Discussing Abortion - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
All right, so if you are not aware, January in the Christian world, more so, is known as, "Sanctity of human life month." There's a particular Sunday where we celebrate it in churches. This year's January 23rd. So be aware of that, just something that we can celebrate, and share the truth of God's love for all people. So this morning we got some questions that came through on this topic and I'm sure to some degree, it's a touchy topic for many people and probably some would disagree, but we want to do something a little bit different this morning. But in leading up to what we're gonna do, I just wanted to share a couple of, or a few of these questions that came out and then, have a little bit of discussion time. And we're gonna read some scripture as well. So first, "Does the Bible say anything about abortion?" And secondly, since we just celebrated Christmas, consider where we would be, if Mary had aborted the savior. And then thirdly, "Is God pro-life or pro-abortion? So obviously, some pretty, pretty deep questions, if we really start to consider them. And we're gonna get into some discussion, but first we wanted to, as we come to the close of this year and the beginning of a new year, we thought of a scripture fitting kind of around this, but also maybe a breath of fresh air.

Gary Schick
Yeah, we both turned to it together. I'm like, "I'm thinking let's read Psalm 1:39," and you're like, "I just opened to that." Which is really, if you're talking the life question. You know, the sanctity, the holiness, the preciousness of life from the womb. This is the chapters. But it's also a great place to end the year and begin the year.

Ben Poole
Yes, I agree. So Gary, why don't you start us off?

Gary Schick
Yeah, I'll take the first half, and then you take the second. Psalm 139, for the director of music of David, a Psalm, "Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me, you know, when I sit and when I rise, you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down, you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely oh Lord. You hem me in behind and before, you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, to lofty for me to attain, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the Dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there, your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you. The night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to you."

Ben Poole
Man, that first half is beautiful. Just amazing. So we're gonna start in verse 13 and close out this chapter, "For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts oh God. How vast is the sum of them? Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I wake, I am still with you. If only you would slay the wicked, oh God. Away from me you blood thirsty men. They speak of you with evil intent, your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you oh Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them, I count them my enemies. Search me oh God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." That's a beautiful Psalm and really listening to David's heart here is just so pure and raw. And I remember actually just reading this, we actually talked about kind of that last bit of that chapter a while ago, addressing that issue. But what you see is this, I mean, David was called a man after God's own heart. Even in his sinfulness, even in his struggles, he had this amazing relationship with God. And he talks about this idea of life and creation of life. And it's not simply science that builds a human in a womb, it's God knitting us together. It is knowing our life from beginning to end before the beginning happens. And so we see this really beautiful picture, I see, of a God who loves life.

Gary Schick
Yeah, and God's connection to life from beginning to end. I mean, the beautiful part of the beginning about, "You know, no matter where I am. You know, I could go to the far side of the sea, no matter where I go you're there, you are with me. Your eye is on me and was with me and on me from the time you were putting me together in the womb Lord." And I think that these are verses that, for the pro life movement, have been significant in our understanding of what life is, where it begins and how precious each of us are. And what makes it great for this moment at the end of this year, as we move into the next is just to say to our listeners, "Hey, don't know where this year has brought you in your personal life, but just know this, you are under a watchful and loving eye. The Lord who formed you in the womb, you are precious to Him. And He's there, He's carrying us through."

Ben Poole
Yeah, you know, we were talking before this. There's a lot of talk, especially now, even in the last years about abortion. And almost this fight between pro-life and pro-choice, and it's easy to get into a fight, it's easy when you believe your right to argue your point. I've struggled with this myself, cause I believe we should be pro-life and I enjoy arguing, but I've also learned that, we're not gonna lead people to Christ by arguing with them. We're gonna lead them to Christ by loving them. I met a guy who was part of a Christian organization, and was leading this huge event. And he was talking about his wife who worked at a pregnancy center that was pro-life, and it was right down the street from an abortion clinic. And a lot of people were picketing and standing outside and yelling at the women that were going in, and really claiming to be Christians, but not really showing the love of Christ. And this guy's wife decided one day, she had this heart for these women. She bought dozens of roses and she walked over there and just started handing out flowers to these women that were there. Telling them that she loved them, that God loves them, and not preaching at them, not beating them over with scripture or telling them their sinning or anything like that. She just wanted to love them, and through that women came over to the pregnancy center and made different decisions to have their children. And so I believe simply from what we just read. Among all the other things, God is absolutely pro life, He creates life.

Gary Schick
Life is what He does.

Ben Poole
That's what He does, that's who He is, He is light and life. And so I think we can come to that conclusion, but that does not mean that He's absolutely against those who are making decisions, because guess what I make sinful decisions too. And He's not against me, He is for me. And so I think that needs to be the heart of the Christian. As we come to this time of year, as we close out this year, we are people of life and light because we are followers of Christ. And Jesus didn't come just for the good people. He didn't come for the people who were righteous and holy already. He came for the sick and the needy and to call sinners to repentance. And that should be our heart's desire as Christians, is to love these people, no matter what they're going through. You know, we're talking about abortion okay, but that's a broad stroke that we can cast, is we are to love people, period. That's who we are, it's not our job to judge the world, that's already taken place. They're living in judgment, it's our obligation and our privilege to love the lost. And this is a month where we celebrate life. Maybe we can do that in a way where we take steps that may be different than what we've ever done before. By loving people in the mess they're in and sharing the gospel of Jesus.

Gary Schick
I one hundred percent agree. You know, it's been a grimier in certain ways. I think we're coming up on, who knows maybe by the time this broadcast will have crossed it, a million people having died of COVID. But you know, many more than that die of abortion. Abortion's the leading killer in this country, and if only that got the airplay that COVID has, right? So it's a tough subject, life is precious and of course it stirs deep feelings. And of course we understand that those who feel motivated to move toward abortion are, just by definition, they're in a tough place. But truly, God's love has a power to change minds, to move decisions in a new direction. And in fact, as we close out the year, as precious as biological life is, it is absolutely, Jesus came that we might have eternal life. And listeners, you are alive, you were born and you've made some terrible mistakes and you've gotten some things right. But you are like all of us, a sinner who Jesus died to save. You know, and you mentioned, Jesus, didn't just come for the good people. Good thing, cause we're not, we are all sinners in God's eyes. He is the good one, He is the one who is good. And yet He in His goodness, loves us right where we are regardless. That's the other side of it. We need to let people know, who are on the other side of this debate, that they are loved too and that their lives matter too. And it seems so obvious to me, to those of us on the pro-life side, "Hey, if I'm in a body, I know how precious that is. How could I ever take it on myself to deny another living person?" As Dr. Seuss would say, "No matter how small, a person's a person, no matter how small." But obviously there's a lot of blindness and darkness in this world, and God's love is what starts to open us up to even be able to hear His truth.

Ben Poole
Yeah, one hundred percent. We know that there's probably listeners that maybe have had an abortion. Maybe even considering it, or maybe you're in a situation where you ended up pregnant and you, from whatever happened, we want you to know that we love you. And God loves you no matter what, even if you've made that choice, you are not so far from God that you cannot be loved and given grace and mercy. And so we're actually gonna continue this conversation a little bit next week. Cause there's some other questions that come up that I think are really great questions. And maybe something that some of you, or you know someone that's struggling with this about, "Can I be saved after making this decision? Where do I stand with God?" So we want to give you some hope and some reason for joy, even in this situation and even in this topic. We know that sometimes we say things that we don't mean or are heard a different way. And so if you ever have questions about this or where we stand on this, feel free to reach out to us and just ask those questions. You can call into the radio station, you can ask the questions it's completely anonymous and we would love to answer those questions.

Who Were The Magi? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
All right, so our question this morning, or questions, I guess.

Gary Schick
There's about three of them here.

Ben Poole
Yeah, "Regarding the magi, who were they? When did they arrive in Bethlehem? Shortly after the shepherds or much later? If much later, why were Mary and Joseph still there and not back home in Nazareth?" So I know there's a lot of thoughts on this, and a lot of different interpretations on what happened and when it happened. And so, yeah, Gary, why don't you just kind of open us up with some thoughts?

Gary Schick
What a great topic for Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas, everyone. Yeah, so the magi, and they're such an intriguing topic, aren't they? I think we always want to know more about the magi and about the star and all of those things. In terms of, who were they, you know, if you watch the movies, I think, Jesus of Nazareth comes to my mind. You would kind of get the idea that they sort of met on the way from the three different corners of the globe. One from the east, one from Europe, one from Africa, and coming together and sort of finding their way to Jerusalem from some place like that. But really, most likely I think they probably came together from a location, because it specifically says that they came, you know, from the east. And I believe in that time there kind of, I guess what you almost might call a cast of priest, philosophers, magicians among the ancient Persians. May have been just kind of a phrase in general for such holy men or sages, philosophers, wise men, we might call them. And while their country isn't named specifically, you know, they state, when they get to Jerusalem, "We saw His star in the east." And I think we interpret that to mean, from the east, you know and, "We've traveled west to find Him." So Persia, Babylon, these would've been starting points and I think there's often even some thought that Daniel, as one of the wise men of the Babylonian empire, was kind of at the source of these people. But regardless of exactly who they were, you know, I think many Christmas cards that we've seen over the years sum it up well, "Wise men sought Him then wise men seek Him still." It's of course assumed that they were three, but that's because of the three gifts they brought: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. I mean, the scripture actually only tells us more than once, it could have been two, it could have been 20. But the point is again, not only that they were wise, but they also were representative. Whether they came from one place or----many of us Gentiles, people from the outside. Who, one way or another God alerted to come seeking the one who would be born king and to worship before Him. And I just kind of wonder if when they got there and kind of figured things out, they began to realize just what a special king they had come to. It wasn't that the king inherits palace that they were to find. Then of course, there's this question about when did they get there? And again, if you look at our nativity scenes, it's obvious, everybody showed up the first night. You know, there was a star hanging there, there were angels in the breeze and there were shepherds and wise men, and that fits really nicely at our little nativity sets and scenes. Of course, if you follow the traditional days, it's given that the wise men show up around what, January 6th, which I don't know about in your house, and in your church, but we are pretty much done with the Christmas carols and the Christmas decorations are down by then. So, but how do we know? Well, Luke's gospel is real specific, there was no room in the Inn, Jesus is born in a manger. Probably some kind of a cave-like structure just outside of the Inn or outside of town. But by the time the wise men come, or the magi come in Matthew chapter 2, they find Mary, Joseph and the child in a house. And so that's kind of our indication as to why, there's a period of time lapsing here. Also, although Herod doesn't actually ever hear directly back from the wise men after they've seen Jesus, he does know based on when they saw the star, to kind of figure something under two years old. Now in a way, that's a little bit unhelpful because does the star appear at the time of His birth and that's when they begin their journey or did the star come ahead of time and kind of provide? I mean, they could have showed up the same night as the shepherds, other than the fact that there's kind of these, these two statements. One, "He's born in a manger or placed in a manger and found by the magi in a house," which to me would indicate that they stuck around. And then the third question, "Well why don't they go right back to Nazareth, you know, family, friends, home?" Well, you've got to remember, they didn't have car seats for camels and donkeys in those days, you know what I mean. Traveling with an infant would've been difficult, and so it would just kind of make sense that once Mary and Joseph, and he had a very, he had a trade that he could practice anywhere, he was a carpenter. That they would kind of settle down until forced to flee by Herod's hunt for the baby. And of course, that's exactly what the scripture tells us happened.

