WWUTT 1715 Q&A Banned from Twitter, Standing on the Gospel, Studying End Times

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So, I got banned from Twitter. What did I say, and why did I get banned?

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Why should we study end times, and how do these things help us when we share the gospel with others?

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The answers to these questions when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible podcast to encourage your time in the Word. If you have any questions or comments, email them to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. And yeah, it's from that email address.

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We're going to be looking at questions today, which is what we do on the Friday broadcast, taking questions from the listeners.

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Now some of you are probably listening to this particular episode because you want to hear me talk about being permanently banned from Twitter.

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We'll get to that here in just a moment. But first I want to mention that the

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Cessationist documentary is fully funded. Thank you so much to anybody who had contributed to that documentary.

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Now I don't have anything to do with the creation of it other than they interviewed me along with 20 other people that are going to be in this documentary.

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I don't get any kickbacks from it, so there's nothing for me where I personally benefit.

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We just get to see your beautiful face. I wasn't asking for you to fund that either.

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I just think it's going to be a great project and will be something that will stick around for a long time. Yeah. Educational.

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Yes. I can't wait for it to come out, although we still have to wait another year. Now Brandon Kimber, who is the creator of American Gospel, he's got number three coming out.

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Does he? Yes, he does. Oh, that's awesome. I don't know what angle he's taking on it because I know originally he was looking at the

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New Apostolic Reformation movement. I don't know if he's still there or not. He posted a picture recently with Chris Roseborough, so he was doing interviews with Chris that's going to be for the next

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American Gospel. We probably have a little while for that one too. I wouldn't imagine that one's coming out this year, so that might be next year.

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But yeah. Buckle up. It'll be awesome. Good commentaries or commentaries.

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Documentaries. Documentaries. I look for good commentaries too, but these are these documentaries that are coming out.

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Yeah. That's awesome. Now then. All right. We'll talk about Twitter here. Yes, I've been banned.

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It is a permanent ban. I will not be on Twitter again. Facebook.

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I've been banned. Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah. Facebook. So we're also speaking of Facebook too.

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Social media in general, Gabe is not allowed. We keep getting booted off of these social media sites.

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Now with Facebook, there was another guy that was helping to manage the

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Facebook page other than me. There was somebody that started the page. Well, I can't remember who started the page.

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He didn't start the page, but he was managing it for me. I didn't start the page either. So it changed hands.

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Yes. And both of us have been locked out of it. Neither one of us can get in. And I don't know why.

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It has something to do with the way they changed their - Security kind of?

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Yeah. The security procedure when Facebook went to meta. So they've changed to meta.

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Something about that change where both he and I, the way that we were running our personal accounts, which I just had a dummy account so that I don't use

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Facebook. But the way that we were running our personal accounts, we did not set up right to be able to get into Facebook now.

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It's either that. It's either just something technical or Facebook actually has just locked us out.

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They haven't deleted the page, but they're not letting us into it either. So for a while there, we told you that as long as the page was still carrying the podcast, because we had that set up on an auto upload.

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Every time I post a podcast episode, it automatically uploads to Facebook. At some point, the podcast stopped uploading.

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And so I thought, well, I guess that's it. Now the old episodes will still come up in a Google search.

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If you do a Google search for what in a particular Bible topic, if that was in the title of the Q &A or any of my

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Bible teaching episodes, then they'll come up in a Google search on Facebook. So I figured, well,

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I mean, if it's still a library for some older episodes, I'll still leave it up. But then it just so happened, the podcast started uploading again.

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I don't know what kind of glitches end up in there, but we still don't have access to the Facebook page. And the app is probably not going to happen either.

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I don't know what's going on with that. I just don't know what's going on with it. It's still not showing up. So any of you techie guys want to lend a hand?

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Well it's always been somebody else contacted me and say, hey,

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I'd like to do the Facebook for you or I'd like to do Twitter for you. We have very little guidelines on them, but they are strict.

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I'm probably too trusting because I don't know any of the people that end up running this.

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It's like, okay, you know, yeah, go ahead, start a Facebook page for me. But yeah,

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I run the YouTube. Nobody can get into the YouTube but me. That one's mine. But anything else is just kind of like other people have started it because I don't have the time.

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And I really don't want to be on social media. I just ended up on Twitter. Somebody else started a what

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Twitter and then gave it to me. And when I took it over, I just changed it to Pastor Gabe.

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So for the last six or seven years, I've been Pastor Gabe on Twitter.

