← BibleThinker
BibleThinker
What is a Jew according to the New Testament? 10 Qs with Mike Winger (Ep 71)
01:08:20
Question Time Stamps for Quick Reference:0:00 - Intro1. 0:07 {The Meaning of “Jew”} When the New Testament uses the word “Jew,” who is it referring to?2. 23:41 {Serving When We Don’t Want To} I know I’m supposed to serve, but to be honest, I’m always tired and would rather go home and relax after church. I’m ashamed of that, considering all Jesus did for me, but it's true. Lately I challenged myself to just obey with a good attitude when asked, but even then, I feel so guilty knowing I didn’t want to.3. 27:17 {Celebrating Black History in Church?} Is it appropriate for a church to dedicate a service in celebration of Black History Month? If not, in what ways could it be a cause for concern?4. 30:21 {Believes in Purgatory – Still Saved?} Can a person who trusts Christ for her eventual salvation but thinks she might have to go to purgatory first be saved?5. 37:09 {Bad Tree Bearing Good Fruit?} In Philippians 1:15-18, Paul rejoices when Christ is preached from strife and selfish ambit...
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, what is a Jew according to the New Testament in particular? I'll talk about the Old Testament briefly, but what is a Jew according to the New Testament? That's the focus. I know that this enters into a bunch of hot headed stuff that people are engaging in today. I'm not actually really trying to weigh in on all that stuff. I really want to answer the question in the New Testament, how is the term used? And I think it's interesting, it's fascinating, it's theologically deep and we're going to spend a little bit of time on it and then I'll go to your guys. Questions from the live chat. My name is Mike Winger. I am here to hopefully, God willing, with God's help, help you learn how to think biblically about everything so that you're truly able to process what scripture says about not only theology, but about your life situations, the feelings you're going through, the temptations you're facing, the sorrow and trauma of your past, like all of the stuff. Because scripture is an aid in all of those things to us. It is God's inspired, absolutely inspired, God breathed gift to us. So let's dig in. First, I want to show you the Old Testament. Okay. I know that there's a lot of people who are immediately thinking, I know the answer to this question, Mike. Jew comes from Judah. Judah was a tribe of Israel. And so when you say Jew, you're referring to someone who's of the tribe of Judah, of the descendants of Israel. And so that's how it's understood. That's how often people today will say that's what Jew means. Actually, even before the New Testament, by the end of the Old Testament, it was not being used that way, or not exclusively that way. It was also being used to refer to anybody who was a descendant of Abraham, let's see, of the promise, you might say Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Right? So let me go to Jeremiah 34. 9 and show you this verse. It says here that I won't get all the context here, but it says everyone should set free his Hebrew slaves. Now the word Hebrew here is referring to any descendant of Abraham along that line, right? It's going to be all of them. It's not just one of the tribes. It's not Benjamin, it's not Judah, for instance. But it goes on. It says, sets free as Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should enslave a Jew his brother. So Hebrew and Jew in Jeremiah 34. Nine are being used synonymously, I.e. old Testament. This is before The New Testament, it has already turned out this way. Now, words do change over time. The usage of a term, the way that it's applied, it changes over time. That's true. And while there are times where Jew coming from Judah refers to a smaller group of people, it eventually just comes to embrace all of them, all of the Israelites. Now, there's another myth here with the Old Testament, and that is the idea that Judah is just tribal. It wasn't just tribal. Judah was referring to. So when they entered the land, they're one nation. Right. Later, they split in King Solomon's time, or just after Solomon's time, they split. Right. His son's time. And there's a northern kingdom called Israel and a southern kingdom called Judah. And now you get the term Jew could refer to someone from the southern kingdom. They may or may not be of the tribe of Judah, but the royal house is of the tribe of Judah in that southern kingdom. So your allegiance is to the Judaic King David or his descendants. And then you've got the northern kingdom, which are a bunch of knucklehead kings. And, well, there was knuckleheads on all sides, as there are today in politics. But Israelite would be. You would think Israel is referring to the north, Jews referring to more of the south. And later on, they just merge. They're using the term synonymously. Okay, that's Old Testament. Let's look at the New Testament. The first time the word Jew is used in the New Testament is Matthew2.2, where it says, not Matthew 22, Matthew2.2. It says the following. Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and we've come to worship him. This is the Magi speaking here, the wise men. You may have heard them referred to as these guys are saying, where's Jesus? He is the king of who? The Jews. Now, they were not claiming, obviously, that Jesus was just the king of the Judaic or the. I shouldn't use that word here in this context. The king of those who are of the house of Judah. No, indeed, he's a king of the house of Judah, but he's the king of all of them. Every single person that is the descendant of Abraham. He's the rightful king. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, down that line. So we look through this and we go, yeah, Jesus is a Jew. And Jew is an inclusive term that refers to a very large group of people, not a tribe or a smaller gathering. We also see in the New Testament that Jew and Israelite are used synonymously. Here is Romans 11:1 where Paul refers to himself as an Israelite. He said, has God rejected his people? By no means, for I myself am an Israelite. Okay, so he's not just meaning the northern kingdom or something, he's talking about the broader sense. A descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. Okay, so if he's Benjamin, that's southern kingdom and he uses Israelite. All right, so they're just used as inclusive terms. And numerous times Paul refers to himself as a Jew. He does this a number of times. It's not uncommon for Paul. So the term New Testament, initially the term Jew just refers to anybody in that genetic category. And it refers to them a lot. The most common usage of the term Jew in the New Testament is just to refer to, I would call it genetic category. Right? Like you're of the descendants, you're part of that, that national identity. Even though there's times where they don't have their own national borders and land and stuff like that, but still they have that identity. That's who they are. Jew, Israelite, Synonymous terms. But we get the following. In Galatians, there's going to be a couple people wondering about this. Galatians, chapter 3, verse 27, starting there. It says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. Now that's a very Jewish term, isn't it? Christ. That's Messiah, right? You've been baptized into the Jewish savior and you've put on Christ. Therefore then he says in 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And then it goes on even something stronger says, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. And this is where we get discussions about replacement theology. I don't want to get fully into that, like a whole thing on that for the Q and A today. But replacement theology, which has