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All right, we're live. So necromancy, uh, this is actually a pretty dangerous question, but it's also a heart wrenching, emotional, uh, needful question. It's a challenging one. The question comes from Hope p. Who asks. Oh, I forgot to do my thing.

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There we go. Question one, Hope p. Who asks, is going to the cemetery and talking to loved ones. Necromancy. Now, necromancy is variously defined. I mean, it basically is talking about doing some sort of magic related to death or the dead. And the Bible explicitly, whether you use the word necromancy or not, it explicitly talks about the issue of trying to contact or get information, especially from the dead, that sort of thing. And so my answer, I'll give you the short version up front, then I'm going to give you a long version right here, and then I'll go to your guys questions in the live chat. Uh, my name is Mike Winger. I try to help people learn to think biblically about everything. I don't know everything. I, uh, do care a lot about helping direct people to scripture, direct them to that way of processing where, for instance, the question today, we're not just processing based upon our emotional needs.

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That's hard to say it, okay? Because I feel those needs, too. I'm human, just like you. We're, um, processing based upon the clear teachings of God's word to help guide and direct us into how to meet our needs the best and the right way, while honoring God above all, to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love God more than you love your neighbor more than you love your loved one. Not that you love them less. It's just that you love God more. Tough stuff. But I think those are the only words that are going to really help us. So let's dig into this, um, short, short answer. It's yes, it's wrong to go to the cemetery and talk to your loved ones in the sense of true, genuine communication. No, it's not wrong to feel the need to desire to. And I don't even think it's wrong to say something to them knowing that they can't hear you. I say it that way. I'll explain in more detail right now.

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Let me warn even if you do that, you can, things can get weird pretty quick. So here's the more complicated, nuanced answer. Um, first, let's acknowledge this. Why do we do this? Why do we talk to or want to talk to somebody who's. Who's passed away? I think that this is easy. You don't have to explain this to somebody who's lost a very close loved one. Not just a distant friend or a relative who you only saw, uh, once a year, but rather a close, close loved one. A parent, a spouse, or probably the worst, a child.

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Those types of things. Those or maybe a brother, sister that, you know, the real close familial type relations. It's difficult to explain to people who haven't experienced that, what it's like to go through that, nor would you even want to. It's not the kind of thing you like. Let me explain in detail how this feels. It's not the kind of thing that typically people do, understandably so. For those who haven't lost a close loved one, you may not realize how powerful the pull is to say, want to try to talk to them, want to try to reach out to them, want to try to establish connection and community with them. Again, it's powerful and it's strong, and it's not even bad. It's not even unhealthy. It can lead to unhealthy things. But in and of itself, that's not a bad longing, that's not a bad desire. It might cause you to do something. Sometimes our grief. Our grief is more powerful even than our strongest temptations, because grief is a, uh. There's something noble about it. And so we see the nobility and the goodness and the healthiness of it, and then we allow it to lead us into something that's sinful, that can happen. I speak as a human who experiences all this too, so it's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. But for those who have, I don't need to explain it at all. There, um, can be a completely overwhelming feeling of a need to reconnect the void of that person not being in your life is, uh. It's difficult to get into it. Last November, I've talked about this a couple times in not a lot of detail, but to mention, because I hope that my experiences are a benefit to you. Last November, uh, me and my sister were, and my mom's two sisters and her brother were alongside my mom as she went through the final stages of pancreatic cancer. And she passed. And since then, um, it's. What is it? May now. Okay, so it's been a number of months. Been like six months. Just about six months. Um, almost exactly since she passed. And I have had numerous times where I've wanted to. I wish I could say something to her and connect with her and talk to her, and I've even said things out loud addressed to my mom a handful of times in that time period. But at no point did I actually talk to my mom. Did I actually communicate with her. I hope that I can now explain what I mean by that. Let me first say what. Yeah, I'll explain why I think I did nothing wrong. And I will. I will do it again, probably. But how, what I did and what maybe you'll do here is different than this thing the Bible says don't do. Let me give you guys the more detailed answer now. Um, the reason why you don't contact the dead, you don't seek to connect with them in that sense, is primarily because God simply says not to. Like, he makes it really clear in his word, don't do this. Let's look at some scripture, specifically, deuteronomy, chapter 18, verse eleven.

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It says, uh, of the people of Israel, don't let anybody among you be one of these things. Verse eleven, a charmer or a medium, right. That go between. Right. For spiritual. To connect to the spiritual world. The disembodied spirits don't be that go between. Um, or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead.

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This is a pretty strong statement to Israel. Like, you can't be these things. Now, some might say, here's the short study on this. Some might say, mike, is that really what we're talking about? Um, the necromancer, is that really the one who inquires of the dead? Maybe it's okay to talk to them, but I can't ask them questions. I can't make requests of them. Which would rule out praying to saints, of course, because you're making requests when you pray to the saints. But maybe, maybe it's talking about that. Um, let me read to you here from the faith life study Bible commentary that says, one who inquires of the dead. That phrase in Hebrew, the Hebrew expression used here, refers to someone who practices necromancy, the attempt to contact spirits of the human dead.

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That's just what it is. Um, if somebody said, no, no, my version of contacting the dead is okay, I don't think that would have worked with this deuteronomy passage. I think that the Israelites would be like, nah, you can't do that. This is off limits by God. This is just off limits. Mediums effectively are like conduits between the living and the dead, right? Deuteronomy 1811, right there, it says it in verse twelve. It says, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And this is where someone goes, but Mike, that's Old Testament. Ha ha. Here's my trump card. I pulled this out. Whenever someone quotes Old Testament verses, I don't want to apply to my life, boom, that's Old Testament. Mike, you can't just say that casually. You have to actually make a case why this Old Testament passage doesn't apply to you. I'm going to suggest, here's why it does. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

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That is.

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Let me give you the short answer here.

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Uh, to me, this is short. It's going to be long to you. To me, this is short. Okay. The short answer is this. The Israelites, they were under the law. The nations around them, they were never under the Old Testament law.

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So if God punishes these nations outside of Israel, if he punishes them for doing stuff, that's the kind of stuff you don't ever want anybody to do. That's not just about being under the law. God actually drives out these non jewish nations from the land, partly because of their treatment of inquiring of the dead, of necromancy, that kind of thing.

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And so if that's the case, then it can't be just waved away by, that's Old Testament law. You know, an old Testament law that's just for Israel, that God did not place on all people, that would be like tithing to the Levites.

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Um, okay, my audio has been. Is a little fuzzy. I wonder why that is. Thank you, sir, for letting me know. Hmm.

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I, uh. Yeah, I don't really know what to do about that just yet, but hopefully it will not continue happening.

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Let me know if it gets worse. So the, um. Yeah, the first statement I'll say is this, old Testament law applies, is not an Old Testament law. It's an instruction to Israel that God also applies to non Israel nations. So therefore it's something God expects of all people. I think that's a fair way to interpret the Old Testament. If God expects it of gentiles, he expects it of everybody from all time.

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Leviticus, um, 1931, also says, in fact, I'll turn there.

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Do not turn to mediums or necromancers. Do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. This is in Leviticus 19. This section of scripture is often about stuff that God. God commands for all people, not just for Israel. But you can look into it in more detail. The short thing is this. Don't go against God's clear commands. You know, grief is a powerful thing, and it. And it will change your life. There are people. You guys know this. There are people who, because of grief, they ended up derailing their whole lives. They had such grief and such sorrow over things that they derail their entire lives. Their job went down the drain. Their marriage went down the drain. Their relationship with their kids went down the drain. I knew a guy who lost his wife, sadly, sadly lost his wife to cancer. And he had grief, and he started spending money as a way of consoling himself. He just started spending money when his son came to him and was like, hey, dad, my next semester of college is here. I need. I need to make the deposit. I need to make the payment. His dad told him I spent all the money.

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Grief was powerful enough to do that. Um, and this really damaged the relationship with his son. Of course, grief can lead us into dangerous places. So you have to recognize this as someone who goes through grief myself. You need to know the dangers of grief. Don't let it lead you into scary places. Don't let it lead you into scary places.

