[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians, welcome to the Q and a podcast. I'm pastor Brian Wolfmuller, St. Paul and Jesus Deaf Lutheran churches in Austin, Texas. And joined with past by. Joined by. Joined with me here.
I don't even know how to say that. Pastor Andrew Packer, good shepherd Lutheran Church, Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you, and that is that you did not go to the issues, et cetera, conference because you hate doctrine.
Is that true?
Everyone said that. Where's Pastor Packer? Does he hate the truth? Does he hate doctrine? Does he hate his own member?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Craig, that's, that's harsh. Uh, I did send my, I said my two oldest daughters were there.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: They did not come up and, uh, hassle me at all.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: I know. That's. I tried to get them to, and, uh, they would not. So I was very disappointed. I failed as a parenthood.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: You wanted them to say, hey, I watch your YouTube videos. I really like the other guy.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that would have been hilarious. And they said, what if he's going to recognize us from, from the, from the catechism retreat? And I said, that makes it even funnier. That's even, that's even funnier if he recognizes you. But they didn't think so. So they, uh, they didn't do it.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: I'm kind of sad acknowledging today that this is a, another week of political upheaval with the. I mean, so it's kind of a wave of the aftermath of the debate and then with the assassination attempt on President Trump last week and now with the Republican National Convention, it seems like it's very uncertain times. It feels that way to me. And Carrie, my wife, was rebuking me the other day. She says, remember how you always preach about how Jesus sits on the throne and rules and reigns all things, and we trust not in princes?
And I said, yeah. And she says, well, so that was nice. But acknowledging that it is, it does seem like some, we keep hitting these inflection points in our own culture, in our own society, if it ought to draw us back to the Lord's word, draw us back to the Lord's kindness, remind us that there's a reason that the christian church calls our buildings the sanctuary, where we can go and be protected by the Lord's word. So not, I mean, doesn't mean we're safe from earthquakes, but it does mean we're safe from the wrath of God. That's what Christ has done as he, like an umbrella, covers us and endures the, the wrath of God for our sake. So it's it's good that all of these uncertainties in history and uncertainties in the world, uh, draw our hearts and minds back to the certainties that we have in Christ. So seems like that is a appropriate preface for the conversation today. Um, yeah. You have thoughts on things.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Well, I think you should add, because before we came on, you were talking about, um, an application that I thought was good and helpful about, you know, that we walk in danger all the way. That should be a good reminder that death, really, for. For all of us, is often only a millimeter away. We just often don't realize it. Right. We. We don't. We don't think about it or don't understand it. I always share a story with people. I had a. A friend back when I was at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina, before becoming Lutheran, and I had a pastor friend, and his wife was diagnosed with this heart condition, and she was, like, not given very long to live, but. And that was, you know, forever ago, and she's still with us today. But then a friend of theirs who was in his twenties, who thought he had a really long time to live, like, got hit in a crosswalk by, I think it was even, like, a bus or something like that. It was a very tragic thing, and he died very young. But on the one hand, you had someone who was older who thought, I don't have a lot of time left, and now they're still with us. And then you had this young person who thought, I have the whole world before me. I have. You know, I have lots of years to go, and I. They were tragically taken, so I thought some of the things you were saying about that kind of stuff would be good maybe for people to hear.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, we're just right on the. We're right on the edge of the cliff, and. But it is also according to the Lord's word. So if the Lord wants us alive, we are alive. And if the Lord wants us to breathe our last, then we're dead. And seeing him face to face, and so it is according to the Lord's will. Now, that doesn't mean we test him and throw ourselves off the cliff, right? But it does mean that the Lord does protect us, and the Lord does keep us, and that's good. Tomorrow is not promised. My brother sent me a meme, and it said, tomorrow isn't promised. So call your brothers and tell them that they're ugly and adopted.
That was really moving. I thought. I was really touched by that.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: I need to do that today. Then I need to call my brother and tell me suckle and adopt it.
