WWUTT 695 Q&A What God Regrets, Finding a Godly Wife, and Avoiding False Teachers?

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May 25, 2018

Responding to questions from listeners about recommended podcasts, how to find a godly wife, what God "regrets," and what makes a false teacher. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

00:00: What does it mean in 1 Samuel chapter 15 where it says the Lord regretted making
00:06: Saul king? How can a young man find a Christian wife and what makes a false teacher a false teacher?
00:12: The answers to these questions when we understand the text. You are listening to when we understand the text holding firm to the trustworthy word of God, giving instruction in sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.
00:34: Visit our website at www .utt .com. Now here once again is
00:42: Pastor Gabe. I like that better than here's your host Pastor Gabe. Just here once again is Pastor Gabe.
00:47: Okay. We've been doing this for almost 700 episodes. I know. So here once again. It threw me for a loop there. Well because we couldn't quite figure out like am
00:57: I the host? Are you the host? Yeah. Well, you know, I may be hosting the guest speaker.
01:04: Because like if you listen to we talked about this before, but you listen to renewing your mind and Lee Webb is the host, right?
01:13: And so does that make R .C. Sproul the guest? Well, he wouldn't be anymore. He would be the like,
01:18: I'm really trying to avoid saying he would be the ghost and not the guest. That's terrible. That's terrible.
01:24: I know. I'm sorry. I was terrible. Take it back. Take it back. It would be in memory. There you go. But whoever would be like Steve Nichols or somebody like that.
01:32: Somebody would be in studio with him would be the guest and Lee Webb is the host. I don't know how it goes.
01:38: I know. We need definitions. I was in radio for 20 something odd years. You think I would know the answer to this?
01:43: You would think. Right. Speaking of which, my dad who occasionally listens to the podcast doesn't always get the chance to download it, but he told me.
01:53: So when I left radio, I had been doing it for 22 years. Had my own radio show from the age of seven.
02:00: I left at the age of 29. And you gave it all up for me. I did. I did. Left it all for my wife. So since doing the podcast, which
02:07: I'm coming up on three years doing, dad said this still counts as broadcasting.
02:13: Of course it does. In the eyes of the NRB, the National Religious Broadcasters, I'm coming up on what would be considered my silver anniversary in radio.
02:25: 25 years. Yeah. I'd have to go another 25 years to actually be recognized by the
02:32: NRB and entered into the Hall of Fame. Ooh. Where's that located at?
02:38: I have no idea. I don't even know where they are. Well, obviously that's a big thing. But since we.
02:44: For you not to know about. Yeah. Right. No joke. Let's go tour. Do you know who's in there? Actually, yes.
02:50: It's R .C. Sproul. Awesome. He's one of them. I remember a few years. Very cool. A few years back, NRB recognized him because of how long he's been on the air, both with his television program and then
03:01: Ligonier with Renewing Your Mind. And so anyway, just years and years of doing that.
03:06: For I think when he started back in the 70s, I don't remember how long ago it was. That's awesome. Well, it would have had to been longer than that because it was 50 years.
03:13: Right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, they recognize him a few years back for all the work that he's done in broadcasting and pretty amazing.
03:22: So cool. Anyway, I'm just mentioning that. I'm not trying to say I'm aspiring toward that, but just came up because anyway.
03:31: So what are we doing here? Oh, we're jumping to three continents today. Oh, in our questions, we've got we've got questions.
03:37: I'll get my bag ready. That came from North America, from Australia and from Asia. Sweet.
03:43: Those are our three continents. We're going to everybody. We're going to begin in North America. Then we're kind of going to go around and come back to North America.
03:50: OK, so this one's from Ray in Minnesota, and he says, hey, Pastor Gabe, thank you for your response to the question on the
03:57: MLK 50 conference. Just out of curiosity, are there any podcasts that you could recommend that talk about justice issues with a proper biblical worldview rather than entertaining the social justice zeitgeist that is now creeping into evangelicalism?
04:14: You know, I actually meant to do this on that Q &A episode a few weeks back when I was critiquing the
04:19: Matt Chandler sermon. I meant to to give a plug to some better podcast to listen to, not the
04:27: TGC sermons or the stuff that came from the ERLC. And and it was in response to a certain statement that Chandler made in that sermon.
04:35: But because I was running out of time, I jumped to another part and I ended up skipping this. So I'm going to play the clip that I skipped from Chandler and then give my plugs for some additional resources that you can seek out.
04:48: So to set up this clip, Chandler is just he's just basically going to tell us that in order to understand these social justice issues better, we have to listen to other voices.
05:00: And here is what he says. Number two on the way forward is not just that white pastors must say something regardless of the cost, but I think a lot of this is going to hinge on relationships.
05:11: And I want to clarify something. I am not asking you to find the black person that agrees with you.
