Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

If you could spend an afternoon at the kitchen table sipping a cup of coffee with your pastor, what questions would you ask him? Well, you're about to have that opportunity right here on Focal Point.

And welcome to a special edition of Focal Point. I'm your host, Dave Drouy. Well, we've cleared our regular sketch in order to sit down and ask a few questions of Pastor Mike Fabares.

He's not only our teacher here on Focal Point every weekday, but Pastor Mike also shepherds a congregation in Southern California, and he's the author of several books as well.

I'm turning the microphone over to Jay Worton, the executive director of Focal Point, for this week's edition of Ask Pastor Mike.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Dave.

Pastor Mike, I want to ask you a question that we got about the Bible and whether it's accurate or not infallible. This person asks, how can imperfect people write a seemingly perfect book?

We all make mistakes, so shouldn't we assume that the people who wrote the Bible made some mistakes as well?

How would you respond to that?

Speaker 3

Yeah, well, I would look at the doctrine of the conception of Christ, right? Imperfect lady Mary, she gives birth to Christ, and Christ is this perfect person. As the writer of Hebrews says, without sin, never sin. Perfect person. How did an imperfect woman give birth to a perfect person? And the answer to that is she was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God was involved in that unique birth, so that that child was without sin.

Now, that is the exact same paradigm that we see in the Scripture as it describes its own origins. This is a book that was God-breathed. Now, when Paul wrote to Timothy about the Scriptures being God-breathed, that God's spirit overshadowed this process, he knew there were human authors attached to these books. Isaiah was a real man, wore sandals, had a beard, a real guy. Jeremiah, David wrote a lot of the Psalms. All of these people were clearly humans, and they're depicted as imperfect people.

And yet they were overshadowed by the Spirit of God to produce something that in the original writings of that book that they wrote, they were perfect. One of the things that God does to prove that it's perfect is that he allows them to do things that imperfect people can't do. And that is to, with exact precision, foretell what's going to happen. They tell ahead of time the truth of what's going to happen in the future.

So here is some exacting prophecy: Micah 5:2. You know where the Messiah would be born? In the little tiny town, the outskirts of Jerusalem, in a place called Bethlehem. Those are the kinds of exacting prophecies that remind us this is not a book that is just human in its origins. Of course, there are human authors involved. The product reflects their writing styles and their personalities.

But much like looking into the eyes of Jesus, you might say, oh, those eyes look a lot like Mary's eyes. Yeah, there's a resemblance there to Mary. But the product was perfect because of the involvement and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. That is the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and that is what the Bible teaches about itself: that human beings were utilized, human agency. But the product was a God thing. It was a God book.

Speaker 2

How do we make sense of some of the seeming contradictions that we see in the Bible? For instance, there are angels outside of Jesus' tomb, but one gospel says there was one angel.

Another gospel mentions a young man, while yet another states that there were two angels in dazzling white clothes.

What's going on? How do we reconcile that?

Speaker 3

Well, when you look at Chronicles and Kings and you look at the gospels, obviously we have multiple books here talking about the same events. So we have these opportunities to hear, through the human agency of the human writer, the depiction of a scene with a different perspective.

I see this with my kids all the time. You know, come back from a game, Little League game or something, and, oh, I saw two brothers. They were talking about whatever. And then, you know, my daughter. Oh, yeah, the three Thompson kids were saying this. Oh, I thought there were two brothers. Yeah, well, there's a sister there, too. Well, they both told me the truth. Right. But one is focused on the two brothers, and the other one's focused on the fact that there's a sister as well. The three Thompson kids—those are both true depictions of the event. There's no contradiction there. It's just that they're depicted in different ways.

Any good commentary on any of the gospels is going to look at each of the gospel writers, particularly Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which usually follow the same kinds of descriptive scenes, and show you the distinctions between those. In most cases, it is very easy to reconcile those. Like any policeman will tell you, when you get people with the exact same depiction of a situation, you start to think, well, there's been collaboration. They're in collusion with each other. They've gotten their stories hammered out behind the scenes.

Speaker 2

They would expect it to differ a little bit.

Speaker 3

Well, yeah, because everyone's got a different perspective. My daughter. Right. If she's using the same exact words to describe the conversation at the ballpark with those kids, you know, I'm thinking, well, maybe her and her brother got together to talk about, you know, this fabricated scene.

But when my daughter talks about the three Thompson kids and my son talks about the two Thompson boys, I recognize they're not in collusion. They're not collaborating on this. They're not fabricating this.

And that's what we have in the Gospels. And we also have it in 1 and 2 Kings and actually in 1, 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and the Chronicles, 1st and 2nd Chronicles. We'll see a lot of that. We see this issue in more than one place throughout the Bible, and it's not a problem.

