Bibleline Radio Show – 2007-12-21

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Coming to you from Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, declaring God’s love through radio and television, providing real answers to an ever-searching world. Got a question? Dial toll free at 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. Now here’s the host of Bibleline, Dr. Hank Lindstrom. Good morning and welcome to my blind great to be with you today. Thanks for tuning into the broadcast We look forward to being with you each and every day Monday through Friday as we come to you live from Campa, Florida From our studios right here at the Calvary community church.

Wow Mary Christmas to you. We’re getting so close and I hope you’re Ready and we’ll have a safe and a wonderful holiday and of course What a special time when we get a chance to just openly talk about Jesus Christ and to tell people what the season is really all about because certainly Jesus is the reason for the season and yet what a tragedy today we have people that will be celebrating the birth and yet Jesus will be left out of the party.

He won’t be a part of it at all. I have had people tell me in business that they go to a Christmas party and they’re told they can’t mention the name of Christ. Can you imagine going to somebody’s birthday party and you couldn’t mentioned the name of the person whose birthday it is? Crazy! We are living in a time when it’s really a mixed up world, but I hope that you’ll tell people it’s about Jesus. It’s his birthday. It’s God coming into the world to become our Savior, taking you on human flesh and going to the cross of Calvary and dying there to pay for our sins.

It’s exciting. Welcome you in Miami. We’re glad to have you on board as a newer station for us and also welcome to to you people in North Adams, Massachusetts, listening to us up there on FM, I think it’s 98.9 and we’re glad to have you all joining us as well today as we go out. We have a phone number and you can call in and we can try to take your question today. The phone number is 1-800-576-3771-1-800-5763-771. Give us a call and we’ll get you up on and answer your question and we’d love to talk to you and feel free to call us.

Right now, it would be a good time as we begin and we’ll be talking about the Bible a little bit and then we’ll get to the callers and we have lots of all fair questions as well. We’ll try to deal with those today as many as we can anyway. It’s Friday and I hope you’ll go to church someplace and if you’re in the Tampa Bay area driving distance we won’t come and visit us on this Sunday. It will be the Sunday before Christmas.

And guess what? We’re going to have a Christmas Eve service. Guess when? Christmas Eve. December 24th at 10 PM will have music and special music and also a short message. And we’ll sing. And of course, we’ll hand the word supper and we’ll conclude with a camel-eyed ceremony. And I think there’ll be refreshments after that. So you can do whatever you do on Christmas Eve at your home and then come on over and be here by 10 o’clock and enjoy the Christmas Eve service.

We have some people we know are already coming from South Florida from the Miami area. They said they’ll be here for the New Year’s rather than Christmas Eve service. And we’d love to have you. December 24th, 10 p.m. right here at my mother headquarters at the Calvary Community Church where I’m the pastor. This Sunday, if you wanna come, we worship at 10.30 in the morning with an evening service at 6 p.m. And also I teach in adult classes. You can join at 9.15 on Sunday morning.

We’re going to Israel. That’s right, and it’s exciting. And I think we’re gonna have a marvelous trip. This ought to really be a good one. We’re going to leave on Monday, February 25th, and we’ll be returning on March 7th, a Friday. And we’ll have 12 full days in Israel. We’ll fly with the safest airlines in the world, El Al, the Jewish airlines. We’re going to fly non-stop from New York, rather than New York, New Jersey, directly to Tel Aviv.

And we’ll have a super time. Great hotels, great experiences. We’ll be baptizing in the Jordan River. We’ll be visiting the Tomb of Christ. We’ll be seeing the Hill of Calvary. We’ll be taking a swim in the Dead Sea, which is interesting because you can’t. He flew on top like a cork and will go to the Sea of Galilee will stay like gorgeous five-starred deluxe hotel right on the edge of the waters of the Sea of Galilee where Christ fed the five thousand where Jesus walked on the water where the fishermen disciples made their eardner living fishing there.

We’ll visit where Peter was born and raised and so many other things. It’s going to be great. our Bibles throughout the whole trip and that’s exciting. Well we’re glad that you’re tuned in today and we hope that you are all set for the holidays. If you need a Christmas gift, a Bible or whatever, we can chip it to you. It’s getting close now but we’ll try to get it out as quickly as we can. We have the Scolco Bibles and many other things.

We still have a couple left of the Zondervin-Pictoral Bible Encyclopedia, not dictionary, It’s like a PDF, 18 pounds, 5 volumes. It normally sells for 200. We have a Christmas special, a gift of $110 to buy a line, and we’ll ship out that set. That’d be a nice gift for somebody. We also have the loose-pair shapers, systematic theology. It was originally in 8 volumes. It’s now been printed in 4 volumes. You get everything that was in the original 8, and it’s a nice set.

Retail’s for about 180. We have it again for a Christmas special gift of 110. The Bible and we’ll send out the Lucifer Systematic Theology. We have that other Christmas Special for Angelism 20. The How Permanent is Your Salvation CDs. These really work. People get saved when they listen to them. Along with that, we will send you 50 of our best tracks in my Going to Heaven in English. We also will give you the handbook on Personal of Angelism. a great book that is in teaching how to lead someone to Christ.

