WWUTT 2105 Q&A Fantasy and the Occult, Divorce and Remarriage, Alistair Begg and John MacArthur

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Are fantasy books like Narnia and Lord of the Rings of the occult? If you got divorced and remarried, are you living in a sinful marriage?

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And we come back to the Alistair Begg controversy to be wise in our handling of critical issues when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Tell all your friends about our videos and podcast, which you can find on our website at www .wutt

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.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. And today is not only our

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Q &A, where we're taking questions from the listeners. You can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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But this is also the very first day for the Hear the Word of the

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Lord podcast. Oh, that's right. It's March the 1st. So we got a new podcast up.

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People had been asking me to do the Bible reading, which I've been posting on the YouTube channel, which I couldn't really do anymore because it was taking way too much time.

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But I still have all that recording of Bible reading. So we've started a new podcast. It's called

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Hear the Word of the Lord. And that's what you're looking for on whatever podcast app you use.

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So go check it out. It's through Podbean, just like this podcast is. But whether you use

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Spotify, you know, I may have to do something to make sure it's on Spotify. It's probably not there yet. Oh, okay.

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But you can get it on, you know, Apple if you're using an iPhone and listening to your podcast that way.

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Or Amazon. Can't you tell an Amazon, hey, what is

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Amazon's name? Alexa? Alexa. That's it. Yeah. Now I've made everybody's Alexas go up.

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We changed ours to computer because I liked the Star Trek vibe.

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And then I could practice my Jean -Luc Picard, computer! Which you never do anymore. I saw a funny meme the other day that said, sometimes

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I walk outside and just say, computer and program. Oh, yeah? Just in case. Just in case.

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That's funny. Anyway. All right. We're into the Psalms here. This is Psalm 12 this week.

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And this is a rather short psalm. Just eight verses. But I'll be reading here from the

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Legacy Standard Version. Hear the word of the Lord. Save, O Yahweh, for the holy man ceases to be.

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For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak worthlessness to one another.

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With a flattering lip and with a double heart they speak. May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips.

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The tongue that speaks great things. Who have said, with our tongue we will prevail.

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Our lips are our own. Who is Lord over us? Because of the devastation of the afflicted.

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Because of the groaning of the needy. Now I will arise, says Yahweh. I will set him in the safety for which he longs.

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The words of Yahweh are pure words. As silver tried in a furnace on the ground refined seven times.

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You, O Yahweh, will keep them. You will guard him from this generation forever. The wicked strut about on every side.

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When vileness is exalted among the sons of men. Good psalm to go into as we've been talking about this podcast of reading through the

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Bible every day. Hear the word of the Lord. We have here in verse six, the words of Yahweh are pure words.

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As silver tried in a furnace on the ground refined seven times. We have the theme once again here in Psalm 12 of the wicked having some time where they have their day and they prevail, but ultimately

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God has the final say. That's right. Amen. There is that sense of despair even from the very beginning.

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Save, O Yahweh, for the holy man ceases to be. For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.

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Kind of has that Elijah feel to it. God, I'm the only one. There isn't anybody left.

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And God has to say, hey, there are 7 ,000 who have not bowed the knee to Baal that I've reserved for myself.

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Yes. So there is. You are not alone. That's right. Yahweh will cut off all flattering lips.

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So this is the person who, he says the things you wanna hear. When you go to like Proverbs 2 and Proverbs 7, the woman who is trying to entice a man is being spoken of as somebody who speaks with flattering lips.

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She's trying to seduce a man, pulling him into her adulterous heart. So she says the things that he wants to hear.

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And even when it comes to provocative images and things like that, there's always like a come hither look.

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Yeah. Maybe the woman doesn't say anything in those images that will pop up in front of you on the screen, but she nonetheless has that look that's saying, come here, come along with me.

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Yeah. And trying to entice you. Proverbs 29 .5 says a man who flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his steps.

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He tells you the things that you want to hear, but he's spreading a net under your feet. He wants to catch you. Yeah. I remember when

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I first became pastor, when I first became senior pastor, and all of the flattery that I got.

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Oh, yeah. Of certain people that were saying things like, you're better than our last pastor. And some were probably genuine in saying that, but you still had that feeling of, okay, what happens when somebody comes along that's better than me?

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Because I'm not the best. Right. So apparently you seem to be -

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I mean, there's always somebody better. Yeah. No matter what it is. And then we're talking about my preaching, not even like the responsibilities of -

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Other things that I did. They decided they liked listening to me better, but I could see that as being a trap.

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Even if they were sincere in what it was that they said, it still could have led my heart the wrong way.

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True. Thought more highly of myself than I should have been thinking. So I was grateful to the Lord for his wisdom in those seasons remembering this proverb, man who flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his steps.

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Yeah. And some of these people who are saying this probably want something. So I gotta be careful with how

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I receive that kind of flattery. Yeah. Or we'll turn their back on you as soon as the next -

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Like they did with the previous pastor. Yeah. Yeah. The next good thing comes around. Yeah, right. So there are men who speak all kinds of things that make us feel good, but it's only the words of the

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Lord that are sincere and true and will lead to good things.

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Yeah. For as we read in Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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It is hearing the word of God that saves, it sanctifies, it grows us in holiness and righteousness, exposes to us the will of God and the desires of his heart that we may pursue the heart of God.

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Yeah. And do those things that are pleasing to our Lord. So anyway, all of that very good as we're even launching this new podcast here, and we heard from you, because I asked you, what do you want me to do?

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I was gonna ask what the outcome was. Yeah, we did have some good responses. There were some folks that said, yeah, just do what you wanna do.

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Start with Genesis 1, start on March 1st, do the Legacy Standard Bible. Okay. The majority said

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Legacy. Okay. I think it was kind of bouncing between, I wanna hear the NASB 95, but I'm really liking the

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Legacy 2. Okay. So let's go ahead and stick with the Legacy Bible. So that's what it is today. It's Genesis 1 through 3, is the very first lesson today.

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It's seven days a week. So it's gonna be every day. Yeah. From now until February 28th.

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That's right. It will actually, if I'm following the schedule that I have laid out, it will actually finish something like two weeks before the 28th.

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So then I have a two week cushion, and then we'll start a new translation on March the 1st.

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All right. Next year. So if we have any technical difficulties. Which happens. Never.

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I get sick or something. Yeah, you know. I'm well enough ahead at this point where, you know, I'm. Yeah. I can get sick now.

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Well, that's kind of what I was thinking, but I mean, sometimes when you get well enough ahead, not you specifically, but just in general people tend to.

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Get lazy. Yeah. Me too. Maybe slack a little. Oh, I do it. So you gotta record a day.

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And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm behind. Yeah. And suddenly that creeps up on you. It happens so fast.

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It does. And speaking of that, I wanted to mention, why were the episodes on Wednesday and Thursday so late?

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Oh, yes. So Wednesday, it was brain fog, really. Tuesday night

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I sat down to record and I just could not get through it. Yeah. I couldn't get through the lesson. So I finally just went to bed.

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I decided that's what I needed. I needed to just go to bed. Apparently, yes. Wednesday I had a dentist appointment.

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My mouth was numb throughout the day. Yes. Could not get a recording. I mean, I'm kind of talking like this.

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Yeah. Would have sounded pretty ridiculous. And then there were some issues with the recording, with the equipment that wasn't working right.

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Anyway, everything just kind of got behind. But we're caught up now. And here we are on the Friday Q &A.

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We've got a nice little friendly question here. Somebody who's, I think she said she's new to the podcast.

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I'll have to go back and read the question again. Okay. But she asked some get to know you questions. Oh, fine.

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So we're gonna save those till the end. That's the last thing we're gonna do. But let's start here with this question.

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This is from Karen. And she says, Pastor Gabe Hughes, a year or two ago, I ran across your excellent article critiquing the book and movie,

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline Lingle. I appreciate your article and found it so helpful for Christians who wanna be discerning.

