John Bradshaw - Revelation, Regression and Repentance
John Bradshaw: Welcome to "Line Upon Line" brought to you by ""It is Written"". I'm John Bradshaw with me, Eric Flickinger. Eric, thanks for being here.
Eric Flickinger: Good to be here, John.
— This is when we get to answer questions that have been submitted by viewers, or others asking questions of ""It is Written"". We love to answer Bible questions, but should somebody say right now, I got a question I would like to ask, what do they do with that question?
— It's easy to get the question to us. All you have to do is email us, [email protected], [email protected]. We'll receive your question, and we'll do our level best to give you a Bible answer for it.
— We've got questions coming up about Revelation, about the earth made new. We got questions about the Holy Spirit and more besides, so I'm gonna start with this one from Eric, Eric, "if you give yourself to the Lord, can you fall back if you don't practice"?
— Well, the short answer is of course you can.
— I mean, think of the alternatives, right?
— Yeah.
— If you've given yourself to the Lord, you can't fall back no matter what.
— Oh, there'd be an awful lot of perfect people wandering around the earth, and you look around the earth right now, there's not a lot of perfect people wandering around.
— Interesting part of this question, can you fall back if you don't practice it? Of course he means if you don't practice your faith. So that kind of highlights an aspect. You wanna practice your faith.
— That's right.
— If you are not practicing your faith, if you're not keeping connected to God, if you're not welcoming Jesus into your heart every day, if you're not communicating with God through prayer, what else can you expect? If you neglect your spouse, marriage is gonna go down a drain. If you slack off at work, you're likely gonna lose your job. So it makes a really good point, I think, we wanna be sure that we are, don't give the wrong impression, but that we are working at our relationship with God, that we are staying in touch with God, feeding on the Bible and so on, that's important.
— It's not just a once and done proposition. Yes, it's important that you accept Jesus as your savior vitally important, but you don't just kind of go, well, that's done right onto something else, and expect that your whole life is going to be perfect from that point forward, you connect with him, it's like you said, with a relationship, whether it's a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband, a wife, children, you wanna keep that relationship alive, you wanna connect with that person or those people on a regular basis, otherwise things begin to degrade, and well, you start heading back down the road that you came from, you know, God has given us several beautiful gifts. One gift is Jesus, matchless gift, absolutely beautiful gift, wonderful gift. A second gift though, is the freedom to choose. He will allow us to choose him or not to choose him.
— That's right.
— Because he wants us to love him, and love can't exist without that choice.
— I think the motivation for wanting to believe, once saved, always saved is okay, you wanna be secure in your salvation, and you don't want to feel that every time you get caught in a strong breeze that you are lost, we wouldn't advocate that, I do not believe the Bible teaches that in any way, you come to faith in Jesus and you hang on to Jesus, and along the way you may stumble, you may fall, may flame out spectacularly because of whatever it was, low blood sugar, the pressures of the day, your DNA got the better of you, whatever it is. But if you're in faith in Jesus, that's, you know, you repent, you turn back from that sin, you turn towards Jesus. It's not that God is gonna cast you off because you put a foot out of place. Christianity is not a minefield where God says, "oops, sorry for you, you stepped on the wrong spot". Yet, the Bible does make clear that if you choose to turn your back on God, God will honor that freedom of choice. In First Corinthians chapter nine, Paul writes, "but I keep under my body, and bring it in a subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast away or reprobate or a lost man". What else have we got in the Bible? It's over and over again.
— You find it many, many places. Peter writes the same thing, essentially, as Paul did in Second Peter 2:21-22, here's what Peter says, he says, "for it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, then after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered onto them. But", and here's where things get a little graphic, "but it has happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire".
John Bradshaw: Very clear, Second Peter, 3:17. "You therefore beloved seeing you know these things before, beware lest ye also, being let away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness".
— So we should have confidence, I don't know if that's the right word, security, perhaps.
— Absolutely.
— We need to feel comfortable, I don't even know if I really like that word, but something along those lines, in our relationship with Jesus, not fearing every moment that we're gonna fall out of his grace and out of salvation, but we have the ability to choose, he never takes that ability from us.
