Question Time - October 2022

All right, so we do this just a few times a year on any time we have a fifth Sunday evening

And so we've asked the congregation to send questions in and we've gotten a number again

And a lot of them are really hard

So we didn't include those

Some of them were really hard actually we did include them so we'll give it our best shot

But hopefully this will be a time that's helpful to people and that you'll be thinking with us and

Thinking because these are some of the questions are important some of them are super practical and some not so

So we'll do that together

Brian, why don't you take one minute and tell if maybe if somebody here a guest or somebody doesn't know know you

What's what's your story?

I'm not from these parts my wife and I are from Northern Ireland and I

Was a minister in the Presbyterian Church there

And after retirement we have two sons who live and work here in Scotland

We were traveling over a lot so we decided

Before we got like old we would

We'd moved permanently and we did and

We had our plan to visit around a few churches in Edinburgh before settling on a fellowship and

came in here our first Sunday and

I had said to Mary now you know what these churches are like

We sit to the back as soon as it's over we escape because you know again and Derek Lamont

Said that Sunday morning look talk to the people beside you get to know you know and we were trapped

So we've been here ever since

Love it. Love it. Absolutely. Love it. Yeah, and that's good

The good news for us, which is bad news for everybody else is that ten minutes into the service our back clock died

So it still says

540

So that means that until it hits 630. I don't stop

So that's why I say that actually to say I pulled my phone out not to be rude

But so I can not go over the time so alright question number one

This is a helpful question. What spiritual lesson have you had to learn that has helped you the most in your Christian walk?

Brian

Without out

patients

Yeah, patients

waiting on God's time and

I'm not I

Don't have a bad temper. I don't think I'm not hot tempered. I don't lose my temper

but I

Have found it. It's got better as the years have gone on

I have learned to look to scripture and to look to the Lord for help

but

I like the psalmist I just wonder why God doesn't do things at the time that I think would be best and

but of course

After a little while I discover that God's time is actually always best and it's helped and

You know just in in so many different ways and

it

helped me

learning to be patient

You know not to argue with folk and

Some folk like to argue about the things of God

It's a good way of keeping them at arms length and

If you're drawn into those arguments, you know, they just go round and round and I've learned that it's best to say well

Look, you know, we're maybe not getting anywhere. Let's let's just leave it and

And and it's also and I see helped me to

enjoy the Lord

more and I found when I was younger as a Christian and

I should maybe say I didn't become a Christian until I was in my 20s and then

You know was married and me and I had our first son

when God called me to the ministry and

You know, I thought well far better if I'd been converted as a teenager and you know, it called me then

You know that that instead of having a wife and such

But of course all the things I learned through that

Were so useful in the ministry that actually again another instance of God's time

I'm being better than what I had originally thought and also

When you learn to accept that things are happening

You can't change them. You're waiting for God to do something

Actually, you can enjoy each day. You know, you're not

So that that that would be my

and

Obviously, there's so many scriptures that that help you and

because

So many folk in the Bible you see their story where they're led Abraham Moses Joshua Daniel

Jesus says follow me and

but the one the one story that helped me and

I'd have to say strengthened me was

Do you remember when Abraham was an old man Sarah had died?

He was living amongst the Canaanites. He didn't want his son Isaac to marry

Some woman from from amongst the Canaanites

So he sent a servant back to Nahor to find a woman and

the servant eventually after prayer is led to Rebecca and

And he says I

Knows that Rebecca is the woman and he says I being in the way the Lord led me and

so I find it right if I

Walking as closely as I can in the way with Jesus

He will lead me in his time in his way

So that was the lesson for me. What?

