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All right, first question for today. The question is, uh, why do I, Mike Winger, say that atheists tend to be gullible? And, um, I don't mean this to be like a personal attack, okay? This is about atheism as a belief having an effect on other things that you believe. That's what it's about. It's not a personal attack. Um, I have biases, too. Christians have biases. I certainly do. Um, I can be gullible. Religious people can be gullible. That. But I would not say that religion inherently makes people gullible, or I do think that that is true of atheism. Atheism seems to make people more gullible. So I'm going to give you guys a number of reasons why I think that, like, a bunch of examples that I would at least say should at least make you wonder, hey, is this atheism, like, having a negative impact on my ability to reason about certain issues?

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So atheists are not different kinds of people. I'm not saying that. I got to throw out the qualifier here. They're not different kinds of people as in gullible people become atheists, and so therefore, atheists. Atheists are gullible. Nor am I saying they're less intelligent. This is not about iq.

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No. In fact, gullibility or bias. Another way to put it, bias is nothing, um, removed by higher iqs. So they're unrelated issues.

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What I am saying is that atheism makes you more biased or more gullible. So let me give you a few, a bunch of examples I'm going to give you, run through a bunch of them. Um, this is the first question in today's ten question stream. I take questions from you guys, from the live chat and try to give you biblical answers and help you learn to think biblically about everything. And that's what we do pretty much every Friday here on this YouTube channel or podcast or wherever it is you're listening to or watching this. Okay. The first, probably most glaring area that I think shows the inherent bias that impacts not every single atheist, but a lot of atheists, a, uh, significant number of those that I've interacted with over many, many years. Before I was even doing stuff online, I was interacting with atheists quite a bit.

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The. The first thing that shows this bias is the mythicist movement. Uh, that's, that's a name for a group of people who believe that Jesus never existed, that he simply never existed. Uh, now, perhaps there was, I've heard them say this. Uh, you know, I don't discount that there was some first century guy named Jesus, or Yeshua, a jewish guy. Of course there was. It was extremely common name. That's not what anybody means when they say Jesus existed. Of course there is, however, a significant, like, massive movement of atheists who say Jesus never existed.

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The thing, uh, that this does, it exposes bias, because nobody believes this in history. Okay? Historians other than like Richard Carrier, who's like kind of a pariah on this topic in that field, or a couple other guys you can name, no teaching professor who's respected is going to be teaching that Jesus never existed. This is considered among historians the idea that Jesus didn't exist. It's considered a flat earth type belief. The level of respect that is given to it is that low.

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I say this because it's popular. It's sustained. Mythicism is sustained by atheism. Atheists push it forward. They sort of create the movement of mythicists, of people saying Jesus never existed. Surely there's some other religious people who would say that. But mostly it's atheists, from my experience, to have a niche of obviously false, totally disrespected belief that is driven by your movement, that's not a good sign about bias and about those types of things. That's the Jesus never existed thing. I'm gonna give you a bunch of examples, though. Um, the idea that the Bible has been changed so much, uh, this is a consistent belief among many atheists. Uh, they are probably more likely, more likely to believe this than a religious person of just about any religion, I'd imagine. From my experience. Anyways, call it anecdotal if you want. Tell me if you think it's wrong. But the general belief is that the Bible has been changed so, so much it's been altered. The text that you have in front of you today when you open the Bible is really so unlike what was originally written that you just simply. You have no idea what was originally written. This is something that I've encountered quite a lot. Uh, Bart Ehrman, who is also an atheist, uh, sometimes he calls himself agnostic, depending on it. He makes it a complicated issue, but he calls himself both in different situations.

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Bart, uh, Ehrmandhe is one of the people who, people look to, who's established this belief among atheists, that the Bible is basically copies of copies of copies that have been changed and edited and altered over time. Especially he focuses on the New Testament.

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Um, that's not reasonable to say those things. In fact, copies of copies of copies of copies is not exactly true, really, it's more like this. We have the original autographs, then we have many copies made. Many. Not a copy of a copy, but many copies made. And then we compare those copies, you know, and some of them are copies of copies, but we can compare these and school them and, you know, put them in schools. Here's a one class of copies. Here's another class of copies. Then we can determine what the original very, very, very likely said to extremely high degree of confidence. And Bart Airman was asked one time in an interview, get the atheists believe this very frequently online, the ones I've interacted with. Um, he was asked once in an interview, you know, what would your version of the New Testament look like? If you were to say what you think it originally had written in those books of the New Testament, what would it look like? And he just responded to the interviewer. I think the interviewer was shocked to hear this. He goes, oh, it'd pretty much be the same as the New Testament you've got in front of you now.

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Because there's just a type of bias that's skewing your ability to reason about these issues thoughtfully. I think that that's the case. And I say this because I think atheists tend to think of themselves as the least biased people. I think most religious people will be like, yeah, I've got biases. Religious. I have a bias. Yeah, but I think atheists tend to say I'm not biased because I'm atheist. And that that large, uh, bias with low bias awareness creates gullibility. And that's what I'm talking about today. Stephen, uh, Hawking, a great example, an atheist who is absolutely brilliant. Much better mind than me, Stephen Hawking, in so many ways. You know, physicist. You guys know who Stephen Hawking is? He in his one, I think it was his last book that he wrote. He said in the intro, philosophy is dead. This is what he said, philosophy is dead. And he's basically writing. He's doing physics work, but he's trying to bend his conclusions towards the conclusion that God does not exist. So he's doing scientific work, trying to derive a philosophical conclusion. And because he felt, see if you can follow me here. He felt that he had confidently concluded through science that there is a, uh, full explanation for everything, including the origin of the universe and black holes or whatever it is. He's gone through different theories over time and they've kind of been shot down over time. And he then concludes, okay, because of my science, God doesn't exist. Therefore philosophy is dead. He, in the book opened by saying, philosophy is dead. He was reamed by philosophers, even atheists, even skeptics. Um, they reamed his work on this topic. He didn't even know he was doing philosophy. That is Stephen Hawking. Brilliant mind. Brilliant mind. Didn't even know that when he said, philosophy's dead, he was doing philosophy. That when he said, therefore, God does not exist, that he was doing philosophy. It's that lack of awareness that even a brilliant mind can have that I want to put on display here. Um, there's a bunch of other beliefs that atheists tend to have that I would like to highlight, and I hope atheists listening. I know I have some atheists who will watch my content. And, you know, I don't mean this personally. I think your atheism is wrong, and I think it's harming you. Okay, so why wouldn't I talk to you about it? And, you know, if you are unbiased, then you certainly wouldn't mind listening to a potential critique. Right? So skepticism is safe. This is a belief that often people have, uh, underlying a lot of other things that they believe that skepticism in general is like a safe perspective. Like, I'm just gonna not believe things that don't fit in my current worldview inherently. I'll assume that those things are false. Um, this can cause weird stuff like the discounting of historians, physicists, um, scientists, philosophers who are christian. So if they're religious or if they're christian in particular, let's be honest, atheism usually targets Christianity, not other religions, at least in the western world.

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The trust for, um, atheist scholars and atheist, you know, people who were echo being your echo chamber, that's very high. The trust for anybody who's a Christian is really low. So I remember posting historians, uh, and their evidence for the existence of Jesus, and specifically for support for the historicity of the resurrection. Sharing this stuff online, and one prominent atheist I want to. Who, um, they went through line by line, all of the historians I quoted, and any of them that were religious, even ones that were like, you would consider them apostate religious, that is, they say they're religious, but they deny the core beliefs of those religions. So they're not, you know, they're just kind of like playing a game.

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They looked and found anybody who had a quote or historical evidence they'd offer for Jesus, and if they were religious in any regard, they just sweep them aside. Well, those are, those are religious scholars. They don't count. And show me skeptics and atheists who support the resurrection of Jesus.

