Episode 1 - Ancient Faith Chat: What Happens After I Die?

STSA Church Podcast · Dec 27, 2023

Transcript

Good evening everyone and welcome, welcome, welcome. My name is Father Anthony Mesa and thank you so much for joining us here for our first Ancient Faith Chat here at STSA Ministries. And for those who are wondering what this Ancient Faith Chat is all about, why it is that we're doing it, if you're not familiar with STSA, St.

Timothy and St. Athanasius Church, Church where I serve, we have now been in, we have now been around for 10 years, okay, STSA started in 2012 and we exist with one singular mission, to bring an ancient faith to the modern world. And a couple years back we started something called STSA Ministries, which is our attempt to help you, those who don't live here in the local Virginia area, help you do the exact same thing in your area. So in case you've never heard of STSA Ministries, we launched it about three or four years ago, or yeah, about three years ago. And that again, the mission was simply to help you and your local church, your local community do what it is that we, that God has tasked us with doing here in STSA. And that's why we created a website with all kinds of different resources, things that we use here at STSA. And our hope was to make it available to others to use as well. Well, over the past year or so, we realized there was a step missing in the process. And that is this, is as much as we say, bring an ancient faith to the modern world, and we should bring an ancient faith to the modern world, and as much as we're passionate about it, realizes a lot of people who are asking themselves the question, why should I? What difference does this ancient faith make? And why should I be so passionate about sharing it with others? So what we felt is there might be a potential lack of understanding of our faith and appreciation for the value and relevance our faith in today's world. In other words, we all kind of know what we believe, but we're not really sure why we believe it or what difference it makes if someone else believes it or doesn't believe it. And from that was born this ancient faith chats, which our hope is to do this on a monthly basis. The goal is to take something from our ancient faith, a concept which might seem difficult or complicated, and try to understand it in simple ways. Each month, what we're going to do is we're going to take one topic or one question or one of those I've always wondered why or I've always wanted to know how come something that maybe we've been taught, but we don't know why it is that we believe it or again, what difference it makes. And our goal is to talk about not just what we believe, that's kind of like where most of us are, we're told we believe X, but we want to talk about why we believe it, where it comes from, and most importantly, anyone who's ever listened to me give sermons, what difference it makes in my life. The hope is that the more we can understand our faith, the faith that Jude talks about and says the faith once for all delivered to the saints, the more we understand it, the more we'll appreciate it, and the more we'll want to share it with others. That is the goal of STSA ministries is to help you share that faith with others. So that the way it was for me in my life was exactly this way. I went through most of my life knowing what I believe, but not knowing why I believed it and not really caring and understanding. Then it clicked, then I got hooked, and now I can say with all honesty that I truly believe that our Orthodox Christian faith, I truly, truly, truly believe it.

It is the answer to all the problems in the world today. And I'm not just saying that those who know me, I've heard me say that and I'm happy. My hope is to convince you of the same thing. Okay? And every month what we're going to do, we're going to meet here together, okay, for 45 minutes on the third Wednesday of the month, the third Wednesday of the month for the most part, obviously we'll be flexible, okay? If Christmas shows up on the third Wednesday, then we'll obviously move around. The goal will be about 45 minutes together, about 15, 20 minutes where I share a topic, answer a question, talk about something that's hard to understand, then about another 20 minutes of interactive, okay? And that's a chance where you can, we can engage together. My hope really is this is not like me giving a sermon, I give lots of those, but my hope is this is like a community together, something interactive, something where we can take bite, we can take topics that seem big and we can take it in bite-sized chunks. And that's why I'll invite you to be part of the programming as well by helping us to come up with the topics, okay? I have a list of things that I think people want to hear about and talk about, but if you have something that you would like me to address, you can email ministries at STSA.church. That's ministries at STSA.church. And also when you hear about the topic that we're going to cover, if you have a question you want to make sure that I answer about that topic, you can email us in advance at ministries at STSA.church and I'll be more than happy to do so. Because the one thing we learned, okay, during this past two years of COVID, there's one thing we learned over the past two years is that we are all connected, right? I'm here in my local community, you're in your local community, but what we learned is that we're all together, okay? And I believe that my service in front of God is more than just local. I believe that God, I'm not saying, okay, God wants us to serve however it is that we can both locally as well as non-locally. And this STSA ministries, this is my way of offering myself to the greater church community, to anyone who can find benefit of it, okay? It's also my way of getting out when people say, come visit our church, okay?