Yeah

This is a hard question. I was thinking about it earlier. I think

Think I'm gonna say just what what I'm thinking about most right now

on this score and

I think it's this I think that I've been thinking a lot about how

The entirety of the Christian life is really just learning to get your heart to believe in the presence of God

That

Really that that's the whole of what Christianity is and that God is present

That he's really here. He's here in the worship space with us

He's Omni president

In every way and of course presence

It's totally qualified by being in union with Jesus

So I guess I've been thinking about that a lot

We don't we don't believe in Christianity as you know Brian that there are thin places

You know a lot of religions will talk about thin places in the world

Places where you can go and get closer to the divine

So you think about us the standing stones throughout Scotland those were erected to be thin places places where you could go and get closer

To whatever deity there might be but God is present and then you know that just makes me think that whether we're washing dishes

You know you're washing dishes God is present. You're by yourself

at home God is present you're

Trying to get the kids to quiet down in the car God is present

state a student a

State home mother God is present in your vocational life and everywhere. So I think that's just what's been on my mind and heart lately

Okay

Shall we continue we've got six seven of these okay, so number two

This one this it immediately gets harder. Okay, what really happens to people when they die and will actually happen when Jesus returns

So I'll start on this one

You know we all here today. It doesn't you don't have to be a Christian to believe that death is a great enemy

Death is a death is a great enemy for everybody. Nobody wants to die

We all fear death to some degree and death is our enemy

So one of the things I think we have to say is what Paul says that what happens with we when we face death and when we begin

To die and then when we die is that death loses its sting

It doesn't lose the fact that it's bad

death is always bad and

even in the state of death where we leave our bodies

To be with the Lord

We still in that state or in a death condition

It's not what it ought to be

It's not what we were made for

disembodiment is bad and so

What really happens to people when they die well, you know, we're disembodied and

And simultaneously for those who believe in Christ

Who are united to Jesus Jesus us today you will be with me at the time of your death

and so

The reason these questions go together is because we've got to in our in our Christian understanding of death in the afterlife

understand that there's a difference in

life after death now and

Eternal life when Christ returns that the resurrection is future

And so what actually happens when Jesus returns is that God puts bodies and souls back together again

And he condescends into the space that is earth and he

Brings the true and final kingdom, which is a physical kingdom a spiritual kingdom. There's no dichotomy there

That's why in Revelation 22 we see

God coming down the city coming down not humans going up

The only thing that humans do and going up is they their bodies come up from the grave and they're reunited to their souls

now I

Think the questioner is probably wanting me to say something more about

Heaven and hell a little more so let me say something

The first thing when you're I think and then I'll let you talk you fix it. Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah

The first thing is that when you're talking about heaven and hell, it's very important to be modest

To know that actually the Bible speaks to us of heaven and hell in metaphors and

That doesn't mean that heaven and hell is not a reality. No not at all

It absolutely is but the way that we come to understand what it means is metaphorical in scripture oftentimes

It's through pictures and images. So even when Jesus is talking about hell go henna

He we know that he's talking about a real place in Jerusalem

He's talking about a space in Jerusalem that looks the trash dump of the city where little fires were burning like any city

dump does to burn the garbage up the rubbish up and

He's saying that's hell. It was also a spot of

Babylonian early Babylonian pagan worship in the time prior to Christ the same place

So he's got all sorts of things that he means there

Here's where I'm gonna I'm gonna say something and not be able to spend time on it. Okay, so

So sorry

But hell actually in the New Testament is a word that's not used except for at the second coming of Jesus

So

the way the Gospels talk about

Life after death for a person who doesn't believe the gospel who's gonna be separated from God is not hell

Until the resurrection from the dead occurs

Instead it talks about the place of the righteous dead and the unrighteous dead what the Gospels call Hades

and that's a word that was borrowed from the Greeks of the time and

We see

That in all sorts of ways throughout the Gospels if we had time we could show it

That's why in the Apostles Creed we confess not that God that Christ at his death descends into hell

But the original word is that he descended into Hades the domain of the dead

And that question is coming actually somebody asked that exact question about Christ descent

and

Then in the book of Revelation when Christ raises when God raises all bodies up from the dead

It then says now

There's either the kingdom of God on the physical creation earth renewed or there's held the lake of fire in Gehenna

And that's a place that we're only given metaphors for it's a place of being separated from God

It's miserable and at the same time. It's exactly what a person seeks when they reject Christ

So it's a very difficult thing to talk about and we would really need to spend a lot of time to talk about it

Well, but those are a few of the distinctions. I think you've got to hold on to when you talk about it

