Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast. My name is Kosti Hinn, and I get the pleasure of hosting this podcast. And I'm here joined today with two very special guests who I'll introduce in just a moment. But want to remind you, our ministry is all about providing sound doctrine for everyday people. Sort of the picture we've been putting in front of you is we want to bring the cookies down from the top shelf. There's a lot of big words, a lot of big theology, but we serve a God who mercifully has put things simply in his word for us to understand and live. And so we're excited to dig in today. If you haven't already subscribed, be sure to do that on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and you can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and more. And if this podcast has been a blessing to you, will you please share it, rate it, uh, review it, because that helps us with search engine visibility, and so more people can be blessed by the material if you have been as well. Uh today I want to introduce our digital platforms director, Reagan Rose. Reagan, thank you for being with us today. Oh, great to be here. Awesome. And uh, we have the privilege today of talking with one of the most prorific authors and resourcers, I would call him, a Bible resourcer in our era, in this generation. He is the author of more than 50 books, including the book Heaven, and a book called Eternal Perspective, and another book, I could go on and on, uh called The Treasure Principle, but one more that's been a personal blessing to my wife and I when we received our youngest son's cancer diagnosis is a book called If God is Good. We're gonna talk a little bit about that as well. And uh his ministry and his life, his writing, his resourcing has all really pointed to Jesus and helped people maintain or even gain an eternal perspective. Randy Alcorn, thank you for joining us on the For the Gospel podcast, my friend.
SPEAKER_02My pleasure, brother. Good to be with you.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, I want to jump in right away and use our time wisely. Um, first, I want people in our audience to get to know you and get a little idea of your background and what have uh what you've been through and where all of this came from today, from authoring books and doing ministry. Uh, we know that it didn't just happen in a microwave, but more like an oven over time. Um, but if you would be willing, take us back and share how a ministry like eternal perspective ministry started and really what what triggered all of your uh really your calling and your purpose as a person who writes and teaches and preaches the word of God.
SPEAKER_02I first became a pastor way back in 1977 when I was uh 22 years old. So I had all the wisdom of a 22-year-old as we uh started our church uh and uh and uh was a pastor there for 13 years and thought I was gonna be a pastor there the rest of my life. I'm still part of that same church, uh Good Shepherd Community Church in Boring, Oregon. It's actually named Boring. Yeah, so there used to be uh a uh a group of pastors that would meet together that was called the Boring Pastors Fellowship. So there you go. Yeah. So anyway, um, we started that church, it was terrific. I mean, it had all the challenges of a new church and all, but uh just explosive growth and moving from uh a Grange Hall to a high school to building a building on a property and outgrowing that, and and just God's graciousness, and and and it wasn't just the numerical growth, of course, it was just the God at work in people's lives. So again, I I would have thought if you would have asked me in 1988, what do you think you're gonna be doing um 40 years from now? Because I I was I was young back then, well, you're gonna do 40 years from now. I I would have thought I'll still be a pastor at this church. I love it, it's what I do, and but God had other plans. And uh, we opened our home to a uh girl who had had a couple of abortions, uh, but she was only uh 18 years old, uh and she'd been kicked out of her house, uh, an unbelieving home. Um, opened our home to her, she was pregnant again. Uh, she lived with us. Uh, we helped her place uh her child for uh adoption. And meanwhile, God was just giving a growing concern for women uh who uh were facing um unwanted pregnancies and were tempted toward abortions and many who had already made decisions in that area. I was asked to be on the board of the first uh pregnancy resource center or crisis pregnancy center called then um in our area. At the time, there were only uh 12 others in the country from the Christian Action Council, most of them were back east. Uh, I was asked to be on the board of that brand new uh center. So developing this pro-life concern. Well, then in 1989, uh I was uh introduced to the concept of peaceful, nonviolent uh civil disobedience at abortion clinics. If these are really children, the logic was why don't we act as if they're children? Because if these were two-year-olds or five-year-olds that were being taken down, and like uh our largest clinic in the Portland area, 40 or 50 of them were being killed um, you know, every every Saturday and then other days of the week as well, but we would often do this on Saturday. Um, and so if older children were being killed, wouldn't we do more than just say we're against it and even do more than pray? Uh in addition to the praying, wouldn't we do other things? So uh we did that, and uh that was um there's parts of the country, Bible Belt, um Midwest, South, where that could be done in a way that was respectable, where a lot of people were supportive of you. Um, let's just say in the Pacific Northwest, and specifically in Portland, Oregon, uh, that was not acceptable uh behavior. I mean, you you could chain yourself to a tree uh to keep it from being cut down, and that was you know highly respectable. But to to do this on behalf of unborn children was um unthinkable. Uh and uh and it's still that way. In fact, uh recently there was a Gallup poll just last year. There's a Gallup poll. Most atheistic cities in the United States of America. Portland was by itself at number one, and tied for second were San Francisco and Seattle. So that would give you some uh idea of the way it is in Portland and um uh and and the way it was even back then. Um but we got hammered. Uh so uh I was arrested, uh, did nine of these in a one-year period. Um, again, totally peaceful. Uh there would be footage that people would use from other parts of the country where people were yelling and screaming and pushing, and it wasn't happening in Portland, so they just used footage from other parts of the country. It didn't say it was from other crazy. You'd watch the news and go, I don't know any of these people, and I was there, and I know all those, I know all the people that were with me, and not one of them is I mean, crazy stuff was happening. Then uh we were uh sued uh by uh the uh one of the abortion clinics where we had done this, in addition to just going to jail, usually being released that day, um the longest I was in was just a couple of days in a jail in Portland. Uh, but you can imagine as a pastor yourself the tension that this created because most people don't want their pastors going to jail. Let's just do that.