Revelation Now: Episode 8 "The Richest Caveman" with Doug Batchelor

hi friends would you like to hear an amazing fact in 2018 there was a group of soccer students in thailand who after practice with their coach decided to explore a cave and that cave was two and a half miles through narrow tunnels back in a mountain but unfortunately while they were back there monsoon rains came and flooded the tunnels trapping them back there they had no food with them gradually their batteries gave out and there they were the 13 of them trapped in the dark well eventually families that came and saw their bicycles and backpacks knew where they had gone they knew what happened and an international rescue attempt was activated 10 000 people got involved in trying to rescue those boys in that soccer team there were a hundred expert divers cave divers from around the world that came they had to bring oxygen in because they were running out of oxygen they had no food they were licking the drinking water from the walls of the stalagtites and after two weeks one by one they brought the boys out but one diver died in the process bringing oxygen to the boys he did not have enough for himself when he returned you know in the bible it tells stories of god saving people from dark caves also we're going to talk about it in this presentation of revelation now hello friends welcome again to revelation now and we are joining you from the new granite bay worship santa here in granite bay california you notice the stage is a little different than what we've been having for our regular revelation now seminar so we want to welcome you this is a big day for us this is actually the first time that we're able to meet in this facility so we want to welcome those joining us across the country and around the world our extended audience for this revelation bible prophecy seminar i'd also like to welcome those who are joining us in person we have folks scattered out throughout the auditorium and a very warm welcome to all of you who are just delighted to see you here today well today we have a very important presentation uh pastor doug will be sharing something that i think you'll be encouraged by and uh to give him as much time as possible for our program i'm going to ask him to come out right now and we will have our opening prayer and we will turn the time over to him we are going to be taking bible questions so immediately following the presentation by pastor doug this evening we will be all this morning i should say we are going to be taking your bible questions so if you're watching on facebook you can still type in your bible question and we'll try and answer as many of them as possible well good morning pastor dave good morning pastor ross it's an exciting day for us here let's start with the word of prayer and then i know you're going to get right into it dear father in heaven we thank you once again for the opportunity to be able to gather together what a joy to meet in this new facility and lord we ask your special blessing upon the presentation today we ask that your spirit would speak to all of our hearts lord and just encourage us with your goodness your love your power your ability to change our hearts and lives and we commit ourselves in your keeping in jesus name amen amen thank you pastor ross and we will be back with bible questions in a little time good morning friends and for those who are watching who have been following us in our revelation program like to wish you a happy sabbath because this is sabbath morning at the time of this broadcast today i'm going to be doing something a little different from our regular revelation study you know the bible tells us in revelation they overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony so i do want to use revelation but um and i also i promised i was going to give special greetings to a friend i've got a friend that said i will wave at you that friend knows who that is right now and so uh i want to bless uh wish them special greeting as well you know this morning i'm going to be sharing my personal testimony about how i came to the lord and i'll tell you it's it's uh surreal for us right now amazing facts because this is our first day in this new facility that since concept it's been 20 years since concept uh 10 years i think at least since we bought the property and we are just praising the lord and this is you're thinking october 31st halloween this is october 31st reformation day this is 503 years after martin luther and nailed that thesis on the door of wittenberg and sort of that became the catalyst for a great reformation of scripture you know before i do get into my testimony we just talked about an amazing fact of how these boys were saved from a dark cave there's a similar story in the bible jesus crossed the sea of galilee mark chapter 5 verse 1 and they came to the other side to the country of the gadarenes and when he had come out of the boat immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit who had his dwelling among the tombs and no one could bind him no not even with chains because he had often been bound with shackles and chains and the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces neither could any man tame him and always night and day he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying out and cutting himself with stones the bible says and he wore no clothes in the gospel of luke and when he saw jesus from afar he ran and he worshipped him now this is a picture of the most lost person in the bible i challenge you to find someone else in scripture who is in a more lost condition than this they are running around naked up in the mountains dragging chains they're living like an animal they're cutting themselves with stones the bible tells us you read the whole story they're surrounded by pigs they come out of a tombstone this for the jewish mind if you cut yourself and there's blood that's unclean if you're near the dead it's unclean if you're surrounded by pigs it's unclean and so this man is lost hopeless unclean possessed by the enemy it looks like an absolutely hopeless situation this man represents the devil's plan for humanity but fortunately on the beach that day was god's plan for humanity reflected in the life of jesus there are only two plans you got the devil's plan for you look at that man you've got god's plan for you you look at jesus now when i read this story it it always makes me think a little bit about my own experience and i want to be careful because you know whenever you share your testimony i'm human and it's really easy for you person to talk about themselves it's kind of like the two actors at the cocktail party in beverly hills and one of them was going on and on about their career and she finally caught herself and she said i'm sorry i've spent all this time talking about me let's talk about you what do you think of me and so there's that risk involved when you're you know sharing your testimony or that things could get bigger than life like the little girl who wanted to do a book report and make a good impression and the book report was on abraham lincoln so when she finally came to the front of the class she really waxed eloquent she said abraham lincoln was born at an early age in a log cabin he built with his own hands so we want to be realistic the story i'm going to share with you is i'm going to give you an abbreviated version it is found in a book and we just praise the lord a book's over 30 years old and it's in 18 different languages which has gone around the world and we've heard wonderful testimonies of people that came to the lord through the book and i was always shocked personally by that you know i think it's interesting that some of the most popular literature in north america believe it or not is what you would call supermarket tabloid magazines and they have some of the most bizarre titles i remember one that said i don't buy them i did buy a couple because it wants to take pictures of their covers but reading them in the checkout stand come on how many of you will admit you have read the headlines of some of those while you're waiting to check out rudolph the red-nosed reindeer discovered in a meat freezer i remember that was wonderful i never could forget and they they all got these bizarre prophecies and usually they have to do with the people in hollywood that are getting married because people are obsessed with the rich and the famous the beautiful people think if i was more popular better looking famous if i had more money then i'd be happy but i'm here to tell you that happiness does not come from fame and fortune it doesn't come from money jesus said a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses i had a couple of unusual parents that's my mom and dad that's one of the few pictures i have where they're actually smiling and they were what you would call polar opposites my father was a redneck my mother was a hippie my father was born in oklahoma my mother in new york city he was a republican she was a democrat it was a miracle that the marriage lasted six years but during that time yeah she he wanted a wife that would stay home and take care of the babies she wanted a career in hollywood and she was an actress and a songwriter and they just had a lot of problems but during that time my brother and i were born and i learned something just because of the perspective that i've come from let me talk a little bit about dad and it's an interesting story dad was a pilot even before world war ii he grew up with no father father died when he was seven mother had four boys during the depression you've heard of the dust bowl my dad lived in oklahoma during the dust bowl fled to california just like grapes of wrath learned to fly when the war broke out he entered the war as an officer he flew d-day actually the day after d-day from england to to europe and he was also an instructor captain in the air force had medals after the war he began to buy and sell aircraft and ended up at one point he owned two airlines airline leasing company international air leases he was friends with people like kurt cocurian howard hughes and owned controlling interest in western airlines he owned capital