The Alex McFarland Show-74-Alex Answers Your Questions

The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events analyzed through the lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show.

In John 5.39, Jesus said, Search the Scriptures, for they testify of me. Hi, Alex McFarland. Today on the program, we're going to search the Scriptures and answer people's questions. We really appreciate all of the questions that we get. And, you know, between the radio shows we do, we do two radio shows and a television show, and we post lots and lots of content online. And then I'm on the road speaking, and then we did seven youth camps in the summer of 23 in front of well over 1,200 teenagers. So we get a lot of questions, and I'm very grateful to God that my 20th book was released the second week of September in 2023, 100 Bible Questions and Answers for Families. Two and a half years ago, we did a book called 100 Bible Questions and Answers from the first 10 years of the show Exploring the Word, which is the live radio program we do syndicated nationally on the American Family Radio Network.

More than 200 stations, we give God the glory for that. So we get a lot of questions, and it's a joy to answer those. In fact, right now we are in the process of revamping our app. We had an app that was in the iTunes store, and it was available for Androids. And we had probably 200 or 300 questions that were searchable by keywords, and now we've probably got 5,000 questions that we've answered over the last few years.

And putting all this in a searchable engine is a big undertaking, as you can imagine, but we're trying to do this. Because people really do have questions, you know, from the simple questions like, How did we get the Bible? Or we get this question a lot, If God made everything, who made God?

And of course the answer is, nobody. God just is. It's one of the unique characteristics that sets God apart from any other entity in the universe. Plant, animal, human, angel, spiritual life, physical life. God is different in that he is eternal. God is not contingent on anything outside of himself. God just is. But we've had questions, I mean, you might think this is a little bit silly, but it really isn't.

We take every question very seriously. Somebody emailed in, and I wrote about a two-page answer on this, and they said, please, I'm not trying to be irreverent, but conjoined twins. Siamese twins. If the rapture happened, and these were adult conjoined twins, and one was a believer and one wasn't, what would happen?

You know what, I realize that's a very abstract, imaginative question, shall we say. But I gave what I believe is a very serious answer, and I pointed out that being translated, the Bible talks about in 1 Thessalonians that in the blink of an eye we will be in the presence of the Lord, and believers will get that glorified body set free from the repercussions of the fall. So if a birth defect, like being a conjoined twin, a Siamese twin, if that was one of the mutations, one of the detrimental birth defects that were a part of the fall, and let's say, heaven forbid, that one of the twins was not a believer and was therefore left behind, well, here's the thing, that in most cases, not all, if conjoined twins are still joined into maturity and adulthood, it was probably because separating the twins would be fatal. And so my answer, and of course all this is speculative, but I said, look, if one is saved and suddenly the spirit of the believing twin is gone, and therefore the body is dead, the spirit of the unbelieving twin is left behind, probably that the unbelieving twin would die.

If one died, the other would probably expire as well. But of course this is very speculative. But my point in sharing this is that we do take people's questions seriously because very often behind a question is a spiritual need.

Very often there's something beyond mere curiosity. And so I want to go over some more questions on this edition of the program. And again, if you do want to email and send a question in, it might become the material for a future show, but the email is alex at alexmcfarland.com. And I would encourage you, if you would, my books are available at Barnes & Noble, Sam's Club, amazon.com, Christian Book Distributors online, and of course Christian bookstores everywhere. And so check out the 100 Bible questions. And then the new edition that's coming out in the fall of 23, 100 Bible Questions and Answers for Families, that I've done with my co-host on exploring the word, Bert Harper. But here's a question that comes in.

Somebody asked this question. How old is the universe according to the Bible? So the age of the earth is a question that has become more and more really divisive in the last 25 to 30 years.

I believe what is called the young earth position. When the book of Genesis says God created in six days and rested on the seventh, really that means the universe is somewhere around 6,000 years old. Now, in the Jewish tradition, they believe that 3761 BC is the starting point of the world, and they base that on the genealogies of the Old Testament.

Now, from September of 2023 to September of 2024, that would be 5,784 on the Jewish calendar. So even given if there are some gaps, you know, we're talking about 6,000 years. Now, I am keenly aware, believe me, I am with great clarity, I am aware that a lot of people, even some born-again Christians, would scoff at that. Because they would say, well, you know, hasn't Darwinian evolution proven that the universe is millions and then billions of years old?

