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All right, before I get to the first question, I just want to remind you guys of something really amazing.

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Scripture has this verse in Jude, verse 24. It says, now, to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless.

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Faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy, to God our savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen. Look at the. The power of God to keep you. To keep you, as in keeping you saved, keeping you in Christ. Uh, the. The power of God that God is able to do this. This is great security for the Christian, who is perhaps a genuine believer, but knows that they struggle with issues, knows that they deal with sin, but there is a genuine faith and trust and reliance and commitment to Christ that's there to just remember, God keeps you, and he's the one who presents you faultless. You don't present yourself falsely faultless. Right? Your sinlessness before God as you get presented before him, it comes through Jesus Christ, washed by his blood, coming with his righteousness, he presents you faultless. You don't present yourself according to your own good deeds. That's just a great encouragement for me. God is good. God is in control right now, today, no matter what chaos is going on, no matter what hardship you're facing, all those things are your comfort and are your help in the middle of all that. And it's. It's a good thing. So the first question for today. Um, by the way, I'm Mike winger. My goal is to help you learn to think biblically about everything. And we tackle questions on Fridays. The first question for today, and the rest will come from the live chat, is, is the confirmation of the Holy Spirit distinguishable from an evil demon or psychological self deception? Psychological self deception. This, uh, is actually kind of a challenging question to ask, because when I try to apply it to say, mormonism, a Mormon, it's very common in Mormonism to say, I have the testimony of the Holy Spirit. I know that. That the book of Mormon is God's word and that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that these are the two things that they'll say as part of their testimony, and they'll say that it's something the Holy Spirit has revealed to them. Now, how would you answer this question in a way that a Mormon could apply it where they could say, hey, um, how would I just determine the difference between the Holy Spirit telling me that versus an evil demon, Satan or something, uh, or psychological self deception? We also know people like, I'll tell you a true story. I knew a guy who, there was a girl who just recently broke up, got out of a very bad, unhealthy, ungodly relationship, and he just totally fell for her, really desired her very much. And they get in a relationship within a week. Uh, if I remember correctly, this is many years ago, within a week or in a very short period of time, he says, God has told me to marry her and we're going to move to Mexico. And I remember thinking at the time, I was very young, I was like 19, maybe. And I remember thinking at the time, like, I don't know if that was the Lord. This sounds like kind of. I don't know if that's really God or if that's just something you want. And I didn't say anything because what do I know? Um, it just was questionable to me. The guy moved down to Mexico and he came back a few months later and he tells me, and I kid you not, tells me God told me to divorce her and come home.

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I laugh, but it's tragedy. It's total tragedy. The situation where somebody was clearly following either the enemy or probably in this case, more likely, his own heart. He was following the desires of his own heart, and he followed those desires in the name of God, telling others what God was telling him. And he didn't learn the lesson when it didn't work. He just continues to say so, you know, people like this who everything they do is of God. And even when it was a total mistake, that was of God, too. And then now we're, uh. And we've all met those people, at least. At least I have. Okay. And many of you have. How do you determine the difference? So I don't have a perfect answer for you, but I've been working on this as you guys are loading your other questions in the chat. We'll take nine of your questions from the chat today. And the one I've got sort of prepared ahead of time is the confirmation of the holy spirit distinguishable from an evil demon or psychological self deception. According to scripture, there are these three sources that I'm aware of. For prophecy, um, or for that sort of sense that you feel like you're hearing something, maybe from God. There are actually three different sources for that. Let me give you some scriptures on this. The first one is Jeremiah, chapter 23, verse 26.

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And here, God's rebuking false prophets in Jeremiah's day. But look at, it's so interesting. I remember reading Jeremiah and recognizing this verse. It stood out to me so much because of things like the Mexico story I told you. How long will this be? In the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, they were lying, right? Indeed. They are prophets of the deceit of their own heart.

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This tells me two things. These prophets a, believed that their false prophecies were real, so they were sincere. But they were deceived.

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They were, all of them, deceived, for another prophecy was made. No, forgive me, um. They prophesied the deceit of their own heart. That deceit is not only deceiving them. So they believe these prophecies are true. Right. False prophets aren't always liars in the intentional sense. They're liars in the unintentional sense, um, um, because they. They've given into deception. But it's the deceit of what? Of Satan. It says, no, it says of their own heart.

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So my heart can be a source of false prophecy. That's. That's deeply concerning to me, that I could mistake the desires of my heart for a voice of God. That's something we have to be aware of. And the evangelical, like, more charismatic side of things, has to be aware of this because they sometimes act like it's not really a thing, but it's something the Bible is very worried about. In fact, if you look at, um. I'm just be straight with you guys. If you look at groups like Bethel, where I've teaching on Bethel, I have a couple videos on Bill Johnson and Bethel and their ministry, and they have a worldwide impact. So I've evaluated that ministry to some degree and offered some criticisms. And one of them is that they encourage people to prophesy their own heart, which I would say lends towards deception and is not biblical.

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Um, so this is something we do need to take heed of nowadays. Now, another source of prophecy is actually Satan, or I say prophecy. Um, I'm speaking about more than prophecy here. Just anything you think is God speaking to you. That's what we're saying. Another source of stuff where you think maybe God is showing you something or you think you're doing something good, could be Satan. So when Peter says, um to Jesus, you will not be killed. It'll never happen. No, Lord. The oxymoron of saying no and Lord, in the same sentence, he says, no, lord, you know, you won't be crucified. And Jesus says, get behind me, satan. Now, it could be that Peter was actually being given an impression from Satan right there, like a fiery dart from the enemy, so to speak. That's a possibility there. We know that Satan put it into Judas Iscariot's heart to betray Jesus. That probably came with some layers of deception and lies, but it ultimately was satanic in its source. Um, and we also know that revelation speaks about false prophets and people that Satan is using as his mouthpiece. And then we have acts five, three. I'll share one verse with you. Peter, uh, said to Ananias, this is a guy who lied about how much money he was donating to the church. The problem was the lie anyway. Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? Uh, the implication here is that Satan was involved, that in the agenda, in the planning, that Ananias had to do this thing, this deceptive thing that him and his wife did, that Satan was behind it. Now, did Ananias think that it was God, not Satan? Probably not. In this case, he probably didn't think it was God, not Satan. But, um, it shows that there is a sourcing of an idea that comes from the enemy, not just from himself. So that's interesting. So how do I distinguish between the holy spirit and evil demon? Psychological self deception. And sometimes they're probably mixed. I imagine when it's psychological self deception and it's the enemy, that there's probably a mixture of the two. It's probably not just either or, like, a clean line. Was it me, or was it the enemy? Maybe it was both in some cases. I don't always know. I probably usually don't know. But here are some aspects we can have on this, and the scripture does give us some guidelines. So, the first one I'm, um, going to share is in one john, chapter four, verse two and three.

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And here it says, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits. Okay. This is scripture giving us a test of how to examine whether something is from God or not, whether they are of God. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world by this, you know, the spirit of God. Okay, now, this is. This, I want to say, is. Is sometimes abused, this verse. I'll talk about that as well in a second, at least in my opinion. Right. I submit all this to your guys consideration, as you're trying to learn to think biblically about everything, not just to quote Mike winger on everything. Please don't do that. Process it, work it through, think about it, and have convictions that are biblically grounded, that you know about, that you could. You could figure it out on your own without me. It would be the idea, if you took me out of the picture, you could still come to this conclusion? All right, so by this, you know, the spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist. So this is, uh, sometimes misused, in my opinion. Uh, the idea is that an evil spirit can't say the phrase Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, that they can't use those words. I don't think that that's true. I don't think that Satan has a supernatural barrier against just saying things. There are demons that call Jesus Lord, right. Even in, in the gospels, there are demons that call Jesus Lord. So the spirit confessing that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is more than just using these words like magic words that Satan can't say. That's not. I don't think the context. I think what's, what's being said here is that the person and work of Jesus is a determiner of whether a, uh, something, some revelation or whatever is true or false.

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For example, mormonism comes in, and Joseph Smith offers a new interpretation of who Jesus is, what his role as Messiah is, and what it meant for him to come in the flesh.

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That's a new meaning. Uses. He could use those words. Joseph Smith would say, yes, jesus Christ has come in the flesh, but they would mean different things. So that he's actually denying Christ while pretending to affirm him. This would be a confirmation that, like an external confirmation, right? That that spirit is not of God. Because Jesus Christ is the revelation of God. He's the ultimate revelation of God. And so anything you think is from God that rejects him, that is different than the true theology of Jesus, who he is, that he's God in the flesh, that he's fully human, that's the part about coming in the flesh, uh, that he was truly man and he's our representative, that his messianic goal, as you read in the gospels, to be the sacrifice for our sins, that we might become saved by believing in him. All, it's all of, that's the whole gospel, basically. That's one test. That's one test. Is that the only test? I don't think so.

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I don't think that's the only test. Uh, does that mean that if, if someone confesses right theology about Jesus, that they're right about everything else they say, no, it doesn't. This is just on this pivot issue. The confession about Jesus was true, the rejection of Jesus was false.

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But I can't go. I confess the truth about Jesus. Now I prophesy. Give me all your money.

