WWUTT 1090 Q&A Black Friday, Chick-fil-A, Catechism, Together 2020, Plagiarism, Jonathan Cahn?

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00:00

What is Together 2020 and should your teen attend? How can a pastor avoid committing plagiarism?

00:08

And how can we warn others to avoid false teachers like Jonathan Cahn? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

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This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that we may be conformed in his image until the day he comes in glory.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. And once again, it's Pastor Gabe. Thank you,

00:39

Becky. You're welcome. So this is the day after Thanksgiving. Yes, it is, Black Friday.

00:45

Happy Black Friday, everybody. It's weird to wish somebody a black day. Happy Black Day.

00:51

It's kind of odd. I avoid Black Friday like the plague, like the black plague.

00:58

Yes, yes, you do. There was one time, one time I went out for Black Friday shopping.

01:04

Well, with the exception of that one time, we were driving through Kansas City on Black Friday. You remember that?

01:10

Yes, I do. We were coming back from visiting my family. So it was - I asked you over and over, are you sure this is okay?

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Are you sure? Sure, sure. So she actually wanted to brave the crowds. I sat in the car.

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But there was, this was like a dozen years ago. I had a friend that worked at Best Buy and got me into Best Buy 15 minutes before the doors open.

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So I just went to the DVD bin and grabbed a couple of things. I didn't have a lot of money at the time. So it wasn't like I could snag a

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TV. Right. What benefit was a washing machine to me at that time? Right. I got a few

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DVDs and then I went and stood in line waiting for the doors to open. And oh man, it was a madhouse.

01:51

Was it really? There were people lined up outside anyway. They had been sleeping in tents the night before.

01:56

Oh, wow. It really was like you see on the news or something like that. People falling over each other.

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There were people shoving past one another. Yes, it was. It was nutty. Okay, so the

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Black Fridays that I've been to, I don't get there at opening, but I get there,

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I don't know, within an hour of opening and it's dead. It's usually just dead. And then right as I'm checking out is when the customers start piling in.

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And so I don't know if there's like a rush in the beginning and then a lull and then in a rush again, you know, or what, but.

02:32

I think it depends on where you live too. Oh, yeah, I'm Kansas, so. Yeah, this was in Texas though.

02:38

This was in Dallas. Okay, so that makes a difference. Yeah. Yeah, more people. I think it is a.

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Less space. Yeah, I think it is a great irony though. I mean, speaking something about our

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American culture that we go from Thanksgiving day. Oh, yeah. To the. I'm gonna run you over with my car.

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Exactly, right. The maddest commercial shopping spree of the year is the very next day.

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We go from thanking the Lord our God to mowing each other down. And of course people don't, most people are not spending

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Thanksgiving thanking God. Right. Because the holiday has kind of lost that meaning.

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That is where the holiday comes from. Right, exactly. It is the pilgrims thanking God for everything that the

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Lord had provided for them. When the first pilgrims came over on the Mayflower, they read Psalm 100.

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When they saw land, they read Psalm 100 together. Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth.

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Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is

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God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

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Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name for the

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Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations.

04:01

Amen. You can make that your Thanksgiving Day Psalm. Yeah. Because that was. That's awesome. That was that first Psalm that was read when the first refugees came over to the

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United States trying to escape from religious persecution, looking for a place where they could serve their God and not fear the persecution of their government.

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That was how the United States was founded and the meaning behind the first Thanksgiving holiday as well.

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It's very cool. Yes. Very cool story. And of course, I saw that Founders Ministry, they had published an article on this just yesterday, but every day is a

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Thanksgiving Day for the Christian. Amen. So we do need to give thanks every single day. Thursday, that last

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Thursday in November is a great excuse to eat some turkey and stuffing and have a holiday and get together as a family.

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But for the believer, every day is a day to wake up and rejoice with Thanksgiving for all that God has done and has given to us.

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Amen. Now, if this was not the day after Thanksgiving, which of course we recorded this episode on Thanksgiving Day.

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Right. If this was any other day and not a holiday, I would have liked to have had some

05:14

Chick -fil -A. Ah, yeah. But we couldn't get it on Thursday. They would have been closed. Yeah. But we have some Chick -fil -A with us and we're eating our

05:20

Chick -fil -A and saying, hey, even though Chick -fil -A threw all of their conservative friends and Christians under the bus, we're still eating our

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Chick -fil -A sandwiches. Yes. Under the bus and rolled over in my chair.

05:33

Yep, that's the truth. Folks, everything that you've heard about Chick -fil -A having abandoned their

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Christian and family values is true. Like there's some that are saying, hey, we need to not be quick to judge.

05:46

We need to be slow. We need to assess these things. No, they really have abandoned their Christian values. They are supporting pro -gay, pro -abortion organizations now and all the things that they stood for, even though the

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LGBTQ lobby was attempting to bully Chick -fil -A into submission, they caved. Yeah.

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I know that the Cathy family is still coming out trying to say, no, we're still faithful to our

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Christian values. And on the Cathy family's part, that may be true, but Chick -fil -A as an organization is not.

06:16

Right. They did absolutely cave to the culture. That's sad. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm gonna stop eating

06:22

Chick -fil -A. I'm not in favor of a boycott here, because quite frankly, any other restaurant that I eat at probably does the same as Chick -fil -A with their money or worse.

06:31

Or worse, yeah, that's what I was thinking. When I'm looking for a good chicken sandwich. Yeah. I can still go to Chick -fil -A.

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The sweet tea is gonna be that less sweet. It's still a good chicken sandwich.

06:44

Yeah. I bring that up, not just to make a statement about Chick -fil -A.

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We have received a few emails about it. Oh, have we? I didn't pull anything up, but a couple of people had asked, hey, what's your take on Chick -fil -A?

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Should we be boycotting Chick -fil -A? Gotcha. I don't really know what that would accomplish. Yeah.

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I do think though, that if you would write them - Well, obviously it accomplished something with all of those people, and then they cave in, or they were, they caved.