05:25: Becoming friends with the African -American that agrees with everything you say isn't helpful to you as a white evangelical and probably has that African -American trying to win approval or position is the brokenness in each of us.
05:41: Which is an incredibly prejudiced statement, because it's it's Matt Chandler saying you need to be listening to voices that agree with me,
05:49: Matt Chandler, not agree with you. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, anyway, you know, it's not that it's bad advice to say listen to people that don't agree with you, but in the context of this sermon, that's the way that came across.
06:03: Right. But you have to say it in love Chandler. No, no, no, no. If if you if you're talking with somebody who doesn't agree with you, they have to be telling you and discussing it with you, not just angry and.
06:14: Oh, yeah, right. Correcting opponents with gentleness. Yeah, right. Like we talked about out of out of Second Timothy chapter two.
06:19: Right. So, yeah, I mean, disagreeing with one another. Sure. We we're always going to disagree with one another.
06:25: Yeah, we're sinners. But doing so with gentleness and respect. But anyway, Chandler just kind of takes the the feet and sharpening iron kind of thing, which is which is not an easy process.
06:36: No sparks involved. Yes. Banging iron together involved hurts. But anyway,
06:41: Chandler kind of takes the feet right out from underneath any black man who would disagree with Chandler on that sermon.
06:48: That's that's one of the reasons why that comment that he made was so egregious. But again,
06:53: I played that clip in the context of being able to recommend to you some other podcasts that you can listen to that address these justice issues.
07:02: But from a more biblical worldview perspective. Right. Which was not Chandler's perspective, because, you know, he went through half that sermon before he ever even got to Scripture.
07:11: He was not using God's word as a platform to address these problems. Right. And so there are two guys that I would highly recommend and their podcast, their podcasts are great.
07:21: The first one is the Bar podcast, B -A -R podcast with Dwayne. Listen to that one.
07:27: And then the other one is from a guy who has I'm telling you, it's the wittiest pun for a podcast name.
07:36: All right. And that is just thinking with Daryl Harrison.
07:42: Just thinking. Very clever. Very clever. It's thinking about justice.
07:49: Yes. But he's just thinking. So those are those are my two podcast recommendations.
07:55: And I will tell you that both guys are not voices that I agree with on every point.
08:00: And Daryl Harrison's changed my mind about some of these issues and have has made me think about this from a more gospel perspective.
08:10: I've so appreciated his wisdom and his podcast, though. He's not been doing it as long as I have been.
08:16: I'm sure his listenership has exceeded mine because when I went and looked it up on iTunes before starting this podcast to make the recommendation, he's got 85 reviews or something like that.
08:26: And I've only got 45. Nice. So he's already exceeded me in listenership.
08:32: I'm pretty sure. Great podcast. Listen to those men. They are terrific. And again, sorry,
08:38: I did not give those recommendations when I did the MLK 50 response, because I meant to do that in that podcast and just time ran short on me.
08:46: Next question comes from New Zealand. And this is Michaela. She read the blog that I wrote on the
08:56: Reverend Michael Curry, who did the sermon at the royal wedding this past Saturday.
09:02: Oh, OK. Yeah. So the blog response that I did to that sermon and she says, Hi, Pastor Gabe, I wanted to thank you for the above mentioned blog post.
09:10: After seeing many of my Christian friends in awe of Reverend Michael Curry and all the positive online gushing of his sermon,
09:17: I was beginning to wonder if I was being too critical in my own thoughts of it. I wanted to thank you for your stand and for your holding up of the reverence teaching against the light of Scripture.
09:29: This whole thing got me wondering why many Christians seem to jump on the bandwagon when a
09:34: Christian message or movie is largely accepted by the world. We seem to take some delight in the fact that it is accepted by the world as if we are seeking their validation to the
09:43: Christian message instead of accepting that God's children will always be at odds with the world and that if a message is accepted and praised by the world, that should be our first clue that perhaps all that glitters is not gold.
09:58: Anyway, thanks again and keep up the good work. Thanks, Michaela. You know, honestly,
10:04: I think that Todd Friel's response to Michael Curry's sermon was much better than mine.
10:10: Oh, yeah. I mean, he lit it up. So I'm going to go ahead and play a clip here from Friel. And this fellow presented a very classic
10:19: Protestant heresy that the gospel is not about Jesus Christ dying for sinners.
10:26: Jesus Christ died as an example, as a demonstration of love.
10:32: I say, if that's what you think, that's a demonstration of lunacy. There's a lot of ways to show.
10:37: He showed a lot of love by healing people. If there was no point in his dying, then he had to have been a crackpot.
10:46: Hey, I'm going to let people whoop me and beat me. I'm going to keep my mouth closed. I'm going to let them murder me as an example of love.
