This episode delves into the profound yet often misunderstood concepts of faith and anointing, as Bible teachings are juxtaposed against cultural misconceptions. David Hawking breaks down complex theological questions into digestible insights, discussing topics like mayhem around circumcision, the benefits of suffering, and whether modern-day practices align with scriptural teachings. It’s a thought-provoking discussion for anyone seeking to align their life more closely with the Bible.
If a person winds up in hell, do they stay there forever or will God come and bail them out after a while? Is it our faith that gets us into heaven? Is circumcision a requirement for a Christian man? And what exactly is the anointing? And how do you know if you have it? This is Hope for Today with Bible teacher and author David Hawking. Today we’re reaching into our vast archive of Bible question and answer programs to take a look at some of the most challenging Bible questions sent in by listeners over the years. Stay with us for David’s 100% biblical responses. And just before we get into today’s program, head over to DavidHawking.org. It’s packed with rock-solid Bible teaching, answers to many of the questions you might have in your Christian life, video messages that pull no punches, and a number of free resources to help keep you grounded in God’s Word, as well as books, booklets, and audio messages that you can purchase. That’s DavidHawking.org. Check it out and see for yourself. And here’s David.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, we’ve come, folks, to another question and answer program. Jim Durbin’s with me. Jim, we’ll try to handle a few.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, David, I’m going to give you a tough one starting out here. Are you ready for this? I’m going to try. It says, if a person goes to hell, is he tormented forever?
SPEAKER 01 :
Once again, I feel sorry for a lot of new Christians who, if you go to a bookstore, you can find books arguing both sides. Some say hell is only for a limited time, only for an age, and then a God of love certainly wouldn’t torment them forever. But we have verses in the Bible that teach otherwise. For an example, in Revelation, we have some very clear statements about this. We have, for instance, in chapter 14 of Revelation, some angelic proclamations, and it mentions about people who worship the beast and his image in the coming tribulation and receive his mark in their forehead or the hand. And it says they’ll be tormented with fire and brimstone. in the presence of holy angels, the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever. They have no rest day or night who worship the beast of his image and whoever receives the mark of his name. We also have in chapter 20 of Revelation, We have a statement in verse 10 about the devil who’s headed for hell. And it says, “…the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Some people say, well, Jesus didn’t teach that. Well, he sure did. Mark chapter 9 is very, very clear in verses 43 and following, where he tells us the fire is not quenched. They are tormented forever. In Matthew 25, in the Olivet Discourse, verse 46, Matthew 25, 46, it says, “…these shall go away into everlasting punishment.” But the righteous will go into life eternal. So yes, it appears that God teaches in His Word that hell is forever. And here at Hope for Today, we’re doing everything we can to keep you out of there.
SPEAKER 03 :
David, the next question, does the Bible teach that we should repent in order to be saved?
SPEAKER 01 :
The answer is a strong yes. Now I have had many conflicts, even with pastors over this, who believe that all we do is believe and that repentance is an Old Testament term. Well, no it isn’t, folks. It’s everywhere. John the Baptist said, repent and believe. Jesus took up His ministry and said, repent and believe. At the resurrection, Jesus told His disciples that repentance must be preached in all the world. When we go to Acts on the day of Pentecost, Peter said, repent. In chapter 3, he again said, repent. It’s everywhere. Also translated, turn to the Lord. It’s referring to a change of mind because the word noyeo as a part of the word for repentance, metanoeo, refers to a change of your mind that leads to a change of conduct. There’s another word for repentance, which means just be sorry for your sins. Esau had that. So did Judas. No, my friends, the real repentance is a change of your mind about what sin is and how it’s paid for, and it’s also a confession of your sin before God. And repentance always precedes faith. Hope that helps.
SPEAKER 03 :
David, in this next letter, our listener says, Someone told me recently that you do not believe that faith is the gift of God, mentioned in Ephesians 2.8. I was shocked. The verse seems pretty clear to me. And why, if it is true, do you believe what you do?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, the New Testament was written in Greek and was not written in English. In fact, the multiplicity of English translations are simply complicating the problem. In Ephesians 2.8, let me read it to you. In the Old King James, it says, For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Yes, I understand how easy it is to believe that faith is the gift of God itself. and that we don’t produce it ourselves. That is a very strong belief among many Christians. Here’s the problem, friends. The word that is a demonstrative pronoun. Pronouns must agree in gender—that means masculine, feminine, or neuter—they must agree in gender and in number—meaning singular or plural—with what it modifies. Faith is a feminine noun. The word that is a masculine pronoun. It is absolutely impossible, grammatically, for faith to be the gift of God in this passage. You say, then, what does it refer to? It refers to the opening clause, by grace, literally having been saved by grace. That is the gift of God. Salvation by grace is not of yourselves. God did it all. And salvation by grace is the gift of God. I hope that helps you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Some wonderful questions we’ve had here on salvation today. David, the next question, we’re going to shift the focus here just a bit. The listener says, are there any biblical reasons for divorce?
