WWUTT 2155 Q&A Did Jesus Heal a Man Twice, What is the Dorean Principle, Responding to Catholic Criticism

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Why did Jesus have to heal the blind man at Bethsaida two times? What kind of fellowship can charismatics have with cessationists?

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And what is the Dorian Principle? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Be sure to tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt

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.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. We are adding something brand new to the podcast.

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And I'll tell you about it here in just a moment. What a cliffhanger. That's right.

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But first, let's begin with a Psalm. Yes, let's. Now, Psalm 18 is where we are. This one's much longer.

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This goes 50 verses, so we're not going to get that far. Okay. But let me read through at least the first six verses here.

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All right. We'll spend a little bit of time in Psalm 18. He said, I love you, O Yahweh, my strength.

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Yahweh is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom

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I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

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I call upon Yahweh, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.

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The cords of death encompassed me, and the torrents of vileness terrified me.

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The cords of Sheol surrounded me. The snares of death confronted me. In my distress,

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I called upon Yahweh and cried to my God for help. He heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry for help before him came into his ears.

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Are there some hymns that you might think of hearing the beginning of that Psalm? Yahweh is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my

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God, my rock in whom I take refuge. Well, I think of Rock of Ages right off the bat.

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Yeah. Rock of Ages cleft for me. That one came into my head too. A mighty fortress is our

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God. Yes. Yes. That one also fits. So you can see how Psalm 18 has inspired our songwriters with some good lyrics about God being our rock and our refuge.

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David's saying, the cords of death encompassed me. Torrents of vileness surrounded me, and they terrified me.

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The snares of death confronted me, but in my distress, I called upon Yahweh and cried to my

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God for help. I also think of what the Apostle Paul said at the beginning of 2 Corinthians chapter 1, where he talked to the

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Corinthians about, you know, the stuff that we encountered when we were in Asia. We were so burdened beyond our strength that we thought we had received the sentence of death.

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The persecution that they were going through for preaching the gospel, they thought, we can't endure this. This is it.

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Yeah. We're going to die doing this. And he said, but this taught us to rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

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Yes. So we have trials and tribulations that we go through. Things in which we may feel like the cords of Sheol surrounded me and the snares of death confronted me.

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Yeah. Not like that song that says, I'm sure there's plenty of them, but the one in particular that you give me so much that I bend, but I don't break.

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No, he gives us enough that we break, that we trust in him fully. Well that's that saying, you know,

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God will never give us more than we can handle. Yes. Yeah, he will. Yes. He'll give you more than you can handle so that you turn to the one who can handle it.

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Right. So you realize you can't handle it. Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. And you turn to and trust in God.

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That's how I got saved. The one who raises the dead. Yeah. That's right. That's my testimony right there.

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So we'll come back to more of Psalm 18 next week. But a good reminder that things in life will get really, really hard.

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Yeah. And you can certainly feel like you've received the sentence of death. It's not like you failed to trust God somewhere.

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Right. If you encounter a scenario that's more than you can handle. It's so you will rely on God who raises the dead.

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So like it says in 1 Peter, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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Amen. Yes. We're going through a 1 Peter study with a friend of yours. I have.

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We're going to hear from that friend here in just a moment. We are. So this has to do with my announcement. I'm excited.

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Something new that we've added to the podcast here. You can now leave us voicemail.

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And you can do it straight from your phone or your computer. Now I've been doing some work on the website lately.

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The whole time we were living in Texas, I basically left the website by the wayside.

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Yeah, as is. I did not do much with it. So I've gone in and made some improvement, made some adjustments.

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And one of the things that I've done is I've added a link to voicemail. So you can leave us a message that we can air on the podcast.

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Maybe if you want to record your question rather than email it. Yeah, because sometimes it's easier to talk through it than it is to type it out.

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Yeah. For me, anyway. And how many people are using email for more than junk these days?

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Right. It seems like. So another convenient way. Don't look at my inbox number.

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Oh, I know what your inbox number is. So bad. So another convenient way to get us your question or comment.

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Yes. Go to www .utt .com. And you'll notice right there in the menu at the top of the page, there's a link that says voicemail.

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So click on that, record your question from either your phone or your computer, whatever mic that you have in your personal device will suffice to record your voice and get the message to us.

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Just make sure it's not windy. That might take away from it. Windy, yes. Where all you hear is.

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There you go. Yeah. Living in Kansas and trying to talk on the phone outside. It was so bad.

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That was rough. You had to find a nice little corner and like huddle up. So we have our first question here.

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Let's do our first voicemail message ever. And it's our friend

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Sonia. Yay. Here you go. Okay. So this, once again, as I give a plug for the Friday episode, this is the

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

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or you can now voicemail us at the website by going to www .tt .com.

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Here is our question. Our first question today. Hello. Good. Becky. Greetings from Texas.

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I sure do miss y 'all. I've got a question for you. On most accounts of Jesus healing people in Mark, he touches or speaks to them once and they are immediately and completely healed.

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The leper in chapter one, the paralytic in chapter two, the man with the withered hand in chapter three.

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But things are different for the blind man in chapter eight. Why is that? What, if anything, are we to learn from this?

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This is Sonia. Great question, Sonia. Yeah. And thank you for being our guinea pig so we can test and make sure this voicemail thing works well.

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Yeah. That was awesome. That was great. That was a great question. Yeah. Good question.

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Now, you're, of course, jumping the gun a little bit because I'm still in Mark four. So we're jumping ahead to chapter eight.

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And let me go back from the miracle that Jesus does in healing the blind man.

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Let me skip back to about verse 13 here. Okay. So we'll start reading in verse 13, leaving them, he again embarked and went away to the other side.

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This is Jesus going to the other side of the lake, verse 14. And they had forgotten to take bread, they being the disciples and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them.

