WWUTT 1985 Q&A Conduct in Worship, Communicating with the Dead, Chucking a Certain Movement

How do we think about the way that we approach corporate worship? Is there any chance the dead are trying to communicate with us?

And how can we protest the trans movement in a way that is honoring of the Lord? The answers when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word, so that in season and out of season, we may be equipped with great patience and teaching.

Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Why don't we start off a new psalm? Awesome.

Let's do a new psalm here. So this is Psalm 71. It's not new, new. Not new, not like brand new.

We're going back 3 ,000 years here. You know. But it's still a good psalm. Reading from the Legacy Standard Bible, Psalm 71.

In you, O Yahweh, I have taken refuge. Let me never be ashamed.

In your righteousness, deliver me and protect me. Incline your ear to me and save me.

Be to me a rock of habitation, to which I may continually come. You have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.

Protect me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the grasp of the unrighteous and ruthless man, for you are my hope.

O Lord Yahweh, you are my trust from my youth. By you I have been sustained from my birth.

You are he who took me from my mother's womb. My praise is continually of you.

So, consider that if you have come to faith in Jesus Christ, God has been working from the time when you were in your mother's womb, really before that, but according to this psalm, since the time you were in your mother's womb, to bring about the days that you would live, the steps that you would go, the places where you would end up, so that you would eventually hear the gospel and come to realize your sin and your need for a savior and Christ is that savior.

Yes. And by faith in Jesus Christ, you're forgiven your sins and you have everlasting life with God.

Amen. And if God is for you, none of your enemies, there are none of these people that can come against you, as we read in Psalm 8, if God is for us, then who can be against us?

Right. He will deliver you. He will be your rock and your fortress. He will be the rock of habitation to which you can continually come.

Mm -hmm. But do keep in mind that that doesn't mean that we're going to have an easy life. Yeah, definitely not.

We're still going to have enemies, but what do we have to fear? We're going to be in heaven. We know we have the promise of deliverance and everlasting life in Christ.

Yeah. In you, oh Yahweh, I have taken refuge. Let me never be ashamed.

Amen. And think also of what Paul said in Romans 1, 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

Yes. And my friends, this is what Becky and I like doing. We like opening the Psalms and just finding something to talk about in the

Psalms. Of course. And so if you hear us do that on the podcast, try it in your home too.

Yeah. We've been taking our kids through Psalm 1. I'm helping them memorize Psalm 1. Yep. And this is a common question we get on the podcast.

How can I do devotions with my family? Just open the Bible and read it and talk about it.

Yeah. What a wonderful thing. We don't do that enough. Right. Hey, this is the

Friday edition of the broadcast and you can submit your questions to us by sending them to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Sometimes I also read DMs that I get on X. It's not

Twitter anymore. It's still Twix in my mind. Twix. It's Twitter and X.

So it is the social media site known as Twix. That won't get you. But that makes me hungry. Yeah, I know, right.

It's candy. But RF sent me this message on Twitter.

He said, the What podcast is amazing. I can't stop listening. Thank you, brother, for your work.

That is fantastic. That's sweet. Appreciate that so much. So, hey, we'll take your compliments as well as the questions that you have.

That one was from a Twix DM. But the rest of these I think are email. This one is from Nell and says,

Gabe, at my church when we enter the sanctuary after the Sunday school hour, there is talking and chatting even after the organist begins playing the prelude.

I'm wondering if this is a problem with other churches. Shouldn't this be a time of quietness, of preparing to give worship to the great

God that we serve? It really frustrates me. Am I being too stiff? I really appreciate your opinion.

Well, I'll tell you, we have a lot of fellowship before church starts. Yes. And we really enjoy that.

We do. And as a pastor, I'm actually walking up and down the aisles, shaking hands, welcoming people, faces that I recognize, people that I've never met before, people that I'm embarrassed to say

I don't know who you are. This might be the very first time I've ever seen you. But if I say that and I find out

I should have known you two years ago, I'm going to be really embarrassed about that. So, yeah, there's a lot of joy, a lot of conversation that is happening in our church before we begin services.

Now, I'll tell you, we do have some special services where our attitude coming in is to be a little more somber.

And we've also had those services where our worship leader will finish the service and he will instruct us, as you go today, be quiet in somber reflection as you go from this place, thinking about what we've sung about, what we've heard said, what we've read in the word.

There are some more services that are going to be inflective in that way.

We're meditating on what it is that we've heard. And it just reminds me of Psalm 1, which

I've been taking the kids through. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of Yahweh.

And in his law, he meditates day and night. Yes. And, you know, our daughter, our eight -year -old daughter,

I know I got to be more specific in that way. Yeah, you do. Our eight -year -old said, wait a minute, I thought meditation is bad.

Oh, well, that's interesting. And I said, it's bad when you think of nothing at all, because that's the worldly and the pagan kind of meditation.

You're supposed to empty your mind. You're not supposed to think about anything. You're just supposed to meditate. Focus on yourself.

That's right. And go, um, and then, you know, see what happens to you when you do that.

I said, here, this is the kind of meditation that we should have. We actually do fill our mind with something, and it's supposed to be the word of God.

Right. So we'll even have those services where the congregants are encouraged to meditate and be thinking about the things that we've heard and read and so on and so forth.

But overall, our Sunday morning services are quite chatty in the beginning and in the end.

