What Are the Top 3 Reasons to Become a Christian?

What are the top three reasons to become a Christian? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843. Now, you can also post your question on one of our social media sites. In fact, we have a YouTube channel, and you can watch Adriel right now live in the studio and send him your question through YouTube.

And of course, you can always email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com. Just a reminder, our show airs live from basically 1130 to 12 Pacific time, so translate that into your own time zone, 1130 to 12 Pacific. So if you're hearing the program at a different time, it means that it's tape delayed, but you can still call in to talk to Adriel live during that time, 1130 a.m. Pacific. All right, let's go to our first voicemail of the day. This is Becky, who called in from Missouri. My question is that Jehovah's Witnesses don't celebrate Christmas, and they quote some verse from the Bible that supposedly justifies their decision. I was wondering, Pastor Sanchez, what is your take on this?

Thank you so much. Yeah, bah humbug, right? They don't celebrate Christmas. They also don't celebrate birthdays, and I mean, I don't know about the other holidays, but I know they don't celebrate. St. Patrick's Day. Definitely, yeah, probably not St. Patrick's Day, and probably not Trinity Sunday either in the church calendar.

But here's the thing. Nowhere in the New Testament does the Bible say that we have to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christ in the sense that, you know, culturally we've done. Now, Christians early on did begin to do this, but there's no holy day apart from the Lord's Day when it comes to New Covenant worship. And so I think that's what they're trying to get at, and so I don't think anyone should bind your conscience and say you have to celebrate, you know, the birth of Jesus Christ.

It has to look like this, but is there anything wrong with it? No, certainly not. I mean, the incarnation is one of the great events of redemptive history of what God has done for us to save us. It's the love of God being poured out upon us in His Son. And so, you know, Jehovah's Witnesses minimize the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. They totally miss it. Would that they did have a solid understanding of the incarnation, that the eternal Son of God, equal with the Father in power and glory, assumed humanity for us and for our salvation?

They really should. They really should celebrate it, because they're such a misunderstanding in their theology about who Jesus is and what He's come to do. The one text that I was thinking about in terms of this, you know, celebrating certain days, is what the Apostle Paul says in Colossians 2, verse 16.

The substance belongs to Christ. That's the focus. And so they don't celebrate Christmas. Is that their greatest error?

No, I don't think it is. I think their fundamental errors have to do with their understanding of the gospel and their understanding of the person of Christ and the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Three persons, one in essence and undivided. They reject that, and so they reject core Christianity and are outside of the bounds of the Christian faith. Well said. And, of course, we've talked before about how to respond to a Jehovah's Witness if they come to your door, because the fact is they use a different Bible than the true Bible.

Well, yeah, we've talked about this. It's called the New World Translation, and what they've done is a lot of those places in the Bible that are very clear proof texts for the deity of Jesus Christ. They translate them differently. So, for example, in Colossians chapter 1, where it says, By him all things were made, referring to the fact that Jesus is the source of all things that have been made, that he is not a creature. Their Bible says, By him all other things were made. They insert that word other, implying or suggesting that he is also a creature, that he was created, and that he made all other things. Well, that's just not what the text says.

But you can see how they've twisted the word of God, and this is one of the reasons why we have to be especially cautious. Well, thank you so much for having us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for having us.

How am I supposed to turn off my radio? I think it doesn't matter. Okay, my question is a very dear friend of mine. Her husband passed away recently.

He was not that old. They are Christians from a biblically found church. However, she believes that Satan took her husband, that it was not his time, and that it was not God who took her husband, that it was Satan who did it.

And I'm wondering if that's biblically correct, that Satan can take out a Christian like that, and it just didn't sound right to me. So I would like to hear what you believe about that. Thank you. Okay.