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That idea that I'm only going to take information from one pool of thought, that is not wisdom, that is not being unbiased, that is not being less than gullible. In that case, I, even as a Christian, I consider what an atheist philosopher says or what a non believer, what a muslim scholar might say on a topic. And we should consider those things and not just discount them because of their religion. There's. Oh, sorry, I don't want to push that button yet. We got a ways to go. Okay, so my own personal experience on this. I remember hearing from atheists very confidently that Jesus was a myth based upon the dying and rising gods of other religions. And I started getting this sense, okay, I'm in California. There's a plenty of. I mean, basically you're. You're a lot more popular here if you can say you're not religious or you're, you're not that kind of Christian. Like, you're not a serious Christian. You know, you want to be like, don't worry, guys, I'm a californian Christian. You want to be able to say that here. I don't want to say that, but that's. There's a temptation, um, or to just be a skeptic, unbeliever, um, that kind of thing. That that's more of the vibe that I get when I'm not at church, obviously, but in social circles at, ah, jobs, things like that. Well, in my own experience, I'd heard about this dying and rising God thing. And I know I'm in this culture and I'm much younger, like 19 years old, something like that. Hear about these dying and rising gods? Oh, yeah. There's basically this slew of dying and rising gods throughout history. Mithra, dying and rising God. Osiris, dying and rising God. All these dying and rising gods. And I know people who decided they didn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus because they overheard that there was all these dying and rising gods before Jesus, and Jesus was just a copy of them.

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None of them saw any evidence. They just heard that it was the case.

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That was a gullibility. When I finally looked into it, I found out that there were not these myths of these dying and rising gods. There's no real true parallels to Jesus before the time of Jesus. You know, the mystery religions and mystery cults that do start to do a little bit of this stuff, they seem to do it after Christianity, as in they're copying christians because Christianity is growing and they're adapting their religion to suit this popular thing that's just started. Um, that's more the case. So, in my own faith, there was a time where I was, like, wavering slightly, like, do I really? Because I'd overheard a skeptical claim about Jesus with no evidence to support it and just assumed it was true.

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And then when I looked into it, I was like, oh, you can be gullible both ways. You can be gullible believing religious claims without any evidence or support, and you can be gullible believing skeptical or atheist claims as well, in the same fashion.

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Other, uh, global atheism that I would point out would be, um, the idea that we'll have a rational utopia without religion.

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That we'd have a rational utopia without religion. Sam Harris, famous atheist, has said that if he had a magic wand where he could, you know, swing it and get rid of all r a p e, or he could get rid of all religion.

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He would get rid of religion because he thought it would improve society so much if just religion was just gone.

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This is a stubborn belief amongst many atheists today. I think it's starting to waver a little bit because there's something going on in our culture right now where people are starting to wake up a little bit more to this. But we didn't need to wake up. Like, we could have just paid attention to even our recent past. And you could look at pol Pot, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong. Um, atheists usually just ignore these guys like they didn't happen. Well, that didn't happen. That just doesn't mean anything. Or they just genuinely ignore the idea that atheism does have social effects and impacts on the way people behave. They do act differently if they're atheists, some of them will live pretty moral lives and others will not. And it's going to change a society if you get rid of all religion. The song imagine is just not realistic. It's. You can imagine it's going to be in your imagination. There's a belief that religion is the cause of all wars, or the vast majority of wars. That is not true. I've got a video down in the or, excuse me, an article in the video, uh, description or the podcast description below for you guys to check out. Religion is not the cause of all wars or most wars. They're not. This is. This is simply not true. And Christianity is not the cause of all the bloodshed that you can think of and all the harm. And if only we had rational atheists, we would have been fine. This is a myth without actual evidential support.

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Others would say, um, that atheism is not a worldview. And okay, that's partially true. Atheism is not a worldview, totally. But it certainly impacts your worldview.

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There, uh, are those who say atheists, they just don't believe in God, but they have no other intellectual commitments whatsoever.

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Like as if one thing doesn't draw from the other. So there are some consequences. And some atheists, and let me say, a lot of atheists recognize this and do go down this road. So on one hand, they'll say, well, there's no, there's no intellectual commitments other than not believing in God. But there's plenty of people who will then go on to say, I deny moral realism. They, uh, don't believe that there's anything truly wrong, morally, objectively wrong with you, whether you like it or not, whether you prefer it or nothing, right? If the whole world thought it was okay to just beat up little children for fun, it would still be wrong, right? That's moral realism. Um, but plenty of atheists, over, over time, they embrace atheism. Then they slowly get rid of moral realism, and they start trying to find other reasons to try to do stuff that they used to say was moral. And they kind of live in contradictory lives most of the time, or they'll deny free will. Plenty of atheists actually deny free will because of their atheism. They do it right, because atheism leads to a naturalism in their view of reality. M probably majority of atheists are naturalists because of that. So it's a worldview, consequence of their belief. So they end up denying free will, because if you're just a meat machine, electrons and protons, and you get neurons in your brain and you got things firing that are simply outside of your ultimate control, you have no free will. Then they go further and they deny consciousness and self. Self doesn't exist. So self's an illusion, morals are an illusion, and free will is an illusion. Daniel Dennett, famous atheist philosopher, has said, rather famously, consciousness is a delusion. Self is a delusion. Of course, someone has to be having a delusion. You have to ask him, um, who's having this delusion? And he's brilliant. The guy's smarter than me. That doesn't make him, um, not gullible or unbiased. His atheism is leading to a series of other beliefs that's causing him to deny, obviously, facts of reality. Morals are real. Free will is real yourself. Your consciousness is so real, how can you deny it? Atheism made you deny it, atheism got you to deny morality, got you to deny free will and consciousness, self even.

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It's a gullibility that's produced because of atheism. It's a rational like outgrowth of denying something very, very true about goddess. And you have to deny things that are very true about reality other than God, things that derive from God.

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Or you can acknowledge those things as real. You say, well, I'm an atheist, but I believe in moral realism. And you're not playing games with the words objective and subjective. Uh, let's be honest, a lot of people do. Uh, Sam Harris plays games with objective and subjective to dodge this issue. Uh, try to figure out what he believes, watch him talk about morality and be like, wait, wait. But what does he believe, though? You probably won't even understand him, um, to be honest, because of this games you play.

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But you can acknowledge them as real. Uh, but then you'll struggle with explaining how they don't point to God. And so people often just end up rejecting them. Here's another example. Atheism makes you gullible. I do believe this is a truth, and I think it's helping atheists to tell you this. Right, I'm m being your friend by calling you out. This is the book of the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins has created an awful lot of atheists. Um, moreover, many, many, many atheists today, they're echoing his stuff, right? His same beliefs, his same teachings, the things he's been saying for his entire life, they're echoing those same things today, whether they acknowledge that it comes from Richard Dawkins or not. He wrote this book, the God delusion converted a lot of people to atheism. Um, you know, England is significantly against religion, um, in a lot of ways, it's so much atheism going on there, and it's paved the path for the destruction of their culture. Right now, it's in a very bad way it's going on. Even Richard Dawkins himself has recently said he laments the decline of christian culture, but he's radically contributed to it. Of course, um, I just don't think he thought he'd have an atheist utopia and it didn't work. And now he's like, uh oh, uh oh, we're just going to get an islamic subjugation instead of an atheist utopia. But the God delusion has one central argument in the book that is to say, this is why God doesn't exist, why you should say, almost certainly there is no goddess. What is his central argument. You're, like, eager to find out.

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It's who designed the designer.

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His central argument in his book is who made God?

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This argument who made God? Is a classically bad argument against God. Like, classically bad. Like, talk to. Please talk to somebody, philosopher somebody. God has no designer because he is a necessary being. So when you say, who made God? You simply divert this to a discussion of the nature of. Of God in concept. What is God? Right? He's a necessary being. There's a doctrine called divine as sadie. God simply exists. He is eternal. He's uncreated, and so he doesn't. This is why he's a classically. A good stopping point for the causing of all the stuff we see in the world today and the designing of it as well. Because he doesn't need a designer. He doesn't need a creator. He is necessary. It's his ontological quality. Okay? That's part of the nature of just what God is. But he just says, uh, who designed the designer? And, like, this is, like, the trump card to say, almost certainly there is no God. Why? Because who made God?

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You got to be some kind of gullible to believe that this is a good argument against God, especially now if you're like an eight year old. I get it. Maybe you think it's a good argument against God, right? If you have the reasoning abilities of my cat. Oh, I can't hold on. Let me show you my cat.

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There she is. If you have the reasoning abilities of micah right here, you don't know.

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Hey, show them your face. No. All right, never mind.