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_02You know, to say it. Uh of course, there's other cultures in which pastors often go to jail. You know, I've ministered in China and visited and wrote my novel Safely Home based on time that I was there. And, you know, that is acceptable and even respectable uh historically in China, but certainly not in the United States. So there were tensions in my church, there were tensions, uh huge tensions in the community. And bottom line, uh, this one big lawsuit uh came against us. Uh there was actually an earlier lawsuit, which resulted in my having to resign uh my position as a pastor because they came to uh garnish my wages from the church. And so uh I didn't want the church to have to face that. That wasn't fair to the church, um, and have to make a decision of whether to write out a check to an abortion clinic. I was just not going to allow that to happen. So I resigned knowing this was just about to happen um because it was happening to other people. Uh I resigned just before they did it and allowed the church to pay me what they owed me for that month. Then I was done uh immediately. So here I was uh at that point, let's see, I would have been uh 35, and uh I am um had been a pastor for almost 14 years, 13 something. Uh and um and I resigned and we had to figure out what am I gonna do. And one of the bottom line things was anything more than minimum wage that I would make from that time forward would be garnishable. So um we committed ourselves, we're gonna, I'm gonna make minimum wage. You know, that's what I'm gonna do. So we started a ministry, the ministry paid me minimum wage, we took all the royalties from my books. Um, and at that point I'd only written like three books, and uh we said we're gonna give those to the Lord, um, God's kingdom. And we started that ministry, eternal perspective ministries, emphasizing um pro-life missions, and the whole concept of living uh in light of eternity. Those were kind of the heartbeat of what we were doing, and God has uh used and blessed that ministry uh in an amazing way since then. But we said 100% of the royalties uh from my books uh are now going to go to Eternal Prospective Ministries. I I essentially gave the books to the ministry, and that's how we decided to use it. So amazing things started happening, one of which was that those books, which had sold okay, suddenly became bestsellers. And it was like, how did this happen? And you can look at that and you could go, oh, well, this is like the hundredfold blessing, right? This is health and wealth gospel, all that. Well, it was kind of the opposite of that. It came out of um sort of an adversity gospel, not a prosperity gospel, and we weren't getting and keeping that, it was going to God's kingdom. So we were able to see firsthand the beautiful things that God did and brought out of this situation. It was like the uh Genesis 49 with Joseph, um, which is kind of the um the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 8.28, you know, that his brothers intended it for evil, but God intended it for good to save many lives. And it was a beautiful thing.
SPEAKER_00Wow. So how this is more of a practical question, and probably maybe one that a lot of people think of and would be going, man, I hope somebody asked that. I'm just gonna ask it, and you still gotta be my friend after Randy. But so too personal, maybe. But how like come on, you're 35, so I'm 36, and I think I got four kids right now. If you took away and made me make make minimum wage, uh I we're not wealthy by any stretch, we're rich in the first world, of course, all of us are, but I mean, how I got kids, like my son eats everything in a day, groceries. I could not afford to I well, I could, but I know what life would be like. How did you guys make it on practical levels?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh, there were a number of uh great things that the Lord did. One is at first my wife worked uh part-time for the ministry. Um, so she was able to make basically the same amount that I was making, probably more per hour.
SPEAKER_00Got it.
SPEAKER_02So she was allowed to work without yeah, so we sure, but but it still was a challenge. I mean, it was I mean, not that I was overpaid as a a pastor, but I made a lot more money as a pastor uh than our combined you know income uh was. But uh there was that, and and then of course the the ministry that came up with creative ways like uh the ministry uh owned our used car and then allowed us to use it because I was using it for ministry. So there were things like that, you know, and creative things along the way, but we certainly did um have to be more conscious of how we live. Fortunately, I had written uh one of the books I had written was um called Money, Possessions of Eternity. The book is still in print and I've updated it. And uh, but but that book had really, or the research on that book had really grabbed hold of me. And some of the things that I later wrote about, like in the treasure principle, um, that you know, uh you can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead, you know, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, uh, not on earth. Use your earthly treasures to invest them in heavenly treasures, things that will last forever. So fortunately, we were already living on a lot less than our income. And we were receiving royalties uh in those days. So it was way less than our income. So we took that practice into the ministry. We actually had paid off our instead of the 30-year mortgage we had paid off in 15 years, um, and we literally paid off our mortgage three weeks before I had to go on minimum wage. Of course, we we had no idea this was coming. So so it was like in the providence of God, what are the chances that the first month that we will not have to pay our house payment will be the first month that I have to make minimum wage?