Ben Poole
Yeah, that's really great information. And I know that, just reading up on it, there's so many different thoughts on the timeline. And I think that we can easily get caught up in those. I was just actually looking up approximately how far it is to walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And per Google, where all good things are found, obviously, it looks like about 31 hours of walking. So I know my wife had a baby a little over a year ago, I can tell you, she would not be in a rush to be walking 31 hours back home if that was the option. So I think that they probably stuck around and really invested in the health of baby Jesus, learning to be a family. Learning this new dynamic, because you gotta remember this, we see these beautiful portrayals of the manger scene and how beautiful it was. And having a baby is one of the most beautiful experiences ever, in my opinion, but it was still real life. It was still very real in changing diapers, and however they did that, whether it was cloth and hopefully some clean water and things like that. I mean, it was still very real, Mary had to heal after giving birth. I mean, it was real, it was messy, it was having a baby in a barn. I mean, just consider what that would've been like. And so, but going back to the magi, I think that I've looked into this and again, still a lot of theories on who these people were. Obviously were of wealth to some degree having Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.

Gary Schick
Pricey gifts.

Ben Poole
Pricey gifts, which they also say probably helped take them into Egypt and to cover expenses and to give them a livelihood while they were on the run. But thinking about these guys, these Magi, whether they were simply just wise men, or even some say they were magicians, some have even said they were Kings themselves, they were royalty. And I really like that picture, and I'm not sure we can totally say one way or another, but I think the picture there is beautiful, nonetheless. That these grown men, full of wisdom and wealth and probably power, chose to follow this star to find a baby. I love my baby boy, but it would be super weird if someone came and bowed down in worship of a baby. But something in them knew this is someone different. This is someone worthy of our worship, this young child, whether he was a few days old or he was two years old. That they would come and bow down and worship a baby is powerful to me. What we know on the other side of this story, we know who Jesus is, we know the story, we know the outcome, we know why He came, but these guys followed a star. Knowing what the old scriptures had taught, that the baby would be born in Bethlehem and He would be the king of the Jews and they showed up in worship of Him. And I think it is just humbling, I guess, to me, to know that this is something powerful that maybe we forget sometimes. You know, we celebrate Christmas and we get a lot of different ideas and, in our culture, especially, you know, we get really wrapped up in consumerism and shopping and gifts and all these little things. And not that we're not taking our eyes off of Jesus, but I think the importance of why He came. I talked a little bit in my sermon on Sunday that, one thing that we have really ingrained as Christians is to help kind of keep our focus as "Jesus is the reason for the season." We hear that a lot, and I kind of challenged my church to say, "That's part of it." That's part, He's part of the reason for the season. But as we know what scripture teaches, Jesus didn't come for Himself. He came for you and me to be our savior. And so really, when we look at this from the magi coming, from Mary being obedient, to Joseph having to make a hard choice to even stay with her, all of these things, the point comes back to is, Jesus lives His life. As He goes to the cross, as He's resurrected from the dead, what changes is, Jesus isn't so much the reason for the season; you are. You're the reason for the season, you're the reason Jesus came to live among sinful people. And it is our opportunity and privilege and a great blessing that we can bring our gifts to Jesus. We can give our life to Jesus, we can give our worship to Jesus as our king.

Gary Schick
Amen. Give them the best we have, like they did.

Ben Poole
Yeah. And that's really what we're called to do, is to lay everything at the feet of Jesus, our life, our worship. And essentially we're to give up the promise of our salvation to Him and placing our eternity in His hands. And we get to live that out. And that's really what I think the world needs to hear. There's a lot that went on and a lot of hard things you think about. Herod and the decree he sent out. "Okay, I don't want to lose my place, and if I hear of another king coming up, baby or not, I want him dead." And you think about the pain and the suffering that ensued from that point on, for some time. And thank God, He has a greater plan than even a king on earth can do. And so we get the privilege to worship a living king for all of eternity.

Gary Schick
Well and you know, you talked about the hardness of life. You know, it could have been, I mean, we know the hard choice Joseph made. Maybe, you know, town in Nazareth didn't have that information, but they probably knew Mary was pregnant. And you'll notice that even when they do go back home, they only ultimately go back to Nazareth because they hear a son of Herod is in place. And so they decide not to be so close to Jerusalem and so forth, but you know, it could be, they were just kinda waiting for the gossip to die down. Even you know, as Jesus is an adult later, you know, isn't this Mary's son, you know, aren't His brothers, "And wait Mary's son?" They knew it's part of the story, they didn't know the whole story. And boy, that's the tragedy. As Christmas approaches the world still doesn't know the whole story. This is the son of God who came for us, came for you my listening friends. I hope that you receive the gift of Christ above all this Christmas.

How Do We Know Christ's Incarnation Is True? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Tim Hebbert
We're gonna jump into a Christmas question this week. This is the question, "During the Christmas season, there is a lot of mention of the incarnation. How do we know it's true, and is that really so important to be included in the Christmas story for us today?" And I guess I would answer, yes, to that second question. But, so what is the incarnation? Let's start there. The incarnation, I'll give you the definition of it, the proper definition from a biblical dictionary, "The act of grace whereby Christ took our human nature into union with divine person and became man. Christ is both God and man. Human attributes and actions are predicated of Him, and He of whom they are predicated is God. A divine person was united to a human nature. The union is hypostatical or is personal; the two natures are not mixed or confounded. And that confounded, I would say, or confusing, and it is perpetual." A simpler definition would be, that the God of the universe came into the world and took on human flesh. You know, Brad, as I was working through that, I remember one of our topics, one of the days, probably been five, six months ago. And you were the one that probably for the very first time got me to really think about this. Now when Jesus was resurrected, He was resurrected in bodily form again, and then He ascended into heaven and He took that bodily form with Him. Now that bodily form is not the same as what we have here. It doesn't age, it's not susceptible to anything, but He still bears all of the scars. I think, I agree with what you'd said that day, of what He went through for us at the cross of Calvary. So when He returns, we're gonna see those nail scar hands. We're gonna see the scars of the crown of thorns on His head and all those things. So as we walk through this today folks, I'd just ask you to think in those terms. There's a few passages I wanna share with you that the scripture talks about, "The divine Jesus coming in the form of man." The first one is probably the most obvious to all of us, and that's the first chapter of the gospel of John, verse 14 "And the word," capital W referring to Jesus, "Became flesh and dwelled among us. And we have seen His glory, glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth." The second chapter of the book of Hebrews, the writer says this, starting with verse 11, "Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. He says, I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters in the assembly, I will sing your praises. And again, I will put my trust in Him. And again, He says, here I am and the children God has given me. Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity. So that by His death, He might break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is the devil." And one last passage, and this is from the Old Testament. This is one that any Christian that's gone to a Christmas Eve service has heard this passage. Isaiah chapter nine, and I'm just gonna read verse six, "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders. And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace." So Brad, how do we know it's true that Jesus was fully God and fully man?

Brad Kilthau
Well, that passage you just quoted from Isaiah, of course, that one's the classic one, talking about the incarnation. The first part talks about His humanity, and then it goes on into His deity and what His plans are in the future. But I think another way we can look at this is, to know that Jesus was fully God and fully man, is you separate the two, was Jesus fully God? You go to the classic passage that you would normally be in during the Christmas season and the gospels, and in Matthew 1:1-17 you got this whole long list of how 'A' begot 'B'. It's one of those lists that we usually skip over, cause we don't wanna try to stumble through the names. But when you get verse 18, you find there's a record account of a birth without a human father. And you find that Matthew carefully guarded the fact that Jesus was born of a virgin. He takes out the whole genealogical table of the Lord and he states when he gets to Mary, that Jesus was only born of Mary. In fact, in chapter one, verse 16, it has the words, "of whom," a pronoun, "of whom." And that indicates clearly in the original language that Mary only, not Mary and Joseph, was the one that had Jesus. And so the fact that Jesus was born only of a Virgin, that's very clearly showing that He is truly God. And then I think another one that's kind of clear that we often forget about is the betrothal between Mary and Joseph. I think that's very important in this miraculous event, because as we know during betrothal period, a man and a woman were, what we would call today, engaged. But to them it was a lot more serious than an engagement. In fact, to break off the betrothal there would have to be a creed of divorce to make that happen. And so also during that period of time, which sometimes is almost a year in length, the couple, the man and the woman could not come together sexually. And if they did, it was actually considered an act of adultery and it could even mean death, it was that serious. And so that tells you, there's not something secret going on here of Mary sneaking off with Joseph or something of that sort. This was a serious thing in that culture, in that day and time, the betrothal period. And so yes, when you look into scripture, it was the holy spirit who came upon Mary during that time. And the Bible says, "Came upon her and placed the son of God, the Messiah in her womb." And we know that even though a lot of people probably mocked it in that day, I mean if they saw a pregnant girl walking around, they would say, "You know, well, she did this, she sinned or whatever." And we know even Joseph didn't believe it to start with until an angel appeared to him in a dream that it was the miraculous work of the holy spirit to bring about the incarnation.

And I think we need to be paying attention to the angel of the Lord when he revealed to Joseph that this son or this child inside of Mary was God Himself. There's something clear in the angel's message, because the angel told Joseph the sex of the baby, the name of the baby and the mission that the baby would carry out. And then of course on this side of things, we can look back and see exactly that was the truth. The baby was a male baby, His name, as we would say it in our language, Jesus, and His mission was fully carried out and that is to save His people from their sin. And so it was a spiritual work, it wasn't of a human father to bring about this conception. Something that never happened in the history of man, something that'll never happen again in the history of man. Jesus was born, He was fully God, and He was always God. As it says in Micah 5:2, "He is of the everlasting," as we look in that passage of scripture. So Jesus' personhood didn't start through this miraculous work of the holy spirit, when Jesus was born here on the earth. The Bible tells us clearly that He existed from eternity past. Absolutely He did, as we know, Jesus created the world that He was born into, when we studied that through the scriptures. And then you can look at the life of Jesus to see that He's fully God. The miracles that He performed when He empowered His disciples to do miracles; the transfiguration. And then you think about raising Himself back to life after the death on the cross. You think about His ascension up into heaven before eye witnesses. Definitely, He absolutely is God. And then the question is, "Okay, so maybe He's fully God, but can He be fully man?" Well, you got to keep in mind, He had a human mother, Mary, which produced a Mary substance, a complete human in nature, a body, soul, and spirit. And in knowing this, we can stand why the angel and his conversation to Mary described the one who being born, as the holy one. And I guess when you study that in the original language, the holy one in Luke 1:35, it indicates that Jesus was supernaturally conceived and Mary gave birth to Him as a human being. But Mary did not give Him His personhood and did not give Him His divine nature. So He was born as a human, He was a male child, but He already existed as the second person of the Trinity. I guess I just need to say that to you guys, because when we're thinking about this broadcast, I know that there are some who have had the thought that Mary is the mother of God. And that's been said often, and that is totally not true. Jesus existed in eternity passed and He existed way before Mary was ever born. Also some of the humanity things of Jesus: He shed tears, He felt real pain, hunger, and thirst during that time of temptation in the wilderness. He ran out of human strength, just like you and I would, He grew from a little baby to being a boy, to being a man. People could feel Him, they could touch Him, they could embrace Him. In fact, He was even able to be beaten, as we know, as He went to the cross and murdered and butchered and hung on a cross, that's got to have a human body for that to happen. So, Gary what are your thoughts on the incarnation?

