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Responding to questions from listeners about Ham's sin, building codes, the Freemasons, Jezebels spirits, if ghosts are real, and demonic possession. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
What should we know about the Freemasons and are they a religion? Is the Jezebel spirit really a thing? And can no one say Jesus is Lord if they're demon possessed? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of God, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky.
You're welcome. Last week you asked this question about our top fans on Facebook. Do you remember this? Yeah, I do. Okay, so Facebook is now awarding top fans like a little diamond. One person even came in and commented on a video and said, I'm just here to earn my diamond.
Awesome. My top fan status. But apparently there is a place you can go and you can see the list of everybody who is your top fan. Oh, neat.
But we've got like 50. Awesome, that's great, thanks, 50.
Thank you, our 50 top fans. Just to say, it's difficult for me to go through that list and read them all. Especially considering some of you have names I can't pronounce.
We could say them fast and say them confidently. That's right, then you won't even know,.
Just like reading Hebrew. There you go. Just like when you quote those Hebrew names, you just say them fast, you keep right on going, nobody will know. You had no idea how to pronounce that. Exactly. When I was in radio and I had to do sports, I always dreaded whenever the US Open was going on, you had to read all those tennis names.
Oh, yeah. Or the Australian Open. Oh, goodness. Yeah, those were fun.
Tennis was the worst. The one with all of the consonants and yet that makes just one sound. Yeah, right.
What is that? That's not Swedish. I think so. It's like Norway, Denmark, Sweden. Yeah. Kind of right in there. In there somewhere. I had a teacher in third grade, her last name was Van Blitterswick. Whoa.
And apparently right Gesundheit? Yeah, right. I think that was Dutch. And apparently right before she got married, which was the summer right before I got into third grade. That's right, she married into that name.
So she was Miss Duncan. And then she got married and when I got into third grade, she was Mrs. Van Blitterswick. Because I remember all the jokes among her fellow teachers going, Miss Duncan was a lot easier.
I'm sure. Can we do like Duncan hyphen Van Blitterswick and only have to say Duncan? Our Robert Godfrey from Ligonier, I remember him telling this story, but I can't remember which nationality it was.
But he was talking about a certain people who were conquered and they didn't have surnames, but the nation that conquered them required them to have surnames. So they came up with the longest, most obnoxious surnames that they could come up with just
The people conquering them or the conquered? The conquered.
So the Suzerain Nation, which is the nation that took them over was requiring them to have surnames. So then they just came up with the most obnoxious names in the world just to mess with the Suzerain Nation.
But unfortunately they got stuck with those last names. Oh boy, forever. That's right. So that's why that nation That's awesome. Yeah, so that might be the one you're talking about with like all the consonants.
Yeah, that could be. That would be interesting. Anyway. Like, haha, joke's on you.
No, joke's on you. You're stuck with, you came up with the last name, you're stuck with it. Anyway, all of this was coming out of talking about our top fans on Facebook. But thanks for being a top fan.
Yes, thank you. I don't know how you acquire that. Yeah, number of visits, number of likes. I have no idea. Number of shares. Hey, this first question today, actually I'm gonna go to a question that we got off of Facebook.
I don't do this typically. Don't think that if you ask me a question on Facebook that it's gonna end up on the podcast. Right. Because I am not often on Facebook. I don't even have my own Facebook page.
But anyway, this question goes back to a subject that we talked about last week related to Ham's sin. Right. When Ham saw his father in the buff. Right. What really was the curse? So Noah cursed Ham's son Canaan.
Why did he do that? Right. We talked about it last week. It was prophetic. The curse was prophetic. It was not prescriptive. Right. Because Ham had other sons. But Canaan is the one that Noah cursed because it was a prophetic curse related to the fact that the Israelites were gonna be conquering the Canaanites down the road.
Anyway, but there was somebody that raised another question about that. I'm gonna read that here in just a moment after we play the video. So we answered the question last week. Right. I said, what video was on the way?
Yes. Here's the video. In Genesis 9, after the world perished in the flood, God blessed Noah and his family and told them to fill the earth. The sons of Noah were Shem, Ham, and Japheth from whom all nations are descended.
Noah planted a vineyard and one day he drank some of the wine and got smashed. So drunk, he came out of his clothes and passed out naked in his tent. Ham came in and saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers.
Shem and Japheth took a garment and walked backward to cover the nakedness of their father. When Noah came to, he knew what had happened and cursed Ham's son, Canaan. A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.
Regarding Ham's sin, some have pointed to Leviticus 18 .8 which says, you shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness. So when Ham saw the nakedness of his father, this means he slept with his own mother.
But the text says Ham saw his father in the buff. He did not uncover his nakedness. Noah acted shamefully and instead of covering his father's shame, Ham left him naked and gossiped about it with his brothers who did not share his amusement.
Ham's sin was that he dishonored his father. Yeah, that's not as juicy, but it's still very serious. The Lord said, honor your father and your mother that you may live long in the land that God is giving you.
