 Howdy there, Radiant Church. How's everybody doing this fine rainy Saturday evening? Guys loving all the spring weather? Yeah, when's that coming? Hey, real quick, we wanna give everybody instructions on how to submit questions. This is week number two of Red Hot, and so what you do is you go to slido.com. It's a website. You enter into the event code RedHot, type in your question, and then what we would really appreciate is even if you're online or on Facebook Live or Portage, if you would put in what campus that you're in, if it's Richland Portage or Facebook Live, or if you're Livestream that will help us so that we can address you. And if you're so brave, you can also include your name. Hi, I'm Bob. Yeah, sure you are. Okay, so you can submit your name, and we're ready to take your questions tonight. This weekend is all about theology, the church, and the Bible, which is really, really broad, and so I reserve the right to dial a friend. I've got multiple choice and a lifeline. Actually, nothing up my sleeves. We're gonna take your questions as they come, and we've already been getting some questions this afternoon, and so I think they're going to put the first question up today. Pastor Lee, we have good friends who love Jesus, but are Chicago Cubs fans. Is it possible to be a Christian and a Cubs fan? You know, there are a lot of sincere Cubs fans out there, but they're sincerely wrong. And you can believe in something strongly, but still be wrong in what you believe in, and everybody knows that Jesus loves the Detroit Tigers the most. Unless you say to me, if he loves you so much, then why haven't you won a world championship since 1984? I'll refer you to the Epistle of Peter where it says this. It says, the Lord is not slack concerning his promises. Don't be one of the last day mockers that say, where is his coming? Where is our championship? Actually, who cares? All right, let's go to a real question here. How do we know if we are saved when the Bible says Jesus will tell many to depart from him, including many Christians? This is a question from the Portage campus, and so this is based on Matthew chapter seven. In fact, why don't I just turn there so that I can read that verse tonight and give us some context to it? Because oftentimes when we read the Bible, we make certain assumptions that then we paraphrase, and I wanna make sure that we get it exactly as Jesus said it. So Matthew seven, verse 21, Jesus said, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father, who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So the question is, how do we know if we're saved? How do we know if we're in right relationship with Jesus when the Bible clearly says that on that day, on that final day, on judgment day, when everyone stands before the Lord and gives an account for their life, that there are going to be some that Jesus says to them, he says, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of iniquity. And that's a really, a really big question. Let me narrow it down and describe it to you this way, that I really believe, especially in Western civilization in America where we have been strongly influenced by Christian dome, Western Europe that was for hundreds of years under the influence of, the state church or a phenomenon known as Christendome. And then obviously the byproduct of that being the United States is that our undergirded worldview is from a Judeo-Christian worldview, whether we like that or not. And for several hundred years ago, basically over 80% of Americans when survey would say that they were Christians. But if you take that same group of 80% of people today, it's actually lower than that. It's about 70% right now. But if you were to take that 70% of people and ask what makes you think you're a Christian, people have all kinds of wrong assumptions about what it is to be a Christian. Some people would say, well, I'm a Christian because I was born in America. And that's a false assumption. Some people would say, well, I'm a Christian because I believe in God. That's a false assumption. That's a good starting point, but it's not complete. Some people would say, I even believe in the historicity of Jesus. That in and of itself is not enough. Other people would say, well, I'm a Christian because I try and do more good than bad. Other people would say, I'm a Christian because I go to church. And going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than you being in the garage makes you a car. It's great that you're at church, but it doesn't define you. And because of that, because of in our culture, especially in Western civilization, and probably to Jesus' crowd as well. Because remember, Jesus is talking to a Jewish community that believed that their whole identity was wrapped up in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And if you were to ask them, do you believe in the Bible, they would say yes. Do you believe in God? Yes, do you believe in the Messiah? Yes, there would even be those who would say at this moment that they believed in Jesus, that he was the Messiah, but he was the problem. As many of them were unwilling to pay the price to truly follow Jesus. And I believe even in our culture today that we have enough, quote, Christian Christianity in our culture that people have been in a way, vaccinated with enough of the gospel that they are now vaccinated with, you know what a vaccine is, right? A vaccine is when you take a disease and you weaken it, introduce it into a person's body in a weakened state so that your immune system can defeat it and build up its immunity to it so that if the real thing like smallpox is ever introduced into the blood system, that it won't take