WWUTT 2670 Q&A Nostalgia, Eternal Hell, Demonic Possession, Lindsay Clancy

Is there anything wrong with being nostalgic? Is hell a place of eternal torment or is the annihilation theory correct? And what does it mean to be demonically possessed? The answers to these questions and others, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study in the word of God, that we may be conformed to the image of Christ. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. You're welcome.

Psalm 46: God Our Refuge Amid the Nations' Rage

Psalm 46. We're starting with, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling, Selah.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter.

He utters his voice. The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah. Good place to stop. Oh, yeah. Even though the Psalm goes on. Yeah. I mean, folks, what news is there going to be today that's gonna make it feel like the nations rage and the kingdoms totter?

Yeah. Because they are, they're doing that today. Yeah. They're doing that right now. I think just about everywhere. Of course. It's the same news, different day. Yes. The Lord of hosts is with us. Amen.

He is our fortress. And he reigns over all. Amen. There was a quote from John Calvin. I just thought of this, so I didn't look this up and have it in front of me, but it was something to the effect of, like, let the nations rage and don't be moved by it at all.

Oh, yeah. Right? The madness that's going on in the world, just don't even, don't even let it shake you. Yeah. And if you spend too much time on social media. Oh, it'll shake you. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's so easy to get.

There is no foundation. You are literally in the wind. Right, right. Of whichever way it blows. The very first confrontation that I can ever remember having with my dad, where I had to correct my father.

Oh, uh-huh. Was when I had to tell him, dad, I think you're watching too much Fox News. Oh, yeah. And it was just causing him to despair and have just this negative outlook about everything. Yeah. And I I could see that.

Yeah, I had to kind of pull him away. You might just turn it off and go for a walk. Yeah.

I mean, there's so much news now because we're able to communicate worldwide in the blink of an eye that it's impossible to cover it all. And of course, there's sad things that happen everywhere. So if that's all the news is covering for you, that's a lot of sad all day long.

Right, especially when the media is arranged in such a way to make you anxious. Right. So that you come back for more. Depressed, anxious. Yeah. There's no hope. Now, even though cable news was made that way, the algorithms on social media are still built that way too.

Oh, they're the same way, yeah. So yeah, you might feel like, wow, I'm so glad we got away from the whole cable news thing. No, you're still sucked into an algorithm.

I try to avoid the news altogether and I still get it in my feed.

Notifications. I know. Sometimes you really do just have to unplug. Yeah. Let the world rage on. Don't be shaken by it. Hold fast to God, the Lord of hosts. He who is enthroned even over angels is watching over us and will deliver us into his perfect kingdom where all of this chaos that's going on in the world right now will be put to an end.

Yes. And we will dwell with our God forever. Folks, we are very happy to answer your questions on the Friday edition of the broadcast. Yes. This episode is not posting in the morning. We're getting it done in the evening.

Yes. But it's still Friday. So sorry. And you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetextatgmail .com or send them to, well, go to www .utt .com and click on the voicemail tab and you can record a voicemail from your phone or from your computer.

Before I get to these couple of questions though, something I wanna mention, we've talked about this with our church. Mm-hmm. And I think I wanna go ahead and share this on the podcast too. That it was Bubba's birthday and now it's gonna be yours?

Oh, yeah, right, yeah. That's exactly it. Yeah. Yes. I knew it. Yay. I don't think my church knew that and now you've told them. You're welcome. Yes, thanks a lot. They knew about Bubba's birthday, but you know, mine coming up.

Yes. Anyway, yes, his birthday was on the 1st. So he is a whopping five. He is. Oh my goodness.

Five years old. So big. Yes. And all the attitude that comes with a five-year-old. That's right.

And then I am 41 years older than him. Yes. So that'll help you figure out what my birthday is coming up. Yes. A week after Bubba's. Yeah. I was 40 when he was born. Yes. But then turned 41. Yeah. A week later.

So yeah, 41 years older than he is. No, that was not what I was gonna talk about. Oh, okay. That wasn't what that was. Sorry, rabbit trail. We have been given, at the church, we have been given a $20 ,000 matching grant.