airlines international air leases arrow heir he's a very wealthy very successful man workaholic a lot of money george batchelor miami's mr aviation another magazine the most influential person of the year that's that was a florida magazine and he had the toys that millionaires have that was his yacht it was called the bachelor party and he had rolls royce and i took this picture of google earth that's where we lived he lived on sunset island number one in biscayne bay we had three boats in the backyard and our neighbors were millionaires that lived on that island some of you have maybe heard of firestone tires i used to date amy firestone sorry dear nothing like you though and um yeah who hoover vacuum cleaner family played with us the folks that made crisscraft boats and old public storage and just we knew all these kids living on the island and i just saw that money didn't bring happiness every night my father would drink himself to sleep because of all the stress i'd had a lot of money had millions of dollars he raced cars he could water ski he was very active he flew planes he thankfully helped me get my pilot's license and and uh private jets that's a picture of my dad one of his learjets and and i he had a home in aspen colorado and just all the the toys and that was just a whole different life from what i live now let me assure you here's a newspaper clipping from miami the miami herald at 71 aviation pioneer george batchelor isn't ready to descend he runs one of miami's most successful businesses pilots jets races cars water skis and a soon to take a bride 29. this was my mom was wife number two wife number one died in a plane crash with his son my uh yeah karen knife i've got a brother buried down in sacramento actually wife number three married to betty she was miss kentucky for 30 years a very sweet lady but he was still looking for happiness and so that fell apart and you can see that in the miami herald it said one of the largest settlements in florida history's 17.3 or 17.5 million dollar alimony settlement and that's with a prenuptial agreement so here's dad with wife number four and that's my brother now my brother falcon falcon and i were named after airplanes i was named douglas after the mcdonnell douglas dc-3 and falcon was named after a falcon fan jet but he had a tough time because he had flaming red hair and uh we say mother and father but we say we were the same size i could change clothes with him but he had bright red hair freckles brown eyes i've got blue eyes no freckles no hair and uh but he was my brother and but he had cystic fibrosis so he always struggled all his life and that was his wife sandy and there's my dad with his 29 year old bride who by the way was younger than my wife in fact if you want to just a few uh trivia i know the women really enjoy these little details but my father's mother-in-law was younger than me and when he married this young lady he had a brother-in-law he was 72 he had a brother-in-law that was 11. and when we went to the wedding yeah i tell you it was something they had the john deering mansion on biscayne bay and and they had the gondola boats coming by and helicopters flying all over and everyone coming with limousines for this wedding and and a friend of mine told one of our kids daniel who was 13 at the time he said daniel when you get there he says i want you to climb up into marianne's lap that was her name and say grandma tell us about the good old days he didn't do that but you know he had all that money but he just had so much stress and karen was karen's a pt and she was giving dad a back rub because he couldn't sleep he slept with a gun under his pillow uh just you know you think oh i'd be happy if i had all that money and had all those toys but that world is a very difficult world here's a dad with john paul ii he knew the president's because he would donate to the different presidents and and you could visit the pope too if you donate two million dollars i can guarantee you you can visit the pope but jesus said one's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses lay up not on earth for yourself treasures where thieves break through and steal and rust and moth does corrupt and my dad had all of we had lamborghinis in the parking lot and rolls royce and corvettes and i actually borrowed my stepmother's jaguar xke and wrecked it once in reverse but i parked it in the circular driveway and they never knew until i confessed when i became a christian because they thought someone came in the driveway and hid it because i wrecked it in reverse it looked like that so we had all these toys and all this money but they weren't happy they were just miserable now i'm going to switch over to mom a little bit my mom and dad were very different my dad came up baptist background but he was pretty much an atheist my mother was raised jewish but she was pretty much an atheist and she was very talented she started writing songs in her teens for elvis presley and she took me a couple times to meet him at events and um she was an actress but her acting was mostly small parts and she had a couple parts and movies with charlton heston and jule brynner the buccaneer and ten commandments and and other you know b rated movies that you probably never had heard of she wrote a lot of songs for um everyone from frank sinatra to andy williams and frankie avalon and a lot of the standards some of you don't even know who i'm talking about right now but her real real peak of influence was when she became the president of the film critics in beverly hills and she was the film critic for good morning america and she knew everybody in hollywood it was a very powerful position and they were giving her free tickets to restaurants free cruises and vacations because they all wanted her to give good ratings on their movies and and good ratings on their their restaurants and and i i tell people this story and they they sometimes don't think it's true so i throw in some pictures that i got from moms and just to show that uh here's mom with dustin hoffman he didn't look very happy sylvester stallone george burns if anyone remembers who he was paul mccartney or sir paul mccartney jimmy stewart warren beatty these are all black and white just because i got these all from one mural that mom had and she just had them all converted to black and white bob hope and natalie woods someone said they looked a little alike uh clint eastwood he's still out working today sally field paul newman and roger moore one of the james bonds and i don't know if you can see this this is i threw in a couple color pictures this is rowan and martin i was there when this picture was taken this was a tv special mom wrote a musical for television that had just it had nancy sinatra frankie avalon rowan and martin the three stooges were in it so i got to meet them and this was of course they were 70 years old then curly had died so they had a replacement curly but there's moe and larry very funny guys they always playing checkers between takes but when mom died she knew all those people she was alone it's a very cutthroat business in hollywood and um it was just karen and i were in the hospital room with my grandparents and you know nobody really cared everybody was crying after everyone to get ahead i knew kids you know some of these academy award winners they were friends we go to their house they come to our house and i saw they were miserable i had friends i remember one friend he was a famous child actor locked himself in the garage handsome healthy money and for some reason locked himself in the garage turned on the car and killed himself and i thought fame doesn't bring happiness so many of them were on drugs and their lives were so out of control i thought what's the purpose of life and here's mom's obituary the founder of the la that's what you get you live your life you get a little dash between two numbers and that's your life i used to think what is the purpose of life so i was born in la but mom moved to new york city and and i grew up mostly in manhattan and i lived two or three different places in new york city and i went to 14 different schools growing up partly because mom and dad divorced and i got shipped back and forth between grandparents in los angeles and dad who moved to florida mom in new york city and then mom went to london and and so i was bouncing all over the place and part of it is because i got into trouble and she kept moving me from school to school my mother and father were driven and so my brother and i were always felt like we were in the way they kept sending us off to camp summer time get them out of here we went out to summer camp or it was boarding schools my first boarding school i was five years old black fox military academy in southern california can you imagine that sending a five-year-old to a boarding school and then i went i went to jewish schools public schools catholic schools two different catholic schools two military schools this is new york military academy which is where donald trump went that's not a political statement i'm just telling you forget i said that but it was interesting because i went to this school which was it's the strictest our teachers were retired military personnel it was the strictest school in north america and uh i just a little footnote that was my friend bobby who i knew since i was a kid in california and he ended up becoming president reagan's secretary when he was a governor and he was with the president when he was shot reagan when he was shot outside the car and i'm still friends with bobby today but you know i went to all these schools and i i had no purpose i was so unhappy i thought what's the purpose of life you die you little while you you turn into fertilizer and if most people aren't happy why not kill yourself just get it over with money doesn't bring happiness fame and good looks and fortune doesn't bring happiness life seems so empty and purposeless i used to think about suicide i remember seven years old i was always wondering what would be the best way to kill yourself that's so sad and i know in new york city i'd go out to the roof they didn't lock the roof access back then and you could go right out