WWUTT 980 Q&A Lord's Prayer, Revelation Closing, Evangelizing Children, and Avoiding Despair?

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When it says in Revelation, no one can add or take away from this book, is it talking about Revelation or the whole

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Bible? How do we evangelize to children? And how can we keep from falling into despair? The answers to these questions, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the word of Christ. For all the promises of God, find their yes in Him.

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

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. For the month of July, we want to do

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Christmas in July. Yes, we do. All you have to do is submit a question to us, or you can say something great that you love about the ministry, what the podcast has meant to you, what the videos have meant to you.

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Maybe you have even a particular anecdote where, hey, I used to believe this way, and then you did this video, and it caused me to maybe explore the issue a little bit more, and I came to realize my thinking about this was all wrong until the what video, or something like that.

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Right, but it doesn't have to do with Christmas. I mean, it doesn't have to be about Christmas. No, it doesn't.

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We're calling it Christmas in July because we're going to give stuff away, including the book, 25

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Christmas Myths. We are sending gifts. And what the Bible says, which is why we're calling it

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Christmas in July. Exactly. Because that's one of the books you can get. Whoever wins will get that book, but then there's another prize on top of that.

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It might be a J .C. Ryle book. It might be a Sinclair Ferguson DVD. It could be a flash drive with all of the what videos on it.

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Currently. Yeah, 250 what videos. So that goes with 25

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Christmas Myths. Just add a zero on there, and you get 250 what videos on this flash drive.

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So these are some of the prizes you can win during our Christmas in July giveaway.

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Whenever you submit your question or you share your story, just be sure you include your name and address.

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We won't give out, when we read them on the broadcast, we won't give out last name, and I won't mention the town that you're from if it's small, in case it's something that you might get embarrassed.

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But if you live in San Diego. But if you live in small town, you know what we're talking about.

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It's like you're the only Bartholomew in Podunk, Kansas, so we're not going to mention that that's the town that you're from.

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We'll just say your name and your state, something like that. But anyway, submit all of that info to us when you email whenweunderstandthetext at If you like, you can even drop it in the mail and send it to our church,

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First Southern Baptist Church, 1220 West 8th Street, Junction City, Kansas, 66441.

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I very seldomly get letters, but we have read them when we've received letters, and I remember to bring them home.

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We've read them on the broadcast, so you can send a letter to the church that way as well if you would like to do it.

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I love mail. I still love mail. Oh, I do too. I'm always disappointed when she drives by, our mail lady just drives by the house and doesn't stop for mail.

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Doesn't stop. Oh, we're going to get mail today. See, I really think that's why people are so addicted to Amazon.

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It's not because. Oh, I know it is. Not because the stuff that you can get on Amazon and how convenient and easy it is.

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It's just all of a sudden you got to, I can get mail every day. I can just look, click this and boom, I'm going to get a letter in two days.

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I'll get a new Alexa. A new bill. And I just made everybody's Alexas go off.

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Again. Yeah, a new bill. So, you don't ever see the bill. It just goes straight onto your card. It's like out of sight, out of mind. I'm getting free stuff all the time.

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Right. Right. There are some people really going into debt over Amazon, I'm sure.

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Conveniences, yes, definitely. Anyway, where were we? Christmas in July. Christmas in July, that's right.

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Once again, a question that you have for the broadcast or you want to share something that's what meant to you and get all of that information in the email along with your name and address, et cetera.

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And we will be doing drawings every Friday over the course of July. Now, I'll probably end up reading three or four questions or stories or something like that on a

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Friday broadcast. One of those persons that gets read on that broadcast will end up winning the prize that we're giving away for that day.

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Okay. So, let me get this straight. So, at the end of the week, those who didn't win don't get put into the pool again for the next week or they do?

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I don't know. I hadn't thought that through. Oh, okay. Something to think about.

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I was thinking about doing a big giveaway at the end. So, on the last day or the last

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Friday in July, because you understand the last Friday in July is our 1 ,000th episode.

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Ooh. Isn't that like the 26th? Yeah. July 26th. Yeah. We could do kind of a bigger thing on that day, so everybody that maybe they did get their email read the previous three

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Fridays, but they didn't win anything, they would still be in the pool to win the big prize on Friday.

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I like that. Yeah. Okay. We'll do it that way then. I'm just coming up with that on the spot, but that's what we're going to do. That sounds good.

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The first giveaway then would be this coming Friday. It would be July the 5th, a week from today.

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Yep. Anybody who has submitted a question recently, you can still submit another question. Like maybe

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I read your question last week, or I read your question today, or your comment, or whatever it might be.

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You can still enter and be eligible for all of the drawings we're going to do in July.

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There's no, what would you say, statute of limitations. Okay. So, they can email you like five different things and that would count each one as a

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Well, you probably, you could get away with that, because I probably won't remember that you've already sent an email.

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That could be, that could work out all right, but I am going to keep track of who won what on what day.

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Okay. The 5th, 12th, 19th. So, there won't be repeat winners, but you could send more than one email.

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I'll go get a fishbowl and we'll start putting the, printing them off and putting them in the fishbowl. Yeah, we will. Draw their names.

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And then we'll do it as like a totally random drawing on the 26th. Awesome. The July 26th drawing.

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We'll just be random with all the names, addresses and everything in a box. I'll have my lovely assistant

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Becky reach into the, reach into the box. I was going to say do your Vanna White thing, but we're not turning letters.

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Yeah. She doesn't even turn letters anymore. She doesn't. She just touched the panel. Yeah. It's all touch screen. I don't even know if she touches.

