WWUTT 785 Q&A Smith's Authenticity, Preaching Prosperity, and Christ's Humanity?

How can we minister to a Mormon about adding to or taking away from the Word of God? If our church starts preaching the prosperity gospel, should we leave?

And at what point did Jesus become very man and very God? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study in the Word of Christ. For from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

Tell your friends about our videos and this podcast at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. And welcome to a politics -free edition of When We Understand the

Text. Okay, so, and getting off that subject immediately. Yes. We are heading to G3 in January.

Yep, yep. I've gone ahead and paid the registration out of pocket because I didn't want to lose the booth space.

Yay! But you can still be donating to help us get there. Yes, please. When you go to www .utt

.com, click on Give and then follow the instructions. You can either give online through Simple Give.

That's the ministry that we use to collect online donations. And those donations go straight to our church.

And our church is managing that money and then, you know, determining what we need. So on and so forth. I think the default amount to give when you give online is $25.

Something like that, yeah. But you can adjust it to give however much you want. Or you can give by check and there is instructions on there to do that as well.

Since you're giving to a church, it's a non -profit organization. The donation is tax deductible.

That's right. And we thank you for your consideration and hope to see you at G3. Yes. Remember, if you want to register.

It was such a great time last year. It was. I'm looking forward to it again this year. If you want to register, go to the letter

G, the number three conference .com. Right. G3conference .com. And missions is the focus this year.

You'll get to see all of the speakers that are on the docket. That includes Votie Bauckham.

Right. Paul Washer. Right. John Piper and David Platter on the list this year because of the emphasis that those two men will put behind missions.

But then you've got Mark Dever, Phil Johnson, Justin Peters. I think

Kevin DeYoung. Maybe not. Maybe Kevin DeYoung isn't one of the speakers this year. Anyway, there's like a ton of them.

Yes. But we want to booth because. We want to booth because we want to meet folks. We do. And last year, we missed so many.

Yeah. We met so many and we missed so many. We did. And so we just kind of felt like it'd be better to have a central location where people can come to us and also get the word out about when we understand the text.

Right. Because at any of these conferences, we still encounter plenty of folks that have never heard of it before.

Right. Even though they've probably heard of Wretched and they've probably watched Wretched, they may not know about when we understand the text.

That's right. So having a booth is just a great way that we kind of have a central location we can meet folks.

And I'm attempting to get a couple of books done before then as well. Right. And I'll tell you about them later on in the podcast.

Awesome. This being Friday, we take questions from the listeners, and you can submit questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

This first email is actually a response to a question that we did last week. All right.

And this is from Christian. We read Christian's email about hymns versus pop praise in church.

That's right. Remember that? Yes. So he says, Pastor Gabe and Becky, thank you so much for responding to my question on Friday's Q &A regarding hymns versus pop praise and also for praying for me and my church.

I really appreciate your explanation going through Colossians 3. God's word never ceases to amaze me at how it speaks to all things pertaining to life and godliness and how to glorify him.

Your insight was very helpful and will be useful as I approach confronting these issues in my church.

I love listening to your podcasts and sermons. Thank you again for your wisdom and love of God's word.

You're welcome. Now, one of the reasons why I wanted to start, I don't often read the follow -up emails that come to us, but I wanted to come to this subject again.

Oh. Just to add a few more things. I like the subject and I like talking about it anyway.

I majored in music when I was in college and I ended up changing my major because I just didn't really see myself doing anything with that.

Especially when a lot of my friends that I was talking to who were also music majors, I started asking, what are you planning on doing with this?

What are you going to do with this major? Right. And they said, well, I'm going to go teach, like all of them said that. Of course.

I'm going to be a band teacher at a high school. I'm going, I don't want to do that. So I ended up changing my major to communications and that's how

I ended college and now I'm attempting to go back to try to get a seminary degree. Anyway, for the first two or three semesters, may have even been four semesters, may have been like those first two years as a music major, hymns had a big deal to do with what we studied.

It was a big part of what we studied. Okay. And I attended secular colleges when I was a music major.

These were not Christian institutions. I attended a community college for two and a half years, and then I went to a major university, and yet in their music programs, we studied hymns.

One of my music professors was an atheist. He was our band teacher at the community college

I attended. He was not even a Christian, did not go to church. He was fascinated by religion.

Maybe he was an atheist. He might have been agnostic, but I know he wasn't a Christian. Right. Anyway, he told us, this guy who was not a

Christ worshiper at all, he said to us that hymns are the most perfect pieces of music written.

And if you want to learn how to sight read, if you want to learn how to score, if you want to learn the basics of music theory, you study hymns.

If you want to figure out how to sight read on piano, you need to open up the hymn book, and you need to play a hymn every day.

And if you can get to the point where you can open up a hymn, and even one you've never seen before, and boom, you can just kind of play it out on piano.

