WWUTT Q&A Genesis, Enoch, Sabbath, Gungor, and Acoustics?

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If a person doesn't believe the first 11 chapters of Genesis are literal, how can we teach them?

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What is the book of Enoch? Do we worship God on the Sabbath? And what became of Michael and Lisa Gungor?

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The answers to these questions, when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, an online Bible study five days a week that we may know Christ and keep

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His commandments. Find all our videos and other resources on our website, www .utt

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.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Coming up on Friday, I've got a new article that I'm publishing on my blog, and it is about a special session that the

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United Methodist denomination is holding in February, and what's going to be decided at this particular session is going to be the approval of a plan to basically split the denomination.

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Oh, wow. Part of the denomination will be to accept homosexuality, gay marriage, and homosexual clergy, and then the other side of the denomination will be those who don't want to accept those things and rather want to keep with the traditional ethic according to what is written in the

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United Methodist Church's own statement of faith, let alone what's written in the Bible. Even their statement of faith says that homosexual behavior is incompatible with biblical instruction, and yet they are making these changes, which we knew was going to happen.

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The Methodist denomination has been leaning liberal for a long time, and a couple of the reasons why the

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Methodist denomination has not accepted this yet has been because, well, for one, their general conference, the main conference that involves every church within the denomination, is only once every four years.

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Oh, wow. So when you're— A lot of things have changed in four years. Exactly. Yeah, when your denomination is making policy and doctrine changes every four years, things tend to move pretty slow, and then the second reason is because Methodist churches outside the

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United States are way more conservative, so you have those Methodist churches that are stateside wanting to adopt these more liberal policies.

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The churches that are outside the United States want to stay traditional. They want to remain according to biblical conviction and teaching, which was—

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They should. Yeah, that's the way John Wesley was, the founder of the denomination. He believed in the authority of the

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Scripture. John Wesley founded the Methodist Church? Yep. Oh, I didn't know that. The Wesleyan denomination and the

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Methodist denomination, also the Nazarenes, all kind of are part of John Wesley. Oh, okay.

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Well, that makes sense. Very Arminian. They have that doctrine of entire sanctification that they believe.

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All right, so being Friday, we're taking questions from the listeners, and you can submit a question to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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We are still raising funds to get us to G3. Yes, please. Everything paid for as far as admission goes.

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Is that right? Admission? Yeah. Our booth fee, everything like that we have to pay for. I think our travel expenses, for the most part, are covered, and we had that wonderful generous individual.

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I wanted to say general individual. Maybe he's a general. I don't know. A generous individual who had paid for our hotel for us.

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Oh, yeah. What we are accumulating now, as far as donations go, will help us pay for the booth that we're trying to put together.

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So the actual booth itself. And like the sign that goes on the booth that says we're what. It says we're what?

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The stuff that goes... Just in case you don't follow us on Twitter and don't know what our faces look like, because we plaster them all over the place.

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Well, yeah, that's part of this. We want to be able to get the name out and meet some new people who have never heard of whenweunderstandthetext before, and then we also have some other things we want to be able to sell or give away at the booth.

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How's that coloring book coming along? Oh, I don't know if I'm going to get that done or not. I'm not really focusing on that.

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So I want to be able to do some t -shirts or something like that. That would be great. That would be awesome.

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I've always wanted to have some what t -shirts. At the very least, a coffee mug. You know? It'd be fantastic.

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You've got what .com on the coffee mug. I need a coffee mug like that. And I think you can do the coffee mugs...

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Well, I know you can do the coffee mugs way cheaper than you can do the t -shirt. Really? You can do full color on the coffee mug and a full color t -shirt or sweatshirt costs a lot because typically when you do printing on a shirt, you pick like one or two or three colors.

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Right. Yeah. You can't do a full color image. That costs more. Yeah. So the logo that we use, like the logo that appears on the front of every video, that's what

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I would like to put on the t -shirt. That would cost a lot. That would cost quite a bit. You did a pillow for a family member or something that had...

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I did. Full color photos on it? Remember how much that pillow cost? Yeah. It was like 20.

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Okay. Yeah. See, I'm trying to avoid going that high. Yeah. It was a lot. So I don't have to charge somebody 20 bucks for a shirt.

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I splurged on that. On the pillow? Yeah. I wasn't thinking of what pillows.

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Yeah. That would be... Come to G3 if you feel like taking a nap during these sessions.

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I was thinking of when you invite people over, you have the what pillows all over. What is that?

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Exactly. Yep. It's a what pillow. That would be so awkward. Conversation starter right there.

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G3, the conference, it's coming to Atlanta in January. You can still register. Go to g3conference .com

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or org. We do this every time. Dot com. Dot com. Dot com. The letter G, the number three, conference .com.

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Great speakers that are going to be there. My favorite, Votie Bauckham. He's there every year. This is going to be the first conference that Paul Washer is making an appearance ever since his heart attack.

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Over here in the United States, maybe. Okay. Maybe that's the case. Yeah. Well, not a conference. Oh, he didn't do a conference overseas?

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I think he's done some preaching at some churches, but he hadn't done a conference. Okay. So this is going to be the first conference he's been to since his heart attack.

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Oh, yeah. So pray for him. Looking forward to that. Yes. Pray for him and his strength. And for his family. Yes. Other guys include

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Justin Peters. I think he's there every year. Phil Johnson. Very exciting. For the first time, John Piper and David Platt are going to be there.

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Anyway, it's just going to be a great conference. So check out all the speakers online and do the registration and everything at g3conference .com.

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Okay. The questions that we have today. First of all, the first question goes back to last week.

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All right. And then the next couple of questions, well, the next couple of individuals ask several questions each.

