WWUTT 1260 Q&A My Apologies, Missing Sermons, Greek Love, Romans Judgment, Dark Ages?

What is the significance of the different Greek words for love? Has God turned this nation over to its lusts as described in Romans chapter 1?

And were there many Christians in the Dark Ages? The answer is when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, who has called us to take up our cross daily and follow after Him.

For whoever loses his life for Jesus' sake will save it. Visit our website, www .utt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. And being the

Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners. You can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

I've got quite a few emails in here. Look at that list. Wow, that's a lot. But we have to begin with some apologies.

So this first email comes from Adam who says, Hi, brother. Thank you for your ministry. I had a quick question regarding the podcast episode today, which would have been the

Friday edition that we recorded last week. Okay. We are homeschooling our children and just bought the curriculum for our first grader.

The history and science are BJU, Bob Jones University. I had never heard of BJU before, but I read good reviews for the curriculum online.

The brief comment that you made today about avoiding BJU has troubled my wife and I since we value your opinions as you are so grounded in Scripture.

We're now concerned we've bought something that we shouldn't have. What is the concern that you have with BJU?

Thank you so much again, brother Adam. All right. Yeah, and curriculum is very expensive.

Yes. You want to make sure you get that right. Yeah. I had to email

Adam back and apologize to him. The comment that I made was made in ignorance.

Okay. I assumed that the false prophet, the false teacher,

Bob Jones, was associated with Bob Jones University, and they're not the same man.

Okay. The guy that I was thinking of is the Bob Jones who is affiliated with the Kansas City Prophets.

He has nothing to do with the founding of Bob Jones University. Oh. Now, I grew up in South Carolina.

We knew Bob Jones University well, and it is a very, very strict campus.

They are very fundamentalist. So, we would make fun of the strictness of the standards that they held to on that particular campus, but they are not affiliated with Bob Jones, the false prophet.

So, the curriculum that they're putting out, I've also read good reviews about it, and your familiarity with that curriculum is likely better than mine.

So, do not take that comment that I made last week as any sort of review over their curriculum.

I spoke out of place, and I'm apologizing for that. I had a conversation with a friend of mine over BJU curriculum, and we were talking about it like, isn't that Bob Jones, the false prophet?

But then I never actually researched to see if he was connected with that. It was still just one of those comments that sat in the back of my mind, and came out last week when we were talking about it.

Gotcha. Becky has nothing to do with that. She didn't know. That was all me. Feel free to continue to use your

Bob Jones University curriculum. All right. Now, I will be investigating Bob Jones University.

That's right. And I'm going to take that comment out of last week's episode. We've had to do that before.

Yeah. Sticking my foot in my mouth, apologizing for making that comment, but I'm going to take that out in case anybody's listening to the archives and hears that without the context of the apology, so that way it doesn't lead anybody else astray.

Thank you so much, Adam, for your email and for your patience with me. Now, I have another apology

I have to make as well, and this one's going out to Pastor Jeff of North Star Church in Blacksburg, Virginia.

This church uses a slogan within their graphics that's, don't go to church, be the church.

And I used one of their graphics for a what video, but I did not want my making fun of that particular phrase, don't go to church, be the church.

I didn't want that to also give the impression that I was calling North Star Church a false church and discouraging people from going there.

That wasn't my intention at all. So Pastor Jeff and I had a great conversation. He helped me to see what it is that they were doing at that church.

I even listened to a sermon of his online. They are expository preaching. He is pointing the hearers to Christ, and I believe that Pastor Jeff is all about exalting

Christ in what he does in his preaching and what that church is doing out there in Blacksburg, Virginia.

So my apologies to Pastor Jeff, and that video is now going to change. Still going to be the same script, but we're going to take

North Star Church's graphic out because I don't want anybody to think that you shouldn't be going there.

Right. To the church. Yeah. You should be the church. That's right.

Go to the church and be the church. And be the church. I'm going to go ahead, just for the sake of context,

I'm going to play that what video so you hear it. And there's a point in there where that North Star Church graphic comes in.

We're going to redo the video, take that graphic out, but it's still going to sound like this. But you won't see that because you're going to be listening.

That's right. You're still going to be hearing it just like this. It's kind of funny the number of churches saying, don't go to church, be the church.

As witty as they think that is, they're inadvertently telling people not to go to church. But they'll still throw it on signs and graphics and even make it a slogan.

Hey, everybody, don't go to our church. A few have altered it a little. Don't just go to church, be the church.

But the problem is still the same. The message being communicated is that church is not a place you go to. You can be the church right where you're sitting, or where you work, or where you shop.

That might not be the intended message, but it's what's being said. But here's the thing. Going to church is being the church.

Let's understand what the church is. According to Ephesians 1 .23, the church is the body of people filled with Christ, representing

Christ in all creation. So the church is people, not a building. Let me repeat that again, though, because somebody is saying, ha, see, church is not a building,

I don't have to go. The church is people, plural. You yourself are not the church. According to Peter, you're a living stone, part of the church, made up of the people who have been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ and have the

Holy Spirit dwelling within them. The Lord commands us to gather regularly. If the church gathers in a building, then that's where you go.

If it's on Sunday, you go on Sunday. The church is where we as one body grow in the word of Christ, listen to exhortation and teachings, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, pray together, eat the

Lord's Supper together, celebrate baptism and marriage, rejoice in life, mourn in times of mourning, and encourage and admonish one another.

