WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:22.000 The flat earth. Watch this video and then I'll set us up for the first question of today. You'll understand in just a moment. This video appeared on TikTok. This is the full video. I'm playing it exactly as it appeared. Listen carefully because I'm going to walk, walk you through this. Uh, as we move forward, you'll see this is a very interesting thing, I think a good illustration of the importance of context. 2 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:24.000 The Bible actually teaches a flat earth. 3 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:25.000 That this is something that we should. 4 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:26.000 Be, we should all be believing if. 5 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:28.000 We'Re going to trust scripture as the word of God. 6 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:32.000 Every response to flat earth content online. 7 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:41.000 Is either mocking or it approaches the science. But nothing approached the Bible, right. Nothing I could find anyways really approached the Bible. Even scholars, like Christian scholars will, will. 8 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:45.000 Affirm that the Bible does teach a flat earth. 9 00:00:45.000 --> 00:02:23.000 This appeared, edited, exactly as you see on your screen on the TikTok channel. And I'm not on TikTok. Uh, I mean I have, I have an account there. We just post things. I don't go on TikTok personally unless I have to for some reason, so I'm not too familiar with it. But Flat Earthers Proofs is the name of the, of the channel on TikTok where they posted this thing. Excuse me, I have to adjust this. It's a little off. All right, listen, no hate to my flat earth friends, none at all. But I stand firm that you're getting the Bible wrong. And so this video clip I'm going to play for you, the actual interview, it was from. It's about a two minute section, so you can hear. I got interviewed by Cole Cultish, the guys over at Cultish, that's a podcast, when we talked about Bible verses and it was very gracious and everything. Um, this is the actual interview in context. Then we're going to look at a few specific verses, just a small handful of verses to demonstrate what I mean when I say flat earthers. I love you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, but the Bible does not teach the things that you're saying it teaches. You're misusing scripture. This happens a lot. And I, I'm actually, it's a little depressing how few have watched my actual content on flat earth stuff and actually responded to the verses I'm bringing up. It's, it's, it's a weird cult like mentality that I see in this. I'll call it conspiratorial theology. We are, we are living in a time of conspiratorial theologies. But I'll get back to that after I play for you. Here's the original clip. You'll even hear the phrases that were in that 22nd TikTok video. Here it is. Uh, I'm with Jeremiah, uh, here on Cultish. 10 00:02:23.000 --> 00:03:00.000 You dropped a video about two years ago dealing with this exact subject. We're going to be kind of re exploring that uh, in this episode. I'm just curious, Mike, what, what initially prompted you to put that video together? Is there kind of a story behind it? Did you have close friends and acquaintances? Uh, because I know for myself, you know, I've got friends who, you know, I know who are acquaintances of mine who I care for, who are intelligent, smart people who uh, are into this and they believe that, you know, you know, the Bible teaches a flat earth model or, and they've, I've had back and forth conversations and it just, it, you know, there's always. Where, where did it stem from for you to do this video? 11 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:01.000 Well, I mean like a lot of. 12 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:15.000 People, I, I had seen where Flat Earth content took over YouTube for a while and, and uh, you knew you could get a viral video if you made a flat earth video at the time. And I didn't, I never made one. I, because I don't care. I actually don't make content for the sake of going viral. 13 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:16.000 And so I just did. 14 00:03:15.000 --> 00:04:03.000 I ignored it. But when I encountered a few people I knew personally who were really getting roped in to the Flat earth stuff, primarily not because of science related discussions, but because they became convinced, uh, at least they were starting to be convinced that the Bible actually teaches a flat Earth, that this is something that we should be, we should all be believing if we're going to trust scripture as the word of God. And um, when I saw that happening and I looked around and I realized every response to Flat Earth, you know, content online is either mocking or it approaches the science. But nothing approached the Bible, right? Like nothing I could find anyways really approached the Bible. And even, I don't know if you guys, you guys probably aware of this, but a lot of the audience might not know. Even scholars like Christian scholars will, will affirm that the Bible does teach a flat earth. 15 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:04.000 And, and I think when you look. 16 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:48.000 At the verses in context, you're like, this is one of those areas where many scholars are utterly failing in the basics of reading Scripture. Um, and this is not because I have a scientific commitment to, to a spherical earth or something like that. I just, I just thought what if someone just examined all the proof Texts for, for a flat earth in context. Not to be inflammatory, not to mock or ridicule anybody, just examine them in context. Then the people who trust the Bible and that's been the important gateway for them into this, into this movement. Yeah, they'll be able to rethink it, in my opinion. Because as I look at the texts, I go, guys, it's not even questionable. It's like really obvious that this is not what scripture is teaching us. 17 00:04:48.000 --> 01:13:32.000 Well, there you go. That's the actual quote. Um, I'm laughing because I get this stuff. It just happens, um, to me. And it would happen to you too. Anybody who gets like, uh, a foothold online and you know, the people see you as influential, they're going to try to leverage that influence for or against things that you actually care about. That's just what happens. But, um, it was so, uh, interesting. Now I want to share with you guys a few things that I think, you know, because the purpose of this Q and A that I do almost every Friday, most Fridays, is to help you learn to think biblically about everything. That's the purpose. So why am I doing this video? It seems like maybe it's about me being taken out of context. I think that the way that I was taken out of context intentionally, deliberately by an evil tiktoker. Um, not all tiktokers are evil by the way, but this one is. He's using me to lie to other people to support his flat earth cause. And hello, that's what he does with scripture too. Or she, whoever this is. This is what the flat earth does, is it grabs scripture out of context and says this promotes my view of, of the earth. Now I am not saying the scripture teaches this version of earth on your screen here, that it's a globe. I did not say that. Um, that is not a teaching I have. I am saying the flat earth proof texts are being used out of context. I'm going to give you a couple examples. Although I have a whole video that is linked in the description that you guys can watch where I walk through many more and I. Yeah, they put a lot of work into that and you can check it out. But, but we do live in a time of conspiratorial theologies. And when I say that, that's a term I've just invented right now before the stream, because I'm trying to think of how to characterize this group, this movement of people, um, several movements, lots of different movements where they grab a few verses. And especially with social media, this stuff Spreads like wildfire right now. And they use them out of context. Then they attach that to like a conspiratorial suspicious mindset towards whoever doesn't hold their view. And then they just go off the rails. Uh, they move into some weird, uh, the weird branch of Christian nationalism. Not all the branches are weird there, but there is a weird branch, a scary branch. They move into that, or they move into the nar, uh, Dominionism, uh, type of prophecy type stuff. Um, they can move into that side of things. Uh, the, the more dangerous side of that sort of thing. This conspiratorial theology thing. It happens a lot. And the solution is simply this. Patience. Take the time to go look up the verses in context that are being used to support your views. Slow down. Don't just have a litany of verses. You quickly throw like a TikTok video, or you just throw up verse, verse, verse, verse, verse, stop, grab one of those verses, ask hard questions, Read the passage carefully and thoughtfully. So let me give you some examples. One of the examples that, that goes with a flat earth context is, uh, Deuteronomy 28:49. And here, this passage says, the Lord will bring a nation against you from far away from the end of the earth. Now, in flat earth teaching, end of the earth is a phrase you find in the Bible to describe the fact that the earth physically is like a big frisbee, but turn the frisbee kind of upside down, you know, so you have that rim sticking up and that rim on the, that's a big ice wall. That's the ends of the earth. And then, you know, it just goes down after that. You don't have a globe or something like that. That is, however, not how the Bible uses the phrase ends of the earth or end of the earth. Here God threatens that if Israel betrays him, if they break his covenant, which they did, then he'll bring a nation against them. And that nation will come from a location called the end of the earth, which is a generic phrase in the Bible for far away. That's all it means, far away. They will swoop down like an eagle. A nation whose language you do not understand, and they're basically going to attack you. Who is this? Well, this was fulfilled later on. We read about, as you continue forward in Scripture, as you read through the Old Testament by Babylon and Assyria, uh, these two different nations, um, the Babylonians