🎶
🎶 Don't want my pleasure onward. 🎶
🎶 I have said that I would keep thy words. 🎶
🎶 I have created thy favor with my whole heart. 🎶
🎶 And this forms me according to that word. 🎶
🎶 I fall on my waist and turn my feet unto my testimony. 🎶
🎶 I'm in haste and delayed want to keep thy, keep thy commandments. 🎶
🎶
🎶 The plans of the wicked have robbed me. 🎶
🎶 But I have not forgotten my law. 🎶
🎶 And if night I will rise to give thanks unto thee. 🎶
🎶 Because of thy righteous judgment. 🎶
🎶 I am companion of all them that see thee. 🎶
🎶 And of them that keep thy precepts. 🎶
🎶 The Lord is full of honesty. 🎶
🎶 Teach me thy statutes. 🎶
🎶 I fall on my waist and turn my feet unto my testimony. 🎶
🎶 I'm in haste and delayed want to keep thy, keep thy commandments. 🎶
🎶
🎶 The plans of the wicked have robbed me. 🎶
🎶 But I have not forgotten my law. 🎶
🎶 And if night I will rise to give thanks unto thee. 🎶
🎶 Because of thy righteous judgment. 🎶
🎶 The plans of the wicked have robbed me. 🎶
🎶 But I have not forgotten my law. 🎶
🎶 And if night I will rise to give thanks unto thee. 🎶
🎶 Because of thy righteous judgment. 🎶
🎶
Four, three, two, one.
Then a log.
When it comes to the Word of God, almost everyone has an opinion.
Some are right, many are wrong, and a whole slew of others have questions.
Questions about difficult passages, questions about doctrine, questions about the Word of God itself.
The problem is, when people rely on bozos to get those questions answered,
it leads them down a path in which oftentimes there is no return.
And YouTube is filled with bozos.
From Mike Winger to David Platt, you can find a large supply of effeminate dude who thinks he understands the Bible all over the Internet.
But there's also Catholics, Pentecostals, Calvinists, liberal, non-evangelicals, Methodists.
Hell, even some Muslims get up there and post some videos to act as an apologist for their idiotic false religion.
Yes, everyone indeed has an opinion, but it's important for us as Christians to get answers from those who actually align with Scripture.
Or even better, from Scripture itself.
And if you really want to talk to someone about it, make sure you ask an individual who has the Baptist bias.
Thanks for joining us on The Baptist Bias. I'm your host, Pastor Shelley.
We've got a unique show. We're going to be doing a Bible Q&A.
So we're actually going to be taking calls. 2-3-1 Baptist, you can call in.
We'll also be opening up spaces and integrating it into the show.
And so if you're in our spaces, you can join us. We can try to add you as a speaker.
And you can ask your questions and interact with us on the show as well.
And if you have questions, you can put them in the chat. So we've got the Rumble chat going as well.
I'm here with my co-host, Ben the Baptist. How's it going, Ben?
It's great to be here for this Bible Q&A. We have no idea what questions will be coming at us tonight.
But I can guarantee you this, we will try to offer an answer.
I have a question. I'm sure those of you listening do as well.
So make sure you file into the X spaces that we have up and running right now.
And I'll be monitoring the chat over on Rumble as well.
And we need your help tonight to make this show a success. Post your questions in the Rumble chat.
Log on to the X spaces. I do believe we may also take some calls later.
And so be willing to participate and ready as well.
Pastor Shelley, I'm going to throw it back over to you.
You know, I already see someone posted a question in the chat, and I just want to answer this one.
So I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and read this question. It says,
Jay Tank, please let me know how synthwave music is satanic, worldly music.
That is a question. I don't know how to answer that because I don't know that that's necessarily true.
So, you know, here's the thing. It's kind of funny.
We were experimenting. Some of the people on our crew and some of our staff were experimenting with A.I.
and just kind of seeing how it works.
So they just took sections of the Bible and threw it into A.I. and tried out some different samples of some music.
And it ended up coming out and it sounded pretty good. Some of the different samples.
In fact, I think that we ended up making samples of almost every kind of style and genre.
But it's probably just leaning towards one of the crew members tastes.
And I thought it sounded good.
And so we decided we would just kind of put it on as a teaser for the show.
Since we were just playing like instrumental random music, we were like, why don't we just play this?
This seems even better. And so we started playing it. And then a lot of people actually said, hey, I really like this.
Why don't you show her where you got it or what is it?
So I think they ask, can we put it on the website? I was like, sure.
Just put on the website if people want to grab it or listen to it, whatever. I don't care.
And so they put it up there and then there's all these people that are just like Pastor Shelley, so wicked and so evil and making satanic music.
And I'm just like, it's literally just the Psalms put to music.
I don't really I don't know if I understand why it's so satanic entirely, but I guess some people just really want to pick me apart.
Or, you know, of course, the whole world's dying, going to hell in a handbasket bin.
And the most important thing is that we don't ever put King James Bible lyrics to music that's non like hymn style or something, right?
I mean, isn't that the biggest issue?
Oh, man, sorry. I just I always laugh when you when you make that point, because it's just so true.
Like it kind of puts things in perspective. The whole world's dying and going to hell.
America especially is going to hell in a handbasket right now on a bobsled straight there.
We are very possibly going to select because she ain't going to be elected.
They're going to put her in there. Kamala Harris going to cheat her way into office and bring the United States one step closer to a communist state.
And people want to nitpick about, you know, A.I. music potentially being satanic.
Look, if you don't like it, there's there's personal taste. And I get that, you know,
I have my own personal taste in music styles. I've always liked country music, for example, things like that.
So I get that there's personal taste. But, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that if your personal taste conflicts with mine,
that you're in sin or violating scripture. Hey, some people like vanilla ice cream.
Other people like strawberry. You know, some like chocolate.
You're not violating scripture if you happen to like chocolate ice cream.
You know, I like vanilla ice cream. Well, I mean, here's the thing.
Like, I'm definitely not replacing the psalms and hymns that we sing in our church with other music.
So, you know, it's kind of a silly thing. It's just like if you like anything outside of a church setting, somehow it's satanic now or something.
You know, I guess people are going to get mad because if you realize our documentary film, The Preserve Bible,
we actually used interest in instrumental music that was not psalms and hymns as background music.
In fact, one of the scores is kind of coming from Inception. So now obviously we promote Inception and we promote all these evil things.
The fact that you even eat ice cream. I mean, how wicked, right?
I mean, isn't there isn't there like a context of like in church versus not in church?
Like it's probably inappropriate to just be like gorging on ice cream and looking at your phone while in a church service.
But does that mean that eating ice cream or looking at your phone is wrong?
Yeah, that's preposterous. Think about this.
Or how about this? How about just dressing in a casual manner?
I was just going to say I don't dress in a casual manner behind the pulpit.
Yeah, you wear a t-shirt and shorts, I'm sure, in your personal life, but you wouldn't walk into the house of God like that.
Right, and I'm sure in times past I've criticized some churches for having a pretty worldly style of music,
specifically in the grudge to their lyrics and how they're not really using the Bible.
But that's in the context of the church service.
And I've even tried to say like, I don't know that you could say this necessarily wrong.
It's just that it's not the best. It's not the most God-honoring. It's not the most Spirit-filled.
And so it makes sense that we're going to try and sing the songs that are the most Spirit-filled.
I mean, I even listened back to a little bit of a sermon I had where I talked about drums,
and I'm like, I'm not going to use drums in our church services.
But I can't say that drums are wicked or satanic or evil.
And if another church used drums, I can't even say that that's necessarily wrong.
But at the end of the day, it's like, you know, some people may just say like drums are literally satanic.
Hey, I want to check and see and make sure that our space is working.
If you're in our spaces and it sounds good, give us a thumbs up.
If you can't hear us, thumbs down.
I don't know if they could know how to do that if they can't hear me.
But if you can hear me in the spaces, okay, good.
Sounds like the space is working well.
I invited some people to speak.
If you would like to speak, you can join us and you can ask your questions or give us some comments.
There's a few questions.
You can also join us at Band Pastor on Twitter, and you can find the space.
Also, there's some questions people have already put in the rumble.
You can also call in.
So we're going to be prioritizing our call-ins and spaces, but then we'll also go to the live chat questions.
You can call us at 231-Baptist.
It's actually pinned in the live chat if you want to see what that number is.
If you don't know how the letters A, B, and C work, you can figure it out right there.
It's got it spelled out for you.
227-8478.
So it's 231-227-8478 or 231-Baptist.
You can call in, and we'd love to get your comments.
Ben, I'm going to go throw it back over to you.
I'm going to let you kind of drive the train here on some of these questions as far as where you want to go or start with.
You said you had a question.
It looks like there's some questions in the chat.
Go ahead.
Yeah, there's a few questions in the chat, and so I'll go ahead and read them.
Did I answer the question?
Did I answer the question on how satanic the music was?
Did we conclude that?
I just want to make sure.
I think we concluded that.
Okay.
And the point you made, it was like you were reading my mind, because I was going to bring up about how, obviously, the way that you dress, you're not in a suit and tie 24-7.
You're not in a suit and tie right now, in fact.
And yet, in the house of God, that's how you show up every time.
So there's differences. There's a distinction there between what you would do outside of church versus what you would do inside of church, and I think that's obvious.
But again, for me, it's personal taste.
Maybe you don't like it because you're not into synth wave or whatever it's even called.
I don't even know what it's called.
But maybe you're not into that.
Yeah, I would be offended if it was country style just because I don't like country music, but I couldn't say that it's evil or wicked or satanic.
I mean, this would be like if you were saying beans and chili is satanic. It's not satanic, it's just a bad idea.
Sure, it's just extremely wicked. There's a difference.
Yeah, I would kind of find it a little bit distasteful when people do it in a rap style, but at the same time, can I really say that that's evil or satanic or something?
I just would like it.
God allowed us to create music and do whatever we want.
Some people have even said there's a satanic tempo.
You can have tempo be satanic and stuff like that.
Obviously, I wouldn't want to necessarily take the most satanic music and then just pair that with King James lyrics.
That might be a little weird.
So don't hear me wrong, but I'm just saying in general, I don't think that you can take this too far and start creating doctrines which are basically the traditions of men.
You're teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men here.
Again, we're not talking about the setting of church. What was his name from?
Oh man, what's the guy that did Highway to Hell?
ACDC?
Yeah, he's a drunkard. He got thrown out of his own church.
Was it like New Spring or something like that?
I'm going to think of this guy's name here in just a second.
There was some guy that... what's that guy's name?
Francis Chan.
No, he's Asian.
We'll have to look it up.
He's Asian.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
Francis Chan's Asian.
Let me...
No, this is a tall white guy.
Okay.
I'll look it up. Give me a question.
While you search for that, I'm going to look at the chat room here, and we see a question from somebody who calls themselves New IFB.
That's a good name.
In Judges, when Micah makes the Levite to his priest, first we see that the Levite is like a son to Micah, but we also see he's described as a father and priest.
Is father here used like teacher?
Do you have a Bible verse?
