There is no question necessarily off-limits, as
long as it's decent and it's a genuine
question.
This isn't a time to stump the pastor.
You know, in the Hebrew, this means this,
you know.
Not necessarily even on what we talked about,
but just about the Christian faith in general
or questions about God.
And what we're going to do, we're going
to have Phil's going to stand up here,
Randy's going to stand up here, and you
can walk up, begin to make a line
on this side if there's anybody.
I know it's a little embarrassing, maybe you're
hard, but that's okay, trust me.
I've had to be up here for 45
minutes, you can do it.
So Phil, go ahead and stand up.
Randy, go ahead and stand up.
And start to come down and ask, it
doesn't matter what side actually either, and they'll
hold the microphone for you, and we'll try
to get through some of these questions.
So, come on guys, I know there's some
questions out there.
You can start on either side, even back
row, you guys, you can come on down.
We can't bring them, oh, there's more than
I thought.
All right, let's start.
You want to start on your side, Randy?
Hold it right, you got to hold it
right to your mouth.
Okay, if Adam and Eve were both one
color, how are their different races?
That's a good question.
Now, we'll say up front, I don't have
all the answers, right?
Well, we know that Adam and Eve, that
God created them, and then with the flood,
the world was populated.
Millions and millions of people, nobody really knows
how many.
That obviously, God wiped them out with the
flood, and then we see Noah, his three
sons, and his three daughters going on the
ark, three daughter-in-laws going on the
ark, the ark lands, and then they go
out and they disperse, and they actually, if
you email this, I could send you where
Shem ended up, the nation that he was
representing, where the other son, where he went,
and they can chart the different ethnic groups
to these areas.
So that's basically where it came from, where
the ethnic groups came from.
Good question.
This side?
Okay, thank you.
You hold it or I hold it?
He holds it.
You hold it, okay.
Don't hit me with it.
Well, I have to first take a measure
of how much my life may be in
danger.
How many other atheists are here?
See, nobody.
Ah, three or four.
Okay, I've got protection.
I'd like to review very momentarily, in a
matter of seconds, what Pastor Eidelman has said.
And he pointed out some things that I
pay close attention to.
The writers of the Bible, as I understand
it, were scattered across the sands.
They believed the earth was flat.
If they looked at a $30 wheelbarrow from
Home Depot, they would be impressed by the
astonishing technology that that would represent.
The Bible is actually an anthology, as you
know.
I need your question, though.
If you want me to answer your question.
The question is, what can be shown?
There are a few points, though.
You said these people said the stars are
innumerable.
That means only that they had a limitation
of concept.
They had no number.
That means more than we have a number
for.
Okay, so the question is...
Kepler thought there were a thousand, and that's
because he had no instrumentation.
He was taking a visual count.
Now, my point is that, as we know,
in anthropological terms, there have been about 6
,000 gods currently invented.
If God was to reveal Himself to His
creatures, humans, us, He would do a better
and more careful, I think, less sloppy job.
Why would He allow 6,000 different gods
to emerge among different segments of His human
creation?
So, my fundamental question is this.
What can you show as evidence?
That's the most important word I can utter
to you.
Evidence that, indeed, man is a creature of
God, instead of, as I believe, the other
way around.
I believe that God, and all gods, are
simply creatures of men.
Got it.
Okay.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
I don't even know where to start on
that one.
Thank you, though.
Let's talk about the first aspect really quickly.
The Bible, I don't know in the Bible
where it talks about the earth being flat,
and they had lacked knowledge.
When we look at the Bible, we actually
see something different.
I see a book that was written over
1,500 years, by 40 different authors, three
different continents, saying the same exact thing.
Now, logically, I'd say, okay, well, that doesn't
really tell me too much.
But if I look at the book scientifically,
what we just talked about, not just the
one on the stars, I mean, I could
have sat there for another hour and went
all over all the different data in the
Bible that confirmed science.
So, you look at the scientific confirmation.
And, again, the challenges out there show me
one area where the Bible is wrong from
a scientific viewpoint.
Then I look at the archaeological discoveries.
I use logic.
Oh, the city of David existed.
The kings, the religious leaders, the time frames.
You look at the archaeological discoveries, actually confirm
what is in the Bible.
You take, for example, the Book of Mormon,
which is opposite to what the Bible would
teach.
They don't have the kings and the kingdoms
and the places.
You can't go to any of the places
and see them, but you can go to
Jerusalem.
You can go to the city of David.
So you have scientific evidence.
You have archaeological evidence.
You have prophetic evidence.
That, prophetically, you can look at historical accuracy
of the Bible.
That throughout all the kingdoms, the chronological order,
you see this book that has not been...
You can throw out things there, but there's
no evidence against it.
And everything I just actually spent 40 minutes
on, the changed life, you read Scripture, and
it changes the way you relate.
You can confirm it through how not only
you feel, but everything I just talked about.
Now, people say, oh, that's how you feel.
Right, but how you feel is confirmed in
Scripture.
If you feel you've been set free from
this debt, this sin, that you love God.
Now, I used to hate Him.
Where did this come from?
That confirms, that helps to add validity to
the Bible.
Now, the 6,000 gods, I think there's
a lot more than that if you study
Hindu and all those different religions.
That always if there's an original, there's a
counterfeit.
We know that.
And God revealed Himself in His creation.
You can look at all the other religions.
Buddha actually came from Hinduism.
Hinduism, Muslims, it's works based.
Man reaching up to God.
Where Christianity, the Bible is God reaching down
to man.
So then I look at the resurrection.
If it's not just the Christians, it's Josephus.
It's Jewish who didn't like the Christians.
He says that Jesus performed many miracles, attested
to many miracles.
He was killed on a cross.
He rose from the dead, they say.
The Roman historians, the Greek historians, they all
say that this man died on a cross.
If it was a lie, if he never
rose from the dead, then we would have
nothing.
But we have something that has literally changed
the world.
Not only that, Jesus could have just said,
I will rise from the dead spiritually.
But He said, I will rise from the
dead on the third day.
So now you have these people that supposedly
stole the body.
11 of the 12 disciples were actually killed
for their faith.
Hung upside down, martyred with beheadings, different things.
They were killed because of what they believed.
And if somebody's going to come up to
you and say, listen, I'm going to kill
you.
Here's where we hid the body.
This is all a myth.
This is made up.
Nobody's going to die for what they know
to be a lie.
So again, logic, consistency.
I use all these different things, and you
look at the Christian testament, and you look
at the Bible, and to me there is
a plethora of evidence in that.
I liked what you were talking about, Noah's
in the ark and so forth.
I'd have to say that, ask if you
would agree, that our greatest gift was two
from God.
First off, when everything was destroyed, man had
turned holy evil.
