The Truth About Mormonism: 10 Qs with Mike Winger (Ep 82)

0:00Speaker A Friday, and we're going to Mormon Today and talk about some Mormon stuff. And I really hope that Mormons will actually end up watching this video. And I hope you will realize I'm not doing this to ridicule you. You may feel that it's definitely not in my heart. My desire is to share truth and to bring light and to get the fullness of the gospel to you. And I hope that you'll hear it in light of that because Mormonism has got some issues. And we're going to talk about the truth of Mormonism revealed in one specific way. Just one little aspect that we're going to focus on that I think gives us something important. And then I'm going to go to your guys questions. I forgot to put my counter up. I'll do it in a minute. I'll do it in many minutes, actually. I'll just do it when I'm getting to the first question. So Mormonism, did you know they teach that Eve eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a good thing, that it was wise, that Adam was courageous because he did the same thing, too. That is a Mormon doctrine. And you might be surprised because they have, for a lot of my life at least, have been trying to present themselves as Christians. In fact, Mormons, uh, that I talk to, especially online because, you know, this is the way online conversations are. Get extremely bothered, like, personally hurt when you say that they're not Christian, that Mormonism is not Christian. We have, uh, Dallas Jenkins, uh, from the Chosen, who's come out, who's done, I think, many good things, but has also come out in defense of Mormonism by defending his Mormon friends. Like, I have Mormon friends and I know they're real Christians. And I'm just like, oh, no, no. If they're truly Mormon, they're not truly Christian. If they're truly Christian, they're not truly Mormon. The two are incompatible. I'm going to show that incompatibility with a particular issue today. And I will do it by actually showing you what the current president of the church, at the time he gave this message you're about to hear, he was an elder. Now he's the president of the church. He is the top, right? Like this is the top top. There's nobody higher than Dallin Oaks, nobody more authoritative spiritually. And when you see the president of the church, you're not just seeing a guy that's in charge of an organization. Right there is the quorum of the 12. That is the Mormon Church teaches that right now they have 12 men who are literally apostles of Jesus Christ, and he's the chief among them. It's the closest thing Mormons have to a pope, right? That's the president of their church. So we're going to look at what he says, and he's going to quote other Mormon sources, like Joseph Smith, and you're going to hear from the horse's mouth, so to speak, what Mormons actually believe about this. Then I want to play for you a clip, a video from Eric Hernandez, who's a friend of mine. Uh, we're not close friends, but we're definitely on friendly terms, and we've known each other for a number of years. Who's a Christian apologist that interviewed a Mormon and talked about this very issue. And you're going to hear a boldness on the part of the Mormon president talking to Mormons. But when this Mormon gets asked about Eve and the teaching in Mormonism on Eve, you find out he doesn't either doesn't know about it or doesn't want to admit it. I think he doesn't even know about it. I'll play that clip later and you guys can check out Eric's YouTube channel. I've linked it down below. Let's get right to it, and then we'll go to your questions. Here's the video from the president of the Mormon Church.

3:15Speaker B When Adam and Eve received the first commandment, they were in a transitional state. No longer in the spirit world, but with physical bodies not yet subject to death and not yet capable of procreation.

3:28Speaker A I just want to say, when he says no longer in the spiritual world, that's because. And I won't get into this in detail, but they believe that every one of us was born in heaven in a spiritual body. Like, uh, born. Actually born, not created, born in heaven. From Heavenly Father having intercourse with one of his wives. Which one? Probably Eve. Uh, sorry, probably. Probably Heavenly Mother, they call her. But he probably has many wives. This is an area of Mormon theology that's fuzzy. It seems as though he has to have many wives. At least multiple of the former presidents have said that. At any rate, you're born in heaven and then you come to earth so that you can get a physical body and hopefully that you can then become exalted and become a God. That's Mormon doctrine. And, yeah, you want to become a God. That is classic Mormon doctrine. Mormons today pretend that they don't want that. Sometimes, depending on who they're talking to. Um, of course you want that. That's your theology. That's the glorious thing anyway. That's why he says, you know, they left heaven and came to the garden.

4:27Speaker B They could not fulfill the Father's First Commandment without transgressing the barrier between the bliss of the Garden of Eden and the terrible trials and wonderful opportunities of mortal life.

4:40Speaker A So there's a dilemma in the garden, and it's not the same one as the Bible. The dilemma is Adam and Eve can't have kids. They can't be fruitful and multiply unless sin enters the world. It's required. They can't purely be together and have children and have that be godly. There's a lack of awareness of good and evil to the point where they don't even know how to procreate. That's the Mormon theology.

5:02Speaker B For reasons that have not been revealed, this transition or fall could not happen without a transgression, an exercise of moral agency amounting to a willful breaking of a law.

5:16Speaker A That sounds like sin, but they're going to reject this is not sin. They think the willful breaking of the law is like a technicality almost. It's like, not that you know, it's not sin. You'll see.

5:26Speaker B This would be a planned offense, a formality to serve an eternal purpose. The prophet Lehi explained that if Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen, but would have remained in the same state in which he was created. And they would have had no children, wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery, doing no good, for they knew no sin.

5:53Speaker A So in Mormon theology and Second Nephi, that's from the Book of Mormon, right? This is their official text. It's like the most perfect book in the world as far as they're concerned. And it says that when Adam and Eve didn't have the knowledge of good and evil, it actually meant that they couldn't do good either. They couldn't do good things. So in order for them to do good things, they had to also know sin. They had to be able to do evil things. And so it was a formality. The eating of the tree, the original sin, was a formality, not a horrible act. It was actually something they're happy about, something they celebrate, something. They look at us and think we're weird. Christians throughout all of history think we're weird because we look at that and say, that was a failure. That was, uh, a sin.

6:40Speaker B But the fall was planned. Lehi concludes, because all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. It was Eve who first transgressed the limits of Eden in order to initiate the conditions of mortality. Her act, whatever its nature, was formally a transgression, but eternally a, uh, glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life.

7:09Speaker A Uh, what? Yeah, no, this is what we get. Mormonism is not Christianity. They use Christian words. They don't have Christian meanings. An example here is the Fall. The Fall is seen as a formal transgression. And by transgression, they don't mean what you mean by. When you say transgression, you mean someone did something evil, right? You transgressed. That was a sin. They don't mean that. They mean transgression. Separate category from sin. Sin's over here. Transgression, technicality. You broke the law, but it was planned by God. It was necessary for good to, uh, be done in the world. You had to partake of this. So they separate sin and transgression as different categories. I'll go to Scripture because we're going to learn to think biblically about this today, to really drop, drive home that this Mormon doctrine is completely contrary to Christianity. And it's only one of many. Many, many, many, many examples I could give of Mormon doctrine that goes directly against Christianity. Mormons you may love. That doesn't make them Christians. They need the gospel as much as a Buddhist, as much as a Hindu, as much as anybody else. They need the gospel, and they do not currently have it.

8:17Speaker B Adam showed his wisdom by doing the same, and thus Eve and Adam fell. That man might be

8:28Speaker A Adam. It was wise Adam, when he saw that Eve had eaten of the fruit, she gave it to him and he had wisdom enough to eat of the fruit. That is the Mormon teaching. That is Mormon belief. That is Mormonism. And this is just one small area. Well, it's a big area, but one single big area. There's plenty of other ones that demonstrates this.

8:50Speaker B Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter Day Saints.

9:03Speaker A Just soak this in. They're responding now to Christian teaching. Now. This is old school Mormonism sneaking out here. And you know, current Mormonism is old school Mormonism. But there's a veneer. There's this, like, thick veneer of PR material where it's like, well, we don't want to talk about exaltation. We don't want to talk about, like, the Adam God doctrine that Brigham Young said. God revealed to him that, that Adam was literally God the Father in, in the garden. He said God told him that he was acting as the president of the church, the prophet at the time, um, the guy who took over after Joseph Smith. Um, you know, they don't talk about that stuff. They don't want to talk about, uh, polygamy in heaven or, um, just the nature of Jesus and his brotherhood with Satan. Um, that he's our oldest brother, our older brother.

9:49Speaker C Right.

9:49Speaker A Um, those things tend to not get talked about. The King Follette sermon that Joseph Smith gave where he says, God was once as we are. Um, that God was a man and is an exalted man, that God had a God, still has a God, by the way. God has a God that he must submit to. Based on Mormon theology consistently. Just as you can then become a God, you're a man who can become God just like God did. And then you will still submit to God, but you can get your own world where you have, like, some version of omnipotence that's not real. Not, not, not the same meaning of the word over that planet. And then you'll have people that worship you as God. If you are good enough, if you're good enough. In the Mormon Church, it's the same lie Satan said to Eve.

