Jesus is totally CONFUSING when He says THIS! | Bible Night Live (Ep. 1)

What is Jesus talking about when he says heaven and earth are gonna pass away?

What? Has that already happened? We're about to go into a deep dive. We're gonna look into that passage, and I'll also take your questions live.

Yes, this is live, so let's do it. Welcome to a brand new series at this channel that I am tentatively calling

Bible Night Live. Yep, that's...unless

somebody's got a better name, we're sticking with that, okay? You know, this is where I sit with y 'all live and take your questions.

I'm also...it's incredibly cold in Nashville. We're gearing up for some snow here.

I don't know about where you are, but anyway, it's pretty cold in here. Okay, if you're new here, welcome.

My name is Nate Sala, and I'm helping you become the effective Christian that Jesus wants you to be, okay?

So let's just go ahead and jump into...so on Monday, I posted some questions. I have some questions that I'd like to answer with you, and then afterwards

I'm gonna jump over to the chat and take all of your questions. I'm glad you all are here, and let's go ahead and do this.

So question number one comes from Not Until You Bless Me, and this is what they say.

Is there a point at which we have westernized Christianity too much? So for example, we have the

Bible in every way at our fingertips in studies and chats and streams. We have big buildings with all the perks and creature comforts.

We have congregations absolutely rolling in money and spending like it's government. My concern is the softness that we've built into our faith, and once it actually gets tested en masse, will we crumble?

It sounds like...thank you for the question, by the way. It sounds like you're pointing to two issues here, okay?

The first issue is whether or not we can westernize the Church too much. By the way, in the comments, do you think that's possible?

I'd love to know what your thoughts are because I'm about to give you mine. And the second issue is whether or not we've gotten soft, you know?

The Church has gotten soft. Now, this all trades on definitions of terms, so what do you mean by westernized and what do you mean by soft, right?

So if you and I were sitting together across the table from each other, I would ask you that question, you know?

But you're not here, so let me give you a couple of thoughts about this. First, the way

I see the Church, particularly as I watch its initial growth in the Book of Acts, I get a sense that God is not bothered by different churches expressing themselves uniquely.

How do I know that? Well, it comes down to an odd phrase in Acts 15. As a matter of fact, let's pull it up.

Take a look with me. This is Acts 15. So the backdrop to this verse is this.

This is the First Church Council, they call it the Jerusalem Council, and it has been called that because there is a major question about how

Christians should worship God, right? Should they do so by becoming full Jews, or can

Gentiles do so and remain Gentiles, you know? In other words, can

Gentiles uniquely express their worship without having to do so exactly the way that the

Jews do it? And the answer is yes. If you look at verse 28 here,

I think, notice what it says here in verse 28. "...for

it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit..." Hmm! Let me repeat that.

"...for it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements, that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality."

So these requirements align to what's called the Noahide laws, and the

Gentiles are told, these are your requirements, but not more than that, okay?

Now, this does not exclude what the Church is already doing, right? So when we go backwards to Acts chapter 2, right at the very end there, starting from verses 42 on down, we see a list of the activities of Church, you know, which is the breaking of bread of communion, listening to the teaching of the

Apostles, and to the prayers, right? All of this is just to acknowledge, okay?

Churches are given some leeway to fulfill these fundamental functions uniquely.

So, for example, if a Church wants to meet in someone's house, they can, okay?

If they don't, though, if they want to meet in a building, they can. If they want to use a microphone to project the preacher's voice, or use an

LED screen to put up lyrics, or not. If they want to sing different worship songs than the

Church down the road, right? Or if they just want to sing straight -up hymns, a cappella, in Latin. I think they are given the liberty to express their worship as it fits their geographical context, you know?

As long as they are retaining the spirit of what we find in the Bible with regard to the purpose, form, and function of Church, they have the liberty to do so, okay?

But let me answer that last question for a moment, right, about softness. If by soft, you mean that Christians are no longer proclaiming the

Gospel, no longer sharing their faith, or fulfilling the Great Commission. Maybe they're even getting fearful of the things of this world.

