This particular Sunday, yesterday, we went to a different church, because I had three of my children who are part of a school choir singing at a different church. So I heard a guest pastor. He was talking about the fact that in America today 4000 churches are closing their doors every year. As a result of that, the church needs to become, at least in his opinion, more and more relevant. If we don’t become more and more relevant, we’re going to loose people. If you’re counting nickels and noses that’s not a good thing! So we have to employ all kinds of edgy marketing campaigns.

A recent pastor series was touted by this moniker “What happens when God gets between the sheets,” or another, “How to use your life in such a way that it has relevance when you live with idiots and morons?” The marketing campaigns have to become increasingly slick, and we have to become more and more like the culture, because if we don’t, we’re going to lose members.

The reality is something far different than that. The way the church grows is when the church embraces basics. This happens when the church unpacks the Word of God, when a pastor under the unction of the Holy Spirit wrestles with the biblical text, and then on Sunday morning unpacks a feast, when the parishioners themselves participate in worship through prayer, praise, and the proclamation of the Word of God, when the parishioners are involved in oneness using their time talent and treasure, for the building up of the body, and when every believer is equipped to share the Gospel and experiences the Holy Spirit moving through them in the process of reaching, touching, impacting, and transforming the world.

I fear the problem today is that the pastor is trying to do the work of ministry all by himself, and as he looses traction and steam, he has to use edgy marketing campaigns to get people to come. The real solution is to recognize that the pastors the coach, preparing people to be involved in the most significant enterprise known to man, who are touching people with the Gospel, producing reproducing disciple makers, extending the kingdom of God, not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit. The church in American is losing its way and as a result the church in America is in decline.

I was reading an article in the paper this morning, which said that “churches have begun to emulate popular aspects of society.” [1] So were becoming more and more like the culture. Microcosms of the culture as opposed to being change agents in the culture.

______________

1. Josh Duke, “Start-up Indiana Church Uses Sex to Sell Message,” USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2011-02-14-relsex14_ST_N.htm

Think for a moment about what spiritual and secular leaders in our day are now saying. Beverly Harrison, a professor of Christian ethics, says, “Infanticide is not a great wrong.” Ester Langston, a professor of social work, says, “What we are saying is that abortion becomes one of the choices, and the person has the right to choose whatever it is that’s best for them in the situation which they find themselves, be it abortion, to keep the baby, to adopt it, to sell it, to leave it in a dumpster, to put it on your porch, whatever, it’s the person’s right to choose.” Margaret Sanger, who was the original founder of Planned Parenthood, famously said, “The most merciful thing a large family can do for one of its infant members is kill it.” Nobel Prize Laureate James Watson, co-discoverer of DNA—hardly fringe—said, “Because of the limitations of present detection methods, most birth defects are not discovered until birth; however, if a child was not declared alive until three days after birth, the doctor could allow the child to die, if the parents so chose, and save a lot of misery and suffering.”

While pondering this horrific reality, remember that the present-day holocaust is government funded. In other words, you and I are footing the bill. Now I’ve said this before and it made me controversial, but I’m going to repeat it, abortion is not the real problem. Abortion is the clean up operation. The real problem is sexual promiscuity. And sexual promiscuity is the direct result of how people view their origins—how one views their origins, determines how they live their life. If you believe you are a function of random chance, you’re going to live your life by a different standard than if you know you are created in the image of God and accountable to Him. If there is no objective North Star, morals and ethics are determined on the basis of the size and scope of the latest lobby group. When that happens, chaos breaks out in a culture. You have the sovereignty of self replacing the sovereignty of God. You have survival of the fittest, and the struggle for existence. And, yes, you have a sexual revolution that demands a clean up operation, which has led to a multi-billion dollar government funded plan of taking the lives of the most innocent and vulnerable among us. And now, we can even at times have the privilege of experimenting on them.

Do ideas have consequences? Yes! But we are not here to curse the darkness. The Christian Research Institute exists to equip you to make a difference while there is still time. You can make a difference.

Find out more at equip.org.

For further study, please access the following equip.org resource:

DA375 – Annihilating Abortion Arguments

We also recommend the following bookstore resource:

WHOSE ETHICS? WHOSE MORALS?

B1002/$9.95

Consider, for example, the Lord’s Words in John 2:19. “Destroy this temple,” said Jesus, “and I will raise it again in three days.” The Jews understood Jesus in a wooden literal fashion. They thought He was saying that the temple, which had taken forty-six years to build, could be destroyed in three days, and rebuilt again in that period of time. Jesus, however, spoke figuratively, as the John explained the temple He had spoken of was the temple of His body. Likewise, when the Apostle John describes Satan as a dragon, or variously as an ancient serpent (Rev. 20:2), we’d be seriously mistaken to suppose that he intends to communicate that Satan is literally a smoke spouting snake!

My point is simply this: a literalistic method of interpretation does as much violence to the text as does a spiritualized interpretation that empties the text of objective meaning. So to avoid either extreme, you as a believer, need to adeptly employ the literal principle of biblical interpretation. You need to pay strict or careful attention to what is called form or genre, figurative language, and even the kind of fantasy imagery that the Apostle John uses in the Book of Revelation. Now when we talk about Satan being a dragon, dragons are obviously the stuff of mythology not the stuff of theology.

So you need to exercise your mind to grasp what the author is driving at. Metaphors when we use them, even in common parlance, are used in ways that have significant meaning. They have sharp teeth. It doesn’t mean that when you use metaphorical language that you’re not pointing to something concrete, or something substantive, it means that you have to use your mind to get what the author is driving at. This is certainly true with biblical forms or figures of speech. As a believer you need to learn to read the Bible for all its worth.

It was Ironic, just before I was reading this article I was thinking about some of the persecution I personally endured as a result for standing for truth no matter what the cost. Then I read this article. Immediately, I fell to my knees thinking, “There’s persecution and there’s persecution. Egypt’s Christians are hardly alone in their persecution. “Catholic bishop stabbed to Death in Turkey.” That’s one of the headlines we read not all that long ago.  Here’s another, “Islamist hard-liners in Indonesia target Christians.” Here’s another “Iraqi Christians mourn after church siege kills 58.” Iraqi Christians mourn after church siege kills 58. The Christmas season saw 48 killed in Muslim attacks in Nigeria.On Christmas Day, Iran opened its campaign against conversions by arresting dozens of evangelicals. Bombs left on the doorsteps of Christian homes in Iraq killed two and injured 14 on Dec. 30” [3]. That’s five weeks ago.

The article goes on to say that “the single most dangerous thing in the world to be, right now, is a Christian in a Muslim country…Up to 1.4 million of Iraq’s Christians have fled since the war began in 2003…America foreign policy has been little concerned with religious persecution…Barack Obama has systematically watered down U.S. diplomacy: Where we once demanded ‘freedom of religion,’ a public liberty, we now speak only of ‘freedom of worship,’ a lesser and private right.” It then says, “Nearly every day since Christmas, Christians have been murderously attacked for the simple fact of being Christians,” and “Our willful blindness is shameful, and our inactivity is wrong. The United States must preface every diplomatic exchange with an Islamic country by demanding religious liberty and a halt to persecution. And we need to do it now — while there are still a few Christians left to defend in their ancient homelands.” [4].

All of us, as we participate on the Bible Answer Man broadcast today by listening or calling in need to be aware that even as we speak there is real persecution going on around the world. And we must not only pray for the pesecuted church, whether in Asia, or Africa, or even in America. We must pray for the persecuted church, and we must simultaneously recognize that the church has always been forged in the cauldron of persecution. That’s when real Christianity manifests itself. It’s when real Christianity impacts empires. It’s why in China right now there may be as many as 130 million Christians growing and thriving in the cauldron of persecution, not looking to mere earthly vanities, but elevating their gaze to eternal verities.

It is time for us in America to begin living with eternity in mind and, if we do, we may well make a difference not just for time but for eternity. If we do, we’ll stop listening to the conspiracy theorist, who are concocting all kinds of conspiracy theories on television, watched by millions of Christians, which are the kind of conspiracy theory that titalates. They’re sensational. They’re great for ratings. But they do very little for the cause of Christ.  

__________________

1. Joseph Bottum, “Who will Defend Mideast Christians,” https://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-02-07-column07_ST_N.htm

2. Ibid

3. Ibid

4. Ibid

Coyne goes on to say, it is “faith’s certainty that it has a grasp on truth…that produces things such as…opposition to stem cell research and euthanasia…. How much clearer our spectacles would be without the fog of superstition!”[2] Well, it turns out that he has the superstition. He’s still embedded in nineteenth century superstition. In the nineteenth century, people thought that the universe was eternal, unlike Christians who knew that the universe came into existence in a moment of time.

Unlike Christians, he does not recognize that an embryo has full personhood from the moment of conception. That is plain old experimental evidence. So his science not governed by ethics and morals leads to the worst of all quagmires. In fact, it leads to exactly what is chronicled in the newspaper today. And I think people should be aware of this, otherwise we’re going to be like the Germans, who lived in their homes next to crematoriums, and did nothing as the smoke from the chimneys of the crematoriums wafted over their homes. They were blissfully ignorant or not willing to act. And I find Christianity often times in the same place, for convenience sake or non-rocka-boat-tus (Don’t want to rock the boat), we’re not going to say anything about destroying embryos. When you sit, however, as I did, a week and a half or so ago, with a little girl named Alysse, who was a frozen embryo, frozen over two years, thawed, implanted in the uterine wall of her precious mom, who has the same name as one of my daughters, Christina, and that embryo develops into a little girl that I read Bible stories to, you recognize that these issues are not merely abstract ivory tower issues. This is a life and death issue.

How many today have passed by or looked the other way when reading in the newspaper or seeing on television for the first time surgeons have injected a spinal cord injury patient with human embryonic stem cells in a federally approved experiment? Think back to the experiments on human beings in past days, in Stalin’s Russia, in Hitler’s Germany—all for the good of the powerful the weak are exploited. So you have research today using human embryonic stem cells and their taken by destroying five to six day old human embryos. These aren’t my words. This is in the newspaper. This is corroborated by evidence. This information comes out of the Shepherd’s Center. This is an Atlanta, Georgia hospital specializing in brain, spine and related ailments.