SPEAKER 01 :
I don’t like to answer the question in that way because I know how people are wanting to have a way out of a bad marriage and get a divorce. Forgiveness is always a better healing element than just getting out of the marriage or marrying somebody else and falling into the same trap again. There are biblical reasons, however, for divorce. Divorce is not a sin in and of itself. Now, I know multitudes of churches believe that. But if it were, then it would be listed in one of the lists of sins in the Bible, and it is not. And if it were a sin, then you have to accuse God of being a sinner, because He divorced Israel. Also, when Joseph wanted to give a private divorce to Mary to protect her from being stoned because he found her pregnant during their betrothal, the Bible calls Joseph a righteous man for wanting to put away his wife in a private manner. He wanted to give her a bill of divorce and spare her life. He loved her. But, my friends, a divorce can be sin. that is sinful as to why it is being promoted. If you don’t have any biblically justifiable reason, then you’re obviously on the wrong track. What are the reasons? One, immorality, sexual immorality on the part of your spouse. Now again, forgiveness is a better way to go, in my opinion. I’ve seen this work in the lives of people. But if it looks like that person is not going to stop and is taking it so far as they want to marry that person. You’ve got a problem. You have the right to divorce. By the way, if you have the right of divorce, you have the right of remarriage. That’s easily illustrated in 1 Corinthians 7 in the case of death. You are free to be married only in the Lord, in other words, to a believer. The second reason is the departure of an unbeliever that doesn’t want to live with you. Now, this is a difficult one because sometimes people make up a story that’s not true. Maybe you drove him away, for all I know. But if you have an unbelieving partner who doesn’t want to live with you, who wants to get out of the marriage, the Bible teaches us in 1 Corinthians 7.15, a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. So we have at least those two. You say, what do I do if my partner just takes off? And they say they’re believers. That happens all the time. The Bible tells you what to do. Remain unmarried. That is, don’t get married, but be reconciled to your spouse. A lot of interesting information. We have a booklet called Divorce and Remarriage. It answers all these questions for you. with biblical answers, and give us a call at 1-800-75-BIBLE or 1-888-75BIBLE in Canada, and we’ll be glad to get it to you. Here’s the thing, folks. There are more questions than there are answers, always. And be very careful that you don’t jump to conclusions because someone is your friend. Be careful.
SPEAKER 03 :
That book, again, is Divorce and Remarriage. Call us. We’ll get that to you. David, our next question says this. Why circumcise your baby boys if circumcision does not mean anything to the believer today?
SPEAKER 01 :
Very unusual question. It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. We know that the Bible says, like the arguments of Romans and Galatians, that circumcision profits nothing to the salvation of that person’s soul. Well, every Jewish parent knew that also. When they circumcised their boy on the eighth day of his life, it’s not because that circumcision will save him. This is representing the faith of the parents in the promise of God to Abraham. If you want to reason, do it because God told you to, if you don’t understand all the implications. And certainly there are health factors that make circumcision the thing to do for male babies. But on the other hand, circumcision… is an act of obedience on the part of parents who believe what God said to Abraham when He promised him three things—a nation, a land, and a descendant who would bless the entire world. Now, unfortunately, in Judaism and its history, some came to believe that circumcision was necessary. We call them, those operating in the New Testament times, Judaizers. They were making Judaism the religion instead of realizing the issues of the Jewish Bible are dealing with faith and repentance and turning to the Lord and believing His covenants that He made with His people. So I think we need to be very, very careful here. There’s no salvation here. either in the Old Testament or the New Testament, apart from the Messiah of Israel. The Messiah is the only one who can save us from sin, death, and hell, no matter whether you’re circumcised or not. Because in Genesis 12.3, in that very passage, it says, “…in thee, Abraham, shall all families of the earth be blessed.” The word is goyim, referring to Gentiles. So they were called uncircumcised because most of them were not circumcised. There’s more of them, of course, today who are. So I hope that helps you. Yes, circumcision will not save you. but it is an act of faith on the part of parents who believe the promise of God to Abraham. You say, well, only Jewish people need to do that. I don’t think so. I think you can make a case for that, but I think you’re also ignoring the fact that those who are not Jews put their faith in the promise of God to Abraham. And why would you not want to do that, to let yourself know and your family know that you believe what God said to Abraham? That’s how you got saved. Amen. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Amen. David, in our next listener letter, the question goes, does the Bible teach that there is some benefit in suffering? Our pastor teaches the opposite.
