You're Alive That You're Dead

Scripture:
Date: 10/23/2022 
"He must increase, but I must decrease," for "those who are true to their calling as messengers of God will not seek honor for themselves," (GW, 56). Self should be emptied and the daily surrender, the repentance, the meekness and humility, the insistence and the pleading, will assure us of our salvation and final reward of eternal life. Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Let Him in, take His pierced hand and accept His gift. Join us now to learn more !

Culture and the Christian

Culture and the Christian
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- [Announcer] It is the best-selling book in history, no volume ever written has been more loved and quoted, and its words, sometimes simple and sometimes mysterious, should always be studied carefully. It is the Bible, the Word of God. Welcome to Bible Answers Live, providing accurate and practical answers to all your Bible questions. This broadcast is a previously recorded episode. To receive any of the Bible resources mentioned in this broadcast, call 800-835-6747, once again, that's 800-835-6747. Now, here's your host from Amazing Facts International, Pastor Doug Bachelor.

- Hello friends, how are you doing? Would you like to hear an amazing fact? In our world, death is a universal fact of life, unless you're a jellyfish, this has been revealed in a new study by researchers at the University of Ovadias in Spain. The jellyfish Turritopsis Dohrnii is the only known species that appears to be able to rejuvenate repeatedly after reproduction, becoming biologically immortal. Scientists are hoping its DNA might hold the answer to the secret of eternal life. Most creatures age because their DNA degrades over time, but the T. Dohrnii pulls off an amazing biological feat to cheat death. Every member of the species is an identical clone, and it starts life as a polyp that then matures to an organism called a medusa, this isn't particularly unique, but what's amazing about the T. Dohrnii is that if the medusas get injured, sick, or old, they become a cyst that turns back into a polyp and restarts the whole process, churning out more clones, scientists call it lifecycle reversal. It'd be something like if a person got old and turned back into a fetus, or a chicken turned back into an egg. Christian scientists have often wondered, how can we have eternal bodies in heaven like this immortal jellyfish, seems to have been giving us some valuable insights on how DNA can repair itself, and I think this is fascinating, Pastor Ross, I've always wondered, you know, doesn't everything grow old? And how do we have eternal, glorified bodies, bodies that are doing real things? Well, this gives us a little insight that, well, there's at least one creature down here that seems to have DNA that doesn't degrade.

- It's really remarkable when you think about it. So this octopus gets old, or jellyfish gets old, and then it figures, "Well, my life's coming to an end, so I'm going to grow this little nodule," and from that eventually develops into another octopus and has the same DNA, so it's not exactly the same octopus that, you know-

- The jellyfish.

- Oh, jellyfish, not the exact same one, but nevertheless, it's coming from the jellyfish, so it just continues.

- Yeah.

- It's rather interesting.

- So yeah, I was researching a little bit today on what causes aging and the scientists have sort of agreed there is no one silver bullet. Aging seems to happen because a lot of things start to happen at the same time. So even if you found a solution for the DNA, there's other things and it's like a perfect storm as you get older, and I suppose whatever God had in that tree of life would have the enzymes or whatever it is that we're missing now, but we'll have that in heaven, DNA won't grow old and we won't grow old. You know, there's that promise in Revelation 21:4, "And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there'll be no more death nor sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things have passed away," a world with no more death.

- You know, sometimes people hear about Heaven and they think, "Wow, this place where you live forever and everything's perfect, could it really be real?" Well, the Bible says it's real, it's the home of the redeemed, and we have a book, it's called "Heaven, Is It for Real?" And this is the free offer, we're happy to send it to anyone who would call and ask. The number to call is 800-835-6747, and you can ask for the study guide. It's actually one of our books, not just the study guide, it's an actual book, it's called "Heaven, Is It For Real?" We'll be happy to send that out to anyone who calls and asks. Now, we do have listeners that are outside of North America, and if you'd like to read the book, we encourage you to go to the website, just amazingfacts.org, you'll be able to read it there on our library at the website.

- Amen.

- Well, pastor, we have a number of callers who are lined up, so before we get to it though, let's start with a word of prayer. Dear Father, we want to thank You for the opportunity to be able to open Your Word and study. Indeed, Lord, Your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and for us to come to a knowledge of the truth is life. So we do ask Your blessing upon our time, be with those who are listening, wherever they might be, in Jesus' name, amen.

- Amen.

- Well, we've got a number of callers who are lined up here, and so we're going to go to our first caller this evening. We've got Martha listening in California. Martha, welcome to the program.

- [Martha] Hi, thank you, pastors. My question tonight, it's only come up a couple times, but it was always in a professional situation and wasn't an appropriate discussion for the time, but I've had the comment made to me more than once that Jonathan and David were homosexual lovers. Now, I know they loved each other a lot, but you know, the way God spoke of them, I know that's not true, I just want to know how to handle it scripturally.

- Yeah, I would actually say that the question really begs the evidence, what would lead a person to say that? They're assuming because it says that David loved Jonathan, it actually says, when Jonathan died, David says, "I loved you more than the love of a man for a woman." Well, that is not homosexuality, that's saying it's different, and clearly Jonathan was married and had children, he had a son named Mephibosheth, David had at least 10 wives, and I think it's just kind of part of our sick society, they're assuming that if a man loves a friend, it must be sexual, but there's nothing in the text to hint that the love of David and Jonathan was anything other than a profound love of two friends that were of one heart. Yeah. So it's hard to persuade people that have their minds made up to read something into it that's not in there.

