WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:08:20.000 All right, this is a very timely video because the fervor, the Rapture fervor has not been like this. Uh, I don't know if it's ever been like this, to be honest. It's hard to say because what metric do we have to measure when we're comparing pre social media rapture fervor to current day social media rapture fervor? Hundreds, maybe thousands of different videos of people predicting the Rapture, talking about private revelations, giving you all their, uh, coincidences, the math, the dates, um, and this is why they're very excited. Genuine believers, lots of just people who trust Jesus. But I think they are being misled and some of you are listening right now. If I'm wrong, we'll high five in the air, right? But if I'm right, I think you're going to need this video because it's going to help you to do some damage control after the fact and you're going to be really tempted to act like it was no big deal, but please, please, please realize it's a big deal. But what started this whole thing? Uh, what's actually triggering the rapture? What, not the real Rapture, but what's triggering the rapture fervor that is going on right now is a guy being called Brother Joshua. I'll put him on your screen right now. This is just a screen grab of him. We'll play video of him in a second. I'll share him predicting the rapture. I'm also going to talk about, uh, how other people are confirming this and, and that. I think the primary driver of the Rapture fervor, currently the primary, not the only driver. I use my words carefully here. The primary driver is this guy who about three months ago came out with prophecy and predictions. He also totally abuses Scripture. I'm going to show you on camera. I'll show you him abusing scripture, um, undeniably. And I mean, not just misinterpreting, actually providing what looks like his own translation of the Bible passage in order to validate his false teaching on this. It's a big deal. Um, but there's also tons of people. Let me just show you this. Look at this on your screen. These are people who've made videos saying, I also have a revelation, or here's my confirmation that Joshua is right, that Brother Joshua, they all call him Brother Joshua because no one knows how to pronounce his last name. It's like Malakala or M Mlakela or something like that. It's difficult to pronounce. At least for English speakers. Um, or American English speakers at least. But anyway, so they call him brother Joshua. But look at this. Undeniable proof Jesus is coming back. Feast of Trumpets confirmation from uplifted. 13,000 views. 10 days ago. Joshua's September rapture confirmed by revelation timeline. That guy got 36,000 views. Dr. Berry confirms Joshua's testimony. 104,000 views. Pastor has shocking rapture vision. Almost 300,000 views. Then you've got more. Here's just five. I did not look for these videos in particular. They just came up in my timeline after I started studying this stuff a little. So I started dropping them into a playlist that is private. No, I'm not going to share it with you. To spread this, what I believe to be harmful stuff. Um, rapture coming soon. Apostle Joshua Selman. And they're confirming it here. Then there's the Lord spoke of urgency with the words, with the words. Buckle up for the ride. And there's somebody confirming. And look at this. Cloud nine blessings. 238,000 views. This guy right here loves Jesus. I think he's really sincere. He says, uh, hey, this is confirmed, guys. I just want you to know it too. Then is, uh, the rapture. Next month we talk about, uh, Shervin Yousefian, who I analyzed some of his teaching the other day. A false teaching about a Jewish saying that no one knows the day or the hour is a Jewish idiom. That is not true. That is not true. It's super important that you guys understand this, that you can't just twist the past evidence and pretend that it's true because that will hurt you. It will hurt others too. So there's others. Here's another screenshot of five other videos. Jesus instructions coming from we are the saints. 284,000 views. Um, Joshua's Rapture confirmation. Um, my personal confirmation of the rapture of the church and soon return of Jesus. Uh, Miriam H Ministries. My September Rapture confirmation from its bonkers YouTube channel. Rapture short 3D animated Christian movie that will change your life. So this is an AI animated video. 867,000 views based upon this exact trend right now. Rapture. Here's more. I just want you to understand I did not even gather remotely all these videos, just the ones that randomly popped up. Rapture confirmation dream. September 23rd from Jim Welch. Um, my September 23rd, 24th rapture confirmation. Five year old boy's dream. There's a whole bunch of these videos where they're talking about kids having dreams. You know, I mean, but you know, well, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about this next week, about these people and how we should respond to them in love, but also with great wisdom here, Rapture confirmations over and over and over and over and over again. And many of them, they're channels where these people never get any views, right? They have a, uh, handful of videos. They got two videos, they got 20 videos, but they have hardly any views, very few subs. And all of a sudden, they bring this Rapture confirmation, and it hits this sort of, you know, the wave, the rising tide of this sort of content online on YouTube, on other platforms as well. And now a ton of people are convinced the Rapture is going to happen. And a lot of them, I dare say most of them, I think it is not because of biblical confirmations that they say they have, which I don't believe they really have. I think they're twisting scripture most of the time. And I'll give you an example of that today. I think that the reason that they have these confirmations is because of sort of this, um. Basically, Joshua shows up out of nowhere. Brother Joshua, let me show you him again. Brother Joshua shows up out of nowhere three months ago. He starts prophesying, saying he's gone to heaven, giving all these details. And then people get excited, and then someone shares a confirmation. And then somebody else goes, oh, I had a dream, too. Or 10 years ago, I had a dream. And all of a sudden it happens more. And then someone's like, I pray that God would give my kid a dream about the Rapture. And then they talk to their kid about the Rapture for, like, days and days. And all of a sudden, their kids like, I had a dream, dad. And then the dad goes online and makes a video confirmation. And you're like, dude, I mean, you can give your kids dreams. It's like, why you don't let them watch scary movies late at night, because you can easily influence their dream life. But, um. But I know what you're thinking, Mike. You're too skeptical. Look, I have exceeding hope in the return of Christ. This is my hope. The glorious appearing of my Lord. That is my hope right now. I don't need to think it's a few days from now, September 23rd and 24th. I don't need to think that in order to have that hope. My hope is not diminished by not knowing the day or the hour. Not at all. Because it's a certain fact of my future, whether either I go to be with him or he comes to Take me. I will see Christ with my own eyes, and it's going to be amazing. And nothing hinders that hope. What does hinder that hope is telling people that they should rest that very hope on a special day, and then being wrong because you misused scripture and then it devastates them. And you can act like it's no big deal, but it is. Watch. A week from now, there's going to be people who maybe even came to church for the first time because they heard these rapture predictions and. And now they think, never mind, I don't need that church stuff anymore. I can't believe I was part of that wacky cult because of you. I'm speaking here to those who are going around making these rapture predictions because you're so excited you can't see clearly what you're doing. And I showed you last week, guys, the long history of failed rapture predictions and the devastation it brings in people's lives. And I'm shocked to see that. A response video I saw from someone who, as far as I know, is a man who loves Jesus. Okay, I don't doubt he's my brother, but, uh, I'm sorry to see the response videos and just slough it off as if all the harm and pain and suffering and tears and anguish and loss of faith didn't happen as a result of this stuff in the past and won't happen again in a few days. Actually, Today is the 19th, so September 23rd and 24th. Supposedly that's when the rapture is going to happen. And this is the main reason why this guy right here listened to a little group of clips from Brother Joshua Malakala. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Nobody knows. That's why they call him Brother Joshua. 2 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:33.000 The date that I have come with is the final one. Sure, God wants to rescue the Christians out of the world before what is coming comes. 3 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:36.000 Why is it two days? Why is it the 23rd? 4 00:08:36.000 --> 00:09:07.000 So it's two days. Because the Feast of Trumpets is celebrated over two days. God's judgment will leave the world unrecognizable before your eye blinks. In the twinkling of an eye, you will disappear. The rapture will happen with such power, like with a strong force, that the earth is going to shake. So to those who are in darkness, this day will surprise them. 5 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:14.000 And have you ever seen heaven? Have you been there? Have you encountered. Have you had a vision of heaven? 