on the roof and i'd stand with my toes over the edge and i used to play a game where i'd see how far out i could lean i wasn't afraid of heights before i felt my center of gravity and the only reason i didn't jump is because i remember reading in the paper about someone in new york that committed suicide they tried by jumping but they ended up hitting one of the trees that was there lining the street and then a car and they lived through it and they were all crippled up and they were worse than before and i thought what if i don't die i was afraid i wasn't going to succeed i read somewhere that a lot of people that attempted super suicide don't succeed and i thought oh that'd be terrible how pathetic and then i started thinking them i'm just going to take pills and go to sleep i knew mom took sleeping pills every night and one day when she was out at a party my brother was now living with my father in miami for his cystic fibrosis he needed the the warmer climate down there i was alone with mom she was always out at functions and parties and and i kind of got myself up and went to school on my own i was in trouble all the time i was just miserable and i decided i said i want to go to sleep and never wake up and i went into mom's bedroom i knew she took sleeping pills and i rifled through her medicine chest and i found a bottle of pills said take one at bedtime i said this is it eureka and i filled my hands with the pills and i just got ready to take them and i saw a bunch of other bottles in her cabinet and there's some there that were clearly pills for ladies and i looked again at the bottle and the bottle did not say sleeping pills it said valium take one at bedtime i thought valium i didn't know i was 13. i wasn't sure what valium was i thought that could sound like a lady's medication i said if i take a handful of that who knows what could happen and so i really got scared i wasn't going to die again so i put them all back and i waited and somewhere along the way i remember i i read occur i watched a commercial they had for schlitz beer that was on tv and it said you only go around once in life get all the gusto you can and i thought that's what i'm gonna do i'm alive may as well do as many exciting things as i can get all the gusts though i can why die by doing something boring like jumping off a building or going to sleep why not just seize the day and i said i'm just going to try to live as wild and exciting life as i could and i really did well it's interesting that um about that same time i told mom i didn't want to go back to military school because today new york military academy has boys and girls back then it was only boys and now i'm 13 i i wanted girls around and i got in trouble i got thrown in jail that summer my mother told my father doug needs more freedom they were so opposite dad military school mom he needs to express himself and so she said i found a school it's just what doug needs he's so talented it's called pine hinge it's an experimental school well this school you didn't have to go to class if you didn't want to you didn't have to wake up if you didn't want to they figured kids will learn when they want to learn what they learn and uh i'll tell you the whole year was a party they had three real rules at the school they said there's no drugs no fighting no sex nobody paid attention to the three rules that they had it was the most bizarre wild uh incoherent party i don't remember ever sitting in a class that whole year the school the experiment failed it closed after my year there but i was getting into more and more trouble and mom and dad didn't really help you see i remember one time when mom sat down with me and she said look doug i know you're going to run into drugs out on the street i'll feel better if you do it here at home and i was 13 years old mom lit up a joint and smoked pot with me mom and dad smoked cigarettes and drank we had alcohol with our meals and she would let my brother and i drink wine even as kids and i started drinking early because my dad always used to leave his martinis laying around and i liked the olives he left in his martinis he wouldn't and i would go around saying i have the olive oil you know i started liking whatever that olive was fermented in and i started draining his glasses and i developed a taste for alcohol when i was living with dad as a kid and i started being a regular pattern i'd smoke pot with mom two or three times a week and we'd eat ice cream and watch tv my brother would come visit from florida he'd say that's not fair i can't smoke because cystic fibrosis is a lung disease and and my mother said well don't worry i'm going to make you some cookies and i know they're legal now but my mom was making cannabis cookies a long time ago and she would make either hashish brownies or cannabis cookies for falcon and uh and me and i remember one time i took some to school and i gave them to a teacher i said my mom made some extra brownies i wanted to know if you wanted something i didn't tell mom that i did that i just wondered what will happen teacher is pretty happy the next day so i was getting into a lot of trouble and when i would go down and i was living with a dad you know in the summer we'd spend with dad or vacations we'd stay with dad and he lived on this island we had a butler and a maid and and you know we could go water skiing right out the back of the house and he had a yacht we had a ski boat and a sailboat and and i'd hang out with my friends and we just got so bored now here's all these millionaire kids and we're just bored stiff in the summertime and so we started for excitement we started breaking into each other's houses and stealing and uh i mean it wasn't quite like we'd say well we broke into my house this week let's break into your house we were breaking into the houses of the other millionaires and just we didn't need it we had money it was just we were bored we had no purpose in life for the excitement and we were all using all those kids were using drugs back then most of them anyway and and there was a security guard that guarded the only bridge onto the island and they were trying to figure out how these thieves that were it didn't matter what we stole my friends would say doug i dare you to break into that house and i'd break into the house and i'd come out i'd have a tennis racket i mean we'd just steal anything just or started stealing you know stereos and bicycles and just whatever we could and and the security was trying to figure out what's going on and so they finally hired police in boats to patrol the island because they were sure the thieves were coming by boat and all the kids would sit there and watch these police circle the island we'd laugh because there was some kids of the millionaires that were breaking into each other's homes but i wanted so much my friends to like me because my parents were so driven i just felt like i had no attention at home and um i do whatever they dared me to do i was just as crazy as i could be and i was breaking into homes and doing burglary and stealing and using drugs and when i was in florida i'd invite my friends over during the day to drink my dad had a bar in the house better than some bars you'd find downtown and i'd drink all i wanted and the butler kept resupplying the bar thinking my father was drinking it and we knew what his schedule was and dad never knew and uh i should just pause here and mention you know i i've used a lot of different drugs uh praise the lord i never used heroin but i had used cocaine and speed and ups and downs and alcohol more of my friends died from alcohol than all the other drugs put together i'm not justifying any drugs the reason i mention that is i meet christians that think it's okay to drink a little alcohol and that really concerns me because it is one of the most destructive drugs out there anyway well i started running away from home first time i ran away from home i was 13. i always felt i wanted to get out in the country when i went to summer camp it was so amazing to me but in the city new york city i i was very unhappy and so um 13 years old i ran away from home got arrested mom said i can't handle him anymore she sent me down to my father i got arrested my father my stepmother said i can't handle them anymore my father had me living in his hotel my dad owned a hotel in miami and so i'm living in his hotel working at the hotel because he doesn't know what to do with me i ran away again got arrested i was like in and out of jail seven times before i was 16. he said doug i don't know what to do with you he said you're on your own he said i can't handle it anymore and i said amen i said i can't handle it either and um i couldn't wait to get out and just i'm sure i had all the answers i was like 15 16 years of age i ran away i just went hitchhiking and i took off from miami miami i ended up in boston and i kind of knew the roads because i used to take the bus and the planes back and forth between miami and new york i went to school and camp in maine and i settled in boston and i started just living like a thief i was breaking into homes i was stealing i was stealing cars stealing televisions on the side i had a job as a security guard i was 16 years old but i had a driver's license that said i was older because i had taken my learner's permit where it's in 1957. now you know my date and i turned the seven into a two and i used that to get an authentic driver's license and so here i've got a job as a security guard to think i'm an adult i'm 16 years old i'm walking around boston like a big shot with a weapon got my own apartment and i had a friend who was a security guard and he knew i was stealing he said doug your karma's going to get you i thought he was going to turn me in i never stole from the places i guarded because they trusted me i'd guard places at night and then i'd steal during the day because if you walk out of an apartment during the night with a tv you look suspicious if you carry that tv out in broad daylight they think you're moving and so he found out what i was doing i said are you going to turn me in i don't want to lose my job the stealing part you never knew how much money you were going to get and he