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You, we are live.

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Quick reminder, before we get into the first question for today, um, God is good.

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He is so incredibly thoroughly and completely good. He's in control ultimately, sovereignly. Yep. He's, he's allowing, you know, what looks to us like total chaos. He allows bad things to happen. He allows evil things to take place in the world temporarily as he's working out his overall will and sovereign plan in our lives. And that the end result of all these things, this temporary chaos, this temporary hardship, is the consummation of heaven and earth meeting together, glorious, wondrous joy in the kingdom of Christ in the presence of God for all eternity. All of our tears wiped away, all of our sorrows and griefs dealt with. Just a quick reminder, this is our certain future in Christ. And this is the future we're inviting others into as well. That they would turn from their rebellion against God and turn to God that they might have through Jesus, the forgiveness of their sins and the promise of eternal joy and hope. Because, uh, as scripture says, the suffering of this present time is not worthy to be compared to the glory that is ours in Christ that we will receive. It's not even a comparison. And, uh, I'll tell you, uh, the suffering is bad. The suffering of this present time is bad. But the fact that it's not a comparison should show you how incredible the joy and the glory and the pleasures of heaven really are. So that is some good news. But let's talk about the first question for today, which is from a person. Okay. Heather Gwynn, who asked, uh, in Matthew 18, the story Jesus tells about the person leaving the 99 sheep to go get the one to bring the one into the fold? Um, here, I'll read it. The way Heather puts it. Does Jesus know the 99 are safe when he leaves to find the one? I'm trying to understand how this is responsible.

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Uh, should we not do things for the greater good, but for the one?

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Should I actually just say, hey, I'll prioritize individuals who are going through hardship to the pain of all the rest? Is that the message of the parable? So we're going to look at actually, the passage itself to figure this out. Matthew, chapter 18. Um, we'll start, actually, I'm going to start in verse ten instead of verse twelve. We'll back up just a little bit here. Jesus says, see that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my father who is in heaven.

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Um, one individual is very important. One individual is very precious to God. Interesting. Think about that and then we'll read on. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?

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I've heard this, used, this little parable, this analogy Jesus gives. I've heard this used in different ways. Let me explain a way I heard it used that I thought was wrong.

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And then I'll ask the question of like, whether the 99 are safe or if they're actually in danger as the shepherd leaves them, as he departs from them.

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So here we go. I was having a conversation with a friend, a brother in Christ, who had a, um, band that was doing outreach in like, sort of heavy, ah, metal type venues. They were going to these venues and they were doing outreach. And their lyrics were. And some would be very opposed to this. I'm quite open to it. Um, and I don't want to get into that whole debate, but for the sake of the analogy, just pretend that you don't think that's a problem, even if you do. And they were going to these venues and they had openly christian lyrics, they were doing outreach, to my knowledge. I hadn't gone to one of the venues, but they were doing outreach, being very open and real about, uh, Jesus and forgiveness and grace and sin and repentance. And they were calling these people. Because music has culture and in these musical cultures. Oh, I didn't, uh, reset the timer, the clock thing. What is this called? Counter down to one. Okay. In these musical cultures, uh, in punk music, in death metal music, in hardcore music, in country music, in pop, uh, uh, in hip hop, pop music is hyper sexualized right now, right. Um, uh, punk music is very much. Rebellion is built into the culture. Rebellion against authorities, rebellion, um, against rules and policies and things like that. Um, death metal and that sort of thing. Violence and anger is built into the music and into the culture. That's typically the case. Does that mean that everybody who sings a single song like that is automatically doing those things? I don't think so. But to pretend it's not part of the culture would be to just be kidding yourself. If you've ever seen these cultures up close, which I have.

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All that being said, there's a huge need for outreach amongst these communities. There's a massive need for outreach amongst punk communities and death metal communities, and hardcore communities and pop music communities.

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There's a huge need for it, just as there's need for outreach across all the world. And so they were going out there, and this christian brother of mine, with a few people from our church, they were going out and they were doing outreach. But here's the thing. When you take a band to a venue, and this story matters, because this parable is used, and is it used rightly by someone promoting this view? When you take a band out to a venue, venues require that the bands bring the people. This is just how it works. I used to book christian bands at a coffee shop in Bellflower, California, at Angel City, um, and I would book bands all the time. And one of the requirements is, hey, we're booking a band so that you can at least bring a few people with you. Right? That's how the venue gets people to come in the door, and the band gets exposure. So you're required to bring a certain number of people. There are even venues. I never did this, but there's venues where when you go, they say, hey, you have to sell 50 tickets, 100 tickets, however many tickets, in order for you to play our venue, your band effectively is going to buy these tickets, and you have to sell them. So there's a lot of pressure on the band to bring their own crowd. Now, we have a bit of a conflict. I want to go do outreach in an incredibly ungodly environment, but I need to bring some of my own crowd with me, which means I need to bring people who don't need this outrage, who don't need to be in these environments, who are ultimately going to be exposed to all these other negative bands and people around them. And who do I have access to? Being in the church, being involved in ministry, uh, music ministry, which is probably like college and younger for the most part. I have access to the youth of the church, and so I'm going to invite young people in our church out to these very ungodly situations so that I can have a chance to outreach to others. So the justification is, hey, Mike, Jesus.

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And I would say, hey, don't do that. Stop inviting these youth out to these really bad environments. They're not going for outreach. They're going for entertainment. You're going for outreach.

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Uh, it's going to compromise them. So this was a conflict we had between a brother who I love, and his response is, hey, Jesus left the 99, right? He left the 99 to go find the one that went astray. And I'm like, yeah, but you know what he didn't do? He didn't bring the 99 with him.

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That's the analogy. That's how this works. Jesus didn't bring the 99 with him, and I think this is why this is important. The danger was out in the area of the mountains. If the shepherd had left the 99 there, uh, in the story, jesus tells it that way. That's because they're safe there. They're gathered in a safe location. If instead the shepherd had brought the 99 with him on these mountains to look for the one that went astray, that would have exposed them to more danger. I think the entire context of the story is that the 99 are safe and then the one the shepherd goes out to get. So what does this mean? Um, yes, we do outreach. Yes, we need to prioritize outreach, but it doesn't mean that we put people in danger. So to answer the question that Heather had, are the 99 in danger? Are they being treated irresponsibly? Are they being sacrificed for the sake of the one? I think the answer is no. So let's look at the parable one more time. If a man has 100 sheep and one of them has gone astray, okay, that one's in danger, right? They're astray. Does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? He leaves the 99 because the search is going to be a danger. I think that's the point behind it. He leaves them there in some location, uh, and mountains here, you're not to think of like some craggy rocks that are like you're going to fall off and die, but rather the grazing area. Perhaps it's the mountain where the sheep always are. Right? This is area where you're not building. This is area where you're just keeping sheep. And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray.

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To make sense of this parable, we have to see that the 99 are safe. Jesus's whole point is one individual is supremely valuable to God even when they're in sin, even when they're astray, even when they're far from him.

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To think that that means we sacrifice the 99. So we saved one, but we have 99 that are now astray. That breaks the parable. The whole point is that one is super valuable. So obviously 99 are also that 99 times in a row.

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Um, but then someone might push back and say, but Jesus says, I send you out of sheep among wolves.

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And this is us trying to learn how to understand the parables of Jesus and to take them with wisdom. Because often people who?

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There's often people who use the parables of Jesus, in my experience, and probably yours, too. Um, they use them in reckless ways. They quote a parable, they apply it however they want, and there's not a lot of concern for whether that really fits the original meaning. And, uh, we see, especially with the prodigal son story, I see all kinds of weird things people say about that one.

