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Today I'm going to start with a little story, very little story. Years and years and years and years and years ago, back in, I don't know, it was like sometime in the 1900s, in the last millennium. So long ago. And far, well, not that far away from me, I had a friend who, um, fornicated. Uh, they had made a real serious sinful mistake. Uh, I mean, it wasn't just a mistake that makes it act like they don't have agency.

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They had sinned and they have received grace and God has forgiven them for it. But what happened after they sinned was disturbing on a deep level to me. I'm going to share it with you so you can feel the same disturbing nature. So you'll understand why it's wrong to say that all sin is the same. That's the first question today.

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Should we think that all sin is the same? And the answer is going to be no. But I think the important thing is not me to weigh in on it, it's us to look at scripture specific verses and understand. But here's an example of why that can be important.

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This friend of mine, um, had sex outside of marriage and did so somewhat impulsively, experimentally.

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And, um, later on they told me about it. And, uh, I was very young as well. And so I was shocked that they had done this. I thought they wouldn't do this, they wouldn't go down that route. I know lots of people my age were and I didn't expect them to.

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Um, and again, God has grace and mercy and can forgive. But what they said afterwards shocked me because they saw the shock in my face, they saw the grief in my face about this issue, this thing they had done.

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And then they said to me, well, all sin is the same, Mike. So it's just like if I had stolen a pencil, and I seem to have that stick in my mind, this statement, it's as though I had stolen a pencil. That example. Is that right? Can you say this rightly? Could you stand before God and say, hey, Lord, I know your word, and I know that when I committed fornication or when I committed murder, when I unjustly divorced my spouse, when I abandoned my kids, it was all the same as if I had stolen a pencil.

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This is one of the many problems we get into if we start to say that all sin is the same and it's not the same. We'll get into the scripture on that. Um, why I would say this, why I feel so confidently about it. I don't think it's unclear at all. But there is a reason why people say this. And it's this verse in James and or perhaps Deuteronomy that says, you know, if you break one law, you break the whole law, you break them all. So how do I reconcile this? Let's go through some verses. That'll be the first question for today.

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My name is Mike Winger. My main agenda is to help you learn to think biblically about everything. And that has to do with not just conceptually, but also practically applying the Scriptures. And so there's some times where I will venture into the application of those things. And, uh, that's where I'm getting myself into some heat.

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In recent days, the application of the, of the, uh, biblical command to, um, hold leadership accountable, hold them to the scriptural standards, and when all else fails, to simply publicly call things out that need to be called out for the safety and benefit of those who do not have the power in those movements.

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But anyways, that's not what the first question is about. That's just an example of how that is a biblical thing we're trying to do.

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And Ayah and many others are trying to do it as well.

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So here are some verses. Check this out. If all sin is the same, why does the Bible say in Lamentations 4, 6, for the chastisement of the daughter of my people has been greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment, and no hands were wrung for her.

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What is this chastisement greater than the punishment? This might seem like it doesn't relate at first to you. Uh, I'll point out that there's a translation question here. Chastisement could also be interpreted or translated iniquity. Punishment could also be translated sin. You can look at, say, the new King James, the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom. Because the new King James translators are saying, hey, the concept of punishment and sin are both in these Hebrew words. Let's just translate it in its fullness. And that's why you get different translations that handle it differently.

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And, um, that's the NIV on your page there you can look at. Anyway, I have too much to cover today to get into a lot of detail, but the idea is this. Why does God punish different people differently if all sin is the same?

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Ponder this for a moment. Why would God punish people differently if all sin was the same? Would not that make God unjust if he brought action? Now, there's times where he delays punishment. There's times where he gives a chastening. That's not an actual, like, here's a punishment, but the times where he actually brings punishment. Like, here's the wrath of God to deal with this person's wickedness. Why is it that the wrath is harder and sometimes and softer at other times. Wouldn't that seem unjust?

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I think that that's the minimum you could say about lamentations. Four, six. And you could probably say a lot more. In John 19:11, Jesus himself weighs in on this idea that all sin is the same.

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And he says to Pilate, who's like, hey, I have the authority to set you free or kill you. And Jesus says, you'd have no authority over me except at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.

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There's the kitty cat, because she's going to stick her tail in my face now. This is her thing, aren't you?

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Um, so there's. There's one who has the greater sin, and that one is ultimately Judas. In this case, Judas's sin against. Here comes the tale against.

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She just. This is what she does. The tail.

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Anyways, it's very inappropriate. You need. You need to. You have to move on. Move along there, young cat.

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You want to sit in your spot or something? You're kind of messing up everybody's day. Nobody likes seeing cats on my streams. Nobody. Especially their rear ends.

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All right, there you go. So maybe I'll show the cat Cam, if she settles down over there. Um, I'm being sarcastic for those who don't know. Anyways, um, the idea here is that Jesus is clearly stating that there is somebody who has sin that's worse than someone else's. And it's even in relation to the crucifixion of Jesus. Pilate's sin. And he did sin against Jesus in this is not as bad as the sin of Judas who delivered him over to Pilate. And you could say, well, it was Satan. Well, it was both. But I think Judas is probably in question. There it is. At any rate, you've got two different sin things that are not the same. And then we have other statements, like from Jesus, where he talks about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

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Why is the tale always just got to go right in my face?

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Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is.

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Sorry, guys. Turning to a mature stream here, kid. You not here. Just climb into your hole or something.

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Um, maybe if I block the area um, usually she doesn't come when I'm talking a lot because, I don't know, she just doesn't show up. She waits till the stream's over.

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Okay, so I'm totally losing my train of thought. I'm really live in just my house in a room. This is just how life really is.

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But, um, the blasphemy is the Holy Spirit. Um, that is a sin that is punished and rated far worse, it seems, than other sins. Then you have the Old Testament law. In the Old Testament law, you have different crimes, different sins, punished very differently. There really are just simply punished in very different ways, not remotely the same. That is strange on the idea, the whole lot. What I'm saying here is the entire law, the 400 something commandments that you see in the scripture are screaming that all sin is not the same. We have other stuff in the New Testament. Leadership requirements for elders in the New Testament are not.

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They have to be sinless. There's certain specific sins that they cannot be guilty of because this would be a more dangerous threat to them as leaders. Because all sin is not identical in the eyes of God. Then you've got, um, 1 Corinthians 5:1.

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Check this out. All sin is not the same.

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It says here it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And Paul is shocked because it's such a bad version of sexual immorality. Because not even all sexual sin is the same and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans. For a man has his father's wife and you are arrogant. Ought, uh, you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. Paul knows that there's plenty of people that deal with sin. He says, let anger and wrath and malice be put away from you. But he doesn't say someone who's dealing with anger that they immediately have to be like, kicked out of the church. This guy has to be kicked out of the church.

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This person has to be kicked out because their sin is worse. It's like measurably worse and different.

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Don't mind. I have to get her like a diaper or something.

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Um, how bad is the sin of a cat flashing your rear end of hundreds of thousands of people?

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Um, anyways, the, uh, the excommunication thing going on here, it only makes sense on the idea that Paul's talking about a particularly grievous sin. A man has his father's wife, his stepmother. He's, you know, you, you know, so there's other Examples, um, let's see. Second Kings 21:11.

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It says, Because Manasseh, King of Judah, has committed these abominations and has done things more evil than all the Amorites did, than all that the Amorites did who were made before him. And then he's going to go on. He's done all these things, therefore God's going to judge him.

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The stuff he did was more evil than the stuff that some other people did. Okay, so all sin is not the same. Fornication is not like stealing a pencil. These things are all different. It doesn't mean that some sin is like, no big deal.