Speaker 2

Pastor MIKE, it seems to be in vogue right now. I know this ebbs and flows and has over the last couple of centuries, but it seems to be in vogue for evangelical pastors to doubt scripture, to doubt that things happened in scripture, whether it's just a few areas or major portions of it.

How do we counsel our listeners today on what to do when they encounter this?

Speaker 3

That, to look at kind of the reason this often happens? It'd be like kids who had a letter on the kitchen table from their parents on a Saturday of things that they were supposed to do, and it's all good and fine, and everybody believes that it's from mom and dad and it's signed by mom and dad, and it's on the kitchen table, and it's in their handwriting, and there's no question about the authenticity of it until they get to a point on the list where there's something they really don't want to do.

And now there's a question, well, I don't even know if this is from mom and dad. You know, who really wrote this and did you?

Speaker 4

Sure.

Speaker 3

It was here this morning when they were. I mean, all of these skeptical thoughts arise when culture puts pressure on people about the things that the Bible says. And they say, well, I wish the Bible didn't say that. And then it's like, well, am I even sure this is God's book? They start asking all kinds of questions, and they begin to have a kind of unreasonable suspicion about the Bible. When they start seeing things in the Bible that they know, their culture, their feelings, their experience, their own lives, their marriage, whatever it might be, it begins to so impinge on their lives. They say, well, maybe it's not God's book.

But when it comes down to it, and I love the way Francis Schaeffer used to say it, we've got to go back to the basic fundamental questions. Is there a God? We've got to answer that question. If there is a God, has he revealed himself? If he has revealed himself, did he speak to us in the Bible, and if so, in what way? Those kinds of fundamental questions have to take us back every night when we lay in bed and think about why am I a Bible-believing Christian? We think those things through and we're stuck.

But the bottom line is I've got a book that speaks God's mind to me, and I have to adhere to it because one day I'm going to die. I'm going to stand before God, and he's going to evaluate my life based on the instructions he left in this book. And so I am a Bible-believing Christian who believes that the text of Scripture is reasonably attested to by the things that are in it, by the history around it, by even the preservation of it in many ways through the predictive prophecy that we find in it.

So I don't have a choice. I can't take parts out of it and say, well, I'm not going to follow that part. The question is, is there a God? Has he revealed himself? Is the Bible that revelation to us? Right. And if it is, then I'm bound; it's an authoritative book. And that's why I still preach the Bible as the authoritative word from heaven, from God to man. And you know, increasingly, like you've said, the ebb and flow seems to be a lot more flack about it these days than we did even 20 years ago.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you Pastor Mike. We're going to wrap up today's conversation by listening to the message from the reliability of the Bible series called Witnesses. You can count on.

Speaker 4

Peter starts in second Peter, chapter 1, verse 16. A variety of topics that all relate to God's Word.

And I, I want to kind of restore and refresh and perhaps rekindle a real respect for God's Word in your life. A kind of respect that draws out of you allegiance and attention.

It leads you to place God's Word maybe in a place it used to occupy in your life but has become commonplace perhaps and just doesn't grip you.

Speaker 3

Like it used to.

Speaker 4

And I think it starts with just recognizing that what we're dealing with is a corpus of truth. The things that are spoken of in the Bible are true. And I think sometimes in a world that continually calls the Bible a myth, a fable, something that's been rewritten hundreds of times, we begin to doubt the veracity of the Bible and think perhaps there is a little bit of human ingenuity built into this. I want to at least restore the perspective of the writers of the New Testament in our mind and realize that the Bible is not a set of fables. It's not a set of invented stories that people have made up to help us live and live right or peacefully or lovingly. It is God's Word attested to by reliable witnesses who have given their lives to show and prove and authenticate that what they're saying is actually an accurate representation.

Let's consider the claim of Scripture in general. Let me read for you the first verse, beginning in chapter one, verse 16. Peter speaking says, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about two things, the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." Note first of all the claim, and you need to understand that most of Scripture refers to and discusses Christianity in a future tense. It is something there in the future that we're yet to fully realize. Unfortunately, most Gospel presentations today focus on the here and now. God has a wonderful plan for your life now. He wants to do good things for you now. He wants to restore your marriage now. He wants to have your kids grow up to be respectful citizens now. He's going to make your home a protected, safe place now.

Now, all of that may be beneficial and part of the overflowing grace of God in a variety of cases, not universal. But the real emphasis of the New Testament is not on what God can do for you now. It's about what God has done then that provides you some protection later. God has done something in the past that will protect you in a day that is coming. A huge theme throughout the whole Old Testament and in the New Testament is something called the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord and the coming of God to earth is something in scripture that is not presented in a positive light. It's presented very much in a negative light. As the bumper sticker once read, "God is coming back and he's real mad." That's a pretty good explanation of a lot of what the Bible says about the return of Jesus Christ.

