WWUTT 2605 Q&A Yoked with Unbelievers, Spirit or Conscience, Conspiracy Theories

If you know a Christian in a relationship with an unbeliever, is that a matter for church discipline? That voice you heard in your head, was that your conscience or the Holy Spirit? And what do we do when conspiracy theories come in the church?

The answer is when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary in the Word of God, that we may be conformed to the image of Christ. Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky.

You're welcome.

I'm going to come back to Acts chapter 8. We've been in Acts 8 last week and this week. This was where Philip and Peter encountered a man by the name of Simon Magus, or Simon the Magician. There was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.

They all paid attention to him from the least to the greatest, saying, this man is the power of God that is called great. And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

But when they believed Philip, as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Even Simon himself believed. And after being baptized, he continued with Philip.

And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed. Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

For he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.

But Peter said to him, may your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God.

Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.

And Simon answered, pray for me to the Lord that nothing of what you have said may come upon me. Babe, have you heard of simony before? Do you know what simony is?

No.

Simony is the crime or the sin of buying or selling sacred offices, sacraments or ordinances, spiritual powers or other kinds of holy things.

Interesting.

And that expression simony comes from this story right here in Acts chapter 8.

Oh, neat.

Because of Simon the magician who tried to buy the ability to grant the Holy Spirit to others.

What a thing to be known for.

Yeah, right.

Now he's marked in history by this word, simony, this sin. So I mentioned that on the podcast this week that there were some Greek Orthodox churches that have been exposed on social media lately for charging people for baptism.

And it could be anywhere from like 250 bucks to $2 ,000 that I've seen in some places. And the Eastern Orthodox, which include like Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.

I mean, do they have to pump the water or something?

They put gold flakes in it, you know, get a little bit of silver in there or something.

Oh, boy.

They also teach that you have to be baptized to be safe.

Of course they do.

So salvation is by baptism. Yes, if you haven't been baptized, you're not safe. So they are selling salvation for exorbitant amounts of money. Now, some people, some who were Eastern Orthodox were pushing back on this and were saying that, no, no, no, this is for special occasions, which are not really helping your case.

No, not really at all.

You're still charging for baptism.

Because it's a big party, like they have the decorations to pay for and the food and everything. I mean, like what, why?

Right.

I'm so confused.

Yeah, like robes.

Yeah.

But you're also paying the personnel. So the person that's going to be there to baptize you gets paid.

Okay.

And so the Eastern Orthodox have been pushing back on, or the ortho bros, as they're called on social media.

Okay.

Not terribly kind guys on top of this. But anyway, they've been pushing back on it saying that, you know, this is a special occasion sort of a thing, and you have to pay for these special occasions. This is after hours.

This is after their regular hours. So you got to pay them for this. Well, they think that's a gotcha. But I've done baptisms that were not part of the regular Sunday morning service.

Right.

And I've never charged anybody for that.

Yep.

You don't charge for that. That's just the regular duties that I have as a pastor. And it doesn't matter if it's on Sunday morning or any other time. If we have a baptism service, you don't have to pay me extra for that.

That is just our service. So anyway, one person that I had encountered over this who was Orthodox, I had asked him, like, show me on any of these websites where it says that this is only for special occasions, and it's not what it would cost you anyway, no matter what the baptism, no matter when it was, whether it was during a Sunday morning worship or Sunday evening or during the week, and he would not respond to my request.

Ah.

So as far as I can tell, this is just what it costs you in an Eastern Orthodox Church. To get baptized, it's going to cost you money. So that was the example that I gave regarding Simoni. But the reason why I picked this up is because there was another one that I came across that's a good example of Simoni.

Okay.

So I'm about to do a video on this. There is this tech company that is called Just Like Me.

Okay.

And they have created an AI Jesus. So you can talk to this AI Jesus and pray with him, pray with it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Pray to it.

Yes.

I mean, just your usual AI opinion generator. Whatever you put into the AI, it's going to spit back out at you based on algorithms, your preferences, so on and so forth.

