What Is Mankind?

This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.

Well, if not for God with Mike Zwick, I've got Daniel Merrill and Manuel Pittman as well. And you're never going to guess who just stepped in the door. The Robbie Dilmore, the Christian car guy. He is here as well. And I just had a good time Robbie over in Arizona.

They sent us on a resort. Man, it was incredible. They spent so much money. I don't even want to know. I mean, and I see what they do.

They send you on these trips for about three or four days. And then when you come back, then you want to sell a ton of insurance so you can keep winning these trips.

So I get the point and I get what they're doing. But Robbie is the Christian car guy. And you also have another show on Saturday mornings as well. What is that called? I have a bunch more.

Kingdom Pursuits. Kingdom Pursuits. Masculine Journey, Kingdom Pursuits, Finishing Well, but. You know, I was just going to say in comment to your You know, God. Just loves to Honor his kids, you know?

And he gave you that trip. And, you know, years from now, because I can remember. Tons of trips I won from Chrysler and Yeah. manufacturers I worked for over the years, but none of that kind of matters now. What matters?

Is God gave me this adventure with my family, right? Because You know, I got to go with my son to the Super Bowl one time. I got to go with my. Wife to Russia, you know, all sorts of different places that God, but at the end of the day, if we see God in it, you know, whatever their motive was. It doesn't really matter, you know?

It's just cool that you got to do that. And I can't think of a nicer guy, but. that that that needs to you know God when he shows off man he shows What heaven's going to be like. He does. And I hope your mic is on.

I see three on, so I'm not sure, but I'm sure you could check that. But, anyways, is it on program? Let's see. Yeah. No, it's NX1.

So he's whatever he's got mics on. Whatever he's got mics on. And we can edit this part out.

So no big deal. But anyways, we were talking about apologetics, Robbie. And so one of the things that got me back into this, man, and I don't know if you're big into this. I know you're big into Israel and learning all about the Hebrew and all of that. But, you know, I'd rather talk about near-death experiences, which sometimes gets me in trouble, or healing or other things like that.

But the Bible says if anybody asks you for a reason for the hope that you have within you, always be willing and ready to give an answer. And so I went on a trip. And while I was on this trip, there were some skeptics. And one of the, it's funny. A lot of times people say they're Christians.

And the guy, he goes to an Episcopal church. And we started talking. And I thought that he was giving the speaking points for an atheist or an agnostic. And I said, I thought you were a Christian. I was real polite, you know, but he said.

well you know there's 3200 different religions in the world how do you know that yours yours is the right one and it was funny earlier that day manuel pittman right here sent me a video uh by frank turek where he came to uh where he came to um elon university and he talked about the resurrection And I said, the difference between Christianity and every other religion is the resurrection. And the guy just kind of nods his head.

So it was like, God was sovereign in that. And you said you wanted to touch a little bit more on the resurrection as well. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. And actually.

You mentioning about this gentleman going to Episcopal Church.

Now, what I'm about to say, there's a variety of types of Episcopals out there, so this is not a negative.

So, to clarify that, there's a spectrum. But at the Episcopal Church near where I live in Burlington, North Carolina, I actually met a gentleman through evangelism that goes there.

So, he invited me to come one time. And this was a particular Sunday where the rector or the minister decided to talk on the topic of hail. And the reason I bring this up in connection with resurrection, the idea of the resurrection, is because if you deny hail, the resurrection has no meaning. If you deny the resurrection, hail has no meaning.

So, at this particular Sunday service, the rector, the minister, I basically talked about all the reasons why you shouldn't believe in any form of hail, whether it's eternal conscience torment or annihilationism. He was rejecting both of those. and actually saying, hail is what you experience in this life, and after you die, that's it. And so he was very universalist, and he would call himself a quote-unquote Christian universalist. But if you reject and deny any understanding of hell, any form of hell, or if you reject any form of the resurrection, they counter the other.