because your immune system is stronger having defeated the weaker version. Well, I believe that there are a lot of Americans, especially, that have been vaccinated with a weakened form of the gospel so that spiritually they have a heightened immune system against the real thing. I think there are a lot of people in our culture who think they're Christians because, A, I go to church, or I've read the Bible, or I believe in God, or I was baptized when I was a child. And unfortunately, they have never had a defining moment where they're confronted with their own sinfulness, repented of their sins and responded to Jesus' command in Matthew chapter 16, which is if deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. That's the terms of the gospel. It's not just about praying a prayer in Sunday school when you're five years old. Again, that's a great start point, but you can't just say a little prayer at five years old and not have any fruit that's produced out of your life and make the trajectory of your life following Jesus and someday show up on eternity's doorstep and produce a hell insurance card for a prayer that you prayed in fifth grade. That's not how the gospel works. The gospel only works when there is a true conversion of our heart in a change. And so because of that, I think, unfortunately, there are going to be a lot of people on that day who are going to show up in judgment and think that heaven is going to be their home, but they've never really had a born again experience. So that's what I believe that is about. And listen, if you're asking that question and considering it for yourself, odds are as you probably are a Christian, you're because you're concerned about it. It's the people who aren't concerned about it that should be concerned, if that makes sense. Okay, let's take another. In a world so under the control and influence of alcohol, drunkenness, social drinking, alcoholism, in moderation, et cetera, what does the Bible say about drinking? Well, the Bible has a lot to say about drinking. It has some positive things to say about alcohol and it has some negative things to say about alcohol. Proverbs talks about coming under the influence. Don't even look at the wine when it's swirling in the cup. Lest you look at it and then you get drunk and then you end up basically on top of a mast of a sailboat going, woo, how did I get here? I mean, some people, your wild days, maybe you did that. You ended up on a boat someplace and didn't know how you got there or other places. So it talks about the dangers of alcoholism. And then on the other hand, I mean, famously, we, you know, if you've ever talked to somebody who struggles with alcohol, they'll say, well, Jesus turned the water into wine. And actually, Jesus did turn the water into wine at a wedding feast after everybody had drunk and he made really good wine. So I actually had somebody in a debate one time tell me that, well, that wasn't really wine. That was, you know, great juice. And I'm like, well, the last time I checked, great juice doesn't come in varying degrees of goodness. There's like welches and nothing else. And this was wine. This was fermented wine. And so the Bible talks about fermented wine all throughout the scripture. Wine was a part of most civilizations and most cultures. Here's the problem. The problem is not alcohol. The problem is the person who is drinking alcohol and their lack of discernment, their lack of self-discipline and their intention and their motive to it. If your intention is to use alcohol as a way to get drunk, then alcohol is damaging and we all know that it can be used to dull your senses, your decision-making process. It can become addictive, but a lot of things can become addictive. The sin of gluttony is actually the abuse of food. And there are a lot of people that abuse food and their gluttony and the Bible calls gluttony a sin. The Bible calls drunkenness a sin. First Corinthians chapter six says drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. Peter says, talking to Christians, he says, you've had enough time in your past to live like the Gentiles and getting caught up in your drinking parties and all that kind of thing. So there needs to be discretion. The Bible also talks in Romans about being careful that we don't cause other people to stumble in what we do. So if you, being a Christian, say, I have liberty, I have no qualms, no problems with drinking a glass of wine or having a beer, but you do it in the presence of somebody that you do, that does because of their background. Maybe they were an alcoholic or maybe they were in a home where alcohol led to abuse or maybe there's some negativity that's attached or maybe their conscience just tells them, I can't do this and you choose to drink in front of those type of people, you're not exercising charity or love for a fellow believer. And really we should really consider those things, not just our own liberties, but also how we're coming across to other people. And so I don't think the Bible forbids alcohol, here's what it does. It calls us like in all things to become discerning and to become moderate in those things. First Timothy lists off a standard for elders and for those who would be pastors and leaders. And it says this, not given to much wine. Notice it doesn't say not given to wine, but it says not given to much wine. In other words, don't be a person who's addicted to substances. That could really apply to alcohol. Ephesians chapter five says do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation. Discipation is a word that means excess and behavior that's uncontrolled. And so don't get drunk. And so what we can't do, here's where legalism gets