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I've been banned a few times for comments that I've said that they said violated policy and you know, whatever else.

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This time though. Hurt somebody's feelings. I hurt somebody's feelings. This time though,

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I am permanently banned. It was my phone was blowing up on Wednesday morning.

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There were people texting me going, dude, what happened? It's seven o 'clock and I'm looking at my phone and they're like, hey, where are you?

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I'm going. I'm going in bed. I know. It's like I still haven't gotten out of bed yet.

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What is the problem? Well, your Twitter got banned and I pulled it up and sure enough, you know, when you pull it up on your phone, no,

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I don't know. It interferes with whatever you're trying to look at like Twitter intercepts your

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Twitter experience and says you've been banned and you get this bold print that says permanently banned and then the fine print underneath it telling you what evil wicked thing you did to get permanently banned from Twitter.

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So what was the tweet that I made that got me permanently banned? Now I wrote a blog on this.

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You can find the blog stuff at PastorGabe .com. The audio to the blog is going to play on the

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Saturday special, which is coming up tomorrow. So what was this tweet that finally got me banned?

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I said this. This was on June 27th. What day of the week was that? That was Monday. So this was

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Monday. By Wednesday I was permanently shut out of Twitter.

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So on Monday I said, question. What do abortion, adultery, bestiality, child sacrifice, homicide, homosexuality, idolatry, incest and witchcraft have in common?

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Answer, they all deserve the death penalty. Turn from your sin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and live. And Twitter went crazy.

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My Twitter enemies really, really didn't like that. Now I've got people watching me that are constantly turning me in for stuff.

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Like every other tweet gets subjected to the

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Twitter - Gets reported. Yeah, gets reported. The Twitter mods, you know. This one, what's funny is this one was reported by somebody in Germany.

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And I know that because Twitter, according to Germany's laws,

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Twitter has to let a person know when someone from Germany has reported you for misconduct or whatever.

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Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So I guess in Germany, if you're going to report somebody on Twitter, Twitter has to notify you.

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You have to back it up. Yeah, I guess. Now I don't know who it was. I don't know the person. I just know that the complaint came from Germany, somebody in Germany.

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I'm constantly being monitored and I know that. Every time I would tweet something about Rachel Levin being

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Richard Levin or Rachel being a man or whatever, those tweets always got banned.

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I always got a ban from that. And Twitter said, you either have to delete this or you'll be permanently locked out.

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And I delete them because Twitter's already deleted it. It's kind of a dumb, you know, some people will tweet those things and they'll say,

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I'll never delete this tweet. I get it. I understand. You want to hold your ground. But Twitter's already deleted the tweet.

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Yeah. So what difference does it make? Nobody's going to see it. It's not like I'm admitting to them, yeah, you're right.

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Yeah. It's just whatever. I'll delete the tweet and then I can continue on Twitter. But this time it's a permanent ban. They've decided that I'm too much of a nuisance, that I'm not going to stop, which was what

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I said in the first place. So next question. Are you on any social media now? Yes, I'm on Gab, but rarely.

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Yeah. I did post a couple of things to Gab about being blocked on Twitter. I really don't get much activity there, though.

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So I just kind of ignored it. Are you interested on any other media, social media platforms?

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No. I'm going to work on my blog and I'm just going to post what videos. All right. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to continue on social media, but I will be spotty as I have been just because we're busy.

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Right. You know, you're welcome to send me questions if you have me as a friend on Twitter.

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Facebook is a little bit more, I try to keep Facebook of the people that I've met.

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Yeah, I was going to say, I didn't think you were public on Facebook. It's very private. Okay. It's very private. Because I just post more personal stuff on there, like when we go out of town and stuff like that.

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And I don't want the whole world knowing when I go out of town. Where we go. What we're doing there. Yeah. You know.

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Now, Becky had kind of taken a distance approach to my own

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Twitter after I started really getting harassment. It was two years ago, end of 2020 was when it got really bad.

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Yeah. And so she decided, just don't tag me and stuff anymore. I did. I told him.

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I don't want your traffic. And I totally got that. I totally understand. Yeah. I'm grateful you respected that because every time you would tag me, it was like 500 messages.

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And I'm like, I can't do this. This is all hate stuff too. She would get women. Didn't you get somebody that contacted you once and like, listen, if you're in danger, you can tell me.

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I did. You can let me know. These people are crazy. No, I'm not. You just, you don't hear his tone.

