Q&A with Pastor Mike Winger

and welcome [Laughter] welcome to the to the cat stream with a side of pastor mike i was gonna say pastoral but pastor mike asking answering your guys questions sorry i threw myself off with my goofy cat introduction here uh she just jumped up on the chair next to me and i thought i'd share her with you all there's moxie yep i wish that was all first she's actually a bit too chubby anyway here's what i'm doing today uh q a answering your guys questions and i'm gonna launch into the first question that i actually got from the from facebook from my my public facebook page and the question is about the rapture so i told the people on facebook i'll take one question from this facebook you know comment section and i'll make it the first question i answer in the live stream the rest are coming from the q a that happens in the live chat so ask your questions now we're going to take a maximum of like 20 questions today you can start putting your questions in now we're going to gather those and then i'll be answering them um assuming i can find my phone ah there it is i got it um now the question that that was voted on the most that had the most likes so i'm gonna go ahead and prioritize that one was about the rapture and this question is from actually a couple people asked it but i'll read the one from um dan law who says hello pastor mike what's your views on the rapture or being caught up i really would like to know your thoughts i must admit i agree with most of your theology not all but most god bless you brother and uh i'm fine with that i don't think that we have to agree on everything now the topic of the rapture is particularly um complicated quickly so i'm going to offer a couple points for clarity first off very plain what i think is true and i want to study this more and maybe one day i'll make a little research project on on end times actually it would be a big research project and i'll deal with the rapture and some other things but my view is this that revelation is speaking about future things it talks about the second coming of christ it does talk about a future thing that has not yet happened a lot of future things that haven't happened yet i do think there probably is a real tribulation that is my understanding of the text and i do think that the rapture doctrine as i understand it is solidly biblical even though it is very much rejected by a lot of people today so let me give you some caveats now to explain what i mean by that when i say rapture i do not mean i think that pre-tribulational mid-trib or post-trib rapture is absolutely clear i'm not sure on the timing personally i'm not sure and forgive me there's things i don't know i don't know the answer to that question but here's one reason why i think that there is a rapture event a time when we are caught up to be with the lord and it's because it's just so plainly taught here in the text of scripture let me uh adjust that okay so here's in first thessalonians 4 this is where paul talks about this topic first thessalonians 4 13 says but we do not want you to be uninformed brothers about those who are asleep okay so this is a statement about the future of those who have died christians who have died and he wants to talk about their future so he's going to be talking about the resurrection and the final state and all that kind of stuff and he says that you may not grieve as others who have no hope for since we believe that jesus died and rose again even so through jesus god will bring with him those who have fallen asleep god will bring with him and this is talking about the second coming that in the second coming jesus is coming back with those who have died and then that leads naturally to the question of what about those who are alive at the coming of christ for this we declare to you by a word from the lord that we who are alive who are left until the coming of the lord will not precede those who've fallen asleep for the lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of god and the dead in christ will rise first so they're going to descend with him but they're also going to rise so i i think this is when my understanding they come they are with him in in heaven to die now you're going to be present with the lord immediately and at the coming of christ they'll get their new bodies so they're not embodied they're disembodied temporarily then they get their new bodies of the coming of christ and then at that point it says in verse 17 then we who are alive who are left will be caught up and that's that phrase this is where we get the word rapture we're caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the lord in the air and so we will always be with the lord therefore encourage one another with these words i take this as a pretty plain statement a plain teaching like this is going to happen in the future jesus comes back and we are caught up we are given um we don't so they die and then they're given their resurrected new glorified bodies we just sort of are transitioned from being alive into those new bodies i think that's what happens now this is actually where the word rapture comes from it's this word caught up here in the in the greek harpazo in the greek but in when you go to the latin you get rapturists and then we have rapture the rapture doctrine now the rapture doctrine is more than just the idea that that we're caught up together to be with the lord i'm only going to affirm that element oh we're caught up and it's at the coming of christ the argument over whether it's pre uh mid or post-trib i'm not settled on but i do affirm there's a rapture coming and i think it's just the most plain obvious reading of the text i'm sure there's arguments against it maybe one day i would change my mind it's not something i intend to do not like i'm not planning on it i mean i am convinced that this is the case but i recognize that i haven't really heard all the arguments on all the sides um i've tried to read and be paying attention to the various people who disagree on this topic you know different the preterist the partial preterist view the the then i have the futurist view of revelation i've looked at some of these different views and i am still convinced of the futurist view so sarah nordberg has a question oh and by the way sarah before i go to your question a quick couple announcements my new schedule my new weekly schedule this is the plan it doesn't mean it'll be this way every week but this will be the normal week okay so the normal week is going to be mondays at 1 pm pacific standard time right that's 3 p.m central 4 p.m in new york eastern time and at that time mondays i'll be doing a live stream of the mark series going verse by verse through mark so that's my normal bible teaching it's important to me that i have regular bible teaching on my channel as part of my ministry then on fridays i'm going to make this a weekly thing you guys have given me feedback that you like these q and a's and then it ministers to you and uh i'm listening to that and we're gonna see how we can use that maximally so every friday is gonna be you know except for weird weeks where we can't do it a q a at 1 pm this time pacific standard time i don't know what time it is where you're at right now but it'll be at 1 pm in california and it'll be uh whatever time it is where you are that'll be a regular thing now for these q a's i'm taking the questions from the live chat i can only handle like maximum 20 but i'm also uh asking this i want to have a name for the for the friday thing that we're doing like some sort of a name something to call it and i don't know what a good catchy name would be especially for being online like i'm gonna be strategic and reach the largest number of people we can with this ministry so i'm asking you guys to give me ideas what should i