LIVE RECORDING Q&A

What I think Jesus is saying is, many people can do certain signs, say certain things, do certain miracles, and they could do it with the wrong motivation. Remember what he said, be careful practicing your righteousness in front of people to be seen by them, because if you do, you'll have what? No reward from your Father in heaven. So what he's saying is, these are a bunch of things you could do really good and the world will applaud you. You get approval of the world, but you won't get the approval of God. And so I think that's what he's getting at there when he says, many will say to me, I don't know. And I think the point there is too, what he says is, depart from me, I never knew you. Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French, and we are having a Q&A session right now with a live audience. Wow. So we got Robbie and Kandi. So we get more questions, yeah. There's some noise. Not just Kandi asking questions, we get to ask Kandi questions. Yeah, they get to ask. So most of the questions will be directed to her

because she's always asking Robbie's questions. Yes, that's gonna be the joke. Kandi, you get to ask the question and then we'll chime in. So who wants to start us off with the question? We've got Viv with the mic. If you just wanna raise your hand, slip your hand up. You got a question over here, we've got a question. By the way, for those who are joining us for the first time, we are doing a live recording and we have people literally from all over the world, Rome. Georgia. Georgia. Georgia. Georgia. Yeah. And Kentucky. Chicago. Chicago and Sumner County. One of my friends makes fun of me, he calls me French Tucky. Every time I hear Kentucky. French Tucky. Yeah, because I went to school in Kentucky. So I was like, French Tucky. All right, we got. Never heard that. Where's she from? All right, first question.

Mic on, we got a little help with the mic. Y'all said this was on. Oh, here we go. And Vivian, by the way, let's give, let's thank the Lord for Vivian. Oh, Vivian. Love Vivian. Love Vivian, yep. All right, first question. Okay, what's your first name? Kylie. Kylie, and where are you from? Good question. I just moved here two weeks ago from Fort Worth. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Let's go. Hope you like Fort Worth, Texas. For the podcast. You listen to the podcast long? Not super long, no. Okay, so you're a new listener. New subscriber too, right? I'm playing. Stop. Okay, what's your question? Yeah, so thoughts on entering a marriage where ministry has been an individual calling, but now is it a family calling or stays individual? Wow.

Okay. Say that again. Say the question one more time. Say the question one more time. Good question. Entering a marriage where a call to ministry has been individual for a while, but does it now become a family calling and a partnership or should it stay individual in its own realm? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can answer that one unless you want, you got it. Are you saying that you were, like one of you was called to ministry and then you became married and you're both called to ministry or just one of you was? Oh, she's trying to determine. Is, like, let's just say hypothetically. She's called, her question is she's, let's say she's called to ministry, she's married a guy, he may not be called to ministry. When they're married is the calling mutual. Okay, so here's. Is that it? Okay, cool. Is that it? Is that what you meant? Well, we've both been in ministry vocationally. So y'all both been in ministry before.

And now, so you're saying like. We're about to get married. So you're saying like wherever you serve, you should be serving together. Is that what you're trying to ask? Like the call could be separate or together? Yeah, sure. Okay. Sounds good. This is a great question from Candy. That's a great question. Candy? Yeah. I mean, so in my mind. You really want me to answer? She's ready, go for it. No, no, go for it. A calling is a calling. So if you're called by God, it doesn't stop unless God says your time is up. And so no matter what that looks like, if you're both called, then that's a calling of the Lord and that's an obedience thing. So I would think 100%, it would be a family dynamic because like our boys aren't necessarily called into ministry at this point. We hope maybe they're gonna serve in some sort of ministry one day,

but it's still a family thing. So like, because we're both called into ministry and we were both called separately. And then when we met, we were both already in ministry. And so it just kind of worked. So that, I mean, that's kind of my answer. It's a calling that's not gonna necessarily stop. So you would definitely be still in ministry and you would do that together, hopefully, if the Lord would allow you to both serve in that capacity. That's good. That's my thought on that. You want to be clean up? You want to back clean up? Well, no, she's good. I would just say one of the questions we've been asking our staff, we started this a couple of years ago, because it has to be, like when we hire somebody at Long Hollow, the question we ask our staff is now, let's say we're interviewing a guy or interviewing a girl. Let's say we're interviewing a girl and her husband, you know, he's working a secular job or whatever. Does your spouse celebrate ministry or tolerate ministry? Some of the staff, through the years, I've had to let go or didn't.

work out, and you've seen this before. The husband's all in, the wife's not, or the wife's all in and the husband's not. And we learned, like you said, it's a partnership. So I would say, I thought your question was, I'm called and he's not, and we're getting married, or are we both called? And I would say you'd have to be because the two become one flesh, it's a unit. Now, the call looks different. Candy was called, she was leading a Bible study, she was leading a discipleship group, she was going to the prison to minister before I met her, she was going to the nursing home to visit. So she had a call and then I was just starting out preaching. Well, when we got together, obviously I was the pastor of the church, so she didn't have a fully developed call back then to preach and teach, if you will. And then we had children, and then we went to Chattanooga, and then she started teaching and writing, and I used to joke with her and say, we can't both be traveling and doing this at the same time because we got so much going on. So I used to say, do me a favor, just wait till the boys go to school, and then you can start traveling and preaching, whatever you want. I should have said when they go to college, I wasn't smart enough.

