Does God Help Those Who Help Themselves?

This new episode of CORE Christianity was pre-recorded. This is CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez.

Good afternoon. We welcome you. I'm Bill Meyer, and we'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life. You can call us with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter account, and you can always email us at questions at COREChristianity.com. First up today, let's go to DeAnn calling in from Oklahoma. DeAnn, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

Yes, Pastor Sanchez. My husband or ex-husband, more accurately perhaps, we were divorced a year and a half ago, although we have lived as husband and wife for more than a year since then. Do we need to get married again to be right with the Lord? We've been together for nearly 17 years. Hey, DeAnn.

Thank you for that question, a very practical question. And there are a few passages of scripture that my mind goes to. Obviously, the first is in 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, where the apostle Paul is talking about marriage and relationships and restoration, in particular in verse 10 of chapter 7. He says, To the married I give this charge, not I but the Lord.

The wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And it sounds to me like there's been a reconciliation. And I thank the Lord for that. I pray that He's blessing the two of you in that process.

Now, with regard to needing to get married again, I think if there has been an official divorce, if there's been this breach in the marriage, then I would say legally, yes. And you do see, I think, some evidence for this kind of a thing potentially in scripture. I mean, obviously, God had this special relationship with His people under the old covenant, where He took Israel to Himself as a bride, if you will, and she abandoned the Lord. The book of Hosea is all about this.

There's this basically spiritual adultery that takes place, and God is pointing out the idolatry of His people. But then He promises that He would restore the relationship. He says in Hosea chapter 2 verse 19, I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.

I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord. In other words, there's this there's this restoration of the relationship of what had been broken. And back in also in the book of Exodus, where you have the giving of the covenant after the people of Israel sinned and Moses intercedes, you have what happens? There are two new tables of the covenant or tablets of stone of the covenant that are made, and then you have this sort of renewal of the covenant in Exodus chapter 34. So I think it is appropriate if you guys did get legally divorced to come back together.

Now what does that have to look like? Does that mean that you have to have a big old marriage ceremony again and a reception and all that? I don't think necessarily. I just think it's coming back together and being restored as a married couple under the law and before the Lord. And again, I give thanks to the Lord for the fact that it sounds to me like God has been working healing in your marriage, and I pray that the Lord would continue to do that and bless the two of you together. Thank you for your call. Deann, thanks so much for listening to CORE Christianity.

We do appreciate it. Let's go to Nathan calling in from Washington State. Nathan, what's your question for Pastor Adriel?

Hey, thanks for taking my call. My question is is a pedo communion, why or why not? And if not, is there a proper age?

Hey Nathan, thank you for that question. So let me just define some terms here for our listeners because that might be a new word for many of you who are listening to CORE Christianity, pedo communion or infant communion. That is, is it proper to give children the elements, you know, the bread and the wine in the Lord's Supper. This is something that has, you know, there are different Christian traditions on this. For example, in the Eastern churches, the Eastern Orthodox churches, they do commune, babies, small children. Typically in the Western church, that has not been the case, it seems to me. And so in the Roman Catholic church, you know, you have, for example, the confirmation that an individual go through and then they get to a particular age after they've professed faith in Christ, and then they'll begin to take the Lord's Supper.

And this is pretty much the case universally, it seems to me, in the Western tradition. Now the question is why or why not? Why shouldn't we give our children the Lord's Supper? It also relates to the question of should we baptize our children? Oftentimes this question comes up in the context of that discussion as well, which I won't get into right now.

But if you're curious about that, you can give us a call with that question specifically. My position is that we should not give infants the Lord's Supper, so no to pedo communion. When you think about what the Apostle Paul said, related to the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, it seems as if the person who is communing has to be able to do a number of things. One, examining themselves of their ability to discern the Lord's body.

And so there's this understanding about what's taking place there in the context of the church, and then also in this particular meal that we're taking. There's even a warning attached to the unworthy partaking of the Lord. So from verse 27 of chapter 11, 1 Corinthians, whoever therefore eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. And so the question is, could an infant do that? Can they eat and drink and discern the Lord's body? Or is this just some ritual that we're going through? And so that's a passage of scripture that I would go to. And then with regard to the second part of your question, well, how old should our children be before they start commuting?