Traveling to other churches, okay, traveling to other churches is giving a man a fish. But my hope here in doing this is not to give out fish and then come home exhausted and people just got a piece of fish to eat, but it's to train fishermen. My hope is that every month we come together, we discuss a topic and you walk away with something practical, with a question answered, and also you're going to walk away with a resource because like I said, we created our website, stsaministries.org, stsaministries.org. We created it with a bunch of resources which share what we have been doing here at STSA. And every month when we do this AFC ancient faith chat, you'll walk away, we'll talk about one specific resource that can hopefully help you take a step further to know the beauty of our ancient orthodox faith, okay? So that's the high level summary. Our first topic that we're going to talk about here today is called What Happens After I Die? And I am going to put in the chat, you should be able to, let's see how I can do this, okay, in the chat, I'm going to put a link to a file, okay? I'm also going to put, someone told me to put this in there too, I'm also going to put the email address, okay?

I want to put a link to a file, and that file, if you go click that link, you will find a handout which has all the notes of everything that I'm going to say. So that way you don't have to feel like you have to write everything down or what verse was that again, it's all there in that handout, you can download it, that's yours, that's a summary of everything that I'm talking about, and every time we do this session, you'll walk away with one of those as well so that again, you don't feel like you have to write down everything that I say or whatever that verse or anything like that, okay? Our first question that we want to answer is appropriate because we are in the season of the resurrection right now after Easter, and the question we want to answer is what happens after I die? We just celebrated Jesus's death and then Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus walked around on this earth. Well, you may wonder, as all of I have and you have I'm sure, is what happens after I die? How do I know where I'm going to go and how do I know what's going to happen? Well let's take a step back, okay? We're going to answer this question in two parts. This is a big question which I've given an entire series on this topic, so we're going to take this part one today, part two will be next month, okay, in June when we meet back together. Let's talk about death. Death is the number one fear of most people on this earth, okay? It's not anything, it's always like, you know, fear of public speaking is number two, you know, and fear of death is always number one. But Christians, for us, death is not something we're afraid of. Death is actually, scripturally speaking, something that we hope for. Okay, you need to look no further than Philippians chapter one verse 21 where St. Paul said, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. So for us, death is not something that we are hoping to avoid. Death is something that we're hoping is to come because death is where we reach new life. Death is the hope of life with God. Death is the hope of life in heaven. Death is the hope of no more tears, no more sorrow, no more sickness. Death is where we always talk about justice and justice and where's justice and how come God allows these bad things to happen. Death is where all wrongs are righted, okay, on the other side of death. The problem for us is because we don't know what happens when we die, death becomes like a black box. It's a mystery. It's something behind door number three. Because we don't know what happens, we're afraid because we're always afraid of the unknown.

Well, like I said, my hope is that we can hopefully uncover a little bit of that here tonight. Think about it this way. Imagine a dad, okay, when I was, when my son was three years old and I took him his first day at school. Imagine a dad drop off his child first day at school. And he tells the child, okay, this is what's going to happen. You're going to go to school and it's going to be, you know, you're going to sit in a little desk, I'll give you a little lunch box, you're going to have your little snacks, you're going to have your little friends, you know, and then they're going to add this and at three o'clock I'm going to stand right outside and I'm going to pick you up. Versus a dad who just drops the kid off and who's going to come back at three o'clock but he just kind of drops him off, pushes him out the door and says, have a great day. The information that the child had, the end of the day is the same for either case. But the difference is having that information gives me hope throughout the day that you know what, I'm not here forever. My dad didn't abandon me. I'm not stuck here. I'm here for a purpose to learn, okay, and at certain time, you know, bad things are going to happen, math class, good things are going to happen, recess, but when all is said and done, daddy's going to pick me up, he's going to take me home. That's the point of talking about death. Paul says in 1st Thessalonians chapter four verse 13, he says, speaking about death in 1st Thessalonians, I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. That's the critical phrase, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. Well, my fear, us as Christians, we don't approach death the same way the world approaches death, we have hope. So it can't be that me and the guy who doesn't believe are approaching death the same way. If that's the case, then something's wrong, okay? And how we can have a different attitude, all right, a different approach is by understanding more and more. So again, that's what our goal is here. So our goal is to be informed and inspired, okay, informed and inspired. The more we are informed about what happens after we die, the more we'll be prepared and ready to live the right kind of life here on this earth.

