Keep sharing good news without ads.
Responding to questions from listeners about the Truth Matters conference, coming to Canada, how can we know the presence of God, and talking about women preachers. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
How great was the Truth Matters Conference? How can we know that we have the presence of God? And is the issue of women preaching a primary or secondary issue? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily online Bible study to help encourage your time in the Word, that we may grow more into Christ and in unity with the body of believers. Tell your friends about our website, www .tt .com.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. How about that conference?
How about it? My goodness, it was fabulous.
We really, really enjoyed the Truth Matters Conference. Oh, so much. We have really enjoyed the G3 Conference in the past, but now G3, you're going to have to step up your game. Oh, it was great. Because Truth Matters was hands down my favorite conference.
It was fabulous. I loved everything about it. Music was great. Oh, yeah. The hospitality and the fellowship, I mean, and the preaching just goes without saying. Oh, yeah. Because we already knew coming in that the preaching was going to be fire.
I mean, there was just no question there when you have a lineup like that.
Well, and it really struck home because it was, I mean, you know, you say scripture is sufficient in all things, and you believe that scripture is sufficient in all things, but to actually hear yourself, I mean, not hear yourself, but hear it yourself.
Hear it yourself. Well, more like I was convicted about quite a few things about where I was not applying the Bible, and I should be, because it's in all things. That's right.
It's in all things. That's right, because that was the theme of the Truth Matters Conference, which once again, in case you don't know what we're talking about, this was the conference that was held at Grace Community Church in California, in LA, which of course is John MacArthur's Church.
This is what Strange Fire was six years ago. So when they did Strange Fire, that was the Truth Matters Conference. The theme of this one was the sufficiency of scripture. Right. They haven't done a Truth Matters Conference since Strange Fire.
Yep. And the reasoning I remember them hearing about, I mean, I remember Remember them saying about that? Yes. I can't get my words right. Sorry.
Well, it's cold in here. Your lips are kind of numb. I'm kind of I remember Phil Johnson actually explaining why that is. Okay. Because they do ShepCon every year, and they've got 500 volunteers that are helping at ShepCon serving all those pastors.
Well, those people who volunteer, they take vacation time to be there on the campus to do all that they do. And I mean, really, the volunteer work is incredible. It is so well done that at one point, I looked at Phil and said, I hope you pay these people well.
And he said, they're all volunteers. Yeah. But I'm looking at the work that they're doing, I'm going, man, what great work. This is just a group of people that have hearts to serve, and they do such a great job.
And very thanklessly on top of that.
And I didn't see a one of them being grumpy by any means, not anywhere close to grumpy. They were all just so happy and thankful and just serving the Lord. And all types.
Yeah. All types of folks. You're talking like there were teenagers around all the way up to 80 and 90-year-olds that were even there helping to serve. I talked to one guy Couple wheelchair-bound.
Yeah. That's right. I talked to one fellow who was helping to arrange chairs. And he came up to me and started talking to me like he knew me. Okay. And is just so excited to talk to me. Oh, okay. And so I'm just, I'm trying to match his enthusiasm, but I'm not doing very well.
But he had an accent that was like, I think he said he was Polish. Okay. And so he was telling me how he came to the States and he was so happy to work here and everything. But he didn't know me. He just was that excited a guy.
Oh, that's awesome. So it was pretty neat. Anyway. Yeah. So they've got all kinds of volunteers there and they're just there to serve and they're not looking for any thanks or any kind of reward. At least their reward may not be on earth, but it will certainly be in heaven.
Definitely. But since you have that many volunteers that are taking vacation time to serve at SHEPCON, they can't do two conferences in a year because then that ends up being two weeks vacation time. Right.
Right. They're using all their vacation time to be at Grace Community Church to serve, which is wonderful, but I understand the consideration there. That's why they've only done truth matters every once in a while.
And the theme of this thoughtful, yeah, yeah. So not to overwork or take advantage of the volunteers they have on campus because that would be easy to do. Yeah, I, it would, especially with, with how serving their hearts were.
Yeah. But the theme of this conference was the sufficiency of scripture. Right. Whereas six years ago, it was Strange Fire talking about the charismatic movement. This was about the sufficiency of scripture, which still had a lot of, you know, addressing the charismaticism in it.
Right. Since charismaticism really overlooks the sufficiency of scripture. Well, scripture is not enough. We need to have these subjective visions and voices from God. Right. That was addressed a lot because it's the, the charismatic movement and, and even some of these people who preach this way, who may not associate themselves as charismatic, but will nevertheless say, Hey, you need to be listening to the voice of God or, you know, trying to train people in a, here's how God can talk to you and all this kind of stuff.
All of that is a denial of the sufficiency of scripture. But every sermon was just nailing it, just slamming. And I've heard from several people. They thought Votie Bacchum's sermon on worship was their favorite one, where he was talking about, you know, the story in second Samuel, where David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem and he had, he had it on a cart and Uzzah reached out to grab the, the Ark when the oxen stumbled and God struck him dead.
Even though the intention of Uzzah's heart was good. It was good. Yeah. He didn't want it to fall. He didn't want it to hit the mud. Yeah. He thought he was serving God. Right. But he was doing it his way instead of God's way or really doing it David's way.
Right. He was following David's instruction. Right. And that was just an incredibly convicting sermon. Even, you know, we, as a church, we try to do what we do. Yeah. According to what the scripture says.
