Q. I have been reading your website for several weeks now and have enjoyed it very much. You have helped my bible study tremendously. Thank you!
I must tell you though, that I was bothered by your response to the woman who wrote you about her daughter considering abortion. The first part of your response was good, but it seems to me that we should never encourage anyone to deliberately sin, even if there is forgiveness for it. If a sin is a sin is a sin, then by your standard if a Christian were to willingly commit a sin, regardless of what it is, they need only ask for forgiveness before they do it. It almost sounds as if you have condoned the false notion that many say, that we have ‘license to sin’.

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Q. I was attending a church in my small town and really enjoyed it at first.  But the longer I attended I noticed that there were quite a few people (the more well to do) that felt they owned the church as well as the pastor of the church.  One of the ladies even asked the pastor if she was still the one that gave the most money to the church.  One elderly couple in the church are not happy unless they are running the financial end of the church and when the pastor disagreed with this man on an issue, the man decided to have his tithe designated to a certain thing in the church and convinced others also to do the same thing. That way there would not be enough money in the fund to pay the pastor his wages.  This is only a small amount of what this church has done.  I felt angry every time I attended so I quit!

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Q. I have a question regarding forgiveness. Is there a reference in  the bible that tells us that we are not to forgive a believer that is backsliding until he/she first repents? What does the Bible say about forgiveness and a backslider? How are we to treat them?

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Q. I have a quick question.  How do you know if it is the Holy Spirit convicting you or if it is Satan working on you to make you feel bad and draw you away from God?  Thank you very much for your studies and website it has helped me greatly.

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A. Your website is wonderful and I believe Holy Spirit led!  You have helped me tremendously with 2 other questions I had and I have another one today this is weighing on my mind.  I know we must forgive others.  I have worked hard and work hard daily to forgive others as I am so graciously and wonderfully forgiven by Jesus Christ my GOD.

What is bothering me though is forgiving on behalf of others. For instance one circumstance I am having difficulty with is forgiving a step-mother who is divorcing my Dad and being very selfish and greedy about it in my humble opinion.  Another instance is forgiving my father-in-law who we recently found out molested at least 2 of our nieces.

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Q. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine the other night and she asked me what you have to do and what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  I tried explaining to her that you repent of your sins, ask the Lord for forgiveness, and ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I also said that once you are (filled with the Holy Spirit) you will feel conviction when you have done something wrong because the Holy spirit within you will grieve.  Then she asked how do you know conviction from guilt?  Can you please explain these things to me in a way that I can explain to her without confusing her more?  Thank you so much.

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Q. My mother had a 13 year affair with my husband. Needless to say my marriage was over.  My Daddy would not believe she did anything wrong, because that is what she told him.  He had a nervous break down and died young of heart problems.

Mother was telling me she had done nothing wrong and would not admit to the truth.  I called our pastor to come to her house so she could tell him what she had been telling us. She told him “I have done nothing wrong.”  He asked, “Her to explain to him how she could commit adultery and not feel bad about it.”  She replied, “On my way to meet him I asked God to forgive me. Afterward I would repent for what I had done wrong, so I have not committed any sin.” The pastor, told her that if she believed she had not done anything wrong she had been turned over to a reprobate mind.  She started crying and saying, “there is no hope for me.”

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Q. In a recent answer (Maximum Trial,  Maximum Grace)  you wrote, “That doesn’t mean that we’ll be relieved of the consequences of our actions, but that God will make something good come out of it.”

Does that mean what you said a few times in your teachings, that God turns our lost battles into blessings? Does that mean that no matter how bad and huge my losses are, the Lord in His mercy is willing to make them the “beginning” of something so good what is able to richly negate, compensate them?

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Q. You quoted in your recent psalm commentary from a friend: “Maximum trial, maximum grace.”

Is this true in the case if the trial or trials is/are caused by our sins? ( If we turn to the Lord for help asking for His forgiveness. If He’s not tired of me always doing something horribly stupid and then asking for His help!)

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Q. An article I read recently claims that the unsaved dead don’t suffer eternal punishment, but will have a chance to accept salvation at the Great White Throne judgment if they’ve never heard the Gospel before. If they accept they’ll be saved then, and if not they’ll be destroyed along with all the others who rejected Jesus. Overall I don’t agree with a lot of the things they say here, because the references, or lack of, don’t directly support what they say, even though they write it as if they do. Overall, what is your view on the existence of Hell, and what they say in the article about certain people getting a ’second chance’ at the White Throne Judgment?

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