some elements of truth in it. And I know there are those who are radically offended by the demonic or replacement theology. Like you get angry, you gotta calm down, just relax. Like I just, I'm just trying to have a word to describe it. Because if you just say covenant theology, this is a big in house thing here. If you say covenant theology, you're actually saying something much larger than the thing we're trying to talk about. We're talking about one aspect of something anyways. And not all covenant theologians would even fit that category of what we're Talking about when we say that's replacement theology anyway, I would advocate that the term. There needs to be some term to identify people with that view. But it's like half right, it's like half true, I think, in my view, because look, if I'm Christ, which I am, and I'm a Gentile, who is Christ? So now I'm Abraham's offspring, in what sense? I'm heirs according to the promise to promise. Now what was the promise? You know, you're going to be the father of many, many nations. We're grafted in is the theology I'm grafted in. And so in Christ, based on Galatians, there is no Jew or Gentile. Does that mean that if you are a Jew today who is a Christian, you're no longer a Jew, or if you're a Gentile who is a Christian, you are no longer a Gentile? Is it saying something that extreme? I would argue no. And we can see this because Galatians also says the following Same book, Galatians 2, Paul talking to Peter about some issues. And he's going to affirm that there still is this Jew and Gentile terminology that applies to people who are Christians. And so let me just say what I'm saying here is as pertains to salvation, in a sense, there's no Jew or Gentile. In another sense, there is. And that's just how the New Testament deals with the terms. It uses the term Jew to refer to the unsaved Jews and saved Jews, but makes very clear that as regards your salvation, like how you get saved, it's not by being Jew or being Gentile. And you don't go from Gentile to Jew or Jew to Gentile, you just get into Jesus Christ and you are in all of the promises of God. And if that seems like it's hard to process, that's what the New Testament gives us. So let me look at this passage here. But when Cephas, that's Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. And you're going to be like, why is Paul opposing Peter if you're not familiar with this passage? Well, he's going to describe it right here. He did this thing that felt, I say felt, it signaled to the Gentile Christians that they were somehow not fully in Christ. So verse 12 says, for before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles, but when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. So these guys go from James doesn't mean that everything they do is approved by James and stuff like that. But they're coming from Jerusalem. Right. And he separates and he will no longer eat with the Gentiles. He's falling into the old Jewish tradition of you don't eat with Gentiles, you don't eat anything unclean, and you don't eat with people who are unclean. Right. So this is something you don't do. So he does this because he fears the circumcision party. He's worried about what they think. Verse 13. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. The rest of the what? The Jews. Paul affirms a Jewish, uniquely Jewish identity that still exists for a group of people who are actually Christians. The rest of the Jews. So Peter is included as a Jew, and the rest of the Jews, the other ones like him, did the same thing and they separated. From who? From the Gentiles. So there's a Jewish and Gentile distinction that Paul thinks is worth maintaining, even post understanding the Gospel, even in the same letter where he says there's no Jew or Greek. So it's complicated. Yeah. In Christ there's no Jew or Greek. But that doesn't mean we're saying we completely wipe out these distinctions in every respect. We're just saying as far as getting saved goes, being Jew or Gentile doesn't matter. It has no effect on that salvation. Just like we don't wipe out male and female roles in marriage. It's just men and women get saved the same way through Jesus. We don't wipe out master and slave distinctions. Even although we may advocate against those things, we're not saying they simply don't exist. They're still like employees, for instance, and employers. And. And you're given instructions on honoring God in your work and honoring God in the way that you treat those under you. So those distinctions exist. They just don't have any relationship to our salvation. I think that makes a lot of sense. I'll read a little bit more. So Peter pulls back verse 13. The other Jews, even Barnabas, is led astray by their hypocrisy. And he calls it hypocrisy because they know the Gospel's true. They're just doing something that's not consistent with the Gospel. Their actions are coming against the gospel. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all. If you though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews? His entire objection to Peter is based on the idea that Jew and Gentile still have meaning, even within a Christian context. Now he's not creating separation between us like we're part of a different body of believers or we have different paths of salvation. That would be a heresy. He's just saying these distinctions do matter, but not as it pertains to salvation. That's how I think the term is used. Jew is used usually in the New Testament. It's referring to people who are. That genetic thing going on. There are believing Jews and there are non believing Jews in the New Testament because there are some who think you can no longer use the term Jew to refer to somebody after Christ. After Christ dies and rises, he initiates the church. You can no longer refer to a Jew as a Jew if they are not actually in Christ. That's their view. But that's not the New Testament. It's not how it uses the word. So Colossians 1:23 it says, is that what I wanted? That is not what I wanted. Oh, I may have. Oh boy, now I've lost where that verse was. I wrote down the wrong reference. Maybe I'll think of it. There's a. Give me a second. Maybe I can find it. Trying to think of the wording of the text. There's two verses back to back that give us the idea that there are some Jews who believe and there are some Jews who don't believe. Man, I'm blanking on where it was. Yeah, I'm blanking on it, guys. This one's important for me to share though. Oh well, trust me, I'll find it later. I'll put it in the comments, maybe down below. Okay, so. But it'll be there. You'll get. You guys will see it. I know there's more objections. I'm going to quickly move through these though, because I want to get to your questions from the live chat. Let's look at John 8:31. Maybe. This kind of acknowledges the existence of both categories in John 8:31 because it says so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him. Which of course would mean that there were Jews who didn't believe him. Because you wouldn't need a distinction if there was only Jews who believed him. Right, and he talks about that as well there. But then there's Revelation. So in Revelation 1 we get this concept that you guys are familiar With I think most of you is of the synagogue of Satan. And in this passage, Revelation chapter 2, verse 9, and then 3, 9 as well, these two references, here's how some people often will use them. Jesus speaking to the church, says, I know your works, tribulation and poverty, but you are rich. I know the blasphemy of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. And basically Satan's going to attack him. And he knows that a source of their attack, one of the sources is this group who Jesus refers to as a synagogue of