07:10

I think that was more of a PR kind of a thing. Yeah. Because the LGBTQ folks, they were not hurting

07:18

Chick -fil -A. See, Chick -fil -A caved when they didn't have to. Yeah. They are still one of the leading restaurants in the

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US. I think there was a report that came out earlier this year, too, that said it is the most successful fast food chain.

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I think their capital that they have coming in is even greater than McDonald's.

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Yeah. Even though McDonald's only exceeds Chick -fil -A because there's more McDonald's restaurants than there are

07:43

Chick -fil -A restaurants. Gotcha. But per restaurant, Chick -fil -A brings in more than McDonald's does. So they're on top of everything.

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And even though you've got these hate groups that are labeling

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Chick -fil -A a hate group. Right. Because they claim Chick -fil -A is giving to hate groups. Right. Even though all of that was out there, it wasn't hurting

08:03

Chick -fil -A. Right. But they caved anyway. Yeah, it's so weird. Yeah. But they've got liberal people at the top, not part of the

08:11

Cathy family, but you know that. Influence. Yeah. Yeah. And just kind of did with Chick -fil -A what they wanted to do.

08:18

Well, I brought all that up though with the Chick -fil -A because yeah, like I said, there were some folks that were asking about it, but Theology Driven was talking about it on their podcast.

08:29

Oh, were they? Yes. So Scott Hunt from Theology Driven was talking about the

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Popeye's spicy chicken sandwich. Now that Chick -fil -A has caved to the culture,

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I'm probably more inclined to go to Popeye's than I was before. I'm not, but that's a different issue.

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I know, Becky can't eat at Popeye's. I can't, they have shrimp. Yep. It's a bummer.

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She's allergic to shellfish. And it's bad. So if I go eat at Popeye's, I have to really brush my teeth and rinse my mouth out with some

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Listerine before I kiss my wife. Yep. Lest I could potentially contaminate her with some -

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The kiss of death? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that wouldn't be fun.

09:15

She's that allergic to shellfish. Yeah. She could go into anaphylactic shock and airway close up.

09:22

Did we talk about this happening on like our second date? I can't remember if we mentioned this before. I don't remember if we went that far.

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I know I've talked about it before. We've shared it before. I don't know if it was on the podcast, but yeah, went to a sandwich place in Wichita.

09:39

Oh yeah. Turned out the egg salad was right next to like the crab salad. And then, yep, she took one bite of that egg salad sandwich and -

09:47

Oh no, it was more than one bite cause I was hungry. And it was good. You started devouring it.

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I did. I about killed my girlfriend on a second date. You know, it's all right. But I think you know how it ended cause

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Becky is still with us to this day. And I married you. That's right. I didn't hurt my chances there.

10:06

Everything worked out okay. Happily ever after ending. If you could handle me in my most dramatic scene, you can handle me at anything.

10:17

It was like a Nicolas Cage moment. She hit her knees in the middle of the restaurant with her

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EpiPen and drove it into her heart. I didn't use the EpiPen. We stopped eating and we drove over to the convenience store and I got some

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Vinaigrette and we're good. And a cold water. And then we had to drive two hours home after that, so.

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That was adventurous. So she made it. We got home okay. Didn't even have to go to the emergency room.

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Nope. Turned out all right. Praise the Lord. So we can't eat at Popeye's. I can eat at Popeye's. We can't eat at Popeye's.

10:50

I took Annie and Zieg to Popeye's. Yes. And that was when I tried their spicy chicken sandwich for the first time.

10:57

I do think it was a little overhyped. But it could be the restaurant too.

11:03

Yes, that does kind of differ from restaurant to restaurant. It does. That's true. I still felt like, you know, because you're reading news about people getting into fist fights over this spicy chicken sandwich.

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You do have a very high, not standard, but high expectation. Right, when you're reading stories like that.

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Right, of course. It's gotta be amazing. This had better knock my socks off. Right.

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If you're willing to knock somebody else's lights out in order to get one. Right, exactly. So I'm trying the sandwich.

11:32

It's all right. And Scott Hunt was, well, I'll say it was a little better than all right. It was a very good sandwich, but it was all right in the sense that I was expecting something more.

11:41

Oh, yeah, yeah. Given all the press. Kind of let down a little bit. Right, it was a good sandwich. I enjoyed Popeye's spicy chicken sandwich.

11:47

I will probably order it again. But Scott Hunt was talking about it on Twitter and saying that it was better than Chick -fil -A's spicy chicken sandwich.

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It was really that statement that drove me, ah, drove me theology driven. Yes. It was that statement that drove me to try it.

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Because it's like, there's no way. Yeah. That this is better than Chick -fil -A's spicy chicken sandwich. It's not.

12:09

Yeah. Popeye's spicy chicken sandwich is not better than Chick -fil -A's spicy chicken sandwich. But given that Chick -fil -A was willing to throw all of their

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Christian support under the bus, I might be more inclined to eat a Popeye's spicy chicken sandwich now.

12:21

Yeah, without me. Without my wife. We would go to Zaxby's, but we don't have any.

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Yes. So we're kind of out. That's what Todd Friel raves about. Yes. That Zaxby's is better than.

12:32

I've tried Zaxby's, it's pretty good. It's good. Yeah. It's good fried chicken. Yeah. I still don't think it's better than Chick -fil -A.

12:38

Yeah. But we're not down there. If you want a good fried chicken sandwich,

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Chick -fil -A's still the king here. I think it would be neat if Chick -fil -A were to add a like a crispier chicken sandwich.

12:53

Oh yeah. A little bit more crispy than the way they make it. Okay. Also, I wish

12:58

Chick -fil -A would do like family packs. Ah, yes. Because for us to eat at Chick -fil -A, the six of us.

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It's expensive. It is really expensive. I think we're spending somewhere around 40 bucks. Yeah. For. We can't do that every time.

13:09

For the six of us, if we're being careful. Yeah. Right. Very true.

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And Popeye's does do the family meals. Like you can order a family meal. Kind of like going to KFC. Anyway, so back to Chick -fil -A.