Canaan's descendants, the Canaanites, would have their land taken from them and given to Shem's descendants, the Israelites. From the line of Shem would also come a savior, Jesus Christ, who covers our shame when we understand the text.
Following the release of that video, James in Australia left this comment. Dear watch, thank you for the video. It's always good to hear alternate views on passages, but I don't think I'm convinced by the different words saw versus uncovered.
It's a good observation and noteworthy, but I think when it comes to metaphor and euphemism, we would observe the same phenomena in our language, slight alterations in verbiage slash grammar, and still see the expressions true hinting.
We can't ignore when specific wording is used and then referred to over and over again. Thank you for your work. Continue serving him who loved us and gave himself for us, James. So James is gonna be holding to the view that Ham actually did something lewd either to his father or to his mother.
And therefore the curse that Noah gave was a result of this very lewd behavior that Ham did. Not just that Ham saw his father nude, but that he potentially slept with his own mother. And then went and talked about it.
And went and talked about it with his brothers. Yeah. But James is holding to the view that Ham actually did something to Noah. Not just that he saw him naked, but a straight reading of the text is Ham saw him naked.
James disagrees. And he says the saw versus uncovered argument is not convincing since there are slight alterations in verbiage and grammar. So it's still the same saying he's insisting between Genesis 9 and Leviticus 18.
That part doesn't make sense to me because I mean, when the brothers had their reaction to covering up their dad, how does that apply for what he's trying to get at?
What James is trying to get at? Right, you have to go out of the context of the story in order to come up with this explanation of Ham having done something to Noah or his mother.
Right, if you were to take that part out, I get that. But in the story, they go back and cover it up. I just, I don't know how you make that better. Precisely. If he did what James is accusing him of doing.
Ham of doing.
Yes. Right. So in verse 23, Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Right. So again, you gotta look at the story in context.
You can't just be pulling out one little verse. Well, this verse over here looks like it. So I'm gonna say that the two verses have something to do with one another. You have to read what's around the text, not jump to another book to then therefore try to interpret what you're reading in that text.
You try as best as you can to understand everything in what you're reading in that text. And to come up with this idea that Ham did something lewd to either his father or his mother means that you're actually going out of context.
Right. Furthermore, James wants to insist that there's, the difference between he saw his father naked versus in Leviticus 18, do not uncover the nakedness of your father. So he says, it's just a slight alteration, just like we might have slight alterations in our expressions or sayings or something like that.
Yeah. Okay. The thing about that is though, Moses wrote both of these books. Oh. Genesis was written by Moses. So he would have kept it the same? No, Moses would not have, right. Yeah, I guess that's what you're saying.
You're saying that the statement would have been the same in Genesis and in Leviticus.
Right, if that were his point.
If Moses was trying to tell us that Ham had did something to his father or his mother, according to what the euphemism you might say that we have in Leviticus 18, if that really was Moses intention, it would have been more obvious.
Yeah. And it's not. Right. The context of the story even I mean, it's still bad.
It's still really bad, but it's not.
It's just not the thing that Right, it's not the juicy like tabloid stuff that we want it to be. It's not that. Right.
It just, it doesn't make sense. And I mean, if you were to put that in the story and then you read the story, it just doesn't flow. Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah, I don't know.
Right, you gotta, yeah. You're taking stuff out of context.
I'm stuck at that point.
All of that to say, I just don't agree. Well, James, you make the comment. You say it's always good to hear alternate views on passages, but the alternate view is the one you're choosing to believe. Right.
No credible scholar actually reads this story and makes the assumption that Ham did something to his father or slept with his mother. No one reads it and takes it that way, unless such a credible scholar is just saying, now there are some views regarding this story and here's one of those views.
But when it comes to just a straight reading of the text, it's obvious what's happening here. Right. Ham saw his father naked. Right. And then he went and told his brothers and his brothers did not share his sense of humor about it.
And again, Ham shamed his father. And that's the point. That's the intention of the story. Ham did not cover his father's nakedness when Noah acted shamefully. And so because he dishonored his father, this is all kind of foreshadowing of the command that's gonna be given at Mount Sinai, honor your father and your mother so that it may go well with you.
Right. In the land the Lord your God is giving to you, which happened to be the land of the Canaanites. So that's what all of this is foreshadowing. And again, Moses is the one that wrote it. So if he was going to write Genesis and Leviticus, it would be a little bit more obvious.
Yeah. And the discrepancy between the two stories or the two texts, Genesis 9 and Leviticus 18 is too vast. Right.
It's actually two different. Two different verbs. Right, saw and uncovered.
Yeah. And even when you look at it in the Hebrew, which I've done, I don't read Hebrew, not a Hebrew scholar, but I've looked at it in the Hebrew, like the transliteration, it's just way too different.
There's nothing about it that looks like it could potentially be a meaning to the text that we read according to the law in Leviticus 18. All right, we're gonna move on beyond the ham Noah situation now.