That’s a $120 value for a gift of a hundred that will help my one. By the way, if you haven’t given to Christ this Christmas season, would you consider giving a gift to Bible it? We are listeners supported. That’s how we’re able to bring this program to you. We don’t have any other source and your gift would be greatly appreciated. Would you consider giving, you know, when the wise They gave all their gifts 100% of them to Christ. A lot of people make out of shopping lists, but they never include Jesus.

It’s his birthday, and certainly the wise men were wise for many reasons, but certainly they were wise in recognizing that it was the birth of Christ that were celebrating and they gave their gifts to him. Would you go to a party and celebrate somebody’s birthday and not give them a gift, but you would give other people gifts? to be awful in fact that would be really disrespectful, wouldn’t it? You go to somebody’s birthday party and you start handing out gifts to other people that are at the party but not to the one whose birthday it is.

Oh my goodness. Well that’s what happens every year here at Christmas that people are giving to everybody but the one whose birthday it is. And I think somehow things have got jumbled around and are a little bit confused. We need to read our Bible very carefully. I find that a lot of people don’t check out the Christmas story. They don’t check out the Bible. It’s not necessarily that important that you get the Christmas story right as far as the details.

But I find that if you don’t get that right, you don’t get anything else right generally because it’s kind of the way you approach the Bible. If you don’t get salvation right, then you go to hell. That’s a pretty serious consequence. So you need to realize that this is the case. And again, I bring up every year the fact that there’s nothing in the Bible about angels singing. And people want to argue about that. And they try to say, oh, then they try to look for verses and you can’t find one.

You can’t find one. And it’s not a big deal. But yet, look at all the hymns that talk about choirs of angels and heart and herald angels singing and so on. Well, we learned about angel singing from these hymns in different other sources, not the Bible. And so everybody tries to find a verse that says angel sing, oh, you can’t. And we had a caller that called in yesterday, I think I mentioned it yesterday, that said I hadn’t read my Bible carefully.

And of course I have. But if you go to Revelation 15, let me read this. Let me read this. This is a common error that happens when people look at their Bible. In Revelation 15 verse 1 it says, I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels. Here is the angels, okay? Having the seven last place for in them is filled up the wrath of God. Then if you jump to verse 3 it says, and they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God.

And I had somebody say, well, see, here seven angels are singing The song of Moses! Angel Sing! Well, if you don’t read your Bible carefully… That’s what concludes you’ve come to. If you notice verse 2, it talks about a totally different groups. After the Angels introduced, I saw that we’re a sea of glass mingled with fire. Then they’ve gotten the victory. These are people that have been saved. They had the victory of the beast, the Antichrist, over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name.

They stand on the sea of glass having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses. It doesn’t say here anywhere that angels sing, and look at how that error happens because people don’t read their Bible carefully. I’m concerned because I was raised in a church where we talked about Christ, we celebrated the birth of Christ, Christmas was a big event, and yet I never knew how to be saved. It was because we never were planned to the Scriptures and planned out that Christ alone saves and we can’t save ourselves.

In Romans 11, 6 it says, If by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it’s no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work. And you’ll say, what did he just say? I hope you write that verse down. Romans 11, 6, we’re saved by grace according to the Bible. Ephesians 2, 8 says, by grace are you saved through faith in Jesus Christ. Grace means mercy, unmerited favor.

And whenever grace is mentioned in the Bible, it totally excludes works. Works are the opposite of grace, and you can’t add grace and works together. They are extreme opposites. You cannot mix them. And if you add any, if you add any, works to grace, you don’t want to have grace. That’s what Romans 11, 6 is saying. And if by grace I’m quoting Romans 11, 6, if by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise grace is not grace.

But if it be of works, and this is the part that’s scary, if it be of works, then it is no more grace. Otherwise work is not work. If you add any works to grace, it says you do not have grace. We stand before God without grace, without mercy, without unmerited favor. From God you’ll wind up in hell. Scary, scary, scary. And a lot of people are trusting in Christ plus confirmation. Christ plus baptism. Christ plus the Christian life.

Christ plus giving. Christ plus and plus plus plus plus plus. If you add anything, you’ll be lost. I hadn’t remembered distinctly one fellow in particular that felt you had to be water baptized, water baptized to be saved. Water baptized to be saved. I said, you’re not saved. He said, yes, I am. I said, no, you’re not. He said, yes, I am. I said, no, you’re not. He said, why am I not saved? I said, because you’re trusting in your works.

He said, no, I’m not. I said, yes, you are. And I said, you’re trusting in baptism. Baptism is a work. When Christ was baptized in Matthew 3.15, he said to John who was reluctant to baptize He was doing a work of righteousness, which would obviously be what water-baptism is. And in Titus 3.5 it says not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. So we’re saved by grace. We are saved by grace without works.

And the moment you trust Christ, you are saved and saved forever. And if you add any works, baptism, you’ll not be saved. I told him you’re going to wind up going to hell. And this sounds so wrong to many people because you’ve been taught wrong all of your life. That if you add any works or that if you trust in baptism plus Christ, now I believe in baptism. We have baptized, I don’t know how many people today, we’ve in the past couple years hundreds of people, we’ve put them under the water and thank God they’ve all come back up, we haven’t teasing them, we haven’t lost anybody.

