Searches every word across every teaching, article, and Q&A on the site.
Searches every word across every teaching, article, and Q&A on the site.
Teacher: Pastor Paul LeBoutillier Pastor Paul: Hi everybody, we are back with another set of questions that you've sent in to us that you're wondering about, and so we're going to do our best to answer those questions today. Sue: You always do your best to answer them. The first question is from Neska, “Good day Pastor Paul and Sue, I've learned so much from you. I recently heard in a sermon that the word “serpent” in Genesis may not be the best translation, as the original Hebrew supposedly means “shining one.” The preacher connected this to Satan appearing as an angel of light and referenced Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. Is this accurate? And if so, why is Satan described as a serpent rather than as a shining or deceptive angel of light?” Pastor Paul: Well, he's described in both ways, the ancient serpent, but he's also described as an angel of light. And I suppose the whole idea of a serpent is just kind of the same inference that we get from a snake, it slithers through the ground and sneaks up on you. And we even use that term when we're talking about someone who is dishonest, he's a snake or something like that. So I'm guessing that that's probably where the thing came from. In the garden, the Bible tells us that Eve was speaking with a serpent and it's really interesting. She doesn't go, “Aaah, a talking snake!” There seems to be in the garden, pre-fall, there seemed to be a very natural communication between the animal kingdom, perhaps, and the man and the woman. It could be that some of those things were lost. I think C.S. Lewis kind of postulated that idea in his Narnia books. But for whatever reason, the Bible tells us that Eve was talking to a serpent. Now we know that that was the ancient serpent, Satan. How that all fits in, we're not really sure, but that's where the idea came from. And that's why the Bible refers to him as a serpent. But we are also told that he appears as an angel of light. And that's what makes the deceptions of the enemy so difficult to discern, because he and his temptations can appear very good to the initial eye and sensibilities. So we have to really be discerning when it comes to the works of the enemy. Sue: Now here's a question from a person. I'm going to guess a gentleman from another country, and so I'm completely going to butcher the name. To me, it maybe seems like it's a Vietnamese name, and I don't even know if this is the surname, but I'm going to say Tangwang. Pastor Paul: All right. Sue: “Hello Pastor Paul, I have a question that has been on my mind lately and I would appreciate your guidance. Is boxing considered a sin or any other combat sport? I'm trying to understand whether the sport conflicts with Christian values, especially since it involves physical aggression and competition in light of the fact that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And is it a sin for a Christian to become a soldier, knowing that being in the military involves killing during war.” Pastor Paul: Let's start with the first one. He says in light of the fact that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. So he's talking now just about Christians, because only Christians are a temple of the Holy Spirit. So, obviously, the whole thing wouldn't apply to anyone outside of someone who's in Christ. So is it wrong? Is boxing or maybe football as American football? Sue: Aggressive sports. Pastor Paul: Yeah, aggressive sport. Sue: Combat sports. Pastor Paul: Yeah, aggressive sports. Are they an issue? The sporting world has been around for a long, long time, and competition and aggression is something that starts in the heart, not in a sport. I played sports in school. I've refereed basketball, which can be a contact sport. And it all comes down to a person's heart. There are a lot of people that play and play hard, but their heart is not to express aggression and anger and violence and that sort of thing. They're just being competitive and playing the sport. So you can't just make a single determination that football or boxing is wrong. You can't do that. God doesn't look at, in those sorts of general terms, God looks at the heart. We're going to remember this in another question coming up here in this episode. God looks at the heart. So it could be wrong for someone to be involved in a sport where it is allowing him or her, for that matter, to show a kind of aggression that perhaps the Lord is trying to change in that person's heart. Whereas for someone else, it's just not an issue because that's not their heart to do that sort of thing. So it comes down to the individual. There may be some people who have a tendency in an area to allow violence to kind of take over. And for them, they're like, you know what, I really can't play a contact sport because I lose it. And my flesh just comes out in ways that I feel are dangerous for me as an individual, because it's something the Lord's trying to break me from. You know what I mean? And then there's another person who gets out there and they're rough and tumble and they're