10:54: How is that loving? What are you loving? Because you're letting somebody who's a masochist just whoop on you?
11:03: There's no love in that, only if it has a purpose.
11:08: And the purpose was to take the wrath of God on behalf of sinners. That's the gospel.
11:16: The Episcopalian fellow, for him, it was just an example.
11:21: What a shame. You know, someone once said that Jesus began the most revolutionary movement in all of human history.
11:31: Can I just stop that right there? Jesus didn't start anything. It started in Genesis 1 -1, where Jesus is the word that is spoken.
11:43: He is at creation. Everything that we have in the Christian faith, it didn't start with Matthew.
11:51: This is why we don't unhitch the New Testament from the Old Testament, as some preachers will suggest we do.
12:01: Dun -dun -dun! Freely even got a jab at Andy Stanley in there, too.
12:08: Yeah, he did. All right, I'm going to let him continue. No, Christianity, it's the fulfillment of everything that was promised on the left side of the one book called the
12:19: Bible. Jesus didn't start a revolution. He fulfilled prophecies, and he fulfilled the law.
12:27: A movement grounded in the unconditional love of God for the world.
12:33: Actually, it's not unconditional. Here's the condition. Repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
12:40: God loves the world in a general sense, but to be in a right relationship with him and to be loved as an adopted child, sorry, there's a condition.
12:50: And a movement mandating people to live that love.
12:57: Law. And in so doing, to change not only their lives, but the very life of the world itself.
13:07: You know what? I'm not nuts about that world. So I don't think that I'm going to do that. Thanks a lot, though.
13:13: I'm talking about power. Real power of power to change the world.
13:23: I think Celine Dion sang about that could be confused. Nevertheless, wasn't that the power of love?
13:30: That was originally an air supply song was Huey Lewis. That's another power of love.
13:36: I think that because you are my lady, and I am the power of love.
13:42: That is the power of love. I just want to know, do listeners complain about Todd Friel's singing as much as they complain about my rapping by anonymous?
13:56: Yep. Awful, terrible rapping. I do not claim to be a skilled.
14:03: It's not your profession to be. Skilled rapper. Yes. All right. You know,
14:09: Michaela, in her email, she made the comment. Why do many Christians seem to jump on the bandwagon when a
14:16: Christian messenger movie is largely accepted by the world? I encounter that all the time, right?
14:23: I'm with you on that. I remember when the Noah movie came out that was made by Darren Aronofsky, who's an atheist.
14:29: And in the president of Focus on the Family, Jim Daley is his name.
14:35: Sounds right. I might be getting the name wrong. But anyway, he gave an endorsement of that film. And he said one of the reasons why he endorsed the movie, which is a horrible, horrible movie.
14:44: But it was just bad filmmaking on top of the fact that it was incredibly unbiblical. But one of the reasons why he said he endorsed the movie is because it encourages the discussion.
14:55: So it's great to have these things out there when it opens the door for us to be able to.
15:02: Say that, no, that's not right. Yeah, right. Exactly. But I mean, no, you're talking about a man who was blaspheming
15:10: God with that film. And you're okay with that? Yeah, don't encourage that. No. They tore down the temples, like the
15:17: Baal temples and stuff like that. Oh, yeah, right. Because they... The temples to false gods. Yeah. Right, I see what you're saying, right?
15:23: Yeah, temples. Temples. Yes, there is an S at that. Right, you don't leave those monuments to false gods standing.
15:30: Oh, because it opens a discussion. Yeah, right. Well, I'm so glad that that temple of Buddha is standing there, because here
15:38: I can talk to somebody about the one true God. Right. We wouldn't delight in that.
15:43: We can certainly use the evilness of this world to point a person to the light of the gospel.
15:51: But you can't celebrate that. You can't celebrate when somebody would blaspheme God in that way.
15:57: And this was the same case with the Michael Curry sermon, because when I wrote the blog that I did,
16:03: I had a couple of people responding, going, why can't you just be excited for the fact that this guy shared the name of Jesus with 1 .9
16:11: billion people who heard that message through this televised royal wedding?
16:17: Why can't you be excited about that instead of being a stick in the mud? That's my term, not anybody else's.
16:23: Some others had some very more profane terms than that. But anyway, why can't you just be excited about this and a chance to share the gospel instead of dogging on this guy's sermon?
16:35: You are using this. Exactly. I was going to say. As an opportunity to share the gospel. The irony of that criticism is that's exactly what
16:44: I was doing. Yeah. So where's your criticism coming from exactly?
16:51: Anyway, but thank you for your email, Michaela. And your encouragement. And find that video from Todd on his response to the
16:59: Michael Curry sermon. I think it's 11 minutes long or something. You can find it on YouTube. But yeah, he lit that sermon up.