10:35Speaker B You'll be his God informed by revelation. We celebrate Eve's act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall.

10:47Speaker A We celebrate her act, the Fall sin, going against God, doing, doing evil. That which brought the curse. We celebrate it. It was courage and wisdom. That's Mormon theology on Eve. It's wild, but it demonstrates something. If you get. And this is what Eric Hernandez will talk about with the Mormon, that I'll share with you so I won't spoil it too much. But if you get the Fall wrong, you don't even understand what Jesus came for. Right? You misunderstand the very nature of Jesus on the cross.

11:18Speaker B Joseph Smith taught that it was not a sin because God had decreed it. Brigham Young declared we should never blame Mother Eve. Not the least.

11:31Speaker A Joseph Smith taught it's not a sin because God decreed it. Okay, but if you read the text, what did God decree? Like, what was his actual command? Do not eat of that tree. Now, if you want to zoom out and say, within God's sovereignty, Mike, don't you believe that God planned on the Fall? Yeah, God plans on all evils that ever take place, and he plans on them. I know they'll happen. I'm going to have a plan for that when it does. That doesn't mean that he decrees it in the sense of it being good. And that's what Mormons mean. They don't even mean the Calvinistic version of the decree where everything's decreed and it's like divine determinism. They don't mean that because they don't believe that God doesn't even have omniscience in Mormonism, they say he's omniscient, but they don't mean it. Again, Christian words, not Christian meanings. God doesn't exhaustively know the future on Mormonism. Um, so not only is it not Calvinist, it's like open theism. Um, it's not Arminian either. Right. Or whatever I am. So then there's this decree, which means that God wanted them to do it. It was a desire in the eyes of God is a good thing. That's what he. That's what it means. They don't even use the word decree the same way that we do.

12:38Speaker B Elder Joseph Fielding Smith said, I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin. This was a transgression of the law, but not a sin, for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do.

12:55Speaker A Never talk about it like it's a sin. It was not a sin. It was a transgression, not a sin. So you remember, these are two different categories. See, in Christian theology, if you transgress, you have also sinned. That's how the term is used in Scripture. Those who commit transgression have sinned, but these are separate categories. And, uh, typically when we do give them, often they're used as synonyms in Christian theology. Sin and transgression. When people do distinguish between the two, we don't usually make sin the worst of the two. We make transgression the worst of the two. Whereas sin is you did something that was wrong, or whereas transgression means you went against, like a divine instruction. Right. Like something that was whether it was revealed in conscience or revealed in, uh, like, uh, specific law. Uh, you violated a command. Um, now really, they're both part of the same overlapping circles, though. Either way. But there's nobody who uses it the way that Joseph Smith does. I say nobody. You can always find some guy who does stuff in church history even. But no, it's not a Christian view.

13:59Speaker B This suggested contrast between a sin and a transgression reminds m us of the careful wording in the second article of faith. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, but not for Adam's transgression.

14:14Speaker A See, uh, when we read this, we think it means something totally different than they do because now they've defined sin and transgression differently. He's using this to affirm Adam didn't even actually sin, but when he ate of the tree.

14:25Speaker B It also echoes a familiar distinction in the law. Some acts, like murder, are crimes because they are inherently wrong. Other acts, like operating without a license, are crimes only because they are legally prohibited.

14:43Speaker A Yeah, but, you know, humans laws will be flawed, but God's. God's commands are not flawed. So when God says, don't do something, it's always wrong to disobey that because you're disobeying the divine one, the holy one, the righteous one. It's always sin to violate God's commands. You can compare this to operating, uh, a tractor without a license or something like that or whatever he said. Uh, but that is to. To give an example of, uh, something trivial that might even be a law that shouldn't even be around. Right. Um, there's times where, like, people can't store stuff in their garage in my local laws, unless you get a permit, you know, to not use it for your car. And it's like, this is a ridiculous law. This is, in my opinion, this is a violation of, uh, my natural rights. It's just, it's ridiculous. But you can't compare something like that to God's commands not to eat of the tree, lest you die.

15:33Speaker B Under these distinctions, the act that produced the fall was not a sin inherently wrong, but a transgression wrong because it was formally prohibited. These words are not always used to denote something different, but this distinction seems meaningful in the circumstances of the fall. Modern revelation shows that our first parents understood the necessity of the Fall. Adam declared, blessed be the name of God. For because of my transgression, my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again, in the flesh, I shall see God.

16:11Speaker A You're like, when did Adam say that, Mike? I've read the Bible. I read Genesis. Adam doesn't say a whole lot. You know, Is it somewhere else? Is it in Isaiah somewhere? Actually, it's in the book called Moses. Moses. I don't remember that book in the Bible. Yeah, uh, no, no, no. Joseph Smith wrote that one. There's a book called Moses that Joseph Smith gave to the Mormons. He wrote, he authored. He said it was revealed from God. And it's supposed to contain, like, words from Moses. It's an extra mosaic book. Like, you have the Torah, you've got the Pentateuch. Excuse me, you've got the pentateuch.

16:50Speaker B Right.

16:50Speaker A Well, Torah, same thing. But, uh, I'll use the English one. We've got the first five books of Moses, and now we have a sixth book of Moses called Moses. And in it, it reveals this whole conversation that Moses has where he's celebrating the fall to some degree, and he's quoting it here. This is Mormonism. Mormonism takes what is Christian and it strips it of its value. It skins Christianity so that the face looks the same, but the substance underneath is a different thing, a different person.

17:21Speaker B Note the different perspective and the special wisdom of Eve, who focused on the purpose and effect of the great plan of happiness. Were it not for our transgression, we never should have had seed and never should have known good and evil and the joy of our redemption and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.

17:44Speaker A This is a great example of Joseph Smith saying, uh, my theology is not there in the Bible. I'll write a new book, say it's from Moses, and I'll stick it in there. So we have transgression being treated as something positive. In this case, we have the teaching that they could not have had kids unless they had sinned, which is not in the Bible and doesn't make logical sense unless you think sex is sinful by nature. Um, which is no. Uh, were they able to eat? That was a good thing. Eating is good. Were they able to eat? Well, yeah, because they ate the fruit, like, they obviously could eat. Were they able to reason and talk? Talking and reasoning is good. Yeah, they did that too. They clearly could do good. Um, that's a misunderstanding of the phrase good and evil in the text, but it also includes the eternal life which God giveth unto all who are what? Obedient. All the obedient. So, again, another Mormon theological point. Crammed into the mouth of Adam, crammed into the mouth of Moses, stuck into a book called Moses, written by a modern American.

18:48Speaker B In his vision of the redemption of the dead, President Joseph F. Smith saw the great and mighty ones assembled to meet the Son of God, and among them was our glorious mother Eve.

19:02Speaker A And that's the end of that part of the message. You guys can go look up the Great plan of Happiness if you want to see the whole thing. It's available on, uh, lds.org that's one example of Mormonism is just not Christian. This is not Christianity. You're not Christian. If you're Mormon and you're truly Mormon, you're not a Christian. If you're truly Christian, you're not Mormon. This is not an insult. This is just reality. Mormonism is a restorationist view. They believe the gospel died. Christianity effectively died until Joseph Smith restored it because his message was so different. They don't believe in the God you believe in. They believe in God that was a man who became a God. He wasn't even always God. He doesn't have the power to create out of nothing. He's never actually created anything out of nothing. Nothing. He's never created out of nothing. On, um, Mormonism, God reorganizes matter. He arranges material that's already in existence. He doesn't actually create things. He has a God. His God has a God. His God has a God. His God has a God. God has a wife. He procreates with her in heaven, biologically, because he's a humanoid with physical body, with bones and flesh. He has those things. Jesus, he didn't just, um, become God who took on humanity, so he's still God, but he takes on humanity. In Mormonism, the Father starts as a humanoid, right? Then he becomes God, so he takes on godhood as a secondary attribute. And you can do the same. This is Mormonism. It's a completely different gospel. The purpose of the cross is different. All these things are different. So here's the clip from Eric Hernandez that I wanted to play for you guys. Uh, check this out.

20:44Speaker D The reason I know that we have a different gospel, that the audience has a different gospel, is because before we can agree on the good news, we have to first understand what the bad news is.