Right.

Right.

They've just done this.

To make you happy.

With a Jesus. Right.

Right.

They've created an AI Jesus that you can pray with. It'll remember your conversations with it. It can even speak multiple different languages.

Okay.

Okay.

Your communication with this AI Jesus costs $1 .99.

Oh, dear.

Per minute.

Whoa, what?

Yes.

$1 .99 per minute.

What?

Furthermore, they have modeled this AI Jesus after Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in The Chosen.

Of course they did.

Now, here's my question, and I don't know if this is the case or not. I've not been able to find any answers to this. Did Jonathan Rumi give this tech company permission to use his likeness for their AI Jesus?

Good question.

Or maybe Dallas Jenkins, who's the creator of The Chosen. Did he give them permission to use Rumi's likeness? I would imagine he probably owns Rumi's likeness to a certain degree.

Possibly.

They use it in the animated version of The Chosen, which is on Amazon Prime.

Okay.

So you have the animated Jonathan Rumi on there.

Okay.

So to some degree, he possesses Jonathan Rumi's identity.

Yeah.

His appearance, right? So did they give permission to this tech company to create this AI Jesus after Jonathan Rumi? In which case, what a horrible thing to do. Because people are going to be looking at Jonathan Rumi and thinking that they're praying to Jesus through this AI program, furthermore paying $1 .99 per minute to do it.

Per minute.

Like the whole thing is so extremely crooked. Do they get... Would Rumi get a kickback off of this? Does he get a royalty?

That's what I was wondering. I don't know. That's crazy. Per minute. I just can't get over that.

Per minute.

Yeah.

So that's Simony selling prayers for $1 .99 per minute. That's just for the...

Yeah.

I mean, who makes that much?

Who makes $1 .99?

Yeah.

If you imagine thousands of people praying to this thing at the same time and paying $1 .99 per minute. Now, you wouldn't be praying to God. You're talking to an AI.

Right.

It's fake. It's an idol. You're talking... And furthermore, the tech company is called Just Like Me. So what's the Jesus that you're getting from this tech company?

Just Like Me.

It's a Jesus that's just like me.

Yeah.

Oh, my.

Something that is programmed according to an algorithm that responds to your preferences. And somebody is going to be thinking that they're praying to Jesus when they talk to this thing. Unbelievable.

It's incredible.

That is crazy.

That is one of the most remarkable instances, I think, of Simony that I've ever seen. And shame on everybody that is involved in this. You know, AI can be a very useful tool. And I've used it for a few things, just asking questions here and there.

I find it more effective than using search engines anymore.

Yeah.

Not always accurate. Sometimes it contradicts itself.

Yeah.

But for the most part.

It definitely does. Yeah.

For the most part.

Yeah.

It's a lot faster. That's for sure.

I have had some mixed results on certain things. But I still feel like the results that I get are better than a search engine.

Oh, yes.

I was getting exasperated with Google anyway. Plus, Google is using their... What is it? Chat GPT?

That's Google? I don't know.

When you search anything, it's automatically going to spit out a chat GPT answer at you.

Yeah.

Every time.

Or OpenAI. I can't remember what it is. What is the one that... It says AI overview right here when I look at it. But it doesn't say which AI it is.

Anyway.

So, you can tell how much I keep up with all of this. I don't remember whose AI is what.

Obviously, I'm in the loop, too.

I know Grok is X.

Yeah.

I remember that one. OpenAI, I think, is its own thing. There's chat GPT. What was the other one? Oh, Claude.

Oh, there's a whole bunch of them.

I know there's a lot. I know there's a bunch of them. Zachary and I have been using one for generating music tracks. And we've been playing with that. Just for fun. I haven't used it in anything. So, if you've watched a What video and you heard a music track, oh, I wonder if that's what Gabe's been generating now.

I haven't used it. I don't really like the quality of it.

Yeah.

But it gives me ideas...

Right.

