WWUTT 1580 Q&A Wisdom Personified, The Jesus Storybook Bible, Sickness and Discipline

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December 17, 2021

Responding to questions from listeners about wisdom personified in Proverbs 8, if The Jesus Storybook Bible is any good, and sickness used as discipline. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

00:01: Merry Christmas from your friends at When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching commentary to help encourage your time in the
00:08: Word. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wtt .com. Here once again is
00:14: Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. I am flying solo this week, or driving,
00:21: I'm literally driving solo. I am in the car, that's the sound that you hear around me.
00:26: I think that we've done an episode from the car before, but I've never done it with this microphone. I have no idea what this is going to sound like, so we'll find out soon.
00:35: We're going to talk a little theology while I'm driving. I can't exactly look at or read questions while I'm driving.
00:43: I'm a very safe driver when it comes to my phone. I don't text. I try as best as I can to not even talk on the phone while I'm driving.
00:51: I just, I stay focused, but I'm not holding anything in my hands. I'm just, you know, driving.
00:56: We're going to talk some theology here, and then when I get home, I'm going to pull into my driveway, and then
01:02: I've got some questions on my phone. I'm going to stay there in the driveway, and we'll just, we'll read the questions that you have sent in.
01:10: So, on the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take questions from the listeners, and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
01:19: Though Becky's not on with me this week, we're hoping to be on together next week,
01:24: God willing, because that episode falls on Christmas Day. So, we'll have a
01:30: Christmas Day episode for the Friday broadcast. Maybe you've got some Christmas -themed questions you want to send in.
01:39: They don't have to be. Any theology question will do, and we'll hope to, we're hoping to put together a good
01:46: Christmas program for you. Then the week after that, it's going to be New Year's Day. January 1st, 2022.
01:57: That's the year 2020, T -O -O. That's right, it's going to be 2020 all over again.
02:03: It's 2022. But since that episode falls on a Friday, that's when we'll do our year -in -review.
02:12: That's hard to believe, that's just two weeks away, but yeah, so that's the plan. Next week, Christmas episode.
02:17: Week after that, we'll do our year -in -review, looking back over the biggest events that impacted
02:25: Christianity, not just in the Western world, although that will be, you know, most of the stories will be that way, but we'll even look at things that happen globally.
02:35: Looking back over 2021 with some of the biggest stories of the year. Now, whenever we've done this episode, it usually takes about an hour and a half.
02:42: I don't know if I'm going to do that again, or if we're going to try to break it up into two. We'll do 45 minutes in a couple of weeks, and then a week later, we'll finish that up with the next half, the other 20 events that happened in 2021.
02:56: I'm already starting to comb some websites and things like that, because there are certain people that I know that put out, like, here were the biggest theology stories for the year, and then
03:07: I just kind of take from all these different lists and compile them together. I got a few things that I've already written down, things that I expect to be on that list.
03:13: What were the biggest stories in Christianity or in religious news at large over the course of the year?
03:21: That's what we'll be looking at in a couple of weeks. While I'm still driving here, we're still talking theology.
03:27: Let me share with you some verses, something that I think is a good reminder for us all the time.
03:34: I'm in Philippians chapter four, starting in verse four, okay? Rejoice in the
03:39: Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice.
03:46: Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.
03:54: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
04:06: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
04:17: As cynical and as hateful and as spiteful as our world is today, those are verses that we need constantly.
04:24: We need to be reminding ourselves to rejoice always. We live in a world that will give you a license to complain.
04:33: You want to complain about your circumstances? Great, go right ahead because I'm going to complain about my circumstances.
04:39: Everybody's complaining about what they don't have, what they didn't get, how things could be better.
04:45: There are certain groups of people, certain even classes or ethnicities that'll get shut down and they'll be told, no, you have privilege.
04:53: You don't get to complain about your circumstances. And that really doesn't matter. Everybody's got something that they can complain about.
05:00: Everybody can say, well, I deserve this and I didn't get it, right? That's the attitude of the world.
05:06: It's a worldly mindset. It's the mindset of our culture right now. But we as Christians cannot act, we cannot behave that way.
05:14: We are to act as Christ's kingdom people.
05:20: We are a part of the kingdom of God living in this world. Our hope is in heaven above in glory.
05:29: It is not here on this earth. All this stuff on earth is transient. It's all wasting away. Jesus said in Matthew 6, do not store up your treasure where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.
