Hello, and welcome to Ask Pastor Mike Live with pastor and Bible teacher Mike Fabarez. The live call-in program answering your questions about the Bible and the Christian life. Call us right now with your questions at 1-877-913-5357. That's 1-877-913-5357. And now here's Pastor Mike. Well, hello everybody. It's good to be back today with you answering questions. If you have some about the Bible, about the Christian life, whatever's on your mind, give me a call. Let's talk 1-877-913-5357. That's the number to call 1-877-913-5357. Or you can text the word ask 9039890398. If you text the word ask to that number, you will get a little form and then we can have that question pop up here on my screen. We can answer it, deal with it, or you can go to Facebook or YouTube and just search for Ask Pastor Mike live and you'll see the live stream there, both on Facebook or YouTube. And you can get involved in the chat. If you ask a question in the chat, we will do our best to answer it. here on the program here today. 1-877-913-5357. That's the number to call. And I'd love to hear from you today. But yesterday I had a question that was a bit detailed about the use of ego ami, the Greek phrase in John 8.58. And I said I'd try to address it as the Septuagint and the Greek text. are a little different. In other words, and it depends, and I need the collar back, actually, if I were to find out the angle, because there's always a question behind the question. Here's what some people, I think, make a case of, that Jesus is not quoting Exodus 3.14, when out of the burning bush, there's a Hebrew phrase that basically has the verb and the relative pronoun in the verb. who will be I am, that I am, I am. Yeah. And how does the ESV, let's finally get around. I should have the text up here. Exodus 3.14. ESV. I am who I am. Yeah. There's the relative pronoun in the middle of it. So, the Greek Septuagint translated before the time of Christ basically says, I am who is. It adds the extra phrase, I am who is. And ego, ami, and then it has ho on, which are two other Greek words that give us the answer of I am who is. In a sense, you can see the connection, but there is a difference. And when Jesus says, ego of me, well then, you know, that's not the reading of the Septuagint. So some people say, well, he's not identifying himself as divine? I think maybe the question behind it, the critics that I've heard, I can't remember, I couldn't find it, but people that are struggling with the fact that he doesn't quote it the way the Septuagint quotes it. But if you look at Ego and Me and how it's used, for instance, in the book of Isaiah, this is certainly how God identifies himself, talking about, I am the first and I am in the things to come, literally Isaiah 41.4. Or I all these things that you may know and believe and understand that I am, Isaiah 43.10, or Isaiah 43.13, from the beginning of days, I am. All of these, I just looked up all the usage of ego and me in the Septuagint, the I am statement, which is a very emphatic way to say I am, I am the existing one. Anyway, it's all over Isaiah, Isaiah 43.25, Isaiah 45.18. So anyway, if we get a call back on that, we can go a little deeper if we want. But I know that's all Greek to you, most of you, and I don't understand, but they picked up stones to stone Christ because they knew this was a blasphemous statement and it's a parallel. would, I think, take most people back. If you're reading from the Hebrew text in the synagogue, it would be a throwback, obviously, to Exodus 3.14, or even part of how it's put in the Septuagint, which I understand is the Bible of many people in the first century, the Greek speaking world. But it certainly is the precise wording that we find throughout as God identifies himself mostly in the book of Isaiah, even though it's also in Hosea 13 and Joel 2, even in Deuteronomy 32. So anyway, there's plenty of uses of that phrase as God calls himself the I Am. And to even say, I am the one who existed before Abraham was, that's the big That's the big blasphemous statement. All right, we can talk more about that if we get our caller back. 1-877-913-5357. That's the number to call. Let's talk to Natalie now. You're on the air with Pastor Mike Fabarez. How can I help? Hey, Pastor Mike. Thanks for taking my call. I am calling you because I have grown up in a rather dysfunctional home throughout my life. I discovered church in my late teens and have been sticking with, you know, growing in my walk in faith and growing and gaining, putting scripture on my heart, you know, reading the Bible, attending church, but I try to speak you know, faith into my family and I have seen the fruit of it. There's been a lot of alcoholism with just with my father. I even struggled with it for a period quite a bit and have had to just, you know, lean on God hugely and humbly with that. I have a son and I just feel like me and him are kind of on our own in a lot of ways. I sometimes struggle with jealousy of seeing the families that have the network, you know, real just faith surrounding them, the close people, you know, the blood relatives. And I guess, you know, right now I've been really struggling just because my dad has been really, I mean, Even my son, he went and saw him the other day and he came home and I said, how's grandpa doing? And he said, well, he's drinking himself to death. And you know, he's, my son's 19 years old and that's probably been the most close male figure in his life. I'm a single mom. And, um, uh, my son's dad has not been a big, a figure in his space either. Cause I, he was not, uh, um, He was physically, very physically abusive to him. So it's just been a rocky road. And I do feel it's had to do a lot with just a lot of the dysfunction and not having good direction. Anyway, you kind of probably get the gist. Yeah, I do. And I don't want to in any way sound like you need to write off the concern or love that you have for your family and your parents, but you do need to understand that there is an absolute you know, replacement of a lot of what we need and want and are designed by God to lean on in our biological families that God replaces in the body of Christ. And I say that with the authority of Christ himself, who in Mark chapter 3 was doing ministry and it says in Mark 3 20, when he went home, the crowds gathered again and he didn't even have time to eat because he's ministering to these people. It says when his family heard of it, they went out to seize him for they were saying he's out of his mind. So, the family of Christ, the biological family of Christ was basically writing Jesus off as crazy. And at the bottom of the passage in verse 31, when his mother and brothers came standing outside, they sent to Jesus, trying to get him out of the crowd here. And as the crowd was sitting around, they told Jesus, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. And Jesus answered them and said, verse 33, who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those sitting around, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother. That to me, so helpful, particularly as you read the Old Testament about the Lord watching over the sojourners and upholding the widows and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. Here is a picture of a family