I would say that's not because of the Westernizing of the Church, per se. I think that's because,

I mean, what would you call that? The ever -increasing rise in biblical illiteracy, you know?

Which I've talked about before. Which then spills over into the lost art of discipleship and putting our faith into concrete practice.

All right, those are my thoughts. Thank you for the question. Not until you bless me, all right? Let's go to the next question here.

It's from JacksonOaks8. Let's see what he says, or she. What is salvation?

What is real belief? Who will be the ones with not enough oil in their lamps, and who will be the ones the

Lord says He does not know? Is it just a heart posture towards God, or is it that we really need to be righteous?

I'm baptized, I believe and confess with my mouth and trying to with my life, but I always circle around these ideas in the

Bible. Where is the line for salvation? Hmm. If someone has a habitual sin like nicotine or something, can they be saved?

I always circle around defining what the Bible actually means by faith, salvation, belief. I know John 3 .16,

but when I get to the narrow gate and the lamp parable, I start to doubt again that I fully understand what's enough.

There's a lot here in this question. Thank you for the question, by the way. I want to make sure. I'm like, before I went live,

I'm like, make sure to thank everybody for the question, Nate. Okay, Nate, thank you. So I actually did a video a while back.

This is what's coming to mind. On the most fearful thing

Jesus taught, or something like that, you know? Yeah, what was that called? My past videos are kind of a blur at this point, you know?

I'm about to be 46, and anyway, the memory is not what it used to be. But the most frightening verse that Jesus taught,

I think that's what it was, and it was, and I zoomed in on Matthew 7. Do you remember this in the chat? Do you remember this video I did?

Get away from me, I never knew you, right? And after doing that video, I realized, oh boy, you know, there's so much to say about all of this, right?

Perhaps even adding some extra layers to provide more clarity than what I originally gave in the video.

So I appreciate the question, because I think it gives me the opportunity to clarify, you know? As a matter of fact, maybe

I should go ahead and pull this up as I'm talking for reference here while we do this.

Okay, so this is Matthew chapter 7. But notice a couple of things here. So, what is it?

It's verse, is it? It's here, yeah.

Notice a couple of things here, and I don't want to rehash the whole video. Actually, I encourage you, if you've not seen that video that I'm referring to,

I encourage you to go see it. Go back and watch the fuller thing, because I do a deeper dive in that video. But notice,

Jesus is not talking to people who are unsuccessful in ministry. Do you see that?

He's not talking to people who have not performed works for God. He's talking to people who have.

So, immediately, for a lot of us, this changes the nature of the discussion. What Jesus is talking about here, you know?

What we have been taught and what we thought about with regard to this passage, you know, where it was about mere belief and unbelief, right?

That's not really what Jesus is highlighting here. I'll say it again. This is not a discussion about those who have heard and believe the gospel and those who have not, because unbelievers like that, they actually do not fit the description of those who perform mighty works in the kingdom of God.

Can you see that? You know? Look, so let me go ahead and read this right here.

Not everyone who says to me, this is verse 21, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my

Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Okay? Look at those people at the very end there. Are they people who have not, they don't know

God? They've not engaged, perhaps, with God's Word? They have no idea what ministry looks like?

Or are they the opposite? Think about that, right? Because the question you should be asking yourself, right, maybe the six million dollar question in this passage, is which type of people is

Jesus contrasting here? And the answer is, so if you wrestle what this is,

Jesus is contrasting those people, I mean these people down here, with the people that he really wants to get at, which is his people, the one that he knows, right?

So Jesus is saying, there are those I know and there are those I do not know, but the ones I do not know appear to be great ministers, you guys, appear to know

God's Word and obey it, at least on the surface, you know? Okay, so what's the difference?

It comes down to doing the will of God. You see that right here in the green? Doing the will of God.

But what is that? What is that will? And how do we know that we are accomplishing God's will? Well, in order to get that answer, you have to zoom all the way out and you have to pay attention to the whole sermon on the mount.