Right. But even we can go into something we think we're doing out of good intentions and then we have to step back and evaluate what, is this really what scripture says. Right. That we need to be doing as a church.
Is it really honoring God? Right. Because God has given us those instructions. Yes.
Yeah, definitely. Are we in submission and obedient to God according to his word? All these sermons are going to make it online. I think you got to wait about a week or sometime next week or something like that.
You'll start to get the video feed and. Right. You could have watched the live stream of it, but I know that they've got, they have to clean up the audio and stuff like that. And then they'll release them online.
So that's coming up. Yeah, there was a lot of coughing. There was one session. There was so much coughing. There was one session in particular. Becky and I kind of looked at each other. It's like, is there something in the air in here?
It was a lot of coughing. That wasn't every session, but that one in particular, it was like. And it was multiple people.
It wasn't just one. Yeah. So it was a lot of people coughing.
I don't know what that was about. I don't think it was anything there because we were fine. Yeah. With the exception of my eye injury that I sustained on Thursday.
I was going to say praise the Lord, but then you said the eye injury. And I don't want to say praise the Lord for your eye injury, but praise the Lord that we stayed healthy. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. I had a very, very miserable eye injury on the second day of the conference.
And I kind of put my. Kind of. It was kind of the first day, the very end. It was the very end of the first day. Yeah.
But it wasn't bothering me that bad. It was just I knew I had something in my eye, but I didn't take care of it right away. And then it became a bigger problem on Thursday. Huge problem. Because I didn't get my contact out when I should have.
Yeah. And I was pretty miserable on Thursday. When we were walking up to the conference Thursday morning, we kind of dropped to the back of the pack. I looked at my wife and I said, if we were at home, I'd be going to the doctor right now.
And that takes a lot for me to say that. Oh, yes. Huge. That is huge. I was in a lot of pain. That is. He's dying. Yeah, it hurt a lot. And there was there was one session I couldn't go in, but I sat in the cabanas outside where they had the TVs.
Yeah. And listen to Mike Riccardi. So I missed his first session, at least in the auditorium. Right. But I sat outside and listened to it on the TVs. But I was sitting there with my head in my hands. And it was actually Andrew Rappaport.
With an eyepatch. With an eyepatch on. Yeah, it was actually Andrew Rappaport looked over at me and he goes, gave a sleep over there. I have my sunglasses on and my head was down and my head was in my hands.
And he thought I was asleep. And I just looked up and I went, hey, guys, you know, I just my eye hurt so much. I didn't want to be, you know, looking around and. Making it hurt worse. Making it hurt worse.
I just wanted to sit there with my eyes closed and listen to Mike Riccardi. Yeah. That's all I wanted to do. He was fabulous. Oh, yeah, he was tremendous. That's the first time I've ever sat and listened to Mike Riccardi.
I think I was at I was at another conference. I'm pretty sure where he was one of the speakers, but I missed his session. But this one was oh, man. Yeah, he was he was just great. So we had said to folks, we said this last week.
Oh, you know what? I got to do something here before we go on. Oh, this is my this is my usual Bible that I use here. He's shaking it at you just so you know, I'm setting it off to the side. I've got to get up here.
So, OK, I'm going to go get my new Bible, which is right here. Look at this. Oh, yes. You guys look. Look at this. Look at this Bible. Feel how soft that is. You're so mean. Oh, my goodness. It's such a soft Bible.
This is Jeffrey's work at Post Tenebrosa Lukes. OK, so it's green. It's a green journaling Bible, which I wanted one. I wanted I have a journaling Bible, but it's double column and I have a use for that Bible.
There is something I'm doing with it. OK. And and so I that project with that Bible that I'm writing in the margins, I'm going to leave with that Bible. But I wanted another one that I could do my sermon notes in.
So he had this really nice journaling Bible and he had another one that matched it with a purple cover. And I said, hey, his and her hers Bibles right there. Look at that. You could you could sell this as a pack to a husband and a wife.
Right. And he packs them together and he sets them in front of me and he gives me a deal. And I'm like, I can't say no to that. So I grabbed two new Bibles again. You're so nice. I come from every conference with a Bible.
You do. Either for somebody else or for myself. It seems like I'm always taking advantage of the deals on Bibles. So Becky and I got two new Bibles. We got them from Post Tenebrosa Luke's. Yes. Which we talked about last week.
Yes. You really need to check out their stuff. Look them up online. Jeffrey made a MacArthur study Bible. Right. Oh, yeah. Specially bound and covered in his wonderful work for John MacArthur. Right. And they presented it to John.
But they didn't mention that this specially made Bible came from Post Tenebrosa Luke's. Oh, I can't remember if it was Zondervan or which publisher it was. But they were giving the special custom made Bible to John MacArthur and did not even say that this beautiful cover was done by Jeffrey over at Post Tenebrosa Luke's.
And so somebody at grace to you recognize that also that Jeffrey didn't get mentioned there and that he didn't get to be on stage to hand it to John MacArthur. Yeah. So they got him up to his office. Yeah.
And Jeffrey got to meet him face to face and shake hands with him and got pictures with him and everything. Yep. Posted it online. I am so proud for the guy because he does wonderful work.
And this is not just covers. It's like the whole binding in itself. Yeah.
And he guarantees he guarantees this for life. It's amazing. This is a very sturdy Bible. That reminds me. We got to mail something. Yes, I know. We've got another project for him to work on for us. Yes.
