Ask a Pastor: September 2024

Okay, we are going to pray and then we're going to get rolling here today. We're going to be doing ask a pastor because otherwise we miss it.

It's normally scheduled for next weekend, but I won't be here. So let's pray and we'll get into our study.

Lord Jesus, as we open up your word, we ask you, Holy Spirit, to help us to rightly understand what is revealed there so that we may properly believe, confess, and do accordingly.

We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, a little bit of a reminder. The questions are going to be answered in the order that they arrived.

So we figure that that's a fair and equitable way of addressing the questions. But we do have a slew of questions.

I have like a whole bunch here. All right, so Una asks, I was carefully taking pictures of the sun setting and it made me think.

In Revelation 21, it says that the new Jerusalem will not need a sun or a moon because the glory of God will give it light.

Is this just for the new Jerusalem? I wondered if this would be for the new earth too.

The reason I ask is because if we look at the sun now in this life, we will do severe damage to our eyes.

Will looking at God's glory be okay? The question sounded good in my head, she says, and then she had the laughing emoji.

I believe the way the text describes it is that that's describing the entire new earth, that we will not need the sun or the moon or anything like that for light, that the glory of God will illuminate the entire new earth.

And that being the case, I don't know if there's anything mentioned regarding protective eyewear necessary when looking at the glory of God.

I would think that in a new earth where we have sinless glorified bodies,

I don't think that's going to be an issue. But I would note this though, is that when we consider biblical precedent, even the angels in the presence of God do not look directly at God.

With their wings, they cover their face. That's part of the holiness thing of God. I would note that God in his glory is going to,

I would say, we still probably may not be looking at him directly in that sense. But his glory,

I kind of like to picture it kind of like the Aurora Borealis on steroids, you know, globally kind of thing.

And so, you know, but that's just a guess. But good question. God's going to have a comprehensive vision.

His vision plan is to not allow our vision to get screwed up in the first place. So there, yeah, it's comprehensive.

Preventative eye care, got it. Okay, Nathaniel writes, where does repentance lie in regard to justification?

And is it necessary before or after we are granted faith? The answer is it is necessary both before and after faith.

I would note that oftentimes people misunderstand what repentance is. And people sit there and go, well, repentance is our part.

And the forgiveness of sins is God's part. That's actually incorrect. We note that God is the one who grants repentance.

And here's our key passage on this. It's Acts 11. Acts 11, when Peter is explaining to the circumcision party, again, the party you don't want to go to, why he ate in the house of Gentiles after he preached the gospel to Cornelius and his family.

And all of them became Christians and were filled with the Holy Spirit and then were baptized. After Peter recounts what took place there, it says this,

The question then is, if God's the one granting it, what is it? So repentance comprises two things.

First and foremost, sorrow for sin. We would all agree with that. But the part that a lot of people overlook is that true repentance is not merely sorrow for sin, but it is also confidence in the goodness and mercy of God for the sake of Christ that he forgives sins.

So it's both sorrow and faith. And we have great examples. When I do comprehensive teaching on this, if we were to look at Saul's repentance,

King Saul, he didn't repent. He deflected and projected. And he acts very much like a narcissist.

You can't get the guy to admit he's done a darn thing wrong. And so when confronted regarding his sins, he blames it on the people.

He blames it on Samuel. Well, you were late showing up. So I forced myself to do the sacrifice.

You're not allowed to do that regardless. And so he's constantly blaming other people. There's no sorrow for sin.

There's no acknowledgement. And he says, well, the people made me do it. Really? Okay. So yeah, that's a problem.

So that's not repentance. Then you think of Judas. Judas had legitimate sorrow for sin. Complete sorrow for sin.

The guy wept and felt so horrible. And here's the interesting thing. He was searching for an absolution.

And he went to the place where the Mosaic Covenant should have provided him that. And that's with the chief priests.

And well, they conspired with him in the murder of Christ. So they didn't give him an absolution. They basically said, well, that's for you to deal with, not us.