and the Assyrians, some of them. The Assyrians attacked the north, the Babylonians attacked the south, and they deported Israel. And then Jeremiah prophesies about it and talks about it, lamentations, laments what happened. Um, Ezekiel talks about, like, recovering from it and stuff like that. Daniel happens in the midst of all that, all this stuff, Daniel gets carried away to the place called the end of the earth in this passage. And it's not hard to find this out. You just patiently look at the passage and think about it, and you ask good questions. What can give you another example of this? Uh, in deuteronomy also, chapter 28, verse 64, where it says, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. God threatens them that he's going to scatter them from one end of earth to the other. Now, in flat earth teaching, that's one ice wall to another ice wall. This is literally the ends of the earth. Now, I know there's going to be spin here. The response from some flat earthers going to be, no, no, no, Mike, I don't have that view. I view end of the earth a different way. However you view into the earth, it doesn't work with this passage. If end of the earth is a phrase that supports the Bible teaching a flat earth, it doesn't work with this passage because they were scattered to Babylon. That is them being taken from one end of the earth to the other. They weren't even taken west, Right? They didn't even go west. They just went east. Because it's a phrase, it's an idiom. It means God's going to spread you out far from your land. That's all it's saying. You'll be far away from your homeland. That's all it means. End of the earth is not a technical term in the scripture for a description of a flat earth model. It simply is not true. They were carried off to Babylon, Assyria, Egypt. So they did go south. They didn't go far to some fictitious place called the end of the earth. Um, that the flat earther means when they say that now, you could be a flat earther if you want. By the way, you can be a flat earther. I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying don't misuse the Bible to support that view. If you think you have scientific reasons, we're going to probably disagree on that. But I'm not going to make a big thing about it. Okay, whatever. I don't care that much. But when you misuse the scripture to support your view and you do a conspiratorial theology thing. That's when I think everybody should take notice and say, hey, God's holy word should not be treated in such ways, should not be handled in such out of context fashion. The way that that TikTok video took every phrase of mine and pulled it out of context to uh, make, make a case for something that I actually argue against even in that same video that they used. All right, so Exodus 20, verse 4. Check this out. Here's another one for you. And then I'll go to your guys questions in the live chat. Exodus 20, verse 4. It says here, you shall not make for yourself a carved image. This is about the water under the earth, okay? Because flat earth takes the water under the earth. And they often will describe this as being like you have the entirety of the earth and it sits upon some sort of waters or there is some sort of cavernous waters. Now there are, you can dig and there's water underground. I know that, I'm m not disagreeing with that. I'm not even giving you a description of our planet. This is important. I'm saying flat earthers will take this phrase, water under the earth, and they will use it to build a cosmological model for the earth. And that's not what it's supposed to be doing. I will give you proof now. Exodus 20:4. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Now initially I could say, hey, here's a clue that it's not talking about cavernous deeps that are way below ground. Um, because the prohibition is against making idols in the shape of things that are in the water under the earth. Wherever that water is, the people know what lives there and they can make statues and images of it. Kind of like Dagon, the God with a fish head. That's in just the ocean, right? Uh, that's lake water, that's ocean water. That's what this seems to be in reference to. And that may sound weak. You might be like, Mike, you're reading your own opinion into the text. Let me give you more because it just takes the patience. This is not, uh, you don't need big, this isn't big brain stuff. This is just patient stuff. You go and look up every time the Bible uses the phrase water under the earth or that the earth stands over the water or something like that. And you ask what does it mean by earth and what does it mean by water here? Let's look at the context. Here's Psalm 136, verse 6, speaking of God. It says to him who spread out the earth above the waters. Okay, so God spread out the earth above the waters. What does that. What is that in reference to? What is meant by earth here? What is meant by water here? Earth simply means. In many, many Old Testament passages, it simply means dry land. It doesn't mean dirt, actually, because wet dirt, dirt that's under a riverbed, would not be considered earth by this definition. It would only be considered dry land above the waterline, that's considered earth. So earth is. Remember when God spoke, he said, let dry land appear. That's earth. That's not a description of a planet. It's not a description of a disk. It's not even, um, meant to be a full description of this whole thing that we live on and all the stuff below our feet. It's just the dry land. Let me give you another verse to explain this. Psalm 24, verses 1 and 2. What do you think of this? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For he's founded it. Founded what? The earth upon the seas. Now that first part of the verse, upon the seas, you might think, well, there's just oceans in the cavernous deeps, and there are huge tons of water underneath the dirt beneath our feet. But that's not what's meant here because it goes on and says, and God established it upon the rivers. Hold on. Seas, rivers, earth. We're just talking about dry land that is above a water line here. God didn't put the planet or disk or whatever on top of rivers, uh, that are beneath it. That doesn't make sense. That logic doesn't track. What's being described here is dry land. Earth is being used to just refer to dry land. So when a river floods, there's now less earth because the water line has risen. When it dries out, there's more Earth. Now, that's all Earth is referring to. And many times the Bible will use the word Earth to refer to other things. Sometimes it uses the word Earth to refer to people. Not a place, but people. Um, sometimes it uses it to refer to a real local area. You know, in the Garden of Eden, when it says that the mists arose and watered the whole land, the whole land there is referred to that area. It may or may not be true of all of the world that God created. It may or may not be true. But that term is probably just referring to that one local area in the garden and maybe right around it. Um, not further than that. Um, the term Earth is used to describe the area that we're familiar with around us all the time. All the time. In Scripture, there's no man in the earth that will be able to marry us and have kids with us. Lot's daughters say, why? Because earth refers to not the planet. They know there's people alive. They just mean around them. There's, there's no one around us. So that is hopefully helpful. Let me get my actual monitors. There we go. Causes some fuzz on the screen. I think that this is great when we can show that context supports a different understanding than what it. A conspiratorial theology is using a text for. If you want to say flat earth is true, um, please don't abuse scripture. Be very, very careful with the word of God that as you go forward and you try to offer proof text, you have checked to make sure you're not lying in God's name when you use these verses. Now, we all make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But one of the things with conspiratorial theologies, this term I've made up today, if you guys like it, you're welcome to use it. Um, one of the things with these kinds of theologies is that they don't. The way they're, the way that they repeat themselves, the way that they get spread around is they turn people into advocates five seconds after hearing it. And they often will just come up with questions, right? So it'll be, um, uh, leading questions. And we get this even with um, uh, let's say, uh, the pro gay theology stuff. So you'll have the people who go, well, you know that uh, the word homosexual wasn't even found found in any Bibles until like the early 1900s. It was mid, almost mid-1900s. First time we ever even have the word appear. Huh huh. And then they just scamper off. But the implication they've said when they've made the statement the word homosexual is they're suggesting that the teaching is new and that it wasn't in older Bibles. Conspiratorial theology, right? Then they can add other things here. Oh, what about this and what about that? And it's a lot of questions and leading, uh, questions. You gather a tiny, a large amount of, of little pieces of information and questions, leading questions. You ask them, you throw out the info and then you run off because you can't defend any one of These points, like you can't defend, say, take the pro gay theology. One that the word homosexual wasn't in the Bible because it simply wasn't an English word that was being used, but the Bible was. If you ask the real question, has the Bible all along always condemned this behavior, these actions? The answer is absolutely yes. No doubt about it, no serious, significant debate about it. Only smoke and mirrors. So the word homosexual changes, just like the word gay has changed. It used to mean happy, and now it has other connotations. Words change, and so as translations come out, they represent the usages of terms that are relevant at the time. All we're saying now is language changes over time because the meaning hasn't changed. But you just throw out these. This is what conspiratorial theology does. It throws out 50 reasons to believe something, but it's. But the person is not actually committed to any of those reasons. You prove one of those reasons wrong. If they're really roped into conspiratorial theology, it doesn't matter. This is my experience, that particular reason, okay, fine, that was wrong. I, uh, think really, the person doesn't really know why they believe it at this stage. They know there's