Hey, Ramona, I'm so sorry to hear about this tragic and sudden loss, and for your friend right now who's mourning. And of course, in situations like this, we're trying to make sense of what just took place. And sometimes, you know, where we go with that is somewhere that isn't necessarily true. And it is not true that the devil has power over the children of God, that God was not sovereign over this. And I think that this is really, really important, because we need to recognize in situations like this that God hasn't abandoned us, that God isn't out of control. In fact, the psalmist said, and this is one text that I go to in situations like this, Psalm 116, verse 15, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. That God loves his children, that his children are precious, and even their death is not something that's outside of his control. Later, the psalmist will say, in your book, all my days were written, when as yet there were none of them. In other words, God, you know me intimately. You know each and every single day, and my life is in your hands. It's precisely, Ramona, what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew. Listen to this. He says, Matthew chapter 10, verse 26.

I'm going to give a little bit of the context. So, have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, say, and the light, in which you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops, and do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.

Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father, but even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.

If a sparrow sold for a penny doesn't fall to the ground apart from the providential oversight and care of God the Father, Jesus is making a point here, from lesser to greater, how much more can you rest assured that your days are in his hand, that every single one of your hairs is numbered? And the reason we often don't go there is because I think we say, well then, what was God's purpose? I don't understand, how could God have a purpose? Well, we don't always know what the purpose was. The why behind, you know, our losing someone that we love dearly, someone who loved God, someone who, right, this person loved you, Lord, why did they die so suddenly, so early? We don't have the answer to that.

God knows, and one day we will know, one day your friend will know as well, but what we rest in is the fact that God is not out of control, that every single hair on our head has been numbered, that he knows us intimately, and that each of our days is in his hand. And we can be comforted by that great reality, because if we go the other way, then essentially what we're saying is God, at least in some instances, has more power, or Satan at least in some instances, has more power than God, that he caught God by surprise, snatching this sheep from Jesus, taking him out of this world. Well, Jesus said, no, that can't happen. No one can snatch them out of My hand, Jesus says, or the Father's hand, John chapter 10. And so I would, one, say the perspective, as your friend mourns, that that's not biblical, and just that God would give you wisdom in coming alongside of this friend, and first, I mean, mourning with her. But when it's appropriate, the Lord opens up the door to be able to come alongside with the comfort of God's word as well, with the truth of God's word.

God is in control, God is not surprised by anything, and he's able, even in these circumstances, to cause all things to work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Thanks for reaching out to us, and may God bless you and give you wisdom as you continue to have conversations with and minister to your friend. Such a difficult situation, and Ramona, thank you for calling and for being such a kind, gentle friend to your friend who's lost her husband. Wow.

All of us can relate to that. As many of us know, people who have lost loved ones before their time, so thank you for that. By the way, I want to mention, her question has to do with, really, how much power does Satan have? You answered that really well.

I want to mention we have a great resource on this topic. It's called Can the Devil Read My Mind? And in that resource, that little booklet, it discusses the power that Satan has and the power that he doesn't have over those who have trusted in Christ. So you can find that at corechristianity.com forward slash booklet.

Look for Can the Devil Read My Mind? Another resource I want to mention that is absolutely free and has to do with this time of year, we get so many calls from people who say, hey, I've heard that celebrating Christmas is a bad thing because it's actually a pagan holiday. And the Christians just put this stamp on a pre-existing pagan ritual, and so the whole thing with the Christmas tree and the decorations and all that is really not biblical and we shouldn't do it. And so we've actually got a resource that responds to those claims.

Yeah, head over to corechristianity.com to get a hold of this resource. Basically, the whole point of the resource is proving that Christmas is not a pagan holiday, and we were just talking, Bill, about that question regarding Jehovah's Witnesses and them not celebrating or observing Christmas, however you want to put it. That's one of the arguments they'll make.

They'll say, well, Christmas is pagan. I mean, they also say that about the doctrine of the Trinity. Well, they're wrong.

They're wrong on both counts. And so get a hold of this resource. Again, you can find it over at corechristianity.com forward slash resources.

It's a free download. We have a lot of free downloads there, and we'd encourage you to check out the website, browse around, especially as we're coming up to Christmas, you might want to consider purchasing one of our Bible studies for a friend or relative. Maybe you have a friend who leads a small group at a church or is an associate pastor looking for some good Bible study material. We have some great ones at corechristianity.com.