Oh yes, this. And the purpose of the matching gift is raising money for a building. Whether that would be that we purchase a building or God would bless us to be able to purchase land and build a building on it.

Whatever door opens up for us, we will have money available to move in that direction. That's kind of what we're fundraising for. So somebody has given a $20 ,000 matching gift. Dollar for dollar, it will be matched up to 20 ,000.

So if we can raise 20 ,000, it will turn into 40 ,000. Yes. That's how a matching gift works. So 20 ,000 is promised. We wanna turn that into 40 ,000. But if we only raise 10 ,000, then we only get 20 ,000.

Yes. So let's raise the full 20 ,000 and then that turns into 40 ,000 for the church. If you're interested, you should give to your own church first. Yes, definitely. But if there's something that you have to bless us with, it does benefit when we understand the text because my studio will be there.

Yeah. So yeah, it does benefit the podcast, the What Ministry in some way as well. So if you are interested in wanting to donate, go to providencecassagrand .com. That's our website and grand is grande.

So providencecassagrande .com. If you don't say it in the widest way possible. And go to the Give tab that we have on our church site. It's right up there in the top right, it says Giving. Click on that and then when you give online, which you can do securely, credit card, bank account, just mark on there in the note area.

It's not gonna be the first thing you click on, it'll be like the next screen that comes up. But in the area where you can write a note, just say in there that you want it to go toward the building fund and it will go toward the matching gift that has been given to the church.

Yeah. So the church knows about it, we're raising money for it to meet that $20 ,000 matching gift. If you would like to contribute, then we would love for you to bless us in that way. We would be so very grateful for you and thank you so much.

Nostalgia, Contentment, and Trusting God's Providence

All right, to these questions. First one comes from Sylvester. Hello, Pastor Gabe, thank you for your ministry. It has helped me greatly over the years, especially when things were crazy in my life and I needed clarity.

Aw. So glad we could be a blessing to you in that way. Definitely. A few years ago, I remember you said something about nostalgia and if I remember correctly, it wasn't flattering. Oh. And I was wondering if you can go over it again.

Well, if it was a few years ago, I'm going to guess that I was probably in Ecclesiastes and it was probably Ecclesiastes 7 .10. I don't remember for sure, but that's my guess. That's where your mind goes at the moment.

Because Ecclesiastes 7 .10 says, say not, why were the former days better than these? Ah, yes. For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. Now, as for going over that, I probably had said something to the effect of, this is not trusting in the sovereignty of God.

If you're looking back at former decades and going, oh, it was so good then, it was so much better then, why can't we go back to those days? There's a saying for that now.

And I mean, it's probably came and went by now, but rose-colored glasses. You see everything with rose-colored glasses or everything in hindsight, it's 2020. But I mean, you, hindsight is 2020, yes, to an extent, but then you try to over, over.

Overanalyze? No, no, no, no, no. I'm thinking the other way. Like you forget things, you forget how troublesome it was. Oh, sure. You forget how hard it was. You just remember the glory days. Yeah. There's a reason for that saying.

And you just remember the fun times, the good times. You tend to, it's kind of, I mean, I hate to compare it to childbirth, but it's kind of the same thing. I mean, you forget all the pain and the work and the nights and stuff like that.

Jesus made that comparison. Oh, did he? He said that, yeah. Oh, perfect. See, I knew I wasn't just coming up with that on the top of my head.

When the child comes, you just forget about the difficulty of the pains of it, right, exactly. So, yeah. Well, I have this theory about looking back at the past. Like if you look back at, for example, your junior high years and you wonder, why can't it be like that again?

Oh, no, please no.

Yeah. I was a terrible human being back then, so I don't want to go back.

I didn't do real good in middle school either. And probably the middle of high school. I was not saved. Yeah, like my sophomore and junior year, probably the worst. I was better freshman and senior year.

Yeah, okay. So, I kind of interrupted you, sorry. So, my idea about all that,.