05:42: But store up your treasure where moth and rust cannot destroy and thieves cannot break in and steal.
05:49: Our treasure needs to be above in glory where Christ is. For where our treasure is, there our heart will be also.
05:55: That's where our yearning will be. Our desire to be in heaven with God in glory.
06:04: And if that's our mindset, if that's our attitude, if we know and we understand that all things are in God's hands,
06:11: God is sovereign. There's nothing that's happening outside of his control, then we're going to behave differently in whatever context in which we live.
06:21: We are not flying off the handle about things that we did not get or stuff that we thought that we deserve or circumstances that did not go our way.
06:30: There were things that happened to me just this past week, something big that didn't go my way, and yet I'm still rejoicing in Christ.
06:38: My wife and I were praying for a certain thing and our prayers were answered.
06:44: God answered our prayers. If we weren't supposed to do this, God shut the door. So we know that that's not the decision that we're supposed to make and we got our answer.
06:54: Wasn't the answer that personally I would have chosen, but nevertheless, sometimes things don't work out the way that we want them to work.
07:03: And we trust in God because he is sovereign. We don't act like sourpusses.
07:09: We don't complain. We're not arguing and bickering with everybody else around us because in fact, in Philippians chapter two, a little bit, or, you know, a couple of chapters earlier than this,
07:18: Philippians 2 14, it says, do everything without grumbling and complaining so that you may be children of God without blame, blameless and faultless in a crooked generation in which you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.
07:35: So everybody else in this crooked and twisted generation, they're going to be thinking evil of one another, accusing each other, complaining about circumstances.
07:47: They're going to be, uh, deceived and, uh, and deceivers. They're deceiving and being deceived.
07:54: As Paul talked about with Timothy, they are lovers of self, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as we also read about in to Timothy and, and that is not how we are supposed to be.
08:06: That's the way the world is going to be. We need to be people whose minds are fixed upon Christ.
08:13: Remember that this letter, Philippians, Paul is writing from prison. He, uh, he's been thrown in jail for preaching the gospel for doing exactly like the greatest thing that we can do this side of heaven for other people.
08:27: The greatest love that we can show, we can give them the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is only by faith in Jesus Christ that we are forgiven our sins and we have eternal life.
08:36: Paul was doing the greatest mission work that we can do here on this earth and he got thrown in prison for it.
08:43: And yet from prison, while he was in, while he was in chains, he wrote to this church in Philippi and said, rejoice in the
08:51: Lord always, I will say it again, rejoice to do everything without grumbling or disputing that you may shine as lights in the world.
09:00: The world is going to see that we behave differently than they do. We're not complaining like they complain, but we have a hope that is in something that is not in the next politician.
09:11: It's not in the course of our economy. It's not in anything else in this world that we would like to have go our way.
09:18: Our hope is in Christ. So let's act like it, right? Let's show the world that we hope in something that is not of this world, but he who has overcome the world.
09:31: Amen. All right, well, here I am. I have pulled into my driveway and pulling up my questions here that I have on my phone.
09:39: This first one is from V in London. She says, hi pastor. I just have a question from your teaching in Proverbs eight.
09:47: Why is wisdom referred to as she and her, this very false man was preaching publicly and he said that this whole chapter,
09:57: Proverbs chapter eight is saying that the Holy spirit is a woman or is female. And he said a bunch of other nonsense.
10:05: I think I need to do more of an in -depth study of this passage because I'm confused as to who's narrating this passage.
10:12: So the question that V has is basically why is wisdom referred to as she or personified as a woman in Proverbs chapter eight.
10:23: Now if you go to the book, the shack by William Paul Young, uh, he kind of like adds a fourth person to the
10:29: Trinity. He's got a God, the father, who's a black woman named Papa.
10:35: He's got God, the Holy spirit, who's an Asian woman. And then he has God, the son,
10:40: Jesus Christ, who's the only male figure of this Trinity. But then he adds a fourth person.
10:46: He adds wisdom whose name is Sophia. If I remember that right. And wisdom is also a woman, a very, very effeminate
10:54: God in William Paul Young's the shack. But anyway, so he's taking wisdom personified in Proverbs chapter eight and takes it even a step farther and goes, well, this is literally wisdom personified.
11:09: So has a woman named Sophia, which is a word for wisdom, uh, in, in his book.