Again, you're going to get different answers here. Me personally, I'm of the opinion that God works in children and can work in children from a very young age. The psalmist David says, you caused me to trust in you all at my mother's breast.

You have been my God. You think about the interaction that Mary and Elizabeth had where Elizabeth is greeted by Mary and John the Baptist in her womb leaps for joy as it were at the in the presence of Christ, somehow recognizing the presence of Jesus while he's still in his mother's womb. You think of when Jesus cleansed the temple, the little children sang Hosanna, singing praises to the Lord as it were, welcoming this king, the son of David coming.

And so God, I think works in and through our children. When you look at the Passover meal in the Old Testament, what was the idea there? As children would see this meal that the people of God were participating in, they would ask questions. Why do we do this? The people of God were to respond by saying, well, we were slaves in the land of Egypt and God delivered us.

This is a family thing, but there needs to be some understanding. I would say as children are asking those questions about the gospel, as they see what we're doing in the local church, taking the Lord's Supper, and they say, well, how come I can't have the bread and the wine? That parents ought to talk to their kids about what's happening, about the gospel, about the fact that Jesus calls us to himself, that he welcomes even the little children, and that he invites us to embrace him by faith. And I think children who are able to give a profession of faith, even one that's the kind that you would expect from a young child, I think that's okay. We don't want to keep people away from the means of grace. And so we want to trust that the Lord is working.

And this requires wisdom. So I wouldn't cut off an age and say, well, that's too, too young. That kid can't really believe in Jesus.

He has to be at least eight years old or at least seven years old. No, we have to trust the Lord and trust that the Lord is working in our children as he promised to do. And then his parents work with them as well and encourage them and teach them the faith so that they might lay hold of the truths of scripture and make those truths their own. Nathan, thank you for your question. Chris, I'm great counsel. Thank you for that, Adriel, and Nathan, thanks for listening to CORE Christianity.

One of the things we want to do here today is say thank you to a wonderful group of people who support this program on a regular basis. We call them our inner CORE. Inner CORE.

Yeah. So grateful for all of you who have partnered with us as members of the inner CORE. It's a monthly donation of $25 or more, and it's a huge blessing for us. And I want to invite you if you are a regular listener to CORE Christianity and you've been blessed by the work that we're doing here as a ministry, really wanting to see people grow in their relationship with the Lord. And not just reaching Christians, those who already profess faith in Christ, but we want to reach those who don't know Jesus as well with the gospel of Christ. And so if you want to partner with us in that, you can be a part of the inner CORE as well. Again, it's a monthly donation of $25 or more, and it would be a huge encouragement for us. And as a thank you, we'll send you a copy of the book, CORE Christianity, written by Professor Dr. Michael Horton.

Just an excellent book talking about the fundamentals of the Christian faith that each and every one of us should know. And so we'd love to have you partner with us as members of the inner CORE. We appreciate you so much, those folks that make a regular commitment to this ministry. We don't receive money from a church or denomination.

We count on people just like you to keep the show on the air. So if you want to learn more, just go to corechristianity.com forward slash inner CORE. Well, we do receive voicemails here and emails as well.

Here's our email address. It's questions at corechristianity.com. And here's one from Aaron. He says, is this saying biblical? God helps those who helps themselves. My wife likes to use this quote a lot when facing life's decisions. And, well, you know that a lot of people think that that's actually a quote.

I mean, that's why you're asking this. Is this saying biblical? People think that that's in the scriptures, that phrase specifically, but it's not. That sentence, God helps those who help themselves, is not going to be something you find in the Bible. The idea here is, yeah, God will help you, but you need to do your part too.

So you do a little bit, and then God does some, and then you do a little bit more, and only as you do. But when it comes to salvation, especially initially in the Christian life, we have to realize that we come before God completely helpless. In fact, the way the apostle Paul would put it in Ephesians chapter 2 is, we come before God dead. Or maybe it's better, we don't even come before God, we're just dead in trespasses and sins. Chapter 2 verse 1 of the book of Ephesians, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. The picture that Paul paints here is not like, hey, you Ephesians were really, you were doing everything that you had in you, and God saw that, and he thought, boy, they're trying so hard, I'm just going to give them some grace.