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I could do that. Every human has the power to do that. Every false prophet can say those words.

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That's not how one John's meant to be used. As if there's nothing else to think about. It's rather, this is the most important thing to think about when it comes to testing spirits. Okay? So if I have a spirit that can, that I feel, I pray. I read the book of Mormon, and as the Mormon test goes, they say, hey, pray and God will give you like, a sense. They used to call it a burning in the bosom. Understandably, that language changes over time, so that strikes people as odd. They, uh, didn't mean it weird. They just meant there's like this sort of sense that you feel like a heat and a flushing in your body that goes like, yeah, that must be God. Now that kind of can be described by, like an adrenaline rush or like, when I proposed to my wife, I felt that that didn't mean it was the Holy Spirit telling me anything. I'm just very excited. Um, you know, that kind of thing, they would describe it as that. But if I even did that, if I read the book of Mormon and I prayed and then I got this sensation that it was true, I would know that that was not from God. Because Mormonism and the whole thing, the whole kitten caboodle of Mormonism is to reject what is meant by the phrase Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

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What's meant by that? The theology of that is actually rejected in Mormonism. Jesus is not God from all eternity. Jesus, uh, did not die for my sins in the same fashion and accomplish my salvation in the biblical sense. They use these same words, but they all have different meanings in Mormonism. It's very complicated, but it's not an affirmation of the biblical truth. So another way to test these things is accuracy. Like, let's say that you feel that God is showing you to marry somebody. God is showing you to change jobs. God is showing you that the rapture is going to happen.

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Right? You're watching the news, you see stuff going on Israel, and you think like that, ah, red heifer thing I heard about the rapture is definitely going to happen within the next, like eight months. In fact, now I feel confident. I feel like God's showing me.

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Here's another test to examine these things so that you don't become a really bad impact on the people around you because of being, taking your impressions or even stuff from the enemy and saying it's from God, that's kind of a big deal. If we do that, accuracy is the test. So Deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse 22, says the following.

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When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and I would say, we could extend the application of this to anybody who says, I think God showed me this. If the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.

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The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him. You cannot trust yourself if yourself is telling you, God showed me this and God showed me that. You have to keep good records of the things God shows you. And if those things don't come to pass, if they end up being incorrect later on, you have to remind yourself of that. You have to bring it up, and you have to hold yourself accountable to these words you said in the name of God. And you have to say, wow, if I got that wrong, that means that the barometer I use, the measure I use for determining whether God is speaking to me, something's wrong with it. I'm off.

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I'm falsely thinking God speaking, and then I tell others God's speaking when he's not. This is, I think, would cure many of the problems that we see in the charismatic. Because I believe that prophecy is active today, by the way. Right. But I think this would cure many of the problems we see amongst the charismatic groups, especially the hyper charismatic groups. Not those who would consider themselves like, open, but discerning. Um, but the ones who get offended by that phrase, they don't keep records. They don't have accountability. Generally, at least the ones that I've seen, I can't speak about every single group that I've never met, many that I've looked at. There's lack of accountability. There's another way to put this, though, without using deuteronomy. Um, John 1417, Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit and calls him the spirit of what truth?

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The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. God is never going to be in error. So God a, knows all things and b, is not. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. So with all knowledge and having the sincere truthfulness of the Holy Spirit, there will never be error with the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Now, some will try to split hairs here and go, well, God showed me, uh, this dream. It was definitely from God, but I interpreted it wrong. Well, then I'm open to that. Okay, but here's the deal.

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You have to let the dream then be from God. Maybe it is, I don't know, maybe it's not.

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But you can't let your interpretation, uh, even pretend your interpretation of it is from God. If you think that it's going to be prone to error, you cannot speak it in the name of God. And later go, well, I guess I got that little part wrong. You have to be consistent and know the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth and use wisdom on that. God doesn't lie and he knows all things. So accuracy is always going to go with the revelation of the Holy Spirit, with the things that God is actually showing you what he wants you to do. But another thing is here to test. Is it me? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it Satan? Is it some part of Satan's kingdom, um, a demonic thing? Another, uh, test would be holiness. So the Holy Spirit is so funny because I know, I feel like this is elementary, but we need to be reminded of elementary things a lot, actually. So the Holy Spirit is holy. We're going to read through Galatians chapter five, a, uh, big chunk of Galatians five starting in verse 16, just to see that there's a clear distinction between what is holy and what is carnal, what is of my flesh. That means it's from me, or it's perhaps Satan pulling from my flesh, using my flesh to leverage against me. Um, but basically what's from the Holy Spirit and what's not. And the distinction is holiness is godliness is actual godly qualities and goodness. Let's look at this passage. I say, then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. The lusts of the flesh against the flesh. Lusts or desires. You're actually.

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That was new king. I'm going to switch to english standard version. I think it'll be a little bit easier to understand. But I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other. Meaning that I have as a christian, I'm indwelt by the spirit. I have conflicting desires that I live with all the time, desires for sin, desires for holiness. And I'm, um, to walk in the holy ones. And that's part of saying I'm actually being led by the spirit. Not with direct revelation, but I am being led by the spirit in a softer sense, of doing the things that are in accord with the general desires of the spirit, things that are holy.

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But if you are led by the spirit. You are not. Oh, sorry. I skipped. For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now. And we'll get a list. The works of the flesh are evident. Now, here's a bunch of things that if you're desiring these, it's definitely not from God, right? Sexual immorality, any, right. The lgbt pro lgbt stuff that we see cropping up in the churches and stuff. I know that's not from God's spirit because it's definitely what Paul meant when he said sexual immorality. It would be in that broad category, um, polyamory that our world is moving towards right now. Definitely violation of that sexual immorality thing. Or what about general lustful attitudes? Uh, this is something that's definitely not godly. Not okay to just be lustful towards others. Sensuality there. Impurity, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife. Someone's like, I'm a Christian. I'm just a christian witch. No, you're not. This is definitely sorceries on that list of things that the bible says. No, you can't do that and call it holy. Enmity, strife, jealousy. Just, uh, think about that for an hour. Jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. Meaning this is not an exhaustive list, right? So all that stuff is of the flesh. If it's not godly, it's not of the Holy Spirit, right? I warned you. I warned you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God like, you live this lifestyle. This is the kind of. You look like the kind of person who's not really saved. That's a scary thing to think about, but I can't take away what scripture says. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law. Memorize this list, and whatever translation you choose, just not the passion, fake translation. But memorize this list and realize that if you are thinking, is this the Lord or is this me? But if it's consistent with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, uh, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control and holiness, it's not exhibiting the things of the flesh. Go for it. Just do it. That's a good thing to do.

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Um, anyway, we could read on. On that. In that chapter. It's great stuff. But another thing I would say we can use to test the Holy Spirit. Uh, not. Not in that sense. I don't mean it that way, but test whether the thing we're hearing is from the Holy Spirit, from me, from the enemy, is in Isaiah 820.

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This is huge, this verse. Huge.

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Speaking of false prophets, it says to the teaching and to the testimony, if they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn or no light.

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What's the teaching and the testimony? Um, he's talking about scripture. Isaiah's talking about scripture.

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Here's how this works. Yes, I test anybody's current word they say is from God. I test it with the Bible. How is that fair, Mike? How is that fair? Uh, it's fair because, a, I'm a Christian, b, what God has revealed for sure is in the scripture. The. Every. Every word of scripture. God breathed. It's. God breathed. It's inspired by the spirit. Jesus himself said this, right? He said that David spoke by the Holy Spirit when he wrote. Jesus, uh, talks about the prophets, calls it scripture, uses the threefold. I won't even get into all that stuff. Basically, we have strong reasons where Jesus affirms, uh, the inspiration of the scripture. The apostles affirm the inspiration of the scripture. The Jews affirm this. Of course, that was this cultural setting, and the very writers of scripture, in many cases, are affirming these things are from God.

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Now, here's how this works. Imagine that I, um, sign a check, and the bank looks at the check, and they go, how do I know this is really Mike's signature and not somebody else? They compare it to signatures that they know for sure are from me. Does that make sense? Right? We're just. We want authenticity. So we compare this signature to the. To the. To the ones I've signed in the past that they know for sure were for me because I was maybe in person with multiple forms of id, signing and giving a, uh, confirmation and all that. That's how they do it. You need this sort of standard signature as a measure of testing whether these other ones are fraudulent or not. The scripture is the signature of God in this sense. It is the thing we know. God said. I know what God said is what's written in his word. And therefore, if you come and you say, hey, here's something else God said, and it contradicts something God already said with his two forms of id, so to speak, metaphorically. Right? With his prophecy and with the person of Jesus and with all the miracles and stuff associated with it, with the accuracy of the scripture and all the other things, then I know that that is a fake signature, so to speak. This applies to me, too. If I have a sense that God's telling me something like, I don't know, get divorced and move back from Mexico. Um, I can examine that with Jesus's words about divorce. I can examine that with Paul's teaching about divorce. You see, I can test it with what God has for sure revealed. This is absolutely necessary. God will not contradict himself. Simple idea. So always one, uh, other thing. I'll say, this is kind of, uh. Take this with a grain of salt. My opinion here. Okay. I don't have a scripture to put up for this.

