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here we go question number one for the Q&A today is how do you explain the existence of moral and virtuous people who do not follow Christianity in other words good Sinners are there there such a thing as good Sinners uh yet still they seem to live as compassionate ethical and fulfilled as devout Christians these are kind of two different issues are they fulfilled is there true like happiness and and contentment that's there and also are they truly ethical um this is a bit of a of a conundrum when you when you think about it there's

a simple easy answer I'm not suggesting that it's difficult in the sense of giving an easy answer but when I say it's a conundrum I mean I can feel the tension people feel related to this question because on one side they want to affirm as a Christian uh yeah everybody has sinned and that sin isn't just like a little small issue but a major issue and you you need to be forgiven you need the of Christ you need the Forgiveness of God but I also want to recognize like of a woman who curls herself over

her child cradling her while a building is burning down and gives her own body to be burned so that this baby could be saved that it's hard for me to say like that wasn't a good deed that that wasn't a an amazingly Good Deed that she did so how do you explain the the these people's existence or some people might point to like say Gandhi Gandhi for some reason everybody thinks of Gandhi right Gandhi is um he's like the go-to for everybody knows Gandhi was a good guy everybody likes Gandhi he seemed Pleasant and he

seemed morally upright and good okay so let's let's walk through the Theology of this uh my name is Mike Winger I'm here to hopefully God willing help you learn to think biblically about everything that is not by telling you what I think about everything although it might sound like I'm doing that to some um but rather redirecting you to scripture on these issues and so here are some scriptures to think about related to this issue let's start with Romans chapter 3 so Romans 1 through3 that whole section is like a big old lesson on the

nature of man and it's it's not a a positive lesson it's it's a lesson that exposes the problems of man and the sin of man and everybody sin in Romans 1 he's like yep all those Gentiles y they've they they've sinned but hey Romans 2 even you Jews you also have sinned you all have fallen short and that's kind of what comes and comes to a culmination a a climactic point in Romans chapter 3 about the sin of mankind so this is something that's true of all people myself included it's just true of all people

according to Christianity Romans chapter 3 so verses 9- 20 I was going to read the whole section um but I'll just skim through parts of it uh because I I want to move quickly today so what then are we better than they not at all what is this Paul's like hey are Jews better than Gentiles no we've previous charged and this is like the conclusion in case you missed his point that both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin there's a category called under sin and it applies to all humankind we're all under

sin and then he goes on to explain it with a quote from the Old Testament that is as it is written there's none righteous no not one right verse 11 there's no one who seeks after God in other words not fully not truly are you really fully seeking after God there's uh no one who does good no not one Paul is taking this Psalm and he's because of the context he's getting into he's saying hey this applies to all humankind every human has sinfully fallen and that they are in trouble because of this let me

read a little bit more here it says in verse 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and when ask what did I fall what do you mean people have sinned you mean every single thing they do is evil completely and utterly evil I didn't didn't say that they're all under sin and they all fall short of God's glory when we're comparing ourselves to each other it's easy to see good people and bad people um you'll get phrases like most people are good most people are good uh the pope said

this not long ago most people are good it's easy when you're comparing people to people to find the better people and the worst people and put them on a scale so that they're being ranked amongst each other and whenever you do this it's like all these list videos that people get where they're like okay what's the top tier what's the s tier I think it's called um of these of the people like the most good people I know versus like the the lowest I think it's F tier the worst people I know when you put

people on a human scale you'll always have somebody at the top who is the best people you know but when you when you add to that scale the glory of God if God's glory and his Holiness and goodness are the S tier or the highest on the scale then all of a sudden you realize everybody is way down below they're just different different levels of f they're all really low compared to him so it's in comparison to God that humankind have all really truly fallen short in comparison to each other I can say yeah that

guy it's a good guy he's a good guy I mean compared to your average person and uh based on the things that matter to me not even everything so in John 8:34 Jesus says this that Those who commit sin are slaves of sin um that there is a bondage to sin in the moment somebody commits sin and who has sinned well I read to you Romans 3:23 everybody has sinned everybody is a slave of sin apart from Christ Romans 7:18 this is the ne this is the downside I'm going to balance this out with some

other information in scripture Romans 7:18 Paul says in me that is in my flesh in my natural abilities apart from God nothing good dwells for the will is present with me but how to perform what is good I do not find he cannot consistently persistently reliably be a good person in a genuine full sense he can't do that it's not in him to do it there's something flawed about his very nature and it's it's true about everybody's nature so that we never truly do fully perfectly good acts even though we do on a different way

of measuring we do things that are at least somewhat good why do I say that well also in Romans Romans 2 talks about people doing good things let's go to verse 14 and 15 Romans 2 talks about here uh conscience meaning people's internal awareness of of right and wrong moral good and moral evil and it says here that when Gentiles who do not have the law don't have the law of the Jews by Nature do the things in the law what what does those do the things in the law he means like taking care of

your neighbor paying back what you owe keeping your promises he's like sometimes they do that stuff sometimes Gentiles do things they don't fulfill the law they're not perfectly obedient but they sometimes do things that are in the law these although not having a law are a law to themselves so there's I don't know how to read verse 14 without affirming that there are non-believers who do good deeds verse 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witness and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them that

is God's given people this this like a cool theology about the conscience here but God's given people an internal awareness of right and wrong and there are those who are not Christians right they're not in this case they're not they're not they don't even have the law they're not submitted to the work of God what God has done through Israel or what he ultimately has done through Messiah after that but they do something good in instinctively because there's a conscience and an awareness of right and wrong so sometimes their thoughts accuse them telling them you

did something wrong sometimes their thoughts excuse them telling them you did something good there and God will ultimately judge the secrets of our hearts you can also add to this that um Jesus affirms that people do good things sometimes right let's look at Luke 11:13 this is not only in the Gospel of Luke but he says if you then and uh I want to highlight I always highlight this Jesus is not talking to Pharisees here he's talking to just humans just people he says you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your

children how much more will you will will your heavenly father father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him this is the the statement of like hey if a son asks for bread from any father among you will he give him a stone no dads usually take care of their kids what if what if you know a non-believer and you're like he seems like a good dad he takes care of his kids he seems like he really cares about his family I really feel like I respect him a lot he's better than a lot

of Christians I know in that regard Jesus is able to affirm two things in this verse this section really verse 13 though he affirms people can do good and still be evil in their nature that's the thing that I think brings balance to this issue I recognize that in relation to God I'm under sin I'm enslaved to sin I fall short of his glory and I'm fer in relation to other the other people to partially good works you know or like I do something good for my kid but that doesn't make me a good holy

person in relation to God that's kind of what Jesus is bringing that balance to there's something perhaps lacking even in the Good Deeds of the of the people who are unsaved I would say this though now some are going to think Mike this is just Christian elitism you're acting like Christians can do good works but unsaved people can't do good works no that's that's not it um even my good works as a Christian there is something lacking in them in that I can still not earn my way to heaven I'm still incomplete insufficient plagued by

sin I still fall short of the glory of God on a regular basis every human does all the time Christ gives you forgiveness he takes your sin upon himself and he gives you his righteousness that's how you can be saved but you can do something good you know the Bible says that Cyrus did the will of God that that is he he did some things that were good that were things that were considered morally good things that he did that doesn't mean everything he did was the will of God uh David was a man after

