Ask a Pastor: January 2025

Prayer and Introduction to the Ask a Pastor Segment

All right, we're going to pray and then we'll get into our ask a pastor segment. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, as we open up your word and we consider the difficulties that we struggle with in trying to understand your word and your will, we ask through a careful study of your word that we would properly believe, confess, and do according to your holy word we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen. Okay, just a little bit of a note. If you want me to answer a question, email secretary at kungsvingerchurch .org. We are answering them in the order in which they come in. Some are easier to answer than others.

That's to be expected. And if your question has been sitting in limbo, we'll note that when a coin in the coffer rings, a question springs. I'm joking. That's not how this works. Did you hear the audio cut out?

It cut out.

It's weird. Okay, just once earlier. Okay, I'm not just here. I'm gonna, I'm gonna.

Maybe it's me and my magnetic personality. All right. I am definitely repelled by it. All right. First question from Lena. I would like to ask pastor about the mark of the beast mentioned in the book of Revelation.

I have friends that truly think that the COVID -19 vaccine is part of antichrist's plan. And that by taking the vaccine, it is a sign of poor discernment that will make it more likely for you to be deceived.

Some even think of it as the mark of the beast. This is nonsense and poppycock. That's the only way I can describe it. And this is, this is not Christian doctrine. This is not biblical teaching. These are conspiracy theories.

And we as Christians need to avoid conspiracy theories. Not only do they lead us down the path of false belief, they also oftentimes cause us to slander our neighbor. Remember we are under the commandment that says you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

So I would note the very question itself is the COVID vaccine, the mark of the beast that tacitly implies and very explicitly States in that tacit explanation that there, there are government agencies working for Satan and causing people to take the mark of the beast without them even knowing that they've taken the mark of the beast, which means, you know, we've got some Luciferian plot to send everybody to hell.

That is nonsense. It is true that there are those who in the government could legitimately be described as doing the devil's work rather than God's. But all of that being said, remember the details matter.

So in the book of revelation chapter 13, we, it describes the mark of the beast. Okay. And what it, what it requires. So you'll note in revelation 13, there's a second beast that the dragon is created for the purpose of waging war against the church.

I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. Huh? It has two horns like a lamb and it speaks like a dragon. So you'll note that already we've got some weird kind of trans thing going on here.

You know, you know, you got some sheep going, I'm feeling bad. Right. Okay. And the point is this, sorry. And the point is this, is that lambs don't normally talk like dragons. My, what big teeth you have there little lamby, right?

That the, you know, you think of the big bad wolf here, that's kind of the point. And, and the lamb that speaks like a dragon is the second beast is a religious beast. This is a religious weapon created by Satan for the purpose of deceiving people and getting them to worship the beast.

Okay. It exercises all the authority of the first beast and its presence makes the earth and its habitants worship the first beast rather than God. So note here, it's thing is it wants you to worship not God, but something else whose mortal wound was healed.

It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. Compare this with what Jesus says in Matthew 24, that in the last days that false prophets and false teachers would be able to perform great signs and great wonders.

And now we can see one of the things that we should expect. So when, when charisma magazine stops talking about people having encounters with werewolves and, and writes a story about some new charismatic leader who can call down fire from heaven and it's undeniable that they're doing it.

Your response is, oh yeah, Jesus warned us about that in Revelation 13, 13. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, and the, and, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast, it deceives those who dwell on the earth, making, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.

And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. What part of the COVID era are we referring to here?

I missed this. I was locked up in my house and I missed it. Darn it. Okay. Also it causes all both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave to be marked on the right hand or the forehead.

Last time I checked, this is not where they inject you with a, with a vaccine that would hurt. Can you imagine being injected with the vaccine on your forehead? Ow. I don't think it would work. I think it might bend the needle because I've got such a hard head anyway, at least my wife says so, but that's a one can buy or sell unless he has the mark that is the name of the beast or the number of the name.

