Questions & Answers

All right, before we get into the Q &A tonight, 40 years ago yesterday, what happened? Who, besides John Kennedy, died on that same day? Two other people, this is just, yeah? Close. Brave new world. Huxley.

Can you imagine on the same day, all three of those men died? And C .S. Lewis, we could argue about some of his theology, if you want, but at least till the end of his life, he said he believed Christ and tried to do that with his writing.

I found that Huxley said this as he ended his life, toward the end of his life when he was into drugs. He said this, ignore death up until the last moment. Then, when it cannot be ignored any longer, have yourself squirted full of morphine and shuffle off in a coma.

I mean, you can be super smart, and without Christ, you're nothing, no hope. Can you imagine? Boy, all right. That was free. Just amazing that those three men died on the same day. See, it always happens with three.

It's always in three, three deaths. All right, well, if you have your Bibles tonight, we're going to look at some things, questions and topics. We'll try to do them faster than we normally do. Typically, we only cover a few, and I've got a whole stack tonight, as evidenced by me dropping the whole stack, and it flies all over Margie.

Bible Translations, Paraphrases, and the Need for Context

The first one is I want to talk a little bit about Bible translations, just briefly, and especially one to look out for in particular. How many people here, by the way, like New American Standard? How many people like New American Standard 95?

How many people here like New American Standard XP? I'm just kidding. I'm sorry. Well, there's the NAS and the NAS 95. How about we have King James, people that like King James? OK, a lot more than NAS.

How about English Standard Version? That's a newer translation. There might be a couple here, these two progressive youths over here. How about New King James? OK, we've got some of those. And so those are all word-for-word translations, and if you want to use those, those are fine.

How about Revised Standard Versions? Do we have any of those? At least that's a word-for-word translation. And I think those are excellent. And if you want to use other translations, I probably didn't cover them all, but when you say, I like something that's word-for-word, that's what you want to try to go for.

That's what you want to try to strive for. On the flip side of that is a paraphrase. Can you think of a couple of paraphrases that are out there now? OK, the Living Bible, good, Tom. Pardon me? Well, the NIV's more phrase-for-phrase or thought-for-thought.

I wouldn't call it a paraphrase. OK, Good News for Modern Man, good. The Message, good. Sorry. Amplified, yeah, I don't know how to put the Amplified in the category because it's got a lot of different words and synonyms for a lot of things.

So I don't know where I would put that. That's a, I think I talked about Amplified a while ago. I wouldn't use Amplified as your key Bible. You could use that as a supplement. But you've got on one side word-for-word and on the other side you've got more of a paraphrase.

Why does it even matter, by the way? Is this just kind of nitpicky? Now we're turning into the word-for-word only group. There's a King James only group and now we're the word-for-word only group.

I mean, some of it has to do with what you were raised on. If you grew up loving NIV, then you love NIV. Why does it matter if you go from paraphrase to word-for-word? What's the problem? Or what's the issue?

Anybody? Okay, well, we want accuracy. God did speak with words and he was very precise. Matter of fact, it's interesting that you go from the Old Testament to the New Testament, Hebrew, which is very picturesque and speaks figuratively, and great figures, rather, and then with the Greek, which is very precise.

The one that I've had the trouble with the most, and I want to help you and encourage you as a pastor, that if you see this, you need to be the most wary of, and it's almost the most promoted these days, is what Bob said, and it's called the message.

Here's what happens. Many churches now don't have pew Bibles, and if you want to have a big church, and you want to have a great church, you get rid of the pulpit, first of all, because that's kind of authoritative and stuffy.

If you do have a pulpit, you want to have a nice glass one. We'll never have a glass pulpit here, for me, in terms of my preference, because I like to do things with my feet, and I don't want you to know about it.

It's just very pragmatic. Who wants to be behind a little glass pulpit? But get rid of that. Dress down, pastor. It's fine. You don't have to wear a suit, and we don't like all those things, and by the way, then have a very great projection screen, and by the way, we want one of those, and we want the camera as well, and the lens, but it's about 20 grand, and so we just don't want to spend that money right now, but we'd like to have something besides the neck screen over there, you know, and everybody walks around.

We'd probably be a friendlier church if we didn't have the screen over there, because after the service, you can't meet anybody towards your right. You just walk around like that, and so, you know, that's not bad, but what can be bad is this.

