Ep.26 Rerun: The Cross Pt.2

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome everybody to another episode of Ask Me Anything. Obviously, I'm in a little different setting today, but I want to take you in to an episode that we did on the cross of Christ. Easter is the greatest time of year, Passion Week, eight days that change the entire world. And I believe this episode will change your life, enrich your faith, and deepen your love for Jesus. Enjoy the episode. You cannot be a good moral leader or a prophet representing God if you are a liar or a lunatic. And by the things that Jesus said about himself, he couldn't be both of those things because he was either lying or he was out of his mind. And either one of those things would disqualify him to be the Lord of Glory. Good to have you back for another episode of Ask Me Anything. We're glad that you're here. Like, subscribe, follow, go ping a friend and tell them to jump on and listen. We want to have the opportunity to share with as many people as we possibly can because we're not just sharing just opinions, we're sharing the word of God and the word of truth, which can change people's lives. I'm Frank Santora. This is my co-host, Ronald Julian. What's happening?

SPEAKER_04 1:32

What's up, brother? How you doing? What's up, guys?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I'm doing good.

SPEAKER_04 1:34

Good, good, good, good. I'm excited, man. I'm good to see good to see you. Yeah, looking good, brother. What's going on in your life? It's warming up, so my my mood is up, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Oh yeah. Well, your mood is up because you got this new tea everybody knows from the last time.

SPEAKER_04 1:47

Well well, that too. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

You've been you've been entering into the tea leave phase of life.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

I've always drank tea, you know, specifically being a singer and you know, that sort of a thing. So throat for your throat. It's very good for your throat. But now I've been going into because I was a heavy coffee guy too. Espresso and you know, I never knew you wouldn't eat heavy coffee. All of that stuff, yeah. Yeah, wow. Matter of fact, you introduced me to that that uh shaking espresso with.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, look at that.

SPEAKER_04 2:17

So so I've been kind of veering away from that a little bit, all the sugar and everything like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Somebody said to me the other day after Bible study, they came up to me in Bible study, I'm real chill. You know, when I preach, I'm not as chill, but Bible study, I'm real chill. And they came up and they said, Pastor, I'm just I'm really concerned about your throat. You have to have somebody teach you how to speak from your diaphragm. Oh, really? And I I said, Yeah, but I don't have any problems with my throat. My throat is fine. They said, Oh, okay. And they said, but you should use a lot of throat coat and stuff like that. So I don't know. I don't know if you have to speak from your diaphragm as much as you have to sing from your th diaphragm.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

Well, uh when you're projecting, you know, preaching, you you when you you preach you pretty you preach pretty hard. Yeah. You know, and so working from being able to preach from the diaphragm will help to think you've done pretty I think you like the growl. You like the little razzle. I like the little grass. Yeah, yeah. I've been looking for an organ, by the way. Listen.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Well, have you heard?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

You hear the question. Uh last week at a black church.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Okay, first of all, anybody who says it's not more fun to pleach at a black church than it is at a white church, never preach at a black church. I mean, like, if I could preach at a black church every week, I would. I mean, be I mean, it's good. Like when you're when you're serving something up, like when you when you make a meal, don't you want to know if it tastes good? That's right. Like, like, you know, your your wife or maybe you, you know, make a your spouse makes a meal for you. Yeah. And you sit there and you eat and you make no comments.

SPEAKER_04 3:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

That's that's kind of rude. That's kind of rude. Right? Like, make a couple of groans and ooh, this is good right here. That's right. When you go to a black church, they let you know if it's good. That's right. You go to a white church, they just stare. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_04 4:09

You know what it is? I've because I've I've studied this. I've studied this. Yeah. What it is is that in in predominantly white churches, they applaud the point. So after you finish a point, then you don't want to be rude. They don't want to interrupt you. So then they applaud apples, they say amen afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

You know what's good is that is that, you know, I don't I don't ever preach in a in a all-white church. Our church is mixed.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

So we get a little bit of both. A little bit of both, yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

And uh, and and there was these, there was this one family that came to the church that changed the dynamic of the church. I love them. Pastor Carol's family. Oh, yeah. Pastor Car Carol and her family, they came, they sit right on the front row, and uh they're they're used to going to black church, and they started coming to our church, and man, they they they get get they get them amen. Everybody gets into it, and I I mean it was just it was amazing.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

You only need one or two. Yeah, you only one or two to give everybody else permission to to to amen. It's good stuff. The the best thing, listen, this is the best thing. When I preach, even at the camp at New York, whatever, when you get that that quiet, mmm, mmm. That means you know.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

How about that?

