Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to the Theology Q and A podcast where me, Pastor Brian Wolfmuther, St. Paul Lutheran and Jesus Deaf Lutheran in Austin, Texas, and Pastor Packer, Pastor, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Collinsville, Illinois, answer your theology questions which you send to us. Wolfmealer co contact Pastor Packer. Good to see you. I heard a rumor about you this week, and that is that you are dead set against Advent wreaths because of your paraffin allergy.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: I don't even know what a paraffin allergy is.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Is that what they make the candles out of? Paraffin?
[00:00:33] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: No, that's not true. Are you still. You're still trying to cover it up, I see.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: I love Advent wreaths. I actually told the kids that this morning. They're fantastic.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Good. Good thing we bring these to light these rumors and take care of them. You got some.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Wash them. That's right.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: You got some questions for us?
[00:00:52] Speaker B: I do. The first one is on we can do nothing without God. Jesus says, I can do nothing without the Father. It applies to us also, doesn't it? But what exactly does it mean, Taking it literally. Does it mean I am not able to think, breathe, walk, plan, do anything without God? Is there anything I am capable of doing without him possibly sinning?
Looking forward to your thoughts?
[00:01:14] Speaker A: That's a great question.
Pretty meta. I'd say so. So.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: I think the way that the philosophers and maybe even the theologians would talk about this is that we are contingent beings. And that means that we do not exist by ourselves.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: That everything we have is from God.
And this starts with. I think you could probably run through this first, second and third article number one, the first article. We're created by God. And that means that he's the One who's given me my body and soul and my reason and all my senses and my body, all its members, and that he still takes care of them. And that if the Lord were to withdraw Himself just for an instant, we'd be over done. In fact, the whole universe would fall apart. Jesus is the power of God that holds all things together.
It's almost like, I don't know, whatever. The physicists talk about the molecular bond that holds, like the electron to the nucleus, that is that Christ is there holding every electron together, holding all of the atoms together, holding everything. So if he was to withdraw his power for just even a microsecond, everything would come unraveled, including us. So that our lives are completely dependent upon the Lord's good pleasure. We live and we die. It's all in his hands. According to the second article, Christ is the Savior, which means that we are not the Savior, we are the saved.
So that the Lord Jesus is the One who rescues and delivers us. And he does that also by his mercy and goodness, apart from our own works or efforts. And then when it comes to the third article, the Holy Spirit, we cannot by our own reason or strength, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to him, but the Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel and enlightens us with his gifts so that we cannot believe, trust, know.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Rely, want God or any of these other internal acts apart from the Holy Spirit giving us that gift. Even faith itself is a gift from the Holy Spirit.
So that we. It's really true that we can do nothing apart from Him.
Now, does the Lord give us a little bit of kind of latitude in this being? We are not determinists, so we do not say that everything has to happen according to.
Well, according to either. Like a strict materialist cause and effect. Like, the atheist says that we're just molecules bouncing off of each other, and so the entirety of the universe, including human thought and emotion, can be reduced to molecules acting according to physical properties. We are not determinist in that way, nor are we determinists according to the will of God. In other words, we understand that God has created us and given us a little bit of room to move around.
So we can choose to listen to the theology Q and A podcast, or we can swap over to issues, etc. Or something like that. I mean, you know, we can, and that's a true choice. But everything, our ability to even be alive and making those choices sits on top of God's providential care for us.
And so he's the one who actually gives us that gift of that freedom that we do have.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: No, I think that's really helpful. It reminded me of. Well, C.S. lewis talks about the atheist when he's arguing against God. It's like a man on a tree branch cutting the branch out from under himself.
Because even the atheist cannot revile or curse God without God giving him breath and. And life and upholding him in that moment for him to be able to even be able to do that. So it's one of those things where, like, even our rejection of God isn't even capable unless God was keeping us alive in that very moment.
She mentioned sinning, right? Like, obviously sinning isn't something God wants us to do, but we don't have any life apart from God. So it's not that God, like you said makes us sinners. Having us do that, it's not deterministic, but. But we're not even able to sin because unless God was upholding us, because if he stopped upholding us, we would cease to exist, we'd no longer be here. So our whole life is just dependent on him as our creator and sustainer. And apart from that, we are nothing. Right. As Paul says. And then we live and move and have our being.
And he says that even to the. The pagan philosophers.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah, he was quoting the pagan philosophers. One of those guys, correct?
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Great question, Marlene.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Let's look at the next one. My name is Jose. I'm from Brazil and a Christian that converted in a Baptist background. In the following years I became a member of a Reformed church. But in the last year I started studying Lutheran theology and I'm being very convinced of it, I might add. There's one thing that I struggle about infant baptism, though, since faith is described in Hebrews 11 as confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
And we can only apprehend God's gifts by faith.
How can an infant apprehend salvation and forgiveness of sins given by baptism? Do all infants have faith according to Luthan theology? How can we know that?
And then he's currently listening to How American Christianity Failed on audiobook, and he's learning a lot from the videos.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: Here's a helpful distinction again, to go back to the old theologians like Francis Pieper, who make the distinction between saving faith and.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Reflective faith fides reflectiva.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: What is that? So saving faith is that trust in the Lord's promised mercy, that simple trust and belief that holds on to that gift.
Reflective faith is the awareness, maybe the mental, to know in our minds or in our hearts that we have that faith.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And people will say that infants don't have reflective faith.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: They don't have that internal capacity to reflect on those things yet to articulate them.
But having reflective faith is not a prerequisite for having saving faith.
And in fact.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Children are put forth in the Scriptures by our Lord Jesus Himself as the very picture of faith. Jesus says, unless you have faith like a little child, and they're the languages, especially when we compare all the places that we use it. Jesus used all these different words for little child. One could be like what we think of child the whole childhood, but in places he'll talk about the nursing infants or the brephos, the infants, the babies.
