WWUTT 2480 Q&A Remembering Voddie Baucham, Eirka Kirk on Forgiveness, Justice on the Wrongdoer

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Some incredible things have happened in just the past week. Votie Bauckham died on Thursday, September the 25th, a shocking loss.

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Before that, the memorial service for Charlie Kirk was held at a stadium in Phoenix, Arizona with hundreds of thousands in attendance and the gospel was shared boldly.

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Charlie's widow, Erica, forgave her killer in front of all those many thousands of people.

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How do we think about these things when we understand the text? This is when we understand the text, studying

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God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Find all our videos online at www .wutt

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.com as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky, who is not with me this week. This has been a really busy week.

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So if you've seen episodes of the podcast that have posted rather late, just know that we've been swamped but still wanted to get the devotional lessons and even this

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Friday Q &A out to you, although I'm recording this on Saturday and I don't know when in the weekend this will end up posting because I got to record it and I'm not going to have time to edit it until later.

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So yeah, editing, there's still going to be flubs in here that I'm going to have to correct and I got to get the audio all leveled and I got to add the ramp at the beginning and the music bed at the end.

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So yeah, all that stuff we'll get to later on in the weekend, but still wanted to be able to put something out there because goodness, what a week.

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Let me start with the Psalms. This is Psalm 116, starting in verse 12.

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What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the

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Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.

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Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. O Lord, I am your servant.

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I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the

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Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people in the courts of the house of the

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Lord in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord. I thought of this psalm because this was the psalm that Founders Ministry posted on Thursday when they made the announcement that Vodie Bauckham had passed away.

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Can't even begin to tell you how shocking that was, to read that. I was actually teaching the

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Bible class that I teach at a local Christian school, and it was three o 'clock. It was exactly three o 'clock.

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The class goes until 3 .05. And my wife called me. And I'm using my phone.

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I actually had my smartphone sitting on the table in front of me because I use it for notes as I'm teaching to the students.

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There are things throughout my day I'll think of and I'll just jot it down on my phone so I'll use it as notes for when

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I do my lessons. So I had my phone in front of me and my wife starts calling me. Well, Becky knows that I teach until 3 .05.

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She knows that. So curiosity got the better of me and I went ahead and answered the phone.

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And I said, when I answered it, I said, Babe, I'm teaching. And she said real quick,

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Vodie Bauckham just passed away. And because the students are right there waiting for me to finish the lesson,

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I just said, okay, thank you. And hung up the phone. And I kind of like shook my head or rolled my eyes or something.

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And I did not want the students to think that I was reacting that way to my wife.

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So I just simply said, Goodness, that's bad news. Just to let them know what was shared with me was terrible news.

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And one of the students asked me what and I said, I'll tell you later. I really should have gone ahead and told them. I've played

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Vodie Bauckham clips for them in the class, so I should have gone ahead and said it. But I was trying to finish the lesson out for the day.

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I will bring that back to their attention or I will bring that to their attention later in the week and we'll watch another

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Vodie Bauckham clip. But I got done with the students.

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This was on a Thursday of course. The students are only in school Monday through Thursday. So they have a long weekend.

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Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And so I have them turn in their notebooks on Thursday because I grade their notes.

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And so they're bringing their notes forward and I collect all the notebooks and they leave out the room. And as soon as the last student was out and the door closed,

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I wept. There have been few teachers that have been as influential to me as Vodie Bauckham.

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And I've shared this I believe I've shared this on this podcast before. I'm an expository preacher today because of Vodie Bauckham.

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There was a sermon that he delivered 20 years ago. It had to have been.

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And this was before the Texas Baptist Association.

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I can't remember which Southern Baptist group it was in Texas because there's more than one. There's not one state convention.

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There's two or three of them. But anyway, I guess it was the better one that his church was a part of.

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And he was teaching on Ephesians 6, 1 through 4. Children, obey your parents in the

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Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

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Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. First sermon

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I ever heard from Vodie Bauckham was on this passage. It aired on Family Life Today.

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If memory serves, it would have been in 2006. Now, I was 25 years old at that time.

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I always turned the last digit of my age is the last digit of the year.

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So, this year in 2025, I turned 45. But at the time in 2006,

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I was 25 years old. This was not yet my 26th birthday. And at this point,

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I had been preaching for about 8 years because the first sermon that I ever preached, I did at the age of 17.

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I was an itinerant preacher. I traveled around and preached. I was not a pastor. I had no desire to become a pastor.