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Well, well, well, come on, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Now, now here's why I said all that though. Because it's been a long time where I have wanted a little backup when I'm preaching. And I have been told all sorts of things as to why it done go off exactly the way I want it to. And one of the things I was told, because, you know, try to find my key and all this, all this, all this excuse stuff. I was at this church last week. My brother was on the organ. He was doing it just right, baby. I mean, I mean, it was all the time, baby. It was like that. He didn't need to find no key, no this, no that he was hitting it just at the right time. It was amazing, bro. So I'm gonna bring you there and let you listen. And then maybe you can help brother out.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

You give me a real organ, then maybe we can work something out, you know. That's awesome, man. That's awesome. It was good. It was awesome, that's awesome, that's good, that's good. Um, anything else going on with you, man, you want to share?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I mean, that was the highlight of my last couple weeks. Okay. You know, I really love, I love to preach, I love to share the word of God, and um, you know, it's it's a joy to get to do that and uh to go to different places. Uh I don't do it a lot um because I I really enjoy being a pastor, but um, it was a blessing. It was um the um Leaders and Workers Conference at Hezkai Walker's um church and ministry. And it was a blessing, it was an honor, and God really moved. It was awesome. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

That's awesome, man. That's beautiful, beautiful. Uh that was in his uh church in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

In his church in Beth Beth Salem. Beth Salem.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

Beth Salem. Beautiful. Beautiful. All right. Well, I'm glad you had a good time down there, man. I'm sure you poured something out, you know, took something back. You know, when we talk about, again, we're talking about as we're getting leading into Palm Sunday and then ultimately uh Resurrection Sunday. Um you mentioned earlier about how sometimes we have difficulty um preaching about the cross or preaching about the blood or preaching about all of that stuff uh uh that that happened that satisfy the sin debt, right? Ultimately satisfied it. I think sometimes people have difficulty being in that moment.

unknown 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:34

Yeah. Right? Difficulty like the really comprehending and seeing this, this is not a fairy tale.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

No.

SPEAKER_04 7:41

This actually happened. Yeah. You know, and we think because it's over 2,000 years removed from us, and and we would, you know, we have the death penalty, we're trying to abolish the death penalty, and we don't have these vicious ways of of doing away with bad people that's that our minds have difficulty fathoming that that somebody could one go through this. But the reality of it is Jesus wasn't the first person to be crucified under Roman law.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah. No. And he was crucified with two others. Correct. And and I mean, there's just even the mastery of God in that, that he would be crucified between two others. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Two people who actually deserved what they were getting from a worldly point of view. But what's interesting about that is that the two people that he was crucified in between represent the two choices that you and I can make when it comes to who Jesus was and what he did on the cross. And those two choices are to receive him, to put their, put our faith and trust in him, not saying yes. Like what Daryl Strawberry said once when he was here preaching, he said yes means you enjoy the gospel or you enjoy salvation. And uh so one thief, the thief that was um, you know, on his right, um, said, you know, will you remember me when you come into paradise? And uh and Jesus said, Today you'll be with me in paradise, which I know I'm kind of going all over the place right now, but that's also the power of the cross. The power of the cross is that God answers our prayers.

SPEAKER_04 9:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

I mean, the power of the cross is that's the reason why God answers our prayers. Not because we're worthy. That thief wasn't worthy. We God can answer our prayers because of what Jesus did on the cross. And so that one thief, he he tells us so much. He tells us, first of all, what the right decision to make is, and tells us that anybody can make this that decision. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The fact that that this is the one who on the cross exemplifies who can be saved. If if he can be saved, we all can be saved. You know, the the worst sinners and and the people who are the the most moral, we all can be saved. Just got to put our faith in Christ. And then the other guy on the left side, he rejects Christ. Right. And those are the two choices. You can either reject salvation, you can receive salvation. But but um uh the choice is made available for every single one of us, and and just the mastery of God in in the message that he even everything when you study the scripture, you can see how God's brilliant design. You could see God's omniscience. Um you could see that God is all-knowing and and how God so carefully weaves everything into the message of salvation that you possibly can. And um what made Jesus' uh crucifixion unique, other than the fact that he was a sinless sacrifice, is is the stuff that accompanied his crucifixion. That accompanied no other crucifixion. Not just the stuff that we know spiritually, but even the stuff that happened naturally. So the Bible says, first of all, when when Jesus you know gave up the ghost, when he yelled it is finished and gave up the ghost, that the veil of the temple was ripped from top to bottom. Now, I don't know if we realize it. Maybe we think that this is like you know the ripping of some you know small sheet, thin sheet. I mean, this was 300 pounds. Yeah. I mean, it was like yay thick.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