Unless we have faith like these, then we can't enter the kingdom of heaven. Now that statement of Jesus makes no sense unless you have faith like a little child.
If little children can't have faith, I mean, this is the whole point.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: So that however we define faith, we cannot exclude infants from having it. This is just. It's simply impossible. For Jesus says.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Cursed are you if you cause one of these little ones. Thalmazaton and this is when they were carrying the baby, they carrying the children to Jesus and he was blessing them.
These are the children that are still eligible for the lap ticket on the airline. They're being care Unless you, whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to stumble, it would be better that a millstone were tied around your neck.
So Jesus more than the prophets and more than the apostles, our Lord Jesus himself talks about infant faith, the possibility of infant faith.
So we don't want to.
However we define faith, we cannot exclude children from it. Now.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: This awareness of believing, this awareness of faith, the fides reflectiva, it follows it comes along saving faith as soon as the Lord gives us that capacity for reflection.
But some people never actually have that capacity for reflection.
Some people never actually reach a state of just sort of mental.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: Maturity that they can recognize, oh, I trust in Christ or I believe in him, but that doesn't mean that they also can't have faith. We trust that the Lord can create and sustain faith in. In their hearts. This is the point of Ephesians 2. By grace, you're saved through faith, and that not of your own. It's a gift of God so that the Lord can give the gift of faith when and where he pleases.
And the immaturity of an infant or baby, not only does it not exclude faith, but in fact, it seems like it's more, in a profound way, more receptive to the gift of faith when Jesus holds forth children as those faithful examples.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: I just had this conversation recently with some parents who were coming out of like, a Baptist background, like Jose, and an example I always use. I don't think we need this, but I think it's helpful. Like, even science knows that babies in the womb hear voices. Like their parents voices, siblings voices. And when they come out, we have evidence that they trust those voices they heard, right? Like they're comforted to be near mom and dad. They recognize those voices. They recognize things they even heard in the womb. And another thing I like to point out to parents is like, most parents don't look at their kids and are like, well, I can't know if they love me or not or if they trust me or not, because they can't tell me yet.
I can't know that. Like, I've never heard a parent, like, look at their baby, you know, and look longingly at their baby and be like, I wonder if this baby actually loves me.
I don't think that's a question most parents ask. They just know intuitively this child loves me even though it can't confess it in any way yet. Right. They know their child trusts them even though the child can't confess it in any way.
And how much more if faith is a gift that God gives to everyone, how much more can that little baby trust Jesus? If Jesus has given the baby faith?
[00:11:37] Speaker A: I did.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: That, for me, is one of the easiest, easiest ways to consider it.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: It's so great.
I think that's beautiful. I remember when I was. So here's an article, infant A list of Scriptures that I wrote some long time ago.
And that's here. I'll try to put the link up in the description. And it just goes through all of the passages where Jesus and the prophets and apostles talk about having infant faith. And that picture of the parents that know that the child knows their name, this is really what faith is. It's just like the lamb Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and they follow me.
And they look at that 2006, that's a long time ago.
They know my voice and they follow me. This is what the children, they know the voice of their parents.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: And they just trust that voice. And so the children also know the voice of their God and Father in heaven, and they trust that voice and that promise.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: And it's like you said, how much, like, between a baby and like an adult. If I'm advertising an adult, I can have all kinds of questions. Are they just doing this because they're doing it for a girl or for a boy, like somebody they're dating or engaged to or whatever?
What are their motives behind it? I have a lot more questions than with a baby. I don't have any of those issues. Like, I know the parents are bringing the child and the child doesn't have all of those things, and the Lord's going to give the baby faith. And I, you know, who was it? Dr. David Scar, who says every baptism is an infant baptism, since every person is supposed to come as a little child, right? Everyone's supposed to be completely despairing of their own abilities and coming as a little child to the fonts. And so every infant baptism is a beautiful picture of all of our salvation.
It's not about us. It's about Jesus doing it for us.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: That's great. I think that this distinction between saving faith and reflective faith, the confusion of those two things, is probably one of the fundamental errors of evangelicalism.
And so it's always trying to say that your reflective faith is your faith.
And the danger is that that reflective faith is still connected in some ways to our capacity or our ability, whereas true saving faith is not.
It's pure gift. And if we can make that distinction, I think that helps. Well, that helps the evangelical mind also just wrap itself around what the Lord is doing, not only in baptism, but through the efficacy of the Word preached.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: All right, you ready for the next one? Yeah.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: This is on Isaiah 65:17. I thought this was a really interesting question.
For behold, I create new heavens and new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: I know heaven is paradise, but how will we fully appreciate it if we won't be able to compare it to our former life on this earth?
Not knowing we had a former life on this earth, only being aware of our eternal life makes me uncomfortable. Let's say a woman marries into a royal family. Her married life will be very different from her former life. She'll have a point of reference. However, her husband has no point of reference because the life of a royal is all he has ever known. How can he appreciate his life as his bride appreciates hers?
[00:14:58] Speaker A: That's a marvelous question. So this discomfort in contemplating eternal life.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: This particular area of discomfort I don't think I've ever experienced apart from this question, but it could probably stir it up in me.
But I have a lot of other discomforts from a lot of other things, like just this argument, like, you know, we appreciate our time on earth precisely because it's limited. And what happens in eternity when there is no end, when time is of an abundance?
[00:15:29] Speaker A: How do we even imagine that? It seems like that the scarcity of something is what gives it value. And so if there's no scarcity, if there's simply this overflow of abundance, then how can there be appreciation? There's something that happens, though.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: There's two things in that are, I think, in our lives now contrasted, which in eternal life will be complementary.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: And here's how to articulate it this way. And this gives me just a little bit hint of a way.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: Of switching around this discomfort with eternal life.
And that is that in this life, the two things that are contradictory are desire and satisfaction.
