WWUTT 2230 Q&A Is Seminary Required, The Chosen Outreach, Rebellious Children

Is seminary a requirement to become a pastor? Can the chosen be used for ministry outreach?

And if a child is left home and is living in rebellion, can a Christian family cut him or her out of the will?

The answer is when we understand the text. 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 ministry at www .wutt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. You're welcome. We are in Proverbs 3, beginning in verse 19.

Yahweh by wisdom founded the earth. By discernment He established the heavens.

By His knowledge the deeps were split up and the skies drip with dew. My son, let them not deviate from your eyes.

Guard sound wisdom and discretion, so they will be life for your soul and grace for your neck.

Then you will walk securely in your way, and your foot will not stumble.

When you lie down, you will not be in dread. You will lie down, and your sleep will be pleasant.

Do not be afraid of sudden dread, nor the storm of the wicked when it comes.

For Yahweh will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught.

Boy, is that not applicable in our days. Yeah. Of course you can say that about any passage, but.

Of course. Yeah. I just figured in the midst of all of the political tumult that we've been in.

What? Political? That's right. It's like, it's the discourse of everybody right now.

Uh -huh. You gotta talk politics. Yep. We even got a politics question on the broadcast today.

So. Intriguing. But yeah, to be reminded that it is Yahweh who is in control, and not to be afraid of sudden dread, nor of the storm of the wicked when it comes.

Something may happen today you didn't anticipate. Looks like evil is winning. But if you have trusted in the word of God, and you know that he is in control, you know you are saved by your faith in Jesus Christ.

If God is for us, who can be against us, then what do you have to fear of whatever news may come to you in the present day?

We are secure in Christ. Yes. So sleep. And let your sleep be pleasant.

Yes. It's okay. Let the things go, and worry about tomorrow when it comes.

That's right. You can be at peace. It's okay. Yeah. I've, as a pastor before, I've talked to somebody once who said,

I feel anxious because I'm not anxious. And it seemed like kind of a. Should I be anxious?

Right. Yeah. Because it was just that kind of thing. Yeah. It was like, I feel like there's something I should be worried about, and I'm not, you know.

But I'm not. So. Right. Am I wrong? No. You can be at peace. You can be comfortable in Christ.

That is just fine. That's the way we should be. That's the way we should be. Yeah. And for as the instruction is given to us in Philippians chapter four, to not be anxious about anything when we make our request to God.

Yes. But to be filled with thanksgiving. Yes. Well, on the Friday edition of the broadcast, we respond to questions from the listeners, and you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

Or you may send us a voicemail. I'm enjoying these more and more every week. Are you? I am too.

I like them. I'm going to give priority to the voicemails. I like them. So you can go to www .utt

.com and click on the voicemail link. And then you can record either from your phone or from your laptop.

And it will probably sound pretty awesome like this. Hey, Pastor Gabe and Becky.

It's your friend from Twitter, The Office Calvinist. I have so many questions that I would like to ask you, but for this week,

I will only ask two questions that go hand in hand. Question one, is seminary something that is mandatory to go through for someone to enter the pastorate?

Over the last little while, I've heard several pastors express their sadness over the state of many seminaries today.

So is subjecting yourself to that seminary, to that seminary state, is that something that is mandatory for entering the pastoral office?

And question two, in what ways can the local church be helping in identifying and equipping some of its own members for that pastoral office?

Thanks for all that you do, and I'm praying that God provide for you all that you need in this time of trial.

Great questions. Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you. Enjoy that a lot. Now, first of all, let me say that I am not a seminary graduate.

So it would be hypocritical of me to say, yes, you have to go to seminary. So there you already know where I stand on answering that question, but let me next respond with this.

I've shared this quote with you before. Let's see if you can remember who this was from. Okay. So there's a seminary president out there who said that the existence of the seminary is in some sense a failure of the church.

What seminary president was it that said that? The only seminary president that comes to mind is

Al Mohler. That's who it was. Oh, okay. Yay! I got a name right. That's exactly who it was.

I don't remember names hardly ever, unless you're from Twitter or from Facebook because you're literally there with a name tag.

You have your face posted and a name tag. That's right. Yay! So Becky knows who the office

Calvinist is only in that sense. Yes. Otherwise, the question's anonymous, but yeah.

So Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he had a Q &A one time where he was asked a similar question to this.

It was something to the effect of, I'm already a pastor, I've been a pastor for some odd number of years.

Can you make a case for me as to why I would need to leave the pastorate and go to seminary and then come back to being a pastor again?

And it was in his answer that Mohler gave that response or said something to that effect.

That the existence of the seminary is in some sense a failure of the church because the church should be the one that is building men up in particular for the role of becoming a pastor.

Exactly. Now my becoming a pastor, it was the church that prepared me for that. It was in my church that I was attending that I was raised up to that position of pastor once the pastor left.

So that's how I received my training through the ministry that I was into because I spent 20 plus years in Christian radio.

I was being trained by all of the Bible teachers that I was listening to every single day. Yes. So there was all of that and then the personal teaching that I received in preparation for this and serving as an intern, serving in various capacities in the church, whether it was as a youth leader or a worship leader and then as a

Bible teacher and all of that working up to the point where eventually I was made senior pastor.

So I received training in the church. That's how I got prepared for this. People will look at my resume, especially my critics, and will say that I'm unqualified because I didn't go to seminary and get a degree.

