Bible Questions and Answers, Part 77

hi i'm edith sometimes when i listen to audio bibles the reader will sometimes say a different word than what's actually on the page as i'm reading along other times they'll read a passage and say ezekiel or isaiah that's really difficult and you get the impression the reader doesn't have any idea what it means they're just getting the words down on tape i was thinking a guy like you you know what the words mean so i was wondering if you would ever consider recording an audio bible of oh i don't know say the legacy standard bible [Applause] okay who put you up to that i thought i have actually considered doing that for my own edification so uh that would take a while but uh maybe it maybe it's better to start sooner than later but thank you yeah we need somebody who knows what it means and now that we have the best translation out maybe that's what we ought to do is uh record the legacy standard bible that would be wonderful amen i'll i'll squeeze that in somewhere my spare time wonderful thank you that was a great question okay tom yes hi my name is ben uh my name is what my name is ben or benjamin hi ben yes i have a question regarding first corinthians 7 so so i've noticed that many of my brothers and and i all of us meet the first corinthians 7 prerequisite we're wrestling with god and searching out a woman to potentially be a helpmate i've noticed in myself and i've heard brothers express this paradox of sorts that we recognize the fact that we have romanticized romance and have at times set up this unknown woman as an idol discontent with what god has given us but we also know that a single man with conscious sexual feelings is not good alone and that god has specifically created us to have a wife so my question is how do we reconcile these two thoughts in terms of timing and if we spend too much if we spend time devoting ourselves to ministry into god making sure our motives are pure and asking a girl out it would seem that we are disobeying the apostles command in first corinthians 7. so i'd love to hear your thoughts well you might you might be eager to obey the command but can't find anybody who's willing to marry you so there's there's there's always that reality so um yeah i this is a really important question ben because marriage is the grace of life marriage is the most fulfilling relationship in life on every possible front and this particular culture we live in today has postponed that more and more seems like every year the married the average marriage age gets older and older and older and older and this puts tremendous pressure on young people to maintain purity when they have reached the age where they would desire to be married and desire to start a family so all i can do is to exhort christian people not to get caught up in what you said not to get caught up in the perfections that this society drags in front of you which are not related to reality i i think you have to look at yourself and this may help you have to look at yourself in the way that paul described marriage in ephesians 5. he basically says that a husband is like a savior to his wife that's essentially what it says and and i think i think the burden really lies with men to see themselves as those who rescue women from loneliness who rescue women from being in an uh unfulfilled life from being in in a place where they aren't protected they aren't provided for they aren't cared for they aren't loved they aren't given the opportunity to have children so from from what i would experience in in our society it's the men that have to step up and i honestly do not know what in the world they are waiting for i have threatened many times to line up all the single women on one side all the single men on the other side and assign you a wife but i instead of looking for someone who some kind of trophy you need to look to someone who loves christ that you can be a savior to that person and a protector and a provider and and a lover and be what christ is to his church because that's the picture and i i strongly exhort young men to find a wife because in that finding is god's greatest gift in this world and it allows you to raise up children who know and love the lord that's the purpose of marriage to procreate and to do so in christ is the highest calling in life um [Music] i i want to do all i can to encourage the men to step up and i i know there have been enough bad marriages in our society that there's a certain amount of fear and trepidation but you have to look at marriage as the the way the lord looks at his church he knows the bride has problems but he is her redeemer he is her rescuer and i think if you can find a godly woman that reward is the greatest reward that life can offer just don't let the world define what that woman should be okay really good question hi pastor john my name is gergen um i have a question regarding the call to preaching i was wondering how you would help someone recognize and understand whether they're called to preach well i think uh the bottom line with being called to preach is first of all from the desire of your heart we read in uh paul's letter to timothy if a man desires the office of an overseer or a pastor he desires a noble thing that indicates to us that it comes from the heart i've often said to people if you can do anything else and be content you probably should do that but if you're literally driven by the desire to to serve the lord in in pastoral ministry and preaching and teaching his word that that desire given the fact that you're honoring the lord with your life is probably the expression of god's will you know the old testament says if you delight in the lord he'll give you the desire of your heart which is is not that he'll meet your desire but he'll plant his there how else can i know what to do the lord is not going to speak to me out of heaven i'm not going to have some miraculous supernatural intervention how do i know what god wants me to do it's driven by a god-given desire in the life of one who is honoring him so it starts with that desire and it is confirmed then by the church by the people who know you and and minister alongside of you if you say i i have the gift of preaching i'm called to preach and everybody who's heard you says no you're not there might be some uh some reason to check again but where where you have this strong desire and and it's really overwhelming any other ambition and there's affirmation around you that you exhibit the gifts to do that go down that path and the lord will will continue to confirm that or he'll redirect you okay but i think it you have to just follow that desire of your heart and that desire can be so strong that even if you're doing something else there will be a dissatisfaction in that it ought to be a desire that doesn't easily go away okay good question yes hi my name is hi my question is if god doesn't like sin why did he create the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that is very important to ask that now you have to listen carefully because this this is an important answer so what you're saying is if god hates sin why did he allow something that could cause sin to happen the answer is because the most important thing in the entire universe is the glory of god and listen if there were no sin there would be no forgiveness and god wants to display his forgiveness he wants to display his mercy he wants to display his kindness he wants to display his grace he wants to show that he is a saving god he wants to display his holiness and he wants to display his holiness to the degree that he wants to display his right to judge evil how can god do all of that if evil doesn't exist so there's a sense in which god has to allow evil in the world in order to put his glory on display in its fullest sense do you understand that good everything in the end