tackling the quarterback and stuff. But when the whole thing's done, they're like best pals with the person they've been playing against. And it's not in their heart to be aggressive in a violent or malevolent way. It comes down to the individual. So I would tell this individual, you got to know your heart before the Lord. Is this something that you can do? And if it isn't, you can't really judge your brother and say, you shouldn't do that because maybe he can and you can't. So his second **question has to do with being a soldier. And you can tell what this individual is trying to wrap things up into a neat, sinful, this is a sin and this isn't a sin. So the second question is, what about being a soldier because it involves killing? Well, God had soldiers in the Old Testament. Joshua had an army, and those armies went out and they fought against enemies. So if it is a sin to be a soldier, then God created sinful situations for people. We have always believed that there are times when taking a life can, and perhaps even should be acceptable, and that is in times of judicial punishment, even in the Old Testament, God had punishments that meant taking a life. We call those capital punishments. And then there were military actions that the Lord called his people into, and those often included the taking of lives. There is not a prohibition in the Bible against killing. There is a prohibition in the Bible against murder. And there's a huge difference between premeditated indiscriminate murder and the taking of a life for judicial or military purposes. Those are different things, and that must be understood. Sue: And being myself in the category, as we tend to categorize people, women and children, I am very happy to have military ready to protect me. Pastor Paul: Yeah, me too. Sue: I want there to be that sort of protection, not just for me personally, but for my community and that sort of thing. Pastor Paul: Because of the sin of man, we need a military. Sue: Yeah, we do. Next question is from Kissanet, “I have a question about the Seventh Day Adventist beliefs. My husband is a practicing SDA and believes he is one of the remnants that kept the law based on Revelation 12:17. He has also mentioned the 3 angels message in Revelation. I've never read that.”** Pastor Paul: I can imagine. This is a challenge, because this individual is writing and saying that really my husband and I are unequally yoked. Because he has bought into a belief system, which has some elements of truth to it. And it also has some very dangerous elements of legalism that are attached to it. And I know that you can't paint with a broad brush with all Seventh-day Adventists, because there are different kind of degrees of belief within the Seventh-day Adventist denomination. Some very strongly hold to the teachings of Ellen White, who was kind of their female prophetess, and there are others who consider her writings nothing more than just like another commentary. So it's very difficult. But it sounds like what this gal is dealing with is a husband who has kind of bought into the more radical positions of the Seventh-day Adventist faith. So there's going to be a lot of things that she's going to uncover that are going to be weird. The Seventh-day Adventists fail to take so much into consideration concerning the differences between the covenant that God made with Israel and the statements that were made to the nation of Israel and the covenant that we have as believers in Jesus Christ. There's a great deal of error in the Seventh-day Adventist church. And I would encourage this woman to pray for her husband and pray that God would open his eyes. And she just needs to kind of hang on, because this could be a rough ride with his beliefs being what they are. So she may want to look into Seventh-day Adventism just so she has a better understanding. I can't get into all the details of it. But if this person would write me a note personally, I would do my best to link her to some sources where she can learn more about what her husband believes and doesn't believe. And so she could be better prepared perhaps to understand what he's running after and how she can pray for him. Sue: That's good. Some of the burdens that we bear in life are hard. Claudette says, “Dear Pastor Paul and Sue, I love your teachings and I thank you so much for dedicating your life in teaching the Word to us. We are longtime Christians and my husband has been witnessing to a Jewish friend for quite some time now. To our surprise, he came up with a statement that Eve was not Adam's first wife. Lilith was! Our Jewish friend quotes Isaiah 34:14 where the name is translated as “Screech Owl.” Furthermore, he says that it's in Genesis. For the life of me, I cannot find this in Genesis.” Pastor Paul: It is absolutely incredible what people can create when they start from a false notion. Let me give you the quick answer. This is Jewish folklore that started from a false notion. And the false notion is that there were two creations. The first creation is Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The next creation begins in verse two and following. And there is a belief that first God created the