WWUTT 1380 Q&A Unlocking Church Lockdowns, Removing Divisive Men, Jesus On Evolution

Opening Questions on Church Closures, Divisive Men, and Evolution

How long must a church obey the government and stay closed before just going ahead and opening again? How do you deal with a factious man in your church who is not a member? And how would Jesus have answered a question about evolution?

The answer is when we understand the text.

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

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky, who is not really with me. I'm doing this by myself today. Even after all those wonderful comments that we got all week long from folks telling us how much better the show sounds on Friday when Becky is here.

She had an elders wives meeting on Thursday about the time we usually get together to record this program, so I've had to do it myself. Hopefully she'll be back on next week, but we might have to record earlier if we're going to get if we're going to get the program done for next week.

One week from today is our move day. Yes, we're moving again, but into a more permanent place of residence. We've been in kind of a borrowed place for the last few months since moving from Kansas down to Texas, waiting for our house in Kansas to sell, finding a place here in Texas.

The market has been pretty challenging here in Lindale, but we believe the Lord has led us to a good place, and we finish up on all the contract stuff on Friday. We'll move a few things in on Friday, but the big move then will be on Saturday, and all our friends get to help us move again.

We've had such wonderful friends who have taken good care of us here at First Baptist in Lindale, and we also want to thank Timberline Baptist Camp for giving us a place to stay. We've been staying in a house on the campground during this in-between period, so if you're ever looking for a good camp in East Texas to gather a big group of people together and have some fun, I highly encourage you to check out Timberline Baptist Camp.

Friday is the day that we take questions from the listeners, and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. I believe I have a question here from somebody in Texas. That's in the in the questions that I have to respond to today.

This first one comes from Brandy. She says, Pastor Gabe, I'm trying to purchase a book from your website for a friend, but the links say that there is an internal server error. The only link that appears to be working is for the book 40 of the Most Popular Bible Verses.

The other books give me the error message. Well, thanks for drawing that to my attention, Brandy. I'm actually in the process of moving my books off of Amazon, and all of them are going to be self-published through Lulu, so it could be that my web guy just went ahead and took those off my website for me since I'm gonna be making that transition.

It's gonna take a little while because I have to reformat the books, but I didn't want to share my earnings with Amazon anymore, and plus Amazon is, you've probably heard the stories, they've just become incredibly untrustworthy.

At any point, Amazon could decide we're not gonna let you sell this Christian book on our website anymore, and they'll yank it off, and then I'm gonna end up in that position where I'd have to move everything over anyway.

So, I'm making that move right now, and I'm saying April at the earliest, I'll have all that back up again. If you give me your name and address, I'll send you a book, Brandy, and appreciate your patience there.

This next question comes from David. We're going up to Canada for this one. He says, hello, Pastor Gabe and team. I don't have a big team. A few people helped me out, but yeah, anyway, my family and I really enjoy your videos and podcasts and posts.

Thank you for your commitment to the truth and understanding the text. I have heard some of your various sources regarding churches being open. There's different people in different spots, kind of have different accounts on whether their churches are open or closed.

David goes on and says, with us in Canada and in specific provinces, there are restrictions and limitations on the number that can gather in a church building. Some places in the U .S. are like that, too.

Some people say this is not being restricted fully, and thus, the church being singled out for persecution is not really evident. The government has not stopped church and has not prevented the preaching of the word.

Simply put, the government has modified the allowable numbers that can gather at any one time, but did not totally prevent a worship service from happening or gathering of believers from meeting. Questions.

Is there an argument to open up to full attendance over the limited numbers allowed? Is there any validity in churches respecting governing authorities and managing services within the rules? And he puts respecting and rules in quotation marks.

I get that. Thank you for any insight or direction that you can point me towards. Well, I would tell you to talk with your elders about this because you're going to have different. Like I said, there's different things going on in different places.

I don't know what the rules are like where you are. So talk to them and make sure that or encourage them, if they're not already doing this, to have good communication with the congregation so that everybody knows what everyone is thinking, what the plan is, stuff like that.

The church may have a better plan than the government has. Don't wait for the government to come up with a good plan. I'd also tell you to listen to my podcast episodes from 356 to or I'm sorry, 1356 to 1360.

Those five episodes, with the exception of the Proverbs episode in the middle there. But but those episodes during that week were all pertaining to Romans chapter 13 verses one through seven. So you might you'll get a little bit more biblical context on some of the things that I talked about there.