God's Own Heart yeah but he wasn't perfectly or consistently a man after God's Own Heart but he was compared to Saul a man after God's Own Heart he still had the his error his sin with be Sheba his murder of Uriah her husband we have David failing in various ways um his family there were some very significant failures that that went on there so David is an example of a guy who did good things but also was flawed even within many of the good things he did I think that this is the case for us

we're a mixed bag we're a mixed bag but here's the problem mixed bag is not a good way to appeal to God and say God I'm a good person receive me into your righteousness because he's perfectly righteous Isaiah puts it this way this is this is a really cool like visual for understanding the good works that we can present to God apart from being Christian Isaiah 64:6 it says here we are all like an unclean thing and all our righteousness are like filthy rags now I can get into the detail of the word here and

all all that it means oh sorry I'll put it on your screen but my point is simply to say this um a filthy rag is to say I want to present somebody something clean and maybe it has spots that are clean but it has dirty spots on it like if I see a a rag or a hand towel or something and it has like nasty disgusting things on it but it has pieces that are clean I could always point at the clean bits I could fold it in a way that shows only the clean bits

like an Instagram version of my righteousness I'm just going to show the clean bits but it's still a soiled icky thing I don't want to touch it sh I don't want to give it to somebody if I present it to them as here's my righteousness it's not going to work when God evaluates us in our goodness he doesn't evaluate it in pieces the way we do with people's social media accounts he doesn't evaluate it like where I fold up my righteousness and just show the white bits to people so they can see the good parts

of me he evaluates everything about us our internal thoughts our desires our our our our our failings our secret sins the things that you you would be embarrassed if anybody knew about you cuz it would ruin their image of you God sees everything so you can't present to him a whitewashed version of yourself you you're going to be right there in the open and Isaiah presents it like that yeah my righteousness even the good things I do ends up being tainted in some sense doesn't mean it wasn't good it means it wasn't good enough to

like make me presentable before God as a holy or good person to be approved by him um man there's so much other scripture I could give on this about how we are actually saved um the scripture says that God imputes his righteousness to us this is kind of cool so I don't I don't actually as a Christian I don't live look I have a white shirt on to to demonstrate this I guess today unintentionally I just have somewhere to go later on so I got to wear a button up um the um the thing I

don't do is I I I don't present my righteousness like this white shirt is something I have created have have done perfect good things and I present myself to God like that instead the way scripture talks about it God takes away my filthy rags my sin soaked garments so to speak metaphorically he takes away my sin he puts them on Jesus he then Jesus wears my sin on the cross is punished for what I've done and then he comes alongside and he hands me a new piece of clothing and this new piece of clothing is

his righteousness it's his righteousness and so that I'm Christians are good only in the sense truly good only in the sense that we are clothed with the works of Jesus and the righteousness of God you might think I'm making that up let me show you some scripture okay so this is um 2 Corinthians chapter 5: 21 it says here for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that's Jesus taking my sin upon himself he never sinned he became sin for he took on my sins that we might become what the

righteousness of God in him you don't become righteous like it's the righteousness of Mike or the righteousness of whoever is listening right now you know Phil put your name in there you instead you become the righteousness of God so that it is God presenting his own righteousness to himself through through you know through Christ as you're in Christ so now you enter into his presence because you're as holy as him through imputation through the him imparting his righteousness to you this is this is the only way you're ever going to make it the only way

you're ever going to be good enough so Christians aren't better in that in in the sense of oh we live perfect holy lives no we're made righteous by the righteousness of Jesus and apart from that we all would be lost we all would be lost like the old saying you know one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread and Jesus is the bread of life there is also Romans 10:13 um that's a great verse but it's not the one I was looking for 103 um good for you to memorize that one right there okay

103 it says for they this is people who are unsaved people who try to present their own good works to God like God I'm a good person I'm good enough for you they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God what is this so if I'm saying God look at me I'm a good person then I'm ignorant of his righteousness cuz I'm only comparing myself to other humans hey my Rags aren't as fil is that guys I feel like I'm a good person but

once I stand before God in his Holiness I see my sin for what it really is and I go wow I'm really lost like every evil thought every bad thing I've said every deceitful thing manipulative thing even when people thought I was being good and I was really just manipulating them for my own agendas and own goals every single thing I've ever done wrong is on is on record and that's my righteousness that I have to present to you I'm in a lot of trouble motives actions words all of it once you stand before the

holy God you realize you are no longer ignorant of God's righteousness right you realize God's righteousness is perfection and if you pretend it's not if you act like he just wants you to be fairly good then you will try to establish your own righteousness you'll try to be like yeah I'm a good person look at me I feel like I gandi doesn't deserve to go to hell gandi doesn't deserve who who said that like Rob Bell said in his his video he goes God's in Hell who who said that how do we know that kind

of thing and he really challenged these things because he thought Gandhi was a good person because Rob Bell like many others if you guys remember Rob Bell he's he's kind of kind of irrelevant now but um at least at least to to to the reach he used to have he's relatively irrelevant now we all will be eventually that's not an insult just acknowledging that you may not know who he is um but robell you know he was pretty pretty influential at the time before he kind of became apostate or maybe revealed that he was apostate

um so they're ignorant of their own righteous of God's righteousness that's that's when I say oh isn't G good good enough for God he doesn't I mean what sin could he have look at the man he's so self-sacrificial he's so Godly he's not even Christian you know there's the quote from Gandhi always here Gandhi says I like your Jesus but I don't like you Christians and it's like okay well there you go so Gandhi there's one example of self-righteousness that he's fighting with and dealing with there um yeah just a sad situation I'll talk about

G in a second but seeking to establish their own right to say that Gandhi is a good person so he's not going to go to hell this is also Rael or someone else's way of establishing their own righteousness too and I'm a good person and so I don't need to have faith in Jesus to be saved this is unnecessary I'm good enough Jesus I appreciate your offer to pay for my sins but trust me I got the I can pay the bill on this I can pay for my own sins I'm a good person I

can deal for I can deal with it and so it's it's a pride that rejects the righteousness of God and then you haven't submitted to righteousness of God which is that's when Jesus gives you God's righteousness it's this doctrine of imputation this beautiful powerful thing so speaking of Gandhi um and there's a verse I have for Gandhi right here I'm going to share with you in a second 1 Timothy 5:24 but Gandhi um well known for many good things that he did okay most of us we know a little bit about the guy and we

just we just know he has extremely positive reputation and we assume the rest of his life matches that um this is one example among many Gandhi was not that great okay most of our heroes weren't as great as we think you know Martin Luther King Jr uh was not as great as you think Martin Luther probably wasn't as great as you think that I'm not as great as you think if you think I'm great I'm not and um all of us we are all desperately in need of the grace of God we really are Gandhi

would not sleep with his wife this was a rule he had which is an abandonment of his marital responsibilities we would say that that is a sin there is an Godly sin because of his weird religious views he wouldn't sleep with his wife but one thing he did do he said and you could check on this on your own he said that he felt he should be tempted and test himself in this area of abstaining from sexual stuff so how would he tempt himself he would grab young women relatives even like a niece I think

it was a cousin a niece I think it was and sleep naked with these as he was an older man with these young women in his bed as a way of testing himself because he felt like that was something that was good this is nothing other than gross perversion and abuse and inappropriate like you you should be arrested for what he did like that you should get arrested these these young underage I don't know ex the exact age but they're certainly morally inappropriate what he did this is something that we know about Gandhi what else

do we know we don't we know that he like had this weird fetish with dying while fasting he like wanted to die it was like a weird Obsession he had um whereas you know Paul's like you know I don't want to die I want to go to be with the Lord but I don't want to just die I don't and and it's not healthy for people to have that desire that's there to die that's that's something unhealthy was am I saying ai's all bad no I'm saying let's be realistic people are a mixed bag the

best guy you know has issues you don't even know about and I'm not the best guy you know cuz you don't know me that well to be able to say that but let's pretend it was me me I have issues you don't know about right we all have sin we all have Petty selfish carnal things about us every single one of us and we desperately need the grace of God so can there be uh good non-christians by comparison to other humans absolutely absolutely can they be genuinely good in the sense of appealing to God as

