Episode 42

Pastor Paul LeBoutillier Pastor Paul: Hi everyone, we are back with some more of your Bible questions. Thank you for sending them in and we're going to do our best here today to answer them. Where do we start?

You always do your best to answer them. We're going to start with Diane. She says,

Excuse me for laughing.

We'll make a bar graph.

It's interesting to be so specific. Obviously, this is a very, very popular question. A lot of people ask it. What's interesting is that there are no specific verses that says, here's the cutoff date or age for people who die to go to heaven. There's no Bible verse that says that. And I believe that there's a very good reason for that. And that's because God wants us to put our faith in Him, in His heart, His character, and that sort of thing. Now, there are verses that we can look at and there are things that I think give great comfort to parents, particularly, or grandparents along these lines. For example, Jesus made the statement when people were bringing their children to Him and the disciples were turning them away. Jesus said, let the little children come to me. And He said specifically, to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. Now, that's a statement that we embrace, knowing that Jesus had a double meaning involved there. He used children in other instances to show that we as adults even must become like little children from the standpoint that we become innocent and trusting and put our confidence in Him like a child so easily does with their parent. We raised four kids and took them places where they never even asked us where they were going, where we were taking them. They just trusted us. And Jesus said that we all need to have that kind of faith like a little child. But there's also just the side of this where Jesus said, don't hinder the children, let them come to me. Another passage that we do turn to at times like this, when this question arises, is the Exodus passage, where essentially God told the nation of Israel that after they expressed unbelief in going into the promised land, God said, fine, then in that case, all of the adults are going to wander in the wilderness until they all die and your children will go in. Well, the children He was referring to were those age 19 and under. They were not held responsible for the unbelief of their parents. Now, all this passage shows us is that He did not charge them with unbelief, those 19 and under. That's all we're told. Beyond finding any specific passage that makes reference specifically to any sort of an age of accountability, I believe that really, as I said at the outset, what God really wants us to do is to trust in His character and His heart. And that just comes simply from knowing God. In Revelation 16, we read; God's judgments are true and just. In Romans 11, the Apostle Paul actually wrote; Revelation 16:7 (ESV) And I heard the altar saying,

And that's our comfort.

It really is.

Geraldine is from South Africa, and she said,

What she's referring to is this conversation between Jesus and Martha, where Jesus said to Martha, your brother will rise again. And she said, yes, I know he will rise in the resurrection, which Jesus responded by saying, I am the resurrection. So interesting, Geraldine's question is, how did she know that Lazarus would rise in the resurrection? You have to understand, the Jews believed in a resurrection of the dead, and they believed in it for a long time before the birth of Christ and what He did on the cross and so forth. So it was not necessary for Jesus to inform Martha about a resurrection from the dead. The only group of Jews that Psalm 7:11 (ESV)

Sure. It was natural. Thomas is from Taiwan, and he says,

That's good. You know what, churches can really come up with whatever rules they want because there's nothing in the Bible about it. There's nothing in the Bible about pre-marriage counseling at all. In fact, there's nothing in the Bible saying how we should get married. There's nothing in the Bible about specific ceremonies as far as instructions and that sort of thing. It's kind of up for grabs. What churches are trying to do is they're trying to make sure people are truly prepared for the marriage union. If you feel that the church is making rules along those lines that are a little beyond what you're willing to embrace, then do exactly what Thomas did. Go ahead and just get married and find some other place to get married. I wouldn't necessarily go around accusing them of pharisaical attitudes because churches, like I said, they can do whatever they want to do. When I was doing weddings, I would usually require a couple to go through a pre-marriage Bible study, not counseling. I didn't counsel them. The Word counsels them. But I would have them go through a Bible study that was made up of six sessions. Sometimes we would do two sessions a night and we could finish it in four weeks or whatever. I think with one couple where a guy was home for only a short period of time, we crammed it into a week. We met like every night. I seem to remember. So I tried to accommodate couples for whatever was going to work. Six months, that's kind of long, especially since the Bible does say it's better to marry than to burn with lust. I would hate to put a couple at risk of sexual sin just because I demanded a longer period of time before they got married. Again, it's up to the church. There's nothing in the Bible.

There are cultural issues and sometimes there's a backstory to what led to these kinds of decisions.

That's true. They may not give you the backstory, but there may be one. Like I said, if you're not happy with it and you think that it's excessive, then go somewhere else to get married.