Yeah, the only thing I'd say

For those of us here Christians John Bunyan has a wonderful image of what happens to us when we die and

The character he talks about is Mr. Valiant for truth and

He says, you know when it was noise to broad

that Mr. Valiant for truth was summons on the day that he was to go hence a

Great crowd accompanied him to the Riverside

And as he stepped in they heard him say oh death

Where is I sting and as he went deeper? I heard him say grave. Where is thy victory?

and

so he passed over and

All the trumpets sounded for him on the other side and I just think that's

Let me add a sentence just because I forgot to say the most important thing

And that's that what happens to us when Jesus returns and what happens to us when we die

The most important thing for the Christian is that we see Jesus Christ

So I don't want to leave the question without saying that that the entire point of our existence is to see our God and

That's what we're headed towards. That's that's the entire point. So good. All right. Well

Here we are with a question that's

Related the third question when the thief on the cross came to faith Jesus said today you will be with me in paradise

How could that be if it was three days before Jesus rose again from abandonment in hell?

so

From the very beginning of the church

Christians have been trying to summarize the fundamentals of the theater

into creeds and

catechisms and

probably about the fifth century and a

number of these came together and

What's been called the Apostles Creed?

And not that the Apostles produced it, but it was kind of a summary of what the Apostles had taught and

these were thought and it's a very succinct and

Very clear

Sitting forth of what Christians have believed I believe in God the Father Almighty

And then it's only some Jesus Christ our Lord

Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost?

part of the Virgin Mary suffered underpunches pilot was crucified dead and buried and

descended into hell

Now that final phrase is wrong

Jesus did not descend into hell

When he said to the thief on the cross today you will be with me in paradise. He meant exactly that

When he said it is finished he meant exactly that

his work of atonement and

His place in God's plan of salvation for us

Was finished so what actually happened was

His body was placed in the grave

But his spirit his soul went to be with his heavenly Father

to return on that

Three days later on that first Easter morning to be reunited

with that resurrection body and

Now

Unfortunately, there are lots of myths about you know, we all know them and some people believe some of them and so

and this is

Unfortunately, one of those mistaken ideas that has come down through the years to us that Jesus

went to hell and suffered and

Abandonment from God, but he did all that on the cross

Reformation Sunday John Calvin says, you know

Jesus and on the cross

Jesus and endured hell

Because he said, you know my god my god, why have you forsaken me?

so so that that that was the punishment and

and

so I

Can understand why folk can't can be confused because it would be confusing

Some folk who still hold to that mistaken view that Jesus went to hell

Try to argue and they say look when Jesus said

truly truly I say to you today and

You will be with me in paradise. They try to make the today

refer to the truly truly rather than the phrase

You will be with me in paradise, but that doesn't work. It's not the right way

It's it's it's just it's just grammatically doesn't doesn't work in the in the Greek at all and

so

there's not really a paradox here and

Jesus went immediately to be with his heavenly father and then was reunited with what and

And pastor Lee that's an encouragement from because that's what's gonna happen to us. We'll be reunited with our resurrection

Body when Jesus comes again. Yes, so just one thing

fantastic answer

So when I said a minute ago that the the Apostles Creed language originally was he descended into Hades

That's exactly the important distinction right not hell

But Hades the term means into the place where souls go after they die

His soul went into the realm of the dead of dead souls

which is with God the father in in the kingdom of heaven and

I think that first Peter first Peter 3 is where this whole question comes up, right?

Yeah, and I think first Peter 3 just to add one more thing is suggesting that

In in the domain where souls dwell in the heavenly life

Where Christ's soul was separated from his body for three days he by book by being there

According first Peter 3 pronounced his victory to the captives meaning

By just simply entering into the heavenly realm

He was preaching his victory over death to all those who have been captured by death

And first Peter 3 when you read it, it's gonna give you language. It's very confusing, but I think that's what it's saying

So yeah, I completely agree. Yeah, really good

Okay, good question number four

Is

Is democracy compatible with Christianity?

So yes, it definitely is

and I think in fact that

Christianity leads us to a political theology that calls for democracy and

That has been the majority

Protestant position for quite some time now. Why would that be? Okay?