I'm a good person receive me no none of us can every one of us fails we're just different degrees of failing at that point you you got an F plus good job buddy that's that's kind of the that's the I think the Christian Theology of it um there's also a fact that sin can permeate even some of our Good Deeds even some of the things we do that are good can you know it can be that I I take my kid out to the game and I I read them a book every night so that

I can feel like I'm better than these other dads it can actually be a non-l motive for doing things that habitually look like great loving habits I'm not saying people do this everybody who who's doing something good is doing it for a bad motive not saying that but we should acknowledge that we're complicated people for instance and here's that verse I'd say give you a verse about Gandhi uh some men's sins are clearly evident preceding them to judgment but some but those of some men follow later likewise the good works are the same way some

sometimes you see a person's good works you can see exactly what's on display so much of my Ministry is right there on display so you you so this is why people would think too highly of me I think in general people probably do either either they think too lowly of me they hate my guts for all these reasons or they think too highly of me because they they see me exercising my gifts and being a blessing to the body and that's all they know about me so inevitably they'll think too highly it's just most people

are like that but um hopefully me saying things like this gets you to realize this you shouldn't do that same thing for your pastors and for other leaders and stuff in your life they're they're they're just people but yeah the uh the sins of some are evident you know some people whose sins are super obvious and others you found out years later you found out about the affair they had like 10 years after they passed away you you you never found out about the issues that were going on bottom line is as a Christian you

don't have to say everything you do is evil right you maybe but it but you can't say it's complicated right you have a moral conscience but yet you do fall short you are a slave of sin scripture says you do need the righteousness of God because if you're going to compare yourself with other humans you'll think you're good the second you look at the Creator you will know you desperately need to believe in Jesus he's the only way you can be forgiven and deal with your real Sin issues stop pretending you're as good as God

because that is his standard perfect complete holy goodness in motive in action every single time otherwise we're slaves to sin which we are apart from Christ all right we're going to go to your guys' questions today and um thanks for joining me we do this every Friday as I'm getting ready to read the next question every Friday Friday at 1:00 p.m. that's Pacific Time or or you know whatever time it is in California cuz we we switch an hour we do daylight savings and stuff so at Pacific Time 1:00 on Fridays here we go question

number two Mrs T says who is supposed to call out false teachings and teachers and how I'm struggling to find scripture thank you for your ministry and for teaching me to think biblically um who is supposed to call them out um does Scripture give us this kind of clarity let's let's think about this let's try to think of some examples in scripture um so I know many of the prophets call out false teachers and so obviously if if God has called you to you know I'm calling you to go and confront these people and deal

with their issues you should call out the false teachers um so many of the prophets do this Jeremiah does this and plenty of other ones do this um you know woe to those who say to my people peace when there is no peace then you've got um Jesus he definitely does it Jesus in the gospels he calls out false teaching and he does it through with the Pharisees he is very confrontive towards them and we get in these issues about like should we name names should we not name names and people come up with all

these policies I I don't I think this is kind of one of those things where wisdom is justified by her children uh the Lord give you wisdom on when you should call out names when you should not there isn't some simple hard and fast three three-point test for this there's life is comp complicated in you at least that's how I look at I address the situations as they exist um but Jesus obviously he can call out false teachers what about the apostles um yep the apostles called out false teachers uh lots of the Epistles are

them calling out and dealing with false teachers even sometimes naming people I meas Alexander these different people that are even named we also have uh Jude that seems to extend this cuz because we might think okay it's just just leaders then right like leaders can call out false teachers but not not normal Christians normal Christians should stay in the Pew and not say anything um I do not believe that is the case there now there can be decorum and there can be up a a right way to do it a right time to do it

but anyone who wants to suggest that a normal everyday Christian cannot do that I think is incorrect so let's let's read here from Jude starting in verse three only one chapter in Jude so verse three beloved although I was very eager to write to you about our common salv I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints he wants them to contend this fight for the faith they're to fight for now physically fighting no no he's talking about arguing and debating And

discussing and calling out things how do I know well look at verse four for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny and I our only master and Lord Jesus Christ he says I want you to fight for the faith why because you have people who have crept in who are perverting the faith this this has to mean that Jude is calling random regular Pew sitters just normal Christians I mean Pew sitters a kind of like an

insulting term if if you ask me because we do a lot more than sit in pews right um but he's calling normal Christians to actually stand up and speak truth and contend for the faith if you see a Christian in error you have the ability to talk to them about it obviously you don't correct every single error you can find um that itself would be an error right you'd be an error if you're correct every single error every single time someone says something that's incorrect the question is like is this error perverting the grace of

of God into sensuality is is is this error something that God is like condem or is it like Ah that's not really great but it's not that big of a thing I'm not going to confront it he's talking about major big issues if you see like the gospels at stake every Christian has the right to call that out we do um we want to not be obnoxious we want to be thoughtful and wise about the way we do it we want to consider ourselves lest we also be tempted uh Galatians talks about that a verse

I often quote on this topic says if anyone is caught in any transgression you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness keeping watch on yourself lest you lest you too be tempted so I'm to consider myself first and go like let me think about me this is not a selfish consider yourself first this is a let me evaluate my my motives and my My Method here and then I'll go and address the person and I'll seek to restore them if they're hurting others well then I'm going to call it out even

more um there can be wisdom in saying hey um this happened in a small group meeting um the leaders right there in that meeting like they should call it out and I try to give them space and I want them to call it out and if they won't maybe I will if it's if it's a central issue to the to the faith you call it out more loudly more instantaneously the further out the issue gets the more grace you will have on you know tertiary or really non issues where you think I think you're technically

wrong here but it's also not going to affect much of your theology or much of your practice then I'm not going to make a thing about it we have to be able to agree to disagree on certain issues so yeah um every Christian is empowered to stand for the gospel be representative of the gospel and fight for the the faith that is the core doctrines of Christianity every Christian yeah try to do so without um maybe this is good homework go on when you're go when you're online look at the way people are calling other

people out and ask yourself what you think is is effective and useful and helpful versus what is so soft it didn't even it wasn't even heard or felt so rude that it wasn't heard either and and try to find a balance where you can where you can actually be persuasive our agenda is not this is also important I think we realize that our agenda is not to call out like oh I called it out my job is done here our our agenda is to fight for the faith I'm presenting the faith I'm preserving the faith

and I'm giving it to others not just labeling that's bad that's bad that's bad I run run the other way I'm trying to actually have an impact I think sometimes people who who will call out stuff um against like false gospel things so Progressive Christianity is very much something you have to call out um for the most part you know it's not like they're wrong about every single belief they have about everything but but but the core of it is very much against the gospel of Christ um at least that's my perception of it looked

into it a good a good bit so you have to call that out of course but um I just lost my train of thought what was I I started thinking about Progressive Christianity and the different beliefs and the different camps they've got um what was I going to tell you was something really I thought was going to be helpful it might come to me later I don't know that's me call me out for being being lame all right but I'm going to go to the next question so this is going to be question number three

coming in from evangelist Rober Mansour who says um hi Mike I really enjoy your teachings do you believe that in Luke 21:20 Jesus is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem for today's time oo tough question actually for a few reasons Luke 21:20 so I do think the gospels the four go the the three synoptic gospels um especially um well I guess no Matthew Mark and Luke all handle this in a different angle different way Luke in particular seems to handle it with this specific Focus meaning that he recounts some of what Jesus says neither of

them are giving an exhaustive accounting of every word of Jesus but he's recounting what Jesus is saying about future like judgment coming and he seems to have a specific Focus so let's back up and ask just what is Luke's Focus okay we're going to read the passage uh while some were speaking of the temple how it was adorned with Noble stones and offerings he said as for these things that you see the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down okay we know that

this actually happened in 70 AD okay those stones those exact stones that were they were looking at that they were talking about Jesus just says days will come then they ask him teacher when will these things be and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place now here's where Luke is different than Matthew or Mark I definitely Mark I think Matthew as well um if memory serves so the question that Luke doesn't talk about is when they asked and what will be the sign of your coming that's not here in