- Mm-hmm, absolutely. All right, well, thank you, Martha. We've got Brittany listening also from California. Brittany, welcome to the program.

- [Brittany] Hey.

- Hi, and your question.

- [Brittany] Well, my question is, who is the Antichrist?

- Ooh, big question. Well, in a nutshell, and the word Antichrist, you know, it means against, Antichrist is something or power that is against Christ. Historically, the Protestant church felt like the church that had developed in Rome fulfilled that definition of the Mother of Harlots, you know, the church is compared to a bride, and they had believed, the Protestant reformers like Luther and Calvin and everyone from Spurgeon to Wesley, they saw what happened with the church becoming a political power in Rome, that it had become Antichrist in its teachings, that didn't mean that all the Roman Catholics were lost, it meant that its organization, its structure began to teach things that were contrary to Christ. You know, things, for one thing, they got involved in idolatry. I think everyone can see that that's one of the commandments and the regal way that the priests and the popes were treated when Jesus was, you know, He didn't have a place to lie His head, and they're the representatives or the "vicars of Christ". Typically, the Protestants identified the papacy as the Antichrist, more specifically the office of the Pope.

- And the Antichrist, as you said, is one who is opposed to Christ, but it also has an added definition, and that is to put oneself-

- [Both] In the place of Christ,

- Receiving worship or homage, and of course we know that, from the medieval church, that crept into Christianity.

- [Doug] Now, we have a lesson.

- We do, it's called "Who is the Antichrist," we'll be happy to send that to you, Brittany, or anyone who calls and asks. The number to call is 800-835-6747 and you can ask for the study guide, it's called "Who Is The Antichrist?" and we'll send it to you, it's part of the Amazing Facts Study Guides, it's a whole series of lessons, they get into a number of very important topics in the Bible, and we encourage you, if you have not gone through those lessons, you need to do so, just also ask. When you call, say, "I'd like to enroll in the free Amazing Facts Bible course," and I'll be happy to do that. We've got Anthony listening in New York. Anthony, welcome to the program.

- [Anthony] Hello, good evening, Pastors.

- Evening.

- My question, it has to do with two verses, Matthew 24, verse.

- I think we lost you. Can you press Anthony again there?

- [Anthony] Sorry, yes, Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6:13-14, and I want to know how to reconcile the two because I've always learned that, you know, they said some of the moon turning to blood, and the sun darkening, and the stars falling has already happened in the past. I've heard that in, you know, Revelation seminars, they said these things have happened already, but then in Matthew 24:29 it appears to say that it's going to happen after the great tribulation.

- [Doug] Yep.

- [Anthony] So I'm just trying to figure out how to reconcile those two.

- No, that's a good, that's a good, legitimate question. There are some of the prophecies that Jesus gives, especially in Matthew 24, where you've actually got the prophecies repeat themselves, you might call it a dual application. An example will be the disciples are asking three questions in Matthew 24, they say, "When will these things be?" He had just said Jerusalem would be destroyed, there would not be left one stone upon another at the temple, so they're asking about the destruction of Jerusalem, then they said, "Now, what is the sign of your coming?" So they're asking about signs in the end of the world, so He gives them signs through history, He talks about the destruction of Jerusalem, and He gives 'em more specific things about His return and the end of the world. So the things that happened with the sun turning dark and the moon turning to blood and the stars falling from heaven, there have been, historically, some, and a great earthquake, there have historically been some great cases of these things that happened after the time periods given in the prophecy, but they will happen again in quick succession at the return of Christ. So I guess the easy answer is to say they happen more than once, it's what you would call a dual application of prophecy.

- Yes, there's also two tribulations that's spoken of both in Matthew 24 and also in Revelation. You have the 1,260 years of papal supremacy from 538 until 1798, that was a time of trouble, there was a tribulation for Bible-believing Christians, many of them were persecuted. Yeah, the Protestant Reformation, that's one time of trouble, but then you have another time of trouble according to Daniel 10. Oh, Daniel chapter, where is it? 12 verse one, where Michael stands up and there is a great time of trouble, worse than the world has ever seen, that hasn't yet happened, that's in the future, so there are two times of trouble. So immediately after the tribulation-

- I would argue-

- Those days.

- There were three times of trouble. I think that you-

- Oh, you mean Jerusalem as well?

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, he's also talking about the fall of Jerusalem, so that that would be one.

- Yeah. And then of course, Jesus said immediately after the tribulation of those days, then there'll be, you know, a great earthquake, the sun will turn dark, and so on, and we have the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 all the way up to the falling of the stars in 1833.

- Yep.

- So we have succession of the dark day and the blood moon.

- And the concentrated places of Christianity on the planet saw these things, and so they even took them as signs in the day they were happening.

- All right, well, thank you, Nicole.

- Thanks, friend, good question.

- We got E. Frank listening from New York. E. Frank, welcome to the program.

- [E. Frank] Yes, good evening, Pastor Doug-

- Evening.

- And Pastor Ross, I have a question that's been bothering me, my person, for many, many years now, it's in regards to the Quaker faith. I have a story that has to do with a girl that was in my second grade class, she would always be attached to me and offer me membership in the friends meeting, Quaker society, and I asked her at that time if Quaker's believe in holy scripture, and she said, "No, not, we don't believe in scripture, we believe that God works within us and that God works through every single human being on earth, we don't believe in discriminating against anyone, and we certainly we apply the teachings of Jesus most of the time to our beliefs," and I am very confused because they do say that they believe in Christ, they believe in the Bible, but they profess to have a belief in humanism, in other words, so could you rectify that, Pastor Doug?