that is basically chosen to reject Christ, at least at this particular point in his ministry, And he says, okay, well, here's my family, right? God is providing, you know, help to the widow and the fatherless. In this case, the, you know, the orphan and the brotherless because Jesus is being, you know, he can't find the solace in his family that he needs, but he says, I'm surrounded by people here who do the will of my father. So the point is that we need to see that in the body of Christ, God is going to provide for you and even your son, a male figure that may not share DNA with you. who is going to be a great father figure and a male older brother, that it's going to provide everything your son needs. And even in your life, you may say, well, I don't have the Norman Rockwell family because, you know, they don't look like me. They don't share my DNA. They're people at church. But I'm spending time investing in and knowing that the kinds of things I need in terms of relational networking is coming from the body of Christ, those who do the will of God. And that's where you're going to have the closest relationships. And it's just, there's no way around that. And Jesus said early in the book of Matthew, there's going to be a division that comes when Christ gets involved in someone's life, because sometimes mothers and fathers are not going to be on the same pages as sons and daughters, and there's going to be tension. And certainly when you see how God defines wickedness and righteousness, and you say, well, my father's given himself over to drunkenness, and he doesn't live according to the standards of God's word. I don't want to be around drunks on the holidays. And there's truth to that. And while I don't want you to write them off because they are a mission field for you for sure, we got to care about the souls of your mom and dad. I think you need to find the kind of relational networking and connection in the body of Christ. And you need to lean in more to your small groups and the people that you connect with at your church. And church needs to become the kind of familial connection that all of us long for. and better is a friend nearby than a brother far away, as the Proverbs say. And I would lean on the friends nearby, and those who are going to reject your standards, which are just God's standards, and going to ruin their lives and drink themselves to death, I think you should pray for them. I think you should be available if they call out to you. But they're not going to be the kinds of father figures you need. But I bet there's some gray-headed old guys who are ready to care and be the kinds of wisdom for your son and for yourself and for your immediate family that you can lean on and rely on. And they're there and they're available. And I think that's what the church and the body of Christ is designed to do, as Mark chapter 3 verse 35 says. Okay. And if people that, you know, I mean, we're wired to really love our parents, right? Sure. And if someone passes on and, you know, they, I mean, I think one of the biggest fears I've even had since I was really young is just if someone that I love passes on and I don't feel that they knew Jesus and were saved. How am I going to handle that? You know what I mean? It's kind of a scare, a fear for me. No, I understand that. I understand that. But just because we have a familial connection with someone who chooses to reject Christ, you need to realize you're not the only avenue through which the truth has come to your parents. If you think about it, right? I mean, we can't go through the holidays without people talking about Christ and Christ coming to save us. You can't go through the malls without a Christmas carol that really is spelling out the gospel. So if your parents reject the Lord, you just need to realize this isn't your fault. You weren't the sole missionary in their life. You are not the only avenue of truth. I mean, God has written his law on their hearts that they've fought against. And I understand it's hard because they're our mother and our father. We share that genetic connection. But, you know, there are people in your town and in my town that are dying today. And just because I don't know them doesn't mean they're any less worth something to God, and yet they're making decisions about eternity. And some of them are rejecting Christ today and going to a Christless eternity. And I'm going to have to live with the fact that God is just and he's going to deal justly with the lost. And we're just going to have to have the joy that people I do love in the body of Christ who do the will of God are my brother and my sister and my mother, as Jesus put it. And I'm so grateful that their names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life and that we're going to spend eternity together. Okay. Thank you. I know that's hard. I know we so want the Norman Rockwell. I want everyone in my family to sit around the big table with the turkey on it. We're all holding hands and it's all great. But, you know, there are people that share the same exact love for Christ, the same value system that you have, who are willing to be in your life and care for you and you care for them. and Jesus makes that clear. Mark chapter three, you need to read it carefully, especially verses 31 through 35 and say, you know, if Jesus had this feeling and knew what this was like, I can live in this life being closer to Peter, James, and John than I may be with my brother or my sister or my mother or my father. And that may be the reality for you at this point, Natalie. And always available. And you should always honor your parents. If they have a need, you're going to rush to their house. I get that. And it's never going to change because that's your responsibility as their child. But it doesn't mean that you're going to have all the good vibes from them that you may want. But it's not that God's going to have you live without good vibes for the rest of your life. That's going to come from somewhere else. All right, Natalie, we're gonna pray for you this season. I'm sure some people listening right now, just ask you to remember Natalie. We can get through this holiday season in particular, having a, hopefully, a great sense of communal connection, a familial connection. I mean, think about it, in the Bible, we're called brothers and sisters. And it comes from Jesus right here in Matthew 335. Whoever does the will of God is my brother, my mother, my sister. That's my family. And that is the closest set of human relationships you're going to have, are people that share your love for the Lord and are willing to live for Him in this world. 1-877-913-5357. 