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And he was giving orders to them saying, watch out, beware of the leaven of the

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Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread.

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And Jesus aware of this said to them, why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand?

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Do you have a hardened heart having eyes? Do you not see and having ears?

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Do you not hear? And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves for the 5 ,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?

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They said to him 12, when I broke the seven for the 4 ,000, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?

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And they said to him seven. And he was saying to them, do you not yet understand?

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And they came to Bethsaida and they brought a blind man to Jesus and pleaded with him to touch him.

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And taking the blind man by the hand, he brought him out of the village. And after spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he was asking him, do you see anything?

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And he looked up and was saying, I see men for I see them like trees walking around.

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Then again, he laid his hands on his eyes and he looked intently and was restored and began to see everything clearly.

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And Jesus sent him to his home saying, do not even enter the village. So what did you see there?

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Why would I have gone back the way that I did to verse 13 to read from there into the miracle of Jesus healing the blind man?

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Disbelief. Okay, right. What did Jesus say in there about seeing?

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Having eyes do you not see and having ears do you not hear? Correct. And that actually, we read the same

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Old Testament passage. Jesus is quoting the Old Testament there. And we heard that same thing in the parable of the sower this week.

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So it's in the parable of the sower when the disciples ask Jesus, why do you speak to them in parables?

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And Jesus said to them, to you, it has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, everything comes in parables.

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So that while seeing, they may see and not perceive. And while hearing, they may hear and not understand, lest they return and be forgiven.

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So here is the disciples are talking to Jesus about the bread and not understanding what it means when

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Jesus says, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod, Jesus quotes back to them that same passage, having eyes, do you not see and having ears?

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Do you not hear? So don't you understand these things? Why do I have to explain this to you? Yeah, they've seen, but they don't understand it, right?

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They've not yet been able to perceive what it is that they've seen with their own eyes. So the healing of the blind man demonstrates that something more has to happen than you just being able to see with your eyes.

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Yeah. Jesus, the Holy Spirit has to come upon you in order for you to understand, right? It's like said in first Corinthians two 14, that the naturally minded man can't understand spiritual things.

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So Jesus heals the blind man once and he can see, but he doesn't understand what he sees.

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And we've come to recognize this in through modern medicine, that if a person is given their sight for the first time, that it takes more than just restoring their eyes.

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You have to teach the brain how to process the images that the eyes are seeing.

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So when Jesus heals this man, that's what he does essentially the first time he spits on him and lays his hands on him.

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I saw you make a face when I read that part. I mean, it's Jesus, so it's fine.

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That's right. I'm getting my vision restored. I'm not complaining. But I'm just thinking about all the women when

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I was little, like they would lick their thumb and clean my face like, ew. Yeah, right. So anyway.

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The spit bath. Not the same. Not the same. But that's where my mind went. Anyway. We called that a spit bath back in those days.

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So gross. That was wonderful. You're welcome. So anyway, Jesus heals his eyes.

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He can see, but he doesn't know what it is that he sees. So Jesus touches him again.

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And then it says he looked intently and was restored and began to see everything clearly.

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So Mark does this. He'll put stories in succession like this that all have a main theme.

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So there with the disciples saying to them, do you see and you're not able to perceive? And then

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Jesus shows through the healing of the blind man that it takes more than just seeing. But one must be given the spiritual ability to be able to perceive spiritual things.

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What's going to come next is Jesus asking his disciples, who do you say that I am?

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And they confess that he's the Christ. And of course, they only understand that because it's been revealed to them by God.

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So that's the succession of accounts that Mark is giving there. And that's why we see with that particular miracle.

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And just like Sonia said, every other miracle, Jesus speaks to them or touches them and they're immediately healed.

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With this man, it's almost like, well, why didn't it work the first time? Why did you have to heal him twice?

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Because the point is to recognize that it takes more than just seeing with your eyes to understand.

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And through this miracle, Jesus is showing that God not only gives you eyes to see, but even the spirit to understand and perceive.

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That is the work of God in the life and heart of a believer. Yeah. And I mean,

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I don't know very many people back then would understand that it doesn't come together.

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So like, if you see, you understand versus like, you know, those are two separate things, which now we understand because, you know, the

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Lord has revealed that in science and everything. But back then, they didn't have all the technology that we do that the

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Lord has blessed us with. People didn't have their sight restored like this. And exactly. Until, you know, the

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Bible says. And so, I don't know if they would understand that those are two separate things, you know.

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I think it would be less than saying that we understand this now than they understand it then.

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I think there's just another way in which God has revealed to us that scripture is universally applicable.

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Right. So we can see even 2 ,000 years later, there's something that happens in our world today that we can look back at this passage and go, wow, even science confirms what it is that Jesus is doing here.

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Precisely. Yeah. Right. Exactly. So I just think that's neat. But my question then is not necessarily that because I probably wouldn't have thought of that.

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Thank you, Sonia, for this. But do not even enter the village.

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Why? Well, this was still with regards to like, don't tell anybody who I am.

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Oh, okay. Okay. Because it wasn't yet time for them to know. To reveal. Right.

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So even as the disciples later on are going to say that you are the Christ, Jesus says to them that now's not the time for people to know that.

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So verse 30, he warned them to tell no one about him. Got it. Okay. That makes sense.

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Yeah. I just didn't know where that was in the timeline. But thank you. Thank you for your question, Sonia. Yes. Thank you.

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Being the first to send us a voicemail. Voicemail question. And once again, you go to www .utt

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.com. You click on voicemail, which is on the menu at the top of the page, and it will take you to a place where you just have to hit record, leave your message, and the program will do the rest.

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Simple as that. To get it to us. Now, does it leave like a delete? Like if you mess up, you can delete and rerecord?