Well, he didn't put a Bible verse, but it's Judges 17, I believe is what he's referring to.
I'll look it up here on the screen.
I don't know if you can... can you pull up the other window that has my screen on there?
Yeah, we can keep this up.
It was in... you know, I might have to go to the older setting to go quicker.
This was in Judges that we're talking about?
I just want to pull it up on the screen just so people can kind of see too.
If you're in our spaces, of course, we'd love for you to call in and talk and listen, but you can also see the video on...
In Judges 17, verse 10,
And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and thy vittles.
So the Levite went in.
And the question is, is father here used like teacher?
I mean, to me, father can just mean anybody who's in authority or ruler.
So that... I would say that is most likely what it's referring to, but Pastor Shelley, if you have a...
deferring view, then feel free to offer yours.
I think it's an interesting question. I don't know that I've ever considered it until, you know, being asked.
Honestly, to me, it doesn't really matter in one context because what Micah's doing is wrong.
He's just like ordaining himself a Levite as a priest, which is not biblical.
This is a disaster story.
And, you know, it does seem, though, in verse 10, that he's... it's a spiritual context in which he's applying father,
which Jesus said that you're supposed to call no man father on the earth.
And so, I think that it's probably an inappropriate title anyways.
We don't see that as an example anywhere, really, in the Bible in a good light.
There are a couple times where the Apostle Paul references him and Timothy
in like a father-son style relationship, even in a spiritual context.
And so it's like someone that's kind of leading, guiding, maybe a begetting in a soul winning context or something like that.
But, generally speaking, you know, I don't think it's really a biblical concept to be calling anybody your father as a title
if you're using it in like a metaphor. Like, this guy's kind of like a father unto me.
You're just saying this is someone that's guided me, protected me, led me, taught me.
That's what a father does, right? A father is there to protect you, shield you, guide, teach, instruct, discipline.
Those kind of different attributes is what a father does, and so that's typically what people mean.
Sometimes when someone's not your actual physical father, but they're like a father unto you,
and what they kind of took you along, taught you, cared for you, provided for you, protected you.
So, I think that's the context, but in a spiritual framework. It's, hey, come tell me how to live my life and protect me and guard me and guide me.
Honestly, I don't even know that it's necessarily a proper use. He's probably just saying stupid stuff, using flattery to attract this Levite.
What do you think about that response?
Yeah, I mean that checks out, and obviously in Judges chapter 17 we have false religion being set up there,
and so there's a lot of parallels actually between the false religion that Micah sets up and the Catholic Church.
You could argue that you could apply it to the Catholic Church, so that's great.
There's another one that I think is interesting if you want to move on to the next question.
Well, I think we've got a speaker. Let's go ahead and see if we can move to a speaker here we have in spaces.
Nathanneal. How's it going, Nathanneal? See if you can chat with us.
G'day, guys. I'm keen to hear your thoughts on Revelation chapter 7, verse 9.
Revelation chapter 7, verse 9.
Yes, it says, After this I beheld and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues,
stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clove of white robes and palms in their hands.
I want to know what your thoughts on languages in heaven or in the millennial reign and onwards are.
Do you think God will supernaturally reverse the division of languages which happened at the Tower of Babel?
Or, alternatively, do you think various languages will continue to exist
and God will allow all believers to communicate through the miracle of tongues?
I think that that's a really hard question to answer because I don't think that we know.
I think it's a really good question. I would lean towards that languages will continue to exist in a diverse manner.
Now, I think the biggest question would be, do we all just kind of have the ability or wisdom instantly to understand each other?
You know, you kind of have the apostles being filled with the Holy Spirit and they're able to speak in other tongues,
which they had not previously studied or learned. So, in our glorified state, do we have this ability to,
in a sense, communicate in any language, but then we all have kind of our preference as far as our mother tongue?
Maybe that's an answer to your question. But honestly, I don't know,
because I don't see anything contradicting the idea of multiple languages continuing.
So, and to me, God did this to have separate nations, and it seems like at least during the millennial reign
that we're still going to have separate nations. Post that, I have no idea. Do you have an opinion on that, Ben?
I lean toward the idea that there's going to be separate nations and separate tongues even going into eternity.
It's just that, and this is pure speculation on my part, we'll just be able to understand each other through the act,
similar to the Acts chapter 2, Day of Pentecost, where a bunch of people were hearing each other in different languages,
yet they were able to understand miraculously. I would lean toward that direction,
that there will still be different tongues and nations. It's just that we'll be able to understand each other miraculously
in eternity, future.
What is your opinion, Nathaniel?
I tend to lean toward what Ben is saying there, but I was interested to hear your thoughts and perhaps if you had a different view.
I don't think we had a different view, did we? Did we disagree on that, Ben?
I don't believe we did.
Okay, I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure. It sounded like you were agreeing with what I said, too.
I don't think I've ever even considered this, but I just wanted to make sure.
So, I mean, very interesting question. I think that the flip side is something that I hear often,
is I've heard people say, like, we're all going to speak Hebrew in heaven.
Like, it's all going to go back to Hebrew or something, but I just don't think that that's true.
Plus, you know, the Bible itself is pretty much written in Hebrew and Greek,
so I don't think that it makes sense that it's going to only be one language.
I think it makes more sense that it's going to be multiple languages, and even Jesus Christ himself,
if we just take the New Testament and isolate it, he brings up the jot and tittle and the gospels,
and then he brings up alpha and omega in the book of Revelation,
so he's talking about different tongues in different languages.
Additionally, the Bible brings up different tongues when it talks about his name being written above his head,
the title being written on the cross above in multiple languages,
and that would almost, like, make no sense if we just only had one language.
So to me, it makes more sense that we're going to kind of continue with maybe these base root languages,
and so we're going to just, because people speak them natively,
they're going to stick with us forever in eternity, potentially.
I don't know, what do you think about those comments, Ben?
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think that they'll stick with us going into eternity future,
and we'll be able to understand miraculously each other,
even if perhaps you never studied that language on this earth,
you'll be able to understand another person who speaks a different language
that you never studied in this life. That's what I would say.
Here's a more interesting nuance to this, because, you know, listening to Nathaniel,
it sounds like he might be from Australia. Is everybody going to speak proper English,
or are we still going to have the Australian accent? That's the more important question.
Oh, mate, it's a bit rough. I'm actually tuning in from New Zealand.
Oh, New Zealand, okay. Now, here's the thing. Do you take offence if someone thinks you have an Australian accent,
if you're from New Zealand? Is it different?
It's okay. We'd ask you if you're Canadian if you're over here, so it's a weird one.
So that's a hard diss, obviously. No, I'm just kidding. That's funny.
I mean, I was thinking, eh, New Zealand, Australia, same thing.
New Zealand, that's funny. Do you have any other questions?
No, that's all. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks, Nathaniel. Thanks for tuning in and chatting with us.
Thank you for participating. We appreciate the question.
He's in our spaces, folks, and if you want to, we can add some more speakers into our spaces.
We also have our phone number, where we're going to be taking some calls.
And we have clips, too, if you want to play some clips.
Yeah, we have our phone number pinned to the chat, 231-Baptist.
And we have a caller, Johnny from Sacramento, and he wants to ask a question.
I don't think it's necessarily directly related to the Bible, but hey, we'll take the question.
Johnny, how's it going?
Good. How's it going, Pastor Shelley?
Doing great.
I'm from Verity Baptist Church.
Awesome. Y'all had a great, like a big service recently. Y'all celebrated 14 years.
I think I saw like over 350 people in the service. That's great.
Yeah, we did. We had an office there.
So, what's your question?
My question is, do you guys think that Trump is part of the New World Order or any...
I don't know where you stand, Ben, but mostly Pastor Shelley.
Do you think that Trump is part of some satanic cult or New World Order or Illuminati?
Or do you think he's like a puppet for the spiritual wickedness in high places?
Pastor Shelley, what do you think?
Yeah, I would guess if I had to decide right now, I'd say he's more of like a pawn of forces.
So I think that there's too many negative things that have happened to him in the last few years
that it would be hard for me to believe that he's just willingly going along with a lot of it.
Of course, it's hard to know exactly what happened with that first assassination attempt,
but it seems like he really got shot in the ear.
And if that's true, I just don't think that that was staged.
I don't think that you can have someone nick your ear with a rifle from that far away.
I don't think anybody would be wanting to try that.
So, you know, if he really got shot at, you know, and again, he's been through all this lawfare.
He's had properties taken away from him in the New York cases.
He's had to go to jail. Like he was literally arrested.
And they shot him or they tried to shoot him again a few days ago.
Yeah, I don't know much about that news story, but I'm just saying like there's a lot of things that to me,
I'm just like, I don't see why if I was evil and wicked and they're like,
hey, we want to arrest you and throw you in jail and lie about you and take everything away
just so you can lose the election in another rigged election. Do you want to do it?
I mean, it's like, what does he gain from that?
I just don't see how he would be signing up for that.
Plus, my worldview is that I don't think that there's only one person in power until it's the Antichrist.
So I think that there's always multiple forces, dark forces, vying for power
and they're all trying to get a little bit more power and that there's still a diversity of strength and power.
And I even think even with the Ten Kings, there's still some power that is spread out in the world
until they all decide to give their power unto the beast.
And that's when we finally have the quote, guy behind the curtain or the individual that wields all the power.
I mean, the Bible talks about the devil giving the Antichrist his seat and his power and his authority.
And I don't think that the devil had given that to a singular individual prior to that particular time.
I think the devil is the only person behind the curtain that wields all the power
and he has several different minions at his disposal.
But those minions don't necessarily understand what they're doing and they're all vying for more power and authority simultaneously.
And so it's a constant cutthroat situation.
Lots of people are there just burning each other and turning on each other.
And so I think it's possible that there's dark forces on both sides of the election and our government
and that they don't even necessarily like each other.
That would be my personal opinion.
Is that different than what you think, Ben?
Or, I don't know what you stand on this.
I mean, I think that he's definitely a Zionist puppet in the sense that he's going to do the bidding of political Zionism.
I don't believe that he's like, and people disagree, that's okay.
But I don't necessarily believe that he's in the New World Order or necessarily part of the New World Order cabal
just because of all the persecution and the fact that they've tried to kill him twice now and all the lawfare and things of that nature.
But it doesn't mean that he isn't controlled in other aspects.
I think he's controlled on the COVID vaccine issue. He's definitely controlled on political Zionism.
So there's ways in which they're able to influence his policy decisions, for sure.
But as far as the political establishment is concerned or the ruling class New World Order establishment,
I don't see him as part of that because of all the hatred and vitriol that has spewed his way on a 24-7 basis by the corporate media.
Yeah, he's obviously got to be controlled to some extent. The question is how much.
How much.
And I don't know, is that kind of your opinion or do you think something different there, Johnny?
Well, you guys actually shed a little light on that because honestly, I thought my view was before I talked to you guys that he was full-blown New World Order Illuminati.
But you guys actually put a lot of light on his persecution and things that you're saying go right for him.