...for other projects that I'm working on. But anyway, all right. So, this is the Friday edition of the broadcast, and we take questions from the listeners. And you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

I'm mostly responding to emails today. But you can also send us a voicemail by going to speakpipe .com. Slash wwutt.

Speakpipe.

Speakpipe. That's the service we've been using for voicemails.

That's so fun.

Yeah.

I like that.

Well, it's the same one we've been using. So, what is it? It's been over a year now, I think.

But I never knew that it was Speakpipe.

Yeah, it was called Speakpipe.

You always, like, say, click on this link.

Well, yeah, because I was sending people to the website.

Right.

But I still don't have the website done.

Oh, man.

So, I may as well just tell you, it's speakpipe .com slash wwutt.

There you go.

Remember, our friend Sonia sent us our first ever voicemail. Do you remember that?

Yes.

Because we were testing it. And so, we said, hey, Sonia, call us and ask a question. So, I can see that this works.

That was awesome.

So, I got a voicemail I'm going to get to in a moment. This first question comes from David. And he says, hi. To get right to it. He's getting right to the question.

Perfect.

Do you think that it rises to the level of church discipline for a church member to actively pursue a dating relationship with a non-believer? Have you ever had to deal with this? Hope to get some insight. Thanks.

Okay.

So, it depends. Is your first confrontation with this person, would that count as church discipline? You're certainly following the instructions that Jesus gave in Matthew 18, verses 15 to 17. So, there in Matthew 18 is where Jesus says how discipline is to be handled in the church.

Verse 15 is, if your brother sins against you, go and approach your brother just between the two of you and show him his fault. And if he listens to you, then you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, you bring two or three others along that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he does not listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he does not listen to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector. Essentially, he's an outsider or an unbeliever at that point.

So, you should approach this person who is in a relationship with a person who's not a Christian. And you should have that one-on-one chat about that. So, would you consider that to be the first step of church discipline?

In which case, yes. Church discipline should be administered in such a situation. You are already going and talking to the person. You are exercising that first step because you know what they're doing is sin.

It is contrary to what Scripture says. The Apostle Paul said, do not be yoked with unbelievers. And so, Scripture is very explicit there. Now, that doesn't say don't get into a relationship with an unbeliever.

That could be a general instruction even with regarding friendship. But it would most especially apply with somebody who's in a romantic relationship with somebody else. Something that would, of course, lead toward marriage.

Right.

A believer should not be marrying an unbeliever.

Okay?

So, that's sin. That's going deliberately against what Scripture says. So, you would be confronting that brother or sister in the Lord and saying, it's wrong for you to be in a relationship with an unbeliever.

And I encourage you to break this off. And don't make it the sort of thing either where it's like you go to the significant other and then say, you either have to be a Christian or we have to break up.

I mean, no, you need to break up.

Yeah.

Because now at that point, how do you know that they truly believe in Christ?

It was legit.

Yeah.

Or they're just doing it because, oh, well, I still want to be in this relationship. So, no, the relationship needs to come to an end. Now, if that person doesn't break the relationship off, then a good idea for you would be to find two or three other friends that really care for this person.

And now several of you have something of like an intervention where you're confronting that person and saying, this is serious and we're concerned for you. That person is going to cause you to stumble.

You need to break off this relationship. And if they still won't listen to you, then you bring it maybe to a pastor, the elders, whatever bringing it to the church would look like for you, then that's probably the next step.

And so when you're asking, does this rise to the level of church discipline? You might be talking about that third step.

Yeah.

You get through the first and the second first. And then if that doesn't go anywhere, what church is this person a part of? In which case, bring it before that body and say, yeah, this is a serious matter concerning our brother or sister in Christ who is being united with somebody who's not a brother or sister in Christ.

And so we would hope and desire that they would listen to reason. They would be convicted from their heart and they would break off the relationship.

Yeah.

And if they don't, then they've really chosen to be yoked to somebody who is of the world rather than of Christ. Somebody who is of Satan rather than of God. And so you would have to turn them over to that.