The more the kid knows this is the end of the school day, daddy's going to pick me up, this is what daddy's expecting, the better he'll be during the school day itself. So with that, you look there on your handout, I'm going to go through four questions, okay, four questions. So we're going to start simply at the very beginning, the basic understanding, why do we die? You ever thought about that? Why do we die? Why does it have to be death? Like death is something like, if I'm God, can I just make it so that there's no death? Like I've always thought about it, like if I was God, I would make it so that like chocolate ice cream helps you lose weight. That's what I would do if I was God. But that's not how it is. So why does God make death? Well, the answer, as I wrote there on your handout, is death is not part of God's plan for man. Death is the consequence of man's free will. Death is not part of God's plan for mankind. It's a consequence of our free will.

Follow me here on this one. God is life. So therefore, God, who is life, life cannot create death. Life cannot create death in the same way that light cannot create darkness. Darkness is not a creation. It's only the absence of light. Well, death is the same way. Death is not something. Death is the absence of something and that something being God or life. So God did not create death. Death was not something that God created and said, OK, well, I'm going to die.

OK, here, deal with this. Death is the result of man's choice. And it was man's choice to leave God, to disconnect from God or light darkness. There was man's decision to leave the room where the light was in and all of a sudden he found himself in darkness. But it's not something God created. Genesis, chapter two, you all know the story. Genesis, chapter two, verse 16, it says, the Lord God commanded the man, saying of every tree of the garden, you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God didn't punish man with death. God isn't like God doesn't kill man. What happens is God says that here I am. I'm God. I'm light. I'm life.

I'm in this room. If you walk out of this room, don't be surprised if you're in darkness. Don't be surprised if you're in death. And that's exactly what man did. So man brought death into the world, not God. OK, death entered into the world, as I say, during the liturgy by the envy of Satan, but also by the will of man. OK, not by the will of God. And by the way, when I say the will of man, I'm not talking about Adam and Eve alone, but the will of me and you mean you bring death daily because we sin daily. So we're not talking about the sin from thousands of years ago. We're talking about the sin that we commit every single day. We bring death into this world. Now, the second question, OK, if God did not design death to be part of the plan, he at least permitted it. God allows it. So then the question is, why does God allow it? And the answer is this one may shock you. You know why God allows death? God allows death out of his mercy. Go back to Adam and Eve. God permitted death for Adam and Eve. Out of his mercy and compassion and love for them.

Why? So that the state that they found themselves in would not be an eternal state. OK, I know that's a tough concept. Genesis, Chapter three is where the fall of mankind. And after man fell, God said to the serpent, you're in trouble. God said to Eve, you're in trouble. God said to Adam, you're in trouble. And look what he said at the end of all that. OK, Genesis, Chapter three, verse twenty two and twenty three. Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil, and now lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever, therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. Once God saw that man was in a state of sin, that man was in a state of death, that man was in a bad place, it was in a state of darkness. The best thing for man is death. Because had man taken of the tree of life, OK, it's what God said right there, if he had taken it, lest he put out his hand and take of the tree of life and eat and live forever, in other words, lest man eat of the tree of life and live forever in the state of death, in the state of separation from God, in the state of darkness, that that's why God said out of my mercy, let them die. OK, death is better because death we can fix. That's where the incarnation came from. That's why Christ came and took flesh into this world. Christ came, the incarnation happened to restore man to his true state, a state of life, a state of connection with God, of oneness with God, because Christ was fully God and fully man. So in Christ, man was now reunited with God. So now that man and God are reunited, now live forever in this state.

