Question & Answer Service 2025-Part 3

Sermon Transcript

Pastor Mike: All right, well, this is our time. As you know, once a year you get your questions. So we’re going to get started. We have Nathan over here. We should have someone over here somewhere lurking, hiding. And then Pastor Kellen and someone in the lobby, too. So let’s get it going. Let’s see what happens this service. My favorite service. The 11:00 service.

Question: Pastor Mike, my name is Anna, and I have a question about what will happen to those who reject Christ. We know from Scripture that for us Christians, although we don’t have a full, complete picture of our eternal home and of our perfect resurrected bodies, at least we have a glimpse of what awaits us. But for those who don’t have Christ, first of all, what will happen to their bodies? Will they be transformed? And how? I mean, what do you think of that? And also, what will their eternal life look like? I know, they’ll live in torment and be separated from God. But that’s all we know.

Pastor Mike: Okay. Well, first of all, the Bible speaks clearly about everyone getting a resurrected body starting in Daniel Chapter 12 in the Old Testament, both the righteous and the unrighteous are going to be resurrected. Paul repeats the same thing in the New Testament. Paul says the same things in First Corinthians Chapter 15. So non-Christians and Christians get their body back. That’s how they were created to be. And they will be embodied, enmeshed in their body, in a physical body at the resurrection, and that mortal body that was destined to die because of Genesis 3, and then cut short from about a thousand-year length to a hundred-year length after the flood, now they’re going to get a body that endures. So that’s going to happen for Christians and non-Christians. The question is what happens to those who are lost? Here’s the short answer. What will happen to them is the right thing and the right thing, not according to what they think or what we think, but according to what is right. That is what justice means. That’s what righteousness means. And the only people who aren’t going to get what’s right are Christians. Those are the only people who aren’t going to get what’s right. We get the exception, and the exception is for those who are recipients of grace. As you notice in the Scripture, there’s no time in the Scripture where we see any depiction of people who are lost on the other side of this life who are objecting. And Jesus telling the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man is not objecting to where he’s at. He’s just concerned that his five brothers don’t come to the same place. Righteousness and justice mean the same thing, the right thing. Now, in the imperfect justice of this world, even though someone might be rightly imprisoned, you know, you can go visit the prisons, as I’ve done. I’ve preached in the prisons. It’s filled with a lot of innocent people. Right? But in fact, in perfect justice on the other side when their minds are rightly attuned to what they’re getting, everyone knows they’re in the right place. And all of us, even in the best, most spiritual moments we have, we know the right thing for us is not to be in the presence of God with all of his goodies. It’s to be cast into outer darkness where there’s weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. That’s what we deserve. It’s “amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” So what they’re going to get is precisely what they deserve. And not everyone is going to get the same thing. They’re going to be judged according to their deeds, and that’s going to be based on their knowledge and everyone’s going to be absolutely, exactly where they should be. And the only people who are going to be amazed at being not where they should be are Christians or people who have trusted in God, the Old Testament saints or the millennial saints. So it’ll be just what it should be. That’s what justice means. And so stop thinking about it like, oh, the horror of it! It is going to be right what it should be. Is it going to be bad? Yes, it’s going to be bad because we’re bad people. “Because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Because there’s “none righteous, no, not one.” Because all of us are rebels at heart. Because all of us, like “sheep have gone astray,” and whatever, to the extent that we’ve gone astray, to the extent that we’ve done evil we are going to be paying for that. Unless, of course, our trust is in Christ or in the Old Testament we’ve thrown ourselves on the mercy of God. And then we’re going to get this amazing, mind-blowing exception. You don’t get what you deserve and you’re going to get grace. So we’re always measuring this on the sense that we think we’re getting what we deserve. We get to go to heaven because of course we deserve that. They go to hell. What a horror. Everyone’s going to be objecting. There’s nobody shaking their fist at God in hell. I’ve heard a lot of preachers say, oh, yeah, they are. No they’re not. I don’t think there’s anybody. It’s like when the angels in the book of Revelation pour out their bowls, they say they get what they deserve. And I think everyone in hell knows that. So they’re going to get exactly what is coming to them and they’ll know it. And I mean, that’s my contention. And I think that’s exactly what we’re going to see. Because righteousness means what’s right. Justice means they get what’s just. It is the right thing. So what will it be? I don’t know, unpleasantness based on the exact amount of unpleasantness they should get, and they will be embodied somewhere away from the presence of God and the glory of his power. I can’t give you much more than the biblical data. Any follow-up on that?

Question: Actually, yes. How will their bodies change? What will their transformation look like? We’re going to have perfected, glorified bodies. Their transformation, of course, is going to be entirely different from ours. How do you envision that?

Pastor Mike: I don’t know about that. I don’t know about that. It’s not about their bodies being different than ours. It’s about them being in a different environment than ours. It’s about them being away from the glory of God. The thing that makes our existence great is that we will be in the presence of God and all of his goodies, all of his grace. Right? “In the presence of God there is fullness of joy; at his right hand there are pleasures forevermore.” So I want to be near God because God is the source of all good things. See, they get to be away from the presence of God. I don’t care how good your body is. I don’t care if you’re going to live forever. I don’t care if you don’t have wrinkles. I don’t care if your hair isn’t gray. I don’t care if you don’t have flabby underarms. You’re not in a good place. I don’t care how good your body is. You’re in a bad place and it is not good. And to the extent that you’ve done wrong and how much evil you’ve done, you’re even in a worse place. So I don’t think it’s about their bodies. I know in our day we’re so body conscious that we think it’s all about our bodies, it’s not about our bodies. And I know I just preached on how great our bodies will be. Well, it’s going to be great because we’re going to be in a great environment. But notice how quickly we went into talking about it’ll be great because “the dwelling place of God will be is with men.” That’ll be the greatest part of it. So think about the fact that their lives will be impervious, just like when I say it about us, to death and decay and aging. Same thing. I know all the paintings, you know, that Doré did for, you know, Dante’s Inferno and all that. That’s not what they’re going to look like. Or Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. That’s not what they’re going to look like. I think their bodies will look great. It’s just they’re not going to be with each other. They’re going to be in outer darkness. No one’s going to see them, right? They will be by themselves. And the extent of the difficulty that they’re going to have is going to be based on what they have done, according to their deeds, according to their knowledge. The people who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah are going to have a better time in the afterlife, which is not going to be good, better than they were in the villages that Jesus preached in the first century. It’s all based on what you know, how you respond to the truth and what you did. And that’s where we should be, too. And that’s why we’re going to be so grateful. And we are going to sing with John Newton. Right? How sweet this is. That’s amazing that I’m saved, that a wretch like me. We know we deserve to be somewhere else. And in your best days, if you’re really a Christian, you’ll feel that. That’s what should lead you to worship. You think I can’t believe I’m a Christian? I can’t believe I’m forgiven because you know you don’t deserve to be. That’s Christianity. Unless you’re not a Christian and you think you’re kind of earning your way there. If you believe that, then you’ve got the wrong theology. Does that help at all? Okay.