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That's the other error I think we could fall into. We start acting like some of our sins aren't really that big of a problem. Because, hey, um, I didn't commit murder. I just stole a pencil. That wasn't that big of a deal.

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Well, all sin is, in fact, deeply evil. And so we don't want to say that. And this is where James 2:10 comes in.

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So the scripture here says, uh, whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point, say, theft of a small item, has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, do not commit murder also said, do not murder. Excuse me, do not commit adultery also said, do not murder. If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

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The idea here is not that if you break one law, you have effectively committed every sin there is. So that if I stole a pencil, I'm also a murderer. But the idea instead is I have. You know, I like this analogy. Think of the law as like this chain, and every command of God is a link in the chain. And this chain is what you're trying to climb. If you're going to use your works to get to heaven, right? If you're going to earn your place before God, you're going to climb up this chain by obeying every single commandment. And you climb all the way to the top by achieving full obedience. And. And then you can climb your way right to heaven, and you can sit down and be like, I deserve to be here. I am worthy. I am righteous.

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But if you break even one of the little chain links, one of the commandments, the whole chain comes down, and you are then falling down to the pit. You're falling down to hell. In the analogy, in this sense, breaking one law breaks the righteous requirement of the law as a whole, and it makes you guilty of the law as a category as a whole. It doesn't make you individually equivalent guilt of every single other person who's ever sinned. There's greater sin, there's lesser sin, that kind of thing. There's, um, another verse on this. Deuteronomy 27, verse 26.

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Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them. And all the people shall say amen.

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There was a curse that was on there. You go on people, if they broke any of the laws, if there was any violation of God's law, you have a curse upon you. And that curse is going to be eternal separation from God. If you speak about it in the moral sense, you know, this is what Jesus comes to save us from, the curse of the law. This is why Christians go out and they tell people. If you didn't know this, they tell people, hey, um, you are in danger of God's judgment one day because while you feel like, well, I didn't commit that sin, you still committed other sins, which means you sinned against the Holy One, which means this, like, this chain has broken links, and you are going to fall down. And your sin may not be as bad as someone else's. It might be worse than somebody else, but you will not stand against, uh, the holiness of God because you're a breaker of the law.

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So you need Jesus. You need forgiveness. You need someone who fulfills the commandments for you, who climbs the chain for you. Like in the Princess Bride, right when you get the big guy, forget, uh, his name right now, Audrey the giant's character. And he's climbing up the rope and he's carrying them up with, you know, because he's so strong. Jesus does this for me. He obeys the law. He climbs up and he carries me with him, and I just. I just ride through grace. I don't do it on my own.

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You like that analogy?

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I thought that was fun.

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So all sin's not the same. Dangerous to say it is yet. This doesn't mean that some sins are little and minor and no big deal. It doesn't mean that I feel like an evil villain if I sit here and pet my cat while talking. I feel as though I'm plotting some sort of terrible thing.

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All right, let's go to your guys. Questions from the live chat. Thanks for joining me today.

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Um, um, if you're just joined, if it's like first stream you've seen, I do this almost every Friday. Most Fridays I won't. Next week, I'm taking a few days off. I'm wiped out. I need a little time off. To recharge my batteries because I have a lot of work ahead. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots. You'll see over the next few months.

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But next Friday we won't. But usually I do this Fridays at 1pm you can always catch it afterwards. Not live. Either way is fine. And my agenda is to help you learn to think biblically about everything.

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And I want to defend, not just explain, but also defend, the Christian worldview, the authenticity of scripture, the genuineness of Jesus, of salvation in Christ, forgiveness in Christ, that God really does, like, exist. He really does care for you, but you really have sinned against him. And Jesus is the solution to all of those issues.

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All right, let's go to Jordan Filar who says, should the church appoint or recognize official prophets in the church? Or is this something similar to the apostles, only the original 12, plus Paul? And you gave two verses for us to look at. And then you ask another kind of complicated question, which is, is prophecy a gift or is it an office? Or is it some mixture of the two? This is like a real big question.

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Uh, let's just talk about some of the verses you brought up, which is First Corinthians 12:28, it says, and God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various kinds of tongues.

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Um, now many, many point out that gifts, uh, of healing, uh, may be a reference not to a person who's gifted in healing, but the gift. The moment that one got healed, the gift was that person getting healed, not a person walking around with the gift of healing. Some have pointed that out.

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Uh, though obviously healing was centered around the apostles in a special way. Paul's handkerchief or Paul's, uh, yeah, Paul's handkerchief. I think it was in Peter's shadow. Sometimes I mix those two up and, um, then you've got prophets.

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Prophets isn't spoken up, spoken of as gift of prophecy. But it says prophets like, they're seen as, like, people who were appointed. Apostles were appointed, and prophets, it seems, were appointed. We also read in the Book of Acts about there were prophets in Antioch in those days. There was specific individuals who were just called prophets. The New Testament did not shy away from calling somebody a prophet. That wasn't something it shied away from. But it also, at the same time, it talks as though any Christian might prophesy at any moment. And so this has led a lot of people to think, well, maybe there's some people who are.

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You're very prophetic, like God's really using you in prophecy a lot. So maybe you are a prophet and there are others who maybe occasionally you've prophesied something. You know, I feel like the Lord is. I think the Lord has used me. I say the word, feel like I know how people will interpret that. It's not how I meant it, um, but I think the Lord has used me, uh, on a small number of occasions to give somebody a word from him that was prophetic. I'm not a prophet.

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That is not something. Something I would consider myself to be. And you've got to add to this the reality that online, the people who put themselves up as prophets online, the YouTube prophets and stuff like that.

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I don't know all of them. I haven't looked into all of them. The majority. I have not looked into the ones that I have spent some time on where I sit down and I go, let me check out this person's stuff a bit.

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Every time, Every time they're not real.

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Every single time I've looked into these guys personally, they're not real. Now, granted, I only looked into them because some red flag came up. Like, I saw something, thought, oh, that's a little concerning. And so I looked a little deeper to understand it more. Um, but every time I have, I go, this is. And recently looking into specific guys like, um, Bob Hartley and, um, Paul Kane and Mike Bickle and Bob Jones and, um, Sean Bowles, um, and others.

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I'm only more concerned when someone says, I'm a prophet. So I get why somebody would just naturally go, I reject this.

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But biblically, we know that there were people who were called prophets. Okay, then, uh, the other one he gave us. Ephesians 4:11, it says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

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So there you go. Um, this is sometimes connected to what they call the five fold ministry.

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Um, I'm not on board with all that. I think there's a lot of assumptions that are put in there that are not true. I don't think that we have modern apostles in the sense that the original apostles were. I think they were there.

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Notice what I said carefully. For those who don't know, this is kind of an expansive, like, annoyingly complicated debate.

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Um, the original apostles.

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There are other people called apostles in scripture, and they seem more like missionaries, to put it bluntly. There's more that should be said.

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They seem more like church planters and missionaries in that sense. Sure. We have church planters and missionaries. We can call them apostles if you want. I tend to avoid the term because apostolos was actually a, uh, Greek word that would be used for all kinds of people. Whereas in English, we only use the word apostle in a religious connotation, usually talking about a very, very, like, high up, very authoritative leader. So I don't use that term in English to refer to missionaries and stuff like that because I think it can be misleading.

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Could I say the same? Um, so we don't have modern apostles like Paul and like, um, the 12.

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Can I say the same about prophets? We don't have modern prophets like Agabus.

