Our moderator, Mr. President, right? For those of you that don't know, Lowell Mest is still officially listed as the president of this organization, so we have to remedy that as soon as possible. It's scary. Yeah. But no, we're glad he's willing to do this for us. And so, yeah, of course, all of you should have gotten a 4x6 card as you came in the door. And of course, I see several of you have already submitted questions, and that's great. So yeah, if you have a 4x6 card, feel free to jot questions down. We still have more cards in the back. If you all of a sudden have Damascus Road experience and other questions come to mind, feel free to go back there, get another card, jot it down. Pass it in. Maybe for the sake of keeping things running smoothly, Brother Carlos, would you be willing to kind of keep an eye out for people that have cards? And that way not everybody has to run up here and give cards. But Brother Carlos, if you have a card that you've filled out, you can wave it in the air. Yeah, there you go. And he'll come grab it from you, and we'll get it to our moderator. Now, just a brief word. You might wonder, well, why exactly are we doing this? Well, first of all, I would say that there is a bit of biblical pattern for this. If you look in the Gospels, of course, you know that Jesus is repeatedly barraged with questions. My answers are not going to be as good as his. If that's what you're hoping for, you're going to be disappointed. But there is some, I think, biblical modeling as far as that's concerned. But also, just very practically, in our week-by-week, verse-by-verse treatment through the scriptures, there just might be issues that perhaps we haven't addressed and perhaps things that are on your mind. So we really want to give you a chance to Get those questions out there. Maybe you just not felt comfortable in any other setting raising these questions. So we really want to make sure that you have a chance to deal with these issues. from a biblical perspective. So that's why we're doing this, and so we trust that the Lord will bless our time together. Why don't we pray? I think we prayed already, but we'll pray again, right? Always good to bathe our opportunities like this in prayer. So let's go before the Lord. Father, we thank you for this special occasion that we have to wrestle with these various questions related to the scriptures, related to the Christian life, ministry, all kinds of things. We pray that Christ would be magnified in all these efforts. Lord, we pray that you would give me wisdom as I work through the questions. We pray that the answers would be clear, would be based on your word, and would be of help. Perhaps, Lord, there are those here that need encouragement, that are discouraged in some way. And we pray that I would be able to provide the kind of biblical help that is needed in those scenarios. Maybe there's rebuke that's needed. particular sin patterns that are going on. And Lord, we pray that the answers might serve to correct those as well. And maybe there's an individual here or multiple individuals who do not yet know Christ. And we pray that this could be an informative time for them and ultimately might be a tool that could lead them to search the scriptures further and to come to know Christ. But we lift this time up before your throne. We lay it before the altar and we submit all of it to you. And it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right. Well, our moderator here has a handful of questions it looks like. And so we'll let Brother Lowell come up and see what the first question is. All right. I just want to add an initial comment to this. This may seem strange if you've never been involved in this before. I guess you can hear me. And I've seen YouTube videos, maybe some of you have, where men have been up on a platform, theologians, well-studied men, and questions, a moderator hands questions that are coming from the audience, and I just find a tremendous time of learning. And I'm very thankful. I think we have a very capable pastor. But I will tell you, I don't think he's standing up here as the answer man and he knows all the answers. Because I was saying to him, what about a question like this? And I was throwing some things at him. He says, hey, if I can't answer the question, that's OK. I'll tell you I can't. And I'll go back and study some more. So he is learning all the time. And he wants to pass on what God can give to us through him. And he may have to put us on hold on something. And that's fine. That's great. And I've reflected upon Paul often. Paul, the writer of most of the New Testament epistles, inspired writings in Philippians 3. He said he pressed toward the mark for the prize, the high calling of God and Christ Jesus. What was he pressing for? To get hold of Christ more, to know him better. And that's where we all want to be. And I think our pastor's in that place. Okay, we're going to begin with one nice, maybe a good warm-up question here, easy entrance. Oh boy. By the way, we have so many questions. We called this, we're going to have an ice cream social. I think we should have planned a pizza and pillow party because I think we're going to be here a long time. Not really. Okay, for a new believer. or a growing young believer, that is not age young, but a young in the faith, what would you recommend for, and here's some categories of things, but I'll just read them all and you can run with it. A study Bible, in other words, I guess a particular study Bible you might have in mind. A simple commentary, I know there's commentaries that go way out like this, but there's also simple. Would you have some recommendations for anyone here, really? Other books to help, a concordance, Bible dictionary, and there's many of those out there. other things, other whatever the things might be, or even authored books on subjects. Just what would be your recommendations? Okay, yeah, great question. Yeah, I don't know who asked it, but that is an excellent question. So a question came up about study Bibles, and in terms of a good King James Version study Bible that I would recommend, I would actually recommend the one that I'm holding right now. The way this is marketed now is called the KJV Study Bible. There were previous editions that I think were marketed as the Reformation Heritage Study Bible. Now, I give a little caveat with this Study Bible that I don't agree with everything in it. This Study Bible largely comes from a Presbyterian type theological leaning. There are some things I would take issue with here and there. But what I really like about this study Bible is that for every chapter in the Bible, there are applications for family and individual worship. So I've really found that to be a valuable feature. So I would commend this study Bible to you as a good tool. There are some other good ones out there. Of course, with those, you always need to chew the hay and spit out the briars. We recognize that the text of scripture is inspired, but