How Will Church Leaders Who Sexually Abuse Children Be Judged?

This new episode of CORE Christianity was pre-recorded.

We'll be back live again on Monday. How will abusive priests or pastors be judged by God? 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. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

You can always leave us a voicemail at that number, too, if you can't get through, and you can post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts. You can also email us with your question at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, let's go to Sly in Edmond, Oklahoma. Sly, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Let's talk about one of my favorite topics, heaven. All right, Sly, what's your question?

I have a two-part question. Isaiah, chapter 65, verse 17, Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

And I hear a lot of speculation. I read a book about heaven, part of it, and I couldn't make it through it. I had to kind of put it down because it was kind of depressing to me. I hear pastors talking about, well, we're going to work in heaven, and we're going to do this and that, and they talk about how, you know, you're going to remember all your past. Well, this verse says, we're not going to remember, and there are many things in my life that I don't want to remember. I have kind of a higher image of heaven, and I want to get your thoughts on that.

Okay. Well, first, I think we have to understand, you know, so what we have in Isaiah chapter 65 is that picture of the new heavens and the new earth, and in particular, what is Isaiah getting at when he says, you know, the former things are not going to come to mind. I don't know that, you know, the idea here is that we're going to have like a blank memory once we enter into the presence of the Lord, and, you know, we're not going to be able to recall our families here on earth or that kind of a thing. It's that the glory of heaven and being in the presence of the triune God is going to cause all of our suffering, all of the sin that we experienced, that we committed, all of that to be drowned out, if you will.

You know, I think we'll know that it was there, but there's this overwhelming weight of glory, if you will, that we're going to experience, and it's going to transform, you know, everything, and so it's not that, you know, we're going to be up there and, boy, I just don't even remember, you know, how we got here, that kind of a thing. No, it's the sorrow, the pain is going to be wiped. When you think of that promise, Sly, that we see throughout the Bible in places like the book of Isaiah and also in places like the book of Revelation where God says, I am going to wipe away every tear from your eyes. Death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

That's the former things that are being referred to, I think, there in Isaiah chapter 65 verse 17. And then in terms of work, this idea of vocation, you know, what are we going to be doing in heaven? Well, we know we're going to be worshiping God.

We know we're going to be fellowshipping with each other. We know also that work was not a part of the fall. Toilsome work was a part of the fall, but prior to the fall, Adam and Eve were commanded to tend the garden, to work it and to keep it. And this was a part of their worship.

This was a part of their service to the Lord. And so I think in the new creation, we are going to be doing things, wonderful things, and it's not going to be toilsome. It's going to be the best work imaginable. It's going to be full of joy. And it's going to be an act of worship. Now, of course, how is this all going to look?

You know, boy, we can only imagine right now. We have these pictures that are given to us in God's revelation in the scriptures. But I think what we can say is, you know, our minds right now can't fully comprehend how great, how glorious it's going to be to be in the presence of the Lord there in the new creation with the people of God.

And so passages like this just give us a taste, a taste, the new heavens and the new earth of what we get to look forward to. Thanks for your call. Thanks so much for your call.

We appreciate Sly. This is Core Christianity with pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, you can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day at this number.

It's 833-THE-CORE-1-833-843-2673. Here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners named Scott. I just have a quick question. What is God's punishment for priests and ministers who sexually molest children? I think the victims would like to know that not everyone is forgiven for their sins, or maybe they are. Yeah.

Yeah. Boy, such a heartbreaking thing. And not just heartbreaking for the victims, but there is, I think, a deep anger that many of us feel and ought to feel. When Jesus wrote into Jerusalem, we refer to it as the triumphal entry, he's flipping over tables because the worship of God was being corrupted, because people were being taken advantage of. He said, zeal for your house has consumed me. Jesus is angry about the abuse of God's sheep.

And I think we should be as well. Now, does that mean that a person who has sinned in this way is beyond forgiveness? Well, I wouldn't say. I think maybe, in the sense that maybe they've just so turned away and seared their conscience, they're acting in these ways that, yes, they're reserved for judgment. But I know that the grace of the gospel is big. Certainly, the church needs to deal with these kinds of situations and remove people from positions of power and authority, and get authorities involved, police and whatnot.

I mean, this is just a terrible thing. But one passage of scripture that I would bring up in this discussion, and it's one that I think a lot of us have just overlooked. It's in 2 Peter, as Peter is talking about false teachers in the church today, who, among other things, secretly bring in destructive heresies. They have eyes full of adultery. They cannot cease from sinning. They take advantage of people.

Listen to what he says. He says about them, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Now, these are very sobering words. But God is saying here, for some of these people, I am reserving them under punishment until the day of judgment. They're not going to come to repentance. They have a judgment that is coming, and that's actually what Peter talks about in 2 Peter.

I think for people who have been hurt in some ways, hearing about God's righteous judgment here can be a comfort. God takes this very seriously, and so we in the church must take it seriously as well. I mentioned this idea that God reserves them for judgment. These false teachers who have taken advantage of the sheep, abused them in ways that are horrific. It reminds me of what we see in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 2. You had these priests, Hophni and Phinehas, who were sinning against the people of God, taking advantage of them, sleeping around, those kinds of things with the people of God, and they're rebuked, but were told that they would not repent, 1 Samuel 2 verse 25, because God willed to kill them.