And so it's resurrection theology or how we understand the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of our glorified bodies in Christ's return informs us of many different things, including the next subject that we're getting ready to talk about. Are you talking about assisted suicide? Yes.

Well, it's funny. You guys just mentioned it, and I'm sure Robbie has an opinion on this as well. But you had just mentioned it. I just saw something on CBN about, you know, there is a big debate about assisted suicide. And from what I heard one of you say, now they're actually calling it, I think it was Daniel, they're calling it assisted suicide.

Now, on the surface, it seems like something that's very beneficial. It's kind. You know, somebody's in all this pain. They're not feeling well. And if they want to die, then you should be able to help them out.

But what do you think, Manuel? Yeah, the idea of someone being in so much pain and they want to be set free. And I'll... Be very open here. My father, he was in the military, served 23 years.

He's Green Beret, Special Forces, and he loved his time. And a lot of them kind of made this kind of pact that if I start going into a certain point, that I'm going to, I've lost my arm, I lost a leg, and I'm about to die, just shoot me in the head. That was just kind of like he wants it to be over, don't want to be in that pain. And emergency situations are probably worth talking in a different time. But in a very practical sense, when you are a doctor, you take an oath, the Hippocratic oath, that you do no harm.

And so we, the reason hospitals exist, the reason nursing homes exist, the reason these facilities exist, because we believe in life. And so life should be defended at all costs. No matter what stage of life you are, no matter what physical pain you feel, you preserve life. That is a Christian standard we must defend. God created life, and our greatest enemy, our last enemy to be defeated, is death itself.

And so, if we embrace suicide, we embrace letting someone off because they're really struggling, we're. becoming victims of death. Death is that enemy that we're embracing at that point. And that's a very dangerous place to be. In fact, it is an anti-Christian place to be.

And I think that's needs to be important for that part. Yeah, what are your thoughts, Daniel? Yes, I would say I completely agree with Met Manuel saying one of the things that I think is important to think about is the impact of secularism and its understanding of the nature of man and or what's known as anthropology. Or the study of mankind, what is the meaning, purpose, and value of mankind? And so in the The trajectory of the continued secularization of culture.

I mean, the Netherlands is a prime example. It's in many ways, most people would say, oh, it's a great country and it has a lot of great things. But the current state of the Netherlands and other areas in that area of Europe, it's become very dechristianized. And by consequence, the value of the sanctity of life and of human life has become a consequence of that. And so in Canada, it's been in the news about in regards to a 20-some-year-old that received assisted suicide through the Canadian government and medical.

personnel and There is a growing Push to bring this to the US as well. It's both in Canada as well as other areas in England and the United Kingdom and other areas in Europe. And so, not just in Europe and in the Western Hemisphere, but in others, but specifically. You find this. Devaluation of wanting to actually kind of goes to something we talked about in the previous episode: that the idea of wanting to Free oneself of the physical world.

Pain is horrible. And so I do not want to downplay the. The difficulty and the pain that someone is going through. But There is a There's two different things that I just wanted to say, and then I want to turn it back to Mike on this. For the situation in Canada that's been in the news, he wasn't in any medically Verified physical pain in the sense of he had a terminal illness.

He had, I think the news article talked about him having blind, blind, yeah, blind, and he also had diabetes, which they are serious, and I don't want to downplay that, but they, um, People go through many different challenges. The Apostle Paul had a thorn in his side. Many scholars think that could be in regards to him having issues with his eyes because of his encounter at the road of Damascus.

So I think. When we devalue life, we devalue the understanding of one thing. The anthropology of mankind. What is the purpose, meaning, and nature of mankind and its worth? But also, what it means to Receive the benefits of the mercies of God here on earth and learning.

Learning through trial and tribulation instead of just trying to find the the the easy way out that devalues life. Yeah, and it's interesting. We've talked about this on the show before. Robbie and I have talked about this a multitude of times: that we are pro-life. You know, that we believe that once conception has happened, it is a child.

