Is Diwali Demonic? 10 Qs with Mike Winger (Ep 64)

Let's talk about Diwali. Diwali. We're going to talk about Diwali. Or Diwali. You know, obviously, I'm an English speaker. So I'm going to say it the way that's... makes sense to my brain, even if it's not entirely correct. That's what we do with English speaking. So the, um, the issue I want to ask you guys about or ask scripture about is the question of, is it okay to say happy Diwali?

That is the first question for today. My name is Mike Winger. I'm here to try to help you learn to think biblically about everything because that's my journey is to learn to think biblically about everything and we're doing it together. I'm sporting a new t-shirt today as well, and I know it will be misinterpreted by some, but I like it. Okay, so...

Is this okay? I'm going to put something on your screen real quick. Take a look. This is Donald Trump lighting the Diwali candle in the White House. As a Christian, how am I supposed to think about this? Not... You know, and here I am. Ironically, I just got this shirt and I've just put it on. So some are going to be like, why are you wearing the freedom shirt? The Charlie Kirk shirt for a number of reasons. But you'll see that even though I want to.

help us as Christians, if we're going to live biblically as we try to think biblically so we can live biblically, we should, I think, be pushing more into advocacy and things like this. I've been talking about it a little bit here and there. I'll talk a lot more about it next year. Midway through the year, I'm going to...

go deep on this stuff but at the same time we have to do this because it's an expression of our genuine Christian values and not because we're just picking sides or teams or something like that and so we have to speak truth as it is true. And this is actually evil, what we just saw on your screen. That's an actual...

moral evil, the thing that you just saw. And I know it seems innocent. You might think, well, Diwali's kind of like, it's the festival of lights or something. It's kind of like Hanukkah, right? Isn't it kind of like Hanukkah? And Hanukkah is not that big of a deal, which Hanukkah is fine. I think you can celebrate Hanukkah, no problem. that's going to trigger. There's so many things that will trigger people, but I actually think the majority understand exactly what I'm saying.

So let's walk through it. Okay, what is Diwali? And why is it that that is not something that's okay? I'm going to show you guys some stuff. This is from Britannica. where it's an article on Diwali, and we're going to read a little bit of it here. It says, And the different meanings of the day can be discerned from their accounts. For example, multiple Puranas, I don't know how to pronounce that, Puranas, probably Puranas or something like that, suggest that the lamps are lit in worship.

of Yama, the god of the dead. Wait, so this right here on your screen, this is too many people being done in worship of the god of the dead. Okay, it's not just lights. It's not just about light. And you'll read online. People will post online. Diwali is, you know, about the victory of light over dark and good over evil.

you can wash it clean and clear of any of its actual religious significance by saying that, but that's not true. That's like saying the cross of Jesus is about the victory of grace over judgment or something. And even that would be not entirely accurate, but you could... say that but that's no no the cross of christ is the only way of salvation it's about the only way in which you can be forgiven for your sins to

Water it down to such a degree that it's like you don't even really believe the things you believe anymore. Let's be honest. What is Diwali? It is that. Let's read on. At midnight, the women are said to drive out the goddess Alakshmi. misfortune and propitiate lakshmi fortune so it's a prayer to lakshmi a deity it's a prayer to a deity this is

This is pagan worship, this activity. Let's read more. Observances of Diwali differ depending on region and tradition. Among Hindus, the most widespread custom is the lighting of dias, small earthenware lamps filled with oil. On the night of the new moon, to invite the presence of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. In Bengal, the goddess Kali is worshipped. In northern India, the festival also celebrates the royal homecoming of Rama, along with Sita, Lakshmana, and Hanuman.

These are all false gods. They're all false gods. To the city of Iodah after defeating Ravanna, the ten-headed king of the demons. Thus connecting the festival with the holiday Dusera. In southern India, the festival marks Krishna's defeat of the demon Asura, Narakasura. Some... celebrate Diwali as a commemoration of the marriage of Lakshmi and Vishnu, false gods, while others observe it as the birthday of Lakshmi. So Hinduism is varied.

There's a lot of variety in Hinduism. It's basically a bunch of different religions that got smashed together and sort of became under the same umbrella. So the same festival is celebrated in different places. It's also celebrated... by Buddhists and other people as well. But it's all, you know, it's steeped in paganism and worship and belief in false gods. Absolutely. Here's more information from the Britannica site.

Did I already share this one with you guys? I don't think so. During the festival, the dias, the lighting of the candles, they're lit and placed in rows along the parapets of temples and houses and set adrift on rivers and streams. It's beautiful. It looks beautiful. It's cosmetically attractive.

You know, Satan knows how to whitewash a sepulcher. Homes are decorated in floors inside and out are covered with rangoles consisting of elaborate designs made of colored rice, sand, or flower petals. It is gorgeous. It is beautiful. That doesn't make it good. Satan's beautiful too. The doors and windows of houses are kept open in the hope that Lakshmi, this false god, will find her way inside and bless the residents with wealth and success. And it goes on.

The names and events of the individual days of Diwali are as follows. I'll just read to you guys three of them. Just three. The first day, known as Donterus, is dedicated to cleaning homes and purchasing small items of gold. Okay, that sounds innocuous. Clean your house and buy gold stuff. But let's read the rest of it. Lakshmi and Kubera are the focus of worship on that day. The second day, called Naraka, Chachardashi, or Chotidawali, commemorates Krishna's destruction of Narakasura.

Prayers are also offered for the souls of ancestors. Do you see it now? This is what Diwali is. Diwali, this is what it is. That's the name of the day. Families seek blessings from Lakshmi to ensure their prosperity. This is...

You know, where they light all the candles and fireworks and the visit temples and all this stuff. But it's very much pagan worship. Now, what does scripture actually say about this? Let's learn to think biblically about these things. And it's going to be rough because of the culture we're in.

Cultural brain doesn't want to be honest about these things. It doesn't want us to say anything out loud. It wants us to go, hey, happy Diwali. But I actually think this is like a good little watershed issue where you could say, hey, if you can say happy Diwali, you're either unaware of...

what scripture says about this kind of thing, or you're unaware of what you're doing when you say it. And so my encouragement to you is not, I want to drag you over the coals. No, I want to just open your eyes and say, hey. Let's look at truth. Let's see what's really going on here. And let's handle this as Christians who follow Jesus, who believe in God, who know that idol worship is actually a reason why the wrath of God comes on the world.

Let's look at it right here. It says here that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. This is Romans 1 18 of men who by their unrighteous.

unrighteousness suppress the truth they suppress the truth for what can be known about god is plain to them because god has shown it to them For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made, so that they are without excuse.

And then this is directly about the idol worship and Hinduism. It's directly about it. And we don't as Christians, we probably don't know enough about Hinduism. There's so many Hindus that need the gospel of Jesus Christ. We want them to be delivered from false gods.

We don't want to attack them for being Hindu in some sort of like brash sense. We want them to be delivered from lies, belief in false gods, worship of false things that will bring judgment upon them in their future. This is what we desire. So we can't be like happy Diwali because that would be a lie.

That would be a happy little smiley lie. Verse 21, it says, For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise. They became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible, excuse me, I'm reading in my brain, New King James, the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore, God gave them up. He gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. And it goes on. Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. And there's more things that he talks about. They're all relevant today. They're all relevant in our lives right now. But there's another verse I want to mention, which is...

What's really happening when you light a candle to a false god? What is really happening when you perform a Hindu religious ritual? 1 Corinthians says, and it's sobering. It is so sobering. Let me pull up the verse here just a second. I need to organize my desktop just a little bit. Okay. So 1 Corinthians chapter 10 is going to get into this.