So that makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, I'm kind of up in the air now about that. You guys shed a little light on that.
Yeah, obviously I think the New World Order is kind of just the devil's, the mastermind really behind all that.
And he's just using a lot of chess pieces on the board and that's why I use the term pawn.
That Trump's just a particular pawn on the board being wielded and controlled by the devil.
I mean, the Bible literally talks about how the devil can take captive of people at his will.
And specifically that we were all children of disobedience when we were unsaved and I believe Trump is unsaved.
And so I think that the devil can kind of move the pieces as he sees fit until people decide to get saved and the truth shall make you free.
So obviously there's some level of control, but I kind of think that he opposes the leftist agenda.
That doesn't mean that he couldn't still be used to bring in the Antichrist.
I think that, you know, if you study German history, that Hitler is kind of like a, in a sense, like an Antichrist type figure.
But at the same time, he destroyed a lot of leftism and a lot of even satanic type people in his rise to power.
So God can sometimes use really wicked people to destroy other wicked people and it's kind of a, it's kind of just an interesting way that God just tosses the chessboard up and just destroys whatever the devil is working on.
But no, interesting question. Thanks so much for calling in. Is there anything else you wanted to ask?
Nothing else. I just wanted to say thank you so much, Pastor Shelley, and thank you, Ben, for all your guys' hard work.
And just thank you so much for everything that you put out there. It's really informational and you guys are helping the cause of Christ.
And just thank you so much. And Pastor Shelley, your sermon at the Red Outreach Conference was epic.
It caused me to try to eat a little more healthier.
That's good. No, thanks. Thanks for the comments. Thanks for being a listener and watching the show and calling in.
Yep. Thank you.
Well, have a good night. God bless. Looks like we got another speaker here in our spaces.
And so if you'd like to join our space as you can at Band Pastor, we can try to invite you or you can ask to be a speaker and you can put your questions in here as well.
We've got another speaker, Dem Sansoup. What's up?
Yes, sir. Nice to meet you. Big sinner here. Nice to meet everybody.
You know, through the grace of Yeshua, I'm saved and all that good stuff.
And not to say I'm not perfect. I'm probably, you know, I'm probably his favorite because I'm such a sinner.
What do you think about the name of Jesus?
Yeshua, you know, the Hebrew.
It can't be Jesus?
You've got to know the name. Oh, okay. Yeah, you can call. You can do whatever you want. Of course.
So do you. Okay. So do you have a question for us tonight? I just wanted to be good.
Yes. Well, I had a comment. I was going to talk about eternity.
I believe eternity is, you know, we're all.
So I guess this goes against what? Because you're a pastor.
A Baptist pastor. So you believe in like, you know, we're damned and all that good stuff.
But are we like this eternity? I mean, we're just here.
We're just, you know, all the conspiracy, blah, blah, blah. I'm that guy. But like, you know, we're just eternal beings.
We're just here in this. They call it a prison planet, whatever you want to call it.
You know, that world. But so I guess, no, I don't have a question. I'm just kind of, you know, chilling, listening.
All right. Well, thank you so much for your input. I had something to say. Pastor Shelley, your response. What do you think?
Well, let me let me respond to something that you said there.
I do believe that we're all eternal in the sense that you're either going to eternally live in heaven or you're going to eternally live in hell.
And I guess, you know, the Bible does talk about the meek shall inherit the earth.
So, of course, those that go to heaven won't stay there. We're going to eventually come back down to the earth.
We'll live on the new heaven and new earth. But it's really important to get saved.
And of course, the gospel is believing in Jesus Christ. There's none of the name given among men whereby we must be saved.
And that name is Jesus Christ. And of course, it's important to recognize that that's the most important decision you can make in your life.
It does say if you don't come through his name, you must know the name like the name is very important.
It's not a Yahweh. I'm not going that way because that's your see.
But you know, you've got to go through the the son to get to the father, the son's name is Yahweh, not Jesus Christ.
Well, see, I think his name, if we're going to go strictly based on what the New Testament says, you know, the New Testament's written in Greek.
Because your word, when you pray—
Hold on, I thought Jesus was okay. I asked you earlier. Now you're switching it up on me here.
No, sir, no. Jesus is okay. I'm just saying, because you seem to know the Bible, I mean, you're a pastor, but it does say, you know, through the name, the name, name, name.
Right, but when I read that verse, it also provides his name in that text, and it's Jesus. Like, I have a King James Bible, I read that verse, and then it says Jesus.
Well, I've got a companion Bible.
A companion Bible.
A companion Bible? I don't know what that is.
Yeah. Oh, wow, so you don't know much then.
Alright.
Okay. Well, we're going to move on to another question.
Yeah, since he doesn't know much, just go to a different screen.
We're trying to go to some different people, go to some different questions, so thanks for joining in.
If you want to ask us a question, we'll add you as a speaker.
Yeah.
And I don't mind someone providing some comments, but, you know, we just want to keep it mostly to questions, because we've got a lot of people popping in questions in here.
And be sober, please.
And, you know, we don't know, but sure, the companion Bible. Have you heard of this one, Ben?
No.
There's a lot of translations out there.
I've never heard this individual before, and I've certainly never heard of the companion Bible. I don't believe...
Looks like it came out in...
Does it literally say Yeshua instead of Jesus?
It says it came out in 1990. It's E.W. Bullinger. I don't know if you can pull it up on my screen.
You can keep my screen up there, because I'll just keep the chats and stuff.
Okay.
A direct descendant of a great Swiss reformer. I guess I would be surprised if this guy actually read this thing, because of it being of a Swiss and a Reformed influence.
He didn't seem like he had much of a Reformed leaning.
Here's the issue, is that when people start saying, well, it's actually not Jesus. It's Yahshua or something like that.
I get personally offended. The Bible says, Philippians chapter 2,
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth.
And so the name of Jesus Christ is not something to sit there and tell me that it's bad or to insult me for believing in or anything like that,
because at the end of the day, you're spitting in the face of Christ when you do that.
So I get personally offended listening to somebody say, oh, his name isn't Jesus. Don't talk badly about the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen. You know, another thing, I think you can say Jesus' name in multiple languages.
Obviously there's people that never heard the name of Jesus in the sense that maybe they live in another country that doesn't use English,
and so they've heard the name, you know, Jesus, or if you were in a Greek country, Jesus.
I think though that, you know, for most Hebrew speaking people, they say Yeshua,
so I don't know what variation of his Yah-Yah-Shua or whatever he was trying to say.
Didn't seem like it was coming from a place of sincerity, honestly,
but at the same time, you know, people need to recognize that salvation is only by trusting in Jesus Christ,
and that name is important, but the King James Bible is clear.
I mean, this is what I don't like about this doctrine, for sure.
You would basically have to believe that everybody before 1990 had the wrong name.
Like, if I have to have the quote right name, and it's not Jesus,
then you're damning like every English speaker for the last 400 years.
It's blasphemy.
Like, how is that even possible?
And then if we were all unsaved for 400 years, how did anybody even get staved again?
Because faith cometh by faith, right?
Faith is shared by faith, so faith cometh by hearing.
I mean, isn't it shared in Romans chapter 1, faith to faith?
Yeah, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith.
So if every English person was unsaved, then how did you get that spark again?
It wasn't until 1990 with the Swiss.
Apparently.
It kind of sounds like a cult, actually, to sit there and say that.
And you notice it's blaspheming his name, and it's an attack on the word of God,
because then every single King James Bible and every Bible that came before it was wrong.
You know, give me a break on this nonsense. Let's just go to something else.
All right, I think we added another speaker.
I don't know if they're in there or not.
I tried to add another speaker in here, 1611 Populus.
Okay.
Let's go ahead, as we're getting him queued up in here, let's see if we can get another caller.
We have a caller.
We have Phil from, it looks like California.
I guess California just loves us or something.
I don't know what this is about, but let's see if we can get Phil in line.
Hey, Phil, how's it going?
Hi, gentlemen, this is Bill, actually, from First Works Baptist Church L.A.
How are you guys doing tonight?
Bill!
Sorry, I said Phil, it's Bill, you know, it all rhymes.
Oh, no worries, yeah, you guys are a couple letters off, no worries.
How's it going?
Good talking to you guys.
Pastor Shelley, we spoke at a roundtable this past year at the Red Hot,
and then Ben, we spoke a few times at the last two Red Hots, not this past one.
I'll have to take your word for it, because I don't remember.
It's hard to see the facts.
It was definitely, whatever it was, I'm sure it was great to meet you there, so appreciate it.
Yeah, yeah, no worries, you guys meet a lot of people.
Question is, I wanted to see what you guys thought about, I know the Bible doesn't really specifically say,
and I had a conversation about this with Pastor Buzarnsky last week, and he had some interesting thoughts.
I don't even know if it's a biblical term, the age of accountability.
What do you guys think about what the Bible either speculates or kind of hints at,
as to what age do you think a person would be sent to hell without salvation?
Would it be like in the teen years, early 20s, what do you think?
Well, you know, I remember growing up hearing this doctrine, and I remember trying to find it in my Bible,
and then I realized that there is no such thing as like an age of accountability as far as a proof text.
I think that it's more of an indirect understanding, so you kind of have a couple passages to look at,
I think there's one in Job, and then David also brings up a particular passage where he says that
he can't come to me, but I'll go to him. I want to see if I can find that real quick and pull it up,
but I believe, what would that be, in 2 Samuel?
2 Samuel chapter 12.
Let's see, yeah, so in 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 22, it says,
And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept.
For I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live?
But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again?
I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.
So I think from inference, or from indirect context reading here,
we can kind of assume that this young baby that had died, which was a young infant,
would have gone to heaven because we know that's where David went,
and so David didn't go to hell, the child was obviously alive,
and so the question would be like, well, how does an infant go to heaven?
The infant can't believe in Jesus Christ.
But I believe that, you know, you could also use a couple other passages to kind of understand this.
There's a passage in Romans where, yeah, he says,
I was alive once, for I was alive without the law once,
but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
And so the Apostle Paul kind of insinuates that there's a period in which we die through sin,
and I think that it's kind of modeled through Adam and Eve as kind of a loose metaphor,
how they were in innocence, then once they sinned, they died spiritually,
and then they needed to be saved. And so this is the progression of most people.
Almost everybody has to go through this progression of innocence, sinning, dying spiritually,
and then needing to be saved spiritually before they die physically.
When it comes to the age, I guess for me it's whenever you've kind of crossed that Rubicon of innocence.
So when you actually understand the consequences of sin and you understand sin,
I don't know what that age is. I think that, I believe that children very young can get saved.
So I would say that I believe children that are four, five, six, they can understand and believe in Jesus Christ.
I think for most children, four years old is too young. I think that it would take a very precocious child.
I think that most kids, it's probably not very possible until they're about five or six to really understand and grasp these concepts.
But you know, for me, if I have a child who's seven or eight years old and they still haven't decided to believe in Jesus,
I would probably try really hard to preach them the gospel and explain it to them.