this flood of information. They really trust that behind the scenes, if they were to really dig, they would always find more confirmation. But it's almost more like allegiance is the real driver here. Now I'm psychologizing here, so I could very well be wrong, but I feel like allegiance can be a driver for conspiratorial theology adherence. What I mean by that is there's a sense in which I go, I am team. Fill in the blank. I'm team pro gay. I'm team. Uh, uh, I want to give more examples, but I, but I don't want to accuse everybody of being conspiratorial because they're not. Not all these groups, not everybody in each of these groups is conspiratorial. Right. But there are those who are conspiratorial. Uh, the Bible's been changed. The Bible's been a jet. Oh, it was corrupted through Greek philosophy. And that's why this theology. And they, they, they kind of have allegiance to a certain team so that when you, they bring up, hey, here's a really good reason to believe the thing that I'm believing. And I want you to believe. And if you dig deep and you go, well, you know, the Bible uses the word earth in different ways than you. It or end of the earth isn't used that way. It doesn't mean that, uh, water under the earth doesn't mean that, windows of heaven doesn't mean that. Then they just ignore you and move on to a different. Because they have like a whole bag full of these verses they can proof texts they can use, so. Oh, that one's fine. Well, I have better ones. I have other ones. Well, what are they? Well, I'm not telling you because you're trying to fight me so much and you get that kind of thing. So that's my spiel on conspiratorial theology. Verses taken out of context. And the main takeaway for question number one is simply, um, have patience to unpack the reasons, to go to the verses themselves, to look at them carefully, look at them thoughtfully and say, is this teaching what they said it was teaching? Let me ask some good questions about it. That's more important now than it has been in my entire life because of the rise of social media driven conspiratorial theologies. Okay, that's question number one. My name is Mike Winger. I'm here to help you learn to think biblically about everything. At least that is my plan. That's the agenda. And um, our second question comes in from Carissa Skubovius and she says, Mike, could you help me answer the Calvinist who asks what the difference is between a person who has faith and a person who rejects faith. If we are all equally sinful, why do some choose Christ? Yeah, Carissa, let's. Let me try to. How I've. This is a common, you know, angle that Calvinists will come, will come at. Um, I am not a Calvinist. Um, I fellowship with Calvinists. I actually have a lot in common. In fact, for those of you who are Calvinists who follow my content, um, uh, I'm not worried about offending you here because I already have public videos teaching why I think Calvinism is unbiblical. If you're going to be really offended, it would have happened already. Um, but you probably don't notice I'm not a Calvinist when I'm not talking about that issue. Or at least you don't notice it much. Um, so this could be a surprise to somebody who's like, oh, I thought he was a Calvinist, but I was accused of this, of actually being Calvinist just uh, yesterday on X from Mark Groat who just, he just says crazy stuff. Anyways, um, the, uh, he implied I was a Calvinist. The, the thing is, uh, when I've encountered Calvinists who I love and they're my brothers and Sisters in Christ. And I don't make it a big issue, to be honest, as far as fellowship goes. I fellowship at a church with Calvinists, uh, and non Calvinists alike. We all fellowship together. Um, but sometimes people come when it comes to the argument, right, the logic of it, they'll try to suggest that, um, if you don't embrace Calvinism, then the end result of that is that you are threatening the grace of God with the works of mankind. And there's different ways in which they can try to establish this idea. Because if you convinced me that the only way to secure God's grace was to embrace a Calvinistic view of salvation, where, forgive me guys, if this is a little bit too much for someone who is not familiar with these terms, where regeneration precedes faith, because that is one of the core distinctions of Calvinism is that you get born again. You know what God gives you a new heart, takes your heart of stone away, gives you a heart of flesh, you become reborn. Um, that event, that happens logically, it happens before you have faith, right, Your faith. According to Calvinism, uh, not according to my view. According to Calvinism, the faith that you have is a result of being saved, of getting regenerate. It's not that you had faith. And then God responds, logically, responds to this faith with salvation. Um, so the order of events is either chronologically or at least logically, or both. Um, is on Calvinism, firstborn again, then have faith. Why say this? Well, there's a number of reasons to say this, but one of the reasons why they would say this is because they're saying, look, if you have faith before salvation, then you have something that is somehow contributing to your own salvation. You are offering something that contributes to your salvation. This is how some Calvinists would put it, this is like you are earning in some way your salvation. Um, how do I get around that dilemma? So the thing that Charissa is pointing out, someone will come to you and Calvinist say, well, to kind of like put you in a corner on this issue, they'll go, what makes you different than the person who didn't get saved? So here you are, you're both unsaved. You hear the gospel and receive it. They hear the gospel and reject it. What made you different? Aren't you a little bit maybe better than them? Um, because you accepted Christ, you trusted, isn't there some quality that you must have had that was better, that was good? And then this line of questioning is to suggest if you had some sort of goodness in you, some sort of quality, of positive things in you, and then that led to your salvation? Are you not saying that in some way you have added your works, your goodness to the work of Jesus Christ and therefore you have salvation by faith and works? You can feel the pressure like the corner they're pushing you into. And all I'm going to say is this. Biblically, um, speaking, faith is not a work. It is not a good thing I do not to merit anything. Now, I'm using my words very carefully, so please hear me out here. Faith, um, is good in a sense, it's a good thing, but it is not a good thing you do to earn something. That's a really important distinction in Scripture. Faith based not on this is not based on my opinion, but based upon the teaching of Scripture is that faith is not a work. Faith is not a work. Now, some would reply and say, well, but, Mike, faith is a work of God in some sense, it's a work of God. It is not a work in the sense of I'm doing this to merit something. That's what I mean. It is not something I do in order to merit something. So Ephesians, chapter two gives us a good example of this. Um, and I know I'm opening so many cans of worms because every verse you quote related to Calvinism will open a whole nother can of worms. But here's what it says in Ephesians for by grace, you've been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. Now, some will say this is, is in relation to the word faith. That is not true in Greek. You, you have the, the, the forms of the, of the words here, you know, that connect in certain ways that Greek does, that English doesn't do as well. But the phrase this is is not a reference specifically to faith. All right, I'll just move forward. I've covered this in the past, but I know someone's going to not hear the words I'm using. They're going to hear me say something different than what I'm saying. But anyways, this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Now, this idea that you're saved by grace and it's through faith, um, faith is not a work. Faith doesn't earn anything. It doesn't merit anything. That's why salvation by grace and not salvation by works, because it is by faith. Okay. All that to say in my equation, based upon biblical definitions and biblical concepts in the New Testament that talk about salvation and how it works based on that understanding. Me having faith, where the person next to me did not have faith, this did not merit anything, because the very nature of faith is that it does not merit anything. I chose to receive Christ. I responded to the work of God in my life. He initiates. I responded. I trusted in Christ. I did not merit that grace. To say that my faith is becoming a work is, to me totally unbiblical, and I reject it. Now, this is where it gets even more complicated, because the Calvinists will respond. Some Calvinists, I don't know if even most would, but some, and I certainly see them responding this way. Um, they'll respond by saying, no, Mike, faith is not a work. But the reason. Forgive me, guys, I'll lose some of you here. The reason faith is not a work is because God does that in your life. But if you were one who chose to have faith prior to regeneration, well, then now it's a work. And so this is where I respond to the Calvinist. I have a whole video on this, and I don't know why many don't understand it, even though I've explained it in the video. Explain it in the comments section of the video over and over again. Um, this is where I respond and say, calvinist, you are the one turning faith into a work, not me. And they go, no, you're doing it, Mike, because when you trust before salvation, before a generation, you turn faith into a work. And I'll say, no, no, you're blaming me for you turning faith into a work by saying that it has to come post salvation or else it's a work. I think that this is all just a big, chaotic thing that happens. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to link below, where I get into this in detail on an objection to Calvinism, which is based on the idea that Calvinism will often turn faith into a work as part of a rhetorical device to convince people that they must have regeneration before faith. That's the complicated answer. The simple answer is if someone says to me, Carissa, as your question was, if someone says to me, um, Mike, what was the difference between you and that sinner? I could simply respond, I'm not just going to answer the question on their own terms here, because it's a loaded question, hugely loaded. It starts to presume or bake into it that faith is somehow meritorious when it's not. I'll say, my faith in Christ was not meritorious. I didn't earn anything by it. All I provided for Jesus was my sins, and I just trusted in him. A powerless act. A powerless act. I trusted him for salvation. That's going to be my response. Then they're going to try and talk me out of that. And we're just going to go around in circles for an hour, probably at that point. And I'll keep repeating myself. Faith is not a work. Faith is not a work. Faith is not a work. And they're going to keep saying, oh, but you're making it a work, Mike. I said, no, no, you're saying, I make it a work, which is you making it work. I'm not making it work. We're going to have this whole conversation again, so maybe better just to not even talk about it. All right, Number three. Number three. Don Miguel says, uh, yes, I changed my name. All right, good to know. Um, good to know, man. Don knows what I'm talking about. All right. Uh, how can I tell why a prayer hasn't been answered? How do I know if I just have to wa longer or if some sin is hindering my prayer, or if the answer is simply no? Um, Don, I appreciate this question. I don't think that there is a good solid answer to this question. And the reason is because, and this is a fair reason, this is a justifiable reason. It's because life is incredibly complicated. And imagine any answer I give you being listened to by 10,000 people in 10,000 different circumstances, trying to apply my answer to, to 10,000 different unanswered prayers. Why didn't God heal my child? Why didn't God show me who my marriage, who my spouse should be? Why didn't God, uh, give me the wisdom I needed at that moment to help this person? Why didn't? Why didn't? Why didn't. And they're all asking different questions. And my answer would have to be like copy paste fit for all of them. So that's why it can't be answered. Because two things. One, the variety of reasons why prayers might not be answered. The Bible only gives us a variety. It doesn't give us one answer. It says sometimes it's because of sin. Right? The heavens are closed against you because of your rebellion. Uh, sometimes it's lack of faith, unbelief. Right? That's the reason why sometimes unanswered prayer is simply delay where God wants us to be, fervently praying and continuing to seek him and continuing to pray. And so then if you think, oh, lack of faith, sin, uh, but yet it's just continuance God's building long suffering into your life. So it's character building. Sometimes the lack of an answer to prayer, a positive answer, is simply because God doesn't want to do that thing. It's a no. And that's one of the reasons why this is, in a sense, an unanswerable question. But the other reason, um, is more relevant and has more lessons for us to learn, I think, in it. And the other reason is that we are so limited in our perceptions and in our knowledge. It would be silly to think that we always have access to the knowledge of why God is doing or not doing. Fill in the blank. I don't know. I don't know why. Okay. I'll be deeply, uh, personal here for a second. Okay. So when, uh, it wasn't. That feels like it was yesterday to me, but was, uh, almost two years ago now. Um, my, uh. Um. My mother, uh, got pancreatic cancer. Very bad thing to go through. Very, very difficult, uh, painful experience for her. And we were with her, you know, at the end. I was living at her house, just sleeping in the living room, you know, getting up constantly to take care of her. I wasn't the only one. My sister too. And we're, uh. And then hers, my mom's two sisters, uh, just did amazing and stuff. So we. We were all really doing everything we could for her. I prayed at one point, um, that the Lord would just take her, Just take her. She. Her body's not gonna make it. There's no, there's no, there's no healing here. Just take her home. She's just suffering so much. Um, prayed. And I, I was like many other people, I was in that situation of like, I have no idea why, no idea why. And at that point, it becomes incredibly important that, you know, you have no idea why, that you don't have an expectation that you're supposed to know why God is doing something or isn't doing something. It is so important at that moment that you are not buried in the back of your mind full of a weird expectation that you're going to be able to determine God's motives in silence. Because when you're in silence and you're in pain and you're frustrated, you do not come up with the best ideas for God's motives for things or anybody's motives for things because you're upset. When you're having a bad day and somebody cuts you off, you don't think they just didn't see me. You think they did that on purpose because you're mad and then we can do this to God, because you're in. For me, uh, maybe the hardest trial that I've been through in my life, seeing my mother through that time. And I don't even want to get into all the details, um, because I want to try to be joyful for you guys and, um, not bring the stream into that difficulty, to be honest. Um, plus, it's just, personally, why would I, you know, I'm not, I'm a real person. I'm not just an Internet personality here. I don't really want to get into all that. Um, so what I'd say is it's very important at that point that you don't have a hidden expectation that you are going to be able to figure out why God will or won't do something that you, you be. In fact, I'll give you a scripture for that. I think is beautiful, um, that I share with myself. Um, and it is Psalm 131. It's just three verses. Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor my eyes lofty. Neither do I concern myself with matters, great matters, nor with things too profound for me. This is not just false humility. This is great wisdom. I don't have a haughty heart. That's pride. Lofty eyes, eyes that are. They're thinking. I can perceive things that I really can't. Neither do I concern myself with great matters. There are some things that are, what, too profound for me, and I'm not going to obsess on that. I'm not going to be just spinning my wheels on that, because it's. One reason I'm going to guess at here in the psalm is because it's going to bring torture to my soul when I have this unintended assumption that I'm going to know more about things than I do. And then I read my fears. Then I start trying to analyze shadows, and I start trying to guess at God's very motives for things. I need to stick at it, stick with his promises. When I don't understand what he's doing or why he's doing it, I need to go back to the things he's promised me. That stuff's ironclad. My imaginations about why God is or isn't answering prayers are not those things. I, uh, share this not just for you, Don, but for everybody listening. This is such a key thing in life. You will need this lesson. You will need this lesson sooner or later. Then it goes on. Verse 2. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul. That is a beautiful thing. I have calmed and quieted my soul Like a weaned child with his mother. Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. This is a calm, calm request for you to hope, for you to not think, to have a heart that's too lofty or heart that's too hottie, or eyes that are too lofty. And to have a calm and quieted soul where you just trust the Lord. I'm just going to trust you, God. Why? Because Psalm 62.8 says, Trust the Lord at all times. Because God says in Romans 8:28 that he does work all things together for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. We know that he is the God of all comfort. We know that he has promised us he'll wipe every tear away and there will be no more sadness. No more sadness. There will be no more crying. I know these things are real now, in that moment, praying for my mother, Lord, please take her. And he doesn't. For days, everybody's surprised how long she lasted in that state. The hospice people. Oh, yeah, she. Maybe we've seen all this before. Maybe a day, maybe another day, maybe two more days. No, three days, four days, five days, six days. It just kept going and going. Horrific. Horrific. I don't understand it, but I don't expect to understand it. And I know I will be comforted through it all. And I know. I know where she is now. I know she's in the arms of the Lord and has received comforts. And she doesn't care anymore, not about that pain that she temporarily went through. I know I have those promises to hold on to, and I'm going to hold on to those. And you need to have this for your own life and your own walk, because you will experience attacks you can't even comprehend when you go through hardship and you go, why? Why? Uh, I know that I'm not going to have the answer to this a lot of the time. So when do you have the answers? That part of your question. I'm going to read your question again for anybody who may have forgotten it. As I was talking for so long there, um, you said, how can I tell why a prayer hasn't been answered? How do I know if it's just wait longer or if some sin's hindering prayer, or if the answer is simply no? I would look for the obvious answer. If there's an obvious sin in your life, then maybe it's the sin Thing, Right. Look for the obvious. Now, you don't know, but you know that you got to deal with the sin. You got to deal with the sin. Um, either way, you got to deal with it. Right. Um, if there's just silence, you don't really know. Right. Wrong, or whatever, you may as well just continue praying. You know, Paul asked three times. He said he prayed that this thorn in his flesh would be removed, and God did not remove it. He told him, my grace is sufficient for you. Now, Paul would have stopped praying after that point. If you have a sense that life is complicated from all the things that have happened, from all the stuff you experience, it's not just discouragement, it's not lack of faith. It's just you going, I think the Lord is not going to do that. I think that that's just not his plan. Then you can not worry about it. Then. I think that's a fair thing to say. Do you know? No, you don't know. We just don't know in life a lot of the time. So we use the information we have. Is there an obvious answer? If not, then in the absence of an obvious answer, I would think our general rule with prayer is be steadfast and pray. Continue to pray and seek the Lord and ask for things, but without expectations, um, that are detrimental to your own heart, if that makes sense. All right, let's go to the next question. Numero