John Bradshaw - Demons, the LGBTQ Lifestyle, and Angel Genders
John Bradshaw: This is "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw, with me, Wes Peppers. Welcome, Wes.
Wes Peppers: Thank you, Pastor John, good to be here.
John Bradshaw: And this is the program where we get to answer your Bible questions. We hope you'll share them with us if you have 'em. And just think, if you've got a question and we answer it, so many people have benefited and blessed by the answer to your question. So here's how you get a question to us. Email us: [email protected], [email protected]. Now, I've been answering Bible questions for a lot of years, and you've been doing the same thing. Do you remember a question ever just really stumping you?
Wes Peppers: Yeah, you know, I've had some where I've had to just do a little research before that and get back to a person, and you know, nobody knows every answer right off the top of their head. Sometimes you have to think about it a little bit. I had a lot of questions when I first became a Christian, but gradually over time you start to learn those, and as you share them, they kind of reinforce in your own mind and heart.
John Bradshaw: Yeah, yeah, that's right. If we don't know the answer to the question you ask, we'll just tell you, "Sorry, we don't know". And then we'll try to find an answer. But get those questions in to us and bless others by so doing. Here's the question we're gonna begin with.
Wes Peppers: Sure.
John Bradshaw: Question is, and it's from Teresa: "Were there people outside of Eden? It says Cain was exiled from Eden when he murdered Adam, and he was worried about how wild it was out there... worried about people killing him. Where did the people come from"? Now, obviously, there were people out there; that's why he was concerned. Where'd they come from?
Wes Peppers: Sure, you know, the Bible indicates in Genesis, early chapters, that it says Adam "had sons and daughters". It doesn't say what their names were, doesn't say how many there were. But some of the children of Adam were named, and some weren't, and so...
John Bradshaw: Named in the Bible.
Wes Peppers: Named in the Bible, that's right. And it's very clear that those people began to spread out into the earth and populate the earth, just like God had said, and for whatever reason, the Bible didn't mention them or talk about them in detail. So, the Bible sometimes will make statements, but it doesn't explain the pieces behind it. And that's okay because obviously it can only be so long. But nonetheless, there were those people out there, that's the ones that he was afraid of. Some people think that maybe there were people before Adam and Eve. The Bible doesn't say that, very clearly that they came afterwards. It just doesn't speak about it.
John Bradshaw: Now, let's think about what the dynamics were back there. Today, women typically, typically start having children, typically 17, 18, 19.
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: I think most children are born to women who are early 20s to early 30s; most, more women are waiting a little longer now. You don't get many children born after the age of 40, after a woman, the mother, is 40 because, you know, the doctors will say it gets a little riskier.
Wes Peppers: It's a little tough.
John Bradshaw: Yeah.
Wes Peppers: So I'm just gonna say for round numbers, the kids are born to women aged between 20 and 40, you know, 20 and 38, whatever the case is. How many years did Eve bear children? We don't know. We know she lived hundreds of years.
John Bradshaw: Yes.
Wes Peppers: So... her childbearing years may have been between 30 and 380.
John Bradshaw: Sure.
Wes Peppers: You understand what I'm saying?
John Bradshaw: Oh yeah.
Wes Peppers: So she has a daughter when she's 35. When she's 65, her daughter is having a daughter. When she's 95, when she's...
John Bradshaw: That's right.
Wes Peppers: By the time Eve is 350 years of age, there may be multiple generations. So if you think about that... I don't know, did Eve have children till she was 500? I just don't know. Were women more... did they have more children back then? Were there more twins and triplets and quadruplets? I don't know.
John Bradshaw: Don't know.
Wes Peppers: So there's a lot we don't know, right?
John Bradshaw: Sure, that's right.
Wes Peppers: But what we do know is that they're in the Garden of Eden, Cain killed Abel, he took off, and he was concerned 'cause there was people out there. We know that.
John Bradshaw: That's right.
Wes Peppers: We know there's only one Adam, and we know there's only one Eve.
John Bradshaw: That's right. Question for you from Michele: "Why did Jesus not speak on the LGBTQ lifestyle? I read Romans and other books... So many youth are struggling with this". Yeah, let me talk to this. A lot of young people are struggling with this. And I find it really interesting that when I was a kid, not many young people were struggling with this, not many. Certainly some, but not many. And I don't know that we have the time or the scope to investigate all the reasons as to why that is, that today it's more of a phenomenon. If you say it has nothing to do with social media, you're lying.
Wes Peppers: Sure.