17:05: He did great. He did awesome. Okay, we're going back to Fort Wayne, Indiana. So now we're coming back across the
17:10: Pacific Ocean. All righty. To Fort Wayne, because remember we were in Fort Wayne last week. We were. Well, kind of.
17:16: This is Jordan. He says, Pastor Gabe, thanks for answering Mitch from Fort Wayne's question.
17:22: I am the friend he was discussing it with. And we both love the podcast and appreciate you and your wife for glorifying
17:28: God with your work. So it's my turn from Fort Wayne. Can you help me understand what the text and the
17:36: Lord regretted that he made Saul king over Israel means specifically how the
17:44: Lord can regret in my life? Regret is usually tied to sin or bad choices, etc.
17:49: Is it because the Lord gave the people what they wanted? And it turned out how he knew it would, which grieved him.
17:57: Thanks again for all you guys do. And Mitch and I are praying for you daily. Thank you.
18:04: Daily prayers. That's awesome. Terrific. And thank you for praying with us when we finish up these episodes of the podcast and we pray.
18:12: You know, I hope that that is encouraging to you as well. I hope that it's not the sort of a thing. I really hope that you're not turning the podcast off when
18:20: I get done with the lesson and I start doing the closing prayer, right? But that you likewise pray that God would take what we have studied and apply it to your life, writing the words of God on your mind and on your heart.
18:34: OK, so let's go to 1 Samuel, because that's where this passage is that Jordan is asking about.
18:41: And it's in 1 Samuel chapter 15 when the Lord rejects Saul. What comes up next in chapter 16 is
18:49: David is anointed. So this is when the Lord is withdrawing his anointing of Saul, his blessing upon Saul as the king of Israel because of Saul's sin and his disobedience against God.
19:04: Oh, I gotcha. The word of the Lord came to Samuel. This is chapter 15, verse 10. And God says now verse 11.
19:12: OK, so back up. That's my rewinding sound. The word of the
19:18: Lord came to Samuel, verse 10. Now verse 11. I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.
19:29: And Samuel was angry and he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet
19:35: Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, Saul came to Carmel and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.
19:45: And Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him, Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the
19:51: Lord. And Samuel said, What then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?
19:59: And Samuel is saying the things you were told to destroy that God told you to destroy. You actually seized for yourself as the spoils from the battle.
20:08: And so Samuel saying, I can hear it. I know you didn't do. What it was that the Lord asked you to do.
20:14: So as Samuel goes on to say, verse 22 has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the
20:25: Lord. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams for rebellion is as the sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry because you have rejected the word of the
20:40: Lord. He has also rejected you from being king in verse 24.
20:45: Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
20:54: Now, therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord. Notice here that Saul is not actually regretful.
21:01: No, he's blaming somebody else. That's right. It was pointing the finger. It was them. I'm sorry that I gave into peer pressure.
21:09: It was the peer pressure that made me do it. And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you for you have rejected the word of the
21:17: Lord and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel. As Samuel turned to go away,
21:23: Saul seized the skirt of his robe and it tore. And Samuel said to him, the
21:29: Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours.
21:35: That's foreshadowing, referring to David, who is better than you. And also the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret for he is not a man that he should have regret.
21:49: Then Saul said, I have sinned yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel and return with me that I may bow before the
21:56: Lord, your God. So Samuel turned back after Saul and Saul bowed before the Lord.
22:01: But we know that in his heart, he wasn't truly regretting what it was that he had done because he was still pleasing somebody who was before him.
22:09: Right. Like before he was pleasing the people and now he's pleasing. Don't let me be ashamed of myself before the people.
22:16: So go with me. So I have no reason to be ashamed that kind of what Saul is is begging from him there.
22:22: So I read that far to make this point. We read God saying in verse 11,
22:28: I regret that I have made Saul king. But then when you get to verse 29, Samuel says the glory of Israel referring to God will not lie or have regret for he is not a man that he should have regret.
22:42: So how is it in the same chapter? We have it being said that God regretted. And then
22:47: Samuel is saying he is not a man that he should have regret. And if you read it in the King James, I believe it says the
22:53: Lord repented. What really? So how does he repent if God doesn't sin and he is perfect?
23:00: Can the Lord repent or how can he regret a choice that he has made? Once again, as Samuel points out in verse 29,
23:08: God is not a man. And that's really the verse that we need to use to understand what it means when the
23:14: Lord feels regret. So he does not feel regret as we feel regret. Right.
23:19: Rather, the Lord, when he contemplates our sin, he has a heart that mourns over the fact that we would be so unholy that we would profane his name and blaspheme him in this way.
23:33: And so because Saul dealt wickedly, the Lord removed his blessing from him where previously
23:41: Saul was blessed by God. And that is expressed in the scriptures as the Lord having regretted, but not to the point that he has wished that he had made another choice or made another decision.