So a gift we're going to give to somebody. But it lays flat like he makes them so that they lay flat every page, no matter where you turn it to in the Bible. It lays flat.
It's just if you get a chance to go visit his booth at any point. Yes. Definitely do. And take a look at him.
They are just. Yeah. So here we go. I've got my new Bible now in front of me here. Alrighty. You're going to read. I wanted to show it to everybody. Yes. Everybody could see it. So see. Yep. Be a Vanna White.
No, that'd be your job. I know. I'll be a Vanna White. There you go. I've missed the all. I'll. I'll. I'll be. I'll be. I'll be. No. Your Vanna White. Stop. Wow. Okay, moving on. This is Friday. Yes. And on the Friday edition of the broadcast, we take.
Questions. Questions from listeners. And you can send those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com. Last week, we did kind of a mock episode dedicated to truth matters, because we were at truth matters.
Right. And we recorded that before we went to truth matters. Right. But we did mention in that program to send us questions that you might have. After the truth matters conference. And that's what we would address in this particular episode.
Right. So I think everything that I have here, except for our last question. I think all of this pertains to the truth matters conference. All right. This first one is from Canada, and I didn't write the name down.
But Pastor Gabe, we shook hands at the truth matters conference. Thank you for being so approachable and personable. There's something I meant to ask you, and I forgot. I have a would you question. But I feel like all questions addressed to you need to start with what.
So I'm going to turn this into a well, what question? Well, what would it take to get you to come up and preach to our church in Canada? I'm warning you. We're way, way up there. And the nearest airport is probably two hours away.
Would you still come up and preach? Thanks. What would it take to get me to come up to Canada?
What would it take? Well, I tell you, you already have your children on board for this. Oh, yeah. They want to go to Canada.
They do very much. If there's a way for you to pay my way, like, if you can just take care of the transportation and you've got a place for me to stay, I'll come up and preach. I'm not asking for anything beyond that.
I mean, really, our church takes good care of us. They do. And I don't need to ask for anything extra. If you want to give me an honorarium, that would be great. I have had a set fee in the past. I think I'd rather just keep it as, I mean, if my schedule works out and your schedule works out for you to want to have me come and preach, I think there's better preachers you could ask.
But nevertheless, if you still would like for me to come up, just give me a way to get there and a place for me to stay. And that's all I'm asking for. Yeah. And that's it. Yeah. That's my answer. Anything to add other than Becky wants to come too.
Maybe. She can teach your ladies. You just take the stuff that you teach the ladies in our ladies group at church. Okay. And you just take it there and you do it there. Or they could listen to you.
I mean, I would, I would. But at the same time, I mean, I don't want to miss out. Yeah, of course not.
Okay. Go as I'm making a whole family thing. Yeah. It'd be awesome. We haven't been to Canada. I've never been out of the country. I have not been.
No, I haven't been to Canada. I've been down to Mexico. You've been to Mexico. Just to walk across the border though. Oh yeah. But I mean, literally we walked across the border. And then back over. And then we took a taxi back because we were dog tired, but it was still the same day and everything.
So, but yeah, we haven't, we haven't been anywhere else. And that was back way back when, when I was a little kid. I was probably Zeej's age. Oh, that was with your parents.
Yeah. Yeah. It's been a minute. I was, I was thinking it was some crazy college thing you did. Hey, let's jump the border and then jump back over.
No, but now I need a passport. So. Yeah, that's true. We'd have to get a passport set up. We better start working on that now. Yeah.
And we'd have to bring Sonia. Yeah. Sonia needs to come too. So you have to pay for Sonia's way. Right now we're just like tacking on. We are. The expenses just talking about this. Let's just leave it at, if you can bring me up there, I'll come up.
Give me a place to stay.
We're good to go. Give us enough notice ahead of time. So that way I can start planning. Yeah. You know, finances and stuff like that and travel and expenses and whatnot.
I just, I'll work for pizza. So yeah, you just, you just have to feed me pizza.
And that's for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
That's it. Not joking. Hey, if we're going up, we're going up to Canada. It can, you can do the Canadian bacon and pineapple. I'm not one of those anti pineapple on pizza guys. I don't know. That would be yummy.
This next question also is not really much of a question, but is rather a comment from Evangeline. And she says, so beautiful, this photo of you, Pastor Gabe and Becky, God bless you both, your family and your ministry.
We posted some pictures on Facebook. We did. Of our time together. And look, this is the one Evangeline sent us. Looks like she added kind of a cloudy effect there on there. That's nice. It's a picture of me with a patch on my eye.
But you have sunglasses on. That's true. It kind of blends in. But she thought it looked so lovely. And she sent us that photo. I will say though, that one of the things that was so touching to me about the Truth Matters Conference.
Oh, stop. Was to see, was to see how much my wife has grown spiritually. And she took copious notes and was glued to every speaker. And when we talked with people, like in years past, she's always been kind of shy and reserved.
And like, I'm going to stand behind my husband and let him give the theological answers. But boy, she just jumped right in.
And she was. I think that was because you weren't feeling well. Could have been. It really could have been. And you were a bit distracted by your eye. I was.
Trying to talk through pain on Thursday.
So I think I was trying to make up the difference.
Could have been. But yeah, she also took real good care of me because the patch was on my right eye. I could not turn to my right. Every time I did. Every single time. I either ran into a person or an object.
Yep. So.
