discover a whole new realm of spiritual blessing and joy thanks richard and we'll let you know when that conference is coming back hi pastor john my name is mark hi mark uh glory to god for what he's been doing here praise god for that a question about um the thief on the cross when jesus christ told him today he will be with me in paradise and then in john chapter 20 verse 17 he talks about mary and jesus revealing himself to her and she's not supposed to touch him and he says because i haven't ascended uh up to heaven to the father so where is jesus in the thief in those moments of time in between um i'm trying to figure out exactly what you mean by that when jesus said today you'll be with me in paradise correct he meant that thief would be in heaven that day and he'd be there too okay okay and then sorry it says in uh john chapter 20 verse 17 jesus saith unto her touch me not yeah well what she what he was saying to her really is you can't hold on to me i'm i'm not going to stay i mean you know she was horrified that jesus had died they were there at the tomb before the apostles were there and she was crushed beyond the imagination and then she has the conversation about how sad she is and he reveals himself to her and he's saying to her you can't hold on to me i have to send to my father so he's talking about his actual earthly ascension his actual earthly ascension when he died on the cross the question is where was his spirit his body was on the cross in the grave obviously his spirit was in heaven because that's paradise and he met the thief there and obviously he made a short visit to hell because he appeared to the demons to declare his triumph over them colossians says so in the time that his body was in the grave he was in heaven and then he was announcing his triumph in hell in his resurrection he comes back to earth and says to mary i can't stay and he acts one right ascended into heaven and that's what he meant where he intercedes for his own and waits to return does that help yes sir thank you good thank you yes sir hello uh my name is dylan and i just wanted to say thank you uh for your preaching about seven or eight years ago i was on the east coast um hearing you preach about uh predestination and almost smashing my iphone because i didn't like that but you've you've uh god has used you to correct a lot of wrong things that i thought so thank you thank you dylan um i've also this this is probably like my sixth time coming up here without getting to ask you a question so this is really cool uh so i just uh uh so original sin versus transgression of the law so i'm gonna ask the short version of this and then kind of unpack it a little bit more in a longer version um and hopefully it'll make sense why um is there a difference in the way that god deals with original or imputed sin in our personal transgression of his law so the wages of sin is death all sin so all die unbelievers will experience the first death in the second death for believers jesus cleanses us of our sin and we are spared the second in eternal death but not the first so even though death has lost its sting to the believer there seems to be a parsing of the first and second deaths as different payments in your book in the arms of god safe in the arms of god you make a case that children who die before the age of accountability can still go to heaven so is it biblical to say that the first death is a payment for our inherited original sin which would also strengthen the notion that babies born before hearing the gospel can enter heaven yeah just to give you a short answer i don't ever want to see the death of a believer as a as a payment i don't ever want to see the death of a believer as a form of punishment which a payment would be death for a believer is ushering us into the heavens into the presence of god and you say well why would you believe that that could happen to a to a baby because a baby is the perfect illustration of sovereign salvation by god jesus said you'll die in your sins because you believe not on me that's not possible for a baby or for an infant or for a small child so the first death is simply the normal end of human existence in other words i don't see that death as a punishment by god as something that takes on some kind of uh redemptive uh character i i simply think you were born you live a physical life and part of that physical life is you you die you're dying through your whole physical life and eventually it ends that that is just the dealing with the physical reality i don't see that as any kind of payment i think when the believer dies whether it's a little one that the lord gathers to himself as i try to prove in the book safe in the arms of god or whether it's a believer it is simply the release what would we even say how could we even say that the death of a believer could in any sense be a punishment when you don't even experience it you absent from the body present with the lord so where's the punishment there is nothing you absent from the body present with the lord far better to depart and be with christ now if you're a roman catholic and you want to fill in some big gap in purgatory now you're talking about the death of a person being an opportunity for that person to atone for his own sins which calls into question the reality of the sacrifice of christ which is a full atonement so he paid all of the penalty for our sins and death for us is not a penalty death for us is a release into his presence does that help yep thank you dylan thank you good question yes hi hi my name is isabella how does a kid know if he or she is a christian or not and if they are a believer when should they get baptized okay isabella how old are you ten okay tell me something do you believe that jesus is the son of god yes do you believe that he came into the world and lived a sinless life and died on the cross yes do you believe he died there for your sins and mine yes do you believe he rose from the dead yes is jesus your lord yes you're a christian [Music] do you love jesus yes do you want to honor him yes how do you know that tell me how you know you love him because i know i'm gonna go to heaven you're thankful yes do you like to sing songs about him yes do you like to read the bible yes maybe it's a little more daunting if you happen to be ten do you like to have somebody read the bible stories to you yes yeah so see all of these things are desires that don't exist in the unconverted heart right you know you've expressed to me everything that the bible says you need to believe to be a christian and the fact that you desire to love