WWUTT 885 Q&A Jesus Culture, David's Righteousness, and Kim Clement?

Should we be concerned the music of Jesus' culture is in so many churches? Was David self -absorbed when he prayed about his righteousness?

And did Kim Clement prophesy President Trump? The answers to these questions when we Understand the

Text. This is

When we Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in God's Word, where faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the

Word of Christ. Support our ministry by telling your friends about us at www .wutt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Did you know that we had

Elton John just down the road from us in Kansas City? Oh, no, I did not. And this weekend, it's

Rob Bell. Oh, great. All these famous people coming to Kansas City. I don't know what's going on in KC, but we've had

Elton John, and now Rob Bell. Aren't you excited? Um, sure, that I didn't even know about it.

That's what I've been seeing from people on social media, is, hey, did you know we had Elton John here?

And Rob Bell's going to be here this weekend. Really? Oh. Isn't that lovely?

Let me send you this link to my video. Yeah, right. I've got a video I can show you. I even have a video with Elton John in it.

Yes, yes you do. It's the one with Rick Warren holding his hand as they're joking about kissing one another.

Yep. That was really a thing. That really happened. Yes, it did. So, this being the Friday edition of the podcast, we take questions from the listeners, which you can submit to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

And I believe in last week's episode, there was a question that I had at the very end. I said, we didn't have time for.

Right. So, I was putting it on hold. So, we're going to come to that one first. Before getting to those questions that have been delivered to us by email,

I had one that was asked of me this week in person. Okay. Somebody became a new listener of the podcast and they said,

Pastor Gabe, I got to know why do all of the titles of all the episodes of your podcast have question marks at the end of them?

Hmm. We've answered this question before. We have. But yeah, good to do a refresher for those who are brand new to when we understand the text.

Yes. This started with our videos when we were addressing certain topics like God helps those who help themselves.

We were kind of theorizing, you know, how would somebody find this video? So, we didn't want to say in the title of the video, the

Bible doesn't say God helps those who help themselves. Right. Instead. Because then it wouldn't take the 90 seconds to watch it.

Right. Yeah. So, we're wanting to draw you in because that's the topic you're looking for. Right. So, we would just put that title with a question mark at the end of it.

We didn't want to say that God helps those who help themselves and we also weren't trying to blow the ending.

Right. Because we want you to watch the video. So, that was how that started and then by the time we had about a hundred videos or so, we started doing the podcast.

I don't think we quite had a hundred yet, but it was pretty close to that. And so, then we just kept up the gimmick with the podcast as well.

There would be the title of the podcast with a question mark. Like for example, this past week in John Chapter 8,

Jesus said, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Very popular verse. A lot of people have heard that or they use it as a proverb or a pithy quote.

Oh, yeah. And so, we put that as the title of the podcast. So, you know that when you are listening to that episode, that's what you're going to be hearing about.

Yes. You'll hear about that verse in context, what it meant, who Jesus was talking to, etc. So, that started with the videos.

It continues with the podcast. And honestly, I don't think every single title of every episode of the podcast has a question mark at the end of it.

And if there isn't an episode that has a question mark, it's just because I forgot to put it on there.

That's really it. But again, because the name of the ministry abbreviated is what?

Yeah. What? With the question mark at the end, then that just kind of became our shtick. So, we put question marks on the titles of everything, whether it was a video or whether it was the title of an episode.

So, thank you to the individual who stopped me and asked that question. Yes. Thank you. Now, let's get to the emails.

This is one that we didn't get to last week and it's from Alan in North Carolina.

Grace and peace to you, Pastor Gabe. I've been a faithful listener to your podcast for over a year now and have been encouraged and edified by your thoughtfulness and commitment to sound doctrine.

Thank you, Alan. I have a question for you. I have been contemplating the effects of the NAR movement into our

Southern Baptist churches. So, NAR is the New Apostolic Reformation, Bethel Church in Redding, California, the

International House of Prayer, The Call with Lou Engel is just kind of some examples of that network of New Apostolic Reformation churches.

Samuel Rodriguez, who prayed at Donald Trump's inauguration, he's part of the

NAR, along with Paula White Cain, who was also one of the persons who prayed at the inauguration.

It's a very hyper charismatic movement and it's called New Apostolic Reformation because they actually believe that there's going to be new apostles and those new apostles will supersede the apostles of the

New Testament, who gave us the New Testament. Oh, wow. And Paul already addressed this in 2

Corinthians chapter 11, where he sarcastically refers to these guys as super apostles. Got it.

So you've missed, there's an entire chapter of the Bible dedicated to this movement and yet they continue to say there's going to be these super apostles that are going to arise.

Well, as long as they keep skipping that. Skipping that chapter? Yeah, of course. Cut and paste. Yeah. Parts of the

Bible they like. Anyway, now I'm a Southern Baptist pastor and Alan comes from the

Southern Baptist Church. So hence why he refers to this movement coming into our Southern Baptist churches. I have a growing concern in particular about Fort Caswell in Oak Island, North Carolina.