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You hear the tone you want to hear in your head as you read that. Oh yeah. And the way people were talking about this tweet, they were saying

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I was calling for genocide. Yes. I've read some of the comments. It was either that or I was wanting to reinstate these laws in American law and gather up these people and have like a mass execution.

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Yes. Somehow they were getting that out of the 280 characters that I had available to me.

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Now there was another tweet right underneath it where I gave all the Bible references to each one of those sins.

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So where in the Bible does it show that each one of these things, God has said that they're to be put to death.

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And then I put Romans 6 .23, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. The point of the tweet was the statement, turn from your sin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ and live. But you didn't bold it or. I didn't put it in all caps.

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All caps. It didn't matter. I mean, it's like they completely ignored that that was on there. And there were people on Twitter defending me, pointing that out.

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Gabe has a reference to Christ at the end. He's telling you to turn from sin to Jesus Christ.

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Yes, but that's not the Jesus of their Jesus. That's not their Jesus. Right. And people would argue back and outright deny that.

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And they would say, no, that's not the point of his tweet. You missed the fact that he's naming sins up here. It's like, give me a break.

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It's what the Bible says. Yeah. Yeah. You caused quite the stir.

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It's astonishing. I really got banned for saying what the Bible says. And frankly, if I'm.

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So is that a book ban? A book ban. Yeah, right. It's text. It is.

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I banned this guy for the words that he used, which were not vulgar. It didn't call anybody out.

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I have never been disrespectful on Twitter. I have no reason to be ashamed for my attitude or the way that I conducted myself on Twitter at any point in the last seven years or however long

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I've been on there. I interacted with other people the same way I would have communicated with them in person.

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And sometimes to convey what I was saying in a tweet,

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I would record a short video and put it on Twitter. So you can hear, here's how my words are coming across.

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I'm not yelling at anybody. I'm not mad at anyone. I'm conveying the truth.

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I'm just speaking the truth to you. You can hear the right emphasis on the right syllable.

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And as much as people thought that I was just mean and wicked and cruel, and I've seen some of the comments that have been said, they're terrible.

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They are. But you're going to have to answer before the Lord for that. But you're banned and they're not for those comments.

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Exactly. They're the ones, I just don't understand how you didn't call, like in this specific tweet, you did not call one specific person to this tweet.

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You didn't name somebody specific, but they're specifically naming you and doggling you.

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I didn't even say gather up all the adulterers and homosexuals and witches and bring them out here because we're going to burn them up.

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I didn't even say that. It wasn't even anything like that. Anyway. So, that being said.

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What we all know, I mean, we know why I got banned. It has nothing to do with tone.

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It has nothing to do with the fact that my tweet lacked clarity. It has nothing to do with by some twisted reading of it that I was calling for people to be gathered into the public square and burned at the stake.

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It has nothing to do with any of that. I got banned from Twitter because people hate

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God. That's why I got banned. And the people that are out there going, this is incredible.

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This guy needs to be defrocked. There was one person who was saying, what's the

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SPC? What's the Southern Baptist Convention going to do about this when one of their own pastors is behaving this way?

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Is the Southern Baptist Convention going to act and remove this guy from pastor? I missed that one.

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In fact, I'll even say who it was. It was Krista Brown. She called me out publicly on Twitter and said that I needed to be removed as a pastor.

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Well, okay. For saying what the Bible says. For saying the Bible, yes. And sharing the gospel.

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Heaven forbid you preach it. On Twitter, I shared the gospel every day. Every single day there was some tweet.

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Every day that I was on Twitter. I mean, there were days, weeks I took a break when I wasn't on Twitter. But every day that I was on,

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I would share some kind of a tweet that would tell you, turn from your sin to Jesus Christ.

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Put your faith in Jesus Christ. You will be forgiven your sins and you will have everlasting life.

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I am a preacher who will stand in the pulpit and tell you, if you don't turn from your sin, you will go to hell.

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That's what Jesus said. That's what I will preach. I will preach that from the pulpit.

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I'll say it on social media. And I do that out of love and affection for the people who read.

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I don't do it for the clicks or whatever else. I'm off Twitter and praise God for that. Yeah. Really, I'm gone.

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Yeah. I mean, it was hard. It was a difficult thing with as much harassment that I was getting. And I won't go into detail about that, but you can read it on the blog.