But we believe in baptism, I baptize all the time and we’ll be baptizing on our trip to Israel in the Jordan River. But baptism doesn’t save it, if you’re trusting in that baptism in addition to faith in Christ, my friend you’ll not go to heaven because you’re adding works. Well this gentleman finally, He understood it and he trusted Christ alone. That’s the only way he could be saying. Think about the dang thief. He never got baptized, but he trusted the Lord.

And Christ said to him today, the salvation that the Bible offers, the gift of Christmas, the gift of eternal life is offered all year long by God to all those that would put your trust in Christ. Have you done that? I hope you have. It’s the most important decision. that you’ll ever make in your entire life. You must trust Christ alone to be safe. And the Bible talks about the majority, millions, millions, I’m sure, that will claim if you ask It’s a big deal.

But they’re not really safe because they’re trusting in Christ plus. You have to trust Christ alone. I’m not putting hairs. I’m just telling you what the Bible says. I never understood that. I was a Christ plus person until I heard the gospel and realized it was Christ alone. In the night I trusted Christ at eighteen, I realized there was nothing I could do. That Christ had done it all. That He had purchased the gift. God’s gift that he gives to all those that would believe on Christ, that whosoever believe it in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

I’m Dr. Inchlinstrum. This is Bible and pleading with you for your soul. I would like you to go to heaven. Whatever you do or decide to do will not affect mine at all. I’ve already trusted Christ and I’m eternally saved because of what Christ did for me, but I worry about you. I hope you have paid close attention to your Bible. And the point of angels not singing is just a symptom of a problem that people don’t read their Bible carefully and they think they know the Christmas story, they think they know about angels, they think they know about how to be saved and they haven’t paid close attention because the Bible says you cannot be saved by grace plus works.

If you add any works you’ll have no grace. Otherwise the definition of grace and works don’t mean a thing. We’re going to go out to Denver, Colorado. Isn’t that exciting? I bet it’s nice and cool out there. And we’re going to go to Adam. And Adam is in Denver, Colorado. And Adam, welcome to the Bible and program. We’re glad to have you on the air with us. Hey, Dr. How you doing? Good. There’s good. I have two questions for you.

My kids are one of us for me and my wife because we’re listening to you right now. And the first one for my kids, if you could explain to them who are the four horsemen in Revelation and what do each one represent? All right. Very good. And we’ll answer it all fair. Thank you, Adam. And the Four Horsemen. In Revelation chapter 6, you have Four Horsemen. And really it is the unfolding of the tribulation period. How the way will be prepared on the earth for Christ to come back and rule and reign over the earth as king.

You’ll see in the first horse there, the white horse, is a picture of the antichrist coming offering peace on the earth. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 3, it says when people on the earth are talking about peace and security, and security. Then sudden destruction comes upon a most prevalent one when a child and a child are not escaped. In other words, the tribulation period will come on the world when they’re talking about peace and the Antichrist will come as a false peacemaker.

Christ is the Prince of Peace. Christ will bring peace at the second coming seven years after the Rapture, but right after the Rapture the Antichrist will emerge as he comes to power. The second horse, the red horse, speaks about how he will quickly turn and become a man of war. And the red represents blood. As there will be wars and rumors of wars. And you know this lines up exactly with Matthew 24 where Jesus describes what the tribulation period will be like.

And it begins with deception first. Matthew 24 says, don’t be deceived. Many will come in my name saying I’m Christ and deceive many. We find the Antichrist will deceive. He will appear to be a good guy, try not to be a bad guy. And then it says that there will be wars and rumors of wars and guess what? The Red Horse represents that. And then you have of course the other two representing the results of war, the famine, the death, the destruction and so on.

So it’s an unfolding of what will happen in the first half of the tribulation period. My series on that, if you want to get my revelations here, I’ve got 12 hours of teaching on CD that people find very popular. They like this particular set. And we go first by verse for all these, and I recommend that to you at a Merry Christmas. And thank you for listening. We’re now going to the War of Part I, my ami, and we have Burt on the line.

and Bert, we welcome you to Bible. I’m thank you for tuning in today. How you doing today, Hank? Good. Go ahead, you’re on the end. Can you hear me, Bert? You’re on the end. Hear me? Yeah, you’re on the end. Go. Okay, what’s your best guess as to how the gifts were put to use that the Wiseman gave Mary and Joseph? Well, we have to dyspeculate because the Bible doesn’t tell us. Some speculate that they use that money when they went down to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, and that they may have lived off of the money that they could have sold those gifts for.

We don’t know, but that’s certainly a possibility. We’ll have to just wait until we get to heaven to find out, because it’s purely a guess. but that might really be true. They had to be down there probably, I would imagine several years and to live out of your homeland and they didn’t have ATMs and checks and all kinds of easy money transfer in those days. So they probably used that money down in Egypt. I don’t know but that’s a good guess.

I wish you a Merry Christmas and I wish I could be up there December 24th. I wish you could too. That’d be great, man. We’ll have a great question. Yeah, but same to you. And America’s just to burk down in Miami, Florida. And all of you folks that are listening, wherever you might be listening from, we’re now going to go to Port Charlotte, Florida. And we’re going to talk to Wilmer and Wilmer. You’re on the air. Wilmer. Good morning, Dr.