I thank God for my daughter Ann and my two sons, and that when you murder a child in the womb. Um and when you or when you have an abortion, as people say, Infanticide, I've heard many different terms for it. That not only are you killing that child, you're killing off many generations as well. Because those children, Robbie, would have children and they would have grandchildren and so on and so forth. You think about Abraham, right?

But I think about it as well. People say, well, you're pro-birth, but you're not pro-life.

Well, here's another example as well of where Christians are not only pro-life and pro-birth. pro-life all the way through until the very end. Until the very end. And uh, Robbie, what do you think? Again, it's it's you know, I've been praying as I've been listening and thinking That You can't expect lost people not to act lost.

Right? And the fact that this young man. ask him to take his life is beyond sad. What's beyond sadder than that is you made mer mention of Daniel. Chances are hell became a reality for him almost immediately.

He's spending eternity there. you know, what happened with his physical life is nowhere near as tragic as spending eternity. No love. No one ever to say, hey, good job. No one that ever really cared about you again.

No sense of joy. No sense of being connected to God. And so the poor guy. He was lost. You can tell he made that decision.

Um And then the government, unfortunately, rather than protecting its citizens, which is its job. You know? But they're lost too. And so the solution, interestingly, is evangelism, right? Which you're always so anxious to.

The other thing I would make a point of in this that that as I was thinking about it Is I kinda get it. Because I attempted suicide at least three times in my life. Yeah. when I was much younger. And I was very lost.

And it seemed like there was no reason to live. And unfortunately, I was living out to some extent a generational curse that has been in my family for some years. Um and unfortunately reaped some fruit of that. in my own family to see um other attempts. Um It's my wife's.

Brother. did commit suicide. I saw that and I saw what all it brought. But what I had thought about as I was ministering to One of the people afterwards, and again, now at this point in time, I've had a chance to reflect, and I've had children and even grandchildren. And hopefully great-grandchildren soon enough.

But That had I succeeded When I attempted that. sixteen years old. That not only would I have murdered myself, Which is horrible. I would have murdered Robbie. I would have murdered Tess.

I would have murdered Mariah. I would have murdered Margie. My granddaughter. I would have murdered Cash, my grandson. I would have murdered Leo.

My grandson, right? I would have murdered, and all the generations that go after that, you don't realize, like, oh my gosh, you make one simple decision that you think is all because of you, and you can't face life, and blah, blah, blah.

Now this man. Twenty years old? You know, he's made this decision. He had no idea the consequence. And how true the Bible is, and so it's at some level, it just says, 'Thou shall not kill.' I mean, what part of that do you not understand?

I mean, it's just clear. But unfortunately, if you don't know God, you can understand His Word. And so it gets back to the real. Opportunity we have, Michael, is given that hope so that people can catch the idea of man, following Jesus is a blast. Having a Savior that can tell you about God and the meaning of certain things is such a joy.

There's nothing. Um There's nothing discouraging about it. Life is, you know, in his presence, is fullness of joy. And that's and there you go. That's a and you had mentioned it before.

And I don't know if I stepped out for a second again because of Ann, but you mentioned disability theology. Yeah, so this is kind of the other side of it. And the the whole idea we want to talk about is what is man? Uh what does it mean to be an image bearer of God? And on one side of it, if you think to a point that life doesn't matter anymore, or you can be leaving this body and it's got nothing to do with God, that's the death side of it.

But if we still don't understand man, I can go to another side. I've heard people talk about stud the mentally handicapped. Do they have a closer status to God because they don't have the mental capacity to understand things that somehow devalue. the joy of life. Do people that are uh disabled physically Do they have a unique standing with God?

Because, oh, I'm relying on Him every single day, unlike someone who's able to walk. And so. Disability theology says that is actually preferred good. And that's not Christian either. Really?

Okay. Yeah, because that's the other side that's very dangerous. Because someone in a wheelchair. As hard as it is for them to be in that chair, and as much as they want comfort to their situation. The comfort comes that he rests in Christ and there is resurrection.