20:53Speaker A And, uh, so I'm sorry to pause, but, um, this is him speaking again with a Mormon. In case you missed that, you may join the stream after I preface this. Eric Hernandez, Christian apologist. Solid guy. He's got a lot of wisdom. Check out his YouTube channel. I linked it down below. Uh, but it's just Eric Hernandez. If you don't want to go click the link, you can check it out. And he's talking to a Mormon here, and he confronts him with the very thing that we've been discussing in the first question for today, which is, you know, what do Mormons teach about Adam and Eve?

21:21Speaker D You and I have different conceptions and different starting points because we don't even agree on what the bad news is. The fall. Is that something you celebrate? The fall of Adam and Eve? Was that something good that happened?

21:34Speaker C Um, I mean. I mean, that's kind of put in a weird frame. I wouldn't say a celebration.

21:40Speaker D Who. Who's your current president right now of LDS Church?

21:44Speaker C D. You know, he talks about the six different types of salvation. If you want to get into that conversation.

21:49Speaker D No, I just want to quote him. It says, here's what he says again on the church website. Some Christians condemn.

21:54Speaker A I want to say before he reads this quote, some may see what Eric's doing as a little bit like, wow, you're not being as friendly as I want you to be here, Eric, you know, he's. He's doing great. I think he's doing absolutely great. And I. I think he's doing this absolutely out of love and care for the gentleman who's talking to. He's having a hard time because the gentleman doesn't want to actually follow the logic of the conversation. He's sort of wanting to veer away from it. Maybe he's just not aware of the issue. That's okay. But Eric has to do what he has to do to keep him on target.

22:21Speaker D Totally appropriate E for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter Day Saints, exclamation mark. Informed by revelation. We celebrate Eve's act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall. So you're. You're welcome to disagree with your living prophet. Of course you're welcome.

22:40Speaker C No, I'm not disagreeing.

22:41Speaker D Your revelation in your scriptures, but your living prophet says that the LDS celebrates it and they call it Eve's act honor, and it's wisdom and courage.

22:50Speaker C So let me explain it this way.

22:52Speaker D Um, do you agree with him here?

22:55Speaker C Um, the answer that, like, I didn't disagree with him before.

22:58Speaker D Do you think we should ever.

23:00Speaker A So he. He did disagree with him before. He just didn't know it, but he does in principle. He doesn't want to disagree. I don't blame a gentleman who's Mormon for not really knowing that much about his religion. He's engaging in a dialogue online. That's awesome. Good for you, man. Good for you. I hope that you'll be given this thought and that it will sink in in a good way and you'll leave Mormonism and you'll put your faith in Jesus Christ. Um, but he was disagreeing with him. That was clear.

23:25Speaker D Ever listen to Satan?

23:28Speaker A I'm gonna back that up.

23:29Speaker D That the LDS celebrates it and they call it Eve's act on.

23:32Speaker A So he says, should you ever listen to Satan? Now he's gonna ask this question, and it's a good question, because saying should you ever listen to Satan is exactly what Eve did. And they're saying Eve did what she should do. Right and he's like, she listened to Satan. Should you do that? Just trying to break through the. The religious indoctrination that exists there. Um, to get him to see, like, Mormonism is not Christianity, bro. The Bible is completely contradictory to this,

23:57Speaker D and it's wisdom and courage.

24:00Speaker C So let me explain it this way.

24:02Speaker D Um, do you agree with him here?

24:05Speaker C Um, the answer that, like, I didn't disagree with him before.

24:08Speaker D Do you think we should ever listen to Satan?

24:11Speaker C Um, like, when you say you listen to Satan, what do you mean exactly?

24:17Speaker D I feel like you're kind of dodging, I think.

24:21Speaker A I didn't add the sound effect, but it was. But it was good. That was Eric. It depends. He can't answer it because it's the theology that's driving him. It's not logic and reason. It's. It's. It's. I know my Mormonism is true. I'm not sure how to make that work with what I'm experiencing right now. And sadly, what probably happens in the majority of the time is a confrontation like this happens and the person goes away. And it's like Satan steals away the word that was sown, and it has no impact on them more often than not. But that doesn't stop you. Your evangelism always goes forward, regardless of what percentage of times it is successful. Sometimes you're just starting a process that may have an effect later, and it's worth doing, but to see it in real time. I want Mormons to be confronted with the fact that Joseph Smith has made you a victim of his lies and of his fake prophecies. And he's not the Brother Joseph you imagine he is. He was a man who was listening to Satan.

25:18Speaker C I want you to.

25:18Speaker A Want you to be interactive.

25:19Speaker D You just say yes or no and then get to the explanation. Because I'm just. I just.

25:22Speaker C Yeah, but it's not a yes or no question.

25:30Speaker D That all I hear is you're just either disagreeing with your president and calling.

25:34Speaker C No.

25:34Speaker D Uh, what. I'm an interpretation. Or you do agree with what he's saying. And if you do, that's fine. You should, as lds. But that just goes to show we do have a different gospel because.

25:44Speaker C Right.

25:44Speaker D We don't agree on the good news because we don't even have the same bad news. Is it possible that you. You may disagree with your living president and prophet on some things? Yes or no?

25:54Speaker C Um, like, we're not. Like. Like, I don't know if he likes certain foods or something like that. I don't know. But when it comes to theology.

26:00Speaker D Doctrinal.

26:01Speaker C Doctrinal. Um, your disagreement is.

26:07Speaker D Here's my disagreement. We should not celebrate Eve's act, call it courageous wisdom or honor it, because it was deliberate disobedience. We should never follow Satan. And yet your living president is celebrating Eve following and listening to Satan. Here's what's odd to me. The very first temptation in Scripture was Satan telling Adam and Eve, you can be like God. And scripture tells, it's clear we should not follow or listen to Satan. And yet, the very first temptation given to Adam and Eve, given to mankind is the very selling point of LDS theology. You can be like God.

26:40Speaker A Good job.

26:40Speaker B Um, Eric.