16:23

I'd probably be hitting that thing five times. Somebody's going,

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I called Becky babe, and that's weird. So let me change it to something else.

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I liked her go Becky. Go Becky. This next question, or it's a comment rather, comes from Robert.

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He says, hey, Pastor Gabe and Becky, great recommendation on the reformed app. Remember talking about that last week?

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I searched for that phrase on Google Play because the way it comes up in my phone is reformed app.

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That's the label on my phone. So that's the way we were plugging it last week. Right. And it's not that, is it?

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Yeah. Robert said the first choice was Kingdomnomics, and one of the tabs was

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Supernatural Lifestyle, which for me is a red flag like Bethel Supernatural School of Ministry. So he says the actual app we want is

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Reformed Companion. There you go. Excellent app. Thank you for all that you do. Well, I appreciate you letting us know that's the name you want to be searching for.

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Yes. That'll help narrow it down. Reformed Companion contains various reformed confessions.

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So like the Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster Confession, the 1689 London Baptist Confession.

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There are various catechisms, like for example, Catechism for Kids, which some very, very basic questions that kids can memorize.

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It's a great app. Or you can start with. That's right. I probably read it maybe once every other day or something like that.

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I'm always reading something in it because I have read through the Westminster Confession, but I don't know it as well.

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So reading something like that or going through the catechism, it's a great companion. I use it probably second to my

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Bible apps. And then like when we're doing a Sunday night service and Chris has been teaching through the catechism questions regarding the

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Ten Commandments. I can just pull it right up on my phone and I'm following right along with the questions that he's reading.

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Yeah, that's awesome. Next question comes from Chris in North Carolina. Good afternoon, Pastor Gabe and Becky. I enjoyed last week's episode and wanted to weigh in on the question from the listener in Hawaii regarding non -continuous hymn writers.

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These are not mainstream, but I wanted to get them out to the church at large as I believe that they are worthy resources.

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My former pastor, Joe Hanson III, has a website called Declaring Glory, where he has several new hymns that he wrote.

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A couple of my favorites are No Wrath Left for Me and I Stand Resolved.

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Another hymn writer that I know is Chris Anderson, who hosts Church Works Media. Not only does he write hymns, but he also collaborates with others to produce devotionals.

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I've gone through several of his gospel meditations, which are 31 -day devotionals. His hymns include

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His Robes for Mine and I Run to Christ. As a follow -up to the question, are the

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Gettys continuous? I never got the sense that they were in that camp. Thanks again for the podcast ministry.

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It is always a blessing to hear y 'all. Aww. Chris from North Carolina, great use of y 'all.

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I can always expect that from someone in the South. So regarding the question concerning the

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Gettys, I'm not sure. I don't know if they're continuous or cessationist. I know that the church that they are a part of, that they attend in Ireland, they had on their website at one point that their founding pastors were a husband and wife.

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And she was referred to as a pastor in the story that they were telling about the founding of that church.

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Well, I've since looked that up and it's changed. And she's not called a pastor anymore. So I wonder if that was just one of those technical things, kind of like the one email that we read.

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Well, it's this one from Chris. He addresses it as good afternoon, Pastor Gabe and Becky. You're not a pastor.

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Right. I am. But is it one of those things where it kind of carried over to her name also?

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Yeah, it could have. And the church may not have been egalitarian, but it just kind of appeared that way in the way that they shared the story about the founding of the church.

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But if you go to their website now, there's nothing like that. And none of the pastors on staff are women.

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So that may have just been a snafu or one of those semantic things. Right. Because it doesn't seem like they're in that place anymore.

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Now, if you go to the SING conference and you see the people that are involved in SING, there's a lot of charismatic singers that partner with the

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Gettys in that. So where they stand as far as like cessationist or continuationist, I'm not really sure.

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And by the way, Chris is responding to the question that we had answered last week about do we know any cessationist hymn writers or songwriters?

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Right. Because it does seem like a lot of them are continuous. And when they're continuous, they sometimes tend to go the way of like Hillsong Bethel and Elevation partnering with those groups.

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But like I said last week, I don't think we can pass judgment on that until it happens. There are people,

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I mean, friends of mine who are even continuous in their preaching that I would not break fellowship with.

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And in fact, I might even let preach in my pulpit. Now if it comes to having them preach on 1

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Corinthians 14, I wouldn't let them do that. But if we're just getting together and he's maybe going on to the next passage that I'm preaching through in 2

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Timothy or something like that, yeah, I think that would be great. And just because we disagree on the application or the continuation of spiritual gifts today, though we may disagree on that,

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I just don't agree that the miraculous sign gifts are in regular use anymore. But that's no cause for us to break fellowship.

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And even John MacArthur, though he is the cessationist guy, people know him as kind of the elite cessationist because of the

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Strangefire Conference from a decade ago. And yet at the most recent Shepherds Conference, he had

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John Piper there, who is not cessationist at all. Now, I probably wouldn't have

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John Piper preach for different reasons. It would not be for the continuationism stuff.

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But nonetheless, you can see there how even a cessationist and a continuous can have a continuing relationship with one another.

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Yeah. And that's not a reason to break fellowship. Nice play on words. Yep. You're welcome. You're welcome for that one.

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And again, where the Gettys stand, I'm not real sure. They stand for Christ. That's right. My daughter went to a

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Gettys concert last year. It's not like I write off the Gettys. I still listen to their music. Sang one of their songs at Easter this year.

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And one of my daughter's favorite songs is a Gettys song. It's the one, we will stand as children of the promise.

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I believe the song is called By Faith. By Faith, we see the hand of God in the light of creation's grand design.

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Oh, yeah. Uh -huh. So anyway. Yeah, I think so. Mariah, that's one of her favorite songs. Yes. And she will sing it at the top of her lungs.

