Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Welcome to Focal Point. I'm Dave Drury, and this is another edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live, where real listeners bring Pastor Mike Fabarez their most honest, sometimes uncomfortable questions. Today, a caller pushes back on one of the oldest mysteries in scripture about an omniscient God and a rebellious Satan. Another wonders what eternity will actually look like for the people he loves most, and a third opens up about an ongoing personal struggle that hasn't let up. Well, now let's join Pastor Mike for a fascinating edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live. Let's go to the phones. Now, Millie, you're on the air with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

How can I help you today?

Millie: Yes, sir. First of all, let me say thank you for for the anointing that God has put on your life. I listen to you quite often, so I appreciate it very much your insight.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Very good.

Millie: Very much so.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Thank you.

Millie: Um one of the questions I have though I was listening to a pastor last night on the uh radio station and uh discussing about certain things, you know, how Christ paid the price and not to blame the Gentiles or the Jews because, you know, he just he made the decision to do what he did on the cross. But it occurred to me, and I'm playing, if you will, allow me a little bit devil's advocate here, but why would God create God knowing all things beforehand, past, present, and future? Why would he create an angel that would rebel, knowing that he would rebel and cause these things?

I've had discussions like this with my friends before, and I'm wondering if you're a little bit more insightful on it about regarding that issue.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Yes. Well, here you go, very unsatisfying answer, but straight from the scripture. Are you ready? Uh here's here's two two passages for you right out of God's God breathed uh verses from the Bible. Okay, you ready? Oh, the depths and the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgment and how inscrutable are his ways. And that means um sometimes we have no idea why God does what he does. And here's another one from the Old Testament, Isaiah 55:9. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, right? So much higher are my thoughts than your thoughts.

So you know, sometimes we stretch to say, why would God create this if it's all going to go this way? Well, all I can tell you is my best guess at it is this, that all I know is that I get to worship God according to Ephesians chapter 1 for the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us, and I wouldn't know anything about that had there not been temptation in the garden, had there not been the fall, had there not been sin, had there not been transgression, had there not been perversion, had there not been all the things that we've experienced.

And then God sent his son to redeem us, to clean us, to cleanse us, to sanctify us, and to bring us all cleaned up into heaven with the forgiveness that he granted us in Christ. And according to the Bible, Acts chapter 2 verse 23, Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. So this was all a part of God's plan. I know that, including the bad things, so that he might do something that I know at least is going to give me experiences I wouldn't have other had otherwise have, and that is to see facets of God's greatness I wouldn't have otherwise known.

Now, why is that a complete answer? I don't know if it's a complete answer, but I can tell you I know his ways are inscrutable, his thoughts are higher than my thoughts, so I can't fully understand all of it. I'll quote one more, Deuteronomy 29:29, right? The secret things belong to the Lord. He didn't tell us all as to why he did what he did, but things he's revealed belong to us and our children forever. So I'm going to hold on to what I know, and that is he knows better than me, he plans better than me, his thoughts are better than mine, but I do know this, right?

He planned it, he allowed it, and now it's happened, and I get to praise him for being a great God who takes sin and sinners and forgives them, and many of us at least, and allows us to know his grace. And for that, I'm super grateful.

Millie: Amen. I agree. I mean, that's pretty much what I in a roundabout way is so much more with the scriptures than I am. But I mean, overall, it's, you know, I just want to tell my friends, look, his ways are not our ways.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Correct.

Millie: On the day that I stand before him, it'll all be revealed, I'm sure.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Yep.

Millie: You know so that's pretty much it. You're right.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Right. Well, here's the hope, and you just stated it, but it says it so well in in this great section of 1 John 3, right? Beloved, we are God's children, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him cuz we shall see him as he is. So whatever that means, I think we're in for a great improvement, and you and I both are are going to know a little bit more than we know now, and we're going to be really grateful to see things from that perspective, and we won't need Bible call in answer programs anymore, I don't think.