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There's more on this. Um, you might just say, Mike, I'm just talking to them.

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I'm just talking to them. And maybe they. Maybe they'll say something to me. Maybe I'm reaching out to them. And maybe I get a feeling or a sense, and I feel like it's my mom telling me something, like she loves me or she's proud of me, or she's happy about what the things I'm doing in my life, or she's supporting me. Or maybe it's like I'm trying to get her to pray for me, and I'm talking to her and she's praying to God for me. And it's kind of that sort of relationship.

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If God says, don't do this, and I do it anyways, there's other parties that could get involved in the mix.

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There are other spirits that aren't your parents or your friends or your siblings or your child or anybody else. These other spirits are demons, demonic spirits. I think that this is what does happen sometimes. Now I'll tell you another true story. This really happened while I was in youth ministry.

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We had a student, and I didn't understand what happened till later. Like, I pieced it all together very slowly later on, as I kept. Because don't stop thinking about this stuff. There was a student in our youth ministry who decided, um, that she was going to try to contact her dead grandmother. I didn't know about this at the time. I found out all after the fact on all this stuff, but she decided to contact her dead grandmother. And then she started feeling that she was being spoken to by this dead grandmother. And then she started to wear clothes like her grandmother, to try to behave and act and do her hair like her grandmother. And then she started sort of saying that she was her grandmother.

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You think that was the spirit of her grandmother or like a demon, like, harassing her and seeking to mess her up and destroy her. I found out about this when she had a hysterical breakdown. And I won't give it, won't give any more details than that, but I'll just say it was, it was bad news and was connected to this very idea. The grief leading to one step, to another, to another, to another. Um, Dorian Virtue, another someone who's on YouTube who I think would probably not recommend me, I'm not sure. Anyways, the point is she's a believer who left the new age and she's, um, got her YouTube content online. She tells a story about she thought she was talking to her grandmother, Pearl, I think it was, and she shared this publicly, so I'll share it. Um, and she thought she was communicating before she was saved. She was new age, new age guru, writing books, bestselling author and all this. And she thought that her grandmother had told her to research a specific ancient writer. And then she researches that writer and then she gets deeper and deeper into new age stuff and just gets more and more trapped in this ungodly, demonic deception. After she gets saved, she realized what I thought was my grandmother was actually a demon. We live in a world where we're not going to deny the spiritual realm, the reality of heaven and earth, the reality of demons. And of course, anytime I go into the spiritual realm doing things God spiritually said, don't be doing, that. Opens the door to the enemy, deceiving me.

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It's just wholesale forbidden in scripture, it seems. Um, another thing I'll mention is Catholic praying to the saints. So some people think praying to the saints. The debate is whether or not people who are in the afterlife, who are maybe in the presence of Christ, as I believe, if you die, you go directly into God's presence. So some people will debate, hey, if you're in God's presence, can't you appeal to God? Hey, God, will you do this for my loved one, my brother, my sibling, my daughter? Will you do this for them? So then that leads naturally to the thing. Well, maybe I could talk to them. They can pray to God. For me. And so then we have catholic prayers to the saints. I am going to Mary and saying, mary, uh, I sure look up to and respect you. Will you go to God on my behalf? And I may not be as. I'm not as special as you are, but. But maybe you can go to God and he'll listen to you and do something for me that maybe he wouldn't do if I just asked him myself.

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That is what happens for me many times. For many Catholics, praying to the saints. Now, not all of them are going to describe it that way, but none of them can deny that that's what happens a lot of the time. That's the mentality that many, many Catholics have. And even many of the prayers, uh, affirm that sort of concept.

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So praying to the saints is not actually just about can people who are dead, can they pray? Can they talk to God? It's not about that we see in revelation they're appealing to God, you know, how long, O Lord, until you avenge our blood on the earth?

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Rather, the key, the thing that opens the door to praying to the saints, is the idea of me being able to communicate with those who have died. Think about this for a second. If I can talk to them, then, unless you tell me they can't talk to God, what keeps me from praying to them? Nothing, ultimately, except some rule that says, you don't do that. You just don't do that.

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Talking to disembodied, uh, people remotely through focused speech sounds exactly like prayer to me. I don't see any substantive difference between that and talking to God. When I talk to my wife, she's right here with me. She hears me, she sees me, she perceives me. This is a human to human communication. It's earthly, it's natural. When I just sort of close my eyes and concentrate on, say, my mom, and then I speak to her as though she can sort of hear me projecting my thoughts at her. That's indistinguishable from prayer. There's no significant difference between them. We pray to God and to God alone, and it's only over the course of time that the church changed on that. This is important that we don't drop the ball on this issue.

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Then it leads to things like bones and relics. Have you noticed that, uh, Roman Catholics have bones and relics? Well, if I go to the graveyard because I see that their body is like a conduit through helping me communicate with them, this is a lot like necromancy, actually. Old Testament necromancy would use bones, relics, bodies, they would use these things as part of trying to communicate with the dead. Nothing's changed. So it feels a lot like that thing the Bible says, don't do. It feels a lot like that, and that freaks me out. Okay. Genuinely saying this, that freaks me out, no matter how much my grief, wants me to do those things. So let's ask some other questions to follow this up with. Is there any biblical channel open? Is there a biblical permission or expl. Or sort of open door to talking to those who have died? Does any scripture suggest that we can do this? And my answer is going to be no. No scripture to my knowledge. Okay. Think biblically about everything. If you have scripture, bring it. No scripture suggests that you can do it. Scripture seems to clearly wipe all that off the board as something you're not allowed to do. Um, in the case of, like, say, saul and, um, the witch of Endor and all that, it's all. Clearly, this is bad. This is off limit. This is not allowed. Now you're going to get judged for it. You can't make a case for it through this.

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Does scripture suggest that disembodied spirits can hear things from the afterlife? Here's an actual interesting question.

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You know, naturally, my wife, let's say, hears me as I talk to her from the other room or from. She's probably can hear me right now. She's somewhere in the house.

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We do all this in our own house. So it's like everybody, she has to be quiet, everything. So, um, at any rate, she hears me with her ears, her natural ears hear my voice speaking. Sound waves carry it, her brain processes it, then she thinks about it, and then that's the mind now taking over, sort of what happens next, right? Going from physical to spiritual. But how would disembodied spirits hear you? The sound waves aren't going to travel.

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Thought waves don't travel. That's not how that works. This would take a supernatural intervention by God to empower them with an ability they never had on the earth. This would mean that when people die, they gain superhuman abilities while disembodied.

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That's kind of weird. This is long distance, spiritual super hearing powers. Do they only hear you when you think about them and then you try to talk to them, so it just turns on and off. Do they control that? Can they listen in on you and eavesdrop when you don't want them to? Um, are they hearing everything all the time? And they have to have super brains to process it all? Think about Mary.

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If Mary is getting all these prayers from the saints, if she really did hear them, based on catholic doctrine, then that would mean that Mary is receiving millions upon millions upon millions. So Mary also has to be given a super intellect from God way beyond any human has ever had, ever.

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That she'd have to have from God in order to even process and think about these prayers. Millions and millions and millions, all at the same time.

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So does scripture suggest that. No, we're adding a whole bunch of theology onto the Bible that simply isn't there. The Bible actually suggests that when you die and you're disembodied, you are less, not more. This is kind of a, uh, big thing. In one corinthians 15, Paul talks about it. He talks about in Philippians, he doesn't desire to be unclothed. Right? When you die and your body's gone from you, your spirit is still living with the Lord, but your body is dead. You're unclothed, you are less, you are not more, you're not more. You don't suddenly have superhuman thinking and superhuman listening abilities, uh, or telepathic abilities. That's not anywhere stated in scripture. This is something you're adding to the text.