Because I think, you know, it's very possible, very likely that by around that timeline,
children could be held accountable for their actions. And you know, I don't know what that age is.
I don't even think it's an age, personally. I think that it's the individual.
Because I think someone who is physically handicapped could be like 50 years old, but mentally only like three or four years old.
And I believe that person would still be in the innocence category.
So like, for me personally, I don't even think it's necessarily an age.
I think it's more of a certain awareness mentally that someone has to reach, and that for each individual it's probably different.
And so, you know, again, I wouldn't ever really put a particular age as like, this is the one for all age.
I do think that every baby that dies goes to heaven. Job talks about, he wishes, you know, being an untimely birth, being better than him.
That wouldn't make sense if they're going to hell. Plus it wouldn't make sense if they went to hell because they literally had no choice.
And I'm not Calvinist. So, you know, that's kind of my response. I don't know.
Do you have anything, do you have any thoughts, Ben, on this question? It's kind of a difficult question.
I think it's difficult because the scripture doesn't outright tell us what age at all that somebody must cross in order for them to now be capable of believing the gospel.
We have several different indications in the Bible, lots of them, that babies automatically go to heaven.
So the question is then, when does somebody cross the line to the point where now they must believe the gospel to be saved?
When does somebody become accountable? That's where that term age of accountability is coming from and what it's alluding to.
And I think that it is, as has already been stated, an individual basis. I think it really does fall on the individual and it can be different from person to person.
You know, my son is four years old right now and he definitely does not understand enough to believe the gospel.
He asks me questions like, will Cheetos go to heaven? So he doesn't know anything about what he's saying and he runs around.
Are you telling me Cheetos won't be in heaven, Ben?
No. Sorry to break that to you. But, you know, some people have brought up the concept of like, well, kids will often run around naked without feeling any shame.
And so maybe that's an indication that they're still in a state of innocence and can't yet comprehend the gospel.
But really it is a person-by-person, case-by-case situation and scenario where there really isn't a catch-all answer in my opinion.
I don't know. Does that kind of answer your question? Do you have any other thoughts there, Bill?
No, both of your explanations was spot on. It kind of coincided with a sermon I heard recently with Pastor Robinson.
But one of the things he mentioned in the sermon, I can't remember the name of the sermon off the top of my head,
but he had mentioned that he didn't really think God was as cutthroat where it's, let's say, a teenager such as, you know, 13, 14 years old,
where they died without being, you know, a chance to be given the gospel that he would send them to hell.
He kind of pointed to maybe the biblical age of an adult, which is around 20.
So he was also speculating. So I'm not trying to put words in, you know, speaking for him.
I'm just kind of repeating what I heard in the sermon. And it made a lot of sense.
But like you guys had stated tonight, it's a very difficult one to wrap my head around.
I've known people who died when they were very young, always wondering if they were in heaven or if God was, you know,
like you said, to the point where he just said, hey, you didn't believe on, you didn't call upon the name of the Lord while you had a chance.
Right.
But it kind of bothers me. How long is that chance, you know, is God, I guess, and Pastor Brzezinski also said something.
He said, hey, you know, at that point, you just got to say it's in God's hands and just leave it at that.
Well, I mean, you know, one thing that I would say, though, is I think we should always try to plan for the worst and hope for the best.
So, you know, I too would hope that God's really gracious in that area from my own just personal selfishness, I guess.
But it doesn't really matter what I want or believe. It just matters what's true.
And there are a few passages that are concerning. I mean, you have some young children mocking Elijah and God sends she bears to destroy them.
And you kind of have to wonder, like, did some of them go to hell? The Bible talks about cursed children.
When we look in the book of, you know, Jude in 2 Peter, it kind of gives this illusion of evil children.
And so I would be really careful with that. Like, while I would like to hope, I wouldn't want to, you know, jeopardize my children's eternity on not giving them gospel clearly when they're seven, eight, nine, you know, five, even five and six.
You know, I wouldn't want to wait, then be a 13 year old and just be like, well, I hope the cutoff is still 15 or something.
Like, I would think that we should have a sense of urgency and doing our best to try and get everybody saved.
Well, piggybacking off of this, I have a question. It's not, I'm not trying to get weird here, okay? Don't be weirded out by the question.
I'm already weirded out.
But you have babies who die and they appear to be adults in heaven. They're adults in heaven.
So is there an age in your mind, let's say somebody does die without Christ and they're younger. Do they appear as a certain age in hell, do you think?
And I know this is pure speculation and probably a little bit of a weird question, but I'm curious, do you, have you ever thought about that?
Like, is there a certain age everyone appears as in hell, maybe?
I don't know, because I almost feel like age is like limited to this experience in this vessel. So I would, I would just assume that everybody is in the same kind of state.
You know, that our soul and spirit is kind of an ageless thing. And that when we get a glorified body, it'll probably also not have an age associated with it.
But that's, again, pure speculation, I guess there's nothing really in the Bible.
The only reason I bring that up is I think sometimes people have issues with maybe a 10 year old or something that could have gotten saved and then ended up going to hell.
And it's like, well, they aren't going to be appearing as a 10 year old in hell. In my mind, we all have the same age. Once you die, you look the same.
Well, according to Peter Ruckman, we're all going to be 33 year old exact replicas of Jesus. But that's, he said there wouldn't even be women in heaven. So there you go.
The caller, I think, sorry, Pastor, go ahead.
You hijacked the caller's question.
I'm sorry, yeah, we can go back to him now.
Bill, any other comments here?
Just one last thing. I don't want to take up much because I know you've got other questions.
But the one thing I was just thinking about overall, just reading the Bible through, is there doesn't seem too many examples of young, I mean, you gave the example of the she bears attacking the young children who were making fun of Elisha.
And that's one, but there doesn't seem to be too many other instances of younger children or say like, you know, young men, teenagers.
I mean, obviously, there's very rarely ages given, but I would say that God's long suffering, you know, he gives people a chance. Everyone's without excuse either way, but it's just a matter of what age that is.
And I guess there's no sense speculating on where God is silent.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Yeah, thank you guys for your time tonight, and I think I recognize that caller from before, that weirdo that called. I think that's Kamala Harris' husband.
Well, thank you so much for the call in. God bless you. Have a good night.
Pastor Shelley, some would ask if Numbers, where the Bible refers to men having to be 20 years old to be part of the Israelite army, Numbers chapter 14.
Do you think there's any kind of significance to the age of 20 as it relates to the topic of the age of accountability? Because some make that connection.
I don't know if I, I don't know if, you kind of stumbled around your question, so can you state it clearly one more time?
God requires men to be 20 years old and up to take part in carnal warfare. Is there a connection between that and the age of accountability? Some ask that question. I'm curious if you have an answer.
No, again, I would assume that the age of accountability could be as young as, you know, seven or eight potentially in certain circumstances, so I don't, I don't believe that there's a clear, a clear line at all, but, and I don't think it is for, it's the same for every single person.
God's a righteous judge. He's gonna judge people, how he sees fit. I don't know. It's sad because a lot of young people die all the time, so I don't, I don't know what the answer is to that, but I think that, you know, there should be, that should just cause us to all the more preach the gospel and get people saved, because whether a guy dies at ten without Christ or a thousand without Christ, they still go to hell, and both are a bad situation, so, and let's be honest, most people, once they get past their youth,
aren't even receptive to the gospel anymore anyways, so how much more time do they even really need? I think that, you know, it's kind of a sad reality, but it should motivate us to preach the gospel.
I want to go to another caller. We have Logan from Pennsylvania. He wants to ask a question kind of related to what we were talking about, so let's see if we can bring on Logan. Hey Logan, how's it going?
Good, how you guys doing? Doing great. See how my question is related to that, but maybe a bit more lighthearted. Let me just ask the question, and then I'd like to read a few verses to kind of give some context.
Do you believe that children, when they die as children, grow up in heaven, or they just kind of like spontaneously become adults, or let's say if they live to the rapture, children are raptured up, and do they, you know, grow up in heaven?
So, I would say that they do grow up, and it takes time, just like you're on earth, and according to Galatians 4, 26, and 27, the Bible says,
But Jerusalem, which is above, but Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that bareth not, and break forth and cry, thou that travailest not.
For the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. And so, if the Bible's claiming that the desolate, who didn't even have a husband on earth, or, you know, if they did, and they just didn't have children,
the only way that I could see that they would ever have children is if children go to heaven, and, you know, they grow up in heaven as children, and there are literal women in heaven praising children. Does that make sense?
I want to make sure I understood your last statement there. Are you saying that you think women are giving birth in heaven, or did I mishear you?
No, that is not, no. Raising the babies that go to heaven.
That's amazing.
Well, I think if we read Galatians chapter number 4 in its context, it's contrasting heavenly Jerusalem with physical Jerusalem, and I believe it's contrasting the fact that physical Jerusalem is not going to have as many people as spiritual Jerusalem.
So I think that's the comparison that it's making, and it's kind of like in the context of, you know, at one point Sarah had no children, and then she ends up having children.
And so it's kind of like replacement theology of, in the New Testament, like, the Gentiles really aren't producing in any context or any way, but after the Gospel, you have this, like, explosion, and I think that if we were to go to heaven, there's going to be way more Gentiles saved than Jews and Hebrews.
I think that we're going to have, we're going to outnumber them by and large, and so I think that's the comparison that it's making, and when he uses the word children, I think it's more in the context of offspring, not their age.
So, like, if my mom were here, and unfortunately it's not, but my dad, my dad would say, like, if we took a picture, me, him, and my brother and sister would be like, these are my children, but it's not that we're kids, it's just that we're his offspring.
So I don't think that the children in verse 27 is relating to age whatsoever, I think it's just more a descendant, and so I don't, I'm not going to say that what you said is for sure wrong, I just don't think that this text supports that idea.
I think that, I guess I lean in the opposite direction though, I probably lean towards the idea that when someone dies, they just, like I said earlier in the other question, I think that your soul and spirit probably are ageless, and that they have a certain level of awareness or knowledge that's immediately granted to them,
and therefore they're not necessarily like a baby and have to learn language and grow up, but I don't know, I mean, because here would be the question, what would be the native tongue of a baby that never learned any language?
I mean, I guess that's kind of a, it's kind of a difficult question, I have no idea, it is speculative. Ben, do you kind of lean on the fence on either of these or have an idea?
Yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting question for sure, I would say that when someone dies as a baby that they would appear to be the same age as Adam, you look at Adam and he was in a perfected state when he was created, and so I would imagine that everyone who dies probably looks whatever age he looked, that's my personal opinion.
I guess one comment I would make in support of the idea of an age in heaven is the idea that it seems like people in heaven still have their memories, and so those who lived longer lives would arguably have more memories to kind of hold onto, and maybe that in a sense ages them, apart from those who didn't really have an experience that was memorable on earth.
But generally speaking I don't know if there's going to be a diversity of children and babies and grandmothers, I feel like we're all kind of, in my mind we're all in our mature ideal state, like whatever our pinnacle of maturity was, and then we started aging, like right before that aging, that's kind of the state that we're all in.