11:16: And there are some very liberal theologians who think this way that Proverbs chapter eight is in reference to the
11:23: Holy spirit. And so therefore the Holy spirit is feminine and we can refer to the
11:29: Holy spirit, uh, the Holy spirit with feminine pronouns, but that's not really what's going on here in Proverbs eight.
11:36: This is of course, very poetic it's metaphor. And so, uh, wisdom personified is personified as a woman because the
11:47: Hebrew word for wisdom is feminine. Now, English speaking people, we have trouble understanding this because we don't really have masculine and feminine words in our language.
12:00: And, but other languages do many other languages do. I took French when I was in high school, you had masculine and feminine.
12:06: I've done a little Spanish, you have masculine and feminine. So you have some languages that will have masculine and feminine words or masculine feminine forms of words.
12:15: Well, in Hebrew, the word wisdom is feminine. And so if you're going to personify wisdom, if you're going to make wisdom a person to go along with, you know, the metaphor, the picture that's being painted there in Proverbs chapter eight, you better be using feminine pronouns.
12:32: Otherwise it's just going to sound confusing. So you have wisdom personified a feminine word.
12:38: Therefore you are going to use feminine pronouns. It doesn't mean that wisdom is a woman and it certainly doesn't mean that the
12:45: Holy spirit is a woman. The only pronouns in the Bible used for God are he and his, that's
12:52: God's preferred pronouns as a terrible joke. Anyway, so that's the, that's the first reason why wisdom is referred to as she and her, or is personified as a woman because that word in Hebrew is feminine.
13:08: The second reason is because wisdom is being contrasted with the adulterous in Proverbs five, six, and seven.
13:17: Like I said earlier this week, several chapters there toward the start of Proverbs devoted to a father warning his son to stay away from the adulterous woman.
13:29: So who should the son be after instead of that adulterer? He needs to go after wisdom.
13:36: That's the way the book began with a father telling his son to, uh, to go after wisdom, to be filled with wisdom, to be pursuing knowledge and not just any kind of wisdom and knowledge, but specifically the knowledge of God.
13:51: And it is this knowledge that leads to everlasting life. The knowledge of God is, uh, is eternal.
13:58: It shows us the character of God reveals to us the son who reveals to us the father by faith in the
14:04: Lord Jesus Christ. We have the wisdom of God that we grow in by the Holy spirit that guides us.
14:10: And of course the wisdom that we have is right here in the Bible. The spirit gives us the ability to read and understand these words and apply them to their, to our lives and live according to this.
14:22: So as we're talking about wisdom as a person who is speaking to us and calling us to follow her wisdom, then you have wisdom depicted as a woman there in, um, in Proverbs chapter eight.
14:35: Now, the last part of these question here is she says, I'm confused as to who's narrating the passage.
14:42: Well, remember going back to the beginning of Proverbs, it's a father talking to his son. So mostly through Proverbs, that's the way we understand it.
14:49: Even, even when you've got wisdom personified and speaking, calling out there in Proverbs eight, what she says, when you look in your
15:00: Bible, what she says is in quotation marks, because this is the father speaking to his son and he's, he's speaking like, here's what wisdom is saying to you.
15:09: So the narrator in this case is going to be a father. Uh, it changes voices through Proverbs.
15:17: We haven't really gotten to that yet, but we will soon enough. Anyway, uh, in response to your question
15:22: V, uh, thank you so much for asking. This next one comes from Kayla in Alabama.
15:28: Pastor Gabe, I think I've heard you talk in the past about the Jesus storybook
15:33: Bible, but I couldn't find the podcast episode. There's a lady in our church, always handing out copies of it to the kids.
15:41: Can you summarize for me what's wrong with it and how can I approach this woman and ask her to stop handing it out?
15:48: Thank you for your question, Kayla. Uh, I am going to do a video on this. So there's going to be a what video soon on the
15:55: Jesus storybook Bible written by Sally Lloyd Jones. Now she is of no relation to Martin Lloyd Jones, but she is the author of this book.
16:05: She's written several other kids, Bible books, and then she's got some other kids' stories that she's done as well.
16:12: But the Jesus storybook Bible is a very, very popular book. Most reviews that I read are very positive, are very praising of it.
16:21: Um, as a matter of fact, when I got your question via email, I, I, I quick looked up a review from Tim Challies because I, I know that Challies has reviewed a lot of Christian books, especially the popular ones, and this one is a bestseller among Christian books.