And it was ripped from top to bottom. And and the and and and everybody, this made a loud noise. It was heard, it was seen, and the message that was sent is now access to God is now granted. That we can't come to God on our own. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me. And the only way that you have access to God is through Christ. But now that Christ has paid that price to justify us, just as if we've never sinned, to make us right and holy in the eyes of God, we can now think of the power of this. We don't now have to go through an intermediary to go into the presence of the Father. We can now come boldly before the throne of grace and find grace and mercy to help in time of need because access has been granted. We can now go to God directly for ourselves. That didn't happen with anybody else.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

Yeah, that didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I mean, when when Jesus died on the cross, the Bible also says that um uh the the whole earth became dark in that moment.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

I mean, that didn't happen with anybody else.

SPEAKER_04 12:15

Yeah, and there was an earthquake.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

There was an earthquake, the the rocks rent and were shaken. I mean, this was, and one of the Roman soldiers seeing all this, right? He he pierced him through his side and the blood and the water came out, which by the way, again, just just even that, right? The blood and the water. Why blood and water? Because blood is spiritual rebirth and water is natural birth. And so, what the message that God was sending, I mean, every little detail that God is giving, he's screaming out to people, this is no ordinary crucifixion. This is a time for everybody who is naturally born to get spiritually reborn so they can be made right with me. Every little detail. And this is why the Bible fascinates me. It fascinates me because, like, even if you're really smart, you cannot nuance that many details into one singular story.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

It would the the word of God is woven together. It's God's love letter to us so that you and I recognize who Jesus was and receive him as Savior so that we could be made right with him.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

That's powerful, bro. Yeah. That's very powerful. And I I guess I'm I'm I'm harping on. I remember when the Passion of the Christ came out. Right. Um, I think it was maybe 15 years ago now. People wanted to look away. They wanted to look away.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

You're like, this is too graphic.

SPEAKER_04 13:31

Yeah. But this was the penalty.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

This was this this was the pri and even that was not even sufficient enough to really tell the story. Yeah. You know. It wasn't because you're you're talking about not just being hung on the cross, you're talking about having to carry the cross, this heavy cross, down a trail, the Via de la Rosa, down this trail, after having been whipped and beaten and sped on and versed, cursed, and verbally abused, you know, and mocked, all of those things, you're carrying the very thing that you're it's it's well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

You know, when you when you were talking, the some of the things that just came to my mind is even when you talk about Jesus being spit on. Okay. So when he is in Caiaphas' court, um the Sanhedrin is assembled together. Um, the great Sanhedrin was seventy people. And the Bible says they spat in his face. But what we don't realize is it wasn't one person. It was seventy people. Seventy people spitting in your face. He had spit dripping down his face. That is the most insulting thing that you could do to anybody is to spit in their face. This is God.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

I mean, like, I mean, do you know what kind of restraint this takes? I mean, think about somebody who comes up to you and just purposefully spits in your face. I don't want to think about it.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

I'm not that saved. I'm not that saved.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

This is God who has all this power. Yeah. So much power that when they came to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, and they said, Are you Jesus of Nazareth? He said, I am. They all fell backwards, as if dead men. Right? That that, I mean, his word has that much power. This is God who told, he looked at Peter, he said, put away your sword. He said, Don't you know I can call on a legion of angels right now and they come and rescue me. Don't you understand? They're not they're not capturing me.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

They're not they're not taking me by their strength and by their force. They're taking me because I'm allowing them to, because I'm restraining myself. They're spitting in Jesus. And then not only they spit in his face, they came, and the Bible says they slapped him in the face.