call the friday thing that i'm doing friday q a um i had some interesting suggestions from my mods some great ones and some really funny ones as well and so basically i'm asking you for your suggestions what do you think would be a good name that for a viewer who's never seen the friday q a um when they see it in you know with this title in the thumbnail or in the in the description in the title of the video when they see that it just invokes interest it causes people to go i'm curious what's that about and it would draw those those kinds of people so we could minister to them put your your suggestions in the comments section you can help me name my my my friday weekly series all right so sarah nordberg asks this a friend of mine believes that mark 16 verses 17 through 8 18 is a sign for true believers today because jesus also sent the 70 besides the apostles too signs and wonders can you help me to help him okay let's look at this passage mark 16. and just so you know i'll give you a quick answer today but when i get there in my mark series i'm mark 10 right now but when i get there in my mark series to mark 16 i'm going to be dealing with these things in more detail so mark 16 verses 17 and 18. and these signs will accompany those who believe in my name they will cast out demons they will speak in new tongues they will pick up serpents with their hands and if they drink in any deadly poison it will not hurt them they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover so here's a few thoughts and i have several thoughts and and some of this might be new to some of you so let me reference ahead of time i have a series called evidence for the bible it's a whole playlist of like 20 videos and in that series i talk about how we got our canon of scripture and i talk about supposed changes of the bible over time and one of the tough passages is is mark 16 these last i think it's 12 verses in mark and i talk about it in detail my current thinking is that these last 12 verses in mark are not actually original in mark that mark actually ended earlier and this is not new okay for those who even if you just go to whatever bible you already read if you have any footnotes at all i guarantee you there's like a 99.9 chance in your very footnotes in the bible you've been reading your whole life it says in mark 16 hey this doesn't show up uh in the earliest manuscripts so there's a reason for that this is very possibly um what what's happening here is mark ends rather abruptly it ends with let me give you there we go it would end with verse eight and they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had seized them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid and it may have just ended abruptly right there and here as you see in the esv some of the earliest manuscripts don't include verses 9 through 20. so all this stuff where does it come from where's this content if it's not original well what it appears to come from is it appears to come from the other gospel accounts in the book of acts so that so that people were saying well we want to we want to have a longer ending to the story so we're going to gather content from those other authoritative biblical sources and we're going to pull it together that may be what's happened if that's the case then that means that this mark 16 passage simply is more like early church commentary and not direct quote you know something authoritative from jesus that's what that would mean now that is what i think is the case but let me answer it alternately let's say that you are convinced and many are that mark 16 in this whole section is absolutely authoritative and and please refer to my video i know that that can be upsetting the first time you hear that it shouldn't upset your faith it shouldn't cause you to doubt the bible in any way shape or form like that's something the enemy uses to attack people but uh an informed christian is a is a firm christian so this should you should be fine if you get to get all the details but let's suppose that jesus did say this and that this is something i need to then interpret and say how does this apply in my life today well let me read it with that in mind so whoever believes and is baptized uh will be saved but whoever does not believe will be condemned and these signs will accompany those who believe so first off who are the signs accompanying well it's those who believe a natural question is does it accompany everyone who believes or does it accompany some of those who believe and that totally changes how you read the passage so if i think it accompanies every christian then every christian is to cast out demons and they have to do all the all the things the whole list every christian is to speak in tongues every christian is to pick up serpents with their hands every christian if they drink deadly poison it won't hurt them and every christian will lay their hands on the sick and the sickle recover now it's that last one that i want to focus on for a second if snake handling churches were healing as many sick as they were handling snakes then i would take them more seriously but because they focused on picking up serpents with their hands which is a which is a gimmick that in in in some like eastern countries has been going on for thousands of years where you have snake handlers right and this is this is not what it's really talking about it's not talking about oh goby snake handles deliberately put yourself in harm's way i let me come back to that in a second but basically if you're gonna say that some of these things every christian's supposed to do then you better say that all of these things every christian's supposed to do and i don't know any christian that has a continual and constant gift of healing where whoever they lay their hands on gets gets uh you know recovered gets better they get better from sickness and illness if if that's you you better be in every hospital every day just going from ward to war toward uh providing healings like don't do it in some special meeting go do it in the hospital where the sick are so yeah that but nobody's does this and we shouldn't expect it as christians even even this next sunday uh right i should say monday for you guys when i do the livestream i'm going to talk about examples of lack of healing amongst even the apostles which is kind of a big deal so that's one argument against that you could help your friend so if you're if you're not doing this you're not laying your hands on the sick and seeing them healed okay well then if it's not ev every christian then it would only be some christians some of those who believe you will see this within the church somewhere within the church you will see casting out demons speaking in tongues somewhere within the church you will see um picking up serpents we'll come back to that in a second and you know being saved from deadly poisons um laying their hands on the sick and then recovering and in that case the answer is yeah it's an affirmative you know we have lots of accounts of this sort of thing in christianity throughout the church it would only be in some cases but let me now come back to taking up serpents okay they will pick up serpents with their hands this is probably not what snake handlers do at all right just like drinking deadly poison you would never intentionally drink deadly poison remember when jesus was being tempted by satan by satan and it was satan's idea for him to cause himself to enter harm's way by jumping off of the temple or off of this mountaintop and there he is he's going to jump off and satan's like well god is promised he will not allow your foot to dash against a stone and so jesus says you shall not tempt the lord your god so we have from the words of jesus the idea that even a promise for protection does not apply when you put yourself in harm's