Hino. Good morning. Thank you for your program and my Christmas to you and your staff. Well, thank you. Say to you. I would like to know if you have any way of knowing the real date of Christmas. I know our calendar is not the same as the Hebrew or I may, could you set some light on this subject? Absolutely, Will there? I personally, Christ was born in October, December 25th is the ancient date for the celebration of the birthday of Baal, Baal worship.

The way they would do that is they would cut a tree out of the forest and bring it home and nail it down and deck it with silver gold. Jeremiah chapter 10 describes the origin of the Christmas tree and it was really done with to celebrate Baal’s birthday. If you would go on the internet, I believe when you click on the spinning globe and you go to the radio shows and you look at the archives, I have a number of special ones there and I have the birthday of Christ.

Also, if you go to the camera and click on the worship services, I think back in October I gave a message on the birthday of Christ and I covered the scriptures that point on his birth was probably in October, but certainly not in December. Well, I think That’s probably answers that I don’t want to go to all the scriptures right now But if you hope you have internet access because you’ll be able to get it there and It’s probably the very end of the of October Jesus Really was the fulfillment of the feast days that talked about his comings There were seven feast days back in Leviticus chapter 23 that detailed his two comings.

The Feast of Tabernacles was a picture of him tabernacleing in a human body in the person of Christ. I think John gives us that interesting insight in John’s Gospel where he says, and the word was made flesh and dwelt. The word dwelt there is tabernacle, and it probably happened on the Feast of Tabernacles. That’s in the fall. Thank you for calling and we are wanting to say to all of you folks out of Miami we wish we had the full hour down there and we possibly can but pray that that door would open for us to get the full hour and also pray that we could have the funds to be able to pay for the second half hour.

So you guys join us here as we pray about that. And by the way, if you haven’t given a gift to Bibleline, you can really help us at this time to finish out the year with all of our bills paid. And I hate to talk about money, but if you want to give a gift to the Lord for this Christmas, would you give it to Bibleline? Call us and give it over to the phone by credit card and have a great Christmas down in Miami.

All right, we’re going to continue with our other stations that are continuing to carry the program. We have Tom in Luke’s Florida and he asked this author a question, why is the tribe of Dan not mentioned in Revelation 7 as one of the tribes? Was not Dan a son of Jacob and the answer is yes and why is Dan dropped? Well it is believed that Dan will be the tribe out of which the Antichrist will come and therefore he’s not included in the 144,000 witnesses the tribe of Dan is eliminated.

Yet during the millennium we know Dan is reinstated and then we’ll have a portion of the inheritance during the reign of Christ when He comes back. Genesis 49, it seems to imply that Dan… The author writes the verse on which the Lord comes back on and sends his writer backward. I think it’s a reference to Satan trying to attempt to destroy Christ or kill him. And that’s the reason why. But Dan has only left out there but will be reinstated during the millennium.

Listen, I certainly hope that you have a merry Christmas and God bless all of you who listen to Bibleline. a wonderful group and we thank God for you and we thank you for your prayers and your gifts to my blind and we hope that some of you at least will go with us to Israel. We’ve got a few more openings and we want you to go and if you can make your decision quickly here, we’ll assure that your seat is reserved on the plane because we don’t want to have to tie on the wing but we’ll do everything we can to get you there even if if you decide later, but we need to make sure that we can get you in a seat that is already secured and we don’t want those seats to go away if we don’t film.

So you have an opportunity right now and I hope you’ll call us and we’ll talk about it and tell you what you can do. Hopefully you will have a wonderful Christmas and if you have the internet you can catch this program for the second half hour or maybe your station carries the full hour, we hope it does. Right now we’re going to break, so don’t go away. to you right where you are and we’ll be right back in just a moment.

Give us a call at 1-800-576-3771. That’s 1-800-576-3771. Alright, I’m Dr. Hank Lindstrom and it’s great to be with you. We enjoy being with you in the Friday. It’s hard to believe this week. It’s just flown by and I hope you’ve enjoyed the broadcast and you can catch them again and again on the internet. Good on our website BibleLineMinistries.org Click on that spinning globe and you’ll catch today’s show and other shows as often as you want. We have people around the world that listen, would you tell your friends maybe have missionaries?

You know the countries, we just got word from a missionary in Japan right now that’s over there and it’s exciting. They’ve led 10 people to Christ, 10 Japanese people to Christ in Tokyo and they have used Christmas season to an advantage in Tokyo to present Christ. I think it’s great. And he’s got a lot of missionaries listening to Bibleline over there in Japan. It’s not exciting. And we know we have people from 151 countries that have logged on to Bibleline and can listen anywhere in the world.

Maybe have relatives, family, people in the military, let them know and they can not only hear the programs but they can watch our worship services. We’re up there on the internet and that is at Bibleiminestries.org.com and click on the camera and you’ll get the worship services and we have a year’s worth of services sitting there for you to watch and if you go there 11 o’clock Sunday morning you can catch the worship service live. And that is exciting. I think it’s wonderful.

