Focal Point

Dave Drury: Some of the most important questions in the Christian life don't come from seminaries or theology classrooms. They come from ordinary people sitting with their Bibles, genuinely puzzled by what they're reading. Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez takes on a handful of those questions about prophecy, about the nature of the afterlife, and about how God deals with the most vulnerable among us. The answers are straight from Scripture. I'm Dave Drury, and this is Ask Pastor Mike Live.

Alexis, you're on the air with Pastor Mike Fabarez. How can I help?

Alexis: I just had a quick question. You know what the Bible says when it mentions Lord? For example, I'm going through Isaiah right now and I can't differentiate if it's referring to Jesus or to God.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: The context is going to have to tell you the difference because if you have a passage that is looking forward to something, like in Isaiah chapter 9 regarding the coming one on whom the government's going to rest on his shoulders, then, of course, in that passage, you're going to know that this is the Lord that is the one who is going to be named Jesus in the New Testament.

When it says "the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this," it's ultimately the zeal of the Messiah who is going to accomplish all that's going to take place as the government and the righteousness and the justice and the peace is going to extend into every area of this place where the Messiah is going to reign. That is a capital O-R-D, which means obviously that this is representing the Hebrew word Yahweh. And, of course, Jesus is Yahweh, the Father is Yahweh, the Spirit is Yahweh. Three are one.

Not every time you see the word Lord in the book of Isaiah are we talking about the Hebrew word Yahweh. Sometimes it's the word Adonai because you have the small o, small r, small d. That's just a convention that they put in English translations from way back. The context is going to have to tell you that. In the next verse, by the way, in Isaiah 9:8, "The Lord has sent his word against Jacob." Now we go to small o-r-d and that's an example of what I'm talking about. Adonai is the word there.

Alexis: That makes sense, Pastor Mike. For example, when David is saying the Lord will put him as his, I forgot how it goes, but I guess that's related to Jesus, right?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Which passage are you talking about? Quote a little bit of it for me again.

Alexis: David's saying he's going to crush his enemies and he will make a footstool.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool." In that passage, what Jesus does with this in quoting it in the New Testament is, if it's a psalm of David and he uses the word "my Lord," and it says "the Lord," and that is capital O-R-D, Yahweh says to my Adonai. Yahweh, the triune God, says to my Adonai, "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool."

David is the great king of the Old Testament, the epitome, the archetype of the great king. They would ask then, in the Old Testament, who's going to be the Messiah? The son of David. Then Jesus asks the Pharisees, "Who's the Messiah?" Son of David, of course. Well, if he's the son of David, in other words, he's lesser than David, he's a descendant of David, why does David speak of this coming one as "my Lord"? Well, that puts him above David and that's why Jesus quotes that to trap the leaders again, that Jesus is better than David.

Even as Hebrews says, that's who he is. He's the one who is seated at the right hand of the Father. That's how the book of Hebrews starts until God accomplishes everything, as First Corinthians 15 says, and every enemy is subjected under God and under Christ until the kingdom then arrives and all the enemies will be absolutely subjected and he'll take his great power and begin to reign and all the kingdom of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever.

The reality of it is that this is speaking of the Messiah. The Lord, the triune God Yahweh, says to my Adonai and this is David's Lord. He's above David. That's why Jesus quotes it. It's quoted in the book of Acts as well because it's a very important text talking about the superiority of the son of David. Lord means captain, king, the one I subject myself to. Here is David saying, "I am looking up to the one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of Yahweh."

Alexis: That's very insightful, Pastor Mike. Thank you so much.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: You're welcome. Psalm 110, by the way, is a great, oft-quoted text in the New Testament, maybe the most quoted text from the Old Testament. It's a great text and it's one that reminds us that we see, even if David wasn't looking clearly at it the way we look clearly at it because we have the advantage of history looking in the rearview mirror, God was writing this ultimately. The Spirit of God was writing these things.

Even as it says in the book of Acts, this was the Holy Spirit saying these things through David. Three times it's spoken that way in the book of Acts, that it was God speaking through a particular person, through the prophet, through David. All the attribution of the authority is actually the Spirit, is God. The prophet or the writer David is named in this sense, quoting Psalm 110, is God. We know God, the author, knows exactly what's going to happen in the fact that this is going to be a text that's referring to the ultimate fulfillment of Christ the Messiah in the New Testament.

Dave Drury: Let's talk to Jaceph. You're on the air with Pastor Mike. How can I help?

Jaceph: It's been great to be talking to you. I'm a long-time listener for probably a decade in Des Moines and I've just been very blessed and challenged by your teaching.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Des Moines. What's it like to live in Des Moines? What do you do out there in Des Moines?

Jaceph: It's very mild. It's a very small city.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: A lot of us often think what would it be like to live in a quieter, mild place like that? That's great. It would be on our off days in particular, sometimes we want to get away from the rat race. Go ahead, Jaceph. How can I help today?

Jaceph: I have so many questions I wanted to ask you, but a couple that are just on my mind have to do with Hell. Can I ask two, if that's okay?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Sure, please.