way on purpose so it would only be you pick up serpents as in what paul did in the book of acts when he's on a missionary journey this is again why we think that this is maybe coming from the book of acts right that paul's on a missionary journey and he's building a fire and a snake jumps out of the fire and bites him and all the people on the island they know he's going to die he's got poison he's going to die and yet god protects him he doesn't die of course the next thing they think is oh he's a he must be a god and and he he corrects them and all that so this would be unintentionally entering harm's way in the course of serving the lord and doing ministry the idea is that god can protect you but even that is not a promise that he always will because sometimes precious in the sight of the lord is the death of his saints he allowed jesus to be martyred he allowed paul and peter and james and the list goes on and on so he does allow them to cause to to fall into harm so i would say it's occasional protection and that it's about um unintentionally entering into harm's way in the course of serving the lord in those contexts i hope that those those things help you out i know i threw a lot at you but that's kind of what i do okay so here we go let's let's take the next question and i'll let you guys know so our cue is full i've got 20 questions here from you guys from the live chat on youtube and i'm going to be going through as many of those as i can get to today so you don't have to continue asking i know it'll happen because people are still signing on but just want to make that announcement all right titanium zeet says hi pastor mike my name is nick and i'm about to graduate college and i'm going to be a missionary to japan any advice you'd give someone just about to start ministry thanks um nick oh boy i i feel like i'm going to fall short here let me give you a few things this won't be all the things you need to know don't be alone you're going to go out as a missionary to japan don't be alone attach yourself to other believers and then make sure that you keep those relationships healthy satan will definitely try to come between those relationships and it will uh he'll seek to undermine your whole ministry by undermining relationships with other people you're serving with that's huge i mean that's absolutely huge so please don't go alone and build those relationships and build them on grace and stay stay tight with other people also ministry long-term missions is about long-term goals it's it's not like a short-term mission trip at all so you won't necessarily see the kind of quick results that you might be looking for in a short-term mission you're talking about a labor that's more like in most cases years and years of investing into a community and having an impact that you will generally feel is not as big as you wish it was but take courage when you impact lives those lives impact lives and that has an impact for decades and generations to come until jesus comes back there are people today who are still being impacted by some missionary from 300 years ago little known to them and your ministry is about um patiently patiently planting seeds and ministering those are a couple things i would encourage you with i'd also um yeah i'm just going to leave it that nick i hope those things are encouraging for you so juliette knighton says first corinthians 11 calls women to wear head coverings for prayer and prophesying we only stopped in the latter half of the 20th century thoughts on the topic juliet so this is a passage of scripture in first corinthians 11 that i'm i'm inclined to say oh yeah they don't have to wear head coverings but i'm going to be completely honest here i don't feel like i can totally justify that so i'm i'm kind of on the fence on this on this text on exactly how i should understand this scripture and so it's on my list of passages to sit down and spend a lot of time on and i mean like 30 40 hours on that one passage reading you know the scholarly literature on it reading various commentaries on it and trying to really come to a place where i feel very confident i've done this with a number of topics in the past and i'll continue to always be doing this with topics one day i'll come with a better response to you on that and i apologize that i'm just the lack of my knowledge so yeah jasmine martin uh could you do us a sound in-depth study of believers deliberate sin struggling with condemnation could i send a video explaining which passages concern me and why my leaders seem to brush them off so jasmine i um i'm not going to ask that you send this video only because i have a host of projects that are they're all important including this this is an important issue but let me give you one thing to think about and it's not sound in depth this is just our q a so forgive me that i'm not able to give you more more of what you're looking for but here's one thing to consider deliberate sin in the old testament how how it's like presumptuous sin is like something that you're not going to be forgiven for effectively in the old testament under the law well in the new testament we read that we can be forgiven for the offenses this is important that you couldn't be forgiven for under the old testament law that those kinds of deliberate high-handed or presumptuous sins sinning like full with full knowledge and fully aware and you just did it anyway that kind of thing that in some cases the law couldn't forgive that jesus can forgive this is part of how jesus is better than the law that's one thing you really need to know right we can be forgiven through christ for things that you couldn't be forgiven for under the old testament law so don't think that that those old testament passages restrict your forgiveness today second thing hebrews when it talks about sinning willfully and that sort of thing i think it's talking about not just any willful sin like sin that's willful i think rather it's talking about having received knowledge of the gospel and intentionally setting that aside and going back to lesser things rejecting the sacrifice of christ willfully knowingly so this is about apostasy not just committing sin i think that that's another key thing so let me give you those two things to think about and you can see which side i lean on with this topic i hope that helps kai will and i think if you study the hebrew context um in hebrews chapter 10 which i think is the if i'm remembering right i think you'll see that that yeah look at the whole context of hebrews that's that one's about apostasy i think so kai williams says what is a biblical view of entertainment my tastes include comics but feel free to explain lord of the rings um because you know i like lord of the rings that's so funny um so a biblical view of entertainment um that's you know what that's a really really good question i'd like to sit and spend more time on let me just throw out a few things um laughter is good okay so like let's foundational truths laughter is a good thing proverbs says laughter is medicine it's a it's a positive it's a beneficial thing there are there is a trend in some of the older historical schools of thought where they would actually feel like laughter is bad laughter can be bad but laughter is and forgive my bluntness laughter is like sex it's very good in its proper context it's very bad out of its proper context so laughter where it's it's pure and it's innocent and it's just it's pure perfectly wonderful and good but laughter when it's leaning towards um softening our attitude towards sin where it turns into scoffing or it turns into mocking god or mocking biblical truths or or taking high and holy and wonderful things and making them the subject of jokes i think that can actually be dangerous and i think that our culture does it a lot and we see