But I think once we get started, everybody quiets down pretty fast. Oh, yes. Right. Yeah. I mean, just this past Sunday, when

Tom came to the pulpit, it was immediately quiet. We had Mez McConnell in our church preaching this past Sunday, and as soon as Tom stepped to the pulpit, it was dead quiet, and he even made the comment, he's like, wow,

I don't think that's ever happened before. You guys were immediately attentive. Right after we had

VBS, I did the announcements in church the Sunday right after VBS was done, and I got up in the pulpit, and I said, you know, when

I got up here with the kids this week, I mean, they just went bonkers. You guys are – and then they started cheering, and I went, okay, wait, wait.

That's not what I was trying to get out of you, but I appreciate it. But yeah, once service gets started, we read the scriptures.

We have announcements right at the very beginning, and that's another reason why it doesn't really work to be meditative coming in, the way that we have our service structure.

Right. That's true. It doesn't work to meditate when you come in, but rather to be fellowshipping with one another.

A lot of these people, their friends have not seen all week, so why not be delighted in being able to fellowship with the saints?

Yeah. That's a wonderful thing, especially when you think about church being heaven practice. What we do in church, hearing

God's word even, singing these praises, thinking about all that God has done for us and praising his name for it, this is but a taste of what we're going to be doing for all eternity.

So church is like heaven practice, and in that sense, we're together with the saints. We should delight in that.

We rejoice to be together as the people of God. We've been around worldly people all week long.

Praise God we get to come into this place and think about and meditate on Christ our

Savior. That's a great thing. It's good to have those wonderful conversations in the very beginning.

Just kind of depends on how your service is structured. Since we start with announcements, and we get that out of the way.

Yes. So it doesn't really work to be meditative coming in, but then once whoever is doing the announcements goes into what we call the call to worship, and that's going to be generally a reading from the

Psalms. I think there's been a couple of occasions we've read from another passage, but usually it's right out of the Psalter.

And we're calling people into worship, and then we go into the first two songs and everybody's there.

And then after those first two songs, we have a time of confession. The worship leader typically leads in that, or it may be one of the other pastors that stands up and does it.

But we're thinking about and meditating on what the Scripture says about our sin and confessing our sin before God.

And so that becomes part of our worship service. Right. Then we have another song. There's pastoral prayer, which will include reading of Scripture.

There's another song. There's offering, because giving is part of our worship. You said that in a broadcast a few weeks ago.

And then another song that's kind of pulling us into the sermon. This song is going to be more directly...

The bridge. Exactly. Yeah, right. Bridges that gap. We've had this great worship time, and now let's cross the bridge into reading the

Scripture. Yes. And it's kind of like... So in the Psalms, you have the Egyptian halal.

No, that's not what I'm thinking of. It's the Song of Ascents. Oh, okay. Yeah. So the Psalms of Ascents are the songs that you're singing as you're going up to Zion to worship.

Right. So it's kind of like that song there that goes into the sermon. Yes. That would be like our Song of Ascents.

Yeah. As we're going up the mountain or over the bridge and through the woods. I'm not going to finish that.

To Mount Zion we go. Yeah, to Mount Zion we go. There you go. That's it. Oh, dear. I was like, you finished that better than I was about to do.

So we come into the sermon and we're reading the text, all standing together with our

Bibles open and hearing God's Word read. Yes. And then praying as we come into the

Scriptures and then we go into the sermon from there. Yeah. And then at the very end, it just kind of depends on how things went in the service.

Sometimes it's a passage, it's a deep, heavy passage we've been in that day.

Yeah. Where we're going to be encouraged to be more meditative as we go.

Sure. As we go out. Yeah. But for the most part, yeah, for the most part we're real chatty, we're real fellowshipy.

Those that are newer in our church especially. Yes. Will stand around a lot longer in fellowship.

Yeah. And I like that. Yeah. I mean at our church in Kansas, Providence Baptist, shout out to you guys. Hey, guys.

We were hanging out and talking until like 1 .30. Yep. And the kids were like, I'm home.

Yeah, we're ready to go. We're like, yeah, it's fine, it's fine. You'll be fine. It's time to eat. So as good Baptist once a month, we'd have a potluck.

Of course. You know, go along with that. Yeah. But the nice thing about that, finishing at 1 .30 with our fellowshipping and standing around and talking like that, when we got to the restaurants, there wasn't anybody else there.

Nobody. No lines. Parking was open. It was awesome. That wasn't typically where we went.

We went home and ate. Right. Yeah. But still, it was very convenient. Because there's always the joke of like, we got to get out and beat the

Methodist to the buffet. Yes, that's true. Yeah. But so to answer your question,

I think it just depends on like what kind of atmosphere it is.

Yeah. Are they gossiping? Is it like bad chatter? Oh, yeah. Or is it like good fellowshipping?

Like, oh, I haven't seen you all week. You know, making sure they're doing fine. Encouraging one another. And I heard you had a bad week, you know, or whatever, what have you.

So, I guess you can kind of just mingle and see. I don't know if that would make you feel better, like more at ease about being there with the saints.

Yeah. Because, I mean, you're there to worship with them, too. But I do agree with the whole, you know, like she said – he?

She? Nell? Nell, yes. Nell said that the organ starts first.

Right. So, and then there's still chattering while the organ starts. Even after the organist begins playing the prelude.

That would be a little – I would think if that's the way you're starting, if that's your structure, then maybe you do want to begin kind of an attitude of, okay, the organ's starting, so let's get to our seats.

Or they're moving to the organ. You know, something – A little bit before. Right. We're finishing our conversation.

We're going to our pews seats. You know, whatever seating you have in your church. And you're starting to come into the service preparing your mind for worship.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It just kind of depends on what the – I don't know what happens after that then in your service.

True. Do you go into announcements? I like the concept of doing the announcements first. Get all that out of the way.