Sure. Let's just settle it that it is not the tabloid messiness that everybody wants it to be. This is Ethan who says, hi there, Gabe and Becky. Hello. I live in St. Louis and he's 13 years old, by the way.
Oh, awesome. Mentioned to me in his email that he's 13. I live in St. Louis where the building code by the city says that rooms have to be seven feet tall, floor to ceiling. In my house, we invited so many people to live with us, my grandparents, my aunt and her brother, two uncles, my 14 and four year old brother and my dad that we had to make our own rooms in the basement of our house.
That sounds like a house full. Yeah, it does. They are less than seven feet in the basement, which means they're not up to code. My question is, if I sleep in my room downstairs that is against city code, would that be immoral because it is breaking the law?
Romans 13 says, we must follow the law because you only get punished for bad things. Since my father would be the one getting punished, would that make me all right? If not, would that hurt my relationship with my unbelieving family?
Thank you, Ethan. Well, thanks for your email, Ethan. That's tough. Hey, I'm gonna tell you, Ethan, you can relax, you can rest easy and sleep without any guilty conscience in your room tonight because this is not on you, buddy.
That's right. You don't have to worry about that. But I also would not say that your father is breaking the law simply because sometimes these building codes mean that any new buildings that are built, the rooms have to be seven feet tall.
It doesn't mean that older buildings can't have rooms that don't quite make it up to code because otherwise it would be really, ridiculously expensive to have to expand the room so that it meets a code of having to have from floor to ceiling, seven feet of space.
So it may not be what you think it is. You leave it to your dad. He knows what he's doing.
I think you guys are fine. And it could be just the kind of thing where if you guys were to sell your home and put it on the market, they would then not be able to call it rooms. It would be either non-conforming.
Yeah, non-conforming. Or it would be considered more of a crawl space. Right. Or cellar. It wouldn't be considered a full basement at that point. So I think you're okay.
Yeah, this is one of those things where it's not necessarily illegal. The room is not up to code, but it's not like somebody's gonna be dragging your dad away and throwing him in jail. Right. It's not gonna be something like that.
Romans 13, I like what you're thinking though, Ethan. So Romans 13 says, "'Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, "'for there is no authority except from God. "'And those that exist have been instituted by God.
"'Therefore, whoever resists authorities "'resists what God has appointed. "'And those who resist will incur judgment. "'For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. "'Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority?
"'Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, "'for he is God's servant for your good. "'But if you do wrong, be afraid, "'for he does not bear the sword in vain. "'For he is the servant of God, an avenger, "'who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.
"'Therefore, one must be in subjection "'not only to avoid God's wrath, "'but also for the sake of conscience.'". And I hope that I'm able to put your conscience at ease in knowing that you are not sleeping in some sort of illegal abode.
Right. And nobody is gonna come take your dad away. But it's great of you to be concerned and think of the word and your dad's standing with the government. Yeah.
According to what the word says. And he was concerned with them being unbelieving too. Yeah. Like if that would put them off.
Yeah, there's no odds between you and your family. No. And in this particular circumstance, I mean, it's not like your family's drug dealers, they're not doing something so illegal that it would cause somebody to go to jail.
Right. So there's no obligation on you to have to turn them in. Nothing like that. Don't worry about that. Todd from South Carolina, "'Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky, "'I greatly appreciate your podcast. "'I enjoy listening to these episodes "'while I am driving during work.
"'My question to you is, "'we will call out the cults slash false teachings "'of the Catholic Church, Mormonism, "'Jehovah's Witnesses, and so on. "'But I rarely hear a mention of the Masonic Lodge, "'which according to Sovereign Grand Commander Albert Pike, "'he even called it a religion.
"'I believe that it is a false religion, "'yet we have so many members that are part of the SBC. "'I would love to hear your thoughts. "'Thank you for your ministry, "'and may God continue to bless it.
"'Your brother in Christ, Todd.'". You know, this is one of the things that I like about the Wesleyan Statement of Faith. Okay. Because it actually says in the Wesleyan Statement of Faith that to be a Wesleyan, to be a member of a Wesleyan church, you can't be involved in any secret societies.
And that would include the Freemasons. Right. Have to say, I kind of like that. Yep. But yeah, you're right. There are people in the Southern Baptist Convention who are part of the Freemasons. I think that that is wrong.
When I first came to the church that I am at, we had a deacon who was a Freemason. Oh, we did, yeah. But the trouble is that when somebody says they're a Freemason, not everybody means the same thing.
Kind of the degree to which a person is involved in Freemasonry tests them on that. I think it's a good idea. But some of these Freemason groups really are just clubs.
Right, kind of like the Lions Club.
Yeah, the Elk Club or Eagles Club. Jaycees. I don't know, Jaycees? Yeah. What's Jaycees? I don't know. There's the Optimist Club. Yeah, there is. What's the Pessimist? Is there a Pessimist Club? I highly doubt it.
