You. If you would like a free newsletter on this or other subjects, just give us a call at Christian Answers. The phone number is area code 512-218-8022. That's 512-218-8022. Or you could email us at cdebater at aol.com. That's CDebater at AOL.com. Thank you. Greetings and welcome once again to our program. I'm Larry Wessels, your host, and I want to thank you for joining us today. Well, if you've been keeping up with our series, you've found that we've been in a rather specific format mode. It's a different kind of broadcast than we normally do, and we're going to continue today in that series. That series, of course, being called the In Defense of the Faith series, which is a takeoff on our live radio broadcast that we do every Saturday night in this locale where we're filming this at the moment. And also our once a month live television broadcast called In Defense of the Faith where we take questions from the audience, the listening audience. But today it's going to be a special studio format where we as the panel here I'll have our host for this particular series introduce everybody in a moment, but we're going to follow that same format with questions being asked, and then we will then try to give a biblical answer to those questions. Let me turn the show now over to Dale Deloney, who is the normal host of the In Defense of the Faith broadcast. Dale, what we'll do is normal, you will just proceed now in this broadcast as a regular Typical In Defense of the Faith show, and then toward the end of the show, we'll turn it back for an REF credit, and then sign off. So, Dale, the show is yours, brother. Okay, thank you, Larry. And welcome to In Defense of the Faith. And we normally are a live call-in program, and we open ourselves up to the public for questions. And the title of our show, In Defense of the Faith, the faith being Christianity. which we believe that we can reasonably and logically prove and defend. And so, you know, we believe in God. We believe God is real as evidenced through the design of creation. We believe the Bible is 100% accurate and is the Word of God. And what the Bible says is basically that Jesus Christ is the only way for salvation. Now, we derive our title, In Defense of the Faith, from the book of Jude, verse 3. Of course, before we do that, you might want to introduce, as I was talking about Mark there, and also Tom. Yes, I'm Dale Deloney, and I'm also here with Larry Wessels and Mark McNeil. It's good to have you, Mark. Good to be here, Dale. Tom Lowe is going to have our questions for us. Thank you, Dan. It's good to be back. Good. And also, this will be generally common-asked questions that our viewers would want to hear. Yes, sir. Okay. So we thank you, Tom. You're welcome. I know you do a great job. All right. Anyway, back to our title of our show. Larry, would you like to expound on why we bother to defend the Christian faith at all? Okay. The answer is simple. It's given to us in the book of Jude, the general epistle of Jude, verse 3. There's no chapters in that particular epistle, just one epistle with just verses. So it's verse 3 is all you need to look for. And it says, It was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." So we have a clear-cut command here in the Scripture for the saints of God to earnestly contend for the faith, to, as the Greek says, to put up a stiff fight, to get in there and grapple, wrestle, struggle with the vain philosophies of the world, the false prophets and their false teachings, and stand up for the truth of the Gospel as given to us by the Scriptures. And to back that up, basically, we usually go to another scripture that's found in 1 Peter, chapter 3, and verse 15. As I'll turn there, it says, So we're told not only to defend the faith, to earnestly defend the faith, but then here in 1 Peter 3, 15, we're told to give an answer to every man that asks of you of the hope that's in you. You've got to give people reasons why you believe what you believe. When they ask you a sincere question on why you have a faith in Christ rather than, let's say, in Buddha, You know, you should, as a good Christian witness, knowing the Word of God, being a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth, as the Scripture says, you should be able to turn to those people that ask you these sincere questions and give them answers, reasonable answers on why you believe what you believe. As Isaiah said, come let us reason together. And there's many other Scriptures that back this up, but Dale, that in a nutshell should answer the question. All right. Thank you, Larry. And that's right. You know, all the mainly the what people are saying today is you can believe whatever you want to believe. All truth is truth. And it's it's a lie that's being told to us over and over. And the Bible says the father of lies, the God little G of this world, the murderer from the beginning is Satan. And what he attacks is the truth by convoluting it, confusing it with false religions, cults, twisting scripture, and attacking the gospel. And it's the gospel that's the power of God and the salvation. And that's what's attacked and confused and left out. Everything can't be right. It cancels each other out. And you're left with Buddha's dead, Muhammad's dead, in the grave, but Jesus rose from the dead. Mark, for our viewers out there, what is the true gospel of Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures? Well, the gospel message, of course, the word gospel itself means good news. And the idea of good news presupposes that we have bad news. And the bad news that we have is that God is absolutely perfect and holy, and we are sinful. And if that is true, and of course the Christian faith affirms that it is, and I think our experience bears that out to be true, if we are sinful and God is absolutely holy, that means that God's going to have to punish our sin. And because God is absolutely perfect, and because our sin ever cries out to God, as well as our sinful heart, God's punishment, if we don't get rid of it somehow, will forever fall upon us. His wrath will continually fall down upon our lives because of our sin. And so here we are in a state of bad news, not having God, being without God in this