So whatever that is, and I don't know what that is, whether that's 30, 40, 50, something like that.
Yeah I would argue like the appearance, I think that babies would have the appearance of like a 25 or 30 year old.
Yeah and I don't even think like, let's just say somebody had chopped off their arm, I think they're going to have their arm, if they were really fat I think they're going to be healthy, I think if they're really skinny they're going to be really healthy, I think if they had blemishes they're going to be corrected and fixed, so I think we're like going to be in, we're going to look like ourselves, but kind of in the idealistic version of ourselves, and whatever maturity would be like the ideal maturity. That would just be my speculation, but I have no idea.
A perfect version of yourself carnally, yeah, whatever that would look like.
What about, I know Jesus brings it up a couple times in the Gospels to his disciples when children would come around, and then he would compare the children to how people need to be meek and humble to be saved, but sometimes he says it in a way that makes it sound different, where he'll say like, he'll talk about the kingdom of heaven, and then he'll say,
Of such is the kingdom of heaven?
Yeah, and he says, what is it, he talks about children, like, you know, suffer little children.
Suffer children to come to me?
Come unto me?
You know what I'm talking about with suffering little children?
Yeah, yeah.
So Matthew 19 14 says, but Jesus said, Suffer little children, forbid them not to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
So, maybe children in heaven, right?
Well, I do think so. I just don't think that means necessarily their physical appearance. It's more the innocence in the soul and the spirit, and just that it's filled with lots of youthful spirits and souls, but I don't know that that means that the souls and spirits are youthful.
I think that it's more of just in the context of those people that were killed as children, or a lot of babies, that innocence.
For sure.
It's really difficult because, again, the Bible really focuses in on sinners and faith and all of this, and so when we talk about all these little children and the age of accountability, there's not a lot of information,
so it's kind of hard to ascertain how much of that is heaven, what percentage of that is heaven, what that's going to look like.
I'm very interested myself. I think I look through a glass darkly.
Yeah, we all do in this aspect, but again, just to be clear, we're talking about what age children appear to be.
We all agree children go to heaven that are not able to understand the gospel. It's just a matter of what's their appearance of age going to be, if you will.
Yep. Thanks so much. Do you have a follow-up or another question?
Can I ask one more question?
Yeah, go for it.
Real quick, that we have more context on. In Isaiah, I don't remember the chapter. I'm looking it up right now where it talks about a new heaven, a new earth.
And later on in the chapter, after talking about the new heaven and the new earth, which is verse 17, and then after verse 17, it brings up verse 20,
There shall be no more events and infinite days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days. The child shall die an hundred years old, but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
Is this going back to the millennial reign, even though he just brought up the new heaven and new earth?
Yes.
Yeah. I think that Isaiah is very difficult because I think it jumps around a lot as far as context, but I have interpreted this verse as being millennial specifically, and that it's basically suggesting that children aren't going to die.
So we got rid of the vaccines. We got rid of SIDS. Right, Ben?
Amen. Yeah, I think it jumps around.
Do you think that that's millennial?
I do think it is talking about the millennial reign. I think sometimes in Isaiah, it'll start off referring to the new heaven and new earth, but then it'll jump back to the millennium, then it'll jump forward again.
So it's difficult. That's why it is the meat of the word. But I do think that it jumps around in that particular passage is in reference to the fact that people will have advanced ages in the millennium because lifespans will be much, much longer.
Well, thanks so much, Logan, for calling in, and thanks for your questions. We're going to go ahead and get to some other questions.
If you want to join us in the spaces, you can also do that. We can add you as a speaker. We've got that on Twitter or X at BandPastor. You can join the spaces request, or we can try to send you an invite, as well as you can call in.
Two, three, one, Baptist. And we've been kind of neglecting the chat. Let's see if we can get some of these chat questions in here, Ben. I feel like they've been kind of stacking up, and so let's go ahead and get to some of them as well.
I have a few that were asked earlier on that I thought were interesting. There's one about Matthew chapter number 18 and verse six.
Who's the question from?
This question is from Always Baptist.
Okay.
And his question is this, it's about Matthew chapter 18 and verse 6. And he asks, can Matthew 18 and verse 6 also mean in general anyone who obstructs others from serving God, or is it only for pedophiles?
It's the verse about those who offend children, it would be better for a millstone.
I definitely don't think it's limited to one particular group. I think it's anybody that offends a child.
I think that it could also very clearly reference a spiritual offending. You know, people preaching them false gospels, trying to cause them to be led astray away from Christ.
I think that the context is really more being offended in the sense that they're stumbling away from the truth of the gospel and Christ and spirituality more so than it is even the physical offending would be my personal opinion.
I think that it obviously applies to both because I think when someone is molested or taken advantage of that it also can tend to lead them down a dark path and cause them to be disgruntled against God and to be upset and frustrated.
But obviously there's many children that have been molested, taken advantage of, and yet they still decided to serve God. They still allowed themselves to heal and get over that.
And of course it doesn't mean that God doesn't love those people and of course evil, wicked people do some horrible things out there and I wish we had the death penalty for them.
But I think that it could apply to multiple. Do you have another suggestion or tip or opinion on that?
No. You covered it.
What other questions we got?
There was one other question that I thought was worthy of bringing up and it was from Y-M-O-U-S. I don't know how to pronounce that.
Alright, here we go.
Is there any hope for Gentiles who were born before Christ who never heard the gospel nor would have had the opportunity?
Well, again, I believe that we were all saved through the gospel. I think that the gospel was preached in the Old Testament.
Albeit they may not have had all the details to talk about, but I believe that the concepts of we're sinners, we deserve hell, but there's a Savior, that Savior will take the punishment for us is mentioned in the Old Testament.
And of course you can find all of the doctrines of the New Testament found in the Old Testament as far as the cross, you know, as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness.
That's John chapter number three. We have Jonah being in the well's belly. That's Jesus descending into hell.
And then we have a multitude of resurrection pictures, even with Jonah specifically again. Jonah is spit out by the whale.
We have Joseph coming out of the pit. We have Daniel coming out of the lion's den. We have people literally resurrected in the Old Testament.
And so, you know, I also, I have this opinion, and this is just pure opinion, but I believe that many of the verses that we have in the New Testament may have been preached in the Old Testament.
It just wasn't pinned down yet. And specifically a clear example of this would be in the book of Jude where the Bible says Enoch prophesied saying, and then it gives a quote of what he said.
He's quoting Jude. And if you look at Romans, Romans is basically a conglomerate. Romans chapter 10 specifically, Romans chapter 10 is a conglomerate of virtually just all Old Testament quotes mashed together in a singular narrative.
There's nothing to me that is stopping any of these Old Testament saints from being filled with the Spirit of God and preaching Romans 10 from these Old Testament references.
And even mentioning all the same concepts and even doing soul winning in a similar manner that we do today. I mean, the Bible says there's no new thing under the sun.
So I do believe that the gospel is being preached. That's kind of part of this person's question. I do believe if someone didn't hear the gospel and they were old enough that they would go to hell.
And here's how I would explain that. I think if you go to Romans chapter number 1, and maybe I can pull this up on my screen as well.
I had never considered what you said about how in the Old Testament they were likely preaching a lot of the same scriptures that we have in the New Testament of our Bibles.
Well think about this. Just look at the apostles. Did they have Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts or Romans to use? So what were they using?
They had to have been using Old Testament scripture.
So yeah, people already knew how to get people saved with the Old Testament. That was what they were using. That's what they were doing.
But just the fact that the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament so much is also proof of that. Like as you were saying, that was a good point. Go ahead.
Yeah, Romans chapter 1 verse 18 says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Pull this up on the screen. I don't have the button control.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and righteousness of men, who hold the truth unto righteousness, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath showed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so they are without excuse.
Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened.
Now this goes down a dark road. I want to explain this concept though. I believe that everything in this world is talking about God, is talking about the Gospel, and is a certain level of the light and the truth.
And that we all have an obligation to accept the light when we see it. And that someone that accepts whatever light God has given them, he will continue to give them more light and will lead them to the ultimate light, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And that some people will not respond to the little bit of light that they've been given, and therefore as a rejection of that light, there's no point in giving them more, because they've already shown they're not interested, and therefore it's not even necessary that the explained full detailed Gospel is given to every single individual for God to justly and rightly condemn that person,
because they already despise the light that he had given to them, and the opportunities for truth he had exposed them to. But the Bible says, seek and ye shall find.
The Bible also talks about how the Word of God is not hidden up in heaven, or buried down in the earth. It's nigh thee. It's even in thy word and thy mouth.
It's even in thy mouth. I'm misquoting this for a second. Romans chapter number 10. Even the word that we preach, it's, what is this? Romans 10 verse 8.
But what sayeth that the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. So, you know, the whole concept of Romans chapter 10 is that the Word of God is not hidden.
It's readily available to every single person, and I think with actually pretty minimal effort, if somebody really wants to know the truth, and really is seeking God, and in responding to the truth or light that they have, then God will give them the full detailed Gospel plan, and they will believe in Jesus Christ, and they will get saved.
That is my belief. You know, I think that's true in the Old Testament. We have Old Testament saints that are not of the children of Israel. We have Ruth the Moabitess. We have Nahum in the Syrian.
We even have in the New Testament one of the disciples, Simon the Canaanite. And so I think that there's an example of Gentiles being saved in the Old Testament.
We have the Sumerian woman in John chapter 4 interested in the Gospel and getting saved. We have many people in the Old Testament, you know, going out and preaching the Word of God to the heat of the nations. Jeremiah in chapter 25 is going out and preaching to the entire world, the Word of God.
I think that many people got saved during that time. In the books of Esther, you have King Ahasuerus sending these great proclamations throughout the entire world.
I think that it's very reasonable. I think that many people came up to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and asked them about salvation after seeing them going through the fiery furnace.
I think many people probably asked Daniel after him going to the lion's den and all the different miracles he did. I think that Joseph was able to minister to a lot of people in Egypt.
And think about this. The entire world had to come to Joseph specifically to get life. They had to come to Joseph to get physical life.
I believe that he was also there ministering to people. Salvation, the Israelites were there. They were supposed to be a light to lighten the Gentiles. That was the whole goal of the nation of Israel was to preach the Word of God.
And the book of Acts chapter 15 tells us that the law of Moses was read in every city on the Sabbath day. That tells me that the Word of God had reached the entire world.
So I fully reject this idea that there's just all these people that are just doomed and going to hell and they had no chance.
I think that there was so much evidence to suggest the contrary to this notion. And since there's no new thing under the sun, I think it'd be strange to think that there wasn't the opportunity of the gospel being spread just like it is today.
I said a lot. Ben, I want to get your thoughts on this because I think this was a chat question, so I don't know.
Yeah, it was a chat room. I'm going to get much interaction or push back. I don't know if you agree with everything I said, if you want to clarify something. What do you think?
I mean, you pretty much said it all. I think that if somebody isn't going to accept that answer, they aren't going to accept very many answers out there.
I more so just have a follow up question for you. And you had brought up Romans chapter 10 when it comes to this discussion where the Bible does say the Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart.
