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You ever feel like you're just forgetting something?

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I feel like that today I feel like I'm forgetting something and I don't know what it is. But anyways, here we are. The first question for today in the live stream. I'm taking questions from the live chat from you guys, but I start with one already. And, um, it's for Catholics and Orthodox in particular. I often hear, uh, Catholics and Orthodox who I bear no animosity or ill will toward and consider us having so much in common that we have to acknowledge and we have to embrace those aspects of our shared agreement about Jesus, about scripture, about all sorts of things. Um, but there's a question about Sola Scriptura. Now, Sola Scriptura is this thing that Protestants, um, believe, this idea that Scripture is not the only source of truth in the world. That's a silly view.

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Uh, it is not the only authority in the church.

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That's also kind of a silly view. Sola scriptura.

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Here we go. Question number one. Um, is the idea that Scripture is the only infallible final authority in the church, right? That it has its final role of being the arbiter of what a Christian is bound to believe or not believe.

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It falls down onto scripture so that if any other authority disagrees with scripture, you as an individual, you have to discern and go with scripture on that one, whether it's a pope or, uh, a patriarch or a pastor or YouTuber, you're going to say, I'm going to follow Scripture and that will have a higher rank of authority than you. So churches have authorities, leaders have authorities. That's all real.

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Now here's what I see online all the time trying to set up this question so it makes sense all the time. I see the Bible doesn't teach Sola Scriptura. This Sola Scriptura Bible alone is not in Bible alone. You can't find it in the Bible. So therefore it's self contradictory. This is such an often repeated claim online that I just thought it was nice to say because I was going through. I was reading 2nd Thessalonians with my wife, came across a verse. I thought, hey, this is kind of a Sola Scriptura verse of which there are many in Scripture. It says it many times.

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It doesn't say here's Sola Scriptura, but neither does the Bible say here's the doctrine of the Trinity, but it teaches it implicitly and elements of it explicitly. When you grab the implicit and explicit teachings and put them together, you have the doctrine. Well, Sola Scriptura is kind of like that. So here's one verse, one example of a Bible passage that I think, and I'll put it this. Listen carefully to my words here, if you would. I think requires Sola Scriptura to be true for it to make sense. I don't know how to make sense of this, apart from Sola Scriptura being true. So this idea that the Bible is the, um, sole final or infallible authority for Christians, not the only authority, but the highest, um, so here we have in second, uh, Thessalonians, chapter two.

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Sorry, I'm bouncing around a little bit. Now listen to this and think to yourself, if I'm not allowed to say, use the Bible to test every other authority, me as an individual, not as some sort of clergyman or something, but just as a normal person. If I'm not supposed to use the Bible as a way of testing all other teachers, no matter how high their rank is, no matter what magisterium they claim they're a part of, then how does this passage make sense? Okay, let's read it now. Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together with him, we ask you brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

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Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the Son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

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Now there's a lot to talk about here and I don't want to focus on the eschatology of it. And kind of like how do we interpret all that? Um, that would be worthwhile. But this is about how Sola Scriptura, the idea that you have to use the Bible to test all other things, that that is baked into this passage. Now you could argue there's a number of little sort of side arguments you could have. But Mike, the Bible wasn't fully written at this time. Ah, ah, yes, but I didn't say the Bible. My claim doesn't require that the Bible was fully written at this time. In fact, it's still being written as he's writing it.

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But what was already written, what was already delivered is the test for whatever may also come.

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That's an important fact for Sola Scriptura. Now let's read it again carefully.

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Um, by the way, this ties into Jesus's statement about the coming of the Son of Man. And he's really adamant about it. He goes, you know, the Son of Man don't listen. You're going to have people saying, oh, here's the Christ, there's the Christ. Don't go out, don't listen. When the Son of Man comes, every eye will see him, every ear will hear Him. So everyone's going to know. And, uh, it won't be some secret thing like you have in, um, uh, the Watchtower, Jehovah's Witnesses, a secret return of Christ, or you have in, uh, the Mother God cult, the Woomskag World Mission Society, Church of God, the South Korean cult that is also still in America, um, targeting rich people in particular. They like.

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I have a video on them if you want to look it up. Just my name and Mother God cult, and you'll find it.

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But let's look at this. Okay. Now, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus and our being gathered together to him, we ask you brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either. Now, what should not alarm them? A spirit, a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us.

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That's interesting.

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It doesn't say a letter that is from us or a letter that's not from us. It's a letter that seems to be from the apostles, as in, here's what we know the apostles have taught us. Now, there's other things people will say, but the apostles also taught this, and that thing contradicts what the apostles previously taught. That's the scenario.

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And what are you going to do? You're going to stick to what, you know, the apostles previously taught, not to the claims about what seems to be from the apostles, which is in a large part what we see in Orthodox and Catholic, uh, views, is a lot of these claims of. Yeah, but, Mike, the apostles also taught that marriage was a sacrament, even though marriage was clearly historically not taught to be a sacrament until far, far later. But they're going to say this seems to be from the apostles. But what seems to be from the apostles is different than what we know for sure is from the apostles. That's the difference.

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The sola scriptura is those teachings that we know for sure.

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Now, what the Orthodox and Catholics do is they have their own. They each have their own kind of magisteriums. Um, whether they always want to use those terms or not, this sort of. We're the sort of college of individuals that say and tell you what the apostles taught that is not recorded in Scripture.

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What I'm suggesting here, though, is, in principle, this passage of scripture on your screen requires that normal people, not clergymen, not special magisterial people, normal people, normal Christians, that they have to do a discernment process, even over things that seem to be from the apostles, and that they make a judgment call based upon what was already revealed to see if those things should be received or not.

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That process implies sola scriptura.

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I don't see, um, a better interpretation. I'm sure you could find an interpretation, but I don't see one that makes more sense of the passage. So this idea of sola scriptura is actually in scripture a lot.

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Uh, we see it in the, um, Old Testament because God says, hey, if a prophet comes to you and he declares to you, um, a word, and it comes to pass, so you know he's legit, right? He has prophesied and it has been fulfilled. But then he tells you, go after other gods. He says, don't follow him. So even a legit prophet who directs you after other gods, you don't follow him. How do you know this? How can you discern that? The content of what he's saying when he says, God wants you to do this? Yahweh commands this.

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How do you know that that's not really. That's the wrong God. That's the same name for Yahweh, but it's not really Yahweh. How do you know this? You know this because you go back to Deuteronomy, to the books that Moses wrote, the ones where he's writing this stuff, and you go, ah, uh, guess what, prophet? I'm testing you with scripture, and you are found to be false. So I'm going to let scripture have more authority than even someone who seems to be a legitimate voice of God on earth.

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It's got to be consistent with what God already said. This is kind of the big thing we want to say.

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What we know God has said takes precedence over what you're saying God has said. That's sola scriptura. It takes precedence over your claimed magisterium. You could talk about the Pharisees as an incredible example of this. Jesus affirmed the magisterial position of the Pharisees. He says they sat in the seat of Moses.

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Listen to what they say. But he also rebuked them publicly for teaching things that were according to him, the commands of men, as if they were the commands of God. In fact, he calls them the traditions of men.

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So, uh, Jesus expects the audience, the Believers who are following his teachings to learn to discern what is and is not right among these magisterial teachers, the Pharisees sitting in the seat of Moses. Yet normal people are supposed to make that judgment call. This is Sola Scriptura in action in the New Testament. This is Sola Scriptura taught in principle in the Old Testament. And here is another passage where I just think it's implied. Um, the passage is not about Sola Scriptura. I'm not claiming that it's required to make the best sense of the passage you have what has already been taught, what we know is ironclad. Don't let new teachings that seem to come from apostles, don't let that dissuade you for what you've already heard.

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So I hope that that is clear enough. I actually have a video on Sola Scriptura that I go into a lot more detail and I give a lot more examples. I link it down below in the description. It never got as much traction as other videos I've done. Maybe just because I didn't make it as. As entertaining or something. I don't know. You know, sometimes it's just the video opening was too boring, which is describing most of my Q and A's actually. Um, but that's such as live video. That's the nature of it. But uh, but anyway, I've got that video in the video description if you guys want to check it out. Otherwise I will go to your guys questions and then I'll give you some update stuff later today about all the projects I'm working on at the moment.