Jaceph: The first one is going with the idea of Hell being a place where there's separation from all things that are good that God provides for us. I was wondering what your thoughts were on the inherent goodness of existence or maybe even sanity or having a body. It seems like there's things that people will possess in Hell that seem inherently good. I was wondering how to reconcile that idea of being separate from everything good that the Lord provides, but also still having these things that seem to be somewhat of an inherent good while in Hell.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I don't think we should be quite so black and white because not all judgment is the same. Clearly, in Revelation chapter 20 where this is all described, they're judged according to what's recorded in the books, according to what they've done, according to what each has done. There's not equal punishment. If every aspect of good was removed, then everyone would have the exact same judgment. Not everyone has the exact same judgment and we know that everyone's going to have a different kind of experience.

I can't remove all good. Good's a hard word to apply to the experience, but what we have to realize is the removal away from, as it says in Second Thessalonians 1, being shut out from the presence of the Lord and the majesty of his power. There is a sense in which being excluded is a big part of the penalty, the passive judgment of God, the abandonment, the sense that you don't get to have what you want. The active part of judgment, which is really in view in Revelation chapter 20, is varied.

I don't know to say the good of existing, the good of thinking, the good of having senses. The active judgment almost makes those things a liability and not an asset. It's the abandonment, the passive sense. It's bad, but if the active sense is varied, it's not as bad as it could be. It's an unpleasant reality clearly. When Jesus talks about it, like in Matthew chapter 8, it's a gnashing of teeth. It's outside. At the end of the book of Revelation, you're outside. You're away. It's always into the darkness, outer darkness, and there's weeping. All those pictures of exclusion are big.

You come in, as it says in Matthew, and you're not wearing the right clothes, you're kicked out. Think about passive as not all the good's taken away from you, but you're away from what you want. You don't get included because basically you've rejected God. You should have known better, Romans chapter 1. You get kicked out and now you get the penalty of what you deserve based on the fact that you rejected the one who provides all the good and you thought it was inherent to you or whatever you deserved it. Now you realize you didn't deserve it. I don't think anyone's shaking their fist at God over this.

Then the books are going to be open. What did you do? Then you get active judgment based on what you've done. Since not everyone's the same, my grandmother's not going to get the same kind of judgment that the worst in history got. Her experience isn't going to be as bad. Are you going to then say let's judge that by how much good is left in my grandmother's experience? It's hard-pressed to call it good, but it certainly is not as bad. If we want to put it on the scale, the spectrum of good and bad, I guess I'd have to admit, yes, there's some residual good.

But that would be to prevent me from trying to say this is an equation of if God's not there, all good is removed. I am looking at where I think you could get there in your thinking in reading Second Thessalonians 1:9, shut out from the presence of God and the majesty of his power. Even that statement, "the majesty of his power." You don't get the majesty of his power because you're kicked out. You're excluded. It's not as though you cease to get every last ounce of good out of yourself.

I'm a full staunch believer in the reality of conscious awareness and real Hell. I believe in the active reality of Hell. I can't fudge on that at all, but I do believe clearly in what Revelation 20 says, you're judged based on what you've done. As Jesus often said, it's going to be more bearable in judgment for some than others. He uses many parables to describe that, even Chorazin and Bethsaida are going to be worse for them than it will be for Sodom and Gomorrah because they knew more, because they had Jesus walking in their streets, they had miracles that should have proved that you ought to repent.

There's different experiences which I guess answers your question on the idea of there's more good for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah than there will be for the people of Chorazin. I'm okay with that, even though I'm uncomfortable with the word good.

Jaceph: That makes sense. Even sometimes that notion of being only a removal from God's presence and God's goodness can almost seem like a way to soften it. You are being punished, so it makes sense that certain senses would be sustained in order to receive punishment because you did actually do something wrong.

Dave Drury: You're listening to a pre-recorded segment from Ask Pastor Mike Live. If you have a question for Pastor Mike, join him as he's live on the air Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM Central, or reach out through our website at askpastormike.live.

Jaceph: Second question is about the state of our hearts or people's hearts in Hell. Will people continue to be sinful in Hell? It can be hard to wrestle that because it can seem like the victory over Hell can feel a little hollow at that point. Sin's not gone. It's just continuing forever over in this separate realm, this endless boiling pot of sinful people.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I love that question because few people ask it. I don't hear a lot of people ask it, so I don't know what a lot of people's answer would be. My answer, and I have stated it before and I don't have a lot of data to go on, but I do think that when there is the victory of Christ over all things, which I do think it's all things, and I even see it hints here and there in the book of Revelation, the angels pour out their judgment and they say this is what they deserve.

Everything seems justice itself. The word means that it is what's just, it's what's right. The word righteous and justice is the same Greek word in the New Testament. When God does what is just, it is done what's right is what's done. The problem with our people today in the world, this side of their death, is that they think the wrong thing is right. Like the book of Isaiah says, they call the wrong the right thing. Up is down, sweet is sour. They mess it all up. That's all going to come to an end when you receive the clarity of standing before your creator.

