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Welcome to the live stream. Sorry I'm a few minutes late, you guys. Not intentional. Um, I'm talking about an issue that I think is, um, a big problem right now. And it's not about the election, and it's not about who you vote for. That's my disclaimer. There's a lot of people that are going to think this is about who you vote for. It's nothing. Um, are you seeing me on screen, guys?

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Someone confirmed for me. And make sure this is working because my, uh, my preview is not showing it. I'll just keep talking for now. But the, um. The issue is not who you vote for. That's my disclaimer going into it. I'm not trying to sway your vote away from Donald Trump. Um, this is rather a warning about something a lot bigger than that. This is about the two edged sword, good and bad, of cultural christianity.

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There we go. All right, I'm live now. We'll figure out what to do with that later. Um, the issue of cultural christianity, again, it's not about who you vote for. Don't care. Well, I do care, but it's not related to my issue here at this moment. That's the point. I'm, um, not trying to sway your vote one direction or another. Uh, there's other reasons why I would sway things like away voting people, as a christian, sway your vote away from things like, uh, pro abortion votes or anti family votes, or votes for things that involve, like, woke stuff or what you might call critical race theory that just unbiblical, unchristian commitment to the way we view humans and justice and things like that. Anyways. Yeah, that's true. Um, I wish I could. I had better wisdom and insight, and I would do a whole other channel on that kind of stuff if I did. Um, here. Let's just make sure everything's live. Cause I don't know why I was seeing weird things on my screen instead of the things I'm supposed to see. Okay, thank you, Sarah. That's my assistant. Let me know. Okay, here we go. Let's dig right into it.

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Question number one for the q and a is one that I've brought, which I don't always do, not normally, but it is simply, uh, what is cultural Christianity and what is Trump talking about? And how does it relate to Elon Musk and Tom Holland and Richard Dawkins and YouTube itself and media personalities? The rise, I'll call it the rise of cultural Christianity. Here is the clip. I want you guys to think about this because there are plenty of those who, um, after hearing this, will try to defend it because Trump is their guy, right. Because they cannot disentangle their religious commitment to Jesus. And I mean this sincerely, they cannot disentangle that from their desire to see one person win the election over another, maybe for good reasons, that they're, that they're desiring this, but they're, but you can desire that, but you must disentangle it from your commitment to Jesus, lest culture becomes your christianity. I'll explain in more detail here before we launch into the first question from the, from the live chat today. Here's the clip where I think Donald Trump, uh, he exposes something that a lot of christians, uh, most, well, most of the christians that I spend time with would have known instinctively from having watched stuff for, over the years, but a lot of others didn't really know and didn't think about is that he is not, he doesn't know the gospel. He doesn't understand the gospel. He couldn't communicate it to you, probably in a meaningful way or consistently. Why does that matter? Uh, does it matter for voting for him as president? I don't know if we've had a christian president in my lifetime, a true christian president in my lifetime. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying the other side is Christian. Okay. I don't believe that for a second. Not for that, not for 1 second. I just want to make sure we don't lose our christianity in our culture as the culture starts to realize it desperately needs Christianity. That's what's happening. That's the good thing that's happening. Anyway, here's the clip. Let's talk about it, and I'll tie it into the other things, and I'll make sense in just a moment if you hang with me. But religion, you know, it gives you some hope. Gee, if I'm good, I'm going to heaven. Do you believe in heaven? I do.

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If I'm good, I'm going to heaven. And if I'm, um, if I'm good, I'm going to heaven.

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If I'm good, I'm going to heaven. That's the summary. And I want you to understand now there's a utilitarian reason why Donald Trump likes this, and the reason why he's bringing it up in his interview with Laura Ingraham here that was just recently happened. Look at the reason he has, because it has nothing to do with the reasons you're thinking as a Christian. If you are a Christian watching this video, bad. I'm going to someplace else, like over there. Right.

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But it gives you, there's something that is so good for a country.

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There's something that is so good for a country. Now, I'm going to say what I think he means by this is that a country with a populace of people who hold to christian values will be a better place to live. Okay? There's, if you now, some are going to say, well, all christians are hypocrites and all this sort of thing, and that's not true. But a country that holds to christian values, you're going to have a higher instance. Okay? Not people who just say they're christians. Right? Who holds to actual christian values. You'll have a higher instance of people being honest. Uh, people who don't cheat you. You know, if you go to a mechanic and they're really a Christian, not just putting a fish on their, on their billboard, but they're really Christian, you're going to have a much higher chance of not being ripped off by that mechanic. Um, I got a plumber friend who, uh, he's a friend of mine, but also I trust that he would never lie to me. I don't think he would lie to his other customers as well because of his christian integrity he has in all of his life. You see, this is something that's good for society. And what's happened over the last number of years, I think that christians have been calling it out for decades. We've been yelling like, guys, you're eroding the foundations of our culture with your secularism. We've been calling this out for decades. Without God, you don't have a foundation for moral values and duties. Without a commitment to God, specifically a Christian, a commitment that looks very christian. You erode the very values that hold the society together.

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For my whole life that I've been paying attention to these things, at least, you know, since my twenties, I've heard christians calling out and blowing the alarm and saying, is that a thing? Blowing an alarm, yelling, shouting the alarm, proclaim, whatever. Blowing the trumpet, saying, hey, the secularism. Not just the fact that we have secular people and stuff in our culture, but the secularism behind our culture has risen up after, say, the sexual revolution and all this stuff. It has led into a cultural degradation of what used to be a christian value base in our culture. So that marriage, family, gender, uh, our cultural views of pornography, which should probably be outlawed realistically. Um, more than probably, it should definitely be, um, those, as a Christian, that would be a value I have. Yeah. Um, those values have been gutted and replaced with a type of narcissism that is overtaken to the point where you have, um, you know, submit to my chosen id, my chosen identity, the person I claim to be, the gender I claim to be, or whatever, at the pain of actual persecution or even legal trouble and things like this because of this sort of narcissistic thing that's going on. But all this is something christians have been yelling about for years. But now the tides are changing. Non Christians are actually saying the same thing, and that's what's happening. And that, I think, is what's behind Trump. He's. He's giving us a false gospel. I'll talk about that in a second. Um, but it's not because he cares about the gospel. I think he's affirming Christianity because of its utilitarian usefulness in preserving culture.

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Christianity is good for culture. Despite what the atheists have been saying for years online that religion is the source of all the problems in the world. This has never been the case. Um, christians have been saying for quite a long time. No. Have you considered Stalin?

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Have you looked at the godless societies and the impact that it's had on their culture? And it's been very bad.

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So people are starting to realize recently a book was written by Tom Holland called Dominion. Now, he, to my. To my reading, is not really a Christian, but he's writing a book, surveying history, showing that Christianity has been a force for good and has established the values you have in our modern culture, many of them, even if you're not a Christian. And this, he's been going on tours, like, in all the christian podcasts are having him on, and it's stirring up a lot of stuff. Combine this with. Let's combine all these factors together. Combine that with, uh, Richard Dawkins recently saying that he regrets the decline of Christianity, but what he doesn't like is the culture of Christianity falling. While he wants the faith system of Christianity to fall, he doesn't realize, like, one is built on top of the other. So he's causing the thing that he regrets.

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This is Richard Dawkins. If you guys have been paying attention over the years, one of the most outspoken and successful people to convince others that God does not exist in our lifetimes, and, um, even if you've never heard of him, you've heard people online echoing his ideas, right? They're the same things he said in public for generation, for a generation. And now they're echoing them, even if they don't use his name. But he now says, I regret this decline. You've got guys like Elon Musk going on x and talking about how christians need, need to stand up and present and defend and fight for their culture. And not, uh, violently, but. But fight for their culture.

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There is an appreciation for christian culture that is rising up. That has not been the case in my entire lifetime. When I first started coming on YouTube, and I'll explain why. This is a two edged sword in a second. When I first started showing up on YouTube, though, this something I've been thinking about for a while now. I really wanted to share it with you guys.

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I first made videos and there's hardly any Christian. I've been doing it for like, ten years. There's hardly any christian YouTube. YouTube content creators at the time. If they were there, they were so small that you didn't really find them when you tried googling them. Sure, some were there, but you hardly found them. The ones that were there were mostly just debating creation issues.

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And so it was really, really niche, right? Really in a tiny little section and not a, uh, huge following. When I started creating content online, I was interacting with the atheist community, which the atheist community was like this online, and the christian community was like that. And I had atheists coming on my channel telling me, we own YouTube. We own the Internet. The Internet's where religion comes to die. This was a common phrase at the time. The Internet's where religion comes to die. Because the tide against Christianity and the culture of Christianity was very strong at the time. Well, in these years, something has changed. There's still a major pushback against Christianity, but there's a growing awareness that christian culture is super good, like, is really helpful and useful and good even for non christians, that non christians can thrive in a christian culture. And so they're wanting to push it forward. So you have guys like Jordan Peterson, who's recently been, recently, like, in the past many years, coming out, speaking, uh, in defense of really christian values. But he does not to my, not to my reading, does not have a serious, serious commitment to Jesus as Lord. There is, however, you know, he approaches it, looking at society, at the culture, going, this is a good thing. I want this. But when it comes to the Lordship of Christ in Elon Musk or Jordan Peterson or Donald Trump or Richard Dawkins, they don't want it. Tom Holland, perhaps. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know his story, where he's at on that. Maybe he's on a journey. Um, but I've read his book, okay, his book Dominion, where he talks about all this stuff. There is no evidence there of a serious commitment to Jesus. It's a commitment to christian culture, it's appreciation for the culture. So here's the two edged sword. Christian culture rising up will bless society and will help people. It will be a safeguard against trans ideologies that are not true, that are basically forcing people to believe lies and try to live out those lies in a culture where you then enforce penalties on those who don't affirm those lies. I think of the old Star Trek episode where, um, um, Captain Picard, I don't think I've ever talked about Star Trek before. Captain Picard is there, um, and he's being tortured, but the torture is, is where they show him, I think, four lights and they want him to say there are three lights. And they're just trying to get him to submit to lies, to echo and believe lies. And that's the whole thing. Because once they can get him to do that, then they've won.