said no your karma's going to get you so what do you mean i was a little scared but i was intrigued he said everything you do god sees it and you're going to get paid back for it you do bad it comes back you do good it comes back i said oh man there's no god i stole that tv i stole that car nothing happened to me nothing's gonna happen he said you'll see and a few days after that conversation i woke up in my apartment in boston and i wondered why my door was halfway open and i looked my tv was gone and my radio and i was really mad i called the police too i wanted to track down those thieves i thought what's the world coming to i really did i was upset i reported it and then i started watching and everything i did seemed to backfire i would uh i'd steal a car and uh i took it to new york city to try and sell it it got a flat tire but i was not a very good car thief i couldn't get in the trunk to change the tire had to hitchhike back to boston in the rain and it was miserable or i'd steal something while i was drinking and i'd hide it and then i woke up and i knew i stole it but i couldn't remember where i hid it or i'd risk my life and steal something and then i'd get back and find out i'd stolen a broken stereo it didn't even work and then i was mad i said why would someone keep a broken stereo and um or i'd steal something and my friends were thieves they'd steal it from me and i started thinking this is it's not going well and what finally convinced me there was a god was really a small thing i started watching i said this maybe this karma thing's real and i went to someone's house and i stole a box of krusty's instant pancake mix i did it because it was the whole wheat variety it was a brand new box and even though i was drinking and smoking cigarettes and using drugs and everything i was a hippie i wanted whole wheat pancake mix so i could be healthy i still laugh at that and but i remember i stole it this is before they had the barcode on top of the box it was stamped a dollar nineteen i went back to my home and that very day some friends came through i had a brand new jar of tang instant breakfast drink they drank the whole thing and there by the empty jar was the lid on the table and i looked it said a dollar nineteen i looked at the pancake mix i said oh that's weird i said there must be a god and it just struck me i was thunderstruck i said there must be a god this couldn't be an accident then i thought maybe there's a heaven and maybe there's the other place and i knew where i was going and i thought i better find out more about this now i wasn't interested in christianity because for me i thought christians are all hypocrites so i went on this search and i was trying to figure out what was the true religion well back then you know the beatles everyone was into these eastern religions and so i said christians they're all hypocrites i made the mistake a lot of people make when you want to know what a christian is you look at christians and i was less than impressed and i'd turn on the news and say yeah protestants in ireland are blowing up the catholics and the catholics are killing the protestants they all say they're christians jesus said love your enemies they're killing each other i said they're all hypocrites don't judge christianity by christians you want to judge christianity by christ he will never let you down so i started going into all the eastern religions and i got into transcendental meditation and yoga and buddhism and silva mind control and and i was doing everything i could looking for god i already knew a little about judaism my mother had sent me to the temple and i got into yoga that's where you know you do all these concoctions and contorted exercises trying to find god and you stand on your head and all i found was my hair fell out when i did that and i went to i was hitchhiking around 16 years old i was hitchhiking around southern california in santa monica and they said at the at the christian mission if you went there they would give you free food but you had to listen to the service so i said free food that's all right so buddy and i we went to the christian service and we sat there and you had to listen to some guy share his testimony and preach and i thought you know i was kind of touched by his testimony but what what's he talking about born again sanctified it was like another language for me i didn't know what they meant and i felt so embarrassed because i'm sitting there with all these these drunks and druggies and with my friend and they're all being so disrespectful they're burping and they're sick and and these people were so nice and they brought up this nice food it was stew with bread and cherry pie i never forgot that it was good food and then a few days later someone said yeah you can get some free food if you go to the highway christian mission i said let's try it out that's that's far out how we krishna they believe in reincarnation that's what i want so i went with my friend from new york jay he was from brooklyn new york and we went inside and they had drums going they had the electric guitar and everybody's wearing kind of their saffron pajamas it looked like and uh and they were jumping up and down and they're playing the drums and electric guitars and they just kept saying i don't want to be disrespectful this is just what i saw hari krishna hari krishna krishna nahari hari hari rama hari rama rama brahma hari hari i never forgot it because they did it for two hours and halfway through it i'm going oh man i just i said excuse me i just went out and i went to the restroom and i just kind of wait and so i get the food when i thought they were winding down i went back in my friend jay was getting into it and i'm going hey man knock it off this is hypnosis and then they just gave us yogurt and raisins for all of that i said i'm not joining this church so i mean but i was searching i was open and i was you know i got into hinduism and we were meditating and i even took a course in silva mind control and and i had already been like i said you know i knew something about judaism and catholicism and about this time i went back to boston and my father came up to visit me and uh he said doug you're wasting your life i felt like such a big shot i said dad i'm on my own i'm 16 and i'm on my own i said look i got a lot of money i said let me buy your dinner and he said doug i'm not impressed i have a million dollars in the briefcase so he told me he was also there for a business deal and he says you're wasting your life my brother was sick and he said you know i've got this business i built up and he says you're healthy he said then you got to get an education you're wasting your life he said i found a school i said i'm not going back to military school he said there's it's on a boat it's great it sails around the world it's actually two boats it was called the flint school abroad there were two schools like this back then one of them they made a movie about called white squall that was jeff bridges and that that one sank this school was not the one that sank and so this was called the flint school and he said there's girls you'll get to go diving and you'll have all this fun i said all right you know it's getting kind of tired living on the streets and he seemed so desperate he dropped everything he somehow got me a passport in 24 hours and he flew me from boston to general italy we went and met the boat and he handed them my passport and they welcomed me to the school school had already begun and i found out that i'd sort of been tricked because this was not just a fun and loving school this was a kind of exclusive school for the kids the politicians and millionaires from around the world that had gotten in trouble with drugs or they had gotten into cults to separate them from their environment and get them straightened out and they have an intense program of teaching atheism they were showing us films on darwin saying there is no god and making us read books by ann rand and saying you got to make yourself and and i thought wow this is so different now that this is where i was and i'm not there anymore and i kind of rebelled a little bit i mean it was it was neat living on the boat and but it was very regimented and i kind of rebelled at uh first i i didn't participate in class because you know i'd been on my own now i feel like i'm a kid again i had been an adult and now back in school and they're telling me what to do and my grades just went in the tank and i was not participating and and the captain he talked to me said doug what do we have to do to get you to participate at first they said you know if you don't participate you have to sit on the floor so i'd sit on the floor i'd clown around it was still disrupting things and the school's on the boat and you'd sail around you're having classes while you're sailing or you're working the ship and then they say or you don't get your food my friends my roommates would smuggle me food and they said this is this wrecking morale said doug you're wrecking the morale of the whole program what do we got to do to get you to participate i said you let me go home for christmas break and i'll i'll work with the program he went we were in tunis africa and he went right to the telephone he made an international call said mr bachelor woke up my father says we got good news doug is showing remarkable progress we think he'll be ready to come home because you couldn't even go home christmas unless you had been really good student they wanted to get rid of me he said we think he's ready to come home my dad was so happy so i behaved for the next few weeks but i learned an interesting lesson from we were sailing from northern africa back across the mediterranean to spain i know on the map mediterranean looks small but you get out in the middle of it it looks pretty big in wintertime they have some tremendous storms you can read about this in the last chapters of acts paul got into one of those storms where they had saw neither sun or moon for 14 days they all hope of being saved was gone this was a serious storm that caught us back then and the boat we were on was an iron ship i was on one the other one was following and sailboat