the notes are not. So the notes you have to take with a grain of salt in many cases. But this is one that I would recommend. So if that's something you're interested in, of course, you can see me later. I can give you some more information about this particular one. Commentaries. That is perhaps a more difficult one. I tend to find that with commentaries, It kind of differs from book to book as to which commentaries are more helpful than others. John MacArthur has a one volume commentary through the entire Bible that is fairly helpful. I think it's just called the MacArthur Bible Commentary. And actually, I think it is just the notes that he has from his study Bible that have been put into commentary form. So that may be a good resource if you're looking for a one volume commentary. In terms of one-volume commentaries, I don't know, there's not a whole lot that I would really get super excited about. In a one-volume commentary, there's just not a whole lot of depth that you can really get into. But when it comes to individual books of scripture, certainly I can probably give more specific recommendations there. But I think the MacArthur one, that's a good one. The question was geared toward new believers. I mean, it's good in terms of giving you a good survey treatment of a lot of these books. So that would be a tool that I would recommend that you could have at your disposal. I know there were several other categories that were mentioned there. The word concordance came up. One of the things that is really a blessing now is that we have at our disposal a lot of the online tools that we didn't have in previous years. So one tool that I would recommend, and this is not just for new believers, it's for anybody here, would be the Blue Letter Bible. I think it's Blue Letter Bible. I can't remember if it's blueletterbible.com or .org. If you do a Google search, you should be able to find it. But in terms of a free tool, and there are others that I've paid for that do a lot more. But in terms of a free tool, the Blue Letter Bible, I think, is about as good as you can get in terms of the resources that are available out there. So you can pull up any chapter. And what it will give you is you can access different commentaries. on that passage. You can also look at the individual Greek or Hebrew words that are in that passage. It will give you the Strong's number. If you're familiar with the old Strong's Concordance, you know there's always a number for each of the Greek and Hebrew words. And then you can look and see how that word is used in other places in scripture. So that is a tool I would really commend to you, the Blue Letter Bible. And again, that's not just for new Christians, that's for any of us. So hopefully that gives you at least something to go off of. There are probably some other tools I could recommend, but maybe those would be a good starting place. All right, this is regarding Psalm 139.8. Last part of the verse says, if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If a person dies and goes to hell, is God there with them? Or does it have another meaning? Please explain. Thank you. Okay, very good question. So God is omnipresent. God is everywhere. So that would include hell. Now, specifically in terms of what's in reference in Psalm 139.8, the word for hell there, I would imagine, I don't have the Greek or Hebrew out in front of me right now, I would imagine it's probably sheol, which can be quite multifaceted in terms of its uses. Sometimes it refers to the grave, sometimes it does refer to a place of the departed dead where there is suffering and so forth. So that term in and of itself is not necessarily conclusive in this passage. But we do know that God is everywhere present. One of the misconceptions I think that sometimes we have about hell is that sometimes we just say, well, hell is a separation from God. That is true in one sense, in the sense that God's loving presence is not in hell. The people in hell don't experience the kindness of God, the generosity, the graciousness of God. But in another sense, God is very present in hell. Because hell is an expression of the wrath of God. So God is actually pouring out his judgment on sinners. So you think of, for instance, a passage like Revelation 6 where you have judgments taking place on earth and you have the inhabitants of earth crying out to the rocks to fall on them and to hide them from the face of the one that sits on the throne. In that passage, the fear that they have is not because of the absence of God, but it's the presence of God that brings them fear. And I think we could say much the same about the sinners in hell. People have this idea that sinners in hell, that they get there, and then they realize what a mistake they've made, and then they repent, and they turn away from their sins. And actually, what we have in scripture is an indication that those who go to hell are actually unrepentant. They actually continue in their sinful patterns. You even see that at the end of Revelation. That, let him that is filthy be filthy still. That without that city there are the dogs, the whoremongers, and so forth. So, the indication is that those in hell remain in that unrepentant state. And really, one of the things that they would despise, the things that probably they would despise the most, is the fact that God is actually present there pouring out His judgment. So, yes, we can say in a sense that God, there's a separation from God, but only in so far as it's a separation from God in His kindness and in His love, not a separation from God entirely because God is everywhere present and He's pouring out His judgment there in hell. So, I hope that answers the question. Okay, with our focus on Scripture, how are we a good example of walking the walk and talking the talk. So how are we a good example? Is that the wording of the question? I don't know if there's a suggestion that we aren't focusing enough on the walking. I don't know. With our focus on scripture, how are we a good example of walking the walk and talking the talk? Well, maybe we're not. I don't know. I mean, there is always the danger, of course, that you can hear the word and not do the word. I mean, I get up here every Sunday and Wednesday, proclaim the word. But of course, it's incumbent on all of us, myself included, not just to hear it, but to do it. So how well have we done at that? I don't know. I guess that's for each of us to examine ourselves and to determine. To whom much is given, much shall be required. So if we're getting a lot of scripture, it's incumbent upon us to make sure that we're putting it into practice. So I don't know. It's possible there could be some other angle that was intended with that question. I'm not sure. But that would be kind of my off-the-cuff answer. All right. Does it take more than a mustard seed of faith to get to heaven? Does it take more than a mustard seed of faith to get to heaven? I would say no. The important thing with faith