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At any rate, um, what about Jesus saying that he will send us out as sheep among wolves? I think that this is where we get our balance. Hey, the 99 are safe. But guess what? As these sheep, these those who are safe in Christ, they're saved. As they grow in wisdom, as they grow in discernment, as they grow in the ability to outreach to others, they need to be sent out, they need to be going out into the. As, uh, sheep among wolves, their salvation is not at risk. They're not compromising and becoming worldly, such as in this example with the youth, which it did have a negative effect on those who participated, in my opinion, in going to these shows. Um, um, uh, that example is not fitting. Right? Like, they're not sheep among wolves. Like outreaching amongst those who will attack them for their faith. Rather, they're becoming of the world. They're in the world and becoming of the world. They're adapting to the world. So that's the thing. Christians should do outreach in a way that preserves our sanctification at the risk of our own safety, physically, but not spiritually. I need to be solid in Christ and strengthened in Christ and go out in a way that doesn't cause me to compromise. So that we have christians, it seems, in a community of people, the church, who are gathered together, sharpening each other, strengthening each other, and then they go out and do outreach in other environments. Let me give you guys another example. Maybe this will help tease it out some more.

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There is debate amongst church planters and people in ministry over what the Sunday service is supposed to look like. And there are some who turn the Sunday service mostly into evangelism. And there are others who think of the Sunday service mostly as discipleship. Now, you can have aspects of both, for sure. Right? But what is the main intention of Sunday morning?

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And I think that those who turn Sunday mornings into mostly evangelism. Right. Maybe there's peppered discipleship in there, but mostly it's evangelism. I think that what they've done is they've, uh, not left the 99 on the mountains where they're sort of safe and they're grazing and they're being taken care of, but rather they're sort of taking them on the journey as well in that negative sense, because what we've done is we've stripped away on Sunday mornings the equipping and the strengthening and the discipleship, the correction, the rebuke, the stirring up in righteousness, the going into the deeper things of the word of God, like Hebrews talks about like the meat of the word, that sort of thing. We've given that up because what we're doing is we're throwing the 99 under the bus in order to get the one. As soon as that one gets saved, he's then now under the bus. He never progresses in Christ, he never grows in Christ. We just keep on adding so that we have a broad number of believers that are like super shallow, and then you start genuinely questioning how genuine are those believers in the first place. I think biblically we need both outreach and discipleship, and we do tend to pick one and emphasize it over the other.

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I think that biblically we need both. And that's what I think Jesus is getting at here with this story. You've got the 99, you need to go out and get the one. You can't abandon evangelism. You've got to be serious about it and not just criticize all your. There's some of you guys listening, I'll be honest with you, right.

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And I can be tempted the same way here, but let me speak to at least a few people listening. Um, when I say we need to be focused on evangelism, we need to be evangelizing, all you're thinking is, that's right, local churches don't evangelize. I'm really critical of them. They don't evangelize. But the question is, do you evangelize personally or do you just critique those that don't? We don't just need your local pastors doing more evangelism. We need you doing more evangelism. You're the church.

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That's the thing.

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We give a pastor a job, we tell him that he's there to take care of the disciples that are here and disciple them and nurture them. And then we look at them as though they're supposed to do all the work that all the body does. I've seen this happen where you have a lot of people in church who don't realize that they could and should take initiative to start their own ministries or just to do stuff on their own with no instigation, with no pastor leading them, just go out and start finding the one that was astray. But now I'm sort of rambling. So let me go on to question number two. Heather Gwynn. I hope that that helps. Uh, that you see that the context of the parable is that the 99 are safe. They're not lost. They're not in this condition of being lost. They're safe. And we need to keep an outreach mentality, uh, not just among pastors, but among all christians. Outreach is a major priority. We want to see people get saved, and this has to be like a, ah, vigorous reality in our lives. All right, let's, um, go to question number two. This is from Rob Allen. If it's your first time here, my name is Mike Winger. I, uh, was a pastor for many years. Now I'm focused on online ministry, and my goal is to help you learn to think biblically about everything. And so I try to answer these questions to the best of my ability. I don't expect you to agree with all my answers. I do expect you to think about them all. And that's the process of learning to think biblically about everything.

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Feel free to put your pushback in the comments. I'm more than welcome to. And, uh, you'll occasionally see me in there going, wow, you're right. That's a good point. Thanks for the correction, because, uh, I do need that too. Rob Allen has a question.

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Rob Allen says, have you heard of this theory that we're already living in Satan's short season of deception in revelation 20, verse, uh, three through eight? Some of the ideas are intriguing, but most also claim extra conspiracy baggage. For example, the mud flood and much more. Mud flood? I've not heard of that. So I'm going to have to speak carefully on this because I don't know some of the stuff you're talking about here. I haven't heard that, but let's read revelation 20. I'm going to start in verse one and ask, um, what is this talking about? What do people mean that we're living in this season right now? Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him so that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be released for a little while.

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So, um, classic premillennial view, which is the camp I'm in. And I'm open to changing my mind on this. And I see, uh, those who have different eschatological views, different views of the end times as brothers and sisters. I don't question that at all. But my view, my perspective being a pre mill person, is that this millennium, this thousand years where Satan is bound and Christ is reigning, and I think from the earth actually reigning, that that's actually a millennium. Or whether it's exactly a thousand years or not, I'm completely open to but a long period of Jesus reigning on the earth and Satan being bound and his kingdom being sort of forced. People ask the question, why doesn't, like, just make us do things? Why doesn't he just force us to governmentally do his will? And the answer is, well, that's going to happen. There'll be a season of that. And so we have, throughout time, different seasons. You have Adam and Eve sort of, uh, going off of just. They're innocent, they're without sin, but they do have free will, and they're given instructions, but there's no governmental structures, and they fail. And then you have mankind sort of doing their own thing, and then they fail. Right? The flood. And then you have governments and nations organizational structures, and then you have, uh, Abraham rising up from among them. And this being, uh, the nation of Israel, okay, I'll give them my them. They'll be my people. Then you have, like the church age where it's more of an internal conscience thing. It's no external governmental thing at all. And then you have this millennium time where Jesus is reigning and God's forcing his government, in a sense, and some have said this, it shows that mankind fails under every single option. Ultimately, what we need is the cleansing of the world from wickedness and the sanctification of those who are believers in Christ. In order to create a perfect kingdom. The only way will be that ultimate heaven and earth meeting at the end of revelation. Okay, so I think this is premillennial. I'm premillennial. I think this thousand years is yet to come. There are some, you say, who were like, hey, some people think we're in this time right now. Satan's bound, right? But he's going to be released for a little while. And guess what? That's right. Now, after that, that you see on your screen there, that's happening right now. All, uh, right, verse four. Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those who committed.

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Were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their forehead or their hands. Again, I think this is all yet to happen. There are those who think that this effectively was fulfilled in 70 AD or by 70 AD, and I think that's incorrect. Um, but just want to make sure, you know, the differences. They're still believers, which is not the camp I'm in on this issue.

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Um, and have not received its mark on their foreheads of their hands. They came to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years. So they're going to think that this is something. That's the people you're talking about, Rob. They think revelation 20, verse three through eight, Satan's short season of deception, that that's already happening. They think this is already taking place. This is all past. Okay. I'm not sure how to locate that in the past realistically, but there are those who do. The rest of the dead did not come to life until a thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection.