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You can also think of the story of, uh, ah, Jesus's story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16, where the method by which communication can happen was assumed to be the resurrecting of the dead. Hey, go and tell my brothers about this hell stuff that's happening to me. I don't want that to happen. And so he says, raise Lazarus up from the dead so he can communicate to them. So that this guy had no way of talking to his brothers. Naturally, even Lazarus in a salvation place, he had no way of doing it. It was instead, through a resurrection that it might happen. That was what's assumed there. Um, what's interesting behind that is even if you take, well, Jesus is giving a parable, or maybe you think it's a real story, however you take it, it implies that the way in which the dead can communicate with the living is through supernatural resurrection or some other supernatural means that there isn't a natural communication ability between the living and the dead. If they can't talk to you, why do you think you can talk to them?

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Right. The logic doesn't really work, as much as my grief wants it to work.

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Does any scripture. Another question. Does any scripture talk about talking to the dead? As long as they don't talk back to you, but they can still hear you, because now you're sort of, we're sort of whittling it down. If I can't go back and forth between. Well, what if I just talk to them and they just listen, but then. But then they don't. They don't talk back to me. Now, it's not necromancy. Like, maybe, um, it's not technically necromancy based on the bible, because they're not talking back. Scripture does not say this, but there are hints that this is not the case. Isaiah 63, uh, 16. Check out this verse.

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Speaking of God, you are our father. Though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, o lord, are our father, our redeemer from of old is your name.

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Abraham does not know them. This is, of course, written many, many years after Abraham. Abraham dies. Hundreds of years go by. Then Isaiah is written, and they're saying, Abraham our father. And they would honor their ancestors, right? Abraham's our father. He doesn't know us. Now, if there had been active communication, one way communication between them and Abraham, where they could be like, hey, Abraham, we really like what you did with making. Digging wells and building altars and stuff. Like, if they could do this, then this verse wouldn't really make a lot of sense. Abraham doesn't know them because he does not seem to have direct access to the information of what's going on on earth.

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Possibly people disembodied with the Lord in heaven receive reports about what's going on on earth, maybe, but not intimate firsthand knowledge. It appears to me that would seem to be the more biblical perspective on that. Abraham is saved. We know that, but he doesn't know about later ancestors.

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Um, you might then say, but Mike. Okay, I hear you, and I agree with all of that, but maybe I just have a special connection with my loved one. And normally it doesn't work, but for me, there's a special connection I have with my loved one. Our love kind of binds us together. Our souls are bound, like Jonathan and David's, in our deep personal relationship together. And so I can talk to them. I have a special connection with them. I want to say, if you're a special conduit to the dead, you're a medium. That's what medium is that? That's what necromancy is like. You're a special. I'm, um. A special, unique conduit to the deceased. Your grief is leading you into scary spiritual territory. Please back off for your own sake. Now, here's what I want to balance this all off with what I think is some grace and some wisdom. I hope you guys, give me your feedback on this if you think I'm being weird. I don't think so. I think this is good.

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There is a therapeutic type thing one can do, and you can do it with the living or the dead.

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Um, and I don't recommend you do it very often, but it's when you know full well as I do, my mom is not with me for now. Right. My hope is to one day be reunited to her, and that's going to be a pretty glorious event.

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But there's times. There's times where I've said out loud during the day. I just said, mom, you know I miss you, and I know full well she does not hear me. I don't expect that she hears me. I said it for me. I just said it out loud for me. I've done this before to you guys. I've argued with you when you weren't even aware I was doing it. I read your comment and then I said out loud, you don't even know what you're talking about. You didn't even watch the video. I've said that out loud. I don't think for a second that you hear me.

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You can do that with the loved ones towards about the loved ones in which you. That you've lost. I think that that makes sense, and I think there's something therapeutic about that. You're just getting to express how you feel out loud. But I say it with some caveats. Number one, you have to know 100% this is not me attempting to contact or reach out to, or pretending that they hear me. None of that. I'm not opening the door to hearing something else back and then feeling like having a spiritual experience, which really ends up being something to lead me astray.

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I'm not going to let it replace prayer. It. Can you do it too much? You do this frequently. You do this like five times a day. You do this every day for five minutes. Every single day. You talked. That's getting. I think that's getting weird. It's one thing to express my emotions. It's something else to then start replacing my prayer life with talking to this loved one. And then they. They replace God. And even though, you know, it's sort of imaginary, I wouldn't say it's imaginary because I don't imagine my mom hears me. I would say even though it's therapeutic, it's just me sort of emoting or expressing. It's not to replace prayer. It's not to replace my longing for heaven. And it's not to replace current relationships. If you sit there and talk to people that aren't there a lot, guess what happens? You end up alone a lot. That this will. This will mess up your current relationships. You're craving for companionship and for friendship and for people in your life, uh, can be replaced by this sort of behavior if it happens frequently. And that's something I would just be very cautious about. Um, let me read to you one other verse I think is really relevant. Then we'll go to your guys questions first. Uh, thessalonians, chapter four, verse 13 through 18.

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But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who do not have hope. This passage of scripture is to help you in your grief.

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If, hypothetically, if there is the ability to talk to loved ones who have died, this is where Paul would bring it up. This I'll put over here for your guys. This is where Paul would say, hey, guess what? You can talk to those loved ones. You can actually talk to them. I don't want you to have no hope, you know, those who've died, who've fallen asleep. I don't want you to be hopeless. You can talk to them. They hear you. And they can pray for you and your fellowship and your communion is not over.

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This is where he would say it. What does he say? What hope does he offer? He says, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. What does this presuppose?

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The idea that God will bring with them those who've fallen asleep. For us to be reunited implies that we are, in fact, separated. For now, we are truly separated. No, you can't talk to them. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive and who are left until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who've fallen asleep. Verse 16. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, then will be brought. Listen, you're grieving because of the separation. If they're in Christ, you will be reunited to them one day, and that's your hope. You don't look at them listening to you now. You look at the future reuniting. That will happen in Christ. This places your hope in heaven in a big, big way.

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If they're not in Christ, you cannot change the laws of God and the rules and the truths of God in order to make yourself feel better. There's other ways to make yourself feel hopefully better. I did a video on that recently. Um, I'll link it below. We talked about, um, loved ones, people who ask you about loved, loved ones that are not in heaven, that you think are not in heaven. I, uh, will talk about that. I'll put a link down below. You guys can try to find, hopefully some help in that. I refuse to give comfort that I believe isn't real. I refuse to give advice that I think is bad. I refuse to try to help people's emotions in ways that harm their lives. And so I got to give you the right advice here. Then it says, um, so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words, your future meeting with either those people. And if they're not saved, then at least with the Lord and with all of his people, that you do have an eternal family. You will be with forever us together, whoever are in Christ, enjoying fellowship and unity and love, community talking, enjoying each other with Christ for all eternity. If that doesn't comfort you, you got to go back to square one in your understanding of the gospel and the promise of it and the hope of Christ.

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I hope, man, I hope that that helps. That's pretty much all I got to say about it. Let's go to the next question. Number two, faith. Samson says, do you have. Do we have any true control over life entering the world, or is it only based on God's sovereignty?

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I think if it's God's plan for me to have a child, I'll get pregnant, even if on birth control. But my husband thinks we control conception through birth control. If Jeremiah one five applies to all people, wouldn't that mean God's plan overrides our plan for procreation?

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Faith?

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I would lean towards your husband's viewpoint on this one, actually. Um, and let me explain why I view God's sovereignty as, think of it as spheres of control, maybe top sphere, big sphere, overarching God's sovereignty. He's ultimately in control of all things within his sovereignty. He allows us to make real choices. He knows ahead of time all the choices we'll make. And his plan has considered every, every option, everything we'll do, everything we won't do. He's thought of all these things so that when you take birth control, which is explicit purpose is to prevent you from having kids. The physical processes God put in place that produce life, God put, he also allows there to be things like medicine that can stop that. That doesn't make it good or bad, it just means it exists that medicine literally stops those physical processes.

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For your idea to work, it would have to be more like this. You'd have to say it more like this. I think to be more biblical, you have to say, I'm going to take birth control, which will stop me from naturally conceiving.