world, being isolated and alien from God, being God's enemy, the Scripture calls us, and God being perfect, us being sinful. That's the bad news. The good news that we have, according to the Scriptures, is that God has provided a way that our sins can be taken away and that they can be forgiven. And that way is through Christ and His sufferings upon the cross and through His resurrection. Because of what our Lord has done, because He has suffered as a perfect, sinless human being, because of that, God is able to bring us back into a restored relationship to Himself of peace with God. And as a result of God's work in our lives, as a result of God's salvation, because we've been reconciled to God, we live for God out of the expression of love and thankfulness for His salvation that has come to us. So this is the basic gospel message. God has brought restoration between ourselves and God Himself. And also God has brought about a change in the hearts of His people so that we will serve Him and live for Him all the days of our lives. But that is the basic substance of the gospel. All right. Thank you, Mark. And we have a wonderful Savior that would do that for us, and He has provided a way. People, we really need to realize that the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man, and we're all needy creatures, and we need Jesus Christ. And He'll make you a new creation. He'll give you a new nature, and you'll be able to live the Christian life, and you'll have purpose, and life will have meaning. But until then, you know, why are you here, really? But once you know and have fellowship restored with God and become a true child of God, only through committing your life to Jesus Christ, then life can be meaningful. And that's what it's all about. You know this life isn't all there is. There's eternal life. And there's a purpose for things you go through. And God is sovereign and in control. And I would challenge you out there that are searching to read the book of John and check it out for yourself. And also, listen to the evidences that we're going to give on these shows. If we seem reasonable and rational to you, then I think you owe it to yourself to check out what we're saying. We're not judging anybody. We're not asking you for money or anything like that. We're doing this out of a love because we want you to know the way to have true life. Okay, with that, let's begin our questions. And Tom, what is our first question? Thank you, Dale. In order for a person to go to hell, do they have to commit really bad sins? That's a good question. Larry, would you like to start with that? All right. Well, basically, the question about committing really bad sins, and I know some people think, well, you've got to commit a whole lot of sins, and that really doesn't according to the scriptural text, because the Bible makes it clear that you only have to commit one sin to end up in hell. And the text for that is in James, chapter 2, verse 10. James, chapter 2, verse 10, it says, For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. So all you have to do is offend at one point, and you have blown it for everything. You're in violation. And therefore, it doesn't matter if you have a whole lot of sins or if you do a whole lot of especially bad sins. The requirement to go to heaven is you must be perfect. You must be without blemish. You cannot do anything. God is of pure eyes and to behold evil and to have that in his presence. So you can't You cannot commit even one sin and expect to make it to heaven. You make it to heaven not by your righteousness, not by your being good and having done more good deeds than bad deeds. That's the old Egyptian balance religion, you might say. The Egyptians believed, well, if you do more good than bad, The good outweighs the bad, and therefore you'll make it. If you do more bad than good, then you won't make it. A lot of people believe that. It's just a matter of balancing more good against the bad. But all you need is one bad work somewhere, one sin, and you're lost. Well, the Scripture makes it clear that we're all sinners. We all come short of the glory of God, Romans 3.23. And there's only one solution to this. And if you were paying attention earlier when Mark gave the Gospel, He clearly demonstrated that men are sinners and we need a Savior. The only one that could keep every point of the law and not offend even at one point was the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think he demonstrated that quite admirably. And with that, I'll let Mark just say a little bit more along these lines. Go ahead. Well, it is a question that strikes at the very heart of what we as Christians believe our faith answers. The great mind of Anselm in the 11th century is the one that really developed the doctrine of the atonement. And in his work, I think it was called Cur Deus Homo, which means, Why God Man? Why did God have to become man? And in that work, he develops the reason why Jesus had to die, and it was because there was no hope of salvation without Him. And what he does in this work is he points out that sin is actually a failure to render God His due. It's a failure to give God what He, as our Creator, deserves. And what God deserves from us is all of our life. He deserves every good work we could ever do. There are no good works that we do that stack up merit before God. They're what God expects out of us. And so the question arises, if I sin, I owe God everything that I am, and then I sin, how many good works would it take to pay for the sin? The dilemma is, I already owe God all of the good works that I could ever do, so none of them would pay for the sin. So the sin forever remains there until there is a way of satisfying God's holiness with respect to that sin. And then another thing that I think of in regard to this question is Martin Luther, who the great struggle that he had in his heart was over a real awareness of what the law of God required of his life. Most people that use this type of an argument say, how many sins would it take? Or, I don't commit very many sins. They don't understand the nature of the law of God. Because the law of God starts out with the command, you are to love the Lord thy