Question: Hello, Pastor Mike, I have a question on health, beauty or scandal. Which one would you like to answer?

Pastor Mike: Let’s go with beauty.

Question: All right. I would say one of the attacks on evangelical Christianity is the building. Right? Just being kind of not mysterious, tall, marble, all those things. Are we doing anything for our new auditorium to not only make it extremely functional, but make it beautiful?

Pastor Mike: We’re doing our best with what we have. I don’t know what percentage of your income you’re giving to the church. (audience laughing) I’ll wait for an answer. But to the extent that people would give is the extent to which we could glorify and make the aesthetics of our church even better. Literally, I can’t take out all four poles because we don’t give enough. I could take out two of the four poles. Okay? So still, we’re going to have two poles in the back. I wanted to shift the auditorium. We had it all drawn up, right? We didn’t get to the working, you know, as-built drawings, because I didn’t want to waste money on that because we don’t have enough money. Now, if we were the medieval church I could come up with a false doctrine of purgatory and force you because of your pity for your grandmother and I could say, get your grandmother out of purgatory if you just give me more of your money. But we’re Christians, and we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to manipulate you. So the bottom line is it’s all based on that, right? If you go look at, you know, the great symphony halls of the beautiful, you know, what we have up in Los Angeles, right? You want to go to even Orange County? The Segerstrom Center. It’s beautiful. Right? I can’t afford to build something like that. So we’re doing what we can with what we have. I hope you like the lobby. That was on a budget, right? But we did what we could to design that as beautifully as we could. I’m all about the fact that the aesthetics do reflect something of our theology. There’s a book written by an architect about church aesthetics called “Ugly as Sin.” And I get what he was writing. I have the book in my library. I have several books by architects that talk about the problem of church architecture. And I’m all about that, but I’m not about the throwback. In other words, I have books in my library, too, about musicians lamenting, you know, the loss of classical music because of, you know, the height of all things, whether it’s architects or music came in sync with theology driving that to the extreme. But look at what happened, right? We could push the Beethovens and Bachs with money and all the architects, you know, Christopher Wren with the money. We don’t have the money, right? We don’t have that. So what can we do? I can’t even buy these buildings, right? All I can do is rent some and buy a couple because we don’t give. Americans who are wealthy give the least amount of money by and large. Now, there are some of you here who give generously and that’s great. But by and large, the more money you make, the less you give percentage-wise. And that makes for a group of people who expect more because they make a lot of money. They live in nice five-bedroom houses in Nellie Gail but they come to church and they have less because they give more for remodeling their bathroom and their kitchen than they do to their church. And that means that the aesthetics here… we are worrying more about function than form because we don’t have the money. Now, if literally you could give me $500 million we’ll make it pretty, but we don’t have that. And because of that we are limited. And that means we have to deal first with function and then we deal with form. And yet we do the best we can with what we have. I wish that we could get to a place, and I’m trying here, and I think everyone who works at Compass Bible Church would say there is one thing about the culture of Compass. We want to do things right. We want to do it with excellence. We do the best we can. Even this you saw every week we tried to tweak, tweak, tweak because we have a good team and we all have a high standard of excellence. We try, but we’re still dealing with pop-ups in the parking lot, right? Because of what we have. We had a meeting this morning thinking about camp where a bunch, we had 400+ people going out to Havasu and we’re thinking about how can we make the quality better with the money we have. Right? And we’re already… it costs about $1,100 per student to go to camp. Okay. But we’re only charging parents $699 per student. And if they have a second kid, $599 because we want every kid to go to camp. Well, we have to take that hit out of the budget for every kid. It really comes down to giving. And since we’re not going to manipulate people with bad theology, I’m not a prosperity preacher, I’m not a medieval Roman cleric, I’m an evangelical preacher who does not twist your arm to give. I’m just telling you that you should give. Everyone should give something. To the extent that there is, as Paul said, an excelling in the grace of giving, I think then everything can get a whole lot better in terms of aesthetics. So I’m all about that. But I don’t want to go backwards and say the aesthetics need to look like the cathedrals of the medieval days, or our music needs to be like the high, you know, classical period. Or our art needs to be, you know, like the Renaissance paintings. I’m all about art reflecting culture. But it really is going to come down to a P&L and a budget, which, frankly, is based on how well we give. And I’m proud of our church for how we give because we’re better than average, but average is pretty pathetic in America. Go to some places in the world, they’re giving a lot more. I’ve been in places where they have hardly anything, they’re living in huts, but when they come to their church and they meet under a palm tree somewhere, they give a good portion of what they have. And so it’s the best place. It’s got the biggest shelter and, you know, great, whatever. I’m not complaining. You brought it up. (audience laughing) But I’m just saying aesthetics are going to follow after form. I’m glad I chose beauty if I had three choices there. All right.

Question: Hi. Good morning, pastor Mike. We have a question about the last series we did on Second Corinthians about sanctification versus justification. And we wondered about the process of sanctification after someone becomes a Christian, however far they’ve gone in life when they become a Christian. Are the deeds or the sins that they’ve had in the past going to be cleared away at justification, or are they going to be something that you’re still going to have to account for at the time of judgment?

Pastor Mike: I think what you’re asking is the Bema Seat judgment only judging post-conversion life. I believe yes, only because I think that makes the most textual and theological sense because of the way even it’s put. And I gave you clear transparency about my understanding that the textual interpretation of First Corinthians Chapter 3 is clearly, at least in its first pass, about people who are coming to Corinth and leading. But I think the principle does apply to any individual. But how hard do I apply the fact that it starts with the foundation being laid in Christ? If I do take that paradigm, because you clearly can’t have a teacher for the church unless the church is there, so the foundation is Christ, and anyone that comes in and teaches that church after Paul has been the missionary and started the church, well then of course it has to start there. But if that means the Bema Seat for me as an individual is that’s got to start with the Christian life, I think yes. Because I think the rest of it makes sense that way. And I would tie, when I’ve had to write on this, not for publication but just in my education, I said yes because of Second Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 17. I do think that all things are new in Christ. And I think from the time of our genuine conversion, I think that’s the time our Christian life is now judged and we will be evaluated and give an account of ourselves to God. Not for what I did when I was 16, if I wasn’t a Christian, but what I did as a Christian. And of course, God is going to take into account my toddlerhood as a Christian, right? He’s absolutely an understanding judge. But, yeah, my answer is yes. Even though I think if someone were here and didn’t have that view, they would say, well, you can’t say foundation Christ because the context as I tried to show you is really about the people teaching the Corinthian church. And if the church can’t be a church without salvation, it’s not talking about individuals. Well, I get that, but I think even everything Paul says, even in First Corinthians about, “Such were some of you,” you were this, “but you were washed.” You started over. Titus Chapter 3, First Corinthians Chapter 6, Second Corinthians Chapter 5. I think all those passages remind me that I think your evaluation as a Christian is going to begin at your… Your evaluation at the Bemis Seat is going to begin at your Christian life. Yes, that’s my view.

