Questions & Answers WEEK 3

 

Welcome to Redemption Church in Plano Texas. My name is Chris Fluitt and I want to welcome everyone to our brave new series – Questions and Answers.

 

Over the next weeks we will be taking your questions and answering them as best we can from the Word of God.

 

We have an anonymous text line where you can send your questions.

214-856-0550

 

Who is “the man” in Ezekiel 43:6?

 

Ezekiel 43:6 (NIV) While the man was standing beside me, I heard someone speaking to me from inside the temple.

 

Ezekiel receives prophetic visions. In these visions, Ezekiel sees a man who is never named. The man shows up as early as Ezekiel 8.

 

It could be that this man is an angel.
It could be that this man is a temporary manifestation of God (Theophany).
It could be a prophetic glimpse of the man Christ Jesus.

 

Some description of the man…

Ezekiel 8:2 (NIV) I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal.

 

6 OTHER MEN…?

Ezekiel 9:2 (NIV) And I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man clothed in linen who had a writing kit at his side.

 

Ezekiel 40:3 (NIV) He took me there, and I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze; he was standing in the gateway with a linen cord and a measuring rod in his hand.

 

A glorified Jesus in Revelation is described as bright white and bronze…  Bronze represents judgment in scripture. 

 

While we are never told for sure, it does show that God has no problem using the form of a man in revealing truth to humanity. This points us to a God who would incarnate.

 

Every time the Bible talks about the altar and the holy of holies, all the priests have to wash and clean. But in Ezekiel 44:19 it says that the holiness can be transferred to the people. How is this possible? I am very confused.

 

Ezekiel 44:19 (NIV) 19 When they go out into the outer court where the people are, they are to take off the clothes they have been ministering in and are to leave them in the sacred rooms, and put on other clothes, so that the people are not consecrated through contact with their garments.

 

Consecrated through contact with the garments?

 

Context:  Ezekiel chapters 40-48 are about a period of time yet to come – the millennial reign.
After the battle of Armageddon and before heaven – 1000 years where Jesus will reign on earth.

 

There will be a priesthood offering sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem during this time. These sacrifices will be a remembrance of what Christ did for us on the cross. 

 

The priests are ordered to only wear their priestly garments in the sacred spaces and put on other clothes when leaving this sacred space.

 

Ezekiel 42:14 (NIV) Once the priests enter the holy precincts, they are not to go into the outer court until they leave behind the garments in which they minister, for these are holy. They are to put on other clothes before they go near the places that are for the people.”

 

Ezekiel 46:20 (NIV) He said to me, “This is the place where the priests are to cook the guilt offering and the sin offering and bake the grain offering, to avoid bringing them into the outer court and consecrating the people.”

 

The literal interpretation is that these sacred duties transmit holiness to the people and that the priests must not take what is holy out of the space but that the people must come to the temple of the Lord.

 

This is a different dispensation, and this is a mysterious glance into a prophetic vision.
For us right now, holiness only comes through a relationship with Jesus Christ and obedience to His Word.

 

PARENTAL WARNING

 

Is masturbation addressed in the bible?

Thank you for your guts to ask this question.

 

Scripture never mentions masturbation.

 

There is a story in Genesis 38 that tells of a man named Onan who “spilled his seed upon the ground.” 

 

Genesis 38:9-10 (NIV) 9 But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. 10 What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.

 

Some have used this story to teach that any sexual act that cannot produce a child is a sin. This would make any form of birth control a sin etc.

 

The reason God was angry with Onan was not masturbation or even sexual gratification.

Kinsman redeemer…

 

Scripture does not directly address masturbation.

Scripture does address…

Lust/adultery, porn (porneia/fornication), self control

 

Your biology is not sinful… your sex drive is not sinful… 

The enemy likes to attack with shame…

 

The problem with masturbation is the lust in the heart.

Matthew 5:28 (NIV) But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 

Why should the devil have all the good music?

 

“I want the people to know that he saved my soul

But I still like to listen to the radio

They say rock ‘n’ roll is wrong, we’ll give you one more chance

I say I feel so good I gotta get up and dance

 

I know what’s right, I know what’s wrong, I don’t confuse it

All I’m really trying to say

Is why should the devil have all the good music?

I feel good every day

‘Cause Jesus is the rock and he rolled my blues away” – Larry Norman

 

The devil should not have all the good music.

Faith has a history of creating great music, art, hospitals, and colleges. The Christian faith has blessed the world many times over.

 

Create beauty… Honor your creator

Even if you create art that is not specifically about faith.

 

When we pray as a group are we supposed to listen to someone pray, or are we supposed to take turns? Are we supposed to pray all at once?

 

You are supposed to pray. #1 Make sure you are praying.

 

Taking turns scriptural? (not that I can find)

Praying all at once?  (Pentecost)

 

Is praying all at once out of order? God understands it.

 

Pray beyond words. Pray in the Spirit!  

 

THERE ARE NO WORDS…

Romans 8:26 (niv) In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

 

Powerful to pray outloud… power of life and death is in the tongue.

 

I was told that when Jesus came to Earth that He was fully God and fully Man. That Jesus is all the Trinity in One. That heaven was empty while Jesus was down here and it will be empty again when Jesus comes back for. But how can it be empty if God is omnipresent? And that when we get to Heaven that we will not see God as a Holy trinity. We will just see Jesus and that both God the Father and the Holy Spirit will be there with Jesus in His body. Is all that true?

 

Godhead (state of being God) questions – Christian persecution

 

Jesus is fully God and fully man

1 Timothy 3:16 (KJV) And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

 

Trinity – Simplify Father, Son, Holy Ghost – Godhead/Deity

Colossians 2:9 9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form

 

All the fullness of God is in Christ bodily.

Distinction of roles between father son and holy ghost… but be careful not divide one God into 3 gods.

 

Heaven Empty?  

God entered the Human experience “making himself nothing” (Phillipians 2)

But the OMNIPRESENT God still filled the universe even as Gd existed within the incarnation.

God’s thrown has never been abdicated.

 

INVISIBLE GOD

Colossians 1:15 (NIV) 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

 

If you want to know what God looks like, acts like, what His heart is like… look at Jesus.

 

You’ve dealt with suicide: but what about those who have already done this? Will we see them in Heaven?  If it was a parent, do we have a greater tendency to repeat it, then the average person? Believers included?

 

We can’t put someone in Heaven or Hell.
We have a great deal of hope because…

#1 God’s great mercy
#2 Faith in Christ

 

Salvation is NOT about measuring up. THANK GOD!

 

THE BURDEN LEFT BEHIND FROM SUICIDE

There are studies that suggest the choices a parent makes may show up in the children. Addictions, depression, abuse, suicide…   TRAIN UP A CHILD IN THE WAY THEY SHOULD GO…

Whatever mistakes they made, make sure you don’t make them – turn to God.

BE BORN AGAIN!