By the way, I actually did a deep dive with my Patreon community about this last year, and you can still find that study on my

Patreon for any who are interested. It's totally free, by the way. There's no paywall for the Bible study, amen?

But here it is. The will of God is for you to be a type of individual that furthers the kingdom of heaven.

As a matter of fact, Jesus says that the prerequisite to enter the kingdom is to exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, okay?

So that's back in chapter 5. But wait a second, okay? So there's another contrast right there in chapter 5 as well, isn't there?

And it's the same contrast that Jesus is giving here in Matthew chapter 7.

The scribes and the Pharisees know the law, but they do not know the

God who gives the law. They can't even recognize God when he's standing right in front of their eyes, you know?

And you gotta ask why. Well, it's because Jesus exhibits the qualities and characteristics listed in the

Beatitudes. The scribes and the Pharisees, they see this behavior in the person of Jesus Christ, and they interpret it as lawlessness.

Jesus says, no, this behavior is precisely how everyone should act. And when they do it, right, when they act like me, it becomes evidence that they know me.

Are you following me? See, again, when you obey the law without knowing the

God who gives the law, you end up abolishing the law. You end up not obeying

God's will, as it turns out. When you know the God who gives the law, you properly obey the law.

You properly do God's will. And the fruit of this, it becomes evidence because your character changes.

You end up looking like the type of person Jesus is describing in the Beatitudes, and that's the difference between Jesus' disciples and the scribes and Pharisees.

And that's what he's highlighting in this passage right here. It all comes back to knowing

God, which is eternal life, right? That's John 17. Everything you do, everything, for God, must flow out of your relationship with God.

That means it's very possible to do things for God and not know

God. Do you know anybody like this? They are incredibly angry, short -tempered, irritable, you know, but they know their

Bible, right? They know how to win arguments against people who don't know the

Bible, but when you actually press in and stare long and hard at their character, you do not see

Jesus at all. Do you know people like this? Because I do, you know? And that's what

Jesus is getting at here. That's the contrast that he's trying to highlight in Matthew chapter 7.

And by the way, that's—so when you really think through what this means, that's how you'll actually bear the right fruit, you know?

The kind that Jesus is looking for. So, I'm not sure if I've answered your question, but I went on a tangent here.

Where does this leave your question, okay? I'll leave it here. Salvation is very simple, okay?

Eternal life is this, okay? Look at this, actually. Let's go to—it's right here.

John 17 3. This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true

God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. This is simultaneously the most simple characterization of eternal life.

And what it does is it actually takes us right back to the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve walked with God.

They knew God relationally. That's what Jesus is getting at here, right? It's not knowledge about God, it's relational knowledge, knowing a person intimately.

That's what eternal life is. You can have that now, by the way, you know? But it's also—it's this comprehensive, all - consuming task that will guide and shape the rest of your life.

To know God relationally is the one thing that you have to focus on for the rest of your life, Jackson.

When you know God in this way, where you abide in Him, you spend time with Him, where the focus is on Him, and then out of that overflow, you desire to submit to His Word, you can rest assured that you are saved, my friend.

All right? Those are my thoughts. Thank you for the question. Let's go to Jonathan Raynard.

Jonathan, thank you for the question. He says, what is the best way to check the accuracy of teachers and preachers?

Hmm. With so many people online who have their claims about interpreting Scripture, it's difficult to know who is speaking truth and who is not.

Amen. The hardest ones are those who actually use Scripture to support their claims, and seems to make sense.

An example that has had me in confusion for a while is the claim that Sabbath on Saturday is still to be practiced continuously, both for Jews and Gentiles, even as believers in Christ.

I suppose there is another question, or that's another question, for next week regarding Sabbath, but for now let's stick with the original question.

Okay. Let's do it, because I think your original question is gold. What is the best way to check the accuracy of teachers and preachers?

I almost want to split this into steps or something, you know?

So, like, step one is you need to know the Word. All right?