is for the glory of god and you you ask the question why does god allow evil for his glory so that he can put his glory on display not only to us but to the holy angels as well great question good evening john my name is mark cunningham my question has to do with hebrews 6 in your 50 years or 52 almost 52 years correct of being a pastor have you ever seen anyone after exhibiting the hebrew six lifestyle come to repentance well uh [Music] i think the point of hebrews 6 is to say that won't happen you're what you're talking about is the fact that i'm looking at hebrews 6 just listen to this in the case of those who have once been enlightened that's verse 4. in other words you have the full knowledge of the gospel you have tasted of the heavenly gift you've gotten a taste of salvation you have been made partaker of the holy spirit that is you've even been exposed to the power of the holy spirit now this would have been true for all the people alive when jesus was on the earth he taught them so that they were enlightened he was the ultimate heavenly gift and they they tasted of his teaching and his life and they were made partakers of the holy spirit in the sense that everything he did he did by the power of the holy spirit and so even when he did a miracle or even when he fed the multitudes they were partaking of the holy spirit and then in verse five it says and have tasted the good word of god in other words you have even been exposed to divine revelation in the gospel and even tasted the powers of the age to come that is you have been exposed to supernatural power that will be part of the age to come the picture here is of someone who has a full revelation there's nothing left out you have been enlightened in your mind you have literally had an experience of the heavenly gift of salvation maybe it's been somebody else's life transformed before you you have been a partaker of the holy spirit in that the the goodness of god has spilled over on you you have sat under the true teaching of the word of god and you have seen god's power demonstrated before your very eyes if you have had that complete exposure the writer of hebrew says and then have fallen away in other words you turned your back it is impossible to renew them again to repentance so if it's impossible it's not going to happen this puts people who have had full exposure to the gospel in a very dangerous position if they don't believe the bible is saying if you reject with full revelation and he used all kinds of phrases to describe that if you reject the gospel with full revelation what else can you have where do you go from there if with that full revelation you fall back from faith in christ it's impossible to renew you again to repentance in fact you are guilty of crucifying the son of god and putting him to an open shame in verse 9 he says but beloved we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation so saved people don't do that they do the better thing the things that accompany salvation so that is really a very very classical definition of an apostate a lot of unbelievers in the world reject christ without full revelation without the full knowledge we know that and we also know that in eternity though all unbelievers will be punished the greatest punishment is reserved for those who rejected the greatest revelation or the most full exposure to the truth so this is an apostate this is someone who doesn't ever come to christ no one is in more grave danger than when they have the full revelation of the truth concerning christ and they turn away from it okay thank you pastor for your clarity thank you welcome good evening pastor john my name is bill hi bill thank you for the sermon this morning that was very helpful oh you're welcome yeah um i was confronted with something four days ago concerning grace community church [Music] a fellow that i've known for 20 years not a professing christian but he tells me as a strong he's always told me he has a strong prayer life and wonder who he's talking to well yeah yeah so uh first words out of his mouth he said that we are concerned about you so there's more than one about you or me about me oh about you yeah he's concerned about me and um and he i said really and he said yeah he said so he said uh we know you go to grace community church and you do not wear a mask and they uh basically told me that they're in all of a sudden all of a sudden after this couple years of colvin all of a sudden they're telling me that and whoever else there was involved because he said we you know we are concerned um so they're in fear about being around me one of the guys he said uh he wanted they what he wanted to know to tell me that uh he won't even come over my house now all of a sudden because of that and it was shocking to me and i didn't know how to respond to that and uh or how to answer that in a proper way so let me help you let me help you with that that's what i'm hoping um hebrews we're talking about hebrews but hebrews chapter 2 says the devil holds men captive to the fear of death all their life long if you tell people they can die from something you terrify them if they have no hope if they don't know what death means or where they're going that is the worst possible thing that they can think of there's that is why death is called the king of terrors and you can take something like a virus that will be fatal to [Music] .1 of a population 99.9 percent will survive it and you can terrify that entire population by just saying it could kill you because the fear of death is the gripping fear in the life of every person and the devil holds them in bondage to that fear and it is the fear of death you have to understand this is how people control other people the threat of death is the highest way to exercise control over someone and with a current core of world leaders and government leaders wanting to take control of everyone they have chosen the most powerful thing they can choose and that's fear and that's fear so i i think if i were talking to a friend like that i would say would you like to be delivered from that fear would you want to have absolutely no fear of death would would you like to welcome death as a friend would you like to be able to say for to me to live as christ and to die as gain would you would you like to live without any fear of death and rather anticipating it for what lies beyond in the glories of heaven i would just go from there to the gospel you've got he's already set up for that um you're explaining something that's happening to all of us i was walking in a sea's candy store to buy some candy for patricia and i came out of the store and i didn't have a mask on and there was a lady probably nearly my age or close and she's 10 feet away from me and she yelled at me sir what are you i'm i'm bringing sea's candy to my wife this is a mission of mercy and she yells at me and says where's your mask and i realize this this poor lady is terrified uh she's afraid of death um this may be the best time in all our lives to confront people with the fact that christ removes that fear right i mean that's the message i can't think of a better setup look we we we're all trying to figure out this covid but i i had an article i was going to just mention so you allowed me to bring it up this just this just came out of a combination of reports and i've followed these now for all this last year and a half this is from uh the cdc the white house covet team and some important epidemiologists at harvard and here is the conclusion and this is this week there is no discernible relationship between the percentage of population vaccinated and new coveted cases did you hear that there is no relationship between the percentage of people vaccinated and new coveted cases it goes on to say the lack of meaningful association between percentage population fully vaccinated and