I think I'll start in verse 19. What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? I don't think you're, I'm not scared of your idol. I don't worry about your idol. Your idol doesn't. Give me the heebie-jeebies. I'm just aware of what it means, right? So what Paul says is, no, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God.

I do not want you to be participants with demons. This is the nature of Diwali. This is the nature of Hindu religious things. And Hinduism is an incredibly important mission field. We need more Christians out there evangelizing, planting churches. We need especially probably, my understanding of it is, is that we especially need natives, native Indians to be.

getting into, or, or wherever the Hindu communities are, the people who are part of those communities to rise up and become evangelists, um, and to help empower them to do it. But, but yeah, absolutely. Um, I can't say happy to Wally. i don't want you to have a happy time worshiping a demon that's not something i can get can get into and be part of as a christian i could not ever i mean trump's not a not a christian no i mean i think that he

His greatest moment, maybe I'll do a video on this, but his greatest moment was most recently when he said he didn't think he'd make it to heaven. And I thought, well, he's the closest to the gospel he's ever been because he understands that there's a standard he hasn't met. And the next thing he has to know is that Jesus has met that standard and can give it, give him salvation. Um, but he has to humble himself. So, so even though I'm wearing this shirt, um, this is, this is, I,

My understanding of how a Christian needs to engage in these issues is I have to actually be a Christian in every sphere and not be a chameleon who blends in. I'm going to be a Christian who pushes my worldview wherever I go, pushes my Christian agenda wherever I go, and is not ashamed of it. I think that's what we need to do. So we're going to go to your guys' questions. All right. So this will be question number two. Let me pull this up. Just a moment, y'all. Just a moment.

So the 10 questions videos, I do these every Friday. It's at 1 o'clock p.m. Pacific time. This is almost every Friday. Some days I'm not able to do it. I have commitments or other things come up. But most of the time we do a Friday show at 1 o'clock p.m.

And I'll give you guys more updates at the end of this video about the things that I've been thinking about and working on and why I'm wearing this shirt at the end of the video. So right now we'll go to your guys' questions. And Scripture is King here. We are going to try to answer them.

with what the Bible says, at least as much as I'm capable of doing. And I know that you guys, it's not that you learn my answers and just repeat them. The real benefit of the 10 questions or the 20 questions videos is you learn the process. of going to scripture on your own and asking good questions and thinking about it and applying it well. And that's where the real value is. So feel free to disagree with me on something.

Daniel Binkley says, is there a distinction between God speaking words of comfort to someone and the gift of prophecy? I've understood that anytime God speaks, it is definitionally prophecy and subject subject to testing. So nailing down exactly our definition of prophecy turns out to be pretty difficult. There's the clear prophecy where someone says, thus says the Lord, and they say something, right? That's like clearly a prophetic thing. That's prophecy.

But when we get to like the list where it says someone can give like, here, let me show it to you guys. And we'll walk through and I'll show you why this can be a little bit hard to nail down exactly what you call prophecy. There's a few different reasons. Let me see here. This is in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. And it's talking about different gifts and empowerments from the Holy Spirit for us to bless each other with.

And it says here to each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good to one is given through the spirit, the utterance of wisdom. So I speak. wisdom, and that wisdom was actually given to me through the Holy Spirit. And I have words of wisdom that come from the Spirit. Here's the question. Is that prophecy? I mean, kind of, except you'll see down here, prophecy is down here.

as its own category. So where's the overlap there? To another, the utterance of knowledge according to the spirit. Well, so if I have an... a word of knowledge from god this is how often this is interpreted and i think that this can be a real application of that is you're talking with someone and you simply know something because god has revealed it to you that you otherwise would not have known and you use that information to

minister to somebody to help the situation somehow or even to confront something and that was an utterance of knowledge is that prophecy i mean it's prophetic

In a very real sense, it kind of is. Now, if someone has an utterance of wisdom or an utterance of knowledge from the Spirit, but maybe they don't even say, the Lord gave me this. They just simply say, I think... blah blah blah and it's a thing that was inspired by God that's different than if someone says the Lord has showed me this okay so that elevate they're elevating the authority of the statement they make and so the

The more authority they're saying it with, the stronger the testing has to be. This is like a good rule in life. Hey, I think that this is a bad idea. It's different than, hey, God showed me that that's a bad idea. These are different statements. And the authority and the accountability both go up. But if you read on, it can be a little challenging. To another, faith by the same spirit. To another, gifts of healing by the one spirit. To another, the working of miracles. And to another, prophecy.

And then he goes on, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues. So this list, starting in verse 8, lists words of wisdom, words of knowledge, and then prophecy.

which seem to be at least it's one sentence, right? They seem to be listed as different things. Maybe it's the authority with which you... utter if you have a word of wisdom but you utter it as god god showed me that now now we call it prophecy maybe someone has a word of wisdom the lord revealed to them they're not even fully conscious that god revealed it to them so we would just in hindsight we go wow that was really the lord you know you had that idea that was great

I think God used that in a great way. Then we wouldn't maybe call that prophecy. You see how what we're doing is we're taking this information and we're just sort of trying to figure out what to call it. In a sense, I think that prophecy has a narrow definition and a broad definition. The narrow definition is God told me to say this, but a more broad or told me to do this thing that's a message for you. Like Ezekiel, you know, he builds a, he takes a little fake.

a brick or whatever this rock is supposed to represent jerusalem and he builds like a siege around it and that was prophecy even though it didn't necessarily require words that part of it um but then if you if you You have this broad definition. It's like anytime you're speaking as led by the Lord, it's prophecy. That feels too broad. So at some point, you've got to narrow it down and be like, well, maybe it's just when you were declaring some truth and you're saying it's from God.

then it's maybe then it's prophecy. Here's a truth and it's from God. Maybe we'll just call that prophecy because your claim that it's from God. That would be my thought on that. And that would fit with what we see in scripture because there's all sorts of things that are...

prophetic i mean the entirety of the bible is prophecy in the sense that it's speaking on behalf of god or it's god revealing things to us but then we have a section in a very broad sense right we have a section called the prophets and we have individuals who are prophets and who are not and and so it it's just it's just something that is a little hard to nail down so but your question wasn't just defining prophecy it was also this other thing and you asked um

I've understood that anytime God speaks, it is definitionally prophecy and subject to testing. And I think that that is good wisdom. Okay, I would go with that. But I wouldn't argue with people. Someone goes, well, technically that wasn't prophecy. I would just be like, well, it should be tested though, right? I just wouldn't spend all my time arguing about the definition. I just get to the nuts and bolts of having to actually test it.

All right, let's go to question number three. This question comes in from Hot Wax 93, who says, if we aren't required to keep the old covenant food laws, then why are the unclean animals described in Deuteronomy 14.3 with the same Hebrew word for homosexuality in Leviticus 18? I'm so confused by this question. Maybe it's totally my fault, but let me read it again.

OK, the hypothesis is, hey, we're not required to keep the old covenant food laws. OK, and then and then this observation you've made is supposed to be like maybe a challenge to that. Hey, if that's the case. Why are unclean animals described in Deuteronomy 14, three with the same Hebrew word for homosexuality in Leviticus 18. So the Hebrew word for homosexuality in Leviticus 18 cannot possibly be the same word. Not actually.

But there is probably a word abomination that you're thinking of. I have to guess here because you didn't give me a verse. You gave me a chapter for Leviticus. But I'm assuming it's the word abomination. But there's no way that... animals are being discussed with the same terminologies. You shall not lie with a man the way you lie with a woman, that kind of thing.

