It Is Written

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants:

Series Code: IIW

00:17 ♪[music ends]♪♪
00:20 >>John Bradshaw: This is "It Is Written."
00:22 I'm John Bradshaw. Thanks for joining me.
00:25 In 2007 a 58-year-old Canadian man, whom I shall not name,
00:31 was convicted of six counts of murder.
00:34 He confessed to 49 murders, all of people who were defenseless
00:39 and from the margins of society.
00:42 Convicted of six, sentenced to life in prison, [gavel strikes]
00:46 the killer is said to have bragged about his exploits.
00:49 He died in prison after nearly 17 years behind bars.
00:53 Unsurprisingly, at a press conference a police official
00:55 described the man as a "monster."
00:58 The official who headed the investigation
01:00 into these awful crimes said that the man
01:02 ultimately convicted was not the only monster
01:06 flagged as a prime suspect.
01:08 He said, "This file was full of hideous human beings."
01:14 In all, there were 63 men considered priority suspects.
01:20 That's a lot of evil.
01:23 But allow me to ask you this question.
01:25 The man, from metro Vancouver, killed maybe 49 women.
01:29 Now, now, here's the question. Are you ready for this?
01:34 About 1,650 years after God created the world,
01:38 God sent a flood to destroy the planet.
01:42 Now, depending on who you read,
01:43 there were at least hundreds of millions of people on earth.
01:47 There may have been billions.
01:48 And only eight people were saved.
01:52 You can find euphemistic ways of expressing this,
01:54 but the bottom line is God killed
01:58 at least hundreds of millions of people.
02:03 Now, how are we to understand that? Is God a monster?
02:07 Some people believe so, and if He is--
02:09 which I don't believe, by the way--
02:12 but if he is, then He's the worst monster
02:17 who ever lived.
02:19 So, how in the world do we understand the character of God?
02:25 The God whose angels destroyed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers
02:30 in a single night.
02:32 When Israel escaped Egypt, happy days! They were saved.
02:35 But...the firstborn of every Egyptian family died,
02:39 as did all of the Egyptians
02:41 who pursued Israel across the Red Sea.
02:43 God intentionally folded the waters of the Red Sea
02:47 over Pharaoh's armies, and not one of them survived the deluge.
02:51 That episode was actually celebrated in song.
02:55 Exodus 15 records "The Song of Moses," which says in part,
02:59 "Then Moses and the children of Israel sang...:
03:02 "'I will sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously!
03:05 "'The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!...
03:08 "'The depths have covered them;
03:10 they sank to the bottom like a stone.'"
03:14 Now, on the other hand, we've got this:
03:16 "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
03:22 That's pretty clear. And the same sentiment
03:24 is expressed just a few verses later:
03:26 "And we have known and believed
03:28 "the love that God has for us. God is love,
03:30 and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."
03:35 "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son"--
03:39 most famous verse in the Bible.
03:41 Yet we still have that little matter
03:43 of hundreds of millions killed, maybe billions,
03:48 by God-is-love.
03:52 So, who is God, then?
03:55 And what is God really like?
03:57 And why in the world did He do some of these things?
04:03 One person, a writer, a critic, described God as
04:07 "a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive,
04:12 "bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic,
04:16 "racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
04:19 "pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic,
04:23 capriciously malevolent bully."
04:26 Now, someone's thesaurus
04:28 got quite the workout while that little gem was being written.
04:32 But if you isolate events like the Flood or the Exodus,
04:35 you might be tempted to think that that kind of synopsis
04:40 of the character of God could actually be leaning
04:43 in the right direction.
04:45 Many people do.
04:47 So, again, what is God like?
04:51 That's an important question.
04:53 There's a loving God, and yet Grandma died of cancer.
04:57 A lovely young couple lost their baby.
04:59 Someone was murdered?
05:01 Murderers are considered monsters,
05:03 as we discussed a moment ago.
05:06 And you cannot deny that God hasn't just allowed people
05:10 to die; He has caused people to die--lots of them.
05:15 Now, in a moment, we're going to resolve that, and we need to.
05:20 The tension between the idea of a loving God
05:22 and the reality of sin and suffering
05:24 causes people all kinds of problems.
05:27 How do you harmonize
05:28 these two enormously different pictures of God?
05:32 If they are different.
05:33 Well, in the next few minutes we will; we'll do just that.
05:36 For now, let's put aside all of that
05:41 and learn something about God.
05:42 The first five words in the Bible are,
05:44 "In the beginning God created."