He said, when they go to school, you can do whatever you want. Nothing, oh yeah, no, well now. So now Candy's like this, she's going to be, eventually she's the one, I'm going to be Candy's husband, which I am in some circles, but so now she's speaking of traveling, her traveling schedule is like three X mine right now, and she's the author in the family that everybody buys her books. Nobody buys my books, by the way, and I'm okay with that, I'm not bitter. I don't know about that. I'm not bitter, I'm just saying. But anyway, the point is, the call's still in her life, but the timing wasn't right, and now God's honoring that call, and he hasn't taken it away, so. And I would just say this about calling. Calling is a really big deal, and so you have to know that you're called by God, and if you are, then you hang on to that, and God, that is kind of your lifeline when you go through hard times in ministry, because there are, like, you're not doing ministry for a job. If you're doing ministry for a job, to meet ends or to get a paycheck, that is not a calling. Like, when you're called,

you do it because you cannot do anything else, and I think that's extremely important, because there are times where, you know, we've seen people who, they're doing ministry as a job, and they're using their gifts and talents, maybe, to get paid and not to be in ministry. Do you see what I'm saying? And so- Or for a platform for themselves. Yeah, and that's a big deal, and so it's like, if you're called to ministry, you're called to ministry, no matter what you're paid, no matter what it is that you're doing. And so I say all the time, you can be a Christian, and you can have gifts and talents, and some people think, oh, yeah, I'm called to ministry, but if you're just doing this as a job, and you can use your gift and talents anywhere out in the world, then go do that, but if you're called to ministry, you're not gonna be able to do anything but that. You see what I'm saying? And so I think being affirmed in the calling is really important, so I would say that for you and your husband. As long as you know that, then you're gold, but not, you know, you just wanna be affirmed in that calling of the Lord, because you can use your gifts and talents that God's given you anywhere,

but if he's calling you into full-time ministry, that's different, and so I would just want you to know that and be assured. And the calling's not to preach and teach, like, our calling's to each other and to our family, so it's not that the wife or husband has to be this, it's a calling together, like you and Josie, y'all call together. Josie's as important as you are in ministry, period. I was a college pastor for a while, so I've got this, I always say my four things are, one is, it's like the minor league and the major league. They don't call you to the major league so you can start playing baseball. You're already doing it, so it's a call-up. So it shouldn't be, oh, I'm gonna change all my life because I wanna become a minister. Your life should look like a minister, right? Your heart, you should already be doing those things. And then three things I say is, the Lord deploys his troops, it's not an accident. So you should get a word from the word. God should speak to you through his word. God speaks, he's right here. You wanna talk to God? Read this, and he'll speak to you through his word about your calling, and he should affirm that. The other one is, there's safety in a multitude of counselors. So we don't know you as well as other people around.

There should be people that know you very well, know your husband very well, and they should be able to count, they should say, you know what, this sounds, oh, Candy has a speaker, that's you, that's your person. Robbie, absolutely, right, like Jeremy was. So other people, you're safe in your multitude of counselors, they should say, I see this. Well, they should say, God said what? Because that doesn't, that ain't. Well, my grandma said I'm gonna be a good preacher one. I don't know, I love Granny, but. America's Funniest Home Videos, whenever they start singing, you're like, who told you you could sing? Yeah, I mean, my brother knew, he told me I couldn't sing about five years old, right? You ain't gonna be a singer, right? So anyway, safety in a multitude of counselors. And then the third thing is, and you gotta, you know, Baptists get weird with this, but there should be. be a sense of rightness. I'm not talking about a feeling, but the Holy Spirit. You should have a sense of just, this is right. This is, this feels right. I have a peace. I don't have, I'm not, I'm not flustered. I don't have so much anxiety. I should have a calmness. I remember a pastor saying to me when I was struggling with this, he was saying, it's like the, you go where the water's flowing. You should, you should have this just feeling that it's sense of rightness. And then when it comes to like spouse and all that, I always go back to scripture, right? So if I'm doing something that is hindering our, my, my relationship with my wife, then I don't need to be doing it. If I'm doing something that's breaking

