Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: All righty, so this is the Q&A session of the conference. You guys submitted some wonderful questions. We tried to parcel out these questions according to different speakers' expertise. So I'm going to ask my fellow question-answerers to follow the advice of that great theologian Bill O'Reilly, who always used to say on his show, "Keep it pithy." So the sharper and faster the answers, the more things we can work through. If you want to give a sermon on Romans, we'll hear that some other time if that's all right.

Okay, with that being said, I'm going to try to role model how we want this done. The last time I said "keep it pithy," my wife said, "Then you went on for 20 minutes trying to answer a question." So I'm going to try to abide by my own rule. Okay, here we go. Who will reign on the throne of David during the Millennium? Where is King David? Where is King Jesus?

Well, the one who's going to rule on David's throne is Jesus Christ in fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, 2 Samuel 7 verses 12 through 16, Matthew chapter 25 verse 31. However, there are four references to a resurrected David. There's one in Ezekiel 37, one in Ezekiel 34, there's another one in Hosea 3, and one in Jeremiah, I want to say around chapter 30.

So what is actually going to happen if you take the Bible completely literally, which we do here, is Jesus is going to be governing planet earth and it'll be a kind of a co-regency with a resurrected David, which is not a problem because we know Old Testament saints are going to be resurrected at the beginning of the millennial kingdom, which includes David. And he will be kind of an under-authority under Christ governing Israel. So David governs Israel, Jesus governs the entire earth. And so that's my best take on that one. Melissa, take it away.

Melissa: Okay, so I can be succinct. I'll just address a few addiction things really quick. I know some of you were asking a lot of questions about that, so I just want to point you to a couple of resources. For the LindellRecoveryNetwork.org, we have a couple thousand video testimonies and a bunch of free resources. So maybe you have a loved one who doesn't want to go to treatment or you're struggling with how to engage them, I'd point you there as well as I have a YouTube channel called The Hope Report: Life in the Last Days. I kind of added that like life in the fast lane, but life in the last days.

So you can go there for many testimonies. I've got over a thousand there from the last five years. So people having questions about family dynamics and things like that, I think that might be helpful for you since I haven't really been in direct counseling for about five years. But quickly, my question I want to answer is why is the Abrahamic Covenant so significant toward understanding the rest of scripture?

And I chose that because it was really pivotal for me because when I understood the significance of Genesis 15 being the most important chapter of the Bible, I started to see it as the lens through which the entire Bible must be viewed. And when I read it that way, I was seeing the covenant was irrevocable, unconditional, everlasting, it was unbreakable. And then seeing it upheld in subsequent covenants, the Davidic and the New Covenant, and I saw this unbreakable thread through the Bible that I couldn't unsee. I already said that, but I just don't understand how people are so blinded to that truth once you see it. And knowing that the church is not a party to any of the covenants. The covenants were made with the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Ethnic Jews were never going to be ethnic Jews. So we partake spiritually in the New Covenant, but we don't take it over. So I just think it's so crucial to understand the everlasting nature of the Abrahamic Covenant and then it makes the whole Bible fall into place.

Dr. Andy Woods: Can I ask a follow-up? Do you have a YouTube channel and how can people sign up for that?

Melissa: Oh, yes. So please subscribe if you're so led. As Paul was saying and others have said, we're a small remnant and I have like 5,000 subscribers, but it's not enormous and that's okay. I wouldn't want Tucker Carlson to come on my show or go on his show. I've no desire for that. But if you are interested in Bible truth, prophecy, as I said, I'm not as much in the addiction world anymore, but all those testimonies exist. I would appreciate a subscribe if you're so led, so The Hope Report: Life in the Last Days.

Dr. Andy Woods: Love it. Don't worry, Tucker Carlson will not come on your show. You love Israel. There we go. All right. I just want to know why the technocracy guy can't turn the microphone on. I'm sorry. I was low.

Here's an easy one. Where would you personally draw the line between helpful medical advancements and playing God with human nature? This is an easy answer, I think, because when it when technology helps me, I'm fine with it. You know, when it helps you, I'm fine with that too. Maybe you need a heart transplant even. I'm glad that they can do that now.

But when people want to play God with human nature, that's a whole another story. Most of these technologies have dual-use purposes, if you will. Like Elon Musk's Neuralink, right? He said, "Well, we're going to make the lame walk and the blind see," reference to the Bible. But certainly somebody's going to get some benefit out there. I think some people already have. But when he talks about rolling this out to everybody in humanity, the whole world, that's another story. We know you don't want to do that for sure.

Guest (Male): Thank you. I figured that way I don't have to figure out how to turn mine on. How would a young-earth creationist explain light from distant galaxies in transit apparently for longer than 6,000 years? How would I explain that? Well, first of all, I'm not a young-earth creationist; I'm a biblical creationist. Now I say that for a reason. We put young-earth creation and theistic evolution and progressive creation all on the same pane. No, we need to make a distinction. The Bible says something and it's a biblical position.

