← BibleThinker
BibleThinker
We can't let them continue to get away with it: 10 Qs with Mike Winger (Ep 45)
01:20:30
Today's Time Stamps: 1. 0:15 {Should We Expose Pastors?} Can you provide an overview of why it is biblical and right to expose abusive and harmful pastors and those who are in positions of Christian leadership?2. 33:41 {Fallen Angels – Past or Future?} I’ve heard someone say that Satan hasn’t taken a third of the heavenly angels yet, but will do it in the future (Revelation 12:3-4, 7-9). Is that a possibility?3. 38:35 {David’s Story: Exempting Accountability?} How should we respond to people who use the story of David and other flawed biblical figures, whom God still used, to justify their own sinful behavior, especially when in positions of power?4. 45:48 {Are Body Piercings Sinful?} What does the Bible say about piercings? If a woman who serves in the worship ministry gets a belly piercing, should she no longer be allowed to serve in that ministry?5. 50:31 {Indwelling of the Spirit: How it Differs} What about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit makes us unique compared to Old Coven...
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
All right, this is a dangerous topic. I hope I can do it justice in a brief. Well, nobody other than me is going to think this is brief. But in an overview of the question, should we expose pastors? So that's the first question right now. Now for background. Right. I served in ministry for. I still serve in ministry, but I have served in ministry since I was like 19 and was a pastor, ordained as a pastor in 2006. Already doing a lot of ministry at the time, but just received the ordination, continued to serve in ministry as a pastor for many years. And I've had false accusations and I've had character assassinations, and I've had things like that. Not like it happened all the time, but occasionally something would happen and that hurt. And it was, I think, wrong. What happened. That's an ongoing problem for pastors and leaders. But there's another ongoing problem that also exists, which is wolves amongst the sheep, or pastors who are just being evil. Like they're doing things that are wrong and that are wrong in a way that should be publicly called out. So it could be their public teachings, their public behaviors, or the abuse of their positions, or just them persisting in disqualifying sins. Those kinds of things are actually to be dealt with publicly. Pastors have a greater vulnerability to being exposed by virtue of their ministry. I think that's a biblical principle. That's just not just my opinion. And the people that are supposed to expose them are other leaders, to be honest. The problem is that leaders are constantly aware of our own vulnerability and even lies people tell about us. I'll give you an example, and I'm going to try to go to scriptures to talk about these issues. I've had somebody I was in counseling with, I gave counseling to who did not like the counsel I gave. And this sometimes happens where you have a good. What you think is a good counseling meeting with them. And afterwards they're thinking about it and thinking about it, and there's something in it that offends them, and then they get upset. And that person went and lied to people about me related to this private counseling session. He said something that was sort of like half true. And it really hurt my relationship with some other people. And I felt like my hands were tied because it was like pastoral counseling. I can't say what he told me. If they knew what he had said to me, then they wouldn't be upset with me right now. And so I never said anything about it. I just for a long time lost respect in the eyes of some People that I really cared about, they still don't know. And that happens to pastors. And so what happens is we tend to think there's an accusation against another leader. This feels like what's happened to me. And so you can protect your own can kind of be the response. Or you get these other things. Those who've come forward with accusations against, say, Mike Bickle or Sean Bowles or Todd Bentley or other people who I'll be covering in the future, unfortunately, they have been met sometimes with accusations like, you'll ruin the ministry and hurt people, so you shouldn't say anything, or Matthew 18, you have to go to him privately. You cannot publicly bring anybody else involved. You have to individually go to that person. And that is used sometimes even when people have experienced serious inappropriate abuses of kinds you can imagine. I'm trying to keep it as PG as I can for today's stream. And others are told the word forgiveness is used inappropriately where they're pressured. You have to forgive. You have to forgive, which means have no accountability for the wicked behaviors of somebody that was in leadership. And that can be a distortion of forgiveness. Because God requires actual repentance. He doesn't just forgive and have no accountability. If you don't turn in humble repentance, there is great accountability. And even if you do repent because of a violation of your office, there may need to be accountability still. Or I'm told this is what we get from Bethel's group. They say, well, you're not in relationship with us, so you wouldn't be able to call us out because you're not in relationship with us. So we'll talk about that stuff today. Let me first, first point you to the text of scripture where Paul actually does call people out. Because I want to think biblically about everything. That's the nature of this ministry. The purpose of it is to let scripture shape our thinking on these issues. Scripture has so often been used to silence people who have been hurt in wrong ways that we should probably talk about this. Yep, you're supposed to respect your leaders. You're supposed to have honor your elders. You shouldn't be gossiping about them. You shouldn't be nitpicking every little thing you don't like about them. Well, I like this teacher a little better. That one, this and that. Nitpicky personal issues that you're just turning into like a big problem. But those who are sinning should be exposed. Here's an example. 2 Timothy 2:17 says the following. Paul speaking here and says their Talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are, and he names names, Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They're upsetting the faith of some. Paul sees people who their public teaching is in error. They're hurting people. And so he calls them out quite publicly. This is something I do. If your teaching is public, you can be addressed publicly. This includes me, too. You want to call out something you think is wrong in my teaching, that's not wrong. I mean, either you're factually wrong about the thing, or I'm wrong about the thing. But there's nothing wrong about, in principle, calling out a public teaching that is in error because it brings harm to people. Jesus did this with the scribes, with the Pharisees, with the Sadducees. They're leaders, and he calls them out publicly. It's not like Jesus did Matthew 18 with the Pharisees. He didn't do it because it's not about some personal sin. It's about them failing in their office in a way that hurts individuals. That's a big deal. What about Judas? You know, we know that Judas stole money from the treasury. Why do we know this? If it's wrong to call out leaders, why is Judas, his shame publicly displayed? Not only his betrayal of Jesus, which we happen to know about, by the way. They didn't just say Judas had a great ministry and he had a poor ending. No, it's actually called out publicly, which is what we hear from people about, like Bob Jones or Paul Kane and things like this. You hear statements of them like, oh, great ministry, bad footnote. That's not true. A lot of the time with Judas, though, it was, oh, this betrayal of Jesus pulled the covers off of issues that had been ongoing for some time, and it showed us his nature and we're going to publicly share it. Why? So people, some guy who's taking advantage of his church financially, he'll realize this is how Judas got himself into his hole. Do I want to get into that same path? He'll take warning, and hopefully, God willing, he'll repent. So Jeremiah did it in the Old Testament. We have consistent examples throughout Scripture of calling out for false teachers, false leaders, predators amongst the people. Let me give you an example in Scripture here that I think is relevant as well. First Timothy 5. We'll read more than one verse here. It's important to do so. It says, do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. This is often used to muzzle a witness. Let's say a woman comes forward. I'd experienced a particularly bad type of abuse from a man who is in your ministry, who is a pastor or something, or an elder, you know, same thing. And some people respond by going, well, is there a second witness? And she could say, no, we were alone together. There was nobody else there. And they could simply throw aside her statements because there's only one witness, not two or three. Five years later, another witness comes forward and this is when it gets even worse. They share some similar story and they go, well, do you have another witness? And they go, nope, I set that aside. And so I. I isolate each individual witness. So there can never be two or three. But that's also a distortion of what's meant by witnesses. Do you know in the Old Testament where this comes from, this idea of multiple witnesses? There's two issues here. One is that it's case law. That's the best term for it, I think, is here's examples of the kinds of things you'll use as principles for making good judgments. It's not, I need two witnesses every single time. It's case lots. Make sure that the accusation is true. That's what it's saying. If I paraphrased, I'd say, don't just accept any charge against a leader. Make sure it's true. That would be another way to paraphrase verse 19. Also, the other issue is, in the Old Testament, witnesses can be things like rocks. Remember, they pile up rocks, and the rocks are a witness of a deal that somebody made of an event that happened. These rocks bear witness to that event. Am I saying that one was going to be like, this rock was there, it saw what happened? That's not what I'm saying. Let me give you an example of two or three witnesses. A woman says that she was hurt by a man in ministry. Then you talk to her husband, and he says, yeah, when she came home from that counseling session where she says it happened, she wouldn't talk all night, all day. She went into depression. She had to go get counseling. She would never tell me what was wrong until a year later she finally told me. And then that's what caused this to happen. And then all of these signs of her despondency and her depression and her trauma are also a witness. Or perhaps a woman goes and has a test kit done in a hospital to confirm an event happened in her body physically. And they go, yep, this is signs that are consistent with such an event. That is an extra witness. Other witnesses can be anything that bears witness or brings evidence to support a claim that was made. A text message, a witness says this happened to me. And then they show you a text message and that seems to confirm that's another witness. So this is sometimes abused witnesses here just means make sure it's true. That's all it means, make sure it's true. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, it says, so that the rest may stand in fear. Now this clearly calls for public rebuke for those who persist in sin. This is obviously a serious charge against an elder. Not he was rude to me that one time, not oh, you know your interpretation of the text of scripture. It wasn't like heresy, but I think it was incorrect. It's not that, but it's someone who's got a significant sin issue that's compromising the nature of their calling. There's lists of those things. You can see it in one Timothy it talks about the qualifications for eldership. So is it violating these things? But this idea, rebuke in the presence of all is for who? For those who persist in sin. Another I think distortion that sometimes happens is people act like persistent sin means even after being proven guilty, he continues to do the same thing again. So that if a pastor was embezzling funds from his ministry, he's called out, he's been doing it for say three years. And they go, we've busted you. And he goes, alright, I'll never do it again. And they go, well, we can't say anything publicly because he's not persisting in the sin. Well, three years is persisting in sin. That is persisting in sin. If you take it to mean that there's other probably more likely interpretations which just refers to the person is in fact guilty effectively of the thing that he's being accused of anyways, however you take it, either way you interpret it there, it doesn't mean I violated my role as elder. I abused the people under me. I was a predator to them instead of a protector, instead of a shepherd, I was a wolf. It doesn't than work to say, but I'll stop right now, today because you guys found out. Therefore you can't rebuke me publicly. So you're going to hide my sin? You're just going to. Maybe I'll sit down for two weeks and then I'll have years later when it comes out, you'll say I received restoration. Restoration from what? Because you never publicly dealt with my Issues that would be a violation of the text of Scripture. But then there's more. First Timothy, chapter 5, verse 21. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels, I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging. Do nothing from partiality. And this is in some ways the sin of. If you guys are not aware the stuff that's gone on with Mike Bickle, the stuff that's going on with those who have been in the sphere of Bethel, it's publicly getting called out and needs to be publicly called out for the sake of the body of Christ and for the reformation of the church in these areas. I'm going to be doing this in the future. This will make more sense in like, I don't know, a couple months or something when I finally am able to. I'm interviewing witnesses, I'm gathering a lot of data. I'm going to be calling people out in a, hopefully a godly way, shining a light, not gossiping. That's, that's my agenda. But this idea of not, not doing things from partiality, this is what happens sometimes. You have this big especially. This is, can especially be true in charismatic circles. You've got this leader who is very seen not only as an effective teacher, a godly man, but is seen as like an anointed man, a man who, or woman who is like this is, they're an apostle, they're a prophet. God has given them such incredible gifts. And when somebody comes out and says, well, they falsely prophesied to me and it hurt me and I can show, I can prove it. And then they think I'll just pull them aside, hey man, don't do that anymore. And he goes, okay, I'll try to be more careful. And then that's it. Like there's nothing else done. There's no examination for other witnesses. There's no attempt to see how often this has happened or who else has been hurt. There isn't even really follow up interviews with potential individuals who can call this stuff out. And so then the person is just put back into ministry. If the grassroots movement of social media, that social media allows us, causes people to be able to call it out publicly to get, to let the cat out of the bag, to give a voice to the victims, then the churches tend to just distance themselves from that individual, but not to call them out. This is what Bethel has done multiple times with guys like Bob Hartley, a predator, sexual predator, false prophet in their midst. Distance themselves but not publicly call them out when they should. They Seem to wait until social media is so loud from individuals pushing it forward that they then do the minimal amount of distancing that they have to. They did the same thing, I think, with Sean Bowles and I have evidence, I've spoken with witnesses and I'll share this stuff in the future. So partiality is this exact thing. Partiality is, hey, this anointed guy, he's my friend. He's important to the momentum of our ministry and our prophetic movement. If there is such a thing. I doubt that there is such a thing in reality, not in the way that they're talking about. I trust that God does give people prophetic words, but not that style of movement. I don't trust it and shouldn't. I think we've learned not to. But this idea of partiality is, hey, you know, this particular leader is super important. He's more important than the people around him. He's more important ultimately to us than the people that were wounded. And so without even realizing it, though they think they have high standards. They're coddling someone who is a predator in their midst. They think they're doing it for the sake of ministry. They think they're doing it for the sake of the glory of God and for the momentum of some movement of the Spirit. But in reality they're creating a situation that enables predators and supports them. And they talk victims out of sharing and coming forward through pseudo spiritual policies like forgiveness. Matthew 18. You'll hurt ministry and hurt people because of sharing this stuff as if it's the victim's fault for telling the truth about abuses that happen. All these things are incorrect and unbiblical. But then there's verse 22 I want to highlight. This is Paul's warning about being careful who you lift up into spiritual leadership in a church. Don't be hasty in laying on of hands that's putting people into positions of leadership. Nor take part in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. When I as a leader help support some other person, especially in a context of ministry, right. I am in effect laying hands on them and lending. If people trust me, they will now, because of me, they'll trust him. And if that man hurts people, I have in some sense potentially taken part in his sins. This is the reckoning that we have to have with the people who are currently being exposed. Who has been supporting them, who has potentially been taking part in their sins. Matthew 18. What about Matthew 18? Shouldn't you go to them individually? Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that so? Yeah. Those of you who are catching on, this isn't just a normal question. This is a question that is in the midst of a large project I'm doing to expose various predators and systems in the charism, in particular the charismatic movement that are helping to create and coddle predators, people who are bad. It's a very heavy issue and this is kind of some groundwork for it that I'll be getting into in more detail later. I know it sounds like I'm being vague because I want to gather all the evidence and share it properly. So Matthew 18:15 says the following. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. This is the rule, right? First step one, just confront the guy individually, he sinned against you. You tell him, if he listens to you, you've gained your brother. Then you have step two. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you. That every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. All right, so you're going to confront him with people and then this is actually potentially not just about restoration, it's about establishing the truth of the offense. That's actually what the second meeting is about. Stage two is helping to demonstrate to others as well that there's actual real harm that has happened. And then verse 17, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a gentile and tax collector. Excommunication, you just kick him out. Obviously this is a significant enough sin to warrant excommunication. It's not like that one time you gossip about me behind my back. You wouldn't elevate it to this level. But some people take Matthew 18 too woodenly, which would imply that any and every sin, if you take it too woodenly, every sin, you have to go alone, just you and him. Even if you're a 15 year old girl who is taken advantage of by some leader pretending that God prophesied to you, prophesied to him about you, and you're this 15 year old girl and he does something inappropriate with you, and then you later come out of that deception and you go, I want to expose this, this was wrong. He did this as a leader in the church and someone says, well, did you go and tell him between you and him alone? No, she shouldn't actually do that. That's unwise, that's foolish. She shouldn't go to him alone ever about anything. This just needs to be Publicly dealt with. Let's just skip right over here to telling other people and establishing evidence with witnesses. That's just where you have to go straight to that. Because it's that kind of offense. If I broke into your house and then shot your dog and then someone says, well, did you go to talk to Mike about it between the two of you alone? No, no, call the police. This is a level of offense. And by the way, witnesses, yes, call the police. Breaking the law, you can call the law. That's an appropriate thing to do as a Christian people using Matthew 18 to keep you from calling the cops. That's incorrect. Now there's times where you may have certain things done against you that were not legal but that you choose to overlook out of an intention of grace or I don't want it to get that big. I'm trying to self sacrificially protect others. Where you lose the moral high ground of doing that is when by not telling anybody and by not holding accountable, you're just enabling that person to further victimize more people. That's when it's like, no, no, you actually should say something. And depending on the degree of victimization, there's always nuance and care. We should have here you have a pastor who's always a little too confrontive. It's not the same as a pastor who's like an absolute overbearing bully and who manipulates people and lies to them. And there's just, there's differences. So God give us wisdom. I'm not trying to create a problem. The problems are already there. We're just trying to navigate them. So you tell it to the church, then this means that it's no longer between the two of you, you're telling it to the church. Now I would say if you have to apply this in a broader, slightly different sense, local ministry pastor does something that is very bad, very big issue. And the person tries to within the church confront and the church doesn't listen for some reason. Maybe the pastor has too much control. Maybe the pastor has already done character assassination on that person. Sometimes the leaders will learn your sins and your issues so that they can hold it against you and blackmail you. And if somebody does come out and say something, they go, well, you know this about her. She did this thing in the past and she did that thing in the past and this other thing and then it destroys your character. So then you're not believed. If that kind of thing happens and you have a true and just cause, it's appropriate to say, well, I'm telling it to the church, I'm going to tell it to the wider church. I think that that can be appropriate. It can be appropriate to move outside of your local church where you cannot resolve the issue because they're becoming people who are enablers and you move to a wider, larger scenario depending on the degree of the sinful issue that's going on. Life is complicated, but that would seem consistent with the general idea of can't resolve it, open up to a larger audience. So going bigger is the idea. Now, in the Same chapter, Matthew 18, there's a few things I just want to highlight because I think that are a couple. At least one thing I'll highlight here in chapter 18, verse 6. Look at Jesus's attitude. I'll read 5 and 6. Towards the weak, the non leader, the small person in the body of Christ. He says, whoever receives such a child in my name receives me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. I want you to just consider for a second Jesus, intense concern for the little ones, for the lesser ones, for the weak ones, not just the leaders in the body of Christ, based upon the words of Jesus. Whoever you are right now, you're watching me and you're thinking. And I have people say this sometimes. They'll go, well, I'm a nobody, Mike. I'm nobody. I'm just a guy. And I always get a little when I hear people say something like that because they see that I have a larger following now online, that my ministry has grown a lot, and they think that makes me bigger, that my larger ability to influence or larger ability to reach makes me actually bigger. And they're smaller. And that is not how Jesus sees things. We're all on the same playing field. And I have a larger reach or ministry than maybe a lot of individuals by the grace of God, and hopefully I can be faithful with it or else reality. But we're all equal. Like no member of the church is less important than others. Ephesians talks about this. When we treat the anointed leader as more valuable than the people, the individuals he's leading. We create situations where predators can thrive in our ministries. And that is something that Matthew 18 is sometimes used to do. And here we have Matthew 18 showing you Jesus heart. To the little ones, the least of these, that's a big deal. I think that's a really big deal. There's more that can be said. Let me run through a few of these things. Okay? Actually, I already covered those ones. Okay, I'll move forward. Questions you might have to ask. Should I expose the sin that I'm thinking of as Mike's talking about these things? It depends. Was it a persistent pattern of sin or was it like a one time event? Now you can't just trust the man to tell you it was a one time event because people who are persistently in sin will only ever admit to what they've been caught for. They'll always hide everything. And when you reveal more, they'll only admit to that and then they'll hide the next piece. So this is a question that you may not know the answer to. But the issue is, is the man an ongoing danger to others that gives you a greater reason to expose him more publicly? Is it revealing the sinful issue that I'm seeing that this leader did? Is it revealing, Is it a character problem that makes him actually disqualified? Now, you can't filter this through you being angry. You may well be angry, and that's understandable. And I speak with victims and sometimes they're still very angry, which I totally understand. But that anger can lead you to distort things and anger tends to inflate the guilt of others and it tends to shrink my own guilt. And you want to be careful that you're having a clear perspective on the things. Obviously this is important to consider. But if the sin is revealing a character problem, then that character problem may be disqualifying in a significant way. In which case you're going, yeah, there's the one thing you did. But that reveals a pattern that will affect other things you do as well. Sometimes you don't really know what to do with this stuff. I remember hearing a teacher, I was, I don't know, I was like 19 and I heard a teacher and he told this amazing story about a missionary and about. It's like about papers and doves and origami. And it was just this whole amazing story about this missionary who was like something bad was going to happen. And then his captives who were in some Asian country, they were going to make something bad was going to happen to him. And they were like, unless you can do some kind of origami thing. Now that I'm not 19, it sounds really made up, but. But he had to fold the papers and do something. And he told the whole gospel story with this origami folding the papers, making two cuts. And then something along those lines. I'M getting the details a little mixed up, I'm sure, but you get the idea. And then as this pastor was telling the story, he took the paper and he made the cuts. And then he showed how it would be the gospel. And I thought it was the most amazing story, but I had this little tickle. He told it as if it was true, but I had this tickle in the back of my head. I mean, that sounds like a story that's not true, not like a real story. That's true. So I went up to him afterwards and I said, pastor, so? And so did that really happen? Because he had presented as if it had really happened. And he said to me, does it matter? That's one of those red flags where you go, I don't know what to do with that. And it's fair. I don't know what to do with that. That is probably a character issue that could enter into his life in a bunch of other ways. That he's willing to deceive people when he thinks that he has a good motive. That's probably a character issue, but it's such a small example that you're not sure what to do with it. What would have been good for me to do at that age and I didn't think of, was to go to one or two of the other leaders and say, here's a concern I have and give it to them and ask them to consider it. That's an example of a characteristic. I wouldn't go put him on blast in front of the whole world for that. But I'm supposing that there may have been other reasons to do so. I just don't know the reasons. So it's a challenging thing to navigate that kind of stuff. Other character issues are much more clearly delineated by specific behaviors where, like, what on earth did he just do? This was so wrong. Every pastor gets up to teach and he's drunk when he gets up to teach. This is showing a deep seated character problem that goes a lot bigger. No question about it. Another question to ask is the thing that the pastor did, was it an abuse of his actual position? So Mike Bickle, for instance, he gave people false prophecies, oh, God told me this about you to a woman to get her to be romantically interested in him. And God told me, my wife's going to die and that you're going to replace her. And he did this to women, underage women as well, multiple women. That is not only is already disqualifying in every sense of the word, but you have to then go, but this guy had a lot of prophecies. This guy had a lot of words from God that he shared over the years. In fact, he kind of built his whole ministry on the idea of these prophecies. This is a core issue that shows that there is rot at the foundation of this man's ministry in a very significant way. If you're willing to use prophecy to manipulate people, that's all I need to know about you. That is an abuse of your position as a supposed prophet. Other pastors, they can do this. When they simply say they don't tell people, hey, do you want to help serve in this thing? They go, God is calling you to do this. And they