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They've won because they've got him to believe and echo lies. They can control his thinking. And that's, that is of course, something that's happening right now. This is part of why I don't believe in pronoun hospitality. Okay. As a Christian, don't believe in pronoun hospitality because it's, it's affirming the wrong number of lights, so to speak. You guys should check out that episode if you want to see. It's a pretty good episode of Memory Serves. It was many years ago.

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So christian culture rising up, but without a true commitment to Jesus. The danger is this. You, you following me here. A lot of you, most of you are watching this, are christians.

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You can easily be co opted into. And this is, I think, what Trump really wants. You can get a voting bloc called christians to vote for you so that you can get power there, and then it's going to leave, it's going to stay there. But Christians, we cannot stop from preaching the gospel of Christ, because if we are anything as Christians, if the culture even looks realistically christian, it's a culture where Jesus is exalted as the only way of salvation. Let me give you guys an example of this.

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Why it's not okay to settle for christian culture. It's good, but it's not enough. It's not enough, and it comes with a great danger in that. Me as a Christian, um, I, as a pastor have been, I'm not serving as a pastor right now, um, but in the past, right, in the past pastoring, I've been invited to go to like a mayor's prayer breakfast or all these other events. And there's always this sort of sometimes unspoken, sometimes spoken out loud thing of leave the sort of, the sort of, um, dividing line of Jesus, of salvation in Jesus. Leave that sort of at the door. Let's kind of be ecumenical in these environments. We can be, we can rise up as a christian culture more easily. We can be part of it. We can be invited to the rooms and put on stage and given attention and acceptance. If we set aside the most central aspect of our faith, that you cannot be saved apart from Jesus Christ. That there is a heaven and there is hell, and you don't get there by being a good person, which is what Donald Trump said because he calls himself a Christian. He proclaims, that's the gospel. Hey, that's the gospel that christian culture produces, but not a gospel that Christianity produces. It's a christian culture apart from Jesus.

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So Jesus, here's the example I was going to give you. Jesus in John, chapter six. He has a group of people who, he feeds bread, okay? They experience the blessings of a christian culture metaphorically here. He feeds the 5000. Let's look at it.

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He feeds the 5000. He goes and, you know, a large crowd's following him. Uh, Jesus goes up on the mount and he sits down with the disciples. And of course, it's Passover time. So there's all these Jews traveling to Jerusalem. So tons of people are out of their homes. They're traveling, they want to hear Jesus. So they're sort of missing meals and opportunities to eat. Maybe they were going to buy food in capernaum or wherever. Um, I. But they're not. They're with Jesus. So the problem arises in verse five. Right? Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat? And you guys know the story. The cat, the kid comes, he's got the two fish, and he's got the five barley loaves of bread here in verse nine. And Jesus has them sit down and he multiplies and he gives them all the food. Okay? You know that everybody knows that part of the story, but they often miss the rest. So more stuff happens. Jesus walks on water. Cool picture of something from the book of job that happens right there. That's really neat. Um. Um. Super cool. They don't have time. Okay. Verse 22, it says, on the next day, the crowd that remain on the other side of the sea. So Jesus feeds him. Then he travels across, then they they get up the next day, they're like, hey, where's Jesus? And they find out he's on the other side. And they're like, boy, that was some good food he gave us. We all ate and were stuffed. So what do they do? They've experienced the blessings, the secondary blessings, non salvific blessings of Christianity or of Jesus. And so they follow him. They go and they look for him. When they see that he's not there or his disciples, they get into boats and they go to Capernaum seeking Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, rabbi, when did you come here? And then Jesus exposes the problems, I would say metaphorically, of a christian culture. Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw the signs, right? Not because you. You realized you needed forgiveness of your sins. That can only come through Jesus, that heaven and hell are the biggest issues in your life. Nothing. Your culture, not your country, not your. Even. Even the election of what's happening next, the biggest issues are heaven, hell, forgiveness, eternal life. How could they not be. How could. How could it be possible that whatever happens in the next four years in the US is anything compared to what happens for eternity with your soul? There's no comparison.

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And he says, look, you saw the signs, but that's not why you're seeking me. You didn't get it. You're seeking me because you ate your fill of the loaves. You experienced a, uh, secondary blessing related to who I am, as Messiah, as Christ, as God. But you're not really believing and trusting in me. This is where I see Trump saying, hey, I love Christianity. It makes it better for governing people.

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It makes it better. Not just for governing people, which is true. It doesn't let you necessarily control them. It just makes it easier. There's less crime, there's more of a moral foundation. There's less of the extreme progressive views that are eroding society. Yeah, that's all true, because Christianity brings those things. But that's not why you're. That's not why you're going to seek Jesus. If you're using wisdom here, you want something more than that. That's just a secondary blessing. That's just eating once. So Jesus says, do not work for the food that perishes cultural Christianity, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you. And then they're like, well, what. What's this food? What is this food? And I love this because this ties into Trump's answer. What? Why does he like the, uh, idea of heaven? He goes, well, if you're good, you go to heaven, you're bad, you go to hell. What is the thing? What do I have to do to do the works of God?

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And then Jesus answered, hey, Trump, you want to do the good thing? This is the work of God that you believe on him whom he has sent.

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Yes, christian culture makes you do good things, but that is not what gets you to heaven. No, you can try to do all the good things because you've been absorbed into christian culture to some extent. But unless you have faith in Jesus, you will never be saved because we've all done horrible, bad things. This is a, uh, simple, simplified understanding of the gospel right here. You've sinned and there's nothing you can do to wipe that away. But Jesus can wipe it away. And what do you do? What are you going to present? How good are you going to be to earn that forgiveness? You don't earn it. Trying to earn it is an insult to Christ because he earned it for you. And so it's like if I bought you a million dollar home and then every day you made like a $1 payment to me for your million dollar home. M, I would consider that insulting. I already paid for it and you're acting like I didn't. And that's insulting, the sacrifice I made for you to have this million dollar home.

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But it's bigger than that, because the sacrifice was Jesus dying on the cross for your sins. He actually suffered the penalty for what you did. This is where cultural Christianity is, is rising in our, in our society. And I'm not complaining about that, but it is a two edged sword. I'm just offering a warning. YouTube is no longer owned by atheists. Richard Dawkins is now regretting the fall of christian culture, which is really the fall of faith in Jesus. One goes with the other. Um, Tom Holland writing his book Dominion, going around helping people realize the same thing. Jordan Peterson is saying that Christianity has been a force for good in the world and in societies. And it's really, the west has treated Christianity the way an entitled teenager is mad at their parent. And then they grow up, they become mid twenties, maybe 30, and they go, wow, I actually had a really good parent. I was just being a brat. That's what society is doing now with Christianity. They're realizing that it's actually good, it's actually helpful. It's actually fruitful and profitable. And, um, not everybody's realizing it, obviously, or else they would all be going the same direction, but they're nothing. At the same time, everybody on the, on political spectrums is trying to co opt Christianity to get your vote. Okay, so, yep, Trump does it. Um, so does Biden, um, who is a Catholic, but even under catholic principles, should be excommunicated for his views on abortion and his actions on abortion.

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Everybody wants to co op Jesus for their own benefits. They don't want to actually serve Jesus Christ. And so I don't think we have. If, you know, speaking of voting briefly here, I don't think we have a single option on the table that I'm aware of that represents Christianity in any kind of accurate way. I just have to choose the greater good or the lesser evil heart, however you want to parse that out. And some people say, I'm not going to vote at all, and that's up to you. Um, I understand that sentiment. Um, but I'm probably not going to go down that road myself. But anyway, that's a tough one.

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Yeah, I don't think I can go down the road myself, at least not, not now. Um, at any rate, culture needs Christianity. That's true. And people are realizing this. They're waking up to it. But what I think they don't realize is that as much as their culture needs Christianity even more, their soul needs Jesus. Trump sees the value of Christianity, but not for his own, his own life. He doesn't see his need for Jesus because he thinks I'm a good person, which is ironic, because I have no illusions about anybody in politics being a good person right now. Um. It's crazy.

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People need salvation. People need Jesus.

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The apostles, if they were willing to settle for a cultural Christianity, they would not have been persecuted. They would have been able to just tone down the extreme sort of repent or be judged, that kind of stuff, or the extreme kind of like, Jesus is the only way. You know, when, when the, when Paul went out and was preaching in Athens or wherever, if he would have just left the idols and just presented Jesus as someone who can sit alongside all these other commitments that are ungodly, there would not have been persecution in the church. It would have just been, uh, yet another religion. Not a problem. It was saying, no, it's this way or the highway. Jesus is the only way. As Jesus himself declared, these are the offensive bits and these are the bits that we as christians have to say, hey, you want Christianity, you've got to take Jesus as the only way, or else you're. You're trying to eat the bread without actually receiving faith in the one who multiplies the bread.

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You are playing a game with God, and in the end, you will stand before God and he won't go, did you do good? You get to heaven? Did you do bad? You go to hell, he'll be like, y'all did bad. Did you get Jesus for forgiveness? That's going to be the question.

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So as a Christian, I, uh, can ride the wave if of the rise of christian culture, if I set aside the gospel. Otherwise, I'm going to be seen as an annoying person in the midst of what is, like, a revival of Christianity. It's not really a revival of Christianity in our culture. It is the revival of cultural Christianity. Now, I want real Christianity. Okay? So I'm going to be seen as someone who's annoying, who's like, Mike, don't you realize what you're saying right now? Might cause someone to vote differently? And I'll be like, um, you're not listening.

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You can vote however, you. You can vote for Trump. And I don't know how you could vote for the other side as a Christian with christian commitments, I don't know how you could. I think you can vote for Donald Trump as a Christian. Um, but I understand those who go, no, I couldn't even do that. And I go, I respect that, uh, up to each individual's conscience on those things. I'm nothing trying to sway your vote against Donald Trump. I'm trying to get your Christianity away from Donald Trump, away from Joe Biden, away from Kamala Harris, away from fill in the blank, because these people are not committed to Jesus. If they were, you would know it. You wouldn't guess. You wouldn't read between the lines. You wouldn't do what some people are doing online ever since the assassination attempt, and, um, thank God he didn't get killed. But ever since then, I see people, like, they'll look at a photo of Trump looking like. And they'll go, I can see God working in his life. And I'm like, this is how desperate you are to tie Christianity to this man.