13:25

Back to theology driven and Chick -fil -A. So on the most recent episode of theology driven, remember they're talking about holiness.

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They were on the way to Popeye's so Kevin could try the spicy chicken sandwich.

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And there was a funny little bit where Scott tried to do his best

13:44

Gabe Hughes impression. Oh my goodness. So not only trying the new Popeye's sandwich, but also making fun of me in that I wasn't so wowed by the chicken sandwich to be convinced that it was better than Chick -fil -A's.

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So here is theology driven and Scott Hunt's imitation of Gabe Hughes. All right.

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That may or may not be on the way to Popeye's right now though because I haven't had the sandwich yet so.

14:09

Oh, it's so good. Get the Cajun. It's so good. It's so good, man. I don't care what

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Gabe Hughes says, he's dead wrong. That dude's wrong. But I will say, I really respect

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Gabe Hughes for risking his Christian celebrity status by acknowledging that it was a good sandwich.

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That's dangerous to do, man. All those homeschool moms are like, what he's saying? Are you kidding me?

14:35

Oh, homeschool moms don't, well, no, the homeschool moms listen to him, but. He's all like, hello, welcome to what?

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I know that's not how it goes, but I can't even get my voice that deep. It's like, hi, welcome, my name is

14:53

Gabe Hughes. Oh, it's a good thing

15:01

Becky snatched him up first because I'd have married him too. That's weird.

15:08

All right. He would block himself on Twitter. That's true. That's true.

15:16

So I was in radio for 22 years before I became a pastor.

15:21

Right. That is one of the funniest on -air bits I have ever heard in my life. I cracked up.

15:28

And you still crack up. This is like the first time you've heard it. Yeah, something like that. One more. I'm still laughing.

15:34

And he's still laughing. I mean, there may be some personal reasons why I found that so funny, but it was truly hilarious.

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And then they threw in an impression at the end too. So somehow

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I'd morphed into Barry White in Scott Hunt's impression of me.

15:55

That was great guys. So Theology Driven is doing what I wanted to do when

16:02

I was a program director in Christian Radio. I wanted to put together a morning team that drove around and they were doing the morning show as they were driving.

16:13

And I just could never find a team that I could put together to do that. So these guys with their podcasts driving around and talking theology, that's -

16:22

That's pretty amazing. That's my favorite podcast gimmick, I have to say. I like the driving around and talking theology and it's called

16:29

Theology Driven. It all works out. That's a website address even wasn't taken.

16:36

Oh wow. So when they started this podcast, they were able to purchase that website. So you can go to theologydriven .com

16:43

org. I don't know. And - I think it's .com. Yeah, well, I know that to link to the podcast, you just go theologydriven .podbean

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.com and that'll get you straight to it. Just Thinking has the best podcast name.

16:58

Yeah. You can stop trying to come up with the most creative podcast name. It's already taken. Just Thinking has it, but Theology Driven has the best like gimmick.

17:07

Yes. So I like what they do. That's awesome. Good job guys. Thank you so much for the shout out as well. I hate podcasts that are like the something cast or the something podcast.

17:19

Like all the names, something, something cast. You know what I'm talking about? I think so.

17:25

Okay, I'll throw out an example. The Rob Cast, which is Rob Bell's podcast. Okay. The only names that were coming to mind were names of podcasts

17:33

I don't want you to listen to. So that's why I was kind of avoiding saying something there. Yeah, I'm not really a podcast fanatic or hardly at all listening to podcasts.

17:44

I just don't have time. Yeah. So anyway, the something cast. Like in my view, you didn't even try to come up with a good name for your podcast.

17:53

And I also hate the word podcast. I talked about this the very first episode of when we understand the text that we ever did.

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Because it was so difficult for me to adjust from saying broadcast for 20 years.

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Right. And now I had to be saying podcast. Because broadcast just has a good theological explanation behind why that word gets used for sending out signals through the radio waves or through televisions.

18:20

Why we called it broadcasting. It comes from when farmers would go out to the field and they would dip their hand in their seed bag and scatter the seed.

18:29

Right. That was broadcasting. And that very same understanding of casting seed went into sending out a signal through radio waves.

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It was broadcasting. So how did podcasting come about? Because of iPod. Because Apple started the iPod.

18:49

Got it. And then when people started their own programs that were all part of Apple's podcast network, it just got called podcast.

18:57

Gotcha. That's where that comes from. It's another reason why I hate it. It's all connected with Apple.

19:03

Not even an Apple guy to begin with. Anyway, we've been jabbering for like 20 minutes here. We have.

19:09

This is the Friday edition of when we understand the text. And we take your questions and you can send them to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

19:20

This first one has to do with an event that's coming to Washington DC. Hello, Gabe and Becky.

19:26

I have two questions for you. There's two here. A couple of weeks ago in a Sunday sermon, you mentioned your youth going through catechism.

19:35

I was wondering if you could explain that a little more and is there a curriculum that you use?

19:40

Let's sit on that question first because this is Becky that leads this catechism with our kids at church.

19:48

Yeah, it's actually during service. So it's only about five minutes long. Yeah. Occasionally it'll run over if I have some talkers who insist on talking into the mic.

19:58

And the little kids. Yes. That's what they wanna do. They are little enough that they're not afraid to come up to the front and sit down.

20:06

So it's not too maybe, I think a middle schooler,

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I think is the oldest. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe. And it's only if they're, usually the middle schoolers bringing up a little kid with them.

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I mean, the average age of the kids that come up there. Are elementary. Yeah, five, six, seven years old. Yeah. And then

20:25

I just walk them through a question and then the answer. Right. And then take them to the

20:30

Bible with it. So it's, we use Keach's catechism. Yes, the

20:36

Baptist catechism. Yeah. And we just go one question at a time.

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And that's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. Yeah. So you can find Keach's catechism just doing a

20:48

Google search for it. The one that I typically read off of is at reformedreader .org.

20:53

But when we do these questions with the kids, since most of our kids are five or six years old, I will adjust the question a little bit and the answer a little bit.