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Well, it's just not clear, okay, God can do what he wants. If he wants to bring up a prophet, he absolutely can. But I don't think we have an office of prophet in the church where every church is supposed to have a person who is called a prophet, who's in the church, who is like, known as the prophet in the local church. This is a formula for trying to force the hand of the Holy Spirit. I'm sorry, I'm just going to give you guys my.

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Take this and judge it and discern it and reject it if you don't think it's true. In my opinion, this causes a, uh, situation where we try to force the hand of the Holy Spirit to create offices based upon these things. I have to have an apostle in my church, I have to have a prophet in my church. I have to have these sorts of positions. Officially this causes people who aren't really apostles and aren't really prophets to fill those offices and then they do damage.

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So I'm open to someone if God may call a prophet.

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Uh, let me tell you one reason why I'm premillennial in my eschatology. This means I think that Jesus is going to return and reign for a thousand years on earth. I see the book of Revelation largely as future like, has not happened yet. That's how I interpret Revelation. Maybe I am wrong. Okay? That's my best understanding of it. So I'm going to try to be consistent with that. And in the book of Revelation there are prophets who are active in that time, right? They are speaking, they can call down fire on people. Like, this is hardcore end times stuff going on. And there are these two men who are prophets now. Does that mean there's other people throughout time that can always do that? No, I'm not saying that. But how do I have a good theology so that if I was to survive into the end times, and I was alive during that time, I wouldn't look at those guys and go, they're false prophets. Because my theology doesn't allow them to exist that I want to avoid.

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So I have an openness, but a genuine critical attitude towards anyone claiming to be a prophet. They have to be tested, they have to be examined, and they have to then be seen as true. If you're not sure, then you don't put any trust in what they've said. You just. You hold off.

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And pragmatically speaking, pretty much everybody I've looked into has been fake who's claimed to be a prophet or presented themselves as a prophet. Some people are weird. Like, uh, Brandon Biggs, the ear trump prophet guy. I've seen in some videos where he calls himself a prophet, but he deletes videos all the time, so I don't know if you can even find them anymore. Um, on the other hand, he'll be like, some people say I'm a prophet. I'm just saying I'm prophetic. He actually won't claim the title prophet, but he obviously is operating in the office, clearly in an exalted prophetic like status. So he's just playing games because he doesn't want to be accountable to the title. That is a lack of spine to back up your own beliefs about yourself. That is, he's just trying to become like, you know, he wants to be Neo. He was to dodge every bullet, every. Every challenge that might come. Oh, I got my just being straight with you guys. He's a false prophet. I don't feel like I have to protect him. He wants to dodge when he gets a false prophecy out there and then it's proven wrong. He's like, well, I must have got the timing wrong. I wasn't wrong. It was the timing. Or, oh, I missed that one. Not a big deal.

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I spoke in the name of God and I got it wrong. Not a big deal. I missed that one. And it's just like such a deminization, just such a minimizing effect. Not healthy, not good.

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And I know that that will.

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What I just said right there, that phrase, that phraseology of I missed that one.

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Um, I think it would be healthy if in the Charismatic Church, if people stopped saying that.

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I think it'd be healthier if they said, I told you I thought God was speaking and I was wrong.

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Don't say I missed that one. That's just. It's too low.

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Because if you're right, people are like, wow, God spoke. But if you're wrong, that's also a really big deal.

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All right, I'm gonna move on to number three.

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Shane Sebastian Malorgio says, why would Christ allow someone to be appointed as his vicar on Earth? Those of you who don't know the Pope, the new Pope has just been elected. They poured out the white smoke and announced him, and he's the first American Pope. And I don't know much about him yet, so I don't have much to say about him personally or individually. But the office of the papacy is not biblical, and historically, um, it's grown and developed into all of its claims, and it's not right.

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Um, should the church appoint or recognize official. Oh, sorry, Shani. Sebastian. Why would Christ allow someone to be appointed as his vicar on Earth if the authority of the Pope is illegitimate? How is that not the worst manifestation of blasphemy? How is it allowed by God?

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Uh, Shani, uh, there's a whole. Imagine all the things you could ask this kind of question to, just to kind of give us perspective.

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Um, how could God allow. And fill in the blank, um, a pope to be elected? How does he. Why doesn't he just divinely, like, the building falls in on the people or something. Why doesn't God do something to stop it from happening? You could say, well, how does God allow Muslim, um, terrorists to destroy and ruin the lives of other people?

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Like, that's pretty bad, right? Why does God allow that? Why does God allow Buddhism to thrive and survive for so long? Or why does God allow homosexual agendas and LGBT stuff to be promoted and censorship to be taking place amongst believers and people around the world? I could go on. I mean, why does God allow children to have cancer?

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You have to realize that this is understandable to ask these questions, but it's also to put ourselves in a position where we think. I need God to explain to me what he does and doesn't do is to put ourselves in a position where we are now the judges of God.

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Now, I will judge the presidents. I will judge pastors. I will judge myself. I will judge every leader and every other person. Not in a mean, sinful, judgmental sense, but in a sense of. I do have the ability to evaluate the actions of others around me, and I should walk in wisdom and discernment in those things.

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When you do this to God, you're definitely overstepping. This is where, as a Christian, it is not spiritually healthy to challenge God. Now, you can ask God questions. I get that. And that's. That's fine. That's a good thing. Ask these questions. Work through it like you've done here. We'll do it together here in a second.

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I'm just suggesting, keep yourself away from questioning God. Asking God questions, good. Questioning God bad.

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Trying to understand better what God does. Good. Challenging God. Explain yourself or I will disapprove. That's bad.

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Just kind of guard your heart there.

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We, um, are the creation. He is the Creator. The gulf between us in wisdom and power and right and authority and everything else is all very real, as opposed to.

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I can't say that's true of any other person, any political leader, any pastor, any supposed prophet. None of them have that gulf. Okay. God is unimpeachable. That's. Or else he's not God. If it means anything that He's God, he's unimpeachable.

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Um, so you say, why would God allow it? Let's just ask questions then. Why might God allow something like that?

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Um.

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One answer people give, and I think there's some legitimacy to this, is that we live in a world where God allows people to make decisions, and he allows those decisions to play out in real life.

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Perhaps the Lord sees value in you having free will and others having free will as well.

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Now, it's not free will without accountability, because God will hold people to account.

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The Pope who just died had to stand before God and deal with all of the claims that he has made, all of the good or bad he has done, and the impact it's had, um, on the name of Christ and everything else. Um, he stood in a place where he claimed that he was the ultimate representative of Jesus on the earth. That's a pretty big claim. I could not make that claim, and nobody should.

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Then you've got, um.

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So there's the question of free will, but then there's also accountability. Free will is a valuable thing. I think that's a good thing. I think it makes sense to go, yeah, I want free will. I want to actually make choices. I don't just want God to control my every step.

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Um, there's also other issues. So God will use the Pope for good.

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He will use this next pope to bring about good. Doesn't mean the Pope is good and what he does is good. God will use it for good. He will use all things we know. Romans 8:28. It doesn't say we think or we hope. It says, we know. God works all things together for good. To those who are called according to his purpose, God works them together for good. Now, it doesn't make everything good. It means he uses everything for some sort of good purpose. So God's using it, and I will trust him in that.

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How is he going to use it? Ultimately, I'm not sure. I don't have the, the special pill you take that lets you see all the, all the factors, uh, of reality and evaluate all the, all the cause and effect and potential realities and all that, that sort of thing. I just, I just know that His Word tells me he's going to use it. So I'm encouraged by that.

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Um, there's. There's other things too. You know, there's.

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There's scripture, ah, that talks about how there's false teaching that rises up partly so that it will test us so that we can find out whether or not we really are going to stay close to God. We're really going to follow Him.