26:41Speaker A This is why I've told Eric. I'll tell you guys. What I told him is that he should do more conversations. Just get people on Zoom or whatever and just have conversations. He's very good at it. But this issue. Oh, yeah, we're on question. This is question number one. It has been for a while now, this issue of the selling point of LDS theology, uh, make no mistake, it is that you can become a God. You get to become a God. The men can become gods, the women become gods. The women are perpetually producing babies. If they get to that level of exaltation, they're perpetually producing babies because they're going to create their own world and they're going to populate it with their children. They will have physical bodies in heaven. So there'll be constant, constant pregnancy. And there's. It's not clear in Mormonism what that looks like. Um, but this is one reason why polygamy is so important in Mormonism and has been historically Brigham Young. I mean, whatever Mormon's going to tell me, like, Mike, no, you don't. You misunderstand Mormonism. I'm like, I could just quote Brigham Young on polygamy. He. Let's just say he made it a. He demanded it as a necessary reality of their faith. And one of the reasons is because you want to have lots of wives so that when you get exalted, you can have lots of babies. Now, there's been other presidents who've said other things, especially after they outlawed polygamy, but guess what? They still do polygamy in the Mormon Church. Yeah. If you marry an older woman, or a younger one, for that matter, and she dies, as long as you're sealed for time and all eternity in the temple, then you marry a second wife and you're sealed for time and all eternity. Let's say she dies, too. You marry a third wife and you're sealed for time and all eternity. Then they believe you will have three wives in heaven. So yeah, it's still practiced. It's just one at a time. Polygamy. Anyways, um, I pray Mormons would come to the Gospel of Jesus Christ because it is simple, it is pure. And you can just jettison a mountain of documentation that is completely superfluous to Christianity and you can get rid of a fake prophet who has derailed you from the Gospel of Jesus and you can know the true grace of Christ. That's not after all you can do. It's just the free gift of God that you can be saved by grace, through faith, through apart from works, lest anyone should boast. It's a beautiful thing. Be a real Christian, not a Mormon. So, um, that's the first question and I guess you guys should check out Eric's channel if you like. We're going to go to question number two and I've linked his channel below. It's also just Eric Hernandez. Question number two comes in from um, IR Coop or co op maybe. Anyway, the question is James 1:25. How would you describe what the law of. No, no, I'm back at last week. Uh, that was last week. I answered that if you guys want to know about the law of liberty. I tried to give uh, an answer, although I felt like afterwards that I could have been more clear. But today's second question is IR Cooper Co op who says, how does forgiveness work? Does repentance have to come before forgiveness? Luke 17, verses 3 to 4. And other places seem to be clear that it does. If you can explain what that looks like, I would appreciate it. This is something I have taught on before, not that I expect you guys all to know about it. Um, the reality is that even if I've taught on something, there's so many videos I don't mind repeating myself a bit. But um, I used to think forgiveness, as a Christian meant when someone sins against me, I forgive them. And that's the whole story. Like that's, that's the entire story, start to finish. Someone sins against you, you forgive them. That's it. But it was actually studying Ephesians that really made me think about this more. And let me show you the verse, let me show you the verse so you can kind of walk you through a little bit of like how I went through this process personally. Um, let me just get this going. This is ephesians. 432, which says be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Now, when you're studying the Bible verse by verse, which is like the way that my favorite way to study the Bible is, means like you carefully plod through a passage of Scripture slowly. You grab each phrase, each word. You think about it. You take your time. You're not in a rush. You can also study, like, um, large swaths. I also will just read through a whole book or listen to a whole book or try to look at sections and catch big ideas. I do all of these things. They're all good practices. But this verse by verse thing really slows you down and has you catching the minutia, the good minutia in the passage. And it's this qualifier. It doesn't just say, forgive one another because God in Christ forgave you. It says, forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you. And the question here is, how did God in Christ forgive me? And this is, uh, what I was thinking about as I was studying Ephesians. I was teaching it in the Youth Ministry like 60 million years ago. And, um, I'm looking at it and I'm going, yeah, um, Jesus forgives us on certain conditions. That's actually real. That's true. He does forgive us on certain conditions. And what are the conditions that we repent, that we turn from sin? It doesn't mean I never sin again. Repent doesn't mean I never do it again. Repent is an attitude of the heart and mind whereby one turns from sin toward God. And so there's a sense in which there's a turning from the thing that you did. There's a turning away. I disapprove of that. I reject that. I'm sorry for that. I turn from those things. That's when God forgives us. Now, this can be challenging to apply in our lives as Christians, but I'll talk about that in a second. But I want to say that seems pretty straightforward to forgive as Christ forgave. And I, uh, look, and I go, does Jesus forgive unrepentant sinners? No. I mean, he offers them forgiveness, doesn't he? He tries to forgive them. He wants to forgive them. He offers them forgiveness. But they don't actually receive forgiveness, do they? Because there's still a hell, and people go to hell who Jesus wants to forgive and offers forgiveness to. So I want to have that attitude of I offer forgiveness to everyone, meaning that in my heart, love is there, compassion is there, willingness to forgive is there. You could say forgiveness on this side of my Ribcage Forgiveness is accomplished here, but relationally, forgiveness is not accomplished yet. That is what I think the example of Jesus is. So that when a person comes to you and they say, you know, um, I did what I'm going to do. I did what I did to you, and I'm going to do it again. I'm going to keep doing it, but you have to forgive me. You're a Christian. You can actually say to them, no, I actually don't. Uh, you know, I'm ready to forgive you, but you do not have forgiveness for that, which you will just continue to do willfully. And it's an egregious type thing. No, you don't have forgiveness for that. The offer is there. The reality is not. It's in my heart. Forgiveness is. Is prepared. The food has been cooked, the table has been set, it's all been laid out. The invitation has gone out. Come and join and dine at forgiveness. But you don't get to join because turning that knob is turning your heart from what you did. Walking through the door is walking in your heart away from the thing that you did that was wrong and towards me. And you're not doing that. So, no, that forgiveness does not exist. So typically, I hear Christians thinking, either I'm going to forgive fully, like, that person's totally forgiven. And that means that, like, uh, let's say the criminal broke into my house and did some horrible thing, and I can't. I have to go to the court and be like, let him off the hook because I forgive him. And I'm going like, nah, I don't think that's how this works, guys. Um, and even if there was forgiveness, there can still be a righteousness about punishment in society. That's required, even if you have personal forgiveness to the person. But the other side, the other extreme is the person goes, I don't have to forgive Mike. Mike's telling me I don't have to forgive my dad, who did this thing, my friend who did this thing, my mom, who did this thing, that politician who did this thing. I don't have to forgive him. And I harbor a bitterness in my heart towards them. That's dangerous. That could be the bitter root that Paul talks about that can rise up and defile many. So I want to avoid that. I want to have an offer of forgiveness that's genuine, but a realism that forgiveness that is not received with an attitude of humility, with an attitude of repentance of, I'm sorry. Forgiveness that's not received with a genuineness on the part of the person isn't actually forgiveness accomplished, it's only offered. Luke 17, 3 and 4 is what you mentioned. It says, um, pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. This is a difficult passage in application because of the extremity. Now, Jesus often uses, like, hyperbolic language to teach things here. Um, but he means, like, yeah, I know it's going to frustrate you a little bit for some of you guys to talk about this level of forgiveness, but let me start on the back end. Here's what should encourage you. What if you have sinned against God and you said, lord, I repent. But then you went and did the same sin again, but you meant it. You really meant, but, Lord, I repent. And you really meant it. Like, you know your heart, you meant it. And then you went and you did it again, and you said, lord, I repent. I'm sorry I did it again. I'm, like, trapped in a sin, or

36:22Speaker C I don't know what it is.

36:23Speaker A I feel like. I feel like a failure. I repent again. And you did it again after that. Is God still forgiving you for that? Is he still willing to forgive you for the sin you. Not that you live unrepentantly over, I never repent. But that you repent of and you did again, and you repent of, and you genuinely mean it. Okay, I'm talking to the Christian whose heart is not deceitful here. You really do mean it, but you then do it again. This implies that he does, because God does not ask you to forgive more than he's willing to forgive you. In fact, his forgiveness of you is the model of the example to follow of the forgiveness you give to others, which is why Ephesians 4:32, it says, as God in Christ forgave you, that's how you forgive others. So that being said, this passage is a picture of what I just said. If he repents, forgive him. It doesn't say, just forgive him. Right? If he sins against you, rebuke him, tell him, and you sinned against me. And if he repents, forgive him. What if he doesn't repent? I don't give him forgiveness for that thing. Is forgiveness available? Of course it is. It was offered right there. It's available in my heart. It's prepared, you know, the way. I heard one teacher, give this. Carl, uh, Westerland, back in the day, used to say, and I don't know where he got it from, who knows? We all get these things from each other. But he said, you take a cross posture. And his point was, when it comes to forgiving other people, unless they actually repent, no, the forgiveness does not come through. But in your heart, you take the posture of the cross. You open, your arms are open as Jesus arms on the cross were opened, saying, I am welcoming you. I am willing to let go of the offense, to let go of the thing you did against me. I forgive you for it. If you will repent. Beautiful. That's the cross posture. I like that. I like that picture. And if he does it seven times in a day, and turns seven times in a day saying, I repent, you must forgive him. Now, what about the insincere repenter?

38:23Speaker B Right?

38:24Speaker A I've seen, uh, there's this. I know this is kind of weird, so forgive me. As I share, for, uh, some people, this will be really strange to hear this, but there's these videos of this one boxer guy who goes around, um, to gyms. I don't know his name because it's just something that popped up. But he is a bad dude. He goes around to gyms and he sets up cameras and he puts on boxing gloves. He's not an imposing guy or big guy, but he puts on boxing gloves and he challenges people to spar. Now, sparring is not boxing. Sparring is gentle. Sparring is like, you know, Your quarter power, 10% power, something like that. You're not full force. As soon as they get their gloves on and get in front of him, he starts wailing on them as hard as he can. He's swinging full on. And then if they cower, he goes in front of the camera and he declares victory. And if they are actually stronger than him or, uh, because some guys are stronger than him, they just don't want to fight. You know, they're like, stop. He'll like, be like, I won. I won 150 times in a row, undefeated. And stuff like that. He's obviously delusional. He obviously has major psychological issues. If, on the other hand, the person he challenges starts beating him in response, oh, you're really fighting. And they start taking down. He then cringes, curls up in a ball and yells, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Stop, stop, stop. I'm sorry. He doesn't mean it at all. There's times where he's got up after saying, I'm Sorry. And just swung and gone to hit another guy. Okay, this may seem like a weird analogy, and I apologize to those who don't like the analogy, but it, it seems so vivid as an example of someone who's unrepentant who says, I repent. I don't think Jesus is talking about that. Okay. I don't think this example is if your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. If he does it seven times. So, like, if I walk up to you and I stab you with a knife in your stomach, and then you. I pull the knife out and I go, I'm so sorry, please forgive me. And you go, uh, I forgive you. And I go and I stab you right away again. And then I pull the knife out and I go, I repent. And you go, I, uh, forgive you. And I stab you again right away. Right. Clearly, that is not the scenario Christ intends. That seems obvious here. So I don't want to apply it to insincere statements of repentance. And there are some people out there who think I just tell God I'm sorry and everything's fine. Right. That's not what we mean. We don't mean a heartless, um, lip service, I repent, but a heartfelt, actual true statement, lord, I repent of this. But how can you repent and do it again? I think a lot of Christians can answer, oh, I understand how that can happen, actually. Um, and we live in that tension. Sometimes, sadly, we don't want to. But that's my answer to your question. All right, uh, Anonymous question number three, which says, I'm asking about Luke 9:26. What is considered to be ashamed in this passage? I would think every one of us have situations where we don't find boldness to testify.

