Episode 44

Pastor Paul LeBoutillier Preview: Jesus talks about this in Acts 1, where he tells the disciples, don't leave Jerusalem, stay put, because you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and when you are, you will receive power.

Hi everyone, we're back with some more of your Bible questions, and I'm Pastor Paul. I'm here with my wife, Sue, and I have a little bit of a cold, but we're going to do this.

Good for you.

We're going to get through these questions.

You kind of pushing through.

There you go.

Our first question comes from Chinenye, “I have a question about the story of Lot. Why was Lot's wife punished for looking back and turned into a pillar of salt, while Lot himself was still rescued and considered somewhat righteous even though he offered his two daughters to the men of the city? Was God overlooking Lot's actions, or is there another way this story should be understood?”

There is another way that the story should be understood. By the way, what Lot did was horrific. But you need to understand something, first of all. The first part of her question is, was God overlooking Lot's sin? God cannot overlook sin. His attribute of justice forbids that he do something like that. But the other thing that's important to understand about this is that Lot's wife was not punished. Her turning into a pillar of salt had nothing to do with punishment per se. You'll remember that God explicitly told Lot and his family, when you are fleeing from the city, and of course this is given through these angels. They said, don't look back. People have often wondered, what was all that about? Did he just want them to let go of the sinful past that was Sodom and Gomorrah? No. You have to remember that what God did when he poured out his wrath on Sodom and Gomorrah is that he revealed his glory. And what Lot's wife saw when she turned around was basically the uncovered face of God, and being poured out upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and she died. The reason she died is what was given later to Moses, when Moses asked to see the glory, the glorious face of God. And God said, no man can look upon my face and live. And Lot's wife looked upon the face of God, and she didn't suffer the consequences. But it was not a specific punishment. God wasn't punishing her. It's just the result of a sinful human being looking upon the face of God.

It's really good insight there. Lileen, or Lileen maybe, from South Africa says,

For those who don't know, Replacement Theology is the teaching and the belief that the church, the body of Christ, takes over for Israel and replaces them so that all of the promises that are given to Israel now belong to the church. I don't believe in replacement theology. I believe it's a false teaching. So this is a good question. Lileen is asking the promises of the Old Testament, which ones can we embrace? And obviously, this would take a long time to address, and I actually taught on this subject. It's in a message entitled, The Promises of God (Handle with Care). And I taught it here, I think this last… Sue: December.

Was it December?

The end of December.

Anyway, what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a link on the screen and also in the description (The Promises of God – Handle with Care) of this video so people can go and listen to that. But I'm going to warn people ahead of time. Some of you, it's going to make you mad. It does. It makes people mad because they find out that there are a lot of promises that they've quoted that are really, they were not ours to quote. They were given uniquely to Israel and uniquely connected to the covenant that God made with Israel. So be prepared. I guess I'll just say that when you go to watch that message, be prepared. I'm going to make you mad.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

Yeah, often it does. Anyway, that's the best answer I can give right now.

That's good. Alright. Tanya asks,

This is a very interesting question that comes with all kinds of incorrect assumptions. First of all, the Bible doesn't mention anything about a second exodus. That term is not in the Bible. However, as Tanya correctly tells us here, in various Old Testament prophetic books, God does speak of gathering his people out of the various nations to which they've been scattered. Here's where the error comes in. It's in Tanya's question. If we are to be gathered, Tanya, this isn't a ‘we’ question. This is a ‘they’ question. These promises in Jeremiah, Isaiah and Zechariah that you've noted here are for Israel. And God is promising Israel that they will be regathered. And we've seen a partial fulfillment of that in our lifetime. But there's going to be a final fulfillment during the millennial kingdom. God is going to reach out and bring his people, the Jews, from the four corners of the earth back to Jerusalem, to the Holy Land and that is a promise that God has made and he will fulfill. But this is not a promise given to the church. The church, you got to remember, is the Bride of Christ. What bride has to be gathered after the wedding has taken place? Only a wayward bride, but that's not going to be the case. The Bride of Christ is with the Bridegroom. Israel is regathered during that time. So this is a perfect example of the confusion that comes into play when we don't recognize promises in the Bible as uniquely given to Israel. And we try to apply them to ourselves as the church. And if you do that, you're going to get just completely confused.

So those two questions are really great to be put back to back.

There's a lot of similarity there.