heavens and the earth and then destroyed it all and it became chaotic and so on. And then he started over again in verses two and following. So that kind of just ignited this imagination of people to fill in the blanks of why wonder what happened in that first creation. But I'll just tell you ahead of time, it has as much basis, in fact, as Tolkien's Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. It's fanciful. It's even kind of fun in some places. Sue: Some intriguing. Pastor Paul: Intriguing, but it's not biblical. Where do you even begin? She mentions here in her note that this Jewish friend of theirs cited a passage in Isaiah 34:14, which is translated Screech Owl, where the word Lilith in the Hebrew is used. I can imagine it probably is translated Screech Owl. Here's the fact of the matter. Translators have no idea how to translate that word and it is Lilith in the Hebrew. Let me read the passage. It's Isaiah 34:14: Now, I just read the ESV. They rendered it night bird. Now, if you look up this word in the Hebrew, the literal meaning is a female night demon, but it's not a biblical word. It is a word that is couched in Jewish folklore. So it created this Jewish tradition, essentially, that Lilith was Adam's first wife, created from the dust that she refused to submit to Adam in this first creation. And therefore she left the Garden of Eden on her own. And because she refused to submit to her husband, she became associated with demons. And this is where this female night demon thing got started. Sue: That's a big story to get out of that short verse that seems to kind of be about animals getting along with each other. Pastor Paul: That's the point. The point is it is all couched in imagination and folklore. And it has, again, like I said, no basis, in fact, any more than Frodo is a real character. So you see what I'm saying? So this guy he's witnessing to this Jewish friend and this Jewish guy comes back and says, by the way, I believe that Eve wasn't Adam's first wife. It was a woman named Lilith. And she became a night demon. Wow. Wow. And you got all of that… Sue: And at that point you ask, can we get back to Jesus? Pastor Paul: Exactly. And that's what I would encourage them to do. Keep it on the person of Jesus. Sue: Well, the next two questions are from Edna, “Thank you for your Bible study and making it available to everyone. I have learned much from your clear teaching, and I pray that the Lord will continue to bless your ministry. I was taught Isaiah 34:14 (ESV) And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place. that God is pleased when we obey His Word and displeased when we disobey Him, and that He may even discipline us so that we repent and turn from our sins. David's adultery and murder are often cited as examples to support this teaching. Is it correct to draw this lesson from David's life and apply it to believers today?” Pastor Paul: It is a good question. Is God pleased when we obey? Is God displeased when we disobey? I think those are accurate statements. The problem is you have to be very careful when you trod down this line of reasoning and go too far because you will obliterate grace. Yes, those things are true, but you also have to factor grace into the equation. If you don't factor grace in, you end up with a base legalism where we please God and he loves us and blesses us when we walk in obedience, and if we don't walk in obedience, then we receive our “just desserts,” as it will. So there are elements of truth to that idea, but as I said, if you depart from grace and the understanding of God's unmerited favor, you are going to tumble into a legalistic approach, a judicial approach, to having a relationship with God, where when good things happen to you, you assume it's because you were a good person and God is rewarding you. When bad things happen to you, you assume it's because you were disobedient and God is now displeased with you. That's just frankly not always true. You have to bring grace into your understanding, and so that's where I would caution Edna to be careful not to leave out grace. Sue: Very good. The second question is, “In your message on “Understanding and Responding to Legalism,” you said that we are to be “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18). Is obeying God's Word a sign that we are “led by the Spirit”? How does being “led by the Spirit” apply to personal decisions, such as buying a house? I come from a very traditional and conservative church where the topic of being “led by the Spirit” is rarely taught, as it is often associated with Charismatics or Pentecostal movements. Your clarification on this would be greatly appreciated.” Pastor Paul: I really appreciate Edna's note here and the way she expressed it, because in the last part of her question, she said, this is something we really haven't been taught in our church, this whole idea of being led by the Spirit. And yet this is one of the hallmarks of the Apostle Paul's teachings. And it has nothing to do with crazy Pentecostalism. It has to do with a tender sensitivity to the leading, guiding, and direction of the Holy Spirit. It is through the Holy Spirit that we are to be led. Paul says