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Um, let me see. Next question comes in from Stefan the Pelted.

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Stefan the pelted. Titus 2:13.

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Is Paul explicitly saying Jesus is God and Savior? Why do New Testament authors often not address Jesus as God and appear to place Jesus outside the Godhead? And you give an example second John 1:3. So we'll look at both those examples. Let's actually start with Titus 2:13. Your first example.

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I'll put it on screen for you guys.

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Is Paul explicitly saying Jesus is God and Savior here.

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So um, I'm going to back up just a little bit. Verse 11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and and worldly passions and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. May I just give a random encouragement here, Christian? If you're watching this and you've been backsliding and you've not been living a life that represents This I encourage you. Renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. Live a self controlled, yes, you can do it. You're telling yourself you can't because you failed many times, but you can. You just need to do it and upright and live a godly life in this present age. This is what we're called to do. Jesus is calling you to this. Please.

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There's no rock bottom. There's just when you stop, that becomes your rock bottom. Let this be your rock bottom. Um, okay. Sorry for the distraction. I'm hoping that helps somebody out. But verse 13, it says that we are then waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a, uh, people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Is Paul explicitly saying Jesus is God? Is he just straight up saying Jesus is God? Yes, um, absolutely he is. Now there's a lot of work that's been done into this in the background, like in the Greek stuff. Okay. There's Greek policies and rules and debates that have, um, been had on this passage and on a few other passages like this where there's a conjunction of two descriptors, God and Savior, like that and then. And a reference to one person, uh, Jesus Christ.

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And basically the short answer is yes. This is really, really firm and solid in the Greek that the phrase our great God and savior, Jesus Christ is referring to one singular Jesus as our great God and our great Savior. He's both of those things. You can kind of get this in the English, how it's translated, our great.

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So there's, there's um, a singular our great. It's not our great God and our great Savior, which could maybe make them feel more separate. But also there is just the. We're waiting for the appearing of our, you know, whose appearing are we waiting for? It's Jesus is appearing. Right. And if you're going to say that God is appearing as Jesus appears, that's the thing. We're waiting on that you're again affirming that Jesus is God.

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So, um, yeah, there's more you could do on this. But yeah, this is like not controversial, um, at this point. For the most part. Uh, everything's controversial at some point. But this is like very well established, this whole debate about the way that these nouns and verbs and nouns and uh, great, uh, God and Savior Jesus Christ, mostly nouns, that these things are being pulled together. They're very powerfully yes. It's.

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You can be very confident, which is why, uh, newer translations are actually more strong on this than older translations because, you know, our knowledge of Greek sometimes expands. Someone does a study where they take this particular Greek construction and they look at every example of it in the papyri that we have. And now the databases are searchable through, like, digital electronic means. And it just becomes easier to do research that may have taken a year. You might be able to do a lot of that in a very short period of time nowadays. And that's really great for, uh, knowledge, hopefully. I mean, there's downsides to that stuff, but there's mostly upsides for this.

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And they've done this. So newer translations, as opposed to older ones, will push this even more strongly. Jesus is God and Savior. So now you've got, um, and there's other places too, that do this. There's several where Jesus is explicitly called God in the New Testament. Then we have second John 1:3.

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And you describe this as a New Testament author, um, not addressing Jesus as God and appearing to place Jesus outside the Godhead. Okay, let's read this. Grace, mercy and peace will be with us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father, Son in truth and love.

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This is where I think we have to put on our understanding of the Trinity.

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And then I'll try to answer the question, if you didn't understand the Trinity at all, why is this terminology here? So the doctrine of the Trinity. Okay, let me reverse that. Because I don't want people to be thinking, uh, I'm doing eisegesis here and putting on my logical theological conclusions before I analyze a passage. So let me reverse that. First, let's say this. In the New Testament, we do have Jesus. Even in the writings of John, Jesus is very clearly identified as God. Is probably the strongest of all authors to identify Jesus as God. That's John. And this same author does say God the Father. But the, uh, reference of God being a Father is not a denial of Jesus also being God.

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Right, Because God the Father is a correct title. I could also say God the Holy Spirit. But if I said the Father the Son and God the Holy Spirit, if I had said that phrase, it wouldn't be a denial of the deity of the Father. In fact, when we read the last verse in Titus, what we don't have there, when it says our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, we don't have a denial that the Father is also considered God.

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We have the affirmation of God the Father. We have the affirmation of Jesus Christ, the Father's Son.

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We have both of those things, and they're both true. When you combine this with all of the things that are said about Jesus, he's clearly God. Um, it's not a denial. He's not being placed outside the Godhead in, in fact, the nature of the Trinity or whatever he's being placed inside by being called Jesus Christ the Father's Son.

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In the writings of John, in particular, keeping in mind we're in Second John here. The sonship of Christ is most clearly seen as a deity claim in the Gospel of John. The way he talks about this, he says in John chapter five, I believe it is that all must honor the Son as they honor the Father.

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That's a huge claim because the way you honor the Father is as God, and now you have to honor the Son as God. And it's a passage where they're going to stone him because he's claiming equality with God. And that is, in fact what his sonship means.

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So seeing this in the theology of John, I think it's an affirmation of the deity of Christ in a subtle way.

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Um, there's another reason too, why we may often see God, the term God used of the Father, but not as often, although it is used as often used of the Son. And, and I think the reason for this is because the Bible is trying to push us against and away from, um, a wrong view of the nature of God, such that we have, like, modalism or that sort of thing.

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And we don't want to say that Jesus is the Father. He's always the Son, he's never the Father, he's always God, but he's not the Father. And so God becomes oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes like shorthand for Father in the New Testament.

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So God this and Jesus this.

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And if you read it that way, you go, okay, so if Jesus is called God all the time, it would cause more people to believe in a type of modalism where the Father is the Son and the Son is the Spirit, which would not be biblical.

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And this, I think, is possibly to help us.

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The desire for us to affirm the deity of Christ more strongly in the New Testament is partly understandable, but partly we're missing it.

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It's affirmed so many times in the New Testament so strongly, so clearly as the verse we just read. But we have to also recognize there's a danger, um, of modalism, of effectively saying that Jesus is the Father. And if the Bible doesn't make these distinctions between Father and Son clear on a regular basis, and Son and Holy Spirit and all that, then we're going to fall into modalism. It's kind of the people just naturally flop into modalism when they're not paying attention. And so the Bible is trying to tell us something about the nature of God that you're not just going to intuitively automatically get easily with casual, like with small amount of thought. You know, you're just going to, you're going to fall into modalism because it's a more simplistic understanding of God, I think. Um, and uh, it just doesn't fit with scripture. So Scripture's arguing against that.

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I feel like I may be opening cans and worms of people talking about divine simplicity. Uh, you guys can figure out how that works. Hopefully you understand what I'm saying.

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Um, yeah. Anyway, I think that that hopefully answers your question. The deity of Christ is so confidently and strongly assumed and taught in the New Testament, God is often just referenced to Father.

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Uh, okay, question number three. This comes in from David Vance in the book of James. It tells us that if any are sick, call for the elders and get anointed. Should we be using the anointing oil recipe in Exodus 30 verses 23 to 25 instead of just olive oil like most use? Ah, uh, let's look at that recipe.

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So, well, hold on, I'm going to go to James real quick. So at the very end of James it has a passage that mentions this. I won't get into all the questions about this. I've answered them elsewhere on my YouTube channel. And you can go to BibleThinker.org and you can search the clip search feature for things like oil or um, uh, healing and things like that to find out those things where I've dealt with that stuff. So is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him. Anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

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Um, and the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick. So this anointing with oil, are we given a specific kind of oil that we're supposed to use in Exodus?

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I think we can answer that a couple different ways. But let's just first look at Exodus chapter 30, verse 23 to 25.