Resurrection is comfort for them too. The comfort that does not come from the fact that it's a good thing that he's there in a wheelchair. That is not good. The fact that someone's mentally handicapped. That is not good.

Those are the results of sin, that lead to death. and that needs to be understood on that side of it too.

So the hard part about resurrection theology is it answers two things about being man. One, it says, Death is the enemy. The other says the Eden, the garden, resurrection, that, is the goal. And so therefore those are the two enemies that we fight. I I don't know if you g gentlemen have encountered the disability theology much, but through my navigation, my wife having a lot of physical ailments, I've engaged with people that are of that community, that are in wheelchairs, that are mentally handicapped, that are struggling with things physically that attack their bodies every single day and makes every single day just to wake up and move.

very, very hard. And so they sometimes are tempted to have a different answer. Suicide is one that is gout Christ. The other says that I'm in a better place, and I somehow am a better example of a Christian or someone that's good or holy. Because they're suffering for Christ?

Yeah, they'll interpret it that way. But the reality is suffering and is a result of sin. Suffering is not the desire, and the desire is to seek God in a glorified way, and that is fully revealed in resurrection. The fact we're going to beat death. And how do you do that?

Eternal. Life. And also, just to make sure for the audience that we're not saying that when somebody has these. Physical challenges that it's in that it's inherently their sin. It's about the idea of the endemic fall of mankind, the nature of the fallen world that we live in, the problems.

So, just for clarification, so no one misunderstands what Pete says.

Well, as far as sin, too, I wanted to say this: that there was a time where they came up to Jesus and they said, How come this man is like this? Is it because of his family sinned or he sinned or whatever it was? And Jesus comes back. Do you remember what he says? He says, no.

He says it's neither one. It says that the glory of God can be shown when he is indeed healed.

Now, there's other people who say, no, if somebody's in that situation, it's never because of sin.

Well, then you could say no as well, because there's another verse in the Bible where Jesus heals a man. And I don't know if you remember this or not, but afterwards, he goes back to that man and he says, How are you? And he says, I'm healed. And he said, good. He said, stop sinning or.

Something worse will happen. Worse will actually happen to you. And so I think that kind of gives both sides. And I love how the balance, the Bible, a lot of times gives us a balance. And I think sometimes it can be a little bit dangerous when we go too far.

You know, I had a friend of mine, Robbie, named Pastor Mark, and he was from Cross Assembly or whatever. And he said, if any denomination that you follow or watch, he said, if their whole theology is based off of one verse in the Bible and that's it, he said, watch out. But I'll do you one better. My pastor said that heresy, another definition for that, is truth in isolation. Ah, ah, that's good.

Well, you just heard disability theology, Robbie. I had never heard about that before in my life. Had you? No. What are your thoughts on it from what you've heard them say?

I think that's Um Again, it's objectively You know, correct.

However, subjectively, some people may hear that and you know, if you're the one in the wheelchair and You're the one that's got the mental disability, and you're trying to deal with that. And again, we. lean on God to say okay.

So What does your word say about this? And clearly, every single one of us, whether we realize it or not, is completely disabled. And we're all on the spectrum of autism. I can assure you. What do you mean by that exactly?

Well, autism is simply a disease where you can't. Um Focus on the most important issue. In other words, if you're around autistic, someone, you know, they tend to be caught up by things that go around in circles, right? And so I've known several students, because I taught them for 20 years, right? That they would flush the toilet and then they would stand there and watch it go round and round and round, or they watch a fan go round and round and round because they focus on something that wouldn't be socially normal, so to speak.

But whatever normal is, is only on a dryer, I've heard.

However, they're totally gifted in other areas and but you know you can be teaching them and they're looking out the windows punching at the air because they've got their some part of their mind is over here on it's focused on something that isn't. What is totally being discussed or being part of what being social is.