God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And Martin Luther, more so perhaps than anyone in the history of the Christian church, was aware of the fact that I perpetually fail to love God with everything that I am. I am constantly failing the law of God. And so this question of how many sins, I would think that the truth, if the truth were known, so many of our good works are flawed by our sinful motivations and our failure to be exactly what God expects out of us. And then, of course, add to that all of our sinful works, and I think we'll all be ashamed When we really realize the commands of God and how we fail those, this type of argument would dissipate. It would disappear when we really see ourselves in respect to the holiness of God and His righteousness. So I think the question, first off, logically and theologically is groundless. Every sin, demands satisfaction, whether it be one or whether it be a million, and I don't think that any of us can claim one sin. And then I think we could also branch off from that into a discussion of the imputation of Adam's sin, which in and of itself brings guilt to our lives. But it's a very broad subject, but I think just basically this question is groundless and really is not something that we could spend too much time on without, you know, Yes. I would just like to add, a lot of people think if I'm better than the next guy, you know, that's okay. I think you've really pointed out that God compares us with total perfection, with his holiness, and he honors his word. He says that the wages of sin is death. We are all sinners, and the sin was passed down from Adam. We have a sin nature. And because of that sin nature, we are born without fellowship with God. And we are going to sin. And it doesn't matter if you just did one sin. It's like putting pollution in a glass of clean water. You're unclean. And the Bible over and over states that we're deserving of hell. But in this, because of the nature of God, His holiness, and His justice, He must punish sin. But He loves us, and He provided a way of salvation, a way that the fellowship could be restored, and that's by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, as a substitute to pay the punishment for our sin. And once you've turned your life to Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit's come in you and made you a new creation, you're justified in God's eyes. And Christ and God's righteousness is in you. And there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Okay, Tom, what would be our next question? Dale, we've all heard of supernatural phenomena such as ghosts, apparitions, and poltergeists. Are these phenomena real? And if so, how would you explain them in the context of biblical teaching? Good question. Larry, would you like to? That's a common phenomenon today with, I think, particularly of all the Hollywood movies about poltergeists, one and two, and all the movies about haunted houses and things of this nature. And then the apparitions, we hear about that all the time, particularly the apparitions of Mary that everybody's seen at Mechagoria and Yugoslavia and Fatima and all these other places where these apparitions appear. And as I just said, the haunted houses and so forth. But the first thing we have to consider is, are they real? And then the second thing is, if they are real, then How would the Bible cover this concern? Well, obviously, from my perspective, a lot of this phenomenon is fraudulent and doesn't exist at all other than just stories made up by people. But I also believe that some of it is indeed authentic, which goes beyond what you can test to prove that it's fraudulent, that there's just too many witnesses, let's say, or too much undeniable evidence to show that some of this phenomenon may actually go without an adequate explanation, and therefore may actually be occurring. And I would state that if this is indeed the case, and it really does exist, that my explanation to it would then be the demonic realm. Obviously, the Scripture talks all about a demonic realm, the powers of Satan, He's able to do many counterfeit miracles. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 9 and following talks about many signs and wonders take place. We know that he's got... there's no telling how many minions, millions and millions of his demons that are under his authority that are loose throughout the earth. These are invisible forces that we can't see straight up, you know, like we see each other now. But the Bible makes it very clear that the devil and his emissaries, the demonic realm, are out there, and they're out to deceive men. We have many clear-cut cases of demon possession throughout the scriptures. We have, you know, some supernatural cases of, or particularly I think of Job, where the devil's actually given permission by God to do many incredible works, causing disasters to befall men through, you know, the natural realm of whirlwinds and and lightning and other things that can happen. So, all these are given in the Scripture. So, given the fact that the Scripture says that the devil is still here right now, we can look particularly at Revelation chapter 12. It says the devil has come down to the earth and is making war against those that still hold the testimony of Jesus Christ and keep the commandments. He's here with his minions, and they are causing trouble. And when you look into these apparitions, let's say, of Mary, you get many people setting up shrines to worship these statues of Mary at these places. There's communication given by Mary that you're to follow her teachings as given at this shrine place. which don't jive with the scripture. We know that the demonic realm is always involved in preaching doctrines of demons, as I think 1 Timothy chapter 4 talks about. Whenever it gives doctrines that are in contrast contradiction to the Scripture we have to be aware of that. So the apparitions situation is one that is taking place worldwide. Many weird doctrines coming out of this. Ghosts and haunted houses, we know that God is holy, righteous, and just. He doesn't involve in these pointless power game tricks that we find associated with haunted houses and so forth which leads many people into psychic