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This is the recipe for the oil that is going to be used, um, in the temple, I believe. Uh, take the finest spices of liquid myrrh, 500 shekels and a sweet smelling cinnamon. Half as much that is 250 and 250 of aromatic cane and 500 of cassia according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. So it's a recipe.

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And you shall make these a, uh, sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer. It shall be a holy anointing oil. And what do you do with it? With it, you anoint the tent of Meeting and the Ark of the Testimony and the table and all its utensils and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils in the basin. And stand, you shall consecrate them that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy. And it just goes on. Uh, you're going to anoint this.

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But verse 32 gives a restriction that we have to look at. It shall not be poured on the body of an ordinary person, and you shall make no other like it in composition. It is holy, and it shall be holy to you. Whoever compounds any like it or whoever puts any of it on an outsider shall be cut off from his people.

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This is a special oil. The recipe was only to be used for the temple. And you would inherently, you would not use it for any other purpose.

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So I think that that's already enough reason to go. I'm not going to use it for any other purpose like anointing people for healing and that sort of thing. We're going to use it only for the levitical purposes in the temple. Now, somebody could argue, and I could hear someone already doing this in your head.

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Not, uh, because anything's wrong with you, just because I try to think about how people are hearing me and what they would think in response.

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And someone could argue, um, but, Mike, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. So if this oil was used to anoint the temple, shouldn't we make it and then use it to anoint the people who are the temple of the Holy Spirit? And I would say this, um, is intuitively, it feels nice, but you're just. There's something of a. Too many assumptions that are being made here. You're assuming that this oil being put on people who in the New Testament are the New temple of the Spirit, but we're not the actual physical temple of the Old. That we are to like, take one random ritual of the Old Testament, and we do that with our physical bodies the way the temple was. But yet you don't, like, sacrifice animals.

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You don't do that. You're not Importing any of the other temple stuff, you're just grabbing one really specific detail, maybe because you like it.

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This is not a good way to do Bible study. It's not a good way to apply scripture. If you're going to try to transfer this over to people because we're the temple, then what else are you transferring? And why aren't you if you're not? So when we have the Day of Atonement, when we have Yom Kippur, when we have Passover in the temple and these big important events happening and all these rituals taking place, what are you transferring over into your physical body? For those.

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When the temple is, is dressed very nice on the inside, it's very beautiful on the inside, but on the outside it has ugly trappings. The physical temple had like badger skin or whatever, different skins. I forget the different debates, uh, about what it was called and I forget what it even was now. I've talked about it before, but I just can't remember. So when you have this sort of ugly animal skin, seal skin or something on the outside of the temple, do you do that with your physical body? Do you make sure that your clothes are really attractive on the inside and really ugly on the outside?

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It's arbitrary. That's the word I'm looking for. It's arbitrary to grab this one thing and transfer that over to physical anointings and ignore everything else about the physical temple. I think it's arbitrary. And moreover, it looks like it goes against this direct teaching. Don't do this.

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Don't use it for any other purpose. It is the holy anointing oil, um, to be used just for those purposes. And we are the temple, but we are a new temple. We are something new. We are not just a carryover of something old.

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Um, in addition to this, we can say that in the New Testament, Jesus himself received anointing oil, uh, was poured out on him. And there were alabaster flasks with expensive oil. It was not this temple oil. And Jesus more than anything, represents the temple ultimately.

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And he, uh, in some beautiful ways. I have a video on the typology of how Christ represents the temple. It's a, it's amazing. It's amazing.

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It's just what God has done in scripture is awesome. Maybe, um, someone will put a link to it in the description. I'll put it in the video description down below as well. Or in the live chat. Someone can put it in there. The video on Jesus, how he. The tabernacle is a picture of Jesus, but, um, the fact that Jesus himself is so valuable, so important, he has the spirit without measure. Is that not temple like? But yet he just gets normal oil put on him. Uh, probably expensive oil, but not this recipe.

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So I don't think we have any reason to think it's this recipe. Plus the genericness of James chapter five, anoint him with oil.

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There's no specification of what kind of oil to use. And so I don't think there is a rule about what kind of oil to use. Oil here is symbolic. It represents something. Just get some oil and use it. Maybe you have olive oil, maybe you have castor oil. Like whatever kind of oil you got, use some oil.

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And, uh, we like the idea of having a special oil. Like it feels more like you've got, oh, this oil is from olives. It came from Jerusalem.

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We like that. But I wouldn't attach too much value to it because then we tend to slide into weird stuff.

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God is not, um, I don't think he's going to be a respecter of oil in that sense in that setting anyways.

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Um, even if he requires a specific recipe in the Old Testament for the temple. All right, let's go to the next question. Number four from Elliot B.

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Who says, I believe that we will still have our personality in heaven. But what about unborn babies? Will they walk around in heaven like non player characters since they haven't formed their own personalities?

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You know what's funny, Elliot, is. And I'm with you in this, okay, this is not a criticism.

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What's funny is how many video game terminologies enter into our normal conversation nowadays. Like, this was never the case when I was a kid.

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If you'd said non player characters in a question casually, people would not know what you were talking about. But I feel like, uh, most people would at this point. It's kind of funny.

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So will we still have our personalities in heaven? Yep. You said we will, and I think we will.

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It's going to be you in heaven. If your memory is wiped and your personality is not the same, then, uh, now I'll be sanctified, uh, and my character will grow and, and change. I'll be rid of my flesh, but it will still be me. Still be me. I'll still have my personality just separate from my carnality. Thank God. What about unborn babies? Um, this is a debate.

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So we don't. And part of the reason why it's a debate is because we don't have a clear answer in scripture. Not to my knowledge anyways. Maybe there's something there and I've missed it. I'm completely open to that and happy to change my mind. Uh, to my knowledge, when I've studied on this stuff and I looked into like the fate of those infants who die, and I feel confident that Scripture reveals that they will be in heaven in eternity, um, in God's grace.

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Um, but what will their state be?

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Uh, let me back us into this question by starting with elderly people.

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An elderly person who is, let's say they're in their 90s and they've died with dementia and they've lost so much of their own personality at that point, at least their functioning personality. They've lost so much of their memory at that point, their awareness of their own spouse or children. This is the most horrific and traumatizing thing I can think of. Um, and yet it happens. But those people will stand before God, and I don't think any of us hesitate to say that they will be restored into an optimal place of mental thinking and memory and awareness and personality and all that.

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If you have like say a, a 12 year old who passes and then they go to be in the presence of God, um, they certainly have the capacities in place to learn. Even if they were frozen at the age of 12, which I'm not saying they are, but they would have a capacity to learn so that over time they would learn and grow and become more knowledgeable.

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Now in these cases where you have especially say the elderly person, you know, the nature of their new body, it seems that they have to have a new body that does not match the old body in some important ways.

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The old body. Let's, let me, um, make my point better. Let's suppose that we're dealing with the return of Christ and somebody is actually brought up and they're transformed as, uh, scripture says that they are caught up and they are transformed into their new bodies. Because we don't just get our old bodies, we get a new body. It's like the old, it's connected, but it's new.

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When they're transformed, that person with dementia, they don't have dementia now.

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They have more youthful, uh, type functions and they're able to be more mentally clear. So they're, in a sense they're aged down. In a sense they're aged down. Of course, this is our glorified bodies. I don't know how you count age in a glorified body, but to us looking, it would look like they were aged downward.

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Is it possible that the young people will be aged upward? That they will be brought at least to the point where now they can, in eternity, maturely learn and grow. They have like a fully developed brain and not just a child's one. Now, maybe their understanding is a childlike. Uh, this is total conjecture on my part. Maybe their understanding is childlike, but in eternity they're resurrected. They're given a new body that has a full mental capacity and that now they can begin learning from the heavenly perspective these things. This would allow them over time to become fully mature individuals. And it seems to me that it goes well with my understanding of what would happen to someone who was caught up while they were, uh, experiencing dementia, uh, or other mental issues.

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That body, they're not going to be resurrected or transformed. Excuse me? If they're caught up, not dying, but just caught up, they're not going to be caught up and changed and transformed into a body with all these mental deficiencies.

