Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey guys, this is If Not For God with Mike Zwick. I have a very, very special show for us today.
I've got some heavy hitters in the house. I've got my friend Dr. Greg Hennant. And Dr. Greg has written 18 books.
My favorite book is Which One, Greg? Spiritual truths for overcoming adversity. Spiritual truths for overcoming adversity. But I'm sure your listeners don't have any adversity in their lives. No adversity at all, no.
And Dr. Carson, on November the 15th, you've got your book coming out as well. And it's Dr. Dwayne Carson from Date the Word. What is that book, Doctor?
The Date the Word Daily Devotional: 365 daily devotions, one for every day that matches the date on the calendar. That's it. And so today we're going to be talking about an audience of one. And so, when I started to think about this show, one of the things that I thought about was this verse: Proverbs 29 and verse 25, and it says this. It says, The fear of man bringeth a snare, but whoso putteth his trust in him.
and the Lord shall be safe. And we were talking about this before. But Athanasius. Is very well known, and he was an early, early church father. And one of his most famous things that he said was: somebody came up to him and they told him, Dr.
Gregg, they said that. The world stands against you, Athanasius. And Athanasius says, Well, then Athanasius stands against the world. But Dr. Greg, you said there was a story behind that.
Oh yeah, Athanasius was the bishop of Alexandria. And he was very faithful to God and to truth as he perceived it and understood it from the Word. And so the great controversy then was over the nature of Christ. And so there was two sides.
Some saw Christ as the eternal God. God, others saw him as a creation of God. I think the saying was: there was a time when the sun was not. And so Athanasia stood against that. And as the different uh tides and and waves of theological thought ran through the church.
For quite some time, he ended up being Excommunicated five different times over the issue because sometimes the sitting emperor favored the divine view of Christ, and sometimes the Human view, so, or the creative view.
So, he suffered for the truth mightily. He was a powerful figure, and it was his. circular, his encyclical, his letter to his bishops In the fourth century, that officially helped set the 27 books of the New Testament. That's awesome. And so we were talking about this before the show.
It's easy to sit in here and talk about, I'm going to stand for God's word. I'm going to stand for the truth when we're sitting inside of a studio. It's easy for us to sit inside Wednesday and the Word when Dr. Dwayne is up there speaking and say, I'm going to stand for God's word. It's another thing when we're out in the world, right?
It's not like we just leave the world and we get a place in Idaho and we get a little encampment and we stay away from everybody else. God has not called us to stay away from the world and not talk to them. He has called us to reach the world for Jesus Christ. And so sometimes that means we're going to have to engage the world. We're going to have to engage people.
Dr. Carson, who disagree with us. And so before the show, I was thinking about this, and I said, there have been some times in my life. Where I have had to stand against the world. And I'm telling you right now, it's not always easy.
There are times when it hurts. There are times when there's other Christians who you think are your brothers and sisters, and they come against you when you stand for the truth. You find out a lot about people as you walk this road with Jesus. And I, you know, a couple of examples that I can actually give you is that when I first got out of college, I was a new Christian, and many of my friends were atheists and agnostics, okay? And all of a sudden, it was one Saturday night or whatever it was, and we all got around and they were talking about God and they were talking about Jesus.
And they said, this thing isn't true. It's a joke or whatever. And I stood there and I was the only Christian in the room. And I said, well, I believe in Jesus. You know what they did?
They about died laughing. And I remember after that happened, I said to myself, that's it. I thought it was going to be a lot worse than that. And many people, if you've looked into Voice of the Martyrs or if you've looked into many of these other shows, whatever it is, they realize that, yes, it's tough and it can be difficult at times, but it feels good to stand up for Jesus and to do the right thing. And you said, Dr.
Carson, you said that when you were at Liberty, you had a roommate and you were going to go speak at a church. What happened, Dr. Carson?