You can sight read almost anything. Oh, wow. We would even do pop quizzes where the teacher would come in and say, okay, write me two bars of a hymn, go.

And without sitting at a piano or anything, we had to write out the melody line, write out the bass line, and then fill in the alto and the tenor parts.

That sounds so difficult. Well, the point of that was that all of this was theory. So we should, you know, music theory.

So we should be able. In theory. In theory. In theory, we should be able to recall all the rules of theory and just write it out without having to have a piano.

And I wonder if that's why some of these guys like Robert Lowry, Horatius Bonner, Isaac Watts, even

Fanny Crosby, how they were able to write hundreds of hymns in their lifetime is probably because that's the way they wrote them.

Yeah. They weren't sitting at a piano and picking out, okay, Right. You know,

I don't think Luther was picking that out on an organ back in the 16th century. Probably not.

It was theory. That was how they wrote all of that out. So this was primarily the tool that we were given for learning music theory was learning hymns.

Now, I bring that up because I truly believe that there's a connection. I've never seen a study on this, and I hope somebody does a study on this eventually, but I truly believe that there's a connection between the reduction of the use of hymns in our churches.

Hymn books, singing hymns from the books. You know, even singing the hymns on a screen is not good enough.

I'm talking about we've taken the hymn books out of church. People are not singing hymns from hymn books hardly at all anymore.

Right. I think there's a connection between that and the loss of interest in music programs in public schools.

Students are not going out for those programs anymore. They're losing their funding. Some of the schools are dropping the music programs as extracurricular activities.

And I think that there's a direct correlation between the use of hymns and the teaching of that style of music in church and music programs in the public school system.

Hmm. So there is something wonderful and valuable, not just regarding hymns and their heritage and everything that we have written in old -fashioned hymns.

And I'm not a hymns -only guy. I'm really not. Even this coming Sunday, we've got a song that was written just a few years ago that I'm writing in the bulletin, and we're all going to sing it out of the bulletin.

It's not in our hymnal. So I'm not a hymns -only person. I love Blessed Be Your Name, written by Matt Redman. That's a fantastic, pretty song.

I've mentioned that before. And then there's modern hymnists like Keith and Kristen Getty. Mm -hmm.

Oh, I know one modern hymn I just love, one of my favorite modern hymns. Okay. And that's the rewrite of Auld Lang Syne.

Okay. It's the, you know what I'm talking about, the New Year's song, the New Year's Eve song. At midnight, everybody sings that song.

Right. And it's been rewritten into the song All Glory Be to Christ Our King by Dustin Kinsrew.

You know what I'm talking about? Maybe. We've sung it in our church. I'm sure. Yeah, you know, like, Let all acquaintance be forgotten.

Right. Na, na, na, na, na. Right. That's the only line of that song anybody knows.

Pretty much. But he took that song, or that famous tune.

Okay. Which has a Scottish heritage to it. And he took that tune and rewrote the lyrics.

Okay. Did he piggyback? Yeah, whatever you would say, whatever you would call it. He remixed it.

That's what we called it. He piggybacked off, is that what you're saying? Piggybacked, yeah. So anyway, he said.

Remixed it. Yes. It's the remix of Auld Lang Syne. I don't even know how you pronounce that.

Anyway. I don't know either. Should nothing of our efforts stand. No legacy survive.

Unless the Lord does raise the house in vain. Its builders strive. Okay. Oh, yeah.

You got it? Okay. Yeah. So he rewrote that tune into a modern hymn. All glory be to Christ.

Cool. I love it. I think it's fantastic. I think we should be adding to our hymns catalog. Not just singing the old hymns.

We need to be coming up with new hymns. But anyway, that's my belief. That's my theory. I want somebody out there to test it to see if that's true.

Our music literacy rate as a culture has declined because churches are not singing out of hymn books anymore.

That's my theory. Somebody test it. And then if you get paid, I want a portion.

Somebody donates a large sum amount to your organization because you did this big study. Well, I don't know if it has any support beings at all.

The music is not being supported. Just give a plug to when we understand the text. That's all you got to do. Hey, we got the idea listening to the

What podcast. That's all right. Thank you so much. Next question comes from Neil. And Neil says,

Hey, Pastor Gabe, I was debating a Mormon and brought up the scripture and revelation that if we take away or add to scripture,

God will add to you the plagues in the book in order to make the argument. That's what the

Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price do. Also, Doctrine and Covenants. You know, the three extra books in the canon of Mormon theology.

They have the King James Bible, but then they also have the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants. Right. So this

Mormon responded that if you want to get technical, I can't use that argument, because if that's the case, the

Jewish faith has a legitimate argument against us because the Old Testament has the same command.

Do not take away or add to scripture. And then you have the New Testament, which would therefore be adding to scripture.

So what do you think? Well, thank you for your email. And I've heard the same argument. And I've had it made to me before.