So what about light? Well, first of all, God tells us 10 times he stretched out the heavens. He made the heavens mature. When he's talking about Day 4, he says he made the stars to be seen for signs of seasons, days, and years. Notice the author of Genesis knows the difference between a day and a year. Today's rate, light travels 186,282 miles per second through our atmosphere based on the belief in uniformity. Remember we talked about uniformity with the global flood. That's how they came up with it takes millions of years to get here.

God says he stretched out the heavens. 2 Peter 3:3 through 6, which I talked about, they would claim uniformity and deny the flood. There was one other thing they would deny: that God made the heavens mature. So that's what we're talking about right here based on uniformity and denial of the biblical creation. They say it takes millions of years to get here. Well, at today's rate, it would. But it hasn't always been uniform. God stretched out the heavens.

Did you know that scientists working in the labs have slowed light to 100 miles per hour? Did you know they've slowed light to 30 miles an hour? Did you know they've captured light, brought it to a dead stop and re-released it? Other scientists working with Princeton sped light in pulses to 300 times the speed of light to 55 million miles per second. So here's my position. If humans in our finite little brains can play around with the speed of light, I don't think the creator of light, the creator of genetic information, and the creator of the universe has any issue getting light wherever he got it whenever he said he did so.

Dr. Andy Woods: Okay, so my first question: How do you minister, witness, evangelize to Christian Palestinians? Okay, need to clarify something there. So all the people I've been speaking about, especially yesterday, I have labeled Christian Palestinianists. You don't have to be a Palestinian, Palestinian Arab, to be a Christian Palestinianist, just like you don't have to be Jewish to be a Christian Zionist. Christian Palestinianism is everything that's diametrically opposed to Christian Zionism, what we've been talking about. So Israel's out of the picture, modern state of Israel has no connection with God, with Bible prophecy.

So that's important. And there are many who call themselves Palestinians, they are Arabs, they are our brothers and our sisters in Christ. And there are some in the land of Israel that are Zionists. You know, they have an understanding the same understanding that we do based on God's Word, and they stand against replacement theology at great cost. I think of the First Baptist Church of Bethlehem, fired bombed, I don't know how many times. The pastor there, Pastor Corey, has been shot at numerous times as well.

So how do you reach Christian brothers and sisters that are caught up in the replacement theology, the pro-Palestinian, the hatred of Israel, boycotting Israel? Number one, it's prayer, it's prayer, it's prayer. Isn't it? That's the foundation. Number two, it's got to be love if you're in those conversations, not to get worked up, angry, not to belittle, but see them as brothers and sisters in Christ if they are truly saved.

And you just got to share God's Word, try and steer away from the politics and just direct them to the Word of God. What does God say? Not even what a Christian leader says, not what a movement says, not what a church says, not what a denominational denomination says, but what does God say in his Word? And try and get people in the Word of God engaging in that way.

What are your to-go Bible passages in evangelizing Orthodox Jews? Dinner's canceled. So you have a challenge with an Orthodox Jew. Now remember, Orthodox Jews make for maybe 12 to 15 percent of the 15 million Jews of the world. It's a small community. They are going to be more interested in studying about God, but not necessarily studying about God in the Bible. They are going to be more religious, more spiritual, but they are going to be interested in learning about God and spiritual things from a collection of books known as the Talmud. We'll keep it at that. I mean, I can divide it into different things, but it's called the Talmud.

And it's not inspired. It has great wisdom, great stories, it has a lot of benefits to learn about the Jewish people over history, but it is certainly not the Word of God inspired at the same level that the Tanakh, the Torah, the prophets and the writings, the Old Testament that we know. It's not inspired the same. So if you have an opportunity to connect with an Orthodox Jewish person, my first step would be to—and if they're interested in dialogue, and already right there, for an Orthodox Jewish person, they're not by default they're not going to be attracted or interested in connecting with non-Jews.

It would definitely have to be male-to-male, female-to-female because there's that issue as well in Orthodox Judaism. But let's say you have an opportunity to meet with somebody who's Orthodox Jewish, then and they want to speak of spiritual things, the one thing I would start is I would say, "I know you do not"—and I've said this before at this conference, but it's a different group—I would volunteer something to them and I would say, "I know I understand you don't believe the New Testament is inspired. I believe it is"—and I'm speaking in your name now as a Gentile Christian—"I believe it is and I see a lot of benefit to studying it and following its teaching, but I know you don't as a Jewish person."