No pew Bibles, a congregation that has been trained not to bring their Bibles, because all the verses are up on the screen, and here's what happens, and I've been to these churches where the Bible verse is up on the screen, and it doesn't show the verses before.

It doesn't show the verses after. Context is not talked about, and they pick their favorite translation of the verse, and they tend to pick their favorite translation that's the most touchy, feely, psychologically driven, and the one they use the most is the message, and I'm gonna have you look up a couple verses in your NAS Bible, our King James, our English Standard Version, and I want you to see the importance of Bible study, especially when you see a verse.

When you read the message, hard to believe are the message, or any other book that has some of the quotes from the message in there, rather, you need to ask yourself the question, is that taken in context?

It's important. If God's word says something, you want to do it, right? But you wanna make sure you're doing what God says, not what the author or a translator wants you to do, and so when you have just a verse up there out of nowhere, and the whole sermon spins out of that, watch out.

There's another new hot book now, and I'm gonna give a fuller critique at another time, but it shows, in a day-by-day kind of Bible study, here's a verse, here's the theology out of that verse, and oftentimes the message is used, and it is horrible.

There could be some truth, certainly, in the book. I'm not saying that there's not, but be careful. When you see the message translation, I want you to go like this. If Abendroth is even half right, woo, woo, woo, woo, woo, just study that in context.

I'm not your enemy by telling you, I'm your friend. And so, oh, by the way, this morning, when the door slammed, the person that went out and slammed the door said to me afterwards, they said, sorry, I just slipped, and I wasn't slamming on you.

I was hoping to get more blessed. Blessed are you when people speak, you know, I was getting ready for my rejoicing. So someone said to me this morning as well, it would have been nice if we could have talked about how to treat homosexual people, how can the church love them?

That's true, we have to make sure we really work on that, but that was not my message. My message was the attack on marriage, not even gays attacking marriage, but even the judiciary attacking marriage, Satan attacking marriage.

So, anyway, for whatever that's worth. Okay, so get your Bibles out, and let's look up a couple verses in your translation, and I'm just gonna call a few of you out loud to say what you have. And the first one is Matthew 16, 25.

Let's find this out. And again, I think we've been taught well from the bookstore and the library and tracts and everything else that context is good. By the way, that's the best way to teach a congregation to look at context is to preach verse by verse.

Because everything you see is context. Every sermon is, remember last week, that was the old man, this is the new man, this is doctrine, this is practice. I mean, you just see it every week. And so what you do when you're a pastor, just an inside hint between us, the Sunday night crowd, is as I preach, I'm trying to teach you how to study the Bible on your own.

The way you hear the Bible taught from the pulpit is the way you'll study the Bible at home. And so who has Matthew 16, 25? When you have it, just raise your hand, I'll call on you, tell me your translation, and then go ahead and read it.

But the one I don't want is the message. Wesley? Okay, okay. Let's hear another one. Thank you. Not different than King James. Bob? NES, okay. Okay, very good. And you can just see this interesting way that Jesus is bringing the point across about finding, losing, and losing, and finding.

To drive the point home, a great teacher. Okay, so we have NES, King James. How about a new King James? There's gotta be a study Bible floating around here somewhere. Okay, so very close. Notice, with word-for-word translations, it's really pretty close.

We're not too many words off, whether it's King James with Byzantine text or NES with Alexandrian text, just different texts that they use for translation. It's close. Now let me give you the message, and you tell me what's wrong with this.

This is for a chapter for one of the, I think the most popular Christian book that's out now. Matthew 16, 25, message. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self.

So we go from, you lose your life, almost stuff from the hard-to-believe book. You lose your life to really find your life. And you do the opposite, and the opposite happens as well. To now, we have self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself.

See how it's just turned inside in this psychological paradigm? And then you have a whole chapter of a book written about that. Let me give you another one. Romans 12, three. Go ahead and somebody find Romans 12, three.

And again, what I want you to do, and all the message isn't horrible, I would be very careful, but I want you when you see something in a book that says the message, that you're just careful. I love you, and I want you to not be sidetracked and listen to things that are just erroneous.

Romans 12, three. Who can read that, please? I mean, I know you all can read it. Who would, please, read it? All right. Okay, good. A lot of stuff about thinking in there. Judgment and thinking, all from the same root word.

That's KJV. Who has something else? Fred? Okay, thank you. Now, let me read the message. And this is, by the way, the book that I've been talking about with 40 Days of Spirituality. This is the theme of the entire book, is the horrible rendering of this verse by the message, where the author of that other book says, we discover the meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives.