— I was with a friend of mine and we were visiting in a home, some folks who were coming to an evangelistic series, we were holding and he said, "but I believe one saved, always saved, and we believe, well, you get saved once and that ought be enough". If you hang onto your connection with Jesus, if you don't turn away from him and walk away, my friend said, "so you are telling me that you could go next door and sleep with your neighbor's wife, and that would be okay in the eyes of God"? And the man said, "yep". What was fascinating is, that his wife was sitting right next to him, and she nodded her head, yup. If you take that to its illogical conclusion, that belief of not being able to fall away from Jesus, takes you to some pretty crazy places.
— It does and if Christians were to act those things out, can you imagine what a witness that would be to Christianity?
— Yeah.
— People looking at Christianity through Christians, and saying, "well, if that's what Christians are like, what does Christianity really have to offer me"? And the answer's not much.
— Yeah, that would be a very good question, as a matter of fact. So we don't want you to think that, you know, every time you stumble, you forfeit your salvation, that couldn't be further from the truth. God knows where that line is, you know too, you know if you've left God behind, if you've failed to be surrendered, but here's the thing, let's to Jesus and stay with Jesus. Why in the world would you want to do anything else? Okay Eric, here's a question from Emmanuel, and here's a great question. "Can you explain the book of Revelation"? I expect Emmanuel's referring to all 22 chapters, the whole thing, look, I'm giving you 30 seconds.
— Emmanuel, yes, yes I could explain the book of Revelation. We may not have time in this program though, but we could probably give a little overview.
— Break it down.
— A little overview.
— All right.
— Well, to start with, let's just look at the beginning of the book of Revelation, because the first sentence or two really does us a good idea of what the book of Revelation is all about. Here's what it says at the very beginning, Revelation 1:1, "the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants things which must shortly take place, and he sent and signified it by his angel, to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw". So what is the book of Revelation? Can you explain it? It's the picture of who Jesus is, it's how the story ends, it's how everything gets tied together, it's the last chapter in the book.
— Yes.
— Pulls it all together.
— If you wanna get slightly technical, we could break it down into about nine different sections, starts with a prologue, that greeting that Eric began with. Then you have the seven churches, the letters to the seven churches, the seven scrolls, sorry, the seven seals, the scroll with the seven seals, then there's the seven trumpets, then you've got the vision of the cosmic conflict, from about Revelation 12 to maybe the end of Revelation 14, seven last plagues and the fall of Babylon, the marriage of the Lamb, and so on, including the millennium, then the creation of the new earth, and then we're over, the epilogue. That's not really very helpful because that's just sections broken down. Let's talk about it. The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Fifth verse talks about Jesus dying for our sin. Seventh verse talks about the second coming of Jesus. You've got the seven churches addressed, but later on, you've got that great overview. There appeared a great wonder in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet, and upon her head was a crown of 12 stars. Then you move further into Revelation 13, the antichrist, pretty powerful, explaining really what the last day issue is, talks about the antichrist and the mark of the beast, chapter 14, the everlasting gospel, the messages of the three angels. This is about Jesus, his plan for the world, his plan for you, and how we experience salvation through Jesus. "Here are they keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus". They obey Jesus out of love, that's in Revelation as well.
— You know, if you wanted to take your Bible and say, "where could I put my finger in this volume and put my finger right on where we are living today"? Historically, chronologically from Genesis to Revelation, if you stuck your finger right in the middle of chapter 14, around versus six through 10, somewhere in that neighborhood, you're gonna end up right where we are today.
John Bradshaw: True.
— Much of what's in the remainder of the book is future, stuff beforehand is in the past, Revelation 14:6-10, that's the time in which we live right now.
— Amen, well said, I appreciate that very much. Question from Julia. "I live in an area with no Sabbath services, only Sunday services. Should I not go to church? How should I observe the Sabbath"? So if you can't find a church near you, that meets on Sabbath, what do you do?
— Well, Julia, we're not entirely sure where you live. Evidently not near a whole lot of other folks, but be that as it may, what can you do? Well, somehow or another, you seem to have stumbled across "It is Written", and we are grateful for that, we're glad that "It is Written" is a blessing to you. We hope that you have found the, "It is Written" television channel, if you haven't, it's pretty easy, you can find it on Roku, you can find it on Apple TV, you can find it on Amazon Fire, you can find it on itiswritten.tv. So watch some of the programs there. But one of the nice things about this pandemic, if you can say that there have been some nice things, and I suppose there are, is that now you can attend church virtually, if you can't get there in person. Now, ideally an in person church is great. The Bible says, "don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together". We wanna get together, but in the event that you can't, a virtual church is not bad, if you can attend a service somewhere virtually.