SPEAKER 01 :
This was a rather lengthy letter, and my heart went out to this person. They have suffered physically terribly, and of course, the church where they’re going tells them that they don’t have enough faith, and they also tell them that the will of God is that you be healed. They do not believe that suffering has a purpose in God, that they teach it comes from Satan alone, that God allows it but does not cause it. Well, that’s a direct opposite of what the Bible says. God certainly does cause suffering and judgment upon nations, and many so-called innocent people, meaning that they were not involved, and the reason for the judgment at that time, but they will lose their life in the tragedy or the disaster, etc. Now, folks, let’s understand something. We learn more through suffering than we do times that we don’t have it. There are many reasons why God allows suffering in our life. In fact, the whole book of Job was written that we would understand. It wasn’t because of any sin in Job’s life that he suffered. And those churches and pastors that keep hammering people—I call it flogging the sheep instead of feeding them—are not teaching correctly. Thank God that he does heal, and he chooses to do so on his agenda, not ours. But the fact is, healing is only temporary. The ultimate healing is the resurrection. And that will clear up the problem once for all. But we need to understand suffering has a place. We have a number of tapes on this. In fact, one of my favorite – there you go. You can put it down, David’s favorite messages. But one of my favorites is one very few people have ever gotten called Suffering and the Will of God. And that’s the name I gave to the whole series on Job as well. But there’s a whole series of it. We ask serious questions that you’re asking and answer them biblically. I love listening to myself teach that. Why? Because I need it. We all do. We need to hear the Word of God. And there’s so much hype going on today, like somehow suffering is a bummer. And there are many people hurting badly and not being ministered to because of such foolish preaching. May God bring us to an understanding of what the Bible actually says.
SPEAKER 03 :
David, the next question, do pastors need to be ordained?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, this comes from Acts 14 in the English. He ordained elders in every church. Pastors are called elders, like in Acts 20 or even in the qualifications. Ordain is really more talking about appointed. I think we’ve made something out of this that we shouldn’t have. Ordained needs to be appointed. In the case of starting churches, I would think the missionaries who planted the churches would be the ones to select and ordain the leaders in each church. That’s Acts 14. There are some practical reasons, and that is that many fellowships or denominations of churches withhold ordination until a man can prove that he knows the Bible. That’s not a bad idea, because you put too many novices in there, and you’re violating the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3. You know, I think we need to make sure this person’s called of God. Amen.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Amen. David, we hear this word a lot these days, anointing or anointed. And this next question says, what exactly is the anointing and how do you know if you have it?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, that is a very troublesome issue, Jim, as you know. In 1 John 2, it says, we have an unction, that’s the word anointing, from the Holy One, And you know all things. We are told in this same passage that John wrote so that the people wouldn’t be deceived or seduced, and in verse 27 says, “‘But the anointing which you have received of him abideth in you, and you need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, you shall abide in him.'” If you compare that with John 14, 15, and 16, the teaching about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the anointing. So every true believer who’s been born again already has the anointing. So we’re using this today in a wrong way. And it was created by a lot of guys who try to make people think that they have some special touch from God that they wouldn’t have. We all have gifts. And this has created a monster in Christianity. We’re all anointed by the Holy Spirit when we’re born again. And the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth who can teach us His Word.
SPEAKER 03 :
David, next question. Our church has begun to invite people to come up in the front to the front to be anointed with oil if they need to be healed. Is this right?
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, now this is a twist on James chapter 5. If a man is emotionally disturbed, the Bible says let him pray. And if things are going well for you, then keep rejoicing and praising God because it may not last. That’s a very amusing way of putting it, as James does in chapter 5. But in verse 14, he says, of any sick among you, let him call for the elders of the church. It doesn’t say let the elders call him. So what we’re talking here is a little bit of logistics. God teaches that if you’re sick, it’s a Greek word, asthenos, which means no strength, no ability to recover. You’re beyond medical help. This is not the flu or a cold or headache or something like that. We’re talking about very serious illness. This was used of people in the Bible when they had this problem, they died. This is sickness that is very serious and will result in death. So you’re concerned about the will of God. Maybe God wants to heal you. Maybe he doesn’t. But the sick person is the one who calls. The word calls for the elder is, in Greek, calls to himself. It’s private, not public. That’s the trouble with all these healers and healing meetings. It’s a public show. It’s entertainment. But according to the Bible in James 5, it’s not one elder who has this power. It says, “…call for the elders,” plural, “…two or more, so that no man gets the glory except the Lord. And you anoint them with oil.” It’s just putting a little on their forehead and praying. And the prayer of faith that’s according to the Word of God can heal the sick. It may be God’s will not to, but the person is expressing their confidence in the Lord. And so I don’t like the idea of twisting the Bible and changing it and having the elders call up people, if you’re not feeling well today, come on up, we’ll anoint you. That is not what the Bible says.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s David Hawking, and you’ve been listening to this month’s Bible Question and Answer broadcast here on Hope for Today. And we’ll be back in the book of Revelation on our next program. But before we go today, let me ask you a question. When you hear the word morality, what comes to mind? All right, now Matt’s here, and we want to share a resource that just may clarify, correct, or fortify your thinking on this subject.