That's beautiful. I always think about, I hope hopefully won't get canceled for this. Although since you said the word assassinate, apparently I mentioned that before church service on Sunday, and YouTube edited that word out of my mouth.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: After it got posted, I guess. But anyway, Stonewall Jackson, you know, Robert Lewis Dabney, in his biography, Stonewall Jackson tells all these stories about him. And Stonewall Jackson was a person, had a great faith in Christ, that when it was his time to go, it's his time to go. That's why he was called Stonewall, because he would sit upright on this horse. Bullets are flying everywhere. And he's like, if it's my time to go, it's my time to go. And then how he dies is from friendly fire. It's one of the. It's one of the craziest things in history, right? Like, here's this guy who never flinched, like, in battle and never, never backed down and just was, you know, sat upright and didn't had any, had no fear. And then he gets taken out by friendly fire, which proves the point, right? Like, that's not how he was expecting to go, but that's. That was his time to go. And he died from friendly fire and not. Not what anyone expected or anticipated. So.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: So we have to. That song that you mentioned, we walk in danger all the way. Death doth pursue us all the way. But then I walk with angels all the way and I walk with Jesus all the way and my walk is heavenward all the way. That's our confidence.
All right, let's do some questions.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: All right. These two are related to one another. In fact, I think I'll just read one of the two, uh, because they're both about the same text. Um, the. For the one person, it's very personal because they, um, I'll read theirs, uh, because it's a little bit longer and, uh, gets into some more detail. I have a very serious question that I'm extremely concerned about. I went to a lutheran school until I was in the third grade. And since then, till I was 25, I still said the Lord's prayer and believed in him. But I never read the bible or anything like that. I got mad at Goddesse and I still believed in him, but I blessed him. Then a couple years ago, I came back to Christ, and I read the bible every day and I pray all day. And I love Christ with my whole heart. Hebrews. And I believe he means chapter six here. Verses four through six really scares me. Am I an apostate? Does it mean I cannot be forgiven and I cannot enter the kingdom? This is absolutely my worst nightmare, thinking about this over and over. I watch your videos all the time and I share all your videos and I love your videos. This is truly terrifying. Terrifying for me. I'm afraid that I'm going to hell because I stopped praying and blessing God. Would you please answer this for me?
Thanks, and have a great week in God's peace.
So.
And the other question was related to this was, how do we understand this? This, these verses in Hebrews, chapter six, which I'll go ahead and read, uh, since they're the focus of this, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the Holy spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the son of God for their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Yeah. That text and the parallel text in Hebrews, chapter ten was one of the reasons why the church wrestled so much with the book of Hebrews and considered this. It was deuterocanonical or anti legomena. It wasn't everywhere listed amongst the biblical books, because just at a kind of first glance and maybe even second glance, those texts look like they contradicted other texts where the Lord is calling back his people to repentance all the time. I mean, it's just like the most cursory look at the prophetic ministry of the Old Testament is that the Lord is constantly calling his people to repentance, that they blaspheme, that they curse, that they break his law, that they're murderous, adulterous, thieving, unjust, cruel, wicked people. And the Lord calls them back to himself and is ready to receive them over and over again. Even the ministry of, like, hosea the prophet, where he goes and marries Gomer, and then she commits her prostituting again, and then he accepts her back. And the Lord says, this is what I do with you, Israel. And so the Lord Jesus himself comes preaching repentance and promises us that the joy of the angels is bound up to repentance.
But the idea then, so you're reading through Hebrews and it's like, well, okay, repentance is available, but once, like, you got one shot at it, and then if you repent and then fall away, then there's no second repentance. There's no return to the Lord's grace. And that's the fear that is behind this letter and that is behind this questioning. We see again, though, over and over in the scriptures that the Lord is always calling us back. I mean, just imagine King David, who tasted and saw that the Lord is good, and then forsook all these promises and commands in his adultering, murdering, lying, deceiving for a year of unrepentance and lost the Holy Spirit. And then through the prophet Nathan, the Lord comes and preaches and restores him and brings him back, so that the Lord is always welcoming, always ready to receive us, always coming, not to condemn, but to give life in his name. And so we rejoice that this is the consistent preaching of the scriptures. And if someone is worried about having committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, it's one of these chief indications that they have not, because the hardened heart is not concerned with the things of the spirit of God. It doesn't discern them, it doesn't think about them. It doesn't worry about them at all. So I think we need to take these passages, Hebrews six, Hebrews ten, along with the end of one, John, the sin unto death, as well as the discussion of Jesus in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, of the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and put them together and to see them discussing the same phenomenon. And it teaches at least these things. It teaches, number one, that it is possible to have faith and lose faith, to have the spirit and lose the spirit, to have the forgiveness of sins and then to forsake the forgiveness of sins.