"So for the sake of this conversation, I am going to put my New Testament aside. I'm not going to open it, I'm not going to quote from it, I'm not going to say anything about it. We're not going to use it." And so that person sees that you respect them because you're not going to use a book they don't have any interest in. Then you say, "What I'd like to do if you can is I'd like you to, maybe for the sake of that conversation that we're going to have, not look at the Talmud because I don't read the Talmud. I don't see it as the same level as the inspired Word of God. So it's going to be difficult for me to get anything from it."

"So I'm going to put my New Testament aside and if you could put for the time being the Talmud aside, then we can both of us talk about spiritual things from the one common ground that we have, which is the Jewish Bible." When you say the Jewish Bible, that's the Old Testament. Then you're going to find out that you're in trouble because now you have to point that person to all the messianic prophecies. So before you get into that conversation, make sure you know where you're going.

And I want to recommend a great book for that by Dr. Fruchtenbaum called *HaMashiach*. It used to be called *Messianic Christology*. They changed the title. I use it all the time, I teach a class with it. It's absolutely superb. And learn where the messianic prophecies are and be prepared to challenge that person and say, "Hey, let's talk about this. What do you think it talks about?" One by one in the order of the book that it's written, which is in the order of the Jewish Bible. Sorry for being so long.

Okay, why does God release Satan on the world again after the millennial kingdom? And that's a reference to Revelation 20 verses 7 through 9 where the thousand years has run its course and then Satan is let loose out of the abyss. And so that's a great question. Why do that? And the answer is history is pedagogical, meaning God allows eras of history to elapse to teach humanity lessons that can't be learned any other way. Kind of like in the Book of Judges, there's a terrible cycle that happens seven times in the Book of Judges and you're kind of left scratching your head. Why is God allowing this?

Well, when you get to the end of the Book of Judges, it says there was no king in Israel in those days and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And so God can say that or he can allow them to experience it. You need a king because your current governing structure under the judges isn't working. So that's how to understand the millennial kingdom. God is allowing the Millennium to happen to reveal something. And what God is showing humanity is the greatest lesson you could ever learn.

The external environment can't change people. What changes people is not altering the outside, but changing them on the inside through the transforming ministry of Jesus being born again. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, you're given a new nature. And so how does God teach humanity that that's what they need? Well, he lets people—and these are mortals, these are the descendants of those who survived the Tribulation period and repopulated the earth in mortal bodies. These are not resurrected people that rebel.

But God allows them to live in perfection for a thousand years. So there's no unmet human need, there's no healthcare crisis, there's no educational crisis, there's no war crisis. They're living in utter perfection with Jesus reigning on David's throne. There's no unmet human need and yet what do they do at the end of this time period? They start to rebel against God. And there's a reference in Zechariah 14 how they won't go to Jerusalem to worship the King.

And so Jesus sees this rebellion stirring in their hearts and he lets the devil loose for one last hurrah to expose this rebellion. And those that are in rebellion are as the sand of the seashore. And so that's why the devil is kept around for as long as he's kept around. You know, when the Tribulation ends, the beast and the false prophet go into the lake of fire, but the devil goes into the abyss. Why is that? Because God has one final purpose for Satan. The devil is God's devil. He uses Satan for his own purposes and he's got one final pedagogical truth to teach to humanity: that fixing the environment on the outside is not going to help you.

There has to be an internal transformation. So God says, "I can either say that or I could let them experience it." And they experience utopia for a thousand years and they still rebel against God. So, you know, people think today that if we could just fix the educational system, people would not commit crimes anymore. Well, guess what you do when you educate a blue-collar thief? You make him a white-collar thief if his nature is not transformed. And check the crime statistics during the Great Depression. Crime actually went down. So economics doesn't necessarily have a relationship to people committing evil. And if you look at the most literate and educated society of all of civilization, more PhDs per capital, do you know what civilization that was? That was Nazi Germany. So education doesn't fix people either. What fixes people is an internal transformation. Our problem comes from the inside, Jesus says. From out of the heart come evil thoughts and immorality and thefts and greeds. And you can put man in any perfect environment you want and unless that internal issue is fixed, man is going to continue to be depraved. And so that's why he allows the Millennium to go forward. And it's just a magnificent lesson to close human history by and that's why God does it.

Melissa: What you just said there reminds me of addiction a little bit, how we can't force anyone to stop, we can't force anyone to come to Christ. They really do have to have that inner transformation of heart, and I think that relieves some people's burden because we know we can't drag anyone kicking and screaming to stop. We can only come alongside them.

But the question I want to answer, why do you think that Paula White is doctrinally unstable? I stole that term from Dr. Woods, doctrinally unstable. I thought that is really good, I'm going to hold on to that. First of all, she calls herself a pastor, and we know that that is unbiblical for women to pastor, lead a church. Next, she is heavily steeped in the health-wealth prosperity gospel movement, and I think a lot of people are drawn to that. Years ago, I dabbled in some elements of that, and it sounds really nice, like a cotton candy spiritual milk.