Anyway what a wonderful season this is and I hope you’re enjoying the season. It’s not this far and hopefully it won’t be too stressful for you and that you’ll have an opportunity to maybe share the gospel with family and friends over the holidays and get them saved. In any case, call us and if you can help Bible and financial aid, that would be wonderful. You can give a gift by credit card over the phone or ask us for envelopes to be sent where you can mail a gift, but your gifts keep us on the air.

Again, we’re going to Israel. We hope you’ll call us about that as well. I’ll be glad to talk to you personally about that trip. Love to have you on board with me. And we have a few people in our studio right now that are going to go with us. And people are really lately here to start to sign up. And we’re going to limit the trip to 30 or 35 people. So we hope that you’ll jump on it and get with us.

We want you to go. And I’m not going to close it out until I know that you’ve had your opportunity. So if you have any questions, I’ll be glad to help you with that. Go to our website, BibleLineMinistries.org and click on Bible Line News on the homepage and everything is there. A full four page brochure, a two page itinerary and of course other information as to how to call and make your reservation. We’re going to do the second half hour Bibleline.

We’re going to rejoin stations that have been on break so keep you read your down to right where it is. As we start now Bible by one to you like to call by the line and ask dr lins from a question you can just pick up your phone and i’ll one eight hundred five seven six three seven seven one that’s one eight hundred five seven six thirty seven seventy one now here again is dr hanklin strum We’re back from that break and this is Bibleline.

It’s really exciting to be able to be with you. I can’t imagine what it would be like not to have Bibleline. We sure enjoy bringing it to you and people tell me every day how they enjoy receiving it. We’re excited about how that’s true. We’ve talked to people several from around the country this week that told me that either they got saved by Bibleline or they just have learned something. So much one fellow said he learned more in 30 days than he had in 30 years in his church.

That’s a sad commentary on the churches today. They’re not doing the job of teaching that they ought to do because they shouldn’t learn more from me in 30 days than they did in 30 years in their church. But a lot of people tell me that that’s what’s happening in their learning and growing and being challenged and sharing the gospel because they are listening to the Bible. Isn’t that great? Thank God for all of you who listen. They keep us motivated.

And when we hear those good comments from you, it gives us a lot of incentive to keep this program coming to you. And we’re excited about some of the new areas that we’re glad to have Miami now and also this new one now in Massachusetts, in North Adams, Massachusetts, I forget to call it, but 98.9, I think, FM. If you have folks up in the north, we are alive in Albany and Utica, New York and also now on in North Adams, Massachusetts.

Some of the stations bleed over into Canada and Connecticut and some of those other areas up there and we’re so glad that you have tuned in. By the way, Bible, I need your help. We are listening to support and if you can help us, that would be great. You can send a gift to the Bible and buy a mail or you can give one by credit card over the phone. When you made your shopping list for Christmas, did you include Jesus?

He certainly ought to be on the list. Some people never even consider giving him a gift. Can you imagine going to somebody’s birthday party? Giving gifts to all the people that are at the party but not giving a gift to the one whose party it is. That’s what happens at Christmas. And you imagine everybody’s giving gifts to everybody but Christ. And it’s his birthday, you know, and the wise men certainly were wise because they gave their gifts, all of them, 100% to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He was the one. When they presented gifts, they didn’t say, Mayor, here’s a gift for you. And Joseph, hey, we got a great one here for you. And they didn’t exchange among themselves, which is generally what Christmas is today. They all gave their gifts to Jesus. Isn’t that exciting? Wow. So if you haven’t given one yet to Jesus, would you consider giving it to Bible? And because Bible? And you could use your help. This is the way we stay on the air.

It is our listeners who keep us up on the air. And you could do that by phone, by credit card. You could also do it by calling and asking for an envelope to be sent. We’ll send you one with our name and address on it, Bible and our address here at 40-Eleven, George, Jordan, and Tampa. And you can give a gift to help us out. Please consider that and I want to thank you in advance for your prayers and your gifts to Bible and it keeps us going here in Tampa, Florida.

We are going to have a Christmas Eve service, December 24th, and that will be a 10 o’clock Christmas Eve and we’ll have seeing some special music, we’ll have a short message, we’ll have the Lord’s Supper, we’ll wind it up with a candle lighting ceremony, it’ll really be nice. So if you’re driving distance, you’re certainly welcome to join us and we are considering putting that on the web. We haven’t made a final decision yet. So you might just check in if you have internet, if you want to join us for that Christmas Eve service, we might put up on the web, but we certainly have our Sunday services there, and you can catch those wherever you are.

But if you’re in the area, we certainly would love to have you come by on Sunday for our Christmas services, and also join us on the Christmas Eve service at Ten o’clock on Monday night, December 24th, and we’ll have a wonderful time. And I think there’ll be refreshments at the end if you wanted to hang out another minute and have some coffee and something to stack on. We’re going to go back to Denver, Colorado, where we have Adam, who has a second question.