And you say, “Don’t you want to help someone that has a brain malady, a spine injury, or some other kind of an ailment?” Yes! But do I want to kill someone in the process? Look, I make this point emphatically, an embryo does not have a fully developed personality; it does have full personhood, from the moment of conception. You didn’t come from an adolescent, you once were an adolescent. You didn’t come from an embryo, you once were an embryo. All human beings are created in the image of God and endowed with the right to life.

It’s not just a Jerry Coyne because he happens to be strong. It’s not about survival of the fittest in the struggle for life. That’s a dogma that flies in the face of ethics and morality. To suppose that it is important that the unfit die as that the fittest survive because if the unfit survived indefinitely they would infect the fit with their less fit genes, is a horrifying notion. All human beings—Black, White, Asian, Latino—all human beings are created in the image of God and they’re endowed with the right to life. That is regardless of size! Whether you are little Alysse, an embryo, or you are Jerry Coyne writing an article for the Forum in USA Today. You are created in the image of God and endowed with the right to life. He thinks religion has nothing to add to science? It is not only absurd, but terrifying. Make no mistake, extracting stem cells from an embryo, kills an embryo. While we should sympathize with those who struggle with debilitating diseases and injuries, cures and therapies must be sought within appropriate moral boundaries. Killing human embryos in the search for cures is tantamount to subjecting one class of people to harmful experimentation for the sake of another class of people. To do that violates the biblical injunction against murdering human beings who are made in the image of God. Why do it?

Thank God that George Bush limited federal funding of research using human embryonic stem cells and it is tragic to know that has now been reversed by President Obama, which has led to the FDA approval of a clinical experiment that is killing human beings, in light of the promising results of adult stem cell research. State funding, federal funding or any kind of funding for the destruction of embryos is not only morally repugnant but it is fiscally irresponsible. Stem cells extracted from non-embryonic sources, like bone marrow, or blood, brain cells, or baby teeth are similar to embryonic stem cells in their ability to grow into all kinds of tissues. While embryonic stem cells used in research have demonstrated a tendency to grow into tumors, adult stem cells have already shown success in human trials for all kinds of maladies. Ideas have consequences, and the consequences of what we are reading by those that hate the notion of ethics and morals by an objective Lawgiver, have something to think about. 

1.        [1] Jerry Coyne, “Science and Religion Aren’t Friends,” USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-10-11-column11_ST_N.htm

2.        [2] Ibid.

I want to read just the opening of this article, and make a couple of comments. Coyne says,

Religion in America is on the defensive.

Atheist books such as The God Delusion and The End of Faith have, by exposing the dangers of faith and the lack of evidence for the God of Abraham, become best-sellers. Science nibbles at religion from the other end, relentlessly consuming divine explanations and replacing them with material ones. Evolution took a huge bite a while back, and recent work on the brain has shown no evidence for souls, spirits, or any part of our personality or behavior distinct from the lump of jelly in our head. We now know that the universe did not require a creator. Science is even studying the origin of morality. So religious claims retreat into the ever-shrinking gaps not yet filled by science. And, although to be an atheist in America is still to be an outcast, America’s fastest-growing brand of belief is non-belief.

But faith will not go gentle. For each book by a “New Atheist,” there are many others attacking the “movement” and demonizing atheists as arrogant, theologically ignorant, and strident. The biggest area of religious push-back involves science. Rather than being enemies, or even competitors, the argument goes, science and religion are completely compatible friends, each devoted to finding its own species of truth while yearning for a mutually improving dialogue.

As a scientist and a former believer, I see this as bunk…[ii]

Now the article goes on, but I can’t get into the rest of it right now, I’ll leave that for tomorrow, and perhaps the next day, I want to point out that here again you have a supposed scientist making a dogmatic assertion rather than a defensible argument over and over and over again throughout the article, failing to recognize that science was invented in Christian universities, and it came out of the notion that reason devoid of revelation always ends up in the blind ditch of ignorance.

So Coyne says, “Recent work on the brain has shown no evidence for souls, spirits, or any part of our personality or behavior distinct from the lump of jelly in our head.”[iii] Kind of reminds me of nineteenth century science, in which a fertilized human egg was though of a microscopic blob of gelatin. We now know it’s among the most ordered complex structures in the entire known universe. But as so often happens in science reporting, the interpretation of the empirical facts is confused by Jerry Coyne with the facts themselves. Although he says recent research on the brain and human cognition proves that there is no material or I should say immaterial soul or spirit, he confuses his interpretation of the facts with the facts themselves. In truth, the recent work in brain research is quite compatible with anthropological dualism or body/soul dualism—it’s the idea that we have a soul or a mind distinct from the brain.

I’m not sure that Jerry Coyne has really thought out the implications of his paradigm from the perspective of logic or legal ramifications or even libertarian freedom. Because, from the perspective of logic we can demonstrate that the mind is not identical to the brain. We can do that by proving that the mind and brain have different properties. The subjective texture of our conscious mental experiences, like the awareness of color, is different from anything that is simply physical. If the world were only made up of matter the subjective aspects of consciousness simply would not exists. I think if Jerry Coyne would reflect for just a moment he would be convinced that the experience of color involves more than a mere wavelength of light.

From a legal perspective, if human beings were merely material they couldn’t be held accountable this year for a crime committed last year, simply because physical identity changes over time. So from a purely material perspective the self who did the crime in the past is literally not the same self who in the present is going to be punished. Legally and intuitively, of course, we recognize a sameness of soul that establishes personal identity over time.

If we were merely material beings, as Jerry Coyne supposes, then libertarian freedom or freedom of the will simply does not exists. Instead, we would be fatalistically relegated into a world in which everything is determined by mechanistic material processes. If I’m merely material, my choices are merely a function of genetic makeup or brain chemistry.

The implications of this worldview chronicled in the Forum in USA Today are profound. In a worldview that embraces fatalistic determinism, I can’t be held morally accountable for my actions. Why? Because reward and punishment make sense only if we have freedom of the will, and in a solely material world, reason itself is reduced to the status, well of conditioned reflexes. Even the very concept of love would be rendered meaningless.

I’ll tell you, I’ve said this many times right here on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, ideas have consequences. When Coyne says that “science is even studying the origin of morality,” he ought to think twice about what he’s talking about. There are all kinds of people buying into his worldview. Everything is a function of blind mechanistic material processes. What then grounds a moral position? There are people, like Ted Bundy, who confess to over thirty murders, who had a conversation with his victim, a girl that he was about ready to murder and rape, and he wants to take this idea, that idea that comes out of nothing producing everything—which is absurd notion—to its logical conclusion. Here’s what Bundy said—again he’s taking about a victim, in fact he’s specifically addressing a victim, think about your daughter, about to be raped and murdered—this is what Ted Bundy said, “I learned that all moral judgments…” in other words he was brought up the school of evolution. He learned that,

All moral judgments are value judgments, that all value judgments are subjective, and that none can be proved to be either right or wrong…I discovered that to become truly free, truly unfettered, I had to become truly uninhibited. And I quickly discovered that the greatest obstacle to my freedom, the greatest block and limitation to it, consists in the insupportable value judgment that I was bound to respect the rights of others…

Now as I’m recapitulating the words of Ted Bundy, recognize how eloquent they are, how precise they are, how erudite they are. He’s taking something that he’s learned, he’s no dummy, and he’s drawing it to its logical conclusion. He goes on to say,

I asked myself, who were these others? Other human beings, with human rights? Why is it more wrong to kill a human animal than any other animal, a pig or a sheep or a steer? Is your life more to you—

He says to this girl that he’s about ready to rape,

—than a hog’s life to a hog? Why should I be willing to sacrifice my pleasure more for the one than for the other? Surely, you would not, in this age of scientific enlightenment, declare that God or nature has marked some pleasures as moral or good and others as immoral or bad? In any case, let me assure you, my dear young lady, that there is absolutely no comparison between the pleasure I might take in eating ham and the pleasure I anticipate in raping and murdering you. That is the honest conclusion to which my education has led me, after the most conscientious examination of my spontaneous and uninhibited self.

So on what moral grounds can someone like Jerry Coyne provide a response to Ted Bundy? In a materialistic world, how can you say that it was ok to speak out against slavery in Great Britain in the seventeenth century, after all it was completely culturally acceptable? My point here is simply to say ideas have consequences and the horrendous consequences of what people are buying into glibly when they read USA Today like this morning’s “Science and Religion Aren’t Friends,” are dramatic for how we view our world, but more than that what we do in our world. Jerry Coyne the evolutionist is simply wrong; in fact dead wrong; devastatingly wrong.

[i] Jerry Coyne, “Science and Religion Aren’t Friends,” USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-10-11-column11_ST_N.htm

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

The way it’s under siege is significant as well. We have the President of the United States of America saying things that clearly marginalize the Word of God. We have professors who are suggesting that the Bible is riddled with factual errors. And just last week, I was listening to a debate on Anderson Cooper between Pastor Troy Sanders and Ted Haggard. Ted Haggard formally was the very significant pastor in Colorado that got involved in homosexual transgressions, and pastor Troy Sanders is openly homosexual. He calls himself a “same gender loving man.” But what’s significant is that to approve of their practice, they take the Bible out of context. In fact, they marginalize the Bible such that anyone listening to their words would say at the end of the conversation you simply can’t trust the Bible. Why? Because the Bible says that slavery is ok. The Bible says eating pork is a sin. The Bible says sowing garments together from two different threads is a sin. That obviously can’t be true, and, therefore, the Bible can’t be trusted.

Well, Pastor Troy Sanders as well as Ted Haggard are having this conversation. If you missed it, I want to replay it on a clip for you, so that you can listen to it and I can point out its errors directly. The point of doing this is to say that you too should be ready to give an answer. When someone listen to an interview like this, and no doubt millions did, you should be ready to use the diversion of Troy Sanders as a pastor, use his diversion as an opportunity to communicate truth to your friends, family members, children, and neighbors. Here’s Troy Sanders on Anderson Cooper,

I think that there has to be a place in our religious discourse to critique Scripture, because the same Bible—now, the premise that I cannot stand for is that homosexuality is sin or wrong, because the same Scriptures that we used to lift up that said that women could not preach, said that we could not eat pork, or that two twains of fabric could not be in, and that slavery was actually instigated and upheld by that same ancient oppressive text. So, at some point, we have to reevaluate what we believe. And we cannot couch it in, we are all sinners and we all have our shortcomings. No, there are some things that we have to give off, we have to let go of around oppressive theology. And homosexuality and homosexual oppression, homophobia in the church is one of those things.[1]

Well does the Bible really do what Pastor Troy Sanders says it does? Does the Bible say women cannot preach? Paul gives instructions in 1 Corinthians 11 for women to prophesy and pray in public. And prophesying is clearly delineated as exhorting, edifying, and equipping the body of Christ.