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That's right. Now, of course, the continuationism or the charismaticism can go too far.

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And that's where you get into Bethel and some of those other groups. But the problems in their doctrine are well beyond their charismaticism.

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It's that the charismaticism has bled into other things that are just downright heretical. Yeah. So that's why we would avoid those groups.

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It's not strictly because they're charismatic. This next question comes from Jackson.

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Hi, Gabe and babe. Hi. There has been a buzz here in the

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Philippines. Ooh. About the book titled Dorian Principle by Conley Owens.

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The supporting verse for this book slash principle is from Matthew 10 8. I would like to know your thoughts on this book.

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You guys are a blessing. Hope to see you at ShepCon 2025. All fine.

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Praying for your needs. Our God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. P .S. How can

24:26

I treat you to pizza? Ooh. So another way that you can give to us is by going to our website, once again, www .tt

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.com. If you click on contact, there's information there under contact about if you want to send us a gift, this is a way that you can do it.

24:44

So Jackson, if you'd like to donate 10 or 20 bucks or something like that for us to get a pizza. Sure. I'll take it.

24:51

I'm not sure how it transfers from Filipino. Oh, I'm sure PayPal or Venmo.

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Venmo or whatever it is. I'm sure that they do the transfer, the currency transfer.

25:04

Sure. Okay. And I don't have to do the math on figuring out what that would be. Yeah, I don't know.

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Well, I know that's got to be the case because we've received donations from other parts of the world before. That's true. That is true.

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So it's going to convert the dollars for us. All right. Let me come here to Matthew 10 8. Jesus says, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, freely you received, freely give.

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Now I will tell you that I've not read the Dorian Principle. I've heard about it, but I haven't read the book.

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From what I understand, the basic principle is that you would do ministry not expecting any monetary gain.

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It's about being co -laborers rather than exchanging goods and services.

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And that's one of the reasons why we, as when we understand the text, have made this completely free. Sure. And I've said repeatedly from the beginning, as much as I can help it, we won't ever charge for this.

26:00

Right. The podcast will be free. The videos will be free. I appreciate when somebody contacts me and says, did you know that so -and -so is using your videos for money or that this video that you have on YouTube now has ads on it?

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Because I don't do that on purpose. Right. I do have my channel monetized, but the reason why

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I have it monetized is so YouTube can't do it without my knowing. Because what had happened,

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I just kind of avoid the whole monetization thing altogether. But then I found out that YouTube was sticking ads on my videos and I didn't know how to get them off.

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And the only way I could do that was to monetize my channel and turn off the monetization.

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So that now by default, when I upload a video, it's turned off so that ads won't automatically go to it.

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YouTube was trying to capitalize on my viewership and I didn't want YouTube to get any money.

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It's not like I didn't want them to get my money. I just didn't want them to get any money. So I turned off the monetization feature, essentially.

27:08

I monetized my channel so I could demonetize it. Right. And keep it that way. That's right. Now, if you do find a video with ads on it, that's probably because something in the video is copyrighted.

27:20

Right. And it could be like video footage or the music bed or something like that. And I just didn't know it before I uploaded the video.

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Sometimes YouTube will catch it when you upload it. And it will tell you, like it'll give you a checkmark and say...

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Now it does. It used to not though. Yeah, of course. That's because their systems become more advanced.

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Right. So sometimes it will tell you, yeah, there's copyrighted material here. And if that happens, I will take the video down before it's ever published.

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I'll take it down. I'll find whatever it is that I need to change and change it and then try to re -upload it.

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But sometimes I'll upload the video. YouTube will clear it. They will say there's no copyright infringement.

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But then several days later, it says that there is. And I don't know if that's the algorithm that found it or somebody comes along and goes, no, that's my material.

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And they flag it. Yeah. And that might be the reason why. So I'm not sure. I don't know why that happens exactly.

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But some videos do end up that way. When we did our end of the year countdown, the top 10 biggest videos for 2023,

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I had changed a music bed in one of those videos because it had been flagged as copyrighted.

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So I took the bed out entirely and I just put a new music bed on it. Well, then when I uploaded that video,

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YouTube cleared it. I was like, okay, great. Now I don't have to worry about ads popping up on this video.

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But if you go watch the top 10 videos of 2023, there's ads on it.

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Another video in there got flagged, a completely different video. So that's how that happens sometimes.

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But yeah, like I said, I'm trying to do this all for free. The way that I've approached this is that our church takes good care of us and has provided for all of our needs.

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Every church that I've worked for, as long as I've been a pastor, I don't need anything more than I'm being given.

29:09

And so I want those things. I want them to be ad free. I want them to be completely free. Nobody has to pay anything to use this.

29:17

It's the gospel. It is a privilege for me to be able to teach it, that I work for a church that encourages it, that I can do it more.

29:26

Sunday's not enough. Can I teach the Bible more this week somehow? And so being able to do the podcast has been my outlet for being able to preach more.

29:37

Of course, evangelism and things like that, too. But this is an actual sitting down and opening your Bible and being able to teach the scriptures.

29:45

And again, I don't want to charge for that. Now, having said that, though, there are a lot of podcasts out there, a lot of podcasts that are charging to listen to them, a lot of Christian podcasts.

29:56

And we've talked about that, become part of our Patreon or something like that. And then you're unlocking access to all this other kind of stuff.

30:03

But listen, that's between them and God. And I don't fault them for doing that.

30:09

If that's what they want to do, that's fine. That's just not my conviction. It's not what I want to do. Basically, as I understand it, once again, the

30:16

Dorian principle is to preach the word but not put a price on it. And that's what I try to do with the ministry that I do.

30:22

If some of these other ministries do that, it's fine. The Dorian principle is more kind of a suggestion.