John Bradshaw: You have rocks in your head.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
John Bradshaw: Of course it does. Of course it has to do with encouragement and influence and curiosity and some factors I'm sure that we don't know anything about. Michele, Jesus did speak about the LGBTQ lifestyle, but He spoke about the LGBTQ... "I," I know "I" is for "intersex" today, but "I" for "immorality" and "P" for "pervert" and "U" for "unfaithful" and "A" for "adultery". He spoke about all of that. What Jesus emphasized was sexual purity and moral purity. And He emphasized that sexual relationships should take place within the confines of marriage. And you understand, don't you, that children... now, someone's gonna think I'm being critical. I'm not. If you knew my broader family, you'd understand I'm not. The facts are children born into two-parent households do better on every level by every measure.
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: Now, where I'm from... and again, I want you to hear me with some grace, even though someone's gonna think I'm not being gracious. When it became much easier for women to have children without there being a husband in the picture, then it just started to happen more and more and more. Men abdicated their responsibilities. That's a crime in the eyes of God. So many kids being born as a result of lust. And a man, who once upon a time would have "made an honest woman out of her," just left, and just said, "This is not my concern; you take care of that". And so there's a woman somewhere doing her very best to raise a child, and she's gotta be the mother and the father; she's gotta be in two places at once. She's gotta work and raise a kid. And how can she go to the game and help with homework and all of that? You understand I'm not speaking against women who find themselves in that situation. I'm not. I'm talking against a societal trend that has just left kids to flounder because they're not allowing them to be raised in the comfort and the security and the providence of a two-parent household. So there's just so much in the Bible that God speaks against on a moral level. He's against it all, all the stuff that tends to cheapen and lessen marriage and de-power the home, and society is built on the home. So you wonder why didn't He speak about this lifestyle? He did. He spoke against all sexual behavior, moral behavior that falls outside the will of God. He did speak to it, just not as specifically as you'd like.
— You know, people often think that the situations of this nature that we're going through in this day and age and this culture, that it's something new, it's something different. It's like, "Oh, well yeah, that was the things that Jesus said were for then, but this is now, and times are different". But really they're not different. Morality, purity, innocence, those types of things are still applicable today, the things that Jesus taught. And so sometimes people want to dismiss the teachings of Jesus, thinking that they're outdated. But really they ring true in this generation, probably even more than previous generations.
— And what He spoke to in that day.
— Yes.
— And Jesus was raised in the Roman Empire.
— Mm-hmm.
— I quoted not long ago from a researcher from, I think, James Madison University who said that "immorality was a foreign concept to the...Romans". They were some... earthy people.
— Right.
— And there were no holds barred.
— Immorality was foreign to them because anything went.
— Anything, anything.
— There was no restraint.
— That's right.
— Yeah.
— So I don't think we need to pretend that the sorts of things we're dealing with today just didn't happen in Jesus' day.
— Sure, sure.
— From a moral perspective, however you want to classify that.
— Or that it's some new thing that requires a new set of rules or principles. What Jesus said is very applicable to today.
— I wanna say this. If you identify as LGBTQI or something else, God bless you. I mean, this isn't the forum for me to oppose that. What I mean to say is.... some are not gonna like that.
— Yeah, yeah.
— What I mean to say is this. You can be whatever you feel like being, whatever you believe you are, however you identify. But at the same time, allow God to work in your life. There are many, many people who have said, "As a male, I'm not attracted to females," but they kept themselves pure. "As a female, I'm not attracted to males," so they didn't get married and they lived a life of purity, a life of abstinence. Now, that just sounds like too big, too heavy a cross for some people to carry. Well, I mean, you do you, but then there's a judgment to look forward to, and you've gotta, you wanna live under the smile of God and in the blessing of God. So... all moral behavior that falls outside the will of God is outside the will of God.
— Mm-hmm.
— But you gotta know that however you believe you are wired or made, God is able to keep you in the center of His will and guide you in a pathway that honors Him. That honors Him, that's really important. All righty, question from Jennifer, she asks about Paul in 1 Corinthians 9: "Could you...explain Paul's statement that he became all things to all people ...1 Corinthians 9:19-22"?
— Sure, I'll just read that. It says that, Paul speaking here, "I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became...a Jew, that I might win the Jews; ... to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. And I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some". And so he's here not speaking about issues of morality. He's speaking really of issues of culture that don't conflict with morality.
— So did he say, "I went to the bar and got drunk so I could reach the drunk"?
— He did not say that.
— Oh, he didn't say that.
— It's correct that he did not say that.
— Okay, okay.