Adam, welcome to Bibleline you’re on the air. Thank you for listening out there. Hey, thank you, Dr. First of all, I want to thank you for your radio show and all your teachings. I just want to let you know that we are doing a small group, but we’re doing a teaching while one of your classes is meeting the challenge. All of us, so I want to get to know God’s word more. My question for my wife and I have a question, and it is Jeremiah, or Joshua chapter 5, the unseen captain or the God’s Lord Commander that it talks about in there.

in there who is that and maybe we could play that a little bit. I believe that’s Jesus. Jesus makes a number of appearances in the Old Testament. We call them pre-incarnate appearances. Some use the theological term theophanes which is the word theos for God and making a visible appearance. Jesus certainly appeared numerous times and And certainly in John chapter 8 we see Jesus talking about how he appeared to Abraham and how Abraham saw him and rejoiced to see him and was glad.

And the Jewish people who saw Christ said, you’re not even 50 years old. And are you telling us you’ve seen Abraham? And Jesus said before Abraham was, I am. Well, in other words, before Abraham was ever born, God, the Lord Jesus Christ had existed for eternity past and he has been around forever. Isn’t that exciting? And I think the captain of the host there in Joshua there is none other than Jesus himself. So that’s one of the many. If you have a Scofield Bible, let me recommend you look at the notes and they will trace those appearances throughout the Old Testament and that’s quite a nice study in itself.

Thank you Adam. Also, let me recommend that to others. He’s taking the series that I taught called Meeting the Challenge, which is about the Christian life and using it to facilitate a Bible study out there in Denver, Colorado. And we hear this all the time. People are using the CD studies. Some are using the video of these classes and they get a group together in their home. They play the CD or the video presentation and they play a half hour or so and they have a group discussion and they have refreshments and one gentleman here in the Tampa Bay area said he had to add on to his house because the meeting grew beyond his capacity to hold the group in his home.

Isn’t that exciting? I think that’s thrilling. And they’re using the CDs or the DVDs of the classes that I’ve taught. I’ve taught about 40 different ones that are available and use that to facilitate the study. You might consider that. Some people are telling me they’re using it in their Sunday school class or in a home Bible study or just for their family, studies and emotions. And so you might check with our resource center. We can send out a listing of all these and also you can see them on the internet.

If you go to BibleLineMinistries.org or .com, you can click on that and that would be exciting. Alright, we’re going to go to Billy now in St. Petersburg and Billy welcome to Bibleline. You are on the air and Billy welcome to Bibleline. Dr. Dr. Nester? Yes. Yes. I just want to tell you how to listen to your program every day. I look forward to it. I drive around and I just really enjoy the program. It’s blessed my heart and I go whole experience using you in a mighty way and I appreciate your ministry.

God bless. Thank you, Billy. the question ahead. I’m going to talk a little bit about the cremation as opposed to burial. Is there any scriptures that I can refer to that would say that there’s anything wrong with cremation? I’ve heard a lot of people say different things about it and I just want to know. That’s my question. All right. We’ll give it a shot. when you die, second Corinthians 5, 8 says, absent from the body, present with the Lord.

Then what happens to the body really is no really great consequence because you won’t need this body anymore and it’s going to return according to Ecclesiastes back to dust from which it came. In the Bible the Jewish people always buried and that was a statement that they were making of the resurrection. Some in past ages cremated as a statement that they didn’t believe in alive after death. I don’t think anybody is doing that today because of the tremendous cost of having a conventional funeral service, people are going to cremation because it’s a lot cheaper.

It doesn’t really affect your salvation. Once you have died as a believer, 2 Corinthians 5, 8, you’re absent from the body, present with the Lord. But I don’t think anybody’s making a statement today. They don’t believe in life after death. But personally, myself want to be buried because of the Bible tradition of that. But it wouldn’t matter, and you don’t have to worry about it as far as your salvation is concerned. But it’s a personal choice. We know that, for example, Saul and his sons that were killed were cremated.

They burned their bodies. Some people are cremated as to know choices of their own. You might get caught in a fire. A house might burn down and you’ll just be burned up in the fire or a car crash or maybe in war and so on. So it doesn’t affect your salvation and a lot of the funerals that I do are cremations and doesn’t affect the salvation a lot. I like to let people know that. That’s the major thing is that you’re saved and you’re saved forever when you trust Christ.

And I just would hope that you would maybe have somebody do the service that would present the gospel. I find that it’s a very, very great time to present Christ. And in the past several months I’ve let a lot of people to Christ that were in a funeral service, that got to hear the gospel and trusted Christ. And that’s really a wonderful way to leave this world is to have a message of salvation presented at your service and invite people become no Christ and I’ve had a bunch get saved.

What a rejoicing that is, especially I had a 17 year old that died and I told the dad, we had almost like revival, I think 95% of the people there got the gospel and trusted the Lord. I said, you know, not only were your son saved and is in heaven right now, but look at all the fruit that he has accrued to his account because these people got saved the They came here because of him and they heard his testimony and as a result of hearing that and they got saved.

And look at all the crowns that your son will have. It brought a lot of joy to the Father even though he was in a time of grief to know that his son’s life counted for eternal things that his son was saved and also really was the means of bringing others to Christ as people came and listened carefully and heard his story of coming to know Christ the Savior. He was a Bible I enlisted too and that was exciting.

