Watchman on the Wall

Southwest Radio Ministries: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. God is still on the throne and prayer changes things. Today, we're continuing our conversation with Bible teacher Susan Butler about Living on the Front Lines, a new weekly teaching program from Southwest Radio Ministries designed to equip believers with a deeper understanding of God's word and a stronger foundation for living faithfully in today's world.

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With biblical illiteracy on the rise, Christians must get back to the Bible. Doctrinal confusion is destroying Christian ministries and churches. Believers must stay anchored in God's timeless truth, His word. To help stop the spiritual erosion, SWRC is blessed to introduce a new weekly television program, Living on the Front Lines.

Hear the heart behind this effort as SWRC's Josh Davis and Liz Cutshaw talk with host and Bible teacher for Living on the Front Lines, Susan Butler. Check out the new resource on our SWRC YouTube channel today.

Josh Davis: Biblical illiteracy continues to plague our churches, and friends, that's no news to you. You know that we here at SWRC are deeply concerned when we see this happening. I'm afraid to see churches eroding from within when they neglect God's word. We are called to rightly divide His word. It's the truth that we stand upon. The church is the pillar and the ground of the truth, we are told in scripture.

If we are allowing that truth to erode, what's going to be the end result? I know that we could talk about that problem all episode long, but we're not here to talk about the problem. We're here to offer some biblical solutions. We are pleased to bring you a new weekly Bible study that features Bible teaching from Susan Butler. She joined us on yesterday's episode, and she's back with us today.

This new show is called Living on the Front Lines. It's not really a show, and I should probably just strike that word and say it's a Bible study. It's training for living on the front lines. It can be watched right now at the Southwest Radio Ministries YouTube channel. So you can go to YouTube after you listen to this, and type in MY SWRC, those six letters, M-Y-S-W-R-C.

It'll pull up Southwest Radio Ministries' YouTube channel, and you can check out recent episodes of Living on the Front Lines. Susan, welcome back to Watchman on the Wall. We're also excited to be joined in the studio by our Director of Communications, Liz Cutshaw.

Liz Cutshaw: Thank you. Thank you so much, Josh.

Josh Davis: We're talking about biblical illiteracy. What troubles you, Susan, about the rise of biblical illiteracy, especially among churches and Christians today?

Susan Butler: What really troubles me is there's no biblical worldview. They're grabbing hold of what the world offers and bringing it into the churches and even condoning a lot of how the world lives. Let me put it that way. A biblical worldview is paramount, especially in the culture in the day we live in and what's going on in the Middle East. We need to be vigilant about that because it lines up perfectly with what God has told us is coming.

We need to have a clear understanding of end times, I believe, because we're living in those times. The thing that bothers me is about deception. Our enemy is about deception and lies, and I've seen people ruin their lives because of believing a lie and believing deception. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are given the Holy Spirit to live within us, and the Holy Spirit is going to lead us into understanding of His word.

You don't just go to bed at night and get up and know everything there is to know about the word of God. You need to study and draw close to the Lord. He wants you to be equipped and ready to stand firm for the truth, His truth, because His truth is what lives on. His truth is the only truth. When people are deceived, they go about life and engage in and make choices that are not honoring to God.

I fear in the churches today, in general, not all, but we have not clearly presented what it means to live for Jesus Christ, to have the armor of God, and to stand forth in a perverse generation. My friends, this is nothing new. With the men of Issachar, they understood the times and knew what Israel should do. That's exactly what the scripture says about them in the Old Testament.

It also says in Daniel that the people who know their God will display strength and take action. Of course, it was talking about the Maccabean Revolt at that time, but it's also the principle that's shown in this time as well. If you know God, you are able to stand firm and take action. You are able not to be deceived, and deception has gotten darker and deeper in the world today. It's not going to get better.

Those of you listening to me, if you have children or you have grandchildren, you definitely want to train them in the word of God. You want them to grow up to know and hopefully choose to believe in Jesus Christ as a personal Savior and Lord and to commit their life to Him. But then, grow up and know after that surrender to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is a surrender. It's a conviction of what He's done for you: the death for your sins, the burial, the resurrection. It's that conviction that leads you to a full surrender, and then your lifestyle is going to show that. I fear that in the churches today, what I'm seeing because of biblical illiteracy is that people are coming into the churches living any way they want, and nobody's addressing it.

Then we have these serious things that are happening within our world, within our country, and within the Middle East that are going on, and nothing is said. Therefore, people are blinded to the day in which they live. We need to be vigilant and know the day we live. I want to say something else here. We need to keep our focus and our mind on things above.