30:27

It's more of a wisdom aspect. It's not a law that God has imposed, and so, therefore, it's wrong for any of these other

30:35

Christian teachers to charge for their material. It might be wrong for some of them, but that's not for me to judge.

30:41

I don't pay for any of those services. I only ever use any of those services out there that are free.

30:49

And then if I feel so inclined, I will give a donation to them. For example, I love RefNet.

30:54

I listen to the Reformation Network. I probably pull that app up five to ten times a week, you know, anywhere in that span.

31:03

And it's free internet radio. It's great Reformed Bible teaching that has been compiled and put together by Ligonier.

31:11

And I've made this suggestion to multiple ministries. I've said to multiple ministries, you ought to put together a free radio app just like RefNet does.

31:22

And you can have different teachers and a different style of music so that you're not copying what

31:28

RefNet does, but the concept is the same. They have free internet radio.

31:34

You're doing free internet radio. And yes, there's going to be some cost to that because apps are expensive.

31:40

But I believe that if you're faithful, God will provide. And if you have other aspects of your ministry that cost money, well, then maybe the

31:47

Lord is providing for the cost of the app through those other things. But put something out there for free, and it gets the ministry outreach out there better than if you were doing like a plus app, you know, like Disney Plus or, you know.

32:04

So you generally have to pay for those plus apps. Well, I'm saying don't. Just do a free internet radio thing that anybody can access.

32:11

And some of the ministries that I've talked to about it will put out apps. Like I'll talk to them before they even have an app.

32:18

And I'll watch, and they'll put out an app, and they charge for it. And I never follow up, but I just kind of want to send an email like, guys, no, this is not what we talked about.

32:28

Free radio, free internet radio. And Ligonier doesn't charge for RefNet. But when

32:34

I listen to RefNet, I am so spiritually blessed by the work that they put into that, that occasionally

32:41

I send a donation to Ligonier. And God will provide for that ministry.

32:48

And it's not that I'm paying what I think that, you know, the money that I'm getting out of listening to Ligonier. I love that they make this for free.

32:54

I want them to be supported. And I think many other people are going to benefit by listening to the

33:00

Reformation Network. Being able to get great teachers like Sinclair Ferguson and John MacArthur and R .C.

33:06

Sproul and Steve Lawson and all the different preachers that they play. There's been so many

33:11

Ligonier conferences over the decades that they're taking messages from those Ligonier conferences and playing them on there.

33:17

That's so smart. Yeah. And so ministries that have been around for a long time like that, you could create an app and have your ministry being plugged through that app with free internet radio.

33:27

I'm just amazed at the number of people that just don't take me up on that. It's a winning formula,

33:32

I'm telling you. Let me go back. You worked in radio. That's right. I worked in radio. I know how this works.

33:38

I did this for 22 years. I did not just work in radio. I worked in listener -supported radio.

33:44

Yes. My salary was paid by listeners who loved the radio station, were not being charged for listening to the station, but they loved it and understood the ministry that it accomplished.

33:54

And so they became regular donors and would send money to the ministry. We also had what was called grant underwriting.

34:00

So because we're a non -profit, non -commercial station, we can't air commercials, but you can have grant underwriting.

34:07

So we would mention businesses that support the ministry. And then you know, hey, when

34:13

I do business with that business, then they're sending dollars to spread the gospel through the airwaves.

34:19

Yeah, something they can get behind. Right. So that's the nature of grant underwriting. It's not a commercial.

34:25

They're not trying to sell you anything. It's a mention of the businesses and the services that they provide, thanking them for being a grant underwriter.

34:33

So you might even, I could give that as a suggestion. Consider that. Maybe you want to do grant underwriting through your podcast or whatever else.

34:42

What else was I going to say related to that? Oh, yeah. So I was saying I did that for 22 years, Christian Radio.

34:47

It was listener -supported radio. So anyway, let me come back to my story. So my dad was friends with Keith Green.

34:53

In fact, almost became Keith Green's agent. Right. And was going to help him in a worldwide tour because Green had actually gotten fed up with trying to evangelize and minister in the

35:08

United States. He was tired of Americans. And so he was going to go overseas and do some international ministry.

35:18

And my dad was going to help kind of front all of that. He was going to fundraise for it was what my dad was going to do.

35:23

Which your dad is brilliant. My dad is so great at. Right. So anyway, it was he was a couple of weeks away from flying to Lindale, Texas, where Keith Green's ministry was located at the time and then got the word that Keith Green had died in a plane crash.

35:38

Yeah. So he still used the tickets that he had and flew out there and attended the memorial services and things like that for Keith Green.

35:46

But anyway, one of the things my dad said about Keith's ministry, there came a point where Keith stopped charging for his albums.

35:55

And you're talking like real albums, like vinyl records. I'm not talking about a

36:02

CD or an anthology on digital download. Yeah, right. The original album, the

36:09

LP. So he which stands for long play, by the way. Ah, yes. So he had tables with stacks of these records at his concerts.

36:20

And of course, people are showing up by the thousands to these concerts. My dad did. I think it was the last live concert that Keith Green did before he died was at the

36:30

Columbia Coliseum in South Carolina. And my dad did that concert with him. And so, again, had tables out there with stacks of records, 6 ,000 people there, something like that.

36:42

And Keith just said to them, this is what he was doing in the latter couple of years of his ministry, is that he was telling people, if you don't have the money for a record, just take a record.

36:53

Give what you can give if you can. But if you don't have anything, just take a record. God will provide for the cost of the record.

37:02

I just want you to have the record. That's what he started doing. He was not even putting price tags out there with his merch anymore.

37:08

He was just saying, if you want a record, take a record. Yeah. And he said that ultimately, in the end, he got more than if he had been fixing a dollar price to those records.