Satan. Then in Revelation 3:9, we get it again. I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but lie indeed, I will make them come and worship before your feet. Who is this group? Now, the tricky thing with Revelation is you don't get a lot of information here. Obviously it would have been well known to people in those churches in the first century. Like who exactly he's referring to. Here's how it Often I should say often. I think it's pretty often. I've heard it referred to just basically any unbelieving Jew. So any unbelieving Jew is officially declared by Jesus, no longer a Jew. Right. They say they're Jews and they're not. They're lying. So if you go, I'm Jewish, my last name is Levi, we come from this ancestry. And you go, I reject that. You don't believe in Jesus, so you're not really a Jew. Well, I've already showed you that there are unbelieving Jews in the New Testament that are referred to as Jews by Holy Spirit inspired scripture. So what do we do with the Revelation passage? There's a synagogue of Satan. Well, I don't know exactly what they're referring to here. And the thing is, I don't think you do either. What we do, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe someone knows more about this and that. It's not more guesswork, right? But what we do is we take Jesus talking about a specific group of people who were hating on his disciples, who were persecuting them, it seems, who were attacking them. And he says, those guys say they're Jews and they're not. Now we add to it, they were descendants of Abraham, and we add to it. And this applies to every single universal Jew from now on who doesn't follow Jesus. Those are things we're adding. I don't know who these guys are. We don't know if they are actually people who aren't even Jewish and who are pretending to be Jewish because there are some. Okay, so there are congregations that exist even today that are gentiles pretending to be Jews. This has gone up for a long time. There are those things that do exist. Okay, so they're not genetically, but there's the British Israelitism, there's the black Hebrew Israelites. There's other groups who will try to pretend that they are strange but true. Is this the case in this passage? There are people who. They're zealous and they're not even really genetically Jews, and that's what Jesus is calling out here. Or is he saying because of their particular crimes, he is declaring that they're not Jews. He's separating them from. From among the people of Abraham. That's possible, but I want to push back on that, on putting that as a policy on whoever you want, whoever. I want to say you're persecuting Christians, therefore you're not a Jew. Here's the caution. The New Testament does not do this to Paul. The Apostle Paul is seen as Jewish. Jewish, extremely Jewish, even when he's persecuting the church. So let me show you again in Galatians. We'll go back to Galatians again in chapter one, verse 13. There we go. Where he says, you've heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. That language, you can't say that language about someone who's not really Jewish in a meaningful sense. And yet here's Paul actively persecuting the church, trying to kill and destroy it. And he's still, it seems, considered a Jew. So I think it's reckless to take the Revelation Synagogue of Satan passage and extrapolate that out as to a policy giving you permission to. On who you can sort of blanket say people aren't Jews. I think it's fair and safe to say a Jew who's outside of Christ will not inherit the promises of Abraham. That is biblical and true. In Christ, all his promises are yes and amen. Outside of Jesus, you don't get them. You can be outside of the fulfillment of the promises, but there's still those to whom pertain the promises. That's what we see in Scripture, is they're ones to whom pertain the promises. Let me see here. I'm going to find this passage too, I didn't write it down, but. Just a second. Yeah, it's Romans 9:4. And this passage refers to the Israelites, the Jews, again, synonymous terms as not. I'm not saying they're saved. This is not. Some people will be like, well, that's dispensational. As if you can only have the most strong form of what I would call, not in a derogatory way, replacement theology. Or you can have the most heretical thing. You label dispensationalism. Right? You can call it that if you want. It's a form of dispensationalism. And then it's like two paths to God, one through Jesus, another one is like the law. No way, man. This is not the case. There's a middle ground here. So Romans 9:1 says, I tell the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ. For my brethren, my countrymen, according to the flesh, who are Israelites, their identity still exists, right? These are the ones who were unsaved. Paul is expressly talking about un. Only unsaved Israelites or Jews, and his heart for them is their salvation. And obviously he's torn up and broken that so many of them have not received Christ. And then he describes them to whom unsaved Jews pertain. The adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God and the promises. These things pertain to unsaved Jews long after the church has existed in the New Testament. But do the fulfillments of those things, do they get those? Not outside of Jesus, you don't get those. But they're hanging over your head like this promise that's waiting to be fulfilled. And that is, I think, a biblical attitude towards Jews today is that these, these things pertain to you, but you will not experience them until you have the Messiah who you turn from, who you collectively rejected. Even now. Even now. And so, yes, to the Jew you will be. In fact, there's many Jews will say that when they give their lives to Messiah, when they put their faith in the Messiah, Jesus, the Messiah, they say I'm a completed Jewish is a term that sometimes they will use I'm a completed Jew. Because they see that there is something insufficient and incomplete even in their Jewishness, because they were apart from the Messiah. And now that they have him, they have all of those things. And they can be the natural branches, Romans 11 says can be grafted back in. Romans 9, 10, and 11 talk about this. They can be grafted back in. And so that's how the term is used in the New Testament. And people can debate the other questions that are on your minds. In the comments section, we're going to go to question number two, and. And I'm going to try and move a little quick. Although I say that and don't do it half the time, but we'll see how it goes. Okay. This one's anonymous. It says, I know I'm supposed to serve, but to be really honest, I'm always tired and would rather go home and relax after church. I'm ashamed of that, considering all Jesus did for me. But it's true. Lately, I challenged myself to just obey with a good attitude when asked, but even then I feel so guilty knowing I didn't want to. Please help. I. I mean, the question is like, maybe, Mike, how can you help this? But I. I'm going to say, if you're feeling super wiped out and tired, I think that you should consider a medical diagnosis. No, I'm not. I'm not. I don't mean this to be weird. I don't. I'm not diagnosing you with a. A problem, a disease or something like that, where. What I'm suggesting is, ask yourself, why am I so tired? Do you eat well? Do you exercise? Do you have substance issues in your life, things like that, and maybe address those things. If those things are present in your life, that could be part of the reason why you're tired. There's also lots of ways to serve that doesn't have to be on Sunday morning. I mean, I'm just open to this. I'm like, man, is there a food pantry you guys could be part of on Tuesday nights? Is there something else you could