So are, have we been required to worship the beast? No. Have we been forbidden to buy or sell unless we have the COVID vaccine? It wasn't the point that was being positive. I would note that the, the restrictions that were around the requirement for people to be vaccinated kind of started heading in that totalitarian satanic antichrist direction for sure.

I do like the fact that our new president like legitimately reinstated all the guys in the military who were kicked out of the military for refusing to take the vaccine. And they didn't do so because it was the mark of the beast is because they didn't trust the, the, the new technology.

And the thing is you have the freedom to say yes. And you have the freedom to say, no, there is no biblical text that says thou shall not take the vaccine. Right. And if thou take us the vaccine to hell with you.

Okay. Now imagine this. Okay. You know, there there's some poor Christian, you know, and they faithfully go to church and they were legitimately terrified regarding the COVID thing. And when the vaccine came out, they were in one of those groups where, you know, they were considered to be high risk.

So they trusted the government. They went and got vaccine. And then that person was hit by a bus five minutes after they had received the vaccine. They appear before Jesus. And the person says, I'm so glad I'm here, Jesus.

I'm so glad I finally get to see you face to face. And Jesus goes off to hell with you. Why I believe in you. You forgave me all of my sins. You took the COVID vaccine to hell with you. You know, that's like saying to hell with you because you had a hamburger on Friday during Lent.

Okay. So you'll note that it's the same nonsense. Okay. These are human commandments that do not have any resemblance, a real connection with the biblical text and descriptions. I assure you that the mark of the beast has something to do with worshiping the beast.

Okay. It has something to do with like, if you don't agree to worship the beast, then you're going to die of starvation and exposure. It's a form of coercion to get you to worship the beast. And you won't get the mark.

Right. You only get the mark to identify you as a worshiper. Right. Exactly. The mark marks you as a worshiper of the beast. Okay. So to further, you've made this point before,.

And I think it would absolutely scandalize the folks who buy into this conspiracy. It is God's prerogative to send pestilence. Yes. We don't know that the COVID -19 virus was sent by.

The devil. That's a good point. It is God who sends pestilences. Read the rest of the book of Revelation. The pestilences increase in intensity as you get closer to the return of Christ. You think COVID was bad.

Wait till what's coming next. But I've told if I pay more taxes to government, the weather will be gooder. Right. We're off topic. Moving on. Next question from Ashley. And she says she apologizes in advance for the length of this question.

She says, all right. So she says it's a loaded question, one that has perplexed her for truly her whole life, and one that she's not sure of any of us will have the answer to. This may sound like it's coming from someone who doesn't believe or is trying to disprove God.

So I want to say that's not the case. But this has always been something I could never wrap around my head. Why did God create Lucifer to begin with if God being omniscient knew that he would rebel against him and evil would be the consequence?

Or why wouldn't God just remove him from the heavens and the earth for his rebellion against him and immediately send him to Sheol forever if that's the plan at the end of the ages anyway? Couldn't he have just banished Satan right away instead of sent to this earth or never had created him to begin with and we wouldn't have had to go through all of this mess?

Now, here's the trick. Here's the issue. I don't have any texts to be able to answer the question. The Lutheran scholastics, one of the things they did is chided both the Roman Catholics and the Reformed and they came up with a weird, like an awkward Latin phrase about describing what these people were doing.

He says that these heavenly theologians have ascended into heaven in order to peek at the Deus Nudus, otherwise known as the naked God. But we can't do that. We are not capable of doing it. So here's the thing.

Where scripture speaks, I must speak and Christians must speak. Where scripture is silent, we can't give an answer. And I would note so much of modern theology is legitimately an exercise in people theologizing based upon their understanding of what is reasonable or unreasonable.

Somebody might head out into this question and say, well, if we think about it this way, we can start with this idea about God and then kind of postulate from there and they build this house of cards.

And here's the thing. They have to protect the house of cards with their lives because the smallest breath of wind is going to knock that whole thing over. And so if you question the house of cards, out come the fangs and stuff like this.

