Is the Bible pro-choice? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Our phone lines are open right now, and you can call us with your question at 833-THE-CORE. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can watch us live on YouTube, and you can email us your question at questions at COREChristianity.com.
First up today, let's go to Don in Topeka, Kansas. Don, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? And also, verse 22, I was wondering if you could explain what that means. Hey, Don, love to hear that you're studying the book of Matthew, so Matthew chapter 10, verse 6. This is Jesus sending out his apostles. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, so he's sending them specifically to the Hebrew people, and proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
You received without paying, give without pay. And then you said also, verse 22, where Jesus said to them, And you will be hated by all for My name's sake, but the one who endures to the end will be saved. Those are the two verses you're referring to, Don? Especially 22.
Okay. Well, initially, we have here Jesus sending his disciples out to proclaim the truth of his kingdom to the Hebrews, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek later on, but there's this offer specifically to his own people. And of course, in the beginning of John's gospel, for example, we read that Jesus came to his own, but his own did not receive him, and that's one of the things that's being anticipated as the chapter continues in verse 16 to begin. So look, I'm sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for My sake. And so he's preparing his disciples for the mission he's sending them on. He's sending them to the Israelites, but he's saying, look, you're going to experience persecution. And of course, that's what Jesus himself experienced. He was crucified by his own people. And so Christ is preparing his disciples for that, for the persecution they're going to experience throughout their apostolic ministry in particular, and he says, you know, the one who endures to the end will be saved. He's calling them to persevere in the message, in the gospel that he's given to them, not to depart from it, not to turn from it, but to continue preaching faithfully. Does that answer your question, Don, or was there something about verse 22 that you were specifically wondering about? Well, I'm kind of wondering, you know, how you finish the race, I mean, how you endure to the end.
Yeah, very practical, very, very practical question. The New Testament has a lot to say about that. Of course, you know, the Christian life is referred to as a race. Not a sprint, I think it's more of a marathon, but I think of what the author to the Hebrews says, I believe it's in Hebrews chapter 12, we're to run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And so a part of finishing well is keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, and Jesus himself is the one who is the author and the finisher of our faith. He's the one, Don, who's going to be faithful to keep you, to hold on to you, and we're called to persevere in holding fast to the message, to the gospel that he's given to us, and that's precisely what he's telling his disciples to cling to here. He's saying, hold fast to this gospel as you preach it, you're going to be persecuted for preaching the message, you're going to be dragged into synagogues and flogged and so on and so forth, but hold fast to the word that I gave to you. And that's what each of us are called to do, is hold fast to the gospel, not to let go of that confidence that we have in the forgiveness of our sins through the work of Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews, for example, brings that up over and over and over again. And so how do we run the race well, and how do we finish well?
We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Thanks for your question. Thanks, Don, and thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. Well, we get a lot of voicemails here, and you can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day on our phone number, 833-THE-CORE.
Just spell it out. Here's a voicemail that came in yesterday. I just first and foremost wanted to just let you guys know how grateful I am for your show and how much of a blessing it's been in my life. It's definitely helped me understand who Jesus is and get closer to God in a way that I've never been able to before. So I'm very grateful for that, and I pray that you guys can continue studying the truth and doing the Lord's work.
I do have a question. So I was on Facebook recently, and I saw a meme that was talking about abortion. I know that there's been a lot of controversy lately with the anti-abortion laws that were just recently passed. I normally don't try to engage in social media debates and discussions because I know that they don't go anywhere, and I don't find them to be very effective. It was a meme that said that because God gave up his only begotten son that he would definitely be in support of abortion, no questions asked. And that was something that just really angered me because I know that's just not true.
What are some scriptures that I can go to to show people that that's not true, that's not accurate? How do I address that? Well, one, sister, thank you so much for your encouragement. Glad to hear that this program has been a blessing for you. And you also sound like a very wise woman avoiding those social media debates.