our fellowship, but she's doing something, if my call means that I need to be away from my wife seven days a week, that's not, that's not my call. Or your kids. It should not go against scripture. So I think, and Kenny and I, y'all said all this before, but when it comes to the spouse, it should all line up with scripture. And if it goes against scripture, um, then that should be your, your, your, your sign. And if it's causing conflict in your marriage, I would say that's not, that's not of the Lord. Right? If my, if my calling here was causing conflict in my relationship with Josie, then that would mean that either my heart's not right, her heart's not right, or I'm not in the right spot. And so I think, um, that's a way to, to look at it. That's good. Okay. If we answer like that, we're going to get to, yeah, we'll get, we'll get two questions. That's a good question. That is a good question. Very good question. What's your name? My name is Haley. Haley. Nice to meet you. And, uh, where are you from? I'm from here, from Hendersonville. Not from Rome. Awesome. Awesome. Not from Rome. Okay, good. Yeah. What's your question? What's your question? So I have questions about Jesus's age when he passed away. Cause when you said he was born probably around like four or five BC, I've always heard that he died on 33 AD. So that kind of begs the question of like, what age was he when he passed? Yeah, that's a great question. So again, we don't know for sure. So my theory, so I've, I didn't hear 33, but I've heard he died at, uh, he died, uh, at 33 at 30 AD. Sorry, it was reversed. You got me. I was confused. He died at 30, 33 years old on 33 AD. And if you bring that back, it's four BC. Cause remember, it's kind of hard to figure it out, but you, you count. So four BC goes backwards. It goes reverse. You don't count zero. It goes one to one. So it's kind of confusing. So if you chart this out, so if he's born

in four, he dies 30 years, 33 years old at 30 AD. That's safe for me. 30 AD or 33 AD. No, he doesn't die at 30. I don't think he dies. And I've heard this. I've heard 33 AD. I don't, the math doesn't work for me. I think it's 30 AD. Lines up with four BC. Yeah. Starts his ministry 27 AD, dies 30. There's another discrepancy. Was his ministry three and a half years or two and a half years? You've heard this before. And the, and do you know what the difference, do you know why they have the difference between three and a half, two and a half? Anybody know? It's one passage. It's John two, the wedding. So he goes from the wedding and he moves to the temple and he flips the tables over in the temple. John's gospel is the only one that has Jesus flipping tables over early. Every other Mark, Matthew, and Luke have him flipping it at the end. If you flip them, so if this count, and the way you, the way you determine Jesus's life is based on the festivals. That's how the scholars do it chronologically. Anybody have the chronological Bible book we use all the time, the CSB chronological harmony, harmony of the gospel. Anybody have that book? It's a great resource to have because it lines up when Jesus came. So if you take John's gospel, John two, where he flips the tables over, that's the first Passover. And then you count three total. He dies three and a half years after his ministry starts. If you take John's flipping of the tables, not chronologically, which is not uncommon. Remember Jewish people don't have, the Hebrew culture has no problem telling a story out of order. Bizarre to our mind, but you'll say, we started the podcast and then we opened the doors and then we let people in the building. You're like, wait a minute, that's reverse. But that's, they don't have any problem with that. Okay. So John could, in my thinking, he could, again, I don't have a dog in the fight. It could be either way, but I could see two and a half years. Here's why. Here's my pushback on three and a half years. If G, let's say some dude or some guy goes tomorrow to wall street, walks into the stock market and literally pulls the plug on all of the computer systems and flips all of the tickers and the time things over and shuts down the economy, which is what Jesus did when he flipped over tables. Would that guy ever be allowed back into wall street again to do anything?

Never. They would put, Jeremy put a picture in a machine and he'd never be let in. So my theory is, and this is why you can go either way, is that the thinking is Jesus could only to do this once, not twice, without them trying to kill him on the spot. And so some people think, John is moving the table flipping early to show there's a new sheriff in town and it ain't these guys. And remember, by the way, Jesus is not flipping tables over because they're selling things in the temple. People got there, I remember I was at Brainerd, my church years ago, when I first got there. I was only there a year. And again, bless their heart, there was some older senior saints who, bless their heart, they just didn't understand the scripture. And so we had this traveling quartet group in back then. And the guy said to me, hey, if we do this Sunday night performance, they said, can we sell our CDs in the lobby? And I said, sure, that's how you make money, of course you can, yeah. So I didn't have a problem with it. So they were setting tables and I remember Candy and I got there that night, the boys were real little, we're walking in, some older guy in the church, he came to me, he said,

Brother Robbie, we got a problem. I said, what is that? He said, somebody has turned this church into a den of thieves. Wow, from the morning till now, what happened? He said, they're out there selling, conducting business in the Lord's house. And I was like, what does that have to do with anything? Well, Jesus said he turned tables. I was like, that's not, the problem is not conducting business in the house of the Lord. The problem was they were inflating the prices and they were lining their pockets with the increase. That's the problem. So the temple lambs, which you could raise a lamb and buy in Galilee for 10 bucks, you bought it for 100 bucks there. And Jesus said, that's the problem. You have inflated the prices and you've profited personally and that's the problem. So anyway, it's a long answer, but that's. Great question. Great question. Got another one over here, right? Can you stand up? And just give us your first name and where you're from. Hi, I'm Allison and I'm from America. Okay. Yes.

