WWUTT 1565 Q&A What Was Paul‘s Thorn, Is Gambling a Sin, Is Christmas Acceptable Worship?

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What was the thorn in the Apostle Paul's side? What are some other examples of things that we have liberty to partake in in 1

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Corinthians chapter 10? Should a Christian be participating in Christmas? The answer is when we understand the text.

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Happy Fritzgiving! You did it! And an early

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Merry Christmas from your friends at When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast to help encourage your time in the

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Word. Tell your friends about our website www .utt .com Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. You're welcome. And a happy belated happy birthday?

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I was even going to say happy Thanksgiving. Happy belated birthday. Happy belated birthday.

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That's what it is. To our friend Fred. Yes. In California. Whose birthday was on Thanksgiving.

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Yes. Isn't that exciting? That's awesome. Yes. All the pies. Oh my goodness. You don't have to prepare anything unless you're hosting of course.

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That's a little different. That's what I want for my birthday is pie. I've never liked cake.

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People bringing out these big cakes. I make you a cake every year too. You do and I have bottled it up until now.

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How many years have we been married? Well you do make the cakes that I say that I like.

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Right. I try. Carrot cake or German chocolate cake. Yes. I know you're not a big fan so that's the one time of year

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I make your cake. Have we had cheesecake for my birthday? That's really my favorite cake. I don't know if we actually have.

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I know we've had carrot cake. Yes. We have done that. And then I lost my amazing recipe.

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Because I love the cream cheese icing. That's what it is about the carrot cake. Got it. And the spice cake too.

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Spice cake. I'm not as big on spice cake. I know you're not. But it's a back up. It's like the knock off carrot cake.

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It is. It really is. That's what a spice cake is. Just add some carrots in there. It'll be good. Shave some carrots into that thing.

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Bake it. Make it a carrot cake. Make it happen. But if cheesecake's going to qualify as a cake, that's what

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I want. Well it qualified as our wedding cake. It did. So that counts right? That was a fantastic wedding cake.

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Yeah. It was pretty awesome. It was even better the year later when we had the one year save cake.

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Yeah. It was pretty awesome. I was like, this isn't going to go as well. Oh man, it was awesome.

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It was good. Yeah. It was really good. And all we had were the toppings. All the toppings you could think of to put on your own cheesecake.

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So we bought the plain cheesecake. Plain cheesecake. You could dress it up however you wanted. Yep. And people did.

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That was how we did our wedding cake. Kids loved it. Oh yeah. Decorate your own wedding cake. But we didn't have our own kids around at the time to be able to.

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See we have to do it again so the kids can enjoy. Alright. Is that our 20 year mark?

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That's right. Isn't that when they normally do? We've got Brian's cheesecake down the road and they make such a variety.

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They do. 25, so that's the silver anniversary is 25 years. Isn't that right? I don't know.

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I really can't keep track of all those. There's too many. You people making up your traditions.

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I know there's like paper and brass and gold and silver and. Platinum. Platinum.

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Is there really? I don't know. I'm making fun of it. There probably is. That's what I was thinking.

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So your first anniversary is your stone anniversary. That's just a rock. That's it.

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Well you invested so much money into that one rock. That's right. OK, where are we at here?

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Let's see. We've got, while we're talking about traditions, that's one of the questions we have coming up. So being the

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Friday edition of the broadcast, we respond to questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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We have two questions that have to do with 1 Corinthians 10, which we finished up this past week.

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Yes, we have two questions that have to do with Christmas, but we're going to start with two random emails that we got here at the very beginning.

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Alright, so this first one is from Andrew in Kansas. OK, you know Andrew. Yes, I do. Hello Andrew.

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I feel like I need to apologize to Becky for all the times I cut her off in the outro of the what podcast.

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I'm so sorry, Becky. That breaks my heart. Sincerely, Andrew. I spent a lot of time on that.

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How many takes do we do? I forgive you, Andrew. It's OK.

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Yeah, that closing is very, very important because I'm selling my books. So you have to, yeah. So do listen. That's right.

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And then go buy a book. A couple of weeks ago when we did the questions that we responded to and all of the questions that we answered received a book.

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Two books. No, one book. No, 25 Christmas Myths and the new one from Sinclair Ferguson. Oh, it was two. Yes, so it was two.

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Those have been mailed out, so you got them. Yay! And I was delayed, a little delayed getting them out because I realized

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I was actually a Sinclair Ferguson book short. Oh dear. So that person who

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I had to mail that book to, you're going to get books from two different locations.

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So you're going to get one from me and then you're going to get another random package from Amazon in the mail.

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Keep your eyes peeled. That's right. And I'll have that Sinclair Ferguson book. And then don't forget, 25

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Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says. You can find that on our website, www .utt .com.

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Thanks also to Doctrine and Life for the t -shirts of ours that they make.

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Yeah. You can get what t -shirts and just added what stickers. Yes. They look awesome.

05:43

Those are on the website as well. This next question, or next email rather, this is a question. This comes from Will in Fort Knox, Kentucky.

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Hi Pastor Gabe and Becky, congratulations on the new baby. Me and Sonia have been having a long conversation of the topic of Paul's thorn in the flesh in 2

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Corinthians 12 7. Okay, remember, so Paul says there was a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me.

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Right. Three times I asked the Lord to take it away from me. But of course Christ's answer to him was my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

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Right? Right. Paul does not describe exactly what this thorn is. Right. But Will goes on to say,

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I believe that it may have been a kidney stone, which is the worst pain a person can feel.

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While Sonia believes it's something else. What do you think it is and why is it a kidney stone?

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I still love the wording of that. So the kidney stone, according to Will, is the worst pain.

