John Bradshaw - Ghosts, the Trinity, and the Nephilim
John Bradshaw: Welcome to "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written. With Wes Peppers, I'm John Bradshaw. We have the privilege of answering your Bible questions. Wes, glad to see you here today.
Wes Peppers: Good to be here today, Pastor John.
John Bradshaw: We're gonna start with a good question. We'll dive right in the deep end. Marion has been in touch, and she wants to know what Hebrews, chapter 6, 4-6 means. And it's a fair question. Why don't you read the passage for us?
Wes Peppers: Sure enough. Hebrews, chapter 6, verse 4 says, "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to...open shame".
John Bradshaw: Sounds like the writer is saying there are some people, if they fall, you can't get 'em back.
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: Now, let's assume that that's exactly what he's saying. Who are these people? He's talking about fully paid-up, card-carrying, boots and all, faithful believers in God.
Wes Peppers: That's right. Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: Correct? Yeah. Now, the question here from Marion went on a little bit further. She said, "We know that people like King David made mistakes, and even then he returned back to God and repented". David repented. Why can't these people repent? Well, David did fall, but evidently that's not exactly what the Bible writer in Hebrews has in mind. He slipped, he stumbled, he maybe took a running leap, but he turned back to God. The falling away here seems to be a very complete falling away. Would you say?
Wes Peppers: Yeah. Maybe in Timothy, Paul says people sear their own conscience.
John Bradshaw: Mm-hmm.
Wes Peppers: They cut it off, and they seal it.
John Bradshaw: So we aren't to intimate here that he's talking about some kind fellow who had a bad day or a bad week or a bad year and wanted to get all the way back to Jesus. He's talking about people who knew, who walked, who lived, who proclaimed, and just fell into the abyss of sin, turned their back on God, and rejected His appeals to repent. Because what we know is that God won't give up on you.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
John Bradshaw: So they've evidently given up on God.
Wes Peppers: That's right. And I think that's the key there. It's not that they've committed some sin that God says, "Whoa, that's too far," but they've done it in such a way that they've turned on Him and they're unwilling to turn back. Would God receive them if they'd be willing to repent? Yes.
John Bradshaw: No question.
Wes Peppers: It says that they're not able to be renewed again to repentance just because they simply won't allow it to happen. It's a choice that they've made to turn their back completely on God indefinitely.
John Bradshaw: Here's a really practical question that impacts everyone. Every person born is impacted by this question. It's from Deborah: "Is there anywhere in the Bible that says parents have to earn the right to be honored, according to the commandment? Should we honor them if they are ungodly"? Deborah, let's stage an intervention here before things fall apart in your family. Number one, who decides if they are ungodly? And what does ungodly look like? So because your parents left Christianity and became Buddhist, that means you shouldn't honor them. Because they stopped going to church, you should not honor them, which would mean to dishonor them. Because your parents are making some poor choices, you should dishonor them. Because they treated you badly when you were a child, you should refuse to honor them. It seems to me that if your parents go off the deep end, you ought to honor them all the more.
— That's right.
— Now, what does honor mean?
— Mm-hmm. It means "respect". It means "give allegiance to, loyalty to, love to".
— Yeah. That's what it means.
— That's right.
— The Bibles says, "Honor your father and your mother". It doesn't say, "Unless, of course, they're Muslim or Pentecostal, or they're members of the Lions Club, or they're lefthanded".
— Yes.
— Honor them. Now what does that mean? Does that mean doing every last ungodly thing they might ask? No. Does it mean making poor decisions? No. Does it mean dishonoring yourself?
Wes Peppers: No.
John Bradshaw: No. You wanna live in such a way that your parents be proud of you, that you carry on your family name in an appropriate way. You wanna live in such a way that your parents look on and say, "That child of mine is different to me, but I like what she's got going on". Or, "His faith in Jesus is actually doing him some good". Now, do parents have to earn the right to be honored? Well, no. Honor is given. But we're not... you gotta be careful how you define honor, you know? I will repeat: You don't have to do foolish things at their behest and so forth, but you should live in a way that shows them deference and respect. Honor is another way to put it. Now, I would say this. Do parents have to earn the right? I think parents should live in a way that makes it easier for their kids to honor them. Right?
— Bible says, "Don't provoke your children".
