WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:25.000 Examples. And then we're going to ask the question, is this a biblical practice? As a Christian, am I informed by scripture? And I'm going to give you several verses. I'll respond to verses that they'll use to support child preachers as well. So this is question number one. Are child preachers biblical? Listen to the following. 2 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:29.000 For the Lord is my, my shepherd. Hallelujah. And he is the light of the world. 3 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:30.000 Hallelujah. 4 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:52.000 But joy cometh in the morning light. Hallelujah. As long as you have God. Hallelujah. You must stand on his word. Hallelujah. The Holy Ghost here. That means they're speaking in tongues. He wants the money. What you give him the red white for B. 5 00:00:52.000 --> 00:01:08.000 The audio is a little out of sync on this particular one. For whatever reason, uh, when I tried to get the little screen grab of it, but you can see it's got 20 million views. 20 million views. 281,000 likes versus, uh, 21,000 estimated dislikes. 6 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:17.000 If the Lord has a word in Wernado, Mississippi. 7 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:27.000 You can see the parents are on stage. The dad, in this case the mom in the previous video. 8 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:34.000 There's only one God. 9 00:01:34.000 --> 00:12:29.000 So this is. Yeah, God's, uh, going to do it. The Lord's going to do it. He didn't even know what the Lord's going to do in this case. The kid's just jumping up and down and he's, he's copying what he's heard. But is this a biblical practice now? This is something a lot of people will get up in arms about, uh, anything related to kids. Okay, I did not put these kids on screen. Their parents did. Their parents put them up and promoted them and wanted everyone to see them as preachers, as not just look at my kid doing a talent on stage. Nothing's wrong with that. But as I'm a preacher, there are videos of little kids 11 years old that are being called prophets. Right there. Is there videos of kids, uh, who are seven years old, eight years old, who are ordained pastors in their denomination? This is a real thing. Kid preachers are like a real thing. Is it biblical? Well, let's just run through some of the arguments for kid preachers and then I'll respond to some of those things because they're based on scripture here. So doesn't Isaiah 11,6 say that a child shall lead them? Right. That's one of the things you might hear from the people who want to support this behavior. Or where Jesus says, um, let the little children come to me in Matthew 19, doesn't Matthew 18 say, Jesus Himself say, you have to become like a child. So I can imagine these three passages of scripture being put up if you were to confront and say to a leader, I don't think we should have children preaching as if they are actually ministers of the gospel, as if they are elders, as if they're pastors. I don't think we should have them doing this. It's one thing to have them share a little testimony, something they went through, but preaching, you know, in entering the pulpit with that authority, I don't think we should have that. And they go, well, but a child shall lead them. Scripture says, let the children come to me. Jesus says, become like a child. According to Matthew 18. Let's look at those verses, and then I will share some response verses as well. So the first one, we'll look at Isaiah, uh, 11, 6. A child shall lead them. Is this a proper verse to use for that? Let me fix the screen a little bit here. Um, a wolf shall also. Also shall dwell with the lamb. The leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together. And a child, a little child shall lead them. Who is the child leading in this passage? Well, it's a calf, a lion, the fatling and the lion, a young goat. It is a leopard, it is a wolf, and is a lamb. It is a bunch of animals. The child is leading a bunch of animals. This is so silly. This verse will be used out of context by people who have a child understanding of scripture to support children preaching scripture. Um, let's go to Matthew 19, verse 14. What's the next one? Jesus says, let the little children come to me and do not forbid them, for such is the kingdom of heaven. Now, this can be used out of context really powerfully. Don't forbid them, guys. Don't forbid them. Mike, you're forbidding children from being doing pastoral ministry from the pulpit. That's so wrong. How can you do that? Sorry, I have to make sure there's no emergencies. Um. Oh, yeah, okay. Sorry, sir, I can't fix the audio on the clip if it's too quiet at the stage. It's already over. Sorry, guys, but tell you what. Um, if. If it. Text me again. Sarah, if you think I should replay the clip, I don't mind. I'll just leave it up to your judgment there. Should I replay the clip? Just text me yes or no, and I'll. I'll do that when I get your response. Um, I can increase the audio, uh, for a second Time through. I think it'll just take a second. So this, um, practice is not supported by the Matthew 19 passage, although out of context, it really looks like it. Let the children come to me and all this stuff. It looks like it, but it's not. Let's back up then. Little children were brought to him, to Jesus, that he might put his hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them. Why are the children being brought for prayer? They just want a blessing from Jesus. He's just praying over them, blessing them, laying his hands on them. He says, let them come. Don't forbid them because of such is the kingdom. Um, and he laid his hands on them, as in to pray and give a blessing to them, and then he departed. So that's what he does. So the Matthew passage does not work. That's out of context. That's a misuse of scripture. That is a manipulation of the word of God. What about, um, Matthew, chapter 18, verse 2? Let's look at that one and we'll see. Sarah, uh, says no. All right, so it's on Sarah. She says not to replay the clip. Everybody blames Sarah. If that was a bad decision, she. She deserves all the blame. And I only want credit for things that I do that I'm responsible for, like not checking the audio of a clue that I played for you guys ahead of time. Um, all right, so the Matthew 18 passage, Jesus calls a little child to him and set him in the midst of them and said, assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me. And you could act like you're receiving these children, uh, in your pulpit is the same as Jesus receiving them into relationship with him by his grace and his love. Uh, you could pretend that he's talking about literal children when he says become as little children, when he's obviously using the child as a metaphor for you becoming weak, powerless one who offers nothing to Jesus. Your good works, our filthy rags to him. All the things you've done mean nothing as far as earning your salvation. You come with only the debt of your sins, with your regrets, with your sorrows, and Jesus brings you grace and salvation. He brings you forgiveness. The way a little kid says, help, help, help. You come to Jesus and