It was without, without a doubt. Like I just left him for one second and I turned around. I'm like, you're okay. And you turn into somebody. And I turned into somebody. And you were going to tell me, yes, you were fine.
But then you ran into somebody. So I was like, no, you're not fine.
So it really is a lovely photo because it's my wife being my help me. She's even standing on my right side here. I was. Next question. This one is from Andrew. He says, hi, Gabe. I was at the Truth Matters conference.
And during Friday's Q &A, Justin Peters stated that he was against Celebrate Recovery and their 12-step program because the only step that is required to address a given sin issue is to repent. I'm curious to hear your thoughts about regeneration, also known as Regen, that was created by Watermark Church in Dallas.
My church offers this program, and it appears to be very gospel centered, even more so than Celebrate Recovery. Well, of course, because Celebrate Recovery is out of Rick Warren's church. So, of course, that's just going to be loaded with pragmatism.
And I have a lot of friends, Andrew says, who have gone through this program, and it appears to have greatly helped them overcome various sin issues. One of my roommates is currently going through Regen, and my other roommate went through this two years ago and is now a Regen closed group leader.
And I've noticed significant spiritual growth in both of their lives as a result of this program. Have you heard of this program before? And if so, what are your thoughts about this? I have reservations about AA and also about Celebrate Recovery.
I don't know Regen, but here's the thing, Andrew, I appreciate your question. I'm going to table this. I'm actually going to table this question. We're not going to address this today. But I want to bring this up with a friend of mine who is finishing up his degree in biblical counseling.
He's actually one of the guys that helped us come up with when we understand the text. I want to talk with him about this. And then if we have a chance in a future episode of the broadcast, have him on as a guest because he has taught these programs before.
I know he's done it before, and his mind changed on some of them later. So I want to ask his opinion on what he knows about Celebrate Recovery, having dealt with that one before, Alcoholics Anonymous, something that was called the James Gang, which actually Alcoholics Anonymous spun off and then there's Regeneration as well.
So I want to visit with him about those. And maybe I'll have somebody with a little bit more expertise than I have come on and can talk about some of these things. Somebody actually has a biblical counseling background.
We'll see if we can get him on the program. So thanks for your question. Let us do some more research into that, and we'll get back to you. Next question comes from Neil. Becky alerted me to this question, so I specifically went through the email, made sure I could find it.
Pastor Gabe and Becky, I have a question or two for you. Following the brouhaha over J-Maxx go home comment at the Truth Matters Conference. Right. Of course, in case you don't know about this, this was the Q &A on Thursday.
Right? I'm pretty sure I had my eye injury when this was going on. I think it was Thursday. Yeah, I think it was Thursday because I came in kind of like. They're all blurred together. The time. Well, yeah, it was blurry for me, too.
I couldn't see my right eye. I just remember kind of wandering in when the question was being asked, and so I was only kind of halfway paying attention. But Todd Freel was doing a word association thing.
It's something he's done before. Phil Johnson has done it before. And Todd was saying, I'm going to mention a word and you say the first thing that comes. A short, pithy answer. Yeah, in response to this word.
And so the first thing that he mentioned was Beth Moore. And John MacArthur really kind of danced around even answering it at first. Because he says, you're going to get me in trouble. But I mean, the whole thing was to come up with a pithy response.
So John MacArthur said, go home. And everybody laughed and some applauded. And he kind of got the whole, oh, thing going on from some members of the audience. And then MacArthur qualified his answer. He didn't just leave it at that.
He said, there's no biblical precedent for a woman standing in the pulpit and preaching. None, period, end of discussion. That comment really kind of lit up the sky. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to anything else the speaker said, at least outside the conference.
Yeah. They just focused entirely on that one comment question.
And that's sad because there was so much that that conference had to offer. Yeah, there was tons.
I mean, what was it, 12 sessions or something like that? Yeah. There's a lot of stuff that came out of that conference. A lot of good stuff. And I hope that people really do watch the messages and the sermons when they hit online.
Yeah, there we go. Go and watch the messages. They get on YouTube or whatever. I think somebody had recorded the Vodibacham message, the one that he did on racial reconciliation. Somebody recorded it in real time.
I guess they were watching the live stream, somehow got the message recorded, put it on YouTube. And we did put it on our what channel. Okay. So you can go to WWUTT on Facebook, the what Facebook page, and it's on there.
It's going to be the fourth or fifth item down or something like that. But a great message from Vodibacham. I've even got a clip I'm going to play from him here, but it's not from that message. Anyway, going on.
Neil says, once again, following the brouhaha over JMAX go home comment, I was reading some of the tweets and ran across a question that I often wondered. One reply mentions God's presence. I've noted among charismatics that his presence is often used in songs, social media posts, and sermons.
What do they mean by presence? Is this the feeling of having goosebumps or Holy Spirit baptism? And how is this any different than the burning in the bosom of Mormons? It often feels as though charismatics are speaking of another Jesus than the one in scripture.
How should we biblically understand his presence? So going to the screenshots that Neil took for us and put these up. So the first one is a comment from Beth Moore. She said, I imagine it a little like this.
I'm in a tailspin, stress, trying to get everything done, getting more anxious by the minute, mood worsening. And Jesus is like, how are you doing this morning, Beth? Me, I'll get to you in a sec. Him.