41:21Speaker B Ah.

41:21Speaker A Ah, okay. Um, another Luke question. Let's go to Luke 9:26. Jesus says, Whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him, will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels? But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God. And that refers to the transfiguration, which happens immediately after. Um, so let me back up a little bit. Um, because what you could do is you could think if you were ever at some point, like, let's say you're a 17 year old, you're a Christian, you believe in Jesus, you're convinced it's true. But like a lot of young people you're just sort of scared of your peers. This is the affliction of every young person. Most young people, not every. They're scared of their peers. They're afraid of what their peers think about them. Um, more so than what adults think about them, more so often than what their parents think about them. They're worried about what some random other person their age thinks about them. And that's not my. I'm not criticizing. That was me, too. Okay. That was me, too. You get older, and oftentimes you will get over this to some degree, but it still affects you to some degree as well. So you're a Christian. Um, you go to school one day, you decide to be brave, and you wear this shirt that doesn't have a sloth with a rocket on its back like my awesome shirt does, but it's even better. It's got, like, um, a cross or a Bible verse. Um, or it says, like, ask me about Jesus or something on it. And you go to church and you start. You go to school and you start getting ridiculed. You're getting harassed, you're getting made fun of. And it's not really all that bad, but it really has made you feel uncomfortable. Just someone's like, oh, it's the Christian boy. Oh, it's the Bible boy. Oh, how you doing?

43:05Speaker B How you doing?

43:06Speaker A Is Jesus with you now?

43:07Speaker B Is he in the room?

43:08Speaker A And they start doing the mockery and stuff that, like, causes others to snicker at you and laugh, and you feel embarrassed, and you think, I'm never wearing that shirt again. And I don't even really want to bring up the fact that I'm a Christian anymore. In school, I wanted to evangelize those people, but I'm embarrassed now. Now, someone could think you're ashamed of Jesus, and I would say, there's a sense in which you are being ashamed of Jesus. Uh, this is persecution for the name of Jesus that you should not be ashamed of. But is that what Jesus meant? Is something that soft what Jesus meant when he says, if you're ashamed of me and my words, I'll be ashamed of you? Let's back up a little, and let's look at the broader context. And he said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me forever? For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits and himself for whoever is ashamed of me and my words of him. Will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels? This is big stakes ashamed stuff. It's not small stakes. Now, small stakes matters. That young guy, okay, in that exact scenario I just painted, it is actually a big deal that he's ashamed of his Christian faith because of the mild ridicule of other teenagers. That is a big deal. But I don't think that that guy's thinking if I die, if Jesus comes back today, he's going to be ashamed of me. Uh, implying I'm going to be, uh, not in the kingdom or something. Um, I think that what we should do with this is say the extremity of. If you reject the cross, if you reject the identification with Jesus in a large scale way, you're probably not Christian. Best case scenario, Jesus is embarrassed, ashamed of you and that you will have this look on his face. The look of ridicule that you got from other people because of your Christian faith will not compare to the look of his shame directed towards you and being ashamed. And you should remind yourself of that. But, um, yeah, I tend to think when the word ashamed comes up here it is talking about a salvific thing. I'm trying to think now. Maybe I haven't thought about this carefully enough in the past. If there's any indication that there was,