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It's like. Now she just. Yes. She just snaps. Wiggles her nose. Wiggles her nose. Blinks her eyes.

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And the letter appears. I haven't watched Wheel of Fortune in I don't know how long. It's been a long time.

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This is our Christmas in July giveaway and would love your participation. So once again, you can send those emails to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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or you can mail us, First Southern Baptist Church, 1220

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West 8th Street, Junction City, Kansas 66441. I have to think about that every time because I want to give out our own home address.

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See, I thought you said email address. And so I was like, well, you're giving a physical address for the email.

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Oh, did I say email the church? Did I say that? I don't know. You could send it to the church's email too. It just may not get to us.

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I don't know. Yeah. It might get filtered through. Oh, you know, I still get questions through my personal email as well.

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And some of you maybe have sent an email that way to my Pastor Gabe account and then wondered why you never heard me on the broadcast.

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I just don't remember that it's there because when I come and grab questions for Friday, I go to the whenweunderstandthetext account,

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I don't think about the stuff that's in my personal account. So some of you ask good questions and you send it my personal email and then I forget the questions are there.

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Maybe I responded to you. I don't know. You should just automatically forward that to your account.

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I know. But that's so hard to just like move the mouse over there and hit forward. Yeah. Yeah.

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Too difficult. Too many steps. First world problems. One of the things that I mentioned we're giving away is a flash drive with 250 what videos on them.

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You might remember that a year ago I said, if anybody wants the videos, just send me a flash drive. I'll drop them on the flash drive and mail it back to you.

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And only a couple of people got their flash drives back. I still get emails from a couple of people going,

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I never got my flash drive. I still have your drive. It's not that I lost it or I've forgotten about it.

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Here's the problem. Here's what ended up happening. So the couple of people that got the flash drive when

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I first said, I thought it was just going to be an easy thing. Hey, send your flash drive. We'll load it up with all the videos. I'll send it back to you in a self -addressed stamped envelope.

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What happened was the videos are all WMV format, which is the windows media video.

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So when people were plugging them into their televisions, they weren't playing. Oh no.

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And I wasn't thinking of this in terms of a person using the videos on their televisions, like with the

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USB drive in there. I was thinking of it as like, you're just plugging it in your computer and playing them off of your computer.

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So I kind of panicked and was like, oh man, I'm sending videos to people that don't work. And I started converting them all to MP4.

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So now every time I make a video, so that is the TV equivalent. That's adaptable to your television.

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Okay. And so now every time I make a video, I make the WMV format because that is the highest quality that I can make the video.

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And I want them in my library. I want the highest quality, you know, the video and the audio and the music all line up best in the

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WMV whenever I mix it down. MP4 can be hit or miss. Sometimes it gets kind of funky.

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But I have been dual mixing those videos down. Now everything is WMV and MP4.

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So when somebody asks me for the videos, it's the MP4 files that I'll be dropping on the flash drive.

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Little bit smaller file that saves a little bit of space. And it's also compatible with not only your computer, not only with a

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PC or a Mac, but also with your television when you plug in the flash drive in your

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TV and you can watch the videos that way. The MP4? MP4. Okay. Not MP3.

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Right. No. Yeah. Too many letters all at once. I'm getting overwhelmed.

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But anyway, I'm glad you know what you're talking about. Yes. So the MP4 file is the most adaptable across multiple platforms.

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Gotcha. That's why some of you didn't get your flash drives back because I was like, okay, well,

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I'm going to do this right and then put it on their drives and then send it back. And of course, life happened and I didn't get it.

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At that time, I was still mixing 200 videos. So I had to convert 200 videos to MP4s.

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It's taken a little bit of time. I thank you for your patience, but I have not forgotten about you.

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And you've caught all the way up? No. Well, yes. By the time we're giving away the videos next week,

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I will have all the MP4s completed. I had it most of the way done when we were at G3 in January.

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And then life happened. Yeah. And then, right. Life happened. But this has been a crazy year.

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I can't tell you everything that's going on, but it just has been a crazy year. You just got to take my word for it.

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One of the persons who did mail me a flash drive and didn't get his drive back is the first question that I have to read on the broadcast today.

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So this is Craig in Alabama. He says, hey, Pastor Gabe, I am still a faithful listener to your podcast, and it is always tremendously a tremendous blessing and encourages me.

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I appreciate so much that you stay faithful to scripture and biblical theology. I never did get the thumb drive with all of the what videos, but that's okay.

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I know you are very busy. Craig, you are very gracious. I'm not only going to send you your drive, I still have it with your envelope, but I'm also going to send you a book.

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And I thank you for your patience. I try to stay up to date with all your podcasts as well as Wretched and anything

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Voti Bacchum puts out. Well, I'm with you there. I love everything Voti does. I had a question slash thought on a subject that you've talked about recently on the podcast last several weeks.

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In fact, you were talking about the Lord's Prayer and how the Pope had changed it up because he didn't like the implications.

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I have always looked at the Lord's Prayer like this. The understood subject in the prayer is

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God or you. So it should read like this. Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.

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And he's got the, you know, the you're in caps on earth as it is in heaven. You give us this day our daily bread and you forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and you do not lead us into temptation, but you deliver us from evil for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.

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Amen. Thoughts. Thanks. And may God continue to bless you and your family.

