Latest / Karl and Crew / Apologetics Guide to Trusting the Bible with Todd Hampson & 2 Core Truths of Christianity with J. Warner Wallace

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Apologetics Guide to Trusting the Bible with Todd Hampson & 2 Core Truths of Christianity with J. Warner Wallace · Karl and Crew

0:00
S1: Broadcasting from Chicago, across North America and beyond. It's Carl
0:06
S1: and crew. Come as you are an experienced guide, overcome
0:10
S1: what seems impossible and live as you never imagined delivering
0:16
S1: the truth daily.
0:17
S2: If it were possible to have every worldly gain available
0:21
S2: and you're forfeiting your soul, there's no amount of gain
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S2: that would make it worth it.
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S3: Our own way never ever works. Because it's apart from
0:29
S3: the life source, which is God.
0:32
S4: For me, growing up, love was always conditional and can
0:36
S4: be taken from you. Christ's love can't. And he went
0:39
S4: to the cross with my mind and my heart that night.
0:44
S1: Now, from the call of Hope Studios, this is Carl
0:48
S1: and crew. Core truths are so transformational and we're going
0:51
S1: to have a question for you. In fact, think on
0:53
S1: this one right now. Boom. Crew. What core truth is
0:56
S1: most giving you freedom in your life? I want to
0:58
S1: give you one that a lot of moms and dads
1:01
S1: need to hear today, especially moms and dads. You can't
1:06
S1: save your kids, and that's freeing. You can't save your kids.
1:12
S1: Oh man, what a freeing truth. But the Holy Spirit can.
1:20
S1: Isn't that great?
1:20
S5: Yeah. It's the the. You can feel a lot of pressure.
1:24
S1: Oh, I.
1:25
S5: Put a lot of pressure on yourself, on every conversation.
1:29
S1: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you're right. When you when you
1:32
S1: feel like something in your kids salvation is up to you, boy,
1:37
S1: you start saying crazy stuff and you stumble over your
1:41
S1: words and you walk away from conversations or interactions and
1:45
S1: you feel like, oh, I blew it. I didn't get
1:48
S1: that right or I didn't take the perfect opportunity. It's
1:52
S1: a real trap of Satan, isn't it?
1:54
S5: Yeah. Particularly as your kids get older, because obviously when
1:57
S5: they're when they're younger, you're training them. Yeah, you're teaching
2:03
S5: them the Bible, you're taking them to church and you're
2:05
S5: trying to establish that foundation so they know the truth
2:10
S5: and can one day see the truth for themselves. As
2:13
S5: they get older, if you see that that hasn't happened,
2:16
S5: or maybe they were once walking with the Lord and
2:19
S5: have walked away.
2:21
S1: Yeah, it's it's, it's a freeing thing to know that
2:26
S1: it is the Holy Spirit that regenerates souls. The Holy
2:32
S1: Spirit convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment. What a great
2:38
S1: core truth. And there's some of you moms and dads.
2:40
S1: You've beaten yourself up, aunts and uncles, neighbors. You feel like,
2:45
S1: oh no, I totally blew it. And I mean, this
2:47
S1: can manifest itself in a lot of ways. You can
2:50
S1: have a bad moment around someone you've been trying to
2:53
S1: share Christ with, and you're like, oh, they're forever damned
2:56
S1: to hell because I got something wrong. And it's just
3:02
S1: now that doesn't give us a green light to be knuckleheads.
3:04
S1: We're called to be salt and light, and we are
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S1: ambassadors for Christ. Second Corinthians five. Matthew 516. Let your
3:12
S1: light so shine before men, that they will see your
3:15
S1: good deeds and glorify your father who is in heaven.
3:17
S1: But it's ultimately the Holy Spirit that takes even good deeds, lived,
3:23
S1: and interprets those into the hearts of a lost person,
3:26
S1: of something that needs to bring them to the end
3:29
S1: of themselves. And man, I just for all you moms
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S1: and dads, let out a hallelujah. You don't save your kids.
3:37
S1: You shine brightly. You be messengers. And I commonly tell
3:42
S1: moms and dads that'll come to me and say, Pastor Carl, uh,
3:46
S1: what can I do? And the one thing I'll say
3:49
S1: is you keep shining. Two things I would say keep
3:53
S1: shining brightly the life that you're experiencing in Christ. And
3:57
S1: if there's anything from the past that you can own,
3:59
S1: go back and go, you know what? Would you forgive
4:02
S1: me for this? And it's usually something like, man, I
4:06
S1: was so fixated on what you did and how you
4:10
S1: acted that I almost tried to use a pry bar
4:13
S1: to get you guided in the ways that you should go.
4:17
S1: And would you forgive me that pressure I put on you?
4:20
S1: Maybe a legalism. And that can be pretty freeing for
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S1: a kid, right?
4:24
S5: Oh, yeah. I mean, an apology, a heartfelt apology, and
4:28
S5: own taking ownership that can really that can be a
4:33
S5: powerful moment.
4:34
S1: It can be so good. It can be so good. Okay,
4:37
S1: so we got a question for you. What core truth
4:40
S1: has most given you freedom in your life? And as
4:44
S1: we say that, I know there are thousands of you
4:47
S1: listening right now. You go, boy, have I got it. Well,
4:50
S1: we want to hear it, don't we?
4:52
S5: We do. 805, 55, 78, 98. What core truth has
4:57
S5: most given you freedom in your life? 805, 55, 78, 98.
5:02
S1: Taking your calls. Light em up. Boom. Crew 805 557898.
5:08
S6: It's Carl and Crew on Moody Radio.
5:11
S1: What core truth has most given you freedom in your life?
5:15
S1: 805 five. 57898 Jamie. First time caller from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
5:23
S1: How are you?
5:25
S7: Great. How are you?
5:26
S1: Great. What's that core truth that's giving you freedom and liberty?
5:30
S7: I am enough.
5:32
S1: You want to expand on that a little bit? Jamie,
5:34
S1: there's got to be a back story there.
5:37
S7: Sure. Yes. Uh, it was a relationship that I was in,
5:42
S7: and I didn't measure up to that person, but I
5:44
S7: just knew God was telling me that I measured up
5:47
S7: to him, and I am enough.
5:48
S1: Boom! Boom. That's a powerful thing, isn't it?
5:52
S5: Yeah. And I love I love that you expounded on that, Jamie. Um,
5:55
S5: because the, the kind of the in parentheses there is in, in,
6:00
S5: when we're in Christ, we're, we're enough because we know
6:03
S5: that our own merit, we don't, you know, we don't
6:05
S5: bring anything to the table, but because we belong to him,
6:09
S5: we are his kid. And there's so many privileges that
6:12
S5: come with it. So we don't need somebody else's stamp
6:14
S5: of approval. So you're right on there.