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If God chooses, he can miraculously subvert the normal function of nature and literally cause a miraculous birth or a fluke in the medicine and then I can have a kid. But I know this, that if you tell a thousand christian women, take birth control and just see if God makes you pregnant anyways, and then you take a thousand christian women, don't use birth control, and see if God makes you pregnant, the thousand who don't take it are going to get pregnant. The thousand who do aren't. For the most part, you're definitely making a real decision about your family and your kids. You take birth control, you're probably not going to have kids for that duration. Then, um, and there's the question then of what kind of birth control and the morality of birth control that should be seriously considered and what effect it has on the physical body and whether it stops conception or actually ends a conceived life. Those are all very important issues. But, but, um, yeah, I would go with your husband on this. Um, what you're sort of standing on is this idea that there aren't natural laws about how things function. Imagine if I said, um, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stab, this is the, I'm not, you're not doing this. You're not stabbing yourself. But let's suppose that I said, I'm gonna stab myself in the throat with a knife.

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If God wants me to die, I'll die. And if not, I'll live.

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You would, you would immediately see the flaw in my reasoning, that this is not how things function. Jesus put it this way. When he was, he was confronted actually by Satan who says, jump off this, this temple and God will, will save you. He won't let you hit the ground. And he said, do not tempt the Lord your God.

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So Jesus refused to do something and then just presume upon God to miraculously intervene against, and contrary to the thing he was doing that he never had to do in the first place. That seems to relate to your situation. So, faith, I would encourage you, you guys don't have kids, don't take birth control. That seems like the logical thing to do and the biblical thing to do and that maybe there's other things going on there, um, other reasons why you're wanting to not, you know, or considering taking birth control. There's other concerns that you guys need to work through, but to back off and say, but God will just make it happen so I can do whatever I want, that's. That's not biblical. That's not appropriate. You probably should have a real discussion with your husband that works through whatever the real issues are.

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Number three, hot wax 93 says, um, if Jesus humanity, Jesus humanity and divinity are inseparable, then how could Jesus experience bodily death on the cross without his deity dying as well?

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I. Okay, I have to admit, maybe my theology is not as robust as it needs to be to understand the gravity of the question. Um, that's possible.

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The phrase, this phrase. I'm not sure I'm on board with this phrase. Jesus humanity and divinity are inseparable.

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I don't know what we mean by that. I don't know what that means.

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Surely there was a time in history past when Jesus was fully divine and zero human. He was not human at all. He was fully divine and he had no humanity whatsoever.

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That happened right before the incarnation. That was the state of things.

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So to then say, jesus cannot. His humanity and his divinity can't be separated. Um, if it applies to the past, it's like, well, obviously it can be divine without being human. But where I think we get into maybe scary territory is when we push forward and go, okay, maybe upon Jesus death, every bit of him that is humanity is dead and disappears so that he's fully divine. But while he's disembodied, like, during that three days, he's actually not human anymore. And then he resurrects, and now he's human again.

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Uh, that would only. I mean, that would be the case, I think, if you believe in what's called physicalism, this idea that humanity is literally just what we are physically, that there is no dualism or no spirit or soul or non corporeal, like, non physical element to humanity, but I believe we do have non physical elements. So that when Jesus dies as a human, he dies. He's divine. He's fully divine, but he's also still fully human. He's what every human, he has. What every human has after they've died. After I die, I don't have a body, but I don't cease to exist. I'm still human. Just a. Maybe I'm an income. Incomplete. I would say incomplete is probably the wrong word. I'm a human that doesn't have all their normal parts, I'll put it that way. But I'm just what a human is when they die so that I think humans are still humans even after death.

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That's a human spirit. It's not just a spirit. Does that make sense? Okay, I hope that that answers the question. In that sense, I would say Jesus humanity and Jesus divinity will not be separated. It's not going to happen. Jesus remains human. He resurrects and he says, look, these are the nail marks, as in the same nail holes that were caused. This is the wound on my side is in the same wound that was pierced, so that it's the same body resurrected. We know that he then will be giving us a new body that is like his human, glorified human body. So we have that in our future as well. Um, Jesus remains human and divine after his incarnation.

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But then your question also says, how could Jesus experience bodily death on the cross without his deity dying as well. Right, but what does it mean, the phrase deity dying? It seems like an oxymoron. It's almost like saying, how could the circle square? Like. Well, it doesn't. Square circles don't. It wouldn't even be a circle that's square. So Jesus's deity didn't die.

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His humanity did that. Okay, you guys, take this with a grain of salt. My theology on this exact point may be underdeveloped. Okay, just throw it out there. My best understanding currently is Jesus's humanity dies. That's still Jesus, his divinity, that is his quality of being. God doesn't die in some sense, because that is impossible.

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He had to take on a human form in order for that to die. So he embodies and comes in human form so that he might die. That human is humanity carries more than just physical connotations, which is why he's still human after death. During the three days he rises from the dead, he's still divine. He's still human. And in a sense, God died because it was God with us in human form. But I wouldn't say divinity died, as in the divine essence, experienced death of the divine essence.

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Jesus was God who died, but he died a human death.

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The divine essence doesn't die. That's my understanding of it. Some of you guys that maybe are better at theology than me can weigh in. Some of you that have no idea about theology can just throw out a wild theory that you just made off the top of your head. That always happens too.

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Um, okay, question. This one comes in from Mister M. Who says, first John one nine perplexes me. I'm a Christian. In what sense does my daily confession apply forgiveness to me? What happens if I die with unforgiven sin? First John one nine, I'll give you my best understanding of this. I'm going to back up a little bit, though, and we're going to talk in detail here.

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First John one five. Starting in verse five, this is the message we've heard from you and proclaim from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

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I think this is talking about habitual lifestyles.

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If you walk in a habitual lifestyle of ungodliness, where it's just you say you're a Christian, but you live as if you were not a Christian, um, then you lie. You don't practice the truth. You're not honestly having fellowship with him, you're fake. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

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If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. I'm going to say that you're sinless. That's no, that's not true. If, on the other hand, we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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I think he's talking about probably here, initial salvation, not continuing in salvation. So the reason why I back up to verse five is to see John in this whole section. He's talking about the difference between saved and unsaved people, not between christians who gain and lose their salvation and get it back over and over again.

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He's not talking about christians who sin and then get forgiven and sin and get forgiven. He will talk about that in just a couple verses about sinning and getting forgiven as a Christian.

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But that's not what he's talking about here. There's two categories. Are you in the light or are you in the dark? You're in the light. Your life reveals that you really are in the light. Yeah, you're a real Christian. You're in the dark. Your life reveals that you're not really a Christian. Then in verse eight and nine, I think he says the same thing. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Oh, that means you're in the dark. You deny your sin, so do you live. You live in sin. You're in the dark, you deny your sin. You're in the dark, but you're in the light. On the contrary, if you confess your sins, not you live perfectly, but you confess your sins, you bring your issues to God. He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So again, we're just contrasting those two groups.

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Then he breaks from that sort of section and says, my little children, in one, John two, one. I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

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But now you might ask, so is John saying, if I ever commit a sin, I'm not saved? A lot of people have read one John, and that's what they think. If I sin at all, I must not be a Christian. That's not what he says. So he goes on and says, if anyone does sin, that's christians, by the way, any one of who? Any one of the brethren, any one of the children here. If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He's a propitiation for our sins and goes on to show that he does that for the world, too. If they will come to him, they'll receive it. They'll have it applied to them. Um, so if anyone does sin, we have an advocate. You, as a Christian, have a constant offering for your sins. It's not like I sin. I lose my relationship with God, and then I come and I get it restored. I have a continual advocate for my sin. Jesus, he stands for me at all times. He intercedes for me at all times. My sin is perpetually covered by the blood of Christ, perpetually interceded for by the person of Christ. That's how I would view that. Forgiveness, though, doesn't mean that. Doesn't mean there's no such thing as dealing with my sin as a Christian, when I sin, when. Not if. When I sin, I should go to God and apologize and say, Lord, forgive me. But it's a different posture. I don't go from unsaved to saved. It's. I like the marriage analogy, when, when I sin against my wife, okay, she doesn't divorce me, but it does hurt our relationship. And I want to come and say, I'm sorry. And I want to restore the relationship. When I sin against God, I do not lose my salvation. The divorce analogy here, he doesn't divorce me from salvation, but I do say, ah. Uh, but there is a rift here that I'm creating with my sin. There is this sin between me and you, between my. In my fellowship with me and you. This is this thing that's gotten between us. My fault. I put it there. I've moved away from you. I want to move back now. I'm sorry. I think that that kind of forgiveness is important and is more what scripture is talking about here. Um, I know that brings up other questions, but I hope that it answers your question.