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But I did like traveling around and preaching. I also had a band and we would go and lead praise and worship music in various churches and things like that.

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Well, at this particular time, at the age of 25, I was coming out of being influenced by the emergent church movement.

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I was a Rob Bell fan at one point. And I thought what he was saying was incredibly profound.

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It was like a new way of thinking about the Bible. I haven't ever thought about these things before. I was being led away into heresy and was not even aware of it.

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Some of the sermons that I had been preaching during that period of time were awful. I can still remember those.

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Like, from memory, I can remember what I said. And I wish I could go back to those churches and say, listen, the last time you heard from me was 20 years ago.

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But what I preached was awful. And I'm here to try to redeem myself.

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If those people are even still there in those churches to this day. I'm embarrassed by some of the things that I was teaching back then.

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I thought I had now come to a point where I thought I had been leading people into false teaching.

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And so I was re -evaluating the way that I was approaching the pulpit.

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I didn't have enough conviction to realize I shouldn't be preaching at all right now, which would have been the more mature conclusion,

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I think. But at the time, I was like, no, I'm still going to be preaching, but I need to be doing this better.

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So what do I need to do? Well, I came back to the Bible. My dad taught me the Bible as I've shared many, many times.

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He taught me how to handle it rightly. 2 Timothy 2 .15. Show yourself to be a worker approved, rightly handling the word of truth.

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I felt like I had a pretty good handle on using Scripture to interpret Scripture, but it was my communication that was really messed up.

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So how do I communicate it more effectively? How do I give it application that's actually biblical and is not being influenced by these false teachers that I had been fooled by?

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I had just been ensnared by them. So how do I give people the true gospel?

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How do I tell them what the Bible really says and how to apply it? Not trying to be profound, overly profound.

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Because, I mean, really, that's what had drawn me in by these emergent church guys. They would say things about the

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Bible, and I would think, oh, wow, that's so profound. I'd never thought about the Bible that way before. Right, because it's not what the Bible says.

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That's why I hadn't thought about it that way. So how do I become an effective communicator of Scripture?

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That's what I was thinking about at this time. And it was in this same season, I'm sitting in the studio of the radio station that I worked for, and they always played

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Focus on the Family and Family Life Today back -to -back. And I want to say this was from the 10 to 11 o 'clock hour.

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Central time. Every morning. Always played Focus on the Family, Family Life Today. So Focus on the

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Family at that time was Dr. James Dobson. Family Life Today was hosted by Dennis Rainey. Both programs have different hosts now than they used to.

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But Dennis Rainey really loved finding great charismatic preachers out there that would preach on the family.

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So he heard this message from this young preacher in Texas named

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Votie Bauckham Jr. And he aired it on Family Life Today, Votie Bauckham preaching on Ephesians 6, 1 through 4.

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Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Now, I was not a husband or a father at the time.

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I didn't even have a girl in my life. I wasn't even dating anybody. So what relevance did this sermon have for me?

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I actually liked listening to Focus and Family Life. They were two of my favorite programs on the radio station that we aired.

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And here I'm listening to this guy preaching on Ephesians 6 and I'm enthralled. Like, he's thundering away at the pulpit preaching on Ephesians 6, 1 through 4 and I'm sitting at my table in the recording studio with a pad in front of me and a pen and I'm scribbling notes furiously.

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I know that whatever I miss I can go back to the recording and catch later, which I did. I ended up downloading that sermon.

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I think it was part one of two and I think I was listening to the second part. But I ended up downloading that sermon and keeping it.

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I don't have it in my audio library anymore, but I know where to find it. I mean, that's just kind of the way of the internet anymore.

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How these sermons get catalogued. I can go and find them anywhere. At this time, I couldn't do that. But I would just take the messages of the programs that I would hear on the radio station that I really liked and I would go in the studio and I'd just rip them off from the computer.

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And then I had this large library of stuff that I was collecting, but I don't have any of that material anymore because I don't have cassette tape players and CD players like I used to have.

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But anyway, so Vodi is teaching on Ephesians 6 and he's even going back to chapter 5 to show the context of this instruction.

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Children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. So he says what we have here are three contrasts followed by three commands followed by three contexts.

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And he showed where the contrasts were in verses 15 to 18. The last one being do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit.

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So in view of that contrast are three commands for those who are filled with the spirit.

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There's sing and make melody in your hearts to God. That's verse 19, giving thanks always to God, verse 20, and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ, verse 21.