- Well, I'll do my best, of course, the Quaker religion, as with a number of denominations, you know, the Lutherans today are different from the Lutherans in the days of Martin Luther. Methodists today, Calvinists are different than they were in the days of John Wesley or John Calvin, the Quakers today, their beliefs, you know, originally they were trying to base their beliefs off the Bible, but over time they began to put more and more emphasis on the inner feeling and the spirit, so pretty soon they got where the feelings and the spirit, and the experience began to trump scripture, and it was more important. I remember growing up eating a lot of Quaker oatmeal with the, you know, the picture of the Puritan-looking Quaker with a hat and so forth, but they've changed quite a bit over the years, and it's more like a society now, because if you want to argue with them from scripture, you probably won't get very far. They use some scripture, you know, they believe in loving their brothers and they're a nonviolent when it comes to war, but in a number of other doctrinal areas, it's pretty, diverges pretty far from scripture, so I hope that helps a little, E. Frank, thank you for your question.

- Next caller we have is Derek, listening in Minnesota. Derek, welcome to the program.

- [Derek] Well, hi, Pastor Doug. Hi, Pastor Ross.

- Hi.

- I have a quick question, I brought this out in my Sabbath school and the elder gave me a really weird look like it was blasphemous, but I thought you, I've heard you mention sort of that Jesus had Joseph's DNA somehow, and I'm not really sure how you explained it, but I mentioned it and they looked at me like I was crazy, so I wasn't sure what you think.

- Well, let me be clear, and I think when I did make that statement, I've tried to also be clear that, you know, we don't have a DNA sample of Jesus to measure with a DNA sample of Joseph. To give you an answer on that, the Bible says that Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and I've talked to Jewish scholars before that said that, these are Jewish Christians, they said that it's entirely possible for God to inseminate Mary with the Holy Spirit and something divine, and still have attributes of Joseph, is certainly not hard for the Lord, and one of their arguments for that is that the genealogy of Jesus, the one given in Matthew, follows the line of Joseph to David, and if there's no blood relation to Joseph, why does that happen? Well, you know, that's one argument, and then of course the genealogy in Luke, I think is tracing through Joseph's father-in-law, which would be Mary's father, so, you know, we don't know, but it's entirely possible that God took something of Joseph also and had that in Mary, it certainly was a miraculous event, but I would not die on that mountain, it was just a theory.

- All right, well, thank you, Derek, and of course, just to clarify, you fully agreed that, you know, Christ was miraculously, Mary was a virgin when she gave birth-

- Yes.

- To Jesus.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

- There's no question about that-

- when it says, "Conceived by the Holy Spirit, I was just saying that whatever that sperm is that God used to inseminate Mary, it would not have been beyond the Lord to have some attributes of Joseph. I don't know, you know?

- Right.

- So, yeah.

- Okay, that was that.

- If that happens, that solves a problem of why the two genealogies.

- Right, right. All right, thank you. Julie is listening in South Dakota. Julie, welcome to the program.

- [Julie] Oh, well thank you very much, pastors. I was wondering, I believe that Jesus is going to return very soon and so what can a person do to make sure they're saved before He returns?

- Well, first of all, I wouldn't let the return of Christ be the only motive, I think every one of us is blessed to have another day of life and another breath or heartbeat, and so we want to know immediately. Say, "Lord, is my life in Your hands?" And to follow the simple criteria that God gives, to come humbly, sincerely, confess that we are sinners, confess our sins to God, repent of our sins and say you accept the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and His shed blood in your behalf, that you might be forgiven and given a new birth, a new heart, and a new life, and I'd say you might need to do that more than once. In other words, Paul said, "I die daily," means he died to himself every day. Experienced a new birth each day and just keep your relationship with the Lord fresh and growing, and we've got a book on three steps to heaven.

- That's right, that's what I was thinking about, it's a great resource, kind of help encourage anyone how you can have that daily connection with Christ, it's called "Three Steps to Heaven," we'll be happy to send the book to anyone who calls and asks. The number again is 800-835-6747, just ask for the book, it's called "Three Steps to Heaven," we'll be happy to send it to anyone who calls and asks. We've got Gina listening in California. Gina, welcome to the program.

- [Gina] Thank you so much, hello, pastors. Please, my question is about being meek, meekness from the Bible, because that does not mean weak, and we're called to be soldiers for Christ, and so please, could you give a better definition or some examples?

- Yeah, you know, well, for one thing, the Bible talks about Moses as being one of the meekest mans in all of the earth. Moses was very strong leader in the way that he boldly went before Pharaoh and said, "Let my people go." Jesus was incredibly strong and courageous and brave, but He was also very humble in that He would not claim His rights. He, you know, took children up in His arms, He was, the Bible says He was gentle and lowly. Now people confuse meekness with weakness, and they really are completely different things. You could have a very brave, courageous, strong man who's also meek and humble, and so there, one is, you know, an attitude of humility, it's not a trait of weakness.

- All right, well, thank you, Gina. Next call is Perlita listening in New York. Perlita, welcome to the program.

- [Perlita] Yes, sir. I want to ask to our pastor about Matthew 20:30 It says here, "At that time, the sign of the son of man will appear in the sky and all the nations of the earth will mourn, they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and glory." Is this the rapture of the church, pastor?