6:16
S1: Right on. Jamie. Boom, sister. Have a great day in Pittsburgh.
6:20
S1: By the way, are you a Steelers fan?
6:23
S7: Have to be.
6:24
S1: Yeah. Yeah. You almost have to be, don't you? All right, kiddo,
6:27
S1: you have a great day. We're we're so grateful you're listening.
6:30
S1: Really are. Thank you so much. Got a question for you.
6:33
S1: Boom crew. What is it, Ellie?
6:35
S5: What core truth has most given you freedom in your life? 805. Five. Five. 78. 98.
6:42
S5: This is the thing. Not just that you believe, but
6:45
S5: that you have really taken ownership of, and it has
6:49
S5: given you such freedom. 805 557898 (800) 555-7898.
6:57
S6: Get to know the team behind the scenes. Follow Carl
7:00
S6: and crew on Facebook and Instagram.
7:03
S1: Man, we get phone lines lighting up here. Got a
7:05
S1: question for you. Based on core truths this whole week,
7:07
S1: what core truth has most given you freedom in your life?
7:13
S1: Love that question because I mean, it's for freedom that
7:16
S1: Christ has set us free. And it's not a freedom.
7:19
S1: It's not. It's based on grace that allows us to
7:22
S1: live as we never even imagined. It's a beautiful thing.
7:26
S1: So we're taking your calls 800 555, 78, 98.
7:30
S5: Let's go to Tim calling in this morning from Florida. Tim.
7:33
S5: Go ahead. You're on with Carl and crew. What core
7:35
S5: truth has most given you freedom in your life?
7:38
S8: Yes. The Scripture says forgetting the things that are behind
7:42
S8: the day. I realized that it doesn't say that I
7:45
S8: forgot them one time and they'll never come back to
7:47
S8: my mind. But that that's a present progressive forgetting. That's
7:51
S8: an ongoing thing. Yes. So when the enemy or my
7:53
S8: own mind brings back to me. Oh yeah. Remember that
7:57
S8: I remember. Oh, I have to forget all over again.
8:00
S8: It's fine that it comes back. And now the Lord
8:03
S8: has helped me to get into prison ministry. And I
8:06
S8: tell the same thing to the inmates who've been forgiven. Yes,
8:09
S8: the past is going to keep coming back to them,
8:11
S8: but just keep on forgetting. Every time that happens.
8:14
S9: That's beautiful.
8:14
S1: Did present progressive. Come on, man, we got a word
8:18
S1: study here. That's great. Tim. Love you, man. Boom. That's
8:21
S1: why we call you the boom crew. Thank you so much,
8:24
S1: Teresa in Greenwood, Indiana. We got you. Now, what's that
8:27
S1: core truth that's giving you freedom? Whoa.
8:32
S10: The fact that I am not. I am not in control.
8:34
S10: And God is.
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S1: Yeah, it's there's some freedom in that, isn't there? His sovereignty,
8:40
S1: his providence and sovereignty is an interesting thing because sometimes we, we,
8:45
S1: we tend to think, God, I know you're in control,
8:49
S1: but it feels like you're not at the controls. I mean,
8:53
S1: it can feel like that, right, Ellie?
8:54
S5: Absolutely. But what we feel doesn't mean it's true.
8:58
S1: Boy, that's so true. Speaking of what we feel, let's
9:02
S1: go to Dawn. First time caller in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
9:05
S1: Let's get her loaded up in there. Merle. Dawn. First
9:09
S1: time caller, Grand Rapids line for there. There we go. Dawn.
9:13
S1: What do you say?
9:15
S11: The truth that set me free was that my feelings
9:19
S11: and emotions are not truth. As a young teenager and
9:24
S11: young woman, I flew by that. And then after doing
9:28
S11: Nancy DeMoss Bible study, Lies, Women Believe and the truth
9:33
S11: that sets them Free. Man, that gave me so much
9:36
S11: freedom to respond according to God's truth. Not my feelings.
9:41
S5: So good. Don. That's a great study. First time caller
9:45
S5: from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Appreciate you. Let's go to Jenny
9:48
S5: calling in this morning from North Lake, Illinois. Jenny, what's
9:51
S5: that core truth that's given you most freedom in your life?
9:55
S12: That I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I know my value.
10:01
S12: I know who I am in Christ. I was raised
10:03
S12: in foster homes, tossed around, uh, sexually molested throughout my childhood.
10:08
S12: But now I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. The old is gone.
10:11
S12: I'm in the prayer ministry in my church. And praise God.
10:15
S12: Praise God.
10:16
S9: Yeah, Jenny.
10:16
S1: The fact that God has so embedded that in your
10:21
S1: heart with what you've been through is such a beautiful thing, sister.
10:25
S1: And you can tell by the lilt in her voice
10:28
S1: that she means it. She's living it. How sweet is that?
10:32
S5: It's amazing.
10:32
S12: Yes.
10:33
S5: Praise God. Thank you. Jenny.
10:34
S9: Wow, Jenny. Thank you.
10:36
S1: Felicia. First time caller. Trenton, Georgia. How you doing, And
10:41
S1: what what are you saying to this great truth that
10:44
S1: has helped set you free?
10:47
S13: Good morning. Uh, the Bible verse that tells us that
10:51
S13: it's while we were yet sinners, that Christ died for us.
10:54
S13: We don't have to earn our salvation. We don't have
10:58
S13: to be good enough. He loves us. And it's only
11:01
S13: by his grace and faith that we are receiving his salvation.
11:06
S13: It's nothing that we did. Therefore, if we're feeling like
11:11
S13: we're not good enough, that's not true. God loves us
11:14
S13: right where we are.
11:15
S9: Yeah.
11:16
S1: Alicia, you're a good sister, man. It is so great.
11:19
S1: And how about these core truths? Set us free.
11:23
S5: While we were yet sinners? That's such a powerful reminder.
11:28
S6: Breaking chains and running free. You're listening to Carl and crew.
11:33
S1: You know, we kicked off this half hour with something.
11:35
S1: And I've got to believe there's a lot of you
11:38
S1: that need to hear a word of encouragement, and I'm
11:40
S1: going to state it again. You can't save your kids.
11:48
S1: That hurts. Doesn't mom and dad? You can't save your kids.
11:54
S1: The hope is that the Spirit of God can convict
11:57
S1: of sin and righteousness and judgment had a precious. Really
12:03
S1: precious text. Come in here. I'm just going to read
12:05
S1: it to you. Boom crew. And then I want to
12:07
S1: respond to this. Thank you so much. I needed that
12:09
S1: reminder this morning. I literally lost sleep last night praying
12:13
S1: over my son because a few months ago he decided
12:16
S1: to walk away from his faith. As soon as I
12:19
S1: turned on the car this morning, he reminded me that
12:21
S1: his salvation is not in my hands. And she goes
12:24
S1: on to say, he made his profession of faith when
12:28
S1: he was 13. But now, after being off in college
12:31
S1: for a couple of years, he decides he's an atheist now,
12:34
S1: and it's just breaking my heart. Uh, mom? Dad, I
12:40
S1: don't know who you are. My heart's broken with you.