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Question number five. Jordan fillar says, hi, p Mike.

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He wrote p Mike. They're just reading it. I didn't write that. It's not my joke, it's his. How do you answer someone who says, if there is a God, he knows what evidence I would need to believe and has not given it to me and seems to genuinely mean it, not mocking or scoffing. Let me start with the genuine part. Uh, an atheist or non believer who's like this in this case, or an atheist, if there was a God. So they must be an atheist. They think there's no God. And they say God is all knowing, right? God don't know. And that means he knows what. What would convince me of Christianity. And God is all powerful, right? And you go, yeah, yeah. And that means he has the ability to convince me because he knows what it would take. And he has the ability to do that thing, right. And they go, yeah. And they said, and God is all loving, right? Yeah, he's loving. So he wants me to be saved, right? Yes. And he's not doing the thing that he could do that would convince me. So therefore, it's not my fault that I'm an atheist. It's God's fault.

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And they totally mean it. Like, they're super genuine and sincere. I think most of the people who say this are genuine and sincere. I've heard it said many times. Um, first off, I'll just say this. This is a super important rule for all of modern life. Sincerity is not enough.

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It just isn't enough. Your sincerity matters this much, and it only matters when you build it on top of right thinking.

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The people who flew the planes into the towers on 911, do you think they were sincere?

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Absolutely they were sincere. They believed. They believed these things. At least I have good reason to think that they believed that they were going to crash these planes into the towers, and the next thing they would see is they wake up, they'd open their eyes and there'd be 40, according to Islam, 40 virgins waiting for them in heaven that they could do all sorts of. All sorts of sexual adventures with.

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Did that sincerity make their actions any better?

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In this case, their sincerity almost made them worse. Um, I don't know if I would have liked it. Maybe even better if they were insincere. Somehow the sincerity attached to a wrong belief is like, ooh, that's like, ooh, that's, like, weird and bad in a whole new way.

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False teachers. There's tons of false teachers out there in the world. They're probably sincere, too. Uh, most of the ones I've looked into, I look into and I go, this guy's probably mostly sincere. There's some that are frauds knowingly, but a lot of them are sincere. In Jeremiah's time, he talks about false prophets, and these false prophets were sincere. They believed God was going to bless Israel and that Jeremiah was causing trouble and he was a bad egg and he was causing a lot of problems, a lot of problems for the people. And so they prophesied good news for Israel. Jeremiah prophesied bad and they came against him. A lot of them were sincere. It just doesn't help.

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My sincerity doesn't make me right. Okay, so the sincere thing is this. I believe you're sincere.

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All that tells me is whether you're wrong because you have, because you're lying, or if you're wrong because you are deceived. Okay? You're deceived. You think that this is true about God?

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I think that one of. Now, going back to the actual issue, um, if God is all knowing and God is all loving and God is all powerful, why am I not saved? He wants me to be saved. He loves me. He's powerful enough to save me, to show me the thing that would convince me of Christianity. And also, he is, um, uh, all knowing, so he knows what that thing is going to be.

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Well, first off, I'll say this.

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Hypotheticals about what God should do, based upon my assessment of God, are really a bad idea. In all of life, we get ourselves into a lot of trouble with this.

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It's like telling God his business, his work, when we don't understand that work. Imagine if I walked into a mechanic while he's working on my car. And I don't know, I don't really understand cars. And I'm just like, why don't you just do this?

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I mean, at least I would annoy him. At worst, I would actually cause problems. Um, or maybe just make him mad and he messes up my car on purpose. If you walk into somebody's discipline where they have a special knowledge and wisdom and power about a certain issue, maybe they're doing, I don't know, building a nuclear power reactor, and I walk in and go, why don't you just do this? And why don't you just do that? We all suffer from the know it all mentality. We should at least realize when we encounter an expert in their fields that there's, there should. We should be slow to tell them how wrong they are.

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God is that times a million. Okay? He's so much more knowledgeable than me, so much more wise than you, so much more aware than you, and balancing all the things that you're not thinking of. For instance, I get recommendations all the time on my YouTube channel. I'll give a simple example. People ask me, Mike, you should really make more short videos. You know, you should try making some short videos. And they. They think all I make is these long videos. And I think, that's really funny. I hear it. I hear it all the time. Maybe you should make some short videos. I'm like, I make short videos all the time.

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You just don't know it, because guess what? People don't usually watch the short ones that much. I make probably more short videos than long ones, but people just don't watch them all that much. So in your experience of watching my content, here's what happened. You occasionally watch long videos. You don't really pay attention to the short ones to the point of not even knowing that they're there. But then you're counseling me on how I should change my content online to reach people. But if I followed your advice, it would ruin my content. I wouldn't reach people. It would hurt my ministry. I get this advice all the time from people. You should do this. You should do that all the time. And I don't even usually explain. I'm just like, yeah, I know. I got some short videos. I'm not offended so much. I think it's a great example of people who don't know what they're talking about, but they totally think they do. And I've done it, too. I've done it to others, too. Um, yeah, when it comes to God, God, you should just do this.

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It's foolish. It's always a bad idea to tell God his business. Anytime you find yourself shaking your fist at God, you know, you made a mistake somewhere along the, along the way. Uh, it's like, how did I get here to this point where I am telling God he's wrong and I'm right? There are atheists I've seen who think, honestly think this, okay, I'm not trying to, I'm not even fighting the battle between theists and atheists. This is just like reality situation, reality check here. Who honestly think that if they died and stood before God after years and years of saying there was no God and there's no evidence for God, and though that evidence isn't good enough, and I reject all that other stuff, and they stand before God, and then, and then I've heard them say this, I would, I would say to God, why did you make yourself so hard to find?

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And I'm just thinking, if I was a genuine atheist and I died and I saw God, my first thought would be, oh my goodness, I was totally wrong. My first thought would be, oh no, there's a God.

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Wait a minute. Maybe all those people telling me it was obvious that God existed, maybe they were right. And I kept closing my eyes to the evidence they were showing me, like, hypothetically, maybe that's the scenario and I shouldn't raise my fist to God and say, it's your fault I didn't believe in you.

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The majority of human beings do think that there's a God, and they think it quite naturally. There's plenty of philosophical arguments. There are scientifically informed arguments. There are prophetic arguments from scripture, specifically about the God of the Bible. There is the argument from the resurrection of Jesus. There's all sorts of other things. And if someone rejects all that and then says it's on God, if I continue to reject him, I mean, creation itself just screams that God exists. And they go, no, I reject that. And it's God's fault if I continue to reject it, is the height of arrogance.

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If I was an atheist, hypothetically, right, I wouldn't even begin to say, well, if God wanted to, because I would realize that if this whole christian God exists thing is true, then I might actually be under judgment for rejecting the things God has already showed me, that my hypothetical might not even be true. That if I did find out that God really existed in theory, maybe I would obey him. But would I really? Or would I just get harder? I don't know all this to say, um, I don't know how to fix somebody who's in this mentality. Because the point at which you say, if I'm not saved, God's to blame. The point at which you say that your arrogance has reached a level to match your ignorance. And I don't know how to fix it and I don't know how to shake you out of it other than to say, like, reality will shake you out of this eventually. Um, maybe I can build a relationship, a friendship with the person. Maybe I can slowly whittle away at this sort of perspective.

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Um, but this is a pretty entrenched individual to say something like that. God help him, I hope.

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I also think that as christians, we should recognize that saving the largest number of people is not God's only agenda. I don't believe that that's the case. I don't think biblically is the case. Saving people is Gaza genetic? He desires all to be saved. But that's different than saying saving the largest number of people.