Last summer, the youth took a trip there as is their custom and they returned to share their experiences.

They led the congregation in singing songs they learned at Caswell. Guess who it was?

Jesus Culture. Ooh. I was appalled to say the least. Jesus Culture is the praise band that comes out of Bethel Church, which is kind of the

Mecca, if you'll pardon the expression, of the New Apostolic Reformation. Alan goes on, this year my daughter is old enough to go with the youth on their annual trip.

I don't know if I want her to go. Part of me feels like I'm becoming the old curmudgeon that hates contemporary music, but my concern is the indoctrination of my daughter with heretical teaching.

I'm the associate pastor at my church and have addressed the dangers of Bethel Church, yet no one seems to see the danger of simply listening to their music.

Would you have any counsel for me as to how I should move forward with my concerns? It would be greatly appreciated.

Alan from Lenoir, North Carolina. I guess that's how you pronounce that.

I have no idea. I'm open to being corrected on the pronunciation of that. I've only lived in Kansas my whole life.

Well, I was born in South Carolina, but I don't think I know of Lenoir, North Carolina.

Is it black in French? Le Noir? Le Noir?

Le Noir? Is that right? Well, no. Isn't black in French Noir? Noir, yes.

But it would have to be two different words, not one. The Black, North Carolina? Is that how you would interpret that?

I suppose. I'm sure it means something totally different, though. I would be curious to know the etymology of the name of your town,

Alan, if you want to follow that up, and also a pronunciation guide for me would be greatly appreciated.

Coming up here in a moment, I got a question from our friend in Nigeria. He sent a question to us before, and I asked him before recording this podcast, be sure to remind me how to pronounce your name.

Awesome. So, I copied and pasted, Becky can see it here, I copied and pasted the pronunciation guide for me, so I know how to do this.

That's okay. Do you need that for every email now? Yeah, I think so. That's okay. None of y 'all can spell Becky. Some of them can.

Yeah, there are some. That's all right. Some of them get it right. No worries. Just put us both together, Becky.

Yeah, there we go. G -A -B -E -K -I. You can't go wrong with that. What were we talking about?

We were talking about what he is to do. Okay. What Alan is to do. Now, my concern with an event like this where Jesus Culture is one of the bands that is presenting is that you're going to have teachers there that are going to say things that you might hear at a new apostolic

Reformation church, whether it would be like at the One Thing Conference at the International House of Prayer or any kind of church service that they would have at Bethel Church in Reading or at the

Sozo thing that they do out there, their supernatural school of supernatural ministry or supernatural superhero something.

I can't remember the name of it. Anyway, so since you have that kind of music there,

I'm just going to guess that there's going to be that kind of teaching there. Now, for the most part, you're probably not going to hear anything heretical, but it's not going to be deep.

It's going to be an inch deep and a mile wide. It'll be all over the place.

It'll be whatever comes into their mind or their heads at that time. It'll contain some scripture verses, but they won't be used in context.

Everything is going to be very positive and happy. There's not going to be any sort of call of repentance of sin.

And if they do say anything like that, none of those terms are ever going to be defined. So you're going to take what you know of theology and you're going to insert it into whatever it is that they're preaching.

And you might come away thinking, well, that was pretty good. Well, it's because what you know of doctrine, you're filling in the blanks.

That's exactly right. Yeah. It's that whole Mad Lib theology where they're just kind of presenting stuff to you with nothing to find.

And then you fill in the blank with your own doctrine. And so that way they can be the most pleasing to the biggest group of people.

Oh, yeah. That's why this is like a charm. That's why this stuff is so extremely popular. So for the most part, you're probably not going to fall into something really bad.

My problem with it is a continued exposure over time is that you're not going to get any deeper.

You're never going to have heard the gospel. You think that you did, but you didn't. You know, again, that same fill in the blank sort of theology.

The music is never very deep. Now the music and we've talked about this a dozen times before.

I've written blogs on it as well. The music, it really doesn't have anything blatantly wrong with it.

A lot of times they're even taking words out of Amazing Grace or something like that. Oh, OK. And we'll just kind of expand it out, modernize it, stuff like that, or even take a song like Reckless Love.

That's the most popular song ever to come out of Bethel right now, because it just won Dove Award for Song of the

Year last year and it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't. It doesn't make any sense. Everybody thinks this is gorgeous, deep song.

It really says something about the song that the songwriter had to stand on stage and read something from his smartphone explaining what he means by reckless love.

So obviously this has been really controversial. And if what you're saying can't be clear, then there's probably something wrong with it.

Yeah. But I think it's because of all this controversy that it's generated the popularity that it has and therefore became

Song of the Year. Even though God's love is not reckless, and we've talked about that before.

There's a what video on it. You can find Todd Freel talking about it, etc. It nevertheless is not like leading you down some kind of a heretical path.

Nobody's going to go to hell because they sang the song Reckless Love or would even believe that God's love is reckless.

It's reckless terminology, but it's not heretical terminology. So again, the music doesn't really expose you to some sort of bad heretical doctrine.