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I kind of cover a little bit of that there. And, you know, again, part of the reason why Becky started distancing herself from me, she's posting pictures of our kids and we didn't want people to be finding that and then making threats or comments about her.

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There were people on social media with regard to this tweet saying the reason why Gabe didn't post pederasty is because he's a pederast.

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So, yeah, I mean, my wife doesn't want to have anything to do with any of that stuff, especially especially when they're contacting her.

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So praise God, I'm off of it now. Yes. That's one less thing that I have in my life that is causing that level of drama.

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But I'm still going to I'm still going to be devoted to the blog. I'm still going to be doing the videos. And, of course, there's the podcast every day.

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Bible teaching here. And you can find that at what .com. Yep. All of it is right there on the website.

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W .W .U .T .T. Dot com. You can on some of some of the phones.

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I'm not sure all of them do it, but you can do a shortcut to that Web site and make it like a little icon on your.

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Yeah, that's right. I mean, you can do it on an iPhone for sure. I don't know what it looks like on on a droid.

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But if you bring up Safari here, I'll go to my own Web site right here. Pastor Gabe dot com.

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There you go. So if you bring up a Web site on Safari on your iPhone, for example, down at the bottom, there's a square with an arrow on it.

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And if you click on that square, one of the menu options says add to home screen.

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If you click that button, now you've made it an app. Right. So just as a little heads up there, even though I can't get the app to work, there's your own makeshift app.

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You can make your own app and have access to, you know, make an app out of the what

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YouTube page, out of my blog, out of the podcast on Podbean or wherever you listen to them.

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You probably have your own podcast app for that anyway. Yes. But yeah, I'm still out there. I'm still doing my thing.

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Just not on Twitter anymore. And some of you are not Twitter users and you're just fine with that. That doesn't that doesn't change our relationship at all.

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And Jesus said in Matthew 5, 11 to 12, blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me falsely saying all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great.

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For in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you. And I praise

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God that I have been considered worthy to suffer shame for the name. Just as the apostles praise

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God for. Yes. Yeah. And I pray that now this is just a Twitter ban, OK?

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I'm not sitting here saying, woe is me, that I'm a martyr. That's not what I'm sitting here doing.

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But I'm being ridiculed by the world because I said what the Bible says. That's why this is happening.

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Right. And so. And that's why it's concerning. Right. Very concerning. Yes. I mean, everybody.

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We're supposed to have free speech and all that. If it's going to happen to me, it's going to happen to you. Yeah. Definitely.

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Definitely. And there are people that are celebrating that a preacher of God's word has now been silenced.

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And God helped them for that. I mean, I don't expect everybody on Twitter to agree with me. I don't even expect my brothers and sisters in the

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Lord to agree with me on everything. But this is something where the world hates

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God. And that's why I've been banned. So much that they targeted it. Yeah. So that's very concerning.

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I've been the target of this stuff for a long time. So yeah, that's why this ended up where it did. And anyway, what was

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I saying? I was saying I'm not sitting here going, woe is me. Oh, yeah. I was just going to add to that. I pray that God gives me strength to resist something worse than this in the future.

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Because this is, again, it's a Twitter ban. Yeah. It doesn't affect my family. Right. It doesn't affect my job.

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Right. It's one less thing that I'm looking at on my phone. But it's not changing.

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Somehow my life has been disrupted because this has happened. Right. That's not what this is.

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But I pray that God does give me fortitude, strength in my spirit, so that when something that would be life -altering comes along, that I'm going to stand on the truth and I'm going to continue to proclaim

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Christ. Amen. Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

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The righteous shall live by faith. And that's for all of us. The just shall live by faith.

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All right. Let's get to one other question here. I talked about that a lot longer than I thought, obviously. Because you're going to hear all that again tomorrow if you listen to the

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Saturday special with the audio of the blog. Yeah. Anyway. Well, it's not your fault. I'm the one that rambled on.

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I was going to read a few comments from people about it. So, Connan from Illinois, I've received some hateful replies to my comment that your ban is absolutely ridiculous.

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I choose not to answer them since they seem to have reading comprehension. They seem to have the reading comprehension of first graders.

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No, they just hate what I said because they want to. Yeah. I mean, they know what the tweet says.

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They know what it says. Yeah. They hate it because they want to hate it. So, Connan says, keep on proclaiming the gospel and I'll keep praying for you.

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I appreciate that, Connan. This is Britt from Oklahoma. Thank you so much for standing strong in the faith.

