Responding to Serious Objections to the Bible (Part 1)

The following is a pre-recorded program. Hey friends, welcome to the Line of Fire broadcast. This is Michael Brown, and we periodically do special broadcasts where we post a topic on social media, on our Facebook page, AskDrBrown, askdrbrown on Facebook, and our Twitter page, drmichaellbrown on Twitter. And we post a question, we ask for your response for questions, input things like that. And then we do a broadcast just responding to those.

We received so many responses to this question that I posted that we'll probably do a series of broadcasts on this, so we won't be taking calls, won't be commenting on breaking news. I'm just going to be responding to questions that you posted for me on Twitter or Facebook, specifically regarding objections to the Bible. Alright, so let me go to the Twitter question.

Here's how I posted it on Twitter. What are some of the strongest objections to the Bible, or the goodness of God, or the existence of God that you have been confronted with? Post them here and now, and I'll answer some of them on next Tuesday's broadcast.

So I posted this on Thursday, April 29th, and now we are airing it today, Tuesday. So I'm only going to focus on objections to the Bible on this broadcast. On another broadcast, I'll go back to these questions and focus on objections to the goodness of God. Now, I know they often tie in, but some are larger, you know, just the general problem of evil or problem of suffering. Others focus more on specific biblical texts or concepts. So let's start here with Billman.

Billman asks this. Much of the Old Testament violence and what God allowed. For example, giving Saul's family members to the Gibeonites to stop the famine. Okay, great questions, and ones that come up a lot. So there's so much violence in the Old Testament, and then there are specific acts of violence that God calls for, and then some where it seems that innocent people now suffer for the sins that others committed by God's word, by God's directive. How can that be so?

Great questions. Now, the first thing that I think we need to do is establish the character of God, according to the Old Testament, is one of justice, one of mercy, one of truth. In other words, he is not celebrated as a bloodthirsty deity. He is not celebrated as a tyrant.

He's celebrated as one who cares for the widow and the orphan. Now you say, well, it's obviously contradictory. Okay, it may be contradictory, in which case the Bible's not God's word, or perhaps it's not contradictory. It appears contradictory to us from our viewpoint. In my new book, Has God Failed You, officially releases May 11th, so slightly, well, right about a week from now, officially releases then, but you can pre-order it still, sign numbered copies on our website with an additional CD teaching on God's true grace, that's at sdrbrown.org.

I have two chapters in my new book, Has God Failed You, addressing the question about the God of the Bible and people leaving their faith, losing their faith, questioning God because of these very issues. Is he homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic? Is he a megalomaniac? Is he genocidal?

Who is he? And I start off the discussion by just looking at verse after verse after verse that extols his mercy and his kindness and his goodness and his justice, and chides the people of Israel for their lack of justice, for their committing acts of murder and sexual immorality, and for not caring for the poor. So the point is that the Bible is not going to present a picture to us of this righteous God, this God of justice, who rebukes Israel for its sin and rebukes even foreign nations for their sins against humanity, and then God turns around to be a monster. It would mean that we are missing something in the picture.

So, a lot of the violence recorded is just recorded. In other words, God's not sanctioning it. God's not pleased with it. In fact, one reason that God judges the earth in Noah's day, Genesis 6, one reason that God judges the earth in Ezekiel's day, Ezekiel 9, is because of extreme violence. And in Israelite law, Numbers 35, bloodshed polluted the land, and the only way to deal with it, with that defilement, with that pollution, was by the blood of the one that committed the act. So it would have to be life for life.

You take a life, you forfeit your life. That's how sacred life was. So when the Bible records all the violence, it's not recording it glibly. It's to say that's the level of sin in the world.

That's the ugliness of the world. So the Bible is not unrealistic in closing its eyes to humanity. It's painting a picture of human sin. Now, what about the times when God calls on Israel to wipe out different peoples? There was a justifiable reason for it. It was judgment. In other words, do we question the goodness of the allies, America and the European allies, in fighting the Nazis? Do we say, why were they so cruel to the Nazis? No, the Nazis were committing atrocities, and God judged them for that. Or you could say, just in modern terms, that the world judged them for it and fought back and defeated them. Stopping the Nazis meant stopping their murderous acts. The people that God wiped out in ancient Israel were committing sins like child sacrifice.