So uh that'll be a good day, Millie. We'll be grateful for that, won't we?

Millie: I appreciate it very much.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Okay, Millie. Thanks for calling. I appreciate your your kind words, too. That's very very sweet. Let's talk to Pat. Pat, you're on the air with Pastor Mike. How can I help?

Pat: Um two things. Uh as far as the last caller is concerned uh sin is in the world because we can't not sin for some reason, mankind. And Satan, I'm assuming because we're sinners it's his fault. But Christ did come here on earth to give us a new life, a new beginning if we accept it. And that's the end of it cuz that's what God said, and I believe it. My question, the reason I called in was a buddy of mine uh said we were talking about going to heaven and can't wait. And he said, well, you know, it's kind of be kind of weird.

And I said, why? He said, because my wife as far as God's word's concerned I we won't know who each other are. And I said, where does it say that in the Bible? And he said, I don't know. I just somebody was telling me that. Can you tell me something that I can tell him to put him at ease?

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Uh sure. Uh let's let's think about Matthew 17 and the Mount of Transfiguration uh when Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus uh and clearly not just Jesus, but Peter, James, and John uh they knew who Moses and Elijah was. They didn't know them in this in their lives, but certainly they were introduced and were able to know, oh, I've read Moses's works. I know Elijah from the Bible, you know, that I read and read 1 Kings. So yeah, we're going to know the people even that we know about, not to mention the people that we know, of course.

In John 21, here's another example. Jesus, right? In his resurrected body comes and has breakfast with Peter and Peter on the shores of the Sea of Galilee even recognizes him while he's in the boat way out on on the ocean on the Sea of Galilee, right? This lake. And he sees way across to the shore and recognizes Jesus. Now, just think about that. In the eternal state, both Peter is going to have a resurrected body, Jesus is going to have a resurrected body. Of course, we're going to recognize each other. Of course, we will. And and and you know, I'm just saying you're even going to recognize people that you didn't even know personally, but you knew about, right?

That you're going to be able to know people like Martin Luther. You're going to be able to know people like, you know, Charles Spurgeon. You're going to be able to know pastors you you heard on Christian radio stations. And maybe you need to get introduced. I don't know, right? Here's a guy that that here's here's Charles Spurgeon, right? Yeah, but once you meet them, you'll know them, of course. Yeah, you're going to know who your wife is. Will you be married not as not as we know marriage now. That's not going to be the case.

That's clear. The Bible says that. I get it. But you know what? For you to mourn the fact if you happen to have a wonderful marriage and you can't imagine not being married to your spouse, oh, that number one, congratulations. That's great. But here's the thing. Whatever God's going to replace that with, and I'll just quote Psalm 16:11, right? In his presence there's fullness of joy, and at his right hand there are pleasures forevermore. So when God's throne comes down and Christ is among us, right? And And we have here God living among us, and the dwelling place of God is among men.

Uh there's no possible way as God draws close to us, right? That we're not going to have perfect pleasure, perfect joy, everything's going to be great, and your relationships with each other are going to be way better than they ever were before. So I I I can't I there's not a possible way I'm going to mourn the fact that, oh man, I had a much better relationship, you know, with my wife back when I was on earth. No no possible way, right? You going to say, no, in the new earth I got a much better relationship, and it's even got more joyful and more pleasurable.

It's better, whatever that means. And then we don't have to be uh Muslims to to pervert it into something base and fleshly. It'll be more joyful, and it's not going to be base, right? We don't have to think about some weird, you know, set of virgins that we get to that's not how it works, right? This is about something pure and lovely and joyful that will fulfill us way better. But you'll know your spouse, trust me. You'll know your kids if they happen to be believers and they're resurrected in the new new earth. Yeah, you're going to know people.

