WWUTT 345 Q&A Support, Truthfulness, and Assurance?

How can you support the ministry of When We Understand the Text? And I'm not talking about just with money. How is it that we can know that we are walking in the truth? How is it that we can be certain of our salvation?

The answer to these questions, When We Understand the Text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

New Year's Resolutions and Living for the Glory of God

Thank you, Becky. And this will wrap up our first full week of Bible study in 2017. And we started two brand new studies this week, 2 Peter and 2 Samuel. So hey, a great opportunity to pass the Word along to somebody else, listen to the Bible teaching that is offered on When We Understand the Text each day.

No doubt at the start of 2017, you've made some New Year's resolutions. How are you holding up on keeping those resolutions? Is it all right for Christians to even be making New Year's resolutions? Well, that was the topic of the latest.

What video was just uploaded today? And here is that video. Ah, the new year, time for a fresh start, new beginnings, bogus prophecies that don't mean anything. Seriously, watch out for those yahoos declaring this is the year of your breakthrough.

By now you've made a few New Year's resolutions of your own. Perhaps you want to lose a few pounds or break a bad habit or learn a new skill. And then in two weeks, when you epically fail at your resolution, you'll say there's always.

Next year.

Is it a good idea for Christians to be making resolutions?

Sure.

Why not?

There's nothing wrong with setting personal goals. Just remember that whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it to the glory of.

God.

Unless your resolution is to diet, in which case don't eat and don't drink to the glory.

Of God.

Consider also these words from James, come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance and all such boasting is evil.

Yeah, it's straight up evil to think that you control your destiny. But as Job understood, the days of a man are like the days of a hired hand. His days are few and predetermined and God has appointed our limits that we cannot pass.

Jesus said not to be anxious about anything, what you shall eat or drink or wear. Your heavenly father knows that you need them. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things will be added to you when we understand the text.

Supporting the Ministry by Sharing the Videos

All right. Well, being Friday, we take questions from the listeners and the best way to get a question to us is when we understand the text at gmail .com. This first email is not a question. This comes from Pastor Paul in the Philippines.

He says, Dear Pastor Gabe and all your team, I'm Pastor Paul from the UK. We, my wife Burns and I are working here in the Philippines with the impoverished kids and their families. I'd just like to say well done with your straight to the core short videos.

I will be occasionally using them on our PowerPoint in our humble little church in the Citadel district of Antipolo City. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Well done. Again, keep it up. Seeds of truth and the realities of the gospel message are being planted.

And I emailed Pastor Paul back and thanked him for his email and said that I was praying for him as well. You know, the best way that you can support when we understand the text is just by sharing.

The videos.

You share them on Twitter, Facebook, anywhere else on social media. And then those videos get shared by somebody else and then somebody else. And there's another chance for somebody like Pastor Paul to come across them and use this free media in such a place where people are being ministered to with with good teaching from the scriptures and also a presentation of the gospel.

Just by sharing the videos, you are supporting what we do at when we understand the text. Now there are some people that contact us and say they want to give to us financially and that's great. We've made a way for you to be able to do that.

If you go to our website, www .utt .com and click on the give tab on the top right corner of the page, you can either give to us online or our address is written in there also writing a check to us and dropping it in the mail.

And all of the all of what we receive comes to our church, a nonprofit organization, First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas. I don't get any of that money. It all goes to the ministry that we do out of our church, though some people have said I want to give you money.

How can I do that? And I just say, hey, buy a book, which you can find at our website to www .utt .com. But again, the best way to support the ministry really is by sharing the videos. That's what we made them for.

And again, as you share those videos and they reach out far and wide, there are other opportunities for men like Pastor Paul to be able to find them, use them where they wouldn't be able to afford, you know, buying a video series like this or something like that.

So just getting the word out about when we understand the text is a great way to show your support. This first question here comes from Juan, and it's kind of lengthy. I'm going to abbreviate some things here or kind of cut it down a little bit.

False Religion, the Truth of the Gospel, and God's Purpose in It

But I think that it's a particularly relevant question. Juan says, Dear Pastor Gabe, I listened in to your podcast last week on Bethel Church and Jesus culture. After listening in, you mentioned that Mike Bickle openly admits 80 of the Holy Spirit's work in charismatics is totally fake.