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Okay. So we have a plethora here. Jordan in Fort Wayne, Indiana says,

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Pastor Gabe, thanks for the Q &A on Matt Walsh. Last week we were talking about young earth or old earth creation.

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Within that, you made a comment about not dividing over literal beliefs in the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

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How then do I respond when someone does not believe in a worldwide flood in light of second

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Peter three, one through six? Thanks again for all you do. You and your family are in my prayers.

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Aw, thank you. So let's look at the passage here. Second Peter chapter three, starting in verse one. This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved.

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In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the

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Lord and savior through your apostles. Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

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They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

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For they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God.

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And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

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That's verse six. But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

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I tacked on verse seven for good measure. Basically, what we're told here is that the creation of the world by the word of God and that it was then destroyed in judgment by water are undeniable facts.

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They overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God.

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And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

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Now, one of the one of the things that I've used out of this passage before in verse six is that it says the world that then existed was deluged and perished.

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The world that we exist in now is not like the way the world was prior to the flood.

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Right. And we can see that in Genesis with the fact that men were living for hundreds of years, right, until after the flood and then steadily they were living less and less long.

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Abraham was what, one hundred and seventy five years or something like that. Something like that. We've been going through Job and talking about how

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Job was he lived probably longer than Abraham, nearly two hundred years. But as mankind kind of continued, eventually those lifetimes didn't last nearly as long.

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Right. David, I believe, was 70 years old. Solomon was somewhere around in there as well. Joseph, though, at the end of Genesis, he was one hundred and ten.

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Right. That was how old he was when he died. I remember that number because that was kind of considered the number of perfection for an

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Egyptian. If somebody lived one hundred and ten years old, they lived the perfect length of life.

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Really? And Job, who was sorry, Job, Joseph, who was the second in command in Egypt, lived exactly two hundred and ten years.

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And it was a testimony to the God of the Hebrews, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that the

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Egyptians would recognize this was the God that Joseph worshipped. And look at how he blessed him.

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So cool. With long life all the way to one hundred and ten years. Anyway, so all of that to say that that mankind doesn't live that long anymore.

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We can see that the world that we exist in now is not like the world that it was.

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Well, some men live to one hundred and ten, but I mean like the two hundred and up. Right. Range. Right. The absurd range.

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The question that Jordan is asking here is that if we're not supposed to divide over beliefs in Genesis 11, then how do you respond to somebody who does not believe in a worldwide flood?

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Well, according to what Peter says here, they deliberately overlook this fact. So Matt Walsh last week deliberately overlooked the fact that God created the world in six days and judged it with a global flood.

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Right. So your friend is likewise overlooking that fact, but it's still not an essential doctrine.

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Right. And people overlook all kinds of doctrines in the scriptures. And yet just because they don't agree with what those doctrines say, if it's not an essential issue that pertains to salvation, it therefore doesn't disqualify them from being included in the

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Christian brotherhood. Right. So there's not a reason to have to divide over them for that, at least as far as essential matters go.

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Now, there may be some secondary disagreements that it doesn't necessarily divide us from one another as brothers and sisters in the

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Lord. But there is some division there, like, for example, a Baptist church and a Presbyterian church.

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They have different understandings of covenant and the signs and seals of the covenant and who those signs and seals belong to.

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And so therefore, because of difference of opinion of those things, you have two different denominations.

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Right. There are going to be things that separate us out in that way, but it doesn't mean we break fellowship with one another.

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I made a comment on Twitter this past week about baptism and then clarified it the next day, or I think it was later in the day.

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It was later in the day. Yeah. I clarified it by saying this is not a cause for division. It was a conversation.

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Well, the subject of baptism has been talked about a lot in the circles that we're kind of involved in on Twitter.

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And so I felt like sharing something that I've shared before with my congregation. But it's not a reason to divide.

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Right. Because in my soteriology, in my own theology, I'm closer to a lot of my Reformed Presbyterian brothers and sisters than I am with many of my

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Southern Baptist brothers and sisters. Right. Which is unfortunate. Yeah. You could probably say the same about your denomination.

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You have people that you know that are more Reformed in their soteriology and you're closer, more closely aligned with them.

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And you are with with probably people in your own church that does tend to happen.

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Makes good conversation. It does. It does. Especially when it comes to like understanding the principle in Romans 15, where it says those of you who are mature have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please yourselves, but to benefit your neighbor for his good to build him up.

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Right. So if you know that you have come to a maturation in your understanding of what the

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Bible says, you have an obligation to know how to teach someone else what the

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Lord has shown you through his word so that you can help to mature somebody else and build them up.

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Right. And then, as it says in Ephesians chapter four, then we all grow together into the head who is

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Christ Jesus, by whom we are all joined and held together with every joint and ligament.

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And the body grows itself up in love. And that's how you tell your friend. OK, there you go.

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Thanks for bringing that back around. That's precisely what you do.

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Yes. You don't break fellowship with your friend. No, but very patiently. Not with an argument. Right.

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This is how it is or anything like that. You just gently go back to the scripture and say, OK, let's study this.

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If your friend makes a comment about how Genesis 11 or one through 11 or is poetry or it's symbolism or it's like a mythological story, it's not meant to be taken literally.

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If they make some kind of comment like that, simply ask them, where did you come to that conclusion from?

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How did you come to that idea? Because they didn't come up with it. Right. It came from somebody else.

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But you get the ball rolling that way. Why do you think that we need to read the Bible that way? Here's a point that I didn't make last week when we were reviewing what

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Matt Walsh said about young earth creationism. There is no reason to believe that God created the world and the universe and all things in processes that took millions of years to accomplish.

