WWUTT 1805 Q&A The Gabe and Babe Show, Felix Culpa, Lordship Salvation

What is the doctrine of the fortunate fall? How important is it that we think about our sin biblically?

And once again, is Lordship Salvation in the Bible? The answers to these questions when we

Understand the Text. This is

When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Well done Becky. Thanks. You didn't even have to lift with your legs and not with your back there.

I know. It was easy. Right before we started recording, she was talking about how her back hurt and she couldn't do the podcast.

Yeah. I said you don't need a back. I need extra motivation. Yeah, you don't need your back to do the podcast. But you do.

You have to sit forward and eat the mic. No, I prefer that you not eat the mic actually.

These are pretty sensitive microphones. They are. Very sensitive. I don't think you need to chew on this one.

So this is the Friday edition of the broadcast and we take questions from the listeners which you can send to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

I've been over the last few podcasts reading polls that I've been doing online. This is a poll that was inspired by our study in Hebrews this week.

The first chapter of Hebrews states clearly without any doubt or ambiguity that Jesus Christ is

God. True or false? True. Yes, true. That is exactly what

Hebrew says. Yeah. Sorry, I was a little distracted by... You were looking at your phone.

I was trying to... You were trying to cheat. I was trying to preserve my battery by shutting down all of the open windows.

You're welcome. You shutting down your open windows? I know. That's amazing. All of them. You don't have like 1 ,800 windows open.

Well, I did. No, I don't. So, of the sun, he says, Hebrews 1 .8,

your throne, oh God, is forever and ever and the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

Amen. Plainly stating that Jesus Christ is God. So far on the poll, the poll is actually still going at the time that we're recording this, but so far it's 100 % true.

Woo -hoo. Glad to hear it. Well done. Most of my readers, my followers here, 100 % turnout on the true.

Nice. That the first chapter of Hebrews states that Jesus Christ is

God. So listen to the Hebrew study, that's on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Still doing

Song of Songs on Thursday, I've got a few more weeks there. And then once I finish up Song of Songs, we're going to go on to Isaiah.

Woo -hoo. Also, upcoming what videos on The Chosen, the

TV series, what do Christians need to know about it, polygamy, does the

Bible say that polygamy is okay? We've answered that question a few times. We have. The active and passive obedience of Christ.

Perhaps you've heard that mentioned in a sermon, but you weren't sure what it was. What's the active and passive obedience of Christ?

So I got a 90 -second video coming out on that. And I've got a few videos on the way with a few more

Christmas myths and what the Bible says. Oh, cool. Don't forget about the book, 25

Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says. It is available online. You can get it for your e -reader, like Kindle or whatever else.

Or you can buy the paperback version. Telling you about it now, because the way that the book is laid out, it's kind of an

Advent book. So if you started reading a chapter on December 1st, and you read the last chapter on December 25th, then you can do

Advent together with your family. There's a Christmas carol at the end of every chapter.

So you'd be singing Christmas carols together. I think the only song that gets repeated, it might be

Joy to the World, because I think on December 25th, the very last you sing Joy to the

World again, it's just a good song. It is. But anyway, check that out. Worth repeating. Yeah, it's worth singing again.

And there's hymn numbers in there. If you have Hymns of Grace, which is the hymnal that's put out by Grace Community Church, John MacArthur's church, then each of the

Christmas songs marks the hymn in that particular hymnal. Neat. So yeah, you as a family could sing all together with that hymnal.

And if you order it now, you can order a few extra and have them to pass out at your

Thanksgiving meal. That's right. You could have been passing them out at Halloween, but you didn't think about that, did you?

That's true. Yeah, hand them to some friends, enjoy 25 Christmas Myths and What the

Bible Says. All the reviews that I get about it are always very positive, even though there's that one person on Amazon who says the humor is corny.

Hey, I'm a dad. I wrote the book to be enjoyed by families. That's right. Yes, there's some corny humor in there.

But I hope you'll still enjoy the wonderful facts and, of course, the gospel that's repeated over and over again throughout the book.

Be looking for those What Videos on Christmas Myths that I'll be releasing on the

YouTube channel pretty soon. All right, so let's get to some questions here. This first one is from Zachary.