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That, to me, is concerning.

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So that's the rise of cultural Christianity. Two edged sword. I'm glad because culture needs Christianity, but I'm bummed because it's going to lead to a lot of christians who set aside their real christian commitments that Jesus is the only way, that Donald Trump is absolutely not a Christian by any biblical standard. Neither are any of these other people that are running at the moment, as far as I know. Um, and unless I hear full on committed. Jesus is the only way of salvation. I'm saved by grace alone through faith in Christ. End of story. He died for my sins. He rose again. These things are true. If I'm only hearing a, I like christian culture, it's useful. Or I like the voting block of people who say Jesus, so I'm going to say nice things to get them to vote for me. All I see people doing is manipulating the church to seek their own kingdoms instead of seeking the kingdom of Christ.

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Um, anyway, I'm sure more can be said about that, and I will just go to the next question, which, uh. Oh, before I do, I have an announcement to make, and this is about a ministry I want to recommend you guys consider supporting. So I've talked about them before, and they're not, they're not donating to my ministry or something like that. Not to my knowledge, anyways. Um, they're not, they. I'm not getting any kickback or anything for saying this to you, okay? I just want you to know this. I never do that. I don't do commercials. I don't do, um, anything where someone's paying me to tell you something, although I have plenty of offers for that. Um, but I don't do any of that stuff. So restoring faith is a ministry, uh, that I like because nobody knows about them.

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There are so many ministries that are huge, like, um, uh, gospel for Asia or other ones that, like, everybody's heard of, uh, world vision. Everybody knows them, and everybody donates to them a Samaritan's purse. I really like finding these sort of, like, small ministries, but I never can share them with you because I don't know the people well enough to say that I actually trust them. Okay? So I'm not just gonna be like, it's small. Let me just send people to give them money. I don't. I don't actually know them. I actually know the people that are restoring faith. I know some of them personally and believe that what they're doing is genuine, to the best of my knowledge. So if you're like me and you're highly suspicious, always looking for someone to give that you think is going to be, have integrity and is not going to set aside the gospel when they do their good things, then I think restoring faith is what. There's a link below to their thing. Basically, right now, they're focused on serving, uh, persecuted iraqi refugees, believers who fled ISIS in 2014 and are still, they're still out of their homes, are still away from their own country, and they're still unable to work normal jobs and things like that. Um, they have an un. I'm reading now from what they've sent me here. These people have had an unspeakable wiping out of generations due to their refusal to deny Christ. I've seen pictures and stuff. They're dirt poor. They need, like, a stove. They need a heater for the winter. They need some blankets and things like that in some cases. Um, so they just go and provide them real needs. Um, and the gospel is not set aside during these times. That's important.

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Um, pray for safety for them. If you guys just want to pray for them, lift them up. The restoring faith team, and it's restoring faith, incorporated. There's a ministry called restoring faith or a group. There's no one called restoring faith, Inc. That's the one I'm talking about. They'll, um, be traveling in Jordan to October to serve the refugees. So you pray for them. Uh, they've had a lot of problems because of all the volatile nature of what's going on over there. And let me say this as well. Here's the thing that excites me about this ministry. They can't do normal fundraising. I mean, that's not exciting, but it excites me about being able to tell you about them. Uh, some information about some of the stuff that they do, I cannot share because it's for safety reasons. Um, but it's good stuff. So if they were to put all this stuff out there, they would receive more funds and more people would go, oh, I believe in what you're doing. They actually can't even say it, so I'll just have to leave it there. There's a link below if you want to help them out. Nothing comes to me or my ministry as a result. Just doing this for the kingdom. Okay, let's go to question number two. And this comes in. Hold on. I am. I'm getting there. Okay, we have all ten questions for today. Just so you guys know, this comes in from Justin P. Who says, hi, Mike. What's your opinion on open versus closed communion? Should the pastors or elders check on who's taking the communion?

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Um, and then you have a bible verse on this, so. First Corinthians 5913. So I think what you mean by now, I've never been at a church that had closed communion, so I don't know how that works practically. I'm going to offer a guess, and then I'll answer based on that guess. So I'm filling in a blank. Could be wrong. So is closed communion then the idea that, um, you have to have some sort of an approval, some sort of a.

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Yeah, I don't know whether it be a letter or just someone saying, hey, eye to eye, I know you and I approve of you doing this, um, before you can actually partake of communion.

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So let me offer three possibilities and I'll answer all three, because I'm not sure what you mean by closed communion. So close communion being you have to have some sort of verified, the most strict version verified, like, yep, you're on the good list instead of the bad list, and you can actually have communion. And then you have to have people in the church who are actually vetting individuals and making sure, um, um. I'm not sure how that would happen. Maybe they get on the list at one point through having a conversation, and so you have to at least have one conversation at one point in the, in your entire life where you sort of prove that you're really a Christian and then they put you on the list. Or maybe, or maybe it's more strict than that. Maybe every time you do it, you have to talk to someone. I don't know. Um. Um, then you have, uh, uh, what you might call close communion, but is what I would call open communion. But anyways, what I usually experience and prefer, um, anybody who comes can have communion, but there's always, when we have communion, there's a statement that if you are, um, in open and rebellious sin against God, unrepentant sin, you should not do it. Um, or if there's some other, uh, like, there could be a reason why not to do it. So. But then it's up to you not to. And if you're not a believer, you should not do it. But then that would be up to you. No one's there saying, we're not going to let you. They're just, they're asking you to self police whether you should have communion. Then there's like wide open communion where everybody and anybody's welcome to have communion. And I actually have a person in my life who I know who wants this, and I disagree. Uh, but they want the idea that everybody can enjoy communion. Even non believers can enjoy and partake of communion. And I think that that is an insult to Christ because they're not believers, which isn't. Isn't just a category of people, it's a person who denies. I don't believe I denied the death and resurrection of Jesus, then partaking of a memorize a memorialization of the death and resurrection of Christ and his sacrifice for us when you reject those things is utmost, uh, hypocrisy. But these people want this because they think it's loving. I just want people to know how much they're loved. Love is not the only message of the gospel. It also involves things like repent and believe, and so you can't do that.

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So let's read the bible verse that you brought up, and let's see if that gives us, uh, some enlightenment on this. You're saying, hey, maybe this gives a case for closed communion. One corinthians five.

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I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all. Meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. Since then, you would need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of a brother if he's guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler. Now, this, of course, let me add some between the lines stuff. This is an unrepentant person, not just, hey, you're a believer. And since you've been a believer, you committed sexual morality, or you were greedy or you were an idolater at some point, reviler. Um, if you repented of those things, then you were not standing in those things now. So this is someone who's in major, unrepentant, open sin. He says, don't associate with them, meaning they can't be like a member of your church. They can't be considered part of the body of Christ locally.

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Um, not even to eat with such a one. And this would, I think, include communion.

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At the time in Corinth, they were doing communion as a meal, as a whole meal. So inclusively, not eating with them would include the idea of communion. Um, does this mean you could, let's say you have a believer who's committed adultery. They're far off, and you just really want to get together with them. You haven't seen them in a year, and you're like, man, let's get lunch. I want to check in on them, see how they're doing. Oh, but I can't eat with them. This isn't the eating of fellowship. This isn't the eating of belonging to the body. This is the eating of outreach, so to speak. It's a different. It's a different category in my mind. You guys can disagree if you like. Uh, at least that's how I understand it, that not eating with them is not meant to be this, like, hyper strict, legalistic concept. He's talking about the communal meal of the local congregation of those who belong to the church. In that sense, those who associate as members of the body of Christ. Okay, for what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church here to judge God? Uh, judges those outside, purge the evil person from among you?

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So the sense in which this would close communion to some degree is saying that if there's anyone who is actively guilty of these things and unrepentant, that, no, they should not partake of communion.

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So this, to me, um, applying it would. Would fall into two categories. One is the self policing of people. Simply you telling them, hey, if you're actively involved in these things and we don't know about it, then don't partake.

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That makes sense. It's sort of an adjacent application of this verse. Um, that makes sense. But let's say the person comes that day, and they're like, I have been greedy. I've been an idolater. I've been a drunkard and a reviler and a swindler. And I repent of that. Can I have communion today? I'd be like, yes, of course you can. I'm not going to police beyond that. The other thing is, if a person's having communion and then say, their wife comes or their husband comes or someone comes, and they're like, hey, I've tried to talk to them. I'm exposing this major issue in their life, this huge, huge, unrepentant sins. Then there could come a time where the actual elders, um, say, hey, you cannot partake of communion. But it's bigger than that, because this passage you quoted, it's about excommunication from the body. Not just communion. Communion inclusively, but not entirely. It's about more than that.

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You can't be part of the body. You need to be out of the church because your sin is that repetitive, is that serious, and you're that unrepentant. And at this point, we have to deal with you and say, hey, we want you back, but we want you back for real, and not as a hypocrite who's lying to everybody and who is continuing to defame the name of Christ. We can't endorse these things, and you're going to affect others. What you do will spread to others because a little leaven leavens the whole lump. So, in other words, how does, um, m how do you apply this to policing communion.

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If situations arise that warrant excommunication. Not where you're not. Where we're saying you're not saved. We're not kicking you out of salvation. That would be more of a wrong view of excommunication, I think. But rather, we're removing you from the communication of the fellowship of the local church as a person who belongs in the body. If you have to be removed, then you also can't do communion.

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But, uh, an extreme version of this would be to then say, we have to. So guard the communion table that I have to, like, check every person who comes in, like, are you in any sin? Are you in any. And then I think we actually go way beyond what's written here.

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We go beyond what's written here. It doesn't say it's your job to find out all the sins of the congregation. Uh, look, if they're guilty, if you're aware of it, if these things are known, then you deal with it. And if they're not known, you don't have to go dig into their private, everybody's private lives and become the detective. As an elder, I don't think we have a biblical case for that. Um, and we know we have no examples of that. There's no instruction in Corinthians of, like, when it says, let each one examine himself. This is interesting. Uh, let me. Let me find this verse, because it might relate to the whole self policing thing that I was talking about. So. First Corinthians, chapter eleven talks about communion. Um, sorry. Here we go.