So that's one reason that they were commanded to do what they did. I was recently debating an atheist—this will air on the Awakening TV network in the next few months—and he asked me if God told me to kill him, would I do it? In other words, let's go back to ancient Israel, and he said Canaanite, God told me to kill him now, would I do it? And I said, no, God would not command me to murder you. In other words, you are not guilty of something by which, under the law, you would be put to death. God would not tell me to murder you.

However, if you were an ISIS terrorist, and I was a soldier on a mission to take you out before you killed other people, I would be doing good in doing that. Some have even argued that the Canaanites and others that were being wiped out were half-breeds, that they were half-bred between humans and angels, that the human race was defiled in a completely destructive way, and those were the ones being wiped out. As for the particular question about God calling for David to take Saul's ancestors and have them killed, yes, it seems extreme, yes, it seems unjustifiable, but perhaps the ones that were chosen were all guilty of sin.

Only God knows what's going on. Perhaps they were guilty of sin by which they should have forfeited their lives. So in putting them to death, it also dealt with an ancient wrong in that bloodline, but perhaps in that current bloodline.

We don't know. But since God explicitly says elsewhere that the children are not to be put to death for the sins of the parents, you have to say maybe there was more going on that we don't know about it. Joe, in a similar tweet, says this, that God in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua doesn't look like a loving God. Conversely, the New Testament, the Gospel, just sounds too good to be true.

Well, that's a good objection to have, the second one, that it seems too good to be true. But that's in keeping with God being love. That's in keeping with God being gracious and reaching out to us. The message is too good for us to come up with.

That's the other thing. We would never have come up with it. It's too extreme to think that we would just create this message where God sends His Son to die for our sins. Yet, on the flip side, there's great responsibility for not receiving grace, for not receiving the goodness of God. There are consequences to it.

But yeah, it's too good for humans to come up with. We would just say, well, God will just kind of look the other way. Not that He'd send His Son to die for us, but in that is justice. In that, God's saying, I don't just look the other way, there's going to be payment, but my Son is going to make the payment for you.

That's extraordinary. One other point about the God in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua. How many times does God forgive Israel before He says you're going to die in the wilderness?

Have you ever thought about that? How extraordinarily long suffering and patient He is? So yes, He reveals Himself in Mount Sinai in flaming fire so that they understand, don't mess with this God. He just delivered you from Egypt completely undeservedly. He just delivered you with signs and wonders and smote those that oppressed you and took advantage of you all these years and beat you down and deprived you.

He rescued you by His own goodness and grace. Don't mess with His commands, though. But the commands themselves are ways of life.

If you live like this, you thrive. But then think of this. How many times did Israel sin grievously? Did God banish them to the wilderness after the golden calf incident? No.

Several thousand perpetrators died, but that was it. Did God banish them to the wilderness with the constant grumbling that you have in the book of Exodus? No. Did God banish them to the wilderness when Nadav and Avihu sinned, offered up unauthorized instance, right at the dedication of the tabernacle, you know, shortly after that? No. Does He banish them to the wilderness in Numbers 11, where they grumble again and He sends them quail?

No. It's only after they refuse to go into the Promised Land because of their unbelief that He banishes them to the wilderness. It's only at that extreme point, so there's extraordinary patience that's being shown, and those that are judged are judged because of their wickedness.

One more thing to point out. If you go to, oh let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 10. Deuteronomy chapter 10. So in the midst of all of these depictions of God's dealings with Israel, and with His fierce judgment, look at what it says. Verse 17 of Deuteronomy 10.

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. He enacts justice for the orphan and widow, and loves the outsider, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the outside of the foreigner, for you were outsiders, you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. So this God that's supposedly so harsh and cruel is saying, hey, you be compassionate to the foreigner. So the ones that were wiped out were the ones that were deserving of death. Otherwise, God's pattern was mercy on the foreigner, mercy on the outsider, especially if they seek refuge under the wings of the God of Israel. So rather than just singling out those negative passages, which are difficult passages to be sure, let's look at the bigger picture and see its overall consistency.