that when we are led by the Spirit, we are not under law. We are not under the rigid rule and keeping of rules that often marks base legalism, but instead we are people who are being guided, directed, and led by the Spirit. We are supposed to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as we grow in our relationship with the Lord. It is through the Holy Spirit that God speaks to us through His Word. And, yes, according to her question, I think obedience is a sign, but it's not the only sign. Being directed by the Holy Spirit is just listening for His guidance daily. It's yielding to the nature of God that is communicated through the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that as Christians, we have a sinful nature and we have a divine nature now living within us. Paul tells us these two natures are opposed to one another. That's why we feel this tug of war going on in our lives. As believers, we are learning day by day to yield to the Holy Spirit, that nature that lives within us, and to resist the sinful nature that wants to tend toward rebellion, self-will, and that sort of thing. So the more we are led by the Holy Spirit, the more we're going to be inviting the nature of Jesus living within us to express itself in our actions, our words, and so forth. So being led by the Holy Spirit is not merely a Pentecostal charismatic feature of walking with God. It is a Christian feature. It is a biblical feature that is mentioned several times concerning just how we grow and how we move and act in the Lord. Sue: Very good. If you are led by the spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. (Galatians 5:16) Pastor Paul: Boom. Enormous. Sue: So anyone who this is intriguing to, I would really encourage you to go through your Galatians study, really the whole thing, but in particular, the last half is really going to touch on this. Pastor Paul: Good reminder. Sue: All right. An anonymous person said, “We've just come through the time of Halloween and once again I've heard so many Christians condemning those who participate in any way, including churches that host a “trunk or treat” for kids. What should our stance be on things like Halloween?” Pastor Paul: Christians tend to forget that always God looks at the heart. And this is where we come back to this theme, God looks at the heart. There are many Christians who are very, very judgmental, and they believe that if anything has a bad origin, whether it's a pagan origin or whatever, that any involvement is an immediate participation in that pagan ritual practice or something. And that's not a conclusion that I happen to believe is true. Now here's the deal. Halloween has some pretty dark origins. There's no question about that. We're not going to even debate that. We know that Halloween, it really kind of rose out of a very dark period in human history. In fact, we call it the dark ages when there were some pretty creepy things going on. So we don't debate the fact that there are some problems. Now, for somebody who then goes on to make the conclusion that a four-year-old that shows up at my door dressed as a princess and asks for candy is involved in a pagan ritual that is now condemned and skating on the edge of hell. I have a problem with that. And the reason I have a problem with it is because God looks at the heart. If a born- again Christian is involved in some aspect of Halloween, like a trunk or treat, where they invite kids to their church and out of the trunks of their car they bless these kids with candy when they come with a costume, I don't think that's involved. Those people are being involved in pagan ritual. I also don't think Halloween is a good thing to be involved with. Sue: Yes. You and me aren't natural evangelists that we're always thinking of an event that we can evangelize. We've done plenty of it, but that's not what comes natural to us. But there are a lot of people who that's their first thing, that's their best thing. And so they look at an opportunity like this. They look at the cultural opportunity and they say, we're going to do this big concert, light the night thing, and all these kids are going to be out anyway. We're going to bring them in and share the Gospel. I just have to say, if that's how God leads you, then go for it. Pastor Paul: Because now you're talking about alternative events… Sue: I'm talking about alternative. I'm talking about using this cultural thing as an evangelistic tool. And that's what some of churches are doing when they do a trunk or treat. They're doing an evangelism thing. Pastor Paul: That's true. They are. Sue: So I liked what you said about, we need to be very careful not to criticize another person. But we also need to be very careful to watch our own heart. Pastor Paul: Listen, there's nothing about the origins of Halloween that Christians should want to get involved in. Because it has to do with the occult and darkness and death and all that stuff that we're to steer clear of. So we steer clear of it. But by the same token, I'm not going to condemn a child who shows up at my door or the parent who allows that child to show up at my door. I'm not going to condemn them. I'm not going to tell