21:02

Right. Just for the sake of shortening it up. Not to change any of the meaning at all, but just to shorten it or to simplify big words.

21:11

Now my recommendation, if you're doing catechism as a family, is to do it as it's written.

21:17

And then look up the words. And then look up the words, explain them with your kids. When we do this in church and we're just trying to get the kids to repeat what we're telling them.

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And I have five minutes to do it. Yeah, and she only has just like a couple of minutes to do it. We wanna make it short and simple enough that they can remember it and they can repeat it back.

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But when you do it as a family, you wanna do the whole thing together.

21:40

You wanna repeat the question and the answer several times. Right. So that your kids get it. And those bigger words you're looking up together.

21:47

Right. And the benefit of Keech's Catechism is it even gives you the scripture references. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, this is the first place

21:54

I would send you for catechism as a family, is doing Benjamin Keech's Catechism, also known as the

22:00

Baptist Catechism. And it is of course taken from the Westminster Confession, but of course,

22:06

Baptized. And simplified a little bit as well. So you take question number one.

22:13

And when we do this with our family, when we do this with our kids, it goes something like this. Question one, who is the first and best of beings?

22:22

Answer, God is the first and best of beings. And so then we do that together with the kids.

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We might shorten it, question, who is the first and best of beings? And the kids go, question, who is the first?

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Who is the first and best of beings? And then answer. And then they'll go, answer,

22:42

God is the first and best of beings. Now that's the first question. And that one's very simple. But then you get into like question five.

22:50

How do we know that the Bible is the word of God? Answer, the Bible evidences itself to be

22:57

God's word by the heavenliness of its doctrine, the unity of its parts, its power to convert sinners and to edify saints.

23:05

But the spirit of God only bearing witness by and with the scriptures in our hearts is able fully to persuade us that the

23:13

Bible is the word of God. That's the answer. Which is pretty lengthy to reply.

23:19

That's right. For five and six and seven year olds. Now we've got a whiteboard. In a five minute period. Yeah, we've got a whiteboard up front where the kids are kind of reading that off.

23:27

The whiteboard. Right, but they don't all read. So it is very much a call and repeat.

23:35

Yes. Call and response. Call and response, right. But it's, yeah, say and repeat, I guess. And we break it up a little bit.

23:41

Right. So Becky will start with the question. She'll explain it with scripture and then she'll do the question again and they repeat it back to her.

23:48

Right. And then the kids kind of all go back to their seats. Right. I've done it before too. I've led it before.

23:53

And we've had some other folks in our church that have led the catechism. But this is where, this is what we come back to.

23:59

We come back to Keech's catechism. Right. And do it from this. And I even give the Bible reference and I give a little time so that way, because I hear some of the parents and some of the adults in the church, in the sanctuary saying or flipping through to find the reference.

24:15

Right, they're trying to write it down. Yes, I can't spit all this out, sorry. And we leave the whiteboard up because then folks will come up to it after church is over and they'll write down the question.

24:24

Yeah, so it's helpful for everybody. Yeah. And all of this just to communicate basic Christian principle and truth.

24:35

Right. Through the form of catechism. Yeah, the foundation. Yeah, foundational doctrines, things like that.

24:41

The Keech's catechism has over a hundred questions in it. 120, I think it depends on which one you find because sometimes there's fewer, sometimes there's more.

24:50

But that's the one I recommend. So thank you for your question. This is by the way, Wayne from Minnesota, who's asking this question.

24:58

That was his first question. His second one is this. My church's youth group is planning to go to Together 2020 in Washington DC next

25:05

June. I looked at the website and it seems pretty vague. Our youth pastor said it is an evangelistic slash worship event.

25:13

Do you know anything about this event or its organizers, Luis Palau? I have a 15 year old and I wanna make a wise decision on whether to send him or not.

25:21

Yes, I do know what Together 2020 is, have nothing to do with it. It's incredibly ecumenical.

25:29

So it's like pretty much any body of any faith can come be a part of it as long as you recognize, you pretty much just have to say

25:37

Jesus Christ is Lord. Oh, okay. And you can be part of Together 2020. I don't know if you remember hearing about this or not.

25:45

I know that I was watching it four years ago. I'm just, I don't know if you remember this, but there was an event that was in Washington DC, a

25:54

Christian event. It was broadcasting online. I was watching it here at the house.

26:00

So I was watching the live stream. About halfway into it, they called it off because of heat.

26:06

There were people passing out because it was so hot in Washington DC on that day. And so the authorities in DC had to shut the event down because teenagers were not being safe.

26:18

They weren't being smart out there. People were getting overheated. And so they had to end it early. And there were some

26:24

Christian bloggers that were hopping online after that going, God shuts down Together 2016.

26:30

Oh, yeah. Anyway, I don't know if you remember that or not. No, not really.

26:37

Part of this event, it's all the same event. Part of this event included a video greeting from Pope Francis.

26:44

Oh. And there were also New Apostolic Reformation guys that were a part of it, like Lou Engle, Rodriguez, I can't,

26:53

Samuel Rodriguez. Okay. Who's an NAR guy. Francis Chan is part of it.

27:00

And Matt Hall, I think is his name. It's kind of escaping me at the moment.

27:05

He's the guy that organizes it. It's actually not Luis Palau, unless it's Luis Palau's evangelistic organization.

27:10

But even Luis Palau is very ecumenical in the stuff that he does and the evangelistic ministry events that he does.

27:18

He partners with Catholic churches in those communities. So it's very much kind of a thing of, hey, we couldn't beat the

27:24

Catholics, so let's join them. Yeah. And they don't try to convert

27:29

Catholics at all. If a person says they're Catholic, they're like, great. And we'll even encourage them to continue going to their

27:36

Catholic church. So as long as they're willing to do that, the Catholic church is willing to partner with them because it's like, hey, we'll just bring people from your evangelistic event over to our

27:45

Catholic church. Right. And they get filled up with the heresies of Rome. So that's why I'm telling you, don't have anything to do with these together events.