Well, we believe in the doctrine of the image of God so that every single person is

Named by God to be unique and important and loved and full of gifts and

Democracy has an accent and its political orientation

Towards everyone towards the people towards recognizing the image of God in every single person every single individual

On the flip side it also tells us Christianity also says to us that every single state

Needs to know its relative power and its relative authority that no Emperor

No king needs to everything that they have the kind of authority to dictate the moral order

To that they that they need we say we pray 1st

22 that the kings the emperors the presidents the prime ministers would submit to God and

Know that God is the ultimate authority not them and so that leads us over time to gather a logic where God says

everybody's really important and

God's power

Relativizes the state which means that we need to seek states that are people

That are governed by the people that come from the bottom up not the top down now

There's one more idea here that we might this is a big subject, right?

You said you would answer. Yeah. Yeah, so

Yeah

Let me give you two more reasons one

On top of the image of God the relative authority of any state is also the universality of sinfulness

So total depravity everybody is corrupted

Nobody needs absolute power

Nobody does

Almost always only bad comes from that unless you have you know the one time in history

I think where we could have given it to somebody was probably Queen Elizabeth, you know, but

Other than that nobody needs absolute power

Because we do bad things whether we're sinners and so that leads us toward more towards democracy

the final thing I'll say and this is a bigger discussion, but I think that Christianity leads us towards a view of

Society

Where God has actually given us all the major?

Institutions that society needs and he's given them to us directly himself

So he doesn't in other words the family doesn't exist because the state wants the family

You know marriage doesn't exist because the state said marriage should exist or not exist

None of these things are products of civil determination

Actually, they're all products of God's direct creation of these institutions and family is actually one of the the original

Marriage is at the very beginning. It's prior to any state

So it's always been the case that each of these institutions answers directly to God

before they answer to any state and

That means that the state has a sphere of authority

But doesn't have authority over everything and

Democracy actually lends to help us see that a little bit better that that families need to be left alone unless

They break justice

The state is the sphere of justice, but they're not the spirit of the family

They're not the sphere of the church the church has its own

Remit and these things are directly given by God with their own authority their own institutions their own power structures

And so the state actually has to know its place

Society's at its best when the state knows its place

I think and I think Christianity leads us towards that and that plays out in some form of democracy

What do you think you want to say anything no all right yeah, no government

government by consent

You know rather than as you say a very authoritarian, you know one person picked dates or the very

Let's say fair that everybody just knows what they want where it's anarchy

but where there's discussion and compromise and

a desire for what the greatest good of the greatest number you know that that that's what

Democracy aims at and it can be as good or as bad. Yeah, as the individuals

Yeah, we want we want the society to seek the common good and democracy tends to emphasize that now

We are not in any way talking about a political party or anything like that. So don't email me

Please do actually to talk about it more but but no no

We're not putting our stamp on anything but but the broad idea of democracy

All right. Well next question number five

How do you think about the doctrine of election?

pastorally

Am I starting there are you you didn't say okay, I'll start

Yeah

So this is a tough question and but an important question and so let's let's think about it together for a minute

What is the person mean by the doctrine of election?

The doctrine of election comes from Ephesians 1 4 and 1 11 and a bunch of other places in the Bible and it says that

God

has from all eternity known and named

Those that will be his people that will be his church and it's very difficult to get around that because the Bible says it so clearly and

so many times over and over again and

It can it can be really difficult to think about and talk about because it feels as if there's an injustice in that

That if God knows his people from the beginning of history beginning of eternity, which has no beginning no time at all

then

Then what about those that aren't his people and is that really fair?

a few things on the pastoral John Calvin when he writes his great book about theology the institutes he actually

Famously sticks this idea more towards the back not the front

So people think of Calvinists right and they think of them as only thinking about this election and predestination and when you read Calvin

He he doesn't actually spend a ton of time on this and he puts it very much at the back of the book not the front of the book