Well, I had started filling in at a church as a pastor. Hadn't become the full pastor, but as I was doing it, they wanted to have a revival. And my roommate was an African-American. And I would say now we are, he had gotten married. I got married.
And his. Wife sang beautiful. I mean, just incredible.
Sounds of Liberty, Liberty University, sang for Dr. Falwell on the old-time gospel hour.
So I asked her if she'd come and sing for me, and she was so delighted to do so. She gets there. and half the church would not come in the building.
Next thing I know, I'm being told, How dare you bring an African-American to this church? And we're just not going to come in.
Well, I told him, I said, I got to let you know something. I believe John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And I just needed to make clear I was not going to be a pastor of a church that only believed, for God so loved whites. And I had a man tell me that if. He had to go to church.
and set in church with a black person, he'd just soon go to hell. And I couldn't believe it. I'm like, I unreal. And his father then threatened me within an inch of my life. Yeah, wow.
That if I did anything like that again, he. He would just beat the tar out of me with my new bride standing beside me. And I'm like, well, I am not backing down. This is what God's word says. He died for the world.
Red and yellow, black and white. And you can't have discrimination. You can't have prejudice in a church. And sometimes you have to take a stand against that kind of thinking. Absolutely.
You know, Mike, that reminds me of Billy Graham, as you know. That's right. In his campaigns, in his crusades, when he went down south, I think it was Atlanta. And they were going to segregate the auditorium or the stadium, wherever he was. And he said, if you do that, I'm not coming.
So God blessed him. He stood up. He did take a stand. He did. And to Duane's point, I think it's seven times, actually, it's more than seven times.
The Bible says, with one or another verbiage, it says this. God is Is no respecter of persons. He has no prejudice. And anybody who does has got an issue with God. That's right.
And so there were, I mean, I've had a few times where I mean, there's other countries right now. Have you guys heard about what's going on in Nigeria right now? What have you heard?
Well, I've heard many of Christians have been slaughtered. We're not just talking about killed, slaughtered, churches being burned and uh It is Heart-wrenching, and we're not getting enough press coverage of it, quite frankly. We're not. What about you, Dr. I had not heard of that particular incident?
I'd heard that person. The last I heard was that there were over a hundred thousand Christians who have been killed, and they're just going in, and exactly what you say is massive. And some of this stuff we can't even talk about. No, you can't, yeah. But this has been a trend for probably 40, 50 years, maybe more, where the Christians tend to live in the cities, the Muslims in the rural areas, and they will come in and slaughter them in the name of jihad.
Yeah. I tell you what, that is something else. And so. I thought about another example of this as well. And nowadays, people are standing up for truth.
People are standing up for, you know, that the Bible says this, the Bible says that. And God's word says that marriage is between a man and a woman. And so any kind of sex outside of marriage is a sin. And you're sinning against God. But back in 2012, President Obama came out and said, he said, I believe that men should be able to marry men and women should be able to marry women.
Now, right now, if we say, hey, we're standing for marriage between a man and a woman, we may get some pushback, but it's not like it was back then. Back in 2012, I was living in downtown Raleigh. And I used to have a Bible study with, I don't know if you guys have heard of Danny Lott's. Do you know Ann Graham Lott? Oh, yeah.
I didn't make that connection. We used to have a Bible study in Raleigh once a week. I believe it was Monday mornings or whatever. And what they did was they said, we've got these bumper stickers, and it says marriage, one man, one woman. I put that bumper sticker on the back of my car and I was living in an apartment in downtown Raleigh.
Now nobody ever touched me. And, but there were people who really came against me, and there were some people who I thought pretty much wanted to do something physical violent to me. We had some neighbors who were, I believe, were gay, and uh, the guy he just looked at me, and I remember one time. After he saw that bumper sticker on my car, I walked in and his apartment was right next to me and he put a sign on his door saying that everybody should be able to get married, you know, something like that. And so there's a time when you're going to have to stand for something and there's going to be a lot of people who really don't like what you have to say.