new coveted cases is demonstrated by many many studies this is a quote there is no significant signaling of covet 19 cases decreasing with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated what is that they're making everybody be vaccinated and has nothing to do with the cases of covid a deeper dive the article says shows that the most vaccinated countries have the highest transmission according to the cdc the lowest rate of vaccinated countries have the lowest rate of transmission it is completely the opposite of what you're being told so i'm not arguing for or against vaccination that's something you can decide for yourself but this is about trying to make people afraid i'll i'll say this and i'm speaking as one who has read everything i can get my hands on for the last year and a half nothing stops covid nothing not masks not double masks not triple masks not social distancing nothing stops covid it's like trying to keep flies out of your yard with a chain-link fence this is a microscopic virus nothing stops covet he goes where it wants to go and it's very dangerous to people who have other illnesses as we know but the attempt now to vaccinate five-year-olds when there is an inverse correlation between vaccination and incidence of covid the very opposite of what they're saying is is beyond imagination so what all of this demonstrates is that people can be manipulated so easily if you tell them they might die and we're here to say first of all you're not likely to die from covid but the death rate i want to remind you what the death rate is one per person yeah might not be coveted but you'll have one death the important thing is that you not have two the second death right we need to be joyful we need to be content and we need to be loving kind gracious and we also need to tell people that the lord gives salvation that takes out the fear of death right okay thanks bill hi pastor john my name is val and here's a little context to my question so uh the church that my parents go to dissolved their spanish ministry recently and the reasoning is that the church is not headed in that direction whatever that is supposed to mean um but there is a clear need for this church to have a spanish ministry they're located in southern california and on top of that their finances they've been financially blessed for very long and have the space for it so my question is how much of a priority is it for a church to have a spanish ministry and are there any sacrifices that a church should make for this to be a priority how much of a priority is it for a church to have a spanish ministry you know i can't believe i'm not in the chapel and the the somebody's up here speaking spanish to this congregation not to have a spanish ministry would be to fail to fulfill the great commission i don't think that's something you decide to do it's amazing to me how churches would be willing to send money somewhere in the world some obscure mission field but not realize that they have a massive mission field right in their own area this this church i mean look around come to the sunday evening when we read the new members if you don't think this isn't the united nations and that's the church right that's how it's supposed to be so it isn't just that you have quote unquote a spanish ministry it is that you reach the people around you as far as you can reach um i i don't know how you could justify indifference that's not about having enough money to do anything that's about fulfilling the great commission starting in your jerusalem and then judea and then the ends of the earth okay thank you thank you my name's neil yes we were thrilled to see you here this morning you left the church god's church in great hands whilst you were away my question is provoked by men who approached me in men of the word and asked me to support them in requesting medical exemption religious exemption and i thought it would be nice to hear from you directly about religious exemption for covid being forced upon them yeah thank you thank you neil a very very good question we we've had we've had a lot of that question being offered and so just so you all know the elders have put together a statement and grace community church is willing to to back you up and stand behind you if that's your conviction and you can get a copy of that statement by just coming by the church office and uh basically you can use it any way you would like to use it some some companies are accepting that some are not i think there's a biblical basis for that one of the things that distresses people no end is the experimental part of vaccines using fetal tissue aborted babies that in itself is enough to want to exempt yourself from it but but also you are the protector of your own body which is the lord's right and you don't want to give up your body to anything that might do harm to it we we counsel people against drugs alcohol anything that can harm your body and there's clear confusion certainly on vaccines that there can be harm to the body there's ample evidence of that there's a record of that in the vars counting system in our country that may be only one-tenth of reality so again you have the responsibility before god not to let anything take over your body which is a vessel for his glory and his honor at the same time we are all [Music] finding certain medications useful and even necessary and there are side effects to many of those things although there have never been side effects to any other vaccine or to all other vaccines combined to equal the negative side effects to the vaccine for covid it far exceeds the combined damage done with all other vaccines so you have to make that choice it may be best for you if you're vulnerable that's your choice fine but if you uh you don't want to do that certainly it's viable for you to say that i i want to be sure that i don't allow anything in my body that might in any way hamper me or harm me and thus limit my service to the lord and you may all feel pretty strongly even those of you who might have been vaccinated about the use of fetal tissue and experimentation so again it's a conscience issue but we do have a very good statement and the church provides some background for it if you need that you can get one from the church office okay good hello pastor macarthur my name is chi and i had a question regarding the standard of like church not necessarily like church service but how it's structured because i've seen a lot of things in between church and bible studies start to exist over covet like maybe group chats online and it'll maybe be like 100 people or 50 people but i know there's things in scripture about the roles of men and women and you know these types of things but i don't know i don't know because i've heard words like parachurch and i'm just not sure if people understand i guess because i have friends involved in i want to talk to them about the standard of church even though to them it's not church because it's not at a church building even though they're all talking about the word and having bible studies but yeah i don't know i feel like people would think there's just anything flies if it's not in a building you know no really really good question and it's part of the the culture of young people look zoom church is not church it's not church it's watching tv there's nothing there's nothing about that that fulfills the biblical definition of coming together stimulating one another love and good works coming together singing speaking to yourselves in psalms him spiritual songs singing making melody to the lord sitting under the word of god praying together being led by those who preach the word and open the scripture the definition of a church is crystal clear in the new testament we see the picture of it they came together on the first day of the week they worshiped the lord they prayed we