Sure. Steve says,

The New Testament knows nothing of an altar in the church. One of the reasons is because the New Testament knows nothing of church buildings, period. The church met house to house in the first century and they met sometimes in public places, rented places. So the altar is really kind of an Old Testament fixture that was part of the tabernacle and then later the temple. And there was the altar of sacrifice. There was the altar of incense. So burnt offerings were made on the altar. So really, the Bible knows nothing from a New Testament perspective of any fixture of an altar except a spiritual altar that we are to offer ourselves upon as our spiritual sacrifice, literally giving ourselves to the Lord. But that's not a physical fixture. So churches that have an altar, I don't necessarily object to churches. Now, Roman Catholic churches have an altar and that's very different. They have an altar on which the elements are placed. And the reason they call it an altar is because during the mass, during the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus are sacrificed again in a perpetual sort of a way on the altar. I don't know if Steve is Roman Catholic, because altars also exist in some mainline denominational churches like Lutheran churches and that sort of thing. But, again, the Bible knows nothing of a physical fixture called an altar. And the reason is, is because Jesus was sacrificed on the cross once for all. And there are no sacrifices left other than spiritual sacrifices that we make to the Lord.

Alright. Shane says,

It does. Thank you.

“My name is Shane and I was wondering when Jericho fell and God said the city's plunder was to be burned for the LORD, Achan was found with some gold and stuff. It says that no man should be killed for his father's sins, so why did his family also die? Thank you!”

That is a good question. However, I don't believe that it is absolutely crystal clear in the passage that Achan's family perished along with Achan. There are passages that make it sound that way. There are others that leave us with some level of doubt. Let me share with you one particular passage. It's Joshua 7:25, and it says; Joshua 7:25 (ESV) And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. And all Israel stoned him with stones. Notice that it doesn't say stoned them. It says stoned him. Then it goes on to say, they burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. And many Bible scholars believe the two them pronouns are speaking of the things that Achan took.

Oh, sure.

That they burned, or they stoned and burned the things.

The things. The plunder.

Exactly. The plunder that he took against the counsel of the Lord. So it's not crystal clear. Here's my take though. If it were proven beyond a shadow that Achan's family also died, his wife and children, because of this, I believe it would have been because they were complicit in the crime. It's pretty tough to hide a bunch of stuff in your tent where your whole family lives without them being aware of it, knowing about it, and so forth. We don't know those specific details. We don't know if his children were grown. They could have been. They could have been either adults or close to adult, and they could have been complicit along with his wife. We don't know. So what we do know is that God is a righteous judge, and he does not violate his own word. That's what we do know.

We can lean on the consistency of how God is going to act.

We can, and I think we always have to leave some room for doubt. The thing about this question that Shane asked is, he basically says, I was wondering why they killed his family. Again, that was a conclusion on his part, apart necessarily from absolute proof.

Sure. Jasmine says,

It's this interesting, weird place that we live in between the now and the not yet. Satan is in fact a defeated foe. It tells us that very clearly, that he has been disarmed. It says in Colossians (see Colossians 2:15) that Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities. And yet, we are told, Peter writes to us and says (1 Peter 5:8), your enemy, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he will devour. So we're told to be alert. He tells us to be sober-minded and so forth. Satan has been defeated at the cross, but he has not yet conceded defeat. And until Jesus returns and goes through the final battle, and until Satan is ultimately cast into the lake of fire, he will continue to oppose all that is God, all that is in keeping with the will of God, and that includes the people of God. So we have to be on the alert. Again, there's all kinds of questions that come up between the now and the not yet. If I'm forgiven, why do I still need to pray for forgiveness? If Satan is defeated, why do I still need to watch out for him? If I'm saved, why does the Bible say we're being saved? All these things. So this is the reality behind it. Satan is a constant threat. Now, she went on to ask here at the end of that, ‘Please help me to understand where the fight liesp. The fight lies wherever the enemy wages his warfare, and that could be anywhere. That's why Peter says be alert and be sober-minded. Because you never know. You don't know where the enemy is going to attack. We need to be prayed up. We need to have the full armor of God and understand what that is. But I can't tell people, here's where he's going to attack. I will say this, he will attack you at the place of your weakness. Now, that's the important thing to know. It's important to know where your personal weaknesses lie, because the enemy's probably not going to waste his time on areas of strength in your life. If you don't have any weakness or temptation in a particular area, he's probably not going to tempt you in that area because he doesn't have unlimited resources. But where you are weak, that's probably where the enemy is going to attack. So be alert.

Alright. We're going to move on to Cold Case, which I assume is a handle. “In my workplace, I made some decisions that I now regret deeply. What troubles me is that before making those choices, I prayed and asked for God's guidance. From a biblical perspective, how should a believer deal with regret over past decisions and learn to be content with what God has given, while also trusting that God's ways are higher than ours?”

This question pertains to people who struggle with regret. I'm not one of them. I don't struggle with regret, do I?

No, you don't. It's a gift. You move on if you make a poor choice and something's like, let's move on. It's good.