And we were talking about this a little bit before the show. There was a time where most, pretty much, if you were a Christian in the United States, that you believe that you should support Israel. But nowadays, and even the, I just saw this in the news. It says support for Israel in the United States is down, way down. And I think part of this, you could say, well, it's the liberals or it's the Democrats.
And yes, support for Israel amongst Democrats has gone down. But they said it's not just the Democrats. They're saying it's the Republicans. It's the conservatives because there are conservatives and Republicans who are coming against Israel. We were just talking about Candace Owens.
We were just talking about. About Tucker Carlson has come against Israel as well. But I said, you said you have the gift of prophecy. That was your gift, Dr. Carson.
But I said, could it be prophetic that all of these people coming against Israel, could it be a prophetic sign at the end, Tons? Oh, absolutely. Because as you look at the Bible, it lays out that. There will be a day when all nations will come against Israel. All nations.
They're going to come there for the Battle of Omar Gedden.
So as there is support in America for Israel, There's going to come a day that is going to get less and less because that little slither of land with less than 10 million people on it, smaller than New Jersey, people are just tired of it. Why do we have to keep dealing with Israel? And we just need to wipe them off the face of the earth. And that's what's going to happen. And so we're watching this even this very day.
People in prominent universities who will be leaders of banks and companies are going to be against Israel. Absolutely. Well, and I did want to say this, Dr. Gregg, but I think what a lot of these people will do, and I hear them say the same stuff every time, they'll use a verse from, say, Galatians, and they'll say, There is neither Jew nor Gentile. Male nor female, and they'll say that as a Christian, that we are the true Israel.
We're the Christians are the true Israel. And I see you nodding your head, but Dr. Greg, what do you think about that? Yeah, that comes from a doctrine called supersessionism. It's also called replacement theology or fulfillment theology.
Dwayne is very familiar with this.
Now, you may not be familiar with the fact that this is taught in many seminaries, particularly those who hold covenant theology. Yes.
Okay. You won't find it usually in those that hold to dispensationalism or some version of that.
So it's very important because that doctrine has been around since the beginning of the church. It originally came from the resentment against the Jews. The Jews were the first to persecute the church, then the Romans. And so it's been long-lasting, and it has been behind a lot of the persecutions and pogroms that the Jews have suffered down the centuries.
Now, but there's another factor that's coming about now. As Duane was talking about the battle of Armageddon, the clash of all nations against Christ and Israel. And the Bible shows that in the end times, the Jews will be in their homeland as they have been since that time. And the great dramas of all the Old Testament prophets, when they see the day of the Lord, they occur in Jerusalem, in Jezreel, Valley of Jezreel, all in the Holy Lands. And so this is we're on the cusp of the fulfillment of the end of the church age.
The tribulation period, the return of Christ, and the beginning of the millennium. All these things are much more. Near us than we think. And so you're seeing the growing spirit of Antichrist with a growing hatred that's becoming more and more overt for the Jews and everything about them because it is in the in Revelation 12, which is an allegory of the tribulation period, we see the dragon, Satan, standing before the woman, Israel, ready to devour her man-child.
Okay, and that is looking at the One hundred and forty four thousand Jewish male remnant that's converted. And And the dragon is resisting before that happens.
So that's been the build-up since really it began around 1900 when the Jews began to come back to Israel. before the state was formed, and it's persisted down there. It's been a steady stream of Islamic Arab resistance to everything about the Jews returning and then being able to form their state, and since being able to stay in the land.
So we're seeing really a buildup toward the end times.
Well, and from what I see in the Bible, they can come against Israel as much as they want, but it's not going to stop them. It's not going to stop Israel. Is that right? That's right. God's got a plan.
He has not cast away his people. And there's going to be a day when that. Temple's going to be restored, and Jesus is going to sit on the throne of David. and they will not stop him. On that verse that you quoted, Galatians 3.29, there's no difference between this and that.