6 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:25.000 I saw God with my own eyes. 7 00:09:25.000 --> 00:23:08.000 That's my response to all this. I have looked into enough fake prophets to spot red flags that might to you guys, not seem like red flags because you just haven't seen it a hundred times in a row. One of the red flags to look for. We'll talk about several red flags with brother Joshua here. It's creepy to even call him Brother Joshua. Like, that's just creepy. Like, he has. It's like a special unique title just for this guy. There's a billion guys named Joshua. And so anyway, I'm going to call him Joshua Malakala because I don't know how to pronounce his last name. So Joshua Malakala. Um, I'm sure that's wrong, but I don't know the right way he does. What a lot of these fake prophets do is they are, as you watch their face, as you watch them tell their story, they are trying to stir up the chills in the audience. This is a major feature of the fake prophets. They work hard to tell their story in such a way to stir you up. They're good storytellers. This is an important thing. Now, I'm not saying a true prophet can't be a good storyteller, because they could be. But it seems like every fake prophet leans on this storytelling thing. Or there's certain features they'll do. One of them can be this, where he's like. You could see it in his face as he's telling him. Anyways, play back the clip and see it for yourself. If you don't see a storyteller who's feeding off his audience, um, there's a lot of. They're not just looking for fame a lot of the time. Fake prophets, they're not. They're looking for that experience, that high of saying something and having the person get chills. And then fame sometimes comes with it. Then they get addicted to that, too. So Joshua Malakala, he is a total mystery man. One of the major red flags. Total mystery man. We know almost nothing about this man. Try to find anything about him. Where is he even from? Who knows him? Who has ever endorsed him? Who served alongside him that can vouch for his integrity? We know almost nothing about this guy. In one of his interviews, he talks about his past. He says he was a pastor for many years. So I was able to hear him say this. He was a pastor for many years, and then he left the pastoral ministry and he gave the reason. Do you want to hear it? He says he gave up pastoring to focus on myself. I don't believe that. Okay. What really happened there? Why is it, uh, we don't know who you are, what church you're with, if you're even with the church. You just showed up out of nowhere. And this doesn't mean you're disqualified, but it means we can't just trust you. Now, this is a good thing. In church history, we've always known this. Traveling preachers are always the ones that we must have the most skepticism for. You have to have the most skepticism for online people, including me. This is important that you do this, that you have more trust for your local church elders than you do for people you don't really know online. It's just too easy to put up, uh, to be an actor so that every time the camera's on, uh, I don't do this. But of course, if I did do this, I could just tell you I don't do it. Once you realize people can lie, you have to have a lot of discernment with things. That's just simple fact of life. Sounds like too baby talk to say it, but it's so true. But this guy comes out of nowhere. No, um, history. Nobody's vouching for him, no track record of faithfulness or of reliable predictions or accurate teaching or even a godly life that we know about. We just know he was a pastor and he quit because he wanted to focus on himself. According to him, what really happened is probably something embarrassing, which is why he says he wanted to focus on himself. Um, Paul, even when he wrote, he would be like, hey, I'm sending Phoebe to you. Hey, I'm sending Titus to you. Timothy's coming to you. And he would always endorse them. He would give them, like, you know, because they knew Paul personally, and so he would provide some encouragement about this person he's sending their way. People would normally have letters of endorsements in the early church, from one church to another. So if they were traveling, they were grounded in people who really lived in a place and they were really known. They. That's a healthy thing to do. We have no information about this brother, Joshua. He appears on this podcast with these ladies who appear to not even really know who he is. I mean, maybe they do. It wasn't clear to me that they knew who he was really. They even had someone, uh, come on the podcast later to argue against him. So I feel like they're being irresponsible in this. They're just making content and getting chills, and they're making content to contradict the other content, so they won't have accountability. It's A game people play online. Not good for responsible Christian theology or for predicting things like the return of Jesus. You can't just flip flop on that sort of thing. You need to be serious. You need to be accountable. So what really has happened here is there's three things that have caused this to happen. And I'm going to show you, uh, between this week and next week, next Friday, I'm going to do the aftermath. Okay? Next Friday will be after the Rapture stuff fails. I fully, I don't know, but I expect it to fail for the reasons that I've been sharing with you. They're misusing scripture. That's all I need to know. That's all I have to know. You're abusing scripture, therefore your coincidences don't matter to me. Dreams and visions, that's the number one thing. Mostly it's coming from Joshua. Then it's like a contagion. Other people get it. They're excited about the return of Jesus. The Rapture. Excitement and fervor, especially in the US is something that has a long history. And, uh, we're always like a tinderbox for this sort of thing. And this is why it happens over and over again. Because we're not learning the lessons that we should have learned from the past. We ignore them. Um, sadly now I say this to my brothers and sisters in Christ. I love you. I care about you. I have been there myself. I also have thought, oh, why even go to school? Should I even get married? The Rapture is coming so soon. I was there. And it was over time that I realized two things. That such expectations caused people to do harmful things in their own lives, not pursue things that would honor Christ and glorify the Lord through your work and through your marriage and through all those things. But also there was an abuse of scripture. And this is the thing that set me free from all of that. I'm like, oh, you abused scripture over and over again. All these groups, every Rapture prediction I've seen, there's an abuse of scripture. And that's true here too. So that's dreams and visions. That's one of the main things. Probably the main driver of this centered around Brother Joshua. Even when people come with their other videos about their own confirmation of the Rapture, most of the time they're like, I'm confirming brother Joshua here. They're not confirming scripture. There's no scripture that teaches this. They're confirming Brother Joshua here. The timing of Christ's return or of the people of God being caught away is not known. The only sign to watch for abomination of desolation. Everything else is uncertain hints. And the uncertain part is extremely important. Uncertain hints. And so you can look at seasons and you kind of look at the way and you go, hey, I'm excited about this. I see things that I think are end times. And if you speculate about that in a healthy fashion, that's not predictive, that is not detrimental to people's lives, or having them place their hope in something that doesn't actually come to fruition, then I'm not going to have a beef with you, okay? I'm not. It's when you do things that hurt people and you then deny that it hurts people. Well, at least I got them hopeful. But you gave them false hope. False hope is a sin to do that to the people of God. All right, my brothers and sisters, you must take this seriously. You must take it seriously. It's not a game. And you may enjoy it. And you may have somehow built up a tolerance to getting your hopes up and then having them dashed and then going, that was a fun ride. But, uh, that's weird that you feel that way. And most people will not experience that. They will leave the church. They will abandon their faith in Christ. They will walk away from at least the visible church. They will actually do this because of things that you're promoting and your abuse of scripture. I hope you hear me on this. I don't think you're not saved. I think you're just in error. I've been in error before. The best thing is just to come out of it and go, okay, wipe the dust off and move forward and do something better. So here is the second reason people are predicting the rapture. Coincidences. Um, and this is why this stuff is only beginning over the next 10 years. It's going to be ramping up big time. This Joshua thing is not going to be the biggest one. I feel confident about that. This is my estimation based upon what I understand about human nature and math. Okay, so we're approaching the 2,000 year anniversary of everything from Jesus life. We've already passed his birth. We're in the middle of his life before he went public briefly before. So Jesus goes public in his ministry right, in the late 20s. And then we have his crucifixion and all that between 30, 32, 33. There's debate on this, okay? So people will take different stances. And the current prediction right now is based upon Christ returning. Uh, you know, Christ showed up in 32 A.D. therefore, he's going to show up in 2032, um, on the day, uh, of atonement is, I think, what they're claiming. And this will shift and change a little bit. So as this rapture date passes, if Christ doesn't return, they'll come up with a new date. But you've got tons of, like, tons of fodder here for mathematical calculations. You've got everything. Oh, when was the Mount of Transfiguration? What day do we think that was? What's the 2000 year anniversary of that? Okay, well, that didn't work out. How about the day Jesus entered Jerusalem to flip over the tables? What about that one? Oh, that passed and it didn't happen. How about the day he turned water to wine? That could be the way he's translating us from our normal physical bodies into our eternal ones. Okay, that could be a rapture. What is the date for the water turning to wine? You can pick any of these and then start working mathematical calculations and gather only the evidence that confirms your suspicions. And if you don't work with statistics a lot, you don't work with math a lot. You don't realize how easy this is to do. It's kind of like the 666 stuff. When people take, uh, a person's name and they figure out how it equals 666, that's not hard to do. I tried to show this to the youth group once when I was a youth pastor. And I took my name and I assigned mathematical numbers to every letter of my name. And, and then I showed them the math. And I'm actually a second, by the way. I'm actually Michael Weiner the second. Um, and so not Junior. Some of you are like, you're Junior. No, it's on my birth certificate. My dad was like, I don't want people calling him Junior. So he made sure that that was not on there. Um, so, yeah, I'm a second. So what I did was I added mathematically my name up using numbers for each English letter. And then I used the two at the end of my name to multiply it. If I remember, I multiplied it by two. And now I had a lot to work with. So. So behind the scenes, the students didn't know that I was able to use Mike Winger or Michael Winger, or I could use my middle initial, or I could use my full middle name and I could ignore the two. Or I could use the two as, ah, just the number two. Or I could use it as I, I. So now it's whatever I equals plus I again. Or I could use it to multiply something. I was able to massage the numbers behind the scenes before