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You know, that's a good argument. But if you're, like, an intelligent person writing a book on why you say God does not exist, and you're handling, like, Thomas Aquinas and his arguments, and you're talking about the ontological argument and stuff, and you say, who made God? That's some kind of, like, gullibility and bias that's in there now, uh, William Lane Craig Annihilates Richard Dawkins book, the God Delusion, and he does it in a video. I have a link down below. You guys can check that out. It's like a two hour takedown of just systematically through the book. It will remove some of the gullibility that maybe has hit you if you thought that these were good arguments against God. You know, he handles Thomas Aquinas five ways. He handles the first three of Thomas Aquinas five ways. These are philosophical arguments for God's existence with, like, two sentences. He's like this dismisses him. That's a kind of gullibility that he has that has, is a result of, I believe, his atheism.

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He'll, um, also say something like, God can't be used to explain the universe because your explanation has to be simpler than the thing you're explaining. The universe is complicated. But according to Dawkins, God is even more complex than the universe. Now, there's two huge flaws in this, right? One, God's not more complex than the universe unless you have some weird way of describing complexity. Maybe, uh, he's thinking God's thoughts are complex, so therefore God is complex, but the thoughts and the being are different things. Uh, but second, of course, something more complex can explain something less complex. That happens all the time. You know, this cell phone I got is extremely complex, but it was made by things, humans, who are even more complex than the cell phone itself. That's just the standard way that the world happens. Like, there's, there's, he's just making up rules and calling it philosophy. That's just being gullible.

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Richard Dawkins has been asked what started the universe? And he just says, we're not qualified to ask that question. Don't ask. It's a silly question.

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That's just gullibility and bias. Um, obviously it's important question. Oh, there's so many. I have, I've live like maybe nine or ten other examples I could give you guys. Let me just run through a couple of them. I'll scan through. What are some good ones?

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Um.

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Oh, here's a fun one. If you're interested in debates, go watch. Christopher. Uh, Hitchens versus William Lane Craig. Interesting debate. If you're into debates, if you're not into debates, don't watch it to waste your time. If you're not into debates, debates are only good for certain kinds of people that are able to work through that stuff and enjoy kind of like thinking through it. What's interesting is Hitchens, who is a brilliant guy. He puts on sarcasm and incredible wit and, and british humor, but he offers no significant arguments, no real significant pushback against William Lynne Craig's arguments. The logical, the rational arguments. Here's why, here's why, here's why you should believe in God. Hitchens doesn't actually say, and here's why that fails. And here's specifically like the why the logic breaks down. He mostly just mocks and ridicules. At one point, um, William Lane Craig gives a wonderful recounting of some good evidence for believing in God. And Christopher Hitchens gets on the mic and he says, and I quote, I'm pretty sure I got this quote right. He goes, that's not good enough.

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That's his response. The crowd laughs. Because it's funny to take someone who's spent like over a decade developing thoughtful philosophical arguments, presents them to you and you go, not good enough. That is funny.

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But it shouldn't be convincing to anybody, right? This one of these people is being foolish here. It's not Craig, it's Hitchens. And is the audience who follows him, if they in fact do, what else? Um, okay. Popular atheist belief is that the Gospel of Mark has no resurrection account. I've heard it so many times, the Gospel of Mark has no resurrection account because the atheists realize, or at least they've heard, that the last twelve verses in Mark were likely not original to Mark. I will link a video down below where I talk about the ending of Mark. I go, I go into tons of detail manuscripts and all this other stuff about does it belong? Or nothing. Um, but actually if you just opened and read not just the last twelve verses but the verses before that are absolutely secure and certainly in Mark, the resurrection is right there. Like this is something that was believed and they're saying, ah, the resurrection was made up later on. It's not in the gospel of Mark, but it is in the gospel mark. And it's not just there, it's in other places too.

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The question is, why do so many atheists think it's not in Mark? They didn't check. They just heard another skeptic say it and assumed it was true. And then they went and argued with other people online about it and it just kept propagating. It's not real at all. It's simply not true.

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Um, what else? Let's see. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Have you heard this before? This is a common atheist mantra. They'll never define the word extraordinary, so you won't know what it is. But let me just say that's not true. Extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence. A because I don't know what extraordinary means. So it just means you have a free pass to dismiss any evidence I bring. You'll go, that's not extraordinary enough, right? You, nobody defines extraordinary. Um, but also we can prove lots of things that are extraordinary with ordinary evidence. Think of prophecy. If I was to write down a prophecy and then I was to put in a video form here on YouTube, this is going to happen in detail, with exact, precise detail. And then a year goes by and the thing is fulfilled without my control.

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Maybe I even left the video unlisted and then I made it public after the thing. Some way in which to make sure my prophecy is not making it get fulfilled. That would be incredible evidence that I had supernatural information that does not come through normal human means. Right now, if you put that in a very, um, in a certain environment, it could point towards the evidence, point towards evidence for God himself, as we have in scripture. That's ordinary evidence, made claims. Later on, those claims came to pass. It's simple evidence. Just a video of someone talking or somebody writing something down.

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The resurrection of Jesus. It's ordinary to see somebody alive. It's ordinary to see somebody dead. It's ordinary to see somebody alive. That's the sequence of events with Jesus. He was alive, he was dead, he was alive again. Now, what's extraordinary is that it was a resurrection, right? That the being alive was after being dead. But just the simplicity is just, we saw him and he was alive and it was him. Like, that's as simple as it gets, but it would be evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Um. Um, yeah. Anyway, there's other stuff I could give, but I want to move on to the second question. Before I do that, though, I want to say this.

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Why do I say all this? Um. Um.

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Atheism makes you gullible for a specific reason. It makes you biased for a specific reason. And the reason is that atheism itself requires looking around at creation. That is telling you that there's a God looking and seeing the pole of conscience, that's telling you he has moral standards. And you see these things every day, all day, and you deny them every day, all day. And so it starts to affect you, as though you are closing your eyes to certain facts, and that spills over into other things as well. So atheism, inherently, the nature of the ism is that it causes you to become biased. I believe that that's the case. Is this 100% true in the case of every single atheist? No. Um, it's a generality that I think is something people should consider. And in studies, atheists rate themselves as having the least bias, whereas other groups, like religious groups, they'll be like, yeah, I've got bias. I think that it's worth saying, because my thought is this, if I can just get an 8th, one atheist who watches this video to stop and go, yeah, that Jesus mythicism stuff, like it's really that disrespected among even like skeptical historians and stuff like. Like there's just. It's just Richard carrier.

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Like Bob, um, price, I think his name is. It's just those guys. It's like almost nobody.

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The crucifixion of Jesus is considered such a historically certain event that it's required when they're training people on how to do history, that they have to explain why it happened, not that it happened. It's so evidenced that it's like a certain event in history. You have to explain why it happened. That's part of your training as a historian.

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Maybe there's other stuff we're closing our eyes to. Maybe when my neighbor looks out and they see the sunrise, when they. When they produce a child with their spouse, and then they're holding that little baby, and they go, there's a God.

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Maybe. Maybe that's not so silly. Maybe this is actually common sense, and I've been shutting my eyes off to it all. Uh, right. Let's go to question number two.

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And, um, this is the live stream I do every Friday. Almost every Friday. Last week, we didn't do it, but almost every Friday. And I go to your guys questions, I always bring one question with me. I start with that. My name is Mike Winger. I'm here to help you learn to think biblically about everything. You don't have to agree with me. Um, I'm sure I'll get some things wrong, but I'll do what I can to bring you benefits and help and try to stick to what scripture says wherever possible. Such as in the last, last question. Scripture says that the heavens declare the glory of God. It says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Right. If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, then the rejection of God is the beginning of what.

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Let's call it bias. Okay? But it's not wisdom.

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All right, question number two. This comes from l player, who says, assuming a rapture, are we irresistibly taken, or is it a choice to leave with him? I ask, irrespective of the calvinistic irresistible grace. Luke 1731 to 36 seems to indicate both. Okay, this is an interesting question because it started off with assuming a rapture. So those who don't know the rapture is this doctrine, this belief that when, um, usually it's talking about a specific time, this event will take place. So usually they're talking seven years before the return of Christ, that Jesus will basically show up in the sky. He's not returning to the earth, planting his feet on the ground, so to speak, but he's showing up in the sky. And we're drawn up together to be with him.