say, help, help. I'm just relying on you. I'm trusting in you. You are the one who can save me? That's how you come as a child, has nothing to do with child preachers. That would be an embarrassment to use the Bible in such an appalling fashion. What does scripture actually say about preachers? Let's go to 1 Timothy 3. We will read several qualifications. I say preachers. Yeah. Overseers are pastors, overseers are elders. There's only one term or one position in the Bible that is discussed using the words bishop, um, or in our modern language, pastor or elder. Um, we see these things. Or overseer. It's referring to your pastor, your church pastor. That's the position it's talking about. And that's the guy that inhabits the pulpit and stands with authority and proclaims the truth of God. It says this is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife. Now, uh, some of you have heard bishop refers to like a pastor of pastors. He's over several churches. That is not biblical. I don't have time to get into it. That's not accurate. Um, that's a modern tradition of man. So a bishadim must be blameless. He has to be the husband of one wife. Do any of the child preachers fit the husband of one wife qualification? Do these kids here look like they're the husbands of one wife? The ones that you're going to see here preaching? Something tells me that that's not the case. This is not the husband of one wife. This kid here is not the husband of one wife. Um, then the bishop also has to be temperate, um, sober minded and of good behavior. I've never met a seven year old that fits that description. Can you imagine a seven year old that's temperate, sober minded and of good behavior, Hospitable, able to teach, not just able to preach. A, uh, qualification for leaders is that they can teach. Now this ball has been dropped in many churches. And this doesn't mean you're not a real church. It doesn't mean you're not honoring God in many ways. But the ability to just bark on stage or to stir up the crowds is not the same as the ability to teach. Because a lot of the preaching of the New Testament is actually educational. It is motivational, don't get me wrong. But it's also educational. It's teaching doctrine and theology. They're understanding the nature of Jesus. They're understanding how salvation works. They're understanding how to figure out the, the right doctrine versus False doctrine, heresy, true false teaching. This is a job that uh, a pastor, a preacher has to have. And none of these kids understand these things. They're just imitating, they're copying what they've heard. Not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money. Gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous. And then we get to verse four. One who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence. Clearly you have to be an adult. I don't think every pastor has to be married and have kids. That's a whole different debate. I have videos somewhere where I get into that, um, in detail. But just setting that issue aside for a moment to not get distracted from the topic at hand. A child cannot qualify for church positions of leadership. Therefore he should not be up there preaching as if he is in that position of leadership. That seems pretty simple to me. But there's also a danger if we do says here that the man cannot be a novice lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation of the devil. And every child preacher I've ever seen was puffed up with pride. Every example I've seen just exudes pride, arrogance and pride and uh, unwarranted self confidence that these kid preachers have built into them, usually by their parents, built into them by the church environment around them, applauding and not being realistic and honest with them. So I'm going to say, uh, child preacher is not biblical. Not biblical. And I will say something else. When I did a little bit of research into child preachers, I noticed something, and I hate to say this, um, they are consistently coming from the Pentecostal stream. I don't know of any child preachers that I found. Anyways, I'm not saying they don't exist, but they're not as easy to find that aren't in the Pentecostal stream. Right? Pentecostal charismatic stream in that area. It's consistent. It's very consistent. And there's something of a weakness in this area that is in that particular side of the church. And you'll also notice that one of the reasons I think this is is because in those Pentecostal streams you have this kind of preaching here. Actually, I'll replay part of the video for you guys. Maybe I'll turn the volume up a little this time if I can. Um, I know there's a setting for it somewhere. I. It's so hard for me to do this while I'm actually live because then all of a sudden I'm like, wait, where is that setting, um. Here it is. All right, Found it. All right. I raised it up a little bit. Mississippi. 10 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:30.000 The Lord is here. 11 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:43.000 Night. Do you hear the, uh. They're copying the things that their parents do. This is it. This other kid does the same thing. 12 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:51.000 The voice will be alien unto them. Hallelujah. For the Lord is my shepherd. Hallelujah. And he is the light of the world. 13 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:52.000 Hallelujah. 14 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:55.000 For joy coming in the. 15 00:12:55.000 --> 00:39:31.000 That, that like, that like weird breathing thing that is. It's showmanship. It is showmanship. It's not the Holy Spirit, it's not necessarily anti Holy Spirit, but it is pure showmanship. The kids are learning to say the phrases that they hear repeated often because I think the reason why this happens in Pentecostal churches more is because there simply is a much greater audience there for empty, showy preaching that is void of deep understanding of spiritual things or it's surface level. It's great swelling words, but often they're words of emptiness. And I think it's healthy to point it out because it is pervasive. It is really extensive. There are audiences that hear this kind of preaching, I think, and maybe some of you have. This isn't an insult to you. I'm not insulting you. I'm just observing that the reality is that there is a brainless, like crowd pleasing barking behaviors by some preachers. This is just what happens sometimes. Just like Joel Osteen presents sort of like mindless, um, optimism and unrealistic encouragement constantly. Uh, and I say unrealistic meaning it's based on things that aren't necessarily true. And he also misuses the text of scripture while doing it. I'm not insulting Osteen or his people. I think I'm trying to bring biblical thinking into those crowds. So it's really an olive branch. If your pastor regularly teaches like this, it will numb your brain, it will numb your mind. And you as a Christian, you will not be able to think clearly. You will think, become like a child. Means I can put this kid up to preach. You'll think a child shall lead them. Means that a kid can lead our congregation. You will think that a kid repeating the same stuff he hears without understanding it on stage, that that's glorifying to God instead of an insult to the weighty, glorious wonders of the truth of Christ. When you have someone who doesn't even understand it up there saying it. Zeal without knowledge is not healthy. So that's question number one. Child preachers, no, not biblical. Clearly not biblical. Can they proclaim the gospel Their friends. Yeah, I wasn't talking about them not doing that, but that was clearly an unbiblical thing. Um, all right, so I have to move pretty quick today. This, uh, is why I actually started the stream a bit early. 