We just get together and we're just negative all the time.
It's called the Barbershop or the Coffee Shop. Everybody's grumpin'.
Yeah, go down to the Barbershop as your Pessimist Club. But yeah, related to the Freemasons, it is very cultic, but some of them can sprout up in a community and it's really just like a men's club. So you have to look into that.
But when it comes down to taking the Freemason oath, it is definitely rejecting of Christianity. The Freemasons believe in, well, they don't really call it this, but this is what I call it. They believe in G-A-O-T-U.
Okay. G-A-O-T-U. All right. The Grand Architect of the Universe. Oh. That's how they describe God. Oh. I don't think they call him G-A-O-T-U. That's just what I say. Because that's what the letters spell.
G-A-O-T-U. Okay. The Grand Architect of the Universe. That's how they describe God. Okay. And they describe him that way because whether you're a Christian or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist or anything, you believe in some sort of deity.
And so that deity is the Grand Architect of the Universe. Interesting. You believe in a deity that has created all things. Everything came about because of the Grand Architect. So it's all encompassing.
That's right. It just, what do you call that? Inclusivist, right? They're even somewhat universalist. They don't think anybody's gonna die and go to hell. It's nothing like that. So the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but the Freemasons are going to say that everybody is kind of basically good.
Every person is saved as a result of their good works and their personal desire for self-improvement. And Jesus is just one of those many philosophers that had given us a way to live. And that's what you're gonna find in Freemasonry if you actually go through their beliefs.
By the way, in addition to Freemasonry, there's also what's called the Eastern Star. I think I've also heard of it referred to as the Order of the Eastern Star. When I first became a pastor at the church that I'm at, there was a women's group and there was a woman who was invited as a friend to come and be a part of that women's Bible study.
And she was not a believer. And so whenever some of those things happen, which was fine, but you always kind of like watch out for those kinds of things. Because she's Like what's their motive kind of?
Well, no, how involved are they going to be with this when they're not a member of our church and they're not a Christian? So just making sure this person is not being handed, okay, you're gonna be praying for us tonight.
You're gonna be doing our reading tonight. Can't do any of that. So it's great that she comes and she attends, but there's gonna be an expectation of repent of your sin and become a Christian. If after a time that doesn't happen, then we have to ask her to move on.
So what it turns out that this woman was involved in something like seven or eight churches in town. I found out that she attended all over and her primary place of quote unquote worship was the Eastern Star.
And I didn't know what Eastern Star was at that time. I knew what the Freemasons were, but I didn't know what the Eastern Star was. So I had to look it up. Well, she came to the women's group one time and said, we're dedicating a new meeting place.
Can I have the women come and pray for that meeting place? And so they did. And I found out about this after the fact, and I had to kind of jump in and put a stop to this. I was like, no, we're never doing this again.
But somebody from the group said, they came to me and apologized. They said, we're sorry, we didn't know what it was. And even when we got there and the way people were talking and the stuff they would say when we were praying, it was all very, very bizarre.
So we're not gonna do it again. But they said, we're sorry that all of this happened. We had to ask the woman, hey, look, I'm glad you came to Bible study. I hope that you learned something, but we have to ask you to move on.
And she did, never came back again. Ended up spreading some very malicious gossip about me online after that. Boy, your pastor is really oppressive. Something to that effect. She didn't like being asked to, that she couldn't come there anymore.
But anyway, it was, yeah, that was my introduction to the Eastern Star.
I didn't know anything about that. Which is the women's version of.
Right, it's like the women's division of Freemasonry.
That's what I was looking for, yeah.
And there's, each one of the five points of the star points to something, a different woman from the Bible. And I'm not gonna remember who they all are, but one of them is Ruth, Esther, Martha, and then I don't remember the other two.
Couldn't quote it to you now. Yeah. If you know somebody that's involved in Freemasonry, I think that you should try to convince them to get out. But if you, but when you hear somebody say, yeah, I'm a Freemason, don't be immediately alarmed.
Right. Simply because, like I said, there are some Freemason groups that are just, it's just men's clubs. Yeah. That just get together and meet.
And they're probably very naive to what Freemasonry is. Oh, definitely. Yeah. There's quite a bit of naivety.
We knew someone, a woman who told me that her father actually became a Christian through the Freemasons. I don't know. That's certainly not the evangelism effort that I would encourage somebody to get into.
But she was very defensive of any time it would come up. You know, we would say something like Mormonism's a false religion, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons. She would get pretty upset with that because she knew her father had come to know Christ through the Freemasons.
Right. You probably have a Freemason group here or there that's, they could operate like a Bible study. The theology would be very Arminian, but they're otherwise Christ-centered. But that doesn't mean that they're all.
All of them. Right. Are that way. That they're all that way, nor should Christians be involved in them at all. Right. Because they really are kind of a mess. So again, they say that salvation is according to man's works.