You said if you win them with lies, you win them to lies. There was a clip that I played from Mike Bickle who said that 80 of the stuff that goes on in charismatic churches is totally fake. And this is coming from a charismatic and one of the one of the most well-known and influential charismatics in the in the modern charismatic church.

So anyway, Juan goes on and says, in regards to this, here is a quick breakdown of my religious.

Background.

And then he goes on to mention that he was sprinkled Catholic as a baby. He asked Jesus into his heart when he was 10. He went to a Pentecostal church with his aunt, who was a big flu big influence on his life.

He studied with the Jehovah's Witnesses for a year. He was witnessed to by Mormon missionaries, was baptized by them and received the Book of Mormon. At 37 years of age, he experienced a complete turnaround and was baptized in a non-denominational church.

He and his wife were involved in a charismatic church, but have since left. He says the Ministry of Living Waters with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron had opened my eyes to the truth. We currently attend a mega evangelical church that has a heart for evangelism is not perfect, but I guess that is why I'm here to serve and someday teach when God opens this door.

Hey, and I'll tell you one, no church is perfect. I am an active street evangelist by use of gospel tracks and sharing the gospel on the streets. Photos on my website. Then he gives a link to his website and one I will when I get the chance, I'll go visit your web page.

He says I now teach the way of the master evangelism course at my church and going to school at the Masters University for my master's in biblical studies online. That's awesome. My hope and purpose. My hopes and my purpose are to teach in truth.

So others do not fall into some of the false religion like I went through. I truly want to know God. My question is this. Do you believe that I put myself through this religion or that God had a purpose for me to go through this religion religion grieves me today.

I hope to write a book on my religious walk after I finish school. Thank you for listening brother. You and your family are in my prayers. Juan has a great email one. Okay, I'm going to I'm going to try to connect what you started with in the email to the way that you closed it.

So you said you quoted me from the from the podcast last week saying if you win them with lies, you win them to lies. So I'm going to guess that that some of your suspicion or some of your unease with this is that you were raised in all of these lies all of these false religions for the first and what was it 30 years of your life or something like that.

And so if you were one with those lies, are you still in those lies or to those lies? I mean, however, I can make that question make sense. The reality is that you were not one to the faith with those lies.

You were one to the faith in Jesus Christ with the truth, not with these lies that were shared with you. You were among those who are mentioned at the start of Ephesians two, where where Paul says you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

So you were following the deceptions of Satan before you came to Christ. That's Roman Catholicism. That's Jehovah's Witnesses. That's Mormonism. And that's a great deal of Pentecostalism that's out there as well.

So these were the lies that you were walking in until the spirit of God intervened and convicted your heart with the truth of the gospel. And you turn from those lies and were walking instead in the truth.

So you were not one to the truth by lies. You were one out of those lies with the truth. Does that make sense? And so and so then what has happened to you is that God granted you repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.

This is second Timothy two, twenty five and twenty six. And you came to your senses and escaped from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. It is the truth that won you out of those lies.

Romans 10, 17 can't quote it enough. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So then the next part of your question was, did you come did I'm sorry, I got to read.

This.

Did you put yourself through this religion or did God have a purpose for you to go through this religion, the false religion that you are that you're talking about? Well, God certainly had a purpose with it and he has called you out of it.

And now what you've learned, having come from that false religion and are now walking in the truth, you are able to use those experiences to win others from the same lies that you were walking in and and instead showing them the truth of the gospel.

As we've been reading from the apostle Peter, as we've been studying from from Peter this week, Peter says in second Peter, chapter one, verse three, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

It is God who called you out of the false teaching that you were previously in and into the truth and the knowledge of his word. And by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit in your heart, you were conditioned to be able to hear that word, respond to that word and worship God because of that word.

And so now one, you are walking in the truth because of Christ. God has ordained everything as as it happens. There is nothing that happens that is outside the will or the ordination of God. There was a reason that he had you come through this false religion and he has called you out of it.

So you must never return to it. But he has won you from the death that you were in because of sin and false teaching into the truth by the power of the Holy Spirit. So worship God and praise him for that.

And one, continue to pursue with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength the truth that you are studying now at the Masters University. That is a great college to be studying from. And I I encourage you on that journey in your faith.