12:43
S1: But this is an epidemic right now. Let me just
12:45
S1: explain here. I mean, this tees up exactly why I
12:50
S1: wrote the unstoppable gospel. This is. This is right here.
12:54
S1: This is exhibit A of why? We have invited, rightly
13:04
S1: children into faith in Christ. But one of the things
13:09
S1: we need to grapple with is what we find in
13:11
S1: first John. They went out from us because they were
13:15
S1: not of us. There is a truth that I want
13:20
S1: you to wrestle with here today. That belief that goes
13:25
S1: beyond intellectual assent or raising a hand when no one's
13:29
S1: looking or walking down an aisle or repeating a prayer
13:32
S1: after me? Or do you want to accept Jesus. All
13:36
S1: of which can they be used by God to save someone?
13:39
S5: Absolutely.
13:40
S1: Sure. But by and large, what we've done is we've
13:44
S1: done it's gone on for 250 years now. It's something
13:49
S1: that is called by biblical scholars. Decisionism. And we've we've
13:57
S1: had these moments where. And Allie, your story is epic
14:01
S1: this way because my goodness, if you got a choice
14:04
S1: between heaven and hell, what are we taking.
14:06
S9: Allie?
14:06
S5: I mean, heaven for sure. Yeah. I mean, nobody wants
14:10
S5: to go to hell.
14:11
S1: I mean, there is. There's no kid in fifth grade
14:14
S1: at Sunday school class. Let's just take that grade. No
14:17
S1: kid in fifth grade at Sunday school class. When you
14:19
S1: ask them, do you want Jesus in your life and
14:22
S1: not go to hell? Of course they're going to put
14:25
S1: their hand in the air. But the question is, is
14:28
S1: that belief a regenerating belief? And oftentimes we find kids
14:34
S1: that have, quote, I've got air quotes going deconstructed. And
14:37
S1: we use that word a lot. And that's one of
14:40
S1: those faddish things that we talked a lot about here
14:42
S1: for a couple of years. Truth is, my firm conviction
14:46
S1: on this one is you cannot deconstruct what was never
14:50
S1: built on the rock, which is a intimate relationship with
14:56
S1: the Son of God. By recognizing I'm a sinner, my
15:01
S1: biggest problem is me. I need a Savior. With full
15:05
S1: repentance that releases everything that you are into the hands
15:09
S1: of God and repenting and turning around. Did an interview
15:14
S1: with Erwin Lutzer. In fact, it's one of the links
15:17
S1: in my book, The Unstoppable Gospel, and it's you're going
15:20
S1: to be able to see it. It was really a
15:23
S1: sweet time because in this interview, he says, you know,
15:25
S1: he he had prayed prayers. But there was a time
15:28
S1: when he was in his barn up in Canada when
15:32
S1: he was just crushed with the weight of his sin.
15:35
S1: The magnitude of it. And it wasn't some. I'm slipping
15:39
S1: my hand in the air or avoiding hell. It was
15:41
S1: an awareness of how much he had grieved God with
15:44
S1: his life. And it was that moment that he became
15:49
S1: a disciple of Christ. So I want to say to
15:53
S1: all you moms and dads, I know it's heartbreaking, but
15:56
S1: there's a lot of things you can believe. In fact,
15:59
S1: I'm going to give you a link to a blog
16:00
S1: that I wrote that is a, it's, it's embedded in
16:03
S1: the book as well, the unstoppable gospel. But what I've
16:07
S1: tried to iterate are 21 powerful Truths you can believe
16:13
S1: and not be born again. Now, that title could really
16:16
S1: discourage you, couldn't it?
16:17
S5: Absolutely.
16:19
S1: It could be massively discouraging. I mean, that could be hard.
16:23
S1: But I've found that if we can grapple with reality,
16:28
S1: then we can pray rightly. And I love you all.
16:36
S1: I genuinely do. My heart aches for moms and dads
16:40
S1: and people who love their kids and raise them in church,
16:44
S1: and spouses who wonder, why does my husband go to
16:48
S1: church with me? Why does my wife go to church
16:50
S1: with me and the abundant life they even serve? They
16:55
S1: go to small group. But the transforming nature of God
16:59
S1: does not seem to be resonant there. And the answer
17:02
S1: could be they have a powerless belief, but they've never
17:07
S1: stepped into true faith. That changes everything. So 21 powerful
17:14
S1: truths you can believe and not be born again. And
17:17
S1: the dot, dot, dot here. And it's this how true
17:21
S1: faith responds. So I want to give you a link
17:25
S1: to this. You just text the word believe right now
17:28
S1: to 800 555, 78, 98. And you can get at
17:33
S1: this blog, believe one word, believe to 805, five, five, 78, 98.
17:42
S1: And we'll, we'll get this link out to you. This
17:45
S1: is a hard topic, isn't it?
17:47
S5: It is. It's a very hard topic in a culture
17:50
S5: that's still, even though we are post-Christian, in some ways,
17:54
S5: I think we still consider ourselves a Christian nation.
17:59
S9: Yeah.
18:00
S1: Big time.
18:00
S5: We do. Many, many, many people.
18:03
S9: Would say.
18:04
S5: Yeah, I'm I'm a Christian. I'm not. I'm not Muslim.
18:06
S5: I'm not something else.
18:09
S9: Yeah.
18:11
S1: So take, take a look at it. And it's sobering
18:15
S1: because when you read this blog, you're going to go, boy,
18:19
S1: how can we be born again? In fact, in fact,
18:21
S1: that's kind of Nicodemus question. Well, what do you mean?
18:24
S1: I need to be born again? How do you do that?
18:26
S1: And what does Jesus say? It's the Spirit of God
18:29
S1: that's going to change us. So check it out. Text
18:32
S1: believe to 805 557898. Text believe to 805 557898.
18:41
S6: She was trying to earn her way to God, but
18:44
S6: God showed her she didn't have to. Alli is in
18:48
S6: the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
18:51
S14: Well, he used to solve cold cases and then he
18:56
S14: was born again, I believe in his 30s. If I'm not.
18:59
S5: 35. Yes.
19:00
S14: Which makes it that much sweeter. God, to take a
19:04
S14: crusty old cop and turn him into a radical Jesus follower.
19:09
S5: His name is J. Warner Wallace. He's a dateline featured
19:12
S5: cold case homicide detective and incredible apologist. He's taken the
19:17
S5: skills he learned in his detective work to apply them
19:20
S5: to the faith. How do you how does the faith
19:23
S5: stand up to that kind of investigation. Phenomenal guest coming up.