Yeah. When the first several years that I was pastoring, we did that opening song to get people to come in.

Right. And then we did announcements. And there was something about that was like, I just feel like I suddenly interrupted the flow of worship.

Yeah. That's true. And once we went to doing announcements first or at the very end, that's another place to do them too.

Yeah. We've got some friends, some good churches that we like attending nearby where that's –

I've seen that pretty normal out here in East Texas anyway. Yeah. The announcements will be at the very end of the service.

Yeah. So that's another place you can stick with. And then it doesn't feel like it interrupts the flow of worship. You know what I mean?

That's true. So I don't know if you're like over –

Overanalyzing or being critical. I don't have enough information, I guess, to make that call.

But if you're feeling a little bit guilty about it, maybe try chatting with a friend.

Talk to a pastor about it. Or a pastor. Talk to one of the pastors. Yeah. That pastor would be good. I would think a good question for your pastor might be, what is our theology of worship like when we come into church together, if we thought these things through?

Yeah. Because I think it is good to think about these things as a congregation. Oh, yeah. For sure. And the pastor can help lead that.

So what are we thinking about when we come together in worship? Yeah. Like how are we deciding our songs?

There's a lot of churches I've been in, like I've been called to be a guest speaker somewhere and I – or, you know, pulpit supply, guest speaker.

But, you know, I'm filling in for a pastor who's gone that weekend or maybe the church is in the process of looking for a pastor or something like that.

And I come in and they're like, okay, so what are we going to sing? Let's flip through here. Let's do this psalm.

Let's do this psalm or song or whatever. And there has – you can tell there has not been a lot of careful thought in what kind of worship are we doing.

Now, if I'm coming into a church where they're still looking for a pastor, things I understand are a little bit disorganized.

Yeah. Hopefully, whenever you find that guy, stuff will start to become a little bit more structured. Yeah. But you still want to be more intentional about it than that.

You don't want to have this attitude of, well, we're in church, so what do we typically do in church?

Well, we sing these songs. Yeah. So let's pull these songs out of the hymnal or throw these on the overhead or, you know, whatever it might happen to be.

You do need to be more intentional about preparing yourself for worship, preparing the congregation for worship.

Saturday night is a good time to start preparing yourself for worship. Something that I need to be doing better, especially with my oldest son, is how we are preparing for worship tomorrow.

Oh, yeah. And, like, getting our own clothes together. I remember hearing

Steve Lawson talk about this. Like, from the time that he was a little boy, his dad's teaching him to lay out his suit, shine his shoes.

I don't shine my own shoes, so I'm not going to – it's not like I'm thinking about beginning that. But all of that to say –

He does have a shoe cleaning kit, though. I do have one, yeah. Yeah. But I do it in my office, like, during the week.

No, I mean Zachary. Oh, does he? Yeah, he does. I didn't know that. I bought him that. I might have to do that with him then.

Anyway. I didn't know that. That's beside the point. Oh, my goodness. A new revelation. Yeah. My son and I can shine our shoes together.

Well, he wanted white shoes, and I'm like, well, they're not going to stay white, and that's going to bug you, and you're not going to wear them ever again.

Yeah. So here you go. Here's the cleaning stuff for it. But, yeah, so back to Steve Lawson.

Yes. Okay. So he's talking about from a very young age, his dad is teaching him on Saturday night how they're getting their clothes together and getting ready for church the next day.

And that's always been something that he's done his whole life. My dad wasn't quite that meticulous, but we kind of had that.

You know, he would help me pick out what my clothes were going to be and stuff like that for the next morning.

And we weren't terribly formal. My dad didn't wear a tie unless he was preaching. Yeah. So I didn't come into enjoying wearing suits and ties until I got older.

Really? And when I became a pastor. Yeah. I don't think I was ever wearing suits before that. But anyway, so thinking about those things even on Saturday evening, maybe you know what the text is that morning, what the pastor is preaching on.

You can be reading those things the night before, maybe talk that through with the family. That could help your kids, especially your youngest kids, pay better attention in the service.

Yeah. Because we've already talked about this. Right. We talked about these passages. It's familiar. Yeah. The pastor is saying things

I recognize. And maybe that's going to help keep their intention. Or the pastor is saying the same stuff you said, and it's now setting in.

That's right. It could be that. You always got to hear it from more than one person. I said keep intention.

It should be keep attention. Attention. Oh, attention. You're being intentional about paying attention.

There you go. There we go. Anyway. But it's a good question, Nell. It's a good thing even for all of us to think through.

Yes. What are we doing before and after service? Yeah. You know, sometimes we can fall into those routines, traditions.

Yeah. That we do so many times, and we don't really think about, is this the way that we should be doing this?

But, yeah, overall, it just kind of depends on how your service is structured. Talk to your pastor about it, and see what the pastors or the elders of your church believe with regards to how fellowship is even to be conducted on a

Sunday morning. I would tell you to be careful about desiring that. I want the meditative thing before we start church, and I want the meditative thing after church.

Oh, yeah. Because I can tell you, if you place too big a deal on that, it could lead you in the direction of smells and bells.

What does that mean? Like Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. Oh, okay, okay. Because you're wanting something sensory.

Got it. Like you want the quiet meditation or the… Ambience. Ambience, there you go.

Right, yeah, like the atmosphere, that sort of thing. So be careful about how you place that. It's not wrong to be thinking about being meditative before service and stuff like that.

Just be careful about how far that's going to end up going. Yeah. I just took that as like when the music starts that nobody's really settling down yet.

That's how I understood the email. But you're taking it as meditating. Oh, I'm just issuing a caution.