— And so when you think about the Ten Commandments, Paul was a Christian first. His allegiance was to Christ. He followed Jesus. His heart was transformed. He observed the Ten Commandments out of love for Christ, knowing that the grace of God was working in his life. So Paul would not compromise his faith or compromise the teachings or the faith or the truth of God in order to do some activity to win some. Now, I've heard of people, Pastor John, that have said, "Well, you know, I went out with my friends and I know the Bible says don't drink alcohol, and I know it's not right, but I wanted to fit in with them so that I could witness to them". And I think that's a grave mistake because what happens is you fall into that, and then either one of two things happen. Either you end up drinking more and more, and you develop a bad habit, or if you, at some point, if they do wake up spiritually, they say, "Hey, you're a Christian. Why were you drinking with us? Why didn't you stand up and say, 'No, I'm not gonna do that'"? You know, the perfect example of this is Daniel, chapter 1 when he was in the king's court.
— Yah.
— He did not eat, but God gave him wisdom in a way to do it tactfully. And we wanna remember that as well. So Paul here was not compromising his faith. He was not, when he says, "I was all things to all people," it doesn't mean he did anything sinful with them. But he adapted their cultural practices as much as he could until it conflicted with the will and the Word of God.
— So think about Daniel; there he was in Babylon. It was really heathen. He lived his convictions before God to the extent that his enemies said, "We can't find anything to trip him up on".
— That's right. He said, "I'd rather go to the lions' den than compromise my faith". As a kid, he goes down to Babylon and says, you know, "Really, I'd rather not eat that food. What can you do to help me out"?
— Mm-hmm.
— And God honored him. And we're still talking about his example today. What if he went down there and worshiped in their temples, ate their food, bowed before their idols? We'd never have heard of him, and he wouldn't be influencing people today. So, you live your life for Christ. You let your light shine. You trust that God is gonna work through you in your situation. That's what God did through Paul. Wherever he was, he adapted so that he could fit in, but he never compromised his faith. We are back with more of your questions in just a moment. This is "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written.
John Bradshaw: Welcome back to "Line Upon Line" with Wes Peppers, I'm John Bradshaw. We're answering your Bible questions. And Wes, here's a good one.
Wes Peppers: Yes.
John Bradshaw: And it's a question from Renee, who says, "I'm really trying to fit Deuteronomy 14:26 into what I believe God has said about the destructiveness of drinking alcohol but I'm struggling to understand what Moses meant by this text. Can you please help"? Deuteronomy 14:26, do you wanna take a run at that?
Wes Peppers: Sure, let's read that. It says, "And you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen or sheep, or wine or similar drink", or in the King James it says "strong drink"...
John Bradshaw: "Strong drink".
Wes Peppers: ..."or whatever your heart desires; you shall eat therefore before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household". And so, you know, it can seem a little bit confusing here with the "strong drink," typically referred to as alcoholic wine or beer or whatever you wanna call it. And so here he's talking about... the...carrying of the tithe to the temple. And so it's very important for us to remember that he's not telling them that they should drink it. He's saying to them they can buy it with that money.
John Bradshaw: Why, Wes, would they buy strong drink if they weren't gonna drink it?
Wes Peppers: Well, that's a good question. They might use it for other things. I mean, alcohol is a great disinfectant. It can be used for cooking, it can be used for a myriad of reasons.
John Bradshaw: Yeah, healing.
Wes Peppers: There's no ...yeah...
John Bradshaw: Pain killing.
Wes Peppers: That's right. There's no indication that they're using it for drinking.
John Bradshaw: Yup. And there are some cases where you buy that and then water it down so that it's way less potent.
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm. That's right.
John Bradshaw: It might be like something low-alcoholic, which I would stay away from, but... And by the way... David married a gaggle of women, and then his son Solomon made David look like an amateur.
Wes Peppers: Mm-hmm.
John Bradshaw: And God worked with both of those men, even though they were in flagrant violation of the express command of Almighty God. We have to be careful here, I know. But in the Bible, there were times that God met people where they were, you know, and He worked with them how they were, where they were. Abraham, ai-yai-yai, God says you're gonna have a child. "Oh, okay". Sarah says, "Well, it's not working out, so take my handmaid". And Abraham said, "Oh, okay". And yet Abraham's "the father of the faithful". You know, Wes, if you had a good friend who did that, you wouldn't be saying, "Well, that's okay".
Wes Peppers: That's right.
John Bradshaw: You'd be counseling that friend and saying, "What are you thinking, man? That's a terrible thing for you to do"!
— You know...
— The church might even censure somebody like that.
— Sure enough, and they would, and really they should, depending upon the knowledge and understanding of a person.
— Right.