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I was wondering if you have views regarding The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I recently learned that some

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Christians consider the story to be occultic. Oh, I didn't know that. Also included were the

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Narnia stories in The Hobbit. Yeah, we'll come back to that here in a second here. We've talked about this before. So also the

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Narnia and The Hobbit have, there are some people that have even discussed those stories as being occultic or pagan.

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But I'm mainly wondering about The Christmas Carol as it happens to be a favorite of mine. I don't know if you answer questions like this via email, but I thought

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I'd give it a try. So Karen will respond to this on the podcast and then I'll give you the link.

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So you're sure to see it that we responded to it here. There's really not a problem with The Christmas Carol, but we've talked about this before because there was a question that came to us one

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Christmas. What is it with, it wasn't there an old tradition of telling horror stories or ghost stories at Christmas?

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You remember this question? I don't. It was a couple of years ago. I've slept since then. Well, this was one of our doing a

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Christmas episodes. We're taking Christmas questions. Like, is there some sort of tradition connected with Christmas that goes back to telling ghost stories?

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And indeed there was, it used to be a pretty common practice to tell ghost stories at Christmas. Okay. I don't know why.

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I was gonna ask. I would imagine it's connected to the winter solstice and things like that.

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Okay, that makes sense. Because you're thinking about December 21st being the darkest day of the year. Right.

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Least amount of sunlight, most amount of darkness. Right. And for the pagans, it's the day the sun died. Okay. So then the sun's coming back to life and the days start to get longer after that.

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Okay. And then we're kind of building up towards spring when things come back to life. You know, stuff like that. Die like as in a tree, like grass?

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Like a spirit of some, yeah. You know, the spirit of the sun or whatever God they're worshiping, they're pagans.

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Well, I know, but I'm just, I'm confused, but it's okay. No, it's paganism. It's not supposed to make sense.

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Fair enough. It's just, we don't wanna worship the true God. So we're gonna find all these gods and all this other stuff.

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So I, anyway, that's just a guess. That's a theory that the winter solstice has something to do with wanting to tell ghost stories around that season.

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And so ghost stories would come into sharing around the Christmas tree or whatever. Before there was television, we told ghost stories.

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So the Christmas carol plays into that. That's influenced Charles Dickens in the story that he tells about these three spirits.

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Well, first of all, there's the spirit of Marley that comes back and warns

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Scrooge about the trajectory he's on. And so he's gonna be visited that night on Christmas Eve by three spirits.

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You have the ghost of Christmas past, the ghost of Christmas present, and the ghost of Christmas future.

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And the word ghost is just synonymous with spirit. It's not a dead person who's come back to life to haunt

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Scrooge. Although that was with Marley, but these other spirits were the ghost of those

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Christmases. With the ghost of Christmas present, he makes a joke about that he had 1 ,900 brothers before him.

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Okay. So the ghost of Christmas present is only around at Christmas every year.

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He only lives that long and then he dies and then he has a brother that takes his place. Okay. So the hint there being, there's been 1 ,900

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Christmases going back to Jesus, going back to the time of Christ. Ah, okay.

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I'm kind of summarizing the number. I don't know exactly what the number was, but it was something like that. So going back to the time of Christ, there's been 1 ,800, 1 ,900

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Christmases. And so there's been that many ghosts of Christmas present. Okay.

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Now, even though that suggested in the story, so if you go back to the time of Christ, this is how many

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Christmases there've been. Jesus name never comes up in a Christmas carol. Right. If I remember right, the name

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Jesus Christ is never mentioned, apart from the fact that the word Christmas is used over and over again. Okay, now

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I'm going off of the movie. Okay. Don't they pray? Yes, they do. At the end?

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They do to God. Okay, fair enough. And the name of God does come up a few times in the story.

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Okay, that's what I was thinking. Of course, there's the famous line from Tiny Tim. Yes. God bless us.

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Yes. Everyone. Okay. So there are some Christian hints and things like that, but really

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Charles Dickens is just telling, he's telling a story. He's telling what's basically the equivalent of a fairy tale.

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Right. And it's just a story. It's not like it's a true story. Right. Nor is he even saying that these ghosts exist in the

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Christmas season and will come back to haunt you and try to make you a better person.

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Yeah. That's not really the point of the story. There are some that will probably read that and say, well, you have hints of the occult there because you have ghosts and spirits and things like that.

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It's just a story. Narnia, same sort of a thing where I've heard some Christians say they can't read

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Narnia with a clear conscience. And if you can't, that's fine. Yeah, totally fine. That's an opinion. Don't pass judgment on somebody else for that because there's a witch in the story.

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And Aslan even makes reference to deep magic going all the way back in time and all this kind of thing.

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So we got magic, we got witches, and we've got all these fairy -like creatures, fairy tale sort of creatures, the mythological creatures, centaurs and satyrs and all these other kinds of mythical beasts throughout

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Narnia. Oh, and Father Christmas even comes up. Yes. There's even a

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Father Christmas. There's a Santa Claus in Narnia. So because of all of this, therefore it's pagan.

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But again, Lewis is just telling a story. Now, I do think Lewis went a little far with his allegory.

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So of course, Aslan's supposed to be a Christ -like sort of a figure. But sometimes it almost felt like he went beyond the story.

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Like at the very end, which the last book is The Last Battle, I'm pretty sure. So at the end of that book, it talks about basically the children grow up, get old, die, and the heaven that they go to is to be with Aslan.

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Okay. And that just kind of felt like, yeah, like you're actually making

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Aslan Christ. And I don't really think you needed to go that far with that. That just seemed a bit of a stretch.

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And there's also the, like the Satan figure in Narnia, who is Tash. And there was,

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I think this is either in The Silver Chair or The Last Battle. I can't remember which book. But there's a character who was serving

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Tash, but didn't realize that he was actually serving Aslan. Okay.

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And so the way that that's written, the way that that's talked about makes it sound like you could actually be serving

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God and not realize that you're serving God. Oh, true, yeah. If he's making Aslan such a

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Christ -like character, then definitely. And it has that feel of, it's not really universalism, it's more inclusivism.

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Okay, yeah. It's kind of like how a Muslim might be serving the true God, but he doesn't realize it, even though he doesn't know the name of Christ.

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That's the argument that an inclusivist would make. Okay. But of course we know that's impossible.

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Yes. I mean, the reason why a person is following the Muslim religion is because that's where their heart is oriented toward.

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They are opposed to God. Right. And they're going after this false God. So it's not the case that you could accidentally be serving

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God and not realizing that you're doing that. I don't think that's possible. You must know

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God, you must know his will, and you must be obedient to him. You can't accidentally be obedient to God.

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I know, right? And like, whenever the truth is revealed to you, it's like an aha moment.

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There's no like, well, maybe, you know, no. It's just clear as day when the

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Holy Spirit comes down upon you and dwells in you and makes sense of all of the nonsense that didn't make sense before.

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And it's just, there's no way you could be not knowing. Yeah, you can't know God unknowingly.

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That's absurd. Yeah, exactly. But it's like I quoted yesterday from Romans 10 when we were in Isaiah 52, but in Romans 10 where it says, how will they know unless they are told?

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And how will they be told unless somebody goes to them? And how can a preacher go to him unless he is sent?

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And then of course, drawing the line from Isaiah 52, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news of the gospel of peace.

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Amen. So somebody has to come to you and share with you the gospel and you come to know

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God, especially his son, Jesus Christ, through the hearing of the gospel. You don't accidentally serve

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God not knowing that you're serving God. By serving somebody else. Right, yeah, exactly.

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That's a great point too. You can't be serving somebody else and then come to find, oh,

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I was actually serving God the entire time. Yeah. You're either serving Christ or you're serving

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Satan. Yeah. There's not a, you don't, yeah, you don't accidentally serve God. Moving on.

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But that's talking about Narnia, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings. These are just stories.

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And I do believe that C .S. Lewis was a Christian man, despite that he had, there were definitely some problems in his doctrine, even more problems in Tolkien's doctrine.