Everybody's, you know, this umbrella of ecumenicalism that she is really leading with the faith office, which if we're saying faith, God, and religion, what does that even mean if we're not clarifying what God are we talking about? What God is it? It's basically every God invited under the umbrella. So it's the object of our faith that's what's important, and the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.

And the thing with Paula White that most troubles me with a lot of people in dominionism or New Apostolic Reformation or Seven Mountain Mandate, like the Lance Wallnaus and so forth, is they profess to support Israel. They, for PR opportunities, they wave the Israeli flag and they say, "Yes, we stand with Israel." Yet out the other side of their mouth, they think they're bringing in the kingdom. They think they're conquering the seven mandates of society and handing the kingdom over to the Lord when he comes back.

And most people just, I guess they don't realize what's happening there because they appear to be supporters of Israel for foreign policy reasons, but deep down they don't. Obviously, they don't read the Bible literally. They don't understand the permanence of the covenants or the promises to Israel or the separation of the church and Israel. And I just find that very confusing and know that many people are led astray.

And the last thing I would say is along with not taking the Bible literally, what a lot of people do is take scriptures intended for Israel—and I think I was certainly guilty of this before my mind was renewed—but applying them to the church. Or they're about me. "Oh, you'll be the head and not the tail," Deuteronomy 28:13, and all the passages in Isaiah about "I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

I'm not saying those couldn't indirectly apply to us, but so many like Paula and others fail to see the historical significance, the audience that's being spoken to, who that was originally meant to. 2 Chronicles 7:14, America loves to take that over and say if you turn back to me, I will heal your land. That's for Israel, and I never heard any of that in church. It was just always the church taking over Israel's blessings.

And I think when we have leaders like that, it's very disingenuous and it's poor advisement for the president who really needs solid advisement. And he has Mike Huckabee, thank God for that. But Paula is clapping when an Imam is saying a prayer. She doesn't know what he's saying. It's some kind of Adhan prayer and she's clapping and saying Amen as this demonic prayer is being spoken. So I'm sure she's a nice lady, but this is what goes along with these celebrity pastors. So the bigger someone's platform is, the more likely I'm not going to be drawn to it because if you're going the broad road, with a few exceptions, you're usually not biblical or somebody that people who want true discipleship or leadership should follow.

Dr. Andy Woods: Yeah, so when we we take passages for Israel and apply them to ourselves, we don't call that exegesis, we call that narcigesis, right?

Davos, that's talking about Davos meaning the World Economic Forum. Looks like rich and powerful people, but what actual power do they have to tell whole countries what to do? Yeah, there's a lot of rich and powerful people there for sure. And the WEF now is headed up, co-headed at least by one powerful member of the Trilateral Commission, his name is Larry Fink. He's the CEO of BlackRock, the biggest investment company in the world. Total power, for sure. But control over countries is executed by economic power, not but by political power. This has been the case for probably many decades. So these people at Davos have ways to coerce countries into going along with their economic program that drags down, that drags along their political system as what it is as well. So that's kind of answer short answer.

Guest (Male): I'm not looking at it. He's talking about my microphone. Can you explain how dinosaurs fit into biblical creation? Absolutely. You know, the secular historical narrative, unobserved historical narrative, is dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. That's based on what strata layer they're found in, based on the geologic column, based on denial of the global flood and accepting uniform beliefs as we're told would happen in 2 Peter 3:3 through 6. Now, they also say humans came along in the last—well, this changes depending on which day of the week it is—but about 1.8 million years ago, again, in their unobserved belief system.

The Bible says, however, that man and beast were both made on the sixth day. And I like to say the Bible's true or the Bible's not true; it's that simple. So let's look at some evidence. If there had been 63 plus million years between when dinosaurs disappeared and mankind came along, there would be absolutely zero evidence of man and dinosaur having lived at the same time, correct? I mean, nothing, correct?

Pictures on a timeline, here we are today. We find cave drawings and man-made carvings and hieroglyphs and petroglyphs of various dinosaurs all over the globe. Here we are today, these are we're told 800 to 2,000 years ago. People all over the world knew what they looked like and drew pictures of them 800 to 2,000 years ago. The word dinosaur was invented 180 years ago. We have thousands of what we call dragon stories that were written 800 to 2,000 years ago from all over the world where man were involved with these dragons or serpents, which sound in their descriptions all like what we call dinosaurs today.

If man had been, if they'd been gone for millions of years, no one would have seen them. Over the past 30 years, we have found over 100 non-fossilized dinosaur bones. They still have red blood cells, soft flexible dinosaur tissues, and dinosaur DNA in them. These soft biological materials couldn't last more than a few thousand years, only if they're buried immediately in mud without oxygen around under the best of circumstances. They've also found carbon-14—now, I talked about carbon dating yesterday—which should decay away in less than 80,000 years. These remains still have carbon-14 in them. In other words, the secular view is scientifically crushed and the biblical view flies well with real science, our best friend.