— I've heard a story of people who accepted Christ, and they drank beer to celebrate that. And so, sometimes it's a matter of education, and people don't fully understand what the truth says. But when you look at the Bible consistently all the way through, it indicates that alcohol is not a good choice for Christians. And it says that many times; it says stay away from it when it swirls in the cup and it's fizzing and this kind of thing, talking about alcoholic wine.
— That's right, that's very clear.
— It's very clear. And so science has proven, of course, you know, that it impairs judgment and it causes you to make unwise decisions, and it's very difficult for the Holy Spirit to be speaking to you when your brain is numb with alcohol. And, you know, it causes all kinds of heartache. It causes abuse and accidents, and all these things.
— Awful.
— So it's best to stay away from it, and although alcohol has other uses, like we're pointing out here, disinfectant and cooking and different things, so just be careful. Again, one text in the Bible, it doesn't give a command here to drink it, or say that we should drink it.
— Yeah, there's two things I wanna pick up on, and I'll be lucky to remember them both. One of them... oh, I said to a policeman friend of mine, I said, "How much crime that you investigate is down to alcohol"? He said 90%.
— Mm-hmm.
— So I said to another cop friend, I said, "Hey man, I was told 90% of a policeman's work is alcohol related". He said, "That's wrong".
— Mmm.
— Oh.
— Wow.
— He said 95%.
— Mmm!
— Take alcohol outta the equation, and many of our law enforcement officials would be just about out of a job. It's a curse. Christians should not be saying, "How can I cozy up to this"? I just can't understand that thinking. You wanna be like your friends who are alcohol drinkers or whatever the case might be? No, you leave them to them. It's never been easier to not drink alcohol than it is today, for you to say, "No, you know, not me. I'd rather drink something non-alcoholic. I'll drink water. It's okay for you, but not for me". It's easy to do that today. Back to your point...
— Be gracious, yeah.
— ...just one text, so you've got the Bible all the way through speaking against alcohol or speaking about alcohol in a negative sense. You wouldn't, would you, go to Deuteronomy 14:26 and say, "Well, I don't understand that, so maybe alcohol's okay".
— Mmm. Right.
— No, hold on. You say, "I don't understand that. But I do understand the verses that say it stings 'like an adder' and you'll 'utter perverse things.'"
— See strange things.
— And lead you to immorality. You understand that. So go with what you know, and if there's a verse that you're not quite sure of, you pray and study and seek wisdom and don't let it turn you aside. Even though I must say there's no evidence that this is turning you aside, you simply said you're struggling to understand it.
— Mm-hmm.
— Good question. Danielle asks another one: "Are there jobs or careers that a Christian should not take"?
Wes Peppers: Oh, certainly.
— Yeah, but notice what she says: "For instance, being a prosecuting or defense attorney requires a lawyer to lie, even when you know that your client is really guilty or innocent and you still have to defend or prosecute them". Well, I would take issue with that. I don't think the job requires that you lie, even though many may or some may. I think there would be a lawyer right now who is aghast at the thought that you said they have to lie. I don't think that lying is a prerequisite for being a lawyer, even though some lawyers are probably pretty good at that dark art. So are there jobs or careers Christians shouldn't take?
— Yeah, certainly if there's something that's blatantly against God's Ten Commandments or some very clear taught principle in His Word, I would not recommend you to do that. Breaking the Sabbath...
— Anything that requires you to break the Sabbath...
— That's right, that's right.
— ...you don't wanna do that.
— You know, my wife, one time we had, I was a Bible worker, and we were living in this home of a generous church member, who allowed us to stay there, and right next door to our house was a gas station. And my wife was gonna go over there, and she applied for a job, and she told them she needed to be off on the Sabbath. They said, "Sure, no problem". And it hadn't occurred to us because neither of us had ever worked in that kind of work, but she looked over and she saw all the beer in the fridge. She saw all the cigarettes on the wall, and she said, "I don't think I could do this". And so she decided actually not to take that job because she didn't want to be selling people all those items. And so, yeah, I think a person has to consider that and they have to reflect upon the nature of the job. Now, some people can take that to extremes. So we don't wanna do that either.
— No.
— But at the same time, if there's something very obvious, breaking the Sabbath, causing very direct damage to someone in some way, if I'm forced to lie for a job, though that would not be a job we want to pursue.
— So I met a fellow, and he was not a member of the church I'm a member of. I was conducting a series of meetings, and we were talking about this thing about Sabbath-keeping. And he said, "Well, let me tell you". He said, "I was a truck driver, and my employer said, 'Look, I want you to falsify the logbook.'" Now, this guy's a lovely guy. I don't think he would've described himself as an absolute paragon of virtue.
— Yeah?