So actually, maybe there's something behind this question that must be explored a bit,

Jonathan, you know? Maybe you have this expectation that you need to rely on every preacher to teach you what the

Word of God says, and that is not true. Let me, I just want you to hear me say it. The attitude that you should have, and that we all should have, is something more like the

Bereans, okay? Go with me to Acts, and we'll take a look at the

Bereans real quick. So where are they at? Yeah, look at this.

So Paul and Silas, they go to Berea. It says in verse 10, the brothers immediately sent

Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now, verse 11, these

Jews... so it's almost like Luke gets excited, right? These Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica.

They received the Word with all eagerness, watch this, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

So, Jonathan, look at their attitude here. They were diligent readers of God's Word.

They examined it daily, and apparently they had a level of knowledge.

So this is implied in the verse. They had a level of knowledge that gave them a criteria, you know, or a filter for false teaching.

See, not only did they read the scripture every day, but they read it to test what Paul and Silas were saying to see if it was so.

That's how well they knew their scriptures, and that should be your attitude, Jonathan, you know, as well as your regular practice.

You need to get into the Word until the Word gets into you. That's how my pastor characterizes it, okay?

Now, let me get ahead of a thought here that maybe you're having, you know, or somebody is.

If you're thinking to yourself, but wait a second, I need preachers to help me understand the Bible, though, right?

You know, I don't think you do, actually. So let me say this.

When it comes to the fundamental elements of salvation and godliness, you don't need any help.

So there's a concept—I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, Jonathan, but so if you're not, you should look it up, you know.

There's a concept called the perspicuity of scripture, and it's a very

Protestant way of saying—well, I am a Protestant, okay? It's just referring to the fact that the teaching of the

Bible when it comes to salvation and how the Christian must conduct themselves in order to be holy is clear as day, okay?

There is no need for an interpreter to receive some kind of hidden messaging or new insights that no one has seen before.

It's upfront, it's clear as day as to what is required for these things, okay?

Now, are there teachings in the scripture that we could use? Our local church family and our even our forebears,

Christians who have come and gone before us to help provide safeguards in terms of theology and doctrine?

Absolutely, okay? So don't hear what I'm not saying. We must still submit to the authority of God's Word as well as to, like, the certain creeds and confessions that bind us to core

Christian doctrines, you know? And I believe that this is the attitude that God wants us to have. When it comes to engaging his

Word, we have to do it together. That's the key word. We should not do it alone, and that's what

I'm saying now. We have strong Christian pastors and preachers who are committed to expositing

God's Word as well as this echo through time of Christians who have come before us, who have laid the groundwork for our doctrines, and I would encourage you,

Jonathan, to wrestle with these pieces, you know? Besides your daily reading of Scripture, I encourage you to, yeah, just check out a book on the creeds and confessions of the faith.

I can't think of a, like, a good one off the top of my head. Someone in the audience can give you some suggestions,

I'm sure, you know? So I encourage you to do that. I also encourage you to grab a copy of Grasping God's Word by Duvall and Hayes.

So I had to wrestle with this in school. It's a good text. It'll teach you how to read the

Bible well, essentially. And finally, you can...so

just, I mean, there's so many online studies, you know, from a lot of solid

Christian teachers and preachers, you know? So I would just go look at some online studies from a preacher that you trust, you know?

There are some great ones out there. You can grab some commentaries, right, and open them up alongside your reading of the

Scripture on a daily basis. By the way, if you're thinking of commentaries, you can never go wrong with someone like D .A.

Carson or maybe Craig Blomberg. I'm a big fan of Doug Moo, Thomas Schreiner, you know?

Those are just the ones that come off the top of my head. Anyway, thank you for the question. I hope that blesses you.

All right, let's keep going. Got a question here from my Patreon community. Shout out to the Patreon community.

And this question is from Who. Okay. Who says, with regard to Ephesians 2 and other teachings of the

Bible, what is the biblical perspective on Christians who desire only to remove themselves from the world, to live a sheltered lifestyle for them and their family, while also rejecting every secular?