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There's no reason to believe that the way that we have it presented to us in Genesis one gives us the creation account in six literal days.

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That's the way you read it. And that's the conclusion that you come to at the end of Genesis one. So for you to believe that God created it any other way, there's no reason to believe that.

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What difference does it make? Like, how is your life better now that you believe that Genesis one is a period of ages rather than six literal days?

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The reason why a person would believe something like day age creationism, that each day in Genesis one represents an age or a process of millions of years rather than a literal day.

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They've come to that conclusion because of what the culture has said about the existence of the world.

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That's what I was thinking. It's just easier to explain what everybody else is talking about. That's right. I feel less controversial now that I can have a conversation with somebody who is worldly and they're not going to make fun of me because I believe the world was created in six literal days.

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Incidentally, I've already had somebody make fun of me for that this past week. I was having a conversation with somebody about politics.

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The very first thing they said was, I bet you believe the world is created in six literal days, too.

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It's like, why is that your go to argument in your mind? So you can think that I'm dumb and you don't have to listen to my opinion on anything else.

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That's really why they fell on. That's not the way I responded, but that's the way the world responds.

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And again, coming back to second Peter chapter three, they deliberately overlook the facts that God created all things.

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Yeah. Oh, exactly. Yeah. And I know how to I know how to discredit you.

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So in my mind, I don't have to listen to what you say. Right. That's that's the reason why they do it. They overlook the facts that God created all things by the speaking of his word.

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And then he judged the world in a global flood. Second, Peter three says these are facts.

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They are undeniable. And just as God has destroyed the world previously in a flood, so it's going to happen again.

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But the next time it will be by fire. All right. Next question. This is from Neil. And Neil's got a couple of questions here.

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The first one is and I didn't catch where Neil was from, but he says, I have a question about something that I've heard lately.

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What is the book of Enoch? I would like some wisdom on this. I don't know who to trust anymore.

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And that he tagged that into his question just broke my heart because somebody has bullied

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Neil theologically with something related to the book of Enoch and made him believe that he has to believe this.

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And it kind of reveals itself a little bit more in his next question, where he talks about wanting to be right in his theology.

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So I'll get to that here in just a moment. But first of all, the book of Enoch is a pseudonym pseudonymical work.

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Really? How's that again? It basically just means that Enoch didn't write it.

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OK. And we don't know who wrote it. OK. So somebody wrote this book and tagged Enoch's name on it.

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But we don't know who it was. OK. The book was probably written sometime between the first and third centuries

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B .C. before Christ. Jude references the book of Enoch in his book in the book of Jude chapter one, verse 14.

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That's only one chapter. But anyway, it was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied saying, behold, the

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Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

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Now, Jude quotes that. And some of the early church fathers even made some references from the book of Enoch.

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However, just because they reference the book, that doesn't mean that they are quoting it as something that literally actually happened.

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Like we should receive the book of Enoch as inspired text. That that's not the way it's being quoted.

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What Jude is quoting here from Enoch is fact. So this is a fact that comes from the book of Enoch.

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But it doesn't mean that the work itself is it can be credited to the

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Holy Spirit having inspired Enoch to write it. OK, because we know very clearly Enoch did not.

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Now, maybe there is something in Jewish tradition passed all the way down to the point that Jude knew that what was being quoted out of the book of Enoch actually came from Jewish tradition.

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And maybe it was something wisdom wise that Enoch said prior to the flood, because remember,

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Enoch was the one who walked with God and then God took him and he was no more. OK, he's the one that we consider to have been taken up into heaven prior to Elijah's being taken up in heaven.

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So there were two men who did not experience death, Enoch and Elijah. Right. Enoch did not write this book.

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He wasn't the one that wrote it. But maybe he said something that became proverbial, became a proverb in Hebrew tradition that was passed all the way down.

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And so that's what Jude quotes. There are some differences between what Jude says and the way the quote actually appears in the book of Enoch.

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So maybe Jude knows it more accurately, could be the possibility. But again, just because someone quoted it doesn't mean that it was inspired text.

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The Apostle Paul quoted from Epimenides, who was the Greek philosopher from the island of Crete.

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OK, so it's quoted as wisdom, but that doesn't mean the quote that that is made means that we need to consider this as inspired text.

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Right. Beware of those who try to say that the book of Enoch is inspired text. When the church was understanding which books belonged in canon,

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Enoch was not considered among them. That wasn't even on the table. Hey, maybe we should include the book of Enoch.

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No, they knew that Enoch was not written by Enoch. That's why it's not included. It's a very long book, too.

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It's over 100 chapters. Oh, wow. I read it a long time ago and only once.

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I've not gone back to it since. So anyway, that's the answer to your question, Neil, is that it is a historical work, but it was not actually written by Enoch.

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Therefore, it's not received as inspired text. It wasn't the Holy Spirit leading Enoch to write the things down that were written there, whereas what we have in the rest of the

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Bible was written by those individuals and guided by the Holy Spirit. Next question from Neil.

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I wanted to ask about the real Sabbath day and this thing about the mark of the beast being forced to worship on a false seventh day, according to Roman Catholicism.

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Hopefully you can shed light on this for me. I want to follow Jesus and I don't want to go to hell because all the lies

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I struggle with, I struggle with sin anyway, and I'm constantly afraid I'm not saved. I want to be reconciled to my father who created me and sent his son to die for my sins.

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When we get to the end of the broadcast today, Neil, I'll certainly pray for you. Oh, because it does sound like somebody's bullied you theologically and has led you to believe some things that aren't true.

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And your spirit is in torment because you want to know the truth. You don't want to fall under the judgment of God and you want to know freedom in Christ.