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The resurrection of some, uh, saved, and then the lifting up. If I'm a Christian and I'm in Christ, I'm transported and changed up in meeting Jesus in the sky. That's the idea. And the verse that you're talking about, Luke 17 31 36.

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Um, you say, hey, if this verse is. I'm gonna I'm gonna answer. Second, if I think this is a rapture passage or not. Okay. First, I'll answer your hypothetical. If this is a rapture passage, if it's talking about the rapture, is it saying it's optional? Jesus returns, and you're like, wait, let me stay. I want to evangelize my neighbors even through the tribulation. Maybe you could say that. Right. So let's look at Luke 1731 on that day. Let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away. And likewise, let the one who's in the field not turn back. Remember, lots of wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. I tell you, in that night, there will be two in one bed, and one will be left, and the other one will be taken and the other left. Verse 35, there will be two women grinding together like they're on a mill, grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.

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Um, he's talking about something disastrous that's coming, and one's taken and another one is left. What is he talking about here? Um, it doesn't seem optional, does it, in the passage, whatever it is, it doesn't seem optional.

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One taking, another left. The taking doesn't seem like you're, like, I get to go if I want to. And, uh, it's rather one's taken, one's left. They don't seem to have an option in this. The one doing the taking seems to be in control. Now, is this a rapture thing? Um, I don't think so. I don't think that this passage is, ah, teaching about the rapture. I think it's teaching about judgment. And the parallel is the flood. So let's back up a little bit to verse 27. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of lot. They were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But on the day when lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them. All. So it will be on the day when the Son of man is revealed, on that day. And then it talks about the Son of man being revealed.

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Um, this implies that there's like a revelation that's wider than simply what some call a secret rapture. Okay, so Jesus comes back and nobody is aware. I'm saying, again, I'm not talking about the doctrine of the rapture. I'm talking about this passage. And if it applies, there's two very different things here. People get. I've talked to plenty of people about this. They get, um, they get a little bit upset. Um, when you talk about this issue and you say, hey, this verse. In fact, I got in some trouble once for teaching this, that this passage is not about the rapture. And, uh, it wasn't even a teaching about the rapture itself, was about this passage. For instance, there could be a passage that teaches, um, we're sealed by the holy spirit, but let's suppose you were going to teach we're sealed by the spirit, but you went to a passage that doesn't teach it. I would say, hey, that passage doesn't teach that. That's what I'm saying here. Anyway, um, this is a, ah, time of judgment coming. Yeah. Lots taken Noah goes into the ark, but the people are. In both cases, the people are judged and they're killed. This is not just about, I think, a rapture event. Um, I actually, there's a lot more to this. And other gospels mention these same things as well.

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Um, there is a sense in which you can say, hey, there's like a. Remember lot's wife, Noah lot, they're both leaving what they've got and being saved because they depart from what they've got. That's true. That's true. But I think that this taken stuff is talking about something else. So I'll link below a teaching I have where I more thoroughly go through this issue. As I was teaching through the gospel of Mark, I came to the section where Jesus is talking about the same stuff he is here in Luke. And I did some thorough things on that. Um, I'll link that down below after the stream. Um, Sarah will remind me to, and I'll go find that video and link it below. I know I didn't share enough detail for you, but it's just too much stuff to share for the Q and A. And I don't have enough time today in particular to go that long.

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Okay, so question number three. This comes in from seeking justice. If God is one being or one what? And three persons.

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That's basically the idea of the trinity. There's one being that is God who exists in three persons. Father, son, Holy Spirit. That's one way of putting it that I think is helpful to a lot of people. So he says, if God is one being, um, and three persons, what would two beings of gods look like in false religions? How would those beings be differentiated in a way that the Trinity is nothing. Um, so, um, this is getting into philosophy behind the trinity.

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What happens sometimes with the Trinity is we move away from the plain teaching of scripture. That does give us the idea that there is only one God. And he's got all these omni qualities. He's omnipresent, he's omnipowerful, he's eternal, he's transcendent, he is all these things. Um, he's perfectly holy. He knows all things. He's omniscient. We've got all these teachings about God. There's one God, but we also have teaching that Jesus is God, yahweh, he's that one God, that the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet we have to come alongside that. We have this idea that the father is not the Son. Right. We have times where the father speaks to the Son, they speak to each other in another type of language. There's a difference that's there in person. And so the father's not the Son, the son's not the spirit. So you've got three persons, one God. That's the basic idea. Um, now, moving off of that, not disagreeing with it, but launching from there into like, speculative philosophy. What would it look like if you had two beings of gods in false religions compared to the one God of the Bible? We're moving a little bit into philosophy there. So, um, every other non monotheistic religion has a God that is not just failing to be the only God. So not only is there more than one God, but those gods don't share those qualities I've described. Omnipresent, um, all powerful, all knowing, eternal, transcendent. Right. That is when there's no universe, when there's no nothing in creation, nothing that's been created, there's just God. Like, he just is all of existence just him.

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That's not the kind of God you have in these other religions. Polytheistic religions always have lesser gods. Like, look at, um, say, uh, Zeus. Okay, so Zeus is a. I was studying Zeus for, um, the hebrew study, which isn't coming up for like another two weeks, probably. Sorry, two, uh, weeks from Monday is the plan now, long story, but that's how it's got to be. Um, so the studying Zeus. And Zeus has a dad, right? Who he killed, and his dad has a dad, who he killed. And they came from, like, Gaia, ah.

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And Eros doing things together. And they came from chaos. And Gaia just kind of spontaneously came into existence. But they're all like contingent beings.

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You get this, they're nothing like God.

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The moment that you have a, uh, God, like the God of the Bible, monotheism, you can't really have two of those because this is, okay, my own personal understanding of this, maybe I'm making a misstep here.

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As I understand it, you guys can think about this. If you have a God that is omnipresent, eternal, all knowing, all of these qualities of God, transcendent, you just don't get two of those. That's just one God.

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If you tried to have a second one, they would just be one God. You can't have two. I think it's inherent in God's nature is that there can only be one.

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The second you say, well, there's two of them, you now have to logically define them as being somehow lesser, some kind of a different kind of being. We in English often put capital g for this all powerful God, the omni idea of God, the christian idea of God, and lowercase g for these other gods. That's how you can have two. You have lesser beings. You call them gods. They're not truly anything like God, and they're actually somehow usurping or claiming something that belongs to him. So they're sort of an insult to the true God, just the idea of them. That's, um, how I think you could do that.

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Um, the difference between two or three pagan gods versus, like, the triune God is, of course, there's one all everything God. There's one all powerful, all those things. God versus three independent, different gods who have different qualities, who are truly separate. They're different beings.

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Uh, I feel like if I had you here, you'd ask me follow up questions and we could talk more about this. That's about what I have to say about it. So I'll move forward. Sorry that I feel like I know as a teacher, I just know I'm leaving some things hanging because I don't know what's in your mind, but keep studying on this stuff, keep digging into it, keep looking into it. The doctrine and the understanding of the trinity, it does get complicated. But I say my final word on this, put the trinity in two categories in your head. One category is the plain teaching of scripture about God. I believe this. Okay. Right. There's one God. The father is God, the Son is God, the spirit is God. Yet there's differences between the father, the Son, and the spirit that relate to their persons and their personal relationships. And I will hold those things to be true because that's what scripture says. And then a bunch of questions about how does that. How does it work with this? And what about the nature of essences and things like this? And consider that trying to understand this thing that we know for sure is true. And give yourself lots of space and time to work through the other extra stuff. All right, question number four.

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Um, this comes in from Abril Rodriguez, who says on natural selection, I recently had a class on that in college and was a bit confused on how, as a Christian, we should approach that topic with others. Thank you, by the way, for your wisdom.

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Um, I have a few things to say about that. Uh, for what it's worth, not a scientist, and don't pretend to be able to weigh in on all those issues with the kind of wisdom that I would like to if I was going to do that. But, um, for my own sake, and maybe helpful for yours as well, this is how I process those things.

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Um, natural selection. First off, understand definitions. Don't be allergic to the idea of evolution. As a Christian, um, be able to think about it and think clearly about it. If every time you hear anything related to evolution, you think, I have to disprove that. It, um, will actually. This will be your bias. It will be. It will create an inability to even understand the thing because I'm having to debunk every little piece of everything. So I'm not able to actually see. See what it's saying.