The description we get is pretty clear.
There's a problem.
So he said, here's a set of people.
We're going to send them to recreate man
anew.
So then we have Jesus Christ and his
greatest gift.
And my question is, do you agree that
we've had two great gifts?
The earth was destroyed because of mankind's disobedience,
for lack of a better term.
And then God said, okay, I'm not going
to undo everything.
I'm going to send these wonderful, faithful people,
and their children, and this ark, and give
mankind a whole other choice.
Well, our adversary is stronger than anyone understands,
and that's the beginning, the first gift.
I'm asking if you agree that is our
first gift of a chance.
All again, none of this discussion is pointless,
because if he said at that time, I'm
done.
I mean, I gave you free will.
Choose it, use it.
But this is the outcome.
Yeah, I think it's the greatest gift.
That's a good point.
There's two wonderful gifts, I believe.
That being the first.
And then when he says, I can give
you my son, as in I'll walk amongst
you.
Go ahead.
No, thank you.
I agree.
Thanks, Randy.
No, if you're asking if I agree, I
definitely do.
And something that's ironic to me is when
Jesus is on the cross, the creation is
killing the Creator.
How quick.
He could have just said, I'm done.
Let's start over.
But he bore that penalty for us, right?
So if you have, if there is, I
often say this at church, if you don't
like what I'm saying, it's probably because you
need to hear what I'm saying.
See, conviction is good.
God-given conviction is good.
We don't deny the Creator because we lack
evidence.
We lack the Creator because of pride and
arrogance.
So, Phil, you guys can, anybody else on
this side?
You guys up in the back?
There's a whole bunch of people in the
back area.
You guys can come down too and just
ask your questions about anything you want.
Okay, come on this side.
Go ahead, Randy.
Are you presenting a false God in reference
to Romans 1, 18 and 19?
That all creation knows that God exists, but
they suppress the truth of their unrighteousness.
Right.
You're making the unbeliever the judge of our
Creator.
I don't understand the question, though.
Can you reframe it?
Well, let me, what you're talking about is…
The question is, are you presenting a false
God to reference, referencing Romans 1, 18 and
19?
Well, let's read Romans 1, 18 and 19.
What does it say?
His invisible attributes are clearly seen.
So the man is without excuse.
And man suppresses the truth in all ungodliness
and righteousness.
And then it goes on to say what
things result because they're suppressing the truth.
So the point of Romans was his invisible
attributes are clearly seen.
The things that are created see that there
is a Creator.
So I don't know how that's a false
God, but I might be missing something.
The false God being that you're making the
unbeliever the judge with your evidence.
It clearly says in 1, 18 that everybody
knows that God exists.
Right.
It's clear.
But they suppress the truth with their unrighteousness.
And you're presenting a God where the unbeliever
is a judge with your evidence.
In what way?
I don't even understand.
With all the evidence that you're talking about.
The evidence of morality, the evidence of science.
Why is that proving God from an unbeliever's
standpoint?
Because you're making the unbeliever the judge.
No.
It clearly says, Romans 1, 18 and 19,
that everybody knows that God exists.
But they suppress the truth with their unrighteousness
called sin.
Right.
Exactly.
But you're presenting the unbeliever evidence, making him
the judge, which is a false God.
Not at all.
Absolutely.
No.
That's what you're doing here.
No, the Bible says to give every man
a reason for the hope that is within
you.
And if you don't think I talk about
judgment or sin, come visit church one Sunday.
This is an arena to show people that
there is a creator.
That he shows us through his creation.
He shows us through morality, a moral law,
a moral law giver.
He shows us through the internal evidence.
It's showing that there is a God.
Evidence.
Exactly.
Yeah, I don't really understand the question, so
I apologize.
I'll be happy to talk to you afterwards.
Okay.
We're open to answer.
Go ahead.
Could you explain the difference between truth and
belief?
You explained a little bit about the truth,
but you didn't say anything about belief.
Actually, what you said about the truth was
correct, because gravity doesn't care who's going to
go up there.
You can say Allah, Akbar, Mary, whatever religion
you are.
But could you explain the belief?
Belief needs human agreements.
For example, I used to be a Muslim,
but now I believe in God.
I know there is such a thing.
I call it life force.
But every religion, they claim their religion is
the right religion.
So you are saying the same thing.
He died for us.
That's based on belief.
It's not based on truth.
Well, the main question is, the question is
how am I reconciling truth with belief?
What's the difference?
Truth can be gravity, or truth can be
2 plus 2 equals 4.
You can have different kinds of truth, but
what I'm talking about is moral truth.
That when God sets a standard of morality,
how to live, all these things, that's truth.
That's morality.
Looking to the Old Testament, He gave the
law to follow the law, but we couldn't
follow the law, so the Bible says the
law was actually given to us as a
schoolmaster to teach us and show us our
need for Christ.
So a person sees this need for a
Savior, they repent, and they believe, they trust,
they believe that God is who He said
He was.
And as a result of believing, they are
born again.
Belief needs human agreement.
7 billion of us, if we believe in
something, it becomes real.
You just make sure you believe in the
right thing is the key.
So, in the follow-up on that question,
the different religions, I think I alluded to
this a little bit in the message, is
all religions, all religions are do, do, do,
do.
You've got to do this, you've got to
pray a certain direction, you've got to fast,
you've got to do this, Hindu, the list
of things, reincarnation, and Buddhist, and it's doing,
it's doing, it's doing, it's works-oriented.
So what sets Christianity apart from every single
religion is our good works do not lead
to salvation.
We do good works because we have been
saved.
So it's not do, do, do, it's Christ
has done it on the cross.
It's finished, the complete work of Christ on
the cross is done.
So we believe in that, we embrace that,
and that's the difference.
God saved us, we're not doing good works
and trying to make our way to God.
That's the difference, that's the big distinction between
every other religion.
You also can look at the prophets, if
you look at Muhammad and what he, you
know, his background in Buddha, and you look
at Hare Krishna and his maidens, and you
look at the sexual purity of Christ, and
being without sin, and this perfect sacrifice, no
other religion claims that that leader, that the
founder was what Jesus claimed to be.
You just put them up, they don't even,
you can't even compare.
That's why we have the perfect sacrifice in
Christ.
This side.
Hi, it seems in this type of forum
a lot gets put merely on the Bible.
You're explaining Christianity, they're trying to explain belief,
I mean, but really what is on trial,
I believe it's the word of God.
Right, exactly.
Psalm 12, 6 and 7 says, the words
of the Lord are pure words, as silver
tried in the furnace of earth, purified seven
times.
Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt
preserve them from this generation forever.
So my question is this, can I get
a perfect, inspired Bible handed to me tonight?
Are you a King James advocate?
