I have a question about “honor your father and your mother”.  Some parents seem to use this as a weapon when kids are not listening to their parents or misbehaving.  I seem to get different meanings of what this really means.  I do thank you for your time.  God bless!

Sincerely,
Ain’t Misbehavin’

Dear Ain’t Misbehavin’,

Children are told to honor their father and mother at all ages (Eph 6:2-3). The word ‘honor’ means ‘to esteem highly’.  Parents deserve respect and kind treatment from their offspring.  As parents reach old age, children show honor by caring for their parents’ needs (Matt 15:4-6).  Until independent adulthood, honoring your parents is shown through respectful obedience (Eph 6:1).  No Scripture should ever be wielded “as a weapon”, but regardless of how the verse is used, that is what it means.

When Jesus was speaking with His disciples and predicting His suffering, execution, and resurrection, Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked Him saying, “This shall not happen to You!”  Jesus responded by rebuking Satan when He says, “Get behind Me Satan!”  (Matthew 16:22-23).  So obviously, what Peter said was inspired by Satan.

Then, later on, the Scripture says that Satan entered into Judas; then Judas decided to betray Jesus into the hands of those who wanted to kill Him.  (Luke 22:3 – 5)

My question is this:  Why would Satan try to turn Jesus away from going to the cross through Peter… only to go into Judas to ensure that Jesus WOULD go to the cross?  I’d like your thoughts on this matter because I believe it’s a pretty interesting question.

Sincerely,
Motive Monitor

Dear Motive Monitor,

Satan is the author of lies and murder (Jhn 8:44).  If there is any chaos, damage, or trouble that the devil can cause God and His children… he’ll do it (1 Pet 5:8).  Satan tried to pit Peter against Jesus by getting him to rebuke Jesus, and he also tried to pit (successfully) Judas against Jesus by getting him to betray Jesus.  Satan sows discord wherever possible.  It is not necessary to have an overarching plan when you are causing trouble; all Satan has to do is throw a monkey wrench in the works wherever he can.  In fact, Satan didn’t even realize how Jesus was going to save mankind – even the angels were unaware of Christ’s plans (1 Pet 1:12).  Satan was just doing what he always does, trying to tear people away from God by whatever means possible.

(This post is a follow-up to “The Messiah”)

From what I have read, he did not meet the criteria in the Old Testament (as you guys call it).  I have talked to deeply religious christians about this, and they can quote me Scripture all day long; however, since the Bible and Jesus are the most important things in their lives, you would think they would have done research on the historical origins of the Bible and the historic evidence of Jesus during the years of 1-60 AD, but I found in every single case without exception the same attitude of “I know nothing, and I do not want to know”.  One nurse I work with told me, “I do not need evidence; I just believe.”  Why do you think they call it blind faith?!

If you really think the New Testament is truly the word of God and not manmade, that means it all would make perfect sense, and there would not be any inconsistencies, and the more you learn, the more you will find out nothing is more obvious.

Plus, if we are right, then you guys are worshiping falsely and, therefore, are doomed under your own belief system.  The whole thing, in my opinion, comes down to our God-given gift of reason and common sense.

How would you respond if Muslims and Mormons told you they are the only way to God, and if you do not buy into it, you are doomed?

Can we not just respect each other?  If you know something I don’t and have historic proof and real evidence and not just blind faith, I would love to see it!

Sincerely,
Of A Friendly Faith

Dear Of A Friendly Faith,

It is an absolute travesty that no one has ever given you a better reason for believing in Jesus than blind faith.  We here at AYP believe that Jesus is the Christ because of the evidence – not in spite of it!  To save space, we are going to point you toward a couple of previous posts to read.  For information on the authenticity of the Bible and its divine origins, we recommend reading our posts “Who Wrote The Bible?” and perusing our evidences section of the AskYourPreacher archives.  God meant it when He told us to “come and reason together” with Him (Isa 1:18).  The more you dig into it, the more staggering the evidence is that the Bible was written by God.

The same goes for Jesus.  When the apostles first began preaching Jesus as the Christ, they did it to Jews who knew their Bibles.  The biggest stumbling block for every Jew was that Jesus died on a cross – something none of them believed would ever happen to the Messiah (Gal 5:11).  However, the apostles proved that the Bible did teach that the Messiah would have to suffer (Acts 26:22-23).  The apostles quoted verses like Ps 16:10 (used by Peter in Acts 2:25-31) and Isa 53:5-11 (used by Philip in Acts 8:32-35).  The Old Testament taught that the Messiah would suffer and die on a cross, and Jesus did that very thing.  We highly recommend reading The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel for further details on the evidence that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah.  Hopefully this gives you some evidence to whet your appetite; please feel free to continue to correspond with us as further questions arise.