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Let, uh, me put it this way. Delivering the largest number of people from hell to heaven is the agenda. I don't think that that's accurate. God is not just saving us from one locality and delivering us to another. He's bringing us into union with himself, in love and in grace and in honor of his name.

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That's a lot more than just saying that God exists.

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Going from atheist to theist does not make you going from unsaved to saved. It's just not enough. Unless that heart turns in faith to Christ with repentance and trust towards God, there's not going to be any salvation that comes along with that theism. So then there's a lot more going on than just whether people get saved. And God has conditions for salvation. He doesn't just want you saved, no matter what your attitude is. He wants to humble. He wants us to become humble, get saved. So if someone goes, God knows what would need to be said to make me become humble and repentant and love Jesus and turn my entire life around and follow Christ with sincerity. Um, that's at least a little bit more compelling. But I still would back off and just say, dude, you're shaking your fist at the God of the universe. You've got it. You have to have gone wrong somewhere. And stop telling me to make more short videos on YouTube as well. All right, let's go to question number six. Christian Hyatt says is Romans 811 referring to a metaphorical spiritual resurrection or the physical one later to come?

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I thought it was spiritual, but the term mortal bodies has me thinking differently. Let's look at Romans chapter eight together.

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We're going to start in verse one.

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It says here, hold on, coffee break. While you guys read ahead on the screen, you're going to be ahead of me and you'll know the passage better than I do. Now, um, all right.

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Starting, um, in verse one.

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There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. I'd encourage those of you who didn't understand what I just read, study Romans until you do. Here's a great little project for you for the next like, month or whatever. Just study Romans until you understand what I just read. Amazing, powerful stuff. I have a verse by verse teaching through romans two. You can look at romans eight. I've got it up there. But I would say start on your own, study it on your own. Read it with no commentaries. Read through romans. Try to get it, then bring in somebody else to ask for their thoughts. So in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. So spirit here and flesh are contrasted not just in the so far in the passage, not just in the sense of physical versus non physical, but in in flesh, referring to that which is carnal. Or that's another way of saying flesh really, but carnal or, um, sinful in its, in its desires, sinful in impulses versus things that are holy in their impulses. And those are attached to physical bodies and spiritual and the Holy Spirit, ultimately.

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For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. Or I'll start in verse six.

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For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. For it does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. All right. If you're in the flesh, you can't please God. Is that just a physical body? Uh, well, no. Um, because what is Paul saying? He's saying you could actually be in your physical body walking in the spirit, your mind is set upon the things of the spirit, so you're not in the flesh. It's a metaphorical in the flesh. In the flesh here is not in a physical body. It's walking according to the desires of your sin. Um, living out your temptations. That's walking in the flesh and walking in the spirit. There would not be getting disembodied and floating around, but rather living according to the holy impulses that God guides and directs you in by the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, self control, those things. Verse nine. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact, the spirit of God dwells in you. Ah. Uh, see, again, not physical body, because you're in a body that's flesh, but you're not in the flesh. In this metaphorical sense, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. So the body is dead, as in I am and I'm dead to it. Its dead in its ability to bring salvation or to serve God in ways that honor him. Everything's all about the spirit walking in the spirit. Then we get to verse eleven. This is your question. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Now we're talking about. And notice how he doesn't use the word flesh here. He's the word mortal bodies. Now he's just disreferencing not the metaphorical sinful desires called the flesh, but he's literally talking about your physical body.

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God will raise from the dead your physical body. And how do I confirm that he means a physical resurrection, not spiritual? It's because it's the spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead. Now, Jesus Rose. A physical body came out of that tomb. It was somehow different, right? The resurrected body of Christ. You know, he's, like, able to do things, but he's still a human body. It's the same body brought back. I will have the same body resurrected and upgraded like Christ was, but still it'll be a physical body. So to answer your question, Jordan, um, I'm sorry. Uh, I just read the wrong name there. Christian Romans, uh, 811 is referring to a physical resurrection, not some sort of non physical experience. Now, your spirit is there. There's a spiritual element to this physical resurrection, because you're going to be walking in the spirit, you will have an, in a non corrupt nature, so you will not be even tempted to sin in the future. That's some, that's one of my favorite parts of heaven. Presence of God is the most favorite part. Me not being tempted just means I won't ruin it. Um, um. I'm looking forward to that. All right, question number seven. And we got all the ten, all the ten questions in for today. So we're, we're full up on cues. Um, you guys have to come next Friday for the next q and a if you want to ask more. Sorry, I do what I can. I just can't answer everything all the time. Um, um.

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But hopefully you find something useful and check the link in my video description. There's the clip search feature on the Bible thinker website, a free way to access. Has Mike ever talked about this issue? And you like, type in something in the clip search feature. It will give you like to the minute to the second. Here's where maybe your question has already been answered. A lot of the times I've already answered them. Thousands of questions available for search there biblethinker.org or the link in the description. Find the, this important clip search feature. Not just search, but clip search. Okay. Anonymous question. My pastor says that theology is, quote, just someone's opinion and that we quote, we shouldn't get hooked on theology and doctrine. How would you respond?

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First, I would try to not sin against your pastor.

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Um, let me try to use careful words here. Um, when your pastor says theology is just someone's opinion, it reminds me of someone who said, um, why do I have to learn or who's Theo and why do I have to study him? It was, somebody was joking. They said this to me once, who's Theo and why do I have to study him?

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Uh, in response to the idea of studying theology, and I turned to her and I said, well, Theo just means God.

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That kind of answers your question. So take the word theology for a second.

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Studying the understanding of who God is and what God has said is just someone's opinion.

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No. Um, so for instance, let's give examples. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Yes or no?

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Yes. So that's just your opinion, right? Well, no. I mean, it is my opinion that Jesus rose from the dead, but it's not just or only my opinion. It's the fact of reality that Christ rose from the dead. And my theology is connected to that inextricably. Like Jesus rose from the dead. To say that theology is just the stuff you don't want to think about as a Christian. And to ignore that theology is built from the inside out. It starts at the foundation of like, there is a God who created all things. That's theology. That there aren't other gods out there. He made everything out of nothing. He just created the universe and everything that's in it. That's theology. That God loves you. That's theology. Do you think, is it important that, uh, you can ask your pastor, this pastor, is it important that God loves you? Well, of course it is. That's supremely important. Well, that's theology, pastor, that's theology.

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I'm guessing this pastor, um, has some gaps in their own knowledge and their own understanding of things. And it's easier, to be honest, it's easier for them to just deride everybody who knows more than it is to actually work through those issues or just admit, I just don't know about that. And I mean, maybe, maybe I'm just in this area. I lack knowledge.

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I wish I had more. I don't have it. Instead of acting like those who labor in theology, um, are doing something wrong, let me share a verse with you on this. Um, well, one verse I could share with you is love the Lord your God with all your mind, all your mind, not just your heart, but your mind. That means you're thinking about God. Um, but there's ah, a text of scripture that talks about the function of the elders. And here one Timothy 517, it says, let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor. And then it singles out elders or pastors who are particularly needful and useful in the body of Christ as those who especially labor in the word and doctrine.

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Doctrine. You know what doctrine is? That's teaching. Word and doctrine means Bible teaching.

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They especially labor in teaching the Bible. Now, if you were just reading the Bible without teaching it, you wouldn't have to labor in it. It wouldn't be word and doctrine, it would just be reading. But if you're actually laboring over it, that means you're spending time pouring over the scriptures, preparing messages, understanding the word of God theology, and then bringing it to the people to teach it to them. So I don't know if some of those things might help. Um, he says we shouldn't get quote, hooked on theology and doctrine.

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Uh, I have two responses to this, ultimately. One is to try to correct this individual to understand these things better. I don't know if they'll be open to it. You're pretty far off the bay, off the reservation. When you start saying things like, theology is just someone's opinion, I wonder if you think that Jesus did rise from the dead or if you compromise on all the social issues.