Yes, you're right. We are just getting started. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the Line of Fire. Michael Brown here answering your questions. These have previously been posted on social media, so don't call in now or post now. But questions that I solicited on some of the toughest objections that you received to the Bible being God's Word. We're going to answer a number of them today, but based on the amount of questions that were submitted, God willing, we'll do this again. We'll come back to this in the future and answer more of your questions of serious objections to the Bible. Look, you've got to take serious objections seriously. If you don't, you're not going to help the people struggling or you're not going to help yourself in your own struggles. And I was talking to a producer for James Robinson's show Life Today, and we were about to record an interview on my new book, Has God Failed You?, with James and Betty Robinson.

We recorded that last week, and it'll air I think towards the end of June, something like that. And one of the producers called me. I mentioned this on the air a few days back, but he called me to discuss the book and the interview before I came on, and he said that one thing he really appreciated about my new book, Has God Failed You?, finding faith when you're not even sure God is real, is that I take objections seriously. You have to. If someone's struggling, if someone's doubting, if someone doesn't know if they could really trust God or trust his word, you're just going to have something wrong with you.

All that does is push that person away further. Let's say, boy, that's serious. Boy, I never thought of that. That raises questions for me.

Okay, great, not a problem. Let's find the answers. Let's find the answers. Okay, so Ann posts this on Twitter, again in response to my soliciting questions. Esther having to sleep with the king before they were married. How can that be right? And why would she as a Jewish woman do that? And was the Bible sanctioning that? Great question.

So here's the very down-to-earth real answer. Number one, the Bible does not say that Esther was a wonderful Torah-observant Jew. It doesn't say that. It doesn't even say that about Mordecai, that he was a wonderful Torah-observant Jew. That was her older cousin who cared for her as they were in exile, Persian exile.

So that's the first thing. It doesn't say that she was some holy, godly woman, does it? Second thing is, the Bible doesn't explicitly say they slept together, but that's what's assumed. That there was this harem of women and he was going to pick his next queen because he gets rid of Vashti because she pushes back against his authority. You can't let that happen.

You can't let a wife put it. It's got to do with what a husband says, so get a new queen. So kings being who they were, they could have the pick of the litter. You know, just like some famous athlete or actor or rock star, you know, and just get whatever woman he wants to get and sleeps with hundreds or thousands of women. Well, a king could do what he wants to do. So he has this harem of women and they all basically volunteer themselves and then he's going to spend the night with each one. So maybe he hung out and talked, maybe they had a meal together, but presumably they had sex.

So how could that be right? And how could Mordecai encourage Esther to do that? Again, no one says that they were Torah-observant Jews, living holy lives, living in separation. God uses Mordecai and he becomes a hero of the story. God uses Esther to save their people.

And God is never mentioned in the book, but is implicitly there working behind the scenes. Just tell us what really happened. And here, let's just say that today you had some, you know, some famous guy that, you know, lots of ladies wanted to be with. And this guy says, hey, I'm picking some gal to travel with me and I'm going to spend the night with you.

I don't know what we'll do, but I want to spend the night with you. I want you to send in your picture. You get Jewish girls would send in their picture along with gentile girls. And God works through that. Remarkably, God works through human beings doing human things and gets something good out of it. But rather than us seeing that as an objection to the Bible, right, we should say, oh, it's very realistic.

It's very realistic. And it's not trying to glorify all the people. And yet in all of this, God is still keeping his covenant with Israel.

Yeah. Now, it's possible, it's possible that Esther was godly and Mordecai was godly. I mean, they were Torah observant. And it's possible that the king didn't sleep with Esther. Right, that he just talked, you know, that all he did was talk to them and have a meal with them and like, hey, I really like you.

I'm going to make you the queen. That's possible. All right. But that not being the case, then I explained how it can be in the Bible. All right, let's scroll down to, OK, Chris.

Chris. The Bible has been changed and edited so many times by humans that it can't be taken seriously as any kind of divine source of truth. Another important question and objection. Here's the reality. Number one, the Bible is the best preserved ancient book far and away.

In other words, we have so much manuscript evidence that even though we have many thousands of variations, the vast bulk of them are absolutely tiny. They can be grammatical. They can have an extra comma or not. It would be similar to spelling MR dot for Mr or MR or spelling out Mr. Those are three different variants, but don't change the meaning of anything. If I'm Dr. Brown, D.R. Brown or D.R. Brown or D.O.C.T.O.R.

Brown, none of the meaning has changed. So many, many thousands of variants are absolutely minor, completely insignificant. And overall, there are no major doctrinal issues or major teachings of points for how we are to live.

