F4F | Ask a Pirate: December 2024

Questions About Meat Offered to Idols and Devil’s Food Cake

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseboro. I'm your servant in Jesus Christ. This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God.

And I pray that you all had a Merry Christmas and that you also will have a Happy New Year. I'm a little bit under the weather, but that's okay. What we will do today is we're going to answer your questions.

And so that's the whole idea of Ask a Pirate, is that you all get to ask me questions and I have to answer them. So let's kind of do this. I've already kind of favorited a couple of questions that came up.

And let's do this. All right. So the first question, which seems kind of like a softball question if you ask me, I'm just saying, is from... Let me see if I can actually add to the broadcast. Yeah, let me put it over here.

There we go. Question, and that is, with regards to meat that has been sacrificed to idols, can you comment on serving devil's food cake at a church potluck? I would say go with your conscience on that.

If you want to have devil's food cake, then for sure. Do so if you can do so without scandalizing people and having that. Although I think devil's food cake is fantastic, but that's a whole other story.

And unfortunately, named food is the best way I can put it. All right. Tommy Phillips. Tommy Phillips. I'm going to note here. Let's see if I can make this bigger. Not sure if my question went through.

If it did, just remember that I'm asking the question rhetorically in order to debunk someone who basically believes in purgatory. I just want some biblical help. Okay. So Tommy, here's the issue. And that is that your question didn't go through.

And so I need you to repost it so that I can grab that real quick. So I will be on the lookout for that particular question as it relates to purgatory. And we'll actually talk about that here. But the next question then, let's see here.

The Seventy Weeks of Daniel

Okay. This one's a more technical one. All right. Here we go. All right. So would like to hear about the 70 weeks of Daniel. Jesus Christ fulfilled it is my understanding. So good question, Leslie. And here's what we're going to do.

Let me share my desktop real quick here. And there, there, that's that. And let's see here. I'm going to, let's pull up Logos. Okay. So I normally study and read from Logos. From time to time, I'll actually teach using Logos.

But I find that Ecamm and Logos don't always get along. So Don asked the question, where do you send the questions? Put them right here in the chat. That's the place to put them. Okay. So let me show you a resource.

So let's do this. I'm going to go to the book of Daniel and I am going to go to, is it chapter nine? Yeah, I think it's chapter nine. And Gabriel's answer, the 70 weeks. Okay. So let me show you a resource that I think is super helpful.

And in my commentaries, I have quite an extensive Logos library. And let's see here. That's the word Bible commentary. I want the Concordia. There we go. All right. So in, in something called the Concordia commentary series on the book of Daniel, this is probably one of the better commentaries I've seen regarding Daniel.

And so let's do this. I'm going to scroll down to the 70 weeks and these are the Hebrew notes, commentary, Gabriel explains future of Jerusalem. Let's see here. So we got the 70 weeks. There's a handy dandy.

How do I put this? Let's see here. There we go. A handy dandy chart that explains kind of the historical, the traditional interpretation of the 70 weeks. And I would note that many charismatic and Pentecostal folk have a problem.

And that is, is that they think there's still one week or part of a week left in Daniel 70 weeks. But let's take a look at how the church is historically understood. So this is the traditional messianic interpretation regarding the 70 weeks.

And, and so let me, let me, you'll notice that the text for it is starts in verse 24 of chapter nine of Daniel. And let's, let's take a look at this. 70 weeks are decreed about your people and, and, and your holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for iniquity, to bring an everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit.

I would note that part of the understanding of, of all of this is that prophecy gets healed, gets sealed at the, at the end of the 70 weeks, which kind of begs the question, when does that occur? Okay.

To anointed most holy place, know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming out of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks.

And then for 62 weeks, it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.

Its end shall come with a flood and to the end, there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. Okay. And so there's lots of details as it relates to the 70 weeks. And of course, when I moved it, the graphic disappeared.