16:37: And so surely he's done a review on it. He did. And his review was really glowing. I don't think it was critical at all.
16:43: I don't remember there being a single critical word about the Jesus storybook Bible, except, except that, uh,
16:49: Charlie says that he doesn't really use storybook Bibles anymore to either teach his kids or telling parents, you know, uh, pick up this storybook
16:59: Bible to teach your kids. He just doesn't use storybook Bibles. And I don't either. But he nevertheless did not say anything negative about the
17:07: Jesus storybook Bible. Yeah, I don't recommend it. And this book is a big mess. Like, uh, it's been a few years since I've read it.
17:15: So I wouldn't be able to quote anything to you off the top of my head. I just remember it being filled with very sappy prose.
17:23: Like it reminded me, it really, I've mentioned the shack already. Uh, it reminded me of the shack and Sarah Young, Jesus calling.
17:32: So it's like, if you took Jesus calling in the shack and you put it together, you would have the, uh, the
17:38: Jesus storybook Bible. Um, it is, it is very feminine sounding. Like it sounds like it's written by a woman.
17:45: It does not sound like the Bible. It doesn't sound like scripture at all. Sally Lloyd -Jones leaves stuff out and she writes her own words in.
17:56: So what you're reading are Sally Jones, uh, Sally Lloyd -Jones words. You're not reading scripture.
18:02: She's driven more by sentimentalism than she is driven by scripture.
18:07: I remember in particular, the creation story at the very beginning. So in Genesis one, one
18:15: Genesis one, one, okay. The, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the waters and the spirit of God was moving over.
18:27: Oh, sorry. On the surface of the deep, the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. I'm trying to do this from memory.
18:34: And then God said, let there be light. And there was light. God saw the light that it was good.
18:42: And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night.
18:49: And there was evening and there was morning the first day. Okay. Right. That's, that's how we read in Genesis one.
18:55: I think that's about the first five verses there. When you read it in the storybook Bible, Sally Lloyd -Jones does not say there was evening and there was morning the first day.
19:07: If I remember that right all the way through the creation story, she doesn't ever talk about it being done in six literal days, never, never even mentions it as the
19:15: Bible mentions it. Like, even if we want to disagree, well, I believe the day was symbolic and it was actually a longer period of time.
19:22: Uh, I think you're wrong, but yeah, nevertheless, that aside, she just doesn't even put that in there.
19:28: She doesn't say there was evening and there was morning the first day. And instead of God looking at his creation and, and seeing that it was good, it's, he says, you're good.
19:38: Like he looks at it and says, you're good. As though he's speaking to creation personified. And, uh, and when he says, let there be like, let there be birds in the sky, let the waters be teeming with fish.
19:52: She doesn't write it that way. God instead says, oh, hello birds. And then there's birds.
19:57: And God says, oh, hello fish. And then there's fish. Okay. Like, I don't even teach the Bible to my kids this way.
20:04: I read the Bible to my children word for word. And then I explain to them what it is that we've just read, or I'll use the
20:11: Socratic method and ask them questions and say, okay, what, what does this mean here? What, what are we reading about with my older to Annie?
20:20: Who's 13 Zeej who is 10, they can read just fine. So they'll have their
20:25: Bibles open and then we'll go through the passages together and I'll make them look at context, look at verbs, explain to me what's happening in the passage and stuff like that.
20:34: So they're, they're learning more expositionally than my youngest two are.
20:40: But nonetheless, I'm, I'm going to read the Bible to them and then give the sense as it says in Nehemiah eight, eight, you know, when the law was read to the people out loud, and then the, uh, uh, the, the teachers would give the sense.
20:54: They would explain to the people what the law meant and how to apply it and how to live according to this.
21:00: So that's what it is that I do with my kids. That's not the way that Sally Lloyd Jones reads. Uh, or writes her book.
21:06: It really just seems like she wanted to write her own Bible. Here's how I read the Bible. Here's what it means to me.
21:12: Now I'm going to write it and I've got a bestselling book. It's a big mess. I don't recommend it at all.
21:18: Some of the stuff in there, I thought sounded kind of Pagan. Like I really don't think a Pagan would see some of the stuff that she had written there and think to themselves that they would have a problem with that.
21:29: Um, I know that she redefined sin. Like she, she calls sin, um, not loving
21:37: God. So that's how she defines sin. Well, how does, how does first John define sin? He says that sin is lawlessness.
