WWUTT 1525 Q&A What is a Reprobate, Liberty of Conscience, Familiar With Scripture

Reprobate, False Convert, and Apostate

How do you know if a person is a reprobate? And what does that word mean? If the government says you have to be vaccinated, do you have to take the vaccine? And what's some advice on becoming familiar with the scriptures?

The answers when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .wutt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me today and still up in the air about how this next week is gonna go. G3, of course, is next week. I'm gonna be heading down on Monday and I'm taking at least a couple of the kids with me, if not the entire family.

My mom and dad live in Atlanta, so we can always go and stay with them. I'm gonna be teaching at the expository workshop on Tuesday and Wednesday that also features Vodie Bauckham, Conrad and Bayway, Tom Buck will be there, and we're gonna be guiding pastors through an exposition of 2 Timothy so that they can learn how to exposit the scriptures.

That's what these G3 expository workshops are for. So I've gotta be there early anyway. The actual conference itself doesn't start until, well, Thursday, but Wednesday night, if you're going to the pre-conference.

I'm setting up my booth, of course, and then what will have a booth? A When We Understand the Text booth there in the exhibition hall. So would love to see you. I'll have my usual pamphlets I'm handing out, some books to sell and things like that.

If I run out of everything, well, I'll still be there shaking hands. This is a sold out event. Over 6 ,000 people are gonna be at G3 this coming Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That is phenomenal. But of course, it also means it's gonna be pretty packed.

So if you're able to weed through the crowd and get to the When We Understand the Text booth, would love to see you there. If you're there, we'd love to see you. As far as episodes for next week, the podcast, I don't know how this is gonna go.

I wasn't planning on doing anything different. So for now, I'm still expecting to do 1 Corinthians on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Proverbs on Thursday and then the Q &A on Friday. What I'd like to be able to do is interview some of the speakers who are there for G3.

I've got a recorder that I'm gonna take with me and then cut up those questions, those interviews and post them for a G3 edition of the Q &A. And if possible, I'd like to do that Thursday and Friday. So maybe there will be two Q &A episodes next week.

I don't know, we'll see how all of that is gonna go. I'm just, I just gotta get there first. That's all I'm concerned about right now. This being Friday, we take questions from the listeners and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Last week, all of my questions were from gals. This week, all of my questions will be from guys. This first one is from Gregory. Heya, can a reprobate be someone who thinks they are a Christian or will they always have contempt for God and his word?

So is this, so when we use that term reprobate, can it be someone who thinks they are a Christian or is it only for those who outright express contempt for God and his word? Gregory goes on, I've been concerned for someone who claims to be a Christian and besides not bearing much of any fruit, much too easily despises and disparages and berates another person, sometimes with the relentlessness that is a part of my great concern for them.

Love your ministry and praying for you. Thank you so much, Gregory. Well, the term reprobate, that word, describes someone who is left in their fallen human nature to sin, whom God has not predestined for salvation and therefore they will come into judgment and be condemned to hell forever.

That's a reprobate. So yes, a person can claim to be a Christian but not actually be a Christian. They're enslaved to their sin rather than set free in Christ. Anyone who never comes to saving faith is a reprobate.

However, we have to be careful in the way we use this word. It's meant to be used kind of in an academic sense rather than in a practical sense. Do you know what I mean? So we should tend to apply this word generally, not specifically.

Like when we talk about the reprobate, we're speaking about the unsaved in general, those whom God has not foreknown, whom he has not placed his affections on and predestined for salvation from before the foundation of the world.

You might be able to use it in the past tense. For example, we can say that Pharaoh was a reprobate or Judas was a reprobate, but you can't say of this acquaintance of yours that he's reprobate because you don't know.

So if this person is a professing Christian, but they still look like the world, they don't look like a Christian, they're not producing fruit, we would call such a person a false convert. If they once professed faith, but they have since left the faith, we call them apostate.

What does the scripture say about someone who is not producing fruit? Consider the words of Jesus in Matthew 7, verses 15 through 20. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Consider Galatians chapter five, where we have the fruit of the Spirit explained to us.

Galatians 5 .16, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

So Gregory, you have to analyze regarding your friend, does it look like they are producing the works of the flesh or are they producing the fruit of the Spirit? And a good idea would be to simply show this friend what the scripture has to say and that they're behaving in such a way that is not Christ-like.

It is not reflective of the Christian fruit that they should be producing. When we talk about the reprobate, that word comes from a Latin word that means disapproved. So a reprobate is someone who is not approved by God.

It is God and God alone who makes a person worthy of him. And you only come to know if a person has been predestined for salvation if they repent and believe in Jesus Christ. And even then, as Jesus said in Matthew 10, 22, those who endure to the end will be saved.