That that is a possibility that the scriptures warn us about. And the mechanism for that happening is what Jesus calls blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. It's really important, I think, when looking at that text, to understand that Jesus does not call it the unforgivable sin, as if the quantity of the sin or the type of sin classified it as a sin that is unable to be forgiven. Jesus doesn't say it's the unforgivable sin like every other sin is forgivable, and this one is not. Every sin is forgivable. It's the unforgiven sin. And that's a totally different thing, because it's not the, like the greatness of the sin that puts it beyond the reach of the Lord's atoning work, but rather the way that the sin operates. Blasphemy, the Holy Spirit, is to cut off that way, that the Lord delivers forgiveness to us. So it's precisely through the work of the spirit in the word of God that the Holy Spirit brings forgiveness to us. It's why Jesus says that blasphemy of the Father, forgive it. Blasphemy the Son forgiven. Blasphemy of the spirit, not forgiven. Because it's the work of the spirit to bring that forgiveness to us. So that that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is to cut oneself off from the word of God, either by pride. I don't need forgiveness or despair. God can't forgive me or whatever else. And it's not the fact that you can't be forgiven, but that you are refusing forgiveness. And so the contrite heart, the broken and contrite heart, which is obviously evident in this letter, has the promise that God does not despise it. A broken and contrite heart, these, o God, you will not despise.
So if you are sorry for your sin and trusting that Christ has carried your sins, then you can have the absolute confidence that your sins are, in fact, forgiven.
So that a few kind of cursory thoughts on that. Pastor Packer, what do you, what do you think?
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I wanted to add that because of everything you've said, that's why this whole idea that these verses are just a fake warning, right? In the groups that believe in once saved, always saved, they say these verses, well, there, he doesn't really mean it. It's just a fake warning. But the problem with that is the moment you know it's a fake warning, then why is it in there at all? Like, if. If exegesis leads you to say, well, it's not a real warning because this can't really happen, then why have it in there at all? Because the moment you know it's fake, it's, according to you, lost the whole reason it's there to begin with, which is just to keep you from falling into that sin. But if you. If you don't believe it's can actually happen and you know it can actually happen, then it makes no sense why these verses even exist. Um, to add what you said, uh, Kleinegs commentary on Hebrews, which is just wonderful and, uh, should probably be read by everyone. It's just a really fantastic commentary. He talks in there, uh, with this verse and the ones in ten about the whole issue is that they're rejecting the very means, the very person that can give them the forgiveness. Right. They're rejecting Jesus. So the issue is you're crucifying the son of God again, because you're rejecting the very one who could actually save you. You're trampling underfoot the very son of God that could actually restore you if you would turn to him. And kind of makes the point that the whole issue is once you've rejected Jesus and you keep rejecting Jesus, that there's no other means of salvation. Where are you going to go now? You can't go running to anyone else or to anything else that will give you the salvation you desire. So if you've fallen away and you keep rejecting Jesus and you stay in that state, then, yeah, you're, you're in trouble because Jesus is the only way of salvation. But if you repent and return to Jesus, then you've gotten out of that horrible condition because you've gone back to the only one that can save and redeem you. And so I've always found it that the way he framed that extremely helpful for those wrestling with this, because it is that rejection of Jesus who is the only way of salvation. If your heart keeps its hardened to him, then, yeah, there is no hope. But the moment you go back to Jesus, then that changes the whole equation. That's, that's the whole point, is that they're, they're rejecting the very one that can rescue and save and redeem them, and there's no salvation anywhere else. So the only solution to that problem is the one you've been rejecting. Go back to him.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Hmm.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's it.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. I'm looking.
You know, this Wadsworth commentary, I remember that he had said some helpful things about this text, and I just pulled it out.