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We knew it was only a matter of time. This wasn't a time for nuance or winsomeness. Many of us have been blessed by your

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Twitter interactions and they will be missed. I will still listen to your daily podcast on my way to work.

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Stand strong knowing you are doing God's work. And Miguel messaged and said, when biblical truth gets you banned, you know you're doing something right.

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Keep fighting the good fight. See you on Gab once again, perhaps. I did post a couple of things on Gab.

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Don't expect me to be there, though. Ministry related. Yeah. I mean, the most of what

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I do is the what videos, so I'm really going to spend more time making more videos. You get to see more video content.

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That's how my time will be manifested now in the future. Okay, this last question here, this is a little bit long, but this comes from Jenny in Kanai, Alaska.

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Okay. I don't know if that's how that's pronounced. I don't know either. But this has to do with the eschatology stuff that I was talking about last week.

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Why do we study eschatology? The simple answer to that is because it's in the Bible.

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So Jenny says, I struggle with, in times, different views. I used to be a diehard rapture believer, but I fell away from that as I've gotten older and over the years, tried to study all four views, which left me perplexed because I can see how the scriptures referenced can fit all four viewpoints.

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I've listened to MacArthur's sermons on dispensationalism, your sermon on amillennialism, Jeff Durbin's on postmillennialism.

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I still can't seem to land in any particular camp and not from lack of trying. Well, you call that person

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Pantrib. Yeah. It's all going to pan out in the end. That's right. So she goes on.

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I've attended some churches that have in their statement of faith that if you don't believe in the rapture, then you are not saved.

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That's right. And that's the most common end times viewpoint that you're going to encounter, that they require you to believe in order to become a member of that church.

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I wish it wasn't that way, but that's regular in those churches that are really devoted to dispensationalism or premillennialism.

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So she goes on to say, in fact, this is one of my own personal tests. When I move into an area, 40 moves, seven states, and I'm over 50.

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Oh, wow. God bless you. That's a lot of moving. That's a lot of moving. So she says, what is your stance on the end times?

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Like she'll ask this of a church. What is your stance on the end times? I wait for the pastor's answer.

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And then I ask, do you believe that if I do not share your viewpoint that I'm not saved or I cannot join your church as a member?

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You would probably be surprised how many pastors really struggle with wanting to say if I don't believe in their end time viewpoint, then

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I'm not saved or I can't be a member. My current church that I've not yet joined has the rapture belief written in their statement of faith, which

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I really struggle with. And I want to thank you for sharing your own struggles with end times viewpoints being entered in churches statements of faith.

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But I took issue when you told Robert, because Robert was the guy I was responding to last week.

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I took issue when you told Robert regarding his own stance of just let God work it out and we don't need to study these things.

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I think Robert was saying we don't need to put as much emphasis on the end times. We just need to focus on holiness and preaching the gospel.

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So Jenny goes on to say, you said studying about the return of Christ is just as important as these other things because you have to be telling people you are teaching the gospel to that Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead.

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So what's wrong with saying just that? There is a judgment day coming and all of us have to stand before God and give an account of what we all did good or bad and did not do good or bad.

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And we use Matthew 25, 31 to 46 where Jesus separates the sheep from the goats without diving into the quagmire of end times controversy.

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To me, salvation of the lost would be more of a priority than sharing the gospel and then written with sarcasm.

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She has that in brackets. Oh, by the way, here are the four main end times viewpoints. They are as follows, dispensationalists, amillennialism, pre -tribulationism and post -tribulationism.

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I believe in this viewpoint, however, you may find that you believe in one of the others and good luck. I like it,

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Jenny. That was a good little sarcastic sidebar. So she says for some, this could end up being a deal breaker because you can't really give accurate information about an event that hasn't even happened yet or the exact order of the millennium, seven -year tribulation, rapture and trying to delve into the symbolism of revelation.

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Yeah, I don't think I'm going down that road with someone anytime soon. Rather, if the question was asked of me about end times,

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I would indicate that there are several viewpoints all held by knowledgeable, wise, godly men and I would acknowledge that I am not.

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That's good because Jenny, you're not a man. Fair enough. Becky was already nodding.

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She knew exactly the joke I was about to make. So anyway, she goes on to say, then

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I would end my case on the words of Jesus himself, Mark 13, 32 to 33, but about that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but the father alone.

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See to it. Keep on the alert for you do not know when the appointed time will come.