Dr. Andy Woods: If the Rapture is imminent and sign-less, how should we think about observable geopolitical stage-setting without unintentionally undermining imminence? Grateful for this question because there's a lot of confusion between the Rapture and the Second Coming. The events that we see unfolding right now have no bearing on the Rapture, they're not connected to the Rapture, they don't impact the timing of the Rapture. They're stage-setting for the seven-year Tribulation, the emergence of the Antichrist, and ultimately, supremely, the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to this earth.

So the Rapture hasn't happened. We believe it is imminent. We believe it could be today. It has to be before the Tribulation. So as we see more and more events unfolding and we see God's Word being fulfilled prophetically regarding Israel, the Middle East, horrific things that are being done with God's laws, then the fact that the Rapture hasn't happened and these events are unfolding and things are developing at breakneck speed tells us how near the Rapture's got to be.

So I think of Paul's words to the Thessalonians. Paul commended them for having turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. All these geopolitical events are connected with the wrath to come. Jesus delivers us from that wrath, and we are to wait. And the word in Greek is *anamenō*, and it means to wait up expectantly. You know Jesus is coming, but you do not know when. And therefore you're to be ready at any moment.

Guest (Male): Since the Reformers are anti-Semitic, which Bible version do you recommend? This is a little bit of a loaded question because, first of all, let's just address the first part of the question. Not all Reformers were anti-Semitic, and those who were anti-Semitic were not 100% of the time anti-Semitic on everything. So even to bring back Martin Luther, who we've already heard through the conference a couple times today, he had a lot of good that he brought, he did a lot of good for the faith. He happened to have some anti-Semitic statements that he made at the end of his life, and there's no question about it, they cannot be seen or understood any other way. But we don't want to paint with broad strokes. Not all of them are or were anti-Semitic, and those who were were not 100% of the time all the time.

This being said, this is a personal choice. This is not something, it goes different for everybody. But I have always enjoyed, since I became a believer early in the mid-80s, I've always enjoyed a word-for-word Bible translation. So my very first Bible was a New King James, and then I switched, I got connected with Arnold Fruchtenbaum early on, and he got me going on the American Standard. So I've been using the majority of my life as a believer, I've used a New American Standard, and my favorite version was the 1995 version. Then they came up with the 2020 version that I do not recommend because it has some serious flaws.

And then recently, I discovered this Bible that is rather new and that I would consider, I would call it almost like the newest version of the New American Standard version. It's called the LSB, the Legacy Standard version. That's what I'm using right now, but I would say a safe version for just about everybody is the New American Standard 1995. That's my opinion, that's all. It might not be Dr. Woods'.

We use NASB 95 update. We kind of felt that the latter one took some liberties and we're fans of we're not King James only, but we like the King James or New King James. How about the Message? Next question. Probably pass on the Message.

The Message—well, it's not my question—but there's a lot of translations that are paraphrases. So the type of detailed study that we do, we like more of a word-for-word translation. We're not looking for paraphrases. And when you get into the—now some of you might be NIV positive. And it's a paraphrase and when Olivier is an expert on anti-Semitism, replacement theology, exposing it, when you get to Galatians 6:16, the Israel of God, the NIV makes it look like the church is the Israel of God and that's not what the Greek text says. And the NASB and the King James will have it right there. So that's an example where you kind of pay a price when you move into a paraphrase. Anyway, sorry to monopolize.

Dr. Andy Woods: This question deals with Mystery Babylon. What does it mean? How can Babylon be literal when it says Mystery Babylon? This is very confusing. Part of—well, I did my doctoral dissertation on Babylon, so I'm going to work really hard at not babbling on about Babylon. So here we go. I'm going to put myself under great restraint. You know, the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, right? Bible says that. All right. You'll notice in the New American Standard Bible that mystery is not capitalized in Revelation 17 verse five, which is the title on the harlot's forehead. In the King James, it is capitalized.

So if you're reading it out of the King James, you would think that mystery Babylon is the title on the harlot's forehead. But if you read it in the New American Standard Bible, you would think that her title is not mystery Babylon, but just Babylon the Great. And if the New American Standard Bible is right, there's no such thing as mystery Babylon. That whole thing is a myth. The only thing it says is Babylon the Great and her role in the end times, and specifically how she is destroyed in the seventh bowl judgment, is a mystery.