Gary Hashley
Well, the part of the question that I was asked to think about and prepare for is, "What does the incarnation do for us today?" Brad, you hit on a very good point, Bethlehem isn't where Jesus started. Jesus has always been who He was, the second member of the Trinity from eternity passed, but He became flesh incarnation. If you go to the store, you buy Chili Con Carne, Chili with meat, Chili with flesh. Incarnation; Jesus took flesh to dwell among us and John, one of the disciples, writing in 1 John about Jesus, says, "We've heard, we've seen, we've looked upon, our hands have handled." And he's talking about Jesus that, "We heard Him speak, we saw Him with our eyes, we looked upon Him, we actually touched Him because He was real. He had a real human body, He always had been the spirit. The second member of the Trinity, He became flesh to dwell among us," John says. And the question is, "Well, what does that do for us today?" Well, I sat down and came up with five quick thoughts. One is, if Jesus really became a man while still being God, we talked about that, but if He really became a man, we can know God in a personal way. Because just as the disciples talked with Him and laughed with Him and ate with Him and walked with Him, we have in Jesus, one, we can know God who is spirit, but we can know Him in a personal way. The daily bread back in 2006 included, "God can exact nothing from man that He's not exacted from Himself. He has Himself, gone through the whole of human experience. From the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money, to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty, died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile." Through Jesus we can know God, in fact we can't know God without Jesus. He said, "I'm the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but by me," so we can know God in a personal way and we can know that God understands our every need. Hebrews 2 talks about the fact that He suffered, and He's able to help those who are being tempted. He's able to help us in our need because He became one of us, just without sin. But He had every other attribute of humanity that we have, Brad talked about it: He got hungry, He got thirsty, He got tired He ate, He slept. So yeah, He understands our every need, He knows what it is to be tired. He knows what it is to be hungry, He knows what it is to have people walk away and feeling lonely. The third is, we have a helper for our every need. Hebrews 4 talks about the high priest, talking about Jesus, and says, "In Him, we can find grace to help in time of need." He's always there to help because He came to be among us and to be one of us. And we can know that He can help us in our time of need. The fourth one is, we have a perfect atonement for our sins. It says in 1 Peter, "He bore our sins in His body on the tree," He could not give His flesh for us if He didn't have flesh, and He could not give His blood for us, if He didn't have blood. And if He wasn't incarnated, if He hadn't left heaven to come to this earth and become flesh, there'd been no flesh and there'd been no blood to give for the atonement for our sins. And then lastly, we have a model to live our life after, 1 Peter 2 talks about Jesus and says, "He left us an example so that we might walk and follow in His steps." So because Jesus came, we can know God in a personal way. We can know that He understands our needs, He's there to help when we have needs. He's the perfect atonement for our sins, and we have a model to live our life. And all of that is part of the wonder of the fact that Jesus was born.

Discussing Great Hymns of the Faith; "O Come All Ye Faithfull" - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Mike Clement, David Clement and Michael Gleb.

Mike Clement
We've been looking at some of the hymns that are more familiar, they're older hymns, and they've passed the test of time. And I picked out one for us to look at today, it's a Christmas hymn. This is, you know, the end of November, we're coming up on Christmas. And, you know, years ago we had a lady that came, actually it was a woman and her daughter. And they played the Vibraharp, the Marimba and piano, they had all kinds of neat stuff. And they said they were from the Seattle area and they were hired by shopping malls to play Christmas music. And the comment was made, because Christmas music is not allowed in public schools any longer, many people miss the Christmas music. And they were hired just to play music in the malls, it was kind of interesting. Anyway, the hymn that we're gonna look at is, Oh, Come All Ye Faithful. And we were talking a little bit about the fact that a lot of hymns have good rich theology, and that was something that the hymn writers used to really focus on. It wasn't just to sell song, and it wasn't just to become popular. They wanted to communicate a message, and they wanted that message to be a biblical message. And there's a line in here every time I sing it, it kind of gets me, and now I gotta find it. It's in the second stanza, the second stanza says, "God of God and light of light begotten, low He abhors not the virgins womb." And there's a fascinating concept that, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ was the second person of the Trinity, the creator of heaven and earth, and in the book of Hebrews, it says, "He humbled Himself and became obedient even to the death of a cross." But He humbled Himself to actually be in the womb of Mary, and that's just an incredible thought. And then it goes on, it says, "A very God begotten not created." There are those that reject the full deity of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the idea that Jesus is equal with God, the father, and equal with God, the son. In fact, we had a lady in our church who went on a vacation with some of her sisters, they're all grown. She said they were on the beach in California and one of them turned to her and said, "Sandy, you go to church, don't you?" She said, "Yeah, I do." And the gal said, "Did you know that Jesus was God?" And Sandy said, "Uh, yes, I did." She said, "Well, I knew He was good, and I knew He taught things. I knew He healed people, but I didn't know He was, God, I just found that out. And there are some people that reject the full deity of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And those that do, oftentimes will use the phrase that we find in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son," and they kind of hang on that. See, Jesus was begotten, He was created, and so He was not eternal and He was not God. Now that term begotten, is not talking about origin, that is a position, that is a designation that, begotten. In one of the Psalms, it says that the father declared Him to be the begotten, He made Him the begotten. And so, this actually is underlying the full deity of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He was not created, He was begotten, He was declared to be the Son of God. So this is a great Christmas hymn, any thoughts on that guys?

Michael Gleb
You know, a great deal of Jesus' ministry was convincing people that He was God. I mean, honestly, you go look at the life of Christ, and I spent time when I first got to Torrington Baptist, just going over the life of Christ and miracles and His travels. I'm forgetting the other things, but I spent a great deal of time in some of those important passages. And it struck me that He just spent a great deal of time convincing the Pharisees, Sadducees, and others that were lost that He was His own personal deity. And so yeah, I mean, not created, not a created being like you and I are. And by the way, in Genesis, we know full well in the account of the creation, and there's a plurality there that's mentioned, I can't remember what verse, I don't have it in front of me.

Mike Clement
There's a number of places right in the beginning. "Let us make man in our own image"

Michael Gleb
That's right, "Let us make man," yeah, absolutely. But that's one of the things that struck me about the life of Christ, was when I was going back and somebody had asked me, a while back, what would I teach somebody that's struggling with salvation? And I think I had mentioned that because it was heavy on my heart and I was thinking about it and maybe even preaching through it was, that Jesus is God. I don't know why I said that at the moment, but there was some other reasons.

David Clement
Good, yeah. Well, interesting thing, you know, oftentimes when we think about this song, when we sing this song, we kind of get the idea of being on the hillside. Maybe with the shepherds and the beckoning that we feel, but really the angels didn't beckon the shepherds to go. It was the shepherds that said, "Come let us go, even unto Bethlehem and see this thing, which the Lord has made known unto us." You know, but the idea that we kind of get that picture in our mind as we sing the song of the Bethlehem, Jesus being born there and being invited to go and worship Him. We maybe even think of the wise men that came. But anyhow, the invitation is to us today still, you know, we're not in the first century, we're not in Bethlehem. But the invitation is not to literal Bethlehem, not to the birthplace of Christ but the idea of, what did Christ come for again? You know, and really when you take the time to sit down and look at good hymns of the faith, if you would. Whether it's a Christmas hymn like this is, getting you in the holiday spirit, whether it's like some of the other ones that we've talked about, you see the plan of salvation laid out. You see the truth of God's word intermingled throughout the whole hymn and that's where you see where the power of these hymns come from. Is the fact that they do have rich doctrine in them, they do have the word of God interwound in throughout the stanzas and the choruses of the song. And so that's where they get their validity, if you would. But just this invitation, not just for them, not just for those shepherds, not just for the people at that time, but it's true to us today. The idea of, come, let us adore Him, let us worship Him as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Mike Clement
In most hymn books, in many hymn books I should say, in the very beginning there's sort of a, like a table of contents. And you can find, "Okay, here are where the Christmas hymns are located, here's where the Easter hymns are located, here's where the patriotic hymns are located." They're usually bunched up like that. And in many, in the very beginning, here are the worship hymns. And that actually tends to be a small section of most hymn books. Most hymns and I'm talking about older hymns too, most hymns are testimonial, and there's nothing wrong with a testimonial hymn. The one that we looked at before is testimony, "Years I spent in vanity and probably caring not my Lord was crucified, knowing not it was for me He died on Calvary." A testimonial hymn is talking about my relationship to the Lord, but a worship hymn is Him. It's Him, it's me worshiping Him. I've been in some services, not in our church or your church, but I've been in some services where they have a praise and worship time. And frankly, the first time I saw that, it was like, "Okay, we're all gonna stand up and we're gonna praise and worship the Lord." And so for 10 minutes everybody stood and sang, and then praise and worship time was over, "Now, we're gonna do something else." And that bothered me, the whole service should be worship, the whole service should be praise. In fact, when I came home, the next bulletin I did, I redid the whole thing. Praise, worship in song, worship in reading scripture, worship in taking the offering, worship in testimonies, you know, the whole thing. And it's true, kind of had a bur under my side, but the whole idea of, let's adore Him. Somebody commented once on prayer, that many people's prayers sound like a McDonald's prayer, with a gimme gimme here and a gimme there.

Michael Gleb
Almost rhythmical in a sense too. It's like, yeah, it's exactly right.

