I HEARD SOMEONE ON TV PREACH ABOUT HOW GOD CAN FORGIVE YOU OF YOUR SINS BUT OFTEN DOESN'T REMOVE THE PENALTY OF THOSE SINS. IS THIS REALLY TRUE? IS AMERICA NOW WHAT THE CHURCH OF SARDIS WAS?
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- [Terry] This first onePat, comes from William
who says, "Hi Pat,
I heard someone on TV preach about
how God can forgive you of your sins
but often doesn't removethe penalty of those sins.
Is this really true?
And if God won't remove
the penalty of my past sins,
is there even a point
in turning my life around?
- [Pat] Well, you're looking at eternal.
I mean, eternity
is what's really important.
I mean, what happens here,
in this earth is,
you know,
minuscule, compared to a life
lived with God forever and ever.
And Paul said,
I'm just doing everything I can.
If I may attain to theresurrection of the dead.
So you want your sins forgiven.
Now let's assume,
that you shoot somebody,
in cold blood,
first degree murder.
Now,
when you do that,
you say, God, I sinned against you.
I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
And God says,
alright son, daughter--
I forgive you.
But what is the judge going to say
in the court, when you get convicted.
He's going to say,
I'm sorry.
It's going to be life in prison.
Or it may be the death chamber.
That's the temporal punishment.
And there are two different things.
God can forgive,
but the courts may not.
I mean,
what you have done may bear an impact.
If you do something to hurt yourself
we've been talking abouthealth and everything.
If you hurt your body,
God can forgive you for doing it,
but you still might get emphysema,
or you still might get--
Gandhi was talking about the leaky gut.
You still might get that.
All right.
What's the other question.
- [Terry] This is John who says,
Can conflicting, condemning,
or incessant thoughts
affect one's salvation?
Should I ask Jesus
to be my Lord and Savior
every time negative thoughts
about Christianity pop up in my head?
Or do I just need to repent?
Are persistent, negative thoughts
sinful in and of themselves?
- The Bible says this,
let the words of my,
heart,
the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable.
So what we're thinking
and what we're doing,
and the Bible also says
break up your fallow-ground.
So the time for all of us
we have to continually
break up the fallow ground.
We have to continue to come to the Lord.
You don't have to continue to get saved,
but we do,
our hearts do get hardened along the way.
And we do need
to have times
of refreshing where,
we get right with God,
because these things do build up.
All right.
- Floyd says,
Pat, is America now
what the church of Sardis was?
Revelation 3:1-3 says,
you have a reputation of being alive,
but you're dead. Wake up!
But if you do not wake up,
I will come like a thief.
- All right, look,
they were churches in Asia
that were involved in revelation.
All of them, by the way,
are in the modern day Turkey.
But I--
You can't just say,
well, this is the church today.
This is the church today.
I think the one inLaodicea is closest to it.
You know, but to say,well, this church is this.
I mean, God didn't make me a judge.
And he didn't make you a judge that way.
And to say that,
that means you're judging and saying,
well the church is like this.
Maybe yes, maybe no.
I think what we all need to do
is to learn from those things.
And they were all parts of, of Jesus.
Every one of them.
And this one is on fire.
This is dead.
This, you know, be hot or cold,
or a banish you out of my mouth.
All those things.
You find some evidence of it everywhere.
Okay.
- This is Linda who says,
what exactly does "amen" mean?
We say it at the end of every prayer.
- It means. Let it be so.
That's what it means. Let it be so
Amen. Okay.
- Beverly says,
when we get to heaven,
will we recognize people we know,
or watched on television?
Such as precious Ben Kinchlow?
Will the ones we knew also recognize us?
Does the Bible have a scripturethat answers this question.
- Look at Jesus talking about the,
the Rich Man and Dives and,
and the Rich Man was taken to hell.
Dives was taken by theangels to Abraham's bosom.
Then he looks down and he said,
look, let me go and talk to my brothers.
And, and Abraham said, no,
there's a great gulf between us fixed,
but he did recognize it.
I think we will know people.
I don't know necessarily,
if you're in an audienceof 20 million people.
I'm not sure that every one of them
in that audience isgoing to recognize you.
- But do you remember the little boy
that wrote the-- His Dad actually wrote
the book "Heaven is for real."
And he recognized family members.
They knew who he was
- Unborn, I mean therewere little children
who were aborted.
Absolutely. Okay.
Well that's all the time we've got.
But yeah, I think there's going to be
a recognition in heaven.
That's what you're asking.