research. and other things that are anti-biblical. Well, I could go on and on on this, but we only have so much time. Mark, what do you have to say about this? Well, I think the points you brought up were the basic points, and then you ended with the real truth that we would want to emphasize, and that is with regard to all of these things, they're to be compared with the standard of Scripture. And we view the Scripture as the final authority for all of these things. And we see very clearly in the Word of God, as Larry brought out, these things are already warned against, and God tells us about these things and tells us to expect them. I think it would be an error for us to To just deny the presence of these things in a world, I think these things very oftentimes could be legitimate and oftentimes they are fraudulent because they prey on people's natural desire for something supernatural, which of course we believe is the basic hunger in the heart of man for God. that is only filled by Him. But as people, through a perverted desire and through a distorted desire after the supernatural, they end up searching after a lot of these things, which I think is unfortunate. But I do think I agree very much with Larry. There's a lot of things that are going on in our world that should be compared with the standard of Scripture ultimately to determine what we're to do with regard to them. But those are my basic thoughts. Yeah, and I'd just like to say that the world lies to you. And you'll hear on all these talk shows, you know, old ghost expert, and the psychologist comes up with all these theories. But the Bible clearly states that there are demons, and that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light, and he can deceive many, and so can his followers, the network of demons. And so they are real. They are there. The lie is that dead people are floating around. The Bible specifically says that if you die without Christ, you're going straight to Hades, hell. And you'll go to wait until the final judgment where you'll be cast into a lake of fire. And for a believer, he'll go and be with the Lord instantaneously. There is no purgatory. There is no floating around. There isn't anything else. The Scripture is very plain on that. And so don't be fooled by that and those sort of lies, as well as apparitions of Mary. Good question, Tom. Dale, many people have reported sightings or abductions by aliens. How does the Bible stand up with something like this? It seems to tie in a little bit, too, with what we were just talking about. It sounds like, Tom, you were asking about UFOs and so forth, you know, the aliens from space and the chariots of the gods by Vondamikon and all that kind of stuff. But basically, looking at the Scriptures once again, we find that there are There is nothing really we can find in scripture that would indicate that there's all these inhabited planets out there with all these aliens. It doesn't say that point blank. What we have is the heavens and the earth and the underworld, and we find that there's angels, demons, men, and of course God himself. We don't really find any descriptions of other creatures expressed, at least in the Bible. So that's got to be one of our starting points right there. Next, when you look into this UFO phenomenon, I tie it in with the ghosts and stuff we were just talking about because there's many UFO cults and religions that have begun by so-called communication with aliens from space. in these cults, and there's many UFO magazines that you can get at your local grocery store or bookstore. They're all over the place, and they're teaching all these wild religious ideas, you know, like from reincarnation to pantheism, you know, you're God, I'm God, we're all God, and so forth. But the key is, in every single case of these UFO religions that are started by so-called communication with aliens from space, it's always a contradiction to the gospel that Jesus Christ has given in the Scripture. And once again, that ties in with 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 1, I mentioned about the doctrines of demons. But they're going to bring up these counterfeit gospels as Galatians chapter 1 verse 6 talks about. It also reminds me of how the scripture teaches about necromancy in Deuteronomy chapter 18. You're not to speak with the dead. That just kind of ties in with the apparitions of Mary. Mary is dead. Yes, she's communicating with us, and the scripture tells us, point blank, you're not to communicate with the dead. That ties in with haunted houses also. It just came to me right now. But a lot of times these, you know, we've all heard of Elvis Presley and a UFO and stuff. So getting it, see, that way I tie it with the dead and the UFOs back to the main subject, which is UFOs. Basically, a little joke for you out there, folks. But there's no Elvis in a UFO floating around out there, okay? The scripture makes it point blank. Once you are dead, you either go to heaven or to hell. Now, the aliens from space tie in with something else. It's supposed to be other creatures like man, but they live on other planets. Well, how does the scientific evidence stand up to this? It doesn't stand up at all. Because no research organization, no scientific organization has ever tracked a UFO of some spaceship or something coming from deep space into our atmosphere. These UFO phenomenon sightings always appear suddenly within our Earth's atmosphere right on the spot. They never appear coming from deep space where we can track them, like we can track, you know, our Apollo missions to the moon or something, or some of our other Voyager spaceships that we can track way out there to other, you know, to other planets in the solar system. So that's an interesting thing right there, plus they defy any We have a ton of information on UFOs that's available to anyone who wants to write or so forth. I could go on and on on this subject for the whole show, but in 1954, let's say, you have a verified, documented instance of UFOs appearing in our atmosphere, closing in over the White House. We have complete Air Force protection over Washington, D.C. and America. because that's the seat of power and the White House. So anytime