As far as sowing garments together from two different threads, this is not something that literally applies to us in any sense whatsoever. Scripture simply uses the object lessons of seeding crops and sewing cloths to illustrate the spiritual and social distinction between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. In other words, the mixing of different things was associated with the syncretistic pagan practices that Israel was to avoid. Scripture in that way provides a wide variety of illustrations to underscore the principle of undivided loyalty to God.

As far as pork is concerned, there is a quantum difference between enduring moral principles, such as those regarding homosexuality, and temporary ceremonial practices relegated to a particular historical context. The distinction between clean and unclean animals symbolized the distinction between that which was holy and that which was unholy within the context of a theocracy. And remember, Jesus made it very plain, that it is not what goes into a man’s mouth then into the stomach and out of his body that defiles him, but what proceeds out of his heart. And Jesus was talking to the Pharisees in much the way He would talk to Pastor Troy Sanders, “Don’t you see,” in other words, are you blind? Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him unclean? For it doesn’t go into his heart, but into his stomach, and then out of his body. In saying that, Jesus declared all foods clean (cf. Mark 7:14-23).

There is then the notion of slavery. Far from extolling the virtues of slavery the Bible denounces slavery as sin. The New Testament goes so far as to put slave traders in the same category as murderers, adulterers, perverts, and liars. In fact it was the application of biblical principles that ultimately led to the overthrow of slavery both in ancient Israel and in the USA. Israel’s liberation from slavery in Egypt became a model for the liberation of slaves in general. Read the Bible! You’ll see over and over again that if one supposes that the Bible teaches slavery as something that can be practiced, there is something wrong with God, or the Bible is not divine in origin. But that’s not what the Bible teaches. Ephesians 6 teaches that God is our Master. He is Master to both slave and free, and in God’s economy there is no favoritism, no partiality, complete equality. Go to the Old Testament. When Joseph was sold into slavery, it was considered a great evil, and slavery in the Old Testament was due to economic realities, not to racial distinctions. In fact, in a biblical worldview there is no such thing as race except to “run the race.”

My point in saying all of this is you have pastors—here we have the past President of the National Association of Evangelicals, represents the evangelicals of the world, in a debate with Pastor Troy Sanders, both with a predilection towards homosexuality—what they do is they beat up the Bible. In other words, it’s the Bible that’s at fault. There’s something wrong with the Bible. It’s called an “ancient oppressive text” by Troy Sanders. We live in an age in which the Bible is under siege and will be so until people learn how to read the Bible for all its worth. Sometimes it’s just a matter of reading the Bible. You can’t read through the Bible and think that the Bible teaches slavery. The Bible certainly communicates the reality of slavery, and in most parts due to economic necessities were someone would sell themselves into slaver to pay off a debt, but it never promotes the practice of slavery. Again, always be ready to give an answer, a reason for the hope that lies within you with gentleness and with respect.

[1] Anderson Cooper 360, September 23, 2010

The bottom line of this survey is that we not only do not know essential Christian doctrine, but we don’t seem to care, and certainly are not reading our Bibles. The reason that I am highlighting this US Religious Knowledge Survey, again released today by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, is to say the need for the Christian Research Institute, what we do is more significant now than ever before. We’re in a biblically illiterate doctrinally illiterate culture.

What does that mean? It means that people will fall for the skin of the truth stuffed with a great big lie, over and over and over again, because they cannot discern between truth and error, wheat and chaff, heat and light. It’s time for us to get back to basics. To get into the Word of God and get the Word of God into us.

If you have not yet started on the Legacy Reading Plan, we’re done with the Old Testament as of this month, and next month we start a brand new track, we’ll be going through the New Testament. Again that’s beginning in October we start with the New Testament. We don’t do it as most reading plans do it. We start in John, and after we’ve read the Gospel of John, we read the epistles of John, and then we read the Book of Revelation. Why? Because we want to read the New Testament by author. Every author has unique characteristics. If you read my books, you can see my fingerprints all over them. The same thing is true with the Gospel of John, and John’s epistles, and the Book of Revelation. And then in November, we’re going to read through the epistles; in December, the Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as Acts. But we want to read through the teaching epistles before we read through the historical narratives, so we’ll be able to read them for all their worth.

1.     Cf. The Pew Forum, “US Religious Knowledge Survey,” Original link was moved to this https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/. Accessed August 15th, 2024.

Neither Crouch nor the pastor he made famous apologized for the false prophesy; instead, they employed a tactic that worked for the Watchtower Society some eighty years earlier. Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who predicted Christ would return in 1994, they proclaimed that their prophecy had come to pass! How? Invisibly.

“In this final decade of the second millennium,” I write back in 1995, “prophetic pronouncements such as Hinkle’s seem almost to have become the rule rather than the exception. A growing cacophony of voices now claim to have discovered the date of Christ’s return.”

Edgar Whisenant said Christ’s second coming would occur in 1988. Do you Remember that? Millions fell for his Scripture-twisting tactics in the runaway bestseller, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988. Well, that didn’t happen, so a year later he had 89 reasons why it would happen in 1989.

Do you remember Lester Sumrall? He pointed to the year 2000. In his book, I Predict 2000 AD, he wrote, “I predict the absolute fullness of man’s operation on planet Earth by the year 2000 A.D. Then,” said Lester Sumrall, “Christ Jesus shall reign from Jerusalem for a 1000 years Jesus.” Remember I wrote this fifteen years ago.

Well—I’m going to get to a poignant point here—Harold Camping, he predicted that Christ would return in September of 1994. In a volume titled 1994? he wrote, “When September 6, 1994 arrives, no one else can become saved, the end has come.” How did he know that? Well, he suggested that the two-thousand demon possessed pigs that are mentioned in the 5^th chapter of Mark’s Gospel actually represent two-thousand years. He then adds two-thousand years to the time of Christ’s birth, which he believed to be 7 BC, and he comes up with his prediction that Christ would return in 1994.

Harold Camping is at it again banking on the fact that people have short memories! (We’re talking about something I wrote in 1995. That’s fifteen years ago.) Now in 2010 he says the date is not September 6, 1994, it’s all going to happen in 2011. I’m not making this stuff up. Here’s Harold Camping, telling us in his own voice, he thinks—not 1994 that’s come and gone—2011 is D-Day:

The best place in the Bible that focuses on 2011 is a passage in 2 Peter 3:8 where God is talking about two judgments. One judgment is the judgment of the flood of Noah’s day and the other is the judgment at the end of the world. And in that context God says “Beloved, there’s one thing that I do not want you to be ignorant of, and that is that a day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day.” That’s a very, very intriguing statement and it’s very curious that when we—because we know that the flood occurred in 4990 BC, and if we go seven days, that is 7000 years from there, we land on the year 2011….2011 keeps shining through as the probable date for the – probable year that will end this earth’s existence.[1]

Now notice he has thrown in a little qualifier now the word “probable.” But, again, this is what date setters do. They set the date, and when the date starts to arrive on the scene, when we get closer and closer to that date, they start hedging their bets.

So Harold Camping is predicting the return of Christ four months from now—2011. And if Camping wrong, we have another date we can go to, 2012—that’s Jack Van Impe’s date. And there are some other prophecy pundits that have come up with 2014. That is the most distant possible time that it can happen.

Is Harold Camping right—2011? We’re going to find out that prophecy pundits have one characteristic in common—they’re 100% wrong 100% of the time! In fact, the truth of the matter is this: There is no evidence in the Bible whatsoever, nary a clue, as to when Jesus Christ will return. Not one single clue! It could happen a second from now…Well, it didn’t. Or it could happen two-thousand years from now, but we don’t know when it is going to happen. We should be prepared as though Christ were coming this very moment and prepare as though He may not come as yet for another millennium.

2011 will come and go, and were going to see that Harold Camping is once again demonstrated to be a false prophet. Benny Hinn has made all kinds of false prophecies. And the litany continues, and in the end, it isn’t the prophecy pundits that are blamed, it is the Bible that is blamed. The Bible can’t be trusted. Christ’s name is dragged through the mud. Christ can’t be trusted. Of course, this has nothing to do with the Bible or Christ. Neither predicts the time of the Second Coming.

What does all this mean to you? You need to be so familiar with the real McCoy, that when these counterfeits loom on the horizon, you will know it instantaneously. You will not be fooled into today’s world of discordant date setters. As believers, we must abandon sensationalism, and embrace Scriptural truth. The prophecies of the Bible have been fulfilled. Apart from the fact that Jesus Christ will appear a second time, the problem of Sin and Satan will be fully and finally resolved, the dead will rise immortal, imperishable, incorruptible—Jesus says, “Do not be amazed, a time is coming when all who are in the graves will come out, some will rise to live, and some will rise to be eternally condemned,” this universe, which is groaning in travail will be transformed, and the old order of things will be done away with, all things will be come new, that’s what we know about the future. The rest of prophecy has been fulfilled, demonstrating that you can trust the Bible as the infallible repository of redemptive revelation.

Every time we have someone pointing to the Bible or abusing the Bible, to come up with a date, and the date doesn’t produce the event, the Bible is called into question. It’s time for us to call these prophecy pundits to account for dragging Christ name through the mud.

1.       Harold Camping. “Open Forum” Radio Show. June 29, 2004 https://209.10.202.163/english/connect/audio_archive/forum/frame/2004/forum2004jun.html (41min  Into Show)

So here’s an author who dubs himself a “new Christian,” and is giving us a dispatch from the emergent frontier, saying that not only the method but the message should be under review. In other words, we should review carefully out gospel message, perhaps not be so dogmatic in saying that were saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, because remember the gospel is enculturated, at least from the emergent perspective.