become the voice of God for people. God's calling you to do this. And it just so happens that it serves my interests. The thing that God's calling you to do just so happens that it serves my personal interests. And I always noted this years ago, when I was younger, people would ask me to be in ministry with their ministry and they'd be like, I really think the Lord is calling you to be part of my ministry. And then someone else would say, I think God's calling you to be part of my ministry. And obviously God wasn't calling me to be both of those. But I never had anybody say, mike, you're in my ministry, but I think God is calling you to do this other thing over there that will actually make my ministry more difficult. That doesn't typically happen. If you just have self serving revelations from God at all times, that's a red flag. Could even be an abuse of your position and it could develop into something where you're actually grooming or bullying or spiritually abusing other people. And that may be something worth talking about. Another thing to do is to ask, is the guy just a wolf? Right. Mike Bickle was just a wolf. I don't think there's any way around that now. It's hard to reconcile that fact with everything else you might know about him. If you guys even know who that is. Part of IHOP kc, this International House of Prayer, not pancakes. He was a wolf. If somebody is a wolf, though, I think they have to be dealt with openly and loudly. That this Matthew 18 stuff and trying to gently bring correction. The point at which you realize they're a wolf. Wolf means you are a predator who's trying to pretend that they are a sheep and you are bringing great harm and you're there to hurt other people. So you need to be Dealt with harshly and openly. There's no Matthew 18 process here, okay? It's not the same thing. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, Ephesians 5:11 says, but instead expose them. This is a great balance. Don't take part in those things. Instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. Find this balance. Like, how do I not? How do I expose it without speaking about it? This is the understandable dilemma of Ephesians 5, 11, 13. How do I expose unfruitful works of darkness without speaking about them? I don't think it means any speaking at all. I think this shameful speaking is referring to gossip. A real danger as leaders get exposed is the desire to talk about it. Because it's tasty morsels. It's ultimately just gossip. So the question we should ask is, whenever I speak about the sin of Ravi Zacharias, the sin of Mike Bickle, the sin of Sean Bowles, who is still currently being exposed, the sin of Bob Hartley, the sin of. You name it, there's a number of others. Bob Jones, Paul Kane, Chris Reed, all people in the same IHOB Bethel circle. Am I speaking about it in order to enjoy consuming these gossipy, tasty morsels, as Proverbs calls them, or am I speaking about it to shine a preventative light on it, to expose it? That takes wisdom to work out. But this is a question you have to ask, and it was on social media. I'd encourage you to be thoughtful about this. I would not say don't talk about this. That is not what I would say. I say do not speak about this in a gossipy, tasty morsel way. If you need to talk about it, and in many cases we do, you need to speak about it as one who's trying to shine light and help people to overcome these things. So it's just trying to find that balance, trying to find that care of being those who expose. So, yeah, should pastors be exposed? Yeah, if they're sinning in. And that sin is like a disqualifying offense, is an abuse of their office is something that maybe even reveals that they are a wolf, then they should be exposed and it should be told to the congregation. If you have a pastor who has an affair with someone in your church and they just disappear one day and the church never knows that was not biblical. If you have a leader who hurts somebody and does so especially in association with their pastoral Ministry, and nobody ever knows that actually was not following what scripture said. The elders who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all. That's the one who has been shown to. Yep, they really did do that thing. And you might say it was not just a one bad day move. It was a revelation of the person's actual character and we want the rest to fear. I hope there's other scriptures I could share on this stuff, but I hope that that's some of them and I'll move on. As always. I talk longer than I wanted to on this, but you guys don't usually care that much anyways. All right, we'll go to your guys. Questions right now. Let me just pull that up just a second. I didn't have it read. That's not how you spell it. All right. All right, question number two. This question is going to come in from an anonymous person. All right. Hi, Mike. I've heard someone saying that Satan hasn't taken a third of the heavenly angels yet, but will do in the future. Is that a possibility? Yeah. So let's just read the passage. Okay. Revelation, obviously there's huge pivot points in the book of Revelation, like if you are post mill or amil these different perspectives of eschatology. There are Christians who are post millennial. They think ultimately we're bringing about the millennium. Right now there's the amillennial who aren't really looking for exact historic correspondence the way that certainly the premill, which I am pre millennial, I think Jesus will come and have a thousand approximately some great long period of time of rain on earth. And we call that the millennium. We're premil because we think we're before that event that hasn't happened yet. And so depending on which of those perspectives you take, you're going to interpret Revelation differently. I'm not saying everybody's right or just to show you there's these challenges. Well, Revelation 12, verse you wrote three and four. I'll say. Another sign appeared in heaven. Behold a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems. And these are all symbolic things. This dragon represents something. The heads represent things that horns and the diadems, they represent things. Authority and royal place or governmental power. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth. She might. And it talks about the woman, which is a whole other thing. But when does this happen? If you read Revelation 12 and you have a premillennial view, as I do, which I could be wrong. This is happening during the Tribulation. It seems this woman giving birth, these stars being swept down. The dragon turns after the woman and the child are caught up, and then he turns to attack the others who are ultimately are followers of God. And so this is happening during the Tribulation or at some stage, pre or mid. It's happening in the Tribulation. If you have like say an Amil or post mill view, there's a good chance you think this already happened and it happened a long time ago. And you think that this stuff was not the whole book of Revelation, but a lot of this was already fulfilled and that this, this whole event already happened. It has to do with Jesus and the persecution that came afterwards. And ultimately it culminates in 70 AD and the destruction of the temple. I don't agree with that view, but it is there. 12, 9, 7 9. All right, Revelation 12, 7, 9. The other verse you reference is now war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels. Now we have it real specific, right before we had a third of the stars. Is that talking about angelic beings? And they're symbolically being discussed as stars, just like Satan symbolically being called a dragon here, Here specifically angels are mentioned. So the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, huh? And it wasn't just him. The great dragon was thrown down and the ancient serpent who is called the devil, and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. So now we have like an intertextual reason to think that the stars may well have been the angels, because as he comes down, he sweeps down others with him. And then later, Revelation 12, just a few verses later in the same chapter, it talks about them being angels and being thrown down along with him. So when is this happening? I think it's probably happening during the tribulation time. That depends, however, not upon the verses I read. That depends on whether or not the pre Tribulational. No, sorry, forgive me, I should not have used that word. The premillennial view, where there's an actual tribulation, seven year tribulation and then the millennium. If that view is correct, then that interpretation is right. But you would need to prove on other grounds that that view is correct. And here's where. While I do hold that view. I hold it a bit loosely because prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled is a very challenging subject. They misunderstood a lot of what Jesus was going to do in his because they didn't really. They had the prophecies, but they didn't really know exactly how they were all going to play out. We can experience the same thing. And if you think I'm wrong, look at all the pre millennial people over the last hundred years that have wrongly predicted stuff because they thought they understood revelation like the back of their hand. I will not be one of those people. So there's my view. All right, number three, anonymous question again. How can we respond to people who use the story of David and other flawed biblical figures whom God still used to justify their own sinful behavior, especially when in positions of power? That's a great question. Especially with the idea that a slap on the hand is all that's required when you have or maybe a slight acknowledgment. So I'll give you guys an example, okay? This is not parents, you don't want your kids hearing this. Okay, I'll just have to say that. So stop watching the video and go watch something on something kids show. But there's a prophet. Supposed prophet. I don't think he's real. His name is Bob Jones. He is at the core of many charismatic ministries. He's at the beginning and founding not only at the chronological beginning, but at the prophetic foundation of IHOP as well as places like Bethel and