But it has to be with the word abomination. Now, there's actually different words for abomination in the Old Testament. To get to the bottom of this, it requires a Hebrew, me to look this up in Hebrew. uh and which honestly is difficult to do on a live stream in my let me just say this cursory stuff in the past i have looked into this i've looked into the specific word abomination that's used in leviticus to talk about homosexuality and some other things

And it's not the same word. This is years ago when I did this research, but it was not the same word at all. And the word abomination translated in English, yes, the same, not the same in the actual Hebrew. So I... I'm not sure that Deuteronomy 14.3 is the same word. Now I'm going out on a limb to say this, right? Because I'm live and I don't have the chance to actually do that.

But still, let's suppose hypothetically that I'm wrong. Let's say that the same word abomination is used. Would that mean, because the word abomination is used in homosexuality, Leviticus 18, that therefore... the same word being used about animals means that no humans can eat those kinds of animals. It's a rule God has for all mankind for all time. And I would say no, because the argument in Leviticus 18 is not merely based on the idea.

of the word abomination. It's based on a whole lot more than that. So Leviticus 18, a short version is this. In this passage, God tells them that they're not to do these practices of homosexuality. I should just, let me just find the passage and I'll read it to you. Let's see. Verse 22. I'll just read it to you. We should just read it. Follow right through the passage. You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. Okay. If that's all it said.

you might be like, well, maybe this is just the law. Maybe like the dietary stuff, it's just for Jewish people. It's not something God has ever asked for Gentile nations to do. But we have so much more than this. I could bring in Romans 1. I could bring in 1 Corinthians 6. I could show very clearly that God says that no believers are able to do this. I could then look at Romans 14 and look at Mark 7, 9, where Jesus...

And his apostles make it clear that we can actually eat different foods and the dietary restrictions are not binding upon all Christians. But if you keep reading on, then you'll find out... it's bigger even in leviticus it's bigger than just here's a rule for you um he says but you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you for the people of the land who are before you

did all of these abominations so that land became unclean. That's key. Because this commentary, which is not, to my knowledge, there's nowhere in the Old Testament where God says he judges Gentile nations for eating. non-kosher foods i you know although kosher is a more strict category than what you have in scripture but still you get the point there's nowhere in the old testament where god judges non-jewish nations for the dietary laws but

He says straight up here in this list, which includes men lying with men as if they were a woman. He says, I'm kicking them out of the land partly because of this. This is actually something I judge Gentiles for. So the argument... in leviticus 18 is not just about the word abomination although i do think you can make an argument there i have looked into it i just i don't have at my fingertips all that data so there's some thoughts for you to check out all right number four julia

Larson says, I've heard believers say things like, the Bible isn't the fourth member of the Trinity. Phrases like this can feel dismissive of the Bible. How should we take this from well-meaning Christians? I'm out of water. How should we take this from well-meaning Christians? I encourage patience. It's a, in most cases when I've heard things like this, it's a deeply ignorant and judgmental statement.

but you want to take it with patience. To say that the Bible is not a fourth member of the Trinity is very accusatory and judgmental. It's implication, it's clear implication. Now they're going to try to pretend that this is not the case. Almost every time they do this because it's gaslighting and manipulation. It's bad news. But when they say this, the implication is that you, who are arguing, we have to follow this Bible thing.

hey, the Bible doesn't agree with you here. Hey, the Bible doesn't set that up as truth and you should be bound to what scripture says. When you're saying things like that, they respond with the Bible's not the fourth member of the Trinity or you're worshiping the Bible. These are... They're accusing you of grievous and horrible sin. Not just being mistaken about what you interpret the Bible to be. They're accusing you of actually deifying scripture and worshipping it.

which would be to make an idol and worship that idol and offend God and anger God and be guilty of just grievous, like you should be excommunicated from your church if you're worshiping the Bible. This is a big deal. If you try to elevate the Bible to be the fourth member of the Trinity, there should be like a council against you. There should be people.

publicly saying, you need to repent, repent, lest you face God in judgment. But they make this huge statement, but there's never anything backing it up. It's always just, they don't want to follow what scripture says. So they say this to put you on your back foot.

right so what do you do well first you want to have patience now if it's a leader doing it i'm gonna have honestly less patience with them but if it is a person who um is maybe just caught up there repeating what they've heard you know they they heard a richard war message they don't realize how evil he is and now they just sort of repeated something he said um or

they heard a pastor that they like who's really ministered to them and he said it. And so now they're, they're pulling it out of their pocket. Like they just throw it out there. I would just do one of two things. You ignore it completely and you go, no, no, no. Let's talk about what the Bible says.

And you stay on topic. The thing that you were originally talking about when they tried to get you on your back foot by accusing you of worshiping the Bible or making a false idol out of scripture. You just ignore it. You stick to the verses. What do they say? How to interpret them?

The other one is you actually push back and you can push back with questions. So you could just simply say, um, what do you mean by that? And then just let them talk. Like, don't interrupt them. Just let them talk. What do you mean by that? Well, I just mean, you know, you can make too big of a deal about the Bible. Okay, explain yourself. So first, clarity on what they mean by that. Second, ask more questions. Clarity on how you are guilty of that. What did I do that made you think I was...

deifying scripture and worshiping it, which would be, of course, a huge offense to God. What did I do that made you think that I was doing that? And let them talk. They're probably not going to be happy with you afterwards, okay? But... People will sometimes casually throw out these horrible accusations and then they feel no obligation for the words that come out of their own mouths. And it comes often because they're the kind of people who are often, their theology is...

Like, niceness is actually built into their actual theology, which is not healthy, right? Goodness, kindness, yep, gentleness, yep. But niceness is... a compromise of truth in these types of situations. So there's my two cents on that. You can also take them to scripture. You can actually show them how when Jesus debated with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, how did he defeat their bad ideas? What did he do?

Well, he quoted the Bible. You could show them this, right? He talks about marriage. He says, in the beginning, God created them male and female. And therefore, what God has joined together, and it shall leave his father and be joined to his wife. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. Jesus. He's using the Bible to solve religious debates of his time. And we see this over and over again in scripture.

Over and over. You could go to the book of Jeremiah and where it talks about, look at Jeremiah's words about scripture. He's like, it was not his word like fire and I couldn't hold it back. And you read it and quote it to them and then say, is Jeremiah worshiping the Bible here when he talks about how amazing.

powerful God's word is and how he uses it to confront people. Is that, is that, is that worshiping the Bible when he does that? Read Psalm 119 to them and ask them, is this worshiping the Bible? Is the Bible worshiping the Bible here? Or are you just Trying to get out from under the authority of scripture with a horrible and grievous false accusation. And the answer is almost always the latter. Number two. Wait, what?

Am I on five? Did I get that far? Wow. I'm moving fast. All right. Mild parent warning on this one. I haven't read the question yet, guys. I literally don't even know what it says yet, but mild parent warning.

My assistant Sarah Zimmerman is on it and she wants you to know this. Okay, anonymous question. This may sound like a silly question, but do you have any advice for someone scared of demonic or evil forces when going to sleep? It doesn't help that I often fall... Okay, there's definitely parent warning here. That I often fall sexually at night too. Yeah. Okay. Talk to a pastor. Or honestly, it doesn't have to be a pastor. Anybody who's older than you, who's in the Lord.

And I think it's really helpful if they're older than you, if you're young. I mean, if you're my age, just get someone at least my age. Get someone who's like at least 40s and tell them what you've got going on. And just be like, hey, can you pray for me? And if you feel like you don't want to share some of those details, at least start the conversation and share some of it, you know. But I would encourage you to share the other ones too. The bigger issue than your...

to be honest with you here as your brother in christ right the bigger issue than your fear of demonic things or evil forces is the i often fall sexually at night that's the bigger issue that you want to address that's the thing you should really target as far as a christian who's worried about demonic things um demons are real yep they can attack you yep crazy things can happen and do happen um but here's the thing

I think real Christian courage and real Christian faith would be, I'm not afraid, even in the midst of a real attack. This is Psalm 22, right? Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me, your rod and your staff that comfort me. You anoint my head with oil. He lays a table for us in the presence of our enemies. In the presence of our enemies. This is...