19:28
S6: Standing on the rock. Each and every day you're listening
19:32
S6: to Carl and Crew.
19:34
S1: Okay. What do you do when you got a mid 30s?
19:36
S1: I called him a crusty old cop. That's a horrible
19:38
S1: thing to call him.
19:39
S9: He's a good man.
19:40
S1: But it's a term of endearment. You know, I have
19:42
S1: those terms of endearment. What do you do when you
19:44
S1: got a guy in his mid 30s who's a cop
19:46
S1: in LA and he gets radically transformed by Jesus? I'll
19:50
S1: tell you what you call him, J. Warner Wallace. That's
19:52
S1: what you call him.
19:54
S5: Dateline featured cold case, homicide detective, popular national speaker, podcast host.
20:00
S5: That's the short version of his bio.
20:02
S9: Yeah.
20:02
S1: Tell us about salvation again. How in the world did
20:06
S1: God call you out of darkness? It's a cool story,
20:08
S1: isn't it, Jay Warner?
20:09
S15: Well, I mean, I think you're right. I mean, God
20:11
S15: has to do something first, and I don't think I
20:13
S15: was anybody who would have ever considered going to church.
20:16
S15: And my wife had wanted to go for a while and, uh,
20:19
S15: and so I just resisted, but I was willing to
20:22
S15: go in the sense like my dad would go. Because
20:24
S15: my dad's not a believer and he would go if
20:26
S15: he thought that it would help his wife. He's been
20:28
S15: married a couple times and and he thought that his
20:30
S15: wife wanted to go. He would say, okay. In other words,
20:33
S15: he thought it was a useful delusion. And that was
20:35
S15: fine with him. Yeah. So he would go. And so
20:37
S15: I would go the same way. So I was willing
20:38
S15: to go just to see what that was about. But
20:40
S15: the pastor there, this this is a guy here in
20:43
S15: Southern California who at least knew how to approach someone
20:46
S15: like me because he described Jesus as the most interesting,
20:51
S15: smartest guy who ever lived, who set a bunch of
20:53
S15: really wise things that he thought, you know, I thought
20:56
S15: that was intriguing about him. So I wanted to see
20:58
S15: what was so smart about Jesus. And that's why I
21:00
S15: bought the first Bible. But if you read through those scriptures,
21:03
S15: you'll see like what I saw, which is that they
21:05
S15: don't quite line up. They are slightly different. And that
21:08
S15: is really the texture you see with eye witnesses in
21:11
S15: criminal trials and criminal cases worked homicides for years. In
21:15
S15: those cases, the witnesses never agree entirely. And that's actually
21:20
S15: a kind of an earmark. It's to me, it was like, oh,
21:22
S15: let me test these gospels because they seem to already
21:26
S15: have this texture that I'm familiar with. And sure enough,
21:30
S15: that's how I became a Christian, really was testing the
21:32
S15: eyewitness accounts are eyewitness accounts, number one and two. If
21:35
S15: they are, are they reliable eyewitness accounts? That's number two.
21:38
S15: So so that was my process and that's how I
21:41
S15: became a Christian.
21:41
S9: Beautiful man.
21:43
S5: J Warner Wallace with us this morning. So you touched
21:45
S5: on it a little bit. What would you say were
21:47
S5: the core truths that you were looking for when you
21:51
S5: first started to examine the gospel? You wouldn't have said
21:54
S5: the core truths of Christianity, but what were the things
21:57
S5: that you needed to see that were true, that started
21:59
S5: to lead you to belief?
22:01
S15: Well, okay, so two things I would say you're right.
22:03
S15: When you're a new investigator of the scriptures, you're not
22:05
S15: looking at what are the core claims of this world.
22:07
S15: You don't even care. You know, I'm not even sure
22:09
S15: it's true. But as you get older in the faith,
22:11
S15: you do develop what you think are the core truths now.
22:14
S15: So when I first started, the core issues were for
22:16
S15: me were simple. They were just, okay, Is this the
22:19
S15: four attributes of eyewitness testimony? Were they written early enough
22:23
S15: to have been written by eyewitnesses? Because the first question
22:26
S15: you ask is, were they really there to see what
22:27
S15: they said they saw? Two can they be corroborated in
22:30
S15: some way? Three have they changed their story over time? And. Four,
22:34
S15: do they have a reason, a motive to lie to me? Now,
22:36
S15: that's exactly what we will ask jurors to consider when
22:40
S15: they're listening to a witness on the stand. It's in
22:42
S15: the California jury instructions. So I simply took that approach
22:45
S15: with the Gospels. So those were the four things that
22:48
S15: I was looking at. That to me would demonstrate if
22:51
S15: an eyewitness was reliable or not. But of course, as
22:54
S15: over time you realize there are other important core truths
22:57
S15: of the worldview that distinguish it from other worldviews. And
23:00
S15: that becomes kind of the shift.
23:02
S1: How can those four core truths exist? So clearly, you
23:05
S1: would say that if Jesus was trotted out in front
23:08
S1: of a jury of his peers, he'd be convicted as
23:11
S1: the Son of God, right? I mean, that's what you're
23:13
S1: that's what your conclusion is. There's obviously a spiritual war
23:18
S1: dynamic here. J Warner, J Warner Wallace, our guest.
23:21
S9: Right. No doubt. I mean, yeah.
23:22
S15: Because.
23:23
S1: The God of this age is he's almost like he's
23:26
S1: the new prosecuting attorney out there. Right?
23:31
S15: Well, there's no doubt about the fact that no one
23:32
S15: comes to the father except that those he calls, but
23:35
S15: that when he calls them, he doesn't then give them
23:36
S15: the evidence. Now, there's a mystery here between the sovereignty
23:39
S15: of God and the free agency of man. And I
23:41
S15: don't try to kind of bridge that mystery all that much.
23:44
S15: I think we're going to get in front of God
23:45
S15: at the end of all this, and we're going to
23:47
S15: ask him that question. And probably all of us are
23:49
S15: going to be wrong by a certain percentage. So. So
23:51
S15: I kind of feel like I don't understand always that
23:54
S15: how to resolve that. But I do know this John
23:56
S15: the Apostle, if you read John's gospel, he seems to
23:59
S15: be under the impression that the evidence matters because he
24:01
S15: has Jesus repeatedly describing the two forms of evidence that
24:05
S15: are used to convict anybody direct evidence, eyewitness testimony. Jesus says,
24:09
S15: you have witnesses got John the Baptist. You had the
24:12
S15: father who spoke to me when I was baptized. Everyone
24:15
S15: heard that you have the Moses and the prophets who
24:18
S15: wrote about me in the Old Testament. People have been
24:20
S15: testifying about me. That's called direct evidence. The other stuff
24:24
S15: is indirect. That's what the miracles are, he says. If
24:26
S15: you don't believe them, you should at least believe on
24:28
S15: the evidence of the miracles. I've worked in front of you.