We can't grow together if we're not meeting together. So go to church to be the church when we understand the text.

And Pastor Jeff said to me that he agrees with all of that. So he's accepted my apology.

And I'll try to be a little wiser on the selection of those graphics in the near future.

So that's the crow that I have to eat this week. Are you full yet?

Insert one foot into this mouth and the other foot into the same mouth.

I don't know what other mouth I was going to put that in. I don't know either. All right, let's continue on with some emails here.

This one is from Jeremy. Hi, Pastor Gabe. It was cool to hear that you're going to be on The Majesty's Men now.

We mentioned last week that the website is moving over to The Majesty's Men. Riley is a great guy,

Riley, who runs The Majesty's Men. And I've enjoyed when I've gotten the chance to speak with him. Looking forward to seeing you at Cruciform Conference.

If you or your family have any prayer requests, please let me know. In Christ, Jeremy. Well, thank you so much for offering that,

Jeremy. The Cruciform Conference, we brought up the page for that. That's going to be October 23rd and 24th in Carmel, Indiana.

Or is it Carmel, Indiana? Carmel, Indiana. Carmel, Indiana. Oh, that's

Gary, Indiana. Yeah, that's Gary. Yeah, that's not the same song. Great speakers that are going to be there.

Justin Peters, Anthony Mathenia, Gabe Hughes, Jeff Johnson, Justin Huffman.

Michelle Leslie is going to be there doing kind of a plenary session. Dwayne from the Bar podcast. He's going to be there, too.

And Dwayne Atkinson. And let's see, several other names. Brandon Scalf, who's helping to put the whole thing together.

Jonathan Hayashi. Looking forward to meeting him. And I'm going to meet lots of great folks there, I'm sure. You can find out how to register for the conference when you go to Facebook .com

slash Cruciform Con. Mm -hmm. Cruciform C -O -N. And just clicking on the thing there, it'll have the registration info for you.

Pay the fee. Look forward to seeing you there. If you're in the area, it's a great kind of a heartland conference right there in the middle of Indiana.

Again, that's October 23rd and 24th. And that's still on. I mean, COVID is not discouraging us from being able to meet for this conference.

Yeah, I'm excited. Yes, I hope you can make it out to that. Next email, this comes from Pastor Josh.

Hello, Gabe and Becky. This isn't a question for the Friday edition of the podcast per se, but I was curious if you had the sermons recorded from the

Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, verses 16 through 24. I know that was probably broken up into two sermons since the previous two

Sundays I did not see posted. I only ask because I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to them as I have all of your podcasts.

I've been listening in since you started the Book of Judges on the Thursday podcast. Wow, that's going back a little while.

Yeah. Because we're finishing up Psalms later this year. Later this year.

How long we got to go here? I think I just did Psalm 131. Yep, you did. So, yeah, about 29

Psalms left here. But, yeah, going all the way. We've been in the

Old Testament since Judges. So however long ago that was. That's a long time.

It's been a few years anyway. Yeah, that's great. He said, you have helped me tremendously in my understanding of the

Bible, and I'm thankful that God has used you in the way that he has. Thus, please be encouraged in the work that you are doing.

In Christ, Pastor Josh. Well, Josh, yeah, the Sunday podcast or the

Sunday sermon is something that kind of gets away from me sometimes, especially since after we get done on Sunday, I am beat.

I am done. Yep. I've spent all night working on that, and that work got harder when

COVID happened because I'm recording the video on Saturday night. Yeah. So when you're seeing the video on Sunday morning,

I had just recorded that the night before, and I was probably up until at least 3 o 'clock working on that, getting it to where the mixdown had started, and then

I go to bed, and then I wake up in the morning on Sunday morning to get the finish mixdown because that takes like two hours for the whole video to mixdown.

And then I'm uploading it to YouTube and then going and getting in the shower and then coming back and seeing if the video is finished getting uploaded to YouTube.

When streaming was so big. Now, a lot of churches have come back to gathering again.

There's a lot that aren't. But when hardly anybody was gathering because of the pandemic, the streaming was all backed up on YouTube.

Yes. And uploading it took a long time. Sometimes I was losing my entire

Sunday morning short of preaching just to get the sermon uploaded on there.

So because of all of that, ever since we started with the pandemic, and we still have members of our church that don't regularly come because of pre -existing health conditions or something like that.

So in service to our church, I record the video the night before, and it just makes for a lot longer night.

And by the time I'm done preaching on Sunday morning, I know it sounds like I've had a lot of energy preaching through that sermon, but I'm ready to come home and collapse.

Yes. I am done. So it's caused me to be a little slow in then getting the sermon uploaded to the website because what

I preached on the video is not exactly what I preached on Sunday morning. And I would rather have that Sunday morning sermon be the one that I upload to the podcast.

So I'll get to it later on Sunday afternoon, and if I don't do it then, then it gets put off and it takes longer for me to get it on.

Yeah. The one that I missed on the Store Up Your Treasures in Heaven, that just got uploaded, so it's on there now.

It wasn't this past Sunday's sermon, but it was the Sunday before. Right. So then the one you're missing now,

Josh, is going to be the one on fasting, and that was right before that. That's what, Matthew 6, 16 through 18.