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And I hope maybe you'll continue listening to this program because as we've been going through the book of John on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and Job on Thursday, you'll hear some solid scriptural teaching and you'll understand the gospel that's given to us in the pages of scripture.

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Go back to Monday's broadcast because it was Monday this week. I got to do

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John 3 verses 16 through 21. Great section of scripture to be teaching on.

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Oh, yes. So go back to Monday when I did John 3, 16, and then listen to those three broadcasts.

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What number are we on now? I don't even know. I don't have any idea. Hang on. I'm going to bring it up. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

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If my Internet is going to be quick here. We are on today's episode is 815.

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Yeah. So you're looking at episodes 811 through 813 for God.

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So love the world. Jesus did not come to condemn the world and the light has come into the world. Those are going to be the names of those episodes.

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What was I saying? OK, we're answering the question. Yes. Where does this idea come from about a false

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Sabbath day? The beast would force us to worship on a false seventh day, according to Roman Catholicism.

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Well, it sounds like somebody who might be Seventh Day Adventist has told you this. So the

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Seventh Day Adventist believe that we should be worshiping on the on Saturday, on the true

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Sabbath, and we shouldn't be working, worshiping on any other day. Seventh Day Adventism does believe the essential doctrines of the

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Christian faith, those things that pertain to salvation. But then there are some other doctrines that are a little bit wonky that they believe and it kind of separates out the

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Seventh Day Adventism from other Protestant denominations. Now, the

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Seventh Day Adventist, they would consider themselves to be Protestant and they claim to follow the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, that scripture alone is our authority.

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And they say this was revealed according to Ellen G. White, who was one of the founders of the denomination. Ellen G.

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White claimed to have over 2000 visions in her lifetime, some of which were just a few minutes long.

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Others were like over several hours long. And she wrote down very a lot of prophetic things, which the

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Seventh Day Adventists still hold as true and continue to teach. But one of those things that that White received in a vision was the day that Jesus was going to return and he did not return on that day.

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And then White blamed the Seventh Day Adventist. How did she get out of that? Yeah, she blamed the Seventh Day Adventist.

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Because if the Adventist had believed in the prophecy that she had given, then

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Christ would have returned. And because they didn't have enough faith, then Jesus didn't actually return.

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Well, there's always that excuse. Yeah, there's that one too. Anyway, the three main doctrines that kind of separate them out from any other

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Protestant denomination would be Sabbatarianism, which is the idea that worship should be done on Saturday, because that's why they call themselves

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Seventh Day Adventist. So it's worship in their name. Yeah. Needs to be on Saturday. And when you go to their well, hang on, let me finish these three and then

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I'll go to that. So the three main doctrines are Sabbatarianism, the gift of prophecy manifested in the ministry of Ellen G.

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White. That's the second one. And then the third one is called the Sanctuary Doctrine. And the Sanctuary Doctrine is this idea that on March 21st, 1844,

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Jesus entered into the altar of heaven and began the next phase of atoning for the sins of his people.

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It's complicated. Yeah, this is a it's a vision that I'm trying to remember his name,

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Miller, William Miller. Miller had predicted and preached that Jesus was going to return on sometime between March 21st of 1843 and March 21st of 1844.

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That was Miller's claim. OK, and the people who are the followers of Miller were called the Millerites. And then when

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March 21st, 1844 came and went and Jesus didn't return, a lot of people had sold all their stuff.

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They gave away everything that they had looking forward to that day. You know, obviously they didn't need it.

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Yeah, obviously they're like, um, OK, now what do I do? Because Jesus didn't come back.

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That was referred to as the Great Disappointment. And you can imagine why, yes.

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What ended up happening from there is that the Millerites split into two main groups. There was the

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Seventh -day Adventists and Ellen G. White and her husband, whose name I can't remember now, were two of the founders of that of that denomination.

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The other one was a completely different religion known as the Jehovah's Witnesses. So they came out of the same

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Great Disappointment. And both of them, both the

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Seventh -day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses have many other prophecies that were made that never actually came true.

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And so it's like people just didn't even learn from that whole situation. It just it just keeps on going.

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It keeps continuing. So that's the that's that denomination, the sanctuary or not denomination. I'm sorry.

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The doctrine, the sanctuary doctrine, that idea that, well, Jesus didn't return then.

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But, you know, William Miller, what he saw, he just got the location wrong. Jesus moved into this other place in the heavenly realm to begin this next phase of atonement.

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And that's how they excused the whole thing. Wow. So you had some people that ended up remaining in the. Yes. So you didn't lose all of your followers.

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Not all of them. Right. Some of them went Jehovah's Witness. Some of them went Seventh -day Adventism. Some of them just probably left the faith entirely.

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So that's that's what separates out Seventh -day Adventism from the others. And it's that Sabbath worship is kind of the main one.

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Now, they have a list of what's called the 28 fundamental beliefs of the Seventh -day Adventists.

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And number 20 is the Sabbath. And it says the gracious creator, after the six days of creation, see, at least they believe in six day creation.

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Yeah. Rested on the seventh day and instituted the Sabbath for all people as a memorial of creation.

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The fourth commandment of God's unchangeable law requires the observance of this seventh day

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Sabbath as a day of rest, worship and ministry in harmony with the teaching and practice of Jesus, the

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Lord of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day of delightful communion with God and one another. It is a symbol of our redemption in Christ, a sign of our sanctification, a token of our allegiance and a foretaste of our eternal future in God's kingdom.

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The Sabbath is God's perpetual sign of his eternal covenant between him and his people.

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Joyful observance of this holy time from evening to evening, sunset to sunset is a celebration of God's creative and redemptive acts.