Why do you look back at those years and you wish it could be like that? Well, because you made it through that okay. Right, that's true. But you're in this time right now and you don't see the end of it.

So, how is this better than what that was? Right. Well, back then, you didn't see what the end of that was. Right. So, that's just the way that we live in the present. You don't see what the end of it is going to be.

So, you're longing for those things in the past, believing that it was better then when you were going through the same difficulties then that you're probably going through now. Now, I think that it is good, of course, that we look back in the past and we see good things about it or we see bad things about it.

That's just learning from the past. Right. But we are where we are for a reason. God has it for us now. You can't ever get the past back again. And so, live today for the glory of God and do everything that you can to promote Christ, share the gospel with others, hoping that God is using you in these moments now to make the future better, if that be his will.

But even if it's not, if things end up going more to pot than they already are, still praise God for these moments too. Amen. And that's also in Ecclesiastes, that God has made things straight and he's made things crooked.

And how can you straighten what he set crooked? True. But as he has given the day of rain and he has given the day of sunshine, so we would praise him for them both. Anyway, Sylvester, I think that what I said was something to that degree.

Yeah. It's not wrong to look back at the 90s and be like, hey, remember the 90s? Yeah. But to think that today needs to be like that day, that's just foolishness. Yeah. Because you're longing for something it can never be anyway.

Right. Learn from the past instead and work for God for the future.

But I mean, if you long for things, like certain things about that time period, think of what you're longing for. Are you longing for the freedom of not having a cell phone attached to you all the time and being attached to that?

Then get rid of it. Then put it down more often. Yeah, right. There are ways. Are you looking for better family time? Make that a point. Then make that a point, yeah. Are you looking for neighbors to be friendly?

Go take them some cookies or some oranges or something. You know, there are ways to get the good qualities that they had back in the day. There are ways to get that going again. Yeah. Because I know it's been on the wayside for quite some time.

Right. Because I keep telling my kids that, or our kids, you know, whatever. They're both. I keep telling the kids.

That was just a straight correction.

That was weird. You did not mean to make that correction. I know, but my brain was like, nope, go correct it. So anyway, I'm gonna keep going.

I would not have thought you meant anybody else's kids. Right?

But at the same time, I just couldn't. So anyway, don't mind me over here. Yeah. I'm okay. So I tell the kids over and over again, I said that my generation did not grow up with these things. So we are setting rules and regulations for your generation because you guys are growing up with these things.

It's a lot different. We are learning as we go and we're learning very terribly. But we're seeing where we're struggling the most and we're trying to keep you from going through that struggle too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've said that many times, like even setting the boundaries on my 15-year-old son the way that I do. Like, buddy, I wish that somebody had set these boundaries for me. Oh, yeah. But you don't know what you don't know.

Exactly. And that's what I hope that he doesn't know. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. Right, right. Fair.

That's kind of what I'm going for there. Fair. But yeah, so yes, there's good to nostalgia as far as bring into today what is cherishable from back then. But also Cherishable, is that a word? Cherishable?

Yeah. Sure. You made it. Why not? You made it a word. I did. And, but Now you got me doing it. But also be grateful we are where we are today because this is where we're meant to be. Amen.

Even with regards to our future, Jesus tells us to not be anxious. And that's in Matthew chapter six. Don't be anxious about tomorrow. Right. Every day has enough trouble of its own. And how many of you have added one second to your life because you were anxious?

So be I think I may have taken away some seconds. Yeah, oh yeah. Totally thinking about something that I didn't need to think about.

Remember Matthew 6 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Those are the things that we need to be striving for day by day. And Paul echoing that in Colossians chapter three, set your minds on things that are above where Christ is.

So we're not supposed to be caught up in the worldly things anyway, whether it's past or present or future. We set our minds on things that are above for when Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with him forever in glory.

Communion, John 6, and the Lord's Supper

This next question comes from Wendy. Hello, hopefully you see my email. I see it. It looks good. Thank you, Wendy. Have you heard of E .W. Kenyon and his book, The Blood Covenant? Kenyon, yes. The book I have not read.