I'm sure. Deuteronomy 4, 2 and 12, 32 both say that you shall not add to or take away from God's word, but you shall do all that he has commanded.

However, later on in Deuteronomy 18, 15 through 22, God says through Moses that another prophet will speak in my name.

So those statements in Deuteronomy 4 and 12 have a caveat that later on in 18,

God says another prophet is coming. Right. And you need to listen to him. And if you don't listen to him,

I will hold this against you. That is a reference to Christ. It's a reference to the coming of Christ.

Deuteronomy 18, 18, the reference to that coming prophet is Jesus Christ, who would reference

Moses and say that Moses was speaking about me. Right. So the New Testament cannot be an addition to the

Old Testament since that statement was made in Deuteronomy 18. Right. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

He's not an addition to the law and the prophets. So going on then in Deuteronomy 18,

God also said the prophet who speaks a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, which

Joseph Smith does. Yes, he does. That same prophet shall die. God then tells the people how they can test whether or not a word comes from the

Lord. When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the

Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Now, I believe that Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 blows up anything that Joseph Smith had to say in his claim to be a prophet of God for the church restored.

Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 says, long ago, at many times and in many ways,

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

So Joseph Smith has appointed himself a prophet in an era in which God is not speaking through the prophets.

He has given us everything that we need to know through Christ and his apostles.

The prophets of the Old Testament, Christ and his apostles who gave us the New Testament. We have the completed word of God.

There is no need for any other prophet to give any other kind of revelation. Now, Joseph Smith claimed to be a prophet of God.

So, according to Deuteronomy 18, we should be able to test him in that. Right. And he should have made some prophecies or perform some miracles to verify that he was indeed a prophet that was sent from God.

Right. He did make some prophecies. He did. He did try to make some miracles. He did. He failed epically at both.

Miserably. Horribly. Smith has a long list of failed prophecies. In 1831,

Smith said that the city of Zion would be in Missouri, which never happened. He also said that it would never fall.

And the Mormons were driven out of Missouri a couple of years later. In 1832, Joseph Smith said that the

Civil War would result in war being poured out against all nations. Did not happen.

He said the Civil War would be the slaves rising up against their masters. That wasn't true.

No. It was between the North and the South. He also said the Native Americans would rise up against the white people during the

Civil War. Yeah. No. That didn't happen. He also said the Civil War would result in famine, plague, earthquake, and thunder and lightning from heaven.

And, direct quote, the earth would be made to feel the wrath and indignation and chastening hand of an almighty

God until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations.

Didn't happen. All the nations are still here. And he also said that the

Civil War would usher in the Day of the Lord. This is all in Doctrine and Covenants, chapter 87.

You can look that up for yourself. That was a while ago. In 1835, Joseph Smith said that Jesus would return within 56 years.

Obviously, that didn't happen. Before his son David was born, Smith said

David would be president of the church and king over Israel. Neither of which happened.

And, you know, the interesting thing about that, you would think that the Mormon church would want to make

David president of the Mormon church in order to fulfill this prophecy that Joseph Smith made.

And they didn't do it. That's kind of a, I'm kind of curious about why.

Yeah. So, anyway, Smith even made that prophecy about his own son that didn't come true.

In addition to Smith's failed prophecies, there are also his failed miracles. And one of the earliest and most notorious occurrences.

This is pretty detailed, so I'm just going to leave it at this. I'm not going to go into, like, failed miracle after failed miracle.

Okay. But this happened at the First General Conference in Kirtland, Ohio in 1831. The day before the meetings began,

Smith promised not three days should pass away before some should see the

Savior face to face. There's another prophecy that didn't come true. In the keynote address, he said that the

Lost Ten Tribes of Israel lived in a land contiguous to the North Pole, separated from the rest of the world by impassable mountains of ice and snow.

If you ever wanted to know what happened to the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, there you go. All right. Good to know.

They live somewhere around the North Pole, and there's large walls of ice and snow separating them from the rest of the people on Earth.

It was at this conference that Smith announced for the first time that God had restored the

Melchizedek Priesthood, the holy order of the Son of God. Even Smith acknowledged that only

Christ had been endowed with the privileges of the Melchizedek Priesthood, but now every true believer of the

Mormon faith would receive its privileges. This is contrary to what is stated in Hebrews 7, 24, that Jesus Christ holds this priesthood aprobaten.

That's the Greek word that's used there. It means permanently and without successor, which, again, even

Smith acknowledged. That's the proper understanding of Christ being a priest in the order of Melchizedek. But now everyone gets to be a

Melchizedek priesthood. Of course. Everyone gets to be in the Melchizedek Priesthood now, according to Joseph Smith.

He selected several key men and appointed them to this priesthood at that particular meeting.