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Now, that seems pretty innocuous and harmless for the most part. I don't agree with it, but, you know, there are some aspects

30:32

I do. Others, not so much. The Sabbath is God's perpetual sign of his eternal covenant between him and his people.

30:41

That sentence in particular. There are Seventh -day Adventists who will take that and say that God is judging everyone based on the day that they worship on.

30:52

And because you don't worship on Saturday, that is a sign that you don't truly follow

30:57

God and keep his commandments. If you're not willing to worship on Saturday, then you don't keep the rest of the commandments either.

31:04

Because remember what James said, if you break one commandment, you're guilty of breaking all of it. And Jesus says, if anybody breaks even the least of these commandments, then they are going to be held accountable according to the whole thing.

31:17

That's the way the Seventh -day Adventists will measure that. They will hold a person according to the day that they worship on.

31:24

And ultimately, at the very end, at the final judgment, people are going to be judged based on the day of the week that they worship

31:32

Christ on. That's a good indication. It's the fruit that we can look at to see if you truly worship

31:38

God and obey his commandments or not. Now, that is not said in the 28 fundamentalist beliefs.

31:47

And so some Adventists, and I'll say really most of them, don't hold to that belief that strictly.

31:54

But some of them do. So and the Adventist church, Seventh -day Adventists are autonomous churches.

32:00

So what you experience in one Adventist church is not the same in another. Exactly right.

32:06

Just the same as Southern Baptist churches. Oh, yes. And just because somebody comes to my church, if they then move and they're going to another place and they're looking for a new church,

32:15

I will tell them, do not automatically think that the Southern Baptist church there is just like this one.

32:20

They may not even be expository, may not even be exegetical preaching coming from the pulpit.

32:26

So you've got to be careful in that way. Seventh -day Adventism is filled with so many problems that I would highly discourage a person from attending a

32:35

Seventh -day Adventist church. And my suspicion would be that Neil probably is in a

32:41

Seventh -day Adventist church and maybe has been oppressed with certain beliefs and things, being told you have to believe this or you're not going to go to heaven.

32:51

Right. And so, Neil, once again, I hope that you get some sound teaching and some good teachers around you that can help direct you to the right thing.

32:59

Do you have a suggestion on how to research that? About how to research Seventh -day Adventism?

33:05

No, about how to research the churches in his area, like how he can...

33:12

Well, I'll have to know where he's at because he didn't include that. For him to do, like for anybody who's listening, if they want to find a good church.

33:19

Yeah, go to, oh, let's see, Nine Marks has a website. Well, yeah,

33:25

I mean, it's the Nine Marks website, but you go, you click on churches and there will be all those churches that are affiliated, not necessarily with Nine Marks.

33:35

What would you call that? It's a directory. It's a directory. So anybody who wants to be found through Nine Marks, they want to say, hey, we agree with Capitol Hill Baptist Church's doctrines, all the

33:48

Nine Marks materials that they produce, then they will be included in that particular directory. Or the

33:55

Gospel Coalition has a website. They've got a directory as well. I was told that Masters University was also going to do one.

34:02

Okay. And all of this is just volunteer. It's just any church that wants, yeah, I want, if somebody loves the teaching that comes from this ministry,

34:10

I want them to be able to find my church. Right. Because we agree, right. Be a good fit for them.

34:15

Yes. Yeah. So something like that. And if there is not a church in your town, based on those resources that you use to try to find a good church, then find the nearest possible church that's in one of those directories and contact someone there and say, do you know of any churches in my area?

34:34

There's nowhere online I can find one. Right. But can you direct me to a place that, you know, in my town is solid, is good in teaching and where I can go and not be bullied theologically.

34:46

Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Yeah, it sounds like Neal's kind of been beat up a little bit. Thank you for your questions,

34:53

Neal. And I hope that that was helpful. The day that you worship on has nothing to do with whether or not you are saved.

35:00

You should worship Jesus every day. Absolutely. Every day. With all your heart, soul, mind, and strength every day.

35:07

Everything that you do. And let no one disqualify you with plausible arguments.

35:14

This is something that Paul warned the Colossians about in Colossians chapter two, beginning in verse 16.

35:19

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a

35:27

Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

35:34

So the Sabbath was pointing to Christ, who is the Lord of the Sabbath, even as the seventh day

35:40

Adventists in their statement of beliefs acknowledged there. But the Sabbath, all of the

35:45

Sabbath laws were fulfilled in Christ. What day you worship on doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you belong to Christ.

35:52

Right. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And as Jesus even said, Mark chapter two, I believe, where he says that that man was not created for the

36:01

Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man. The day of rest was for our benefit. Right. It's not that that we're supposed to adhere to some law that pertains to that particular day.

36:12

Paul goes on in verse 18, Colossians two, 18 to say, let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind.

36:28

Colossians two, 16 through 18 really kind of destroys seventh day Adventism. And as I've said on this particular broadcast before, because the question has come up, seventh day

36:37

Adventism can't be reformed because it's built on a false base in order to truly adhere to the doctrines that they teach.

36:45

You have to worship on Saturday, which that's contrary to what scripture says about the Sabbath, and you also have to believe that LNG white had all of these visions and prophecies and whatnot.

36:56

And these two things, in addition to the whole Jesus walking into the sanctuary of heaven doctrine, those three things that separate out seventh day

37:06

Adventism from other Protestant denominations really disqualifies the denomination. Now, a person who is a seventh day

37:13

Adventist can still be saved because as I said before, they do adhere to fundamentals of the faith, but the secondary issues are so problematic that there it's false teaching and you shouldn't stay there.

37:25

All three of those doctrines are false teaching. I believe you just said that the, that there is no law saying that we have to.