— Yeah, we'd encourage you to checkout, itiswritten.tv. We've got Sabbath school and sermons on Sabbath morning. Love it if you could get to an in-person service, if you cannot, join us, we'd appreciate that. We have time for one more question. Let's see, here's Candido, Candido says, "what does Hebrews 10:26 and 27 mean"? "If we sin willfully after we've received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversaries". You've got 60 seconds.
— That's pretty sobering. Those are some sobering verses. So what does it mean? What it means is, if you sin, when you sin, if you sin, confess your sin. First John 1:9, "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". If you want to have your sin forgiven, confess it and the promise is, he will forgive it. So what about these verses here where it says, "if we sin willfully"?
— Willfully, yeah.
— So this is an unrepentant sin, a willful sin, a conscious knowledge sin, you're choosing to do that. Ah, then you put yourself in a bad place because if you don't confess the sin, it can't be forgiven, and if it can't be forgiven, you're headed in the wrong direction.
— Yeah, this is the callous stuff, this is the careless thing. This is where you are dabbling in sin, or maybe you become an expert practitioner in sin, and it's willful, Christ has died for your sins, you know that, you press on, you really don't care. That's what the Bible writer is referring to there. But remember what Eric said, if you confess your sins, God pledges to forgive them. Great to have you with us. We'll be back with more "Line upon Line" from "It is Written" in just a moment.
— Welcome back to "Line Upon Line", brought to you by "It is Written". Thank you once again for sending us your questions, it'd be a really short program if you didn't. But we've got another one here.
— Yeah, we do.
— This one comes from James.
— What's James asking?
— James says, "when Jesus makes the earth new, will there be vast oceans"?
— No.
— No, there you go.
— There you go. But here's how we know that, I'm gonna read you from the Bible, where it says in Revelation 21:1, it speaks about where John wrote, "and there was no more sea" Revelation 21. In fact, I'm gonna read you the whole verse, just because I can and it's a fantastic verse. Revelation 21:1, here it is, "and I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea". I don't think we need to intimate that this means there's no water, no bodies of water, but no vast oceans. Right now, the earth is made up of, I don't know, the Earth's surface, X percent of water, it's a lot of water, but there's coming a time in heaven where you won't have these vast oceans that you have to traverse water, seems impossible there would not be vast oceans, thankfully, no.
— The river of water of life, it's gotta go somewhere.
— Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's a good point. We'll find out one day where it goes.
— Yep, very good. Arlene has a question. Arlene says, "explain John 3:8". Here's what John 3:8 says, says, "the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit". So what does that mean?
— This is referring to the work of the Holy Spirit, in particular, the work of conversion, in the passage, Nicodemus came to Jesus, and he tried righteousness by flattery, oh, no one can do what you do unless God is with him, and Jesus, seeing his heart, spoke right to his heart, and he said, "you must be born again". And Nicodemus did this now righteousness by ignorance, "how's that possible? Need I enter back into my mother's womb, and be born a second time"? Jesus is talking about the rebirth that takes place under the urges of the Holy Spirit, and this is when he says, "the wind blows where it wishes, you hear the sound of it, but can't tell where it comes from and where it goes". So you understand what that means, he's just describing nature, you see the effect of the wind but you don't see the wind. "So is everyone who is born of the Spirit". You can't see the work, but you can see the result. You don't get to see the work of the Holy Spirit impacting someone's life in a visible way but you see the life being impacted.
— You know, sometimes, some people have what you might call a spectacular conversion experience.
— Right.
— They were headed down the wrong road, and everybody knew it and all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit got a hold of them, and they made a sharp right turn, well, more like a 180.
— Yep.
— And they were heading in the right direction. You go, wow, that's incredible. And other people they've kind of been led by the Spirit for quite a long time, and maybe they hadn't accepted Jesus as their savior formally, but they did and now their life still continues in the generally right direction. There's not this huge big change, but there's still something that's happened there.