And I just quoted two quick passages for you, right? John 21, Matthew 17, and of course you're going to know your wife. If she's a Christian, right? You're going to know her. And And you'll know we're there. And if you're if your spouse is not a Christian, then I don't know if you'll remember much of that cuz in Isaiah it says the former things will not come to mind. Maybe you won't think much about your lost loved one because that's something that God graciously, much like a person in a car accident, right? Even someone with head trauma often forgets the the the the the violence of their car accident.

Maybe that's part of what that means in Isaiah that with the former things don't come to mind. Maybe we won't remember much about that, but we will certainly remember uh the things that we have experienced, the joys that we've gone through, and uh we'll know the people that we lived with here on earth that are in the new kingdom for sure.

Pat: I I think it was more along the lines of would he know her or not? Not necessarily would he recognize her, but would he know her like he was he was his wife. I was like, I don't I don't know why it wouldn't I don't know why you wouldn't uh Wally.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Yes. Yeah, we know her, but you're not talking about know her as in terms of Adam knew Eve and had a baby. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But even that, I'm thinking whatever is replacing that, right? For procreation there there's going to be more fulfilling relationships of fellowship. Uh we're going to go home from each other's homes having great fellowship that'll be more fulfilling than if we were, you know, having marital relations. I guarantee you it's going to be better. Whatever it is, right? Just experiencing a a game of Scrabble or whatever is going to be better, whatever it is.

But here's the thing. Of course you're going to know your spouse. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. There's just no doubt about that because every experience we have in scripture about someone from the afterlife I could even go to think about the witch at Endor, right? Here is Saul coming back. He's not even in his resurrected body yet. The disembodied spirit somehow is made visible by God. And And here's Saul, right? Who sees him and knows him. They have a conversation. Of course they knew each other, right? There's no way you're not going to know people that you knew in this life in the next.

Yes, I think even in the intermediate state you're going to know each other. Yes, for sure.

Pat: Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. Thank you for your program.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Okay. All right, Pat. Yep, thank you, Pat. You're listening to a segment from Ask Pastor Mike Live, which you can join in every week, Tuesday through Thursday at 1 p.m. Central. Find more details at askpastormike.live. Sheldon, you're on the air with Pastor Mike Fabarez. How can I help?

Sheldon: Hey, Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Hey.

Sheldon: I was just um uh paying a lot of attention to sermons on Romans 6 and uh uh Christian perfectionism and uh I was just wondering what, you know, the body of sin that still hangs on, you know, we're prone to prone to sin as Christians. And the you know, in Ephesians it talks about how we're seated in heavenly places already. So like we're saved, our soul is saved. I was just wondering about the soul and the mind. Is there a difference there? And you know how uh we're told to take every thought captive to Christ?

And over and over again in the epistles it says to uh do this, but don't do that, you know, to go the right way. So obviously our thinking uh I I I was just wondering I is there you think there's a difference between the soul and our mind? And is our our mind always suspect? Do we always have to keep I I I know we have to keep checking our thinking. But our thinking can be it it is our thinking corrupted? And we always have to keep checking it like uh you know what I mean?

Our our actual brain.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: I do. Yeah, no, I do know what you mean. And And I understand, especially I'm reading through Romans. If you're reading through Romans 6, 7, and 8 you're going to deal with this. And if you've ever read Martin Lloyd Jones's uh very voluminous uh commentary in three volumes on those three chapters, you're going to run into this a lot. And And you're going to definitely deal with um the concept of of perfectionism and trying to make sure that you understand that there's no room for, you know, perfectionism, I think in rightly reading uh Romans 6 or Romans 7 or Romans 8.

Romans 7 I think there's a big question mark over cuz there's a lot of debate about what's going on there, but I don't want to get into that right now. Let's just talk about your question. And here's what you're going to find, even starting in Romans chapter 6, there is a huge hard line distinction between the material and immaterial part of of people. And you'll find that not just through Pauline corpus, not just through Paul's letters, but you'll see that throughout the Bible, right? And it starts in Genesis when God creates people. He makes them from the dust of the earth.