Luke as a question they're asking and that's that's a difference Luke is not focused on that he seems to be focused on what Jesus is saying about the destruction of the temple that's the emphasis in Luke whereas St Mark I believe is giving a much broader focus on not only the destruction of the temple but also the second coming of Christ for those who don't know I'm not a prist I do not think that that in any sense the second coming happened in 7 ad um or the son of man coming or some coming of

Jesus happened in 70 AD coming in judgment or those other types of things that would relate to the when the son of man returns or comes I don't think that at all for those who are aware of that that debate um anyway verse eight and he says see that you were not LED astray for many will come in my name saying I he and the time is at hand do not go after them when you hear of wars and tumults do not be terrified for these things must first take place but the end will not

be at once right this is now he's talking about not being deceived by those who say Jesus has come that's interesting to think about that that Jesus's consistent warning about in times is don't believe people who say that I have come then he said Nation will rise against nation and Kingdom against Kingdom there will be great earthquakes in various places famines and pestilences and there will be Terrors and great signs from heaven but before all this before all this before all this okay so all this stuff's happening later on this is some distant stuff before

this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you and deliver you up to the synagogues and prisons and you will be brought before Kings and governors for my name's sake this will be your opportunity to Bear witness settle therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none of your adversaries will be able to withand or contradict what a what a wonderful thing to think about um you will be delivered up even by parents and brother and relatives and friends and some

of you they will put to death you will be hated by all for my name's sake but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance you will gain your lives this is he he just says this this is cool side note thing you some of you will be put to death they will literally be killed and then he says but not a hair of your head will perish what does he mean he means that even if you die for Christ even if you suffer and die even if they burn you and all

your hair is burned up the resurrection is coming and you will be whole and complete and preserved and no one can take that away from you they can only kill your body but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies okay here's here's something that something they can look for on on the horizon in a sense when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies that know that its desolation has come near right then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains and let those who are in the city depart and let not those who are

out in the country enter it for these are the days of Vengeance to fulfill all that is written Alas and he goes on women who are pregnant and you can go on then then he talks about the coming of the son of man and he talks about a whole bunch of stuff happening signs and stress of Nations is this 70 AD um okay my view in a nutshell and I I will find I have a video where I go into detail on this when I was going through the mark series and I talk about this

I will try to find that video and Link it in the description below and I go through verse by verse I I compare each of the gospels in detail in a nutshell my view is this that the verses you referenced are um have a type of double fulfillment that they speak in a way that warns them of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and not one stone will be left but there is an application as well a greater fulfillment that is going to be talking about a second type of event and that is in the future

that is Jerusalem again that is a destruction again that is part of the end times the temple will be rebuilt and okay I could be wrong in my eschatology I do think this is correct it's it's my understanding of it um but I could be incorrect here because eschatology is a very challenging subject we're putting together so many different texts of scripture that um yeah I just want to acknowledge that have some humility there but yeah that there's this time coming where there's a seven-year tribulation there's a rebuilt Temple then there's the attack on uh

the Jews as well as the temple as well as just anybody who's going to not take the mark of the beast and all that kind of stuff I think that stuff still coming Jesus is speaking in a way then that protects the people who were listen listening to him right there so when the destruction of Jerusalem comes they flee in 70 AD but also speaks more directly and more fully to the final destruction of the temple and what's interesting is you can kind of see him do this with an event that took place um called

the abomination of desolation um basically Jesus gives us reason in these very passages in the same section where he's talking here to see a double fulfillment or part or you might say partial and then total fulfillment of Prophecy as something that he's he's using even as he talks about these issues I know that's probably a lot to get into for the Q&A um Jesus does this a few times though he says um John the Baptist is Elijah who is to come what well mean he's not The Reincarnation of Elijah he stands in the place of

Elijah doing the thing of Elijah which is preparing the way of the Lord but the people are like isn't Elijah supposed to come before the coming well Jesus has two comings were first and second coming and his first coming John the Baptist represents Elijah calling people but yet there's a future Second Coming where another Elijah figure shows up and he maybe Elijah himself in this case um not reincarnated just just shows up on Earth and then that's conjecture okay possibly but he's going to be preaching and doing amazing things we read about that in Revelation

this other Elijah figure and he will come before the day of judgment so there's like already and not yet Elijah did come John but he will come because he didn't fully fulfill all that Elijah will do cuz Jesus didn't fully fulfill all that Jesus will do he did everything he was intended to do in his first coming and there's more prophecy about his second this partial total thing is kind of a theme with the very arrival of Jesus he comes as a suffering servant he comes as the lamb later he comes back as the lion

that's two things there's a destruction in 70 AD but there's also a future destruction that's connected to the final Judgment of the world the return of Christ and all that does that make sense you see how like I'm not just making up this partial total fulfillment thing the New Testament definitely trades on this idea and there's I can give other examples but I'll I'll try to find that video and Link it down below for those who want more details there uh let's go to the next question this is number four from Meg B who says

how can we pray for our enemies biblically especially those actively trying to kill those you love okay these are true enemies these are um let's suppose you're in a war torn environment um or in a in a fairly Lawless environment and there are people actually actively trying to murder your loved ones how do you pray for them um so there's a there's for me when I do pray for enemies I think that it has a profound impact on my attitude and my heart toward towards them and towards the Lord even when I pray for them

it changes it it stir up love within me the kind of love God has for his own enemies because I'm I'm an enemy of God apart from Christ so how do you pray for them well you can't pray for their success right help them be successful in all their Endeavors you can't pray that their Endeavors are evil you're not going to partner with evil like that so what would I pray for what would be their what would be to their benefit my my enemies here in this case we are trying to commit murder oh I

pray that they get caught is that not to their benefit accountability and stopping them from continuing crimes that that helps them too actually I pray that they realize the error of their ways I pray that even as they persecute and attack other people that those people whoever whichever of them are Christians would be witnesses to them by demonstrating their faith in Christ and their confidence in the Lord so that it would be like a light it would be like Paul kicking against the goats you get get that I pray that every act they take right

now would be like them kicking against the goat like Paul and that it would lead them to Christ i' you pray for their salvation but there's nothing wrong with you also praying but Lord I pray you'd stop them I pray you'd stop these people because they're hurting others they're actively bringing harm to others I pray that you deliver my loved ones from this person and that you by your Divine hand would stop them but I ask that you would give them a chance to receive Christ but you know Lord you know what's going to happen

and whether you take them out or you just slow them down enough that they might Maybe you get saved I give it to you I think that's a good way to pray for your enemies I think a test for this is um think of the person who you consider your enemy and ask yourself would you pray for their Salvation And if you go oh I don't want them to saved then you have to you've got to this is a very significant issue in in your heart between you and God it's not even just about you

and them you and your relationship with God you should be praying for them you should stop and pray Lord please save them and keep in mind this if God Saves them every man who's in Christ is a new creation the old is gone away the new has come that person will become new in Christ they will be renewed in Christ and it will be a wonderful story of God's Redemption just as your life is let's go to the next question um oh there's there's more follow-ups I could do on this about impr precatory Psalms and

things like that it's also you know it's okay to pray that God would would deal with even judge people there are this is like again to quote Jesus wisdom is justified by her children then pray for them but you can also pray that the Lord would stop them because they're actively committing evil and um yeah all right let's do number five anonymous question a church in town opened a coffee shop in the foyer some say it's akin to a Marketplace in the temple and others say since it's run at cost or even below that it's