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Um, something to consider that when God speaks to you, I tend to personally. This is very much anecdotal, right. I expect a supernatural otherness. I'll call it that. A supernatural otherness to the information communication sensation that I'm getting that it's not something that's coming from me, but something that's coming to me. If I don't have that, I assume it's me. If I do have that, I then run through the tests. Is this of God?

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Why do I say supernatural otherness? It just makes a lot of sense to me to think that, hey, you know, when scripture talks about God showing something, it'll say something like, the word of the Lord came to so and so. There was something externally being revealed to them at that moment. A person can receive a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, but I think they're receiving it. They're not just thinking about it and coming up with it. If I'm the source, it may be consistent with the spirit, but it doesn't make it a revelation of the spirit. If I'm the source, if it there's a sense of supernatural otherness, I'll then consider doing these other tests. I've had many dreams in my life. Almost all of them just dreams. I've had a couple that I think God was involved in, and they're. And in those cases, anecdotally, there was a sense of supernatural otherness associated with those things and those. And the information and the stuff that it seemed accurate afterwards. Like, there's. It seemed to pass warrant on that stuff. I don't share it. Cause it's. There's no. There's no gain for me sharing all this stuff with you guys online, except to make myself look good or supernatural or spiritual. This stuff is super rare in my life.

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I'm not every day wake up and I'm like, wow, lord, what should I do today? What cereal should I eat? Oh, this one, that one. I'm not testing random thoughts as if they're all from God's spirit. Unless there is that real sense of otherness. I don't even worry about it. I just do what I know is good and right and consistent with scripture and according to holiness and fulfilling the fruits of the spirit. That's how I test. Now, um. Um, we have a problem in our culture, I think I say our culture. Cause again, I was raised, raised up. I say raised up. I wasn't a kid when I started going to church. I, uh, wasn't a child, I should say.

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But when I started getting more serious about God, I was definitely involved in circles where we believed that God might give someone a prophecy, God might use someone to speak in tongues and that sort of thing. Um, so in those environments, I think in that culture, there's a problem of over expectation and false positives.

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God can speak to you, and I know you want him to, but we can get addicted to needing him to speak to us. I'll tell you. Okay, true story.

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I would turn on the radio at home when I got home, back with my mom, still a teenager. And I remember 1819 get home, turn on the radio, and it would be like k wave, you know, which is christian radio station, Calvary chapel radio station. And I would turn it on and listen to it, and I would just be hoping God would speak something to me, like, right before I went to bed, speak to me. Speak to me. M. Speak to me. And nothing ever happened. Nothing really profound ever happened in that way. And then one time I turned on the radio, and I was thinking, lord, speak to me. Because I had this over expectation.

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And then I thought, speak to me. And I said out loud, I was like, oh, God, you never do. You never do that. And at that exact moment, it was something that was so uniquely for me. I mean, actually life changing in some pretty cool ways. It was just totally profound. Changed, uh, change the course of the decision making I had in my life in a good way, which I look back on and say, thank you, Lord. I'm so glad that happened. Um, and I really felt like the lesson in that was, um.

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Don't be weird, Mike.

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Don't overly expect every time desperately turning on this stuff, because I just. I need this. You know what it is? It's a nervousness and an insecurity in my relationship with God and insecurity in my trust that God has spoken through his word, and that. That really applies to me. It was a ball out of insecurity.

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But also, don't overly limit God. Like, he'll never do that kind of thing. And that's. That's where I try to live. You know, don't overly expect. Don't overly limit.

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Um. It's okay just to have something that's from you. Now, how do you know if it's from you or Satan? Let's say it's not true. It's not good. It's not according to God's spirit. And you're like, wait, was that me or was that the enemy? Again, personally, uh, I don't. I don't know that I can answer this question fully, but personally, I would say, did it have a sense of supernatural otherness? Because if Satan speaks to me that comes from external, that's not from within, you know, there's something that's coming at me here that I have that sense. Um, and then it was something that was not consistent with God. Then I. Then I'm actually going to go on red alert. Not panic, but I'm going to go on high alert. I'm going to pray, maybe fast, seek the Lord. Just really try to figure out if there's something I'm doing that's contributing to this negative thing in my life.

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I'm going to actually really pursue this. Um. Ananias and Sapphira had greed, and Satan used that to put it in their hearts to lie to the Holy Spirit. Judas, we know Satan filled him and used him, but he also was stealing from the money bags, and so he was already.

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He'd already opened the door to that stuff through his sin and made himself more vulnerable. I don't want to become paranoid, but I also don't want to be like, um, what's the term? I don't want to have bravado, as if I cannot be influenced by Satan if I'm not careful in my life. You know, Israel is a good example of this, because in the Old Testament, when Balaam wanted to curse Israel, he tells them, I can't curse Israel. I can't curse who God is blessed. And then he tells them this. He says, but send in your women.

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I feel like this is the Internet entering into the lives of men, especially men, but men and women in the church, through their phones and through their iPads and computers and stuff. Balaam says, send in your women to get them to sin with them sexually, and then God will curse them for you.

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There is the hedge of protection goes down.

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The open door is there caused by our own sin and compromises. So if I have something that I think comes from Satan, then I'm absolutely going to reassess and reevaluate and be like, wow, what is going on? What is going on? Am I opening the door? Um, and pray and seek the Lord. So there's a lot more that we can say there. Satan, he will use scripture. He'll twist scripture. He'll use it. So he'll be quoting verses, but use it wrong. He does this with Jesus, even, um, he'll appeal to your carnal desires. He'll use your fears and your hopes, all that stuff. Scripture will be king here to give you the discernment. In fact, Jesus, how does he reject Satan's continued, um, attempts to mislead, to get him to compromise? He quotes scripture. Deuteronomy, of all things. He quotes scripture over and over again. So let what God has said be the thing that protects you from things that God has not said. All right, that's question number one. We will go to question number two and this one. And we've got all ten questions for today. I know that I took a little bit longer on that than I even I intended. Of course, that happens a lot. What am I talking about? Um, okay, so question number two is from Rob Allen, who says is energy in quotes, is energy in the esoteric form of the word biblical. I was recently told by a christian forum that I was giving off blank energy. Is this biblical?

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Um, this is a challenge for me. This is kind of like the word luck. So, uh, an example of this. The word luck is sometimes used by those who are referring to like a supernatural, like essence called luck that some people have more of and some people have less of. And it sort of has impact in the world and changes things and you're really lucky. But a lot of people, myself included, when I use the term luck, and I used to never use it, then I kind of said, no, this is silly. I know what I mean by it and I think most people do too. But when I use the term luck, I'll say, well, I was lucky. Um, I don't use it often, but I do use it. I'm using it to mean that was a beneficial thing that happened. That's all. I mean, um, I don't mean anything about all this. Sort of like, you know, almost this supernatural element of luck. I don't mean any of that. Right. For instance, the word fate, uh, you know, that is also connected to the idea of fates, plural, where you have these sort of like, pagan deity things, like weaving the lives of people. Like they're in a loom, they're weaving the threads of people's lives. And so the fates are dictating your future. You have no actual choices about these things. It's fate.

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But if I said to somebody, yeah, that was a really terrible fate. I don't mean it was predetermined by some sort of pagan deities. So here's the question is, you know, energy is used like this or the word vibes. Like, I got good vibes from that guy. It's used in the same way. Modern times, we have it split. We have some people who use the term energy, and they're referring to some sort of supernatural, spiritual juju thing. That is weird. That is not really fit with Christianity. That happens a lot, actually. Okay. A lot more than with luck or with the word fate. People don't usually mean the pagan thing with luck, they don't usually mean the supernatural thing. But a lot of times with energy, people do mean this kind of weird woo woo thing. But there are plenty of people who, they literally mean energy. Like, in the sense of, um, uh, you remind me of, you seem similar to this other thing. That's all they're, they say, hey, you give off good energy, and maybe they just mean you're a charismatic and positive individual, and I enjoy being around you.

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But I would lean towards not using the phrase energy because I don't think it's as outdated as luck and fates as those words. I don't think that it's weird usage is that outdated. I think it is still being used in weird ways. Personally, I would lean against using it, but if someone used it in a conversation with me, I would try to listen carefully to determine whether they were meaning it in a weird way or not. And I wouldn't make assumptions. Um, that's where I would stand on it. So you asked the question, though. Is this biblical? Um, is the idea biblical?