Jesus is just one of many prophets. They're gonna discourage talk about Christ at the lodge. So, and again, I can't say that's even every lodge, but most of the Freemason lodges, they're gonna discourage any concept of the exclusivity of Christ.
I think you're safe to say the traditional.
The traditional, yeah, Freemason lodge. Best way to describe it is it's syncretism, which is just, you know, a bunch of religions that are all kind of piled into one thing. Okay. Believe whatever it is that you want.
That's gonna be your way to God. And yeah, avoid it. So you are correct, Todd. It is a false religion. It can be very cult-like. They're not all cults, but for the most part, Freemasonry is a cult. And yeah, I would discourage anybody from ever being a part of it.
Christians should have nothing to do with it. Next comment comes from Austin, Pensacola, Florida. Hey, I have a video suggestion. I keep on hearing about this demonic spirit called the Jezebel spirit.
Oh, okay. It's apparently a demonic spirit that kind of gives bad luck or a bad attitude, I think. I have heard a pastor on YouTube say that it can dwell in a Christian, but I am thinking how can a Christian that has the Holy Spirit be controlled by a demonic spirit, regardless of whatever name you give it?
I was wondering if you could do a video on this topic to clear some things up. I think this belief is fairly new, but maybe you have done a video over this and I just haven't found it yet. On a more personal note, now one of my family members are even talking about this Jezebel spirit.
A video on this would be greatly appreciated. If you can't create a video, can you send me some verse references? Anyway, thank you for spending the time to read this email. Thanks again. Well, I haven't done a video on the Jezebel spirit, but I did do one on, the video wasn't only about this, but it mentioned it.
The squid spirit. Oh yeah, uh-huh. Jennifer LeClaire from Charisma Magazine was talking about watch out for that squid spirit. Oh, is she the one that said that? Yeah. Okay.
She's kooky. Yeah. I remember it being a very kooky person, but not remembering who it was.
That's who it was, Jennifer LeClaire. Okay. And I came up with a line for the video that I talked about this. One of the lines that I'm most proud of in a what video. Okay. There are no sneaky squid spirit stalking saints in scripture.
This is true. You won't read anything about a squid spirit in the Bible. Well, this whole thing about a Jezebel spirit, of course, Jezebel is a person in the Bible. This is the queen who was married to Ahab during the time of Elijah, when the priests of Baal were slaughtered down at the Brook Kidron.
Jezebel was the one who said to Elijah, I'm gonna do the same thing to you. So this is that wicked queen Jezebel who brought Baal worship into Israel. And then Jezebel is referred to again in the book of Revelation.
And it's when Jesus is addressing the church in Thyatira. And he says, I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your ladder works exceed the first, but I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrifice to idols.
So the possibility here is that we're either talking about a person whose name actually was Jezebel, or we're just talking about a false teacher that Jesus through John referred to as Jezebel in the same nature of this woman who had introduced Baal worship into Israel in the Old Testament.
Right. And so that's probably where the concept of the Jezebel spirit comes from. But the Jezebel spirit, it's always talked about in a lot of different ways. So even Austin, you said that it's a demonic spirit called the Jezebel spirit that gives you bad luck or a bad attitude.
Well, Jezebel introduced idol worship. Right. So the Jezebel of the Bible is significantly worse than whatever these charismaniacs will refer to as a Jezebel spirit. Can a person have a Jezebel spirit?
No. Can a Christian end up in a place of temptation where they leave the soundness of the word of Christ and they start dabbling in some worldly things and maybe even idol worship to a degree that they place something where Christ should be, like they value something over Christ or they think that their life is incomplete until they have this one thing?
Can a Christian fall into that? Of course. Yeah, absolutely. And that is something that we should warn our fellow believers about. But to call that a Jezebel spirit, that's not what that is. Yeah. It's a temptation of the flesh.
Right. It is your flesh has gotten the better of you, not the fact that some demonic Jezebel spirit has gotten ahold of you. Yeah. James 1, verse 12 says, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.
For when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one.
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. So the biggest problem that we're gonna have most of the time is gonna be in our own flesh.
Yeah, definitely. It's not gonna be some Jezebel.
Is it just kind of the saying that people are adapting to now or taking on now that are like, oh, you're grumpy, you've got the Jezebel spirit, you know? Like here's a Snickers, you've got that Jezebel spirit.
I need to see that as a Snickers commercial now.
Okay, you've got the what videos.
That'd be awesome. That's exactly how we're gonna do the what video on this. You got that Jezebel spirit, here, have a Snickers. Yeah, there's a Snickers.
I mean, it just sounds like you're, you know, like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed used to be the saying. Yeah, right. You know what I mean? Oh, I totally get it, yeah. Go back and get, go back to bed and get up on the other side of the bed.
My mom told me that a lot. Is that whole thing of the devil made me do it? Yeah. Yeah.
So you got that Jezebel spirit. Yeah, is it adapted that way or is it talked about in like, they really believe you have a spirit?