Right. You don't have the piece of paper. Yeah. I didn't pay the tens of thousands of dollars. Yeah. The expensive piece of paper.

Now one thing I will say, and I've said this to people who have asked me a similar question,

I have said one of the things that I did not receive is an understanding of the languages and a robust understanding of church history.

I was not given that so much in my training. I could see how that would be not part of your training because it's not really something people dive into every day.

Right. So, yeah. Now I haven't done much with Hebrew, hardly anything with learning Hebrew, but I have tried to learn

Greek. So I am getting that, but it wasn't, I didn't get the intensive study or, you know, taking classes and things like that on Greek.

Right. We live pretty close to a college. I wonder if they have a Greek class. I don't know. It's not a seminary, but, you know, just go over there and learn some

Greek. I don't know if they do because it's pretty small. It is. And that's definitely more of a seminary thing too.

It is. You don't go to most colleges to learn Greek. Yeah. But there's some in Phoenix and that's not terribly far.

Yeah. That's not too far. I wonder if you could do it online even. Oh, yeah. I mean. For sure. Right. Yeah. And I know.

Yeah. We'll see. That's the thing too. I mean. You can learn just about anything off of YouTube.

Exactly. Now, whether it's accurate or not. Well, I've told my kids that, hey, what is most important to us is that you learn how to read and then you can go to YouTube and find the skill that you want to do.

Utilize your resources. That's right. That's what we train them to do. You can figure out how to take apart a car and put it back together again watching

YouTube videos. Even a computer. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Even building computers. Yeah. Zej has been learning how to do like music editing and he wants to do video editing and he's watching

YouTube videos doing all that. So. Yep. Yeah. Seminary not a required thing, but there are things that you receive from seminary that are very, very beneficial.

Oh, yeah. If you decide to go to seminary as you expressed kind of, you know, mourning over the fact of the direction that seminaries are going these days, that's one of the things that you really have to think about is where your seminary stands, especially in light of the direction things are going into the culture or even.

And how firm you are in your faith that you won't be swayed one way or another.

Right. Yeah. Like you'll still learn, you'll still grow, but not swayed. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you need to be firm in scripture before you enter into seminary.

Yes. Yes. A firm handle on your faith, how to defend it, things like that, because you never know what you're going to end up facing.

There are some seminaries better than others. Oh, yeah. For sure. But you still have to be careful about entering into that arena, being around the people that you are around.

Sometimes your peers can be more influential than the seminary system itself. Yeah. So, you have to be aware of that also.

It would be great if you could receive that training from your church. If not, then seminary is a good idea.

There's a lot of self -learning too in that process of being trained by your church. Yeah, very much.

So, wherever your church might be lacking a little bit, you have to make up for that in another area.

Yeah. Now, something that I often encounter as a pastor who has helped other pastors with exposition.

So, how do you do expository preaching? I've helped several already standing pastors with that. Is that a lot of those guys will tell me they never learned that in seminary.

Yeah. So, as you're teaching them how to preach, how to break down a passage, how to outline it, finding the structure, finding the theme and the aim, building your sermon around that, doing application, so on and so forth.

Drawing the meaning out of the text that the Holy Spirit means to convey to us, not reading something into the text, but drawing the true meaning out and then being able to build application out of that.

I often hear from pastors, they did not learn how to do that at seminary. Yeah. They were not given that skill.

So, a lot of it was book learning. There could have been some technical things with regard to systematic theology and stuff like that, church history, the languages.

But as far as like how to preach goes, that seems to be seldom understood. So, that goes with what you said about the personal disciplines that you need to enact in order to accomplish what you really need to get out of your education.

Right. There are things that seminary just won't cover, but you can use those years and seize that opportunity to learn things, to build those skills for yourself personally.

Sure. So that you don't end up in the pastorate and then you're trying to build those skills as you go. Right. Use the years where you're receiving that education to build those disciplines.

Thank you, The Office Calvinist for your voicemail. I can literally hear from you. Yeah. Literally hear from you.

Yes. He's called me at The Office before. Oh, that's awesome. So, The Office Calvinist called me at The Office.

This next one is from Chris. Hello, Gabe and Becky. I have a friend from college who works for CRU, formerly

Campus Crusade for Christ. Oh, okay. I recently found out from him that CRU is using the chosen watch parties as an outreach to international students to introduce them to Jesus.

International students? International students. Oh, okay. I want to let you know that I have shared some of the what videos that you have made on the concerns of the chosen.

And I agree with you with the concerns that you've made about this series. Pray that the Lord uses your videos to open his eyes to the dangers of the chosen.

Yeah, we'll certainly do that. Yes. You know, I'm starting to get these emails again, especially since the legal stuff between Dallas Jenkins, who's the creator of the show, and then also

Lionsgate Media and Angel Studios. He's kind of worked out the legal end of those things so that season four is now available, as I understand it.

So, season four of the chosen, you can now watch it streaming, whereas before it was kind of locked up in the, oh, what do you call it?

The vault. The internet vault. Tied up in litigation because, you know, different copyright battles, they were doing all this other kind of stuff.

Oh, I didn't know about that, but okay. We've talked about it somewhat, but it was just... Yeah, it's not important enough for me to have, like, hang on to, you know?

I forget easily. But anyway, since season four is out now and people are starting to watch it, I'm starting to get more feedback again with regard to some of the things that's in it.