Oh, don't mind me. I'm doing fine. How are you? Me, not too good. Him. I could change that. Want me to or not? This is ridiculously prideful, and this is incredibly arrogant. Most people probably see this kind of exchange as being very harmless, but scripture actually has quite a bit to say about something like this.
Yes, it does. Beth Moore thinks she's having a private conversation with Jesus, and Jesus is asking her, how are you doing? And Beth Moore is saying, I'll get to you in a sec. And he says, oh, don't mind me.
I'm fine. How are you? Jesus is not your buddy pal. He's your God. Right. You are a friend of God through Jesus Christ. No question about that. But you don't run up to Jesus and feather his hair and roll around with him in the daisies.
That is not the way that we consider our Lord and Christ, and especially this approach that she has with her issues of, hey, I'll deal with you in a sec. I've got this stuff going on. And Jesus just kind of casually asking her, I could change that.
Do you want me to or not?
Yeah. I feel like it has a lot to do with the approach that we have towards authority in general, but specifically more towards parents. Because growing up, I remember my generation, especially not understanding why we had to respect parents.
And I'm sure that happened in every generation, at least here and there.
But yeah, it probably goes back to the 60s. Well, maybe.
Free love movement. Yeah, maybe. But I mean, my parents have a great amount of respect for my grandparents still to this day. Yeah. And talking with our clowns that attend our church, they have so much respect that if there are older people that are sitting down, you have to bow down, if not crawl across the floor, so that way they are higher than you to go sit in your seat.
Yeah, they do have quite a reverence for the older generation.
And this is the kind of stuff that we are lacking and missing and we don't even know it's out there. I was stunned by how much respect they have for their elders, just on that little tiny island. It's amazing that we have come so far away from that, that amount of respect, maybe not quite to that level.
I don't think America's ever had that level of respect towards elders. Not in our lifetime. But that's how we should be thinking about our father of heaven, not, oh, hey, dad, how's it going? Yeah, and even greater reverence than that.
Right, exactly. So anyway, I just, I feel like.
Yeah, there is this general disrespect for authority and Beth Moore has a lot of disrespect for authority. A lot. A lot, especially the authority of scripture. She greatly disrespects the authority of scripture.
It's offensive. She has said that the words of the apostle Paul are not the words of Christ. And so, therefore, we need to refer to Paul's words as less than Christ's words. But Paul's words were exactly Christ's words.
Thank you. And when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you are not reading what Jesus wrote down. Right. You are reading what the apostles wrote down. Exactly. That he said. Yes, there is not a word in scripture that was literally written by the hand of God.
Everything was written down by men, but they were led to write down what they wrote by the Holy Spirit. Yes. According to what Peter says in Second Peter one, every every word that we have in scripture is exactly what God meant to have written.
Yes, there is not one word of it that we should take as less than another. Jesus saying there is not one dot, not one iota of the law will pass away until it is all fulfilled. And this even the words that we have, the instructions that come from the apostles are commands.
Right. May not be the law of Moses, but it is still the command of God. Peter says in First Peter, Chapter five, starting in verse six, humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
Beth Moore is kind of going about her own thing here in this little tweet thread that Neil had sent to us. Jesus saying, hey, I could help you. Do you want me to help you or not? Like leaving it up to you as to whether or not God is going to fulfill his purpose and his will.
Right. So not true. What Beth needs to do is exactly this in First Peter five, six, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
It's a little thing she's doing where she's trying to like kind of take care of the situation by herself and just only turning to Jesus when she realizes, oh, yeah, he can help me with this. This is arrogant.
Yeah. This is her saying, I can handle this on my own rather than humbling herself before God. So we go on from there because that wasn't the only thing that Neil said. So there's this fellow here, because remember, Neil's question was talking about presence.
What do they mean by presence of God? So this guy, his name is Steve. He says in response to Beth Moore, I believe anxiety competes for the same space where we're aware of God's presence. So I think it is very difficult to be present to God and be anxious at the same time.
I think anxiety says it is all on me when God is calling us to God's easy yoke. Beth says, agree, Steve. Steve says, lots of us fellows who learn so much from you, Beth. God help him. I know you hear from other voices, but I wanted to express thanks for being such a faithful teacher to us.
I'm a lead pastor and deeply grateful for your teaching. Beth says, Steve, what gracious words. Thank you for that. It is my honor to serve a servant. Bless you today, brother.
What was I going to say here? So you were explaining presence.
I'm upset that this guy's even a pastor now. Presence. What do they mean by presence? Is this the feeling of having goosebumps or Holy Spirit baptism? Honestly, Neil presence is whatever you want it to mean.
Does two plus two equals seven? Yeah, right.
That was one of the questions we saw. Right. Only if you want it to. And that was one of the questions we saw at the Truth Matters conference. That question being asked of a student. And he said, yeah, sure.
Two plus two can equal seven if you want it to. But same with the word presence. Same application. Same principle. Right. It means whatever you want it to mean. This is why the charismatics use that word.
It is a nonspecific word. It has no definition to it. The presence of God can be whatever you want that presence to be. They will deal out these subjective words that sound Christian esque. So you'll hear them.
You'll go, oh, yeah, presence of God. But have no idea what that means or what that's supposed to even feel like. So then Neil says, how should we biblically understand his presence? Biblically understand his presence.
You should understand it this way. Are you a Christian? Then the presence of the Holy Spirit is with you. There it is. Amen. Do you feel that? Sometimes. I want to be careful with how I qualify that. But I mean, there are certainly some times where I feel elation and joy and a hopefulness and an expectation of the fulfillment of God's promises in the future does give me a security.