— That's right. Too many families have split up because parents have treated their children terribly. Look, look. Don't yell at your kids. Don't beat your kids. Don't mercilessly criticize. When I say "beat," I'm not talking about the way you choose to administer discipline. I'm talking about beating them. Don't say awful things about them. Don't tell your kids they're a failure. Don't live in a way that they don't wanna be around you. Love your kids. And listen, I've met some really imperfect parents whose children love them, idolize them, even though they're imperfect, because they love their children. And children understand even if you get it wrong sometimes, if you love them, they can see that you're only human and you don't always get it done perfectly.
— And it's important for the parents also to confess sometimes when they made a mistake.
— Yeah, "I'm sorry. I did a wrong thing".
— "I'm sorry I did that wrong thing". And, you know, also, let's just suppose your parents are ungodly, and they have turned away from the faith, or they're not in the faith, should you then also turn away from the faith and not honor them?
— Right.
— By not honoring them, you're also turning away from faith. You should set the example even more for them. Our culture and our society today has this trend where if you don't do the things that I like, then I don't need to respect you.
— Right, right.
— I don't need to honor you. So that mentality is coming really out of a culture. But God says, "Honor your parents," period. And I think that's important to do so, especially if they're ungodly, so that way, you know, they can see your Christian witness. I'll just say my own dad and I have not always had the best relationship. He wasn't a Christian for many years, and neither was I. When I became a Christian, I started to love and respect him, and he came to the place in our relationship where he said, "I know that you're a person that I can always trust".
— Wow.
— "I know that you're a person who will always tell me the truth". And our relationship is great now, and he's coming closer to God. I'm not saying "because of me," but because of what God is doing in his heart. But I'm thankful that in those years when I was a Christian, I was, though it was hard at times, wanting to honor him. And in doing so, we honor God. Speaking of which, the commandment to honor our parents is the only commandment that comes with a promise.
— Yes.
— All the commandments are promises, but it says your days will be long upon the earth. And so it doesn't give any exceptions or exemptions to that. Honor your parents, and your days will be long upon the earth.
— Amen. Yeah, it can be a challenge, maybe, but just love 'em.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
— Honor them. Show Jesus to them. Treat them as you would be treated if you went off the rails. All right, question here from Cynthia: "Who are the sons of God in the Old Testament (Genesis 6; Job 2) and the New Testament (Jude 6, 7 and 2 Peter 2:4 for...[example]"? The sons of God, who are these?
— Sure. Many people have asked this question, and they ask it because they associate the idea that the sons of God are like angels, or even half-man, half-angels, and the sons of men are half. But in reality, the Bible's very clear all the way through. It starts with Cain and Abel in the Garden of Eden. Those that have chosen to follow God are the sons of God. Those who have rejected Him and live their own way become the sons of men. And that's very clear throughout multiple passages of scripture.
— Yeah, you read where the sons of God took the daughters of men to be their wives.
— Yes.
— Over in 1 John: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and...doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that," and so forth. So, good answer.
— That's where they get that idea of the angels because they say, "The sons of God took the daughters of men". And really it was intermarriage where the people that were following God intermarried with those that weren't.
John Bradshaw: Yeah. Some of the interpretations of that, even by well-known and respected Christian leaders, weird.
Wes Peppers: They got it wrong.
John Bradshaw: Yeah. Weird, man.
Wes Peppers: That's right. That's right.
John Bradshaw: Like, demons and human beings.
Wes Peppers: Yeah. It's very simple and very clear from Scripture.
John Bradshaw: Yeah. Yeah. The Bible's a common sense book. Yeah.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
John Bradshaw: There's enough strange stuff in the Bible. What I mean is water coming out of a rock.
Wes Peppers: Sure.
John Bradshaw: A man walking on water.
Wes Peppers: Yes.
John Bradshaw: Dead people coming back to life.
Wes Peppers: Yes.
John Bradshaw: Yeah. We can believe that.
Wes Peppers: All good things.
John Bradshaw: Oh yeah, yeah, great things. But you don't need to go mad with the Bible and make it go some wacky places.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
John Bradshaw: No need for that. Philip has a question: "I've heard some preachers say that the saved of earth will replace the one-third of the angels that fell with Satan and were cast out of heaven. Is that true? Are there any scriptures...that speak to this topic"? Will the saved replace the fallen angels?
Wes Peppers: The Bible doesn't say that.
John Bradshaw: No.
Wes Peppers: It does say that 1/3 of the angels followed Lucifer.
John Bradshaw: Yes.
Wes Peppers: Says that in the book of Revelation, chapter 12, verse 4. But it gives no indication that those whom God created on the earth will repopulate those angels.
John Bradshaw: Yeah.
Wes Peppers: Just doesn't say that at all.