know it was the apostles doctrine prayer it was fellowship and it was the breaking of bread and the lord's supper so the the church is defined clearly and it's the communion of the saints it's fellowship it's partnership the term koinonia means a coming together a unifying together it doesn't even function unless people are mutually as we were saying this morning mutually using their spiritual gifts for one another and and meeting the wonderful fulfillment of all the one and others how many times in the new testament edify one another pray for one another rebuke one another [Music] build up one another on and on one another's one another's we're we're only the church when we are together and the church is the church when it corporately worships when it corporately prays when it corporately hears the preaching of the word of god those are the things that define the church i was listening to the latest in the podcast that austin duncan's been doing at the macarthur center and it just reminded me from the discussions that he was having with regard to this particular church how the church is this communion of people this fellowship of people whose lives are all blended together in a profound expression of love and unity and that does not happen in any kind of video environment i don't think it even happens in a quote-unquote church where you're watching a video of a pastor because it's very important that that man's life be exposed and visible and known to everyone so when you talk about para church you're talking about some arm of the church or some function of the church that aids the church for example grace to you which is a media ministry of teaching the bible and we do that all over the world in multiple languages providing all kinds of books and all kinds of sermons for download and it's that's parachurch in the sense that it comes alongside the church we aren't the church we don't want grace to you to be the church the master's university comes alongside the church the master seminary comes alongside the church even grace missions international tmai comes alongside churches all over the world to provide strength for them but they're all arms of this church so you you're in i think you're in violation of the whole intent of the lord and how he wants his people to work together if you're not fully involved in a church under the leadership and headship of pastors to whom you have given your life to be cared for instructed loved nurtured and to whom you owe some accountability okay thank you you're welcome hi pastor john my name is tom hi tom i've been thinking about this question for a pretty long time in light of old testament saints who walked blamelessly like job how were they sanctified since they didn't have the indwelling of the holy spirit that new testament believers enjoy well but they did they did have the indwelling of the holy spirit they wouldn't have been able to be redeemed they wouldn't have been saved they wouldn't have been justified abraham believed god and it was counted to him as righteousness so he was justified by faith in god that's how old testament saints were justified and that is always the work of the holy spirit the holy spirit gives life so you don't have the absence of the holy spirit in the old testament and the presence of the holy spirit in the new testament in the new testament you have the fullness of the holy spirit in other words there's a greater outpouring of the holy spirit in the new testament not as if he was not there in the old nothing would happen in terms of redemption sanctification enabling power blessing apart from the spirit of god and there are there are indications of that you know the psalmist says don't take your spirit from me because he knows that i mean that that would be a disaster his whole spiritual life depends on the work of the holy spirit so the old testament saints knew the true god the only thing they didn't know was christ who he was and they were pre-crossed but they were going to they were basically chosen by god for salvation saved by the work of the spirit and the ratification of their salvation came when jesus died on the cross later so it's only a question of degree and jesus said in the upper room he said the holy spirit has been with you he will be in you so it's it's the fullness so what we hear in the new testament is to be filled with the spirit it's the degree to which the spirit fills us uh that takes us to to another level this side of the cross okay good um hi my name is andrew thank you for your leadership um three years has passed since the dallas statement came out and i wanted to know it shows like secular polls where crt teaching has been rejected having been through the battles i wanted to know your thoughts on the dallas statement and the church and evangelicals and yeah really good andrew the dallas statement was a statement we put together three years ago on critical race theory um you can google the dallas statement on race and you can find the full statement it rejects critical race theory it rejects the philosophy of social justice that it rejects the white guilt white privilege it rejects all those forms of racism and it does so necessarily from the word of god and it was signed by countless people i i would say this and i think this is born out in in testimony churches in particular and schools that refuse to sign that biblical statement to stop the racism uh have suffered profoundly for not doing that and it's not that they just didn't sign but they got on the wrong side of the issue wherever there was an effort upon the part of evangelicals to support this racial animosity and hatred wherever there was support of that the institutions have have taken massive massive hits churches have literally driven out their congregation churches with multiple thousands of people are down to a few hundred institutions that once were thought of as faithful seminaries or bible colleges when they got into this it began to suck the life out of them because they could never be woke enough there's no forgiveness in that system you you you can't repent enough you're never off the hook because they can't let you off the hook or they can't keep making money at your expense so it's devastated christian churches many churches that i know pastored by men that i know that i would have thought would know better have literally taken their churches apart and left them in shambles over this issue you cannot cultivate and propagate hate and revenge and vengeance in a church and have it have a positive effect we're not talking about the fact that people haven't been mistreated of course fallen world but unleashing hate in the church and hostility in the church is not the answer so i would say the dallas statement still stands and it's a very important and balanced biblical statement but those who refuse to sign that thinking that they could maybe gain favor with those who are pumping race have found that they haven't gained favor anywhere they're like the guy in the civil war who got who wore the gray pants in the blue jacket and got shot by both sides you can't be in the middle you want to be biblical nobody is denying that there has been racism nobody is denying that i i i've had that in my own experience just by identifying with people in the south even i was thrown in jail because of some animosity toward black people in mississippi that i was ministering with i understand all that we're not talking about whether this is a perfect world or a fallen world it's a fallen world we're talking about whether the church is a place of love or a place where you unleash hate and you can't do that and survive nothing is gained by it and it's just wherever the there's an effort on the part of a church to get into this their results are absolutely disastrous okay good hi john hi welcome back it's good to see you again