In it, there is a chapter on communion. My old pastor has brought this topic up and what raised a red flag for me was when he said, I have never heard anybody talk about this. This is something that isn't taught in church on communion.

One of the ideas is, if death entered the human race through the physical act of eating, then God in his perfect legal wisdom would design life to reenter the human race through the physical act of eating.

I attached a copy of some pages that my pastor gave me to read for you to review. And I would love your thoughts on it. I've never heard of Kenyon before, but when I researched him, word of faith came up a lot.

P .S. I love listening to your podcast, especially when Becky is on. Aw, thanks. Sometimes the thought she conveys, I go, hey, I was just thinking that. Good. I'm glad. When she corrected the kids versus our kids.

Oh my goodness. I hope you were thinking. It was my kids versus our kids. Yes. The same thing. Oh, that's what it was. Yeah, my kids versus our kids. Maybe Wendy was thinking the same thing you were there.

You're definitely good. I can't be the only one. Yeah. So yes, as your searching has discovered, E .W. Kenyon is a big, big problem. He's considered to be the grandfather of the name it and claim it movement.

Oh, wow. So even the health and wealth thing. So he has statements where he said cancer, I declare you to be gone in Jesus name. Oh, okay. Illness, I declare you to be gone in Jesus name. So Kenyon was kind of the first to be doing that and to be publishing it in books that therefore influenced guys like Ken Hagen, Kenneth Copeland, I'm trying to think of who else.

Jimmy Swaggart was influenced by Kenyon. If you've ever seen Justin Peters do his call for discernment, that's what it was originally called. Clouds Without Water. Clouds Without Water. Is the seminar now.

He has a segment where he goes through Kenyon and some of the things that Kenyon wrote and even the health and wealth guys that have repeated Kenyon and quoted him in their sermons and things. I wanna say there was a book that Kenneth Hagen plagiarized and a lot of it came from Kenyon.

Oh, okay. I can't remember if that's true or not, but I know that Hagen was heavily influenced by Kenyon. But anyway, the entire message that you sent on the PDF, I didn't read all of it because it was seven or eight pages or something like that, but I did go through the first two.

And there are some problems with what your old pastor was saying. Now, it's perfectly fine to make the connection between sin came into the world through Adam eating a forbidden fruit and life comes to us through a different kind of eating.

That's okay to see those kind of types and shadows there. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Yeah, and I've made the same connection before. It may have even been a sermon that aired on the podcast that I did last year or something like that.

Because I pointed out that the serpent said to Eve, take and eat the forbidden fruit. And Jesus, who is of course undoing the curse. Right, makes everything right. And speaking truth, he says to his disciples, take and eat.

Take and eat. Yeah. Yes. But of course that being in reference to the Lord's table. Now, Wendy's old pastor had been using passages from John 6 and he referenced John 6, 53 where Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.

Her old pastor said this was not a metaphor, but it was a specific mechanism through which God's life enters the believers physical members, unquote. That's a quote from him there. Okay. So, and now that's opening the door to Roman Catholicism because they teach that you have to eat the actual flesh of Jesus.

You have to drink his actual blood and only they have the actual communion. Right. So, if you want the real flesh and the real blood of Jesus, you got to go to your Roman Catholic.

Because they bless it in such a way that it becomes that. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's the whole. I forgot what it's called. Transubstantiation.

There it is, yes. That's the doctrine anyway. That's the doctrine. Yeah. So, but Jesus said back in verse 35, exactly what he meant by that. John six is not talking about the Lord's table. The Lord's table is not even in the context of John six.

In John 6 35, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. He was talking about coming to him and believing in him.

That's what it means to eat and drink of him. So we do feast on Christ. We do eat of his flesh and drink of his blood. It's coming to him and believing in him. Yeah. Now, when we come to the Lord's table and we eat the bread and we drink the cup, Christ is present with us there as well.

But it's not eating his actual flesh and drinking his actual blood. Right. At the consecration of a priest that calls Christ down into now be manifested in this bread and manifested in this cup. I saw a video recently that was at a Roman Catholic mass.

