I Found Out My Husband Is Stealing From Me. What Should I Do?

I just found out my husband is getting high and stealing from me.

What should I do? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, 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. Here's our phone number. Our phone lines will be open for the next 25 minutes or so.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Now, you can also post your question on one of our social media sites. In fact, you can watch Adriel live right now in the studio on YouTube and send him your question through our YouTube channel. And of course, you can always email us anytime at questionsatcorechristianity.com. First up today, here's a voicemail from one of our listeners in Connecticut.

This is Garrett. Recently at my church, a lot has been coming up about election. And I was just really curious about if I will ever be able to comprehend, like, God loves the world, but like, he also loves specific people who he has chosen to be in heaven.

I don't know, it just feels really confusing. And I've never heard a pastor clearly answer what he means by there's an elected few that are Christians. So I was just looking for some clarity. Thank you.

All right. Well, that's a tall order for me because it's something that pastors and theologians have been debating for a very long time. Of course, the language of election, that word is a biblical word. So it is important for us to talk about it if we're teaching the scriptures. Additionally, we're getting into the territory of God's sovereignty and human responsibility. And so I think it's okay for us to say, you know what, it's going to be hard for me as a finite creature to fully wrap my mind around the extent, the fullness of God's sovereignty and how that works. But we do have God's revelation and we need to go to God's revelation as we think about these things. And so the first thing I'll say is just this idea of election.

It can be very controversial. Let's just set the stage like this and say, brothers and sisters, we want to search the scriptures and we want to submit to what God's word says. First and foremost, it's not about following a particular Christian tradition or theologian or pastor. It's about going to the word and saying, God, you teach us by your spirit.

And so let's do that just really quickly. In Deuteronomy 7, verse 6, let's know what God said to his people. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.

But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery. Here you have really just a magnificent statement of God's particular love. He's saying, look, it wasn't because you were a great nation, because you were super righteous and holy, that God set his love on you. No, it was just God's love, God's sovereign choice.

He chose you. This is what the people are being told for his own possession. Now, does that mean that God didn't care about the nations of the world? No, because if you read the Old Testament, one of the reasons God had chosen Israel was to be a light to the nation so that the nations might come and know his mercy, his goodness.

Now, of course, we know if we read the Old Testament that Israel did not do a great job being a light to the nations, that oftentimes they succumbed to idolatry and turned away from the Lord. And so God sent his son Jesus into the world as the true Israelite, and in him we too have been chosen, elected. This is the very point that the Apostle Paul makes in Ephesians chapter 1, beginning in verse 3.

This would be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. And so when we're talking about election, we're talking about God's choice, God setting his love on his people, called before the foundation of the world to bear witness to his grace and mercy.

Now immediately, and I'm guessing this is why you're asking the question, you know, this raises all sorts of concerns for people. Well, how can God still find fault with people if he's chosen, you know, if he's elected? And this is precisely what the Apostle Paul seeks to answer in Romans chapter 9.

So if you're asking that question, I would say, I'm not going to read it for you right now, but I would say go to Romans chapter 9 and read Romans chapter 9 and listen to what Paul says there in response to that question. Additionally, you know, people say, well, are human beings responsible? And the answer is yes, we are responsible. We're responsible to repent. We're called to repent and to believe. And yet we also recognize that God is the one who works in us both to will and to work. And this is where you get into that mystery, you know, between the sovereignty of God and human responsibility. But we're not trying to undermine human responsibility because the Bible says that anybody who's condemned is condemned because of their own sin. It's not God's fault.

And so I don't know that that answers the question clearly for you, but what I would say, here's the clear direction I would point you in. It's in the direction of the scriptures and reading the scriptures and studying them and saying, okay, this is a concept that we find in the Bible and God has said very clearly. For us as believers, he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, not on the basis of anything we did.

It was this unconditional choice. And so we want to hear the word of God and learn from it. And when we grasp this truth in particular, it should lead us to praise and to worship and to say, Lord, there was nothing in me that compelled you to love me. It was in fact your own goodness and glory. It wasn't that I had done righteous things and merited your mercy. On the contrary, as Paul says later in Ephesians 2, we were dead in trespasses and sins, and yet God made us alive together with Christ.