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Um, is it okay to ordain LGBTQ? Is that appropriate to ordain those people in the church, people who are proclaiming those lifestyles and living them? And if they're like, well, you know, theology is kind of like, you know, so I don't want to argue. It's just about love. And I'm like, I'm out of there. That's the final concern, is if someone says this, it's a big red flag. Depending on where they go with it, they might just need better education to realize that the things they love are theology, or to realize this isn't just a, uh, oops, kind of an ignorant mistake, but rather it's an intentional, deliberate tactic for avoiding christian teaching so they can excuse ungodly things like embracing lgbt agendas, um, embracing universalism, telling everybody, yeah, buddhist, fine, Mormon, fine. Jw, fine. We're all agree to disagree. Everyone's going to the same place anyways. If that's what's behind it, then it's like, that's actually heresy. That's like, the worst thing you can have. You got to get out of there and do it loudly, by which I mean people who respect you and will listen to you, you pull them aside, you let them know your concerns, and you see if you can get them out of there, too. What's the situation? You'll have to figure that out. Um. Um, yeah, theology. Who's Theo? Why do I have to study him?

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Uh, okay, number eight, Andrea W. Says, did Peter and the others quit the ministry when they went fishing in John 21 three? It seems that Peter had already seen the risen Christ two or three times before this event.

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Um, yeah, I guess a lot of pastors kind of treat it like that, like this. Going back to fishing was an act of quitting the ministry, but they'd already seen the risen Christ. They saw the risen Christ really quickly after his death and resurrection. They saw him really, really fast. Like, it didn't. It didn't wait a week. So anytime later when they're going fishing, they're not going fishing. Having lost the knowledge of Christ. Um, I don't think that that's the timeline of scripture, that they are there with the hope of the resurrection of Christ.

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They may not fully grasp what just happened. Right. They may not fully understand what they're to do next. They know. They're sort of hanging out and working things out. It's not until just before the, just before the ascension. 40 days later, just before the ascension, that's when they're given, it seems to me, on the timeline in the gospels, that's when they're given their commission. Go into all the world. So now you guys, boom, you're on a mission, going to all the world, not just to Israel, all the world. Tell them the gospel. Preach to them the things that I've taught you. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

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This is the commission. Now, in between that, that 40 days, what are they supposed to do? I mean, they have to live life. They have to eat food.

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They probably don't have much money. Um, and so they go fishing. I don't think in this passage, Peter's going fishing because, or the others. Because of a, um, I'm out of it. I quit the ministry kind of thing.

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They're still being taught and understanding the meaning of the resurrection. They're still strengthening, letting others know, but they also have to eat. They also have to travel. They also have to do things. And Peter and the others, they were fishermen before anything else. Here they are. Where? Galilee. Where they can access their boats, where they can fish, they can get sustenance. They can take care of themselves. And so I think they're just going about normal life. Um, John 21, let's look at it.

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You know, after these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias. And in this way, he showed himself Simon Peter. Thomas, called the twin Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and the two and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, I'm going fishing. So they said to him, we're going with you also. Okay. So they get up and they go fishing. Then they went out and immediately got into the boat. And that night they caught nothing. But when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Then Jesus said to them, children, have you any food? Notice this is not an introduction. Like, you're alive. They know he's alive. They just aren't seeing him all the time. They don't know when they're going to see him. So this is just a special, sacred moment. They see Jesus again. And they answered him, no. Then he said to them, cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some. So they cast and now that they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Therefore, that disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, and I guess this is really the moment where he recognizes who it is. And he says, it is the Lord. And he doesn't say it's Jesus. Even he says it is the Lord. He has faith. He knows who Jesus is. Now. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put his outer garment, for he had removed it and plunged into the sea. But the other disciples came into the little boat, for they were not far from land, but about 200 cubits. Dragging the net with fish, I feel like I would have what I would have wanted to jump in, too.

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Then as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there and fish laid on it and bread. Jesus said to them, bring some of the fish which you just caught. I'm just reading because I'm reading scripture now, guys.

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I'm not making a big point. Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land full of large fish. 153. And although there were so many, the net was not broken. Um, perhaps partly symbolic of the, the harvest of men. He says, come, I'll make you fishers of men. Maybe this is speaking of how now they're moving into that realm. Finally, it's going to go full circle. You're going to be fishing, and you're going to have so many people that get saved because of it.

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Jesus said to them, come and eat breakfast. Yet none of the disciples dared ask him, who are you? Knowing that it was the Lord, Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise, the fish. So he feeds them, takes care of them, and they didn't have to do it through their old. Maybe there's a point here. They didn't have to eat the fish. They gathered. They ate the fish Jesus provided, because the Lord's going to be providing for them and taking care of them as they devote themselves to ministry and don't have to do all that stuff all the time. This is now the third time Jesus showed himself to his disciples after he was raised from the dead. And then Jesus restores Peter in the next passage you keep reading. He's like, simon, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? It restores him, this sort of trifold restoration, just like Peter denied him three times. Powerful stuff. Yeah. Uh, so I think it's a great observation. What I'm going to guess happened here, and this is really cool. Good for you, Andrea.

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Good for you. Um, assuming I pronounced your name right. If not good for Andrea, I don't know. At any rate, um.

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You probably heard someone saying they had given up and they'd gone back to fishing. You probably heard someone say this and then you read the text and you thought, it doesn't look like that in the text. Jesus came to before this and that happened. Let me, I'll put this in the questions in the Q and A. You figured this out on your own? You were just double checking what someone else said but have the courage to go. Yeah, the text disagrees with what the teacher said. They may still be a great teacher. Maybe a pastor I look up to, maybe someone I love and listen to all the time. But this point, I think that the scripture says something different and that's okay. I'm glad you noticed. Number nine. Mister Anderson.

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Mister Anderson. Hey, Pastor Mike. How do you navigate having worldly friends?

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At times I enjoy their company and the conversation is good, but at other times they are unbearable to be around. Making crude jokes.

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Um, um.

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Just no friends is the solution, mostly. Don't have any friends of any kind. No people, nobody in your life and then nobody can hurt you. Um, um. Or there's another option.

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I tend to look at unsafe friends. There's an element of the relationship that is always about evangelism.

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It's just an element of the relationship. It's always about evangelism. And it doesn't mean you preach the gospel every time you see them, right? As though you're. I don't want to treat them like I'm checking a box, like I have a quota for every time I see them. I say something about Jesus, like I'm checking. I'm trying to outreach to them, as in do things that lead to them receiving Christ, knowing of Christ being saved.

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But one of the things that will not lead to their salvation is compromise on your part.

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Anybody out there who has a friend and when you hang out with them and you didn't ask this in your question, I'm just telling you how at least how I process this. Anybody out there you have a friend and they're not saved, and you find that they do not have the same standards that christians in your life have.

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Assuming that you have solid christians, godly christians, but this unsafe person doesn't have the same standards. In some ways they have lower standards. You need to make sure your life doesn't compromise and conform to the world, but rather you are the phrase in the world but not of the world. So no compromise on your part. If your relationship with them is leading you to sin. It means that you're not the one to outreach to them. Right? Like if I'm like, I'm going to go and outreach to the prostitutes and then I do stuff with prostitutes, this is a big red flag that I am not the right guy to do this job, right? That maybe someone else should go, maybe someone who is, who is of the same gender as them and is not tempted in any way, or not even potentially tempted in any way, then they're the right person for that kind of ministry.

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Don't do outreach relationships that lead you to sin. That's my point.

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Um, praying for your friends is huge. Sometimes they've heard you enough times and so you just keep praying for them and lifting them, lifting them up and ask. And then God sometimes brings someone else into a third person, into that life and that person says something. Maybe it's the same thing you've said a hundred times, but they hear it this time. That's huge. I've, um, done this with family who I felt I couldn't, I didn't have a bridge to talk to. I just doubled down on praying for them, that God would send them people. And I saw it happen. I'm not guaranteeing God knows what he'll do, but it's a good request. It's a good thing to ask, I think when it comes to, um, the crude language that they have. The question you have to ask is this, mister Anderson, if you've been living two lives, um, you have to ask if the unbearableness to be around them and the crude jokes is leading you into sin, or if it's just you have a hard time with it, if it's just you have a hard time with it, I would try to encourage you to have some tolerance for it as long as it's not leading you into sin.