It was very pop culture like. They were incorporating pop culture elements in the mass. Oh, okay. But they were saying like the youth here are worshiping Jesus in the Eucharist. So the terminology is used that it may still be said Jesus is being worshiped, but they're bowing to and praying to bread.

Claiming that Jesus, the bread is Jesus. But the way they verbalize that is they're praying to Jesus in the Eucharist, even though it's just flour and yeah, that's all it is. Jesus is not that bread. That bread is not the flesh of Jesus.

So anyway, using this Kenyan language in the covenant of book, whatever it was, but talking about how we also need to actually eat of Jesus and drink of Jesus in order to do the opposite of what the serpent said to Eve to do.

That's not how we're supposed to interpret that. Eating and drinking of Christ, yes, we should do that. Absolutely. But it means coming to him and believing in him. Exactly, yes. There's still something incredibly profound that happens at the Lord's table as well, but that's not what's being talked about in John six.

Right.

And then Jesus said, you won't be hungry and you won't thirst anymore.

Yeah, you will never hunger and you will never thirst if we eat and drink of him. So I hope that answer was helpful. And again, thank you for asking and listening. And Becky appreciates your greeting as well.

Yes, thank you.

Eternal Conscious Torment Versus Annihilationism

So going on to this question from Bay City, Missouri. Oh, fun. This is Andrew who says, hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. I love the show. And I was looking for additional scripture for my cousin that I'm talking to about hell.

He believes in hell, but not eternal punishment. So he probably believes in the annihilation theory would be my guess. So hell is just the destruction of the person. Like they just cease to exist. Oh, okay.

There is no existence for them further. Whereas eternal life for us, we do continue to live on. But the person that gets cast into hell is annihilated, which is why that's called annihilationism. Makes sense.

So Andrew goes on to say, on the other hand, I believe in eternal punishment. I have referenced Mark 9 .48 in regards to hell, but he referenced John 3 .16 and the word perish, meaning final death. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

So he's taking that as perish therefore means annihilation. He stands by that verse. So any help would be appreciated to scripturally support hell as being eternal. Well, really the main passage that describes that to us is Revelation 14, nine through 11.

I mean, there are other passages that talk about hell, like where Jesus says in Mark 9 .47, if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

So the imagery there is of eternal torment, not of a person being annihilated. But Revelation 14, nine through 11 gives us the most accurate depiction here. If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath poured full strength into the cup of his anger.

And he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image and whoever receives the mark of its name.

That is very clearly describing eternal conscious torment. Yeah. Jesus said in John 5, 28 and 29, do not marvel at this for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out.

Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. So you're being resurrected to be annihilated, that doesn't make sense. Yeah, that doesn't.

But being resurrected to go into judgment. Everybody is going to receive an imperishable body when we rise. Those who receive an imperishable body to live forever with God in glory, and there are others that receive an imperishable body that will be subject to destruction and torment forever in hell.

Again, where Jesus description is, the worm does not die. So as to say that they're continually dying over and over again, it's not an annihilation and then the person ceases to exist. Now, let me play for you a clip from the debate that had happened at the start of the year.

If you'll remember, this was kind of a big story in Christian news at the beginning of 2026, because at the end of last year, Kurt Cameron had said on his podcast that he no longer believed that hell was eternal conscious torment.

He believed that hell was now annihilation. The person no longer continues to live. And so there was this debate, it was called a debate, but it wasn't really a debate. It was just kind of a round table discussion.

And one of the persons in that debate was a guy named Chris Date. And he's kind of made the whole annihilation theory his pet subject. This is the thing he's known for. He does debates on annihilationism.

So he believes that the person who is thrown into hell in the final judgment just perishes and ceases to exist. That's the way that he interprets perish, that they just absolutely cease to exist. Well, I believe that there was a point in this discussion where Chris Date said something, I believe means that the annihilation side really lost the debate.