And isn't that just terrifying? Sobering? God takes this very seriously, and for some of these people, God's judgment is coming, and so we cry out for healing, for mercy, especially on victims. Obviously, we hold out the hope of the gospel always, but for those who are persistent in this, these false teachers, Peter has some very strong words there in 2 Peter, and I would point you there, and I would say just read 2 Peter, because it's so clear there. May the Lord bless you and bring healing to you in whatever situations you're aware of, and maybe you've experienced, and yes, may the Lord be with you.

Thanks for calling us. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. You know, Adriel, you and I have often spoken about the importance of churches having safety systems in their children's programs, Sunday school programs. I know your church does, my church does. It's so critical in this day and age that we are all aware that this is an actual problem that we need to be on guard and protect against.

A hundred percent, Bill. Our church brought in an organization called GRACE. GRACE stands for Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment some years ago, and they did a church-wide training for us, and that was super helpful. I recommend it to everybody. If you're a part of a church and you guys haven't thought through this, check out GRACE.

I think their website is netgrace.org, and just really, really helpful information there. You have to have accountability. There has to be an awareness about the dangers that are very, very real, an awareness about false teachers and wolves and people who creep into the church seeking to take advantage. It means what Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in not sparing the flock. Look, the apostles weren't naive about this.

We can't be naive about this. We have to take this very seriously, and so it needs to be a conversation that we're having in our churches, and we have to make sure that we're taking care of the sheep that God has entrusted to our care. Amen. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We want to say thank you to a very special group of people who regularly support this program. We call them our Inner Core. Yeah, if you've been blessed by Core Christianity, would you consider partnering with us? The Inner Core is a group of people. We send a number of exclusive resources to you from time to time. We really appreciate your prayers and your financial support. Every Inner Core member gets a copy of the book, Core Christianity, written by Professor Michael Horton, a wonderful book that will introduce you to the core doctrines of the Christian faith that we believe every Christian needs to know, like the back of your hand.

This stuff is really important, and they're the very doctrines that I think so often in the church we just sort of assume without really knowing. We send that out. We also have other wonderful resources that we send out to our Inner Core members. It's a monthly donation of $25 or more. Again, if you've been blessed by our ministry, would you consider joining the Inner Core? We'd love it if you would prayerfully consider making that monthly gift to keep us on the air. We don't receive government money or money from a particular church or denomination.

We don't play commercials on this program, so we rely on people just like you to keep us on the air every day. To find out more, just go to corechristianity.com forward slash inner core, just all one word, corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. Well, let's go to a voicemail we received earlier this week. This is from one of our listeners named Tina. So my friend is Catholic, and she has been talking about doing the Marian Consecration, which is supposed to make you like closer to God or whatever, and I didn't think that was like scriptural because I thought that we're only supposed to go to the Holy Spirit, or you know, no one comes to the Father except through me is what Jesus said, and then you know the Holy Spirit was left to us as a comforter. I don't know if you know anything about, I know Catholics don't worship Mary, but they do pray to her a lot, but I would like to get your intake on the Catholicism understanding of Mary and if that's even scriptural.

Thank you. This is a big question here, really related Tina to right worship. Now I think sometimes in non-Catholic circles, non-Roman Catholic circles, in Protestant circles, we can have kind of a very negative view of the Virgin Mary, and I think that that's not helpful at all. I think when we look at scripture, I mean she had this prominent role as the quote-unquote mother of God.

Now I use that phrase, and I know that that sounds probably shocking as I say that. We don't mean mother of God in the sense that the eternal son of God received his essence from Mary or began to be in the womb of the Virgin Mary, no not at all, but this was actually something that was debated about in the ancient church, and the ancient church was wrestling with how do we understand not primarily who Mary was, but who Jesus is in the incarnation, and so what they said is that the eternal son of God and word of the Father took flesh from the womb of the Virgin Mary, and in that sense we can refer to Mary as the mother of God, the God bearer if you will, as a way not of glorifying her, but of glorifying Jesus, and so I think you know we ought to have a right view of Mary, and Mary in the gospels points us to Christ, her son, and so I think the focus of our piety, of our prayers, of our worship, it needs to be Jesus. It needs to be the Holy Trinity.

That's who we need to be devoted to, and so I would say commit 33 days to that, commit 365 days to that, because that's what we need. Now that doesn't mean we want to be disrespectful or rude you know when we have these kinds of discussions with friends who are Roman Catholic, but the other issue here is again like I mentioned right worship. You see God doesn't just care about the fact that he is worshiped. So many people think well so long as I'm sincere I can do whatever I want in worship right like that that's all that God cares about me being sincere.

Well no it's not just sincerity. It's that we're worshiping the Lord the way in which God calls us to worship him. Look at Leviticus chapter 10.