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Let me put it up on your screen.

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So therefore, uh, whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. An unworthy manner here doesn't mean you have to be. This is what we often think. I have to be good enough. If I'm a good enough person, I can have communion. If I'm not a good person, then I can. No, that's not it. It's about being a person whose life is yielded to Christ. Like, I'm. Ah. Uh, I'm a genuine. As a Christian, okay? I'm not living in open, constant, rebellious sin. Um, and b, what this is more about in first Corinthians eleven, I'm recognizing that this is not just a chance for me to stuff my face because they would have a whole meal when they did communion. This is not just a chance for me to glut myself at, uh, the communal meal. This is about the body and blood of Christ. So you need to have a, you know, do this in a worthy manner where you are acknowledging the brokenness of Christ, the body and the blood of Christ. An unbeliever cannot do this because they don't believe in the body and the blood of Christ.

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But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. This is a case for self examination, not elder examination. Does that make sense? The elder doesn't have to go and figure out where everybody's at. He has to teach others to examine themselves because christian Christianity is very much a self responsibility kind of worldview. Examine yourself and then partake.

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Uh, I don't need the elder's approval. I might get the rejection if I'm an open sin and it becomes exposed and I'm unrepentant of it, and it's a big deal. We all have sin issues. Of course everybody's going to be paranoid about that, but there is a point at which Paul says, like, hey, they're doing these things. They can't be part of it. Um, but typically I just examine myself, and if I don't, well, then God deals with me. I don't need the elder to deal with me. God will deal with me. Read first corinthians eleven. There's more information on that, so let's go to the next question. This is from Floria, who says, what is the biblical case for or against guardian angels? Are they a myth, or do we really all have individual angels following us all around and helping us?

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Well, there's probably a lot more text of scripture on this than I'm. Than I'm. Than I've got in my head. Okay. Because I haven't spent. I know a lot of people really love this topic of angels. Um, what was it? Billy Graham wrote a book I did not read. I think it was called angels. Angels everywhere. And I think it was extremely popular. People like angels, especially like m people like my mom and my grandma back in the day, they listed, really loved this idea of angels. And, um, I guess I've never been really that focused on it, on angels. They're interesting.

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I believe they exist. I believe that they're around and aware, but I haven't spent as much time on it, so it's not something I've, um, spent a lot of time on. Uh, however, there is one verse that really jumps out, and it's when Jesus is talking about kids. Let me see if I can find it.

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Um, okay. And I'll tell you how I understand this and you guys can think about it.

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Okay? So, Jesus, speaking about little ones, um, he says, and it's okay, this isn't directly about kids, really. Um, he's using little ones. I'll just read this section. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, and you might think little ones is referencing kids, but I think he's using, um, a diminutive term to speak of his affection for those who follow him, his affection for his followers, uh, like my children or something. Um, so whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses, for offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes. If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or 2ft and be cast into everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It's better for you to enter into life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hellfire. By the way, this passage I just read brings up a bunch of questions about, like, wait, am I supposed to be removing body parts? Um, um. I think the short answer is, and I'll tell you where you can get the long answer to, um. Um. No, not literally. Removing body parts for your eye isn't actually what's causing you to sin. It's a. It's. It's, ah, an allegory for whatever in your life is leading you to sin. It is not worth it. Cut it off. Even if it hurts.

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If you remove your physical body parts, it's not going to actually remove your sinful tendencies. Oh, my right eye was. Oh, by cut it out. Now I no longer deal with lust because my left eye had no lust in it. Okay, good luck with that. I, uh, have a video where I actually teach through this, and I'll link it in the description below after the Q and A. I didn't know, you know, this was going to come up, so I'll link it below after the Q and A, and you guys are welcome to check it out. Then in verse ten, he says, take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones.

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Don't despise God's people. This is a temptation for those in ministry. Actually, despising his little ones. Believe it or not, once you get in leadership, you start to.

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You tend to look down on those you lead. Look at the way people in the government treat the rest of us. We're the, uh, uh.

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We're. We're the. We're the little ones, but not in a. In a. In an affectionate sense. We're the little ones in the other sense. So take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I say to you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of my father, who is in heaven. What does that mean?

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This verse has been used to say, hey, um, um.

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Even the lesser saints, so to speak, the little ones who you look at as christians, who are just random christians, who aren't, they're not in great ministries. They don't have a following online. They're just random people in the pew. This person is just a janitor, and they go to church and they love the Lord, and this person's an engineer, and they love Jesus. But there's nothing remarkable in that, sort of, like, what a great christian sense. They're just his little ones. They have angels.

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Their angels always see the face of my father, who's in heaven.

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Hmm.

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Now, you could try to play the numbers thing here. Let me put this back on your screen. And you can say, one of these little ones don't despise one of these little ones because their angels.

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Does that mean that each one of them has an angel or multiple angels? I think it's a little indeterminate in the text. Okay. One of these. That's a category.

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Little ones is the actual category, and the little ones have angels.

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Um, do you have a particular angel that is. That is sent to guard over you individually, like, one angel who sort of follows you around and kind of watches you and guards over you? I think we're going beyond the text of scripture to say that this could play out. It could play out that way. Could be that God has assigned an angel to you. It also says, their angels always see the face of my father, who's in heaven, which is like, well, what does that mean? If they're always seeing the father, are they really following you around? Maybe we're pushing too hard on the text.

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Maybe the point is simply what Hebrew says, God's angels are servants.

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They serve, and they minister to those who will inherit salvation. We know also that there's different kinds of angels. So in the book of Daniel, we read about an angel who is, um, the prince of God's. People. We read about Michael the archangel, who's kind of like, in a sense, an angel, you could say over Israel, or I would say assigned to Israel. We read even about fallen angels or even Satan, uh, who seem to be over cities and over whole groups of people, in some cases in some sort of spiritual warfare sense. So we read about the prince of Persia in the Book of Daniel. And this prince of Persia is an angelic being. I don't think he's a physical prince of Persia. Some people would say that. I'm not inclined to believe that. I think that he's actually, um, an angelic being, an evil one who is fighting against the purposes of God. And so Michael and Gabriel teamed up to overcome him. We get this little tiny glimpse into the spiritual warfare of angels. I wonder what else there is. There it is interesting.

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Do you have your own angel that follows you around? Well, that's going kind of far. It's possible that, um, there's an angel that's over a region, over a group of people, and that those angels see the face of, um, my father, who's in heaven. And if God cares enough about you that you have angelic servants that minister to you and to those around you, maybe it's one on one, maybe it's three on one, maybe it's 500 people have one angel over there, or maybe it's something totally different that I'm not thinking of. I don't know. But if God has these angelic beings that are meant to serve you, and they stand before even his own face, then does it not show you what Jesus is getting at? He cares about even the least Christian, even the lowest Christian. He cares deeply about them, and he will not hold you guiltless if you offend his little ones. That's the main point. As Christians, we are always in danger. Maybe this is why I haven't looked at angels that much. We're always in danger of overemphasizing something that's not God.

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And in the book of revelation, we see this, where John is receiving revelation and he's being given a guided tour of heaven, so to speak, by an angelic being. And this being is showing him these amazing things. And at one point, John falls down and starts to worship this being. He's so impressed, he's overwhelmed by how glorious this thing is. He's overwhelmed by all the experiences. And he, you would think John would be too mature for this at this point in his life, but he's not. He instinctively just starts worshiping this being because angels are pretty amazing.

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And then he says, stop it. Don't do that. Worship God. Only God. So, Christians, there's a natural, inherent problem with looking into angels. Not that you can't, there's just a danger that comes along with it, where we emphasize and focus angelic beings when we should be focusing God. Their servants, meant to point us to God. No matter how glorious they seem. Christ is the one who is worthy of worship him alone. So just, uh, for those of you who are super interested in angels and you want to dig deep on this stuff, you're welcome to make sure that you realize this passage in revelation where John instinctively starts to worship this heavenly thing, this heavenly being.

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That is your problem and my problem, too. So always realize it's an insult, an insult to angels and even more to God if you begin to draw too much attention to them, away from your attention on God.

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Yeah. So there is some kind of angel that represents me before God, that sees the face of our father in heaven.

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But does that mean that I have one angel who follows me around my whole life? Uh, that they don't take turns, that it's not one angel who's over perhaps a whole group of christians or a region or something like that? Or that perhaps. Sometimes I have an angel and sometimes I don't. According to the assignment of God, I don't know any of those details, and I don't think anybody else does.

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Let's go to question number four. This comes from Fubar.

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F o o b a r. Spell that for those who are curious. Uh, when the Old Testament talks of false gods such as Moloch, what does that mean? Is it that they don't exist? Or is the false referring to untrustworthy or deceitful? That's a great question. I'm glad you asked it, foo. I'm just gonna call you foo for short, like we're buddies.

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And because Fubar also has another meaning, which you did not intend because you spelled it f o o b a r. Um, at any rate, so, foo, let me talk about this issue. Um, the Bible does talk about false gods. And in one sense, it speaks about false gods as though they're real things, right? Like God. God. When he's going to judge Egypt, he says he's going to judge the gods of Egypt.

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Um, when they cry out to gods, like they're. They're, they're spoken of as if they're real beings in some sense, in some instances in the Bible. And yet in other instances in the Bible, God goes on like a long tantrum, like, say in Isaiah where he's ripping on these idols and these gods, they're nothing. They represent nothing. They have eyes, but they cannot see. They have mouthed, but they cannot speak. Those who worship them become like them. Foolish, dumb, blind.

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This is, that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense if those gods actually really existed. And I think that we're experiencing something that is, um, we're torn between two things. People really are worshiping these gods, but those gods don't exist. Okay? So in Islam, there is a goddess called Allah. Now, if you're, if you're, if you speak Arabic and you're a Christian, you will call God Allah, because Allah is just the arabic word for Christian. Okay, so Allah doesn't mean Muslim, but in English, when we're talking about the islamic God, we often just say Allah because that's, that's a name they will bring over whenever they talk about him, um, even in English. So the, the muslim God is a, is. I can speak of the muslim God and say the Muslims are worshiping God. They're bowing down. They're, they're, you know, in their prayer rugs, they're doing their calls to prayer and things like this. They talk about God, but the God that they're worshiping doesn't really exist. Right? Would you agree with me there? The God they're worshipping isn't real because no God fitting that description actually exists.