Page 25. But here's what the message says. Romans 12, three. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us. I mean, see how it's turned in, though? We are to think properly.

Romans chapter 12, verse three is this. One through 11 is doctrine with the chapters. 12 is use your mind. And by the way, when you're using your mind, chapter 12, verse three, use your mind and think about yourself properly and make sure you think about even the spiritual gifts in a proper manner.

It is not trying to figure out a way to understand ourselves. We have been given gifts, think properly, to use them in the Christian church. You're gonna write a whole book about that? That's the premise?

It's disheartening. Let me give you another one. I mean, who wants to beat a dead horse? Let's just do two more verses. First Corinthians chapter two, verse seven. I'm telling you that in your life, you're going to read something that has the message down here in a verse.

Do yourself a favor. Look up in your Bible that you use. What does that verse really say? And look at it in context. If it matches, great, that's fair. If it doesn't, be careful. First Corinthians chapter two, verse seven.

I mean, if you thought the other ones were bad, you are going to, I don't know what on this one. And I wouldn't even mention this if it wasn't a big deal. But it's out there everywhere. Okay, first Corinthians chapter two, verse seven.

Let's get an ESV translation here. Nate, do you have it? So you read the ESV, but you don't have the ESV. But you have four other versions handy, don't you? Okay, anybody else? Dave, King James, all right.

Yeah, okay, good. How about, Josh, what do you have? You got the NES, okay. Okay, predestined before the ages to our glory. Now let me give you the message. God's wisdom goes deep into the interior of his purposes.

It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest. Now here, that's bad, but this is worse. What God determined as the way to bring out his best in us. Where God brings out his best in us. Instead of translating it to our glory, God brings out his best in us.

And see, it's all flipped upside down through you, psychological bent. I'll just read the last one. Ephesians chapter 111 in NES says, having been predestined according to the purpose to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will.

The message, it is in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Look, before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eyes on us, had designs on us for glorious living.

Part of the overall purpose, he is working out in everything and everyone. To find out who we are, I mean, this is just self-actualization pyramid to the sky. I could go on, by the way, that's what your pastor says when he's kind of really run out of material, but doesn't want to admit it.

I really could go on this time. Be careful, if you're reading Rick Warren's book, The 40 Day Deal, you need to say to yourself, here's the chapter title, and it's got the message there. These all came straight from the Warren book with the message.

Here's what he says, this is the message, and does he create the entire chapter that I'm supposed to live out that day out of an erroneous, false view of scripture? Not everyone is wrong, but the ones that are, you need to be careful.

And if you're like me, lots of times there's a verse printed in scripture, and I don't bother to look up the verse. I don't bother to look it up. With the message, would you please, as a friend, as a pastor, look up that verse?

Because otherwise it's going to be turned in to say, here's this God who meets my needs versus how we are here to glorify God and enjoy him forever, completely upside down. Okay, questions about that?

Yes. Yes, Eugene Peterson from Regent College. He's a seminary professor at Regent. He's probably a great guy. I mean, think about it. When you talk about people, it's fine to talk about what they teach or believe.

When you go home tonight and say, I think Abendroth was right or wrong, I think that's legitimate. Talking about people and what they believe is fine, isn't it? But then when you start denigrating their character, that isn't fine.

So if we say, Eugene Peterson teaches this, beware, I think that's legitimate. If I say, well, he's just really, he cheats when he plays poker and all these things, then I think that's illegitimate. So if you go home and say, I disagree with Mike, fine, I hope you do sometimes.

But you don't have to say, well, and he's just a horrible guy for doing that. But he's a professor and I'm sure very schooled. I want precision. God is precise. Can you imagine when Jesus talks about, this law of the Old Testament is not going to be abrogated but fulfilled down to the very jot and tittle?

You know how many jots there are? Little tiny little marks like that? I think there's probably 6 ,000 of those in the Old Testament. Just a little, whoop. Every one is important. Okay, Bruce? There is marketing that goes with it and promotion and that's not necessarily bad.

You can get good stuff that's marketed well and marketing does serve its purposes. I didn't, I wasn't even going to mention the name tonight because it just creates all kinds of questions and I was going to put together a little more formal critique at another time.

But there is promotion. You can buy everything. You can go through it. There's good stuff in there. There's, you know, I'm sure the question is, is it good enough to go through as a church? And so the answer for us, you know, ask yourself this question.