Well, we do receive voicemails here at the core, and here's one that came in from one of our listeners with a good question that really deals with apologetics. Hi, I was just kind of wondering what good reasons are there to believe in Christianity? I fell away from my faith a long time ago and kind of needed a good convincing reason. And I'm looking at more of an outsider kind of look at this as though, you know, if I had to build up my belief that the Bible is the Word of God, or if, you know, I had to start from scratch, what would convince me of these things?

Like, how could I look at a book like the Bible and think it's the Word of God? So I'd love to talk about this stuff. Thank you.

Yeah. Well, I'd love to talk to you about this stuff, and I think you should definitely continue this conversation. I don't know where you live, but I think one thing that could be really good for you is sitting down with a pastor in your area or with someone who knows God's Word, where you can go with your questions and begin to have these kinds of conversations. Look, here's what I'll say. There are a number of quote-unquote proofs, things that Christians have pointed to in order to say, yes, you should believe this.

And I think that there really are some great ones, some great arguments to be made. I would say, first, just to encourage you in this process of questioning, I already said, hey, talk to a pastor, but get a hold of a Bible again, maybe you still have one, and begin to read it honestly, thoughtfully, prayerfully. Open up, start with the Gospel of John, I would say, and begin to read it. There is a sense in which the Holy Scriptures—and this is what some brilliant theologians have said throughout the years—there's a sense in which the Holy Scriptures are self-authenticating. God speaks through His Word, and so I would say put yourself under that influence.

Listen to God as He speaks to you in His Word. Now, one of the things that you asked is, well, how can I know that this is the Word of God? And I think that there are, again, some evidences that we can point to. The more you study the Scripture, I think the more—this has been the case for me—the more I'm overwhelmed by its majesty, its beauty, its relevance, its truthfulness, just in my own life and in the world as I look at the world around me.

You also have the prophetic testimony of Scripture. God said in Isaiah 46, verses 9 and 10, I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things that are not yet done. None of us remembers tomorrow.

It hasn't happened yet. We can't predict the future, but one of the things that the Bible claims to do and does again and again and again is it gives us a picture of human history, and not just in vague ways, but in very specific ways, especially as it related to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and His redemptive work. It's God saying, I am God and there's no other.

Nobody else is going to do this. No other holy book does this, makes this claim. I declare the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things that are not yet done. Let me just say, as someone who has studied the Bible in depth for years, I am blown away by the fact that you have this book, 40 or so different authors, 66 books brought together, almost a library of books, but the focus is a laser focus from Genesis to Revelation on the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament in types and shadows, right through these pictures that we see in the New Testament fulfilled, fulfilled prophecy, fulfilled promises, but it's overwhelming. And that's why I said, read it, open it up.

I think it was the great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon, who said the word of God, you know, we often talk about defending the Bible, defending the word of God. You wouldn't say that about a lion, right? In a cage. You say, just let the lion out of its cage. It can defend itself. Well, the word of God is like that.

I would say, read it, let it out of its cage. And so you have the prophetic testimony of scripture, which again, by the power of the Holy Spirit is self-authenticating, which is just to say that as we read it, as we study it, we recognize this is indeed the truth. You also have the resurrection of Jesus, which the apostles frequently pointed to, and there are some great resources, some great books that really unpack that, that get into the various evidences for the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You can find plenty of those resources on our website. You also have just the reality that God has made himself known in creation. The world around us, everyone has a sense of God. It's what one theologian referred to as the sensus divinitatis, that we know that there's a God by looking at the world, the created world around us. This is what the apostle Paul says in Romans chapter one, or what the psalmist says in Psalm chapter 19, that the heavens, the heavens declare the glory of God.

The firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. Everything around us points us to the fact that there is a God, there is a creator, and he's glorious and all-powerful. And he has made himself known to us in the person of his son Jesus. And you can grow in your relationship with Christ and know who Christ is by coming to him, by praying, by opening up the scriptures, by getting plugged into a solid church.