So questions like these can't be answered without biblical texts. I don't know why God, who knows the end from the beginning, chose to create the heavens and the earth and chose to create the angels, created Lucifer, knowing full well that he would fall and that he would bring legitimate misery and suffering and all this kind of stuff to countless generations of humans.

And not only that, the angels of heaven who joined with him in his rebellion. I don't know why he didn't just say, you know, that's a really bad idea. The one thing I can say about God is I trust him implicitly.

With a question like this, I am resolved to say what scripture says. His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. His ways are higher than ours. And so here's kind of how this all works out then, Ashley, is that when we finally stand before Christ, and I would say probably the day after the wedding feast of the lamb would be a good day to like say, hey Jesus, you know, I've had some burning questions here because your word doesn't address these issues and I don't know the answer to the question.

And see if in asking the question then he'll give you the fuller revelation. But what we do know is this, and this is what's interesting in all of this, as horrible as sin is and its consequences, God is not aloof.

God's solution to evil is to be incarnate in Christ and to experience the complete blown out society that we've, you know, that we've all inherited from Adam, in the world that we've inherited, to go through it himself.

And not only that, to experience death and an ignominious one at that, a horrible, awful one, his solution was to die in our place in order that we might be reconciled to God. So however this works, whatever God's thinking was, I can look at the solution and go, okay, this is not some philosophizing God who's sitting out there just spewing, you know, esoteric nonsense from the ether.

You know, he's gotten down and dirty with the rest of us and knows exactly what we're going through and his solution was one that he brought on himself, the solution by bleeding and dying for our sins.

I can trust that God, even when I don't have the answers to these other questions, right? And I think that's the Christian answer to this, is because we're always tempted to look for the answer that isn't given in Scripture, and then when we do that, we end up creating more problems than we solve.

So for instance, I think of the doctrine of predestination. The Lutherans embrace two things that the Scripture explicitly says. Number one, everybody who is saved, God is the one who's regenerated them and granted them repentance.

And number two, everybody who's damned, it's their own fault. And the Calvinist goes, no, you can't do this because that's a logical contradiction. And so we, and the Calvinist will say, we've sorted this out with our magisterial use of reason.

It's really simple. Christ only died for the elect and the reprobate, there's nothing they can do to be saved, and God elected them to damnation. And the Lutheran goes, there are no biblical texts that say anything about God electing anybody to damnation, not a single text.

It says the opposite. It says, it's not God's will that any should perish. And the Calvinist goes, well, actually, okay. Any means some, okay. And it's like, what? Well, any is, it's not his will that any should perish.

It's not talking about like salvation can be for like for everybody. It means that he doesn't, his, it's not his will that the predestined, that the elect should perish. The text says any, and that all should reach repentance.

All doesn't mean all, all only means some. And you sit there and go, you see the problem here? They set out to answer a question that the Bible doesn't give the answer to. And how did they do it? Duct tape, bendy straws, tinfoil, and their own ideas, and a whole lot of cards, right?

And you just have to sit there and go, there are no biblical texts that say this. And all the biblical texts say the opposite. The biblical texts say, it's not his will that any should perish. Christ has bled and died for the sins of the whole world.

John the Baptist declares of Jesus, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Right? And then Jesus says, okay, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him.

Well, whoever doesn't mean everybody. It just means, it just means the elect. You see how the game is played, right? Once they've taken their little edifice of duct tape and playing cards and stuff, they have to defend it vigorously vigorously against the clear passages of scripture.

So if I were to create an answer to the question, why did God not just not make Satan? Oh, I can come up with all kinds of weird stuff. Okay. You know, there was UFOs involved and, you know, and, and, and there was a werewolf, you know, who saw Elvis and, you know, and I can just come up with all kinds of nonsense, right?

That's the answer to the question. Is any of it biblical? Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't know. I didn't know that Elvis would become a werewolf. Boy, how the turntables, you know. All right. So Ashley, that's the answer to your questions.