thank you so you've had a unique place in the christian world because you've pastored one church for 52 years and thank you for your ministry by the way in your life as a pastor what have you what have you observed to be the biggest danger facing this church besides the egos of california politicians i guess politicians are no threat to this church um any politician who thinks he can threaten the lord jesus christ who's the head of the church has really got delusions of grandeur i i there are some who think they can the only threats to this church are internal they're not external the worse it gets outside the stronger the church gets in in the last year and a half with all that's going on on the outside this church has just gotten stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger we're clearer now on what the church is we're clearer now on what we believe and against the backdrop of all the chaos the church flourishes this is how this is how the lord purges the church and what i was saying to andrew about the critical race thing that that's a way the lord is purging out weak churches you get on the wrong side of that and uh you're you're you're out of the picture so i think all the stuff on the outside that comes at the church the lord uses that because we need to count it all joy when we fall into various trials because the testing of our faith has a perfecting work right when we're weak we're strong that we become stronger so the only real threat to the church is inside even satan is no threat to us satan is no threat to us on the outside because he is no match for the lord of the church where the church has to be careful is when it shifts its allegiance from the lord of the church to any other lord to any other philosophy any other gospel any other anything we are so consumed with the primacy and the priority of the lord jesus christ here and as long as we are focused on christ the spirit of god is changing us into his image we have nothing to fear the least thing you have to fear is some group of politicians they are the ones that should be terrified they should be terrified churches need to stand up and tell them that that's part of the the responsibility of the church peter said judgment begins at the house of god that that that doesn't just mean that god judges his church that's not the point but rather that judgment comes from the church but the evangelical church is so bent on wanting the world to like the church that they do not exercise the judgment role that the church is to have in society while politicians are threatening us the church needs to rise up and talk to them about the real threat the real threat the real threat is god they need to fear god we read psalms on sunday morning and how many times do we read about what god is going to do to the wicked nations the evil nations they're not going to get away with anything they are no threat to the church unless the church abandons its submission to the lord jesus christ and tries to please the world then something like this recent issue comes along and those churches don't meet and that's a blessing so i think the lord uses these things on the outside to purify the church the only thing that threatens the church is the the failure to be totally committed to christ as head of the church which is the reason we kept meeting right i i i i don't fear the politicians i have absolutely zero fear of any politician i have zero fear of any bug any virus any whatever but i fear my lord but it's a reverent fear it's a fear of love and the whole world can tell us not to be the church and i'll say we're going to be the church we're going to be the church even if the statistics were different and more people were ill and more people died all the more reason to be the church to be the church so all the threats in the life of the church are on the inside which is why the first instruction in the new testament to the church is that if somebody's in sin go to that person confront that person if they don't listen take two or three witnesses confront them again if they don't listen tell the church to confront them why because it's the sin in the church not outside the church that corrupts the church okay i got on the soap box but thank you good evening john my name is charles peeples i started coming to grace community church two years ago in october because your sermons were giving me sleepless nights and two years later i still have sleepless nights and i love it my question i have two questions two quick questions the first is relating to first corinthians 7 15 it says yet if the unbelieving one leaves let him leave the brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases but god has called us to peace my question uh regarding this verse is how does one know that that person is an unbeliever because if you chosen prior to the foundation of the world and god is going to regenerate that sheep there will be an inward i would say effectual call but that can happen any time it could happen at 50 60 years of age too and my second question is related to matthew 5 32 where it says but i say to you that everyone who divorces his wife except for the reason of unchastity makes her commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery question is related to the latter part because if that is how scripture is defining then whether knowing or unknowing if a person marries someone who was divorced for a different reason now as per scripture in god's eyes that person is in perpetual sort of sin of adultery can that marriage be blessed yeah very important question so let me just summarize it in a simple way god hates divorce okay says that god hates divorce i hate divorce um god designed marriage one man one woman for life that's marriage but god understands that we are in a fallen world and so there are some concessions to the fallenness of the world one concession which you're mentioning from matthew and is in other passages in the gospels is where you have an unfaithful spouse where you have an unfaithful spouse ideally that unfaithful spouse would repent and come back and in a christ-like way you would forgive that spouse and keep that union together but in the assumption that you have an unfaithful spouse that perpetuates that unfaithfulness there is grounds for divorce god even divorced israel he said i gave israel a bill of divorce for her many adulteries so god understands that marriage is a union that can be so totally violated as to be virtually impossible to sustain without harm so where there is impenitent adultery there is freedom to divorce and at the same time if there is freedom to divorce the assumption is that you can be married again now the the unfaithful spouse with perpetual unfaithfulness may be demonstrating that they're not a believer at all because that's really not how believers act right i mean if you go to first corinthians chapter six there are no adulterers in the kingdom there are no homosexuals in the kingdom so if that's the if that's the fixed settled choice even after you've gone through the process of calling that person back and offering forgiveness god is not going to make you live with that kind of relationship that is a grace and that is a mercy that even god exercised when he divorced israel now with regard to first corinthians 7 and verse 15 you have an unbeliever leaving this is an unbeliever that's the only way you know whether someone is converted you're not talking about somebody who's elect because you don't know that this is an unbelieving person will they be saved in the future who knows but if an unbeliever departs let that unbeliever depart you're no longer in bondage and the language is the same language as divorce so there are two biblical bases for divorce one impenitent adultery and the other an unbeliever departs let that unbeliever leave you're not under bondage in