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The argument between him and Sonia is whether or not childbirth is the worst pain. Right.

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So I guess we'd have to ask a woman who's gone through both passing a kidney stone and a baby.

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Well, you know, there's a big difference on the outcome of both. That's quite true.

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So, I mean, one you're kind of looking forward to, the other one. You're kind of looking forward to. But in a different perspective.

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Anybody have any insight on that? I've not had to do either one. Praise the

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Lord. Yes. Hopefully I won't ever have to do the kidney stone. And we know I won't ever have to do the other one.

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So 2 Corinthians chapter 12, once again Paul asking the Lord to take away this thorn that is in his flesh.

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Let's start at the beginning of the chapter. Paul says, it is necessary to boast, though it is not profitable, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the

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Lord. Now, if you'll recall, in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul had been boasting in a foolish way about the things that he had accomplished in his qualifications as an apostle.

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Because the Corinthians had been receiving the boasting of false apostles. So Paul says,

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I'm going to boast. It's going to be foolish, but since you're willing to receive the boasting of these false guys, well, you can put up with my boasting.

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And then in a very sarcastic tone. The logic. Yes. Showing that these men are false apostles, but verifying

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Paul's apostleship granted to him by Jesus Christ. So then, at the start of chapter 12, he says it's necessary to boast more, and he's going on to visions and revelations of the

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Lord. Then he speaks about himself in the third person. So though he's acting the manner of a fool, he still speaks of himself in such a humble way to say this in verse 2.

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I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body I do not know or out of the body

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I do not know, God knows, such a man was caught up to the third heaven. And I know how such a man whether in the body or apart from the body,

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I do not know. God knows was caught up into paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak on behalf of such a man.

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I will boast, but on my own behalf, I will not boast except in weakness for if I do wish to boast,

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I will not be foolish for I will be speaking the truth, but I refrain from this so that no one will consider me beyond what he sees in me or hears from me because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations for this reason to keep me from exalting myself.

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There was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me to keep me from exalting myself concerning this.

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I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And here we go. Verse nine.

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And he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you for power is perfected in weakness.

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Most gladly. Therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

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I would rather boast in my weaknesses. Paul emphasizes. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions and hardships for the sake of Christ.

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For when I am weak, then I am strong. That's 2nd Corinthians 12 1 through 10.

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So there's much debate about what this thorn is in Paul's flesh. There have some that have speculated with some sort of bodily ailment, like talking about Paul being nearsighted for example.

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Okay. There is just nothing descriptive here about Paul's thorn. Okay. So everything that we could.

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I thought it was in his side. Is it in the flesh? In his flesh? I think there may be a translation that says in his side, a thorn in his side.

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Hang on. Let me see if I want to pick up my Bible hub here. Because that's what I remember memorizing.

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Right. And, and recalling, but I don't, um, yeah, it could have just been,

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I mean, it could have been me saying it and I just said a thorn in his side, you know, a thorn in the flesh.

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That's verse seven. So the nice thing about Bible hub is it'll put all the different translations side by side.

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A thorn in my flesh. That's New International, New Living Translation, thorn in my flesh, English Standard, thorn in the flesh,

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Berean Study Bible, thorn in my flesh. Really? Yep. King James, thorn in the flesh,

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New King James, a thorn in the flesh, uh, New American Standard, thorn in the flesh.

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So yep, nothing saying in the side. I'm not sure. How do we get in the side then? Is it somewhere else? A thorn in my side.

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That could just be the colloquialism. You're like a thorn in my side. Yeah, it could. It could be. I'm putting that in the text.

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Uh oh. And then just putting them together. It could be that. Yeah, because I'm going down Christian Standard, thorn in the flesh,

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American Standard, thorn in the flesh. I'm not seeing any of them that says thorn in the side. Interesting.

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So there you go. All right. And this is the, this is the legacy standard that I'm reading here. So that's, that of course says thorn in the flesh.

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Right. Hang on. One of them was literal translation. Uh, nope. Thorn in the flesh. Okay. So there we go.

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A thorn in his flesh. So we're taking the colloquialism. You're like a thorn in my side. Yeah.

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And we're blending it with 2 Corinthians 12, 7. We actually can know exactly what this thorn was that Paul is referring to.

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Because remember he refers to himself in the third person earlier as a manner of humility. Right. He calls the thorn in his flesh a messenger of Satan to torment me.

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That's what he calls his thorn. Previously in chapter 11, what did he call the messenger of Satan?

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The super apostles. They were the false apostles. So the fact that these guys have come into Corinth and they've won some of the

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Corinthians, they've, they've turned some of them against Paul thinking that they're the real apostles.

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Right. But Paul is, he's too weak. He's he's too mild mannered and kind of unassuming in his presence and everything like that.

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There's nothing awesome about Paul. There's nothing great about this guy. So Paul really feeling it in his spirit that these false messengers have come in and won what

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Paul had labored so hard to win. So he had given himself over to so many struggles and trials for the gospel of Christ to preach to these

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Corinthians that they might hear and believe. And yet here come these super apostles that haven't done any of that. There they go.

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Right. Just because they look flashier and they speak, they're, they're greater orators than Paul is because he talks about how weak he is in speech in verse 10.

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Right. So because of that they, they just sound like the philosophers that were common to to the

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Greeks at that time. And these Corinthians were won by him. And so Paul is struggling with this three times.

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He begs the Lord to take it from him. Meaning God smite these messengers of Satan.

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Yep. That's what the thorn in Paul's side is. It is really not that mysterious. It's just because we tend to section out scripture and just kind of set it by itself.

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Right. And you know, put stuff in there that's not in there. Thorn in your side. Or kidney stone.

