Episode 14

Pastor Paul LeBoutillier Pastor Paul: We are back with another Bible Q&A. I'm Pastor Paul, here with my wife, Sue, and we're going to be looking at questions that you've sent in and do our best to answer them here today.

All right. The first question is from Cross. He says,

No, that's not correct. There are not two new covenants after the Mosaic covenant. There's one. And Jeremiah is a prophecy. Jeremiah 31:31 and following is a prophecy of the new covenant that would be made initially to the Jews and then be extended to the Gentiles, as we see in the book of Acts as it's played out. So I think where people get tripped up is when you go to Jeremiah 31, it says, this is the covenant I will make with Israel in the house of Judah. And they just assume, this is for the Jews. And then there's something else that's coming for the rest of the Gentiles. In fact, the writer of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31 to speak. And of course, that's what he's saying he was listening to speaks of that prophecy in Jeremiah as Jeremiah 31:31 (ESV) Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. related to the gospel of Jesus Christ that goes to Jews and Gentiles. So it's not two covenants after the Mosaic Law. Just one.

Gotcha. All right. Here's a question from a YouTube comment; “I want to know if a person can receive salvation when they repeat the sinner's prayer after the pastor?”

Absolutely. And you know why it's not about the prayer, it's about the heart and it's about faith. The Bible says we're saved by grace through faith. It doesn't say we're saved by grace through saying the right prayer or how we say the prayer or how we get baptized in water. It says we're saved by grace through faith. Faith is what saves us by the grace of God. So, yes, this is what's been happening at Billy Graham crusades throughout the decades that he was involved in ministry and here's really cool part. In the 35 years of ministry that I had with Calvary Chapel, Ontario, I saw many people get saved without ever praying a prayer, like the sinner's prayer, or something like that. They just heard the Word over a protracted period of time and eventually just kind of ended up knowing that they knew they were saved.

Or I've heard people say, I felt like the Lord was drawing me and I got over some of myself.

My issues.

And I just laid in bed and I just prayed to him and said, I know you're real. It wasn't a repeat after me sort of a thing.

Or a sinner's prayer that followed a particular pattern. It was just an expression of faith. And God saves people who put their faith in him. So when you stop and think about all the ways that people can be saved, it is truly amazing. I love that story in the book of Acts where Philip is running alongside this chariot of this Ethiopian eunuch and he hears him reading from the prophet Isaiah. And he just says, do you know what you're reading? He says, no, how can I know unless somebody tells me? So he invites Philip to get into the chariot with him. And Philip explains that prophecy in Isaiah was referring to the suffering Messiah and he shares the gospel. So the guy gets saved right then and there, puts his faith in Jesus. He doesn't ever talk about a sinner's prayer or anything. He just believes. So Philip says, we're going to baptize him on the road, and it's a beautiful story.

Okay. Here's a question from Agnes; “Kindly clarify whether Christian YouTubers who ask followers to pay for their content are going against the Lord's command that says,… “Freely you have received; freely give” (Matthew 10:8).”

That's a really tough question. Because first of all, I don't know what they're asking for. Those people might be asking for a remuneration for things they've paid out of pocket and they're just asking for to be made whole. I don't know. Some of them might be trying to actually make money. The Bible tells us there are some people who believe that godliness is a means to financial wealth. And those people are criticized in the Bible, but it all depends on what's in a person's heart. You and I have decided we're never going to ask for money and we never have, and we never will. But I can't be the judge of someone who does without knowing their heart.

Exactly. Knowing their heart. And the same thing happens with, I know someone who I admire who has, I guess you would call it a blog or whatever, but it's additional content by subscription. Subscriptions have been around for a long time. We do the same thing with magazines. You want this magazine, you pay a subscription. So we don't know exactly what's being talked about here, but it's just between that person and the Lord.

On our website, we have things that are for sale.

Yes.

Your study guides. We have a couple of flash drives that we make available one with all of my audio teachings through the entire Bible and one with the video teachings of the marriage series that we recorded a few years back. We're trying to simply recoup the cost of materials.

Printing cost and shipping.

Shipping, printing, things like that. We're not trying to make money. And if anybody's ever seen the price that we put on those things.

They know that.

They know that we're not trying to make money. We're just trying to not lose money sort of a thing. So you got to know what's in a person's heart. What I have to remember that the Bible says to me, who are you to judge another man's servant to his own master he rises or falls. Unless I know what's in a man's heart, I can't make a judgment about that exactly.