Yeah. And there is a feeling about that. There is a feeling of hopefulness that I don't fall into despair. And I have nothing to dread or fear of man. My fear is of God, a reverent fear of him. And knowing that all the promises that he has for me are bound up in his word in Christ Jesus.
I can come to his word and I can read Revelation chapter 21, that there is a day that is coming in which every tear is going to be wiped away. There's going to be no more hurt, no more pain. All the former things will have passed away.
Death will be no more. And we will be forever with God in glory. And I can read that. And that is a security to me. Right. And I feel a hopefulness about that because of what is said in his word. But there are some times when you don't feel it.
And you can just go to the Psalms and you see David a lot of times just didn't feel it. He is going through some tough stuff. But he didn't have the Holy Spirit. Yes, he did. He did? Right. It's just it's not the same indwelling of the Holy Spirit that we have now.
Okay. Who are in Christ. But he did have the Holy Spirit. Okay. Because you think of like Psalm 51, where he says, take not your Holy Spirit from me. Oh, right. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation.
Okay. So restore unto me the joy of your salvation. Let me feel joy again. Right. In knowing the salvation that I have in Christ. And he's asking for an understanding that my sins have been forgiven. And I'm again in right standing with God.
And how we know that is what we read about in the pages of Scripture. That's how we come to that. But there are certainly times when David doesn't feel. And he's asking God, where are you in the midst of this circumstance?
Psalm 13 is a good example of that. And yet he concludes that Psalm, which is just six short verses. He concludes that Psalm by saying, I have trusted in your steadfast love. My heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
Amen. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. And this is, you know, he started the song by saying, how long, oh, Lord, will you forget me forever? But I'm still going to trust in your steadfast love because you have dealt bountifully with me.
I would say he was being a little dramatic, but he went through some tough stuff. Oh, yeah. So I don't know if he was actually being dramatic in that.
Living in a cave to escape, you know, the wrath of his father-in-law who wanted to put him to death. You know, your dad has never tried to kill me before. So praise the Lord. In fact, he seemed rather excited about the fact that I was going to ask you to marry me.
Yeah. That was a good conversation. I still remember that day. I don't. When I, when I asked. It was very much a surprise. That's right. You weren't there. When I asked your dad if I could have his permission to marry you, the first thing he said was, she comes with a dog.
He would have kept Annie on a heartbeat.
Yeah, right. He didn't feel the need to have to tell me she comes with a little girl. I was already aware of that. Yes. But no, you came with a dog. I did come with a dog. If I wasn't willing to accept you, dog and all.
That's right. Then I couldn't have you. You better believe it. I guess that was him saying, we aren't keeping this dog. Yeah, that dog was a mess. That dog is going to be going with Becky. So he's coming to your house.
Well, Neil, I hope that helps to answer your question. Gives you a little bit more clarity about the presence of God. The presence of God we know about because of what scripture says. It's not based on what we feel, but what God has said, what he has promised to us in his word.
Jesus said in Matthew 28, last verse in Matthew 28, low. I am with you always to the very end of the age. If you are in Christ, he is with you. His presence is with you. You may not always feel it, but you can be sure that he will never leave you nor forsake you.
Right. Next question. This comes, this is kind of lengthy. This comes from somebody who signed her name frustrated. Oh, no. My question is about the subject that came up about women pastors. All right.
At the Truth Matters Conference. When I was speaking out against Priscilla Shires teaching and Priscilla Shire, Shire, Shire, I always get messed up on her name.
It's not Shire. That's how I always try to pronounce it. Priscilla Shire. Stop. Do it again. No, I meant like, start over. Don't do that again. I was totally going to do it again.
I know you were. Stop it. So, Justin Peters, he had played a clip of Priscilla Shire when I was speaking against. Truthfully, I don't know how to pronounce her last name. Shire. I'm just going to say Shire.
Okay. Priscilla Shires teaching in conferences. Okay. Here, let's start. Yes, let's start the whole email over again here. When I was speaking out against Priscilla Shires teaching in conferences to a mixed audience.
So Priscilla is speaking to men and women together at a conference. Okay. I was told that it doesn't matter if a woman teaches in a conference or video seminar to a mixed crowd of believers because she isn't preaching in a church or on a Sunday.
They kept saying it was a secondary issue if a woman preaches and it's not that big a deal. I disagree that it's a secondary issue because God specifically addresses it. So to me, it's a primary issue and a sin issue.
They kept saying I was wrong. Well, I have not found anything in scripture that supports the fact that it's okay for women to do this and it's a secondary issue and it's fine as long as it's not in a church or on a Sunday.
So I'd like to have it clarified to know how to address this. I also want to share with you a question and answer on Priscilla Shires website to give you an idea as to why Priscilla believes it's okay.
Link below. This was the question to her. Can a woman be a pastor of a local church? And this is what she says. The answer is way longer than this. You can read it in the link, but I pulled out the part that caused me concern.
She answered if a senior pastor has invited a woman to preach on a Sunday morning or to teach his congregation, then she is effectively under the leadership and the authority of that church and is free to operate in that realm.
Unquote. I'm not sure if Priscilla is SBC, but it sounds like this is the understanding of what some in the faith are trying to teach. Thank you for your time in this frustrated. Now, I went to that Q &A link that frustrated sent me and read the questions that were posed to Priscilla.