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That seems to be entailed by christian doctrine. Not just casually seems to be entailed. This has to be true. That the God that Muslims worship does not exist. That must be true.

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Um, if you go back in time and you read about Marduk and you read about the formations of the world and the big fight with the enemy and the guts spilling out and creating continents and all this stuff, that cannot be true because the biblical creation count simply says that didn't happen. When Genesis is written, it's written, in a sense, a slap in the face to the so called gods of Egypt and other gods as well.

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God creates the sun and the moon. They are not gods themselves. They are simply created things, not beings things.

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They are created things that God made. This is a source of light that also reflects, but is a source of light for the earth. Then you have got the earth and you have the stars and you have got the rivers and you have the ocean. God makes all this stuff, and none of it is deified.

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There is no way you can say that the Bible is accurate and also affirm that ra, the egyptian God ra, exists.

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Because that would mean that Ra is the sun God.

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That, uh, would mean that some of these descriptors and these details about him are true, and the Bible refutes those, clearly. So in what sense do they exist? I think that the New Testament helps clear this up when Paul simply says they're worshiping demons.

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Let me see if I can find this verse, um, just for a second here. Make sure I can find it. Um, so here it is. This is where Paul discusses this. Um, I'll start in verse m 18. Let's see. Observe Israel. After the flesh are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar. Now, he's drawing in an analogy of why you cannot go to a pagan temple and eat of those sacrifices in a way that is knowledgeable, in a way that is engaging in the religious practices. So they would have food they would sacrifice or offer to the gods, then they would partake of it, eat it as their own sort of community meal, as a way of affirming the God. It was part of all the religious ritual. Um, so what am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything.

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What is an idol exactly? Rather that the gentiles, that the things which the gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.

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Demons are not gods. Ra is not. If you look at the actual ancient beliefs, Ra was not believed to be a demon.

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If you go to Ephesus and you look at the temple of Artemis, Artemis was not believed to be a demon. And yet theyre sacrificing to her and theyre eating to her. If you could look at all of the gods they were worshipping that hes talking about, and he's just calling them all demons. These demons, they're not gods, they're demons. So this actually brings things together. It's not that there's no spiritual entity behind the idol you worship. It's not that behind Islam, there is no spiritual power. It's that it's not the power they think it is. The God they think they're worshiping is actually a demon is demonic. Receiving this praise that has been redirected away from the true God and onto false beliefs.

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So whether it's, um, new age religious beliefs about God or Buddhism or you're bowing down or Hinduism, which has countless gods, the only religion that seems to have more gods than Hinduism is mormonism. They don't worship more gods than Hindus, but they have more in their worldview. There's literally countless infinite gods.

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Um, although I'm sure, some Mormons can make a video saying I'm wrong about that.

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Good luck dealing with your actual religious sources on that. Um, fairly. But the things which gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. That's how I view it. I, um, think that that is meant quite plainly. Ra doesn't exist. No being fitting the description of Artemis has ever existed. A demon behind the false religion definitely does exist. And so we see there is, they're not just in a wrong religion, they're worshiping demons. This is, again, where Christianity becomes very offensive to people. Um, but truth is often offensive to people rather than things which the gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, not God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons and just says it again and again, demons, demons, demons. That's what he's saying.

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So let me read your question again. I make sure I got it right. When the Old Testament talks of false gods such as Moloch, what does that mean? Is it that they dont exist? Or is the false referring to untrustworthy or deceitful? Um, its both. Theyre false gods. They dont exist. Which means theyre also untrustworthy and deceitful. But not that there isnt a spiritual force behind it which Paul identifies as demonic.

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Theres no Moloch behind Moloch. Theres a demon behind Molochemdez. There's something evil, something satanic behind all these false religions.

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Makes sense.

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You know, Satan can't make a religion as good and true as Christianity, but he can flood the world with a bunch of false ones. So that you got a lot of options and maybe you'll just pick one, or maybe you'll just be so irritated by how many false religions there are, you decide to just throw in the towel and not believe anything.

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And either way, he's happy. Satan's happy.

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All right, let's go to the next question. Number five. This is an anonymous question. Do you think that God expects us to post about controversial issues on our social media accounts? I don't want to start needless arguments online, but I also sometimes worry that I'm being cowardly. I think that is the most genuine question. Wow. Let me read that last part again, because I think that me and others feel the same tension. I don't want to start needless arguments online, but I sometimes worry that I'm being cowardly. Completely, completely understand that I do not like you. I do not want to be shying away from truth, shying away from confrontation for this, just because I'm I don't like confrontation. Um, people who are like, I hate confrontation will be highly tempted to be cowards at times when they need to stand up and speak or get up and take action, and they will freeze in the middle of hard times, and later they'll look back and be like, man, I should have done something. Oh, I should have done something. I just wasn't sure. So I didn't do anything.

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On the contrary.

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There are those who everything turns into a fight, and every day it's time to stand up and take action to the point where you don't know what battle they're fighting. They're just swinging. They're like that guy who just. He's swinging and everybody who comes up to him gets a hit and he doesn't know who's friend and who's foe and what battles worth fighting. There's extremes on both sides. There's extremes on both sides. And I think I've even taken a friendly fire from people like that who I look at and I go, hey, online. Because I'm online a lot, right? I say controversial things all the time, um, hopefully as a Christian being faithful to scripture, but inevitably I'm going to say stuff that's controversial.

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There are those who sometimes I see getting mad and pushing back on me, and I'm like, you are pushing back on me. But I actually agree with you.

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You're just upset I'm not as extreme as you are, and now you're treating me like the enemy, um, your ideological enemy, not like a physical enemy, and that happens as well. So what's the balance? Um, I think that in principle, we go to scripture and we try to find our commitments there in the text, and it's not enough to say, well, I'm committed to the gospel and nothing else. Okay, this is. You can say this, right? I can say I'm committed to the gospel and nothing else. But I have learned over the years that is not enough. Um, my primary, my ultimate, my highest commitment is the gospel and nothing else. Catch that? My highest, but not my only. It's not my only commitment in life. I'm also committed to things like, um, using. Using right gender pronouns. Like, I think that's actually something over. It took me way too long to get there. I never got on board with people off. I've never given a false gender pronoun to somebody, never said it, never thought I should. But it took me a long time to get to where I felt so confident that I could just tell others out loud, hey, guys, I think you should have the same view. Um, so I look back and I go, I should have thought about this more carefully and just spoken on it more openly earlier on. Wish I had. That was a mistake. But gender pronouns is an issue that I think actually, yeah, it's controversial, but how I speak about it in public, that's the only debate to me. I don't need to be like, um, you don't need to be snarky in every social media post in order to speak to the issues that are worth speaking to. Sometimes if you approach things with sarcasm and snark instead of seriousness in a straightforward way, it can actually devalue your opinion because you look like someone who's just griping and complaining about things they don't like. You're like, it's the get off my lawn version of interacting with major problems in our culture and society. And so if you look at your, like, go and scroll through your own social media and you look at the last, like, 1020 posts, I should probably do this again. I haven't done it in a while. And sometimes you'll look and you go, yeah, boy. What is, what collectively? What are my posts looking like I'm doing here? What am I representing and standing for? Not just the values and the views, but also the manner in which I speak. What am I, what am I communicating? Those are good questions to ask. Um, go look through your last, like, ten social media posts, 20 social m media posts, and ask yourself what, what, um, what angle you're coming at.

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But should we speak on these things?

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Let me pretend that what I'm doing is I'm answering your question, not just for you, but for every Christian. That every Christian in the world is going to take my advice. If every christian world takes my advice, my counsel is y'all need to speak a lot more. You need to communicate a lot more on the topics that are relevant of the day. That and you to do so from a solid christian commitment, not from a, I'll only say the things that help my political side, or I'll only say the things that I disagree with, but actually present. I'm an open Christian. The gospel of Christ is open and out there. I'm not doing it to complain. I'm doing it to evangelize. That needs to be out there. But also other commitments, like, um, say, marriage, uh, um, abortion.

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How could I not, as a Christian, speak to me? To not speak about abortion in our day and age is like not speaking about the Holocaust while it was happening. And perhaps you could have done something to influence it a little bit by being open. So as a Christian, to not speak about the issue of worldwide murder of children in the wombs of their mothers is, um, not an option. It's not an option. I don't think how you speak about it is the question.

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I want to invoke the conscience of those around me. I want to wake them up, but I'm not too worried about offending them. Yeah. Anyways, this is a big mess because you can't worry about offending people. You just need to worry about having proper integrity in the way that you talk about things.

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You're going to offend people. Um, that's inevitable.

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Anyways, I don't have my head all wrapped around all that, so I'll just leave my answer there. Do I think God expects us to post about controversial issues on our social media accounts? I think God expects us to not be afraid of controversy when we decide what things are worth talking about. Does that make sense? Do not let controversy fear you. When God called, um, Jeremiah to be a prophet, Jeremiah talked about a whole lot more than just the new covenant, right? It's about Jesus. He talked about a whole lot more than that. He called out all the injustice of their culture. He called out all kinds of corruption, all kinds of immoral behavior that was going on in the society. He called out all that stuff. And it got him all kinds of flack and negative pushback and harsh treatment from those around him. And God KneW this would be a problem. So he tells Jeremiah, in the first chapters of Jeremiah, he tells them, I love this verse. Do not be afraid of their faces.

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Have you guys ever read this Verse?

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Let me share with you.

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Let me see if I can find it. Jeremiah one eight.

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He says right here, Jeremiah, do not be afraid of their faces. For I am with you to deliver you, says the lord. Now, I want you to imagine maybe you've never experienced this. The faces of a whole group of people that are mad at you for what you're saying. And guess what? If you're in Jeremiah's time, you're Jewish, and they're Jewish, and they all are like, yeah, God is the God of. Moses is the only God. We believe in Torah, we believe in all these things, but he's still saying a bunch of stuff that makes him angry. That's not about just that.