40, uh, five minutes early, approximately earlier than usual. And I have to end it as soon as I can because I have some things going on right now with my schedule that are just crazy. Don't worry, nothing crazy, nothing dangerous or scary. Just, you know how life is. Sometimes your days end up like that. Right. So Julia Larson has a question. Um, yeah, question number two says I asked a pastor at my former church why they chose to teach topical rather than expository. He said, we do not see in, see examples of expository teaching in the Bible. Is this true and is it a good reason? Um, that's really interesting. So let's unpack this one a little bit first. Um, let's start with the premise, the hidden premise. The premise is I'm going to only do the types of preaching that I see in the Bible. Right? That's the hidden premise. And then he goes, the statement that's based off the hidden premise is I don't see verse by verse teaching in the Bible. Okay. Um, the premise itself seems somewhat flawed and overly restrictive actually in my mind. And here's one of the explanations for that I do not see in the Bible. Topical preaching based on a seven week course of how to live your best life. If you look at like let's say, the various messages that your pastor has brought over the past several years, the times. How you doing? You a little sleepy? Kitty. I think she just woke up. She's got that face. Um, if you look at the things that your pastor's taught over the last, say, six months, five years, look at the actual sermons he's done and ask yourself one question. Are there examples of this in scripture? Are there topical, single, standalone studies that are based on the same things that he did for these 52 weeks, and most likely the answer is going to be a big no. Most likely it's going to be a no. Because your pastor, if he's doing topical stuff, he's going to rotate around business, family, finances, spiritual, um, well, being, evangelism, um, depression, he's going to cycle around the same type of things these guys typically do when that's what they, they have. So yeah, that's probably what's going to happen. So I think he's not being consistent with his own policy if this is the case. But there are some other Problems with this view. Um, it assumes that the Bible is actually giving you a. Um. You want to lay down right there? Huh? Go for it. It's giving you. Sorry, man. My cat is so distracting. It's going to make it hard to move quick. The Bible's not giving you a model for Sunday preaching in the book of Ecclesiastes. Right? It's not giving you a. No, it's giving you the scripture of God in the book of Ecclesiastes. And what the Bible does do is it tells you that the topic for the Sunday study should be the Scriptures. It should be the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And sorry, kitty, you gotta find a place to hang out. All right, we'll try that. Um, let me give you an example. So, um, what we're told to preach. Uh, Timothy, for instance, he's told, preach the word, Be instant in season. I'll find a newer translation than that. Uh, for you guys. Um, Timothy's told, preach the word, my cat, preach, uh, the Word, Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching, which is educational for the time is coming when they will not endure what, sound teaching or sound doctrine? The implication is that Timothy has the Word, which is something he's inherited. He's gone, uh, preaching it, he's heard it preached, and now he's going to go and communicate it to others. But what he's doing is he's taking that apostolic deposit that is the things that the apostles taught, and he's repeating it. What do we have there? We have the Scriptures, the New Testament. We have the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We have the Book of Acts. You got it. Just go up on your perch. Hang out right there. All right. You're causing me problems. I'm already having a rough day. Yes, Just. Just chill out. She's on her little. Her little thing she's got here. Um, okay. Man, I'm so terrible today. The. The fact that we're called to, uh, you know, Timothy, who's. Who's going to be teaching in churches, is being given instructions by Paul in second Timothy four, and he's told, preach the Word, which implies the apostolic deposit. And then. Sorry, kitty. Sorry, kid. It's live. It's live. Okay? And then he's. Then he's told to do teaching, and he's warned that there's people who will not endure sound teaching. Sound teaching. Not preaching, okay? Not sermonettes for Christianettes, but actual, like, teaching of the word of God. Okay? Timothy would have Then been repeating the stuff that we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the stuff that we have in Acts, the stuff that we have in the Epistles, he would have simply been repeating those things. This would have been. Now, whether or not he said, let's open to Luke, he would have taught the contents of Luke to his congregation. Whether or not he would have said, let's open First Peter, he would have taught the contents of First Peter. So that becomes the subject. Now, that New Testament, you can't understand without the Old Testament. And the New Testament constantly uses the Old as its teaching methodology. Hebrews 11 is going through lots of the Old Testament. We see this consistently in Scripture. Then we also have, uh, Paul exhorting him, uh, oh, it's just later in the same chapter to give attention to the reading of Scripture. So let's go to verse 13. Um, oh, is it first Timothy? Ah, uh, until I come. Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Now this is interesting because it's a specific instruction of what happens in public at the gatherings of the Christians. They're going to devote themselves to one, the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, which means stirring Christians to action. That is application of living out Christianity in their lives and to teaching. So I'm going to use Scripture as the foundation. Then I'm going to exhort you to follow it and I'm going to explain it with teaching. Is this not teaching Scripture? Is this not the thing your pastor said the Bible doesn't tell us to do? It seems like it is to me. It seems like it is to me. Paul also instructs that the letters that he writes, he goes, read this letter. Um, uh, in fact, read this letter and read the letter I sent to the other church and this sort of thing. Then we have the nature of Scripture. Um, Jesus himself stood up and read Scripture and explained it, uh, in Luke when he went to Nazareth. And there he reads from the scroll of Isaiah, uh, and he reads, and then says, this has been fulfilled in your presence. Like this was him applying the Scripture right into his very life in that moment. So this doesn't mean that every church has to have verse by verse teaching, meaning