27:53

You've got new apostolic reformation guys. You've got Roman Catholic church. There's gonna be a few sound people in there.

28:01

And when I say sound, meaning they're not heretics. Right. But they're still probably not teachers

28:07

I would let stand in my pulpit. Anyway, that's Together 2020 for you in a nutshell.

28:13

And thank you for your question, Wayne. My advice would be spend your money elsewhere. Yeah. If you wanna send your teen to an event like that, there's something else you can do other than that.

28:24

Yeah. You can probably do Chevcon if you wanted to, or it couldn't be Truth Matters because.

28:30

They're not doing it. Yeah, they only do it once every five years or something like that. Yeah. But G3, that would be another one.

28:37

Yeah, that'd be good. And by the way, G3's got a Black Friday sale going on today. Oh, really?

28:43

I could have plugged that at the very beginning, but yeah, you can get a discounted rate today only if you got your admission to G3.

28:52

Awesome. You don't have to send them to a youth event. It doesn't have to be like a youth centric.

28:59

Yeah, because usually those are not so, they're kind of wonky. Yeah. They're really not great.

29:06

Yeah. More often than not. I'm not dogging on all of them, but usually they're not. But something like G3, you know it's gonna be solid teaching and it's something you can do together with your son as well.

29:17

Yep. Father -son field trip. There you go. Definitely. All right, next question comes. Field trip from Minnesota.

29:24

That's right. Minnesota down to Atlanta. Hey, Todd Friel did it. Yeah, drive safely though, because that time of year always seems to have something going on weather -wise.

29:35

Yeah, it does. Well, especially leaving Minnesota, you're gonna be in it longer than not. Last year was okay, getting down to Atlanta, wasn't too bad.

29:44

Yeah, it was all right. This, getting back, that was our problem. That was it. We ran into all the snow heading back.

29:49

Yes, we did. This next question is from Vitas from Trinidad. Ooh, fun.

29:55

Hey, we can knock off another country on our map up there. Yeah, awesome. We got an email from Trinidad, just north of Venezuela.

30:03

That's so cool. I am Vitas from Trinidad. Shout out to all the listeners in the Caribbean. I appreciate your videos, your daily podcasts, and your

30:13

Sunday sermons. You are truly an example for young men and husbands in the faith. Oh, thank you so much.

30:19

That is very kind. May God continue to use you for his glory. In light of your preaching ministry, how do you deal with the concept of borrowing ideas from others and representing it as your own?

30:34

Do you ever read a good book or hear a sermon and you say, wow, those are some great points, especially when it is about a chapter or topic that you're going to do?

30:45

Thus, to what extent can you emulate this teacher? Can you do like the typical sermon in a box and preach a message that you did not prepare?

30:56

Should you slightly change some of the words so that if it were scanned by a plagiarism software, it would pass the test?

31:04

Or should you try your best to have a brain wipe, then prepare a message avoiding any similarity lest you can be accused of copying and being unoriginal?

31:14

There might be some false dichotomies there, but I hope you get the point. Can your sermon prep just be to read what

31:20

Spurgeon slash MacArthur slash some favorite teacher had to teach on the matter and just represent it as your own?

31:27

This is even considering after you opened the Bible and studied the text, but X person preached it so much better.

31:34

Grace and peace to you. Well, this is a great question. And I loved how thorough you were with the question as well.

31:41

I certainly would not recommend a brain wipe. That was kind of the last part of your question.

31:46

Should you try your best to have a brain wipe? I don't even know how you would function like that.

31:52

Anything that I preach on is gonna be a culmination of not just the things that I was studying during the week, but things that I've been studying for a lifetime.

32:03

And all of those things come together in the sermon that I'm going to preach. Now there's probably going to be,

32:10

I don't read my sermon from a script. So if somebody, if that's the way you preach, and I'm not dogging on that,

32:18

I think that's great. And I love the exactness of that. But for me, as far as my delivery goes,

32:24

I only occasionally preach from a script. Most of the time, when you're hearing the sermons, especially the ones that we upload online,

32:34

I've only got one page of notes or even a note card is all I've got that just outlines my points.

32:40

If I've got any quotes that I'm using in the sermon, they're gonna be on a sheet of paper so that I'm accurately representing that quote.

32:47

Or if there's scripture references that I'm sure I'm not going to remember, might be a pretty good chunk of text that I have to quote.

32:56

That's all gonna be on that sheet of paper as well. But I seldom actually read my sermon word for word.

33:02

If a person's gonna do their sermon like that, I think that there's a greater burden on that person who does a scripted sermon to have to quote exactly who they're referencing and where they got the source from.

33:17

Does that make sense? Yeah. So it's a lot more difficult to kind of summarize a point and claim it as your own, if you're taking it almost word for word from somebody else.

33:27

I think that the person who's scripting a sermon is gonna be more obligated to actually quote who it is that they're referencing.

33:34

And that way they get it right and not try to claim it as their own. Right. Now there's some

33:40

Romans 14 territory going on here. So remember Romans 14 is the Christian liberty chapter, like you're in sin if you think you're in sin.

33:50

Yeah, right. If you think it's sin, don't do it. Right. So if you're reading something from somebody and you're looking at this quote going, boy,

34:00

I really, really like that, but I don't wanna say it's from John MacArthur or something like that.

34:05

Or I think I can word this a different way and I can claim it as my own. If you do something like that and in your mind, you're feeling guilty about doing that or you think you're doing something sneaky with it.

34:16

Now you're sinning. Will somebody catch you? Probably not. But you're still between you and God is your conscience clear when you're standing at the pulpit and you're delivering this sermon to an audience.

34:31

If you're trying to take someone else's idea and make it your own, so you're basically impressing the people on your theological wit, you're no longer serving

34:41

God, you're serving man. You're trying to gain the approval of man rather than the approval of God.

34:47

So you're saying to be very careful with that. Yeah, you do need to be careful with that in the way that you approach it.

34:53

In 1 Timothy 1, right at the start of the letter that Paul is telling to Timothy as he is sending him to be the lead pastor in Ephesus basically.