That is written in the scriptures, to set your mind on things above. I have heard the teaching of, "If you're so heavenly minded, you're not any earthly good." Well, that's nowhere in the word of God. So I would say that the more heavenly minded you are, the more earthly good you will be because you'll know God's voice, you'll know what He wants you to do, you'll be bringing glory and honor to Him, and you'll live an exciting life as a soldier of the word of God and the truth of the Lord, holding that sword forth in this perverse and crooked generation.

False doctrines are everywhere. Replacement theology is one that is very prevalent in American churches today.

Liz Cutshaw: Speaking of deceptions, yes, Susan, it is everywhere. And that's a huge deception.

Susan Butler: And a battle.

Liz Cutshaw: And a big battle.

Susan Butler: If you don't realize it or not, you're in a spiritual battle. If you walk with Jesus, you are in a battle. You need to know Genesis through Revelation. You do need to know, and it's a lifetime of learning. You will not complete it until you're in the presence of the Lord. And what a day that will be. But anyway, yes, replacement theology. What is that? It's saying that it's all about the church, that Israel has been replaced.

Well, friend, if you study the word of God, you see so many covenant promises, and I go over that in the program pretty early on. I have several program segments on Israel and the covenants that God made with Israel, and God is a covenant-keeping God. He does not change. You know, one of the things that I have thought a lot about, if I could take that there, God created man and female, male and female.

The first prophecy that's there is what came after sin. You can just hang there and think about this. It's chapter three that has the first prophecy in the word of God, which has to do with your redemption. That was the heart of God from the very, very beginning. We know about the flood. We know that all men were corrupt. We could spend a lot of time talking about that. I want to get beyond that.

I want you to know that God called out from Abraham a people for Himself to show the world who He is through them. When He did that, the rest of the world were idol worshipers. The world had false gods and idols. How do I know that? From the Tower of Babel, because when they were scattered, they scattered with all their false doctrine and all their "I'm going to be God, I'm going to be like God" just what the devil says.

There they went. Well, God loves us that He picked this tiny little group of people to show the world who He is through them. In fact, He has Jesus Christ came through Israel. And who wrote the word of God? Do you know that your Bible is over 1,500 years old, that there are 40 plus authors that were inspired by the Holy Spirit of God over three continents, and they say the same thing?

They all point to Jesus Christ. They didn't even know each other. From kings to fishermen, they didn't even live in the same thousand years, and yet they said the same thing. You can't raise a child today and have a book that the generation before had it different. This is inspired of God by the Holy Spirit. Israel is God's chosen people.

Yes, they had blessings and they have curses. They've turned their back on God. God certainly did show us in the word what happens and how He disciplines, but God has not left them. They are His chosen people, and through them, we understand who He is and the grace of God to present the gospel to all of us. That is God's heart. It was from the very beginning of time.

He says in multiple scriptures, and we go through it on the programs on Israel, multiple scriptures about what's ahead for them and how He's going to bring them back, how He's going to cleanse them, and how He's going to give them the Holy Spirit and they'll no longer defile His name. You know, He says in all the countries I sent them to, they defiled His name, profaned His name, actually, is the word.

And you say, "How?" Because He's their God and they were out of their land. They say, "What's wrong with these Jewish people? See, their God didn't even care for them. He took them out of the land." Listen, He's bringing them back. 1948, they started coming back. People, we live in incredible times. God is going to complete the covenants that He said He was going to complete with Israel.

Do you know Jesus said to the twelve apostles, "In the regeneration, when He sits on His throne, those twelve will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel"? Israel is not going away. Like we talked at the other program in Daniel, where Daniel has the 70 weeks, we have the tribulation time of the 70th week. It's all about Israel. It's all about Jerusalem.

It's all about that beautiful land over there that is God's land, the center of the world. If you take a map with all the continents and you move those continents together like a puzzle piece, you end up with Jerusalem, Israel right dead center. God said it's the center of the world, the apple of my eye. They are God's chosen people.

He's never left them, and He will redeem them completely. When the Gentile church, primarily, and Jewish believers are in the church too, when we are taken out of here, He's going to deal with them and turn His attention on them and take care of them and fulfill every promise He's ever had for them as well as for you.

Josh Davis: Yes, absolutely. That's part of the millennial reign, to fulfill many of the promises that He's made to Israel, whether it be the land promises and all these various details. Of course, Christ Himself will rule and reign from Jerusalem. Bible prophecy paints that story for us. Friends, we're visiting with Susan Butler. She's the host of a new ministry outreach that we have.