that they say they're going through. My church just finished Second Corinthians, where you read chapter one and then you teach through that. The next week you do chapter two and you teach through that. Um, it doesn't always have to be that way, but that is a good way, a reasonable way of fulfilling what we read about here. It does do the thing. It matches the thing that we're being talked about here. Now, the danger of topical studies, where you don't go verse by verse, where you don't actually plow your way through the entirety of the Bible in some form or another, where you're actually working through the different books, maybe you move faster through Job, maybe you move slower through Jude, but you're handling all of the Word. The danger of that is that you actually skip important passages and because you're just not comfortable with them or because you just don't think about them very much. So, like, you actually don't get the whole counsel of God's Word. Um, B, you can actually train your congregation to take the Bible out of context, because you're never in Matthew going through all the teachings of Jesus. You're just grabbing one parable to insert it into a sermon because it was useful for you in that moment. So this creates an opportunity to misuse the Bible. And I've seen pastors do this all the time. When me and my wife were looking for a new church several years ago, we checked out so many churches, and I just see it. I saw it all the time. Even churches where they would have said, we're teaching the Bible, I would hear a verse quoted, and I'd be like, that's not what that verse is talking about. That's not what that verse is talking about. But because that pastor wasn't in the habit of studying whole passages, but in his private study, think about how different the pastor's study is. In his private study, he's not thinking, I have to communicate what Luke 4 is about. Why did Jesus say this? What Old Testament reference was that? What did it mean? How does it apply? What happened next in Luke's Gospel? He didn't think that. He thought, um, I'm teaching about frustrations, uh, in parenting, and I need to find encouraging passages that will help me encourage parents who are frustrated. And so he goes to Luke, not looking to understand Luke, but looking to find a point, find something to support a point he's making in his sermon so he has more motivation to misunderstand Scripture. And he can train his people to misunderstand it, too. So teaching verse by verse protects you from doing that. You can do topical. I don't think, uh, if a pastor got up and did a topical thing, I don't have a problem with that. But if that's what you always do, and if you're actually like your pastor here, you're opposed to teaching verse by Verse, like it's something you think is biblically wrong. Then I think you're, like, overcompensating, something's wrong. Maybe you're a great pastor in other ways, but this is an area where I'd say, hey, you could use some correction here. Teaching through Genesis, there ain't nothing wrong with that. That seems like a beautiful, wonderful thing to do. And we do have some examples of this kind of thing. Um, the one thing you see in the New Testament when you see, like in Galatians, where Paul talks about Abraham, is he doesn't read the whole thing. He assumes that you're going to read it. Of course he's writing a letter. We wouldn't expect Paul to be able to write back. Then a letter that's like 300 pages long where he's doing a full commentary on Genesis. It's not feasible. But whenever he does quote Abraham or talk about Abraham or talk about somebody in the Old Testament or an event, there is a deep, deep understanding of the passage and the surrounding context. It's so deep and thoughtful that often people think that the New Testament authors are misapplying the Old Testament or only because those people, they don't understand the Old Testament as well as the New Testament authors did, as well as the Holy Spirit does. And so when they refer to something in the Book of Job or something in Ecclesiastes or something in Genesis, there's a deep understanding of the whole of Genesis and where it fits in all of the salvation plan of God, of the implications of those moments. Um, when Paul talks about Hagar and Sarah and the allegory that he builds off of that, it's a deep and thoughtful thing. So at least the pastor should say, I need to make sure I only ever use the Bible in context. I make sure that I communicate what it wants communicated, not what I want to communicate. And I make sure that I'm helping my people to understand the Bible better. That's certainly what we're called to do. All right, let's go to the question, the third question. So this is coming in from Donna Lance, who says, does 1 Corinthians 15:29 give validity to the Mormon practice of getting baptized for the dead? First Corinthians 15:29. Um, let's read it and I'll explain what the Mormon doctrine is. There is my understanding of, um, says otherwise. Paul says this. What do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf? Wait and It's a Christian. You go, wait, there's a. I'll put on your screen there. There's a practice people have of baptizing on behalf of the dead. Huh. Huh. That sounds kind of like Mormonism. Now, what the Mormon does is they come in because there's a lot of questions about this. We don't know a lot about what was going on in 1 Corinthians 15:29. I've read many commentaries. There's just not a lot of knowledge. What was the baptism, the baptizing of the dead that was going on in this passage that Paul refers to? Why was Paul bringing it up? That we have a little more clue on that one. We kind of know that. And is it a practice that Christians are supposed to do and we're missing out on? And this is where, and often this happens. Cult groups, false teachers will swoop in and they'll grab an obscure and difficult passage, and then they will build a whole doctrine and theology off of a confusing and difficult passage. This happens all the time. So the way that Joseph Smith did this is he grabs First Corinthians, and Mormonism more broadly did this. They grabbed First Corinthians 15, and they use it to validate their theology of the afterlife, their theology of heaven, hell, and how to get saved after you've died. After you've died. And they call it the baptism of the dead in Mormon churches or Mormon, um, baptismals. You. You. Not the church, but the temple itself. You go to the temples, you can go into the baptism area and you can get dunked over and over again. You could do it a thousand times in your life. And as they dunk you, they will read the name of a deceased person, John Smith. There's probably a lot of those. And then, bloop. You get dunked, they'll read another name, they'll baptize you again. They're baptizing all of the people in their actual church that are alive and in the name of all the people who have died. Now, this is actually. It's so deep and detailed. This is actually why Mormons have such good genealogical records of your family. This is why you can go to them. I think Ancestry.com I think, is Mormon. And you can go to them and say, hey, who was my great, great, great, great grandpa? And they're like, well, turns out we know this. We've been tracking because we've been dunking people on behalf of