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Yep. You know. Sorry Will, but it's not a kidney stone. It might feel like one.

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He might have been in that much pain. Actually Paul probably would have preferred the kidney stone. Touche. To these false apostles.

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That's true. Now I didn't preface at the beginning of the program here, but we have a baby off to the side that is sleeping.

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He's here. Yep. He's in our presence, but he's asleep. And if he decides to stir and wake up, then

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I'm going to have to throw in like a random what video so we can transition here. Rescue the baby from his car seat and hold him again.

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Alright, this next one. Now this next one is not a question that was actually sent right to us. It was an exchange that I saw on Facebook.

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Oh, okay. And this is rare because I don't go on Facebook to check this. Right. It just happened to be one of those things that I caught.

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This is really surprising. It is. This had to do with the study that I did this past week in 1

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Corinthians 10, specifically referring to Wednesday's episode. That was 1 Corinthians 10 29 to 33.

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And to kind of recap a little bit, so let me flip back in verse 31.

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Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Amen. Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.

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Paul has been talking about over the course of chapter 10. He's been talking about Christian liberty, but not exercising that liberty in such a way that might cause somebody else to stumble or exercising that liberty in such a way that somebody who's an unbeliever would pass judgment on you for something that you know that you can partake in, in your liberty in Christ, and you're not sinning by partaking in that.

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Of course, the example that Paul gives through chapter 10 is with regarding food that has been sacrificed to idols. So if somebody sets food in front of you,

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Paul says in chapter 10, eat it. Don't ask any questions about it. Right. But if they set it in front of you and they say, hey, this was sacrificed to a false

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God, then don't eat it for the sake of the other person's conscience, that they might not think, oh, well,

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Jesus Christ really doesn't matter that much to you because here you are dining with Zeus. Right. You know, this meat that was sacrificed or offered to Zeus, something like that.

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So with regard to that, to the teaching that I did this past week on chapter 10, there were two gals, both from Omaha, that were having an exchange about this on Facebook.

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One's name is Wren and the other, Shala. And Wren says, weren't you talking about this yesterday?

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And Shala says, yes, thank you for tagging me. This is precisely why I stopped practicing yoga in the workplace and later at home.

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Even in the privacy of my home, non -believers and new believers often ask me about it because of my profession, which she doesn't say what her profession is.

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That's okay. Even though I knew I wasn't worshiping false gods, they knew the history, yoga coming from Hindu traditions, and I could not justify continuing.

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For the sake of my testimony and conscience, theirs and mine, I stopped practicing, even though I really enjoyed it and probably have the liberty to do it.

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So that's another good example, talking about those things that we have liberty to do, but maybe we would not do.

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It wouldn't be sin to do it, but we're going to abstain from doing it so it doesn't cause somebody else to stumble. What is yoga?

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Stretching. It's just stretching exercises. It's stretching and breathing exercises. Unless you're in a certain class or with a certain company.

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Right. Now, if you're doing it the way the Hindus say that you should do it, you're meditating on spiritual things, you're trying to combine yourself with nature and give thanks to them.

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Yeah, right. Thanks, nature, for being so wonderful. Whatever. That's if you do yoga the yoga way.

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Right. But if you just learn yoga as a manner of exercise and doing certain stretches, you can do that in the privacy of your own home, as Shala had said here.

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Are you doing something sinful by doing that? No, unless you're giving your mind over to something that is godless, that's pagan.

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Now, you could be running that risk that you do these stretching exercises and you start thinking about becoming one with nature or whatever.

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Yeah, leaning that way. Right. So, in which case, Paul says you've got to be careful about those kinds of things because you could be turning your mind over to something that causes you to sin.

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It would be better for you to abstain from that than run that risk. Because in verse 12 he says, therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

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So, don't think you're too strong. Right. Like, see, I could partake in yoga and it would be just fine. Well, how do you know that you're not going to start giving in to some of those pagan things that yoga is connected with?

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Another one, another example that I've used is feng shui. Oh, yeah. Feng shui. Feng shui.

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Yeah. Feng shui. Did I mispronounce it? Well, I don't know. I don't know how it's pronounced. I've always done feng shui.

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Yeah, it's feng shui. Right. So, it's just a thing of, you know, how to arrange a room.

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Right. Furniture in the room a certain way, facing certain windows, the door is over here, and supposedly this is like connecting the spirits.

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Water, fire. Yeah. It's connecting the spirits in the room. Okay. But I've followed a layout in a feng shui book one time and I was like, you know,

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I like this. It really does open the room up, you know. Yeah. And the light is on the desk. Exactly.

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Yeah. I wasn't doing anything pagan. It wasn't connected to any spiritualness. It's just, that was actually a decent layout.

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I had not thought of setting my room out that way. Yeah. But you don't talk about that. You don't advertise feng shui books because that could cause somebody to sin and actually fall into that.

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Well, maybe the reason why the room opens up this way is because it is connecting me to spirits.

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Right. And allowing their mind to wander. Exactly. So, there could be some things as a practical manner that make sense, but a pagan came up with this and connected it to some kind of false spirit and now it's become something idolatrous.

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Right. So, you just, yeah, these are all manners of conscience to decide whether you can partake in this or not.

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But even if you do some of those things that are somehow connected to paganism, you want to be careful with how you present it or how you advertise it or in what company you talk about it and do it.

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I still think of having our children wear the rainbow as, like, do

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I let them or do I not let them? Because the rainbow is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful story. Yeah, sure.

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God's grace and forgiveness and starting over. But the world is taking that as something else.