the lord and honor the lord is because he's made you new and gave you those desires and they'll grow stronger as you grow older okay isabella okay thank you dear that's beautiful [Music] hi pastor john my name is stephen and i've been coming here since 2007 and i've really appreciated your uh your ministry and i've been trying to come up with a question that i don't think you've ever been asked before and i think i found one is there a particular animal that mrs macarthur wishes that noah had left off the ark let's see mrs mcarthur it would be any form of a snake i think good question stephen thank you you need a little relief go ahead hi my name is angela wow this is a bit intimidating thank you for doing this weekend and week out for us we appreciate it that's a joy angela okay i have two quick questions and then i'll sit down and you can answer but my first question is is um i we love coming to church i get that our church is protected by our constitution but my home isn't and we've had lots of conversations about should we have a gathering shouldn't we how does that look to our neighbors what are we saying to our you know neighborhood and that sort of thing so i'd love some guidance on that my second question is um i have really enjoyed reading through the old testament because obviously what we're going through now is really not a big deal in light of the span of history but i wanted to get your recommendations on going deeper into studying the major and minor prophets i just wasn't sure which resource to choose so thank you thank you thank you well let's talk about the first question um we obey the law i mean we we obey the law we're called on to obey the law the law that is passed duly passed and we are bound by those laws so we we drive according to the law we we function in terms of the economy according to tax laws things like that we live with honesty and integrity we we do what we can to honor the government what we're all experiencing now is not law it is it is whimsy to some degree because the rules change constantly constantly they're moving the goalposts every day so i don't think the lord expects us to do anything that would be destructive to our families to our lives based upon some demagogue coming up with some ridiculous idea and trying to hold us to it i received the other day of the health department memo 14 pages long and it was so bizarre it was so strange with so many requirements i thought it was from the babylon b because it didn't even make sense i think we want to be law abiding but we don't want destruction and we don't need to roll over and accept destruction i mean you're you're asking a question that was asked and answered many times during the second world war if you're jews living in the do ghetto do you hide when the nazis come do you do you know do you diary van frank do you hide somebody so the nazis can't take the person and execute them do you um do you have a bible study when bible study is forbidden do you still come together and study the word of god when when things that are not laws that are being imposed on us that have negative effects on our lives or try to conform us to other lies i i think there needs to be a sensible resistance common sense we don't protest i wouldn't advocate that we don't want to be known as open flagrant rebels but i think in a in a gracious way in a loving way and not a as we saw this morning not complaining about what is going on as if god had done something wrong in allowing this to happen but accepting it as the time and the place and the purpose in his will for us now i think we live our lives sensibly reasonably thoughtfully and freely and don't allow ourselves to get bound up in things that are not law and even if laws are made if they impose upon the prior responsibilities for our worship of god and the care of our family then resistance has been the pattern throughout all of human history underground churches people living underground lives i um had many trips 10 or 11 or 12 trips into the into the eastern europe area into russia and places like that and i watched a whole culture literally operating underground so that people could survive so i don't think that you can roll over every time some authority tells you to do something when that authority may not have the right to do that but again you don't want to be rebellious we've tried not to be that way but we will be faithful to the things that are our priorities family is a priority i don't know what you did on thanksgiving but but i i hope if you have a family you came together for thanksgiving rather than believe that you were bound in before god to follow some ridiculous order they may get more ridiculous right so with common sense and with joy and with measure of grace you do what is best for your family and what honors the lord okay oh there was was there a second question there no okay minor major prophets oh the major minor prophets yeah which studies i just suggest you a good way to start is just um and i'm saying this because it's a simple approach you get your macarthur study bible and read the enter read the introductions to the prophets and then just read the book and go through the notes so you don't get too bogged down start with the minor prophets they're not minor that's a that's a bad term they're they're major messages but shorter books and i think it's great read the introduction to each of the uh the shorter prophet books and then read the notes that help you understand the book and uh you'll you'll be profoundly blessed going through the minor prophets and when you've done that you can tackle the big ones isaiah jeremiah ezekiel daniel okay hello pastor macarthur my name is trishan hi trishan i asked this question on behalf of some others so i hope they're listening so when god created the heavens and the angels he created them perfect and sinless and there was no sin in heaven so the question was how then was satan able to sin against god and ultimately the question would be is there anywhere in scripture that refers to the will of angels no there's nothing that i can think of that refers to the will of the angels uh all the holy angels do only the will of god so they don't have a will independent of god and all the fallen angels will is basically captive to their fallen condition the the question of um god creating angels and god creating a world without sin is of course the ultimate question and there's nothing that we can say that would really elucidate it we can't say that the sin of the angels came from inside because they were holy we can't say that it came from the outside