Christian courage is I am not safe and I am not scared. That's like the ultimate Christian courage right there. I'm not safe and I'm not scared because I know you're with me. It doesn't mean you won't let any bad thing happen to me. It means that anything that happens, it has to pass through you. I would recommend Christians at the same time, don't be arrogant.

about demons don't be like oh yeah well i don't care you do what you want i would not do that kind of stuff that is not wise um you you cling to jesus you call on jesus you rely on jesus but i'm talking about actual demonic stuff, not just the fear of demons. If you're plagued with a constant fear of demonic or fear of things that is not even really happening to you, then that's like a different category, right? This is just sort of generalized fear or terror.

And part of that may be just your guilty conscience because you have this sin issue that you're not currently dealing with and you need to deal with it. You need to do new things to solve the problem. Don't... do violent things to yourself okay but do new things to solve the problem and think if i was serious about this what would i what steps would i take if i was really serious about fixing this problem and um and then take those strong healthy steps

Then, thank you. My lovely wife brought me a big glass of water. Let me drink some water first, then I'll finish this question. Water. We actually, we went to a restaurant the other day and they asked us, do you want sparkling water or would you like flat water or would you like tap water? And we both were.

We thought it was kind of funny that we felt like, like it was like, ooh, do you want tap water? So we got tap water, but whatever. So yeah, not a silly question at all. You're not alone in that.

Three issues going on. How you deal with real demonic things, you trust in the Lord with all your heart. You trust in him. And you know, even if I was attacked, I trust the Lord. You also don't play games with it. You don't act arrogantly or... act as if you're strong it's his strength not yours um and obviously you pray you you seek the lord and how do you deal with just fears fears that are not actually real but they're just i'm just scared of stuff in general well

You try to find the source of the fear. What is the thing that is driving this fear? And part of it, it seems, might be a guilty conscience, in which case you have the third thing you need to deal with the sin issue in your life. Don't just let it... Continue. You can overcome this. You really can. You really, really can. So if you're a guy, there's a new book recently that came out that I'll recommend for you to check out. Fight Like a Man by Emil EZ Zawain.

I'd recommend you check that out. Or even look, if you do videos and not books, he's got interviews. I'll interview him eventually on this, but he's got interviews online. You can find him. Right? So that's his name right there. I said Emil Zwayne. Easy. Zwayne. Z-W-A-Y-N-E. All right. Let's go to the next question. Number six. Robbie Badgett has a question.

In the plague after the incident at Peor, 24,000 people died, but in 1 Corinthians 10, 8, Paul says 23,000. How can I hold to inerrancy? Thank you, Mike. You're a true blessing, brother. Thanks, Robbie. Let's just pull these up and then we'll talk about it. It's going to take me a second. Is it Numbers 25? I wonder if it's Numbers 25. I don't want to be scanning through.

passages like this so i'm gonna i'm just gonna go to the first corinthians one um but man i wish i had that old testament verse where it talked about the 24 000 I wonder, man, can I find it? I really want to find it. I think it'd be a better answer if we could actually find it here. I know this is not good for YouTube to just be looking, but it would really help. Yeah, it is. It is numbers 25.

Okay, so the Numbers 25 verse, it's, here's the process, right, for this sort of thing. Those who died by the plague were 24,000. Okay, that's ESV. NIV. um this is if you guys don't you don't have the ability to look up the hebrew or check certain things you look at this you go let me check a few translations to see if there's maybe differences of the way this is translated 24 000 in the new king james niv

Also says 24,000. There's a footnote to numbers as well. The RSV, 24,000. So there's pretty good consistency. If you don't have any Hebrew resources, this is, of course, not, you know. foolproof but it's always helpful if you see this translated the same way in a bunch of different passages then you go okay probably not a manuscript not a big manuscript debate

Maybe there's one manuscript that says 23, one says 24. Maybe they're trying to pick which one is right and they're not sure. Then you've got the 1 Corinthians passage. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 8. Hold on I just closed out a thing instead of clicking on a thing I Know what you guys are thinking Mike you need to get your act together You're you really need to get your act together, and I'm like I just want to say you know

I haven't had my act together in years, and it hasn't really been a problem. Okay. The other one is 1 Corinthians. Okay, so here it says we must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day. And it does, of course, reference those same spots. Now, what do you do when you come across this?

you know i've had this happen so many times in my life uh years ago in particular i would come across something like this because i'm reading through first corinthians maybe or i check the footnote and i go and i go 23 24 and then suddenly i'm worried i'm like nervous about what is the truth of this issue? And can I trust in the inerrancy of scripture? This kind of thing comes up a lot. It impacts people heavily. And you look at this and you go, oh no, like what is the right answer?

Let me first say that we all should slow down a little. If your first thought is to go right to maybe the entire Bible is not trustworthy, if that's like your first thought here. That is... There's probably underlying other issues that maybe should be addressed that aren't about the 23, 24 question. Maybe there's other issues. Maybe you're actually not sure evidentially that your faith is really grounded in reality and truth.

a little thing comes up and it feels like a giant thing because there's some other bigger stuff that's sort of under the surface. And for me, I think part of my initial fear was that I didn't know there was such a good evidential grounding for Christianity as a whole.

when I was younger. And when I started to look up individually these types of things, I would look up one and I'd go, okay, well, okay, so I can understand how there's a reasonable explanation for this. Then I'd look up another one and go, oh, I can see there's a reasonable explanation for that. Then someone else would bring up another one. And this would happen over and over again. And what happens is I realized that my reaction was too strong every time. And so eventually I started asking.

better questions um more important questions like why do i believe jesus really rose from the dead like is there i mean i know Some of the reasons why I've believed it. Okay. I do believe God's changed my life. Um, I do think that my life was literally changed, but I've met people who were just like real religiously weird and they believe all sorts of things.

Am I somehow delusional? That kind of possibility didn't seem likely, but how could I ignore the possibility? This was kind of where I was at at the time. So I asked that hard question. Why do I... What evidence is there that Jesus actually rose from the dead? And then I started chasing down like a question where when I answered it, it would actually really matter with my faith. The resurrection of Jesus. I start asking questions like, how do I know that...

The Bible is the same now as it was when it was written. That was a question that actually really mattered because if it had been large-scale changes... You know, if I found out that one of the Gospels was written 300 years after Jesus or something like that, then I would have been like, well, hold on, I thought Mark wrote it. What? You know, that would have disturbed me in a deeper level.

What I'm saying is the question of 23 and 24,000 is small potatoes compared to the larger questions about our Christian faith. Just to help you with that. So the... Clues to how to resolve these kinds of questions. By the way, I've got videos on all this stuff. I've got videos. Just type Mike Winger Resurrection of Jesus. Boom. It'll pop up. Or Mike Winger Bible Contradictions. Bunch of videos. I've got a bunch of videos on all this kind of stuff. So just...

Google it, you'll find it or whatever you use to search. Um, but oftentimes the solution is right in the passage. Now there's, there's one thing you can punt to. Um, you could say, Oh, um,

Maybe there's a textual error in the Masoretic text that we get our Hebrew from. Maybe it actually said... uh 24 23 000 initially and it was it was transcribed wrong hebrew numbers are tiny little marks and stuff and it's actually very easy for there to be a mistake in the manuscripts now does would that affect inerrancy

I'm not saying that's what happened. I'll just speak hypothetically. So let's think it through. Would it affect inerrancy if we were to say... some of the numbers that we have in the old testament in particular because that's the hebrew where it's easier to make those kind of like harder to make those kinds of uh things clear um if We have that issue where there's some of the numbers where you go, oh, we might actually be off by a number or two or more on these numbers. What is this impact?