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Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection over such the second death has no power. But they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. This is, um. Yeah, I better read on. Okay. And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea. And Satan is released for a short time. That's what you're talking about. Are we in that time now? What's he going to do? Uh, he's going to deceive the nations. Gog and Magog gather them to battle their numbers like the sand of the sea. So it's to going be a very large battle. They marched up over the broad plain of the earth. That's a verse flat earth, uh, proponents use, uh, I believe very incorrectly, just talking about being on a flat surface. Earth means ground. Doesn't mean every single thing that, uh, we use it to mean this broad. Anyway, that's a whole nother thing. Look up my flat earth video if you're interested. Um, I deal with that verse anyway. They surrounded the camp of the saints in the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil who had deceived them was thrown to the lake of fire and sulfur. Where the beast and the false prophet were. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. And then there's the judgments. The flavor I get from revelation 20 is, this is a very short season. Satan's released. Now, maybe it takes days, weeks, months, maybe it takes longer. But Satan's released. He gathers together people, they come for a battle, they're destroyed, and then final judgment happens. That's the very next thing.

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This is a pretty brief event, I would say. I don't think we should say this is something that's happening now for a number of reasons. Um, the things that are described happening in the millennium haven't happened yet as far as I can tell.

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The stuff that's described as being indicative of this time where Satan's released, um, those being gathered together for battle and then that ending in a judgment, I don't see this happening in a real way unless you have sort of a.

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Some people are like, yes, that's war. I can tell it's coming. I just got this tiny little sniff of it and I know it's coming. So they can extrapolate from like little hints, uh, in world events, they can extrapolate from that into, I know what's happening next. So then they conclude based on what they think might happen next, that that's what is happening now. So then they can say that, yeah, this is being fulfilled. I don't think that's safe conjecture to make. I think that that will cause you to make a lot of mistakes when you're trying to evaluate current events.

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Um, but you also say most also claim an extra conspiracy baggage called mud flood.

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Mud flood. I don't know what that is. I've never heard of that. I can't really comment on that. Rob.

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Um, if someone wants to say, though, that Satan has been released from the thousand years of being bound, I need evidence for that. Like real solid evidence, such as proof that the millennium was just happening. When did it end? How did I miss it? This thousand year reign of Christ. Um, and for this, I'll recommend you guys check out my video on, uh, five christian views of the end times. I'll link it down below after the q a where I go over why I'm not, say, postmill or, or, uh, or, or hyperpretarist in particular.

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And that'll give you guys more details on that. But you see what I'm doing. Some might think, oh, Mike, you're just rambling. You just rambled through the text. Uh, no, actually, let me just share with you this. No, it's not a prepared, thorough teaching, but what I'm doing here is I'm saying let's look at specific indicators in the text and ask if those are playing out in reality. Okay. So has Satan been bound for a thousand years? Why would Satan be bound to stop his influence? It seems because what happens when he's released, as you read the text, he influences the world and gathers them together to fight against God. Oh, okay. So Satan's influence is significantly bound. Has that happened? I don't think so. It seems to me that Satan is still influencing still the God of this world, who is, uh, ultimately in control of the puppetry of humans. Doesn't, uh, mean that God isn't sovereign over that in specific ways, but seems to be the case. Has Jesus been reigning for a thousand years? Not in the earthly sense that I think we see described here in revelation 20. Have we seen the image of the beast and the mark and not being able to buy or sell? Did we see that happen? No, these are specific indicators. So yeah, um, did people come to life and reign with Christ for a thousand years, uh, along with an exception of others who would not come to life until the end of the thousand years? No.

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I think this is a great and miraculous and very obvious event that everybody would miss. We wouldn't be debating it if it happened. Um, you'd be like, no, you all know it happened. Look at it. This clearly took place. So because of that I would absolutely reject these views and people who say, hey, I've got this little hint, right? Did you hear this news story? This kind of looks like that. I think there's bigger things that have been neglected when we make those claims. All right, let's go to question number three. And by the way, I've got all ten questions for today. I hope you guys are okay with the new format of doing ten questions every week. Um, we'll see if I continue doing that or if I go back to doing 20. It just depends on over the next few weeks how things go, like online. Is it able to reach, administer to most people this way? And I'll adapt based on that. So I'll keep you informed. All right, Melody has a question. Could James one and you give several verses in James. Uh, could these three passages in James be similar to a mark and sandwich? If so, would it be correct that the focused interpretation of the two breads should be, do not accuse God of one, tempting us to sin, two, not creating people equally. Can you explain the meat relative to the bread? Oh, melody. Oh, uh, that's it's going to be hard for me to wrap my head around that question. Forgive my, uh, lack in being able to jump straight into what you've obviously been thinking about very deeply. Okay, so let's just read the James passage, and quickly to bring everybody up to the same page. Explain a mark and sandwich. What's a mark and sandwich? For those who've watched the mark series, you know what a mark and sandwich is. It's this super neat literary structure that we see in the composition of the gospel of mark. And we see it in other gospels, too, but primarily in Mark. And it's where you have sort of, uh, three pieces where you've got, like, a story that starts, and then oftentimes the sandwich is that same story will end, and in the middle, something else happens that almost seems unrelated. And it turns out that that thing in the middle is commentary that gives you the interpretation of all three events. So it's called a mark and sandwich. Um, so anyway, I've got a bunch of examples of them as you go through the Gospel of Mark with me in my 70 something part series, going verse by verse through the Gospel of Mark. All free online on YouTube, as well as on biblethinker.org, as well as it's all on podcast, a bunch of places on podcast. We try to make all the content free. Um, I mean, everything is free at the moment, at least. And, uh, God willing, we'll be doing that for a long time. Um, okay, so is there, like, a sandwich structure? Is there a structure where there's, like, aba and b gives you the interpretation or the guidance to understand a better. Okay, let's look at that.

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Um, so we have to read a significant chunk of James here. I may scan some of it because it's quite a lot. I'll probably just read through it because it's scripture and it's good to read it. So, James 113. The first part. The first part is verses 13 through 18. So let no one say when he's tempted. I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he's lured. And do you guys say lured or lured? I say lured because. That's right. My wife says lured because she's wrong and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change, of his own will, um, there we go. Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

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Okay, that's the first part that you're saying. Maybe that's a sandwich dynamic. Then verse 19, the second part up through verse 27.

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Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to ear. Hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. This is such good advice. I hate to pause for a second, but remember this. Um, those of us who are prone to anger, which is probably the majority of us, um, we have to remember our anger is not going to make things right.

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We often explode in anger because we're trying to fix a situation. I'm going to make it right. I'm going to bring my version of rightness. I'm going to fix something by getting angry at it, and it never does. My anger doesn't produce the righteousness of God. Um, good to know, not all anger is bad, but man. This is what usually happens.

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Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word and not hearers, only deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hero of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a Mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. What a tragedy. But the one who looks into the perfect law of liberty. Law. The law of liberty. And perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

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Um, if anyone thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

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All right, that's the second part. Now, what I would say so far is the first and second sections, um, they don't seem to me to be connected in that way of like, this is a section. That's a section. Like, if you look at verses 13 through 18, you've got. Is this a cohesive section? Um.

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Let no one say, when he's tempted, he deals with temptation. Then it deals with God is good and his good nature, his good character. Um, those two connect together. But how does this flow then, into the second part?

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These are just basic instructions about behavior, about godliness, about good living, which is what much of James is about. It's about persevering in godliness and good living and purity, um, in the church as well as individually.