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Now, you're not Jeremiah, and I'm not Jeremiah. It's not that God has given me a prophetic message that I'm to go declare. Maybe he's given you one, I don't know, but most, for the most part, none of us are in that exact spot. But I just want to acknowledge, when Jeremiah brought a case to people and spoke on issues, it wasn't just isolated to the new covenant or to, hey, the Bible's true, but that's all I'm going to talk about. He rebuked the cultural slide into sin that he saw, and he did it openly. And it was so conflict bringing that God had to tell him, don't be afraid of the way people look at you. Don't be afraid of the controversy. So that my general thought is this, don't fear the controversy.

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Don't let controversy be the reason why you won't post stuff. Let wisdom for other reasons. If you don't post something, be that. Uh, but there's a huge balance here because you can go overboard with things and you can. But in my view, christians are more likely to be quiet when they should speak than they are to speak when they should be quiet when it comes to controversial issues. Um, I experienced this in my own life. Uh, even people I know, I would post something that is 100% solid. I don't see how anybody could have a problem with it, personally, at least. And there's a lot of christians who would be like, well, I'm not going to like or share that because someone might see that I liked or shared it, and then it might bring me a little bit of heat or, you know, I got friends that aren't going to like it. And we are preserving our own reputations as our, as the people around us are crumbling spiritually. And so there's got to be some sort of balance. Try to do it in love. Whatever you do, season it with. With salt as with grace or with grace as with salt. Ah, how's that. How's that verse? Let's. Let's hear the last verse. I'll say on this, then we'll go to the next question. Um, um, um, um. I probably just searched the wrong term. So this Galatians, where. Whatever you say. Um.

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Oh, here we go. It's colossians. It's Colossians.

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All right. All right. Check it out. Um. Let your speech always be with grace. Season with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. This is especially true in an online community when what you're saying goes out into. You know, we write from our own perspectives. Like, I'm in my head and I just get it out there and I had all these other thoughts surrounding what I wrote. I make this mistake sometimes. And then people read it and they don't have any of those thoughts in their head. They're just reading it from their own perspective. So it creates a lot of confusion. Whenever you write online. Yeah, you're posting on social media, you should be careful to not be misunderstood. This is a good reminder for me, too, because it happens all the time. Um, so be bold and then season it with grace. Be bold and season it with grace. As opposed to be silent because you're afraid of controversy. Maybe that's the short advice. All right, let's go to the next question.

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Number six comes in from ajs three. Who says, given what revelation 27 ten says, what is the probability that Satan will not deceive the nations when he's released from the abyss? Is it zero or greater? If it is zero, does Satan have free will? Okay, this is an interesting question. Uh, some of you are like, what even was that question? So the question is, does I'm going to do it from the back, from the back end? Does Satan have free will? Is the question. And then the example of how to, like, test whether Satan has free will to make real decisions is that there's a statement in scripture about what Satan's going to do in the future. And if we're sure he'll do that, if, like, this is guaranteed prophecy, 100% chance it's going to happen, then does he really have free will? So the example is revelation 20 and verses seven through ten.

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Here it says, now, uh, when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out. He's going to do this. He will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from, uh, from God out of heaven and devour them. Verse ten. The devil who deceived them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.

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So Satan's going to be released. And, uh, I am a futurist in my perspective on revelation here. So I do believe there's people who believe the book of revelation, but interpret it differently. And obviously that creates tension. But I embrace them and they embrace me as a brother in Christ. Um, um, but I. I'm a futurist, so I would say that this is something that's going to happen. Satan will literally be given like this sort of dominion over the earth. He'll be given the ability to use his, whatever his tactics and powers are, and he'll manipulate and deceive the nations to rise up against God. They'll be finally judged and satan's cast into the fire. Now is that going to happen? I would say yes, that's going to happen 100%. So when you say, what's the probability that satan will not do this? I agree with you. It's zero. There's zero chance. That's a big thing to say. It's zero chance that satan will not do this. It's 100% guaranteed. It's going to happen. Now how does that tie into free will?

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This is where we, and this comes up over and over in a hundred different ways.

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Um, and that is that certainty equals necessity. I think it's a mistake we make when we think that if God knows this thing, x is going to happen, then x had to happen. It always had to happen. Um, and therefore free will couldn't exist because satan couldn't choose not x. He couldn't choose not to do that, or I couldn't choose not to do that.

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Prophecy really depends upon God the way we see it in the bible anyways, because there's different versions of prophecy, but the way you see it in the Bible depends on God knowing what's going to happen and then it really happening. And the weight of prophecy, the power of prophecy is part of that, is that people have free wills that they chose to do it and God knew it would happen. And that just makes it that much more powerful. So the, the error, the logical error is equating. I'm going to explain this in a second, guys, but it's equating certainty with necessity. So I can have certainty. I'm certain Satan will do this.

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Does that mean Satan had to do that? There was no choice.

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No, that's not what certainty means.

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God has a higher level of certainty than I do about things because he knows all people, he knows all decisions ahead of time. So what his certainty of what Satan will do is based on is not only that he, God will sovereignly release Satan from the pit for a time, but also he's aware in his omniscience, he's aware of what choices Satan's going to make. He's also aware that even writing about it ahead of time in revelation won't change that. So he's aware of all the decisions that will be made. So his certainty is in part based upon his foreknowledge of what Satan will do. I know what you will choose. So then it doesn't equate necessity. Doesn't mean he had to do that.

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See, whatever Satan would have chosen, God was going to know that, and then he can talk about it ahead of time. Let me give you guys, uh, an example. After I do question ten, I will then pray to. Now I might do a bonus question. I don't know. Maybe. I don't see one. Yeah, I see one queued up for today. Okay, so a little bonus question. So after I do question number ten, and then a bonus question, I will pray and then I will end the stream. You know, I'm going to do that. You have a fairly high degree of certainty that that's the order of events that's going to happen. Does that mean that you're. That I have no choice? Like, I could choose to just answer question five and then turn or six and then turn off the camera and call it a day, but I'm not going to choose that. You can have relatively high degree of certainty or high degree of confidence about what I'm going to do without it controlling what I'm doing. Because your confidence is about my choice. You're confident about my choices. So God knows the decisions of. And this. Of course, some, even christians, will disagree with the way I'm formulating this, but I think the majority of christians around the world would probably agree with it. God knows what you'll do. That doesn't make you do it.

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He is. The certainty is inclusively based upon the foreknowledge of what you're going to do.

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There's more to that, but that's the short.

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That's the short one. Okay, let's go to question number seven. Um, anonymous question here. Romans 124 says, God will give them up to lust in their hearts, to defile their bodies. Can one be forgiven and come back to Christ if one thinks this has happened to them?

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Let's look at, uh, Romans one. And the question is, if you do what romans one talks about, are you forever lost or can you be forgiven at a later time? Let's look at this. And we'll combine it with one corinthians. And you'll go, absolutely, you can. Okay, I'm backing up just a little bit in the text because I think we do need to read more. Um, verse 18, starting in romans 118, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Mendez, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. How has God shown people, everybody, something about him? Well, through creation. For since the creation of the world, I go on.

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His invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead or divinity. Here, that word doesn't mean trinity. Here it means, like, divinity. Divinity, divine nature.

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Um, obviously, the Trinity is true for those who think Godhead always means trinity. Um, I guess I'm in new King James right now. Sometimes it bounces around, uh, at any rate, so that they are without excuse. So creation itself declares that God exists and people are without excuse. And then how do they respond, as Paul talks about sort of the downward fall of humanity over the course of history. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their hearts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. So the first thing they did was they did not acknowledge God. First big mistake. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, while rejecting God is the beginning of folly. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible, corruptible God to an image made like corruptible man and birds and four footed animals and creeping things. Paul's describing idolatry now, isn't he? People who worship creation. This could be physical idolatry. It could also be people who worship nature as if it is God. There's a lot of people who are like, my church is nature.

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Uh, which obviously, when you go out to nature, it screams of God's glory. So it is a spiritual experience to see, um, Zion National park or the grand Canyon or the redwoods or something like that. You go, wow, this is amazing. God is amazing. To just look at an owl flying through the air, yes. But to then turn and worship the creature instead of the creator, that's idolatry. So therefore, God has given them up. God gave them up to uncleanness in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves. Like, you reject God, you end up in sin, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature, rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. But then it gets worse. That's just the first. God gave them up. There's another. God gave them up. Let's put it all together. How bad are these people? Can they be saved for this reason? God gave them up again to vile passions for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. That's lesbianism. Likewise also, the men leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another. Men with men committing what is shameful, receiving in themselves the penalty of their error, which was due. This is, uh, unequivocally a biblical exposing of every kind of homosexual relationship.

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This is. You're giving up the natural relationship between male female. And it is something that is judgment from God that's very offensive and 100% true and needful for our culture. Our culture needs to hear it louder than ever before. Christians don't talk enough about it, to be honest. Um, against the headlines. You hear that christians talk way too much about this now. The world talks too much about it. Christians don't talk about it enough. They. They need to talk it from. Talk about it from a redemptive standpoint, though, which is what this question's about. Can these people be saved? Um. Um. Anyway, he goes on, they. They do even worse things. They do even more stuff. Sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God. All of these things we're reading about in this long list of sins, all of those things, that's the stuff God gives them up to. If these people can't be saved, let's say that the homosexual or lesbian stuff that was just spoken about earlier, that they can't be saved, well, then I can't either, because a lot of these words describe me.

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So, um, then I'm not going to be saved either.

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But then when we combine this, um, I think it's one corinthians six nine, where I want to start.

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This proves that they can be saved. Check this out. Do you not know? The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. Don't be deceived. And it gives a similar list. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, uh, or men who have sex with men, uh, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. They won't be saved. But does that mean they can't be saved? It's one thing to say somebody is currently in a state where they're not going to be saved because their lifestyle reveals that they're in rebellion to God still, and they're not really believing and trusting in Christ. It's something else to say. They can't be saved. Which is your question. Can they be saved? Verse eleven proves they can. And such were some of you.