45:41Speaker D um,

45:44Speaker A that it's something less. Because I'm just realizing your question is asking what is meant by the word ashamed. Okay. That seems to be your focus. I'm open to the idea that ashamed here means, um, something less than like losing your salvation. It's just the awareness of the embarrassment at his coming that you had shame. Um, that's possible. I would need to research that one a little bit more, actually. Now I'm realizing the thrust of your question after all that rambling that I thought was good, but maybe it wasn't about your question. Now I'm kind of wrestling with the same question myself. Ashamed. Ashamed. How else is it used? Is it salvific? I think I'd want to examine that off a live stream so I could spend some time thinking about and ask some good questions. Maybe I'll come back to it in a later time. Maybe. No promises. I'm way too busy right now. Speaking of being too busy right now, can I show you guys this? Um, there's a men's conference coming up that I'm about to do. I'll be speaking at. And it's Saturday, November 7th. So it is, like two weeks away. And, um, when it comes, I'll, uh, be there. Another pastor named Anthony Kidd from Community Faith Bible Church will be there. And it's just for the guys. It's 8:30am to 2:00pm um, it's 45 bucks. You could register@graceevfree.org well, just. Just go to gracecvfree.org, you can click around to the men's stuff and you'll find it Grace and the letters E, V. When I say EV for you, I mean it stands for Evangelical Free Church, but G, R, A, C, E, V, F, R, E, E dot O, R, G. If you want to go to it. Am I not. I'm not selling it that much, am I? Um, it'll be, uh, just two speakers, just two messages, and then a Q and A. And we just want to stir up the guys, encourage them. Men, um, I believe we are the solution to so many of the problems in the world, in our families and in our own lives, if we will get equipped and discipled better. And so we're trying to do that, to have some piece of that in your lives and looking forward to it. So you can check it out. It's in La Mirada, California, for those who want to go. But I'll go to question number four. This is. Let me check the time here. Okay. I'm on a ticking clock today. I'm going to have to move a little quicker. Carrie, Live. Who says my son found Jesus and shared the news excitedly with me over the phone, then tragically died the next day? Oh, my gosh, Kerry, I'm sorry. Um, you said what would be an honoring powerful yet sensitive testimony to others. Uh, oh, it's inherently powerful, Kerry. You're talking about your son. Um, I mean, that is inherently a powerful testimony to tell them about your son and how grateful you are to God and that the Lord knew what was happening in his life and the hope that you have in Christ because you'll see him again. Um, that's a wonderful testimony to share with people. I think the only thing I'd be sensitive to is the setting and the context of when you suddenly bring out, like, my son died. And just to be thoughtful about, like, is this a good setting? Is this a good moment? Like, read the room in a sense, you know, but that's inherently a powerful and beautiful testimony to share. It takes. What is the greatest tragedy that almost anybody can think of, the death of a child. And it brings in the grace and love and Hopefulness that there is in Christ into that. And so yeah, grateful you'll get to see your son again. Number five. This is from Sean Kubovius, who says Sean's Kubovi. I don't know these weird names, guys. He says what, who uh, is Jesus referring to in Mark 4 verses 10 to 12 when he says to those who are outside, why would he not want them to understand and be forgiven? It almost sounds like Calvinism. Could it be the non elect? All right, let's check it out. Mark, chapter four, verses 10 to 12. And I'll just remind you, for those who don't know, I have a verse by verse teaching through the Gospel of Mark. It's totally free, it's online, you can just type my name in Mike Winger and put like the Mark series. And as I taught this for like over a year of going through the Gospel of Mark, um, people started calling me Mark for quite a while. I get in the comments all the time, hey Mark. But uh, not as much anymore of course now that I said it out loud. I'll get some more of it for a while. But um, from uh, just people having fun. Mark, chapter 4, verse 10. The question is who are the people that are outside? And is this like a Calvinist thing? Uh, and when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables. So what's really neat about the gospels is there's these times where Jesus will explain his parables. Like he doesn't just speak in a parable riddle type form, but he'll actually explain them. And he says about the parables. And this question is not just, it's not just explain the parable to us, it's why are you speaking in parables? That, that seems to be the question. Like why are you talking in riddles that a lot of the people aren't getting? And he says to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables. So that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. And then he goes on to explain the parable of the sower. What is this in here? Okay, I, in my verse by verse study through Mark, I tackle this in a lot of detail and I take it absolutely head on. The implication is that if Jesus and I know, here's the problem, I won't have time to explain all this in detail in this Q and A. And what I'm about to say I think will bother some people I think it's 100% true. I'm going to say it, but I'm going to ask you to check the description below after the stream's over. Once I have a chance, I'll put my mark series because I don't know these questions ahead of time. Right. I'm just reading it for the first time in front of you. But I will put the link to my mark series in the video description, Specifically the one about hardening, about the divine doctrine of hardening. Um, uh, actually that might not even be in the mark series. That might be in the Romans series. Um, I think it was when I was in Romans 9. So I'll put my link, but I cover this passage as well to my study on God hardening people's hearts and how he does it and all that. I would highly recommend you check it out. If you hear what I'm about to say and you think like, Mike, I'm not following that. It's just because I don't have an hour to unpack it. Okay, so Jesus speaks to them in parables. And why does he do it? Well, he quotes Isaiah here. Here he's quoting the book of Isaiah and he says that they may indeed see but not perceive as, uh, in. One of the goals is to have the parable go out so that some people will understand it and others will not. They will not get it and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. And the implication is that if they did understand it better, they would have actually repented. Now, that is not a Calvinist doctrine. No, no, because Calvinism wouldn't be like if you understood the gospel better, you'd repent. No, no, no, no. You have to be regenerated to repent. This is not Calvinist. In fact, I think this passage presents a pretty strong argument against Calvinism because it connects to God hardening people's hearts toward the gospel. And I know you're thinking like, my God does not harden people's hearts to the gospel. Well, this is why I have a long video on divine hardening. God, uh, uses means to harden people's hearts. For instance, if I were to tell somebody Jesus is the only way, as opposed to just saying Jesus is how you can be forgiven. What if I went. Sorry, I meant to have that on your screen. What if I went to somebody and I said, Jesus is a way you can be forgiven. That might appeal to them more than if I said Jesus is the only way, in which case they may be upset because they're like, but my grandma, uh, which is an. Often people often judge a religious truth based upon what it means about their grandma. Like, we've all got grandmas. And they're just. That's not the. She's not the test of religious reality. But that often happens. Yet still sometimes you'll go out and say the gospel in a way that, you know, might trigger offense. Now, the offense is triggered because they have something wrong with them, not because something's wrong with you, but yet you saying the words trigger the offense, meaning you hardened their heart with your words. Jesus gives parables. And the parables themselves being hard to comprehend or confusing or whatever, they cause some people to not understand and they don't turn and be forgiven. Now, what do you mean? You mean, Mike, that there's people that Jesus preached to that had they heard a more clear message, a more full explanation of the gospel, they would have repented? Yes, that's what it seems to be saying now before anybody panics and thinks that God is allowing people to go to hell who would otherwise be saved. No, these people, these same people are there at Pentecost when Peter gets up and he's telling them this has been God's plan from the ages, that Jesus would suffer and die and rise again. And he's the stone which the builders rejected who's become the chief Cornerstone. And like 5,000 souls get saved that day. Do you not suppose that some of those souls had previously heard Jesus teaching parables and did not turn because they were confused? God. This is one way in which God hardens hearts temporarily. But the reason you can't say it's Calvinism is because, um, it's not permanent. And also, Calvinism doesn't harden hearts towards the gospel. The heart's already completely, irrevocably hard towards the gospel. So it's to me, this is. Now, I love my Calvinist brothers and sisters, we disagree on this issue. This is one of those verses which I think is inconsistent with Calvinism. And I put it forward. So all that having been said, who are the people that are outside? Those outside? I don't think it refers to the unsaved as a broad category, which the phrase those who are outside it can refer to that in other places. Right. When you hear in Revelation about the new Jerusalem coming down and those who are outside, they're unsaved, right? They're unsaved. They can't enter into the city, the holy city. But when Jesus is hanging with his apostles, he's literally gathered around with the 12 and everybody who's not one of the 12 is outside. They're not going to get the explanation of the parable. Those who are out, they were just literally outside, right? They're not alone with Jesus in the 12. They're out of that inner, inner circle. Of course, then the 12 go and they explain the parables, uh, to the same people later on. And we have it written here in the gospel, so I hope that makes sense. I'm trying to push through because I got time crunched today a bit, although nobody will believe me that I do, because I still take forever. 