cuatro. Misty Russ says, hey, Mike, thank you and all who are involved in this ministry. You're such a blessing. Would it be helpful to read the Bible in chronological order? Thanks again. Um, yay. Misty M. Thank you for the encouragement. I'm happy to hear that. Um, I think it would be helpful, I think that reading the Bible in chronological order, reading the Bible a variety of different ways. If you read it several times in your life, many times throughout, changing how you read it will give you fresh eyes. So that can be very positive. Ways of changing how you read it are simple. You can read a different translation. Yep. Check out a different translation. You'll be surprised how some verses that are very familiar, you will see a little differently because you didn't realize maybe that translators were waffling between which word to use to translate this and maybe another translation shows you that, and you go, oh, there's more meaning there. Um, reading a chronological Bible, which I've done, uh, is also helpful because it helps tie things together so you'll get, like, a Psalm of David that you're reading right in the midst of when he's going through the trial that that psalm was very possibly about, and you go, oh, that's pretty cool. I get, I get to see these things in correlation with each other. Um, it can be very positive for that. Uh, it can also be a little challenging because you've got like, let's say you have two accounts. Matthew, uh, Mark, Luke, and John. Uh, you've got actually four accounts there. And some of these things that are actually repeated in all four of the Gospels. When you take them out of their context of the Gospel and you put them together chronologically, you've got Jesus's Sermon on the Mount. Um, maybe that's with Sermon on the Plane. I don't know. Actually, this Sermon on the Plane might have been later chronologically. I don't remember anymore. Um, not off the top of my head anyways. But let me take a different example. Jesus is teaching on the end times. In Mark and in Luke, it's actually handled. And in Matthew, it's actually handled very differently in all three. And they're all three doing something a little different. Now. If I take them and smash them together, it could be confusing. It could actually get me to think the wrong thing about Jesus's teaching there. So chronological can be helpful. Chronological can also be potentially harmful because while you've put it in its timed context, this happened around this time, you've taken it out of its book context. What was Mark doing here? Why Mark highlighted this and highlighted that for a reason to teach us something under the inspiration of the Spirit. And I've pulled them out of there, so that can be a problem. So I think having a variety of readings is good. Uh, doing a chronological Bible at once, probably a great idea for people, I think, doing it only or always, um, or doing it uncritically, where you don't think they had to make choices about how to put these chronologies together. And sometimes they're just guessing, like, where does the chronological Bible put the Book of Job? Some people think it's the oldest book in the Bible. Some people think it came much later. But they have to make that decision for you as they stick it into the passages there. There's other things as well. Um, Jesus, uh, overturning of the money changers tables and stuff. Um, John has that at the beginning of his Gospel. And then, uh, we see it elsewhere much later, towards the end of Jesus ministry. And were there two of these events, or is there something else happening with the Gospel of John here? Um, and I've always leaned toward thinking there was two But I want to say this. I could be wrong there, maybe there wasn't. And, um, maybe John's doing something thematically there instead of chronologically there. Uh, maybe. I don't know. I don't lean that way, but it's possible. But the thing is, the chronological Bible has to make that choice for you. And you won't know about them making the choice. You'll just see the results. Hope that makes sense. Yeah. So there's some thoughts for you. Number five, question number five. Tim Eichhorst. We have all ten questions for today. Um, they're already filled up. So Tim says, who is Paul talking about in Romans 7? Himself? Some hypothetical believer or someone else entirely. Well, let's look at a bit of Romans 7 to freshen everybody's minds on this passage. Um, so he is, um. Let me get to where he starts talking about it. I'll start in verse seven, although really with Romans, I think you want to start in chapter one, verse one, to really understand everything. Um, Romans 7:7 says, what then shall we say that if the law. That the law is sin. Right. Because when the law comes, I realize my sin. So are we going to say something's wrong with the law because no one can be saved through it. Yet if it had not. By no means, he says, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it is to covet, if the law had not said, you shall not covet but sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I'll start by saying a couple things on this. On the face value, it looks like he's talking about himself, doesn't it? Now, he also is talking about, um, himself as like a example of humans in general. So it would not seem to be an either or thing, but maybe a both thing. But he's using himself as an example of humans in general, is what it looks like on the surface. I also don't know, um, at least just scanning in my mind here, I don't know of any really good examples of Paul referring to himself where he doesn't mean him. He means, like, I'm only talking about people, other people. I don't really mean me. I don't know of any example of Paul doing that. Um, only in a hypothetical, where he says, um, if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, if I, you know, all this and that, that's a hypothetical. He goes, if I did this. But I wouldn't say he's not talking about himself, he's speaking of himself and people more generally. It's both. It's not something that doesn't apply to him, meaning this applies to Paul. And he's saying, hey, look, uh, you know, the law comes in, tells me not to covet, and he picks exactly the sin that is the most, in a sense, difficult to get away from because it's so internal and so instinctual and so automatic, like murder. I have to get out there and do it. But Jesus targets things like hate your brother because he wants to show us our sinful nature. Uh, Paul targets something covet that shows your sinful nature because you're like, we've all failed here. Um, then it says in verse nine, I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. You could spend a long time trying to ask the question of what does he mean I was alive apart from the law? Um, uh, but I do think he's referring to himself and humans generally. My opinion, someone could say, no, that's wrong, because in what sense was Paul alive? Oh, I think it might be his consciousness of his own death, uh, sentence with sin. That it was a time where he wasn't really aware of it, and then he became more aware of it. I think he might be referring to that. That's when he died. The truth is, we're, in a sense, we're born in death. We're born with the death sentence upon us. We're born with sinful issues and all that. So that's how I think I would understand verse nine there. But we're thinking about the, uh, very commandment that promised life proved to be death. To me, that is the Old Testament, where he says, do this and you'll live. Don't do it and you'll be cursed, you'll die. Well, nobody does it. So even though it's promised life, it ends up in death because of my sin. My weaknesses for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and, uh, through it, killed me. So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. This is actually so important, actually. I know this is not what the question is about, but the relevance to just humans in General. One of the big indicators of whether or not they've understood the Gospel is whether or not they've understood how sinful sin is. If you think sin is like, yeah, everybody sins. Eh, you know, it's like, yeah, everybody does that. Um, you don't get the gospel. It's meant the scriptures, God's commands. It's meant to show us, actually, your sin's way worse than you think it is. And now you go, I'm dead in sin. You know, before that commandment came, I thought I was doing fine. Now I see God's commands, where Jesus says things like, you know, you, uh, look with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart. And you go, well, then I'm dead. I'm dead meat. And yes, you are. That's why you need Jesus. You see, now you're starting to see how sinful sin is. Um, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions for what I do not want. Uh, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. I think, yeah, I should do that. I agree. So now it is no longer I who do it, but the sin, sin that dwells in me. He doesn't mean he's off the hook, right? He's who's going to get judged for my sin. Me. It's not like I'm off the hook. He's just trying to elaborate on the spiritual battle that we're all in. So, anyways, he goes on, and it's, um, only a few verses. I'll finish the chapter here. Um, verse 21. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh, I serve the law of sin. Okay, so, um, wretched man that I am, I think that this ultimately lays out Paul's struggle, that is every human struggle. And he's like, yes, I know what's good. I can approve of what's good. Oh, that was loving. That Was gracious, that was kind, that was forgiving. These are positive qualities. But I don't exhibit what's good in my life. There's another law. This law of sin drags me down. I need to be delivered. Jesus, you're the deliverer, so he saves you, he washes you, he cleanses you. He gives you new life, including a new capacity to say no to sin that you have. Which is why Paul ties obedience to Jesus, uh, and overcoming the flesh. He ties that to walking in the spirit, the renewed, rejuvenated spirit that you've been given that is alive in Christ. Now, there's a lot more that's there, and there's a lot more that's there, but it's Q and A and I gotta move on. So, number six, Samuel F. Says, my fiance moved in, is sleeping with me, using my credit card, is on my home title and health insurance, and we're filing taxes jointly. But our ceremony is not until 2027. I want to break up. Is that okay? Since no vow before God. Um, okay, Samuel, I can see you are trying to cram a lot of info into a very small, uh, space with how many, you know, letters you get for the comment section here. But, um, Samuel, you need to go to your local church leadership. You desperately need to go talk to pastors like this. Is, um. It's dangerous for me to weigh in too heavily on people's personal situations where there's always more details. I don't know. It can actually bring harm. Let me speak in. I do this many times. I've said. I've given the spiel before. Let me speak in general truths, Christian truths. Right? You, um. Um. Marriage is not something you break up from. Okay? There has to be incredible, overwhelming justification for a divorce. It can happen. There can be justification, but it needs to be there, or else it is absolutely a sinful act before God. Um, but you're in this weird situation where you seem to not have the security of. We are married, but neither are you just dating or something like that. You've got. You're doing all the marriage things, but not legally married, because that's not until, uh, two years from now, which, uh, I don't understand. This is the thing I would approach. I'd be like, look, I mean, have you been walking around calling her your wife? Does everybody think she's your wife? Have you used the term wife, uh, for this person? I don't know, man. I'm scared to weigh in too much on this. First step, stop living in sin. Second Step, go talk to a pastor. You need to talk to a local Christian leader, someone who you can get the time of day with, and ask them, hey, help me out. Maybe ask them to show you scripture if you feel like they're getting bad counsel. And my biggest request for you, Samuel, is be super open and transparent. Tell them everything. Don't hide. Don't spin the story where you tell them part of what's going on and not all of it, because then you will get wrong advice. We can get the advice we want in life. This has nothing to do with Samuel, guys. It's just something I've learned as a pastor for many years. Um, you can get the advice you want from church leaders. You just have to learn to tell the story the right way. That often happens. And if the person you're talking to lacks, I should say lacks discernment. But if they don't have really sharp discernment, maybe some experience listening to people's stories, they may not pick up on the little clues. And so I've seen people, they get counsel from me, they're mad about it. Then they go and they get counsel from another pastor at the church, and then he gives them the advice they want. And I go, well, what happened? And then me and the guy talk, and I find out, oh, well, when they told me the story, they saw my eyebrows went up when they told ME this piece. So then when they told the other pastor, they didn't tell him that piece. They just deceived him about that. So they eventually got the advice they wanted. And that does happen. It does happen. And then you can be like, well, the pastor told me I could do this, and yet he never even knew what was really going on because it wasn't told. So, um, yeah, Samuel, I'm sorry I can't give you better advice. I fear that me trying to untangle the mess that you're in will make it more messy instead of fixing it. So I'm just too far from your situation. Number seven. Uh, Jen, needlework says in Romans 5:13, what does it mean that sin was not counted against those before Moses, who gave the law, did these. All the people receive eternal salvation, so were they all saved? Thank you for your ministry. You're very welcome. So, jen, um, Romans 5:13. Let's look at the passage and ask, what does it mean for the people who existed before the law? I'm going to back up a little bit here. Verse 12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. That's the law of Moses. But sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. Paul's saying a few things here. Let's unpack some of them here. Let's kind of balance these things together. So we have sin, uh, comes through Adam, right? Is there a law when Adam sinned? Well, there's not. The law. The law. He's Talking about verse 13, Moses. The law of Moses. That doesn't exist during Adam's day. He just has one rule. Don't eat. Okay. But he dies. Okay, let's keep reading. Um, so death spread to all men because all sin, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. So it doesn't. Let me read your question again, because it may be that there's a misinterpretation in the question a little bit here. So I hope this is a helpful thing for me to do for you here, Jen. Um, you said. What does it mean that sin was not counted against those before Moses gave the law. Ah. Uh, um. It doesn't say. At least in this. This is the ESV we're looking at. It doesn't say. It wasn't. To count sin as a category was not counted against this group of people until the law came. It doesn't say that. It says sin is not counted where there is no law. Let's look at another. Another translation. Here's new King James. Sin is not imputed when there is no law. How about the niv? Um, sin is not charged against anyone's account where there is no law. Okay. Rsv. Maybe not my favorite, but considered a pretty respected translation by many at least. Um, uh, sin is not counted where there is no law. All right, all right, Cope. So back to the ESV here. This phrase is kind of what your question hinges on. And what could it mean? Does it mean that before the law of Moses, nobody had sin counted against them? It can't mean that because it just talked about examples of sin. Right? Adam, he sinned. No law of Moses, and he dies. Then we have all people. Death spreads to all people because all sinned, and there is no law. Yet all of them are dying. And then it reiterates again, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses before the law. Even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who is to come. He's a type of Jesus. A metaphorical, uh, picture of Jesus. He's real, but his life is a picture of Jesus as well. Kind of a. Kind of almost like an anti Jesus, actually, in some ways. Um, but anyways, uh, they're definitely dying because of sin. Yet the law of Moses doesn't exist. Now what do we get from that? We get from this. And I'll just summarize, for the sake of time, there's still a law to themselves as Romans 1 talks about Romans 1 and 2, that Gentiles are a law to themselves because their conscience tells them what's right and wrong, even in absence of the law of Moses. So we have Adam, who had a specific command, don't do this. It's wrong. He dies. Then we have people who are raised naturally, they have a conscience. We develop this innate internal ability to determine right from wrong. Now that right from wrong ability is not perfect. Sometimes I tell myself I'm right when I'm really wrong. Pride is a big part of that. Where there's pride, there's the justification of sin. And my conscience becomes seared. That conscience can be more refined, it can be more on target. If you get the law, if you get the actual words of God, and then that shows you maybe your sin is worse than you thought. You get maybe the teaching of Jesus and you go, wow. So this is what we just read earlier today. I love when our questions connect like this. Romans 7, where he says, I found out about the coveting thing and realized that even internally just desiring things I shouldn't be desiring is when I yield to that, when I give my heart to that, my fantasy to that, my mind to that, that is itself sin. And whoa. All of a sudden I realize I'm worse than I thought. And that's what we have to realize. We're worse than we think. Based on our consciences, we tend to be seared. I like that. It's the difference between north, uh, and true north. So north on a compass, magnetic north isn't really the North Pole, um, and the closer you get to the North Pole. So in my analogy here, the magnetic north is like my conscience. My conscience is pulling me in generally a good direction with morality. But it's a little bit off, naturally. It's just a little off. God's word fixes it. God's words, like having the map, and you go, no, no, no. True north is here. I know exactly where it is. Um, but the closer you get to true north, the closer you get to God's moral standard, the more you'll realize your conscience is drawing you further and further to the left, and you're actually going the wrong way. And that's why we need God's word to fix and refine our consciences. And the law does that. I hope that that helps answer your question. I think it did. Um, did these people receive eternal salvation? No, they were still guilty of sin. The people who died before the law of Moses, they were still guilty of sin. They just didn't have as much understanding of that sin. And they're not held accountable for the things they didn't know. Now, this can be complicated. God will hold you accountable for stuff you should have known because you chose to ignore it or reject it or didn't want to know about it kind of thing, where we're like, uh, ignorance is bliss. I don't want to know. God will hold you accountable for that, too. But, yeah, you're not going to be held accountable for things you didn't know. Um, generally speaking, again, Jesus put it this way. Here's a way to address that complexity of how does God judge me when I do sins that I didn't know were sins? Jesus says, um, the one who sins, uh, without knowing will be beaten with few stripes. The one who sins with knowing will be with many. So that it's still a bad act you did, and there may still be consequences, but it's not like the consequences of the one who knew about it and did it. All right, all right. Lots of complicated stuff today, but I like that stuff. The Methodist perspective has a question, and they say, hey, Mike, I think you've said that you consider yourself reformed. And I wondered what you mean by that, or what Reformed doctrines do you accept besides the ones that constitute basic orthodoxy? Um, I don't have, like, a full list of every doctrine to kind of work through real quick in my head here, but I, um, did say this a long time ago that I. That I consider myself Reformed. And I think that what I mean by that is that I'm in the same tradition as the Reformation, um, though I'm not a Calvinist in those. In those ways. Um, so the solas. Yes, I affirm the solace. So to me, I'm like, I'm not Catholic. Um, I think I'm not orthodox. I'm convictionally Protestant. I'm not just Protestant by tradition or by happenstance. Um, and so Yeah, I think that in that sense, yeah, I'm Reformed in that sense. People often use the term Reformed. The