WWUTT Q&A Purgatory, Unbelieving Spouse, Could Jesus Have Sinned?

Opening Banter and Show Setup

What is purgatory? What if you want to give to the church, but your spouse doesn't want you to? And we're going to come back to the question on whether or not Jesus could have sinned. The answers when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible teaching podcast, that the word of Christ may dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Visit our website at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. The book, 25 Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says, available now at amazon .com. And if you've read it, paperback or Kindle, both formats are available, then I'd appreciate it if you leave a review.

That would be awesome. We would sure appreciate that. The new or the old version? There's only one version.

You can't get the old one anymore. Anymore, but they might have already had it.

There's really not any difference between the new and the old one. There's a few wording things that have changed. All the content is the same, but it's just that the footnotes have now been added and there's a scripture glossary at the end.

Plus there are, at the end of each chapter, is questions for reflection and a Christmas carol that you can sing together. So you could do this every day for the Advent season, start on December 1st, read it through to December 25th, doing a different myth every day with the kids, singing a Christmas song together.

Or your cats. You know, whatever you have. What? He doesn't like cats. I think they're fun. Singing a Christmas song with your cats? Doesn't matter whether you like cats or not. Singing a Christmas song with your cats.

You said reading to your kids, right? Yes, right. Right. You can read to your cats.

Read to your cats? If you don't have kids? Cats cannot be saved nor sanctified.

Well, no, but maybe you just want somebody to, I don't know.

I think it's pretty evident that cats are not holy. Oh, stop. Hey, when you pet them and their bum goes way up in the air like that, that is not a Christian thing. Cats are not Christians. Okay. Next.

What was I talking about? 25 Christmas myths, which you can do with your family, not with your cats. It is a myth that you can do it with your cats.

I'm not saying you would share the gospel with your cats. I'm saying.

Well, if you're reading it out loud, that's what you're doing because the gospel is in every chapter. Oh my goodness. And cats are already condemned. They are self-condemned. Stop. There is no plan of redemption for cats.

It is only for we who are made in the image of God and dogs, but not for cats. There is no plan of redemption.

God made all animals and said, they are good.

Until they went really bad. When mankind sinned and God subjected all things to futility, as it says in Romans 8. Where does it mention cats? Cats are part of that. Every time dogs are mentioned in the Bible.

It's awful. It's always bad. Yeah. It's always. Yeah. But not cats. Reference to something bad. I know, but that's why. See, the Bible mentions that dogs are bad because God has a plan of redemption for dogs.

He has no plan of redemption for cats. Yeah. Of course, you know, I'm joking. I'm not really a house pet guy one way or the other. No, you are not. I'm not. I'm not. Not that pet kind of a person. But we do have a dog.

I just don't like cats. What was I going to do here? Okay. Yeah. So we're talking about the book. 25 Christmas Myths. Pick that up. If you go to Amazon .com and you just type in the number 25 Christmas Myths, it'll come up.

If you've read it, please leave a wonderful review. Let's get rid of that one star guy that was on there. Yeah. We know exactly who that was and what his issue was that led him to write the review that he wrote.

But anyway, great reviews would be appreciated. So more people find the book and hear the gospel through what is written in that particular book. Now on that subject, this coming Sunday, I'm preaching on parents and children.

Parenting, Ephesians 6, and the 40 Passages for Parents

Children obey your parents in the Lord. This is right. Right. It's the section in Ephesians chapter six, verses one through four. So we just talked about husbands and wives this past Sunday. I could sit on that and do that for the rest of the month or the rest of the year if I wanted to.

Right. But we're moving on. We are. So we're getting to parents and children, Ephesians six, one through four. And I am going to be utilizing something that I wrote a long time ago. I think this was around 2013, 2014 that I wrote this.

It was a series of 40 verses, 40 passages for parents. Okay. So some of the passages are like three or four verses long, which is why I can't say 40 verses because it's really more than that. Right. But 40 passages from the Bible for parents from Genesis all the way to Revelation.

And I did this when we were in Colossians. It was the section in Colossians that talked about fathers, train up your children and do not be harsh with them. When we did that in Colossians, I did this 40 Bible passages section.