We have another question from Cosmin & Daniela. They're from Romania. And they say,

It certainly can seem that way. When the Bible talks about our salvation, it talks about it from two perspectives. It talks about it from God's perspective, and it talks about it from man's perspective. And in God's perspective, where there is no limitation of time, he simply, because of his foreknowledge, knows all who are going to come. So it speaks of those who are saved from God's perspective as appointed. In other words, those who were chosen from the foundation of the world. So from God's perspective, people are always spoken of as always have been saved. And that has led some people to believe that what the Bible teaches is that we are appointed, apart from our own personal free will decision in the matter. Some people are appointed unto life. Some people are appointed unto death, or if you will, hell. That's not what the Bible teaches. Because you also see replete in the scriptures, this perspective of salvation from man's viewpoint, which always relates to our salvation as a choosing, a receiving. Those who put their faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, those who must be convinced that Jesus died for them, so that they might choose to come to him and so forth. Those are the two perspectives, but they're both given. Because you have God's perspective and you have man's perspective. You cannot camp on one or the other. You have to say they're both in the Bible. And that's why we understand that predestination is a biblical concept. People are predestined from God's foreknowledge. In fact, that's what the Bible says (see Romans 8:29). Those whom God foreknew, he also predestined. But from man's perspective, we see that it is to all who received him, to those who believed on his name, he gave the right to become children of God. So we teach both perspectives because they're both in the Bible. And people who gravitate to one or the other perspective while ignoring the other are lopsided in their theology, and they're always going to be. One of the reasons why people do that, one of the reasons they gravitate to one position or the other is because they don't see how both can exist. In other words, it's beyond their comprehension. And so what they do is they kick out what they can't understand and they say, I'm just going to camp on one. So people will say, well, I'm a believer because God chose me. That's true. God did choose you, but you also chose God. You're ignoring that part. And the Bible talks a lot that part. Whosoever will, let him come. So we got to be really careful not to ignore or reject certain things the Bible tells us just because we can't figure them out. If we're going to do that, we're going to start kicking out the Trinity. We're going to kick out eternity. You and I can't comprehend eternity. We can't comprehend timelessness without end. So we just have to be really careful and say, hey, this is what the Bible teaches. It teaches that I am predestined from God's perspective and that I chose him from mine.

I have a bit of a simple mind. And I think it was probably Warren Wiersbe that said, he said that the arch into the kingdom of God on the front side says whosoever will. And as you pass through the backside says chosen by God. Same arch.

It's the same arch.

It’s the same perspective.

It’s the same salvation. You're just looking at it from two different viewpoints. Vantage points.

Crystal says,

Actually Goliath was a Philistine, not a Palestinian. In the 1940s, get this, Jews were called Palestinians. This idea that Arabs or non-Jews that live in the Middle East or live in the area that they would refer to today as Palestine, which is kind of the Gaza Strip sort of an area that they are the Palestinians. That's a new idea.

It is.

It is fairly new.

If you look at ancient maps, by ancient, I just mean a hundred years ago of the Middle East, it'll say Palestine.

Exactly. I have some old Bible commentaries from way back that will speak of the Jews as Palestinians. So that's an important distinction for starters, but what she's really asking here is was Goliath considered one of the Nephilim? Well the word Nephilim in the Bible is used to describe unusually tall people. The first usage of the word Nephilim involves, it's way early in the book of Genesis, and it has to do with a very hard to understand passage where it says the sons of God took the daughters of men and married them and they had children by them and they became the Nephilim. And there are many people who believe that sons of God means angels or fallen angels, even perhaps, and that the Nephilim were these superhuman, supernatural, super tall beings. Remember this happens very early on in the book of Genesis, very early before the great flood. So the Nephilim would have been killed in the flood unless they stowed away on the boat without Noah knowing, I doubt it. It was only Noah and his family that survived the great flood. So if the word Nephilim is used post flood, it has now taken on a different meaning. It's not speaking of this unique kind of group of people that Genesis, I believe it's Genesis 6 talks about.

Genesis 6.

It's a word used to describe very tall people. And they continued to use the term because to them it was, it was a biblical term but it could not have been the same group of people mentioned in Genesis 6. So Goliath could not have been a Nephilim from that perspective. He was just an unusually tall person.

Alright. Meg says,

You want to just give her a hug, don't you?

I know.

You want to.

Bring it in, honey. It's going to be okay.

Meg, just come here. We're just going to give you a hug. When you begin your prayer by saying, dear Lord, or dear God, you are addressing all the persons of the Trinity. There's only one God. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There are three persons, but you cannot leave any of them out. When you address God, you address the fullness of who God is. When Jesus, toward the end of his earthly ministry, he would speak to his disciples and he would say, don't you know me after I've been with you for such a long time? When you've seen me, you've seen the Father. When you hear me, you hear the Father. The Father and I are one. And the spirit all together, they are God. And there's only one God. So Meg, don't worry. You're not leaving anybody out. Just pray. Pray to the Lord God who has revealed himself as father, son, and Holy Spirit. But don't worry, you're not going to hurt his feelings in any way. And you're not going to be able to leave any of the persons of the Trinity out when you address God.

That is a good reassurance for all the Megs out there that do get a little bit tripped up on formulas or somebody says something and then you're concerned.