And so I love that there's this openness, a desire to think, okay, what are the rational reasons for me to embrace this? What sets Christianity apart from other religions? And all those things I mentioned, those are things that set Christianity apart. But one other thing that I want to mention is this, and it's the gospel. The religions of the world will give you a system of works for how to climb the ladder, if you will, to attain God, to be saved. The good news of the Christian faith is not, here's a list of things for you to do so that maybe you can get into heaven.

And the fact of the matter is the Bible is clear. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. The word gospel means good news, you know, try harder, do better, perfectly obey the law. That's not good news for anybody, for us, not because the law is bad, but because we're bad, because we sin, because we don't take God's promises seriously. But the good news of the gospel is that God himself has come down to us, he's condescended to us. He sent his Son, Jesus, into the world for sinners. For those of us who didn't perfectly obey or keep his law so that through him and through faith in his name, we might be saved, we might be redeemed. And so what else sets Christianity apart from the religions of the world? It's the gospel.

You're not going to find that good news anywhere else. God himself stooping down to us, what we celebrate this time of the year, the incarnation of Christ, God himself stooping down to us to raise us up to himself. Not because we deserved it, not because we were worthy, but because he is good. For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And so believe in him, believe in him, and God bless you this Christmas season. Wow, such a great explanation and thank you for that, Adriel, just really, really clear. I'm hoping that anyone who has doubts will just maybe go back and listen to the podcast version of this program and listen to what Adriel just said in the last few minutes and how important it is for anyone who has doubts or says they're an atheist or an agnostic to listen to that explanation.

This is Core Christianity. Let's go to Scott from Illinois. Scott, what's your question for Adriel? Yes, Adriel? Yes, sir.

Scott, good to hear from you. Thank you. I was just wondering, how old is the Earth? Or maybe a better way to put it is, how long ago did time start? Now, I believe in a young Earth, which would be less than 10,000 years old, and a lot of believers I talk to have said the same thing. However, I can't find anywhere in the Scripture to back up what I say, and I'm just wondering how can I—I don't know if discredit is the right way to put it—but let these people that think the Earth is billions of years old, that it's not. Unless you think it's billions of years old, but a lot of believers that I talk to don't.

Yeah. Hey, Scott, thank you for that question, a very relevant and important question, especially today where people are thinking about the relationship between the Bible, faith, and science. Now, I think actually both of those views, people who believe in an old Earth and people who believe in a young Earth, are within the bounds of Christian Orthodoxy. I know that there are some people who will say, well, if you believe in an old Earth, you're not taking the Bible seriously enough. The Bible is very clear that God created the world and everything in it in the space of six days.

And then typically what will happen is they'll add up some of those genealogies that we find in places like the book of Genesis and Genesis chapter 5, and you do the numbers here, you add this all up, and it gives us an Earth that's about 10,000 years old or 6,000 years old or whatnot. Now, just on a biblical basis, I don't know that that line of argumentation is really that sound. Oftentimes with genealogies in the Bible, there's a selective group of people that are chosen. You see this in the genealogy of our Lord, right?

There's something that's being communicated. And even in the early chapters of Genesis, the focus is not so much on how old the Earth is. You do have a focus on creation ex nihilo, which is to say creation from nothing, that God is all powerful and that he made all things, everything that exists, from nothing. He didn't use material to create the Earth.

He spoke it into existence. I think those are the doctrines that we really need to affirm if we're going to remain within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy. But in terms of the age of the Earth, I don't think that the Bible speaks clearly to that. I don't think that that's the focus of the early chapters of Genesis. Now, I know that some people are going to argue with that, and I think that that's okay. I mean, you can make those arguments, but that's not the focus of the early chapters of Genesis. And so I think whether you take the young Earth view or you have an older Earth view, depending upon your reading of Genesis and those genealogies, that's not going to set you outside the bounds of Christian orthodoxy. Orthodoxy doesn't mean that it doesn't matter.

I think we need to reason together as we open up the scriptures and get the main point of what the text of scripture is saying. And so I appreciate your question. God bless. God bless.