23:54: Right. It's not like God has done wrong or made a mistake even. Right. For that matter. And so that's what that means when we see that the
24:01: Lord's heart was filled with regret. He laments over man's sin. And the heart of God is so stirred toward us in compassion that he sent his son
24:12: Jesus to die for our sin. So it's beautiful to read the emotion of the
24:18: Lord spelled out in scripture this way. Yeah. For it's that very love and affection toward us.
24:25: That was why he sent his son to die for our sins so that we would not perish under the wrath of God, but that all who believed in the name of Jesus would repent and follow him and be saved.
24:39: And so with the righteousness of Christ, we are made right before God, no longer objects of his wrath.
24:45: We are now the children of his love and mercy adopted into his family as sons and daughters.
24:50: Yay. So I hope that that provided some clarity for you there, Jordan. I know
24:56: I even went a little bit further than you asked about. But again, I think that reading all of that in context helps you understand it better.
25:03: Samuel, as the probable author, at least of this section of the book of 1 Samuel, is not going to contradict himself.
25:10: He's not going to write in one statement, the Lord regretted and then 15 verses later write the
25:16: Lord doesn't regret. Right. It's not like Samuel lost his train of thought there and immediately contradicted himself.
25:22: And not just with Samuel being the same author, 15 verses later, but also that it's
25:28: God breathed. Exactly right. The Holy Spirit. Right. Being the author of Scripture, Old Testament or new.
25:34: Right. And that kind of goes into the whole Andy Stanley deal, too, where he says, unhitch from the
25:39: Old Testament, unhitch from the word that has been divinely inspired from the very beginning.
25:45: Yeah. The God on the left side of the book is the same God as the God on the right side of the book. Right. The Old Testament is
25:51: Christ hidden. The New Testament is Christ revealed. So, yeah, we need both sides. We do.
25:57: It's two thirds of the Bible for crying out loud. Yeah. It's like just read or just watching
26:02: Return of the Jedi and not knowing that Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back were ever even part of the canon.
26:07: Right. That's that's a bad example. That's a really crude example, but yeah. They started with episode.
26:14: Episode four. Not true. The very first showing of Star Wars did not include episode four in that opening crawl.
26:23: So if you were among the first people to ever see the movie Star Wars, you would not have seen episode four. They didn't add that until after they created the
26:31: Empire Strikes Back and then called it episode five because they wanted to expand the saga.
26:36: So a little bit of trivia absolutely has nothing to do with when we understand the text. Nope. Going on.
26:43: Now we're jumping over to Asia. We're going to hear from Neil from the
26:49: United Arab Emirates. Oh, now, Neil actually asked me four questions in his email.
26:55: Oh, that's the Arabian Peninsula. It's just to the east of Saudi Arabia. OK, hello,
27:02: Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates. Anyway, so he asked me four questions in his email, and I'm not going to get to all of them, but I will cover a couple of them.
27:10: And then, Neil, I'll respond to your email and cover the other two. So this was question three in his email.
27:16: Oh, he begins the email with Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky, apologies for any error in spelling, but he spelled it exactly right.
27:24: Got your name right and everything. Nice job. B -E -K -I. Before listening to your ministry, my family and I were taught that God speaks through dreams and visions and through the quickening of the spirit.
27:36: We were also taught that God would show us his will through confirmation of two to three people as to the direction to take in life.
27:45: I do not believe so anymore and believe that the word is sufficient. My family, though, still believes in the old way.
27:51: That being said, I am 26 years old now, and in a couple of years, I will be looking to get married.
27:57: My family believes that I should pray and God will reveal in my heart the right woman of God for me.
28:03: But since I believe that God speaks through the word alone, how do I go about making this important decision?
28:11: Do you have any? Very good question. Do you have any advice? Go to church. That's where I met my man.
28:17: That's exactly what I was going to say. You met your man in church, huh? I did. Yeah.
28:23: That's where I met my woman. Yeah. So. How about that? Strange coincidence. Yeah. I met you before you met me.
28:31: That's true. Becky, at least according to her, she says. According to me, it's true.
28:39: But it's fine. She says that she knew me before I knew her. I remember the first time
28:45: I saw you. I can still remember that. I know. Well, OK, maybe I'll take that back.
28:50: I remember the first time I noticed you. There we go. Is that the more accurate? Yes, that's more accurate. All right.
28:57: It's all right. I had stars in my eyes. Yeah, I'll concede defeat on that one. So now going to church is not going to be.
29:07: The answer. Right. The answer. But that's where you're going to meet her. That's what I would recommend. Anyway, you're looking for a godly woman who is a regular churchgoer and loves the gospel and studies the word of God and is faithful and fervent in prayer.