in. Legalism gets in when we begin to make laws that God didn't sanction in order to keep what we think is appropriate. So does the Bible forbid alcohol? No, does the Bible caution us about alcohol like it does many things? Yes. What's the most important thing? In any area of discernment, we need to be wise and discerning about what we use, what we allow to use us and where we do it and who it impacts and who it affects. In Michigan, you have to be 21. So don't be one of these 18-year-olds like, oh, I got liberty in Jesus. No, you're rebelling against the laws of the land. And you need to be cautious about that. And let's not have Jesus drunk parties. When I was in Bible college, I went to a very conservative Bible college that I got kicked out of, but that's like a whole nother story. But we had kids who were debating in theology class about why they shouldn't drink alcohol. And man, they were so skilled in their debate skills, but on Fridays, they would go about an hour away and they'd go to drinking parties. To me, that's the greatest form of hypocrisy. It's like, if you really believe something's wrong, don't go do it. And if you say, well, I just would rather steer away from it. You know what? Then you steer away from it. But we need to be careful that we don't judge those who have liberty in those regards. Okay, let me take another question. Can anyone be saved to make it into heaven or does God predestine some to make it to heaven and others not? Well, it's obvious that God does not want any Cubs fans in heaven. So I'm kidding. You guys are tough tonight. All right, so here's the question. And this is really a question relating to the subject of predestination. I get all kinds of questions about that. Does God predestine some people to go to heaven and others not to? John Calvin actually, who's the founder of what, or at least his followers, formalized his theology in what's called the Five Points of Calvinism, actually believed in double predestination, which is this, that not only did God predestine before the foundations of the world with absolutely no conditions other than his own choice to save some, but he also predestined to damn others. So I do not believe that God, before the foundations of the world, predetermined who he was going to save and then damned or destined for hell everybody else. I believe John 3.16 is probably the most basic Bible verse. I think everybody knows it, including the guy in the end zone on Sunday night football. And what does it say? For God so loved that he gave his only begotten son whosoever should not perish, but should have everlasting life. So whosoever is God's criteria. Whosoever believes on Jesus Christ will be saved and receive eternal life. So I believe whosoever is the criteria. God loved the world so much that he sent Jesus to suffer and die on the cross for the sins of the world. And then he has called the church to go and to proclaim the gospel. And then it's up to us to believe the gospel or to reject the gospel. And if anyone believes, to me, the Bible's pretty clear, whosoever, the Old Testament version of that is, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord or believe shall be saved. I don't believe that, some people believe this that it doesn't matter what you do, there's nothing you can do to be saved. Well, the Bible says you can and the thing that you have to do to be saved is to believe. So believe and be saved. If you don't believe, let me encourage you to believe. Believe and be saved. Let's take another question. Why are there two accounts of creation of male, female in the Bible? Who is Lilith and issue why there are other people on earth? This is from live stream. So Lilith is, actually, those are like two or three different questions. I'm not gonna get to Lilith. Lilith has nothing to do with why people on earth, she was Frasier's girlfriend on Cheers and on Frasier has absolutely nothing to do with creation. But let's talk about the first part of the question. Why are there, sorry, why are there two accounts of creation of male, female in the Bible? And he's referring to Genesis. So in Genesis chapter one, you have the account of creation. It says that God created ex nihilo, which means out of nothing. So in the beginning, very first verse of the Bible, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth tells us everything that we need to know right from the beginning about God that there was a beginning, there was a creator and there was a creation. It came out of nothing. The universe is not eternal. The universe was created. God is eternal and God is the one who initiated creation. As we go through the process of Genesis chapter one in creation, we begin to see that God created the heavens and the earth and he created the stars, the sun, the grass, the birds, the separate the water from the mountains, all those things. We get to Genesis chapter one, verse 26 and it says God created man. And it says in Genesis one, 26, let us create man in our own image. According to our likeness, let us make him male and female. And then it talks about why he created them to give them dominion over everything. And then when you come into Genesis chapter two, you see that God finishes all creation on the seventh day he rests, but then it goes into a second, more specific examination of God creating. This is actually not two creation events. This is two vantage points of the same event. And in order to understand that, you have to understand how ancient near Eastern literature was written. It's kind of telescopic. You start with a big picture and then you begin to move in, zoom in closer on more specific terms. So the author, which is Moses, I believe that Moses did