They're affected by any of the variants. But the reason for any of the variants is because we have so, so, so many copies of parts or all of the Greek New Testament. We have over 5000 ancient manuscripts, including one that seems to be within 100 years from the death and resurrection of Jesus. When you look at other books, other ancient history books, talking about Greek or Roman history books from that same era, or some of the other famous writings, there's almost nothing in comparison. You have instead of 5000 manuscripts, you may have 11, and they're all from 300 years after the writing of the book. So we have a massive witness.

It's the opposite of what people think. And the reason for the variation is because so many people were writing out copies that you're going to have errors. Now, when it comes to the Hebrew Bible, we have the oldest complete copy of the Hebrew Bible is from about 1000 years after the time of Jesus. So that means, in some cases, 3000 years after some of the events described, you think, well, yikes. What do you do with that?

Well, let me explain why. And that's the Leningrad manuscript, B. Leningrad, 19A. There's ones even earlier, the Aleppo Codex, but part of that was lost in a fire after the War of Independence in 1948.

It was stored in Aleppo, Syria. But the fullest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible that we have comes from 1000 years after the time of Jesus. But we have manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls, like 4Q Isaiah B, which is virtually letter for letter, the same as the Leningrad manuscript. This is a difference of about 1100 years.

Why? Because the scribes were meticulous. Because they had rules of copying. And as the centuries went on, those rules became more and more and more strict.

So that, for example, a scribe in the year, say, 1000, copying out the five books of Moses, the Torah. When he'd come to the end, he'd have to say, okay, the total number of sections, they didn't have chapters, sections is this. And this is the middle section. The total number of words is this. This is the middle word. The, excuse me, total number of verses, that would come next. Total number of verses is this, and this is the middle verse. Total number of words is this, this is the middle word. Total number of letters is this, and this is the middle letter.

Can you imagine that? You have to count it. And if it didn't count out right, you couldn't use it. You say, well, why is there such a gap in the manuscripts?

Why so long? Well, because when the book or the manuscript would deteriorate, it would then be buried. Or it would be stored in the back of a synagogue and then ultimately, you know, some of these things ultimately destroyed.

So, it's not that you had a gap, it's just that when the thing wore out, it was replaced by a new one, but copied meticulously and with great care. And then you have, you also have fragments from several hundred years before the time of Jesus, where you have a specific verse here or there. It may be part of the Ten Commandments, or the Priestly Blessing from number six, you're on an amulet from hundreds of years before the time of Jesus. Then you have extensive archaeological confirmation for details recorded in Scripture. Then you have the fact that the Word of God prophesies things to come.

So, regardless of copying issues and things like that, the Word of God prophesies things to come. So, I was talking to an atheist about this, and he said, well, of course Jews, they wrote their own history, so they wrote it the way they wanted to write it. I said, well, how can you write your history in advance? How can you write that you're going to be scattered around the entire world, that you're going to be decimated in numbers and population, and that you're going to be re-gathered at the end of the age back to your land in Israel and reconstituted as a nation? How do you write that out in advance? How do you write out in advance that the Messiah will be rejected by his own people, that he'll die, that he'll rise from the dead, that he will become a light to the nations of the world, and welcomed by the nations of the world, while his own people, Israel, reject him, and then they'll receive him in the end?

How do you plan that out in advance? So, the Bible gives us clear indication that it's inspired by prophecy. That's one of the major ways it does that. And then it has been preserved far and away, better than any book in the ancient world. Then it has an extraordinary unity, despite the many different authors writing at different time periods in different parts of the world.

And then the biggest thing is, when you apply it to your own life, it's life-changing. When you ask the God of the Bible to make himself real in your own life, he comes, he touches you, he changes you, and you find the extraordinary wisdom of the Word of God, the life-giving qualities of the Word of God. Again, I address some of these issues, not so much the textual history, but larger objections to the Bible and the God of the Bible. In my new book, Has God Failed You?, hopefully you'll find that helpful.

And then there are a lot of great apologetics resources that help with these things as well. All right, we'll be back with more of your social media questions about the Bible. It's the Line of Fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. A few days ago, I posted a question on Facebook and on Twitter. And I said, I'm going to answer your questions on our Tuesday broadcast on the Line of Fire.