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But these are just men that are telling stories. They are not a cultic. If you feel though guilty in your conscience reading those stories, then don't read them.

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Right. This is the same as what Becky and I have talked about in the past about watching movies or TV shows. Right.

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Be careful with what you watch if you have a guilty conscience over what you're watching, don't watch it.

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There are certain things that are obviously off limits for Christians. Right. That we shouldn't be watching at all. But then there's other things that are really, it's subjective.

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Yeah. What one person can handle, another person might be deeply offended by. They're wounded in their soul.

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They can't watch this. Maybe the characters in the show are just taking the Lord's name in vain so often that you're thinking to yourself, how can

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I sit here and listen to my God be blasphemed like this? Yeah. I can't watch this anymore. Those kinds of things, if it is afflicting your conscience, then don't watch it.

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Or in the case of these books, don't read them. But as they stand, I wouldn't categorize them as of the occult.

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And therefore we shouldn't get into those things because they're gonna drag us into something satanic.

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I don't see that happening with these books. So are we talking about a certain genre here that's included in this or?

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Like the genre of the occult? Yeah. Something like that. I think you have to go to special shops to find those kinds of books.

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Or is, I mean, like, is there a line between occult genre and fantasy genre where like there's, you know, one's okay, but one's not?

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Let's use another. Or is this just too close to using the Lord and Jesus?

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You know what I mean? Well, I think for me, you know, I bring that up with Lewis and Tolkien, but I think for me, that's gonna be between Lewis and Tolkien.

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Okay. Or sorry, that's gonna be between Lewis and Tolkien and God. Oh, okay, okay.

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Otherwise, you know, I do think that they go a little far with what it was that they have written. And even when

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I read those stories to my kids, I wanna be careful with how they receive that. Yeah. Because they know Aslan's supposed to be like a

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Christ -like figure. Sure. In Lewis's story. So when they read this section here that kind of sounds like theology, like Lewis is theologizing and he's saying, this character was inadvertently serving

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God. So does that mean I can inadvertently serve God or inadvertently serve Aslan rather?

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So can I inadvertently serve God? So I'm gonna be careful with my children on that and guide them into now, if Lewis was trying to make a theological point here, he's incorrect.

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Right. If this is just in his story, fine. But if he was actually trying to make a theological point with this, that's not the way that we serve

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God. Right. But like, is there an occult genre? Like, is there a line drawn somewhere between fantasy and...

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I don't know. Yeah, okay. I was just curious. I mean, I'm sure there's... Because you can keep going and toss out all the fantasy because it's all...

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Well, I'm sure there are things that are like, this is clearly witchcraft. Well. We clearly can't tolerate this.

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Right. You know, something like that. That's true. With a genre, you know, this is fantasy that we're talking about.

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Right. It's fiction. Right, and that's how I take all of this. I don't take this as theology. Look at somebody like Stephen King and Stephen King's books are clearly demonic.

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So he's clearly talking about things that are, you know, demon possession, evil spirits.

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Hauntings and things like that. It's true. It gets really, really deep into Satanism and I've read some King books.

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So I know the kind of substance of his books. But really, I don't think that's as bad as the other stuff that he puts in there.

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Oh, really? So generally, he'll have like fornication and stuff like that in his books, which he will even describe.

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And it's, and that stuff is the reason why I would tell a person not to read a Stephen King book.

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Gotcha. It's really less about the demonic and stuff like that. Because there is a certain fascination that I have with that.

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Some of the stuff that he will write will tap into American folklore, like American mythology and things like that regarding evil spirits and ancient

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Native American lore and stuff like that. So I remember one book of his that I read had the main villain was

24:01

Wendigo, which was a kind of spirit that Native Americans feared. Oh, okay.

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So sometimes he will take those things that exist in American culture and draw them into his books. And I would find that fascinating because I've always kind of -

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You're a history buff. Yeah, I was about to say, I've always kind of dabbled in that. That could have come across really bad.

24:22

It's not what I meant. Not dabbled. I've always been intrigued in studying that kind of stuff. Even going back to like when

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I was in middle school and high school, when we had reading time and we were supposed to find books in the library to read,

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I'd always go find the mythology stuff. That's funny. I would always find the picture books. Yeah. I'm not kidding.

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I think I graduated from like reading Garfield during that time when I was in fifth and sixth grade. But when I got to middle school,

24:46

I was definitely looking for - No, you look for the books with all the animals in them. Well, they had plenty of pictures.

24:52

Yeah. Yeah. Some haunting images and stuff. Oh, lovely. So I think there is a line that you can cross.

24:58

I just don't know where it is. Okay, I was just curious. Yeah. But thank you for your question, Karen. Yeah. Always good to think about these things.

25:05

As we make a transition here into the next question, let me go ahead and play that video that I did on A Wrinkle in Time.

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Okay. So here's the what video where I... Now, okay, so let me kind of set this up before we go into the video.

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What made A Wrinkle in Time a problem, but not the Chronicles of Narnia? Oh, yeah.

25:25

So do tell. Because Madeline L 'Engle quoted scripture in her book. Oh. She was not trying to do allegory or types and shadows of stuff.

25:34

Okay. She was, she straight up says in her book that Jesus is just as much a prophet as Gandhi.

25:44

Oh. Or Buddha. Like she put Jesus on that level and explicitly names him in the story.

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So she's trying to be another John... What's his name?

25:56

The guy who wrote the Mormon book. Oh, Joseph Smith? Joseph. Yeah, that's right. Yes, that guy.

26:02

John Smith, Joseph Smith. I mean, Joseph Smith claimed that his stuff wasn't fiction. Her story was fiction, but she was a universalist.

26:10

Okay, okay. She was a universalist and that affected even the way that she wrote her novels. This is the video that I did warning folks about the problems with A Wrinkle in Time.

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A Wrinkle in Time is a young adult fantasy novel written by Madeline L 'Engle and considered one of the best -selling

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Christian books ever published. Really? Christian themes are more overt in A Wrinkle in Time than they are in the

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Chronicles of Narnia. Madeline even quotes scripture or more accurately, she twists scripture.

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In the book, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace travel by a Tesseract to a distant planet to rescue Meg and Charles Wallace's father.

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They're accompanied by three mysterious women, Mrs. What's -It, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Witch, and together they do battle with the

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Black Thing. There are other fighters who have conquered the Black Thing before. Mrs. Who quotes

27:01

John 1 5, saying, "'And the light shineth in the darkness, "'and the darkness comprehended it not.'

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"'Jesus!' Charles Wallace exclaims. "'But not just Jesus, also Leonardo da Vinci, "'Shakespeare,

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Bach, Einstein, Gandhi, and Buddha. "'Jesus is just one of a long line of men "'who have defeated an evil intelligence in science fiction.'

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"'Madeline L 'Engle was a universalist, "'believing all go to heaven "'and everyone is inherently good. "'So to her,

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Jesus was no more significant than Shakespeare. "'A Wrinkle in Time teaches "'that anyone can defeat evil with love "'or just being full of light.

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"'But the Bible says no one is good "'and everyone is full of darkness. "'Jesus alone is the light of men.

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"'Whoever does not believe in him walks in darkness "'and will be cast into hell. "'But whoever believes walks in the light "'as he is in the light "'and will live forever with him in heaven.'"

27:51

When we understand the text. There we go. This next question comes from Byron in Ohio to Pastor Gabe.

27:59

I'm writing to you about episode 2085. Toward the end of the broadcast, you were talking about divorce and remarriage.

28:06

This was so concerning to me that I couldn't really sleep. Am I living a sinful life because I am divorced and remarried?

28:14

My first wife and I got married in 2007, but we did fornicate and live with each other before marriage.

28:20

And all through the marriage, we were not living through Christ. In 2013, she filed for divorce due to the fact that I committed adultery.

28:29

My second wife and I got married in 2016, but we did not live with each other or have intercourse until marriage because she was a virgin.