And so he threw his money into the temple. And he despaired of God's mercy and took his own life. And taking your own life is an ineffective, inappropriate, and not even remotely close enough sacrifice for sins.

And so as Christ said regarding him, it would have been better had he never been born. King David gives us the perfect example of what repentance looks like when confronted with his sin by the prophet

Nathan. David just says, I have sinned against Yahweh. Full stop.

That's all he said. And what does Nathan give him? A full -on absolution. God has put your sin away.

And then he pens, Psalm 51, created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

And so he has absolute confidence that he's forgiven in Christ. And he owns his stuff. So repentance is gonna be sorrow for sin, owning your sin, and also a confidence that Christ will forgive.

That's the idea. And so then you'll note that not only is that necessary initially for justification, and God is the one who grants it, nobody can work that up in and of themselves, but that is the daily life of the

Christian. What do we pray daily? Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, right?

So you'll note that the daily life of the Christian is the daily life of repentance.

And it's a grind. It's a slog. It's humbling. It's embarrassing. It's all of these things, right?

And then when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, and we are raised from the dead, not in mortal bodies, but in immortal, glorified human bodies like Jesus's body, we won't ever have to repent, okay?

Which will be awesome because I will never have to tell my wife ever again she was right and I was wrong, okay?

See, there's tangible benefits coming in the new world. All right,

Kai writes, I have a question about taking a weapon and going to war. One of my charismatic friends said that a

Christian can never take a gun and defend his country. He also said that a Christian can't even defend himself or his family with a gun or even with fists.

I say this is twisted pietism. You are absolutely correct, it's twisted pietism, and I have a passage.

Hang on, let me find it real quick here. Let's see, what did I do with it?

In my pre -work, I thought I had put this together, but no, Rose, bro, you're getting old, and this is just embarrassing.

Okay, let's do this. I am going to sword. The word is sword, okay? And in the

Gospel of Luke, Jesus says words that I love, that the liberals and the woke left, they hate, hate, hate, hate, hate this passage.

So it's Luke chapter 22, and Jesus said to them, when you set out with no money bag or knapsack or sandal, did you lack anything?

He's talking to his disciples. They said no, and they said nothing. So he said to them, but now, as Jesus is now going to go to the cross and be crucified, now let the one who has a money bag take it.

And so you'll note that when Jesus sent the disciples out on their initial training runs on how to share the

Gospel and stuff like this, they didn't take a money bag. They didn't take a knapsack. They lived off of people's generosity and things like this.

Jesus says, now you need to take a money bag, okay? And likewise, a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one, okay?

For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled, and he was numbered with the transgressors. So you'll note that Jesus tells his disciples in preparation for his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and then them being sent into the world, take a money bag with you.

You don't just trust that God's going to feed you. You need to work out your needs and stuff like that.

And along the way, take a sword. Take a sword with you. And if you don't have one, sell your cloak and buy one.

And they go, whee, right? And here's the other thing, okay?

This comes back to something that I mentioned in the sermon today. Romans 4 says something really important.

And let me find it real quick here, because I'm doing this from memory. And as I get older and older, this is a very dicey proposition, okay?

I'm just saying that I should not be doing this as much as I used to. Okay, here we go.

All right, here we go. It's Romans 4 .15. Where there is no law, there is no transgression, okay?

So my immediate question to the person who says, Christians can't carry a gun, they can't defend themselves.

All right, show me the passage that says that. And the only one that they can come up with, well,

Jesus says, when somebody strikes you in the right cheek, turn the other cheek. Is that saying you can't defend yourself?

What's the context? What does that mean? And I would note, we have a great example in David.

And who is Jesus? He's the son of David. Jesus returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. What's he wielding?

A sword. And David, he defended himself.

He defended Israel. I would note that the cost of him, the bride price for him to marry

Michal was 200. Well, actually, the price was 100 Philistine foreskins.

And Philistines don't give those things up willingly, okay? And he not only paid 100, he didn't pay just 100

Philistine foreskins for Michal, he paid 200. No, they were not having a half -off sale.