Wonderful Bible teacher, as you can tell. Her passion just comes forth to accurately proclaim and teach God's word. If you want to check this out, you can head over to Southwest Radio Ministries' YouTube channel. Go to YouTube, search MY SWRC. That's M-Y-S-W-R-C. Or just type in Southwest Radio Ministries. You can find our YouTube channel, and then you will begin to see some of the episodes of Living on the Front Lines with host Susan Butler.

Of course, we don't want this just to stay on YouTube. We want to take it much further beyond that. If the Lord lays it on your heart, would you prayerfully consider how you might partner with Southwest Radio Ministries to take this kind of Bible teaching content as far and as wide as we possibly can? You know, we live in urgent days, and SWRC is trying its best to do all that we can to get out the word of God far and wide during this time.

This is one of those new avenues that we are marching forward by faith as we stretch out and launch into what the Lord has for us. We just encourage you to prayerfully consider how you can partner with us to that end. If you'd like to make a donation to help us along and to help us to further the reach of programs like Living on the Front Lines, you can reach out to us by giving us a call at 1-800-652-1144.

That's 1-800-652-1144. You can also give securely and safely anytime at our website, swrc.com. While you're on our website, check out our bookstore filled with all kinds of wonderful resources: books, DVDs, all kinds of fascinating resources that touch on many of the topics that Ms. Susan has been highlighting. Again, the website is swrc.com. Liz, let' you ask a question now.

Liz Cutshaw: Thank you, Josh. Susan, I'm wondering. We were talking about replacement theology and people believing that the modern church is going to replace or has replaced Israel in God's plan. Again, that's simply a deception, or not simply. It's pretty complicated. But why do you think that the world is turning against Israel right now, or that there are so many opponents of Israel, all the way down to the people in America who are protesting against Israel right now? Is this part of God's plan?

Susan Butler: Absolutely, it's part of God's plan. In fact, Jesus had told them that all the world would hate them. They'll have no one come to their side, no one to help them at all. Why do I think that's happening? Well, first of all, because God said it would. But the other reason is you have an enemy, and they have an enemy, the devil, Satan, the murderer, the liar from the beginning.

And what he wants to do is he wants to be God. He wants all of God's kingdom. He wants to be the King of the kingdom. He wants to destroy the DNA of God's creation, and he's trying very hard if you're paying attention to all this technology stuff that's going on, trans stuff, and he wants to do that. Well, you know at the cross, death was conquered through Jesus Christ.

Satan, who had the power of death, does not have that in a believer's life at all. So you have power to go forth and proclaim the true word of God. That was taken care of. It was finished, and it's finished for those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. Because if you don't have your faith in Jesus Christ, then you're fearful of death and Satan has the power of death over you as an unbeliever.

As far as Israel is concerned, nothing would please him more, probably, than to totally destroy the Jewish people, totally destroy the nation of Israel because Jesus is coming back for them. He is coming back to set up His kingdom in Jerusalem for a thousand years and reign from there. My friend, even in eternity, you have the New Jerusalem coming down.

You have a new heaven and a new earth, and God coming down to live among us, God and the Lamb, Jesus, like He did before sin in the garden. If Israel can be totally wiped off the map and the people can be annihilated, which Hitler tried to do, I just read today of someone running for office in America that is possibly a new Hitler, so to speak.

I just read that in the news today. If you can wipe out the Jewish people and the land of Israel, then Satan will think, "Well, Jesus can't come back now. He can't come set up His kingdom now." Friend, you really need to understand the word of God, and as Josh said earlier, rightly dividing the word of God. When you think of dividing, you think, "What does that mean, dividing?"

Well, what is it saying to Israel? What is it saying to the church? What is it saying to unbelievers? You need to understand the scriptures and not take things out of context. That's probably one of the worst things that I found and I learned as I went through the word of God. "Oh, that scripture didn't exactly mean that. It wasn't intended for that," and yet we'll grab a scripture and we'll run with it as fast as we can and use it in every other way.

And then we're like, "Oh, whoops. Wait a minute. That wasn't right. Forgive me, Lord." But those five words don't mean the same thing as two paragraphs.

Josh Davis: I recently saw a coffee cup that said, "I can do all things out of a verse taken out of context." I was like, I've got to get that one. That one's on every ball team's shirt everywhere in the states. But yes, I just love Israel. Having been there and seen the Jewish people, they're precious. And they need Jesus. They are in unbelief right now.

So if they're in unbelief, wouldn't you expect them to maybe do some things you might not think they should? I mean, that's true with anybody that's in unbelief. God's bringing them back, and He clearly tells us in the word of God that when they come back, after they come back, He's going to cleanse them and give them the spirit and everything.