35:05

He says in 1 Timothy 1 .5, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

35:17

So our approach when we preach, we must be pure of heart. And I mean, our pursuit must be holiness and we should not even be bringing our sin into the pulpit.

35:30

Like how have you been behaving over the course of the week? Have you been pursuing that sanctification and desiring to grow in righteousness and holiness?

35:38

Or are you enjoying some kind of a sin and thinking, hey, nobody knows about this. Right. It's one of those secret things.

35:46

I can still kind of have this and step in the pulpit and I look great to everybody on Sunday. Well, now you're compromising that pure heart approach.

35:54

Right. And we must issue from a pure heart and a good conscience.

36:00

So as you're preaching, if you're manipulating somebody else's quote, trying to claim it as your own, so you look like this great preacher to your congregation, you're compromising your conscience.

36:11

And then a sincere faith. We truly believe what we're saying. And we don't believe it just because it's somebody else's thoughts, but it is ours.

36:20

Now, of course, what I'm saying here, I'm kind of morphing into the question that's being asked. Right.

36:25

This isn't strictly the application of it, but it is one way that this can apply. And then

36:31

Paul goes on to say in verse six, certain persons by swerving from these, get this, have wandered away into vain discussion.

36:40

So again, if you're manipulating a quote so that you're gaining the, making people impressed with you.

36:48

Right. This is vanity. You are now doing this for your own sake, rather than the benefit of the souls that you are to be shepherding.

36:57

And of course, doing all things to the glory of God alone. Verse seven. Well, let me start at verse six again.

37:04

Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make their confident assertions.

37:18

So let me ask you this. Why did you manipulate the quote from somebody else to be your own?

37:25

Is it because you didn't actually understand what you were preaching about? And so you've taken from somebody else and claimed it as your own to make other people think that you understand this topic when you really didn't understand it in the first place.

37:40

So you would be among those who don't actually understand what they're saying or the things about which they make their confident assertions.

37:48

I was thinking that maybe you learned from a teacher that your congregation isn't really accepting of.

37:57

Yes. And that you don't wanna quote that person because of it distracting from what you're saying.

38:06

That's a good point. And I have done that before. Have you? Yes. And that was specifically John Calvin.

38:12

Yeah. There was at the time, there was some conflict that was going on in our church over Calvinism.

38:22

And anything that even remotely sounded like Calvinism, there were some people that were really uptight and up in arms over that.

38:29

Right now there's not that problem at all. We're going through reform systematic theology from Joel Beakey, that's our men's group.

38:36

So plenty of John Calvin in there. But yeah, and so in one of my sermons,

38:41

I was quoting John Calvin, but not saying that it was Calvin. And there were times when

38:46

I was either referencing him word for word, or I would remember that I had read

38:53

Calvin during the week and would present the thought, but not ascribe it to Calvin.

38:58

And it wasn't a word for word quotation. But I did that on purpose. And the reason for that was later on, when

39:04

I was talking with some of those persons who were being conflicting over the whole Calvinism issue,

39:10

I was able to say, well, that thing that I said on Sunday in relation to the text, did you agree with that? Yes, that was

39:16

John Calvin. That's where I got that from. So I don't know that, I can't remember if in that process or during that season,

39:25

I can't remember if I directly quoted Calvin or I was just borrowing the thought. I don't actually remember. I think if I directly quoted him,

39:32

I probably said something like one theologian has said, da, da, da, da, I would do it like that. But -

39:38

My philosophy on that is give credit where credit is due. Right. And also understand that as you're reading and growing, everybody's gonna start sounding alike, or at least a lot alike.

39:52

True, yes. And so there's gonna be some repeats of, I had this thought, it was great, or this point about this passage and those sorts of things that it's gonna sound pretty similar.

40:07

Right, exactly, and it will, right. And that's okay. I sound like my dad. Yeah. So that's where I got most of what it is that I'm preaching.

40:15

There have been occasions where I didn't reference anyone at all and probably because I didn't know that I needed to reference anybody in what

40:24

I was saying. And someone came up to me afterward and said, yeah, that thing you said about this,

40:29

Sproul said that. And I would say, oh, okay, well, that's probably where I got it from. Yeah. But I just don't remember that.

40:34

Right. It was years ago, I've been listening to - And it could be five different people that said the exact same thing.

40:40

That's true, exactly. Not the exact same way, but have the same point. And so, yeah, you can't reference all of them.

40:48

Yeah, right. Sometimes it's impossible to do. Right. Honestly, I think -

40:55

That's where it gets a little tricky. Yeah, I know. Yeah, some of that stuff does get a little tricky. But I think you apply that instruction that Paul gives there in 1

41:03

Timothy 1 .5, the aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

41:10

Is your motivation out of love for other people and to the glory of God? Right. Then that's what you need to be doing when you're preaching.

41:19

I think you can drive yourself crazy with these, kind of the fear -mongering that goes on over the, hey, the plagiarism police are gonna come and get you.

41:30

Just don't even worry about that. Now, I do know of a pastor,

41:36

I personally know who this is, who got caught plagiarizing his sermons. And I believe that basically every sermon was pretty much plagiarized.

41:45

I don't know who caught him and I don't know how that was dealt with. I know that he resigned. And it only came out about a year or two after that.

41:53

Somebody told me, because I said, why did so -and -so resign? I never actually knew the story on all of that. And someone from the congregation said, because he was plagiarizing his sermons.

42:01

And it was somebody that was not part of the church that figured that out. So they were listening online and said, this is word for word, this person's sermon.

42:12

And so there was dishonesty there and he had to be removed from his position.

42:17

In his case, he resigned. I don't know how, I mean, I don't know the ins and outs of the details of that whole story, that scenario.

42:25

I don't know to what extent he was plagiarizing. But part of the question here, part of Vitaz's question,

42:34

I gotta make sure I pronounce his name right. He gave me the pronunciation guide. So I can be sure that I got his name right.

42:40

Good job. He also says, can you just quote someone's sermon?