It's just careless and an appropriate word for it is that it's reckless.

It's not very thoughtful. It's not considerate of the word of God. And these lyrics are not even driven by what we have in God's word.

If you hear any of these guys try to justify their teaching or even the lyrics of a song, it's not because they were reading the

Bible and they turned it into a song. Rather they had this idea because all of it is whatever my thoughts are, the

Holy Spirit gave me that. So now I'm going to write this song and now I'm going to go to the Bible and try to find a verse to justify why

I worded things that way in the song. And that way they can uphold this standard of, see, we believe in biblical inerrancy.

We believe that the word of God is perfect, but it's not sufficient. It's inerrant. It's not sufficient because you got it from your head.

That's right. I need to rely on my own subjective thoughts and visions and things of that nature. That's what you're going to come into with a lot of this teaching.

You don't have to have the Bible. You can use the Bible to justify your own thoughts that you have.

But whatever you believe in, whatever you think, God is giving you those thoughts and those ideas. And it's just as good as anything as you would find in the

Bible. Instead, what we need to be doing is studying scripture and we need to have our minds and our thoughts conform to this rather than taking the scripture and conforming it to the thoughts and the ideas that we had.

That's the major problem with the teaching that comes at, well, I mean, the major problem is it's radical.

The teaching at its foundation is heresy. You're just probably not going to hear that when you go listen to one of their sermons.

An example of this is a couple of years ago when Nabeel Qureshi was at Bethel Church and I did an evaluation of Nabeel's follow -up when he came from Bethel and said, here's what

I experienced while I was there. And he's kind of responding to his critics. All of you were telling me that I shouldn't be going to Bethel Church.

Nabeel was... I don't think it was critics. I think it was more concerns. Well, I mean, he was talking to his supporters as well.

It wasn't just like a response to critics, but that certainly was part of his vlog. So Nabeel was suffering from stomach cancer at that time.

He is at home with the Lord in glory now. But at that time he was looking for a miracle.

And so he was invited to go out to Bethel Church and he went there. And one of the things that he said was, hey,

I was there. I didn't hear any heresy. I didn't hear any prosperity theology. I heard the gospel preached.

And so I went to find the sermon that he actually heard. And he attended both the morning service and the evening service.

I couldn't find the morning service. They didn't have it online. But I did find the guy that preached during the evening service.

And I said, in playing Nabeel's comments, I said, Nabeel didn't actually hear what he thought he heard.

And again, this is that Mad Lib theology of just filling the blanks. Here was the closest, the guy preaching that night, here's the closest he got to preaching the gospel.

And then I played a clip of that. And he uses the word, he'll say something like gospel or believing in Jesus.

But the gospel is never actually proclaimed. There's never anything about repentance of sins, the grace of God, faith in Jesus that cleanses us from -

They just say enough keywords that you kind of put in everything else that should be there. Exactly. But they don't talk about repenting of sin and believing in Christ and his righteousness and being justified by faith.

They don't talk about any of that. It's just, the gospel says, and Jesus did this for us, which is always very positive.

Oh, of course. And very encouraging and uplifting. There's my K -love slogan again. Positive and encouraging.

Yes. It's all their prophecies. It's all it ever is. But you're never actually hearing what you think you're hearing. So again -

So if you have bad theology, then you're going to fill it in with your bad theology. Right. You will. Yeah. Yeah. And if you have good theology, you'll fill it in with your good theology.

The problem is that continued exposure over time is going to cause your own theology to languish. Yeah. Yeah.

You're not going to go deeper. You're not going to grow. Right. You do not grow attending Bethel Church. Period.

Right. You get worse. You don't get deeper into the word. So eventually, you do start falling into those false teachings.

You follow Bill Johnson for a time, or Chris Volatin or any of these guys, and they start talking about miracles and name it and claim it and proclaiming your healing and believing that you can do these healings just by speaking them into existence.

And then you get into the weird stuff they do, like the fire tunnels, the glory clouds, the feathers that fall down, which they claim are actual angel feathers.

All of this stuff is staged. The speaking in tongues, the falling on the floor, the random music stuff that they do.

Bill Johnson's kenosis theology, where Jesus Christ, when he was here, was not

God. He was only human, and he was a perfect example for us. And so everything that he did that was miraculous, he was showing us we can do that, too.

So all you need to do is believe as Jesus did, and you will be able to do the same kind of miracles that Jesus did.

He refers to Jesus as Jesus is perfect theology, which whatever that means.

You should be able to do the same sort of miraculous, amazing things that Jesus did. Now, I'm telling you, this is where the heresy eventually gets to.

But if you go to an event where Jesus' culture is playing the music, or even

Chris Vallotton shows up as a guest speaker, you're not getting into the heretical stuff, because they're just giving you the very light, fluffy gospel that's going to please everybody.

It's continued exposure to this is where you're eventually going to fall into the heresy. Now how are you going to address this?

The question specifically that was asked by Alan is, how can I address these dangers with the people at my church so that they're no longer attending this event where Jesus' culture is present and this kind of teaching is coming about?