And so I appreciate the question. Those are just a handful of the passages of scripture that you're going to want to go to. And as I said at the very beginning of this question, that's what we need to do. We need to go to the scriptures and let the scriptures be our guide here. You know, Adriel, we have a lot of callers who will call us up and say, I have done so many bad things in my past that God could never love me. Or callers who say, I'm really, really trying and I just am not good enough for God to love me.

And I think right there you have responded to that. It's nothing we do or have done. It's all that unmerited favor that Christ has given us. God's grace is an ocean that's vast. We just can't even, we can't get to the bottom of it. It's so magnificent.

It's so glorious. And we are, we face the temptation, the unbelieving temptation of saying, I'm just too evil. God wouldn't be merciful to me.

No brother, sister, friend. God's grace, God's love, God's redemptive work in Jesus Christ is strong enough, powerful enough, vast enough to cover even your sins if you'll turn to him. And so turn to him. And that's the hope that we have is that there is a God in heaven who is merciful. Amen.

So well said. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life doctrine, theology, something going on at your church or in your own Christian walk that you're concerned about. Here's the number. 833-THE-CORE. We'll be taking calls for the next 15 minutes or so. So now's the time to call 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Christy, who's calling in from Texas. Christy, what's your question for Adriel? Hi, Adriel. Pastor Adriel, thank you for your ministry.

I listen all the time. So I have a question about baptism. I was baptized as an infant in the Methodist Church where my parents went when I was born. And then later, about 15 years ago, I was baptized in a church that I now know is a non-biblical church. Now that I go to a Bible teaching church, is there any reason to get re-baptized? Hey, Christy.

One, thank you for your encouragement and glad that you listen to the broadcast. Excellent question. I know this is a question that a lot of people can relate to. There are many people who say, I was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church as an infant, and then I really started to grasp the gospel, and I got baptized at my Baptist Church or Pentecostal Church or whatever it may be. And then there are many people who were baptized as adults, but then they fell away for a while and they think, okay, do I need to go and get baptized again? Or maybe I was baptized where the pastor who baptized me, later he fell away, and so was that a legitimate baptism? All really good questions, and all questions that have been taken up throughout the history of the church.

To get to the heart, to answer you directly, I would say no. I don't think that you need to go and do this all over again, because baptism is first and foremost something that God does. It's a sign and seal of His grace. Now, no church is perfect, but if you were baptized by a church that embraces the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, that you're baptized with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that was the purpose, what was being done, that was God's covenant promises, the sign and seal of His grace towards you. Now, what we're called to do as the baptized is lay hold of those promises every single day. In other words, the grace of baptism isn't necessarily tied just to that very moment in which it's administered, but baptism, for our whole life, we're laying hold of that grace.

We're reminded of the fact that we are washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, I know that some churches will say, it depends on the church you go to, they'll say, well, you have to be baptized in our church. But for my part, my view is that baptism is something that God does.

It's this objective reality. It's not first and foremost dependent upon the minister who's administering it, how holy he is and how perfect his theology is or whatever. It's something that God is doing. And so long as it's done in accordance with His word in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, you have indeed been baptized. We praise God for that and daily lay hold of that grace that God has so clearly exhibited to us and to you in baptism. This is what the Apostle Paul, I believe, speaks of in places like Romans chapter 6, for example, where he's reminding the Romans about the fact that now through faith and holy baptism, they're united to Jesus Christ. Now they're called to walk in newness of life. And so there are implications of your baptism, to your baptism.

And that's what you should pursue with all of your might. And I'm glad also to hear that you are in a solid Bible-teaching church. That's what we long for for all of our listeners, that they would be in places where they're growing in their faith and understanding of the Scriptures.

And let me just say one more thing. I said, you know, it's not so much the minister or the church even. If a person is baptized in a false church, that is a church that rejects the deity of Christ or the doctrine of the Trinity or the gospel, well then I would say, yeah, okay, then that baptism wasn't legitimate. If you were baptized, say, in the Jehovah's Witness sect or the Mormon sect, you know, that's not a Christian baptism.