Absolutely.

Okay. Paul from Grand Rapids, Michigan says,

We've had similar questions to this in the past. Does Satan know our thoughts? There is nothing in the Bible that would lead us to believe that Satan can know our thoughts. The Bible clearly tells us God knows our thoughts. He knows a word before it is even spoken. But that is never said of Satan, that he knows our thoughts. So Paul's question here is, how does he do this? How does he know our weaknesses? Satan, first of all, he knows human nature. He's been observing it for a long, long, long time. He knows what are the areas that can potentially fall? Honestly, every temptation comes under one of three categories. It's either a lust of the flesh, a lust of the eyes, or related to the pride of life. That's it. The three temptations that he leveled at Jesus in the wilderness. All fell under those three categories. So he doesn't really have this wide arc area with which to level temptations. He's going to hit a bullseye pretty quickly just by limiting it to one of those three, or even more, two of those three or whatever. Satan is a master of human nature.

Observation. If we went to the mall daily and just sat and watched people, we'd get pretty good at our observations. And that's just a really limited lifetime. So an ancient foe who's been at this for a long time has honed powers of observation.

Absolutely.

Diane says,

I have to believe that if Judas had repented and come to the Lord and sought forgiveness, that he would have been forgiven. I have to believe that. Unfortunately, he didn't and that's the sad part. He did recognize his wrong. He clearly articulated it. I've betrayed innocent blood. But he didn't repent. He didn't turn to the Lord for forgiveness and that's really sad. But again, in answer to Diane's question, I would agree with her. I think that had he repented, come to the Lord in humility, he would have been forgiven.

Alright. The next question is from Don, “Philip baptized Samaritans in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ however they did not receive the Holy Spirit until the Apostles Peter and John prayed for them and touched them. Then Philip baptized an Ethiopian Official after teaching him about Jesus from Isaiah after which Philip was transported to Azotus. Did the Ethiopian official receive the Holy Spirit?”

I'm going to leave Don's question on the screen so that we can look at it. And I want to particularly note this first statement that he makes. He says, Philip baptized Samaritans in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ however they did not receive the Holy Spirit until the Apostles Peter and John prayed for them and touched them. That's not true. That is in error. What Peter and John laid hands on them to receive was not the spirit for indwelling. It was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Different work of the Holy Spirit. Listen, when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we receive the Holy Spirit for indwelling. That is, the spirit comes to live within the believer, and that is the work by which we are born again. But there's another work of the Holy Spirit that God wants to do in his children, and that is to empower them. Jesus talks about this in Acts chapter one, where he tells the disciples, don't leave Jerusalem, stay put, because you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And when you are, you will receive power. Now, they had already received the Holy Spirit previous to this for salvation. That's recorded for us at the very end of John's gospel, where it says, Jesus, on the very night he was raised from the dead, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. So that is the work of the spirit when we put our faith in Jesus. Again, when Philip baptized Samaritans, they received the Holy Spirit. When Philip baptized the Ethiopian official, they received the Holy Spirit when they put their faith in Jesus. But that doesn't necessarily mean they were baptized yet in the Holy Spirit. And that's what Peter and John came to do when they prayed for them and laid hands on them. Listen, nobody needs to pray for anybody to receive the Holy Spirit at salvation. Laying hands on people is not necessary to receive the indwelling. People can get saved all alone and born again. Now, we do see in the Bible this idea of laying on of hands for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, although it is not always necessary. But that's the only time we see the laying on of hands to receive the empowering work of the Holy Spirit, which is called the baptism. This question by Don is very common, and there is great confusion in the body of Christ because we have merged these ideas of the indwelling work of the Spirit and the empowering work of the Spirit. And there are a great many Christians who will say to me from time to time, I believe that we are born again and empowered at the same time when we receive Jesus. That is possible, but it's not necessarily so. So what they're saying is, I don't believe there's this other work of the Spirit. In the Bible, that's what we see. We see this other work. And it doesn't mean that you have less of the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean that you're less saved than somebody who has been baptized in the Spirit. It just means you've not yet opened yourself to this other work, functional work of the Holy Spirit, which He desires to do in us to empower us. And it is through the empowering of the Spirit that the gifts of the Holy Spirit begin to operate in the life of the believer.

Where could someone go on our channel, on our website, to really investigate this subject a little bit more?

Best thing I could recommend is go to my teachings on Acts 1 and Acts 2, and then I would encourage a study in 1 Corinthians, covering the chapters 12, 13, and 14. And if you do that, you're going to get a really rounded biblical sort of an understanding of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit that come from that baptism.

Great.

Alright.

Sounds good. And that's it for today.

Alright. Well, that's it for the questions that we have for this time. Great questions that you sent in. And we're going to do this again because we've got more. So until we see you again, God bless you. Have a good rest of your day. Bye- bye.