I have a question referring to the time when tribulation falls upon the earth.  What if someone who is going through tribulation recognizes  the Lord’s existence and repents for his sins, and truly accepts Jesus, but is  knocked out or drugged to where he becomes unaware of his surroundings and has no say or right to what happens to his body, and receives the mark of the beast?  He awakens to realize he has received an unforgivable mark and will go to hell.  Would God prevent something like this from happening, or could the person repent for this if he had no choice?  If the Antichrist was smart, wouldn’t he force or drug (a drug that physically prevents you from making decisions such as a sedative, not deception) mankind to give them the mark without consent?

Sincerely,
Tattoo Terror

Dear Tattoo Terror,

The teaching that there will be a specific Antichrist that will take over the world at a future date is an erroneous doctrine that has confused many.  The Bible specifically says that anyone who deceives and mocks Christ is an antichrist (2 Jn 1:7).  The apostle John mentions that there are many antichrists (1 Jn 2:18).  The word ‘antichrist’ simply means ‘against Christ’.  Anyone who stands up in opposition to the teachings of Jesus is an antichrist.

The ‘mark of the beast’ is a reference to Rev 13:17.  There are two things that we need to keep in mind whenever we discuss the book of Revelation.  First, it is a symbolic book (John says he will be writing in ‘signs’ – Rev 1:1); many of today’s false doctrines have been created by treating symbolic language as literal.  Second, the book of Revelation prophesies of events that were to “shortly come to pass” (Rev 1:1) and events that were “at hand” (Rev 1:3).  The book of Revelation isn’t dealing with a future tribulation for the church – but the suffering that christians of the first century were about to endure at the hands of their countrymen.  If you would like a full understanding of the book of Revelation – listen to our class series on the topic.

The end result is that you need not fear the mark of the beast, nor is that mark a literal insignia upon people’s flesh.  We always have a choice, and no one will ever accidently be condemned to hell.

God, I think, had predestined Judas’ path from the foundation of the world.  Afterward, he hung himself.  Why is he called a traitor?  How else would Jesus have died on the cross for our sins?  This is hard to digest.   Help.

Sincerely,
Flummoxed

Dear Flummoxed,

There is a difference between knowing what someone will do and making them do it.  If you see a baseball player hit a ball high into the air, you know that it will eventually come down – and you might even be able to predict fairly accurately where it will land.  Wisdom and experience allow us to predict quite a few things… now imagine how accurately God can predict things (Pr 2:6)!

Judas had a choice just like all of us do (Deu 30:19).  Jesus died for the sins of the whole world (Jhn 3:16) – even Judas could have taken advantage of it.  Jesus warned Judas of the consequences of betraying Him at the Last Supper (Matt 26:24-25).  Even as Judas betrayed Jesus to the mob, Jesus pleaded with him (Lk 22:48).  If Judas had no choice, then Jesus’ admonitions make no sense.

If Judas hadn’t betrayed Christ, God would have still caused His plan to come together… just like Mordecai said in Esther 4:14, “Deliverance would have arisen from another place”.  If Judas had done the right thing, God’s plan wouldn’t have been stopped.

According to 1 Corinthians 5:9, we are not to associate ourselves with sinful people; how are we supposed to try and help them if we shouldn’t be hanging around them?

Sincerely,
Love From A Distance

Dear Love From A Distance,

In order to understand 1 Cor 5:9, we have to read the rest of the chapter.  Chapter five of first Corinthians is dealing with a christian who had decided to return to a wicked lifestyle (1 Cor 5:1).  Instead of rebuking this sinning brother, the Corinthian church was accepting his immoral lifestyle (1 Cor 5:2).  Paul was rebuking the congregation for not disciplining this wayward christian.  The church has the responsibility to discipline willfully sinning brethren – we do this by not associating with them until they repent (1 Cor 5:11).  This responsibility is only in regards to those who are within the church – not those outside of it (1 Cor 5:12-13).  God wants us to spend time with the lost, so we might win them to Christ (Mk 2:16-17).  We are to live in the world (1 Cor 5:10) as shining lights (Matt 5:14) to those who don’t know Christ.