I presented them to the students. So I did that a bit, but it looked really legit when I was done. And then I shared it with the students. I was like, apparently I am the Antichrist because I am old enough to remember that Clinton was the Antichrist. We have the numbers to prove it. That Bush was the Antichrist. We have the numbers to prove it. That, uh, the Pope, two popes was the Antichrist. We have the numbers to prove it. Uh, use his name, Trump every president that the country has had. Biden, going back in my whole lifetime, we have had the numbers to show that they're the Antichrist. And then others go, well, America has no place in the end times. No, no, there's an eagle. And there's just so much guesswork in there. It's not safe theology to do this. The abuse of numbers. Okay, so coincidences and numbers. Um, I'm not saying there won't be any signs or there won't be anything. I'm just saying the only confident sign we have is the abomination of desolation. That's the only confidence sign we have. Got a video on that. I'll share it down below, uh, once we're done. Other than that, we are just too prone to speculation and we're a little ignorant of our own history. And in a minute, I'm going to show you him abusing scripture. Really good example of Joshua abusing Scripture. But we're a little ignorant of our own history because we don't think, like, what was it like a thousand years after Jesus first coming? Like, really think about it. Put yourself there. If you were at 1025 instead of 2025, you would also be predicting the rapture, wouldn't you? You know you would. You know you would. Because the same math is there, maybe not all the exact same math. Maybe there's some better math in some ways and worse than others. And so you find the ones that work and you gather it together and you go, it's a thousand years. This is a thousand years. How could it not be? And maybe if you're wrong and 2032 doesn't come, and then you're like, well, maybe 2032 was the beginning of the countdown, so it's more another seven years. Or maybe it's 2070 because the destruction of the temple was in 70 A.D. so let's start doing math with 2070. I'm just saying Christians, please stop. Jesus made it so clear. Nobody knows the day or the hour. Look, here's the one sign. There'll be wars and rumors of war. Those are not the signs. People will persecute you and stuff. That's not the signs. The sign is the abomination of desolation. And that hasn't happened. And until it happens, you just don't know. And you can guess. But please keep your level of confidence about that really low and instead focus your hope on the actual return of Christ that you don't know the day or the hour of. Okay, let's go to the abuse of Scripture from brother Joshua Malakala. Never be able to say that name. This is the abuse of scripture. Now this is going to be, um. 8 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:12.000 If you look at First Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 1 to 4. 9 00:23:12.000 --> 00:24:03.000 Sorry, I'm going to restart that. This is going to be him. Ah, on a call in show, but it's from a video called Jesus said by 2026 the world will be unrecognizable. And it's on God's Voice Daily YouTube channel. It has like 500,000 views, um, from three months ago. Now this radio call, he shared some stuff that he, I don't know, he wishes he shared. Everything he says here is wrong. Every. It's not one thing, it's not one error. He ignores what scripture says and he provides what looks like his own translation, uh, or paraphrase of, uh, first Thessalonians. Listen to it and see if you can spot it. I'm going to let you listen all the way through. It's almost a minute. Then I'll walk you through the things. Try to spot misquoting scripture and the inherent contradiction in the way he's interpreting 1 Thessalonians 5. Uh, and if you don't catch it, I'll walk you through it. 10 00:24:03.000 --> 00:25:03.000 If you look at 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 1 to 4, Paul says to the Thessalonians, it is not necessary for you to know about the times and the dates of the day of the Lord. And I can say when he says it's not necessary, he is talking to that church because the day of the Lord would actually occur 2,000 years later or almost 2,000 years later. So it was an event that was hidden to them, but uh, that would be revealed to the end church. Because you see there, I think it's verse four. Paul says that day will not be a surprise. It will not surprise believers like a thief. It will surprise those who are in darkness. But those who are in the light, I do not surprise them. 11 00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:27.000 Everything about that was wrong. I'm going to point out to you where he misquoted it, because most people wouldn't catch it. Not because you're not wise, but because you're not looking at the passage right at the moment. So, um, I wonder if I do it this way. Let's see. Can you still hear this? If I do it like this. Wait, this should work. 12 00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:30.000 Will this work if you look at. 13 00:25:30.000 --> 00:26:41.000 Yeah, okay. You should hear it there. All right. Um. The first thing he does is he quotes 1st Thessalonians 5, and he misquotes it. He quotes it as though it's saying the opposite of what it's saying. So let's read it now. It says, now, concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Which means it will be unexpected. Unexpected. It will come suddenly. It will come at a time when you're not expecting it. So you don't need me to write to you the times and the seasons. And the reason why you don't is four. That's a purpose, connection. Right? Four. You are fully aware the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. That's why I don't need to write to you. This connects to Acts 1:7, where Jesus says, it is not for you to know the times or seasons, that the Father is fixed by his own authority. And so we get this doctrine in Christianity, where we are to be constantly ready for Christ's return, because it will come like a thief in the night, but that we do not know the actual timing of the return. That's the doctrine. Listen to how Joshua misconstrues this. 14 00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:56.000 If you look at 1st Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 1 to 4, Paul says to the Thessalonians, it is not necessary for you to know about the times and the dates of the day of the Lord. 15 00:26:56.000 --> 00:30:53.000 He says, his interpretation or translation or whatever is not necessary for you to know. And this is in Joshua's mind, this is only talking to the Thessalonians, right? Now he's going to take verse four, and he's going to act like that's talking to future Christians. And verse one is talking to the Thessalonians. That's not going to work for reasons I'll show you in a second. But he's saying it's not necessary for you to know the Time when what Paul actually wrote was concerning the times and seasons. You have no need to have anything written to you, not you have no need to know. You have no need for me to write to you about it, because you already know it's just going to come suddenly. And so you need to be ready at all times. That's the real meaning of 1 Thessalonians 5. It's being twisted and distorted by many people and has been for many years. But that's just what it says. It's just what it says. Now, what Joshua wants to do is he wants to take this passage in 1 Thessalonians 5, and he wants to make it like it's two different audiences. The first audience, Thessalonians, you don't need to know when it's going to happen, but there's this other group in the future, separate group. They will know when it's going to happen. And then he twists verse four and he changes, and you actually hear him pause. Let me just give you the spoiler. Verse 4 is written to the same audience, you, same audience as verse one. You are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. Okay, it'll come like a thief in the night, but it won't surprise you like a thief, meaning to your destruction, to your harm, for your children of light, children of the day. Notice the you here. It's the Thessalonians Paul's talking about. We are not of the night, nor of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet. The hope of salvation for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. This idea is so clear. Paul is very simply saying, as you can see for yourself, you don't know when, but you know it's going to come suddenly and that you must be in the light at all times. Spiritually speaking, you must have that breastplate of righteousness. You must be following Jesus without compromise in your life so that when he appears, you will be ready, because your life is centered on Jesus. That's the readiness thing. The readiness is not knowing when he comes. It's always being ready. For whenever he comes, that's it. Because, you know, he'll suddenly come. And there just is no safety in carousing, in, uh, spiritually sleeping, in doing those types of things. That's what he's saying. He's obviously talking to the Thessalonians here. So when he says the day will not surprise you, he doesn't mean the day won't surprise Christians 2000 years from now for the reason that they will already know the date of the Rapture. That's brother Joshua's interpretation, his misinterpretation. And the reason, the way he reinforces this is he misquotes verse four. Now, he already misquoted verse one, remember? Let me just highlight this again. He says, and I quote you, brother Joshua Malakala says, it is not necessary for you to know about the times and the dates of the day of the Lord. That's him word for word. I searched. There is no translation that I can find on earth that does say that. This is his own distorted twisting of the Scripture. Again, verse one doesn't say, it's not necessary for you to know. He says, it's not necessary for me to write to you for, you know, because of something you know. You know that it's going to come at some random time, at least from your perspective. So you just have to be constantly ready. That's the doctrine, not Joshua's belief. So he misquotes verse one, and then he does it with verse four. Let's find that spot. I think it's right about here. 16 00:30:53.000 --> 00:31:20.000 So it was an event that was hidden to them, but that would be revealed to the end Church. Because you see there, I think it's verse four. Paul says that day will not be a surprise. It will not surprise believers like a thief. It will surprise those who are in darkness, but those who are in the light. I do not surprise them. 17 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:55.000 Did you hear him pause? Because he started to quote it pretty close to what it should have been. That day will not surprise you like a thief. And he paused himself because he trapped himself in a sentence where it would have been unnatural to say brothers. So he says, that will not surprise. And then he backs up, will not be a surprise to the brothers, because he wants to make this verse about someone other than the Thessalonians. And then it's not a universal thing for all Christians of all time. It's rather some sort of a prediction, a prophecy about Joshua's generation. Um, let's listen to that one more time. I want you to hear it again, please. 