SPEAKER 02 :
Whatever happened to morality? This engaging question is the title of our featured resource by my dad for July.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we want to send you a copy when you join us in ministry with a donation of $20 or more.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, Jim, our culture today is struggling desperately because it’s working feverishly against biblical principles and moral values. Yeah. It reminds me of the assessment of Romans 1, 22 to 23. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. So what did happen?
SPEAKER 03 :
to morality. How do we end up in this sorry condition and what does scripture declare about it?
SPEAKER 02 :
And Matt, is there any hope? Yeah. How can believers be a shining light of testimony? What do we say, Jim, to this and the next generation? Those questions are so, so important. You’re going to find the trustworthy answers from God’s word inside whatever happened to morality.
SPEAKER 03 :
Whatever happened to morality, the future survival of America and every nation is our gift to you when you contribute $20 or more this month. Prayerfully consider our donation.
SPEAKER 02 :
Give generously as God leads and provides. And you will find reassuring insight and encouragement inside the 278 pages of Whatever Happened to Morality.
SPEAKER 03 :
And your donation makes you a partner with us in ministry. To make a generous donation of $20 or more and get your copy of Whatever Happened to Morality, call us at 1-800-75-BIBLE in the U.S., or 1-888-75-BIBLE in Canada, Bible by the numbers 24253. You can also make a donation online and request the book at davidhawking.org, davidhawking.org. By the way, you can also get the book that David mentioned earlier in the program, Divorce and Remarriage, an excellent look at what the Bible says about divorce and remarriage, and it’s just $5. Divorce and Remarriage, get that when you call us or go on the website. And just before we go, you know, this month is almost over. Can you believe that? Wow. But you know something? This mission is just getting started. If you’ve already prayed, given, stood with us, thank you. You’re the reason this message is still going out, unfiltered, unashamed, and unstoppable. The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible. We’re hearing from people who hear a broadcast. They hear the Bible teaching, and something clicks. They understand what God’s Word is saying in that passage. A marriage is saved. Depression is shattered. Dead faith brought back to life. That’s what you’re a part of, God’s Word going out and changing lives. So let’s not let up. Continue praying. Pray hard. Pray that every message hits its mark, breaks through the lies, rips down fear, and points straight back to Jesus. And if God is tapping your shoulder to give, we’ll do that. Not to help a ministry, but to put truth in front of people who may never hear it otherwise. Your gift keeps the broadcast on, it keeps our homepage devotionals free, our media center streaming video series by David, and it keeps the website alive where hungry hearts show up looking for answers. Ready to give? Well, you can do it now at davidhawking.org or call us at 1-800-75-BIBLE in the U.S. or 888-75-BIBLE in Canada. And if your gift is $20 or more, ask for that booklet, Whatever Happened to Morality? You can do that as well. To contribute by mail, write to Hope for Today, Box 3927, Tustin, California, 92781. In candidates, Hope for Today, Box 15011, RPO Seven Oaks, Abbotsford, B.C., V2S 8P1. You’re not just keeping a ministry going, you’re pushing back darkness with the light of God’s Word. And to Him belongs all the glory. Amen. Well, next time on Hope for Today, the search for one worthy to open the scroll ends. But what happens when the Lamb steps forward? What happens? All of heaven erupts. Don’t miss day one of Worthy is the Lamb from Revelation chapter 5, a scene that will shake you to the core. We’ll see you then right here on Hope for Today.
This episode delves into the profound yet often misunderstood concepts of faith and anointing, as Bible teachings are juxtaposed against cultural misconceptions. David Hawking breaks down complex theological questions into digestible insights, discussing topics like mayhem around circumcision, the benefits of suffering, and whether modern-day practices align with scriptural teachings. It’s a thought-provoking discussion for anyone seeking to align their life more closely with the Bible.