So, if you think about it, the whole idea of the Song of Solomon, chapter 2, and it says, Catch for us the little foxes. You know, anytime you ever go to pray, I'm just saying that I would be shocked if about the time you didn't start to get intimate with God, all of a sudden you're thinking, Man, I'm getting a little hungry here. I wonder what I'm going to do, you know, tomorrow afternoon at three. And all those things come in that keep you from focusing on what's actually the most advantageous for you in that particular moment. you know, dependent on all that.

So what what I say is we are all I mean, there isn't a single one of us. that doesn't have numerous And so to say that isn't good, I agree with you. God made Adam to you know to be A picture of, you know, to some extent Jesus, which unfortunately he failed, which here we go. But Jesus was all that. And so, when we're walking in the image and begin to follow him, the opportunity is that we're all going to.

Um move in that direction.

However, shame is a very dangerous thing. And when you when you begin to start to To speak to things like that, you got to be careful, in my opinion, and this is my opinion, you got to be really careful. Uh that people don't hear something you didn't say. Right. Which is nearly impossible when you're on the radio.

So yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I that you can say something that's absolutely correct.

However, you know, we just want to be We want to be gentle, but by the same token, we don't want to be in error. And these guys are not. I mean, you know, what I've heard from them theologically so far from my perspective anyway, it's been right in line with the scripture. But the you know, the challenge is How's it being received? And is shame coming with that message?

And if so, Satan himself has attached himself. And he's the one who is bringing that because there's no condemnation in Christ.

So we know that if you're in any way feeling shame based on what they said, that this isn't the message that they want you to hear. I mean, the message that God wants you to hear. is hey The best is yet to come. We're all broken. And as we move through these things, it's going to be awesome.

And don't lose sight of that, that this isn't all this isn't as good as it gets. And I think that's a lot of what I heard Manuel saying is that Man, wheelchair isn't as good as it gets. You aren't going to have that wheelchair in heaven. Yeah. And I think Cameron Horner, you know him.

He's talked about this a lot. Thank you, Robbie. And you know Cameron Horner as well very well. But he said that he's looking forward to the day where Christ comes back or where his body is resurrected because he's no longer going to be in that wheelchair. But at the beginning, man, well, you asked me to read Psalm 8.

So here it is. It says, Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, who has set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, and thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which thou hast ordained, would is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast made him him to have dominion.

Over the works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the path, Paths of the seas, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent. Is thy name in all the earth. And so in the last minute that we have, I also am reminded that the Lord has given us authority over this earth. He has given us dominion over the, over the seas, over everything on this earth. That's why we're able to eat animals and we don't have to feel bad about it.

Sorry, sorry, vegetarians and vegans. But in addition to that, you know, we talked about it before, but Mark chapter 16, where he said, these signs shall follow those who believe. When I drove to Fayetteville the other day and the Lord just told me to go to Fayetteville out of the blue.

Somebody said, Mike, I was, my friend was here and they were praying. They said, Where is your insurance man? I need for him to pray for me. And God put me there, and I prayed for this lady over the phone, and her neuropathy immediately went away, and she was immediately fine. Praise the Lord Jesus healed her.

But he's given us that authority. Jesus said, before he left, they wanted him to hang around. He says, no, it's better that I go. And he's seated at the right hand of the Father because you have the Holy Spirit who's living here with you. The Holy Spirit, the presence of the Holy Spirit living within you.

And that these signs shall follow those who believe. They shall cast out demons. They shall heal the sick. We're supposed to share the gospel, preach the gospel to all creation. And there's a guy who wrote 23 Minutes in Hell, Bill Weiss.

I don't know if you guys have heard of him or not, but one of the things that he said, and I love this, he said, I see when Christians do evangelism, miracles show up.

So, Robbie, make sure to check out Robbie's show, shows, plural. The Christian Car Guy, Masculine Journey, and many others. And if you guys get a chance, check out the website that you guys have on Facebook, Instagram, and it's called crossxchange.org. And you can look that up on all those sites. I want to thank you guys for coming on today.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty's wick Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell. Yeah.

So you'll be alerted when we have our next video. This is the Truth Network. Mm-hmm.