So just as an example.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: We ate a late lunch on Thanksgiving. And the reason is that you Want to be hungry.
So if you haven't eaten in a while, you're hungry and you want to eat your desires for food. And then if you eat like I did on Thanksgiving, then you're not hungry for like two days, right? So hunger and satisfaction or satiation or being stuffed are in contradiction to one another.
You're thirsty and then you drink, and then you're satisfied and your thirst goes away. So the desire for a thing grows out of a lack of it.
And then when you have it, that desire is gone.
Now, the opposite is true when it comes to spiritual reality.
So that as an example, and Christians have experienced this over and over, the more that you study the Scripture, the more you desire the Scripture.
This is why the argument for the frequency of the Lord's Supper, which we've heard a lot, which is like, if I don't have it as much, it won't be as special, is not only wrong, but it's like, exactly wrong.
Because with spiritual things, the presence of them creates also a desire for them. So that the desire for spiritual gifts does not mean the lack of those gifts, but in fact the desire for it is created by the presence of it.
So the more I have the forgiveness of sins, the more I long for it, the more I have the spirit of God, the more I long for it, the more I have the wisdom of God, the more I long for it.
So that longing and satisfaction are spiritually parallel to one another, not opposites of one another.
And that must be the way that eternal life would work, such that the more I have of something, the more precious it becomes, rather than the opposite.
It's not a.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: What's the economic term of.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: Scarcity and.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Demand? And how come I can't think of.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: The supply and demand?
[00:18:28] Speaker A: That's what it is, supply and demand. So the higher the supply, the lower the demand in eternal life. It must be that they're related. The higher the supply, the higher the demand that they're connected in an opposite way. Now, we cannot comprehend that on this side of the new heaven and the new earth. But I think that's there, so.
So that it's not necessary.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Currently.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: For us to appreciate the light. We have to know the darkness. For us to appreciate joy, we have to know sorrow. For us to appreciate.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Abundance, we have to know scarcity.
I do not think that that is necessary in eternal life. I don't think it was necessary in the garden.
And I don't think it'll be necessary in the new heaven and the new Earth that the presence of God is such that it generates its own gratefulness.
Now I can't comprehend it. That's as close as I can get to talking about it. I don't know if you have thoughts on that, Pastor Becker.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: No, I think that's extremely helpful. I was just thinking, even as.
I don't know if you feel this way, but even as I get older, I find that sometimes it's harder to remember things from, you know, except for really key moments. Even things from, like, childhood or something like, you know, the memory seems to fail me on some things. I'm like, oh, what was their name? Or what was that thing? And if you're in eternity with all these blessings and life being far greater than we could ever imagine, it would seem like the former things would just be out of your mind so fast, you know, like, the more you get good memories, they often help push out bad memories, things from the past, right? And the older you get, you seem to forget anyway. But you get to eternity, and things are so great that it seems like very quickly, I don't know how quickly, but, you know, it seems like from this Isaiah passage, perhaps right away, but all of a sudden you're just overwhelmed with all this goodness and the glory of God and the glory of the new creation that all those things are just gone. And now you're just delighting in this new thing that you get to experience. And it's so great and so profound in such a deep, wonderful thing that you can't even imagine anymore. The older things, like, they're just out of mind.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Again, I guess. I mentioned CS Lewis. This is twice today, but I think it's relevant here. His whole idea of heaven, of being the real thing, like the really real thing, right? It's more real than our current existence. And so it's something we can't fully fathom yet because we haven't been there. And we don't understand how great it's going to be. That's how. Why I thought Luther, like, right when he talks about how he teaches kids about heaven, kind of, to paraphrase, basically that, you know, tell them whatever thing they like the most, right? Whatever thing that they find to be the most fun, the most joyous, whatever, tell them it's like that because it's gonna be even greater than that, but at least they can grasp that. They can hold onto that and be like, hey, it's gonna be like this thing that I love so much, but it's so far beyond that that we can't even appreciate it yet. Like, we. We don't have a. Any way. I don't think of understanding it. No eye has seen, no ear has heard.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Like, we just don't get it fully. So my kind of thing on this is, by the time you start experiencing it, it's so wonderful that, yeah, you just kind of forget everything else because it's so great.
And you. It just gets greater and greater. It's just. You're growing in it and you're, you know, further up and further in. Again, to quote the Last Battle, you know, the.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: You know, the old. It's not a. It's not a conference until someone quotes C.S. lewis. That's the old saying.
Let me layer this on top, though, because Jesus gives us another metaphor which is helpful, and that is that part of the new heaven and the new earth is that he will wipe away every tear from their eye.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: So that part of the ministry that the Lord serves us Himself is in heaven, in eternal life, in the new heaven and new earth, is that he takes those pains and those sorrows, and He Himself removes them from us.
And so I don't even think we have a comprehension of how we are in this life.
Just collections of tears.
We are going through this life as those who mourn and.
And the Lord will lift us up one tear at a time. So here's a story.
I remember a dear lady member of the church at Hope in Aurora in Colorado, and she. We were talking one time, and she said, pastor, I try to pray as much. Or. Sorry, I try to cry as much as I can.
And I said, okay, well, tell me some more about that. And she said, well, this is what I figure, is that the more tears I squeeze out in this life, the more time I'll have in the lap of Jesus in life eternal with him wiping them each away.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: And I said that, Becky, that is both the craziest and most beautiful thing I've ever heard.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: So that a big part of the gifts that the Lord Jesus gives in eternal life is taking all of the sorrows, taking them away. And if there's joy to be had.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: In the forgetting of the sorrow, then that's part of the joy that the Lord will add to us.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: All right, can move on to something I know you've written about, so this will be an easy one for you, but it's a great question. So.
Good morning. This morning in our men's Bible study, we swerved into a question that I had not thought about in this way. It pertains to the feet shod with the Gospel of peace.