28:36

So I started my Christian walk a year earlier. The question I have is, what do

28:41

I do? Do I leave my current wife and try to reconcile with my original wife?

28:46

I do not want me or my current wife living in a sinful marriage. She really didn't know about the adultery until after we had been married for a couple of years, and we are still together.

28:57

I need your advice, please. Byron, you're married to this woman, and that's who you need to be committed to.

29:03

There is nothing in God's word that would ever instruct, even if a man got married and shouldn't have, there's nothing in the

29:11

Bible that says, leave that wife then. Right. And go and be reconciled with your previous wife.

29:16

Agreed. If you're married, you've exchanged vows, you've made a covenant with one another. So whoever you're married to is supposed to be who you're married to.

29:25

And that's who you remain committed to. Now. Yes. With regard to your previous marriage, it does sound like there was a lot of sin there that resulted in a broken marriage and it falling apart.

29:36

But now, but you can't go back and fix that. No. You have to lay these things before God's feet.

29:44

You have to say, forgive me of my sin. And we know that he forgives. 1 John 1, 9, if we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

29:57

And as David says in Psalm 51, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

30:05

This is your pursuit going forward, that God would give you a heart that desires to honor him and love your wife whom you're married to in a way that you did not love your previous wife.

30:16

Right. Now you shouldn't have gotten married and not told her about your previous adultery until after you guys had been married for a year or two.

30:23

Agreed. I don't think that was terribly honest. So it would be good for you to go to your wife and apologize to her if you haven't already.

30:32

And say, I'm sorry that I wasn't honest with you before we got married. But again, the woman you're married to is the woman that you need to be with.

30:38

Don't think that you need to divorce and go reconcile and try to fix these things. Before God, this is your one flesh union.

30:47

Yes. And this is the woman that you need to love as Christ loved the church. As said in Ephesians 5.

30:53

I would, I mean, if it's eaten at you, I would suggest you and your ex -wife, you apologizing to her.

31:03

If you're on a good... Good terms. Yeah, good terms. Speaking terms.

31:09

Yeah, good speaking terms. There we go. That you can have that kind of a conversation. If you haven't apologized to your ex -wife yet, it probably would be good.

31:17

I mean, you have to discern that situation too. That's true. Because it could be scratching at old wounds.

31:23

That's true. It could bring something to her that right now, I just did not wanna deal with that. Why are you bringing that up now?

31:29

Yeah. And she's in a season of her life where she's moved on beyond those things. And would that be disruptive if you were to try to contact her again?

31:37

Would it make your current wife feel uncomfortable if you were to be? Well, that's kind of where I was going with that part.

31:44

The situation calls for counsel and counsel from those who know you well. Yes. So your pastor.

31:50

Talk to your pastor. Elders, whoever is keeping you accountable. Yeah, brother in the

31:55

Lord that you know, you can trust well. I appreciate you asking the question. I cannot remember what we said at the episode, at the end of the episode 2085, but really the best counsel that you're gonna get are gonna be from those people who know you.

32:10

And especially if you still have Christian accountability that knew you then. Like they knew you when all of that stuff had been going on that shouldn't have happened.

32:19

And then you came to know Christ and you married your current wife. If somebody knows the history of all of this, probably has some good wisdom to speak into that situation to tell you what would be the proper thing for you to do.

32:31

But at least on the details that you've given me, I can say matter of factly that the woman that you should be married to is the woman.

32:39

Is your current wife. Right, the woman you're currently married to. Yes. Exactly. Agreed. But I appreciate you,

32:45

Byron. Thank you for listening. This next question is from Trey in Alabama. Now this is a subject

32:50

I've been wanting to come back to, but we just haven't had the chance to do it. So we're coming back to the

32:56

Alistair Begg controversy. Oh, yes. So Trey in Alabama says, dear Pastor Gabe, in episode 2090, you said that you were walking back your comments about the

33:06

Alistair Begg controversy and that you were sorry for going so hard on Begg. Could I ask you to elaborate on that?

33:14

In what area specifically do you think that you went too hard on Begg? So just kind of refresh everybody's memory in case you don't remember what it was that happened.

33:24

We even played the clip of Begg saying it. We did. But there was an episode of Truth for Life in which

33:29

Alistair Begg, when he was pushing his book that he had just written on the Sermon on the

33:35

Mount, he said that he gave advice to this grandmother who was asking him, should I go to my trans grandson's wedding?

33:44

And there's some details even there about the wedding we weren't given. Right. In what Alistair was sharing with regards to the advice that he gave to this woman.

33:52

But he told the woman that she should go to a gay wedding and that she should even bring a gift.

33:59

And so this of course has erupted in all kinds of controversy. American Family Radio, which was carrying

34:05

Truth for Life dropped the program. They contacted Begg's ministry.

34:10

Didn't get the chance to talk to Begg personally, but they talked to representatives of Truth for Life. And they said that Begg was absolutely not gonna back down.

34:19

Of course, we know now based on a sermon that he would go on to preach the next Sunday.

34:24

I mean, he doubled down on it and he was not going to walk back his comments. So we know that now from Begg's own sermon.

34:32

That there's not a reason to now have to sit down and have a conversation with Alistair Begg to see if he is gonna walk back these comments or not.

34:39

He has said that he's not going to. It was the next sermon after the story exploded.

34:48

That sermon that came after that. Yes. So one of the things that I said in summarizing that sermon, was that it sounded like Alistair Begg was calling those people who disagreed with him

34:59

Pharisees. And I had a couple of people that contacted me after that. And I also said in that episode, in the episode that you and I did, where we played the

35:08

Begg clip, I said that I hope that Alistair listens to his elders. Yes. Well, one of my elders said to me that he felt like I went a little too hard.

35:18

Like you can disagree with the comments. It was wrong for Alistair to say what he said. Right. I'm not walking back my comments in that way.

35:25

When I say walking back, I'm just saying what I said may have gone a little too over the top. Not be so intense.

35:31

Right. I mean, I had three episodes about it. You did. There were three occasions when we were.

35:37

Now there's another. Yeah, now here's another. There were two occasions when I was teaching from Matthew 23, where I mentioned it there, where Jesus is giving the woes to the

35:47

Pharisees. And then there was the Q &A where you and I talked about it. And this would have been after the sermon that Begg eventually preached.

35:55

Right. Where he doubled down on his comments and said that he wasn't gonna take them back. So because I had done so many episodes and really,

36:04

I mean, I raked Begg over the coals. I wasn't pulling any punches. And I made some accusations that really all things considered were assumptions.

36:15

Right, that's true. Because I said, it sounded like in that sermon that Begg was calling people who disagreed with him

36:21

Pharisees. But I really can't say that conclusively. Did Begg's elders get the same opinion about that sermon?

36:30

Yeah. Because Begg said that even some of those among the pastoral staff disagreed with his comments.

36:35

So were they sitting there in the sermon that night listening to Begg going, he's calling me a Pharisee because I disagree with him.

36:42

If his own elders did not feel that way about Begg's comments, then it's improper for me to accuse

36:49

Begg of making that accusation. I still have opinions about some of the things that Begg said in that sermon.

36:58

But I think I'm going too far by accusing him of calling us who disagree with him Pharisees. There were some people who disagreed with him that probably were acting like Pharisees.

37:07

There always is. Maybe that's who it was that he was thinking of when he made those comments.

37:12

Perhaps. But he wasn't making this blanket statement of everybody who disagrees with me is therefore a

37:18

Pharisee. I have to relent in not going that far, make an improper accusation.

37:25

So that's simply what I meant by that. I'm not saying that Begg was right in his advice. He was wrong.

37:31

He should not have given the advice that he gave. And I still hope that he repents of it and that he's got some trusted men around him that help him to see the error in encouraging somebody to go to a gay wedding.

37:42

That Christian should not be doing that. We were actually celebrating something that God calls an abomination.

37:48

A wedding is a celebration. You're not just going in neutrality. Does anybody really go to a wedding neutral?