the dead for a very, very long time. I remember I had a guy I knew in high School, I think we were in art class when he mentioned this. His name was Le. He was Mormon. And, uh, he was like a bad Mormon, but he was Mormon. And he said something about how early he was up that day. He got up at like 5 in the morning or something. And I was like, why did you get up so early? And he says, well, I got baptized. And I was like, whoa, congratulations. And he goes, well, I've been baptized before. And I said, what do you mean? He goes, well, I got baptized for somebody else. And I was so confused by this. It was later that I found out what this doctrine was. See, they think you have to get baptized to go to heaven. You have to get baptized to go to a certain level of heaven. Anyways, um, and what they're going to do is they're going to baptize in this life, do a baptism in your name, then Mormon missionaries will go to your place of being away from God after you die, and then they're going to go and visit you there, and they're going to preach the Mormon Gospel to you and tell you about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Then if you decide to believe them and submit to it, you've already been baptized. Since you don't have a body now, you've already been baptized in the real world. So then now you can move up and change and get saved in the afterlife. A version of saved. It's not exaltation. You're not going to get to become a God or anything like. That's, um, an awful lot of theology to hang on this phrase. What do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? That's a lot of theology. We don't know what that even meant, being baptized. We don't know what these Corinthians were doing. Now, some theories are being baptized on behalf of the dead is, um, where it's the person who's being baptized, they're being baptized into Christ's death to walk then in newness of life. And so that it's merely a reference to normal Christian baptism. And he's just highlighting that baptism is for those who die and have died and are spiritually dead. There's a death connection in baptism and there's a life connection. We're buried with him in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life. So this is one interpretation of the passage, the convenience of that. The nice thing about this is it doesn't require you to invent an entirely new theology of the afterlife in order to support this belief, nor a bunch of new practices that are nowhere seen in any clear way in church history, um, nor taught any other place in the Bible. So that's convenient. It's also a question. Is Paul saying that the Corinthians are being baptized on behalf of the dead, or is he referring to simply some group who gets baptized on behalf of the dead? That is some way the Corinthians know about or are aware of. Um, it could also be a group of Corinthians who are doing this, but it's not an approved practice. It's a practice that is, somewhere else, rejected. Because Paul doesn't approve of it here. He simply says, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? His actual point, when you back up, is he's just trying to tell the Corinthians that the resurrection is a real thing. And he's just building a number of arguments for that. Cause that the resurrection is a real thing. Now, Paul's a thoughtful, uh, he's a philosopher, really, in a lot of ways. He's a thoughtful arguer. He builds his case carefully. He brings multiple different points to prove that he is right. And one of the points is, oh, yeah, you're saying there's no resurrection, but this practice that you guys are either doing or are aware of, or maybe people who are influencing you in a negative way, they do shows that they're thinking that there's some sort of resurrection, there's an afterlife, there's some future thing coming. Um, and so therefore, here's another point in favor of there is a resurrection. Long story short, the Mormon practice that involves a theology of the afterlife that is not supported by Scripture, a theology of baptism that is not supported by Scripture. Um, ah, it's all built on a rhetorical question with no context around it. With a practice we don't even really know what was going on in the New Testament, at least I don't know. Most people don't know if somebody knows, enlighten us. But usually this is where someone just makes something up in the comment section, right? So just be aware of that. But verse 29 of 1 Corinthians 15, we don't know what it means. And Joseph Smith swoops in and goes, oh, I'll just stick my heretical theology into the middle of that verse and explain it. This happens frequently, um, with groups take a vague, difficult to understand verse and insert a bunch of false teaching into it without any actual support or evidence. That's my interpretation of those events. And I'll go to the next question. So question number four. This one comes in from Prince Joe King. Ha ha. Prince joking. Hey, brother Mike. I struggle with same sex attract attraction, unfortunately. How can I be sure that I'm not reprobate slash unregenerate? The idea of evanescent grace scares me. I think that's a term that I've seen in Calvinism. Evanescent grace. Um, I'm not a Calvinist. Um, I'm not sure. I may be wrong here, guys, but somewhere in the back of my mind I think I've heard, uh, in Calvinism, discussion of evanescent grace, which is a person who has all the appearance of being regenerate, but they're really not. They've never been born again. Because the perseverance of the saints means that they think if a person gets saved, they'll never lose their salvation. So this becomes a way of explaining how somebody looked like they were saved and then lost their salvation. And I can understand why it would just be a scary thought. Um, so I'm going to focus on this. How can I be sure I'm not reprobate? Reprobate. Unregenerate. Um, let me go to this. Such were some of you passage. I think It's First Corinthians 9, First Corinthians 6. All right, let's read it all now for a second. Joe, if this, if you're like, really. I got to say this real quick. If you are, like, really emotionally disturbed at this moment, um, know that I. I don't want you to just take whatever answer I give you and then. And then live with that on your own. Please, please find a godly Christian and work through it with them. Someone you respect, someone who cares about you, who loves the Lord, who has some kind of spiritual wisdom. Talk to them about this, please. Okay, don't take my answer and they just sit alone and ruminate on it, because that can be unhealthy. Um, so I just want to say that and I'll move on to the answer here. So, um, Paul says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? And so this is not written about you. Right? Joe, this is an educational point he's making. It's not like, oh, that verse was quoted, so it must be about me. No, I could quote one that says, you know, you'll be with me today in paradise. And then you make that one about you. So let's just understand it. Um, he says, the unrighteous will not inherit. What does he mean by that? He says don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of God. The person who should be scared by this is the one who is still practicing. Now, in our culture, we've changed the meaning of the term homosexual. We often think it