18 00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:16.000 Be revealed to the end church. Because you see there, I think it's verse four. Paul says that day will not be a surprise. It will not surprise believers like a thief. It will surprise those who are in darkness. But those who are in the light, I do not surprise them. 19 00:32:16.000 --> 01:26:35.000 If this is something I've seen in the, in this, the rapture focused, uh, predictors. Okay, not, not just people who believe there will be a rapture. This is not something inherent to that view. You can believe there'll be a rapture and be responsible about it. Um, but those who are rapture focused as far as predicting the rapture goes, they will often take this idea that when the Bible says, um, the day will not surprise you, therefore it means we'll know the date. The problem is that in first Thessalonians 5, the people who he says it won't surprise are first century Christians. And we also know for sure first century Christians did not know the date. So in other words, please, I hope I'm making myself clear here. Knowing the date is not what it means to be in the light. Being in the light and being not surprised is simply about being right with Christ. That right now, today, you're not living in compromise. That right now, today you are a, um, person of a man or woman of faith in Christ who's living consistent with that faith. This is what it means to walk in the light like First John talks about. So, um, total distortion. Now, this is all you have to know. It's all you have to know to know that these rapture predictions are seriously sketchy. You've got the core guy, Joshua, misusing scripture, abusing scripture in ways that look deliberate. He actually paused to change the text of scripture before he could say it out loud. So it could support what is an obvious misinterpretation of the passage. This is a huge red flag. I have not listened to all of Joshua's stuff. I'm sure I'd find a lot more red flags if I did. Um, but I want to share this because it's like a viral thing and it's just the beginning. There's going to be so many rapture predictions over the next 10 years, you guys. It's going to be bad. So can we start learning the lessons? What I'll do is I'll bring this stuff up and it won't just be rapture, it'll be tribulation predictions and it'll be all this stuff. Now, are some of them going to be right? The thing is, if you always keep predicting a Broken clock is right twice a day. Eventually, if people are predicting it constantly, eventually someone will end up being right, coincidentally, probably. Um, but you can't trust the predictions and the logic behind them. Generally speaking, if you want to talk about, um, how the Antichrist looks a lot like the Muslim Mahdi, I agree with you. I think that's worth talking about. Just keep your conjecture in the realm of what's true and what you know. And don't go too far. As my encouragement to you, okay? I'm not your guide in all things. I'm not the cop that tells everybody what they can and can't say. But as a Christian who's inhabiting the same space and has influence in the same space where reckless stuff happens, I try to throw my hat in there and help make it not as bad. So next week, I'll go to your guys. Questions now, but next Friday, um, I'm going to talk about what now? What now? And I want to address directly the people who have been predicting the Rapture. I want to be gracious, but I also want to have accountability. I want to put their faces on screen, put their names on screen, and I want to ask them to be accountable for these predictions. Because there's people who quit their jobs, sold their homes, um, told all their family and friends the Rapture was coming. That friend they've been working on for years, they finally got him to give his life to Christ because they promised the Rapture was coming, and then it won't come. And then that guy's going to abandon them and never listen again about the Gospel. That kind of stuff happens. And those who are just excited because they had a dream and they made a video about it, you're accountable for that. I'm accountable for the things I teach. It's a sober thing. It's a sober thing. It may just seem like no big deal because we live in a culture that throws up videos like they're no big deal, but Jesus says we'll be judged for every idle word. How much more? If your words placed false hope in someone's heart in the name of Jesus, that's bad. All right, so next week I'll talk about that and your next questions. Uh, these are. I've not. Some of these people ask me. I get this question a lot, actually. They go, um, hey, have you, uh. Do you know the questions ahead of time? Actually, I only know the first topic in a Q and A video. Everything else I find out. When you find out. Caleb McMurtry has a question. I have not read this question yet out loud. I haven't seen it. Read it silently, even. So that's how the Q and A goes. Um, hi, Mike. How does PSA understand being crucified with Christ? The substitution element seems to be missing, and wrath seems confusing if we are to affirm crucifixion with Christ. Um, thanks. So, you know, Caleb, I think I'm. This is a challenge. I may not answer your question very well here, and I'm sorry for that if I don't, but it's because I guess I don't understand the weight behind the question. So maybe I'm missing something. Let me tell you why I'm having a hard time with it, though. Um, the doctrine of substitution. Is it a vicarious atonement that Jesus goes on my behalf, and so when he dies for my sins in my place, on my behalf, that makes a lot of sense to me of being crucified with Christ. I am crucified with Christ because He did a vicarious atonement for me. He was in my place. He was standing as my substitute. And so when I put my trust in him, that is then applied to me. It's a universal offer, universal, uh, atonement in that sense, of the availability, um, and of the price that was paid for all sin. But it's a limited application of the atonement to only those who trust in Him. And then they can say that they've been crucified with Christ. Let's look at those verses. Galatians 2:20 you mentioned. It says, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live, I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Um, you know, we're talking here about how Christ's vicarious death impacts my life now. And Paul in Galatians wants to make sure that people understand we're saved by faith and by grace and not through works. And that we're saved by the work Jesus did on the cross. And so the requirement of fulfill the law. You have to fulfill the righteousness of God by being perfect, morally perfect. That that was done by Jesus, and then the requirement, uh, through his life, and then the requirement of. And sin will be punished, which we've sinned, so the punishment's deserved. That was fulfilled through Jesus on the cross. And so I have both fulfilled the righteousness of God through Christ, and I have fulfilled the payment of my sins through Christ. And I fulfilled, I've been crucified with Christ. Um, that's how I understand it. I feel like it works really well with penal substitutionary atonement. And I think that it would be difficult to explain Galatians 2 without that view of things. If you just see Jesus as a Christus victor, which is not a wrong view, it's just, you don't isolate it and make that the whole thing. Um, it's all inclusive, right? There's multiple facets to the cross. So Christus victor is in there. But if you isolate out PSA is the abbreviation for this doctrine, then it doesn't really make sense that I died to the law, that I fulfilled the righteousness of God through the crucifixion of Christ. Uh, it doesn't really make a lot of sense if it's just a moral example. The moral example theory, it doesn't really track, uh, Romans 6, 5, 6 is the other verse you mentioned. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. Now, the one thing I'll highlight about Galatians 2 and Romans, I feel like I've answered the question, I think, um, is that they don't just say Christ is there substituting for me. There's an identification with Christ, right? Like this is not just a. Technically, he's my substitute. This is when I trust in Him. I am united to Christ. I am joined to him in his death and his resurrection. I am connected to him in mystical spiritual ways that are deep and meaningful and powerful. And it's not just the objective fact that there he is on the cross dying for me. So it can say, like, um, I'm united with him in a death like His. Um, I shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like His. Our old self was crucified with Him. That's our identification and the connection between Jesus and us on the cross, knowing that he had to die for me, um, in my place. Anyway, I hope that answers your question. Let's look at number three. Scott B says, hi, Mike. Why are Adam and Eve guilty when the brains God gave them is what guided them to make their decision? They processed the situation based on the way God had pre wired them. Um, Scott, I think the view that you're espousing there would require free will to be an illusion. There's no free will. So, um, there's obviously debate on this. I think free will seems to be very grounded in scripture. Um, I think that there's genuine free will as pertains to sin. I think Adam and Eve had a free will decision. God knew the decision they would make so that he foreknew it. Sure. But they made a free will choice. They opted to eat that which they should not have eaten, and that was a decision that they made. Um, so if there is free will, then it sort of skirts the dilemma that you're concerned about here, Scott, and I'm glad you're asking about it. Thank you for asking. I love this question, especially the hard ones. They're very important, and I find them faith bolstering when we can find answers for them. Um, but. So why are they guilty when the brains God gave them is what God guided them to make their. Is what guided them to make their decision. I would say, well, the nature of free will. The idea of free will is that you are the ultimate guide. I am the one choosing. So if free will is true, then actually this objection doesn't work because Adam and Eve, while they had a brain, they also had free will. They're not just chemical reactions. There's a soul, there's some choosing that goes on