Mike Clement
In fact, many of us have spent not nearly enough time just worshiping God in prayer. There've been times when I've gone to prayer and said out loud, "Lord, I don't need to learn anything, I'm not here to learn anything, I'm not here to get anything, I just want to be close to you." In the course of this, "Oh, come let us adore Him, oh come let us adore Him, oh come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord." Now there's a great big sidetrack path down there that is beckoning, and I'm not gonna go down too far. But there has been some reaction to the Lordship of the Lord, Jesus Christ. There was a book that was written a number of years ago, and out of reaction to that book came the concept of Lordship salvation. Which says, "When you come to Christ, if you're not sincere and give Him everything, then you're really not saved." And I understand that, that actually is a reaction to the book, which the book did not teach. What I find in scripture is, saving faith also produces other things. Saving faith produces repentance, saving faith produces submission, saving faith produces a desire to please the Lord. And I think that's what scripture--

Michael Gleb
Sanctification, yeah.

Mike Clement
Yeah, and I think that's what scripture means when it says, "Any man be in Christ is a new creature." All things are passed away, all things have become new, but here is this encouragement to come and just adore Him. I love the preaching of the word and I enjoy preparing messages and getting ready to open up God's word and share it with the people. But we have had some times when we've had just an unusual testimony time in the church. I mean, people are sharing how God has touched their heart and used them. And not just prayer requests, but I'd be sitting on the platform with my notes and I'm starting to scratch stuff off, cause there's not gonna be enough time for this and not enough time for that. And there actually was a couple of times when I just folded my notes and let it go.

Michael Gleb
That's good.

Mike Clement
The worship atmosphere was so rich that I just didn't feel comfortable.

Michael Gleb
Yeah, Can I add to that?

Mike Clement
Sure. Yeah, go ahead.

Michael Gleb
You know, at the very beginning we talked about, you know, not a created being and then it comes in, "Oh come let us adore Him, oh come let us adore Him." The scriptures tells us, "They, that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So, you know, there's a lot of worship, so-called, that really is not worship, you know. And right type of worship, because there's not the truth that backs it up, you know? And there's a doctrine of Jesus Christ, there's a doctrine of the word of God, and they, that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So these things are beautiful. There is a time that it can connect to our emotions and connect to our spirit, but it has to be based in truth.

Talking About Messianic Prophesies - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Kiley Callaway, John Mulholland and Jon Simpson.

Jon Simpson
And we are gonna take on the topic, since it's Christmas time and near Christmas, we thought it'd be appropriate to look at some of the messianic prophecies from the Old Testament specifically about Jesus. And so we're going to look at a couple of different passages from the book of Isaiah. And the first passage is found in Isaiah chapter 42, and it's the first four verses, so I just want to read those as we get started here. Isaiah 42:1-4 goes this way, "Look at my servant whom I strengthened. He is my chosen one who pleases me. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or raise his voice in public. He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. He will bring justice to all who have been wronged. He will not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the Earth."

John Mulholland
I have one more little section there, does yours have it? "Even distant lands beyond the sea, will wait for his instruction."

Jon Simpson
Oh, I do it's on the next page. Thank you for catching that.

John Mulholland
I was like, "What Bible are you reading?"

Jon Simpson
It's the Bible that cuts out part of it. Right, so what is the main theme that you guys see here in this particular prophecy about the Messiah?

John Mulholland
Justice, He's going to bring justice.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, so as we think about the topic of justice, how does that connect today? What kind of justice does he, do you think is being referred to?

John Mulholland
So the people are in exile and he's giving them a future hope. He's telling them that whomever, you know, this person, this Messiah, whoever this person is that's going to come is going to bring justice. So in their minds, they would think that He's going to deliver them from their exile. So short term, I think we could be thinking about how we would translate that to us. We hear things like this and maybe our default switch then too is short-term. Like I'm thinking of maybe how something's going to be restored in my life today or whatever. I think that's the short answer to your question. I'm like, how do we apply that? I think we think short and think we're going to experience these promises today. Just like they thought they were going to experience those promises.

Jon Simpson
And justice, I mean, the kind of understanding of what justice is, is to make things right. Would you agree with that simple definition? So the Messiah is going to come to make things right. And yeah, because they're in the time of suffering in Babylon, then they are looking for an immediate release to that. And for things to be made, right for them as a nation.

Kylie Calloway
They always thought He was coming to make things right. But not in the way that He meant.

Jon Simpson
Yeah. So they're looking for a savior to get them out of the persecution they're under, to make things right.

Kylie Calloway
Looking for something tangible, wouldn't you say? Something that's like a kingdom that He was going to set up.

Jon Simpson
Yes, yes. And interestingly enough, they're looking for that in Isaiah's time. And they're also, the nation of Israel was looking for that when Jesus came.

Kylie Calloway
Looking for something external, something they can see or touch.

John Mulholland
Well, and even in the first chapter of Acts before Jesus, you know, ascends, the question the disciples ask is, "Are you now going to bring your kingdom to the Earth? You came, we saw all these miracles, you died your back." What I say, when we talk about this at Westway is, "Like they had their, Make Israel Great Again, hats on. They're ready to-

Kylie Calloway
Build Back Better.

John Mulholland
Yes, yes, exactly. We're here, you're ready to do this, and I think that's what these people are looking for. So I would argue, because that cycle has existed since this time, as evidenced by the situations that we just talked about. We have that same mindset, like, we're ready for immediate relief.

Kylie Calloway
We're ready for the king to get the kingdom ready to go.

Jon Simpson
We're ready for things to be made right, and we can tell when things aren't right. And certainly the world is filled with people with different viewpoints on what is right and wrong. We live in a world that's diverse and people's view, you know, we talk about this. I talk about this often with people and the awareness that the battle we're in, in our country and in our world is a spiritual battle. And it always has been. And it's a war between, you know, what the nation of Israel stood for in a sense was to represent God in the world, reflect the character of God, the behaviors of God. And so today, I'm not going to wade into the position of Israel, but the church is meant to reflect that today. God's people, Christians, are meant to be a reflection of Him, but we're looking for justice to happen in our day-to-day life in the world we live in. And there's the constant influence of evil and the presence of evil is there, and we get to experience that and it hurts and we get wronged. I think you were saying before we started recording that, "Why are good people suffering?" So how does the justice, the Messiah is going to bring, play into that? Does it affect or touch our day-to-day life?

Kylie Calloway
Well, yeah, I mean, for me, I think it's that big Christian word, the justification. Though, they were looking for an external, a tangible, a touchable kingdom. You know, it's something deeper inside of us. You know, you said "To be made right." I don't think we're made right, I think we're declared right. According to the theological term justification. So there's nothing that we can do to make ourselves right. There's no amount of works to make ourselves right. It's just faith and that He came, that He died on the cross, and then because of the blood of Jesus Christ, He declares us righteous. And that's, to me the justice that I received, from the injustice of the sin nature that is upon me. That when He looks at me, He declares me right, or righteous.

John Mulholland
And I liked the way you described, like it's not simply an external thing that God is after, that Jesus is after, there's something else. And we can have all of those external things fixed, but there's still something wrong, and that thing that's wrong is me. And as we've gone through the book of Judges, like no matter how many times God sends a judge to deliver them from whatever situation they're in because of their own sin, and I know we're going to talk about that a little later in another session. But the fix is not the external thing, the fix is not, "I need food or I need this." I mean, it's not that those things are wrong to want, but that's not the thing, necessarily that Jesus is ultimately after. So this justice is not only an external thing, but that's the justification that you're talking about. It's what Jesus does to me, to my heart, so that when He sees me, He sees me through the lens of Jesus.

Kylie Calloway
I believe there is an external coming in the end times and new Heaven and the Earth being set up. I think that's where we have to live by faith and not by sight of what's going on and trust God, that ultimately He will bring the justice that we think of in America. That He will bring that to evil and those crazy things that happen to good people. I believe that time is coming, and I believe for this passage, is that's to me, is what he was talking about. That there is a justice coming, they just didn't realize it was Him dying on the cross for their sins.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, when it says, "He will bring justice to the nations," you know, He's not going to crush the weakest reed He's going to come with a sensitivity. He's not going to yell and shout, you know, He's coming with peace, which Jesus did come to bring peace to the world. And the peace was in the, specifically the Jewish nation in Jesus' time, when He came to the Earth, was looking for, you know, they were looking to get out from underneath the oppression of Rome. And they wanted peace as a country and the freedom to do their own thing and to control their own destiny. And they weren't able to do that. and so they were looking for, like we've said, a tangible, a real king that would establish a kingdom, or He would set things right for the nation. But the justice that Jesus really came to bring, as you said, was the, to justify us and to help make it so that we can be made right. And our sins, as you said, can be forgiven and the relationship between the human race and God can be restored.

Kylie Calloway
Right, and I think, for justice to happen, there has to be an ultimate judge, which God is. And I think that's why the Bible says, "There's no longer any condemnation and those that are in Christ Jesus." Because in the court of law, when I stand before Him, since I've been declared righteous by Him. Then I'm no longer condemned before Him, and that's the justice that I get to receive now.

Jon Simpson
And how powerful is that to be able to walk in a right relationship with God in the midst of injustice, that's going to happen to me in my daily life. I'm going to be treated wrongly by the people around me, the world systems against me, the enemies against me, and people are sinful and I'm sinful. I'm not going like, "Walking in this perfect world where nothing happens that's offensive or hurtful," is probably not going to happen. And I'm going to experience injustice in my tangible, real life. So how powerful is being justified before God, and to walk in that, does it have a relation to my day-to-day life? Or I get to experience the goodness of God in the midst of a sinful world, is there a connection there?

John Mulholland
Yeah, and I think that was you before, you know, you mentioned Micah 6:8, "No oh people, the Lord has told you what's good, He's told you what's required of you. Do what's right, love mercy, walk humbly with your God." We had a conversation in one of our small groups recently. You know, we look at the world and we see so much that's wrong with it, and we want justice, people want justice. This is a popular topic, people want justice. And as much as we want to see justice on that macro scale, which is going to come only through Christ, I think as Christians our responsibility is to bring and demonstrate and manifest what justice looks like in my own life. So if I see something I don't like, the fix is not, the fix may be addressing that thing, but the fix is addressing what's wrong in my heart that causes me to judge that thing that I don't like. Like, rather than being mad at someone or I'm frustrated with somebody because they're acting like a sinner, because they are, if it's somebody that's outside of Christ, why would we expect someone who's not a Christian to act like a Christian? I think the micro piece, the day-to-day for me is, to remember that I have been justified by Christ. Christ is doing a work in me and my responsibility is to manifest that justice to other people. To demonstrate the same justice that God did to those other people, which is recognize, you know, I hear, "Somebody oughta pay for that." Or there's a bad thing that happens, "Somebody's got to pay for that, that needs to be made right. And in the back of my mind, I just want to shout, "Somebody did pay for that, His name is Jesus." And how fantastically glorious is that reality?

Kylie Calloway
So we've received this, being declared right, by how? By faith in God's grace, because there what you're saying is, "We need to show more grace to these injustices and things that are happening to us." Which would then be the image of the father.