05:47 Which means your existence isn't due to chance.
05:50 You exist because God wanted you to exist.
05:53 You are not the result of billions of years
05:56 of random mutations.
05:57 The Big Bang states that all the matter in the universe
06:00 was densely packed into a single particle once,
06:02 or just a few particles,
06:04 which then exploded, [ringing of explosion]
06:05 and two trillion galaxies are the result.
06:09 The largest star that we know of?
06:11 UY Scuti, it's 1,500 million miles across,
06:17 1,700 times larger than the sun,
06:20 and 1.3 million earths can fit inside the sun.
06:24 All from tiny particles that exploded way back when.
06:30 And where, pray tell, did those particles come from?
06:34 No one can explain that.
06:35 So, back to Creation: "In the beginning God created."
06:39 One Hindu creation story is that "out of loneliness,
06:44 "Brahma split himself into two to create a male and a female...
06:48 "from this [male and female] all beings were created.
06:52 "Another story makes reference to life coming from the cracking
06:55 "of an enormous egg,
06:56 which is the life from which the universe is born."
07:01 You know, I feel pretty good sticking with
07:04 "In the beginning God created."
07:06 Now, who did He create?
07:08 Adam and his wife Eve.
07:09 But, but then sin entered the world. How?
07:14 An angel, Lucifer, rebelled against God.
07:18 Lucifer, later called Satan, came to the earth.
07:21 What did God do?
07:23 God warned Adam and Eve to stay away from the tree
07:26 of the knowledge of good and evil.
07:27 "Do not eat the fruit of that tree," God said.
07:31 "In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
07:34 Or it might be better translated "dying you will die."
07:38 Death will enter the world, they were warned.
07:42 So what would you do if you were God?
07:45 What a place to be. The world you created, in rebellion.
07:52 We'll find out the radical steps God took in just a moment.
07:56 ♪[upbeat music swells and ends]♪♪
08:06 >>John: Everyone talks about love.
08:08 We love people, pets, hobbies, food,
08:10 but there's a love that goes deeper.
08:13 Find out how to experience this love by requesting
08:16 today's free offer, "The Greatest of These."
08:19 To get your copy, call 800-253-3000.
08:22 Visit us online or text "freegreat" to 71392.
08:27 Experience God's amazing love.
08:30 Call 800-253-3000
08:32 or visit iiwoffer.com.
08:37 ♪[reflective music]♪
08:39 >>John: The Bible is filled with stories of people
08:41 who took a leap of faith.
08:44 Gideon was asked by God to lead an army of just 300
08:49 against an innumerable foe, and he did, and he was triumphant.
08:54 Noah was asked by God to build an ark, a boat,
08:57 so he and his family could ride out a storm
08:59 in a world where rain had never before fallen.
09:03 And he did, and he and his family and the world was saved.
09:08 Life can be like that.
09:11 Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.
09:15 ♪[dramatic music]♪
09:16 After you've received all the necessary instructions,
09:20 after the equipment has been checked,
09:23 you take a leap of faith.
09:26 Grow your faith in God and in His Word.
09:29 Don't miss "The Leap of Faith,"
09:32 brought to you by It Is Written TV.
09:35 ♪[music ends]♪♪
09:37 >>John Bradshaw: So, what would you do if you were God?
09:40 You create a world; you create perfect people.
09:43 You warn them; they ignore you.
09:44 Sin happens; death comes.
09:47 Crisis after crisis is guaranteed
09:50 because now people are selfish.
09:52 What would you do?
09:54 The easy thing would be to start again.
09:56 Destroy the whole thing and start over.
10:00 But God chose another route.
10:02 Rather than ending the lives of Adam and Eve,
10:05 He gave humanity another shot at this.
10:09 But because sin causes death,
10:11 for God to be just, death would still have to occur.
10:14 You can't have laws and then just suspend them
10:17 when they don't suit you.
10:19 So God gave Adam and Eve life, but He took upon Himself
10:24 the death penalty that came due to the presence of sin,
10:28 enabling Him to be just and merciful.
10:32 God would allow His own Son to die,
10:35 the Son He'd been joined to from eternity past.
10:40 That ought to settle the question
10:41 about the character of God right there,
10:44 but it doesn't because people still want to make sense
10:48 of the flood in Noah's day and battles with the Philistines
10:52 and the ground opening up and swallowing
10:54 Korah, Dathan, and Abiram and their families.
10:59 But if you have misgivings about the character of God,
11:02 ask yourself, who would do what He did?