inside of a person. Um, and so then that would skirt the issue. Say, oh, no, they made a free will choice. Um, there are those who would deny that free will. And in a, uh, kind of a hypothetical, because I reject this view, but hypothetical situation where you go, somehow, Adam and Eve didn't actually have a free will. They didn't have an option. It's not just that God foreknew it, it's that God forced them to do it. He didn't determine within the context of them having free will. He determined regardless of their will. Um, he even determined their wills, you might say, not just their brains, but their wills. He determined their wills. Um, if that was your view, your response would have to be, I guess God can just do that. Um, and then you come up with an explanation like, well, if I make a robot that goes around, uh, doing something bad, I still have to dismantle the robot to stop it from doing the bad thing. I don't know, man. This gets difficult to, to defend. I admit, I admit I would still trust God if this was the truth. If the God just didn't. If we didn't really have free will as pertains to salvation or as pertains to certain things. Because some Calvinists will say the free will is only lacking in very specific, narrow ways. Like it's lacking in your ability to respond to the gospel, but it's not lacking in your ability to make lots of other moral choices in life. Um, other Calvinists would take a more strict stance on free will and limit it in a far wider, more broad way. But, uh, even a lot of Calvinists would, uh, I think, would not deny Adam and Eve's free will there. But I don't deny it. My understanding of Scripture is that they made an actual choice. They made a decision. If you just read the passage at plain face value, it's Adam deciding, it's Eve choosing, and then God holding them accountable. And I take that at face value. Let's go to the next question. Number four. Katerina S. Says. Hi, Mike. Is it valid to interpret Psalm 42:49 as talking about the end times? Um, oh, that's a big question because it's about, uh, eight Psalms. So, um, you would look at it this way. The tribulation is Psalm 42:44. So it's three Psalms. The Lamb's wedding is Psalm 45, God's reign and judgment, and the new Jerusalem with a river. And is 46 through 49. Um, I don't think I can answer this question, to be honest. It's just a little bit too much for me without, you know, spending a lot of time on it. Let me speak in principle, though. This might help. In principle, I would reread those Psalms and just. This is not me saying it. It can't be those things. Okay. I'm not inclined to, but. But I haven't. I haven't really looked into this to find out. But, um. But allow me to say something in principle that I think might be valuable. And that is when you're studying Scripture, and I've been there a hundred, many more than 100 times, uh, you can have an insight that you find that is very exciting to you. And it's exciting for good reasons. Exciting because you feel like you've unlocked some truth there in Scripture. You get happy about it, get excited about it, and then it can cause sometimes us to shortcut the kind of homework you have to do to confirm that that thing is true. And this especially happened when I was younger and I'm reading and I couldn't afford commentaries. Uh, first book I taught through. Well, first book I taught through was James. I did terribly. I was like, uh, 18 or 19 at the time. I guess I was about 18. Um, teaching the youth at my church, I became the youth intern, temporary, uh, youth leader, because our youth pastor had moved. And I didn't know what I was doing. I was so clueless. I wasn't raised in church. And I didn't even go on. Even after I got saved in junior high. I didn't even go on Sundays for a long time. I just went, like, to a youth group. Um, one time, the pastor during this time when I was a youth intern. Here's a little story time for you. I was a youth intern. And, um, the pastor comes up to me and he goes, mike, uh, what are you going to do for Palm Sunday? And I had already been. I did it for, like, seven months total. Um, and I told them, just so you guys know, I told them that I would only take the job because they asked me to do it. I didn't apply or anything. I said, I'll take the job, and only if you guys keep looking and find someone qualified. Because I don't, uh, know how to do this, and I don't think I'm qualified. So they eventually, seven months later, they found somebody else. But the pastor comes up and goes, mike, what are you gonna do for Palm Sunday? And I looked at him, I said, what's Palm Sunday? He started laughing. And I felt. I didn't laugh. I felt kind of embarrassed. And I looked at him and I said, what's Palm Sunday? I'm sorry. I don't know what that is. And then he realized that when I told him, I don't. I'm not qualified, that I meant it. I don't know why. I don't know what, man. We're just a little Baptist church in Cypress, California. Um, so anyways, that being said, boy, I went on three rabbit trails at once. Back in the day, I didn't have commentaries. So when I taught James, I had access to, like, the pastor's library, so I could go through there. But after that, the, uh, next time I taught something was Galatians. And I was teaching at this coffee shop. I was volunteering at this Christian coffee shop. And I had no commentaries. And the Internet was not well developed at the time it was there, but the only thing I could find was Martin Luther's unabridged commentary on Galatians. So it has a lot in there about the Pope. Um, and it was actually really good for me to read it. It was very helpful. However, a lot of times I'm studying and I have no commentary for this passage or that passage. So I would find something that I felt was really Insightful. And I would get super excited. And this is the point I've been trying to make this whole time. And I would get really excited, and then I would just be committed to this insight that I felt was really cool. And I wouldn't maybe do the homework it takes to confirm that it's true. So here's the homework it takes to confirm it's true. And this is what I encourage you to do about these Psalms passages. Read some other commentaries. You know, blueletterbible.org has some pretty safe commentaries, I think. I mean, obviously I don't agree with everybody on anything, okay? But generally speaking, I think they have pretty safe commentaries and there's free stuff there. Hey, see if anybody else has found this insight. Do a little Googling, see if any sort of what seem to be respectable Christian, um, theologians have come up with the same insight. That's one of the steps you do, is just, if this is true about the Bible, I'm probably not the only one who's seen it. Or it probably didn't just come up. Like 10 years ago was the first time people started saying it. Um, you might look for someone who argues against your position to confirm it as well, to see what reasons they give. But the most important thing to do is you just read through the passages carefully and you look for confirming or disconfirming details. A confirming detail could be, hey, uh, this has a phrase in the Psalm that actually is in Revelation when it's talking about the tribulation. There's a real connection there. Or a disconfirming detail could be, well, if I'm going to call this passage tribulation, this verse doesn't work with that. The concept here is not related or it contradicts what I would see in the tribulation. M. And so you look for confirming and disconfirming details, and you gather them and you're honest about them. But curb your excitement about your insights with patience, because I can't tell you, a number of times I got excited about something and later found out that wasn't what that verse meant. And learning that lesson the hard way made me more diligent. It made me more hesitant to offer a conclusion on a passage. And then that was a good thing for me. That was a safe thing for those who hear me. All right, next question number five. Um, minenlay. I'm sorry, I do not know how to pronounce that. Uh, Menenle. I'll say it, uh, says, hi, Mike. My walk with Christ feels harder the more I Obey. Um, I lost family, friends, and even my girlfriend. Sometimes I wonder if this is even worth it. Yet I still long to stay faithful. Any advice? I'm going to give you two pieces of advice, and I obviously know almost nothing about you, so you're the one I encourage to have wisdom, to know whether you should consider my advice helpful or not. Or maybe tweak it a little. I'll submit that to you for your wisdom. I'm not making assumptions or judgments. I'm just trying to give advice that might help. So the first thing I'll tell you is losing family, losing friends, uh, even your girlfriend. Um, you're not alone in this. Jesus talked about this. People losing loved ones even. And he says, I come to set father against mother. He says, if any man will come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Peter talks about it, uh, we've lost family. We've left everything for you. We've left everything for you. We often don't think about this, but imagine the turmoil it caused when Jesus, the super controversial figure, has a disciple like Matthew or someone. And Matthew's mom is like, I don't like that Jesus guy. I heard about him. Didn't he say something? He was going to destroy the temple. I can't believe my son is involved in that crazy man's movement. And then it causes problems between them. Jesus in his own hometown. Nazareth says he couldn't do many miracles there because there's a lack of faith and the connection. One of the reasons for this is they knew Jesus. They're like, oh, we know it's the carpenter's son. Like, his mother and brothers are here. His mother and brothers are here. Like, ah, we know this guy. He's not special. And Jesus says, you know, prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown. What I'm suggesting here is the loss of reputation, relationships. Um, opportunities for following Jesus is very common in Scripture. We even see it with Old Testament prophets. We see, um, I think it's Elijah. Who is. Is it Elijah? You guys can correct me if I'm remembering wrong here. Uh, one of the kings, he needs to get good advice. And he has a bunch of, like, yes men. Prophets. Prophets who only give him good news. You know, like the Nar Prophet crowd, um, who really want to cozy up to power and cozy up to leaders and just give them positive stuff all the time. And that's kind of what they did. Then there's Elijah, if I'm remembering correctly, who, um, the king says of him, I Don't like him. He never says anything nice to me. The king's like, I don't like that guy. He never says prophesies anything positive to me. He's always telling me bad news. But the king kind of knew that his yes men weren't really giving him truth. And so he finally reaches out and then the guy comes, Elijah