So I would note, so the idea then is this, is that without a clear passage that says,

Christians are forbidden to defend themselves, which is nonsense, we recognize that the commandment says, you shall not murder, right?

You shall not murder. So not all killing is murder. Is it murder to take a convicted felon who's committed a capital crime and then have him executed for his capital crime?

No, that's not murder. That's called justice. And that person is experiencing God's wrath. Then since the government has been tasked with the job of protecting society, the families that comprise the civilization that that government comes from, are

Christian nations or nations that are primarily Christians, are they forbidden by God to have a military and to defend themselves?

No, they're not. There is no biblical text that says that. The Jehovah's Witnesses use this, kind of play this game as well.

And so they'll say something like this. They'll say, well, the Bible may not have an absolute prohibition against celebrating birthdays, but do you think it's just a coincidence that the two times that birthdays are mentioned in the

Bible that people lost their lives? Yes. You think back to when

Joseph was in prison and the cupbearer and the baker where they had their dreams and stuff like that.

And it says on Pharaoh's birthday, Pharaoh lifted up the head of the baker and killed him.

That happened on Pharaoh's birthday. And then the next time birthdays are mentioned in the Bible, well, it's

Herod's birthday. And Herodias' daughter did her dirty dancing kind of thing.

And what happened? John the Baptist was killed. Where? At Herod's birthday.

So therefore we can figure out, we can divine through the tea leaves and stuff like this, that there's a hidden message from God and God's message is thou shalt not celebrate birthdays.

Oh, oh snap. Because there was even singing and celebrating.

Yeah, there was. Then, yeah, see now you're getting all biblical, Stephen Elliot. Stephen Elliot noted the fact that the angels sung and celebrated the birth of Christ on his actual birthday.

And then because it took him a long time to get there, he got the gifts belated. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Because he ordered, the parents ordered the gift from Amazon. It took a few weeks for them to arrive. Yeah, right.

So, yes. No, they don't.

So I would note the Quakers suffer from a similar problem that a lot of denominations suffer from.

If you were to kind of think about it, what's the big problem where Christian denominations deviate? They deviate because of something called

God within -ism, enthusiasm, which is like legitimately what

Satan did with our first parents, Adam and Eve. He made them into enthusiasts. When you read the text,

Eve, rather than looking at her husband and saying, God said we shouldn't eat of this, when the question came up, should

I eat of it or not, she went inward to her feelings. When she saw that the fruit was beautiful, desirous to make one wise.

Okay, those are all feelings. Okay, she looked for the answer inside of herself based on her feelings. So Quakers are specifically known for doing what?

For believing that God will come and speak directly to them. If you go to a

Quaker church where they're still the silent type, they begin their church services in silence, waiting for an unction or a move of the

Spirit and then for somebody to speak as they're carried along by the Spirit. And they don't have an organized church service where they read the

Bible. So when somebody says, Christians cannot have these things,

I sit there and go, all right, I need an actual command from Christ or from the

Old Testament that forbids soldiers from being a

Christian, from defending yourself. I would note the very first Gentile Christian, what was his occupation?

Soldier. He's a soldier. And you'll note there's nothing in the text that says anything about, and then

Paul instructed him he needed to resign from being a soldier because Christians are not allowed to defend themselves or be part of the military or anything like that.

Nothing of the sort is in the text. So then the idea then is that the first commandment, you shall not murder, may require you to end someone's life who is seeking to murder you.

Okay, so when it comes then to carrying a gun, the idea is actually quite simple.

People carry guns because the world we live in, there are other people who have murderous intentions, and what a gun does is it's an equalizer.

It's a force multiplier, and it allows somebody to have at least a fighting chance to defend themselves should somebody wish them bodily harm.

And you'll note that the government allows for self -defense. It legitimately does.

Yeah, except for in California, but yeah, yes, Dan, yeah, he should, yep.