Thank you and I hope that answers the question for you, Billy. Well, I want to thank you, Dr. Smith, for being here too. Thank you very much. Thank you, Merry Christmas, and that was Billy in St. Petersburg. We now have Carl in Tampa, for Carl. Welcome to Bibleline you’re on the air. Yeah, I’ll pass it, Hank. I have a question. I know in the Bible, and it talks about what I had to put the blood over the door, which has passed over, and that meant that the people in the house were all saved from the angel.

But I was just wondering, is there any where, any connection or anything between that and us putting our faith in Christ as far as we know the Jesus Christ is the blood that was saved by? and that was represented in the price of blood of the lamb but is there any connection because the people that they stayed in the house then they were saved but what if they came they came out of the house, even if they’ve been in the house?

If we can give a better explanation on that? Well, there really is. In 1 Corinthians 5, 7, it says, for even Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us. So Jesus there is really the picture that was being given and those that had applied the blood were safe when the angel of the Lord came through Egypt at night at midnight and killed over the firstborn. God would pass over the homes that had applied the blood and if they didn’t apply the blood then the angel of destruction would kill their firstborn.

Well, same is true and we applied the blood of Christ by trusting Him and His shed blood is the only means of our salvation. When the Lord comes in judgment one day, He passes over everyone that has applied the blood of Christ by trusting Him as their only means of salvation. And those who do not. Trust Christ. God will not pass over them in judgment, and they’ll be condemned to hell forever and ever and ever. So Christ is the Passover lamb for us as well.

That’s what it says in 1 Corinthians. You know, that was written to Gentiles. Not Jews in Egypt, but in 1 Corinthians 5, 7 it says, for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. And so Jesus died for you and for me is what it’s saying in 1 Corinthians 5, 7. And when you trust Him, as your only means of God, of salvation that he has blooded, that we shed at the cross of Calvary paid your sin debt in full.

God saves you and I hope that helps you to put that Carl and answers that question for you. Alright, we have Jeremiah, not the prophet, but Jeremiah is in St. Petersburg right now and Jeremiah, welcome to Bibleline You’re On The Earth. Hey, how you doing? Drinking I mean I’ve been going back and forth saying different scripture what not I was wondering If you drink on your own in the privacy of your home not getting drunk or anything It’s not bad and I’m going to hang up and listen to your answer.

Thank you. Okay, Jeremiah a question about alcohol In Ephesians 518 it says be not drunk with wine wearing his excess but be filled or controlled by the Holy Spirit. The Bible forbids drunkenness, not drinking, but you have to be careful in that area because some people become addicted to it and they can’t, they don’t know where to stop. But definitely the Bible doesn’t say you cannot drink it, it does forbid you from getting drunk. Ephesians 5, 18, be not drunk with wine, where in is excess.

So if you take him too much, that’s what happens. And the Bible forbids that. So also we have a responsibility to be careful with how we represent ourselves to others as Christians. For myself, I don’t drink at all because I don’t really want to be accused of being a drinker. But I could drink if I wanted to, but I just prefer not to. But you could drink. And as long as you don’t get drunk, there’s no problem at all.

and I would be careful that the alcohol doesn’t get a hold of you. I know some people that if they took one drink now, they’d be back right where they were before because they’re alcoholics and they realized even though they’ve been dry for five or ten or fifteen years or twenty years, they could be right back where they were once before because it only takes one drink to get them back there. So you’ll have to make that personal choice and you have the choice and you can drink.

I would hope that you follow what Christ or the Bible tells us, or the Ephesians, by me, you’re not to get tried. A lot of verses on it, and Proverbs, especially I’d recommend you read the Proverbs and talks about having problems oftentimes comes from abuse with alcohol, and we see that in many families that are destroyed by what alcohol can do for them. Thank you for calling in, and we appreciate that call. We now have some more offer questions.

I want to try to get a few of those done today. We have here Mr. X in Largo, Florida. It says, remarried woman goes back to first husband. Why is that an abomination? Well, it did rot me 24. Let me just read that verse. It came up the other day and I didn’t get a chance to turn to it and give you this answer. But here talks about divorce was permitted under the Mosaic law in the Old Testament. Jesus refers to that in the New Testament.

But in Deuteronomy chapter 24, let me just read to you what it says here about divorce here in remarriage. Vehit says here in verse 1 of Deuteronomy 24, when a man has taken a wife and married her and it come to pass that she she find no favor in his eyes because he have found someone clean this in her. I speak of some sexual sin. Could be lesbianism, could be some other, you know, even incest or any type of sin in a sexual area.

It says then let him give her a bill of divorcement, give it in her hand and send her out of his house. And when she departed out of his house, she He may go and be another man’s wife.” So here it talks about she could, even though she had committed the sexual sin, she could go out and be remarried. And if the latter husband hated her and write her a bill of divorce and give it into his hand and send it throughout of his house, or the latter husband died, which took her to be his wife, her former husband, which sent her away.

May not take her again to be his wife after that she is defiled for that is a domination before the Lord and also not cause the land to sin. I think that phrase is very significant in there the land to sin in other words this is saying a wrong signal or sending a long signal to everybody else about this thing about just jumping around. The word doesn’t say that so she can be divorced, she can’t remarry but to go back to the original husband would be an abomination.