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Well, this is actually something that Becky and I were just talking about today because we were going through 1st

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Peter chapter 2 verses 9 and 10. And one of the things that I was talking with her about is how there is an emphasis on God as the giver and us as the ones who receive the promises of God in each one of these things that Peter mentions in 1st

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Peter 2 9. So it reads, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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So look at that first one. You are a chosen race chosen by whom God who is the race us and God is the one who defines us as that race of chosen people.

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You are a royal priesthood who is the one who is royal Christ and he's the one who makes us into a kingdom of priests.

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You are a holy nation who is the one who is holy. God is holy. He gives us his holiness and makes us into a nation set apart from the rest of the world.

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You are a people for his own possession. We are that people. He is the one who owns us.

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So you have that he's the one who gives, we're the ones who receive the promises that he gives to us.

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And you see that kind of back and forth in each one of those descriptors over the course of 1st Peter 2 9. That's what

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Becky and I were reading and talking about today. And the way that Craig is looking at the Lord's prayer is very similar to that.

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You have your kingdom come, your will be done. You give us this day our daily bread.

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God is the giver. We are the ones who are blessed to receive and you forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors.

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Now here was the controversial phrase, verse 13. This was where the Pope had a problem, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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And Craig has, you do not lead us into temptation, but you deliver us from evil.

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That's certainly correct and it certainly applies. But one of the things that we do have to remember with the

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Lord's prayer is we're not necessarily making a statement or a declaration of something to be received as much as we are asking.

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We are asking that God would give to us because remember that Jesus said, whatever you ask in my name, it will be given to you by my father who is in heaven.

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So we don't declare to God what he gives to us. We ask to receive what he has promised he will give to us in the name of Christ for all those who are followers of him and are searching after the will of God.

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And I believe in this way it keeps us humble as we come before the Lord. You know that there's a lot of the charismatic movement that tend to be that name it and claim it.

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Right. So I claim it. God, it's already mine. It's already done. You said it's mine. So give it to me now.

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I remember listening to a prayer from TD Jakes one time that sounded a lot like that. And I'm kind of sitting in my chair bristling as I'm like, well, he's got a lot more courage to talk to God that way than I do.

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Give it to me now. Oh dear. It was scary. He didn't quite say it like that, but you know, he did it in his charismatic way that everybody loves the way

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TD Jakes talks. Even the way that we pray it without the you give us this day or daily bread, even without that part, it sounds a little demanding.

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So I think even those of us who pray it the exact way from the Bible, does that make sense?

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Yeah. I don't mean to demean anything. I'm just saying that even the ones that say it differently, the original way,

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I don't know how to word that. Well, like give us this day, our daily bread is not a question.

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There's no question mark at the end of it, but it's still asking. Is it? Yes. Okay. Remember that in Matthew six, cause that's where, that's where the prayer is located.

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The Lord's prayers in Matthew six and the sermon on the Mount later in Matthew six, Jesus says that we are to not be anxious about anything.

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What you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body, what you will put on is not life more than food and the body more than clothing.

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Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them.

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Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

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And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor nor spin.

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Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

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But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothes you owe you of little faith.

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Therefore do not be anxious saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear?

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For the Gentiles seek after these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them all.

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But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

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So the point that I'm making by reading that is Jesus promises, even here in Matthew six, that God will give us those basic things that we need food like bread and clothing.

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And yet he has just said in the Lord's prayer that we should ask, give us this day our day daily bread.

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Now we understand that has a double meaning. There is the necessities of life that we need for the sustenance of the body, but there's also the necessities we need for the sustenance of the soul.

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For the word of God is our daily bread. There's that double meaning there.

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We are asking for the Lord to provide for us those material needs that we must have day by day, but also that he is providing his spirit for us daily that we are receiving a feeding from the bread of God, his holy word that sanctifies us and grows us.

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But it is an asking for, even though Jesus has promised in Matthew six, God will give these things to you.

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We are humbly coming before the Lord and asking that he would provide for us.

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What it develops in us is a thankfulness to God. When we do receive those things, our request has been answered.

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And so it, it grows a thankful, a more, uh, a great grateful heart in the believer who is asking for provision from God and he provides and we praise his name.

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Did that go with your question? Yeah. And I mean, I had to think of my question was, but yeah, it does.

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Okay. Because I was, I mean, just the way I grew up, I didn't really think of it as asking.

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And so then as I eventually grew in sanctification, then

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I would think of, oh, well, I'm not asking, so I have to ask. So how would

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I ask this? Yeah. And then word everything as a question. Yeah. And, and see,

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I'm trying not to be too technical in saying you have to phrase it as a question. Right. Right.

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Or you're naming it and claiming it. Right. So, so then after I grew more into, in sanctification, um,

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I, I learned that you don't have to phrase everything that way because God knows your heart and knows what you're trying to anyway.

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So like me with words, I always stumble over them anyway. Yeah. So I have to either write everything out, um, word for word or I, anyway,

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God knows. That's right. Exactly. He knows what you're asking before you ask, right?

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You just take what I had taught on the podcast this past week on Thursday from the Psalms and, uh, and Monday and Tuesday, I think it was from John 16, where Jesus had said to his disciples, you do not ask of the father now because Jesus was with them, right?

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So they were not asking of the father, but he said, I'm going away from you and then you will ask of the father in my name.

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And so all of our requests, you know, even that very word request, we come to God asking that he would reveal to us his will, that he would, uh, give to us his blessings.

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And we develop a grateful heart to him in that process, that prayer of asking and, or that process of asking and receiving in the

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Psalms. It's the same thing. David will say, Lord, deliver me from my enemies.