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Um, and children basically have bodies with mental deficiencies from an internal perspective because they're simply underdeveloped.

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That's why when somebody is mentally retarded, when they have a mental retardation, we tend to say, oh, they have a mental age of fill in the blank. But if you're stuck at that mental age, that is seen as a deficiency. So I think that we are moving into an ideal state.

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I have a hard time thinking that they will be permanent babies in heaven, but God will do what he's going to do and he doesn't ask my permission for it. So that's my conjecture. Ultimately, I absolutely trust that God will do the best thing. Um, I don't think there'll be non player characters because if they are growing and learning and having experiences in heaven, they're going to develop natural personalities as things go.

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Number five.

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Sunny Bustamante says, Can you help me understand Colossians 2:12? Is this water baptism? Which baptism is it?

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M. Let's take a look at it together.

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Um, I'm gonna read the verse, then we'll back up. Having been buried with him.

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There it is. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

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Backing up.

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Okay. Verse 8. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy. An empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. By the way, I'll just highlight because of the first question I had today. Human tradition is a danger. Jesus highlights human tradition as a problem with the Pharisees. Even though they have a magisterial position.

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And, um, it's also highlighted here as a potential problem according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. For in him, in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. Whoa, think about that. And you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. And in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.

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Now, is this water baptism or is this like the deeper spiritual connection that you have with Christ? My answer is that it's probably both are in view in this passage. You were buried with him in baptism. That's what baptism is about. You're baptized with Christ as you go down. This is representing the burial of Christ, that your death, uh, and identifying with his death. And then as you come back, you are raised right to newness of life, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

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Um, this is water baptism and what it means.

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Now some are going to say, um, well then this is a case for baptism saves Water baptism Saved is a saving thing and you're not saved if you don't have it.

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Um, I do have videos on that, you guys. I'll just recommend them because it's a much longer discussion. I don't think so. I think that on a regular basis, when Christians got saved in the New Testament, they were immediately baptized. And so baptism was even, especially then, more closely associated with a person's salvation. It was what they did right away. How long did Paul wait till he got baptized?

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He didn't. He got baptized immediately. How many souls got baptized right away in the New Testament times? It was just, it was regular. I, I know a lot of churches want to do like catechism, and I see value in catechism, but holding off baptism until some big catechism is done doesn't seem to be the New Testament model. It seems as though it arose later for other reasons.

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Uh, we even have weird stuff in, um, and I'll link some baptism videos in the description at the end of the stream if you guys are interested in more.

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I even have a really old four hour debate with, uh, a friend, Dean Meadows, on the topic of does baptism save? I'll link that down below too. Most of you have probably never seen it or didn't know about it.

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Um, it's very slow, so there's timestamps you can bounce around. It's not the most entertaining video, but we get into a lot of stuff.

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Um, now the, um.

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What was I going to tell you? Oh. Over time in church history, baptism started taking a different place and two things started happening. People started baptizing infants, and also people started viewing baptism as like sort of this initial moment of everything's clean and you just got baptized, and so now you're totally clean. If you die right now, you're going to go to heaven. But after baptism, if you do something real bad, you can lose it, and then you maybe can't get it back.

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Um, kind of like what modern Catholicism views as, like, the mortal sin type of approach. And kind of like that. It's not the same. So what happened is if you weren't baptized as an infant, then you got saved. Older people would often delay their baptisms until they felt they were about to die.

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This is, uh, bad teaching, entering into the church about the nature of baptism, and it affects people. So they would delay it till they were going to die. This is, I think, why Constantine didn't get baptized till his deathbed. The guy waited till he was going to die. At the end of his life, he didn't want to get baptized first earlier, like when he first proclaimed faith in Christ. Now you can argue about whether you think he was genuine or not. I don't. I don't haven't looked into it deeply.

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But whether you think he was genuine or not, he should have been baptized the moment he proclaimed faith in Christ. I think that's the biblical thing, preach the gospel and baptized them.

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So we have people waiting and waiting and waiting because they think I'll get baptized, then I'll get my clean slate, and then I won't sort of undo my salvation with like, some sin right before I die.

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This, I think, is a wrong view of what it means to abide in the grace of Christ. But you can see it rising up in church history, and you can see how Christians started changing the way they handle baptism. If you a Christian right now, maybe you've been a Christian for a year, 10 years, 30 years, and you've never been baptized.

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This is not an embarrassing thing. It is a glorious thing. You are identifying with Christ, buried with him in baptism, raised with him as you come out of the water. This represents your faith and trust in Jesus. You need to go do this. This is obedience to Jesus, and everything is good about it.

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Um, so don't hold off. Go get baptized. Don't wait doesn't even have to be a pastor, although you should do it in connection with real believers who you're connected to personally. You know, people in your local church, your local fellowship, the Christian family that brought you to the Lord. Get someone you know. All right, let's go to the next question. Number six.

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Anonymous question. Where was God before Genesis one? If space, matter and time was created, what was before it? Heaven and the angels already existed. So where was the nothing where God created everything in Genesis 1? All right, let's go to Genesis 1.

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Interesting question here.

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void. Now, I take this first verse of Genesis 1.

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My understanding of it, my interpretation of it, is that this is God creating not only the sky and the stars, but the spiritual realm of heaven as well, where angels dwell and things like that. That was all created by God in the beginning. So the question you'd have then, that kind of answers one of your questions. Like you said, heaven and the angels already existed. Actually, we don't know that heaven and the angels already existed. It looks like heaven was created. And we know in the New Testament that heaven can, uh, be recreated, that heaven itself will be even recreated. In Revelation, we read about this, that when the earth is. Everything's going to be burned up. And, uh, is it Second Peter or First Peter? I think maybe second.

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First. I think it's first anyway, says that all those things will be burned up and then recreated. That heavens, the earth, all of the above have been created and will be remade into a perfect place full of righteousness.

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So, yeah, the angels, where were they? We don't really know. There's very little details about the creation of angels.

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So we do. Probably the best clue we have that I'm aware of is in the book of Job.

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Job talks about when God created a number of other things he made during the seven days of creation. In Genesis 1, when he did those things, the angels were rejoicing. The end of Job talks about this. God's questioning Job and he talks about it, and he says that they were the sons of God, were delighting in the works of the of God.

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Um, this implies that angels were made at some point early on, maybe conjecture, hypothetically, when God creates the heavens and the earth right then at that moment, at the very beginning, because the earth's without form and void. The earth already exists on day one.

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Uh, he's already created it, and then there it is. He's shaping it and forming it more on day one. Um, but, uh, the space, um, and the angels themselves and the eternal realm of heaven, or I don't know if I should call it eternal, the spiritual realm of heaven. That seems like it already existed, um, by the time that God was saying, um, let there be an expanse, and let, uh, the earth bring forth this and that.

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So then there's the question of this.

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Then what was before God created?

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And here's where it's a wibbly, wobbly, timey, wimey kind of question, you guys. Some of, you know, um, and this question is like, how do you talk about time before time?

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Um, when God created the heavens and the Earth, was that the first moment? Or were there moments before that?

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And I'm inclined to think it was the first moment, that the first time a clock could tick, the first second was, boom. God creates. And time starts moving. Now, before that, does that mean that God is frozen? I don't think we should view God's timelessness as God being frozen. I think that I like the word transcendent better.

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So God transcends time. He exists eternally.

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He exists unceasingly.

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And the moment he does a thing, he's creating space and time itself. That is my understanding of things. I would not divide, uh, over other brothers and sisters on this. But you're asking, like, hey, how would you answer the question, where was God before Genesis 1?

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So if you were to take away space and you were to take away time, the only thing that could exist would have to be something that is spaceless and timeless. Now, when I say it's spaceless and timeless, that's kind of like weird descriptors, because I'm saying without space and without time. Okay, how about I put it this way? The only thing that could exist is something that could exist, um, that didn't require time and didn't require space for its existence.

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God didn't inhabit a space. He just was. When he made finite beings and finite things, he created space for them to inhabit because they are not transcendent beings. He creates time for them to operate in because they are not eternal beings.

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So God is.