So my question for you is something that comes from our now 11 year old. She has several debilitating diseases, has since she was three months old. And for the last, I would say maybe what, four or five years, she has trigeminal neuralgia, which is like shingles on steroids. Hers is so far gone that they can't do anything for it. So she'll sit there with taking morphine or fentanyl and it will never touch the pain. And so she will sit there and sob and say, where's God? Why won't he help me, mommy? Please, why won't he help me? And so I've read and showed her the footprints a lot. I said, sweetheart, he's here with you and he's crying with you. And so she's gotten almost to the point where she, like, not that she doesn't believe because she loves God, but she just doesn't feel like, maybe I'm not worthy to be healed. And, you know, I just had a surgery on Friday and I'm thankful for the pain because thank God they found these things. But what do you tell a child? And that's my question. Without them turning away from him. How old is she? 11. But she's been six since she was three months old. Yeah, wow.

Great questions. Yeah, I mean, that's a tough one. You wanna? That's a, it's a definitely a tough one. I don't know if I have a good answer for that, but my brother has a lung disease and he was, became sick when he was 14. And so I've, you know, he's 10 years younger than me. So I was 24. It was actually like three months before I met Robbie when he got sick. And so now, you know, he's 36 years old. So it's been, he's been sick for 22 years. And God has not chosen to heal him in the way that I would like to see. And I'm sure that my brother would like to see. So there is definitely times of heartache and confusion and not understanding and why God would allow this. And obviously lots of prayers. And I don't know, obviously with your daughter as well, what the long-term plan is and how God will work or use this, or will he heal her in some miraculous way? We just, we don't know. I still pray that. And the only thing I've ever really been able to reconcile in my mind is that, and there might be a more poetic way to say this, but those who God puts through the most, he uses the most. And so whenever Brian got sick,

I just remembered. thinking that there had to be a purpose and a reason for this and that if God was gonna allow this, then there would be something to come of it. And he was allowing this so that he could use it in some way. That doesn't make it better or help you in any way, but it's just in my mind, that's how I have reconciled it. It's like I'm still gonna pray that God will heal him and that I will get to see him physically stronger, but even more importantly, spiritually strong. Because I believe that if God is allowing some sort of physical thing, he wants to do something spiritually too. And so I just pray a lot, continue prayers for him and hope that he will see God through his suffering somehow in some way and that God would use it even if it's not gonna look like how I would have hoped it would look. And so I really, that's really all I mean, I have. It's just, if he's putting her through it, there is a reason for that. And as awful as it is to see the pain and her, I would say as a mom, just praying that you continuing to pray for her, that God gives her an understanding beyond her years to understand maybe why she's going through what she's going through. And then just continuing to pray for her supernatural healing and that God would just give you the words to encourage her by.

It's, that's a hard, hard, it's a hard road when your child is sick or when you see someone that you love suffering so much and then there's no resolution or really answers to help. My brother's been on disability for years and he lives with my mom. He's, there's a lot of side effects that have come along with his disease. And there's a lot there that I want to see for him, which I'm sure is for your daughter as well. And so I would just continue to lift that up in prayer and pray that God would meet her where she is, and speak to her in a way that only he can, because it's hard for us to communicate that. Yeah, I would recommend, well, thanks for sharing that, by the way. That's a vulnerable thing to share. I think we all would say our heart hurts with you in that. There's a book called Hope Heals by Catherine Wolfe. I think your 11-year-old daughter would love that book. And she wrote another book called Suffer Strong. Both of those books are really good. But I think that she would be able to relate to Hope Heals. It's Catherine's story. She's a model in California and her husband was finishing up law school and she has just a tragic accident. And she's never been the same since. And it's been a life of absolute suffering, complete suffering.

And that book has changed my whole perspective on suffering. And so I think, first of all, I think she would benefit from reading that. That's one thing. And my favorite quote that she talks about is her definition of hope. And her definition of hope is, it goes like this. She says, all is not well, but all is not lost. So we can be in these seasons where things are not good, but we don't have to lose our hope. And reading both of those books taught me that God is just as much in our suffering as He is in our triumphant moments. And it's okay to say that I don't know or I don't have the answers to this or I don't know why, but I think the focus should be back towards I know who. I know who has those answers. I know who we're supposed to cling to. I know what scripture says we're supposed to hold on to. It's just like when someone passes away and people, when they mean well, but they'll say, this is for a reason or this too shall pass. And you're like, hey man, can I smack you if I hear that again? It's like, that's not scripture. That's not what that means. It's like, you know, it's more like Job when his friends just came and said nothing and they just suffered with him.