do? Is there other ministry that maybe isn't even part, Isn't even local church? You're not serving in the local church, but you're serving the Lord and doing ministry. My ministry is not part of the local church. I mean, I am part of it, but not my ministry. It's separate. So I think there's a lot of opportunities you have to do all kinds of things. All kinds of things. But consider for yourself that we are stewards of a vessel that God has given us. This is a biblical idea. As Christians, you were stewards of a vessel. And I know some people in the past have thought, well, it's all going to burn. Or they read that bodily exercise is of some value. And in their minds, they think that's a derogatory statement, but it's not. Paul is saying, let's look at it. Okay, Man, my keyboard is like, I think I spilled something on it. Okay, this is 1 Timothy 4, 8 should be on your screen now for bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things. Having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. Now, if you parse this together and you go, well, he's not really talking about bodily exercise. He's acknowledging something that's already known, everybody knows. But if you pull that out, what is he acknowledging? He's saying, bodily exercise profits a little. And how does it profit? Having promise of the life that now is. That's a good thing. Bodily exercise is a good thing. I try to go to the gym. We went a couple times last week and about to go again probably tonight. And I want to do more, man. I want to do like four or five days a week would be ideal, but things have been hectic. Not an excuse. I apologize. I repent for my lack of gym attendedness, But I think that I would encourage you guys, just have it on your radar. It's a good thing, the food that you're eating, the stuff that's going on, because maybe the root issue of just how exhausted and tired you are is a problem. Do you stay up till three in the morning Saturday night, and then you go to church Sunday morning and you're wiped out? These are good questions to ask, but you can serve in other ways as well. All right, I'm going to go to the next question because I said I'd move quicker and I didn't do it. All right, this one comes from. Oh, We've got all 10 questions for today, by the way. Question number three is from JFREAK7. Is it appropriate for a church to dedicate a service in celebration of Black History Month? If not, in what ways could it be a cause for concern. To dedicate a service? I mean, part of me wants to say on one level that doing this is like, okay, well, there's like, I could think of reasonable ways where someone could try to do this well or handle it well. But if I'm very, very transparent with you, I think that understanding the culture, understanding the world that we're in right now, if you dedicate a service to Black History Month, it's probably a symptom of woke ideology that's present in the leadership. That's most likely the case. Just like if you Dedicated a service to Women's History Month, or if you dedicate a service to. I'm trying to think of what the opposite would be. For what we're calling sometimes the woke rite, they don't really have a month, do they? What if you had like a white History month? In fact, this is always a question you can ask is, can we also do a corresponding service to celebrate white history? And if you watch your leaders laugh or get upset at the very suggestion, then you know that this is an oppressed, oppressor ideology that's baked into their views. And that's concerning because that is not a biblical view. Wokeness is not biblical. It doesn't mean that doing a white History month is the solution. Service is a solution. Neither of these are. Yeah. So I think that either of those would be a mistake the church has. It's difficult to navigate. As a pastor, you're trying to deal with the needs of the church. And that may involve like, things that are cultural, moments that are going on, that are like in their faces, that are affecting their lives. But it also involves a mandate that is always the same throughout all time to preach the gospel, to make disciples, and to build up the body of Christ in those ways to train people up that they might be servants of Christ, disciple making disciplers and all that. And so you don't want to get off track on those things. But yeah, I would genuinely take this, to be honest, as a sign that there's WOKE ideology amongst my leadership. And I would want to confront them and in a loving way and say, hey, Pastor, I'm curious to understand the logic behind this and maybe what we're believing about the fundamental differences between humans and how that should be handled in church, and go watch my video interview with Neil Shenvi from years ago where we were like, is it biblical to be woke? Or something like that? Neil Shenvi S H E N V I if you just type my name and his name, it will pop right up that interview. So let's go to the next question, number four. This is from Billa something who says, hi, Mike. Can a person who trusts Christ for her eventual salvation, but think she might have to go to purgatory first to be saved? Wait, oh, can they be saved? I added a word there. Can a person who trusts Christ for her eventual salvation, but thinks she might have to go to purgatory first be saved? Thank you so much for this ministry. It has blessed so many people. I think potentially, yes, they can be saved. So we should unpack what Purgatory is and what people think it is. It's not common for Catholics to. And Roman Catholics to be open and honest about the nature of purgatory. It's not common. A lot of people think purgatory is a character cleansing sanctification process. And that is the extent of purgatory. Now, if someone says, oh, I feel like I'm just not. My character's not ready for heaven, like I'm going to die a second later, I'm in the presence of Christ, I feel like I need so much more work done on me before I'm ready for Him. And I think that there's an error in this belief. But if they're believing this and they think I'm going to go to purgatory and, and purgatory is like I'm being worked on. I'm growing and I'm learning. And it's unpleasant, but it's like a chastening that brings character change. That's not heretical. Okay, I believe that's an error, but it's not an offense to the very Gospel itself such that you are unsaved. Right. That's not what. I wouldn't hold that view. So to the best of my knowledge. But the actual doctrine of purgatory is that it is expiatory suffering. That's an important word there. You are literally suffering to pay for your sins. That is purgatory. It's an exchange of pain or suffering for forgiveness. It is getting grace. You're effectively purchasing grace through what you suffer. And then that's the actual doctrine of purgatory. It's not just character change. It is that. Which means that Christ's sacrifice on the cross doesn't actually deal with all your sins. It deals with a lot of your sins, especially those before you get baptized. But then you have to piecemeal, come for more grace here and there throughout your life. And then when you die, anything that's remaining left, you're going to need to suffer in purgatory. But people can help you. And that's why they do Masses for the dead. This is why they pray for the dead. This is why every Catholic sacrament funeral, I've been to a bunch because I used to release doves, little white birds at funerals. Many side jobs you have when you are poor and doing ministry. And yeah, I've at least been to hundreds of funeral services, like gravesite services, they're always outside and some weddings and some other stuff. But yeah. Did you guys know. Have I told you guys that about me? I think I'VE probably, maybe I've mentioned it, I don't