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So I'm not really sure of the connection here, except to say, here's how it might flow. Hey, when you're tempted, don't blame God. Like something's wrong with him. Right? It's you. God is perfect. And then that might flow from God is perfect into. Therefore you should be good too. God is good, so you should be good. You should let his work and his word flow out of your life. But let's look at chapter two. My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. This is the third section. For if a man wearing a fine ring and gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man and shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place while you say to the poor man, you stand over there, or sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

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This is a wicked thing. You're making partial distinctions based upon wealth. This is one reason why I'm really opposed to putting people's names on pews in churches. This is a practice that goes on lots of churches. Someone watching this, your church does this doesn't mean your whole church is bad. But I think this practice is a problem because it gives preference based on finances and wealth. Right? The widow who put a might in. And Jesus says he gave more than anybody else. She gave more than anybody else. Um, that woman never would have got her name on a pew because they were measuring it based on the money given and not based on the sacrifice made. And there's a difference when giving takes place. Um, and it's not really for us to sit there and acknowledge those things anyways. Anyway, listen to my beloved brothers. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? Right. You're ignoring the wealth that the poor Christian has, so you're becoming worldly, which he has promised to those who love him. But you've dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich ones rich? Uh, the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court reading some ancient documents from that time period about suing and lawsuits, I found, um, that it was typically the wealthy people who would drag in the poorer people into court because they had the finances to manipulate the court to get the result they wanted and the poor people didn't. And this still can be the case in our culture today. There are some people who are wealthy who use lawsuits, uh, as a way of scaring and oppressing those who can't afford the lawyers and the lawsuits, um, real stuff. Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? And then he goes on, um, I can keep reading here, but he goes on and he's just talking about not being partial and about not inconsistently following scripture and following God.

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All right, I'm going to read your question again, because I've taken as they are, now that we've gone through those passages, so could these three sections in James, from James 113 all the way to 213, could it be similar to a mark and sandwich? Um, my answer is going to be, I don't see that, but let's look at your reasoning now that we've looked at it. Melody, you said, um, would it be correct that the focused interpretation of the two breads should be, do not accuse the beginning and end, the first and last passage, do not accuse God of tempting us to sin or not creating people equally. And that would be kind of what joins them. So now that I've read it, I understand.

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We know, hey, don't accuse God of not being pure or good or being the source of your temptation. Um, don't accuse those things of God of those things. And then later we have in chapter two this connection. You're like, hey, don't accuse God of not creating people equally. I don't think the language of accusation is here. And that's what it seems to be missing. And that's the thing that's tying the two together, is don't accuse God. So I think that you may have read something into the text that's not there. Doesn't mean that you've done something.

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You've got like bad theology or something like that. But I don't see in the chapter two passage the language of accusation towards God in the same sense. But let me read over it one more time. You guys want to be patient? Let's see, am I right? Or maybe I missed something. Show no partiality as you hold faith. If, uh, a man wearing gold, there's talking about people, not God here. Um, have you not been made distinctions and become judges with evil thoughts. Well, yeah, you've become judges with evil thoughts, but judges of people, not God.

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Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? You've dishonored the poor man. Um, the rich do these bad things. Not, uh, all of them, right? But many of them do. If you really fulfill the royal law according to scripture, love your neighbor as yourself, you're doing well. But if you show partiality, and that's towards people, not God, you're committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

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Yeah.

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Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law, under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy. For the one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment.

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I think it's a stretch to call that a sandwich, all that to say. But in the course of studying it, we've been refreshed in James, which is a book that every time I read it, I'm convicted. Every time I go through it, I'm, like, aware of my issues more and more and of how to sort of realign my own heart and remember, sometimes I feel like, um, as christians were, like a sailboat. So sailboats require constant, especially those who are, like, in races, sailboat racing, constant, nuanced changes. They have to continually adjust this sail and whatever else they do, the direction and how much they've pulled up the cloth of the sail to catch the wind, and they have to continually adjust those things moving from one side of the boat to the other, pulling it, leaning it. And I think as a Christian, we need to do this, too, that we're constantly adjusting and readjusting because we're always under the influence of the world or our flesh trying to pull us from the things of God. I think it's great to be reminded of this stuff.

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Question number four. Nate Stewart says, does Satan know he's going to lose? People say Satan just wants to take as many people down with him as he can. Does he? Or can he know scripture? Um, yeah, so I want to sort of agree with that statement. Satan wants to take as many down as he can, but I also don't want to be too clumsy about it. Um, Satan, I think, knows he will lose.

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Okay. I don't have a reason. And do you have a reason to think that there is some sort of comprehension block, some sort of artificial, supernatural block that keeps Satan from being able to, like, I don't know, read the Bible and know what it says. Why would I think that? Why would I think that? He can't read the text. Uh, he knows it's of divine origin. Why can't he read scripture and know what his fate is going to be?

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He certainly can. Now there are those who know what their fate will be who continue to do that stuff anyways. You ever been to a doctor and he's like, hey, if you keep doing this, this is going to be your fate. And then there are some people in that situation who just keep doing it anyways. Like this is a normal human event, right? You keep doing x, then y is going to happen and some people will just keep doing it no matter what. Satan's, uh, obviously in that situation, but I can even offer more support for this. Uh, uh. When Satan came to tempt Jesus, he quoted. What? What did he quote to Jesus? He quoted scripture. He quoted the Old Testament. Now he misapplied it and it was clear. It seems to me anyways, that when Satan tempts Jesus, he doesn't quite understand what Jesus is about. He doesn't really know what the cross is going to do. He's not fully comprehensive of the plan of God in the salvation that will come through Christ. He doesn't quite understand it, but he knows who Jesus is. He recognizes him as the second person of the Trinity incarnate, but also, you might say, vulnerable. God being vulnerable by being in human form like that. So he comes and tempts.

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So he's obviously got some kind of delusion going on that he would even tempt Jesus, but he is capable of knowing what scripture says. And since Jesus died and rose now there's a lot more scripture written. Satan can certainly read ahead at this point and see that God has said he is going to have all that revelation stuff happen to him.

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So yeah, he's aware of it and he's going to keep doing it anyways. So then what would his agenda be? Um, let me ask you to think of it this way.

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The things that motivate Satan to try to seek control, to try to seek power, to try to have influence and to try to possibly attack back against God are still going to motivate him. Even if he knows that his future is going to be dismal. If he's going to lose, he knows he's going to lose. But guess what? He will have some winning along the way. And so, yeah, I would agree with the idea that Satan wants to take out as many people as he can with him, partly because, um, Satan is like a great example of domestic violence person.

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Um, I've had to study domestic violence as a DV counselor for a few years and for a number of years. And, um, you get what are called, um, family annihilators. These individuals, usually men who are so enmeshed. That's a fancy term for it. I'll explain these terms in a second. They're so enmeshed with the people that they want to control that they would rather those people and themselves die than actually lose control. See, that the loss of control is the thing they're afraid of more than anything, even more than death. So that this becomes the person who would rather kill and then commit suicide his own family than to actually relinquish that control. Now, on the surface, you look at it and go, that makes no sense. But yet we know it's a real phenomenon that happens all the time. Well, at least it's happened enough that it's a thing. We have a name for it, right?

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These people, their priority is not winning exactly.