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Well then following that third command are three contexts of submission. Wives to husbands, children to parents, and slaves to masters.

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But even husbands, fathers, and masters have authority that they must submit to and that is

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Christ. And I'm listening to Voti explain this.

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He is explaining children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right in this context.

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I had never heard expositional preaching like this before. Or at least to my awareness.

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At this particular time when I am opening my heart to recognizing that I've been teaching falsely and need to improve even my approach to the text before I preach it,

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I was properly conditioned to listen to this sermon and expose my errors and see what

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I needed to correct. Just through this sermon that Voti was preaching from Ephesians 6. And I thought to myself as I was listening to this, this is how it should be done.

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This is how I want to preach. And it changed the way that I approached sermon preparation from that day forward.

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And so I am an expository preacher today because of the ministry of Voti Bacchum.

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More so than John MacArthur even. You know, John MacArthur is considered the expositor of our age.

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It was like, it was Martin Lloyd -Jones and then that baton got handed off to John MacArthur and I really thought the next great expositor after Sproul and MacArthur were gone was going to be

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Voti Bacchum. And here he passed away a month after John MacArthur's memorial service, after his funeral.

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Voti died at the age of 56. I mean, it was just stunning to me. And knowing that Charles Spurgeon had died at the age of 57, it was difficult not to see the parallels.

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Voti had expositional preaching down to a science more so than John MacArthur did, I believe.

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I think that MacArthur is, he is our expositor of the past century, or at least the one who picked up the baton after Martin Lloyd -Jones.

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But when it comes to like the science of exposition, like what true exposition actually is,

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I just believe Voti did it better. Even though John MacArthur had the larger influence, the greater outreach.

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I mean, I've said of Tom Buck, the pastor that I served with in Lindale, Texas.

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I think he's the greatest expositor I've ever met. He's an incredible expositor.

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And it's what he went to school for. I mean, that's what his doctorate is in, is expository preaching. So Tom is exceptional at that.

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And Voti just changed my life with his expository preaching. I wanted to preach like Voti.

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I did not adopt any of his verbal mannerisms. I didn't start saying if you can't say amen, you better say ouch.

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I didn't say that dog won't hunt. Amen somebody. Or airbody. You know, any of those wonderful things that Voti was known for saying.

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I never picked that up in my speech. I'm not a parrot in that sense. But I heard a brilliant expositor whom

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I wanted to be like in my preaching. And I am that today because of Voti.

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Whatever you think of my exposition, whether you like it or not, Voti influenced me more than anybody else did.

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It was in 2021 when Voti was experiencing a massive heart failure.

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And we don't know exactly what killed him, but it was probably something to do with his heart.

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We won't know until the coroner's report comes out, but that would be my guess. Because we know his heart was bad.

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He was actually struggling with his kidneys as well. But based on what was reported about his passing, it sounds like it was his heart.

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And when he was in 2021 traveling from Zambia back to the United States because he was experiencing massive heart failure,

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I went to the Verizon store down in Tyler, Texas and got him signed up on our church's cell phone plan so that he would have cell service when he got to the

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States. So I'm in a Verizon store signing Voti Bakum up to our cell phone plan.

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So he's got a cell phone. He moved back to the U .S. shortly after that and had just recently, wasn't this earlier this year, was announced that he would be the president of Founders Seminary in Cape Coral, Florida.

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I got to see him this past March when he preached at a conference in Phoenix with Kosti Hinn.

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You can actually find the you can find those messages, that entire conference on YouTube.

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It's up for free. And it was just a few months after that that the

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Lord has taken him home. He still had kids living at home. And my prayers are for his wife and for his children.

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There's a fund that's been set up that you can donate to if you like to help Bridget and the kids with any of those costs that they're going to have at Votie's passing.

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My heart's just, it's just broken. I'll miss him but I'm grateful for the library of sermons that we still have access to.

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And if you've never really listened to much Votie Bauckham, you should. You will be greatly fed.

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As the Apostle Paul closes out 2 Timothy chapter 4, he says, I have fought the good fight.

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I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the

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Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

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I was privileged to have met Votie and even worked with him a little bit on some of the expository workshops that we would do.

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I drove him to and from his hotel a few times and even though he would be dog -tired he still let me ask him questions and pick his brain.

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So what a wonderful man he was and I know that there are many more that knew him more personally than I did who have said the same.

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He was a privilege to the church. Not just in America but even around the world.

