Bible Q&A Episode 50

Hi everyone. We're back with some more of your Bible questions. I'm Pastor Paul. I'm here with my wife, Sue, and we're gonna do this again.

Yes, we are. I'm the question giver.

Yeah.

David says,

Yeah. You know, God can certainly speak audibly to people, but I think it's extremely rare. And I think that the way God wants to communicate to His people is through the Holy Spirit. Now, that can happen, like this one viewer says, through the Word of God. As someone's reading the scripture, you know, it's interesting, I noticed that that viewer said, God doesn't speak to me except through the Word. Well, that's how He speaks to you. That is speaking to you, you know, because it's not just you reading words on a page. There is a spiritual dynamic. The Word of God, we're told, is living and active. And when the Holy Spirit gets a hold of that Word in the heart of a longing believer, then He begins to speak and He begins to confirm and affirm and warn and rebuke and direct. Maybe here in a moment, I'll have you talk about some of the ways the Lord has used the scripture to direct your path, but that has happened. Now, then the other person was asking, what about those things that really aren't in the Bible? Like, you know, who I'm to marry? You know, should I take this job versus that job? Those things obviously aren't going to be dealt with directly in the Word of God, but that doesn't mean God can't use His Word to speak to you about a decision related to that. So don't cancel that out. Don't just assume that He's not gonna use the Bible to speak to you about who you're gonna marry or what job to take or whatever the case might be. But there's another way that the Lord can speak to us as well, and that is just through the agency of His Holy Spirit. And the reason we struggle with this so much, and you know, this is a very popular question, is because we are so attuned to our five senses, physically, that when we get saved and now we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit who longs to speak to us, we have no concept because we've got this sixth sense now, and it's the spiritual sense. It's God's Spirit living in you, speaking to you through your spirit. And by the way, I'll just say this. A spiritual conversation with God is incredibly more superior to a verbal one. A verbal conversation takes time. God can transmit what would be pages and pages and books of information in an instant through His Spirit, because there's no limitation, because it just, it comes to you and you know it. And it is amazing. Here's the deal, though. We don't know how to do it, and that's the thing. Christians are like, yeah, you know, I really would like God to speak to me, but I don't know how to listen. Well, it's a learned process. It's learning to get quiet, and that's a big issue today. There's a lot of extraneous noise in our lives, from the internet and movies and other people, and the noise level today is more than it was probably back in biblical times. I think about David sitting out in the field taking care of his father's sheep. There's not much noise going on. He's got time to ponder things, like when I look at the heavens, you know, and the majesty of them, I ask myself, what is man that you even care a snit about him? These are things that went through David's heart while he had the rest of the world turned down. We have to learn how to turn the world down, and I'll just tell you right now, it's very hard. It's very hard. If you need to hear from God, I would strongly encourage a time of fasting from the internet, television, movies, any other source that is just noisy. It might even be, you might have to even get away, you know, and just get quiet, and that might mean taking long drives or long walks or just getting somewhere where you can be alone with God and you can get your spiritual antenna raised to a point where you can hear his voice. I don't think we should expect to hear the voice of God with all the noise around us. I just don't think that that's possible. There's this wonderful story about Elijah running, you know, for his life from Jezebel who sent him a poison pen letter, and, you know, he got scared and he got depressed and he actually prayed to die, and the Lord came to speak to him, but at first there was a windstorm and then an earthquake and all these other things, but it says the Lord wasn't in those things, and then he heard a gentle whisper, and Elijah knew it was the voice of the Lord, and he pulled his cloak over his face and that's when the Lord spoke to him. It was in that, what we call that still, small voice, and we have to learn how to get quiet and how to quiet our hearts. David writes about this in the Psalms. He says, my soul, I have quieted my soul. It's like a weaned child. He says, like a satisfied, weaned child, I have quieted my soul, and, you know, the soul is the seed of your emotions and your intellect, and those things are just constantly going. That's why you have dreams at night, because your soul doesn't get shut off like your body does. Your body can go to sleep. Your brain doesn't. Your thoughts, even your emotions. So we have to quiet those things before the Lord, and that's hard, but it's a learned process, so.

Very good. Miranda says,

Sure. You know, the apostle Paul quotes the prophet Joel in Romans 10, and essentially quotes Joel saying that all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Well, that passage says, they who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So if they're going to be saved, that means that when they're calling on him, they're not yet saved. So yeah, there's proof biblically that God answers the prayers of unsaved people, and that's one of them right there. So yes, the answer is yes.