is the object of faith, not the quantity of faith. And actually, it reminds me, Brother Lowell actually sent me, or I think shared with me, maybe it was the first time I came, this video, D.A. Carson, where he goes through this hypothetical example. You've got the two men at the original Passover, and one is just super confident, hey, you know, Even though the angel of death is coming, you know, I'm believing in the promises of God. And the other one is like, well, you know, I'm not so sure. I mean, I put the blood on the doorpost, but I'm not sure how this is going to work out. And of course, he raised the question, who is saved from the angel of death? And the answer, of course, is both, right? So it is not the quantity of faith. It's the object of faith that is what is important. So, I mean, Jesus himself tells us that, right? I mean, he uses that analogy of the mustard seed of faith, that even that is sufficient to move mountains. So the focus really is the object of faith. Now, we should be growing in our faith, right? We should be growing in our confidence in the Lord. But even that simple faith that reaches out to Christ, even if it doesn't understand anything, even if that faith is halting and stammering, that faith is sufficient to bring a person into eternal life. Go ahead. All right. This is cool. Is the devil's sin unpardonable? Yes. Because redemption was not provided for Satan or demons. Redemption is provided only for humanity. And of course that explains the incarnation that Jesus had to become one of us. He had to take on human flesh in order to feel our weaknesses, in order to be that perfect God-man sacrifice that we needed. So there is no redemption that is promised for the angelic host. Those angels that rebelled with Lucifer, of course, Brother Olin's going to get into Isaiah 14 probably next Sunday, but all of those demons, they are not Salvation is not made available to them. There's no opportunity for redemption. So yes, you could say that that is an unpardonable sin. Okay. Good, good questions. Do you have an opinion based on scripture regarding cremation? And we have Matthew 2.3 when it says that all Jerusalem was troubled with Herod upon hearing of Jesus' birth Was it because Herod set the tone or was there a different reason? So I guess we actually have two questions here. So we'll start with the cremation. Do you have an opinion based on scripture regarding cremation? Sure. So yeah, I would say that the biblical teaching about the body, and it really is something that is quite a unique characteristic of Christianity when you compare it with other ancient world religions of the time. If you compare Christianity with paganism, you find, for instance, when Paul goes into the city of Athens and he proclaims the resurrection, the people responded and they said, you're bringing certain strange things to our ears. Because in paganism of that time, it was common that people held to the immortality of the soul. But it was not common that people held to the resurrection of the body. That is a significant feature of Christianity because, of course, Christ himself rose bodily from the dead. And so you have in Christianity this idea, Ancient paganism you kind of had this dualism in many cases that the body is evil and that the soul is what's good But you don't have that in Christianity in Christianity you have this idea that the body will actually be raised from the dead and That you'll have this newness of body that of course is free from sin and disease and so forth So there is sanctity that is ascribed to the body in the Christian faith for that reason I believe that Christians should practice burial rather than cremation Now, that is not to say that if a body is cremated that that person is not allowed into heaven or anything of that nature. We do know of, for instance, John Wycliffe, who translated the first English Bible, that Of course, he encountered some hostility during his lifetime, but it was actually after he died that they dug him up and cremated his bones. I think that may have been true of him and John Huss, if I remember correctly. And, you know, these were obviously men that were faithful, that had trust in Christ. So we know that that's not something that affects a person's eternal destiny. But I think that in keeping with what we believe as Christians about the body and about the resurrection, that it is fitting to practice burial rather than cremation. Now the question was raised about Matthew chapter 2 and verse 3 and kind of my off-the-cuff answer would be to say that in all likelihood I would suspect that Jerusalem was troubled because they knew Herod's character. They knew what he was capable of. So when they heard that there might be this potential competitor, so to speak, to the throne, I think the fear was how is he going to respond to all of this? So that would be kind of my off-the-cuff answer, but I'd be willing to look into that further. Most of my life I have seen salvation, discipleship, two different lines, as separate, two different things. Now I am seeing it differently. Discipleship is part of salvation, not just option part number two. abiding in Christ. John 15 says abide in Christ. I thought this is what Christians should do. But now I am thinking that abiding in Christ is in fact the heart and soul of being a Christian. Your thoughts, please. Okay, yeah, a lot there. So we'll try to work through that. Now, John 15, abiding in Christ, that word abide, we've gone through that word the last couple of Sundays. That is the same word we saw in 1 Peter. You know, the word of God that liveth and abideth forever. And then the same word in verse 25, the word of the Lord endureth forever. So when we think about abiding, I mean, some people have this very mystical idea of abiding. There's this, I don't want to become overly complex, but you have this view of sanctification that has become popular in a lot of fundamental churches even that is called the Keswick view of sanctification. And the idea being let go and let God. That you just kind of empty yourself and you let go of everything and you kind of just let God take over. Now, there's a certain element of truth to that. But you also find passages in the New Testament that urge us to be fighting, that urge us to be active. There's a lot of athletic imagery that is used for our sanctification. You think, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 9, Paul talking about running a race or about this imagery of boxing. I mean, these are things that are very active. It's not just, I'm kind of taking that song that was popular some years ago, Jesus Take the Wheel. That is not really the biblical view of sanctification. The biblical view is that yes, it is a work of God, but it is something that we actively enter into. So I think that when some people think of that passage in John 15, they're envisioning kind of this just let go, let God type of thing. Really, the idea just is that the one who abides in Christ is