Look at those two words I made you note: the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those two words I don't think can be mistaken for anything but his second coming, particularly that second word, "coming." It's used in secular Greek to represent the coming or arrival of a monarch, a king, or a ruler into a village or a city. The word in front of that is a familiar word. Maybe you've heard people talk about it. It's the word "Dunamos." It's the word we get the word in English "dynamite" from, the explosive power of the regal coming of Christ. Some folks understand the syntax and grammar of this particular sentence to really take that first word and use it in an adjectival sense, that really, we might even be able to translate this phrase, "the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Either way, they both refer to the second coming.

Christ is coming back. There is an issue of overriding significance in the New Testament. It is something that the apostles talked a lot about. It is something that the Old Testament anticipated: the arrival of a reigning ruling monarch. He will come not as a lowly, gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Paul and Peter all talked about the arrival of the coming monarch as a dreadful and terrible day. If you have any doubts about that, take some time this afternoon to read through the book of Revelation. Depressing, right? Most of it's really gloom and doom. You get a lot of chapters reiterating over and over again the coming wrath of God. And as it was put in the book of 1 Thessalonians, Christ is coming back to deal out retribution.

Speaker 3

Wow.

Speaker 4

We don't like that. But I think we've lost our focus on that, haven't we? If I were to ask you to explain the phrase "a person gets saved," I wonder what you'd say to be saved. What does that mean? It is used often in the New Testament. Peter said and preached on the day of Pentecost, "You guys need to be saved." Well, that begs a question, right? Saved from what? You and I have a problem. It's called the return of Christ. He will come back not as gentle Jesus, meek and mild, the suffering servant of the Old Testament. He will come back as a reigning, ruling monarch and king. And you need to be on his team and you need to be on his side. Because if you're not, you're in big, big trouble. You need to be saved.

Jesus comes in two installments. He comes first as, as Isaiah put it in Isaiah 53, a suffering servant. I mean a lowly person, a root out of dry ground. There was no majesty, the prophet said, to attract us to him. Daniel, on the other hand, talks about the coming son of man who will rule and reign. He is bright and brilliant as light, and he sets up authority and dominion and is given sovereignty by God. What's with all of that? How did these Jews reconcile these two pictures of the coming Christ? Well, they had a hard time. That's why a lot of the Jews wanted Jesus to be this ruling, reigning king. Instead of a ruling, reigning king, he was born in a barn by a peasant girl, son of a carpenter, a common peasant living in Nazareth, dragging his feet, coming through town at the only high point of his life on a donkey, no less, as people waved palm branches at him. A week later, he's standing before officials, silent, with no rebuttal and no excuse, as they slapped him and beat him and hung him on a cross. Even the criminal next to him said, "Come on, if you're really the Son of God, why don't you come off that cross, save yourself and save us too?" And instead of being a powerful deliverer and king, he stood there and died. What kind of powerful coming is that? That was his first coming to bear the sins of the people. He was disappointing to the Jews who wanted deliverance from Rome.

He will be just as disappointing when he comes back the next time because he will not come back as gentle Jesus, meek and mild, with butterflies on his shoulders and robins on his finger. He will come back with a scepter in his hand, and he will come to rule and judge the world. That's why we proclaim a message of repentance, so that people will repent of their sins, place their trust in Christ, and be saved from the coming wrath. It is not about improving our homes, improving our family, improving our state of mind. Some of that may come as a wonderful benefit of God's grace, but it's not the point. The point is we call people to repentance because of the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the claim, and it's worthy of taking note. Right? That claim is huge. The charge against us is deep and radical and severe. So we need to take notice, at least weigh the evidence.

Right. Next verse, he says there's a power in coming that he's been an eyewitness to. He says in verse 17, "You want to talk about the eyewitness account that I had?" Verse 17 says, "I saw as he received the honor and glory from God the Father. A voice came from the majestic glory there in that cloud and said, 'This is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased.'" We must examine the evidence. The evidence is, it's hard for me to believe that gentle Jesus, meek and mild, is really going to return as my king and my judge. So what kind of evidence, Peter, do you have to threaten me with that kind of talk of a Jesus that I think was beautiful?

Well, at one point, Peter says, "I was an eyewitness of his majesty on a mountain where he peeled back his humanity and showed us his divinity." He stood there, as Matthew 17 says, with his face shining like the sun and his garments whiter than any launderer could get them. And there he stood in his glory. And then I heard a voice from heaven, a commendation that both Peter, James, and John heard, that said, "This is my Son, with whom I'm well pleased. My beloved son, hear him." We heard all this. We saw it with our eyes and we heard it with our ears. God peeled back Jesus' cloak of humanity and showed his divinity in such a way to convince us that he was the Daniel 7 son of man who would come in glory and reign in power and be the judge of all the world. We saw that. That's pretty strong evidence for Peter, James, and John.