And there's a real reason for that and that this is because again

This is an area where we have to have modesty, but it's also an area pastorally

I think that drives us to say this we need to expect not to understand God

you know if we if we ever look at the scriptures and we start to

Say that we're totally okay with everything they say and none of it hits us strangely and none of it hits us hard then actually

I think we've come to be in a pretty bad place

Because the what the Bible if it's if the Bible's God's word then it has to have the power to

Critique every single culture in history. It has to have that power

It has we have to expect that if we're sinners that the Bible would come in and say something to every single culture

That hits them in a raw way that says I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure if I can handle that

but we're talking about God and

So of course there's gonna be

utter and radical radical meaning at root

Divine mystery when it comes to the power and the providence and the elect election

Sovereignty of the living God and so I guess I don't want to say a lot about it

but what I want to say is just simply that I think it helps us to

To understand the weightiness of God's divine majesty

When we consider how difficult it is for us to possibly conceive of even what this means

and that's a good thing and

The last thing I'll say is this

Jesus Christ's death and resurrection is sufficient for the salvation of the world

So Jesus Christ has purchased has died and

And his death is is sufficient to cover the sins of anyone who will repent and come to faith

And so when we put this idea together with what Jesus has done

We say that Jesus Christ death is sufficient for all efficient for some

Meaning that Christ's death is going to be used in some people's lives to change them and transform them and

To bring them into the family of God not everybody

And yet know that Jesus Christ death covers the sins of the whole world

And so that means that our job is simply to go into the world and know that we can preach and teach and tell the gospel to anybody and

That they if they repent and they confess like we saw this morning and say

I'm a sinner and I say what God says about Jesus then they are part of the family of God and that's it

and and so the first is an utterly grand divine mystery and the second is our marching orders and

And I think that's what we've got to lean into

Yeah, I think that's a great question because

it

You know ask about the doctrine of election pastor a lie and

Certainly my experience

In college

in the ministry with students and

Wherever it's discussed, you know

The arguments are like bullets, you know, they're designed to do damage and to do harm and I think it's

Significant that the apostle Paul who maybe deals mostly

He's the one who deals with it most often in the New Testament and

You know, he doesn't make a big issue of it and

He's not ashamed of it. He's not embarrassed by it

and

he simply accepts it and declares it as the truth of God and

You know, there's there's mystery in it. We know that and we don't understand

as Corey said, you know, it shouldn't make us complacent and

What it really ought to do is is

To make us on all of this great God

you know because

this doctrine of Alex touches on the kind of

inmost secrets of God's will and

We're given a glimpse. We're told a little bit, but the rest is hidden from us and

That should be okay, that should be we should you know, but say, you know, how great is our God

But she also humble us

That God has chosen us, you know for for no good reason that that we can think of and

You know, I've heard folks say I will look there must be something, you know some little bit in

why he chooses this person and not that person and and

There maybe is a danger there if I could say you do that wonderful parable

Jesus told about the Pharisee and the public and and the Pharisees in the temple and Lord

I thank you that I'm not like other men and the public and you know, he won't even lift up his eyes to pray and

The point of that is, you know

Jesus wants us to see ourselves there

Are we like

The Pharisee are we comparing ourselves with other people?

Because you know, I'm not all that great a person. I know that but you know, I don't beat my wife

I don't fill in my taxes

You know, I'm kind to animals and little children and

And but that's not who I compare myself I compare myself with Jesus and I feel ashamed of the person that I am

That's what that's what the public and dead and that's why he wouldn't even lift up his head

I think in this doctor we have to be so careful pastorally that we just do not ever think

We've been chosen and because there was anything in us

But I think as well as humbling with the people that I'm talking about

Well as humbling us. I think it it's a brilliant assurance

That because God has chosen us and has drawn us to himself

We have the assurance that even when we fall we will be lifted up and accept it again

It's I

I think pastor I would think pastorally Corey. That's the way to think of election

pastorally rather than a theological I mean IWT was there the American writer. He said

Delving into the mysteries of predestination and election may make theologians, but it won't make sense

And I think there's a warning there

No, yeah

Okay, so we're this we're about out of time

So let's let's try to do the last two together and because they fit together and we'll just right do them quickly and they are

What are some of the most important books that shaped your view of the Christian life outside the Bible?