the one who remains in Christ. And so I would take it there, there's dispute about the correct interpretation of John 15, but the way that I would understand that passage is that the one who abides in Christ is the true believer that has persevering faith. And the way that we demonstrate that we truly belong to the Lord is that our faith continues. And that's the indication there in John 15. So those branches that are taken off and that are burned, those are people that profess faith. They have this kind of loose attachment to the church, if you will. But there's not genuine faith in the heart. And so because there's no genuine faith, because there's not this true remaining or abiding in Christ, they're sent to eternal punishment, right? Now, the question raised about salvation and discipleship. I would say that I see a distinction between the terms salvation and disciple, but I would say that I do not see much of a distinction between the terms believer and disciple. Does that make sense? So discipleship, when we put the ship at the end, we're thinking of a process, a lifelong learning. So you're continually growing in your faith day by day as you walk with the Lord. You're learning from Christ. That would be distinguished, of course, from the single act of justification whereby we are declared righteous before God. But I don't see a distinction in terms of when you see these calls that Jesus gives, you know, about denying yourself, taking up a cross and so forth, you find that many of those texts are addressed to both saved and lost. So there is an indication, of course, that as saved people, we need to be reminded of that, that we are denying ourselves, we're taking up a cross. But also to enter into that relationship with Christ, we recognize that there is, in a sense, a self-denial. We're turning away from sin. The Son of Man, according to Luke 19, verse 10, came to seek and to save that which was lost. And what you've had in a lot of churches, you've had kind of this idea that we want to take those passages and we want to say, well, this is something separate from salvation. That these are just people that need to move to a higher plane of spirituality. Well, if that's the case, then you find that the majority of Christ's ministry was taken up with that. And the question I would pose is, what does this have to do with seeking and saving the lost? If that was really the case, why wouldn't Christ have just said, well, this is a higher level of spirituality. It's not applicable to those of you here that are lost, right? Even the rich man, right, that came to Christ, what did Christ say to him? You know, go sell everything you have, give it to the poor and follow me, right? Now, probably a lot of us in our evangelistic efforts, we would not approach somebody in quite that fashion, would we? Wouldn't be very good in terms of getting another tally for somebody praying the sinner's prayer, right? But Jesus approached him like that, right? So I think in a passage like that, you have this suggestion that really you can't separate these two ideas. That yes, it is true that discipleship is this ongoing thing that grows throughout the Christian life. But, even entering into the Christian life, we're recognizing that we're coming under Christ's authority. And that we're coming under His tutorship, if you like. Right? That we're recognizing we're going to be entering into this lifelong relationship where we're going to be learning from Him, growing in Him, and abiding by His authority. So in that sense, I would say that it is misguided to try to take those passages and say that those are simply some other higher plane of spirituality. So I hope that answers the question. Very good question, by the way. All right. I'm having a little trouble reading some of this. I'm going to read it, and then I'm going to let you finish reading it. You have young eyes. OK. I have faith and have always believed the Bible is true. But a lot of people believe that the book of Enoch is a part of the Bible. And also the last couple verses of Revelation imply it could happen or he would not, and I'm just not sure what that word is with punishment. You just read the whole thing. I have trouble reading my own handwriting. Yeah, I got you. Threatened? It looks like threatened to me. Yeah, it's kind of a threat. I think it looks like threatened. OK. I think I get the basic gist of the question about the Book of Enoch. And the Book of Enoch is referenced in the Book of Jude. So you do have a reference. Actually, Jude, I think, refers to a couple of books that are not included in our canon of scripture. What I could say about that is that, well, a stopped clock is right twice a day, right? So we can find instances of biblical writers quoting from these sources that are not themselves biblical, right? Now, just because Jude quotes from the book of Enoch does not mean that we're going to add it to our Bibles, right? But it does mean that perhaps even in some of these other sources there is some level of truth, right? That there might have been some kind of tradition. book of Enoch, apparently that is recorded for us in Jude, there is a statement that Enoch makes about the Lord coming with ten thousands of his saints. And apparently, even though that book is not infallible, it's not inspired, apparently it correctly preserves some kind of tradition about what Enoch actually said. So what we would have to conclude about that is that those books are not inspired, but there is some truth that is found in there. And so even something like the Apocrypha, First and Second Maccabees, I mean, I'm sure that I've not undertaken much of a study of those books. But I'm sure that if I did, I would find a lot of interesting historical material. I would find some things, perhaps, that are beneficial. But I'm not going to add it to the canon of scripture. And that is something, by the way, that we will cover when we're finished with infallibility and inerrancy. We're going to talk about the canonicity of the Bible. How do we know that the 66 books we have are the right ones? So we will get into that. And I trust that maybe we'll be able to answer that in a little bit more depth when we get there. A lot of good questions here. How does one discern between genuine guilt from wrongdoing, I guess, and the false accusations from the enemy. So it's discerning between. Sure. Yeah, that's a good one. And what makes things difficult is that Satan does, at times, actually bring true accusations, right? A passage that comes to mind is Zechariah. You can turn to there if you want. Zechariah chapter 3. This passage gives us an example of this. Zechariah chapter 3 and verse 1, And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a bran plucked out of the fire? But notice what verse 3 says. Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. So the accusations that Satan hurls before the angel of the Lord here, they're not false. Joshua, as God's high priest, as he's standing there, he's covered with filthy garments. As I recall here, I think the Hebrew has the idea of excrement-covered garments. It's quite a vivid description, is it not? Here's the high priest of God standing with filthy garments. So in a sense, I mean, you could say, well, Satan had every right to bring these accusations. But what does God say? The Lord rebuke you, Satan. I think what we have to discern between, there is the work that the Holy Spirit does in our lives that brings to mind our sin. And when the Spirit does that, He is always directing us to the cross. He's always bringing us back to the finished work of Christ. But when Satan brings those things to mind, it is always for the purpose of discouraging us, for getting us down, for making us ineffective in our service for Christ. Because, you know, you have this thought, well, you know, how could God ever use me, right? Because, you know, I did X, Y, or Z sin, and so, you know, the Lord can't use me, and so I'm just going to sit over here and pout, right? That's really the work of the evil one. But the work of the Holy Spirit is to say, yes, you know, you sinned, you need to get this right, but there's hope. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin, 1 John 1, 7. So the Spirit is always taking us back to the blood of Christ, to the cross of Christ, where there's hope, where there's redemption. So I would say that's the surest way in my mind to distinguish between the work of the accuser and the work of the Spirit. Would you give some specific examples of women not speaking in the church, not preaching of course, not teaching men, but what about Bible studies with men and women and business meetings? Okay. I don't have a particular problem with women speaking in those contexts. I think that the instruction that you have in a passage like 1 Timothy chapter 2 is a prohibition of a woman doing authoritative teaching before the church. So there is a prohibition of a woman, and by the way, we're not going to have a woman come up to this pulpit with a Bible and say, thus saith the Lord, right? We do believe that that is prohibited in scripture. Nor even in a Sunday school setting are we going to have a woman come and teach a mixed audience, right? I mean, I would be fine with having a woman's Sunday school class that is led by a woman, but only if it's a woman's Sunday school class, right? Or children, I think, would also be acceptable because they have not yet reached the state of maturity where you have men and women. Boys and girls is a little bit different of a setting. I think you can make that case based on passages like Titus chapter 2, for example. I do think that those things are out of bounds. Now, you know, in a setting like a Bible study, you know, like what we're doing on Wednesday nights with the study there, I wouldn't have a problem as long as, you know, the spirit is appropriate. You know, I think that sometimes in those types of settings, you know, you could have a woman that's kind of domineering and that, you know, when she starts making a comment, I mean, she's really trying to, you know, give this kind of authoritative instruction. But I think that as long as the spirit of the question is appropriate, I don't have a problem in that kind of setting with a woman asking a question or something like that, or making a comment at a business meeting. I mean, we are a congregationally governed church, right? And that includes not just men, but it does include women. But again, I think the indication would be, what is the spirit in which those comments are raised? Is this something where a woman is trying to usurp authority over men, or is this something where she's just genuinely seeking the answer to a question, or she's just trying to offer some input? I think it would, at that point, go to the spirit in which the comment is offered. So admittedly, that's kind of an off-the-cuff answer. Actually, it's a good question. What do you think about men and women sporting slash having tattoos or piercings? OK. So tattoos or piercings. The sporting? I'm not sure what was intended by sporting there. Well, show them off, I guess. Oh, OK. Sporting a tattoo. OK. Yeah. Yeah. I can't see any good reason to do that. Now, is this something where I would necessarily turn to a chapter or verse? I mean, I know that some have pointed to some passages in Leviticus, and you kind of ran into the question there. I mean, is that something that is part of ceremonial law, or is that a moral law that's abiding for all time? I just don't even go that route. What I would say is look at the associations that that has in the culture. Look at the people that promote the tattoos and that kind of lifestyle. I mean, are those people that have a reputation as biblical Christians? And what's the purpose of a tattoo? Why would you want to have something that draws attention to you, that draws attention to your body? I think that biblical principles would indicate modesty, that you're not trying to draw attention to yourself. I just can't see any good reason why a Christian would want to do something like that. I think it's something that has very worldly associations. If a member of our church got a tattoo, are we going to put you under church discipline? I wouldn't necessarily say that. I would just say it's very unwise. And I can't really think of a good reason for a Christian to do it. OK. Heard, evidently, a program on radio two messianic Jews, so they were saved, Christians, having discussion, and a statement was made, Jews call God Jehovah, Muslims call God Allah. I only heard a couple minutes of that program, so I wasn't sure what they really meant by that statement, but it sounded like they were saying Jews and Muslim worship the same God, but just have different names for him. So here's question one, is that really true? And then if it is true, how can Christ make his claim of John 14, six, I'm the way, truth, and life. No man comes to the Father, but by me. I mean, I think you basically answered the question there with that verse, right? No, I would not say that Allah is a different name for the one true God, right? The Islamic conception of who God is, they see God as a singular person, right? They believe it is heresy to say that God had a son. They do not believe that Jesus is the son of God. Their theology is just entirely different from ours. Now, yeah, you could point to some superficial similarities, right? I mean, they do believe in one God. Probably, I mean, if you look at devout Muslims and the lifestyle practices they have, they might have some things in common with fundamental Baptists like us, right? But those are very superficial similarities. The differences are very deep. And it is impossible for us to really enjoy Christian fellowship with a Muslim. And that's why we're opposed to the ecumenical movement, their conception of who God is, what he came to do, in terms of who Christ is. I mean, all of it is completely out of whack. So I would say no, definitely