I went on and read through this book, and found the author, and perhaps this is characteristic of emergents in general, to be dogmatic almost beyond belief. On page 120, Jones takes on the Rhyme Bible Story Book by Linda Sattgast, a home schooling mom in the Pacific Northwest. Jones does not have many kind words to say about Lind or her book. He repeats one of the rhymes, “God told Joshua, there’s something you should know, it’s all about the city called Jericho. The people there are wicked so I’m giving you their town but you won’t get in till the walls come down.” Now again he dogmatically denounces this rhyme. He says, “Herein lies the problem, when we go to the opening chapters of the book of Joshua in the Bible, there is nothing to indicate that the inhabitants of Jericho are wicked in any way.” Now again, listen to this, this emergent leader says there is nothing to indicate that the inhabitants of Jericho are wicked in any way. He goes on to say, “It’s downright dishonest” talking about Linda Sattgast the home schooling mom in the Pacific Northwest and the Rhyme Bible Story Book, “It’s downright dishonest to impugn the morals and motives of the seemingly innocent residents of Jericho, they were by all accounts just going about their lives in Jericho, when unbeknownst to them, God promised their acreage to the Israelites.” “Their only crime,” writes Tony Jones, “was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” I want to repeat that. “Their only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” And then he even more specifically attacks Sattgast by saying, “Like many modern Christians, she has to blanch at the thought that God wipe out a city of thousands for no good reason.”

One wonders if these emergent leaders have ever read thorough the Bible even once. Deuteronomy 12, “The LORD your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.’ You must not worship the LORD your God in their way” (vv. 29-31a, NIV). Why, Tony Jones? Why? Were they simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? They weren’t doing anything wrong? Why? “Because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates” (v. 31b, NIV). What are those detestable things the Lord hates? Well, “they…burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.” (v. 31c, NIV).

Now going back to what Tony Jones says, “Herein lies the problem, there is nothing to indicate that the inhabitants of Jericho are wicked in any way.” They burned their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. Of course, if you read though the Old Testament, you see that God is longsuffering even in this midst of this kind of objective, unthinkable, evil. “The sin of the Amorites,” says God, “has not reached its full measure” (Gen. 15:16, NIV). And so God gives them yet more time to repent. And God tells the Israelites in no uncertain terms if you follow the detestable ways of the pagan nations that are in the land now, then they will be the axe of judgment against you, and the land will vomit you out because I don’t put up with people burning their sons and their daughters in the fire (cf. Lev. 18:24-28). If you look at passages throughout the Bible, they make clear that the ways of the people in the land were detestable to the Lord.

The crime was certainly not being in the wrong place at the wrong time; yet, Tony Jones goes on and says, “A few years ago, I read through the entire Bible in a year with a group of eighteen-year-olds. Upon reading the story of Joshua and Jericho a girl named Carrie said that at this point God seems a lot like Hitler.” What does Tony Jones do? He says he “swallows heart.” And asks her why she says that? And then she explains well God’s going around killing anyone who’s not from His race of people that He likes, exactly like Hitler did. Well, Tony Jones says, “I had to acknowledge Carries gut level impression of this passage, God’s actions at this and other points of the Bible are difficult to abide.”

No they’re not. And to sit in judgment dogmatically on the Almighty, I would say is a very dangerous place to be. This is all part and parcel of not reading the Bible. Talking about the Bible but not reading the Bible. This is what emergents do. They don’t like essential Christian doctrine. They like experiencing the divine. Whether it’s looking at the Grand Canyon or the stars, well of course we should do that, but the only way that you can experience the Divine as the Divine is meant to be experienced is to know the essential Christian doctrines for which the martyrs shed their blood. Why was it that the early Christians were able to turn an empire upside down? Was it because they were the new Christians and they were getting these kinds of dispatches from the emergent frontier? No! It was because they believed that Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He was buried, He rose from the dead, and He ascended into heaven. They knew the creeds and the doctrines well, and they were willing to die for them. They experienced the Divine in such a way that even when they were dying they were smiling because they had lived their lives with eternity in mind. This new kind of Christianity is not Christianity at all; it is the very thing that robs us of the ultimate experience of the Divine.

The answer is, of course, no, America is not mentioned in the Bible, only prophecy pundits with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other find the U.S. in biblical prophecy.

Mike Evans is a classic case in point. In his book American Prophecies, he suggests that we might see America in Isaiah 18. Why? Because it’s a reference to a land divided by rivers; but if you read the context, “Cush” is not the U.S. in context, it is clearly ancient Ethiopia, and the river reference is to the Nile. He also says that if you look at Revelation 17 and 18, we could identify America with mystery Babylon the Great Mother of Harlots. But again, as I note in the Apocalypse Code, only one nation in biblical history is inextricably linked to the moniker “harlot,” and that nation is Israel.

Then we have, of course, a lot of dispensationalists critiquing other dispensationalists. For example, Hal Lindsey acknowledges that America is not in Bible prophecy, so he resists those prophecy pundits who say it is, but then he says the fact that America is not in the Bible must mean that America will not be a significant player in the future. In other words, we will have lost all of our province and power.

Well, all of that is rank speculation because America, bottom line, is not in the Scriptures.

We should note immediately that the Bible not only designates Melchizedek as “king of righteousness,” and “king of peace,” but overtly tells us that he is without father or mother, he is without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, and that like the Son of God he remains a priest forever. So though he did not trace his descent from Levi, yet the Bible tells us that Melchizedek collected a tenth from Abraham, and then blessed Abraham who had the promises (Heb. 7:2, 4). And then the text tells us without a doubt the lesser person—Abraham—is blessed by the greater person—Melchizedek. In the one case, the tenth is collected by men who die and in the other case by him who is declared to be the living, so note that in contrast to men, who die, Melchizedek is declared to be the living (Heb. 7:5-10).

Despite of all the evidence, of course, over the years one word caused me to question Melchizedek as a Christophany or a preincarnate appearance of Christ. That word is the word “like.” I thought that this might have been an analogy for Christ or a type of Christ. But at looking at this more clearly, I discovered that “like” is hardly a game changer. That particular Greek word, by the way, is only used once in the entirety of the New Testament. (I’m not saying “like” in English, but the Greek Word that was translated “like” in this particular context.) Therefore, I think it is unwise to be dogmatic about the definition of that word as translated into the English language.

If “like” is properly translated it doesn’t negate the notion of Melchizedek as a Christophany. All you have to do is look at the words of Daniel, where Daniel says, “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence” (Dan. 7:13, NIV). And then contemplate the reality that despite the word “like” in that passage, Jesus combined this very passage with Psalm 110, which is that great coronation psalm, in evidence of the fact that He was in fact divine. And He used that argument before Caiaphas and the court that is condemning Him to death. So, again, the fact that the word “like” is there, shouldn’t cloud our understanding of the passage.

There’s little doubt in my mind in reading Hebrews 7 the great coronation Psalm 110 in which Melchizedek is also mentioned, and then the Genesis passage where Melchizedek appears to Abraham that this is a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ. It’s a Christophany very much like the Angel of the Lord appearing in the Old Testament.

What eventually changed my mind was looking at the biblical text. What initiated the looking at the biblical text was the Dead Sea Scrolls, quite frankly. The Melchizedek Scroll is a classic case in point where you find Melchizedek and the Almighty as words that are interchanged by the Essenes. So as they studied the Old Testament, they saw Melchizedek very clearly as the Almighty. Now the Dead Sea Scrolls are not the acid test, it is the Word of God that is the acid test, but it did cause me to look more closely at the biblical text.

Interpreting Scripture in light of Scripture, I think that it is very clear that Melchizedek is in fact a Christophany. He is in fact a preincarnate appearance of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know why people ask me these questions. I have twelve children, nine natural children and three adopted children, so this is probably not a question for me. But with respect to birth control methods that should be avoided at any cost are those methods that destroy or prevent the implantation of an embryo, because an embryo is a living growing human being from the moment of conception.

Openness to children is as well a built in protection against the abuse of sex for mere self-gratification, and it is absolute imperative that as Christians we view children as a blessing not as a blight. Our attitude of seeing our children as a blessing is something that pleases our Heavenly Father.

I think it’s also significant to recognize what’s going on when you have a fertilized human egg. That’s the beginning for the tapestry of life unfolding with a single thread and then through a process of incredible precision a microscopic egg in one human being is fertilized by a sperm cell from another and that marks not only the beginning of a brand new life, but it also marks the genetic future that life will have. Think about this: A single fertilized human egg, a zygote, the size of a pinhead, contains chemical instructions that would fill more than five hundred thousand printed pages. And the genetic information contained in that encyclopedia determines the potential physical aspect of the developing human being from height to hair color. Of course in time, the fertilized egg divides into thirty-trillion cells that make up the human body. You’re fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). This includes twelve-billion brain cells, which form more than a hundred-twenty-trillion synapses or connections.

If you lived in Darwin’s day, you would think a human egg to be nothing more, for all practical purposes, than a microscopic blob of gelatin. But today we know in an age of scientific enlightenment that a fertilized egg is among the most organized complex structures in the universe. In an age of scientific enlightenment it is incredible to think that there are people who would snuff out that human life in an early stage of existence. And that is precisely what we’re talking about with birth control methods that actually abort a conceptus. So we need to be very careful to guard against that. As long as you’re using a birth control method that does not involve that it becomes a matter of prayer between you and your spouse recognizing the biblical principles that I outlined.

But I’ll tell you as a 60 year old man now with a lot of kids knowing my predisposition early on which was with all the ministry that I wanted to do I didn’t want to have a huge family but my wife did. I am so happy that I listened to the wisdom of my wife because I cannot imagine life without my kids today. So kids are a blessing, and you can’t presume on the future, you just don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, a lot of people who think they can’t afford kids fail to recognize that it’s not about the arm of flesh; it’s about the arm of God. God will give you, what you need. Not always your greed, but certainly He will provide for your needs.

The short answer to that question is “yes.” It’s true that humans are fallible vessels that they’re prone to error, but that in no way precludes the inerrancy of the Bible. All Scripture is God breathed. All Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The Apostle Paul there puts a very significant premium of the accuracy of all Scripture.