I think that we all ought to probably at all costs because they just typically aren't very helpful. But oftentimes we do see something as we're scrolling through our social media feed, something that does anger us, a misrepresentation of the truth, and that's precisely what this image, this meme that you saw is. Anybody who's saying that because God the Father gave up his son he is pro-abortion or pro-choice just doesn't understand what we mean when we say that God the Father gave up or sent his son into the world. God the Son, the second person of the Holy Trinity, assumed humanity through the womb of the Virgin Mary, was conceived by the grace of the Holy Spirit and born and came and lived a perfect life in our place. I mean, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God born into the world. When we talk about God giving up his son, we're thinking about him sending his son into the world to be born and to live a life for us, for the forgiveness of our sins so that his righteousness might be given to us to die on the cross as the atonement for our sins and then to rise again from the dead. And so it's just a way of twisting the language, I think, of the Bible in order to support an individual's political viewpoint.
And the fact of the matter is people can do that on all sides of the equation. We like to use the Scriptures for our own sort of ideas and we'll twist the Word of God to support our own political ideas or any number of other things, and that's precisely what this is. Throughout the Bible, it's very clear how much God values life, even the lives of the unborn. A passage of Scripture that I oftentimes go to is Psalm 139, where David the psalmist says in verse 13, You formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance.
In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. It's very clear. God values, cares for, loves life and the life of the unborn. Those are legitimate human lives, vulnerable lives that need to be cared for and protected. I think of the scene in the Gospels, early on in the Gospel of Luke, where Elizabeth meets with Mary and John the Baptist in Elizabeth's womb leaps as he experiences the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of the Virgin Mary. It's as if even there in Elizabeth's womb, John the Baptist is able to recognize that he's in the presence of Jesus the Lord. In Exodus chapter 21, if a pregnant woman is hit and her child dies, the person who hit her, who struck her, is charged with murder because that's a real legitimate human life. So the Bible is very clear about this, and it sounds to me like these people are just twisting the Scriptures for their own ends. So pray for them and continue to preach and teach and share the truth.
Thanks again for your encouragement. I just love that passage from the first chapter of Luke when John the Baptist leaps in his mother's womb. I mean, it's probably one of the strongest pro-life statements there could be in the Bible.
It's amazing. I just think it's so neat to think about how even at that stage in John the Baptist's life, he's somehow miraculously, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, able to recognize the presence of the Lord. That's an encouragement to me as a father with young kids, just knowing that Jesus is able to make himself known to our children by the grace of the Holy Spirit. He did it right there with John the Baptist in Elizabeth's womb.
So a really wonderful, wonderful text, as you say. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez. You know, we often receive questions about repentance on this program, and today we're offering a free resource that answers some of those questions. Yeah, Bill, it's called Seven Things Everyone Should Know About Repentance. I mean, what's the difference between true and false repentance, those kinds of things? What is repentance? Is it just a sort of change in my thoughts?
Is it a change in actions? This is a real practical resource that we think will help you as you think about repentance in your own life. I mean, it's something we're all called to, to grow day by day in the grace, the knowledge of Jesus turning away from our sins, growing in holiness. So this resource is going to help you out. Again, it's called Seven Things Everyone Should Know About Repentance. We'd love to offer this to you for free. Just go to corechristianity.com forward slash offers.
That's corechristianity.com forward slash offers and look for Seven Things Everyone Should Know About Repentance, something I do daily. Well, let's go back to the phones. Dan from Wichita, Kansas. Dan, what's your question for Pastor Adrian? Hey there. Thanks for taking my call.
Just so you know, I listen pretty much every day and I have hundreds of questions, but I always pick one just for the show. My question is, when we die, what should we, is there something that we should say in the Bible, what we should do with our body? Does it matter like being cremated or being buried? Because I know that God buried Moses when he died, so does that mean anything or does it matter? Yeah.