means someone who has same sex attraction, therefore you're homosexual. Um, the way that the Bible uses the term and the way that it confronts the term is not a major concern with those who are tempted with same sex attraction, but those who are practicing homosexuality. When you see that you suddenly go, oh, yeah, let's say that you were a drunkard and now you're sober and someone could say, do you still desire alcohol? And they might go, yeah, yeah. Should they then think that they're reprobate because they have a sinful desire? No, they're going to die to it. They're going to resist it. They're going to say no to it. It is only if they continue in those things. They continue, I'm still living the lifestyle of a drunkard. Then you go, well, don't you know that people who do this aren't going to inherit the kingdom? You being tempted with same sex attraction is not you in sin, if you yield your heart to it and you start to fantasize, if you yield your will to it, it can become an internal sin, which is where you're starting to give yourself over to it. But just sensing a temptation is not inherently a sin. You may be tempted to call your wife a name. You don't do it. You let go. But you don't feed into the frustration because feeding into that, giving into that kind of anger that will cause you, that is itself a sin. But don't yield to it, whatever it is. Um, sexual immorality. There's going to be a guy who's a pastor, who is a godly man, but yet there's this young lady he knows and she always treats him really well and she's very pretty. And he suddenly has a thought and he thinks, God forbid that that is so wicked. I repent of that. I turn from that thought. I reject that thought right now. If he instead goes, hmm, hm, I think about that thought. That's sin, okay? That's when temptation turns into sin. And it becomes a problem. So you must reject it right away. You have to turn away from it right away. Um, now that temptation itself is sinful. Same sex attraction is a sin. It's an inherently sinful temptation. But that doesn't mean that you have sinned. The moment that you have a temptation, you're being drawn away by your own desires and enticed. Let me take you to James. M. James, Chapter one. 16 00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:33.000 Uh. 17 00:39:33.000 --> 00:59:55.000 Let no one say when he is tempted, I'm being tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted. Stage one temptation when he's lured and enticed by his own desire. You have not sinned, yet you are lured and enticed. There's a drawing towards something wicked. What do you do next? The desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. How does it conceive? Well, James is vague on this. There's a whole bunch of discussion. What is conception? What does desire conceives? I think if desire joins with the willpower, where you yield your will to it becomes fantasizing, becomes, uh, a willful thing, something I'm choosing to enjoy or, um, lean my heart towards. You know what I mean? Right. The moment you, you've been tempted where you thought temptation. No. Turn away and you've been tempted where you thought temptation. Maybe I'll wrestle with this for a while. That was sin. That was sin. That's when it becomes sin and when it's fully grown and brings forth death. So I hope that that answers your question. Please, uh, joking. Go talk, uh, to like a brother, someone, uh, in the Lord, um, who you can, you can get some, some help working through this. Because that anxiety in your soul and that fear of being reprobate and stuff, that's not healthy for a Christian to live with. If, in fact you are a Christian, which I'm guessing you probably are, then this is a very unhealthy thing for you to be continuing to have in your heart. You need to learn to, if this is the case, to rest your trust in the finished work of, of Christ. Um, maybe I can share with you one more verse if this is in fact the case. It says here, therefore, since we've been justified by faith, which means not works, I didn't do anything for it because I didn't work for it because I haven't earned it. I have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. If peace, you're worried that you don't really have peace, but you're justified by faith, you know now your works. If you're living in habitual sin, it can reveal that your faith isn't real. There's something wrong with your faith. You're not justified by faith because your faith isn't legit. But every Christian struggles. Every Christian sins. So I don't want to create paranoia and fear. I just want to follow the full teaching of Scripture. But verse two says, through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. I love this concept of standing in grace. I stand in it. Grace, unmerited, favor. God's forgiveness upon me. I stand. I don't just cling to grace. I stand in grace. This is a cool thing. I had a pastor pray this once for me. He was censoring that I was young, and he was sensing that I was going through some of the same turmoils that others do as they wrestle with, like, I fail, and yet I believe in God, but I'm not right in some ways, and all those same struggles. And, um, he prayed for me that God would help me to not just cling to his grace, but that he would help me to stand on his grace. And that would be my prayer, uh, for every genuine Christian to learn to stand on the grace of God. All right, going to the next question. This one up here. Move quick. This one comes in from, uh, number five. Is it really only on number five? I better move quick. Uh, does it matter whether I refer to Jesus followers as the twelve apostles or the twelve disciples? No, not really. It doesn't matter. Voyager Ops. Uh, it doesn't matter too much one way or the other. So John in the Gospel of John, he refers to them as the disciples, but he's using the term the disciples like an official moniker or name for the apostles. Um, yet in other texts, like other gospels, they'll be called the apostles. Um, the Bible isn't as perfectly consistent with the use of terms like apostle and disciple. It depends on the author and the context. It's okay for you to use either one. So we have examples in scripture going both ways. All right, easy question. Thank you for the easy question. Former goat says, have you considered the sheep and goat Judgment of Matthew 25 in light of the timing of the rapture? The rapture has to be before the tribulation in order for the earth to be repopulated. Um, I'm afraid that because of the word limit, I may not really understand your question that well. Um, not that you Couldn't explain it well, but you're so limited in the comments section and that's partly on purpose because if I had like a paragraph, like a three paragraph question, it would make this Q and A very, very difficult. Um, let me read it again though, and just see if I understand this. Have you considered the sheep and goat Judgment of Matthew 25 in light of the timing of the rapture? The rapture has to be before the tribulation in order for the earth to be repopulated. Um, so this is a question about the timing of the rapture and it's offering a case, one particular point for a pre tribulational rapture, which would mean rapture seven years later. You have the return of Christ and then you have the sheep and goat judgment. I guess what