That's the plan. You say that one again, because this is kind of a tough concept. Man, after sin, was in a state of death and separation. Think of it like like the the Old Testament, the veil in the temple, there was a separation between God and man. So God did not want man to live in that state forever. Christ came. The veil was torn. Man and God united. Now man can live forever in a state of connection with God. See how beautiful that is? See how beautiful that is? So God allows death out of his mercy so that the state of death might be only temporary, not eternal state. And that gets us to our question right now. What happens to what happens to us after we die?

I'm going to answer this question briefly, but like I said, I'm going to get into more details next month on June 15th when we do part two. But the answer, the short answer is what happens to us after we die is we enter into an intermediate state, we enter into an intermediate state until Christ returns and ushers in the kingdom to come. Meaning after we die, we don't go directly to heaven or hell. Then we go to two different places, a place called Hades, which leads to hell, a place called paradise, which leads to heaven. That's why Christ told the thief on the right, today you will be with me in paradise. You can tell them to take me to heaven. You say, wait a minute, what's the difference between paradise and heaven? What's the difference between Hades and hell? Well, follow me here again, because this is the whole point is our theology. It has meaning. Our ancient faith has a relevance, OK, and something practical for us to understand. Why can we not enter heaven? Let's just stick with heaven.

Let's leave aside the bad ones. OK, why is heaven not the state that people find themselves in right now after they die? Because after someone dies, when someone dies before the second coming, OK, so someone dies today and then the second coming is whenever that is, that person is not in their eternal state because they have no body. The people who have passed on before us, their bodies in the ground, they exist, OK, a spirit, but they don't exist as body. Their body is in the ground, is buried. And then at the resurrection of the dead, OK, we will all receive new bodies, better instead of new bodies, we would say a transfigured body. Same way as Jesus when he rose from the dead, he took his old body, but it was also a new body, OK, new in the sense that it could do things that the old one couldn't do. He could pass through walls. OK, but the same body wasn't like, you know, he was, you know, like it was recognizable. It's not like you start as a man, you're going to end as a woman. OK, or you start as, you know, five foot six and you're going to all of a sudden be an NBA basketball player, something like that. Like it's the same person. But in a new body, a new state, Isaiah, Chapter 65, verse 17 says, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth and the formal shall not be remembered or come to mind. Revelation 21 also says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Behold, I make all things new. So after we die, we're in an intermediate state until Christ comes in and ushers in the kingdom to come, we will be a new body to live on the new earth because this body is corrupted, this earth is corrupt. That's why you say you say the creed, don't you say we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. That's what you say, because what we look for, not just not just we are dreading, we're looking for that new state. OK, and when we get to that new state, like I said, just like we see with Christ had a new body, we also, OK, we'll have something new. But until then, we live on this earth. And then after we pass from this earth, we enter a place called Hades or paradise.

Those are just pit stops. Both earth and Hades and paradise, those are pit stops on the road to get to our eternal resting state and in those places, Hades and paradise. We are conscious of what's going on here on earth. However, we have no body and therefore we cannot live on this earth. But it doesn't mean we are unaware of what's taking place. OK, and that gets us to the last question. Then I'll open this up for questions from you, those who are listening here. What should we be doing now? What should we be doing now in this current state? Well, like I said, that's a bigger question. And I'm going to answer that question next month because that's also connected to why we pray for the dead, what happens to those in paradise and Hades. OK, and what we should be doing now in relation to those in that place. We're talking about that.

I'm going to tease that one out till next time. But what I want you to take away from tonight is that death is a consequence. Death is not a punishment. Death is not something that God imposed upon man. Death is something that man chose for himself when he chose to walk out the room. God allows it out of his mercy and his love for mankind. And for us for today, what we should be doing, I want to leave you with this verse from Ezekiel, Chapter 18, verse 21 to 23, tells us, if a wicked man, this to show you that God doesn't want death for anyone, if a wicked man turns from all his sins, which he has committed, keeps all my statutes and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live, to live in the light. He shall not die, but none of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him because of the righteousness which he has done. He shall live. Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, says the Lord God, and that he and not that he should turn from his ways and live. The end, my brothers and sisters, it's not something that we fear, but rather it's something that we await and something that we look for. Again, we look for the resurrection of the dead and the way that we can have that attitude is by being prepared. I'm never afraid of the test that I'm prepared for. What I'm afraid of is the test that came suddenly without me being prepared. Ultimately, in the end, what happens after we die is simply a magnification of what happens while we're alive, the choices that we make while we're here on this earth become magnified after we die. Those who chose to get close become very close to God.