Would you apply that, and it seemed like you did, you apply that to sort of all of mankind? Or do you think that there's a specific group of people that he's referring to that were extra close to getting saved?
Well, no one, no two people are in the exact same boat. So I think that every single individual is in a different category of how close they are, right?
Depending on your parents, your environment, what church you go to, like everybody has a greater or everybody has a different chance of being saved in a sense.
But here's the thing. How are you going to respond to that light? I think you could be born in the best environment possible and reject that light and end up not getting saved.
And I think you could be born in the worst environment possible and accept the light that God has given you and he'll lead you down a path to ultimately getting saved.
So I think that while your environment could have more light or less, I think that it's more still to the individual and how they respond to the light that they're given.
Of course, this is talking about people that come to the age past, the age of accountability and maturity.
So everybody is neither, it's just some are closer than others? I'm just trying to understand.
No, the Word is neither.
Yeah, I get that. What I mean is that, is that true for everyone or just some people, do you think? Is the Gospel near, as the moment tells us, to everybody?
Yes, I think everybody.
That's my question.
Yeah, that was my, how I kind of explained it. The law of Moses is in every city, Bibles are spread out in all the world in all kinds of different languages.
It's going to be closer to some than others.
Sure, you might be born with the King James Bible in hand and then there might be one at the bookstore down the street.
But at the same time, it's readily available to anybody that really wants it.
Sure. Yeah, I mean, that checks out and, you know, one other verse I would just add to this is in Hebrews chapter number nine, where the Bible actually says, when it talks about the blood of Jesus Christ,
Let's see if I can find it here. I lost it right when I had it.
In Hebrews chapter nine, verse number fifteen, and for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
So there we see the Bible referring to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and specifically saying that it was for the redemption of transgressions that were under the First Testament.
So Jesus's death covered those who believed on him, even though they were under the old covenant. So that's just something I would add to the discussion as well.
Great point. Hey, we got a super chat in here from Johnny the Third. I can't tell. God bless Steadfast Baptist Church.
So he gave us some money there. Thanks so much, Johnny, for supporting the show and giving us a super chat.
A meal deal at McDonald's with that.
Hey, yeah, they have the five dollar meal deals, don't they?
Five dollar meal deals.
You would know all about that, wouldn't you?
Perhaps. Maybe yes, maybe no.
I don't know anything except for the nuggets. Like, I don't really know that I want the nuggets.
Well, look, I'm not going to vouch for what the nuggets are made out of, but I do think the nuggets taste pretty good.
You think the nuggets actually taste good?
Yes.
See, I just don't even think they taste good. Obviously, I was, if you're eating McDonald's, it's not for the health at all.
No, it's not.
It's all extremely unhealthy, but at least the fries taste good, and hey, the Quarter Pounder actually tastes pretty good. I'll just have to admit it.
You are getting closer and closer to my side on this every day.
Well, there's got to be a reason why people are eating it.
Yeah.
I just don't even find the nuggets good at all. Let's get from the chat. Give me a W if the nuggets at McDonald's are good.
Give me some Ls if the nuggets are terrible, as far as taste. Obviously, health, we're throwing that completely out the window.
We're throwing that out.
This is purely taste. Are these nuggets good? You got Ws in the chat. What is this?
These are my people.
People actually like the nuggets?
These are my people.
Okay, always Baptist and L. Definitely this person's godly. We've got several Ws in there.
This is sad. This is a sad state of, this is why our country is the way it is. No, I'm just kidding.
Because the people like McDonald's nuggets.
We've got another speaker in our spaces.
Go for it.
Joanna Cuevas. Let's see what her question is. How's it going?
Hi, Pastor Shelley. Hi, Brother Ben.
Hello.
It's going good. I also wanted to add to what you guys were talking about, too, because I just read the other day in Joshua how the Gibeonites were crafty.
Wily?
Well, they kind of tricked the Israelites in a way, pretending to be from another land, just because they had heard of all the great things that God did.
That was back in the day when there wasn't even internet. That whole idea that people just don't hear the gospel, they passed it down.
They somehow got the message to these Gibeonites who feared the Lord, so they believed.
I just wanted to add to that, because I was reading through that just last night.
And Rahab the harlot in Jericho, she, I believe, was already saved before the spies even arrived at her house. So there's another example.
Because she believed God. But my question was actually in 2 Samuel, chapter 12, verse 8.
I don't know if this question's already been asked. I've been kind of in and out of the discussion.
But it's pretty much like God gave him wives. So I always get asked that, and it kind of stumps me.
Because it says, and I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's wives. Especially with the whole, you should be the husband of one wife.
So I had questions on that specifically.
Sure. I've actually had many people ask about this particular question, and I think it's a good question.
I think that you have to understand the gave there in a different sense than the fact that God's like giving the wives in a permissive way versus like he in an idyllic way.
So I think in a sense, you have to argue like everything that we have has been given to us by God.
But that doesn't mean that that was necessarily God's will or ideal for that particular situation.
So the Lord gives, he takes away. Sometimes it's good, it's bad. He could give us good things, he could give us bad things.
I think it's just more in the idea of God's permissive will or permissive actions in the sense that David took these women unto him as wives, and they were from God in a sense, but it's not that God wanted any man to have multiple wives.
So I think it's just kind of in a context of we have to look at it like this is how I acquire these things, and God's allowing that to happen, but it's not necessarily what God wanted.
So that's how I read that, and I think that he's saying, look, I gave you a bunch of wives, and you weren't even satisfied with that. You should have been satisfied with that.
And frankly speaking, if you had decided to just go out and get more wives, I probably would have permitted that, even though I don't necessarily agree with it.
But why did you have to take your neighbor's wife? And that was like a more egregious sin for him to do something like that.
So I think that sometimes God allows people to make mistakes or make bad decisions, and it's not that he's okay with it, but he essentially isn't necessarily going to give a direct consequence for that.
He's just kind of permitting or allowing people to make bad decisions, and then other times he brings in harsh consequences for them committing grievous sin or going down a really dark path.
And so from my perspective, I think that it's just, in general, he got the wives from God, yes, but that doesn't mean that God wanted that to happen.
I think you could look at it this way. I want to make one more comment, and then I'll let you respond.
Like Job, he received a lot of evil from the Lord at the hand of the devil, but I don't think that that's necessarily representative of what God wants.
God doesn't want to just kill all your children and give you boils and take away all your money, but he had received that at the Lord as a test to see.
And sometimes maybe God will give you multiple wives to test you and see what you're going to do, what decisions that you'll make.
But God had given him this. He was a king. I don't think it's right, and he obviously suffered.
I mean, if you look at his wives, they have all these different kids, and most of them are terrible. I mean, David has some of the worst kids.
He has Amnon, he has Absalom, he has Adonijah, so he has some of the worst kids from all these wives that he acquired, so I think that he was punished.
But I think that God sometimes punishes us indirectly. A sin has a direct correlation to a punishment, so if you have a child out of wedlock, you're already punished.
If you commit medication and you get some kind of disease, there's an inherent punishment. So I don't think God will necessarily go beyond the inherent punishment of that sin.
And so in a sense, you take these wives and it's not the right decision, but he's not going to punish you on top of that. Your punishment is that you have multiple wives.
Your punishment is that you're going to have a bunch of kids that are just a train wreck because it's not a healthy family situation.
And show me an example where we have these mixed families and all the brothers like each other and it's a real happy situation.
It's usually cutthroat, the wives hate each other, the brethren hate each other, so I think there's all these inherent consequences from these bad actions.
And so again, he's like, hey, you want all these wives? Have it. Think about in the wilderness, they wanted that quail, or they wanted that meat, that bird meat,
and he's like, I'm going to fill you to the nostrils. So he gives it to them, but it's not necessarily what he wanted.
Didn't he give the children of Israel a king? But he didn't want to give them a king. His perfect will was for them to remain under the judges.
But you could also say he accurately, he still gave them a king, even though that wasn't his idyllic will, it's kind of his permissive will.
So it's ideal for David to be married to one wife, but in his permissive will, he may allow him to have multiple wives, yet he's going to suffer through that as the consequences of that inherent sin.
I don't know if that kind of answers your question.
Completely, yeah. So the gave is more like, I let you have. I let you take that, I let you, I allowed for that to happen, more than I blessed you with these wives because it wasn't really a blessing.
Right.
That totally answers my question. And it makes sense when you look at everybody's story, even how Joseph and what the brothers did to him. You see it so many times in the Bible, so yeah, totally makes sense. Thank you so much for answering that.
Yeah, and again, obviously, I don't believe that multiple wives is biblical. I think it's wrong, and that it's ultimately a punishment to yourself.
But there is a certain aspect that is a benefit, and that's obviously what God is maybe alluding to. Whatever benefit you thought you were going to have for multiple wives, I allowed you to have that, and that still wasn't satisfactory.
And yet he, I mean, the Bible's clear, like, not to multiply wives, not to go down to Egypt. We see the kings doing these type of things, and you could argue that God gave them in a sense, or allowed it, but it's not necessarily that God wants that.
Do you have a follow-up there, Ben? Do you have a different idea?
No, I think it's important to look at that passage in the right way. You know, the Bible talks about rightly dividing the word of truth and understanding that words can have different meanings depending on the context.
I've always looked at that passage as God permitting David to have all those wives rather than perhaps striking him dead, or striking all the wives dead, or something like that.
He permitted that to occur, and as Pastor alluded to, that still wasn't satisfactory for him. He went and had to go and commit adultery and also murder Uriah, the husband at the time of Bathsheba. So I think that is what the passage is trying to communicate.
Yeah. No, thank you guys so much. That completely answers my question.
Thanks, Joanna. Thanks for your question. God bless. Have a good night.
Alright, we got the... I don't know if we have any other callers. I want to make sure I'm kind of bouncing between.
Yeah, there's also chat room. There's always chat room questions if you want to.
I do... Okay, let's do another chat question, and then we've got another speaker in the spaces as well. So go ahead and queue up another question.
You want me to go to a question from the chat?
Yeah, let's do one of those again.
Alright, so from the chat room, this one is from Jordan Baptist. He says, what are some of your top verses to prove to stubborn people that the Holy Spirit is in fact a person and not some quote-unquote force?
I ask because I've come across people who think this junk. So the Holy Spirit as a person rather than a nebulous force.
That's a good one. Do you have anything that you can think of kind of off the top of your head there that you would point to in the Scripture that would imply that the Holy Spirit is a person rather than just a force of some sort?
Well, I think, you know, if you just look at John, I think it's like John 15, 16, maybe even 14. That's where it really elaborates on the Holy Ghost probably the most.
But it typically, it's going to give you a lot of personal pronouns to describe the Holy Ghost. The Bible also says, grieve not the Holy Spirit. That's emotion.
I think that I preached an entire sermon on this where I talked about the aspects of what a person is and then how all three, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, have those.
So you have personal pronouns, you have emotion, grieve not the Holy Spirit. He does not speak of himself. That tells us that he has consciousness and he's capable of speaking.