know. But the thing they say, and I've heard priests say it many times, is that let us assist them with our prayers. That is the statement. Let us assist them with our prayers. The theology behind that idea, the priest guiding you in assisting the deceased loved one with prayers. It feels good. Because here's the thing. When someone dies, we all get hit with most of us, for the most part, get hit with this thing of I wish there was something I could do. There's nothing I can do. This situation is beyond me. It's out of my control. It's so grievous. It's so hard, it's so unnatural. This shows me that death is evil. The death is itself a curse. And we're experiencing it now. It's horrible, right? And you think, I wish there was something I could do. So you go back into your past and you start thinking, what could I have done before they died that I didn't do? And you start feeling guilty about stuff, that a lot of times you shouldn't feel like that. Or you show up and they say, let us assist them with our prayers. And you think, finally I can do something. And so you pray. But the theology behind that, this is why I would never say this at a service. The thing you can do is you can love each other, you can take care of the family, you can honor their memories. You can't assist them with your prayers. The theology behind it is that they have most likely some season of time in purgatory, right? It's not really known for sure with individuals. What about them? Are they even saved? Are they not? We know. We don't know. Are they in purgatory, how long? They have some season of time in purgatory, and we're going to assist them with our prayers because it may reduce the amount of time that they're in purgatory. You can also hold a Mass for those who've deceased. You can also make offerings or do things in the name of that person, hoping that it will merit an increase of grace so that they will spend less time in purgatory. Okay, with that theology of purgatory, is that a threat to the very gospel itself? Clearly it is. Clearly it is. Because when I add my works to the grace of Christ, I am moving from grace into works, which was the movement that the Galatians were doing in the Galatian heresy. So if someone believes that about purgatory, can they be saved? Let me say this, at least I am Scared about your salvation? It certainly is not up to me, but the theology of what you're affirming makes me scared about your salvation because you're now believing in an insufficiency in either the work of Christ or maybe more likely the application of the work of Christ so that now it's being added to. That's why you have the treasury of merit, Catholic theology, right? You've got the work of not only Jesus, but of Mary in particular. And of course, all the saints and all their good works are stored up, kind of like in this, in a metaphor of a vault in heaven. And then they got the keys and they can open the vault and they can give some of the works out, dispense some of them to you so you can get more forgiveness. It's a lot of wrong stuff. How wrong can you be? This is the big million dollar question. How much can I get wrong about the forgiveness of my sins and still be saved? And I'm not going to play any games with that. I want to make sure I know the Gospel and I'm not going to. I can't affirm to somebody. If you think you're going to contribute to your own salvation and merit grace through your suffering or through the works of others or yourself, then I think you are threatening the very nature of the gospel with those. With those beliefs. And that seems to be what Scripture affirms as well. Because if it's by grace, it's no longer of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. All right, number five. Philagape says in Philippians, chapter one 1518, Paul rejoices when Christ is preached from strife and selfish ambition. How is that not a bad tree bearing good fruit? Matthew 7:18. Thank you for your ministry. Okay, let's start with Matthew 7:18. And on your screen I'll back up a little bit. Beware of false prophets. Okay, this is initially a warning about prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. The issue is who they are inwardly, right? You'll recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but a diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown to the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. What does this mean? Well, the only example of bad fruit is the statement here. Inwardly they are ravenous wolves. That is you are sheep. They're Wolves, the false prophet is here to consume from you. He sees you as someone who will bring him what he wants, and he's not really of you. An example of this is Benny Hinn. He is a ravenous wolf who has enriched himself and left a trail of injured people, and yet he still sometimes preaches the actual gospel. This is the tree and fruit. Here is their personal lives bear the fruit of them abusing and manipulating the body of Christ for their own benefits. That's what their personal lives reveal. So when you get guys like YouTube prophet Brandon Biggs, who, I just found this out, just bought a massive, beautiful home off the backs of his fake prophecies and the money that he has built his audience from. And he's got a bunch of excuses and some of them lies about why. And I don't have time to do a whole review. You guys can. If he's affecting you, just go watch my old video about Brandon Biggs. I've already got a bunch of content showing that he's a fake prophet. But what he's done is he. When. When he went viral doing fake prophecy, he's driving a junky car and he's in a tiny little home and he can barely afford anything. And then all of a sudden, now the guy's like, ritzy, ritzy. To buy. It's a one. They said it was a $1.3 million home, but to buy that home where I live. And so California would probably be like a $5 million, $6 million house. So it depends on where you are. But clearly the man is making bank off of donations and stuff like that, because it's certainly not just off of ad revenue, that's for sure. Anyway, you recognize them by their fruits. When Creflo Dollar rolls up in his spiffy duds, you're like, come on. You are preaching for people who are poor to give in order for you to enrich yourself. That's what this is about. So that's a fruit thing. Okay. False prophets can be known by their fruits. All right, now, sorry, I'm belaboring this too much. I'm going to shoot myself on the foot with my own schedule today. Your question was about Philippians 1. Let's look at it. Verse 15. I love this passage. I think that people often misunderstand it because it's challenging. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I'm put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. Why is he rejoicing? Well, because Christ has preached. He goes, what then? On every. Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that I rejoice. So I like to ask the question, what's the nature of these people proclaiming Christ and what does it mean if I rejoice? Okay, so I'm going to side rail this question. I knew I wouldn't go. I'm going to try to go quick a little bit to answer something that I think is worth talking about. Let's say Benny Hinn preaches the gospel and people go, well, Mike, Paul says he rejoices when Christ is proclaimed. As long as Jesus is proclaimed, he's rejoicing. Yeah, but this doesn't mean Paul can't speak against those people. He's doing it here. He's doing it here. He's talking about there's people out here who proclaim truths about Jesus just to try to get me in trouble. He's calling them out even now. He's just saying, at least I rejoice that Christ is being proclaimed. But I don't think he's talking about Benny Hinn. I think he's talking about the fact that basically Paul shows up to a town and he's bringing the gospel there for the first time. Literally, no one's talking about Jesus in that town. He proclaims Christ, some people get saved. They also proclaim Jesus. These are the sincere ones, praise the Lord. Others, they go, these guys have to be stopped. They're evil. And then people ask them, why are they evil? And he goes, well, they're talking about Jesus being the Messiah and then he rose from the dead. That is, in order to discuss what's wrong with Paul, they have to say something about Jesus to people. And it's making Jesus more famous and people are hearing his name. Christ is being proclaimed, even if it's through bad motives. That is amazing. That is cool to see. And so I don't think it's saying carte blanche. Like you can't call out a bad minister who's an ungodly person who's doing evil things. But no, you can rejoice that Jesus is being proclaimed even by people who do it out of evil motives, but you can still call them out. So back to your question. How is that not a bad tree bearing good fruit? Yes, the reason why, let's say Benny Hinn, for example, can preach the gospel and someone can actually get saved. And you go, isn't that a bad tree bearing good fruit? What Jesus is saying is not if you have a bad guy, he can never have anything good come out of what he does. That's not what he's saying. And that wouldn't be true. And surely Caiaphas, who prophesies of Jesus, him dying for the nation, that's a bad tree bearing good fruit. If you interpret it that way. What Jesus is saying is you will see it in their lives when they live it out. You will see if they're a fake prophet, specifically a prophet, someone who says, I am a prophet. Right. You will see them living out either a godly life or an ungodly life. And you will test the prophet not just by his prophecies, but by his character. So the prophet's character matters and is a test of whether they are legit or not. And it's the character that is the fruit. Not just I said something and people responded and got saved. That's not the fruit we're talking about here. That's not the fruit I think Jesus was talking about. So that's my understanding of those passages. Let's look at number six. Blake Mowry says, hey, Pastor Mike. Although I don't call myself a pastor, I'm technically ordained, but I'm not functioning in that role in the local church. But it doesn't faze me if someone does. Have you heard of the divine seed doctrine that states that Christ was born solely of the seed of God and not from the egg of Mary, and that his flesh was a kind of divine flesh? I have heard forms of this over the years, and it actually goes back really, really far. One of the first. Probably the first time there was a footprints type. You guys know the footprints thing where they say. They say. That there was, you know, I was walking on the beach and I looked back and, lord, I thought you were with me. But there was only one set of footprints during my hardest times. You guys have probably heard this, right? During the hardest times, lord, I look back, there's only one set of footprints and the beach. The trail of footprints on the beach represents, like, the person's lifespan. And then he says, like, my dear son, when you look back and you only see one set of footprints, that was when I carried you. And it's very heartwarming. It truly is. And there's times where the Lord does carry us. But the old Gnostic version of this is that the disciples were walking on the beach and they look back and they Notice that Jesus has no footprints because he has no physical body, because they saw the physical as evil. And so they didn't want to attribute Jesus having a physical body, a real human body, him having one, because they saw that as bad. And so they started to come up with weird teachings to back that up. Well, certainly this was very, very early on, a heresy, which is why First John 4. Three, it says, every spirit that confesses that Christ, Jesus, or Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. In the flesh means human. He came and was human. He was truly human. From the very beginning of Genesis, you've got the promise that it will be the seed of the woman who will crush the serpent's head. The seed of the woman, Jesus is that seed. He's also called Abraham's seed, according to the flesh, specifically that phrase, Abraham's seed. So he has a physical, genetic connection. And Mary, it says, let me. Let me take you there. There's so much scripture that would contradict that idea. So. Here it says. Or I'll just. I'll back up a little bit. Let me see. Maybe I should go to Luke. I'll just say this. Now, the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, whose mother, Jesus mother. Before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. So she's found with child. That phrase with child is. It's not like a new Greek term they made up for a woman who is pregnant with a baby that's not her physical child. Right. That's not from the egg of her body. No, this is she's with child or having it in the belly is, I think, the straight Greek of it. But it's the same term used for any woman who's ever pregnant. It means it's her baby. That's what it means. But it specifies that her baby's from the Holy Spirit. And as in, there's a miracle. Virgin birth, virgin conception. And her husband Joseph, being a just man, unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, not just a boy, not just a child, a son. So it's her actual son, her physical biological descendant. And you should call his name Jesus. And you could go on. There's other things here. The reference to Isaiah, the Virgin shall conceive who conceived. And what does that mean? Conception is from her body, from her egg. That's what it means. So there's more you could go on. The genealogies of Jesus don't even make sense if you don't have that. So that doctrine is very old and has always been heretical because it denies that Christ came in the flesh. And that is something the Bible specifically says. Like, if you deny this, you're not of God. You're not of God. So, yeah, next question number seven. Bvan says. Hi, Mike. Asking as someone who engages with Hebrew roots, folks, how can Matthew interpret out of Egypt I called my son as meaning Jesus when the Old Testament passage is clearly about Israel? All right, listen, I've got to point you to my video on this and I really hope you guys would check it out. It is not an exciting video, but it is, I think, really, really helpful. I go through every time Matthew in particular uses the word fulfilled. Uses the word fulfilled. Every time he does it, I walk through like, what does it mean? How is he using it? What does it mean? And there is in Matthew a fulfillment that's related to typology. This is clear in Matthew. What we tend to think is when Matthew says that it was fulfilled out of Egypt, I called my son, that this is where God is saying. When I go back to that Old Testament passage, it will be clear that this passage is exclusively and just about the Messiah. That's not what you get. Sometimes you have passages like that. Other times it's a typological fulfillment. It's pictures and types. And Jesus, he fulfills way more than just one to one prophetic statements like this will happen. There will be a Messiah and he will do this. He fulfills way more than that. He fulfills in ways the life of Moses, the life of David, the life of Joseph. And there's all these typologies in the scripture that I've gone over in great detail in my how to Find Jesus in the Old Testament series. But this one out of Egypt I've called my son. So Jesus fulfills what Israel failed to fulfill. He's the one who fulfills it. And you get this. It's so beautiful. You get the marching of this through the book of Isaiah, where in