He says, Gabriel, I am the author of the Gabe and Babe Show. Awesome. I made the comment on one of your posts and then

I heard it once on one podcast, then I heard it again on another. Yeah, the last two and now three consecutive episodes we've referred to this podcast as the

Gabe and Babe Show. Has it stuck? I am glad it brought joy to you and Becky.

To put a face to a name, I met you in between sessions at the Shepherds Conference earlier this year near the front seating.

The five point buck reference might ring a bell and asking about tool time and Tim Allen. I vaguely remember that.

But Zachary, if I were to meet you again, I probably wouldn't automatically know your face. But I vaguely remember that conversation.

He says, I'm somewhat nearby by Texas standards, one hour west of Fort Worth, and I attend

Countryside Bible Church. Yeah, that would be what, like two and a half, maybe three hours from here. Yeah. My family and I greatly enjoy when we understand the text and the podcast, especially the weekly

Q &A. As part of Reformed Faith Forum on Facebook, as an editor, it is always a privilege to share your videos and Twitter wisdom.

Awesome. Awesome. Check out Reformed Faith Forum on Facebook and give them a follow.

Enough about me, he says, just wanted to send a note of appreciation for you and the ministry. May our Lord's grace and mercy be with you all because of Christ.

Great name, Zachary. That's our son's name. Our oldest son. This next one.

That's right. Good name. This next one is from Lynette and Joe, also from Texas.

Hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky. I love listening to the Gabe and Babe show. Apparently it has stuck.

I think it's stuck. Yeah. Each Friday on my drive to work,

I am so blessed by each of you and your family. Dad and I are sitting at the dinner table discussing something

I heard today and thought we would pose the question to you. Will you please address the doctrine of the fortunate fall or the fortunate sin?

All the best, Lynette. Well, the fortunate fall is commonly known by, well,

I'll say historically known by the Latin name Felix Culpa. Felix meaning happy or lucky or blessed.

And Culpa meaning fall or fault. So the fortunate fall or the blessed fall, it is actually a

Catholic doctrine. This is where it originates from. Translated happy fault. And it's more a philosophy than it really is a theology.

So the concept or the idea behind the Felix Culpa is a way of understanding the fall of man as having positive outcomes.

So when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden in Genesis 3, when they ate of the tree that God told them not to eat from, of course, we know the result of that was a curse that was upon the serpent.

And even in the curse, there was a blessing. Genesis 3 .15, I will put enmity between your offspring and the woman's offspring.

You shall bruise his heel, but he will crush your head. So there's the gospel, what we call the

Evangelion, because it's the first gospel, the first proclamation of the gospel there in Genesis 3 .15.

So since we have the gospel, even in the first part of the curse, therefore we have a blessed promise in the midst of the fall.

We go on and we hear the curse that is given to the woman and then the curse that is given to the man and all of creation falls into condemnation as a result.

As said in Romans 8, all of creation has been subjected to futility as a result of the sin of man.

Man and woman are driven out of the garden. There's the flaming sword that's put at the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

We're separated from God. We're removed from paradise. It would look like everything is just a disaster from there on out.

All of the cosmos are sent into upheaval because of our sin against God. So we see the seriousness, the ramifications of sin and what the results of it are.

The fall that had taken place, and of course death came into the picture, now all die because of Adam's sin.

And we are all born with a sin nature. We are all inclined toward evil from our very conception because of Adam being our federal head.

That's a doctrine of federal headship, a doctrine of original sin. So those things are all theological that we kind of wrap up in an understanding of the fall and then our sin nature and the corruption of all creation, the futility of everything, all of that that's resulted from the sin of man in the

Garden of Eden. But the Felix Culpa is less about theology and it's more about philosophy.

In the philosophy of religion, there is a category that is called theodicy.

Are you familiar with theodicy? You know what that means? No, not a clue. We've never really talked about it. I can't remember any time

I had a conversation with you about theodicy. No, I think I would have remembered that word. It sounds like idiocy, theodicy.

Yeah, of all the discussions, theological discussions Becky and I have had, all of you listening right now are hearing our very first conversation on theodicy.

The reason we don't talk about it or perhaps we've never mentioned it before, at least not under that name we haven't talked about it, but it's because it's philosophical rather than theological.

But it's a way to try to explain the problem of evil. If God is so good, then why does he allow such evil to exist in the world?