write the Pentateuch in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Neutronomy. He starts off in Genesis chapter one, talking about the beginnings of the heavens and the earth and how the universe and how the earth and all the specifics about creation that set the stage for God to create his apex of all creation, which is mankind came into being, get to the end of chapter one. And by the way, you need to know this, that the chapters in your Bibles were put there by editors. Moses didn't go, all right, chapter one, and then begin to write and go, let's say good break, chapter two. The chapters are put there relatively recently by editors so that it was easy to find places and verses in the Bible. When it was originally written, it was written as a narrative. So Genesis one would flow naturally into Genesis two. Genesis two is the author giving us way more specifics about the creation of humanity and how there came to be man created as male and female because everything that God created was good. You read it in Genesis chapter one, it says God created the grass and the fields, it was good, the beast, it was good, the birds, it was good, fish, it was good, the mountains good, stars good, sun good, everything good. He gets to man and he says it's not good that man's alone. And so he tries to bring him a companion, a companion is not found and then God takes the rib from Adam or out of the side of Adam and he forms a perfect compliment, a companion who's also an image bearer of God so that together they complement or they complete one another as the full expression of the image of God to creation. And so it's not two different accounts of creation, it's actually the same event just zoomed in to give us more detail on God's intent and his purpose for creation. Let's go to another question. In more than one instance, the Bible says that women are weaker than their husbands and are to be gentle and quiet. How does that fit into today's society? Well, thanks for that question. Appreciate that. So let me talk to you about the word weaker, okay? So that we're all on the same page. The word weaker, when it's talking about, it's Peter where he's talking about husbands and wives and their relationship with one another. He's talking about how we're to relate to one another. First Peter chapter three. Likewise, wives, or let me back up here. Okay, so verse one of chapter three, he starts off with the wives to be subject to your husbands and then when it gets to husbands, that's where the word weaker comes in. It says in verse number seven, likewise husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since you are heirs or she's an heir with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. So when Paul says that a woman is weaker, he's talking specifically in two arenas, okay? Number one is he's probably making reference to physical weakness, okay? It's just in our day and age and our culture and this is how this applies, we're trying to strip all gender distinctions away. And which is interesting because when God created, he created man, based on that last question that we just answered. Genesis says that the reason why God created mankind was to be image bearers in the earth of himself. Then the way that God created man to do that was he created them male and female. He didn't make two males and he didn't make two females, he made two complimenting aspects of the Godhead so that the complete expression of the image of God was given to the world. So in our world today, what we wanna do is we wanna strip away all gender distinctions for the sake of equality. But in the process of doing that, we're allowing the image of God to actually get marred in the earth because we're not honoring the distinctives. Men and women are different. I don't know if you've noticed. But we wanna say, well, what do you mean? What does the Bible mean by weaker? Isn't that an archaic thing? No, first of all, in the primary sense, Paul's saying that women are physically weaker, okay? But that's not the primary meaning in this text. The secondary meaning is this. Paul's writing to a first century culture in which women have no rights and they're completely disadvantaged. And so the word weaker can actually be translated, physically weaker, but this is according to Kittle's New Testament theology is dictionary of the New Testament theology, that the word that's translated weaker can also mean socially and culturally disadvantaged. In other words, a woman is dwelling, you're married to a woman living in Roman society and the wife that you're married to is at a cultural disadvantage. Even though in the kingdom of God and the church, women in the first century were given much more equality and expression and opportunity in the church as a aspect of the culture of heaven than they were in secular culture. So it's interesting, a lot of times when people wanna be critical of Christianity and say, well, it's misogynistic. Actually, in the first century, when Christianity emerged on the scene, Christianity was incredibly revolutionary in that the very first witnesses of the resurrection were women, that Jesus actually had women that followed him and were part of his pack of disciples. They were there present on the day of Pentecost. They actually were sent out as ambassadors of the church. They were honored as leaders within the church and they were given equal footing in the church. Galatians says there's neither male nor female in the body of Christ. In other words, positionally, your relationship with God, you don't have to have a man to be a mediator, ladies. This was radically different because in Roman and Greek culture, women could not really own property. They