- Well, when they see the Lord coming, this is a visible coming of the Lord. This is connected with 1 Thessalonians 4 where it says that the Lord Himself will descend from heaven "with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, the dead in Christ will rise, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds, so shall we ever be with the Lord." So when we are caught up after our bodies are transformed, that is a rapture, it's just not a secret because you got a trumpet the glory of the Lord coming with the angels, so we would respectfully disagree with those who say that the people are going to disappear secretly, we think it's a very visible rapture that takes place, that's what the word rapture means, to be caught up.

- So the Bible teaches that when Jesus comes, life's not going to continue on earth normally, the dead are going to be destroyed by the brightness of His coming, the righteous are going to be caught up into the air with Jesus. So yes, nothing secret about the second coming of Christ.

- People will take the verse where it says, "But He's coming as a thief," and they think that means secretly, but they've got to read that whole verse in 2 Peter 3, and I think it starts with verse eight. It says, "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens pass away with a great noise and the elements melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the things in it are burned up." So as Pastor Ross said, when the Lord comes as a thief, life doesn't go on for seven more years.

- You know, got a book talking about this called "Anything but Secret," and again, we'll send this to anyone who calls and asks, the number is 800-835-6747. You can ask for the book, it's called "Anything but Secret," it's all about the second coming of Christ and the rapture of the saints. When we are caught up to meet Jesus in the air, what happens to the wicked? Thank you for your call. Next caller that we have is, we got Moby, listening in Canada. Moby, welcome. Moby in Canada.

- Hello.

- Yes, you're on the air.

- [Moby] Good evening.

- Evening! And your question.

- [Moby] Yes, I have a question regarding, you know, I'm a first year student, I'm doing computer science in a STEM course. We're in, I mean, like, I'm in the academic world, you know, it's just, I'm just infiltrated with, you know, teaching of evolution and, you know, I just doubt, you know, creation and, you know, what the purpose of human life is, I've been really doubting it, can you show me verses to, you know, help me to encourage my faith?

- Yeah, well, as far as verses, there's no question if you believe the Bible, it tells us that God created the world in six literal days, you'll find that in Genesis 1 and 2, and several times through the Bible, Jesus reiterates that God created everything. John says God made all things through Christ, and so the divine creation is from cover to cover, even in, you know, Revelation 14, "Worship Him that made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water." So there's lots of scripture, but I used to be an evolutionist, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that evolution is extremely illogical, and for me the most powerful argument is that you have no example anywhere in the observable universe where you get inner working systems, and complicated organized design, and all these symbiotic relationships, and just complicated, incredibly exquisite design, by chance, you know, a human body and the way that our eyes, and our ears, and our brains work is so sophisticated, the idea that that happened by accident through, you know, biologic processes and that we have no purpose, we're all just these biological algae on the planet, that is so hard to comprehend. For example, if you're walking through the desert and you see a motorcycle up on a kickstand out in the middle of the desert, and you know something about motorcycles, and you hop on, you kick it, and it starts and you ride off. Would you ever, ever believe that that motorcycle came out of the sand? No, it came from a motorcycle factory where engineers worked a long time on developing that motorcycle and very, an international process of assembling the parts of materials to make that motorcycle. You know, and it'd accept that it's extremely complicated, we are much more complicated than a car or a motorcycle, and to think that these inner working systems happen by accident, to me is a powerful proof that there has to be an intelligent God for the complexity of life we have on our planet.

- You know, we got a book, it's called "How Evolution Flunked the Science Test," and it talks about these dilemmas that, well, science can't explain, and we'll be happy to send this to anyone who calls and asks, The number is 800-835-6747, and ask for the book "How Evolution Flunked the Science Test," and we'll be happy to send it to anyone who calls and asks. Well Pastor Doug, I'm looking at the clock, we don't have enough time to take another call before we have our break. So friends, we still have another half an hour or so of Bible questions, and we see a number of folks who are lined up with your Bible questions, so we're going to take a quick break, and give some important announcements, and then we'll be back with more Bible questions.

- Absolutely, and in the meantime, don't forget to just write down amazingfacts.org so you can heck things out through the week. We'll be back with more questions in just a moment.

- [Announcer] Stay tuned, Bible Answers Live will return shortly.

- [Announcer] In six days, God created the heavens and the earth. For thousands of years, man has worshiped God on the seventh day of the week. Now, each week, millions of people worship on the first day, what happened? Why did God create a day of rest? Does it really matter what day we worship? Who is behind this great shift? Discover the truth behind God's law and how it was changed. Visit sabbathtruth.com.

- [Announcer] Jerusalem, the city of peace, has been a place of unending conflict for centuries. Many now believe the Jerusalem will soon take center stage again, but what does the Bible say? "The Fall & Rise of Jerusalem" presents the vital history you need to know about Jerusalem and its role in end-time Bible prophecy. This Amazing Facts edition of the classic volume "The Great Controversy" is the perfect sharing book. Get your copy at afbookstore.com.

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- [Announcer] You're listening to Bible Answers Live, where every question answered provides a clearer picture of God and His plan to save you. So what are you waiting for? Get practical answers about the 'Good Book' for a better life today. This broadcast is a previously recorded episode, if you'd like answers to your Bible-related questions on the air, please call us next Sunday between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time. To receive any of the Bible resources mentioned in this evening's program, call 800-835-6747, once again, that's 800-835-6747. Now let's rejoin our hosts for more Bible Answers Live.