And a lot of folks had said, Hey, I loved it. Can I get that list of Bible verses? So what I started doing then was writing a book that was 40 Bible verses for parents. It was going to be a follow up to 40 of the most popular Bible verses and what they really mean.

So my next book after that was going to be 40 verses for parents. Right. But you might remember this in 2015, we had a certain issue in a debacle that started up in my church. Some young upstarts had decided that I didn't know anything about parenting and I didn't know what I was talking about.

And they really caused quite a stir in our church and tried to divide people were very judgmental. This wasn't popular, what they what they were trying to do, because they were basically pointing fingers at everybody going, you're a bad parent, you're a bad parent.

It was like they tried to bring in this or usher in this revival of parenting. But all it was is just a bunch of judgy McJudgerson. There was there was nothing holy or gracious about it at all. But that was so discouraging for me.

That whole chapter was so discouraging that I really came to believe that I didn't know what I was doing. And I was no kind of a person to be writing a book called 40 Bible passages for parents. That's why it took so long for me to write another book.

Because of that, that episode, that issue that happened in 2015. And I thought, I just don't know what I'm doing. Nobody's going to want to listen to what I have to say. So who cares? So I didn't write it took me so long to write another book.

So I'm going back. And that manuscript that I was working on was like 90 done. I got through like chapter 20 or chapter 36 for a long. Yeah, I did. I was almost finished with it. But just that thing happened and I stopped working on it.

Nobody's going to want to read what I have to say about parenting. And so I'm coming back to that manuscript. I'm wanting to finish it up again. But using that same list of 40 verses, and that's what I'm going to be sharing in church on Sunday, going through Ephesians 6, 1 through 4.

And so look for that when the sermon hits online or probably sometime later Sunday afternoon. That's the section we're on. That's what the sermon is primarily going to deal with. And then sometime later in the future, maybe early part of next year, I'll have 40 passages for parents done and you'll have another book that you can pick up.

In the meantime, 25 Christmas myths and what the Bible says. That's the one that you can get. This next question or this first question that we have here actually has to do with a sermon that I preached a couple of weeks ago.

The 40-Day Bible Reading Plan and Christian Living Chapters

And this is from Sherry in Omaha. She said, I listened to your sermon on Sunday, November 10th. I was wondering if your 40-day Bible reading plan is available for download to what listeners? Ah, yes, it is.

You can actually, I just put it on the blog. Was it this week or last? I think it's last week. I think so. That I put it on the blog. So, if you go to pastorgabe .com, it's going to be the second article on there because I've since written another one on five myths about marriage, which was a follow-up to the sermon that I preached this past Sunday.

So, you can find the 40-day Bible reading plan and that 40-day plan, it covers the highlights of Scripture. So, it starts with the first two chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1 and 2. It ends with the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22 on day 40.

And in between catching like the high points so that you get an idea of the story of the Bible. As a whole. Yeah, as a whole. Right. Like, okay, the Bible is 750 ,000 words, what do I need to read that gives me kind of the gist of it?

And then I can go back through and read it word for word.

Yeah, kind of like what you would read on the back of the cover. Yeah, right.

For a book that's 750 ,000 words, this is like the blurb of the Bible. Yeah. You know, of course, I'm going to tell you, you should read the entire Bible. Yes, definitely. You should start in Genesis 1 and go all the way to Revelation 22.

But sometimes when you're covering that much material, you might get kind of lost or you'll forget certain things that you covered.

It takes a few reads. I forget what I've already read and like, oh, I don't remember that. Oh, I did read that.

Okay. Never mind. You know, it's like first and second Kings and first and second Chronicles might start to look a little familiar to you. You know, something like that. They kind of blur together. Yeah.

So this gives you like in 40 days, you'd be reading somewhere between two and three chapters a day to get kind of the gist of the message of the Bible from day one to day 40. And then make it a point after that to read through the entire Bible also.

But you can find that 40 day plan at PastorGabe .com. Now in the women's study that you're a part of, did you guys utilize this?

Have you? We are utilizing the part on the bottom. And what was the part on the bottom?

The, what was that? The gospel. I forgot what it's highlighted as. Chapters of the Bible for Christian living. Yes.