21:45: It's breaking the law of God. Sally Lloyd Jones says that sin is just not being in love with God.
21:51: Now there's a certain sense in which you could say, yeah, that's true. Cause if you love God, you're going to obey him, but you can still love
21:57: God and sin, right? Of course. Like if I've done something wrong, it doesn't mean that I've fallen out of love with God and I've certainly not fall.
22:07: He's not fallen out of love with me either, but as a loving God who disciplines those whom he loves, as Jesus talks about with the church in Laodicea in Revelation chapter three, then he's going to reprove and discipline me that I would turn from my sin back to the path of righteousness.
22:29: This is what God does with those who, whom he loves. So sin doesn't mean that I've fallen out of love with God. It doesn't mean that God has fallen out of love with me.
22:37: Praise God for that. That's the mercy of God. So sin is not simply not being in love with God.
22:43: Sin is lawlessness. Sin is breaking the law of God, disobeying the commands of God.
22:49: And as Paul says, even in Romans chapter 14, whatever is not done in faith is sin. So if you're convinced in your mind that you did something sinful and your conscience is compromised, then you've sinned.
23:01: Whatever's not done in faith is sin. So we must repent and turn to Christ. First John one nine.
23:07: If we ask forgiveness for our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
23:17: So coming back to that again, Sally Lloyd -Jones just redefined sin there because sin is not defined according to scripture.
23:26: She doesn't even mention judgment. Judgment is not in there at all. I'm trying to remember how she worded the
23:34: Noah's flood account. I know it was something funny. It was something like the people just didn't love
23:40: God. And so God, she didn't even say God destroyed them. I can't remember how that went. I knew it was kind of funny, but she just doesn't talk about judgment.
23:48: Doesn't talk about the wrath of God coming against those who do sin. Hell is never mentioned.
23:53: And so therefore, since we don't have any mention of judgment and sin is softened, the gospel is not in this book at all, especially penal, the concept of penal substitutionary atonement, that Jesus died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, satisfying the wrath of God that is not in the book in any way.
24:13: So reading the Jesus storybook Bible is just going to lead to confusion unless there's somebody there that can give good guidance and understanding to what's being read and, and not allowing you to be led astray by what
24:29: Sally Lloyd -Jones wrote, then it can lead to a lot of confusion. And if that's how much legwork that you got to do to explain the
24:36: Jesus storybook Bible, then it's just better to not use it at all. Furthermore, I kind of saved the best for last year at the very conclusion,
24:43: Sally Lloyd -Jones is pro -LGBTQ. She is affirming of homosexual behavior.
24:52: There's another book that she wrote, another kid's book she wrote in which there is a depiction of a family and the family is two men.
25:04: The two parents are two men. It's homosexual men. And Sally Lloyd -Jones even affirmed that is what's being depicted there in her book.
25:12: And she said that it's important to have this kind of inclusion represented in these books.
25:19: In other words, she wants to normalize the appearance of two men being married to one another and having a family.
25:29: This is a woman who is not humble or contrite in spirit and does not tremble at God's word.
25:35: Isaiah 66 to Romans 132 says, though, they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die.
25:45: They not only do the same, but they give approval to those who practice them. That's Sally Lloyd -Jones.
25:52: Her faith should even be called into question whether or not she is a genuine Christian. And so I do not advise anybody use the
25:59: Jesus storybook Bible. Now, the other part of Kayla's question here is, how do
26:05: I talk to this woman at church who's handing out the Jesus storybook Bible and tell her what's wrong with it?
26:12: Well, you might start just by telling her where Sally Lloyd -Jones stands on the issue of marriage, that she would be approving of homosexual men pretending that they are married.
26:25: And maybe that would be enough to dissuade this woman from continuing to hand this book out.
26:32: You know, I've had issues before with somebody in my church, for example, is handing out the book
26:38: Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo, the whole heaven tourism thing. And that book is totally bogus.
26:46: Colton Burpo did not go to heaven, see heaven at the age of four, and then come back and tell everybody about his heavenly experience.
26:52: He just simply didn't do it. It was a man capitalizing on a certain experience and wrote a bestselling book out of it.
26:59: And they're living quite comfortably now with all the money that they've made off of that particular book. And Colton at one point used to say that he did not remember dying and going to heaven and seeing the things that he saw there.
