Doctrine

Doctrine » Predestination

Question:

Answered on 04/13/06:

I believe on hundred percent that it’s the choice that we make, that there’s no predetermination on God’s part of who He’s chosen, but it’s our choice that makes us a chosen person. I’m totally convinced from the Scriptures that we make that choice. We find in the Old Testament and the New Testament. God says, “Choose this day who you will serve.” Joshua says, “Choose this day who you will serve.” Moses says in Deuteronomy, “Choose this day who you will serve.” Throughout the Scripture, Paul and Peter and Jesus himself says you have to choose to believe. God gives you the power to choose whether we will receive the gift that has been extended to us or whether we do not receive that gift. And it is a gift; it’s a free gift and it’s made available to everybody, although not everybody accepts that gift. So, yes, we’re in control over whether we become one of God’s chosen or not because it’s a choice that we have to make to either accept the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ or to reject that free gift. I know that that’s a question that many people have had.

I know that it’s a controversial issue. Does God choose who gets saved and who doesn’t get saved? Or does God choose to offer a free gift to anyone who believes. The Bible says, “Whosoever shall believe in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” Whosoever shall believe in Him. Whosoever means that could apply to anybody. But it has to be chosen by us. Does God give us the gift of repentance? Yes, that gift comes from God. Does God give us the ability to believe? Yes, all of that comes from God. But He makes that available to every man, every woman, and every child on the face of the earth. Otherwise, it would not be a free gift. Otherwise it would not be fair. Otherwise it would not be just if God made the gift of Jesus available to some people, but didn’t make the gift available to everybody. If God’s just going to choose who’s saved and who’s not saved, then why even send Jesus to the earth? Jesus becomes the focal point of all history and anybody who believes in Jesus Christ and in His death, burial and resurrection and declares the Lordship of Jesus, then that person is saved, regardless of what has ever transpired in their life, regardless of their upbringing, regardless of their background, regardless of their history. Jesus Christ changes your history when you receive Him as your Lord and Savior.

Question:

Answered on 03/16/06:

If God really did that, if that’s what God was going to do—just pick some to be saved and some not to be saved, then why would He go through the trouble of sending Jesus Christ as the gift of God? That “if any man,” Jesus said, “whosoever believes on me, shall not perish, but have everlasting life.” He didn’t say, “now some of you are destined to believe in me, and some of you are destined to not believe in me.”

So, it’s not like that at all. God sent the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, for every man. Not every man receives that gift, but that gift is made available to every man and every woman, to every human being. Every person has the opportunity to choose. Remember it says in Deuteronomy 30. “Choose life. Choose life or death. Choose blessing or cursing. Choose prosperity or adversity.” And what about Joshua in chapter 24 where he says, “Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we’re going to serve the Lord.” There is a choice that we have to make.

Somebody says, “Well, it’s God who puts it in your heart to make that choice.” Well, I believe that if we go back, if we’re going to do that, then we can go back to where we’re just robots and we’re going to just respond to however God has programmed us. And that is not at all what happened. Because God didn’t predestine Adam to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; He told that man, “Do not eat from this tree.” He didn’t tell him, “Don’t eat from it,” but then subtly in his mind send subliminal messages: “Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.” No, that’s not at all what God did. God is not schizophrenic. God is not a mean, cruel God that just puts people on to this earth and they’re destined already, whether they’re going to succeed or not. You make choices. When your choices line up with the Word of God, you end up fulfilling the destiny that God has already pre-ordained to be God’s will for your life. It’s what He has ordained to be His will for you life, but He can’t make it happen without your cooperation.

I hope that helps answer your question. You choose whether you’re going to receive Jesus Christ. You choose whether you’re going to tithe. You choose whether you’re going to treat your wife right. You choose whether you’re going to submit to God or submit to your husband. You choose whether you’re going to smoke that cigarette or not. This is not stuff that God predetermines or predestines us to do. These are the choices that we make. That He’s given us the power and, thank God that He’s gracious enough to have created us with a free will. Okay. So thank God for that.

Now has He predestined you? Yes He has. He has predestined you to succeed, if your choice lines up with His will. If you choose to follow Him. Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Two roads you can travel. Road leading to death. Road leading to life. It’s up to you. It’s not up to God. He’s made His move; the next move is yours. Okay, I hope that helps answer the question. It’s a great question. It’s a controversial question, but I hope that we stirred you up a little bit on that one.