such cases god has called us to peace there are cases that i know of where at a later time a spouse that left came to faith and and the marriage was brought back together again but that may happen that may not happen so i think though god designed marriage for life and god hates divorce he understands that there are some intolerable situations and when you have exhausted all possible efforts to bring someone out of an adulterous kind of relationship even offering forgiveness and when you have an unbeliever who wants out of that marriage you're not under bondage to them and i think in both cases you are free to marry again in the lord okay does that cover the second question was a little uh what i was asking is if you're already married if a person is married whether knowing or unknowing what the other person's divorce was because of okay but now you are in adultery as per scripture yeah what you're saying is that person who was divorced without biblical grounds or with biblical grounds are you free to marry that person no what i'm saying is if you if a person marries someone who divorced not regarding related to unchastity right now you're in a union where according because it's saying the person who marries that person is also an adulterer yeah so you've got someone who was divorced as an unchaste person uh does that perpetually make that person unmarriable for the rest of that person's life the answer to that question would be basically to say if at some point in the future that person came to faith in jesus christ and became a new creation you sort of reset everything so i don't think if you met somebody who had been divorced in the past because of a sinful situation and that person has come to christ grown in christ flourished in christ that you would have to put a a scarlet number on the head of that person i think redemption resets everything okay good thank you hi pastor john my name is scott thank you first of all for your faithful service to the church all these many years my question is in beholding the progression of satan's temptation of jesus in the desert it becomes apparent that his greatest weapon against christ or against anyone i guess would be to finally use the word of god itself to twist it out of context i was wondering if you see it to be analogous to perhaps satan twisting romans 13 to use it to tempt the church in this proverbial desert that we're in yeah now i think it's a very good observation that um the devil quotes scripture and he quotes it accurately enough but it misinterprets it and and look does he do that often every single aberrant cult related to christianity is full of the devil having twisted scripture right all of it mormonism christian science all cults jehovah's witnesses any of them in all of them um all the strange bizarre charismatic movements and all the false teachers and frauds they all use scripture so the devil his ploy is to be disguised as an angel of light and his ministers are angels of light disguised as angels of light and the light is the scripture so yes um every every religion that wants to propagate in the name of christianity some aberrant truth has to twist scripture and yeah what you're what you're pointing out is we took romans 13 and we said that does not give the government the power to stop the church from meeting and we said we're going to meet there were critics who said well you're disobeying the government this was never rebellion against the government this was obedience to christ he said forsake not the assembling of yourselves together and i borrow the language of acts 5. you judge whether you obey god or men when those two conflict look a husband and a wife have authority over a child but how much authority do they have do they have authority over that child to lead that child into sin and transgression and corruption and we say well we have to back off after all they have parental authority or does a husband have the right to lead his wife into immorality because he has authority as a husband no that authority is all framed up in the exercise of what is a legitimate use of that authority so the government has overstepped its bounds way overstepped its bounds god never ever ordained government to do what government is doing today it's way beyond god's intention government had a simple purpose punish evil doers and protect those who do good and to show you how perverted the government is it is basically committed to protecting the people who do evil and punishing the people who do good it's been reversed millions of people pouring in over the border millions of people committing crimes and you want to defund the police and you want to you want to eliminate any kind of laws so the government you can tell is flipped on its head and it is going to punish the people who want to uphold the law and it's going to reward the people who want to violate the law and you have it to the degree that in the name of an emergency the president or whoever influences him he's he's uh he's the ventriloquist dummy but um whoever is influencing him he's just making willy-nilly laws all over the place like you you're not vaccinated you lose your job and things like that it's just endless that isn't protecting anybody when when the government reaches into your life and begins to destroy it destroying businesses destroying jobs destroying lives when the when the government proudly says we now have a new passport with an x on it for those of you who aren't male or female um we are proud to announce the first transgender general in the health services that's the great achievement of a government that is completely corrupt completely corrupt to submit to that government how would we ever submit to that government and least of all if they told us not to meet we would defy that because we would declare as we did declare christ is the head of the church not caesar okay hi pastor john i'm brenda and i'm asked this is not a passionate question this is one of those things that just bugs me in the bible and i just needed to get clarity on it in numbers 21 4 through 9 moses makes a bronze serpent on a stick and the hebrews don't worship it but you know the thing they they look at it and i'm like why then later on they worship it so it's like why wha what was he what was that about i mean that's one of those things so do you have a macarthur study bible no no it sounds like i don't have to get one you go to the bookstore after church tonight and i have one there waiting for you with your name on it free of charge my gift to you oh wow okay okay but the bottom line is that the the serpent lifted up in the wilderness was a token of trusting god it was a token of trusting god it wasn't an idol in the place of god they fell into that but it was a token of trusting god bitten by serpents you wouldn't assume that a cure would be to look at a serpent on a statue but god was saying this is a symbol of you trusting me this is a visible symbol of you trusting me and the parallel to that i don't know if you ever wear around your neck across okay but but a lot of people do do we worship the cross no but as the serpent in the wilderness was lifted up so was the son of man lifted up and for them the statue was the symbol of god's power and protection and deliverance as the cross is our symbol of his protection power and deliverance okay thank you thank you so much hello pastor john my name is darius um it's a privilege just to ask you this question and kind of a dream come true um my question is just based off some background so i listened to preachers like paul washer and your dear friend r.c sproul yeah and he says rc your dsrc says it's based off matthew 27 when christ asks father father why have you forsaken me and christ rc responds and says excuse my language but it's as if the lord your god yahweh responds the lord your god damns you to hell and