John Bradshaw: We'll read this one here from Franciska. Franciska asks, "Why do they call Jesus 'the Son of God'? I know God didn't create Him, as Jesus is God Himself. But the concept of the Trinity still puzzles me. I'm confused by the titles 'Son' and 'Father.' Can you help clarify this for me, please"? Yes, we can. Jesus came to the earth and was born of a woman. So He was somebody's Son. Whose Son was He? Well, to make it very clear that He's divine, the Bible refers to Him again and again as "the Son of God". Is this figurative? I don't think so. The Father is called "the Father". Jesus referred to Himself as "the Son". So they're certainly two different individuals. But this doesn't mean that Jesus was born. It doesn't mean that He, the Father carved off part of Himself to create Jesus. Jesus is an individual being who has always lived. And, Wes, you've heard them say, "He's the Son, so He had to have had a beginning". How do you answer that?
— Well, He didn't have a beginning. The Bible's clear that He existed. In fact, in John, chapter 1, it says that Jesus is clearly God. It says that He was with the Father "in the beginning".
John Bradshaw: Yep.
Wes Peppers: In Genesis, God says, "Let us create man in our image," in Genesis 1:26. So therefore God was speaking to the Son. Colossians 2, verse 16 says that Jesus created all things. And so was Jesus born? No. Multiple passages of scripture describe Him as eternal. In Revelation 1, He says, "I'm the Alpha and the Omega"...
John Bradshaw: Yes.
Wes Peppers: ..".the Beginning and the Ending". Those are the same titles that are also given to God the Father.
John Bradshaw: "Before Abraham was"...
Wes Peppers: "I AM".
John Bradshaw: ..".I AM".
Wes Peppers: That's right.
John Bradshaw: The Self-Existent One.
Wes Peppers: That's right. Certainly He was born as a man, but being birthed as God, He was always God; He's always been existent.
John Bradshaw: I wanna be kind here. There've been times that I've been...less kind about this.
Wes Peppers: We all have. We all have.
John Bradshaw: Yeah, yeah, about this subject. But this is one that's getting a lot of people...
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: ...tangled.
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: And here's the reason why. It's because it's complicated.
Wes Peppers: Yes.
John Bradshaw: Three Beings: The Father's certainly a distinct Being, the Son, definitely a distinct Being, the Holy Spirit, definitely a distinct Being. Now, we're told They are one. And that could stretch your mind, if you allowed it to. It could could make your head hurt, if you thought about it. And I think what people are doing is they're trying to find just a simple, pithy answer that fits with their Western mindset. And if they want to deny what the Bible says and say, "Well, Jesus was the Son; He had a beginning," that just may make it simpler. I don't know. Not for me.
— Yeah, sure. It doesn't make it simpler. The Bible even calls it a mystery. I mean, it calls...
— Yeah.
— ...it talks about the birth of Christ, the incarnation of Christ, a mystery, and so it may not be something that we have the absolute complete answer to that makes sense to our finite minds because it's an infinite answer.
— The Bible says God's thoughts are as high above our thoughts as heaven is above the earth. I think it's okay to say, "There are some things about God that I don't completely understand". Now, I'm not trying to weasel out of this.
— No.
John Bradshaw: I feel like I understand. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three, and yet They're one, the Trinity, the Godhead. I have no problem with that at all. But it's okay to say, "This is God I'm talking about". If we could understand everything about God, He'd be far too small, and we'd be lying to ourselves. I would say this. This is just a little appeal. If you are challenged by the idea of the Trinity or frankly anything in the Bible that the majority go along with, be gracious in your disagreement and be kind and don't be at all divisive and be prayerful and ask God to lead you to where you ought to be. This is "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written. We are back with more in just a moment.