42:47

I've done this before. I read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God from Jonathan Edwards and stood in the pulpit and said, today

42:55

I'm doing Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. So the sermon that I did was not mine.

43:01

It was Jonathan Edwards and I just read it. You can do that. I think you need to give credit to who it is that does that.

43:09

But, or who it is you're reading from. I don't think a pastor should do that with any regularity.

43:15

I was gonna say, not often. Right. And I also think if you're gonna do something like that, you should probably relegate it to something like a

43:23

Sunday evening service, rather than a Sunday morning service. Sunday morning, the whole church together is going through the same thing.

43:33

You've got a direction, you've got a trajectory. I mean, if there wants to be, if the church wants to do something like a famous sermon series, where like for eight straight weeks, maybe a different elder is coming up and reading a sermon, a great sermon from the past, from history, from somebody like Edwards or Spurgeon.

43:49

I don't know. I mean, you could do that. I don't see there being any problem with that. There's not really rules.

43:54

Yeah, not so much. I still think though, the regular diet of the church needs to be expository preaching.

44:03

And the pastor knows how to preach exegetically and he's standing in the pulpit, opening up the

44:08

Bible and you're going through entire book studies together. We're finishing up Ephesians in just a couple of weeks and then

44:15

I'm going into the book of Matthew. And everybody knows where I'm going. You know what the sermon is gonna be next week.

44:20

It's just the next part of the text. And so we all grow in this together. I'm bringing to my congregation what

44:25

God has convicted me with in my study in the previous week. And now

44:31

I'm laying it out on you so you can be convicted about this through the week.

44:36

Then I'm gonna bring you something else next week from this text that we're studying together. And then in this way, we're all brought under submission of the authority of God's word and we're doing that together.

44:52

Pastor, elders, deacons, church body, teachers, no matter who it is in that church, that body is going through the same sanctification by the word of God together.

45:05

Jesus in John 17, 17, sanctify them with your truth. Your word is truth.

45:12

And it is by our study of the word of God that we are made more Christ -like. We are growing more and more in his image as Becky talked about at the start of the program.

45:21

That's right. All right, I gotta pull out one more question here. I think we got time for one more.

45:27

This one is from Chris. Good afternoon, Pastor Gabe. So if you're listening to this in the morning, it's a little awkward.

45:35

Yeah. I thoroughly enjoy listening to you and Becky on the Friday Q &A podcast. I think

45:41

I found the what videos via wretched and I've probably listened to the majority of them so far.

45:47

And from there, I found your podcast on Podbean. The programs have been helpful with regard to biblical hermeneutics, especially for a layman without training in the biblical languages and with rudimentary knowledge of biblical and systematic theology.

46:00

I don't know, that was a pretty complicated sentence there for somebody who's just a layman. That's what I was thinking.

46:06

Sounds like you're growing there, Chris. Amen to that. You did a what video on Jonathan Cahn?

46:13

Are there modern day prophets in September of 2017? A family member tipped me off on this guy recently as members in his small church are referencing

46:22

Cahn's books, notably the Oracle most recent as being insightful interpretations of the scriptures.

46:28

How would you counsel a young adult believer whose church, including pastor, was favorably citing the works of such authors as Jonathan Cahn?

46:37

I'm gonna go ahead and play that video here. Okay. And then we'll come back and finish up Chris's question.

46:47

I'm here with my friend, Jonathan Cahn. You have a new book, The Paradigm. Tell us about this.

46:52

If you had The Paradigm years back, you could actually know the outcome of presidential elections before they happened.

46:58

It actually reveals, this is from thousands of years ago, Osama Bin Laden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and this is so precise that we have to be prepared.

47:08

Biblically, in the Old Testament, God would raise up a Jewish prophet. I believe

47:13

Rabbi Jonathan Cahn has been raised up by God for this moment in history.

47:19

All right, Jonathan, I need you to pray right now for the rising of that Elijah spirit among the people of God.

47:24

Father, we ask for the spirit of Elijah to come upon this nation, to come upon the church, come upon the one listening, come on.

47:31

Hebrews 1 .1 says, Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

47:37

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, Jesus. Paul told Timothy, charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

47:53

These certain persons have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers without understanding what they're saying or the things about which they make their confident assertions.

48:03

The stewardship from God is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news that Jesus forgives sin and gives eternal life to all who repent and believe.

48:12

Preach that message when we understand the text. You know, I wasn't really trying to make that text in 1

48:20

Timothy 1 a central theme in today's podcast. But apparently. By the providence of God, that's how that's turned out.

48:28

So Chris goes on with his question. Personally, having checked out some of the interviews Khan has given, I think he's preoccupied with biblical numerology and Old Testament ceremonial law.

48:38

And it's trying to isogeet current events, headlines into scripture. His theology seems tied to American Israeli politics, as though what happens in Washington, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem dictates the coming of our

48:51

Lord. He tries to pull patterns out of scripture and apply them to recent current events, claiming that they are secret revelations.

48:58

I'd say more, but frankly, I think Khan's teachings are dangerous and unbiblical. Thank you, and I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

49:06

Well, Chris, it's even worse than that. Jonathan Khan's a false prophet. The scriptures regard him as a false prophet.

49:14

And if this were ancient Israel, he would be stoned to death. Yes, he would. And unfortunately, the two other names that you hear in there too, the two other voices were

49:23

Michael Brown and the guy that hosts Supernatural, oh, his name escapes me now,

49:30

Sid Roth. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, host of Supernatural. Those two other guys that were in there, they'd be stoned to death in ancient

49:37

Israel as well. Because they also believe these prophetic visions and utterances, none of which actually ever come true.

49:45

And Deuteronomy is quite plain on this. If somebody comes to you saying that they have a vision or a revelation from God and what they say does not come true, he's a false prophet and you're to stone him to death.

49:55

Yep, that's a scary place to be. Yeah, that's frightening. We should still be terrified of that.

50:01

When somebody says God said to me or God revealed to me, what should follow that is quoting scripture.