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Or not surviving. I'll put that way. Their priority is not surviving, because surviving isn't, in their view, winning. Winning is having control as much as they can for as long as they can, even if it ends up with self destruction at the end. So there are those who will literally plan out their self destruction and the destruction of their families. This is why when, um, women, and this considered a public service announcement, when women, usually it's women, not always, sometimes it's men. But when women are being abused, um, and they finally decide, that's it, I'm out of here. I'm going to leave this abusive relationship with this man. And it's a violent and oppressive and like a scary abuser. This is when you have what we call separation violence, where he knows he'll lose control and sort of property status that he treats his family with, he'll lose that. So he becomes exceedingly violent. Now, his violence isn't actually going to save the relationship, right? Maybe his repentance might if he really changed, but he's not interested in that. He becomes violent. He becomes the most volatile. It's the most dangerous. Time is when the woman is leaving the man. This is why sometimes she needs an escape plan, somewhere to go to where he won't know how to track her down, and some space and some time. Because at that moment, that's when it's scary.

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We know this is a real phenomenon with humans. I think that there's a parallel to that with Satan. He has control over his kingdom. He's going to lose it. And the closer he gets to losing it, the more crazy he acts. That is something that we see with humans all the time. I think that even though there are men who know they will simply lose everything, but they're going to take their family down with them, this does really happen. It's crazy, but it's maybe advanced stages of sinful depravity in a person. And Satan certainly has that. So I hope that helps make some sense of it. Um, Satan knows he's going to lose. I do think so. And I don't think that makes him want to do less. I think it makes him want to do more if he's like those other guys.

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Question five. Daniel Binkley says, um.

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Oh, wait, back up real quick. I told you I was going to describe enmeshment to you. Enmeshment is a term that was coined. I think it's a useful term to describe the process by which an abuser starts to no, um, longer see the separate identity that their abused person has in their life. So they're enmeshed. Now, this can happen in sort of not super abusive relationships, but generally it's an unhealthy thing. Me and my wife are one, but she still isn't her own person. She still is a separate person than me. And, um, an unhealthy version of that is an enmeshment where I cannot conceive of my identity apart from them or theirs apart from me. And this is part of what promotes murder suicide. Because if you're going to leave me, it's better that you're just dead. We're so enmeshed in this unhealthy, narcissistic type. Not me giving myself to you, but me taking yourself from you. That's the unhealthy thing. That's enmeshment. So, um, I think that these things at least offer us a clue. Maybe. I'm not saying that this is exactly a diagnosis of the psychology of satan, but I think it really gives us a clue as to the kind of thing that can cause someone to get worse when they know they're going to lose instead of better.

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Number five, Daniel Binkley. Um, he asks the question, how do you initiate sharing the gospel with a stranger? Is it best to be direct?

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Can I share the gospel with you? Or would you recommend a more gradual approach? Um, I'm not the guru on this, Daniel, so I got to give you the caveat of saying, guys, this is not something I'm super skilled at. Other people are way, way better at it than me. And I think you should ask those people.

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I wouldn't be much more inclined to ask someone like ray comfort a question like that, or just someone who, you know, who doesn't just go out. Because what Ray comfort does and what at least I see him do is go out, uh, with a microphone and in crowds. And that is a super wonderful thing. I'm glad he does it. I'm glad he does it. I think more of us should probably be doing that stuff. Um, but he's really good at disarming the people he's talking to. I know there's a lot of people that rage against him on the Internet, but watch his actual encounters and engagements. They're very friendly, they're very nice back and forth. They're very respectful. They're generally really positive. He's got a great skill at that. I don't think I would be nearly as good at that. Now it can be taught, that's part of his goal, is to teach it. Go check out living waters, to check out tips on that sort of thing. Um, but what about more relational stuff where you don't have like a sign and a camera and a microphone, which is a very different environment with different expectations socially than when you're just sort of in line at getting food in line at the store, or you're just walking down the street, or you just decide to walk up and down the boulevard one day and people are hanging out and they're talking and you're like, how do I start a conversation? And, um, for this, I think, a, find someone better than me to ask about it, and b, what little things have I learned as I have done this, is that, um, it can be helpful to carry like a gospel tract with you. You say, hey, and I learned this actually from Ray comfort as well. But you walk up and say, hey, did you get one of these? Um, that phrase, did you get one of these? Is a lot more useful than, can I give you this? There's something about did you get one of these? That is more disarming in a healthy way. Then you hand it to them and it's a little tract. And hopefully maybe it's like a bridge building type track. So there's tracks that look like million dollar bills. Don't give those off. Instead of a tip, that's insulting. Everybody knows that. Well, most people know that. Um, maybe get off, give it with a nice tip. Um, but million dollar bills, which don't exist in real life, these are fake and they're just meant to get interest, build a bridge. And then you have a conversation with somebody. Yeah. And then you start asking questions.

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Salesmen know this. When they come to your door, they go, knock, knock, knock. And they go, wow.

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I noticed your stucco was, uh, a little bit damaged or get you interested in something you should be worried about. And then they're like, uh, have you gotten any quotes on getting it repaired? They don't say, can I repair your stucco for money? They say things like, have you had any quotes yet on how to get that repaired? Find clever questions to start those kinds of conversations. Put them in your back pocket and have them ready. That would be my two cent, for what it's worth. Um, in different cultures, this is different. When we were doing outreach in Costa Rica, um, in the Philippines, people were way more open to talking about God. Could just walk up to strangers and be like, hey, can I talk to you about God? And be like, oh, okay.

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Whereas in the US, it's like, can I talk to you about God? And all of a sudden, the cat claws come out and they start climbing the walls to get away from you. And so you have to be much more tactful and careful, um, about how you start those conversations.

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Yeah, there's some tips. Think about the best questions to create interest and build bridges.

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Um, gospel tracks, I think, are a good idea. I know a lot of people don't like them, and I don't quite understand that there's good and bad ways to present them to people, but I think that they're a good thing. So, yeah, check out livingwaters.com. They've got a bunch of tracks you could buy there. They've got tons of different stuff, and they have evangelism training as well. And I would consider learning some tips from them. Levi Fox says, have you considered different views on communion? I've just recently learned there are more than just the typical Baptist, Lutheran, and catholic views. Some people believe in real presence, in spirit, not corporeal.

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Yeah. Um, I have had, um, at least in recent years, my own perspective on this. Levi, has been more of like an, um, exclusionary attitude about communion.

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What is the text saying? And then what is it not saying? And then having some openness to different views within that. So maybe exclusionary is the wrong word. How about this? Uh, some outer boundaries on what I believe or am willing to say is reasonable about communion.

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And so, um, the transubstantiation view of the catholic church, I think, is ruled out by the text of scripture in a number of different ways. I think that is an outer boundary. That's like, yeah, that's definitely not the case. Along with their whole ritualistic invocation of the body of Christ and all these different things, when the priest says the words and this sort of stuff happens, all this stuff is so later, not in scripture, not something the apostles were aware of or thought about or in the first century that anybody did. Um, that whole system, it's integrated into a whole system of sacrifices and sacraments, uh, that I think is foreign to scripture. Okay, um, there's an outer boundary, but if someone's like, hey, I want to argue for different understandings of the nature of the presence of Christ in communion and stuff, I'm, um, open, 100% open to listening to those things. Communion is symbolic. Does that mean that I have to say, it is only ever symbolic. And you can't sort of try to have a deeper sort of more.

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No, not deeper, but maybe a more literal understanding of the presence of Christ. I'm open to those things. Uh, but I've not vetted all the different views. So, Levi, I couldn't be your guide through all those different perspectives. I'd be open to them. But I would just caution you against this. Sometimes people go, and I've seen this happen. They go into these discussions, into these debates. I'm going to look at understanding communion better, and in wanting to fill in gaps of their knowledge, they fill in the gaps with what potentially could be true. Then that becomes to them the biblical view of communion. And they never distinguish between how much of this view can they justify with scripture and how much are they sort of going out on a branch saying, and maybe, I think, and then, boop, boop, boop. That becomes their view. Then they're dividing with other believers over those issues and so have categories. Here's what I know in scripture. Here's what I'm going to draw that out as potentially it means. And if we do that, we won't be so divisive over those issues. Um, interesting stuff. I'd love to study it more sometime, and maybe then I'll come back and talk more about it. Uh, Daria Inn has a question. Hi from Germany. Well, hello, Germany. Good to hear from you.