the Servant Songs of Isaiah, I'm not going to explain it all, but I've got other videos you guys can find this in. But in the Servant Songs of Isaiah, it starts off clearly being about Israel, the first servant song, right? And then the servant narrows down to being like someone from Israel. And then it's this one person from Israel who will be rejected by Israel, who will actually bear the burden of the sins of Israel, who will die for them that they can be forgiven. And so what you see is God has a calling for Israel to be his firstborn. They fail in the calling, but Christ fulfills the calling. It's a beautiful, beautiful image. So are Hebrew Israelites usually interested in a long discussion of what the word fulfilled means in Matthew? Maybe not, but I encourage you to check it out. I'll link that video down below. It's. It's actually, I think it's. Is it in my how to Find Jesus in the Old Testament series? I don't remember, but I go through the whole book of Matthew's use of the word fulfilled. I will link it below as soon as I get done with the live stream. All right, number eight. Hi Mike, I heard it taught that the building materials in First Corinthians 3, 10, 15 are persons works. But if reading the verses before. But reading the verses before makes me think it's referring to teachings in the church. Thoughts? Yeah, I can share that. I can answer that really, really quickly. So 1 Corinthians 3. We'll read it together so everybody's on the same page. This is a passage talking about the stuff that we do serving other believers in God's name and how we'll be tested for those things. So Paul refers to himself as a master builder laying a foundation. That's because he was an apostle, bringing the gospel, the foundation, to a new people who had not heard the gospel before. And then other people come later and they build on it because he brought them to Christ and someone else came into their life and helped disciple them more later on. Does that make sense? So let's read it now. First Corinthians 3, 10, 15. According to the grace given to me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw. So these are good things. Gold, silver, precious stones. And these are temporary things that are weaker. Wood, hay, straw. Each one's work will become manifest for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up. He will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. And no, this cannot possibly be about purgatory. I have a video on that. I'll link it below, too. So let me just continue the analogy. He says, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple. So this idea of accountability for the work that we do in serving others and building into others, I don't think it's just an either or. Like, your question is, is it the works a person does in their life, or is it teachings in the church that maybe those people are receiving and then the teachers are being. They're the ones being tested? I think it's probably both and. And not either or. You right there, Kitty? Yeah, I think it's probably both. And I think that everything we do will stand before God and will face a testing. Now, this is not judgment. I'm not being tested to see if I'm good enough for heaven. No, but. But the work that I'm doing, the Lord will reward me for that which I did in his name, that he that is pleasing to him. And that which was not just gets burned up. It's just lost. I'm still saved. But it's as though your house caught on fire and you got out, but you lost your stuff. So I'm still saved. I'm in the kingdom of heaven for eternity. But I didn't get to bring with me this, like, amazing treasure of what I did for the Lord in my life. So I just don't think it's either or. I think it's probably both. Jesus refers to every word, will be tested. Everything that we say we'll have accountability before God for, which is terrifying. Also true. So I don't think it's limited to the teachings. For instance, the things I'm teaching you right now, if this is wood, hay, stubble, that's going to be burned up. All right. Number nine. Allison Cunningham says, my husband's family is Catholic, and we are traveling to see them for Easter. They want us to go to Mass with them, but I feel uneasy about it now that I'm an active Protestant believer. Should we go? I'll give you my conviction on this. And what would be my counsel to you on it as well? And so going to Mass, to a Catholic Mass, and participating where you actually partake. First off, you're not supposed to. Based on Catholic theology, you're not supposed to participate. You're outside the church. You are outside the church, but participating is different than participating in communion at a Protestant church. So you go to a Protestant church communion. For most of the churches, it's available for people who show up and are like, I'm a believer. I believe in Jesus. You know, they mean it. And they come up and they partake. That is a statement about Jesus. When I partake, I'm declaring, this is his body broken for me. This is his blood. And I mean that in the way Jesus meant it, not transubstantiation. This is his blood poured out for me for the forgiveness of sins. This is the new covenant. And I'm partaking because I trust in Christ. I proclaim his death and his resurrection until he returns. When I go to a Catholic church, I'm saying extra things far beyond that. I'm saying, here's what I believe. I'm affirming. I'm affirming that the priest exists, that there is a priesthood that is legitimate and that they are my mediators between me and God, that they say the words of invocation, and by doing so, that bread and that cup transform into the physical body and blood of Jesus Christ, using really old philosophy, because this is when it was developed of accidents and substance. So it has the accidents or appearance of physical bread and wine or whatever they are using. I think they usually always. I think Catholics always use wine. I actually never thought about that before, but I imagine they do. So it has the appearance of those things, but the actual. What it really is, literally physically, is the blood and body of Christ. And then I'm eating it in fulfillment of that. I'm affirming their priesthood. I'm affirming, effectively, the papacy. I think that I'm having to affirm that by acknowledging all of this so theologically, like, I can't do it, man. I can't do it. Now. I could walk up and you could say, oh, I'll partake. But I know what I really mean. The Lord knows what I really mean. And I'm like, you know, that's not the purpose of communion in the Catholic Church. It's not your secret moment where you do what you want and it has its own meaning for you. You are participating in something here that I think has unbiblical elements that are things I simply couldn't participate in. Could I go to a Mass and sit there and not participate in the communion? I mean, maybe I'm kind of weird guys. I could go to a Buddhist thing, but for me, this is Mike Winger. For me, that's research. This isn't just me being curious, Looky Lou. It's like research. I want to go to the most liberal church I can find, Just sit through their service and be doing research so that I can speak to it or interact with people better. But yeah, I would not be able to participate. And if I did go, I would want to have a conversation with my Catholic family afterwards and be like, hey, can we talk about what I saw in there? I noticed you bowing down before this thing. How do you process that? What do you think is happening there? And I would probably make them very uncomfortable. Anyways. All right, number 10 question. Number 10, what are your thoughts on the spiritual formation movement, including practices like lectio divina in non denominational churches? I don't know enough