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Um, you don't find, in my mind, you don't find any scripture to support the idea that there is energy in that sense. What this is coming from, I think, is like new age, new age type stuff. New age, new thought. That's where this energy stuff comes from. This is kind of where you start feeling like you have almost a supernatural power to influence the world around you, and you get, like, positive proclamations, name it and claim it. That in the new age sense, which is probably where the prosperity people got it from, too, that, um, kind of thing all seems connected. And we do see new age stuff invading the church through, say, Bethel M. Bethel church. They've helped. It's not like they're all about that, but they've definitely helped. New age teaching and beliefs invade the church. They've thought that they're going to go in there and redeem these things and rescue them. Whereas in the book of acts, when we have witchcraft, people coming to faith, they burn their books. Bethel, uh, was, at least for a long time, suggesting people to learn from those books, and that that was okay, certainly open to that. And promoting material that was teaching, that sort of thing, endorsing it, writing forwards about how great it is. That was with the book. If you guys don't know what I'm talking about, this is, uh, the book that Bethel had in their stores, um, called Physics of heaven. I did a review of it. Just type Mike winger physics of heaven on Google, and you'll find it. But that book, um, was teaching new age woo to christians in a really bad way. It was endorsed by Bethel. It had chapters written by people from Bethel. The whole book is written by Bill Johnson's assistant or whatever, some lady that worked for him, and they promoted it, and they had her come into their school of supernatural ministry every year for a long time and educate the kids and teach them all these practices. After I made my video, Bethel pulled it down out of their bookstore, and they said it had some things they didn't agree with. To my knowledge, that's the only public statement they made about it. That's not enough. Guys like you need to be, uh, what things you didn't agree with because you endorsed it before, so now it just feels like damage control and not sincerity.

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Anyway, I'm getting distracted. I apologize. Rob. You had a good question.

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Energy. In that sense, the new age wu sense, I don't think it's biblical at all. There's nothing wrong with saying, you know, when someone comes in the room, they impact the attitude and personalities of people in the room. I don't have to pretend that this is. Doesn't have any sort of, like, spiritual connection to the way they affect the room and all that. I just want to make sure that I'm not using terms that borrow heavily on the ideology of new age woo. So I don't. I don't think it is. To say it's not biblical is difficult, though, um, in the sense that I don't have a verse that says this is not biblical, because I don't think the concept of new age energy was even anywhere in scripture, so it's not being discussed. So when I say it's not biblical, I mean, there's nothing in the Bible that teaches this sort of thing. It's extra biblical. And is there anything against it? Um, sort of. You know, you get statements about prayer where faith and prayer, this connects to the energy and the woo stuff. Faith and prayer are not seen as powers you have. Prayer is an appeal to God, and then he does something with his power. Faith is trusting God, but faith itself is weak. The power that is associated with faith is from God. Its external power. So were made strong through faith is to say that all we did was believe, and then God helped us. So that I am not exerting power with my words, power with my faith, power with my prayers. I'm powerless, appealing to one who is powerful. That's a biblical view. New age stuff reverses that and it puts the power in you. And that's where you get stuff like, ah, the secret and your words make worlds and how our thoughts become reality and all that kind of stuff. That's not biblical.

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Number three, Jamie T says in Matthew 1928, Jesus states, the twelve disciples will sit on 1224 thrones in regeneration. In the regeneration, in revelation 4424, elders are sitting on the thrones. Who are the other twelve?

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This is a hot debate. If you're like reading commentaries on revelation, this is a big debate, like, who are those twelve are the apostles? And people debate whether that's Matthias or Paul.

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Is it Matthias? Because after Judas killed himself, they set up Matthias as the one to replace him. And then Paul shows up and people debate on that. And, um, I'm inclined to think it was Matthias. But at any rate, who are the other twelve? Uh, probably the best guess I've heard. And I'll put it out there as a guess. I'm tentative on this. I don't know for sure the answer. I don't know if I don't want to say nobody knows because that's a little presumptuous. I don't have enough information to say nobody knows. I don't know. Um.

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But probably the best guess that I have would be that these other 12 may have something to do with, um, either the Gentiles. So we have the twelve who are the disciples that are. Ultimately, their focus was to the Jews initially and then expanded. But then we have guys like Paul. You know, maybe. Maybe the other twelve are people like Paul who are New Testament times evangelists and going out and reaching out. I say maybe. I know. The more I think about that the more I think it might have problems because they're sort of being put up as if they're all apostles. And we don't have twelve additional apostles. And we don't also have a clean distinction between who goes to Jews and who goes to Gentiles. Paul had an emphasis to gentiles. Peter had an emphasis to Jews, but not exclusively. And they were brought into one church anyway. I feel like there could be some problems with that, the more I think about it.

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Another possible option is, um, that we're going back to the Old Testament and we're looking at guys like Moses, right? Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, that maybe these are twelve individuals from further back. So that you have the old and the new both represented the old covenant, the new covenant both represented amongst the elders. That's possible. Um, I don't know. Maybe in revelation, the number 24 there is symbolic, and there aren't exclusively 24 that have a special role like that in the actual future experience. You know, of things I.

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I'm not. I'm not sure. I have a lot. I have more questions than answers about some of that stuff, and that's one of them. Sorry I can't be more help. Okay. Um. Blazing 13 ri says, blade, I'm sure that your name is actually probably different than whatever I just said. At any rate, you said if Jesus identifies himself as the word and ezekiel literally ate the word of God, is this a good case for Ezekiel being an analogy to the Catholic Eucharist being true?

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All right, let's just read the passage and let's understand this. That, um, uh, the Catholic Eucharist is the idea behind it. There's actually a lot of ideas behind it. People don't realize one of the ideas is transubstantiation. So this is the idea that the, uh, elements, bread and wine, physically become the body and blood of Jesus. This is connected to an interesting philosophical view that is kind of outdated to most of us. Most of us have never heard of it, but about something called accidents and substance. So the substance of the bread and wine become actually the body and blood of Jesus physically. Right. But the accidents, they call it the appearance, the look stays the same. So it looks like bread and wine, but it is in substance, actually the body and blood of Christ. Not spiritually, but actually.

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Okay, that's one of the aspects of Catholic Eucharist. But the Eucharist has a bunch of other aspects. They believe that the eucharist doesn't work unless a priest invokes, says the special words with the authority of the Catholic Church, and he invokes this moment where the change happens. See, there's like, he's like the guy with sort of the power to change or basically flip the switch that causes the change from bread and wine to blood and body. So you have to have a priest, and that means that you kind of need the Catholic Church to properly have Eucharist so that. I've never actually had communion in a real biblical sense in my life, according to catholic doctrine. Even if I had communion at a church that believed in transubstantiation, they didn't have the priests doing it. They didn't have the proper, um, authority on catholic doctrine. Uh, they also believe that the catholic transubstantiation, uh, happens, a priest happens. It's also a representation of the sacrifice of Jesus, so that Jesus is being, in a sense, sacrificed. Again, I say that we have to be careful, uh, in the words we use, because they're very careful in the words they use. It's very complicated. If you actually read catholic theology on the Eucharist, you'll scratch your head for a week. It's very complicated stuff. And they say they're representing the sacrifice of Jesus, so that, and it is an actual sacrifice, so that you're actually getting forgiveness. And grace is being dispensed through the Eucharist. So this means a few things that if I sin, it's not expected that I just say, lord, between me and you, like, um, I sinned, I'm sorry, forgive me. The Catholics won't say, that's impossible, but that's not standard. Okay, I go, I go to the priest. I gotta have the special representative. He says the special words, he invokes the body and blood. He then, uh, it becomes a representation of the sacrifice. And then this is dispensing grace to me. All this stuff is the reason why I go through that. There's more, too, but the reason why I go through that is because whatever we're about to read in Ezekiel, it couldn't possibly give you all that.

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Because the whole system of roman catholic priesthood and mediators and invocations and the dispensing of grace, like, there's no way Ezekiel's gonna give you all that when he eats a scroll. There's just no way I say that before evaluating. Now let's look at Ezekiel three one three.

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And he said to me, son of man, this is Ezekiel. Next to Jesus is the other guy who's called son of man frequently. So he said to me, son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll and go speak to the house of Israel. So I, uh, opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I may give you, that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate, and it was. It was in my mouth as sweet as honey.

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Then in verse four, what does he say? And this is important for understanding what the scroll is. And he said to me, son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them.

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That's the next thing he does. So what you do is first you're going to consume the scroll. Now, what. What is. Scrolls contain words, right? Then you're going to go and speak my words to them. You must really take in and experience the things I have for you to know and communicate, and then you go out and tell others.

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What Ezekiel is doing is, uh, a picture of a prophet receiving the word of God and then delivering it to others. It's not about transubstantiation in any way, shape, or form. It's not about communion at all.

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Just because Jesus is the word doesn't mean this is important. Doesn't mean that every time the Bible says the phrase word is talking about Jesus, right? That's kind of a big deal. You can't just say, well, how's the word word there? So that's Jesus, right? That's a clumsy way of talking. Like, look up every. If you think that. Look up every time the word word is used. There's a lot you want to know. How many? Let's see.

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Word.

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Um.

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Actually, I don't think I can get a number for you. Anyway. It's going to be thousands of times. Okay. It's going to be so many times. Right.

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The word word is used a lot. Um, you know, psalm 140 715? It says, he sends out his commands to the earth. His word runs very swiftly. God's word runs very swiftly. Here you go.

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Does that mean that Jesus is a very fast runner?

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Right. God sends out his word and melts them.