Well, like I said, I think that it's one of those, yeah, like you said, a saying that just kind of is adaptable to just about anything. Okay. Because I've heard it used a lot of different ways. Okay. But Jezebel.
I haven't heard it at all. Yeah, Jezebel in the Bible caused Israel to worship idols. And then that's the same thing that's going on in revelation as well. Yeah. So your people are going after Jezebel instead of listening to the word of Christ.
Right. So they're not even using the name in the right way. It's just, yeah, this grumpy Jezebel spirit. Yeah. Like a sneaky squid spirit.
She's just, I mean, she was awful. She was an awful being. Horrible woman, yes. Horrible person. And I mean, just to threaten somebody's life like that. And oh my goodness. Now the way that. It's just terrible.
Well, even, yeah, even more than that. And then to send a whole bunch of people to hell basically.
Right, yeah, with her misleading, her instituting idol worship in Israel. Yeah. Now there are certainly spirits that we are told to watch out for. That's right. There's spiritual warfare going on all the time.
But your biggest problem is gonna be the temptation in your own flesh. Right. Yes, there are spirits that we must test. First John 4, one, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.
For many false prophets have gone out into the world. But that doesn't mean there's a Jezebel spirit. Right. It's just that. Grab a Snickers. You can take care of that Jezebel spirit with a Snickers. It's just that charismatic thing of wanting to believe that I can see something nobody else can see.
Oh, okay. So it's like, hey, I see a spirit and she's telling me her name is Jezebel. Got it. That one looks like a squid. Yeah. Oh, watch out for that Python spirit. Oh my goodness. The platypus spirit.
Stop, stop. Yeah. Stop, are you serious? That's one? Perry the platypus spirit. Yeah. You're kidding. Yes, I'm joking. Okay, I can't tell. Can you stop that? The clan and sinker over here.
Well, that's the way, yeah, people get roped into these spirits. So I'm convinced it's got a name. So it's gotta be legit. It's official. Question here from Neil. Did the disciples believe in ghosts? He's got a couple of questions here.
So he mentions Mark 6 49, when Jesus came walking to them on the water, but when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. So did the disciples believe in ghosts?
I mean, you don't have to, to think that it's a ghost. I mean. Yeah, if you see something, you can say you don't believe in ghosts, but you see something makes you go, it looks like a ghost. Yeah, it would make me question myself.
You might change your beliefs there for a moment. Now we know that there are no such thing as ghosts, but there are evil spirits. The story, we talked about this a few weeks ago, but the story in 1 Samuel of Saul going to consult a medium who then conjured up the spirit of Samuel.
Now she was shocked by this. She didn't think that Samuel was actually going to come up and talk to Saul. What she expected was that little spirit demon thing that would always come whenever she would do her little thing.
And this little demon would come up and kind of dance around. And then she would do this mystic medium necromancer sort of a thing where she would explain, well, this is what the demon is saying. But on this particular instance, it actually was the spirit of Samuel.
So it shocked her because she didn't expect an actual person to come about. She thought it was just going to be the little demon thing that she always conjured up. So there can be spiritual things that might manifest themselves in this way.
And I'm talking lowercase S, spiritual, not the Holy Spirit. But certain spiritual things that'll happen like this that will be demonic in nature. It's not ghosts. So people don't have spirits that are just kind of floating around haunting a particular place.
You know what I'm talking about? So that person's died. Their spirit comes up, haunts the graveyard. It's not like that. That's the way we tell those stories, the campfire stories, the way it shows up in movies.
But that person's soul is already being dealt with. It's not wandering the earth aimlessly. Any sort of ghost-like activity that's legitimately happened like that is demonic. It's always demonic. The disciples probably believed in ghosts.
They probably believed in some things superstitiously that way. At that particular time, they were very weak in conscience. And it wasn't until much later, of course, with the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that they would have not believed such things.
Right. But at that time with Jesus, yeah, they probably did. So Neil's next question here, out of Luke 22, 31, and 32, where Jesus says to Peter, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat.
But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. And then Neil asked, does this verse imply that Jesus, or I'm sorry, that Peter wasn't saved until almost the point that Jesus was crucified?
And that's not what that would have meant. Because remember that Jesus referred to his disciples as brothers. Right, that's true. And that Jesus said to his disciples, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.
Peter certainly sinned, a serious sin, when he denied Jesus three times. Right. But it says in Matthew that he went out and wept bitterly after he heard the rooster crow, he knew what he had done, and he went out and wept.
So he grieved over his sin. Right. And then we have the reinstatement of Peter at the end of the Gospel of John, in John 21. And in our study of John right now, I'm getting to that a couple of weeks away, but that'll be coming up.
So Jesus asks Peter three times, do you love me? Right. And this is the way that Jesus so very graciously reinstated Peter, strengthened him in his conscience again, because of what Peter had done to deny his Lord and then commissioned Peter, then go and feed my sheep.