anyone comes into that airspace that's above Washington, D.C., particularly the seat of power, the U.S. Air Command has air forces that interdict anything that's flying in there. Well, in 1954, whole formations of unidentified flying objects came into that airspace. They were interdicted by U.S. Air Force pilots who then said they saw blue lights that cut away from them going Mach 2 and making 90-degree angles. Anyone who knows physics knows that's not possible by any stretch of the rubber band as far as physics goes. So these things violated the natural laws of physics and took off. When they landed, they came right back on the radar scopes. They came back over to airspace again. The jets went back up and interdecked them again. And once again, they violated every law of physics and dispersed again. And this went on for a while. All this is documented in the news. All I'm saying about all this is I would argue that most of it is fraudulent, once again, like the ghosts and so forth, but that UFOs, there are authentic cases that are unexplainable. And when you tie that in with the demonic realm, I would say that most of your UFO sightings, once again, tie in with the angel of light that Dale was talking about a moment ago out of 2 Corinthians chapter 11. And with that, I could go on and on, but I want to give it over to you, Mark, to make any more comments on this, if you like. Well, I'll just say that though we certainly would not deny that if God, God is so powerful that if He wanted to, He could create life on every single piece of anything in this universe, but what I think we are seeing in the Scriptures and what we would say from God's Word is that when God created the universe and saw that it was good, and then He began to create life, He specifically and specially created life on this planet Earth, and it was to this man that He created that He wanted to have a special relationship unlike that of anywhere else in this created order, even special to that of the angelic world. So just from the impression you get from God's Word, it is that we are unique. on this earth as being made in God's image, and that God has created life on this planet as being unique. And I would also say, again, there's simply nothing that I see, as Larry's already pointed out, and we don't have to go through it again, but I see nothing that compels me to believe that these things are actually life from another planet. Every one of them, so far as I know, that have been looked into have been shown to be fraudulent or shown to have some other satisfactory explanation. Or they are simply things that have another explanation. Supernatural though it may be, it does have another explanation without having to postulate life on another planet. So those are just my basic thoughts. God could if He wanted to do that, but we have nothing that compels us to believe that He did. Now, Mark, let me ask you a quick question before we have Dale take this up. If there is life on other planets, and if we assume the Bible to be true, that men are sinners and Jesus Christ, God himself, became man and died for our sins, this would, I think, presuppose the idea that if there are life on other planets, that they would be sinless, because why would God die for our race of creature? and let other races of creatures on other planets go in their sins. In other words, if they were sinless, if they appeared over here, they would have to be doing nothing but right, never telling a lie, and always doing what was good for us. And of course, the document of the story of the planet. Would you look at that as another way of looking at these UFOs in light of the biblical text, that they would have to be sinless? And that would certainly be the case, assuming that there was no fall on their planet as well. Assuming that it certainly would be a whole different category of thought. But, you know, on the earth, we are the descendants of Adam, and so Christ has died for those who are the descendants of Adam, which of course would exclude everyone else in the universe. So it's like one man, I won't mention his name, but when discussing the subject, he said if people from another planet would come to the earth, that he would start proclaiming to them the saving message of Christ. and Him crucified, and I thought, well, that really misses the point, because Christ died for the descendants of Adam, or those that were, you know, of the flesh, of Abraham, or those types of things. But again, I think that this is, I think it is fundamentally, of course, if I'm proven wrong tomorrow, it will not affect the truth of Christianity in any way, but I think so far as we understand the Scriptures, it's fundamentally an opposition with the impression and the sense of Scripture as being that God has focused, even though He is the infinite God of the universe, He, in creation, He focuses attention upon this little planet we call the earth. And it gives uniqueness to us, even though we see a vast universe. It shows us that God looked down upon this single planet and created man, and this is the way we see it in Scripture. There's no impression that God has, you know, created this in a diversity of creations on planets and things like that. I just think it is not really in harmony with the sense of Christianity. Well, I agree, and I think it's one of the biggest lies perpetuated today. And I think that we all need to be aware that the origin of this lie is Satan. Every time you can trace these UFO cults to the demonic, to the occult, even Satanism. Dr. Raschke, an occult expert, was investigating UFO cults, and he found it was just a mask for Satanism. A lot of the cults that are very demonic and attack the Bible They are always promoting UFOs. And a matter of fact, before I was introduced to Christianity and born again, I was dabbling in ESP, psychic phenomena, and UFOs. It all goes hand in hand. Now, one of the ways to disprove it is we shouldn't even have an earth. I mean, I prove the existence of God this way by the balance and the order, the design. There shouldn't even be an earth to have life. It's impossible to have the first cell. But like you said, God could have, maybe, but he would have told us. He would have told us about