I mean, I'm just asking a question, I
didn't say what I am.
Let me ask you first, are you?
I'm searching.
Is that the King James?
I mean, I'm just asking a question.
But to better answer, I'm just curious what
your thoughts are.
Really, the question comes from Psalm 12, 6
and 7, so the word of God, I
believe, is on trial.
So I think what could really answer questions
is if the word of God was perfect,
existed, things like that.
So that's my question.
Now, do you mean it's on trial just
through our culture?
Well, you're explaining Christianity, but we only know
what Christianity is because of a book.
Right, gotcha.
Okay, that's a good sense.
Well, if we had some time, the majority
of translations, King James, New King James, Codex
Secanicus, Codex Vaticanus, they got the manuscripts from
two different areas.
The NIV, the English Standard Version, this set
of manuscripts is known as the oldest manuscripts.
And then the New King James, the King
James comes from this other school of manuscripts
that are, they call it the majority text,
and they have the majority of the manuscripts.
So here's the thing, there is minor variations
in the manuscripts, but nothing in regard to
truth.
You'll see differences in certain verses, maybe the
person said it differently this way in the
translation.
So, to answer his question, we don't believe
that there is a perfect Bible written from
the hand of God where we would probably
worship that Bible.
That Bible was written by men, but the
different translations have a consistent theme of truth
throughout the entire set of the Bible.
No matter if it's King James, New King
James, NIV, it's the same truth.
There's no questions in that.
But then you get into like the New
Living Translation, where it becomes what they call
a formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence.
Dynamic equivalence is when they take a thought
for thought.
So they translate the Bible.
Here's what the authors meant.
They translate the whole thing thought for thought.
I would encourage a formal equivalence where it's
actually a word for word translation of the
Bible.
So when you translate the Bible into we
support the Wycliffe Bible Translation Society and they
translate the Bible in different languages, you have
to use different words, different meanings to people
to grasp the truth.
So hopefully that helps.
This side?
Hi Shane.
Hello.
I have a good question for you.
Jesus performed miracles to validate the truth of
what he said and taught.
I wanted you to explain how the miracles
of other religions compare to Jesus' miracles.
Do you have any examples?
Just like the Hindu religions the alleged miracles
of Mohammed for example.
Jesus himself said that if you don't believe
my words look at the miracles.
I wanted you to elaborate on the differences
of Jesus' miracles, how they validated what he
said he did versus the false well we
wouldn't consider it false.
The key word is alleged miracles.
We don't see the miracles in other religions.
That's another thing that sets apart Christianity.
We see the miracles being done by Jesus,
being people raised from the dead, the blind
seeing and all these things, even secular historians
attested to many different miracles and we just
don't see that in other religions.
So that is a good point.
Thank you.
This side?
Keep coming down if you have questions.
So I used to be a big like
I was very angry at God before I
just want to say this for my question
but now that I'm a born again Christian,
which praise God for that and I used
to be a self-harmer, I used to
have auditory hallucinations, all this stuff but thank
God he saved me and I've never heard
voices and I've been a year off from
self-harming because of him and thank you.
So my question is I've been reading the
Bible for a year now and I'm in
Revelations and I hear a lot of stuff
about a tribulation and my question for you
is just do you believe in a tribulation
and if you do I hear some Christians
say like it'll come before all the bad
things happen or it'll come after.
I don't know what my question is.
What do you believe?
That's a good question.
Here's something interesting.
Another thing that comes up against Christianity is
you guys are all divided.
You're split up in different denominations.
The reason is Christianity agrees on all, they
call it essential truths.
The essentials.
Jesus is the only way, the only truth,
the only life.
Nobody comes to the Father except through him.
The inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth, the
Son of God, the trinity of nature of
God.
So these are essentials.
But then you come up with what she
asks are the non-essentials and the Bible
really isn't crystal clear on the end of
how things are going to end.
That's why there's this division.
She's talking about the tribulation.
Revelation talks about tribulation.
There's post-trib, meaning after the tribulation.
There's mid-trib, meaning that we are not
going to absorb God's wrath, but we'll be
out of here.
Then there's pre-trib, pre-tribulation rapture, the
rapture of the church.
Then there's amillennialism that kind of falls under
a different guideline where a lot of this
already took place and we're not going to
go through the tribulation.
The reason is it's like putting together a
puzzle.
We don't know exactly how it's going to
unfold.
Doesn't that bother you, Shane?
No, because I do know what's going to
unfold when Jesus said be ready for my
return.
I'm coming again.
Be ready.
That's how we prepare.
That's what we're ready for.
So that's why there's division.
I don't have a personal view on the
tribulation.
Looking at things now, it's getting worse.
I think we know.
You see North Korea.
You see Israel becoming a state again 1948
-1967 war.
You see the Middle East crisis.
You see everything centering around that.
So a lot of that points to an
end time type of Armageddon or tribulation.
But there are different views on that.
Anytime great men of God are divided on
something I kind of hold on to those
things loosely because it's not clear in those
areas.
Hi.
My question is this.
I have a couple sons.
One who believes in Christ and the other
one believes in evolution.
And I tried to get him here tonight
but he had a weak excuse.
So he's not here.
But what would you suggest for me as
a father?
Is there a book out there other than
the Holy Bible?
Is there something you would recommend?
Well what I would do is number one
it sounds like he's not ready to be
taught or doesn't want to hear the other
side.
So as a father I would be praying.
I would be putting time aside a day.
I'm a big fan of fasting.
If you have a question on that.
Fasting is starving the flesh and being in
tune with God's spirit and praying.
And I would be just contending for my
family and praying that God would begin to
open his heart so he'd begin to ask
questions.
But if we just start throwing things at
people they're not receptive.
So that's what I would do.
I would just pray and seek God to
open his heart.
Well thank you.
One more comment.
I just recently have started doing some fasting.
And I read something, some scripture I believe
in Isaiah.
And you have to have the right heart
and be in the right place and start
with your repenting.
And I'm just I think that's how it
goes.
Could you clear that up for me?
Well yeah.
If you're interested, if you go to our
website and put in fasting in the search
engine you'll have about six different sermons and
six hours worth of.
But in a nutshell we see throughout the
Old Testament that we have Nehemiah fasting for
direction.
We have all the different prophets fasting.
You get into the New Testament you have
Jesus fasting.
And what it is as Christians it's a
starving of the flesh.
It's an appetite.
And the more you feed that flesh a
lot of food, a lot of alcohol a
lot of that flesh just dominates.
If you know exactly what I'm talking about
you've been there.
So fasting is a time where you starve
that flesh.
It's not where you become super spiritual and
God loves me more.
It's a time of just seeking God and
starving the flesh.
So I would first encourage you to go
to the website but it is biblical.