And during a time of prayer, a man named Lyman White jumped up on a bench and started acting like most loons that you see behaving erratically in a

Pentecostal service. This was very typical in that first 14 years of the

Mormon church from 1830 to 1844 when Joseph Smith died. That people were loons?

Yeah, because a lot of the people that he recruited into the Mormon faith were in Pentecostal churches.

I mean, what we would call Pentecostal or charismatic churches today.

It wasn't necessarily considered the movement at that particular time because the charismatic movement didn't come around until the beginning of the 20th century.

It kind of reached its big swell, I guess you could put it that way. But there were a lot of people who were involved in what was called the

Restorationist movement. And it was this idea that the true church was going to be restored to its original, what we see in the

Book of Acts, what we see of the church in Acts. So since they were speaking in tongues and experiencing all these miraculous signs and wonders and visions and things like that, there were a lot of these charismatic services where people were doing that very thing.

And so Smith, when he left New York and started traveling westward, he would stop in these Pentecostal churches and preach his

Mormon gospel and recruit these people who were looking for a restored church to join the

Mormon church. And since that's what they wanted anyway, they were easily snookered by this new revelation that he had claimed to receive from Jesus Christ.

So at this particular meeting in Kirtland, Ohio, the people started acting crazy once Smith started blessing people with this new

Melchizedek priesthood. You got these guys that came out of this Pentecostal -ish movement who start acting that way.

And this guy, Lyman White, he jumped up and he claimed that he could see Jesus sitting at the right hand of the

Father. So presumably, he's fulfilling Joseph Smith's prophecy that not three days from now, some of you will see the very face of Christ.

Another man was suddenly stricken deaf and dumb. And Smith walked right over to him and commanded that the devil flee from him.

In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast you out, you know, something like that. And the man's senses returned to him.

Well, this was clearly a farce. Like you see this happen in a lot of charismatic services that they do something like this.

But Smith thought he actually healed this guy. So he got bold and started grabbing guys who actually had physical disabilities, believing that he could heal them.

There was a guy who had a withered hand that was crippled because of an accident that he was in. So his fingers were all curled up.

And Smith grabs his hand and starts uncurling his fingers and going, in the name of Jesus, I command your hand to be healed.

But then when he lets go of the man's hand, it just curls back up again. There was a guy who was lame, couldn't walk.

He was lame in one leg, had to walk with the assistance of a cane. Smith got him up and said, in the name of Jesus, you're healed.

The guy took two steps, went right back to being lame again. Joseph Smith chastised him for not having enough faith.

And that's why he wasn't healed. Does that sound familiar? That sounds like a

Benny Hinn thing or like a Kenneth Copeland thing. The worst. Here's the worst part.

Brace yourself for this. There was a man during the conference whose child died and he refused to bury his child until the conference was over.

And when Smith got bold to start healing people, he came in with his dead child.

And Smith prayed for the death child to be revived. No color in him or anything.

He had been dead for a while and it didn't happen. But Smith could see that the couple, the husband and wife, were clearly grief stricken over this.

And so he knew how terrible it would look if he were to say, it's because you didn't have enough faith.

That's why your child wasn't revived. Now, all of this was recounted by a man named

Ezra Booth. And he wrote about this in a series of letters in 1831 and 32, which I think he sent to his brother.

I can't remember who he was addressing the letters to. He was in these meetings and saw this happen.

And this is exactly why he left the Mormon faith, because he realized Joseph Smith was not a prophet of God.

He could not fulfill the things that he promised and he could not perform any miracles.

He could not verify in any way, shape or form that the Holy Spirit of God was truly with him.

And so using the standard of testing that we would have given to us by God in Deuteronomy 18, just based on this one meeting alone,

Smith is completely disqualified from being called a prophet of God.

He can't call himself that. The Mormon church can't refer to him that way. And this is the way the charismatic movement works, too.

They'll have this thing where they'll throw out a bunch of prophecies or they'll claim to have done miraculous healings. And it's like one out of every 100 works or something like that.

One out of every 30 or 40. Well, a broken clock is right twice a day. Yeah, that's right.

Exactly. Exactly right. You're bound to get one of them right eventually. But you're just all you're doing there is you're playing the odds.

You're not confirming that God has actually worked through you to do these things. And so Smith did have an occasional thing he got right.

And maybe he did do something that somebody saw and went, well, hey, it looked like he healed him to me.

But it was it was just him playing the odds. He could get it occasionally, but all of the areas in which he failed verify that he was not a prophet of God.

Right. And none of the things that he accomplished verify that he was a prophet of God. So so and the

Mormons to this very day continue to believe the things that Joseph Smith said or prophesied were either ambiguous, like they came true in some other way.

We can twist it and say, oh, no. See, like, yeah, he said that he said that the Civil War would bring war against all nations.

Well, guess what? We had World War one that happened, you know, several decades later and then World War two, a couple of decades after that.