Those who chose to stay at arm's length, go very arm's length from God, and we don't want that to be us. So with that, like I said, every month we are going to share a different resource from our group of resources online. And this month, the resource that we are going to share and I want to highlight is a quiet time guide. This is a great way that you can look for the resurrection of the dead and that you can be prepared by spending time with God in his word and seeing what it is that he is commanding us and guiding us in. And the way that you find that, OK, very easy. I'm actually going to share my screen, show you how easy it is to get anything on STSA Ministries. OK, I'm going to share my screen right here. All right. You go to STSAministries.org. All right. And once there, you will see our beautifully redesigned web page. All right. And you'll see different categories of resources here. And if you click on spiritual growth from there, you will see our featured resource for the month, which is our quiet time guide. And it's a one page guide to help you get the most out of quiet time. All right. What is quiet time?

How do I get started? Just brief little things. OK, some resources to help to help you. OK, maybe in case you've heard of quiet time, but you're not really sure how to get started. Take a look at that on our web page. And hopefully that is something that can be a benefit to you. OK, with that said, I know I talked longer, but now is the interactive. These that's where you get a chance to ask questions. There's two ways you can ask questions. You can raise your hand. OK, and if you click that raise hand button, I will actually give you the ability to to unmute yourself and you can ask your question live here on this recording. Or you can click the Q&A button. OK, and in the Q&A, you can submit your question about this topic or any topic. OK, and I'd be more than happy to answer them. All right. So our first question is coming in. Says, I'm intrigued by what you just said. This is from Ash regarding awareness of what is happening on Earth while we were in paradise or Hades.

Can you please expand on that or point us to some references? Sure. So the reference that the biblical reference would be that story in. I always confuse Luke 18 or Luke 16. I'm going to go Luke 16, the story of I'm going to look it up for you right now. I'll tell you exactly. I don't want to say the wrong reference. I'm going to go with Luke 16. All right, which is where we're not right here in one second. Let's go with Luke is the story of the poor, the rich man, OK, and Lazarus. All right, let's make sure I got it right.

Let's see. Yes, the rich man, Lazarus, starting in verse 19, Luke chapter 16. So it was a rich man, OK, who lived in luxury every day. And there was a beggar at his door named Lazarus. You've heard this story. And then the rich man dies. It goes up to he goes to Abraham, goes to Abraham. And Abraham says, you're in trouble, buddy. And he realized all the wrong that he had done. And he said, well, let me go back and tell my brothers. And he's like, look, even if one would rise from the dead, none is going to help your brothers out. So we know that those who have gone before us have an awareness of what's happening here. Think of it this way. OK, this is not an exact example, but just, you know, my my thing is I like to make complicated things simple, but sometimes it falls short a little bit, you know, like in the one way mirror or two way mirror, I never understood which one is the one where the one they use in the police movies where you can see on this side, but they can't see on that side, that's kind of like what happens after we die. People ask me, you know, after we die, will we know this, will we know this? My answer is always the same. We will know more on that side, not less. So anything we knew here, we will know more. More will be anything that has was done in the hidden here will be out in the open on that side. So those who have gone before us, they have an awareness of what's going on.

And this is why I kind of tease this out. Next time we'll talk about why we pray for the departed, why we ask the Saints to pray for us. There's your answer right there, because they are aware of what is happening to us and we can ask them to pray for us. Just like you would ask me to pray for you, I'm not praying like my flesh is not what's praying, it's my it's not my flesh and bones, it's my spirit, which is still living. So the same way those who have left the flesh, left, OK, the earth can still pray because they're still aware of what's happening on this side. OK. That's a good question, Ash, thank you for answering, for asking that. All right, the next question comes from Mark, who says, what happened to those who have zero awareness of any of this? God is just so we know no one is getting ripped off, but he also said you must be baptized with water and spirit and believe in me. OK, I'm going to push this button. See what happens. OK, so the answer to your question there, Mark, that's a great question. And I'll even expand upon it. You brought in you brought in baptism. OK, what happens to those who don't know all this stuff? Like we're learning all what are those born without Bibles, born without Christian homes, born believing other faiths?