That's the material part and breathes into him the breath of life, right? That's the immaterial part, and he becomes a living being. So life is made up of two principal parts, the the the the the hardware part and the software part. And that's an oversimplification, but that's where we start. And that that distinction, that hard distinction is pretty much kept throughout the Bible. Now, even Jesus talking about loving the Lord your God, he'll start to say things with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Well, what is that all about? It's divided up in a lot of ways.

Uh knew oh, the the mind in the New Testament. Paul doesn't mind talking about that. Pardon the pun, doesn't mind talking about that. Uh And And the Romans, right? The Greco-Roman world talked about that a lot. Jews like to talk about the heart in Hebrew leb, the word heart. Uh they like that as the center of our thinking, kind of the cockpit of our mind. It directs our lives, right? Guard your heart with all diligence for from it flow the the you know, the fountain of life. Uh in in the New Testament kardia that also kind of played over the Jewish mindset of the center of your of your life is your heart.

And And it wasn't your seat of your emotions, it was the seat of your your thinking. We use the word mind. Well, the the Romans often use the word mind. Uh but you know, then there are other concepts of the immaterial part, right? Even the word soul, both in Hebrew and in Greek, you know, there was that sense too of like, okay, there's something about that that often is substituted for the immaterial part. Often times we'll even see that soul is used for the combination of both flesh and and spirit. Even though I don't think it distinct in terms of saying, well, you got a spirit, you got a soul, and then you got a mind, and then you've got, you know, strength, and that's different.

And here's the thing. I think if we keep a hard distinction between flesh and and and immaterial, right? Just body and immaterial, then we're going to say, okay, body is not in scripture. Certainly through the book of Romans it is not just the body, right? When Paul's talking about the principle of sin, when he's talking about the flesh the works of the flesh in Galatians 5 it clear or even Peter. Peter talks about the passions of the flesh, right? Think about that epithumia, that the concept of the desires, the passions. They derive from the flesh.

So the flesh is not it it's not just it's not just uh it's not a flat line. There's there's animation in the flesh of some kind. So I like to illustrate it this way. I start by saying, okay, there's hardware, there's software, but in the hardware of our flesh there's also firmware. There is something animating the hardware. And the hardware there's a principle in the hardware that has passions and desires, but it's not me. And I'm not saying I'm not responsible for it. Of course I am. I'm not just living in my hardware as software.

I'm kind of just enmeshed in it. I'm all about it. I'm not really a human being without without I mean, I am. And that's an overstatement. I'm I'm enmeshed. I'm encased in my flesh, but my flesh has a principle and of humanity in it that's got desires, it's got passions. So I can never be without sin even as a uh as a as a as a fountain of desires, right? Even as James says, I I'm I'm going to be tempted as I'm drawn away by my own desires. Where do those come from? Well, as you read Romans, my spirit is made new.

2 Corinthians 5, my spirit is a new creation. Paul talks in the letters, the prison epistles, about having a being a new man. So the the new self, right? As he talks about even in Romans 6, that is renewed. So I think whatever happens as a Christian my inner man is made new. I'm now alive to God. I have a new heart to quote the Old Testament promises of the new covenant, Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36. I think the idea of the heart of stone becoming a heart of flesh I now have a new spirit, the New Testament or the Old Testament promise of the new covenant age promised a new spirit.

But then it says, then I'll put my spirit in you. So there's a distinction between a new spirit that I have, the spirit of God being placed in me, but I'm still in my old, as it says in Romans 8, unredeemed flesh. I'm waiting for, I'm pining away for, I'm craving. I can't wait. I'm groaning for the redemption of the body. And why? Because the body is not just a container that happens to be aging, and I hate my arthritis, and I hate my rheumatism. No, no, it has a passion. As as Peter says, the passions of the flesh wage war against my immaterial part, my soul.