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Does Jesus melt things? He declares his word to Jacob. Did Jesus show up to Jacob? Well, actually, you could argue for that, actually, a little bit. So I shouldn't go too far. But it wouldn't be because of that verse. That would be an interesting, uh, parallel. At any rate, um, the word word is not going to be used that way. That would be inaccurate, inappropriate, I think. And make sure I'm getting your question fully answered here, I hope. Um, is it a good case for Ezekiel? Being an analogy to the catholic church being true. Uh, no. The catholic eucharist. Excuse me, being true. No, um, it's not a good analogy for that. I do think Ezekiel gives us analogies and you can draw things from them. I think it has to do with the word of God and the sweetness of it and all that. And then he delivers it out and we get similar discussions with Jeremiah and the word, um, and it's about proclaiming the things God has revealed to them. They're God's spokesman. Ezekiel is interesting, though. I think there's a cool parallel to Jesus in Ezekiel where he doesn't represent anything about Catholicism or Protestantism in this sense, in this verse. I'm not making a case for Protestantism from that verse. I'm saying don't use the Bible wrongly. Ezekiel, though, he's the son of man. This title most closely associated with Jesus in his messianic identity as fully human. And Ezekiel is the one prophet who was also a priest. Jesus is also our high priest, and he's the one prophet who the scripture says bore the sins of the people. This is a hugely important phrase in the law of. Script of scripture in the Old Testament. Um, the mosaic law. When you bear the sins, sin bearers are a big deal, and Jesus is our ultimate sin bearer. Ezekiel, the prophet priest, was the only one who was also called the son of man all the time, was also the one who bore the sins of Israel. Did he really pay for their sins vicariously, like Jesus? No, but he bore them like a priest does. That's a symbol of Christ. Then he did all these things. He had to do all these things like cooking his food with. With dung, grow stuff, laying down, uh, being naked to show shame what happened. If you look at the crazy stuff he has to go through, Ezekiel experiences the shame and the suffering and the pain that belongs to Israel, and he stands as a representative, bearing their sins, experiencing the shame that they deserve.

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Now, it's totally cool to me to think of this as being a picture of Christ. Ezekiel as. And I don't have a video on this, but Ezekiel as a type typology of Christ, that's a pretty cool thing to think about and worth spending some time on. All right, number five. Uh, number five. I guess that was number five. I didn't skip the number there somewhere. Oh, I skipped four. Okay, I'm back in. Okay, here's. Anyway, Sarah, you know what to do. I just got the numbers mixed, so. 23. Ajrf says, can you please explain? First Corinthians 1422. Through 24. Verse 22 states that tongues are assigned for unbelievers, and prophecy is for believers. But verse 23 and 24 then go on to seemingly describe the exact opposite. I've. I've seen this issue before. First Corinthians, chapter 14.

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An issue on tongues in prophecy here. Therefore, tongues are a sign. Tongues are a sign not to those who believe, but to unbelievers.

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Okay. But prophesying is not for unbelievers, but for those who believe.

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Therefore, if the whole church comes together in one place and all speak with one, uh, with tongues, and there come into those in those. Excuse me. Who are uninformed or unbelievers, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he's convinced by all, he's convicted by all.

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Uh, that's the new king James. I'm going to read this in a couple different translations, those same three verses. Here's say the Niv.

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Tongues, uh, then, are assigned not for believers, but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers, but for believers. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues and inquires or unbelievers. Inquirers or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if an unbeliever, um. Or an inquirer comes in while everyone's prophesying, they are convicted of sin and are brought under judgment by all. Let's look at the ESV.

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Thus, tongues are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for believers, but unbelievers. Um, but for believers. Man, m my reading skills are really bad today, I have to admit.

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That's too bad.

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So, tongues are assigned not for believers, but for unbelievers, while prophecy is assigned not for unbelievers, but for unbelievers. There. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if I prophesy, an unbeliever or outsider enters. He's convicted by all, he's called to account by all. And then it talks about how he. He hopefully ends up getting saved because of this, um.

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This, um. I honestly, guys, I'm just a human with. With false. I'm trying to remember the answer that I had for this years ago. It's been a long time since I looked at it, and I just can't remember right now. So tongues are a sign for not, not for believers, but for unbelievers?

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Um, this would be, yeah, I don't want to hazard recklessly working through it off the cuff. I can't remember right now the resolution that I had for this off the top of my head. So here's what I'll do next Friday.

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I will take 23 AJrf's question as the first question for the Q and A. That's next Friday. And I'll work. I'll work through this and get. Get my answer sorted and straight. I will acknowledge here it says, and you guys will probably already in the live chat, you're probably like, no, no, it's this, Mike. It's easy. That's your. You're probably right, but I just don't remember off the top of my. Off top of my head and don't want to be reckless with the word of God in any way, shape or form. So tongues are assigned not for believers, but for unbelievers. Okay, how is that true that tongues are assigned for them, but we don't want them to think you're crazy by you doing tongues, is it because of interpretation? But then how do you explain, while prophecy is a sign not for believers, not for unbelievers, but for believers? Anyway, I will come back to that one next Friday with my apologies. Kafui Amoni says, what does it mean to not mention God's name in vain?

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Um, that's been a subject of recent discussion. So a lot of people grew up thinking taking God's name in vain is simply any statement where you say God's name, but you say it in an empty fashion or without the proper respect and honor in which God is due. And there are those who push back on that and they say, no, no, no. Taking God's name in vain is more specific than that. So, you know, the first camp would be like, hey, if you ever say, oh, and then you say God's name as an expression, like a, uh, like an emotive expression, like, oh, or as a, as a cuss word. Using God's name as a cuss word. People do this all the time. It's very, very common. Um, it's crazy how often it happens. And some say, well, no, it's not that. It's actually not that.

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Prophesying falsely. So that when you say, God told me this and that thing's not really from God, you took up God's name. You put God's name on the thing you were saying, and God wasn't really saying that, so they'll say, ha. Uh, so taking God's name in vain. Don't worry about, you just. You just use God's name as a cuss word. Or you said God in an empty fashion.

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No, no, it's about false prophecy. It's about maybe teaching something in God's name. Well, God would never send anyone to hell. Well, that. That's taking God's name in vain because you made a proclamation about God that was not true. That was a lie. You used his name wrongly.

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Uh, I'm of the camp that both are true, that both people are right, that just because prophecy is a great example of a way you could take God's name in vain by falsely saying things in his name, that doesn't mean that it's okay to use his name as a cuss word.

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The honor that the Bible gives towards God and towards his name is far higher than the honor that our culture gives. If you look at it, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. Even demons. When they saw Jesus, they ran and fell at his feet, like, are you come here to torment us? Before the time Lord, they were. The honor and the dignity that we should be giving God at every moment is so high.

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Our father in heaven, Jesus, teaches us how to pray this tiny, short prayer. One of the lines is actually, hallowed be your name or hallowed be your name. I always say it wrong. Um, the idea there is that God's name is holy and is to be treated as holy, his very name. That would, I think, include casual uses of, like, I never say God bless you unless I mean it. Some people say it like, it's like, it's almost like, have a good day.

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I don't say, God bless you. God help you. I don't do. I don't use God's name unless it has the weight of God behind it. And I think that that's how we are to be. Um, now, is all misuse of God's name equal? No. Okay. The person who falsely prophesies in God's name is not the same as the person who callously says O God as an expression of, like, them being frustrated about their day. They're, um, not the same, but certainly the thing you're treating as empty. God's name is anything but. He's God. God is. We live in his universe. We breathe the air he made. We are sustained by, uh, his very power that holds us together every second. Our souls literally exist because he made us. He is holy. He is just. He is good. He is beyond your imagination, powerful. His wisdom is. You can't even conceive of how wise he is and the things he knows. You can only sort of try to think about all the stuff God knows. You can't even conceive of how amazing and powerful and glorious his love. You think you know his love, but you only know your concept of his love. His love is so powerful and so beyond us to treat his name, the thing that represents him, as anything less than incredibly worthy of awe and respect, is, uh, is a kind of blasphemy. So I I'm in the camp that says both are right. The modern, like, more modern people, I hear saying it's false prophecy stuff. I go, you're right about that being an application. You're just, I think, wrong about that being the only thing that's in view there. So, you guys, let me know what you think. Um, let me know what you think. I think that that seems consistent with what I read in scripture. And it would be worth doing a study where we actually go through texts of scripture to look at every time any sort of concept of God's name being misused is, um, is discussed, is discussed in the text. Or we could maybe get more details on that. I know that in the time of Jesus, uh, after the time of Jesus, the jewish people were so hesitant to even use God's name for fear of using his name wrongly, that they stopped using it. And so you would get, um. During and after the time of Jesus, you would get things like, um.

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In our Old Testament, we have capital l o r d, because we're not going to write out, you know, an english version of God's name, a transliteration of it, of, like, yahweh or Jehovah. It would be an older misunderstanding, probably, of what, how his name's pronounced, probably. At any rate, you can tell what they thought about it. That doesn't prove my point, but it shows that this is not beyond the pale to think that you can't use his name. Wrong question. Uh, number seven.