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And it may not have a question on it, but it's still a request. He's still asking. It's the attitude of the heart.

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It's not David coming to God and making a declaration. And therefore by the power of his word, it's being done and it's being accomplished by the power of David's word to declare it.

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God is going to do it. Well, then you fall into, you know, the thing that Paul said in Romans 11, who is given a gift to him that he might be repaid.

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What have we given to God that he now owes something to us? Nothing. Right. Nothing.

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So we can't make declarations of words as though they're magic spells to therefore compel or control the power of God to work at our whim.

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Yeah. Just like the weather. Yeah. Right. That's what came to mind as people trying to control the weather.

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Ken and Gloria Copeland. Sure. Yeah. Uh, the, the attitude of the heart is really what we're talking about here, that we come before God and we're asking from him knowing that he is our provider and we can do nothing on our own.

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Right. He gives us all good things. We do nothing. So when Jesus says to his disciples, unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

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What this means is that just as a child is completely dependent upon their parents for everything.

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Yep. They're helpless. So we are dependent upon our heavenly father. Right. Yeah. And this understanding, we have no power to claim our reality, to name and claim whatever it is that we want, but we come and make our request unto

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God. So it's not making a declaration of something, but even, even asking of something.

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So the way that Craig words that is certainly true. You forgive us our debts and we have forgiven as we also have forgiven our debtors or we should forgive our debtors.

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Right. And verse 13 and you do not lead us into temptation, but you deliver us from evil. That's fine.

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As long as the understanding is still that this is something that is being asked and not being declared, that the

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Lord would not lead us into temptation, but he instead would deliver us from evil and draw us near to him, that we would not be tempted in our flesh, but we would be strengthened in our spirits.

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Amen. Thank you so much, Craig. Flash drive and a book coming your way. This next one's from Brian.

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Hello. Hello. Go Becky. At the end of the book of revelations. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. We got to stop right there.

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Revelation. Brian, I don't know if that was a typo or not, buddy, but it probably was.

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Thanks. I get to make an example of you. It's one revelation. Yes. It's not a revelations.

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John's revelation. Yes. Not revelations. Well, it's really the revelation is given to Christ.

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Anyway, we're going on from there. Rabbit trail. At the end of the book of revelation, the apostle

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John so famously writes a warning to the reader regarding taking away from or adding to the book.

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And we have this warning in chapter 22, verse 18. I have always heard this interpreted to mean as a warning to anyone taking away from or adding to the word of God in the context of the entire

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Bible. However, when the apostle John wrote the book of revelation, the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, as we know it today, was not codified into one larger book.

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Thus, how can it be applied in that most common way? I see the proper interpretation of this verse to be his vision written in the book of revelation about his vision, not the entire

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Bible. The ESV study Bible was not helpful with this question. What are your thoughts on this particular verse and how should it be applied?

26:12

Thank you in advance. Okay. So two things. Well, kind of one thing,

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Brian goes on to say revelation, no S. He did.

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He did get it right. Two more times. Yes. So I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Okay. That was a typo.

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It was a typo. All right. Thanks for that school mom eye.

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Yes. You're welcome. And yeah. So anyway, back to the question. All right. Now, what

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I wanted to do in answering this question, I thought about this when I was getting the questions together for the program, but I forgot.

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There was a snippet that Ligonier Ministries played of Michael Kruger doing a teaching lesson there at Ligonier in Sanford, Florida.

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Oh, cool. And it's that same, you know, small room setting. We watched Michael Reeves do his thing on the

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Puritans. Yeah. That was awesome. That was great. So Michael Kruger has that same thing. You know, he's standing in that same room, kind of a small classroom, and he's talking about Canon.

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He's talking about the compilation of the books of the Bible into scripture the way that we have them.

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And one of the things that he mentions in this clip, had I grabbed it so I could play it on the podcast, is that Canon was being established even during the early church, even when the apostles were writing and distributing those letters to the respective churches that received them.

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Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Colossians, etc. There were letters being received by those churches and then copies of those letters being made and other churches receiving the copies of the letters that were sent.

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So when Paul is mailing 1st Corinthians to the Corinthians, it gets copied and distributed to other churches.

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The Corinthians were not the only ones that had it. There are a couple of places in particular where that is most apparent to us, and that's in Colossians 4 and 2nd

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Peter chapter 3. In Colossians 4, the Apostle Paul tells the Colossians to take the letter that he's just sent to them, the one you just read, the book of Colossians, write.

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And they're to share it with the Laodiceans, which were just 10 miles down the road. And Paul mentions he's also written a letter to the

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Laodiceans that he's going to share with the Colossians. Exactly. So they're supposed to go over to Laodicea and read the letter that Paul had written to the

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Laodiceans. And what they would do, they would have scribes that would go from that church to the other church sharing their letter, and the scribes in that church would copy it down.

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So the Laodicean scribes would copy the letter to the Colossians as the

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Colossians had delivered it to them. And those scribes from Colossae would write down the letter that was written to the

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Laodiceans, and then they would bring it back to the church in Colossae, and they would read it and teach it just the same way as we do it in church today, 2 ,000 years later.

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Isn't that cool? Preaching and teaching has not changed in 2 ,000 years. And I have a whole... Not if you're taught by the

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Bible how to do it. Right. Not if you're taught exegetically from the scriptures as we should be teaching them.

29:19

But I've got this whole volume of sermons up there on the top shelf, that series of blue books up there.

29:24

And you go back to the earliest sermons from the second and third centuries, and they read exactly like you were listening to John MacArthur or R .C.