37:34

Have a Sabbath day. Is that right? Right. Did I quote you correctly? Yeah, I think so.

37:39

Isn't it the fourth commandment? Yeah. The fourth commandment is you will honor the

37:44

Sabbath and keep it holy. So the fourth. Yeah. Yeah. It's the fourth commandment. Yeah. You're, you're going through in your head, is it the song that you teach with the kids?

37:56

Can you hum a few bars for us? Can you, but yeah, that's right. It's the fourth commandment.

38:02

Okay. And we've, and we've gone through this before, but all of the laws pertaining to the Sabbath were fulfilled in Christ.

38:08

So Jesus is our Sabbath rest, right? Every day that you worship

38:13

Christ, we don't have a law. And then it was kind of like, well, we don't have a law pertaining to a particular day, right?

38:19

You have to worship on this day, right? Days were shadows, types and shadows that were fulfilled in Christ, not just the

38:27

Sabbath day, but also Sabbath years and the different holidays that, uh, the holy days that God told the

38:33

Jews to keep and to celebrate all of those things were pointing to something that was fulfilled in Christ.

38:39

And so there's no law that binds us to the keeping of those particular days.

38:46

He is our holiday. He is our Sabbath rest.

38:51

And some people will say this day is holy. And some people will say that day is holy.

38:56

And as Paul says in Romans 14, let everyone be convinced in his own mind, but not to quarrel over these opinions.

39:04

Right. And that's what he calls them. He calls them opinions when you, when you believe that one day is better than another word, it is in, in, in the way that he uses it in Romans 14, it is a very strong word.

39:16

What you think about a particular day is simply your opinion because everything that pertained to days and what

39:23

God had assigned to those days has been fulfilled in him. Now, I think that Sunday is the day that we should gather in worship because that's the example that we're giving in, we're given in the new

39:33

Testament that on the first day of the week, that which is referred to as the Lord's day, that was when the church would gather and break bread and they would collect offering and they would hear the word of God proclaimed.

39:44

And so, as we see that being our example in the new Testament, we should likewise follow it. But, and this is where I break with my reformed brothers.

39:52

I do not believe that Sunday is the Sabbath day. It's simply the Lord's day. And if you are convinced that's a day that you need to keep, then by all means, don't violate your conscience.

40:05

Right. But I still follow this directive that's given in Colossians two, you let no one disregard you in questions of food or drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a

40:19

Sabbath, not the Sabbath, but whatever day someone says is a Sabbath.

40:24

These were a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. And there are people that will direct me to books all the time.

40:31

Well, you need to read this book about this to, to qualify your thinking on that. I've read a lot and I'm not convinced.

40:39

So all of the major confessions, I've read all of them and they're all really good. And if somebody says,

40:46

Hey, I adhere to the London Baptist confession, 1689, that's the one I probably most closely aligned myself with where I follow the

40:52

Westminster confession of faith. Great. Good for you. Or the Heidel Heidelberg catechism.

40:58

I was just reading from somebody earlier this week too, was talking about the Westminster confession of faith and how many times it's changed and at what point is it no longer the

41:08

Westminster confession of faith because of question. And now we have a totally different document than what was originally written by those first guys that put it together.

41:18

All right. Anyway, thank you for your questions, Neil. We want to pray for you here in just a little bit when we get to the end.

41:25

Uh, last of all, I, I got a question this week from John and since we're coming close to the end of our time together and you get pretty tired,

41:35

I am pretty tired and if you can't tell my voice is not holding out either, Becky and I have both had,

41:41

I don't know what it is. Is it allergy related? Mine started allergies and then just kind of developed into a sinus infection.

41:48

Maybe got an infection out of that. Yeah. And mine's just, I don't know what, I don't know what the deal is with mine. I've been struggling with it all week for you.

41:55

Could be. Yeah, I was, I was feeling this yesterday too, though. Yesterday and the day before.

42:01

Uh, well then the day before, maybe not, but I don't know what it is. It's allergies. Yeah. Fall allergies.

42:06

So my voice, my voice may not hold on. Uh, therefore I'm not going to read the, the whole body of the email that he sent and then what my response to him was, but there were two smaller questions that he had in his email and I wanted to reply to these real quick.

42:22

Even though I didn't get the chance to, um, I don't think I responded to these when I first responded to his email.

42:30

Anyway. So the first question is, I ran across an interesting video on YouTube about Lisa Gungor and their shift into atheism.

42:38

This is Michael and Lisa Gungor who were of the band Gungor. And the song that you would know from Gungor is beautiful things.

42:46

Okay. You make beautiful things. You're making beautiful things out of us.

42:52

Okay. That one, that's probably their most famous hit and they're what now they're atheists now left the faith and everything.

42:59

And, uh, anyway, so John passed it on and said, I thought it might be interesting to you. I did get to see this video. I want to play a little bit of it here.

43:06

This is Lee, Lisa Gungor talking about how she and her husband, Michael had left

43:11

Christianity. Okay. My name is Lisa Gungor. I am a recent author.

43:17

I'm a musician and a songwriter. My mom and I found this wild church.

43:25

They called themselves the Holy Rollers. And from the moment you walked in, it was loud. People were like running around the church.

43:32

I just think it's awesome. So while a lot of people think it's crazy filled with crazy people, I loved it.

43:38

And I was in, I ended up going to college and I start dating this boy.

43:45

It was like super Christian. Christian. We get married really young.

43:51

We're too young to even rent a car when we're married. We didn't drink or cuss. So we ended up getting a job at a really big church in Michigan.

44:01

And this church was the size of a mall. I mean, it's huge. It was about 10 ,000 people. We built a house out in the country.