And once again, as I said, I will visit your website and check out some of the things that you have written there. Let me pray for you real quick one. Lord God, I thank you so much for drawing us out of lies, for drawing us out of the false teaching that is in this world, the deceptions of the prince of this world, the devil that he is fooling lost souls with.

And yet your spirit intervened, convicted our hearts, opened our eyes and our minds to hear the true gospel of Jesus Christ, won us from the lies into the truth, brought us from death to life in Jesus Christ.

I thank you for working this in one. And I pray that you would continue this desire and this passion that is in his heart to share the gospel with people that are out there on the street, a desire to want to to want to teach in a in a more formal capacity.

One of these days, keep that fire in his heart, that that yearning for the word of God, that zealousness for your work as he continues to grow and be sanctified in the knowledge of your truth. And may this be the case with all of us, that we would love the word of God and continue to grow in knowledge.

And we pray and ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen.

Assurance of Salvation, the Cross, and Speaking the Word

Next question comes from David. He says, Dear Mr. Hughes, I've been following your what videos for quite a while. And then I stopped when you posted the video about speaking in tongues. I was a bit shocked and confronted when I watched the video and I didn't know what to think.

So I closed my mind and moved on with my life. However, I always had my doubt when I was speaking in tongues, which he puts in quotation.

Marks.

I was never sure if I was really worshiping God or not, because I didn't understand what I was saying. My tongue and my mind were distant, making me confused, thinking if this is really from God. Till this day, I'm still confused because my heart still wants to believe in it.

Nowadays I'm learning a lot about false teaching and false doctrine. And I cried knowing that people I love, pastors I respect, are learning about a selfish gospel that just says, you, you, you, your dream, your desires.

God has a plan for your life. And I can't do anything because I'm just a selfish, filthy sinner that stutters each time I try to speak to somebody. I am no man of words. I can't talk to those people because I can't communicate to other people directly.

Yes, that includes my parents. I need help. But firstly, I need to truly repent. But I don't know how. I want to know the truth. I want to know God. I want to love God. I want to be saved by his grace.

Please help me.

David.

David, I'm sorry, reading your email honestly kind of choked me up. I want to encourage you with this, David. I want you to read the book of 1 John and I want you to read it every day. All five chapters, read it every day.

Thirty days. Read 1 John every day, all five chapters for 30 days. John says in 1 John 5, 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

God wants us to know that we have eternal life through his son, Jesus Christ. He wants us to know that. He doesn't want us to be in mystery about it. He doesn't want us to be confused. Think about this.

J .D. Greer used this example once, and I never forgot it. Imagine if, well, I'm just going to use myself as an example since I'm a dad. I don't know, David, if you're a dad, but I know I am. So imagine if I said to my children, hey, kids, daddy's going to work now.

I'll be back later this afternoon. Maybe, maybe I'll be home. Maybe you'll never see me again. This might be the last time you ever see me. You don't know. You'll just have to find out. Daddy loves you.

Maybe, maybe I love you. You know, I don't know. It's just going to be a guessing game. Okay, would that really be instilling an understanding of genuine love in my children? It would be really confusing to them, and they would never really be sure or know or understand if daddy really loves them.

Would that be loving of me to instill that kind of doubt in my children? And our heavenly father, our Lord God, does not want us to have that kind of doubt about him either. He is a God who loves us, and he shows his love to us, to his children, through the cross.

As I've heard D .A. Carson say, if you want to see the love of God, look at the cross. If you want to see the wrath of God, look at the cross. It is where the wrath of God and the love of God meet, where Jesus Christ, the son of God, took the sins of the world upon himself, absorbed the wrath of God by his death there on the cross, so that all who are in Christ Jesus are justified.

We are innocent, and we are adopted into the family of God, his sons and his daughters. And so we have confidence through Jesus Christ that when the Bible says God loves us, we can know that with certainty, and there is no doubt in our minds.

What a great security and what a joy it stirs up in our hearts to know that our heavenly father loves us in this way. And so, once again, John writes so that we would know that we have eternal life, not be confused about it, but know the love of God and our savior Christ and the spirit that dwells within us.

So David, once again, encouraging you, read the book of 1 John every day for 30 days. There are some things that will seem kind of confusing to you at first. John can be pretty deep. He's one of the deepest.

In my personal opinion, John is the deepest writer of the New Testament. But the more you read it, the more things are going to open up to you. You get to reading it your 15th, 16th, 17th time. There's going to be things that are going to open up to you in ways that you were not seeing them the first two, three, four times that you were reading the book of 1 John.