Now theologically, those questions are much easier to understand. When you read Genesis and you get that, the problem of evil in the world is our problem.

It's not that God causes the evil. We are the ones who are evil and we need a savior and Jesus Christ is that savior.

And then of course you have the good news that comes in the midst of the curse, the promise of Christ who was to come. And we read in Acts chapter 5 that this was

God's predestined plan from the very beginning. From before the foundation of the world, God had planned that he would send his son who would be persecuted and put to death by the conspiracy between Pontius Pilate and between Herod, but then also the

Jews and the Gentiles who would conspire together to put to death the son of God so that all who would believe in him would be saved.

The greatest sin in the history of mankind also results in our salvation.

So we understand that by Genesis 50 -20 where Joseph said to his brothers, what you meant for evil,

God meant for good. And so while we do evil things, God will use even the evil that we do to accomplish his great purposes.

Right. Which are always good. That's always good. Right. We had talked about that this past week when we were in Hebrews, in Hebrews 1.

Everything he does, his scepter of uprightness, as talked about there in Hebrews 1, everything he does is good and righteous and ultimately comes to an end that results to the praise of his glorious grace.

Right. Everything God does is good. We do evil things, but God uses even the evil that we do to accomplish his great purposes.

The greatest of that being the death of the son of God. So these things we can talk about, the problem of evil, the solution to evil, the answers come to us in scripture.

But when you are talking about theodicy, which is a little more philosophical, and you're talking about the Felix culpa, you're talking about something that is less theological.

So you're trying to look for like the bright spot in the fall. The Felix culpa would almost be to say, it was good that Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the garden because now we get to know the

Savior, Jesus Christ. That would be like an argument of the Felix culpa. So that's like twisting it to make it sound like sin is okay.

Sort of. This is one of the reasons why you run into these problems when you're trying to be philosophical rather than theological.

Yeah. Because you're not rooting. You're softening. Yeah. You're not really rooting such a claim in what the

Bible says. You're trying to philosophically explain that it was a good thing we ate of the tree.

It's a good thing that God let us eat from the tree. You know, as though to say that God is not responsible for any evil here.

Yeah. Right. Oh, that's weird. But the reality is,

Adam and Eve were in the presence of Christ, the pre -incarnate Son of God.

They walked with him in the cool of the day. Then they ate from the tree. And then what's the result of that?

All of mankind is separated from God. We don't have that fellowship with more.

We need another way to be cleansed of the rebellion that we have done against God so that we can come back into fellowship with him.

Because he is holy and we are not. And that way is made through Jesus Christ. There's the anticipation of the promise of Christ that is all the way through the

Old Testament. It's like the whole Old Testament ends with a tension that has not yet been resolved. We're still waiting for the promised seed,

Genesis 3 .15. We're still waiting for a greater David. We're still waiting for the greater prophet or the greater judge.

You know, all these different types and shadows that we've had. The greater Moses. But we haven't seen him yet.

He doesn't come until Matthew chapter 1. So you end the Old Testament with a tension that gets resolved with the introduction of the gospel at the start of the

New Testament and then Christ is that savior. He is the promised seed. He is the prophet that Moses said was coming,

Deuteronomy 18 .18, one who is like me and you'll listen to him. He is the fulfillment of the

Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7. All of these things pointing to Christ, which is great. The great thing about going through Hebrews right now is we read all of that in Hebrews.

Shows us how he's the greater Moses, the greater David, the greater word, even greater than the word of the prophets, has the greater ministry.

So Christ is the fulfillment of all of that. We're anticipating that in the Old Testament.

So people are looking forward to that, but never having the chance to see it, at least not with their own lives and their own eyes.

But we're privileged on this side of the cross to know it by what we read in the Bible. So we want to explain all of these things as biblically as we can, not so much with the philosophical reasoning that would be like behind the

Felix Culpa. So because the fact of the matter remains, Adam and Eve were with Jesus in the garden, and it was their sin that separated them from Christ.

You wouldn't call that a good thing. But again, it comes back to the end of Genesis, Genesis 50, 20, what you meant for evil,

God meant for good. Right. Yes. Ultimately, God had predestined all of these things for our good and for his glory.

But we don't understand that. I mean, in our finite minds and our limited existence, we can only go by what the

Bible says. Right. It's difficult for us to grasp what God has decreed from the beginning of the world.