44:09

They paid for our car, for our gas. They paid for Michael's school. We were 20 years old and we had this, this dream job.

44:17

We didn't have sex with each other before we were married. We waited to kiss. We did it all right. We had this transactional idea of God.

44:24

And that's why we landed this really great, awesome job. We started trying to get pregnant and we couldn't get pregnant.

44:32

And people would tell me, just pray and believe. Like just say it and it will happen. I thought,

44:38

I just don't know how that can be true. We were traveling the world. We were going overseas and playing to sometimes 60 ,000 people in arenas.

44:46

The more we ran into other people's stories, the more we started doubting what we'd been given.

44:52

And Michael and I took this trip in Europe from Rome. We took trains up to Krakow. We visited the concentration camps.

45:00

We walked through the crematoriums. And it's real hard to come back to America and pray for something.

45:08

When you have these images of people's hair in piles and children's shoes in piles, your ideas on what a good

45:16

God is can change pretty dramatically. So I came back and found myself trying to pray for us to have a baby or pray for our church or pray for these different things.

45:25

And I just kept thinking about the concentration camp and how my whole perspective on my faith has been a transaction.

45:35

If I'm good enough or if I pray enough, if I believe enough, then I get blessings and I get a baby or a good life.

45:44

It's not how life is. We all have this perspective on who was in and who was out for Michael and I. That began to change slowly.

45:51

You have to conform. And if you have doubts, you're a dangerous person.

45:58

I'll stop it there. It's about seven minutes long, so we won't keep going. It's from BuzzFeed and they're always a good, reliable source of solid

46:07

Christian, solid Christian teaching. The, um, uh, I mean, basically you hear there from Lisa Gungor that everything that they were taught related to Christianity was wrong.

46:16

It was so wrong. She grew up among the holy rollers who are just crazy charismatics.

46:22

And that was, that was the way she grew up in Christianity. And then came to be told that you just need to be a good person.

46:30

You needed to pray and have more faith. Yep. And then God would give it to you. They never really understood even the gospel.

46:38

Yeah. No, ever at all. Oh, in fact, Michael Gungor a couple of years ago, what got,

46:46

I mean, he gained a little bit of notoriety that this was over a year and a half ago. I think anyway, uh, he, he gained a kind of a flash of notoriety when he had gone on a tirade on Twitter about the doctrine of the atonement of penal substitutionary atonement that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, the wrath of God was poured out upon him and he took

47:09

God's wrath as our substitute. And, and Gungor was saying, that's a monstrous doctrine.

47:16

I can't remember exactly what his is. He said, I didn't pull it out, but I remember attending Shepcon that year.

47:22

He got quoted twice. Wow. Albert Moeller was one. I think Phil Johnson was the other who was, who said, uh,

47:30

Michael Gungor just recently said this on Twitter. Cause it was just like the week before Shepcon. Yeah. That was kind of on everybody's mind since it had just been out there on social media and, uh, somebody who denies penal substitutionary atonement, they deny something essential about the doctrine of Christ's atonement on the cross for our sins.

47:50

Yeah. That's, that's part of the gospel. That's pretty big. Yeah. I don't understand how you can believe that Jesus died for our sins, which they'll even use that language.

47:59

Somebody who denies the atonement will use that language. How did they make that work then?

48:05

Well, according to the way that Brian Zond will talk about it, he's that pastor over in St. Joseph, Missouri.

48:11

Okay. He will say that we send our sins onto Jesus. What? I don't even know what that's supposed to mean, but, uh,

48:19

I think if I'm breaking it down, right. We said, we sinned by killing him.

48:26

Okay. And everybody's a participant in that because if we had all been alive during that time, any one of us would have been responsible for shouting crucify him or grabbing the nails and nailing them into his hands and feet and stuff like that.

48:38

That that's basically a, uh, an atonement denier, how they qualify those things.

48:44

So you can still say Jesus died on the cross for my sins because I sinned to put him there, but it doesn't mean that Jesus actually paid the price for my sins.

48:55

That's the part of the atonement that they deny. Okay. Okay. He was not a sacrifice appeasing

49:01

God because that that's a pagan thing. Make other sacrifice.

49:07

How, how do you, or you're just good enough. You're just good enough. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's usually, it's usually something merit related or actually it's, it's universal.

49:16

It's universalism. They will say, Oh, everybody goes. Yeah. That's the way that, uh,

49:22

William, uh, Paul. Oh, what's his name? Hang on the shack guy. How did I lose his name?

49:28

I don't know. William, Paul. I never had it though. Paul, William, William, William, Paul. Hang on.

49:35

I'm just going to repeat this over and over again until it comes into my, into my head. Everybody fast forward now,

49:40

William, Paul Young. There it is. I knew it was going to get in my brain eventually when

49:47

I typed it into Google. And type your brain into Google. Yeah. Type my brain into Google.

49:52

William Paul Young wrote the forward to Brian Zahn's latest book. So Zahn is as much a universalist as Young is.

50:00

Everybody's going to heaven. Following Jesus is just the best way to live. And nothing about the narrow road or it being rough.

50:06

Right, right. Nothing like that. And you're not truly following Jesus. You're following their version of Jesus.

50:12

Well, of course. But anyway, Gungor went on that tirade a year and a half ago, and now it's only just come out that he's not even a

50:18

Christian at all. He's an atheist. And according to the timeline of what Lisa Gungor talks about there in that video, and we, again, we didn't do the whole thing.

50:26

But Michael Gungor actually would have been an atheist and serving as a minister at the same time.

50:34

So and collecting royalties on his music and all of it as a Christian musician. So he was lying to people.