Ezekiel is from Tanzania. "I just came across your YouTube channel last week, and I'm learning a lot so far. I have two questions. Here's number one. I know dreaming is one among the ways in which God speaks to us, but I'm having a really difficult time recalling any dreams at all. Does that mean I don't have the Holy Spirit in me?"

Wow. You know, yeah, God can speak through dreams. You know, we were just talking about that a moment ago, and the Bible says that'll even be turned up at some point in the last days, dreams, visions, and that sort of thing. I think those are gonna be mostly used and are being used to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. But dreams are very rare, and the vast majority of us don't remember our dreams, but there's also a really large number of Christians I've discovered who I believe put way more emphasis on dreams than they should, and I think this happens because some churches emphasize it, and they start putting pressure on people to know what you're, you know, it's like God's talking to you through your dreams, and so people will write me, and they'll say, Pastor Paul, I had a dream and they'll tell me their dream and then they'll say I have I don't have a clue what this means would you tell me what this means well first of all I'm not an interpreter of dreams second of all I think your dream was just you I don't think it was God and I think if God does give you a dream you're not going to wonder for long because you know our God is not a God of confusion he if he's going to give you a dream which I think is very rare he's going to do it for a reason and that is to to inform you or to instruct you or to warn you about something that you're very aware of and you're not going to walk away from that dream going well I don't know wonder what that was all about you're going to go I know what that was about so if you had a dream and you think it was from God but you've spent months trying to figure it out and you still can't it's probably just what you had to eat the night before so you know yeah I again I believe Christians put way too much emphasis on dreams and I think it's unhealthy potentially.

And then his second question says,

I came across a video there's the words right there. Sure, um and he's from Tanzania yeah so football is probably soccer maybe our soccer more than likely yeah um listen sports are not demonic um sports are sports sports have been around for a long time as we've said many times on this podcast it is the heart of man that is evil listen sports can be idolized sure person can can make sports their personal idol that's possible um they can put it in the place of God and that's what it means to make it an idol but that doesn't mean that sports is bad it means that person's heart is bad I watch sports but I do not put it above God I watch American football you know that yeah I also like to watch golf weird I know but I do and but you know I could take it or leave it it's not a big deal to me I know that God is you know way above those things so I don't worry about it being an idol it's recreation and uh you know I think that's the way people you know when somebody comes off in a video saying sports is demonic and it's idolatry it's like oh that's a good reason to stop listening to that person.

Yeah the inputs in our lives are really important you know a couple weeks ago we had the question about playing cards yeah and this mother presumably mother and her kids were happily having family time until she saw a video and that introduced all of the you know the warnings and so I I think the same thing happened here he was probably just having a great time watching a soccer game until he saw a video so we just have to be really careful about a lot of these um these things that go around and.

Yeah can I can I encourage everybody who's listening when you hear somebody say something it's not wrong to say prove it show me in the bible because you're not going to find things like playing cards are demonic or football slash soccer is demonic you're not going to find that in the bible that's an opinion that someone is giving you that is unbiblical and it's okay to say where is that in the bible.

Right okay we're turning a corner here to Hugh in South Africa. "I just finished your bible series which took me roughly a year to finish."

That's actually commendable.

Yeah that somebody got through 10 years of your teachings in one in one year. "I'm now starting from Genesis again I wanted to know whether you have any tips or advice for the second time around."

Not really not really I mean you know you you might pray about it people have have kind of gone about it different ways um they've they've mixed up book order they've taken different notes uh maybe the the second or even third time around um it's it's kind of just whatever works for you and whatever aids your learning style.

Sure you know um yeah so know your learning style and and adjust yourself appropriately.

Rachel says,

Okay well the bible does mention witchcraft witches were popular uh with you know whenever there's going to be a an influx of paganism you're going to see witchcraft yeah because it's really kind of comes from the same occultic paganistic sort of a superstitious um vibe so it was something that God strongly commanded his children not to be a part of in fact in Isaiah um he specifically told them or warned them against spending time with a necromancer and a necromancer is someone who consults the dead right on behalf of the living and God even says why are you asking the dead about things matter that related to the living and then he asks this should not a people inquire of their God yeah I always have loved that should not a people inquire of their God so first of all in the bible it is um it is greatly discouraged because witchcraft is and like paganism is going to get down into the demonic in other words demons are going to get involved yeah okay um can it affect Christians well yeah I mean if they give their hearts to it but if if she's asking can it can there be a negative impact like if um a witch or someone who claims to be a witch says I'm gonna put a curse on you and your family no I I'm not even a little afraid of that there's a proverb that actually says like a darting sparrow or swallow is an undeserved cursed it will not come to rest uh on on a believer so uh that's a paraphrase but yeah listen you are protected by the Holy Spirit don't worry about junk like that um because remember you're dealing with demonic stuff here when you talk about witchcraft and and God's got you and Satan doesn't have free reign to waltz into your life anytime he sees fit right you know so yeah I wouldn't worry about it.