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Christian Tweed says, when David is anointed in one Samuel 16, the Bible says that the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. How would this be similar or different from us receiving the spirit now? Well, I'm going to show my cowboy chapel roots here and, and give you this description. Okay. The difference between within and upon. Uh, those are two, three different words used to describe the relationship we have with the Holy Spirit within and upon. So he's with us, he will be in us. But that there is an upon. Now, I don't go as far as some, even Calvary chapel guys go with this, so don't think I'm endorsing all of the things that you've heard about being the baptism of the spirit and everything. Um, but the Holy Spirit's with people, generally speaking. And he convicts even the world, convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment to come. But the in relationship, the indwelling, that's like a post Jesus, post cross, I should say post cross event, where we receive the spirit upon salvation. You are indwelt with the spirit. That is permanent residence within you is the Holy Spirit. God is tangibly, spiritually connected to you from the moment of your faith. Okay? That's your indwelt with the spirit. Then there is this other thing where even though Peter is already saved, he's already filled with the spirit in the sense of being, you know, he has the spirit in him. There'll be a time in acts where he's filled with the spirit yet again.

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Let, uh, me share that with you if I can find the verse. Okay. I don't have the Bible memorized, and I never will, sadly.

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Um, let's see. Um, there's actually some specific verses I'm thinking that I like to share with you guys, but I'm not.

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Yeah, we'll go to this first. This would be a good spot to go. Okay. So, in acts two, we read about Peter being filled with the spirit. We know he's filled with the spirit in acts chapter two, but then in acts chapter four, much later, um, we have this. And when they prayed that Peter leading the prayer, the place where they were assembled together, was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God with boldness. Not tongues here, but they spoke the word of God with boldness. Peter already indwelt with the spirit, received some sort of special empowerment by the spirit to speak the word of God boldly. So he had relationally had the indwelling of the spirit, but received, in addition, power, a filling with the spirit. That doesn't mean he didn't have the spirit before. I think what, um, David experienced, my theory on this, I could be wrong, is that when David experienced the empowerment of the spirit, that's what it was.

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It, uh, was not the indwelling that a believer gets when they put their faith in Christ that we have now post cross. But it was an empowerment by the spirit in order for him to do his ministry as king. So David had to be enabled to do the king stuff. He was empowered by God to do it. So the spirit of God rushed upon him, and Saul had that before, earlier on. And then the spirit ultimately left Samson. Had that, but the spirit left Samson. And when the spirit left Samson, is this a commentary on his salvation? I don't think so. I think it's a commentary on his empowerment, because Samson had the spirit in the way that other people didn't. David had the spirit in a way that other people did not. This was, uh, this was not a salvific holy spirit thing where you're unsaved. Then the spirit rushes on, David. Now David is saved. It's not saying that my opinion for you guys to think about is that David, um, his salvific status was already. He was already having faith in God. But if he had died at the moment before the spirit came upon him, he would have eternal life. But the spirit rushed on him for empowerment, for the job of being the king of Israel. God's anointed king. Saul, same thing. Samson, same thing. Holy spirit then left, then came back because of his sin issues. And I don't think these are commentary on salvation, but empowerment. Um, and I think that that's what's happening in that spot.

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Um.

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All right, question number eight. Community. A Calvary chapel fellowship hurricane wv. Okay. Um, so it's a Calvary chapel. Cool, cool. Good hear from you guys.

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Pastor Mike, thanks for what you do. Oh, uh, thank you. Thank you. I'm not. I'm not really pastoring right now. I mean, there's something pastoral about my ministry online, that's for sure. But I'm not an official elder in my local church, just so you guys know. I just want to throw that out there because I was for many years. And so I call myself pastor, and I hold off because I want to preserve the authenticity of the use of that term in a biblical sense. That's a whole other debate.

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I talk fast sometimes. Okay, Pastor Mike, thanks for what you do. Do the qualifications for pastor, elder in one, Timothy three one through seven, and Titus one five through nine. Disqualify a man who has an unbelieving wife. Interesting question. Let's read the qualifications for church leadership and ask that question. Does this seem to disqualify a man whose wife is unsaved, which, uh, would, of course, have a big impact if potentially he's been doing ministry for many years and his wife goes off the rails and she denies Christ, um, does he lose his job?

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That would seem very disruptive to churches.

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Let's read the passage. One Timothy three. One seven. This is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, bishop is the same as elder, elder, same as pastor. The way we. The modern way we use our word. The word pastor, generally speaking, is. Connects closely with this elder and bishop term in scripture. And overseer, same thing. There's you synonymously. So a bishop then, must be blameless. The husband of one wife. Temperate, sober, minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach. There's the phrase husband of one wife doesn't comment on her qualities there. Not, uh, given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous. One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. For if a man. Here we go. For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God, not a novice. Lest being puffed up with pride, he falls into the same condemnation as the devil. Uh, watch out for new. We always like these new young people. New young leaders, new things. It's like there's a danger that's there. Okay, look. I was more dangerous the younger. The younger you go in my life, the more dangerous I was. When it comes to church leadership. That's just the reality. The older I get, the less dangerous I am. In the negative sense. Um, hopefully in the positive sense, I'm more dangerous. But so not our novice. Less being puffed up with pride. He fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside. Lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Not a word there about his wife.

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Husband of one wife is a term that really, in the Greek, it means, like, a one woman man is kind of how it's, uh, written. It definitely refers to a male. I've never. It's not used of any females ever in any point in the history of Greek, to my knowledge. I've asked for people to show me a verse. A, uh, place where it happens and nobody's. They say it can happen, and it can be used that way, but no one's ever given an example. So it seems to indicate a man who faithful in marriage. Now, what's a one woman man for a single guy? Like, maybe Paul was probably single. What's a one woman man for a single guy? It's a guy who's faithful in singleness, right. He's not, uh, messing around with a bunch of girls, he's not sleeping around, he's not violating anybody else's marriages, that kind of thing.

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But nothing about him, his wife having certain qualities. Now, if you read on in the deacon's information, there's a statement about their women or their wives in verse eleven. So let me briefly talk about that before I go to Titus. Likewise, deacons must be reverent, not double tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for money, holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience. But let these also first be tested, then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless. Now, deacons have basically, it's like a catch all. Any other ministry that's not pastoral is like Deacon. Likewise, their wives must be reverent, not slanderers. Temperate, faithful in all things. I can make several quick observations.

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The deacons wives have requirements. Why is that? Um, because they probably partnered and did deacon type things for women. So we see this in the early church, women would help other women getting baptized. Now, when the church moved, I think erroneously moved towards infant baptism. I have a video on that. Just google Mike. When you're infant baptism, I have a few videos. Um, but when they in church history moved towards infant baptism, they stopped using women for baptisms. Because everybody's a baby. You don't need to worry about it. But when you were baptizing women in that ancient world, they'd be like, hey, let's bring women. They'd use women to help disciple other women, uh, to do care, to go into women's areas and minister where men weren't supposed to go. In a segregated culture, there was lots of things they did. So it seems to me that you could have women deacons, but women, effectively deacons doing. Not doing everything every male deacon does, but doing things that women deacons do.

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But you didn't have female elders. That's why there's no statement about requirements for the female version of an elder, because there just wasn't one. Um, I have lots of content on that online. You can check it out, but you then ask about Titus. Okay, so the deacon statement is not their wives have to be this for them to be deacons. I think it's the women, the females who are partnering with deacons who are doing the girl side of that, that ministry stuff. They have to have these qualities. See, they're actually active in ministry. Uh, the actual elder, the bishop, he doesn't have any requirements on his wife, because the elder's wife or the pastor's wife is not also a pastor.

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Maybe she's going to do the deacon stuff. So those requirements are for her. But if she's not doing ministry at all, then that wouldn't be a requirement. That'd be my interpretation of that. Let's look at Titus, chapter one, verses five through nine.

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For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. Now, here's the requirements for elder, same as a bishop overseer. If a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of dissipation or insubordination. I think that applies to them when they're kids. Some people disagree. They think it applies to them even when they're adults. That you have to, like, assure the. That even your kids at 18 and 23, that they're, they're godly. This, to me, having faithful children is simply the parallel of what Paul said, ruling his own household. Well, when your kids are young and you have more influence and direct control over them, you're raising them right, you're taking care of them, you're seeing that their behavior is good and godly. As they get older, they're going to make their decisions anyway. Um, that's how I would view that. But it doesn't say his wife, does it?

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He has to be a husband of one wife. But there's nothing here about the wife and her. I'm sorry, I should put it on your screen. Nothing here about the wife's actual requirements because she's not an elder.

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Interesting. So what if his. Now that. Does that mean it doesn't matter if I'm going to become the pastor of a church? It doesn't matter if my wife's a non believer? No, it might matter. I'm just saying it's not a disqualification outright. So if I have a guy who's like, I want to be the pastor of the church, my wife's a nonbeliever, I'm going to have a bunch of questions about that. Uh, to be honest, how are we going to keep you from starting to have an affair with a godly christian woman in the church who looks up to you and knows you're single and her heart breaks because, oh, if only you had a godly woman with you and all that's going to be some stuff that goes on there. That's a real thing to worry about. Does that disqualify? No, but it's, it's a concern.