The other articles of armor seem to be related to standing firm. The shod feet seem to be an attitude, behavior that we adopt when standing or marching. I would be interested in your thoughts.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Great question. This has to do with the armor of God, which is in a number of places, most thoroughly in Ephesians chapter 6, where Paul says, put on the armor of God, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, which is able to quench all the fiery darts of the devil.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Where am I? Breastplate of righteousness, belt of truth, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And then he talks about praying so that the way that we wield the sword of the Spirit is through prayer. And then the feet shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace. It's the readiness there.
But then Paul goes on to say, what do you do when you're dressed with the armors? You stand three, four times. Stand, therefore stand three, stand, that we might be able to withstand on the evil day. So the duty that Paul dresses us for is watch duty, which is really interesting. He doesn't. The spiritual warfare, at least as it's outlined in Ephesians chapter 6, is not the offensive attacking the devil's kingdom.
In fact, Psalm 46 is about that. The Lord Jesus goes out conquering, and when we're there watching, ready to jump into the fray, he says, be still, stand there, stay and watch. So part of our spiritual warfare is not attacking, but watching the Lord destroy the strongholds. But we're to be on watch duty. This is the gregariousness of the Christian. This is the staying awake and listening with one ear to the scripture, the other to the things going on around us and calling in the Lord's help.
So the chief spiritual warfare work is prayer. Now.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Just on the topic, it's interesting to note that in 1st Thessalonians and also in Romans, Paul talks about the armor of light, and he uses different metaphors for different places. So the helmet of salvation is in Ephesians. I think it's the helmet of hope in Thessalonians. In other words, he mixes up his metaphors. So that means we can't get too technical about, oh, salvation, that is to protect the mind, and righteousness, that is to protect the heart or whatever. I mean, we can do it poetically, but we just can't. We don't want to be too technical on that side. Now, what about the feet? I think the feet are connected to what Paul preaches in Romans chapter 10.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: And this is where we get our doctrine of the call especially.
And Paul says, how can they call on him on whom they haven't believed? So we are calling on all who call on the name of the Lord. Be saved. But, well, how do you get that calling? What has to happen first? Well, you have to believe.
Well, how do you get that believing? Well, you have to hear the preaching. Well, how do you hear the preaching? Well, someone preaches. Well, how does someone preach? Well, they're sent.
And then it quotes Isaiah, how beautiful are the feet of him who brings good news.
So the Lord is pleased to see to it that His Word is preached not by human wisdom or ingenuity, but by his setting up of the office of the holy ministry and sending out His Word to be preached in all places.
Now, I want to be careful about this because does this mean that only the pastors are the ones who are equipped with the armor of the readiness to preach the gospel? Absolutely not. Every Christian has this readiness. Every Christian bears the name of Jesus into the world. Every Christian is praying and looking for opportunities to speak the kindness of God, the wisdom of God, the comfort of God, the law and the gospel of God, the promises of God into the hearts and minds of all who would hear it. So every Christian has that readiness, but especially the office is that word going forth.
And the result is that the Lord will soon crush the devil under our feet.
So this is how Paul ends the Epistle to the Romans. And I'm going to look up the text while you make some comments on this as well. But this is so amazing because we normally picture the devil crushed under the feet of Jesus.
That's Genesis 3:15.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: Her seed will crush your head and you will crush his feet. The Lord says to the devil with Eve listening in.
But Paul expands that head crushing work to the Christian so that now the devil is also crushed under our feet.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: And this is accomplished through the gospel, the preaching of the gospel, or the clean conscience that's brought to us by the preaching of the Gospel. So a few thoughts and I'm going to look for this text.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Yeah. One of the ways I like to think about the spiritual warfare is, and even the standing firm that he brought up is this primarily takes place right where God has placed us in our vocations. And so one, there's that aspect of, you said of praying for those connected to whatever vocation we happen to be in at the moment, right?
In all of our vocations we have people we need to be praying for, including ourselves. It's one of the ways we do battle for them, fight for them spiritually. But then tied to that too, it seems like a big part of our spiritual warfare is actually doing the duties God has given us within those vocations and doing them faithfully. And that's like we want.
I think we want spiritual warfare to be this like purely spiritual kind of abstract thing.
And we get off into some weird things about that if we're not careful. Whereas most of our fighting, the spiritual battle, I think really does take place as we actually do the things God has given us to do in our vocations, as we're being faithful, as we're lifting up those things that we're doing in prayer, praying for those intervocations that a lot of it is, the physical acts that we're doing, the duties that we're performing in our vocations is where the spiritual battle is taking place. It's in those real life flesh and blood things, not just kind of in the spiritual realm, which is where I think we like oftentimes maybe like to leave it. And then we're not sure what to do because we're not seeing demons every five seconds or whatever. So then we wonder if we're really involved in spiritual warfare.
And it's like, yes, as you're faithful, where God has placed you, you're doing exactly what you're supposed to do, and you are engaged in spiritual warfare and you are crushing Satan under your feet.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Here's three texts that I thought of.
So the first one is this that I mentioned. Romans 16:20.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.
That's an amazing text. Just amazing. And it's what Jesus says to the disciples in Luke, where he says, you'll trot on serpents and scorpions and everything. You'll trot on them.
James says it like this.
Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
So you're not fleeing or marching or pressing on. You're standing, you're resisting.
And the result of our resisting the devil, I mean, this is.
Pastor Packer. It's one of these places where it's like, I wouldn't believe it unless it's written down.
When we stand and resist the devil, then he runs afraid, presumably. Whatever fear looks like in a fallen angel, he runs from us.
It's not us running from the devil. There's other things that we're supposed to flee, but immorality, we flee idolatry.
We don't flee the devil. We resist the devil and he flees us.
And then remember the kind of capstone vision of the Book of revelation in chapter 12, where the devil is there trying to destroy the child who's caught up to heaven and rules the world with a rod of iron. And then he comes to devour the church, and they overcome him.