So I can never believe in kazwikianism or Wesleyan perfectionism because my flesh will never allow it. I cannot. We will, as James chapter 3 verse 2 says, always stumble in many ways. 1 John chapter 1, we all will be sinning, right? We can if you say without sin, you're a liar, the truth's not in you. I can never be, right? Made sinless until the redemption of the body because the body comes with a set of passions that are always going to be fighting. The works of the flesh work itself out because it comes with a set of passions.

And I think if you read Romans 6 carefully, right? You you have that. So I'm broken from the enslavement in so far as who Mike Fabarez really is or who Sheldon really is has been made new. That's why your core, this is the way I like to teach it, your core desire, Sheldon, as a Christian really do want to please God. As a non-Christian, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 1 and 2, you didn't want to please God, but now you do want to please God. You were made alive together in Christ. That's a new thing.

But the old thing was you just want to do whatever you get away with, right? You were moved along. Spirit that's now at work in the sons of disobedience, that was you. You were like everybody else, a child of wrath, that was you. But now you want to serve God, but now's the problem cuz the spirit is waging war against the flesh, but the flesh has a bunch of desires, and the works of the flesh it's doing all this stuff that makes Christianity really hard. You can't do the things you want to do, and that creates the conflict.

So you can never be perfect in this life. That's why you're groaning in chapter 8 for the redemption of the body. So I'm going to say, yeah, there is no perfectionism, and the principle of the flesh is not trying to divide up in your immaterial part two different kinds of you. There's only one you, and you are your spirit. And you happen to be enmeshed in a body, but the body has passions, and I would just want to take one step away from your body and say, I I'm I'm not I'm you know, I'm not trying to be gnostic, I'm not trying to, you know, make some kind of of statement about the flesh being all bad.

It's not. God has has died to redeem us, right? Redeem our bodies. But the point is it's not redeemed now. And so I know that the core desires of my body, not the core desires of my spirit are always going to be in conflict. And so I need to constantly try to say by God's spirit working in my spirit I'm going to keep powering through uh the the the warring of my my passions in my flesh. And I do think, and that's a lot of talk that I just gave you, but if you read Martin Lloyd Jones, which I largely agree with, who goes on and on and on about it in his commentaries in this section, just pick up that commentary.

I'm sure it's in the public domain by this point. But Romans chapter 6, his commentary on this I think is helpful, and largely I follow his thinking on this, or at least it's informing. I probably haven't read it for 35 40 years, but it is helpful in thinking through who we are. And who we are is not our flesh. Who we are is new in Christ. And that's why our desires are so strong, and that's why our disappointment is so great when we fall. Does any of that help, Sheldon?

Sheldon: Yes. Yeah, that's great.

Pastor Mike Fabarez & Dave Drury: Those were real questions from real listeners on Ask Pastor Mike Live. Pastor Mike's call in broadcast airing Tuesday through Thursday at 1 p.m. Central. The phone lines are open every week, and there's room for your question, too. Get the call in number and everything else you need online at askpastormike.live. Or catch up anytime on YouTube by searching for Ask Pastor Mike Live. For more of Pastor Mike's regular Bible teaching, head on over to focalpointradio.org or download the free focal point app and carry the whole library with you. Skeptics love to point out that the Bible has passed through thousands of hands, thousands of translations, thousands of years.

So how could anyone still trust what it says? Well, Pastor Mike takes that question seriously in his brand new book, The Bible, A Book Like No Other. He opens your eyes to the manuscript evidence, the historical record, and the sheer weight of how this book has survived every effort to tear it down. If you've ever wondered whether scripture holds up under real scrutiny, this book hands you a clear answer. Request your copy of The Bible, A Book Like No Other when you give to focal point today. Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. And if you'd rather mail your gift, write to us at focal point post office box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654.

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Join us again next time for more from Pastor Mike Fabarez right here on focal point.

Guest (Male): Today's program was produced and sponsored by focal point ministries.