Is there let me come back to your questions here. Is there an argument to open up to full attendance over the limited numbers allowed? Well, sure. I mean, you can you can go with the apostles in Acts chapter five and say, we must obey God rather than men.

And your conviction is we have to go to church. Doesn't matter whether the government wants to limit our size or how long we can gather or whether we can sing or not. God has said we must gather. And so that's what we're going to do.

So, yeah, there is a biblical argument for that. Your second question is, is there any validity in churches respecting governing authorities and managing services within the rules? And of course, you're asking that question in the context of what's going on with COVID.

Well, there might be there might be some wisdom in listening to your local authorities and doing what they ask you to do for a time. But you're going to have to determine your elders deciding this, talking it over with the church.

You're going to have to decide how long you're going to do that. At some point, you got to realize nothing's going to change here and we need to gather as a church. And so that's what you do. If it means that some people are going to get sick, well, so be it.

And if it means that that you could get arrested or fined, well, you're going to have to face that as well. You're certainly going to be ridiculed by people around you in your community. They're going to try to shame you for gathering together as a church.

They'll say that you're killing people. You don't love your neighbor, so on and so forth. But we must obey God rather than man and fear the Lord and not man. I would also encourage you, David, to check out the statement that was put out by Grace Life Church in Edmonton.

You can go to GraceLife .ca and their public statement will pop right up when you go to their website. Their pastor was just recently arrested because they were having church services. So consider some of the things that they have gone through, discussions they've had, what their research has uncovered, and they even share the gospel in that particular statement.

I hope that because of the courage and the stand this church has taken, there are many that will come to faith in Christ. You know, you mentioned, David, that what's going on does not look like to most people that the church is being persecuted, but it is.

The persecution of the church will never look like persecution to those who are worldly minded. It will look like, well, these people are causing problems and we must do something about it. Like they'll call you bigots.

They'll call you hateful. They'll call you child abusers. They will say you're abusing other people. You're a risk. You're a liability to other folks. Don't you know that there's a pandemic going on? That's the way that they're going to address this.

They're not going to see the closure of the church as persecution. They're going to see it as doing a community good. But no matter what happens when persecution comes against the church, those who are worldly will never see that as persecution.

Remember what our Lord said in John 15 verses 18 and 19. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were in the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you.

You know, one idea that you might consider, folks, is that you go to church in a place that's not your church. You don't gather in your church building. If you live in an area where there's all these restrictions and lockdowns, well, don't go to the building that's marked because the officials know to look there.

Go to another location and meet there as a church. That's just an idea. If that's available to you, we definitely need to be out there sharing the gospel with others. That still needs to happen. That's something else that our Lord has commanded us to do that we must go and do.

Make disciples. Go out and share the gospel with a lost and dying world. There are people dying of all kinds of things. There are more things killing people than COVID right now. Souls that are going to hell because they have not turned from sin and believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So the lockdowns and the COVID restrictions, all this stuff cannot prevent us from going out with the gospel. We must do that also. And that is more loving to your neighbor than you wearing a mask or staying home.

It's not farfetched to believe that in the not too distant future, missionaries are going to have to start ignoring travel restrictions to do what they need to do in order to get to other countries to share the gospel.

Governments cannot keep us from obeying that great commission and sharing the gospel with all nations, making disciples, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do all that Christ has commanded.

Remember the last words that we have at the end of the book of Matthew, chapter 28, verse 20, Jesus saying to us, lo, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. We might be entering into those places again, especially us in a Western culture who have enjoyed the freedom of religion.

We might need to come to terms with the fact that we're going to have to be going against what governments place as far as restrictions go in order to get into other parts of the world to share the gospel with folks.

Church Discipline and Divisive Outsiders

Let's get to our next question here. We're traveling back south again to Texas. Pastor Gabe, I am so glad that you have brought the what ministry to Texas. I pray that it is as much a blessing to your church as it has been for me the past three years that I've been listening.

That's awesome to hear. Thank you for your faithfulness to the text. I attend a small church in a small town, so I would appreciate, he says this in parentheses, so I would appreciate it if you not mention the town I live in.

Recently, a very contentious man started attending our church. He is not a member, nor does he live in our community. He's from another town, but he has been coming here and attending the different Bible studies and prayer meetings, and he argues about everything.