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So with natural, um, selection, um, there's nothing wrong with natural selection. Natural selection, okay, there's different factors in evolution. There's change. Um, evolution has changed, definitely happens to. There's evolution as speciation. I think that happens too, and it seems well evidenced. There's evolution where it involves novel information, creating whole new systems and things like that. And there's where I start to have some skepticism about that personally.

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And if you disagree with me, that's fine. Even as a Christian, if you disagree with me on that, I'm not going to actually fight you on that too much.

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The idea of natural selection, though, is incredibly solid. Like, yeah, you. You put animals in a space, the ones that are more fit will survive, and the ones that are less fit will not and the ones that survive will reproduce. So eventually you'll have populations that are more. That are, um, more largely representative of the animals that were more fit for that environment.

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That's going to happen. That's natural selection. Nothing wrong with that. There's nothing that's challenging to a Christian on that. The question of does, can evolution be held as compatible with the Bible or compatible with Christianity? That's a huge issue that I would love to wrap my whole head around someday. Even though I have. Personally, I'm skeptical of, um, universal common descent as well as abiogenesis. Extremely. I don't believe those things to be the case. But for those who do believe those things to be the case, this is the full story of evolution, right?

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Can they still be christians? Well, look, they can be Christians, and either they're inconsistent, but they're still christian because this is not a salvation issue, or they're Christians and other Christians have misunderstood the Bible and have just been getting that wrong. But I would definitely put it in a category of I will not let my whole faith rest upon how I process evolution. I don't think you should either, Abril. Um, I think people have told you. Probably a lot of people have told you this, right? If evolution is true, Christianity is false.

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I don't believe that that's the case.

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Okay. I don't believe that that's the case.

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And this is coming from someone who's not convinced evolution. And what if I'm wrong? Well, then I would still hold to Christianity. I would just be wrong on this topic. And then I would, of course, I would look at scripture and go, okay, how does this, how do I understand this with scripture? Maybe I would even be left with some question marks, but I can live with that because I don't have to have answers to every question in order to trust in Jesus Christ. I have enough solid, good reasons to trust and believe in him that even if I'm left with certain things I'm unsure about or that even bother me, I would not abandon my faith in Christ just because of those things. That's another gullible thing of skepticism, is you find one concern, question, unanswered issue. Now you have to abandon your belief in God or Christ. Oh, I don't know how to answer the problem of evil. So I'm just going to not believe in Christ.

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That's an overreaction. Every worldview, every person is going to have things where they go. I'm not really sure how to, how to resolve that. The question is how many of them are there. How big are they compared to the core of what you believe?

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So, um, how do you approach the topic, um, of natural selection in school and stuff? Well, learn it. Learn it well. Try to understand it very carefully, and try to have a sober mind, as you address and deal with it, and recognize differences between natural selection and I. General evolution versus specific kinds of evolution, different uses of the words, and don't panic.

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All right, let's go to question number five. Yeah. Bucket lady has a question. Bucket lady says two. Uh, timothy 312 says, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. I'm not being persecuted. Does this mean I'm not living a godly life?

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Hmm, I don't think so. Um, maybe worth doing a little word study on what Paul says there in two. Timothy 312. Um, that'd be worth doing sometime. I'm interested in doing that.

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Um. Is he trying to say this as a way of testing whether you're a Christian?

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Um. Or is he trying to say something a little different? Let's. Hold on. Let's pull it up.

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Um.

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Okay, here we go.

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Second timothy three. I'll start in verse ten.

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He, um, says here, you, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at antioch, at iconium, at lystra, uh, or lystra. I don't really care how you pronounce it, which persecutions I endured. Yet from them all, the Lord rescued me. So he is talking about specific persecutions. Um, and he gives a list of places where he was persecuted. In some places, he was shouted down. Some places he was told to leave. In some places, mobs grabbed him, attacked him physically.

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Um, there was a whole variety of things. Um, and then verse twelve. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from who you learned it.

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Um, does this mean. Are we supposed to universalize this and apply it to every individual Christian in every setting of life? For instance, let's say that your grandma lives at home.

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She's paralyzed. She can't leave the house. You go to church, you get saved, you become a Christian. The next thing you do is you go home and you tell the gospel to your grandma, who's there stuck in the home. Maybe you're in the first century, right? You heard from Paul the apostle. You heard the gospel, get saved. You go to your grandma, you tell granny, I got to tell you the good news. You tell her about Jesus, you tell her about forgiveness of her sins, his resurrection, and she puts her faith in him. Now, grandma only ever interacts with you because you're the only one in the home, and she's paralyzed, and you're her caretaker. Nobody else even talks to her. That's just her lot in life. That's the way things are for the next few years. She continues to rejoice in the Lord. You go to church, she can't. You bring back, and you tell her things that you learned there, and you're discipling your grandmother. She never gets persecuted for her christianity. And so you look at her and you say, granny, I'm so sorry. You're not a real Christian.

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Is that what Paul was trying to say? Um, I really doubt it.

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I think what he was saying, though, is that we do have a world that is generally against Christianity. And if you're going to stand for Christ and you are interacting with the world, you are interacting with the world, you're going to get negative feedback. As a Christian, if you get no negative feedback, there is at least a good chance you're not standing for Christ. Now, what form will that take? Well, you might live in a culture that has a lot of christians, and it may be that the unbelievers don't feel emboldened by numbers to actually outright persecute you. Right. That may be the case, or it may not. Um, I think that it is situation dependent. I do think that in Paul's time, as you're preaching the gospel and you're going out into the communities that Paul's talking about as he writes to Timothy, you're going to get persecuted. It's going to happen in those communities, in those cultures. Unless, of course, you're, like, an invalid or something like that.

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And I think that, um, we have something we can ask ourselves, which is, am I like, if I went around and told all my coworkers I'm Christian and all my friends and family, would they be like, oh, you are like, would they be surprised? There can be a test here. How open and real am I about engaging the world with my christian faith?

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Um, I don't usually say I get persecuted. I definitely have had times where I've been, uh, mistreated because of my faith in Christ. That happens plenty. Usually I think of persecution as specifically violence or some sort of major exclusion.

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Um, but I think that maybe it's a bit more broad in this passage and not just talking about that, but, yeah, I don't want to over generalize.

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There's a lesson here from Paul. Those who desire to live godly in Christ will be persecuted. But does it mean that it should be applied? That has to be a rule for testing whether you're a Christian, applied to every single culture, every single environment, every single individual Christian? No. It probably depends. Are you in a culture like Paul was, where if you're openly a Christian, you're going to be persecuted?

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If your answer is yes, then if you're not persecuted, are you. Are you not really openly a Christian?

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Um. All right, let's go. The next question. This is number six from Bethany. Hello, Mike. Your ministry has been so encouraging for me. I'm really glad to hear that, Bethany, thank you for letting me know. Like, it does make me happy. I was wondering your thoughts on King Nebuchadnezzar. Do you think he's saved based on Daniel four? Oh, that's toughie. That's a toughy. Let's look at it and ask if there's indications in this passage that Nebuchadnezzar is saved. Here's Daniel four.

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So this is after. So Nebuchadnezzar has his whole, like, eat grass stuff, right? His fall, and then afterwards says this, King Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples, nations and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied. To you, by the way, he was a bad guy who got humbled. If you don't know the story, go read Daniel one through four. It's only four chapters. Take it 15 minutes, check it out, and then unpause the video and we'll look at it together. King Nebuchadnezzar, to all peoples, nations and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you. It has seemed good to me to show signs and wonders that the most high God has done for me. Okay, so he calls God the most high God. He seems to be acknowledging something about God and about his preeminence. How great are his signs, how mighty are his wonders. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. This connects to stuff, visions. He had dreams and stuff like that. And his dominion endures from generation to generation.

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Um, I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and prospering in my palace. I saw a dream that made me afraid as I lay in bed. The fancies and the visions.

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Uh, you know, the word fancies there is very interesting.

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It's ESV. The fancies and the visions of my head alarmed me, so I made a decree. This has to be a translation. Poor decision, in my opinion.

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Uh, anyway, so I made a decree that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought before me that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream. Then the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans and the astrologers came in and I told them the dream, but they could not make known to me its interpretation. At last, Daniel came in before me, he who was named Belteshazzar.