Question: Hi, Pastor Mike, this is Jersey.

Pastor Mike: Hi, Jersey. I like your hat.

Question: Oh. Thank you. I just got it yesterday.

Pastor Mike: Where did you buy it?

Question: Nordstrom’s.

Pastor Mike: Nordstrom’s. Of course. Yes. I love it.

Question: I was sent this video that says “23 Minutes in Hell” by Bill Wiese. Could you clarify that for me?

Pastor Mike: I wish I could give you your 23 minutes back. Yeah. No, I don’t want you watching those Jersey. I know it’s entertaining and it’s very provocative, but these stories of… even if they seem on the surface to be trying to give you some motivation about evangelism or whatever. All the near-death experiences or the testimonials about going into the afterlife and coming back to talk about it, I’m not buying it. Most of them, the fruit of it is clear that it does not comport with orthodox interpretations of Scripture. And yeah, I’m not a fan. Even though some of them get close to saying what they say is, oh, it aligns with Scripture. It’s over and over again. I mean, it’s as late as the most recent social media video about some kid who saw Jesus, right? All the way back to the bestselling books about someone’s experience of going to hell or going to heaven. Yeah, I would say to you as your pastor Jersey, go watch another sermon from Pastor Bobby or Pastor Elliott. Yeah.

Question: Why does the Bible say that Jesus prays for us, but it also says he has the same power as God?

Pastor Mike: Okay. Can you quote both of those places that you’re referring to in your mind?

Question: I’d have to look it up.

Pastor Mike: Okay. You could be thinking of Romans Chapter 8 when it talks about the fact that he intercedes for us, or John Chapter 17, which talks about how he physically during his earthly ministry prayed for those who would believe in him because of the disciples? You could be thinking of that. And then when you’re thinking about the same power, you’re talking about the fact that he is God, right? The “fullness of deity dwells in bodily” form. Colossians. Okay. I’m just trying to make sure that we’re talking about the same things. Okay. Then here’s what I’m going to say. God is a triune God. They are all co-equal in power. Right? They all share the same attributes, his divinity, but they all serve in different roles. The role of the Son is to represent us as our great high priest before the Father. The high priestly role was to take me as a sinner and represent me before the Father. It’s one of the reasons Jesus told me to pray in his name. I’m supposed to pray in the authority of the intermediary, the priesthood, my great high priest, who’s standing before the Father and he’s praying, he’s interceding. That’s the word. He’s a mediatorial officer before the Father. That’s a picture and I get it. But the point is, I have no right to stand before my maker. Jesus becomes one of us, lives in my place, dies in my place, and now says, you can talk to your creator through me. I will grant you my authority for you to talk to the Father. So he is co-equal with God in all of his authority. But then he says, I will intercede for you. So interceding is the concept of basically praying. He represents me to the Father. So if I want to ask God for anything, I’m asking in Jesus’ name. And in that sense, it’s praying. Well, during his earthly ministry he literally prayed. In John Chapter 17 he said he’s praying. In Romans Chapter 8, he says he intercedes or more specifically, he then repeats the Spirit “intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Does that help or is there more to that? There’s a question behind the question I sense. So what’s the question behind the question?

Question: I think from the perspective that he already has the power, why doesn’t he just accomplish it if it’s in God’s will versus asking God.

Pastor Mike: Okay, let’s say, are you married by any chance?

Question: No.

Pastor Mike: Okay. Let’s say you were and you had this amazing husband and your child came to you and said can we go to Orlando? And all your bank accounts are shared. Your husband knows that you are an equal partner in this, but your husband, of course, has a role of being the head of household. And your son says, can we go this summer to Orlando, to Disney World? You say, I’m going to talk to your father about that. And he says, what do you mean? You’re not an equal person? You don’t have equal authority in this household? It wouldn’t make any sense to say that. You’re recognizing a role in the relationship. Of course you’re talking to a kid. Of course, mom and dad, we have all the money. We have all the authority. We’re equal in terms of our worth and value here. But, you know, I’m respecting my husband’s leadership here. I’m not going to make this decision here without talking to my husband. So you know what? I’m going to go talk to your dad about this. That’s the idea. There’s no demeaning of his value or his significance or his worth in saying, I am going to go to the Father and talk to the Father about your request. Could Jesus just grant it? Of course, but he doesn’t. And here’s what he said in his earthly ministry. I don’t do anything without my Father. All that I see my Father doing, I do. That’s the whole point of the words “Son” and “Father.” It’s a picture of role. Not a picture of worth. Right? Because in John Chapter 5, here’s what he says. If you don’t honor the Son the same way you honor the Father, you don’t honor the Father. So clearly if you’re a Jew you’re thinking why do doubt we only worship God, right? We don’t worship anybody but God. He’s saying I’m God. But here’s the deal, right? I’m the Son. And so there’s something about our roles here when it comes to you relating to him, you better honor me because if you don’t honor me, you’re not honoring him. Now, you’re going to come to him through me, right? I’m the way. I’m the truth. I’m the life. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s the concept of the mediatorial work of Christ. First John Chapter 2 verse 1. Right? There’s no mediator between God and man except our advocate, Jesus Christ. He’s the way to get to God. Not that he’s any less in terms of his co-equal authority. Does that make sense?

Question: That helps. Can you recommend a good book on the Trinity?

Pastor Mike: Here’s where you should go. Well, yeah, you can go in our bookstore. We have several. How about Millard Erickson? Let’s start with that. “Making Sense of the Trinity: Three Crucial Questions.” That’s the subtitle. Millard Erickson “Making Sense of the Trinity.” Start with that one. When you read that this week, come back next week and I’ll give you another one because this one’s easy to read. I mean, the Trinity is hard, but it’s a shorter book. But start with that one and tell me what you think of that next Sunday. Okay.

Question: Good morning. My question is from First John 5:16, where John is saying that when a brother is committing a sin that does not lead to death, we should pray for that. And then in 16b he says, there is a sin that leads to death, he says that one should not pray for that. So I was curious to know why he would say, well, what would the sin be leading to death that we should not pray for? And why would we not pray for a brother in Christ? And then I guess I would have a second question to that which would be that when one who is in Christ, I understand that we all sin daily, whether it’s our thoughts, motives, actions, and we’re to repent of that daily, when one who is in Christ is sinning are we then separated from Christ until we repent? So is that relationship constantly being broken, restored? Broken? Restored? Thank you.