But if you were baptized in, you know, a Trinitarian church in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, even if it wasn't perfect, it's God's word that we're talking about here. And so that would be my encouragement for you and pray that the Lord blesses you. And as I said again, thank you for calling us and for your support. Christy, thanks so much for listening to Core Christianity.

We really do appreciate you. We'd love to hear from you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, maybe there's a passage of scripture that's always kind of stumped you and you'd like some clarification on it to understand the context, or maybe there's a prayer request.

Do you have something going on in your life you really could use prayer for? Give us a call. Our phone lines are open at 833-THE-CORE, 1-833-843-2673. Also, I want to mention a great resource that we have. We have listeners who are Protestants, listeners who are Catholics. There are definite differences between the theology in those two churches, and we've created this resource to help you understand those differences. And also, if you're a Protestant, to have discussions with your Catholic friends or relatives who may have a very different perspective. Yeah, I'm holding it right here in my hand.

We've been offering it now for a couple of days. What still divides us? The differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics. And let me just, you know, the table of contents. You have chapter one, how are we saved? Chapter two, how does God speak to us? Chapter three, who runs the church? Chapter four, how should Christians worship God?

And then a conclusion. Just really helpful, practical exploration of these various questions and some of the differences between Protestant Christians and Roman Catholics. And so I hope that you get a hold of this resource over at corechristianity.com, and we'd love to put it in your hands. Once again, it's called What Still Divides Us, and you can find a lot of great resources at our website, many of them free, our core guides, our core questions, and some great Bible studies as well. Go to corechristianity.com to check that out.

And for this resource, go to corechristianity.com forward slash radio. Well, we do receive voicemails here at the core. You can call us anytime. Leave your voicemail question for Adriel, 833-THE-CORE.

Here's a voicemail that came in from one of our listeners named Veronica. I have a question regarding my marriage. My husband, I found out, is getting high, and he has stolen from me. I don't know whether I should put him out, but just try to keep walking in love.

I don't know what to do. Oh, Veronica. Well, we are heartbroken to hear about this. Let's just take a moment to pray for our sister and for her marriage, and then I'll answer your question. Father, we lift Veronica up to you. We pray that you would grant her wisdom in this time. We pray, Lord Jesus, that you would be with her, guiding her. We ask that you would send help by the power of your Holy Spirit to her husband. Father, not just in terms of opening his eyes to see his sin and to repent, but providing also those practical resources, Lord people, maybe programs as well, that you would guide my sister and that you would guide him, helping him to see, Lord, his great need right now, and to be honest about his need and to get the help, Lord, that's available.

So please be with them, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Veronica, it sounds like there's a serious issue of addiction here. Were he hiding and being secretive and using drugs and stealing from you even? I would say something like an intervention would be important.

I don't think just continuing with the status quo. This is sin and destructive behavior that needs to be confronted. And so I'm guessing that you have confronted him, but really saying, look, we need help, you need help.

And there are resources out there. I'm not sure if you guys are a part of a church, if this is something where you guys are both members in a church, it would be something I think that's important for you to bring before the leadership of the church and to get some accountability. If you're not in a church, you need to be in a church to get the support that you need. And that should be something that he's involved in, too, getting plugged into a solid church. But Bill, there are other programs out there for addiction, and I know that you've got some insight here. What would you tell our sister? Well, for people who have a close friend or relative who are involved in either alcoholism or drug abuse, there are several organizations.

Al-Anon is one of those. And really, she needs that support. And I'm so glad you mentioned the church. That's probably the first line of defense, is to go to the church leadership and to say, I need some support, I need some help, we need to do an intervention here and help my husband. And chances are, the husband may be resistant to that. I mean, unfortunately, a lot of times there's a lot of denial here, and that's why she needs other people around her that can back her up, and she needs to set some ultimatum, some strong boundaries with her husband.

Yeah. Well, Veronica, may God bless you and give you strength and bring healing to your husband and to your marriage and continue to cling to Christ and to seek his face in this difficult time. Veronica, we'll be praying for you. Thanks so much for calling in for being so transparent and vulnerable with us here on Core Christianity. Well, let's go to David, who's calling in from Manhattan, Kansas. David, what's your question for Adriel? Hey, David, are you there? Yeah.