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Yeah. And I have seen people post pictures of their children with rainbows on their shirt and then people commenting on that saying, oh, wow,

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I'm so glad they're, you know, for everybody and, like, they really promote that as, like, and I'm like, it's a kid wearing a rainbow.

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Yeah. Like, we've done that forever. The pride colors are specific. It's six colors. Yeah. The rainbow is seven.

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True. So as we've standardly taught the rainbow, it has seven colors in it. Red, orange, yellow, green.

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But on T -shirts, like girls' T -shirts, they don't always use those colors.

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You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, they can go the cheap route. I'm totally in favor of a Christian seizing back the rainbow and representing what it truly is.

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Right. Exactly. Not what the pride nation says. Right. But that's still something that we have to be concerned about nowadays is because of that.

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Yeah. Well, the illustration, right, the illustration that I gave going through 1 Corinthians 10 is I was in the five below and they had the display with all the

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LGBTQ pride stuff. Yeah. I'm just not going to buy from that display. Yeah.

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That's the way they have the colors set up and all that kind of thing. But, hey, the ARC in, is it

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Kentucky or Ohio? I know it's on the state line. In Kentucky. The ARC encounter in Kentucky. They have decorated the

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ARC in those rainbow colors. I thought it was Ohio. No, we stayed in a hotel in Ohio. Oh, okay. Yeah.

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And then you cross the river into Kentucky and that's where the Creation Museum is. So anyway, they covered it in the rainbow colors.

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Yeah, they did. Again, taking back the rainbow to show what it really represents not according to what

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LGBTQ pride people have hijacked it to mean. Right. Alright, so here we are at the point of the program.

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The baby's waking up. Yeah, I gotta go get him. If you can hear him in the background here. So I'm going to play a what video while we make a transition.

23:04

Sounds good. In 2 Timothy 4 .2,

23:10

the Apostle Paul told Timothy to preach the word, but for how long? Obviously, Paul wanted

23:16

Timothy to preach the scriptures until his dying day, in season and out of season. But how long should a pastor preach a sermon?

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According to Pew Research, the median length of most sermons is 37 minutes. Throughout church history, sermons might be shorter to over an hour.

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The Puritan preachers would preach for hours more. In the Old Testament, the people would listen to preaching that would last all day.

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The book of the law would be read aloud. That's the book of Deuteronomy, which takes about three hours to read out loud.

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Nehemiah 8 .8 says they read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

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That would have taken even longer. In the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount is the longest written sermon.

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Read aloud, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes. In Luke 4, Jesus stood up in the synagogue and read

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Isaiah 61, 1 and 2. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, sat down, and said,

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Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. That would have taken barely 90 seconds.

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In Acts 20, Paul preached so long, a young man named Eutychus fell asleep, literally tumbling out a third -story window to his death.

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But Paul ran down and brought him back to life. Note to some zealous preachers out there, you can't raise the dead.

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Do not try this at home. So, how long should a sermon be? Let's say anywhere from a minute to before someone dies when we understand the text.

24:40

So that was just a fun one, not a real serious topic there. How long should a sermon be?

24:46

You can find that one now on our YouTube channel. Don't forget to subscribe. Yes. YouTube .com

24:52

slash WWUTT. I'm pretty sure we'll get you there. Yeah, I think so. Or you just search for what?

24:58

Yeah. And then there's the other one. Yeah, don't forget there's two of them. Just in case you're like, well, I've subscribed to one, so why didn't

25:04

I see that video? Yeah. The other one is WWUTTEXT. Which is less often, but they're longer.

25:11

Yeah, the longer videos. The extra. The extended. Extended. It's text.

25:18

WWUTTEXT. But the EXT is a pun. Yeah. It's the extra long videos.

25:23

Alright, this next question. This is another one with regards to 1 Corinthians 10.

25:29

Dear Pastor Gabe, greetings again from the left coast bay area. I heard you mention in your sermon that you had a shooting pain down your leg.

25:38

Were you diagnosed with piriformis syndrome? I have had that, and it is no fun, but some physical therapy worked for me.

25:45

I hope you get better soon. I haven't heard of that. No, I don't know what that is either. I think it's just a sciatic nerve issue is all it is.

25:52

Only when I'm pregnant. Yes. So we've wondered if this has to do with sympathy pains.

25:59

Yes. Because it only seems to happen whenever Becky gets pregnant. And he knows before I do. That's right.

26:06

That's how I know she's pregnant because I start having sciatic nerve issues. Yep. It happened when she got pregnant with Zeke.

26:14

Yep. And I stopped her one day. I said, Are you pregnant? She's like, Not that I'm aware. And then

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I think it was a week later you took a test. It was. And yep, sure enough. Yep, it was my sciatica that was kind of indicating something was on the horizon here.

26:30

I might be a testimony to the fact that yeah, men really can go through sympathy pains.

26:36

Oh my goodness. It was so bad when you were pregnant with Mariah. I said, If this really is a sympathy pain thing, you're not getting pregnant again.

26:43

I think it was worse when I was pregnant with Zachary when we were expecting him. Well, that was the first time.

26:49

Because you couldn't get out of bed with that. That was pretty bad. On certain days. Not every day.

26:54

That was the first time. And I was walking with a noticeable limp. Yes. So that might have been the worst.

27:00

Yeah. We even tried changing shoes. We tried everything. Went through a bunch of stuff. Traction.

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Stretching myself out. Yes. It didn't work. It just eventually went away. Yeah. No, the tennis ball wasn't until you were pregnant with Aria.

27:15

Is that when we tried that one? Yeah. And then because somebody said sit on a tennis ball. Yeah. And like massage.

27:20

Right. And you were like that's the worst pain I've ever felt. That was awful. And then you get up and you're like,

27:27

Oh, that's better. That's not too bad. Yeah. It's improved. I think it made it all right.