37:55

I'm kind of neutral about this whole thing. I don't think so. The whole reason for you being there is you're celebrating with family.

38:04

Yeah, that this union is happening. So it's not good for Christians to participate in things like that.

38:11

But as we said, when we were talking about this stuff, again, I guess that was episode 2090, you can invite your homosexual friend out for coffee or something and have a conversation with them and say, what you're doing is wicked.

38:26

And if you don't repent, you're going to hell. And that's a loving thing to do, but it's not loving for you to show approval of that by going to the wedding.

38:35

And that's therefore what they're gonna receive. Hey, I mean, I guess you're okay with this after all. Yeah, we just, we don't have enough details to pass judgment.

38:46

Yeah, at least not going as far as I did. Right. And we had a couple of listeners even that had gotten ahold of me and said,

38:53

I agree with you that Meg was wrong. Yeah. I hope that he changes his mind, but I don't think you can make some of the accusations of him that you made.

39:01

Yeah. And I think that the Shepherds Conference, which is coming up next week, incidentally, I think it was right for them to disinvite

39:08

Beg to speak at the Shepherds Conference. And the reason that Phil Johnson gave was because it's just a huge distraction.

39:16

Yeah. They're not declaring that Beg is now unqualified or even that something, maybe something will happen in the future that he could be part of a conference at John MacArthur's church later on.

39:29

I don't know. That might be going too far. I think for me - That's also another assumption. That's another assumption.

39:34

For me personally, I wouldn't invite Beg into my pulpit, but I get that this controversy has created such a distraction that that would be the focus at ShepCon.

39:45

Oh, for sure. And you just don't want that to be the focus. So I think that the

39:51

Shepherds Conference was right to disinvite him. The focus should be Christ. Now, speaking of that, there was somebody who sent me a clip of John MacArthur making a similar comment that Beg made.

40:03

This is from James. He says, Hello, Pastor Gabe. I think I have taken all the criticism of Pastor Beg's horrible advice to a confused and likely more confused now grandmother.

40:13

I would like to start by saying I totally agree with you and others. I have benefited from Pastor Beg's faithful preaching and I would like to see him repent and recant as well.

40:22

My question is this. Do we also treat, for example, baking a cake for such a wedding as an action that is not in line with scripture?

40:30

I have seen a video from someone asking Pastor Beg to recant and repent who also showed a clip from a conference

40:36

Pastor MacArthur was speaking at where he was asked if it was a sin to bake a cake for such a wedding.

40:43

He assured the person asking the question that it was not a sin. So here is the clip of John MacArthur saying this and then somebody contacted

40:54

Grace To You, Phil Johnson, who's the chair of Grace To You.

41:00

Was this okay? Like why are we getting on Beg but we're not getting on MacArthur for this particular comment which sounds pretty close to what it is that Beg said.

41:11

And Phil Johnson went to MacArthur, asked him to clarify his comments and gave a response.

41:16

I'm gonna read that response here in just a moment. So first of all, here is the comment that MacArthur made.

41:23

This was at a Ligonier conference, I'm not sure when, several years ago. But here's what he said when asked this question.

41:29

Chris Larson is the one asking the question, MacArthur answers. Here we go. Is it truly sinful for a

41:36

Christian business person, for instance, a cake baker, to produce a product for a gay wedding?

41:47

People are laughing because nobody wants to answer the question. Do you want to roll? No, it's not sinful for a cake maker to make a cake for a gay wedding any more than it's sinful for a guy who runs a restaurant to serve dinner to somebody who's gay and sits in a booth and eats the food or goes to the market and buys a loaf of bread and you own the market.

42:14

What the issue is, is not whether that's sinful, it's whether the federal government can demand that people do certain things which goes against their

42:30

Christian conscience. The issue is, to me, is more of a political governmental issue.

42:38

I actually think that we need to show love to everyone and particularly we need to do good to all those that are outside the kingdom as well as inside the kingdom as much as possible.

42:52

So a gesture of kindness toward some unregenerate person is in itself not a sin.

43:02

But again, if it violates your conscience in some way, then you don't want to train your conscience, you don't want to train yourself to ignore your conscience.

43:09

So I think it's a personal issue. The issue becomes when people are basically fined or imprisoned for doing things that are religious conscience matters and that speaks to the issue of how much authority the government has to make you do that.

43:32

So that sounded pretty close to MacArthur saying, it's okay for you to participate in a gay wedding.

43:40

You can bake a cake for a gay wedding, therefore go to the gay wedding.

43:46

Okay, but he compared that to the restaurant idea. Right, so that's where Phil Johnson's response comes in.

43:54

So clarifying these comments. So it sounds more like a business approach versus a personal approach.

44:00

Right, it does. But still. I mean, yeah, that one's toughy.

44:07

But still baking a cake for a gay wedding shows approval for what it is that they're doing. And these persons who have abstained from either baking a cake or doing flowers or doing photography.

44:22

Then that's their. That's their right to do that. Yeah, that's their stance and they should stick to that. But if the advice is going to be, a

44:29

Christian can do that. It's just up to your own conscience. Then I mean, really what kind of noble stand are these persons making by saying that I don't wanna be involved in this.

44:39

If it's just a conscience issue, if it's just a freedom of religion issue. So. Yeah, clarifying would be.

44:46

Clarifying would be good. So here's the response that we got from Phil Johnson. John was in the Grace to You office to record today.

44:53

So I asked him about this. The Q and A from which that excerpt was taken occurred several years ago at a Ligonier conference.

44:59

The question put to the panel was this. Is it truly sinful for a Christian business person, for instance, a cake baker, to produce a product for a gay wedding?

45:08

The question itself is somewhat ambiguous as is John's answer. John is clearly thinking the question is whether it is sinful for a

45:15

Christian business to serve homosexuals. And he answers accordingly saying, no, it's not sinful to bake a cake for homosexuals any more than it's sinful for a guy who runs a restaurant to serve dinner to someone who's gay.

45:28

Within the scope of how he interpreted the question, it's the right answer. It's not inherently sinful for a

45:35

Christian -owned retail establishment to serve a homosexual. John is applying the principle of 1

45:40

Corinthians 5, 9 -10, where the apostle writes, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.

45:47

I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the greedy and swindlers or with idolaters for then you would have to go out of the world.

45:56

Nevertheless, it's not the clearest possible answer because it doesn't take into account what is required of a baker in the preparation of a wedding cake.

46:04

The cake maker would have to decorate the cake to the couple's specifications, likely with little figures representing a homosexual couple on top, transport it to the wedding, set it up and help arrange it for display in the reception.

46:19

The baker would thus be present and taking an active part in the actual celebration of this illicit charade imitating marriage.

46:27

When I described what all is required of the average baker in the preparation of a formal cake for a wedding reception,

46:34

John replied, well, of course you can't do that. To join a celebration of sexual immorality, to imply by your presence at an evil event that you give hearty approval to an abominable lifestyle would indeed be sinful,

46:47

Romans 1 .32. In other words, the circumstance would be different from that of a baker who bakes generic birthday cakes or cookies and sells them from a counter to any and all customers.

46:59

John raised that hypothetical in our conversation. He asked, if you were a baker, would you sell a birthday cake to a homosexual?

47:06

If that cake ended up being used in a celebration of gay pride, would you feel that you did something sinful?

47:12

It depends, I said. If a homosexual person bought a generic birthday cake from my cake counter,

47:19

I am not responsible for what he did with it. But if he asked me to decorate it with gay pride slogans or perverse images, that violates my conscience.

47:27

I could not do it. That's precisely the proper distinction, John said. Producing and selling a product to someone living a sinful lifestyle is not inherently sinful.

47:36

Celebrating that person's sinful lifestyle in any way is a sin. So to sum up,

47:42

John MacArthur, who is officiated at many weddings, but probably has never involved, never been involved in the planning of a matrimonial service was saying that it's not inherently sinful to produce and sell a product that might be used in a gay wedding.