And then, David, if I could encourage you even further in this way, when you finish reading 1 John for 30 days, you know what? Read it again for another 30 days, all five chapters of 1 John, another 30 days, two straight months of 1 John.

And then when you finish that up and you want to apply yourself to another book of the Bible, Colossians is another one that I recommend. That one's four chapters and also a real good one to invest yourself in reading every day for a straight month, absorbing all the great truth that is written about there.

So that's the first thing that I want to encourage you with in reading. You said, I need help firstly, I need to truly repent, but I don't know how. The Spirit will convict your heart of the things that you will read about, even in the first chapter of 1 John.

And don't ignore that conviction. Be on your knees, cry out to the Lord, ask him for grace, mercy, and forgiveness. And if asked for in the name of Jesus Christ and knowing by Christ your sins are forgiven, you will definitely receive that forgiveness from God.

There was another thing that you mentioned there, and this is the other thing that I wanted to respond to. You said that you can't do anything about those who are following a man-centered gospel because you're just a selfish, filthy sinner that stutters each time you try to speak to somebody.

You say, I am no man of words, I can't talk to those people because I can't communicate to other people directly. Let me share something with you. The Apostle Paul was not an eloquent speaker. Now that's a difficult thing to fathom because, you know, like you read in Acts 17, Paul speaking at the Areopagus and the number of people that he preached to on his missionary journeys, the number of public places that he presented in and was hated for it, and people threatened to kill him and all these kinds of things.

So it kind of sounds like Paul was this great orator. No, he actually wasn't. Paul was not a good speaker. And he says such in 2 Corinthians 10, 10, where the Corinthians were making fun of Paul because he writes such weighty things in his letters, but he's a man of such weak speech.

So the Corinthians, who were Greek, valued skilled orators. And then here was Paul, who really wasn't all that fantastic an orator. Now, Apollos was a terrific speaker, but the Apostle Paul, not as much.

And so there were Corinthians that weren't as impressed with Paul because he didn't have that skill of oration. But as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, 2, I claim to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified.

The point that Paul was making is that it is not the strength of my ability to deliver words that convinces you to turn from your sin and follow Christ. It's the power of the Holy Spirit that is working through those words.

And so, David, store up in your heart the word of God. So when you speak and share with somebody else, trying to draw them away from the lies that they are following, trying to draw them from a man-centered doctrine to a God-glorifying gospel, use the words that God gave you to share with them the word of God in the scriptures.

And once again, as you continue to read the Bible and you store these things up in your heart more and more and more, it will become so much easier for you to know exactly the right words to say to somebody.

You might not do it eloquently. It might not come out with just this amazing prose and smooth speech. But if it's the word of God, you already have everything that you need to pierce the heart to the truth of God's gospel in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Thank you for your email, David. I am very encouraged by your willingness to share your heart. And I want to pray with you here as we wrap up the program, and this will be our conclusion. Dear God, I pray that the conviction that is in David's heart right now remains.

Let us not lose our sense of conviction, because the moment we lose our sense of conviction is the moment that we become comfortable in our sin. We are told in the scriptures that the Holy Spirit came to convict us regarding sin and convict us regarding righteousness.

We desire the righteousness of God. And we need to know what that looks like, to walk in righteousness. And so you gave us your word, the word of Jesus Christ, recalled by his apostles, written down for us in the scriptures.

We have the words of the prophets and the apostles, the word of God in the Bible. So let us be devoted to learning these things and storing up these words in our hearts, so that when we speak, when we give an answer for the hope that lies within us, what comes out of our mouths is not man-centered rhetoric, it's not the fluffy little thoughts about God that we can think of off the top of our minds.

It's the word of God. It's the Bible, the verses from the Bible that come from our lips, answering every person accordingly and our speech always seasoned with salt and gracious. Lord, you do this for us through your word.

And so I pray that we would store these words on our hearts, that it would infiltrate our minds and that you be with David as he desires to share this gospel with those who are around him, a passionate heart to be one from the lies and into the truth.

And I pray that David would also know that he has salvation in Jesus Christ and that the love of God is displayed through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, the eternal life that we have in Jesus our Lord, in whose name we pray, amen.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, gospel-teaching, Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.