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So there's a bunch of things that are potential out there. I'm sure there's other stuff I could add too, that others are probably thinking of right now.

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In the end, I just encourage you. Don't ask, how could God allow that?

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That is to put yourself in a place where you are now the judge of God and you will not have the wisdom to make a proper judgment. And it doesn't make sense to think that now this is what Job did. Read the Book of Job. Please read the Book of Job. Guard your heart. I'm not condemning you for asking this question. I think it's great that you put it out there. It gives us a chance to talk about it. We all, at some point in our lives, have to be reminded that God is God and we are not. Uh, it's a really healthy thing to be thinking about. So let's go to the next question.

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Atheist says, hey, Mike, after a long, hard life, I sometimes feel almost resentful of God, the Father, whom I've never seen, heard, or felt. But every day I love Jesus more and more. Is this normal? Thanks.

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Um, it's understandable, I think, but I don't think it's normal. As a Christian, Jesus says, let's consider what you've said here. Like, I've never seen, heard, or felt the Father, but man, I. Every day I love Jesus more and more. And so you have, like, a different attitude between the Father and the Son, and the Son you love and appreciate the Father you have some problems with. You say, I almost feel resentful. And so I want to encourage you. It's healthy that you were trying to hold yourself back from that. It's healthy that you're like, uh, I don't want to be resentful. It's like. But I feel myself being drawn in that direction.

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Um, but let me, uh, let me take you to a passage in John, uh, chapter 14.

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We're getting close to close to the end, and I'm going to back up.

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We'll read a chunk of this starting in chapter one. Ah, verse one of, uh, chapter 14.

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Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you, hold on, I'm going to go to the esv. I actually bounced to the new King James. I just like to be consistent.

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Um, in my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself. That where I am, you may be also.

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And you know the way, and you know where I'm going.

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Now Thomas feels like he doesn't know everything Jesus is talking about. And so he says, says to him, uh, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How can we know the way?

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And Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. And notice the agenda. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him in some sense. Jesus is telling them they've seen the Father.

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Uh, the part I highlighted there, he says, no one comes to the Father except through me. Because the idea of Jesus is that he is bringing you to the Father. If you have relationship with Jesus, you have relationship with the Father too. And in your mind they're being separated because there's probably just sort of like a spiritual battle you're going through. A lie from the enemy in your mind that separates the Father from Jesus and then starts to paint the Father as something different than who he is.

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You know, the Father sent the Son, the Father sent the Son. This Son says, I only do the things the Father shows me when he lives this perfect life. He says in John 17, Father, I have glorified your name.

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Now glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world was.

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When Jesus says, anyone who believes in Me, we will make our home with him.

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If you felt Jesus, you have felt also the Father along with Jesus. If you love Jesus, how can you not love the Father who sent him and told him everything he did.

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Let's read on. In verse eight, Philip, not Thomas. Now Philip has a challenge. He says, lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us. I want to see the Father. You said, I've never seen or felt the Father. Jesus said to, um, him, have I been with you so long and you still don't know me? Philip, whoever's seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father?

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Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I don't speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me. Does his works. Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

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Um, this is so for you, Thais. This is so for you, you say, I'm going to read again from your question.

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Every day I love Jesus more and more. I think Jesus could potentially say to you, atheist. Do you not know that when you love me, you're loving the Father?

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Don't you know that when you fall in love with what I've done for you, when you appreciate me, when you are grateful for me and for who I am and for what I've done, that I have the Father in me? Who's. He's the one who gave me, spoke the words to me to speak to you who guide and direct me. He's the one who sent me. The Father sent the Son.

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This separation of the Father and the Son, it traces back to, like, early church history. There was a guy named Marcion and he was doing this big time heretic, sick man. But heresies always just recirculate. They always come back slightly tweaked, but they always just keep coming back. You know, they're going to be fighting them until Jesus returns. Maybe it's next week, maybe it's 5,000 years from now, I don't know. But don't be offended by that. If you think it might not happen in your lifetime, you have to be ready for that. That's something to be ready for.

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Um, but, uh, the idea that, um, Jesus and the Father are somehow representing separate things. And so Marcion, and then of course, Gnostics, this is old heresy stuff. Separating the Father from the Son is an old demonic doctrine, basically going back as far as we know, that, yes, the Father and the Son are different persons of the Trinity, but there is such unity and such connectedness and singularity in the one God that you cannot have a different opinion of the Son than you do of the Father and be living in the real world like, this is a lie from the enemy.

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I would encourage you to just keep studying scripture, Learn about the Father through the Son, and then as you go through the Old Testament, you will see it's the same God. Old Testament and New Testament, same God.

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Let's, uh, go to the next question. This is from Adam Graves. And, um, we have all 10 questions for today, so no more, please. Sorry, we can't get to them all. I know we get way more questions than we could ever answer. But it's not just about answering every question. It's about creating a resource where there's some answers, helping a large number of people to think biblically. And so I hope you guys understand.

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Um, and if you are asking questions and you're like, I always send this question and it never gets answered, there's a chance it might be because we try to be selecting questions that we think will benefit everybody, not just one person.

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Um, but there's a chance that I've already answered your question. And you can go to my website and check it out.

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Biblethinker.org there's two search features. Listen carefully. This is important. One of them lets you search video. It's called, like, the video search or something. The other one's called the clip search feature. That's where you'd want to search. Search for the phrase, oh, yeah, unforgivable sin or Nephilim or whatever phrase, and you will find individual clips where I have dealt with that teaching or that topic. And you'll just click and it'll play right to that spot in that video.

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So that's for free on BibleThinker.org, the website that doesn't have ads and we don't get anything for you going to it. Just a resource for you. All right, let's go to number five. Adam Grave says my brother is an atheist and says he wouldn't follow a God that he knows is real who knowingly creates people who reject him and go to hell despite having power to save all. Uh, it's hard to reason thoughts.

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Um, yeah, Adam, this comes up over and over again, and I'm glad it does. It's good that it does because it's an issue that humans deal with over and over again.

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Your brother's effectively saying, unless God universally saves everybody, I reject God.

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This is the kind of excuse that when you are in hell, sounds really ridiculous, because it's not God that will be wounded. It is the person who has Left and departed from God for all eternity because they're next to somebody else who has also rejected God and they're mad about it.

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Nobody in hell is right.

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And I know those are strong words and many are probably thinking, mike, could you be more gentle or share this more cautiously? But there's something to be said for this, right? There's this kid who gets mad at his parents because they won't let him eat whatever sugary cereal every day that he wants, right? And they're like, no, we're going to be wiser with our diet. And so he packs his bags and he runs away from home.

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No kid who does that unless there's a truly abusive home, no kid who does that is better off. They're all in danger as a result. And this person is thinking that God is evil and abusive, and therefore they reject God. And they're like, I'd rather go to hell than acknowledge that maybe I'm wrong and God's right on this topic.

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This hell affords people a fearful and terrible awareness of how bad their excuses were their whole lives.

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That's what happens.

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There's people, you know, it's just a long list of all the excuses that we tell ourselves to do the things we want, probably. Adam, after having spoken to many people, I would guess that your brother has ulterior motives, that there are other reasons he doesn't want to follow God. And this is an excuse that feels like a righteous excuse. It feels like he's choosing somebody who's like a victim and he's championing their cause. How dare God not save them?

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Um, this is a bad excuse.

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I don't know where he gets off thinking that he actually has better judgment about heaven and hell than God himself does. But this is a common thing I've found with atheists. They really do think that they can make quick, snap judgments about God and his choices and his abilities and what he should or shouldn't do in any given scenario. There's a I judge God mentality is very common amongst atheists, which is interesting when you think about it, because atheism does not require that.