Pastor Mike: Number one, we’re not the Apostle John. This is late in John’s ministry. He’s identifying the spirit of Antichrist in First John. He’s talking about people who are false prophets at the beginning of First John Chapter 4. Whatever he’s talking about in terms of sin leading to death, he’s talking about people who “went out from us, but they’re not of us.” If they would have been of us, they would have remained with us. And he talks about being able to discern the difference between these antichrists, these people who are going to turn on us. I know some, I can think of some right now. They were with us, got fully educated, knew everything about Christianity, but turned their back on it. Like Peter says they are like “pigs … returning to wallow in the mire”. Right? They’re like dogs that are licking up their own vomit. They know everything about Christianity and they turn. Now, here’s John the Apostle saying, you know, there were a lot of people stumbling in the Christian life. I preached the sermon, you might want to listen to this one, go to pastormike.com. I called it “Apostasy and Stumbling Saints” or something like that. Stumbling saints and apostasy or apostates and stumbling saints. What we need to do is distinguish between those two, which clearly John is doing in this passage. He knows there’s some kind of sin that clearly is in that category. We have to read the whole letter, and I think we get the sense of what we’re talking about. Clear apostates. Apostates who have said, I know this, I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’ve read it, I understood it, I may have even taught it. It’s a Judas kind of thing. Now I’m teaching against it. Okay? I don’t think I’m obligated to pray for that. But even that, I’m not John, but John is able to say those guys are them and he’s identifying it. I think we can identify it. I don’t mean to say I have… it’s impossible for me, but that’s the case. Okay, back to your second question. Are you married? You don’t stop being married when you have an argument with your husband, right? Or you’d have a lot of weddings. Well, I don’t know. Maybe you have a great marriage and you have no arguments. It’s the same way, right? You became a child of God when you put your trust in Christ and your relationship with him is secure. He gave you the Spirit as a guarantee, repeated in Second Corinthians Chapter 1, Ephesians. All of it is you have is a down payment Christ. So when you sin, what does that do? I don’t know, sin against your husband today and find out. It makes things kind of rough. But you don’t get divorced. You don’t move out, right? It makes things kind of rough. In First John Chapter 1, he talks about walking in fellowship with him. “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,” and with him. He’s trying to even say, sometimes when you’re at odds with your church, you ought to think about being at odds with your church because you’re probably at odds with God. Not always, but usually. And that should be an indicative statement about the fact that you had better try to figure out where you’re at. And that, I’m saying, is what you need to do is to confess your sins. And that’s where First John Chapter 1 verse 8 comes in. “Confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” It’s all about restoring fellowship. Fellowship is not relationship. Fellowship is what you have with your husband when you guys make up and you say we’re on the same page now. I think that was the essence of your second question, was it not? Did I answer both of them well enough for 5 minutes or 3 minutes or whatever it was?

Question: Yes. Very helpful

Pastor Mike: Okay. Where are we at next? Right here. In the back.

Question: Hi, pastor Mike. My question has to do with the Millennial Kingdom and it’s more like, you know, we know of many verses and many sermons regarding heaven. But as far as the Millennial Kingdom, what are like the key things that we should know to impact our life, our evangelism, our devotion, that type of thing when it comes to the Millennial Kingdom? And maybe some key points, such as, you know, from Isaiah 11:6 and on, where there are animals in the Millennial Kingdom, but in heaven, my understanding is there are no animals. And, you know, kind of questions like that.

Question: There’s no mention of animals in the last two chapters, but we have a lot of chapters about the Millennial Kingdom. We don’t have a lot of chapters about the eternal state. So, I do not doubt that there will be animals in the eternal state. I think that was part of the glory of God in the created world. So I think we’re going to have animals. The Millennial Kingdom. There’s a lot of doubt about the Millennial Kingdom. To learn about the Millennial Kingdom you’re in the right place. I mean, I would start with all of the major prophets, Isaiah Chapters 40 to 66. Jeremiah Chapter 31. Right? At least through the end of the book. I’ll go to the end of the book. Ezekiel Chapter 33. I mean, lean into Chapter 40 and all the discussions about the temple function. Some of that’s confusing, but all of that is speaking of the Millennial Kingdom. All of those promises either are spiritually understood, which many of the a-millennialist friends of ours believe, they’re spiritually somehow figured out and applicable now, or they’re yet to come, and I believe they’re yet to come. Where we fit into that is just our understanding that Christ is going to fulfill his promises to Israel, which I believe that makes me a pre-millennialist. And I’m thinking, okay, I’m going to rule and reign with Christ, I believe, as I glean from the seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation Chapters 2 and 3, and I’m looking forward to being in that position of having some kind of authority as a person in a glorified body, in a world where we have a lot of people who have inherited this kingdom with non-glorified bodies, that according to the book of Isaiah, are going to be living probably the same amount of time they lived in the pre-flood era, because if they die at 100, Isaiah says they’re going to mourn them like they were children. So we’re probably going to have a world where God does something above us that is going to protect this world and create again another greenhouse where people are going to be living to be 900+ years. It’s a thousand years. It makes sense. In the early days before the flood, people were living for close to a thousand years. I think that’s what we’re going to have. So I guess I need more of a question in the first part of what you’re saying. Wherever do we learn about it? We learn about it from all the Old Testament prophets, the promises within the Old Testament prophets. Remember this about the Old Testament prophets, a lot of it is about the “here and now.” And they’re speaking either to the northern tribes, there are only two, to the southern tribes, eight, or to the foreign countries, three, or during the exile, two, or after the exile, three. Those are all the prophets I just named. And when you know what you’re reading, and you can go get the Bible survey for kids and get that chart, right? Don’t be ashamed. Just say you’re getting it for your kids. And you wil] be able to know, okay, by the names of those prophets, you’ll know where you’re reading. And when you’re reading those, particularly the eight that look forward before the fall, as they’re saying you’re going to go away into exile, all the promises about restoration, they usually come later in the book, are looking into something perfect. Sometimes it’s looking into the Ezra-Nehemiah days, but oftentimes it starts to get like into some specific, amazing things. Now Ezekiel does it in a major way. Daniel has a lot of crazy things, but Ezekiel talks a lot about what’s going on in the Millennial Kingdom. So, and Jeremiah as well, Jeremiah is right at the end in the 580s BC. I’m not sure I caught your question, but I talked a lot. So what was your question?

Question: Yeah. You know, just when we went through Isaiah recently in the Daily Bible Reading, just how can it impact me devotionally or in my evangelism?