27:32

Yeah. It was taller below at that point. Anyway, this has nothing to do really with Jason's email.

27:38

That's all right. Or at least the question he's asking. At any rate, listening to your podcast on 1

27:44

Corinthians 10, the topic that came to my mind was gambling. In that it might not be a big problem for one man, but it could be detrimental to his friend, therefore he should abstain for the sake of his brother.

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Which then leads me to ask, is gambling a sin? Could Matthew 5 29 be applied here where we cut out gambling and throw it away even though Jesus was referring to lust in that particular passage?

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Sorry to ramble. Hope I'm making sense. Thank you so much, Jason. Yeah. So in Matthew chapter five, starting in verse 27,

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Jesus says, you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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But if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

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And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

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Now, of course, in context, Jesus is talking about lust there, but you could apply the principle to anything that might tempt you to sin.

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Why are you even focusing on that? Yeah. You're trying to get as close to the line as possible as long as I don't cross it.

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Right. But you're putting yourself in a position to sin. Right. You're focusing on the sin instead of focusing on Christ.

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Yeah. Like you do something and you're like, no, I'm still okay. I'm not sinning yet. You know, I can still stop anytime.

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Right. Yeah. So gambling could apply to that. I could do this thing, but it could also cause me to go way too far and I lose a whole bunch of money.

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Right. But I'm going to put before you that gambling is something that Christians should have nothing to do with at all.

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Just think about where does gambling take place? These are not God honoring places. Oh, yeah.

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And they always introduce a multitude of sins on top of that. Yeah. On top of the gambling. Right.

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There's drinking. There's prostitution. Yeah. I didn't know a way to say that.

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Other kinds of sexual immorality taking place there as well. Yeah. I mean, there's all different kinds of all these different things going on that want to separate you from your money.

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Oh, yeah. Because that's what you go in a casino to do. Spend money or win money.

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Right. It's a get rich quick scheme. And as we've been going through Proverbs, we've read numerous

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Proverbs, even one yesterday, highly discouraging against anything that would be get rich quick.

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Right. So as we're going to read when we get to Proverbs 23, we see this in verses four and five. Do not weary yourself to gain wealth because of your understanding.

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Cease. Do you make your eyes fly up to see it? But it is not there because it certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.

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In other words, get rich quick schemes don't work. And more often than not, you're going to see your money fly away from you.

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Right. Yeah. Rather than get anything from that. The house always wins. Right. I've always had friends that come back and they're like, oh,

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I won this much. I'm like, but how much did you win? How much did you lose? Yeah. Oh, well, I lost this much.

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And can losing that money ever be glorifying to God? Yeah. You go and you lose 100, 200 dollars or whatever, and you just say, well, you know, that was 200 bucks that I spent on having a good time.

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That's what I went there to go. How does that honor the Lord? Yeah. How could you not have invested that money in another way?

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Right. And then you find yourself getting addicted to it. And then it becomes thousands of dollars that you're losing. Yeah.

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I have seen families absolutely shattered. Yeah. Because of addictions to gambling.

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It's way too easy to fall into that. And the scripture strongly discourages us from having a love of money.

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First Timothy 610 for the love of money is a root of all sorts of evils. And some by aspiring to it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

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Wandering away from the faith, you lose the faith altogether. Yeah. And find that you were never in the salvation that we have by faith in Jesus Christ.

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Hebrews 13 5. Make sure that your way of life is free from the love of money, being content with what you have.

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For he himself has said, I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.

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When it comes to gambling, I'm most often asked about playing the lottery.

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Right. What about playing the lottery? Can't I just go down to a local gas station and buy a lottery ticket? What would be wrong with that?

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You're participating in something that has been made to prey upon the poor. Right.

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And I think that Christians should have nothing to do with it. And the house is always to win.

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Same there. Right. I mean, the house always wins. It may be like a state sanction thing, but the reason why the state does it is to get money from you.

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Right. Otherwise, why would they do it? Yeah. It's like a tax that you're voluntarily paying.

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Happily. Yeah. Right. I'm going to pay this tax hoping that I will get rich quick. And you're blowing all kinds of money on nothing.

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Furthermore, you're paying into something that has been specifically made to prey upon those who are poor who are trying to find a way out of their poverty.

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And so they're paying money that should be paid on other things. And it also takes away from their ambition to do those things, to work hard in order to make a living.

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Instead, they're paying money into the lottery thinking that it's going to help them get rich. And these are things that Christians should have nothing to do with.

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Apply the Philippians 4 .8 principle. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is dignified, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable.

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If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, consider these things.

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Now, that could be taken subjectively because you could just do anything you want to do and then say, well, you know, it's lovely.

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It's dignified. It's no big deal about this. But you have to apply this according to what God says is true, is dignified, is right, pure, lovely, commendable, what is excellent and worthy of praise.

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That's where we need to apply that principle, according to what the Lord says is right.

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Amen. And I think by what we have in Scripture, the Christians should have nothing to do with these gambling things, the lottery, any of these get -rich -quick schemes.

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We go on to our Christmas questions now. And this first one comes from Carlo, Caleb, and Joshua.

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All right. Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. Hello. We are reading your 25 Christmas Myths and What the

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Bible Says book with my two boys, Joshua, who's 9, Caleb, who is 11.

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Okay. And we're reading myth number 10. The virgin birth is not important.

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Which, by the way, that's a myth. Right. Okay. So I'm not saying in the book the virgin birth is not important. It's the myth that I'm addressing.