29:33

Sproul. It's really not any different. It's amazing. Yeah. It's incredible. It's really neat to read that in history as well, because you feel connected with the past.

29:44

It's like, these are my brothers and sisters in the Lord. That's right. 1 ,800, 1 ,800, 1 ,800 years ago.

29:50

That's how you know you're one big happy family. Exactly. And we're all gonna be together as the same body of Christ, singing and praising

29:57

God forever in glory. Amen. No matter where in time we became saints through the hearing and teaching of the gospel of Christ, we will all be together in heaven in glory, singing

30:08

His praises. Anyway, Michael Kruger was talking about in this lecture about how the canon was being established, even during the time of the apostles teaching and writing letters and distributing them to the churches.

30:22

So you have that, that example in Colossians, but then there's also the reference that Peter makes in second

30:28

Peter chapter three, where he talks about the teachings of Paul and how difficult they are and that some unstable people will twist his words to their own destruction as they do the other scriptures that second

30:43

Peter three 16. So what Peter is talking about there is these letters that Paul has written to these churches, which were being compiled and codified.

30:53

There were some unstable people that were twisting the words that Paul said, imagine that not like that's being done today at all.

31:03

And Peter says they do the same thing with the other scriptures. So he even equates what's been written by the apostles with a, what was written by the prophets in the old

31:13

Testament. The old Testament and the writings of the apostles were the same. It was all the word of God.

31:19

Right. And in second Peter chapter one, Peter says, you now have the word of God more fully confirmed or, or the, uh, the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a light shining in a dark place until the morning star rises in your heart.

31:37

It's talking about being sanctified through the word of God. Right. Uh, and it's not just what we read in the old

31:43

Testament, which was the prophetic word, but it's also reading the new Testament, the words of the apostles that were written in letters to the churches that they might see the fulfillment of those prophecies.

31:54

And also those prophecies that are to come, especially concerning the return of the Messiah, which

31:59

Peter even talks about later in that letter in chapter three. So the prophetic word more fully confirmed is that codified word that was

32:08

Distributed in all of the churches and read and taught. And so when we read in the scripture, do not take away from the word or add to the word.

32:19

There is certainly an immediate context, but every time that command comes up, it concerns the full word of God, the prophetic word, more fully confirmed.

32:30

It's not just in revelation that we have that. It's not just revelation 22, 18 and 19. It's also

32:35

Deuteronomy four two. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of the

32:43

Lord, your God, that I command you. It's also Proverbs 30, verse six, every word of God proves true.

32:51

He is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

32:59

And then we have revelation 22, 18 and 19. I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them,

33:08

God will add to him, the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy,

33:15

God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

33:21

So what is John talking about there? Is he talking about the book of revelation? Absolutely. Does that principle also apply to Genesis through revelation?

33:30

Yes, it does. And it's also covered in Galatians to Galatians. So Galatians, where does he say that in Galatians?

33:37

Okay. So Galatians one, um, six, I guess it's a good starting place. It says no other gospel.

33:44

Um, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

33:53

Not that there is another one, but that there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

34:00

But even if we, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed as we have said before.

34:11

So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

34:18

Right. So the same, the principle there would apply. Yeah. The same principle, the gospel that was preached was the word of God.

34:25

Yep. And, and as Paul says there, there are some who come in distort it, right?

34:30

They're either adding to it or they're taking away from it. And in the case of the Judaizers who came to the Galatians and were preaching falsely, they were adding works to the gospel.

34:40

Correct. So it's not just by faith. You are justified. It's by faith and works. You also have to do this, which is a distortion of the gospel.

34:47

It's adding to the word of God. So, right. Yeah, you're exactly right. Same thing being said there.

34:53

That's being said elsewhere in the scriptures. The three passages that I singled out were just the ones that look the most like what we see in Revelation 22, 18 and 19.

35:03

But even Christ said to his disciples that those who know me will hear my word and those who do not receive my word don't receive it because they are not, they're not of my sheep.

35:15

Yeah. Well, thank you for your question, Brian. I hope that clears some things up. So once again, in summary, yes, what

35:21

John is talking about there is specifically what he's just written in the book of Revelation, but it also applies to the entire prophetic word fully confirmed, which is the codified word of God that we have, the

35:33

Bible, Genesis to Revelation. And it's just by the providence of God that that happens to be the closing words of the entire

35:42

Bible. Do not add to this book. Do not take away from it. Yeah. Behold, I am coming soon.

35:49

Amen. Amen. And then that's the end of Revelation. Uh, next question comes from Zechariah.

35:55

Hello, Pastor Gabe and Becky. Hello. My question is what is a proper way to evangelize children who are not

36:03

Christians and you see them for a short time? And I would imagine Zechariah might even be asking this question in the context of like VBS, because that's, that's what's going on here in the

36:12

Yeah, definitely. And you're hearing, uh, or you're seeing kids for a very short time, you know, uh, he goes on, how can you evangelize without making them recite the sinner's prayer, except Jesus into your heart, or you have a

36:26

God shaped hole, et cetera, this is what a lot of children's evangelism ministries do.

36:33

And it is very dangerous for a child's eternal state. Yes, it is. To sum it all up.

36:38

How can you give children the gospel in all its power in a form that a child could understand?

36:46

Thank you, Zechariah. Well, think of it like this. Whenever you are sharing the gospel for the first time with even an adult, you're speaking in probably some very immature terms that for you as a growing believer might even seem infantile from a spiritual perspective, you understand what

37:08

I mean? So you're going to be using the most basic terms to help them understand.