big mast and the waves were coming over the front of the boat it was winter the water was very cold everyone was seasick the wind was howling so hard that when you were up on deck you could yell the person five feet away they couldn't hear you the mainsail ripped everybody was seasick including the captain the captain notified everybody if you fall overboard says be very careful if you fall overboard we cannot turn around to get you in this weather will mark the spot and tell your parents what do you think atheists do when they think they're going to die it was the most amazing thing the transformation that came over that whole school how all of a sudden everybody became very religious and people were praying and they were making people know what to confess too and when they think they're going to die they're ready to confess it making promises to god and of course we survived and that taught me fear is a bad reason to turn to god it might be a starting point but you don't want to serve god just because you're afraid of of the lake of fire you need to serve god because you love him i was making promises and prayers and nobody was going hari krishna krishna they were all talking to the lord so we got to puerto spain they took me to the airport and the other students that were allowed to go home got on the airplane with me back to the states i said i bought a pack of cigarettes and i bought a beer i said dog you're gonna be in you could smoke and drink on the planes back then they said you're gonna be in big trouble i said you will never see me again i got home dad took the family snow skiing up in canada and enjoyed vacation when it came time to go back to school my brother wondered why i was selling everything i had to him and he was always anxious to make a deal and i got as much money as i could i took off hitchhiking oh i left out the pictures of the storm this is actually off the website of the flint school abroad that is actually the two boats and one of our graphic designers put it out in the storm that was nice i missed that good picture so i got on the highway and i started hitchhiking and i'd done a lot of that and i was going from miami florida i wanted to go to california i'd found some caves up in the mountain when i was 16 years old in santa monica hitchhiking around and they were above palm springs i thought i'm going to go out there and live in the mountains but this is now winter time because i just left during christmas break it's like new year's and i'm hitchhiking across country i wasn't very smart i'm wearing like a thin florida windbreaker i get stuck in oklahoma it's freezing weather below zero and i'm freezing to death i'm on interstate 40 by myself i lost all my money drinking and playing pool the day before i was very religious now but i was making dumb bets and um i knew there was a god but i stood there for hours and i got so desperate at times i would beg when the cars went by i remember getting on my knees as the cars went by and i felt so discouraged because i'd see big old cars with a heater on going my way one person in this big old cadillac and they didn't care about me i'm dying out on the road and i made a foolish vow back then i said lord if i ever get a car i'm going to pick up every hitchhiker that i see i hope the lord's forgiven me since then but anyway so i prayed and i prayed a very specific prayer i said lord i need some help i know i'm a terrible person and i really was pretty rotten i had a friend that got a brand new bicycle for his birthday i broke into his house his garage stole he had a really nice bike i stole his 10-speed bike i sold it to another friend who then went to great lengths to change the serial number because he knew it was a hot bike he painted it i then stole it from him i sold it to someone else and i didn't care about anybody you know why i didn't know there was anyone who cared about me i'd come from this mindset it's survival of the fittest and so when i was out on the highway i said lord i'm a terrible person i was not exaggerating i said will you please forgive me will you please help me and i ask god for four things i said please help me get a ride to where i'm going 1500 miles away in california i said help me get some food i was hungry i said help me get some money i was broke and then the fourth thing i prayed lord give me a ride with someone normal because there's a saying among hitchhikers the only people that pick you up are christians and crazy people and i got picked up by some strange i got picked up by this one guy who was drinking he said watch this he was on highway one you know highway one in california watch this i can drive with my lights off at night scare me after death i got picked up buddy and i got picked up by these college students that were smoking so much pot in their car they could not see out the windshield they went across the interstate into oncoming traffic so you think it's dangerous to pick up hitchhikers it's dangerous to get picked up and so i said lord give me a ride with somebody normal right after i prayed i'd been there eight hours the next vehicle stopped it was white van the guy picked me up he took me all the way to california to the door of where i was going he fed me all the way there i didn't ask him to every time we stopped he'd feed me he gave me forty dollars when he dropped me off i didn't ask for it i also did not ask for him to preach to me all the way from oklahoma to california he was a new christian he was a born-again christian he was telling everybody along the way about jesus he was totally bold this is the day of the jesus movement that's what they call jesus freaks and all these young people were just totally bold for christ and and i had to listen to him as he drove along you know he's talking to me about the bible i thought i've got to listen to this or jump out of the car and i didn't want to get back out it was cold out there and he was pretty nice i just thought he was kooky but you know i did find it as a good way to witness i pick up hitchhikers and i wait until i'm going about 65 and i make my gospel presentation and then i turn and look at them and i accelerate would you like to accept jesus i do i pick up people i witness i don't scare them to death though and but i said you know bible's a fairy tale so he dropped me off and now i was going to find god through nature so i moved up into the mountains these caves i had found when i was 15 up above palm springs california mountain called tockwoods canyon and i lived it was the mountain is 11 000 feet high you may not know this pretty tall mountain down there and halfway up very rugged rough desert mountains as a matter of fact national geographic has some programs about some people that got lost and died up there and rescues up there it's it's a very treacherous area and i found a cave up there and it was a beautiful spot this is a view from above palm springs this is before you head down the other side to where the canyon is and there's all these cliffs you cannot get around you can't hike down the mountain it's a mount san jacinto down there and at the base of that mountain there was a creek and there was there's several caves up there but there was a large cave right by a waterfall i lived there for about a year and a half and i was a hermit and i was trying to find god through nature and i wore no clothes and i thought it was biblical actually you know adam and eve and i wasn't the only one back then i was doing that that was the age of the flower children and i would hike down to palm springs once or twice a week and i would get my groceries and i would panhandle i'd play the guitar the flute and beg for money and sometimes i do what they call dumpster diving i went in the dumpster and i should pause here and mention that my grandfather and my grandmother lived in desert hot springs i'd gotten arrested at one point for indecent exposure i got arrested i was in the palm springs jail my grandfather found out that i'd been getting food out of the garbage can and when my father found out he worked all his life through the depression so his kids would never have to struggle like his mother and brothers did and he found out that i was getting foot out of the garbage can it broke his heart i never realized how much it hurt him until later and i think i wonder how much it hurts our heavenly father when his children go to the garbage of the world looking for happiness instead of accepting his son so the miracle is when i moved into this cave well that's a picture of my cat stranger i call him stranger because he just showed up one day way up there in the mountains and he lived with me for a year and a half it's kind of neat because he kept the mouse population down in the cave he did steal my steak once while i was cooking it that really made me mad but he would uh he'd keep the mice down at night in the winter time he'd push on my face after he was done hunting while i was sleeping in my sleeping bag and i'd open up my sleep bag he'd crawl down to the very bottom and he'd sit at my feet and purr i don't know how he stood the smell down there but that's what he'd do so i had my cat stranger years later i went up with our son micah to the cave and there's this is a picture of the pool waterfall that was just outside it was a beautiful spot like a little oasis up in these very hot desert mountains it was very hard to get to and um the miracle is while i was living up there somebody at some point had left a bible in the cave now when i found the cave it had not been it was not totally clean people had camped there before there was camp fire stones and there's black on the ceiling and there's some pots and pans that had been left and some other debris that campers had left and there was a bible that someone had left there and i didn't think anything of it i mean there was some junk in the cave and there was a bible along with the junk but after living there for a while i was running into christians in town and these jesus freaks they'd say are you born again are you sanctified and they'd be asking me questions about you washed in the blood and what are you taught and i felt ignorant and so i thought i'm going to read the bible so i