I would say get the book Defining Deception by Kosti Hinn, by Anthony Wood and Kosti Hinn.

I can't leave out Anthony Wood. Oh no, definitely not. Everybody knows Kosti because he's

Benny Hinn's nephew in the testimony that he shares from that. This was a collaborative effort between Kosti and Anthony, and I love my brother

Anthony, so I can't leave him out as well. Anthony Wood and Kosti Hinn wrote this book called Defining Deception.

You can find it on Amazon. In fact, I'll look it up for you right now and tell you exactly how much it costs.

$16 .95 paperback, or if you get the Kindle edition, it's $9 .99. That's what

I was thinking of because I was like, I think it just costs you $10, and I was thinking of the Kindle edition. So $16 .95

for a copy of Defining Deception, Freeing the Church from the Mystical Miracle Movement.

Read it so you know what's in the book, you're familiar with the material, and then you need to pass it on to the head pastor.

Alan mentions that he's the associate pastor at his church, so pass it on to whoever you need to have read it.

The book Defining Deception mainly confronts the New Apostolic Reformation, but they target

Bill Johnson and Bethel Church, because as I said, that's kind of the icon of the New Apostolic Reformation movement, and that's where Jesus culture comes from.

So that's the book that you want to read, and everything that Kosti goes into, Kosti and Anthony talking about the background of Bethel, everything that led up to this movement, from the

Azusa revivals, some of those big charismatics through the 90s that Bill Johnson heralds as like pillars of the church, and then what sort of teaching is coming out of this church, what's in their music, et cetera.

The music is what makes Bethel popular. People are getting drawn into Bethel Church because the music is so well known.

Hillsong, Jesus culture, Elevation Church, they're all cut from the same cloth, and they all share the same stages at the same events and all this kind of thing.

The music is probably not going to lead you into heresy itself, but it's going to draw you into Bethel Church, where you're going to hear shallow preaching, and eventually you're going to get into some of the more heretical stuff they do, and the tricks and the cons, and the thing about that, yeah, like the glitter clouds and the glory clouds and all this kind of thing, they know they're lying.

They know that. They are charlatans and liars. They are lying through their teeth.

They still do the grave -sucking stuff, the whole thing of assuming a mantle, or taking on somebody else's mantle, where they lie on somebody's grave, or even just go visit a grave, and they think that they can kind of absorb the spiritual essence of the person.

Now, whenever Bill Johnson or anybody from Bethel Church gets confronted on this, they deny it.

They outright, no, we don't do grave -sucking, specifically it's called mantle -grabbing, and you can actually find in Bill Johnson's writing where it is, where he talks about it.

I've read it. So, don't believe them for a second when they say, no, we don't do that.

They understand how weird it looks to everybody else. So they're going to try the Mormon tactic of denying it and lying about it, even though they actually do it.

And now, the Mormon Church is finding a greater difficulty in doing that these days, now that we have the internet, and people can just go online and look this stuff up.

But Bethel Church is still trying it. They're trying to just lie about it and deny it, but it's still going on.

They still do it. They teach all of this nonsense, soothsaying and communication with the dead, in addition to all of the charismatic tricks and cons that they do.

It is a dangerous deception, which is why Costi and Anthony's book is entitled

Defining Deception. So, I hope that book is going to be helpful for you, and it's going to equip you with what you need to protect your church, and especially your youth, because that's really who

Bethel and Jesus culture is going after. Yep. They are. They're going after the youth. Yep.

That's why they have the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, supernatural, superhero, whatever it is.

Superhero. Superhero. Where they teach you how to fly. They don't actually do that, but ... I was going to say.

They do teach you that you can just proclaim a healing over somebody. Just say it, and you'll be healed.

So, you fail if you don't achieve that? Yeah. Okay. Right. You don't have enough faith if the person you're trying to heal doesn't have enough faith.

Interesting. I mean, yeah. It's the way that whole charismatic movement works. I read online earlier this week that Todd White's brand new church in Dallas, Texas has opened up, and there was somebody who made a comment about how it's just down the street from her house.

And so, at the local grocery store, whenever church lets out, there are a bunch of youth that are coming in there wanting to heal everybody at the grocery store.

Oh, boy. No one's getting healed at these places, folks. It's all a ruse.

It's completely a con, but like I said, they're going after the youth, and they're getting them sucked in. I said earlier that you're not really going to come into a lot of false teaching just attending an event where Jesus culture was there, and they sang their music and stuff like that.

I only say that just to put you at ease that your child didn't come home a heretic. Right.

Okay. But it's just enough that they put out there to try to lure them in, and they get connected with the music.

And they love the feel -good stuff, because there's closing eyes and swaying hands, and the lights are low, and it's just good feel -good music.

I got the goosebumps there, and then you'll go and listen to the song on the CD to try to have that feeling again.

Get that feeling again. Exactly. It is like a spiritual drug. It's the way they do it. All right.

Thank you for your question, Alan. This next one comes from Kenechukwu in Nigeria.