50:41

That's awful. About being a Christian when he really wasn't. And in private, he's telling people, no,

50:47

I'm not a Christian. I'm an atheist. I don't even believe any of this. And yet he was making a paycheck, a paycheck off of being a minister and being a

50:56

Christian musician. So he was conning people. No, that's awful. Doing the very thing that they're criticizing

51:02

Christianity of. Because Lisa Gungor had that whole I mean, she basically had the health and wealth gospel, pretty sure that's what she had.

51:10

Right. They didn't even know the gospel. They never really knew Christianity, nor were they ever really

51:15

Christians. Right. Because as Jesus said in John 10, no one will snatch them out of my hand.

51:22

My father who's given them to me is greater than all. And no one will snatch them out of my father's hand. That's right.

51:28

I and the father are one. As soon as we are saved, we are saved forever. Forever. And it's never going to change.

51:34

If a person walks away from the faith, if what we perceive of them is walking away from the faith, then according to what

51:41

Jesus illustrated in the parable of the sower, they were never even sown in good soil in the first place.

51:48

Right. They were like the seeds that fell among the path. Yeah. On the path. They were gobbled up by the birds.

51:54

Oh, yeah. Or the plant sprouted immediately because they received the word with joy.

52:00

Right. So immediately they came up. But then they were scorched by the sun. Right. And then they withered out and died or they fell among rocks and there was no root.

52:09

They fell among thorns and they were choked out by the cares of this world and the temptations of this world.

52:14

Right. But only those that that are exemplified by the good soil, the message of the gospel and the seed that falls in good soil takes root, produces a harvest.

52:26

Right. That is that's Jesus very first parable. And he demonstrated through that parable who is truly saved and who is not.

52:36

If a person for a season professes faith in Christ, but then no longer follows

52:43

Christ, all they had was a passing opinion. They were not truly a believer in Jesus Christ following the fad.

52:50

Right. And that's exactly the way that it was with Michael and Lisa Gungor. It's very sad. And people will think that they're noble people because they had their doubts and they asked their questions, but they were conning people that entire time, even in the moments when they knew that they were not truly believers in God, which is very tragic anyway.

53:10

So hang on, I forgot the name. John. John passed that video on to me, but I had not yet made a comment about it on the podcast.

53:20

Finally, John asked, I'm looking for some good acoustic singing worship artists that aren't too mainstream.

53:27

Any recommendations? Yeah, I got three of them for you. Andrew Peterson. Okay. Jimmy Needham and Jaden Lovick.

53:35

All right. Jaden, I think I've mentioned Peterson and Needham before, but Jaden Lovick, I really don't know too much about Lovick's background, but I've had a couple of hymns albums from him and a

53:46

Christmas CD that he did. And it's pretty straightforward. Guitar playing, good singing.

53:51

Yeah. Enjoyable. Check out those. Very easy to find on iTunes or wherever you grab music.

53:58

All right. We are at the conclusion. I want to pray for Neil. Yes, please. And then that's it for this week.

54:03

We'll see you next week as we continue through John chapter three and then another

54:09

Q and a on Friday. So when you say your articles coming out on Friday, is that today or is that today?

54:16

Oh, okay. Right. Right. Checking today, today, Friday, today, today, Friday, but I don't know when. Oh, okay.

54:21

So sometime today, sometime today, that article will be in the USA. Yep. Just go to time. Pastor Gabe .com.

54:28

There you go. We'll get you straight to it. That's the easiest way to get in my blog. All right. Let's pray. Yes. Dear Lord, we thank you for the continued guidance that you give us through your word and the assurance of salvation that we have according to what you have declared and what you have said.

54:45

Our words don't have any magic power. We don't do anything fantastic just because we name it and claim it, but you have claimed us and called us by name.

54:55

And so we have come out from the world and followed the message of Jesus Christ, the voice of the good shepherd and received salvation because we turn from sin.

55:07

You, you had given us repentance and we believed in Jesus Christ. And so we are saved.

55:13

The apostle Paul said in Romans one 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes it.

55:24

And I want to pray for Neil today that he would know the true gospel and have nothing else added to it.

55:30

Why anybody who's attempting to bully him and his understanding of the faith and doctrine and theology and Christianity, but that he has shown the true gospel that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.

55:44

He rose again from the grave and whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

55:50

God so loved us that he gave his son and we believe in Jesus. And it is faith that is our security in salvation.

56:01

It is what you have said in your word. It is not because of anything else that anyone tries to teach us or say that we have to do or, or whatnot.

56:11

It's exactly what you have said in your word. And I pray that Neil would find some good teachers that would guide him in those things that would help to build him up in the faith and help him to figure out the difference between those who are lying to him and those who are speaking the truth.

56:29

And I pray that would be the case for all of us, that we would grow in maturity and that those of us who are mature would help those who are weaker in the faith, building them up until we all go to be with the

56:43

Lord in glory on the day of Christ. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. We pray these things in his name.

56:49

Amen. Amen. It's wilting away with the snow.

57:59

It's calm. Wilting away with the snow. Snow wilts. Yes. Well, the plants wilt underneath the snow.

58:08

Okay. All right. You ready? Here's your, here's your thing. Get off your phone.

58:14

No. I'm texting Sonia. She had, she needs to be driving.

58:22

No, she drove home already. She drove, she was backing up and I, I stopped.

58:28

I mean, you know, I started walking down here and turn off lights and stuff. And, and then she stopped and I heard a car door and I was like, what on earth?

58:36

So I went back to make sure she was okay. And she seemed to be fine. Cause then she started backing out some more.

58:42

So she texted me just now and told me that her trunk was open. So instead of starting her car, she opened the trunk.