Is God Real-Exploring The Ultimate Question of Life

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Any questions or comments should be directed
to those show hosts. Thank you for

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choosing W FOURCY Radio. Hey,
welcome, great to have you with us.

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I'm Bill Martinez. This is Bill
Martinez, and we are live.

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I got a real treat for at
least Trouble going to be joining us in

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just a moment. The New York
Times bestselling author I'm going to be talking

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about his new book, Is God
Real? You know that question? I

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mean, this is amazing. I
was reading about this the other day that

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more than two hundred times a second
around the claw, someone is asking an

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online search engine about God, often
with the simple inquiry. The title of

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this book has got real. Well. Lee Strouble, long known for his

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skills as an investigative reporter, is
now offering an accessible and authoritative response to

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this universal question. In his latest
book, Has Got Real, the New

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York Times bestselling author weaves together the
latest evidence for belief from brilliant scientific and

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philosophical scholars, alongside the best of
his own previous investigative writings. I can't

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wait to talk to Lee all about
it, Lee Strobel, Welcome to the

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show. Good to have you with
us. Well, thanks so much.

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Great to be with you. I
appreciate the opportunity. Well I do as

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well, Lee, whenever we can
talk about things of God. I mean,

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your history you know about your books
is well documented. You know here

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you were a confirmed atheist, had
no desire to talk about spiritual things,

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and here you are, all these
decades later, and God is using you

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in a magnificent sort of way.
It's been a great adventure, I'll tell

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you. It's That's nothing I ever
would have anticipated back when I was legal

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leeditor of the Chicago Tribune and live
in a very wild life as an atheist,

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and never would have anticipated that there
is a God and that he actually

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could use folks like me to make
a difference like all of us. Yeah,

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exactly. Do you feel at a
little bit. I mean as much

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like you know the apostle Paul who
was Saul. You know, he was

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on his own mission. He thought
this is what you know, God had

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in store for him, until you
know, Jesus met up with him,

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and Jesus met up with him and
realized that here is this talented individual with

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this incredible background. And I think
of you in the same way. Lee.

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I mean your background now on reporting. You've had a legal background as

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well as a professor, and God
said, you know, I can do

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something with this chunk of clay.
I can have some great work here.

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And amazing how God can take,
you know, our life before we were

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redeemed, and yet take things from
it and use it for his glory.

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You know. I think of my
journalism training and legal training and how God

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has used that to help me create
these books that Iever would have created had

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I not had that previous background.
Exactly. Well, I mean I got

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to imagine that. Sometimes you probably
wake up and pinch yourself and say,

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is this really real? How did
I get here? Right? Yeah,

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that's very true. My wife and
I often look at each other and say,

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how, you know, how did
this happen? Because we got you

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know, We met when we were
fourteen years old. We were childhood sweethearts.

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We got married fifty one years ago, so we've known each other a

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long long time. And she knew
me back in the day when I was

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a wild living atheist, and I
knew her when she was an agnostic,

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and her coming to faith, and
then me coming to faith, and now

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our children. My son's a professor
at a seminary with a theology PhD.

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My daughter writes fiction books, novels
that all have the Gospel in them,

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and now my grandchildren coming to faith
one by one. It's really transformed our

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entire life. Yeah, without a
doubt. I mean for your wife to

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ask how could this be? And
he said, well, you prayed for

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me. It's your fault. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. The verse

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she prayed was Ezekiel thirty six twenty
six. It says, moreover, I

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will give you a new heart and
put a new spirit within you. I

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will remove from you your heart of
stone and give you a heart of flesh.

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And she prayed that for me the
whole two years that I was on

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that investigative journey kind of looking into
whether or not Christianity is true and coming

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to a conclusion that, based on
the historical evidence for the resurrection, the

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most logical step I could take would
be to repent in my sin, receive

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forgiveness through Christ, to become a
child of God. But to go through

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that journey. And I imagine on
the other side, because I went through

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a similar journey, I was so
thankful to God that he didn't just reduce

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me to a crumb of toast and
burned me on the spot. You know.