So, yeah, there you go. Joseph Smith was correct in his prophecy. You know, they'll do something like that.

They'll try to twist it in that way. Specific years, even. Yeah, he did. Well, yeah. Saying that Jesus was going to come back in 56 years.

That's pretty specific. So anyway, if if a if a person is a prophet of God, they won't ever be wrong on those prophecies.

Exactly. If God says it, he will do it. And if a guy says, well,

God told me to tell you this and it doesn't come true, he is not God's prophet. And the penalty, according to Deuteronomy 18, is death.

Now, that doesn't mean we drag them out of the parking lot and stone them. Right. But if they don't repent of this blasphemy that they're committing, taking the

Lord's name in vain, then on the day of judgment, they absolutely will receive death. So we should take these things very, very seriously.

And when it comes to ministering to a person who is a Mormon, you know, point out that that Smith was a false prophet.

It really needs to come back to Joseph Smith. I mean, there's a lot of different things that a lot of different areas, a lot of different ways that you can go.

But the entire Mormon faith is built on Joseph Smith. And every true Mormon acknowledges that he is the prophet of God.

That's that launched this religion without Joseph Smith. They have nothing. And so this is why in the book that I wrote, 40

Mormon beliefs and what the Bible says. I start with Joseph Smith. Right. So we're going to see what he claimed or what the

Mormons say about Joseph Smith and how the Bible contradicts everything regarding what he what he taught and that he was not the prophet that he claimed that he was.

Because if you can collapse the authenticity of Joseph Smith, you've torn down the entire religion.

That book is still available. I'm actually reprinting it right now because I want to be able to publish it through Amazon. It's not been able it's not been available through Amazon.

So by next month, it will be available on Amazon in October. You can still get the older version, though, the one that that still has a couple of spelling errors in it.

Cough. You can get it at www .utt .com and click on books. It's still there.

Or just wait a month and I'll get the updated version that you can download for your Kindle, which would be available next month.

The title is going to change, too. It's going to be called what Mormons believe and what the

Bible says. Yeah, I think that's right. I can't remember. I have to go back and look at the book cover.

It's still written exactly the same way, though. It's 40 Mormon beliefs, so it's sectioned out into five groups of eight.

I got you talking about what Mormons believe about Joseph Smith, what they believe about God, Jesus Christ and salvation.

And then just like general living, like, like ethical living for life. So anyway,

I'm also working on two other books, one of which is called 25

Christmas Myths. And what the Bible says that one should be available in October. I'm excited about that.

And a book called Who is Jesus? Which takes 40 verses about Christ and then explains who

Jesus is, according to what the Bible says about it. Now, I know I think it was Greg Gilbert wrote a book called

Who is Jesus? This one's called Who is Jesus and what the Bible says about him. So I added to this. There's probably several people that have written a book called that.

But anyway, so that's taking from a sermon that I did and some of you probably heard this sermon.

It was on the sermons that air on Sunday. It was just a few weeks back where we're toward the end of the sermon.

I said, you know, who is Jesus? Here's 40 verses and what the Bible says about him. And a lot of people requested that list.

Hey, can I get that list from you? That was great. I loved it. It's actually from one of our what videos entitled

Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? And you can find that video with all the 40 verses right there in that video.

So I've taken those verses and I've put them in book form and then done an explanation of what this verse is communicating to us about the identity of Christ.

So this is one of those books that you can get and use as an evangelism tool. Hand it to your unsaved friends so they can learn something about Christ.

This is kind of going to be Gabe's version of John Piper's 50 reasons why Jesus came to die.

Mine's going to be 40 verses about who Jesus is. So I mentioned that I was going to talk about books

I was going to finish in this podcast. There you go. And at some point I'm still working on and still trying to finish.

Jesus called and here is what he said. Yeah, people have been waiting for like a year for that book.

Yeah, I got I hit writer's block. I wasn't really sure what I was going to end up doing that with that. But I've got it now.

You are in writing mode. I am right now. I am. Yes, I've gotten we've gotten out of our busy season.

I'm like, I want to crank these books out. I want to get this stuff done. You just can't take a break. No, to keep busy, right?

If my mind is in the mode, I got to take advantage of it now because I'm going to get distracted by something later and totally lose it.

I think Nate Pickowitz is ahead of me now on on books published. So I got to try to catch up. I got to catch up with Nate.

He's doing great. The stuff he's doing right now with the with the Puritan series. And he came out with a something published of John Calvin's as well.

Okay. So follow Nate Pickowitz on Twitter because then you'll get all the updates about the books and things like that.

He's working on. Okay, next question. This comes from Frank.

And he says, dear brother sister in Christ. I'm writing to you to express my concerns about some teachings and beliefs of the church that I attend.

Here are the beliefs. Prosperity gospel. Jesus died spiritually and went to hell.