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Right. Josh had the following question. Now remember, Joshua was 9. Okay. And he said, if Jesus was born without sin, because he was born of the

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Holy Spirit and not of the seed of a man, does that mean that if he would have been married and had children, those children would have been born without sin as well?

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Was wondering if you could help me answer this question. Thank you for your ministry and Happy Thanksgiving. You know, when

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I get asked questions by adults, somebody comes up to me and says, Pastor Gabe, I have a question.

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I'm never thinking in my mind. Uh oh. Right. This person is going to ask me a question that I'm not going to be able to answer.

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That thought just does not hit my brain. Now, it turns out maybe the question they asked was more complicated than I thought it was going to be.

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Sure. But I just never have this premonition of like, this person is going to ask me something and it's going to be beyond my biblical acumen, you know.

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Right. Whenever a child comes up to me though and says, Pastor Gabe, I have a question. Immediately I'm going, oh no.

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You're going to ask me something I have never thought of before and I'm going to have no idea how to answer your question.

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So those stump the pastor nights were really stressful for you, huh? Yeah. At our church in Kansas we would have once a semester there would be stump the pastor and so they'd be asking these questions of the pastor trying to stump me.

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They were. I think every time there was a kid that was able to ask a question I'm going,

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I don't know. Yep. No idea. I think so. They came up with some good questions.

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Yeah, some really good questions. When this email began, when I opened it up and started reading it and he said,

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Josh had the following question, I was already going, oh man. Joshua 9.

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It's a great question. It's a great question. I've never considered this before, but I was sure it was going to be something that was going to make me go,

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I just don't know. Now I would have to assume that yes, if Jesus did get married and if he did have children that they likewise would have been born without sin.

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I would have to say that would be the logic we would have to apply there for Christ himself was born, not of the seed of the man, but was conceived of the

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Holy Spirit and so therefore was without sin. Adam was not his federal head.

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So if Jesus got married and he had children, who would their federal head be?

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Jesus. Right. It wouldn't be Adam. Right. It would be sinless Christ. And so when we're born again, that's who our federal head is.

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Right. Our federal head is not Adam. Our federal head is Jesus Christ, but we're still born sinners.

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We were still born with that sinful nature and Christ has this work of sanctification that he's doing in us to make us holy.

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So it's not that when we're born again, we do become sinless, though the justification that we receive does present us as innocent and holy before the

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Father. Right. And this is just part of that divine mystery of how salvation works when we believe by faith and we're immediately justified, though we're not yet fully sanctified.

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All of these things that are mysterious to us now that are very difficult for us to comprehend, we will see and understand on the other side.

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For as Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 13 -12, now we see as though through a glass darkly, but soon we'll see face to face and then we will know as we are fully known.

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Right. So God fully knows us, we don't yet know the fully sanctified self. Right. And we won't know or understand that until we get to glory.

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Somewhere in there was an answer to your question, I think. However, don't think that they're going to keep being sinless.

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Christ was able to because he's fully God. Right. But with the children,

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I'm just saying, you know, because Adam and Eve were created by God and they fell, they're the ones that sinned.

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I mean, they sinned first, obviously. Yeah. So even though the children, you know, are children of Jesus, they're still going to sin because there's only one

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Savior. It's a hard thing to consider. Yeah. So yeah, would those children then be like Adam?

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So they're born sinless, but then still have a will, they have a free will by which they can sin.

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Right. That's what I mean. Yeah. I don't know. It's hard. We can only assume. I think the

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Bible's very clear that we only have one Savior. Yes. And that only one person has ever been able to be sinless and will ever be sinless.

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Right. And that's Jesus. So if he has children, regardless, they would sin.

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Yeah. Well, we are the children of God by adoption. Right. And Jesus is regarded as our older brother.

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Right. But he's the only one that was able to sin. I mean, not sin. Ah, I'm getting tongue -tied here.

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Yeah, careful. He was the only one able to not sin so that way he can be our

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Savior. Yes. So if his children didn't sin, they would be sinless.

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They would be saviors, too, is what you're saying. Right. And that's not what the Bible says. Yeah. Well, they wouldn't be an atoning sacrifice.

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Because, I mean, part of Christ being our Savior is that he atoned for our sins. Not just that he lived a sinless life, though that's part of it.

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True. But also that he died an atoning sacrifice and then rose again from the grave.

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Right. So it's everything. It's Christ's perfect life, perfect death, perfect resurrection.

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Right. So in all of these things, by our faith in Jesus Christ, we're justified and also sanctified.

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By faith in Christ, we have salvation and sanctification. Yeah. Okay. Right. That made sense.

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Do you hear now the challenge you've put upon us, Joshua, as we're trying? And it's tough to explain, too.

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It is. You don't want to just make presumptuous answers.

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Right. You don't want to assume. But don't go too far. Right. Still applying what we know from Scripture when we talk about these things and answer questions like this.

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Okay, this next question has to do with whether or not we as Christians can celebrate Christmas. So while you're playing with the baby over there.

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Who, me? And getting him to burp or whatever else is going on there, we're going to play the video and come right back.

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Here's another one. Is Christmas a pagan holiday?

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No, it's a Christian holiday, a celebration of the birth of Christ. If that wasn't what Christmas was about, our secular culture wouldn't be so afraid of the name.

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But didn't Christmas start out as a pagan holiday? Probably not. There have been many pagan festivals around the winter solstice, including the

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Feast of Saturnalia. In 274, Emperor Aurelian chose December 25th as the birth date of Sol Invictus, the

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Roman sun god. Prior to that, Hippolytus of Rome tried to calculate the birth of Christ and mistakenly came up with December 25th.

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The winter solstice was once a celebration of darkness on the darkest day of the year. It has since become a celebration of light when

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Jesus came into the world. But aren't all these Christmas traditions a rip -off of former pagan customs?