And so Peter was not unsaved. He was called by Christ to be his follower. Yeah. Of course, the effectiveness of the salvation happened at the cross when Jesus died, but it wasn't that the disciples weren't saved until that happened.
He was just being sanctified, I would think. Peter was being sanctified? Yeah. Yes. Through that process.
I mean, we all fall short. Right. Constantly. Whereas Judas betrayed Christ and his grief led to suicide. Right. But Peter denied Christ, denied that he knew him, betrayed Jesus in this sense, ran away, wasn't even there at the cross.
John was at the cross. The rest of the disciples were not. They were locked in a room, scared, afraid that the Jews were gonna come drag them away and crucify them as well. And so Peter betrayed Jesus, but his grief led to repentance.
And this is what Jesus is saying that he's praying for Peter. I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. So Peter stumbled. Yep. Didn't lose faith.
Right. Certainly didn't fall out of the favor of God. Otherwise, Jesus would not have reinstated him the way that he did. Exactly. Hope that's helpful for you, Neil. Next question comes from Rebecca in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and you might remember Rebecca as our grand prize winner a couple of weeks ago.
Rebecca says, greetings to you both. It is really wonderful to hear you and Becky interact as an example of a godly couple. Aw, thanks. Thank you so much. My husband and I eagerly listen to your Q &A show every Sunday after church.
We also love the What What videos, only one of which Becky is in. Yep, physically. You're physically in that video? Aren't I? Your voice, it's not just your voice. Yeah, it's a picture of you as well.
Yeah. But it's just one video. Your voice is only in one video and your image is only in one video. It's just one video. I'm okay with that. And she's trying to keep it that way. Yep. Yeah. But not if I get my way.
Stop. First Corinthians 12, three says, therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So does this mean that if someone truly believes that Jesus is Lord and can say that honestly, it is proof of his salvation?
Thank you, Rebecca, for your question. Appreciate that. So you hear this in charismatic circles every once in a while, that if a person is demon-possessed, then they can't say Jesus is Lord. And this is the scripture that they will use to kind of verify that.
Okay. To try to authenticate that claim. You can't say that Jesus is Lord if you're demon-possessed. So if a person is able to say Jesus is Lord, then they don't have a demon. Got it. Okay. But remember, the demons ran up to Jesus.
Yep. And said, what do you have to do with us, oh, son of the most high? Right. So they knew exactly who he was.
That's what I was gonna refer to. That's right. Isn't that when he cast them into the pigs? Yeah, there's that story. There's more occasions than that one.
There's quite a few, yeah. But that was Legion. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, Legion has a very exalting title for Jesus when he runs up to him. So yeah, demons can say the name of Christ. It's not that a demon is somehow incapable of saying that name as though it's gonna be a curse to them.
That's just on the movies. That's, yeah, exactly. It's just in the films, like when you are seeing one of those horror flicks of somebody being demon-possessed and they can't say the name of Jesus. It's more than just the movies, though.
I mean, it really is. That's kind of the charismatic Pentecostal way. Oh, okay. That's the way they believe that. If a person can say Jesus is Lord, then they're not demon-possessed. Only a person who truly believes that Jesus is Lord can actually say that.
Rebecca's question is, does this mean that if someone truly believes Jesus is Lord and can say that honestly, it is proof of his salvation? Yes, if they can say it honestly, but how do you know that? How would you know that of a person's heart, that they are making that declaration honestly?
There are many who say that they're followers of Jesus, but when they say Jesus is Lord, then they're taking his name in vain.
Weren't we just talking about, was it Paul who had many people who he was friends with and worshiped with and then they would fall away?
Well, Paul, yeah, Demas is the name that we typically associate with Paul as being one who served with him in the ministry for a while. And then when Paul was in prison, the second time in Rome, Demas fled, flew the coop.
He went back to Thessalonica because he was more in love with this world. So Paul had people who would abandon him in tough times. Demas is one of those names that gets dropped. Of course, we talked about Jesus, who said that when he was arrested, the sheep were gonna scatter.
And Peter said, no, even if all these fall away, I am never gonna fall away. I'm gonna be with you until the end. And that was when Jesus said, the devil's asking to sift you like wheat. So let's simmer down on the pride a little bit.
But yeah, all the disciples fled. Even Mark recalls a young man that ran away so fast, he came out of his clothes.
Oh my goodness, I forgot about that. Yeah, that's autobiographical.
That was John Mark, who was fleeing the scene. In the buff. This is two shows in a row now. We've talked about Bible characters in the nude. You have. You need to throw up a parental advisory at the start of, might be inappropriate content.
Talking about Bible characters in the nude. So like I said, a person who says Jesus is Lord and is able to say so honestly, that is an evidence of their salvation. But we can't know for sure if that person's heart is genuine whenever they make such a statement.
For Jesus said in Matthew 7, that many are gonna call me Lord. Right, that's so true. There are many who will say, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?
And Jesus is gonna say to them, depart from me, you worker of iniquity, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you. Not I knew you at one point, but then you just didn't stick with it. No, these are people that would call on the name of the Lord.