37:19

Yeah. And had been taking a fixed amount, $10, $15, whatever it would have been. I don't know. What did records cost in 1980?

37:27

I don't think it was 10 or 15. Inflation's quite a bit different. You bought a

37:33

Coke back then for less than 50 cents, I believe. So anyway, that was one way, kind of a testimonial there, in the way that God provided for the ministry.

37:43

He just stopped asking for money and saying to people, I just want you to have it. And God provided. Gave the money to Keith Green's ministry,

37:51

Last Day's Ministries is what it was called, so that he could continue to do more than just what he was doing with his music and performing concerts.

37:58

Even traveling around the world and doing ministry that way. And that's how you were raised. I was raised that way.

38:04

With that mindset. And I started doing the same thing. I was an independent musician, and I traveled around with a band for a little while.

38:12

And there did come a time where I did the same. And it wasn't because my dad told me, here's what you ought to do. It just became a conviction where it was like,

38:20

I don't really want it. I just want people to have the album. I don't want to charge you for it.

38:25

And so I just ended up saying, if you want to take a CD, just take a CD. If you want to give me some money for it, that'd be great.

38:31

It helps us with our gas getting to the next location. But God will provide. And I just want you to have the music.

38:37

So yeah, I ended up doing the same thing. And did about as well as if I was charging for the

38:43

CDs. So thank you again, Jackson, for your comment. And again, that's about what I know about the

38:49

Dorian principle. I may have not gotten the specifics of that down exactly, but it's something to that degree.

38:55

And yeah, like you said, based off of Matthew 10, 8, something for people to think about regarding their ministries.

39:01

But like I said, for those ministries that will charge for their apps or whatever else, I'm not passing judgment on that. It's just my conviction personally that I'm not going to charge for this.

39:12

So it is a privilege for us to do it and be able to offer it for free. Definitely.

39:17

Now, that said, some of you are aware of our situation with our home that our house in Texas hasn't sold yet.

39:25

And it was on the market. Well, it's back on the market, but it was under contract for a little while.

39:30

Right. And then that fell through a few weeks ago. The person who was going to buy it, who had it under contract, wasn't able to get their loan and things like that.

39:40

And so we ended up losing the buyer and we're still praying for a buyer.

39:46

Yes. So I'm just letting you know that. I'm letting you know that's still our situation. And if you feel so inclined to give something, even if you want to buy us a pizza like Jackson had offered, again, you can find that information on our website, www .utt

39:59

.com and click on contact and the information for giving to us is right there.

40:05

And we thank you so much. Yeah. I mean, all the support we've received has been great.

40:10

Yes. Even if we're just getting a note to say, hey, we're praying for you guys. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. And by the way, you can now voicemail us your prayer.

40:18

Yes. If you want to pray for us and pray for us by your own voice that we may hear it.

40:25

I love it. You can go to the website and leave us a voicemail. I'm so glad that works because I didn't try it out myself.

40:32

I didn't go in and record it, but. No, he's like, so we got a new thing. I was like, oh.

40:38

And he's like, why don't you text Sonia and have her ask a question on it. I was like, okay.

40:46

So. And by the way, she thanked us for the privilege of being the first. Yeah, there you go.

40:52

So. Well, she's been a faithful listener from almost the very beginning. Yeah.

40:58

Yeah. Just about. When did she start coming to our church in Kansas? Was that in 2015?

41:03

When she started coming to our church was right after Aria was born. So 2014, 2015.

41:10

That's right. And but she started hanging out with us in 2015. That's when it was.

41:15

Okay. Yeah, it was after we got our first house. Yeah. I remember that because I remember sitting in the dining room with her and answering her first questions when she first started attending the church.

41:26

Yeah. That church, by the way, Providence Baptist in Junction City, still doing great. Yes. So if you're ever out that way, we highly recommend stopping in on that church.

41:36

Definitely. Oh, and. Loving on the people there. That's right. That's right. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there. Oh, that's fine. Just like thoughts pop into my head.

41:42

Oh, I understand. I'm totally the same way. That's good. And I got to go off on the next thing.

41:48

Yes. So our church is filling up. Yes. Providence Reform Baptist Church in Casa Grande.

41:53

We are, we were 20 people over our available seats.

42:01

Don't say that too loud. 20 people beyond our seating capacity this past Sunday.

42:08

Yes. And literally seats like. Yeah, chairs. Like we didn't even have the chairs. Yes. And I said this in a video, don't let that discourage you from coming.

42:19

Oh, please don't. Anybody who's listening to me. We love it. We still need to have people there. And we made space. Yeah. We made space for everybody.

42:25

On Easter Sunday was actually the least attended Sunday. Yeah. In the months that I've been pastoring there because, and I found out later, there were some people that said, well, it was

42:35

Easter. I just figured it was going to be packed and there was going to be nowhere to sit. Yeah. So I thought I'll leave my seat. Even if we're standing.

42:41

Yeah. Oh, it's such a joy to be there. We'll find seats for everybody. We will. We will find seats for people.

42:48

We'll scrounge them up. So we're actually now looking for another meeting location. Because we need to find a place that's large enough for us all to gather.

42:56

Yes. So be in prayer for us about that. We've got some leads. We've got some leads on some things.

43:02

Ultimately, we want to be able to build our own building. Or if there's a church in Casa Grande that just decides,

43:07

I mean, we can, we've got more room than we need. We need something smaller because these bills are hard to pay.

43:13

Maybe they want to do a building swap. Yeah. I've reached out to some churches regarding that as well. So that's a need that we have that you can be praying for.

43:22

We call it our happy problem. Yes. Because it's a great problem to have. It is a wonderful problem.