it a lot in our entertainment and i think that that actually causes spiritual harm i'm just being honest with you i think that causes spiritual harm so what should i do then if i enjoy entertainment that's a mixed bag sometimes they have inappropriate humor sometimes it's just really funny and light-hearted and good what do i do or or sometimes it's it's violence is being displayed on screen but it's more of like a just kind of fight right and it's not sort of like glorifying wickedness or something and i think that these are questions that each christian has to struggle through it's what we tend to do is we tend to develop convictions and then we want to dump them on everybody you know here's what i think i should watch and therefore you should only watch the same things and i think here's where we have to have a bit of that romans 14 willingness to give each other space but here's the high calling no christian should compromise is that your walk with god is truly being sustained while you're enjoying this entertainment i hope that that helps in my pos in my opinion lord of the rings is acceptable to me right in in my opinion but to somebody else it won't be and they should honor their conscience in that and not mess with it so i hope that that helps man just just know this you like me want to be entertained all the time and our desire to be entertained has can turn into a temptation to partake of things that are inappropriate let me give you one scripture on this before i move on to the next question let me see uh trying to think of uh how to find this verse i need to use the search function to it's in ephesians it's like ephesians maybe i should just search for it because i'm blanking on the exact statement of the scripture um where it warns us this is this is the live stream side i could just skip this but i think that it's kind of important um i think it's ephesians two here i'll let you i'll let you look with me how's that sound ephesians chapter two i'm thinking it is ephesians two uh maybe okay but this is the passage where um it talks about how we are we are light and we are to be light in the world we're we're to oh there's ephesians i was in ephesians one and um man i i okay i'm probably looking right at it and skipping it because i'm live on camera right now but basically the passage is saying that that we not only do not want to be partakers of wickedness but we don't want to be approving of those who are and that's what that's a verse i think about a lot with entertainment that i not only want to be a partaker of wickedness but i don't want to be one who approves of those who are partaking in wickedness and to me that's a lot like the entertainment industry and it is a challenge to me i apologize i can't think of the verse someone's in the live chat's probably already got it all right next question this is from dakota franz how can i trust manuscripts especially ones from alexandria dakota my answer to you is going to be please please please check out a go to my youtube channel go to playlists and uh go to the evidence for the bible playlist and you can skip the first like i don't know seven or eight or ten videos and find the first video where i start talking about how we got our bible how we get the old testament the new testament canon and then especially the the videos on on variate variants what you have heard about the alexandrian text is probably not true and i it may seem like i'm assuming a lot about you and i don't mean to but i've had these conversations a lot and when you say how can i trust manuscripts from alexandria that's not really how it works so please go and check out that content um when i i used to be a little bit conspiratorial i thought like i was i leaned slightly king james only like a lot of cabbage chapel guys did right um that was just how we were sort of brought up and i decided to do a research project on it and i dug really deep on this topic and i was delighted delighted to find out that we have a number of great translations and that the the stuff coming from the king james only crowd where they try to demonize the niv and demonize every other bible translation is is uh is bearing false witness i'm not kidding here bearing actually bearing false witness it's deceitful and lying um it's it's also just based on misinformation and as you study it deeply you go oh thank god it's not the king james isn't the only trustworthy bible out there i'm like grateful for that god has preserved his word check out my evidence for the bible series all right tyler smith says my friend recently said she still feels the presence of her dead loved one what is the biblical and loving response to this i don't know if you even can i mean some people um so it's like someone has like a a splinter but in order to get to the splinter you have to hurt a wound okay so she still feels the presence of her dead loved one i'm concerned about that because that means that she may be trying to communicate with the dead which is something that the old testament soundly condemns over and over again it's just constantly condemned we've seen no examples of of praying to dead people in the new testament as well the consistent biblical now god condemns get this it's not just the law god condemns pagan nations for trying to be contacting the dead it's something that is is condemned and there's more we could talk about all that this is something that we should not be partaking of and shouldn't be messing with and part of the reason is because you're probably not contacting the dead if you are contacting you're opening yourself up to whatever spirit might want to speak to you and if it's not going to be god what are you opening yourself up to that's my concern and my fear i don't know if your friend would listen to that and say maybe what you feel is your love for them maybe what you feel is is your your um your appreciation of them your memories of them but can i at least encourage you not to try to go down that road of contacting the dead and maybe share some old testament scriptures about that with her and if she's not a christian this is a secondary issue she needs to know about jesus but i don't think there's real room for that in christianity recently i've been studying the history of these things and it seems like it cropped up pretty early in church history especially in the eastern church and i think that this is just the result of the the um the church interacting with the the greek and eastern world it's not so much greek as it is the eastern church like constantinople and all that i think that it started really with them interacting with that so then the traditions of man start quickly entering in as they as they become you know pagans become christians and they carry some of their stuff with them that's my thought okay so here's uh question number nine um says i grew up a christian but now after trials causing me to turn to god in prayer i have changed love towards god and others was there a time where i may not have actually been saved oh that's a i mean frankly i don't know you and i don't know anything about your history so all i can speak to is possibilities right and and then i probably won't help much it's possible you weren't saved and then when this sort of like spiritual renewal happened that was actually when you got saved it's possible you were saved and you were just a really weak christian and who was not really healthy but you were still saved and that this time has brought you into such a healthier place that now you're you're sensing that spiritual vitality and you're walking in the spirit more and you're like wow man what was going on before but have i helped you probably not um let me just say this that it may not matter that much the important thing is that you know now that you are in christ and that you continue