That's it. Okay. Fair enough. I'm not taking it as that. I'm just saying. I was just curious.

I wanted you to expound a little bit if I had missed something. Well, if I needed to qualify that, you helped me to…

There you go. …to give the qualification there. Sounds good. This next one comes from Helene.

Dear Gabe and babe, recently on Facebook… Did we have another one from Helene? That name sounds familiar.

Or maybe I'm just remembering that I read this email to you previously. I'm not sure. Recently on…

I haven't read the email yet, so I don't know. Recently on Facebook, my friend showed a screenshot of a missed phone call from his father the night before.

The problem is his father passed away a couple of months ago. All his friends were saying things like, oh, he's sending you a heavenly love.

He's letting you know that he's thinking of you, etc. I posted, the dead don't communicate with us.

Read the story of Lazarus and the rich man. My post, of course, was pushed back with,

I disagree. I believe they send signs. They absolutely send signs. Then I posted, then you disagree with what the

Bible says, which is the authoritative word of God. Will you please do a what video on this subject?

After my mom passed away, I was laying in bed, and I heard her voice say,

Helene, in a tone that someone would say when they're excited to see you.

I knew that our dead loved ones don't communicate with us, but I also know what I heard. I shrugged it off as my mind playing games with me.

What other scriptures would you use to help people understand that their loved ones aren't contacting them?

Is this evil spirits deceiving us? What are your thoughts about this? I stumbled upon what back in 2021, and I have listened to all of your podcasts, starting with the oldest one on Spotify, which went back to 2019.

As of today, I'm now up to August 17th, 2023. I sit at a desk all day and can listen to podcasts all day long, so you've been my go -to on a daily basis.

Aw, that's awesome. Thank you for your ministry and helping us know what the text really means.

I appreciate you and Becky's input. Blessings to you and your family. I appreciate you,

Helene. That is very sweet. Thank you for that email. Here's the first passage that I would give you,

Deuteronomy 18. This was a passage that we read a few weeks ago with regards to communing with the dead.

Don't communicate with the dead. That's basically what the passage says. This is what the pagans were doing in the land where God was sending the

Israelites into the Promised Land. You're not to be like them. It's because of these abominations that God is driving them out before you.

So don't think that you can commune with the dead or that the dead communicate back to you.

Isaiah 8, 19 -22 is another good passage. Now, when they say to you, inquire of the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their

God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living, to the law and to the testimony?

If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn, and they will pass through the land hard -pressed and hungry.

And it will be that when they are hungry, they will be angry and curse their king and their God as they face upward.

Then they will look to the earth and behold distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish, and they will be banished into thick darkness.

When you start thinking that you can hear from the dead, if you think that you heard it once and you want to hear it again, that won't ever stop.

Yeah. You will look for more ways that you can hear from the dead, more ways you can hear from your dead loved ones.

Helene, I think you treated that the right way. You thought you heard your mom say your name to you in a way that sounds very excited.

And you just played that off as your mind playing tricks on you. It could have been one of two things.

It could have been that your mind was playing tricks on you. Yeah. I mean, I've had that happen to me before.

Yeah. Like Becky and I have been laying in bed and I've looked at her and I said, did you hear that?

And she's like, what are you talking about? I said, I swear one of the kids just said something. No, they're asleep. Go back to sleep. You know. I mean, we've had those occasions as parents hearing our kids constantly.

Yes. You can think you're hearing your kids even when they're not there. So I get that. Your mind could be playing tricks on you.

The other thing is it really could be an evil spirit. Yeah. So there could be an evil spirit that's trying to play a trick on you, trying to woo you into this.

Tug at your heartstrings. Yeah. Desire to inquire from the dead. And then what

God says won't be enough for you anymore. You'll start to look for these other things, which

Isaiah 8 describes as things of the earth. And behold, distress and darkness and the gloom of anguish will come upon you because you'll never yield from this spiritism what you want to glean from it.

You'll never actually communicate with the dead. It's not that. It's evil spirits that are responding to you with things.

Yeah. Teasing you and enticing you, drawing you away from God. God is not enough.

His word is not enough for me. I need to hear a word from my dead loved one. But you're never actually getting a word from your dead loved one.

Right. And so it leaves you empty and full of darkness and in anguish. Scripture says it right there in Isaiah 8.

That's exactly where it's going to lead you to. So when Becky and I were talking about a couple of weeks ago, the whole alien phenomenon that is kind of blowing up right now.

Right. And you've got even witnesses that are testifying before Congress. Oh, we know that we've made contact with aliens and we have their ships and, you know, them in storage, their bodies in storage and all this other kind of thing.

Yeah. Right. Well, all of this is a trick and it's demonic. It's demonic activity.

And especially here, listen to the messages that sometimes they'll put out there. I'm not talking about the aliens, but the people that claim that they've spoken to aliens.

Listen to their messages. What are the aliens saying to us? They're saying things that really sound like a communist environmentalist.

Yeah. Like, take care of the Earth. You people don't take care of the Earth well enough. You're abusing your resources.

You're polluting the thing that has been given to you, nature and all this other kind of stuff.

And then they'll also say, you know, you need to be sharing your possessions, giving up your possessions to evenly distribute it with others and stuff like that.

I've heard some of these people say that's what the aliens are telling us. Yes, exactly. Okay. And so even this testimony that's coming before congressional hearings, that's eventually where it's going to go.

They're going to try to push this environmentalism and this Marxism on us.

Oh, yeah, for sure. That's exactly what they're going to do with it. So I don't know if they're really communicating with aliens or not.