can argue with them because i was all into reincarnation back then now i was into the american indian religions i wanted to be at one for years my dad told us we were all part cherokee and i told everyone that growing up and i want to be at one with my indian roots and then my kids bought me a dna test i found out i have no american indian in me at all i'm actually part indian from india but i was trying to be at one with the indian religions i was taking peyote and hallucinogenics but i thought i got to read the bible so i can argue with these christians and you know i started reading through genesis i thought this was fascinating i got bogged down in exodus and one of my christian friends said doug jump to the new testament start with the new testament matthew mark i said okay so i went to the new testament and every morning i'd eat banana bread i used to make banana bread from day old bananas that i would get at the store and i would i'd read the bible and as i was reading the bible i'm going wow i've been hearing these quotes all my life i didn't know they came from the bible going the second mile the skin of your teeth at your wit's end handwriting on the wall turning the other cheek i'm going oh that's in the bible oh that's in the bible i thought there's a lot of wisdom in here i've been quoting this all my life and then i read about jesus and i was really shook because i thought he was just one of the one of the maharajis one of the spiritual enlightened ones i had no idea christ i thought he's either a liar because he says i'm the only way he didn't say i'm one of many he said i am it there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved he said that he was god god's son and i ended up grappling with the same struggle if you read c.s lewis he said i had to make up my mind whether jesus was either a liar a lunatic or lord he says those are your only options and i said well i don't think he was a liar because everything i read just resonated with truth i was so amazed at how profound the teachings of jesus were so much better than all the eastern books i'd read they were nothing compared to jesus people who heard him talk saying never man spoke like this man i knew he wasn't crazy because what he said was so brilliant he died in defense of truth he could have lied to save his life but because truth was so important he was willing to die for what he believed i i knew he wasn't crazy which means he wasn't a lunatic he wasn't a liar which means the only other option is he was lord and that really shook my world and i thought you know what have i got to lose i was prejudiced against christians because my mother growing up with a jewish background she said christians are the ones who persecuted and the nazis claimed to be christians and here they killed all the jews and i had a real barrier against christianity but i thought you know i've tried everything else maybe i was taught wrong maybe these people killing each other in the name of christ aren't really christians so i got on my knees up in the mountain and i prayed a very primitive prayer and it's interesting i should mention that bible i started reading there was a prayer written in the front of the bible and i didn't pay much attention to it but it said someone's name i don't remember they said born again on such and such a date i hope whoever finds this book finds the peace and joy i found something like that was written in the front of the bible and i thought that's cute i'm sorry that that bible years later it fell in the creek and it got swelled up and i lost it i wish i knew the name of that person because god answered their prayer i got on my knees in the cave and i said lord i'm a big zero i am running around naked up in the mountains eating out of garbage cans using drugs stealing lying drinking living immorally and i said and i'm not happy i said if jesus is real will you forgive my sins give me some purpose for living come into my heart and you know i just felt everything changed that day i wish i had noted the date but i did not have a calendar in the cave so i don't know what day it was but i was 17 years old and i felt this peace and not everything changed all at once in fact the first few bible studies i gave i didn't have any clothes on hikers came by but i was so excited about jesus little by little the lord started changing my heart and transforming me and i remember being up there in the cave and saying lord i know you don't want me to live like this forever i felt this desire to tell everybody see i was in the cave because i wanted to get away from everyone i hated people i couldn't get along with people i said i just people cause problems i just want to be by myself and now i have this burning desire to tell everybody my whole heart changed i said lord i don't know how i'm going to tell everybody but i said if you want me to tell other people about you you're going to have to do something to let me know because i know i can't do much up here in the cave i went to town a few days after praying that prayer i called my mom in beverly hills i used to check in with her she said just call me let me know you're live and i called she saw doug i'm so glad you called are you going to be up at the cave in the next few days i said yeah she said i want to come up with a film crew i said what she said yeah i was telling somebody from nbc i said yeah my my son his dad's a millionaire and he's living in a cave and he said that's a great human interest story you think he'd let us interview him she said well you'll have a hard time getting there he's way up in these rugged mounds oh we'll rent a helicopter and so that's actually happened to me twice years later national geographic paid to fly me back up to the cave again so i've had two trips from media up to visit the cave so all of a sudden nbc flies up with a film crew this is actually a picture they took this picture of me otherwise praise the lord that's the cover of the book i've never had that picture except nbc took it that day and this is bill applegate he flew my mother up to the cave they did an interview it was on national television three times that day i know a friend in jail said i was watching on tv it was on three times that day and i was able to share my testimony and i thought here i just prayed lord you want me to tell somebody you'll have to show me he sends a film crew to my cave god is good friends i've been up there several times a couple times i went up i actually left the bible just in case and you know it's kind of interesting this year i was able to hike up with our youngest son steven who's sitting here he's been up there he was pretty young then karen's been up there this is uh the whole crew went up once and you can see how small stephen was at that time and been back to that this year there some good things have come out of coven i was able to hike up to the cave for the first time with nathan and i'll tell you friends i'm getting old i barely made it that may be my last trip up there without a helicopter but i think about how god is blessed you know my mom you can tell this is a picture of my brother's wedding and that's one of the few pictures i've got of my mom and dad together and you can see on the black sheep there with the beard yes i had hair at one point on the right and they've all passed away and i want to go back to the story that we started with in the bible here jesus met that demoniac self-destructive running around naked living in a cave a tomb surrounded by the dead and the pigs he came to jesus as he was you know friends nobody is such a big sinner you can't come to christ you're not a bigger sinner than that man or than me he came to christ jesus set him free he clothed him and then he said go tell others what great things god has done for you so i kind of relate to that guy god opens the door for each one of us to come just the way they are and he will accept us a few years ago i got a call from my sister-in-law she said your brother's not doing very well and um falcons struggled all his life he started a camp for kids with cystic fibrosis in the florida keys and i used to go be a camp pastor and uh i went to see him one time and and not long before he died he'd try and walk around the golf course he'd stop and he'd cough catch his breath and we'd walk and talk he'd say doug life is not fair i said what do you mean he said i'm smart he said in fact i'm brilliant but i'm sick he said and you're healthy but you're stupid see my brother could have have he had all the toys he had the house in miami beach and he had the car in the boat and everything and but he was dying he said i would give everything i've got doug if i could have your lungs and live a little longer and i thought here he was willing to give every earthly thing if he could have a little more of this life and yet god gave his son so that you could have eternal life i was thankful i was able to be at falcon's bedside when when he passed away and he said falcon will you let me pray with you and even though he used to always tease me about my religion at the end he said will you please pray for me and i prayed and asked jesus to come into his heart and forgive his sins i hope to see him in the kingdom and you know that's my greatest joy is to be able to tell other people that this life fame and fortune money doesn't bring happiness happiness comes from having your sins forgiven and knowing that you will be with christ through eternity and live in a world made new you can get out of this world aren't you sick and tired of being sick and tired this world has always been a pandemic friends this is nothing new the disease of sin has always been here jesus is the only solution for that sickness and before i close this segment with with prayer i'd just like to ask if there are some here today maybe god is speaking to your heart and you've not made a decision to fully surrender your life to the lord of some of our friends who are watching the revelation now program you can make that decision right now and give your heart to jesus would you like to say yes to him can we all bow our heads for just a moment if the holy spirit has spoken to you and maybe you've become distracted with the