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You were these things. Homosexual, covetous, drunkard, reviler, extortioner, liardin this and that, and all these horrible sins. You were doing all this stuff. It was you, and you were that, but you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified. In the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. Can they be saved? 1000%? Yes. That's the nature of the gospel, is that sinners can be saved. When christians have to go out and preach against homosexuality, they must also preach against gluttony and all forms of, um, extramarital lust and all kinds of pornography, uh, that is so prevalent in our culture. It's actually when I was young, when I was a kid, pornography was not popularly talked about the way it is now. Our culture needs to be shocked awake, uh, on the nature of sexual sin in all of its categories. Not just homosexuality, but all of its categories.

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This is something that I think, as Christians, we have to do. It's something that drives people to Jesus Christ. They realize their sin, and that's how they realize their need for a savior. But if we for a second think, well, if you commit a certain act of sin, homosexuality, pornography, or whatever, that you can't be saved, that flies in the face of one corinthians six, which says, such were some of you. You used to be these exact things, and you got saved.

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So, yeah, don't count them out. Preach the gospel to them. Let's go to the next question. This is number eight. And it comes. It's also anonymous. Uh, hi, Mike. Can you please explain how you understand revelation 20 211? I was super confused the first time I read this verse. Okay, revelation 20 111.

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I'm, um, going to back up a little bit so people know what we're talking about. The city, the new Jerusalem. Okay, so, uh, then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, come, I will show you the bride, the lamb's wife. Okay, that's how this section starts. We're looking at the bride, the lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem. And this is important, descending out of heaven from God. Okay? This is not the earthly Jerusalem. This is some sort of heavenly Jerusalem. It corresponds to Jerusalem, but it's different. It's better. It's coming down from heaven, this city. But it's like Jerusalem. How is it like Jerusalem? Well, Jerusalem was where the temple was. It was the meeting place of man and God. It was the place of God's protection and God's provision. It represents the promised land. It represents all these things that are elevated and deepened when you come to the new covenant in Christ. And you realize you get to come right into the presence of God, right into his very holy of holies. You're indwelt by the spirit, all these things. So this new Jerusalem is a vision of the consummation of the final kingdom of God arriving to the earth. But the Jerusalem is not just here's earthly Jerusalem. Let's modify it. The vision that he gets is this city being lowered out of heaven, meaning it's heavenly in origin. There's something unearthly about it. Um, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a Jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also, she had a great and high wall with twelve gates and twelve angels at the gates. And the names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. Three gates. I'm going to read some more of this for us to get more details. Three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south and three gates on the west. So, um, it's jewish in nature, because the promises to Abraham are still the foundation of the gospel that God's promised to Abraham. And God has not cast off his people. And, um, you know. Yeah. So this is not replacement theology, really. Um, nor is it a theology that says, um, if you're ethnically jewish, you're in God's eternal kingdom because you must have faith in Christ. So now, the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles. Okay, so, yes, it's got the tribes of Israel, but also the names of the apostles. And so it's the old and the new brought together. It's the coming together of all of the work of God in the old and, uh, new testament, the old and, uh, new covenant brought together.

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And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates and its walls.

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Its wall. Um, and then he measures it. The city is laid out as a square. Its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed 12,000 furlongs. Its length and breadth and height are equal. Let, uh, me switch to the ESV, just because youll get a measurement thats easier for you to understand.

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Never, um, mind. You wont. 12,000 stadia.

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Um, okay, well, theyre not going to give it to you here about 1400 miles.

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All right, let's go back to new King James for consistency today. Then he measured it. Okay, so, um, the wall, 144 cubits, and you can get into all the details of the numbers and numerology that's there and try to guess at that and talk about it, but we go on. Uh, there's all of these beautiful descriptions of the wall, beautiful stones. Now, I won't read all of these, but all these stones, Jasper and Sapphire, Sardonyx and stuff, they hearken back to Ezekiel, I think, and his vision of heaven when he sees all these stones and different colored stones as sort of the makeup of heaven. Is that meant to be literal? I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is the new Jerusalem is heavenly. It's coming down to earth, out of heaven, but it's like heaven meeting the earth. That's this new Jerusalem, heaven meeting the earth. When God recreates the world after the final judgment of all things, he makes a new heaven and a new earth. But then heaven sort of comes down to earth, permanently dwells there, so that God and man are finally joined. Just as Jesus is God in human form, so that Jerusalem is where God and man finally permanently meet. No barriers, no curtains, no walls, no gentile outer court.

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Uh, no, um, shield to keep you from the holy of holies, no guarding from the presence of God, like in the Old Testament. M like when Moses got the law. No mountain, just burning that you can't touch, don't draw near or God will judge you. No, no. This is heaven and earth joining.

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So all these stones, it's kind of one of the things I think is true about the stones. So you could read it, and then God himself is the light. You get this? This is about. It doesn't say there is no sun. It says there's no need of sun. A lot of people say there won't be a sun. I don't think that's true. They say there won't be the moon. No, it just says there's no need of sun or moon. This particular city. But the greater earth seems like it does have a sun and moon. Uh oh. Something's wrong. Just a sec.

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Uh, so that was a really good study. Your question was chapter 22, and I went to chapter 21.

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You guys got a free little trip to the new Jerusalem. Um, okay, well, I'm totally embarrassed I did that wrong. But let's go to. I'll just. I'll just end it right there. This city is amazing. 20 211. What is that question about? Will I even have an answer? Let's see.

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Okay, I'll read it again. Start over. All right. Boom, boom. Okay, question number eight.

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Can you please explain how you understand revelation 22, verse eleven? I was super confused the first time I read this verse. Okay. 20 211. He who is unjust, let him be unjust still, he who's filthy, let him be filthy still, he who's righteous, let him be righteous still, he who's holy, let him be holy still.

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Okay. Much shorter answer than I was giving before. Um, as I understand it, um, there's a sense in which it's speaking of permanence. It's speaking of a permanence. Make sure that this is all right since I got that one thing wrong.

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Yep.

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There's a permanence in the fate of humankind as they approach the consummation towards the end of revelation. Just, um, like there is in your own death when you die. Like your fate has been decided. Like, if you are unjust, you will be unjust still. If you are filthy, you will be filthy still. If you are righteous, you will be righteous still. You'll be righteous in Christ. Of course, if you're holy, you'll be holy still. There's a sense of permanence, non transition between heaven and hell, non transition in the afterlife. I think that this is what this is alluding to when it talks about this here at the very end of revelation, here at the consummation of all times. Yep, your fate has been decided.

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Did you trust in Christ? Did you turn from sin and trust in Jesus? Because there's a ticking clock on all of us, and the clock is running out. And you only have so much time to give your faith and your life, uh, to repent and trust in Christ. There's the short answer on that one. Sorry, buddy. Okay, let's go to the next question. This is number nine.

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Ben Harvey says, hey, Mike, is love God's chief trait or just one of them? Is it right to call all he does that is punishing sin an act of love? Or are some things done in keeping with his holiness, justice, etcetera?

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So there's a couple different ways to answer this, and I wouldn't bind a Christian to it. Let me say that I think a Christian could answer one way or another way, and they can still be safely within the realm of, like, orthodox biblical thinking. I'll share with you how I answer this question, and I'll offer some validation with scripture. So I would answer this by saying, love, um, is definitely a unique, different than some other traits God has given, because God simply is described as God is love, um. So it's not just that he's loving, but he's described as being love. That's pretty intense to describe him as love itself.

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We also get this, though, with holiness, God is described as he's just is holy. And I don't know if the grammar really plays all that out to the extent that I'm implying, but we know that everything God does is holy. And we also know that God is described as just simply is love. I'm inclined to think that even when God judges sin, he is bringing an act of love. And this is something I think the more progressive theology side of things does not understand, will not understand, usually almost refuses to understand, um, because they have an inaccurate definition of what love is. And they also, when they say God is love, they're thinking, God loves me.

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And those are two different claims. God is love is not. God loves me because there is more than one thing that God loves, and it's not just you. He also loves holiness. He also loves himself. The father loves the son, the son loves the father. And this mutual love that's there, it's not just that God loves you. So that hell would be in contradiction with God's love. Because I love you, I would never do something that would harm you and that's harmful to you. But God loves more than just that. He loves himself. And guess what? His love for himself is good and right and proper. God's self love is something that I think is itself good and holy and appropriate.

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And someone might say, well, that seems kind of like, contrary to love yourself and call that love. The Bible assumes you love yourself. Now, your self love can lead you into, um, despising others, hating others, disregarding them, not caring for them. And that's absolutely true. God doesn't do that. He certainly cares for and loves his creatures and his creation.

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But the nature of the trinity, this is kind of cool. The doctrine of the Trinity helps, uh, secure my understanding of this. The father, the Son, and the spirit. There is this tri personal nature of God, such that when God loves himself, there's a sense in which he's loving another. The father's loving the Son, the Son's loving the spirit. So there's this otherness to the love that God has within himself. Words fail me to explain this in the best way. Maybe if I sat and really thought about how to say it. I'd do it better, but that to me, entails, like, almost a selflessness within the love of God for himself. It's an interesting thing. Um, now, how does that relate to hell, judgment, punishment of sin? It's just that God loves more than one thing. Uh, Jesus kind of gets at this a little bit when he says, if any man will come after me, he must hate his father and mother.

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But yet Jesus himself tells you that the greatest command is love goddess first. Then love your neighbor as yourself second. Love God, love people, but in that order. When does my love for people allow me to do things that they will interpret as hate?

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When it's in conflict with my love for God.

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Um, I'll give you an example.

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You're with your group of friends, and you're in junior high, and they all go and they cheat on a test. They steal something from the office, they do something in school that's wrong, and you feel that you should say something. And now your loves are conflicted. I love my friends. I care about my friends, but I feel like I should say something because I care about the people they have just hurt, the people they have just defrauded, the people they've just stolen from. And if I say something, they will interpret it as hate. And there's a sense in which they will realize I'm choosing other people over them because they're morally wrong here. And if I don't say anything, I'm helping with them to betray these other people I should be caring about and loving so that life creates conflicting scenarios. This is why Jesus has loved God first and foremost. Love your neighbor as yourself, secondary. There is an order to these loves.