It could just be, you know, the government. Employed. Right. Just another one of these things, just like COVID was.

They're going to take an opportunity to try to push some sort of Marxist ideology.

That may very well be what all of this is up to. But anyway, since we're seeing this more and more mainstream, there's going to be a lot of intrigue that will be stirred up by people in the population.

And they will hear stories about, well, we have communicated with aliens. They have spoken back to us.

And people are going to try to do that themselves. Yeah. This is not just some harmless thing.

Right. Don't try to do it. Because what they are communicating with is not extraterrestrial beings from another world.

They are communicating with extra dimensional beings. Yeah. Which are demons.

They are demons that are communicating with these people. It is not an alien life form from another planet.

Right. And I'm just going to tell you straight out, that's not even possible. If there are other worlds in space,

I don't think there are. But if there are, there's no physical way that they can get to us.

Not at all. True. It is physically impossible for them to get here. There's no way they could get here.

So the UFOs or UAPs and all this other kind of stuff that people are seeing, these are demonic tricks.

And even the people who have seen them and have studied them on the regular will say that there's something spiritual about it.

Yeah. There's something about it that seems to defy any physical property. Which is part of the reason why they changed the name

UFO to UAP. Instead of an unidentified flying object, it's an unidentified aerial phenomenon.

Because the object is not really flying. Flying, yeah. Nor is it really even an object.

Yeah. They seem to defy physics. Like when some of these pilots have been out over the ocean and they have seen these craft and even captured them on radar.

Right. So we've had video of this. Mm -hmm. Incredible video. Not just the blurry images that nobody can ever seem to get a clear picture of.

When those objects descend into the ocean, they just vanish. There's no splash. Mm -hmm.

If it really was an object, if it had physical property to it. It would splash. It can't just vanish into the water like that.

Right. There would be some sort of disruption on the surface, you know? Yeah. So all of this does seem to have some sort of spiritual or otherworldly property to it.

And it is demonic tricks. Even the same as encountering ghosts or hearing voices that you think is the dead communicating with you.

All of that is a demonic trick. Yeah. These are things that demons do. We cannot play with this.

We can't tamper with it. It's not some harmless thing. You are actually communing with evil spirits.

So you're on the right page. In other words, like she's giving the right advice. Right. Yes. Right. Now, about the question she asked with, you know, is there anything in Scripture that tells us that the dead don't talk to us?

And she mentioned Luke chapter 16. This is the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Mm -hmm.

It's a story that Jesus tells. Yeah. And if there's anybody that would know that something like this happened in the spiritual realm, it would be

Jesus. Right. Of course. And so he talks about the rich man who enjoyed great things,

Lazarus who ate the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. A day came in which

Lazarus died and angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died, but he was taken to a place of fiery torment.

Mm -hmm. And while he is there, he can look and see across this chasm, whatever this is, it's difficult for our minds to understand what this place is.

Right. There's going to be a day where we're going to see it and it will make sense. Right. But whatever this realm is,

Lazarus is with Abraham in Abraham's bosom is what it's called. So he's in the place of Abraham.

Earlier this week in Matthew chapter 8, I read of the centurion's faith when he asked

Jesus to heal his servant. Oh, uh -huh. And because of the faith that he had, if you just speak a word,

I know he will be healed. Right. Jesus marveled and said, nowhere in Israel have I seen faith like this.

Right. There will be those who will come from the east and the west and will recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while the sons of the kingdom will be cast into the outer darkness.

So we have this reference to that in the heavenly place, we will recline at table.

Yeah. Even with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now that could be a reference just to fellowship, not that there's a literal table in heaven.

Right. But whatever this is, there's a place where Abraham is there and the people who are children of Abraham, as Galatians 3 tells us, if we have faith in Christ, we're children of Abraham.

So these are the people who will be there in what is essentially paradise. Right. The rich man is in a place where he can't get there, but he can see them somehow.

Right. He sees Abraham and Lazarus together. And so the rich man says, Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send

Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.

But Abraham said, Child, remember that during your life you received good things and likewise

Lazarus bad things, but now he is being comforted here and you are in agony.

And besides all this, between us and you, there's a great chasm fixed so that those who wish to come over from here to you are not able.

And none may cross over from there to us. And so the rich man said, Then I am asking you,

Father, that you send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers in order that he may warn them so that they will not come to this place of torment.

But Abraham said, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. But the rich man said,

No, Father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. But he said to him,

If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.

Yeah. And we know that's a true story because of Lazarus having his name said.

Right, correct. That's what differentiates it from a parable. Yeah, because in the parables, nobody's name is mentioned.

Right. But here you have Lazarus's name. And likely the reason why the rich man's name doesn't appear is because his name has been blotted out.

Ah, yes. Just as the Lord said in Isaiah, I have blotted out your transgressions.

But to those who do not repent, their names will be blotted out of the book.

And so that's probably the reason why the rich man's name is not mentioned. But Lazarus is remembered.

So this is the story that Jesus tells, a true story, again, not just a parable that Jesus is telling, but something that really happened.

There is no communing with the dead. The dead don't come back from that place into the physical realm to tell us what's over here.

Right. Now, someone will say, well, what about Samuel talking to Saul through the

Witch of Endor? Okay. Right. That is narrative. And remember the axiom that narrative is not normative.

Yes. For whatever reason, God permitted that one occasion. Right. Because Saul was attempting to communicate with Samuel.

And so he had this medium or this necromancer call him up. Even though Saul had purged all the necromancers from the area.