Which is the Greek word mysterion, which means something veiled, now unveiled. If you read it in the King James, it says mystery Babylon, and people like that because they can make Babylon into whatever they want it to be. It's not the literal city on the Euphrates. Babylon is actually a technical word. It always means Babylon everywhere else in the Bible. It's used 300 times. The city 58 miles south of Baghdad. But people like it to say mystery Babylon because they can make it New York, as many people do. They can make it Rome or whatever they wanted it to be.

So that's why this designation mystery Babylon and figuring this out is a big deal. So what's the answer? The answer is the New American Standard Bible has it right. The King James, on this issue, has it completely wrong because the title Babylon the Great is used five times in the Book of Revelation, and never once outside of Revelation 17 does it refer to mystery Babylon. It's just Babylon the Great. So I'm interpreting her title according to how it's used everywhere else in the Book of Revelation.

So the right understanding of this is Revelation 17 is talking about Babylon the Great, not mystery Babylon. And if you go to the last verse of the chapter, chapter 17 verse 18, it says that this woman who has this title on her forehead is a city. Everybody skips that verse, but it says it's a city. So here's the bottom line to the whole thing. You ready for this? You got your seatbelts buckled? When you see Babylon in the Bible, it means Babylon.

I mean, that's real esoteric stuff right there, right? You got to go to a prophecy conference to learn that. So don't mix it up with something else. It doesn't mean mystery Babylon; it means Babylon the Great. The mystery is how she's brought down. And what happens is God puts it into the heart of the beast to destroy Babylon in the seventh bowl judgment. That's the new truth. That's something that's never been disclosed before.

And so there's a lot of confusion on this. And so that's really the best I can do with it in short order. It relates to the destruction of the literal city of Babylon, which is brought to her knees by God in the seventh bowl judgment. Chapter 17 is just giving you the religious angle of the city. Chapter 18 is giving you the commercial and political elements of the exact same city. There's not two Babylons here. There's not one allegorical, one literal. It's one city destroyed in the seventh bowl judgment, which is described in chapter 16 verse 19. And chapter 17 and 18 is a pause.

There's five of these in the Book of Revelation, non-chronological parenthetical insertions where the chronology stops. It's like a lunch break when you're hiking. You're hiking up a hill, you decide to stop for lunch, you pick a scenic location where you can see where you've come from and where you're going. And then you get lunch's over, you get back on the trail and you keep moving. The Book of Revelation does that five times. Generally, the book is chronological except for those five times. And so all you're seeing in chapter 17 and 18 is an expansion of the concept of the destruction of Babylon that's already been described in the seventh bowl judgment. So there we go. Kept it as short as I could.

Melissa: Mike's book is called *What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO*. So what are the odds? But he has a real rags-to-riches story. If you read his story, from being a bar owner and a compulsive gambler and all the things I already talked about today. But it's kind of like if anyone could pull this off, it would be Mike, and I just have a real heart for the underdog. I was an underdog. I was the kid that was last picked on the teams and couldn't do the flexed-arm hang and all that stuff. And Mike's that way, and maybe that's why I love Israel so much or part of it is just this heart for people who are struggling or who have not been given the recognition they deserve.

And I have seen that with Mike where, I'm sure you've all seen it, where a lot have mocked him for his beliefs. They've canceled him, they have made fun of him being a conspiracy theorist, election crimes and all that. And he's starting to get some vindication now with ballots and things. I'm not really into all that world, but I think that he has a good chance. And actually, I have to be honest, I was a little surprised because the state of Minnesota is so skewed. I thought they were going to treat him like they do for a lot of other things, but his support has been really overwhelming.

I think there were 12 GOP candidates, and I think two have dropped out, Scott Jensen and someone else. But Mike is number three from what I understand, and then there's Amy Klobuchar, so that's another story. But I am praying just that people are tired of career politicians and that they want something different. And Mike is—you have to just respect someone who's so, he doesn't try to hide who he is. I mean, he has no filter. He just kind of says what's on his mind, and a lot of people it's refreshing.

You appreciate, you don't have to guess how he is when he's not on camera or he's honestly I can say he's the same the way I've seen him just walking around the office as he is when you see him doing an interview. It's this Minnesota guy who's just, you know, he doesn't think of himself as elevated. So I just hope you guys pray for him and, you know, I know the odds are against him but like his book, *What Are the Odds?*, I think if anyone can pull it off, it's him.

Dr. Andy Woods: Will the blockchain be the vehicle for the Antichrist to control digital assets and money, et cetera? Yes. If so, should Christians invest in crypto to advance God's purposes? Personally, no. That's all I can say. No, I don't want to get in trouble with anybody who's made a fortune in crypto because some people have. Go figure. Personally, I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot stick. But some people disagree with me and I know some people even some friends have made a lot of money and so go for it if you think you can. Otherwise, look out. There's a lot of people out there right now who would like to skin you. And then said.