- Welcome back, listening friends, to Bible Answers Live, and for any of you who tuned in along the way, this is a live international interactive Bible study and we're just so thankful that you're joining us. My name is Doug Bachelor.

- My name is John Ross, and we have Anastasia who is listening in Canada. Anastasia, welcome to the program.

- [Anastasia] Hey, hello.

- Hi.

- [Anastasia] Hi, I just had a question about, I think it's Proverbs 13 when it talks about, "Don't spare the rod and spoil the child," so to me I think that's like a metaphor for discipline, but, like, I know some people might think that literally means, like, if your kid's doing bad things, like, hit them. Like, I've heard people say that before and I'm not too sure, I'm pretty sure, like, Jesus doesn't hit us when we do things wrong, so I just want to know your take on that.

- Yeah, well, the Lord is, of course, a loving God, but I think the Bible does teach that God disciplines us, and it doesn't mean that He smacks us down with a rod every time we do something wrong, there's a a broad spectrum of ways that you might discipline your child, it might be quiet time, it might be taking away some privilege, but the Bible also says that the Lord chastens every son who he loves, I think it's in Hebrews as well as in Proverbs, and sometimes that might mean doing something where you inflict appropriate pain it might be on the posterior, and now I've got six kids and you know, sometimes because I love them and I don't want them to die, when they kept meandering off into the street after I'd say, "Do not go on the street, do not go on the street," and they wouldn't listen, out of love for them, I might give them a little bit of pain so that, you know, spank them. I know, there I said the word, that they might go, "Ooh, that hurts, I don't want to do that again." The fact is that everybody remembers the way we learn is through pain. You know, the reason I don't keep grabbing things off the stove without a potholder is because I've done it without a potholder, and that just, you only have to do it once or twice and then you learn. It's interesting. Real quick, a couple weeks ago I was cutting wood in the hills and I tossed a piece of wood on a yellow jacket nest and they came swarming out like a bit twice, I will never drive by that spot again, even though they'll be gone soon, I'll never drive by that spot again and forget that experience, I'll always know. And so if something about pain helps us survive, and so sometimes you might paddle a child if-

- Yeah, especially if the child is young now, you know, obviously when they're old enough to make decisions and you-

- Like 21, you start stopping-

- You've got to try some creative things, when they get a little older. But when a child is young, sometimes you need to kind of slap them on the hand and say, "That's hot, don't touch it."

- Yeah.

- Because you don't want them to hurt themselves. So the verse you're referring to, you've got, of course, Proverbs 3:12, but then also Hebrews 12:6, it says, "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." So there we have the idea of God does bring discipline to guide us and lead us. All right, thank you, Anastasia. We got Terrence listening from North Carolina. Terrence, welcome to the program.

- [Terrence] Hey, thanks for taking my call. I got a question for you as in reference to, according to our rewarded, according to our works, and Romans 2:6, there's a dozen of verses for this, and I guess it would be a little humorous for Pastor Doug here. Would Pastor Doug be in a mansion and I would have a tent? I mean, what does it mean by, "According to our works?"

- Oh, well, you know, I think that there are varying degrees of reward and punishment according to the Bible. First, let's talk about punishment. Jesus said he that knew his masters well and did not do it will be beaten with many stripes because he knew what God wanted, he that did not know and did not do it will be beaten with few stripes. Just notice they're both going to be punished but differently, one many, one few, so there's varying degrees of punishment. Obviously the duration and intensity of pain that Adolph Hitler will experience in the lake of fire would be more severe than some lost, you know, 18-year-old that committed suicide, sadly though they may be lost, they're not going to experience the same degree of punishment as Adolph Hitler. Same thing with rewards, there are those who have given more, and sacrificed more, and loved the Lord, and had, you know, more good works and more self-denial, they may surprise everybody and people that we even know nothing about could be leading the parade in heaven and they'll have greater rewards, whether that means a bigger mansion, I don't know, some people anything, but whatever the rewards are, they're going to be honored somehow more in the kingdom.

- You know, you think of some people who actually gave their life as a martyr.

- Yeah.

- You got Stephen, for example, and God rewards each person according to their works and how faithful they were in difficult situations.

- They gave everything for the Lord, yeah.

- You know, the verse you're referring to about the punishment of the wicked is Luke 12:48 that says, "He who knew the will of his master and did not do it shall be beaten with many stripes, whereas the one who didn't, few stripes." So there's the verse, Luke 12:48. Next caller that we have is Evan, listening from Mexico. Evan, welcome to the program.

- [Evan] Good evening, pastors. I have a question for you, guys, in regards to this verse. I got the wrong verse.

- Oh, sorry.

- I wanted the one, clarity on where Jesus, where it says in the scriptures where Jesus went down to the heart of the earth and freed the captives, or something like that.

- You're talking, I think, is it 1 Peter 2, Pastor Ross, where it says he preached to the spirits in prison?

- Yeah, that's it, that's it.

- Yeah. And I think it might be, let me see. 1 Peter 2, I'm just, I'm going for memory now. No.

- 1 Peter 3.

- Three.

- Verse 19.

- There it is, yeah.

- 18-19.