The Apostle Peter does essentially the same thing. He says that prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The doctrine of inspiration tells us that God did something miraculous in inspiration. He worked through fallible human prophets, He utilized their individual personalities, all to pen what is authoritative, infallible, and sacred as Scripture. In fact we can demonstrate that the Bible is divine as opposed to human in origin. If you look just at archeology, you find what is concealed in the soil, corresponds to what is revealed in the Scriptures, and that with minute precision. I’m talking about people, and places, even particulars. So we know, we have evidence that the Bible corresponds to reality, and therefore it is truth, and a miracle—the miracle of infallible inspiration, the inspiration that comes from the Holy Spirit.

Now we don’t suppose that the disciples walked around with tape recorders, or we’re programmed automatons, but what we do suppose is that the believers who are used by God to pen the Scriptures captured the essential voice of God in the Scripture. Not the exact words they heard. For example, if you look at the Sermon on the Mount, you’ll see that there are various versions of the Sermon on the Mount given by Mark, Matthew, and Luke. And you see that the Sermon on the Mount is given in a different way but is essentially the same, because through their own personalities Matthew and Luke capture the essential voice of Jesus not the exact verbiage that Jesus used, and that’s why there can be differences and yet complete agreement because there’s no difference in the message that is being communicated in either case.

The bottom line is this: Our Bibles are trustworthy and true, so trustworthy we can stake our eternal destinies on the message that our Bibles proclaim.

Contrary to that newspaper eschatology there is no biblical basis for believing that the mark of the beast is a silicon microchip.

Biblically the mark of the beast is a parody of the Mark of the Lamb. Just as the mark on the forehead of the 144,000, Revelation 14 symbolizes identity with the Lamb. So the mark in Revelation 13 symbolizes identity with the Beast. Likewise, when Jesus says that on him who overcomes that He is going to write the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, and write on hum My new name (Rev. 3:12), we intuitively realize that Jesus Christ does not have a “Magic Marker” in mind.

The forehead and the hands are Old Testament symbols. They’re symbols of a person’s beliefs and behaviors. In other words, what you believe and how you behave mark you as either belonging to God or belonging to Satan.

So John’s reference to the mark of the beast in revelation is securely tethered to Scripture. Conversely, the notion that the mark of the beast is Sunday Worship or a Social Security Card or a silicone microchip has no biblical basis whatsoever. The mark of the beast is not something that can be taken inadvertently; it is the intentional denial in thought word and deed of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Rather than fearfully avoiding microchip technology we should with fear and trembling resist the temptation to become conformed to the evil systems of the world. We must instead boldly accept the mark of the Lamb by offering our bodies as living sacrifice and by being transformed by the renewing of our minds, as Paul points out in Romans 12.

Joe Dallas, program director of Genesis Counseling in Tustin, California, provides in the Christian Research Journal a rational basis for a marriage to be restricted to a man and woman, not a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or any other combination. Again, the words of Joe Dallas in the Christian Research Journal provide the very rational basis that what the judge said does not exist.¹

Same sex marriage seems a matter that does in fact warrant concern from believers and also warrants responsible Christian activism. It’s true that we should fulfill the Great Commission but it is equally true that we should fulfill the cultural mandate. You don’t say, “I’m going to eat or breathe;” rather, you both breathe and eat!

As Joe Dallas has aptly pointed out in the Christian Research Journal,

Redefining marriage to include same-sex coupling raises the question of societal stability, and the welfare of children, both of which speak directly to the common good [or the principle of cultural mandate]. And if both are affected negatively the proposed redefinition of marriage, then Christian resistance is called for, not (primarily) because of a biblical prohibition against homosexuality but because of the negative impact same sex marriage has on the common good.

Research indicates that monogamy literally stabilizes cultural life, and that heterosexual couples are far more likely to remain monogamous than homosexual ones. Likewise, volumes of research show children raised in a two-parent home by their biological mother and father fare better socially, academically, and emotionally than those raised in alternative arrangements.

If research consistently shows that children function best when raised by their two biological parents and that monogamy is more likely among heterosexual couples than homosexual couples, and if both child welfare and cultural stability impact common good, then a redefinition of marriage warrants Christian concern and response.²

You can’t just say, “I’m going to abdicate the legislative process.” We are called to be involved in the Great Commission and cultural mandate. That’s the point, it’s not one or the other, it’s both/and.

Some obviously do resist any advance in gay rights for the wrong reason. They are prejudice. But what we’re talking about here is not prejudice. We are talking about fact based conviction. It’s unfair and inaccurate to assume all who object to gay marriage object to gay marriage out of blind prejudice, when in fact, as Joe Dallas has aptly demonstrated in the Christian Research Journal, they could be basing their position on the reasonable premise that all citizens benefit when the definition and function of the family stays intact.³

So when you listen to the “talking heads” and you start scratching your own head, and you wonder, “How am I to think about this because maybe they have a point? Maybe, Prop. 8 should be dust and history, swept into the dust bin of history!” But…on the other hand, if you are informed, you no longer scratch your head, you use your head, and you recognize that the judge is making a dogmatic assertion rather than a defensible argument, when he says that the law fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.

By the way, this is not only aptly dealt with in the Christian Research Journal by Joe Dallas, but in the current edition of the Christian Research Journal there’s an article dealing with defining the biblical concept of family, which is right at the heart and root of what this discussion is all about.⁴ If that unravels, we are going to see chaos, upon chaos, upon chaos, upon chaos. We have been asleep at the switch because we are not ready always to give an answer or a reason for the hope that lies within us with gentleness and with respect. The reason that we offer the Christian Research Journal, the Bible Answer Man broadcast, and the many ministries of the Christian Research Institute is to equip you to always be ready with an answer for the reason of the hope that lies within you and to be able to give that answer with gentleness and respect but in a persuasive fashion.

These issues are available through the Christian Research Institute. To obtain copies, please click here.

_____________

1. cf. Joe Dallas, “Proposition 8: A Christian Quandary,” Christian Research Journal, 32, 4 [2009]: 58-60.

2. Ibid., 59-60.

3. Ibid., 60.

4. cf. Joe Dallas, “The ‘Family’ Quarrel: Defining and Defending the Biblical Concept of Family, Christian Research Journal, 33, 3 [2009]: 44-53.

Judaism, however, is a completely different concept than Christianity. I thought I’d take this opportunity to give people a sense of what Judaism teaches. Judaism, of course, is not monolithic. It’s multifaceted. Judaism finds it’s genesis in Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; however, its modern day expression is largely a function of the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. Judaism, as such, finds its expression in Torah study, rather than temple sacrifice.

There are really three main branches of Judaism. The first is Orthodox Judaism, sometimes also referred to as Torah Judaism. It’s best known because of its strict dedication to the eternal Mosaic Law as interpreted by Rabbis subsequent to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. The view is that only through devotion to a complex code of Jewish law can one experience a nearness to God. Orthodox Jews await a rebuilt temple, a Jewish Messiah—a Messiah who’s going to restore the kingdom to Israel—and they also believe there’s going to be a physical resurrection of the dead. Ironically, it’s possible to be an Orthodox Jew and yet not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Unlike Orthodox Judaism, which teaches that observance of the Law leads to freedom, Reformed Judaism begins with the freedom to decide what to observe. In other words, human autonomy trumps the authority of the Law. As a movement arising in the eighteenth century Reform Judaism seeks to adapt to the modern world in order to preserve Jewish identity in the midst of the pressure of assimilation. Thus, Reformed Judaism is reforming and always reforming; perhaps a better way of saying that, it’s reformed and always reforming.

Then there is Conservative Judaism. Marc Mezvinsky, who married Chelsea Clinton, is in that branch, he is a Conservative Jew. This is a late nineteenth reaction to the liberal tendencies inherent in Reformed Judaism. So Conservative Judaism forges a middle way between Orthodox and Reformed Judaism. Adherents, on the one hand embrace modern culture, but on the other, they observe Jewish laws and customs without the fundamentalistic fervor of the Orthodox Jews.

Regardless of religious affiliation, our duty as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is to demonstrate the reality of Jesus Christ through the testimony of our love, our life, and our lips. As the Apostle Paul put it so clearly, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’ ” (Romans 1:16-17).

I think it is important when you witness to Jews to realize that they’re not monolithic; rather, they’re multifaceted. There is Orthodox Judaism, Reformed Judaism and Conservative Judaism. Ultimately, just as witnessing to anyone else, you have to be able to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is divine as opposed to merely human in origin, that we believe we are sinners, that if we repent of our sin and we receive Jesus Christ we’ll be saved from our sin, and so be on our way to a relationship with Jesus Christ, not only in time, but also ultimately in eternity.

Mixed marriages between believers and unbelievers are very, very difficult we don’t recommend them as Christians, because the Old Testament says that we should not be unequally yoked (Deuteronomy 22:10; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:14-16). If we are, we’re going to be pulling in two different directions and that’s not very good for the kids that come into the relationship.

It is not uncommon for skeptics to suppose that we as Christians are irrational for believing in a God that we simply cannot see. In reality, it’s irrational for skeptics to presuppose that what cannot be seen doesn’t exist! The fact that something that cannot be seen does not presuppose that something doesn’t exist. We know black holes, electrons, the laws of logic, and the law of gravity all exist despite the fact we can’t see them! Indeed even a full blown empiricist holds fast to the law of gravity if he is standing on top of the Eiffel Tower.

Not only that, but as King David exudes, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Or in the words of the apostle Paul, “God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). If you want to put it another way, the order and complexity of the visible, physical, universe eloquently testify to the existence of an uncaused first cause.

One final point, God can be seen through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul explains that “in Christ all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9). Indeed, it is the incarnation of Jesus Christ that is the supreme act of God’s self-revelation. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we experience the power and the presence of God in a way that is more fundamentally real than even our perceptions of the physical world in which we dwell. Now we see but a poor reflection, just like in a mirror; but then one day in heaven we’re going to see face to face. Now we know in part, then we’ll know fully just as we too are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Today, tolerance is being redefined to mean that all views are equally valid and all lifestyles equally appropriate. As such, the notion that Jesus is the only way is vilified as the epitome of intolerance.

Rather than capitulating to the culture, however, Christians must be equipped to expose the flaws of today’s tolerance, while simultaneously exemplifying true tolerance. To say all views are equally valid sounds tolerant but in reality is a contradiction in terms. If indeed all views are equally valid, then the Christian view must be valid. The Christian view, however, holds that not all views are equally valid. Thus, the redefinition of tolerance is a self-refuting proposition.