Speaking in tongues is the evidence of a matured Christian. As a

Christian, you don't need to be sick or poor. You're cursed if you don't pay tithes, etc.

I used to serve as an usher in the church. But due to these beliefs, I have stopped serving as an usher.

I've confronted our pastor about this, especially concerning that Jesus died spiritually and went to hell.

And to my surprise, he said, it's true that Jesus died when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

That's different. I haven't heard that one. Okay. According to the Holy Scriptures. First Peter 3, 18.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

He was put to death in the body, but made alive in the spirit. So it's obvious that Jesus Christ was put to death in the flesh, not in the spirit.

I don't know if I should leave the church or stay. I have prayed and I'm still praying for God to lead me to a church that preaches

Christ and him crucified with an undiluted gospel. I just need advice from you in this situation.

If you can help, I have been watching your videos and I'm glad for the good work that you're doing. God bless you. Well, Frank, I don't know where you're from or what your area is like.

But yeah, I would say leave that church and go find a good church. That's terrible.

The stuff they're preaching there is heresy. It's complete heresy to say that Christ went to hell.

It's heresy. In fact, and you've probably even seen this video because you said you've seen the videos and have been convicted by what it is that you've seen.

Here's the video that I did on whether or not Jesus went to hell. So after Jesus died on the cross, did his spirit then descended to hell?

No, Jesus Christ did not go to hell between his death and resurrection. In Ephesians 4, where it says he ascended on high, he also descended into the lower region so that he might fill all things.

But this does not mean he went to hell. It means he was buried in the earth. That's literally how that translates. Psalm 16 says,

The King James translates Sheol as hell, but the word means grave, not a place in the afterlife. We read in Acts 2 .31

that Christ fulfilled this prophecy because indeed his body was raised to life and did not decay. In Matthew 12 .40,

Jesus said that he would go into the heart of the earth. But again, this is the grave. In 1 Peter 3, it says that after Christ died, he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison who did not obey in the days of Noah.

But Colossians 2 .15 explains that Christ triumphed over the dark forces and put them to open shame.

That doesn't involve going to hell. The Gospel of Nicodemus says Jesus descended into hell, but that's an apocryphal text written in the 4th century.

Likewise, the Apostles' Creed says that he descended into hell, but the Creed came over a century after the Apostles had all died.

It isn't scripture. And the phrase, he descended into hell, likely has the same meaning as Ephesians 4 .9.

Jesus said to the thief hanging next to him, today you will be with me in paradise. He said to his father, into your hands

I commit my spirit. And as he breathed his last, he said, it is finished. The work was done. Christ had no reason to descend into hell.

So then where was his spirit for those three days that his body was in a tomb? Well, he said, paradise, when we understand the text.

Becky was dancing along with the music while we were playing that. Who, me? You're Southern Baptist, Becky.

You're not supposed to be dancing. Yeah, I can't help it. That's actually one of my favorite music beds. That's awesome.

That we put on our videos. I like that one too. Anyway, so I hope as far as the theology of that is concerned,

Frank, I hope that that helps you out. But otherwise, I mean, yeah, just straight up, I'd tell you time to look for a new church.

Yeah, that's enough of a list, that very strong list too. Especially if they're preaching on the prosperity gospel.

That's a big one. Now, I'm going to be preaching about that this coming Sunday. We're finishing up a series that we've done all the way through September about giving.

And that the Lord loves a cheerful giver, according to 2 Corinthians chapter 9. So as I'm finishing up chapter 9,

I want to take a moment to address the dangers of the prosperity gospel. And that's what

I'm preaching on this Sunday. But that sermon, for you, won't be available until the next week.

Right. Not this Sunday, but the next Sunday. Not this coming Sunday, but the next Sunday. So, I think

I'll have a transcript of it. I'll be able to put on the blog as well. In the meantime, you can look up Justin Peter's stuff.

Because he's got a lot of great stuff in which he talks about prosperity gospel preachers. But I commend you.

What to look out for. I commend you on wanting to try to talk to the pastor about that and everything.

And I think you should. Yeah. And he said he did. Yes. Right. And I'm saying generally.

Oh, got it. If you're attending a church where the pastor kind of starts to lean in the direction of prosperity, it might start to even sound like prosperity light.

Right. I wouldn't say you just, well, that's it. I'm up and gone. You should have conversations with people about this.

Right. And explain to them what you're preaching is heresy. Yeah. This is contrary to what the scripture says to us.

What the promises are in Christ Jesus. It's not a land or an inheritance that we will receive on this side of heaven.

And the Hebrews 11 clearly states that. Right. But rather we're looking for a heavenly kingdom.

Not a kingdom that is of this world. Anytime we're talking about the riches that we receive in Christ, we're talking about the riches of his grace.

Right. His mercy. The everlasting life that we receive in Christ Jesus.

There is absolutely no promise in scripture that we're going to get anything on this side of heaven or that we're deserving of anything.