29:21: This is the kind of woman that you're looking for. But you can have some people help you do that as well. Oh, yeah.
29:27: Talk to your elders. Um, ask them to help you look for a woman. Now, he he goes to a solid church.
29:34: That would be my guess. I only printed this part of the email, so I'm not absolutely sure.
29:39: I hope you go to a solid church. If not, find one in your area and yeah, be chatty.
29:47: Talk a little bit. Pray together. Yeah. Don't date or go on dates with the expectation that, hey, if this doesn't work out,
29:55: I can just dump you and get somebody else. Right. I love Votie Bauckham's explanation for dating.
30:00: It's just divorce practice. Right. So Becky and I, when we went on our first date, for lack of a better term, we expressly said to one another that we're looking for marriage.
30:13: That's right. And if at any point we know that the other person is not who we're going to marry, then we need to cut it off immediately.
30:21: But this was for the purpose of getting married. Right. And I mean, that was our first date conversation.
30:27: That was. I want to marry you. I hope you want to marry me. That's what we're going to be doing here.
30:32: But what was it? Nine months or something after that until we finally got engaged. Yeah. So 17 months total from the first day that we got together dating to the day that we were married was 17 months.
30:46: Yeah. We had a little bit of talking before we started dating. Yeah, we did. In a park after church.
30:53: It was. Right. It was right after church. Yep. I stopped Becky and I said, hey, you and I need to talk about something.
31:00: It was something that we had in common and we started talking about it. And I just meant to talk to you by the cars after church that night.
31:06: That was all I intended. And then you're like, let's go for a walk. Let's go for a walk. We went out to the park and had a little walk, had a little stroll, talked into the evening.
31:14: It was wonderful. It was. Anyway, we're just delightful. We're just taking a stroll down memory lane here.
31:20: I don't know if this is. Don't mind us. I don't know if this is helpful to you or not, Neil. But yeah, find finder in church and talk to your other
31:26: Christian friends to help you find a girl. Amen. Number four, I have until recently was listening to a lot of CCM artists,
31:35: Hill song, Bethel, et cetera. But since my beginning to listen to wretched, I have found that all those songs, unlike the hymns of old, have been extremely superficial.
31:45: And while I used to enjoy them before, I do not have any joy for them now or from them now.
31:51: I am now looking for artists whose Christian songs have some depth to them. Could you please suggest any for me to listen to?
31:59: Great question. One of such artists would be Jimmy Needham. Look up Jimmy Needham stuff.
32:05: It's great. Matter of fact, he just cut a record recently, I think in cooperation with Desiring God, which is
32:10: John Piper's ministry. Oh, neat. And it was a collection of hymns. And I think some of the songs on that hymns album are also original.
32:17: So it's not just hymns in Jimmy Needham style, who plays a mean guitar and has a great voice as well, but also included some original tunes in there.
32:31: Another one that I would recommend is Andrew Peterson. So those are a couple of artists just right off the top of my head.
32:37: And Andrew Peterson, if you were to talk to him, you would say, hey, Andrew, who would you recommend I listen to? He would go to the
32:43: Wayback Machine and tell you to listen to Rich Mullins. Ah, yes. And if I'm going to be drawing from the Wayback Machine, I would also recommend
32:50: Keith Green. He was one of my favorite artists growing up and has some awesome, penetrating, convicting songs.
32:58: If you can get past the fact that you're listening to basically 70s era music.
33:04: Right. Keith Green stuff lyrically was absolutely tremendous. One of the greatest Christian songwriters there ever was.
33:11: Hey, you never know when that's going to come back around. Could be. I hope somebody somewhere is going to be inspired by Keith Green and is going to start writing some
33:18: Keith Green songs. Keith Green -ish songs. Ish. One of my favorite songs of all time is
33:24: Keith Green. It's the song, There is a Redeemer. And you find it in most hymnals.
33:29: Right. If you've got a hymnal in your church, chances are that song is in there. If you get the Grace hymnal, the one from John MacArthur's ministry.
33:37: Talking loud enough. Hymns of Grace. That's what it is. The Hymns of Grace hymnal that was put together by John MacArthur's church has that song in it.
33:46: It's the only Keith Green song in there. I'll forgive him for that. But because he's got another couple of good songs that fit in most symbols as well.
33:55: But There is a Redeemer is a terrific song. So there's some suggestions for you, Neil. A few artists to look up.
34:02: I don't have a really broad repertoire that I listen to anymore because I listen to mostly hymns and classical music.
34:08: Classical. Yeah, more into instrumental stuff, I think, than anything else. And I still listen to a lot of Michael W.
34:15: Smith. That's what I grew up listening to. Unfortunately, Smith is really on the side of Hillsong and Bethel now.
34:23: That's unfortunate, but that does seem to be the case. He still writes memory lane stuff. Yeah, memory lane stuff.