24:32
S15: And you see this throughout the Gospel of John, the
24:34
S15: two forms of evidence. And when John the Baptist has
24:37
S15: an issue, he simply shows John the Baptist the evidence
24:40
S15: through his disciples, works miracles in front of his disciples
24:43
S15: and says, go back and tell John what you just saw.
24:46
S15: That's an evidentialist so there's a sense in which I
24:48
S15: was very comfortable, and I realized that, yeah, there's a
24:51
S15: mystery here. There's no doubt about it. God's sovereignty is
24:54
S15: he is always going to be sovereign. But isn't it
24:56
S15: interesting that when God presents himself to us, he presents
25:00
S15: himself in an evidential way through four accounts? Remember, Mark
25:04
S15: is writing for Peter. So this is what the earliest
25:07
S15: church fathers claimed. And if that's the case, he's got
25:09
S15: an eyewitness account of Peter chronicled by Mark Luke, is
25:13
S15: chronicling the eyewitness accounts of other eyewitnesses. He says in
25:16
S15: first chapter. Matthew is chronicling his eyewitness account. John is
25:20
S15: chronicling his eyewitness account. These are exactly what you see,
25:24
S15: the kinds of things you see in criminal trials. We
25:26
S15: don't allow witnesses to write their own accounts. Typically, I
25:29
S15: will write the witness account as I'm talking to the witness,
25:33
S15: and that report becomes the record. So the same kind
25:36
S15: of thing happens with Mark and Luke. So in the end,
25:39
S15: I thought that was encouraging to me because they were
25:41
S15: asking me not to believe something blindly, but to believe
25:43
S15: something that apparently happened in the first century on the
25:46
S15: basis of eyewitnesses.
25:48
S5: J Warner Wallace, Dateline featured cold case homicide detective. Popular
25:52
S5: national speaker. You mentioned how, as you have grown and
25:56
S5: matured in your study, in your developing a truly Christian worldview.
26:01
S5: What would you say are some of those core truths
26:04
S5: for you now?
26:05
S15: Well, two things I think what we and I encourage
26:08
S15: Christians to be able to defend these two things because
26:11
S15: that's what the Gospels try to do. Jesus spent 40
26:14
S15: days after the Ascension, after the resurrection, rather before the
26:17
S15: Ascension with the disciples, giving them many convincing proofs, according
26:21
S15: to acts chapter one. Really? 40 more. You know, the
26:24
S15: resurrection was enough. Apparently not. That's an evidentialist. So I
26:28
S15: would say that the things that are matter to me
26:30
S15: now are the things that are uniquely Christian. So anyone
26:34
S15: who claims to be a follower of Christ or a
26:36
S15: disciple of Christ, but denies the deity of Jesus is
26:40
S15: really not in the camp of Christians. The deity of
26:44
S15: Jesus is essential. Is he who he said he was
26:48
S15: in John's gospel is so clear on this. And I
26:51
S15: think John wrote it that way to kind of highlight
26:53
S15: the statements of Jesus that others did not highlight, because
26:56
S15: he realized that even in the first century, this is
26:59
S15: a hard thing to swallow for a lot of people,
27:02
S15: that Jesus is God incarnate. So that's the first thing that,
27:04
S15: by the way, eliminates Jehovah's Witnesses, eliminates all kinds of
27:08
S15: folks who would say that Jesus isn't the title of
27:10
S15: their church, but they don't believe in the deity of Christ.
27:12
S15: That's an essential. We cannot stray from that. Essential to,
27:16
S15: I would say, is the triune nature of God. Because
27:18
S15: let's face it, we don't believe. We're not polytheists. We
27:21
S15: don't believe there's God the Father, the Holy Spirit, that Jesus.
27:23
S15: These are three different gods in a kind of a
27:26
S15: plethora of gods that are. And this is what, for example,
27:29
S15: Mormons believe LDS church believes is that they reject the
27:32
S15: triune nature of God. But these are two core truths
27:36
S15: that distinguish Christianity from all of its pretenders, from all
27:40
S15: of those who might like to say that they are
27:42
S15: somehow connected to Jesus. They even have Jesus in the
27:44
S15: name of their church. Totally get it. But these core
27:47
S15: truths are ancient. They're on the pages of Scripture. And look,
27:50
S15: I get it. The Trinity, the triune nature of God,
27:53
S15: is a tough one. It's very hard to understand. But
27:56
S15: if there is a God of the universe, we should
27:59
S15: not expect to be able to put him in a
28:00
S15: formula that's so easy to comprehend. And if you can,
28:03
S15: he's probably an invention in your own mind rather than
28:06
S15: the God who created us. So I think in the end,
28:09
S15: I have to accept some difficulty in trying to understand
28:12
S15: the nature of God. But I do know this Jesus
28:14
S15: claimed to be God, and there is only one God.
28:17
S15: So we have to figure out how to resolve those
28:18
S15: two truths. And that's why I think that the triune
28:21
S15: nature of God and the deity of Christ are just
28:23
S15: non-negotiables for us.
28:25
S1: You know, we live in a post-Christian nation. Matter of fact, uh,
28:29
S1: statistics would prove out that we've got about 4% of
28:33
S1: our nation that holds a Christian worldview and attempts to
28:36
S1: live their private and public lives around that worldview. So
28:40
S1: that's a very small group of people. And I'm curious,
28:43
S1: because it was probably six months ago, I started exploring
28:46
S1: scriptures about God fearing people. Lydia Cornelius, the thief on
28:50
S1: the cross. And so we find that God in His
28:53
S1: goodness and providence and sovereignty, has prepared hearts. Have you
29:00
S1: seen apologetics be used mightily of the Lord to be
29:05
S1: the thing that unlocks something for the God fearing people,
29:09
S1: but have not had a historical understanding, the historicity and
29:13
S1: the deity of Jesus.
29:15
S15: Yeah, I do. I have, I tell you where I
29:17
S15: where it's happened for us is we started serving with
29:19
S15: Billy Graham association with police officers who have been involved
29:22
S15: in critical incidents. And these folks have been involved in terrible.
29:25
S15: They're badly injured. Often they're retired. They cannot work anymore.
29:29
S15: And they send them up to a marriage resiliency retreat.
29:31
S15: But when we get there, many of them will claim
29:33
S15: a Christian identity but have never truly submitted or actually been.
29:38
S15: I always say not. They're not geeked out about Jesus
29:41
S15: or His word. They're just not. Although they would claim
29:43
S15: this identity. It's kind of like I'm a Californian. Yeah,
29:45
S15: I'm a Californian. But you know, to be honest, I
29:47
S15: can move to Arizona. I probably wouldn't live a lot differently.