John Mulholland
Right, taking on, and so then we, this may be a little controversial, so then we don't shout. We don't raise our voice in public, we don't do the things that frankly, so many of the three of us see so much on social media. People in each one of our churches and other churches in town raising up this clamor, which is clearly not an accurate representation of who God is and what He would have us do.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, because we've been justified, made right freely by His grace, we don't have to force justice to happen in every situation. It's one of the things that is maybe not, maybe it's a little counter-intuitive, although Jesus lays it out clearly. The justice movement of our day does not offer forgiveness, nor show any grace, nor exemplify mercy. It's about punishment, it's about paying for things and if that's the world we're going to live in, we're going backwards. Because Jesus has offered us a way out of that, into a path of peace, where it's possible for us to have peace with each other, because we've been made right. Our sins have been you know.

John Mulholland
So when you show who you are, you'll know what to do.

What Should Christians Do With Thanksgiving? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Brad Kilthau
We've got a timely question to think about today as we're moving into Thanksgiving this week. And the question goes like this, "What do, or should Christians do with the holiday of Thanksgiving?" We wouldn't think that would be a question we'd have to ask, but today we do. And we have to remember that when we think about Thanksgiving, it is just, flat-out remembering God's blessings in difficult circumstances. And so fitting for us today, as we think about where we are as a nation and some of the things that are coming up against us today in our country. But we have to also look back in history, because Thanksgiving holiday has been celebrated on and off in the United States since 1789, when President George Washington declared it as a national holiday. And then President Abraham Lincoln made it a regular national holiday in 1863. I thought that was kind of ironic that two presidents that probably went through some very difficult times in this nation are mentioned as bringing this holiday to the forefront. But the reason for the holiday is to remember God's blessing. Especially God's provision and care for the pilgrims, the first European settlers that came to America. And as history tells us, they arrived from England in 1620, and there was a group of Christians among them that were seeking land to make a new life for themselves. They were seeking to come to a place of where they could worship God in freedom. But however, when they arrived in North America, it was late, too late that is, to plant food or anything that would make for harvest. And so they didn't have much food during that first cold snowy winter in the Massachusetts bay colony. And many of them died during the winter. In fact, as I was looking up a little bit of this history, 46 out of the 102 pilgrims perished that winter. In spring though, the local Native American Indians helped them plant what they needed to plant that would grow. That is corn and beans and squash, and when harvest time came around, the pilgrims had an abundance of food. And as history tells us, there was so much to eat they invited their new friends, the local Native American Indians, to celebrate with them. They had a big feast. They praised God for helping them survive the winter and providing new friends and abundant food. Now, even though they had endured much suffering, now was still a time to rejoice because those that did survive, they realized that the only reason they survived was because God looked out for them. God brought them to this new land. God gave them the privilege to worship and freedom and spirit and truth, and they had it right. That is all blessings do come from God. And we think often of the verse found in James 1:17 that says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above comes down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning." And for Christians in the United States, as we get back to our question, Thanksgiving is not only a time for food and family, as great as that is, but it is more importantly a time that we thank God for the good provisions in the care that he shows for us every day. He shared that with the original American settlers, He's still sharing that with us today. He has blessed our nation so much, but we also have to remember that the percentage of Christians in America today compared to what it was in the mid-1800's, when this holiday was first coming into being instituted in our country, that percentage isn't even close. And so we have many Americans that don't thank God on Thanksgiving day in this nation. But for those of us who trust in Christ, we remember that our families, the food, provisions we have, we know it didn't come from us. It isn't because of our work alone, but it is all a blessing that God has given to us. God is our creator, He's our provider, and it's good for us to take time to thank Him, especially on this time of year. And they actually have a holiday that, encourages us to do that. In fact, again, in the Bible, it says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, "Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." And so guys, I want to kind of continue the talk about Thanksgiving and Tim, what are some of the ways for Christians to correctly celebrate Thanksgiving?

Tim Hebbert
You know, I think it can be just about anything you really want, as long as it's from the heart. I always feel like one of the ways to celebrate Thanksgiving is to share the goodness of God with somebody less fortunate than you are. Here at the church, the last several years, our Kids Club on Wednesday night, collects food goods and one of our ladies groups combines with them. And they purchase and deliver to, I think this year was about 20 families. Several of them were shut in elderly people, who needed some good food, some things just to let them know that there are people in the community that care about them. And our home celebration, my family's celebration, it's probably Sandy and mine's favorite holiday of the year. To your point, I think it's become secularized, just like Christmas and Easter has. But in our home, my whole family gathers and we typically have, a half a dozen people, either from the church here, or maybe friends that we know don't have somewhere to light on that day and we invite them to our home. But everybody comes at 10 o'clock in the morning. And everybody that comes is in charge of preparing something for the meal.

And we typically stop on the hour, at the top of the hour, every hour around and gather in a circle and everybody shares a thankfulness that they have of what's gone on in the last year. For me last year, to be honest, I was just thankful that I had health enough to have my family there. I had just gotten over COVID, that turned into pneumonia, and so I was thankful for that. But that's typically, for me I think of Thanksgiving anytime the Lord gives me a heart of Thanksgiving. I want to try to share that with someone, and so one of the ways is to serve other people. But another way I believe that honors God is to draw people into your close knit circle. You know, so to speak, and share that love for the Lord and that thanksgiving for the Lord with them. Because sometimes I think we take the goodness of God, well now I shouldn't say sometimes, when we're not careful, we always take the goodness of God for granted, and we're not near thankful enough. I don't know. What do you guys do for Thanksgiving typically at the church or at your home?

Gary Hashley
Well, Thanksgiving for me was always a very special time, because I was a ministry kid and we didn't live near my grandparents on either side. And my dad's family, he was one of nine, they only got together three times a year Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. So between Easter and Thanksgiving, I never saw my cousins, and there were over 30 of us cousins. I never saw my cousins. So they were great times when we would fill my Aunt Juanita's house, because she had the only house big enough for grandma and grandpa and nine, their kids with their spouses and then 30 some grandchildren total to get together. It was a very special time to get together with them, but we always had a time with just my dad and mom and my sister and brother and I. It was very, very special time for me, and we'd like to carry that on in our family. I mean, we have a daughter in Colorado and a daughter in Helena with their families, Helena, Montana, and a son who's now in Indianapolis. So we are together a lot, and we look forward to those times when at least part of us, rarely is it all of us, part of us can get together. Where I pastor there at Calvary Memorial, they started a routine, a pattern years ago when the church first started back in the mid-1960s of having a large, we call it feast of thanks. It is a very full house, full blown Thanksgiving dinner that we get together. This year we had about nearly 200 people in house and plus we delivered meals to shut-ins, and just had a great and wonderful time. We do it early in the month, that way we set the tone. I feel like it really kicks off my holiday season for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, to be able to do just that. But it is a great time. What about Community Bible Brad?

Brad Kilthau
Well, Gary we do the same type of thing, in fact, we just went through it this past weekend. We call it a Praise Service of Thanksgiving, and we just kind of open up the service time for people to give their personal testimonies and praises of great things that have happened in their life through the past year. We had a lot of people who would stand up and share a lot of bad things that happened as most of us can attest to. I think that those times are testing, but in every time of those testing's they always saw the goodness of God through that. And so they dwelt more on the goodness that God showed to them through those difficult times that they've been going through in their lives. And also just take a little bit of time to look at the little things that God blesses us with. And then after the service, of course, we have a carry-in meal in the same way. We kind of theme it towards Thanksgiving, decorate the fellowship hall, and everybody gets together for the meal. And then of course, as Tim was sharing here, we also do the same thing. We deliver meals earlier in the week to those who are needy, and the women's ministry does a tremendous job of putting together a huge box of food and a big Turkey and all of that, and the trimmings to go. And what they do is they ask me to deliver it to people in need. No one in the church knows where these packages go to except for myself. And some things that I've been coming across the last few years is just this, it's not only people in a physical need, but sometimes people are in an emotional need. They're struggling with some difficult times in their life, and this meal just shows an expression of love from the church. And so, yeah, guys, it's a great time of year just to get the body of Christ together. And again, coming back to, what is Thanksgiving all about? It's just remembering God's blessing in the difficult circumstances of life and seeing God through all of that.

Gary Hashley
Yeah, Thanksgiving as I was growing up in Michigan was a day to eat Turkey and watch the Detroit lions lose a football game, because that was generally the pattern. But most of us think of family, but we all ought to think of God. The very first Psalm I ever memorized in totality, it was Vacation Bible School as a young boy, and I got points for memorizing Psalm 100. "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing, know that the Lord He's God. It is He was made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His name for the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations." I look at that Psalm and the first four verses, are kind of the what of Thanksgiving and the last verse, verse number five is the why. And as you think of the what, there are several action words in Psalm 100: make a joyful noise, serve the Lord, come into His presence, know that the Lord is God, enter His gates with thanksgiving, give thanks to Him, bless His name. And I think a real good lesson from that is thankfulness is an action word. It's not just what we say, but it's what we do in response to what we would say because, and I love it. It says, "Know that the Lord is God." And then in verse five, "For the Lord is good." He's God, and He's good. And it's really, you know, what we should be focusing on, that God is God and God is good. So those first four verses have all those action words telling us, you know, what we can do, but the why is verse five, "For the Lord is good His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations." And I think what I need to remind myself of frequently guys is that, things may not feel good. Circumstances may not be describable as good, but God is good, and that's the thing I'm thankful for. Many have gone through some really tough times. There was an automobile accident on 85, between Torrington and Bear Mountain Station, and two Frontier School of the Bible students were killed. A friend of mine and his son and his son's girlfriend were killed in an airplane crash last night. There are things that aren't really enjoyable, but we can be thankful people because the Lord is good, His love endures, His faithfulness is here for all generations.

What is Accidentalism? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
So our question is one again that I had to do a little bit of research on. It was a new topic I hadn't heard of, and so here it is. "I recently heard a new term I've never heard before. Can you tell me what accidentalism means?" And so I, to some degree figured it's probably self-explanatory, but I'd never really heard it this way as a philosophy or a point people are trying to use. So, Gary, what have you found on this?