comes or whoever, and gives him the bad news. And he goes, see, I told you this jerk was gonna. But I want you to imagine what his whole life was like, this prophet, when from the king down, people just thought, what a jerk, what a jerk this guy is. He's not really for us. He doesn't really care about us because he's giving us bad news. And then these other prophets, the fake ones, they actually made him look even worse. Jeremiah went through this too. Jeremiah was struck from a fake prophet because that guy was giving only good news and Jeremiah had bad news. This is so consistent in scripture, you know, even Abraham, get yourself away from your home and family. I'm calling you. That's the first thing I'd encourage you with, is buckle down. This is what it means to follow Jesus, is a willingness to lose all for the sake of Christ. And it's so worth it. Jesus told Peter when he said, hey, we've given up everything, he says, oh, you'll receive so much more in this life. Mothers and brothers and houses and all this because you're part of the family. You're part of the family of Christ. So lean into the church. That's one thing for you, lean into the body of Christ. When you feel as though you've been ostracized by non believers, lean into the body of Christ. Now, the next thing I'm going to share with you takes a lot of wisdom, um, on your part, to discern. So there's always the possibility that as a Christian, I'm labeling something persecution, and it's not persecution, or I'm labeling something division because of my faith, but it's maybe division because I've got a problem or a bad character trait, and I've imported this into my Christian faith. Um, and how do you tell the difference? Whether am I off the rails here or am I being persecuted for righteousness? How do I tell the difference? M. Because you wouldn't know if this was you, if you were importing a bad character trait and it was incorporated into your faith such that you were being toxic while trying to be Christian. You might not know. You would just see persecution. So the way that you can test this Is you get involved with other local Christians. Now, one big red flag is if you say, I can't get involved with any local Christians, I don't trust anybody else. I'm like the only really faithful one. I'll go, oh, that's confirmation. You have toxic character traits, most likely that you don't notice and other people are noticing, and you take them all as being unspiritual. Um, but talk to people. Get involved in church. Open up about what happened with your family. Ask for your pastors to give you some wisdom here, hey, here's what happened. Tell them the story exactly as it is, including errors you, flaws you have, because they're going to be gracious to you about it, but then they can help you. So that would be my next counsel to you is, hey, just make sure you're handling this stuff right. They may even being a believer who's gone through a lot of stuff, give you wisdom on how to fulfill Romans where it says, live as much as it's possible, live peaceably with all people. So you don't compromise the gospel, you preach it, but you also try to live peacefully and you find that balance. So there be my counsel to you as, uh, a brother number six. Deity says, that's an interesting name. Deya Dee. Are you doing what I think you're doing there? Would, uh, you consider the teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation to be a different gospel? Galatians 1:6 talks about this possibility of a different gospel. It says, if not, how would you distinguish it from the circumcision party's false teachings? Yeah, this is, um, one I've really been challenged on myself and let's unpack it a little bit. So Here's a Galatians 1:6. He says to the Galatians, who are being told they have to be circumcised and they have to fall under the law of Moses and be obedient to it in order to be saved. So there's a works based salvation that, uh, I should say it's faith and works based salvation. Because the Bible rejects faith and works based salvation. Um, as far as merit, what merits my salvation? I'm using m my words really carefully here. For those, please listen. What merits your salvation is not faith and works. It's just faith and the works of Jesus. It's just faith in him and his works. Um, what results from salvation is works. So there's genuine faith, there will be works, but they're not meriting your salvation. That's not what the Galatians were being taught, they were being taught they had to do these certain things in order to merit their salvation in addition to their faith. So it talks about them turning to a different gospel. Um, I have a four hour, really kind of boring, just to be honest, debate. It was first time I'd done something like that. We just heard experimentally and it just drug on, took forever. But it's a discussion I had with Dean Meadows, who we have a good relationship. Um, we're friendly still. But, um, we talk about the idea of baptism, uh, saving, and we go through lots of different verses. We each bring different verses and talk about them and go back and forth for quite a while. Just more of a conversation than a debate. But anyway, that video I'll link below for you guys to check out if you're interested. There's timestamps I think to each time we cover a specific verse. At, uh, least the first time we talk about a particular passage. And then that might be helpful for follow up of this question. So I'll link the Dean Meadows baptism debate down below. As I was preparing for that debate, I was really wrestling with the question you're asking me here. Menen. I'm sorry, cannot pronounce that. Oh, wait, no, that's deity. Is it Diadi? Anyways, um, that issue was on the forefront of my mind as I was preparing. And here's what I think it comes down to. So when someone says you have to be baptized in order to be saved, I think the follow up question that might tell you if it's a different gospel or not is what does baptism mean? What is that? Is that a meritorious work now? I think they're wrong. Baptism is not required for salvation. I think the story of, um, Cornelius, uh, um, uh, well, you'll get it in Acts 10 and on. Um, when you read this passage carefully, how Peter goes to see the man and the man gets saved. He's filled with the spirit, he's speaking in tongues. Uh, then Peter confirms in two chapters multiple times he confirms this man received the same sealing gift, the same salvific experience with the Holy Spirit that we did in Acts chapter two. Right? And we got that. Now he got it and he is not baptized. Then he says, how can we forbid water? Let's baptize him. I don't think there's any water remotely reasonable way to explain this. On the idea that baptism is required for salvation. I think this is the key passage, the most impressive passage. There's other ones too. Um, and there's a whole debate we can have there. Someone's thinking, but Peter says, yeah, read the whole verse, though. Don't just read not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to God. You got to read the whole thing. So the big question, though, with baptism saving is, are you saying baptism is required for salvation, but it's not a meritorious work of any kind? And if your answer is, yes, it's not a meritorious work, then at least in your own mind, you are not adding any sort of work that merits grace. And so then I would not call that a different gospel. And this is my current understanding of it. I may change my mind. My best understanding of this. If you say, yes, baptism is a work that you do that merits. It earns God's grace, God's salvation. And if you don't do this along with having trust and faith in Christ, then you can't be saved. Then I'd say, well, it's not just that baptism is required. That's ruining your gospel message here. It is that it is meritorious. So that's how I understand it right now. I'm open to other people processing this differently. It's a really challenging one, to be honest. All right, Number seven, Irina says, is Malachi four two talking about Jesus. Some translations, like the new King James versus the NASB seem to reference it differently. Yeah, the Italian prophet Malachi. Malachi 4:2. Um, I'm going to back up and read verse one as well. It says here, for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. Now, I want to really quick say something on the side that has nothing to do with your question. Statements like this. Um, God's not ashamed of his judgments, and we should not be either. His judgments are righteous and good. And even when he says the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble, he will set them ablaze. This is a righteous and perfectly good act on behalf of God. And if there's some part of you that feels ashamed of it, that's a cultural shame that you've inherited from a culture that rejects the depravity of their own sin and therefore is offended by the righteous judgment of God. Work on that. Pray about that. Lord, help me see that your judgments are good and righteous altogether, as Psalm 119 says, verse 2. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings, you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. So is the sun of righteousness rising? Is this a reference to Jesus? So the ESV in verse two, it does not capitalize Son of Righteousness. Maybe keeps it more open. Um, new King James, you mentioned verse two. It capitalizes it Son of Righteousness. And there's some verse references we could look at here. Uh, let's look at that, actually. Oops, back up. Okay, in a second. Then you mentioned also the nasb, which I think I have. I can have the nasb. So I take it the nasb. Um, hold on, let me just get it real quick. Nasb, nasib. And I make it bigger and I'll put it on screen. All right. Maybe make it a little bigger. This is kind of awkward. Oh, that's even worse. Okay. They sure indent big time. And then SV on logos. Maybe there's this. There's probably a setting I'll look later. Um, but for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you'll go forth and skip about, like, half. So, yeah, not capitalized versus, you know, um, capitalized in some other places. Um, not capitalizing the niv. The new King James capitalizes it, implying that the Son of Righteousness is a name of, like, a person. Um, that's the implication there. So your question is, um, is it talking about Jesus? And I think that the way you would settle this is not in Malachi 4 2, but in other passages that reference the idea of, um, similar concepts as what you're seeing in Malachi 4. 