And then what is your go-to book of the Bible your favorite book of the Bible?

So a couple fun ones

to end on yeah

Do you want to start with I start I've got okay, um, I've got four well five really

Mary my wife asked me this morning

What were the questions tonight? And this we only one I told her about the books of the Bible

I said would be there are the the books that have shaped your view says would be there all night

You won't really you won't really we all have stacks of books and

And basic Christianity by John Stott that was the book I was given

Before I became a Christian when I was trying to understand it and

Absolutely brilliant

For people who are not Christians. I've given away so many copies of it and

Fundamentalism and the word of God by J. I packer

I heard him speak on the authority of scripture when I was a student and then got his book and it's

Absolutely, it will convince you

If you need convincing that the scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the word of God

And they must be your authority in everything

The Pilgrims progress by John Bunyan

Next to the Bible my favorite book there are folks who think that you know tall king and the Lord of the Rings and those I

Mean that they're just nursery rhymes compared to pilgrims progress. You know it is absolutely

Brilliant and if you're getting a copy for Christmas for people that you love

Get the banner of truth copy because it has the Bible text in the margin and then finally

and the knowledge of the holy by a w tozer

it's a book about the attributes of God and

and and it is phenomenal and

It would just help help anybody so much and he begins and finishes each chapter on each attribute

with a prayer which I have personally just found and the other been a final one

I was going to say was and it's it's from

Back home and it's the church hymnary and it was produced in 1898

Actually along with the church of Scotland, but I think mostly

Presbyterian church in Ireland did it and it contains all the metric of Psalms

nearly seven day

Bible passages paraphrased and over 700 hymns and

And when I find myself stuck

You know I'm dry

Gods far away. I

Need reassurance. I need help with my prayers

Going going to the hymns and the Psalms

They're just they're just brilliant

So that answers my last the last question Corey the book of Psalms

the Samas open their hearts and

I

See myself there

It's good. So my books are

Some of the you know tough to answer tough to answer I

think I want to say in terms of learning to

Learning the crypt the best book I think I've ever read on the Christian life is Augustine's Confessions and

then for

Theology for growing and knowledge of God. I think the book I would recommend the most is Herman boving's wonderful works of God

Which is I think the best popular theology that's ever been written in a single volume

So I think the Augustine's Confessions Herman boving's wonderful works of God

For helping me understand helping anybody understand

The modern mind and how Christianity relates to the secular world

Tim Keller's making sense of God

Will I think really help everybody?

Awaken to exactly what the world we live in is like and what the kind of way we can talk to people that will help them to

Understand why Christianity still matters?

so I would really point people towards that one and then

lastly I

Think a amazing place for anybody to go start kind of spending some time reading is in the world of really just how to read the

Bible better and so I would commend

Anything in the realm of what we call biblical theology

So how to read the Bible through the lens of Jesus Christ from Genesis to Revelation

The book that threw me into that that I love so much is Stephen Dempster's dominion and dynasty a

Wonderful book that I encountered in seminary, but there's all sorts like even Graham Golds where these

Trilogy on reading Christ in all of scripture

So something in those realms would be the books of tonight

tonight's books

I

Don't know

So right now right now my favorite Bible book is Leviticus in the Old Testament

Because I'm reading a wonderful book about Leviticus from Michael Morales

Leviticus is an amazing gospel book and then

Ephesians

because Ephesians

Ephesians casts our entire theology

Through the the coming again of Christ the renewal of creation and then works backwards

And I really have found that to be a wonderful way of doing it from Paul so right now this too. All right

Thanks for putting up with us. Let me pray for us Lord

We give thanks for your church family and this church family and

There are a lot of people here Lord that you know that are are seeking to grow and to think and to know more of you

And love you and so I just asked that you would bless us with inquisitive minds

and give give

The leaders and each and everybody here the the ability and the hunger to sit alongside each other and to talk and to talk about

these things and to answer questions and to encourage and exhort and

So we just ask for that spirit among us and we pray these things in Christ's name Amen. Oh, yeah