SPEAKER_00God's timing. That's incredible. Thank you for answering such a personal question, too. I know I'm sure I know you're so open, but I mean, it's just it's incredible, but it also is not that unbelievable because it is just like our God to honor his word and to provide and to write those kind of storylines. So now I'm assuming uh for you it's been all you know bestsellers and you know big houses and health and wealth and good times, right? You've been just hanging out in the palmas. Living the dream. Look at you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we had to kind of exchange some personal dreams for God's kingdom dream dreams, and and those are much better, of course, and we'll pay off for eternity. But um, no, God did bring us much joy, and and life in so many ways was really good, but not so much in the material sense, although let me throw this in before I more fully answer that question. Uh, to sit down with our children uh and say to them, look, kids, um it looks like you probably aren't going to be able to go to your private Christian school anymore, because uh that'll take a big chunk out of that minimum wage, you know. Um and uh, but but God'll, you know, if God wants you to still be there, he'll provide. Well, without us ever saying anything to anybody, somebody comes forward, we don't know to this day who it was, and pays tuition for our daughters um so they could finish out their private Christian school and then go to public high school, which had been our plan for them to do anyway. But so God provided in in so many ways, and life really was good, but not always good in the material sense, not always good in the wealth sense, and not always good in the health sense. In the health sense, uh in uh 1985, uh which was just four years before this um uh happened, the that I had to resign from uh the church ministry, um I became an insulin-dependent diabetic. And uh it was uh type one, not the type two. I got it pretty late for type one, it's the type that usually kids get it or teenagers get it, maybe early 20s, but I actually got it in early 30s. And so it affected my life and it humbled me in a lot of ways because I'd been very physically strong. I'd always been able to accomplish things, I didn't have to have that much sleep at night, you know, and and not not requiring much sleep uh comes in handy when you're a pastor and you have young children, uh, you know, is you're not gonna get it anyway. Um and um and you know, mentally, usually being able to hold my own. And all of a sudden now I've got a disease that's affecting me physically, and also every time I have a low blood sugar, it's like I'm I become stupid. You know, it's it's like I or or or drunk or something. It's because I'm not thinking clearly, I'm splurting my speech, and and so these will come on, and every insulin-dependent diabetic or or anyone who lives with one knows what that's like. Wow, buddy, you are not making sense. Uh, eat a cookie or something. I mean, get some orange juice, you know, you just get that blood sugar out. Um, so there was that. Fast forward uh years, now fast forward to other challenges along the way uh for both my wife and myself, but almost three years ago now, uh Nancy was diagnosed with colon cancer, and it kind of shocked us. There had been no previous signs of it, and it was pretty serious. Um, and uh we just had to uh deal with that, and so there was uh radiation, um uh there was um chemotherapy, um, there was surgery, and then later it was no longer in the colon, but it had spread to the lungs, and then she had to have two lung surgeries late just la as recently as last year, just well, one of them was about a year ago, and another was um not that far uh after that, and she had two lung surgeries, and uh 30% of her lung capacity uh is now gone. So then, right after the second surgery comes this pandemic that you may be aware of that does what affects the lungs, it's a it's a lung disease, and so now she's lost 30% of her lung capacity. Uh, we're both old enough, both over 65, that we're kind of in a high-risk group, and supposedly I'm in a high-risk group because of my insulin-dependent diabetes, but I don't think in those terms, but when you think in terms of a lung lung cancer and lung capacity reduced, boy, it's it has been a challenge. Now, the beautiful thing is I have seen God do a work of grace in Nancy's life, parallel to the work of grace he did in both of our lives when we started the ministry and in the lives of our children, and how they saw God provide, and how they couldn't have all the things that a lot of their friends had, and yet they still, again, as you said, I mean, all of us in this culture, uh, even people who live at poverty level are in the 97th percentile globally, some of them in the 98th percent. Uh and so I don't minimize US poverty. It's real and it's terrible, but compared to the rest of the world, you know, anybody that's even lower middle class here. So yeah, it was those challenges were secondary. God brought great rich things in our lives. And what I've seen happen in Nancy's life, oh my word, her time in the Word, her time every morning reading Um Paul Tripp's New Morning Mercies and reading one of uh not morning and evening, but one of Spurgeon's other devotional. Books, uh, her journaling. I mean, she has been such a model to me, such an example. Uh, it has been, it's been crazy good, the work he has done uh in our lives. And uh Nancy and I have both said this is no, we don't like the cancer, no, we don't want the cancer. Yes, we keep praying, God will take it away. Um, but we're content with if he doesn't take it away, he doesn't take it away. He doesn't always heal. Uh and he all and he often will answer prayer in a way that's not to the fullness of what we pray for, because we keep praying for complete healing, and we will, we will keep praying for it, but he'll give us things where the growth of the cancer has slowed down or it's minimal. We got good test results uh from her just yesterday, and living life from test to test, but not finding our joy based on the tests and the worry about the tests and the outcomes of the test. But as Nancy has said to me, you know, well, we all know I'm going to die. We all know you're going to die. I mean, uh life shows us this. Uh, every atheist knows everybody's going to die. Um, everyone who knows God's word knows that our our our days are numbered, uh, they're limited. Uh do you know any um 130-year-old faith healers? No. Uh, I mean, everybody's gonna die, right? Um, and so uh we knew that already, but God has given us the grace now of living our lives, knowing that, hey, we were on a vacation and we go, we don't know whether in this life we will ever be able to go on a vacation again. Because if this gets worse, um that that could be the end uh of the vacation. Well, the thing is, well, you only live once, so grab for all the gusso. Well, actually, you don't just live once on this earth, you live twice on this earth, and the other the second one will never end. That's the new earth. It's not just that now we go to heaven where the angels live and we'll drift around as disembodied spirits. It's the promise of resurrection and ringing with Christ on a new earth, and so any place we what was on our bucket list, which is a whole nother thing, what what bucket list for what? For this life. Well, what about an eternal bucket list in which all that will bring us joy will be eternally available for us to do? And if you wanted to visit someplace in the world, if you wanted to go to Lake Victoria in Africa and that was a lifetime dream and you never made it, and now you're in your 80s, or now you're sick and you're not gonna be able to ever go there. Well, there's gonna be a new earth, why not a new Lake Victoria? You know, why not a new Arizona, a new Oregon, a new Portland? It would have to be transformed a great deal, but God specializes in that. I mean, so this is eternal perspective, and this is what we have learned. This is what I've seen in Nancy's life, I've seen it in my life, I've seen in the lives of our now growing kids. I'm seeing it in the lives of our grandkids now. It's a beautiful thing to see.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I've got about 50 questions now, just based on that alone. But Reagan, let me get out of the way here. I know you want to ask a little bit about eternal perspective. And so take us wherever you want us to go, but you've touched on some huge points, Randy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Um, Randy, your books have been tremendously impactful in my own life, especially Heaven and uh the treasure principle, and seeing my hope kind of crystallized and clarified and what I'm looking forward to, having a clearer vision of that. Uh it it's it's been interesting, I think. You know, I've I've read Heaven a couple of times. We're gonna talk about that more in a little while, but uh it was interesting to see how more and more areas of my life started to be affected by the worldview shift that that sort of unraveled in me. That I started to see that even my hobbies were affected by this this mental shift. And you've you've touched on some of the points already in your in what you've been telling us, but I wonder if you could crystallize it. Why is having an eternal perspective so important for Christians?