Yeah. Who may know his mind? Yeah. Who can know his mind? Exactly. Romans 11. See, you're going right back to scripture there.

Yep. Or Isaiah 55. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, his ways higher than our ways.

That was the one I was thinking of. Yeah. That one as well. Yep. So, you know, maybe if you want to be an optimist, you could say, hey,

I'm thankful for the fall because I get to know Christ. Maybe I guess.

I mean, that's not necessarily the way that we should look at it, though. I will say this with regards to...

I think it could lead a lot of people astray, honestly. If you're trying to share the gospel with someone, that's not the first thing that I would go for.

Yeah. Right. It just... It's not... It's a good thing that they ate of the tree and now we die and get cancer.

You know? Yeah. That's not really the way that you want to explain the goodness of things.

No. Not really. No. So, I mean, just to understand the depth of sin and how that separated us, that's important because you have to have the bad news first and then the good news.

So, if you soften the bad news to be... That's true.

That's a good point. Soft from the beginning. Yeah. I don't think it would really make that difference, like, oh, okay, whatever.

It does kind of... Yeah. The Felix Koppel does kind of make a softening of sin rather than understanding the seriousness of the gravity of it.

Right. Because it's huge. Because of which we need a savior. Right. Yeah. Because, I mean, in today's society alone is just...

We soften everything. Like, oh, it's okay. It's not that bad. You know? I'm not as bad as the other people that show up on the news, you know, or whatever.

Right. So, I mean, my sin's not that bad. No, it's bad. It's bad enough that we're separated.

Yes. But that... And that fellowship can only be restored through faith in Jesus Christ. Right. But, I mean, it separates us so much that it's worthy of death.

Yeah. Like... Yes. Exactly. There's no softening of that. Yeah. Right. That's huge. It is necessary for us to see how serious sin is so that we understand our serious need for a savior.

Right. Yeah. The way that we share the gospel is helping somebody to see their sin and need for a savior.

If you're softening that, I suppose that... Why would you be grateful for a savior? Yeah. Right.

If you don't know your sin, you don't know your need for a savior. Yeah. But I suppose that there's something behind this with regards to, like, some people think if you just proclaim the love of God, that would be enough to persuade somebody.

Right. But if you don't know that what you deserve is the judgment of God, then how do you really see the love of God?

Yeah. I don't know. Because there are plenty of people that think that, you know, they believe universalism.

Everybody's going to heaven. Oh, right. And that's the love of God. Right. If God sends anybody to hell, well, he's not loving.

Right. Well, I went through most of my life thinking that God wants me to be happy. And so, you know, anything that I do, whether it's considered a sin or not, doesn't matter because God wants me to be happy.

And right now I'm happy. Yeah, sure. So... We all want God on our side. Right. So, but that was just softening of my sin and making it no big deal.

So I'm very much opposed to anything that does not... Like I needed the gravity of my sin.

Yeah, the Felixculpa is really like the theological, I mean, it's philosophical.

It's really more like the philosophical conversations that I had with my college classmates in college. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's not something I'm going to be preaching on or would argue from the scriptures. I just don't think,

Lynette, I don't think we're in favor of it. If you're picking up any message from Gabe and Babe, it's that we're not in favor of the

Felixculpa, yeah. I think that's safe to say. This next message is from Jason and he gives it to us in the

King James. Suppeth, Gabeth, and Babeth. Earlier I sent a

King James version only dogs meme, but I forgot to write anything in the body of the email.

Oopseth. I did see that email and I really was kind of wondering, what is this about?

I had posted a meme on the What Facebook page that had, oh, it was an old one that I did on the older Facebook page, but it was when your

King James Bible friends pull up in the car next to you and it had like guys dressed in old

English going, suppeth. Yes, I saw that one, that was funny. So he sent this email and it only had the meme in it, he didn't have anything else written in the body of the email and so I just assumed, okay, he saw the meme on Facebook and sent another one.

But here it is, it's these dogs, they're going barketh, barketh, woofeth, woofeth, grrth.

They're King James only dogs. That's cute. So he said, I've reattached the meme for your enjoyment.

I truly enjoy studying scripture and I've learned a lot from what videos and podcasts through the

Holy Spirit, please keep up the good work. Thank you. We're not just the Gabe and Babe show now, it's

Gabeth and Babeth. This is from Ed in North Carolina.