So they didn't just profess it as a momentary feeling or a passing opinion, but they remained in that conviction for the rest of their life. We've been in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs 16, four says, the Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

So those that God has not for ordained to salvation will be left in their fallenness for a particular purpose. Revelation 13, eight, and all who dwell on the earth will worship the beast. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb who was slain.

Those whose names have not been written in God's book from the foundation of the world are reprobate, which again, we use that word in a general sense, not specifically saying, well, that guy's reprobate.

Well, we don't know who the elect are. And by extension, we don't know who the reprobate are. God knows our responsibility is to his word and to the gospel preaching to everyone the message of the kingdom and God will be the one to sort them out.

Amen. Preach the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, rose again from the grave, ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

Romans 13, Government Authority, and Vaccine Mandates

Whoever believes in him will not perish under the judgment of God, but we will have everlasting life. This next question here comes from Jesse, says, hello, Pastor Gabe. I have been listening to your podcast and watching your short videos for quite some time now.

Your teaching has been a blessing to me and I look forward to each of your episodes. Thank you so much, Jesse. I know I can count on your content to teach sound doctrine and theology. Thank you for all the hard work you put into it.

And you know, guys, that doesn't just come from me. I've got accountable men around me, or let me say doctrinally sound men around me who are keeping me accountable. So you know, this is not just Gabe stuff and we're doing whatever it is that Gabe is feeling like talking about that day.

I am teaching what comes from the scriptures and I have other men around me that are making sure that I stay true to the scriptures. So this is for your benefit and for your edification to commit yourself to the word of God and be sanctified by what you hear, what you are learning according to God's word.

So going on with Jesse's comment here. Now to my question, he says, I recently listened to Dr. James White give a response to Todd Friel regarding Romans 13 and mandatory vaccines. From what I understood, Todd Friel is of the mind that we as Christians, we should get the vaccine if the governing authority mandates it.

And Dr. White does not agree with that. I respect both men and value their opinions. I was just wondering what your take is with regards to the government and mandatory vaccination and what is said in Romans 13.

Should Christians receive the vaccine if our civil government makes it a law to do so? My heart tells me not to do it, but my heart is not the standard, God's word is. And I desire to please God in this by obeying his word.

Thank you for your ministry. God bless you and I'll be praying for you and your family. Thank you so much, brother in Christ. Well, I have talked about this in the past and there are previous episodes you can go to.

I cannot remember them off the top of my head, but they weren't that long ago because they were just last year when I was going through, well, this year. Yeah, this year when I was going through Romans.

So when I was in Romans 13, I did that passage and then I went back in a couple of special episodes and talked about government mandates, mostly regarding masks. I don't think the mandates for the vaccines were being handed down yet.

Oh, no, it was with regard to not attending church because the government has mandated that. There are some state governments that have implemented a certain number of people can't enclose or can't gather in an enclosed space.

Do we obey that? Do we rebel against the government? And there were some that tried to say, we need to listen to the government. You can't go to church because that's what Romans 13 tells us to do. And I went through Romans 13 and explained how that's exactly wrong.

The government does not have authority. God does not grant authority to the government to make up new rules that supersede what God has commanded in his word. He's commanded the church to gather. The government cannot prevent us from doing that.

As Peter said in Acts chapter five, we must obey God rather than men. So Romans 13 does not supersede anything that has been commanded anywhere else in the scriptures. What I did with those couple of episodes, and we did this at our church here as well.

On a Sunday evening, we did a couple of Sunday nights. Well, it was more than two. It was like four. I think I spent two evenings on Romans 13. Pastor Tom did an evening on first Peter two, those two main passages that talk about submitting to governing authorities.

And then we did a Q and A where members of the congregation asked us questions. And so anyway, I went through that in context and then examined our current context and how it applies. Let me go through that very quickly here.

First beginning in Romans chapter 12. So in Romans 12, we have these general instructions for Christian living. And you know some of these instructions, let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast what is good, contribute to the needs of the saints, rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

That's some of the instructions that we have there. But consider this a little bit later on, verse 17, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink, for by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Okay, you remember that? That's the very end of Romans 12. Now it's almost like you got to pretend the chapter divisions are not even there. So keeping the context in mind, as we go into Romans 13, let every person be subject to the governing authorities.

This is still instructions for Christians living in our present world. Be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. If you try to resist the governing authorities, judgment will come upon you, okay? Verse three, here's the intention of government.

This is what God established these ruling authorities for. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. And as Peter puts it in 1 Peter 2, they are to punish evildoers and promote that which is good.

Paul goes on, would you have no fear of the one who is an authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Now, remember what we just read in Romans 12. Do not take matters into your own hands. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So if somebody does something lawless against you, and it's something that's beyond what the church is supposed to handle.