Guest (Male): I turned it on. Do you still have that lakefront or that seafront property in Gilbert for sale? Yeah, they might like to catch you on that after we get done here. But my question is, how do you respond to the claim that creationism is unfalsifiable and therefore non-scientific? For a theory to be scientific, it has to be possible to refute it, has to be falsifiable. If it's unfalsifiable, it's basically a religious belief.

Well, first of all, the Bible is a religious belief, but what I show is real science backs it up. So let me just talk about that for a second. God said at the end of the sixth day the creation was finished. And and therefore we should not see life starting from non-life today, we should not see creation taking place today if the Bible's true. The first law of thermodynamics, the conservation of mass and energy, holds that matter and or energy cannot be created or destroyed. Energy can change to matter, matter can change to energy, but the amount of matter and energy in the entire universe is set. It's done.

See, when God said the creation was finished, what God actually meant was the creation was finished. So in the Bible's historically set in a time and a place and that opens up to scientific and historical verification. They used to say in the 1800s that the Old Testament nations and kings and even King David were just myths, but in the 20th century, the new branch of science called archaeology found proof of over 40 of those nations and kings. In 2005, Israeli researchers, archaeologists found King David's palace and said what's amazing about the Bible is it's amazingly accurate.

We could have told them that, right? You know, look at biology. The Bible says kinds only bring forth after their kind, even though kids are taught up to the PhD level biology kinds bring forth different kinds. What real science finds is kinds only bring forth after their kind. I talked about this yesterday, dogs only bring forth dogs, people only bring forth people, variations within the kind, minor micro-evolution if you will, are caused by the sorting and loss of the starting information.

Let's look at Darwinian macro-evolution for just a second. Macro-evolution requires massive amounts of new and beneficial genetic information being added to a gene pool. Real science our best friend knows of no viable way for nature to add that. If you think it's mutations, that's neo-Darwinism and you should have got my book. I cover all the little micro or the macro claims in that book. They're too many to go into right at this moment, but neo-Darwinism is a total and complete scientific failure.

Also, Darwinists can't get life started. The origin of life is a massive problem for them. They can't get over the law of biogenesis, that life only comes from life. God started life and then he said the creation was finished and science supports that. So now Darwinists have gone to maybe meteorites or aliens dropped us off because they can't get life started. Well, here's the thing. That's forcing everybody to prove a negative, which is impossible. So the one that is totally unfalsifiable is Darwinism. How can you prove aliens or a meteorite didn't bring us here? It's so that that is when it's unfalsifiable—sorry, been a long day. When you can't refute it, that makes it a religious belief. Darwinian evolution is a scientifically completely debunked religious belief that has no science backing it up whatsoever. That's a good question, though.

Dr. Andy Woods: Regarding Israel and the analogy that she is God's wife, can you expound on this and are there parallels regarding the church being the bride of Christ? So we think of the call of Abraham, Genesis 12, and we know the Lord from Abraham is going to bring forth a nation that is going to be called Israel. And God uses all kinds of metaphors, anthropomorphisms to describe how he as Almighty God relates to this people. So they're his chosen people, they're his family, they're his nation, they're his children, they're his *nachalah*, his inheritance, they're his wife.

You know, he takes Israel to himself at the foot of Mount Sinai in Exodus 19. It's a marriage covenant, the covenant with Moses. He's making all kinds of promises and commitments, and he just asks that she as his wife in that sense will love him and honor him and obey him. And it's so important to remember that from the very beginning, the call of Abraham, what's God's intention? It's to reach the whole world. It's to reach the non-Jews, the Gentiles.

Paul in Galatians refers to Genesis 12 and says the Gospel was preached in advance. So he takes a nation and one of those metaphors, one of the ways he relates to Israel is as husband to wife. A wife disobeys, he has to set her aside for a time. But in prophecies like Hosea 2, he says, "And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call me my husband and no longer my master." And he goes on, the Lord, "I will betroth you to me"—this is marriage language—"I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice." But she has to go through a very painful period of time in order to come back.

So in this period where she is set aside, what does God do? He fulfills that promise there in Genesis 12 and he reaches all the nations, all the families through his Son and he takes a bride including from Israel. You know, Jew and Gentile, slave-free, male-female, a new entity, a new organism, a new body, a new people. Not in place of, not replacing, but a new people. And again, it's metaphor, isn't it? Paul will say in 2 Corinthians 11, "I have betroth you to one husband as a pure virgin," referring to the Lord Jesus Christ.

So what the metaphors say to me first and foremost is how loving our God is. That's what he's expressing to Israel over and over when he's using that kind of language, husband-wife. That's what the Lord Jesus through his apostles over and over is saying to us as the church. We're his bride. That's how he sees us, he's longing for us to be with him. So the Lord takes his bride, he takes the church, and once she is caught up, she's out of the way, then God turns back and brings the wife back to himself, betroths her and that time of renewing that commitment and the cleansing and the renewing ultimately just speaks over and over of the goodness, the love, the fidelity, the faithfulness of God. And so that's the best I can do in a short time with that question.