Good morning, Pastor Gabe. I enjoyed your Q &A last week, I guess this would have been two weeks ago now, on the subject of lordship salvation, as I do every week, and I am thankful for your bold proclamation of the glorious Christ and his gospel as revealed in his word.

I wrote to you last year about the subject of lordship salvation and you aired my question as the sole subject matter for that week.

Babe was not with you for that particular week. This is every message we've read today has been

Gabe and Babe, every one of them. That's so funny. As you may recall, as you may recall,

I am also a fan of MacArthur and I appreciate his proclamation of the doctrine of lordship salvation, because as I mentioned explaining it a couple of weeks ago, it comes from MacArthur's book,

The Gospel According to Jesus, which was written back in the late 80s. So Ed says, you did mention last week that the term lordship salvation is not in the scripture.

However, while that is technically true, the specific doctrine is taught in Romans 10, 9, that if you confess with your mouth,

Jesus is Lord and proclaim in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Also, it is very specifically addressed in negative terms from the lips of our Lord himself, Matthew 7, 21.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter.

In this verse, Christ is proclaiming that the only true followers are those who actually demonstrate by obedience in their life that Christ is

Lord. So it's more than just saying that Christ is Lord, but it's also demonstrating with your actions that you believe that Christ is

Lord. I mean, that's really James as well, saying faith without works is a dead faith.

So you can say that you believe, but if your works don't match what you're proclaiming, then you don't really have faith.

Ed goes on, one of the main arguments that I have heard against lordship salvation, so against lordship salvation, is that to receive

Christ as Lord would actually be a work as opposed to merely faith in the gospel.

My response to that would be that faith is never merely an abstract belief in Jesus on the same level as believing that any other historical figure existed, but ours is an actual belief in who

Christ is and what he has done on our behalf. Yeah, as I've mentioned before, being a

Christian means more than giving mental assent to Jesus. You're not just saying,

I believe that Jesus really existed. I believe he is the son of God.

I believe the Bible is the word of God. It's astonishing how many people that you will encounter who will say,

I believe the Bible is the word of God. People who believe in liberation theology, which is a heresy.

It's the idea that Jesus just came to liberate us from oppression, from social oppression, right?

They believe that the Bible is the word of God. They'll say that. I believe the Bible is God's word, but they interpret it as Jesus came to liberate us from social oppression, not liberate us from sin and death, that we would be forgiven our sins and have everlasting life with him.

Yeah, that's not what that means. Yeah, right. So anyway, you hear all kinds of people will use terminology like that, but what do they mean by it?

What are they giving mental assent to? Or do they truly believe with their lives, and it has therefore changed their hearts, that they know

Jesus is the son of God and therefore follow him and obey him? I was thinking about this on the way to work this morning, as a matter of fact.

I don't know what I was listening to or what made me think this. I think I was just thinking about some of the things

I've mentioned in the Hebrew study this week, in Hebrews chapter one. So I mentioned that when you read

Hebrews one, you can't come away from Hebrews with any other understanding than Jesus is

God. So you have the Jehovah's Witnesses who believe that Jesus is the Archangel Michael.

The preacher in Hebrews is clearly laying out that Jesus is higher than the angels. So he can't be the

Archangel Michael. Right. Joseph Smith, who is the founder of Mormonism, teaches that Jesus is an exalted man.

So he lived and he was a completely normal human like any one of us and achieved perfect obedience and therefore was ascended to the level of the son of God, which we can all do if we are just really, really obedient.

So by our works, in other words, because Mormonism is a, it's a religion of works. By our works, we can ascend to that certain place.

And I was thinking about some of the things that Joseph Smith has taught. Like he believes that some people, or he taught that some people when they die will literally become angels.

They're the people that aren't married. So if you live your whole life without a husband or a wife, when you die, you just become an angel.

Because remember part of the whole thing with Mormonism is that you get your own planet. And then with your dead husband and wife in the afterlife, you're populating this planet together.

You know, anyway, so, but what about the ones that don't have husbands or wives in this life?

Well, they just become angels. That's what Joseph Smith taught. And I was thinking about that because he got that from the scripture where Jesus tells the

Sadducees that in this life there's marriage and being given in marriage, but in the next it will not be so.