I think I've I think I know this guy. I'm sure I don't have to say how distracting this is. It also makes every meeting last longer. I recently approached the pastor about this, and he said that I needed to follow Matthew 18 and confront the man one on one.

I told the pastor I have done this, and on more than one occasion, the pastor said that there needs to be two or more witnesses, and the matter needs to be brought before the church respectfully. I told the pastor, I don't agree.

This man is not a committed member. As far as our church is concerned, he's an outsider who has come in and is sowing division. I see this being more of a Titus three situation where, after warning a divisive man once and then twice, you have nothing more to do with him.

I'm writing to ask and make sure that I have this right. Do we need to follow all the steps of church discipline with a man who is not actually a member of our church, or can we just ask him to leave?

Of course, I don't have the authority to ask this man not to return, but surely the pastor does. Thank you for your help, Lance. Well, Lance, let's look at these two sections here, the one that your pastor mentioned in Matthew 18 regarding church discipline, and then we'll look at the other one that you mentioned too in Titus chapter three.

Here's Matthew 18, starting in verse 15, our Lord speaking to his disciples, Jesus said, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Okay, that's Matthew 18, 15 through 17. Now here's Titus three, starting in verse 10.

As for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful, he is self condemned. So we have in Matthew 18, the church discipline that is given to us there, what the Lord tells us to do when it comes to confronting a brother who has faulted us.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. What we have there is a four-step process. You approach this man one-on-one, then you take two or three witnesses along, that's step two.

Then if he doesn't listen to them, tell it to the church, that's step three. If he doesn't listen to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector, that's step four. So that's a four-step process.

And everything there seems to indicate that we're talking about something that happens within a particular body of believers. This is not how we're dealing with disagreements with outsiders. These are people who are committed to loving one another and are growing in the Lord.

If you have a brother in your church who sins against you or a sister, you've got the disagreement between Iodia and Syntyche that's talked about in Philippians chapter four. Anyway, so brother or sister sins against you in the Lord, you go to him or her one-on-one, you confront the matter.

And if he repents, then that's it. There's no reason to have to involve more people in that. But what you've got going on here is not something that is a sin that one person has done against you. This is a man who's sowing discord.

He's causing division. It's very public. It's happening in all kinds of groups. So this is not going to be a one-on-one confrontation. Since the problem that he's causing is in front of a whole lot of people, I think that you have this right, that you're thinking of this in terms of a person who stirs up division as talked about in Titus 310.

You've warned him. You should take a few others along with you. If you've not done that step yet, I would still say you should do that. Like your pastor is probably giving you a good recommendation there.

Take one or two others along that every charge may be established by two or three witnesses. You're warning him a second time and saying, stop doing this. And if he continues to do it, then you go to the pastor together.

Now, you didn't mention elders. I'm assuming maybe your church is not plurality eldership, but you certainly have your pastor that you can go to and you can say to him, this guy's been warned. He's still sowing discord.

He's causing problems for a lot of people. They may not want to speak up about this, but we are. This guy needs to be removed. And if the pastor there is a good shepherd and he wants to protect the sheep, that he's going to ask that guy to leave.

This is not a church congregation decision because he's not a member of that church. This is a matter of protecting the flock from the wolves. So get that guy out of there. He is warped and sinful and self-condemned.

And as a pastor, I have done this before. I have had to ask contentious people who were not members of my church. I've had to ask them to leave. Now, I'm part of a plurality eldership, so I don't do that on my own.

We're going to talk about that together as pastors as to what needs to be done. So if you have more than one pastor approach another elder or another pastor or something like that, but if it's just the one guy because you said that you have a small church, then handle all of these things respectfully.

Don't try to take matters into your own hands or go over the pastor's head or stuff like that. But but yeah, this is not a Matthew 18 process. This is a Titus three, 10 and 11 process, which is a three step process.

I mentioned that that church discipline is a four step process. Titus three is a three step process. We're going back up to Canada again for this question from Henry. He says, Hello, Gabe, was Jesus all knowing while he was in the flesh?

Ken Ham and William Lane Craig had a bit of a disagreement on this topic, and I would be curious to know what you thought. And then Henry gives me a series of links to be able to track the discussion.

Jesus’ Knowledge, Creation, and the Limits of Evolutionary Speculation

Most of this was going on in January. It started out as a creation debate. William Lane Craig, the philosopher and debater, I believe that he's a theistic evolutionist and Ken Ham, of course, the the founder of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter.