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Atheism would just require you thinking God does not exist. It's just an affirmation God does not exist.

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But so often, along with this is a list of things that God would have to do if he did exist. He would have to do all these things or else.

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Or I disapprove. Not only do I disapprove, I would rather spend eternity apart from God in unpleasantness than eternity in the presence of the Creator of all, in joy and peace and love and happiness. I would rather reject all of that because I think this person's in hell. It doesn't deserve it.

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At some point, don't you just say, maybe I'm just assuming a little too much about life here. Maybe I'm just making really big judgments on God and I'm going too far.

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I don't know how to provide the kind of simple and appropriate humility that your brother needs.

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I tend to just try to point out what's going on here. So you see what's happening here.

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There's other things you can do. You can try to build relational stuff with him. Sometimes these types of excuses are on the surface because underneath there's real issues. And so you try to start to navigate to the real issues.

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But you are not going to force your brother to Christ. You might try to draw him to Christ, but you cannot force it. I hope God gives you wisdom.

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When an atheist is able to say, even if God's real, I still reject him.

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There's not a lot you can do in that regard.

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Now you start to think, why is that the case?

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Why is it that even if God, the gospel, the whole thing is all true, they would still reject it? What is in the heart of man that has such hatred for God, such resistance to obedience to him, to faith in him? Because surely if the Christian worldview is true and there's somebody in hell that you think doesn't belong there, you just have to throw your hands up and go, that's confusing to me. I'm not sure why that is, but I know that God is just.

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So I guess I'll wait and find out more when I stand before Him. Because in eternity, we're going to understand all the judgments and why they happen the way they did.

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We will see that God is just.

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And the people who reject him on the basis of their own moral superiority will no longer have the delusion of their moral superiority in hell. At least they. I don't think they will.

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Man. Lord, give you wisdom. Adam, I, uh, would encourage you to show the love of Christ to your brother. But do not bow for one second to his moral superiority.

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It only affirms it even more in his mind.

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Don't bow to one second to it.

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Liam Baker. Question.

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Does Jesus have a distinct spirit apart from the Holy Spirit? It seems that Jesus has his own spirit, Luke 24:46, that is distinct from the Holy Spirit. Thank you so much for all you do in my life.

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Thanks, man. I really appreciate that, Liam. Um, I'm grateful to God that I get to have any place to bless and minister to people in one way or another. And I hope you all don't think too highly of me. That's a pretty common thing amongst anybody who's sort of in the public eye. And I'm going to show you guys the cat cam. Since I said I would, my cat is making that a pretty easy thing to do. We'll see if I can get it working, huh?

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Here, I'll save it till the end of the stream if I can get it working, because it's not immediately working.

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Um.

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Yeah. How you doing over here?

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So, Luke 23:46. What does it say about the nature of the Spirit of Jesus?

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Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.

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And having said this, he breathed his last.

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Um, this is an expansive and complicated debate.

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I think if I speak to it simply, it's not that hard. But if you want to really dial things down, it's when it gets very difficult, um, and challenging for us because you start bringing in all these other theological ideas and concepts. So I'll give you some quick examples. Right. Jesus speaks about his Spirit, and he's speaking to the Father and he's committing his spirit to the Father. This would imply he has a different spirit than the Father.

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But we have other things to consider.

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We have the idea that, um, God is spirit.

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And so there's a same substance quality that's there that we hear. That's trinitarian language. We hear same substance, but there's also.

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Jesus has a spirit. We also know the Holy Spirit is simply called the Holy Spirit. And though God the Father is also Spirit, there is some sort of differentiation in spirit between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it seems.

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Um, and then you've got to go, okay, but if we say that they are separate, depending on how you use that language, separate, you might unintentionally walk yourself into a trinitarian heresy or false teaching about the very nature of God. So you've got three gods that are all just united in, like, connection and relationship. And that's not what we're teaching. There is only one God.

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So trying to, like, find how to use the right language to express one God, three persons. Or there's the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God. That's just one God. Yet the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, Spirit is not the Father. That language right there that I just speedily said, I think is safe.

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And if you just rest on that, you're fine. And when you try to answer in too much detail, it's not too much detail, like it's wrong. But when you try to answer in a lot of detail, it's easy to walk yourself into some sort of error because what you're doing is you're coming up with an answer to explain a mystery. And then that answer starts to affect other things you believe as well.

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And you don't realize it, you don't anticipate how if you sort of tweak the knob this way, it causes this other knob to get tweaked that way. So trinitarian stuff can be kind of complicated, kind of confusing. And then you have questions about the nature of humans. You know, are we, um, body and spirit or are we like body, soul and spirit? And then what is the soul and what was the nature of Jesus? Soul. And I think people get in a lot of trouble when they try to wrestle with this stuff, having not spent enough time working on it and thinking about the consequences of the solutions they come up with.

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So I'll say I agree with you. There is at least some sense in which the Son has his own spirit.

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But we should balance this out with the idea that he's the same substance as the Father, Right? And that there aren't multiple gods going on.

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So I hope that helps to some degree.

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Let's go to the next question.

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Number seven, Saved by grace. My pastor said that since God called him to shepherd, unless they are teaching false doctrine, you don't question your pastor even if you don't agree with something they do wrong. Is this right?

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Uh, nope.

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If he really taught it that way, if that's like if he really taught it that way, that unless they're teaching false doctrine, you don't question your pastor.

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That's weird.

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That's weird. It's a very self serving teaching. It's very self serving. It feels very good for the leader to be able to stand up and be like, hey guys, guess what? Never question me.

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You don't like that teaching? What would I just say? Don't question me. You know, you even asking me my opinion of what your pastor said is by nature of his own policy a violation.

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This is weird.

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If your pastor is the godliest man in the world and he's super safe, then this is fine. But if he was the godliest man in the world, was super safe, he would not teach this stuff. This is the kind. Here's the thing. I like to do as a policy.

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Imagine for yourself. And this is a great question for you guys to ask of your own churches. Try to answer it thoughtfully and healthily and don't overreact. But it may alarm you a bit when you answer this question, and that's okay. You just have to work through it.

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Think to yourself, maybe I trust my pastor. I think he's a great guy.

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Let's suppose for a second he wasn't a great guy, that some of the stuff he did on stage was about manipulation. Some of the way he deals with people was about just controlling people. And he was more about his own ego than he really was the kingdom of God. Hypothetically, let's say that he was okay. Doesn't mean he is. He's probably not. But let's suppose with all the people listening, some of you have pastors like this. It's just got to be statistically true.

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So let's say that he was a bad guy, um, or at least significantly flawed in his ministry in ways that were unacceptable.

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Now, here's the next question.

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Is my church a culture and an environment, and does it have the kinds of checks and balances where we would be able to do something about it?

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Or is it set up in a way where there's a kind of elitism where you don't even know who your pastor is accountable to, or if he's supposedly accountable to somebody, you don't have access to them, or they think he's unimpeachable, or that you can't challenge anything he says. Like this gentleman here told you, if you think, if my pastor was a bad guy, I don't think our church would be capable of doing anything about it, then that means the church has to change its policies.

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This is a policy that cannot be in place. What you've said, I'll read it again. My pastor said that since God called him to shepherd, unless they are teaching false doctrine, you don't question your pastor even if you don't agree with something they do wrong. Is this right? No, that is not right.