it. But I think one of the proofs is that When you investigate, say, the book of Urantia, supposedly channeled by an extraterrestrial, we know channelers, the spirit guides, are nothing but demons, and they lie and attack Christianity. Well, this so-called extraterrestrial possessed this person, and through transcribing what he said, we have the book of Urantia. And the book of Urantia is very occultic and attacks all the doctrines of Christianity, tells you you have the God within, and all this sort of thing. And, of course, this is exactly what the Bible said would happen. It says in the last days that many would be deceived by the doctrines of demons. It's nothing but demonic and occultic, and I'll just tell you, don't be fooled by it. Alright, that's a good question, Tom. What's our next one? Dale, horoscopes are a common feature in most of the newspapers today. Is astrology compatible with Christianity? Absolutely not. Larry, you want to tell us why? That's correct, Dale. You're totally right. We have a question here on astrology. And of course, I'll read this passage first and then I'll elaborate. Isaiah 47 it says in verse 12 and following I'll just read from the text says stand now with thine enchantments and with the multitude of thy sorceries wherein thou hast labor from thy youth if so be thou shalt be able to profit if so be thou mayest prevail now verse 13 is the key Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators stand up and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble. The fire shall burn them. They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. None shall save thee," says the last of verse 15. And so, we have a classic passage here where we have the astrologers mentioned in detail, the monthly prognosticators, you know, they look at the stars and the stargazers and all that. And I've done an extensive study because I was debating with an astrologer, a guy that casts horoscopes. about three or four years ago. And I took him to Isaiah 47, like I just read you, and he said, oh, it doesn't say astrologers in the Hebrew text. You know, if you knew Hebrew, you would know it wasn't true. So I went and dug up a whole bunch of Hebrew lexicons and interlinear Bibles. And I got some other scholarly works and commentaries on this. And Xerox, just a ton of material, took me hours and hours to do all this. Brought it into him, stacked it before him, and showed him all the evidence saying that this definitely is speaking about astrologers. And his response was, well, I can see it's all here, but I totally disagree. And I said, wait, you know more than all these Hebrew scholars and experts and so forth? And he just looked at me and he said, yeah, I do. It's like, you know, sometimes you just can't, you know, if a person's convinced and he really enjoyed his horoscopes and is convinced that the astrology was the way to go, that it was acceptable. But according to the scripture, you go to like the book of Daniel, also Daniel chapter 1, I think verse 20 and following, it talks about how Daniel and the Hebrew children were better than all of Nebuchadnezzar's astrologers they had in the whole realm. They couldn't get the job done for them. Deuteronomy 18 gets into all the occultic arts, and you find that this just simply doesn't jive with the Scriptures. And as you get into the New Testament, Jesus verified that these Old Testament passages were indeed God's command concerning these things. Astrology is nothing more than an occultic art based on Old Testament times Pagan religions and deities it was astrology all started on the worship of these these star systems that were like Taurus or you know like you remember in if you've seen the movie the tank man was with Charlton Heston Yul Brynner they built a golden calf the golden calf was one of the astrological deities that they worship back in those times and so that's what I'm saying astrology is based on a ancient pagan ritual and religions. And in fact, there's an excellent book, I think Dale will show it to you momentarily, called Horoscopes in a Christian by Dr. Robert Morey, which is available through the Research and Education Foundation. He gets into all this, all the scriptural text and context and goes to it from there. And also, one last thing, I'm going to give it over to you guys. A lot of the astrologers talk about the Magi in the New Testament following the star. And that shows that astrology is scriptural and true because here's these astrologers following a star to find Jesus. But, of course, what they never tell you is they follow the star alright, but the star led them right to Herod. He says, well, tell me where the kid is as soon as you find out. And, of course, you know, we know that the Lord intervened with His angels to tell them things like this. But don't believe those lines. The Scripture is clear here. But, gentlemen, go ahead. And, Mark, I guess you first. Go ahead and say what you have to say on that. Well, I think I'll just make a few comments on what you said. First off, the bottom line, as biblical Christians, the bottom line is the Bible simply does not tell us to do these things, does not advocate it or support it. And secondly, as Larry mentioned, the Scriptures specifically condemn these things, so that should seal up the case. And then secondly, I'll just add, I recently was doing some study on the Magi that he mentioned at the birth of Christ. And so far as what I can understand about the historical backgrounds at that point, these men were probably, as far as some of the historical sources that I've seen, they are probably more like what we would call astronomers rather than astrologers. They were more those that studied the stars and tried to understand them as they were in fact, rather than trying to just read into them things as we're discussing here with astrologers, and also In addition to that point, as was mentioned here, or I don't think it was brought up specifically this way, but there was a general expectation of the Messiah during this period of time. There was an expectancy all over the world for a coming Deliverer. And so they were looking for this, and when they saw this outstanding, different thing, they viewed it as some type