SPEAKER_02Well, let me great question, and and let me just read uh two verses here from 2 Corinthians 4. Um, actually, three verses, I'll start in verse 16. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. Well, I mean, even related to the ministry that you guys have, isn't that interesting that the apostle Paul inspired scripture says our outer self, our physical body is wasting away. That's not a health and wealth gospel message. You know, it's like we'll just lay claim uh to health, and no disease is gonna touch you, and all of that, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. That's the self that can be replenished, like the tree planted beside streams of water, Psalm 1, and soaking it in and becoming strong and and bearing fruit and all of that. Our inner self is being renewed day by day. That's what I've seen in Nancy's life. For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. This is living for eternity. This is realizing that you don't get all you want in this life. This light momentary affliction, nobody wants affliction, but we've got it. And by the way, what Paul calls light and momentary affliction, you know, go to like 2 Corinthians 10 and other passages where he gives the list of all the things and all the beatings and the shipwrecks and going naked and hungry and all this good. That's what he's calling light and momentary. So you think, well, if you didn't know that about Paul, you might go, oh yeah, well, you're calling it light and momentary, but you're not facing what I've had to face in my life. Uh no, I would say he's got to be in the 99.9 percentile of facing difficulty. This light and momentary affliction is doing what? Is it like, okay, put up with it for as long as you have to in this life, knowing that one day all the bad stuff will be gone. Actually, he's saying it's doing something for us that will affect us for eternity. It is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. It is getting us ready for the life to come. Uh, you know, it's uh God is achieving something. There's some translations again. God is achieving for us through these trials this eternal weight of glory, this eternal reward. It's not just that, okay, you can endure these trials as terrible as they are, it's beyond that. It's these trials, as terrible as they are, are turning you into a person prepared to live forever in the presence of the king and to serve him and to enjoy his presence, to enjoy treasures in heaven, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are unseen are eternal. So God is telling us, and this this I think in light of your question, Reagan, is just this is what the eternal perspective is. It's it's looking at the eternal and seeing life through that lens, through that grid, instead of looking at the temporary and always gauging ourselves, oh, okay, so how how much has COVID spread? Um, and what's happening with the stock market? And uh how what's going on with this? And and uh is is my disease getting better or is it getting worse? And what about the problems in my church? And what about the issues in the neighborhood? And what new declarations is the governor going to come up with this week that's going to change life for us again in Oregon or California or Arizona or wherever you happen to live? No, stop looking at those things, and I would just say here's a practical thing that I say related to this is spend a lot less time watching the news. Now, I used to say that before COVID. Now you can you can imagine I used to say before COVID, before the recent political season, and and and I think every season now is going to be political in American life. I mean, I think it's because spot on there so ingrained in us, and people are gonna just keep uh insulting each other on Twitter and 140 characters or less. I mean, it's just gonna be keep just just harping on things, and I hate to see that happen to the church, the body of Christ. Eternal perspective is what will deliver us from that. If we keep looking at the eternal, if we keep looking at Jesus, the work of Jesus on our behalf on the cross, his grace, what he has already given us. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So, how many spiritual blessings have we not been blessed with? There aren't any. They've already been given. There are in Christ. So let's latch on to them and live in light of them. Well, the only way we can do that, to live in light of eternity, is you go to God's word every day, again and again and again. That's what is given Nancy an eternal perspective. God's word and books that quote God's word and reinforce God's word and podcasts that do that, like this, and messages that do that, and feed your eternal perspective because the natural perspective you're going to have unless you do something different, is going to be the world's perspective, and too many believers just think the way everybody in the world thinks. And honestly, it's sad to see, but there's a remedy to it. Go to God's word, have fellowship with God's people, and challenge yourself to turn off the TV and certainly to listen to less news because it's not good news. It just people get crippled and and and cynical uh through the news, the political process, all of this. And let's be pilgrims, citizens of another country serving our Lord Jesus. That's an eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_00Come on. If the if we're in church right now, I'd be standing up in the front row, shouting preach at you right now. That Portland or not.
SPEAKER_02I love it when people do that. I know you do too. And it's like, and you know this because you've you've spoken a lot of, in your case, a lot of different, you know, kinds of churches that I have also in your case.
SPEAKER_00I heard that.
SPEAKER_02One of my, yeah, one of my the first time I spoke in a black church, it was in Philadelphia many, I mean, decades ago, I was so stunned because I was saying things, and I was used to, well, Morgan, I'm preaching before the audience of one, I won't hear much from the people, and I don't really know what's going on in their minds, except the occasional person who smiles or nods. You know, well, I knew exactly what was going on. I know where people were. It's like the first time I spoke in an NFL chapel was when Reggie White was playing for the Packers. And I I'm I'm bringing this message in NFL chapel, and Reggie White goes, amen, brother. Hey, I'm gonna, I just got amen by Reggie White, you know, and then the other guys are going like that. I'm going, what boy does that make a difference in your life? That maybe has nothing to do, but maybe it does have something to do with our subject matter.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I I think it I think something just comes alive in people when you you feel this internal excitement and joy. And I know we all have different mindsets and personalities and emotional dispositions, but I I can't help it. And it's because that's a reality in my life and in my mind that I don't live once, I live twice, and glory's coming, and the new heavens and the new earth is coming. And I yeah, my my dad wasn't the best theology all the time, but there were other places that I've been that uh there's great theology, but every time we would go on a trip and he'd be preaching in a black church, we would come home to our church in Canada, where at the time the church was was a lot of white people in our church at that time. And my dad's Middle Eastern, and Vancouver got more multicultural, and we're thankful for that. And we had like a hundred different countries represented our church by the time I was in my later teens. But he'd come back from preaching at one of our friends who pastored in a black church somewhere, and my dad would get so bothered by the people in our little Canadian church, he'd yell him, Are you people even alive? Where I just was. I mean, they they know what preaching is. There's these people are excited about Jesus, and I there just there is a life that comes out of us and a response. And so on that note, Randy, I would love if you would at least allude to some of the things that you help people understand from your book Heaven, which we're gonna give away this week, all week long. Um, and so be watching on social media, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all that. We're gonna give away copies of Heaven. It's this book right here, if you're watching this on YouTube via video as we recorded the Zoom with Randy. Um, but I I I think people don't always get excited, not because their personality or their emotional disposition, but because they don't actually have a reality in their mind that they're thinking of. Your book does that. You answer a ton of questions that are some of them are fun, like will my pets be there and all of that, but there's other serious ones. Could you allude to or even maybe give a few kind of cheat sheet answers of the sort of exciting things that we have to look forward to and some of the questions you answer?