SPEAKER_04 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

One time after another time, after another time, after another time, after another time, after another time. I mean, all of this is going on, and God is enduring all. When people say, I don't really know if God loves me.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

Yeah, talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

You know, all this evil in the world, all this suffering, does God re- is God really a loving God? The cross. On the cross, he paid it all. Jesus paid it all.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

All to MIO. Yes, it's true. Yeah, we don't sing those still sounds like a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

You know, the old songs, um, they have so much power to them. Yes. And um, I I'm grateful that I grew up in church when the old songs were still being sung. And uh, there's a lot of times when I'll ask for those old songs, and and sometimes they know them and sometimes they don't. Yes, yes. But um, the old songs have power.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

At the cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light. The burdens of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith. I received my sight. Now I'm happy. All the day. I'm glad you're gonna be able to do that. Hallelujah. That's right, that's right. So let's we're gonna transition now to our real life react. This is where we get a chance to see a video, a real, and we react to it for the very, very first time. So let's see what we got here on today.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

I don't know if I'm allowed to ask this question. You're allowed to ask whatever you want, bro. It's your podcast. The internet's gonna think, but you know how you stand on the Lord Jesus Christ, right? Yep. What about Allah? Minister Farrakhan is standing on Islam the same way you standing on Christianity. There's somebody standing on Buddhism the same way that when they say Father, Hunt, Son, and Holy Spirit, they say Allah. Is that just one person?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

When Jesus was alive on the earth, he said a statement that to this day is very controversial. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No human being can come to God but through me. That Jesus said something that was very exclusive: that the only pathway to God was through him. Jesus also told us that there is only one God who is Yahweh, and that there is no other God. And that any other God is an idol and is not a true God. Now, Jesus taught that. So the whole issue about is Allah God and who's God is all depends on was Jesus telling the truth or was Jesus a liar. If Jesus is credible, then there is only one God, and the scriptures gave us his name. He is Yahweh, Jehovah. If Jesus is credible, there is no other God but Yahweh. If Jesus is credible, there are no multiple pathways to God except through him. If Jesus is credible, then the pathway to God is small, narrow, and exclusive. If Jesus is credible. If Jesus is not credible, then there are multiple gods. If Jesus is not credible, there are multiple pathways to God. If Jesus is not credible, then Allah Yahweh, the same person. If Jesus is not credible, the decision we gotta make is is Jesus credible? Now, if a man can be crucified and buried and put in a tomb and was supernaturally raised from the dead and seen alive in history, over 400 eyewitnesses, I think that man is pretty credible because Muhammad was a great leader, but he did not resurrect from the dead. Joseph Smith was a great leader, but he was not raised from the dead. Confucius was a leader, but he didn't all these men were leaders, but they were not raised from the dead. But there is a man in history who is the progenitor of a major world faith who was raised from the dead and seen alive. So now we gotta determine, was that man credible? I believe that that man was credible, and because I believe he's credible, I have to believe what he says. It's not about my personal opinion, it's do I believe Jesus was credible? If Jesus is credible, Nehemiah, then there is only one God who has a name, Jehovah, who has a name, Yahweh, who has a name, Elohim, who has a name, Lord, who has revealed himself in the pages of scripture, and that the only way to get to him is through his son. If Jesus is credible.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Um just in during the week, and uh I thought, what a great clip. And and really the question is, you know, is Jesus credible? And um first of all, it's it's noteworthy that a bunch of the uh gods that he mentioned never claimed to be God. Um that in fact they claimed to be pathways to God. Um you know, Confucius never claimed to be God, Buddha never claimed to be God. Um and so it's noteworthy that that and not all of these folks claim to be God. Um but Jesus did claim to be God. Um matter of fact, that's the reason why they crucified Jesus. Um Jesus said things like before Abraham was I am and they picked up rocks and wanted to kill him for that. He said, If you've seen the Father, you've seen me. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, and they picked up stones and wanted to kill him for that. It was clear by everything that Jesus said to the religious leaders of his time that he was claiming to be God. And this this is this hits at the essence of the narrative about Jesus, because the narrative about Jesus goes like this with with people who don't believe he was God is that he was a he was a a prophet and he was a good moral leader, um, but he wasn't God, and it's illogical. And the reason why it's illogical is because you cannot be a good moral leader or a prophet representing God if you are a liar or a lunatic. And by the things that Jesus said about himself, he couldn't be both of those things because he was either lying or he was out of his mind, and either one of those things would disqualify him to be um the Lord of glory. They're exclusive of one another. So C.S. Lewis said it this way Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or Lord. So what makes his claim to be God manifest in the flesh? Um Legitimate, other than the fact that there's a lot of what we can call circumstantial evidence, heavy circumstantial evidence, fulfills 400 prophecies written about him hundreds and thousands of years earlier. The chances of that happening are, you know, you might as well believe that you're going to win the lottery 10 times in your lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Right? Um, it's it's virtually scientifically impossible that Jesus could have fulfilled all those prophecies in and of himself. And history tells us that he he did. Like, you know, one of the things about the Bible is it's not just a man-made book, it's a historical book. It's a historical document. And the way they measure historical documents and the historicity of any particular ancient text, the Bible passes in flying colors. I won't bore everybody with the details of that. But what makes his claims credible is exactly what this brother said. He raced from the dead, and like people are like, well, did he really? Did he really how do we know he raised from the dead? First of all, how do you know George Washington lived?