They desire only to send their children only to Christian school or homeschool. They desire only to listen to Christian music.

They desire only to watch or listen to Christian media content. They desire to be set aside and removed from all secular things and only be sheltered with those that are identified as Christian.

Regarding the Great Commission, they believe themselves completely fulfilled by asking strangers to attend church. Ooh! And they may attend short -term missions trips and or financially support missions.

Regarding other outreach, they are fulfilled by financially supporting their church and various ministries, but they refuse to dirty themselves with the world, desiring only to keep themselves clean from any sinful influence of others and desire to avoid all things secular.

What is the biblical perspective on this? Wow. This is a great question, Who. And actually,

I have a question for Who. Did Horton hear you? That's about as good as the dad jokes get on this live.

Okay. Well, let me say this. There is a picture that Jesus gives us of the way that the kingdom of God must spread.

Take a look at this, actually, with me. We're gonna go...do any of you have your

Bibles open? I guess I should have said that at the outset. You know, open your Bibles with me. This is a great time to grab a little coffee or something hot and just talk about God's Word.

All right. So, Matthew chapter 11. So, this is a very interesting moment in time. So, John the

Baptist is...John the Baptist is sitting in prison, and he's rethinking who

Jesus is and what's going on with his life, and so he sends his own disciples to Jesus to ask him this particular question.

Look at this, verse 3. Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?

Okay. Now, Jesus answers the question, you know, and he does so by talking about his mission, the things that he's accomplished, how they line up with what the prophets had previously said in the

Old Testament, right? In other words, he's telling John that he is the one, you know. But then

Jesus turns to the crowds that are watching this drama unfold between cousins, essentially, and their disciples, and he includes the crowds in the conversation.

So, look what Jesus says when he turns and talks to the crowds. Verse 7.

Jesus began to speak to the crowds and said, What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?

What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.

What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written,

Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. Truly I say to you, among those born of women there is arisen no one greater than John the

Baptist, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Now, here it is.

Watch this. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

Now, this is a fascinating passage, and I've done a deep dive into this passage because it's just odd when you read it at first blush, okay?

But what you'll notice as you look into this is the greater pericope here is written in the form of a chiasm, and of course it is because, you know,

Jesus is a Jewish rabbi after all, and so he's working on multiple levels with regard to what he's teaching everyone.

Amen? As you know, so I've mentioned this before in previous videos. Chiasms force us to look at the center because that's the thrust or the emphasis that the speaker or the writer wants us to wrestle with.

So if you zoom out and you look at this whole thing, right? What's at the center of the chiasm?

It's verse 12. It's right here. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.

Now, I'm getting in the weeds too much, okay? So let me just say this one last thing because it actually I think it leads to where I'm headed with the answer to this question.

There's a better translation of what Jesus says here, okay? D .A. Carson points this out. It's not that the kingdom of heaven is suffering.

It's the kingdom that is advancing with great force, okay? And I think

Carson is right, okay? So to answer your question, let me actually ask a question, right?

How can the kingdom of heaven advance with great force into this world if everyone is retreating and hiding behind their walls of their safe communities?

You see where I'm going with this? I don't know of a kingdom -spreading model that entails

Christians refusing to go into the world. And I don't mean, you know, on a plane and fly to Puerto Rico for a spring break mission.

I mean into the world that is outside your house, where secular people who are dying to hear the good news of the gospel live and move every single day, right?

Of course, you know, as Christians we need to create spaces, you know?

Garden of Eden -style spaces where the people of God can be together, they can worship together, they can equip themselves for the work of ministry, right?

But those garden spaces need to expand outward and outward and keep expanding until the whole world becomes filled with God's kingdom, you know?

Or until Jesus comes back, you know? Or both, right? Well, hey, I love this.

Thank you so much for being with me. I'm so grateful to be doing this with you all here. Don't forget, speaking of Logos, there is one last day to take advantage of the free month for Logos, so if you enjoy the app that I use to read the

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Wise Disciple and grab the free month right now. Hey, stay close and clean to the