For we will be like angels is what Jesus says. And simply to say that we will be holy and the perfection in our bodies won't be for procreation, you know, that's not in the heavenly kingdom.

That's an earthly union, right? It's an intimacy that we enjoy on this side of heaven, but is not needed or necessary on the next side of heaven or in heaven.

Anyway, so all of that, I was thinking about all of that and how interpreting doctrines that way reveal that this man does not know

Christ. I mean, he's just finding whatever random thing that he can find in the Bible and he just twists it to mean this, never reading and understanding any of that in context.

Sounds like a lot of people nowadays. Right. So you'll have all kinds of people that say they believe the

Bible and they give mental assent to Jesus is God or mental assent to this is

God's word, but what do they mean by that? And does their life reflect the

Christ of the Bible? Now I've got to figure out where I finished with Ed here because his email is not done yet.

Oh, okay. I'm like expositing his email. Anyway, he goes on to say, so with that view, faith could always in some sense be viewed as a work when it's actually not.

So with that in mind, I would go on to conclude as the entire New Testament proclaims, hang on, I kind of came in there at a funny spot and I lost the train of thought.

Let me go back a sentence. Sorry, I'm going to get you in context. I don't want to take you out of context,

Ed. That would be better. Let me go back here. Go ahead. He says, faith is never merely an abstract belief in Jesus on the same level as believing that any other historical figure existed.

But ours is an actual belief in who Christ is and what he has done on our behalf. So with that view, faith could always in some sense be viewed as a work when it's actually not.

So with that in mind, I would go on to conclude as the entire New Testament proclaims that my faith is also in Christ as my

Savior and my Lord. I feel like you would agree with that. It's just another insight that I learned recently after debating with a friend on the subject.

Yeah, I've heard this said, and I've probably said some measure of it in the past before.

But you must believe in Jesus as more than just Savior. You must believe in him as Lord.

I get that. And I think that that was kind of the gist of Lordship salvation as well.

I think MacArthur said that in his book, The Gospel According to Jesus. I would just simply argue that if you believe in him as Savior, but not as Lord, then you don't really believe in Christ as Savior.

That would just simply be my argument. I thought they went hand in hand. Right. I think believing in Christ means you believe in him as Savior and Lord.

So when I said a couple of weeks ago that I've not taught Lordship salvation, like I don't stand in the pulpit and say, today we're going to discuss

Lordship salvation. That doesn't mean that I'm in disagreement with it. I agree with all the points of it, the basic main tenets of it and everything like that.

You do have to show with your life that you truly believe who Jesus is. Jesus, you know, he talked about that in the very first parable, his first parable in Matthew chapter 13 with the parable of the sower.

Yeah. You have some seeds that fall on the path, some that fall among the rocks and the thorns and those seeds that fall in the rocks and thorns, they spring up because they receive the message for a time.

But then as with the seed in the rocks, they have no root in themselves and then they wither away and die.

The seed in the thorns, it's the cares of the world and the temptation of riches that choke out the word and it proves to be unfruitful.

But it's the seed that falls in good soil that actually produces a harvest. So you'll see in someone's life for a time that they will claim to believe in God, but you never actually see the fruitfulness of that claim being produced in their lives.

So did they truly believe in Christ in the first place? And then it's sad to watch them. Yeah. It's heartbreaking.

It's heartbreaking. Absolutely. So Ed goes on, I just believe that one of the most important missing elements of the gospel preaching in the church today is actually lordship salvation.

And it is the reason why there are so many lost people in our pews who are seemingly not aware of their condition.

Also I am constantly amazed by how many times the doctrine shows up literally all over the New Testament. Right.

It's a biblical doctrine. I don't argue with that. Again, I am thankful for your ministry, brother. The word encourage actually means to inspire someone towards courage.

And you do that in my life each week as I listen to your podcast. So I am very grateful for your ministry, serving our

King, Ed. That's sweet. I'm very thankful for that, Ed. Thank you so much. Yeah. I think you and I are on the same page, brother.

You know, no disagreement there at all. I would argue that in my preaching, lordship salvation is there in the sense that I'm going to be putting upon the

Christian. Part of my exhortation is, you can sit there and you can nod along with me, but you got to walk out of here and do it.