Since the church and its great commission are non-national and individualistic, aside from prayer and supporting Israel's right to exist and the land, to what extent is the church to practically be a blessing, Genesis 12:3, to national Israel in unbelief without becoming distracted from the mission: make disciple of all nations and build up the body of Christ? It's a great question.

First of all, I don't think that the fact that Israel is in unbelief has any bearing on anything because it certainly did not have any bearing on God giving the Abrahamic Covenant. It was based on his character. How can we support Israel? With the right to exist is a big one, of course, which of course this person is recognizing. And prayer. Prayer, as I mentioned I think at least a couple times over the weekend, is to be the foundation of everything we do, not just our involvement with Israel.

But I would say again—and this might be a question that I would have answered differently two or three years ago—but you're going to be hearing me saying this if you watch videos, if you see me at conferences, you're going to be seeing and hearing me a lot saying skin in the game. I really think that we need any by any means possible to show Jewish people in the US, in wherever we are, in in Israel, that we care. Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

And right now, we need to figure out a way to show Israel and the Jewish people that we care. I've shown you a couple of ways. If it's visiting Israel, it's visiting Israel. If it's encouraging and meeting with your Jewish friend, that's what it is. If it's sending money, I can think of at least one good place you can send money to help Jewish people, ShalomAndMessiah.com. And that would not be the only ones.

But the bottom line is this. Anything today that is going to give you an opportunity to get closer to that Jewish entity, Jewish person, Jewish organization, Jewish anything, closer to them and earn you the right to speak and put you in the place where you can share the message of the Gospel and the hope of salvation we have in Yeshua, anything ethical, of course, and biblical, anything goes. It might be prayer, financial, practical, whatever it is to earn you the right to speak and get closer to share the Gospel because that's the importance of where we are right now at this time in history, more than ever.

Why do you think God chose to reveal end-times prophecy progressively across scripture rather than clearly writing it down in one place? The answer to that is the way the Bible came together. It didn't come together like a systematic theology textbook that's all organized. If you want to study on the Trinity, you grab a book and read it. If you want to read a book on the virgin birth, you grab a book and you read it. The Bible wasn't written that way. The Bible is what we would call crisis literature, meaning the books in the Bible are designed to reach real people in whatever crisis that they're in.

So the crisis in the book of Galatians is the Galatian heresy. The crisis in the book of Colossians is the Colossian heresy. The crisis in the Thessalonian books is confusion about the end times. And so the better the crisis in the Corinthian books is carnality in the church at Corinth. And so when you read the books of the Bible, the better you understand the crisis behind the scenes, the better you can understand why the biblical authors talk about the things that they talk about.

So God over the course of a long period of time used these different crises to pen his Word from Genesis to Revelation. And so like if I wanted to study angels, I can't open to the angel book. Where's the angel book in the Bible? The Bible's not organized that way. There's data about angels in Genesis going all the way through to the Book of Revelation. So once you understand that, then you see the need for systematic theology.

Systematic theology are people that go through the Bible, they take all these scattered pieces of data about angels, let's say, and they organize it in a cohesive whole in outline form. So you can look at their outline and see their different verses and you can study it and you can have the mind of God on angels. And if systematic theologians weren't doing that, we wouldn't have a cohesive understanding of angels because there's no angel book in the Bible. Does that make sense?

So systematic theology is so much fun because what you're doing, if you like jigsaw puzzles, you're just putting pieces together. If I want to study the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is there a Holy Spirit book? Well, the book of Acts has a lot to say, but that's not the final say. The Holy Spirit is scattered all the way through the Bible. So I just take all of these pieces and I put them together in outline form and that's the doctrine of pneumatology. I do that with angelology.

And we do that with soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. And eschatology is the exact same thing. I mean, there is no book in the Bible that tells you everything about the end times. You have to go from Genesis to Revelation and put it all together in outline form. And then when you look at it, you have the mind of God on eschatology. And the reason we need systematic theology is because the Bible gives us this progressive scattered information because it was designed to address real crises in real people's lives in the different books of the Bible. So I hope that helps a little bit.

Well, we've had a great conference. What do you guys think? And how many people think it would be a good idea if we did this exact same thing next year? What do you think about that? So stay tuned and we'll give you information as that comes up, but the Lord has really blessed ProphCon. I mean, this by far, all of them have been great, but this by far I think has been our best one. Would you say, Melissa? And I just want to thank these folks to my right, literally and politically. No. Thank you guys and gal for coming. You guys are all experts in your different areas and you all make a great contribution to the conference and so let's give our speakers a round of applause.