877-913-5357. That's the number to call if you want to get on the program today. Or you can write us, as many people have. And you can chat about whatever is on your mind. And I've got a few here. John is asked, Matthew 2, 16 describes King Herod went out to kill all the male children, two years and younger. And we know that Jesus escaped to Egypt until Herod's death. How did John the Baptist escape Herod's decree since John the Baptist was about the same age as Jesus lived in the same region? John the Baptist, remember, is the son of Zechariah. Zechariah is described in the beginning of the book of Luke as from the hill country of Judea. And the hill country of Judea, right, doesn't necessarily mean he lived in Bethlehem. And so in that regard, you know, Herod was focused on Bethlehem because that's what The Magi who come from Persia had told him that Daniel had ultimately left the prophecies about the Messiah. They told him that's where he was born. So he was going to Bethlehem focusing on that. And while it's a horrible story, you just need to know what a smaller town and village that was. And the arena of him killing these children really would only result in a handful of young children that were two and younger. And so, yeah. even what we learn about John later, he lives in the wilderness and who knows when that started. It could have even been from his childhood. We're not sure, but I think he escaped John, all of that, because he obviously didn't live there. Or if he did, maybe just like, think about it, Joseph takes Jesus away to protect him. And, you know, we assume obviously God's got a plan for John the Baptist. Zachariah and Elizabeth may have taken John the Baptist away as well. So that could be the case. That's a good Christmas question and makes a lot of sense that you would ask it. I hope that answer helps. Yeah, 1-877-913-5357. Let's talk to Neil. Neil, you're on the air with Pastor Mike. How can I help? Yeah, Pastor Mike, I want to encourage the lady that just called. I prayed for my father for 38 and a half years and at the age of 87 and a half, he came to Christ. And the other thing I wanted to encourage her about was that I personally was a hardcore drug addict and alcoholic for 18 years, between the ages of 12 and 30. And my family prayed for me for 18 years, and I now have 37 and a half years clean and sober. So God is powerful. She doesn't need to despair that her father is going to die in his sins necessarily. He may. But one of my favorite things to pray for is, we know according to 1 John chapter 5, verses 14 to 15, it says that, now this is the confidence that we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will, we know that He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petition, we have asked of Him. So we know the scripture says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, and He has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. So I can't guarantee that everyone who I pray for their salvation is going to get saved. But according to 1 John 5, 14 to 15, we may have a more likely chance of that prayer being answered than any other prayer that we pray. No, that's a great word, Neil. I appreciate you saying that to Natalie and to all of us, because there's a lot of stories, including your own, and I just reflect that. I'm just greeting a gal at our Christmas coffee. My dad, one last story. There were a couple pastors on the radio about 10 years ago, and one of them mentioned that his mother prayed for his father for 70 years, and they were still in good health and living at home in their 90s. And one morning, His father came out of the bedroom and to his mother in the kitchen and said, Dear, I just wanted to tell you, I just prayed to receive Christ. She prayed for him for 70 years. Well, that's a near record right there. Yeah. Yeah, don't give up, Natalie. Don't give up. Thank you, Neil, for that word. And I agree, Natalie. There's a lot of gals I know in our church who've prayed for their husbands or their family members. And it has taken decades, but God has broken through. And we know His revealed will, as Neil has just reminded us, is it all should come to repentance. And so praying in line with that is certainly one we can know that God is receiving joyfully that prayer that certainly He wants the same. 1-877-913-5357. Let's go to Mary. Mary, you're on the air with Pastor Mike. How can I help? Yes, sir. I don't know if you could help me with this question. I just keep dreaming of my relatives, my parents, my grandparents, everyone that's passed, and it's continuously. They're good dreams, but I'm just wondering why. Yeah, I can't tell you why. Certainly when we lose loved ones, we miss them, and our minds can cogitate on them, and it can certainly lead to us dreaming about them. And the only warning I can give you from Scripture is that we shouldn't get enamored with the dreams so that we start to try and have any kind of contact. Because in Deuteronomy 18, it says that's certainly not what we want to do. We're not trying to in any way have a contact with the other side, with the dead. Inquiring of the dead, it says in Deuteronomy 18, 11, is an abomination of God. So we can have all the dreams we want, and sometimes they can be comforting dreams, they can be encouraging dreams, and we remember the memories of those that we love, and that's fine. But all we can say is that we can't take it any further than that. And why God does that? I don't know. It certainly reminds us of the joy that we have in having friends and family members and people that we love in this life. And it should remind me, if I were having those prayers, to continue to invest in new relationships and people that are here and alive, because I can't have a relationship with those who have gone on. I'm going to have to wait until I go on until I have a relationship with them. So invest Mary, with the people that you know, lean into those relationships and maybe dreams about good times with your current friends are going to help even supplant some of these dreams of those who have gone on. We'll deal with them when we get there, and that's gonna happen. And so we look forward to our reuniting with our loved ones on the other side. Don't make too much of it, Mary. This is just how our brain works. It goes on idle every night and we start cycling through a lot of things. Remembering our loved ones can be a fond experience even in our dreams. We can thank God for that and then we can move on with our day and love the people that are right in front of us. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Mary. Thanks for the call. 1-877-913-5357. 1-877-913-5357. Whatever's on your mind related to the Christian life, let's talk about it. Bible, theology, something related to your decision making as a Christian, let me know. Let me remind you of our focal point cruise coming up next summer, 2026 in September. We're going to sail on a nice ocean liner. If you go to pastormike.com, click on the cruise banner there that we've got coming up next year. You can learn all about it. I teach on the boat, on the ship, at least once a day, sometimes twice a day, depending on our schedule. We have the nice ballroom there, which has very comfy seats, almost too comfortable. You might fall asleep during my preaching, but I'll be preaching some themes from Proverbs. It'll be a good time in God's Word together, great time of fellowship. So go check it out, the Focal Point Cruise. It's coming up in the summer of 2026, actually in the fall, in September. We'd love to have you check that out and join us. 1-877-913-5357. Trevor writes in and has asked, the Bible instructs us to pray for our leaders, and he is a sovereign God, obviously, who appoints our leaders, but what are we supposed to make of bad leaders that God puts in place, such as the new mayor-elect in New York City? Okay, well, that's a good question, and