So be looking for that one. I hope to get that up this weekend. That way I'm caught up. Be praying for us.

We've got a funeral on Friday. We do. And we're saying goodbye to some very, very close friends on Sunday.

It's their last Sunday at our church. They're moving. They're moving, yes. Yeah, not connected with the funeral.

No. But they're moving to Houston. Yep. And still needing a good church down there, too.

So if you know some good Reformed congregations down in the Houston area, let us know because we're working on trying to find something for them.

A great couple. In fact, they're my one post -millennial couple.

I think when I lose them, I don't have any more post -millennials in my congregation. Yep. I'm post -millennial free.

I'm just kidding. I've loved having them in my church, and we're going to miss them greatly, Raymond and Jubilee.

Thank you so much for everything that you did. But that's where we're at this weekend. It's going to be a busy, emotional weekend for us.

Yes. So be praying for us. And thank you again for your encouragement, Pastor Josh. Start rough and end rough.

It will. It will. This next question comes from Shay in Huntersville, North Carolina.

Hello, Pastor Hughes. I thank God for your ministries. This passage, John 21, 15 through 17.

Most major translations don't distinguish between the nuances of the original

Greek words for love. Okay, does everybody know what passage of Scripture I'm talking about when

I reference John 21, 15 through 17? Why don't you catch us up? Just in case.

So this is the story where Jesus is asking Peter three times, Peter, do you love me?

And Peter responding, yes, Lord, I love you. I'm going to read that here in just a moment. But just so you know, that's the passage we're talking about.

So Shay's question is in regards to the various uses of the word love here.

There's different Greek words for love. In English, it's all just love. Right.

But there's a different Greek word for love that's being used. She says the only decent modern

English translations listed in Bible Gateway that acknowledge the nuances in the text, or at least in the footnotes, are the

New American Standard Bible in the footnotes, the New King James Version in the footnotes, and the

World English Bible in the text. Shouldn't that nuance matter enough to be acknowledged in the translations, or is it not that important to the meaning of the passage?

Thank you, Shay, Huntersville, North Carolina. Let's look at this together, and then we'll talk about the different Greek words that are being used here.

So John 21, starting in verse 15. When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

And he said to him, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my lambs.

He said to him a second time, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And Peter replied, yes,

Lord, you know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, tend my sheep. He said to him a third time,

Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, do you love me?

And he said to him, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. And Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.

So you're familiar with this. Right. You know the passage. It wasn't that long ago that I taught on it either because we went through the

Gospel of John and then Acts, and now I'm in Romans. So it was just, what, sometime last year we were in this section.

But even when I taught on this section, I didn't teach on the various Greek words that are being used in this passage.

No, I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think I did either. So Shay here is asking the nuance regarding the various usage of love.

Shouldn't that be acknowledged in the translations? Well, it would be difficult to do that when we only have one

English word for love, but there's several different Greek words for love.

Right. You have phileo. You have agape, which is a phileo is like a brotherly love.

Agape is commonly referred to as a love without condition. Okay. But it's just a word for love.

It's not like agape is a greater version of love than phileo love. Oh, okay. So primarily here, what we're dealing with is the word phileo, and we're dealing with the word agape.

Okay. And every time that Peter responds to Jesus, Peter is using the word phileo.

So it's only phileo love that he uses. The first two times that Jesus asks

Peter, he says, do you agape me? Do you love me? Peter replies, you know that I phileo you.

The last time that Jesus asks, is Peter, do you phileo me? Now, let me give you a non -academic guess here.

And when I say a non -academic guess, I mean that I'm not an academic. I'm not a Greek scholar. So don't think that you're hearing this from some sort of Greek scholar in this explanation that I'm going to give.

All right. Here's my guess as to why Jesus says agape twice, but then phileo the third time.

Peter has been saying, Lord, you know that I phileo you. You know that I love you like a brother, since we're talking about a brotherly love here with that use of that word.

So Peter has this tendency. We've seen this throughout Peter's behavior in the

Gospels. He's got this tendency to kind of one -up, try to one -up everybody. Right. When Jesus, even in the

Gospel of John, was washing his disciples' feet. Well, I'm going to wash everything. Yeah, just wash me down.

Yeah. So he comes to Peter and he says, Peter says to Jesus, you're going to wash my feet?

Peter refuses, says you will never wash my feet. He thinks that he's being noble when he says that.

Master, you're my master. You're not going to wash my feet. Right. Jesus says, unless I wash you, you have no part in me.

And then Peter goes, well, let's do the whole thing. Wash me down head to toe. Not just my feet, but my head and my hands.

And so he's like, I want to be part of you, so just do it all. And then Jesus has to say, yeah, you're missing the point.

One who has been washed does not need to be cleansed a second time, but only his feet. So a reference to sanctification.

And that we're sanctifying each other. For Jesus goes on to say, as I've done this for you, so you must also do this for each other.

So anyway, that's just an example of how Peter is always kind of trying to get the better Sunday school answer than the rest of the disciples.

Even back in John 6, when Jesus looks at the disciples and says, are you going to leave me too?

And Peter replies, well, where else are we going to go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life. So here, as Jesus is asking

Peter, do you love me? The word agape here may be just kind of, you know, generically asking

Peter, do you love me? Just like we would read it in here in English. Peter, do you love me? But then

Peter is using the phileo word to try to like emphasize, oh, I do better than love you.