Reformation was not a. Okay. To some people it was, but not really it wasn't. This is all about Calvinism. Um, that wasn't the case. That became a term that was used to refer to Calvinism down the road further. And it gets a little confusing because sometimes people go, well, that's not Reformed. And they mean something that is totally central to Calvinism. And other times they go, that's not Reformed. And they mean something that is like, that would. They would have in common with me. So it's, you know, it's just the usage of the term. I realize in hindsight, this was a long time ago, I think, when I said that. But, um, in hindsight I thought, ah, maybe I should have been more careful with my words. Because a lot of people just use the term to mean, um, I'm Calvinist. But I have a really high view of my views and I want to associate them with a broader theological perspective. And I use Reformed for that. And so I think Calvinism is in there, but it's bigger than that, guys. And I'm like, well, when you talk about all the bigger than that stuff, that's where we agree. It's the Calvinism part we disagree on. Now maybe you think I'm inconsistent and you think if I have all these things, I should have Calvinism too. And I'm like, I don't agree. Okay. That's exactly why we don't agree. Which is why the word Reformed for me can be a little bit fishy. I, uh, prefer the word Calvinism rather than Reformed theology, um, because it's more muddy to people. It connects it to the Reformation, when the Reformation didn't result in the majority of Protestants even being Calvinists. So should be thinking about that. All right, number nine, Timmy Wimmy. Timmy. Timmy Wimmy has a question, says Mike. What are your thoughts on pastors struggling with porn lust? Okay, not for kids. Not for kids. This question, is it disqualifying? I stepped out of the ministry to heal. Many ministers my age, 23, struggle. Please, uh, pray. I've seen progress, but still fight. Um, this is something that's challenging for a number of reasons. First off, the pragmatic issue of me declaring, um, that a very large number of pastors should just get out of the ministry. That's the consequence of this. I shouldn't answer this question unless I would be okay with people taking my answer and doing exactly what I just suggested. Does that make sense? I don't want to do that unless I can stand convictionally behind my answer, because it's not. A lot of people do commentary online. Like they're, uh, frustrated and they're just sort of expressing themselves for their own sense of catharsis. Well, here's what we need to do. Those guys, all the guided ministry, um, then I think that that's a mistake to just use, Use your frustrations as a way of trying to create rules that you don't even really. You would never apply this rule. Like, if you did, you would. You would create a chaotic world and later you regret it. Um, so on the. On the flip side, okay, that's a policy I have in general about, like, declaring people are. They should be kicked out of ministry or something like that. Now, I think that this can be. Can be disqualifying. It absolutely can be. But I don't want to get into details here, guys, but there's different layers of commitment to this type of sin. And there's someone who's like, I blew it two weeks ago. I blew it. And someone else who's like, this is. I, uh, blow it all the time. And there's people who are exchanging money with actual relationships, relationships with people to do things online. I don't want to get into these details in this stream. There's all sorts of complexity here that I'm not going to get into and explain. Um, and a blanket answer on all of that. Uh, it doesn't work for me. I would say some of it's definitely disqualifying. Um, and some of it is, I would just hope that the local church would handle this. I would think that pastor, who's caught up in this kind of thing, what he should do is he should talk to his fellow leaders and he should submit himself to them. That would be my counsel. Talk to them, open, submit, and then see what happens there. And I try to give churches some time to work through the complexity of that a little carefully. It absolutely can be disqualifying. Is it always? Every single time? Uh, I don't want to weigh in on that. I want to let local churches work through that and not have people making decisions based upon my answer there. Your situation is your situation that I know nothing about. Um, I pray that the Lord restores you and that you get whatever help you need and that you start to develop new patterns and that God shows you. Um, because what happens when we peel away sin from our lives is we always realize it was worse than we thought and that it was affecting more areas of our life than we thought. And pornography is one of those. It's worse than you think, um, any. Anybody thinks for the most part. And when you come out of it, you start to realize it. And then you start to realize it's affecting other areas. Your opinions of people, the way that you treat individuals. It has other weird spiritual effects that you may not think is having. And all of a sudden, when you come out of it, you go like, whoa. So may God guide you fully out of all that. And, um, the number of ministers that are struggling with it, though, is daunting to me. I'll just be admitted on a practical level, the number of leaders who are sinning in that area, that's intimidating to think about. I think it's a pretty high number, pretty high percentage. So that, yeah, more should be said about this. I'm sorry I don't have a better. A better answer off the top of my head. It's a live stream. I did not know this question was coming. Haven't had an hour to sit down and pray about it and think about it. Um, it's a deadly sin. It should be taken deadly seriously. And it comes in different ways that some, which would be the equivalent of adultery, the absolute equivalent of adultery, and other ones, which would be like, adulteress, adultery of the heart. Uh, serious, wicked, evil sin. Needs to be accountability, needs to be transparency. But, man, this issue is heavy. Um, I will recommend a book. Let me see. I think I have it over here. Um, Fight Like a Man by Eazy, Zwain, Emil, Zwayne. Check it out. Check it out. I have not. He sent it to me for review, and I just didn't have the time to do it. But I know ez. I've known him for a lot of years now. We're not real close. We've known each other for a long time. And, um. Um, from what I've seen, it seems like it's one of those books that might actually be helpful. Because a lot of the books that are written on this kind of topic, I've read, uh, like two or three over the years, trying to see, like, what's. What's the book I'd recommend for people? Like, what's the one that. This is the one I give to people. A lot of them, they're not very helpful. Uh, in my honest opinion, they're just not that helpful. But I thought EZ's work was actually helpful to guys. That was my impression. So. All right, next question. Last question. This comes from Andrew Higdon, who says, what's the appropriate way to navigate being an uncle and sharing the truth to nieces, nephews, when your sibling doesn't have a biblical worldview? Um, I mean, there is no simple answer to that question, at least not in my mind. Um, not one that I have accessible to me that I could give to you. But that is the way it is often for these questions. So let's see if we can't help the situation to some degree. You, um, are an uncle. You want to honor the parenting. Um, you don't want to overstep your bounds by doing to your nieces and nephews, saying things to them, telling them things that their parents don't want you to talk to them about. Um, you also don't want to become underhanded and deceitful where you're like secretly whispering to them about things. And so I think maybe the first thing to do, Andrew, might be to go talk to the parents, your siblings about it and say, I'd like to just, you know, have opportunity to talk to your kids about this stuff. What do you think? And just be open. Um, there's also ways of communicating the gospel. Um, I shouldn't say the whole gospel, but there's ways of highlighting the truth of the gospel, of putting on display your genuine Christian faith, um, in ways that are more like they're very obvious but that aren't necessarily preaching like sharing the gospel at all times. Um, and so you can find ways like that of communicating it to your nieces and nephews. Um, maybe, you know, just when they're real little, just saying things like, you know, God bless you, God loves you, like little things like that. I don't know, maybe you should talk to their parents, find out what they think this is. I haven't walked out this situation in my life, so I don't think I have the kind of wisdom that comes from that. I will say, um, one recommendation I have is be long term thinking. So don't for one moment of communicating something that you know is going to get you cut off forever. That might not be the best strategy. Now, don't be afraid of that. You know, if anybody just comes to me, doesn't hate his father, mother, he can't be my disciple. I'm willing to be cut off for the sake of Christ, but I'm not going to foolishly insist on me being cut off when I might have a better long term strategy for how to witness to my own family. So, um, God give you wisdom. I don't I don't. I guess I don't have it for you, so I'll just move on. Um, bonus question. Oh, I have an announcement to make as well. Ah. Uh, I have an announcement to make, man. I the day. Okay, so there are some mugs and I'm going to link. Um, actually, Brent Zuckle's got a new web page that he can use for this. So I'm about to share something with you guys that is going to be seen as advertisement for, like, products for sale. And it is, but not for me. I'm going to put a website in here. Um, mugs and candles. There we go. I just put it in the live chat. It's just pottery.com. that was a good cash for Brent to get that. Now check it out. There are Bible Thinker candles. There are Bible Thinker mugs, coffee mugs, which I meant to grab one and hold it up, and I just didn't because I spaced on that. Um, but I've held them up many times in the past and you can actually see one. Hold on. In this clip, you dropped a video. 