There is no biblical answer, so I can't give an answer. Yeah. Yeah. Marilyn says, maybe she could relate to the idea of when a child asks a question and sometimes you just have to say to the child, because I said so.

You know, you're not wrong. And God is our father. So I think that's a pretty good one. All right. Dana Bennett asked the question. Most of what the Bible preaches is quote metaphorical. I actually would challenge that.

Most of it's historical, historical narrative. And he says, and, and really only pertains to the heavens and our salvation. I would note this, Dane, you're right. The Bible is a very hyper-focused book.

Okay. You'll note that nowhere in the Bible are we given the second law of thermodynamics, or the law of relativity, or anything even remotely to help us understand anything like that. I would note that, you know, sadly, the Bible doesn't tell me how to become rich either.

You know, that would be really practical advice. I'd like to see that. Right. Okay. So he says, can you give practical examples of how to apply the Bible to the 21st century and other contemporary issues?

For example, depression, loneliness, isolation, cost of living, and so on. So Dane, here's, here's, here's the answer to your question. And it's, it's an interesting one because you'll note then that when we look at how scripture admonishes us to live as Christians, it doesn't give us a hyper-specific list of very, you know, detailed actions.

Instead, it gives us a compass point to navigate by. And, and, and the idea then here is, is that how, how do we deal with depression? Well, there's a couple of ways you can deal with this. So for, for example, okay, are you suffering from depression?

Okay. You know, you'll note that depression sometimes eats away at your faith. What is depression? Depression is a psychological disorder that causes you to hyper-catastrophize, you know, instances in your life.

Okay. So you get news, you look at the economic indicators and the economic indicators show that the United States is heading for a bear market. And the hyper-catastrophe part of the depressed person sits there and goes, oh my goodness, I'm not going to be able to feed my kids.

I'm going to lose my job. Uh, you know, if I lose my job, I'm not going to be able to pay the mortgage. And if I can't pay the mortgage, my kids are going to be thrown out in the street. And then they're going to become drug users and prostitutes and die.

Right. And they run through the whole cycle. And then when they get to the end of it, they do it again. And then they do it again and they can't get out of the loop. That's what depression is. Okay. So since I don't have very specific passages that talk about depression, one of the things I can do is look at historical persons and who look like they may have suffered from similar instances and look at how they handled those things.

So for instance, I'll give you an example. Okay. Psalm 13. Okay. I don't know if you guys know this, but David had a pretty tough job early on. He worked for a guy who wanted him dead and kept trying to pin him to the with a spear.

And at some point, things get so bad that legitimately David is a guy who's on the run. Right. I think he was the one who wrote, Oh mama, I'm in fear for my life from the long arm of the law. Right. Okay.

And so from his experience, everything is going against him. The king is trying to kill him, has created a complete false narrative about to justify hunting down David like he's a dog. And in the midst of all of this, David writes a song.

How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? I remember pointing this out to one person going, can you talk like that to God? I'm all yes. David did. So can you. Okay. How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul? And I'm sorry. My heart all the day. How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Does that sound like catastrophizing to you? It has hints of depression in it.

Right. Consider it. Answer me. Oh Yahweh, my God, light up my eyes. Lest I sleep the sleep of death. That's catastrophizing. Okay. Lest my enemies say I prevailed over him. Lest my foes rejoice because I'm shaken.

What's the resolve? But I've trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to Yahweh because he's dealt bountifully with me. So you can, you can address it as somebody who suffers from depression and say, okay, I can see here that all this catastrophizing is my sinful nature, just running amok.

My sinful nature doesn't trust in God and believes that God doesn't care a lick about me. And I can see in scripture that David had similar thoughts and yet he comforted himself with the knowledge that he would see God face to face.

And that he says, I've trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice. I will sing to the Lord because he's dealt bountifully with me. It doesn't matter. I'm a Christian. It's kind of how this all works out.

So that's kind of one way to deal with it. But then the other way to deal with it is that we are commanded as Christians to love one another. So knowing what you know now, just this little knowledge about depression, if you see somebody heading down this road, you know better.