— Yeah.
— And what they've done, both of them, is they've moved from death to life. It was a little more dramatic in one case than another, maybe the wind had picked up a few knots...
— Yep.
— in one case and then it was just a light breeze in the other, but it did the same thing.
— A friend of mine, as a matter of fact, a friend of ours, was in a Central or South American country, and he met a man who was a member of the church, got to know him, he had been an assassin for one of these Central, or South American drug barren war Lords, if I mentioned that person's name, you go, ooh. So this guy had been a hired gun for him, and had killed numerous people. Now he's a Christian following Jesus in faith. He's like a little lamb, the old life has gone. Now on the other hand, we would both know people who grew up in church, never smoked or drank, never did anything they shouldn't, and excepted Jesus as the Lord and savior. Now, my question for you is, which story is the more spectacular? They're both true, we both know people who've come to faith in Jesus without any major bumps in the road, this guy who was the hired gun for a drug warlord, dictator type person, had no anchor in the Bible, shot up a whole bunch of folks. So I'll ask you, which is the best story?
— They're both saved.
— They're both saved and that's what matters.
— Yep.
— As a matter of fact, you might say the best story is the kid who grew up in the church, in fact, I would say that, 'cause he never killed anyone, he didn't go way off into left field and live this life of abject sin and shame.
— Yep.
— But if the kid who grew up in the church, got up front in church one day and said, "I wanna share my testimony, I was raised in a good home and my mother loved me, and my father doted on me and my sisters were supportive, and my brother was a good guy, and we had a cat and a dog and I took piano lessons". But a guy says, "I used to shoot people dead, I killed them with my bare hands, I was involved in drugs and crime and murder, and I was drunk for 10 years". We're sitting on the edge of our, ah, tell me more, tell me more. See, there's no doubt, those are spectacular stories, and it's fantastic to hear about somebody who came from so far out all the way to faith in Jesus. Doesn't make it better.
— Yeah, you know, and another thing along those same lines, if and when the Lord gives you opportunity to share your testimony, make sure that the exciting part of the testimony is once you came to Jesus.
John Bradshaw: Amen.
— Because so frequently I hear stories, testimonies of people whose lives had gone so far the wrong direction, and it's really exciting and then they say, "and then I accepted Jesus as my savior, and you know, life is better now".
— Yeah, you don't wanna glorify the sin, it happened, you don't wanna make it, like that was the fun part and the exciting part, you give all kinds of people the wrong impression that way. All right, so this next question is from Won, and Won must be familiar with us because he says, "you refer to wine in the Bible as grape juice. So what about Noah who got drunk with wine? The daughters gave their father wine, got 'em drunk and so forth. If this wine is grape juice, how was it possible for Noah to get intoxicated"?
— Well, it depends on which type of wine is being described here. You would have to drink an awful lot of grape juice to get intoxicated.
— Oh, my.
— In fact, I don't even know that you could get there, but boy, would you get an upset stomach.
— Oh yeah.
— So how do you know whether the Bible is talking about wine or grape juice? In the Bible it uses both in the Old Testament, and the New Testament, the word wine, to describe both the unfermented juice of the grape, what we would call grape juice and the fermented version, that we would today call wine. The key is looking at the context, in the Old Testament it's the Hebrew word, yayin, in the New Testament it's the Greek word, oinos or oinos, depending on how you wanna want to pronounce it. But both of them can be translated both ways so look at the context. Wedding feast of Cana.
— Yep.
— Jesus turned water into wine...
— Sure.
— gallons of wine.
— 125 Gallons.
— 125 Gallons of wine. What a party. Can you imagine Jesus making that much alcohol? Something doesn't seem right there.
— Absolutely not.
— Something doesn't seem right.
— So I don't think anyone is suggesting that Noah drank unfermented grape juice.
— Right.
— He got wasted.
— Yep.
— You know.
— Same thing with Lot.