Well, no, it hasn't. And in fact, I think there's compelling evidence for what we would call a young earth. You know, for example, Native Americans have been documented to be in the Americas for no more than really about 6,000 years. And so one of the great, I think, compelling, visible empirical evidences that we've seen in recent years, you ought to go on YouTube and Google the interviews with Dr. Mary Schweitzer, who found soft tissue, moist blood cells in hundreds of fossils. I mean, you know, they would saw open essentially what was a rock, fossils thought to be 2 million-plus years old, and there's soft tissue in there that really, there's no explanation for how something could be one or two million years old and have soft tissue in there. And as one scientist said, we're going to have to rewrite the rules of science. Well, we're going to come back, and I'll elaborate further on this, but my basis for every conclusion has got to be the Word of God.

And if you take the Bible for what it says, you'll never get the old earth ages that evolution insists upon. But more after this brief break... Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Over the last several decades, it's been my joy to travel the world talking with children, teens, adults, people of all ages about the questions they have related to God, the Bible, Christianity, and how to know Jesus personally. Hi, Alex McFarland, I want to make you aware of my book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. You know, we interviewed hundreds of children and parents and families to find out the questions that children and people of all ages are longing to find answers for. In the book, we've got practical, biblical, real-life answers that they have about how to be a Christian in this modern world.

My book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, you can find it wherever you buy books or at resources.afa.net. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. We're answering questions. One of the questions is about the age of the earth. And I want to be clear as I go on. I'm not saying that those that believe in, quote, an old earth, don't love the Lord, aren't saved. I believe they are.

They can. But why would you not want to take God at his word for what he says? And even I've been in debates and panel discussions with old earth Christians, and they will admit, at least the ones that are consistently, I believe, honest and consistent in the way they handle hermeneutics, you've got to really, really get very imaginative and creative with the text of scripture to try and construe the Bible to mean an old earth position. And before Darwin and before the late 19th and 20th century attempts to harmonize secular atheistic evolution with the word of God, which is impossible, there never was, quote, an old earth position among Christians. It only was born out of the attempt to somehow reconcile the assumptions of secular science with the written revelation of God's word. And the longer I live, the less even bandwidth I really want to give to secular anti-God assumptions of man.

Everything I've studied and written about and visiting libraries literally around the world, interviewing hundreds of experts, I'm more convinced than ever that we should take the word of God for what it says and trust it for what it says. Because modern scientists believe that the universe is about 13 billion years old. And part of the evidence that they want to set forth is astronomy and based on what they believe the Hubble telescope and other data has given scientists to use to estimate the age of the universe.

But in accepting the Bible as the word of God, you know, I believe this. I mean, just like Adam would have been about 30 years old, even though he was made from the dust of the ground and only seconds old, God didn't have to wait 30 years for Adam to grow up and then create Eve. Adam was created with the appearance of age, and the universe could have been as well. You know, when God spoke the universe into existence, I mean, people say, well, this or that star is X number of light years from Earth.

Well, we didn't have to wait for the photons, the column of light, to cross the galaxies. God spoke it into existence, and there it was. So, and I'm not saying that's exactly how it is, but there are at least plausible ways that what we think is necessarily billions of years old, there are plausible explanations for how this could be reconciled with what the Scripture clearly says. The Bible says God created in six days and rested on the seventh, the Hebrew word for day, yom, Y-O-M, the Hebrew word for day, in virtually every example means a literal 24-hour day, in fact, in Genesis.

It says evening and morning were the first day. So I take the Bible at its word, and that's fortunately, though, not a criteria for salvation. The question for getting into heaven is not what do you believe about the age of the earth, but what do you believe about Jesus? 1 John 5.1.

If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, you are born of God. So let's go to another question. Why did men in the Old Testament have more than one wife? Why did they engage in polygamy?

Well, let me make sure and lay this out there that not everything the Bible reports does the Bible condone. And while, like in Genesis 4.19, the first person that we read of having two wives is Lamech. It says Lamech took unto him two wives.

The name of one was Ada, the name of the other was Zillah. And we read about that he did not live an exemplary life. In verse 23 of Genesis 4, he even admits that he had murdered somebody, but Jacob, another great biblical figure in the Old Testament, Jacob had arranged marriages.

He was deceived by his father-in-law Laban. He had Leah and Rachel as spouses. There was a man in 1 Samuel 1, Elkanah, who had two wives. And of course, you know, David was an adulterer, an accomplice to a murderer, and he paid for his sin.

He definitely did. Solomon, David's son, became king. And at one time, Solomon, we read about in 1 Kings 11, he used his position as the king of Israel to accumulate 700 wives.

Now, you might say, why is this in the Word of God? Well, I think it's important to point out that clearly, heterosexual monogamy is God's ideal. Heterosexuality is a man and a woman. Monogamy is one man and one woman. In fact, in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, elders in the church are required to be the husband of only one wife. And the Greek in these passages literally means a one-woman man.