fine what are your thoughts um I I don't have a hard and fast judgment on this I would I would just want to say it's it's the prerogative of a local church if they want to open up a a little coffee shop and they're not doing it to take advantage of people then fine um there's pros and cons okay there's there's cons in that you might feel that hey we're we're devaluing the uh the sacredness of the church Gathering we're gathering in the Name of Christ we're Gathering to worship God almighty we're Gathering to sit

under the teaching of his word to pray for one another and there's a certain this is a potential con there's a casualness that is associated with a coffee shop and bringing your coffee around and drinking and sipping that can diminish the glory of the church service that's that's a legitimate potential con maybe you maybe you curve it maybe you're like hey there's coffee here but guess what don't bring it into the church oh so they after church they get coffee well then there's a pro there because guess what people get coffee they hang out more

they Fellowship more they talk more so here you are sipping coffee and then all of a sudden you guys are praying together and you guys are making more Fellowship connections and that's hugely important in the body of Christ so potentially that's a great benefit um there's other pros and cons that you could you could weigh is it however what some people said is putting a coffee shop in the foyer of a church or or adjacent to the the church in some sense is that um what was the term you use some say it's akin to

a Marketplace in the temple um I don't think it's akin to that now it could become that okay you start Shilling all these different materials and you start making it about money and um the the marketplace in the temple was a marketplace where one didn't belong um inside the actual like sanctuary if you start like buying and selling stuff and unnecessary stuff so in the temple you would come and you would purchase animals for sacrifice and at least it's been said Okay I I I've looked I've tried to verify this I haven't been able to

okay so this may be the case it might just be one of those things that every pastor keeps repeating so I would want to verify but it's possible that that this was the case that a person shows up to the temple and they have a dove to to offer which was by the way like an offering for a poor person and then the person at the temples inspects it and they go oh no no this Dove is not good enough has a I see a little blemish here here here buy one of my doves and

they sell him a dove they take his Dove they milk that guy for money and the next guy shows up and they sell him the dove from the last guy and so they're just uh robbing people and there's uh money changers who were like yeah you know you want to give you you know you need to make you need to use the approved Temple currency and so we're going to charge you an exchange rate so they're making money off of every gift that comes to to to the Lord imagine your church having their own currency

and then offering asking you for an exchange rate for every you know dollar that you bring it's going to be like a a 50 Cent exchange rate so but you have to give a certain percentage which you don't have to but let's say that they teach this you have to give a certain percentage and then you have the exchange rate so now you're giving like more maybe you were going to maybe they tell you have to give 10 you're giving 15 you're giving 12 you're giving 18 and maybe you're poor and guess what these people

are stealing ultimately in the name of God like the marketplace was was was wicked in that sense it also became uh and this is important to ask you know if you have a coffee shop in your foia is this changing the focus of the ministry in any way or is it assisting it is this coffee shop coming alongside of our goals and our agendas to glorify God to build up the church to be a place of prayer worship study iron sharpening iron Ministry the gospel being proclaimed or is this a trend that connects to us

becoming more and more watered down it could go either way okay it could go either way right I don't think that it's shallow thinking to just go you guys have a coffee shop compromise church that is shallow thinking it's convenient it's easy it preaches well it goes viral on social media but it's shallow thinking just like if someone's like hey your youth group got pizza for some reason a few years back they started just ripping on any youth ministry that had pizza like as if Pizza is not just like this morally neutral thing youth where

youth leaders just like yeah well I mean we were I was youth leader who did pizza all the time and I used to think about this going on Friday nights we do pizza and thinking going we feed these kids that's why they hang out here and then we do Q&A and we talk about the Lord every Friday just like I'm doing right right now and we talk about God and we get really serious about this stuff but the pizza facilitated Ministry a purely facilitated Ministry it was funny because I would see online people who generally

were not in youth ministry never been in youth ministry oftentimes senior pastors ripping on youth Ministries for buying pizza and I'm like look youth Ministries have all kinds of problems Pizza is not the problem let's focus on the real problems same thing with the coffee shop don't focus on what you think is a symptom see that and then evaluate the real issues is there prayer is there the glory of God is there a seriousness about which we do our ministry um is there any advantage being taken of the people of God for financial gain here

those are good questions to ask is this serving people and facilitating Ministry or is it milking people and and hindering Ministry those are those are good questions it depends on how you do it question number six Helen says why was Paul annoyed with the possessed female slave in Acts 16:16 when she is was actually telling the truth and he also said what about Philippians 1:18 which I'm not sure how that relates but let's go to acts first we'll go to acts acts 16:16 um they just taught through this at my church and recently and I

was thinking about the same thing I always think about it because it always stands out to me so let's uh read the section as we were going now it's a we passage so Luke is here with with Paul okay this is part of the travel where Luke is there and as we were going to the place of prayer we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune telling okay that tells you all you need to know about her she has an actual demonic spirit

and this spirit is impersonating a a good or holy or or righteous being and she gives information so so some of these psychic people are just purely fake other ones are actually demonically empowered or some mixture of fake and demonic at any rate she's there is a demonic thing going on but what she does is weird she followed Paul and US crying out these men are Servants of the most high God who proclaimed to you the way of Salvation what why would a demon do that why would a demon emphasize the goodness and rightness of

the message why would a demon say that Paul is a servant of the most high and that they proclaim the way of Salvation why she kept doing this for days for many days and then Paul at some point I like this he becomes greatly annoyed and he turned to her and said I command you in the name of Jesus Christ excuse me said to the spirit not even to her to the spirit I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her and it came out of her that very hour and

boom her job is is ruined her owners aren't going to make money off her anymore so it says her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone and They seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers boom causing now now you're in trouble okay why wouldn't he let her just follow him around think about it in a really practical way you're out there preaching the gospel these people don't know the gospel they don't know God they don't know the truth at all and you're proclaiming Jesus and there's this demon

demon filled woman following you around telling everybody you're men of God and you preach the message of Salvation what could possibly go wrong with this scenario let's suppose that they get saved people hear and they receive and they get saved and the next day they see this woman walking through and they go and they say you are right I I received Jesus through them and it was amazing and she goes yes and here's more information I have for you this is Satan trying to get into the church he can't stop it so he wants to

get into leadership in it that's the agenda I think this this woman and ultimately the demon has with this woman is to get into the leadership I am a reliable person I'm going to Proclaim Jesus enough to hijack Jesus we see it all the time there's all kinds of movements that do this and groups that do this they use the name of Jesus to lead people away from Jesus and so I think that that's what's happening here um she becomes an authority a spiritual source of information for people because they receive and at the same

time she's following Paul around um it muddies the waters it confuses things for those who maybe have a little bit more discernment that they're like um why is this demon-possessed girl saying that you guys are legit right maybe they maybe this even causes them to doubt that Paul's for real because it looks like it's fake so they're just basically she's causing problems uh we don't need Satan's help to do ministry and that's that's I think why he gets annoyed and why he he casts her out she's saying what's true for a bad reason Satan scripture

says disguises himself as an angel of Light and it's no wonder his Min his ministers he disguises his servants as though they're Servants of Christ he absolutely does this so we have a great example in Acts 16 of realizing that just because someone says Jesus proclaims Jesus it doesn't always mean that their motives are right and that they are in fact helping and not a plant from the enemy I don't want to become paranoid but there's absolutely plenty of people who do this I was just recently thinking of about uh uh um someone who's done

this uh John Shelby Spong Bishop Spong he's a bishop and he was ultimately he was against core Christian teachings and doctrines he was opposed to them but he would wear the white collar and he would go around and do lectures and speak and go on TV and be interviewed and he would always present this unchristian version of Christianity so he would call himself Christian and he would do that but it was always ungodly and there's an example of this there's others too we see it on on TV all the time if you notice this they