And so I don't understand it. I don't know that the scriptures clearly explain why suffering happens and I'm okay with that because I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. The holes are way, way bigger, but my faith tells me what I'm supposed to do. And that's to trust God and hold on to the promises of God. And I will say in my own life, and I think everybody would agree, I learn more and I grow more when I'm in suffering. And I don't necessarily like that. I think when I get to heaven, I'm gonna ask God, hey, can we change the game plan? Because this isn't how I wanna do this. But that is true. So I would recommend those two resources and anything. Everything Catherine Wolfe puts out, you can get on her email list. Hope Hills has their own Instagram. Everything she puts out speaks to this. And she actually has a camp that she puts on every year. Josie and I are, you know, we support this. And so she has a great ministry, and she deals with children and families that have debilitating diseases, disabilities, and it's all about encouragement. Their camps are beautiful. I mean, it's just amazing the stuff they do. So I would really encourage you guys to look into the Hope Hills community. They have different Facebook support groups. It's just a really good thing for people that are suffering in that situation. And I would say my life verse that I really clung to over the years when it came to my

brother was John 9, where it says when they ask why this man was born blind, was it because the sin of him or his parents? Because I thought for a long time, did my parents do something wrong? Did we not give enough money to the church? You know, were we doing something or not doing something that we should have been doing? And this is why Brian got sick. And when I came across that, you know, why was this man born blind? Was it because of his sin or the sin of his parents? And Jesus says it was neither. It was that the glory of God could be made known. And that radically changed how I'd looked at Brian's sickness. So John 9 was huge for me, and still is. It's like, it's a go-to for me when I think about my brother, because I think a lot of people can fall into that category of having something that has happened, and you want to say, was it because of this or that or something I've done or not done? And God's like, no, it's for God's glory to be made known. And so anyway, John 9 was a really great passage for that. That's good. That's good. We got one over here. Hey, what's your name? Trevor. Nice to meet you. And where are you from? Hendersonville. What's your question? My question is, in Matthew 7, where Jesus says he will tell people to depart for he never knew them, how can people perform miracles and drive out demons without knowing Jesus? That's a good question. That's a good question.

Yes. So there's an instance where the disciples come and say, hey, boss, there's a group of renegades out here performing a bunch of things, doing miracles, but they're not part of the crew. Remember that? You know, they're not with us. I don't know who these jokers are, but they're not with us. And Jesus says if they're not against us, what? They're for us. Remember that? So there was... So Jesus was not, I mean, this is a pitcher of garbage, Jesus wasn't the first one to do miracles. I mean, we know that from the Old Testament. But he wasn't the first rabbi to do miracles. There's Mark Batterson wrote a book, Hani, the circle drawer, I think, if you remember. So he was a rabbi that could perform miracles. He could pray and make it, you know, God would reign. So miracles were not uncommon. So you don't have to be of Jesus to perform miracles. You don't even have to be of God to perform the miraculous because even in the Old Testament, the Egyptian magicians, remember, they could replicate the miracles of Moses, right? So the miracles were not just resigned to God. The preaching was not just resigned to God. I think the point Jesus is making there is these people were building their or resting in the fact that they were doing all of these outward good thing. Okay, so not to get away, not to give our cards for the sermon of the mount. But in the next few weeks, what we're going to talk about is you've heard it said, but I said to you, you've heard it said, but I said to you. What Jesus, you know, we always say, well, Jesus raises the bar and I'm even rethinking

this language. Yes, he raises the bar, but he's not necessarily raising the bar to make it harder because think about it. The law was hard enough. It's 630 command. So what's Jesus going to do? Make it harder? Come on, really? It's not raising the bar. What he's doing is he's getting to the heart of the law. He's saying you guys started just by what you did. And that's part of it. I mean, obviously, belief drives behavior. That's true. But I'm getting to the heart of the matter, which is the matter of the heart, right? So what I think Jesus is saying is many people can do certain signs, say certain things, do certain miracles, and they could do it with the wrong motivation. Remember what he said, be careful practicing your righteousness in front of people to be seen by them, because if you do, you'll have what? No reward from your father in heaven. So what he's saying is these are a bunch of things you could do really good and the world will applaud you. You get approval of the world, but you won't get the approval of God. So I think that's what he's getting at there when he says, many will say to me, I don't know. And I think the point there is too, what he says is, depart from me, I never knew you. It's not an intellectual knowing. It's that same word in the Hebrew where we get from Genesis 4, where it says, Adam knew Eve, that's the word, knew Eve, da'at, a teaching. a session on this, there's a difference

between da'at and data. Data and da'at, it's kind of a play on Hebrew. So the Hebrew word for knowing is da'at, D-A apostrophe A-A-A-T, which is knowing, but it's a knowing like a husband knows a wife. There's an intimacy there, there's a personal connection there. Data is what we think faith is. It's intellectual information. That's not knowing in the Bible. So Jesus says the question is not do you know me? The question is do I know you? That's what I always say. The question is not do you know Jesus? Everybody in Middle Tennessee knows Jesus. The question is does Jesus know you? And I think, and you probably say, well, he knows everybody. Yeah, I know that, but does he know you personally? Like you can see, like for example, like some of you listed the podcast and some of you drove in like Colin, we've never met before, have we? So, but when you listen to a podcast, it's just like I listen to podcasts. You feel like you know us, like you probably know, you feel like, man, we're best friends. And you guys too from Kentucky. And I do that too with podcast people I list to or people I follow on YouTube.