So that's today, if you're watching, listening live. And I asked for you to post your questions about the Bible, the toughest objections you get to the Bible. It's not your own questions as you're reading, but the toughest objections you get to the Bible or to the goodness of God.

We got so many questions between Facebook and Twitter that I'm going to have to do several broadcasts on this over time. So today, we're just going to focus on objections to the Bible, and even so, we'll only get through some of those that were posted. And then, God willing, we'll do some other broadcasts, objections to the goodness of God.

So over on Facebook, Jonathan posted this. Jesus dying for our sins in the New Testament because the Bible in the Old Testament says we die for our own sins. So it's an objection to the New Testament blood of a human being paying for our sins. Why did God accept the blood of a human in the New Testament when God doesn't accept human sacrifice? Great question, and it's one that rabbis and countermissionaries would raise, that God does not accept human sacrifice. So how could he sacrifice his son? God does not accept human sacrifice, known as he asks for human sacrifice.

However, a righteous person can suffer for someone else. God does accept that in Scripture. Now first, let me show you that this is an Old Testament concept. In Isaiah the 53rd chapter, the 6th verse, it says, All of us, like sheep, have gone astray.

Each one has turned to his own way. But the Lord has laid on him, namely the servant of the Lord, the Messiah, the iniquity of all of us. So there it's telling us, in Isaiah 53, 6, that the Lord laid on his messianic servant the iniquity of us all. So this is not just a New Testament concept. This is an Old Testament concept. Now, let me explain. It's explicit under the law that the children will not be put to death legally for the sins of the parents.

Right? So if your father is a murderer and you're a righteous person, you are not put to death when your father is put to death for murder. Now, let's say your father is an alcoholic and beats your mother, beats you as kids, you may grow up with scars because of that. In other words, the parents' sins can affect the children. But the children are not legally put to death for the sins of the parents. They're put to death for their own sins. So how do we then reconcile this with the idea of one dying for many?

Let me first give you an analogy. Let's say that I've got a bunch of brothers and sisters, ten brothers and sisters, and they are irresponsible and profligate, and they all end up with massive debt with credit card scams and fraudulent checks and things like that, and the courts give them one month to pay everybody back with 10% interest or they're going to jail. And I'm mega-rich. I'm mega-rich, and I say, look, you guys are going to have to act together, and I'm going to put you on a strict program of accountability, but I'm going to cover that for you.

I've got enough money I can cover it for you. Judaism recognizes the idea that there are merits that the righteous store up, so that my righteousness stored up could then pay for the sins of others. Now, they have to repent to benefit from it, but I can pay for it. So it's a Talmudic teaching, a Jewish teaching, that the death of the righteous atones for the sins of the generation. I get into it at length in volume two of Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, I think, objection 3.15. Then I have a chapter in The Real Kosher Jesus where I get into this as well. The death of the high priest, Numbers chapter 35.

Numbers 35. Bloodshed pollutes the land. The only solution to that is that the blood of the one who killed is now shed. So he kills, his life is taken. What if it's accidental? It was an intentional homicide.

You're chopping with an axe, the axe goes flying, kills somebody. Well, the blood still defiles the land. That person would then have to flee to a city of refuge so no one could touch them and try to take revenge.

And they have to stay there the rest of their lives, or until when? The death of the high priest. This is the Old Testament, Numbers.

Why? Because the high priest was the intercessor for the nation. So his death would then take the place of the others, and that person would go free. That's found within the Hebrew Scriptures. So Jesus says, John 10, no one takes my life from me.

I lay it down. This is God saying, okay, he is so perfect that he is going to now lay his life down so that everyone can be saved. Look at it like this. Let's say some people who utterly hated the Catholic Church and hated the Pope wanted to try to do tremendous damage. And they take over a Catholic city. They've got to surround it with their army, and they're ready to wipe everybody out. A million people are going to die. And the Pope says, take my life.

And they say, we'll kill you. In other words, he's worth so much in the eyes of the Catholics that his life could count for all of theirs. So in this case, the Messiah willingly lays his life down, and his blood now pays for our sins. We must now repent and turn to God to receive forgiveness, right?

We now must respond to that. But that's the biblical logic behind it. Let's see.

Okay, let's go to Robert. My friend said one time that if God existed, he wouldn't like him because what he did to Adam and Eve was disproportional to their crime and vindictive. He equated it to giving small children matches and then executing them for starting a fire.