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It was that kind of experience,
and as I was reading your story,

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I could relate and be thankful that
God, you know, allowed us

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to go through this investigative process.
Because I was on a journey. I

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mean, I thought, you know, I was raised Catholic, but I

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thought, well, wait a minute. You know a lot of things happening

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in a Catholic church says Where's God? And so I started looking into all

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these different philosophies. You know,
the zen of mortiscide, remember the zen

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of motorcycle maintenance, right, yeah, you name it scientology. But I

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mean I went and did a deep
dive. But it was interesting is that

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as I went through each of these
these hurdles and journeys, I'd hit a

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roadwalk, and I go, okay, well that's not it. And my

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loving friends would say to me,
Bill, when are you going to study

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the Bible? Oh? You know, I'm in motorcycle maintenance, so I'll

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catch up with it. And it
wasn't you know, for me as a

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Catholic when I finally studied the Book
of Romans, and it was life converting

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for me. And because when I
was in Catholic school, I was taught

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that, you know, Martin Luther
was this heretic, this Protestant and everything,

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and then you know, you find
out later on that he's this devoted

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monk in pursuit of God and the
truth of God. And I'm going,

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hey, I want to be with
him holding that nail at the Wittenberg door.

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Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's awesome. You know,

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in my book and the introduction,
I tell very briefly, just stories of

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just one paragraph each of people who
I know in my life who have had

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a similar experience, who started out
as skeptics, started out as atheists,

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started out as Muslims, and did
an investigation or opened their heart and their

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eyes and their senses to investigating the
evidence for the faith and coming to believe

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that Jesus is who he claimed to
be, and I just I celebrate all

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of them, and I just I
love to collect these stories of people like

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yourself who were in the spiritual wilderness, and yet God touched your life and

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you came to faith, and these
transformed you as a result. I think

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of the tewod Corinthians five point seventeen
that you know, when we come to

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faith, everything changes. We're not
the same anymore. Knew has come,

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the old is gone. Yeah,
exactly. And the thing is is that

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God welcomes our questions, doesn't Yes. No, And for you, I

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mean, here is God real.
What motivated you to write this book?

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Well, it was interesting. I
normally I've written more than forty books,

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and the usual pattern is I'll come
up with a book I believe God's put

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on my heart, I'll go to
the publisher, we pray about it and

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decide which one I'm going to do
next. But this was different. In

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this case, the publisher came to
me and they said, our tech people

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have discovered something highly unusual. And
they told me the statistic that you had

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just cited earlier, that two hundred
times a second around the planet, someone

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is typing into a computer search engine. Basically, the question is God real?

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Oh my God, If there's that
much curiosity, if there's that many

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people who are truly interested in finding
the truth about God, I want to

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help them and uh. And so
that's what motivated me to write the book.

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I think I had more fun writing
this book than any book I've ever

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done. I don't know why.
I just enjoyed putting it together and remembering

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the days when I went through the
same kind of journey exactly. Well,

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I know that I think it was
maybe a month or so ago, Lee,

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there was this story about Ai Jesus
uh and and you could you could

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ask questions of aid. I didn't
know if you if you check that out

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or not. I was actually interested
enough to, you know, go ahead,

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and I went to the website.
I signed up and started asking questions

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of Ai Jesus. It was it
was a little hysterical, but I you

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know, I told my audience at
the time, I just said, you

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know, this is what you have
to be careful of, is that you

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kind of realize there's the legitimate and
illegitimate. You know, the legitimate comes

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from God, the one who came
to still kill and destroy. He's the

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illegitimate. He will proper the counterfeit
for you, so be careful. Yeah,

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it's very true. In fact,
I went to the artificial intelligence and

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I asked him the question is God
real? And they they gave me this

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very superficial comparison of perspectives, and
then at the end it says I cannot

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give a personal opinion on this matter. Didn't you love that? I know,

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artificial intelligence? Yeah, there there, it is so much for that.

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But you know, why go Why
go to the artificial when you can

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go to the legit? Right,
Yeah, that's right, that's right,

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that's the opportunity. So here it
is, so you meet with the publisher

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comes to you and says, hey, look at we've got all these questions.