Awesome. Here's the guy who put the pronunciation of his name in there. Yeah. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Kenechukwu. I'm just proud of myself for being able to say it. I was going to say, are you going to read it or?

Okay. Hey. No, I'm just basking in my own, I can pronounce this name.

Because he spelled it out for you. But sure.

Precisely. Hi, Pastor Gabe and Becky. Hello.

My question is concerning David in the Bible and his prayers and songs. A major component of David's writings was his emphasis on God's treatment of the righteous and the wicked.

And he often used language like, God saw my righteousness and rewarded me. He repaid me according to my righteousness and the cleanness of my hands.

He snatched me from my enemies because I did not turn away from God as the wicked do.

And so on. So David proclaiming his own righteousness in the Psalms. These are statements that I feel will be warned against in our understanding of human nature.

So my questions are thus, was David in sin for praying in such a way?

Is it in any way right to lay claim to our works of righteousness when we pray? And what is a proper understanding of this sort of language in prayer?

I've been reading through 1 and 2 Samuel, and I've been learning a lot about the prayer pattern of David and how he utilized

God's promises and surrendered to God's sovereignty. But this part of his language rubs off on me strangely in my readings here and there in the

Psalms. I will be grateful if you can clarify this. Thank you very much.

Let's go to Psalm 7. Because I think that Psalm 7, as we read through this and understand what

David is praying here, this is a good sort of an example for us in the kind of righteousness that David proclaims.

Okay. So Psalm 7, starting in verse 1. Oh, Lord, my God, in you do

I take refuge. Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces with none to deliver.

Oh, Lord, my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust.

So before going on here, you can see that as David is praying, he's very humbly coming before the

Lord and recognizing, I may be deceived in my own flesh, lest I proclaim my own righteousness.

If there is any way in me that is wrong, root it out.

David has prayed elsewhere in the Psalms, reveal my secret sins to me, that I may be cleansed, that I may ask forgiveness for these and you would cleanse me.

And so here is kind of the same thing. If there is any evil in my hands, if I've done the same thing that my enemy has done to me, well, then let my enemy pursue my soul and overtake it.

But David knows that he has a righteousness that is not his own, and that is what's going to come up here in the

Psalm as we go on. The next section here in Psalm 7 is that imprecatory prayer sort of a thing of strike down my enemies, you know.

Okay. Psalm 7 verse 6, Arise, O Lord, in your anger, lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies.

Awake for me, you have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you, over it return on high.

The Lord judges the peoples, judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.

So here's the very thing that Kenechukwu is asking about. So David proclaiming his own righteousness, judge me,

O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. Is it okay for us to pray that way?

Well, in context, we can see that David has said, if there is any evil in me, let my enemy overtake me.

And in elsewhere in the song, in the Psalms, he asks to be disciplined so that there would not be any wrong way in him.

So here he is, we see in context that he's not simply on its own asking for God to show him favor because he's righteous.

He's not just saying, God, I'm righteous. So give me what I'm due. That's not necessarily the way that David is presenting that.

But even when he talks about his own righteousness in verse 8, he says, the Lord judges the peoples, judge me,

O Lord, according to my righteousness. Now he qualifies that righteousness a little bit more as we go on.

Verse 9, O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous, you who test the minds and hearts,

O righteous God. Now, it may be that our enemies or our antagonists do not see us as righteous.

So you think of the godliness that we desire to have in Christ Jesus.

And Paul said to Timothy that those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Right. And he's saying here that if you just desire a godly life, you'll be persecuted.

People will hate you because you want to do the godly thing.

And as Peter puts it in 1 Peter, I think it's in chapter 4, where he says that they're going to make fun of you.

They're going to malign you because you will not join them in their debauchery. So just the fact that you desire the righteous way instead of following in the sinful, awful worldly way and the sins that we see people falling deeper and deeper into, people are going to hate you because you desire godliness.

You don't even have to say or do anything to anyone else. They will hate you simply because you love

Jesus. Right. And Jesus said, remember that when they hate you, they hated me first.

Right. So, so David is praying here that the evil of the wicked would come to an end and that God would establish the righteous, test the minds and the hearts,

O righteous God. So while our enemy hates us because of our righteousness, it is

God who tests our righteousness and loves us because of our righteousness. The world hates us for our righteousness.

God loves us for our righteousness. And again, to qualify, to clarify, because we're coming to this in the

Psalm, this is not a righteousness of our own. It is the righteousness of God.

Right. Hence, why we can declare ourselves as righteous. Not because we're righteous by our own merit.

Titus 3, 5, he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

Right. So the righteousness we have is not ours. It doesn't come from us. And he's not bragging or, or prideful.

He's not boasting. Right. He is, he's wanting God to uphold his righteousness, that God is a just God.

And so therefore he's going to deliver and defend the righteous. Right. And indeed he will.

Even if we will perish in this life, if somebody puts you to death because of the godliness that you desire, we will still be vindicated ultimately in the end.

God will have vengeance. Romans 12, vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. And you have the persecuted, the martyrs in the book of Revelation that are saying, how long

O Lord? And then Christ gives them a robe and says, a little while longer, because your number is going to be added to, there's going to be more martyrs that are going to come before these things are completed.