Doctrine » Women in Church

Question:

Answered on 03/16/06:

But being a woman does not qualify her to be a pastor just like being a man does not qualify a man to be a pastor. What qualifies us is the calling of God upon our lives. There has to be a calling. I think that, in general, the pastoral role is best utilized if a man is in that role, but I don’t think that we can forbid women from preaching or teaching.

I think the Scriptures that refer to “women should not teach” are referring to women should not usurp man’s authority; women should not teach in a way that is in authority over a man that is their covering. There should always be a covering. If a woman has a ministry, she should have a husband who is her covering or she should have a pastor who is her covering.

But in general, I treat it like this: that women are not called by God originally to be the fathers of their children, but because some men do not take the responsibility, I think that women can be a single parent and can do a successful job at it. And I don’t think that a woman who has children absolutely has to have a husband – if she’s divorced or if her husband has died or something like that, I think she can be effective at carrying on and leading her family as a mother if that’s God’s will and that’s something that she desires to do and that she’s willing to do. In the same way, even though it wasn’t God’s original intention for that to be the case, I think in the same way, a woman can lead a church if that’s what she’s called to do and if there’s no man to do it.

So, that would be how I would answer that. I think that the pressure and the responsibility of being a pastor is enormous and I think that a man is more equipped for that because of the nature of the responsibility, the fathering that takes place through a pastoral role. But that doesn’t mean that a woman who’s an effective leader can’t have a staff of godly male leaders who help counsel men and pastor men and all of that if she’s the primary preacher. Again, it’s acceptable, but is it the best? Maybe it’s not the best, but it can be done and it has been done and there are those who have done a successful job at it.

There are responsibilities and character qualities that need to be in a person to fulfill a pastoral role or an elder’s role. A person needs to have those attributes and characteristics if they’re going to be effective and qualified as a leader. And again, the number one qualification is the calling of God upon somebody’s life. I think that more common and more appropriate is women who are teachers. Women have such a great role of teaching in our society. Mothers teaching their children. Women are usually better school teachers than men; at least the history demonstrates that. I’m not saying that men can’t do an effective job at that, but I’m saying that women seem to be more gifted in teaching and instructing. And I think that that’s good. I think, though, that running a church requires a lot more than just teaching. And it is a burden that I don’t wish upon men that aren’t called to it, let alone women that are not called to it. I hope that helps.

Question:

Answered on 03/16/06:

The other thing Paul was teaching was that a woman should not usurp the authority of a man, and the implication there is nor should a man usurp the authority of another man. A woman can be in a position of responsibility, but the Bible says she should have her head covered, or she should be under a covering, under a spiritual covering. That’s what licenses a woman to be able to preach and teach that she’s under the covering of a man.

There are many examples in the Bible of people that were prophetesses or teachers – Deborah in the Old Testament and Agabus’ daughters in the New Testament. They were prophetesses, which means they preached and proclaimed the Word of God. But Paul was referring in Corinthians to a practice of women interrupting the service and all that. He was setting things in order. He was not saying that women should never be able to preach.

Doctrine» General

Question:

Answered on 04/13/06:

I think we need to understand, what are we free from? We’re free from having to obey the law in order to be saved. We’re free from having to obey the Old Testament laws in order for God to love us. We’re free from having to obey the Old Testament laws in order for us to go to heaven and to be pleasing to God. But we’re not free from obeying the laws that still pertain to us today. Like, for example, the Old Testament says, “Thou shall not commit adultery.” Well, we still need to honor that even thought Jesus became the sacrifice for us.

So how do you make that transition? You realize that it’s through Jesus Christ that you now have the power to do what’s right. You don’t have to do what’s right in order to be saved or in order to be accepted by God, but you need to have the power to do what’s right because it’s right. That’s the difference. That’s where the transition is made. No longer are we on our own trying to obey God in our own power. But now, when we’re saved, when we’re born again, Jesus Christ lives inside of us. We have the power of the Holy Spirit and now we have the ability to live for God. We have the ability to do what’s right and it’s something that enables us and empowers us rather that something that we have to do in order to be accepted by God.