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Also Acts 1, 8 is another one I refer to where Jesus says, it is not for you to know times and dates that the father has fixed by his own authority, but you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

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So she finishes with this. It's just with the rather complex issue of end times, that could be something that they can delve into the

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Bible themselves and figure out with the Lord's help. Thank you for all you do. Love the podcast and keep up the great work.

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Jenny, I appreciate your thoughts. Let me focus on one part here. This is from Jenny.

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She says, you said studying the Bible about the return of Christ is just as important as these other things because you have to be telling people you are teaching the gospel to that Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead.

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So what's wrong with saying just that? There's nothing wrong with saying just that, especially if you're sharing the gospel with somebody else.

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Right. But you don't want to end there for you yourself. You don't want to end there. I'm not talking about a gospel encounter, evangelism encounter.

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I'm saying for you personally, you need to go beyond that because the

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Bible goes beyond that. True. The Bible teaches it. So you need to learn it. Revelation is a hard book.

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I get that. But remember that John said at the beginning of Revelation in chapter one, blessed are they who read aloud the words of this prophecy.

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It is a good book for us to study and do so on the regular. Christ is the central figure in Revelation.

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It is all about Christ, pointing to Christ. It is the most Christ -exalting book in the

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New Testament. And so love it. Love reading it. As challenging as some of the symbols and the typology can be, you study that, use the

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Old Testament because a lot of those things John is referencing there have been in the Bible before.

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Yeah. It will help you see and understand what is being talked about there, what some of those symbols are referring to.

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So study those things. It doesn't have to be in your evangelism encounters, but as you continue to grow in your knowledge of those things.

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And sanctification. Yeah. Right. See, that even sanctifies you. Yeah. Where Robert was saying, let's not focus so much on this.

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Let's focus on holiness and sanctification. Learning about the end times is growing in holiness and sanctification.

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Definitely. Because as you're learning to focus more on Christ and long for his kingdom and not for the stuff on this earth, you are being more heavenly -minded.

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You are longing for the things of heaven and not for the things on earth, which is exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 6.

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And Paul says in Colossians 3, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your minds not on earthly things, but on heavenly things. Right. And as you study end times and you desire the kingdom of God and eternity with him forever, then those things are going to make you, they're going to conform your mind more to Christ and less to this world.

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Yeah. I keep thinking about the birth of Christ. There were so many people who knew the

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Bible, but didn't understand what was going on at all. Yeah, right. So you need to study your

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Bible so you know what to expect. Peter's saying, you get to see things now that the prophets before you never got the chance to see.

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Right. So how many people were wrong about it? Right. I mean, the disciples didn't know.

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Their question they asked Jesus in Acts 1, they didn't get it. Is now the time when you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

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Yeah. So they didn't get it yet. Right. Now, I believe and I have taught that when they received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost just days later, then they got it.

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Then it was like, oh. The understanding came with it. Yeah. That's right. Exactly. Because Jesus even said, the

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Holy Spirit will bring to your mind these things that I have taught you and new things will you learn as well.

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Right. So it's not up to us to understand it. It's up to the Holy Spirit to help us understand it.

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Yeah. Does that make sense? Did that come out weird? Of course. There are spiritual things that are spiritually discerned.

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Yes. So we need the Holy Spirit's wisdom and guidance when we study these things to know what it is that they mean.

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Now, as I said last week, there's going to be differing end times views and the reason why there are different views and they're not heretical unless you have somebody saying, ah,

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Jesus has already returned. Right. No. That's wrong. That's even in the Bible that that's wrong.

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That's right. Paul was putting people out of the church for saying such a thing. Right. So anyway, there's an argument that goes with that, too, but I'm not going to walk into those weeds.

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So we have these major end times viewpoints. We have differing views because we're talking about stuff that hasn't happened yet.

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And when it comes to things that have not yet taken place, there are going to be disagreements on what do these symbols mean?

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What does this typology mean? I recently listened to a broadcast from a teacher who was a dispensationalist and he laid out his view and saying, this is literally it.

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This is exactly what the New Testament says. And the teacher said, you have to go to school or you have to go to higher education to learn a different end times view than this.

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That was totally wrong. I mean, there are things in dispensationalism that are not literally what the text says.

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The dispensationalists do not have the license on we take it literally, all the rest of you guys don't.

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That's not true. There are things I take literally in there and things I take symbolically. So does a dispensationalist.

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So because there are things that we disagree on how those things should be interpreted, we're talking about things that have not yet come to pass.