Gary Schick
Well, you know, I went to that great source of knowledge, Wikipedia. And essentially, "In philosophy, accidentalism denies the causal closure of physical determinism and maintains that events can succeed one another haphazardly or by chance (not in the mathematical, but in the popular sense). Opponents of accidentalism maintained that what seems to be a chance occurrence is actually the result of one or more causes that remain unknown due only to a lack of investigation. Charles Sanders Pierce used the term tychism (from the Greek word τύχη, meaning chance) for theories that make chance an objective factor in the process of the universe." Kind of brought my mind back to the first Jurassic Park movie where that one scientist in the helicopter was talking about chaos theory, you know, like you can't predict it. And so, you know, is there some truth to this? Sure and it's opposite is a determinism and there's a variety of forms of causal determinism. And so the theory of causal determinism, is basically the idea that everything is part of a chain of events, one leading to causing another, like the domino effect. And if you're a fan, I'm a fan of the old, Sherlock Holmes stories, you know, that's basically causal determinism. You know, Holmes would look at Watson and tell him, you know, "See your brother had a bad day today." "What, how do you know?" "Well, because you know, you've got a hair move to your left on your forehead and that's caused by the wind. And wind was blowing that way in your face because you were turned that way. And you were turned that way because you were concerned." At the end, it's like, "Oh, sure, I see how it all fits together," but you're always mystified by Sherlock Holmes. How he could see to the bottom of everything. And so this is kind of the opposite theory. This is, nope things just happen. And so where do we as Christians line up on this, is this even a topic for us today? Ask the pastor? Well, maybe in the sense that Ephesians 1:11 says, speaking of Jesus, "In Him, Jesus, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will." And so what we would call biblical, philosophers would call theological determinism. The determinism that counts God as the primary factor. And that's where I'd line up, you know, and even within Christianity. We have debates about, where does freewill end and God's predestining will begin. I don't know. I just know that he has given us a choice and a call to believe and when we get to the other side, we will say, "And that was his plan all along." All I know is that God is sovereign. God is good, I trust Him, and He's all powerful. I don't have to worry about the random forces of the universe and what might, whoops, happen to me today, because I've got a God above me. And in whom He's literally, scripture, as the old African spiritual goes, "He's got the whole world in his hands," and He does, He's got me and He's got you. And whatever you're facing today my friends, He's got this, whatever accident may be fall, that appears to be so outwardly, who can ever know the factors that go into things. God rules and overrules again and again. We trust his plan.

Ben Poole
You know, this is an interesting topic because, it kind of goes against almost every faith belief. I mean, every, every belief system has this cause and effect.

Gary Schick
Even the belief in just, science.

Ben Poole
Absolutely. And so I think it's something we need to be careful of to not fall into any traps that Satan may use to sway people away from the truth. Because as someone may claim to have no faith, they can look at the world and say, "You know, the big bang just happened. These things just happen, there's no reasoning behind it. There's no reasoning behind how life came about, it just happened. Everything just happened to fall into the right place at the right time for the right amount of time. And it just happened." And to me, and what I know about the truth of God's word and the truth that I believe is not taught enough. I don't think this is impossible, that things just happen. I do believe a hundred percent in free will, that we have a choice in how we're going to live and what we're going to do, but I don't think even that was by accident. I think that there has been a plan, and I think if you look at the scriptures from beginning of Genesis 1 to the end of Revelation. You see this beautiful plan that has been laid out. How God used, well take Rehab for instance, a prostitute who was not an Israelite became part of the lineage of Christ. Ruth as well, who was not an Israelite. The three women talked about in Jesus's lineage is Rahab, Ruth, and Mary, and these are people that should not have been involved.

Gary Schick
Well, and don't forget Bathsheba.

Ben Poole
And Bathsheba yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, there's just so much of this cause and effect, and I don't think cause and effect just happens. I think there has got to be a plan in place, and I think it's simply just read the scriptures and see how God works through different scenarios. And now in those scenarios, He lets choices be made. He lets David and Bathsheba, God allowed that to happen.

Gary Schick
Yep, He doesn't will sin, but he knew is was coming, and he knew what he was going to do in response. You know, actually I'm glad you said these things Ben, because you mentioned Ruth. It takes me back to my seminary days, when I was learning Hebrew. And one Hebrew word, this kind of sums up accidentalism, it's the word "וזה קרה." It means, "And it happened." And so at the beginning of Ruth, we read "וזה קרה" and it happened that there was a famine in the land. And so Naomi, her husband and their two sons Mahlon and Kilion, they head off to, they just sort of happened to go off to Moab. And these boys happened to marry these gals, and they happened to die there. And then, but you know what, Ruth is an integral part of God's plan for Jesus. And so it's kind of, from our perspective, there's a lot of accidentalism, there's a lot of "וזה קרה," there's a lot of, "And it happened." And then there's what we also read in scripture, "But God." You know, and we see the divine hand of providence and, that was a key word. I'm seeing you wearing kind of a patriotic shirt today and tomorrow as we're sitting here, it's veteran's day, but it'll be yesterday when you all are listening to it out there on the radio. You know, providence was a word, even the unbelievers among our founding fathers who didn't know Jesus, they believed in the hand of providence. They believed in a providential power which we know as the Lord God, who for good orders things and has created an orderly world. I think you're right, I think the danger of this is sort of this idea. It's really a pagan idea of chaos. Kind of like the Greeks who believed, in the beginning was the god Chaos. And from Chaos comes all this, you know, that was scientific guys by Darwin, big bang, you know? "Oh, I didn't know that. Rule that scientific theory had religious rule." Yeah, It's actually old Greek paganism in a new form, the idea that it happened and there is no explanation, it just happened. But behind all things we believe in a God who was before all things and who in all and through all is working out his perfect plan, and I trust it.

Ben Poole
And that's really, the hope is, when I read up on this, I think, man, what is there? What's the point in waking up tomorrow? If accidentalism is truth, what's the point in any of this? And I think the encouragement for us, especially as Christians and that encouragement should take us out into the world to share the gospel, is there is a purpose. There is a plan that God has for each of us. And as a whole, as a big seed church, God has established us to be the hands and feet of Jesus here on Earth. This is, you and I are part of God's amazing plan through his grace. And that is such an honor and a privilege to be part of that in whatever way you play. Whether you're a pastor like us, or you're in the workforce or a stay at home mom, or whatever's going on in your life, you have purpose, you have a purpose in Christ. And so never, ever forget that. Which kind of makes me think about going into these holiday seasons. This is a time where a lot of people struggle. A lot of people struggle with depression, the loss of loved ones, especially over the last couple years has just been rough all around the world. Just this last week, I lost a classmate of mine, a young guy who had a wife and five little kids. And what's been amazing through that is, this wife of my friend is a major strong Christian. And through all the events that took place was able to minister to the nurses and the doctors to share her faith. And they got to see God work in that, because even through that hard time, there was a purpose that God was using. And we don't understand it, there's going to be times we don't have a clue what God is doing. But it's not an accident, it's not hidden from God. It's not like he doesn't understand what's happening, He's orchestrating this road before us. And we have the joy in Christ to walk this road as he leads. Yeah, so anyway, this is kind of a bigger topic than I thought it was going to be, a little more powerful. And I think it's just something that we can be encouraged by. And if you hear somebody talking about this, engage them in conversation. And enjoy that and listen to what they have to say. Really listen and see why, why would you believe something like this? And just listen to what they have to say, because I really believe in my experience, people want to talk about what they believe in as long as someone's willing to listen. And if we're willing to listen to people that are more apt to listen to what we have to say as well. So let that be your encouragement today that you are part of, God's amazing grace and this amazing plan that he has for all of us. Well, do you have anything else, Gary?

Gary Schick
Yeah, well, and I'm just thinking, you know, the scripture calls us, it says, "But continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling." But it does that within the context of what else scripture says, "He, who began a good work in you will carry it forward to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." So all we're called to do in Christ, we do with confidence in God's sovereign grace and plan.

What is the Reformation Movement? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
So this morning, our question is, "Could you talk a little about Martin Luther and the reformation movement? Take us on a little history to her about the reformation movement's beginnings, and how it has influenced the church of today." And so to be honest, I don't really know a lot about the reformation movement. However, I would probably be comfortable saying, if you're a Christian today and active in a church, a lot of that probably has to do with, because of some of these people, especially Martin Luther over 500 years ago, making some steps. And so we are part of that legacy, that living legacy of what happened hundreds of years ago. And so this has, maybe implications for us today as what happened so many years ago and what continues to go on. And so, Gary, I just open it up to you to kind of share some of that history with us and some thoughts on that.

Gary Schick
Well, of course, you know, one thing that we often just talk about and don't even think about is this idea of going back to the Bible. And of course that's where it begins, it begins with Jesus and the apostles 2000 years ago. So what's the big deal about what happened in the 1500s and how does that affect us? Well, over time, over 1500 years, as a matter of fact, the Bible was still there, but it was in, at that point, largely translated, it was translated into Latin. Which the educated knew, but the average people didn't know, they should know their own languages, that was one problem. And then the other thing is, is over the accumulation of time, some other ideas, it sort of accumulated, been largely accepted by Christians, that really weren't in the Bible. And so along comes this little old monk named Martin Luther who really wanted to get it right. He wanted to be saved and he was taught that he needed to confess every sin and he would go to his confessor and confess until his confessors were like, "Please Luther, don't come back until you've really gotten something, okay?" But you know, he had a very sensitive conscience and he knew from scripture that God is a holy God who cannot permit sin into his presence. And here he is trying to work his way into heaven. And finally, one day he's reading a scripture in the book of Romans 1:17, where he reads these words, "The just shall live by faith." And it's like a light goes off in his head. It's like, "That's the point of the cross, that's why Jesus, the sinless son of God came and died to wipe away my sins. The just shall live by faith." And then he goes on and he reads more deeply in Romans and he sees that it's not by works of the law, which we have done, but by faith in what Christ has done. As Paul later writes in Ephesians, "For it is by grace we are saved through faith and not by works that we have done." Yes, there are works that come along as a result of our salvation. You know, there are certain things I do because I'm an American, or because I'm the child of the parents that I come from, that reflect that. But that's not what makes me an American or makes me a member of my family. We are made children of God through faith in Christ, and as a result of that, not to add to what Jesus has done, we do these works. Well anyway, in that particular time, that wasn't the way it was being taught in the churches. And so, at one point Luther, actually October 31st, 1517, he writes up this long list of what are called theses, they're things for debate. And he hammers, them to the door of the Wittenberg chapel. Which is what people did in those days, you know, they didn't post online because there wasn't an online, they posted on the chapel door. And his plan was just to basically recall the church, reform the church back to scripture. And so he took up several of these things that had come in. For example, like the idea of, "Well we're saved by faith and works," well, no, the Bible didn't say that. You know, he reads about, Mary and Jesus's brothers in the Bible and the church is teaching that she never had any other children. But that's not really what the New Testament seems to indicate. He reads in the Bible that we confess our sins to God, and so why is he having to confess to his priest to have everything forgiven? And so on it goes, several things, you know, he has these questions about Mary and the saints, the apocryphal, the confession, but above all salvation. And also, just the idea of, in the Bible we read about heaven and hell, but the church was teaching about this place in between called purgatory. And that you had to either work your way out of it, which could take hundreds of years or buy your way out of it by paying indulgences to the church. And you could usually pay off a few years of purgatory time by paying for these indulgences and somebody, some priests would say a prayer for you and they'd be forgiven. Well at Luther's time, they were building St. Peter's in Rome, and there was a fella on the street selling a special indulgence. And his saying was, "As the coin in my cup does ring the soul of your loved one from purgatory does spring." And just infuriated Luther because it was, this is nowhere in scripture. So anyway, he begins to write and he begins to write what he is seeing in the Bible. And he is brought to trial, in a town called Worms, the trial was called a diet, And so it's called the Diet of Worms. And if that doesn't sound tasty to you, believe me, it wasn't tasty for Luther either. He gets there, basically all of his writings are put in front of him and he's basically given the choice. Did you write this? Yes. Will you recant it or basically die? Well, let me think about it. No. So he comes back the next day. They let him think about it overnight. "This is, you know, I've written about different things here. There are different topics, but all of them do have this in common. I went to the scriptures. If I can be shown from the word of God where I am wrong, I will retract it, I will recant it. But if I cannot be shown by the word of God in clear reason where my error is, here I stand. So help me, God, I can do no other." And there was kind of a moment of silence in the room. "Here I stand on the word," and then they condemned him. Well as he was in a coach, traveling back home, you know, probably going to be arrested at some point, he's kidnapped. He's taken away to the Wartburg castle where he's held or in hiding for like a couple years while he translates the Bible in its entirety, into the language of his beloved German people. And this begins to happen all over Europe. Others like Calvin, Zwingli, and Wycliffe. They're getting the Bible into the language of the people, they're bringing the people back to what the scriptures actually teach. And the Roman church has a Counter-Reformation, the council of Trent where all of these things, none of it had actually been hardened as this is what we believe. Then it actually became the teaching of the Roman church, and so that is the difference. Protestant churches have rejected these extra biblical teachings, the Roman church affirmed all of them. And it was just kind of a very, both sides, no room in the middle type of thing. But you know, here's something I think is really beautiful about the reformation. And there were five watchwords of the reformation, of course the educated language was Latin so they're all in Latin. But I'll tell you what they are, I think they're a good guide for us still today. They are simply this: Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), Sola Christus (Christ alone the savior), Sola Gratia (By grace alone He saves us), Sola Fide (Through faith alone), Soli Deo Gloria (To God alone, be the glory). I think that's a pretty good foundation for the Christian life. As we find in scripture, "By grace we are saved through faith in Christ alone all praise and glory to God."