Okay, so when Christ tells Peter to put his sword away, it's because Peter was ready to defend

Christ to the death, but Christ was there to lay down his life. And so in that particular case, it's not a contradiction to what

Jesus says here earlier. Now when you're going on your missionary journeys, you carry a sword with you to defend yourself.

That's not a contradiction, but what Peter was basically willing to do was take up arms for the purpose of protecting the kingdom of Christ so that Christ would become king.

He's still thinking Jesus is going to be set up as an earthly king, and Christ is going to be coronated for sure, but his throne is going to be the cross, and his crown is going to be the crown of thorns.

So in the context, Christ is not there to defend himself or establish his earthly kingdom, which is what

Peter is there to do by defending him, giving Jesus a fighting chance to be put on the throne of David.

So he says, those who live by the sword die by the sword. He's thinking in terms of earthly kingdoms. Christ hasn't come to set that up.

That's the point. You have to consider the bigger context in the passage. Yeah? In addition, there's no arguing that those are completely dangerous.

Right, and then in that text, he also says, how then are the scriptures to be fulfilled? Okay, so there's a little bit more to it than that.

Absolutely. Right, yeah.

So the idea here is that as Christians, we're legitimately not required to defend ourselves.

I know that sounds kind of odd, but that's absolutely true. So let me get to the first one that you brought up, though.

If you're a soldier in the Roman Empire and they tell you to basically murder, you know, villagers that are not really, you're not legitimate at war with, and you said you had a problem with that as a

Christian, you should. So as Christians then, Christians historically subscribed to this concept then of just war theory.

So for instance, all right, and so for me, this is an interesting dilemma for me because of my family dynamics.

All right, so on my maternal side, on my mom's side of the family, my mom's family is from Wiesbaden, Germany.

And a notable number of my mother's uncles were compelled under threat of death to serve in the

Nazi military. And I would say to their eternal shame, they did.

And a lot of them, a notable number of them lost their lives on the Russian front. Notable number of them did.

Then, and the reason why I say lamentable is because the

Nazis were not waging a just war. The war that the Nazis began was absolutely unjust and sinful and murderous from its inception.

From a complete crazy maniacal maniac, who I think is a type in shadow.

I think Hitler was the beta test for the man of lawlessness. All right, that's the best way

I can describe him. So the Nazis beginning that war the way they did, they were not justified.

It was not a just war. And the pretenses used by Hitler's regime to start that war are just that.

They're just pretenses. So what the Nazis were engaging in was full out mass murder, not merely the

Holocaust, but the entire war itself. I would note how many 20 to 30 million people in Europe lost their lives in that conflict.

Nobody talks about the bigger number. Everyone talks about how many Jews were lost, right? And important to note, it may be less than six million.

It may be four. But it's not less than three. Let's just put it that way. But everyone focuses on that number.

But there are legitimately, we're talking mass graves. And the number of people who lost their lives in that conflict is upwards of 30 million, 30, 35.

It's a huge number. And all of that blood is on Hitler's hands. Absolutely on Hitler's hands.

Now, what about the United Kingdom? What about the soldiers who fought for the

United Kingdom or fought for the United States or the French who fought in the French resistance or the

Dutch who fought in the Dutch resistance against the Nazis and stuff like that? They were absolutely justified and waging a just war to topple

Satan's, Hitler's regime and bring it to an end. And then you'll note the

United States was doing everything they could to stay out of this war. And we were attacked.

And so we responded in kind. And so I would note that of the soldiers who fought for the

United States, we were not engaging in a murderous campaign. That's a just war for the allies.

It is not a just war for the Axis powers in any sense of the imagination. So if you were to just kind of fast forward, the

Ukraine right now, Ukraine is in the war with Russia. Russia invaded them. They have every right to defend.

Russia had no right to invade. When we consider just war theory, this is not a just war on the part of the

Russians. And I do find it fascinating that as impressive as everyone thought their military was, this thing is ground on for almost two full years now.

And did you see the weapons depot that the Ukrainians just blew up? Holy smokes.