about lectio divina as a practice to comment on it. I know that there's an increase right now in people wanting to do more ritualistic stuff, which is not inherently bad, but it's going to cause problems. You'll see. There's. Here's the. Here's. We had. I had a discussion with some guys, young guys from my church. We went to do a men's retreat a little while ago and we chatted for a while about this. And I'm going to give the counsel I gave to those guys for whatever it's worth. And I don't know how much it landed or not. And if any of those guys hear me saying this, maybe you'll hear it again and you'll think about it. But I greatly respect those guys. And they're seeing. They're feeling a hunger to be more serious and go deeper in their experience with God. Those are good things. I think there can be an error in presuming that being given a ritual and being and going through a process inherently does take you deeper into God. And that error will show itself when the next generation comes in and they tell you your kids 30 years from now tell you the exact opposite of what you're thinking. And they go, I just feel like when I went to the church and the pastor is wearing jeans and a T shirt and they just opened the Bible and taught it and they just had a guy on stage with an acoustic. It was so genuine and real and it was so authentic. And then your kids will make the mistake of thinking that the lack of ritual is what made it genuine and real and authentic. Just like you can make the mistake of thinking the presence of ritual is what makes it genuine and real and authentic. And none of those things are true. And they're mistakes that every generation makes. My generation, when I was younger, their mistake was often in thinking, oh man, we're not even meeting in a church, we're meeting in a warehouse. It's so spirit filled. Now, this has nothing to do with whether it's spirit filled. This has zero to do with anything. You're mistaking the skin of a thing for the thing. The other thing. I would say, and here's my caution. So that being said, yeah, if you wanted to have a ritual that you engage in, that's not inherently wrong, nor is it instantly rejected, nor is it inherently more godly not to do those things. This misses the point of genuine spirituality, in my opinion. So the only thing I'll add to this is this. If you go to the New Testament times, to the first century, you will find that a lot of what comes behind the we're bringing in these old practices from church history. They feel like they're connecting with the real early church, like the true early church. And I think that this is a facade. I'm being completely straight with you guys. I think it's a complete facade. If you were to go to the first century, not 100 years later, not 1,000 years later, if you go to the first century and you sat in on one of Peter's church services, you would not have all of these well developed ritualistic behaviors that didn't exist in Judaism and did not yet exist in Christianity. It just wouldn't have existed. And so then a lot of people who today are feeling drawn to what some call the smells and bells. A lot of the people who are feeling drawn to those things, it's understandable. You're feeling drawn because it's a desire for authentic. And so you're looking for novel and you're somehow finding novel in old. Because now it not only feels new to you, but it feels ancient and it feels established and it feels like, I can trust this. And yet if you took Paul the Apostle and you teleported him into the Middle Ages, he would have walked into a church service and been like, wow, this is different than anything I've ever done. Then they all would have been like, are you kidding? You instituted this. Paul, Peter, you're the one. Jesus did this. That's what they would say. If you go to the actual first century, what you find is the institution of rituals in the church is like bare minimum. That is the original church bare minimum. You have baptism, you have communion, you have prayers, you have preaching, you have corporate worship. You have people engaging in gifts and ministering to one another. It doesn't come off as any kind of high church. It just doesn't. It doesn't mean high church is bad, but it takes away the claim that high church is biblical. Like, it's the biblical method of doing things. So I think we have to be genuine about that and be honest about it. And this is the part where it didn't really land. I don't know if it's because maybe the young guys I was talking to, I'm just being very transparent here. Maybe they didn't know enough of church history. Or maybe here's what I often learn. People when I say the early church, they literally ignore the Bible sometimes and they just immediately go to like, Eusebius. And I'm going, dude, our best source for church history is Acts. Like, it's right there. So they continue daily in the apostles doctrine and breaking of bread and in fellowship and in prayer. It didn't say the lectio divina. So things develop over time. Things develop over time. A priesthood develops over time. Not biblical. Not biblical. We're a kingdom of priests. Problems develop in a very short period of time. You got weird teachings, you got weird practices. You have things that come up in the New Testament times they're already fighting against, but we're actually given as our blueprint for church is very bare bones and very. It's more along the lines of lower church, what people call low church. I don't like those terms because high churches inherently sound lofty and good, and low church inherently sounds demeaning. But if you were to construct, based on just the New Testament, what a church gathering looked like, it would. One way would be different than a typical evangelical church is there'd be a lot more group involvement, of discussion and engagement. That's one way it would be different. But you wouldn't see highly developed ritualistic stuff. You had baptism, you had communion, so that would be my counsel. People are looking right past the New Testament in their search for what the early church and what the authentic church is supposed to look like. That is a mistake. You don't have to look to your local evangelical church to figure that out, but at least look to the New Testament and don't go beyond it when you're telling people what this is, what the church should be. That's my encouragement. Yeah. And church history beyond that is replete with people doing all manner of different conflicting things and all of them saying, Jesus told us to do this. Right. Skip right to the New Testament and get your sources there. Okay, I think that's it for today, guys. I'm going to close this in prayer and thank you for joining. I plan to be with you next Friday for another Q and A. As you notice, this has been all Bible focused, all focused on just that. I know I'm still dealing with the COVID Up Culture series and there's updates and things on that that I could bring today. I just want to bring you scripture and I'll get more into that stuff at some other point. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your holy, holy word. Help us to see the sufficiency of it, to feel the sufficiency of scripture, that when we look into the New Testament and we see the way that they did church, even though we don't have tons of info, but what info we have, we can take as good enough. Let us seek authenticity, true commitment to Christ, knowing your word, preaching your gospel and building each other up, baptizing, having communion. Let us seek those things, Lord. And I pray that the people who somewhere in their hearts feel that that's maybe not enough, Lord, that they would see how it's more than enough. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Lord bless you guys.