But you also have to kind of know
a little bit about what happens and how
your body works.
We're so amped up on caffeine and sugar
and bad food that when we start to
fast it's a toxic meltdown.
So you've got to prepare your body for
that.
Oh yeah.
Thank you.
Hi there Pastor Shane.
I have one question.
I believe in the Bible and everything but
there's always one thing that kind of stumped
me.
Creationists believe that the earth was four to
ten thousand years old.
As scientists say it's about 3.9 billion.
I heard them say 6 billion.
Why is it so different?
I never understood why.
Okay.
It's called young earth or old earth.
A couple things.
Let me try to create the foundation for
this.
There are pastors too even friends of mine
in this valley who believe in evolution.
They believe in God but they believe in
evolution.
And they try to I know there's a
God right?
I know there's a God but I want
to be recognized in the scientific community.
I don't want to be looked upon as
one of those weird people.
So they take on evolution.
They don't look at the inerrancy of scripture
and what the Bible says.
The main reason why is in the beginning
God created and when he goes through the
days there, there's a word called in the
Hebrew it's yom.
Y-O-M.
And it means a day.
But sometimes it can be translated into a
period of time.
So you have authors such as Hugh Ross
who believes that millions or billions of years
and they try to take science into the
Bible and saying that the earth is millions
or galaxy billions of years old.
But to answer your question, just the basic
reading of scripture promotes a young earth.
Just reading it in the first day God
created this.
Second day he created this.
Morning and evening were night.
And I actually have a few points here
on this.
If you look at Providence Canyon in Georgia,
it covers more than 1100 acres.
John MacArthur said this in his book, The
Battle for the Beginning.
I would recommend that.
In the early 1800s the entire area was
flat farmland.
By 1940s nearly buildings and towns had to
be moved or nearby buildings and towns had
to be moved to accommodate the growing canyon.
Today the canyon comprises 16 fingers and more
than a mile in length.
It's often called Georgia's Little Grand Canyon.
Its features are indistinguishable from canyons that geologists
claim that took billions of years to form.
And then you have the problem of radiometric
dating.
We don't know how much radioactive material is
in a rock.
Additionally, there are many instances of very young
rocks being dated very old.
One example is a volcano in Alaska.
A rock that was 100 years old was
dated to be 5.5 billion years old.
So what happened is these people with good
intentions take the scientific data, a lot of
it is flawed, and they say, oh, we
don't want to look silly here, we better
believe that it's billions of years old.
But you can, here's a couple, PhD Russell
Humphreys wrote a great report, New Data, New
Rate Data Supports a Young World.
He's a PhD.
Also, PhD John Bongardner, Carbon Dating Undercuts Evolution's
Long Ages.
Nuclear, here's another, PhD Russell Humphreys.
He said, Nuclear Decay Evidence for a Young
World.
So you can see that the Bible promotes
about 5,000, 6,000 year Earth.
Also, the speed of light.
In Science Daily recently, there's a theory that
challenges Einstein's physics that could soon be put
to the test.
The idea that speed of light could be
variable.
And we see things forming, this must have
took 5 million years, but really we see
this canyon, this whole miniature Grand Canyon was
made in 40 years.
So what we think is maybe 5, 10,
15 million years, or billions of years, if
you just read the Bible verse by verse,
from historical context, and putting everything in context,
it supports a young Earth.
For example, when Adam was created, right?
Breath of Adam, Adam was created, he's a
second old.
Did he look a second?
He looked 30 years old.
So what God did, in a moment of
time, the age, he looked the age.
So that's what's happening.
They go to the scientific community, but a
lot of the scientific data in this area
is flawed.
How in the world do we know how
old the universe is?
Read these reports.
I can email you all these PhDs in
science are saying that it's a young Earth
in this area.
So that's why that happens, if that helps
a little bit.
Hi, Pastor Shane.
I just want to say thank you for
doing this.
I myself am a believing Christian, but something
that I've always struggled with, even with my
belief in God's Word, is the question of
suffering.
And I know it's a really popular question,
but why does God allow such intense suffering,
not just suffering, but suffering with the innocent?
Yeah, that is a good question.
And I think sometimes we do harm to
that question because we just kind of answer
it with a cavalier approach.
Oh, well, it says this.
Get on with it.
But we have to feel the heart and
the compassion of the person who is going
through that suffering.
I asked my wife if I could share
this, and she was sexually molested at 12.
I know there was a guy in his
20s who took advantage of her when she
was 14.
I still see him in town sometimes.
And it's hard, suffering, and there's people going
through difficult things.
But often it's an atheist that asks that
question.
But what you said, I want to bring
out a few things.
So life has value, right?
I mean, if there's suffering, then life has
value.
And that question is always being asked by
someone, by something that is either happening to
a person or somebody is going through something.
So it's not a matter of if there's
a God.
Now it becomes a matter of why does
God allow those things?
And I wrote down a few things here.
But this might be a good point, too,
also to remind everybody.
We create a culture that says there is
no God.
Then they act like there's no God, and
then we blame God.
Yeah, that's a good one to clap on.
That might be a Twitter post.
But think about that.
We create a culture that says there's no
God.
You teach kids they're animals, they act like
animals.
And then we blame God for the way
they're acting.
Now that doesn't quite answer the question.
I just want to throw that out there
to give us a framework.
And it goes back to what I said
earlier.
The greatest gift ever given is love.
But with that comes the other side of
that, evil.
And rejecting that love and suffering.
And the choices of others do affect us.
There are consequences to that.
And God allows certain things, not necessarily causes
them.
But why doesn't He stop that suffering?
Why doesn't He do that?
But then we're asking for, really, not a
God that allows us free will.
We're asking for heaven now.
And not being able to, and also another
reason is we live in a fallen world.
So not only is my body dying and
decaying in the sin nature, but also we
live in a fallen world.
And we know that they're suffering because of
this.
Now the greatest gift out of that suffering,
out of that suffering, is many people are
drawn closer to God.
I forget the what's that song?
Like sea billows roll, it is well, it
is well with my soul.
Do you know that that man lost, I
think, three or four daughters in the Atlantic
Ocean?
In the 1800s?
He went out back to that spot on
the Atlantic Ocean, and he wrote that great
hymn.
Like sea billows roll, or whatever that thing,
I wish I would have looked at it.
But he said, it is well, it is
well with my soul.
And that suffering, those who have been forgiven
much love much.
See, and often through that suffering, if that
suffering points us to God, you have a
very deep relationship with Him.
And then you know who He is as
your provider.
Then you know who He is as your
healer, as your Redeemer.
God, you're everything.
You hold me together.
So that suffering, I often wonder, without the
suffering, would we be drawn to Him?
I mean, if everything's going good, I don't
know about you, but when everything's going good,
my prayer life stinks.