You know, there's certain disagreements the church can handle between brothers and sisters in the Lord. We've talked about that when we were going through 1 Corinthians 6, but those things that become actual lawlessness, like a person is committing a crime.

We don't take matters into our own hands. We turn it over to the civic authorities, and they're the ones who are supposed to be handling this. He is God's servant for your good. If you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

That's supposed to be the purpose of civic government. So it's not saying here in Romans 13, we do whatever the government tells us to do. That's not what's going on. Now, some have taken like a Christian liberty issue and have said that, well, the Bible doesn't say we need to obey speed limit signs, so therefore I don't have to obey a speed limit sign.

Well, yes, you still have to obey the speed limit. The roads don't belong to you. They belong to the government. If you're gonna drive on the government's roads, then you gotta follow the government's rules.

And they say, this is how fast you're allowed to go. If you're gonna exceed that speed limit, you have to be prepared to accept there's gonna be consequences for that action. And you have to submit to that authority when they come down on you for that.

A speeding ticket is not something ungodly. You broke the law. And so now you're being taxed because you broke that law. That's essentially what a speeding fine is. And as the scripture goes on to say here in verse seven, pay to all what is owed to them.

Taxes to whom taxes are owed. Revenue to whom revenue is owed. Respect to whom respect is owed. Honor to whom honor is owed. So the Christian liberty thing doesn't mean that you can speed. You can drive your car as fast as you want wherever it is that you want.

There's certain people that take this view of a victimless crime. Something cannot be a crime if there isn't a victim. Well, there are certain rules that have been enacted by our government that you do have to follow.

And you subject yourself to those rules all the time. That is in obedience to God. If you disobey those rules, there's consequences for that behavior. Now, there are some rules that the government is gonna lay down that would not be sin for you to disobey, but there's still gonna be consequences if you do.

You know what I mean? So the church regulations would be an example of that. Certain states that have said, you cannot gather as a church in more than 20 people in a certain size and closed space or something like that.

But you say to yourself, well, Acts 5 says, I must obey God rather than men. Hebrews 10, we're gathering as a church, so I'm going to church. You're obeying God and you're not doing anything wicked or sinful.

But if the government finds out and they decide to fine everybody who went to church, you just have to accept there's consequences for that behavior. Now, in the United States of America, I don't believe we're even disobeying the law if we go against those state mandates.

That's been one of the frustrating things about the differing opinions that have existed among Christians. Which law is it are we supposed to obey? Do we obey these mandates or do we obey our state constitution and our federal constitution?

Because when I was in Kansas and my church never shut down, we also never broke the law. The governor may have said that no more than 10 people could gather in an enclosed space at a time. We were well over that every time.

But we never broke the law. We were never in violation of the law. I went to our state constitution and I read what it said. We were not in violation of it. The governor was. And the governor had to keep the constitution just like I was expected to.

We're a nation of laws, not a nation of kings. So in the United States anyway, we've got laws that govern our nation. Even the governors of our nation, they have to keep and uphold those laws. And so that's what I was going by.

I was never in disobedience to that law. John MacArthur and Grace Community Church, they were never disobeying the law. In fact, the courts have agreed with that. They were never in disobedience with the law.

So not only did they win their civic cases, but they were awarded all of the money that they had to spend to defend themselves in court. The state of California had to pay for that. It was determined that they never broke the law.

They were exactly in keeping with the law. So know what your rights are and follow along with those rights and use them to your advantage. But just know that if some kind of law is laid down and we go against it like a vaccine mandate, you're not sinning by disobeying the vaccine mandate because I believe it's a matter of conscience based on Romans 14.

I'm not gonna keep going further on this. You're just gonna have to go read Romans 14 and understand what I mean by this. So it's a matter of conscience. If you wanna get the vaccine, great. You're not doing anything wrong.

If you don't wanna get the vaccine and you are convinced that you're honoring God by not putting that into your body, that's good too. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls.

Romans 14, four. So we're not supposed to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may do this. Another person believes that. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. Romans 14, five. So exercise those things as a matter of liberty, not as something that you have to do.

So if you get the shot, you haven't sinned. If you don't get the shot, you haven't sinned. But understand, again, if your state has issued some kind of a mandate, there's probably gonna be consequences for not getting the shot.

If your job, your employer has said, all of the employees have to get this shot, you have to decide, do I wanna go along with this or do I wanna risk losing my job? That's between you and the Lord. Now in those nations like Canada, cause I've had this question asked a couple of times of me from people who are listening in from Canada.

Let's say that Canada says you have to get vaccinated or we're gonna take your kids away. I still think that's a matter you have to decide between you and the Lord. But if it were me, let me just give you what my opinion is.

If the United States of America says, you have to get vaccinated or we're taking your kids, I'm gonna get vaccinated. And I'm not even going to risk there being a lull where I'm fighting some sort of tyranny while my kids are taken from me and they're put somewhere else.