Grace says,

This seems to be a theme.

It does doesn't it. "Thank you and blessings from Ohio."

Yeah the New Testament was written mostly by the apostles and those who trafficked with the apostles we've got the book of Luke and Acts uh which were written by Luke who was not an apostle but he traveled extensively with the apostle Paul and he was more of a historian in fact he was even a gentile but anyway the question is who wrote the Old Testament well you know we we have a lot of beliefs you know David wrote a huge part of the Old Testament in the Psalms Solomon wrote a good portion in the Proverbs Ecclesiastes things like that we believe that Moses took notes and wrote a good portion of the Old Testament in the Pentateuch obviously there were other people that had to take over when he passed from the scene we believe that Samuel had a large impact obviously all of the prophets were written by the prophet right okay so if you're reading the book of Jonah that was written by Jonah if you're reading the book of Isaiah that was Isaiah's recording of the messages God gave him same with Jeremiah and Amos and and all the rest okay so that those are easy because those books actually bear the name of the author but there's a lot of books that don't you know so you know we don't know absolutely for sure who penned all of these you know stories like the book of Job we don't know who did Job write it I don't know was it just someone who who was an observer we don't know I think it's very important not to let that concern you that doesn't create a problem um for those Old Testament books because Jesus affirmed them you know um Jesus actually even affirmed that David's writings were inspired by the Holy Spirit so and he accepted the Old Testament as we have it as inspired and canonical so I don't think I think the fact that we don't always know exactly who all of the authors are or who compiled the information is tremendously important and and it shouldn't give rise to an opinion like she mentions in that note that these are examples, but they aren't really true stories. Jesus treated them like true stories and the people like real people. That's enough for me.

Yeah, good, good, good. An anonymous person asked,

That is an excellent question. And the reason I haven't converted to Roman Catholicism is because of my belief in the word of God and what I see in the word of God, particularly in Ephesians 2, verses eight and nine, which says, it is by grace we are saved through faith and this not of ourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast. In Roman Catholic teaching, faith is considered to be only one element of the means by which we are saved. There are other elements, doing good works. Roman Catholics are told that you need to keep the sacraments and do good works in addition to having faith. I don't see that in the Bible. The sacraments, which we refer to as basically communion, water baptism, things like that, are wonderful, but they're not necessary for salvation. We're saved by grace through faith. And it clearly says in Ephesians 2, this not of yourselves. In other words, nothing you can do like stepping out to do this. So that is why, I mean, I could never be a Roman Catholic simply because I believe that there are a great many teachings in Roman Catholicism that actually negate and violate the word of God. And that's the reason that I cannot, could never convert to Roman Catholicism.

Alright, sounds like you have thought that through.

Well, when you study the word of God, you kind of have to. That's what happens.

Fenny from Malaysia says,

Well, let's face it. God doesn't pressure us to do anything. You know, he doesn't pressure us to receive the gospel either. So what she's kind of asking here is, since this is a command, should we be putting a greater emphasis on it? I think that it is very possible for the emphasis of water baptism to be lessened too much. We are told, and it is a command, to go out into the world, preach the gospel, and then baptize them. That doesn't mean that water baptism is necessary for salvation. It doesn't mean that at all. And just because we've received a command to do it, we've also received a command to observe communion. Jesus said, do this. As often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. And he commanded us. So does that mean if I don't take communion or if I've never taken communion that I'm not going to heaven, my sins aren't forgiven? There's other things that have been commanded of us. So yes, it is important. It is an important step for people to take because it pictures our salvation and it speaks volumes about what happens when a person gets saved. And so we shouldn't minimize things like water baptism. It's a command for us to go and do that, and we should be doing it. And we always did. We always made an opportunity in the church that I pastored for 35 years. And even before that, we gave opportunities for people to be baptized in water. And I taught on water baptism and told them what it was all about and why they should do it. And so I believe that we were obedient to the command.

Good, that's very good. And that's the end of our question.

That's it, huh? So that's episode 50.

Wow, okay.

Well, that's all the questions for this episode, but I have a sneaking suspicion there are more questions that people probably have. And if you'd like to write us and send in your question, just address your email to questions at lifebibleministry.com. You can also go to our website, lifebibleministry.com and find all kinds of answers to your questions in the search engine that we have connected. But if you don't find an answer there, you can also question or send your questions in through the website. So consider that as well. Until we gather again to talk more about your questions, we'll just say, have a good rest of your day and God bless.