so our my brother here help me write this question it says when jesus was on the cross in matthew 27 46 he says my god my god why have you forsaken me some theologians say that god did not forsake jesus did god forsake jesus how do we understand this well first of all you understand that our finite minds have a hard time grasping the infinite relationship in the trinity but let me help if i can to explain it to you so um [Music] there is no there is no other possibility than that christ was forsaken by his father it doesn't mean he ceased to be god it doesn't mean he ceased to be the son of god but the forsaking is crystal clear and it's best defined in second corinthians 5 21 he god made him who knew no sin christ sin on our behalf so when the father placed on the son all the sins of all the people who would ever believe through all of human history in the three hours of darkness in that sense he bore our sins in the language of peter in his body on the cross in those hours when for the only time in all of his eternal existence he was made sin there was a breach necessarily between him and the father and when he said father why have you forsaken me the why is the cry of an innocent person why have you forsaken me there was no sin in him he was holy harmless undefiled separate from sinners he was bearing the punishment of sinners and punishment is alienation from god but he did not become a sinner and that's why the why is there if he said i i know i've done some things to deserve this then all of the gospel collapses so that is the only possible thing that you could hear him say it's coming and i don't deserve it but i accept it even in the garden he said let this cup pass from me people say well was he trying to escape the cross no he was simply reflecting on the reality that for the first time and only time in all of eternity he would become a victim of the fury of god on behalf of sinners everything in him repulsed that so those are what we would expect him to say and i do believe that rc was correct in saying he endured what hell is divine punishment he endured all the hell for all who would ever believe throughout all of human history in the fury of god in the hours of darkness the separation was so real that it was for him being forsaken okay thank you that's beautiful hi good evening good evening i'm wondering first of all how you go about refining a conscience issue for yourself what a conscience conscience issue and then kind of secondarily how do you reconcile when you have seemingly opposing conscience issues such as conscience against taking a mandated coveted vaccine versus one's conscience to keep a job to continue to support and feed their family yeah i i think for everybody that's different but [Music] i i think for us to [Music] battle that in our conscience is what throws us kind of into prayer before the lord i've said this to people who have been in that same dilemma you could go ahead and take the vaccine because you need to keep your job and it's not likely you're going to die from that it's not going to prevent you from getting coveted and it's not going to prevent you from passing covet and there may be some side effects but you would say i need my job i need to support my family so i'm going to trust the lord to protect me right that's that's sensible i mean that's sensible i think that's that's not an uncommon thing all the people who worked in the healthcare through covid had to say okay lord i'm in there every day i'm going there i'm doing this you're going to have to protect me or on the other hand you could say i don't want this i for maybe religious reasons and other reasons i don't want this i know i've heard that from pregnant women and then you could say if if if i don't get this it could cost me if you're a man it costs the job or even some women and so lord you're going to have to you're going to have to protect me either way you're putting yourself in the lord's hands and you can't lose right you can't lose as we were saying this morning so i i think and again it's kind of like the question about how do you know you're called to pastor i think if you're if your life is right before the lord you can follow what the strongest desire is i think the lord guides you in those desires and then you trust him right thanks okay we'll we'll just go through the folks we have and that will be enough so i think we're done over here right joe okay good evening pastor john my name is jeff hi jeff i'm a first year tms student um and with the future of ministry in mind in particular thinking specifically about youth if you were to hit the reset button so to speak and you know take josh petrus's place what would be the uh three most either essential passages of scripture or doctrines and teaching and training you would use in context of youth ministry yeah if i were starting youth ministry and this would be true no matter what i was doing i i would i would just major on the person of christ uh i'm not so much jumping into the how to's of the christian life and uh those things i i would just go all out for the person of christ i would take young people through the gospel of john or through the gospel of mark which is a condensed life of christ i i would i would even this may sound strange but i'd even go to places like colossians and hebrews to show them the depths of christ i i think the christian life is christ it's all about him gazing into his glory and being changed into his image so i think we miss the boat when we just talk to kids about their life you know and what they need to do in their life and they need to have devotions and they need to do this and do that i think we just need to hold up christ and when he is lifted up he draws them to him so i'd focus relentlessly on christ thank you hi hi my name is emily hi emily my husband and i are recently out of the hyper charismatic movement through the american gospel um convicting all of us that video huh the american gospel video you mean yeah the the documentary yeah the documentary and that brought us here so thank you um our kids are out of it's all god god's sovereign plan um our kids are out of public school my marriage has been saved and i realized i'm a wretched sinner saved just by the grace of our holy god so thank you for being in that documentary um my husband's a fireman so he texted me to be brave which i'm trying to ask you a question ask him how do we navigate this verse mark 9 38-40 in a world of false prophets heretical preachers fake miracles etc i i can read it if you need me no that's okay i i'm shaking so i'd rather not no you're you're you're so sweet and gracious you just don't look like a raving charismatic no look people can easily be seduced because their intentions are right i mean you want the right thing you you want to know the lord you want to follow the lord you want his power in your life you want his protection in your family and so this is what we were saying earlier uh there's seduction in those kinds of false forms of christianity they lure you with false promises false promises being promises of special power special experiences authority over demons speaking in tongues which becomes some kind of intimate prayer language with god that gives you access to the throne that people who don't do that don't have and all of that is deceptive and you know until there's only one antidote for lies okay only one and that is the truth and the wonderful thing about it emily is this i don't know how long you've been coming here since january since january but i i will tell you and i'm sure this is your experience i'll go out on a limb when you began to hear the truth you knew it was the truth yes right and you know why because you're the lord's child and you were off in deception but when you heard the truth you knew it was the truth a lot of people in deception aren't children