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When you think about this, this means God is, in concept, so far different than me and you. He is so other.

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Just like his holiness is so far higher than any my best moment, my holiest moment in my life. His goodness is not only is he good, he is the grounding of good. Goodness flows forth from his very nature. That's what good is. It's just a reflection of God's very nature.

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When I see power, I'VE only ever seen or possessed limited power. But God Himself just is power. Any power that exists ultimately comes from Him. Any authority that exists comes from Him. And so he's. He's transcendent beyond time and space.

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So I wouldn't speak of God as being before the Big Bang, uh, chronologically, or I say the Big Bang, um, or whether you affirm that or not, I don't care. Um, uh, before the creation of the universe, chronologically. That's what I really meant to say.

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When I say that, I do not mean chronologically. Um, Sorry, I'm just confusing myself with my words. Let me start again. When I say that God is before the universe, before the creation of the universe, I do not mean chronologically before.

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I mean he exists eternally apart from the universe.

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And when the universe does not exist, God is existing.

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How do I describe that in, like, chronological language? It's difficult, but he's.

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He's logically.

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He is in existence, period.

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Is that. Is that one time, or is it all times? I don't know. It gets a little challenging.

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I once heard, um. Was it Einstein? Somebody said that. And I'll paraphrase, but they said, um, time is the kind of thing that you understand until you try to explain it.

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Something like that.

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All right, well, let's go to the next question.

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Number. I'm going backwards. Number six or seven. Which one is it? Yeah, seven. Jeff Rademaker says. Hi, Mike. A question about God's nature. Since the Godhead hold all of their being in one indivisible present, in theory, could Jesus have been on earth and in heaven concurrently?

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Um, there's a verse that kind of weighs in on this slightly. Um, let me see if I can find it. Um.

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So, um, there might be other verses too, I'm trying to brainstorm here, that weigh in on this as well. I think there's another one. I can't quite. It's just in the back of my brain.

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Um.

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Hm, I don't know. Okay, so, uh, the passage I was looking for is this one right here. No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven.

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Okay. He came down and he is in heaven. This implies, like a bilocality, two locations for the Son of Man, which would imply that Jesus is somehow in heaven as well as being on earth.

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That he is incarnate, but he is somehow transcendent beyond that incarnation.

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There are, however, some challenges to this view.

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So, um, that's the new King James translation. So here's a few challenges. For one, uh, you have in John 3 a debate in this passage, in John 3, a debate over where did Jesus stop speaking?

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You know, and it does seem that Jesus is, I think, probably still speaking in verse 13. But there's just. The red letters are not inspired. Right? The letters are, but not the red part. And the text itself is just not 100% clear where Jesus stopped speaking and where John, the author of the Gospel, started speaking.

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So that can be a little bit more challenging to discover. But I'm inclined to think Jesus said verse 13.

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But when you go to other translations, like, say, the ESV or the NIV, you will find in verse 13, it says, no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And it leaves out the phrase, who is in heaven? There's just a footnote here that says some manuscripts add, who is in heaven? The NIV, verse 13.

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Um, it also. Same thing, it doesn't include it.

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Now. Why is it New King James has it. Well, New King James, uh, is a newer translation, but it reflects the. I'm sorry if this gets technical. I'll be brief. It reflects the technical decisions of the King James Version. That is, when you. When you look at the old copies of the Bible, they're not all identical. Now, there's incredible similarity. We don't have this big, ooh, do we know what the Bible said? Yeah, we know what the Bible said. But there are some verses where we say, did it say this reading or this reading? We have to pick. Usually it's between, like, two readings where it's like, was it this way or was it that way? And the phrase, who is in heaven?

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The.

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The manuscript choices that were made by the King James Translators 500 years ago, 400 years ago, um, when they did this, they chose the manuscripts that says, who is in heaven? After that, in the subsequent 400 years, we've discovered many other manuscripts. And so we've been able to.

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This is one school of thought, and I lean this way, too. We've been able to say, hey, we have so many more manuscripts now than they used to have for 400 years ago. When we weigh all of them, we can make some slightly different decisions about what we think was the original reading of a passage.

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So the esv, the niv, other ones will leave out that phrase, who is in heaven? So I. Even in my teaching, I started. For years and years, I taught New King James Version. And when I came across this passage in John, I actually taught. This is why? It was right on the top of my head. I taught that this shows that Jesus is both on earth and in heaven at the same time.

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But after doing a lot more research and work, I have this sort of annoying moment where I go, huh, huh, Maybe who is in heaven was not original.

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Now, that has happened many times where I get. You guys feel it too. You go like, oh, that's frustrating and annoying and I don't like it. But it is what we have to deal with if we're going to be honest and have integrity. We can't just pick a translation and go, everything it says is perfect, Perfect forever. We have to be willing to have, uh, the same attitude towards the manuscripts that the translators themselves did. The King James translators themselves would have been like, yeah, we should definitely consider new manuscript evidence and how they may change a reading. And what it usually does is it just moves the footnote to the text or the text to the footnote. That's the difference it makes. It disturbs people because then they don't. They overreact and they think that, oh, the Scripture's all in question now.

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We have an incredibly stable text.

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Uh, we're more confident now than ever before about what the Bible has said. Not less, more.

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And I have a video on that. I'll link below. I have three videos on that. I mention them frequently. I'll link those down below after the stream. It's about the tough questions about textual criticism and how we got our New Testament text. I'll link that. Um, so here's another thing though. Even if that's not original, the Son of man who is in heaven. If I don't have that verse that says he is in heaven, um, I do have other passages that teach something that seems to support at least the possibility that Jesus is somehow, as I understand it, I'm m open to correction on this if I'm wrong, guys, but is, yes, he's incarnate, the Son is there, but he is not kept only there. So he is God. And God, part of his nature is that he's transcendent, that is beyond physical. And so thinking that he's only in the physical body, it would seem strange.

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Jesus talks about this. Like, this kind of hints at this. When he talks to Nathan or Nathanael, and he says, hey, I saw you while you were under the tree. And he's like, how did you see me when I was under the tree? Well, Jesus has some supernatural vision here. But when Jesus says, um, I am, uh, in the Father and the Father's in me, he's in the Father. I think that there's a presence implied there as well. So that he's not bound completely to that physical human body.

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Um, yet there is another sense in which Jesus presence is uniquely and especially in the physical body that he has incarnated in. He didn't just possess a physical body. He came in human form. There's a big difference between those two.

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So that's kind of how I would answer that. So this is a case where I think what we have here, in my opinion, is we have a verse that has a text that's extra, right? Who is in heaven. But that extra text seems to teach something. That's true. So it's not like a bad teaching or wrong teaching. It's a true teaching, but was not originally in this passage. You find that from other places in the Scriptures. And that's often the case.

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So often these like, extra, extra not verses usually, but just like words or phrases are things that are true. They just weren't in that passage initially. So an example is many of the times where the, uh, Bible says Jesus, um, people m. Copying manuscripts would lift up or glorify the name of Jesus by adding something like Lord Jesus or Lord Jesus Christ. So maybe the original only said Jesus and they would add Lord and. And Christ.

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But the terms Lord and Christ are used of Jesus many times confirmed in Scripture. So, uh, it wasn't a changing in the sense of altering a teaching of the scripture. It was just superfluous and unnecessary. Not original, but it was consistent with the other teachings of the New Testament. That's how the vast majority of these things go. Actually, most of them are just slight spelling differences and don't affect anything at all.

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Anyway, we'll go to the next question.

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Number eight.

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Rebecca, Ah h. Says hi, Mike. Why did it have to be God to be the acceptable sacrifice? If it was Jesus humanity that died on the cross and not his divine nature, why did Jesus have to be fully God? Thanks so much.

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Um, that's a challenging question for me to fully answer, Rebecca. I have to admit that I don't think I'll be able to fully answer it for you. So I'll give you what I can and, uh, you guys can process that and think about it and agree and disagree and all that stuff.

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But, um, obviously Jesus, who he is, is. He is God. If God was going to come in human form, he couldn't be less than fully God.