27:09: And now he says that he does because, hey, it's lucrative. I can make money by admitting that I've been to heaven and telling people what it was
27:17: I saw when I went there. So I've had to have those conversations before confronting somebody in my church who's handing out that book and saying, hey, brother, sister,
27:25: I can't let you hand that book out. And here's the reason why. Let's sit down and talk about it further.
27:31: If you want to know more, I've also done a video on it. So I had the four and a half minute what video on heaven is for real.
27:38: You can still find that one online. And again, I'm hoping to get the video out soon on the
27:44: Jesus Storybook Bible. So you'll have a 90 second video to be able to share with somebody else.
27:50: Hope that'll be a useful to a useful tool to you, Kayla. In the meantime, when it comes to talking to people about these kinds of things, just be kind, be patient with them, because people can get really, really offended even over things like this over the
28:07: Jesus Storybook Bible or heaven is for real or 90 minutes in heaven or any of these other kinds of books.
28:15: They really get personally attached to this. And so to say to them not to hand out this book anymore because the theology is really, really bad is to say to a person, your theology is bad.
28:28: And so, of course, they're going to take offense by that. Be patient. Correct with gentleness. That's the instruction
28:33: Paul has for Timothy and Second Timothy two twenty five. The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone able to teach patiently enduring evil and correcting opponents with gentleness.
28:45: Now, in that particular case, opponents are probably those that are not believers at all.
28:52: But I think that even those who are teaching falsely, it should still be the same kind of of demeanor, of attitude that we have toward each other, that we correct one another with gentleness.
29:04: God may perhaps grant repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. And they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
29:13: All right. One last question here. And this one's an email, a longer email.
29:18: So I got to pull this one up. This is from Jenny in Alaska. And she says, hi,
29:26: Pastor Gabe. This, oh, by the way, this has to do with episode fifteen seventy eight. When we are judged, we are disciplined.
29:33: So this was the episode that I did just this past Wednesday out of First Corinthians chapter eleven regarding the
29:41: Lord's table. So if you'll remember again, the members of the church in Corinth there were misusing the
29:48: Lord's table. And Paul said, this is why some of you have gotten weak and sick and some have even fallen asleep or some have died because they were coming to the
29:58: Lord's table and eating of the bread and drinking of the cup in an unworthy manner. And so I mentioned that sometimes
30:04: God uses sickness and illness like this as a judgment or as a chastening that we would repent from our ways and come back to the path of righteousness.
30:14: So that lesson is what Jenny is writing about here. She says, Pastor Gabe, I have to admit,
30:21: I'm really struggling with this particular episode and topic. I listened to it twice. And although I do agree that God does use illness as a form of consequence for sin,
30:31: King David. Right. So if you'll remember, well, even a child that David and Bathsheba had, their first child that they had together died as a judgment because of the sin that they had done.
30:45: So, yeah, sometimes God uses illness and death as a form of consequence for sin. Although Jenny here might more be referring to the fact that, you know,
30:54: David's talking about being weak in his bones in the Psalms because of the sin that he had committed against God, God's hand being heavy upon him.
31:04: Jenny goes on to say, you use several examples, including yourself. However, I wish you also emphasize that illnesses are not always a tool used by God as punishment for sin.
31:15: For example, Job. Rather, Christians suffer not as judgment for their own sin, but simply as a trial that is part of life in a fallen world.
31:24: This sentence was from a study Bible, either ESV or John MacArthur. I can't remember right now.
31:30: Sorry. My Christian walk was rather fraught with a lot of valleys and consequences of sins.
31:36: Only recently did I understand how seriously God viewed marriage vows like a covenant through study
31:42: I did in Malachi 2. I struggle with chronic illnesses and pain for a couple of decades now.
31:48: I was wondering if you're aware of Johnny Erickson Tata, one of the longest living quadriplegic quadriplegics in a wheelchair, 53 years, who also endured breast cancer, its reoccurrence and fought chronic back pain and survived covid.
32:05: And still to this day, she encounters thoughtless Christians who said they'll pray that she'll be forgiven for her sins so that she'll walk again.
32:13: Regarding sex inside or outside of marriage, I'm not sure what your age is, but I'm in my mid 50s and pastors just didn't talk about sex or marriage much back in the day.
32:22: It's too bad that they didn't. Perhaps the current sexually immoral and gender confused culture we're living in wouldn't be existing in the state that it's in right now.