Right. Yet he finds this one witch who can call up Samuel for him. And because Saul has done this,

Samuel says, you're going to be joining me tomorrow. Yep. In other words, you're going to be dead tomorrow, too.

So this wasn't an evil spirit. Evil spirits don't prophesy like that. Evil spirits lie.

Right. They don't tell you the truth. So the fact that Samuel told him. They tell you what you want to hear.

Yeah, right. Exactly. The fact that Samuel told him this, and that's exactly what happened.

Yeah. Is how we understand this was really Samuel. It wasn't a demonic spirit. Right. The Lord allowed, even though these two people,

Saul and the Witch of Endor, were doing this wicked thing. Yet the Lord sent Samuel to be able to say this thing.

I mean, Jesus was with his disciples and had Elijah and Moses appear with him.

On the Mount of Transfiguration. True. So we do have those occasions where those who have gone to be with the

Lord have made some appearances, even after their deaths. But that doesn't mean that we can communicate with those individuals.

Right. Very special occasions, special circumstances that would be on the scale of a prophet speaking.

Right. The prophets don't speak to us anymore. Hebrews 1 .1, long ago at many times in many ways,

God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son. Whom he has made heir of all things.

So in closing here, there's one other passage that I want to refer to. And that one's also out of Hebrews. Okay. Where it says, at the end of Hebrews 11, or no, it's the beginning of 12.

We're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. So some will use that passage to say, well, since those people have gone to be with the

Lord are witnessing us, then can't we also hear from them? Don't they send us some different signs or indications that they're watching us?

Or they're okay or whatever? No, the understanding that we have that they're okay is God's word.

Right. If they were followers of Christ and they died according to God's word, we know they're fine.

Right. They are with Christ in glory. Yes. Do these cloud of witnesses, so to speak, actually communicate with us somehow?

Or hear from us as, you know, the Catholics teach and take our prayer requests before God and so on and so forth?

Here is the video that I did on that subject. And then we'll go to our next question. Okay. Hebrews 12.

One says, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin, which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

What does this mean that we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses? Well, it's often interpreted that the saints who have gone before us, the faithful who have died and are with Jesus in heaven, are looking down from above.

They're watching us, cheering us on as we run the race, just like athletes in a sports arena would compete in front of a big crowd.

However, nowhere else in the Bible are we given a picture of saints watching us from heaven. Furthermore, the Bible doesn't say anywhere that we should pray to these believers.

They're not watching and we can't talk to them. So they're not witnessing us. They witness to us.

The stories of these saints and their completed lives of faithfulness continue to minister to us through the scriptures.

These witnesses were just mentioned in the previous chapter. Saints like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, and what more shall

I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets.

Many other men and women who by faith finished the race and won the prize. And so by their witness, we learn to put off sin and run the race.

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. And as we are perfected in our faith by the testimony of the saints who went before us, so they are perfected also.

Until we are all presented together before God as the purified bride of Christ. When we understand the text.

All right, babe. Next question. Are you ready? Yep. Here's how it starts. This is from Jake. All right. And he says,

Dear Gabe and tired babe. How did you know?

I work as a custodian in the government school system and we were told to put tampon dispensers in the boys bathrooms.

The way the this way the tranny girl slash boy can still have access to that while in the bathroom of his slash her choice.

It's somehow even dumber than it sounds. The day shift guy did reluctantly install it for context where both

Christians and his conscience allowed him to simply install it but never fill it. I, however, couldn't and wouldn't go through with it.

I was on vacation the week he installed it and I came in on the following Sunday. I have church in the morning and a fellowship in the afternoon.

So I swing by to kill an hour or two and I saw the dispenser up.

I became angry as I believe this is clearly child abuse. So I may have quote unquote accidentally tore it off the wall and quote unquote accidentally chucked it in the compactor.

I have since then played dumb and told them I have no clue what happened to it. My question is, was this a wise move?

Should I have just tore it off and placed it somewhere and told them verbally that this will not happen while I'm here?

What do you think? And then in parentheses, there may be other Christians in other districts that listen and may want to hear what you think and what we should do when this comes to their workplace or even private businesses.

Thank you for all you do, Pastor. And I appreciate your question, Jake. What are you thinking, babe?

Because you are rubbing the bridge of your nose there. Well, I have a migraine, but that's beside the point.

It's still worthy. I'm sure this isn't helping. No. Yeah. No, it's definitely super frustrating because I don't want to think of my girls thinking they have the okay to go into a boy's bathroom or a boy to go in the girl's bathroom thinking they have the okay for that.

Yeah. This is okay. This is safe for you. It's not safe. Yeah, it's very perverse.

Yeah. And I agree with Jake. It's child abuse. Yes. Definitely. It's sexual reprogramming of these children in the public school system.

We don't seem to really be concerned in public schools, in many public schools anyway, with math and science and reading and history and technology.

It's not about that anymore. We're not there to be educated. We're there to be reprogrammed all of a sudden. So I share your frustration and, in fact, your righteous anger,

Jake. Now, whether or not you should have torn it off and thrown it in the compactor. I mean, when

I read that in your email, I laughed. When I read your email the first time, I was like, way to go.

You didn't just tear it off and stick it somewhere. You threw it in the compactor. The real question is going to be, though, is it moral then to feign ignorance or to say,

I don't know what happened to it when you did know what happened to it? So is it a greater testimony to just come right out and say, yeah,

I'm the one that tore it off the wall and threw it in the compactor? Or are you going about it the right way and just playing like you don't know what happened to it?

Now, you could say there's a certain element of truth to that. I don't know what happened to it after I threw it in the compactor.

Where did all that stuff go? I don't know. I have no idea where it is. You can say that with a clear conscience.