We do not tolerate people with whom we agree. We tolerate people with whom we disagree. If all views were equally valid, there would be no need for tolerance.

Today’s redefinition of tolerance leaves no room for objective moral judgments. A modern terrorist could be deemed as virtuous as a “Mother Teresa.” With no enduring reference point, societal norms reduce to mere matters of preference; and, as such, the moral basis for resolving international disputes and for condemning such intuitively evil practices as genocide, oppression of women, and child prostitution is seriously compromised.

In light of its philosophically fatal features, Christians must reject today’s tolerance, and revive true tolerance. True tolerance entails that, despite our differences, we treat every person we meet with dignity and respect due them as those created in the image of God. True tolerance does not preclude proclaiming truth, but it does mandate that we do so with gentleness and respect.

In a world that is increasingly intolerant of Christianity, Christians must exemplify tolerance without sacrificing truth. Indeed, tolerance when it comes to personal relationships is a virtue, but tolerance when it comes to truth is a travesty. As Jude puts it, “Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (vv. 22–23).

We should not be microcosms of the world—but change-agents within the world…because Truth matters.

One of the common characteristics of false faith preachers today is their failure to be able to read the Bible for all its worth. This is typically personified by taking the Bible out of context. As such, they consistently use texts as pretexts for their faith fantasies. With respect to immediate context, Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer misuse Romans 4:17 as a pretext for persuading their devotees that through the force of faith they can call things that are not as though they were. In other words, from their perspective of faith, we can create realities by speaking these realities into existence. Of course, the examination of the immediate context demonstrates that Romans 4:17 says nothing of the sort. To the contrary, Paul says that it is the God who gives life, and He calls things that are not as if they were—not us.

What Joyce and Joel do with respect to the immediate context of a verse Kenneth Copeland does to the broader context of a passage; the Gospel of Mark chapter 10 is a classic case in point. Rather than reading Mark 10 within its intended context, one verse is pulled out of context, and used as a pretext for the hundred-fold give-to-get hoax. The broader context of the passage precludes the pretext. Far from being a chapter focused on how one can get a hundred times what he gives, Mark 10 portrays the deceitfulness of riches. As such, the multiplication and division by Jesus is spiritual not physical; metaphorical not literal.

John Hagee takes text out of context phenomenon to a whole new dimension. Not only does he take text out of their immediate and broader context, but he also perverts the entirety of the biblical message. This is particularly disturbing when Christ is the object of his pretext. With bravado that quite frankly boggles my mind, Hagee asserts that the Jewish people wanted Jesus to be their Messiah, but Jesus absolutely refused. He goes on to say, the Jews were not rejecting Jesus as Messiah, it was Jesus refusing to be Messiah to the Jews: a clear perversion of the overarching context of Messiah’s teachings. It is hard to envision, anyone who’s read through the Gospels once knows full well that Jesus emphatically contradicted such sentiments throughout the entirety of His earthly ministry. Who can forget His emotionally charged words as He’s leaving the temple; “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matt. 23:37). What about the words of the apostle John? “He came to that which is his own, but His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). Common decency alone should have been sufficient to absolve Jesus from Hagee’s unwarranted implication as self-contradiction. Giving Jesus the benefit of the doubt, on a matter of such grave consequence, I rightly have deemed an interpretive imperative. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith, indeed the author of eternity does not contradict Himself, neither does He confuse His hearers.

Context! Context! Context! That’s the antidote to the compromise and to the confusion and to the contradiction of Christ and the Canon. We as Christians need to read the Bible for all its worth, otherwise we are going to be misled by a cacophony of voices that have a siren call that is leading us not towards biblical truth but rather away from biblical truth.

What we’re largely unfamiliar with is the reality that far from being benighted fanatics clinging to Scriptural claims that the earth was flat for the first fifteen centuries of the Christian epoch, nearly unanimous scholarly opinion pronounced the earth spherical. Likewise, only in revisionist history of skeptics like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are the “Dark Ages” dark and the Renaissance enlightened.

What really happened is a matter of history and evidence. The millennium that encompassed Greek and Roman history is more correctly characterized by irrational superstition than rational supposition. Greco-Roman thought was shackled to the illogical presupposition of an eternal universe that was ministered by moody gods. Little wonder that almost a thousand years after Aristotle that Roman aristocrats who were “spoon fed” at the table of Greek enlightenment dwelt in drafty domains and never dreamed of a coming Christian epic in which the invention of chimneys, clocks, and capitalism would revolutionize Western civilization.

In place of a rational God who orders the universe according to knowable principles, these Greek sages and their Roman counterparts fixated on the capriciousness of the gods. As such, Socrates would render astronomical observations as a waste of time, and Plato persuaded devotees to leave the starry heavens alone. They obsessed on astrology, but they left astronomy an unexplored domain. They mastered the magic of alchemy, and remained blithely ignorant of the majesty inherent in chemistry.

Even more shamefully, enlightened Greco-Roman civilization had scant regard for human equality. As a slave master, Plato reasoned that nature creates a slavish people lacking the mental capacity for virtue or culture and fit only to serve, and Aristotle famously remarked some are marked out for subjugation others for rule. Of course, women faired no better, for in Rome female babies routinely expired in the shadow of Nero’s image. Tragic cries of testimony to the terrors of sexual inequality.

Here’s my point: The notion that the enlightenment that the Greco-Roman word was separated from the enlightenment in the modern world by the Dark Ages of Christianity is little more than useful propaganda and propaganda alone. It was Christianity and Christianity alone that shattered the superstitions of the Greco-Roman world. An unbiased reading of history demonstrates conclusively that the rise of Western Civilization is inextricably linked to the DNA of a biblical worldview. Well, today, that worldview is mocked by culturally corrosive comedy, and our children are at stake, because for every five-hundred hours they spend in church, a 17 year old has spent more than fifty-thousand interacting with the mass media.

As you read through Ezra, however, there things that will grip you. You’ll wonder: how in the world can God make certain demands of His people? For example, what about Ezra’s prayer about intermarriage? Ezra is broken before the Lord as the result of the fact that Israel had intermarried with foreign people. The men had taken foreign wives and vise-a-versa. Does this not in some sense make God a racist? “Shall we again break Your commandments,” says Ezra, “and intermarry with the peoples who commit these abominations?” (Ezra 9:14, NASB).

Well, that passage always needs to be contextualized. As I often say on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, “a text without a context is a pretext.” “You shall not intermarry with them” (Deut. 7:3) is contextualized by the words, “they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods” (Deut. 7:4). In other words, the aim of God’s command was the obliteration of wickedness, never the obliteration of the wicked, or a racist motif. Not only so, God’s purposes were to use Israel as a light to the nations, and thus they were not to reflect the practices of the pagan nations around them. As such, those from the nations who embraced Yahweh were considered true Israel, and those who did not were those considered to be aliens or foreigners, but even there, God unequivocally commanded Israel to treat the aliens living among them with respect and equality (Exod. 22:21; Lev. 19:33-37). Such concern for foreigners demonstrates that mercy was to be shown to those who repented of idolatry and were, therefore, grafted into true Israel.

My point in saying all of this is that we as believers need to read the Bible for all its worth and that is a discipline to learn the art and science of biblical interpretation. If we do not learn that art and science, we may well read into the Scripture something that the Scripture was never intended to communicate. In fact, we might well subvert the Word of God, as opposed to those who communicate the Word of God. We say, “God has spoken, the Bible is the infallible repository of redemptive revelation.” If that is true, and if we genuinely believe that with all our hearts, then the attendant question is “What has God said?” That means that you and I will spend time learning the art and science of biblical interpretation.

What I find fascinating is this: if you keep reading through Joshua, not long after the time God allows them to enter into the Promised Land, we see Joshua lying facedown, and crying out to the Lord, questioning why the He led them to the land, saying, “Why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan!” (Joshua 7:7, NIV).

Joshua had come into a difficult situation and immediately was thinking about how wonderful it once was in the desert, just as the desert Israelites were thinking how wonderful it was back in Egyptian exile. They essentially forgot that God had provided a way for them, and they longed for what was before.

God, however, commands the people to build an altar—to signify a way of remembering His salvation (Joshua 8:30–35). It’s similar to what I call a “legacy altar,” where you set aside a record of the significant moments in which God sovereignly provides for you, where His grace is bountiful, where His mercy is overflowing, and His love has been most clearly demonstrated in your life.

Like Joshua, you too must remember the faithfulness of the Lord in your situation, because so often we forget—and I can tell you that that’s true of me, just as it’s true of you—and, therefore, it’s so good to record the faithfulness of God, so you can go back to that altar as a memorial, a remembrance, of God’s faithful provision.

John Griffith was in his early twenties. He was newly married and full of optimism. Along with his lovely wife, he had been blessed with a beautiful baby. He was living the American dream. But then came 1929—the Great Stock Market Crash—the shattering of the American economy that devastated John’s dreams. The winds that howled through Oklahoma were strangely symbolic of the gale force that was sweeping away his hopes and his dreams. And so, brokenhearted, John packed up his few possessions, and with his wife and his little son, headed East in an old Ford Model A. They made their way to the edge of the mighty Mississippi River and found a job tending one of the great railroad bridges there.

Day after day, John would sit in the control room and direct the enormous gears of the immense bridge over the mighty river. He would look out wistfully as bulky barges and splendid ships glided gracefully under his elevated bridge. Each day, he looked on sadly as those ships carried with them his shattered dreams and his visions of far-off places and exotic destinations.

It wasn’t until 1937 that a new dream began to be birthed in John’s heart. His young son was now eight years old and John had begun to catch a vision for a new life, a life in which Greg, his little son, would work shoulder to shoulder with him. The first day of this new life dawned and brought with it new hope and fresh purpose. Excitedly, they packed their lunches and headed off towards the immense bridge.

Greg looked on in wide-eyed amazement as his Dad pressed down the huge lever that raised and lowered the vast bridge. As he watched, he thought that his father must surely be the greatest man alive. He marveled that his Dad could singlehandedly control the movements of such a stupendous structure.

Before they knew it, Noon time had arrived. John had just elevated the bridge and allowed some scheduled ships to pass through. And then taking his son by the hand, they headed off towards lunch.