He's a young earth creationist. And so it started out as a creation debate. But then William Lane Craig made a statement about Jesus having not known anything about evolution during his earthly ministry 2000 years ago.

So if you were to ask him what his opinion was or whether evolution really happened, he would have said, what are you talking about? Because he doesn't know what evolution is. I'm going to go ahead and play the clip here.

I don't want to go through the whole discussion because it would take a really long time. So just focusing on this one part. This was a conversation in a podcast between Dr. Josh Swamadas, who is the author of the genealogical Adam and Eve, the surprising science of universal ancestry.

If I get the gist of the book, he says that there was not only Adam and Eve in the beginning. We're all descended from Adam and Eve, but there were other people around at that time as well. Anyway, that's kind of beside the point.

But he was talking here with Dr. William Lane Craig when they got to this question. He presented some hypothetical questions at the end of the episode. Listen in. If you were to guess.

So this is a guess. OK, there's no theology hanging on this. OK, and in some sort of this, we're asking you to confess your personal beliefs. This is just a wild guess.

OK, I could have prefaced this by saying this is Dr. Joshua Swamadas, who's talking here, and he's asking Dr. William Lane Craig a question. But notice the way that he starts the question. He says that there's no theology attached to this, but he's about to ask a question about Jesus.

So how is there no theology attached to it? If you're opening your mouth and talking about God, you're being theological. And he's also saying you're taking a wild guess, but you're not going to be exposing your beliefs here.

Well, yeah, you are, because if you're taking a wild guess, you're going to be expressing a belief about God, apparently, since this question has to do with Jesus. Anyway, let's continue on.

It's a playful question. If you were to get a time machine and be able to travel back to Jesus in Jerusalem and ask him, is evolution true or not?

What do you think he would say? Oh, I feel quite certain he would say, what do you mean?

Explain it to me. I've never heard of it. Now, I know the audio quality on their program is not as good as it is on mine. So in case you couldn't tell what they were saying there, Dr. Swamadoss said, let's say you could get in a time machine.

You could go back to first century Jerusalem and you could ask Jesus, Darwinian evolution, is it true or not? And Dr. Craig's response is, well, Jesus would say, I've never heard of it. What are you talking about?

So he's saying that Jesus had limited knowledge in his humanity. He could not have seen 1800 years into the future and known what Darwinian evolution is. Now, there's another way that I want to go about answering this question, which I'll do here in just a moment.

Let me finish with this clip.

And then you would have to lay out for him the theory. We must not think of the incarnation as Superman disguised as Clark Kent.

So this gets back to some of Andrew Locke's stuff in the cryptic incarnation that Jesus actually laid aside some things. He laid aside some things when he became a human amongst us.

Yes, that's right. And there's no reason to think that Jesus would have been able to answer questions. So you explain it to him. Let's take the thought experiment further. You explain it to him. What do you think he would say then?

Oh, well, I hope he would say, well, I guess I don't see any conflict between that and what Moses teaches in Genesis.

Okay. So here's another question then. Let's say we get to heaven. We see him now. We're not going back in time. We're going forward in time before me, Bill. And you'll probably know before many of us watching.

So you can kind of give us like what your bet is on this. So we find out together. You ask Jesus, you know, is evolution true? Like, did you make things through a process of providentially governed common descent?

What do you think he'll say?

I'm not sure he would be committed to common descent past the Cambrian explosion. But I think that he would say that a great, great deal of the biological life forms that we observe today are related by common descent.

What about human common descent? Do we share common ancestors with the great apes? What do you think he would say? Of course, this is all highly speculative, right? We don't know.

See, when you say, what would Jesus say? What you're really asking is, what does the evidence indicate? Because that's what we're trying to surmise.

See, I think he would do something different. I think he would answer kind of like when people ask him about taxes. I think that we would come to him with one answer and he would know the answer. But he'd be like, hey, that wasn't the most important thing to me.

Oh, well, now you're being clever, Josh.

I mean, Jesus was clever. I'm trying to say he would give a clever answer.

Okay, yeah. And yeah, he could be clever like that and evasive. But I think what the questioner wants to know is, what really is the truth about these matters? And I suspect the truth is someplace close to what I suggest in this book about human origins.

Well, you know, there you have it.

I hope you don't mind me saying so. But I just found that entire discussion to be completely ridiculous. And now you understand why I didn't subject you to the entire podcast. But just the question at the end.