SPEAKER_02Well, uh, 2 Peter 3, 13 says, Therefore, we're looking forward to a new heavens and a new earth, um where righteousness will dwell. So forever we will live in a realm of righteousness. The interesting thing is it's saints, so we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, but in actual fact, in my experience and particularly uh 14 years ago, now it's 15, 16, it's 16 years ago now when the the heaven book came out in 2004, and uh and and it was right about this time of year. And at that time, every time I would talk about heaven as people reading the heaven book, they I think it would be fair to say that very few people are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, they're looking forward to being with Jesus forever, and that's wonderful. But the new earth part of that, a new heavens and a new earth, and the new heavens is not new heavens dwelling place of God, it's new heavens and new earth. Heavens and earth, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's the physical universe. Heavens and earth means universe. Okay, so how many of us are looking forward to a new physical universe? How many of us are looking forward to a new earth? And one of the things I say in the heaven book is that the average person, there are committed Christians who believe in the resurrection to the point that they would go to a firing line and be shy willingly before they would deny a belief in the resurrection. But many of those same Christians actually don't believe in the resurrection, they believe in the resurrection of Jesus, they don't believe in the resurrection of God's people, they don't believe in their own resurrection, and and and the way I know this to be true is I remember when I was preaching in heaven in my church, and uh a man came up to me who's one of the most godly men in the church and a student of God's word, a student of scripture. If anybody knows the Bible, it's this guy. And he says, wait a minute, are you telling me that we're actually going to have bodies and we're going to eat and drink? And I said, Yeah, I mean, Jesus just eating and drinking alone, uh eight times refers to feasts and eating together in God's kingdom, resurrected people doing this. And he says, That just sounds so unspiritual. He was disgusted at the idea. I'm going, what does resurrection mean? You know, a resurrection without a body is is like a sunrise without the sun. I mean, it's it's like no, that's what it means. Resurrection means physical. We will have physical bodies and we'll have them forever. And we're told they'll be like Christ's body. So why did Jesus stay uh on the earth for 40 days uh after his resurrection prior to the ascension? Well, one of the things I think is to just show us and let us know that he's going around places in the body. Sure, sometimes he appears in that body, um, you know, and maybe there's something that to us seems magical or or whatever, where he transfers himself and doesn't have to, yeah, whatever, come in through the wall. But what once he's there, he's there in the actual physical body. And so with Thomas, it's touch me, handle me. Um a spirit does not have flesh and bones as I have. I am not a ghost. And he ate and drank with him. And you know, when he ate and drank, the food didn't like drop down onto the ground. You know, it's he had an actual uh body physically that is the resurrection body of Jesus. Um is the prototype of our bodies, eating and drinking and walking and talking and doing what people do in bodies. So extrapolate that now to resurrected life on the new earth, and that's where then we get to all of these aspects um that I deal with uh in the heaven book. What's going to be on that new earth? Well, is it possible animals will be on it? Well, it's not simply possible, it's directly taught in multiple Old Testament passages. Isaiah 60 is about the new earth, and it talks about animals. Isaiah 65 specifically calls itself a being about the new earth, and it's got animals. Uh, even if you didn't in other passages as well, Ezekiel 47 and some others. Okay, now even if you didn't have those passages, and I deal with this in a chapter, uh, two chapters on animals in the heaven book. Uh, one is just about animals and the new earth animals in general. Second one is is it possible God might bring our pets uh back to life? And my answer to that, and I think it is not just uh some of it's speculative, of course, um, is is I think he probably will, because wouldn't that be just like Him and wouldn't that fit with what Romans 8 says about uh that the whole creation is suffering and groaning along with his people, and the whole creation is awaiting the resurrection of God's children because the whole creation wants to be delivered from life under the curse. Well, who besides human beings has suffered in the present creation? Animals. I mean, that's the answer. Animals. And so what it means is John Wesley, uh, who spent lots of his life on horseback, used to talk about God raising those great steeds that he would travel around on, and and and the love they have for those animals, and and believing that they would be there in the resurrection and they would live forever on the new earth. They would be delivered from their present suffering. There's nothing worse. I mean, we love dogs, and um, you know, when we've had to put dogs to sleep, oh, this has been heartbreaking. But once I did all my study and research on the heaven, but I totally changed my mind in that area. I didn't used to believe that there'd be animals in heaven. Well, not animal spirits floating around, animals on the new earth in physical bodies, you know, because I try to imagine an animal without a physical body. You know, we can't. This is the thing. If we just get in our heads that that scripture in the resurrection is talking about a physical body, the new earth is not a non-earth, it's a new earth. Our new bodies are not non-bodies, they're new bodies. That means they're better bodies, it'll be a better earth, it won't be an earth under sin and curse. That's what the newness is about. You know, if I if I said, uh, hey, I'm gonna give you a new car, uh, and that was theoretical. I'm actually not gonna give you, I don't have a new car to give you. So anyway, but but if I said I'm gonna give you a new car, you said, Oh, great, I can't wait to see this car. I'll bet it doesn't have a steering wheel, it doesn't have brakes, it doesn't have engine, it doesn't have a carburetor, it doesn't have a transmission, it doesn't have wheels, it doesn't have tires. You go, no, that wouldn't be a new car, that'd be a non-car. That would not be a car. When the Bible talks about the new body, it's not that we have new organs and new body parts, it's the old body made new, no longer subject to sin and death. The new earth will not be a non-earth, it will be the same present earth delivered from the curse and much more glorious and returned to Eden and beyond.