What was even more concerning than her question about can a woman preach in a church or in front of a mixed crowd, therefore having authority over men? What was even more concerning than that is there was a question in there also about how to hear the voice of God.
So she is telling this crowd or these people who have asked her these questions, she's telling them how you can hear God's voice, how you can basically sit there and hear the voice of God. Right now, she comes to scripture and she says, you hear the voice of God in scripture, but she's using it in the sense that you use the scripture to hear tone.
And that's specifically the word she used. You hear his tone in scripture so that when you hear thoughts in your mind, you are able to distinguish which one of those in tone is the voice of God speaking to you.
OK, that's way more concerning to me than the fact that Priscilla is trying to qualify preaching in front of a mixed crowd. The same goes with Beth Moore. The fact that Beth Moore is preaching in front of men is not my biggest concern.
It is a concern, but it's not my biggest concern. Right. My biggest concern is the fact that she pals around with prosperity heretics. Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer takes pictures with them, goes to their churches, preaches there, shares the stage with them.
Brian Houston of Hillsong Church. There's really not anyone she is unwilling to be associated with as long as they're willing to kiss her ring. She will be with with anyone. It doesn't matter how heretical they are.
I've not known anybody that she would be willing to say I wouldn't do ministry with them. Seems like everybody is is open and fair game. You proclaim Christ. OK, sure. You know, it's going to be their version of Jesus.
It's not going to be the biblical Christ. Right. But but but she is piling around with these heretics and opening up her followers to follow them. She denies the sufficiency of Scripture. Yes. And as I'd already mentioned, she outright rejects that there are words of Paul that are Christ's words.
She thinks that the words that are in red are more important than the words that are in black. When Second Timothy 316 says all Scripture is God breathed, there's not one part of it that did not come from God.
These things are are way more serious that Beth Moore does than her egalitarianism, although that is an issue and that is a concern. She twists the Scriptures, makes it about you instead of exalting Christ, denying the sufficiency of Scripture.
Those that is a much bigger thing. She teaches bad stuff no matter who she's teaching to. If she was just teaching to a group of women, it would still be bad, right? She's still unqualified, right? Should not be teaching to anybody.
So the same goes with Priscilla and this definition that Priscilla has given to the allowance that is given to a woman to preach to a mixed audience that as long as the pastor says it's OK, therefore she's under the pastor's authority and she's not doing anything wrong.
No, the problem here now is that the pastor is sinning and you're sinning, right? And the woman is sinning because they are denying what is said in First Timothy 2 11 and 12 regarding whether a woman should preach or not.
And the answer there, of course, is no. Now, this definition that she gives is becoming more and more acceptable in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Yeah, I've heard you can definitely see that. Yeah, I've heard J .D.
Greer say the same thing. He has said as long as the as long as the elders are men, then a woman can come in and preach to the congregation because she's under the elder authority. Well, your elders are now rewriting Scripture, right?
So you have denied scriptural authority, right? At that point.
I don't know the whole hearing God's voice. It just makes me think about the Galatians, you know, about how like angels can look like the Lord.
And well, that was that was Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Chapter 11, where Paul was addressing that. Oh, I thought it was in Galatians to know where he says that even the devil disguises himself as an angel of light.
Yes, there, too. I think our studies in oh, I know what you're thinking of. You're thinking of Galatians one and two, where even if we or an angel from heaven. Right. Should come preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that we preach to you.
Let him be accursed. Right. Right.
Yeah. OK, I get what you're saying. And they're taking this as gospel because anything that God tells Beth. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
What she has to do. And if you deny what she's saying, well, she's now qualified her words as being God's words. Right. So you're rejecting God here. Right. If you are denying what it is that I'm telling you, because God spoke to me and I'm I'm just telling you what God said.
It's a rejection of the sufficiency of scripture. Now, I'm going to turn to a different Q &A. OK. And this was a Q &A that was asked of Vody Bacom. This same question was posed to him. Here's what he said about it.
OK. My wife is not going to let me, like, go home if I don't ask this question, because she can't ask it. You can answer it after this. She just wanted to know why why women are not allowed to to preach in the church.
And if a woman feels that she has the gift of preaching, why? Why isn't she allowed to preach? Thanks.
First, Timothy chapter two and verse 12. I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. So because the Bible says so. And that's it. The other thing is, well, what if a person feels like they have gifts to do that?
No one gets to do everything they feel like they're gifted at. No one does. What if a man who has several wives feels like he's gifted to be a pastor? The Bible says he must be the husband of one wife.
Right. So just because you feel like you're gifted to do something, that doesn't give you the right to overthrow biblical qualifications. The office of the elder. Paul says, you know, when he's talking about the elder, he must be the husband of one wife.
He's talking about a man. OK, that office is exclusively for men. That's the office of the pastor teacher. So if the office is exclusively for men and the Bible is very clear that women are not to teach or exercise authority over men, there's absolutely no room for women to be in that office or to exercise that authority in the church.
And there you have it.
Pretty simple, pretty cut and dry there. Now, is this a primary issue or a secondary issue? Because that was another part of frustrated question. She said that people were telling her that this was a secondary matter, but she feels like it's a primary matter since God specifically addresses it.
And they kept saying that I was wrong. Well, here's the thing. It is a secondary issue. And here's why it's a secondary issue. Just because a woman has preached in the pulpit doesn't mean she's going to hell.