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This must be something that you know
is worthy and has merit to to

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do a deeper dive on. So
as you took on the project, did

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this just kind of just open up
immediately and you you just dove into it?

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Or yeah, I thought, you
know, first thing I have to

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do is set out the affirmative case
that yes, God is real. Now,

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there's about twenty lines of evidence and
arguments that you could use to point

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to the truth of Christianity. I
chose several from science and from history,

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and so I began by looking at
science. And you know, there's been

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a series of discoveries over the last
fifty years or so in cosmology, which

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is the origin of the universe,
physics, the fine tuning of the universe,

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and biochemistry, which is the information
inside DNA, that point powerfully and

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persuasively towards the conclusion that God is
real, that there is a supernatural creator.

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In fact, we have more evidence
today from science that supports our belief

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in God than ever before in history. And so I pursued that. And

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then of course I looked at the
resurrection of Jesus, which establishes that Jesus

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didn't just claim to be the God, but he backed up that claim by

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returning from the dead. Looked at
the evidence from experience. You know,

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some people have some incredible supernatural experiences
with God. I talked a bit about

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that as well. But then I
thought, I can't write a book about

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is God real without dealing with the
two biggest objections. So I have a

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chapter on if God is real,
why is there suffering in the world?

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And if God is real, why
does he seem so hidden, and so

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I just enjoy putting it together because
it just reaffirmed to me the strength of

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the evidence that our faith is not
built on myth and mythology or legend or

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make believe or wishful thinking. It's
really built on a solid foundation of truth.

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And I like that you involved,
you know other people in the story,

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Yes, right, yeah. I
see myself as a conduit, and

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I see my role in the Kingdom
as being a translator. So I go

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to these brilliant academic scholars with PhDs
from Cambridge and some have multiple PhDs.

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There's this absolutely brillian it. But
I was trained as a journalist, and

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a journalist asked questions and tries to
present the evidence in a way that they

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can understand. And if I can
understand it, anybody can understand it.

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So I see myself as kind of
a conduit between this academic scholarly war which

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has so much to offer, but
often these individuals aren't really equipped to write

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on a popular level. And then
through my interviews, I try to relicit

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this evidence and then present it as
somebody wants to put it, to put

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the cookies on the bottom shelf,
so that everybody can access them exactly.

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Well, doctor Peter Krave one of
my favorites, Yeah, several times.

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You know. One of my favorite
books that he put together was, you

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know, The Eucharus is a simpler
substance powerful book. Yeah. Yeah,

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he's incredible. He one of the
great philosophers of our time and a funny

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guy. You know. He once
wrote a book called I Surf, Therefore

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I Am, And he's got a
great sense of and he wrote a book

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on suffering and you know, how
there can be suffering in the world,

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in a world that is created by
God. And I thought it was the

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best of its nature, and so
I sought him out. I traveled to

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Boston where he's a professor, spent
the day with him, and it was

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a joy to sit under his teaching
and to deal with this tough question of

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why is there suffering? If God
is loving? Without giving away too much,

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we just want to, you know, give people a little bit of

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taste because we want them to buy
the book, unwrap that just a little

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bit in terms of response of why
is your Yeah, I mean, I

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think every worldview has to wrestle with
this question of why is there suffering in

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the world? Atheists have to deal
with it, pantheus everybody. But I

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think Christianity has the best answer.
And the answer I think is this that

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God has existed from eternity pass as
God, the Father, the Son,

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God, the Holy Spirit in a
perfect love relationship. And so love is

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the greatest value in the universe.
And when God decided to create humankind,

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he wanted us to have the ability
to love. Well. The only way

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he could give us the ability to
love each other and to love him is

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if he gave us free will.
Why because love always involves a choice.

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You know, when my daughter was
little, this is many, this is

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going to date me. But when
she was little, many years ago,

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they had a toy. It was
a doll called Chatty Cathy. Oh yeah,

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lever Chatty. You'd pull a string
on her back and let it go

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and she would talk to you.
So my daughter, I gave her this

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toy, this doll for Christmas,
and she pulls the string and let's go,

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and the doll says to her,
I love you, which was as

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good as the technology was that you
love her. No, of course not.