Have you said something about this line that was in the show or something like that? And I haven't watched it pretty much all year, so I might need to go back and pick.

I've never did season two. Not while I'm around, please. Oh, I always did it after you were in bed. I know, but there was a couple of times that I woke up and, well, didn't wake up, but I got up for something and, yeah, it was like...

There I am watching The Chosen. No, no, no, no. Turn that off. Mute it at least until I'm out of the room. Yeah, right.

It's so bad. I never did do a review of season two, and I still get a lot of traffic.

It's cringeworthy. Like... Oh, yeah, it's very cringey. Ah! Drives me crazy. I still get a lot of traffic on my review of season one, so I might need to go ahead and do a review of those seasons so that they're out there so that people can access them.

But yeah, be aware of it, folks. There are churches around that are doing The Chosen watch parties, but they're filling you up with a bunch of stuff that is unbiblical.

I mean, by Dallas Jenkins' own admission, 95 % of what is in the show is not in the Bible. So the only way

I could see this being beneficial for anybody is if you watch the season and then after...

Well, not the season, but the episode, and then after the episode, you guys like hunker down in the Bible and get it out and be like, okay, what was wrong with this episode?

Exactly. Yeah. Then maybe. Maybe. That's good practice anyway. I think it was sometime last year we read an email from a couple who said that that was how they got into deep

Bible study. Yeah. So they started watching The Chosen and then they pulled their Bibles out and started finding out, wow, what's written here is not at all what's in the show.

Right. And so they quit watching the show and started reading their Bibles. Yes. I loved that one.

This is the reason why I started doing the Gospels in our

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday study on the podcast. So right now, about to finish up Mark, and when

I finish Mark, I'm going to go right into Luke. So we'll just do the Gospels in succession.

We'll get all the way through them so that now you've got that exposition on the Gospels and you can hear truly what the

Bible says about Jesus and the disciples and stop gleaning it from these made up shows, which are only made to make money.

Right. As much as they want to tell you that this is all about spreading the message and all this, it's not because it is an ecumenical

Jesus. It is Dallas Jenkins version of Jesus. It is not the biblical Jesus. He is not spreading the

Gospel. And you look at all the merch on their website and all the stuff that they quote on their merch are lines from the show.

Yes. Not lines from the Bible. Not actual things Jesus said in the Bible. Yeah. This next question, this is from E.

Dear Gabe and Becky, with a heavy and broken heart, I come to you with this question. Are parents biblically obligated to leave an inheritance to their children when they have the means to do so?

Here's our backstory. Our adult son was involved in youth ministry and had surrounded himself with godly friends and mentors for many years.

We were so very proud of the young man he had become. A couple of years ago, he met a girl through his ministry.

We had some reservations about her and encouraged him to proceed cautiously and slowly.

He ignored our advice and jumped in very quickly, immediately removing himself from ministry.

We watched as she mistreated him and pulled him away. He became a different person right before our eyes.

Our loving son became disrespectful to us and his siblings and eventually cut off all contact when we tried to warn him.

When his friends and older mentors tried to warn him, he cut off those relationships as well. He married her about a year ago without our blessing and it has been almost one and a half years with no contact.

We have learned from a reliable source that he is very concerned that we will cut him out of our will and that he believes his siblings will cheat him out of his fair share.

We believe this is accurate information as he asked about our will in one of our last conversations with him before he cut off contact.

He has made the decision to remove himself from the family and rejected our many efforts at reconciliation. We love our son and want nothing more than for complete restoration to occur but recognize this may not happen.

What is our biblical obligation? Well, first of all, E, my heart breaks for you to have to go through that situation.

And let me say that when you started that story, it sounded a whole lot like a relationship

I was in before I met Becky. And the girl that I was previously engaged to was a preacher's kid.

Everything in the beginning was incredibly blissful. We just thought this is our fairytale story come true.

It shortly became a nightmare just about a month after we got engaged. It was very, very hard to get out of.

She ended up leaving the faith. She became an atheist while we were engaged to one another. And thankfully,

God convicted my heart in such a way to not be pulled away with her. And I got out of that relationship broken and shattered.

I was incredibly embarrassed even by how all of that went. But the

Lord led me to another place. I was convicted over sin that I had committed in my life, got myself straightened out, surrounded myself with good godly people, and eventually met

Becky. And had an even better story than the one that I thought was going to be my fairytale ending.

Nope, I had to meet this girl first. So now here we are five kids later, and still as blissful as all get out.

I didn't know what else to say there. Yeah. There you go. Blissful as can be.

Yeah. You know the expression, blissful as all get out. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't really sound good applied to a marriage.

Not really, no. Yeah, no. It didn't work. It's okay. Anyway, back to Eve. Yeah, back to Eve.

So our heart breaks for you here. This is a difficult thing, especially to have to watch your child go through this.

But let me just say, with regard to studies that we've done recently in Isaiah and in Hosea, when the people of Israel were disobedient against God, God cut them out of the inheritance.

And that's that. Yeah. So if they are not faithful to you, if your children are not faithful to you, and they remove themselves, then you can cut them out of your will.

I know that would be a painful thing to do. Definitely. And you're faced with the reality of what it is that you're doing.

But your child has already cut you off. So really what you're doing is in an answer to what your child has already done.