them that they are involved in an occult or pagan practice because they're not. They're just going around getting candy. The worst thing that's going to happen to that kid is they're going to get cavities and that's about it. Sue: Last is from Brock, “I have questions about Job's faith during his suffering. I know he was a very righteous man (as God Himself testified in Job 1:8) and even the rest of the Bible considers him to be a man of strong faith even when he was suffering (James 5:11). I definitely see how he kept his faith at the beginning of the story in chapters 1 and 2. But from chapter 3 until the end, it seems like he didn't trust in God, especially since God rebuked him and he repented.” Pastor Paul: So Brock is asking, how can the Bible refer to Job as this man of faith with such great patience? We talk about this. People will use that phrase, oh, he has the patience of Job. So Brock is saying, wait a minute, there's a disconnect here because I've read the book of Job and he kind of wigged out toward the end and God had to bring him back and rebuke him and Job repented. So why do we refer to Job as a man of patience in and amidst the story of Job? Well, it has to do with the way the Bible summarizes people's lives. One thing I love about the Bible is that it doesn't shield us from the reality of the failures of biblical characters. When we read about Abraham and David and Job, we see the things that they're known for, but we also see their mistakes. Think about Abraham. Abraham is called the man of faith. And yet on two different occasions, he lied about his wife being his sister so as to save his own skin. David was and is considered a man after God's own heart. And yet David committed adultery with another man's wife and was complicit in a murder plot to get rid of that woman's husband. That seems crazy. We were talking about the fact that Samson is mentioned in the hall of faith in the book of Hebrews. A man who lived a pretty licentious life and very fleshly existence until the very end. So the Bible summarizes people's lives, Job being one of them. Job showed great patience in the face of great suffering. It doesn't mean he was perfect. It doesn't mean he always lived perfectly and without flaw. None of the Bible characters did. They all had flaws. They were human beings who faced challenges and difficulties and didn't always stand up the way they should have. Some of them failed big time. Even in the New Testament, Peter is considered a pillar of the church. And yet Peter was rebuked publicly by the Apostle Paul and personally denied knowing the Lord Jesus three times. And yet we call him a pillar. We would look at somebody like that today and probably call him a failure. But the Bible looks differently. The Bible summarizes the people's lives. And that's really the issue there. Sue: Do you know what I find encouraging about this conversation is if there's anyone who is just kind of lamenting and has regrets over how they have lived their life, what they have done, I would find this encouraging to say, I have time for a different summary of my life. I am going to be a man of faith, a man after God's own heart, a woman of faith. Pastor Paul: We're going to write new pages. Sue: Yeah, we're going to write new pages. And also the summary doesn't have to be the volume packed up like, I had 46 bad years and it is just that intensity of like, now I'm going to serve the Lord and I want it said of me how I did serve the Lord, how I had faith in the Lord? So I see a hopefulness in this. Pastor Paul: There's a story in the book of Numbers (Numbers 22-24) where a Moabite king hired a man to curse the Israelites. The king's name was Balak and the man he hired was named Balaam. And Balaam was kind of a soothsayer for hire. So the king went to him and said, the Israelites are moving through my land and I want you to come with me and I'll pay you a lot of money and I want you to put a curse on them. And at first Balaam said he couldn't, but then he eventually went along. And on different occasions, the king of Moab took him up onto a high hill and told Balaam to curse the Israelites and Balaam opened his mouth and the Holy Spirit began to speak through him and say some of the most incredible things I have ever read about God's heart for Israel. And I would encourage people to go back and read the things that Balaam prophesied over Israel. The fact of the matter is the Bible shows the incredible failures of the nation of Israel, the sins of the people, the rebellion, the hard heartedness. And yet you need to read how the Lord moved upon Balaam to speak about the nation of Israel. God's heart is so different from ours in seeing the heart of what's really going on. And I think that those are some things to keep in mind when you look at a situation like the life of Job and the Bible talks about the incredible patience of that man. He wasn't perfect. He failed, but this is how the Bible remembers him. Sue: That's awesome. Pastor Paul: The heart of the Lord. And those are our questions for this episode. We hope you've enjoyed it. Hope we got to your questions and we will tackle some more later on. Until then, God bless you. Bye-bye.