If that's what you're choosing, if that's where you're deciding to plant your feet, put your heart, then we're going to turn you over to that.

That always makes me think of Lot's wife.

Oh, yeah.

How she always, you know, like she looked back and longing for.

She longed for Sodom, even though it was going up in fire. And she looked back and turned into a pillar of salt.

You had to let them go.

Yeah.

And Jesus said to his disciples, remember Lot's wife.

Yeah. So.

Yeah, definitely.

Do not long for this world, which is coming to destruction, but rather be longing for the things of God and for the kingdom of God. This also goes against what said in Matthew 633. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Amen.

If you are yoking yourself with an unbeliever, then you are not seeking first the kingdom of God or the righteousness of Christ. You would rather be yoked with somebody who's still walking in unrighteousness and is part of this world that is coming to destruction.

So it is a serious thing. And, you know, David, you had asked if I've ever been in this position before. Well, I have had somebody ask me to marry them to someone who is an unbeliever, in which case I turned them down.

Yeah.

I said, no, I don't believe that you should be in this relationship with this other person and I'm not going to marry you. They end up leaving the church.

Yeah.

And they go to somebody else. They're going to look for somebody else who's going to marry us.

Right.

To this day, I don't know what ended up happening to them, but I know that I refused to play any part in that. There were occasions before that, though, that I did marry unbelievers and I regret that.

I was young. I felt like I was fulfilling a promise that was made by the previous pastor. But then looking back on it, I was like, I shouldn't have had anything to do with that.

Yeah.

But anyway, yeah, live and learn.

And then advise others.

And then advise others not to make the same mistake.

Yeah.

Right.

But with regards to somebody who was in a relationship with an unbeliever, yeah, there's been plenty of times where I've made that confrontation with a friend, but I don't think we've ever had a situation.

In my 16 years as a pastor, I don't think it's ever gone as far as coming to that third step. Either the relationship did break off or the person just left.

Yeah.

Before it could get to that step in the discipline process. And it was like, well, you know, I'd rather have my sin than go through this drama.

Yeah.

So I'm just leaving. And that's usually the way that ends up happening.

Yeah.

It's heartbreaking when it does.

Yes.

But yeah, we should be encouraging our brothers and sisters in the Lord to be in a relationship with somebody who is of Christ.

Yes, definitely.

And as you've probably heard this sort of proverb regarding relationships with or, you know, finding a good relationship with somebody who is a Christian, look to Jesus. Run to Jesus as fast as you can.

Yes.

If you look next to you and there's somebody else that's running to Jesus as fast as they can, you say, hey, let's run together.

Yeah.

And now you've found a good Christ-centered relationship, a Christ-focused relationship that you can be a part of.

Amen.

All right. Let's go to our voicemail here. This is from Ken. And the question that he has has to do with the difference between conscience and the Holy Spirit.

Okay.

So here we go.

Good morning, Pastor Gabe. This is Kenneth Coleman from Barnum, Mississippi. I just had a question about our conscience versus the Holy Spirit. When I hear that voice in my head that says to go witness to a person, is that my conscience, the Holy Spirit?

What is that or who is that? Sometimes I obey it. Sometimes I don't. Maybe you can help me with this. What's the difference between the conscience and the Holy Spirit? Can you just talk about these things?

I love what y 'all do. Talk to y 'all later.

Bye.

That's a great question.

Oh, man, I can't tell you how many times I've thought of that myself. So, yes, great question.

Am I feeling a prompting of the Spirit or is it just my conscience?

Mm-hmm.

So earlier this week when we were in Acts 8, it was verse 29 where Philip has seen the Ethiopian eunuch and he's reading the scroll of Isaiah.

Okay.

And in verse 29, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot.

Mm-hmm.

Now, one of the things I pointed out with that was this wasn't Philip's conscience. It wasn't like some whispering voice in his head and then him attributing that to the Holy Spirit. Oh, that must be the Holy Spirit telling me to go join this chariot.