Ah, no, quite the contrary. Adam and Eve were fully developed human beings who fellowshipped with God, who walked with God, who were perfect. You know, we operate on something like 10% of the capacity of our brain.

My guess is it's because of the fall, right? In other words, that it's there, but we can only access a limited amount of it. My guess, again, can't prove it, is that Adam and Eve functioned perfectly, meaning with full cranial functions, a level of genius beyond anything we can imagine. And they walk with God. And God said to them, every tree here is yours.

Every single one is yours. Except not this one. Just don't eat from that one. And if you do, you'll die.

Now, that's not giving a match to a child. That's telling a fireman, listen, don't commit arson. Don't commit arson.

You commit arson, you're going to jail. They sinned with full understanding. And here, they still lived on afterwards physically, but they were separated from God. And then ultimately, physically died as well.

But put any of us here, put any of us in that situation, right? And if we blow it, it is totally our responsibility. They knew better. They knew better. And God still doesn't destroy them, right? They still live afterwards and have meaningful lives. But they're exiled from the Garden of Eden, and they're not going to live forever.

Let's see. Christian worldview... I tell you what, this ties in biblically.

Jeremy. The biggest conundrum that I've always had with the Christian worldview relates to the origin of evil. Where did Satan's pride come from? Why did God allow it?

Why, instead of being immediately brought to destruction, was Satan banished to the earth where he was given the opportunity to corrupt God's creation with lies? I love the Lord and believe his word, but I've never really had a very satisfying answer to this question. Yeah, these are all great questions.

I appreciate every one of them. I have a chapter in Has God Failed You? on the problem of evil.

I have a chapter in the book What Would Job Say? And I deal with some of these issues there, and then, God willing, in a future broadcast we'll just take up larger questions about the goodness of God, nature of God. But because this ties directly in with Scripture, I want to respond to it. God had the ability to create us with perfectly free wills.

The angels and then human beings. Now, when you really think of it, free will is a mystery. Meaning, if evil doesn't exist, then what are you choosing between?

You know, between good and evil, but evil doesn't exist. When God told Adam and Eve, eat from all these trees, but not this one. So, all this is yours. It's thousands or however many trees.

All these are yours. Just don't touch that one. If you do, you'll die. So, don't touch that one. And they had no reason to doubt God. They had no reason to question God.

Right? And yet they did. Free will is mysterious in that regard. In that, you can legitimately make a choice, and when you make the choice, that then actuates evil. That's how evil now comes into being. So, how did pride enter Satan's heart?

That somehow, in the freedom of choice that he had, he had the ability to honor God, or put himself first, at which moment sin is now actuated. You see, if there is no possibility of doing wrong, no possibility of doing evil, there's no free will. There's no free choice. I do not have free will about flying.

I don't. I cannot fly. I cannot choose to fly.

You can drop me off a building and I'll hit the ground. I have no free will in that regard. I have no free will in terms of, I'm going to be seven feet tall.

No, I don't have the ability to make myself seven feet tall. And yet, the angels and human beings had perfect free will, which, as I said, is mysterious in that it gives the possibility of doing wrong without wrong yet existing. But it now becomes something. It is actuated by our actions.

So, pride now becomes a reality by a choice that's made. But they had perfect freedom. Now, why didn't God just destroy Satan? Because God had a larger plan for mankind, and God saw that if he created us with free will, since he inhabits eternity, he can see things before they happen. He saw what we would choose, and he saw the destruction it would bring, the role that Satan would play. And yet, ultimately, what we would become as human race, and who we would be through Jesus, would be infinitely more than we ever would have been had we not sinned, had Satan not seduced. Many of the worst things we ever go through, the things that we hate and that are unimaginably difficult, help us become the people that we are. Sometimes the worst sin we ever committed is the springboard to us hating sin and becoming passionate for righteousness in a way that we never would have been. So, what Satan means for evil, God ultimately uses for good. And he's so infinitely ahead of everything that he can see the good that will come out of it, the unimaginable good, which never would have come about without the unimaginable evil. And then I try to open up in, has God failed you? And I think when you get the bigger picture, whoa, it makes sense.

And here's the other thing. If we could choose, would he exist or not? Well, we wouldn't exist, right? If we're going to exist with freedom, would we make that choice?