there's nothing at all that we should Nothing that should forsake, have us forsake the call to pray for our leaders. And certainly 1 Timothy chapter 2 reminds us to pray for our leaders and for those in positions of authority. And so we should, even if they're bad leaders. Here I am in California, I've got a governor here, and we don't agree hardly on anything. and yet I've got to pray for him. And when I pray for him, just remember what praying for him means. If someone comes up to me and says, I'm praying for you, Pastor Mike, I'm assuming they're praying good prayers, prayers that I'm going to be happy that they're praying. But to pray for someone doesn't mean you're praying that they'll have a great day and everything they do will be blessed and every decision they make will be great. A lot of decisions I know are going to be made by bad leaders that I want them to stop making. So for me to pray about my leaders and pray for them is oftentimes to have them pray, to pray in a way that has them repent, has them move from their decision making to a place of maybe recognizing, like Nebuchadnezzar did in the book of Daniel, that they need to realize that they're not all that, but God is, and they need to submit themselves to a higher authority than just their own, you know, liberal bent and wanting to do whatever they want to do in their power that they have to enrich themselves and you know, to palm their, you know, grease their own palms. But anyway, my point is, I'm not praying wonderful things that everything that they put their hand to turns to gold. Sometimes I'm saying, God, please lead them to the end of their own rope and let them see, like Nebuchadnezzar did, that you're the one in charge and that they need to humble themselves before you. And speaking of that, remember when you know, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and Daniel went off to Babylon and they had to serve Nebuchadnezzar, the guy who just destroyed and torched the Temple Mount and, you know, killed all these people in Jerusalem. Here they had to submit to that leader. And we know that we'd already seen that the prophets had told the exiles that were going into Babylon to pray for the welfare of the city that they were going to. They were supposed to go there and pray for that because here's how it was put, because in the welfare of the city that they're in, so their welfare will be contingent on that. And we need to understand that, right? I want America to do well. I want California to do well. I want Orange County to do well because it's going to mean good things for me and the church that I'm a part of. So I want God to continue to shape the decisions of our leaders to do what's right. And clearly, when I see a leader that has a platform that's anti-Christian and anti-life and anti-wisdom, I'm going to pray that they'd have all of those things change, and I'm going to pray against their decision-making as it is. I'm going to pray for the kind of decision-making that will change the direction of what they're doing and legislating or advocating for in the political sphere. 1-877-913-5357. 1-877-913-5357. That's the number to call. If you've got a question about the Bible, about the Christian life, give me a call today. I've got lines open and love to talk to you on the air today. All right, let's see what Kimberly says. I've been married a few times. My first two marriages ended in my own sin, even though I knew remarriage and after my divorce was wrong, I went through with it anyway. Now I'm walking with Christ, committed to Christ, committed to honoring Him, What am I supposed to do? Hebrews 10.26 haunts me. Okay. Hebrews 10.26 certainly talks about the fact that God's going to judge those who violate the marriage bed, and I get all that. And surely you are fearing the repercussions of that because you say, well, I've done some unbiblical divorcing and I've done some remarriage that I shouldn't do. And I would say to you what I would say to someone who has gotten himself into a new mortgage after defaulting on two or three mortgages, Well, you need to be faithful, a faithful Christian right now today, paying your mortgage on time every month. And I would say the same thing to you, Kimberly. The answer for you isn't to divorce and try and go back and remarry the people you divorced, right? You can't do that. You're in a marriage now. You're legally married. You're married here in a covenant that you've made. You need to keep that covenant, even if it's your 15th marriage. And you need to be faithful here as a believing woman who's going to say, I'm going to do what I've been told to do by God. And I'm in this relationship. That needs to be your approach to this, that you don't try and say, well, I want to look back and change the past because you obviously cannot change the past. And I wish we all could change the past, but we can't. And because of that, we're going to have to deal with whatever is in front of us. And we want to do the right thing, the godly thing in the situation that we're in. And that's what I would tell you to do, as I would tell anyone to do in any marriage, no matter if it's their 105th marriage, we should keep doing what's the right thing. All right. 1-877-913-5357 and I've just been told by the engineer that we got some phone line issues and that's okay. I'll keep going to the written in questions because I got plenty of those. Let me get to the list where those are coming up here. Here's T asking the question, how do I balance my spiritual and conservative views without becoming legalistic? And then you go on to talk about the word faith, prosperity, gospel, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Yeah, here's the thing. Let's first start with the word legalistic. Legalistic is a word that may be a misnomer in this particular sentence, because so often we think when we tell someone this is wrong and this is right, that we're being legalistic if we say that emphatically or clearly. That's not legalism. Legalism, the closest we have to it in scripture, is when Paul talks about his legalistic righteousness. He's pursuing a legalistic righteousness in keeping all the rules of the Pharisees. Now, a lot of those rules were man-made rules, but he's trying to garner favor with God by doing a right thing. That's the classic definition of legalism. Another definition of legalism that we sometimes give the meaning to, that word, is when Jesus talked about people making the commandments of man equal to the commandments of God, and they'll say, well, that's legalistic. I guess you can use that word. It's not the way the Bible uses the word, but nevertheless, that's wrong as well. So if you have spiritual conservative views, and they're biblical views, and you say, well, the word faith you know, name it and claim it kind of word faith prosperity gospel is wrong, right? There's nothing legalistic about that if in fact you're speaking accurately about the truth. But you've got to stay rooted in scripture. You've got to be basing everything you say on what is scriptural. Now, people are going to call you a legalist if it's not matching what they're doing. They're going to say, you can't tell me not to sleep with my boyfriend or not to be a part of this, you know, snake handling church or