It's like Nate or Ruslan, these guys, I know these dude, but they don't know me. They don't know me at all, but I feel like I know them. And that's the idea here. You can know someone, but do they know you? And I think that's what Jesus is saying. You're hijacking all these things and you give the appearance that you're part of the group, but you're not because you don't know me, so. Yeah, I would just say too is that in chapter seven, he's talking about do not judge. And he's talking about ask and knock. And then he comes in in verse 15, you talked about this, the few passages before he says, be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing. So he's trying to, remember, and Robbie talks about this all the time, how he's trying to retrain our hearts and our minds, right? To see truth in a different way. Remember truth and it was, you know, greatness or your spiritualness was built on how everyone saw you in public, right? The honor system, we said this too much tonight, but it was built on this honor system of how everybody saw you. And he's teaching us how to truly judge fruit. This is probably judgmental, it's gonna sound bad, but I'm just gonna be a little vulnerable here. Like sometimes we, you know,

you watch like a hip hop star, right? And they have like total like gangster, evil rap music, right, and then they get an award. And I was like, I just wanna thank God for this award. You know, and I always tell my kids, I'm like, God didn't have nothing to do with that. You know, I'm sorry, don't get me started on that. My wife is like, no, God was not in that, right? And so we get, yeah, that wasn't God. We get focused like on the, like the miracle there, like how can they do that? Well, there's, I wanna be careful here because we don't wanna shoot, you know, people in our own barracks, but you know, there's, I would say, how can we see a lot of places that are really big in the Christian world, but they don't stand on the truth of scripture, right? So we have to be careful about what is of God and what is not of God. And I think he's trying to train our eyes to say, don't focus on these miracles. Don't focus on these big shows and these big crowds. Look at their heart. Yeah. Look at what they're doing. And you were saying that too. So you wanna add to that? Well, it just, it says, depart from me, you lawbreakers. So there had to have been something with the condition of their heart

for him to reference them. Number one, I never knew you, but you're a lawbreaker. So that's all I got. Yeah, that's good. And obedience is not just an outward thing. It's an inward matter. So I think that's what, I think that's what he's saying there, but that's a great question. Yeah. It's a good sermon for. Well, and another thing too, not to, I'm just looking at the text real quick. Another thing too, you gotta remember, he's not just talking about how to get to heaven. Everybody reads that and thinks how to get to heaven. It's Sunday's message I'm gonna talk about, preaching on the rich young ruler. Got an insight on that that's pretty cool. We were talking about this the other day. Everybody thinks the rich young ruler is trying to go to heaven. He's not trying to go to heaven. What must I do to inherit eternal life? We automatically think this is why this word has been hijacked. And I could, every time I preach, I teach on that, you get one thing, this would be the one thing you could change your life. We have to readjust our perspective

of salvation and eternal life. The better translation, the King James Version, I think used to translate eternal life like this. It's everlasting life. Remember that word, everlasting life? And the idea is life starts today, but it lasts forever. See, we always think life starts tomorrow. So what we do is we put our Christian life, we put anything for God on hold today till Jesus, I always joke and say, the scanner in the sky comes and scans our barcode on our wrist and we're in and thank God I'm in, I go to heaven. That is not the Christian life for them. That's not what the rich young ruler is asking. He's asking how do I flourish today? And that's what we want, right? That's what you want, that's why you're here. I mean, granted, I'm gonna be, it's like somebody saying, hey, you have a great gift, you get to go to Hawaii, you're gonna spend a month in Hawaii, it's gonna be awesome, but you can't leave for 65 years. What was that again? No, 65. Five years from now, oh, it's gonna be awesome. You're gonna love it. 65 years, you're like, I can't even process that. That's when most people look at heaven. And that's when most people are like,

if that's what Jesus is, I don't want it. No, no, you get to make an impact on the world right now where you live, work, and play, and the impact you have affects eternity. That's a way better invitation in my mind. And that's what the kingdom is for Jesus. All right, go ahead. We got two more questions and we're done. We gotta be quick now. We gotta be quick on our response, by the way. And we can hang around after and you can answer questions. All right, so I'm Brian from Chattanooga. And I had a question was, I was raised Seventh-day Adventist where Sabbath-keeping was strongly emphasized and Ellen G. White's writings often seem to carry equal to the scripture. After marrying my Baptist wife, we chose to worship on Sundays and raise our children Baptist. Based on scripture alone, how can I know whether the Sabbath is binding for Christians today or if worshiping on Sunday means I'm still breaking one of the commandments? So the last part of the question, I heard everything to the end. If I'm still breaking one of the commandments by worshiping on Sunday. Yeah, that's a, okay, yeah, that's a great. He's talking about the Sabbath being a specific day. That's a great question right there, yeah. So I live, we live in Chattanooga.

