Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Answering Tough Questions: Singleness, Mormonism, Apologetics, and Christian YouTube. - Highlight Episode 330

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Answering Tough Questions: Singleness, Mormonism, Apologetics, and Christian YouTube. - Highlight Episode 330 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Our first ever live Q&A, at least in livingwaterstv, and it's kind of fun today because you are our special guest, EZ.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: He doesn't feel EZ's not here today, he is only feeling sick, Ray.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: How are we going to do this without him Easily because we've got God's help.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: That's true and, truth be told, he lost his voice yelling at the staff again.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: So he couldn't be Just kidding EZ.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, First question today comes from Scott O.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: What is the hardest question to answer?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I like this, yeah it's a good question.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I like it because I don't think it's a difficult question, like who made God?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Where did God come from the age of the earth?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Who made God?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Where did God come from the age of the earth?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: The hardest question to answer is when you don't know the answer and you pretend to have the answer.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: That's a good one, right?
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: So we just pontificate and we go on, and on, and, on, and on and on, pretending like we have an answer.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: You're explaining my entire career, by the way.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: It's okay to say I don't know, I don't have an answer for that.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: That's good.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: It doesn't rock my faith, though, and here's why Hardest question I've ever been answered.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: When I was open air preaching at Huntington Beach we had a crowd of about 40 people.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: A guy walked past, an elderly guy, and he just looked at me and says why did God let my wife die in agony of cancer?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I loved her.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: And he just burst into tears and walked off.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: I said please stay, because I wanted to talk to him about fallen creation, death, being rebelled, suffering pain and everybody dies and it's because we've sinned against God.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: But God offers us everlasting life.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: But I couldn't because he was off in tears and I would like to have chased him and said can I take you to lunch and just talk with you and let him pour his heart out?
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Because the guy was so hurt.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And there was bitterness in there too.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So that's probably one of my hardest.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I think that's good Taryn N advice for an early 20s Christian woman waiting for God to bring a godly man into her life.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: We do need to search our hearts because oftentimes we are more excited about the idea of being in a relationship.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and oftentimes the idea of being in a relationship.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and oftentimes the idea of being a relationship can become an idol.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, Often we think that our lives are on this holding pattern, won't start until we find the one, until we get married, and so it's kind of like the if onlys, right?
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I will only be happy, I will only find true joy, true meaning.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I will only be living out my purpose when I get married, when I have those kids, when we buy the home if only, if only, if only, if only.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: And those if onlys end up becoming these idols in our lives.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And the danger of that is that if the idea of marriage is become an idol, then what you've created is your future spouse, husband or wife.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: You've created them to be a functional savior in your life.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: And if they're a functional savior in your life, you're putting so much weight into who that person might or might not be in the future that once you get married, either you're going to crush them with your unimaginable expectations or you will be crushed realizing they didn't bring you the joy you hoped they would bring you.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Because your only savior is Jesus.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Next question Adam F Do you think it's okay for a Christian to read a book like the Quran in order to better understand and share with Muslims?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Or is it such a spiritual evil book that it should stay off my shelf?
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Or is it?
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: such a spiritual evil book that it should stay off my shelf, oh I had a guy who immersed himself in the Quran and got so depressed he couldn't shake it almost for years.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Just about destroyed him.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Wow, it's a doctrine of devils and I wouldn't soak my soul in something like that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I'd soak my soul in the word of God and just learn what the Quran says from other people that have read it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Hmm, do you find some evangelism encounters easier than others?
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Why or why not?
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I put out a litmus test when I meet a stranger and I say, are you afraid of dying?
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: And if someone says, nah, everyone dies, I think I've got a proud heart here.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: But right at the beginning with the litmus test, if someone says, yeah, I think about it all the time.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: I'm really scared.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I think, ooh, I've got a humble heart here.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: And then I say, did you know in the Old Testament God promised he would destroy death.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: New Testament tells us how he did it.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Would you be interested to hear what God did?
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: And they'll almost certainly say yes, because of that humble heart.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: So God gives grace to the humble, and humble people hear the gospel and embrace it.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: So they're the ones I find easiest and the proud ones are the ones I find hardest.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: But with the law you break the hard heart, as someone said, and with the gospel you heal the broken.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: What are the top questions to ask Mormons?
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Ooh Mark, I like this.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: What are the top questions to ask Mormons?
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Would you consider yourself to be a good person?