34:29: Right. Still going back to like old Michael W. Smith, too. And the Eye to Eye album and stuff like that.
34:35: OK, last question. This one comes from Matt. And here we're coming back to the United States. So now we've done our tour around the world.
34:43: I'm exhausted. He says, hello, Pastor Gabe. Would you be able to talk about what makes a false teacher a false teacher?
34:53: This has been brought to my attention in light of Beth Moore's open letter to the church. Is a false teacher someone who is only wrong on the essentials or does it go beyond that?
35:06: What would make someone regenerate but in serious error? I think we throw out the term false teacher a lot without really knowing what we're saying.
35:17: I, we stay away from Beth Moore for a number of reasons, but that's not my main point. It's about defining false teacher or unregenerate versus regenerate, but deceived and not a good teacher.
35:28: Thank you for reading. And may God continue to bless your ministry. Thank you. First of all, let me clarify that a teacher can be a false teacher, but not a heretic.
35:38: Very true. A heretic is somebody who absolutely contradicts an essential doctrinal issue, something that pertains to saving faith.
35:47: If they contradict, like, for example, that Jesus Christ is God, if they don't believe he was
35:53: God and he was just a good man. Right. Which is why Todd Freel made the comment earlier in this broadcast about what
35:59: Michael Curry preached was a Protestant heresy. And it was that Jesus was just a good man who started a movement.
36:05: He was a, he was a good example, but he wasn't. Of the beginning. Isn't that what he said?
36:11: Michael Curry. Michael Curry in the beginning? No, no, no. Said that Jesus was the beginning of, and then
36:18: Todd said, no, it's not the beginning. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. Jesus started a movement. There we go.
36:23: Right. That's what it was. Sorry, wrong wordage. Yeah. But, and then Todd said he didn't start anything.
36:30: This goes all the way back to Genesis 1 in the beginning. See, I catch it. Right. You got it.
36:35: It just jumbles up in my head. Sometimes I goof up on my words and then you say clearly what
36:41: I couldn't say. So there we go. That's why we work so well together. That's right. So anyway, what was
36:47: I talking about? Oh, yeah. So Todd said that, that what Curry espoused in that sermon was a
36:54: Protestant heresy, that Jesus was just our example, just a good example, rather than living his life perfectly and becoming our substitute.
37:04: So that having fulfilled all the law and the prophets by his life and in his perfect obedience became the spotless lamb.
37:13: Right. Who dying on the cross for our sins was able to shed atoning blood as a sacrifice that would cover over our sinfulness.
37:22: So Freel was referring to an essential doctrinal issue there by saying that Jesus was a mere man who just provided a good example for us simply isn't good enough.
37:33: That's not saving that. There's no salvation in that. If you just look at Jesus as being a good example.
37:40: And so that's why Freel addressed that as a heresy, because this was an essential saving doctrinal issue.
37:47: Whereas you could be wrong on something that is a non -essential issue, and that would just make you a false teacher, but not necessarily a heretic.
37:57: Right. So Beth Moore and Andy Stanley being two of the examples that I've used most recently, they're false teachers, but I have not heard them say anything that I would say would categorize them as a heretic.
38:09: Now, some people are probably going to disagree with me on Andy Stanley regarding that, because I don't know, you're cutting off two thirds of the
38:16: Bible and throwing it away. Doesn't that qualify the guy as a heretic? I think there is a miscommunication issue to be considered in that argument.
38:26: That's not just Stanley saying, cut the Old Testament out of your Bible, throw it away, don't use it anymore.
38:33: Right. His wording is extremely problematic, but I don't think it's a matter of Stanley saying, please don't ever use the
38:41: Old Testament, because Stanley does teach from the Old Testament. Right. It's his verbiage.
38:47: It's the way that he explains these things that are so incredibly problematic, but he's a double -minded man. So a double -minded man who is unstable in all of his ways.
38:56: Okay. He's not a qualified teacher. And that was what I was pointing out last week. Now, as a teacher, according to James 3 .1,
39:03: he's going to be judged more strictly. Whether or not a man like Andy Stanley is saved, that's not for me to determine.
39:10: Right. And he's not said anything that is contradictory to a saving doctrinal issue.
39:16: Same with Beth Moore. So she's wrong when she says that God spoke to her mind, and now
39:22: I'm going to tell you what it is that God said to me. Right. As though this voice is as authoritative as what we would read in Scripture.
39:31: God is not speaking to her mind and to her heart. That is certainly a false doctrine that she is sharing.
39:38: But I've not heard her say anything that I would say brands her as a heretic. And like I said, there's going to be some people that disagree with me on that, but I'm content with warning folks about Stanley and Moore being false teachers and not having to jump the line of actually calling them a heretic.