Well, it wouldn't impact the doctrine of inerrancy, which is that the Bible in its original form is inerrant without error, right? You transcribe it, you copy it, you translate it. There can be errors in a translation. We certainly have translations with many errors. The Passion Translation is chock full of errors and problems. And so that's true. But the doctrine of inerrancy is not every translation of the Bible or every manuscript of the Bible is perfect.

That's not the idea. It's that it was in its initial writing. It was absolutely perfect. Yeah, thank you. I just saw that text, Sarah. Thank you. So...

that would not you know it might bother you it might irritate you and be like wait a minute are you saying that some of the numbers like if i look at the number of like the okay the number of days in genesis there'll be no debate on this but maybe like some of the numbering when david counts the people and there's this many of this tribe like what if that number's wrong

This doesn't really affect much, let's be honest. It doesn't actually affect much. It doesn't affect the doctrine of inerrancy. It doesn't affect my interpretation of the passage. It doesn't affect the doctrines of any Christian in the world. So it wouldn't be that big of a thing. There's other things too, though. So what Paul says here that's a little different than the Numbers passage is 23,000 fell in a single day. Now the Numbers passage says something a little different. Numbers 25, 9.

those who died by the plague were 24,000. It doesn't say in a single day. Does it? Not to my knowledge. Okay, so that's one possible issue there is there's a difference between the day... um the day mark that he gives versus the number of people who actually died um other people think uh here's here's other solutions to this potentially um one of them is that uh paul's combining

combining two different events. Some people think that. Paul's rounding the number. Some people think that. Why would he round to that kind of number? I don't know. I don't have a well-developed theory on this. I'm just letting you know some of the views that are held. Because I think that it can be helpful to be aware of them. So yeah, 23,000 instead of 24. Maybe it's a different event. So basically, we don't know for sure.

i'm at least i don't know for sure maybe if i did more work on this exact one i would have more of an answer for you the um the conclusion is the important part like how can i defend inerrancy like well to be honest I don't think you defend inerrancy by proving every statement in scripture is true. And I don't think you defend inerrancy by answering every possible contradiction.

I don't think that's how you defend inerrancy. I think those can be valuable things. One's impossible. You can't prove every statement true. There's just simply no evidence to prove everything. You can prove key things, important things, parts of things. You just can't. It's not possible to prove everything true.

um, in individually, like where you grab one thing, you're now, where's the external evidence of this, or where's the confirmation of that? You just, it's not possible, but the doctrine of inerrancy is, is a theological doctrine. It is not. One that is, this is true though. Now theology is a way of finding truth. Okay. Theology is a way of discovering truth. So, but it's a theological conclusion, not one that's based upon. I examined every possible error in the Bible and prove them all false.

So the reason you hold inerrancy would be something like, I believe that the Bible is God's word, which I can really demonstrate very well with fulfilled prophecy, with internal consistency, with the overall message of Christ throughout the...

Throughout the testimony of scripture, I can show it in many different ways. And I've got my evidence for the Bible series where I go through that. So, okay, it's God's word. God has revealed this to us. And then God, now that we've established it's God's word, we...

we trust that god is speaking truth god is revealing truth to us it says that you know men moved by the holy spirit like our doctrine now that like i believe god i believe the bible is god's word but when i read what the bible says about the bible

and this is where the skeptics can accuse me of circular reasoning it's not it's not you don't understand circular reasoning very well um to say this it's not but the bible's claims about the bible once you have established that it is from god they're extremely relevant

right? Because when it says here that God's word is pure and true and just, and God cannot lie and says that men were wrote as they were moved along by the Holy spirit, that that's, that's how scripture comes about. That's the nature of what scripture is.

When you get this there, you go, okay, so then it's going to be reliable. Then it's going to be inerrant. That's a theological conclusion. Someone says, but what about this part here? The worst case scenario, especially with something as simple as these numbers, you go. I don't know. But I didn't believe it was inerrant because I could answer the question about 1 Corinthians 8 and Numbers 25, or 1 Corinthians 10. I believe it was inerrant for other reasons that you have not defeated.

So I can just say, I don't know. That's important for us to be able to do that and to be honest about it. So I don't know. There's a couple immediate possibilities with how you resolve this contradiction. If I spent more time on it, maybe I'd have a great...

perfect yes i've solved it kind of answer but at least do some searching on your own as well and find out what others have said about it too because lots of people have worked on this stuff in the past all right we're going to go to the next question

Number seven, anonymous question here says, my mom is a baby Christian, two years, but she feels most comfortable in an Orthodox church. She seems to be growing in her faith there. Should I intervene or just let her go where she feels led? I'll tell you a story. True story. I had a student, part of my church, for, I mean...

Not for like years and years and years, but she came for a season. And it was longer than a year, but it was for a good season. Part of the youth ministry there. This was years ago. I'm not doing youth ministry anymore. I mean, this is my ministry. This is my full-time thing. She became orthodox. She was always one who was prone to... First off, she studied scripture. She memorized it. She was like...

This this girl was like it was awesome, you know sharp as far as knowing the word what it says often when you're very young and you're memorizing scripture you know what it says but you don't always know what it means but that's the nature of memorization you start to really get it later on for kids but But she's like, I don't know, 17, 16, probably 17. She becomes Orthodox. I find out afterwards because she just disappears, you know.

We never talked about it. We never had a conversation about it. She didn't ask me. So I don't even know all the reasons why. She became Orthodox. I saw her in a coffee shop sometime after that. And I was like, oh, I won't say her name. I'm only sharing this story because I think it will help you guys.

And I don't know where she is today. Who knows where she is? She may be Orthodox. She might be Protestant. She might be Catholic. She might be Buddhist. I don't know where she is today. But I said, oh, it's good to see you. How are you doing? And she starts to tell me and she kind of meekishly was like, oh, well, yeah, I'm.

I'm Orthodox now. And I was like, oh, okay. And I only knew a little bit about Orthodox stuff at the time. And so I just started asking her some questions about it. Oh, so like, what do you guys believe? What would you say has changed in your beliefs now that you're Orthodox?

And she started explaining some things to me. And it just was before she could have given the gospel in a heartbeat. This girl could have shared the gospel with anybody easily, quickly, right? Simply, this is the gospel. But it came down to where I was asking her.

What if I was dying and I didn't know Jesus and you had like two minutes? I've got two minutes. I'm about to die. And you come upon me and you can't save me. I've been stabbed. I'm bleeding, whatever. You can't save me, but you can tell me something about Jesus that might save my soul. what do you say? What do I need to know in that two minutes to get saved? And she could not answer the question anymore. She no longer knew the gospel. She was totally floating. She says, I don't know.

I would go get a priest. I would go get the priest. And I said, I got two minutes. And we talked for a while about this and she just genuinely did not know the gospel. So why don't you ask your mom what the gospel is? Mom, if I had two minutes to live, what do I need to know to be saved? A lot of people are drawn to, not even the majority, I don't think, of people, but a lot of people are drawn towards...

the sense of authority that you get from Orthodox or Roman Catholicism. And they're also drawn to the beauty of it and the sense of structure that it provides. The problem with some of those things, like there's nothing wrong with the beauty of things. We could use more beautiful churches and stuff like that and ugly churches and they're all fine. Okay. I can't understand.