Pastor Mike: Okay. Here’s how it should affect us. Paul says, number one, don’t be prideful. Here you are a Gentile. We’re Gentiles. And what we’re told in Romans Chapter 11 is don’t be prideful. We got grafted in. We’re the unnaturals grafted into this thing. And don’t be haughty. Don’t be proud. Right? And so God has graciously taken us into the promised salvation that was promised to Abraham. That’s one. Two is to remember that while the Jews now largely are hostile to the gospel and therefore enemies because of the gospel, they’re beloved for the sake of the patriarchs, and therefore God’s calling and promises are irrevocable. We ought to see God’s faithfulness even to the elder brother, if you will, who is being disobedient. And think about it as a younger brother watching an older brother being disobedient to the parents. And yet the parents are still going to fulfill a good promise to the older brother. It’s amazingly humbling and it’s amazing that God is so faithful and gracious and kind. Get back now to Luke Chapter 15, in Luke Chapter 15 Jesus is going after the older brother in this case, who’s watching the younger brother go squander the family inheritance and then the father is so gracious to bring him back. That’s exactly the feeling of the Millennial Kingdom. We’re going to say, hey, here we were faithful to you during this age, and now you’re bringing in the Millennial Kingdom, and you’re letting them live forever in their natural bodies for a thousand years, almost. And Christ is ruling and reigning in person. We had to sit here and pray into the sky. You weren’t even here physically. And look at all these amazing things. David is here ruling and reigning in the temple, it’s amazing. Look what you’re doing. And what do we learn, right? We learn we better not be the older brother griping and complaining. What does he tell the older brother to do? Join the celebration. So I have to be ready to celebrate that God is faithful to his promises. I mean, that’d be one thing. So I would spend time in Romans Chapter 11 and just see what God says to Israel. As a matter of fact, I preached a sermon a long time ago called “Looking to the Future as a Humble Gentile.” And that was the whole point, how do we view God’s promises to Israel, and how do we look at it and learn something? So I preached a sermon a long time ago just for you to answer this question. Okay?

Question: Hi, Pastor Mike, thank you so much for this Q&A. My question is how do we reconcile as Christians man’s free will and God’s sovereignty, specifically in the areas of sanctification and salvation?

Pastor Mike: Well I did that Tuesday morning. I just thought of the question and I answered it in a little short little pamphlet I wrote. No. I’m kidding. This is the biggest problem in theology that people have been wrestling with for centuries, right? And here’s the problem. It doesn’t add up in our mind any more than God is one, but exists eternally in three persons, right? This is hard. Or this: that God has always existed outside of space and time forever. Do you know anything that has existed outside of space and time forever? You know nothing. Certainly don’t know anything personal. So to understand that God has said you are a free agent making free decisions, and yet your freedom now is so damaged by the Fall that unless I awaken you to me by my Spirit, that you’re dead in your transgressions and sins. How do I reconcile these things? This is really hard. What we have to do is take the data that we have, and the data that we have is that we are, as Christians, supposed to call people to a decision of repentance and faith. And yet if they do that, the Bible says you couldn’t have done that without God’s grace. And in one sense, you should be able to figure that out, at least on a smaller scale. Because if I said, did you decide to come to church today? What would you say? Yes, you did. Okay. But if I said, did you do that independent of God? If you started to think about that long enough, even if you were an absolute Armenian and you thought everything I do is about me. I could sit here and say but you really couldn’t have if God had not kept your heart beating. If God had not oxygenated your blood with those lungs. How many times have your lungs inflated this morning? I mean, you cannot stay alive. I could quote Acts Chapter 17 and say, “In God we live and move and have our being.” He gives you life and breath and everything. So if God had not given you life and breath, you would not have made it here today. So is it God’s decision that you’re here, or is it your decision? And you’d have to say, well, it’s both, right? Okay. Even in that, you’d have to say, I understand something of the confluence of this that I couldn’t be here if God had not willed this to be and yet I made a decision to do it. I’m not saying it’s that simple, but I am saying we know something of these two things, you know, converging. And a little book I would recommend because he’s a lot smarter than me and has said this well, and it’s stood the test of time is J.I. Packer, I’m sure it’s in our bookstore here, called “Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.” And this is where people get mad in this debate. They would say, well, if you believe in God’s sovereignty, that that’s weighted against man’s free will, well, then you don’t believe in evangelism. Well, Packer answers the question beautifully. Of course we do. Right? Just like we pray, we pray because God says to pray. And “the effective prayer … of a righteous man accomplishes much.” And hey, guess what? We’re going to get to it real soon in Second Corinthians Chapter 5. Hey, we, “knowing the fear of God, we persuade others.” We believe in evangelism, but we also believe in the fact that God is a God who is drawing people to himself. “No one can come to Christ unless the Father … draws him.” I mean, these two principles are laid side by side. Is there an easy way to state it? No. Other than the fact that God is sovereign and you must decide. And if you decide, you couldn’t have decided without Christ. And in that sense, can we get confused on a higher level? Sure we can. And I don’t want us to think it’s simple because it’s not simple. Just like the Trinity is not simple, just like eternality is not simple, right? There are a lot of things that are not simple. I mean, a lot of things that have nothing to do with theology aren’t simple. Go take a 101-philosophy class at the university. Right? You thought you figured everything out in high school, and then you realize, well, a lot of questions I never even pondered. The same thing in theology. There’s a lot about God that it’s hard to ponder, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not right in saying people are free enough in their agency, let’s put it that way, that they’re culpable for all of their decisions. Right? And yet, God is a sovereign God, and there’s nobody choosing to be good unless God is sovereign over those decisions. So I’m not denying any biblical principle and I would say that. If you present a biblical verse to me, guess what I’m going to say? Yeah. And that’s all we want. We want to be consistent and faithful to the biblical data. Packer would do well on this. And then on the next one, once you have read that one, which is small, if you want more, you want to go deeper, get Schreiner’s and Ware’s book called “Still Sovereign.” It’ll help. A lot of authors contributed to that book. It’s in our bookstore. And I hope it will help you. And we can go on to Don Carson’s book. “Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility.” There are a lot of books that just deal with the problem, but all it’s going to do is get you to respect that both of these are true, and I’m going to say it. And I try to simplify it with something really simple. You decided to come here. God decided for you to come here. You couldn’t have come here without God’s decision for you to come here. And it’s not that simple. But that’s at least something where you have to admit both. All right, that’s oversimplification, but…

Question: Hi, Pastor Mike. Jimmy Ettinger here. First off, thank you very much for doing the Q&A. And thank you for the book you gave to me. I want to say it was a week ago, but it was probably a week ago last year, I finally finished it. I’m a slow reader. Personally, I prefer a little more pictures. You didn’t have any pictures in the book, but… My question is on heaven and it is about how it says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not” in Mark 13:31. When the New Jerusalem comes down to earth and the heaven and earth will pass away. Is that the old heaven and earth will pass away that it’s referring to? Or after the New Jerusalem comes, are we going to go somewhere else when heaven and earth pass away?