Christian living. And so we're doing John 15 this month.

At the bottom of the 40 day plan, I had put eight chapters of the Bible that give you instructions for Christian life. Right. And that's not on the 40 day plan. The reason why I didn't include it on the blog is because I figured I could do another blog later and talk about those eight chapters.

So that sheet that we handed out to members of the congregation, our women's group, had a little bit more to it than what you got on the blog. So yeah, you'll have another Bible reading plan that'll come up on the blog a little bit later on.

But anyway, so that's where you can find it, Sherry. I appreciate you listening to the sermon. I did kind of cover very quickly that 40 day plan at the end of the sermon, but you can find it in print there.

Go to PastorGabe .com. This next question comes from another Sherry, but she spells her name different. Sherry from Omaha was C-H-E-R-I. And this Sherry is S-H-E-R-R-Y. She says, hello, I recently came across your YouTube channel and I love it.

Most people's attention span is so limited today and these short videos are gold. I work with many Catholics and I was searching on your channel for a video on purgatory and I did not find one. That false teaching by the Catholic Church leads people to believe that they die with sin that was not covered by Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

That is total heresy. Yes, you're right, Sherry. It absolutely is. Thank you and sincerely, Sherry. That would be a good video to do. Yes. I haven't done that one yet. So yeah, purgatory, according to the Catholic encyclopedia, is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are not entirely free from venial faults or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.

See that right there, just that much of the definition of purgatory is already saying you have to do something to merit your salvation. This is why Catholicism is heresy. It is a message of works salvation.

You have to do certain works in order to be saved and this is one of those works. You have to go to a place of like the soul goes into this place where it's being purified by fire. I mean, it's hell.

Yeah. It's going to hell. But they don't describe it as hell. They say that hell's a different place. Right, of course. But yeah, that your soul burns off until you're purified and then you go to heaven.

And then you can go to heaven. Now, of course But sometimes that takes longer than your lifetime. It takes thousands of years. Yeah, is what they were, because I grew up Catholic and so that's what people at the church told me.

So during the Protestant Reformation, one of the things that had really bugged Martin Luther was the selling of indulgences and indulgences are supposed to knock thousands of years off of your purgatory sentence.

So if you give this much money, you can take off years off your purgatory or you pay this much money for a dead relative and we'll take so many years off of their purgatory sentence. And this wasn't a thing of the past, by the way, 500 years ago during the Protestant Reformation.

They're still doing it now. Yeah, they are. They are. Yep. Absolute heresy. So that would be a good video. I haven't written up something on that. The next what video is actually on hedge of protection.

Oh, that should be interesting. Ever been a part of a prayer group and somebody prays for a hedge of protection? Oh, you're just asking for it.

You're not going to make too many people happy.

I actually don't say it's bad. I explain where it comes from. Oh, like where does this idea where does this terminology come from? Hedge of protection. Do you know? Isn't it in the Bible? Yeah, it is.

Yeah, I was thinking so. It's in Job chapter one. It's in the conversation between God and Satan. Oh, yeah. When God says, look at my servant, Job, there's no one like him. And look how upright he is, a God fearing man who does what is righteous.

And Satan says, of course he does, because you've put a hedge of protection around him. He doesn't use that term exactly, but he says you've put a hedge around him, right around all that he has. So, of course, he thinks you're great because everything you've given to him is great.

But if you if you turn around and strike him, he will curse you to your face. And the Lord allows Satan to put Job to the test. And ultimately, we know that Job did not curse God. He whined and complained a lot.

Oh, yeah. And justified himself. Rightfully so, in my opinion. Well, yeah, some of his some of his complaining was really uncomfortable. When you go through what Job went through, yes, his sadness was totally justified.

But then he justified himself. Right. And he did sin. In his arrogance, then that became sinful. But he did not curse God.

He did not sin by cursing God. I can't say I would do any better in his position. That's right.

That is the truth. This being the Friday edition of the broadcast, I didn't ever say this, actually, but you can send emails. Yes. To when we understand the text at gmail dot com. We take questions from the listeners and address them on Friday.

Thank you to the Sherry's for their first two questions for us today. Yes. Oh, and by the way, going back to Sherry from Omaha. So she mentioned the 40 day Bible reading plan. I said that that was on the blog.