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But the Lord has a reason why he has called Votie home and I trust his plan.

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Folks, the most influential preachers in your life are still going to be the men that are shepherding you in your local church.

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So I know that we've got these guys that are famous and they end up with these platforms and we watch their YouTube videos and stuff like that and all of that is very very great but your greatest preachers are the ones who specifically shepherd you.

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Those of whom it is said in Hebrews chapter 13 imitate their way of life and imitate their faith.

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You actually live with these men. You interact with them and you see them on a regular basis.

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There are a lot of preachers out there like the superstar guys, right? The guys with the platforms and the guys that you see on YouTube.

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There's a lot of those guys that sound real impressive on YouTube but their personal life is a mess.

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There's even one or two that I can think of. I won't say their names here but guys

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I know who are not what they seem. There's more than one way to lose leaders of the faith.

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One is by death. And we mourn for them as my heart breaks at the loss of Voti.

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We mourn for them but not without hope. Praise God for a life well lived as we read here in 2

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Timothy 4 7. As in 1 Thessalonians 4 where it is said, we grieve but we mourn not as those who have no hope.

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We do have hope. The resurrection of the dead. We are going to be together in heaven with God in glory.

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We'll all be together at the throne singing the praises of God because of what he had done to save a wretched sinner like me.

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And bring me into his presence. Clothe me in his righteousness.

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So one way we lose saints we lose great teachers is by death.

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But another way is that they go astray making shipwreck of their faith and ministry as Paul describes in 1

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Timothy 1 .19 So we can lose influential Christian leaders these two ways.

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By death which is better or they will go astray and make shipwreck of their ministry and their faith which if that's what's going to happen to a teacher it would have been better if he had died early than gone astray.

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I'm not saying that's the case with Voti. I'm just saying that it would be better for him to go home and be with the

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Lord than live long enough that he may falter and make shipwreck of his faith or his ministry.

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There was a I've shared this before. I cannot even remember the author of this song now. I had it right the last time

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I shared it. But there was a man I believe he was the president of Columbia Bible College at one point which is today

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Columbia International University but he wrote this poem that was called Get Me Home Before Dark and that's it that's the concept of the poem is get me home before dark before I make such mistakes that I make a shipwreck of my own faith and ministry get me home before dark and we can pray that God would make us those faithful servants to the end as said in the book of Jude he is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy so we would pray and ask that God would keep us on the right path until death

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Lord bring me into your kingdom sanctify me by your love please do not let me go astray we can pray for that that we would not become the latter we would not become the one who does fall off the path of righteousness and make a shipwreck of our faith so continue to pray for your pastors think of your pastors and pray for them

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I posted something about this on social media talking about how we can lose leaders one of two ways either by death or because they go astray and somebody left a comment and said

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I just said a prayer for you that God would keep you on the straight and narrow and I said thank you that is a prayer

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I will happily accept every time I need all the help in the world because I know the weakness of my flesh and how easy it would be for me to be led astray

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I'm no better than anybody else I have temptations as well temptations that I need to resist and cling to Christ so that I won't go astray so your prayers for me in that respect are greatly appreciated folks this is not the last time we're going to hear news like this there will be other great teachers who will die and there are other great teachers who will go astray and neither one of those means that God is not in control he is always in control he is sovereign and by his providence these things have happened in the manner in the way in which he planned and purposed and we continue to trust

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God even in the midst of these things I thank God for Vodibacham and I'll continue to listen to Vodi and the legacy that he has left behind is still a good one well that was one big thing that happened this week it was

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Sunday this past Sunday that the memorial service for Charlie Kirk was held just up the road from me as a matter of fact it was it was at what is it

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State Farm Stadium in Phoenix and this was all on a Sunday on a

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Sunday morning that Charlie Kirk's memorial service was being held so I couldn't go I'm a pastor

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I've got sermons to preach I was not only preaching that morning but even that evening did

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I know I didn't teach in the evening I led prayer in the evening but I didn't teach in the evening I did preach the sermon that morning so I gotta be honest when

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I'm getting on social media and I'm seeing pastors attending this memorial service and taking selfies at this service

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I'm looking at that going what are you doing shouldn't you be preaching this morning did you let your whole church go to this thing why are you there that's really the thought that I had when

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I was looking at this thing but by now you've seen some of the messages the clips you've probably seen on social media that has been floating around man the gospel was preached at this thing now there were certainly people who were there and speakers musicians who are not really