Pastor Mike: Okay. The newness of the Millennial Kingdom will feel really new because Satan is going to be removed according to Revelation Chapter 20. And as I’ve even said, I believe there’s going to be something happening to this world that will remanufacture at least enough of it for people to live a long time. I have to say people can live a long time, whether that’s organic to the people or whether that’s something that to the world itself, I don’t know. But then there’s a rebellion at the end, so it’s not perfect yet, and people are still living in bodies that can die. At the end of those thousand years there’s the Great White Throne Judgment, where there’s assignment for people based on what they’ve done, what they knew, there will be a judgment. After that I think that’s where Second Peter Chapter 3 comes in, where there are, “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells,” and those will now be established. And that’s depicted in the first three verses of Revelation Chapter 21, where this new home for us is coming down out of heaven like “a bride adorned for her husband.” Now it’s described as the New Jerusalem, which of course is huge as it’s described later in the chapter. But this is the dwelling place of God, which is the whole point of the chapter “the dwelling place of God is with men.” And “Behold, I am making all things new.” No crying, no mourning, no pain. It goes on to talk about all the great things. And that’s officially when we get the new heaven and the new earth. I’ve got to be careful with the phrasing, because how new does the Millennial Kingdom feel? It feels new. So much so that Isaiah talks about it as if it is new, right? It’s new, but it’s not the permanent newness. Right? There’s something about the newness for Israel that takes place in the Millennial Kingdom, at least that is my eschatology. But in the end, there’s the completeness, because sin is completely eradicated and no one’s in it who is not glorified. So that happens in my eschatology, after the Church has taken up, the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, the battle of Armageddon, the Kingdom, the eternal state. And at that point, according to Second Peter Chapter 3, everything is burned up. Everything’s gone away. Everything’s trashed. Everything’s brought new. And just this week, I had someone ask me why would heaven be…? I think it was my daughter who called me of all things. I said well you come to church and ask me and she’s in another state so she couldn’t do it. But she says why a new heaven? Why a new heaven, right? I don’t know, I said, number one, heaven is not a living room. It’s not a space. There’s nothing material there. So stop thinking like it’s a place and Satan’s footprints or his grimy fingerprints are on it. Whatever it is, it’s a place where God dwells. He’s not physical, he’s spiritual. But whatever that is, God’s somehow making this dimension something new, whatever that means. I don’t know. I’m encased in physical. And I know the physical world is described for two chapters. But whatever that was, I do know that Satan is constantly there accusing us before him, so whatever that means, right? So I can’t describe the dimension that God lives in, whatever that dimension is it’s his dimension. He’s going to make that new. I can’t even speak to that. I can’t even imagine that. But here I can imagine, and I have a description of it. So there’s something brand new about earth, and there’s something new about the dimension that God lives in. That’s all I know. And that begins after the Millennial Kingdom. Is that your question? Okay, great.

Question: Hi there. Earlier you responded to a question and you said that if you’re at odds with your church, then you’re probably at odds with God.

Pastor Mike: I did not say probably. Go ahead. You may be, I said you may be.

Question: Well, can you explain more of what you mean by that?

Question: Well, the passage I was quoting was First John Chapter 1, which is “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” The point is as it goes on to say, and “if we confess our sin,” verse 9, “he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If you have a Bible-believing church that is teaching the Bible and you find yourself constantly at odds with that because it adds that phrase, you’ll “have fellowship with one another.” Start in verse one of First John Chapter 1. Are you familiar with that chapter that I’m quoting? First John Chapter 1? Then you know how it starts then, right? The whole section is talking about the fact that if we are Christians, we’re going to have fellowship with one another. We’re going to walk in step with one another. Right? And our fellowship, as John says, we have fellowship with one another because our fellowship is with him. That’s the unifying factor. If we can’t have fellowship with one another, something’s probably wrong with one of us with our fellowship with God. And the assumption of John is clearly he’s at fellowship with God. So if you are not in fellowship with God, you’re not going to have good fellowship with him. If the church that you go to is a Bible-teaching church and you’re having trouble having fellowship with your church, it may be a good indicator that you have some kind of fellowship problem with God. Not always the case. You could be going to a Mormon church. I hope you don’t have fellowship with that church. Do you see what I’m saying? You’re not digging this, so put the mic back. What is your problem with this? There’s some issue…

Question: Well, because there’s no perfect church, but even you’re a Bible-believing church…

Pastor Mike: But are you a perfect Christian? I mean, you’re not a perfect Christian, right?

Question: No, but this isn’t coming back to just me. It’s coming back to as a church. So even think about Paul and Barnabas when they split because they had some differences, but they were still following Christ.

Pastor Mike: But it doesn’t negate the passage. Right? “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” That passage means something, right? I’m quoting Scripture. So if you walk in the light as he is in the light, which I know is steeped in analogy. If you’re walking tightly with Christ, then we should have fellowship with one another if I’m walking tightly with Christ. You’re not… Yeah. Talk to me.

Question: Well, I mean, to me that sounds like there’s no conflict or questions ever in between that. It sounds like everything should just be hunky-dory and perfect in between. So that’s what I’m…

Pastor Mike: Let’s get to the question under the question because there’s an issue here. Let’s find out what it is.

Question: It sounds to me that if what I heard was that if you’re at odds with your church, then…

Pastor Mike: No, no, no, I want to get under that even.

I’m getting to it!

Pastor Mike: Okay. Please go ahead then. I’ll wait.

Question: Then, I mean, there are still conflicts even within the church and disagreements. So maybe we’re just having a misunderstanding of what “odds” mean to me and what “odds” means to you.

Pastor Mike: Turn to First Corinthians Chapter 1 verse 10. Just read that for me real quick with the mic. Let’s hear that. This is what God expects from the church. First Corinthians Chapter 1 verse 10. Read it for me, please.

Question: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree,” with one another in what you say, “and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.”

Question: Okay. That’s what God expects from us. Hunky-dory, I guess, is a phrase we could use for that. There should be hunky-dory, if you want to call it that. That sounds syrupy sweet, but that’s what God wants from us. He says, by the authority of Christ, that’s what we should have. So you and I should be working at that, and so should everybody here.

Question: Yes, we’re working on that, but we’re not always at that. So you may have, you know…

Question: Okay. I’m just saying that’s what we should be working on. Would you agree with that? Do you want that with your church?

Question: Yes I do.

Question: Okay, I do too. So let’s get it. Can we get it? Can we agree to work at it?

Question: Yes, we can agree to work at it and know that there’s still imperfection and humility that comes along with that.

Question: Okay, we read the first part of verse 10 again. Just read the first part of it again to me.