Let me see if I can roll that back up here. So here's the traditional interpretation of it. The first seven weeks go from the time of Cyrus's decree to basically rebuild the wall, rebuild the temple in Jerusalem to the time of Nehemiah.

And so that's your first seven weeks. And you know, these are not literal weeks. If they were literal weeks, they would have been over shortly after Cyrus's decree. These are kind of like the numbers in the book of Revelation.

They are symbolic of a time period. And then from there, you have 62 weeks, which will be from Nehemiah all the way to the birth of Christ. In the middle of that, you have Antiochus, the kind of the type and shadow of the Antichrist himself, desecrating the temple in 167 AD.

And then you have one whole week, which is going to include Jesus's birth, Jesus's crucifixion, the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, and then the completion of the 70 weeks coming almost middle of the second century with Hadrian, the Emperor Hadrian conquering Jerusalem.

And if you're not familiar with that, I know a lot of Christians are very familiar with Titus destroying the temple in 70 AD, but Rome did not make a complete end of Judea at the time of the destruction of the temple.

It was the Emperor Hadrian, because even after the temple was destroyed, the Jews in Judea continued to be a problem for the Roman Empire. And so, Hadrian, basically 135-ish said enough is enough, sent a conquering force into Judea.

They destroyed Judea and then literally evicted the Jews out of Judea and then changed the name of Judea to Syria Palestinia. That was the actual name that the Roman Emperor Hadrian put on the place. And so, historically, the church has understood that the 70 weeks are completed.

And I would note that back in the day when I was learning Christian apologetics, one of the apologetic arguments was that if Jesus isn't the Messiah, then ain't nobody can be the Messiah due to the fact that the 70 weeks are completed.

There's no room for the Messiah. Jesus has to have come during the 70 weeks. And that was a very strong argument used by many back in the day. But I would note that the charismatic Pentecostal way of interpreting this somehow leaves it so there's one week still left.

And as a result of it, it's created all kinds of chaos. But if you wanted to read more on this, again, I would strongly recommend the Concordia Commentary on the Book of Daniel. You can find it at cph .org.

You can buy it at logos .com. It's just a fantastic resource. Okay, now let me roll back up through here and see if I can find Tommy's question because I didn't see it because it got lost in translation somewhere.

Let's see here. I'm not seeing it. All right. So, you know, Tommy, I'm not. Let's see here. Let me see. Can I search? Yeah, I can, Tommy. T-O-M-M-Y. Okay. Okay. I found the thing. Tommy Phillips says, your $10 was accepted as a token to get your question out of purgatory.

When the coin in the coffer clings, your question from purgatory springs. I see what you were doing there. I see what you're doing there. If it did, just remember that I'm asking the question rhetorically in order to debunk someone who basically believes in purgatory.

I just want some biblical help. Okay, so let's talk about purgatory, shall we? And let's do this. Number one, there are no biblical texts to teach it. None whatsoever. And let me see if I can find the text that they like to go to.

I think it's 1 Corinthians 5. Let's see here. No, it's not there. Maybe it's second. Hang on a second here. I'm doing this from memory. Hang on a second. Let me find the text. It has to do with fire. Hang on a second.

Let's just do this. We'll go with fire and we're going to limit our text to the epistles. And let's see if, ah, there we go. 1 Corinthians 3. That's the one. 1 Cor 3. Okay. Divisions in the church according to the grace.

Okay. All right. Hmm. Let's see here. Yeah, this is the text. Okay. So, this is the passage that Roman Catholics twist to try to smuggle purgatory in here. The issue is it doesn't work. And then I would note that not even the Apocrypha teaches purgatory.

I'm just saying. So, the Apostle Paul is talking about divisions in the church. And so, he says, but I, brothers, I could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ, I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.

And even now you're not ready for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

And then Paul says, what is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

He who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building. So, note the context here. He's, number one, basically saying Paul and Apollos are nobody.

God, you know, one plants, another waters. God is the one who brings, who brings the increase. And then watch where he goes from here. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, someone else is building upon it.