I brotherly love you. Right. You're my brother. Yeah. Just like that. And so then when

Jesus asks him the third time, he doesn't use agape.

He uses phileo. And so it's almost like the tone would be Jesus going,

Peter, do you phileo me? Like, do you love me as a brother? And Peter's urgency is even a confession of Christ's lordship.

When he says, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.

And so Jesus gives the same answer he's given to all three questions. Then feed my lambs. Now, we know that the reason why

Jesus asked him this three times is because Peter denied him three times. So this is Jesus graciously reinstating

Peter. Right. To the calling that he was giving him as an apostle to go out and preach the gospel specifically to go out and feed my lambs.

Shepherd the flock of God that is among you. And so that is my non -academic explanation for the different usage in the word.

Various scholars are going to say different things. There's a lot of different interpretations as to why there are different Greek words used here.

Now, I will say that we tend to glorify these words a little bit. As I said, agape tends to be that word that gets used to be like unconditional love.

This is the greatest kind of love, agape love. But even the father refers to the son with a phileo love.

And the son refers to the father in that way. So you would not say that agape therefore is the superior love and then phileo is the lesser love because it's the brotherly love.

So we tend to glorify those words. I would actually urge you to be careful about some of those

Bible studies that are out there saying the four kinds of love. Yeah. And we need to understand what all four of these loves are as though Greek is somehow a superior language to English.

It's not. Right. Greek is another language that's just like English. So their words regarding love, it's not like it's a better word for love than we have.

Yeah. It's not like if you learn Greek that you have the better Bible.

Well, yeah. It's not like you've learned some divine language. Yeah. So anyway.

Yeah. Even in the Greek New Testament, the apostle Paul says when he's giving his testimony, he says that the

Lord spoke to me in the Hebrew language. When you're talking about God appearing to him on the road to Damascus, Jesus saying,

Paul, why are you persecuting? Or Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Saul says, Paul says later,

Jesus spoke to me in the Hebrew language. Well, it's because Saul was a Jew. Right. You know, that's the language that they speak.

So the Lord of heaven and earth spoke to him in the Hebrew language. The New Testament is written in Greek. Like I said,

I'm not a Greek scholar. I know some Greek but not a whole lot. But some of my friends who have gone to seminary and they start learning

Greek, they're excited about it at first because they think that it's going to like open up the New Testament to them in a way that they've never read it before.

Yeah. Just about every Greek student that I've talked to said, no, it was it's just the Bible in Greek.

It's like the exact same thing I'm reading in English, but it's in Greek. So if anything, it affirmed to me that what we have in our

English translation is good. These are good words. It is still the word of God, even though it is in English.

And it's still teaching you much. I don't think that the nuance regarding the usage of the word love here is incredibly important.

Like as though you're learning something new about this text that is better than the way you read it in English.

I just think it's a part of being thorough that you might study it that way and then kind of understand what the different usage of love would be there in that particular section.

But like I said, different scholars have different guesses. And there are so many guesses that it really doesn't change the meaning of the passage.

You might lose part of the meaning in trying to understand. You could get so scholarly.

Yeah. Or trying to understand the different scholars and picking which one's best.

You know, which one you feel is the best scholar to go with scholarly answer.

Right. What have you. Yeah. That you could just lose the text in general. Yeah. You lose just learning to rest and trust in Jesus.

Yeah. Wanting to love Jesus as Peter loved Jesus here. Yeah. I come back to Psalm 131, which we read yesterday on the podcast.

We also did it. Our Bible study at home. So a short three verses here. Oh, Lord, my heart is not lifted up.

My eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.

Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh, Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

And what did we say was being talked about there when the psalmist is saying, Oh, Lord, my heart is not lifted up.

My eyes are not raised too high. Yeah. It's pride. Yeah. And your own conceit.

Yes. Not being too prideful. I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

So it's good to study these kinds of passages. But don't read into that passage that something super mysterious is going on there.

Yeah. Because. I mean, it's not wrong for her to question. Certainly. Right. But be careful not to go down that rabbit hole and not turn back.

Yeah. Or even the way that Paul put it with the Corinthians, don't go beyond what is written. Right. Don't start reading things into the text that aren't there.

Right. Exactly. Paul even saying to Timothy not to be given over to wild speculation and things like that.

One of the requirements for a pastor is that he must be temperate. And temperance for a pastor means that he doesn't let his mind go into crazy notions.

You're teaching what the text says. Yeah. It's deep guesses and stuff like that.

And so, like I said, when it comes to interpreting this John 21 verses 15 through 17, I'm giving you the

Gabe understanding of this. Yes. Which I don't think it's like a deep scholarly answer. But perhaps helps to see the nuance that may exist there with the different words.

But what we have in English is sufficient enough. There isn't anything that's being lost just because we only have one word for love.

But, I mean, it threw out there a little bit more of, you know, do you really, you know, do you really?

Yeah. Throwing in his own word or using his own word. Do you love me? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Using Peter's own word.

Yes. Like, really, do you phileo me? Yes. Yeah. I couldn't remember phileo. Sorry. Yes. That's all right.

Thank you for the question, though, Shay. Because, like I said, I did not go through that, the variations of the way that love is used there, at least according to the

Greek, when I was teaching in that section last year. However long ago that was. Next question.