SPEAKER_04 22:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

How do you know? Like when you're there. Brother, like, you know, all these people are like, well, we don't really know because we weren't there. Yeah, but but there's 400 eyewitnesses, yeah, most of them chronicled in historical documents that claim, 400 of them that claim that they saw him risen from the dead. Now, the chances of getting 400 eyewitnesses to all corroborate the same story in the court of law, if you got like two or three in a court of law, lord, uh law, to corroborate the same story, you win the case hands down. If you bring in five and 400 of them, it's like it's an open and shut case. So the fact that there's 400 of them, and here's the question that we would have is we know he lived, we know he was a real man who lived. Even atheists believe that there was a real man named Jesus Christ who lived uh years ago, you know, thousands of years ago. They know he was crucified. That's historical fact. That's not only biblical fact, it's historical fact, right? Where where there's where there's tension is did he rise from the dead? Here's what we do know. They lost his body. You know, and and the fable was that the disciples in the middle of the night came and stole his body. Yes. Like, really? Right. Heavily on Roman soldiers outside the tomb, right? Rag tag bunch of, you know, disciples scared for their life, you know, what even stand up from at the crucifixion, somehow in the middle of the night, you know, came stuck into the tomb. You know, maybe the soldiers were sleeping, but they knew they couldn't fall asleep and they took turns the way that the Roman soldiers were, they would stay awake and so on and so forth. But even if they did, they didn't hear move the rock, right? You know, and then they then they stole the body from the tomb and they went and they hit it somewhere, and then now they're now they're all kind of captured because many of the disciples died for their faith. And here they are, they're ready to like kill you, right? Because you're claiming that this this man raised from the dead, and you don't go, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, just the body don't complain to save my life. Nobody dies for what they know to be false, willfully. The historical evidence and logical evidence that Jesus really did rise from the dead is overwhelming in favor of that being the case. And here's the thing, here's the thing. If you're going to be God, maybe you can perform miracles. Maybe you can have a lot of wisdom. Maybe you can be really loving, maybe you can be ultimately forgiving. Maybe you can be all of these things, but the one thing that you have to be is able to defeat death. Because by definition, God has no beginning and it has no end. As soon as any deity has an end, by definition, they cannot be God anymore. And so even if Allah, Buddha, Confucius, whoever, Hare Krishna, didn't claim to be God, but claim to be God. They couldn't be, because they have a clear end to their life. There's clearly a grave that they're in. There's you know, Jesus does not have that. So, like, I don't know about you, I'm going with the dude that defeated that.

SPEAKER_04 26:31

For those who choose to believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no amount of proof is possible. That's right. And as believers, you have you cannot allow yourself to be deceived. Because I know that we want to love people, we want everybody to come and and and get to heaven and all of these. But again, Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the light. No man can come through. There's no back door, there's no employee discount. Like it's it's it's this, you know. So that's good. All right.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

So um By the way, by the way, why would you want to go another way?

SPEAKER_04 27:09

Why would you want to go another way?

SPEAKER_01 27:10

The reason why I say that is this like um you can go the Buddhist way. That's the path of enlightenment. Like, work. Yeah. Like, you know, like you gotta, you gotta put in the work. Yeah, right. You gotta, you gotta do a lot. You know, all these different ways, you you gotta do a lot, and and you kind of never know when you've done enough.