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It was programmed to say that.
It had to say that that's not

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love. Love always involves a choice, and so God gave us free will,

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free choice, But what have we
done with that? We've denied God,

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We've turned our back from God.
We've hurt each other. You know,

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I could take my hand and using
my free will, I could feed

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a hungry person, or I can
take that same hand and pick up a

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gun and kill an innocent person.
But if I pick up a gun and

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kill an innocent person, it's a
little disingenuous to say, God, why

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do you allow suffering in the world? Exact, we're the problem right pretty

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well up right there, so and
you know we are in this fallen world.

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Yeah, the things that are antithical
to God, against his plan,

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against everything that he had set up
for us. The thing, the very

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thing that he even told Cain that
if you do well, will it will

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it not go? If you do
right, will it not go well for

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you? And that really speaks to
the millennia that God had established an infrastructure,

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a system, you know, that
that we would be blessed by and

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that we could bless others. And
if we were true to that, it

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would go, it would go well
for us. And you know there is

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the divide, isn't it yeah.
You know, in my interview with doctor

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Crieft, one of the things he
said that I'll never forget. He said,

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you know, there's a verse Romans
eight twenty eight that Christians like to

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use a lot. It says that
God will cause all things to work together

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for good to those who love Him
and those who are called according to His

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purpose. So, in other words, God can take the sufferings in our

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life and the things that befall us, and he can't and promises that in

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this world or the next he will
cause good to emerge. And Peter said,

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you know, there's a lot of
skepticism about that because people say,

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you know, how could God possibly
draw any good from my suffering? My

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suffering is too great. I think
in my own wife, Leslie, who

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has a neuromuscular condition, and she's
been in pain every day for twenty years,

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and she'll be in pain every day
for the rest of her life unless

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God does a miracle and heals her
because it's an incurable condition. You wonder,

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how can God draw anything good from
the suffering that she's had for twenty

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years? And then he said this, He said, think about this.

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God took the worst possible thing that
could ever happen in the universe, which

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is the death of the Son of
God and across and from that, he

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has created the best possible thing that's
ever happened in the universe, which is

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the opening of Heaven to all who
follow him. So if God can take

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the worst thing in the universe and
turn it into the best thing in the

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universe, we can trust that He
can take even the sufferings that we go

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through and draw good from them in
the end. I thought that was a

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profound Yeah, without a doubt.
Wow, well leave it, leave it

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to doctor Creed. Yeah, yeah, we'll come up with that. But

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well, that's one of the best
responses I've ever heard. Me too,

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I was just I was really moved
by that response. I think sometimes we

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think we're beyond God's help, you
know, And even though suffering isn't good,

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God does use it for good in
our lives, you know. He

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uses it to draw people to Christ. How many people have come to Christ

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because of suffering in their life.
He uses it to sharpen our character.

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He uses it to discipline us when
we're walking down the wrong path. And

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the only thing he can do to
get us on the right path is to

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discipline us. So you know,
God can and does use difficulties in our

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life for our good. And then
we say, well, why doesn't he

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just why doesn't He just come back
now and end history and end all the

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suffering and all the evil. And
it's interesting when you think about that,

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because the Bible does tell us that
the day will come when evil will be

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judged and the suffering will cease.
But why doesn't God come back? And

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the Bible tells us why. In
Second Peter, it tells us that God

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is holding back the consummation of history. He's holding back the curtain of history

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because there are yet some people who
are going to enter into the Kingdom of

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God. And out of his love, he wants to hold back the end

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of time so that those last remaining
people can come into the kingdom. That's

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an example of God's love. Not
you know that he's somehow dilly dallying and

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waiting around while we live in a
very troubled world. Well, you know,

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it was asked to Jesus, you
know when these things you know,

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happen, When when will that final
time come? And Jesus, you know,

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you know, admitt is I don't
I don't even know. Only the

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Father knows, right, Yeah,
yeah, exactly. And the fact that

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he loves people so much that there
are those I mean, I have people

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in my life who are far from
God, who are atheists, who are

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skeptics, who are members of other
religions, and and I thank God that

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He has not come back yet,
because then it's too late for them.