— Sure, absolutely right. So to reiterate our position, well the position of the Bible, and that is to say, where the Bible is talking about wine, the good stuff that it recommends that we drink, there it speaking about grape juice. God never recommended that you drink liquor and get drunk, he never recommended that. In fact, he stated words to the opposite effect. You don't wanna get drunk, you don't wanna be intoxicated, it's bad for you, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the liquor industry has blood on its hands, more blood than you can measure. It's not the sort of thing that you wanna participate in from a biblical, spiritual or personal growth point of view. Fascinating, isn't it? Alcohol is just damaging, that's all it is. But man, you come off as sophisticated if you know how to order an expensive bottle of wine, or you're the man, if you're drinking hard liquor from the top shelf, it's fascinating how the devil's got us so confused that we think that destroying ourselves and each other, is sophistication.
— And now he's got Christians saying, "well, as long as you don't get drunk, you can have a little bit, man.
— I was in a class, I was in a Bible study class one Sabbath morning, I was in Canada, and so I was astonished, well, I think drinking a little wine is okay as long as you don't go too far, and I think as long as you don't get drunk, just like you're saying, and a young lady spoke up, she said, "excuse me, I'm native American.
Eric Flickinger: Mm.
— And there's no such thing for me". This is what she said, I'm not comment commenting on this, it's what she said. "There's no such thing for me as a little, this is damaging, it's damaged my people, there isn't an off switch if I were to drink alcohol, you encouraging people to drink a little and not too much, is just urging people like me to ruin our lives".
— Mm.
— Not a good idea. Question for you now. This one comes from Andrew. "If I give tithes to offerings". Oh, sorry. "If I give tithes and offerings to charity, is that a sin or is it acceptable"? Eric I'm gonna kick the us off by saying, Andrew, we don't always wanna be saying, is this a sin or not? Because if it's a sin, I don't wanna do it, if it's acceptable, I'll do it. We want to find out what is God's plan A, what's best in the sight of God, what honors and glorifies God the most, based on what his word has revealed?
— All right, so what does God's word reveal about tithe and offerings? And they're two separate and distinct things, so it's important to make that distinction.
John Bradshaw: That's right.
— This is Malachi 3:10, Malachi 3:10 says, "bring all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in my house, and try me now in this, says the Lord, if I will not open for you, the window of heaven, and pour out for you, such a blessing, that there will not be room enough to receive it". So where do the tithes go? The tithes goes to the store house, he says that is my house. Incidentally I should probably define tithe. You know, some people I've heard say I tithe 4%, I tithe 8%.
— Yeah.
— That's bad math, is what that is. The word tithe means 10th. It is 1/10, so it is by definition a 10th. If you're going to tithe, which you should, give that 10th back to God. Now the question is, is that a 10th of the gross or a 10th of the net?
— You know what my answer is? Mine is don't be so miserable. Go big with God.
— Oh yeah.
— Of course it's the gross, not the net, of course it is, it's your increase, the tax that you pay, is just a bill that you pay to the tax man. You're not gonna pay God after you've paid your bills, and it's not paying God. You're not gonna be faithful to God after bills, 'cause might as well take out the electricity bill, and the rent or the mortgage payment and the car payment.
— Tithe comes down fast.
— Yeah, sure. Now you're giving God this much. No, no, no, no, no, with God you don't be dickering around with the, don't be so selfish. This is God we are talking about here. Go on on the gross, off course that's biblical but to start to, and you know what I know some people are going to says? Well, you know, what about my social security? I tithed on that back in the day and I, we're not getting into that.
— You're not gonna out give God, when people ask me that question...
— Good point,
— and I think it's a great question, 'cause it just gives me an opportunity to share what I like to think is an awfully great answer. It says here, "that when we return the tithe, he's gonna pour us out a blessing such that there will not be room enough to receive it". Should I give God a 10th of the gross or the net? That depends on the type of blessing do you want.
— Amen.
— Do you want a gross blessing, or do you want a net blessing? If you want a net blessing, hey, give him a 10th from the net. I think you'd be better off with a gross blessing.
— Amen to that and I think we'd be better off if we got your Bible question, we'd love you to send it to us, [email protected], [email protected], and sadly Eric, it seems like that's all we've got time for.
— Well, there we go.
— Yeah. Thanks very much for being here, appreciate it very much.
— Great to be here every time.
— And thank you very much for being here, we enjoy this. Thanks for your questions. Next time, we'll try to answer some more from the word of God. With Eric Flickinger, I'm John Bradshaw. This is "Line Upon Line" from "It is Written".