I suppose. But I know that there are a lot of people who do really struggle. So what this person is asking, I don't know if it's a man or a woman, but they ask from a biblical perspective, how should a believer deal with their own personal regret over past decisions? I think you have to pray about those things. And the question was, how do you learn to be content? You bring that lack of contentment. You bring your regret to God. And you tell him, I am living in regret, and it's stopping me from being the person that you created me to be. You also have to remember that the enemy wants you to stay and live in the realm of regret, because if he can keep you there, he can keep you bound to it and paralyzed from it. So those things need to be brought to the Lord in prayer. And we need to be healed. We forget sometimes that regret is something that we need to be healed from.

But I'd like to add this. To me, regret sort of implies maybe a poor decision, and that was not the case here. So the perplexity of someone, and this has happened in our lives as well, there's a decision to be made. We pray about it. We think we hear from the Lord. We move forward, and then something not so great comes for me.

It doesn't turn out the way we thought, perhaps.

It just doesn't turn out. For example, a family, like just making a trip or something like that, like we prayed about this timing, this and that. There was a car accident along the way. That's maybe an oversimplification, but these things happen to us a lot. How do you process when you went to the Lord, you felt like you were on the right track, and things devolved?

I chalk those things up to living in a broken world. I tell people over and over again, this isn't heaven. And things are not going to go perfectly, even if it's the Lord's will. Who's to say? Now, it is difficult. It is difficult to understand from this person's question, whether or not those were poor decisions or just decisions that they believe now were poor, but they thought were good at the time. It's hard. This is difficult. But you can't live there. You just can't live there, or it's going to dog you. It's going to follow you and torment you. And you've got to get over that. But if you don't have the ability to get over it, you have to ask the Lord to help you.

In Philippians, the Apostle Paul says, forgetting what is behind, and then how does he phrase it?

Pressing on toward what is ahead (see Philippians 3:13).

I mean, that kind of wraps up in all cases.

The Apostle Paul, if anybody could have lived in regret, it was him.

Sure.

He never forgot the things that he did. He told the Corinthians that he didn't consider himself worthy to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church. So, he remembered. He had vivid memories of what those things were all about. But what he went on to say? By the grace of God, I am what I am. And I think we have to learn to look at circumstances and even say, by the grace of God, this is what it is. And God's going to see me through, even when things don't work out like I think they should. Or even if I did make a poor choice and things fell apart because of it. I have to say, God, your grace is more powerful than my poor decisions or my regretted decisions. We have to put our faith in God's grace and focus on that above and beyond our mistakes.

That's really good. Alright. Our next question is from Callie. She says,

Good question. So, if the Great Tribulation is the outpouring of God's wrath, and it is, she asks, is it the same thing that Jesus bore on the cross? Kind of. But what Jesus bore on the cross was the penalty of our sin, which was eternal separation from God, eternal judgment, the curse of sin. Paul refers to it in Romans as the curse of sin. The law appeared, which condemned us, and Jesus came and bore our condemnation. And he was eligible to do that because he did not sin. Therefore, he didn't have any condemnation upon him. So he was able to stand in our place and take that condemnation for us. That being said, we are now no longer under condemnation because Jesus bore it for us. That's really not what's going on during the Great Tribulation. We forget sometimes that even though God is pouring out judgment upon the earth at that time in this final sort of a way, the Great Tribulation is largely about Israel. The Bible refers to the Great Tribulation period as the time of Jacob's trouble. And it is when Jacob is handed a cup of trembling, and all the nations of the earth are going to come against Jerusalem, and they are going to appear to be winning at the time when the Lord returns and fights on their behalf. And it is through God's judgment upon the earth that his wrath is finally expunged. Now, she asks here, why is it just coming upon that one generation and not upon all who rejected Jesus? Oh, listen. All who rejected Jesus will suffer wrath. It's not just one generation. They just happen to be alive on the earth at that time, but it's not limited to them. There's going to be what the Bible refers to as the White Throne Judgment later on, where all the people who have ever lived and who have rejected the Lord will be judged finally, and that is the wrath of God as well, and the judgment of God. But the Great Tribulation is a specific outpouring of God's wrath upon Satan, his minions, and for those who have rejected the Lord. And it's also a terrible time of chastening for the people of Israel as well.

Well, on that cheery subject… Pastor Paul: Is that where we end?

Yeah, we're going to bring this to a close.

We might want to save those for a different time in the Q&A. Anyway, that's where we end for this one. Hope we answered your questions, and even if they weren't your questions, I hope we gave you some insights here into some of these matters. If you have a question for us, we'll show you an email address on the screen in just a moment where you can send your questions, and we'll do our best to get them answered just as soon as we can. So until the next time, God bless you. Have a good rest of your day. Bye-bye.