So a couple of things to note, which I think confirms exactly what Doctor Kleine was talking about. The impossibility of renewal under repentance, which the apostle speaks, is an impossibility on the part of man. But nothing's impossible with God. Matthew 19 two, mark ten, etcetera. Two. That it is impossible to renew under repentance. The persons here described as anastarontas, crucifying. And he notes that this is present tense, crucifying afresh the Son of God, putting him to open chain. That is, it is impossible for man to renew such persons under repentance as long as they persevere in such desperate course of willful, presumptuous sin against the Son of God. The participle used are present tense, and the usage is compared with chapter ten, verse 26. It's present tense. As long as we continue to sin willfully after we received the knowledge of the truth, so that while we continue to crucify Christ, while we continue to turn away from him, there is no help for us.
But once that is, once that, once repentance brings that to an end, then comfort comes along.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Sauls a great contrast to David, which is constantly shown to us in one and two. Samuel, the difference between the two. But Saul, you have Saul, who continually, every time the Lord comes to him, rejects the word of the Lord, just time and time and time again. But the Lord keeps going after him, right? He keeps pursuing him, keeps giving him opportunity to repent. And yet Saul keeps repenting, the only means available for salvation till the end where he ends up taking his life because he believes that it's all over anyway. Whereas David, even though he committed those horrific sins, when the Lord pursues him, David, when he's confronted in his sin, and you see this throughout his entire life, when he's confronted with his sin, he repents, right? Even after those heinous sins and his loss of the Holy Spirit, when Nathan comes to him and pursues him and tells him that wonderful parable says, you are the man David actually does repent, so that both men were in the same state for a while, rejecting Christ and rejecting God's gifts. But the difference between them two was found in David repented and Saul did not.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: I have this, I published this, the precious promises of God book this last week, and it just lists all these promises of God by category. So I just put Wolfmuller co promises. It's just the list there. So this is really helpful way to minister to the, I think to the hurting heart in there just to go through. So here's the whole section. Pardon of sin, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sins. As for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away. I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake and will not remember thy sins. I mean, over and over. And then to go down here of the most heinous sins, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be, they shall be like wool. Isaiah one of all sins who forgives all thine iniquities, who healed all that disease. Psalm 101 I will cleanse thee from all their iniquity. Jeremiah 33 none of his sins he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him. Ezekiel 33 and then how about this? Of backsliding return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you. Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Jeremiah 312 and 22 or Hosea 14 four. I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely. These are just beautiful passages pardoned through Christ. All this list the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins. If any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for your are forgiven you for his namesake, John 2112. I mean, this is so, I would encourage the meditation on these promises of God. It's really, it's really beautiful. Wonderful.
You can download that book, by the way, for free. They're on the same page. You just click the download button.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: I was gonna say we should probably put a link to that when you, when we post this so people can find it quickly and easily because that'd be a great resource for everyone to have, but especially those who are struggling with God's promises or doubting the promises or just, um, maybe they've never read God's promises before and they need to hear them for the first time. So be a great thing for everyone.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Yep. Will do.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Feels, feels weird to go into another question after all that. Well, let's call it, let's, let's, let's.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Call it there and we'll just, well that's good. We'll just put it here and make this one about um, about backsliding and apostasy and then uh, take up the next ones next time. So thanks for patch pack for being here. Thanks. Oh, so thanks for everyone else for, I mean, sending the questions. God be praised that you trust us to wrestle through some of these things with you. It's an honor for us. Let's see. We will. Oh, if you want to put more questions, what do you think is the best way to do it? Pastor Packer? I think when people put it on the website, wolfmeal CEO contact it half the time, doesn't really get through. So. Sorry about that. I always find them in the junk and forwarded to. So if you comment on the video, is that good either way? I mean, just maybe send it both places. But pastor Packer tries to check the video comments too, so you can, they.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: Could email them to me directly.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's email is. I heard a rumor at yeah, or.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: It'S a pastor andrewpackermail.com dot. That'd probably be the easier way.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Pastor
[email protected] send those questions those way. We're delighted to hear from you all. Keep in touch and hopefully we'll see you soon. God's peace be with.