11:07 There's not another religion in the world that has God dying
11:13 for the sins of the world--
11:14 God becoming sin for us, as the Bible puts it.
11:18 Paul said to the Romans, "For when we were...without strength,
11:21 "in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
11:25 "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die;
11:28 "yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
11:32 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that
11:36 while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
11:41 Notice this: Jesus didn't simply die for the human family,
11:46 He died for His enemies,
11:49 and people wonder about the character of God?
11:54 We'll come back to the cross, but first,
11:56 look at other ways you can understand the character of God.
11:59 Look at God's laws and you learn
12:02 He wants you to be close to Him.
12:05 He doesn't want you to degrade yourself.
12:07 He wants there to be respect in your friendship with God.
12:09 His plan is for you to have time to build your relationship
12:13 with Him and with others.
12:14 It's for strong families, for respect of life,
12:17 for respect of others, for respect of property.
12:20 It's for trust and for controlling runaway desire.
12:24 You can't find fault with anything
12:28 in the Ten Commandments.
12:29 And that's a commentary on the character of God.
12:33 His is a just law that makes sense and works everywhere
12:39 in the world.
12:41 In the beginning, a loving Creator
12:44 who wants the best for you, who loves you,
12:48 kicked this whole thing off
12:50 by speaking the world into existence.
12:54 Look at the intricacy of a plant or a tree--remarkable.
13:00 Think of the wonders of an ocean.
13:02 Look at a kitten, a small child, flowers.
13:07 God clearly loves beauty. He made lots of it.
13:12 People today virtually worship nature
13:15 while ignoring the God who made nature.
13:18 One of the best reasons you could care about the environment
13:22 is that it lets you see the magnificence of God.
13:26 Nature speaks to us about nature's God.
13:30 Satan, however, is on an absolute mission
13:32 to misrepresent the character of God.
13:35 He wants you to think God is uncaring, a tyrant, vindictive.
13:39 Nothing could be further from the truth.
13:42 Look at what Satan did in the Garden of Eden.
13:44 Eve, instead of fleeing from a talking snake,
13:48 hung around long enough to be fascinated
13:50 by what she heard and saw.
13:52 Satan said to her, "Has God indeed said,
13:56 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"
14:00 Then Satan lied.
14:02 He lied about the character of God.
14:05 He said, "You will not surely die.
14:08 "For God knows that in the day you eat of it
14:11 "your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
14:15 knowing good and evil."
14:17 In other words,
14:19 "Eve, God is unfair.
14:21 God is withholding something special from you."
14:27 Satan lied about what God was like.
14:31 "He doesn't want the best for you," he said to Eve.
14:37 Who do you think first proposed the idea
14:40 that God is sadomasochistic and malevolent?
14:45 That idea was first suggested by Satan.
14:48 Notice what the devil has done.
14:49 He's caused people everywhere
14:51 to think that God is like the devil,
14:54 that the devil is the good guy while God is evil.
14:57 That's sick.
14:59 But for varying reasons, people are willing to believe the lie.
15:06 So, why do people believe that stuff?
15:10 Well, for one, tradition-- you do what your people do.
15:14 Not many people are willing to think for themselves.
15:18 Groupthink is real.
15:21 Now, there are other reasons
15:22 why people believe lies about God, and some of them
15:26 have to do with Christians and Christian pastors.
15:32 More in a moment.
15:33 ♪[upbeat music swells and ends]♪♪
15:43 >>John: It Is Written is committed to giving people
15:45 the opportunity to experience the love of Jesus.
15:48 Eyes for India brings hope and vision
15:50 to thousands of people in need, and there's much more.
15:54 Through high-impact international medical ministry
15:56 and other humanitarian projects,
15:58 hearts are being reached around the globe.
16:01 You can partner with It Is Written
16:03 in changing lives for eternity.
16:05 Your support now will bring healing and blessing
16:08 to people in desperate need, enabling them to experience
16:11 the power of God for the very first time.
16:14 Call now: 800-253-3000.
16:17 That's 800-253-3000.
16:21 Visit us online at iiwworld.com
16:25 or text "world" to 71392.
16:29 Designating your gift to "missions" will directly support
16:32 these life-changing projects.
16:34 Thank you for partnering with It Is Written in opening eyes
16:37 to the goodness of God and offering hope to the world.
16:44 >>John: Why else are people believing the lie
16:46 that God is evil?
16:48 Atheism and skepticism have become fashionable.
16:51 They've taken over institutions of higher learning
16:54 all over the world.
16:55 People are being educated to hate God.