- Yeah, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit." Now, the emphasis here is the Spirit by whom, through the Spirit, He went and preached to the spirits in prison, in other words, spirits here is small S, it's basically saying that it was the same Spirit, the Holy Spirit that rose Christ, that Spirit strove with people who formerly were disobedient, "When once the divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah," God was longsuffering, that's when God says, and Peter is quoting from Genesis 6:3. where He says, "My Spirit will not always strive with man, his days will be 120 years." Well, that's pretty longsuffering, to give a person 120 years. So Peter just saying the same Spirit that strove with the lost, people imprisoned by the devil, imprisoned by sin, the Bible says that, you know, people are held captive by their sins. That same Spirit is the Spirit that rose Jesus. Jesus did not go from the cross down to some cavern of hell and preach to give lost people a second chance, that would go against everything else the Bible says, where it tells us, "It's appointed unto man once to die, after that, the judgment," it's not, "Die, second chance, then judgment," so this is an often misunderstood verse.

- All right, does that help, Evan?

- [Evan] Well, yeah, I was just wondering, well, who are the captives that He freed?

- Well, it's talking about that when Noah preached in the days before the flood, God preached to those that were in prison and the Lord, through the same Spirit, He strove with them. Some of the people during that 120 years were saved before the flood, for one thing, Enoch was saved, Methuselah was saved, they all died before the flood. Unfortunately, as far as the flood, just Noah and his family, there were eight souls that were saved, and Peter mentions that later on also.

- All right, well, thanks for your call. We've got Carol listening in Oregon. Carol, welcome to the program.

- [Carol] Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call. It's about the new moon. I understand it was a holiday or Sabbath or something observed in the Old Testament, but I must confess a degree of ignorance. I've seen it mentioned now and again in the Bible, in the same sentence along with the weekly Sabbath, like in Isaiah where he says, "One new moon to the next and one Sabbath to the next, all flesh will come to worship," and I believe in the New Testament too. I thought it was Colossians, I think St. Paul also mentioned the two in the same sentence as though there were some link between them, but I don't know enough about the new moon to really tell, so I was hoping you could fill in the picture.

- Well, yeah, well, I'll do my best. The Jewish calendar was a lunar calendar, it was governed by the months and the word month we get from the word moon, they're related, and so they had the division of time. There was the week, which was, of course, every Sabbath, new week began, you had the seventh day, then you followed that at first, the month, they had a 27-day calendar, followed the lunar cycle. The Jews would correct, they'd correlate the solar year with the lunar year by adding a month, I think it was every 13 years, they would add a month to compensate, and so they actually had a very accurate calendar, and when it says in heaven, "From one new moon to another, from one sabbath to another, all flesh will come and worship before Me." Now, I understand that you realize that there are four weeks in a month, approximately, I think in heaven, that the months are going to have 28 days exactly, so every fourth Sabbath is going to be a new month, but it's also a Sabbath, and so it's just saying, "From week to week and month to month, all flesh will come and worship before Me," but the new moons were not part of the original law or the Ten Commandments, they were more connected with the ceremonial services. So I know that's sort of a long meandering answer, but appreciate your openness, Carol. Hope that made sense.

- And of course, the new moon could fall on any day of the week, whereas the seventh day, Sabbath, was always on the seventh day of the week, right? It didn't change.

- Now, we have a book I think that talks about feast days and Sabbaths.

- We do, and we'll be happy to send that to anyone who calls and asks. Want to learn more about the Old Testament feasts? The number to call is 800-835-6747. And you can ask for the book "New Moons and Sabbaths," how much of those ceremonial laws are binding today, if any, Well, you'll be surprised at what the Bible has to say.

- Yep.

- Next caller that we have is Heather, listening from California. Heather, welcome to the program.

- [Heather] Thank you for taking my call. So I have a question, is it ungodly and a sin to get surgery to remove cancer?

- Why would you think it might be? I mean, something generates your question. Are you concerned it's a lack of faith or something?

- [Heather] It was a life or death thing for me 'cause I had a uterine cancer and some family members were telling me, saying, like, if I have the doctors remove my uterus due to uncontrolled bleeding, then I'm letting Satan win.

- No, sorry, I'd respectfully disagree. I think that I know too many people that have their lives saved and lengthened by having, you know, practical surgery. You know, you don't want to go to any quack, but if you're following the best medical practices and you combine faith with good living practices, take care of your health, but if there's a medical procedure and it's going to help remove cancer, by all means. I mean, even in the Bible when Hezekiah was healed, God told Isaiah to have him place a poultice of figs on his boil to use some medical procedure, and the Bible tells us in Ezekiel, "The leaves of the tree are for medicine." So using some medical procedure, Luke, the one who wrote the Book of Acts, the Gospel of Luke, was a physician. There's no Bible mandate that we should not use doctors and surgery or medical procedures.

- And you know, God has given certain gifts to certain individuals where they have a keen mind, they're able to discern what symptoms might be, they're able to address the disease. Now, ultimately recognize that all healing really comes from God, but God can choose to use doctors, and nurses, and medicine, and surgery, and we want our faith but also utilize the resources He provided.

- I thank God for good doctors.

- Absolutely, thank you for your call. We've got, let's see, Iran listening from, or Aaron rather, Aaron listening from New York. Aaron, welcome to the program.

- Greeting, Pastors.

- Yeah.

- In the first part of Luke 18, Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow, teaching His followers to keep praying for something and not to give up, but in Matthew 6:7 Jesus said to His followers, "Do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words." My question is, how can we pray persistently without using vain repetitions?