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Uh, that is incorrect. I don't have scripture to say that. There is no Bible verse that says this. There's plenty of challenging that goes on. When Nathan, um, challenged David, clearly anointed by God, he went and he rebuked him publicly. Right? In fact, it's written in the text of scriptures so that, like, billions of people know about it. Billions of people know about it. Nathan rebukes him publicly. You're the man, David. You did this with Uriah you did this with Bathsheba. This was not an issue of David teaching false doctrine.

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He did not teach false doctrine. When Paul says in First Timothy, um, is it 5:20?

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Yeah. First Timothy, 5:20. Look at this. Don't admit a charge against an elder. That is what your pastor is teaching. Do not admit a charge against an elder. Stop. End of sentence. End of discussion. Do not continue reading in your Bible, Right. God called in a shepherd. Unless he's teaching false doctrine, you do not question him. Here it says, don't admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses, which, of course, it could be one witness if there's corroboration. The point here is that it's valid.

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You have to make sure it's a valid charge. Don't just believe every random YouTube comment. It has to be a valid charge.

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As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all. Who's rebuking them? Their elders.

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Who's rebuking these elders?

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Well, it's got to be people other than the elder who's sinning. Those who persist in sin didn't say false doctrine. Sin, rebuke in the presence of all. Why? Check this out. So that the rest may stand in fear.

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Listen, I know that when I make exposure videos, which I don't like doing and I don't do all the time, I know when I make exposure videos, there are a number of leaders who think I like Mike's content. But when he makes a video about this pastor being a predator or a fraud or in some way really problematic and perhaps dangerous to people, when Mike makes those videos as a leader, I worry, like, what if he made a video about me and they start to be afraid now it's wrong for them to be afraid of me personally, like, I'm some sort of force for, like, taking down ministries. That's certainly not what I am. That's certainly not what I want.

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But it is right for them to be afraid that if they sin, they may get called out and it may take them down. That's a healthy fear. Not a fear of Mike. That's not healthy at all, but a fear that, hey, that pastor was compromising. He had a great ministry, but, man, he really blew it. Committed some serious sins, and now it's been brought out and everybody knows. And that makes me scared that if I follow the same patterns and I sin like this, I too may get called out and I too, may be called to account what your pastor is doing. It sounds like now, maybe, Maybe you've misrepresented him. Look, I'm not saying you did. I just want to throw it out. There's always possible misunderstanding, misrepresentation. But based on what you said, if that's accurate, what your pastor is doing is he wants to not stand in fear. And the Bible wants him to, uh, put back on your screen, stand in fear.

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Every Christian leader should be afraid of failing because their sins are going to be dealt with publicly. If they have compromised their ministry, if they have used their ministry to hurt or abuse other people, if they have persisted in sin. And there's a whole debate on what does persist in sin mean.

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Um, and, uh, I may get into that at some point, but, yeah, what your pastor said is wrong.

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And it probably stems from his own insecurities and unhealthy behaviors. And it takes, uh, away the agency of the congregation. The Bible talks about this stuff. Like you're supposed to test these things.

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Um, you know, for someone to be put in leadership, they have to have a good reputation among outsiders. Non believers. That's one of the requirements.

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That means that the opinions of the moral character of the pastor sourced from non Christians is even relevant in them becoming a pastor.

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The opinions of the moral character of the pastor from non believers is actually relevant. So how can you tell the church, unless I'm teaching false doctrine, you're not allowed to have public opinions about me. You just have to keep supporting me.

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That's dangerous. And I would say that itself is this violation of his leadership call and is sinful. And what it does is it leads to. This is something I've noticed, this kind of mentality. If it's systematic in a church, it leads to a scenario where people, let's be honest, people like me, okay, which most of you are like this. You would call it out if you were there in the church and you saw abuse happening. If you saw people doing things that were wrong, you would want the leaders to be accountable. People like me. You can't rise up in leadership in those churches. Cause those guys, the pastor, he doesn't look at you and think, God's anointed you. He's called you. He's gifted. You look at. You're, uh, a blessing to the body. You know what your pastor does? He looks at you and he thinks, I don't trust you.

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I don't think you'll support me no matter what. I don't think you really have my back. And they see the integrity you have to call things out as betrayal and lack of Loyalty. And so they won't raise you up. You know who they'll raise up? Other men who are compromised in their walk. But they're always willing to be loyal to the leadership.

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Oh, man, I could go on for hours on this.

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It creates a system where you have oppressive leaders who have each other's backs, who start to look at the congregation as a commodity that they move around. And loyalty to each other as the primary qualification, uh, for leadership, as opposed to loyalty to Christ.

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Whereas in Scripture, Peter does not get Paul's loyalty. Not to the point where Paul's not willing to call him out publicly.

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Um, Jesus even calls out his own leaders publicly. This stuff is dealt with. Now, coupled with that, we can have grace, we can have mercy. Every time a leader fails doesn't mean they're disqualified for ministry.

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But we can't have an unaccountable leadership. That's the problem. All right, I'll move on. Number eight, appendix to the apocrypha says, I'm feeling discouraged in my new job as a youth pastor. I don't know if I'm making an impact or if I meant to do this. Any advice?

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Um, so I obviously was a youth pastor for many years. Um, and easy to feel discouraged. Youth ministry, you typically don't see the fruit right away. Evangelism, you tend to see fruit more instantly. Some fruit more instantly. You at least have a moment where someone gets saved. But even then, somebody might get saved after you witness to them. And you never saw it. It was just something the Lord was working on their heart.

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There was, uh, a lesson I've learned from farming. Okay, I'm not a farmer, but I do like growing tomatoes every year. Me and my wife do want to grow tomatoes at least every year. And we have a bunch of tomatoes in our backyard. They're green right now that we're like, can't wait to do some BLTs and some, uh. When we get a lot pasta sauce and homemade from scratch.

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It's good.

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Um, that's coming. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. So the thing I learned about the tomatoes is you plant the seeds, you know, or you put the plants in the ground. If you have them little saplings, it takes quite a while before you see fruit. And I tend to just go out and look for fruit all the time. You know, like, are they getting a little fruit? Are we getting fruit coming in yet?

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When in reality, this is, um, too soon.

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We're not going to get the fruit because I'm looking for it too quickly. And this is the case in a bigger way in ministry. The fruit of your ministry as a youth leader is often 10, 15, 20 years down the road.

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Um, even some of the stuff you think is fruit at first, you just don't know if it's going to last in a kid's life. It's when they are raising their own kids and they're married and they're an adult and they look back then you see, huh, what kind of fruit did that have in their life?

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My encouragement is, be a seed planter, be a seed waterer, don't be a fruit inspector for your own ministry. You're only to examine your own faithfulness, not your own fruitfulness. This is a really good principle of ministry, guys. Examine your faithfulness. Am I being faithful? Am I doing the thing I'm called to do, I'm supposed to do here? Do not examine your fruitfulness. Am I being fruitful? I would just encourage you not to examine that at all.

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That may seem kind of extreme because, man, you want to see fruit and you're so encouraged by it. But we tend to be short sighted and we don't anticipate what God's doing. Now I want to say, let me add this too. Um, you say, I don't know if I'm making an impact or if I'm meant to do this.

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I know how it can feel. You're in ministry, you're serving, and it can feel like once you've started doing something, you have to do it forever and you're abandoning God if you don't. I don't believe that.

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And I've operated under that idea for most of my life. I start doing something, I won't quit. I feel like God's given it to me.

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If you do think God has placed you there, then you need to stay the duration until the Lord shows you otherwise or until you feel like that has been accomplished or whatever.

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Because that was like a direct revelation from God. But if you've just said, I just want to serve the Lord, you've been put into ministry. You don't have to stay there for the rest of your life. You don't have to be locked in forever. You may decide it's wise and good.