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But it's okay to just to tell them, hey, guys, this is part of your witness, potentially, you guys, guys, I know I'm a christian. You know I'm a christian, you know that, you know, kind of where I stand on things. I, uh, love you guys. I want to spend time with you, but man, it's just like, it just grates on my ears every time you guys use humor like that. If you could curb it while I'm around, I would really appreciate it as your friend. And you might think, well, Mike, they're not, they're going to kick me out of their friend group if I say that. And I'm like, yeah, but that's a risk. That's worth taking. I think you're at least standing for what's holy and right and good you're doing in a gracious and loving way. I think that's okay. And the final thing to ask would be this is. Is my presence among them compromising someone else in my life?

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So this happens with lot. Lot was in Sodom and Gomorrah. We know that it vexed his soul when, according to the scripture, when he was in their presence all the time, that it did affect him. It had negative effect on him. But that doesn't mean that it led him into sin. It says it vexed his soul, like it grieved him. And he had a hard time. But his daughters got all kinds of messed up, right? His daughters, after Sodom and Gomorrah, are destroyed, they leave. They're in this cave at the moment. They're in fear. They don't know if they're not going to be able to ever be in a city again. They don't know if they're going to be staying in this cave forever. They appear to, like, overreact. And everybody they know, have known in their life is gone.

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And so they.

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I'll say this carefully for the sake of parents. Listen. They arrange through alcohol to coerce their dad so that they might have children.

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You can fill in the blanks.

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His daughters were so messed up, morally speaking. And I'm not saying lot was innocent here, because he also offered his daughters. And that's very questionable. I mean, I think it was wrong that he did that. And I think it's understandable to question it. Um, anyway, it's just a whole other big debate that people have. I think it's probably wrong that a lot did that. But the fact that his daughters did this with her dad, though, would that have happened if they weren't raised in Sodom and Gomorrah? I think it's a legitimate. I'm not saying. Okay. Therefore, every parent who lives in California, I live in California, you have to move out. I'm not saying that. I don't want to go too extreme with anything here. I just want to say it's good to ask the question, are my relationships harming those around me in ways that I'm not perceiving? Because maybe I've built up more of a tolerance to it, but maybe they haven't.

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That's an important question to ask. So, um, otherwise, I would just talk to him about it. Tell them your convictions. Tell them what you care about, why you care, and just ask them. Ask you guys not to do that in front of me. If they overreact and freak out, that's on them. It's not your fault. Number ten, Joshua Klein says in proverbs 25 two. In what sense is the author saying that God conceals a matter? It's clearly not an absolute. In other words, he does reveal things. Great question. Uh, proverbs 25 two.

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It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.

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Proverbs is, of course, the book of wisdom. You have to have wisdom to read proverbs, and you also gain wisdom by reading proverbs. Um, none of it's meant to be taken as super extremes. Or at least generally speaking, it's not meant to be taken as super extreme. It's sort of existing examples of sayings of wise people look both ways before crossing the street. That is a good saying, right? It's a positive saying. Now, someone could say, well, that sounds like wisdom to you, but what if you're crossing a, uh, one way street? You only need to look one way, right? Or maybe they'll go, but maybe you're crossing the street. But the street is. Is like a toy car street, and there's just toy cars on it, and you're crossing it. Do I have to look both ways then, Mike? And I'm just saying this is. See, proverbs is written to not only give wisdom to the wise, to give more wisdom to those that lack wisdom, but sometimes to expose the foolishness of fools as they handle proverbs. And you see them handle it so badly, it just kind of shows you the way people are. At any rate, proverbs 25 two, I think, is probably saying, um, the glory of God to conceal a matter is that it is God's glory that he knows things that we don't know, that he's in the position of being the all knowing one, and that's glorious, is that he knows everything that we don't know. So his glory is concealing a matter. Well, you could say he doesn't tell us everything, but part of that is the glory of God. He hasn't explained to me the difference between my spirit and my soul. I don't know what that. People debate it all the time. He didn't explain to me whether, uh, gosh, uh, how about this, uh, the exact history of Satan from the time of his creation onward. I don't know.

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But also there's things that are concealed that God has hidden in the text of scripture that are concealed in a different fashion. And maybe this is more what proverbs is talking about in this verse. God conceals things by laying the clues and the information out in creation or in the text of scripture.

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Here's an example. Um, the bronze serpent is a really peculiar event in the Old Testament. The, uh, bronze serpents raised up, the people are sinning, they're judged. The snakes come into the camp and Moses is like, help. And then they raise up a bronze serpent, something they never do in Israel, making images and raising them up in front of people. And then they raise this up, and anybody who look, quote, looks to this serpent, they look at it that they'll be delivered from the death, from being bitten.

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Interesting. What is this about now? We know later on it turns into this, like, idolatry for Israel. And then God tells them, don't. Don't do that. You know, and they destroy it. And the statement is, no, hush tan. It's a thing of brass, and you've idolized it. This is bad. But Jesus comes along later and he goes as the bronze serpent was raised up in the desert by Moses, so the son of man will be lifted up.

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The thing which is the symbol of your guys judgment will be lifted up. And you look at it, that's the bronze serpent, Jesus, who goes on the cross experiencing the death that I deserve, like being bit by a serpent, almost like connected to the Garden of Eden. He's there on the cross dying for me, the thing that symbolizes my judgment, death. Jesus is there on the cross, representing the rebellion of mankind there in my place. And all I have to do is look to him and I'll be saved. There's a sense in which God concealed a matter but made it available to be discovered. Not just he knows something you don't know, but rather he laid out the puzzle pieces for you to figure it out. That's the glory of God. It's like, wow, he's actually revealing things to us, but they're in a concealed manner. So the glory of kings. This connects to the next part of the verse. The glory of kings is to search out a matter.

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God gives. Uh, lays out information that's out there in the world. Our desire is to search it out and figure out and find the truth. This is sort of an endorsement of theology.

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Um, because it's the study of God and you're learning the things. Um, it could also be kings would also make judicial judgments on people. And so you would come before a king and you say, well, my neighbor stole my sheep and they go, nuh uh. It was my sheep. And they killed their own sheep and stole mine. And then you, as the king, would figure it out, and you're like, hmm m what about this? And what about that? And you're trying to figure out the truth of the matter. That was one role of kings. But also kings had the, um. Historically, they've had the, um, privilege of being able to get highly educated amongst a populace that most people were not able to do that so they could search out matters of trying to understand things. Solomon did this. I mean, he writes proverbs, and he gets to study and research and learn and explore and try stuff. And this education that he receives of learning about nature and scripture and mankind, it's something that is not easily available to most people. So maybe that's why it's the glory of kings to search out a matter. Anyway, there's a few elements of that. Which one is the definitive answer? Um, maybe it's both God's, uh, glory is concealing things and that some things only God knows. And, uh, he's glorious because only he knows. But also he hides things in plain sight for us to discover. And it's the glory of kings to search out. Well, there's an element of that where it's virtuous, kingly, to search things out and discover truth, whether it's studying science and learning about creation, whether it's studying philosophy and learning about the realities of the metaphysical world, or if it's studying scripture, the best of those things, studying the text of scripture and what God has told us, and maybe how to find Jesus through the Old Testament, how to understand the doctrine of the Trinity in the pages of scriptures. Those are all good things to search out.

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All right, y'all, that's it. That was question ten.

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I think we're all done, but I'm gonna, um, close this out in prayer. Lord, we just thank you for your holy word. We want to search it out. We want to be like those who are digging for gold as we study the pages of scripture. Not only golden nuggets of understanding to just blow our minds, but truths that would change our lives, where you would. We pray as we. As we read your word today, tomorrow, coming days. We pray just afresh. Change our lives through the teaching of your word. Confront us with our sin or our compromise.

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Soften our consciences where we've become calloused or hard, to sins and attitudes and bad attitudes that we've just grown used to help us learn to love others better in a fresh way, in a sort of a young way, as a. Like a new believer in our love towards others. We pray that you would work your will into us so that we would walk in the spirit. In Jesus name, amen.