It's the stuff that we can't replace. Yes. No matter what we do or try. That we don't deserve and we cannot work to achieve or attain.

Amen. So thank you for your email, Frank, and we'll be praying for you. Yes. In your conversations that you have at church and also finding a new church.

Certainly if nobody there wants to repent of this false teaching. Right. Final question.

And this comes from, hang on, I got to see if I can pronounce this. Kenechukwu of Nigeria.

Ah. I hope I'm doing that correctly. That's kind of fun. Kenechukwu. Can I call you

Kenny? You can correct me on that if needed. Hi, Pastor. My question is concerning how

Jesus is fully God and fully man. I understand that while on earth he was both man and God.

Though when reading the Old Testament, I come across places where many have made commentaries about Jesus being there.

Examples are God walking in the garden in Genesis. Genesis 3. The angel of the

Lord. Is that possibly a reference to Christ? Right. I've heard those debates before. The commander of the armies of God.

In the case of Joshua. There's the man that appears to Joshua. Joshua bows down to him. And so on that people have commented and affirmed was the person of Jesus.

So my question is, then, does this mean that Jesus was fully man even before the world began?

I know that he was God from before time, but I had settled with him becoming man in the New Testament.

So was he fully God and fully man even before the New Testament? Or was he fully

God before and then fully God and fully man in the incarnation? And how, then, can we understand the belief that these figures in the

Old Testament were Jesus himself? Thank you for your ministry and God bless.

Well, the better term to use rather than fully God and fully man is vera homo vera

Deus, which means very God and very man. Or truly God and truly man.

The problem that you run into by calling Jesus fully God and fully man is, well, if he was fully man.

How could he therefore also be fully God? Right. At what point does his

Godness, you know, dissipate and there is man -ness, you know what I mean? Right.

So, you know, he can't be fully one and fully the other. So it's better to say very

God and very man, which is the term that R .C. Sproul would use. And he would discourage the use of fully

God and fully man. Or you could also say truly God and truly man. Now, we're reading right now in the book of John.

And this explains to us that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.

And the Word was God. Just as you said, he was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him.

And without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. What we're going to get to on Monday is verse 14.

And the Word became flesh. Okay. And dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only

Son from the Father, full of grace and truth, as you said in our introduction here today.

John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me.

For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses.

Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only

God who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. So prior to Christ's incarnation, he was not of the flesh.

He was not man. He was only God. Right. So what we have in these appearances in the

Old Testament are what are called, you could either call them Theophanies, which is an appearance of God, or Christophanies, which is a pre -incarnate appearance of Christ.

Theologically speaking, that's what we refer to. Any time in the Old Testament where Christ would appear prior to his incarnation, we would refer to that as a

Christophany. Right. So that might be, well, for example, in Genesis 1,

God said, let there be light and there was light. We know that it was specifically the son of the

Trinity, Jesus Christ, who was speaking into the nothingness that was and creating something by the command of his word.

Right. That was specifically Jesus Christ who was doing that. The appearance of God before Moses on Mount Sinai, almost said

Mount Zion, on Mount Sinai. And then you have like Isaiah 6, when

Isaiah had the appearance of God in his temple, he looked up in the heavens and he saw God and the train of his robe filled the temple.

That was a Christophany. Specifically who he was seeing was Jesus Christ.

Could not have been God the Father because Jesus says it in John, as well as John writing in John 1, that no one has ever seen

God. Jesus Christ, who is the only God, he is the one who has made him known.

And Jesus saying himself, no one has ever seen the Father. But if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. So no one has ever seen

God the Father. Not Moses, not Isaiah, not anyone else. Only Jesus Christ reveals to us the

Father. We won't get to see the Father until we die and we go to be with him in glory.

And then we will see the Father because we will be made to be like him. We will see him as he is. Right. 1

John 3, 2. So in this way, we know that Christ has made appearances in the

Old Testament. This doesn't mean he was making appearances as a man. He may have looked like a man.

Like, for example, you have his wrestling with Jacob in the book of Genesis or his appearing to Abraham at the

Oaks of Mamre prior to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So he appeared as a man.

He looked like a man, but it was just his appearance. It's not that he took on flesh and dwelt among us.

Right. That did not happen until the incarnation when he actually came into the world through conception, growing in the womb of Mary, being born, experiencing life, living without sin, becoming the spotless sacrifice, the

Lamb of God that we needed, who would shed his blood. And by his blood, we have been forgiven our sins.

Jesus grew in stature, as it says in Luke chapter 2. So he experienced life as a man.

Right. This was him becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Now, he is still very

God and very man. Even though he is not on earth anymore and he has gone back to be with his father where he is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, he has not ceased to be very man.