almost never will interview or showcase a Godly reliable Bible gospel preaching Christian it's always someone who's a bad representative a bad example like if if if NBC News was covering Paul in his ministry they would have been like well we got this new preacher in town and uh and we were talking to one of one of his one of his uh teammates one of his ministry leaders um this demon-possessed servant girl and they would interview her that's who they would put on TV cuz Satan knows what he's doing all right let's go to the next

question number seven this comes in uh anonymously and you guys can always ask anonymous questions just put a and Q I will not read your username but you know your online you can just make an account that has a fake name and always ask that way too so the question here is um hey Mike thank you so much for your ministry you're very welcome Anonymous person it's been a great help to me um that does mean a lot to me I'm very encouraged to hear that really genuinely um so it's been a great help and

you say what does Philippians 1 129 mean when it says that God grants us belief in him is this deterministic great question Philippians 1:29 for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake so we have the idea that there's an external granting right God is giving you something and some maybe maybe some Calvinists I think probably a lot wouldn't use this verse I'm guessing a lot wouldn't use this verse I don't know I don't remember um but some might

say look what is God granting he's granting to you to believe so he's giving you faith and they might say that this is Calvinism because very much at the core of Calvinism this is this is not uh me saying it's right or wrong this at least for right now I'm just assessing what even is Calvinism right Calvinism is a belief that among other things but very much of the core is regeneration precedes faith that is at least logically speaking don't argue with me about the nature of time please at least logically speaking you are regenerated

by the Holy Spirit and that is the thing that causes you to have faith and that's why you get like these this Calvinism the Tulip letters so you total depravity right because you have to be regenerated before you can believe um you have uh irresistible Grace because when the Holy Spirit reg regenerates you of course you believe you automatic you believe because it's been given to you to believe you've you've got all these things you have limited atonement which is connected to that you have um perseverance of the Saints because you because you're regenerated by

the spirit and because it's sort of a purely a work of God to make you believe in him um it's going to last anyway there's other stuff there too but but this is really at the core and I'm not making this up like RC Sproul said it himself like you know if you want to understand Calvinism understand the one this one one thing regeneration precedes faith I do not hold that view I'm not a calvinist um so how would I respond to this verse if someone was to say what I just said about it that

it's been granted to you right to believe I would say just read the other words okay so it has been granted to you that this is what's been granted not you don't just grab the word believe teleport it over to the word granted and then say that's what has been granted it says here it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him that's not causing belief that's just that's just connecting what has been granted to you to the idea that it's this is going to be

for the sake of Jesus let me just read the verse it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also and here's what's granted suffer for his name what's been granted to you is that you can suffer for Christ Paul considers this this is a really amazing thing with Paul's writing he considers it a privilege to suffer for the sake of Christ now Paul again doesn't want to suffer for the sake of suffering he doesn't want to die Just To Die For A Cause but

he knows that when he suffers the reason is because it's for the sake of Christ and that is an amazing gift that I even get to be one who the reason why I'm suffering is because of the sake of Jesus Christ that's an amazing privilege and honor I I wear that like a crown okay I wear that like a wonderful thing I get to suffer for his name that's what's being granted here this doesn't have anything to do with Calvinism I don't believe um I don't think that the verse says that at all what has

been granted to you that you suffer for his sake now if if if if the text did say um belief is granted by God there is a way in which you can be a non-calvinist and you can absolutely say belief is granted by God because we are not saying here your belief is irresistibly caused by God that's different than saying it's granted or gifted by God it would be to Simply say belief the fact that you can believe the the act of you believing is something that God has given you but that doesn't mean he

irresistibly caused it right how would God have given it to me well he gave me capacity to believe he gave me uh Jesus Christ dying for me so that gives me the opportunity to believe he gave me a situation wherein I could respond in faith where the gospel was preached to me and the Holy Spirit was drawing me towards him so all of that is all the work of God and me being given this chance to believe that's one way in which I know I know calvinist you're watching you're not you don't agree with me

on this okay but we can at least go for clarity there there are non- Calvinists who will say that they think faith in that sense is a gift it's just not an irresistible gift that would be to say if you find a verse that talks about god-given faith it doesn't necessarily mean it's irresistible you need other scripture for that and if it's not irresistible then you don't have regeneration preceding Faith at least not based on the reasoning I just gave yeah calvinus I love you I go to church with many of you so look this

is uh an inhouse discussion among brothers and sisters who agree on so much stuff that um that hope we can have that discussion without conflict okay let's go to the next question that is number eight and comes in anonymously as well do you have any specific advice on how to deal with emotions when reading the Bible recently I can't even get through a few verses without feeling overwhelmed with anger or frustration um I think you would need I I think you you need a brother or sister to come alongside you in the middle of this

um I've not dealt with this issue particularly so I don't have kind of like that experience where I can sort of grab onto my own experience of this but it sounds like a very real spiritual battle that you're going through that that is not to say that it's demons attacking you I have no idea what's going on there but to say that there's spiritual consequences to this battle that you were going through and um you you shouldn't feel overwhelmed with anger or frustration whenever you read scripture and the question that I would have if I

if I had you with me if we could just go get a cup of coffee in the foyer of of a local church um would be to say um why and just let you talk for a while so think about this if I could walk you through some self-counseling um write down maybe maybe write it down if if this would help you you don't have to show it to anybody but you can it'd be great if you find one person to show to but write down why am I frustrated and write every every reason you

can think of and dig deep what what is it about when I open the scripture and I'm getting frustrated or angry why write it down is it you're dealing with doubt about scripture and you're mad it's you're mad because you're frustrated it's not written in a way that would would maybe help you out so you wouldn't doubt so much and you're feeling that that sense of anxiety and anger is it your doubt or is it because of um you read a verse of scripture and you think um I was told I would get healing if

I had enough faith and then I don't have healing or my kid didn't have healing or my my friend or whatever and some horrible thing happened and so I'm reading these verses that seem to be telling me something that's not real like is that it is there like an there's like an unbelief that you're fighting as you're reading the scripture and you're still trying to read it which I'm glad for you that you are then you got to address those issues you got to deal with that issue you got to deal with what was a

false teaching about healing that you received and now you're mad at the Bible but really you should be mad at this false teaching you received um the Bible doesn't promise that uh maybe you need to resolve some apologetic doubts that you have about scripture and then answer those questions and patiently look for those Solutions because I know plenty of people who've been frustrated about the Bible because they didn't feel like they had good answers to their questions maybe it's something else I don't know the Lord knows you know hopefully you know but I encourage you

to to get with some other believers talk to another Christian who can help you through this situation it's definitely not okay the way it is you can't just give up and you can't just sit there and writhe in Anger over scripture so God has Grace for you in your situation there's absolutely enough kindness and understanding and help and Grace from God and forgiveness for anything you need but you've got to start tapping into that in in faith and maybe someone can come alongside and help you so please seek out a Godly believer who you could

tell your story to I am not available for personal counseling you guys there's just obviously no way we've receiv received so many requests all the time I just say I can't do it um I'm not I'm not available for that um not not for online stuff and it's and it's not fruitful anyways online people are not going to be good counselors for you you need people who you can see face to face you need somebody who counsels you and then next Sunday they're in church next to you and a year later they're still there you

really need people that it doesn't have to be a pastor but you need to find a Godly wise person in your local church and ask them can we talk and if it doesn't work out at least you tried something good please please do that all right let's go to the next question um number nine yeah number nine Inferno voltage says Exodus 2110 says a man married to multiple women shouldn't deny them conjugal rights isn't each instance of intimacy in that situation adultery against one wife yeah so this is a polygamy related question Exodus 21:10 and