2. Um, you know, Luke 1:78, uh, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. Prophecy. Talking about Jesus, and it connects him to his appearance, to the sunrise. The sun will rise, rising. Um, the connection in the New Testament, um, of Jesus being light, Jesus shining, Jesus bringing healing to us, all those types of things. I think it makes it plausible. Christ will shine on you. It says here. I think it makes it plausible to say that this is consistent with a reference to Jesus. Um, when the NASB or others do not capitalize the phrase son of righteousness, that doesn't mean that they're trying to say this isn't a messianic reference to Jesus. It just means they're not capitalizing this reference. You would have to base the fact that it's Jesus on other grounds than the capitalization. And chances are the NASB and these other ones are probably, uh, more strictly sticking to The Hebrew. And then the new King James is adding a slightly more interpretive interpretation here. I'm guessing. That'd be my suggestion on that. So, yeah, there's some thoughts. It's interesting how there's fire that destroys and then there's a son of righteousness that brings healing. I just think that's really neat. It's really neat. We know that Christ heals us, that he's referred to in similar terminologies. I mean, uh, it's really consistent with Jesus to see that as referring to him. Anyways, number eight. Question number eight. My husband is an unbeliever. This comes from Jay. My husband's an unbeliever. He recently told me he can't be a believer because he idolizes me and our kids and couldn't love God more than us beyond praying. How can I address this biblically? Um, there's a lot of things that come to my mind. Um, if I was to encourage your husband, I would encourage him to just start going to church. Just come with me. I'm not a believer. I can't believe. Just come with me. I would just encourage him to start taking positive steps. Okay, you're not a believer. How about we start reading the Bible together, though? You can understand better about who I am. Um, obviously Scripture tells you if you have a husband who's not a believer, that your example. Even if you can't win him with your words, obviously you can use your words. But if you can't win him with your words, which I'm sure you've tried, then your example, your godly Christ like example, is a constant testimony to him. And so you living the Christian life, like showing graciousness and love, compassion, um, the joy of the Lord in your heart, um, and just wearing it all on your sleeve, not just wearing the requirement of I want you to be Christian, but wearing your being a Christian character, a person with Christian character wearing that is a great witness to him. But yeah, I mean, maybe baby steps, baby steps, you know, just get him closer. But the statement, I, um, don't want to, I can't be a believer because I idolize you guys too much. It doesn't make any sense to me in any way, shape or form because if he loves you that much, he wants to be with you for eternity. And therefore he wouldn't want to be separated from you forever because he's an unbeliever. I don't think he's being honest with you when he says this, or I should say, I don't think he's being honest with himself. I'm not trying to say he's like a horrible, dishonest liar. I think in this one instance, he's not telling the truth about what his real motives here are. He's couching it in love language because that makes it feel noble that he won't be a believer. But that's not the real reason. Because if he was a believer, I guarantee you, and I would tell him this if he could hear me, is if you became a believer, sir, you would love your wife and kids more, not less. You would love them better, not worse. You would then be able to direct your kids to the true and living God that they might know him and also be saved and live and dwell for eternity. You would then have a closer relationship with your wife than you have ever had before. Everything about coming to Christ would improve this love you have for your wife and your kids. There's some deception going on here. Maybe even in your own heart. Maybe you really believe this is your reason, but it's not a real reason because everything about it is untrue. You will one day lose your wife and kids because you're rejecting God. You will lose them all. What does it profit for you to have it here in this life, but then for eternity be apart from you? It doesn't make any sense. Whatever other real reasons there are, I would encourage you to be serious about them before God. The real reason I don't want to follow you is this. I have this thing in my life I like and I don't want to quit doing. I don't want to give up the control of my life. Um. I've always thought Christians were kind of weird, so I'd be embarrassed to be a Christian. I have other reasons. Just be real with what your real reasons are and confront them. That'd be my encouragement as far as you praying and living with Christian character where you show the joy of the Lord and you show your integrity, your moral integrity. Um, but the filling of God's goodness and love in your life, that's powerful. That's powerful. Um. But I don't say this casually and I don't say it in a mean way, but I do not believe that that's his reason. Number nine, Strawn Wisdom says I'm a youth pastor at my church and several families at my church consider themselves members, but are only present a few times a year due to weekend activities. Should we address this strongly? Um, that's a good question. Um, I think it should be addressed. Um. I don't think you can be a member of a church and only attend a few times a year. That's not what membership means. So if you have official membership, I think that would be disqualified. I'd say you're still welcome to come a few times a year when you come, but you are not a member, we have to, uh, dismember you, um, from being a member of this church. That doesn't make sense, because membership actually means something. Now. For most of my Christian life, I was part of churches that had no official membership. Um, I mean, the Baptist church I was part of had official membership, but I never even became an official member because they just weren't really actively doing it. Okay, so it existed when I was a teenager. Um, but they weren't really active. So it was almost like the membership didn't exist. I don't even know how they determined it. Um, then the, um, church that I was part of for years after that was Calvary Chapels. That was Calvary Chapel. And Calvary Chapel doesn't have a membership. Now, legally, the government requires you to report members. If you want to have your church status, you have to show you have a membership, obviously. Otherwise you're just a guy in his bedroom. Pretend you have a church. But the way they would do this, they would just take the tithe records and be like. I should say the giving records. I try to not use the word tithe to mean something other than what it actually means. But the records of those giving, and they would be like, oh, here's our members. And they would include these people on a list of names of members. Okay, we have this many members. That's a little bit. To be honest, that's a little bit sketchy. Um, because. Just because I gave to your church doesn't mean that I'm actually a member and who belongs to the church, the church I'm part of now. Uh, which is a, um. I still love Calvary Chapel, by the way. I still think they're great. I love Calvary's very much. Um, no weirdness there. Uh, but the church that I am part of now is EV Free in La, uh, Mirada. It's Grace. Ev Free in La Mirada. Beautiful church. Wonderful church. Love the people there. And I'm a member. Now, that membership came with a covenant, like an actual membership covenant. I signed a covenant of membership, committed to the leaders. I will submit to the leadership, and I do. Uh, committed to attending on a regular basis, committed to spiritually, to building each other up and holding each other accountable to Be genuine followers of Jesus. That was a beautiful thing. I was. I've never gone through that before. We did these membership classes where we walked through the entire statement of faith for the denomination, as well as the sort of specific values and views of our local church. Because Grace Ev Free is a very different church, very unique, even among Ev Frees. And so it has a lot of unique values, like a true plurality of elders and stuff like that. All that to say, if you become a member and it means something, then when you stop becoming a member, it means something. If you become a member and it's relatively meaningless, then it makes it a lot harder to do things like church discipline. So answering this question in a church that has a loose membership or sort of a, uh, casual membership, you can't address it strongly in that environment. Well, you're not a member anymore. And they were like, I was a member. What does that mean? That's a meaningless thing to them. So membership in that sense, it's a very useful tool for encouraging, um, um, genuine commitment to the church as well as dealing with church discipline in proper ways. So, yeah, I would at least talk to them, though, and be like, hey, what's going on? How are you? You're not attending the church regularly. This is not healthy. I bring scripture. It tells us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, uh, we need to be gathering together. You're part of the body of Christ. Read Ephesians, uh, 13 and see that we're in 4. And we're part of the body of Christ. And we're all given different gifts to mutually build each other up. And that requires connection, integration with each other. Going only on holidays is very, very unhealthy. As Christians now, I know a lot of believers even, who watch my channel. You're not part of a church. I hope you become part of a good church, a decent church. How's that? Become part of at least a decent church. A church that's at least decent. If they're a progressive church promoting all those values, don't do it. If there's literally no church in your area that's good enough to be part of, then start one. Doesn't mean you're the pastor, but start networking with other Christians. Meet with them and say, hey, uh, I need to gather with other believers on a regular basis. I have to. I have to. Um, it's something we need to do and God wants us to do. And that seems really clear in scripture. And all the people Pushing against it. I know a lot of the time what pushes against it is I'm just mad. I'm mad at some things I saw or experienced. That's valid, um, but it's kind of like the person who experienced bad, um, stuff from relationships in the past, and so they think marriage itself is bad. Church itself is inherently good. It is inherently good and beautiful. Gathering with other believers, to worship, to be discipled, to have actual elders in place that we yield to and submit to. This is a godly, wonderful, biblical, Christlike thing. So, number 10. Um, this is an anonymous question. I fully believe God never fails and his decisions are always right and good. But it's still hard to not feel like he's let me down. When I pray so hard for something and it doesn't happen, it feels like he's absent. And it ashamedly makes me question the parts in Scripture where he invites us to ask and says he'll act. Please help my heart. Well, first off, I have a ton of compassion for you, uh, and for that situation. Um, and I've been there in some ways in my life. And it's trippy how thoughts can enter into your mind that you know are not true, but you're still feeling them. I don't know how else to put it. You're still thinking them or feeling them. And, um, you know, can I trust that God really is good? Um, or maybe. Maybe it's more narrow than that. Maybe it's. What's the point of prayer? Maybe it's that. Um, let's look at Luke 12. Is it 12? Um, let me find the passage. 