Like what happens to all them? So your best answer that you said right there is God is just. There's so many verses that talk about the justice of God. And in the end, I like to use the word ripped off. No one's going to get to that side and say, God, you cheated me. God, you were unfair to me. No one. No one's going to get no one's going to say that. So God, we know, judges every person according to what they have been given. God judges each person according to what they have been given. You and I, we like fairness. We like blanket statements. We like everyone gets the same standard. God, you know, God has a double standard. You should know that. That's just not a double standard because double means two. It's eight billion standard. Every single person is judged based on what they're given. So you don't know and I don't know how anyone is judged except one person. So the first way I'm answering this question is I need to make sure that I do the best with what I've been given, not worry about what someone else has been given. Let God judge that God is going to be more than fair to them. OK, more than like more than.

But I have to do the best with what I've got. I'm not going to say, well, he's not like we need to look at just ourselves. And then the second thing I can say, and I can say this one from my heart, is God, who is just, has given every person in this world enough information to know that he exists and I promise you that anyone who reaches out to God, God will reach back out to them. And that's not just something I'm saying. Not too long ago, about a month ago or so, right before Holy Week, I had a chance to meet with someone who was born. A very long story. I won't get into all of it, but basically someone who was born into not someone who had never seen a Christian in his life until he was like 20 something years old, would never seen a Christian. He had heard the word Christian. But in his mind, they were like like us saying like like Neanderthals.

He had never even seen a Christian. All right. And he grew up, you know, obviously outside the faith. And God appeared to him. OK, this person shared his story. And if I tell you the way God speaks to people and works in people's lives, so don't worry about that person is what I'm trying to say. Don't worry about that. God has his way of reaching them and they will be held accountable to what they have received. We just should be accountable to what we have received. OK. Thank you, Mark, for that good question. Anonymous asks, so Adam and Eve did a mistake. Why are we bearing the consequences of their mistake? OK, good question. So. First thing is, as I said, is Adam and Eve made a mistake, someone is raising their hand. I'm going to give you permission in a second to come in here.

Who's raising their hand? OK, maybe they made a mistake, but we make mistakes all the time as well. So we're not just bearing. So I guess I want to say is that Adam and Eve never sinned. We still sin all the time. OK, we are given free will. And it's not just them. That's a difference between our Orthodox theology and maybe like Catholic theology. OK, slight difference. We love the Catholics. It's not criticizing. But they talk about original sin. We don't talk about original sin. I'm not born with a sin on my heart. Like I'm guilty because Adam and Eve messed up. So I spent my whole life suffering because someone else made a mistake. No, we don't believe that. We believe we're all given free will. We're born with a sinful nature. OK, and we are born, you know, with a corruption, a corrupt nature, but I'm not I'm not paying the price for their sin. I'm paying the price for my own sin. That's what I want to say. OK. And if you don't think that you do any sins. OK, but the truth is, is that we do. OK, so we're bearing that. All right, someone raised their hand. And I'm excited to see how this hand over the hand thing went away there. Let's see. Someone raised their hand. If you raised your hand, go ahead and do it again. I'll click a button and I will let you come in. OK, so this thing, here we go. All right, Nebby, allow to talk.

Nebby, you are on. You can turn your video on if you want or you can just say, go ahead. Thank you very much, Abuna. My question is, God knows what's happening ahead of time, but he does not. He does not decide what we're going to choose. If we take Adam and Eve, when he created them, he knows that they're going to they're going to make the mistake, but he does not decide. So my question comes sometimes, for example, Jonah, why he was John the Baptist, why he was in his mom. He knows that he's going to prepare the way. And for some like Judah, was it predetermined that he's going to give Jesus or just Jesus or just God knows that he's going to make those things? It's confusing. My understanding is he knows, but he does not predetermine.