7th Chevron has a question and says, if you were the only sinner. Oh, here's a quote, um, that people hear sometimes. If you were the only sinner, Jesus would still have come for you. And seventh chevron asks, is this true? I've never heard anyone back it up. I want to believe it, but fear his love is more corporate than individual. M. Um, okay. I want to say two things to this. 1. I agree with you that I don't know how to support this with the clear teaching of Scripture. We know that God so loved the world, right? So it's love that drove him. But we don't know that there's like a number associated with it. Like, what if it was just Adam that fell and that's it. Eve doesn't even exist. There's just Adam. He falls. Will Jesus become incarnate, be crucified by Adam for Adam, that then Adam can be saved and forgiven? I don't know. Uh, nothing demands that I have to say yes to this. And I know that what people mean when they say this, um, if I was the only one, Jesus would have died for me. What they mean by it isn't, I mean very strictly. If there was just one human being in the world, it was only me. I declare to you that Christ would have died for me. I think what they mean is Jesus didn't just die for. And here's the second part for a large group of people, he died for me personally, like God knows me. And here's where I want to affirm that that part's true. That part's for sure true. Maybe Jesus would have died for just one person. We're making a hypothetical based upon our understanding. Is it likely? Uh, I could even say it's likely based upon just how much God loves you. God loves you that much. But I just personally don't want to make proclamations about what God would or wouldn't do based on unclear things. And ah, I just want to avoid that speculation entirely. So I'm not saying God wouldn't do it. I'm not saying he would. I'm saying why are we speculating on this? Can we accomplish the goal without speculating on this? One question, maybe that would be a better angle to take. Does God love you individually? Did Jesus die for you? Just you, not merely a corporate large group of people, but you specifically. Like he knew you. Absolutely he did. Omniscience says. So what do I mean by that? Well, here's what I mean. Like when I even think about all the people I know in this world, I can't think of them all at the same time, right? Like I can think of them one at a time. I could think of like, oh, I hung out with Gavin and Irene last night, that was really good. But I'm not going to be thinking about them like a month from now in the middle of Tuesday at 3pm like it's not going to be on my mind. I could think corporately of doing some self sacrificial act for people. Even now when I make these videos, these aren't self sacrifice things, but when I make a video here, I'm thinking of you guys corporately. I want to hopefully bless you, stir up your love for God's word, your appreciation for its goodness, your understanding of its clarity and its truth. Um, just getting your lives more in line with scripture and your lives to follow Jesus, right? But I can't think of you individually. I don't know you, most of you, it's just not possible. But God can't help but know you individually. There's no way. It's not as though if Jesus went to the cross for 12 people it would be more personal now. But if he goes for 30 people, it's slightly less personal. Now if he goes for a million people, it's even more impersonal. And if he goes for billions of people to the cross now, it's very impersonal. You're just sort of like this faceless mob to Jesus. God is omniscient. He knows you, he knows every fiber of your being. He knows the hairs on your head. Scripture talks about God's personal care for you as an individual. And in the book of Psalms he knows you, he cares about you. And when he dies on the cross, it's not just for a corporate group, it's for you. Like he knows you now you can move into now Calvinism versus Arminianism. But I think you're actually, you're distracting from the topic of does Jesus care for me personally. If you, like many believers, struggle to believe that Jesus cares for you individually and personally, you are being lied to by the enemy, and it's your own insecurities. Maybe you felt a lack of. I'm just being real here because I know the feeling. You felt a lack of love coming from family, a parent, maybe, and you're translating that to God, but that's irrational. God loves you. He formed you. He knew you in the womb. He counts the number of hairs on your head. Psalm says, he catches my tears in his bottle. It is such a beautiful picture. I know poetry is often lost on crass, uh, culture that we have nowadays, but it's this beautiful picture. He counts. He knows the number of tears. He catches them in his bottle. Meaning, like your sorrows and your griefs. He's intimately and deeply aware. He's, like, saving those tears. Do you get this? He's carrying your sorrow. Uh, Isaiah says this. He carried our sorrows. The chastisement that brought us peace was upon him. If you don't feel that individually, that God loves you and cares for you and Jesus died for you, then that is just an attack of the enemy. That goes against the idea of God's very omniscience. That goes against the teaching of Scripture. So I don't have to say Jesus would individually die for me even if I was the only human that existed. Maybe he would. It's speculative. Okay, maybe he would have. Sure. Maybe he wouldn't. I don't know. I just don't know. But I think that's a humble position to take. I don't know. Rather than insisting. But he doesn't even love me unless I can say yes to that. Well, then just say yes to that. That. And even if you're off on something, at least you understand that God loves you. At least you know that. That his love for you is personal and intimate and real. Um, you definitely need to know that he doesn't send his Holy Spirit to dwell inside of you individually because he cares about you. Corporately, it's not the truth. All right, number seven, dogs. Guy has a question, says, how do you balance ministry and family? How do you ensure you do not sacrifice your family and time with them on the altar of ministry? Um, there's probably no short, simple answer to this question that really covers all the bases, but for me personally, I look at it like in the order of priorities. Here's ministry, here's family. Uh, for one thing, I consider family is a ministry. It's just a different Ministry than my ministry at church or my ministry through YouTube or something like that. Um, as far as priorities go, family comes first. That's key. That's very important. There are some people who would not view it that way. But let me give you an example in scripture that helps support this. Having elders in the church, pastors. The Bible often calls them elders, overseers, bishops. These are all synonymous terms. They literally mean the same person in the New Testament. 100%, no doubt about it. Um, as far as the English, the modern English of pastor refers to an elder, overseer, bishop. Those are all the same thing. Okay, so first Timothy 3, it says this saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. The husband of one wife. That could be translated like a one woman man. Uh, so, yeah, he can't be a polygamist. But it's more than that. He's faithful to his wife is the idea. He's faithful to his wife. It's more than just he only has one wife. It does include that polygamists are inherently disqualified from, uh, pastoral ministry. And the pro polygamy guys, who I know quite well would say. So you're saying David couldn't be my pastor? Yes, yes, I'm saying that this is not a big. You didn't drop any bombs here. The king of Israel couldn't be my path. Yes, yes, he couldn't. That's right. You understand. Thank you. The husband of one wife. Sober minded. Wait, what? You're saying David could write psalms, but he couldn't be my pastor? Yes, yes, that's what I'm saying. You're picking up on it now. These are God's rules, not mine. Uh, I'm not like, saying I don't like David or he wasn't amazing. God didn't do amazing things to him. No, he's not qualified. Based on scripture, an overseer must be above reproach. The husband of one wife. Sober minded, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. Not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. Um, he must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? Now, if you think manage household means merely be the dictator of the home. That's not what it means. But the point here is. And yeah, but the dad is in charge. I'm not saying he's not. I'm just saying it's not just. He's in charge. Right? Like, they follow your rules. Right? Like you're the. You're the guy with the rules. Right? Right, Right. It's not the entire job of fathering. You're to train your children up in the ways of the Lord, that when they're old, they will not depart. They're to train them up in the ways of the Lord. This is not just giving them, um, discipline. Right? It's that. But it's more than that is all I'm saying. So why is ministry second and not family second? Because a family is a sacred ministry to God. Marriage is a sacred ministry to God. Husbands and wives, you're representing Christ in the church. It's not like ministry is just what happens over there. Ministry is right here in my house. Ministry is me and my wife praying together. Ministry is me and my children seeking, uh, the Lord and me raising them up in their ways. For every Christian man out there, ministry is these things first. And, uh, it's a qualification for you to do church ministry, at least pastoral or even deacon church ministry. It's qualification that you have the ministry at home taking place. So how do you balance them? You don't. You build one on the other. You don't balance them. You build the family ministry first and then you build outside the home ministry second. Maybe a better way to say is it's not a balance. It's a pyramid. And the foundation that stays down here that everything else is built on is first, your walk with God second, your family ministry. I know that that's hard. Um, but that's the balance. It's not, maybe it's not a balance. Um, one thing I'll do is just for my own heart is I'll just look at my home and be like, is there something lacking right now? Is there something missing right now? And I'll do an assessment and then I'll make an adjustment and change if need be. All right. Number eight. Brightson David says, what's your take on surrogacy? This is, ah, quite a topic nowadays. And I don't think I've been asked about it before, but I've tried to give it a decent amount of thought. Um, so I think adoption is beautiful. However, every adoption is, in one sense a tragedy because that child is being separated from their biological parents. And that parent should raise that child. They should. Now, they may not be able to because they might die. They may die and they couldn't. And so someone adopts that child, and that was beautiful. They may not be able to because of some other health issues or because they're simply an incredibly incompetent or bad person. Drug use, crime. They might be in prison. Women in prison do get pregnant, and then sometimes their children are separated from them, and then adoption happens. And there's other times where it's just a younger lady or just somebody who just says, no, I don't want to raise my kid. And every single one of those examples is a great tragedy. And in a sense, the child's been robbed of the loving care of that parent who should have been there for them. Um, and the father, too, because then usually the father doesn't take care of the child, at least in a lot of these cases. So then you have adoption. And adoption is not, I'm separating you from your mother. It's, your mother's not going to raise you, your father's not going to raise you. I'm going to raise you because they won't. So I'm a solution, but I'm not causing the problem. Do you catch that? I'm not creating the situation where you are being separated from your parents. I am creating a solution. The situation already exists. Okay, so, like, uh, a doctor giving you a prosthetic arm is a beautiful thing. Unless he unnecessarily chops your arm off to do it. That'd be evil. And that's what surrogacy is, isn't it? Now it gets more complicated, and this is where the bioethics of it is, even to me, something I still work on. And please, guys, don't send me articles on this. I don't have time right now. Um, but, uh, every time I bring up something like this, I just get, like, inundated with messages and texts from people. I don't know how they got my number and stuff. And it's just like, no, I can't do a Debate and host 17 guests about this topic right now. Um, I have way too much going on, so forgive me for spouting off there, but surrogacy, like gay adoption surrogacy, where there's, like, one of the men. Is this. This is adult language here. So, you know, be mindful if your kids are watching. You have five seconds. Four, three, two, one. All right, now I'm going to continue. Um, where one of the men in the couple donates, uh, sperm and they purchase an egg from a woman. And then usually they get a different mom to gestate and basically have the pregnancy. So you have A mother and a father, where the mother has sold her egg and deliberately, intentionally, for financial gain. Often financial gain. Not always. Sometimes it's like some altruistic thing. Um, given up on raising this child that is hers, that's her biological child. She's not going to raise it intentionally, freely. No necessity. Now, that's wrong. Now you can say that's adoption, Mike. No, no, My whole point is I didn't create that scenario. If I adopted. I didn't make that happen. I, like, arranged for this. So then we contacted your mother and we looked at pictures of her to check out her DNA and we decided that she'd be a good match. You know, we want to get a kid to look certain way. Then we purchased the egg that was used and we combined my sperm and then we gave it to another different mom to raise the child for surrogacy so that we could then have our own little baby. And I'm like, dude, this is immoral. I think this is immoral. There may be. This is where it's going to be controversial, where I'm going to get emails and stuff. There may be some. And I say maybe. When I say maybe, I don't mean I think there is. I think this is an open question to me still. I don't know the answer yet. So when I say maybe, I don't.