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Christian I'll talk about that here in just a moment even those that will claim to be Christian but they're not they're heretics but nonetheless we heard the gospel clearly preached at Charlie Kirk's memorial service and I'm thankful for it

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I mean millions upon millions of people heard this there were over a hundred thousand people in the main stadium in State Farm Stadium and then there was an overflow an arena across the street that was also full and I think that was that was over a hundred thousand people so these two venues were filled with people for the

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Charlie Kirk memorial service this past week and there were speakers after speakers members of Congress members of the executive branch and those in the president's cabinet who were speaking at this memorial and even they were saying things that were exalting of Christ and sharing of the gospel and when we talk about sharing the gospel at an event like this obviously

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Charlie Kirk was very politically motivated that's that was what TPUSA the organization that he founded

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Turning Point USA that's what it was all about helping young people especially understand the conservative arguments and bring them into the conservative movement to try to change the course of our nation away from the leftism that it was being dragged into so that's what

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Kirk was known for therefore you had all the different people that he was rubbing shoulders with in politics which included the president of the

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United States they were there at Kirk's memorial service and spoke and I've listened to most of it now at this point

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I haven't listened to the entire thing it was five hours actually it was something like ten hours so you had ten hours with speaker after speaker that was exalting of Christ five hours

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I think was what was broadcast and this was broadcast on four television stations as well as being live streamed on the internet and reached millions upon millions of people probably hundreds of millions of people

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I don't know that we will know exactly the outreach of everything that was shared at Charlie Kirk's memorial service but the message of the clips that have been singled out and are going around it's amazing where I'm finding them and running into them people are actually sharing the gospel of Christ as it was shared from Charlie Kirk's memorial service and Albert Muller made this point on the briefing on Monday he said that this was not just like civic religion stuff that you were hearing which is typical of a lot of politicians right so they're not really preaching anything with a lot of depth they just pay lip service to Christ or the

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Bible or something like that in order to appease a certain constituency

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I mean Donald Trump does this all the time he doesn't know the Bible he doesn't know the gospel but he speaks about it a lot because this is his voter base and he wants to please them and continue to gain their vote and we still pray for the man we pray that he would come to faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ but there's no indication that he knows the gospel now lately in the news you've been hearing him say things like I have to do this because I need to get to heaven so like he wants to bring peace between Ukraine and Russia or peace between Israel or in the

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Gaza Strip because he wants to be able to go to heaven and those are some of the things that he will say

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I need to do this because I need to get to heaven so he doesn't really understand the gospel he thinks certain works are what's going to to get him through the gates but nonetheless he spoke at Charlie Kirk's service the gospel wasn't really in his presentation but he he talked about how much

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Charlie Kirk loved Jesus Christ Charlie loved Christ to such a degree that you couldn't talk about him without mentioning

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Christ that was throughout this entire service so let me play for you a little bit of this in fact now well before getting to this

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I know this is the Friday Q &A and I haven't answered any questions yet or at least

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I haven't read any that I have received there were a few that I got about some of the messages that were shared at Charlie Kirk's memorial

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I don't have any of those messages pulled up but one of those emails was about oh yeah yeah let me do that one hang on let me bring that one up one of these one of these sorry for how disorganized

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I am but like I said this is this was a crazy weekend and I'm just kind of getting this together so I can get something out there but here this is from Brad Brad says the following Pastor Gabe thank you again for your ministry here's a question that I thought you would be interested in considering did you see the

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Charlie Kirk memorial and in particular when his wife Erica spoke she mentioned forgiving the man that killed

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Charlie she referenced Christ on the cross and asking the father to forgive him she then went on to say that she forgave the killer the question is are we instructed to forgive anyone that commits a sin against us

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I'll keep reading Brad's email in a moment but let me go ahead and play this for you this was by far the highlight of the memorial service this was the clip that you're seeing the most getting singled out and shared all over the place where Charlie Kirk's widow

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Erica was at the platform and she spoke for about half an hour and in that message forgave her killer even people who hated

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Charlie Kirk and hate the conservative movement had to stand back and go wow that was just incredible here is the clip of Erica saying this and then

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I'll get back to Brad's question here Charlie passionately wanted to reach and save the lost boys of the

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West the young men who feel like they have no direction no purpose no faith and no reason to live the men wasting their lives on distractions and the men consumed with resentment anger and hate

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Charlie wanted to help them he wanted them to have a home with Turning Point USA and when he went on to campus he was looking to show them a better path and a better life that was right there for the taking he wanted to show them that my husband