37:13

Jesus died on the cross for your sins. You were a sinner. You're a sinner.

37:19

And what you deserve is the judgment of God. God sent his son,

37:24

Jesus, to live a perfect life for us. We couldn't live perfectly. We always broke the law of God and teaching the law of God, even to a person.

37:33

Are you a liar? Have you ever stolen anything before? Are you a murderer? Because Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, that if you even hate your brother, it's the same as if you've murdered them in your heart.

37:44

Now, with a child, you're probably not going to use the adultery example. You ever lusted after anyone in your heart?

37:50

Probably wouldn't use that one. But this is the way that we evangelize to someone out on the street or even someone who comes into our church for the very first time and they're asking, what is this all about anyway?

38:01

Why do I need the gospel? Okay, you've sinned and what you deserve is judgment. And God has promised that there is a day on which he will judge all of mankind.

38:11

Everyone who has ever lived in the world and the only way that you can be saved and be sure that you have righteousness and not under the wrath of God is if you believe in Jesus.

38:22

God sent his son to live perfectly when we could not live perfectly, died on the cross for our sins as an atoning sacrifice, was buried in a tomb, rose again from the grave to conquer death for us since the wages of sin is death.

38:36

And all who believe in Jesus will not perish. We will die in the body, but our soul will not be judged by God.

38:44

Instead, we will have eternal life and we will be delivered into his eternal kingdom where we will live with God forever.

38:52

There will be no more sin. There'll be no more evil, no more dying, no more pain, no more tears for all the former things will have passed away.

38:59

And I'm quoting from Revelation 21 now at this point. But, you know, these are like the basic points that we share with a person to help them understand.

39:09

You're a sinner and you need Christ. You need a savior. And Jesus Christ is that savior.

39:15

And you're going to be telling the same thing to children, maybe breaking that down a little bit more than you might say it to somebody else.

39:22

But even, you know, when I've done evangelism, there are people that I've talked to out in the park. They don't even understand the concept savior.

39:29

Like they don't even get that you sometimes we just use those words and they roll off of us thinking that that's just automatically going to be understood.

39:37

They're like savior, you know, saving me from what? What is God saving us from?

39:44

And I've talked about this with my kids, my children, even my four year old can tell you what

39:50

Jesus saves us from. He saves us from the wrath of God.

39:56

He saves us from our own sin and death, which is the wages of sin. But most of all, he saves us from the judgment of sin, which is the wrath of God upon all sinners.

40:08

So all who put their faith in Jesus are forgiven their sins. And we now have eternal life.

40:15

Now, my four year old, just because she can tell you that doesn't mean that she's a

40:20

Christian. Not word for word, but yes. Yes. Something to that effect. Right. Not like not like that. Well, what was the conversation you and Sonia were having one day?

40:27

And she piped up and went, that's not the gospel. Yeah. And then she told the gospel. Right. Becky and Sonia were having a conversation about something.

40:36

Someone said that was the gospel and it wasn't. And Aria overhearing it just jumped right in.

40:41

That isn't the gospel. And then she preached the gospel. Now, my child, though she can articulate that, doesn't believe it.

40:49

And you don't yet see the fruit of the spirit in her life. But what we are hoping is that in sharing those things with her, a day is going to come when she herself is going to make the decision to follow

41:02

Jesus. And it's because the Holy Spirit has quickened her heart to God through the things that we have taught her from a very young age.

41:11

And you're going to be teaching children in that same manner, that same form, whether it's

41:16

VBS or anything else. When you're talking about stuff like recite the sinner's prayer, accept

41:22

Jesus into your heart. You have a God shaped hole. You know where all of those things come from? No.

41:27

They come from the weakness of our own flesh to help us to placate us and make us think that we've done something in this child's life.

41:36

So if we make them pull the trigger here and just accept Jesus into their heart, we just make them make a decision.

41:44

We can like manipulate them to make a decision. Then we feel better about what we've just done.

41:50

But we've not actually accomplished anything at all. There's no evidence yet in that child's life that what has happened in their heart is really genuine.

41:59

Right now, in my testimony, if you've heard me speak, share my Christian testimony before,

42:06

I've said that I became a follower of Jesus at age four. And even in my prayer saying,

42:13

I know that I'm a sinner and I need Jesus. I don't know how much even at age four that I understood the sin in my own heart.

42:20

I don't know how much I understood that. But I know that I was praying that I might follow Jesus and I meant it.

42:27

And I still remember that. And there's nothing about that memory that leads me to believe that that was insincere.

42:33

But I would not have expected any adult now in this, this, you know, now in my older years, not in my younger years,

42:41

I would not have expected any adult to look at me and think that I was genuinely a

42:46

Christian. They shouldn't have. There were some adults that did, but I still need to be treated as a child who needed to hear the gospel and be taught the elementary principles of the word.

42:56

Of course. And that, yeah, that's with that's with any child that we're going to encounter, that we are sharing the basics of the gospel with them.

43:05

And don't add on there something that they need to do just to make you feel like you've done what you're supposed to do.

43:12

As Votie Bachum has said, I'm just in communications. My daddy is the one who's in sales.

43:20

So you are the one who is delivering the message. God is the one who's going to seal the deal.

43:26

We did a VBS in our church years ago, and it was when I had only been a pastor there for a couple of years.

43:32

And one of the moms was actually really upset with me that I would not let the teachers do that.