weren't voters. They were totally dependent on the marriage component. So Paul is writing here to men and he says this, think about this, and by the way, women didn't get an inheritance in Roman or Greek culture. But here he says, in the kingdom of God, husbands, even though your wives are called to respect and honor and respect you for being the head of the household, your responsibility is to love and honor them even in their social disadvantage and sometimes even in their physical disadvantage because you need to realize they may not be advantaged culturally, but in the kingdom of God, they are heirs, coheirs with you of the grace of life. So in other words, the inheritance that you get from heaven, the spiritual riches that Jesus has purchased for us is greater and more eternal than anything that this world has to offer and women are on equal footing. So husbands, you better recognize that and honor them and come up and partner with them in that lest God doesn't listen to your prayers. God is concerned about his daughters. Now in our culture today, feminism is basically trying to repair a lot of the damage that a male dominated culture has produced. But I want you to know that most of the male domination, misogyny and things that are taking place in the world are not the result of biblical Christianity. A true return to biblical Christianity actually gives more honor to women and to men and at the same time respects the distinctives and the compatibility and the unique way that God has designed the genders. It is disrespectful to women to say that you need to become more like a man in order to have a place at the table. A woman should be able to be fully feminine and a full on woman who loves her family, loves Jesus, is paid the same and is respected the same as a man without having to become a man and a man equally not having to become a woman. So, okay, I got more to say about that but it'll be another time, okay. So Portage asks, can Big Bang cosmology, theistic evolution or an old earth model be reconciled with the biblical view of the Genesis narrative? Wow, somebody in Portage has been reading. Okay, so basically here's the question. If you don't recognize some of these words, is there a conflict between the Bible's description of creation and what secular modern science and quantum physics and geology and all those different sciences have said about the earth? You know, a lot of modern scientists say that the universe is 13 billion years old, that the earth is 13 billion years old, that it started a long time ago, that the galaxy, the universe started with a big bang and everything came from that. And how does that jive with the Bible? That describes God as the creator and the six days of creation, what seems to be a very new creation, six to 10 or 15,000 years, is there conflict between the two? And here's what I would say, there are probably at least four unique views that Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians disagree about when it comes to creation. There are what are called young earth creationists that believe that the earth was created probably somewhere between seven to, some would even be so generous to say 15,000 years ago and that the reason why the universe looks older is because God created it with the appearance of age. So there are those people. There are others that would have different opinions on age. There are some people that would say no, the universe was created by God, but billions of years ago and maybe creation is relatively, of man is relatively new and there's a lot of different viewpoints in between. Okay, let me tell you, here's the non-negotiables for me when we come to creation. Because I have an opinion, I believe that it's possible that the universe or the galaxies was created a long, long time ago, but modern earth creation, as you and I know it, on the earth with man is relatively recent. But there are a lot of people that would disagree with that love Jesus, are Christians, but there are some non-negotiables. Number one is that we believe that God is the creator. Okay, we need to start there. That everything didn't happen by chance or random explosion of an atom that caused everything to exist. That's lunacy, okay? And if you have a hard time having faith in the Bible, but you tell me you believe in that, you have more faith in the wrong thing than I do in the right. So what we have to come down to is number one, that there was God and that God created Ex-Naheala, which means he created everything out of nothing. Okay, the second thing that we have to come to grips with is a literal Adam and Eve, okay? There would be some people that say, God used the process of evolution in order to bring about biological transformation. Well, we can argue that all day long, but here's where we have to, the rubber has to hit the road. There has to be a unique creation of Adam and Eve as the first human beings, not just some Homo sapiens that God breathed on and it became the first Adam or whatever biologists wanna call them. It says in Genesis that God formed man and woman, Adam and Eve, out of the dust of the earth uniquely by breathing life into them, it doesn't have anything to say that it was another one of God's creations in which he just caused them to become self aware. So we have to have God as a creator that everything came out of nothing, that the universe is not eternal. So that's the first part. The second part is an Adam and Eve and a real fall event, a real fall event. In other words, mankind fell in sin because here's the thing, I don't know how you have a Pauline understanding of salvation of the cross, the resurrection and justification by faith and sinfulness of