Than to say, you know, why are you so depressed? Why don't you just be happy and stop being so sad?

Okay. That doesn't help anybody. Okay. You want, you want to make things worse? Say stupid things like that. Okay. The scripture says to weep with those who weep, which means show empathy. So you're going to know it doesn't tell you the exact specifics.

When you, Dane, meet Crystal and Crystal's dealing with depression, I want you to say to her X, Y, and Z. No, it says weep with those who weep and love one another. Right. And so the compass point tells us we're going this way.

And that's what we do. This is the direction we're going to go. I don't know when we're going to get there, but that's the, that we're heading in this direction. This is what we're going to do. And that, that's the idea behind it.

Cost of living and things like that. The Bible legitimately doesn't address it other than this. You know, I would, I would kind of point it this way, a couple of things on this one. Proverbs 30, by the way, a proverb, proverb is a verb that's lost its amateur status.

I just want to make sure you understand that. Okay. Let's see here. Here we go. First of all, Proverbs 30. Two things I ask of you, deny them not to me before I die, far from me, falsehood and lying. Give me neither poverty nor riches.

Feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who is Yahweh? Or lest I be poor and steal and profane in the name of my God. You'll note that's a prayer. Okay. You know, as far as the cost of living and how difficult it is to pay the bills, we've all been there, done that.

Okay. And some of us are still struggling to pay our bills and the cost of living has just not gotten any better. And we're trying to figure out how to make ends meet. And we're burning the candle at both ends and the middle at this point, right?

You pray, knowing that God will answer your prayer and meet your needs. And that's the kind of the point of Jesus's admonition in Matthew 6. Okay. Matthew, not 65. I got to learn how to type again. I got to go back to typing class.

Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What are you going to eat? What are you going to drink? Don't worry about your body. What are you going to put on? This is not saying to run around naked.

I'm just saying. Okay. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? It is. So you're going to know Christ addresses these things, but he doesn't address them in the way of like, okay, here's do this thing and then do this thing and then do this thing.

And you'll never have a cost of living issue again. Christ says, trust, right? He's pointing out our anxiety as a form of unbelief, right? Okay. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feeds them.

I see this all the time when I come out here to Kongsvinger. You know who, what are some of the best fed birds around here? It's those bald eagles, man. All those dead deer carcasses on the side of the road.

They're munching on those things all the time, right? Okay. You know, I, I have never been in a place where I thought I would think that bald eagles are like pigeons. Okay. There are a lot of them around here.

Okay. You know, anyway, okay. So you look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? What's the answer to that question?

Yes. And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? What do we know about anxiety today? What does it do to your lifespan? Shortens it, decreases it. What are you highly susceptible to as a result of anxiety?

Major illnesses, cancer, anxiety disorder. Yeah. The fact that Christ answers this question. Okay. You know, ask this question shows he knows a thing or two. He's way ahead of his time because he's God, right?

Okay. And why are you anxious about your clothing? Okay. But you don't understand.

I, if the people, the kids at school are going to mock me if I wear clothes that came from Walmart.

All right. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothed you or you of little faith?

What's the answer to the question? Yes. What's the percentage? 76 of churchgoers believe that.

God wants them to be prosperous. Suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance, character, character, hope. Paul himself addresses the fact that his life was not a life of constant prosperity. And we might want to wisely consider what he says, but let me finish Jesus's thought.

Okay. I tell you, Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these, the lilies of the field. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow thrown in the oven, will he not much more clothed you or you of little faith?

Yes. What's the answer? Don't be anxious saying, what shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? The Gentiles, they seek after these things. And your heavenly father, your what? Heavenly father, he knows that you need them all.

Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, not yours, his, the righteousness that comes by grace through faith. All these things will be added to you. Okay. And you sit there and go, well, when?

You might have to struggle for the rest of your life. You might have to legitimately never be able to save up enough money to retire. That's the reality that we all find ourselves in anyway, by the way.