Here's what the book table, we have in the book table. You could ask yourself this question. Why aren't there certain books on that table? Because I don't know the latest trends. I do know, and I don't mean pridefully I know.

That's just my business to know. I like to know all the stuff that's going on. So if you don't see a book out there and you want it out there, then let's talk to Nate about it or myself. But if there's not a book that's the hottest, newest, best-selling book, you may deduce, and I'd say 90 properly, that that's not something that the leadership wants us to read or is encouraging us to read.

Well, probably. I got a call a few weeks ago and it was a very pushy Christian sales rep. Did all those words go together? I don't know. And they said, I said, well, you know, you'll have to call back on Tuesday and you can talk to Lenita about that.

And not because of Lenita. They had never called before. And then they said, well, will she hang up on me? Yeah, you get through. So it is a very big promotion and it all started a certain day and go through.

And again, if you wanna read books and critique them, fine, it's okay by me. I'm not saying to someone, you can't read that book and you can't benefit from it. But if you read that book and you see the thing that says on top, the message, I just want you to ask yourself the question, that's probably going to be the wrong translation and I need to know that.

Ignorance is not bliss, yes. Today's English version, CEV, Contemporary English Version, GW, Good News, no, yeah, Good God's Word for Today. Thank you, Bob. Yes. I think it's okay to use different translations.

Dave will preach next Sunday and he's probably gonna preach out of the King James. I mean, it's fine by me. It's no big deal. It doesn't have to be falling down the line. We wanna have the Pew Bible's the same and the Pulpit Bible the same just so people can follow along on a regular basis.

And so if we wanna read a different translation, I like to do that. Have you ever read through the Bible in a year and then the next year you said, you know what, just for fun, I'm gonna try to read the ESV this year.

I've always read the King James, I'll read the New King James. And you just read through, it's fine. But my problem is precision and accuracy with scripture and I think that's, I don't think I'm out of the league for saying Paul would want that, Peter would want that, the apostles wanted that, God himself in Christ wants precision and we serve a precise God that we worship him with our mind and I don't want loose translations to tell me how to live because that's what it is.

And if it's wrong, then it's wrong. And psychology is fine to examine things and saying, why does that dog salivate? Well, we can learn, but how we can stop human behavior and make it stop sinning and make human behavior more like Christ, I don't think psychology can help us.

I think the scriptures can. And so, I think we'll do a formal kind of review and critique that we'll write up, because it's popular. I don't think, I think Prayer of Jabez was even, it may even pale in comparison to this one.

So anyway, my main point wasn't to rip on the purpose-driven life, it was to say, when you see books like that, be very, very careful. For instance, here's another one. You read the Daily Bread. If I use illustrations, many times I use an illustration from the Daily Bread because they just are very illustrative.

But if you just get the Daily Bread and read that verse and then have your devotional, then you just wanna be careful because is that verse taken in context? For the most part, the Daily Bread people are conservative.

But still, I just, it's not that I don't trust anyone. That's not the point. But when I teach you something, someone said to me last week, you mean to tell me that if you teach something I disagree, I could sit down and talk to you about it?

Please, I want you to. I can guarantee you, I will teach you wrong things from the pulpit. Some is just a slip of the tongue, but others is because I'm a man. And ask Scott Barrett, the more you get to know me, the more you'll realize that.

So you wanna say, does he line up with the word of God? Yes. But it's a good help when I'm starting with the word for word translation and not some kind of paraphrase that's psycho-babilized. Do you like the book?

Well, sorry I'm not getting into it more, but at least we talked about it a little. Okay, let's do another one here. If one has been baptized at an early age and didn't accept Jesus Christ, didn't follow after Christ, should they be baptized again?

Baptism, Regeneration, and Whether to Be Baptized Again

Okay, why? Okay. Can you find a verse in the message for that, please? Okay, good, good. All right, Janine? Okay, what's wrong with the terminology, get baptized again? Do we think that's right terminology?

By the way, if you're in a seeker-sensitive church, you don't talk about baptism. Why? Because half the people probably disagree with you. So you just don't talk about it. You don't talk about end times things.

You don't talk about gay marriages. You don't talk about any of that stuff. Why? Because somebody's gonna get mad. So if someone has been baptized as a child, as an infant, for instance, I will use my case, sprinkled as a baby and then grew up and then got saved.

When I got baptized, was I baptized again or was I baptized the first time, technically speaking, biblically? The first time, that's right. So it's not like with the term Anabaptist in the Reformation period where Anna was to re-baptize.