I don't know where the tampon dispenser is because you truly don't know where it ended up. And just kind of leave out the stuff in the middle that, oh,

I took it off the wall and threw it in the compactor. I mean, would that be like what we read about in Exodus 2 with the midwives?

Yeah, I mean, that's where I'm thinking of. Is it righteous or not?

I don't know. That you don't say anything at all. That you don't say anything. So I said Exodus 2. It's actually at the end of Chapter 1.

The king of Egypt wanted to kill the Hebrew babies, the boys in particular.

Right. Because he was afraid the population was going to get too numerous for them and they were going to overtake the

Egyptians. So the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shapara and the other one was named

Pua. And he said, when you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death.

But if it is a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, but let the boys live.

So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, why have you done this thing and let the boys live?

Then the midwives said to Pharaoh, because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can come to them.

So God was good to the midwives. And the people multiplied and became very mighty.

Now it happened that because the midwives feared God, he made households for them. And Pharaoh commanded all of his people saying, every son who is born, you are to cast into the

Nile and every daughter you are to keep alive. So there the midwives said something that, you know, we argue over this particular text and say, well, they lied.

Right. But did they? Because God's response to them was that he was good to them.

Yeah. He blessed them and gave them large households of their own. Yeah. There is in this debate about lying, you know, like say you've got two armies that are in battle.

You got God's army, the Israelites on one side. Okay. You've got another army, the

Hittites on the other side. And let's say God's army flanks them.

Okay. Or they've kind of divided up and they've got this other portion of the army that's in hiding. They go to battle against the

Hittites. And then here comes the other Israelites over the hill to take them. I mean, was that deceptive?

No, that's strategic. Yeah, that's strategic. So is that the same thing here with regard to the midwives?

Were they really lying? Were they being deceptive? Or was this something strategic to not only preserve themselves, but even preserving the

Israelites? These are questions that come up. These are moral and ethical questions that come up, too, when we think back to when the

Jews were being persecuted by the Nazis. And you would have

Jewish sympathizers that would hide Jews. Yeah. And then the Nazis would come in and say, are you hiding

Jews? No, no Jews here. Right. You know, is that lying or they're protecting life?

Right. And wasn't there a Bible story where wasn't it two men that came into the house and no, they're not here?

Yeah, that's Rahab. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's later on in Joshua. Yes. That's with Jericho.

So the spies came in to scout Jericho and Rahab hides them in the hay above her house and says, they've already left.

So if you hurry, you might be able to go catch them. Right. Okay. So she protects the spies. Was that a lie on her part?

God clearly protected her and spared her family because of what she did. Right. She feared God instead of the men of Jericho.

Right. So those are the things you got to think through when it comes to this kind of a thing.

Are you doing something that honors the Lord? If you feel guilty in conscience, then, Jake, that's something that you really have to consider.

Very true. But if you can sit there with a clear conscience and go, nope, did it exactly the way that I should have it, I would do it like that again.

Yeah. And you can qualify that with Scripture and you can say, I did what honored the Lord and I protected these kids from this deception that they're trying to put in front of, you know, especially these girls who think they're boys and can go into the boys' restroom and use a –

I guess boys who think they're girls can use it too. I don't know. I'm not even going to go into –

No, let's not. Let's just skip that part. Not even going to get into any of that. Oh, dear.

One is playing – one is still working biologically the way that they're supposed to and the other one's playing make -believe.

We'll just put it that way. Sure. But anyway, these are real -world things that are happening and Christians are in environments where they're going to have to think this through.

Yeah, definitely. So, Jake, I would say – It's going to keep getting more and more difficult, I would assume. It's going to become more and more prevalent, yeah.

Yeah. And you're going to be put in positions of submit or be fired. Right.

That's true. Or even worse than that, go to jail. Yeah. You'll end up being fined for being discriminatory or something to that effect.

Jake, I would say talk to your pastor about it. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. So have a conversation with somebody at church, somebody who knows you, can give you counsel in that way as well.

Yeah. But I hope that I've given you some good things here and some others who may enter into the same kind of conundrum.

And more in -depth. I mean, whatever action you take, you have to be willing to accept the consequences.

They could say, well, you've ripped the thing off the wall, you threw it in the compactor, that's destroying public property. You're going to have to pay for it or you're going to face charges for that, whatever it would happen to be.

Since you work for the public school system and this is the direction that the public schools are going, if that's the way that you respond, then there's going to be consequences for that.

And you just have to accept it. But in your mind, be sure to have a clear conscience before God that I did nothing wrong.

Somebody could probably rationalize, well, that's public property. I work for the school.

My tax dollars paid for it. I threw it in the trash compactor. Somebody's not going to like my answer.

But yeah, that's sharing my heart. It's my podcast. You can give a different answer on your podcast if you want to.

This next one comes from the Parker family. My family and I recently listened to a

Babylon Bee podcast in which you were interviewed. I remember that. That was a couple of years ago. We live in a certain area of Texas.

I'm going to leave that anonymous for now. And we're wondering if you might be able to recommend a biblically sound church in this area.

We have visited several places, but it's been difficult to find one free of woke ideology and or prosperity focused.

We would greatly appreciate your help. God bless you, your family, and the kingdom work that you are doing.

Well, if you go to the What website and you click on links, one of the first links that's on there, it gives you different churches.

Church search websites. Yes. So sites that you can go to and search for churches. One of the persons that has a great church search website is

Michelle Leslie. Definitely. And I think I've got her on my links. I think she's in there.

So go to her page and then look for the church search menu options there. Type in your location and you should be able to find something.