This is literally a thing I see online. I see with people, it's not just online, but they're actually evaluating the truth of a religion based upon how beautiful the buildings are. It's the most inane. reasoning in the world it's crazy to think this way you know who has beautiful beautiful buildings mormons mormons you know where there's some incredibly beautiful false idol temples you can visit in japan they're amazing they're gorgeous people go on

trips just to see them. So this is not how you discover truth. Jesus himself had no form or comeliness that we should desire him. He did not present himself as attractive as an evidence for him preaching or speaking truth. He warned about the Pharisees being whitewashed sepulchres. So it was what was inside. It was the doctrines. It was the beliefs. It was the actual relationship with God. That was the test, not the appearance. Okay, so that's one of the things that people look at. But...

They just get in awe. We did a trip to Israel one time, another quick story. And I remember my favorite thing was the Sea of Galilee. uh and was was actually walking around there on this undeveloped land around the sea of galilee where you're just walking on hills and you're like this could have been the hill where jesus gave the sermon on the mount you know or or the sermon on the plain or it could have been over here and just it was those

undeveloped areas that I actually thought was the coolest and I actually personally was not a big fan of planting churches everywhere and claiming this is where this happened and turning it into a tourist thing when they don't know i mean like how many churches in bethlehem are like we're we're the one we're the where jesus was born right here come here here's some souvenirs you can buy um

But when we got to Jerusalem and we went into this one amazing, beautiful church, there's this beautiful church there that's known. I don't remember the name of it, but it's known for having like these incredible acoustics. You know, I remember singing there and just it was just. Echoing, you know, billowing around. It was amazing. Beautiful. But one lady who was on a trip with us to Israel, I've been there twice. She gets into the...

building and all the stained glass. And she goes, now I feel like I'm in Israel. Now I feel like I'm in, like, I feel God here. And I just thought, I know what she's saying. I just don't think it's true. I don't think you've walked in and felt God. I think you were deeply impressed by the, the, the prettiness in the architecture, but that didn't make it true. It just doesn't work that way, you know? So.

Your mom probably drawn to some of those qualities, that structure as well. The main issue with the structure that you see in the Orthodox and the structure you see in the Catholic is that they're claiming it's from Jesus and the apostles and it's not.

That's the main issue that's there. There's a lot that's being said that they're just added on, add on, add on, add on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years and then tell everybody this is how it's always been, in which case you're usurping your authority.

over Christianity in a way that's not healthy. But ask your mom the gospel. Ask your mom the gospel. Be gracious with her. You're not trying to cause division exactly, but you care about... where she's at right now and the decisions she the decisions that she makes right now will impact her walk in the future and if you I would not encourage her to go to Orthodox Church I would I wouldn't want my mom going to one but

But if nothing else, try to keep her in scripture and try to keep conversations with her around scripture, because that's going to be the thing that helps her the most, I think. There's been my counsel on that. Number eight, Yakonobuo.

I don't know how to say that. Thank you for your ministry, Michael. Thank you. First Corinthians 13, 13 says love is greater than faith. So then why do we treat faith as more important for grand things like salvation? Ooh, I've got an answer for you, friend. First Corinthians 13, 13. Let's look at this passage. All right.

We got to get a little bit of context and then I'm going to answer why there's two different uses of the word faith. Okay, two different uses. And when you understand those two different uses, you'll understand why. I would say in some cases, faith is more important than saying that somebody is loving. And in other cases, it's not. You'll see in a second. Okay. So love never ends, right? I'll back up even more. All right. We'll start here with love is patient.

No, let's read the whole chapter. Okay. If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal, right? So I'm not helping anyone. If I have prophetic powers.

and understand all mysteries and all knowledge. And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I'm nothing. This is faith in the sense of miracle working, right? Doing wonderful, powerful things. This is not... the other kind of faith i'll discuss after reading the chapter so this is specifically like miracle working but have not love i am nothing if i give away all i have and i deliver up my body to be burned but have not love i gain nothing that's that's powerful

All my ministry doesn't matter if I'm not doing it in love. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It might insist on God's way, but not its... I'm not going to do it my own way. That's not what it's about. It's not irritable or resentful. I know that's one I got to deal with more. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things.

hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, The partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. That should be the theme for the current generation. I mean, honestly.

my generation that the last several generations need to remember this for now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face now i know in part but then i shall know fully even as i have been fully known so now faith hope and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. Okay, faith as in miraculous things. If you have faith like a mustard seed, you can say this mountain be cast down. That's the kind of faith we're talking about here. All right.

There's a different kind of faith. There's a different kind of faith that you are not hearing or seeing discussed in 1 Corinthians 13. And it's something you'll see in Jude. He says, beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I find it necessary to write. appealing to you, contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. The term, the faith, most often you'll hear this because it doesn't, if you have faith by itself, like, I have faith.

Or look at what a great man of faith. That's different than when you have the word faith and the word the in front of it. Okay, that's the simplest way. It's not always true, but it's the simple way to see it. The faith is different than faith. Faith is my strong belief in something. The faith. are the things I'm actually believing in. So I have strong belief in Jesus, but the faith is not my belief in Jesus. It's the fact that Jesus is God who came in the flesh.

who died on the cross for my sins, who rose from the dead, who ascended into heaven, and who will return for his people and to judge the earth. That's the faith. The faith is doctrine. The faith is theology. The faith is biblical truth. that is not being compared to love because that's not a thing you even do. I don't do the faith. I trust. I believe the faith I have.

faith in the faith, but this is why they're like separate categories. And I hope that that made sense. Let me, let me look at your question again and make sure I got it. Um, number eight, you said, Thank you for your ministry today. First Corinthians 13, 13 says love is greater than faith. So then why do we treat faith as more important for grand things like salvation? Right? So when you, um,

So you can have, let me say, if we're going to bring in the concept of the faith into 1 Corinthians 13, it would spoil the passage, to be honest, to change subjects like that. But if we did... that logically it would have to say something, and I'm not rewriting the Bible here. I'm just saying there's a logical, consistent view that we see in scripture. So that if you put it together, it would be something like, yeah, so these three remain faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.

But if you want to talk about the faith, as in the doctrines that we believe, of course, you could have all the perceived love in the world, but you're going to hell because you don't have the faith. But it spoils the passage because... True love loves God first and then loves others as yourself. And if I reject the faith, the doctrines of Christianity, I'm not actually loving God. So I can't put love against the faith. I can only separate love.

from belief, but not from the beliefs that I'm actually having. Because believing that God is good, that's part of loving him. Trusting in God is part of loving him. I hope that makes sense, yeah.

All right, number nine. Isaac Kieson says, my Muslim friend is willing to go through the Bible with me. Which books should I start with? Oh, wow. Yeah, someone who's done more on Islam would be better probably to ask than me, but you can always ask multiple people things, so I'd recommend you do that. I mean, the first book that came to my mind was Romans, but I wonder...

If you might want to start with one of the gospels instead. So Muslims are taught that Jesus is a Muslim, that he was a Muslim. And I know to a Christian that sounds wild, but they also teach that he is a prophet.

a great profit. And so I kind of, man, there's so many places you could go. Um, You could you could start in Genesis and you could show Abraham and then you Isaac and Jacob and stuff and that's gonna be a problem for Muslims because they they teach that it was Ishmael not Isaac so that's but that's

Not going to get the heart of it, right? The heart of it is ultimately going to come to Jesus. I would recommend you go through the gospel. Which one? Well, Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels and probably the most offensive to Muslims. Mark is...

quicker but it's also the ideas are so compact it's it's it's meant to be like thoroughly studied and you just quickly read it like it's the short one i'll read it quick it it's not the same like you need to study mark um luke is easy to track with john

is so clear on the deity of jesus and things like that from the very beginning um take your pick man take your pick you're i predict your muslim friend is going to say the bible's been corrupted and you're because what's going to happen is he's going to see that

even though he's been told you know jesus was muslim and the trinity is wrong and all this stuff you're gonna he's gonna see it in scripture so he's gonna the only recourse he can possibly have is to say it didn't always say that it's been corrupted So you on your own should start researching and looking into why the Bible has not been corrupted and how to answer that question toward a Muslim. So prepare yourself for that. But I would pick one of the gospels and I kind of.