I lived in Udawah for a while, the epicenter of Seventh-day Adventists. I appreciate that. And I looked into it when I was there because I would talk to a lot of people. By the way, Little Debbie is run by Seventh-day Adventists. I don't know if everybody knows that. I love that, I love that. That's true, that's true. No, are you serious? Christmas tea and cake. Is that a joke? That's true, you didn't know that? Little Debbie? Little Debbie is run by the Seventh-day Adventists. Robbie knows. So can we still eat them? I'm just kidding. But the funny thing is, they don't even celebrate the Christmas tree, right? Which is sort of, yeah. Little Debbie. Little Debbie needs to start making some protein treats. Hey. So is the plant closed on Saturdays? Yeah. Oh yeah, no, the plant's closed on Saturdays. No, it's true, yeah, it is true. So. You can get them at Little Debbie stores.

Friday, Saturday. Okay, so this is a long answer, but I'll try to make it quick. So this is the big question a lot of people say, is we keep every one of the 10 but one, right? So for Jesus, what was the Sabbath? The Sabbath for Jesus was not, or for God, the Sabbath for God was not so much a day on the calendar as much as it was a space in time. So you gotta remember, Sabbath was a space. For them, the Sabbath was a way to push aside the weak, to push out the weak from where you came from and where you're going. So don't think about where you came, stop focusing on where you're going, and I want you in one moment of time, one day, to be in the presence of me. Now, I'm not saying I figured it out, because golly, but we work at Sabbathing. So most people who are regimented on the day miss the point of the Sabbath, okay? So why did we switch, shift from Sabbath-keeping on Friday afternoon, sundown, till Saturday afternoon, sundown, till Sunday morning, go to church and worship? The reason we switched was because that's what the first century church did. The first century church basically started to meet on the first day of the week. So if you read the Bible,

they gathered on the first day of the week. And the reason they gathered on the first day of the week, which for them was Sunday, remember the day, the week ended on Saturday for the Jewish culture and began on Sunday, that was the first day of the week. So the reason we meet on Sunday is because that's the day Jesus rose. So what we're doing as a Christian church is we're celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, which is the cornerstone of our faith. And then we have biblical precedence because that's when they gathered. Now they gathered a lot of times, but they did gather on the Lord's day, which was the first day of the week. So again, when people say you're breaking the Sabbath, my pushback is it's not so much a date on the calendar as it is a space in time. Sabbath is just rest, right, it was rest. And it was a radical concept because when God first instituted the Sabbath in the Old Testament, you have to remember, when Moses first taught them about Sabbathing, when he gave them the Sabbath after they got out of Egypt, that was a provocative statement. In fact, think about it, they had just come out of a culture for 400 years where they worked seven days a week, rain, sleet, or snow, shine or dark, they worked. They were bricklayers, they had no days off.

So for them, work was a badge of honor, but it was part of their culture. So then they go out to this desert place and God's like, no, we're gonna work six days a week, but one day a week, you're gonna rest and do nothing. That was the hardest thing for them to, imagine a culture where they were working all the time. And God says, the reason you're gonna rest is because I rested and I didn't have to, but I want you to rest in me. And I think, again, that's why our culture's so out of bounds and everybody's burnt out and overwhelmed is because we don't Sabbath properly, right? I gotta just tell you, I got a new book coming out, I'm working on, a prayer book just came out, by the way. We're gonna go through that as a church, starting in January, really excited about it. It's basically how to walk you through the practice. It's called The Practice of Prayer because you're gonna practice prayer. Like every day's an activity. So I'm gonna tell you, like one activity, sit in silence for five minutes. By the end of the 30 days, you'll do 20 minutes. One day is lament over your personal sins and then you'll lament. Another day is praying the scripture back to God and then you're actually gonna do it, you know, or list of prayers, praying for others. So it's practice prayer.

But I'm working on a book. It's already gone to the editor. I'm almost finished editing it. It's on the revival at Long Hollow and the working title is called Wait Here, but the here is H-E-A-R, wait here. And it's my 10 months on the porch, basically. And it basically, so it's wait here, recapturing the lost art of hearing God's voice. I'm gonna dedicate the book to the church, to our church, because Long Hollow was the gift that God gave me to do this. But it's journeying through how to hear the voice of God and one of the main sections is Sabbathing and resting. So I'm writing about rhythm. It's a rhythmic thing. But anyway, I've just been convicted writing it because I realized that's the last thing we do. Blaise Pascal, I think it was, who said, he was a mathematician and a Christian. He said this line, and this is in the book and I haven't forgotten it. He said, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone by himself. Hmm, say it again. All of humanity's problems, every problem we have is because man or woman has the inability to sit in a room like this quietly alone by themselves. Silence is deafening.

We don't like silence. Which is why, if you don't believe me, go to the airport and look and see how many people are sitting in silence. They're not, they're doomscrolling. And we're looking at videos and I'm guilty as charged. But I think God was onto something. Silence is free, it's still free by the way. And it's a gift. It's called the present. And if you think about it, the present sometimes is a present because it's a gift from God. So anyway, yeah. All right, one more and then we're done. I know we're done. Blake's like flashing red light. Actually, are we done? Oh, one more quick one. I know this guy, I know this dude too. He's got, okay, go ahead, go ahead. This is gonna be an easy one, go ahead. This is not quick. I know it ain't quick. No, no. It's gonna be about the unseen realm. I know him, I know him. In Exodus 33 20, God tells Moses, you cannot see my face for man shall not see me and live. If that is the case, however, we have many passages where God reveals himself as a man.