Very fascinating how this is all playing out. So the idea then is that Christians can participate in just war.

They can defend themselves. They can defend their families. And if you want to defend yourself by purchasing a firearm and carrying a gun, you are free to do so.

Note then you are also subject to the laws of the lands as far as registering, making sure that you have the right licenses.

And I would note if anyone wants to get a concealed carry weapons permit, please go through the proper training to make sure that you can handle that weapon properly so you don't end up discharging it negligently and hurting yourself or killing somebody by accident.

When I was growing up in the fourth grade, so one of my classmates died because a loaded handgun was negligently left on a coffee table.

So that's a whole other story. So there's a lot to consider in those things. When you make decisions like that, it's not merely the decision to defend yourself.

The decision is also being made to make sure that you're truly protecting everybody in light of the consequences of how that decision could go sideways.

Yes, Cyprian. Cyprian Carvin.

That was a huge problem. And the fact that it was decided that they'd be restored after a period of penance.

Yeah. He's not exactly right.

But I would note this is that what happened at the time of Cyprian is notable in the development of Roman Catholic theology.

So the question was, okay, well, you know, Cyprian was noting the fact what to do with Christians whose faith lapsed during times of persecution.

And I want you to, let's kind of put this into a little bit of a fuller context. So let me run a hypothetical.

So the hypothetical goes like this. And I'm going to pick on people. Just bear with me. I don't mean you any harm or I'm not trying to somehow besmirch your name.

I'm just going to come up with a hypothetical situation. Let's say that sometime down the road, a particular president takes office and decides that they're not going to tolerate or believe that Christians have a right to freedom of religion.

And they'll use stupid rhetoric like this. Well, freedom of religion is not an absolute right. And so it's wrong for Christians to say that homosexuality is a sin and stuff like that.

And so any Christian church that will not fly the

LGBTQXYZElementalP flag during the month of June, that the members of that church will be arrested and will be thrown into prison and their pastors will be jailed for life.

Okay. I know it sounds extreme, but it almost sounds plausible, doesn't it? Okay. I'll see you in prison.

Right. I'll be sitting next to you. Yeah. So I assure you under that scenario, well,

I'm going to go and we ain't flying that flag. Okay. But here's the deal is that when that type of persecution comes, some of you are going to say, it's just a flag.

It doesn't really matter. Just fly it so that we can have safety and have peace in our neighborhood.

But we refuse to fly it. So people burn down the church or something. Right. And some of us get arrested.

And so now the question is, well, where do you stand? You're a member of Kongsvinger.

And you sit there and go, well, I'm just here for the coffee. Okay. Okay. And things like this.

So you start backpedaling. And here's the deal. Some of you then are going to end up with really long prison sentences.

Legitimate. And some of you, your own children might have to face those long prison sentences, or maybe because of the violence against the church, somebody has lost their life.

Right. But the people who chicken out and go, I didn't sign up for this. And all of a sudden they abandon their faith and they turn on everybody else.

Right. Well, when the persecution is over, what are you going to feel about those people?

Those of you who went to prison or lost a family member, what are you going to think about the people who turned tail and ran?

Not only is it cowardly, they're going to say, your cowardice resulted in the death of my child or resulted in my husband being arrested and going to prison for 40 years.

And your actions broke up our family and you didn't suffer anything. Yet you were here enjoying our coffee with us and acting like you were a

Christian. So when you put it all together like this, this is a really difficult question.

Because somebody comes around and says, I was wrong. Please, I was wrong.

I acted cowardly to save my own life, to save my own skin. And now you're going to have to worship next to them.

And when you hear the absolution spoken, you might say, yeah, but it doesn't apply to them. That would be the temptation, right?

So that was what the church was going through. And so the idea then was they're not going to excommunicate the penitent cowards.

Cyprian's decision and the decisions of the churches at that time was that they would have to, and I forget how long it was, it was more than a year or better about that, for some time, they weren't allowed to have the sacrament.

They can come and hear the word. The absolution didn't apply to them and things like this. And then once they demonstrated through their actions that they truly did have a confession of faith.