whatever. They're going to say, you shouldn't tell me that. And they don't like it and therefore it's the conversation ending word, legalism. And that's where they'll throw that word out. And unfortunately, that ends a lot of conversations. But I'm not going to accept the word. And I know you've already concerned yourself with walking into that territory of being legalistic. I'm just saying there has to be a way to correct my opponents with gentleness, as Paul told Timothy. So it's all about how we go about this. And sometimes we don't want to throw our pearl before swine, which sounds like a terrible phrase to apply to someone you're talking to, but it may be that someone's not going to listen to you. You're not going to answer a fool according to their folly or you're going to become like them. There's a time when you say, I can't even correct this person. So be careful sometimes getting into a conversation that you know is not going to go anywhere because of who you're talking to. And then I would say, if you're standing on the word, right, just because you say this is what the Bible says, you're not being a legalist, right? You're just telling them, I hope out of love and gentleness and care for them, that if they continue in this, it's not going to be good for them. So that's part of what my concern is there for you. that. All right. K is written in. How do you define a relationship with God? That's a good question. And that's about as open-ended as you can get, a relationship with God. To have a relationship with God, right, it sounds weird because in fact, we feel like if we're Christians, we don't really have a close relationship with God. I've got a relationship with my neighbor, a relationship with my coworkers, a relationship with my family members, but I've never even seen Christ's face. As the Bible says, I love him, but I don't see him. And so what kind of relationship can that be? Well, Paul says it's like seeing through a glass dimly in a mirror that's really foggy. It's like we don't get the full picture, But as 1 John 3 says, it's all a relationship of hope. That one day, I walk by faith, but then by sight. Or as put in 1 John 3, it's not yet seen what we will be, but when we see Him, then we're going to be like Him. Everything's going to be the way it should be. So our relationship with God, as I like to say, even though it offends some people, it's a long-distance relationship. I know I've got the Holy Spirit to convict and to prompt me and all the rest. It's true, and I get that. It's better than it's ever been in terms of my non-Christian life. I understand that. but I'm not seeing Christ ruling and reigning on the throne on this earth. So my relationship with him is one of hope. This is Romans chapter three, right? Our Christianity is based on hope and hope, if it's seen, it wouldn't be hope at all. See, and the point is, yeah, it is hope. It is hope. It's based on a promise. I'm about to preach on that this weekend. The whole concept of Christianity is based on the promise. Now it's rooted in factual occurrences in the past. I get that. And I'm all about that, right? This is not a foolish hope. It's not a crossing my fingers hope. It's a hope in something that's already been proven in history and time and space. But right now I'm saying, even though I don't feel like I'm having a face-to-face conversation with God every day, I am praying to God in hope That one day this is not going to be a long distance relationship. This is not going to be a relationship where I can't see him or touch him or feel him or have this sense of him being on my screen because he's ruling from Jerusalem in the palace. So what I have to do now is to trust him, to obey him, to keep speaking to him, bringing my prayers to him, connecting with his people. growing in learning what his word has to say. And this is it, knowing him better and better as best I can in this present state. And this present state is nothing compared to what it will be. And the Bible's always been about that, right? From the time that Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden, right? There was this huge problem and this huge chasm between God and his people. They were hiding, right? And then God has to cover them with these animal skins. And that picture of the Hebrew word kefar, the atonement, the covering putting them in some kind of a position where there's a protection between them and God. And we need that. Ultimately, in Christ, He is the ultimate Lamb of God that takes away our sin. And that's a forensic, legal thing now. One day it will be all realized when my body, which is the last thing that I own that is going to be redeemed, right? It's sinful. It can't have fellowship with God as it's put in 1 Corinthians 15. The mortal can't inherit the immortal. So I've got to put off this mortal flesh and I've got to have a new body. 2 Corinthians 5, one not made by human hands, one that's made eternal and God makes it for me. And that's going to be when all my faith is sight. go back to even the Psalms, right? Surely goodness and mercy are going to chase me down all the days of my life, but then I'm going to finally get there. It's going to catch me and I'm going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the basics of Christianity, that we have a relationship, it feels long distance, it feels like we're groping sometimes and we're seeking, we're seeing through a glass dimly, but ultimately face to face. And this is the problem with a lot of these, talk about the prosperity gospel in our last question. The problem so often is that we try and think that it's all here now, like all of Christianity and all of its promises are realized now. We think if I can get a boat in the harbor or if I get some kind of, you know, healing or something, then everything, well, then it's going to be great. But it's never, none of that lasts. The temporal blessings of Christianity in this life aren't going to last. So I have to keep looking forward to the time when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. I'm praying every day, as Jesus taught us in Matthew 6, your kingdom come, your will be done. It's a forward looking, Christianity, as I say to my congregation all the time, is not about the here and now. It's about the then and there. We keep looking forward to that. It's a Christian faith that is based on hope, a hope of a promise that's coming in the future. And that's really what it looks like with a lot of faith, trust, obedience, prayer, ongoing fellowship. All of that is going to move us in the direction of having the best relationship we can have right now with God. All right. Let's look what else we got here. Francia says, my husband doesn't believe in repentance that has borne fruit and is daily bringing it up. My husband doesn't believe in repentance that has borne fruit and is daily bringing it up, holding it over my head and leading to divorce. Okay, I sleep on the couch, no longer wants me in the same bed, what do I do? Okay, doesn't believe in repentance that is born fruit. Okay, if I get this right, Francia, and I wish you would give me a call or write me back since our phone lines are messed up right now. My husband doesn't believe in repentance that is born true. I'm assuming he's talking about, you're