Well, there's another verse, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 32 says, Give no offense to the Jews, or the Greeks or Gentiles, or the Church of God. And right now on this earth are three groups of people. The Jews, the Gentiles, and Christians, and Christians are made up of both Jews and Gentiles. Amen. 1 Corinthians 10.32.
Excellent.
Now, there is something out there because I do believe there are extremes with everything. There is something out there, it's called dual covenant theology. And I don't know if you guys are familiar with that or not, but what people say is that Christians are. are saved by believing in Jesus Christ. And that Jews, I believe, are saved by keeping the old covenant or something like that.
And there are. There are people out there, especially the Messianic Jews, who will say, We don't even want to preach to the Jewish people because we don't want to offend them. And there's a lady named Jan Markell. I don't know if you're familiar with her. Yes, yes.
But what she said is she did a show and she said, There are people who are literally loving Jewish people to hell. Right, absolutely, because the love of the truth is what they need. And just in short, that doctrine is false, and really the contrary is true. We have received the new covenant which Jeremiah prophesied would come. Jesus offered it, and they refused it.
So he's turned to us, God has, and we have received and entered into that new covenant. And that is the same covenant that the Jews will repent and receive there when they receive Yeshua. Uh Tribulation period, and when he returns, they're going to come into that same covenant. Yeah. Just to let you know, from what I understand, two-thirds of the Jews are going to be killed.
And is that from Zachariah? Is that from Zachariah 13? Two-thirds of the Jews are going to be killed, and a third of them, and I think I believe there's a verse where it says they will look upon the one that they pierce. Yes.
Zechariah 12:10. Yeah, and actually, the reference he made was Zachariah 13 that he said two-thirds will be slain. And the Hebrew there is indicated for slaughtering as of a sacrificial lamb. It'll be a brutal murder by the Antichrist for non-worship. And then the one-third he said, He will bring through the fire and refine them and they will know him and he will know them.
In other words, he says, These people will be mine. They will enter into relationship with me. I'm going to test them. I'm going to purge them in that testing, but I'm going to call them mine again.
So, for me, as a Christian, but my dad was Jewish, my dad was a secular Jew, and he never really wanted to hear about Jesus. It's funny, though. The only person my dad ever listened to, and it was one time, it was a sermon. By Charles Stanley. Yeah, oh, yeah.
So it's funny. It's like you never know what's gonna kind of reach somebody. Yeah. And I believe at the very end of my dad's life, he got saved. But when you're talking to Jewish people, Dr.
Carson, what do you do? Or how do you show?
Well, ultimately, you come back. Bit. People were asking, all right. Do are you looking for Jesus to come the first time?
Well the second time. And I'm looking for him to come the second time. And I always point Jewish people to two things. Number one, the book of Matthew. It was written to show that the Old Testament was fulfilled, Jesus fulfilled.
And then there is a book called Hebrews. And I was in Dallas years and years ago, part of a Jewish Hebrew Bible study. And it was all geared to how to help. the Jewish people to see Jesus is Better. And it explains it.
And their eyes have to be opened. Romans, Paul talks about how the Jew gets proud that I'm a Jew. They even brag to Jesus, look, our father's Abraham. That's not enough. Just like Nicodemus, who was a Jew, every Jew has to be born again, just like every Gentile.
If you are not born again, you will not see the kingdom of God. Absolutely. Well, and here's a verse for you: Romans chapter 10, verses 1. Brethren, my heart's desire in prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. Yes.
AKA, they're not saved by being Jewish. That's right. Correct. And that passage right there is the primary passage to explain that's Romans 9 to 11. It is the primary passage.
There are many other scriptures that refute supersessionism, but there, Paul is very clearly explaining. I mean, he lays it all out in plain English, you know, or in plain Greek, when a Greek. He just says, Has God cast away his people? God forbid. And then he goes, They've given us the covenant, they've given us all the benefits we've received.