And so, and so that's what David is, is asking God to do, to judge his righteousness.

Everybody else sees me as, as an enemy. My enemies see me as an enemy, but you

O Lord are righteous. And so judge me, you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous

God. Verse 10 and 11, my shield is with God who saves the upright in heart.

God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day.

So we know that God does have wrath for those who do evil and he has deliverance for those who do righteous, because God is a righteous judge and a

God who feels indignation every day. And he does, as we're going to go on here in Psalm to read, in Psalm 7 to read,

God is wetting his sword. So he is storing up wrath for the day of wrath as described in the book of Romans and in second

Peter chapter three, when fire from heaven is going to be poured out and he will consume those who are evil, but he will deliver those who are righteous.

So may we stand in fear of that day that we may repent of our sin and desire the righteousness of God so that we will have nothing to fear on that day.

But we will be delivered by God who is a just God. And the reason why we're delivered is because we have a righteousness that is not our own.

It comes from God. So verse 12, if a man does not repent, God will wet his sword,

W -H -E -T, wet. He has bent and readied his bow. He has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.

Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.

He makes a pit, digging it out and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head and on his own skull, his violence descends.

Now here we get to the final verse 17. Okay. All right. I will give thanks to the

Lord, the thanks due to his righteousness. And I will sing praise to the name of the

Lord, the most high. This entire time when David has been singing about his righteousness, he's singing about God's righteousness.

He knows that he is righteous because the righteousness that he has comes not from himself.

It comes from God. This is our understanding of double imputation. Like we have in 2

Corinthians 5, verse 21, he became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

And that verse actually begins, for our sake he became sin. So all of this done for our sake.

Our sins have been placed upon Christ on the cross and God's wrath was satisfied.

He was the propitiation for our sins. So what propitiation means is God's wrath was satisfied. His righteousness was imparted to us, imputed to us.

So we wear the righteousness of Christ. And God our father looks at us and sees us as righteous, not because of anything we have done, but according to his own mercy.

This is talked about as well in Romans chapter three, Romans 3, 23, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, verse 24, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins.

It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Now I believe when David was writing Psalm seven, he had in mind the righteousness of God which had been given to him.

But we did not understand that or the clarity of it did not become known to God's people until Christ opened the minds of his disciples to understand everything that had been done through the cross and the resurrection from the grave.

As we have at the end of the book of Luke, he opened the minds of his disciples to understand these things.

Because before that they were all thick headed. Yeah, right. They thought Jesus was going to be a political deliverer, that he was going to free them from the tyranny of Rome.

And now we're going to have this earthly kingdom. That's what it was that they were ready for. But it wasn't a kingdom that was going to be restoring an ethnic people, ethnic

Israel. It was his church, Matthew 16, 18, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

And this was to show God's righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

This imputation, this imparting of righteousness to us, which comes by faith in Jesus Christ.

In Psalm 23, you know, Psalm 23, verse three, where it says, lead me in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

So our righteousness is for God's glory. It is not for ours. And David understood that.

So when we read about David saying, vindicate me, oh God, because of my righteousness.

It's not that he's saying it's his righteousness. He is believing in a just God who has promised to David.

And so David is asking that the Lord would deliver him because it has been promised to him that he would be delivered.

And it may not be exactly at that moment that David would see that deliverance, but he knows that it will be in God's good time and according to the counsel of his will.

And so we must understand that the same way. I believe that it is okay for us to pray and ask for the

Lord to bless us because of our righteousness or deliver us because of our righteousness, which will happen.

It's a reminder that the righteousness that we have does not come from us. It comes from God when we're praying that.

And we have submitted our minds to the scriptures. Then we know that the righteousness that we're proclaiming isn't ours.

It's what's been given to us by God. But remember that Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the

Pharisees, you cannot inherit the kingdom of God. I had a young man I was talking to one time evangelizing.

I do a lot of evangelism on Tuesday because we will feed and evangelize the high school students from the high school that's just kind of adjacent to the church right there.

And this young man was arguing with my tendency to go back to the scriptures. So I kept telling him, the

Bible says this, we're talking about some certain moral issues. And I would say, the Bible says this, and he would say something to the effect of, you know, it's the scribes and the

Pharisees that kept going back to the word like that. And that's what you're doing. It's just like the scribes and the Pharisees. Somehow in that roundabout of this conversation, he said something to the effect, he asked me something like this.

He said, does your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees? And he was asking it as like a gotcha question because he was trying to show me that I thought

I was high and mighty like the scribes and the Pharisees. And I said, yeah, yeah, my righteousness exceeds the

Pharisees. And he was kind of caught by that because it wasn't the answer from me that he expected. And I said,

I said, Jesus said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the

Pharisees, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. Well, I do have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and the

Pharisees. And he's like, how do you how is that you keep all of the law? I said, no, Christ fulfilled the law.

And I believe in Christ and his righteousness has been imputed to me by faith. So the righteousness that I'm telling you that I have doesn't come from me, it comes from God.