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Charlie he wanted to save young men just like the one who took his life that young man on the cross our

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Savior said father forgive them for they not know what they do that man forgive him so yeah that was a very incredible moment

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I remember seeing the clips again I wasn't able to watch it when it was all going on in real time when it was happening but when

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I was able to catch the stuff later that afternoon I was blown away hard to keep your eyes dry watching something like that and then we had our prayer service that evening which we do on Sunday evening we sing praises we even take like song requests and we took prayer requests and then somebody delivers the message for the evening which is about 20 minutes long or something like that I believe it was

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Pastor Allen that preached then so anyway I mentioned this you know I came up and I said

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I don't know if you've been seeing clips from Charlie Kirk's memorial service but the gospel is being preached boldly at this thing and I think of Frank Turek and what he shared even

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Marco Rubio right the Secretary of State is delivering a fiery gospel message at the end of the speech that he gave and here

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Erica makes this gesture not only sharing the gospel but then this gesture of forgiving the man who killed her husband now let me come back to the question that Brad asked so he said the question is are we instructed to forgive anyone that commits a sin against us

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I will just share a quick thought that I have on it I would say that we are not and this is

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Brad writing this I would say that we are not I think there are several verses that support this but I would quickly point to Luke 17 three through four pay attention to yourselves if your brother sins rebuke him and if he repents forgive him and if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times more saying

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I repent you must forgive him it would appear then Brad says that repentance is key to the forgiving

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I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this again thanks for all that you and Becky do well

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I tell you what let me share a message from Votie Bauckham here's what

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Votie said on that subject myth number one you can only forgive someone if they ask for forgiveness there's myth number one you can only forgive someone if they ask for forgiveness and there are some of you in this room today and your life is being controlled by someone who's they're not even alive anymore they've been dead for a long time and you still won't forgive them and they can't ask which means you don't ever get to forgive so you just keep drinking poison hoping that the person dies again

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I would forgive them but they didn't ask Joseph's brothers didn't even know he was

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Joseph and he forgave them they didn't ask for anything and he chose not to punish them see we get mixed up because we read things like Luke 17 17 3 your brother sins rebuke him if he repents forgive him sins against you seven times forgive him seven times great repents then

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I'll forgive if he doesn't then I won't first of all I believe that that is an abbreviation of Matthew 18 and the process of discipline within the church secondly it's inconsistent with what we find in Genesis 45 and it's inconsistent with what we see on the cross

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Father forgive them for they've asked Father forgive them they don't even know what they're doing that obliterates the myth of you only forgive them when they ask by the way if you carry this myth out to its logical conclusion forgiveness can only be extended when it's asked for this is where people get all hung up on you know well what if I die with a sin that's unconfessed that's almost humorous because it assumes that you're capable of confessing all your sins which assumes that you're capable of knowing all your sins as you grow in Christ here's one of the things that happens as I grow in Christ I learn about sinfulness in myself that before I didn't even know was sinful anybody stuff

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I used to just look over and now I know that it's sinful guess what if I keep getting up with the sun every morning

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I'm going to learn more stuff about myself that's sinful that I don't even know is sinful no one dies with all their sins confessed no one no one no one and the people who think they die with all their sins confessed actually meet

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God and he goes you know what here's the deal you actually thought all your sins were confessed which means that you're incredibly prideful which was a sin that you didn't confess

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Jesus paid it all all to him I owe sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as snow there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins and sinners plunge beneath the flood lose all their guilty stains he cleanses us from our sin people don't have to ask you for you to forgive them by the way you follow that through if forgiveness means that I give up my right to punish you and I also believe that you only forgive when somebody asks you to that means

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I have to believe that I'm obligated to punish you until you ask me not to how's that working for you?

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well Voti says it better than I could have I think and you might notice Brad that he even directly responded to the passage that you mentioned

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Luke 17 3 -4 and God bless you brother I appreciate your question but yeah

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I share what Voti says there in fact because as Jesus said in Mark 11 25 whenever you stand praying forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses

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I'll be honest and this is no knock against you Brad but I'll be honest I have always been baffled at any preacher who says that you should not forgive someone who's not asked for it