[00:32:19] Speaker A: By the word of the testimony, by the blood of the Lamb, and by not loving their lives unto death. Those three things don't just push the devil back, they overcome the devil. This is the promise that Jesus gives when he says that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. So that it's not like we normally see that as like we're in the church and hell is pressing into the church and Jesus says the church is going to stand.
That's not the picture. It's the opposite of that. Here's the devil's kingdom, and his gates are there, and the church will destroy them.
So it's the devil's kingdom that is precarious. It's the devil's kingdom that's being pressed back. It's the devil's kingdom that's being overthrown by the kingdom of light and the kingdom of God. It's hard for us to see because God's kingdom is always hidden.
But this is the truth.
This is what the Scriptures say, that we overcome the devil by these three things. It's just this amazing text. And so those, the feet that are shod with the readiness of the Gospel are the feet that are ready to trample the devil and the demons under them.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: That's why our confessions say that the good works you do in your vocations is Christ celebrating his victory over the devil. That's right.
It's an awesome way to think about your daily vocations, is that through them Christ is celebrating his victory over the devil as you just do the things God has called you to do.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Do you have that reference handy?
[00:33:42] Speaker B: I don't.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: I was looking at it the other day because. So it's a beautiful passage. And Melancthonus says, here's what we do with our vocation and our good works. We love God, we serve our neighbor, we bless people. And then he says, here's what Jesus does with our good works.
And that is he overthrows the devil's kingdom he makes a testimony to. So that there's like two people are using our good works and for different purposes.
So the Lord gives us the spirit so that we can do good works, and the result is love for God and love for the neighbor. But then Jesus also takes us up to use as his instruments to destroy the devil and to bring his kingdom about. It's an amazing thing. So it's like we're not the ones crushing the devil. Jesus is using us and our good works to crush the devil. And that.
Oh man, we've got to find that. That's 100% right. That's a beautiful passage.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: We're going to move on to near death experiences.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: What's your opinion on near death experiences? I've read a couple of books by John Burke on this subject. He references several studies done with people who have had them. What I find fascinating is that non Christians who have never read the Bible, such as Muslims and Hindus who have experienced a near death experience describe heaven just like Revelation does.
It's quite thrilling they say. So what are your opinion, what are your thoughts on these near death experiences?
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Well the key. So this is a big and tricky question. I think the key word is near.
So there's a big difference between a near death experience and a death experience.
And the difference is that when you're dead, you're dead. So, so what happens though?
Here's my goofy picture of it. Do you know like in the summer and you, and you're, it's hot and you get out of the car at H E B and you're walking into the grocery store and you step on someone's piece of gum and you don't notice it until you've taken like 10 steps and this long thin piece of bubble gum is like dragging behind you so that there's this thin thing that connects you to this piece of chewing gum but you're way away from it. That's my picture of a near death experience. So we have body and soul held together by the silver thread.
Held together in the golden bowl is how Ecclesiastes talks about it in chapter 12. So there's that silver thread that weaves body and soul together.
And death is that separation of body and soul where the spirit returns to God who made it and the, the body goes back to the dirt. But a near death experience must be like that silver cord is still connected but it's stretched, stretched, stretched, stretch, stretched and then all of a sudden snap back together.
So that body and soul are not separated from one another but they're being pulled apart. And in that pulling apart of the body and the soul it must be that, that our experiences.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: Become very mystical or spiritual.
We begin to experience things through the intake mechanism of the soul rather than the body.
Now how that works I got no idea. I mean how do we see without eyes? How do we hear without ears? How do we speak without mouths? How does the soul do those things? Apart from the instrumentality of the body? No idea. But it must happen. We praise the Lord while we're waiting for the resurrection. We speak and pray to him. We see his glory.
We have all these experiences and so the soul is able to experience all these things just like the angels themselves. Well, just like God himself can do all of these things without a body.
[00:37:27] Speaker A: And it must be in that strange sort of.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Kind of alienation of body from soul that these mystical experiences happen.
Now.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: What are they and can we trust them?
[00:37:45] Speaker A: What I want to suggest is that the diagnostic questions that we, that we run through the experiences that we have when this happens, I think this is also, by the way, I think this accounts for the experiences that we have when we're delusional.
I think this is also connected to the experiences that we have when we're dreaming, when the body's resting.
And you remember a couple years ago when I got Covid and I kind of went crazy.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Like I couldn't think straight and I couldn't talk and it was very, it was like, I mean, I don't know exactly how to explain it, but I had all these kind of visions. I was seeing all these things that were happening.
That kind of thing can happen too. I think psychedelic drugs caused some of these similar things to happen.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: You sort of awaken the sensitivities of the soul to have direct experiences of stuff.
But are they true or are they delusional and are they helpful? So the three questions we ask are, number one, does the experience contradict the scripture?
And if so, it should be rejected. Test the spirits to see what's right.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: Does the experience confirm the scripture?
And if so, then we don't need it, so we throw it out.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: And the third option is that the experience does not contradict the scripture, but nor is it confirming the scripture, in which case it's unnecessary and so we throw it out.
And so because we have the scriptures that tell us what eternal life is, then the best thing that can happen with a near death experience is that it dangerously confirms what we know to be true already, and then it's unnecessary. In other words, the best case of a near death experience is that it is true and unnecessary.
The worst case or every other case for a near death experience is that it. Because even if it's unnecessary, it's already dangerous because it tempts us to believe in it.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: But the rest of the cases is that it is tearing us away from a simple faith in the word of God. And my best example is like these, you know, there's all these stories about the children that die and go to heaven for 10 minutes or whatever, and then, and then, so it either is true and therefore unnecessary because if God wanted me to go to heaven for 10 minutes, he'd just bring me there. He wouldn't, you know, I don't need it from someone else.