See, you'll note that when somebody comes to Christianity, when they have a confession of faith, we believe it in good faith, right?

Unless proven otherwise. But in this particular case, now the question is, how do we bring them back, reconcile and bring unity back in the congregation?

But also how do we test to see whether or not this person even legitimately has faith or if they're just because the winds have changed, they've decided to go the other direction, right?

And so the idea of the time of penance was not for them to somehow earn the right back, but was to say, we don't know if we can trust you or not.

And to bring you into, just bring you into full fellowship would scandalize the people who lost people or who suffered greatly in the persecution.

And so we can't now just act on good faith and say that you have faith.

We want to see it demonstrated by your works. And so that was the idea of the penance. It wasn't for them to somehow burn off the guilt or whatever, but it was really designed to kind of think about what's for the best of the whole

Christian community under those circumstances. But that idea of penance then ultimately stays embedded within the

Christian church and gets manipulated and turned into the sacrament of penance later in the

Middle Ages. But you can say that it started there and probably started correctly, but was skewed horribly during the

Middle Ages. But then also there's also a concurrent thing that happened at that time. And that was interesting.

The people who went to prison who suffered scourging and things like this for the name of Christ, rather than going to their pastors for private absolution, people in the congregation started going to them as their confessors.

It's a fascinating thing in the history of the church, which I think is not correct to do. But under the circumstances, that made sense because these people have notably participated in the sufferings of Christ.

So, yeah, no, that's some interesting things there that happened.

Yes, correct. And those sins were not done in private.

They were done in such a public way that everybody in the congregation knew full well who were the ones who cowardly denied

Christ and things like this. And then I would also add to it that the Roman Catholic sacrament of penance is really a mess.

So if you were to do private absolution with a Roman Catholic priest, when you hear the absolution, then the priest is also going to give you a temporal punishment to go along with it.

You're going to be required to do this thing or that thing or say seven Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers and all this kind of stuff.

And they believe that it's required of them to give temporal punishments along with the absolution.

And I would note that nowhere in Scripture are we instructed to do such a thing.

There may be temporal consequences, but those consequences come from God. And it is not within the purview of the church to issue temporal punishments for people for the purpose of, well, you did this sin, and this sin requires this kind of temporal punishment on the part of the pastor.

It's a complete abomination. I would note that when temporal consequences come with sin, even absolved sin, most likely those are the natural things that occur.

Somebody decided they were going to be a Christian bank robber for a season. Well, God will forgive that if they repent.

And so they come and they receive an absolution. I shouldn't have been a Christian bank robber. I should have gotten a job and instead

I decided to rob banks. Well, that's great, but you're going to have to spend the next 30 years in a federal prison.

And that's not my doing. That's the state's doing. And so you'll note when it comes to temporal consequences for sin, that's the job of the government, not the job of the church.

And so the whole penance system is a misappropriation and a creeping into the civil realm by the church.

When the church has no mandate to punish sinners, it has the mandate to absolve them. All right, good question so far.

Good discussion. All right, Mellon asks, Okay, I was re -listening to a message Nathan Busenitz had given in 2013,

Strange Fire Conference, about charismatics and how we are to be discerning of false prophets. He pointed to a passage in Deuteronomy 18 and also

Deuteronomy 13, 1 through 5, where he says that even when a prophet's prophecy comes true, but he is leading people to follow after other gods, that it is not to be listened to and he must be considered a false prophet deserving of the death penalty.

What stood out to me in that passage was that Yahweh said that he was testing them to see if they were truly committed to following him only and not to be persuaded by these false prophets to follow after other gods.

I'm wondering if Pastor Rosebert would say that this may be why the Lord has allowed these false prophets of our day to continue with their aberrant teachings even when their prophecies do not come true.

I'm so appalled with the blasphemous things Kenneth Copeland and others like him are saying in the name of Christ.