Right? Yeah. But here's the thing. I would remind you again, what I just said, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, character, hope. God is working through these circumstances and he is teaching you and sanctifying you.

And you'll note that when the only way we're going to get through today is by trusting God and God answering our prayers to be able to meet our needs today. And then tomorrow we got to do the same thing and the other and the same thing.

You know what's happening? You are flexing your faith muscle and building that sucker up. Okay. Spiritually, you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, not Pee Wee Herman. Okay. Anyway, that's kind of the point.

All right. So God is always working through these things. Don't despise it. And Paul makes it clear. He says he knows, he learned how to trust God through plenty and through scarcity. You know, God will see us through both.

Paul even talks about times in his life when he like, not only was he in danger, he like had no food, no clothes.

Okay. That's how bad things got for him at times. Yeah. No. So be a super Christian and then. That means that God's blessings are a wage, not a gift. Right. And more specifically,.

The kingdom of God comes when people, when sinners are brought to repentance. All right. Everybody who is an unbeliever is outside of the kingdom of God. At least the kingdom of his kindness and grace.

And so seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. There's nothing here about tithing. Okay. This is about faith. That's the whole thesis of Christ. This is about what's lacking here is faith.

So the practical answer is, is that trust, pray. God will meet your needs. And if you have to downsize, you have to downsize. You have to go without, you have to go without. If all of a sudden you have a windfall of resources, make sure to do what Christ tells you to do through his apostles and set aside some to help with the ease, the burdens of those who do not have, you know, that that's the idea.

And then we are to love each other and meet each other's needs is the best way I can put it. So, you know, again, compass point, not, not very specific practical. You'll know. When was the last time I left you with a sermon where you had three easy things that you had to do to make yourself more holy this week?

Still waiting on it. You're never, it's never going to arrive. If I start preaching that way, I've lost my mind. I have mad cow disease. Okay. Take me into the pasture and shoot me. Okay. Okay. Right.

You get the idea. Now this next one is interesting. Okay. Um, um, and the reason why it's interesting is because it involves a video. So I'm going to make sure I got the volume. Okay. Okay. I need to make sure that there's not going to be an echo.

I it's completely off at the moment. Do you want me to turn up the volume so I can hear it? Okay. Okay. Oh, there's an echo. I do not have my microphone on. I don't have my video on. I'm just going to do what I'm told.

I get along easier in life by doing that. Okay. My wife says, do this. And I do it. She says, come and I come. She says, clean that. And I clean that. Okay. Okay. Turning your volume up, up, up, up. How do I unzoom the audio from zoom?

Okay. We got a problem here. Oh, I have an idea. I know how to do it. Oh, watch this. I'm just going to send my speaker to something silly. Okay. Um, yeah, I, I, so I'm going to select a speaker as virtual, uh, desk.

Let's send it to a mic. That'll do it. All right. Let's try this. Are we ready? Here we go to the seven churches. Yes, it works. Okay, cool. All right. I didn't need that program. Now let me, let me show you this here.

Okay. I've avoided having to buy another piece of software. Yes. Okay. Okay. Uh, so Diana, she writes, we're not sure how to address this possibly with some family members in the future. This 15 minute video, we're not going to play all of it was posted by our nephew who has started teaching on YouTube.

Just because you teach on YouTube doesn't mean you're qualified to do so. Okay. And I'm going to note that the kid in question doesn't even look like he shaves. Okay. Uh, yeah, that, well, he shaves a little bit.

This is the, my, my immediate question is what, what has he done to show that he's studied and showed himself approved, but here, here, let me, let me kind of play the beginning of this so you can kind of get the feel for it.

Of what he's saying. Here we go. Greetings everyone. And welcome to the video. I'm Jonathan and I hope you're all having a great day. So in order to participate in this video, you don't have to even be a Christian.

What I would primarily like to do is have people ask their pastor or perhaps their priest, this question. That's my primary target target of this question, but you could also ask this to a church goer or as a church goer or just somebody in leadership has in general.