Seems so private though, doesn't it? Peter, James, and John were told not to tell anybody about this. And I don't know, maybe Jesus was sparing them the ridicule and being ostracized by the crowds because thinking, "Well, come on, you're kidding me, right? This guy that's talking to us on the hillside by the Sea of Galilee and telling us, you know, blessed is this and blessed is that guy stood there like some divine being from outer space and his face was shining like a spotlight." Nah, nah, you guys are crazy. Maybe Christ was sparing their credibility because at one point he knew that the power displayed would no longer be private; it would be a full-blown public event. Because he said, "Don't tell anybody until I rise from the dead."

Are you in? Romans chapter one. Look at verse number four. Romans 1:4 says, "And who, through the spirit of holiness, we're talking about Jesus here, was declared, underline it, with power to be the Son of God." Undeniably, unmistakably, unequivocally, the Son of God declared to be so with power, by his resurrection. He rose from the dead. Jesus Christ, our King, our sovereign Lord. When Christ had risen from the dead, he completed his human course, didn't He? What else was there to do? The glorified Christ had done his job and it was over. We talk about it as finished on the cross, and it was in terms of our payment. But the proof of the resurrection was completed the day he walked out of that tomb and showed himself to people.

But he didn't show himself to people for a day or two days or three days. Come on. Bible school graduates in Sunday school, granted. How long did he stick around after his resurrection, showing himself to the people? 40 days. Now, was it that he really appreciated the company of Peter, James, and John so much that he couldn't leave the planet? No. First Corinthians 15 says he was proving to hundreds of people this very public display of authentic truth that he was the son of God, the one to whom we owe our loyalty, our allegiance, and our attention.

What about this voice? They heard this voice from the cloud. "This is my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased." Where else have you heard those words? The baptism. Right. It didn't just happen in Matthew 17. It happened also in Matthew, chapter three, same words. "This is my son, whom I love. With him I'm pleased." Was that a private event or a public event? Very public. Right. People there, banks to the Jordan River baptized, and what happens? A voice booms out of the clouds. "This is my son, whom I love. With him I am well pleased." Peter, James, and John were not declaring anything that was top secret. Back room esoteric boys club. It was not a private event.

Oh, the transfiguration was, but it was just a glimpse into something that everyone else had seen. That, by the way, made the witnesses credible, the biblical testimony of the apostles credible. It certainly didn't benefit their lives, right? When confronted with the Gospel, Matthew was killed by the sword in Ethiopia. Mark was dragged through the streets of Alexandria. Luke was hung in Greece, John died in exile on the island of Patmos. James was beheaded in Jerusalem. James the Younger was thrown from the top of the temple. Philip was hung in Hierapolis, Bartholomew was flogged to death. Andrew was crucified. Thomas was killed by the sword. Jude was shot with arrows and died. Matthias was stoned and beheaded, Barnabas was stoned to death, Paul was beheaded in Rome, and Peter was crucified upside down.

When confronted with the veracity of their testimony, they all went to the wall and would rather take a bullet than recant their story. You know why? Because their story was true. That's my conclusion. Considering the claim, examining the evidence, and evaluating the witnesses, it all makes sense because I'm convinced the Bible is true.

Speaker 1

A argument for the validity of the Bible. You're listening to Pastor Mike Fabarez on Focal Point and a portion of a message called "Witnesses You Can Count On." To hear the complete, unedited version, go to focalpointradio.org and look for the series called "The Reliability of the Bible."

Today, Pastor Mike reinforced our trust in the Bible's authenticity. It's reliable, accurate, and stands up to scholastic scrutiny. And for even more evidence, you'll want to get the book. We're talking about "77 Frequently Asked Questions About God" and "The Toughest Questions Answered" by Josh and Sean McDowell. This concise paperback volume answers those essential questions of faith, like how can anyone insist their belief is true for everyone? And how could a loving God allow people to go to hell?

Ask for "77 Frequently Asked Questions" when you give a donation today by calling us at 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. If you've benefited from these daily broadcasts, we'd like to hear from you. And today, just for reaching out, we have a free booklet for you. It's called "The Lord's Prayer," and it's an encouraging supplement to our study of the big questions, unlocking the keys to powerful prayers that get answered.

Ask for your copy of "The Lord's Prayer." It's free when you call 888-320-5885 or go to focalpointradio.org. You know, we think it's important to take time to talk through these tough questions you encounter, and we always draw our answers from the eternal truths of God's Word. If you have a question of your own for Ask Pastor Mike, send it our way, post it at focalpointradio.org, or find links to our Facebook and Twitter communities to get the buzz going there and interact with our community of truth-honoring Bible scholars.

I'm Dave Drouy. Come back Monday when Mike Fabarez continues to explore the unique claims of Christianity. That's right here Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point.