This comes from Vitas. Hi, Pastor Gabe. Is it that you have crickets in your studio or is it my crickets?

Grace and peace. I think it's your crickets. Or it could be our chairs. They're kind of creaky.

Oh, you know what? I didn't even think of that. Hang on. Creaky chairs. There we go. Maybe that's what it was.

Maybe I was moving in my chair and it was creaking. Because sometimes I'll readjust and it creaks. I don't know.

I don't know. It sounds to me like Vitas was hearing a consistent chirping. Ah. Well, consistent, then it might be your crickets.

That would drive me crazy. I don't know that I would be able to continue recording the broadcast if we had crickets in here.

We've had to stop to catch flies. Yeah, we have. There's some outtakes out there.

Yes, there are. Of me chasing a fly around the room. You can hear it in the microphone.

Well, you probably can't hear it in the microphone, but I can. And it drives me crazy. It is funny. Not to mention how obnoxious it is just having them buzz around your face.

My computer monitor, I think, is brighter than the light in this room. And so they don't hang out with the light.

It's kind of like a soft light bulb that I have in this room. So the monitor is probably brighter, especially when

I have my WordPad open like this because it's just a white screen. Yeah. So the flies will come over here because, you know, bugs attracted to light.

And then they fly right in front of my face and you hear it in the microphone. That could be part of the problem. I could dim my monitor.

Here. How's that? No, because then I can't see it. Oh, you can't see it? All right. Next question.

This comes from John in Canada. He says, Hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky. Has God given

America over to its lusts as in Romans chapter one? And if he has, should we be concerned?

Will America fall because God has given it over? Should we move away to a society more in line with true

Christianity? I live in Canada, but our culture is in the same situation, maybe even more secular and godless than the states.

Yeah. I think they're like probably America 10, 15 years into the future. Yeah. I don't know.

America's been catching up here this year. Pretty rapidly. Yeah. It's like, how left are you?

We need to we need to catch up with y 'all. No, I still think there is a there's a strain of conservativism in the

US and there's still some solid Christianity here. I mean, it's my own church. It's many other churches that are out there that are saying, yeah, staying true to the word, still preaching it solidly from the pulpit.

Mm hmm. I hope that you are involved in one. Yes. And sitting under that teaching and growing with that body.

Definitely. That you have your hope renewed and focused upon Christ. Don't fall into despair no matter what's happening in this world.

I think it's right for us to mourn it. Definitely. And we desire that the justice of God be done in the earth.

We know that one day it will when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, when he brings judgment in the fiery angels from his father, as Paul talks about in Second Thessalonians chapter one, those who did not obey the gospel will perish in judgment.

But those who were the saints whom Christ has reserved for himself will stand and marvel at what

God is doing in in even in these days. So I don't think that we should fall into despair in that way.

Even uproot yourself and move to another place. Now, maybe the area where you live has descended into such chaos.

There's just not any way for you to continue to have an adequate way of life there.

Yeah. I don't know what living in Seattle and Portland are like right now. But you've got businesses that are boarded up and are never going to open again.

Right. I've been reading about businesses in California that are never going to open again. Yeah. That have been open for decades.

Yeah. And now since COVID has shut them down, there's no way for themselves to be sustained and they've had to board up and they'll probably never open again.

There's something like I can't remember the statistic that I saw about the businesses in New York City, but it's something like 40 % of businesses may not open again.

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I mean, it's tempting to jump ship and everything.

But you also have to look at it as that's where the gospel is needed right now.

There's still people there needing the gospel. Yeah. So if you are there and you have the means to share the gospel, by all means do.

But if there's – I mean, when do you decide to move out at that point?

It's a good question. I would say to trust in the guidance of your pastor, people that live within your own area.

Right. I don't think – so the question that John is giving here is should we just up and move out of America to a society more in line with true

Christianity? I don't think there is another place for us to go. I was going to say, no matter where you live, there's always, always somewhere looking – someone looking at your life, wishing they had your life.

Yeah. The grass is always greener on the other side. Always. As the old proverb goes. Always. Always. Whether they want a simpler life or whether they think that you're living better than they are.

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't matter. I still think America is the greatest country on earth.

I can still go down to the grocery store and buy bread and milk. Yes. I mean, things are kind of crazy right now with COVID and whatnot, but it's still nice that in a capitalistic society, we've got the supply chain that when supplies are depleted, they're quickly restored and the shelves are restocked.

So, I can still provide for my family here. Yeah, I wish that America would come to repentance.

I mean, the blood that is on the hands of this nation is immeasurable with the number of unborn children that are aborted every year.

Yeah. You've got the increase and rapid spread of LGBTQ rights, which are just extremely absurd.

I was just having a conversation with somebody on Twitter yesterday, because I made the tweet that there's no such thing as trans children.

Your children are not trans. You have a boy or you have a girl. Right. And you need to raise boys up and teaching them how to be men.

You need to raise your girls up and teaching them how to be women. And this is not complicated.

Your children know the difference between a boy and a girl. Yes. Kids get this.

It is the depravity of our nation that has steeped so many people into this idea that sexuality is fluid and you can be whatever gender you want to be.

Gender, sex, whatever. I had made this comment on Twitter and there was a nurse, a nurse that commented.