They weren't baptized the first time. It was the initial time. Let's get even more particular. Let's say you grew up, or maybe your kids, your kids at 14 or 15 say, I love the Lord. They're signs of fruit.

They get baptized. They wander away from the faith for 15 years. And at 30, they come to you and say, Dad, I haven't walked with the Lord for 30 years. And I wonder, should I get baptized again? What would you advise them?

I'm telling you, that happens a lot. That happens even in this church. Not the exact scenario, but people who make a profession, get baptized the first time, the real way, by immersion, and then they walk away from the Lord and then they say, shall I get baptized again?

Bob? Okay. Certainly, if someone's struggling with sin for a year and then they say, you know, I better get baptized again because I don't know if I was saved. Even today, with Lot, who is righteous, there are people in the scriptures who sin.

You don't lose your salvation when you sin. But I pick 15 years because it does happen, number one, but number two, that's a long enough time where if you look at somebody and say, for 15 years, you have not worshiped God, there's a good possibility, probability even, that you're not even a Christian.

So what I usually do is I walk people through the scriptures, tell them about salvation. It's always believe and be baptized and say, if you think that you weren't a Christian for those 15 years and there's no fruit at all, I mean, we can just get the magnifying glass out and can't see anything, there's no love for God, there's no love for his word, there's no confession of sin, there's no love for his people, there's no using your spiritual gifts, and you go down the checklist of 1 John and other places, then I tell them, I think you need to get baptized for the first time because it's believe and be baptized.

Now, if it's six months and you have a child or a spouse or somebody that kind of spirals out, then they might not, in fact, need to be baptized, but I think if it's the long pattern, then we should. Comments on that, questions?

Yes, Mark? Let us pray. It is very, very hard, and as you know, as a church, it's difficult because if you're an elder board, what do you do? If you put an age on baptism, you're done because there's always somebody a year younger or a year older.

It's very, very difficult, true or false. There are children who have been baptized in the Bible, specific cases where you can find child baptism, five years old, eight years old, nine years old. No, the closest you get is actually after 16 where the household was baptized, and you have to be careful if you think the household was baptized, especially when the Greek word household could also include pets and dogs.

You have to be very, very careful you're gonna have the dog baptism. Just like, boom! Would that be double immersion for the dogs? In dog years, you know, you baptize seven times. You have to be very, very careful, and so what do you do?

The general rule of thumb around here is about 10 years old. If you have a child and they're 10 and you think they're a Christian and could express their faith, then we'll baptize them. There can be exceptions.

If you have an eight-year-old, set up an appointment, and I won't let you talk when we all get together. I'm just gonna find out if the person has a credible understanding of faith, and it's not just, I believe in Jesus, and he rose from the dead and he died for my sins.

I'm not saying that's not good enough, but the demons can believe that, and I wanna know if they understand that submission and obedience and following and trusting and some of those things. They don't have to understand it like we do, but they need to understand the gospel.

There's a good little book about children's professions of faith and baptism, the green book we have upstairs, or I can't remember what it's called, and it's excellent. It's very, very, it's a hard issue.

If you have a four-year-old, I'm probably gonna say, I can't put a verse on it, but just hang in there, be patient, encourage them along, and the elders don't wanna do it at four, so if we disagree, that's real submission.

Just, I'm sorry, kind of thing. If the kids are older, let's do it this way. Let's say you have an 18-year-old son or daughter, and they profess Christ, but they don't wanna get baptized. Should the parents pressure them?

I don't think it should be pressure in manipulation, but I think you could bring biblical pressure to bear. Don't you want your kids to obey God? So when I meet people and they say, I'm a Christian, but I don't really wanna get baptized, I don't wanna manipulate them and have them get baptized for me, but I do, as a pastor, as a friend, as a fellow member of the church, want them to be baptized for their own good, so I will try to apply the biblical pressure of, you know, if you really are a Christian, you need to get baptized, and this whole idea of, I can't talk in front of people, and I can't get up there, and this and that and the other, if you're not willing to confess Christ before this group of people, then you need to ask yourself the question, how can I be saved?

I'm not saying you can't be saved, nor your kids can be saved, but if someone says, I will not get baptized, I know what the scripture teaches, I've been taught it, and I will not get baptized, I just say to them, it's fair for me to tell you, you need to ask yourself, how can you be a Christian if you won't be baptized?