50:07

Yeah. Quoting from the Bible. Chris, I would say how you talk to somebody about this who gets sucked into Jonathan Khan's nonsense,

50:16

I would say you go to Hebrews 1, where as was referenced in that video long ago, at many times and in many ways,

50:24

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

50:31

You start there because reading that verse isn't necessarily gonna convince somebody that Jonathan Khan is wrong.

50:37

Right. But you begin there. Because what we have now is the completed word of God, Peter saying in 2

50:44

Peter 1, we have the prophetic word, prophet, once again, prophetic word more fully confirmed.

50:52

Right. So this text is confirmed for us, we don't need modern prophets. They're not gonna tell us anything we can't already find in the

51:01

Bible. Right. And you're absolutely right, Khan is a Jeets events into things that are related to Washington and Jerusalem and et cetera.

51:10

And he does that because it sells, because it's very popular in America. And we wanna think of ourselves as the nation that God favors.

51:18

So if we show favor to Jerusalem, God will show favor to us, because that's what

51:24

Israel thought before Christ came. They thought the way God is gonna bless the nations is because those nations are gonna bless us.

51:33

And so that's how God is gonna work by those who will bless Israel. But no, all of this was pointing to Christ and those who are in Christ Jesus, God blesses with the forgiveness of sins and sanctification and the guarantee of his eternal kingdom forever.

51:53

And you're right, that's what Jonathan Khan needs to be preaching, but that's not what he's preaching. In fact, that particular episode of Supernatural that was segmented in that what video,

52:04

Jonathan Khan and Michael Brown never mentioned Christ in that entire video. What?

52:10

Are you kidding me? That entire episode, nope, not even kidding. Whoa. And they pray for this

52:16

Elijah spirit. It's like, what is that? Okay. Michael Brown saying, can you pray for that Elijah spirit to come upon us?

52:25

That's weird. It's just utterly nonsense. All they talk about that whole episode is Jonathan Khan's great revelations that he has of stuff in first and second

52:35

Kings relating to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and this whole thing, how

52:41

Jehu is like an archetype for Donald Trump who was gonna come later on. What?

52:46

And see, this is not prophetic because it's not exposing anything. If all you're doing is looking back at stuff and taking current events and sandwiching it into scripture, then scripture didn't reveal anything about this future event as though it was something prophetic that was gonna take place because you weren't looking for it.

53:05

You're now looking back at it and you're like, ooh, this looks a little coincidental. I think something in the

53:10

Bible happened like this. And so I'm gonna make this current event, I'm gonna make it mean that the

53:17

Bible prophesied that this was gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah. No. Which is, that's how he sells his books though.

53:23

He's a best -selling author. That's how he does this. This goes back into, they've wandered into vain discussion.

53:30

Yes. And that's exactly what Khan's doing there. Sid Roth does it with every episode of Supernatural and Michael Brown is duped into it as well.

53:39

And there are so many sound teachers that will platform Michael Brown. I understand that some of these guys are friends with him.

53:47

Well, Michael Brown's my friend. I've got friends I would never let on my podcast. They're still my friends, but I wouldn't let them preach a sermon in my church.

53:56

Totally different thing. Anyway, that's it. That's the end of the show. That answers the question. We are now in the

54:04

Christmas holiday season. Yes, we are. So don't forget the book, 25 Christmas Myths and What the

54:09

Bible Says. I found the jingle bells. You found the jingle bells. Yeah, because I remember back in July, I had the,

54:16

I wanted to have the jingle bells. Anyway. No, don't explain it to me. We're at the end of the show.

54:22

Nope, I'm not gonna explain it. I'm done. So order the book, 25 Christmas Myths and What the

54:28

Bible Says. You can get it on Amazon. You'll have it in time for the first day of Advent. Well, probably not because that's

54:34

Sunday. Yeah. December 1st. Yeah, but you can catch up. Yeah, you can catch up. Do it with the family.

54:39

Sing the Christmas songs together that it recommends, that it has lyrics for. I hope you enjoy the book.

54:46

And thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text. Oh yeah, the other thing I was gonna mention, the book is for Kindle now 20 % off.

54:53

Nice. So it's $3 .99 for Kindle. Woo -hoo, smashed that up. Yep, 12 bucks for the paperback.

54:59

Enjoy it and Merry Christmas. And we'll be back for another episode of When We Understand the

55:06

Text next week. Another Q &A, God willing. Yes. I'm back in our study of Acts on Monday.

55:12

Awesome. Let's conclude with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, thank you for our time together.

55:17

And we just pray that we're filled with thanksgiving. We're regularly praising

55:22

God for the goodness that you show to us day by day, including the forgiveness of sins that's given in your son,

55:28

Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us, rose again from the grave, so that all who believe in him will not perish under the judgment of God, but we will have everlasting life with you in your eternal kingdom.

55:41

Grow us steadfastly in sanctification, in holiness and righteousness day by day, and give us courage to share this message of your gospel with others.

55:51

And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

57:02

Amen. I didn't listen to the whole thing, but I got, I did skip to the end. I still have to, because I didn't listen to the last episode.

57:09

So I got to listen to that one and then the one on holiness. Creak. Whoa, that is a creaky chair.

57:18

How did that happen? You're going to break it, babe. You gave me this chair. It might've been one of the -

57:24

The creaky ones? Right. One of the ones I set aside specifically because it was doing that.

57:31

Creaky. I don't know. I guess it got swapped out.

57:38

I didn't move it. This is when we understand the text, the daily Bible study and the word of Christ, that we may be conformed in his image until the day that, until the day that he comes in glory.

57:52

Until the day he comes in glory. Yeah, you can do it that way. Do I need to move my mic?

58:00

Or do I need to - Yep, yep, yep, yep, yours. Yep. Yep, sure. Probably have to, yep. Yep, sure.

58:05

Yep, yep. Whoa, whoa. About to move it right there. All right, that better? Ooh, wow. I am loud.

58:11

Okay. Do I need to move? I mean, you should be a little closer than that. A little closer?