Yet he doesn't understand that concept. So in answering the question the way that he asked it, he says, does your righteousness exceed the

Pharisees? And I say, yes, because the righteousness I have is from God.

And that's what Jesus meant when he said it. And I tried to get him to understand that, but he was still very argumentative on extra biblical revelations and things like that.

That was kind of where the conversation began from. His eyes weren't open yet. No. Yeah. It was a very naturally minded man.

Yeah. And would not submit to the scriptures because he believed what he wanted to believe. Again, that thing of God gave me the idea.

So it must be true. Right. Anyway. I hope that answers your question.

I can't remember if I kind of summarized that good enough, Kenny Achukwu, but that would be the understanding when

David is talking about his righteousness, he knows that it comes from God. It doesn't come from himself. You talked about reading 1 and 2

Samuel, and you've been learning a lot about the prayer pattern of David. That's really good. 1 and 2 Samuel and 1

Chronicles, because you'll see David pray some things that are actually Psalms. They'll show up in those books, but then you'll like, oh, this is

Psalm whatever. And I know that this appears in the Psalms as well. So then you see the event that was going on that led to David praying that.

There are some good websites out there. I don't have any pulled up right now, but I know of some sites that will do a parallel with the story of David and the

Psalm. So this was approximately what was going on in David's life at the time that he wrote that Psalm.

And so you get to see. That's cool. Where this Psalm came up. And some of those things are referenced in 1 and 2

Samuel. You got to do a little bit of digging, but you can make the parallels and line up with those things that are going on.

Because when you come to the Psalm, it will say, oh, Psalm 3, a Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom, his son.

So where you will have those statements made in the Psalms, you can draw the Psalms out and line them up where the events show up in 1 and 2

Samuel. That'd be pretty cool to figure that out. Yeah. To find those parallels. Yeah. Makes the study a little bit easier.

Kind of puts it in a different context. Right. Next question comes from Neil. He says, Pastor Gabe, I love your podcast.

I listen daily. I 100 % believe in Sola Scriptura, but a friend played a clip that was hard for me to answer.

Prophet Kim Clement prophesied in 2013 that Trump would win the election and he got it right.

Can you give me ammo to debate that? Sure. Kim Clement is full of a bunch of nonsense and you shouldn't believe anything that he ever said.

Kim Clement was, he died in 2016. He was among that new apostolic reformation crowd.

He was that same group of people. And he was, in addition to being a preacher and a so -called prophet, he was also a musician.

And when you see videos of any of his concerts, it's like the most amazing spectacle, it's like a

Kiss concert or something like that. Interesting. You got big, huge laser lights.

A little bit of everything. Yeah. Or a lot of everything, rather. Lots of sound. Everything is very, very loud.

Whenever he did his prophecies, it was always to music. So something is setting a mood in an atmosphere and it's this weird sort of like transcendental sort of vibe that you can hear going on.

It's really bonkers stuff. And all of the stuff that he would claim or whatever he would prophesy, he's just rattling stuff off the top of his head.

There's really not, you know, it's not like, hey, I was praying this week and God showed me this word from the

Lord. It's this. He just kind of goes into those trance sorts of things and here we go. Here's what the

Lord is speaking to me right now. Or he might say what the Lord is speaking to me lately, but it's all off the top of his head.

That's all where it came from. Very similar to a clip you've probably seen of Benny Hinn in 1989, talking about all the things that are going to happen in the 90s.

And he says, the Holy Spirit is telling me that in the 90s, Fidel Castro will die. Didn't happen.

Yeah, no. That the East Coast is going to be ravaged by earthquakes. You know, all this was was

Benny Hinn claiming that the Holy Spirit was showing him this stuff, that the homosexual community will be destroyed.

Yeah. Well, that clearly didn't happen. Anyway, these were some of the prophecies that Benny Hinn made in 89, and he goes into this trance like state and claims that the

Holy Spirit is just telling him these kinds of things. So Kim Clement did the same thing. Now, whether or not he actually prophesied that Trump would become president is hard to say, because this is this is the only clip

I was able to find from Clement where it sounds like he says Donald Trump is going to become president.

OK. Here is Kim Clement. This that shall take place shall be the most unusual thing.

A transfiguration. A going into the marketplace, if you wish. Into the news media.

Where Time magazine will have no choice but to say what I want them to say. Newsweek.

What I want to say. The View. What I want to say.

Trump shall become a trumpet. Says the Lord. Trump shall become a trumpet.

I will raise up the Trump to become a trumpet. And Bill Gates to open up the gate.

So that's it. Wow. That's the closest I was able to find to Clement saying that Trump was going to become president, which he does never say that he says

Trump will become a trumpet and Bill Gates will open up a whole financial realm for the church. So he's not talking about Trump becoming the president.

Donald Trump has been a rich figure in U .S. history for the last couple of decades.

So he's just talking about rich people who are going to end up becoming a benefit to the church somehow.