Till their dying day, probably. Probably did. And so they looked like, from the outside, looked like that they were a Christian, but they were not speaking the name of the Lord honestly. Every time they said it, they were taking his name in vain.
They did not actually know him or worship him as Lord. Did not submit to him, submit to his authority. You know, Kenneth Copeland, for example, many of you have probably seen this Inside Edition interview.
That was a couple of months ago. There was a woman that came up to him as he was getting in his limo and wanted to talk about, you know, the planes that he had, the way that he conducted his ministry, how much money he had.
She even mentioned that she had a father who was a pastor that did a lot of great work. Why didn't he have all the wonderful lavish things that you get? All throughout that conversation, this was one of the most eerie, creepy things about it, despite how weird Ken Copeland's eyes were.
Yeah, his whole face. Do you remember that? Yeah, he looked like a demon. It was scary. I mean, do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment, John 7, but he looked demon possessed. He looked a little off his game.
Off his rocker. And that could be it too. Better way to put it. But all throughout that conversation, he would name drop Jesus. Like she would ask him a question. He'd go, oh, glory to God. Glory to God, amen.
You know, and Jesse Duplantis does that a lot as well. Jesus, glory, da, da, da, da, da. So these guys who are heretics to the max, I mean, these are some of the biggest wolves that are out there. They will use the name of the Lord.
They will say Jesus is Lord. They might even have big banners on the stage behind them that say Jesus is Lord. That's very true. But it's all taking the Lord's name in vain. To make money. They can't say it genuinely.
They're not using the name of God to exalt him. They're using it to exalt themselves. Right. So looking at this in context, 1 Corinthians 12, 1. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.
You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says Jesus is accursed. And no one can say Jesus is Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.
So we could read it this way. No one can say that Jesus is Lord and genuinely mean it, unless they have the spirit of God. Right. The person who does not have the Holy Spirit, when they say Jesus is Lord, then they are blaspheming his name.
They're using it in vain. I would say that a person who has the Holy Spirit of God is certainly never going to say that Jesus is accursed. And far be it from anyone to ever say such a thing. We should fear that, that our tongue may slip to accidentally say such.
But just know that the name of God can only be said in a way that is pleasing to God and worshipful to God, if a person has the Holy Spirit of God. For it is God that makes us right before him. And it is God who has cleansed us to offer right worship unto God.
I think the only way that we would know that they're not saying it genuine is by their fruit, because that's what Jesus said. He said, you'll know them by their fruit. That's also Matthew seven.
You will know them by their works and saying even in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew five, to let your light shine before men, so that they will see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.
Right. Let's end there. Yeah. Let's close with prayer. Our heavenly father, we thank you for the goodness that you have given to us in your son, that by faith in Jesus, we have been cleansed from our sins, from all unrighteousness.
And now we can offer right worship to you. We can live in such a way that is pleasing unto the Lord. And I pray that we do so. When we read the scriptures and we see instructions for us as to how we should be as Christians in this world, we don't dismiss those things as legalism.
We don't cast them aside. We're not thinking of this stuff as, oh, that's just a set of rules and regulations that I don't have to follow because I've been saved by grace. Well, we've absolutely been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, but it's so that we would commit ourselves fully unto the Lord.
Romans 12 one, in view of God's mercies, present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto the Lord. This is your spiritual act of worship. And may we be able to do so. May we do so in a way that is pleasing to you, desiring to delight in our God and do what delights you.
I pray for all our listeners that they have a good church family that they can be a part of. May they submit to their eldership and may they have elders that likewise shepherd the flock of God in a humble way and teach the word of Christ so that we may grow in sanctification.
Your word is truth. We pray and ask these things in Jesus name, amen. So, Daryl Harrison posted this thing. He says, this is what's being hustled right now on the program. Oh yeah, I saw that. Miracles do happen on the Impact Network.
And it's this, the hem of his. Garment. Hem of his garment. Yeah. Oh my goodness.
$175. Yeah, and in the picture, it doesn't look like just a hem, in my opinion.
I could be wrong. It's an anointed prayer shawl. Right. With blessed water and blessed soap. But what's cracking me up is the picture of this woman here.
Okay, she looks terrified.
Well, you get what the story is, right? No. So it's the woman that reaches out and touches the hem of Jesus' garment. Yeah. So Michelle Leslie said, I'd feel a lot more blessed to keep my $175. And then I added, that's the healthiest, most Caucasian Middle Eastern woman who's been bleeding for 12 years I've ever seen.
That's true. Oh, that is just disturbing. Did you see the DM I just sent you? Let's see. It takes a minute. Yes, I did. I saw that, but I didn't get the chance to watch it. Oh, you have to watch it. Denny Burks.
It takes a little bit. It's a little bit. I can imagine what this is gonna be like. Oh, it's good fun. It's awesome. Rocky to punch out sound effects.