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God can't be half God or two thirds God or something like that. So if he does show up in human form, he will be fully God because he is God.

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So there's no, there's either you have a human or you have God who comes in human form who's fully God and fully man. But you don't have a human who's a third God or something like that. So the question we have then is, could a human have done this or an angel have done this?

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Not God, that would be, you know, could God incarnate an angel? I don't know. I guess that's kind of beyond my pay grade to think if that's even a possibility.

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But we know humans could have been the other option there. So let's talk about that. Could a human have done it instead of God?

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Um, the answer here is going to be a blazing no. Ah. From the beginning of creation we have Adam and Eve who fall and then thereafter go to, uh, Romans 3. All have fallen short of the glory of God. All have.

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So that no person can pay for the sins of others because we, we can't even stand before God as holy. We all have debt before him. We're all bankrupt spiritually, so to speak. And we're all going to, you know, if you think about it like a currency thing, every time I sin, it's as though I have some current currency debt between me and God and I'll stand before God and I have no collateral to pay for myself or others because I owe him. I'm going to go to debtors prison, so to speak. I'm going to, I'm going to go to punishment. Uh, and so humans can't do it.

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So God himself comes and he comes and he's actually holy. When Jesus enters into human form because he's God, he's going to live a perfectly holy and righteous life. And because he's human, he can actually stand as our representative.

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And this is kind of a cool thing, you know, Western eyes, we don't tend to think about things like this, but I think that there's a lot more validity to it than we realize. At first Adam in the garden was the human from whom all other humans would come. And he represents all humans in his rebellion against God. And then we all fall and we all do individually rebel as well. Then Jesus comes and he enters human form to be, according to the Bible, the second Adam or the last Adam. Both terms are used in the New Testament.

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So he comes as the last Adam and he shows up and what is he doing? He's the last Adam. He's representing all humans, just like Adam in the garden, Adam eats of a tree and then we die. Jesus dies on a tree so that we can live.

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This is just, it's just neat stuff.

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The parallels and the pictures and the screenplay of history that God has written is amazing to me. It really is.

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So I'm going to read your question one more time, see if I've answered it. Um, why did it have to be God to be the acceptable sacrifice? Only God would be holy. Only God would be righteous. Only God had the righteousness currency to, like, live a perfect life, to be able to pay the debt for others.

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And, um, you say, if it was Jesus, humanity that died on the cross and not his divine nature, why did Jesus have to be fully God? Thanks so much.

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Um, I mean, Jesus humanity died. His divine nature.

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I don't know what it means to say the divine nature died. Uh, definitely, I reject that terminology. The divine nature died. But we shouldn't imagine Jesus as being two different people.

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One of them on the cross dying, and the other one sort of inhabiting and just sort of witnessing like, kind of like being inside of a robot. You're controlling and the robot gets killed and you're still fine. That's not how we should imagine the two natures of Christ.

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You know, God went through the process of death, although his divine nature, I would say did not die. It doesn't make sense. It's not possible. God cannot die. But his humanity died. And he went through that process of his humanity dying because it was truly his. Anyway, I'm just saying that to clarify a couple things there.

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Yeah, Jesus, God did it. There's an interesting, um, Old Testament prophecy where it says that he looked for someone to stand in the gap. He looked for someone to deliver, and he couldn't find anyone, so he did it himself.

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I think that that is the picture of Jesus on the cross. All we, like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

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We have all done wickedly and he died for us. This is the thing that I recently was talking to someone who, um, was saying, they say they're Christian and all this. And then they were revealing that they think people, um, are just good people. Everybody's a good person. Jesus wouldn't go to the cross if we were good people, guys.

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He went to the cross because we're not. Now that sounds condemning.

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That sounds condemning to say, hey, you're not actually a good person. You're not actually going to stand before God and him go, hey, good job. Welcome into heaven. You're good enough. Instead, every one of us will be condemned because of our sins. That sounds insulting, but actually it's only step one in us giving you the cure for your sin, which is Jesus. But you've got to humble yourself and see that you're lost before you can be found, to see that you're a sinner before you can call out to a savior.

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If you think Jesus is just a good example, but that he, um, didn't pay for your sins by which you would be punished and judged before God. If you don't believe that, then you're going to think you're a Christian and you're going to stand before God and find out that your righteousness that you're presenting to God is an insult to him and it's an insult to the cross because you, unbeknownst to yourself, you were full of self righteousness instead of seeing God's righteousness. Read Romans.

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Read Romans, my friend. If that's you, what I said just confusing or offensive to you, I pray and beg for you to read Romans.

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All right, let's go to number nine.

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Caleb Cruzado says. Hey, Mike, what are your thoughts on secular therapy for a Christian?

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Self help and self idealization seem antithetical to the Bible. Why isn't the council of scripture and other believers enough?

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Okay, Caleb, I'm going to have a. I'm going to. I hope I can answer this one. Well, I've spent. I've gone around the circle on this one. Um, I have found that some people feel the Bible is enough.

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Therefore I should be able to get all the counseling I need from my local pastor or from me simply reading the Bible on my own, that is. There's a confusion there because what I've done is I've said the Bible's enough. And what I really meant was me and my pastor are enough.

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But you're not.

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I've been a pastor, okay? And there's plenty of times where I've been confronted with counseling situations where I was not the best person to counsel that person. Now, I did my best, okay? But I never said I should be the only one you talk to. If I said that I would be, my ego would be bringing wounds to others. They should probably talk to other people. I have counseled people. You should go see a professional in this field because I think that they're going to be able to help you more than somebody like your local pastor. Um, that's not an insult to your local pastor. What kind of an ego do you have to have to think that you are the one who helps everybody the most about everything that they could possibly go through. Somebody loses a child and then their friend tells them, you should see a grief counselor about this or join a group of people who are helping each other about loss of a child. It's a very unique problem. Other people don't even understand it. And that person's pastor goes, hey, what are you doing? The Bible's enough. You just read your Bible and talk to me. Those are the only sources for help for you. What kind of an ego do you have to have to think that you're going to help this person?

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Because guess what, we've all got Bibles. But you're thinking you're going to help this person more than somebody who's actually gone through the same problem as them and has had years to recover. Um, that's kind of silly. So I think that when you have a recovering drug addict, it's probably good to have someone who's good at recovery for drugs to counsel them or who's gone through it themselves. When you have somebody who's going through divorce, I think they're probably talking to someone else who's healthily gone through divorce or healthily gone through some kind of church persecution, uh, that their pastor persecuted from the stage or something. It's helpful for them to find people who've gone through similar things. This is, this is just common sense wisdom we should apply. It's not an attack on scripture because we don't want to think the Bible's enough, therefore I'm enough.

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We shouldn't think that. But in a similar vein, the Bible is enough. But it doesn't mean that the Bible is going to teach me how to fix my car when it breaks down or how to properly file my taxes.

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The Bible is enough for the things I need. But even Scripture tells me that there's a variety of gifts in the body of Christ, and I want to reach out and use those gifts.

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You know, there's a variety. It's not just the pastor.

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So use them now. I prefer to get counsel from a believer.

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But if I have very specialized problems and I have a very specialized counselor, they do not have to be a Christian to help me.

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Let's say that I, um, have a kid who has major disabilities, and this is causing me all kinds of problems that the parents in my circle don't understand.

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And so I reach out and I find that there's a counselor who's helping parents deal with disabled kids. And I find out in our course of discussion that they're not Christians. Does that mean that I should not talk to him? Well, if you have a Christian option that's Christian, but also equally good, I'm going to go with the Christian one for sure. But if that's the only person I can find, I'm absolutely going to learn everything I can from them. Filter it through my biblical worldview. They're not becoming my spiritual leader. They're just another counselor in my life helping me. I will get advice on how to do my YouTube channel from some secular guy who's just in it for money and doesn't care about God. And I'm going to gather the bits of advice that are useful to me, and I'm going to reject the ones that are not, because I'm going to filter it through scripture and filter it through my Christian worldview, and I think that that's okay.