That thing that he says about Bill Gates, that hadn't happened. Right. So Trump has become president, but Bill Gates has not opened up the finances for the church to be able to grab hold all this money and do whatever this thing is he's talking about.

I was I was talking with somebody. This wasn't that long ago. Somebody who grew up in New York City. And he said that when he when he was growing up in New York, Trump was always in the newspapers.

There was always something going on with Donald Trump. And so he was he was always a prominent name throughout the 80s and 90s.

It wasn't like all of a sudden Trump just became this huge ultra celebrity. As long as I've been alive,

I remember hearing the name Donald Trump when I was a kid. I remember making jokes about I'm going to be rich as Trump one day or, you know, something like that.

Yeah. So he's been this prominent, rich entrepreneur for as long as I've been alive.

So for Clement to say something like that, especially in the context of naming Bill Gates. Yeah. He's not saying

Trump is going to become a president and therefore got this this prophecy right. It's not even unusual for him to name

Donald Trump or Bill Gates. It's just the same sort of random stuff that all of these prophecy gurus do.

And then when something happens, then they say, ah, see, I got it right. I got it.

Look what I did. Yeah. Now, Clement, the spirit gave me that. Right. Yeah. Clement died in 2016 and it was very unexpected.

And this is all his family that's doing this. Like his daughter has she even has this little prophecy show

I've watched a couple of times on YouTube where she says, my father predicted this and she'll play some clip of him saying a bunch of random stuff.

And then she'll play some news clips. Look, it's happening in the news. And you can hear even in the context of this, quote unquote, prophecy that Clement made that it doesn't actually go with what it is that she's saying.

She's just finding certain keywords. Yeah. And it kind of goes with what's going on in this news story.

Therefore, I can say my father predicted this. He was a wacko. He was a loon. Yeah.

He knew how to manipulate crowds with, you know, like the music that you heard under him and all that kind of stuff. He just knew how to do that.

But he never prophesied anything. Now, even if he did, let me let me concede that Clement actually did prophesy that Donald Trump is going to become president.

All right. So what? Like, how does that change my life at all?

What does it change about what you're going to do with your life? Thanks. That was helpful. Right.

It's like, okay, big deal. And then? This is, you know, that quote that comes from J .I.

Packer when he was summarizing a certain argument from John Owen. Packer said, if private revelations agree with scripture, they are needless.

If they disagree, they're false. And this is a certain example of if Clement prophesied something that actually goes with the

Bible somehow. Big deal. Right. I have the Bible. I didn't need Clement's extra biblical revelation.

And if it disagrees with the Bible somehow, then it's false. I would present to you that everything

Kim Clement said contradicted scripture, because as it said to us in Deuteronomy 18, if there is a prophet that arises among you and he makes some sort of prediction that does not come to pass, he has spoken presumptuously, it did not come from God.

And what did God say the penalty was for such a person? You should stone him to death. Yeah. If he claims to speak from God and it doesn't happen, it did not come from me.

You don't need to fear him and you need to purge the evil from your midst. Now, in our current context, that doesn't mean we drag a guy out of the parking lot and stone him.

No. But it does mean that such a person, if they do not repent, is going to stand in judgment before God and they will be judged for blasphemy for claiming that the spirit gave them some sort of revelation that God did not give that person.

And so they must stand in fear of God. They have no fear of God to say that, well, God told me this.

When they know that he didn't, that's a glory cloud. Right. When they know they dumped glitter in the ventilation system.

Right. They're going to be standing in judgment before God for that very thing. I pray they repent before then.

Amen. Closing with this scripture, 2 Corinthians chapter four, therefore having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways.

We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord.

Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Yes, let's. Our great God, we thank you for this time together and this time studying your word.

And I pray that these words would penetrate our hearts, that we love them, that we would apply them to our lives.

We would understand in wisdom how we are to live according to your word.

May we give praise to you with all that we say and do. May we be a glory to your great name, doing as David prayed in Psalm 23, three, lead me in paths of righteousness for your name's sake, that we may proclaim the righteousness of God that comes not from ourselves, but it is by the grace of God that we have been forgiven our sins and given your righteousness.

So help us to live in righteousness, renouncing sin, underhanded ways, but by the open statement of the truth, we would submit ourselves to you in all we say and do.

I pray for repentance for those who speak wrongly about God and make up prophecies that you did not give them, but they would love your word and know its sufficiency, sufficient for our every spiritual need and practice in this life.

Keep us steadfast until the day of Christ. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Is that your bones creaking or my chair?

Since you were groaning when you sat down. Both. No. Sorry, heater's gotta go off.

So cold. I grabbed the smallest blanket too.

Yeah, you did. You go get your other blanket. It's fine. I'll turn the heater back on if you go get your other blanket.

No, you won't. Yeah, I will. I'll turn it on while you go get your blanket. I'm fine.

That thing's barely big enough for Raya. It's too big for her. You look like you're trying to get your knees underneath it.

I'm nice and warm. How's that again? I'm nice and warm. I'm toasty in here.

I want to see it with your knees up again too. Oh, you want me to do my knees up again too? I can't.