John Bradshaw: Welcome back to "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written. If you have a Bible question that you would like us to discuss or to endeavor to answer, please get that to us. You can email us. That's the very best way. Email us at [email protected], [email protected]. And if you're blessed by this program and you know somebody who has questions about the Bible, point them to this program and tell 'em, "You might find some answers there". We would like as many people as possible to be really blessed. I'm with Wes Peppers. I'm John Bradshaw. And here's a question from Adam: "Tithe is in the Bible. I just don't know where to return my tithes.... I have a hard time trusting people. What's the criteria used to decide to whom on earth should your tithes go"? Simple answer, really, Adam. Malachi 3:10 talks about returning tithe to the storehouse. We recognize that today as the church. But you don't trust people. I've got a question for you: What would you not trust about the church? If you can't trust your church to use the tithe correctly, and the Bible makes clear that the tithe is to be used for the support of ministers of the gospel, for the proclamation of the gospel, then you probably got a dodgy church. Now, what you may be saying is, "I don't always approve of the way the church uses my money". Okay, you could be wrong. Mmm, you could be right. So, that leaves you scratching your head. I have a question for you: Do you trust the bank? 'Cause you have money in the bank. Do you approve of the way the bank uses your money? You know what they do with your money, don't you? They take your money that you put in a bank, and they grab it and loan it to people who... sell alcohol, and they film pornography, and they open marijuana dispensaries and gambling dens and all of the rest. That's what happens to the money that you put in a bank. It gets used by banks and financial institutions. Do you invest? Do you have a 401(k)? Unless you've said, "Conscience fund for me only," the money that you're investing is being used to finance sin all around the world. So, while I get it, that you don't maybe like the way the church uses your money, your morality is pretty selective. You don't seem to apply that rule to every other area of your life. Tithe to the church, that's your duty in the sight of God. And then pray that God will bless the tithe, and He will. And He'll use it for your glory. And by the way, if there's a church, they get 100% of the tithe and they're squandering 5%, well, my tithe was in the 95 they didn't squander.
— That's right. That's right.
— I'm okay with that.
Wes Peppers: And not only that, but once we do our part, once we do what God has asked us to do, God said, return a faithful tithe, and once we return that tithe, it leaves our hands. We have fulfilled the duty that God has asked us to do. It's not our responsibility to decide then what the church does with it. And God will hold the church accountable. There may be some times when the church doesn't always use it the best way or the wisest way. That happens. We're human. But we're gonna pray for our church leaders. We're gonna pray that God is going to bless them with wisdom. We may not always agree with it, but at the end of the day, if we pray and ask God to bless our tithe return, He will do it. And those gifts are not really for us to decide; it's for us to return.
John Bradshaw: That's right.
Wes Peppers: That's what God has asked us to do.
John Bradshaw: Amen. Question here from Dan: "Why was the tree of...knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, along with the serpent, if everything was 'very good'? Why was the devil allowed to dwell in the midst of a brand new creation after God claimed it all to be 'very good'"? Well, there was nothing un-good about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was good, and then Satan came along. How do we understand this?
Wes Peppers: Yeah, I think, to me, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is amazing because it's the ultimate testimony of God's belief in freedom of choice.
John Bradshaw: Yes.
Wes Peppers: And that tree was there as a symbol for that. And God said to Adam and Eve, essentially, "If you love me, don't eat from that tree. Eat freely from all the other trees". So God gave them an abundance of blessing, and He said, "This tree determines your choice of loyalty and love to me". And so there wasn't anything evil about the tree. In fact, when you look in Genesis, it says in chapter 2 and 3, there's a couple of phrases there that indicates that it was "pleasant to the eye and good for food". And it says the same thing about all the other trees. So this tree actually didn't look any different than any of the other trees. The difference was God's commandment was placed on it. So then why was the devil allowed to dwell in the midst of a brand new creation, Pastor John?
John Bradshaw: I don't know that he was dwelling. He visited; he hung out there. It's not like he was living there. He wasn't camped. He, for some reason, was allowed access there, and, in part, because God wanted to see whether Adam and Eve could be trusted...
— That's right.
— ...whether they were loyal, whether they were genuine, to demonstrate to us, imagine this, to demonstrate that God gives us freedom of choice and to show us the foolishness of squandering that freedom of choice.
— That's right.
— If you take a look at the world today, it's down, down, down, down, down. It's inevitable. Because once sin came into the world, we became selfish, and we would make selfish decisions. Of course politicians are corrupt, some of them, because they can be. Of course there are business people who do things that lack integrity, some of them, because they can. Of course there are men and women who are unfaithful to their spouses because they can be. Selfishness drives them to that. God gave us freedom of choice. And you know what He's demonstrated to us? He's demonstrated that without faith in Him, without being surrendered to Him, our freedom of choice just drags us into an unfortunate place. So we want to surrender our freedom to God, beg God, plead with God, and then trust that God will live His life in us to keep us living with integrity and joined to His heart of love. I have a question here from Amy. Her question is, "If a man is divorced by his wife for non-biblical reasons..., and the man [is] converted, [is] a baptized Christian, is he now a new-enough creature that remarriage is no longer adultery"? Yeah. This is where it starts to get a little complicated, and it really starts to impact life in a legitimate way.