- Yeah, good question, that's a good question, and I needed that answered myself when I first read those verses. Jesus, when He says, "Do not pray in vain repetition as the heathen do," you know there are a lot of heathen religions that will, they'll count a bead and say, every time they say a bead, they repeat a prayer. They'll just keep saying the same thing over and over again as if God is deaf. Now, when Elijah prayed for rain, he prayed seven times in one day, "Lord, send the rain," his prayer may have sounded a little different each time, but he kept praying for rain. If you're praying for a loved one or you're praying about a separate issue, there's nothing wrong with repeating that prayer. Paul says that he prayed three times about a medical problem that he had and then God finally said, "No, Paul, stop praying about that because the answer's no." So you know, but if you're praying for something good, the children of Israel, they prayed for deliverance from their enemies for years sometimes. So nothing wrong with praying persistently for a good thing, you just don't want to sit there and go, "Lord, feed me now, Lord, feed me now, Lord, feed me now," and I've heard heathen prayers that sound like that. I would respectfully disagree with the priests that tell people that if you want to be forgiven you must repeat the Hail Mary or the Our Father 15 times in a row, that's praying in vain repetition, but to say, "I'm going to continue to pray for the salvation of a loved one for years," that's a different issue, there's examples of that in the Bible.

- Okay, next one that we have is Robert, listening in New Jersey. Robert, welcome to the program.

- [Robert] Good evening. Pastors, Doug, and Pastors John.

- Evening.

- My question is I found a little curious in the Bible, The Bible states that God is not a God of confusion. Yet in two instances He seems to have caused that, like for example in Genesis 11:7, He caused confusion at the Tower of Babel, to disrupt the languages and then have the people scattered throughout the earth. And another instance was the Ammonites who were, like, sworn foes of Israel. It says that, in the history of Israel, Ammonites were among the army, allied against King Jehoshaphat and God caused confusion among them, and they destroyed themselves and that's 2 Chronicles 20:1-23.

- Yep.

- So how do we...

- How do you reconcile the two?

- How do we make of this?

- Yeah, God is not the author of confusion. I think that's 1 Corinthians 14. He says, "Let all things be done decently." God, of course, is talking about His people, and God was extremely precise in telling the children of Israel to be fastidious, clean, orderly in what they did in the camp, in the services, and Paul repeats that in the church, that we should be orderly. Order is a blessing of God, disorder and chaos is a curse that He often sent to the enemies because the people of Babylon were rebelling against God, He sent them chaos and confusion. Many times in the Bible God will confound, is one of the words that's used, the enemies, and confuse and frustrate their plans. He did it to the Amalekites and probably several others. I think at one point during the Battle of Gideon, they all turned on each other in the chaos, and so you'll see that order and organization are a blessing that God wants among His people, He wants us to strive for that. When we reject God and we embrace the devil, then you're going to have disorder and chaos.

- You know the verse you're referring to? You mentioned in passage 1 Corinthians 14, there's two parts of the verse that says, "For God is not the author of confusion but of peace." The next part of the verse says, "As in all of the churches of the saints," so specifically Paul is speaking about, when it comes to worship and it comes to activities within the church, there needs to be order, things need to be done decently, you don't want to have confusion in the church, especially when it comes to worship, that's quite different than when God brought a judgment upon the Tower of Babel or upon the enemies of God's people. Okay, good question-

- Good question, yeah.

- Thank you. We've got, let's see, Dave, he is listening from Alaska. Dave, welcome to the program.

- [Dave] Thank you, gentlemen, and I appreciate your time. I'm going to try and make this quick and concise. Basically I've got a history of mental illness and I feel like I've always had this impression that someone wants me to be a missionary in order to be saved, but I can't live without my meds. Is Satan capable of impersonating God in order to tell them to do something to their own destruction?

- Okay, good question. Is Satan able to impersonate God? Well, yes and no. In other words, Satan can never be God, does he try to deceive people into thinking that God is speaking to them? Oh yeah. There's a lot of religions in the world that are false and they're sure God is guiding them, and so Satan is impersonating God and he's deceiving. So how do we know whether it's God or, you know, the devil impersonating God? For one thing, we follow His Word, we listen to Christian counsel, we obey the promptings of His Spirit as in harmony with His Word, look for providential openings. In fact, you might be blessed by a book I wrote, Dave, and it's called "How to Know the Will of God." So one of the things that book will do is it'll try and give you some tools so you can know, is this an impression from the Lord? Is God guiding me to be a missionary? As you say, or whatever, or is this just the devil messing with my head, thinking I can't be saved unless I'm a missionary? First of all, I don't think God calls everybody to be missionaries, there are different gifts that are given to different people. I think that you're looking, 1 Corinthians 12 and chapter 14 talks about different gifts of the Spirit. Not everyone's a pastor or a teacher.

- If you'd like to receive the book, I think it's called "Determining the Will of God," we'll be happy to send it to you, Dave, or anyone who calls and ask. The number is 800-835-6747. And again, the book is called "Determining the Will of God" and we'll be happy to get it in the mail and send it to you. We've got Eric listening in New Jersey. Eric, welcome to the program.

- [Eric] Hi, good night, God bless you, guys.

- Thank you.

- I have a question in Matthew 4:5, say that, I hope you understand me, that, "Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, taking Him to the pinnacle of the temple."

- [Doug] Yes.

- My question is how the devil, the devil took Jesus, because Jesus was a man.