Now, it's not exactly clear. We've talked about this on the radio many times, and even John MacArthur and Norm Geisler, the late Norm Geisler. I mentioned those two guys because they were both very conservative. But even MacArthur and Geisler, you know, recognized that these passages literally mean a one-woman man. So it doesn't necessarily mean that an elder or pastor couldn't have been divorced. Although, in the last couple of hundred years, the church's position, at least in the West, has generally been that a pastor shouldn't have been divorced. But I know many pastors, senior pastors, that have been divorced. They're not polygamists. They're a one-man woman.

One-woman kind of man. So the issue in the Bible is not so much has a man been divorced, but is a man faithful to the wife that he has? But clearly, while it records in the Old Testament a number of people that practiced polygamy or cheated on their spouse, in no way does the Bible condone this.

It didn't teach that godly people should live that way. God provided his divine design for marriage with the account of Adam and Eve in the garden. One Adam, one Eve, one husband, one wife. And Jesus affirmed that this is the design for marriage. And I think it's worth pointing out, and then we've got to go to a break, but heterosexual monogamy is not only the design that God has given, it's the one that God has blessed and sanctioned. And any other arrangements are not God's design and are not sanctioned by God. Therefore, gay marriage is not marriage. That's such a misnomer. There might be coupling, and sadly our judicial system has recognized that as a legal arrangement, but it is not marriage. It is not blessed by God and never will be. All of the rhetoric in the world and all of the marketing cannot change what God has laid down as reality and righteousness.

And regarding marriage, it's a man and a woman. We're going to take a break, and we'll be back with more questions on this special edition of the program with Alex McFarland. Stay tuned. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert.

Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Are you tired of liberal agendas ruining our country, but you don't know what to do about it? That's why Truth and Liberty Coalition was founded. We want to equip you to take back our country and impact the world. Here's how we do it. We educate through broadcasts, conferences, and our website with resources that inform, equip, and motivate. We unify by collaborating with like-minded organizations like the Family Research Council, the Family Policy Alliance, and My Faith Votes. We mobilize by providing practical tools you can use to impact your local community.

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He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program.

Alex McFarland here. So honored to be answering Bible questions and so thankful. Aren't you thankful that we have the Word of God that gives us the answer not only how to be saved, how to grow in the Lord, how to know God's will for our lives, but eternity and what the future holds.

And aren't you glad for John 10 35 where the Lord Jesus said the Scripture cannot be broken. By the way, it's hard to believe we're in the fall of 2023. Go to my website, which is alexmcfarland.com. I've got a lot of very exciting speaking engagements. The Truth and Liberty National Conference, September 7 through 9 in Colorado. Then I'll be in Washington, D.C. September 14 through 16.

Pray, vote, stand. I'll be speaking at that. FRC, Family Research Council, used to be called the Values Voter Summit, but I'll be there.

Maybe you'll be in Washington for that. I'll be at the Well Church in North Carolina, Pastor George Evans, longtime friend and colleague, on Sunday, September 17. And then 18 through 20, I'll be at Liberty University and Lynchburg Christian Academy, Liberty Christian, our dear friend Andy Lawrence. And I'll be up there and I'll be at Thomas Road Baptist on Wednesday night, the 20th, with a thousand youth up there. Then September 24 through 27, Stuttgart, Arkansas. Again, an evangelistic outreach like we did a year ago in Stuttgart, Arkansas, which happens to be the rice capital of America.

Did you know that along the banks of the Mississippi River, apparently the conditions are ideal for growing rice and comet rice and rice land rice. All those great companies are out there, and we saw a lot of people come to Christ last year, and I pray we will this fall. I'll be in Dillon, South Carolina, First Baptist Dillon, South Carolina, with our friend Reverend Jamie Arnett. Just a great church.

That's October 1 through 4. And on and on, so much to talk about, but please go to my website, which is alexmcfarland.com. And one last thing, you know, we give God the glory for the thousands and thousands of books we give away every year, and the growing 7,500 to 8,000 people a year in the USA that make a salvation decision, mostly young people, teenagers. And then we have radio and television and so many avenues by which to share the gospel message. And we're doing our best to raise up young people, and through the Viral Truth Clubs. And the website for that, by the way, is viraltruth.com.

Viraltruth.com. But friends, it's your prayers and support that make this possible. And so would you consider today giving a tax-deductible financial contribution? You can give securely online at alexmcfarland.com, alexmcfarland.com, or you can mail a contribution in PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina, 27404.