God made a covenant with Israel. And when you read about it in the book of Deuteronomy, I will give you blessings as long as you are faithful to this covenant.

But if you are unfaithful to the covenant, then you will be cursed and I will cut you off. And so it is not unreasonable at all for you to have to cut your child out of the will because they were unwilling and unfaithful to the family covenant that you would have with one another.

I recommend not doing this on your own either, like to actually go to a biblical counselor of some sort, whether it be your pastor or an actual counselor that's

ACBC or whatever it is. Oh yeah. Well, biblical counselor. Okay. So not just a

Christian counselor, but - ACBC is the organization. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. But a biblical counselor. Biblical counselor.

Not just a Christian counselor, if you will. Yeah. Right. It's not the same thing. A psychologist who's a

Christian. Right. Right. It's not the same thing. But anyway, just somebody to walk you through this process because it's terribly burdensome.

It's heavy. This isn't just making a decision on what insurance company to go with.

Right. This is a life -altering decision. Yes. And it's going to be - And it's heartbreaking. Exactly.

Yeah. You need somebody to walk with you through this. Yes. To not just help you make the decision, but also give you prayer, weep with you, check on you.

Because you will grieve through this process too. Oh, no question. Yeah. So let me pray for you,

E. We'll take a moment here and pray. Certainly appreciate you listening and trusting us with this question.

Yeah. And hope that the Lord will bless your family and even bring your son back.

Oh, that would be a huge blessing. May it be a prodigal child - Yes. Kind of story.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the kindness that you show to us in Christ Jesus. We were all like sheep gone astray, as said in Isaiah 53, all of us turned to his own way, but you laid upon Jesus the iniquity of us all.

Our sins have been paid for by Christ's sacrifice on the cross. And by faith in him, we are forgiven and reconciled to God.

And so Lord, we would pray that that would be the situation here with this wayward son, that he would be convicted of his sin, that he would realize that he has cut off family.

He has even cut himself off from God and that he would come back to the Lord and come back to his parents and be restored.

But in the meantime, God, that you give E and her husband wisdom in how to deal with this situation, talking to their pastor, give their spiritual counselors around them wisdom on how to build them up and comfort them and speak words of encouragement in their lives as they're having to make these difficult decisions.

But in all decisions that we make, God, may it be in submission to your ways and your word, never going by our heart, but knowing your heart and desiring to do what is pleasing unto the

Lord. Forgive us our sins and lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, as we're about to finish up this particular section, this segment, one more voicemail here.

This one is from Jake. Here we go. Hey, guys, my name's Jake. I'm calling from McDonough, Georgia.

I heard on one of your recent podcasts that you were coming to speak here in Georgia, was checking to see the exact date again and what church were you coming to speak at?

Thanks for all you guys, all the hard work you put in for the kingdom. Yeah, it would be good for me to actually plug some of these conferences

I'm going to. You know, just a little bit. I'm a terrible self -promoter. And it's coming up real soon, too.

It sure is. Yeah, just in, what is it? Three weeks. Yeah, three weeks from this weekend.

Yeah. So this is the White Harvest Conference. That's going to be at Foothills Community Church in Marble Hill, Georgia.

And you can find out more information by going to whiteharvestmen .com.

So whiteharvestmen .com. I'm one of the speakers there, along with Scott Anuel, probably familiar with Scott Anuel of G3 Ministries.

And Charlie Parrish, who is the pastor of the church, going to be one of the speakers as well. This is on September the 14th, which is a

Friday. Isn't that correct? Or no, a Saturday. I'm sorry. I was going to say, I think it's a Saturday. Saturday, September 14th.

It's an all -day conference. So it's just that day. But then I'm speaking the next day at Foothills Community Church.

I'm preaching that morning on September the 15th. And then I catch a plane back to Arizona that day.

And I go from East Coast to basically what's Pacific time because Arizona doesn't do the time change.

I will probably be landing in Arizona before I left with all of the time zone crossing.

The three time zones. I feel like I'm traveling back in time. Well, technically. Anyway, so that's the information.

We have to figure out how to register for the event and everything like that by going to whiteharvestmen .com.

And we'll give you all the details in there, time of the conference, who you need to call if you need more information.

Yeah. But Marble Hill, Georgia. That's north of Atlanta, I'm pretty sure. Quite a ways up there, in fact. Oh, yeah?

My parents live in Jonesboro, and my dad's going to be there. So he's got a trek to make to get there.

But anyway, if you can make it, hope to see you there. Yeah, it'll only be

Gabe. Just me. Yeah, the rest of the family's not going. Yeah, but it'll be neat. Kind of a whirlwind trip because I'm going.

You'll have to tell me all about it. Yeah. I'm not sure if it's streaming or anything.

I guess you can go to the website and find that out. All right. Well, that's going to end this segment for us.

Yes. Stay tuned for part two. For those of you who are listening on the radio, you can catch the extended Q &A by going to www .utt

.com. Yes. God bless. 1

Timothy 2 begins. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and...

Hang on now. Prayers and thanksgivings for kings and all who are in high positions?

So presidents, prime ministers, dictators, governors, chiefs of state, cabinet members, congress, we're supposed to pray for them and thank

God for them? Yes, well, that's what the Bible says. Not just because it's good for us, but especially because it pleases

God. In Jeremiah 29, Israel had been exiled to the Babylonians because of their sin. But through the prophet

Jeremiah, God assured them that he would not annihilate them. Rather, they needed to pray for the welfare of their captors, work the land and be successful, be fruitful and multiply their families, and watch out for false teachers in the meantime who would not be spared judgment.