things of this world and you would like to say lord i want to give jesus first place in my heart i want to live for him would you be willing to lift your hand in his presence say lord that's me father in heaven you see these hands i pray that you'll speak to each of their hearts and help them know you will do for them what you did for this demoniac what you did for me and so many others you'll accept them just like they are forgive their sins and then transform them lord bless them with that experience and that peace right now we pray in jesus name amen now don't go away friends you're going to see pastor ross and i up on the screen in just a moment with bible questions i think pastor sean is going to come out and make some announcements god bless you and we'll be back hello friends we'd like to welcome you back to our bible and answer time here on revelation now uh for those of you who don't know we're just moved from the sanctuary down to the studio which is an amazing facts and pastor doug and i might be a little mile away but we are delighted to be able to take your bible questions and as always we look forward to this time um pastor doug you're ready i think your breath i'm okay okay all right we're gonna go ahead and take our first question for uh today we'll put that on the screen it says why does the bible give such awful graphic descriptions of people's sins well you know that's one reason we know the bible is true is because god does not gloss over the reality of what some of the struggles are that people have in scripture and so it gives a very real depiction uh people understand that um you know sin has caused a lot of evil in the world and what it does to us if the bible was a fairy tale or a fable then it would you know maybe smooth things out but the bible is actually a very accurate history of the battle between good and evil and so i think it's because of the faithfulness of god's word that it's doing that and you know i know there are parts of the bible you may not read the children when you're first teaching them the word of god and then as they mature you know they'll be exposed to some of those difficult passages and there's some stories of war and intrigue that are pretty graphic yes so the bible kind of i think one of the positive things about the bible describing some of those events is you can see how god changed real people with real life issues real struggles and it gives hope to us we can see those uh life-changing experiences our next question that we have is all of the bible inspired or just parts of the bible well you can read in ii timothy it says all scripture is given by inspiration of god jesus said man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of god and so the lord has done something supernatural and miraculous in the way that he has preserved the contents of the bible the scriptures and even in the choice of what books would be recognized as the sacred books of the bible and others that might be they might have value but they're left out of the sacred canon and the of course you know in the new testament the books that we have now were all recognized by the majority of the early church fathers the apostles of course were the the authors of those the old testament is written by the prophets kings patriarchs that were inspired and filled with the holy spirit uh holy men spoke as they were moved by the holy spirit uh the bible tells us so uh we believe that if there is a communication from heaven to earth that is considered sacred and trustworthy and inspired the bible has passed that test absolutely and you know pastor one of the things that when the early church fathers organized the canon or the bible the new testament in particular one of the criteria that they were looking at is they wanted to make sure that the authorship of the various books were proven and it's also interesting to note that with the exception of paul all of the new testament writers were eyewitnesses of the work of christ that's right so um of course paul met jesus uh during his conversion but they were pretty certain that these books were written by these individuals no doubt about it and even paul though he was not a christian during the time of jesus he was living during the time of jesus so he was aware with the reality of christ's teachings and the time in which he lived okay we have another question it says how do i convince a person who believes in evolution that the bible is true i know we've got a lot of friends uh in this society today that uh evolution is their worldview how do you reach them well first of all you you can't convince in other words argument's not always the best way to do it it's like mark twain said a person convinced against their will is of the same opinion still you can try and reason with them but at the heart of a lot of people that struggle with evolution once they acknowledge that there's a god then they acknowledge there's a purpose to life and then there's accountability for your life and fulfilling that purpose that makes some people nervous if they can know that god is a loving god and the bible is true i would reason with them from the prophecies of the bible when you show that god was able to foretell the future so perfectly in the prophecies it helps us recognize the gods over all time then they believe the other parts in the book about the dating methods i personally think there's some good programs out there that that deal with the subject of evolution and explain creation as a more viable scheme of course if you look in the bible at some of the accounts given of history for example the flood the flood story that we read about in genesis answers so much of what we see in the natural world today yeah you know there's shells up a mile above sea level in colorado in the mountains uh how did the seashells get up there so you know the flood does explain a lot of the things that we see in nature mass burials of animals the flood can help explain a lot of that so yeah there's some scientific statements in the bible all right we're going to go to some of the questions that have come in and pass it here's one uh second corinthians chapter three is the verse second corinthians three and it's verse three verse three and verse seven and while you look that up i'll read the question it says um i am new to keeping the sabbath the fourth commandment but i've come across some confusing scriptures about the law can you please help me understand these scriptures so second corinthians three verse three paul here he says and i'll start with verse two you are our epistle written in our hearts known and read by all men clearly you are an epistle of christ ministered to us written not with ink but by the spirit of the living god not on tables of the stone but on the tablets of the heart and tablets of flesh that is of the heart well that's not saying that the ten commandments is any way invalid he's simply saying that when we have the new covenant the whole new covenant is in the heart and so included in having that law written in our heart it's all the law of god but there's a spiritual side now let me see if i can explain it this way for every aspect of the law jesus came to show that there is the spiritual aspect the letter of the law says thou shalt not kill the spirit of the law jesus said you shall not commit murder if you're angry with your brother without a cause you're guilty of murder so it's not just an action it's an attitude the letter of the law says do not commit adultery well the spirit of the law says do not be thinking it in your heart it's an attitude the bible says do not lie jesus said let your yes be yes and you know be no be honest in your communications and in the same way the letter of the law says remember the sabbath day well also we should come to jesus and have rest in our hearts and so for every spiritual law there is the literal foundation and so the literal law is still there but we want to be going i want to make sure not just be legalistic about keeping it but keeping the spirit of the law as well as the letter reminds me reminds me of the passage in deuteronomy where god says to moses this is after the law was given and the children of israel said everything that god has said we will do and god said to moses oh that there was a heart within them that they would fear me and keep my commandments that i might be good for them so god wants the commandments to be springing forth from love to him and love to our fellow man which is the principles upon which the law is written somebody's asking pastor doug how can we actually be holy how can we be holy well there's two ways that we experience holiness one is when we first come to christ you can say that um uh we receive it through uh justification he declares us holy when we repent of our sins he will look upon us as though we have never sinned but then as we continue to follow the lord it's not just a cover-up of our sin then he transforms us by something called sanctification we learn through following him to live in a newness of life and turning away from what is wrong and doing what is right the word holiness means to be set aside and when we accept jesus we trust that our lives are set aside for him right and so uh daily we're to just say lord i am i belong to you i'm set aside for you it's like a husband and wife marriage is called holy matrimony and that couple might have some interesting discussions sometimes but that doesn't mean it isn't holy matrimony anymore they are set aside for each other they've made that covenant when we make that covenant we are determined and committed to serve the lord and turn from our sins there's a holiness there okay we have a couple that's asking um should we have a child right now seeing that the world is in such a mess that's a good question you know especially now with what's going on it makes you think twice i have far be it for me to ever tell a couple whether or not it's god's will for them to have children because uh i know some pastors that did that 100 years ago said the lord's coming soon don't have children and uh i they obviously missed their opportunity so i'd really pray about that and make sure that you've got peace from the lord jesus