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Some of them aren't. Christmas carols are rich with biblical truth and have impacted the world over. Giving presents comes from the magi bringing gifts to the

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Savior, and also the gift of the Savior himself to mankind. The Christmas tree has roots in paganism, no pun intended.

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But so what? Redefining pagan symbols is in the Bible. In ancient Rome, Caesar rode on a white horse.

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In Revelation 19, Jesus returns on a white horse because he's greater than Caesar. So at Christmas, some formerly pagan symbols have been

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Christianized to celebrate Jesus as greater than darkness. The Bible says nothing about Christmas, but it does say not to argue about days.

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Don't look down on the person who celebrates or the person who doesn't. Let us agree that the advent of our Lord is worth celebrating every day that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners when we understand the text.

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You like it, huh? Came right into a baby laughing on that one, yeah. What's up, guy?

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You're trying so hard to say something. There we go. Ezekiel Robert Hughes, ladies and gentlemen.

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Alright, so this question comes from Chris in Canada. Dear Pastor Gabe, I bring you greetings on behalf of Fairview Baptist Church in Calgary and our faithful pastor

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Tim Stevens, who was imprisoned as a testimony of the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ.

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All praise to the name of Jesus for the glory of God the Father. Amen to that, Chris, and we were praying for your pastor

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Tim in the midst of all of that as well. Enter church. This question pertains to the lordship of Christ over his worship.

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It is my understanding that Christ positively prescribes for us, his church, how to offer him our worship.

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And whatever is not commanded is forbidden. Leviticus 10 .2. This, the regulative principle, holds true in both testaments.

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Now Aaron in Exodus 32 .5, after having made the golden calf proclaimed a feast day, not to a foreign name, but to the

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Lord, the God of Israel, which he gave to the golden calf. Of course the golden calf was forbidden, but even the feast day itself was not commanded, and God punished the people.

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Similarly, Jeroboam proclaimed a feast day in 1 Kings 12 .32, not prescribed by God. Since the celebration of Christmas is not prescribed by God for his worship, are we therefore forbidden from celebrating it?

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Or is it not subject to the regulative principle, and so we are free to celebrate it if we choose?

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I believe this question gets to the root and can help us clear out all the gunk that distracts us around this time.

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I anticipate your response. God bless you, your church, and your newly expanded family.

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So appreciate that Chris. So with regards, let's look at these scripture references that you mentioned first, and then

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I'll get to talking about the regulative principle. So you talk about the worship that is positively prescribed for us, his church, and whatever is not commanded is forbidden, according to Leviticus 10 .2.

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Well that reference in Leviticus 10, that is to Nadab and Abihu offering strange fire unto the

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Lord, which God did not command them to do, and because they offered this strange fire they were killed.

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And Aaron was even told not to mourn their deaths because of the judgment that had come upon them.

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So a very serious sin that they had done, but we also see that what they had done was more than just taking some kind of fire that God did not authorize and offering that unto the

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Lord, it was very evident that in their hearts their ambitions were self -centered and not

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God -centered. It would be similar to going to church just to check off the boxes, not to be there to worship

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God. Exactly. So somebody can come to church and be here with a wrong motive, and that would be more like what

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Nadab and Abihu were doing, which was a wickedness of the heart before it was something that they were offering to God that he did not authorize.

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So then with regards to Aaron, Exodus 32, 5, Chris says, After having made the golden calf, proclaimed a feast day, not to a foreign name, but to the

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Lord, the God of Israel, which he gave to the golden calf. Now it's true that Aaron presented that idol to the children of Israel and said,

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Behold your gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt. So he refers to them in the plural,

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Exodus 32, 4. And then in verse 5 Aaron looked and built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said,

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Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh. But was his reference to the one true

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God, or was he calling that golden calf, which was now pluralistically referred to as gods, was he calling that Yahweh?

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So there was kind of like a syncretism that was going on here. It was not worship to the one true God. It wasn't like a

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Catholic thing, which is bad enough, but it wasn't like he was making an idol of Jesus and then kissing it, but still believing that he's worshiping the true

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Christ as a Roman Catholic would do. This seemed to be more rooted in the paganism that the

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Israelites had just come out of when they came out of the land of Egypt. And now they're making idols that were common to Egypt, and they're worshiping those idols and calling them

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Yahweh and giving praise that was only for God to this thing that they made after an image in their minds when the

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Lord had just said to them, Raise up no graven image. You shall have no other gods before me.

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So it's not quite the same. I kind of get what it is that Chris is leaning toward, but this definitely has more of a pagan aspect to it in Exodus 32.

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It's not that Aaron is making a golden calf as a representative of the one true

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God. They're very clearly worshiping false gods in Exodus 32. True.

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So then Chris goes on to say, the other reference was in 1 Kings 12 verse 32.

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Of course the golden calf was forbidden, but even the feast day itself was not commanded, and God punished the people.

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Similarly, Jeroboam proclaimed a feast day in 1 Kings 12 32 not prescribed by God.

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True, but Jeroboam was also worshiping false gods. 1 Kings 12 28.

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The king took counsel and made two calves of gold, and he said to the people, You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough.

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Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. So again, this is something where the one true

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God is not being worshipped. Credit is being given to false gods made out of man's image, or at least the image that man wants to give to these false gods.

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Right. So regarding the regulative principle of worship then, how should we apply this?

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If according to the regulative principle of worship, we should only be worshipping in such a way as God has prescribed, is it therefore wrong for Christians to celebrate

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Christmas because that is a worship that God has not said that we're to partake in?