But just to balance, I mean, are some chosen to do the good things and are some chosen or were just their choice, how do we balance this? Thank you very much. No problem. Thank you. Where are you from, Nebby, if you don't mind me asking, where are you from? I am from originally from Ethiopia. I figured that. Where do you live now? Los Angeles. OK, great. I want to do this like on the radio where you call and say, I'm Nebby from Los Angeles. I just want to give the welcome. Welcome, Nebby. Thank you for asking your question. Thank you. You ask a great question. I'm going to get you off here. So that would be on the way. Hold on. I don't know how to remove you from here. Let's see. I don't want to remove you, but anyway, you ask a great question, Nebby, which is the difference between predetermined predestination and free will. And this is something I get asked all the time. So maybe we can have one whole session on this because this is a big topic. And basically, what that what that what the answer to that question, here we go, the answer to that question. God knows. But that doesn't mean that God controls. All right. And I'll give you a couple of examples. Any time I give an example, realize that, like I said, every example falls short in some way. OK, so I'll give the example, but the example is not complete. I'll actually give two. If I I know my children very well, OK, and my son Michael is 17 years old, my daughter Lizzie is 15. You ask them ice cream, Michael vanilla, Lizzie chocolate, Michael vanilla, Lizzie chocolate, Michael vanilla, Lizzie chocolate. You go right now to my kids, say, Michael, would you like chocolate or vanilla? I'm telling you, he's going to say vanilla. I didn't control him. I didn't make him say it, but I knew he was going to say it because he's my son.

I've been with him for 17 years. Same with Lizzie with the chocolate. Just because I know for knowledge doesn't mean I'm controlling it. OK, a teacher who watches the student, you know, sleep every day in class, talking to that student, knows that student is going to fail the test. Doesn't mean he makes the teacher fail. Doesn't make makes the student fail the test. OK, that's one analogy. Second one, OK, is let's say, you know, if I had something in front of me, I have a book here in front of me. OK, the book here is called Vision of Theophilus. Let's just take this word vision. OK, here you see the letter V and the letter N. OK, V and N. V and N are not next to each other. But you most likely, as you're looking at this word vision, you can look at this and you can see the V and the N at the same time. Like you don't need to go vision. Like you can just look and say vision. OK, you can just see vision. That V. And that N are not next to each other yet because you have such a higher perspective, you can see them both at the same time because you're above, you're outside of the book. Well, this is the way God views time. So here is like the year, you know, like two thousand and what to say, two thousand twenty two. And this is the year, you know, nineteen eighty six and this is the year B.C.

58. And this is God sees all of time. It's like that. It doesn't have to be like, where's George Washington again? I can't see him. Can someone find out? God can look right there. There's George Washington. There's Abraham Lincoln. There's Moses. There's you, Neve, right there. There's Neve's great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids. If the world stays around that long. OK, and there's Neve's great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother right there.

And the same shot, same shot. This is God. He's above. So did God know that Judas would? Yes. Did God make Judas? Oh, some people say, but it says in the prophecies. I heard that someone say that Judas had to betray Christ because the prophet, OK, Zachariah said that it would happen. No, no, no, no. You got that backwards. The prophet said it was going to happen because God knew what was going to happen because God is above time. God sees it's going to happen. So God goes back to Zachariah and says, Zachariah, write this, that he shall be sold for the price of a slave. So God tells Zachariah to write it here and then it happens here.

But God didn't control it because God gave us freedom. OK, so that's a great question, Neve. Thank you for asking that. Like I said, that's a big topic. Maybe we'll spend one whole session on that. All right. And let's see. Let's see right here. OK, so we got another question. We actually got we have questions in the chat and in the Q&A, so I'm going to go. We got a lot of them, so we don't have much time. But let's see. What did the early Church Fathers say about death? So great question. And I'm going to answer that next time, because next time we're going to talk about in the next session, what happens to those who are no longer alive right now in the Hades and the paradise? And what is our connection with them? And why are we praying for them?