As they ate, John told his son in vivid detail stories about the marvelous destinations of the ships that glided below them. Enveloped in a world of thought, he related story after story, his son hanging on his every word.

Then, suddenly, in the midst of telling a tale about the time that the river had overflowed its banks, he and his son were startled back to reality by the shrieking whistle of a distant train. Looking at his watch in disbelief, John saw that it was already 1:07. Immediately he remembered that the bridge was still raised and that the Memphis Express would be by in just minutes.

In the calmest tone he could muster he instructed his son “Stay put.” Quickly, he leaped to his feet, he jumped onto the catwalk. As the precious seconds flew by, he ran at full-tilt to the steer ladder leading into the control house.

Once in, he searched the river to make sure that no ships were in sight. And then, as he had been trained to do, he looked straight down beneath the bridge to make certain nothing was below. As his eyes moved downward, he saw something so horrifying that his heart froze in his chest. For there, below him in the massive gearbox that housed the colossal gears that moved the gigantic bridge, was his beloved son.

Apparently Greg had tried to follow his dad but had fallen off the catwalk. Even now he was wedged between the teeth of two main cogs in the gear box. Although he appeared to be conscious, John could see that his son’s leg had already begun to bleed. Then an even more horrifying thought flashed through his mind. Lowering the bridge would mean killing the apple of his eye.

Panicked, his mind probed in every direction, frantically searching for solutions. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself grabbing a coiled rope, climbing down the ladder, running down the catwalk, securing the rope, sliding down towards his son, pulling him back to safety. Then in an instant, he would move back down towards the control lever and thrust it down just in time for the oncoming train.

As soon as these thoughts appeared, he realized the futility of his plan. Instantly he knew there just wouldn’t be enough time. Frustration began to beat on John’s brow, terror written over every inch of his face. His mind darted here and there, vainly searching for yet another solution.

His agonized mind considered the four hundred people that were moving inextricably closer and closer to the bridge. Soon the train would come roaring out of the trees with tremendous speed, but this was his son…his only son…his pride…his joy.

He knew in a moment there was only one thing he could do. He knew he would have to do it. And so, burying his face under his left arm, he plunged down the lever. The cries of his son were quickly drowned out by the relentless sound of the bridge as it ground slowly into position. With only seconds to spare, the Memphis Express—with its 400 passengers—roared out of the trees and across the mighty bridge.

John Griffith lifted his tear-stained face and looked into the windows of the passing train. A businessman was reading the morning newspaper. A uniformed conductor was glancing nonchalantly as his large vest pocket watch. Ladies were already sipping their afternoon tea in the dining cars. A small boy, looking strangely like his own son, pushed a long thin spoon into a large dish of ice cream. Many of the passengers seemed to be engaged in idle conversation or careless laughter.

No one even looked his way. No one even cast a glance at the giant gear box that housed the mangled remains of his hopes and his dreams.

In anguish he pounded the glass in the control room. He cried out “What’s the matter with you people? Don’t you know? Don’t you care? Don’t you know I’ve sacrificed my son for you? What’s wrong with you?”

No one answered. No one heard. No one even looked. Not one of them seemed to care. And then, as suddenly as it had happened, it was over. The train disappeared moving rapidly across the bridge and out over the horizon.

Even now as I retell this story, I’m moved by emotion. For this is but a faint glimpse of what the Father did in sacrificing his Son to atone for the sins of the world. Unlike the Memphis Express, however, an express that caught John Griffith by surprise, God in His great love and according to His sovereign will and purpose, determined to sacrifice his Son so that we might live. Not only so, but the consummate love of Christ is demonstrated in that He was not accidentally caught as was John’s son. Rather, He willingly sacrificed his life for the sins of mankind.

Well, the story of course doesn’t end there. Three days later, Jesus arose from the grave. For this reason, we celebrate throughout the year and particularly during Easter, the broken body, the shed blood, the mangled remains of our Savior with joy, because Jesus overcame death and the grave through His resurrection. Moreover, like Jesus, we too shall rise. You, I, John Griffith, his son, and those who believe, we will live forever with our resurrected Lord in Paradise Restored.

“To know wisdom and instruction,” writes Solomon, “To discern the sayings of understanding, to receive instruction in wise behavior, righteousness, justice, equity; to give prudence to the naïve, to the youth knowledge and discretion, a wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools hate wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:1-7, NASB).

If you are not in the Word of God, you are just flat missing it!

Right now, I’m reading through Ecclesiastes. It talks about the utter futility and folly of hoarding riches. Solomon says,

There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being hoarded by their owner to his hurt.

When those riches were lost through a bad investment and he had fathered a son, then there was nothing to support him.

As he had come naked from his mother’s womb, so will he return as he came He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand.

This also is a grievous evil—exactly as a man is born, thus will he die. So what is the advantage to him who toils for the wind?

Throughout his life he also eats in darkness with great vexation, sickness and anger.

Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward.

Furthermore, as for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God.

For he will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the gladness of his heart (Prov. 5:13-20).

What’s the point? You came naked into the world, and you’re going to leave naked. So don’t hoard your wealth. Use your wealth! Because the only joy in wealth comes not in the accumulation of it, but through the process itself of rightly using one’s wealth, the joy of exercising the very gift that God has inculcated into you—given to you. So enjoy the process! Because if you’re a believer, God gives your life the meaning, the purpose and the fulfillment that your life was intended to have.

Plinius was famous for letters, which have been rightly dubbed literary classics; however, he is equally famous—and you don’t find as much written about this in the literature—for the interrogation, torture, and murder of Christians. By his own account, he extracted information from two church deaconesses, and he did it by torture. His manner was to ask three times whether or not you were a follower of Jesus Christ, and if your answer was “yes,” he wrote, “I then ordered them to be taken away to be executed.” Now if a person responded by denying the faith, Plinius had them repeat an invocation to the gods, offer rites with wine and incense before the statue of Trajan, and then utter imprecations at the same time against the very name of Christus. For Plinius the end game was simply this: It was the reclamation of multitudes from the worship of Jesus Christ to the worship of Caesar.

Plinius was confident that through intimidation and threat of death, the tide of Christianity could be stemmed. In the end of course, he was wrong. He was wrong for one singular reason: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The early Christians had seen the resurrected Christ, and their lives were radically impacted. They no longer lived for prosperity, for the favor of Caesar, but they lived for eternal verities. For this reason, they turned an empire upside-down, for out of the bowels of the Roman Empire would come the greatest civilization in the history of the planet. A civilization founded on the DNA of biblical manuscripts. A civilization that recognized Christ had been raised from the dead.

All of this is but a prologue to something that I want to put into your hands, something that allows you with passion and purpose to communicate the truth of resurrection.

Christ rose from the dead. Now that’s not just a historical reality, though we’re going to talk about how it is a historical reality, but it is something that has implications for you right now. If it is indeed true that Christ rose from the dead, it means you too will rise. If it is not true, it means your faith is useless and so is this broadcast. It all hinges on whether or not Christ rose from the dead.

Of course, today is day 15, which means you’re in Proverbs chapter 15. A proverb a day keeps the Devil away (i.e. a chapter from the proverbs).

If you’re on the track of meditating on the ancient Israeli Psalmistry, then you’re in Psalm 31, 32, and 33. I was meditating on the Psalms this morning, particularly the words:

I am forgotten by them as though I were dead;

     I have become like broken pottery.

For I hear the slander of many;

     there is terror on every side;

     they conspire against me

     and plot to take my life.

But I trust in you, O LORD;

     I say, “You are my God.”

My times are in your hands;

     deliver me from my enemies

     and from those who pursue me.

Let your face shine on your servant;

      save me in your unfailing love (vv. 12-16).

And then the words in Psalm 32:

You are my hiding place.

     You protect me from trouble,

      and surround me with songs of deliverance” (v. 7).

In Psalm 33,

No king is saved by the size of his army;

     no warrior escapes by his great strength.

A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;

     despite all its great strength it cannot save.

But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,

     on those whose hope is in his unfailing love (vv. 16-18).

I’m reminded of what Solomon said in Proverbs 21,

There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan

     that can succeed against the LORD.

The horse is made ready for the day of battle,

     but victory rests with the LORD (vv. 30-31).

Or at the beginning of the chapter, where he says:

The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD;

       he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases (v. 1).

God is sovereign! Our trust ultimately—if it is well-placed faith and trust—is in Almighty God, who delivers us from all evil. That does not mean that we do not suffer. It means that ultimately He has established a new heaven and a new earth where indwells righteousness, and in the meantime, He walks with us, even through our deepest and darkest of all travails.

If you’re following the Legacy Bible Reading Plan, you are getting very close to the book of Ecclesiastes, since this month we are reading Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. I finished Job and am now in Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes is a profound book because it’s written by King Solomon, who reigned at the height of Israel’s glory. He was the wisest, the richest, and the most influential king in the entire history of Israel. His wisdom and the glory of his kingdom are world-renown.

If anyone had it all, Solomon did; yet, he still declared that such is empty. More specifically, trying to be happy apart from God is empty. He looks at all life under the sun from the human perspective and declares “It is empty.” Whether power, popularity, prestige, or pleasure, nothing can fill the God-shaped void in the life of a human being—only God can.

When one sees life from God’s perspective things are different. Life takes on meaning and purpose if you know God. Eat, drink, rejoice, do well, and live joyfully; however, fear God, and keep his commandments, and in doing so skepticism and despair will melt away, because life will be viewed as a daily gift from God. Don’t miss God’s immortal words. He’s speaking to you. Are you listening?

We have a lot of resources to help you get into the Word of God and, get the Word of God into you. Some will say “I just don’t have time.” But you have time to eat, you have time to sleep, you have time to comb your hair if you’ve got hair. It’s not a matter of time, it’s a matter of priority.

The Apostle Paul, in a letter to the Corinthian Christians, reminds us that if Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile (1 Cor. 15:14). In light of that sobering reminder, it is incumbent on us to demonstrate that the Christ of Christmas had the power to lay down his life and the power to take up his life again, thus demonstrating that He was God in human flesh. What I’m saying is that there is nothing more significant than the resurrection of Jesus Christ and because of its centrality to Christianity, those who take the sacred name of Christ upon their lips must be prepared to defend the reliability of the biblical account of the resurrection.