of the lord they aren't genuinely saved but it's been it's been my experience through many years of dealing with the charismatic movement going way back i don't know i've written half a dozen books on that movement that the true believers when they hear the truth know they're hearing the truth i don't think a week of my life goes by that i don't meet somebody who has read strange fire heard the strange fire messages read charismatic chaos or the charismatics or or something like that and when they hear the truth they know they're hearing the truth that's because the spirit of god reacts to that truth and presses that truth home to your heart so there's no particular strategy to escape that the only way out is to hear the truth and that's why we've been addressing people in that movement with the truth so that the truth can do its work as it has in your life and your husbands yes thank you you're welcome yes ma'am hi um my name is olivia and hi olivia i want to thank you for your ministry and your faithfulness to god's word first of all my question is regarding missions so should missionaries as they go out they usually have a plan for ministry should they plan to make that place their home or should they expect to come back home once their ministry is fulfilled quote unquote well i i think whatever the lord wants them to do maybe it's for a while maybe it's temporary maybe it's there a while and somewhere else a while i don't think you can know the whole plan part of the adventure of serving the lord is you don't know what's coming next there are there are missionaries who've gone somewhere and locked down and been there the rest of their entire life and were buried in those places there are others who go for a little while and find that maybe that's not exactly where god wants them and he moves them somewhere else there are some who go and stay for a number of years until they can literally hand over the ministry to the indigenous people we we we hope that happens in our training centers around the world that we can train enough nationals they can take over and our leaders can go somewhere else so every every situation is is unique you don't want to assume that because a missionary came back they were somehow unfaithful they have to follow the lord's plan and you can't know necessarily before it unfolds what that plan is going to be okay thank you so if some if uh if you're feeling the urge to go somewhere and you're worried that maybe you'll have to be there the rest of your life and that may seem like a huge commitment for you at this age just take it one step at a time and see what god does okay thank you hello pastor john my name is jarrett hi jared hi i just had a quick question i wanted to ask i know you know we're almost done um pastor john what advice would you give to help reconcile a broken couple when sin such as pride anger and unfaithfulness strike their relationship or marriage well there's only one remedy for sin and that's repentance and confession and i think you have to be honest and you have to be honest enough to talk out everything that's wrong in that relationship if it's a marriage you need to do everything you can to keep it together if it's not a marriage if you're if this is somebody you're thinking about marrying and things go wrong i i usually advise people to take a break and separate and see if you can live life apart because that's no way to start a marriage marriage doesn't change anyone marriage crystallizes into permanency whatever you are so whatever the weaknesses are in your relationship when you're dating at least you can go home and be away from the other person but if you're married you can't go anywhere and the marriage isn't going to change anything it is going to crystallize into permanency what you are so you have to look at your own heart and your own life and the life of the person you're you're you're with and understand that even years and years and years are not likely while god will do a sanctifying work not likely to to alter people's personalities dramatically dramatically so what you want most of all in a marriage is not some looks but some kind of character that can last a lifetime and if if you're not seeing that you might want to back off from that okay thank you hello hello pastor john hi my name is ulysses and i've been attending grace church for about a month now prior to that i attended a pentecostal church and i've also attended a baptist church so i've seen some of the differences between the doctrines and i also noticed some things that are weren't necessarily biblically aligned so my question is what makes this church more biblically aligned than others or more correct in regard to scripture and the reason why i ask is insincerity so i can be prepared to answer when someone asks me that question sure a lot of people are sincere it's not about sincerity it's about the word of god so we take this book and follow its instructions and we do not believe that there is any revelation from god beyond this book and that's the difference in say the charismatic movement if jesus is telling people what to do outside of scripture if the the preacher is saying god talked to me and told me to do this and told me to do that this is a very dangerous situation because you're adding to scripture so again everything built on the authority of scripture then it's just a question of rightly dividing the word of truth so it's it's about interpreting scripture accurately and that's what we do if you've been coming for a month you know everybody that steps into this pulpit opens the word of god and explains the word of god in a way that you can follow and say that that that looks true that that's a clear explanation of that text so the difference is baptists have traditions and some of those traditions are biblical and maybe some are not charismatics have not so much traditions but they're getting messages from heaven all the time which compete with scripture but we we simply follow the book and that is what makes us distinct okay thank you pastor john and my last but not least hi hello my name is bella and i have a question it is why no truth why not just bear with a lie and be comfortable with it why does truth matter why is it of value first of all god says there are six things that i hate yea seven first a lying tongue lies corrupt every relationship right the only way you can have any relationship with anybody is tr on truth you can't function with lies i mean we're living it out in in our society today satan is a liar he's the father of lies he propagates nothing but lies god hates lies most important thing in the universe is truth the truth of god god is true always true always speaks the truth and always honors the truth you can't have any meaningful relationship with anyone based on lies and certainly you can't have any relationship with god unless it's based on the truth okay yes thank you

Channel: Grace to You

Views: 173,357

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

Id: _e-gqtFu2SQ

Length: 83min 17sec (4997 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/orionsbelt05]

At least he's not sitting in the window frame of the upper room.

[u/Spentworth]

Is anyone else a bit put off by MacArthur's answer to the question here? He basically says that a woman who doesn't get married will live an unfulfilled life. And the idea that the man should see himself as the woman's saviour seems a bit much.

[u/vintage-podiatrist]

He's protecting himself from MacArthur's fundamentalist doctrine

[u/[deleted]]

Yeah i noticed that too lol

[u/[deleted]]

I thought I was going to have to wait to see him, but he's immediately there. Plus that burn (in good taste!) by MacArthur at the beginning!

[u/Sensasian_01]

He's dreaming about theology at that moment lol

[u/realnelster]

lol 'Part 77' and it's more than an hour long.