Putting on this event really got me praying.
Right?
So that suffering, and I'm also not trying
to minimize because you know, some hard questions
were asked.
I wrote one of them down.
Yeah, about a person being raped and why
God didn't stop that.
And sometimes we don't have all the answers.
That's why I meant by you just can't,
well, here's why, here's why, here's why.
Get on with it.
I mean, you have to feel the pain
of the person, but you also have to
point them to the source of hope.
See, so many, I mean, I look back
on my life, the pain and the regret,
and I'm like, but somehow, what the enemy
intended for evil, He intended for good, and
now I wouldn't, I thank God for what
He allowed me to go through because it
drew me to Him.
So there's an interesting dynamic that takes place
in suffering.
Thank you.
This side.
Hi.
Forty-four years ago, the Supreme Court passed
the Roe versus Wade decision, which allowed abortion
in all 50 states.
Before that, it was illegal in many states.
And it's been a very, very controversial topic,
even among churches.
Some churches are pro-life, and some are
pro-abortion.
Do you believe the Bible has something to
say about children in the womb, and do
you see any correlation between abortion and child
sacrifice in the Bible?
Boy, do I ever.
How long do you have?
Well, here's the, you said many churches that
are pro-choice, many churches that are evolution,
many churches, those same churches also don't talk
about sin, they don't talk about repentance, they
don't talk about judgment, they avoid all the
difficult things.
Those are not pastors and churches, they're cowards.
They don't talk about what is true.
So, the Bible is crystal clear that life
begins at conception.
Life begins at conception.
God forms the child in the womb, and
that life begins at conception.
And God does not favor abortion whatsoever, because
that's actually taking innocent life.
It breaks the commandment.
They're taking innocent life.
And what you're alluding to is in the
Old Testament, they would, the nation of Israel
and the pagan nations would actually take their
newborn children and they would lay them on
the hot searing arms of Molech, and they
would offer their children to the God of
Molech.
So it's no different now that many times
we don't want the consequences, we want the
freedom to do what we want, when we
want, who we want, to who we want,
and we don't want to deal with the
consequences.
And it just kind of drives me a
little nuts when they say, well, am I
right?
Well, what about the child's right?
It doesn't matter.
Now, with this said, I've shared this at
church.
25 years ago, I participated in aborting my
six-week-old child.
And there's not a month that goes by
that it hurts 25 years later.
Six weeks, just a tissue.
But I have to live with that pain.
Is it a boy?
Is it a girl?
What would they look like?
So, the pain is real, the suffering is
real.
Life is real.
But God says, it's okay, come home.
He's with me, or she's with me.
And so that's how I...
So I want to encourage people as well.
You know, it's not Christians just beating up
on this issue.
We have a lot of compassion for those
who have made mistakes.
But we can't...
I mean, if...
It would not be good if I described
a partial birth abortion.
Or saline abortion, where they inject saline solution,
and the baby's fighting for its life, and
they tell the mom it's a contraction.
This is horrific, it's murder.
And the nation has the blood of innocent
children on her hands.
And people mock me for that, but you're
not going to silence me.
That's the truth, because that's the heart of
God, is to protect the children.
Next question.
So, if no father would...
Sorry.
So if Adam and Eve never sinned in
the first place, would there be still things
such as natural disasters?
As in, did the fall...
Did that, you know, cause natural disasters?
As in, if there were no sin, would
there still be death?
Well, the short answer is no.
We believe that the Bible teaches that the
fall of man, the fall of Adam, all
of creation now groans because of that choice
that Adam made.
Don't make that decision.
You'll live forever, the garden you'll tend, and
then he made that decision.
Actually, Eve made the decision when she saw
that the tree was good for food, pleasant
to the eye, and desirable to make one
wise.
She took of it.
Now, be careful in all three of those
areas.
Did you hear what I said?
When she saw that the tree was good
for food, the lust of the flesh.
It was pleasant to the eye, the lust
of the eye, and desirable to make one
wise, the pride of life.
He's going to come at you in all
three areas in your own life.
But no, we believe that that wouldn't have
happened, that the natural disasters, the things that
are a result of our fallen nature.
Here's what we want.
We want the freedom to choose, but we
don't want to deal with the consequences.
You can't have both of those.
I believe that it would have eliminated all
of that.
Back over here.
Hi.
I guess I'm just curious to know what
you would have to say about dogs.
The way dogs came about is we would
breed together, or dogs as we know them
anyways, we would breed together two dogs that
have desirable traits.
That's how you end up going from a
wolf to a dachshund or a chihuahua.
Those didn't exist several thousand years ago.
To me, it seems that's very clear evidence,
if not proof, of the theory of evolution.
You apply that same concept to nature and
the animals with the most desirable traits, the
ones that are best fit to survive, will
do that.
They'll survive and they'll pass on their traits.
That's how species end up changing on the
whole.
That's a good question.
Two things I would have you think of.
Number one is what kind of made me
really think is, where did that first life
come from?
If a baby can't even care for themselves,
how does a single cell, amoeba or whatever,
develop into a human?
How did it survive that atmosphere?
How did a plant know to grow the
perfect macronutrient and micronutrient content to feed that
body?
The body now has the ability to break
down carbohydrates for fuel, protein for muscle, and
fat for storage.
All these areas.
The food knew exactly how to evolve itself.
You just think this through, it's impossible.
What you're talking about is species.
We believe that there was one species, say
the dog species, one species, a certain type
of fish, and from those species you have
different variations of that same species.
To me it doesn't prove evolution, it would
more prove what they call micro-evolution or
evolution of a species developing and growing and
changing.
I'm not quite following how that would prove
evolution, but I could talk to you afterwards
if you have some time.
Okay.
Randy on this side.
Hi, so earlier you said that science kind
of, there's a lot of situations in the
Bible where science proves them, correct?
Yes, where science confirms.
Okay, well I would actually like to argue
that there are multiple situations in the Bible
where there is no scientific explanation at all.
One being, and sorry if I don't know
this exactly, Lot's wife being turned to salt,
correct?
There's no scientific explanation for that, and also
how in the story of Noah's Ark being
at the height they would have to be
at, not dying from lack of oxygen or
freezing to death, and I would just like
to hear your response on how those are
explained by science.
Well, the first one, we have to remember
too that God is not governed by the
laws of science, or the laws of gravity,
or the laws of time.
God sits outside of that, so that's why
we call miracles.
A miraculous thing takes place.
The creation of life is a miracle.
The wife turning to a pillar of salt
is a miracle.
Jesus, water into wine, healing people.
So we see these miracles because God works
outside of the scientific parameters.
And then the question to the Ark, we
would have to speculate, do we know what
the Earth's atmospheric pressure was, or do we
know if the seasons and the, was it
cold?