Allah is not just another name for the one true God and of course Christ is the only way to salvation. What are passages that you would recommend for ministry? It doesn't specify ministry, I'm assuming maybe to the lost, but not for sure. Well, I'd love to have a little further clarification on that question, because ministry is kind of a broad term. If you're thinking of ministry to the lost, I know that, of course, one of the things we have in our circles that has been quite popular is the idea of the Romans Road. You go Romans 3.10, 3.23, 6.23, 5.8, 10.9, and 13, right? Those passages, and that's a fine approach. What I tend to find in conversations with the lost is, I tend to find that it is good not to just take a cookie cutter type approach. Because not everybody is the same. I think one classic example you would have in scripture is John chapter three and John chapter four, right? Look at the differences between Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus versus his conversation with the woman at the well. Nicodemus is a religious leader, right? He is one who is firmly entrenched in the Old Testament. He is somebody who is respected. The woman at the well, she's a Samaritan, right? She's despised in her day. And the way that Jesus approaches these two is totally different. Now, of course, it's the same gospel, right? It's the same truth that they need to be born again, but the approach is different based on different needs. And so the problem that I have with some of these evangelism programs is that there is kind of this underlying assumption that, well, you know, you just want to memorize a few verses and you kind of want to give the same sales pitch to everybody you talk to. But I find that people have different needs, and people have different questions. And to simply give kind of this memorized sales pitch is not going to be the best way to do things. So I think that the best verses to use on any particular occasion, of course, I mean, you do always have the standbys, right? You do have the Romans Road. You do have John 3.16. You have those passages that we understand as just summarizing the gospel. But I would also say that in any given situation, you want to be sensitive to the person you're talking to, to the questions that person is raising. And in that situation, you might have scriptures that you might not necessarily use with another person that you talk to. So I would say it depends on the person. It depends on the situation. That would be my simple couple minute response. What are some good ideas when talking to an unbeliever regarding the flat earth theory, books, et cetera? So I guess the assumption that this unbeliever is making, maybe they're accusing us of believing in a flat earth, I guess is the underlying assumption of the question. I think that if you look at the history of the scientific development, right, and the innovations in science. Now, of course, if we look at the last hundred years or so, most of the respected scientists that we can point to are probably humanists, atheists, agnostics, right? But if you go back further in history, you would find that there were many scientists that were devout Christians or at least held to a, you know, Judeo-Christian type of worldview. So this idea that Christians are just holding to a flat earth, I think that that is Extremely simplistic. Christians, even if you look at the development of a lot of the scientific innovations that came about in history, it came about because of people that really did have faith in a creator. They had faith in generally the biblical worldview, generally speaking. You even think of the idea of scientific laws, laws of nature. that are true every time, right? What does that speak to? It speaks to design, does it not? If you have evolutionary processes, if you have things coming about by chance, how do you explain things like that? Even the fact that you have laws that are consistently true, they point really to the kind of creator that is described for us in scripture. So I would suggest to you that really, scientific innovation, it should be fully consistent with a Christian worldview. And correctly discerning general revelation, I mean, Christians have always been interested in that. I don't, you know, if you have people that are just trying to suppress the findings of general revelation, that's probably not Christians that are biblically oriented. So I think that that's just a misconception that a lot of people have. That would be my simple answer. Okay. This is a good one. A man was telling me of evangelistic meetings going on at his church. was eager to go back to that evening's services. The night before, 50 to 60 people were slain in the Spirit. The only scripture I can think of like that, John 18.6, this was at the Garden of Gethsemane, I believe. Jesus said, I am He. They were asking, are you the Christ? He said, I am He. When He said that, they went backward and fell to the ground. And in parentheses, it notes that from a study Bible indicates that possibly there were 600 soldiers and officers from chief priests and Pharisees. So then finalized statement here, slain in the spirit is not happening in our Baptist churches. Are we missing something? No. Next question. No. Um, there's no, yeah, there's no biblical pattern for that sort of thing. And I mean, John 18, six. Yeah. I mean, you have something like that, but I mean, that's obviously that is a unique situation where actually, you know, the idea there, I am, he actually literally it's just, I am, he's proclaiming himself to be the great, I am Jehovah, right. And there is kind of that supernatural occurrence that takes place among the people gathered there. That's an unusual thing. That is not something that is ever intended as normative for the church age. What I would say about the work of the Holy Spirit is that what you consistently find in the New Testament is that the Holy Spirit does not prompt people to simply lose control. In fact, it's the exact opposite. When you look at the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, one of the fruits is temperance. So, these services where you've got people rolling on the floor, you've got people falling over, and I've seen things where people are barking like dogs and laughing out of control, that is not the work of the Spirit. Because the work of the Spirit, I would say, summarizes 1 Corinthians 14, right? We do things decently and in order. And when you see things that are getting chaotic, that is not an indication of the work of the Spirit. So, yeah, I would say we're not missing out on anything. The thing is, people have this craving, you know, they think, well, you know, it's just, it's so boring, right? You know, we just come here, we sing the same old hymns, we just do the same old preaching of the word, right? You know, where are the miracles? Where's the good stuff? I know, it doesn't seem very exciting, but that's the way the Spirit is doing His work in this age. And