You have these two characters Nadab and Abihu. They approach the Lord the wrong way, and God struck them down. God cares about how he's worshiped. You think even about the second commandment where God commanded you know his people not to make any images, any idols. This is how the pagan world worships God.

Don't be like them. Don't do that, and so really fundamentally here Tina the question is how does God want to be worshiped? How does God want us to approach him?

Is it through the Virgin Mary? Well I don't see that so much in scripture even though she has this great position. No we're called to approach God the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Jesus is our great advocate and mediator before the Father, and so that's how we go to God, and that's who we devote ourselves to, and I think that Christ-centered focus in worship is a good thing. It is something frankly that Mary would have wanted, and so Tina I appreciate you asking this question, and may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord bless your friendship with this particular person as you guys continue to have these conversations. Tina we pray that that's helpful as you talk to your friend about this particular issue. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Viola in St. Louis, Missouri. Viola, what's your question for Adriel?

Hello Pastor, thank you so much for your ministry. I was just curious, someone posed this question to me, and I thought I hadn't thought about that. They asked why wasn't Adam included in the Hall of Faith and you know Hebrews, and I thought about it later, and I thought well he didn't show faith for one thing, so what do you think? Hey that's a great question.

It's something actually I've never thought about. Why wasn't Adam included there in Hebrews chapter 11 where you have this great Hall of Faith that's given? Is that an indication that maybe Adam wasn't saved, that he didn't end up having faith?

Well no, I don't think so. You do see after he sinned grievously there in the garden, God clothing him, and God giving Adam and Eve these promises. Yes there was curse associated with their sin, but God was still going to be with them.

He was still calling them to be fruitful and multiply and to serve him. And so I think that we can say that about Adam in particular. You do have in the Hall of Faith of Hebrews chapter 11 some discussion about Cain and Abel.

So you do have some of the early characters there in Genesis described in Hebrews chapter 11, but not Adam. And frankly I would just say, you know, I would chalk it up to the fact that the author of the Hebrews is focusing on a number of very specific stories, accounts that he believes actually would have been really encouraging to the people he's writing to. In particular you do have, Viola, an emphasis on Abraham, on Abram, on his sojournings, on the persecuted, the people of God who were persecuted throughout history, you know, the patriarchs and after them. And part of that was important because the audience to the Hebrews, they were experiencing persecution and difficulty for their faith in Jesus. And so I think he's choosing these specific examples because they would have been particularly helpful to the Hebrew Christians that he was writing to, not as a way of, you know, excluding Adam from, you know, heaven, if you will, by not including him here in the Hall of Faith. And so Viola, God bless you. Thank you for that question.

Hope that was helpful. You know, one of the things I love about the Hall of Faith is that it also includes some very flawed people, people who were not necessarily perfect and had sinless lives. They were people that made mistakes and yet they're still in the Hall of Faith.

Yeah, every single person was messed up, Bill. All of the people in the Hall of Faith. I mean, when I read the story of Samson and I'm just like blown away, like, how how dumb can you be?

I mean, frankly, you read the story of Samson, that's how you feel, and then you realize this guy is in the Hall of Faith. Praise the Lord. Because that just means there's hope for all of us, right? There's hope for me.

And so that that is, I think, one of the things that's really encouraging about that passage of scripture in particular. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. One of the ways you can ask a question is by emailing us. Here is our email address. You might want to make note of this, and you can email us anytime, and we try to go to our emails at least once a day to check out some of the questions.

You can write to us at questions at corechristianity.com, just the word questions at corechristianity.com. Here's a question from Gretchen. She says, the scripture says in 2 Peter 3, 11 to 12, that we are to hasten the day of the Lord. Another translation says to speed its coming.

How are we to do this? Yeah, this is this is an excellent question. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, Peter said, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

We've been talking about already on this program, broadcast in particular, the new heavens and the new earth, the new creation, and spending some time earlier in 2 Peter. This is really coming in the context of referring to the coming of the day of the Lord and being ready and living lives of godliness, of righteousness, holding this world loosely, instead of clinging to this world and its treasures as if this world were the main thing, was our final home in the sense of this present evil age. And Peter's saying, no, no, no, no, no, since all these things are to be dissolved, we have to live lives of holiness, fixing our eyes on Jesus, serving him, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord.

Now how do we hasten the coming of the day of the Lord? I think that the only possible explanation here, at least that I'm aware of, is just this idea that the gospel is advancing in the world today. Jesus talked about the day of the Lord coming after the gospel had been preached throughout the whole world. There's this sort of call to get the gospel out to the ends of the earth, and that came from the lips of our Lord Jesus.

And so I think that that's something that Peter is probably picking up on here. He's talking about the context of living godly lives, serving the Lord, and thinking about that which is most important. Well, what is more important than the advancement of the gospel in the world today, than people coming into a right understanding of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for us? And so Peter is encouraging that as he's talking about the coming of the Lord.

And he says, don't overlook this. God is not slow to fulfill his promise, but he's not willing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. And we pray that for you, that you would reach repentance knowing Jesus and the grace he has for you. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-The-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how 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.