29:50
S15: I mean, I can't even tell you much about the
29:52
S15: details of California. It's not the kind of thing that
29:54
S15: shapes my every decision. It just happens to be true
29:57
S15: about me. And that's the way they kind of see
30:00
S15: their their Christian worldview. Here's what I'll tell you. The
30:03
S15: degree to which you are willing to trust something is
30:07
S15: connected to the degree to which you think it is
30:09
S15: evidentially true. Here's what I mean. I wrote about this
30:12
S15: in a book called Cold Case Christianity. I had a
30:14
S15: partner who had designed a who would pick the vest
30:16
S15: that we were going to use the ballistic bulletproof vest.
30:19
S15: And one night, as he's wearing the new vest that
30:21
S15: he and a committee picked out, so he knew he
30:23
S15: had seen this vest, stopped bullets in the range because
30:26
S15: they had shot at the vest to see how effective
30:28
S15: it was. Well, he's wearing this vest, and sure enough,
30:30
S15: a guy pulls a gun on him and he has
30:31
S15: got he's like stuck flat footed. He doesn't even have
30:33
S15: his hand near his own gun. And this guy's pointing
30:36
S15: a gun at him. So he's got this millisecond to
30:38
S15: decide what to do. Do I charge this guy? Do
30:41
S15: I try to do a gun take away? Do I
30:42
S15: duck behind the car? What do I do? And he said, well,
30:45
S15: because I knew the vest was new and it was just.
30:47
S15: I just saw it stop bullets in the range. I
30:49
S15: decided to just stop. And as long as I don't
30:51
S15: take a headshot, I. It's going to hurt, but I
30:53
S15: can survive the first couple of rounds because I have
30:55
S15: my vest. I'll just return fire. And I thought, wow,
30:59
S15: that's a level of commitment that moves you from belief
31:01
S15: that to belief in. I might believe that the vest
31:05
S15: can stop the rounds, but until I trust it to
31:07
S15: do that, I have a whole different attitude. And what
31:10
S15: I've discovered is the same is true for us. If
31:12
S15: we know Evidentially that this thing called the Christian worldview
31:16
S15: can stop the bullets, we are far more likely to
31:19
S15: stand calmly in it in the gunfight. And that's exactly
31:22
S15: what I see happening with the whole approach of Christian apologetics.
31:26
S15: Often we're getting people up there who have been in
31:28
S15: the church for 20 years. They grew up in the church,
31:30
S15: yet they've never had it impact their lives. They've never
31:33
S15: seen it as anything more than their identity in California. Wow.
31:36
S15: So now what I want them to do is to
31:38
S15: turn that corner and say, you know what? It turns
31:40
S15: out this might be entirely different. Now, I will say
31:43
S15: it in the expression, like, if you were really geeked
31:45
S15: out about this, it would be the only thing you
31:46
S15: think about. It would be the only thing you do
31:48
S15: with your spare time. It would be the thing that
31:50
S15: consumes you. You'd be studying scripture every day in small
31:53
S15: little pieces, forensically. That's what we try to do with
31:55
S15: these guys. And that will change your life. Because now
31:58
S15: you're moving from a California view to a Christian view
32:02
S15: of your worldview.
32:04
S5: J. Warner. Wallace. So much good content there. He mentioned
32:08
S5: the book Cold Case Christianity. I would just I would
32:11
S5: say that that's kind of the landmark book. But he
32:14
S5: also has other books as well that I can highly recommend.
32:18
S5: Also a podcast that's very beneficial. We want to send
32:21
S5: everything to you, or at least to show you where
32:23
S5: to find it. Just text case to 805 557898, text
32:29
S5: case to 805 557898.
32:34
S6: This is Carl and Crew on Moody Radio.
32:37
S1: Well, I had a conversation with one person, many people
32:41
S1: about why do they not trust Christianity? Why do they
32:48
S1: veer away? And interestingly enough, you get a lot of
32:52
S1: different responses to this. But specifically with regard to the Bible,
32:56
S1: this person told me, you know, I just don't stomach.
33:00
S1: And I can't swallow the reality that the cannon or
33:05
S1: the assembly of the scriptures as we see them is
33:08
S1: what God intended and that they're God breathed and that
33:11
S1: they're valid and that somebody didn't mess with them. And
33:14
S1: that's a common thing that comes our way. We got
33:17
S1: somebody to help clear this up. Todd Hampson, how are you,
33:20
S1: my man?
33:21
S16: I'm doing well. Great to join. I've been looking forward
33:23
S16: to this.
33:24
S1: Okay. Apologetics guide to trust in the Bible. Let's take
33:28
S1: that one on here first. What do you say with
33:31
S1: regard to canonicity, how the Bible was formed? How much
33:34
S1: can we trust the contents of the scriptures?
33:38
S16: That's a great question and kind of foundational to believing
33:42
S16: anything else about the Bible is believing that it is
33:45
S16: inspired or God breathed. Second Timothy 316 says all Scripture,
33:49
S16: so all means all. So we do come to the
33:52
S16: Bible with the faith that God inspired it. And then
33:55
S16: with that, there's also other what we call doctrines of bibliology,
33:59
S16: meaning we believe it's inerrant, we believe it's authoritative, and
34:02
S16: we believe it is sufficient, and we believe it's complete.
34:05
S16: Meaning all the books that are supposed to be there
34:07
S16: are there. If God is God, the same God that
34:10
S16: inspired His Word is the same God who can preserve
34:13
S16: and assemble His word and make sure that we get
34:15
S16: his message. But I get that. I get that those doubts.
34:18
S16: I grew up unchurched. As a young teenager. I thought
34:21
S16: the Bible was a book of fairy tales, and it
34:24
S16: was key apologetics that kind of led led me to
34:26
S16: my faith.
34:27
S5: Tell us more. Yeah, give us a little bit more detail.
34:31
S16: Yeah. I mean, literally unchurched. I mean, it's far from
34:34
S16: God as you can be, if you ask me as
34:37
S16: a young teenager, what I believed, I would say I
34:39
S16: was an atheist and I believed in evolution. I wasn't
34:42
S16: militantly like that. It's just really all I was ever
34:44
S16: taught or absorbed from the environment around me. And I
34:48
S16: was never, never shown anything else. But I wound up
34:50
S16: in a Christian school for a period of about three
34:53
S16: months and, um, my, I have an art background. Uh,
34:57
S16: if you've seen my books, I have illustrations in those.
34:59
S16: And my art teacher, as the Lord would have. It
35:02
S16: was also my Bible teacher and patiently answered a lot
35:05
S16: of my honest skeptic questions. And I say honest skeptic,
35:08
S16: meaning I think any honest skeptic who's truly looking for
35:12
S16: truth wherever it leads will find Christ. But long story short,
35:15
S16: he answered a lot of my questions, but I could
35:17
S16: still explain most things away. But the one thing that
35:21
S16: got my attention was fulfilled Bible prophecy. That's the one
35:25
S16: thing I couldn't explain away in my brain. And even
35:28
S16: in my young teenage mind, I. I realized a God
35:31
S16: or a being who's outside of time, is the only
35:34
S16: person who can predict very specific, sweeping historical events and
35:39
S16: have them take place. So that that's one of the
35:42
S16: key evidences that eventually led to my salvation a few
35:44
S16: months later.