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Uh, belteshazzar, after the name of my God. And in whom is the spirit of the holy gods?

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Mhm.

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Now it gets a little weird.

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So, so far, Nebuchadnezzar has acknowledged this most high God, but he is still acknowledging he named Daniel after his God, who he still calls his God, my God. And in whom is the spirit of the holy gods?

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That is a debated translation. Okay, so let me show you new, uh, King James. I remember this from having looked into it in the past.

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Um, in him is the spirit of the holy God. This is new King James. King James version will say something very similar. So is it. Wait, is Nebuchadnezzar, because it could be that he's saying I named him after my God, but he doesn't mean that his, his God is still that other God. Maybe his God is now the most highest God, but, but before, when he gave Daniel a name, that's when he had that other God. It's possible, right, that he doesn't really still worship that other God?

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The big thing here is, does he say Daniel has the spirit of the holy God or the spirit of the gods? Like plural?

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So there's a footnote that you'll get, um, depending on your translation here.

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Here we go. Um, you can't see it on your screen, but I'll read it to you. So the debate is, is it spirit of the holy God or spirit of the holy gods? And this also occurs in verse nine, the next verse, which I'll just put on your screen there so you can look at it.

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That's the debate. Um, I won't try to run through, like, the debate on the manuscripts off the top of my head. I'd have to, like, spend some time refreshing my mind on it. Um, there's a reason why the newer translations tend to go with this. One of the rules in translations is that they, they go with the translation. That is more difficult often. Um, the one that could have given rise. Sorry if this is too much info. I won't spend a lot of time on it. But the translators will look at two different options. They have different manuscripts and they go, one manuscript says it this way, one says it that way. Which one was the original? And they'll go, well, which one would explain the other one? Right? Like, if this one came first, would that explain why this one written this way? And in this case, I think what they're doing is they're saying, um, plural, gods is the harder translation. There's a harder thing to deal with. And so maybe the transcribers, um, thought that was a mistake or whatever. And it explains why some people put spirit of, uh, the holy God.

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That might be the case. I don't know. Um, the newer translations tend to go down that route. Let me, let me see here. That's verse eight and nine, Niv.

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It also says spirit of the holy gods and, um, RSV. I know, I know. They'll say it. RSV always does that.

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Um, do I have another translation quickly available to you? No. I mean, you can see King James. Oh, it's not there. But anyway, I'm not going to spend all the time on it. But King James is like the new king James there. So the, that's the discussion. Okay. Now, it would, as a christian, you should not be bothered either way. This is important to know. Like, this should not bother you either way. We're looking at what Nebuchadnezzar said. We're not looking at what is factually true about Daniel. This is Nebuchadnezzar and his proclamation. After his experience, he's a pagan who believes in all sorts of gods, but now he's been deeply impressed, at least, that Daniel's God is like the most high God. He's like a special God. He's like the God who's seems to have more power than all the other gods that he's aware of. So now he's like a polytheist who believes that there's, like this one God that's above the rest. That's a possibility that shouldn't, um. I mean, it bothers me for his soul's sake, right? But it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily give me any pause as to how, you know, like, what is the Bible teaching here? This is Nebuchadnezzar, not the Bible teaching this.

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The alternative is that he actually is saying that God's spirit, that one God, his spirit is in, um, Daniel. And that could still be consistent with him believing in multiple gods. It could go either way so, yeah. Is it at least concerning? Is it least concerning? Let's read on, though, and see what else we read about Nebuchadnezzar.

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Um, I'll go to verse nine here.

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He says, o belteshazzar, chief of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too difficult for you. Tell me that the vision of my dream that I saw and their interpretations, um, the visions and their interpretation. Verse ten, the visions of my head as I lay in my bed were these. And he goes on and he recounts the vision, which isn't super relevant at the moment. Um, let me read the decree.

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Um, the sentence that he's something bad is going to happen. And it says, this sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones to the end that the living may know that the most high rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he will and sets over at the lowliest of men describing himself here. The statement here is an acknowledgement of God, of the God of Daniel, the true God, though probably not fully understanding what that means. That would be my impression of Nebuchadnezzar. This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw. And you, o belteshazzar, tell me the interpretation because all the wise men of the kingdom are not able to make known to me the interpretation, but you are able because the spirit of the holy gods is in you, or this or the spirit of God. So three times he does this. I'm going to keep reading because see if there's other clues here. Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was dismayed for a while and his thoughts were alarmed him. The king answered and said, belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you. And then, uh, he goes on and says, we don't need to know as much about what Daniel says here. Um, he's like, hey, you know, you're doing all good. You're getting real great, you know, but then you're going to get knocked down. God's going to chop you down. You're like a tree that's going to get chopped down and you're going to have all this stuff go down in your life. Then you're going to get humiliated. Then it happens. Um, this is going to require me to read so much stuff. Um, let's read the part right here where he says he's restored verse 34. At the end of the days, I, nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes after he'd been humbled, after his mind came back, comes back to him, or when it comes back, right here, he says, I lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned me. I blessed the most high, and I praised and honored him who lives forever. That's huge, right? Does that mean he's saved? Maybe.

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Maybe. I mean, I'm just being honest. I'm not sure, but it certainly is possible. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will, um, among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. So he's in control above anything else, heavenly, earthly, all of it. And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? At the same time, my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lord sought me, and I was established in the kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just. Those who walk in pride, he is able to humble.

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Was he saved? Um, he was definitely showing some wonderful, wonderful, positive things and wonderful fruit and acknowledging the God of Israel. This is like, at least a step in that direction, right? I don't know for sure. Is he saved? Could he say all this and still not ultimately be saved? I, uh, suppose he could. Could he say these things had this mixed bag of pagan beliefs left over, but this revelation of the true God and just have, like, working it out and be saved? Uh, yeah, I suppose he could.

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My answer to you is, it's undetermined. Maybe you have a slightly different answer. Maybe you notice things in the text that I did not mention, and that helped you figure it out. And I hope you did. I hope you did, because I hope you guys notice stuff in the text that I don't notice. It's kind of the, kind of the point. It's kind of the goal. All right, let's go to question number seven.

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This is from Aaron Axel, who says, does Satan have to come to God anytime he messes with us? I have a friend using job as proof that Satan needs permission to mess with us too. Um, uh, in order to make job proof, we'd have to say that what's true of job is true of every christian equally. Every christian equally. Uh, is that the case? So job is a stand up guy. He's a rare stand up guy. He doesn't just believe in God, he walks faithful to God, right?

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If you read the book of Job, you'll see this guy's really solid.

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He walks faithful. And then Satan specifically acknowledges to God at the beginning of Job that God has placed a hedge of protection around job. This is a metaphor for him not being able to attack or hurt job.

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So it seems like if we're going to principalize it, then we would. I'm not saying we have to do this, but we would have to say if you're like Job, you got a hedge of protection. And Job wasn't just a believer, one who believed in the true goddess, but he was also one who was walking in rightness. He was living life right. And that seems relatively true about Israel, too. Um, that when Israel's living right for God, the enemy can't really mess with them that much. You know, when Balaam wants to curse Israel, he can't. He's being paid money, right? But he can't curse Israel because he says, no, they're not sinning against God. They're doing fine. I can't curse who God is blessed. Now, I'm not saying I want to over generalize this, but at least say there's at least a consistency here between job and them, Israel doing right. And so they send women into the people like to tempt them into sinning. That way God will judge them for not even that Satan will be able to attack, but God will judge them. Now, maybe God would use the enemy to do it, and that's fine. He can judge how he chooses.

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So I wouldn't rule that out. But. But there's something consistent there as well.

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Um, ultimately, Satan, uh, can't do anything apart from permission. But what we're asking is, it's almost like, does every time that Satan's like, hey, I want to mess with that guy. I want to give that guy cancer. I want to attack that person mentally and assault them psychologically.

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Does he have to ask every time? I don't know. Does he have to ask at least sometimes. At least sometimes he seems like he needs permission. So, Job, you've got Israel with protection on them. You also have Peter, where Jesus says to Peter, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. Why is he asked?