so rather than long for these kinds of bizarre supernatural manifestations, what we need to do is just bring ourselves under the authority of the Word, and to grow in the Word, and to really delight in the things that God has provided for our edification in this age, and not long for these kinds of bizarre types of manifestations. That's not the work of the Holy Spirit. I think at best, those are manifestations just of human flesh. At worst, they might be demonic. So, that would be my simple answer. Question on tithing. Comes out of Old Testament, was required, a law. New Testament, what is, what's the word on tithing to us giving. Sure, sum it up please. Okay, I mean I think the simple summary I would have of that situation, I mean it is obviously commanded in the Old Testament. You really do not have any firm New Testament scriptures that specifically command a tithe. Now some people have deduced it from the instruction that Jesus gives in Matthew 23 to the Pharisees where he says that you shouldn't have left this undone, the tithe, but you should have followed the weightier matters of the law, mercy, judgment, and so forth. But that is still given in Old Testament context. That's still the context of the temple still standing. That is still prior to the establishment of the church. So you really do not have any firm New Testament proof text that would suggest that believers are obligated to tithe to the local church. Now, does that mean we shouldn't tithe? I would say that would be a wrong deduction to make. I think at least for simplicity's sake, for one, I mean, it's a good guideline. You think about the whole principle that you have of the tithe, that it is a specific amount that does not change based on how much somebody earns. Whether you're extremely wealthy, whether you're extremely poor, it's still the same, right? You're still giving a tenth. You know, that's something I guess we all wish our federal government would learn, right? Because our government seems to penalize those that are the most productive, right? And, you know, if you make a lot of money, you end up getting a lot more tax penalties and so forth. maybe our government could learn something from the Old Testament. So I think it would be a wrong deduction to say that we shouldn't tithe. I think it is a noble thing. I think it is a good thing to do. And I think that as Christians, we should be actively and regularly giving to our local church. But can I point to a specific proof text that says that this is binding on all Christians in the church age? I would say that I cannot. I wanna add a personal question right to that. So then what is the thrust of giving as far as the heart, how we look at it? And then add to that, one is a question mark I have is faith promise giving. Churches do faith promise at the beginning of a budget year. Yeah, I mean, we really only have very general guidelines concerning giving in the New Testament. I mean, you have a passage like 2 Corinthians 9 and the mention of the cheerful giver. By the way, this is just a random note. People have said, well, that's the hilarious giver. No, that's a misuse of the grief text there. It's not you're laughing as you're putting something into the offering. That is not the idea there. But it is the idea that you have a joyful and cheerful spirit when you do, that you're not doing this because you have to, but because you get to, because you get to participate in the work of God. And so I think that really that is something that is on each individual Christian's conscience. I mean, as a church, you know, I don't think it's our responsibility to approach you and say, well, shouldn't you be putting a little bit more in there? I mean, ultimately, that's between you and the Lord, how you approach that. So really, the guidelines we have in the New Testament, they're just very general. But there is an indication that Christians, we should be giving people, we should be supporting our local church, and so forth. Faith promise missions. You know, the church I grew up in did faith promise. There's actually none of the other churches that I've been a part of have practiced that. Let's describe what that is. OK, so just for those of you that may not be familiar with it, what it is is that some churches, to support missionaries, what they will do is they will have their people at a designated time, whether it's the beginning of the year or maybe sometime in the middle of the year, and it would extend for the next year. They'll commit to giving a certain percentage of their income toward missions or a certain dollar amount toward missions. every week or every month or whatever. And it's called faith promise because the idea being that you're making this promise that God is going to provide your needs and that with the provision that God gives, you're going to devote a certain portion to missions. I don't know that I have a strong opinion on that. It might be something that I would want to research further and pray about more. I don't know that I see any biblical mandate necessarily for doing it that way. I don't know that there's anything wrong with taking that particular approach. I don't know. I would say in terms of where we're at in my pastor here, I don't know that that's anything that's necessarily on my radar screen right away. Maybe somebody could talk to me and say that it should be on my radar screen. I don't know. I'd have to give it more thought probably. Okay. This is the last one. Did anybody have a question that you didn't get passed up front? There's one. Dan's got one if you could. We'll go ahead with this one. Okay. You want to go ahead and ask? He's going to lose in the end. Right. Why is he still fighting? Why is he trying to go through with what he did? Why do any of us sin? You could pose that question. I think that sometimes, and there's a couple ways we can approach this. I mean, it could be, I mean, we were having this conversation earlier. It could be that on some level Satan actually thinks that maybe he's going to win. Maybe. Or it could just be that he knows he has a short time. I mean, Scripture uses that terminology. And that he's just trying to do as much destruction as he possibly can. And it's all futile, right? We all understand that. That everything that Satan is doing, I mean, even if we look at the culture around us, it might look very well like Satan is winning, right? But we know that in the long term, everything he's doing is totally vain because the end of it, he's going to be hurled into the lake of fire. Ultimately, God wins. Right. So it's all in vain. But even if you look at any of us with the sins that we commit, OK, when we give in to the temptation to sin as Christians, do we know better? Do we instinctively know that according to Scripture, the promises we have in Scripture are going to be far greater than the delight that we get from that sin? We know that, right? But does that always keep us from sin? Not necessarily. Because the draw of