seeking him and walking with him so i apologize these are these those kinds of questions i find very difficult to uh to get answers for people on okay let's look at the next one uh and again our q our q a is closed i'm answering questions you guys have already asked and you don't don't ask more because i won't be able to get to them and i don't want to disappoint you rohan samuel says hello brother mike if a person is genuinely suffering from gender dysphoria and as a result dresses as a woman or a man are they living in sin and what can they do to overcome gender dysphoria i mean that's a that's a living in sin is a is a is a big phrase to use there let me say this some of the i i don't want to have two blanket of a term here i want to unpack the issue a little more carefully so they're suffering from gender dysphoria which is the idea that even though they're say a man they really want to be a woman they think of themselves as what they like the idea of being a woman all those kinds of things instead or vice versa and so first off that is a they're struggling with a false belief right that that's that's kind of like a self-deception that's happening there and i'm very opposed to them dressing as a woman for their sake because them feeding this delusion is not healthy so i mean there's people for instance and i'm going to use an extreme example an extreme example is not the same at all but only to draw at a point so i'm not comparing it i'm rather trying to make a principle so there are people who really feel that they are an animal that they identify more with being a wolf or a dog or you name the animal than they do being a human now there may be a ton of reasons why there may be all kinds of weird psychological things going on there maybe maybe it's just a a fantasy that turned into an obsession maybe there's something wrong with the brain i don't know i don't know and it's not i don't need to know but do i want that person to go around and pretend to be a wolf they go and they eat raw food and they growl and they grunt and they don't talk to people anymore and they start to behave like that animal i mean obvi this is i'm using extreme example here because it's obvious that i don't want to feed that and and if you have a world view that says like oh yeah why not then that's because you just don't have a christian worldview you don't think that people actually have a design and a purpose and that there's a reason for your existence and you're you're now throwing it to the garbage and living in a deception in the wolf example so i i would not encourage them to do that so for the sake of that person i'd realize as soon as they start pretending to be a wolf it's going to reinforce these delusions even more and it will cause even more problems so i tend to think that yeah that's not healthy for the person and our culture is so supportive of transgender identity stuff that we're causing people harm like we're hurting them in the name of loving them and this is of course what the world does often so my encouragement would be for your own sake don't do things that feed your dysphoria do things that help you overcome it not weird things not weird like electro shock therapy and insane behaviors but do healthy positive things to help now there's another issue of potential sin which is if i go around pretending to be a woman when i'm a man am i not perpetrating a deception on my brothers and sisters in the world and the answer is yeah i'm actually creating a false identity that i'm trying to get them to believe or pretend and i'm perpetrating a deception so there's a sense in which i'm living in a deceptive a self-deceiving mode and others deceiving mode and so there's a sense in which that's a sinful ongoing sinful behavior so yeah and that would be from the christian worldview that's how i think we should understand those things i think that's the right and true way to understand those things and that um just saying living in sin is too generic and it won't land because people don't even begin to think clearly about these issues today right that's very they're very emotional it's very much about you know you're not accepting me you're not approving of me and it's like well no i'm i i approve of you doing things that are healthy and true you know and we have to kind of try to reframe it a bit um what can people do to overcome gender dysphoria i'm sure there's a lot of things they can do i don't i don't i'm not the guru of that um trying to believe whatsoever things are true that's an intentional thing to try to accept and embrace the identity god's given you also to to tear down some false overly masculine understandings of what it means to be a man or overly feminine understandings of what it means to be a woman because frequently people with gender dysphoria do have these real extreme i'm just speaking colloquially here in my experience they have these very extreme versions of masculine and feminine so when they imitate the other side they usually do so in a way that men aren't even that masculine women aren't even that feminine and so there's these there's just these weird ideas going on so yeah i don't i don't have the all the fixes but i do think it doesn't help to feed the deception all right bramble a has a question thanks mike for your wonderful videos could you please explain the parable of the 10 virgins in matthew 25 what is the oil some said it's the torah others the holy spirit can you help thank you um that's a good question and it's been a long time i mean it really has been a long time since i looked at the parable of the 10 versions let me just read it with you guys this is healthy for us regardless and i will see if i have maybe a few thoughts to share with you as i try to remember the last time i really studied this passage which is a while ago okay the 10 the 10 virgins here then the kingdom of heaven will be like and now parables jesus tells parables these are stories that are meant to illustrate they're made up stories meant to illustrate truths about usually the future kingdom usually the kingdom of god so the uh the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom five of them were foolish and five were wise so it's not a true story it's a made-up story to get a point across so five foolish five-wise for when the foolish took their lamps and they took no oil with them but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps as the bridegroom was delayed and that's key in the passage by the way the bridegroom is delayed this is why they don't have enough oil they weren't planning on a long wait okay that's key in how we interpret this this parable they all became drowsy and slept but at midnight there was a cry here is the bridegroom come out to meet him then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps and the foolish said to the wise give us some of your oil our lamps are going out but the wise answer saying since there will not be enough for us and for you go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves so the the the nature of them trying to ask for someone else's oil is like it doesn't work that way like if we give you our oil we'll both will all run out so they're not just being stingy they're just saying we'll all run out which is interesting so you have to only you can get oil for your lamp can't get them from someone else and while they were going to buy the bridegroom came and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast and the door was shut you could hear it closing in the parable afterward the other virgins came also saying lord open to us but he answered truly i say to you i do not know you watch therefore here's the application of the parable for you know for you know neither the day nor the hour so i think that the basic flow of the parable it seems clear to me that it's about