humanity like you find in the book of Romans without a very clear expression of the first Adam, the first man, Adam and Eve and a literal fall into sin that has spun God's good creation into the state that is in today. So if we have those things, if we have God created everything and we have a real Adam and Eve and a real fall, if we can agree on those things, then we can debate all the other things as open-handed issues and say, well, I think and you think, but it doesn't affect the gospel. You take those things out and now it affects the gospel. And so those are the non-negotiable things and I'm not smart enough to know all the physics and all that type of thing, but I am pretty convinced that Genesis is to be taken literal. And by the way, I personally believe that the six days of creation are literal, at least the last four of them, are literal 24-hour periods of time. You might say, why not the first? Because there wasn't a sun and the sun determines 24-hour rotation and so it's a little bit more than you wanna know, but there you go. Richland, our Holy Spirit manifestations, tongues falling out in the spirit, shaking, yelling, real. How do we discern the truth from the fakes? Well, I know yelling is real because I grew up in that house. But I think with this individual, whoever you are, who's in Richland, who asks this question, is talking about is physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit upon a person that affects them physically and really there's two kinds of things. So let me divide this question. Let's talk about manifestations of the spirit like tongues. That's distinct from the other. So I'll come back to that one. Let me talk about the other, which is falling out in the spirit, shaking, yelling, those kinds of things. How do we discern them? All throughout church history, when you find awakenings or revivals, you will find manifestations that are unique and oftentimes viewed as extraordinary and extreme that take place in these moments of intense visitation of the Holy Spirit. For example, if you look in the book of Acts, Acts chapter two, the Holy Spirit's poured out, that's where you see the first instance of people speaking in tongues, says that there was a manifestation of flames, fire above their heads. So that's one example in the Bible. First Corinthians talks about gifts of the spirit, but then if you go down through church history, you'll find times like most recently, the Wesleyan renewal. How many of you have ever heard of a guy named John Wesley? Okay, John Wesley is the founder of the Methodist movement. One time I was having coffee with the United Methodist clergy, and he was talking about how he didn't believe in any of the revival language. And I said, you do realize who your founder is, right? His name was John Wesley. He was kicked out of the Episcopal church because he preached too radical of a gospel. He preached in open air to up to 30,000 people at a time with no microphones and would see hundreds and even thousands of people get born again. But if you read Wesley's journal, when he was preaching during the first great awakening, people would begin to tremble under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Some people would actually fall down. They just would faint. There would be this expression called falling out in the spirit. Other people would yell because of their conviction of their sin or because of the overwhelming sense of God's presence upon them that was Wesley, that was Finney, that took place in Charles Spurgeon's meetings. It was a good Calvinist Baptist boy in England. It took place during first great awakening, second great awakening. It took place during the Pentecostal outpouring, the Latter Ring revival, the Cain Ridge revivals, and all throughout church history, you will find these manifestations of things happening. Why does that happen? Well, you can actually find some similar things in a Bible, like for example, John, who's on the island of Patmos, sees the Lord Jesus in his resurrected form. And it says, when I saw him, I fell down as a dead man. What was happening? A spiritual encounter affected him so physically that he lost strength and fell down. A lot of times it can be the presence of God, the manifest presence of God upon an individual's physical body can affect them to where they shake or they tremble or these types of things happen. Now, if it's never happened to you, then it will be difficult for you to understand. And the reason why it's difficult for you to understand is if we try and measure spiritual encounters through the lens of our logical mind, we will disprove it every single time. The Bible says the carnal mind is at enmity. It's hostile to the things of God. First Corinthians says that the natural man cannot understand the things of the spirit because how many have ever cried? You've ever watched a Hallmark movie and you've cried when you told yourself, I'm not gonna cry. Anybody ever done that? Come on, guys, raise your hands. I know you're a bunch of liars in here because I've done it. I cry watching a little house and a prayer. I do, I mean, every single time when I hear paw, I mean, waterworks. There's been times in worship where I don't know why I just begin to be overwhelmed by emotion. And I begin to, I tear up or I cry. There's been times where the joy of the Lord has hit me. Now just laugh. And you don't know why it's because the presence of the Lord affects our physical bodies. Now, to the other part of the question, Holy Spirit manifestations like tongues, those are very real things. First Corinthians chapter 12, 13 and 14, talks about the manifestations of the spirit. Talks about