When I do the 40 Bible passages this coming Sunday, that will also be on the blog. OK. I'll do that a little bit later on. But you also have to get the book, too. If I put it on the blog, you have to promise to get the book.

OK. When the book comes out, 40 passages for parents.

Because you're going to explain those passages a little bit. Right. OK.

There's going to be the verse and then the explanation of the verse. And then what kind of advice, how that would live out practically for parents, how this applies to parenting your children.

Yes. Yeah. Now you have a few more years under your belt. You can add a little bit here and there.

Yeah. A few more years. And how many kids have we added since then? Two. Yeah. Since that whole episode happened in our church, we've had two kids. Yep. Ta-da. Ta-da. Yeah. It just happened that easily, too.

Well, no. We had just had Aria because she was born at the end of 2014. And then we added Mariah a few years after that. All right. Going on. Yes. This one comes from Kevin in Manitoba, Canada. You remember a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Cadbury eggs.

Tithing, Cheerful Giving, and Honoring an Unbelieving Husband

Oh, yeah. They're so good. So, he says, this is for Becky or Becky or Beaky. He spelled your name three different ways. Trying to spell it. Aw. Important candy information! Ooh. Exclamation point times three.

Not sure if the mini eggs were your favorite or the full eggs, but they have Cadbury minis for Christmas. Have a great weekend and God bless you guys. So, how about it?

The Cadbury minis. They're not my favorite, but I will still make do with them. They have more chocolate and the ratio between chocolate and cream just isn't quite the same. Is there any cream in it? The Cadbury minis?

Yeah. I thought so.

Okay. Some of them. I don't know. I don't remember ever eating a mini. The only mini eggs I remember, those like bird eggs you get at Easter, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Those aren't the same.

They're almost like Whoppers, I think. There are some that are Whoppers. Yes. There are others that are just plain chocolate and don't get me started on confusing the two. Becky does not like Whoppers.

Oh, they're so gross.

It's her least favorite candy. I think all your favorite candies somewhere fall in the Cadbury category because like Caramello. Yeah. That's a Cadbury candy. And there was at one point, a couple of years ago, you had me buying these certain chocolate bars.

They were all Cadbury. So Becky's favorite candies are Cadburys. Yeah. Yeah. They're good. We have the Russell Stover factory just 20 minutes from us. Yeah. It's in Abilene, Kansas. But Russell Stover's not your favorite.

No. As plentiful as that is in our area, that's not her favorite candy. No. I mean, it'll do.

It's okay. But no, not my favorite. And then we have the Sweet Granada down in Emporia. Yes. That is by far my favorite.

I haven't done that for you in a long time. I keep thinking about it and then I never follow through. But this was how I was wooing my wife when we were dating and then engaged. I was getting her Sweet Granada baskets delivered from Emporia.

So good. And then when we got married, I did that a couple of times too. But yeah, I've thought about it and I just never do it. It's okay. I still love you. But there's also kind of those modes where it's like, she probably doesn't want candy right now.

You know what I mean? I always want candy. All right.

Noted. Yes. I'll write that down over here. Sometimes it's not the best for me, but yes, I always want candy.

You want it. It's just probably not what you should be eating right now. Right. This next question has been submitted to us anonymously, so we've been asked to keep this anonymous. Hi, Gabe and Becky.

My husband is not a believer, but thankfully he still allows my daughter and me to attend church and other church related activities. I have felt a conviction to start tithing. However, my husband won't allow me to because he is the only one working at the moment and doesn't want his money being given away, especially to something that he doesn't agree with.

I want to honor him in this, but how do I continue to honor him and honor God at the same time? Thank you so much for your time. Now I'm going to kind of ignore the label of tithing because our New Testament system of giving is not the tithe.

I have a video on this. The Old Testament system of giving was not the tithe either. Tithes were taxes and they were required. You had to pay the tithe, but the Lord also called for freewill giving and that's whatever you wanted to give on top of those taxes that Israel was required to pay.

So what you give to the church is not a tithe. There is not a requirement to give 10 of your income to the church. You don't find that command anywhere in Scripture. What we do have is this in 2 Corinthians 9, starting in verse 6.