The scriptures is what's public. All these other things are private. But now if I think that that boy's 10 minute trip to heaven is strengthening my faith, now my faith is in something apart from the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures.
And it could turn out that that boy did have a 10 minute trip to heaven and it doesn't benefit me at all except for it's weakened my faith in the scripture or he didn't have a 10 minute trip to heaven and now all of a sudden my faith is weakened and damaged and so forth.
So that's my whole, that's everything I know about the near death experience.
[00:41:01] Speaker B: With any of those kind of things. One of my questions is, does it drive you towards Christ and His Word or does it kind of lead you away? That's usually my way of evaluating it. Or even like, you know, you mentioned dreams. Like sometimes I'll hear of Muslims having dreams, Jesus appearing to them.
And usually the ones to me that seem like, hey, this seems like it could be legit, like they're told to like go find a Bible or go find a pastor, like they're driven outside of themselves to these things. Right?
[00:41:28] Speaker B: And so that's, that's kind of how I try to frame it or think about it. Is, is it driving them to Christ in His word or is it having to put faith in this experience?
And like, for example, if a Muslim has a vision of heaven, but they're not called to repent of what they believe, to believe in Jesus as, you know, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, then like you said, what good is it doing? It's probably confirming them in their, in their unbelief. Right? Same thing with the Hindu. If a Hindu says, oh, this is what heaven's like, and I'm obviously going there because I had this vision, that's not helpful unless. And they didn't give enough, they didn't give more information. So I don't know, unless they saw Jesus and Jesus said, you need to repent of these ways and believe in me if you want to get here, you know, go study Your Bible, go join a church, which I've heard happen, you know, with like, various Muslims and some other things. That's the kind of experience they had, was they were driven to word, they were driven to a church. They were driven to the things of God outside of themselves, not to their own experience.
[00:42:28] Speaker B: And most ones I've heard that seem reliable tend in that direction. Whereas if it seems divorced from driving you to the word, driving you to church, driving you to where Christ's gifts are found, then I'm highly suspicious that it was anything other than either just some kind of delusional thing or Satan deceiving you.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: We have to say the same thing, I think, about ghost stories. Right. So and Luther and the narcissist talk about this. Yeah. Also aliens that this is. These are almost always demonic deceptions. And you can tell by the content.
So you're preaching heaven to a Muslim, preaching heaven to a Hindu. You know, that's the devil who's using that vision to harden consciences. This is why the Lutheran said that when you try to figure out why the Catholic Church teaches purgatory, it goes back to a bunch of ghost stories. Like the souls of people came and told the church fathers about these, about this, the time in purgatory, and that's why they believe it. And so that you gotta. It's kind of. You contest the sort of way the devil is attacking things by figuring out what the ghost stories are. It's the same. Also, it's the same as with eucharistic miracles.
Like, it's either unnecessary and therefore unhelpful or bad.
I already knew it was the body and the blood. I don't need the host to start bleeding to tell me that.
And especially the way the Catholic Church uses the eucharistic miracles is that now it points to us as the true church because we are the church with the bleeding host. Well, I already knew that was wrong.
So we got to be very, very careful about these experiences.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: Luther. So I've been reading in the worldwide Bible study Luther on Genesis, and he talks about dreams, and he did this really interesting. He'll say, here's how to know if a dream is from God.
Number one, it leaves a lasting impression. Number two, it points you to the Scriptures. Number three, it's confirmed to be God, et cetera, et cetera.
It points to the word.
But he says, this is why I vowed and I solemnly asked the Lord never to give me a dream or a vision, because I only want to point people to the Scriptures, not to what The Lord has given to me, and that results in all sorts of dangerous nonsense. So if someone comes and they say to us, let's say someone's watching, they said, I have a near death experience.
Our first response should be one of the deep sympathy. I don't think it should be of doubt, but of deep sympathy. If they had one of those experiences where their body and soul were so stretched that they were open to these influences and this came to them, it's always a really profound experience.
It is a burden.
These are deep burdens, and they have to be.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: The Lord calls us to a faithful stewardship of these experiences.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: And that's a heavy burden to carry. So we need to be able to help people who are carrying those burdens.
[00:45:21] Speaker B: All right, next we have an interesting question on revival.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: I've been exploring my Lutheran roots and I've been enjoying your commentary and messages. I understand your message about revivalism, pietism and enthusiasm, but it seems to me that Lutherans participate in revivalism weekly through the confession where we confess our sin and ask for absolution. How is that any different from the Baptist who responds to the Gospel message and comes forward to confess their sin and seek absolution? I agree with you that apart from the spirit of God, he cannot respond to his own volition. But when God's grace and revelation coalesce to open the eyes of the soul, he responds, what are your thoughts? So I guess he's taken revivalism and saying, hey, aren't we basically having a revival every week because we confess our sin, receive absolution.
[00:46:06] Speaker B: Multiple times in the service? Really, outside of just a confession? Right. We come to the Lord's Supper and we receive Christ's body and blood. Shouldn't that be our revivalism?
[00:46:13] Speaker A: We talk about how the Lutherans are the church with the real altar call because we actually have an altar. Yeah, you know, you come forward there, here. So here's the problem with revivalism.
To quote Charles Finney. You remember Charles Finney? Remember that guy?
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Yeah, we're good friends.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: He said, Charles Finney, who was the author of the Second Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, was connected to the first.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: What is this Grandison Finney, Charles.
Anyway, he talked about new measures and what he meant by new measures. He says it explicitly says, in the apostolic time, they had a way for people to show that they were putting behind their old life and entering into the new life. And that way was baptism.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: But.
[00:46:58] Speaker A: But we have new measures that are better than those, really. And that is the altar call and the revivalistic service.
So Finney starts with the assumption of free will.
So we just call this all free will theology. He starts with an assumption of the freedom of the human will to choose God to repent of their sins and to trust and believe in Christ.