The Bible also says that he'll guide us into all truth. So he's a teacher, he has consciousness, he speaks, he has emotions, he's a comforter, as the Bible describes him.
I think you would just have to go to a lot of these passages and say, you know, I don't see how you could attribute this to wind. Wind, to me, wind's a force.
Now, the Holy Ghost is compared to wind, but it's more of the fact that you can't really see the wind but you can feel it. But it's not accurate to say that the Holy Spirit is wind.
Just like the Holy Ghost is compared to a dove when he descends on the Lord Jesus Christ. But he's not a dove, he's not wind, and a lot of the Catholics will say he's a dove or picture him as a dove.
A lot of people picture him as a force. I believe that he's a person and I believe that you have scriptures that say, let us make man in our image after our likeness.
I believe that's in reference to the Trinity. I believe that, you know, that while the Holy Ghost is obviously a spirit, that he's going to have some likeness of the Father and the Son.
And that, you know, there's a lot of references about all the characteristics that we would think of as a person and not a force. Wind isn't grieved, wind doesn't have consciousness, wind doesn't speak.
Obviously you can use metaphors to say, like, I feel like the wind was saying this to me, but you're not, like, saying it in a literal sense. But I believe that the Holy Ghost does.
The Bible also tells us that, in Romans chapter number 8, that the Holy Ghost makes utterances for us, groanings, which cannot be uttered.
In prayer, while we're in prayer.
So he intercedes with groanings, which cannot be uttered, is what it says in Romans chapter number 8. So I think that there's a lot of verses there.
I think if you showed them all these verses and they still, you know, it says Romans 8 verse 26.
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings, which cannot be uttered.
So the Spirit is able to communicate, the Spirit guides us in all truth, he brings all things into remembrance.
Well spake the Holy Ghost, I mean, that's like a quote from Scripture multiple times about the Holy Ghost speaking.
He's a comforter, he was sent from God the Father, he dwells inside of us, we don't want to grieve him, it's a he and a him.
So, I don't know, do you have another thought there, do you have another verse, Ben?
Well one of my favorite passages is in John chapter 16, and I know that you had already mentioned this, but I'll read the Scripture just to provide some more context where Jesus Christ said,
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will guide you, I'm sorry, he will show you things to come.
So that appears to be in reference to a person, a person is one who guides and teaches, etc.
But beyond that, I think another dimension to this topic is the idea that if the Holy Spirit is nothing more than a force, then it almost seems like you're attacking the deity of the Holy Spirit.
And we know that many attack the deity of Christ often, but we don't normally talk much about the deity of the Holy Spirit.
Well, hey, that's obviously an important doctrine as well, he is 100% God, and when you turn him into an impersonal force, that's almost implying that he isn't actually God at all.
And so, obviously 1 John 5.7, for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, these three are one, that is one of the go-to Scriptures you can show to prove that in fact, hey, the Holy Spirit is God.
In Acts 5, verse 4, the Bible says there...
Yeah, put it on the screen, I've got the verse pulled up.
Wow, we were thinking of the same thing.
I have to shout out to Bro J. Stu because he put it in the chat.
I didn't even realize that. That's three people, or two people.
The Holy Ghost is like, hey, I've got some verses for you guys.
In Acts 5, verse 3, but Peter said at Ananias, why has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Was it remained? Was it not thine own? And after it was sold, was it not in thine own power?
Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God, referring to the Holy Ghost as God.
Yeah, I think that's a really powerful verse. And even just the Great Commission, baptizing the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, it's weird that that would be a force.
The name is in representative authority, power, so it's in the power of the Holy Ghost. Praying in the power of the Holy Ghost, I think, is also in Jude.
So, we got a lot of verses there. Hopefully that can help a little bit. Maybe you can chat or note down a couple of those.
It looks like we got a regular here on Spaces by you, Jared. Let's go ahead and have him come on and give us a question that he's got.
Hi, good evening. I had a question about Colossians chapter 1, verse 21 through 23, as it relates to once saved, always saved.
So, if you look in verse 21, it says, In you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath you reconciled.
So, he's speaking to saved individuals. And he says, Yet now hath you reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight,
if you continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven,
whereof I Paul am made a minister. So, it seems like he's saying, you know, these people have been reconciled, and he will present, they will be presented holy and unblameable,
if they continue in the faith, and if they're not moved away from the hope of the gospel. So, how would you view that in life saved perspective?
Well, one comment that I would say is, obviously I think in the sense of being presented in front of God the Father, that everyone will be considered spotless because of the blood of the Lamb.
There is another concept, though, that's brought up in 1 John about not being ashamed before him at his coming.
And I believe that there's still a coming of Jesus Christ where we're going to be judged according to our works, as 1 Corinthians 3 brings up.
And the Bible even talks about the person having no work suffering. So, I think that there's still an admonition to continue in the faith, and to be unreproveable in his sight, and to not be ashamed at his coming.
And so, you know, in this particular context, it seems to be alluding to the Father, and to the idea of escaping the great right thrown judgment.
But I guess to me, you know, the context of verse number 22 of being wholly unblameable and unreproveable is potentially in the context of doing what's right, and basically not being ashamed at his coming. I don't know if you have a follow-up there, Ben?
Yeah, I view this as having multiple parts. So, if we look at verse 21, the Bible says,
And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.
So, you're reconciled, you're saved spiritually, you have salvation. In the body of his flesh through death, two present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight.
So, in my mind, verse 22 is trying to communicate to us that we were saved in order to be holy, in order to be unblameable, in order to be unreproveable in his sight.
That is the goal, that's what God wants for us, and in order for us to achieve that, we have to walk in the Spirit.
This is very similar to how in Ephesians chapter 2, the Bible says,
The Bible says,
The Bible talks about in Ezekiel chapter 36 that God will cause, he will put his Spirit in his people and cause them to walk in his statutes, etc.
God did not just save us so that we can go to heaven and then just sit on our rear ends and eat Cheetos all day and do nothing for him.
One of the things, you know, one of the very important aspects of salvation is the fact that we've been given the Holy Spirit,
and the Holy Spirit, if we walk in him through our own agency, enables us to be unreproveable.
Because think about it, if I'm walking in the Spirit, then the Bible says,
Again, such there is no law. I'm obviously keeping the law while I'm walking in the Spirit.
I'm obviously keeping the law and I'm unreproveable and I'm unblameable when I'm walking in the Spirit and exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit.
So in my mind, the reconciliation of salvation and then all the other verbiage about being presented as holy and unreproveable, etc.
That is the struggle that we go through in this life, and it is what occurs when you walk in the Spirit.
When you walk in the Spirit, you're holy. When you walk in the Spirit, you're unreproveable, etc.
And I do believe that if we do that more than walk in the flesh, that that is exactly how we'll be presented after this life is over,
and when we hit the judgment seat of Christ. So that's my view.
You know, another thought here while you're saying that is in Philippians chapter 2, it says in verse 14,
So, you know, of course there's this admonition to also remain without rebuke while on this earth.
And perhaps another idea of this context of Colossians chapter number 1 is not so much the judgment seat,
but even just while we're on earth. And I think this is kind of what you were speaking about.
That's what I was saying, yeah.
That basically we now also need to strive for holiness and be unblameable and unreproveable right now while he's looking down from heaven and observing our actions.
And that's why you have contexts like 1 John chapter number 2 that bring up that we don't want to be ashamed at his coming.
We also have the Apostle Paul talking about he doesn't want to be a castaway, and so it's kind of like he doesn't want to be in the wrong standing of God.
I just don't see how, again, I already know that you can't lose your salvation, so it's more about just trying to interpret some of these more difficult passages.
And I think when you're walking in the Spirit, then you would meet those categories.
If I'm in the Spirit, I'm going to be behaving in a holy way. I'm going to be unreproveable, etc.
So it's possible, it's just that you have to walk in the Spirit through your free will.
When you're walking in the flesh, obviously you cannot be presented to the Father as holy.
Well, and they've already been reconciled, that was a good point.
Yeah, they're already reconciled, so that's done. Salvation's over.
You know, another verse is Romans chapter 8.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which walk according to the Spirit.
Exactly.
So it's not, I'm sorry, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not out of the flesh but out of the Spirit.
So again, you can't lose your salvation, but you could still have some level of punishment or be not in God's favor on this earth when you're not walking in the Spirit.
Exactly right, yeah.
I mean, if you're in the flesh, you could be an enemy of God even, even if you're saved.
I think of King Saul. I believe he was saved, but yet he's an enemy of God a couple places in Scripture.
James 4-4.
Yeah.
It refers to friends of the world as being enemies of God.
Yeah, so I think that's the context and that's kind of how we could explain that. What do you think about that, Jarrett?
Yeah, I think that's pretty much how I kind of anticipated it might be interpreted from a one saved, always saved perspective, but maybe just as a quick follow-up.
So would it be accurate to say that you believe that someone who has been reconciled and doesn't continue in the faith and has moved away from the hope of the gospel is still saved?
I guess we just have to understand what that means because from my perspective, as long as someone, you know, trusted in Christ, I don't think that they're going to really lose that faith.
So if they didn't have that faith, to me, I would think that they never had it in the first place.
But I do think that somebody like Demas, you know, the Bible talks about,
You know, the Bible talks about Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed unto Thessalonica. I think that that person is still saved, even though they may not be serving God.
Or 1 Timothy 5 brings up the widow, that she's dead while she lives in pleasure. So I think these are examples of James 2, like faith that works is dead.
I think that there's many Christians who have a dead faith, but I do believe that dead faith is still saving them because faith is without works.
I'm sorry, salvation is without works. So faith in Jesus Christ without works is still good enough to save someone, and even though they should be walking in newness of life, they should be listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit,
they should be producing fruit, and I think that's why there's so many admonitions in the Bible telling us to do these things, to walk in the Spirit, to produce fruit, to no longer be servants of sin, to no longer walk in the flesh, to no longer have the same mindset, but renew our minds, and to read the Scripture, and go to church, and be around like-minded believers, to be encouraged to do the right thing.
I think that it's easy to do nothing, and it takes effort and energy and willpower to do the right thing, and I think that God still gives us free will after salvation, and that while we should and we're enabled and empowered to do good works, that someone could fall short of the good works God would wish for them to do, and ultimately even accomplish nothing potentially.
I think the 1 Corinthians 3 example, or the Romans 4-5 example, are examples of people who pretty much got there by the skin of their teeth, like the thief on the cross, I don't know, or the nine. Where are the nine?
I think that there's a lot of examples of people who were probably saved by grace and nothing more, because they didn't have anything else anyways. They can't even believe in works because they don't have any works to believe in.
I guess I don't know if you agree with us on that or not.
Well, I think he might be asking about the idea that it's talking about continuing the faith and the hope of the gospel, and so perhaps the thought is, well, that's clearly in reference to just purely salvation.
But I do think that when the Bible talks about the hope of the gospel, it can also be heavenly rewards that are associated with doing good works, and of course the gospel, because if you didn't believe the gospel, you wouldn't go to heaven to procure those rewards to begin with.