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Um, hate your father. Mother is actually. You're called to love your parents. He's speaking about specific scenarios where, like, let's say your mom says you're not a Christian. We're. We're. We're a. We're a traditional jewish family. You, you cannot follow Jesus. He cannot be the most m the one who you say is the messiah. Um, you're ruining our family. You're messing us. Say you're Muslim, same thing, but probably more violent or potentially more violent. Um, realistically, let's be honest, you're converting to Christianity. No, we're Muslims. You are defrauding and you're bringing shame to our whole family. Through this, you're hating your family. You're causing your father a heart attack.

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This is where I say I will love Jesus, even if it's seen as hate to you. God loves himself. He loves holiness. He loves you, but you are not God. You are not the top of the list. Does that make sense?

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That's how I would interpret and understand. I'm trying to put it in as sort of like, blunt terms as possible to make it clear. I'll, uh, read your question again.

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Um, is love God's chief trait or just one of them? Um, I don't know if I would call it his end of the day, the chief trait, but it's among his chief traits, you might say. Um, it seems like a different quality to me than omnipresence.

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Um, but there are some people who simply just have one trait for God, and they just like greatness. God is great, and so greatness entails love, entails holiness, entails all those things, or the greatest conceivable being and stuff like that. Some of this stuff goes a little over my head, or maybe it's going over other people's heads and they don't notice it. I don't know. I couldn't tell you which one. Um, I don't want to make theology based off things like that, though. It's interesting to think about. So is it right to call all he does, including punishing sin, an act of love? I think so. Love. Uh, let's go to the love chapter in one corinthians 13, and we'll talk a little bit about this. Um, love suffers long and is kind. It does not envy, it does not parade itself, is not puffed up, it does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth. Okay, well, that's a thing about love that we just do not have in our society. When we think about love.

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If, um, punishing sin is not consistent with love, then it's not this version of love, right? Because love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in truth.

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What you did was wrong. What you did was sinful. A parent punishing, even chastening their kids, which is different than how, admittedly. But in this example, a parent punishing their kids is an act of love. And not tolerating the sin that they're doing is an act of love.

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But then there's the people that they've hurt. There's the people that you've wounded. There's the sins that you've done against things. God loves people. God loves. Like when Jesus threatens and says, hey, you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it'll be better for you if a millstone was hung around your neck. Because guess what? Yeah, I love you. But you made your choices. And I also love the one you hurt. And so punishment's coming. I think that's totally consistent with love.

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Others would maybe parse that out differently. So just my food for thought.

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Question, uh, number ten.

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Gicker. Uh, Mancini. I don't know how to pronounce that name. What are your thoughts on listening to recorded sermons, specifically praying along with recorded prayers. How exactly does that work? I listen to you mostly after the fact. It feels odd. Hey, I get it. If you don't want to pray along with me when I'm praying and it's recorded, which most people watch. Most people don't watch live. Most people watch afterwards. Don't. That's fine. Turn off the video, click away, listen. Uh, and don't pray. That's fine. But there's nothing wrong with recorded prayers inherently. And I can prove this in scripture because we have many recorded prayers in scripture that are not just recorded. Like, Moses prayed this and you're to learn from it, but they're actually recorded that. You might pray similar prayers. Look at the book of psalms. There's a lot of. This is written in a way that you're supposed to be able to echo these same prayers yourself. Maybe you slightly alter it for your. For your situation. But we also have Jesus himself in the same passage. You guys know this, in a sermon on the mount, in the same passage, where he warns against vain repetition. Don't pray with vain repetition. He also gives the Lord's prayer and he goes, pray like this. And he gives you a literal, a literal, verbatim prayer that you can pray. Now, I believe this lord's prayer. Share a few things real quick. You can pray it verbatim, totally approved by God, as long as you don't use vain repetition, empty repetition, which many people do. But as long as you don't do that, this is a great prayer, standardized prayer. You can also take the principles in the Lord's prayer, like our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. So the first thing I do is, I'm bringing glory to God. I'm acknowledging God in my prayer. I'm honoring him. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Um, my prayer priorities are God's kingdom and God's will, not my own. This is against some in the hyper charismatic movement whose major priority is getting their own will done in prayer. Guys like, I say this because they're so influential now, like Bill Johnson, who teach, you can lead God, in your prayers, you can actually direct, you can lead God so that you get him to do something he didn't have planned to do in the first place. He didn't want to do, so to speak, in the first place. Um, so that you can prompt God. You're not. And he'll say he'll never pray. Your will be done, not mine. Even though Jesus prayed that, even though it's part of the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done. So these are principles that can guide our prayers. You can pray it that way, but you can also pray it based on your question verbatim. This is a pre written, pre planned prayer, and you're going to pray it and mean it.

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My own personal encouragement to people would be, um, uh, a recorded prayer.

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When you see a recorded prayer of me, I am not praying anymore. I already did that. Okay? Playing the recording does not make me pray again.

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But if you pray along with it and you're in your, in genuine agreement, you're praying in that moment, but I'm not. Okay? So playing my prayers isn't going to do anything. You have to be praying yourself. Um, reading Jesus's prayers doesn't make him, uh, pray it again. But you can echo a prayer that you see in scripture, but you must do it in genuineness. And there's a couple cautions there. One is that you don't just nod and you're not even listening. You're not even thinking. You're just kind of doing a ritual of, like, I'm doing a nodding ritual of prayer and I go, amen. I have no idea what was just said. That's vain. That's prayer and vanity. Another problem is that when you, when you're reading somebody else's prayer or you're listening to maybe me pray or someone else pray, is that they may go somewhere you don't want to go, so they may say something you do not agree with. And this, of course, can happen in church, and I'm sure it's happened to all of us at one point or another. Someone prays and you think, I am not in agreement with that. The, uh, Lord knows your heart, okay? And if it's really bad, maybe you say something, but for the most part, if something like that happens, you just are like, uh, I don't agree with that part. Lord, I'm not praying. You don't have to say it out loud. God knows your heart. You just acknowledge what you agree with, or you pray your own thing.

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If you feel weird listening to recorded prayer and praying along, that's totally fine. There's no obligation that you have to do it. This is something that's ultimately up to you. Um, but I would say just make sure that you are praying in your life. And the last encouragement I give is, guys, if the only thing you do is recorded prayers, if all you do is pre written prayers, every time you go to pray for a meal, you're literally quoting the same exact prayer. Every time you go to pray for something, it's just a recorded prayer, a pre written prayer. Um, that is not healthy long term spiritually for you. I'm not saying that it's vain repetition. It might be, it may be, it's very possible, but it might not be.

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But to lack spontaneous prayer as a potential thing in your life is not healthy in your relationship with God. Like, you need to have regular, spontaneous prayers as well. So please incorporate that, too. My encouragement. Now, where's my biblical foundation for saying that? Well, the Bible has both. It has written prayers and it also has a bunch of spontaneous prayers. Or people are just praying in the moment, the thing that they're worried about and thinking about. There's times where these prayers seem well crafted. Right? Like Daniel's prayer in the book of Daniel, where he cries out in repentance for him and his nation, it seems crafted. It seems like this was like, either he was really smart and he was like, man, you just, whoa, that guy prays like these really elaborate, careful, thoughtful.

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Um, or he literally crafted it. Like, he literally sat there and thought about, like, how am I going to pray this? How am I going to pray this? And he thought deeply about this prayer. Either one's fine, but there's other times where it's just clearly, um, totally spontaneous. Like, just, this is what I'm calling out to God for help. And I'm just saying the thing that I'm thinking in an honorable and reverent way towards God. And so I think we should do. We can do both.

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And don't think all pre written prayers are vain repetitions, because Jesus didn't say avoid repetition. He said, avoid vain repetition. It's ironic to think I cannot pray a prayer somebody else planned for me, but I will sing a worship song, which is effectively a sung prayer that somebody else wrote for me.

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They're no different. One just has music, so they're all fine. Just. Just don't do it in vanity. Okay, this is a bonus question before we close for today, so bonus dad joke. I have not read this yet. Um, brought to you by Joshua Klein, who says, hi, Mike. In Genesis four eight, Cain killed his brother. I feel like it was because he was able.

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Your thoughts?

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There you go. There you go. Cain killed him because why did he come? Because he was able. Because why not? Um. That's an interesting dad joke.

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I like when I found earlier her recently. I can't believe I haven't heard this before in my life, but it was funny. It was, um. Let me get it right. Um.

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Why does Ruthen feel so bitter towards Joshua? Why does Ruth feel so bitter towards Joshua? In the Bible, they go, huh? Why? Well, because Joshua judges Ruth.

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Bad. Um.

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It's so cheesy. It's so bad that it makes it good. All right, y'all. Um. Um. That's it. Let me, uh. Speaking of prayers, let me, uh, uh. Let me pray. Uh, uh. Lord, we ask for your wisdom in dealing with our culture. Help us to know what it means to be an engaged Christian, engaged with society, but nothing.

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Not becoming, um, polarized the way society is, but also not just trying to find the middle and act like christians are just in the middle of whatever extremes we see. Rather, we pray we could learn to bring our christian worldview consistently into our culture with us in a way that does not gut it of the gospel of Christ or of the urgency of the need for salvation and evangelism. We pray that you would help us to be true christians in our culture.

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We ask that you help us to live out our christian commitments in every possible way and that we would also be, um, along with boldness and courage, that we would be able to season our speech with grace. Let us find this balance, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.

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Amen. Thank you guys for joining. Um, I was kind of worried that the stream would be censored given YouTube's typical, um, treatment right now. Google's typical treatment right now, they're, like, clearly censoring Trump related content, so I didn't know if that would happen, but I thought this was relevant to talk about cultural Christianity. Hope you found it helpful. And I will see you guys Monday. Because Monday I'm starting the Hebrews series. Finally, it's coming. The book of Hebrews, verse by verse. Monday will be a tour through the entire book of Hebrews, all 13 chapters, not verse by verse, just going through, like, overview. Then I'll start verse by verse, going through the entire book over the next number of months. It won't be every Monday, it'll be whenever. I have a video prepared. That Monday, we'll have a video. At least that's the plan. We'll see how it goes. So, yeah. Hebrews is coming. Finally. All right. That's all I got to say.

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Close.