I um delved into the topic of polygamy I don't know maybe I'll do another video on that let me if you guys think I should if I do another video on it it's going to be based upon the outright lies that polygamists have been told about Greek and about the translation of a verse and about the meaning of a context here and there there's a lot of like exegetical like witchcraft going on in there and and I seen in my comment section they're like well the Roman 1 Corinthians 7 says each each woman wife have

her own husband and the word owned there means like you know she doesn't she's actually owned by him and that's what the word really means in Greek and you're like this is totally bogus like totally made up fabricated stuff and then people are just cutting and pasting commentary not commentaries but lexicons they they don't understand how to read and it's really bad that seems to be rif in the polygamy movement so maybe I'll do a video on that but um the exegetical stuff at any rate um I care about the guys caught up in that

movement okay but but what one one thing that's shocking is the amount of pride that that there is just permeating that movement as well at least from the guys I've I've interacted with online and it's pretty much almost all guys just the amount of arrogance that's there um arrogance will blind you you won't you won't see your own flaws that's the nature of of arrogance it it puts it puts blinders in your eyes okay anyways this verse Exodus 21:10 it's talks about a man who um we'll just I guess we'll just do verse 10 if

he this man take another wife to himself a second wife he shall not diminish her food her clothing or her marital rights and marital rights there does also include conjugal rights you guys know what we mean there um and if he does not do these three things for her she shall go out for nothing without payment of money um that means she doesn't have to pay right she goes out for nothing so she was a servant who then got married and this protects her from um sex slavery where a guy just kind of like adds

another he's like the servant she'll just be like my my play thing and I'll just I'll just make it okay because I'll I'll like make her my concubine and and instead what Exodus 21 is doing is it's taking a bad situation both with polygamy being bad and slavery being bad and it's protecting the woman's rights in that scenario you can't diminish her rights she has to be treated as a full wife no matter what knowing this it would prevent men from abusing women with various forms of sexual slavery and if you don't do these things

she goes out you can't hold any debt she might owe you a billion dollars it doesn't matter she goes out with with with no payment and uh anytime a servant left they had to leave with supplies supplies and um okay so here's the question you had um where is it you said he's married to multiple women he shouldn't deny them their conjugal rights isn't each instance of intimacy with these different wives in that situation adultery against one of the wives I think my answer to your question is going to be logically if if if polygamy

is in fact wrong monogamy is what's meant to be then each instance of sleeping with a second wife a third wife or whatever is an act of adultery against the other wives it's also because these marriages I think I think now let me give you some things i' I've worked on this a lot actually uh I think these polygamous marriages are real you are actually married married and so it's also an act of faithfulness in that marriage the marriage he has with wife number one when he's with her he's being faithful to he's not being

I shouldn't use the word faithfulness here it's going to make you think I I mean something I don't mean it's an act of appropriate marital relations and obligation when the two of them are intimate together but then when he does this with a different wife his active appropriate marital relations and good marital relations is also an act of adultery against this other wife it's complicated it is both a a good act and an evil act at the same time because the context has made it this way if if I had two families immorally I have

down the street there's another house and I have another wife and I've got kids there and then I leave here to go visit them visiting them was good because I do have obligations to them but it was bad because I just abandoned my wife Coming Back was good because I came to but then it was bad because I abandoned my oblig to them sin makes life ridiculously complicated right monogamy keeps life simple polygamy makes it very complicated and yes being with one wife versus another versus another is both a morally good and morally evil thing

because you created a situation where and that is the case um furthermore the man commits adultery right but the that particular woman she's only ever slept with her husband in a polygamous relationship it's usually more often than not almost always it's it's one man with multiple women also known as polygyny um which is just a certain specific form of polygamy so a man's with multiple women who's committing adultery in this scenario this woman is sleeping with her actual husband they are married so she is not committing adultery but he is cuz he's sleeping with someone

other than his other wife yeah they're married but that that's not your your actual first wife or that's not your second wife whatever you're you're sleeping with somebody who is not this wife so you're you're both um doing something that is appropriate in marriage and doing something that is adulterous and this is why I answer the question of like should a polygamy get polygamist get divorced with the answer the short version is the wife has a right to divorce because that man has committed adultery against every one of those wives so they have a right

to divorce the husband does not because those wives have not done that to him they've not been unfaithful to him he's been unfaith to them so they have the ability to divorce and this is polygamist are going to hate this cu the the the the manosphere polygamy movement versus the liberal the liberal side of things they they just think you can make any marriage Arrangement you want there's no rules of any kind the manosphere is very much about rules and so they're like um uh they want the man to be in charge the man to

have all the power in the relationship so for me to say the women in a polygamy relationship have a right to divorce and leave that man because of the iamy I think that that's a Biblical thing to say based on scripture I will link a video down below where I get into that in more detail it's like an 11-minute clip where I talk about this in great detail what if a polygamist gets saved should he leave his wives do they get divorced do they stay together how do you counsel them I read a whole like

long paper uh was it a dissertation or was it some kind of research paper that was written by a missions organization in Africa who's dealing with this stuff all the time and they were like this is a real tough issue for us so yeah that I think is how we hold our all our principles together the man's married to multiple women he shouldn't deny them their conjugal rights says it right there now he also shouldn't marry multiple women but the reality is it does happen it does happen so God gave protections for women in that

scenario let me know if you guys think I should do another video on the polygamy stuff addressing their actual exegetical arguments um not the name calling so petty okay number 10 Brian mercil Merc Mercier I don't I'm sorry Brian I don't know how to pronounce your name but probably nobody else does and you're used to it what is the biblical purpose of the church and do you believe in modern Christian do you believe that modern Christianity is fulfilling that purpose today okay what's the biblical purpose of the church anytime you try to have like a

one note answer to something like what's the purpose of fill in- the blank it can be pretty challenging and you can spend a lot of time you know worrying and working on trying to get that answer down correctly um the biblical purpose of the church I mean you could just simply say and this is a safe answer is to glorify God right um he's redeemed us that we might we might glorify him I think there's a great answer there um but you could also see the purpose of the church as relationship with Christ right we

are his bride okay but but but those aren't really separate things are they because having a healthy relationship with Christ involves glorifying him and glorifying God involves properly glorifying God at least as it fits the purpose of the church involves having a relationship with him as the bride of Christ I think that basically the the purpose of the church though is is um seen in maybe the the kind of the act of communion it's the idea that you and me as Christians are united to Jesus Christ communion and United to each other in fellowship and

love so if we look at it with the love aspect love receiving the love of God loving Lord back in in in deep personal relationship as well as loving each other right the these three remain but the greatest of these is love I think love is probably the purpose of the church in that sense but that's a Eternal purpose of the church isn't it because what I've described is all stuff that lasts on into eternity it goes on forever but the church has a mission on the earth of evangelism that is to bring in more

people into that body of Christ that does not carry on into eternity so it's not part of our Eternal purpose in that sense but it's very much Jesus says go out into all the world preach the gospel make disciples so I guess maybe it's just Brian maybe it's the way that I think about these issues that I have a hard time saying a that's the purpose don't call it anything else other answers are wrong it's this is a there's probably a lot of ways to answer this question but might I just say the agenda of

the church is evangelism sanctification mutual upbuilding and glorifying God with all that we've got like these are the purposes right now of the church um do I believe modern Christianity is fulfilling that purpose today this is this is also tough for me to answer and I'll tell you um the reason why um how many churches do you personally know and I mean you know no you know the pastor and what they teach or pastors or Elders you know the people and the lives that they live both in the church and and outside of when they're

in Fellowship you know them well so that you actually could assess the health of that church count on your hands how many churches do you know that well maybe one for almost all of us the answer is going to be one or maybe zero you can assess that perhaps but when you're trying to assess Global Christianity or American Christianity or British Christianity you're doing it based off of small bits of you're you're seeing tips of icebergs and you're just sort of guessing at what's underneath this can be a bit problematic there are obvious problems okay

there are obvious problems but sometimes the icebergs you see are just like the standout mega church or the rare example of of a church that doesn't really match most you know most churches in the US are like less than 50 people but whenever you think of United States churches you probably think of like Hillsong New York or something you know and you're thinking of like these giant churches and then you're evaluating them from this distance where you know very little about them and then you're projecting that onto all churches in the area I I don't

think that that's healthy that being said it doesn't look great the modern Church in the United States okay it doesn't look great it doesn't look great um I just recognize there's a there's a there's a limit to how much I actually know about any of these churches I'm evaluating when me and my wife were looking for a new fellowship and we took a long time to do it we visited a lot of churches we listened to their sermons we read their statements of faith we checked out their Ministries um and we were at least where