32:31: I didn't grow up in a Christian home. In fact, my dad's Playboy magazine was stuffed in the living room bookshelf, right along with mom's risque romances, my comics and the
32:40: Reader's Digest. For some reason, this was a tough episode for me. I was really wrestling with it and still am.
32:47: Thank you for making me think. Well, I sure appreciate the honesty in your email, Jenny.
32:53: And just to say I did qualify. Maybe I didn't do this as much in the Wednesday episode. Maybe it was
32:58: Monday or Tuesday, but I did qualify that just because this is what we see going on in First Corinthians 11 as a consequence for their misuse of the
33:09: Lord's table. That doesn't mean that we can look at anybody who's sick and say to them, oh, well, you must be you're in some kind of unrepentant sin.
33:17: That's why you're sick right now. And a lot of people in the word faith movement in the
33:24: New Apostolic Reformation movement, that's exactly the way they treat illness. You're sick because you're not believing hard enough.
33:31: You haven't named it and claimed it. Or there's some kind of sin that God is punishing you for. I was sure to qualify that this does not give us permission to look around at anybody who's sick and say, oh, well, they're they're sinning.
33:43: And then the healthy people over here are godly. I know plenty of healthy people and you do, too, that are not at all godly.
33:51: But in this particular context, in what we were reading in First Corinthians 11, this is rightly applied in this way.
33:59: And I said that we need to use discernment for these kinds of things. We do need to understand that God does still use sickness and illness as a judgment or as consequences for sin.
34:11: And also that that depression could be a result of unrepentant sin.
34:17: Now, it seems like we always have to qualify this whenever we talk about it. I'm not saying that everyone who's depressed is depressed because they have some sin that they haven't repented of.
34:28: But we would not be a culture that is so addicted to alcohol and over -the -counter medications and even prescription meds, psychotropic drugs and stuff like that.
34:40: We would not be a culture so addicted to these things if we were willing to recognize that our behavior can lead to depression, that sin is a real thing.
34:54: And even a person who says there is no God and does not believe the Bible, they continue in these fleshly sins that don't satisfy, that can't give them what they really yearn for in their souls.
35:08: And so they're constantly coming up empty and they either have to get bigger doses of their medicine, of their alcohol, of the fleshly lust or whatever it is.
35:18: They either have to have a bigger dose in order to be satisfied or they're just completely bottoming out in their depression because they cannot find any worth in this life at all.
35:34: They have nothing to put their hope in. There is no anticipation for tomorrow.
35:40: As I talked about in the very beginning, we who are children of God, who are citizens of the kingdom of God, Christ is our hope.
35:47: We are looking toward everlasting life forever with God and glory. So nothing in this earth can satisfy us because we're only satisfied in Christ.
35:58: We know all of this stuff is wasting away. It's all going to be it'll all be burned up when the judgment of God comes.
36:05: And so we put our hope in that which is eternal. We put our hope in Christ Jesus. A lot of people in the world walking around without any hope.
36:13: And it's very, very depressing. But we also live in this culture where you can't tell a person that their depression is a result of their behavior, that it's a consequence for their sin.
36:23: Instead, even even among evangelical circles, we need to be supportive of prescription medications.
36:29: Here, all you need to do is take this pill and you'll feel better. We need to be discerning, and that's something else that I said earlier this week.
36:37: We need to discern these matters. We need to test ourselves. We need to examine one another, not to be constantly judgmental of each other.
36:45: But the instruction that we have in Colossians chapter three is that we teach and admonish one another. So to admonish means to correct.
36:52: With goodwill, if you see somebody who is going astray from righteousness, then you call them to correction with good intentions, that they would not go to their destruction if they persist in that sin without repenting, but that they would turn from it and turn back to Jesus Christ and so live.
37:10: We have an obligation to one another in this way, that we might build up the body of Christ, building up the body in love, as it says in Ephesians chapter four.
37:19: And when each part is working properly, holding fast to the head that is
37:24: Christ, then we build one another up in love. That's what we've been called to do. That's the instruction that we have for each other as Christians.
37:32: So again, discernment, using discernment when we look at these things, not just calling everybody who's sick a sinner, but maybe the reason why that person is ill is because of a particular sin.
37:44: Now, Jenny mentioned that we do go through trials, even sicknesses that perfect us, that we, you know, we go through sufferings that we might cling all the more to Christ.