SPEAKER_04 27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

The difference between that and Jesus is like, listen, I did, I did all the work for you. Yeah, here's what you need to do is you need to put, like, okay, you know, I'm criticize me for choosing the easier route, although it's not really the easier route. Once you give your life to Jesus, then you have to pick up your cross, deny yourself, and follow him. But but Jesus made it so easy for us to have eternal life. But in the uh, I don't know, in in our self, um, what's the word I'm looking for here? In our in our deep thinking self, in our in our uh, you know, wanting to be intellectual self, we think, well, that that's just too simple. That's how much God loves us.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

Yeah. I think too, I think it was Gandhi. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I believe it was Gandhi who said um it's Jesus don't have a problem with it's his followers, right? And I think sometimes there are those who are agnostics or who are who are atheists. Um, we as believers, as disciples of Jesus, we have to make sure that we're not doing anything to damage the witness, our witness of this life-changing um event that that we have chosen to believe. We've got to yield to the full process of becoming like Jesus, becoming disciples, so that when people see us, that they've seen or make social men, that they may see your good works, and glorify the Father in heaven. And if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men unto me. All right, we're gonna transition out to our next segment. This is Ask Me Anything. This is where you guys get to send in your questions, and we will read them right here on the podcast, and we'll Pastor Frank will uh do his best to answer them. Uh okay, we got our question for today. It says, How do I know if I am studying the Bible or understanding it correctly?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Um good question. Good question. I I think that um in a multitude of witnesses, let every word be established. Um what I mean by that is um study a lot of different resources, um, different commentaries, um, you know, talk about it with other seasoned believers. There's no nothing new underneath the sun. Um, there's no revelation that's new underneath the sun. Um chances are that if you're hearing something from God theologically speaking, that it will be something that is common, so to speak. And I don't mean that to belittle the powerful uh witness of the word of God. Um, but I would say that multiple commentaries, um, you know, delving into it, uh doing your study, your research across different sources is the best way to find out whether you're getting the right interpretation of a particular text.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, Ralph, you got something for today?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

What if Christianity is just a product of culture, society, and history rather than the one true faith? Can all religions be equally valid paths to God? Ralph likes to ask the same questions.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Um but you know, what if it is um here here's the thing is that um in every theological persuasion, there cannot be a hundred percent proof. Um faith is the substance of hope, of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. There's evidence that can that we can draw conclusions on, but there's never going to be concrete proof. And so at some point you do have to take a leap of faith. However, let's not discount the evidence. And that's where Christianity stands alone all by itself. The evidence is overwhelming for Christianity. For example, if you take Christianity, you compare it to Mormonism. The Book of Mormon names hundreds of people and places, um historical, so to speak, geographic locations, different things like that, a lot of which cannot be corroborated. The Bible mentions thousands, all of which have. The amount of manuscript evidence that dates back to um historically speaking, yesterday um is overwhelming in favor of uh the scripture being authentic. And when I mean dates back to yesterday, there's there's a way in which they measure the historical accuracy of ancient documents by the time between when the events they described uh took place and the time of the writings. And there's measurements for what is considered to be historically reliable or not. Well, the Bible from that point of view outshines any other ancient text in existence. And the amount of um partial and full manuscripts that are available are mind-boggling, uh, again, compared to other ancient texts of its time. And so when you begin to look at the evidence, and you begin to look at the evidence again, for and against Jesus, which we talked about a little bit before, all of these things they begin to, they begin to build a case. And then you then have to say, okay, which one of these has the is the most reasonable for us to put our faith in? And if you actually take the time to study it, nothing comes close to Christianity. And so what if, I mean, I guess there's always a possibility because faith is only based on evidence. It's not based upon um proof, so to speak. Um, but um, I'm willing uh to take that leap of faith because I think the uh the evidence is overwhelming.

SPEAKER_04 33:43

I would I would agree. I would agree. This is another great one. This is another really, really good uh conversation around the cross, and um, I hope that you have received something um from it today. Uh, we're gonna get ready to get out of here, and I gotta break the party to go to my dog's birthdays tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

Happy birthday to you. By the way, don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe. Share this with somebody. Again, we want to get as many people tuning in to these conversations as possible. We love you. Yes. We'll see you next time. See you next time.