talking about his repentance. He's not a changed person. And if that's the case, although you say holding it over my head, yeah, I'm sorry. Here's the thing. You need to get in an office, in the realm of a pastor who can sit down with an open Bible, figure out what you're saying, figure out what's going on, and trying to work toward reconciliation. Shouldn't be sleeping on the couch, and we should fix this, and we need a referee sometimes in life. And that's important. By the way, if you think about counseling, this is basic biblical counseling and we all need it. We do training right here at Compass Bible Institute where you can get your certification to be a biblical counselor. We're an ACBC certified training center to get you to know the Bible well enough and apply it well enough in people's lives where you can be a certified biblical counselor And we have a great program here. If you want to learn more about it, go to compassbibleinstitute.org because so much of this takes place in small groups. If you're a small group leader or a Sunday school teacher, we should be really equipped to be able to know how to take God's word and counsel people through their problems. And Francia, that's what you need right now. I'd go right to the top of wherever you're at in your church and find someone who's going to help you with this. All right, George says, should we as Christians be more involved than we are in politics? Seems like a lot of believers are hesitant to get involved. I see the importance of Christians being involved, especially if there are policies that affect our neighbors. Yeah, we should be as involved as we can as citizens of our country, of our city, of our county, our state. I'm all about that. If you see things and you can fix them. either by electing the right people or writing a letter to someone in the assembly or in your congressman or whatever. Yes, do it. For sure, do it. You should be salt and light, and you should be doing what you can to establish what you know is right in our country, and as best you can do that, sure. But we need to realize that the ultimate calling of the church, and this is where there's a distinction between the individual Christian citizen and the church and its mission. My mission and the church mission is to make disciples, teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded. So I want to win people to Christ. I want to publicly display that through baptism as it says in Matthew 28. in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then I want to get engaged in teaching you to obey all that Christ commanded. And like the disciples there on that mountain in Galilee in Matthew 28, I need to be willing to get people ready like they were, the 11, to send them out to do the work of evangelism and discipleship and teaching. So we need to get involved in all three of those things as the church mission. I call them reaching, teaching, and training at our church. We need to reach people to gospel, we need to teach people all that Christ commanded, all the teaching of the Bible, and we need to train them to serve, right? To be good evangelists and good disciple makers. So all of that is the mission of the church. The church can be waylaid into all kinds of things, and a lot of people who get involved individually as good citizens are wanting the church now to make the entire church mission about that, and that's not the mission of the church. So we just need to figure out the roles, just like you have responsibilities as a family member that may not be the exact same mission of the church, and that's good. Matter of fact, we all need to overlap with clearly the mission of the church. Everyone should be a disciple maker, an evangelist, a teacher, but the church's mission is to create all that, to make that, to equip the saints for the work of ministry. All right. Sharon says, Erica Kirk told her daughter that if she wants to talk to her dad, she can look up in the sky and start talking to him because he can hear you. It is a concern that Mrs. Kirk not only has given her daughter this non-biblical information, but the story has been repeated across many outlets in the U.S. and around the world. Would you please speak to whether or not this is biblical? Well, of course it's not biblical, and I think you know that. Sharon, or you wouldn't have written me this question. I didn't hear that, and I don't doubt it. And if you heard it, and I don't want to disparage her if she didn't say it, if it's a misunderstanding, but I'm assuming she said it. Let's just assume she said it. And for a lot of people, that's a really cute story of a mom telling a daughter, just, you know, speak and he'll hear you. But I don't think that is at all what we should be teaching our kids to do. And again, I go back to Deuteronomy 18 verses 9 through 14. In Deuteronomy 18, it's very clear we're not supposed to communicate with those who have died. We're not supposed to inquire of the dead. We're not trying to make contact through a medium or a charmer or a necromancer, any divination, any of that. It's just, it's not what we should be doing. And I shouldn't tell my kids, hey, your dad's watching over you or listening to what you say. not the case. In all that is taught in the scripture, we have this picture of God putting people in another dimension, another place, and they're not coming back to have interaction with us. The only time you see that is with Samuel and Saul. Samuel coming back with the which at Endor, which I think is a very unique situation, and it's not normative. Normative is that there's a chasm fix and no one's going away or somehow transgressing the lines of life and death. So, we don't want to encourage people to talk to their dead relatives. And I certainly don't want to tell my kids, if my wife has died, that they can just speak to the ceiling and talk to their mom. They can talk to God, and that's who they should be talking to through the mediation of Christ, in the power and the direction and the guidelines and the curbs of the Holy Spirit's teaching. So I'm all about that, right? I'm praying to the Father in the name of the Son, according to the will of the Spirit, and all of those things are clearly laid out in Scripture, but not talking to my dad. That, unfortunately, is like a lot of things people say, and it's all taken with a dab of our tears on our cheeks when they say, you know, Jim is up there playing golf in heaven and all that. People may give people a pass for that in their grief, but is it accurate? No, it's not accurate. I mean, your dad's not playing golf in heaven. There's no golf courses right now in heaven, and your dad didn't even have his golf clubs, and your dad doesn't have a body, and there's no golf going on in heaven, right? That's just not the reality. There may be in the new earth, but that's not here yet. So your dad is a disembodied spirit. If he's a Christian, he's in the presence of God, and that's good. He's not in a place of punishment. But that's not good theology. I wrote a book called Ten Mistakes People Make About Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife. I often quote it, but it's a good book to have on hand because so many things people say about the afterlife, including these near-death experiences, are just not lining up with scripture. Just look up my name, F-A-B-A-R-E-Z, Mike Fabarez, anywhere you buy books. And you can get that book, 10 Mistakes People Make About Heaven, Hell, and the Afterlife. 