God would indeed deliver his people as he promised he would do. The apostle Paul, writing to his servant

Timothy, says that same thing still applies. We are exiles in this world. Pray for those who are of this world, especially rulers, realizing that everyone needs to hear the saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We too must watch out for false teachers who will not escape the wrath of God, nor will those who follow them.

And just like he did in Israel, God will save all whom he means to save and lead them to a knowledge of the truth.

Not one of his people will be lost when we understand the text. And now for our political question,

Pastor Gabe, I would love to hear you address the group that labels themselves evangelicals for Harris.

They're attempting to convince evangelicals to vote Democrat with the line, you don't have to change your values or beliefs to vote for Kamala Harris.

Wait, what? And that email is from Michael. Yeah, so apparently that's a slogan, I'm not sure, but you don't have to change your values or beliefs to vote for Kamala Harris.

Now that sounds like something I've heard Kamala say, that you don't have to sacrifice your faith or something like that in order to be for abortion.

Yeah. So she said something like that. Right. It sounds like it's kind of a spin on that line. You don't have to compromise your faith in order to vote for Kamala.

That was the line. She said, you don't have to compromise your faith to be for abortion or a woman's right to choose or reproductive rights, whatever code they use.

Women's health. Yeah, women's health. Yeah, that one too, which is, it's just their code for the murder of babies, but they don't want to call it that.

Right. Yeah, because that's, what do you call that? A banned word. Although at the

Democrat National Convention this week, they used it a lot. Did they really? Abortion, the word abortion.

Really? Oh yeah, yeah, there was a - So they're loud and proud now, huh? Well, you know, it goes back to Planned Parenthood selling those t -shirts that say, shout your abortion.

Oh, oh. So eventually - I guess I missed that. Yeah, eventually that narrative kind of gets into everybody's head and now everybody's proud about it, loud and proud.

Oh my goodness. We're going to shout about how many babies that we've murdered. And even at the DNC, there was -

That's so sad. There was a woman that came to a microphone. I don't know, I just saw the clip of it, so I don't know how this was, but -

Okay. But she's at a microphone and she says that she's a mom and that she is now pregnant again because she had access to abortion before.

No, that doesn't make logical sense to me. Right, but I mean, she's saying this out loud before the entire convention.

She's had abortions, now she's pregnant again and she would not be able to be in this position if it wasn't for the fact that she had access to abortion before.

Okay. It's not even a lot of code word anymore. Then they should move on to saying, I murdered my child, so.

Eventually it's probably going to get to that where they'll honestly admit that, but it's not going to change anything.

No, that's true. Because really the reason why - You have to wait to say it until it's okay to say it. Yeah, the reason why they're voting for Kamala is because this is what they want.

Right. Can't even begin to tell you how many times this issue specifically came up at the DNC this week, especially with Kamala saying in her own speech that if given a bill on her desk to codify

Roe v. Wade into law, that she will sign it. So this is their platform issue.

It is the sacrament of the Democrat party. I thought it was all about groceries, like bringing the price of stuff down.

Well, all of that is like, I mean - A side thing. It's issues that you got to address because people are asking about it.

Oh, okay. But that isn't the main reason. Nobody's voting for Kamala because they actually think she's going to bring groceries down.

She's been in the White House this entire time. Well, that's what I'm saying. She says, start doing it now and then people might be more swayed.

No, that's not it. I mean, the people will literally hand the United States over to communism just so we can still murder our babies.

That's true. That's so sad. That's how bloodthirsty this nation has become.

And if Kamala wins, it'll be God handing the United States over. So true. To be judged.

That's what it's going to come down to. Now, four years ago, when Biden was running for president, there were the evangelicals for Biden.

And I wrote an article responding to that about how you can't be a pro -life evangelical for Biden. If you're going to vote for Biden, go ahead, but you're not pro -life.

Right. And don't call yourself that. And here's what I - Because you know that's where they're going to go with it. You know that. He's been outright about it.

Right. He would have big banners behind him. Oh, yeah. That would say that that's what he's out to do.

And same with Kamala. Yep. She's the first vice president in American history to visit an abortion clinic.

Oh, I didn't know that. So more pro -abortion than any. And I mean, this keeps happening every year.

Every Democrat candidate, well, every election cycle anyway, but every Democrat candidate is more pro -abortion than the last.

Kamala's more pro -abortion than Biden. Biden's more pro -abortion than Obama. Obama's more pro -abortion than Clinton.

And it just - They're going further and further left to the point where she wants to make it federal law, which has not yet happened in American history.

But Kamala wants to make abortion a federal law, the right to an abortion. So here's what I said four years ago with regard to pro -life evangelicals for Biden.

The Democrat party hates family. They hate marriage. They hate children.

They hate that God has made male and female, and they hate God himself. The Democrats are the largest collective body advancing the

LGBTQ plus pedophile agenda against your freedom to practice your

Christian faith. They hate that you want to do your job or run your business or live your life according to your

Christian ethics and not their godless dogma. The Democrat party wants your vote,

Christian, but they hate you. How can a Christian vote Democrat and not betray the faith?