47:56

But he does not believe Christians should participate in or show tacit approval for any such celebration.

48:03

He acknowledges that the answer he gave was incomplete. And he said that if he were given another opportunity to answer that question, he would strive to make the critical distinction as clear as possible.

48:15

That's how you answer that question. Yes. Not the way Begg did. Yes. But MacArthur did well, especially saying he acknowledged that his first answer was unclear and he makes distinctions.

48:28

Begg doubled down and he made it even more confusing with what he said in the sermon following all the controversy.

48:36

Yeah. Well, I mean, the question to MacArthur wasn't very clear and that was sort of a caveat or a parentheses part of that to use that as an example.

48:47

So. Even the question wasn't clear. Right. Yeah. Right. Whereas Begg wasn't even asked a question.

48:53

No. As we had talked about when we went to the actual clip of what

48:58

Begg said, he just offered that story and it really did not even fit with the rest of the broadcast.

49:03

Yeah. It was so unusually placed. It did not even make sense why he brought it up. But it was at the very conclusion of the interview.

49:10

And MacArthur was asked at another point, oh, it was the Q &A that he recently did at Grace Church.

49:16

I think it was two weeks ago. But he said in that Q &A, if I was ever asked a question like this,

49:22

I would just go, next question, please. Yeah. This is not the time and place to discuss those things.

49:28

That's always an answer. But Begg was not even asked a question. He just willingly offered up that story and it was horribly placed and has resulted in this whole controversy.

49:39

And nonetheless, he won't back down from the statements that he made. Yeah. At least not yet. And again, I still hope that, especially among his own elders, that he can be convicted of the, just the lack of wisdom that he had in what it was that he said.

49:55

And clarity. And will be more clear in the future. Definitely. All right, well, that is, those are the questions that we've had, at least as far as some of the theological stuff that we've gotten into.

50:07

This is a lot more light fare. All right. So this is from Kelly in Wisconsin. Dear Gabe and Babe, I'm just throwing that out there because I haven't heard it in a while.

50:18

I'm a big fan of your Q &A and I think I have heard them all. So yeah, this wasn't a new listener. I said a moment ago, this was a new listener, but she's listened to all the

50:25

Q &As. I'm wholeheartedly in favor of renaming the Friday episodes, The Gabe and Babe Show.

50:32

Aw. Instead of giving you any deeply probing theology questions, although I will probably come up with one later and we'll promptly email you back.

50:42

I thought I would settle for something fun. I like watching some of these rapid fire Q &A videos with celebrities.

50:48

And I'm sure you don't think of yourselves as celebrities, but I thought these would be some fun questions to answer.

50:55

And I love your banter. Aw. You may choose some or all of these, but here are 22 questions about you guys.

51:04

Enjoy. Here we go. Okay, so here you go. I feel like I'm giving up like personal identity with the answers to some of these questions.

51:13

Oh. Because the very first one here is where were you born? Ah, should we do state or, because I know that -

51:21

I'll do town. Yeah? Yeah, Columbia, South Carolina. Yeah, yours is pretty big. And mine's pretty big.

51:27

Even specifically, it was a Lexington County Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. I was

51:32

Lakin, Kansas. Yeah. That's a tiny town. Is there even a thousand people in Lakin?

51:39

I don't think so. When I lived in Western Kansas, I did concerts out in Lakin. I knew a good group of folks out there.

51:47

Yeah, they're awesome. Yeah. But yeah, that is a teeny tiny Western Kansas town.

51:52

Yep. You just go a little bit, I think it's the next town to the West. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

51:57

Anyway, the next town to the West, you're in the Mountain Time Zone. No, Lakin is Mountain. No. Yeah, I was born in Mountain Time.

52:05

I don't think so. I don't think so. Hang on, hang on. I know that they've had some sort of like recent switch, but when

52:12

I was born, I was born in Mountain Time. I think if they switched it, it was even before I started doing concerts out there.

52:20

Oh, this map doesn't show the time zone. Because Syracuse is that next town over.

52:25

I know that Syracuse is in Mountain Time. Okay, Lakin used to be, if it's not anymore.

52:32

I'm just gonna type in Lakin, Kansas. Yeah, time zone, Central Standard Time. Yeah, but is

52:37

Lakin, Kansas on Mountain Time? See if it said it used to be. Lakin, Kansas, well, yeah, that doesn't tell you anyway.

52:46

That doesn't. So maybe there was a time when it was in Mountain Time. You were born in Mountain Time. I was born in Mountain Time.

52:52

But it's not anymore, it's in Central Time. But yeah. Yeah. They had a conflict over, because it was so far into Kansas.

52:59

I don't understand why they just do it at the state line. I know, it's so random. Because you just go the next spot over from Syracuse and you're in Colorado.

53:07

I know. Just put it on the state line. Yeah. Anyway. It's fine. Next question. Who would you want to play you in a movie?

53:15

Oh, oh. I don't have any idea. I mean, there's a couple actresses that resemble my personality, but I don't know them personally, like how they are in real life.

53:28

So I don't know. I'm still young. I'm in my 40s. I'll say me. You? I'll play me in the movie.

53:34

Yeah. I don't know. I can't think of an actor that I would want to have play me in a movie. You would have to be really nerdy, kind of goofy, but have an excellent radio voice.

53:50

But if you're going to do a movie about me, I can't pick an actor that's older than me. Would it have to be somebody younger than me?

53:56

Well. Because it would be like my life back in my 20s and 30s and stuff. Back in the day. I have no idea. I don't know either.

54:02

I don't know. Number three. What was your first job? Radio. That was my first job.

54:10

Babysitting technically, but like first official job, I worked at a pharmacy.

54:17

It was Case Pharmacy, and we developed film in the afternoon. And then we delivered prescriptions.

54:23

So you did. After that. Film development and prescription delivery. What is your biggest fear?

54:33

Losing my family, probably. That might be my biggest fear. Yeah. I mean, whatever happens,

54:39

I'm going to trust the Lord. Of course. No matter what comes down the way. Yes. But it bothers me that when you have your homeschool group, you're going all the way up to Phoenix.

54:49

Yeah. I am unsettled by that every week. Like, oh. It's an easy drive.

54:55

It's my whole family in that van in a big city. I'm not worried about your driving.

55:01

It's everybody else's driving that I'm worried about. I don't know.

55:07

I have a lot of fears, but the one that stands out the most, I don't know.

55:13

Okay. We'll come back to that. Yeah. That's tough to narrow down. Number five. Who makes you laugh the most?

55:19

You. You. And Bubba. Oh my goodness. I mean, this household just makes me laugh.

55:28

Like falling on the floor in stitches laughing. Oh my goodness. You can't make. So funny.

55:33

You cannot make a sitcom or a movie that makes me laugh. And you can't replicate it.

55:39

Like. Right. You can't, like, I can't tell you guys what happened. That was so funny.

55:44

Because it was all in the delivery as well. It was the circumstance. It was, yeah. Everything surrounding it.

55:50

We just share that together. Yes. Nobody else gets to see it. So whoever is going to play us in a movie, they're just not going to be able to replicate the joy that we manufacture in this house.

56:01

Question six. What is the one thing you need to have in your fridge at all times?

56:07

Cold. Yes. Yes. My fridge. That is an issue.

56:13

My fridge must always be cold. And cold enough that sometimes if you get a thing in the wrong place, it kind of freezes.

56:20

Yeah, right. That's how cold it is. I remember when you had your little mini fridge that you would have it so cold that the soda.

56:30

I still have that mini fridge. The soda would have like little ice crystals in it and you're like, this is perfect.

56:36

This is right on. It's exactly the spot. Like you want a slushie. No, no, not quite.

56:42

No. Not quite. Not a slushie. It was just a little tiny bit of ice that's been generated in there.

56:48

It got just to the right spot. And it was only that mini fridge that could get it there. Yep. I couldn't do it anywhere else.