So, then let each one care, take care about how he builds on it. What's the foundation? Foundation is Christ, right? Christ is the foundation. The foundation of the apostles and the prophets and Jesus Christ is the cornerstone.

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation. So, note we're talking about people who are doing what? Ministry work. Okay, this isn't talking about the general public, okay?

The, no, he was talking about Apollos and Paul. Apollos, many believe, was the the pastor of the church in Corinth when all these weird things were happening there. Paul is the apostle that planted that church, right?

So, now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, how does one do that? By preaching the word, okay? Each one will, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

Now, you'll note in purgatory, in the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, people are being burned up, okay? And having the dross, you know, burned out of them. But here, their work is being tested, right?

And so, I like to think of this passage as kind of like the, you'll note that people who go into the pastoral office, people who do preaching and teaching and do ministry in God's work, Scripture says they have a stricter judgment.

I think this may be dealing with that, okay? Each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. I would note there's plenty of Christian out there who's done Christian ministry and built their ministry with wood, hay, and stubble.

I would note that the megachurches are known for that kind of stuff, right? You know, so do you not know that you are God's temple and God's spirit dwells in you? So, you'll note that this is oftentimes the text that people go to regarding purgatory, but it doesn't teach purgatory.

It teaches that somebody's work is tested on the day of judgment. What building material did they do their ministry with? Did they do it with gold, precious stones, and things like this, with the word of God preaching Christ?

Or did they cut corners and build it with cheap building materials and the whole thing gets burned up? That's the idea, but the person is still saved at the end of it. This is not a purgatory text. This is a text regarding somebody's work being tested, their ministry work being tested by Christ at the very end.

That's the idea behind it. But I would note, let me see if I can find this, twinkling. All right, so there's a verse I'm looking for, and it's in 1 Corinthians 15, and I would note, this is the text that I just think completely destroys purgatory in any of its forms.

Number one, in order for it to be a doctrine, it has to be clearly taught in scripture. It isn't. So, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 talks about the resurrection of the dead and talks about how we will be raised not with bodies that are perishable, immortal, but with immortal and imperishable bodies.

So, here's what he says in 1 Corinthians 15. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It's raised in glory. It is sown in weakness.

It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. If there's a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being.

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven, as was the man of dust.

So are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so are also those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

So, watch what he says here. So, I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. We need the resurrection because our current flesh and blood is corrupted by sin.

That's the point that he's making. So, then he says this, behold, I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep. And by this, he means not every, not every Christian is going to die, but we shall all be changed.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

And when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting? So, you note that the scriptures clearly teach that Christians who are alive at the return of Christ, when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, they will be changed in the twinkling of an eye.

And so, no purgatory for them. Yeah, that's kind of the point. And then I would note the whole idea of purgatory denies the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice. At its core, it's a denial that Christ's death on the cross is sufficient for the forgiveness of all of our sins.

But the scripture is very clear that Christ died for all of our sins and canceled the entire record of death that stood against us. Colossians is, I think, the place I would go to kind of make that the most clear.

Let's see here. Colossians 2 says, in him, in Christ, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily. You have been filled in him who is the head and the rule of all authority. In him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by the putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. God has made you alive together with him having forgiven us. And here's the important word. Are you ready? All. All of our trespasses.

Christ died on the cross for every single one of your sins. From the sin that you inherited from Adam to the sin that you commit as you pass from this life into the next one. You know, as you breathe your last, all of your sin is covered by Christ.

So note, it says, God has made you alive together with Christ having forgiven us all of our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. That's the entirety of the record of debt.

Every single sin that would have been recorded in your book has been bled for and died for. And then it says this Christ has set this aside, nailing it to the. And so the idea that somehow you have to attain the sinless perfection before you can go straight before God, that's just nonsense.

I think that just reeks of the Pelagian heresy. But what do I know? I'm just a confessional Lutheran. So you get the idea. All right, let's see here. Rodeo Empire. Let's see if I can add this. Hang on a second here.