Always wise. Haylee says,

There are huge differences between Roman Catholic teaching and biblical Christianity. And the reason for that is of course that Roman Catholics put an emphasis on tradition that is equal to that of scripture. They also have a Pope. They have a person that they have elevated in their organization, who is free to make doctrine, declare doctrine and make dogmas, which are beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. And if you look at a schedule of chronological dogmas that have been made by the Popes throughout the centuries, you will see that things like praying to Mary hasn't always existed. The belief that Mary remained sinless, hasn't always been a Roman Catholic belief. It came about at some point when a particular Pope said, this is the deal. They haven't always believed in purgatory. So these things have been added by the Popes over the years. And that's what sets Roman Catholicism apart from biblical Christianity. I have always tried my best as a Bible teacher to separate human rules, human additions to the Word of God from the basic premise of God's Word. And even though I'm fine with traditions, I don't mind tradition. I'm very careful not to elevate those traditions above the Word of God. For example, you and I have a tradition of celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25th. Was Jesus born on December 25th?

Right.

Probably not, probably not even close. We do it as a tradition. Do we elevate it above the Word of God? No, we don't. It's just a day.

We use it to promote the Word of God.

Absolutely.

We use it as an evangelistic tool to promote.

We used it to promote Jesus. And we find that people are open… Sue: Yes, they’re.

About talking about Jesus around Christmas, but we don't elevate it. If somebody were to say, is that a biblical holiday, December 25th? I'd say,

All right. Dakota has a question and he says,

Exodus 20:4, by the way, is the command not to make a graven image, which of course was a prohibition to the Jews, not to bow down to a pagan idol, which has nothing to do with the cross because we do not worship the cross. The cross is merely a symbol of what Jesus did for us when he sacrificed himself for our sin. The issue here with this conversation is stumbling block. Because Jesus is a stumbling block, but he's a stumbling block to sinners. And frankly, people need to stumble over him. When Paul says in Romans 13, not to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother, he's referring to something that would cause a person to stumble into sin.

A temptation.

Jesus is the stumbling stone that causes us to stumble out of sin and out of the penalty of sin. It's a completely different kind of stumbling. So that's the first thing you need to understand. It's not the same thing. To quote Romans 14:13 as applying to the cross is a misinterpretation of scripture. And so that's what I would say to Dakota; your friend is misinterpreting the Word. Anyone who denies that Jesus died on a cross, isn't taking the Bible seriously because it is clear that Jesus Exodus 20:4 (ESV) You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4 (ESV) Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. died on the cross and the Bible goes on to speak of the cross. Jesus even spoke before he suffered on the cross about believers needing to take up their cross.

That’s true.

So those sort of references even predate his death on the cross. Anyway, when somebody says to me, or if somebody says to me, I don't believe Jesus died on the cross. I know what I'm dealing with. I'm dealing with someone who doesn't take the Word seriously. They just believe what they believe. And this could be a Mormon, sort of a belief. The Jehovah's witnesses don't use the word cross. They say he died on a stake. The Mormons don't like the cross at all. They don't like even the symbol of the cross. So Dakota could be talking to somebody who's in the LDS church and if not either of those two things, it's just somebody who's just not… Sue: Found an avenue of excuse.

I just kind of decided they're going to believe what they're going to believe regardless of what the Word says.

All right. This comes from Chris; “Hey Pastor Paul and Ms. Sue. What kind of mindset should one have when reading through the Bible? I know it's very historical and also there's so much information from the Old Testament that carries over to the New Testament. What are your thoughts when you sit down and open your Bible?”

I think without a doubt, the absolute best mindset when studying the Word of God is to constantly ask yourself, how can I apply this to my life? That application is a key to studying the Word of God. And Jesus told us in Matthew 7:24 (ESV), he said; The wind, the rain, the storms beat against the house, but it remained, it stood. And that stands for the person's life because it is grounded, founded on the rock of Jesus Christ. But that comes from application. It comes from taking the word and not applying it to my friend or to my wife, my spouse, hey, you need to read this because you're not towing the line. No, no, no. It's reading the Word of God and saying, Lord, how can I apply this Word? That is the absolute best mindset to have.

And he mentions here, the historical aspect and that sort of thing. And in many of my Bible studies or my women's Bible studies, there's just a three prong approach. What does it say? Because there's history to be learned. What does it mean? And what does it mean to me?

And then you come to that last application process.

And that's the takeaway there.