Hey, thanks for that question. And this is a question that we have received before, you know, is it okay to be cremated? Do I have to be buried? You know, in the days of the New Testament, people were oftentimes placed in tombs that is not put beneath the ground, but you think even of the entombment of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we handle the body? I think the first thing I would want to say is, well, with care, we do have a high view of the body as Christians. We don't think that the body is a bad thing and the spirit is good. God created our bodies. The reason that Jesus rose from the dead was to redeem our bodies even as this reality that one day we're going to rise too. Our bodies are going to be glorified, restored. Sin taints our bodies, all of us. You know, it affects every part of us, but the body is not bad.
The body is good. It's a part of God's good creation. And so with care, we handle it, not disrespectfully. And that's where some people think, well, does that mean that I can't be cremated? And I don't think that that's the case.
I don't think the Bible says that cremation is wrong or a sin per se. I oftentimes will say, Dan, when people call and ask, I say, look, the focus in terms of our eternal state is not on how we were buried. It's on who we trusted while we lived. And so that's the key.
Who do you trust in right now? Do you believe in Jesus? And when we die, I think there's liberty of conscience in terms of making those decisions with our families and saying, you know, I think I want to be buried or I think, you know, it'd be better for me to be cremated, that kind of a thing. And the Bible, I would say, does not speak to that clearly, specifically.
And so I think there's some freedom here. Thanks for your question. By the way, Dan, we have a great core resource on this topic. It's a core question. It's called Can a Christian be Cremated?
You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash questions. A lot of people ask that question on a regular basis. And so obviously it's on a lot of people's minds these days. Well, let's go to Dan. I'm sorry, Bob in Bellevue, Nebraska.
Bob, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yes. I'm dealing with grief. I lost my fiancée about seven weeks ago to lung cancer, and I'm not sleeping. And it is very difficult for me to turn loose. So do you have help?
I need it. Well, Bob, let me take a moment right now first to pray for you. And so let's pray for Bob, brothers and sisters. Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord was just talking about, and have been talking about how you value life, all life. Lord, we know according to your word that not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from your sovereign will.
And we are of more value than many sparrows, the Lord Jesus said. And so for my brother, Bob, I pray in this time of grief, of mourning, of sorrow, that you would grant him the comfort that only you can give by the grace of your Holy Spirit, the hope that only you can give by the grace of your Holy Spirit, that you would raise him up, Lord, and set his eyes upon you, and on the promise that you give to your people in Christ, in the hope of the resurrection of the dead, in the life of the world to come. Be with our brother now, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen. You know, Bob, I think of the Lord Jesus, who at the graveside of Lazarus wept with Lazarus' sisters Mary and Martha. Our Lord cares for people.
He cares for you. He cares for mourners. And when we experience death in this life, it's one of the most painful things, one of the most difficult things. And the Bible says we do mourn. And that's natural.
That's right. But listen to what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13, referring to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that is, those who have died, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
Through Jesus, God is going to raise up your fiancé. And when a believer dies, Bob, the souls of believers are made perfect in holiness. They're in the presence of the Lord through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is the comfort that the Apostle Paul is referring to there in 1 Thessalonians 4. We do grieve.
And that's a process. And I think it's important that you have people around you who can encourage you and comfort you also in this time, because it is going to be a process of grief. What the Bible says is that we don't have to grieve as those who grieve who have no hope, because we do have a great hope in a life beyond this life through Jesus, the hope of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.
And so I pray that as you grieve, brother, that God would also plant that deep hope in your heart. One resource, I think, with grieving that can be really helpful, too. It's a very short book, Bob. I mean, you could really even read it in one sitting.
But it's C.S. Lewis's book, A Grief Observed. And it was basically his journal entries, if you will, when his wife had died. And he was wrestling through grief and praying to the Lord and seeking the Lord. And he says at times it felt like the doors were locked and God was not answering.
The windows were closed, the lights were off. And he talks about that sort of process of grieving. And as I said, it is going to be a process. And so may God give you grace and strength during this time, hope, and may the Lord be with you, brother. Thank you for reaching out.