SPEAKER_00So good, so good. Yeah, I I wish more people, and I think these kind of episodes are so helpful, they'll help people be a little more literal with their Bible and looking at something and going, oh, that's nice, creation's groaning, oh yeah, what at birth payings, oh whatever, and kind of like view it in some overly spiritual term. I when the Bible's being metaphorical, it's metaphorical. There's some things that are are alluding to something spiritual, but in in a lot of places in the Old and New Testament, if we take what you're saying quite literally at face value, it makes total sense. So I'm grateful for Bible teachers like you who jump in and who write books like this. So I have one, and then Reagan um jump in as well. Could you I know it's it's a big book, so I'm not ruining it. People still need to go out and buy it. It's like 500 pages of amazing. It's a it's a textbook on heaven. You could live on this thing and enjoy it every day at the dinner table. But so will we learn in heaven, Randy? Because I've heard before we're, you know, glorified body. Okay, God, I'm gonna have all knowledge and whatever or whatever I have here, I take with me, and that's what I got. So we better learn a lot now. You hear a lot of things. Will we learn still in heaven?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the answer to that is a very clear yes. In fact, you've got uh Ephesians uh 2 7, um, that uh talks about um uh how God will be revealing to us the wonders, the riches of his grace. Um, and it's talking about in eternity, God will be revealing it. It's the tense of the Greek is an ongoing thing. It's not you die, everything's revealed, and it's over. It's a process, an ongoing process of learning. I think one of our huge mistakes that we make is we start thinking of heaven as a place where we will be uh infinite. No, we will live eternally. That's not the same as being infinite. Like, like, oh well, we we won't understand that until we die, and then we'll know everything. We won't know everything when we die, but of course we won't know everything. Only God knows everything. So that would be heresy to say that we will know everything once we die, because that would be like saying we will become gods once we die. No, not true at all. So I think what we what we're not gonna ever be delivered of our infinity. I mean, or rather, uh, because we're we don't have infinity, or we're never gonna be delivered of our finiteness, we will be finite for all eternity. That's the nature of being a creature. So we will be perfected in the way that creatures, in the context of their being finite, are perfected, meaning growing, becoming more and more and more knowledgeable, having deeper and deeper and deeper wisdom. And because we are finite and will always be finite, but we'll become uh wiser and more knowledgeable and and more skilled and things like that, well then we are going to grow. And that's one of the things that people that turns people away from positive thoughts toward eternity is is thinking, uh I won't be able to learn anymore. Um, I I heard uh somebody uh say a guy who's who's a golfer and saying, I'm not looking forward to golfing on the new earth because that'd be really boring to make a hole in one. You know, every I said, well, what makes you think? I mean, would it be uh a property of sin to not make a hole in one? That has nothing to do with sin and holiness. Holiness doesn't make you get a hole in one. Okay, and I think uh any holy, well, first of all, I'm not sure how many golfers know that level of holiness. Uh, but but but saying you were the most godly man that's ever lived and you're an avid golfer. Um, your holiness does not help your golf game normally. I mean, what I'm just saying, perfection of uh even even physical, what you call physical perfection, will we all be the same? Will everybody be able to run at exactly the same speed as everyone else? Well, I assume it'd be just like in this life. If sin had never come into this world, would every human being have been equally strong? Uh, would every human being be equally good at sports? Would every human being be uh an equally good musician or artist or anything else? The answer is no. God loves differentness.
SPEAKER_00Such a good point. I've never thought about that. I I'm not if if Reagan's faster than me, he's gonna be faster than me in glory. It just is worth it.
SPEAKER_01There's no way I'm faster than you. You know, Randy, a lot of what you've what we've talked about here and a lot of the benefits, I think, of having an eternal perspective very clearly bear out in the lives of people who are suffering presently. And I'm wondering if maybe you could answer, what would you say to someone who is currently suffering, currently going through a trial, um, maybe a maybe their own battle with cancer or the loss of a loved one, or wondering where God is in the midst of what they're dealing with right now, what would you tell them? Where what should they fix their their mind on?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think um, you know, we're told in Colossians 3, uh we're to set our mind above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think about the things of heaven, like that 2 Corinthians 4 passage. Don't look at the temporary, um, look at the eternal. Contemplate the realities of what God says in his word. Contemplate um Hebrews 10 and 11, uh, where the idea of the pilgrim, the stranger, the alien, this world as it now is, is not our home. Now, I used to just say this world is not our home. Well, now I say this world as it now is, that is, under the curse, is not our home. Because it will, it was the home of the original human beings, Adam and Eve, our ancestors, and it will be the eternal home. The new earth, the transformed, renewed earth. It's just that right now we're aliens and strangers, we're not at home in this world. So I would encourage people to think in those terms. So, what I often do when I'm talking with people, I do have these conversations with people all the time. And what's really, really common is uh when a loved one has died, and the loss and the suffering. Um, I had a good friend who just last week, whose 20-year-old son died um almost a year ago, the day after Thanksgiving. My best friend, besides Nancy, Steve, one of the pastors at my church, um, we're very, very close. We talked almost every day. Um, and his 30-year-old son died. Um, Steve's wife found him dead. He was there for Thanksgiving and the next spending the night the next morning there he is in his bedroom, you know, the bedroom he had when he was a kid. Um, and he's dead. When this happens, um it it we can feel understandable, inconsolable. And and this is where one of the things where you know your ministry is is so important because it's helping people see the falsehood. Don't set your expectations on health and wealth in this life. And even if you have health and wealth in this life, by the way, even if for that period of time, which and you won't have either of them uh forever, they will they will be gone. Health for sure, you will lose health. And a lot of people lose wealth, but for sure