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: You stole my thunder space.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry, but listen, we get so caught up because all the apologetics that comes our way says that you must be an expert in everything Mormonism.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: But what happens when there's a new religion that comes your way and comes knocking on your door?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: They're there to proselytize you and you don't know what to say because you're not an expert in what they believe, so you don't know what questions to ask.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: This goes back to that last question with know the real thing.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: So then you know how to engage in dialogue.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: When the Spirit comes, you shall convict the world of sin, judgment and righteousness.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: So when we get into an apologetical sword fight, it's almost as if the Holy Spirit stands aloof waiting for us to finish.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: So sin, which is transgression of the law and this is why we go through the commandments demonstrates we don't have the righteousness required of the law to stand before holy God and therefore you will be judged.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And in Romans 1.16, it says I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: The Jew first and then the Gentile, very, very simple.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: So when we say I'm going to talk to a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness, well, why not start with the gospel?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: And you can't start with the gospel unless you start with the law to bring the knowledge of sin, and then maybe if you get into talking about magical undergarments or the false prophecies.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: I actually had a debate today with ChatGPT on my way to work talking about false prophecies.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: You guys got into another argument.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Every day we get into an argument, but with ChatGPT and I was talking about false prophecies and I was trying to teach ChatGPT how wrong they were and by the time we were done, chatgpt actually said it is a false religion according to their false prophecies, as we see in Deuteronomy, chapters 13 and chapter 18.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I'm like, oh great, look, chachapiti actually did kind of learn something.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: But start with the Gospel.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Bo M asks what are the first steps to take in creating a Christian YouTube channel.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I can tell you step one.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: I can tell you step one Create an account, mark, take it away.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think anybody here has any experience in that Ray YouTube channel.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Youtube channel.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Our YouTube channel has taken off over the last 30 days.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's wonderful You've been so creative.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: You and Tanny have put together some really great thoughts.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Your editing has been amazing.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Ten million views in the last 28 days alone yeah, that just blows us away because I think to myself go back 50, 60 years If you want to reach the last.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: You have what was called a mass crusade Billy Graham used to have them and you'd herd cats together.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: You'd get 200 churches and get them to combine so that you have a combined church crusade which was packed full of professing Christians.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: It didn't really touch the world like we're able to in YouTube.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: So just to think, with a push of a button and we had the button push.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: this morning I get a text from Tanny who says it's live and the gospel is going to literally millions of people with the push of a button.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: It just blows us away.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: It's live.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: And the gospel is going to literally millions of people with the push of a button.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: It just blows us away, it's wonderful.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: It really makes open-air preaching to some degree unnecessary.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: If you have a following within YouTube, you shouldn't say that.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: I mean you've answered it, but that's what's happened with me.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: I've got to say this that Scotty and I preached open-air every Saturday, almost every Saturday, at Huntington Beach for about 14 years.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: Then came COVID and then after COVID we went back and we both found it very hard to draw a crowd.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I'd spend 20, 30 minutes and two or three people had stopped because they didn't like to gather in crowds after the two years of COVID and so I felt my time at my age was more profitable to be used in interviewing people on the pier rather than preaching and losing my voice with 20 minutes open air preaching just to preach to three or four people, five or six.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: But Scotty's stuck with it and he's been getting crowds lately.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: But to think that we had one video just under 5 million from the interviews on the pier.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: So I find my time is best spent doing that.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Evangelism needs to become a part of the cultural DNA of the church that you go to, and cultural DNA doesn't happen by your pastor you pastors preaching one sermon on evangelism.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Cultural DNA doesn't even happen when you host one evangelical event.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Cultural DNA happens when everybody sees and shares the vision of a gospel-centered evangelistic church, and when that happens, it encourages everybody because everyone is participating in the cultural DNA.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: The other thing that's really great about it is that what you'll discover, at least in my experience, is when everyone has the evangelical DNA of a church that they should have.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: When that new person comes in the church on a Sunday that was invited by, you know, the deacon's wife, because they have a book club together, everybody understands, like we're all on the same page.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: This is either a new believer, a non-believer, something's going on, they're here and we wanna put on display the living out of the same gospel that was just preached, and so the real question, I think, is how do we change a DNA?
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I love Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: It's not a book specifically written for the church, but I think we can inherit a lot of great ideas from it, and one of the things that he starts with is if you want to change a culture, you need to have early adopters.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Find those first few three, five, 10 people, get them excited and then start working to see that three to five catch fire through the rest of the church.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: We found that our evangelistic team tripled one Friday night in Santa Monica.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: That was the week after Arnold Schwarzenegger showed up at.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Third Street Promenade Next week.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: There was 30-something people instead of 10.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Everybody thought he would be back hey, so just get Arnie to show up.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Is that the plan?
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I like it.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: Friends, we value your time, so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Without the jokes and fellowship.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: Be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.