1:11:46Speaker B No.

1:11:46Speaker A If there is or not. Sorry, guys. Those of you who feel my frustration, it's because, um, I inherently anticipate all the videos that will come out misinterpreting what I'm saying right now and how it's going to be a headache for me for six months. So there might be. It's possible, but not necessarily true, that there could be some surrogacy situations, um, that are totally okay. So let's say that, um, a woman has, um, some medical condition. She cannot bear her own children, but she has eggs that are healthy. And so her husband and her, they, um, uh, use medicine to join sperm and egg, and a human life is created. And her biological sister carries the baby to term so that they can then raise their own child. Now, there are some who would say this is absolutely immoral because you've had this baby gestating inside of this woman who they've bonded to in all these different chemical ways and all these different things, and now they're being taken away and it's trauma to the child and trauma to the mom and stuff like that. And I go, look, I'm not going to make that judgment call. I would leave this open to the conscience of the people. Okay. I'm not saying that others would say, but, Mike, by participating in this act of this exact example of surrogacy that you're talking about, um, you are feeding into a system that is hugely immoral and deeply wicked. And even if this exact scenario you've described is not deeply wicked, this scenario is wicked. That again, I am not going to bind people's consciences or I'm not going to try to say to people that I think that they have to morally follow this or that. Um, those are some of the areas where I think I'm open. But I think that surrogacy is inherently problematic. And maybe, maybe there are some scenarios where it's okay. Um, because a not ideal situation doesn't mean that it's an evil situation. And I think especially I'm bothered by surrogacy where you don't intend to have the biological parents of the child raise the child. That seems inherently immoral. That to intentionally create a situation where there is an orphan. You did it on purpose. You made that happen so that you could then adopt. Right. Um, that seems immoral. You don't separate kids from their parents. That just seems like a nice little moral rule number nine. Um, and by the way, if you're like, but what scripture says about this Scripture to just weigh in on this, I really should. Um, even though I'm running out of time, Scripture does weigh in on the fact that parents have obligations to children and children have inherent obligations to parents. That is assumed in the text of scripture. Fathers raise your kids this ways. Mothers this, children this. The moral background of this is inherent moral obligations between parents and children. And to sever those connections unnecessarily would violate those. Because you can't train your child up in the ways of the Lord. If you give your child up intentionally, you can't. Right. That would be an inherent violation of that. So I'm m not against adoption because you're not trying to create that scenario. The parent's going to give up their child. I'm going to provide them with a better home is the solution, not the cause. All right, number nine, what does the restrainer being removed mean in 2 Thessalonians 2:7? Let's talk about some theories about this. This is going to be interesting. I'm going to back up. We need some more context. Um, let's see. Let's just start at verse 1 of 2 Thessalonians 2. This is a classic Rapture passage. Um, that many will Recognize now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or, or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Preterism. Full preterism. Full preterism. There's other kinds. Um, so concerning these two things, the coming of Jesus and our being gathered together with him, these are two things that Second Thessalonians talks about. Now it says, don't think they've already come, right? It would seem obvious they haven't already come. Jesus is like, no one's going to need to tell you. I'm paraphrasing his. I'm, um, interpreting his statements. No one will have to tell you. The Son of Man, everyone's going to see it. Every eye will see it. No one will be like, guess what? Did you know Jesus came back? You'll know. Um, so then it says in verse three, let no one deceive you in any way, for the day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the Son of destruction. We're talking about here, what I would consider to be like the individuals in Revelation, the beast, the false prophet, Antichrist, these kinds of things. And then who opposes and exalts himself against every so called God or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. This is why many people believe, um, and there are different interpretations, but I think it seems as though there's probably going to be an actual temple in Jerusalem and he'll proclaim himself to be God in that temple. You could say it's metaphorical. He's taking his seat as a visible head of the church. He steps into the papacy's seat or something, and he proclaims himself to be God. Um, that seems less likely to me. But some people have different views. Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. This is like revelation, the sword in his mouth and stuff. Uh, the coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, with all wicked deception for those who were perishing because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Um, so I say rapture passage because some people believe that the he that is restraining, that is taken out of the way, is the Holy Spirit. And that the however they describe this, you know, maybe they would say the Holy Spirit is active in the body of Christ. We are the salt of the earth. And what does salt do? It preserves, and we're keeping at bay the final rebellion of Satan. But when the rapture happens, which, uh, they would say is the church is caught up into the air to be with the Lord, which that event happens according to scripture, the timing is the big question. Does it happen at the Second Coming or does it happen earlier? Um, but we are caught up to be with the Lord. That text is from the Word of God. But the idea is that the Holy Spirit is the one who restrains in the body of Christ in the church. And when we are caught up, then Satan's able to do his thing without any resistance from us. And, um, that's one view. But you've got to admit this is a mysterious passage, because whatever's restraining, they knew it. He says, you know what is restraining him now? And when you could just say, well, God's restraining him. God in heaven. Right. God is restraining him, but it's. Until he's what? Taken? He's out of the way? I think new King James says taken out of the way. Let me just check. Yeah. Uh, he who restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. I didn't really notice that. ESV doesn't have taken. Right there. I'm interested now in why it just says out of the way and if other translations don't. Because if it's God, how does God get taken out of the way? That's why they say, okay, maybe it's in the church.

1:20:06Speaker C Um,

1:20:08Speaker A interesting. Um, but the thing is that you can come up with other theories that don't seem to be refuted or supported in the passage. It just seems rather vague. What if it's Michael the Archangel and he's going to be out of the way? Um, I don't know. My thing is, I don't know. I think that what happens in this passage is if you already have a pre tribulation rapture, view. You will read into this passage, but you don't get it clearly from this text. That doesn't mean it's wrong. What it means is I shouldn't derive it from this text. I should carefully derive it from other more clear passages and then acknowledge I'm using this as an interpretive addition to this passage. And that's a more humble approach to the text, where you just say, yeah, it's not clear here, but it's consistent with what I think I see elsewhere. Um, but, yeah, my answer is I don't know. Unlike the Thessalonians, I don't know what is restraining. And, um, maybe I will in the future. I'm not saying nobody can or nobody out there does. Me personally, Mike Winger. I don't know. Number 10, last question. Dragonfoot says a church in my hometown has now joined a pride community. It's a Methodist church. What things can I do to show people they are teaching a false Jesus? I just don't want people to be deceived.

1:21:31Speaker D Hmm.

1:21:36Speaker A The challenge here is, who are you showing? So if I'm trying to show the people inside the Methodist church, I have very few avenues to do this. Um, and they're all confrontational, right? I go and I stand out in front. I go to the services, I interrupt. You know, I, um, arrange for a meeting with the leadership to talk to them about the concerns I have. Uh, you probably won't get very far, but you might, you might, you may change their minds. Who knows? Um, I picket, I hand out flyers. Uh, I have a long term plan where I go into the church and I build relationships with people, and I start very slowly whittling away at things and trying to get them to see the truth. Okay, but what if, um, your target is the community? The community. Uh, not the whole community, but specifically the LGBT groups that are there. Well, you can go to the LGBT group and you can tell them these Methodists holding up signs that say pride, like, that's not the Christian perspective. And you can simply preach the gospel. They will hate you for it. The Methodists will tell you how wrong you are for what you're doing. The United Methodists, they will. And, um, that's just how it is. Um, but that's one thing you can do if it's the pride community you're worried about, um, and you want to evangelize them. But what if you're trying to show, you said the people, to show people they are teaching a false Jesus. What if you want to show the broader community Again, it just depends on who you're reaching. So forgive me, the question to me seems too complex to answer simply. I would say, don't put it on yourself to fix what's wrong. Put it on yourself to do something good in the midst of what's wrong. And that way, it's not about this. Like, you know, some people labor in ministry under this idea that I have to be successful in solving such and such problem, when my own personal opinion about this is you only have to be successful in being faithful to God while trying to solve the problem. That's it. Not, did I solve it? No. Was I faithful? So let's take this Cover up culture series of videos I've done. I think I've honored the Lord in the way I've done it. It's not actually going to stop abuse in charismatic churches. Whole stop, no way. There'll be abuses in any church. But it's making a difference. But even if it wasn't making as big of a difference as I think it is, I would still look back and go, I did my part. That's good enough. So my encouragement to you is, do your part. Just do your part. Talk to who you can reach, who you can evangelize the way you can, to who you can be creative about it. There's about 50 million different ways to answer your question as far as, like, what can I do? You know, you can make sure your local church is taught the truth about these issues so that they're ready to arm to face them. Because a lot of churches, even the ones that have good theology about homosexuality and LGBT stuff, they refuse to actually talk about it publicly. They're very quiet about it. So you can make sure that it's discussed. You can try to push for that. You can evangelize your individual neighbors. Um, you can go into community meetings that the Methodist Church has and you can bring up the objections, and maybe it raises some alarms to a few of the members and makes there's like a thousand different things you can do. So forgive me that I'm not more useful to you on this. I just feel like God give you wisdom, be creative, go for it, and just be faithful. Don't get discouraged if you don't solve the problem. Um, that's not really how it works. Usually. Usually we move the ball. We don't really solve problems. We move things. We make a difference. Um, and then someone else makes a difference. That's what we do. Even the apostles, they would go out and evangelize a whole city. And some people would get saved. And that was a total success. All right, that's it for today, guys. I gotta go. I really got. Oh, gosh, I have to go. All right, I'm gonna pray.

1:25:29Speaker D Um.

1:25:29Speaker A Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your truth. We thank you for your mercy and that you forgive us even to even now, Lord, as those who agree with me, we say we acknowledge our sinfulness before you. We acknowledge our failures before you. That we've blown it in ways that are tragic, embarrassing, that are things we've done before, and yet now we've done them again. And because of your offer of grace, because of your kindness, Lord, we repent of those things. Knowing you forgive us, we're grateful, Lord. We pray only that we would, through the power of the spirit, we would get up and move forward and do better. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. M.