Kind of think I would start with I Don't know maybe Luke Just my two cents. Yeah Share your guys' opinions or advice in the comments as well, if you have some suggestions for the brother here, or the sister, whoever this is. Number nine? Wait, yeah, that was number nine. So this is number 10.

Last question for today. Is it sinful for a Christian woman to wear makeup? Nothing too much, but makeup nonetheless. How about nail polish? I don't personally feel conviction, but I heard a Christian say she saw people in hell for it. I would say I'm less worried about your makeup and more worried about someone who says they saw people in hell for wearing makeup. That is, that person is, something's wrong with them. Almost guaranteed.

so we have to be open about this stuff because in the online world everybody who has trips to heaven and hell makes youtube channels and videos and puts stuff out there so you can't just ignore it it's better if we actually develop some discernment and we go

Okay, you don't have scripture to support this, right? You have a vision about who's in hell and why they were in hell. And I don't think that that Christian... knows what she's talking about and i would imagine she needs some pastoral help but because she's telling other people these things it has to be confronted you know um the there's a there's some passages where it says like let women adorn themselves um

Here, let's look at it. So, 1 Peter 3, verse 5. Okay. Actually, this is... Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I'll start with verse 1. Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands. And just a side note, I have a whole series of videos on women in ministry, and I talk about husbands and wives, and I go through all these passages.

And my encouragement for Western Christians especially is, even if you believe this right here, likewise wives, be submissive to your own husbands. If you believe it, but you find it somehow unsettling, it's because there's something in your worldview that's a little bit off. And I'd encourage you to study it more deeply. Maybe go watch the series of videos I did on women in ministry, where I want women in ministry, but I want it to be with the biblical bounds and limitations.

that god has prescribed because i'm not ashamed of what he's said even though we live in a very feminist culture that is totally backwards on this stuff all right It says that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. Okay, so now he's going to talk about like, what is a godly conduct for a wife? When they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear.

That's a healthy thing. Here's a different translation for you. Okay, I see what I did there. 1 Peter 3. This is ESV. I accidentally jumped to the New King James, which is fine. It's a good translation as well. when they see your respectful and pure conduct, then it says here, so you understand that fear is not a bad word in the Bible, but it's a bad word to us because we just get weird with words.

Do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear. So this is not... a complete prohibition on the things that are being listed here okay how do i know because the last one on the list is the clothing you wear and if the braiding of hair was completely wrong

and the putting on of gold jewelry was just completely as a blanket statement wrong, then it would mean that women couldn't wear clothes either. Ah, so what is he saying? He's saying, don't let your adorning be external. One of the dangers of being a pretty girl, you guys have seen this before, right? Is that you become a vapid girl.

A girl who lacks substance. Not all pretty girls are like this, but it does happen, right? And it's not just that they're pretty. It's that they're letting their adorning be external. The value I put in myself is in my external appearance. Let me put this in another way to reverse it.

One of the reasons why unattractive women are sometimes really upset about them not being very attractive is because they also are letting their adorning be external and they care too much about this. And that's why it bothers them so much. So that the pretty, the ugly, the mediocre or whatever you want to call it, like this is just, it's not that important. It's not that big of a deal. Physical attractiveness is nice, but it's not that big of a deal. It's like a guy who is short and...

He knows it doesn't matter that much. It's not that big of a deal. That's a good attitude to have. Oh, sure, I'd like to be tall, but I'm not. It's not that big of a deal. I'm not going to obsess over it or get all insecure about it. Who cares?

That's a healthier thing. So don't let your adorning be external as in one translation. I think it might be New King James says merely external. Yeah, merely outward to try to help emphasize. So yes, you can wear makeup, but just don't like go crazy with it.

because then you are putting too much emphasis on it. You can braid your hair, but the braiding of the hair then is like, they would do these really elaborate braids. They would weave gold into their hair at the time, historically speaking. And it was like a way of... trying to get status over other women. That's unhealthy. The competitive nature of female fashion is an unhealthy thing. The obsessive nature and really at the core, God wants you to care about your internal character.

not your external appearance as your primary value. What is, what is my value is my character, not my looks. Now I, as a Christian, if I walk around all disheveled, and I don't put any concern into my appearance at all, that can also reflect poorly upon me. So I think there's a balance here, right? There's something healthy about...

You get up and you shave. Well, I shave this or else I'll have a second beard growing out of my neck. You get up, you shave, you do that, you get your hair cut. These are healthy things. They're not the biggest thing in the world. But you're not getting your value from them, I think, is the balance. Because there's something so much more valuable than my outward appearance. And that's the stuff I really care about. Our culture really especially does this to women, I think.

teaches them to make their adorning external. And your adorning needs to be internal. I will adorn myself with kindness, with truthfulness, with courage, with love, with compassion. with selflessness, with thoughtfulness towards others, with hosting and taking care of other people and their needs, these will be the things I really adorn myself with. Not just my appearance. Get all dressed up and ready to go to the club.

There's a great verse for this in Proverbs. And it is... It talks about a pig. All right. Let's look at this first. Where can I find it? Like a ring in a pig's snout. So it's like a... Hold on, hold on, hold on. I know, Mike. Get your act together. Hold on.

let me find the verse for you real quick uh 11 22 proverbs 11 22 and it says like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion we're in a culture where um the more pop culture side of things like the celebrity women not all of them not all of them some of them are great right but the celebrity women and stuff the

the lack of discretion is considered an attribute but the bible suggesting that your lack of discretion your lack of knowing when to when to hold back or when to not do that or not say that or not put yourself out there in that particular way that that is better than your physical attractiveness. In fact, it's so much better that your physical attractiveness is like this gold ring, this really nice thing that's valuable, but you're a pig.

You're metaphorically, you're a pig if you lack discretion. So if we try to internalize that, that will be helpful for all of us. Let your character be your adorning. And for the single ladies that are out there, you will tend to attract the guy who is looking for the thing that you are actually putting out there. And so if you overemphasize your beauty, you know...

you're going to meet your match, the guy that's his value. If you emphasize your character, you're going to more likely meet a guy that's looking for that kind of character. Because I can't tell you how many girls I knew when I was younger and single. Who I thought she's beautiful. And then she'd be like, you know, just the character, the ungodliness, the lack of moral depth. Just not interested. Not interested. Anyway.

I'm rambling now. I should just be done. Learn to think biblically about this stuff. Yeah, makeup in moderation, I think, is the policy that's there. And I know that goes against a lot of stuff we see today, but that's okay.

That's okay. Scripture requires all of us to change quite a lot, quite a lot. So guys, here's a quick little update on the things I've been working on. I just did a podcast with the Bully Pulpit. I'm not super familiar with these guys, but we had a good... recording of the episode it'll it'll it'll go live soon i don't know i think it'll be this week this coming week i don't know maybe whenever it goes live i'll share it out on social media but it was part of just

I'm sticking my toes in the water dealing more openly with, and this is important that you understand this, with the same values and principles I've already had, just being more open about them and not worried about offending people when it comes to things that... are classically offensive now i'm talking about like i want to push more advocacy as christians being advocates in public spaces on things like abortion trans issues who to vote for

policies, like political stuff. I want to do a lot more of that. And I think that I should have done more in the past, but this has led to a number of people thinking I've never done it before. And Mike's new to this kind of thing. So I just want to clear the air on that real quick here at the end of my little rambling moment here at the end of this episode of the 10 questions. 10 years ago.