did say in the last days woe to those that are nursing or with child in in the time when we have to flee for our lives don't know exactly what the date of that is going to be but it is a difficult world right now to bring children into okay uh someone else is asking should christians get involved in secret societies like freemasons no because for christianity there's nothing secret about it someone said one time uh there's no such thing as a secret christian either your christianity will destroy the secrecy or your secrecy will destroy the christianity if you're a real christian you can't keep it secret so as soon as someone belongs to a secret society and there's probably a whole spectrum of them what are you hiding you know christians ought to be open and transparent about what they believe and um yeah going through these secret rituals and things i think all are a little suspect and some of them i think they've got trappings in paganism and even diabolical worship got to be careful of things that you've got to swear to secrecy in you know as christians jesus wasn't part of anything like that another question is it good for christians to meditate well the word meditates found many times in the bible you know david in the psalms talks about meditating on god's law now for a christian meditation is very different from eastern meditation i used to be involved in eastern meditation the idea there is to sort of empty your mind you know you you say this mantra over and over again and you keep repeating it and pretty soon it's like your mind is so full of nothingness because you're saying an empty word with no meaning attached that you become oblivious to your problems and you can create a sort of self-induced bliss it's not real but it's not expanding your mind you're basically emptying your mind and you get this sort of counterfeit peace real meditation is when you think about the majesty of god's word your mind is expanded god says come let us reason together so you're actually thinking cognitive things and you're reasoning about the wonders of god's word that is meditating on the word of god communion with jesus it's not the kind of eastern meditation where you just empty your head and yeah and you fill it with whatever comes away yeah comes along so all right another question that we have um this person is asking where in the bible and probably they want to share it with somebody else where in the bible can i clearly see that jesus is god oh good that's a great question you know it's a mystery for some folks how could jesus be a man and also be god well for one thing the bible says in the beginning god created well you read in john chapter 1 it says all things that were made were made by christ he's the word so christ is god the bible says only god should be worshipped it's in the ten commandments when jesus rose from the dead he said all hail and hebrews you probably know the verse it says even the angels worship him the bible says only god can forgive sin and yet jesus said he can forgive sin and that's by the way mark chapter two god and god only can forgive sin the bible tells us in uh first kings that only god knows the thoughts of men's hearts well jesus knew what was in man john 2 mark 2 also for that verse jesus new man's heart so you look at the different definitions of god and jesus fills all those definitions and even the old testament prophecies that point to the coming of the messiah that equate characteristics with christ as being part of divinity yeah where he knows all he's always been creator so yeah and jesus said i am with you wherever you go one of the ways that we know god is he is all-knowing how could you know everybody and hear their prayers all at once unless you're omniscient and how could you be with everybody all at once unless you're omnipresent through the spirit so jesus meets all the criteria of what is god i was thinking about something just this morning uh coming in this morning about the trustworthiness of christ in the bible you know either you believe that he is the son of god or you believe that he is a master liar you can't reach conclusion from reading the bible that jesus was just a good man who said certain things jesus claimed to be one with the father he said if you've seen me you've seen the father so you've got to accept what he says he is god absolutely another question we have where does god dwell well we just talked about the omnipresence of god but the bible also seems to indicate even though god is a spirit he also has a form of some form because there's a place the bible describes as paradise the dwelling place of god when we pray and jesus said our father which art in heaven so there is a place that is the capital of the cosmos so we call it heaven or paradise dwelling place of god paul says caught up to the third heaven and uh isaiah envisioned in chapter six he describes seeing god on his throne you can read in the vision and that's isaiah 6 high and lifted up in heaven in the temple the earthly temple is built after the heavenly temple and god sits enthroned in the holy of holies of the universe which don't get any holier than that and even in daniel it says i saw the son of man brought before the ancient of days so there's a place god does seem to have a place where he can be known in time and space but he's also he can live outside time and space too okay somebody else is asking how do i know if i have truly forgiven someone well you choose to and you may remember the things they do that bothered you i remember hearing a story clara barton was a good christian to have a famous nurse and someone had had an argument with her and said terrible things about her and one of the friends trying to stir up gossip said you remember what they said and clara barton says i clearly remember forgiving them for it and so you know you you want to put it out of your mind it may come back but you you choose to forgive you treat them like you forgive them you don't bring it up again it's like that person that forgives you and they keep reminding you you wonder if they've forgiven you right so we do the best we can do to humanly forgive and forget we can't forget like god forgets our sins but you don't dwell on it okay uh somebody asked else is asking can you explain a little more about faith without works what does that mean well there's some people that have a it's sort of a shallow faith and they say well all i'll need to do is come to jesus and say i believe that jesus died for my sin but they don't want to believe in him meaning they don't believe in him christ when he said if you believe in me you show your faith by acting christ said it's not everyone that says lord lord that will be in the kingdom of heaven but those that do the will of my father so if we believe what jesus said and he said come to me repent of your sins follow my teaching we see i believe and we go off and live the way we used to live that's a faith without works you're not responding to your faith you're not acting upon your faith by really coming and trusting him to transform you somebody else is wondering by acting uh on my faith in other words doing those things god asked by being obedient does that build my faith yeah actually i think that when we take steps of faith our faith grows and you know even obedience is an act of faith god is the one who gives us the grace to obey and so as we step out in faith and say lord by you grace i don't know how i'm going to do this but i'm going to pray for strength he then increases our faith right and gives us the added strength he always helps us do what he wants us to do okay last question that we have time for this uh this morning is it okay to follow christ without joining a denomination well i think it might be a starting point anybody can come to jesus where they are and i trust and pray that some have done it through these programs or will do it and but then you want to be part of a church family because you know when you're a baby lamb if you're out in the woods without a fold you're going to get taken by the wolves jesus says we become part of his body we are in christ and so it is definitely part of god's plan that we should be part of a church family that's a a part of his perfect plan and of course god has given us gifts and different abilities to share and help with others so we want to utilize that in the church environment yeah absolutely and you know we just can't be healthy spiritually if we are isolating ourselves i know a lot of people are doing all their church service online and i think god can sustain us but that's not the ideal he says that we are to come together in his name for sake not the assembling of yourselves together we are to convene together a lot of scriptures say something happens and there's accountability and we don't want to lose that accountability we'd like to remind our friends for joining us we do have a free gift for those who are here in north america if you'd like to receive the book it's called compromise conformity and courage it's just a great read you can just text the word compromise to the number four zero 40544 and we'll send you a link and you'll be able to download the book and read it if you're outside of north america again we just remind you go to revelationnow.com and you'll be able to download the book and read it for free that's just revelationnow.com compromise conformity and courage this is a great great book little book written by you pastor dealing with these important themes amen now um our program continues this evening and we have a very important presentation uh we want to make sure that folks plan to be a part of that join us it's 7 p.m pacific time and you'll need to do the math to figure out what time zone that is wherever you might be but pass today today of course is the 31st of october it's uh halloween as many people think of it we're going to be talking about what the bible says about death and the witching spirits i don't want to miss it tonight and uh yeah it actually comes from revelation so look forward to seeing everybody then [Music] you

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Length: 84min 36sec (5076 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020