She links to several other church sites, too, if I remember right. Yes. Founders is a good one. But you know,

Ron and Tammy, who sent us this email, I looked up your location on Founders website and there wasn't anything nearby.

More churches need to be utilizing that Founders website. Definitely. It's just a matter of churches have to sign up for it.

They have to enter their own church and put it in there. There's just not many in that database yet. So more churches, you need to go to founders .org

and enter your church information. Now, it's a Baptist site. Yeah, that's true.

So it would only be your Baptist church and really on more of the Reformed side of things.

You don't have to adhere to a Reformed confession of faith, but it's more those Reformed Baptist churches,

Reformed -leaning Baptist churches that are going to utilize the Founders website. Yeah. So you could utilize

Michelle Leslie's because she's updating that quite often, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, as I understand it.

If you have a solid church, just plug it. You got to get the word out there.

There are people looking. That's right. There are. And everywhere. They're all over asking us for good church recommendations.

Especially in Texas where people are relocating here. Yes. We're getting a lot more emails from people saying, hey,

I'm in Texas now looking for a good church. Where can I go? Yeah. Few and far between for the solid ones.

For good, solid churches, it is. Compared to how many churches are in our area. Even here in East Texas.

One of the reasons First Baptist Church has been growing is because there are not solid expository preaching churches that are nearby to here.

We've even got some Presbyterians coming our way because they can't even find a gospel -centered

Presbyterian church. Yeah. But we're preaching the word, and so they say, can we come hear the word with you guys?

Yeah. That's really what we want. We want the Christian Fellowship, and we want to hear good preaching. Yes. They can't become voting members, but they can come and listen to the preaching.

They can sure do that. Yes. Well, we thank you so much for listening. We are in Arizona. As a matter of fact, we're on the road as we are recording this broadcast.

Yeah. Babe, we've got three weeks. Okay. Three weeks from today. Uh -huh.

God willing, our 2 ,000th episode. Ooh. Here in the month of September.

Nice. We will hit our 2 ,000th episode. Been on the air for eight years and 2 ,000 episodes.

That's awesome. This is a blessing. We would not be doing this if not for the listenership that we have and the encouragement that you give, the emails that you send.

So continue to send those emails to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Yeah. And weren't we trending somewhere?

Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that. So we were trending in Nigeria this past week. Oh, yeah. That was so cool.

We were among the top podcasts being streamed in Nigeria. So thank you for whoever it is, the flock that's out there in Nigeria that's listening.

Thank you. And hello. We often are trending in Singapore and Nepal.

Those are two of the other ones. So cool. That will pop up. Recently, the UK and Canada.

And like I've said before, rarely in the U .S. Yeah. Every once in a while, we'll pop into the 200 in the

U .S., but it hasn't been often. It's been very seldom. But we thank you for listening and sharing this broadcast with others, and we're going to keep cranking away.

Yes. And praise the Lord we're able to do it. Yeah. Amen to that. I'm going to continue on with our study in Matthew.

We're entering into Chapter 9 this next week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Still in the book of Isaiah in our

Old Testament study on Thursday. And God willing, we'll be back for another Q &A next week.

Yes. Let's finish with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunities that we've had here today to hear these questions and respond to them.

And I want to pray for each one of these persons that we've heard from today. Nell, who is thinking about how we conduct ourselves in worship.

How do we prepare our minds for worship? How do we even think as we're going out from worship that day?

And I pray that you would give Nell clarity, that Nell would be willing to speak to her pastor about that, and gain an understanding of what the church expectations are with regards to how we prepare ourselves for worship.

Is there a theology there that we can work through together to decide how we conduct ourselves on the

Lord's day? I pray also for Helene, as she is witnessing to people who think that they can commune with the dead.

A very dangerous practice. And so give Helene wisdom and a biblical understanding that she might be able to respond to these friends with what the

Bible says. And that their hearts would be open to receive what Scripture says. We should not be tampering with these things.

And to think that we can hear from the dead, or would even want to hear from the dead, is to say that Scripture is not sufficient for us.

So teach them, as said in Isaiah 8, to return to the law and to the testimony, and hear from the

Word of God, which guides us and gives us all comforts, even when we experience the pain of losing loved ones.

We pray for Jake and this situation that he's going through, and his Christian co -worker as well, with regards to tampon machines in the boys' restroom.

What a day that we live in right now, where our school system is so corrupt that these things have become normally heard about in public schools.

Give Jake wisdom to know that he's made the right decision, and how he responds even in the midst of that decision.

And then Jake's communication with his pastors as well. Submitting to those who are in authority over him, who shepherd his soul, and are able to give him guidance in this particular scenario also.

And we pray, lastly, for Ron and Tammy, that they would be able to find a good church where they live, a place where they can gather with the saints and rejoice with the

Lord together. Seems like we began and ended the same way, thinking about how we worship together, and thinking about where we can worship with the saints.

So guide us in your truth, and may we continue to rejoice in this opportunity to gather with brothers and sisters in the

Lord, celebrating what Christ has done for us, and praying together, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Ooh, that was my tummy.

I think I'm pretty sure that was mine. Are you sure? Was that your tummy or mine?

I don't know. Now we don't even know. I swear I felt it at the same time that it gurgled like that.

I thought I did too. That's funny. Maybe they're talking to each other. It could be. It's like, let's start a chorus.

That was funny. Oh, funny stuff. We've done a lot of things at the same time.

I don't know that we've ever had stomach gurgles at the same time. It's just those yummy waffles you made.

Yeah, there you go. Oh, so good. Okie dokie.