43:27

Wonderful that the Lord is blessing us in this way. And as we get closer to perhaps building, if that's the way that the

43:34

Lord leads us, turning us in that direction, then we're going to say, hey, you can go to our website

43:40

ProvidenceCasaGrande .com and there's a give tab right there on the website.

43:46

It's not on there right now. I haven't, we've set it up, but I haven't added it to the webpage yet. So it's not official yet.

43:52

Yeah. At least the day that this podcast drops, it's not official yet. But you can go to the website

43:58

ProvidenceCasaGrande .com and somewhere on there is going to be a give tab where you can donate to the church.

44:04

Yes. And that is a tax deductible donation. Right. Since we are a nonprofit ministry.

44:10

You can also go to the website to hear sermons, find out our service times. Yes. And come join us at Providence in Casa Grande.

44:19

All right. I think that's it, babe. I think that's going to wrap it up for us this week. All right. I had a couple of comments that I was going to respond to regarding the

44:27

Catholic videos that I've been dropping. But I'll wait,

44:34

I'll cover that. Yeah. In fact. Let's wait. Tomorrow. Tomorrow on the Saturday edition, on the special Saturday edition.

44:41

I'm going to be responding to one of the comments that I received after some of the stuff that I've said on Twitter X.

44:49

And some of the videos that I've been posting, because you've been seeing probably a series right now where I'm exposing false

44:54

Catholic doctrines. Yes. That's redundant, but. Yes. False doctrines in Roman Catholicism.

45:00

The next video coming up on Monday is going to be another testing spirits video, which was like the one that I did a year ago on the

45:10

Enneagram. But this one is going to be examining the Our Lady Fatima hoax.

45:17

Oh, yeah. Fatima, Fatima, whatever you, however you say that. I have no idea. Fatima Portugal, which was where all of this took place.

45:24

I think in the Western world, we say Fatima, whether or not in Portuguese, that's exactly the way that you say it.

45:30

Probably not. So that's going to be the video that if I get it done by then is going to drop on Monday, since that is the anniversary of the

45:38

Our Lady Fatima Marian apparitions. Yes. Which happened on May the 13th of 1917.

45:47

So what is this thing? And how has it become such a worldwide phenomena in the 100 plus years that it's been known?

45:55

And how can we test it and know for sure that what these children or other people claimed was a

46:02

Marian apparition or some sort of miracle did not really happen? So that's what's going to be in that video on Monday.

46:09

Sounds awesome. Looked like you had something else you were going to say. Nope. Nope. Okay. No. Actually, no,

46:17

I was just making faces about it. I'm like, oh. Our Lady Fatima. Yeah. Yeah.

46:22

But as a Catholic, you didn't know about Our Lady Fatima. Um, no, there was a lot that I really didn't care about and didn't pay attention to.

46:32

It was, um, I was very much a Chriester. So Christmas and Easter.

46:37

Right. Attending for sure. And then Lent was a big deal that we always did.

46:43

And so, you know, I went through the catechism enough to where you get your, um.

46:51

Were you like a brown belt Catholic? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yes. No. You accomplished your name.

46:58

And then you said that. So you do your catechism up to your belt rankings.

47:05

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. It's, um. I couldn't help it. It's fine.

47:12

Confirmation. Okay. So where you like. Yeah, I was gonna say, explain that to our non -Catholic friends.

47:18

In your teens. And you go through classes to understand, which

47:23

I never paid attention to because I just wanted to be with friends. And, um, so I really didn't grasp a whole lot.

47:32

But then, um, went through the whole ritual process and got a

47:37

Saint name. And I got to pick my own Saint that I wanted to be named after.

47:43

And, um, it doesn't become official. Like, it's not in my official name, but I don't know.

47:50

I didn't understand it. And so it just didn't. None of it made sense to me. But it's, uh, it's just what you did.

47:57

So that's what I did. So anyway. The people that have known that you are formerly

48:02

Catholic have been making comments or leaving me comments online saying your wife's still Catholic. Yeah, I know.

48:09

My family thinks that too. Yeah, right. Yeah, because it's either that or I'm going to hell.

48:14

So they'd rather think of the positives rather than the negatives. So I guess as long as you're on a roster somewhere, you're going to Catholic heaven.

48:22

I don't even know if I am because the priest we had in my hometown, he was one of those that he would kick people out of the church.

48:31

Oh, really? Yeah. He refused to marry some people and some of the couples because of one reason or another.

48:39

And some of the times it's because one was a Catholic, but the other one wasn't. And he absolutely refused to.

48:45

And if you're not married in the Catholic church and you're Catholic, you are not considered to be married.

48:51

And so you have to be married there. So I don't know. It was interesting how very firm he was.

48:59

Whereas you go to another town and they're like, yeah, sure, whatever. It's just from one church to another.

49:07

Yeah. So because of some of the things that I've been saying online, I've been getting some attention from some interesting people.

49:13

And one of them being a former speech writer for Mike Pence. Oh, yeah. So he worked for the vice president.

49:20

Yeah. And he's been responding to me. He claims to be a former Protestant, now a

49:25

Roman Catholic. Okay. And trying to push all these Catholic things. Sure. Saying that I don't understand it, of course.

49:31

One of the things that he said is that in Protestantism, there's no real governance that takes place.

49:38

So you need to have the Roman Catholic church for there to be a true governing church. Who's your governing church as a

49:44

Protestant? So I simply responded to him with this question. Joe Biden is still

49:49

Roman Catholic, even though he's pro -abortion and pro -LGBTQ and has even led homosexual weddings.

49:58

Why has he not been excommunicated? And the guy responded, dancing around, giving this answer.

50:05

And there was actually a really, really wordy answer. And I just simply responded to him. Your idea of church governance is a joke because you're telling me that we as Protestants don't have a proper understanding of church governance, which we do because such a person like Joe Biden would not be allowed in our church.