They have no fear of God before their eyes, as Romans 3, 18 says. So here's the deal, because it actually says in that passage in Deuteronomy when a prophet gives a prophecy and it does not come true or it comes true and then they say let us follow after other gods, the follow after other gods then is kind of the place where you recognize all prophets, all people claiming to be receiving direct revelation from God, there is not merely a testing to see whether their prophecy comes true, there's a theological test.

And I would note that every single one of the Pentecostals who claim that there is a second baptism of the

Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues is guilty of believing in a different Holy Spirit than the

Holy Spirit of Scripture. That's a different Holy Spirit and that's actually a different God.

And so every charismatic Pentecostal prophet who speaks in the name of God, who holds to that theology is by definition from Deuteronomy 13 a false prophet because they're telling you to follow after the

God who contradicts himself. You'll note that the Scripture says there's one

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one

God and Father of all. And the charismatic says, well, there's two. There's water baptism and there's a baptism of the

Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in tongues. Wrong. There's one baptism and you'll note, when do the

Scriptures say a Christian receives the Holy Spirit? In the waters of baptism. Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit, the promises for you and for your children, Peter says on the day of Pentecost. One baptism for the remission of sins, that's in the

Nicene Creed. And when the charismatic Pentecostal says, no, there's two, you sit there and go, nope, you fail.

You fail the test because the God you believe in contradicts himself.

The God you believe in has said there's one baptism and you say there's two. You fail the test.

And I would note that, you know, who are the people who fall for these people? Those who don't know their

Bibles. Over and over and over again, I have seen people completely buying into all of this nonsense.

When they finally open their Bible, and that's what fighting for the faith is all about, to help them follow along and read their

Bible. They sit there and go, oh, oh, that something's, oh, right, right?

That's the whole point, because how does God open our eyes? Through the word. So yeah, yeah, God definitely is testing because the biblical texts say so,

Deuteronomy 13. And I would note, how many Christians who call themselves Christians fail the test?

Because they won't listen to the word. We don't need that old stuffy

Bible. That's not a fresh revelation. Yeah, you get the idea.

Okay, Crystal Halverson says, who is the queen of heaven referred to in Jeremiah 718?

I can definitively say it's not me. Okay. I'm sorry,

I was just, I could not help it. Okay, Jeremiah chapter 7.

And here's where I'm going to, again, give a plug.

I'm going to give a plug for the Lutheran Study Bible, okay? Because questions like this clearly, they create questions where you want to get an answer to it.

And getting at these answers are not hard if you have a good study Bible. So the short answer is, the queen of heaven is basically just another name for one of the idols that they were worshiping.

Oftentimes, it's like a stand -in for a She -Ra. If you remember the time of Jeremiah, they were constantly trying to get

Yahweh and She -Ra to hook up, and God wouldn't have anything to do with that crazy lady.

So 718, let me do this. Okay, the children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven.

All right, let's see if there's just a quick note on that, 2 Kings, and let me see. All right, now let's do this. I'm going to go to the

Lutheran Study Bible, see if I got this. Here we go. Okay, so queen of heaven, an astral deity and goddess of fertility, possibly

Ishtar, in whom the people had put their trust. Okay, so you'll note that, and here's the weird bit about paganism, is that the deities of Egypt are going to be the same deities worshipped in other parts of the

Mediterranean, just under different names. Okay, so you get the idea. So that's what that's referring to, possibly

Ishtar, and you're going to note that even the Lutheran Study Bible is not 100 % convinced that it's Ishtar.

I've seen scholars make the argument that it's probably Asherah, just because of the notable amount of worshippers of Asherah at the time of Jeremiah, and this is archaeologically borne out as well.

All right, Cliff writes, please explain why he switches from physical needs to the Holy Spirit in Luke 11.

It seems like he, I'm assuming this is Jesus, is saying to ask for your physical needs, but then ends with give the

Holy Spirit to those who ask him. What does it mean to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God, as written in Matthew 4 .4?