So, a person who works in the medical field. All right. Said to me, this just demonstrates your ignorance, because there are trans people.

And she blocked me, but I didn't get the chance to ask her to say, you're a nurse.

You mean to tell me you can't tell the difference between a man and a woman until you ask the man if he's really a man or you ask the woman if she's really a woman.

Like, give me your pronouns first, so I know if you're really a man or a woman. That's all

I got. Yeah. So, yesterday I was listening to the sermon from that pastor who came out to his congregation that he's a woman now.

This has been making all kinds of headlines. Oh, all kinds. It was all during COVID.

Yep. So, he does this through Zoom. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. That's why

I was listening to it. I didn't even know that. So, it was the sermon that he did on Zoom announcing that he's now a woman.

And there was a Baptist, some sort of a Baptist news feed. It wasn't

Baptist Press, like Baptist News Global or something like that. So, a Baptist news site was talking about this story and was referring to this pastor as she and her.

Right. That's not a woman. No. That's a man. Right. And so, it kind of demonstrates just what kind of an effect this campaign, this movement is having on society when even a

Baptist news website is choosing to use the pronouns that this particular pastor is designated.

Yeah. He may look like a woman. He's a pervert, dressed like a woman, but he is still a man.

Nothing has changed that. He was born with XY chromosomes. You are born with XY or XX.

If you are born with XX chromosomes, you're a female. If you're born with XY, you're a male.

And guess what? That doesn't change. Nope. You are that way for the rest of your life. When that pastor dies and he is dead and gone, and someone unearths his remains, and they test those remains to find out if that pastor was a man or a woman, what's going to come back is, this is a man.

Yes. And there's not going to be any... In fact, you can even look at the skeletal structure and see this is a man.

Mm -hmm. It doesn't even take a DNA test because men have a specific biology and women have a specific biology.

Excuse me, I got choked up there. We have it stated for us right from the very beginning of the

Bible, Genesis 127. In fact, to this nurse that had asked this question or had made this statement about how ignorant

I was because I don't understand that there's trans people, there was a fellow that responded to her.

Trans children. Trans children, right. There was a fellow that responded to her and said, he quoted from Matthew 19, verses 4 through 6, where Jesus replies to the

Pharisees, have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?

Yes. And that's Genesis 127. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him.

Male and female, he created them. My friends, this is one of the simplest truths that we have to understand, that even unbelievers get.

So how is it that a person gets to a point where they don't even see the basic truth of a man and a woman because God has turned them over to their own depravity?

So here we come back to the question that John was asking here regarding Romans 1, verse 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

They know the truth. The truth, it's not rocket science. Right. Your kids understand the difference between a boy and a girl.

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them.

For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal

God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. And that's really what's going on with this particular pastor, too, is that he is worshiping the created things rather than the creator.

He's even worshiping the things that he himself believes that he's creating. Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever.

Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions.

For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and their men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.

Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And that's what's going on with this particular guy. So let's bring these two passages together. Let's bring together what we read in John 21 with what we're reading here in Romans chapter one.

All right. So this pastor, I listened to the sermon. This man who thinks he's a woman. This pastor says to his congregation that he loves

God. God loves me. God loves you, too. Okay. He's making this statement about God loving him just the way that he is.

Right. Which apparently is as a woman in his mind. So God would be asking,

Christ would be asking this man, really? Do you love me? And he doesn't even get past the first question.

The first time that Jesus asks him, do you really love me? Because that man's answer would have to be, well, I like my version of you.

Right. And that's what it is that he's worshiping. Exactly. It drives me crazy that people,

I mean, usually whenever it goes to this extreme, they're already covering up a multitude of other sins.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it did not get to this point overnight. Right. And for him to be leading his congregation through these multiple sins that he's been committing right in front of them, for them, number one, to not be calling him out on it.

Well, they did. So how this ended up being a news item again, because it was last month that he did the sermon where he came out as a woman.

Now, this is hitting the news again because he's been removed by his church. No, I mean like before it happened.

Oh, well, sure. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get what you're saying. To lead up to this. Yeah, there were plenty of signs. Don't you call a brother out to the side to tell them that they're doing something wrong before they go and do something huge?

Right, yes. There are flags, people, red flags that you see a brother sinning.

Stop them. Stop them before they do something really dumb. Yeah. And, you know,

I mean, it's like, I don't know. I just don't understand. So this is a

June Joplin. That's the name he's going by now. I think Justin was his original name, and then he decided to go by June.

I would guess because he came out in June. So he decided to use the name

June. A Canadian Baptist pastor who came out as transgender in a

Sunday sermon back on June 14th. So the church has now disciplined Justin, but unfortunately, he was removed only by a percentage of 52 to 48.

52 % to remove, 48 to keep. And that explains, I mean, that shows the impact that it had on his congregation.

Right. Of them, him leading them through his sins.

Yes. And justifying why his sins are okay. That means that he led that many people into thinking that this is okay.

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. But they had teachers to, you know, they're accumulating for themselves teachers to scratch their itching ears.

Well, sure. But, I mean, how many people could he have been leading the other direction?

When they still could have been. If they had corrected him from the beginning. Right. Of his sins.

And then he also correcting them. I mean, yeah, it kind of goes both ways. Right. Yeah. Well, of course, because he's the pastor.