56:54

Even if I put it in the freezer, there's like that zone, I couldn't perfect it.

57:00

Yes. But the mini fridge could get it. It's either too much or too little. That's right. Yeah. Question seven, what is your greatest accomplishment?

57:08

Well, getting that frostiness in my soda. That's a pretty good accomplishment.

57:13

That's a pretty good accomplishment. No, my greatest.

57:21

I'm sorry that tickled me. Finding the perfect zone for the soda in my mini fridge.

57:31

No, my greatest accomplishment was getting this woman to say yes. That was my greatest accomplishment.

57:37

My greatest accomplishment would be to get you to actually see me and meet me. Yeah, there's a story there.

57:47

So we joked that she met me before I met her.

57:52

Oh, it's not a joke. It's true. I don't remember. I do not remember our first encounter.

57:59

But he met me when he had short hair and I remember him when he had long hair. Right. And that was proof to him that I actually met him before he met me.

58:07

Yep, you definitely met me in my surfer dude hair. It was awesome. Stage, yeah. But then he came in all clean cut and I was like, ooh.

58:19

Question eight, who is the most interesting person you met recently? Ooh, recently.

58:25

I don't know. Does two years ago count? Sure, that's recent enough.

58:31

Who do you think? Yeah, okay, yes. Our youngest. Oh, having -

58:39

I don't know what you consider interesting. Having Daryl Harrison at our church. Oh yeah.

58:44

Love Daryl. Samuel C. When I drove him from Lindale to the airport, or no, to the hotel in Dallas last year in March and getting the chance to talk with him and his wife.

58:58

That was great. That was a great car ride. You didn't get the chance to meet him. You met him at G3. I met him.

59:04

I met him at our church. Oh, you did, okay. I did, but it was very brief. Right. And I didn't get the car ride.

59:10

But then you saw him at G3 too. Yes, yes. So good brother, enjoyed visiting with him.

59:17

Number nine, what is your middle name? Oh, Lynn. Peter. Yes. Rebecca Lynn and Gabriel Peter.

59:25

But I'm unique in my spelling. Yeah, just three letters. Yeah. I don't know, we probably shouldn't share that part.

59:34

Question 10, what is your favorite Bible verse? Well, I don't know.

59:39

I don't know that I have a favorite, like I'm always going to this one. But I can tell you the one that I reference the most is probably

59:47

Romans 12, one and two. That's the turn in Romans. That's where you go from the doctrine heavy section in chapters one through 11 to now the application in chapters 12 to 16.

01:00:00

Yeah. And so that statement that Paul makes there at the start of chapter 12, in view of God's mercies, let us present our bodies as living sacrifices unto the

01:00:11

Lord, holy and acceptable to him. This is our spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

01:00:21

And then you will be able to test and approve what is good and right and perfect according to the will of God.

01:00:28

So I probably reference that a lot because I think that, you know, even in my sermons where I'm making the turn from doctrine to now application,

01:00:38

Romans 12, one and two just fits so well there. Yeah. So I'm probably referencing that more than any other passage.

01:00:44

Yeah. I like His mercies in new every morning. Lamentations three.

01:00:51

And I like, you know, he takes care of the sparrows. Yeah, in Matthew six.

01:00:57

Yeah. Or in Luke is the same. Matthew six is the one I go to. Yes. But yeah. He cares for birds.

01:01:02

How much more does he care for you? Oh, you have little faith. Yep. Question 11, what was the last book that you read?

01:01:13

Oh, goodness. I'm currently reading kindness of God by Nate Pikowitz. And it's a great book.

01:01:19

He sent me a copy. Very thankful for that. Terrific book. And I've always loved what Nate writes.

01:01:25

Yes. So yeah. Check out kindness of God. Great book. What did you read recently? I read about a pig in a farm.

01:01:34

That's the name of the book? It's something like that. I don't remember the name. Oh, for Bubba? Yes. The books we read to our children.

01:01:42

It's a little kid book. Yep. I don't get much time. I'm going through The Hobbit with the kids. It's taking me a while because we don't do it every night.

01:01:49

Right. But we're doing The Hobbit. So speaking of The Hobbit, that we talked about earlier. And I'm reading

01:01:54

Eight Cousins to Aria. Oh, gotcha. With Aria, rather. Question 12, what is your favorite hobby?

01:02:02

Excuse me. I don't know. Making videos, recording podcasts. Oh, that's what

01:02:08

I said on your introduction this morning that you missed at our homeschool group.

01:02:13

Oh, yeah, when you did the family presentation. Yep. And I said that mine is painting.

01:02:19

Yes, and she's very gifted at it. Aw, thank you. Question 13, what is your guilty pleasure?

01:02:26

Oh, probably playing video games. Chocolate. I mean, playing video games

01:02:32

I can do with the kids. Yeah, eating chocolate I can't. Yeah. Especially not with a two -year -old.

01:02:41

He will be wired. Question 14, do you have any hidden talents?

01:02:49

Yes, but they're hidden. Maybe. But if I say it, then

01:02:55

I. Yeah, then it's not hidden anymore. Yeah, it's exposed. So the answer's yes. Question 15, what color is your toothbrush?

01:03:03

Yeah, black, I've got a black one right now. I don't always stick with the same color. I'm just kind of grabbing what's on sale.

01:03:09

But right now it's a black toothbrush. I think mine's orange. I can't remember. We're not sharing the same cup anymore.

01:03:15

We're not. So our whole marriage until we moved here, we had the same cup where we were putting our toothbrushes in the same cup.

01:03:24

But now here we've got different cups for our toothbrushes. Well, I have a different compartment. We have a lot more counter space than we've ever had.

01:03:32

We do, ever. And we've taken it all up. But still just one sink in there, right?

01:03:40

See, it's just odd to have that much counter space and there's just one sink. I'm okay with that.

01:03:45

I have to clean it. Well, yeah, but you don't like all my shavings and stuff like that. No, I don't, that's very, very true.

01:03:51

Gabe's whiskers getting in there. Because I'm so short, I have to lean over the sink and then it gets all on my shirt.

01:03:59

Question 16, what is your favorite snack? Oh, chips and salsa. Can't go wrong with chips and salsa.

01:04:08

Okay, so favorite snack. This is terrible, terrible. I don't know if I should give this up. Okay. It's pretzels and the easy cheese.

01:04:21

Oh, yeah, that's right. My wife likes cheap cheese. Cheap. I, early in our marriage,

01:04:28

I thought I was spoiling her one time by buying all these rich cheeses. Because I love cheese.

01:04:35

You can't die over there on me. I know. I love cheese. And so I got all these, you know, rich, good, expensive cheeses.

01:04:44

Expensive. Oh, she didn't like any of them. You didn't like a one of them. Nope, nope. She wanted a can of cheese whiz.

01:04:50

I did. I was like, oh my goodness. I did. She likes Velveeta and I don't like, it's a block of orange plastic in my opinion.

01:04:58

It tastes so good. Yeah, so I get her cheap stuff. She'll eat cheap salsa and cheap cheese.

01:05:04

And then he can buy a smaller portion of the expensive cheese for himself. Yeah. But now we have some more cheese connoisseurs on our, in our family.

01:05:16

Yeah. So there's a few of them that love. The kids all love cheese. Love the expensive cheese. The girls don't.

01:05:23

Yeah, they do. Do they? The expensive cheese? Aria, mm -hmm. Number 17, how do you take your coffee?

01:05:30

I don't. I don't even drink it. I can count on one hand, the number of cups of coffee

01:05:37

I've had in my entire life. If I have one more, I'll need two hands. That's right, that's true.

01:05:44

I've had five cups of coffee in my entire life. Yeah, I take mine with creamer for sure.

01:05:50

A lot. I think you take a little coffee with your creamer. Occasionally, yeah. I've gotten better about it.

01:05:59

But hot or cold, it doesn't matter. Hot coffee or cold coffee? Mm -hmm, yeah. Question 18, what is the last movie you saw in the theater?