Right. Primary issues are not just because they're laid out plainly in Scripture. Primary issues deal with salvation issues. Right. We're talking about something that has to do with a doctrine, a fundamental doctrine regarding a person's salvation, where if you were to contradict this doctrine means that you're teaching heresy.
If a woman preaches in the pulpit, it doesn't make her a heretic because we don't see some sort of fundamental doctrine that is denied. But it is nevertheless very, very concerning. There are secondary issues that when denied can still be very concerning, even though it doesn't mean that somebody who's denying it is instantly a heretic, though it may be a secondary issue.
It is most certainly a signifying issue. What do I mean by that? Well, if she's willing to reject something as plainly stated as that in 1 Timothy 2, 11 and 12, then she's probably wonky on a lot of other doctrines.
I don't know of any woman who stands in the pulpit and believes that she has authority to teach over men and women and has not rejected something else in Scripture that has caused another concern in her doctrine somewhere.
Every one of the women that I know of that does this, that you could point to and say, well, she's a woman preacher. Where does she get this idea from, according to Scripture, that she can stand in the pulpit and preach?
It's never just that. There's always a plethora of other things going on in their doctrine. And this is just one of those signifying issues that shows they're willing to assert the authority of Scripture in order to get what they want.
And in this case, hey, I'm a gifted preacher. I believe that I should be up here, so I'm going to do it. And I don't care what God's word says about it. Yeah. They may not be that blatant about it, but that's what it comes down to.
Yeah. So frustrated, how should you deal with this with your friends? Gently. Yeah, with patience. Correcting opponents with gentleness, with patience, take some time. If you don't see any shift or turn or understanding on this from those women that you have been studying with, I can tell you what's going to end up happening.
They're going to go further and further in the other direction rather than coming back to repentance and looking at the word of God as our ultimate authority. Yeah. They're going to find other ways to bend and twist Scripture and go with, you know, apply their issue to that in whatever way that they want.
Right. And just because a person claims to be Reformed or 1689 Baptist or Presbyterian or anything like that, that doesn't mean that they're going to get everything right in Scripture. Right. It's very unfortunate the number of people that we're seeing right now who had previously at one point claimed to be Reformed or Calvinist or love the doctrines of grace that are bending on even this issue.
Right.
As plain as it is. It's quite a world out there. Yeah.
And even Reformed folks that are defending Beth Moore, that itself is indefensible. She is a false teacher, period. Yep. That's all I got. Go home. I had to throw that in there. You did.
Well, I resist. We're going to go home now. Yes. That's it for us. You're gone. I am. I'm sorry. I've got nothing. Like, there is nothing coming to my mind of, oh, hey, this would be good to say. Nope.
It's blank. Becky's already gone home. Sorry, guys. I apologize. Yep.
She's all cuddled in her blanket. The tea wore off. The caffeine she had before we came down here just isn't working anymore. Nope. So this means we're at the end. So here we go. Sorry. We're going to pray.
Wait, wasn't there one more? Yes, there is one other question, but it's going to take too long. Oh, OK. And it's the one question I said didn't have to do with Truth Matters either. So we can save that until next week.
Thank you for our Truth Matters episode. And again, you can always send your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Next week, we're going to be talking about 25 Christmas Myths and What the Bible Says.
Yes, we are. The second edition of that book. I'm actually getting out before Christmas this year. Lord willing. Lord willing, that's true. But really, it's almost it's almost ready to go. And so by the time we get to this program next week, we'll be able to talk about the book.
Yeah. And I'll be telling you, yeah. I'm still hanging on to that. If you bought it once, go buy it again. I made all the corrections, the spelling and formatting errors that I had last time. Oh, yeah.
All right. Let's pray. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time and always a blessing to be able to do a ministry like this with my wife, be able to open up the Word of God and understand what you have said and that we may all come into submission to God's Word, your instruction, that it is not our word over your word, but everything that we must discern and evaluate and how we must apply this in our lives and in our churches and so on and so forth.
All of this must be according to your word. May we filter our own opinions through what your word says, for there is a way that seems right to a man, it says in Proverbs, but in the end is the way of death.
Proverbs 3, 5 and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Teach us to do this day by day.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. What? It feels fine. Me? I mean, it's chilly. It's definitely not like it is down here during the summer.
Well, I'm also in short sleeves, which doesn't normally happen. I only have a sweater on. But today, I did not want this sweater.
Is this the, this is the question from Neil you told me about? I don't know. Right? Because didn't Neil tell you that he had a question he wanted me to, where are you? That's not helping you either. There you go.
Is that better? A little. Can you get to your mic from there? I don't know. And I have to come uncurled a little bit.
No, I just got cozy. Pull this chair up. I'm trying.
Always making it more difficult than it needs to be.
So do you remember the YouTube videos where they're folding the fitted sheet and she like rolls up in the fitted sheet to like fold it, you know? I think I've seen that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's what I want to do. Because there's no possible way to fold a fitted sheet. That's great. That's, that's going to be one of those great mysteries. We get to ask God one day. How on earth were we supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
Well, I mean, I've seen videos and if I really took the time to do it, I probably could. But by the time I get around to the fitted sheet, which is always left for last.
Yeah, I'm done. Soon as somebody invents a fitted sheet that can be folded, it'll, they'll, we'll stop saying it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yeah. We'll start saying it's the greatest thing since the folded fitted sheet.
Don't say that too fast. Folded fitted sheet.