Right. He's probably got more influence over them than they have over him. Sure. But yeah, you're still talking about a brother in the

Lord. Yeah. Somebody who's supposed to be a brother in the Lord who is. But who's keeping him accountable?

Nobody, even when he was there. Hence why he believed that he could come out as a woman. And now, Dr. Tom Buck, referring to this particular story, he said, if this church has any chance to survive, 48 % of this church should immediately be put under church discipline by the other 52%.

Now, I agree with that. I don't think that that's going to happen, though, because I think the other 52 % is probably in just as much error as the other 48%.

But they haven't compounded on their error by allowing this pastor to remain there.

Yeah. Though he decides to come out as a woman. So it's pretty bad that this happened, but how in the world did it even get this far?

Thank you. That's what I'm asking. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Like I said, I listened to this sermon. I listened to Joplin's sermon on June 14th, where he came out and he announced himself as a woman, and he looks like a woman in the video.

Yeah. So he's done himself up to look that way. But the sermon was absolutely terrible.

He was talking about the Pearl of Great Price, the parable that Jesus told, which is talking about everlasting life.

It's the treasure of heaven. It's Christ himself. To have Christ is to have eternal life.

Right. This is what Jesus was referring to in his parable of the Pearl of Great Price. But I assume he wasn't talking about that.

Oh, yeah. No, he was talking about the pearl being that I'm coming out as a woman.

So this is my pearl. Oh. That I'm actually a woman. And he even says toward the end of the sermon that this is the gospel.

This is the good news, that I'm now free to be who it is that I want to be. That is their treasures are here on the earth.

Yeah. That's why we lay our treasures up in heaven. Where moth and rust do not destroy.

And thieves do not break in and steal. Because what the thief has brought in and stolen from this man is reason.

Is an understanding of truth. But by his unrighteousness, he has suppressed the truth.

And the enemy has stolen that from him. Has any sense of logic or reason that would be given to a person's mind that they may understand just basic truths.

Even those things that God has made plain to them because he has shown to them. His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse. This pastor is not going to have any excuse on judgment day to be able to say,

I didn't know. I didn't know the difference between a man and a woman. Yeah, you did. By your unrighteousness.

By the sins that were way more than this, as Becky was saying, before we even got to this point.

No, Jim. You loved your sin, so you suppressed the truth. Well, and I'm praying that in the whole disciplinary actions that they finally took, that he will repent and see his ways that have gone way astray.

Sure, I hope so. And I don't think that we shouldn't pray for that. I know

I used a double negative there. We should pray for a person's repentance. As long as a person has breath in their lungs,

God can still grant them repentance. I mean, look at the revival that happened in Nineveh, for crying out loud.

Right. Thank you. Has there ever been a revival in the history of mankind like Nineveh, an entire city, an entire wicked city the size of Topeka, Kansas?

Yep. The whole city. Yeah, right. The capital of our state. A city that large, and from the king down to the smallest citizen, and even their own animals, clothed themselves in sackcloth and ashes in repentance before the

Lord. And God granted them that repentance and stayed his hand and did not destroy them through the message of repentance that Jonah preached to them, though he didn't want to do it.

Right. But he was obedient to the Lord. He would rather have had God destroy the Ninevites. Right. But he was obedient to the calling that God gave him eventually.

Eventually. After. After spending three days in a whale's belly. In a big fish's belly.

Sorry, before anybody emails me, it's a big fish. It's a big fish. It wasn't a whale. After three days in a big fish's belly, barfed out on the land.

I don't want to think about that. Goes into Nineveh, bleached completely white from the gases in the whale's stomach, in the big fish's stomach.

In big fish, yes. So he gets to Nineveh looking like a ghost and smelling like death.

I'm sure. And he looks at them and he goes, repent. Repentance.

Now, what would you do? God leads an entire city to repentance.

I believe that he can do the same thing for this nation. So we as heralds of the gospel still need to be holding out the gospel, even to a man this depraved.

But we still also understand, according to what the scripture says in Romans chapter one, and we also talked about this yesterday in our

Psalm study, about wanting the judgment of God to come because God is just and he will punish the evil to bring about his perfect kingdom.

So those who are evil will perish and we should want the judgment of God to come. But that doesn't mean we look at this guy and we say, well, judge him,

God. Bring your judgment down on him. The judgment that we want upon him is the conviction of his heart by the

Holy Spirit that he may turn from his sin and so be saved from that judgment that is to come.

But if he does not repent, what we have stated here is very clear. The wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

So we know we can see even by those things that God has shown to us that the wrath of God is coming against men who do evil.

This is evil. What he is doing here and what he is teaching his congregation is downright evil for he not only defies what

God has created and attempts to make it into something that God has not created, but he also blasphemes

Christ by saying, no, the real good news is that I'm a woman. What an awful blasphemous gospel.

And for that he will be judged unless he comes to repentance. And I hope this man has the fear of God in his heart.

This man, not this woman. He is not who he says he is. Anyway, John, so somewhere in there

I hope was an answer to the question. No, I don't think we should run away from the state that we're in unless you live in an area where it's just impossible to survive there.

Right. Do what you need to do to get out of Sodom and take your family to a place where you can at least buy some food and provide for your own family.

But as far as like abandoning America and going somewhere else, we're always going to be needed somewhere in preaching the gospel.