And again, I don't know anyone's heart, it's not a clear-cut thing, but it's a fair question to ask. Not always true, either. I can think of people in our own congregation where I think they were saved before they were baptized, but it just took a lot for them to get baptized, and I rejoice that they are.

I bet you they rejoice, too. But it's hard with ages, we don't know if anybody's got any better ideas. That's fine, the whole age of accountability, true or false, there is an age of accountability. True, the day of conception, that's the day of accountability, right?

How can you find accountability in the scriptures, can you? You could deduce it maybe from Bar Mitzvah, and 13-year-old Jewish children becoming adults, could you find it any other way? When are children accountable before God?

Let's find out, let's go to Romans chapter, it probably would be good if it's a Bible question and answer that we use our Bibles. That's always a novel concept. Somebody may say, well, you blast the message, but at least they use the Bible.

Romans chapter five, I don't think we understand fully or maybe we don't wanna understand because it's so emotional, that every one of us, including our children, were in Adam at the fall and they sinned, we sinned.

Everyone sinned in Adam in the fall at the garden and God credited to your account what Adam did. You say, how could God do that? He's crediting Adam's sin to my account. Well, praise God that there's another Adam called the second Adam in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, where he credits his righteous acts to your account too.

If God says in my wisdom and in my knowledge, I see the human race, every single person that will ever be born in Adam and they were all sinning in the garden, are you to argue? Am I to argue? And I know everybody was in that situation.

Do you know why? Let's find out, Romans chapter five, verse 12. For those of you that haven't read it, I encourage you to read John Murray's section on this book, Romans chapter five, verses 12 through 21.

Verse 12, therefore, just as through one man's sin entered into the world and death through sin and so sin spread to all men, death spread to all men because all sin. You wanna know why babies die? Because they have been affected by the fall and not just by creation, but their own, this is a whole can of worms, so hear me out.

Babies die because they have been affected by sin internally and externally. I'm not saying babies die because they're sinful and we have, that's, see how hard it is to be a pastor? You just try this, try talking about it sometime.

We are in Adam and do you know why we have been in Adam and we have sinned? That is proven because there's death. You see what Paul's trying to say? We are in Adam, there's been sin, and do you know how everyone's in Adam and they've sinned?

It's because people die. Children die, we all die. Now, I'm not saying somebody dies because there's some kind of ax murder or anything, and I'm not getting into that when children and heaven and hell and all these kind of things, that's not my point, but Paul's point here is death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sin.

You show me someone that never dies and I'll show you someone who doesn't sin with a few exceptions, with Enoch and others. Verse 13, for until the law of sin was in the world, sin is not imputed when there's no law.

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is the type of him who was to come. Skip down to verse 17, for if by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, much more than those who received the abundance of grace, see how much more, and of the gift of righteousness will reign in the life through the one Jesus Christ.

So then through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men. You can go ahead and read the rest of the verses.

Verse 21 says, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace reigned through the righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Again, to summarize, because I've said some things that are confusing, we have all sinned in Adam, and God said he was our federal head.

You couldn't figure that out by looking at the stars, could you? Oh, look at Haley's comment, we were all in Adam. I mean, you just can't figure that out. It's in Revelation only, it's not by reason. Everyone was in there, and God says, you know, it just could have been as easily as Mike Avendroth committing those sins, and Adam was our federal head, and God counted that sin of Adam to the entire human race.

Proof, death. That's what I'm talking about with the kids. Now, sometimes you start talking like this, and you have no idea where you're going. Back to age of accountability. If God, in fact, sees the entire human race there, they are all held accountable.

Are there exceptions, and God takes little ones home, and takes them to heaven? I think that's probably true. I think it is true. Can't prove it scripturally, because scripture never talks about children who die.

It talks about adults. So the age of accountability, you're all accountable, you just end up being more accountable as you grow, and understand the realities of scripture. That's why when people say this, it always befuddles me.

Well, I preached the gospel to them, and now they're really held accountable. They're accountable now. Ah, they are more accountable now. You're accountable to God when you see the moon, when you're born.

Now you're more accountable, because you know the Son, the only Savior. I think the closest you can get to age of accountability is found in Jonah. Let's go there for a minute. The book of Jonah is very interesting.

Can you imagine? A great revival broke out in one of the worst places in the entire world. I think it could probably happen in Massachusetts, couldn't it? Matter of fact, it did 300 years ago. The book of Jonah.