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Peter was walking with Jesus. He was living pretty good. I mean, he makes some mistakes and stuff like that, but he's living pretty solid in his walk there. And Satan had to ask to get him. So there seems to be something true about this, that God's protection can be on us as we walk rightly with him, that we bring harm upon ourselves and reasons for God to punish us or lower the protection when we sin. But also that there's things where it's just. Maybe Satan's just asked.

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Um, I guess I would, you know, thinking about these things, I lean slightly more towards your friend, but. But not. I wouldn't say this phrase, Satan has to come to God anytime he messes with us. I wouldn't say that exactly. I think that there's a hedge of protection, perhaps in a sense, around us as christians. And you're like, really? I mean, like, was Paul protected? I mean, he's like, persecuted and he's beaten and he's all kinds of messed up. He talks about it. He says, we despaired of life. Uh, it's extreme. Okay, so. And he wasn't doing that wasn't because of sin in his life. So it's not that this protection is, I will walk around and nothing bad will happen unless I mess up.

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That's not what I'm saying. God obviously allows the enemy to attack plenty of us plenty of times.

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Um, and we have to prepare ourselves for it. We can't just be arrogant about it and think, I'm protected against spiritual warfare, against the assault of the enemy. Your sin will open the door. But guess what? There's also just assaults coming your way. Even if you haven't done anything wrong, there's some kind of assault coming your way. But I. That's.

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You're living in a hostile environment as a Christian. There's a spiritual war going on, and, uh, you're in enemy territory, so to speak.

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The scripture says to put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. The plans against you that Satan has right now already, uh, already against you. And you have to have that whole armor of God or you may fall to those things. It says that you want to hold up the shield of faith, that you can quench or put out the fiery darts of the wicked one. That is, there are attacks coming your way and you do need to be prepared for those things. So when I say, does Satan have to have permission to assault us? To a sense, yes, he has some kind of blanket permission. He's the ruler of. He's the God of this age, the ruler of the world in a sense. I mean, God's ultimately in control, but he's allowing Satan to be the worldly ruler so to speak. And, um, my sin can certainly increase my vulnerability to those things. Um, so I kind of agree Satan has a leash. Um, but this shouldn't produce in us any kind of arrogance or any kind of foolish behavior, thinking I'm protected the way that guys like Kenneth Copeland teach, right? Like that kind of arrogant, unprotected stuff, that's. That's not what I see in the New Testament when I hear about him shooting fiery darts at us and we have to hold up that shield of faith. Um, or watching the persecutions that the church not only endured, but we're warned about even by Jesus saying that those persecutions were coming. So hopefully that finds some balance. We are in real spiritual war we are in on a regular basis. We should acknowledge that. It's a good reminder for us to have, even today.

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Number eight, Brandon says on the cross, why did the jewish people think Jesus was calling out for Elijah?

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Matthew 27 47.

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This one fairly well answered by the passage itself.

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I'm going to back up just a little bit.

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Um, and about the 9th hour, while Jesus is on the cross, Jesus cried out with a loud voice saying, eli, eli, lema sebachtani. That is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

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The Eli Eli is similar to Elijah. And so they go, oh, this man's calling Elijah.

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That's it. They're just misunderstanding what he's saying, um, and then responding to him, not understanding him. Maybe there's something kind of poetically true about that. Even Jesus on the cross is misunderstood by those who mock him, that they look at the cross and they just find more reasons to mock instead of realizing that we're the reason God forsook him. We're the reason the father left his son to die on the cross. It was for us. And instead they laugh and they mock, oh, leave him alone. Let's see if, uh, Elijah will come and get him. That's in verse 49 there. Um, and, uh, they just didn't understand. These people did not know what they were looking at. You get the idea there. Jesus is dying for our sins, and they don't even know what they're looking at. And so often, that's exactly how people respond to the cross. Even today, they don't see him dying for them. They don't know why he was forsaken.

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All right, let's go to the next question. This is number nine. Dd says ddh. Uh, says, how do you stay encouraged in today's culture? The culture is so discouraging. Also, I sometimes feel like a failure because other christians seem to have it all together. Also, how can we pray for you? Okay, three questions just snuck in. 3d. You got skills? Question skills. All right. How do we stay encouraged in today's culture? Um. Um.

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You cannot get your courage from the culture. It's just not going to work. I am not encouraged by the culture today. It's not encouraging. It is discouraging. But christians have a source of courage and encouragement that is completely independent of where our culture is going. I have an eternal weight of glory that is not worthy to be compared to the sufferings of this present time.

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I have a call of God to live as light in a dark place. See, I know it's dark. I look at the world and I go. I know the world lies under the sway of the wicked one. I'm not surprised by this. I know that I'm called to be light in a dark place. I know that I am called to be sheep, potentially sheep heading to slaughter. If God wills, if I get my head wrapped around Jesus and his mission, the New Testament and its teaching about persecution and suffering and the battle of spiritual realities in this world, I won't be discouraged by culture because I don't look to culture for my courageous.

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There are Christians throughout time that have lived in way worse cultures than the one you're in right now, way harder times.

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And they should not have lost faith either, because we have faith in something that goes way beyond our culture. So don't look to culture for your courage.

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I don't look to the election or its results for my encouragement. I have hopes about it, but it's in, the thing is, it's in perspective. When anything on earth I look at, I have hopes about. I care about these things very much. I'm not disconnected like some ivory tower person who just, like, I don't even care about who wins the election or what effect it has on society. Like, that's obviously not a godly thing. Of course I care about people. I care about these things, but I just have it in perspective of heaven, so that on earth, I'm seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness. And it does change the way you interact, and it changes the way that you measure things.

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I don't think you should be doom and gloom about it.

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I think we should be hopeful and try to seek for the best of the places in the places we live and the communities we're part of, to bless others, Christians and non Christians alike, and all that. Um, and we should be involved to a degree, in the culture war. I don't see why we wouldn't be. Because the culture war, it stems from often we should be involved as christians in the culture war. I say because the things that they're arguing about in the culture war, right. Male and female roles, that's a hugely christian issue. Abortion, that's a hugely christian issue. Abortion is murder. That's a hugely christian issue. The. The, um.

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Gosh, what else are we thinking about? Um.

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Oh, I don't know. I had some other examples. I already forgot them because I got distracted. These issues do matter, and we should care about them. We just keep them in the right perspective of our heavenly calling, our eternal glory that's coming. And, yeah, don't get your courage from the culture. Um, the other thing you said is the culture is discouraging also. I agree. I, uh, sometimes feel like a failure because other christians seem to have it all together.

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Um, I'm going to say something, uh, DdH, that may not apply to you. It may not apply to you. Okay. I'm not. Ah. Don't take this as a judgment about you. I don't know you. I read two sentences you wrote, don't know you. I'm doing this based upon my experience. If it applies to you, great. If not, don't take this as judgment against you. All right? Because I'm gonna say could be seen as mean, but it's not a judgment, all right, because I don't know you. Um, in my experience, when I've been bothered by christians that I thought had it together, it was because I was being, um, jealous.

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Selfish, um, and jealous.

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I was viewing my life as competitive with them.

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Instead of seeing them as brothers and sisters, I saw them as competition. And when I thought that they looked more together as a Christian than I did, it made me feel inferior, it made me feel bothered. I became jealous, I became insecure, and I was irritated by them.

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When I got to know those same christians better, I realized, um, you might think he realized they didn't have it all together. Well, in some cases, yeah, I did realize they didn't have it all together, but something else happened that was better than that. Um, I realized that they were my brothers and sisters in Christ, and I loved when they had it together, and I was excited because I cared about them. It'd be like, if I meet someone and their family is really healthy and strong and they have a good relationship with their kids, why would I not be happy for them? Except if I have some really unhealthy way in which I'm looking at them like they're there just to make me feel good, and they're not doing. They're not making me feel good because they're doing better than I am in this. If you learn to love those people, you won't be bothered that they have it all together. You'll be happy for them, and then you'll maybe be able to learn from them, um, and get to know them a little bit more. That may not apply to you. Uh, I don't know. I don't know. But you feel like a failure because other christians seem to have it all together sometimes. The other thing I would encourage you is this. Um, any thoughts you have, whether you understand them or not, whether you can process it or not, any thought you have that discourages you from pressing forward in Christ, from continuing to get back up and try to serve the Lord today, even if you failed every day up until now, any thoughts you have that stops you from getting up and trying to serve him is a wasted thought. It is not the glory of God. It is. Sometimes the I'm a failure can actually just be an excuse to quit. Right? I forget. I don't even try. I mean, I'm not even gonna try. I'm just gonna do my own thing, whatever. Who cares? I'm a failure.