Make no mistake, the biblical account is being undermined in the minds of children and adults alike. Internet lies, like the notion that the resurrection motif was borrowed from ancient pagan mystery religions, circle the globe before truth has had the chance to put its proverbial boots on. Likewise, magazines from Time to Vanity Fair bombard the public with misinformation regarding the resurrection. On the other hand, it’s chilling to read pontifications, like tales about the entombment and resurrection were just latter-day wishful thinking, and the so-called reality is Jesus’ corpse went the way of all abandoned criminal’s bodies—barely covered with dirt, and vulnerable to the wild dogs that roamed the wasteland of the execution grounds.

But what should you expect? Pagans are going to exercise their job description. They’re going to be pagans. The real question is “Are you going to exercise your job description as a believer?” And that leads me to my point—it leads me to my excitement, about the ongoing quest to tackle the problem of biblical illiteracy. In that light, I’ve just completed the second in a series of flip charts. It’s entitled “Resurrection: Memorable Keys to the Greatest F-E-A-T in History.” What is so exciting about this flip chart is that it provides a definitive statement regarding what we believe with respect to the central event in Christianity, and in a color-coded fashion, I follow up with bullet points documenting why we believe what we believe. And again, this is not just any subject. The laminated flip chart that I want to put into your hands is a memorable guide to defending the very subject that empowered early Christians to turn an empire upside-down.

In USA Today op-ed column, Baptist pastor Oliver Thomas writes this:

Lutherans, Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ have broken down the barriers for openly gay and lesbian clergy.Presbyterians and Methodists are likely to follow suit. This willingness to reject the authority of biblical passages condemning homosexuality — as Protestant churches did with similar passages on slavery and the role of women — will appeal to a younger generation who see gay marriage as a non-issue and accept their gay and lesbian classmates for who they are — not what some Christians want them to be.[1]

Now stop for just a moment and rethink those words. And as you do remember that this is not an exception—this is fast proving to be the rule! Previous generations of believers held to the common sense notion that marriage is to be between a man and a woman. A younger generation, a generation living in the shadow of the Bible wonders, “What in the world does gender have to do with it?” Note also a far more subtle problem, “A younger generation,” says this Baptist preacher, “Accept their gay and lesbian classmates for who they are—not what some Christians want them to be.” In other words, this pastor cleverly changes the landscape from homosexuality as a behavior to homosexuality as an identity. Even more subtly, he equates the changing opinion respecting homosexuality with changing opinions regarding sexism and slavery. In other words, just as Christians now roundly reject the biblical promotion of sexism and slavery, so too we must roundly reject biblical teachings respecting homosexuality.

Now, the problem is not just that this pastor’s arguments in the paper are inherently flawed—homosexuality, unlike gender is not an identity—nor does the Bible ever promote the practice of sexism or slavery. In fact, it was the application of biblical principles that not only liberated Western women, but ultimately led to the overthrow of slavery both in ancient Israel and in the United States of America. The problem is that the vast majority of those who read these writings of a pastor in the paper do not see through the twisted logic of his statements. Instead, they swallow the skin of the truth stuffed with a lie and transform from change agents in the culture to mere microcosms of the culture.

In this milieu, we have to equip God’s people to think biblically, to think Christianly, and be able to discern wheat from chaff and heat from light.

Essential Christian doctrine is the North Star by which the very course of Christianity is set. As the North Star is an unchanging reference point, a point by which sailors used to safely guide their ships, so essential Christian doctrine has safely guided the church through the doctrinal storms that have sought to sink it. Essential Christian doctrine is the foundation, never forget, on which the Gospel of Jesus Christ rests, from His deity to the certainty that He will appear a second time to judge the living and the dead.

Essential Christian doctrine is foundational to the gospel. All other religions either compromise, or confuse, and even contradict, essential Christian doctrine. Consider Islam. Muslim teachers dogmatically denounce the doctrine of Christ’s unique deity, they call it the unforgivable sin of shirk. They readily affirm that Jesus was sinless, but they adamantly deny His sacrifice on the cross, and His subsequent resurrection as the only hope of salvation.

Now to internalize what you believe for essential Christian doctrine, I have organized the main and plain things of Scripture around the memorable Hankronym D-O-C-T-R-I-N-E. And to master why you believe what you believe, I’ve organized the supporting evidence into easy to assimilate bullet points.

If you want your copy—a laminated 4” X 6” flipchart, to put it in your pocket or purse—of essential Christian doctrine, what you believe and why, it’s available right now for your gift to the ministry of any amount, just a gift to the ministry. We’ll send out this flipchart on essential Christian doctrine.

      Only what’s done for Christ will last.

If you are following the Legacy Reading Plan, we’re going to take a short detour from Hebrew history. We’ve just gone through the Hebrew Pentateuch, and before we get into Hebrew history—starting with Joshua and the Promised Land—we’re going to dive into Hebrew poetry. So in March, our habit is to read through the book of Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

Job is a particularly enlightening book. He was selected as a subject of a stern test of faith, because he was indisputably the greatest man of faith alive. God declared that Job’s faith was real faith. Satan claimed that Job’s faith was fickle faith. And Job, as you’ll read through this book this month, not only passed the test of faith with flying colors, but he demonstrated the remarkable depth of his faith.

Remember when he uttered the unforgettable words,

Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

      And naked shall I return there.

      The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;

      Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21, NKJV)

Job didn’t curse God. His wife tried to tell him to. He didn’t blame his tragedy on secret sin like his cruel companions urged him to do. Job instead placed his fate in the hands of a God who is both infinitely just and infinitely mercy.

Remember Zophar, the Naamathite? Very much like the modern day “Name it and Claim it” teachers? Well he believed that Job’s calamities were the result of secret sin. Zophar of course was the least tactful of all those who directly accused Job. He constantly repeated the accusation that Job was being punished because of his own sin. Job, of course, knew that his calamities somehow formed a part of God’s eternal sovereign plan, and thus the book of Job builds an airtight defense for Job’s faith. He cherished his faith even more than his life. In fact, the greatest demonstration of his faith is he trusted God even when he didn’t understand.

The reason I want you to focus on this, as you read through the book of Job, is you should recognize that far from being a magical force conjured up through pat formulas, faith is the sort of confidence in God exemplified by Job as he persevered in the midst of affliction, trusting God despite the whirlwind that blew his life in oblivion.

True faith is perseverance in the midst of the storm. True faith is the trait most demonstrated in the life of the apostle Paul, who not only fought the good fight, but he finished the race, and above all, he kept his faith. Paul’s faith like that of Job was fixed not on temporary circumstances of life, but on the author and finisher of his faith, namely Jesus Christ Himself. True faith doesn’t necessarily equip someone to get up from a wheelchair, but rather true faith teaches us to use adversity as a means of bringing people into the kingdom of God.

The real tragedy is not dying young. The real tragedy is living a long robust life and failing to use our life for the glory of God. One day soon health and wealth will matter little. All that will concern you is for Jesus Christ Himself to turn to you and say “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matt. 25:21, 23).

Only one life, soon twill be passed.

       Only what’s done for Christ will last.

Today is March 1^st, and the Christian Research Institute, the Bible Answer Man Broadcast, is engaged in March Madness. What I mean by that is, by faith, we have added all kinds of stations to the roster. We are live in all kinds of areas that we were not live in the second half of last year, and with the Gospel comes the responsibility to provide for the Gospel. The gospel is free but someone has to put in the plumbing. In southern California on one station alone, we’ll spend $14,000 this month, and that means people have to get in the game and stand with us prayerfully and financially. Why do we spend that kind of money? Because the ministry bears abundant abiding fruit! Everyday people coming out of the cults, out of world religions, everyday Christians being equipped to communicate what they believe and why, and so we’re asking people to stand with this ministry prayerfully and financially. Particularly today, we’re asking people in San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, Oxnard, New York, Portland, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Orlando, Phoenix, and Tampa, stand with us! Help us to make a difference while there is yet time. We have decided that this is not the time in ministry to retreat, this is the time for a full-court press to use the basketball analogy, and we’re asking you to stand with us. Never has there been more need for a ministry like ours.

I picked up a USA Today this morning, as I got into the office, and the headline in the forum read: “Where Have All the Protestants Gone?” And Oliver “Buzz” Thomas contends what has happened is the Protestants, albeit the liberal mainline Protestants, have taken on the very issues that have liberated society. He points out that because of the liberal church—and he gives great accolades to this—the issue of gay rights has become a front and center issue, and he extols and applauds the Lutherans and the Episcopalians and the United Church of Christ for breaking down the barriers for openly gay and lesbian clergy. The Presbyterians and the Methodists he says are likely to follow suit now. He writes:

This willingness to reject the authority of biblical passages condemning homosexuality — as Protestant churches did with similar passages on slavery and the role of women — will appeal to a younger generation who see gay marriage as a non-issue and accept their gay and lesbian classmates for who they are — not what some Christians want them to be.[1]

In other words, from his perspective, the church is finally coming around, no longer hung up on the Bible’s teachings, but rather liberating the Bible, transforming the Bible to the culture. We’re in the midst of this milleu, we need to bring people back to basis. It is not culture. It is Christians committed to Scripture that are called to be change agents, making a difference for time and for eternity. We don’t want to be a microcosm of the culture. We want to be a change agent in the culture, and we ask you to stand with us prayerfully and financially.

There is nothing more significant than the reality of Christ’s resurrection, which insures that we too will be resurrected, and our resurrected bodies are going to be supernatural. They’re not going to be simply natural, and in that sense, they will be imperishable, incorruptible, and immortal.

Our resurrected bodies shall be spirit-dominated. They shall be dominated by the Holy Spirit, rather than by hedonistic sensations or natural proclivities. In other words, our spiritual bodies will be completely ruled by the Spirit, rather than enslaved to present sinful natures.

And then of course, we’re going to be sin-free. Although Christians are declared positionally righteous before God, we continue to struggle against our sinful natures, but when we receive our spiritual bodies, what we are now in position, we will then be in practice. John, the prophet of Patmos, put it this way: “Nothing impure will ever enter [the new heaven and the new earth], nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 21:27, NIV)

If your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life, you are among all people blessed, because you do not have a peaceful way to come to terms with death. You have something far greater, a way to overcome death and disease and decay and destruction, through the resurrection. You, like your Savior, will one day soon experience that reality, and if that is true, how then should we live?