MS Top 6 Season 3 #30

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Number five. I had a question that I heard from a radio pastor. He said that he doesn't believe that Jesus felt pain while he was on the cross.

I wanted to see what you thought about that. Of course he felt pain because he's a human. So Jesus has two distinct natures, God and man. So on the cross, he would have felt everything that a biologically structured human male would have felt if he was struck, if he was pushed. He had a nail driven through his wrist. He would have felt it because that's what normal humans do and are. If he wants to say, no, that's part of the fall.

He was not fallen. Pain's part of the fall. I'd say, show me in the Bible where it says pain's part of the fall. Are you telling me that if Adam was before the fall and stubbed his toe, that he wouldn't have felt anything? Because if that's the case, he'll keep stubbing his toe and he'll damage himself.

That's what pain is for. It's good. It warns us. So this is the kind of logic we're going to go through. Number three. Would you think that we should be reading and taking those verses to heart or do you think we should avoid the Apocrypha?

It depends. See, I'll read the Apocrypha in order to see what it says so I can debate about it, teach about it. I'll read the Quran for the same reason or the Book of Mormon for the same reason. Not that they're inspired, but because we had to be informed.

So if that's your issue, then fine. You don't read them if you think they're inspired. They are not inspired. They're not in the same level of scripture. So I don't have any problem with people reading apocryphal material if they realize it's just apocryphal material. Don't assume it's automatically correct because the apocryphal documents have problems in them. And there's historical problems, doctrinal problems, and some very serious issues. And the church and the Jews never considered them to be inspired.

Number two. So we do have, however, for example, the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Book of Jude. It doesn't mean the Book of Enoch is inspired. It means that when Jude, who was inspired, quoted it, the quote was inspired, not that the whole Book of Enoch is inspired. And there's like over 20 books in the Old Testament and the New Testament that are referenced that are not inspired. The Book of the Wars, for example, is one. And it was a book that the Jews had, and so one of the writers, I forgot which, looked at it and then quoted it. Okay, this is it. And so it's accurate. So it's not inspired, but when it's quoted, the quote and included in the inspired documents then becomes inerrant because it's accurate historically.

Number one. Can God's actions be influenced by our prayers? That's a very good question, and it's a very difficult one to answer.

There are different ways we could answer it. If you go to James 5 16, the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. So what James is telling us is that our prayers can accomplish things. Well, wait a minute. How do our prayers accomplish something if God from all eternity is decreed whatsoever shall come to pass? I don't know how that works.

Above my pay grade. But we know that the more we pray, the more things are affected. So there seems to be a way that God has ordained that we who pray affect him. But when we pray, because he wants us to pray and he works us to pray, what he wants us to pray to affect him from all eternity. And yet we're really doing it. So there's different ways of looking at it.

And it's a difficult question. So what we do is by faith, say, the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. We believe it.

We don't understand how it all works, which is okay. We move forward. Remember the good times we've had. Although we've come to the end of the road.

Y'all come back now. Do you? I always trust a guy named Matt Slick on the radio. Hope you've enjoyed this episode of Matt Slick's Top Six. For more on Matt and his live syndicated call-in radio show, go to truthnetwork.com. Got a question? Matt Slick has your answer. This is the Truth Network.