Episode 5

Pastor Paul LeBoutillier Pastor Paul: We are back with another episode of Bible Questions and Answers. What do we have today?

We have some good questions today as always, and the first one comes from Barbara who says,

There really isn't a biblical answer on the topic because it's something that the Lord doesn't give us a great deal of information about. We struggle this side of the veil of heaven to understand how it's possible for us to be joyful and happy knowing that there were loved ones who didn't ever come to the place of receiving Christ as Savior. But the problem is, is that we're trying to make a determination about what that's going to be like without really having any sort of understanding or being able to relate to that at all. I struggle with the idea that we're going to know less when we are in the Lord's presence. That just doesn't really square with the Word of God. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us that at that point, 1 Corinthians chapter 13, he talks about the fact that we are going to know as we are known at that time. So how we're going to know what we know and still be joyful. And that's something that the Lord just hasn't revealed to us. It's really we have to just trust the Lord and not sit and try to figure it out because we're working with details that we just don't have.

So there is no biblical answer.

There really isn't a strong biblical answer to this. We just have these little tidbits and she mentioned some of them that the Lord is going to wipe away our tears and so forth. But, how? I think some people just assume that means then that I'm not going to remember the bad times. See, that's a conclusion based on today and you're trying to apply that to a tomorrow that you can't even relate to.

All right. Melanie says,

Well, I don't think 15 is too old, even if he's been a believer since he can remember 15, 16, 17, 18, I love to see kids get baptized at that age because they're finally at a place where they can really understand what they're doing and they can understand more about what baptism signifies. So I would encourage, Melanie, don't let your son's feelings interrupt what the Lord tells us to do in the Word and we are to be baptized. It is a biblical command from that standpoint, not for salvation, but because of salvation. So I've baptized people that were in their 20s, 30s and more and even though they may have been walking with the Lord for many years, but they just kind of left that area out. And once they were convicted about it, I'm going to go ahead and get baptized and it's beautiful. I wish more people would get baptized frankly in this 15, 16, 17 and 18 and above. I really do, because those are the ones that are finally able to really truly understand what it means.

That's good. There's a phrase called integrated maturity where a person, you enter into those mid teen years and you're processing in a whole different way than when you're a 6 year old.

Oh, heaven.

And I know you're not a huge fan of baptizing very young children for that reason.

I don't want to. I don't like to.

Because it isn't right at this point when young people begin to determine have an individual faith apart from their families.

Well, they're making a personal decision that doesn't follow their parent’s decision necessarily. It's a personal decision. It's their own. And they're saying, I believe that Jesus is my savior and I want to make this public declaration of my faith in him, my identification with him and his death, burial and resurrection and it's a beautiful thing. And I think kids that age, that's when they should start getting baptized.

Now Melanie knows. All right. So Janie says,

It's really not. There's really nothing in the Word about applying the blood from the standpoint and what Janie's talking about. I'm pretty sure is not people applying the blood in the sense of getting saved. They're applying the blood in the sense of dealing with spiritual realities, praying over issues. Sometimes it's referred to as pleading the blood. And you'll hear people say, I just plead the blood for my brother-in-law who is sick with pneumonia right now. We just plead the blood over him. Well, that's not biblical. By all means pray for your family members, pray for them to be healed, pray for them to get saved. But using the language pleading the blood or applying the blood over situations like that is really not a biblical picture at all.

All right. Lori says,

That's a challenging question. What it really kind of comes down to what Lori is asking is, is it possible for there to be a darkness in a certain locale, whether because of something that maybe happened there at one time or just because maybe there's a buildup of demonic forces in an area. And the answer is, yes, I believe there can be if a place is a demonic stronghold, we know that demons can create strongholds. We know that. We know from the Bible that like, for example, in the book of Daniel, that when a heavenly messenger was working his way to Daniel to give him a revelation about days to come, there was opposition from a local demonic presence of the Persian Kingdom that kept that messenger out. So we know that there are these spiritual dynamics going on, these spiritual battles that can take place even in a locale and there can be a buildup of spiritual darkness or something in a particular area. It's not something the Bible talks a lot about. So I wouldn't run off too crazy about it. And I probably wouldn't teach it as a Bible teacher. I probably wouldn't give a lot of emphasis to it because if the Bible doesn't give a lot of emphasis, then I don't feel that I should either. But we do see that there is a possibility of demonic strongholds that can be geographically located.

All right. Lizelle says.

Lizelle. That's a great name.

It is very pretty, I like that. “I have a question. The sheep nations that will enter the Millennial Kingdom – are they saved and unsaved people who survived the Great Tribulation? Thank you for your online ministry.”

I find it interesting that Lizelle uses the term sheep nations because the Bible really doesn't apply that parable of the sheep and the goats to nations necessarily, it's more individuals. And even though the nations are in view at that point in time as far as how they treated Israel, I think it's going to really come down more to individual sort of people where the Lord is separating the sheep from the goats. And this separation, as we know from the book of Matthew, has to do with how these people treated Israel during the Great Tribulation and whether they were willing to reach out and support and love Israel or whether they treated her badly during that time. And that will be that separation. So her question is, are they saved and unsaved people? The sheep and the goats are saved and unsaved people. And we know that those that are saved are designated as sheep, and those that are unsaved are designated as goats. Those are the ones who treated Israel badly. So these are people who came out of the Great Tribulation and were judged according to how they responded or treated Israel during that time.

All right. And already we're on our last question from Michelle, who says,

That is true. Jesus had half-brothers. We know of Jude or Judas and not the betrayer, but Jude was a very popular name. We know that James was his brother, but at this particular point they were not yet believers and they had not yet come to really a saving knowledge of what their half-brother was doing on the cross. And Jesus was fulfilling a responsibility as the eldest son toward his mother. We assume that because of this, Joseph had passed away. We believe that he was quite a bit older than Mary and that he had since passed from the scene. So as the eldest son, it was incumbent upon him to make sure that Mary was cared for. And his desire was that she was cared for in a Christian home. We can probably also assume that after Jude and James, the half-brothers of Jesus came to faith in Jesus's finished work on the cross, that they perhaps took Mary into one of their homes and cared for her as would be their responsibility. But that's basically the reason, even though it's not stated in the Word, we know that they were not yet believers.

It makes so much sense. Do you remember when our kids were real little and we were processing what should we put in motion if something were to happen to us? Where should our kids go? We leaned much more heavily into our Christian friends than we did to our unsaved family because that was very important to us was that our kids would be raised in a Christian environment with the Lord at the center. So your answer makes complete sense for anyone who thinks of caring for any kind of a loved one.

And we know from the Gospel accounts that at certain points in Jesus's ministry, his brothers believed him to be out of his mind and they just didn't understand. They had not embraced or accepted what was going on. So it really makes a lot of sense that Jesus would want Mary to be with John or one of the other disciples, at least until such time as her other sons would come to faith.

That’s it for today.

Good questions. Excellent questions. So that wraps up this episode of Bible Question and Answer, and we will have more of your questions coming very soon. By the way, if you would like to know how to bring a question to our attention, simply e-mail questions at lifebibleministry.com and we'll get it. And we will feature it in an upcoming episode. So thanks so much for joining us. We'll see you soon.