Question: I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to…

Pastor Mike: Stop right there. “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name,” by the authority, “of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Let’s just let that sink in that you and I not bristle at what comes next, and that is that we and the last part says, “be perfectly united in mind and thought.” That should be your goal. That should be my goal. I just don’t want to bristle at that. I want to aim for that. That’s what I want, and I want you to want that. I want us all to want that. So if we’re having problems, I think there’s some problem somewhere with God, because that’s what the Bible says on the authority of Christ. And Paul says, I appeal to you by the authority of Christ. But that’s why I’m saying there’s an issue under the issue, there’s a question under the question, and we can maybe deal with it afterwards. But maybe there’s something that’s a pothole you hit with your church. I don’t know if this is your church, but maybe we can deal with that because there’s something just wrong with your church, and you have an issue with your church, I mean, let’s talk it through, because I’d like to get that in your rearview mirror and look through the windshield and say, I want it to be, as you put it, hunky-dory. I really do. And it’s not hunky-dory with you right now, I’m assuming. Right?

Question: Every church has conflicts. I don’t know it sounds like … you’re expecting a perfect church.

Pastor Mike: Did you have conflict? Do you have conflicts with your church right now?

Question: I don’t have a home church. We just moved here.

Pastor Mike: Okay. My hope for you. I appeal to you by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, that whatever church you go to, it may not be this one because the pastor here is kind of snarky, but I appeal to you by the authority of Christ, who is the “fullness of deity that dwells in bodily” form. He has “all authority in heaven and earth.” I appeal in his name that the next church you go to, whether it’s this one or wherever it is, “that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.” Don’t expect for there to be problems. Expect for there to be unity. And if you do that, I think you’d be thinking as a Christian, not like a skeptic and not like, well, human — always problems. I’m just reading the Bible to you. First John Chapter 1, First Corinthians Chapter 1 verse 10. And you can shrug your shoulders and say that’s not how it works. But I do think that’s how it can work. And I’ve been a part of church my whole adult life and I think it can work that way. And if you’re new and this may not be the church, but if it is a church for you, I’ll bet there’ll be people here who would love to show you that you can have a church where you can perfectly agree. We just have to agree with God’s Word. And if we can agree with God’s Word, it can be hunky-dory. It really can. We have to fight the flesh. We have to fight the world. We have to fight self-promotion, self-aggrandizement. We have to fight pressing the table with our opinion. But we can be hunky-dory. We can. I know we can. It’s possible. Yeah, I think so. So we invite you to give it a shot. And those two verses in First John Chapter 1 and First Corinthians Chapter 1 might be a good place. Just make those your memory verses and say that’s my prayer. Call God on those two verses. God, that’s what I want. I want to walk in the light as you’re in the light and have fellowship with one another. I want, based on your name, on the authority of your name, I want to agree with one another and be perfectly united in mind and thought. And I don’t care what happened at my last church. I don’t care how bad it was. I want this next church, wherever it is, to be good. That’s what I want. And all you need to find is a church that’s willing to commit to the Bible. Because if we disagree with the book, then we’re going to have problems. But we need to humbly find ourselves at the feet of what God has revealed in his book. That’s what it’s all about.

Question: Morning, Pastor Mike. I appreciate you being our lead pastor here. We do have other great pastors, other great preachers who are solid in the Word of God, who also share your core principles, our core principles. But there are some differences on less, I don’t want to say less important things, but they’re not the same core values. We all share the same core values. We’re all Christian. We all have the same gospel, but there are little differences. My concern is at what point do we need to be worried about being led astray because of those differences? We obviously want to dig into the Bible. We want to be good Bereans. But at the same time at what point do we want to go ah… that sounds a little different. I need to dig a little deeper, even though they are really strong, well-respected Christians.

Pastor Mike: Yeah, and here’s the thing. And that’s why I think First Corinthians Chapter 1 verse 10 is definitely speaking to a local church. There are people I know and are good friends with. I probably have 15 friends that I text with every week at other churches. I don’t agree with a lot of the issues that would result in me and them not working at the same church, maybe not even attending the same church. But we’re all Christians. We all love Christ. But we may disagree about modes of baptism, defining what, you know, the Lord’s Supper, you know, the ins and outs of that, eschatology. So what we have to do in a church is to figure out where we’re going to draw the line to lead and be fellow teachers in the church. And we’ve drawn those lines, and sometimes they affect things like eschatology because we have to learn what our interpretive hermeneutics is going to be in reading the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. And that’s why, okay, we have to go separate directions sometimes, and we should do that peacefully because we don’t have a problem. Like I had someone in the early service, you know, articulating in layman’s terms a-millennialism. And this is great. That’s fine. And that’s one way to view it. And then we went on to the second issue that we had to talk about. But I don’t have a problem saying you’re a brother in Christ. But it may not be that we’re going to work together. And that’s only because as we teach in the same church, I don’t want our people not having within that particular church a unity of interpretation of Scripture. I don’t want us to read Isaiah Chapter 40 and have two different opinions on it among our pastors. So our pastors in our church, we have a higher standard of what we’re going to agree on. In the congregation, okay, you’re going to have a lot of different views on a lot of things. We’re going to agree on the gospel I hope, at some point we’re going to draw a line where, you know, this isn’t the church for you. You know, if you think Jesus is the brother of Lucifer, right? Okay. We’re different churches. But, you know, if we agree on the essentials and we have to define what those are. But there are some things that…, a lay person may say I don’t think it really matters what your eschatology is. And I think as a pastor, because you know how these lines connect, it’s going to end up in a small group or a Sunday school class, and it will matter at some point. And so let’s respectfully go in different directions. And that’s okay. And it should be okay. And I don’t think anybody should be snarky or angry about that or pejorative about that. But those are lines. I mean, I could go through a lot of those even translation philosophies. What do you agree about translations? Even some people on schooling choices back in the day, it’s, you know, less and less now. But those were issues that divided. There are a lot of issues that became issues enough for me to say I couldn’t hire someone with that view because we’re teachers in the church, and the teachers need to be teaching similar approaches to Scripture. But not as congregants. It’s okay if we disagree on this. There may be a question under the question there. So is it?

Question: Just a concern of being led astray. I mean, I think that for as long as you have a good understanding of the gospel, as long as you have a good understanding of the teachings of Christ, there’s a certain anchor there. But at what point do I want to be worried about this is leading me astray from God’s will?

Pastor Mike: Use a different word than leading astray. Because here’s the thing. The church has tried to use different words to describe different levels of gravity to leading astray. In other words, words like heresy and you’re not using that word. But at some point Christians have said, no, this is heresy. Now leading astray that’s a safer way to put it. But you may mean that, I don’t know. Like you and I, I’m sure, probably wouldn’t agree on every last point of theology, but I don’t know you well enough to know, but at some point we would say, well, there are certain departures from the same doctrinal statement. We’d say, well, this is okay. This is concerning. This is heresy. So when you say, I’m concerned that if our pastors don’t all agree on this, this and this, if I follow this guy and not that guy, he’s leading me astray. What does that mean? Like, what do you mean by that?