Yeah, I want freedom. Well, then there'll be consequences. But God has worked in such a way through his son that the end result is something more beautiful and wonderful than ever could have been had we not fallen. That's the amazing wisdom of God. All right, we're trying to give some more in-depth answers to weighty questions, objections to the Bible being God's word. I solicited these last Thursday, and now we're addressing them today. We've got so many that I hope to return to this and make this into a series of answering your toughest questions to the Bible, answering your toughest questions to the goodness of God. For some, these are questions you've wrestled with.

Many others, hey, this is what I hear. This is what I'm confronted with. So here's one from Rich. We're over on Facebook. So again, I solicited these days earlier, so no reason to post now. Now, you can still post, I guess, if you can find that post on Facebook or Twitter where I asked the question from last Thursday, April 29th, because I'm going to hopefully get back to this in the future and cover more of the questions posted. But don't post anything for me to answer today. I can't even get through a fraction of what, well, I can't get through a fraction, but only a small fraction of what's been posted.

Rich, two big ones I encounter. Hell, how can a loving God send people to hell, et cetera? Two, sexuality, homosexuality, gender roles, perceived patriarchy in the Bible.

Okay, three or four issues here. Okay, so the question of hell, we need to break down in several ways. First, let's get away from a caricature view of hell like Dante's Inferno or with some giant barbecue and God's flipping people over on one side till they're burned to a crisp and then flipping them to the other side and laughing as people suffer. And that is not a picture of scripture. That is not a picture of hell according to scripture.

So that's the first thing. The second thing is, I would say, listen, over and over and over and over and over, the Bible tells us God is a righteous judge. God is a righteous judge. God is a righteous judge.

And over and over, it tells us he's compassionate, he's compassionate, he's long suffering. I'd ask someone, okay, maybe you're an atheist. Maybe you actually mock God.

Maybe you post, you know, blasphemous tweets about God. Has God destroyed you yet? Has God wiped you out yet? No.

Richard Dawkins, you know, an old man now, but famous atheist, right? Did God wipe him out yet? No. And best-selling atheist authors, has God wiped them out?

No. So, this same God is obviously being very patient. This same God is obviously being very long suffering. Now, let's also look at the message of the same book about this same God, that rather than punish us for our sins, he sends his own son to die for our sins. And if you're talking to an atheist or a skeptic or someone just with problems about the Bible, would you send your child to die for the sins of others? If your child's death could spare them, you know, it's the days of the Nazis and they're rounding up 50 people a day to take them off to execution.

Would you send your kid to take the place of a Jewish kid so that kid didn't get killed? I mean, who would think of love like that? You say, I don't believe any of that. Okay, well, then don't worry about hell in the Bible if you don't believe any of it, you know, then don't object about it if you don't believe it, all right? But if you're saying, hey, that's in the Bible, well, this is also in the Bible. An extreme love beyond which we can't even imagine a love on that level, and yet that's God's love. So this same God is saying, if you reject me, there are eternal consequences.

And he's giving us every opportunity to believe. What about those who never heard? God will judge them fairly.

That's not for us to worry about. If there's someone starving in another part of the world and you're starving here and I'm offering you food, it's like, well, what about the people starving? Well, right now you're starving, I'm offering you food. Your family's dying, I'm offering you medicine. Well, what about the families that don't have medicine in Africa?

Your family's dying right now, I'm offering you medicine. So let's focus on those people. God's offering them his love in a way that is extreme.

That's the real issue. If his love is that extreme and we refuse it, and he says there are eternal consequences for refusing it, we can be sure, however that works out, whatever the nature of hell, eternal destruction or eternal fire is, we can be sure it's in keeping with the nature of the same God who offers such extreme love. So I'd come back with a love argument, the truth of that, and then have someone reject that. As for sexuality to homosexuality, you can say yes, there are definitely narratives in scripture that point to a very patriarchal age that would be different than ours, but within that, the Bible is constantly pointing to the nobility of women, the dignity of women, the importance of women, the wisdom of women. It is women who are the first witnesses to the resurrection in the New Testament, and the men initially don't believe them. In Jesus, in terms of our status and our standing, there is neither male nor female. We have absolute equality in the Lord. There's a whole section at the end of Proverbs 31 about the noble woman, and basically she's the key to the success of her husband and kids. So the Bible does much to esteem and exalt women, and then in the New Testament calls husbands to lay down their lives for their wives and to love their wives the way Christ loved the church. And that's why wherever the gospel is spread around the world, it has been liberating for women, and that's why you'll often find more women in the church than men, because in certain parts of the world, men can get away with a lot that women can't. But it gets leveled out through the gospel, because men are also called to sexual purity before marriage and in marriage, and it's not just the women. As for homosexuality, the God who made us made us to thrive.