01:06:08

Oh man, you would know that. Is it Jaws? Was that the last movie you saw? And I don't mean the original outing, you know, like.

01:06:17

Yeah, all the way back to, that would have been in the 70s. That was before I was born. Right. No, there was a, for my birthday, she took me to see

01:06:26

Jaws because it's one of my all time favorite films. Yes. So have you not been to the theater since then? I don't think so. I took

01:06:31

Zeej to see Godzilla Minus One. Yeah. Back around Christmas. I guess that was the last one.

01:06:38

And before that, I took the kids to see one of the cartoon, one of the animated films. Yeah, they're looking forward to another animated film too.

01:06:46

One that's coming soon? Mm -hmm. I'll have to ask about that one. Question 19, what was the last gift you gave?

01:06:54

Oh. I mean, Annie just had a birthday. So all the stuff we got her for her birthday. Yeah. I guess that would be it.

01:07:00

Her driver's license. I was gonna say her permit. Yeah. Cause we paid for that.

01:07:05

Now we've got a driver in the house. Yeah. An extra driver. An extra. A teenage driver, we'll put it that way, yeah.

01:07:12

She's not looking forward to it actually. Really? I kept asking her as we were driving through Phoenix, you know, are you glad you're not driving or do you want to drive through this?

01:07:21

And she was like, no. Ooh. Well, out where we live, there's plenty of open road.

01:07:27

Oh yes. So this is actually a good place to learn how to drive. It's perfect. Number 20, what is your favorite color?

01:07:33

I don't, I always hated this question. Cause I don't know. You always said blue. Yeah, dark blue. Yeah. Mine changes.

01:07:42

So I would either go with like opal. Opal? Or iridescent, you know, one that has all the colors.

01:07:50

Opals, isn't it a stone? It is, but it has all the pretty colors on it. Okay. Question 21, what is your biggest pet peeve?

01:08:01

Either people who won't turn right on red or who don't know how to turn left.

01:08:07

Yeah. Turning. Turning or chewing next to your ear, I think. Yeah, chewing, yeah.

01:08:13

That's another one. More behind me than in my ear. Yeah, like if they're standing behind me chewing, get out of the back there.

01:08:19

Go over there. You can't stand that. You can stand over there and chew, but not back here. Including the dog. The dog is included.

01:08:25

Oh my heavens, yes. The whole smacking. Right. Yeah. Mine, probably messy house.

01:08:32

I don't like that either. That would be my biggest pet peeve and yet it's something that I can't conquer.

01:08:39

Right. Well, as long as we have children as young as we do, we still have three under 10.

01:08:44

Oh my goodness. Question 22, where do you want to go that you've never been?

01:08:52

Oh, so many places. Where's yours?

01:08:57

Heaven. Nice answer. I should have answered mine first.

01:09:04

Because now it's just not gonna make it there. It isn't. That was my Jesus juke answer.

01:09:11

Yeah. I'd have to say like Europe and Asia are my favorite places to go.

01:09:18

I mean, like to want to go and the Pacific Island areas.

01:09:24

Okay, pick one city in Europe that you could go to right now if you could. Oh man, no,

01:09:30

I can't go to Europe. There's just so many. Rome, Paris, Dublin, London.

01:09:37

I'd go someplace sunny. I don't know Europe that well. I thought Europe was like mostly cloudy.

01:09:42

Yeah, that's Northern Europe. I guess Rome would be. Rome would be sunnier.

01:09:48

Okay. Yeah. And now how about Asia? One city in Asia that you could go to right now? Hong Kong?

01:09:54

Yeah, probably. What is it with you and Hong Kong? I don't know. It just showed up a lot.

01:10:00

You keep bringing that up. So understand. But you brought it up today. Because you keep bringing it up.

01:10:05

No, I was gonna say, what is that mean? So back when we were kind of exploring the possibility that I was gonna be moving again and be a pastor.

01:10:17

So she kept sending me pastor jobs in Hong Kong. Because there was one. There wasn't one.

01:10:24

One more. No, yeah. There was more. You sent me more than one. I did, that's true. Let me look it up.

01:10:32

So if I had to pick one in Asia. All right. Probably like Manila is where I would start and then maybe move my way up to Hong Kong and Shanghai.

01:10:42

The Philippines. Yeah, yeah. If I was gonna go somewhere in Asia, I would pick Japan. Oh yeah,

01:10:49

Japan's up there too. See, I'm telling you, just all over. I would just travel.

01:10:56

You would never leave home. That's true. I would just kind of get there.

01:11:01

Give me a good hotel with a good view and that's it. That's just where I'm gonna stay, yeah. What was it we were talking about?

01:11:08

Oh yeah, Philippines. That was what you said first. Yes. So we have some good listeners in the Philippines. We do. Every once in a while, the

01:11:14

What podcast will pop up as trending in the Philippines. So cool.

01:11:19

So we appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for listening. As we're wrapping this up, we are not going to have an outtake.

01:11:27

So don't be listening for an outtake at the very end. Right. We just recorded a song. Don't be looking forward to an outtake.

01:11:33

Yeah, there's not gonna be an outtake. Keep listening. At the end of this episode. But we just recorded a song as a family.

01:11:38

It was a song that I wrote years ago, but never really did anything with. And I even tweaked some of the lyrics for this particular recording.

01:11:45

So it's not exactly what I wrote originally. But it's called Anthem. I released it on the

01:11:50

What YouTube channel. It's been on Facebook and on X. The background voices that you hear are the wife and kids.

01:11:58

Minus one. Yeah, it's not the toddler. He can sing the song, but it just sounds, he's a little slower on the lyrics.

01:12:08

So he wasn't quite there yet to record with us. That's right. So as our closing prayer, is kind of the closing of this episode of the podcast, this is

01:12:19

Anthem. Once again, if you have any questions or comments that you would like to submit to our program, the email address is, when we understand the text, at gmail .com.

01:12:29

Yeah. God bless. God bless. ♪ Raise an anthem to His holy name ♪ ♪

01:12:45

The ender of wars, the battle is the

01:12:50

Lord's ♪ ♪ Every knee shall bow and tongue proclaim ♪ ♪

01:12:58

That Jesus Christ is Lord.

01:13:04

♪ ♪ Raise an anthem to His holy name ♪ ♪

01:13:14

The ender of wars, the battle is the

01:13:19

Lord's ♪ ♪ Every knee shall bow and tongue proclaim ♪ ♪

01:13:26

That Jesus Christ is Lord.

01:13:33

♪ ♪ His cause He will defend. ♪ ♪

01:13:38

Crown Him with many crowns, the Lord renowned.

01:13:45

♪ ♪ His kingdom never ends. ♪ ♪

01:13:51

Let all the nations know He reigns.

01:14:03

♪ ♪ Raise an anthem to His holy name ♪ ♪ The ender of wars, the battle is the

01:14:10

Lord's ♪ ♪ Every knee shall bow and tongue proclaim ♪ ♪

01:14:17

That Jesus Christ is Lord.

01:14:24

♪ ♪ His word forever stands. ♪ ♪

01:14:29

Let us exalt the name above all names.

01:14:37

♪ ♪ Yahweh, the great I Am. ♪ ♪

01:14:42

Let all the nations sing His praise.

01:14:50

♪ ♪ Raise an anthem to His holy name. ♪ ♪

01:14:56

The ender of wars, the battle is the

01:15:01

Lord's. ♪ ♪ Every knee shall bow and tongue proclaim.

01:15:09

♪ ♪ That Jesus Christ is Lord. ♪ ♪

01:15:15

Raise an anthem to His holy name.

01:15:21

♪ ♪ The ender of wars, the battle is the

01:15:27

Lord's. ♪ ♪ Every knee shall bow and tongue proclaim.

01:15:34

♪ ♪ That Jesus Christ is Lord. ♪ ♪

01:15:41

That Jesus Christ is Lord. ♪ ♪

01:15:47

That Jesus Christ is Lord.