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So that's where I'm at now. Okay, on this note, we do have, like, uh, Moses. Are there biblical examples of this kind of thing? Uh, we have Moses, who takes counsel and advice from his father in law, who does not appear to be worshiping the God of Israel. Okay, maybe he does at some point, but he's like, hey, you know, you're overburdened. You really need to spread out the power and get other men to do some of the stuff you're doing.

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That seems to have been advice that came from somebody who was not actually, uh, following Yahweh. And it was good advice, and he took it. That's what it seems to be to me. Maybe I'm wrong.

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Um, you guys be welcome to show me the verse that demonstrates that he was at the time a follower.

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Um, are there other examples in Scripture? Um, man, Caiaphas gives good advice about how to deal with the early work of Jesus, even though he's clearly not of God. Right. He's an enemy, ultimately of God, but he's in a position.

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But you would not look to him as being like, if he was going to be the pastor of your church, you'd be in a lot of trouble. Um, Caiaphas is maybe an example of this.

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I'm trying to think of other examples in the New Testament or Old Testament where people get advice or counsel from somebody who is not a Christian or the equivalent, you know, the Old Testament equivalent of, like, a faithful person.

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And, um, nothing's really coming to mind other than that.

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Nor do I see that there's a rule that you cannot take advice from people.

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The rule that I see is in uh, Psalm 1. Uh, let's look at Psalm 1 because you might be thinking that Psalm 1 actually contradicts what I've just said. And, um, that's fair if you do, I understand. But let's look at it. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

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So the counsel of the wicked.

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So Christians can be giving you counsel of the wicked, and non Christians can give you counsel of the righteous. It's the counsel itself that I think is wicked or righteous ultimately. Now you're more likely statistically to get better advice from Christians in whatever field because they're going to share that Christian worldview. But even still, you can go to a Christian and their counsel can be wrapped up in all kinds of secular thought and ungodly stuff. It absolutely can't. I've seen this happen.

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Then you can go to like, a secular person. And their council is just kind of wrapped up in, hey, I've actually talked to a lot of people. Here's the things that have helped them the most. And there's not really wrapped up in, like, weird psychologizing from Freud or whoever. It's. It's just I've dealt with a lot of people in your situation. Here's the stuff that's helped them the most. It's just good advice.

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So, anyway, that's my thought. What do you guys think?

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I am not afraid of counselors, uh, or psychologists or any of those types of things. You just need to make sure sola scriptura that you filter whatever they say through the Scriptures. Don't let them give you your worldview. Let them give you counsel.

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Last question number 10. I guess we have a bonus one. Um, does receiving Christ begin with you trusting in his death and resurrection? Or is there more to do, such as submitting to his lordship and then we're saved?

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Uh, receiving Christ.

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Hold on the second part of your question.

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It might be a little confusing to me.

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Um, yes, you simply trust in his death and resurrection. I would say that. However, I don't think that's counter. I don't think that that's like put against and opposing submitting to his lordship because they're kind of the same thing.

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Now, um, I've got videos on this and you guys can check my website. I know I've talked on this before, and the lordship salvation stuff, um, and My stuff is pretty public on that. Many would consider me to be a lordship salvation guy because of what I've said. I don't like the phrase lordship salvation. I think it's unhelpful, and I don't use it for myself. But while I do not affirm, I absolutely reject the idea that your works get you saved or make you saved or keep you saved.

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However, I think that a heart that is truly trusting in Jesus is also trusting in Jesus as Lord. That there is a genuine conviction of the lordship of Jesus in my heart. And imagine, for instance, if I try to separate the lordship of Jesus from my belief in his death and resurrection, I could say the following. And would you think this is saving faith? I believe Jesus died, and I believe Jesus rose again. However, I do not believe, uh, him as Lord, and I reject his lordship in my life. Is that person saved?

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No, that's not what real faith in Jesus is. Faith in Jesus means I believe in who he is, and who he is is Lord of all.

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So if I'm rejecting His lordship in my heart, I reject your lordship, then how am I believing in Him? I don't think that makes sense.

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Um, I do think God has incredible grace and incredible grace on believers who sin. And if he doesn't, then I'm unsaved. I'm lost along with you.

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I'm not saying you have to perform to this level to be holy enough to be called a Christian. I'm not saying that.

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But I am saying there's a genuineness in our heart's affirmation of the lordship of Jesus that is part of salvation.

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And if I reject in my heart the lordship of Jesus, then I'm rejecting Jesus.

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I'm rejecting Him.

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Now, if I reject in my life the lordship of Jesus by living in habitual sin, I put myself in this danger zone where I go, is this guy, is Mike really a Christian because of the way he's been living?

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He might be, he might not be. Is he a Christian who's in a lot of sin right now, or is he just simply lying about his faith in Jesus? It's not genuine. It's not real, because it's not translating into anything real in his life. Because if he really believed in Jesus in his heart, then he'd be living it out to some degree in his life. And you get into this scary gray zone. And I, uh, think for anybody in that gray zone, get out of the gray, repent, trust in Christ and follow him.

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That's the only solution. What I don't want to do is provide a constant. This is what I've seen many people do over time. Provide a constant affirmation that everybody is saved as long as they say, I believe in Jesus no matter how they live, that there is nothing in your life that could be a red flag that could say, hey, you're deceived, you think he's yours, but he's not. Jesus himself taught that such a red flag could exist. He says, there are many who will come to me in that day and say, lord, Lord, didn't we do this and that and this and that? And he goes, no, I never knew you. So there's people who will outwardly say that they, that they love Jesus, that he's their Lord, but that he's not really.

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Now, is that lordship salvation? I don't like the term. I think it's confusing. I think it's too easily misunderstood as works based salvation, which is anathema, which is I reject 100%.

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Um, but yeah, I do have teaching on this and I would encourage people, um, when you get into these debates that are going online right now, I haven't followed the videos, but I know like Ray Comfort did, it had like a back and forth with the need God guy. I have never watched that guy's video, so I can't comment on him. He may be awesome and wonderful and, or maybe weird. I have no idea. Okay, so no comment on it. Um, I know Ray Comfort and I've heard his teaching many times and I don't think he has anything but a biblical view of this topic. So I don't know what the current debate is or if someone said something that I would disagree with. Maybe Ray did. I don't expect he would.

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Um, but I know that that's probably what stirred up this question because I saw that, I see the thumbnails and I just haven't had time to look into it.

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I will say that in these debates, very often what happens is the person who affirms, uh, if you don't live out the Christian life, maybe your claim to be Christian isn't real. They're misinterpreted as saying if you don't do enough good works, God won't forgive you. And that is not what they're saying ever at any time I've heard. And if you just realize that confusion, it'll bring down the heat.

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That is too much heat, not enough light on this whole lordship salvation type debate. Over and over again I see it attacking a view that people don't even have. Um, because they believe you're saved by grace alone, through faith alone. Apart from works. They just think that if faith is real, James 2. Then it will bear fruit.

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All right, I want to go to the bonus question today, and that is from James C. Who says, what are your three favorite books of the Bible? And. And why? No cop outs.

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He said, thanks for the ministry. You're very welcome, James. Oh, man, no cop outs. I much prefer to cop out.

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Ask my wife. I'm so bad at favorites of anything. So I'll pick three, and maybe we'll, um, just, uh.

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I'll change them later because I can't cop out. So I'll just say I reserve the right to change in five minutes.

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Um, three. Okay, so, um, Romans, Romans lays out for us in such great detail the theology of Christianity.

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And there's a lot. There's so much in Romans, there's so much in the book of Romans. And it's kind of like the biggest treatise from Paul on his theology. Like, my knowledge of the mystery of God, of the Gospel, is in Romans. And he goes, hey. And it's kind of cool because he writes it to Rome, saying, since I can't visit you, um, and I haven't been able to get there, and I know you guys have received the gospel, but I can't come to you. I'm going to share with you my knowledge in the Gospel. Whereas, like the other letters of Paul, we always have him writing to someone he's already spoken with, so they already know a lot of what he'll say or what he has said. And so he speaks from a place of, like, the conversation has already started, and he comes in and has stuff to add. But with Rome, it's the introduction to the Gospel. It's like this fullness of the gospel that's in the book of Rome. It's very unique, very amazing, very awesome stuff.