How can anyone vote Democrat and think that they can be pro -life? I hope these pro -life evangelicals for Biden, or in this case now, the evangelicals for Harris, hear the conviction of the

Holy Spirit of God and repent. Do not be led astray by their lies. God is making a mockery of them in that immediately after they published their statement,

Biden came out and declared that he will make the right to an abortion a federal law.

That happened right after the evangelicals for Biden released their statement four years ago. This time around with evangelicals for Harris, then what ends up happening?

Kamala comes out and makes a statement like this. Get this. He plans to create a national anti -abortion coordinator and force states to report on women's miscarriages and abortions.

They are out of their minds. One must ask, why exactly is it that they don't trust women?

Well, we trust women. And when

Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the

United States, I will proudly sign it into law. It's not reproductive freedom, it's murder of infants.

Yeah. When Congress passes legislation to allow the murder of infant children, I will gladly pass it into law.

So as much as the evangelicals for Harris want to say something to the effect of, well, we just think that she's a better person than Trump or whatever else.

Her platform issue, her number one issue that she is running on is to codify

Roe as federal law and use taxpayer money to pay for it. That is her agenda.

And Trump has softened his position on abortion, even making a statement just today about how women are going to love reproductive freedom under my plan, which is, again, code for.

Oh my goodness. You're gonna be fine with your desire to wanna have an abortion if you decide to get one, even under my plan.

It seems like as much as Trump is able, he's finding ways of sabotaging his own campaign. Yeah. Instead of the

Republican ticket, having this opportunity to be the stark opposite of what the

Democrats are doing. Instead, they're acquiescing, they're going further left. Here, we'll come join you guys over here.

Yeah, just not quite as far. Maybe some of your voters will come over to us.

This is chaos. Massive chaos that we're about to vote for.

I mean, we're all sinners, but good night. But it is massively hypocritical of the evangelicals for Harris to say, well,

Trump's bad, so we're gonna vote for Harris. No, you're going worse. Yeah. It's like saying -

Why would you do that? You got this small meteor and this large meteor coming toward earth. Yeah.

We'll take the large meteor. Yep, just get it over with. If you could decide which meteor is gonna hit earth, I suppose.

Again, going back to what we said in the beginning, that God is in control. That's what I was about to say, yeah.

No matter what happens, continue to hold fast to Christ and his promises. Christ is King. Yes.

And if Kamala does become president, it is because God is turning America over to be judged.

Yes. For its wicked depravity. And I mean, he can't,

God is capable of anything. So he can keep her from making those decisions actually.

Even if she wins. Yeah. Of course, whatever direction the country goes, it'll be because God allowed it.

Amen. But as I've said too, with regard to Donald Trump, he might be the smaller meteor of the two that's gonna impact the

United States. Yeah. But he's a judgment on this nation too. Yep. He's still a meteor.

And he's not conservative. And the reason why he's the hot ticket on the conservative side is because -

He's pro -America. It's because conservativism isn't really conservative. Yeah. And so God is likewise, even on the conservative side, turning -

I mean, if conservative was conservative, there would not be this evangelical for Harris.

Right. They would be conservative. Right. But when you go to their site and you learn who is behind evangelicals for Harris, none of these people are

Christians. They've all got various platform views. They're all pro -LGBTQ. All of them are.

Every one of them behind Kamala or sorry, evangelicals for Harris or Christians for Kamala or whatever.

They're started by people who are pro -LGBTQ. And they might claim to be pro -life too.

But no, if you look at their - That sounds oddly familiar, like when the woke movement happened, wasn't it?

I mean, this is always the way that it goes. Yeah. These are elites that want to take evangelicalism further left.

That's all it is. And then everybody jumps in the bandwagon. So that's - Anyway, thank you for getting me worked up, Michael.

We will still rest easy tonight. That's right. Because we have the peace of Jesus. But having evangelicals for Harris is like Israelites for Jezebel.

It doesn't work. It's a contradiction. That's true. And for any

Christian to vote for Kamala, you are compromising on your faith.

You are not voting for a Democrat because of your faith. You're doing it against Christian conviction.

Next question. This is from John. Hello, Gabe. Your podcast has been a great aid and a blessing to me.

However, as of late, I have been restricting myself in the use of podcast apps.

Therefore, I no longer have access to when we understand the text. Would it be possible to have the podcast available on the sermon audio app?

Or if there is a means of hearing your podcast through an app that only broadcasts edifying blessings? I hope

I articulated that right. God bless, John. Well, John, I think the only other place that I think

I could recommend for you is to go to Facebook. If you're using

Facebook. If what you're mentioning here means you're even cutting out all social media, then that won't help you.

On Facebook, the podcast do upload there at facebook .com

slash when we understand the text. So you'll find the podcast uploaded there. It's in a video format, even though we don't do video.

It's still the audio, but you just hit play on that and you can listen to the podcast that way. We're also on Spotify.

I mean, we're on iHeartRadio. You found it on Amazon. Amazon Music, yeah.

Amazon Music. You look for what it's on there. Yeah, the website. Yeah, or just go to the website, right?

www .tt .com. And we've said that if you go to the website, you can make that an app on your phone.

Like if you've got a website you like, you can turn the website into an app. Like a shortcut.

Yeah, right. Make it a shortcut button that turns into an app on your phone. Yeah. We don't have an app, but you could do something like that where you're creating a shortcut button to the website and there you have the podcast is there on the page.