10 Mistakes, if you just put that in, you'll find it. And I think that'll deal with this issue and several others as it relates to what people say about their loved ones when they have died. All right, Kirk Cameron has recently talked about no longer believing in a conscious hell. And I hope there's enough people that are responding to that that I wouldn't have to, but I'm happy to respond to that. You cannot erase the conscious reality of people in suffering in eternity. And all that he has said and come out and said online, you know, we just have to stand back and say, you're wrong. One thing that happens in two different camps, one is a whole heretical camp where a lot of people that make up a different Jesus are quick to say that people are annihilated. This conditional immortality, as it's often called in theology, that they'll say, hey, you know, you don't have a consciousness. If you're non-Christian, you're annihilated. It's over. And Kirk apparently has come out to make this his new position. So that's one position is that you got all the cults, many of them, most of them in world religions are quick to say that because it's very palatable, takes the edge off of real biblical Christianity. And then you have a lot of these folks who grow in their theology into a kind of a more What should I say? Sentimental bent in trying to make an appeal to non-Christians. And because this becomes one of the most unappealing things that we say in our theology, they want to then temper that. And they temper that by saying, well, maybe there is no conscious afterlife for the lost. And that's just, it's just 100% incompatible with biblical teaching. and it's always based on the logic. Like, well, you know, there's no, it doesn't make sense. It's too long for too short of a problem, right? A temporal life of sin for eternal punishment. Well, here's one thing I think we often miss. The punishment that God is bringing is according to people's knowledge, their deeds, and all the things that they have done with everything factored in, right? In other words, everyone doesn't have a uniformed experience. If you're picturing people roasted on the skewer, you know, with demons dancing around them. That's not the experience for everyone. Everyone's going to have a different experience based on what they've done. Even as Jesus said, the people in Capernaum and Chorazin are going to have a worse time than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Why? Because they had much more knowledge. So everyone is going to be judged according to what they've done, based on what they've known, and all the things that go into motives and all the rest. There's so many things the Bible says about our judgment that is going to vary with the punishment. And then you say, well, but still eternal. Well, I get that. The Bible tells us it's eternal. And we've got a short period of time to figure out where we're going to be. It's like the angels, right? No one's going to deny that the angelic beings who are made much like we are with intellect, emotion, and will, who have rebelled against God are still conscious and they're going to keep living, right? They're temporal in the fact that they had a beginning, but they're going to continue on. right? Well, that decision that they made in a very short period of time, they decided to rebel with Satan against God, they're going to continue to pay the penalty of being a demon, being on the other side of God's justice and not being an elect angel because they've made a decision. That decision is a short-term decision with a long-term consequence. Like a lot of people that decide to rob a bank or kill someone or rape someone or murder someone. All those things happen. Sometimes it's a short decision, but they end up going to jail for the rest of their lives. And I understand that you can say, well, it's a short time that it took to make this big penalty, but that's what God has said. not to mention we're not just offending a fellow believer or a fellow human being, right? We're offending the God of the universe. The sins against God are much greater than the sins against just the Joe Schmoe. As I often illustrate it, I make the example when I teach on the topic of this, if my kid, if I get a call from my, when my kids were little, when I get a call from my principal that my kid is in the office and he's just hit another kid on the playground, I can say, oh, here it comes, yep, it was against the rules and my kid's going to be whatever, get kicked out of school for the rest of the day or whatever, and I go and I got to pick him up. Okay, well, that's a violation according to the school's rules and so he's going to be in trouble for that. But if I find out with the phone call that he's hit the teacher in the face with his fist, well, that's a whole nother thing. Then it becomes something different. That's like the Orange County sheriffs are going to be called. And they're going to be sitting there in the office when I get there. And when I get there, by the time I show up, they say, oh, when the sheriff's deputy got here, he stood up and took a baseball bat and hit the sheriff on the head. OK, now I got a whole different problem. And then he went to Juvenile Hall and then he hit the judge in the face with his fist. You see, it depends on who we're sinning against and what the kinds of consequences are. And again, all of this is based on knowledge. And according to Romans chapter 2, everyone has this imprint of the law of God on their heart, and they know that they're violating something big, more than just the mores of society, or their fellow friend, or their fellow villager, or whatever. We have a punishment, no matter what your favorite, you know, your favorite actor told you, because he's become a Christian, now he's going to try to moderate and attenuate the teeth that are in the whole tenor of scripture about eternal judgment, they're going to say, oh, well, it's not going to be that serious, right? You just cease to be. Well, there's no judgment in ceasing to be, right? That's just not, that's not it. That every cult group just about in all of American history, and a lot of it's come from the burned over district in New York, and been a lot of cults that have grown up. That's one of the first things they taught us, not to mention world religions, as I said. So yes, Jesus taught about hell. He taught about a conscious existence after our life is over. And just like the demons, they will go on continuing in a place of punishment, but it will be according to what they've done. according to what they've known, according to their motives, according to all the things that the Bible spells out in terms of the basis for judgment. And God is going to do exactly what he says, day and night, forever and ever. There's no way around this. There's no way around this. And you can call it death because it is death. That's what the Bible calls it. Death is separation. And the day you eat of the fruit, you shall surely die. Well, that didn't mean he ceased to exist, but he did die in his relational connection to his