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I'm just baffled at that because I think the message from Jesus is pretty clear that we should forgive now just because you forgive that doesn't mean you're reconciled those are two different things so you can forgive a person even in your heart maybe you don't articulate it like Erica Kirk says but in your heart you have forgiven that person you have set aside whatever grievance you have against him you're not even remembering it anymore you are continuing on not thinking about this wrong that this other person has done to you because you know that whatever you've done against God is worse than whatever this person has done against you and so you let it go you forgive from your heart and you continue on in service to God and in praise to him because of the grace that he has shown to you but just because you've forgiven that person in your heart doesn't mean you're reconciled that can't happen without the repentance so that person comes to you and says

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I repent and then the two of you can be reconciled again and even then I would say don't be legalistic about that because is that person going to repent to a degree that you're satisfied with that now you can finally be reconciled grace still needs to be extended to the person who is asking forgiveness because you may not hear the apology the way that you want to hear it but do you have enough grace to recognize okay this person is acknowledging their wrong and I forgive you because I can't perfectly

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I cannot perfectly confess my sin before God I never have not one time have

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I ever perfectly confess my sin before God and yet he forgives me anyway and restores me and washes me and makes me new and so because God has done that for me

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I need to have that kind of grace toward others though they don't perfectly repent yet but I'm willing to be reconciled and continue on as brothers brothers in the

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Lord brother and sister in the Lord you know with Erica forgiving her killer if it should so happen that this man who killed her husband repents then they can be reconciled but even though Erica could be reconciled with her husband's killer and she might even call him a brother in Christ if he he seeks forgiveness for his sins he seeks

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Christ he comes to faith in Jesus Christ and he is now a member of the kingdom of God I believe at least by the genuineness of what she demonstrated on that platform that she would absolutely forgive that man and consider him a brother but that doesn't mean he gets set free that doesn't mean he gets let go in fact he still deserves the death penalty for killing this man in cold blood the way that he did so he is made right with God hearing the gospel putting his faith in Jesus Christ he is reconciled now to a sister in Christ whose husband he killed but then he goes to the gallows so to speak and he is executed because of this crime that he committed for which he deserves death and these two ideas are not contradictory in the least

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Erica as an individual Christian has a responsibility to exercise grace and issue forgiveness but the state has the responsibility of executing justice of carrying out justice against the wrongdoer and so if all of these things are done properly then that's exactly what the state will do to this man

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Tyler Robinson who killed Charlie Kirk he would be taken away to capital punishment and executed consider what is said in Romans chapter 12 now this is something that I'm going to be teaching on sometime next year

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I've already thought these things through and I know what I'm going to be teaching when I get there but nonetheless this this applies to this scenario that we're talking about here so let's consider it in Romans chapter 12

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Jesus says repay no one evil for evil but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all if possible so far as it depends on you live peaceably with all beloved never avenge yourselves but leave it to the wrath of God for it is written vengeance is mine

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I will repay says the Lord to the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him something to drink for by so doing you will heat burning coals on his head by the way that's a quote from Proverbs and heaping burning coals on the head is a reference to judgment everywhere that comes up in the

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Old Testament it's a reference to judgment so we often think of this proverb as Paul is sharing it as something where if you do nice for someone who hasn't done anything nice for you you heat burning coals on his head you make him feel guilty and then he will repent of his sin and get saved but it's generally the way that we interpret that we could certainly hope that that would happen but that's not the meaning if you show love and kindness to your enemy you heap hot coals on his head in that you will bring judgment down on him you will bring the judgment that he deserves down on him unless he repents of course and turns to Jesus Christ but this is leaving it to the wrath of God so you're not taking matters into your own hands vengeance is mine

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I will repay says the Lord and then the last verse that closes out chapter 12 do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good now it's unfortunate that there's a chapter break here because what we go into next is still the same thought it's still

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Paul laying out for Christians there in Rome here is how we as Christians live among unbelievers so we have people who hate us but we don't repay reviling with reviling we don't take vengeance into our own hands instead if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him something to drink we do not be overcome by evil but we overcome evil with good okay so these are all lessons about how we as Christians live among unbelievers chapter 13 continues that so you have to ignore that there's been a chapter break here

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Paul is not changing subjects he's still continuing with the same instructions I actually taught on this on this podcast back when

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COVID was going on so this was back in 2020 I think or early very early 2013 or 2013 2021

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I don't even know why 13 popped into my head but anyway so it was either the it was either the later part of 2020 or it was the very beginning of 2021 but when

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I was in Romans at that time on this podcast you could go back and listen to it there as well so Romans chapter 13 still keeping the same flow of thought from chapter 12