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That's why we have the different end times views. Pastor Tom is a dispensationalist.

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I'm an amillennial. We get along just fine. We rib each other on the differing viewpoints that we have.

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There are other elders at our church that hold the other two viewpoints. One is classic premillennialism.

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Another one is postmillennial. And we are able to do ministry together great.

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These things help to sharpen us and we can challenge one another on those things, forcing us to have to go back to our text and see if we're actually understanding it the right way.

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We can be an encouragement to one another. We can build one another up. And that's exactly what

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Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5. Build each other up with these words.

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Encourage one another. In Hebrews chapter 10, stirring one another up in love as the day of Christ draws near.

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Yes. So don't. It should not be the base of an argument. Well, I mean, it can be an argument.

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Just not division. Okay, discussion. You want the word discussion. I do. Because argument is when you're angry.

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See, I'm just taking argument as, you know, you make an argument. Like in a court of law, the lawyer makes an argument.

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Okay, fair enough. Definition does have a lot to do with that. I'm thinking of children. Arguments are usually angry.

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Arguing with the kids. That's right. Amongst them. You want to go about these things in a way that is building unity.

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That we're growing in a knowledge of the word together. Like I said last week, I do have a problem with a church that puts in their statement of faith, you have to be this end times view in order to join our congregation.

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Why set that separation? I mean, you're making that a matter of whether I think you belong in this church or not.

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Whether we would receive you as a brother or sister in the Lord. We're going to put it on your end times view.

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I mean, maybe it's their way of taking that extra step to keep the division low.

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It's not. Which it doesn't work. That's not how it works. No, that's not what the

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Bible says to do either. We don't have to make that line in the, you know,

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I can't even say it. Make that line in the sand? Nah. It was sand, you know.

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So I gave it up. We're talking to Jenny in Alaska, it might be the line in the snow. Yeah, there you go.

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So she finishes her email here. She says, P .S. thank you for having Nathaniel Jolly and Eki Tepsapornkai.

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Did I get that right? I have no idea. Thank you for having Nathaniel and Eki on A While Back.

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I really enjoy the Truth Be Known podcast. One of these days we're going to go down to where Nathaniel preaches.

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He lives 90 miles from us. Oh, that's awesome. In Homer, Alaska. Fun. Is where his church is.

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So that's great, Jenny. Thank you for listening to the program and thank you for your thoughts. Yes. I just challenge you to continue to desire to learn about the end times.

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Start with your Bible. Open it up, read the scriptures, whatever you don't understand.

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Look for teachers that have taught those things and listen for people that teach different ways.

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I am teaching on Second Thessalonians this coming Sunday to my

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Sunday school class. Second Thessalonians is where we read about the man of lawlessness. The Antichrist is generally how we understand that.

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And so what are the different views? That's what I'm going to say to my class. Now there's one that I'm going to say, this is where I lean.

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You may be on this side, but this is how we understand what Paul is talking about with regards to the great falling away and the man of lawlessness being revealed.

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So that's the way we're addressing that in Second Thessalonians. And there are people in my class who are not fully going to agree with me on that.

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And that's okay. And that's fine. Yep. Really though, I'm approaching it from here are the different views on Second Thessalonians too.

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Yeah. I think we're all in agreement on what Second Thessalonians one is about. Yes. So anyway.

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All right, Jenny, thank you so much for your email. That brings us to the conclusion of this broadcast this week.

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Thank you so much for joining me, babe. Yes. Glad your headache was feeling better. Yes.

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It's improved. I'm glad to be here. Good. Let's pray.

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Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, thank you for the truth that you have made known to us and that you have given us your

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Holy Spirit that we may understand it. We can read the Bible and we can know what these words say.

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We can know how to apply them to our lives, how they grow us in holiness and righteousness, drawing us all the more to Christ and conforming our minds to his.

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As Paul said to the Colossians, that you have a mind that is being renewed after the knowledge of our creator.

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And that's what we want to have happen when we read our Bibles. Whenever we go through struggles, whenever we suffer, when people ridicule us, we draw all the more near to Christ, knowing that we share in his sufferings and that we are blessed when we go through the things that we go through in this world.

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They make us long not for the things of this world, but more for the kingdom of heaven. And so we pray with the

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Apostle John at the end of Revelation, come quickly, Lord Jesus. I pray for those who have sent notes or emails to us today and may your spirit be with them as they desire to know the word of God and grow in the knowledge of the gospel.