I mean, we just, these are all guesstimates.
So I don't know if science, yeah, you
can ask another one, sure.
Well, actually, I believe it said that the
water covered up to the tallest mountain, correct?
Right.
So that would have to be Mount Everest,
which is around 30,000 feet, right?
And at that height there's not the same
atmosphere.
Oh, I got your saying.
And it would have been extremely freezing cold.
Now, there are, if you look at Creation
Institute answers in Genesis and different things, Mount
Everest was actually formed as a result of
the deep and the waters breaking up, and
as a result of this huge upheaval, that's
when the mountain ranges were created, that's where
the continent shifts were created.
That created the mountain ranges.
So it didn't have to go over Mount
Everest's current height, I believe, of 34,000
feet, or Mount Witney here at 17,000
feet.
Those were created as a result of the
flood.
So the mountain levels and different things were
probably fairly low, so it covered the whole
Earth, and as the great waters of the
deep broke up, that created what we know
as a mountain range.
I mean, you can look at mountain ranges
and something cataclysmic created those things.
I mean, it's just like the sheer force
of the Earth coming up.
Go ahead.
Well, actually, and I don't know much about
geology, but I know that mountains are created
when two of the tectonic plates collide and
are pushed up, and we can even witness
things like that happening now, I believe, somewhere
in Africa, there's a location where the plates
are dividing.
So we know what creates mountains, and we
know that it's a process that takes millions
and millions of years.
So is there any explanation for that?
Well, that's what I just said.
The mountains weren't that high, so if, and
now we're talking about a God that created
the sun.
So when God says the oceans of the
deep are open, and he orchestrates this cataclysmic
event, what we could say would take millions
of years, he could happen simultaneously.
He could make it happen like that.
So the water that's in the deep, in
the Earth there, is coming up and coming
out, flooding the Earth.
As a result, the mountains, the tectonic plates
are hitting, they're actually shifting, and it causes
one to go over the other.
This one pushes this one up.
So the mountains were formed as a result
of the flood.
So the water didn't have to be as
high as current Mount Everest, if I'm remembering
things correctly.
Any more people on this side?
Let's catch up with this side.
Okay, go ahead.
Well, first of all, I'd like to thank
the Lord for the dignity of choice that
he gives us.
And, uh, what I seem to get from
people is they say, how come God allows
so much bad in the world?
Well, my question to you, and it's kind
of a softball for you, is how come
there's so much good in the world?
Whoo, yeah, there you go.
Well, you know, it's interesting you said that
because, if you just read the Old Testament,
the world was ruthless.
Early Rome, you don't want a child?
Just go throw it in the river.
I mean, you can read the history, 2000,
and it was, the world was, that's why
the flood, we see the man given over
to the depravity of his heart leads to
everybody's doing evil.
So the good, actually, we believe, and if
you look, the Bible with Christ, with 12
men turning the world upside down, now we
have people filled with the Spirit of God,
being killed, being martyred, they're spreading the love
of God, the grace of God throughout the
entire world.
Now, it's ironic, though, people are actually killed
because of the love.
That's why the message of love has now
become a message of hate.
The only way you can silence what I'm
saying is to say that it's hate speech.
Now, let's just think about this for a
minute.
If there is a God, and He says
certain behaviors are wrong, wouldn't it be love
to tell a person that?
Well, yes, it was then.
Well, see, we don't have a problem with
the hate speech and things, we have a
problem with the inerrancy of the Word.
Either the Bible says what it says, or
it doesn't.
So if we're saying, hey, here's what God's
Word says, I love you enough to tell
you the truth, how is that hate?
Because based on that definition, I hate my
children.
I'm warning them, I'm admonishing them, I'm telling
them, don't do that, that's not good, that's
not healthy, that's going to hurt.
So I hate my children.
It's just, it's very sad what our culture
has come to nowadays to call this type
of stuff hate speech.
Really, when people say that, it's because they
don't want to hear it.
They don't want to hear what's being said.
Is there any other questions out there?
Come on this side.
Dr. Rainbow, I was hoping you would come
up.
You're going to stop me, aren't you?
He's actually a friend of mine, so I'm
glad he made it.
Thank you for coming.
Thank you, Shane, for this tonight.
And I have a question I think might
give some people understanding.
In Genesis, he says, we made man in
our image.
According to our likeness, yeah.
Just an explanation on that, our and we.
Yeah, that's true.
So you wanted me to clarify that?
Well, yeah, when God, when He created, He
said, let us make man in our image.
And you see that word, what God is
using, it's Elohim.
It's the plural nature of God.
That's where we come up with the Trinity.
You'll see El, the singular, Elah or Elohim
in the Hebrew language.
So you see, let us make man in
our image.
So you see the Trinity right there.
Christ, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
The triune nature of God in creation right
at the beginning.
So that was a good point.
On the person that asked about the dogs,
isn't there God said not to mix breeds
as well?
I don't know.
I'd have to check that one.
Isn't the same one where not to mix
fabrics and the clothes?
Well, it's interesting on the fabrics.
Different breeds.
Yeah, it's interesting on the fabrics and clothes.
I believe it's don't mix wool and linen,
right?
Oh my gosh, what's he talking about?
For us, what was made out of wool
and linen?
The priest's garments.
So he's saying that people don't wear and
look like a priest if you're not one.
It'd be the same thing like me impersonating
one of the sheriffs outside.
So that's what he was saying.
Don't mix these things because then you're taking
on the appearance and the fashion of a
priest and that's dressing in a fashion, in
a way, that doesn't tell people who you
really are.
So that was the reason behind that.
This side?
I have another question.
I know it's really hard to understand.
It's something I've been really difficult for me
to understand.
It's just how this Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit work.
Especially when Jesus is out there praying to
the Father.
And some people argue that they're three different.
I've had my parents tell me, well, they're
all in one.
And some Christians saying, well, or some people
who believe it's just confusing.
I know we can't fully understand how it
works and how God and the Father and
the Holy Spirit and the Son work together.
I know we're only limited to how much
we know.
But I guess, if you can explain a
little bit how it does work together and
why was Jesus praying to the Father and
crying out to Him?
That's a really good point.
The Trinity, the reason we embrace the Trinity
is because, like she said, and he alluded
to it, it's taught in Scripture.
Jesus said, I and the Father are one.
If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
Before Abraham was, I am.
And when he said that, they wanted to
kill him.
Because they knew he was saying he is
God.
Now, there's a dangerous thing where you can
say, it's called modalism, and you can say
it's almost like an egg.
You have the yolk, you have the white,
you have the shell.
Three and the one there.
And modalism would teach that Jesus was kind
of like a ventriloquist.
He was not really praying to the Father.