Yeah. That's why the podcast and the videos started. Exactly.

Yeah. To move people in the direction of putting legs to their faith, which again, you know, your faith has to have legs or it's a dead faith.

Very true. Yeah. Yeah. But I think he's mentioning that for like in general, like the vast majority of people aren't preaching that from the pulpit.

Yeah, certainly. Yeah. Or anything of the sort. Right. Right. It's a lot of feel good. A lot of feel good messages out there.

That's most of preaching in America today. As long as we have somebody in the seat, that counts.

Yeah. And it doesn't. At least they're not out there causing trouble for an hour on Sunday morning. Yeah. But they are the rest of the week.

Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. And we've taken the youth group philosophy and put it in the pews in church.

Yeah. To the point that there's not even pews in church. That's true. Anyway, that's a discussion for a whole other time.

If you want to send an email to us, the address is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

I believe that covers it for this week. You got anything else to add? Not that I'm aware of.

I tell you what. Go ahead and throw your name and address in there. Mm -hmm. And if we read your name, read your name, if we read your email on a future episode, if you have your name and address in the email,

I'll send you 25 Christmas myths and what the Bible says. Perfect. We'll just do this for next week because I don't want to stop anybody from buying the book.

Go buy the book. Sure. There's going to be people that are like, I don't need to go buy it. They're going to read my email and I'm going to get a book.

So we'll just do it for next week. We'll just do it for one week. So this is, let's see, this is November 4th.

We'll do it for November 11th. Perfect. That way we've got enough time to be able to get you the books and you got them in time for December 1st.

Sure. That'd be awesome. Include your name and address when you send an email, a question to the broadcast, and if we read your question next week on November 11th, you'll get a free copy of 25

Christmas myths and what the Bible says. Thanks. You're welcome. You already have one. I think it's awesome.

Okay. Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time together.

Thank you for those who sent us questions. And as we ponder these things, we think about all of this according to what your word says.

Not giving a philosophical mind to this stuff. It just sounds good because we can come up with the best philosophical argument.

But we want to know what the scripture says. What has our Lord told us through the prophets and the apostles, through your law, and through what has been prophesied about those things to come for our sanctification?

I pray that we would be attentive to this and not just read it, but even as James says, do what we read.

We live out our faith. We have an actual faith that changes lives.

And we would proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to others so that they too would believe and turn from their sin and put their faith in Jesus so they would be forgiven and have everlasting life.

Teach us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling as it says in Philippians 2 .12.

For it is God who works in us, both to will and to work, for your good pleasure.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. All right.

Do I got everything up? I don't know. Do you have your Bible open? Nope. What's that colorful box over there?

Colorful box. Oh, this was a puzzle that the Browns gave me for pastor appreciation.

So I would open it up for you and show you, but then I'd have to put it back together. Fair enough. And that takes a little longer.

But I have played with it a couple of times. Awesome. Nice little fidget thing on my desk here. I taught

Annie. I like the colors. When Annie was in here, let's see, Monday, after school was done, I told her, taught her a very, very valuable and important lesson for life.

This is an important life lesson. Never ever, ever stack your real leather

Bibles with your faux leather Bibles. The faux leather comes apart on the real leather.

Never do it. So hence over there, I've got my faux leather and my real leather.

That are all falling apart. That's right. Hence why the real leather is not next to them.

No, it isn't. That is actually very good to know. And it's a pain to get off when it happens, too.

It's not just an easy, like, tear it off. You can really mark up your leather. I'm very passionate about this.

Well, good, because we spend a lot of money on them. It's an investment. Only on the leather ones.

Yes. The faux leather ones are not. But notice I have mostly leather Bibles on my desk. The faux leather over there.

Yes, I have noticed. Mm -hmm. That is. All right. Whenever you're ready, you can start.

No. I'm not ready. I'm not feeling it. Okay. I'm kidding. Do we got to do something now?

Need a, like, a dance? Cheerleading? Yep. Cheer me on.

Come on. Get a pep talk in here? Becky, Becky. You can do it. Da -da -da -da. I don't know. You were the cheerleader.

I don't have any idea. I know. I was waiting. Oh, funny.

Well, my back hurts. That doesn't help any. You don't have to put your back into doing the podcast, fortunately.

I have to sit up. I can't just lounge. Okay. Okay.