He still is. Paul says, 1 Timothy 2 .5, that there is one mediator between God and man, and that is the man,

Christ Jesus. So as Jesus has become flesh and dwelt among us, and he lived a perfect, holy life, and he has ascended back to the father where he is seated at his right hand, he has bridged the gap between sinful man and a holy

God. And he has done that in the flesh of man so that he might be our perfect high priest, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers, so that he might become like his brothers in every way, as it explains in the book of Hebrews.

There's a lot of deep theology regarding why Christ had to become incarnate in order to fulfill what was needed for the forgiveness of sins.

But all of these things are beautiful to behold and consider. Consider also

Philippians 2, beginning in verse 5, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the

Father. Incidentally, and this is kind of a factoid that really doesn't have much to do with the theology of what we've just been discussing, but that was the last passage

I ever preached from the New International Version. When I was preaching through the book of Philippians, it was right after we finished

Philippians 2 that I changed to the English Standard Version. And then I finished Philippians chapters 3 and 4 in the

ESV, and I've been using the ESV ever since. Memories. Anyway, yep, just memories.

But kenechukwu, I hope that that's answered your question in understanding that prior to his incarnation,

Jesus was God. He may have made various appearances and may have been human -like in his appearances, but he did not actually take on flesh until his incarnation.

Right. And now he sits at the right hand of the throne of God, very God, very man, interceding for us as our perfect high priest.

Amen. Praise the Lord. Amen. So that's the episode for today. Thank you so much for sending your emails, and you can always email us when we understand the text at gmail .com.

I am going to finish up here with prayer. Let us pray for, let's see,

Neil in his interactions with Mormons. Is he sharing the gospel with them?

We want to pray also for Frank and his situation with his church. Yes. And we'll pray for kenechukwu as he continues to grow in the knowledge of God.

Yes, please. Our wonderful God and Savior, we thank you for salvation that we have in Christ. We thank you for the many blessings that you have given to us, that we have been extended every blessing in the heavenly places, as is talked about in Ephesians chapter 1.

Let us not be looking after the treasures of this world and expecting that to be our fulfillment, for you have not promised that we are deserving of any such thing.

We might live a destitute life for the rest of our life, but our treasure and our reward is going to be in heaven forever with you in glory.

And what could possibly be better? There is nothing on earth that could even compare to that glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus if we endure to the end.

So keep us steadfast. Keep us focused upon you. Help us to rejoice in all circumstances in Christ Jesus.

We pray for Neil today who sent us an email about ministering to Mormons, and I pray that you would give him wisdom and know how to patiently respond to these things.

Equip him with the word of God so he may be ready for every question. We want to pray for Frank who has been struggling with his church and the things that they are teaching.

I pray that this church would have a repentant heart, that they would realize the stuff that they have been extending to the congregation from the pulpit is not from God's word.

It is the doctrines of man and not the doctrines of God. But if they do not repent, that you would give

Frank courage of heart to know that he needs to be looking for a new church and that you would indeed take him in the direction of a place sound in their doctrine with a number of saints who are united in truth, who are growing in the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus.

And lastly, I thank you for Ken Achukwu and his question, and I pray you continue to give him an understanding and a discerning heart as he is still gleaning from this truth of your word that is boundless.

We continue to learn from it day by day, and I pray that he would delight to learn these things about God as his mind and his heart is being conformed to Christ Jesus.

I thank you again for the gift of your word that we might study these things and know the mind and the heart of God.

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

In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. You have my script?

I have my script. I have your script. It's already up. This is when we understand the text. A daily

Bible study in the word of God. Christ. Not even close. A daily in the study.

Oh, yeah. A daily Bible study. I'll just keep it a study.

Daily study. A daily study. Daily study of the word of Christ. In the word of Christ. For from his fullness.

For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. Got it.

Tell your friends. Tell them. Tell them that I'm a nerd. Really?

Apparently. How do you really feel? This is when we understand the text.

A daily study in the word of Christ. For from his fullness. For from from.

For from from. Told you. For from his fullness.

For from his fullness. Go ahead. Take your drink. Nope. Nope. I'm not.

You're messing with it. You have plenty of coasters around here.

Why are you using a CD? Because it's the HP Office Jet Pro installation disk.

Which I don't need. For my new printer. Yes. That I don't have on my.

Well, here. Here. Do you need the desk so you can install the software on your phone? You mean the disk?

The disk. He said the desk. Disk. Desk. I do need the desk. But for my laptop.

Barely a change in vowel there. My ancient laptop. Okay. This is when we understand the text.

A daily study in the word of Christ. For from. Far. Far. Far. Far.

Far. Far from him. Far from his fullness. Waiting for you to say fart. Just waiting for that to happen.

Well, there's no T in there so I shouldn't. Far from. Far from. Far from.

Far from his fullness we have received. Yes. For from his fullness. Ah, goodness.

This is when we understand the text. A daily study in the word of Christ. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

Tell your friends about our videos and this podcast.