The point is this, whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

So we give what we can give and do so cheerfully. If you can give 10%, then give 10%. We've had new members that come to our church and they say, what is your views on tithing? I'll quote them this from 2 Corinthians 9, and I will say, we as a church are never going to hunt you down if you're not giving 10%.

We're not even watching to see if your giving is consistent from one month to the next. I remember Mark Dever being asked one time, it was a Q &A panel. It was him and D .A. Carson who were going back and forth answering questions that had been submitted by the congregation.

And this question fell to Mark Dever and said, what do you do for a member of your congregation that isn't tithing anymore or isn't giving to the church anymore? And he sits there and he goes, pray for them?

Everybody kind of laughs and he says, I mean, you're asking that question as though should we discipline them somehow? And the answer is no, we shouldn't. But if that person is not giving to the church, then there's probably going to be some kind of disconnect between them and the Lord.

And so we should pray that they would desire to give and give to God with a cheerful heart. And whatever they give, they're doing so in the service to the Lord. This is an act of worship. A few years back, I wanted to take offering plates out of the service because I had listened to a pastor who was talking about how he took offering plates out of his service and they just put a box in the back.

And he said, we've never struggled, never suffered in giving. And it doesn't obligate people to have to give. They give cheerfully out of their own heart. And so I thought, that sounds like a great idea.

So I proposed it to our deacons. I don't think we had elders yet at the time. We were still in that through that process of studying about eldership before we appointed our first elders. So I put it before the deacons and I said, what's your ideas?

What are your thoughts on we don't even have the offering plate in the service anymore? And one of the guys who eventually became an elder at our church, Dave, he spoke up and said, no, I think you keep the offering plates in the service because this is worship.

So we're worshiping together Sunday morning, 1030 to noon or 1220 when Gabe goes over. And part of our worship service is giving to the Lord. So we still have the collection with the passing of offering plates.

So they were giving people an opportunity to serve and worship God with their giving. And I was like, I can't argue with that. That's about the best answer I think that someone could give in opposition to removing offering plates from the church.

So there is not a mandated 10%. And again, when we have new members that ask about this, we'll tell them, if you can give 10%, I think that's a good mark to set. It's a good discipline. We're going to give 10 of our monthly income to the Lord.

But we leave it up to the family to decide because if the 10 makes them not cheerful anymore because their bills are too tight after, then that's not what we wanted.

Right. I mean, you're still going to have to give to your mortgage lender or your mortgage holder. Still got to make the payment on the car, still got to pay your bills. You got to do all of those things.

Keep your kids clothed. Yes. All the things that are needed to be done. But I also don't think that you make all of those payments that you need to make on a monthly basis and then look at what you have left.

Exactly. And then go, oh, well, we got this much left. Well, how about we give this much to the church? Right. This is why budgeting is important. Exactly. Because then coming into the month, you can budget everything out and you see exactly what you've got and what you can give.

So you're setting that mark and saying, we're going to give this much so that it's still a first fruits. It's still a desire and an intention before you even get that paycheck. We're going to give this much to the church.

We're giving this much to missions. We're giving this much to parachurch organizations. We're giving this much to God. But you're doing it responsibly. Yeah.

As good stewards. Right. With what the Lord has given to you. I was thinking shrewd, but I couldn't get past that. That is not really shrewd. Another S word.

Yeah. Yeah. Good stewards. Stewards. Yeah. There's some shrewdness to it, I guess. Yeah. You're being a good steward with that which the Lord has given to you because it ultimately all belongs to God anyway.

And that's why I think this anonymous gal put his money in quotation marks referring to her husband's money. He is an unbeliever is not yet come to the understanding that it's not his money. It belongs to God.

So we pray for his soul, most certainly. But we as Christians understand that everything that we have been given is ultimately God's anyway. So when we give to the church, we're giving to him, to the service of his kingdom, that which already belongs to the Lord.

He's blessed us with something that we might bless others with it.

And whenever you don't have something to give, then you can give of something that you do have like time. Or if you're good at cooking, you can cook a meal or you can be a good host or empty.

The trash cans of the church, vacuum the floors, fold the bulletin.