- Yes. Well, that tells us something about the power of the devil. Now, whether the devil physically put Him there, I'm inclined to think he did because he wanted Him to jump and physically die, but that tells you something about the devil, to actually transport three-dimensional objects, or people, or creatures, so it says he took them up to the temple, it probably wasn't just a vision of the temple, and said, "Throw yourself down." By the way, I was reading this week that the, is it Josephus tells us, I believe, that James, the brother of Jesus, so angered the scribes, they ultimately took him to the top of the temple and threw him off, same place where the devil took Jesus, the brother of James, the brother of Jesus or half-brother, was tossed off the temple. So I think, yeah, the devil took Him up there. What do you think?

- Yeah, absolutely. And of course the devil does have power to move things. I mean, there are those who are involved in a different seance or cults, and they'll testify that things do move, tables move, people move, so the devil does the power to move things.

- Yeah.

- And move people.

- It happens on Star Trek, it must be true.

- Must be true, huh?

- Yeah.

- All right.

- Sorry, folks, forgive me for that.

- Thank you, thank you, Eric, for your call. We've got Brian listening in Washington. Brian, welcome to the program.

- [Brian] Hi Doug, hi Ross.

- Hi.

- I've got a question on Genesis 32:22-32.

- Yeah.

- Can you explain the purpose of Jacob's wrestling with God and why his hip was permanently displaced?

- Okay, yeah, I'll do my best. Of course, Jacob had deceived his parents and his brother, and through the, he tried to steal his birthright. Now he's coming back into the promised land and he's wanting to know that God forgave him. I think Jacob wrestling with the angel, of course, you can't wrestle with God, God can pin you in a fraction of a second, God can toss you out of the ring, so how do you wrestle with God? That is, I think, God allowed that to show that sometimes we wrestle with God in prayer. Jacob went off by himself to pray and then the man appears, and he thought that maybe there was some vandal or robber, and Jacob instinctively, you know, goes to defend himself and one hold after another doesn't seem to work, and they wrestled for quite a while and I think it's there to depict prayer, and it actually talks about the time of Jacob's trouble in the prophecies, and I forget, is it Jeremiah? Is it time of Jacob's trouble? And it depicts this wrestling. So finally Jacob, the angel touches him and it puts his hip out of joint, he really had to be humbled but he would not let go, even though he is in intense pain, he would not let go of God, and he said, "I will not let You go unless You bless me. This is where Jacob gets his name changed to Israel, "One who triumphs as a prince with God," and when we hang on to God's promises, we triumph, we get a new name. There's just a whole scenario in that, in the context of wrestling in prayer.

- I think the verse you're referring to, pastor, Jeremiah 30:7 talks about Jacob's wrestling, Jacob's time of trouble, and of course that's the type of God's people in the last days, their faith will be tried and they will have to claim those promises and hold on to them. In essence, they go through a Jacob's time of trouble.

- Yes, that's true. Now, listening friends, we are going to be wrapping up. We sort of do this in two stages. For our friends listening on satellite radio, we're going to say, God bless, until next week, the rest of you, stay tuned, we're going to be doing some rapid-fire internet questions that have come in in just a moment.

- [Announcer] Thank you for listening to today's broadcast. We hope you understand your Bible even better than before. Bible Answers Live is produced by Amazing Facts International, a faith-based ministry located in Granite Bay, California.

- Hello friends, welcome back to Bible Answers Live, and we are going to be taking some of your email and internet questions that have come in, and if you have a Bible question that you'd like to email to us, the email address is balquestions@amazingfacts.org, balquestions@amazingfacts.org. Right, Pastor Doug, we have Charlene from England and she'd like to know where did Cain find his wife?

- Yeah, that's a a common question because people begin reading the Bible and then after Cain kills his brother and he's sort of evicted to the land of Nod, God places the mark on Cain, it says Cain took his wife and you go, "Wait a second here, there was Cain and Abel, he kills his brother, there's only Adam and Eve, where's the wife come from?" Well, when you get to Genesis 5, we realize that it only mentions the firstborn boys, typically in this patriarchal society, it says Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters, and so Cain, and Seth, and the other patriarchs, they often married their sisters, they had to marry their sisters. If you think about it, Adam sort of married his sister. I mean, they both were created by the same parent you might say, and you go further down in the Bible, Abraham married his half-sister, Jacob married his first cousin. It was not, there was no genetic problems when they married their sisters back in the beginning because people's genes were perfectly robust.

- Okay, another question that we have, Linda's asking, "Did Jesus take the Nazarite vow?"

- Yeah, good question. It doesn't specifically say it, but it is possible that Jesus took the Nazarite vow or that Mary and Joseph had Jesus follow that vow up until His baptism. A person might take the vow for a limited period of time, or a person might take the vow until, you know, a certain age, and certainly when Christ was baptized it says, then He was, you know, drinking grape juice, which a Nazarite was not supposed to do, that's why so many artists depict Jesus with longer hair because the Nazarites were not supposed to cut their hair like Samson. Samuel had taken the Nazarite vow, and, but he probably took it for life. So we don't know, but it is possible He took it up until His baptism.

- Okay, we have another question. How do we know if we have true faith without being presumptuous?

- Yeah, how do you know if you, the Bible says you don't want to tempt the Lord, you don't say, "Lord, I've got faith that I can jump off the temple," because that is tempting the Lord, but if there's something in God's Word where He is giving us some direction, we can follow that with confidence, and other examples in the Bible we know are safe. That uses up all our question times for this program. Friends, God willing, we'll be studying His Word together with you again next week.

- [Announcer] Bible answers live, honest and accurate answers to your Bible questions.

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