And remember that Jesus fulfilled the law when he came on the cross. He fulfilled the law and He obeyed all of the law on our behalf. There are some things He declared that we don’t have to be obligated to anymore, like not eating certain foods. He declared all foods clean. So there are specific things He said we’re not under obligation to anymore, but then there are other things where we are, like adultery. He’s written the law in our heart. Now it’s a part of us. Now it’s not from the outside in; now it’s from the inside out. Think about that and meditate on that.

Question:

Answered on 04/13/06:

A covenant is an agreement. It’s a contract. So there’s the old contract – and the only reason it’s old is because there is a new one now. It’s not old just because it was around longer; it’s old because it is no longer the means by which we relate to God. We don’t relate to God based on the Old Covenant that God made with Moses any more. We relate to God based on the New Covenant that God made through Jesus Christ and His blood.

So, in answering your question, the New Covenant began when Jesus died on the cross. When His blood was shed, that’s when the New Covenant went into effect.

And what is this New Covenant? It is an agreement between God and man, that God would remember our sins no more, He will never leave us or forsake us, and He will never bring up our past. He will constantly give us a new chance and a new hope in life because of the blood of Jesus Christ. And we can approach God now with the blood of the Lamb of God. The Old Covenant enabled men to approach God based on the blood of a calf or a bull or a goat. But the New Covenant enables us to approach God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, which is a perfect sacrifice whereby we can come into perfect communion with God and into a perfect relationship with God, no longer a veiled relationship, no longer a relationship that’s just once a year or through a High Priest.

But now we can have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and we can come boldly to His throne of grace and obtain mercy and grace in a time of need. Why? Because the Old Covenant was a relationship with God based on the blood of animals but the New Covenant is a relationship with God based on the blood of Jesus Christ. The Old Covenant blood was shed once a year so that the people’s sins could be forgiven. The High Priest would go into the tabernacle and shed the blood of a bull or a goat and that would cover the sins of the people. But that’s all it ever did. It covered the sins of the people. But Jesus’ blood, which is the new Covenant, doesn’t just cover our sins; it removes our sins as if sin had never been and puts us into a right relationship with God where sin is no longer standing in between us and God.

And when Jesus taught in the New Testament, it’s a mixture; it’s a combination of both the New Covenant and the Old Covenant. He taught things that were from the Old Covenant but He said that He was giving them a new law. For example, the Old Covenant said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy or love those that love you but avenge yourself with your enemy,” but the New Covenant says, “Love your enemy. Pray for those that hurt you. Pray for those who use you.” He said that in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Even though He hadn’t died on the cross yet, it is still a part of the New Covenant, to love those that do not love us. And Jesus said, “A new commandment do I give to you, that you would love one another even as I have loved you. And so, it’s a combination.

Now, there are other things that He said, pertaining to marriage and to different laws that Jesus talked about that He was speaking to people that were under the Old Covenant and He was not inaugurating new things unless He actually said, “A new commandment I give you” or “a new covenant I make with you.” So, it’s a combination of old and new. But we know that whatever Jesus did is a part of the New Covenant. When He healed the sick, when He raised the dead, when He cleansed the lepers, when He cast out demons, when He forgave people freely, that is a picture of God’s attitude towards us when Jesus’ blood is shed. Everything that Jesus did in His earthly ministry is something that God wants us to experience in the New Covenant.

Question:

Answered on 03/16/06:

Why blood? Why does blood represent life? Because if you take the blood out of your body, there will be no life. The life of the body is in the blood. The reason we are alive today is because we have blood. If you lose all your blood today, you will lose your life. There will be no life without blood. Blood is the essence of the life that is in the human body.

And so why did God send Jesus? Because Jesus had the blood of God and the blood of man in his body at the same time. 100% God and 100% man. And the life of the body is in the blood. Therefore, blood being shed means life has now been given to pay the price for death. Blood representing life has been shed so that it can overcome and pay the price for the death that represents sin. Sin is represented in death, life is represented in blood, blood overcomes sin even as life overcomes death.