He was kind of, you know, because it's
this concept of, okay, we don't worship three
gods.
That's for sure.
And so theologians have wrestled with this over
the years, and I believe if you look
at the Westminster Confession of Faith or different
councils, that the definition is God is one
essence.
The essence of God revealing himself in three
separate and distinct persons.
But then we don't think of persons as
persons.
And God, we know, is of spirit.
And those who worship him must worship him
in spirit and in truth.
So the Trinity is a mystery.
I can't really explain it other than embracing
it.
And what God says, we know that there
are three distinct, but there are also one
in the same.
So it's a mystery, and we don't fully
understand that doctrine.
This is actually cool because I felt moved
to ask this question.
In the past two were also about the
Trinity.
So my question about the Trinity is, of
course, it's very clear that, you know, with
Scripture such as John 1, Jesus is God,
obviously.
And, you know, Scripture does support the concept
of the Trinity, even though the word Trinity
is not used in the Bible at all.
And that's what, like, Jehovah's Witnesses use as,
you know, in their mind, evidence against the
Trinity.
Tell them the Bible isn't in the Bible
either.
No, I see your point, but my question
is to kind of ask some different aspects.
The word Trinity is not in the Bible.
I know, I think, in the King James
Version and the New King James Version, there's
the term Godhead.
So what's the...
Do you think it's...
I mean, I understand your point with the
whole using the word the word Bible is
not in the Bible, but what is...
How can we justify using the word Trinity
when it still kind of doesn't even describe,
you know, the Godhead in really a kind
of good way?
Yeah, that makes sense, yeah.
And it is a play on words because
even the Godhead doesn't reveal Trinity, triune, three,
the triune nature of God.
By just saying the word Godhead, you would
know that there's a Trinity.
The Godhead could be one.
So I think Trinity helps to explain that
God revealing Himself, basically He's revealing Himself as
Father in creation, Son in redemption, Holy Spirit
in regeneration.
He works in all three of those different
areas.
Those three are one.
It's a mystery.
It's an unbelievable mystery, but it's taught.
Hope that helps.
Dr. Rainbow?
Hi, Shane.
Hey, how's it going?
Good talk.
Thank you.
You know, He is my friend.
We can say that.
This summer, I want to say, this summer,
He invited me to come to His church,
and I visited His church.
And I think one of the most beautiful
verses in the whole Bible is in 1
John, which says He who loves is born
of God and knows God.
And I felt very loved at that church
by Him and this guy, too.
I do have a question for you.
I have what I think is a really
good question.
As long as it doesn't have to do
with deoxyribonucleic acid.
No.
DNA.
It's a question that cuts to the very
quick of the flyer you gave me.
Put God to the test.
And it's a question, it really is a
question.
I really am going to ask you a
question.
So bear with me here.
To feel the full force of this question
that requires a little bit of biblical context,
so I'm going to ask everybody to bear
with me for a minute to set the
context for this question.
In Luke 4, Jesus is tempted by Satan.
Satan asks Him to throw Himself off the
temple and Jesus says, You shall not put
God to the test.
And I understand the spirit of that point
that Jesus is making.
When Jesus does that, He's actually alluding to
Deuteronomy 6.16, where Moses told the Israelites,
Don't put God to the test like you
did at Massa.
And Massa is where they were thirsty.
And they told Moses, Give us some water.
And then Moses got angry.
Actually, I'm a little off topic here.
That's an interesting text because the people actually
didn't do anything that bad there.
All they did was demand that Moses give
them water.
And then Yahweh comes to Moses and says,
Hey, go strike your staff on the rock
at Horeb and water will come out of
it.
And He does it and water comes out
of them.
That's a little bit off the main topic
of what I'm saying.
But also, a little more context for my
question.
I'm well aware in Christian theology of the
importance of faith.
Hebrews 11.1, without faith, it is impossible
to please God.
And whoever would come to Him, or no,
Hebrews 11.1 is faith is the assurance
of things hoped for and the conviction of
things not seen, which relates to the question
I'm going to ask you in a moment.
And then Hebrews 11.6, without faith, it
is impossible to please God.
For whoever would come to God must believe
that He exists and that He's a rewarder
of those who seek Him.
Okay, now this relates to putting God to
the test.
It seems to me, from my knowledge of
the Bible, that both the Hebrew Bible or
what you would call the Old Testament, which
is an insult to Jews, but anyway, the
Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament through
and through, in places almost too numerous to
count, Yahweh or Elohim or Jesus Christ, the
three main names of God in the Judeo
-Christian scriptures, all three of those gods who
I know are the same God in Christian
theology, they are very concerned with God making
Himself known to people in an explicit way
with what are called over and over again
throughout the Bible signs and wonders.
Okay, I have so many written down here,
I'm kind of overwhelmed with it all, but
just to take a couple examples at the
Exodus, signs and wonders given by Yahweh.
In fact, Yahweh at the Exodus is so
interested in giving, in displaying signs and wonders,
He's so into it that He actually tells
Moses, I'm going to deliberately harden Pharaoh's heart
just so I can show more of my
signs and wonders to the world.
That's in Exodus.
Or another example would be if you jump
up to the New Testament, Peter in his
great sermon and I think Acts 3 or
thereabouts, he talks about the signs and wonders
that Jesus performed.
And the entire, backing up a little bit,
the entire Gospel of John is centered around
seven signs that Jesus performed to the world.
The first of which was the wedding, turning
water to wine at the wedding at Cana.
The last of which was healing a man
born blind during the festival of lights in
Jerusalem.
And just before that, raising Lazarus from the
dead.
So the question is maybe why God doesn't
do that today.
So, and then if I could give two
more examples that really cut to the chase
for me here.
The Apostle Paul, Saul, I'm setting up the
context here for the question.
The Apostle Saul, Saul, later the Apostle Paul,
who described himself as the chief of sinners.
He described himself as the worst sinner in
the world.
Maybe because he was holding the coat of
people who were stoning Stephen to death and
stuff like that I guess.
So a guy who by his own admission
is even worse than me as a sometime,
half the time atheist, half the time agnostic,
and a person, an evolutionist who was warmly
welcomed by the people at your church.
So, Paul, the chief of sinners, an unbeliever,
got knocked off his horse on the road
to Damascus by Jesus who apparently made a
personal appearance to him.
And I could go, this page has about
20 examples showing that Yahweh, Elohim, Jesua Christos
is extremely into manifesting himself to both his
people and also even unbelievers.
Even the worst of unbelievers.
Okay?
So with all that as context, I would
like to respectfully, I'm asking this respectfully because
you know I'm your friend.
I'm not asking this in a mocking way
at all.