Just, you can write a check if you mail a check in. Just make it to TNG, as in Truth for a New Generation. TNG, PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina, and the zip code is 27404. And our board and I and staff, we will gratefully receive it, faithfully handle it, and we promise that we will use all the support God sends our way to evangelize the lost and equip the saved.

Well, speaking of being equipped, let's talk about some more questions. Somebody asked this question, why did God command the Israelites to kill all the people in some towns? Did God, and we've gotten this question from a number of atheists, did God approve of genocide?

Well, let's talk about this. God commanded the Israelites to kill people in some of the towns they fought in the wilderness when they were entering and taking their promised land. Now why did God do this? Let's remember that God was bringing Israel into existence through whom to send the Savior.

And along the journey of taking the promised land, the Jewish people frequently would meet what the Bible calls, quote, the people of the land. Now, it wasn't that God desired bloodshed and war, but there were nations that had 420 years and longer to make peace with Israel, but they were constantly Philistines, Canaanites, Amorites, Perizzites, they were constantly trying to exterminate the Jewish people. And the question is really this, what would be worse? What would be worse for several thousand vehement pagans to die, or for the human race to not have a Savior? Obviously, for the Jewish nation to be killed off or sufficiently hindered that Jesus didn't come. I mean, for the human race not to have a Savior, that would have been the greater tragedy. So God had a morally sufficient reason in telling the Jewish people to fight. But let me say this also, and this is really kind of an ethical issue, God gives to nations and individuals the right to self-defense. God gave all of these, the pagan nations, hundreds of years in which to repent, yet they would not. And it wasn't as if God gave violent commands to the Israelite military, just wipe out innocent, unsuspecting towns.

These commands came after generations of God giving people time in which to change their ways. But it's worth pointing out that God did spare those who turned to him when they came out of these ungodly cultures. And a great example is in Joshua chapter 2, Rahab the harlot. The Israelites were instructed, they had been instructed to kill all the people in Jericho. But God spared Rahab and her family because she helped the Jewish spies, and she put her faith in the God of Israel, in Yahweh. And in Joshua 9 there were Gibeonites. This is another example of God sparing an entire group of people. Now, initially the Gibeonites had tricked the Jewish people into a treaty by acting like they were from a land very far away. But instead they became servants to Israel.

Why? Because the Gibeonites feared the Lord, and at least to the degree that they could, repented of what they had done, their dishonesty, and they sought to protect themselves. But let me just say that God is a God of love, but he's a God of wrath and justice. And in our time, in our lifetime, let's not obsess so much about ancient pagan nations that did or didn't repent, but what about us? We have a lifetime in which to turn to Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 talk about God's grace, and we receive that by faith. John 3, 16, whosoever will believe in him may be saved. If we reject God, as many people throughout history have done, we will experience eternal judgment and separation from God in hell. But if we will turn to Christ, he will save us.

And maybe you're feeling led to turn to Christ, even right now. You know, last night my wife and I were driving, and in the nighttime sky we saw this incredible, shocking sight, lights going up into the sky. And for a second I thought, what in the world? Well, it was the SpaceX satellite launch going up into the sky. And it was an amazing sight, it really was, and I knew from all my flying that this train of lights probably was a hundred miles long, rocketing through the sky.

It was amazing. But I thought about this, and it appeared just in a second, but I thought one day in the eastern sky will appear Christ returning. And people, it will happen in the blink of an eye, people have an opportunity now to repent. And if you're feeling led, you're going to come to Christ, or maybe come back to Christ. Right now, we always say this, and it's true, Jesus is as close by as a prayer. If you need help in your understanding of what it means to be a Christian, you can go to my website, which is AlexMcFarland.com. There's a tab, What Does God Say About My Relationship With Him? And it will explain how you can know today that you're saved.

If you want a hard copy, a printed copy, just write to us, Alex McFarland, PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina. And we'll send you the book, as we've sent to tens of thousands of other people, How Can I Know Jesus Christ? What Does God Say About My Relationship With Him? Well, thanks for listening.

We'll do more questions in upcoming shows. Just remember, whenever we have a question, God and His Word has the answer. In fact, Jesus is the answer. May God bless you. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth. Learn more and donate securely online at AlexMcFarland.com. You may also reach us at Alex McFarland, PO Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404.

Or by calling 1-877-YES-GOD1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarland Show.

Do you have a desire to deepen your faith, better understand Christian apologetics, or to get a biblical perspective on current events? Well, I've tried to make it simple for you to do just that. On my website, AlexMcFarland.com, there's a new section called Ask Alex Online. It's simple, it's clean, and you can read my answers to common questions about God, faith, and the Bible. So visit the website AlexMcFarland.com and look for the section that says Ask Alex Online.