Again, that passage that I just read was 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 13, if you want to refer to it again. And we'll keep you in our prayers, Bob. And Bob, a wonderful ministry that you might want to take advantage of is called Grief Share. Many churches around the country have Grief Share groups. And there's nothing, I think, more helpful than being in a group of individuals that are going through something very similar to what you've gone through. So you might want to just check out their website and find a local Grief Share group near you. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adrian Sanchez. You can leave us a voicemail anytime, 24 hours a day by calling us at 833-THE-CORE.
Here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners named Randy. My question is, I'm 60 years old. I have three daughters. My wife and I have raised them all three in church.
The eldest one is 35, the youngest one is 24. And we don't see them living out their faith as faithfully as we would like to see them. My problem is, it is mentally challenging, debilitating almost, to think that they might not go to heaven and that my trans-11s might not go to heaven. I just wonder how does a person deal with that and just keep the faith and trust that God will save them somehow. Thank you.
Bye. Boy, Randy, I know that there are a lot of parents who can sympathize with you. More than anything, what we want to see is our children loving Jesus, and so when they go astray or when we feel like they're not loving Jesus like we raised them to, it's devastating. I think of the story of St. Augustine in his book, The Confessions. It's one of those Christian classics. He talks about how he basically spent a lot of the first part of his life stiff-arming God, wanting nothing to do with the Lord. And his mother, her name was Monica, she prayed for him day in and day out.
She watered the ground with her tears. She had that kind of agony, that anguish that you're talking about. But she prayed for him faithfully, and it's an amazing story.
He did come to faith in his thirties, but he spent a long time basically running from God, disobeying God, living a life of rebellion. But there's an encouragement there for us to pray as parents, recognizing that you cannot save your kids. We do our best to set Christ before them, to set the truth of God's word before them, and then we water everything with prayer, and you need to just continue to pray and pursue the face of the Lord, crying out to him. When you feel that agony, that anguish, take it to the Lord, because as I said, the burden of saving your children, that's something you can't do.
So you can't have that weight on top of you. You need to take it to the Lord and say, God, this is only something you can do. Only you can do the work of drawing my children closer to you. Now, as you're praying, I think you want to keep the doors open and continue to have conversations with them, where you're sharing the love of Christ to them, you're modeling for them what it looks like to walk with the Lord, to love the Lord faithfully.
And that's an important piece of it, too. Someone else who can really, I think, identify with you is Paul in the book of Romans. In Romans chapter 9, he talks about the anguish that he felt, because many of his quote-unquote brothers, his fellow Israelites, did not turn to Jesus when Jesus came preaching the gospel to them. He says, I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. Romans chapter 9, verse 2. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
They had rejected the Lord. He says, I wish I was cut off so that they might be saved. I have this unceasing anguish. And it sounds like you feel that anguish, too, but you know what he goes on to do? He goes on to pray for them and to talk about God's sovereign power. And so rest in the fact that God is able.
God is able to save us even after we've wandered far away. You think about the parable of the prodigal son. I mean, this is just the heart of the Father calling the wandering children back to himself and lavishing them with his grace. And pray that for your children. And may the Lord give you confidence and peace in him that he's the one who is able and wisdom as you continue to love your children.
God bless you, brother. This is Core Christianity. We have time for one quick email question, Adriel.
Martin asks this. He says in 1 Corinthians 14, 33, it says, For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. And in Genesis 11, 7, it says, Come, let us go down and confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. I want to know the difference between the word confuse and how it's being used in these passages. Yeah, sometimes the same word in the Bible can have a broad, what we call semantic range. In other words, it's used different ways in different contexts. In the context of the book of Genesis, the Tower of Babel, you have a judgment that came on wicked people who were trying to ascend into the presence of God through this tower that they were building, trusting in themselves. In 1 Corinthians chapter 14, God not being the author of confusion, Paul is talking about how to rightly order a service, a gathering together. And he says, you know, there needs to be decency in order because God is not the author of confusion. So same word, two different contexts. Thanks. I hope you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-08-23 01:45:25 / 2023-08-23 01:55:35 / 10