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I'd like to hear your thoughts about acts 1348. It seems to contradict the idea that God wants everyone saved and that everyone has the same opportunity slash free will to believe in him. Acts 1348.

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Okay, I'm going to tackle your question with, uh, almost as a few different things. What does acts 1348 mean? And then should we believe that God, a, wants everyone saved. That's one issue. And b, that everyone has the same opportunity or free will to believe in him.

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Um, I'll come back to that at the end. I think that's important.

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Acts 1348. And when the gentiles heard this, that is, they heard about all that. Basically the evangelism that's happening in the book of acts in chapter 13. Uh, when the gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

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This is a classic calvinist verse, proof text verse. Um, and understandably, because it's saying that whoever's as many as were appointed to it. So who believes people who are appointed to eternal life, is that not the doctrine of election?

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Is that not the calvinistic doctrine of election where it's just ultimately God has chosen certain people to believe in others. He has not chosen, he has passed over others, and they're not going to be going to be believers.

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Um, and this is where I would disagree, even with some others who are non Calvinists, is I, as I read this passage, it does look to me, along with many other Calvinists, I'm not a calvinist, but many Calvinists, that people who are appointed to eternal life are the ones who believe.

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So this would imply that God has a sense of election for salvation, that there is a sense of this, a predestination. And I do hold to that. Not the calvinist version exactly, but I hold to it.

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But is this also causation? And is it the whole story?

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Right. Is, uh, the affirmation of one thing also the denial of another? And in this text is the fact that those who are appointed to eternal life, that they believe, does that mean that the only reason they believed is because they were appointed?

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Is that causation, or is it just simply association? Association is, hey, everyone who believes is also everyone who's appointed to eternal life.

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That's association. Okay, well, that's true. If any doctrine of predestination or of election, any doctrine of election is going to say everyone who believes is also appointed to eternal life. That's what election or, uh, predestination means. But the calvinist version is different. The calvinist version is you have to say more than that. You only believe because you were made to believe. You were appointed and then made to believe by God.

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So, uh, r. C. Sproul put it this way, the determining factor of Calvinism, the thing that separates it from other belief and other understandings, other christian views is regeneration precedes faith.

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That is, you are regenerated, new heart, new life, indwelt by the spirit, saved. You are, uh, functionally experiencing salvation, then you believe, as opposed to you believe and then you're saved.

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Now, the timing of it isn't super important here because you could say that it happens effectively kind of instantaneously, like the way dominoes fall. They're really kind of falling at sort of the same time.

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But one causes the other. The causation is the part that matters. So the domino of regeneration causes the domino of faith.

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That's the idea in Calvinism. Now, I would say faith caused regeneration. Now, faith didn't happen all on its own. It was a work of God. The Holy Spirit was working in a person's heart, but they didn't get regenerated until they responded positively to the things that God was.

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Um, yeah, I think that this is definitely a teaching about election.

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It is not, however, a proof of the calvinist doctrine of election, which requires it to not just be association, but causation. You believed because you were appointed, and that's it. And that's not even one of the reasons you believed your free will actions were caused, if you want to call it free will or not, were caused by the regeneration that came through the Holy Spirit. I think that goes beyond the text to say that. So I'm going to read your question again, make sure I answered it. I'd like to hear your thoughts on acts, uh, 1348. It seems to contradict the idea that God wants everyone saved. Okay, so if it's, in my view, association, that's not a contradiction. He wants everyone saved. But who's going to actually find out? Hey, I was appointed to eternal life. Well, only the ones that end up believing are appointed to eternal life.

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And part of that's God's foreknowledge. Now, you might say, well, that's a simple foreknowledge view. Well, there can be more to it than that. But it does include his foreknowledge. It's not exclusionary of it. Forgive me for anybody whose head, um. I'm, like making your head spin. You don't need to get all of this. You can get the main point, right, that it's association, not causation. Um, does God want everyone to be saved? Uh, yes, I believe he wants everyone to be saved. I think scripture indicates that, that there are people God desires. We see this in not the salvific sense, but in the other senses of God having positive will towards people. Where he's all day long I've reached my hands out to, like, an obstinate and rebellious people. There's a desire there for them to turn. And you might say, well, you can push back. But Mike, those verses aren't about salvation. That's just about like, temporary, not being judged in that moment for that thing. And it seems pretty artificial to not extend that to salvation because isn't God's positive will for the desire for people to come to him? Isn't that also spilling over into how he feels about salvation? Or, um, Jesus doing outreach? Some argue that, uh, any message of the gospel going out, repent and believe is insincere, if in fact God doesn't actually want those people or desire those people to be saved. But then you get people who talk about the two wills of God and how God's like, desires for them to be saved, but he doesn't desire for them to be saved at the same time. And I admit I don't really understand. I've heard it. It doesn't quite compute for me personally. So I think other scriptures show us that God does want us to be saved. But now let me talk about, um, this statement you have at the end of your question. Everyone has the same opportunity, free will to believe in God.

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I think everyone has opportunity to believe in God and genuine opportunity. Right. So then you're making a real choice to say yes or no.

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But I wouldn't say everyone has the same exact opportunity because it's different depending on where you were raised and what exposure you had to what information and how many experiences you had, where perhaps there was, uh, someone preaching the gospel to you and perhaps there was nobody preaching the gospel to you. So I wouldn't say it's the same, but I think everyone has some measure of free, ah, response to the revelation and truth of God and that we're accountable to respond to what we knew, we're held accountable depending on. So the person who had more light will receive more judgment, the person who had less light, less exposure will receive less judgment, and God will be perfectly fair and just. Um, yeah. All right, question number eight. Mandy Collins says many scriptures sound as if the father and Jesus have different authority.

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Does the father have a higher authority than Jesus?

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Um, let's look at some of those verses. So you list a few of them. John 1428, you heard me say to you, I'm going away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I'm going to the Father for the father is greater than, um, I.

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That greaterness, I think, has to do with the incarnation. I don't think it's precisely about authority in that verse. Um, the father's greater, the son. Philippians two describes the incarnation, and it says, hey, the son. In fact, let's look at it. Let's think biblically. Here.

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Have this mind in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Now we're going to describe Christ Jesus here in Philippians two, six, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men.

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Jesus is saying, the father's greater than I. He's going to him because jesus will be exalted. He will be brought up. It doesn't mean that he's always God, but he's also God in human form. And so there's this humbling, there's this lowliness that he took on and carries with himself. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, which would have meant a lot to a first century person. We kind of skim over what it means to die on a cross. What a horrible, shameful thing. We understand shame when we see that somebody has been caught on video being racist and everybody sees it on the Internet. We're like, okay, that's shame. I got you. You're shamed. We don't understand. The cross was a shame, far worse than any of that.

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Anyway, uh, therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So what is he now? He's exalted every niche about.

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Um, so the first verse, I think, refers to that kind of greatness of the father. Um, but we're not done yet. I just want to take these one verse at a time. One corinthians eleven three is your second verse.