of a sign from God. But again, I don't think it would correspond to what we're discussing here as astrology, and also at the same time, the Scripture specifically condemns that in the way that it's being used here. So those are just my thoughts on that subject. Okay. Also, I'd just like to mention Dr. Morey's book, Horoscopes and the Christian. It's a little book here, but it's loaded with great facts. and completely refutes horoscopes, talks about it directly coming out of planet worship and paganism, follows it, has all sorts of arguments and answers those arguments, talks about Nostradamus and Gene Dixon and how incorrect they were and are and that they qualify as a false prophet. Nostradamus had given some false predictions. Right. They've been wrong many times, more times than... you only hear about the times that they're kind of vaguely right, but the point is God doesn't give false prophecies. It's not of God. It's just another a cultic practice, another lie that's, you know, in our society to get you down that broad road, to get your eyes off Jesus Christ, to get off the Christian life, to get away from God's Word, start looking in your newspaper for your lucky day, or some sort of, you know, even, I guess it's tied into psychics, which, of course, can easily be explained by demonic transmissions. And so it's all a cultic, it's just another lie of Satan. And I would suggest not to dabble in it. Tom? Dale, did Jesus resurrect with a physical body or did he become resurrected as a spirit creature? That's a very good question, and how you believe and answer that question really makes a big difference. This is one of the basic, most important doctrines of all of Christianity. And Larry, if you'd like to start. In fact, you get this a lot when you're dealing with some of the cultic religions that are running around the landscape, especially those pervasive door knockers, the Jehovah's Witnesses, who probably most of our viewers have had a visit from at one time or another. They, to a man, if you're a good Jehovah's Witness anyway, they deny that Jesus was raised bodily from the dead, but rather was raised as a mighty spirit creature. And so, Now, this is a key doctrine. We had done a show earlier where the question was on essentials and to deny that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. and that his body was dissolved into gases, as they say, and that he was recreated as a spirit, as Watchtower Bible and Tract Society teaches. And you get many offshoot groups of them, and a lot of other groups, too, get into this, denying the bodily resurrection of Christ. But I always say, it's not your opinion or my opinion or whatever. Let's say it's the Scripture. Now, the scripture, I think, is very clear on this in Luke chapter 24. It's the very last chapter. That'll be an easy way to remember it. The very last chapter of the Gospel of Luke. And I'll just start with verse 37 and read the passages here and then elaborate a little bit on it. Here's what it says. It says, verse 37, Luke chapter 24, it says, But they were terrified and affrightened, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. Okay, now, I think that's pretty obvious to anyone listening to what I just said. They're terrified, and they supposed they had seen a spirit. Okay, got that down? Okay, verse 38. And He said unto them, now the context here, if you read the verses before verse 37, this is the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus says, appeared to the disciples, He's coming to them and they're terrified because they've seen Him crucified and put in the tomb and now all of a sudden they're seeing Him walking in their midst and they think He's a spirit. Verse 38 says, Jesus says, and He said unto them, Why are ye troubled? And why did thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold, my hands and my feet, that it is I Myself Handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." And when he had thus spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? and they gave him a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb, and he took it and did eat before them." Now, anyone that understands about spirits and flesh and bone bodies and stuff in the context of first century Judaism and that culture in Israel, they all believe that spirits could not eat anything, because they were ethereal. You know, a spirit walked through walls and, you know, if it tried to eat anything, it would just kind of go through them and fall on the floor. You know, that was the idea they had back then. And so, what we have here is a passage of Scripture that couldn't be, I don't think, at least scripturally speaking, any more clear and concrete than this passage I've just read to you. It says, point blank, right at the front, they thought they saw a spirit. Jesus then comes and says, don't be troubled, don't be afraid. A spirit does not have flesh and bone as you see me have." Now, hang on a minute. Touch all this. See? See? I'm real. This is the real stuff. And then, to even back up the point more, as they were marveling, he says, hey, you got something to eat? Give me something to eat. I'll, you know, and he starts eating, which in their context and culture knew that spirits couldn't eat things because they'd fall before, as I just said. So, I think, point blank, there's many more scriptures on this, on the resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15 and so forth. But I'm going to let my brothers in Christ here elaborate more on this, but I think this is a passage of full mention on the question. Mark? Well, I think of a discussion that I had here recently with someone who denied an actual resurrection of this body that we have. I pointed him to the passage in Job. where Job said, that I know my Redeemer liveth, and that I know that even though worms eat this flesh and it goes back to dust, I know in my flesh I shall see God. And in that passage he is revealing or speaking of this great truth of Christianity that is fundamental to us, and that is that this body Though it goes back to dust, though it be scattered into the sea, no matter what happens to it, God, through His sovereign power, through His miracle power, He is going to take this