you'll lose your health. If you just stay alive, that's all you have to do in this world to become less and less healthy as time goes on. Uh, but but the point is, if your hope is in that and you believe God promises that, you have set yourself up to be disappointed with God. And I've had people deeply disappointed with God. They said, God promised this and now it hasn't happened, and then go, did God promise that? Or did people speaking in the name of God promise that? Those are uh the the difference between those is enormous. But here's what I say often. I often go to Romans 8.28. And then I would say this you don't go to Romans 8.20A. I don't send Romans 8.20A to my friend who's in another part of the country when I when I find out that it's 20-year-old Sunday. I think that's really insensitive. I think it's premature. It's like all things work together for good. Rejoice after all, rejoice in all things. That's a that's not a that's another one I would not send. You know, just don't don't do that. There's a right time. Those passages are absolutely true. There's just a right time and a wrong time to share them. And Proverbs talks about being careful, uh using our words in timely ways, spoken at the right time in the right way. But to people who are in it for the long haul now, they've had a lot of suffering already in their life. So here's one of the things I say them. I think I heard Nancy Guthrie say this in one of her books years ago or in a conversation. Let's say, sit down and write down on one uh side of a piece of paper um the best things that have ever happened in your life. Actually, I think it might have been started with the worst things, but in in any case, you do the other on the other side. Here's all the worst things that have happened, and now here's all the best things that have happened. Or do them on two pieces of paper better that you could put side by side. All right, now when you're done with all that, and let's say you did start with all the worst things that have happened. Wow, and some people are thinking, man, I need more than one page for that. I've had a lot of bad things happening in my life. Okay, all right. Now, after you've done that, all the worst things, all the best things. Now compare the list and ask yourself this question which things are on my list of best things that have ever happened to me, which came either directly or indirectly out of my list of the worst things that have ever happened to me in this life? You will be shocked, I was shocked at how many of the best things simply would never have happened, could never have happened with without the worst things. How many of those in my life? I mean, some obvious examples like the blessings that God has brought out of our ministry. Well, one of the worst things that happened to me, it wasn't so much the going to jail and all that, but losing my ministry as a pastor. I loved being a pastor. Maybe if I'd been a pastor another 10 or 15 years, I would have loved it as much. I don't know, but I'll never know. But I I would hope that I would have continued to love it, and that was taken away from me. That was taken away from me. Worst thing that ever happened. My health was taken away from me when I became an insulin dependent diabetic. Nancy, her cancer, worse, one of the worst things that's ever happened to her. Numbers of other things that we can put on that worship. You look at best things, what God has brought out of our ministry, what God has done in Nancy's life, the numbers of people have been touched through the adversity that we face, through the lawsuits and the minimum wage and the um the diseases and all this kind of uh my books have been deepened and enriched as a result. You can't even weigh and measure exactly what I would have said differently, but I can tell you it would have been a lot different. If I had written the Heaven book when uh I was in my 30s, uh instead of when I was in my late 40s, there were a lot of things happened in between there. I mean, there it would have been no, no, I was in my 50s. Yeah, I was in my 50s. So I mean, just a big, big difference, and so all I can say is trust God that the things that you can now see that he has brought good out. Trust God that he will do the same thing and perhaps even more out of the things which right now you can't understand and they weigh you down. The pain, the suffering. Why are my elderly parents going through the suffering? Why is my wife? I had a friend whose whose wife died um not that long ago from uh and she'd had Alzheimer's um for the last number of years of her life. Why, God? I don't see what good it could be. Well, this is where faith comes in. This is where, and that's why it's called faith. You know, it's not called sight, it's called faith. So what you got to do is cling on to the faith and the hope that is a bloodbought hope, it's not a wishful thinking hope. I don't hope Romans 8 28 is true. I know it is true, and actually it says it in the verse we know that all things work together for good. Part of what we know that is that God has promised it, but part of what we know, and I think we often miss this, is that we have seen, if we think about it, examples of God bringing good out of bad, even in this life. I mentioned Joseph before. Okay, so how horrible was that for probably a young teenage boy to be betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit, sold to these people, he's taken down Egypt. Well, now you think, okay, now it's all gonna be a blessing from here on. And then he he he gets falsely accused by Potiphar's wife. He's in jail. He's just, I mean, it it doesn't become easy, but ultimately becomes the second most powerful person in Egypt. Well, what are the chances of that having? He is able to influence Pharaoh and and bring all kinds of things to save the lives of the very brothers who betrayed him, who were going hungry, and and and and and his, I mean, and and Joseph said, You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good, to save many lives. And if the adversity and some of the worst adversities people face are not their own physical illness and financial misfortune, and and even their losses of loved ones, sometimes the hardest things to deal with are people who have betrayed them, who speak evil of them, who say bad things about them, who accuse them falsely, and they have to live with this. And he says to his brothers, You intended it for evil, God intended it for good. Not just, well, yeah, you you you brought the lemons and God somehow made lemonade out. No, no, no, no. God intended it for good. What they had evil intentions, and God can intend good while people are intending evil, and the answer is absolutely yes. I mean, isn't the cross of Jesus Christ, isn't that the ultimate example of it?
SPEAKER_00That's right. Wow. Um, Randy, while you were talking, I was uh obviously being greatly edified, but also I remember reading an article, and I in my brain, I don't always express myself succinctly, but I my brain thinks in pictures, and I sometimes it's photographic. I don't know why. It's just a weird glitch or something.
SPEAKER_02But I'm a photographic memory.