35:45
S5: Todd Hampson with us this morning, best selling author, speaker.
35:49
S5: He's a visual theologian who has spent over two decades
35:52
S5: helping Christians understand the Bible's big story. You mentioned the
35:56
S5: role that seeing fulfilled prophecy played in your own coming
36:00
S5: to faith. What were some of the fulfilled prophecies that
36:04
S5: were most compelling to you?
36:06
S16: Yeah. One of them was just the series of messianic prophecies,
36:10
S16: because the two things I wrestled with was I didn't
36:12
S16: believe the Bible, and I didn't believe Jesus was a
36:15
S16: historical figure. Well, they showed me a few things. Tacitus
36:19
S16: and Josephus, some non-Christian historians at the time cited Jesus.
36:23
S16: So I was like, okay, he was a real guy,
36:25
S16: but how do we know he's God? And I wasn't
36:27
S16: shown this in all this detail, but this is what
36:29
S16: I've kind of built into my learning since then, is
36:32
S16: that there's 109 specific first coming prophecies that Jesus fulfilled.
36:37
S16: There's an old book called Science Speaks by an old gentleman,
36:40
S16: a mathematician in the 60s, who showed if one person
36:44
S16: fulfilled just eight of those 109 prophecies, it's the same
36:48
S16: statistical probability as if you put one coin in the
36:51
S16: state of Texas and and filled it two feet deep
36:54
S16: with coins. And there was one marked coin. And you
36:56
S16: get one choice, one chance to pick that one coin
36:59
S16: and you pick that coin. That's for just eight of
37:01
S16: the 109. So the messianic prophecies, but also sweeping historical prophecies,
37:06
S16: the prophecies of the Gentile empires. Daniel two and Daniel
37:10
S16: seven that clearly depict the Babylonian medo-persian, Greek and Roman empires.
37:15
S16: And then there's some really it's kind of in the weeds,
37:18
S16: but when you study it, it blows your mind. There's
37:20
S16: prophecies of the cities of Tyre and Sidon, where very
37:24
S16: specific prophecies were given from a couple of the Old
37:26
S16: Testament prophets, and every detail of those was fulfilled over
37:30
S16: about 150 year period after those prophecies were given. So
37:34
S16: pretty powerful stuff.
37:35
S1: Yeah. And they're even central to Jesus's teaching about miracles
37:39
S1: that he had done. Uh, it's amazing. You know, we
37:42
S1: don't need Flavius Josephus, but have you heard recently there's
37:47
S1: a paragraph in his wars in antiquities that had been.
37:52
S1: People had been skeptical. Did he really write it? Did
37:54
S1: somebody come in, paste it after the fact? There's been
37:57
S1: some new discoveries that have said, no, this guy actually
38:01
S1: penned these statements of Jesus and that he may be
38:04
S1: the Messiah. Have you seen that, Todd?
38:06
S16: I've read a little bit of that in studying for
38:08
S16: this book and kind of, you know, making sure I
38:09
S16: had my correct citations and vetted sources. Uh, yeah, there
38:14
S16: was what critics used to say was, well, Josephus, he
38:17
S16: wasn't a Christian, clearly. Right. But but he talked about
38:20
S16: Jesus in these in these kind lights. Well, turns out
38:23
S16: when you when you study the other writings of the time,
38:26
S16: he was being sarcastic. He was making fun of Christians
38:29
S16: by saying his disciples say he was raised from the dead.
38:32
S16: He was literally making fun of them for how ridiculous
38:34
S16: it was. So along those same lines, critics used to
38:37
S16: say many of the prophecies that I mentioned in Daniel
38:40
S16: and many more Daniel nine, Daniel 11 were written in
38:43
S16: after the fact because the oldest manuscript we had was
38:46
S16: about 1000 A.D. Masoretic text. But then we discovered the
38:50
S16: Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 that showed at 200 B.C.
38:54
S16: there had already been copies after copies, after copies of
38:57
S16: the Book of Daniel. And guess what? Every word of
38:59
S16: it lines up with the same Bible we read today.
39:02
S5: Yeah. As we've been talking about core truth, I mean,
39:04
S5: we don't have core truth without the Word of God.
39:07
S5: We've gotten some questions from our listeners about the Ethiopian Bible.
39:13
S5: I'm wondering if you can speak to that. It seems
39:15
S5: like there's a an increased interest in perhaps there's something
39:19
S5: being kept from us. There's revelation that we don't have yet,
39:24
S5: but a desire to kind of discover something new. Speak
39:27
S5: to both that quality and that temptation, and then specifically
39:31
S5: to the Ethiopian Bible with that.
39:33
S16: And then also another biggie recently is every every ten
39:37
S16: years or so, we found the Ark. You know, we
39:39
S16: found Noah's Ark. And it's they kind of keep going
39:41
S16: back to the same site that's been debunked several times.
39:44
S16: It'd be great to find the Ark. But. But that's
39:46
S16: not it. It'd be an amazing apologetic. I've talked to
39:49
S16: Randall Price, who's a consummate. He's like the Indiana Jones
39:52
S16: of Christian archaeology. He studied it for years and years
39:54
S16: and said, believe me, if it was real, we spent
39:58
S16: way too much money trying to find this thing. We
40:00
S16: would have touted it. But you have to make sure
40:02
S16: that there's not egg on your face as believers. And
40:05
S16: same thing with the Ethiopian Bible. And and I haven't
40:07
S16: studied that in depth, I'll admit that, but I've seen
40:10
S16: several other similar things. And in my opinion, any time
40:14
S16: you see something after 2000 years of church history pop
40:17
S16: up that no one ever knew, or that's new information.
40:20
S16: I mean, honestly, that's the same same scary scenario with
40:24
S16: Joseph Smith or how Islam got started. I mean, on,
40:27
S16: on a whole nother spectrum, but same kind of things.
40:30
S16: What we have isn't complete. And I have the complete thing.
40:33
S16: That's really what leads to a lot of theological error
40:35
S16: and a lot of scary stuff.
40:37
S1: Todd Hampson, our guest right now. And there's a lot
40:40
S1: going on in the Middle East And I've actually been
40:44
S1: digging into this. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. You look at the
40:49
S1: end of days and boy, there's some alignment there. I'm
40:54
S1: not asking you to call out a date or time
40:57
S1: or anything like that, but are you seeing prophetic alignment
41:02
S1: that becomes an apologetic just with what's happening with Israel
41:06
S1: right now?