And that is why Jesus had to die on the cross and that is why blood had to be shed. The blood of lambs was shed as a precursor or as a foreshadowing, to give us a picture that the Lamb of God’s blood would eventually be shed, which would be much more powerful than the blood of a physical lamb. We needed the blood of God Himself and man, all at the same time to be shed for us so that it could overtake death and overtake sin.

Question:

Answered on 03/16/06:

Now, a miracle is an instantaneous manifestation or an instantaneous arrival of something that God promised. There may be obedience attached to it or there may be nothing attached to it, it may simply be somebody prayed for you and a miracle took place. A miracle is an instantaneous arrival of God’s power ungenerated, not generated by something that we’ve done whereas a blessing is something that is an overflow or an effect of something that we caused by acting on the Word of God, doing what God’s Word says and then God blesses us because we’re following His Word. Blessings come in all shapes and sizes as do miracles. They’re both great, so welcome them both. Study them both in your Bible and you’ll grow in experience them in your life.

Question:

Answered on 03/16/06:

Now, are godparents biblical was your first question. They certainly are not unbiblical. It’s good to have people that would be responsible to take care of your children if there were something that were to happen to you, if the Lord took you up like He took Elijah up, took Enoch up. Enoch walked with God and then he was no more. What if I was walking with God and then I was no more? I would want to make sure that I had some people in my life that were responsible for my family, responsible for my children and would carry out my will to the “t” so that they would carry it out the way that I would.

So, yes, I think it’s biblical. I wouldn’t necessarily call them “godparents.” Maybe put them in your will as executors of your will, recipients of your will. You’ve got to do that legally because just calling them “godparents” in a church service is not going to give them the legal right to be responsible for your children. Make sure that you consult your lawyer and make sure that you cross all your t’s and dot all your i’s.

Question:

Answered on 03/16/06:

Now, we are not what we’re going to be fully, but we are being conformed into His image day by day, until we eventually will look just like Him (Romans 8:29). We’re going to have to believe the Bible on this because, first of all, this teaching can be misunderstood—it can be perceived as saying, “We’re immortal and we’re immune to anything bad ever happening.”

But whoever God is, that’s who you are. You and I are a little image of Him, a little reflection of Him, and not the full reflection completely. But the day is coming when we shall be just like Him, and we shall see just like Him, and we shall appear just like Him, and we shall know just like Him. 1 John 3:1-2 says, “Behold, what manner of love is this? That the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him even as He is.” What a powerful promise! “That when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Now, that doesn’t mean we’re not like Him now, it just means we’re not fully like Him now. We’re being conformed into His image now. We are like Him in our spirit, but we’re not in our mind and we’re not in our emotions and we’re certainly not in our body. But when He appears, we shall be like Him. He will complete the process of our conformity to His image and He will finish the work that He is now doing in our lives here on this earth.

Doctrine » Heaven & Hell

Question:

Answered on 10/13/06:

Question:

Answered on 07/26/06:

Doctrine » Spirit, Soul & Body

Question:

Answered on 09/20/06:

So, in your heart is a garden. Your heart is soil. God made us out of the dust of the earth. We’re really made of soil. And our heart is a spiritual soil, an emotional soil that when you put good things in your heart, then good things are going to come out.

The Bible says, “A man out of the good treasure of his heart is going to bring forth good things, but a man out of the evil treasure of his heart is going to bring forth evil things.” So, whatever you sow is what you’re going to reap. So, I want to make sure that you understand that your heart is going to respond to whatever you put in it. If you watch garbage on TV all day, then that’s what is going to come out of your heart. Your heart is going to produce the issues or the harvests of whatever it is that you put in to your life.

It’s sort of like if you go out into your backyard, and you might have dedicated your property to the Lord, you might have dedicated your house to the Lord and your backyard to the Lord, but if you go into the backyard and you plant marijuana seeds in your backyard, no matter how dedicated that your backyard is, no matter how holy that your backyard is, no matter how much you’ve prayed over your backyard, your soil, your backyard has no choice but to produce and grow the marijuana seeds that you put in it. Your soil is not going to look back at you and say, “Hey, I’m a Christian soil, I’m a Christian farm, I’m a Christian backyard; you can’t put that junk in me. I’m not going to grow that”. Well, the fact is, if you put marijuana in your backyard soil, you’re going to grow marijuana and you’re going to have a jail ministry one day where you are inside a prison and you are preaching to other prisoners because you’re one of them.