Question: Oh, at the core of it, it’s spiritual warfare. I guess demons trying to mislead you or deceive you. There’s a whole spiritual world we’re doing battle with. And I think that I’m concerned that if we don’t give enough concern about that, if we don’t really critically look at that, there are ways that we could be slightly adjusted, slightly pushed off course. And then over the course of it all, you’re now way off with your theology because you’re allowing certain things to, like I say, lead you astray. You’re allowing this, you’re allowing this, you’re allowing this. But at the core of it, I think it’s really if you’re accepting of Jesus Christ and if you know the gospel, I think that’s what anchors you there.

Pastor Mike: That’s totally legit. I mean, I get what you’re saying because this is a category we call practical theology. And there are several veins within practical theology on how you view the demonic and how that intersects with sanctification. I mean, and you can go from Peretti or Brubeck to Dickerson to, you know, Grudem or whatever. You could have the gamut of leaders in that and think, okay, or Clint Arnold, you could throw in there. Now he’s a big leader in that. And you can say, okay, well, where do you stand in all that? And I can have a pastor say, well, I’m here or I’m here, I’m here. And I could see how that could in the counseling room make a difference. So that is a good example. But I would have to say, I would want to know how different that view is. And I would be open to a congregant saying, well, I’m hearing this from this pastor, I’m hearing that from that pastor. And that would be… I mean, we meet every week for two hours as a group. So we would, I mean, I’m happy to put that on an agenda and say where are we on this issue? Because that probably doesn’t make every interview before we hire a pastor. You know, everyone goes through our extended doctrinal statements, but yeah, I mean, you’re in a category… that makes sense. That’s a good question. And if there is something deeper under that, that there’s something specific in that category, shoot it to me. And I’m happy to look into that. If you’re talking about something here among our pastors, I’m happy to receive that. Okay.

Question: One follow-up. So what he was referring to is not necessarily the unity within the pastoral staff at Compass Bible Church, but with other pastors who are like-minded with the gospel but might have different theological beliefs. Like Piper or any of…

Pastor Mike: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s a modern problem. No, no, no, not super helpful because I was thinking, oh, what was Pastor Lucas telling you? (audience laughing) Yeah. Okay. All right. That’s a modern problem. And you know why that’s a modern problem? And it’s not as modern, it’s not like super novel. Because Paul could say to the Corinthians, I’m of Paul, I’m of Apollos, I’m of Cephas. And I get that. You can have traveling people because there’s a lot of that… But today, it’s so easy for you to imbibe on the theology of 20 different, you know, really smart pastors out there. And it’s easier now than ever before. And because of that, then I do think, okay, well, you should be more focused on your local church because that is how God designed it. That’s why First Corinthians 1:10 was really designed for the local church. Right? And I think not that you can’t, I mean, you should be broadly read and all that, and I have no problem with that and I don’t care. Listen to guys, do it. But what really matters is are you aligned with your church at least enough to say this is a good place for me? I’m being fed, my kids are being fed, whatever. This is where I align. I just wonder how far I would take the theology of some, you know, guy I’m listening to on the radio when it comes to applying some issue of sanctification related to spiritual warfare. I don’t know. And I guess we have bookstores full of guys’ writing. Yeah, I’d want more conversation. I’d love to talk to you in person about that. I would, because I’m sure there are specifics to that. Just like I didn’t hear. I can’t get to the detail, but I’d like to because I’d like to know what exactly we’re talking about and then maybe I could be more helpful. But it is something. You’re right. You’re hitting on something that, yes, depending on your view on this and I’ve talked, I’ve given a bunch of names of people who write on these topics, and it can be all over the map, and it can get you on a road that gets you really off course. Yeah. Thomas Ice wrote a book on “Overrun by Demons,” which I think is helpful in trying to sort out, like maybe we’ve gone too far in some of these popular approaches. He may have gone too far in the other direction, but that may be in our bookstore. I don’t know. But we can talk later. Thanks.

Question: Hey, pastor. All right. I was reading Acts Chapter 5 and Ananias. And the question is regarding the Holy Spirit. It’s the only place I ever found in the New Testament where somebody actually fell asleep. And Peter called out to Ananias and said, you know, why did Satan get into you? So my question regards the Holy Spirit. I mean, I don’t know, you know, we probably don’t have the whole story why would he let him die at that point and not give him the opportunity for salvation? Because, I mean the whole New Testament, you know, all the first books, you know, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it’s all about Jesus’ testimony, everything going on. And I get to this part in Acts and I’m like, stumped. I’m like, why did the Holy Spirit do this?

Pastor Mike: It’s a lot like what we have at the beginning of the Levitical priesthood in Leviticus, when Aaron’s sons get struck down at the altar, I think this was a cautionary tale to everyone who would come after. And I think Ananias gets struck down and Sapphira, his wife, as a cautionary tale thereafter. Because if the New Covenant promise of Jeremiah Chapter 31 is true, and of course it is, that the Spirit of God was supposed to move you from the inside to keep his precepts, and here we have prominent people coming forward and lying in front of the congregation about how much they’re giving, God said I’m going to make an example of these two. And he has them killed. Does every lie require death? The answer, biblically, is yes, but because you’ve lied and lived, that’s God’s grace. Just like when the strange fire was kindled on the altar they deserved to die. But there was a lot of sin going on in the Levitical priesthood and God didn’t kill them because he’s gracious. And my point is, at the very beginning of the Levitical priesthood, at the very beginning of the Church, he kills people in both those scenes and I think they’re parallel to show us he has a high value of doing this right. You better do it right in the church, just like we’re supposed to do it right in the Old Testament. You’re going to worship in the tabernacle, you better do it right. If you’re going to worship in the church, you better do it right. And of course, it’s about honesty and doing it right. You don’t give to get kudos. You don’t give to get a front row seat in church, which clearly no one in this church wants. (audience laughing because of the direct sunlight in the parking lot). But you know what I mean. You don’t do it for adulation and self-promotion. And I think he made that point. And notice what happens in Acts Chapter 5 after that, the fear of God spread throughout the whole Church. That’s precisely what God wanted. And so it was in Leviticus. They said, I guess we’re going to do this according to the prescription that Moses gave. And so, Aaron sat up straight after that. All right.

Pastor Mike: Let me pray for you, and then we’ll let you go. God, thanks so much for our great facilities team, setting up our pop-ups in the parking lot, and just working so hard to give us a place to meet while we’re remodeling on the inside. Please continue to provide for our church. God, thank you so much for Revival coming up this week. May the hundreds of students who are out there in the desert just be transformed by the proclamation of your Word. Thanks for just all of our teams, everyone who’s a part of Compass. May we fellowship now and have some time with one another and just give us a good lunch and a good afternoon. And God, thanks so much for our church and just for having fellow brothers and sisters in Christ walking this narrow road with us. And I just pray you’d bless us as we continue to be good Bereans and study your Word and get to know it better and better so we can get to know you better and better.

Pastor Mike: In Jesus’ name. Amen.