16:58 I'll give you another reason
17:00 why people believe God is the bad guy:
17:02 Christian ministers and Christians who misrepresent God.
17:08 When Christian ministers get embroiled in scandal,
17:11 it gives Christianity, as a whole, a black eye--
17:16 moral scandals, or, or they're perceived as greedy,
17:19 or they get sent to prison.
17:22 If you're not a Christian, what are you going to think
17:24 of Christianity when you read about the pastor in Texas
17:27 who was incarcerated because he stole three churches.
17:32 Oh, I know, people are faulty. They're imperfect.
17:37 But people outside the church expect Christians
17:39 to represent their faith, and you can't fault them for having
17:42 some minimum expectations,
17:43 like, say, pastors not stealing churches--
17:47 or the pastor in New York who was sentenced to nine years
17:51 for wire fraud.
17:53 I have no comment on guilt or otherwise.
17:55 I don't know about that.
17:56 But at the very least, that's a bad look.
17:59 And God looks bad when pastors and church members live
18:04 in a way that doesn't represent God, and it turns people away.
18:10 And let's be honest, some of the teachings of the church
18:12 over the years have resulted in people looking sideways at God.
18:17 A lot of people have a very hard time
18:19 with the evangelism approach that says,
18:21 "Get saved, or you'll burn in hell."
18:24 Not that many people have ever said,
18:27 "Well, I was scared into giving my life to Jesus."
18:30 To see the character of God in full display,
18:33 look at the life of Jesus.
18:35 Jesus came to this world to reveal the character of God.
18:38 In John 14, where Philip said to Jesus, "Show us the Father,"
18:42 Jesus replied, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."
18:47 Jesus revealed to the world what God was really like.
18:50 What did He do?
18:52 He healed the sick. He showed mercy to the fallen.
18:56 He fed the hungry, walked on water, was patient and gentle.
19:00 He wept tears of sadness, brought the dead back to life,
19:04 loved and blessed little children, drove away disease.
19:08 He lived with integrity.
19:10 He forgave the man who denied Him,
19:12 washed the feet of the man who would betray Him.
19:16 And He healed one of the men who arrested Him.
19:20 And "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
19:26 The Bible says, "God is love."
19:28 It says that twice in the same chapter just eight verses apart.
19:32 God is love.
19:34 So why did God bring punishment on people in Bible times?
19:40 Let me show you some things. I'm glad you asked.
19:43 God's overarching motivation is love for the human family
19:49 and a will to give people an eternal future.
19:54 What God knows, though,
19:55 is that if that future isn't on His terms,
19:59 it isn't a future because God's future is without sin.
20:04 You'll hear people say, often flippantly,
20:06 although not always, that God is a spoilsport,
20:08 that God doesn't want people to have fun,
20:10 that there's nothing wrong with their lifestyle.
20:13 But God is trying to lead you in the direction of heaven,
20:16 and He knows what's best.
20:18 Which is why Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour
20:22 and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
20:26 Jesus pointed us to the Bible again and again
20:29 so we could understand God's goodness.
20:32 Look, everything God did was redemptive,
20:36 to lead us to eternal life.
20:38 But at the same time God did some things that seem severe,
20:42 so why? Well, for the same reason.
20:46 Even when it seems God was tough, God was being redemptive.
20:50 It's easy to see that.
20:52 Look, while it may seem extreme that God would take a life--
20:56 or, in the case of the flood in Noah's day, many lives--
21:00 this was a last resort for God.
21:03 Look at some verses with me.
21:05 There's one key verse in particular
21:07 I hope you will not miss.
21:08 We'll start with Jeremiah 5, verse 3:
21:10 "You have stricken them, but they have not grieved;
21:13 "You have consumed them,
21:15 "but they have refused to receive correction.
21:18 "They have made their faces harder than rock;
21:20 they have refused to return."
21:22 God had sent judges and prophets.
21:24 He'd sent message after message. He'd revealed His power to them:
21:28 feeding them manna and bringing water out of a rock
21:31 and being present in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.
21:35 He did everything He could to convince His people
21:37 that He was real, that He was good,
21:39 that He had their very best interests at heart,
21:42 and that His plans for them were better than their own plans,
21:46 their own selfish plans for themselves.
21:49 God was trying to get His people to return to faith in Him,
21:52 but as Jeremiah said, "They refused to return."
21:55 Look again. Verse 19:
21:57 "And it will be when you say,
21:59 "'Why does the Lord our God do all these things to us?'
22:02 "then you shall answer them, 'Just as you have forsaken me
22:06 "'and served foreign gods in your land,
22:09 so you shall serve aliens in a land that is not yours.'"