the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, prophecy. Talks about tongues, interpretation of tongues, discernment, miracles, healings. And faith as being the nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes we get hung up on those things. It's like, well, I'm really uncomfortable with those. Here's what I found. Most Christians are uncomfortable with one of those. They're uncomfortable with tongues. It's like the other ones I'm good with. Prophecy, that's great. Yeah, wisdom, Lord, download me wisdom. I'll take that. Discernment, I'll take that all day long. Power, you know, or miracles, you know, maybe, but tongues is the most offensive one. And you wanna know why it's offensive? Because it's the most outwardly out of control one. It's where you and your humanity are no longer, you're no longer calling the shots. And can I just tell you, we like to call the shots when it comes to God. But it is the one gift that Paul says on a personal level edifies us and builds us up. Now, probably if you tune back in tomorrow, I'll probably get more questions on this, but here's what I want you to know. If you have a theological predisposition towards tongues, I wanna challenge you to go back and really study it, read throughout church history, because what you'll find is it's there all the time. But if you tell me, I don't believe tongues is for today. Okay, you can believe that theologically, but here's the other part of it. Is if you're offended at it because you don't like that gift, you need to realize every writer of every book in the New Testament was a person that spoke in tongues. And so don't tell me you don't need tongues because you have the Bible. The Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on people that all spoke in tongues. So if you think we're crazy, don't read your Bible because they were crazy. But I speak in tongues every single day of my life. And it's not out of control. I'm not frothing at the mouth, not rolling on the ground, not handling snakes, not swinging from the chandeliers. Most days. But Paul says, I wish that you all spoke in tongues because it says that you, a man who does edifies himself. Jude, verse seven, I think it's verse 20, actually builds yourself up in your most holy faith, praying in the spirit. That's Pauline reference to the gift of tongues. So lest you get offended, these are very real things. The Holy Spirit is very real. He's present in his church and he's not a domesticated spirit. He is a Holy Spirit and he is alive and well. Amen? All right, let's all stand up together if you would. Thanks for your questions. And let's do this, let's bow our heads all over this room. Father, I pray today before we turn it back over to the campus pastors that Lord, we would not just be pursuing logical knowledge, but Lord our hearts would be pointed at you to pursue you, to pursue a knowledge of you, to wanna please you, to know your commandments, to know your word and to be built up in our faith. And I pray Lord, that if any of us are here and we're not walking with you, that today would be a day of salvation for us. Lord, if there's doubts and unbelief that you would replace that with a spirit of faith and confidence. And Lord, that we would become students of your word. Your word is alive and sharper than any two-edged sword. Your word is your voice speaking to our hearts. And Lord, I just pray that we would become a people of your word. All of us would hunger and thirst after righteousness. And Lord, as we worship you, we're not just going back into worship so that we have a book ending at the end of our service. But we would truly have a heart to stand in awe and wonder at the God of the universe who's made himself known to us by sending his son, Jesus. And we would stand in amazement at how good and how great our God is. Lord, receive our worship today, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Come on, we're just gonna go back into worship for a little bit, but here's what I want us to do. I want us, as we just take this last moment together, I want us to just reach out and just, what I prayed, I want us to stand in awe and wonder at who God is. And I don't want you to just sing songs about God tonight, maybe for the first time ever in your life. I want you to just imagine through your mind's eye that you are standing in the throne room of the God of the universe. Because can I tell you? You are. The Bible says that when we gather in his name, he is here. The king is in this room. Jesus, by his Holy Spirit, is in this room. And I don't know about you, but he's worthy of our praise. And awe and wonder, his spirit is here. So tonight, can we just do this? Can we just close our eyes? And as the team begins to play, let's just take a moment and let's just begin to worship him while we're still together. And then Pastor John's gonna come up and close us. There's no place I would rather be. There's no place I would rather be. And here in your love, here in your love, there's no place I would rather be. There's no place I would rather be. There's no place I would rather be. And here in your love, here in your love, there's no place I would rather be. There's no place I would rather be. There's no place I would rather be. And here in your love, there's no place I would rather be. There's no place I would rather be. Here in your love, there's fire down on my soul that I can't contain and I can't control I want more of you, God and I want more of you, God so set a fire down in my soul that I can't contain and I can't control I want more of you, God God, so set a fire down too far and I have decided I have decided too far, Jesus and I have decided I have decided too far, Jesus no turning back no turning back