I think that sometimes people just think that somehow they’re not going to get a harvest from the seeds that they sow. If you treat people bad, if you’re mean to people, if you’re unkind to people, you’re going to get a harvest of that in your life. Maybe not from the people that you treat unkindly, but other people will treat you unkindly. At one point or another, you will get a harvest. So that’s what that means when the scripture says to watch over your heart. Protect your heart. Don’t just let anything go into it.

One time, the children came home years ago from the library. A babysitter took them to the library and they came home with a stack of books. I looked at the books and I said, “where did you get these?” And they said, “the library.” And I said, “Who said you could get these kinds of books?” And they weren’t pornography or anything like that, but they weren’t anything that were going to produce good harvests in the soil of their heart. And I said, “Guys, you have to realize that whatever you read and whatever you put into your eyes and your ears and your heart is going to come out of your life in the form of a harvest.” And so, you need to be careful on the front end of what you let in, and then on the back end, you’ll have a great harvest. So, they didn’t read those books. And we took them back and they got other books. And that’s when I began to talk to them about seedtime and harvest and about why we don’t let them watch certain kinds of things on TV and that kind of thing.

Question:

Answered on 09/20/06:

So, that’s what the difference is between the spirit, the soul and the body. Now, the spirit, God gives us a brand new spirit. The day we receive Jesus Christ, our spirit is brand new and it’s going to spend eternity with God in heaven and it’s perfect. Our soul is not changed right away. We change it as we change our thinking and make sure that our thinking is in alignment with God’s Word. And then our body doesn’t change until we get to heaven.

Now, our body can improve while we’re on this earth by taking care of our body. It’s the temple of the Holy Spirit. But God’s going to give us a new body when we get to heaven. The spirit is that part of you that has intimate fellowship with God and your spirit is born again according to John 3:3. It’s made brand-new the moment that you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior. That spirit is perfect. It’s holy. It’s clean and it’s made just like the image of God Himself. Our spirit gets born again. And then our soul gets renewed, gets changed by the Word of God. And we’ll be given a new body when we go to heaven.

Question:

Answered on 09/20/06:

The difference between your spirit and your soul is that your soul contains your mind. Your soul contains your emotions. Your soul contains your memory. And so, God doesn’t give us a new soul. He gives us a new spirit, but He does not give us a new soul. He instructs us to renew our soul, to change the way we think, to have our soul transformed by the Word of God in Romans chapter 12. To have our mind renewed to the Word of God. God cannot give us a new soul because that’s where all of our memory banks are lodged. You would have to learn to use a spoon all over again if He gave you a new soul. You’d have to learn who everybody is around you. You wouldn’t know your wife, your children; you wouldn’t know anybody because you would lose all of your memory banks and you would start all over again. Well, God doesn’t want to put us through that process, so He gives us a brand new spirit and that’s our connection with God.

And then our soul is our mind, our will and our emotions. And those aspects of us need to be changed through a process. Those are not changed instantaneously like our spirit is. But those are changed over a course of renewing our mind to the Word of God. That’s why when you get born again, you feel like, “Man, I’m so forgiven.” You feel a weight has lifted off of you. But then you go back to doing some of the same things you used to do and you wonder, “Did I really get born again?” Yes, your spirit got born again, but your soul has to go through a process of change through the Word of God.

Another analogy I like to use is that your spirit is your vertical window, your up and down window to the things of God and window to spiritual things, your window to heaven. That’s you and God connecting. That’s your spirit. Your soul is your horizontal window. That’s you seeing people and seeing what’s in front of you and how you deal with people on a day to day basis and how you look at things on the outside horizontally. That’s your soul. Those are your emotions. That’s your will, those are your feelings, that’s your mind. And that has to go through a process. So, don’t be discouraged if you’re not perfect yet because none of us are. In our soul, we still need to be changed. And that is a day by day process. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 talks about day by day being renewed in His image. Romans chapter 12 talks about our mind being renewed. Ephesians chapter 5 talks about being cleansed and washed by the washing of water with the Word of God. So, that’s the difference between the spirit and the soul.