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Um, what else? Um, I don't know. Probably maybe Genesis. There's something about. Okay, so Genesis is not the most entertaining book of the Bible, because the Bible's not there to entertain you. And if you're thinking, why isn't the Bible more entertaining? Then you're misunderstanding the purpose of it.

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Um, so Genesis is especially interesting because it's the beginning. Um, and all of the major themes of Scripture are found in the book of Genesis, but baked into Genesis. I mean, think about this. This ancient, ancient book written how long before Jesus ever shows up. But baked into it is the need for Jesus, and, uh, the groundwork for Jesus. So you've got the creation of man m and woman in the image of God. As Jesus is going to come as one of us in the future and that's needed. We have to be made. I feel like if Adam and Eve weren't made in the image of God, Jesus never could have showed up incarnate.

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That's a whole other thought, just an opinion of mine. But there's something about us being made in God's image that has to do with the consummation in the book of Revelation of us being brought into unity with God and oneness with him in a special way. Anyhow, Genesis lays the. Because there's the fall. There's humanity, there's the goodness, then there's the fall and there's the problem. There's sin, there's. There's all these things. And then you have the pictures of Jesus from the proto Evangelium, right? Uh, the, the seed of the woman.

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That's a ultimate prophecy of Jesus to like Abraham offering Isaac, which is insane to me, that Abraham offers Isaac. And this is a detailed picture of the Father offering his Son. That Jesus fulfilled in the New Testament from everything from like, we'll be back in three days. And he was basically dead to him. And he was theorizing he'd be resurrected according to the book of Hebrews. And he carries the sticks up the hill. The Father carries the fire representing judgment. The Son carries the sticks as Jesus carries his cross up a hill. And the Father is the one ultimately bringing the judgment upon him for our sins. There's just so much cool stuff in Isaac. There's even a prophecy in the passage in Genesis, uh, where it says, in the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. And it's just left hanging there in Genesis, like, what will be provided? What are you talking about? And where was he crucified?

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Right. Approximately where Jesus was crucified. Same region. He's crucified there, where Jesus is crucified. And it's there that God will provide what the replacement for Isaac, the Son who would die. Ultimately, it's not the Scot, it's Jesus. It's just blows my mind. So much cool stuff. But you could pick a book of the Bible and you could go on about how amazing it is. So how about a third one? Um, I mean, not long, I'll say for now, I'll say Mark, because I. Not long, not too long ago I went verse by verse through the Gospel of Mark.

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And I appreciate it more now than ever before because I spent like a year and a half or Something like that.

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Just deep diving on Mark. That was like my main thing in my life was just studying, studying Mark and then teaching everything. I found amazing, wonderful book evidence for Christ, the deity of Christ in this earliest of gospels.

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Um, the historical verifications of the Gospel of Mark are deep and thorough in the Gospel of Mark. So in that, like, I don't know, it's 50, 70, 70 videos maybe through Mark, tons of like apologetic stuff to defend the authenticity of the gospel and the genuineness of the Christian faith in the Gospel of Mark. Really cool stuff.

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I could easily pick other books and um, if you ask me again one day, maybe I will.

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So there you go. There's some reasons, um, thank you guys for the opportunity to do this today. Here's a little quick update on what's going on behind the scenes. I have a backlog of a massive amount of information. It's going to take me months and months to work through. What I did was I opened a can of worms or several cans of worms by reaching out online on Twitter and saying, hey, if you've been abused, um, and need help with dealing, uh, with a powerful church leader type thing, give me a call. So reach out to me. So my plate is full. There's more people who come to me than I can even possibly help. And I'm going to be systematically going through this backlog of stuff. Uh, coming up, unless something gets in the way of it is a video soon that'll be on the topic of Bethel and uh, Sembulls. I have two videos on that. One will be one person's story. The next will be a big video on Sham Bulls. Um, we've got so much other stuff going on and the COVID up culture is a real thing. I'll just say that the COVID up culture is a real thing and it's absolutely there inside. Um, it was in ihop, it's in Morningstar, it's in Bethel, it's in Jesus image. And I don't say that because I'm just attacking people I don't like or I'm jealous of. I wish it wasn't the case. And I hope that these people can reform and change given their past actions and their current present actions. I don't think it's likely. I think the most likely thing we can do is expose it for what it is and the next generation will do differently. That's my current thinking. It'll be a grassroots change, uh, to bring change here. But there's so much other stuff.

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There's a lot.

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Um, yeah, I've got months of backlog work I have to process through and I'm going to plan on doing that and it'll be coming out as it comes out. So again the next one is just a video that's going to be well over two hours long. That's going to be a testimony of some, somebody who um, due to the lies and self aggrandizing manipulations, the depraved indifference of Sean Bowles, the false prophet who was even this year endorsed by Bill Johnson, even though all the evidence is out proving who he is, um, because of him, somebody who I have known for a while now, finally he wants to come forward on this stuff, has uh, lost his entire retirement, um, gone through years of his life being derailed. And Bethel knew about it and didn't do anything to help him.

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And that's just part of the pattern of self preservation of the leaders and the movement at the cost of the individuals that they are leading, the people who trust them, the people who look up to them.

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It's infuriating and it will be dealt with. And it doesn't mean that we're saying everybody here is not saved. And no, no, we're saying here's something to be accountable for. Because even now, uh, we'll take Bethel for example, even now, and I have all the evidence of all this stuff, I'll share it all.

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Um, Bethel is not being honest or integrous in the way that they deal with these things. They're just doing damage control. They just have these vague public statements. After everything gets exploded online, the whistleblowers come out because nobody will listen to, to them in the institution. Then they have these vague letters they put out just to small groups of people to kind of do their damage control. It's not appropriate. Guys, if I had platformed a false prophet to you and they misled you for hundreds and hundreds of you, uh, spending money you shouldn't have spent getting married because they told you to, doing all sorts of weird things. And then I wouldn't come out and equally publicly proclaim that the false prophet was fake. I would be culpable for that.

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That's a major betrayal of trust and responsibility from the leaders at Bethel. And that's just one of many examples. Um, the Todd White stuff. We're working on a website right now that will allow people to petition Todd White's ministry to do a um, third party investigation and to drop all NDAs they have. In fact, I think that every church needs to drop NDAs they have with anybody and that seems to be the right thing to do.

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Jesus Image needs to drop their NDAs. They're holding a bunch of people hostage with NDAs. And I'll be doing videos on that too.

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Absolutely. Jesus Image in Florida. This is Benny Hinn's, uh, son in law and daughter.

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And they're an abusive ministry. So sadly, I know a lot of good can come out of their ministry as well and has. But then there's the bad stuff. So it's all there. And I'm operating under the principle that people matter, not just leaders, individuals matter, not just the reputation of a movement. And if that's true, then things have to change.

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And they can change. Because you know what? You guys don't. If you don't stand for it, they can't do it anyways. The leaders can't do it without you.

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All right, that's it.

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So, uh, I'll see you guys soon. Next Friday I'll be streaming the Q and A. And hopefully before then I'll drop this first video on Sean Bulls and start with working on the second one, which will be. That one's going to be the doozy.

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Um, yeah.

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I can't believe that this guy even still has a ministry presence at all. It's insane. It's insane. Wicked, evil, sick man.

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I'll share the proof. I know I've just made a lot of claims, but you'll understand why you're going to think the same thing once you see the evidence. So.

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All right, take care of.

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Oh, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your holy word that stands the test of time. Um, we pray for your grace upon all the leaders in our lives. Uh, we want to give them grace and kindness and give them patience, Lord, where they have flaws and problems even in their ministry to a degree. But we pray that when people cross the line of being untrustworthy and of being wolves, of being shepherds, uh, who feed themselves and not the flock. When they manipulate or they use fraudulent miracles or fake prophecy, we pray that they would be exposed and the church would be cleansed from these people and that you would help their followers to realize that there is a pure version of Christianity, that they want so much more than they want the hype and the nostalgia of this fake thing. In Jesus name, amen.

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Mhm.