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Do you raise up your kids well, in the ways of the lord when you're in this mixed marriage. Are you capable of doing that? And if you can't, then that would start to move towards a disqualifying factor. Now, sometimes churches are hiring elders, pastors, and they literally don't have a candidate, a single one, who fits all of these requirements. So what do they do? I mean, you could at least have an interim person. I don't know. You know, sometimes you have to pick the best option. You've got to be realistic in life, um, at least until something better comes around. And that, that was my first job in ministry. I was brought in to be the youth intern at my church when my m our youth pastor left this tiny little church. And, um, this was a baptist church, and I had first church. I started attending, actually. And mostly I went weeknights. And then I slowly started going on Sundays, like when I got a little bit older in my later teens. And, um, I hit, uh, 18, graduated high school, and I was asked to be the youth intern. And I knew I was not qualified. I was not all that stuff.

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And so I had a board meeting with the board, and we sat there. I'd never even met the board. I was like, who are these elder guys? I don't even know who they are. So I sat down, and they offered me the job. And I said, I'll take it on one condition.

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And they said, um, what? It was like, dollar 200 a month, I think.

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Um, they said, uh, one condition. No, it was less. It was like 50. It was like 50 a month. That's right.

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Um, at any rate, uh, doing all the youth ministry stuff, I said, I'll take down one condition. And they said, what's your condition? I said, you have to find someone qualified to take this job. I'll only do it until you find that person. I know I'm not qualified. I don't know the word well enough. I'm not educated enough on the text of scripture, and I don't have enough experience, and I don't feel like I have the godly qualities that we're supposed to have. And that was true. Um, and they laughed and they agreed.

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So I was. And I would not let anybody call me pastor because I was like, I'm not. I'm not a pastor. I'm a use. I'm an intern. I'm just here to help out until someone qualified shows up. And I think that was wisdom. All right, let's go to question number nine.

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Duh wobble Fett.

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I don't know if that's the right way to pronounce your name. But I like the wobble. Fett says, thank you for your epic ministry, Mike. Well, thank you. Thank you, man. The word of God is epic, so you focus on that. You teach the word, you defend and explain the text of scripture to people and give them biblical answers. It's automatically epic.

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Um, how should we understand the inerrancy for New Testament passages that appear to quote the Old Testament, but no clear reference can be found?

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I, um, think that here is not a question of inerrancy. I, uh, think it's a question of what we expect of quotations.

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We have standard, um, we have more formalized quotations. Right. When you put something in quotes, it means it's a word for word quote. That's our convention. That is not a first century convention at all. They would combine references, they would sometimes summarize ideas, and then the english translators will put quotes around it to let you know that they're alluding to something other than what they're writing. But those quotes have an english connotation they did not have in the Greek. In fact, there are no quotation marks in the Greek. So this is not an inerrancy issue. This is simply understanding. That's how quotation worked back then. They could summarize an idea that's taught in many places and then be like, as the law says, and they didn't quote a single verse, but they just summarized an idea that if you knew, if you were very familiar with the Old Testament, you know, that idea is generally taught. And they would say, as the law says, we would read that and think, where's, where does it say that? But it doesn't actually say it anywhere specifically. It says it in a lot of places, uh, generally. So let's look at two verses you give as examples of this. So, James four, five.

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Um, do you think that the spirit, the scripture says in vain, the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously, but he gives more grace? Therefore, he says, God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Where is this verse? Where is this verse that says, the spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?

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Um, how about in Jeremiah when it says that God longs for his people?

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What about where he says, I've stretched out my hands all day long to a disobedient people? Or where he says, like, you've betrayed me with many lovers, yet return to me, says the Lord?

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Uh, the yearning, the desire for God, for God's people to come to him, and the sense of proper jealousy that God is jealous that scripture says that many times. That's very much taught in scripture, and James is probably affirming that. But the english translation, it puts it in quotes. And with our english understanding, we think, where is that verse?

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Well, there isn't one. Right. But there are teachings in scripture that that same spirit, the Holy Spirit who dwells in me. Does scripture teach the spirit dwells in me? Absolutely. Does it teach that God is jealous? Yes. Does it teach that he desires his people, the affection and love and obedience and allegiance of his people? Yes. Okay. It teaches all that. So he's summarizing a teaching. Um. And the quotation marks are an english convention that we do that it doesn't. Doesn't exist in Greek.

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Matthew, um, 223 is another one.

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And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene. What verse is that? So there's no verse. There's no Old Testament verse that says, he shall be called a nazarene, unquote.

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So what I'd say is, anytime this kind of thing happens, open up some commentaries, read some text from some guys who have actually spent time working on this, trying to say, in what way is this connected to the Old Testament? He's a Nazarene.

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In what sense? And there's a bunch of theories. This Nazarene one is actually really interesting. It's kind of complicated. And there's different theories as to what Matthew's alluding to there.

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When you realize that the gospel writers, they treat the Old Testament different than you do. Um, and different than I do, I should say. I don't know you personally, but different than I have in the past, where, um, I would only put in quotes what is a direct quote from scripture. They're summarizing ideas and concepts. Sometimes they will take a quote from half of a verse and another quote from another verse, put them together, because what they're. And it's actually really brilliant what they do. Others are like, you're twisting scripture. No, it's not. It's brilliant. They'll take stuff. Because if you study the whole passage in context, the nuances here connect to the Jeremiah passage, and the nuances here connect to, like, hosea or whatever the other passages, that it really was intentional to bring both passages together. But conventions of the time would have them just say, maybe they referenced Jeremiah because maybe he was the more well known of the two verses that are quoted, and that was normal for them. It's not an error. It's a different convention. I think we have to be aware of that as we examine that kind of thing. I hope that helps you out, buddy. All right, anonymous question here. Question number ten. My mom just passed away, and I'm unsure of her salvation of.

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I'm so, so sorry. Um, let me read your whole question here. I know she prayed with the hospital's chaplains. My kids ask if they will see her in heaven. How do I talk to them about this?

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So these kind of questions are so heavy. I feel rude, uh, to be honest, answering these questions, because I don't know you. And to answer a question like this, and many of the questions I answer, it's like doing heart surgery on a stranger from a distance. You know, it's like remote heart surgery. I. I have trepidation. But again, if I don't answer, I leave. I leave you just floating there, like, with no help at all. So I hope I strike a good balance here. I'll say this, you know, many of you guys know this. Uh, those who follow my content regularly. My mother passed away. She passed away in November m of last year. And it was. We were very, very close with her the whole time, all the way through it. Me, um, and my sister. We saw her through the dark. Dark, difficult, challenging, weird stuff. Stuff, you know, that after. Afterwards, you. You, uh, can't close your eyes without seeing all that stuff again, I say this because while I try to have a more of a stoic manner, like, I fully get it. I fully, fully get it. Um, those who've been especially close to loved ones in their last, like, days and weeks, and you're just with them constantly, and that kind of thing. Like, I get it, okay? It takes you time to recover from that. It doesn't ruin your hope in Christ. It's just trauma, and it's difficult. I understand that. And then the question of, like, what about their salvation? I'm unsure of her salvation. What do I do? I'm not going to spit on the cross by just saying, everyone's saved. I want to be able to say that, but I can't just say that. But then there's this person I desperately love, and I just want them to know the Lord. And I can't. Even. My brain cannot comprehend them having. Suffering, being apart from the presence of God.

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The things that I tell myself in this regard are, uh, the things that I'll tell you. Okay? And you can judge whether you think it's good advice for yourself or whether you think you would change that and others can comment on it. You're welcome to do that. Okay. I'm just a person. Here's the things that I tell myself. Okay, well, let me start with scripture, okay. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through him. I'm just quoting Jesus here, okay. Based on Jesus himself. If you reject him, you do not come to God. Now, maybe you never heard of Christ. There's a possibility that you responded in faith to what God had revealed. And later you'll find out about Jesus and be like, this is who I was waiting on. Um, and you'll have faith and trust in him, and you'll come to God through him.

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Um, but to die in rejection of Jesus, to die after having the revelation of God exposed to you hearing the gospel or your conscience crying out to you and not responding to God. In faith, you do not experience eternal life. You experience future judgment. And that I cannot change.

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I don't make the rules, and I don't make them to make you happy. And I don't get to change them to make me happy. All that does is encourage living in delusion about reality. Right.

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With somebody who's, like, chain smoking all day long, every day, I can tell them, don't worry, you'll never get sick. But I'm lying to them to make them feel comfortable, to maybe make our relationship work out, to make myself feel happy. But it's deception, okay? It's just deception.

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Reality will hit you hard and fast whether you like it or not. And the reality of Jesus being Lord is going to hit everybody hard and fast whether they received him or rejected him. You can't just be a cultural Christian.

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You need faith in Christ, saving faith in Christ, real faith in Christ, genuine commitment to Christ. All that being said, I can't change any of that, okay? Nor would I try to, but I. But I understand the motive that people have to.

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So what about your mom? From the description you've given, here's how I would handle it. I would say, well, kids, I hope m your grandma is saved. I know this. She prayed with the hospital chaplains, and I know that they were trying to preach Jesus to her, and then she agreed to pray with them. And I think that that was a beautiful thing. And so it gives me hope, and I'm going to rest on that hope. That'd be my response.

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If you're not sure, you may as well err on the side of hope.

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You may as well err on the side of hope if you're not sure. But what? But what about people listening? And you're like, I am sure, Mike, I know that my family member rejected Christ.