other ministries as well. Bob Jones is a weirdo. Everybody knows that. Even the people that think he was a prophet think he was a weirdo. They actually sometimes think that because he was weird that somehow makes him more of a prophet, which you got to wonder. You got to wonder where that comes from. But Bob Jones had a situation that to my knowledge is confirmed. I have not heard anybody defend against this or say that it didn't happen. He was counseling two women behind closed doors. He gave them some prophecy about receiving some special. I think it has something to do with a motherly prophetic proclamation about them, about them being like mothers to many or something along those lines. The part that's relevant is then he has them again, not kid appropriate. He had them take off their clothing, at least disrobe their upper torsos. And then he proceeded to do things that a baby does with their mother as a way of prophetically confirming the things that he had revealed to them. Anybody who's not severely indoctrinated in a bad way knows what that man really did was he made up a prophecy or received it from a demon. And then he manipulated these women in order to get some sort of personal sexual pleasure from them. Bob Jones is to this day still seen as a great prophet and a great man of God amongst the leadership at IHOP International House of Prayer, amongst the leadership at Bethel. And he's seen as a man who simply made a mistake. He had one time where he failed. Now, for me, I'm old enough and hopefully wise enough to know that the fact that he did that once means he probably did it a lot. And there's probably worse stories. We just never heard that. As soon as his fellow leaders found out he did this, what they should have done was launch an investigation to find out who else he did it to. If something like that happened. I'm not aware of it. I know that I've only heard them say, like David, you know, he had one major mistake. Like David, he had this one flaw. But God still called David a man after God's own heart. It's interesting how they will run to David, who was not a pastor, who was not an elder, and they'll avoid the teachings of Paul the apostle, who tells us what to do. If an elder does something like that, you expose him to everyone and let everybody fear. Now, Bob Jones, this was like. I mean, the guy died, I don't know, eight, nine years ago, I think. But he's deceased. So he was in his 80s. He was in his 70s, 80s, when this stuff was going on, to my knowledge that we're aware of. What did he do for the first 50 years before that, when he was probably still walking around saying that he was a prophet? We don't know. I don't know. I'd like to know more about that guy and what he did, but follow down from his legacy. And you have other men who also use prophecy to manipulate and sexually take advantage of women. And so you have Mike Bickle and you have Paul Kane, and not just women, but people, men too. You have people using their prophetic authority, their supposed prophetic authority, to take advantage of individuals sexually. And you have people doing this like Sean Bowles. And this is still coming out. And I've talked to witnesses and hope to share more in the future. These people are all in the same circle. Bob Hartley, this idea that David blew it and that that then makes it okay for this, a leader to do something horrifically abusive is not biblical. David is an example of someone who blew it. And you could say, well, he still was a man after God's own heart. But let me just recount some more of the details. David was publicly called out. Nathan went to David and said, David, you're the man. He did the whole thing. He called him out. And Nathan had to have told everybody what happened because it enters into scripture and Nathan didn't write that book. So this was not just a private rebuke. Imagine if the policy was amongst churches. If a pastor is abusing his authority to manipulate women for sexual pleasures or men for that matter. We are going to call him out so that everyone knows what he did. That's what happened to David. But these men who were like, but David was the man after Christ, they never do this. They never do this. So they don't even try to follow the policy of what God did with David. Further. David was then chased out of his throne, almost killed, lost his entire. He wasn't sat down casually. He wasn't like taking a three month break sabbatical. The man was chased by his own relatives out of his throne, life in danger. And this was part of God's correction and rebuke. The child of this union even died. It wasn't some quiet swept under the rug simple little thing. His correction was put on display for the entire nation of Israel. And do you not think it affected their respect for him forever? Of course it did. Nobody who I've heard use the story of David will actually want to copy the story of David in any sort of reasonable way. And in doing so, they avoid clear New Testament teaching on standard practices for handling wolves or abusive leaders. And we need to get this back ingrained into our hearts and minds as Christians because this stuff happens everywhere. Okay? Hollywood's been doing it forever. You guys know where there are people with power, there is abuse. This is the rule of humanity. So what the church needs is checks and balances so that we can correct these things when they come up. And we can create standards that make it so that the abusive type of personality looks at the church and looks at the world. And he thinks, I won't get anywhere in there. They have too high of standards, they have too much accountability. I'm going to go this way instead. We need to make a hostile environment for predators and a safe environment for victims. And this is something we have to do very deliberately. But as leaders we tend to do is I know that guy, he's my buddy. So we assume that couldn't be true about him because he's my friend and you can go too far with that. And it does happen a lot. All right, number four, Paolo Patino has a question. What does the Bible say about piercings? For example, if a woman who serves in the worship ministry gets a belly piercing, should she no longer be allowed to serve in that ministry? I don't, I don't think that that's. I don't think you can say that. Biblically speaking, I think piercings, there's a cultural element to piercings. So nose rings as well as earrings, both occur in the text of scripture. And historically, at those times you even have a piercing that God inspires where he's like, hey, if you're a servant, you serve for seven years, you go free. But if you want to like, have a long term commitment to this and you want to join yourself to this person as your, as your master, and it's going to be lifelong, then you're going to go and have your ear pierced as a physical and observable sign that this is the covenant that you're making with this person. If piercings were inherently wrong, you wouldn't have that happening in the text of Scripture. There's other times where piercings were considered an assault on a person. I think it was the Assyrians, I think, who would nose pierce individuals and then they could drag him around almost like a horse with a bridle. They could drag him around by this nose piercing. And it was like a way of saying that kind of similar, you're a servant. It's kind of like saying you're a servant. Now, we don't have that connotation, except it was just unwillingly and wrongly. But we do have cosmetic piercings that people get. And there are some piercings that seem inappropriate, they seem overly sensual. I don't think a belly piercing rises to that standard. I. Some would have to make a case for that. I think if you're getting piercings on sexual parts of your body, then that's overtly sexual and it's something that is strange. And if everybody knows, why would anybody even know? Like, if you're walking, guess what I got. There's other questions I have about you being in ministry and being a leader, to be honest, that are all rising up at that point. So that does seem like a red flag. But the idea of a belly piercing, I think that at worst it's unwise at worst, and at best it's just a non issue. So, yeah, can there be other issues related to piercings or. You know, what people do is they go, oh, you have a piercing there. So that means that you're vain and you want attention and you want da da da da da. And you're like, well, I mean, if you're. Yeah, if you wear a bunch of shirts to show your belly so you can have people see it, you obviously want attention. That's true. But if you just have this kind of privately, then I couldn't make that accusation. So you can probably sense my personal policy would be it's not disqualifying inherently. Okay, Maybe there's other things going on that I should know about. I don't think it's disqualifying inherently. I think it would be cruel to disqualify somebody just for having a belly piercing. There's more things you should think about than that. And you may see it as like, hey, let's talk about why you got that. And maybe there's something else going on there. But you just want to be careful. You don't just become this like nitpicky jerk, to be honest. But, but I don't think that we can have confidence to lay out a qualification. You know, when, when Paul gives qualifications for ministry, he gives about elders and leaders and deacons and stuff. And when you look at the passage, I'll take you there. These are the kind of qualifications we want to look for, right? For, say, someone who's going to be a pastor. Right. If anyone aspires to the office of an overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach. Now you might think, well, piercings aren't above reproach. Well, you might reproach people for piercings, but based on the fact that they are, in scripture, not bad. In scripture, they're considered positive. Even in some senses they are. There's other examples I can give of women having jewelry. You just don't want to have gaudy jewelry, competitive jewelry, I'm better than you jewelry. Come, everybody look at me jewelry. But yeah, they have them. So above reproach. The husband of one wife, sober minded, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. So