body and bring it back into union with my spirit, which will be separated from this body at death. And that is an essential truth for Christianity. I think that Larry has given us one of many scriptures that teach the truth of this. I think of many just sitting here, another wherein John Thomas said that, I won't believe unless I am able to touch the nail prints in his hand and thrust my hand into his side. John chapter 20. Right, and Jesus, of course, actually does that, appears to him bodily so that he knows this is actually Christ who is here. And then I also think of 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul says, I show you a mystery. We'll not all sleep, but we'll all be changed. In the moment, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump, this mortal will put on immortality. It's a changing. It's not an exchanging, but a changing. And I also think in Philippians where Paul said that he will change this vile body like unto his glorious body according to the working of the power whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. So, I think this truth of the actual resurrection of this body in Christ and also in all of us is essential to the New Testament teaching of the body and of the nature of the body. Oh, very much so. Again, it goes right back to Satan attacking the nature of God, attacking Jesus Christ. If he can distort the gospel, if he can somehow twist and create a new Jesus, the Bible says there's false gospels, there's a false Jesus. And so you attack the resurrection and distort it so that you don't know what the right Jesus is. This leads to Gnosticism, where Jesus is a phantom. New Age, religion now, and unity, Unitarian churches and such, they believe that we all have the Christ consciousness, the sort of a vague, Light within kind of thing and of course the Bible clearly Speaks out against it several books in the Bible I believe Galatians Colossians were written against the Gnostic heresy, and that's all it is and and in first John flat-out Says the test the spirits it says by this you'll know the Spirit of God every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God and And you see, it says that every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ is from God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist. And so there's the fingerprints right there of Satan. I wanted to add to that, Dale, before we get off of that subject, that in addition to those books that were written against Gnosticism, Gnosticism, its presence was prevalent. And Paul also was responding to that in 1 Corinthians 15, when he deals with the resurrection, which was being denied. And as Larry, I think, mentioned in an earlier program, perhaps the one before this one, he mentioned how that the Christian faith and our faith is in vain. if Christ did not actually rise from the dead, and their denial of the resurrection was linked to their idea that the flesh was somehow inherently sinful. And so it arose from this misconception, and Paul is saying that's a complete misunderstanding of the Christian faith. In fact, you do away with it, and you do away with Christianity. That's right. All right. With that, Tom, would you like to give us one last question? Yes, sir. Dale, some people say, I believe in God, but I don't believe the devil exists. What would you say? Good question. Okay. Well, with time running, we're going to have to make this a brief answer so we can, because the time's almost up on us, but I find it interesting. I'll just, I'll just flip here to a passage of scripture and I'm going to go to Matthew chapter four. and read a little bit for our audience watching and as time flies and then come to some clues to this and let my brother say some things too. Matthew chapter 4 we have Jesus being tempted in the wilderness and it says here verse 1, Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward a hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Verse 5, Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple. And then said unto him, because time's short, all I'm trying to point out here is down in verse 10, it says, Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only thou wilt serve. What we have here completely is a dialogue between Jesus and the devil, as mentioned here, as Satan. And it's an interactive dialogue, and things are taking place, subject-object relationships. Jesus is presented as real as the devil is presented as real. If you throw out the devil, you're going to have to throw out Jesus and the validity of Scripture, because throughout the Bible, and there's many other passages, I just wanted to mention this briefly, that the devil is always presented just as real as Jesus is. And there's much more I could say, but Mark, Well, that would be my basic quick answer to that question, is that all of the elements that constitute personality can be demonstrated with regard to the devil and Satan. And this, what Larry has brought out, demonstrates that. So that from a Christian standpoint, believing in the integrity of the Scriptures, I just don't see how you can escape. that truth, just as true as God is personal, the devil is revealed as personal. And I think that should be a sufficient answer. Right. And, folks, the fact is the devil does exist, is throughout the Old Testament and New Testament, and that he would love nothing better than to have you think that he doesn't exist. And, of course, when you deny the existence of him, you deny God's Word. And I'll just read. 2 John says, If you deny the teachings of Christ that this is, you're not of God and you do not have God. So I would encourage you all, don't be deceived. Check out what you see in the world with the scriptures and give your life to Jesus Christ. Thank you for viewing with us. Stay tuned for our next show. Until then, God bless. Thank you very much. Check out our websites. BibleQuery.org. This site answers 7,700 Bible questions. HistoryCart.com. This site reveals early church history and doctrine, proving Roman Catholicism is not historically or doctrinally viable. MuslimHope.com. This site is a classic refutation of Islam, a counterfeit religion created by Muhammad. Free newsletters are also available. The. . The.