— Sure. You know, people have asked this question before, and it's a very excellent question. While we were away from Christ, the Bible talks about when I join myself to Christ, I'm baptized; it's like marrying Christ. Before that conversion experience, I was not bound under the covenant of Christianity. I was living my life as I pleased. I was serving another master, namely the devil. And so if a person was divorced or were committing adultery or had many girlfriends or whatever the case may be, they come to Christ, their life has changed, their life is new, their heart has been transformed, now they're living under that new covenant with Christ, and I don't think that that applied to them. I think that they would be free to marry. Of course, you wanna follow the counsel of Paul to marry someone you're equally yolked with. So you wanna marry another Christian.
— Yeah.
— But I wouldn't see any problem with someone being married under that circumstance.
— Yeah. So the question is, "Could they remarry"?
— Sure.
— Yeah, they could. You know, it would be ideal if both people were converted.
— That's right.
— Yeah, that's really what you're hoping for. Enrique asks, "If a friend is being visited by her deceased mother, how do I share with her that it is not actually her mother? I want to enlighten her, not turn her away". Enrique, remember, not everybody likes to be corrected. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try. You wanna approach this very, very prayerfully. So understand it's... something you ought to be very careful about. Certainly something you want to do if God gives you the opportunity. How would you counsel somebody to go about showing another person, "This isn't your mother visiting"?
— Sure. What you definitely don't wanna do is just say that outright: "Hey, that's", I've had people say this, "Hey, that's the devil that's there. That's a spirit, an evil spirit or a demon". And you certainly don't wanna do that, because that person's very close to that relative that they perceive as appearing. I would ask them the question, "Have you considered what the Bible says about that"?
— Yes.
— "There's a great set of Bible studies, and it covers this and a lot of other topics". We have our It Is Written Bible studies that cover this very subject. You may be able to share with them. There may be some subjects you wanna cover first to lay a foundation. But that's what I would do. I would take them to the Bible. And again, you don't wanna beat them over the head with the Bible. You don't wanna just start throwing out a bunch of Bible verses. You wanna approach it gently, carefully, lovingly, and kindly, and God will open the heart of that person for the truth.
— And pray. Pray, pray, pray that God would touch a heart. Because we both know that that's not anybody's mother visiting. This is spiritualism. It's a terrible, terrible deception. So, you're on the right track. Proceed. But proceed carefully and prayerfully. But do proceed and ask God to open up that person's eyes. I was in a situation once, I could tell you the details, but I won't. And there was a fellow there, and he was in a certain situation, and I felt like I needed to talk to him and, you know, tell him straight.
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: I didn't mean "tell him straight", tell him what he clearly needed to know. But I looked at that guy, who was a lovely man who loved God. He just didn't, there was something he didn't understand. And I was really concerned that if I blundered in there, it would just be me being me and I'd hurt his feelings and maybe drive him away from God. I didn't wanna do that. So I prayed. I said, "Lord, if I should talk to this man about this situation, please show me. Please show me".
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Bradshaw: Blow me down. Couple of hours later the phone rang. This guy was on the other end of the phone. He said, "Hey, there's been something on my heart. I want to ask you about X. What's your opinion"?
Wes Peppers: Sure. That's right. That's powerful.
John Bradshaw: Yeah. Yeah.
Wes Peppers: Let me just say this, too, that I can understand a person's zeal, 'cause you have a loved one who may be having this experience, or a friend, and you are burdened that they be not deceived. That's a very real emotion and a passion, so we don't want to underestimate that. But there's just a right way and a right time to do that. Pray about it, as Pastor John said, and ask God, to show you the right time to do it, and He will.
John Bradshaw: Amen. Amen. Rather than dive into the next question, which is gonna be a great one, we'll hold that for another program. If somebody is wanting to read the Bible, maybe they've only ever been a surface reader, or maybe the Bible is not a book they're really familiar with, where would you point them? Where would you point someone and say, "Start here"?
Wes Peppers: Sure. One of my favorite books is the Gospel of John.
John Bradshaw: Mm-hmm.
Wes Peppers: It's a beautiful gospel. It introduces Jesus in a powerful way as "the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world". Another book to follow that might even be the book of Genesis. It's a very interesting book, has a lot of stories, talks about the creation and many of the patriarchs throughout the Scripture. And so those two books are excellent, but the Gospel of John is wonderful.
John Bradshaw: We would encourage you: Read the Word of God. Dig deep in it. Read and believe the promises. And look for Jesus and find Him there. Thanks for joining us. Got a question? Email us: [email protected]. Until next time, with Wes Peppers, I'm John Bradshaw. This has been "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written.