I live okay Southern California um I was disappointed in the outward Ministry at least as it relates to Sunday mornings now I don't have an evaluation of the godliness of the individuals in the churches the people the fellowship there my brothers and sisters who I love I don't have an evaluation of that but as far as the Sunday morning discipleship and teaching that took place I was generally disappointed that was pretty pretty big bummer I was like man I thought there I thought I thought that the landscape was better than it is because I'm going

to like conservative churches that are more Bible leaning and thinking but it was just like um it wasn't great um in my opinion okay so yeah it doesn't look that great but I just want to have a little humility and realize that what I what I see are tips of icebergs tips of Select icebergs and then I'm making judgments about everybody um another downside of this is when you do evaluate the the the church like this you can get it's so easy to get Doom and Gloom and let me give you let me give you

a Biblical example okay Elijah he is a prophet of God who stands up o so many others he's an amazing man God uses him so powerfully Elijah and there's a point where Elijah gets up on Mount carmell and he faces off with the prophets of Baal and ashra by the way people forget they were there too and there's the whole like fire come down and you cut yourselves or maybe your God's in the bathroom H call out loud or maybe he's on the potty and he's mocking them and it's actually a pretty amazing story it's

it's funny it's it's it's intense it shows God's Wrath and judgment it also shows his his truth and his power um after this happens Elijah gets totally depressed I sometimes try to think what was he thinking when he got super depressed after this happened like he doesn't want to eat he's like Lord just take my life just take me out I'm the only one left they've burned your your your altars they there's so many false teachers and false leaders and false prophets and all this stuff just and this is in your your land Israel your

people look how bad it is just get me out of here I just I just want to die I sometimes think what was going on in Elijah's mind you know if you were we think of Mount Carmel is this glorious moment of power but if Elijah when he left he had to be thinking I can't believe there were so many prophets of Baal I can't believe how many worshippers of Ashera showed up and yeah the people responded and they slew them they they they took them out because God showed himself but but these same people

were worshiping there were there was nobody it was me I was alone in this land of Israel it was just me I was the only one and he felt like he looked at the landscape and was like it's all the churches are apostate everybody's it's doomed nobody serves God nobody cares and this is how you maybe look at the Christian church not you maybe you don't I don't know what you're thinking but maybe somebody listening you're looking at the Christians in the US or the Christians in your country wherever you're at you're in Australia you're

in South Africa you're you're you're you're just seeing all the prosperity preaching nonsense you're you're in England and you see a lot more Progressive stuff than you've ever seen before and you you like can't even find a church that cares about these issues and you feel like Elijah you feel like I'm alone Lord they don't care they've torn down your your your views of marriage and faithfulness they've torn down your views of sexual Purity they've torn down the exclusivity of Christ and the the goodness and the the trustworthiness of the word of God and the

power that it has to change in discip us they just it's all torn down nobody cares but me when God came to Elijah at this point Elijah says all this stuff I'm the only one left and he says I have 10,000 people 10,000 people who have not bowed their need to all the problem is Elijah you just don't know them like you're in the conflict you're in the ministry you're in there doing this stuff and you see all the apostasy but you don't see my Faithful Servants they're there you just don't see them this is

something I encourage myself with when it comes to the Christian church they are there you just don't see them the fact that people even follow my YouTube content like this is not content for shallow Christians this is not content for people who want um a Joel ostein experience okay this is this is not going to do it for you you are called to die to yourself to set aside your sin which you absolutely deal with every day and follow Jesus with all you have this is you are called to nothing less than to know Christ

and to share him with the world no matter what they do to you persecute or hate you for it and to live for Jesus in this life and and the fact that I even have subscribers online is proof that I'm not alone and you're not alone so yes it's discouraging but don't get too discouraged you're not alone don't you dare give up don't you throw in the towel don't you say I'm the only one that's what that's a mistake Elijah made and um and then God calls Elisha right the guy who came next almost like

yeah okay Elijah you're done I guess I guess I'm not done but maybe maybe you're done I don't want to be that guy I want to be hopeful I want to try to stir up what remains that is healthy and good and um but while being realistic that things don't look as good as I'd like them to so yeah um there was a question earlier I meant to get to with the ver so this will be a little bonus thing I'll do here um Helen in question six asked you know why was Paul annoyed with

a possessed female slave in Acts 16:16 when she was actually telling the truth I answered that question but you said what about Philippians 1:18 and I never I never went to that verse I remembered later so Philippians 1:18 says what then only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth Christ is proclaimed and in that I Rejoice okay yeah perfect what does Paul mean by this passage um okay he I'm going just read a little more of it I want you to know brothers that what has happened to me has really served to

advance the gospel that's always what matters to Paul so that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ they they learn his imprisonment is for Christ we'll talk about how in a second and most of the brothers having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment are much more bold to speak the word without fear some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry but others from Goodwill the latter do it out of love knowing that I'm put here for the defense of the Gospel

the former why do they proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment my theory on what Paul's talking about here is as he gets up and he's uh standing in court to defend himself people come up and they go here's what Paul is preaching here's what this guy's doing and they describe Christianity they're doing it to get him in trouble they he teaches that Jesus is a king a rival to Caesar and Paul is sitting there going I'm in the courts and everybody here is hearing about Jesus

even though they're only mentioning his name to get me in trouble I think that's what Paul's talking about there he would still argue with them he would still fight against them but he would Rejoice that Christ is proclaimed maybe part of that is the reason why he waited a few days before he finally rebuked that demonic uh demonically possessed girl or rebuke the demon I should say um maybe that's why he waited a few days maybe that's the case I'm not sure we have to keep so we want Christ preached and we will rejoice in

it um but that doesn't mean we can't confront false teaching or that we can't call out stuff that we see as unhealthy to the body of Christ we have to have wisdom in those things so hopefully that helps yeah there's probably more we talk about there but we're done so let's pray father we pray for hopefulness in our hearts um Paul is such a good example in the New Testament of one who has hopefulness in the midst of seeing real heavy difficulties quite a lot help us to see a path forward and how to serve

you in the midst of difficult times right now for any Christian who's listening right now that is feeling despair that is feeling like oh it's all over there's no great work of God coming there's no point in me pursuing those things or hoping in those things and we pray that you would remind us of Elijah and the 10,000 The Remnant that you would remind us of our calling to be light in a dark place and that the fewer the lights are that are shining the more important it is that some of them do shine we

ask for courage and strength that you build us up in Christ that we might um be like actual evangelists and preachers and ministers to those around us spreading the gospel of Christ because the world needs it real bad in Jesus name amen see you guys Monday Monday next Hebrews video Monday I'm going to talk about Andy Stanley so Andy Stanley has this unh thing I'm going to address it in detail um unhitching from the Old Testament because it relates to Hebrews Hebrews 1 talks about the connection between Jesus and the Old Testament so to offer

a Counterpoint I'll show where Andy Stanley talks about disconnecting the Old Testament from Jesus and from Christianity that among other things um Monday at 1M but it will be live and then it'll be on the channel after that so next Hebrew study coming up soon all right yall take care for