persevering in your in your devotion to the coming kingdom of god so that you do not like get lazy and you're living in this world and you're living a worldly life and you're not really worried and caring and concerning and seeking first the kingdom of god and his righteousness you are earthly minded not heavenly minded you are temporarily minded not eternally minded i think that that's the main thrust so the lack of oil is in that context whatever oil is it has to do with not being devoted to the coming kingdom but you're living in this world to live in this world and then you think well whenever jesus comes he'll swoop me up i'll be fine you know i'm not really living for him so what's oil oh the best thing i can think to do is to tie this into jesus saying that we need to be light in the dark um there are other connections jesus saying you know be you're you're the light of the world and so that the sentence is that they were aware of the coming of christ but they weren't prepared for the coming of christ they expected it they knew it was coming but they weren't really part of being a light in the world they were just part of the world hoping that they would be accepted into the kingdom and he says i don't know you i don't even know you there is no real relationship here so they were uh christians in name only not in genuineness that would be how i'd apply it today so in that sense the oil is the oil the holy spirit well i mean if you're truly a christian you do have the holy spirit so i could draw that parallel and that's fair theologically oil is also connected to the holy spirit in zechariah so we read about the trees and the oil and that is definitely connected to the holy spirit okay so there are that's a fair connection to make and that may well be true it definitely is about genuine relationship with christ living for his kingdom in this world and your hope is heaven and that's why you have extra oil because you know it's a long wait i'm not just a christian because i went to camp and there i had a great experience and then nothing for 20 years and i'm thinking i'll still get saved i had my camp experience well maybe you're the you're the uh you're the virgin with no oil no i want to be the believer who knows who who who he belongs to who is whose kingdom he is living for and who he is serving in this world uh there's my my quick teaching on that i hope that it's helpful now darren pyle uh plies darren p plies says what's your take on jonathan kahn and his books oh you know i have never read him and i've never even listened to one of his things i've seen like youtube thumbnails jonathan kahn i'm trying to remember what he teaches on i don't even remember so sorry darren i have no nothing for you quickest answer ever mike winger this is blake asking so what is the significance of jesus sacrifice being done through the eternal spirit was jesus separated from the father no i mean okay so let's go to the verse that you're referring to i think it's in hebrews yeah hebrews nine let's go there here we go okay um okay so if the blood of if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh let me explain that briefly verse 13. he's saying if the old testament law does some physical benefit to cleanliness for the the jews and these are things they did in the law they had the blood and goats and the sprinkling of defiled persons the ashes of heifer that was like this special water they would make kind of like soap and um interestingly enough god gave them a prescription for soap in the old testament lie it appears so talk about talk about uh sanitation and they sanctify for the purification of the flesh if that's true of the old testament law how much more verse 14 will the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to god purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living god so i think the actual contrast here is you've got the outward cleansing of the law the inward cleansing of christ the outward cleansing is about sprinkling and washing all these outward applications of the law and it's sort of uh washings of the under like in leviticus and stuff but jesus it's internal and part of the way of showing its internal is the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish he was a actual pure internally holy offering why is it say through the eternal spirit i think it's because he's trying to to internalize the sacrifice of christ he was not only a physical offering but he was an internal um of the was a wholeness in christ's offering physical and spiritual and that applies into you in not just physical cleansing but in spiritual cleansing in that your conscience is cleaned from dead works to serve the living god so your question is about if jesus offered had to offer himself through the spirit does that mean he had to offer yourself through the spirit because there's this like separation so like here's god the father here's god the spirit here's god the son and the son can't go to the father directly so he has to go through the spirit i i don't think that this is a jesus here the spirit here the father here kind of scenario i think that it's really just about the the um the fact that jesus what he does involves his his eternal spirit which is also connected to the holy spirit which is also connected to the father right he said i'm in the father the father is in me so i just think this isn't related to your question i think we're trying to answer a theological question that this passage is not trying to address that would be my short answer i hope that i helped with that um i feel like maybe i could have made it more clear somehow uh james m he asks what is your interpretation of john 6 44 let me go back to the home page there john 6 44 what is the drawing referred to here ah james is either a calvinist or has been interacting with calvinists so john 6 44 this is like probably the chief passage if i ever do another video on calvinism it's got to be on john 6. um it's not really my focus it might be like five years from now i don't know but i am aware that this would be a great topic to cover because it's it's a it's a real central passage on calvinism and it's one i haven't dealt with in great detail so here's a brief response that admittedly is insufficient all right so if dr james white wants to take this video and do a commentary on it in his dividing line or uh or you know um what's it called the um the stream when he when he does the reformed content oh i totally blank on it anyway i've seen it a ton of times anyhow you know if dr white wants to do that don't this is not my full answer i know i know you'll have a bunch of pushback but my thought is this when you say when jesus says um put it on screen for you when jesus says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and i will raise him up on the last day this is taken as a connected to irresistible grace in calvinism so when god draws you you come and not only can you not come unless the father draws you they'll add to it this other verse here later where it says that everyone who has learned heard and learned from the father comes to me well so you you have the two sides of your of total depravity you can't come unless he draws you because you're totally depraved and you have irresistible grace because everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me so all those who do come they have learned from the father so there's a there's a here's what you can't do and here's what you can't not do and so i don't think that's the context of john and here's my short answer what i think gives us the reason why i generally don't go with the calvinist interpretation of this passage is that in the gospel of john jesus isn't talking about um unregenerate sinners and how they become regenerate and what is the ordo salutus and all that kind of stuff like that's not