Why are we asking them to pray for us? So I'm going to tease that one out, but I'm not going to answer that right now. So stay tuned, Mr. Anonymous, we'll get that one later. Question, how should we repent? Big, big, that's a big topic. I'll just give like a one sentence answer. The most important thing with repentance is sincerity. Right. If I have my children and they repent, all I want is not. I don't care what they say or how they do it.

Like sometimes, you know, whatever, as long as it's sincere. OK, so sincere repentance. I will go one last question, because I got to get out of here in a couple of minutes. We'll go this one from Mark says, what is the meaning of the verse? The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God's eternal life and Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank you, Mark. It was a perfect way to end. I believe that verse is from Romans, Chapter six. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. It's exactly what I was talking about earlier. That death is a choice. OK, wages.

When it says wages. All right. When you said the wages of sin is death, you're not forced into it. His sin is a choice. God gave us free will and we have a choice. I have two hands. I can use his hand to punch in the face or to hug you. I can use my mouth to curse you or to encourage you. Right. And I always talk about free will this way is God gave us the ability with free will to even negate his own will. Did you know that? Did you know that when your will and God's will are opposed to one another, God gives you the ability to veto his will.

Not obviously in all things. OK, I can't veto his will for like winning the lottery, but that would be great. But God's will is do not lie. But I can veto his will and I can lie. God's will is not murder. I can murder. God's will is honor your father and mother. I can dishonor my father and mother. So I have the ability. That's free will. But the but but with free will, OK, free will is a great gift. It's something that God says, you know, I give you this great honor or a great honor, it comes great responsibility. OK, and we know that with that, that that free will comes the accountability. The accountability is you can choose whatever you want, but there's a consequence to your choice, right? Like with my kid, I don't give my kid free freedom. My kids when they're young, don't touch this. You're not allowed to go there. Slap the hand of that.

But then as they get older, like I said, I got 17 and 15. You can do whatever you want, but there's consequence. Like I'm not going to force you to study. If you don't study, you're going to fail. And if you fail, there's going to be some. Yeah, there'll be some consequences up in here. So that's how God does it with us. And then the flip side of that, OK, in the same way that there's consequences to our sinful choices, there's also consequences to our good choices, and that's the repentance and that's the prayer. And that's the time, the quiet time that we were talking about earlier, the spending time with God, there's consequences to those. And they're great consequences. The consequence of my prayer is I get to communicate with the eternal heavenly father, the consequences of my going to church as I get to receive his holy body and precious blood inside me, the consequences of repentance is that I get to be washed clean, just like coming out the shower. Like I was doing some yard work earlier. I came out disgusting.

I went in the shower. Good is new. That's the consequences. And we say that during the divine liturgy, we say that God will reward each one according to their works. And usually we say that in a negative way. But listen to the word. God will reward each one according to their works. God will reward. So, yes, the sinful, there's a reward. But the good, the righteous, the honest, the sincere, the loving, the kind, the forgiving, there's a reward. I want to leave you with this thought. That quiet time, God, that we're going to put there, like I showed you guys earlier, I want to challenge everyone here. OK, the most important basic, the most basic, basic, basic of all spiritual habits is spending time with God every single day. Just even even if it's just five minutes. OK, obviously, ten minutes is better than five minutes. OK, but I'm saying even if it's just five minutes, I can't leave my house in the morning without spending time with God. And I realize that the majority of people out there, OK, if you're on this Zoom call right here, you want to spend time with God. But a lot of people don't know where to start. That's why we created the guide. That's why we created all those resources.

Not because we have it all figured out, because sometimes it just takes a little bit of push, a little bit of encouragement of where it is to start. So check out. Please check out that that guide. OK, when you get a chance, check out the website, STSAministries.org. That's STSAministries.org. And God willing, I look forward to seeing you all back. The next time we do this ancient faith chat, which will be June 15th, OK, 730 p.m. Eastern Time, June 15th. In the meantime, go to the website, subscribe. You'll get updates when we put new resources on there. Check out all this stuff. If you have any comments or feedback, email us at ministries at STSA.church. That's ministries at STSA.church. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Have a good evening and I'll see you all next month.