Just got to click the podcast button. Or you just go to the podcast link there on the page.

There you go. And then put that as your shortcut button. Get to it that way. But otherwise. There's another name for it.

It's not widget because that's something different, but it's something like that. I've done it. I've got several websites.

I've just shortcut it. Oh yeah, me too. Into app buttons, but you can do it that way. The reason why though I don't do sermon audio is because it's expensive.

Yeah. And I thought about that when I first started the podcast, instead of doing pod bean, which is hosting all my podcast episodes.

I thought about just doing it on sermon audio, but it costs way too much in a month to be able to do that.

So that's why it's not on there. And that's why our ministry is free. That's right. Yeah, we're free.

We try to keep it that way. Because it only cost me a hundred bucks a year to have it on pod bean versus on sermon audio.

It's pretty close to $100 a month. So yeah, I couldn't pony up that dough.

I didn't have that. But also, even though I don't have the podcast on sermon audio, my sermons are on there.

So if you search my name, you'll have my sermons there. And not just the ones that I do on Sunday morning, because those are played on this podcast a week back, but I'll play the sermons that I preach will be on Sunday morning.

But I also do the Sunday evening service. And whatever I teach on Sunday evening is on the sermon audio link as well.

When you do a search for my name, it'll come up. But that's from our church. Our church covers that. So anybody who does any kind of teaching and it gets recorded, it goes onto that sermon audio page.

Right. So you can find me that way. That's another way you can look us up. Last question here. This comes from Kay. I'm gonna keep his name short and just do the first initial.

Okay. So, hey, Pastor Gabe, I first thank God for your ministry and for him providing for you and your family in order that you may serve him in the capacity that you do.

May he greatly bless you in your ministry and keep you in stable confidence in Christ our

Lord. And we wanna take a moment here too to thank everybody who's been praying for us. Oh, amen. And sending gifts to us.

Yes. Because this, as you know, from some of the stuff that's been going on in our family lately, August in particular has been a hard month.

And it's not over yet. And it's not over yet. February was real hard. Yes. And I didn't know how we were gonna make it to the end of that month.

At the start of August, I was going, I don't see how this is gonna work. Yeah. And the Lord provided for us again.

Yes. And a lot of that, thanks to you. Yes. And some other friends of ours that have stepped up, our own church,

Providence Church here in Casa Grande, that has been taking such tremendously good care of us. Yes.

And we could not be more blessed. And so we thank you for those who have been praying for us.

Yes. If you still wanna send a gift, you can go to our website, www .utt

.com, click on the Give tab, and kind of follow the instructions that are there. But we thank everybody who has been blessing us during this time.

We thank God for you. Especially for your prayers. Yes. So Kay goes on, my question is related to the workplace and how we should follow our convictions.

I know that in Romans 8, Paul mentions that nothing can separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus, our

Lord. That there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's Romans 8, 1. However, I must note that my work often has me doing things that make me feel a little uneasy.

I'll give you an example. I work in the dubbing entertainment industry and often work on TV shows for Netflix.

Sometimes we may have a show slash project come into our studio that handles subjects like same -sex marriage in a cartoon.

Can you believe it? And other religious things like Hinduism or even darker satanic themes.

I must stress that the latter was a fight against evil, not the satanic evil prevailing over good per se.

What would your best advice be for a fellow brother in Christ who would have to record actors saying certain lines, for example, taking the

Lord's name in vain or just essentially being a part of the dubbing production process of these shows.

Keeping in mind, these shows are already out. We just record them into English or overdub them for the

UK. Very confusing for me. And I just wish to serve the Lord in my work.

And I'm not sure how I can refuse to do my job on the basis of a religious conviction like not wanting to be part of such entertainment.

Changing careers has been on my mind. Thank you for all that you do and your lovely wife too.

God bless you both. Well, Kay, this kind of goes into area that Becky and I have talked about with regards to entertainment before and how

I try not to talk too much about our entertainment choices.

Right. Whether it's movies, television, music or otherwise, because a lot of this can be pretty subjective.

Now, there are certain things that we as Christians absolutely should not get into.

I think it should be obvious to you when you see something come up on a screen, I really shouldn't be watching this.

Yeah. And if anything that you're watching begins attacking your conscience, you should stop watching it.

Right. That's a pretty good rule to go by. Philippians 4, 8, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with you.

And so a good study then would be to take all of those things that are said there in Philippians 4, 8, true, honorable, just, pure, et cetera, come up with the biblical definition of those words and then understand as far as your entertainment choices go, what am

I filling my head with? And does it fall into this category? Can I continue to watch these things and be honoring of God, even in my conscience?

Or am I making my conscience guilty because of these things that I'm watching? So that's just with regard to any one of our, any one of us and our responsibility to be self -controlled in the things that we watch and what we're entertained by.

Right. You work in the industry. Yeah, so it makes it a different approach. It's a different angle.

But it's still the same of filling your head with all of that stuff, I would assume.

Right, likewise. It's in front of you all day. Exactly. And where are you as far as thinking about,

I'm putting this in front of somebody else or like I'm involved in that process. Could I in good conscience recommend this to somebody else?

Now you're not, that's not what you're doing. Right. It's not like you're doing movie reviews or something like that. I had somebody email me one time that said that they did movie reviews for their local newspaper.

And sometimes it requires them to watch things they don't even really wanna watch. So how do I handle that?