Which I think is exactly what Jesus is expressing in his story in Luke 16 about the rich man and Lazarus. There seems to be no getting around the fact that we don't have the far-side comic of Satan dancing around over the people in Hell. There's not a place of rebellion and people shaking their fist at God. The guy who is described as the rich man doesn't have he's not upset like we might see at the penitentiary in your state or my state.

The penitentiary's full of innocent people today, but Hell is not. I think you have people that admit that they're sinners. They know now that they are in the right place, just like the angels know. Even the angels even in their time now they may say, "I'm going to go cause as much trouble as possible." When they meet Christ, they say, "Are you going to send us to our judgment before the time?" I don't have non-Christians say that to me. They don't know that they deserve Hell. They refuse to believe that. They refuse to admit it.

I think there's something about the reality of people admitting it and accepting the reality of it in their post-mortem realities. I think there won't be a place filled with rebels against God. I think there will be people that will say, "This is the right thing. This is where I belong." I'm a Christian as best as I can know, but there are days and maybe you have these too, Jaceph, where you think if I weren't a Christian and I die and I go before the great white throne and I get placed in an assigned place in the lake of fire, I know enough now about God and his word that I would say it's the right thing. That's right where I would belong.

It's like a vessel prepared for wrath. That's what I earned and that's where I go. I think Hell's going to be filled with that. That's my theory. I don't have chapter and verse other than the fact that I think I have a well-informed, educated guess about it. I think the story in Luke 16 hints toward that and I think there's plenty of other hints here and there that lead me to believe we don't have this pocket of rebellion. We have people accepting their fate and suffering their consequences for their lives and their sin and it will be right and they will understand the rightness of their judgment.

Jaceph: Thank you. Those are great thoughts. My name is Jaceph, like the son of Zilpah.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: All right, well, my screener here spelled it differently. I got it. Good to talk to you. Call me anytime. Thanks for the call and we'll get the spelling right next time.

Dave Drury: Let's talk to Monty. Monty, you're on the air with Pastor Mike. How can I help?

Monty: Thanks for taking my call. I was recalling a debate I had with my older sister. She's with the Lord now, but I told her that I couldn't believe that all children are automatically saved at the Rapture. I said that I think God's powerful enough to know what they're going to grow up to believe because he knows the beginning from the end. She said that was ridiculous, you've got to make a profession of faith. I just wanted to get your take on that.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: This is a complicated question because I don't think that's how God is determining things, just looking down the corridor of time and saying, "Okay, let's see what Monty and Mike decide, and since I can see the end from the beginning, I see what they decide and then I make the decision." I do believe that God is sovereign over all things and I think that creates a whole set of other problems which I think are solved by a number of things as we study Scripture.

But I think you're right in the fact that it's no problem for God to deal with the issue of who's saved and who's not, even before people are born. I see that in Psalm 139, I see it in Jeremiah chapter 1. Clearly, I know the Scripture. It's no problem for God. I'm with you on the conclusion. I don't know if I'd explain it the same way, but you're right about that. And I would say I'm not comfortable with saying every kid's going to be taken up to be with Christ at the Rapture.

If I sat there in your living room and you had this conversation with your since-passed sister, I would be on your side. I might say it a little differently, but I don't know. I'm not going to be dogmatic because I don't know. I would throw in passages maybe like you had at the flood. I think God maybe if they were all left to die in the tribulation period, God is a just God and God will deal with people who didn't know their right hand from their left and had nothing to punish them for because they didn't have the moral ability to make right and wrong decisions.

He will give them a dispensation of grace and he will have them as a part of the kingdom. They won't have a lot of rewards for anything, but they may have chances in the next life to earn rewards. Who knows how God will treat them? But God could definitely figure these things out and it could be a selective Rapture of children that are young. It could be an all-or-nothing and I will trust God, the judge of all the earth, to do what is just.

Dave Drury: You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and those were real calls from Ask Pastor Mike Live, the weekly broadcast where Pastor Mike takes live questions from listeners three times a week. The phone lines are open every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 1:00 PM Central, and you can also watch or catch up anytime on the Mike Fabarez channel on YouTube. All the details are at askpastormike.live.

More teaching from Pastor Mike is at focalpointradio.org. And if you want these programs available anytime, anywhere, the free Focal Point app puts the full library right in your pocket. If today's conversation is the kind of thing you want to keep going for yourself and for the person who hasn't yet stumbled across it, then a gift to Focal Point is a direct investment in that. The most impactful way to give is as a Focal Point partner, committing to monthly support that keeps this ministry funded, focused, and moving forward. Sign up today at focalpointradio.org or call us at 888-320-5885.

And this month, every donor receives a copy of Sinners in the Hands of a Good God by David Klotzfelter. The questions Pastor Mike fielded today on the nature of Hell, on God's sovereignty, on how God deals justly with those who never had a fair chance, they all point back to the same underlying truth. God's holiness and his goodness are not at war with each other. Klotzfelter's book takes that head-on, working through Scripture to show that the God who judges is the same God who pursues. Ask for Sinners in the Hands of a Good God when you give to Focal Point. Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org or send your gift by mail to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California, 92654. I'm Dave Drury, wishing you a great weekend. Join us next time for more from Pastor Mike Fabarez here on Focal Point.

Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.