And he explains in chapter 11 that we have been temporarily grafted. We were the wild tree, grafted into that natural olive tree, and that when the Jews repent, they're going to come back in. And he says plainly, when the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. That then the Redeemer will come to Zion to all that turn from iniquity, and all Israel will be saved. Not every Jew, but Jews from all of the tribes.
And they are still known to God. That's it. Well, and here's another. This is Romans chapter 10, verses 12. And I'm going to go a little bit into this, but it says, For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.
There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call Upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him who they have not believed? And how shall they believe on him on who they have not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? Dwayne Carson. We've got to go preach to both the Jew and the Gentile. Absolutely. Yeah.
So, yeah, we have to preach to them. And as it says there, it says, But I say, have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth and their words unto all the world. But I say, did not Israel know? First, Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people and by a foolish nation I will anger you.
What does that mean? That's us. He's using envy. In other words, they know that they were the original people of God. And they look at us, who they call dogs, you know, the Pharisees called them dogs.
And so now, but he saved the dogs. You know, what did John the Baptist say when they said, well, they were boasting on their Judaism? He said, think not within yourselves to say, we be the children of Abraham. He said, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.
So we are those stones.
So we are the stones, and go ahead.
Now I'm just agreeing with that. You're agreeing with that? And then it goes on to say But Isaias is very bold and saith, I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest unto them That asks not after me. But to Israel he saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and again saying people.
Let me ask you this, Dr. Parson. It says, I was found of them that sought me not. I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. What does that mean to you?
Well, we as Gentiles, we were not seeking God. No. But when the day of Pentecost began, And now you've got all these people, Jewish people, but of all these different nations, they go back and they begin to share, and Gentiles are beginning to realize, and hey, there's something here. And then here comes Peter. having this dream vision.
I got to go to some house.
Well, at this house he's told, share the gospel with Cornelius. And little by little, the gospel's going to go to all three. Of Noah's children. That's in the book of Acts. And so the Jews, and Japeth, and then.
Shim. And so the gospel goes to everyone. But we as Gentiles were not thinking about this. And this, the fact that we get to be a part of it, we were aliens, and now we're adopted into the family of God. And Paul explains that in Ephesians.
Oh, I still can't believe I get to call God. Father, that's right. That's right. And I want to say this too, because I don't want a straw man the other side.
Okay. One of the things, if you read certain parts of the New Testament, you may be able to say, well, does that mean that the church has replaced Israel? And there are some verses, I'm just saying, that if you look at them standing alone, you may think that. But then, if you so, and maybe some people would say the end of Romans chapter 10. But here's Romans 11, verse 1.
It says, I say then, hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. What yet he not, that the scripture saith of Elias, how he maketh intercession of God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets and digged down thine altars, and I am left alone, and they seek my life.
So, what does that mean?
Well, you know, what I was thinking when you went into that, because Paul is emphatically saying twice he said it, that God has not completely cast away the Jewish people.
So what's happened since they rejected Christ. They are under the wrath of God. For the gospel's sake.
Okay, they're enemies of the gospel, but they're still beloved of God.
So they're temporarily rejected because they rejected Jesus. But the Lord foresaw that.
Okay, and in prophecy, he said in Hosea and in Micah, to make a long story short, he saw they predicted the rejection of their Messiah and then subsequently, this is a huge fact, the receiving of him. Jesus said when he left Jerusalem, you will not see me again until you say. Blessed is he. They were saying, Cursed are you. You know, we have no king but Caesar.
But he says, You're going to change in belief.
So that's a huge fact.
So we know God's going to restore the Jews. And, guys, we've run out of time for today, but Dr. Carson, date the word your book, and date the word, the name of the book, Dr. Carson?
The date the word Daily Devotional. Coming out November the 15th. And it's great. And my favorite book from Dr. Greg is what?
Spiritual Truths for Overcoming Adversity. By Dr. Greg Hennon. I want to thank you guys for coming on today. Thank you.
If not for that too. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty wick Just like subscribe and hit that notification bell.
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