And then there's also been, well, this is not the first time that I've received an email from somebody who works for Netflix, by the way.

True. Now he does Netflix shows. I don't think he works directly for Netflix. But I did a review one time of a show that was on Netflix.

And one of the writers read my review and contacted me. Yeah. And said, you're bringing stuff up in your review.

That's exactly what we were trying to tell the producers. And so I'm gonna try to get your review, like higher up the chain and get published in a larger audience, a larger medium.

And so maybe my producers will see it and they'll hear the same concerns that we raised. I don't know if that ever happened or not.

I don't know if that article ever got published somewhere else. But I did get contacted by somebody else that worked for Netflix before.

But anyway, yeah. I mean, you do have to think about this in terms of what are you comfortable with doing? You said that changing careers has been on your mind.

It's obviously bothering your conscience. Maybe consider changing companies.

Because I'm sure there's Christian or more Christianese maybe.

There's something more conservative. Yeah, that's a better word. Or if there's a company that you can work for that gives you more freedom to say what you wanna work on and what you don't.

That's true, definitely. I'm sure the pay would be less. But at the same time, wouldn't it be better for your soul?

So be more beneficial. Edifying for you and for the people you work for.

That's it. Yeah, in addition to that. Yes. Because PureFlix, I'm sure they have something maybe.

I don't know that I'd recommend that either. I'm just thinking of some companies. I don't know very many.

I know that a lot of the more conservative approach to videos, movies, all that stuff.

Streaming. Streaming, there we go. They're mostly Mormon that I found out. Most of the conservative ones are.

Well, you know, that's... Well, you know. So maybe do some research.

Maybe start your own. Who knows? Yeah. I don't know where to tell you to go with that necessarily. We don't have very many suggestions for you.

Hope you're still talking to your pastor. Yes, definitely. And somebody who can give you counsel with regard to that.

Yeah. I'll say I worked for secular radio when I was in college. So of the 22 years that I was in radio, there was about four years in there where I was directly connected with a secular radio station.

And I say directly connected because all 20 plus years, my voice was in secular radio to some capacity, but it was always recording a commercial or a spot and it just got played on those stations.

Right. But actually working for a secular station, there was about four years of those 22 years that I was working for a secular station.

And it did get to a point where I did not think that I could do that any longer in good conscience.

And a lot of it was related to, like I would work for top 40 radio. Top 40 radio meaning that the 40 biggest songs that are on the billboard charts are setting the playlist for what that radio station plays.

Everything's kind of built around the top 40. And those songs that I would play,

I was also speaking at youth groups because youth groups would call me up and say, hey, could you come speak to our youth about the dangers of some of the things that they're watching or listening to, like the dangers of secular music.

So I would go to youth groups and I would do that talk, something like four or five times a year. And I was doing that even when

I was in secular radio. Yeah. So it got to a point where I was like, I can't in good conscience do this anymore because I'm telling these youth that you shouldn't be listening to this music.

And yet you're putting it out for them. Yeah. And now I'm working for a radio station, which that's exactly what they do. Yeah. So I kind of came to a crossroads of which one do

I want to do? I would rather be warning youth about what's out there than taking a paycheck for playing this stuff.

Yeah. And so I got out of that. I completely left secular radio, never went back. And that was something like,

I was 22 years old, I think, somewhere in there, 22 or 23. So anyway, I've been in that position before where I'm kind of looking at,

I'm not the one singing these songs. Yeah. I don't say this stuff, but I am putting it out there in front of people.

And so what do I do with this? And my conscience getting the better of me. My conscience being trained, thankfully, according to what scripture says.

And out of the conviction of the Holy Spirit, realizing I could no longer do that and stepping away from it.

Yeah. And so, Kay, that's something you got to think about, but I would still encourage you to seek wise counsel.

Definitely. And some good biblical guidance as you're making decisions for your future. It's an important decision to make, but don't try to make it by yourself.

Right. And maybe not quite suddenly without any other plan. Yeah. Unless you have something to fall back on.

Right. So, yeah. Well, that brings us to the end. Yeah. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text. And don't forget that you can send an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

or you can leave us a voicemail. Go to www .utt .com. Click on the voicemail link and we would love to hear from you.

With your voice. We're a little bit late today because we just got tired. Oh, man.

It's been a week. So that's why this broadcast is a little bit later. But we thank you so much for listening. Yes.

Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time that we have together to ponder these questions, ponder what it means to live in the world in light of Christ, in the fear of God, not being afraid of some of the wicked decisions that man is making.

But as said in Isaiah 8, fear the Lord, let him be your fear and your dread.

And so we know that you are sovereign. You are in control. You hold all things in your hand. You love us and have sent your son to die for us, to rise again from the dead so that whoever believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life.

Christ is coming back to judge the living and the dead. And we may desire that that would be sooner rather than later.

But while we are living in these days, may we continue to keep our eyes fixed upon Christ, not distressed about the things that are going on in this world, but impressed with the teaching of your word that we may live upright and godly lives in the present age.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, as we're about to finish up this particular section, this segment, one more voicemail here.

This one is from Jake. Here we go. Okay, from State Farm. Hey guys, my name's Jake. I'm calling. No, not from State Farm.

I had to. And now I've got to go back and change this because I don't want to give a plug for State Farm.

All right. You could not help yourself. Oh, my soul.