One instance we sort of overlook is God appearing in the garden after the fall in Genesis 38. Adam and Eve hide themselves when they hear the sound of God walking in the garden. Sorry, I'm nervous. He also shows up with two other men, angels, to Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I'll get back to this point in a second. Now, Michael Heizer introduces an unseen realm, an old Hebraic thought, the two powers in heaven by Alan Segal. Now, back to Sodom and Gomorrah. After God with two angels meet with Abraham, God then proceeds to turn and head to Sodom and Gomorrah. My main point of emphasis is that the Lord is on earth at Sodom and Gomorrah, and Genesis 19 24 says this, then the Lord reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. There's two godly powers present in that verse. Now, my question to you all is this. Since God told Moses, if he showed himself to Moses, Moses would die. Could these human manifestations of God in the Old Testament be Jesus? Your thoughts. That's a good one. That's not a hard question. It's actually a good question. Nate Sala, you wanna answer our resident apologist. By the way, if you don't know Nate Sala,

raise your hand, Nate. He has a podcast, or he has a YouTube channel called The Wise Disciple. Anybody familiar with The Wise Disciple? We'll turn you on to The Wise Disciple. I listen to, people ask, who do you learn from? Nate's one of the guys I learn from. So Wise Disciples, his podcast. Friends with Wes Huff and guys in that stream, Ruslan. But, okay. So the short answer is yes. The AOL for me, the AOL, the angel of the Lord, that's what you think of, AOL. What's AOL? That's old school, huh? That's old school. You've got mail. You've got mail. When he shows up, you've got mail. No, I would say, he's on to something. This is like way out there, not to mess people up, but there is, I do like the two, the two forces, what does Senegal call it? The two, two powers, that's what we call it, two forces, sorry, two powers. There is something there with two, because what he's getting at, not to confuse everybody, but there are passages in the Bible when it's basically the angel of the Lord appears, but then God appears himself,

and it's two separate powers at the same time in the same text. So the question the rabbis asked was, and this was a prominent view of the Old Testament, they believe that these two powers lends itself to this Trinitarian dualistic approach. So it's not multiple gods like paganistic religion, but it's God himself. So how can God be present and the angel of the Lord and God? You see what I'm saying? So they kind of came up with two powers at the same time. So I would say, yes, the short answer is the angel of the Lord, I think, is Jesus. And I think it's the pre-incarnate Jesus. So he's not incarnate as a human being yet, but he's coming in the form. And so what does that form come as? Well, it comes in the form of a man when he knocks on the door, you know, Lot and them and Simon and Gomorrah. He comes in other forms. Who did Jacob wrestle with? The angel of the Lord. I mean, so you have these passages here. So I would say, yes, that's pre-incarnate Jesus. So how can Moses not see the face of God? So pre-incarnate Jesus, angel of the Lord, and the fullness of the glory of God, the Shekinah glory of God is different in my mind. And the reason Moses can't see the face of God and live

like no one can is not because God is punishing them, but he's protecting them. He's protecting them because when you see a full picture of God, I'll give you an example. On the transfiguration, they got a glimpse. Jesus just pulled back one ray of heaven, gave them a glimpse of his transfiguration, and what happened? These guys were out on their face. I mean, they were out. They couldn't even handle a glimpse of the glory of God. And that was Jesus' face. So imagine the full glory of God. Anyway, I know I'm talking around it, but I think the answer to your question, I think that's how you can, that's how Jesus could come, angel of the Lord, the presence of God, and the power of God simultaneously being there. Does that make sense? We can talk offline, but it's a great question. Some of you are like, what are you talking about? Okay, just stay that way. You don't need that, sorry. All right, anything else? We're gonna hang around a little bit after two. You'll hang around. And if you have questions, we're gonna put the number, you have the number?

Yeah, I got the number. Let's put the number. If you want to text questions, we will try to answer some of these questions after the fact on the podcast. We've been talking about doing some Q&A podcast, because we get a lot of questions from people. Tell them the number. Text 615-219-51445. 5145? Yep, 5145. 615-219-5145. Text any questions there, and we're gonna get to them in the podcast. Also, we may use those for podcast topics and stuff. So please do that, I know. And again, we'll hang out for a little bit after as well, just to talk if we can. And then, so thank you so much. This, I forgot, I forgot. This is a part, this is an episode, so. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening. We're so laid back, man. We've never done this before. So we're so laid back here. That's right, that's right, yeah. Okay. This is how we are, we're just hanging out. Thank you so much for those who are listening right now,

and for all of you for coming tonight. Give yourself a hand for coming. Thank you for participating. I hope you had fun. We're gonna do this again, and we'll continue to add more fun stuff. So I'll be looking out for that when that comes. You can like, subscribe, share. Thank you again for listening to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.