39:57: Right. So I hope that's clarified. I hope those two examples are clarifying enough to see what the difference is between somebody who is a heretic and somebody who is a false teacher.
40:08: And even then, when you call somebody a heretic, I still don't know that that is evidence enough that you can say that that person is not a
40:16: Christian. I think you can say you don't know. Now, you can certainly go as far with heresy to expose yourself as a person who definitely does not know
40:26: Christ, like Benny Hinn, Jesse Duplantis, Kenneth Copeland.
40:32: The things these guys have said are so contrary to what is said to us in Scripture that there's no way that they could have the
40:42: Holy Spirit in their hearts. Right. And furthermore, they know that they are lying. Yes, they do.
40:48: Jesse Duplantis knows that he did not actually travel in a cable car up to heaven and had a one -on -one face -to -face conversation with Jesus Christ in which
40:58: Jesus asked for his advice. Or Bill Johnson at Bethel Church, who he knows the
41:05: Holy Spirit is not manifesting himself in a glory cloud or in glitter or feathers falling from the ceiling.
41:12: Yet he's telling people that's what's happening. These men are liars. And I pray for their souls.
41:18: I pray truly that they would be convicted over the lies that they have been teaching for years and years.
41:24: Oh, yeah. Lest they stand before God in judgment and hear him say, depart from me.
41:30: And as Jesus talks about in Matthew chapter seven, they'll say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these mighty works in your name?
41:37: And Jesus will say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, you worker of lawlessness. I never knew you.
41:44: That would be scary. That's scary. That's scary. So there are certainly times that we can see, according to their fruit, that they are not truly a
41:53: Christian. They are not following Christ. But there are other times when even a person who has made a heretical statement just probably is not aware of the thing that they have said.
42:02: First John four, one beloved, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
42:11: For many false prophets have gone out into the world. And it's with the word of God that we test the things that we hear.
42:19: Galatians six, one brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
42:29: Keep watch on yourself, lest you to be tempted. None of us are above this.
42:35: Any one of us could be led astray by false teaching. And at one point we were led astray. As it says in Ephesians two, one, we all once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.
42:58: And we're by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
43:13: By grace, you have been saved. And so it is by his grace that we have been brought out of the darkness that we were once in, into the light of the gospel.
43:24: And so knowing this, we need to correct one another with gentleness and don't be that incredibly obnoxious guy, which is something that Phil Johnson has said.
43:34: It's probably that you don't have a gift of discernment. You just have a gift of being obnoxious. Let's pray.
43:41: Let's conclude with prayer. Yes, please. Our Lord God, we thank you for your word, for it is by your word that we have come to faith, that we have seen the darkness of our hearts and the rebellion that we have done against God and our need for a
43:58: Savior. And that Savior is talked about in the scriptures, even in the Old Testament, the crying out and the longing for a
44:05: Savior, the tension that exists in the Old Testament, anticipating the coming of this promise, who is going to redeem his people.
44:14: And then the revealing of the Savior, Jesus Christ, in the New Testament, that we might hear the gospel proclaimed and turn from our sin and believe and so be saved.
44:25: And I pray that we would handle this word wisely, that we would not do so for our benefit or for our glory, but to the glory of God and for the benefit of others, that they may likewise see the reality of their sin and repent and believe.
44:43: We pray for those people who are false teachers, folks that we've mentioned over the course of this podcast, that they would have soft hearts to be able to hear the truth of the word of God and so be convicted and repent of their false teaching and apologize to those that they have misled and ask for forgiveness.
45:01: For we know that the blood of Christ covers over a multitude of sins. As we wrap up,
45:07: Lord, I also want to lift up Stephen Melanson, who has been in the hospital this week, and I pray that you continue to give him healing and may he be back on his feet and to his bald
45:18: Calvinist self again very soon. Thank you for your richest blessings through our
45:23: Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right.
46:35: Are you ready? Are you ready? This is no longer the coldest room in the house. It's not?
46:41: No. What was colder than this room? The laundry room. The new laundry room. Oh yeah, it is cold in there.
46:46: That is freezing. You know, I walked in there and I mean, you could really do anything with that room right now, even though it's specced out for a laundry room.
46:57: But you could just set up a - Make it to a studio. Yeah, do a little studio in there or something. It would echo like crazy right now.
47:03: Oh my goodness, so bad. Okay, can you see the script? Barely. You are listening to, when we understand the text, holding firm to the trustworthy word of God.
47:19: Oh, that was right. Yeah, that's correct. Okay, I thought I said it wrong. Nope, that's right.
47:25: Giving instruction in sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it. Visit our website at www .udd
47:34: .com. Put a little gusto behind rebuking. And rebuking those who contradict it.
47:41: And rebuking. Really, you want me to? No. I was going to say that, it's not me.