Right. I don't think it's about going to the most comfortable place that you can go to because who knows where that is.

But we still need to love the gospel of Christ. We need to love our neighbor and we need to take the gospel to our neighbor.

Right. And we always know what grass is always greener. Yeah, right. Exactly. Grass is always greener on the other side.

Doesn't mean it's better always over there. You're going to get over there and go, well, this grass was just like the grass over there.

Yeah, let's keep moving. Final email here. Hello, Pastor Gabe. God bless you for all the work your ministry has done to preaching

God's word. I wanted to ask you a question that's weighed on my mind as I've been having a hard time understanding the different gospel told by the

Roman Catholic Church. Were the Christians from the fifth century of the Catholic Church all the way up to the

Reformation? So for a thousand years, were they not saved then? If we say that they have a different gospel, it's been bothering me for quite a while now.

And the implications are horrifying to me that people like Aquinas were not saved because of a few different doctrines.

Anyway, God bless you. Well, I believe that God is merciful. Thomas Aquinas is saved state.

I don't even know what I could tell you about that. I've read very little of Thomas Aquinas. Most of what

I know from him is really what R .C. Sproul has taught about him. Because Dr.

Sproul had a huge admiration for Thomas Aquinas. So I wouldn't be able to say anything about his salvation.

And yes, there were Christians from 500 A .D. to 1 ,000 A .D. I'm sorry, 1 ,500

A .D., that thousand years kind of in between. What we refer to as the Dark Ages. And we refer to it as the

Dark Ages because the light of the gospel was so dim. It was so hard to find. Since it had been so clouded by such false teaching in the church.

You have the great schism that took place in the middle there between the Roman Catholic Church and the

Eastern Orthodox Church. Roman Catholic Church, of course, kind of became the dominant power there.

But it's not like the gospel wasn't there at all. Even that the gospel wasn't within the Catholic Church. There still were men that believed the true gospel.

But there were some distortions in a lot of their doctrines. They still held the Pope to a higher standard than they should have.

But was what they believed a damnable heresy to the degree that there were no men saved in that period?

I don't think so. I think we should grieve that period that we not repeat it. They were definitely some dark days.

The gospel was very dim and was hard to find and was not proclaimed in many areas. It was a lot of salvation by works.

Do this. Pay your penance. Buy your indulgences in order to knock years off your purgatory.

That kind of a thing. So, yeah, they were definitely some dark days. But God has always preserved for himself a remnant.

It is by the power of God that the gospel has been preserved and has gone forth. Mankind is going to do everything that mankind can do to make it dark.

Right. To change it, to redefine it just like Pastor Joplin did. I mean, the path is narrow.

The road is narrow. Yeah. That leads to eternal life. So it's going to be a lot more narrow than we think, than it looks even.

I think so. But I also think that the grace of God is going to be more incredible than we think.

Oh, by far, of course. Yeah, we say that. But remember that what John sees in the

Revelation, he sees a multitude praising God in heaven so great that they cannot be counted. Right.

But that's a multitude over how many years? 2 ,000 years. Well, I say 2 ,000 years.

That's just the church. Yeah. But over the history of mankind, God has always been redeeming for himself.

He always has a remnant. Right. We were reading with our children recently in 1 Kings where Elijah, he's complaining to God because there's no one left.

I'm the only one. Right. And God says to Elijah, I have 7 ,000 that haven't bowed the knee to Baal.

And that's still amazing. You're not the only one, Elijah. There's 7 ,000 people who have not bowed the knee to Baal that I've reserved for myself.

Right. But you also think Israel was over 2 million people? That's not very many. When we're talking remnant, we mean remnant.

Right. When you put them all together, it feels like, okay, I've got plentiful.

But when you spread them all out, it might not feel like very many. Yeah. Not many at all.

These do feel like narrow days. Narrow ways and narrow days.

Yeah. But hold fast to Christ. He is preserving for himself his people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

The number of us in glory will be so incredible that they cannot be counted, even though these days feel like the believers are so few in number.

But we hold fast to Christ. He's reserved for himself, his elect, even in the dark ages, even in the present time.

Yes, definitely. Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, thank you for our time together. And I pray that you would keep us zealous for those good works.

That we would love the gospel. We love Christ. Christ is the greatest treasure. He is our eternal life who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave.

Whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life. Forgive us our sins.

Never let us be too proud in ourselves. But any one of us could have been as evil as to perish with the rest of this world.

It is you who are great and are merciful and have called us by your grace. May your gospel go throughout the world and many others turn from their sin and know the true

Christ of the Bible. Keep us steadfast in your word. Never let us turn to the left or to the right from the narrow path that you've set out for us in Christ Jesus our

Lord. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. So yeah, they were definitely some dark days.

But God has always preserved for himself a remnant. It is by the power of God that the gospel has been preserved and has gone forth.

Mankind is going to do everything that mankind can do to make it dark. Right. To change it, to redefine it just like Pastor Joplin did.

And, I mean, the— Oh, fiddle, what was it?

Mankind is going to do everything that mankind can do to darken it, to make it bad, to change it, to redefine it, to turn it into something else.

That's not the true gospel of the Bible. Somewhere in there maybe you had your thought. The path is narrow.

That was it. Yes! Yes! And that is such a good word. So we've got to get that word in there.