12, 15. I can't remember now. I can look it up. Little quick search here. Um, 18, Luke 18. On your screen. This is Jesus. Uh, let's just read through the whole thing here. Then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart. That alone. That verse alone to me is so powerful. Jesus spoke a parable. And we're. For a rare moment, we're told why he did it, because he wants us to always pray and not lose heart. You're facing losing heart in prayer. I'm going to address that in a second, but let's just read through what Jesus says here in this parable. Uh, there was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man. Now, there was a widow in that city, and she came to him saying, get justice from, for me, from my adversary. And he would not for a while. But afterward he said, within himself, though I do well I even lost my own place there. I know you guys probably lose your place when I skip around here. He, uh, says to himself, though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. She's wearing me out, man. I'm just. This is an, uh, interesting parable because God obviously is parallel to the judge, but he's meant to be contrasted to the judge, not compared to the judge. Right. The contrast is, this guy's going to help because he's just tired of listening to her. Um, then the Lord said to her, hear what the unjust judge said. He's an unjust judge. And shall not God, or shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him? Though he bears long with them, I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth? You know what occurs to me I've never thought of before? There's. This is just total question, not an answer, just a question. Um, here's a combination of Jesus saying, there's something that takes a long time, and he'll also call it speedily. And we, uh, obviously get that in revelation. When it comes to the events of revelation and the coming of Christ. Um, and so I wonder what word for speedily is being used there. Anyways, it relates to revelation, but okay, some good stuff and some tough stuff on this for you, for everybody. The specific prayer that seems to have a guaranteed answer here is the prayer for God's vengeance. It's not the prayer that God would heal me or that God would help me find a wife, or that God would save, uh, my child, um, uh, physically in this life. God can save your child, um, eternally, forever. But it's not those prayers. It's the specific prayer of God, please bring vengeance upon those who are persecuting me. That kind of prayer. And he's like, God will do it. Keep seeking the Lord. Keep trusting in him. Don't lose heart. But what about other prayers that are, like, healing? They're like, you have infertility, and you've been praying for years and years, and you've had so many people gather around you. They've anointed you with oil, and then they get really hopeful. Oh, we really think God's going to do this for you. And they pray for you, and then nothing happens. And it breaks your heart. It breaks your heart and becomes the hardest experience of your life. I don't have a Guarantee, do I? I don't. I still don't want to lose heart in prayer. But I think it's okay. If you've been praying for one thing over and over again and the Lord hasn't done it to say, I don't have a promise from God. I have a promise about his vengeance. I have promise about eternal salvation. I have promise about the future. I don't have a promise about healing. I don't have a promise about fertility. I don't have a promise about marriage. I don't have a promise about a lot of that stuff. And so in those areas, we've got to come with a posture that says, lord, uh, not my will be done, but yours. I don't have a guarantee that you'll do this. So I'm going to pray. I'm going to seek you in it, but I'm going to resign myself. Because here's the thing. As I've prayed over and over and over again, my expectation, my hopefulness, my dependency that this thing would happen can take over my life. And then when it doesn't happen, my disappointment matches my expectations. But if I walk into that prayer going, lord, I don't have a promise. I trust you. I know your power. I know you're able. I don't have some revelation from the Spirit that just shows me God's going to do this. And so I have this incredible confidence because God himself is revealing it to me. He's going to do it. I think that does happen. I've had that happen in prayer. Great confidence, because I think the Lord's just revealed it to me, um, rarely, but it's happened. If I don't have that, then what I have to do is always pray in such a way where I am at peace with God making the decision of how he's going to handle this issue. And if he says no, I don't lose heart. That's a hard pill to swallow. Jesus himself is an example. He prayed, God, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me. And yet the answer is no. And this prayer did not have to happen in the same passages in the same books. Uh, you know, here we're reading about the Gospel of Jesus, his life. He's talking about prayer, ask in my name and you'll receive. And there in the same story, uh, in the same books of the New Testament later on, Jesus is praying, lord, let this cup pass. And it doesn't. That was an example for us to know that sometimes we are not kept from pain or Suffering. And we know that there is glory at the end of that road and we have to trust in God no matter what. Um, all right, I have a bonus question from Mariah Wisson, who says, thank you for your ministry. You're abundantly welcome. I'm grateful I get to do it. I'm so tremendously grateful that I get to do this ministry. It's amazing and humbling and I'm excited for the impact it has in other people's lives. Um, that alone is worth it all. Um, so you says, uh, you are a huge part of my remaining strong in the faith. Oh, Mariah, I'm super grateful for that. And I pray I never do anything that hinders that in any way, shape or form. Um, but of course, don't anybody base their faith on me. May I just be one of many arrows pointing you to the one who you put your faith in. What, uh, are some of your favorite or best recommended Christian music artists and albums? Oh, man, I'm terrible at this. Um, I mean, like, I'm genuinely terrible at this. I never put music on. Very, very rarely do I put music on. Sometimes when I'm studying and I feel like I need some noise that's like, not distracting at all. So I'll have wordless music I put on and it's usually like Chopin. So I'll play Chopin or I'll play something else. Um, like that. And, uh, you know, classical stuff. I tried Beethoven and Bach and stuff. I really like three hour playlist of Chopin and just be like, studying. Um, so. And I think that music brings glory to God, but Christian music artist. Yeah, I don't. I don't know, man. I don't know. I. And you wouldn't like my recommendations anyways, I guarantee you. Well, many of you wouldn't. I would fully enjoy Keith Green still today. I'm a lyrics guy. I'm not. Lyrics are more important to me than the music. Uh, and not just for, like, I don't know, you might think, legalistic reasons. No, I think about the lyrics. I care about the lyrics. I love them. I was thinking someone should write a worship song. I haven't written a worship song in forever. But, um, I'll just put this out there. Maybe you can take my idea and someone else can make a song. It'd be great to make a worship song where the lyrics are something along the repeated line of like, behold the glory of God. And then either before or after that line, you reiterate something to do with either the life of Jesus. You can Go through his whole life with that. Or you could just do the cross. Um, you know, you could talk about even the clouds. You know, look at, look at the beauty of the clouds. Behold the glory of God. The miracle of, uh, marriage and birth. Behold the glory of God. I would word it differently. Um, but then you could look at the cross, you know, Jesus bearing his cross. Behold the glory of God. The spear piercing his side. Behold the glory of God. I think it'd be really cool. The empty tomb. Behold the glory of God. God, the risen Christ. Behold the glory. I'd be so cool to do a song like that because I'm a lyrics guy. I really care about the lyrics. Maybe someone will do that or, uh, maybe someone already has. Maybe there's already a song like that. But this came because, uh, one of our pastors last week did a study on the glory of God. And so I was thinking about the glory of God and all these multiple facets of God's glory and how it's shown in the cross and love the lyrics. So, yeah, I've got some worship songs. Do you guys know this? I'll put a link down below where you can get them. They're super cheap. Um, and I'm not saying the music is the best. I think it's decent. I'm not saying it's the best. It was recorded years and years and years ago. So it's a little bit dated as well. But there's some songs there that you might find edifying. I think the communion song that I've got in there is, um, the lyrics. I love him. I really love those lyrics. So, yeah, I have no recommendations for you. I don't know. My wife would. She's into music. She knows a bunch of different bands and Christian bands. Um, so bonus question. I give you nothing. All right, let's pray. And then I gotta go. I got all sorts of things to do. And, um, there's a lot going on. There always is. And there is. It just like there is in your guys lives. I know. So let's pray. Um, Father God, we thank you for your glory, your goodness, for, uh, Jesus Christ who suffered and died on the cross for our sins. And there is no other way, Lord, to know you. No other name that we can call on to be saved. There is nothing, nothing that would keep us from salvation if we do call upon Christ. And we're so grateful. We love you, we bless your name. We pray for boldness in our faith, for courage in our witness, that we be a strong group of Christians. Who are unashamed and who are out there to convert the world in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right, guys, catch you next Friday. Although I will probably have a more, uh, content coming before that. Some shorts and some stuff I can't talk about. You'll see. Sa.