There's plenty of stuff that you can just jump right in that. I mean, they're tedious, but they all need doing. And really, it frees up the hands that are able to do something else. And so instead of and then everybody can shift in a place that would be everybody is able to bless the church.

So this it's not just about tithing money, it's I mean, you can devout some time. There's that. There's that.

Oh, what do you call it? The it's got the same alliteration. There's that there's that alliteration thing that people use where they say time, talent and treasure. Yes. There's like the three. Yeah. T's.

You're giving your time, you're giving your talent, an ability that you have a gifting that you've been given to the service of the church. We've all been called to that as well. And then of your treasure, the money that God has given to you, you're giving to the church.

So that's just kind of as we're going into answering this question, that's just kind of a primer to start things out that the word can also do prayer. Sorry, I just thought of that. You can that's not a T.

It's not a T, babe. But that falls under time. See, that's that's stuff we should be doing anyway, praying for our church.

Well, yes. But I mean, like, not just in a rushed, please, Lord, bless our church, you know, like actually pray for specifics and and reading through the Bible and using that as your prayer, asking.

Somebody in your church. I mean, do we have a prayer list that's set up? Is there something that I can do to help put that kind of thing together? Right. So, yeah, that all goes in with like time and talent.

Right. And we can I can also throw in there the whole card writing that we've been promoting lately. Yeah. Right. You can write cards to people in your church and just be encouraging. There are.

Yeah. There are plenty of things that you can do, but that's not to offset a call that we have to give true for. We are commanded to give, but just that we give with a cheerful heart, not under compulsion or out of reluctance, but doing so because we want to.

And the Apostle Paul, in his instruction of the Corinthians in the previous letter in First Corinthians, Chapter 16, he even says, set aside some money at the start of the week and be doing this on a regular basis so that when I come to you, it's not, oh, hey, we're supposed to be taking up an offering.

Let's do it right now and get it all gathered up. But regularly, as the church is gathered, that offering has been collected so that it might go help those Christians that are in need, which Paul was going to deliver it to.

But I'm looking at the fact that her husband doesn't want her to. Okay. We're getting there.

Okay. So I'm just, we're starting with kind of a basic primer on that word tithing. Yes. It's just that word tithing means a tenth. So we'll feel obligated by that word to give a tenth. So I like the word offering better.

And so sometimes we'll lump that in together and we'll say tithes and offerings, because people are so used to that word tithe. But it's not a tithe that we've been called to give. We've been called to give of what the Lord has given to us, absolutely, but not obligated to give a set amount and it always be that much.

I just start out with that so that you would be free from the burden of thinking about a tithe and more that you are giving what you can give with a cheerful heart. So that's the overview of tithing. Now let's get to the specifics of the question.

So starting out, my husband is not a believer, but thankfully he still allows my daughter and me to attend church and other church related activities. So here's the first piece of advice that I'm going to give you is that you talk with your pastor about this and exactly this.

You could even take this question exactly the way you've given it to me and give it to your pastor and say, can you help me with this? Because the pastor of your church, it's good that he knows this, that your husband is not saved and maybe you've already told him this.

I'm not telling you anything that you've not already talked about with your pastor. But I'm still saying that he is your shepherd. And so it would be better to follow his guidance on this than mine. I'm willing to offer whatever help that I can through this program.

But I think that your pastor, it is right for him to know this, especially when he's got such close proximity to you and to your husband, that he might be able to reach out to your husband and share the gospel with him.

And maybe your pastor can influence your husband to become a believer. And people in your church know to pray for you over this. This is not uncommon for us in our church that we have a woman that will come whose husband is not saved.

And we've dealt with exactly this issue before as well. I'll tell you off mic who I'm thinking of, or you may already know who I'm talking about. But she started attending our church. Her husband wasn't a Christian.

Every time she came to us and talked about it, she was always in tears over it. But she wanted to start giving to our church and she said the same thing to us. My husband is the breadwinner. He doesn't want the money that we make to be given to the church because he doesn't believe in it.

He thinks it would be a waste of money. What can I do about that? And so we sat down and talked with her. Over time, her husband's heart was softened to it. And he even started attending church with her later.