So at the moment that he acknowledged this, there really wasn't a leg for annihilationism to stand on anymore in this discussion. So let me play that part right here. It's first of all, Gavin Ortland who is speaking, and he asks Chris Date a question, and Chris answers the question that Gavin asks, okay?

Okay. So he's asking this question of Chris Date. You'll hear Gavin's voice first, and then Chris.

You know, I try to look at this issue from both sides. You guys have good arguments for your case. I can see how you're looking at different passages. For my conscience, when I stand before the Lord one day and give an account of my teaching, this is one of those passages that really gives me pause, because eternal torment seems like a very odd image to use for annihilation.

And I think it's a fair game, especially when I am now going with the majority of the Christian tradition throughout space and time. I think it's a fair game for me to ask, why should I accept that John is using an image of eternal torment to describe what is not eternal torment?

I think that's fair. To be more precise, I don't think it's John doing that. I think it's God who's giving him the vision, but same point. And I think that's fair. Like, I'm the first to acknowledge that the mere fact that everlasting torment is depicted in the symbology of Revelation 20 is a point in traditionalism's favor.

It would be foolish of me to suggest otherwise. And so I start

And that right there is where annihilationism lost the debate, because Chris Date has to acknowledge that all the language that's used in the Bible to describe hell is talking about eternal conscious torment.

So the annihilationist actually has to read the passage another way. So he's always got an uphill battle. The burden of proof is always going to be on the annihilationist to try to prove that the passages that talk about eternal torment.

Don't really mean that. Well, I always go back to the story of, was it Lazarus and the rich man or something? Right, in Luke chapter 16. Yeah. I always go back to that story. I mean, obviously I need to get better at knowing the names,.

But of the man who's in hell. His name's not given. Oh, right, right, right. So now R .C. Sproul, I got this from Sproul, that traditionally in church history, that man is named Dives, D-I-V-E-S, Dives.

So sometimes like when you'll read in church history, it will be recalled as Dives and Lazarus. Oh, okay. But in the text, in the actual text of scripture, he's not named. Right. So it's just the rich man and Lazarus, right.

Right, but where is the rich man?

He's in a place of eternal torment. Yeah.

And I'm pretty sure we can close the book on that now. Right, yeah. But again, the annihilationist is gonna call that a parable.

You're still proving the point. There's a name in it. It's a story. Right, well, sure, sure. We can make those arguments with regarding that, but you're still proving the point that Dates just made. Yeah, we have to acknowledge the language does sound like eternal torment.

So if we're gonna argue for annihilationism, then we have to make the text mean something different than what it plainly says.

Right, the other parables that Jesus says are all real life things. Okay, I understand.

You're trying to make the argument though about the story of the rich man and Lazarus being an actual account, not a parable. Right. I know, but that doesn't matter. Oh, okay. All I'm arguing is that it doesn't matter because the language very clearly demonstrates, it doesn't matter if it's a parable or not.

Right. The language is very plainly saying that this is a place of torment. Right. And so the annihilationist, yeah. I see what you're saying. The annihilationist then has to prove that it means something other than that.

Right, yeah, I don't get it.

When I did my debate with Leighton Flowers a few years ago, and we were debating over John 6, specifically John 6, 44, where Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

Right. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. All I had to do, my only strategy in that debate was to read the text for what it said and let Leighton have to define it as something other than what it said.

Right. So that was it, that was just simply the debate. He was debating Calvinism versus provisionism. I really wasn't even approaching this as a Calvinist debate. I was approaching it as all I got to do is read John 6, 44 to you.

And what you got to do is make that mean something else than what it says. Right, yeah. So the annihilation. To convince your audience. Right, the annihilationist is doing the same thing. They have to read these passages that describe eternal conscious torment and then make them mean something other than what they say.

So Andrew, I would say to you when talking to your friend about this, that that's the way that you should approach it. Just look at those verses, read them for what they are and let him twist himself into a pretzel.

And hopefully when he's having to come up against that cognitive dissonance that's going on in his mind, because he's reading the text, he's trying to make it mean something else, hopefully even that exercise is going to convict his heart and bring him into a recognition of, okay, I really can't make this work.