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I still hope you're wrong. I still hope in their last minutes that they had some revelation from the spirit, even with their eyes closed and they're not responsive, that there's something where God just reached out to them and they responded and were saved, and that I would be an occasion for great rejoicing.

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Um, but let's say that you're convinced that didn't happen.

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You need to rely on the justice of God. You need to rely on the justice of God and the goodness of God here and say, lord, I don't understand it. I don't have to sit here and imagine all of the future things that are going to happen and try to, like, create that sort of, like, video in my mind of all of, all the things that are going to happen there. But I can do this. I can say, God, you are holy and you are just and you are good. Those are things. I know those things are, those things are true.

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I may have a family allegiance here that challenges my trust in you, but I need to love you even more than I love them. Not that you don't love them, right? It's about, you certainly don't love them more than God. That's the, that's the point. I knew someone who said, um, a particular animal that he liked, and he said, if this animal that I like a lot isn't in heaven, I don't want to go. And I thought, well, you, you love that animal more than you love God. Like, this is, this is idolatry. I will not love any human more than not myself, not my wife, not my parents, not my best friends. I will not love anybody more than I love God. That's idolatry.

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Um, so I love God more and I trust God, and I'm going to sit there and I'm going to wait for God to help me be okay with it, because maybe you're not okay with it, and that's all right, but you, in faith, you're going to wait on God to make you okay with it. And I think this is a hugely encouraging verse that I use on this.

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It doesn't sound encouraging when I read it to you, but I'll tell you why I think it's encouraging. Okay. Please hear me out. This is the kind of thing I know, like, atheists will make videos on this stuff. Go ahead, do what you want.

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Hopefully, um, some of them actually understand what I was saying. So revelation 19 after these things, I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven saying, alleluia. Which is, uh, a praise. This is, uh, probably a joyful praise. Alleluia. Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God. Now, why are they celebrating?

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Look at verse two. For true and righteous are his judgments.

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God's judgment, even of a loved one of mine, is true and righteous because he has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and he has avenged on her, on her the blood of his servants shed by her. He brought justice again, they said. And look at verse three. This is the verse that sticks out to me. Alleluia. Her smoke rises up forever and ever in revelation 19. It's not just saying God judged, it's the response of people saved people saying, God, the judgment you did was good.

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Now, does that mean I'm excited for the suffering of my loved ones in hell? No. God does not delight in the death of the wicked.

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What it means is that there is an aspect of this that is tragedy, but which. Which I will always view as tragedy, but there's an aspect of this which is justice and good. It's both at the same time. It's the same thing about when, um, a murderer or a rapist or somebody goes and gets put in prison, that it's tragic that they're. And if that was my loved one who did those things, am I comparing your loved ones to the. No, I'm drawing an analogy to make a point. Please hear me out. I can hear the inner atheist in my head because I've listened you to so many atheists that go, you're ashamed. Someone who just was a good person is the same as a murderer. No, I didn't. You said that, not me. Calm down. Um, but let's say by analogy that a loved one, someone you really dearly love, you found out that they were a murderer. And then they get justice and they get sent to prison. Maybe they get the death penalty, and you think it's good and it's right that they got that. I'm still heartbroken, but I don't fight against it because it's what's right and proper. But, man, it breaks my heart. It's okay to feel both of those at the same time. But here's the cool thing about Revelation 19. It's this vision of the future where the people of God so trust the judgments of God that they can say, that was good. That was good that you did that.

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If you have a loved one who has rejected Christ, that you're confident they have and they've died, and you're thinking they are awaiting final judgment and it's not going to go well with them. And it breaks my heart. It's good for it to break your heart should break our hearts for people, loved ones we have now who are heading that way.

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But it's not wrong for God to do it. You can take comfort in knowing there's a day when you see God's holiness, when you see him in all of his glory and you were out of this world and the ick and the confusion and the delusions of this world, you will look and you will say, wow, Lord, it was actually good that you did that. It was sad.

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It was something to regret in the sense of, I'm sad this situation had to happen, but what you did with the judgment was good and proper and true. Hallelujah. I think there's a time coming when you'll be able to say that. We're going to take one, uh, not a bonus question, but a little comment for you guys. Listen, here's what you, I want you to know, uh, people who have questions who don't get answered and you're asking, sometimes you're asked the same question a lot and it doesn't get through. Well, you know, we only take so many questions, so it's understandable that some don't get through. But, um. But if you go to biblethinker.org dot, you will find that I may have already answered your questions. I've answered thousands. Right. So I may have already answered your questions. And we've made a searchable feature on the website and I don't even, look, I don't even have ads on the website. We're not making any money off of this. Okay? I'm just creating a resource for you. Like, I could put ads on the site. It'd be easy. Click, click, click. Now we have ads on the site. It's an ad free site because we're just taken care of, the ministry, taken care of by people who are, like, all about what we're doing. And thank you for that. You've made it so we don't have to do that. Um, so biblethinker.org, if you go to the website and use the clip search feature, in fact, I'll, we'll put in the, in the comments right now and I'll put down below as well, a specific link to it, the clip search feature. Let me tell you about this. It's really cool. Free, free stuff. Biblethinker.org clip search that's the website cliff clip search.

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That's where you can go and type in a word like say, I don't know, like unforgivable sin. Like a phrase, a word pharaoh, uh, um, harden heart. Like you could type these phrases into that clip search feature. And there's times where I've taught throughout hundreds and hundreds of videos where it will take you to the exact timestamp where I mention that thing where I'm answering a question related to your concern. The thing that you're asking about, there's a good chance that the question you're bringing to the q and a that you're having a hard time getting through. The reason why I'm not being sent that question is because I've answered it like five times and it's sitting there on the website ready for you. So check out the clip search feature, just a free resource for you guys. And, um, I'll put a link to it in the description down below.

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Biblethinker.org forward slash clip search, if you can remember that. Anyways, you guys, it's been great. Uh, I appreciate, um, your support in the sense of obviously, the people who support this ministry, you guys are, you're the ones, you're responsible for letting this even happen. This is amazing. Then the reach that we get to have and the impact you get to have and the testimonies we get all the time. Just amazing. Super, super amazing. I'm blown away. I would do all of this stuff for ten people every week. But, um, it's a lot. It's so much more. And that's more people getting blessed and more people being helped. And I'm very, very grateful for that. Um, but for those who you're sharing content, you're learning, you're growing. Here's what excites me the most. There's people, I'll just rejoice with you guys. There's people who watch the content and you go, hey, it's working. I'm thinking biblically, I don't really need Mike as much now. And I'm grateful for that. That's what I want. Work myself out of a job in your life. I don't need him so much anymore. I can kind of work through this, a lot of this stuff. I just open the text and it's right there. Wow. It's like I don't even, I don't even need to, like, get, uh, everyone to tell me what everything means. Like, I'm just reading the text. It's amazing. It's right there. God has instilled the meaning right there in the text of scripture. Just read it in context.

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That excites me the most because you guys are becoming resources for other people. You know, you consume those who are like mega consumers. Like, you're just consuming so much content, you're binge watching it all, you're just soaking it all in. You then become resources for other people, and you're blessing them and you're ministering to them. And that's exciting to me. That's that. I was stoked about that. More of that. All right, well, um, that's it. Let me close this out in prayer, and, uh, I'll be with you guys next Friday, and I might do an update, another little Benny Hinn update. It's interesting. Binny Hinn just came out with a video where he says, I never prophesied peace in Israel. I didn't prophesy that.

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I've got video footage on that. He did. He's lying. Um, at least I think he's lying. I've got the video footage. I might, if I have time. I've got so much other stuff I'm doing. I'm working on, um, I won't tell you what topics I'm researching because it's gonna be a long time before you hear me teach on it, um, like years. So I'm researching stuff, but I might dip into the minihan stuff later, um, next week, and maybe do a little update video to show that, to show, like, he's continuing the same damage control. We need to expose the guy. We need to stop his influence, his bini influence, from hitting the world. He's having such a massive impact in other countries. Um, tons and tons of pastors are just copying him and redoing the same thing. So by addressing him, I think it'll have a trickle down effect of cleansing and purifying ministries in a lot of places. So that's why I'm doing it.

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I think it'll help people anyway. All right. Father, we thank you for your holy word. We thank you that you do help us learn to think, um, biblically, which in a sense, is like thinking according to the Holy Spirit, because these are the things the spirit has revealed to us. We're learning to heed and understand and obey your voice. We pray that you'd help us in our lives, um, especially right now. I pray that you'd help us with the planks in our eyes where we see clearly other people's issues, or at least we think we see clearly other people's issues, but we're neglecting, in some ways, maybe our own issues, stuff that we've been sitting on for a long time, stuff that we've just been occasionally telling ourselves, yeah, that's a problem, I should deal with that, but just generally hardening our conscience. We pray that you'd soften our consciences, that you'd show us how to follow and obey you in all ways in our lives, that you remind us of that first love zeal that we had when we were most on fire for you, and that you'd stir that back up. We pray for us, for ourselves to be sold out, fully committed christians who are not leaving open in our breastplate of righteousness. We're not leaving open gaps for Satan to come in and stop. In Jesus name, amen.