the context in john in john as you go even to the beginning of john you'll see this well let me explain it then i'll take you there to john 1. in john the context is that god is coming to his people whom he has been preaching to and they have already been responding of their own will to the message that god has delivered and the way they respond to jesus this is key and i know it's a challenging idea for some but the way they respond to jesus is dictated by the way they've already responded to what god has already revealed because he's not going to the non-believers the pagans he's going to the jews so to build this case let me just go to john 1. and so um so yeah he came to his own that's the jews he came to his own and his own people did not receive him right but all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become the children of god okay that that's consistent with like a a non-calvinist interpretation of this passage but but there's more um uh let me find the passage here uh why i must have skipped it boy this is the problem of doing things off the cuff i'm trying to go off of i literally haven't looked at this in like three years so i'm trying to remember the reason the reasoning i add here if you survey through john you'll see a consistent message right that true light which gives light to everyone was coming to the world he was in the world of the world was made through yet the world did not know him he came to his own and his own did not receive him i guess i'll just sit on that for now i'm trying to remember there's more throughout john though in john 1 you'll see it in other passages in john 5 it's in john 5 and it's in john 6 that jesus is saying they're not going to listen to him because they haven't been listening to the father this whole time so he's not saying when he says in john 6 um either god draws you effectually in the calvinist sense he regenerates you and then you come or he doesn't regenerate you and you can't come instead i think the drawing of the father is the preaching of the old testament the prophets and the preparation for christ that the jews have received and if they've accepted this and they've heard and learned from the father and they've responded to him they will naturally accept and respond to jesus and if they have been rejecting this hardening their hearts twisting the scriptures putting their own traditions in the in the way to get around them then they're naturally going to reject jesus because they've already been rejecting the father so in later in john when jesus says uh you know you if you believe moses you'd believe in me because he wrote of me see he's showing that they've already rejected moses that's why they're rejecting him this is about the jews rejecting jesus it is not about calvinism that's my short answer which admittedly as they all should should be longer sarah perman says school bus driver struggling with sharing jesus against the policy of my school versus obeying god to spread the gospel what say you um well i appreciate the lord of the rings reference but uh sarah i don't know um i don't know i i i wrestle with that kind of question myself um do you do you just share in certain scenarios do you share at certain points do you try to like when you're and you have a break you clock off or something like that do you find subtle ways to share it is the kids leaving you're like god bless you or or what do you what do you do with this sir this is a good question um here's what i'm going to ask i'm going to ask for your guys help with this as sarah's trying to wrestle with this how the question isn't just is she willing to lose her job to share the gospel that's an easy question the answer is yes the question is how does god want you to handle situations where say you are employed to do a certain task and while you're you're being paid by the hour to do that task is it okay to do things that you know your employer doesn't want to represent them your employer doesn't want you to be spending your time on and that could cause them to get into lawsuits and all those sorts of things should you be drawing them into all those troubles in order to share the gospel or can you find another way to do it i don't know the right answer to this question so here's how you guys can help in the comment section especially on the permanent video because there are even more comments there type sarah perman p-e-r-m-a-n that'll be the beginning of your comment you say sarah perman and then give her your advice there and we'll look at that and we'll consider it maybe we'll come back to this later james has a question he says do you believe a person can lose salvation my answer on that james and i do get this question quite a lot is i'm not sure um i'm not sure and it doesn't matter but but let me let me break into three different possibilities one you can sin so much you lose your salvation i'm pretty confident that's not true i'm inclined to think that's very much not true because of lots of scripture number two you apostasize and thereby willfully choose to to give to depart from christ i'm more open to that being a possibility also some would say that that willful and open and constant sin might incline one towards apostasy but the cause of the loss of salvation would be the apostasy i reject jesus or i'm in darkness i no longer believe because i've just gone into that place spiritually i'm i don't totally rule that out i'm not sure uh the third option is you you know once saved always saved as soon as you get saved you cannot lose your salvation under any way shape or form and i guess if i was to say what i lean towards it's the middle it's the middle option but i should do a a whole research study on this topic one day it is actually as you really read a lot of stuff on it it actually gets to be a very complicated issue before it gets simple and that's what research projects i do are for it's to go deep and complicated into the issue and then come out with it as as thoroughly answered and simple as possible okay john engler said oh and let me just add this if someone today is not saved it doesn't actually matter that much whether they lost it or never had it to begin with what matters is that right now they need jesus christ right now you need to give your life to christ and trust in christ and somebody out there is listening and they're like well i think i lost my salvation and i think then probably god doesn't want me you're just making up dumb excuses to not put your faith and trust in christ like stop like here you are driving towards a cliff and there is you know someone reaching out saying i will save you from this and you're like well i don't really know that you really want to um this is how self-deceiving sin is that we justify our own continued rebellion against god sometimes acting like god wants us to that's how deceived we can be so yeah john engler has a question are tongues overrated i grew up hearing that tongues were like a special status symbol to give you better access to god but is this biblical definitely not biblical at all tongues in some cases are radically overrated radically overrated and paul gets at this in first corinthians you know the passage you already know where i'm going to take you let's go there i'm gonna let paul answer for you he says if i speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love i'm a noisy gong or a clangy symbol clinging symbol this is not gong's like oh it's a nice gog no imagine walking through and just banging on things that's what you are if you have tongues without love doesn't matter your tongues don't matter so we're to pursue the more excellent things now he goes on and talks about prophecy and all these other things and he's like love is the chief love is the highest thing you know what the you know this it's not even about status