because there was no sin on the outside so that is the ultimate question god allowed it because he wanted to to manifest his glory in redemption and grace and mercy and forgiveness and that required sin but as to the source of that the bible doesn't tell us but when it does identify that sin five times you have lucifer saying i will i will i will i will i will he willed to take the place of god to overpower god so we can say then on the basis of that that sin did not come from anywhere outside it came from inside lucifer and the fallen angels who went with him and it was an act of will somehow god allowed for those angels at that time to have the expression of their will once that was done it was permanently solidified the fallen angels are locked into their fallenness and the holy angels are locked into their holiness but what the bible would simply tell us is he came from inside lucifer and he led the rebellion so the angels had a will to fall and that's all they will ever know everlastingly in the lake of fire holy angels have only the will to honor god that's that's that's all we know from scripture okay good question uh pastor macarthur my name is gina hi gina thank you so much you and patricia for being such a wonderful example of a godly pastor and wife throughout this country and throughout the world i'm from south america and my question to you is um [Music] will the folks that we did not have the mental capacity to know our lord or the children that have been aborted will they be back in the millennium sure everybody comes back in the millennium yeah we all come back he comes with the saints and the holy angels so when our lord returns at the end of the period of tribulation comes in his second coming he comes with his saints all of the redeemed of all of the ages will come back thank you you're welcome thank you good evening pastor john um it's nice to meet you i'm eric molina i'm a filipino-american and although i'm not a member of your church i'm a lifetime supporter because i attend the santa clarita baptist church in uhaul and i came here with so much joy and providential i believe because i am scheduled to travel back home in the philippines after 40 years and i'm very very active in evangelization in fact i want to thank you because i became a born again believers through hearing the gospel from you i used to live here in 1980 and go to that church saint genevieve oh yeah and i became a believer through you so i just want to let you know it's like a closure for me coming into full circle and um i am retired and i am setting up a radio station it's almost complete in the philippines my question has already been answered when i heard pastor sean announce that there is a master seminary group in the philippines because my co-workers there are asking me because they know there i'm here right now and they said make sure you ask if there is a master seminary contacts that we need and because pastor i i've grown up through your ministry although i'm not a member here but i do belong as a community of believers in your church wow thank you and uh so i maybe have an opportunity later on yeah you need to talk to sean i mean you're not here by accident right no no i know he said he's have you been up in this public before sean not to preach i have been attempting to uh meet with you but i know you're a busy servant of the lord well if you're going to the philippines he's your guy right now thank you pastor welcome thank you okay what's your name sweetheart what is it ruth ruth oh that's a beautiful name what's your question why don't you look at him and tell him your question you can do it how do i love jesus how do you love jesus i love god or love god it's the same deal you know how you do that do you know how you love your dad and mom by doing what they tell you to do by by being obedient you know what it'll be obeying means [Music] do you know what it means to do what your mom and dad tell you to do that's how you love your mom and dad and that's the same way you love jesus if you love me he said you do what i tell you to do that's how you show your love to him so when you read the bible and you read something that jesus wants you to do if you love him you obey him okay yes yes okay there's some progress there i think dad all right oh we've got a few more left huh okay i guess we're back over here he told me i wasn't going to get to do this so this is really a blessing pastor john mcarthur i can't tell you how great it is to be here how blessed i feel and thankful for your god-given courage to have a church that's open so that we as believers can fellowship together and love and praise the lord um just real quick i'm i'm my passion is to evangelize talk to people share but i often find it hard to introduce the topic and i have found that having a mask on and it says keeping my eyes on jesus and i don't even know i'm wearing it so i'm in the grocery store and people will come up and talk to me so in some ways it's turned out to be a pretty pretty positive thing so well that's wonderful you're you're taking advantage of the opportunity i've seen every kind of mass but i haven't seen that one yeah keeping my eyes on jesus so i'm sorry my question is and my friends say i'm very overthink it so pardon me for that um when jesus was buried he was three days nights in the heart of the earth um hades the region of the dead before christ's ascension right so there's two parts to hades there's paradise where the old testament saints are or abraham's bosom and then there's a section for non-believers on torment my question is when what did he visit both sections of haiti's wealth yeah that's what we were saying earlier hades is just a term for the grave okay so you have to define what you mean um so we said earlier that when jesus died he met the thief in paradise that's that's the place where the righteous go we also know in colossians that he showed up at the celebration in hell and triumphed over demons in that very moment they were celebrating his death and he showed up alive and pronounced judgment on them so yes i think when he was dead he was with the thief in heaven and declared his triumph over the demons in hell that's not a problem for him he is omnipresent right right correct yes thank you you

Channel: Grace to You

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Keywords: John MacArthur, Bible, Preaching, Christianity, Expository, Exposition, Sermon, Jesus, Christ, Grace to You

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Length: 45min 20sec (2720 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 13 2020