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That in itself is a very, very problematic, very scary, very harmful way to look at things. It has nothing to do with anybody else. It's all about me finding excuses to keep on saying so.

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That may not apply to you, dee dee. I have no idea. If it does. Just know I've been there, too.

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And as someone who goes, hey, if I happen to see in your question, I see my. My things I've been through in the past, maybe that applies to you, too. I hope it does. I hope it lifts you up, I hope it encourages you, and I hope you find yourself strengthened because of it. If not, keep looking for your answers, because obviously I didn't have it. Um, you said, how can you pray for me?

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Um, pray for, uh. Honestly, guys, just pray for my energy and focus. It's been really bad recently, and, um, due to just stuff, um, just ongoing health, um, issues that are not life threatening, but they're just ongoing. I appreciate your guys prayers for that. I know so many are praying, and I'm grateful for you. I trust the lord in this and his timing in this, and he's going to use it to shape me and change my character, even teaching me patience. We grow through weakness in ways we would never grow through strength. And, um, his powers made perfect in it as well, so I can rejoice in that. All right. Number ten, Laney says, excuse me? Laney says, how do you become blameless before God? Philippians 215 18.

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Let's look at that.

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Um, well, okay. Well, let's start in verse 15. Okay. Then I'll back up, because we always, usually end up backing up when we come to the text to make sure that we get context, that, ah, you may become blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

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That is all that all the time and love and energy and pain that he put into ministering to them. He sees the fruit of it in them actually following Jesus. So let's back up a little bit. What exactly does it mean for us to, in this context, be blameless?

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There are two kinds of blameless. Let me mention this. Um, and I find that a really convenient way to discuss it before we go back to the passage, is these two words, positional and conditional. So my position in Christ and my condition in Christ are two different things. Kind of like positionally. Um, I am the, uh, leader of this ministry, Bible thinker. Okay, Bible thinker. With our website, biblethinker.org. free stuff on there for you guys. Um, searchable database and all that good stuff. Check it out.

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Um, the ministries. I'm the leader of this ministry. I'm the president of Bible Thinker, Incorporated. Technically, it has to be incorporated. It sounds weird. We're not really a real corporation in the, in the sense that you're thinking, but technically we are. Um, that's my position now, my condition. Sometimes I'm just going and eating a hamburger somewhere, you know, and sometimes I'm doing other things, and conditionally, I'm not functioning in that way. I'm not. I'm not doing that very well or very much. And sometimes I'll do it better. Sometimes I do it worse. That's my condition. Positionally, in Christ. My position is I'm, uh, in Christ. Read ephesians, what it means to be in Christ. It uses that phrase in Christ over and over and over again. I'm in Christ, I'm blameless. In Christ, I'm holy and spotless and without blemish. In Christ. Some of these same words we get right here. I am in Christ, positionally. I have his righteousness upon me. So God looks upon me, sees the righteousness of Jesus, and positionally, I'm sort of in heaven with Jesus already in a position sense, and then when I die, I'll be with him because of his justification, his righteousness, his forgiveness. Now, conditionally, how well do I live up to my position in Christ? That's my sanctification. This is me living out my christian life, trying to become more like what Christ has done for me and what Christ has given me. That's what this is talking about here in Philippians. So it says here, um, do all things without grumbling or disputing.

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That's the first thing you'll see about, that you may be blameless. It's to first do everything without grumbling or disputing. This blamelessness and innocence and being without blemish. It starts with not grumbling and disputing. Grumbling is becoming a griper, a complainer, a person who has a bad attitude. M that's actually a really big deal in scripture, having a bad attitude. It's a really big deal in the Bible, having a bad attitude.

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Think about that.

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Disputing has to do with, like, arguing and being, being argumentative towards others and causing division. Uh, um, unnecessary. There is necessary division, you know, but there's a lot of unnecessary division, and the majority of division is unnecessary. And so do those things without, do all things without grumbling and disputing. Don't be complainers and bad attitude. People. Don't be causing disputations unnecessarily, that you may be blameless. And he goes on, innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. This has to do with not taking on the sins of the people around you. In your culture. There's all sorts of sins that are common and normal in our culture. Nobody would bat an eye. In fact, they'd be like, you're only bothered by that because you're a Christian. And I would say you're right.

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Those are the things that I need to nothing become blemished by the sins of our culture, that they're not even considered sins. They're just considered normal. It's normal talking like that, totally normal. Looking at that, totally normal, enjoying that, totally normal. Not a big deal. Mike, stop being such a prude. Well, um, what the world calls a prude, God calls without blemish.

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Then he goes on to talk about other things that would help us be blameless and innocent and without blemish. And that's holding fast. To the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud. And he goes on the holding fast to the word of life is just to simply hold strong to the gospel of Christ and then let that spill out into your behavior in this world. I think that those things. So he's talking about sanctification in general, um, being blameless before God. In Philippians two is a conditional discussion about living out the salvation we have. It's not about how you get to heaven, it's about trying to honor the Lord with your life.

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Ephesians talks about a blamelessness that's a little different. A blamelessness that comes condition or positionally from what Christ has done for us and our position should influence our condition. That's, of course, just the play out of sanctification, the Holy Spirit working in your life. But I hope that answers your question. I got a bonus question, number eleven. Bonus question. And this one is from AGM 97, Ga. I haven't read this yet. I haven't read any of these. Only the first question is the one I know ahead of time. Um, but it says, please pray for my cousin's three grandchildren. Okay, well, we will do that. A, ah, car wreck on Friday has left one paralyzed and two an ICU still. One has had seven surgeries so far. They're all under the age of twelve. Oh, Lord, I.

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Let's pray, Father, we lift up this person, their cousin's grandchildren, these three kids, Lord. Um, there's no simple words that are enough comfort for this kind of situation.

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We pray that you would help them in their minds and their hearts, as they're processing what's going on, the whole family, as they're dealing with such an incredible, unimaginable tragedy. Help them give them strength, help them get through the day, moment to moment. Help them even fall asleep at night.

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And we pray that they would find themselves drawing close to you, even through this tragedy, that they'd find that you are the rock that they can fall on, the rock that is higher than them, that you are the comforter, the God of all comfort for them.

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And we pray, Lord, for these kids, that you bring them healing, that all three of them would receive just, uh, a touch from your power to bring healing to them, to restore them, to get them back on their feet. We pray, Lord, that there would just be good news moving forward.

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But we acknowledge, Lord, that in our hardest times, in our tragedies, when all we can think is that you have to fix a situation, we acknowledge that sometimes you use a situation and so we don't understand it. Um, and we certainly can't always see it, the good that you might bring from hard things. But we acknowledge that you do. And we rest in you. We trust in you, in Ithoodae. Please bless the family. Please bring healing in Jesus name. Amen. All right, guys, that's been the, uh, the Friday Q and A. I'll be with you guys a week from today. That is the plan. And we'll do another Q and A about two weeks out on a Monday. I'll do the next in the hebrew series. I know that these are really, really far apart. That's just how it's gonna be. I'm so sorry. I'd like to do them a lot quicker. I just can't for a number of reasons. And, um, also, I don't want to cut my studies short because I'm moving slow. I'd rather just take my time and teach it well.

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A, um, little preview for the hebrew series we'll be getting into, the wisdom of Solomon. This is an apocryphal book. It's in the Catholic Bible, orthodox, but it's not in. It's not, I believe, in the genuine canon of scripture. And it's quoted or not quoted. Uh, it's referenced, really strongly referenced in Hebrews one, three in particular, and alluded to in verse two a little bit. We're going to dig into that and ask, like, why is the wisdom of Solomon being quoted in the book of Hebrews? That's gonna be one of the things we'll tackle, and we'll do little excursus on the, uh, wisdom of Solomon. Talk about that some. That should be interesting, but, yeah, that's about it. You guys have a wonderful day, and keep your eyes on Lord Jesus. Um, you don't have to be enough for the things that you're doing. He is enough for the things that you're doing.