41:07
S16: Absolutely. Ezekiel 36 through 38, the re-establishment of Israel gathered
41:13
S16: in unbelief. And then what we see happening right now
41:16
S16: with Iran, Russia, and Turkey in alignment is exactly what
41:19
S16: you read in Ezekiel 38. I've written a lot of
41:22
S16: books on Bible prophecy, and that's also a passion of mine,
41:25
S16: because if 80% of the Bible, the prophecies in the
41:29
S16: Bible have already been fulfilled exactly as foretold, we can
41:32
S16: definitely discern that the 20% that are yet future are
41:35
S16: also going to be literally fulfilled. But all that to say,
41:39
S16: prophecy is a tough, tough area because there's been sensationalism
41:43
S16: on one hand and scoffing on the other. So people
41:46
S16: set dates all the time. And that kind of, you know,
41:49
S16: really makes it tougher for us to teach prophecy. But
41:51
S16: if you can slow people down, again, this is the
41:54
S16: thing that broke down my barriers to belief. If you
41:56
S16: can slow people down long enough, look at fulfilled prophecies
41:59
S16: and then to say, all right, now here's what Scripture
42:02
S16: says is going to happen in the future. After the rapture,
42:05
S16: I believe an evil guy named the Antichrist is going
42:08
S16: to confirm a peace treaty with Israel and many other countries.
42:11
S16: Do we see anybody clamoring for that? Have we seen
42:13
S16: that on the table since Nixon? Every president since Nixon
42:17
S16: has tried to bring peace to the Middle East. And
42:19
S16: then this this latest thing, though, the alignment of nations
42:22
S16: for Ezekiel 38, which is the most detailed last days
42:25
S16: battle that we have in Scripture, there's tons of details
42:28
S16: we can read there. And you read it and it's
42:30
S16: like you're reading the stage setting for it right now.
42:32
S16: It is literally happening right before our eyes. And just
42:36
S16: to be careful and to allude to what you said. Yeah,
42:39
S16: There's no way we can say when that's going to happen,
42:41
S16: but we can say this alignment has never happened before
42:44
S16: in history. And it's specifically mentioned as an end time
42:48
S16: war where they come against Israel from the north.
42:50
S1: Yeah. And day by day, things are breaking in the news,
42:53
S1: like us pulling out of Iraq here in the last 48,
42:56
S1: 72 hours. And some of the the proxies that are
43:00
S1: coming out of Iran. And we don't know how many
43:04
S1: more cycles we're going to go through. Uh, but it
43:07
S1: would seem that there's approaching hoof beats unlike ever before
43:12
S1: in modern history. Is that fair?
43:14
S16: Todd that is more than fair. Uh, Jeff Kinley. Doctor
43:17
S16: Jeff Kinley, a good friend of mine, and I have
43:19
S16: a podcast called the Prophecy Pros podcast, and we talk
43:22
S16: about it all the time. That and we stick to scripture.
43:25
S16: That's the thing. You got to stick to scripture. But
43:27
S16: there's more reason right now to believe chronologically and from
43:31
S16: a stage setting perspective, that the Lord could return in
43:33
S16: our lifetime than any other generation in history. now, John
43:37
S16: said in the first century. Dear children, it is the
43:40
S16: last hour. So just chronologically, we got to be in
43:43
S16: the two minute warning of the football game right now. Yeah.
43:46
S16: And that should light a fire under us. That should
43:48
S16: give us some excitement for the Lord's return and make
43:51
S16: us want to preach the gospel, tell everyone about the
43:54
S16: Great Commission, and try to get as many people into
43:56
S16: the ark as we can before we can. So it's
43:58
S16: an exciting time to be alive.
44:00
S1: Yeah. Love the way you put that. Another quick little
44:02
S1: nerdy thing. We do not know the day nor the hour.
44:05
S1: There's some specificity there. It's not to preclude that. We
44:08
S1: may know the season. I mean, prophecy is there and
44:11
S1: even end times prophecy. Not for no reason at all,
44:15
S1: but to keep us alert to what's happening. Right. Debunk
44:18
S1: that for a second. Todd. God doesn't want to leave
44:20
S1: us stupid here.
44:22
S16: No he doesn't. Matter of fact, he ends his book.
44:25
S16: I'm an author, so I can end a book any
44:27
S16: way I want. I always want to drive home the
44:29
S16: most important things with that last chapter. Well, God's last chapter,
44:33
S16: so to speak, is the book of revelation, which is
44:35
S16: around 95%. Prophecy. People are afraid to touch it because
44:38
S16: they think it's complex or you can't understand the symbols.
44:41
S16: It's chronological. The outline is given to you in the
44:44
S16: first chapter of the book, and every symbol finds its meaning,
44:48
S16: either in the immediate context or in the context of
44:50
S16: the Old Testament prophet. So you got to do a
44:52
S16: little bit of work, but you can figure it out.
44:54
S16: And the point I'm trying to make is it's the
44:56
S16: crescendo of the movie. Nobody goes to a movie and
44:59
S16: walks out before the ending. And God doesn't do that
45:01
S16: to us either. He didn't suddenly get fuzzy at the end.
45:04
S16: He knows exactly how it's going to end, and he
45:06
S16: told us so that we can have a future hope.
45:09
S16: You know, we're great at being people of reflection and
45:12
S16: looking back to the resurrection, but we're also people supposed
45:15
S16: to be people of anticipation where we're looking forward to
45:18
S16: the coming of the Lord. And also there's specific verses, Hebrews,
45:23
S16: I'm blanking on the verse at the moment, but it says,
45:25
S16: do not neglect the assembling together of yourselves all the
45:28
S16: more as you see the day approaching Jesus. Matthew 24,
45:33
S16: when his disciples asked him, what are going to be
45:35
S16: the signs of your return? He didn't say, don't worry
45:38
S16: about it, or you guys are asking the wrong questions.
45:40
S16: He gave him a whole list. He told them all
45:42
S16: about the details of the tribulation period and his return.
45:45
S16: God wants us to know like a good, loving Heavenly Father.
45:49
S16: And when we understand the end of the story, it
45:51
S16: actually helps us understand the rest of the story even better.
45:54
S1: Yeah. And in the bridesmaids parable in Matthew 25, the
45:58
S1: one little nuance in there that's so funny is all
46:01
S1: ten were getting groggy, those that were genuinely in Christ
46:04
S1: and those that weren't with the implication, don't get groggy.
46:08
S1: I'm coming back. Yeah. And the trumpets going to blow
46:10
S1: one time. Ah, this is dynamite. Everybody loving Todd Hampson here.
46:15
S1: Holy cow. This is beautiful isn't it Ali?
46:18
S5: It is the latest book, The Apologetics Guide to Trusting
46:21
S5: the Bible. Fantastic guest. Great resource. Just text trust to
46:26
S5: 805 557898. Trust to 805 557898.