No, he says the opposite. You were actually the walking dead. You were enslaved to Satan.

You were following the prince of the power of the air. It wasn't that you were striving after God, and so as a result, God came to you. I mean, you think of the example of the conversion of the apostle Paul, right? Saul of Tarsus, who's on his way to persecute Christians, the book of Acts tells us, but he just has this hatred in his heart for the children of God, and as he's in the act, if you will, as he's on the way to do this, Jesus comes to him, confronts him, says to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And the light of the gospel shines upon him. We would say, right, well, this was exactly what we see happening in Ephesians. This is why Paul can say this, because he knows what it's like to be dead in trespasses and sins and have the light of God just break in and transform everything, and of course, that's what he goes on to say in verse 4 of Ephesians 2, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And so what we need to recover is this radical view of the matchless grace of God toward sinners. Too many people think of the relationship with God as, again, this sort of dance, you know, I'm doing a little bit, then he's doing some, and then we're sort of working together to save me. No, it's all of grace. We come contributing our sin, our brokenness, and that's what we bring to the table in justification. God declares us righteous in his Son Jesus solely by faith, and then he begins to work in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. But again, I think that phrase can be really confusing in too many people, that's how they view the Christian life. And I think if we had a higher view of the grace of God and also a higher view of human sinfulness, recognizing just how lost we were apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, if we have that, well then God gets all the glory, and it should produce humility in us and also just abundant thanksgiving, because we realize it wasn't that I was helping God out, giving him a hand in saving myself, it was I was a rebel, dead in trespasses and sins, and Jesus in love came to me and pursued me through his gospel.

Friends, that's the good news, and so that's what we that's what we need to recover. Thank you for the question. Thank you, Adriel.

You painted a beautiful picture for us of God's grace. By the way, we have a core question on this topic. It's why do you talk about the difference between law and the gospel?

And you can find that on our website. Just go to corechristianity.com forward slash free downloads. Look for the question on law and gospel. Let's get back to the phones and go to Robert calling in from Illinois. Robert, thanks so much for hanging on. What's your question for Pastor Adriel?

Yes, good afternoon. In the New Testament, Jesus is over here and his disciples speak about how or who would be the greatest in his kingdom, and Jesus responds to them by saying that John the Baptist is the greatest among all men, but those who follow after him, Jesus, would even the lowest would be greater than John. How is that possible? Yeah, great question, Robert, and so you're talking about Matthew chapter 11 verse 11. Truly I say to you among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Now we need to understand the role that John the Baptist played. He's sort of at the brink of this dawn of a new era, if you will. He's coming as the last in line of those old covenant prophets, heralding the way of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, that's exactly what Isaiah said he would be way back in Isaiah chapter 40. He's preparing the way for Jesus, preparing the way for the Lord, and so you have this transitional period from the time of the old covenant with the types and the shadows and the sacrifices to now the new wine of the new covenant, the kingdom of heaven breaking in on earth, if you will. And so what Jesus is highlighting by that statement is the fact that what's coming is far greater than anything that has been. The prophets dreamed about what's coming, what we under the new covenant get to experience through the giving of the Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins. I mean, this is what Joel talked about, this is what Ezekiel talked about, and insofar as we get to participate in that and receive that, the words of Jesus are just true. The one who is least in the kingdom of heaven, who gets this, is in a better position greater, if you will, than John the Baptist. They're prophesying under the old economy, the old dispensation of the old covenant, if you will, and so that's what he's highlighting. He's not saying that we're wiser than John the Baptist, per se, or even more holy. It's just in terms of what we experience in the flow of redemptive history, we're on this side of the inauguration of the new covenant through the work of Jesus Christ, the life that he lived, the death that he died, and his resurrection from the dead.

We are the recipients of the gifts of God through Christ's work, the giving of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The kingdom of heaven now is breaking into this present evil age, and insofar as that's the case, we're in a better position. We have better seats, if you will, than John the Baptist did, and so thanks for that question. Thanks for that question.