Okay, good questions, because let's take a look. I'm going to open up, I want a biblical text, and I want, first of all,

Luke, I've got to spell it right. Luke, boy,

I can't type today. Luke 11 and nine, hang on a second here.

Okay, which of you has a friend who will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves?

Okay, let me explain what's going on here. Okay, so you're going to note that this is

Luke's, this is part of Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount. And that Jesus, we learn from the

Gospel of Luke that Jesus kind of had certain stump speeches that he gave in multiple places.

Okay, so in Luke 11, Jesus is going to give us the Lord's Prayer. Rather than hearing it from the

Sermon on the Mount, we're going to hear similar themes from the Sermon on the Mount, then it reiterated by Christ in a different setting.

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.

And he said to them, watch this, when you pray, say, okay, the person who sits there and goes, you can't pray the

Lord's Prayer, that's a rote prayer, it's written, and you're going to put the

Holy Spirit in a box and all that kind of nonsense. Jesus said, when you pray, say, our

Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we ourselves forgive everyone who's indebted to us.

Lead us not into temptation, right? And then he said, which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him.

He will answer him from within. Do not bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything. I assure you, if somebody comes knocking on my door at midnight, I need some bread.

There's a convenience store a mile and two -tenths just down the street, and it's open all night.

Okay? Why are you knocking on my door, right? Yeah. Yeah, you got a point there.

Yeah, why the people say you can't put God in a box? It's a stupid slogan, by the way. And here's the thing. Scripture warns us about people who have what are called plausible -sounding arguments, okay?

Over and again, I am shocked that these plausible -sounding arguments with no

Biblical text have such weight in people's minds. It's nonsense.

Where did you hear you can't put God in a box? They put Jesus in a tomb. That's a little smaller than a box, you know?

And it's not very, you know, they put Jesus in a tomb. And the Holy Spirit, you know, then you got the Ark of the

Covenant, things like this. It's like, that they sit there and go, well, you're putting God in a box. God put himself in an infant named

Jesus, you know? Get the idea here? And that somehow has weight with them.

Ooh, well, there you go. You can't do theology that way. You can only do theology with text. But let's keep coming back here.

So he says, I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will rise and give him whatever he needs.

So in the scenario, my friend says, I don't have my wallet with me.

I need a sandwich. And I know it's midnight. I will eventually get up and I will say this word upon my getting up.

Fine. I'll get you a sandwich. Give me a minute here.

Bread. Here's your sandwich. Right? Now, here's the point that Jesus is making.

God is nothing like we are. Nothing like we are.

That's the point that Christ is making here. So I tell you, ask God and it will be given to you.

Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. He's basically saying, listen, you, when pushed and annoyed, will eventually do something when asked.

God isn't like that at all. Okay? Have you ever stopped to think, I don't even know what time zone

God is on. Maybe us here in Minnesota, when we pray, it might be one in the morning by God's time.

And God is sitting in a sleeping cap or something. He doesn't really do that. The point, and that's kind of the idea here, is that we pray around the clock to our

Father in heaven and he hears our prayers and meets our needs. And he does so not because we're impudent or we have impudence or something like that.

No, he does it because he's so good. Everyone who asks, receives. The one who seeks, finds.

The one who knocks, it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, instead of a fish, will give him a serpent?

Okay? So note here, the question is, why does he start with physical needs and then get to the spiritual ones?

The point that Jesus is making, and that's the thing, is that sometimes when you do theology, you have to do it by analogy.

And so Jesus is doing theology by analogy here, by comparing people to God.

But you'll note, God isn't like this. Or if he asks for an egg, we'll give him a scorpion. So if then you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, and you do, and you are evil, how much more will the

Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And so the point is this, is that we trust that God is not like us.

He's not annoyed. And he's good, we're evil. And even though we're evil, we know how to give good gifts.

God is even greater than we are. That's the point in that passage. All right.

My apologies. We're going to have to end there. Those of you who've asked questions that I didn't get to today, stay tuned for the next version of Ask a

Pastor, which will be in a month. All right. Peace to you all. Keep us in your prayers as we travel.