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As a father, have greater authority. But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. Speaking of the Father here, the New Testament often just says God when it's speaking of the Father. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. It goes on. I actually have a big, long teaching on this whole passage. If you're interested in head coverings, just type mike winger. Head coverings. Yeah. It's a big six hour video where I get to every detail you can imagine. But yeah, here's a verse that clearly shows the head of Christ is God. That is a rank thing. There is a sense of authority which the Father has over Christ. That seems to me, um, as though it may have started at the incarnation but continues even after Jesus'exaltation.

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Now there's a lot to unpack there, but I don't have time in A-Q-A to get into it. But that's how I would understand it, is that the incarnation began, this subordination of the Son to the Father functionally, that it's happening there in the incarnation, but it continues on forever that the head of Christ is God. This doesn't mean that they have disagreements, that they have battles and arguments. No, but there's some sort of sense in which there is an appropriate and rightful headship relationship between the father and the Son.

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Now let's look at Matthew 20 818.

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All authority, by the way. There are those who would say no, that the son has always had a subordination to the father. I'm not convinced of that. Okay. I'm not saying that's impossible, but I'm not convinced of that. Um, and I think that that's a more of a rare view amongst christians in time.

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Um, but I have more to learn on that and so I won't say more than I'm not convinced of that and I'm open to it sometime. But from the incarnation forward, that I'm convinced of.

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Uh, Matthew M 20 818. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Given. Catch that? Given. Right. Uh, it's not just that he has it, it's that it's been given to him. That's interesting. This, I would also say, is related to the incarnation.

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When Christ comes, he is given things. He's given tasks by the Father. We could quote other verses too. Um, and maybe you've got some of them in here. You have quite a few. So there's tasks by the Father like, I only do what the Father shows me. He says, I've done all that the Father has commanded. All that you've given me to do, I've done. Jesus says these kinds of statements that clearly indicate there's an authority relationship with the son. And I think it's related to the incarnation. If it's more than that, if it goes back into the nature of the trinity for all time past, I'm open to that. I can't champion that view since I haven't personally been convinced of it. And, um, I don't use it. Some people use that eternal functional subordination, uh, going all the way, time pass, not just forward.

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They use that to suggest, to defend their view of, say, complementarianism. And I wouldn't do that.

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I haven't gone there, and I don't think you need that. I think the Bible is pretty clear on this issue whether or not you hold to eternal functional subordination.

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But I'm in over my head on some of that stuff, so I'll just move.

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Yeah, yeah. So does the father have higher authority than Jesus? Yeah. Um. What about in relation to humans? Who has higher authority, Jesus or the Father? Okay, that doesn't make any sense, does it? They're both in complete authority over all of us. What about in relation to angels? Well, no, the Father, son and Holy Spirit are God. So each of them is God, I should say. Uh, maybe I should say the Father, Son and holy spirit is. Our language fails me here. But the fact is that in relation, the internal, what some people call the economic trinity, the relationship of God within himself in the Trinity does involve at least post incarnation authority difference between the father and the Son. Maybe, uh, you might say it's more ceremonial than actually sort of like taking place in any kind of realm where, say, authority happens, where a boss has a vision and ideas the other one doesn't have, the employee doesn't have. And then they say things and the employee might disagree. We shouldn't picture it like that. We should just say, yeah, there's some sort of perhaps ceremonial type of authority difference. Um, that being said, God in relation to humankind, there's no significant difference of any kind there. The authority that exists that Jesus has is the authority of God. Right? He is a name at which everyone will bow, every knee, every tongue, uh, everything.

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He is the Lord just called the Lord the Lord of all. Um, so in relation to creation, that's different. So you cannot look at Jesus and think, you do have a little less authority to me than the father does. That would seem to be a malfunction in your thinking.

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Question, uh, number nine.

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This is an anonymous question. My apartment is a mess. I wake up late, I eat junk food, I'm too lazy to read the Bible. And I feel like I know a lot about God, but I don't feel like his daughter. How can I turn my life around?

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Um. Um, well, let me share a few things. Um, do you take correction as hopelessness?

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Because if you do, what I'm going to share with you might feel like it hurts when it should feel like it helps.

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Sometimes we take correction as hopelessness because what we do is we. And it's. And it's a terrible cycle, in my opinion here, but I think I've seen this happen a lot. Someone says, here's what you need to do.

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Here's what you're doing wrong. And we have, like, a knee jerk reaction where we go, um, ooh, see, something's wrong with me. Ooh, I'm really sad about that. Oh, I'm hopeless. Oh, I give up. And then the best advice in the world that we get makes us worse.

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So then a counselor who hears a question like this and says, yeah, my apartment's a mess. I wake up late. I eat junk food. I'm too lazy to read the Bible.

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And I'm thinking, in reality, all of these are things that are completely in your control. It seems you didn't say I have some sort of massive disability that I'm dealing with, in which case you can only control what you can control, but these all seem like things that are in your control. But I'm guessing that if I was to tell you, oh, your apartment's a mess, clean it. You wake up late, start setting an alarm and just getting up early. And if you're tired, eventually you'll start going to bed earlier.

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Unless there's a medical issue. That's a good solution. Um, I eat junk food. Okay, we'll stop eating so much junk food. Like, eat better food. You're too lazy to read the Bible. We'll set aside time to read the Bible and just create disciplines and structure in your life daily plans of when you're going to do this and how long you're going to do it for, and just do it. It's simple, it's easy. It's easy. And then you'll walk away and be, like, hopeless.

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So maybe the first step would be, and I'm just throwing it out there. I'm guessing here because I have an anonymous question from someone I don't know.

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Maybe the first step would be to identify, um, what part of you takes the obvious solutions to your problems and ignores them and deal with that part.

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Change that part. Why is it that the obvious solutions to my problems, I'm passing those over.

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Why am I doing that? Just set an alarm, get up, do your bed.

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Clean up your stuff tonight when you go home, don't, uh, watch tv for 4 hours. How about tonight? No tv.

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And you clean your house. Oh, but I'm tired. I don't feel like it. That's okay. Just do it anyway.

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It seems like good advice, but it also seems like horrible cruelty, depending on your perspective.

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So I'm going to encourage you to work on changing your perspective.

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Um, when God confronts. Let me give you some biblical stuff on this. When God confronts Cain, Cain is angry about his brother. He's angry about the situation, about the brother's offering being received and his offering not being received. And God confronts Cain, and he says to know, why are you downcast? And he's like, oh, boohoo. And he says, if you do well, will you not be accepted?

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Cain was, like, stuck on bad behavior and bad thinking. And God's like, if you just do what's good, if you just do the right thing, won't your problems go away?

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Does that mean Cain could earn his own salvation through his behaviors? Uh, no, it doesn't say that. But if he would just do the right thing, his problems that he was upset about would have gone away. But he didn't want to do the right thing. He wanted the world to bend around his current behaviors rather than changing his behaviors to fit the environment he was really in. And so we see this a lot in life.

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We become woe as me, and we become depressed rather than changing our own behaviors. I have to guard my heart against this all the time.

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What am I blaming the world for? That is totally on me right now.

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And the scripture does this all the time, too, where it encourages us to change, and it doesn't make give us a bunch of excuses. Hey, forgive one another. Oh, but it's so hard to forgive. You don't understand. I need the world to bend around me before I can forgive. I can't just forgive people.

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Uh, okay.

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Right. And forgiveness is different than restoration. We need wisdom and all that. But the scripture is just like, hey, don't lie. Put off lying to one another. Yeah, but you don't understand. I got a world built on lies. I got to keep that thing together. I got to keep lying and lying and lying. No. Or just don't. And deal with the consequences.