I would like to ask why God now,
anyway, oh, the ultimate example of God showing
himself to people was at the incarnation where
Christ who is quote the image of the
invisible God becomes a man.
That's the ultimate sign that God gave to
people.
Let me not leave that one out.
Okay.
So with all this as context, how come
God doesn't now show signs and wonders today
including right now.
Right here, right now.
How come he doesn't appear as a burning
bush?
I'm not joking.
You know, light a chair on fire or
something.
A burning chair.
Okay, I'm serious.
Or at Pentecost where tongues of fire came
down upon people and people from all over
the world were blown away because these disciples
suddenly started speaking in foreign languages.
Like what if, I'm sorry brother, what's your
name again?
Randy.
Like, what if Randy suddenly started speaking to
me in Hindi?
Okay.
Or what if, you know Spanish?
I know a little bit of Spanish.
What if you suddenly started speaking to me
in Spanish?
See, that would be incredibly impressive.
Right, right.
So God he's not he's not too tired.
Is God too tired to do this?
No.
Is God too busy to do this?
No.
Is God too proud to do this?
That's an interesting one.
Some might say, oh Dr. Rainbow you're getting
up here as an unbeliever and you're asking
respectfully, how come God doesn't appear to you?
And some people might say, well Almighty God
you know, why should he show himself to
this upstart arrogant professor at ABC?
Why should he do that?
But my reply to that and there may
be some validity to that but you know
what my reply to that would be?
According to your scriptures Jesua Christos the third
member of the Trinity died naked on a
cross for me.
That's what it says.
I don't believe that.
I'm not trying to pretend that I do
but your scriptures say that.
He died naked nailed to a Roman cross
for me.
And as Paul talks about in Romans 5,
Paul makes what's called an a fortiori argument.
An argument from the greater to the lesser.
If the more difficult of two things has
happened, how much more so can this simpler
of two things have happened?
And Paul says in Romans 5, you can
help me quote it.
He says if Christ died while we were
yet sinners if Christ died for us then
how much more will he save us through
his son.
I'm paraphrasing that.
We all know that text.
If Jesus did that for me, if he
died for me naked on a cross with
all the shame that's involved, probably defecating like
crucified men did when they were crucified.
Stuff like that.
If he did that for me, do you
think he's too proud to show up to
me right now?
I don't think so.
That's my question.
Well there's boy, Old Testament, New Testament.
Let me just share a few things that
come to my mind.
You did jump all around in good spots.
The Pentecost was the Holy Spirit coming upon
the church.
And these believers, they repented, they believed and
God filled them with his Spirit.
And the tongues, the gifts of the Spirit,
those were a result of being filled with
the Spirit.
But then we also read Jesus said, blessed
are you that you believe you see me,
but blessed are those who believe without seeing.
And I think, at least in my life,
yes, there was a point where you know
what, you show me God and then I'll
believe.
It's the wrong heart.
So I think a person has to come
with the right heart and say, Lord, I
believe in who you are even if you
don't show me.
Because showing to me would almost be a
force.
Well, obviously, God puts a gun to your
head, now you believe me?
Oh, now I do.
You know, it's not coming with the right
heart.
And also, Yeah, let me finish this one
point.
On the miracles, the Bible was clear on
it was given to authenticate the message of
the gospel.
That was the whole point of the signs
and wonders and miracles.
And if you talk to missionaries on the
mission field, they are seeing signs and miracles
and wonders and things doing marvelous things.
Personally, I think we've become so comfortable in
America, so arrogant in America, that we don't
see God manifesting or revealing himself in the
way he could.
Go ahead.
There's some validity to the point you made
about well, the point you just made reiterates
what I said from Hebrews 11, 6, that
without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Right.
For whoever would come to God must believe
that he exists and that he is a
reward of those who seek him.
But see, the counter-argument to that would
be, there are many places in the Hebrew
Judeo-Christian scriptures where God comes blasting in
full power to total unbelievers.
Two examples, Paul.
Paul didn't have any faith in Jesus.
Jesus, just all the evidence in that text
indicates that Paul was on his way probably
to kill more Christians, if anything.
And Jesus, you read between the lines, and
it's like Jesus saying, hey, Saul, I'm going
to come in and nuke you, and I'm
going to make you the most powerful exponent
of Christianity in all of history.
And no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
I'm going to do this to you, whether
you like it or not.
I'm going to create something in you that
wasn't there before, which is faith, which is
itself a gift from God, according to the
Bible.
So why not?
And also the prophets of Baal, with Elijah.
Why don't we get lunch?
But let me, oh, we got to go
in a minute?
Okay.
This is the last question.
I'm getting the cue here.
The prophets of Baal, Elijah and Mark Carmel.
Those weren't believers.
They were believers in Baal.
And he nuked them.
And Elijah said, here, douse the wood three
times.
Well, you have to, it's interesting, in a
scripture you quoted, he's a rewarder of those
who, you actually forgot a word, diligently seek
him.
And that word seek is bakash in the
Hebrew.
It's the heart that's wanting to receive God.
So if I've got a hard heart, you
better show me or I'm not going to
believe.
God has no mandate to reveal himself to
that type of heart.
But also, I love you enough to tell
you the truth.
I think you're wrestling with some things.
And I believe if you said, other thing
about Paul, how do we know that he
wasn't sitting on his horse going, what am
I witnessing?
Did we just martyr this guy?
He gave the perfect New Testament.
He was unschooled.
How do we know he's not struggling going,
God, show me who you are if you're
real.
If I'm going in the wrong direction, I
need to know.
So I think we read into scripture sometimes
things that we just don't know.
And God could reveal himself because Paul was
open and teachable in searching.
Because we don't know either way.
So we can't read into scripture things that
aren't there.
So my encouragement would be, if a person
truly seeks him, they will find him.
Say, God, I want to know you.
I want to know you.
Show yourself to me.
He will answer.
Let's get lunch though.
For sure, let's get lunch.
I took a three hour class of his,
evolution class.
Brilliant teacher.
Thank you for that opportunity too.
With that said, nobody knew I was friends
with Dr. Rainbow, did they?
It's a big surprise.
You know what?
We are going to end this evening because
we've got to go.
But we will be open for questions.
If you have questions, email us.
That's probably the quickest way, the best way.
Email our website or come visit us on
a Sunday.
I usually stay after to answer questions and
meet with people.
So with that said, I'm actually going to
pray.
It's okay.
We can do that here, right?
Lord, I thank you for this time together.
God, I pray that you would get this
message out to those who need to hear
it.
Lord, those who are broken, those who are
even mocking this message as I spoke, you
would pierce their hearts.
You would show them who you are.
Show them you love them.
Show them they need to return from this
rebellion.
And you will create in them a clean
heart.
You will renew in them a right spirit
if they repent and believe.
And we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.