22:13 They'd forsaken God.
22:15 God was trying to win them back.
22:17 God said, "In vain I have chastened your children;
22:21 they received no correction."
22:23 Why was God chastening them?
22:25 To correct them. He tried everything He could.
22:31 And because He desperately wanted to save people He loved,
22:36 desperate measures were needed.
22:39 Isaiah 26:16,
22:41 "Lord, in trouble they have visited You,
22:44 they poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them."
22:50 Notice that?
22:52 When God's chastening was upon them, they turned to God.
22:57 Now, here's that verse I really want you to see.
23:01 It's Psalm 78:34. Mark it in your Bible. Write it down.
23:08 "When He slew them, then they sought Him;
23:14 and they returned and sought earnestly for God."
23:18 And that was the reason for God's judgments.
23:22 In this case, God sent warnings, and they did not repent.
23:26 He gave them signs, and they did not repent.
23:29 Finally, when extreme measures were taken,
23:33 "They returned and sought earnestly for God."
23:38 But God never wanted it to come to that.
23:43 The best motivation for turning to God
23:46 is Jesus' great sacrifice on the cross.
23:50 Imagine for a moment the divine Son of God choosing to take
23:54 your sin and the sin of all of His enemies,
23:57 choosing to die for those sins
24:00 so that people, so that you, might have everlasting life.
24:06 Jesus "made Himself of no reputation,
24:09 "and took upon Him[self] the form of a servant,
24:11 "and was made in the likeness of men:
24:14 "and being found in fashion as a man,
24:17 "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death,
24:22 even the death of the cross."
24:25 Isaiah wrote, "He is despised and rejected of men;
24:30 "a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief:
24:32 "and we hid as it were our faces from Him;
24:35 "He was despised,
24:36 "and we esteemed Him not.
24:38 "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows;
24:41 "yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
24:45 "But He was wounded for our transgressions,
24:48 "He was bruised for our iniquities:
24:50 "the chastisement of our peace was upon Him;
24:54 and with His stripes we are healed."
25:00 What's God really like?
25:04 He's like that. God is love.
25:07 He gave His only begotten Son, that if you believe in Him,
25:12 whatever your past, whatever your present,
25:15 whatever you're going through, however weak you feel,
25:19 however many times you've failed, if you believe in Him,
25:24 you will not perish, but you will have everlasting life.
25:31 >>John: Everyone talks about love.
25:33 We love people, pets, hobbies, food,
25:35 but there's a love that goes deeper.
25:38 Find out how to experience this love by requesting
25:41 today's free offer, "The Greatest of These."
25:44 To get your copy, call 800-253-3000.
25:47 Visit us online or text "freegreat" to 71392.
25:52 Experience God's amazing love.
25:55 Call 800-253-3000
25:57 or visit iiwoffer.com.
26:02 >>John: It's as clear as clear
26:04 that God...is...love.
26:10 Would you give Him your heart today?
26:13 Could you choose to be a Christian today?
26:17 Would you accept Jesus into your heart right now,
26:20 knowing what God is really like?
26:23 He's good, He's love, and He loves you.
26:29 Let me pray with you.
26:30 Our Father in heaven, we thank You
26:32 that You are not the monster some say You are.
26:37 We thank You that You are love, and that Your love towards us
26:41 is just as real as the air we breathe.
26:44 And I'm thankful that the Bible makes very clear
26:47 that the desperate measures You took
26:50 were because desperate measures were required.
26:52 You were doing all You could to win to Your heart
26:54 a very stubborn, hardhearted people.
26:59 And then we thank You that You did
27:00 the most desperate thing of all, if I can put it that way:
27:04 You demonstrated Your love by allowing Your Son Jesus to die
27:08 for the sins of the world-- even for mine.
27:12 Friend, would you respond to that God?
27:14 Would you let Him into your heart?
27:16 Would you say, "Jesus, live Your life in me"?
27:19 Would you say, "God, take my heart and make it Yours"?
27:21 Would you say that? Would you pray that prayer right now?
27:24 God, take our hearts and make them Yours.
27:27 We thank You that You are good, that You are God,
27:32 that You are love.
27:33 And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
27:38 Thank you so much for joining me.
27:40 I'm looking forward to seeing you again next time.
27:42 Until then, remember:
27:44 "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone,
27:49 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'"
27:54 ♪[dramatic, triumphant theme music]♪
28:26 ♪[music ends]♪♪

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Revised 2024-12-09