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Paul says let every person so all of you who are living among unbelievers let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God therefore whoever resists the authorities resist what

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God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment for rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad would you have no fear of the one who is an authority then do what is good and you will have his approval for he is

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God's servant for your good but if you do wrong be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is the servant of God an

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Avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer again this flows from the same thought that Paul was sharing at the end of chapter 12 you don't take vengeance into your own hands if this is a matter of a person having done something for which he needs to be punished well

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God has established how that justice is to be carried out and it's through the governing authorities

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God has put the sword in his hand to be an Avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer so you don't pour out wrath on the wrong doer it is the state that will do that to whom

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God has given that authority and so Erica Kirk forgives her killer but he still goes to the death penalty that he deserves and all of that is right in God's eyes that even this man who did this wicked thing could be forgiven his sins and have everlasting life with God if he hears the gospel and turns from his sin to the

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Lord Jesus Christ that's what he will have but then because of this heinous act that he has done he should not be set free that would not be just justice should be carried out on the wrongdoer in that he deserves life for life as the law of God says as the moral law of God says this is equal weights and measures he took someone's life he deserves to be executed and praise

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God that before he died he became a Christian if that should happen I'm not saying it has but if that should be the case if it be the

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Lord's will may it be done and all to the praise of his glorious grace well my friends

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I am at the end of my time at least for this episode and God willing

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Becky will be back on with me next week and we'll have more for you then lots more to talk about we have we could play some more clips from the memorial service we could talk about if there is revival going on right now by the way that's the talk that I'm going to give on Sunday evening at my church and it's the it's therefore the sermon message that's going to play on this podcast this coming

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Sunday so I think on the podcast I don't always track how far

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I've come in these messages I think in the podcast did I just finish up chapter 6 or I still have to finish up chapter 6

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I think I have one more sermon in chapter 6 and so then after that sermon

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I'm going to air the message that I'm doing Sunday night at my church which is going to be regarding revival and whether what we're seeing right now is actually revival we'll examine the first and second great awakenings and then compare that with what's going on in the culture right now in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination a lot of people are calling this revival is it revival that'll be coming up on the

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Sunday message on this podcast which is a week from tomorrow

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Sunday week from Sunday hang on let me give you an exact date so it'll be on no not so it won't be

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October 5th it'll be October 12th that's when that message will air on the podcast or you can go ahead and listen to it straight from the church's website so if you go to Providence Casa Grande .com

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it will be uploaded on Sunday evening when I'm done with it like those messages tend to get posted five minutes after I complete them so you should be able to hear that message starting this coming

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Sunday night and you'll get a jump on it before it ever ends up on the podcast well

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God bless you friends if you have any questions or comments that you would like to send to us again the email address is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

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or send us a voicemail go to wwutt .com and click on that voicemail tab and if you have any questions about the memorial service because I think that's what

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Becky and I are going to come back to this next Q &A when we have the opportunity so if you have any questions about anything that you heard in the memorial service or something like that you can ask questions there anything else that's been going on in current events ask a question about that and we love to hear from you and answer your questions as we have the time let me close out here with prayer heavenly father we thank you for the salvation that you have given to us through the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ we who have heard of Jesus who died on the cross for our sins who rose again from the dead and whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life and what grace and wonder that we hear in the gospel that you would save a wretched sinner like me and so I am and so you have and lord

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I pray that we would be so gracious to forgive those who have wronged us even when they don't ask for it we don't harbor those things in our hearts but we give it unto the lord and you will repay each one according to their deeds we need to tremble and humble ourselves before God working out our salvation with fear and trembling as said in Philippians chapter 2 for it is

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God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure so use us

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God for your good pleasure and may we live lives of godliness in the present day father

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I lift up the family to you touch them and comfort them and may they be reminded of the gospel that they heard their patriarch votee preach knowing with hope that he is in heaven with his savior and that they too will join him again one day following that message that he shared with them the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ and lord

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I pray that all of their needs will be met Bridget and the kids and everything that they need they will be provided for in the absence of this great man who provided for them we pray also lord for Erica Kirk and for her two children as they continue to mourn the loss of Charlie a lot of people feel devastated by both of these losses votee and charlie and anybody else any of these other names that we have lost recently there's an emptiness especially among the members of their family may they be comforted by your truth and the hope of the gospel of Christ that has been given to us it's in Jesus name we pray amen this is when we understand the text with pastor

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Gabe Hughes there are lots of great bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours but this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family find a good gospel teaching