symbols it's about honoring christ walk in love let that be your obsession and that be your your thing that you seek but it's also true that paul talks about um the more important gifts even amongst the spiritual gifts and he doesn't list tongues as the most important at all in fact he actually limits the use of tongues in first corinthians 14 and he suggests if you're speaking in tongues and it's in a gathering and no one's interpreting then stop and keep it between you and god so he's actually devaluing the status symbol of tongues he's like you know if it's just if it's just you so whole rooms of people all speaking in tongues not a biblical thing he says if an unbeliever comes in or someone uninformed as a believer who doesn't understand or trust in the gift of tongues they're gonna think you guys are crazy and what is the world filled with people thinking that these tongues obsessed groups are crazy like read first corinthians 14. it actually applies to you stop trying to get around it if you're that spiritual then you will care what the inspired word of god says about the spiritual gifts i'm getting on my hobby horse so um first corinthians 14 says that but also paul in addition to that let me give you a third thing he suggests that prophecy is better than tongues because someone who speaks in tongues they speak to themself in the lord right but someone who prophesies speaks edification to the whole church so he's he's saying if you can speak it in the language of the people around you that is way better than speaking in a language that nobody knows in other words yes groups that you're talking about that have a special status symbol attached to tongues whether they think it proves salvation or anything like that this is all unbiblical and tongues is not to be the center of the spiritual activity of the church uh even for people like me who believe that the gifts of the spirit are still valid lassie kleiman says this and i'm almost done just so you guys know we're gonna we've got like three minutes left and i've i'm doing good i'm at question 18 because i'm only at 20. um so some say not everyone can go to heaven because then heaven would be spoiled because of bad people others say by believing on jesus anyone can go to heaven can these two be reconciled i think they're reconciled by this that everyone who believes in christ who goes to heaven isn't going to be a bad person you're you're given a new life you're given a new heart you're given the removal of the flesh and the full connection of yourself with the holy spirit so that now at this point you won't sin so even if in the extreme example hitler on his deathbed had truly repented and professed faith in christ and got saved when you saw him in heaven he would not be hitler in heaven he'd be a new creation in christ he'd be a new man who hated all the old stuff hated all the old things saw that they were all paid for by jesus on the cross and that he is now renewed and he would never do harm like that again so everyone who's in christ is a new creation and then heaven will be populated by love and grace and joy and mercy and all the fruits of the holy spirit because being united to christ means being transformed and that final transformation comes when we get rid of this flesh and get new glorified bodies so i think that is the right i think jesus is the reconciliation jesus is how we can have a heaven populated with people who are no longer bad now without jesus we're all bad and we're going to ruin heaven no matter how good you know you know bad people can ruin disneyland so to speak it's all it all can go bad because of the people and god fixes that through the regeneration that we get in faith in christ um let's see um eddie vazquez asked how do you properly repent for a sin um i think that ign you know just to formalize it i think there's a an admission that the sin is wrong a expressed sorrow grief over having committed the sin and then the fruits of repentance would be distancing yourself from that thing whether it's trying to bring restitution or whatever else those are the next steps that you take where you where you do that now i know there's a lot more to that and if you're if you're like i'm you know for many believers you're most believers you're like there's sins that i still struggle with on a daily basis and i think that you should be just frequently repenting of those things repent the moment the moment it happens stop and say you know what that was wrong i'm sorry lord i want to have my heart mind focused upon you right now i trust in the grace of christ to forgive me for that but i don't want to continue in it and then move forward and the next thing you do is a good thing you know to put it simply okay even though we're running out of time look i've got one question left oh my god we're like two minutes over here so josh hodge says uh hello pastor mike god bless uh thank you it is a symptom of being indwelt by the holy spirit to have a more conscientious acknowledgement of god's presence unto repentance of sins i honestly i'm not sure i understand the last part of that question a more conscientious acknowledgement of god's presence unto repentance of sins are you suggesting that maybe be a symptom of being you know into well by the spirit is i'm aware of my sin and i feel driven to repent of it um that could be that could be a a symptom of the you know being aware of the holy spirit or could even be a someone who's not saved who is just god's working on i suppose it could be i'm not sure that i can help you too much there um if you want to look at symptoms of being indulged by the spirit then you should go to a few things in in the book of galatians and romans in galatians we have the fruit of the spirit so you look for love joy peace patience gentleness goodness faithfulness and self-control those are fruits of the spirit and may represent that in romans 8 we read that by the spirit that we're in dwelt by we cry out abba father and his spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're children of god so there's a sense and this is a purely internal thing i can't show it to you there's a sense of an awareness of my relationship with god that i'm being given by the holy spirit i'm i'm able to connect with god and have a relationship not that this can't be harmed or or that you can't go through doubts or questions about it or something but that is a um symptom of the indwelling of the holy spirit it's that acknowledgement that awareness that you're a child of god so there you go there's a couple things for you to look at i hope this guy's this has been helpful for you just a reminder if you have suggestions for what i should call this friday should i just call it a friday q a should we call it a bunch of other names i've had suggested based on my last name being winger about winging it and stuff but it but it should be something that on a search engine when people first see this video pop up they'll be like oh that i wonder what that is you know and it makes them inclined to click it not like click bait but just to draw natural interest and then that will increase the reach of the ministry that's the goal you let me know your ideas and i will see you guys monday at 1 p.m pacific standard time we're going to be doing the uh mark series and then on wednesday i have a video dropping occasionally on wednesdays i'll just throw other videos research projects things i'm doing will happen on wednesdays sometimes and then next friday at 1 pm pacific standard see you guys all right thank you god bless you

Channel: Mike Winger

Views: 87,546

Rating: 4.887867 out of 5

Keywords: mike winger, q&a, rapture, losing your salvation, parable of the ten virgins, snake handling, tongues

Id: 87uAeaxrIYY

Length: 61min 6sec (3666 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020