Did a runaway to read it for yourself and I think it sends a signal that is a wrong signal to others that this would, I think, apparently be. What other people would do is, well, God didn’t like that. He didn’t want that. Hope that helps. Did a runaway 24. All right, we have here a question on Casey in St. Petersburg calls in with this offer question. Is divorce wrong if I just don’t and didn’t love my husband? Well divorce is wrong and the problem today is that a lot of people don’t give much consideration before they get married as to who that person is.

First of all, if you’re a believer, you’re to marry another believer. The Bible says you’re not to marry an unbeliever. Second Corinthians chapter 6, 14 on tells us that we’re not to be unequally yoked. What fellowship has a believer with an unbeliever? How can you do that? The Bible says you should not do that. If a person is married and their spouse dies, they are free to remarry but first-grant in 739 says only in the Lord. So they only are allowed to remarry another believer.

And some people want to break those rules and there’s consequences for doing that. And I know that I’ve had people come to me and say that they want to marry this person, that they prayed about it and this is just the right person will do their normal order and they say no. Well then it’s not God’s will because God never in his will violates what he has set down in scripture. So you really don’t want to do this and the problems often arise later in a mixed marriage of believer and unbeliever when the children come along and they’re the ones that then get taught, tossed about and perhaps wind up not going to church at all or going to a wrong church and they can talk bad doctrine because of the marriage not being between two believers who have won mine and one reads, raise those children to know

Jesus and to teach them and develop them. But basically it says in Malachi 3 that God hates divorce. You might when it checked out and out. Unfortunately, because of man’s sinful nature, God did allow for divorce. But if you do your homework before you get married and learn about who that person is and ask yourself, do you really want to live with that person the rest of your life? If you get all this question answered clearly before you get married, then the likelihood of that marriage lasting.

It’s going to be greater, but it’s again a work thing. You have to work at marriage and you just can’t assume it’s all going to happen. You write off into the sunset on a white horse and no problems. You have to work at it all of your married life. Hope that helps a little bit and I know that you’re obviously living in painful situation. I might recommend a good Christian counselor. And since you live in the area here, I could recommend one to you that maybe could help you in this situation, not only with your personal situation, but also maybe restore your marriage.

And dealing with whatever is going on there that has caused you to have this grief. We have Benjamin in clear water and Benjamin welcome to Bibleline your own year. Good morning, I am in chapter John born again. Now what is born again the spirit or the soul and what portion, what is the body function? Well the Bible talks about a brand new birth and it’s a spiritual birth obviously. a birth where you enter the family of God. As his son or daughter, whereas the physical birth, we enter into the human race.

And so I don’t think we have to split up the person into body, soul, and spirit here, but it is a spiritual birth. Obviously, we still have our old nature and our sinful body until we die, but when you trust Christ, you become his child. And that’s the major thought there that you become a member of God’s family, which is a spiritual family. If you have been born physically, you’re I’m the human family. We’re about at the end of the program here.

We’re going to have to say goodbye to everybody in just a minute, but we hope again that you will contact me about Israel if you’re thinking at all if I can help you. We can mail you a brochure today, call me, and we’ll ship it out to you wherever you might live. If you want to look at it on the internet, you can do that by going to Bibleline Ministries and click on Bible and News on the homepage. Also if you haven’t given the Bibleline, could you give a Christmas gift to Bibleline?

You can call and do that over the phone today or ask for an envelope with our address to be sent to you. Hope everyone is listening as Trusted Christ and have a great weekend. Come see us if you’re in the area. Keep looking up. Jesus is coming and we believe very soon. You’ve been listening to Bibleline, a presentation of Bibleline Ministries of Tampa, Florida. Your donation to Bibleline makes it possible for this ministry to continue in your area. Bibleline’s address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634.

Or visit Bibleline Online at biblelineministries.com. Be sure to tune in for another edition of Bibleline from Calvary Community Church of Tampa, Florida. Right. We’ve had a great week here at Bibleline and we hope that you’ve enjoyed being with you and we hope you’ll join us again on Monday. But if you can’t wait, some people go through Bibleline withdrawal which is interesting and you can get all the Bible on you want on the internet. Go to Bibleline Ministries.org here.com and you can listen 24-7.

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Isn’t that amazing? I mean the technology today is just quite remarkable. And so you can catch our TV programs, our worship services, our radio programs, all of that on the internet. Check it out, BibleLineMinistries.org.com. Also, our online bookstores there, and you can shop, and we can ship right out to you whatever you might want to get, maybe as a gift or a bladed gift or maybe just for yourself. But also you can give to Bibleline on the internet by going to the online bookstore.

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Gotta run keep looking up. Jesus is coming. I’ll see you again on Monday here on Bible. You’ve been listening to Bibleline. A presentation of Bibleline ministries of Tampa, Florida. Your donation to Bibleline makes it possible for this ministry to continue in your area. Bible lines address is 40 8 11 George Road, Tampa, Florida. 3363-4 or visit Bibleline online at Bibleline Ministries.com. Be sure to tune in for another edition of Bibleline from Calvary Community Church of Tampa, Florida.