We see that in the book of Ezekiel especially when he talks about, and even that the valley of dry bones, that so famous, "them bones, them bones, them dry bones." I won't sing, I'll spare you all singing. Liz is the singer here, I think. Not me.

Liz Cutshaw: Not me either. Don't get me started.

Josh Davis: Anyway, when the bones are there, they come back together, but there's no life in them. There's the regathering in the land in unbelief, and then the breath enters in, speaking of that spiritual. So yes, you're absolutely right, the regathering first in unbelief and then, as it says in Romans 11, all Israel shall be saved. God will fulfill that promise.

That's what Satan's attempt is, as you've so well said, that if Satan can do away with Israel, then he can stop Bible prophecy in its tracks. He can stop God's plans, God's promises that are irrevocable, and that's what Satan's goal is in all of this. I'm so glad that you have chosen to record these programs so that people can know what God's word clearly says and walk people verse by verse by verse through the word of God, helping them to understand.

What is some of your approach in the program? What is some of what you want to do in a given episode? Is it just walking through a certain passage of scripture? How do you teach from God's word?

Susan Butler: Josh, that's a big question. I have to say, first of all, it's all God. God's the one that's directing me and leading me. I give it all to Him. The program is His and His alone. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to share His word because I know what it's done in my life, and that's what spurs me on because what I see that it continues to do in my life, I want that for others.

I want the people younger than me to know what I know now, that I wish I'd known then. It's there. Please, please, please, please, don't get so busy in life. Anyway, what I do is I did go through the whole book, the whole book, one chapter of Jude. That was packed full, and it took several programs to do that one because there's so much there. What I do, Josh, is we look at context.

Context is what comes before scripture, after scripture. We look at who God is speaking to in an inductive way, as how I lead. So I will flip to lots of scriptures to connect dots through the word of God. I have not done another, because it's new, book complete from beginning to end yet on the programs like I did Jude.

But right now, I'm in Genesis because I'm taking people to the first prophecy, and we have to get the background, of course. So we start with Genesis one and two. It's been wonderful. God connects His word throughout the whole word of God. And that's what I said earlier, when you have the Bible written by 40 plus authors who didn't even know each other through the Spirit of God leading them to pen it down, when you have 1,500 years and three continents telling you the same thing, that's God.

It connects. There is nothing that is contradictory in the word of God. You come at it literal. God did not make you stand on your head to look upside down and try to figure out something He's saying. He is so clear. You can understand it. There's no one not smart enough to understand God's word. He leads you in it.

We go through a lot of scriptures, and that's primarily what I do. I don't want to do a lot of stories. I'm not here to give you all this application, but I do at the end of learning. But it's not about how to live a better life, how to love your husband more, because God's word will show you that. As we study His word, He's given you everything for life and godliness in His word.

And as He shows you that and you grow in the word, you'll be amazed how your life and the way you live starts changing as you let Him have His word affect your life.

Liz Cutshaw: And to ask Him to show us what He wants us to know from each different scripture or topic.

Susan Butler: Absolutely. And He is faithful to always do that. He's good, He's gracious, He's kind, He's loving, and He's there for you.

Josh Davis: Amen. Thank you so much, Susan. Friends, head over to the Southwest Radio Ministries YouTube channel, and you can check out the episodes Living on the Front Lines, hosted by Bible teacher Susan Butler. Susan, thank you so much for joining us on the program.

Susan Butler: Thank you, Josh. Thank you, Liz.

Liz Cutshaw: Thank you. You don't want to miss this program.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Never has there been a greater need for Christians to know what they believe and why they believe it. That's why Southwest Radio Ministries is excited to present Living on the Front Lines, a brand new weekly television Bible teaching program designed to help believers navigate today's challenges with confidence in God's word.

Hosted by Bible teacher Susan Butler, each episode provides practical biblical instruction to strengthen your faith and help you stand firm in a culture that is increasingly hostile to biblical truth. As this new outreach grows, we're asking viewers and listeners alike to help make it possible.

Your gift today will help fund the production, distribution, and expansion of Living on the Front Lines, allowing more people to access sound biblical teaching each week. Will you invest in this important ministry? Give today at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Help us equip believers to live boldly for Christ right where the battle is being fought.

Be sure to join us tomorrow as we debut the brand new book by Southwest Radio Ministries President, Dr. Kenneth Hill, The Scripture Speaks. You'll hear why God's word remains our ultimate source of truth and hope in these challenging days. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and is supported by faithful listeners like you. To learn more, visit swrc.com.