50:23

Right. But he's still Roman Catholic, even though everything he says and does is completely contrary to even the

50:29

Roman Catholic church's own doctrine. Why is he still a Catholic? And you can't tell me that.

50:35

As much as you want to criticize Protestantism, which Protestantism is not this big, large conglomerate.

50:42

It's not like we're all kind of roaming around at our Protestant conferences or whatever you have, synods.

50:49

We don't have Protestant synods. It's not a top -down structure. But in our church, we practice church governance.

50:56

We practice polity. We have church discipline. We guard the table that you cannot partake of communion unless you are a baptized believer.

51:06

You cannot be a member unless you have made a credible statement of faith and you've been baptized.

51:12

And we know that we're doing these things right because Scripture is our authority. Christ is the head of the church.

51:19

So that is the proper exercise of church governance. Roman Catholicism doesn't have it.

51:24

A lot of the things that they say that they have that the Protestant church is rebelling against, even the

51:32

Roman Catholics aren't doing. So it's a facade. Like when they will say that there's 40 ,000 -plus denominations out there, which is not true.

51:43

That's a false statistic. But they're trying to say, you know, like, Protestantism is so splintered. There's tens of thousands of denominations.

51:51

So which one is the right one? Roman Catholicism is just as splintered. Yeah. As Protestantism.

51:57

You guys are trying to fake it like, oh, we're all under the Pope. But no two Popes have ever agreed on and taught the same things.

52:05

Especially that one year where, oh man, my grandpa got so offended by what the priest was saying about what the

52:13

Pope was changing that he got up and he left mass. Yeah, right.

52:18

He was just beside himself. I mean, there was a period of time where you had two

52:24

Popes. Yes. You had Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, and neither of them agreed 100 % on their doctrines.

52:31

They tried to make appearances where they would both be together to show some sense of unity.

52:38

But you have two men who are supposed to be the Vicars of Christ, which is a blasphemous term.

52:43

But they're supposed to stand in the place of Christ as the head of the church. And yet they don't agree. You guys are just as divided.

52:51

If not more divided than we are. Because even from the very top, you can't agree with one another.

52:58

And one of the things that I've come to recognize too going through this Our Lady Fatima stuff, the Catholic Church 100 years ago is different than the

53:05

Catholic Church today. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's not even the same. Yeah. I mean, from what my dad tells me about how he went, because he went to Catholic school in his early elementary.

53:18

So anyway, whenever he talks about what he learned in mass, and then it's much, much different than what

53:25

I learned growing up. And that's just one generation. That's craziness. How much it's...

53:32

How much it changes. Yeah. It's like changing with the wind. And if you go from this Catholic Church to that Catholic Church, then you're going to find that priest is teaching something different than your previous priest was.

53:42

Yeah. Whenever they get their readings, it's all the same. Liturgy and everything. The homilies.

53:48

Yeah. But whenever they get to like what they're talking about, it is. It's much different. Yeah, they're just...

53:54

It's ridiculous. Anyway. So even though I... Pot fiddling kettle black. Yeah, exactly right.

54:01

Come on now. Yeah. So even though we didn't play the video, and I didn't read any comments, we still had a nice little spell on that.

54:10

Give it a little plug. That's right. So don't forget the video page, youtube .com slash wwutt.

54:16

The most recent videos that I've done, the two most recent, were about Mary worship and the

54:22

Rosary. So what are the problems with the Rosary? Why would we as Christians discourage praying the

54:28

Rosary? Primarily because it's prayer to Mary. Yeah, most of it. Most of it is.

54:34

So anyway, check out those videos. We'd love to hear your comments. Once again, the webpage is wwutt .com.

54:41

Next week, we get back into our Mark study, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Isaiah on Thursday. We're getting close to the end of Isaiah.

54:47

Yeah. And then another Q &A on Friday. We just finished up the Pentateuch on Hear the

54:53

Word of the Lord. So the first five books of the Bible completed, and I just started in Joshua.

54:58

So don't forget that there's a second podcast where it's just Bible reading. No music, no commentary, just the

55:05

Bible reading. Hear the Word of the Lord is what you're looking for. Let's pray. Yes, let's.

55:11

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we have together. We thank you for what we have read in your word today.

55:17

And I pray that we would be strengthened today. Remembering that Yahweh is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my rock in whom

55:26

I take refuge. May we find the works of your hands and everything that is around us.

55:32

And no matter how difficult or hard things get, we know that you are working even in the midst of these trials to make us more into the image of Christ, to draw us closer to you and help us to not despair, but to cling to Christ even in those difficult circumstances.

55:48

On Friday, a pretty amazing thing happened across pretty much all of the United States where just about everybody got to see the northern lights in the evening.

55:57

We can look into the heavens and see the works of your hands. That's actually the very next Psalm. The heavens are telling of the glory of God and the expanse is declaring the work of his hands,

56:08

Psalm 19, 1. So even in those things that are all around us, we see your mighty hand at work.

56:14

And may they remind us to draw near to God and put our faith and trust in you who is working in the big and in the small for our good and for your glory.

56:26

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. How can

56:37

I treat you to pizza? Ooh. So another way that you can give to us is by going to our website, once again, www .tt

56:47

.com. If you click on contact, there's information there under contact about if you want to send us a gift, this is a way that you can do it.

56:55

So Jackson, if you'd like to donate 10 or 20 bucks or something like that for us to get a pizza. Sure. I'll take it.

57:02

I'm not sure how that transfers from pizza to pizza. Filipino. Oh, I'm sure PayPal or...

57:08

True. You know, not GoFundMe, but Vimeo. That's the other one. Venmo. Yeah, Venmo.

57:14

Vimeo. Vimeo is the video site. Oh, okay. I have no idea what you're doing.