37:58: Paul talks about this in 2nd Corinthians chapter one in verse nine. He says, we thought we had received the sentence of death, but this was to make us rely not on ourselves, but more on God who raises the dead.
38:15: And so we go through difficult, trying things that we may rely more upon God.
38:21: Consider what's said here in Romans chapter five, beginning in verse one. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
38:29: Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.
38:38: And we exalt in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character and proven character, hope and hope does not put us to shame.
39:00: Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the
39:06: Holy Spirit who has been given to us. So we go through difficult things, difficult circumstances that make us rely more upon God.
39:13: We put our hope and trust in him all the more. God will have us go through these things that we may believe in Christ.
39:23: Yeah, I don't believe that Johnny Erickson Tata is a quadriplegic because of her sin. Now, I do believe she's a quadriplegic because of sin, just the same as you get sick because of sin and I get sick because of sin.
39:34: And that covid is in this world because of sin, because this is a fallen world. It's been subject to futility, as it says in Romans chapter eight.
39:42: It's not because of a particular sin that you've done, but just because the world has fallen because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
39:49: And God has turned this world over to judgment.
39:55: There is a kind of judgment that is happening in the world in the sense that we see evil. We see the consequences for sin, the sickness and and death, of course.
40:04: Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin is death. That's in the world because of sin.
40:10: That doesn't mean the suffering that you go through is because of a particular sin that you have done.
40:15: But even through this suffering that we endure, we go through it that we may rely all the more upon God.
40:23: And God sanctifies us through this, draws us to himself. We grow all the more in Christ toward the end of Second Corinthians, Second Corinthians chapter 12.
40:32: Remember Paul begging God to take the thorn away from him and this messenger of Satan that was sent to torment him three times.
40:40: I ask God to take it from me, Paul said. But Jesus said to him, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
40:50: And then what did Paul say after that? Therefore, I'm going to boast all the more in my weaknesses and hardships and struggles and persecutions and calamities, because where I am weak there, he is strong.
41:03: Paul delighted, rejoiced in his suffering that Christ would be glorified in this.
41:10: And so we need to be willing to put off even a desire to have a comfortable life, that we may live according to Christ, receiving whatever may come our way, but giving glory to God in the midst of all of this and the
41:23: Lord will lift us up. He will sustain us. You know, good news. He will heal us.
41:29: Now, that healing may not be on this side of heaven. That healing is going to come when we get to glory.
41:35: But nonetheless, in Christ, we do have a promise of healing, as it says in Philippians chapter three, that when
41:41: Christ returns, he will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.
41:51: So we look all the more to our Savior Christ, not to the things of this world, but to Christ Jesus and anything and everything.
41:59: He is our blessed creator and savior and king of all. Amen. Jenny, let me pray for you and praying also for the other questions that we had here.
42:10: Heavenly Father, I thank you for Jenny and she's wrestling with some of these things that she had read about in first Corinthians chapter 11 and listened to on the podcast.
42:19: I pray that you give her wisdom and knowing how those things may apply. She may need to to let those things stew in her spirit for a little bit or or turning to another passage and finding greater instruction and direction and how we are to endure through the things that we struggle in while we are in this world.
42:39: Jesus said, as I've as I've mentioned already here in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart.
42:46: I have overcome the world. So we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and know we will be delivered out of this.
42:53: I pray that even through this, as as Jenny is wrestling with this, that she will put her trust in Christ all the more and continue to grow in Christ Jesus.
43:04: I pray also for V as she is thinking about some things concerning wisdom, reading through the book of Proverbs, that your spirit gives her guidance and understanding of the words that she is reading.
43:15: And I pray for Kayla, who has to confront somebody in her church that's handing out a book that is honestly just not a good book.
43:23: It doesn't help us grow in the spirit and in the knowledge of God. And so I pray that you give
43:29: Kayla wisdom and knowing how to speak to this particular woman and and also give Kayla wisdom and how she might help her friends there at the church.
43:38: Maybe some of the other women know how to read their Bibles and train up their children, according to what the
43:44: Bible says. May we all be better students of the word, committing ourselves to God's word, not just hearing these words, but living them as well, doing what they say.
43:56: For as Jesus said in John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.
44:03: We love you, God. Lead us in paths of righteousness for your namesake. It's in Jesus' precious name that we pray.
44:10: Amen. This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great
44:16: Bible teaching programs on the Web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.
44:24: Find a good gospel teaching Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again