that is just so strong sometimes, right? I mean, you think of kind of those enslaving types of addictions. Alcohol. pornography. These are types of things that, yeah, I mean you reason with those people, they might say, well, yeah, I know that this is not going to bring lasting satisfaction. but there's still a very strong pull. And so that could be what's going on with Satan, that there's just such an allure that pride has for him, that he, yeah, he knows scripture, right? He knows the promises that he has a short time and he knows that his ultimate end, but it just gives him such delight and such, I don't know, joy is probably not the right word, but such happiness in a sense, to be doing what he's doing, that he just really can't help himself in a way. I don't know, that could be one of those things where we really just don't have a firm answer because scripture doesn't give us perhaps as much information as we would like to know. But it is a good question. I don't know, I hope that helps. Okay, thank you for contributing questions. It's been good, I really appreciate this tonight. This is a good last question. What would you say to someone who is struggling with assurance of salvation? Excellent question. And it is a very common issue that Christians have. I would say that it depends on the circumstance. It's very difficult, you know, when somebody submits a question like that, I don't know if that person is struggling with assurance or if they're asking for the sake of a friend. Because we do know that there are people who have false professions of salvation, right? We've encountered the type that, yeah, I'm saved, and you see him go outside and live like the devil. And they assume that because they have prayed this sinner's prayer that they're automatically locked in and that they have nothing to worry about. And really, we don't want to give any assurance to that type of person. I would assume, based on the audience that I have before me now, that this is a sincere question. It's probably somebody that's demonstrating the work of the spirit in their life, but somebody, perhaps, that has a very sensitive conscience. I get it. Because as a young Christian, it was really something that I wrestled with a lot. And even at certain points in my spiritual journey, it's been something that has kind of recurred from time to time. Boy, there's a lot that I could say. I think that the important thing is when you think about assurance of salvation, we always want to look to Christ. We don't want to look to ourselves, and we definitely don't want to look to our emotions. I think what tends to happen a lot of times, and there's very well-meaning preachers. They stand up, and they really can get people worked up. They know how to work the crowd. They know how to get people into that state where they're questioning their salvation. If I'm doing that, woe is me, really. I don't want to be doing that. If I'm causing a brother or sister in Christ to have those thoughts, there may very well be something wrong with my preaching. I'm willing to admit that. What I would say to somebody struggling with that, yeah, look to Christ, trust his promises. Don't get focused on your memories because you could go back, you know, you say, well, you know, I prayed the sinner's prayer when I was five years old, but, you know, my memory's fuzzy. I can't remember the specifics. The issue is not really what happened when you were five years old. The issue is who are you trusting in now? Is your faith in Christ now? Are you trusting in the finished work of Christ now? So instead of focusing on the past, focusing on memories, focusing on your feelings, look, your feelings are going to go up and down, right? You could go through all kinds of things in life. You know, you're happy one minute, you're depressed the next. We do find examples in scripture of godly men like Elijah that were very depressed. Even church history, you look at someone like Spurgeon who struggled with depression regularly. So we can't evaluate it based on our feelings. We always have to go back to Christ. Now 1 John, I mean it does kind of give us those mile markers if you please, those things that we can point to in our lives that really kind of give us that assurance that yes, we really have put our trust in Christ, right? So he points to the love of the brethren. He points to our obedience to the commands of God. Of course we know that these are not perfect things, right? We're always going to be halting in our obedience. We're not going to be perfect in our obedience, but We could ask, you know, is there evidence of the Spirit working in my life? Is there progress taking place? And those can be things that kind of give us that additional assurance that, yes, I am redeemed. I do belong to the Lord. But the most important thing, day by day, moment by moment, is, is your confidence still in Christ? In Hebrews, this might be a good place to go. And I had recently recommended to Brother Lowell this message that I heard by Dr. Mark Minnick, on this passage in Hebrews chapter 3, Hebrews chapter 3 verse 14, for we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end. That's how we know, right, that we're partakers of Christ, is because are we still holding that confidence fast? You know, the parable of the sower, right? There is that kind of superficial temporary type of faith, you can put faith in quotation marks, that maybe makes the profession and then, you know, goes on the worldly ways, right? But the true faith is one that is enduring. And yes, it's going to have its ups and downs, right? But in the end, day after day, your confidence is still in Christ. So I would say it's ultimately about Christ, assurance. And those are all the questions. That's it. All right. Very good questions. Very thoughtful congregation we have. And I'm very grateful that you've raised these issues. And of course, if you have other questions, feel free to raise those to me personally. And I think this went well. We might do this at a future time sometime. But thank you for the questions. I was kind of afraid that we wouldn't get any questions. And I'd just kind of be standing here in awkward silence. But you all had some very thoughtful inquiries. Well, why don't we close this portion with prayer? And I think Brother Carlos has one last song for us. Father, we thank you for this blessed time that we've been able to go over these important matters. I thank you for a congregation of people that are really thinking and that a lot of these questions really showed sincere hearts that are seeking truth. And so I pray that The answers are helpful. Anything I said that was not helpful, I pray, would be forgotten. But ultimately, that we could all live under the authority of Your Word, day by day. And we pray it in Christ's name. Amen. I can't think of a better song to close with than the one we're about to sing. Let's stand and turn to number 181. Every time the pastor answered a question, he looked at the