The idea is that the human will is what does those things, and the human will can do those things, has the capacity to do those things.
But the will is not.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: According to Finney's construct.
It's not just that the will is free, but that the will is weak and sick, and therefore it needs to be helped to do the right thing.
What we would say is that the free will theologian, I mean, half of the problem is their confession that the will is free to choose and decide and to receive Christ, to repent on its own, by its own powers, but that free will is weak and sick, and therefore it needs to be helped, or what we would say, manipulated into doing the right thing.
So that.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: This is the irony, is that the free will theologians are the most manipulative.
You would think that if you had a free will, you would just lay it out there, hey, here's the choice. Choose right. And you wouldn't. But because they believe not just in, they confess not just the freedom of the will, but the manipulatableness of the will, the ability of the will to be coerced. Then their whole service, their whole system, their whole theology, the whole shape of everything that they do is pressing you, I think, just manipulating you into doing the thing that you ought to do, which is to receive Christ, to confess your sins, to surrender your life, to come down for the altar call.
So these two underlying assumptions of the freedom of the will and the manipulatableness of the will are the basis of revivalism. And they're wrong because, number one, the will is not free. I mean, it's free in things below us. We can decide what color socks to wear or where to live or what to do for work or whatever, but we cannot choose to follow God. We are unbelievers, so we unbelieve. That's what our will actively does. So the will is not the tool of conversion, but the object of conversion. And that is a completely different shape of service.
There the law is going forth and the gospel is going forth to convict and to free, not to coerce or cajole.
And so the shape of the liturgy versus the shape of a revivalistic service.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: It just has a completely different shape because of those assumptions about the will.
[00:50:03] Speaker B: I was grabbing because it was right next to me. So that was Helpful. But I don't know if you've read this one. Let's see if I can get it over here. The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church by George Henry Gerberdine. The last, like, the last five chapters are on modern revivals, which.
All right, like, it's. It's older, so he's going back to things like Billy Sunday and stuff, but the last several chapters are on that issue. And he gives, like, 10 objections we have to revivals, which are great. And then the last chapter is on true revivals, which gets to what you were saying and what the question is driving at, that the true revival starts with us repenting of our sin. Right? Starts with us. And that's for us. Daily. Daily repentance of sin, daily receiving Christ's gifts, and then especially as we come to church and receive Christ through the preaching of the word, through the absolution, and through Christ's body and blood. But I really loved it. In fact, this was Dr. Jordan Cooper's. His publishing house did this version.
[00:51:01] Speaker A: This.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: And I messaged him and said, have you ever considered putting those last few chapters just in a little pamphlet? Because how they're so good on going after these revivals that we're constantly.
Because there's that question right now. Right? There's a huge question right now. Like, are there revivals? Are there not?
And one of my things is, well, I don't think we can really know in the midst of it. Like, we don't know. We don't have enough evidence. We don't have fruit yet of it. Sometimes these things look really great. And then within a year, there's, like, no evidence anything ever happened. Right.
Whereas Gabardine's whole point is like, no. Like, the revival is happening every time you come to church.
And he encourages, too, in there. He encourages going to Bible study and how important that is to staying connected to the faith and in the faith. But. So if you want more on this adding to what Pastor Wolfinger just said, I highly encourage you to check out that book. The whole book's really great. But those last chapters on revivalism are especially helpful for this topic.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: Did. Did Jordan Cooper write you back?
[00:52:00] Speaker B: He said he had never thought about doing that, and he's. He's considering it, so I don't know if he's going to. But you have more pole there.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: I want you to know that you got an email back from that guy, which is itself a miracle. That's like someone being raised from the dead.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Well, I see. I sent a Facebook messenger that's why.
[00:52:18] Speaker A: I never can get that guy to call me back.
[00:52:21] Speaker B: Anyway, we'll tag him in this.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: All right. The last. Is this. The last one Is the last one.
The power of positive thinking.
I thought this was an interesting one as well.
Firstly, so glad you're back. With young children, it's sometimes difficult to find peace and quiet to learn and study. So I listen to your podcast while I run. My runs have been boring lately. Miss you greatly.
Now for the question.
Not reference to the book by Norman Vincent Peale, but simply the idea of positive thinking having a positive effect on your life.
Is this idea, on a basic level, at least, biblically supported? Are there verses or examples of this in the Bible?
[00:53:03] Speaker A: This.
I want you to go first on this one.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: I've been wrestling with this one for the last few years.
I'll tell you why, but I want to hear your thoughts first. They're going to be better than mine.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: Well, I don't think, like, I don't think being positive about things is necessarily bad. Like, like, so just on the surface of it, like, without even diving into any biblical texts or whatever, if we have faith in Christ, right, we ultimately know to use Shakespearean categories, life is not a tragedy, it's a comedy, right? In Shakespeare, tragedies end where, like, everyone's dead and it's. Everyone's miserable and it's horrible, right? The comedies of Shakespeare end where everything works out for the main characters.
So the Christian's life is not a tragedy, it's a comedy. No matter how things are going for us now, we know they all work out for us in the end. Like, it's going to be glorious and great for us in Christ. And so because of that, because we know the end of the story, I think we have a lot to be positive about. I mean, I tend. I'm not naturally. I tell my wife I'm a realist. So, you know, sometimes she'll tell me I'm too negative or whatever, but I say no, I'm just trying to be realistic about things. But as far as, like, you know, if, like he's in running, right? Like, I've got a bunch of kids that run cross country. You kind of have to have a positive attitude, right, about those things. You can really defeat yourself mentally as an athlete. For example, if you have like a negative, negative self talk, as they call it. Like, if you're talking down to yourself, it's gonna affect your performance. So I think there's just some practical things where being positive is fine, but then like the Philippians 4 passage, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there's any virtue and if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. I mean, if you're doing that, there's gonna be an element of you being positive about stuff, right? So I don't think in of itself being positive. The idea of like Vincent Peale and some of these other guys like that you're going to change the universe or how things turn out for you by the power of your mind and being positive, that's pagan thinking, right?