These are two guys who are doctors. They're doctors. Now, granted, one has a doctorate in biology and the other one has a doctorate in philosophy. But still, they should know what theology is. And yet they started that by saying there's no theology attached to this.

And I'm not telling you to share your beliefs. Yeah, all of that was theology. And that was both of them sharing their beliefs. It was kind of a ridiculous setup. And then the answer was even more foolish.

Two guys who are theistic Darwinian evolutionists trying to say that Jesus response or even God's answer from heaven would somehow be that we're related to great apes. Neither one of them even went to the scriptures on this.

We can read plainly that the creation story is incompatible with Darwinian evolution. Genesis 124. And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.

And it was so. This animal did not eventually turn into this animal over millions and millions of years over this long span of time. God created each creature according to its kind. And then in verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Mankind did not evolve from those things that he was going to have dominion over. He was created in the image and the likeness of God. So pardon me if I just find this whole discussion to be greatly absurd.

Now, going back to Henry's question, he says, was Jesus all knowing while he was in the flesh? Let me answer that question first, and then I'm going to tell you what Jesus would have said to Dr. Swamidass's question the way that he first presented it to Dr. Craig.

So Henry's question was Jesus all knowing. Well, we know there were things that Jesus set aside when he put on flesh and dwelt among us. We have it said in Philippians chapter two, beginning in verse six, though he was in the form of God, he 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 we know that Jesus suffered and he died. God doesn't suffer and die, but God incarnate in the flesh, giving his life as a ransom for many.

He willingly lays down his life and he suffers and dies. So there are certain things that Christ set aside when he became incarnate, including certain knowledge. So you consider what Jesus said to his disciples about the end in Matthew chapter 24.

In verse 36, he says concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the son, but the father only. Now, we should not think of this as Jesus was not omniscient because he didn't cease to be omniscient.

He just set it aside. We read in Luke chapter two, verse 52, that in growing from a boy to a man, Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. So as Jesus grew up, he learned things.

I hope that kind of helps you or gives you an answer to the question. Was Jesus all knowing while he was in the flesh? The answer can be yes, but we know that there was knowledge that Jesus set aside, submitting to the will of the father, because that's what scripture tells us.

On that note, I want to come back to this question that Dr. Suamidas asked of Dr. Craig. He said, if you got into a time machine, you went back into the first century, Jerusalem, you went up to Jesus and you asked him, did creation come about through Darwinian evolutionary processes?

What would Jesus answer be? Dr. Craig said that Jesus would say, well, what are you talking about? I don't even know what evolution is. I believe I know exactly how Jesus would answer that question. And I get this from the scriptures inspired by Jesus response to the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 19.

Here's how Jesus would answer Dr. Craig. Have you not read that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God called the light day and the darkness, he called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day.

Have you not read? And then Jesus may also take him through the second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth day reminding Dr. Craig that the scripture says God created the world and the universe and all that is in it in six days.

And on the seventh, he rested. That's how Jesus would answer that question. God bless you guys. Let us pray. Heavenly father, we thank you so much for your goodness and your patience with us for we are all ignorant fools compared to the infinite knowledge of God.

And as we grow, as we mature and learn in our faith, may we be patient with one another. We're helping to build each other up in the knowledge of God that is given to us in the scriptures, as we have considered and read this week from Romans chapter 14 and chapter 15, verse one, we who are strong, have an obligation to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourselves, but to please our neighbor for his good to build him up.

And so let us look for those ways that we may grow one another in this faith. For there were other brothers and sisters in the Lord that helped to help to bring us to an understanding of the truths that we behold and hold fast to help us to do this together as a church.

We need one another to grow in sanctification, in the love of God, in the knowledge of your word and how difficult that is for us when we are separated for a long period of time. So I pray for those churches that are not able to meet right now.

You give wisdom to those elders and know how and knowing how to respond to the various situations in which they might be in. But but give wisdom to those elders to know we can't stay apart for too long.

At some point, we're going to have to say we are going to obey God rather than men. And we do, as the Lord Christ has called us to to assemble as the church to worship our God, our Savior Christ, who put on flesh and dwelt among us, who gave his life, dying on the cross for our sins, rising again from the grave on the third day, ascending into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the Father and is returning again to judge the living and the dead.

Make us to live upright and godly lives in this present age until we see our Lord face to face. And it's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.