He made us with a certain design. Again, I tackle this in Has God Failed You in terms of objections to what the Bible says about homosexuality, and the way I get into it in the book Has God Failed You, I go into the book of Job. I really felt some wisdom from the Lord to do this. In other words, that he opened up Scripture to me from some angles I hadn't quite thought of, trying to appeal to someone who's struggling, who's hurting, or who's lost their faith.

So let's say you're talking to some young person, and they're very much into ecology and save the earth and all of that, and they have noble reasons for what they're doing. So at the end of Job, when God reveals himself to Job, he doesn't just come down with a hammer and crush him. He points to not just his power and his majesty, but his beauty and his wisdom and his wonder. So I get into God's care, even for the natural world in the book of Job, and how he forms things so meticulously. We know today that no two snowflakes are the same.

Come on! Beyond mind-boggling. The way he made everything. I was listening to this one scientist the other day, and he was pointing out the incredibly detailed nature of an iPhone, and what went into making this, and the countless thousands of man-hours of research and development and technology.

It's unreal! And you see, yet a worm is more complex than an iPhone. So this same God who made the worm, and who made the trees, and who made earth to thrive, and all the beauty of nature, he made men and he made women, for purposes. The moment we're conceived and the two cells join together, we have our DNA, we have this program of what, 96 million letters long. Exactly who we are. And he made us distinctly male, female, and then he made us to come together in unique ways and thrive the way he made us his best. When we give ourselves to that as human race, we find thriving and wholeness. And those who struggle, look, there are people with heterosexual issues, with homosexual issues, with all kinds of different issues. We're in a fallen world, but there's redemption and hope and transformation through the gospel.

Alright, let's see if I can get through, um, okay. I responded in the first half of the broadcast to questions about God's character in general in the Old Testament, but Brooklyn asked this. The God of the Old Testament not being the same God of the New Testament, reflecting back on acts in the Old Testament that God did in asserting Jesus and asking, with what I know about Jesus, would he do this? Alright, so, Jesus is coming back, according to the New Testament, 2 Thessalonians 1, inflaming fire, taking vengeance on those who don't know God. God of the Old Testament, God of the New Testament. Deuteronomy 4.24, our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12.29, our God is a consuming fire. Quoting the same verse, about the same God. What about Jesus warning about hell fire for those who reject him, and for those who go the way of sin?

What about that? What about acts of judgment in the New Testament? Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira dropping dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. What about Acts 12, Herod smitten by the angel of the Lord because he takes the glory for himself instead of gives glory to God.

What about that? I mean, those are strong words. What about Revelation, the second chapter, where Jesus speaking to the church in Thyatira.

Let me read this to you. Exactly. I mean, this is heavy stuff, and this is, in the New Testament, the words of Jesus himself. It says this, verse 21, speaking about the false prophet, Jezebel.

I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I'll throw her onto a sickbed, Jesus speaking. Revelation 2, 22.

And those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. Jesus constantly speaks of his Father, his Father being the God of the Old Testament. And the New Testament tells us explicitly, 1 Corinthians 10, that we should learn to fear God and do what's right based on his acts in the Old Testament. At the same time, the God of the Old Testament is revealed as full of mercy and loving kindness. There are no loftier passages in the Bible about the nature of God than passages like Psalm 103, or the end of Micah telling us that he delights to show mercy and he doesn't hold on to his anger forever, or Deuteronomy 10, which I read earlier in the broadcast where he cares for the orphan and the widow and the outcast and the needy. So, one and the same God, but we get the fullest revelation of his love and goodness through Jesus. Yes, Jesus would do those things in the Old Testament because it is the one and the same God, and he threatens judgment in the New Testament as well, but he brings the full revelation of the love of God. Focus on Jesus. Appoint people to Jesus. That is a massive deal. God bless you.