I don't know from you is where you consider the sheep and goat judgment on the, on the timeline of events. So there's rapture. If you preach your rapture position, there's rapture, there is tribulation seven years, then there's a thousand year reign of Christ, and then there's final judgment. Where do you put the sheep and the goats on that in your timeline? I'm not sure what you're doing there and that may change. Um, I will read some of it to us though. Okay, let's read this. Look for some clues that might help. It won't answer the full question, but we'll get somewhere close. When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. This is, this is about the second coming of Christ. I think even if you put it at the end of the millennium, like final judgment, I think that that's not reasonably possible. This is the return of Jesus that we're all waiting on, that the world is waiting on. Um, this is the Son of Man coming in his glory. The angels judging, separating nations. This is the beginning of his millennial reign. That's where I put it anyways, because I'm pre millennial. Post mill guys, um, they'll have different views of this passage. Um, Amiel guys. Who knows what they're going to think. I never know what those guys are going to think. Um, and he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you. From the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Anyways, they enter into the kingdom, the others go into outer darkness. They go into, uh, judgment, suffering. So the question is repopulating the earth now on a premillennial view. If there's a thousand year reign of Christ that follows this event, and yet at the end of that thousand years, Christ then returns and he then again brings judgment where he's punishing people who are wicked, you got to go, where do these people come from? So the typical response that I've heard anyways, um, I can't speak for all premillennial people that I've heard is that there are new people born during the millennium. There are, uh, people who are giving birth and having kids during the millennium. Now, maybe your logic is something like, if all the Christians are raptured in the first seven years, then we have new people born and new people getting saved during the tribulation, then those people maintain normal human bodies. They don't have their exalted bodies yet, and they're able to have normal kids during the millennium. Maybe that's your theory. I've probably lost half the audience by saying all this. I don't know. Um, I'd have to start thinking about that. That's an interesting point. I'm sorry that I don't have more to say. All right, let's go to question number seven. How does a Christian know if they have the gift of prophecy? Um, actually, in my opinion, the New Testament less often presents prophecy as a gift. I didn't say never, but more often presents it as, uh, just a function, something you do. And so you don't have to be a prophet to offer a prophecy. I would just say if you consistently offer prophecy and God is truly using you, then you're a prophet. Like God has given you that sort of ministry. If you do it every once, every three years, God gives you a prophetic word for somebody. I wouldn't consider you a prophet. I would just say God used you to prophesy. That's my understanding of it. And, um, we get this like in, uh, let me see, is it, uh, Romans 12. This one presents. I could see how in the context of the church, of the more charismatic style churches now, they would see this as affirmation of a gift of prophecy. But having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy in proportion to our faith, if service and Our serving, the one who teaches in his teaching, the One who exhorts in his exhortation, the One who contributes in generosity, the One who leads with zeal. And then it goes on. Um, but yet there's also this teaching in the New Testament that implies that anybody might prophesy at any time, um, that you're open to could come from any direction. Now, it doesn't mean it should come from every direction. I'm not talking about that. But that it could come from any direction. You read this in First Corinthians where it talks about the G gifts in like 12, 13, 14. So, yeah, I don't know if I have that all figured out, but there's some thoughts for you. Prophecy can simply be a word God gives you in that moment and then it has to be tested. And there needs to be accountability and that sort of thing. Sorry guys, I'm going to move forward because of time. Okay, so number eight. Um, this one comes in from Fernando Avocado. Avocado must be from New York. Avocado. Uh, does God choose to love us? If He Himself is love and he can't help but love us, why should we feel honored by it? Doesn't that take away the meaningfulness of it? Um, so Fern, I hear what you're saying. I think maybe you're overreacting to the idea that God will love you because of his own nature. Um, you're reacting maybe not well to that possibility. So let me use an example. I don't know if you, Avocado, have kids, but there is somehow there's a way in which you do not choose, you simply love them. And there are also ways in which you choose to love them. Both seem to be true in the case of humans. I find myself loving some people just because of the nature of who I am and who they are. Like, I just love them, it just happens. But I also make choices about loving them. Self sacrificial choices, things I don't have to do, that I simply choose to do. And I think the same seems to be true of God. There is the simple inherent love he has because of who he is, and there's also the choices he makes to individually do things, to share love with you, to give you compassion or care or concern. I think those both seem true in scripture. God is love. So he does love. He's made you in his image and so he loves you. But if you think that that one thing to be cautious of, if you think that that makes his love for you more robotic and Less real or less important or less valuable. Then I want you to think about a, uh, father's love for his own child. You know, father, mother, they come together. She becomes pregnant. He's so excited. This is his own baby. This is their baby. It represents the love they have for each other. The child's born, and he just instantly loves this little b. He looks. And at first it looks like a little freak, but after a while he says, look, I see her eyes, I see my nose. I see m. My dad's ears, you know, and he starts seeing. And this increases his affections for the child, even though the kid hasn't done anything yet. That is not a bad thing. That is a beautiful thing. That is a wonderful thing. There's nothing wrong with this familial kind of love and compassion that sort of instinctually happens with us. I think it's a positive thing. So I'd encourage you, whatever thought process you have, that thinks if God is just so amazingly full of love, that he loves me, uh, almost automatically. You say automatically, but it's because of who he is, then that makes it less important or less valuable. That is a really weird approach to have. Um, so call it out in yourself and see that and go, yeah, that's. Yeah, that's. I'm being. I'm being dumb here. I don't want to. I don't want to be dumb about the incredible gracious love of God. That'd be my encouragement. Okay, so number nine. I'm