Ben Poole
Yeah, amen to that. These are amazing examples of living by faith. According to scripture, no matter what comes.

Gary Schick
Luther expected to die any day.

Ben Poole
And there are Bible translators who were killed for translating the scriptures in some of the most horrible ways. And they stood facing their earthly demise, knowing they did what was right. Thank God we're not in that situation. We have Bibles everywhere. You can get them at your fingertips on your phone, computers, books. I mean, even hotels, some still have Bibles in every room. I mean, so it's actively available wherever we are, essentially, whenever we want it. Part of, because of what some guys like Luther did, they stood up deciding, "I'm going to go back to the scriptures." And I think that is such an amazing example for the church today, as we look at the world and we see sin is not slowing down. If anything, it's ramping up and here in America, especially it's more and more praised. And Christianity is sort of being shoved to the back burner, and we're seeing this take place. And I think this just stands for us as encouragement as Christians, that no matter what we face personally, or as big C church, as the church stands in the world, it's encouraging to me to know that I'm not doing this alone. That we have got the cloud of witnesses watching the church live in this world. And it's an example set for us that things may be hard, things may be getting worse it feels like. But God's word still stands true that no matter what we face, we can always stand on God's word. And know that even if that affects our physical life here, even our employment or our families, we can stand before God knowing we've done what was right. And we have examples that have gone before us that say, "You can do this." And this is what God desires for his church, is not to just take the word of someone else, but God has given us his word so that we can each read it. That it's not hidden from us, it's not someone trying to take power away from us, but that God has opened up this doorway for us. And he used men like Martin Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Tyndale, and Wycliffe. I mean, all of these people paid a lot of sacrifice so that we can have the word of God. And so I think my encouragement is stand up, stand strong for scripture and don't back down and dig into it because we are so blessed and the message isn't just for us. The message is for us to take to the world, so that we can be the messengers of the greatest message ever told.

Gary Schick
Amen. And you know, one of the principles of the reformation was, reformed and ever forming. In other words, reform back to scripture and always coming back to it. Because we have that within us, that is always wandering. And coming back to our anchor point in God's word is so important.

Ben Poole
It's a direction for our life, it lights the path before us. Well, this was a great topic. So as you know, we celebrate Halloween, but it's also known as reformation day because over 500 years ago when Martin Luther stood up for what he believed was right. And the world has changed ever since because of that. So we're thankful for that.

What Is The Deconstruction Movement? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
So our question morning is on a new topic I've never really heard of. So I've been doing some reading and some digging into this, and I'm excited to talk about it. So here it is, "Can you talk about the deconstruction movement? Where are its origins? What are the premises of its teaching? What are the dangers? What is the appeal and how should we view it?" So a lot of questions in there, but the kind of main point is, what is this deconstruction movement? How is that affecting the church? Things like that. So, Gary, why don't you open this up?

Gary Schick
Well, and do you want to go a little bit into the roots of it first? I mean, I got some scripture stuff I want to talk about.

Ben Poole
I didn't have much on the history, just more kind of the now culture of it.

Gary Schick
From what I could gather, and it's new to me too, is that basically it kind of comes along the concept of taking your faith, examining it, kind of breaking it down and looking things over and saying, is this what I believe? And then going forward. And the way from what I read, I could see something, a positive direction to take with this, and I could see a negative direction. You know, it kind of made me think of Socrates' old quote, "The unexamined life is not worth living." And so maybe the faith premise would be the unexamined faith. Is it worth having or holding onto? And I think that there is biblical grounds for examining our faith. 1Thessalonians 5:21 says, "But test everything, hold fast to what is good." Elsewhere in scripture, we see, "Test the spirits, for not every spirit is of God." And I think in our own lives, we are constantly doing this as we grow. We're taking what we've learned, Paul tells Timothy, "Remember what you've learned from your youth, hold on to that," but we're also digging deeper, re-examining our lives. I think the question for me really is, what is the standard we are testing our faith against? Is it scripture? Is it Jesus? Or is it me and what appeals to me? You know, we do read in Matthew 24:10-13, Jesus said, "And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be saved." 2 Timothy 4, "Now the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared." 2 Timothy 4:3, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but have itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions." Am I going after what appeals to me and slowly rejecting my faith, as I believe some in this deconstructionist movement have done? Or am I deconstructing the old self and putting on more and more of Jesus? Jesus said in John 17:17, "Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth." So there is the bottom line for me. What is your truth standard? If your truth standard is your own judgment, your definition of truth is going to shift and drift over time. And you may be among those departing the faith. If it is God's word, you will be anchored firm, and you will be slowly, piece by piece building your house more and more carefully, I hope, on Jesus. I think there is a deconstructionist heartbeat to the gospel that says, "Putting aside the old self, putting on the new. Taking off the old, putting on Jesus; dying to self, living to Christ." And that's what you mean by deconstructionism, let's go for it 100%. If it's, "Well, I don't know if this appeals to me, you know, really, I don't think this part of Jesus' teaching is culturally relevant today." Then I'm sorry, we part ways there. I'm not going down, I'm going with Jesus. Jesus the same yesterday, today, and forever. God in the flesh, the image of the father, that's who I want to follow, regardless of what new wind of teaching is blowing today and blowing smoke tomorrow.

Ben Poole
Yeah. So this is something that I think, the terminology I've never heard of, but the more I read into it, I've seen it. I think it's so clear. One person I was reading from, from an atheistic perspective was talking about, you know, the sixties and seventies when there was kind of this movement out of the church. And, "We should be pushing that and we should become more like Europe and we should just exclude religion altogether and just focus on humanism essentially." And so what's crazy to me is, this is actually a larger issue than I think I ever realized. I'm gonna read just a little bit from one author, from Relevant Magazine, which is a Christian magazine. But I just want to read something he wrote. He says, "As a life coach working with deconstructing Christians, most of the people I've seen walk away from the faith did so, not because of their struggles with God, but because Christian churches have become too wrapped up in the very things Jesus spoke against with the Pharisees. Who could really blame a person for walking away from a religion when it has been so intertwined with systems of greed, oppression, manipulation, and control? I get it, it often seems all of Christiandom has forgotten the greatest commandment, love God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. People are not deconstructing because they want to hear theology that tickles their ears. They're deconstructing because most churches have forgotten the core principles of Jesus's ministry. They've forgotten their first love." And I understand that, to a point. I get that we can sometimes see problems in churches.

Gary Schick
Because there are people there that are sinners that need to be saved by grace.

Ben Poole
A hundred percent. And he talked about some bands that have left the Christian faith, church leaders that have left the Christian faith, and kind of place them under this deconstructing movement. They have examined what they believe, then they examine what the church is doing or teaches, and they say, "You know what, this isn't jiving, and so I'm out." And I know that it's probably a lot deeper and probably, you can't put a blanket statement like that over all of them. Everybody has their reasons for the decisions they make. But I think my struggle here, is that I agree completely with what you said. That there is a call for deconstructing, in the right way. What happens is, people don't want to do it the right way. They want to look at the culture and they want to look at themselves and say, "I need it to fit me, and not me fit what God has called me to be." And I think that there's a healthy way to do this, if our goal is to become more Christ-like. So the struggle is, why I'm part of a church that doesn't do this. So my problem here that I would wrestle with is, then why would you leave the thing, you know that needs help?

Gary Schick
Well, yeah, and again, there's nothing new here. Unfortunately, it's true, a lot of people, churches full of hypocrites. And how well do you live up to the full teaching of Jesus? I mean, the sermon on the Mount, it's exactly who we should be, and we all fall incredibly far short. So the easiest person for me to forgive is me. You know, I can pass over just about anything I've done. But if you were to say, or think the things about me that I may have thought about you and forgive, well, I might not forgive you for that. It's always hard to forgive somebody else. It's always easy to forgive ourselves. And so, you know, does the church need constantly to be reformed to scripture? In fact, one of the principles of the reformation was reformed and every forming, and I'm not talking about reformed theology here. I'm talking about the principle of reforming back to God's word. The whole concept in the days of the reformation was that the church has drifted away from the clear teachings of the gospel and the word. I know some listeners are gonna agree and some are going to disagree. But I think the principle really should be good for all of us that we want to get ever closer to Jesus and closer to his word. And so, does the church get comfortable as a group with certain sins and certain blind spots? Absolutely. Representative of many individuals with those, including ourselves. And so I think we need to be constantly breaking out of our sin and breaking into more of Jesus. And it's a challenge for the church as well, but that brings revival. When we humble ourselves before God and make him and his word our standard and not ourselves.