I did a four-part series on homosexuality. In that series, I did a secular case against homosexuality. I did a case that the American government should not make policies and laws that would encourage or support homosexual behaviors. 10 years ago. That's not new. I've talked about when to rebel against government when I was going through Romans. I discussed, at least to the best of my knowledge, principles on this years ago.

on when to rebel against government. We've talked about trans issues. We've talked about, I've mentioned some stuff with Biden and things like that, who is obviously very bad. And I've talked about this stuff openly. It was... Last year, I posted online that I thought a Christian to be, to be consistent. Now you can be a Christian and not do this, but I think the most consistent thing for a Christian to do would be to cast a vote for Donald Trump.

at potential risk to myself. I lost, I lose people to follow me or people even right now thinking I'm out of here, Mike. Why don't you just teach the Bible? I believe that what I'm doing is I'm trying to apply scripture into these areas that are very volatile and very hostile. And yep, there's dangers on the left and dangers on the right. Politically speaking, they're on both sides, but the dangers on the left are the imminent ones and the worst ones for the most part.

And the ones on the right are an internal discussion of those kinds of dangers. That's my current assessment of these things. And so what I want to do is I want to... I want to handle this well as I move forward into next year. I already know, and I have teaching on this, right? Those of you who followed me for a long time, you know, I've advocated for the death penalty as a Christian, because the Bible is very clear on this. I've done this.

It was years ago. I've been telling people that death penalty is biblical. We should push for it even in our government. Okay, so I've said this for a long time, that trans issues, homosexuality,

religious freedom things like there's things like that that i've discussed because they arise from my biblical commitments what i want to do that's a little different and this is going to take me like five or six months probably because i've i'll tell you what my plans are for the future i'll just tell you today um

it'll take five or six months because I have a lot going on right now. I'm still in the middle of these exposure videos and they're important and I'm going to keep doing them until I'm done. I was hoping to be done by the end of December. That doesn't look likely. I hope I can be done by the end of January.

There's too many other, too many videos I have to make still too many people to deal with. Then I'm going to set that issue aside and I'm going to move on to something else. I'm going to take a break next year for probably two months, like a sabbatical so I can write a book.

OK, so I'm under contract. I'm way behind the initial schedule. I need to just isolate myself and focus on that for a little bit. So I'm going to try to do that for about two months of just focused time doing that stuff. Then when I come back. I want to dive deep on all these other issues. I'm going to start teaching through Hebrews, of course, when I get back from the book writing stuff. I'm going to finish teaching through Hebrews. I already started. But I'm also side project.

going to be working hard on the all the political stuff just like i grabbed women in ministry and i did an extensive thing on it or i've grabbed you know i did four-part series on catholicism or on homosexuality or on evidence for the bible i take these topics and do deep dives

I want to do a deep dive understanding for at least myself, however many videos I make on it, I don't know. What is a thorough biblical view of government? What God requires of all governments? What God expects of Christians as citizens of governments? And a really interesting question. If Christians had the reins of any particular government, what would they be biblically required to try to do with that government? Like if you could change it.

And you could make your ideal most biblical government. What would that look like? This is a question I don't actually know the answer to. And so I'm going to try and figure that out. And then I'll share.

with you guys as we go. And I'm almost sure, I'm almost certain there's going to be a lot more gray than there is black and white on this particular topic. As far as like structure of government, the powers of the government, the limits of the government, some of these things, there's just going to be... probably hey you know christianity is not meant to run governments it's meant to be salt and light wherever we go and so it's a mission thing but but i don't know i don't know

You've got, for instance, scriptures like when Jonah went to Nineveh, the king of Nineveh, he commands his people to repent towards the true God. He sends an edict out. You guys all repent to the true God. This is a political edict. about repentance and fasting towards God. And it's seen as a good thing from the leader of the country, the city. And then you've got...

Daniel. The book of Daniel has multiple examples of this. Edicts going out. I, Nebuchadnezzar, declare everyone bow down to the God of Daniel. And this is seen as a positive thing. But then you've got the rebellion against government.

multiple many times in scripture um where they follow conscience and they follow god over government 100 you have the apostles like hey well you can do what you want to us but we have to obey god not man um and you have than jesus saying my kingdom is not of this world otherwise my servants would fight and i have opinions about a lot of this stuff but how to put it all together

Like how to answer questions like on specific policies or where we are in the moment. How should I vote as a Christian right now? I've got answers to those questions in a large part, but what I don't have is a thorough, solid, deep. grounding understanding of what exactly is my theology of government in a more thorough fashion. Like if I was to build it from scratch, which I'm not. Okay. But hypothetically, if I was to rebuild government from scratch as a Christian,

would scripture give me guidance onto what that government is supposed to look like? Or would it just be topical? Do justice, terrorize the wicked, right? Protect the oppressed. Would it just be that? And then I don't know. a bunch of other stuff anyway I have a hundred thousand questions about this stuff and I don't know all the answers so I'm diving in but it's going to be months it's going to be months you'll be like oh yeah you were doing that by the time I'm actually really

able to give you guys conclusions on this stuff. At least my conclusions for you to think about and decide if you accept, reject, approve, disapprove. That'll be up to you. I just present information. I like that my audience thinks. Think for yourself.

Pretty much all of you can think of something you disagree with me on, and I think that's healthy. I think that's a good thing. Maybe you disagree with me on this, but that's where I'm going. I'm not trying to sign up for anybody's club. I want to, even like wearing this shirt. You think, okay, so Mike agrees with whatever TPUSA does. If you know me, you wouldn't say that. So we'll see where it goes from here. I'm just trying to, though.

think biblically about everything. And what I do in this ministry is we often pick one particular topic or issue, like women in ministry. It took two years doing that because it was so needful in the culture and in our communities. Churches needed it. People needed it.

I did a deep dive on the topic of divorce and remarriage. That was topical, but it was a deep dive and scholarship and everything because people need it. And you know what people need? A real understanding of how to handle themselves in government. And I don't just mean America. I mean...

You're a Christian in communist China. What are you supposed to do in interacting with your government? Let's suppose you're a Christian. Let's suppose the leader of North Korea gets saved. What is he supposed to do with his new power? or his power, he already has. But now that he's a Christian, how is he supposed to direct and change the government? I don't know all the answers. I know some, right? Stop killing people for being Christians. That's the one thing you could do. But I wouldn't know.

how to answer those questions. And I'm sure others have probably answered this and answered it well, but I'm going to take time and ponder it for several months. And then I'll come back. and try to give you guys more answers. In the meantime, I'm just going to stick my foot into different situations trying to be more active out in public, like maybe go to a college campus and talk to students and maybe get some videos out of that to show you guys.

make a difference in the world. I'm going to, I'm going to do more. You'll see me being more active, but in behind the scenes, I'm also going to be working on what is my theology of government exactly? Because everybody's debating this, whether you know it or not.

And the answer, the way we answer this question has really strong implications for the future of the United States and coalitions that might actually be Christian and have an impact or destructive impact because a lot of people are going up.

going real wild right now. So yeah, give me some time to think it through and I'll come back with more info. So that's it. There's kind of an update. Let's pray. Father, we ask for wisdom for all of us, Lord. I'm not the... the ultimate answer for whatever's going on but but i pray that you'd help me get good answers and bring them to others and we pray that other people other other men especially would would really rise up with be strong voices for what uh

what a thorough Christian view of government and our involvement should be. And it would be so clear and so right that it would be the kind of thing that a Christian could apply whether they are in communist China or in Zimbabwe or if they're in Nigeria being slaughtered by Muslims.

Um, if they're in government, there's a leader of North Korea and they get saved. Like they would know how to apply all these things. Uh, may that become more clear and may the voices who do have wisdom on that get more loud. We pray that we would all be able to hear them better in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. That's it. I'm done.