18 01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:38.000 About two years ago dealing with this exact subject. We're going to be kind of re exploring that in this episode. I'm just curious, Mike. 19 01:13:38.000 --> 01:23:55.000 What? So these mugs, um, uh, they have the Bible Thinker logo on them. You can get the old logo, which actually, I like that one even better. And you can also get candles that have a Bible Thinker mug. I am not making a penny off of this stuff. Okay. Brent Zocal, who's a Christian brother, loves the Lord. He makes these as part of his business. And, um. Hold on. I don't think that website's working. Pottery.com. oh, it's zocoupottery.com. but the website he linked. Anyway, there's a reason why I posted it wrong, but I'll put it in the chat. Pottery.com. if you decide to buy one of these mugs, it's going to take probably a while. I hear shipping takes a while. Don't contact about your shipping issues. I have no connection to this stuff. I think it's $5 per mug and I don't even know how much per candle will go towards missions or something like that. We're going to actually send it to, ah, Restoring Faith. They're a ministry and, um, that money will go to them. It does not pass through my pocketbook. I don't make a single penny off of it. Even my ministry, Bible Thinker, doesn't make any money off this. This is not A way to support us. But they're available and a lot of people like them. And if you would like one of these mugs, you can have them. So check out zocopottery.com. such a terrible advertisement. This is not my kind of thing. So I wanted to make sure you guys know that's the website. Z O C K o l l zocalpottery.com. nothing is@pottery.com. nobody uses that website yet. So someone get that website. Make it a redirect to zocalpottery.com so I can be right. Um, yeah. Anyways, you can check it out. It's all just bible thinker stuff. Um, we do actually have merch too. We have some T shirts and we have some. I think we have hats or sweaters and stuff. We don't make money off of that because my ministry focus, I want to be above reproach. And there's a few things that I do that I don't think all ministries have to do. But we do it here and I don't want to have our foot forward always pitching merch, always doing advertisements for people. Um, I never do this sort of thing. There's an exception here I'm making today. We're not making a penny off of it. The shirts and stuff. I never even mention them. We do have them. You can buy them on the like Teespring or whoever it is that makes these because we don't make them. Right. Um, we set it up and we dial the price as low as it can go. And the other expensive, because that's the service we use. They just cost way too much money in my opinion. But we put that price as low as we can. Like if we can make a penny off a shirt, we make a penny. For some we have to make like a quarter or 80 cents or something. Like it won't let us go lower. For some reason in their back end, they just do that. We're basically making nothing off of this because I want this ministry to be above reproach, right? The ad, uh, revenue that comes in this ministry, it goes into the ministry does not enter my bank account. It does not come through me first. It does not affect my wages. If we made $10 million in ads, which we never have and never will, but if we made $10 million in ads one year, that would not change my paycheck, okay? I would not get a bonus as a result. Um, the, uh, the super chats. You guys notice we have no super chats. Okay. This is the reason I'm going to show why I'm sharing this in just a second. We have no super chats. We. We don't do super. Thanks. We don't have channel. Channel memberships unless YouTube forces us to in the future, which they might. They're really pushing me to do more ads. This live stream is done without ads. I put ads on later because I don't want to M. Because they'll. For some reason, even though I said it to not interrupt, they'll still interrupt you with ads because YouTube settings, they just do what they want sometimes. Um, so we do run ads. And you should run ads on YouTube if you're a Christian content creator, because Otherwise you're telling YouTube not to. Not to promote your content. If they don't make money off of it, they're less interested in promoting it. So that should happen at least for the sake of reaching people. So we do all this stuff, all these things. Um, I don't accept, uh, invitations to get coffee where someone says, I'll give Mike. What does he want, $200 to get a cup of coffee with me. Never. I never do that. I'm not insulted by that. I just can't move into that realm where I'm doing these sort of little things. We had someone who requested me to ask a. Answer a question for the Q and A, and they sent some money and they said, I admit I'm giving this money, so you'll answer this question for the Q and A. And we sent it back. We can't do that kind of thing. I try to do my ministry very above board. I think people should be payable for their work. But I know that the temptation, especially with large, um, like ministries that are very public, the temptation to turn it into, like, a money thing is very real. So we try to walk in wisdom there. All right, uh, all that being said, I just. I want to share that because you know what? I'm currently being accused by many people of doing all this for filthy lucre, just to enrich myself. Especially because I started doing exposure videos, which is super ironic, because the people I'm exposing are absolutely doing this for money, and they're accusing me of doing it for money, but they don't know how my ministry works, that it doesn't work that way. Not even monetizing the exposure videos. Okay, so bonus question. This is from Ragios Regos. I don't know how to pronounce your name. Regos Playground. Uh, can you please pray for my mom? She's been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her prognosis looks good. But we are praying for God's miraculous complete healing. All right, let's uh, let's, let's pray for Rago's playground's Mom. Um, all right, Father, we lift up, uh, Ragos playgrounds mom. Um, we pray for this woman whom you love, Jesus, who you died for. We pray that you bring her healing, complete healing, Lord. Whether it's supernaturally or through the use of medicine and doctors. We pray that her good prognosis turns into a all clear prognosis and that she would be given many more years with family and friends to enjoy the glory of God in this world. And uh, we just ask for your blessing and your healing. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right, guys, look, that's it for today. I, um, do have more videos coming. I sometimes tease them a little bit. Oh, look, I, I did an unintentional advertisement for my brother in law's company there. Um, I just held the hat like right up to the screen. You're welcome, Chris. The, uh, the stuff I've been doing recently, exposure, um, videos, I've been teasing a little bit of it. I have a Todd White video coming out. I say soon. It depends on another video that I'm working on that's been delayed a little. So I guess it may not be as soon as I thought. Maybe it'll be weeks instead of days. I don't really know, to be honest. Um, but as soon as I can, I'm gonna get that out. This stuff, I don't, I don't take joy in. I don't like. I'd rather get back to teaching verse by verse, which I will get back to once I can once I'm done with this series. But this series of videos appreciate you guys sticking with me through it. I, I hope I'm not enraging people where they're just getting mad. We're actually trying to fix the problem here, fix the problem of COVID up culture in uh, in particular in the Charismatic Church. But it happens at other places as well. The SBC is an example of that. Although that was super well publicized, I never felt like I had to cover it because it was like everybody was talking about it already. Um, I want to cover some stuff that people don't know or they don't know well enough because I think that's where we can make a real difference. So that's where we're at right now. I will get back to the verse by verse stuff. Appreciate your patience. I, um, much prefer to do that if you think I'm chasing views. My views are lower now because of this than if I would have done other things. It's just not true. Maybe you think I'm doing something I shouldn't do. I respect that. But obviously I have to make decisions for what my ministry does. All right, guys, I think that's it. I feel like there's something I'm forgetting that I wanted to tell you guys. Let me just take a few seconds here and think about it. I think that's it. Oh, uh, next week, next Friday, I think I'm going to cover these rapture predictions. Um, specifically, like, what are some of the verses that are being used out of context? So think biblically about it, right? The current prediction going around wildfire on the Internet is that September this month is the Rapture. If you know, uh, tag me on X if you know. And you can put here real specific request. They can help me prepare for next week. I want people that are predicting the rapture, but I need, like, a video and a timestamp to the exact moment when they predict the rapture. And I might pull together several clips from these different people, because what I want is accountability. If you predict the rapture, you can't just fluff it off and keep going, because they always do. Harold Camping predicted the rapture in the 80s. Then he predicted it again. 2006, I think it was. There were billboards out by my church, Harold Camping's billboards, right outside by our church in Bellflower, my old church. And there, right there, it says, rapture is coming. Get ready. And people sold their homes and gave all their money to him for this advertising campaign. Nothing happened. And then he later was like, well, it was a spiritual rapture. No, you're just a false teacher. That's all this. You have to take accountability. I would love the name of everybody who's predicting the rapture in September, because they should all be known as people who misled in the name of God, Misusing the word of God, misled the people of God. Because I'm pretty sure they're all wrong. How do I know that? Because they use the scripture wrong. So that's good enough for me. That's all I need to know. But I'll cover that next Friday. And yeah, so on X, tag me Mike Winger. II tag me. And put. Don't tag the other guy. Uh, who's just Mike Winger. I feel so sorry for him for all that I've done to him. And, uh, tag, here's a video. Here's here's the exact timestamp where this guy predicts the rapture. Love to see that. Thank you, guys. Have a great day. I want to have a special picture for you. There it is. There it is right there. Mhm.