43:38

And when we had a follow up with a child who, I guess, filled out a card, I can't remember if we had cards or whatever, but somehow it was communicated.

43:46

The child wanted to ask Jesus into their heart. So we had a follow up after VBS was over.

43:52

It was like the whole week was done. And I said, OK, well, what we're going to do is we're going to sit down with the parents. And that's what we did.

43:58

And I explained. So I got to share the gospel with the parents. Say this is what your child is asking for.

44:04

So the responsibility upon you is going to be to continue to grow and nurture that child in these principles that we have laid down and established over the course of this

44:12

VBS week. I got cornered after that and saying, why did you say that? Why didn't you say a prayer with them or something like that?

44:22

And I said, I don't know. I don't have any idea what the condition of their heart is, and I'm not going to lead them to believe that just because they've prayed a prayer or I dropped them in the baptismal that they're automatically saved.

44:32

There needs to be evidence in that person's life that they believe what is being said. And so far, all we got was just people sitting on the other side of a table nodding.

44:41

So I hope that what I've said is in their hearts and that it's going to come to life, that the spirit is the one who is going to bring them out of death to life.

44:52

They're going to turn from their sin and believe in Jesus. I hope that that transition is going to take place.

44:58

But as far as the conversation went that we had at the table there, I don't know that at all. Never saw that family again either.

45:04

It's not like they came to church after that leads you to wonder if it was if it was real, if it was genuine.

45:09

But as far as what we're teaching kids, that's that's as far as you can take it. The moment you say a prayer of salvation or something like that, you're going to lead them to believe that they're saved just because they did that.

45:22

And you're right, Zachariah. It sets them up for future failure. It does. I was going to suggest that you break down John 316.

45:32

I mean, it's very simple. A lot of Awana uses that nationwide.

45:38

And I don't know where you live, but I didn't get his location either. Yeah, but it's one verse, the gospel.

45:48

You know what I mean? So you can break that down and say, for God so loved the world. So who is the world?

45:55

And then who's in the world? Yeah, who's in the world? He gave his one and only son who was his son.

46:01

And then whoever believes in him, you have and talk about faith.

46:07

Yeah, faith is belief shall not perish. And what does perish mean?

46:14

But have eternal life. What does that mean? Where is that at? Yeah. And then and about perish, like what you mentioned about perish.

46:21

So it's not just that the body will die because the body will die, but it's that the soul will be judged and will not be judged to hell, but rather will have everlasting life with God in heaven.

46:32

Right. I make that point because I remember there was a sermon I did one time when I was teaching through Romans. And there was an elderly lady in our church that came up to me after I was done with the sermon.

46:42

And she said, you know, I was just thinking about this when you were saying it, but there's a lot of children in our service.

46:50

And I think this was right after we had gotten rid of Children's Church. So, like, we're all families together sitting in church on Sunday morning.

46:56

So there's a lot of kids in here that probably don't understand that when you say we'll have everlasting life, they don't get that the body's still going to die.

47:06

So you may have to explain that when you're talking about having everlasting life, your body's still going to die.

47:11

But your soul lives forever with God in heaven and explain that a little bit. And I appreciated that.

47:17

I appreciated that that was her perception when she's hearing me talk about everlasting life. Well, a child in here probably doesn't get then.

47:24

No, they probably think you literally live forever. And then when somebody like a loved one dies, now they're panicking because, oh, no, they didn't believe

47:32

Jesus because they died. Right. Yeah. So that is a very wise, very wise advice there.

47:40

I hope that helps you out, Zechariah, and appreciate your email. But the more Bible verses that you can give to them, even in the short amount of time that you have them, the better off they will be because then you you just keep plugging in that they can know

47:58

God by reading the Bible and just keep that going and going. And that's what

48:04

I did for the VBS week that we had. I just kept plugging them with the

48:09

Bible verses and what they mean, breaking them down for them and then adding more

48:14

Bible verses pointing to Scripture over and over how Scripture says that Scripture is important.

48:22

And, you know. The Bible says the Bible is important. Yes, it does. And so what other what else do you need?

48:30

You know. Yeah. So and then just plugging that in of how do we talk to God?

48:35

We pray. How does God talk to us through the Bible? Keep plugging them in to Scripture and eventually they'll get it.

48:45

They'll get that you rely on Scripture and that's where they need to go. And they can.

48:51

Yeah. And maybe not during your mic. Yeah. And maybe not during the week. But you're just thinking of this in the terms of you're planting seeds that hopefully are going to develop into something later in life.

49:02

Definitely. When they actually have they're able to have a cognition of I must die to myself and live to Christ.

49:11

The child doesn't can't understand that. Yeah. We didn't cover that one. And taking up your cross and following Jesus.

49:18

I had kindergarten through second. So it wasn't really. The real young ones.

49:24

Catechism is also very, very helpful with this. So go to founders .org and check out their catechism books for kids.

49:32

And those catechism books also do a great job with breaking those things down to their basics. And we'll probably, you know, of course, going through catechism if you haven't done that helps you to understand it as well.

49:43

And I was going to say, make sure they understand that there was only one righteous person on or holy, holy person.

49:52

That's never holy. Righteous. Right. Yeah. Okay. That has never sinned on that has walked the earth because there are so many that do not understand that.

50:03

I mean, that's why Christ came. That's why he led the holy life, because he was the only one that could do it.

50:10

Right. So they just they don't know. They think that everybody's a good person. How many good people have there been on the earth?

50:18

Yeah. You know, if we're going to go deeper into this, you know, like what you're talking about here. I did with the second graders.