But a scripture I would point to is in 1 Peter 1, where the Bible says,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So there's a lively hope being described there, and then it says, to an inheritance, verse 4, to an inheritance, incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not a way reserved in heaven for you.
So there's an inheritance waiting for you in heaven. But the thing is, is that if you don't do any works, if you're not walking in the Spirit, then you're not going to receive rewards once you actually get to heaven, and so in that way, by walking in the flesh, you're moved away from the hope, and part of that hope are the rewards that are waiting for you in heaven.
Yeah, I think another way, what is the hope of the gospel? It's salvation itself, and that you're going to live eternally in heaven, and so if I'm carnally minded, I'm not going to be really doing anything from an eternal perspective, so I've kind of been moved away from what was the whole point of after salvation.
The whole point of after salvation is to recognize that our life is now hidden in Christ, and that we should strive to do things with a spiritual mindset, not a carnal mindset, because the carnal mindset is death, and it doesn't bring us any benefit.
And of course, it's very easy for people to be moved away from spiritually-minded sanctification and holiness that we should all strive for. That's probably more in vain with the question that you had.
Yeah, that explains a lot. I am not persuaded by those answers, but it makes sense to me that it would be viewed that way if you're trying to make it comport with a certain doctrine or systematic.
But hey, I had a question. Are you guys broadcasting on YouTube or something right now? Is there a chat that I'm not aware of?
It's in Rumble, so we're trying to do Spaces and Rumble simultaneously, so if you go to the Rumble Baptist Bias, you can check it out on there too.
Okay, because you've been banned from YouTube.
Yes, you got that right.
Hence the name.
Well, thanks for interacting with my question. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, and thank you for asking your question, and I feel like you've come on and you have challenged us on a few things in the past, and you've done so respectfully, so I do appreciate that.
Let's go back to some of the chat questions real quick, and we're probably going to wrap it up here in about ten minutes or so. Go ahead and give us another chat question here, Ben.
Oh, sure. Well, the chat had an interesting point. Acts 2 31. This isn't a question, but I just wanted to make the point here.
It says,
So I think that is referring to being presented as unblameable and unreproveable on this earth, because, and this is a great point right here,
the devil is accusing the brethren all the time, so you have that being counteracted by our good works.
That was a good point right there.
So let's see, what else do we have here in the chat?
Let's look at this question, Bad Brand.
Are there any proof texts I can use to prove that God cared about people outside of Israel during the OT times?
I feel like that kind of falls in line with what we talked about earlier, Pastor Shelley, but if you want to take a stab at that.
I just want to throw in like one verse, maybe.
Sure, maybe throw a verse in.
I think in the New Testament, we have an example. I think it's the apostle Paul, who, and maybe you can help me with this.
I'm trying to think of where this is at. There's a part of the Bible where it's saying, did Elias go to any of the widows of Jerusalem?
This is Jesus speaking.
Yeah, it's Jesus speaking.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Yes, let me see.
Okay, here we go.
Luke chapter 4.
But I tell you the truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land.
But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Zidon, unto a woman that was a widow.
And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Alyssias the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.
So there's a couple of direct examples of God caring about non-Hebrews, or non of the 12 tribes of Israel.
But just look at the law. The law just smashes this point very quickly, because any stranger that wanted to join the nation of Israel and wanted to keep the Passover was accepted in the nation as one born in the land.
So that's just case closed, that God cares very much about the stranger, and cares very much about all the Gentiles, and wanted them to join the nation of Israel.
Israel's be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the fact that they even lost their nation was because they weren't producing fruit in the Gentiles.
And God was upset with them and disappointed, and so He took away their nation so the Gentiles could be saved.
Because God does care about the Gentiles, He does care about the heathen, and He's not a respecter of persons.
The Bible says that over and over, so I think those would be a few points that I would bring up. I think there's probably actually a lot that would explain that.
It's a whole sermon. It's a whole sermon.
That's a good point though.
Yeah. No, I appreciated the question.
I think that people get confused about this. I mean, I had someone, a family member tell me one time, like, well if I was in the Old Testament, God wouldn't even care about me because I'm not a Hebrew.
And it's just like, that's just a weird mentality.
Not so sure about that one.
Yeah.
There's another question. In fact, this guy has been waiting a while to have this one answered, so I'd like to get to him.
Let's do it.
Galatians 2 16, he asks this, what does the Bible mean when it says a soul is cut off from Israel?
And if you don't mind, I want to try first and see if you agree with me.
Yeah.
I personally just think, so people talk about like, oh, you know, I'm cut off from my family.
And that basically just means you have no relationship with them.
So I just think it's a general term that means that the individual is banished from the land.
I do think it could mean death, depending on the context, but in general, it's simply stating that this person has been cut off from the rest of the congregation,
meaning they no longer have any kind of relationship with them.
They're banished. They're just to be set apart and just, you know, in exile.
What do you think?
Yeah, I think that I think it's a banishment and exile.
I would agree. I'm looking at some of these verses. It's like eating leaven on a feast when you're not supposed to have leaven, especially the Passover that you be cut off.
And of course, the Passover is significance of like salvation.
So I think it's showing that that Old Testament picture of the New Testament doctrine that we have about the separation from the saved and the unsaved and how we're not supposed to have fellowship with unbelievers.
And so it's a fellowship relational situation, not a physical thing.
You know, there's like a New Testament where it says, I wish that they were cut off in Galatians.
And then they say, like, they should emasculate themselves in the modern versions.
It's like it's not about a physical cutting. It's about it's about like distancing yourself from them, either physically or relational, like a relationship setting, I believe.
So I agree with you.
Great. What else do we have here?
This person says, Matthew 5, 7 and James 2, 13 imply that believers will be judged according to how merciful they've been.
When we enter into the millennium in our glorified state, in what sense will we be judged?
I don't know if I completely understand the context of this question.
Does this person saying like, how will I be judged post the millennial reign judgment?
Or is he saying at the judgment of the winter rain, do you think?
I think he's referring to probably the judgment seat of Christ, if I had to guess, because he says when we enter the millennium.
Well, Matthew 5, 7 says, Blessed are the merciful, for they should obtain mercy.
I don't think that that's necessarily just millennia. I think that's like mostly just our lives here.
I don't know that that's necessarily the millennium that much.
James 2, 13.
Okay, he's saying, how can a glorified believer experience different degrees of mercy or judgment? Can we suffer in the kingdom?
Well, I believe that when we die, as soon as we die, we can't sin.
Because the Apostle Paul says, it's no longer I that sinneth, but sin that dwelleth in me.
So I believe that as soon as we shed this flesh, we're incapable of sinning in any way.
So I think that will be kind of perfect.
And so therefore, I don't know that there's judgment that is applied to us post our judgment seat of Christ.
I think at the judgment seat of Christ, we're going to be judged for the works that we did in our flesh, whether they were good or bad.
What we did in the body, whether they were good or bad.
And after that, there's no more judgment.
That's why there's so much emphasis on doing work now.
Because if you didn't do the works now, you don't have like a makeup day and I don't believe that there's any more punishment.
So, you know, I guess we're just perfectly obedient.
I don't I don't I don't understand how that works because we're in the flesh and so it's so easy to make mistakes.
I guess I always try to think of it in a few different contexts.
I think of like, you know, whenever you're like a child, you kind of have like unlimited energy and you never want to go to bed.
And when you've just eaten and you're really satisfied, you like you're not hungry in that moment or, you know,
so like we have temporary moments where we don't want to go to sleep or we don't have necessarily a feeling or need to eat.
And so I kind of relate those in the idea of somehow I just have no desire for sin.
I can't even want to. So I'm just not going to just like you're not going to convince me to eat vomit.
You're not going to convince me to do weird things because I just have like no desire for them.
And so perhaps in our glorified state, we just we just kind of have like no desire for disobedience.
And so it's just not even a reality. I don't I don't know. What do you think about that, Ben?
Well, to me, I understand it this way. I have zero desire for sins that fall outside of regular sin nature.
So reprobate sins, if you want to call it that. Zero desire.
And so when I die and then I'm revived again in my glorified state, the sins that I have no desire for.
Well, that gets extended to all sin. So in the same way that right now I have absolutely zero desire for the unnatural sins.
When I'm in my glorified state, the sins I have no desire for will just be all of them.
I think that's the best way to try to understand it. And going back to the question about being cut off.
This is a very quick follow up. He's asking, they couldn't come back ever.
So he's saying those who are banished from the nation of Israel because they were cut off.
Could they actually return to the land? And I do think there's provision for them to come back if they repent.
Where?
Just from an idealistic perspective, meaning that if somebody is not...
I think it's a permanent ban.
But if somebody's not, for example...
Because it's a spiritual picture. It's like a spiritual picture of transgressing the gospel and how you're permanently cut off from God.
So I think that it was probably a permanent being cut off.
He would have to show me a verse that contradicts that for me to change my mind here.
Of someone being cut off for that specific issue.
I mean obviously there's times when people have to be without the camp for a disease or whatever and it's a temporary status.
But I don't know that I could see...
You'd have to show me an example where it says literally cut this person off and then it's like this person's restored.
But I think the spiritual picture, at least in the Passover setting, was that it's a permanent ban.
In Leviticus chapter 7, the Bible says,
Moreover the soul that shall touch any unclean thing, as the uncleanness of man, or any unclean beast, or any abominable unclean thing,
and either the flesh or the sacrifice of peace offerings which pertain unto the Lord, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
So, I mean...
That sounds permanent.
But, I mean, couldn't you, if you repent though, come back in?
Like, I kind of just view it as a picture of church discipline.
I don't think so because, again, I think these are pictures of the gospel and so the cutoff is a picture of just being, like, cut out.
Alright, that's okay.
But I could be wrong. It doesn't really matter.
We can agree to disagree on that.
It really doesn't matter at this point.
Do you have one more quick question or should we just wrap up?
Well, how about Revelation 22, 14.
Blessed are they, this is a red as lab, he says,
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
I imagine he's referring to, like, this kind of sounds like work salvation here.
Do you have any thoughts on Revelation 22, 14?
Is there a question?
Sounds like it's just a statement.
You know what, you're right.
Here's a reward.
Yeah, he's referring to rewards.
Yeah, we'll wrap it up.
Thanks so much, guys, for joining us, calling in, putting in your chats.
We had, like, over 200 people in the stream.
We had several people join into our Spaces.
Thank you, guys, for joining us on Spaces.
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We like to do some different shows every once in a while.
We've still got several episodes for the rest of the season, and we're planning on doing an election stream this year again as well.
So you'll want to check out that.
Any other thoughts you had, Brother Ben?
Should I put on a Trump hat for that election stream, or what do you think?
You can do whatever you want.
No, I don't really have anything else to say other than just thank you.
Thank you to the people who asked questions in the chat room and the ex-Spaces on our call-in line as well.
We appreciate your participation.
Obviously, we wouldn't have been able to do this show without you guys.
Yep, some great questions. Of course, the most important thing is going to heaven.
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