Hey, Robert, thanks for the question. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. By the way, if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, we'd love to hear from you. We get voicemails, and we try to review them each day, so if you want to call us 24 hours a day, you can leave your voicemail at 833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE, and if you want to learn more about becoming a member of our inner core, just go to our website corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. We would love to have you prayerfully consider joining that wonderful group of people who support this program on a regular basis. Well, let's go back to a voicemail we received earlier this week.

This one is from Mara. I had an experience, and I feel like I always wonder what that was before I opened myself to the Holy Spirit revealed to me about theology and the truth of the Bible. I went to an event. I had pain in my back, and then the man touched me, and then I was like, I'm not going to fall over, and then out of nowhere, I feel like I blacked out for a couple of seconds, and I fell back, and then I opened my eyes, and I was on the floor, and then I got up, and my pain was gone. So my question is if there's any type of biblical answer to what could have happened.

I know there's been a lot of speculation that maybe it was sorcery or maybe it could be other things, so I just was wondering your take. Thank you. Hey Mara, thank you for that question. I mean, of course, you know, one of the things that's a challenge when people call in with personal experiences, you know, this is an experience that you had, and so it sounds to me like you're looking for an interpretation of that experience. I would just say if you no longer have the pain that you did before, give thanks to the Lord. You know, say, God, I don't know what that was. I don't know if that was just the, but thank you Lord for the fact that, you know, I don't have that pain that I've been healed. Now, I'm generally pretty suspicious of those ministries that, you know, they have these sort of big revivals where you have one guy up there, and he's, you know, barking things out and inviting people to come up and get healed.

I've just seen a lot of abuses in those kinds of situations, and sadly, you know, there's been research done on some of these things, and a lot of it can be fraudulent, you know, just sort of making things up or even staging people, which is just absolutely devastating. I mean, really, at the end of the day, a lot of these things do more to detract from the advancement of the Gospel and good theology than anything else, but all that being said, I mean, if that's your experience, if that happened, then I would just say, hey, say, Lord, thank you, and the reality is God can use whoever He wants to do whatever He wants. I mean, ordinarily, God works through means, like doctors and medicine and surgery and those kinds of things, but God, because He's the Lord, is free to do whatever He wants.

He could work, you know, apart from means, above means, besides means, if He wants. Ordinarily, though, we just say, no, you know, typically, this is how God works. It's the same thing in the Christian life, right? God uses means to build us up in our walk with the Lord.

What are those means? The means are, you know, the understanding of God's Word, being a part of solid churches where we're going to receive encouragement, where we're going to be under faithful Bible teaching, where we're going to be able to pray together and worship together. These are the means that God uses, Mara, to build you up in your faith, and it sounds to me like that's been happening, like you're growing in your understanding of the Word of God, and that's part of the reason why you're wondering about this experience, you know, what happened there, and so I would just say continue to grow in your understanding of Scripture, and as you think back on this experience, I wouldn't overthink it. I would just say, Lord, I'm not entirely sure what happened there, but I'm thankful to you that I don't have the pain that I once had there, and God, please continue to keep that pain away, and so as simple as that, turn it into an opportunity to give thanks to the Lord. I don't think that means that we should, you know, buy into all these healing ministries that are out there, certainly not, and we know according to the Bible that God can use anybody. As I said earlier, you think of, you know, God speaking through Balaam's donkey. God, if he wants to do something, whether it's heal or get a message of a cross to people, can use even sinners, even people who don't have the best theology to do it, and the fact of the matter is I'm a pastor who recognizes this because I know my own limitations and weaknesses, and so God uses broken people, and that could have been what was happening there with you at this event. In fact, I'm sure that at least if you were genuinely healed that that's exactly what it was, God using a broken people to communicate his love and grace and even healing to you, and so God bless you, Mara. Thank you for giving us a call, and you know, one of the things that we want to do here at Core Christianity is just help you grow in your ability to discern, you know, those things that are good and right and true that we should be pursuing as Christians, and those things that we want to be cautious of, and certainly you've heard it on the broadcast before. We're pretty cautious of the prosperity gospel type stuff out there, and so we need to stick to the Scriptures and embrace them. 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.