50:24

I mean, the kindergarten through second grade. I did. Okay. I was going to say, like, in terms of, like, his active and his passive obedience,

50:31

Jesus. That's that's where catechism becomes really helpful.

50:37

Yes. So even as a little kid, being able to learn about the active and passive obedience of Christ, which is not something we're even teaching adults anymore.

50:44

Right. Last question here is from Miriam. She says, Hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky.

50:50

Last week, as I prepared dinner, I heard you answer my husband's question about discipling me on the podcast.

50:58

That was too cool. Thank you both so much for your feedback on that and for taking the time to answer listeners questions.

51:05

You're both such a blessing to so many. We've listened to your podcast for a long time, and now you answered my husband's question.

51:12

I figure I would ask one that I've had for a long time. Excellent. How do you keep from despair?

51:18

You discuss heavy things week in and week out and deal with heavy things privately as a pastor.

51:23

I'm sure. How do you keep from becoming overwhelmed by the evil of these topics, specifically topics like the rampant false gospels of our generation?

51:34

My cousin and I stand alone in a large family of New Apostolic Reformation, Word, Faith, and seeker sensitive gobbledygook.

51:42

How can we stay anchored in the hope that we have in Christ and keep from despairing? How do you stay joyful and focused on proclaiming the gospel with so many raging in opposition all around?

51:54

Thank you for your time. I tried to make this short, and I'm with the guy a few podcasts ago who said he would give you a big hug.

52:00

We thank God for both of you. Miriam, also from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

52:07

That's awesome. Let me try to keep my answer short, concise, because we're really coming up on the end of our time here.

52:15

But you mentioned the gospel, Miriam, and that really is the secret to this question.

52:21

Oh, yeah. It is being reminded of the gospel every day. It is knowing that Jesus Christ, the

52:29

Son of God, became a man and died for us, taken the wrath of God upon himself so that all who believe in him have received his righteousness and our sins are forgiven in the very presence of the holy and righteous

52:44

God whom we had betrayed, whom we had blasphemed and rebelled against and deserved his judgment.

52:52

But Christ, who loved us, died for us so that we would not perish under the judgment of God, but by faith in Jesus, our sins are forgiven, and we are now fellow heirs of the kingdom of God.

53:08

The kingdom that we rebelled against and deserve to be excluded from, we're now fellow heirs of.

53:15

And Jesus has even said, Revelation 2 and 3, to those who conquer,

53:20

I will give a place to sit with me on my throne. We who had rebelled against that throne and were given a place to sit on it and be with God forever in his kingdom.

53:31

He still sits enthroned on high. He still reigns. He is still in control. There is nothing that is happening today that unseats him or removes from you any of the promises that have been sealed by the

53:46

Holy Spirit of God as given to you in the word of God. A good way to keep being reminded of the gospel and the joy that it is, is by finding that solid church and church family and just being surrounded by them and knowing that you can lean on them whenever you get down in the dumps, whenever life's just been hard and hitting you left and right.

54:14

And they surround you, they bring you up, they love on you and really try to help in every way possible.

54:24

And that is what being part of God's adoptive family is all about.

54:30

Amen. Let me finish with this. This was something that I shared on Twitter last night during the

54:37

Democrat debates. Oh boy. And I just saw people just saying generally how frustrated they were with the direction that things are going, the horrible lies that have been coming from just this onslaught of Democratic candidates over the last two nights.

54:54

And so I got the idea for this tweet and I thought I would share it in the midst of all of the bad news, reminding people of the good news.

55:02

I said the following, in a world full of lies, take comfort in these truths.

55:08

I have seven of them. One, Christ still reigns. Amen. Number two, he is still with you.

55:16

Number three, he's still coming back. Number four, your sins are still forgiven.

55:25

Number five, he is keeping every promise. Number six, you're still a child of the father.

55:34

And number seven, there are still other children of God. You are not alone.

55:42

That's true. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time and I thank you that you've blessed us to be able to do this and open up your word and read from the scriptures and be reminded of your truths and your promises.

55:56

And I pray that we do not forget these things. How prone we are to forget.

56:02

Even as we sing in that beloved hymn, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

56:08

Prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it.

56:14

Seal it for thy courts above. And so we remember this wonderful prayer that was given to us by our

56:21

Lord Christ, that we would ask and appeal to you daily for those things that we need, knowing that we can do nothing on our own, but it is the

56:31

Father in heaven who provides us with all things. And so we pray this together. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

56:46

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

56:58

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Trying to think what was

58:12

I going to be on this first question? I didn't get through all of last week's podcast.

58:18

I got interrupted too many times. Okay. I mean, you were here when we recorded it.

58:24

I know, but I didn't hear the outtakes. Oh, yeah. I don't remember what the outtake was last week.

58:30

Neither do I. I'm sure you were cold, whatever the outtake was. Probably. That is generally the case.

58:40

I don't know why you still find that funny. It's our routine.

58:45

I am always cold. It's our routine. You come down here, you sit down, you're cold. You probably say, hang on,

58:52

I'm going to go get a blanket. Honestly, I'm tempted. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, because then

58:57

I'll go to sleep. But if this is going to be the thing where you're going to have your feet on my chair and be shaking the entire time, then go get a blanket.

59:10

Oh, we got a child coming in. Hi, child. What do you need, child? All right.

59:22

She was very lively. Oh, her eyes. Yeah, she hasn't been asleep at all.

59:28

Not at all. You don't need help.