afraid I'll sin or. This is an anonymous question. I'll sin or lead myself away from God if I make the wrong decisions about personal convictions, theology, and even daily choices. How should I deal with the fear of being wrong? Um. Um, I used to feel a little bit like that. Um, and I'll give you an insight that I psychologically came to in my awareness. It was the realization that I wasn't afraid just of being wrong. I was afraid of suffering. That's right. I didn't want to go through. Hardship was the thing. I wanted to always do the right thing because I didn't want to experience the hardship of doing the wrong thing. Hardship could be embarrassment because I found out I was wrong about something. Hardship could be like, oh, I didn't get the optimal Jew, and it's okay. So if you know, my anonymous friend, you may not identify with what I just said at all. It may not apply to you in any way. If so, totally ignore it. Set it aside. Don't let it bother you for another minute. Just Just toss it. Be like, yeah, that was what Mike went through. This doesn't relate to me. Totally valid. That may be the case. If on the other hand, it does relate. What I learned was that suffering is actually part of my plan, part of God's plan for my life. Because suffering builds character, it builds patience, it builds long suffering character, it builds a whole bunch of good things in my life. And I am a way, I'm in many ways a better Christian, a, ah, more gracious and compassionate and less self righteous and less egotistical because I've gone through hardship. I remember going through one particular difficult thing and a buddy of mine who was much older than me, I told him I was going through and he was like, honestly, Mike, I'm kind of glad because you sort of like need to go through some hardship. That was my buddy David Guth, who I haven't talked to him in many years, but he was a good friend at the time. He was just telling me, this is good for you. You actually need this. I couldn't see it, but he did. The other thing I want to add is this. God wants you to make choices in life. Don't think the Holy Spirit is supposed to guide your every decision. I know you can pull some verses out to try to suggest that, but I don't think that that's actually accurate. I don't think that's the right meaning of those passages. I love this one way of saying it, since I'm short on time. God wrote an entire book for you called Proverbs that is literally about making good choices in your life. Meaning he wants you to make choices, to decide, oh, I'm going to evangelize. Will I go over there or will I go over there? Maybe I get to choose. And I have to think, will they be more open there? Will they be more open there? Is there more people here? Is there more opportunity to minister over there? Where can I best seek first? The kingdom, um, of God and his righteousness. God wants you to make choices because he wants Christians to be mature, thoughtful, intelligent, capable people. And that's a good thing. And it will also lead to suffering. And you'll sometimes do things and go, wish I would have done it different. That's okay. The only thing I'd add is make sure to pray before you make choices. If God wants to guide you, he can. But don't be afraid to make choices. You may choose to marry somebody not knowing whether God is telling you to marry them or not, but you've prayed, you've asked but you think that this is a good decision, and, um, I think that that can be perfectly good and healthy. All right. Number 10, Zag Ko says, hi, Mike. A man who practices divination visited, gave info about me. It was about 60% correct. Does this mean I'm not saved if his spells seem to work on me? Uh, no, not at all. Not remotely. Um, if his info you was 60% correct, the. Here's the possible explanations, and none of them are that you're not saved. Not a single one. Number one, he guessed and he got about 60% right. Maybe he's very good at the guessing thing. Maybe he's good at watching your eyes. And he starts to say something and he changes his sentence midway through because he can tell, you know, so he's. He's figuring it out. Uh, number two, he's using something demonic, some spiritual thing where he is actually getting information from the enemy. Number three, he researched you. He looked you up. He found out about you. You'd be surprised how quick and easy this is to do on people. And he found out about you, and then he used his stuff on you. So maybe you signed up for something. Maybe he saw you and did a little screenshot and did a search and figured out who you were. Um, and, uh, I guess those are the three main options. None of those have anything to do with you or you being saved. Not a single thing. You know, there was an evil, uh, guy following Paul, and he had a demon possessed girl following Paul in the book of Acts. And she was tracking behind Paul going, this is a servant of God. He's preaching the truth. Right. She was proclaiming true things and had spiritual insight about Paul. And this had nothing to do with Paul. She was demon possessed. Paul was not. He actually turns and I think it's Acts 16, maybe turns and casts the demon out of her and has nothing to do with Paul or any issues. He has. None at all. Don't let this bother you one bit. No, move on. Get away from people like that. Don't involve yourself with them. And, uh, I hope you are involved in, like, a good, solid Christian church where you can also get advice and counsel from pastors and elders and people you respect and trust. And it won't be perfect. None, um, of our churches are. None of us are. But hopefully it'll be something good for you. Okay, so quick update before I close this out in prayer. I have been working for weeks on one major video that is coming out. It is not free or entertainment. It is about exposing something that needs to be exposed. It is a very long video. It is probably the best, most thorough video I've ever seen or done that shows not only an abusive leader and witnesses and evidence, lots of evidence, but also the COVID up culture behind the scenes and the people behind the scenes who are trying to help cover up for this guy. Some intentionally and some unintentionally doing cover up culture and keeping him in ministry, helping shame, embarrass and harm the victims and keeping biblical accountability from happening. This is a, uh, I can't tell you guys anymore. Uh, that's all I can say for now until the video goes up, then everything's public. But getting really close, I think. So that's the quick update. That's why I didn't do streams the last two weeks, because I just was focused on that. Um, but I'm going to try to get back on the more regular schedule here, except that today I started early and I'm ending early, so. All right, uh, let's pray and we'll close this out, um, with a cat. You back? Huh? Here, you guys want to see my kitty? Leave me alone. Just pet me. All right, let's pray. Um, Father God, we thank you for your word, your truth. We pray for us to grow in grace, grow in trust and faith in Christ, to grow in wisdom and discernment in our lives. I pray for your protection over us, Lord, but that you protect our character and our walk with you more than you would protect even our physical health or our finances or anything else. In Jesus name, amen. All right, bye. It.