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So God's not said, Hey, don't forget the birthday of Jesus. Right. You need to worship on that day.

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Now, that's a day that we've come up with and we celebrate the birth of Christ around that particular season.

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But because God has not prescribed it, is it therefore wrong for us? And we're adding an element of worship that God does not specify nor command in Scripture.

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Okay? So we get the idea of the regulative principle of worship. That is summarized in the confessions.

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We get it from the Scriptures, but summarized in the confessions, like the Westminster Confession of Faith, the London Baptist Confession.

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Let me read it from the London Baptist Confession, Chapter 22. This is paragraph one. The light of nature shows that there is a

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God who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just, good, and doth good to all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the might.

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But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the

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Holy Scriptures. Okay? So there you go. The regulative principle of worship is outlined there in paragraph one of Chapter 22 of the

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London Baptist Confession of Faith. Now, when we get to paragraph six, we read this.

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Neither prayer nor any other part of religious worship is now under the gospel tied unto or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed or towards which it is directed, but God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth, as in private families daily, and in secret, each one by himself, so more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly nor willfully to be neglected or forsaken when

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God by his word or providence calls thereunto. So all that to say that...

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Or forsaken. Right. That's convicting in a whole other way. All that to say that worship that we do in church on Sunday morning is not the only place we worship.

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I mean, after all, Romans 12, 1 says to us, in view of God's mercies, present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto the

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Lord. This is your spiritual act of worship, presenting yourself holy and acceptable unto him.

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So we worship with our whole lives, heart, soul, mind, and strength, as clarified there in the LBCF as well.

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But there may be other gatherings that we gather unto and give praise unto

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God in the midst of those gatherings. And though we gather in those ways, apart from church on Sunday morning, that doesn't mean that we've added to worship or taken anything away from the worship that we're supposed to be offering to God.

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And so therefore Christmas would be like that. When a church has a Christmas Eve service, we remember and we celebrate the

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Incarnation. It's not replacing the worship that we're to be doing on the Lord's day as the church gathered together in worship, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, hearing the reading of scripture, confessing ourselves in prayer, partaking in the

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Lord's table, celebrating in baptism, all those things that we enjoy as the church assembly that is regulated to Sunday, to when we gather on the

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Lord's day and worship unto the Lord. Christmas is not that. It's not in addition to that.

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It's not taking away from that. Christmas, nobody has to celebrate. If you don't celebrate it, you're not doing anything sinful.

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But I would still argue even as a matter of public assembly, of gathering together and celebrating

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God for something, you're also not doing anything sinful if you do it. For as Paul says in Romans 14, beginning in verse 5, one person judges one day above another.

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Another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

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He who regards the day regards it for the Lord and he who eats eats for the

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Lord. For he gives thanks to God and he who does not eat for the Lord, he does not eat and give thanks to God.

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So whether you partake in it or whether you don't, if you do it unto praise to the Lord, great. It's before God that he stands or falls.

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So we don't pass judgment on one another with regards to these things, but let the person who does so do it in honor to God and don't quarrel over opinions, as it says in Romans 14 1.

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Amen. Anyway, so there's my argument regarding Christmas. And we go through this every year, which is fine.

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I mean, we can have that discussion, but just with regards to Christmas, don't pass judgment on somebody else if they want to celebrate, great.

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Or if they don't want to celebrate. Or if they don't want to celebrate, don't pass judgment on them because of that either. Now, I remember a time when

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I was much less mature and a friend of mine said to me how wicked and sinful it was to celebrate

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Christmas. And I was going, you're wicked and sinful because you don't celebrate Christmas. You know, it turns out, and I was just naive in my youth to understand this, but that friend of mine was

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Jehovah's Witness. So that was why they didn't participate in celebrating

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Christmas. But anyway, yeah, completely different reason there. But if you are celebrating the incarnation of Christ at Christmas, that, you know, as it says in 1

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Timothy 1 15, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That's what you're celebrating at Christmas?

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Wonderful. Don't let it take away from the Lord's Day worship that we should all be committed to on Sunday, lest you become like those

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Christers where you're only showing up for Christmas and Easter. See, that's sinful.

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You're now using those holidays to replace the true worship that we as Christians should be doing together every

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Sunday. There's no replacement for that. That's the true, you know, real holiday that we as Christians should be in together.

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It's worship on Sunday. I mean, we could have said this about Thanksgiving, which we just celebrated yesterday.

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Is it wrong for Christians to celebrate Thanksgiving? It's not prescribed by God. That's where my mind went, too. I didn't know if you wanted that rabbit trail, though.

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But are you going to stand before the Lord someday and Him say to you, you know, I just didn't really like that you were giving me thanks and eating food?

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I mean, as long as your heart's in the right place. Just make sure that your heart, mind and body are in the right place.

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Worshiping the true God, not checking a box mentally. Coming back to what we had started with in 1

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Corinthians 10 31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it unto the glory of God.

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Amen. All right, let's finish there. Heavenly Father, thank you for Thanksgiving, a time that we can all gather together with family and friends.

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We're thankful for the couple of families that we spent Thanksgiving with, the houses that we were welcomed into, and give praise and glory to God for all the wonderful things that you have given to us, especially salvation in your

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Son, Jesus Christ, so that by grace through faith we have been saved.

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This is not of our work, so that we might not boast. May we commit our whole lives unto

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Christ to the praise of your glorious grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.

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All right, little guy.

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Gotta record my intro. You gonna let me do it? What is that?

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You gonna say something? You say hello everybody out there in podcast land.

58:53

Well, you made a sound there. Well, you don't say.

59:06

Well, you did say. You say when we understand the text.

59:13

This will be a little easier baby noise. Go What? Close enough.