if you're thinking a piercing means you're not self controlled, I think you're distorting things a little bit. It means you're not respectable or hospitable. I think you're distorting things. But these are the issues we should be focused on. Is the person self controlled? Are they respectable? Are they hospitable? Are they able to teach? If it's a pastor, drunkard, are they violent or are they gentle? Are they quarrelsome? Are they a Lover of money. These are the types of character qualities we need to look at lest we start cleansing the outside of the cup and inwardly we're full of dead man's bones. Question number five. And we have all the 10 questions for today. Don says, what about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit makes us unique compared to Old Covenant believers? I've never quite grasped what difference it makes. That's a great question and one I think I'd like more time to ponder before I give you an off the cuff answer. But my admittedly partial answer, right now I just need like five minutes even just to sit and gather my thoughts. But I don't have that. So the indwelling Ephesians also calls. It says that we're sealed with the spirit of promise. It has to do with partly with just deep relationship with God. And so Jesus says in John that we will make our home with him. We will make our home with him, referring to the Holy Spirit indwelling you, and that being the way in which the Father and Son make their home with you. I'm not saying the Spirit is the Father or the Father is the Son or any of those things, but that's the terminology Jesus uses. Make our home with you. The idea of abiding in Christ, I don't think that you could have abided in Christ or had God's home with you before the cross. There's a deeper personal connection to God that you have that David did not have, that Abraham did not have, that Moses didn't have. Moses spoke to God face to face, but you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So this is. It's actually a huge, huge deal. And we see it sort of manifesting in Acts 2 with spiritual gifts and amazing things. And you don't just have the occasional prophet like in the Old Testament, but your sons and daughters will prophesy. And so spiritual gifts are connected to this in some way, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But I think that centrally it's this relational, deep, personal connection to God that is empowering in your life, that you might live a godly life. Did David have a relationship with God? Yeah, but I don't believe he had the indwelling of the Spirit in the sense that you do. Did he have some sense of the Holy Spirit? Yeah, it was more of the anointing for his ministry, for his calling as king. So he writes in the Psalms, do not take your Holy Spirit from me. I think this is not a relational thing about. Well, it is relational in A sense it's not the same as what you have with the indwelling of the Spirit. Make our home with you. Living water will pour out of you, Jesus says to the one at the well. But rather it was David was anointed as king of Israel and the Holy Spirit was calling him to be the king of Israel, just as Saul was anointed as king of Israel. And then the Spirit departed from Saul so that he didn't have the anointing. But what you don't have is like every Israelite having the Holy Spirit. In that sense, this is a special particular calling. What you have in Acts 2 is every Christian having the indwelling of the Spirit. And so there's some of the elements that you've got there. Question number six. Teenage gringo says, Jesus tells the apostles that the Holy Spirit will teach them all things, John 14:16, and guide them into all truth. What does this entail exactly? And was it only for the apostles? That's a great question. So let me look at the passage. So keep in mind, it's John who's writing this. I will ask the Father, Jesus says, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, but can. It neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. We're just talking about the indwelling of the Spirit. I like when those things kind of come together in the Q&As. He's going to be right there. Okay, the helper. Then you have. Now, you said teach you all things, but I don't think that's the verse you gave me. Let me see. Just a second, just a second. Just grab that verse. 14:26. So scroll down. The helper whom the Spirit. Excuse me, the helper of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. So initially, who is Jesus talking about? Well, we know he's talking to the disciples. This is that last supper meal. It covers a huge portion of John's Gospel. This is the. The longest content of Jesus privately talking to the disciples that we actually have. And so he says it to them. Does it also apply to me? Well, I know that I receive the Holy Spirit. And it's one of the, you might say, in a generalistic sense, it's a function of the Holy Spirit to bring to remembrance things that Jesus has said to us. I mean, in my case, it's going to be when I read Scripture and then the Holy Spirit. I've had times where I'm talking to somebody and I really think the Lord gave me that scripture for them. It brought to remembrance the thing that was there. Maybe even in some of my studies. There's times where I'm studying and I think maybe I just thought of that, or maybe this was the Lord giving me this, bringing to my remembrance things that he said. And also he'll teach you all things. Now, this can be taken woodenly. Like, the statements of Jesus should not be taken too woodenly, always as true, but always as they were intended. So like Matthew 18 being used to tell an abused person, like someone who is R A P E experienced that, that they have to then go and confront individually, one on one, the person who did it. Like, that's an abuse of that passage. I don't want to abuse this stuff either. Okay, so the Holy Spirit will teach you all things. This doesn't mean, however, that even if the Spirit is teaching you things that you're like, I don't need to go to school to learn law, to pass the bar exam, because the Holy Spirit will teach me all things. Like, this is just not what he was talking about. He was asking us to have an ounce of wisdom as we listen to the things in the words of Jesus. You shouldn't be like, well, my child is choking. I don't know the Heimlich, but the Holy Spirit will teach me all things. This is just hijacking scripture out of context to use it for whatever I want because it used the phrase all things. The things that they'll be taught are specifically the teachings of Jesus. Jesus will no longer be teaching them anything in person. The Holy Spirit will internally be working in their lives to help them have revelations about Christ and about truth. Not every single thing in the world. But this does connect to say, why would I make this more universal? Hold on. So in 1 John. Here we go. 2:20. Yeah. First John 2:20 implies that the same thing that we just read about in John 17 is true of general Christians, but you have been anointed by the Holy One. That's the gift of the Holy Spirit and you have all knowledge. Hmm. I write to you not because you don't know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. This idea of being taught from the Lord is also being transferred from John, not just Jesus to the disciples immediately there at the Last Supper, but from John over to general Christians. We have this anointing but we also need to balance this out with other texts of Scripture so we don't overdo it. There are still needs for teaching. When the apostles, in the book of Acts, they start the early church people all receive the same spirit. But Acts 2:42, it says they continue daily in the apostles teaching, so that the apostles were still there teaching. The fact of the Holy Spirit teaching you does not mean nobody else needs to teach you. What it does do is it replaces this missing need that you would have if you had just walked with Jesus and now he's no longer with you. So Holy Spirit is teaching you. That doesn't mean you are actually learning everything, or you're always listening to the Holy Spirit, or that in every instance of every moment, you're always getting some special communication from God. That doesn't mean those things. But there is a guidance, a leading, a direction from the Holy Spirit that will lead people to the truth of Christ, to the revelation of their own sinful issues, to the sufficiency of the cross, and to the goodness of the Word of God. That doesn't mean we don't need teachers in the body of Christ. So I'm just saying we just don't want to go too far with it. God doesn't go too far with it. He still appoints teachers. In fact, he's kind of saying, in a sense, I don't need to write to you because you have this anointing. But yet he still writes to them. Why? Well, maybe I don't always listen to whatever the Holy Spirit is telling me. Maybe my ears are stopped. Maybe I ignored it, the thing that God was telling me. All right, question number seven. Abiram1 says, Is there an explanation for why Moses, father in law, appears to have two names? You know, Sorry, let me back up real quick. I'll add one more thing to what I was saying. I'm reading one question and thinking about the other one. In the book of Galatians, we have people who have the Holy Spirit who can teach them all things. But in that same book in Galatians, Paul writes to them, who has bewitched you? They've been deceived and they've been misled. And he's shocked at how easy it was for them to be misled. We need to hold those intention and not think that you having the Spirit, is the sufficiency of you. Right. Scripture needs to be there to correct me. God needs to be able to correct me through the word of God, not just through my internal sense of what God might be telling me. And the minute you stop listening to scripture because you think you're tuning into what you think is the Holy Spirit, you're probably at that point tuning into yourself, not listening to the scripture at all, not listening to the Spirit at all. Because God is not going to tell you to not listen to things he said. It's not going to happen. So, yeah, there is a real danger of. Of Christians being deceived. We don't want to