Absolutely.

All right. Liz says,

And I think we have another question that's very similar to that next. You might want to take that together. Matthew 7:24 (ESV) Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Do you want me to read that one too? Okay. This is from Gay. She says,

So we need to talk about euthanasia, which of course is also been referred to as mercy killing. The Bible does not specifically address euthanasia from the standpoint of whether we should or shouldn't do it. So it remains a very challenging issue. Really the closest biblical picture we have to anything related to euthanasia is that of King Saul when he had been wounded in a battle with the Philistines and wounded to the point where he knew he wouldn't survive. And we're told that he asked his armor bearer to come and run him through with his sword. His armor bearer refused. And later when his armor bearer saw that Saul had died, he fell on his own sword, killed himself. And then of course that story goes on as you get into 2 Samuel and it talks about how this Amalekite came to David with a story that he had happened upon King Saul, who was in the throes of death asked the Amalekite to kill him. And the Amalekite went ahead and did it. Now, whether he did or not, we don't know. He could have just been lying, thinking he was going to get a reward because he may have known that David had been running from Saul. So we're not really sure how that goes, but really those stories that go along with that are the only thing we have. And that's just a narrative. So you can't really draw a doctrine out of a narrative. My philosophy on such matters is that when there's a question mark on a particular topic, which there obviously is, or these two people wouldn't have written in.

I think from two different countries.

Ya, right. So if there's a question mark about something, my philosophy is to steer clear of it is I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to come up with a hard and fast conclusion, regardless of how I may feel. The Bible does say, and I don't remember what book it's in. We've talked about it before, but it talks about, I think it might be the Proverbs, but it says, give strong drink to the one who is suffering.

It’s Proverb 31.

Is that Proverbs?

Yeah, Proverbs 31.

Good for you. So it says give strong drink to the one who is suffering. And of course that was an act of mercy because that was kind of the natural, or that was the modern day.

That was the hospice of the day.

It was kind of like painkiller.

Don't you think these questions are more complicated because our world is more complicated. You know in a previous Q&A we've talked about things like artificial birth control. We've talked about IVF. We have medical things and medical procedures. Now we prolong life in ways that didn't happen 2000 years ago, or even 200 years ago.

We can just simply put someone to sleep and then stop their heart and they die very peacefully. When people are seen dying in pain, it seems immoral to some to even consider that option to let someone suffer that way. It's very difficult. Here's one of the differences about modern sensibilities from the way things were in Proverbs 31:6-7 (ESV) Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more. the Bible. In biblical times, people expected to suffer. Suffering was part of everyday life. They didn't eat as often as we do. They didn't bathe as often as we do. They didn't have the kind of medical help that we do today. You couldn't call 911 and rush someone to the emergency room. People expected that life was full of suffering. It doesn't mean that they grieved less when someone passed away or that they embraced pain necessarily, but they understood it and they expected it. We have gotten to a point in our culture where we don't think we should have to deal with suffering. It's just not on my radar. So if I'm suffering, if I'm in pain, I take a pain reliever. If I get a headache, I just go in the other room and I grab some Tylenol or Advil or whatever, and I get rid of it. And if that doesn't do it, I go to my doctor and I say, hey, this pain's bugging me. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Get rid of it. And that's our expectation today. So when it comes to things related to the end of life, we kind of think that's just a moral thing to do. It's the right thing to do is to bring them to a place where they're not feeling any pain. And we do try, that's what hospice in the very end times is of a person's life is really all about giving them medication so that they're pain-free. Sometimes it takes a while to get to that place, but it's really a modern thought process that we've kind of embraced. So these things are challenging. There's just no two questions about it. No, there's nothing specifically in the Bible about it. So my advice, my counsel to people is, you got to pray about it. You got to pray. You got to ask the Lord. You got to be led by the Holy Spirit. The Bible doesn't tell us everything we want to know. It tells us everything we need to know, but not everything we want to know. So we are forced many times to get on our knees and pray things through and pray until we get an answer and just trust the Lord going to guide us.

For sure. All right. We've come to the end. That's it.

That’s it for this episode. These were great questions. Thank you so much for sending them in. If you have a question you'd like us to cover for you, send it to questions@lifebibleministry.com and be sure to visit our website for all of my teachings through the entire Bible and all of Sue's Women of the Word Bible studies with study guides that are both downloadable for free or can be purchased by booklet. So until we meet again, have a blessed week. We hope to see you soon. Bye-bye.