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So how do you make these judgment calls?

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I encourage you not to do it because of discouragement.

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You can do it under. Or at least I would encourage people be more likely to step out of ministry or out of a ministry and do other things. When you look and you say, my gift set is not aligning with my ministry Like, I'm just, I'm not being insecure. Okay? You will deal with insecurity. You've got to set that aside.

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But just objectively speaking, my gift set is not in alignment with this ministry. Like, I'm not good at this. I don't have it. I don't feel this particular calling from God and I'm not operating in my gifts. Now, I take your gifts as an indication that the Holy Spirit has equipped you for specific kinds of things in ministry.

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And when you follow those gifts and when you lean into your gifts and you go, well, this is what I'm good at, and you serve the Lord with those gifts, you're organically following the leading of the Spirit, even though you don't have a direct word from God, because that gift was given you by God. You're good at teaching, then you probably should teach. You're good at uh, counseling, you should probably counsel. You're really good at comforting those who mourn. Then you should probably be like, uh, a deacon who's uh, available to help people who are going through hardship and stuff like that. You're really good at apologetics, naturally. Like, then why aren't you leaning into that? Whatever you're good at, do that thing.

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But sometimes you're just really good at being available.

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And then there's a need in the church and you get shoved into the need.

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Go ahead, do it for a while.

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See if your gifts align with that. And if not, consider if there's something else you might do because you're going to. Ultimately, this is the big principle.

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Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

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And I think that lines up with you saying, where do my skills and my spirit given abilities, whatever they are, and maybe you feel like they're minuscule, but whatever they are, where do those line up with the needs that the body has or the needs of evangelism that the world has? Let me find out where my abilities, what's easier for me when I'm better at where that lines up with the needs that are present around me and do that, and that's ministry, whether it's official or unofficial.

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Um, but don't be a fruit inspector, man. It may seem like I'm saying a few contradictory things to me, I don't think they are. Maybe I just lack the ability to explain them better.

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I don't want you to make a decision about ministry based on discouragement. I would like you to make your decisions based upon wisdom and insight.

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That's probably the bottom line. So God, give You wisdom and help.

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Healthy, healthy. Holly has a question, says, I'm in the process of leaving the LDS Church for real Christianity. Thank you for your videos. Hey, thank you. Uh, Holly, I am grateful to hear it. Um, I'm grateful to hear it in your life.

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That is hard, hard, hard to do. I have some clue because I've spoken to many former, um, LDS members or other groups as well, and I know how in the LDS it tends to be a whole community. You're leaving not just a religion, but a community of people. And it can be very challenging.

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And, um, I know of stories where, um, a husband left the Mormon church, and then some of the local leaders were encouraging the wife to divorce her husband because they were afraid they were going to lose the kids and the wife as well. Um, I know that sounds weird. People are like. But they're families. But I've heard this report numerous times.

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Um, and it's really. It can be big cost.

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So I get that you said, do you have any resources or advice for the deconstruction and reconstructing of faith after leaving?

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Um, I mean, the best thing you could possibly do is just read the Bible for yourself without any aids from Mormonism.

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Um, but this can be a little bit challenging because you don't realize that you have an interpretation of a passage or a concept in the Bible that is still just left. I remember talking to a guy who was former Mormon, and, um, he says, um, he's still not 100% sure on the polygamy stuff.

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He's a guy and he's not 100% sure on the polygamy stuff. You know, surprise, surprise. And so we were arguing about it a little bit in a friendly way, but just openly talking about it. Um, um, I'm going to find the verse. Ah, he quotes off the top of his head. He quotes this passage that Jesus says, and he's like, hey, um, when the apostles were like, jesus, look, we left everything to follow you. And he says, look, if this is his case for Mormonism, my example here of how you might have leftover teachings, even though you reject LDS stuff, it might still be left over in your brain and you didn't know it.

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Um, he says, uh, well, Jesus says if anybody left houses or brothers or sisters or father or wives or children, they would get more children and brothers and sisters and fathers and all that.

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And, um, uh, let me see if this is the right gospel. We got this from.

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Um, yeah, you would get more houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and wives in the age to Come. And so he thought this was actually an affirmation of Jesus telling you, you're going to get multiple wives, which would imply that polygamy was good. Now, what does the passage actually say? We went to it, we found it together and looked at it.

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So Jesus answered and said, assuredly, I say to you, there's no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children, or lands for my sake in the Gospels, who shall not receive a hundredfold. Now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children's and lands, you notice what's missing. Wives.

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Wives is the one Jesus deliberately left out. Dear polygamists, who are watching me right now, trying to think about how I'm wrong, um, why did Jesus leave out wives? Wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity for Jesus to affirm polygamy?

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He could have said that you'll get more sisters and mothers and children. You'll be part of a community, a big family in Christ.

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Um, but not wives.

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You won't get more wives. Not plural, not even a replacement wife is guaranteed here.

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So that was a situation where he had baked into his mind this LDS doctrine that had affected him a lot more than he realized. I say that only to tell you it's going to happen over and over again. And that's okay. Everybody goes through that. Don't let it freak you out too much. Just go, oh, uh, there's another thing I learned here, another thing I learned there. And when you read the passages of scripture slowly and you really think about them, you will often find that the Holy Spirit's going to open your eyes and go, this doesn't mean what I thought before. This is a other thing.

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Um, as far as other resources for deconstructing and reconstructing faith after leaving, um, finding ex Mormons is really helpful here. And I think the Tanners have been helpful to some people. Sandra Tanner, I haven't looked at her stuff in quite a while, but they have a website.

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Um, I think it's Utah Lighthouse Ministries. Back, like many years ago, I'd seen their stuff and I thought it was helpful because they would grab things that were like, you know, resources that you may want to check out. So I would say check out their websites. Utlm M.org Utlm M.org.org and I think they're useful. If you find out for some reason there's some problem there that I'm not aware of. I'm sorry, but years and years ago, uh, like 15 years ago, I Remember looking at their stuff and thinking it was pretty good. Things can change over time. Maybe it's even better now. I don't know.

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Then, um. Is there other stuff I recommend? Um, I just. I just recommend of all other stuff. It's just patience.

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Be patient. Try not to let your heart overreact to anything.

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It's very easy to do. It's very common, very understandable and common, um, for you to move into a stage of sort of swinging wildly around. And there's one other temptation I'll mention for anybody leaving a cult.

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One of the traumas that a person experiences from being part of a cult group or a really controlling religious group, um, is this, like, constant awareness of how much you've been lied to and how people you thought were for you were manipulating you. And it just is jarring, and it just messes you up on the inside.

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And one of the temptations that can be unhealthy is the desire to never let that happen again. To the point where you do things that are not healthy. Let me give you an extreme example of this kind of thing with marriage.

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Sometimes women have experienced an abusive husband, like a very strongly abusive, wicked, immoral husband. And she rightly leaves and flees from that man.

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And then now she's divorced, and now she's on her own. And plenty of women have felt this.

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Never again will I be with a man.

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Never again because I was so traumatized by that guy, that marriage itself is ruined for me. I will never be with a man. And some of these women move into lesbianism not because of their sexual desires, but because there's a sense that it won't happen to you if you have a lesbian relationship.

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Um, that's obviously immoral. There's obviously other reasons why God clearly refutes doing this and shows that it's sexually wrong. And it's a rejection of God's design and God's purposes for you. And it will bring you harm. But I understand the logic. Never again causes me to swing wildly over here and create something that's not healthy.