I don't know where they are. I don't know how long they're gonna be there. Before we can get this legal matter settled, even though I believe that I'm right and the government is wrong, I'm gonna get vaccinated.

It's horrible, it's awful, it's tyranny, but I'm not gonna let anybody take my kids, period. So I'm gonna do what I need to do as the head of my household to keep my family together. If there's somebody else that's gonna fight that battle, let them do it.

I hope it doesn't come down to that though. Anyway, I believe I've probably given you enough material there, Jesse, and hope that's helpful. Next question comes from Sean. Good evening, some friends of mine were looking at your website and you were quoting scriptures.

Do you quote them from memory or do you read them to the audience? We were all wondering. Please let me know how you put that format together. Do you quote verbatim out of the NASB by memory? Well, I'm guessing you're probably talking about the videos that I did where I'm looking into the camera.

So I'm talking to the camera. If you see me looking into the camera and I'm quoting scripture, that's from memory. I'm not reading that from anything unless you see me looking down or, you know, it's evident that I'm looking off to the side and I'm reading something else.

But if I'm looking straight into the camera, I don't have a teleprompter in front of me or anything like that. I'm doing that from memory. Most of my memorized scripture is in the ESV. It's in the English standard version.

And you've been hearing on the podcast that I've kind of been shifting over to the legacy standard Bible. So I'm losing some of that, which I had memorized. Now I kind of summarize the verse based on a, like a hodgepodge of the LSB wording, the NASB wording and the ESV wording.

Most of what I have memorized though is in the ESV. And it's a pretty significant chunk of the New Testament. I wouldn't say it's quite a third, but it's pretty close to that. In the English standard version, I have almost all of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus memorized.

So I could, I could quote those three books. For the most part, I could do that memorized. Nobody come up to me and test me in that at G3 though, I won't be able to do it. If you were to name the chapter of the New Testament, I would be able to tell you what's in it.

I may not be able to do the chapter memorized, but I know what's in the chapter. Like Matthew 28, for example, well, that's an easy one. That's the resurrection of Christ. Let me pick another one, Matthew 8.

So this is right after the Sermon on the Mount. It begins with Jesus cleansing a leper. You have the story of the faith of the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant. There is other healing miracles that he does.

He talks about the cost of following him. You get to Matthew 9, there's more miracles, Jesus calling Matthew. So I could do that. I could summarize for you what's in the chapter, though I may not, and then I could quote you a few verses from that chapter.

I just may not be able to do the whole chapter from memory. That just comes from years of study. You just have to commit yourself to studying the scriptures and familiarizing yourself with it. Something that I've told new believers when they first become Christians and they say, where do I start in the Bible?

I generally tell them to start with the Gospel of John. So read John or Matthew. Sometimes I've said Matthew. I rarely give them something in the Old Testament, though, because I want them to know Christ.

So go to the part of the Bible that reveals Christ. That's gonna be the New Testament. So reading Matthew first or John first, and then I'll also tell them, familiarize yourself with where everything is in the scriptures.

So just memorize the books of the Bible. Know the order. How many are in the Old Testament? How many are in the New? And so when you go to church and your pastor says, open up your Bible, please, to Psalm 23, you know approximately where the Psalms are in the Bible.

If you open it up at about halfway, then you're gonna open it up to the Psalms and then turn to Psalm 23. So it's easier for you to follow along with your teachers when they direct you to certain things in the scripture.

Oh, Pastor Tom's interrupting me here. Hey, what are you doing? It worked. Pastor Tom, ladies and gentlemen, his introduction to when we understand the text. I would have had him come sit down and answer some questions here.

I'm at the end anyway. So Sean, there's the answer to your question. If you have any other questions, send them to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. At our booth at G3, I'm gonna have some cards with me.

So if you wanna write down a question and have us answer it on the program. Maybe you've thought of stuff, but I never think of it when I sit down at my computer and open up my email. We'll write it down on the card and we'll do an episode where we respond to questions we collected at G3.

We've done that before. I think we do that every G3, now that I think about it. And I'll get Becky in here on that one for sure. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your goodness and your grace.

And I pray that you teach us how to know your word, familiarize ourselves with it, and that we know how to take the scriptures and apply them to our lives. That we may live in a way that is pleasing and acceptable in your sight, living upright and godly lives in this present age.

Save us from this wicked and crooked generation. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. But until Christ returns, may we respond to our culture wisely and always holding out the gospel of Jesus Christ. For it is only by faith in Jesus that a person can be forgiven their sins and be delivered from the judgment of God that is to come and have everlasting life with you in glory.

Give us boldness to speak these truths in these days. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

This is when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good gospel teaching Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.