I'm going to come back over here and add this to the broadcast. We'll put this over here. There we go. All right, let's see here. I have parents that are in the Word of Faith NAR. They have been to Bethel, Million Women event.

Oh, that was a horrible event, by the way. Billy Burke, Jen Miskoff, Jennifer Yvaz, Heidi Baker. How do I balance honoring them and having nothing to do with the deeds of darkness? Okay, so a great question.

And I would note that clearly we have the commandment, you shall honor your father and mother in play. The idea then is this, is that, hang on a second here. I'm going to come back over here. There we go.

Is that honoring your father and mother is also going to include confronting them regarding their false beliefs. But I would note it's a little easier for somebody that doesn't know than a family member to talk with them.

And so always and again, the technique I recommend is patiently, number one, praying for your parents, praying for the people in your family that are caught up in these deceptions. You're going to note it is above your pay grade to open their eyes.

God the Holy Spirit has to open their eyes, and he does so through his word. And then the next part of this is actually patiently taking the time to learn what they're hearing and learn what they're believing, and then finding the biblical text that contradict it.

And then having a conversation that basically goes like this. Do you remember when Jennifer Yvaz said this? Or Heidi Baker said that? And you can name some of the most recent stuff. And you say, yeah, I was paying attention.

But then find the biblical texts that contradict what they're teaching, and then read those biblical texts out, and then ask this question. How do you reconcile the contradiction between what they're believing and what the Word of God says?

And don't answer the question for them. You need to ask the question and let them struggle with the answer. But find those passages where the Word of God just legitimately contradicts what they're believing, and then ask them, how do you reconcile the contradiction between what you're believing and what you're being taught and what God's Word says?

And I would note, fighting for the faith, this is what we do day in and day out here at Fighting for the Faith. We facilitate the collision between God's Word and what people are saying. I've gotten to the point where I've heard so much heresy and watched so much of it, it's painful to have to do prep work for every episode of Fighting for the Faith.

But for me, it's not even worth putting an episode together, for the most part, unless I can find some way to teach the Scripture, because the Scriptures are the thing that do the work. You might sit there and go, well, you're putting all this together.

Listen, at the end of the day, if I don't have a biblical text to open up for you so that you can see what God's Word really says, there's no point in putting Fighting for the Faith together. I'm not interested in theotainment.

And even our Prophecy Bingo segments, as funny and entertaining as they are, they serve a purpose as well to show people, through absurdity, that these people are false prophets. That's kind of the idea.

There's a teaching aspect to it. All right, hang on a second here. My apologies. I am a little under the weather, which means I have to do something really gross here. I have to blow my nose. And hang on a second here.

I might even mute myself for this. Hold on a second. There we go. Yeah, I came down with a head cold yesterday on Christmas, and it's a little bit of a bummer, but oh well. Maybe I should just decree and declare it away.

Anyway. Okay, okay. So Daniel, let me show this one. Hang on a second. I'm going to come back here. I'm going to add this to the broadcast. All right. Daniel C says, you know, how do you personally combat those who say Isaiah 53 is about Israel and not a messianic prophecy?

I would note that that is a new interpretation, and it's clearly, it doesn't work in the Hebrew. Let me explain. Let me do this and come over here. And if I were to go to Isaiah 53, Isaiah 53, hang on a second here.

And I'm going to add a little bit of context because I can go back, because this section kind of begins here. All right. Are you ready? Behold, my servant shall act wisely. Okay. Who's this? And traditionally, the Jewish rabbis back in the day thought that this was a prophecy regarding Messiah.

Now, you'll note that Talmudic Judaism totally denies that and claims that this is talking about Israel as a whole. And so this is somehow dealing with the suffering that they have gone through from the Holocaust.

They have been made to suffer and stuff like that. It doesn't work. So number one, we're not dealing with a group of people. We're dealing with a person. And this is part of the servant song of the prophet Isaiah.

So behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up. He shall be exalted. As many as were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

So shall he sprinkle many nations. Okay. Now the sprinkling here is a reference to the sprinkling that takes place when a sacrifice is made. And so you're going to note that this doesn't work when you somehow make it about the sufferings of the people of Israel because their suffering is not an atonement, not at all.

And so the sprinkling here that is alluded to is a sprinkling regarding atoning for sin, right? Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, singular, for that which has not been told them they see and that which they have not understood they heard.

Now we get into 53. And you'll note that this section began with the stuff we just read in 52. So who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not.

And I would note, if you just take your garden variety, Talmudic Jew, right? Who hasn't been really poisoned regarding this. This text doesn't even get read in their lectionary anymore. And you were to just kind of do the average, you know, Joe Schmo interview on the street and read this out and ask, who is this about?

Many of us sit there and go, that sounds like it's about Jesus. Because it is, okay? Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities and upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. This section rules out any reference then to this being the children of Israel, because the sufferings that they've gone through in human history, and as terrible as they have been, they are not an atoning sacrifice.

They are not propitiatory. Far from it, okay? In fact, one can argue that many of the things that Jews have suffered over the millennia is because of their own sin and their own rebellion. But here, this is talking about a vicarious death that wins salvation and wins for us peace with God and true healing.

And we're not talking about the word of faith kind of healing. We're talking about that healing that comes from being spiritually healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way.

And here we go. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Look at the cross references here. This is the same kind of concept that talks about the sacrificial animals during the day of atonement.

The priest is to ceremonially lay the sins of the people on that sacrificial animal. Here, it's describing the Messiah as having our sins laid on him as if he's the true atoning sacrifice for the day of atonement.

That's the whole point. So, I would note that the details of this prophecy completely rule out any kind of exegesis that would make it about people who are descendants of Abraham. That's not a generic description of the sufferings of the people who are the descendants of Abraham.

This is the sufferings of a very specific descendant of Abraham. And this is the Messiah. He was oppressed. He was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. And like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before it shears the silence, so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people, and they have made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, you'll note that that finds its fulfillment in Christ's death.

Where was Jesus buried? In the tomb of a rich man. Although he had done no violence, there was no deceit in his mouth. You can't say that regarding Jews in general. You can only say this about Christ.

Yet it was the will of Yahweh to crush him, and he has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand out of the anguish of his soul.

He shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. And here we go again. This completely rules out the generic descendants of Abraham.

This is talking about specifically the Messiah, the suffering servant, and it's through him that people are then accounted righteous, because he was the sinless, spotless lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

He shall bear their iniquities. So when you do the exegesis on this, it doesn't fit with this dealing with Jews. And then I would note as Christians, we would go to the book of Acts. Let me see if it's in, I think it's in eight.

Let's see here. I know it might be seven. Hang on a second here. I'm doing this from memory. So sometimes my memory is just not the best. Maybe it is eight. Hang on a second here. Okay. Philip proclaims having the magician believes.

Here we go. Here we go. Acts chapter eight, we have a definitive text that shows us that this is about Christ. So as a Christian, we have no option of going off the rails here. An angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all of her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated, seated on his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.

So we, what's he reading? The prophet Isaiah, right? And the spirit said to Philip, you go, you go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading?

And he, hang on a second here, I clicked that. And he, and so he said, well, how can I, unless someone guides me, right? So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of scripture that he was reading was this, like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter, like a lamb before it shears the silence.

So he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth. So the Ethiopian eunuch happens to be reading Isaiah 53.

Okay, here we go. So the eunuch said to Philip about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else? Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this, with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.

This text is about Christ. So I hope that, I hope that answers the question, but when you, all you have to do is exegetically look at the details of Isaiah 52 and 53, they don't fit the genetic, just the generic descendants of Abraham and their lives, the sufferings that they've gone through are not propitiatory.

They are, they do not atone for sin or make anybody righteous. The suffering they've gone through is the result of sin, period. And then you'll note that we have definitive text. And I would also say Peter, also in first Peter makes it very clear that this is referring to Christ.