creator. And that was a big problem. And he was going to spend the rest of his time You know in the shadows so to speak and kicked out of the garden and the plenty of things he was going to incur As he relationally was dying So the second death is the judgment and that's being cast in the lake of fire and that's not being consumed, right? That's where the worm does not die and the flame is not quenched. And all these things that Jesus said are, it's a bad experience. It's meant to be a bad experience. And in our minds, it's supposed to be considered a bad experience. And that's why, according to Romans chapter 10, we're working really hard to have people come to faith in Christ. So I would pray if this is now the newfound view of Kirk Cameron, that this would be something he repents of, certainly as he has a platform, just because he was a child star and he's getting people to be convinced that this is the right view. It's not the right view. It's never the right view. It hasn't been the right view. It's been a frequent punching bag for the critics of the Bible. And I'm not going to let a critic of the Bible tell me how to interpret the Bible. The Bible is clear and God is a good teacher and he's taught this very clearly in the text. And so we can't get away from it. So yeah, I'm Disappointed to hear that this is the new position of Kirk Cameron. All right, Aaron says, what does it mean to walk or pray in the spirit? Pray in the spirit, I talk about this a lot. Ephesians chapter six talks about the armor of God and it talks about praying always in the spirit. The spirit, you know, when you, and people use phrases like, and the power of the spirit and all the rest. Well, you can use those phrases, but what are we talking about? When it just says pray in the spirit, right? I want to pray just like in praying in Jesus's name. There's two things related to that. One is that we're praying in his authority. I don't have any authority to talk to the father unless I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ and my sin is taken out of the way and Christ is in that. So I'm praying in Christ's name. He's the mediator between God and man. 1 John 2, and that's where we come in His name. Well, in coming in His name, there's something else that is implied by that. Like if I said, stop in the name of the law, well, you better be telling me something that I'm doing that's unlawful if you're telling me to stop in the name of the law, because if it's not a law, then I don't have to stop. Well, same thing with praying in Jesus' name, which really comes into sharp focus when you have the phrase praying in the Spirit. To pray in the Spirit is all about what the Spirit wants, all that the Spirit is about. And the Spirit wrote a book. That's the whole point. The Spirit moved the apostles and prophets along to write this book. And in writing this book, He gives us His mind, His will. We know what God has to say on paper. And so when I say, for instance, maybe I'm going to pray what James and John prayed, that the fire would come out of heaven and consume my enemies, right? I'm praying more like a Muslim than a Christian. Well, God's going to say, that's not in the Spirit. The Spirit has clearly said that's not how you do it. So, I'm not interested in praying outside of the curbs, as I often say, the curbs are the guideposts of what God's will has revealed. To pray within His will is to pray according to the Spirit, which is not selfish praying, so I can spend it on my own pleasures, which takes out the entire faith, you know, prosperity gospel movement. Word, faith, movement, all that. And it takes out the kind of vindictive, selfish kind of praying that so often is a part of our lives when we're envious or we're coveting or whatever. We pray all kinds of things that we shouldn't pray if we're not praying in the curbs or the boundaries of what the Spirit has revealed to us. To walk in the Spirit, that's a word that Paul loved, peripateo, this Greek word, which means the way in which you live your life. To live your life in the Spirit, as it's spelled out in Galatians chapter 5, it means that I'm doing the things that the Spirit would do. It's a lot like being drunk with wine, he compares it to, actually contrasts it to that. in that I'm doing things I wouldn't otherwise do, right? In other words, the spirit, I'm deferring to what the spirit wants and what the spirit wants, who's always putting his word in front of my eyeballs, and he's always convicting me according to his word and prompting me according to his word, right? I'm going to now walk or live my life doing the things, making the decisions that are in keeping with that. When I'm angry and I want to have an outburst of anger, no, that's according to the flesh. It says self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. So to act or walk in the Spirit, make a decision in the Spirit, is to bite my tongue, right? And to show that I can control my anger when I want to have an outburst of anger and say something I shouldn't say. Those are the kinds of things that show I'm walking in the Spirit. So walking in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit, they have the same boundaries or curbs, which are I'm doing the things that God has said in His Word. He's revealed His Word. That's what I'm responsible for, is what He's revealed, what He's taught, what He's told us. His revealed will is there for me, and I need to do things that are in keeping with it, and I need to pray things that are in keeping with it. So that's what it means, Aaron, to walk in the Spirit and to pray in the Spirit. And I hope that you would. And if you need help from Focal Point, we have a lot to give you. Our Focal Point You, our most downloaded section of our website. Just go there and check it out. Go to pastormike.com and you can look at what we have in terms of our teaching there. And you can find Focal Point You. As I often say, it's under the tab. What is it under the tab of? Study the Bible. It's the fourth one down. focal point U. There's a ton of free stuff there, all kinds of articles too, and tons of verse by verse studies. And if you want to get into our store, which again, we're not trying to make money here. We're just trying to break even on publishing this stuff. There's plenty of books there. We've got our discipleship program and all kinds of languages. We have a few on the website here, Romanian and some I can't pronounce and Arabic and Spanish. So if you want to know, a lot of our material is in Spanish as well. With a name like Fabarez, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, check it out. Go to focalpointministries.org or pastormike.com. Check out compassbibleinstitute.org if you want to get trained. We can help you with that. We'd love to do that. And hopefully we'll get our phone lines fixed tomorrow and you can give me a call tomorrow. Until then, we'll see ya. Bye-bye. You're listening to Ask Pastor Mike Live with pastor and Bible teacher Mike Favarez. For more straightforward Bible teaching from Pastor Mike, listen to our Focal Point broadcast on this station. And you can look up our full broadcast schedule on PastorMike.com. This is Dave Druey for Focal Point Ministries, hoping you'll join us next time for more Ask Pastor Mike Live.