go too far with knowing that we have this anointing walk in wisdom. You have a spirit, but you also have flesh. You have the voice of God, but you also have the deceptions of the world. And Eve was deceived, and you might be, too. So we got to be careful. All right, Question seven, Abiram one says, is there an explanation for why Moses, father in law, appears to have two names? In Exodus 2:18, it's Raul. In Exodus 18:2, it's Jethro. Yeah, so I did look into this a bit, believe it or not, when I was doing that video on polygamy, one of the videos I did on the whole polygamy issue and how the Bible does not support polygamy. And I think that Raul and Jethro are two names for the same guy. It's not uncommon for people to have two names. Especially back then. You didn't normally. You were not normally known as, Like, I'm known as Mike Winger. Nobody did that back then. They would be known as so and so, the son of so and so. Right. So you'd have Simon called Peter. Right. Simon, son of Jonah. You have these other. It's called disambiguation. It's other ways of disambiguating you with this name from someone else with the same name. So Jesus of Nazareth, Judas, not Iscariot, not that one. And that wasn't his last name. Iscariot. You know, these are just. This is ways of disambiguation. One of the ways of disambiguation is just giving somebody a nickname, a different name. Now, this could be because, you know, maybe he's Raul, but when he comes and he's involved in this community, there's like a number of other Rauls. And so they start calling him Jethro because that was his dad's name or it was because of some other thing that symbolically is connected. So Thomas in the New Testament is one of the apostles. Thomas, who is called the twin. The twin. That's a nickname for him. He's called the twin. You have Other nicknames. You have James, who is called Justus. Why? Because there's probably a lot of James's and so he's called that. You have Barnabas, son of Encouragement. You have him. You've got those complicated naming things going on. So it's. It could well be that there's just the same guy with two names. That would be perfectly reasonable explanation. And number eight, Cameron Cox says, recently I had a Mormon friend claim it's okay Joseph Smith had failed prophecy because so did Jonah. I'd love to talk about this. He claimed that Deuteronomy 18:22 didn't apply to either of them. Thoughts? Thanks for your ministry. Deuteronomy 18:22, which says when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. So this is about a prophet who brings a false word. God did not send that person. That's what that person. Does that apply to Jonah? Sorry, I meant to put it on your screen. Does that apply to Jonah? Did God send. Does the text say God didn't send Jonah? Jonah went and brought a word. It didn't come to pass. That's certainly not the case. In Jonah's story, Jonah has a prophecy. You will be destroyed. Now, the whole now we only know one sentence of what Jonah said. 40 days and you're done. That's all we know about Jonah. But we shouldn't think that he literally repeated that one sentence over and over and over again throughout the entire city. Chances are Jonah said a lot more than that. And in the midst of that was 40 days and you're going to be destroyed. Jonah didn't want them to repent, but we know that he knew they could repent. And when they did repent, it was not a false prophecy that Jonah failed. It was just the whole purpose of him coming. So Jonah is the example of a prophet who goes to warn people of coming judgment, which is prophetically true. You're going to be destroyed. You are. And they course corrected and there was a visible real course correction. And then they were saved, which Jonah also knew would happen. And as a prophet, he was not a false prophet because he knew this was going to happen. This is why God sent Jonah in the first place. Now that's so different than Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith didn't go and say, in 40 days the US is going to be destroyed. And then a bunch of people publicly Repented and then nothing happened. In which case, if there was key a giant public repentance, then I'd say, hey, maybe, maybe it was averted. What a lot of online prophets do is they proclaim such and such is going to happen. And then when it doesn't, they're like, I guess we prayed it away. But there isn't even any event that happened of giant public repentance or huge outcry. It's just it didn't happen. So they go, I guess we prayed it away. That's Brandon Biggs, false prophet on YouTube. Delusional. Delusional. Dangerous man. I say these because he's dangerous to people. I'm not just ranting because I have a personal grievance against the man. He's dangerous to you, he's dangerous to your mom, he's dangerous to your buddy who starts following his content and will make life decisions based upon his false prophecies. So I have a video on Brandon Biggs. I'll link it down below the issue with Joseph Smith. Let's talk about some of Joseph Smith's false prophecies. So he said that they were going to start this massive, like epicenter for Mormonism and it was going to be in, I think it was Jackson County, Missouri, and it never happened. He even had like this plot of land was prophecy and it never happened. And generations later, they were still waiting for it to happen. So finally the church comes out and they're like, I guess he got that wrong. In other words, they had no explanation as to why it didn't happen. They didn't say, oh well, see this moment where the Latter Day Saints were a bunch of evil people, we ruined the prophecy. It was going to happen, but God said we weren't trustworthy. It's not something like that. It's just they're like, it was supposed to happen, it didn't happen. Oh, well, that's a false prophet. In addition, Joseph Smith took, and this is one of my favorite examples of Joseph Smith being obviously a false prophet. He pretended he could translate the Bible. Now most of the people around in his circle, they don't have Hebrew. They don't know Hebrew. They don't know how to look at original languages. His followers, they don't know that stuff. And there's no Internet and there's no way of searching. They just have like a King James. Maybe they've got a Geneva Bible. That's about it, right? Joseph Smith says he gets special revelation from God. He sticks his head in a hat and he Starts talking about translations. His translation method wasn't even looking at texts and translating necessarily. Not that he never did that, but that was not what he was known for, was sticking his head in a hat like a charlatan. Joseph Smith, though, with that being said, he translates the Book of Genesis in his Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, which nobody thinks is good. Nobody, not even Mormons, nobody thinks it was good. He pretends it's the most perfect translation of the Bible ever. He tells people it is, but they still don't use it in Mormonism because it's just this big black spot in their religion. I have to deal with Joseph Smith. He's our prophet. But he also did this in the Joseph Smith translation. He adds to the end of Genesis and he adds a prophecy. I'm kidding you. He's not translating Hebrew. He's literally just adding English words after the close of the Book of Genesis and saying God gave it to him. I'll tell you one of the ways I've heard Mormons defend this in a second, it's going to blow your mind. This prophecy is about this Joseph, son of Joseph and all this stuff. And it's a prophecy about himself. And he then presents it to people because he's trying to hijack Christianity and create a following for himself. And he was successful. He did this. But how do they defend against this? You know what they often will say to their people? They'll go, we don't really know what Brother Joseph was doing there. And they'll move on. Like they're blind to this clear indication that the man was a deceiver, liar, false prophet, or demonized or all of the above. One of the rescues I've heard is that Joseph Smith had the ability to translate and speak in tongues. And they interpret the phrase gift of tongues differently than you would or the New Testament does. And they'll say, well, he had a gift of tongues. He could look at one letter in a foreign language and he could translate that into a whole sentence. And that's the gift of tongues. Think about that for a minute. People have said this. People have used this to defend him. Looked at one letter, translates a whole sentence. You call that the gift of tongues. Everybody else calls that making stuff up. Joseph Smith is clearly a false prophet by any measure. Any standard, 100% false prophet, drawing people away after themselves. Joseph Smith. See, people will think I'm attacking Mormons when I say this. No, Mormons, Joseph Smith has been attacking you your whole lives. You have, like, Stockholm syndrome with Joseph Smith and Mormonism. And you've got to be rescued out of this. This thing is the thing that's oppressing you. This thing that takes every good thing about you and says it's because of us and tries to get you to pretend that you don't see every bad thing about it. It's an oppressive cult based on lies and deceptions and false prophecies and manipulations and a distortion of the Gospel of Christ. It couldn't be much worse than it is. All right, next question number nine. Audrey Hansen says in Daniel 3, verse 1618, how did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego know that God would deliver them from the fiery furnace? Did they know? They sort of knew. It's really interesting what they write. We gotta actually read it. So Daniel 3, verse 16. You guys know the backstory, right? Nebuchadnezzar builds a big statue. He tells everybody, bow down and worship this. You can't pray to other gods. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they're like, we refuse to bow down to your God. And so they get the death sentence. Now here they are about to be killed, about to be thrown into this furnace of fire and burned alive. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. This is a biblical separation of church and state. In my mind, my loyalty to God is always and forever higher than my loyalty to the highest ruler of the land. That's a good thing to say. As a Christian, I am not accountable to the government in my relationship with God or my following of God. I'm accountable to the government for my citizenship, for how I behave as a citizen, for how I interact with my fellow man. I'm accountable. Yep, but not in relation to God. I will serve God, you know, I'll obey God over man. If this be so, if you are going to kill us, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. So they first say, he's able, step one. And then they say, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O King. So they're confident he's actually going to deliver them. And then they add, but if not, but if not, oh, sorry, I should have put it on your screen. It is there now. If not, if he doesn't deliver us, if God doesn't get us out of this, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have put up and he gets really mad and then God delivers them. They. I find it super interesting. They somehow don't fall into the error of being the skeptic, the spiritual skeptic who's like, yeah, God probably won't do that. Nor do they fall into the error of being the word of faith. People who think I'm going to because I declare it, it's going to happen, right? Kenneth Copeland style stuff. Instead, they kind of thread this middle ground where they have this incredible faith in God. They know he can deliver them. They believe that he will deliver us. They said, he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. They believe that that deliverance is going to come. But even within that belief, they know they could be wrong. Maybe God has a different plan for us. Maybe the plan is for our martyrdom. We don't think it is. It's not what we think God is doing. And we know God can deliver us, so we're trusting he will. But if not, know this, that even if you open this cage and all you see is our bones and our and the ashes that are left from our bodies know this. We still hold fast to God. That our faith in God is not dependent upon him delivering us. It is in fact, in spite of whether he does or not. Of course they have hope in eternal life. They have hope beyond the flames. So I think this is a really cool mentality. It's this, this the way that a lot of modern faith healer types will talk about healing. They would get rid of verse 18. They were like, hey, don't say out loud if God doesn't heal. If God doesn't do this, I will still trust Him. Don't say that out loud. That's like a faith stopping device. You can't do that. You need to just proclaim, I am healed. I am healed. I am healed. I am healed. And build yourself up their confidence. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego was not about building themselves up or stirring something up in them. It was just that was their confidence. We know God can. We believe God will. And even if he doesn't, we still trust Him. And how do you fight that? How do you fight someone like that? I know God can heal. I believe that God will heal. And if he doesn't, I still trust Him. That's a beautiful mentality. Powerful question number 10. Anonymous question here. Thank you for your ministry, Brother Mike. You're very, very, very welcome. I'm grateful that I get to do it. Are there any hints in scripture of what Kind of work we'll do in God's kingdom in the future. Yeah, like, what am I going to do in heaven? It's not just going to be singing the whole time. Hopefully. Hopefully not. Singing is great. I want to do it all the time. Even good things you don't want to do all the time. We do get a hint at this in the nature of heaven. So there's the intermediate state. Now, that's usually when I say heaven, people think about the intermediate state temporarily. I'm like disembodied. I'm in the presence of Christ. I'm in comfort, I'm in joy. That's temporary. Revelation talks about it first. Peter talks about it. There's actually going to be a new heaven and a new earth that will be created in the future. And this is the thing people often don't talk about. That's actually. That's the ultimate hope for Christians is this new heaven and new earth. And you might. When I say new heaven and new earth, you might think, so I'll be in heaven and there'll be a new earth with stuff going on. No, no, no. You will be on earth in the new heaven and the new earth. But in a sense, let me add more. It's important to add more. Heaven will also be on earth, in the new earth. So we get this picture in Revelation where it says that John beheld the new Jerusalem, this new city for the people of God coming down out of heaven. Like the earth is there, it's been made, it's beautiful. And there's the city that comes down out of heaven onto earth. And there God Himself dwells, no longer far away in heaven. Like we're no longer separate from God. There's no distance between us in any way. He is there. In fact, there's no need of light, no need of sun, because God himself is the light. It doesn't say there will be no sun, but there's no need of it because God Himself will light the city with the very glory of his presence just permeating everything. This is amazing. But this description of a city on a new earth implies that there will be potentially lots and lots of things to do that we even do today. It will just be in perfection. It will be in righteousness. It will be without any corruption, and it will be everlasting. So I think that the answer to your question is, are there hints in Scripture? What kind of work will we do in God's kingdom? I think there's all kinds of work you can do, whether it's building or maintaining or just enjoying creation and each other, there's going to be plenty of things to do. What will they all be? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Your guess is in a sense as good as mine, but I think there will be a great amount of activity going on in the new heaven and the new earth. So that's the last question for today. Can I appeal to you guys before I pray for your prayers? Normally my ministry focuses on teaching the Bible, answering Bible questions, doing verse by verse studies, doing topical things, theological stuff. Sometimes I, and it's only occasionally I will get into an issue where there's maybe a public rebuke that needs to be brought or an exposure, like with Benny Hinn and I occasionally I don't like doing that. I don't enjoy doing that and I don't look for those things. I'm not like looking out for that kind of stuff. Recently I felt like I needed to do that, though. There's a particular guy named Sean Bowles, and I thought he needed to be exposed and that the leaders who should be exposing him to protect their own people were not doing so. And so it falls upon those who have a voice to raise their voices for those who don't. So I was going to do this thing, and as I started to dig into it, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. A big can of worms and so many different people abusive in the same circle of ministry. And I want to try to bring a proper correction, a proper lessons learned, and a proper spotlight on not only the abusers that have existed within Bethel and within ihop, but also the systems of ministry that enable them. This is a really challenging thing. I've been interviewing witnesses. I'll continue to do so for a season right now as I'm just gathering data and evidence. And we're also potentially going to be trying to raise support for people who need legal defenses, because sometimes these big, big dogs with all their money and their attention and their power, they try to sue the people that are trying to expose them. And so we may be trying to give support to them in those things too. It's kind of like turning into a big thing that's not my normal ministry at all. So I could use a lot of priority prayer that I would do this well and properly. And I'll just be one voice among many who are trying to shine a light on something so that the church can learn from it. And I fear that what will happen is, as Bethel has done in the past, they've taken people who were abusers, who misused the people of God and misused prophecy and misused gifts, and they've held them up. I say Bethel, I mean, Bill Johnson, Chris Fallen, these guys. And they've held these people up as heroes of the faith, as God's generals. And I fear a generation from now, they'll be doing the same thing with another list of predators that they will not bring to light unless we force them to. It's a really hairy situation, praying for wisdom on how to handle it. And I appreciate your prayers. So let me. I'll close in prayer for that. Father, thank you for the fact that your word remains and stands strong and that in the midst of all the chaos, your church, your true church, does march forward and people are getting saved and people's lives are being transformed. We pray, though, that we could have a sense of accountability and learning and growing for what needs to happen within even the Charismatic movement, but other movements, too, so that we could hopefully change church culture, at least evangelical church culture, so that in our circles and in our churches, there's. It's unsafe for predators and it is safe for victims. We pray that we could create that scenario, that situation, that predator leaders, no matter how high up, just are unsustainable, and that the victims would be defended and championed by others who have the ability to do so. We pray we could change that culture and make that happen. And I ask for wisdom, Lord, and pray that. We pray that you give me wisdom, help me navigate all this stuff in Jesus name, Amen. All right, that's about it, you guys. I'm still working on the next Hebrews video. I just started to prep for it, but it's going to be on. Does Hebrews support cessationism, which is kind of a side issue for the Book of Hebrews? It's not really about that, but that's an issue that gets brought up a lot. So I'm studying and looking into a little bit the arguments for cessationism in the Book of Hebrews in particular, and I'll be responding to some of those in a future video. It may take weeks. We'll see. I'm juggling a lot of things at the moment. So, yeah, appreciate you guys. Thank you for being there and appreciate your prayer.