Right.

And when we see in the book of Acts the Holy Spirit saying something to somebody and especially that it's in quotes.

Yeah.

As it comes out in English.

That's a legit.

That's right. That is the Holy Spirit audibly saying to Philip, go over and join this chariot. And we'll see a couple of other occasions in Acts where the Holy Spirit audibly says something as well.

Mm-hmm.

So, just because you feel that desire to want to go share the gospel with somebody doesn't mean it's the Holy Spirit that's telling you to do it. In the sense that or to the extent that if you disobey that or you don't go do it, that you've somehow disobeyed the voice of God.

Mm-hmm.

Now, if you feel guilty in your conscience because you thought I should have gone and shared the gospel with that person, but I didn't and now I feel guilty about it. Well, that is a conviction that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Mm-hmm.

But it was because you didn't listen to your conscience, not because you didn't listen to the Holy Spirit. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Okay.

So, even scripture tells us that if we believe in our conscience that something is wrong and we do the wrong thing, then it's sin.

Yeah.

Okay. Right.

Because you've gone against what you believe to be the right thing and you did the wrong thing instead.

Mm-hmm.

It's sin. Whether or not the Bible explicitly says it's sin. You've gone against your conscience and you've sinned.

Mm-hmm.

But that's not the same as I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit and I did not obey it.

Correct.

That's not the same thing.

Okay.

I know that sounds a little confusing, but they're not the same. So, the conscience, even an unbeliever can have a conscience.

Mm-hmm.

And an unbeliever can be convicted by their conscience that may not even have anything to do with the Holy Spirit. You know, a pagan can know that it's wrong to murder your neighbor, but it's not the Holy Spirit telling them not to murder my neighbor.

True.

It could just simply be that this person who was made in the image of God has a certain moral compass that exists because we are creatures made by God.

Mm-hmm.

And that moral compass is at least tuned enough for that person that they know certain things are wrong.

Right.

Naturally, they're wrong. There are certain revelations that we can glean from nature to know what is right and what is wrong. Romans 1 talks about this. We're in Romans 1 .20. It says that God's eternal quality and divine nature are clearly seen in all that has been made so that men are without excuse.

So, you can see that there is a God through everything that has been made. There's a natural revelation through which we can know that God exists. So, likewise, there's also a natural revelation through which we can know there is a right and there is a wrong.

Mm-hmm.

As R .C. Sproul was famously asked one time, how do you convince a person that there is an objective right and wrong if they're a relativist, if they believe there is no truth and there is no right and wrong?

And R .C. Sproul said, steal his wallet.

I remember this one.

Yeah.

Yes.

And then he'll know, okay, okay, all right, all right, there is a right and there is a wrong.

Yeah.

So, through natural revelation really doesn't have anything to do with a conviction that comes from the Holy Spirit. Just naturally they can recognize there are standards that everybody must live by.

Yeah.

If we don't live by those standards, that would be wrong.

It's chaos.

Yeah, that's right. Everything would just delve into chaos. So, the conscience can be that internal moral awareness that everybody has. And we've talked about this from Romans 2 as well, verses 14 and 15, where it says that even Gentiles or non-Jews without the written law, the Jews had been given the law.

Mm-hmm.

The Gentiles did not have it, but even they can demonstrate in their lives that they recognize there are requirements that have been given to us. There is a law that has been written on our hearts with their conscience bearing witness against them whenever they do wrong.

So, it can accuse or excuse our actions is what Paul says there in Romans 2. So, that's talking about the fact that we all have a law that is written upon our hearts and that conscience will be the thing that will guide us to do the right thing or the wrong thing.

Mm-hmm.

Or as the old Disney Jiminy Cricket conscience.

Oh, yeah.

In Pinocchio, always let your conscience be your guide.

Yes.

Well, the conscience is not an infallible guide.

That's what I was going to say.

Yeah.

So, as long as it lines up with scripture, right?