— But this guy had principles. The employer said, "Falsify the log book". He said, "I won't do that; that's lying. There's a commandment against that. I'm not going to lie". The employer said, "I will fire you". And he did, fire him. He said, "I lost my job because I wouldn't lie". Interesting, isn't it, how this was a man who had real scruples about something many people might not even think too much about.
— Well, it's in those moments that the rubber hits the road, and we have to realize, am I gonna stand true for God? Or am I gonna stand true or try to protect myself or protect my job? And we can know that when the history records that when we stand true for God, He blesses and honors you in some form or fashion. You may lose that job. But I've heard many stories where people get another job, and they're making better money and better hours and this kind of thing. So it always pays...
— Always, always.
— ...it's always a win to be faithful to God no matter what the circumstances.
— It'd be great if we did a program one day and just talked about those success stories 'cause there is just so many of them where people, you lose your job, and the next thing, it happened to me.
— Mm-hmm.
— I lost a job because my employer requested that I work on the Sabbath, and I wouldn't do it, and I was a brand new Christian. I don't even know if I was attending church yet.
— Mmm.
— Couldn't have been, I couldn't have been.
— Mmm.
— And I just had to trust that God would provide a better way. And He did. I got a better job earning much more money, working five days a week, I think. It was just better all the way around.
— You could probably tell thousands of stories like this. Powerful.
— Yeah, because God said, "Them that honour me I will honour".
— That's right, and He's faithful.
— Here's a question from Deborah. Wes, I don't know what you make of this. I'm not gonna read the whole question 'cause it gets a bit weird. But she says, "Do demons have flesh and blood? I know someone who says they can cast them out of people, but when they don't leave", and that's when it gets weird. Do demons have flesh and blood?
— Well, you know, demons are fallen angels. They are the devil's associates. And the Bible talks about the angels of God in book of Hebrews, chapter 1 being "ministering spirits" to those who are heirs of salvation, that's us. And so God's angels are sent forth as ministering spirits to help us. Sometimes, you know, you hear stories about angels taking human form, interacting with people, and the Bible even says that.
— Yeah.
— Be careful "to entertain strangers" because they may be angels that are coming to attend to you. And so if the angels of God are spirits, as the Bible says, they have spiritual bodies, spiritual nature, then the devil's angels would be the same. So flesh and blood, no, they are spiritual beings, operating obviously for the devil, not in a good cause, but they would have that same nature as the other ones.
— Yeah, so no, not flesh and blood, but we do know that they can appear at times in human form. That's important to remember. Okay, Ella asks us this: "Since people return to the dust when they pass away, why does the pastor or preacher say, 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'? What does this mean, and why is it stated? Is it biblically correct"?
— Well, I don't think it's biblically incorrect because we do turn into dust.
— That's right.
— You know, some people or even... this could bring up the context or the subject of cremation. And with cremation, you're turned into ashes or dust just a little bit faster than you would naturally. So ashes, you know, pretty much the same substance as dust, it's just particles of dust.
— Yeah, that's right.
— And so I think it's kind of a cultural saying. There's nothing unbiblical about it.
— You get it in the Bible where "God formed man of the dust of the ground," and then later in Genesis 3, He says to Adam, "In the sweat of your face you'll eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; ...dust you are, and unto dust you shall return".
— That's right.
— I think that's the point there; that's the origin of it.
— It's the biblical statement.
— Yeah, sure it is. And we don't have much time, so why don't we answer a question? We'll do our very best.
— Mm-hmm.
— And this is from Peter: "Do angels have gender? Are angels male or female"? What's the answer?
— Well, you know, Jesus says in Matthew, chapter 22, in Mark, chapter 12 that angels "neither marry or are given in marriage". And so they are not sexual beings. Now, many times the angels appear with a masculine form, Gabriel. Whether God has feminine type of angels, we don't know. The Bible says that God made man and woman "in His image". And so "male and female He created them". So, you know, whether or not they have genders, I don't think that it really matters. They're angels of God.
— Yep.
— They're there to serve Him.
— Amen. Here's follow-up question: "Is there hierarchy in angels? Angelic divisions or grades, something like that"? What we do know is there's an archangel, a leader over the angels.
— That's right.
— I'm not necessarily saying that's an angel, but a leader of the angels. There are seraphim, and there are cherubim, different kinds of angels, one with two wings, one with four, so there is some variation.
— And some excel in strength and others in other things, the Bible says.
— There we go. Thanks for your question, and we're out of time. But it's been great. We'll do it again next time. With Wes Peppers, I'm John Bradshaw. This has been "Line Upon Line," thanks for joining us, brought to you by It Is Written.