But to have a. Just divorce from that, just a positive attitude about stuff, you're probably gonna have a better day.
Like, if you approach your work with a positive attitude versus negative one, you're probably just, on a practical level, you're gonna enjoy your life a little bit better if you're doing that. And if you put in terms of what we have in Christ, the tragedy versus comedy thing, or even what we have in Philippians 4, I think you, you can easily approach things with, with a positive attitude, even when you're suffering, right? Counting all joy, even when you're suffering.
Like we're, we're called to not have a fake positivity, but a positivity ground in the reality of what we have in Christ. So that's my attempt.
You can fix my errors and go from there.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: No, I don't. I, I do not think that that's wrong at all here. So this, this positive thinking thing that has to do with like speaking reality or manifesting reality, or the idea that there's some sort of psychic power that if, if that our minds can shape the universe is, like you said, pagan and ought to be rejected as dangerous. It shows up theologically in the kind of name it, claim it thing where you have this super optimistic anthropology, like with Joel Osteen, who has the idea that.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: You don't confess your sins or talk about being a sinner because you're making that happen and you rather talking about these good things.
[00:56:38] Speaker A: It'S not for them the power of positive thinking, but the power of faith.
And it's almost as if God is required to serve faith, like faith makes God into some sort of genie who acts according to your desires, because that faith has that almost coercive power over God or nature of the universe or whatever, that also is very pagan and very bad.
[00:57:07] Speaker A: Okay, so that is to be rejected out of hand. Here's what I've been wrestling with is that again, this is back to Luther and his Genesis commentary is that Luther will speak of the power of God's word and the power of prayer and the power of faith, because all of these things are connected to the power of God and the love of God in Christ specifically for us and his ability and desire to intervene in history so that history serves the Church, like Paul says in the end of Ephesians chapter too.
So here's Luther's definition of faith.
This is from his introduction to the book of Romans. Oh, I'll show it. I'll share screen. I can do that. I know how to do it. I demonstrated my capacity to share screen already.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: Being very positive about that. That's great.
[00:58:02] Speaker A: This is quoted in the formula of Concord Article 4. So this is.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: This is our confession.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: This is Luther prefaced epistle of Romans. Faith is a divine work in us that transforms us and begets us anew from God, kills the old Adam, makes us entirely different people in heart, spirit, mind and all our powers, and brings the Holy Spirit with it.
Oh, faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, so that it is impossible for it not to be continually doing what's good.
Likewise, faith does not ask if good works are to be done. But before one can ask, faith has already done them and is constantly active. Whoever does not perform such good works is a faithless man blindly tapping around in search of faith and good works without knowing what either faith or good works are. And in the meantime, he chatters and jabbers a great deal about faith and good works.
Faith is a vital, deliberate trust in God's grace, so certain that it would die a thousand times for it. And such confidence and knowledge of divine grace makes us joyous, meddlesome and merry toward God and all creatures. You know, I thought that meddlesome meant meddlesome, but apparently meddlesome and mettlesome are different words. Now, I don't know. Meddlesome means you get in everybody's business, which is what I was hoping it meant, but that's not what it means.
Meddlesome means something different apparently. But anyway, this. The Holy Spirit works by faith, and therefore without any coercion. A man is willingly and desirous to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything for the love of God and to his glory who has been so gracious to him.
It's therefore impossible to separate works from faith as it is to separate heat and light from fire.
Now.
[00:59:56] Speaker A: This definition of faith as this busy, active thing.
[01:00:04] Speaker A: This is not the power of Positive thinking. But it is, in some ways.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: It has that same sort of feel to it, like it matters. Faith, it changes things. Things are going to be different depending on if I believe the promise of God or if I don't, if I trust the word of God or if I don't, if I have the Holy Spirit or if I don't. Which is why Jesus says after he teaches the Lord's prayer in Luke 11, the Father will give the Spirit to all who ask, so that we're constantly asking for the Spirit. And this makes a difference.
[01:00:36] Speaker A: In our lives, in our inner lives, in our outer lives, what we say, what we do, and even how things are working around us. The Lord is at work here. There's a danger. Here's what I think is the danger that we, because we say that the Holy Spirit works only through the Word, that we think that God is not also holding up the Son and pressing up the flowers from the ground and causing the lightning to strike. And he is working all things together for the good of those who love him. And so he's actively involved in every part of our lives.
[01:01:11] Speaker A: And faith recognizes it. Well, at least faith begins to open our eyes, to start to see that. And it's a wonderful. And it really does change things and it brings joy even in the midst of sorrow.
Now, faith doesn't take sorrowful things away, but faith gives us the endurance and the steadfastness in the midst of affliction, to be even not only enduring, but joyful in the midst of it.
[01:01:42] Speaker B: Luther says it makes you merry, which would be.
It's gonna be a more positive outlook than if you're not married. Correct.
If you're married and joyful, it's hard to be. Yeah, it's hard to be hard to be down about everything if you're marrying joyful, because faith is producing that in you.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: Meddlesome apparently means a person full of spirit and courage.
[01:02:04] Speaker A: In full metals. Spirited, lively, meddlesome.
[01:02:11] Speaker A: That's the. That's the Christian that's so good. Well, good question.
[01:02:18] Speaker A: May God make us joyful, merry, meddlesome creatures.
May God grant it for Christ. Thanks for your question. You can send in those more questions. Wolfmuller co contact.
That's the way to do it. And we'll get after them. Thanks, Pastor Packer. God's peace be with you. And thanks. Thanks everyone for watching. Hey, YouTube theologians like subscribe wolfmuller co for free books to download. Find a church the free newsletter Wednesday whatnot. See you soon.