SPEAKER_00Sure, yeah. So in my mind, in my mind, I was going, Oh, I've got I remember seeing this on Randy's website. So I just went and remembered you actually wrote a whole article called Three Things to Remember When Grieving, when giving comfort to the grieving people. And we'll put that in the show notes here on YouTube and whatever versions we have, but you actually outline um that exact line when you talked about maybe not throwing Romans 8.28 at someone right in the midst of it, um, but walking with them and sitting with them and weeping with them. And Nancy Guthrie was on with us a couple shows ago, and she brought such a perspective as well in that regard. And I want to mention a couple of books. So obviously Heaven and then Eternal Perspectives, but also you wrote a book, If God is good, right? Yep. That one. Um, could you talk briefly as we wind things down about that book? And on a personal note, I'll just share how much it meant to me and my wife. Um, Timothy, our youngest son, is two, and we just had one of those great moments at the doctor when they're saying that the cancer could be gone, and and it's incredible. And the doctor was said, dare I use the word cured. And and that's wonderful and beautiful, but God was still good even when he was diagnosed with the cancer. And and we're thankful. But I remember a mentor, um, it was my pastor at the time as well, a dear friend still, and one of our contributors on for the gospel, uh, Tony Wood, gave my wife and I that book. And um, it's got a sort of a rose, a flower on the front, and you it and I remember looking at that, and it was our textbook to sort of walk us through. And we had lots of people. One family member said, you know, oh, you know, that's what happens if you touch the Lord's anointed, or we this is what we were worried about. If you come against, you know, anointed healers and God's anointed, you he's gonna he didn't strike you with cancer. He actually went after your kid, which is even worse. Now you have to watch him suffer, and all that stuff. That book, brother, it was it was a nuke of truth that eradicated much of the enemy's lies. Can you talk about where that book came from as we we wind things down and and what its purpose is?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that rose that's on. The front, um, you know, has some pretty prominent thorns on the stem, and that's the we see the thorns, and you can focus on the thorns, and you can focus on the rose, and God is bringing this beautiful rose out of this thing that has thorns and has to be you know handled and approached with care. Uh, yeah, I I wrote that book as as many of the books that I've written because I wanted to learn more. And one of the great things in writing um If God is good, and then there are, and I always do this, uh, I'll have one big book. It's like I have one heaven book, then I have about six smaller heaven books of different sorts, you know, 50 days of heaven, and there's a little heaven booklet, and there's heaven for kids, and and all of that. And then uh I've got If God is good, and then I've got a book, a small booklet called If God is good, and I've got the goodness of God, and I've got 90 days devotional book, 90 days of God's goodness, because you know, you want to get the same message to people in different forms and change it to fit your audience. But with the original, if God is good, the thing that I wanted to do was not only read all, and I did read virtually all, and there are a lot of them, all the books dealing with um the problem of evil and suffering, but I also wanted to interview people that I know who have been through great suffering. And so I I interviewed Johnny Erickson Tata, uh, and I interviewed uh girl uh Scott, whose daughter Rachel was killed in the original Columbine uh thing, school school shooting. I I interviewed people who I interviewed the family um who had uh was it six children who died in a terrible van uh accident. He and he was a pastor. I interviewed them and I interviewed all of these people, and I wanted to hear their stories, and I wanted to hear their tone of voice and and people who live in different parts of the world, survivors of the um the some of the massacres in in uh in Africa, the killing fields in Cambodia. And what struck me was at the same time I was reading people uh Bart Ehrman's um book called God's problem. The the the problem of evil and suffering. That's God's problem. That's why we can't believe in God. Um, and and I thought, and and he's talking about why he rejects belief in God. And one of the in his case, one of the many reasons uh unfortunately is that he he looks at the evil and suffering in the world, and uh if there is a good God, the these things could not exist. But what struck me as I was interviewing all these people, and I talked about it, and if God is good, is we have all these people who are rejecting the gospel supposedly because a good God couldn't know all this evil and suffering. Yet when you go to the parts of the world with the most evil and suffering, parts of Africa, parts of Asia, uh, China, different places in the world, um, obviously uh we saw this in in the realm of uh Romania and uh the old Soviet Union and at times with huge growth of the church in the midst of what? Persecution, people being killed, people dying in prisons and going hungry and all the terrible things that happen. And the ratio of people who believe the gospel and embrace the gospel is much higher in those places than it is in places of like post-war Europe and even current America, uh, where prosperity has been greatest. In other words, if it takes being prosperous to have a faith in the goodness of God, then you would think that America's faith would just be getting bigger and bigger until recent times. Actually, since COVID, I've had several people die. Greg Glory has told me this, it's been true of the Luis Palau organization. They the people who who you know call this number to hear the gospel, call this number for hope, um, call this number to reach out, it goes, it's gone way up. It goes way up when times are worse. So when times are best is not when people believe in God. So if the gospel is something everybody needs, wouldn't it make sense that God wouldn't just insulate us in our independence and and and we've got what it takes, but he would prepare us for eternity by waking us up, we've got to get right with God. Well, if that reason alone, and there are many other things dealt with in the book, but for that reason alone, and then I would say the one chapter, I'll just mention the title. Um uh Jesus the only answer who is bigger than the question. And I think that's really true. The question, why would a good law of God allow all this terrible evil and suffering in the world? There are no easy answers to that, and the only answer bigger than that question is Jesus Himself and what he did for us. He didn't have to, he did it for us, and by the way, the greatest evil and suffering in all human history taken on himself by the Son of God out of God's love for us.
SPEAKER_00Amen and amen. That is an incredible point to end on. I want to land the plane right there, Randy, because I don't think there is any greater statement than that about our Lord. Um, I want to say a huge thank you. Honestly, thank you for being on. We'll hopefully do this again at some point. And if you write another book, we want to have you on.
SPEAKER_02Really believe in what you're doing, brother. And uh and thanks for your life and your ministry.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thankful for you. And we'll continue to keep Nancy in prayer and eternal perspective ministries. The website for Randy's work and the ministry there is EPM.org. And it he's not just written books, but there is an extensive blog, and you can look up articles and look up categories and check things out. Um, a ton of great teaching and practical resources. And uh, for those of you listening who are sort of the next generation, you're you know, you're 30 and under, and you've never heard of Randy, but this episode has blessed you. What I want you to do is first of all share it and get it in front of as many people as you can and spread the word about it, and then go on Amazon, go to epm.org and order a few of Randy's books and get those in your life and in your home and get the answers that scripture provides. Uh, Randy has done a huge service to us by digging in and doing all the mining work, if you will, for us. And so uh don't forget this week we're gonna give away multiple copies of Heaven. And Reagan, I want to say uh a thank you for you being on. We lost connection. I don't know where he went, but he's gone. I think he's still on the earth. He texted me shortly ago just to let me know. He's still around. He's still around. He texted me. But thankful for Reagan. He's our digital platforms director here for the gospel, and I'm grateful for all he does. Um, thank you everyone for being with us today. Be sure to subscribe, rate, review, and for blog articles and more, you can go to forthegospel.org. We will be back next Monday with another episode.