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I don't want to do that. That's the bottom line is, like, these are areas where we need to simply learn to step out and walk in obedience. How do you do that? Step by step. You just get up and go do the thing that you know you should do that you haven't been doing. The first thing that pops in your mind is probably a good place to start. I hope that helps you. I hope it doesn't feel like it's beating you up. I think I'm lifting you up. If you feel like I'm beating you up, that's you beating you up. And that self damage is what's keeping you in the cage.

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You guys have capabilities. You can stop that sin. You can change your life. You are indwelt by the spirit of God. You are empowered by God. So that one. Corinthians 1013. Memorize that verse, please. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. But God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but will provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it. That applies to you, but it's a lot easier psychologically to believe it doesn't because then I have more comfort, but I'm also hopeless. Um, yeah, I really hope this helps.

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Most of us can benefit from. From the idea of, um, taking more responsibility for our own actions, working harder at changing our own circumstances, and doing so based upon scripture. Because as you read the New Testament, the instructions to people all the time feel like that. They feel like, hey, do this, do that, do this, do that. Why? Because I think you're a capable person, especially in Christ, with the empowerment of the spirit. I think you're a capable person. Start doing those things and don't believe your excuses to the best of your ability.

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Question number ten. Last question for today, Rachel. Uh, Ray says, can you explain what some say is a contradiction between Mark nine and Matthew twelve, where Jesus, in one, he says, if you're not against us, you're for us. And the other one, he says, if you're not with me, you're against me.

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Is that a contradiction? And how that applies to nar false teachers who profess Jesus? Okay, interesting. All right, well, I'll come to the second part about nar and false teachers abusing this idea, but let's look at the two passages. Mark, chapter 938.

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Jesus said to him, teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name.

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And you can imagine that they're know they're apostles. They're like, hey, we were out. We were doing the things that you tell us to do, and we saw some people and they were casting out demons in your name. And we're like, dude, you're not part of our club. We don't even know you. We literally live with Jesus, so we travel everywhere with him, and we've never heard of you guys. So. Hey, stop that. That. This is so cool, because this connects to the whole, um, roman catholic and orthodox historical claims that there's no salvation outside of their organization.

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Here's the apostles. You cannot deny, uh, the apostles and their role in the church. And they meet someone they don't know who is not part of their organization.

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And they, even as apostles, hey, stop it. Stop doing this. Casting out demons, name of Jesus. And Jesus says, do not stop him. For no one does a mighty work in my name. No one who does a mighty work in my name will be able to soon, uh, afterward to speak evil of me. For the one who is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, will by no means lose his reward. You don't have to be part of the official group, the official known organizational group in order to actually be a Christian. I think there's an application there. Um, so that would push against a Roman Catholic and classical Roman Catholic, as in up until very recently, claims, um, that there's no salvation outside of their organizational structure. Um, so, um, you can't claim that I'm part of the church and yet I'm not one of them, but no, you can. Um, now, when Jesus says this, for the one who is not against us is for us, is that in contradiction to the next passage, which is Matthew 1230, whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

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Can both of those be true at the same time?

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I have to say, I struggle with understanding the contradiction, how this is a contradiction. So let's just do the math. If you're not against us, you're for us. Okay. That has to do with, I would say, my interpretation, not organizationally. You don't have to be part of that organizational structure, that umbrella of the apostles and the people they know about and the people that they've approved. Right. Uh, you could just be someone who's like, I'm for know, and they're casting out demons in Jesus'name they're not just passively failing to be against Jesus. This person is actively doing good in the name of Christ. Okay, so they're not just failing to actively be against Jesus. These are people who are ultimately, they're for Christ. They're just not organizationally part of a structure. Then in the next example, Matthew 1230, whoever's not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters, I think, ties in a bit more to the idea of abiding in Christ. Um, those people who were casting out in the name of Jesus, were they with Jesus?

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Yes, they were obviously on board with Christ. They were believing in Jesus. They were out there proclaiming truths about Christ, but they were not with him. Under these same organizational known persons that the apostles and all that had encountered. They just heard a word of mouth, heard of Jesus, and then were trusting in him. Maybe they had attended one of the gatherings and then went off on their own, but they weren't part of the organization. So organizationally, you don't have to be part of some particular church, but you do have to be obedient to trusting in believing in Jesus Christ. Then you're with him. And if you're not with him, then what are you? You're against him.

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In the end, at the end of the day, you ultimately have people who have yielded to the authority and the lordship of Christ and those who have rebelled against it. And there isn't a middle ground of sort of like Switzerland, right? The Switzerland people like, hey, man, Jesus. And a lot of people are like this, especially in christianized countries. I'm not a follower of Jesus, but I'm totally cool with know. And they sort of are thinking in the back of their heads, when I die, God's going to be like, you're okay, you're the third.

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Um, wish, I wish I could say that. But Jesus seems to be showing here that when you're confronted with the truth of Christ, you accept him or you reject him. And that is a very big decision that puts you into one of two categories, right? With him or against him. Now, you can change, you can always move from the against him to the with him category. And evangelism says, hey, let's do that. Let's have you come and know Jesus Christ for real. But this idea, know, one of my uncles told me this when I was a kid. I was the religious guy in the family.

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And, um, it was not a comfortable thing for me and probably not for them either. And one of my uncles once told me he, uh, didn't want to talk about God. Most, most of my family didn't at the time. And he tells me, I was like, maybe 19. And he's like, look, I got to deal with God, right? He leaves me alone and I leave him alone.

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That's what he said. I kid you not. He, uh, was probably drunk at the time, as was often the case at family gatherings for my family.

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But I remember he leaves me alone and I leave him alone. Now, he believed that Christianity was probably true, but he didn't want any accountability, any requirements, any sort of outside people telling him what to do. He wanted to just sort of be Switzerland. I think that that's what this is saying. That's not a thing. That's not a thing. You can't just say, jesus, I'm not against you, so I must be for you. Because Jesus didn't mean to exclude only people who were actively against him. Against Jesus is anybody who's not yielding to his authority, who's not yielding to his truth, who's not trusting in him, then they end up being against him. So I don't see a contradiction there. I don't think, uh, there is one. Yeah. Anyway, y'all let me know what you think. Do you think I've missed something? Um, I've given a lot of answers. I hope that you guys see that as I structure my answers, I'm trying to pull in different scriptures and specific points from the word of God. I'm not developing a whole Bible study, so I'm not always taking to every passage, but I'm hoping that it's developing in you. The habit of going, hey, is there a specific scripture that speaks to this or that would refute it, that would push towards it or push against it? That's the habit that I'd like to instill in more people, that I like to have more and more in my own life, because I think the word of God is, um. Let me use the word that we have in two. Uh, Timothy 316 is profitable. Like, it is incredibly helpful for us, navigating these issues, working out our troubles, our struggles, and that in its. Not only its single verses that we take to make a point, but it's complexity, the diversity and complexity that there is in scripture. When you take all of what the Bible teaches about a topic, you get incredible wisdom to handle tough cases, challenging issues, and it makes us wise people. Um, I hope you are growing in your appreciation and your love for scripture, because you should. All right, well, let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for your holy word. Thank you for the clarity that it gives us. Um, help us, Lord, based on even the first question today. Help us to look at those who are astray, those who are against you, those who are far off with love and compassion and outreach, desiring them to be saved. Help us to be active and to find ways to talk to them. Give us ideas on how to start those conversations with our family, friends, even strangers. Help us to come across as we are, as those who have simply found wonderful truth in Christ and want to share it with others. We ask that more and more evangelism would take place our world desperately needs it. And you love when we go out and find the one. In Jesus name, amen.