Ben Poole
So another direction that I kind of want to go for just the last few minutes we have here. When I was reading from the perspective of someone who is not a Christian, and I said, atheist. I don't know if they're atheist or not, I don't know exactly, but definitely from a non biblical worldview. A lot of the things that came up and says, "Well, examine the facts because so much can't be proven, so much taken on faith and all these things." And so people will use that as almost their own proof text of, "If I can't see it, touch it, smell it, you know, whatever, it's not real enough for me. That the lack of evidence proves to me that there's holes in this belief system. Therefore I'm not going to be part of it." And I wanted to, because I don't have in my head and my knowledge, all this beautiful information that is out there for proof towards the truth of the gospel message, the truth of scripture. One of them is one of my favorite books. I think every Christian should have in their libraries, The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. A phenomenal story of a man, you probably know this, there's even a movie about it, who was an atheist. His wife became a Christian, and then he decided, "I'm going to prove her wrong," essentially, and went out and ended up finding Jesus and the truth of the gospel. Another one is by Josh McDowell, again, grew up an atheist. Went out to absolutely prove the Bible was false and came to the point where he said, "There's so much evidence pointing towards the truth, it's undeniable." And he wrote, he's written lots of books, but one of them is Evidence That Demands a Verdict.

Gary Schick
Followed by more of Demands a Verdict, and More Than a Carpenter. And he's written so many.

Ben Poole
Basically what I'm saying is, if there's issues you're struggling with, there are resources, extra biblical resources out there. Never place those above scripture, scriptures above all, but use these other resources. Like guys like Josh McDowell or Lee Strobel that have invested unbelievable amounts of time in their life who began out as atheists, who found the proof.

Gary Schick
And don't forget C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. He was another one of those guys, he didn't believe.

Ben Poole
I quote C.S Lewis almost every sermon he is so, just gold. There's so many resources for you, if you're truly seeking the truth. Because I think that's the point is, you can be critical if you want, but I think if you would choose in your heart to seek the truth.

Gary Schick
But, and I think, and this goes beyond our talk today, but I think they've called it like, post enlightenment. Just the idea that out there, it's out there for some, that basically you can't know anything. I mean, even things that we accept as scientific fact, so to speak. And of course we do, we live in a culture and in a time when everything is questioned. And it really comes down to, "Well, what's true for me versus what's true for you." But there again, if you are in the standard of truth, there is no basis for truth. Truth has to be something that's out there independent of us. And if there is a God in the universe who created all, he ultimately is that standard of truth. If there are true laws of nature, there are things he put in place. So you can come to a knowledge of the truth, if you're really desiring that. On the other hand, if you're just looking for a life of, what pleases me, well, I got nothing to say. Because you're just going to kind of keep recreating the universe around yourself. And even if you wanted a perfect church, there was a guy who founded it and it's a church at zero, cause he couldn't attend there either. But Jesus died to save sinners, among which we include ourselves, because people who are following him, but he's our standard.

Why Are So Many Marriages In The Church Failing? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
Okay, our question is, "I'm greatly disturbed by what seems like a sudden rash of marriages in the church that are crumbling. What are we doing wrong? And is this a sign of the times of the end?" So, I think we all can see culture affecting marriages and yeah we definitely see this even in the church, which is really sad, especially. And I know that it's probably detrimental all over the world. But it seems like we can see it pretty clearly right now. Especially with social media and things that we see, even from what we've talked about in the past. Those high profile or those popular pastors and culture and even their marriage is crumbling. So Gary, what are your thoughts on this?

Gary Schick
Well, it's a big topic, and it's kind of a two-fold topic. It's marriage, it's marriage in the church, and it's a question about the end times. It's actually three things there, okay? So, and just regarding marriage, I mean my parents are divorced. I think the divorce is probably, and just somewhere, all of us are related to somebody and maybe it happened to you. And so I guess anytime we talk about this, I want to be sensitive because I know that every situation is different. That many people who enter with the best of intentions find themselves in a broken marriage. It's always a risk when you walk down the aisle with somebody because you, no matter how well you know them, you don't know them until you've said I do. And so a lot of prayer and thought should go into that. But that said, I just want to mention a couple of things. One, I think we need to be mindful of our own discipleship. It's true. And you know, I didn't look it up in preparation for today, but I've heard it over and over again. That the level of divorce in the church is not only equal to, but sometimes higher than that in the world. I wonder if that comes from an expectation, people have, Christians have, "I'm marrying another Christian, and so it's going to be like this." And so maybe there's just a little problem in our own theology. We are sinners saved by faith. And one of the things I like to impress on couples is, "Now just know that I think you've made a good choice here. You're both wonderful people, but you are marrying a sinner. And you won't really know the degree of your own sin I don't think, until you get married." I know for me, I didn't know how selfish I was, when I lived on my own till I was 35, but living side by side with another person. And it's not because she was trying to push it in my face, it just became evident over and over again. How after living really 10 years almost on my own out of college, I was just living for myself in so many ways. Even as a pastor, my world revolved so much around me, and now I had to learn how to, and I'm still learning how to make my life more about someone else. And that's where I think the beautiful model that Jesus gives us about marriage, in Ephesians 5, really comes into play. He talks about the wife's role, is the church relating to him. And the husband's role is Jesus relating to his bride, the church. And those are standards none of us can live up to fully. But they are standards we need to embrace. And so maybe we have this thought that we're just going to enter marriage and the good things we've had in our dating life are just, it's going to be like that. Marriage, marriage changes everything. I kind of divide my own life into two phases. There was pre my wife, Bridget, and there is post, after her. And it's, I love it. I wouldn't go back for anything, but it's a whole different life. You truly have to lay down and let go of all the expectations you had and just accept the fact that God has put you out on a whole new adventure. And it's going to take a lot of trust in him and a lot of working together. Lots of great marriage advice out there, but maybe the best is, a good marriage is made up of two strong forgivers. You know, and I know I've mentioned other things in the past. It maybe helped some folks out there. A pastor friend of mine in town, pastor Jake Roberts, gave me some advice that I've passed onto many couples. He says, "You know, the husband has four jobs biblically, and the woman has two. Her jobs are to support and encourage him and to show appreciation to him. And really to be alongside co-worker. His job is to protect, to provide, to nourish, to cherish her. And wives, you may be saying, "My husband's not doing that for me." Do your part, and it may start to come from him. Husbands, you may say, "My wife's not doing that for me." Do your part, and the right thing might come from her. God's not asking you to fix your spouse, He's asking you to follow him. And so it's about discipleship, it's following Jesus. But regarding the last days, sure, there will be a great falling away. And Paul talks to Timothy about, in the last days will come times of difficulty and the people, I won't read the whole passage, but it's summed up really in verse two, for people will be lovers of self. And so does that play in a marriage? Of course it does.

Ben Poole
This is such a huge topic. And you hit on so many great points. I would say that, man I have so much to say, there so much. I guess I'd start a couple of resources that I know my wife and I have worked through outside of scripture alone. One of them is the Five Love Languages, excellent book by Gary Chapman. And the other one that we did our pre-marriage counseling through was Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson. Eggerichs, fantastic. Both of these come directly out of scripture. Pulled from scripture, they're Christian authors and teachers highly recommend those. Talking to my wife last night about this question and, kind of, you know, gathering thoughts on this. And she really kind of pointed out just a real clarity. She said, "It's really actually quite simple. It's about selfishness." And that's really kind of what you were just talking about was, we, especially when you're newly married, like you talked about. You don't realize you are in love with this person, but you're also kind of in love with yourself. And then you have this wrestling of, I'm selfish and maybe not hurtful selfish, but you're not trying to hurt your spouse at all. You're trying to live up to certain expectations, but at the same time you're still dealing with, I was on my own, I had my own life. I had my own schedule and now I'm kind of at the hands of someone else, someone else's schedule, and someone else's life. And it's a real learning curve to adjust to not just living with someone, but being a husband or wife of someone. You are responsible for and responsible to someone else, and it's huge. And I think a lot of people in our culture, especially, you know, a lot of kids look at celebrities as examples, which they probably shouldn't do that. But I mean, it's sort of like bragging rights on, well I was with this person, and then we got divorce. And I went with this person, we got divorced, and it's sort of like, we're keeping a record of this. And so our culture is not helping that longevity of marriage. Just recently I got to help celebrate and perform a service, renewing vows for a couple in our church. Celebrating 50 years of marriage, and talk about how rare that is. You know, we kind of think of our grandparents maybe as they've held on. But we kind of look at it now like, I don't know how you can do that. And I think it goes back, and we talked about this once before, it's keeping God at the center. You know, we talk about marriage between husband and wife, but it's more than that. It is between us and God. It is a covenant relationship we're making with someone else and with God, and not to be taken lightly. And I really appreciate what you brought out in Ephesians talking about marriage. A lot of times in our culture, especially, you know, Paul talks about the wife needs to submit to the husband and respect him. And that's kind of where a lot of people stop and say, "You know what? I don't like that, I'm not going to keep reading." And, but if we do keep reading what he brings about from the husband's perspective, it's deeper and scarier at times.

Gary Schick
Lay down your life for her.

Ben Poole
Yeah. He says, "You are to treat her like Christ loves the church." Well, how did Christ love the church? He gave his life for her. That puts it back on us as men and husbands, to live in such a way that I can love my wife in the good and the bad, in sickness and in health. And it's not that we can't, because we're called to so therefore we can. Love her and honor her in the exact same way that Christ does the church where he gives himself up for her. And that's our honor, I believe as husbands to live in such a way. And if we do that, there's no perfect marriage. There's no perfect relationship. You know, maybe you're listening and you're not married yet. And you have a lot of these, grand beautiful visions of what it's gonna look like. And some of those are true and they will, and there's going to be some hard days. There going to be some seasons where there's a lot of struggle and issues and tension in your marriage, especially when kids come around. And how do we raise them? How do we discipline them? What do we do? But even in that, we are given an opportunity to love and respect one another. And our kids will see that, the world will see that. But I just want to encourage you don't give up, don't ever give up. A lot of people think the grass is greener on the other side and something else looks beautiful. And I've always said, the grass may be greener, but it might be planted over the sewer tank too. You know what I mean? So invest in the people you've committed to and invest in your spouse. You know, my wife and I talk about, we have three and one on the way, kids. And I hear a lot of people talk about how their kids are the most important people in their lives. And I tell my kids, "I do love you, but you are not the most important person in my life, my wife is." And if we can live the way God has called us to live and have our marriages the way God has called our marriages to be everything works out. Everything comes into place just the way they should. So I just want to encourage you guys, I mean, look for resources, find help, talk to people, because everybody's struggled in one way or another.

Gary Schick
We've been down the road.

Ben Poole
Yeah. And so we want to be here as pastors, but also as two husbands, you know. That know that you can talk to our wives too. And ask questions and find out what we do or what worked and what didn't work. I'm pretty open about my struggles and things that I struggle with. So, but don't feel like you have to go this alone and don't think that divorce is your only option. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much what I got. I mean, there's so much more we could talk about, but we just want to be encouraging to you to know that God loves you. God loves marriage and designed it as something beautiful for us to enjoy and to be in the midst of the pleasure of marriage, even in the struggles.

Gary Schick
Wouldn't trade it.