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When you come out of a cult, this can happen to you. You say, never again will I be manipulated and lied to by big religious wigs who think that they can, uh, distort scripture and tell me what God thinks and control my life and all this. And then you go to a church and a pastor gets up and you start looking around and you think, how do I know they aren't doing it too? And maybe they are. I'm not saying they aren't. Maybe they are. But that fear, how do I know it can lead you to a place where this is where a lot of people who leave Mormonism turn into like sort of a, uh, self generated spirituality they move away from now, uh, maybe they keep Jesus, but it's their own version of Jesus now. They keep the Bible ish, but it's their own version of it and they pick and choose what they like and don't like and they start creating their own personalized religion. Because now never again, I will never be controlled by some external source. I will never have religious manipulation in my life. And therefore I'll invent my own religion, I'll come up with my own version of Jesus. I pick and choose what I like out of scripture. I uh, pick and choose what I like out of religion. And boy, it feels so peaceful because I've got no conflicts with anybody, right? They go, I believe this. And they go, all good for you, do what you want.

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Oh man, that really brings me a lot of catharsis.

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I've seen people move into self generated make believe religion because of the fear of getting abused again.

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I would encourage you to be aware of that, know that that's a temptation lots and lots of people feel.

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And to me the safest thing to do is you go to the scriptures, you stay committed to the Lord and you go, uh, I just know I'm safe with God.

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Start with that and be really patient with yourself and may God help you find a good place. If you find a place that's abusive, that's messed up, get out of dodge.

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But I would encourage you, don't be like the woman who is abused by a man and then runs to lesbianism because it just feels safe. Don't be like that where you reject the genuine thing that God has for you and you start inventing your own thing that's just basically meant to self protect but isn't really grounded in truth.

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So um, that'd be my encouragement to you. God give you wisdom, God help you. I'm so glad you're on this journey and I hope, I hope it goes well.

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Last question for today, although we a little bonus one. But um, Gianna says, what does Jesus sitting at the right hand of the father mean when it's also said that Jesus was seated on the throne in Revelation?

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Um, um, well there's a sense in which uh, you, you'll realize like the New Testament when it has like a vision like revelation is that we're trying to be, we're being shown pictures and images and we're being taught things about Christ that are, um, uh, that have metaphorical value in their nature.

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See if this works.

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Still not working. Oh, well, no cat can. Um, and so that could be part of it. There's also a sense in which you. You don't want to think of Jesus as being at the right hand of the Father and then think, and therefore he's frozen there at all times. Like he's at the right hand of the Father. So he's physically at the right hand of the Father. He's frozen there in time.

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There's some level of metaphors here. There's some level of analogy here, and I don't want to push it too literally. So when I hear about God, uh, measuring the universe with the span of his hand, I don't think that's how big God's hand is like. I think the Father doesn't have a hand in a physical, like, sense like that. I think this is giving us a metaphor. When Stephen sees Jesus, he sees him standing at the right hand of the Father. Yet Hebrews makes a really big deal in the book of Hebrews that Jesus is seated and that this has a, um, metaphorical, theological meaning about the finished nature of his sacrifice for us. He's not going to offer another sacrifice once and for all. He paid for our sins.

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Does that mean that Stephen's wrong? That Jesus. No, Jesus stood to receive Stephen.

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That was for a reason. But as far as his high priestly work goes, he's seated. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, read the Book of Hebrews. Super cool stuff. You'll learn a few things. Um, so, yeah, um, that's kind of my answer on that. It probably would be better if we just went through the passages themselves. We're getting towards the end of the stream, though, so for now we'll move on. All right, number 11, this is a little bonus question from the open letter. Who says, can I get a hi from Mike?

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Hi, open letter.

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So I don't have a cat cam for you guys, but it's okay.

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You try to drag her over.

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Oh, uh, am I disturbing your rest?

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There's a cat.

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She was laying down all peaceful, and I messed it up. It's okay.

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This is Mika. We have Moxie. She's actually a lot cuter than Mika. Look, it's just objectively true. Mika doesn't know English. She doesn't even know I said it. Don't worry.

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But she's, like, hardly ever shows up on camera anymore. I don't Know why.

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Um, but here's Mika.

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All right.

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Glad I wore the cat shirt today. Thank you guys for joining me. I will not be with you all at all next week. If, um, I upload, it'll be just some pre made short videos. Otherwise I'm, like, taking a break. I'm going to try to stay away from social media and all that. I just need to, like, recharge batteries because there's a lot going on. You can do that again with the, with the rear end thing.

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Anyway, um, thank you guys. Appreciate you very much.

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Just, uh, just a random reminder. I was thinking about, um, as I'm doing content that's exposing leaders. Um, in some cases, uh, there's many, many good leaders. There's more, I think, godly Christian leaders than there are ungodly ones. And the ones who are vying the most for attention tend to be the ones that are most prone to error and problems. Um, and you could say, hey, but Mike, look at you. You're putting content out there, trying to reach lots and lots of people.

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Maybe you're a flaw and you're in error. Why shouldn't we question you? And my actual answer to that is, you should question me.

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You need to not have a category of unimpeachable leadership. Like, we should question everybody.

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It's okay for you to wonder what my motives are and to evaluate my actions, uh, based upon what I do and say.

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Does that exhibit godliness? Is he doing what's right here? Of course you have to make those kinds of judgment calls.

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I think the majority of people out there, there's some who think really lowly of me, and I think they're incorrect. But I think the majority of the people out there, for instance, watching my content online, probably think too highly of me. Like, if you got to know me, you'd be disappointed because you'd see me when I was, like, frustrated or irritated or I snapped at my wife wrongly and then had to apologize later, you would probably get disappointed in me because somehow only seeing your pastor on stage or only seeing somebody when they're ministering to people, when they're leading worship, it creates this Persona in your inner minds of that person that is not realistic and not helpful.

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So may I remind you, uh, that I'm a human who has embarrassing flaws and who has committed many sins and needs the grace of Jesus Christ, um, entirely. And even as I create content, that sometimes exposes leaders who refuse accountability. That's a key. Who refuse accountability and who are a present problem in the body. And, uh, we try to follow Scripture on that.

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Most leaders will require, all leaders will require some measure of grace and forgiveness.

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And even if those leaders are exposed, it's not so that they can be forever condemned. It's so we can follow Scripture. The elders who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest also may fear. And so we can just follow what the Bible says there. It's unpleasant stuff, I know. And, um, I think that's about it. Yeah. Appreciate you guys.

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Every one of you has, um, a voice, and I pray the Lord will give you wisdom to use it. Well, if you decide to speak up about some of these leaders, uh, please guard your own heart. Consider yourself, lest you also be tempted. Galatians, chapter 6. Or Jesus, where he says, pull the plank out of your own eye first.

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Assess yourself. It's very easy to get into the flesh when confronting these things.

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We want to throw out correct discernment, but also keep the arm of grace outreached at all times, even to perpetrators, just so long as reaching that arm out of grace is not enabling them to further abuse other people.

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All right, that's about all I got to say. Let's pray. Um, Father, we thank you for your holy, holy word. We thank you for your holy Spirit, and we pray for that now more of the work of your spirit in our lives to help us to deal rightly and that we are, I think, entering into a season of actual accountability. This isn't some great spiritual revelation I've received from you directly, Lord, but I think that as I see the rumblings, people talking, other leaders stepping up, um, asking for accountability, and doing so with a boldness and with a fearlessness that's appropriate.

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It seems as though something good is happening in the charismatic churches and that that's going to bleed into other churches as well, in a good way, where pastors are not unimpeachable and we are all held to the same standards, and we graciously but firmly will, uh, follow what Scripture says about accountability. In Jesus name. Amen.

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Sa Mhm.