Hey, what's your question, brother? I'm wondering about the Mormon Church. I've had a couple of missionaries stop by and talk to me, I've got the Book of Mormon, and I was baptized and confirmed Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. I've been reading some of the Mormon book, and some of it kind of coincides with my Bible reading, but I would like your opinions.

Yeah. I would say stick with the Missouri Synod Lutherans. The Mormon Church really is not a true church, and I know, I'm sure that we have some listeners who are LDS, and they would say, no, we're Christians too, you know, that sort of thing. But the Mormon Church, Mormon doctrine, theology, is not Orthodox.

It's not within the bounds of Core Christianity. The interesting thing, David, is the Mormon Church now really does kind of want a seat at the table. You oftentimes will hear Mormons say things like, well, we're Christians just like you are, almost as if they were just sort of another denomination.

What's fascinating is when Mormonism began, it set itself in antithesis to all the other churches, the Lutherans, the Presbyterians, the Baptists. It basically said, everyone else is apostate. The gospel has been lost, therefore it needed to be recovered, and we have another testament of Jesus Christ.

The whole reason it started is because they were saying, everybody else is wrong, we're right. The church, the lights went out, essentially. That's the way one Mormon apologist put it.

The lights went out, and so the gospel needed to be recovered. Well, that contradicts what Jesus Christ himself said, that he is going to build the church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against her. So Mormonism is a deception.

It's false. And that's not to say something about Mormons as people. I've got friends who are Mormons and friends who were Mormons, some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. But we're not saved by our niceness. We're not saved by being good neighbors. We're saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you get the gospel wrong, there's a serious problem there.

And so I would say, you know, I would just be cautious, David. You know, that's fine that you're looking into this stuff, but you need to be committed to a solid church where the gospel is preached and where the word of God is faithfully proclaimed, and that's not the Mormon Church, frankly. That's not the Mormon Church. So pray for those Mormon missionaries and pray that they embrace the true gospel of Jesus Christ, because in Mormonism, they don't have that.

As much as they use the same terminology as we do as Christians, it's not a true church. And so I appreciate you reaching out, and may God bless you. And as I said, get more and more plugged into your church, a solid church, and continue to dig into the Scriptures. David, thanks so much for your call. Let's go to Jim in Missouri. Jim, we've just got about a minute left. What's your question for Adriel?

Yeah, Jim. Back to the previous caller about predestination. It seems to me that since God is omniscient, he already knows what decision we're going to make. Kind of like me watching somebody, if I know them real well, and I know it's going to rain, and they own an umbrella, I can predict that they'll carry an umbrella. There are certainly many other factors.

It's far more complicated than that. But God's omniscient seems to say he already knows who's going to decide, or who's going to go to heaven and who's not. From long ago, before the world began, he knew it all already. So to my way of thinking, it's not a matter of God selecting us, it's a matter of God's omniscience. And that kind of sounds almost like fate, and yet I'm puzzled that yet we still have a decision to make. It's still our decision to follow him or not.

Jim, excellent, excellent follow-up there. That is one view that people, that's not my view, but that is one view that Christians take, and the view is essentially, you know, that God elects us based on, on the basis of foreseen faith. And they'll define foreknowledge, you know, God has foreknowledge of everyone who is going to believe, and so he bases his decision, his choice of us, on the fact that he can look down the corridors of time, he's omniscient, he knows all things, and he sees who's going to choose him, that's who he's chosen. The question is, does that make the best sense of Scripture, and is that the best definition of foreknowledge, that word to foreknow, in the New Testament? And it's my view, at least, that it's not, because oftentimes in Scripture, to know speaks of this intimate love, God setting his love upon his people, as he says, you know, the Israelites, the Hebrews, you only of all the nations of the world have I known.

He's not saying there that, you know, he didn't know the other ones existed, he only knew that they existed. No, it's this particular love, in association with his sovereign choice, and that's the same thing, I think, that we see in Ephesians chapter one, and so I appreciate your follow-up there, and as I said, you know, there's room for disagreement here among believers, and let's search the Scriptures together. God bless. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, go to corechristianity.com forward slash radio, or you can call us at 1-833-843-2673.

That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, let us know how we can be praying for you, and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.