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There's still hope that He's going to
wait until some of them are going to

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bend their knee, bend their knee, receive Jesus as their Lord and savior,

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and come into the Kingdom of God. Well, it really keeps the

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pressure on those of us who praying
for them, right, because we don't

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want them to end up an eternal
damnation, you know. So that also,

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you know, draws us closer to
God and keeps us accountable, right,

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it does. And you know,
one of the interesting things is as

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you read the account of the Crucifixion
in the original Greek in which it was

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written, one of the things you
notice is that the imperfect tents of the

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Greek suggests that Jesus didn't just say
it once, but he kept repeating it

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all through the torture of the Crucifixion. He kept praying it, Father,

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forgive them, Father, forgive them, Father, forgive it, for they

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know not what they do. So
Jesus. Prayers for spiritually lost people continued

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right up until his final gasps on
the cross, and his British pastor John

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Stott said, and light of that, how can we justify not praying consistently

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and fervently and expectantly for spiritually lost
people in our lives and men? We're

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talking with Lee Strobel his new book
Is God Real, exploring the ultimate question

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of life? We addressed one of
those. Another one is why is God

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so hiddenly? Yeah, yeah,
you know, a lot of this has

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become the number two objection to the
existence of God. You know, the

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number one objection is if there's God, why would there be suffering? And

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then other people say, if God
is real and he wants to have a

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relationship with us, why is he
so hidden? Why is he hard to

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find? And it's a legitimate question. In fact, it was popularized in

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twenty twenty when John Steingard, who
was the lead singer of a Christian rock

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group called Hawk Nelson, famously walked
away from the faith because he said God

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is hidden and therefore he doesn't exist. So it's become a popular objection.

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I think part of the answer is
I interviewed a scholar on this area,

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and he was an aspiring baseball player
in his early days, and he said,

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I liken the answer to the game
of baseball. In baseball, you

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have a picture and you have a
catcher. And he said, the picture

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represents Jesus and the ketcher represents us. So he says, where does this

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hidden this problem really lie. Does
it lie with the picture or with the

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catcher? And he says, Biblically, we learn that it really lies with

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the catcher. It lies with us. Because Roman one, verse twenty says

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God has made himself sufficiently known from
creation. The evidence is there in creation

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for us to know that He exists. So much so it says that we

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are without excuse. And yet what
do we do? We suppress that knowledge.

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In fact, the Greek imagery there
of suppressing the knowledge of God is

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that when the awareness of God begins
to rise in us, we push it

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down like a pedal, and then
when it rises again in us, we

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push it down again, we push
it down again. So, for various

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reasons, so often we don't want
to know God. We don't want there

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to be a God because we want
to be God in our universe, so

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to speak. And there are a
lot of even psychological reasons why people fend

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off God, and reasons because they
want to continue in their sin, or

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they want God to come to them
on their terms, not to him on

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his terms. And so really the
problem is basically with us. And then

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if you think about this, think
about the times in history where God made

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himself so obvious that you just couldn't
ignore it. For instance, when he

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was leading the Israelites through the desert
or when he parted the Red Sea.

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His deeds were so obvious, and
yet what happened. Did Israel then say,

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oh, my goodness, God is
real, let's follow him. Know

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that Israel fell into apostasy again.
So who's to think that if God were

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to write in the sky, hey, guys, gals, I'm here,

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that we would all enter into a
relationship with them. No, I mean,

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our tendency is to fall back into
sin and fall back into apostasy.

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In fact, God's goal is not
that we come to believe that he exists.

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No, his goal is that we
would enter into relationship with him,

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they would receive his gift of grace, it would become born again. That

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would be we would enter into the
Kingdom of God and spend eternity with him.

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So it's not just a matter of
knowing that he's there. So there's

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a lot to that question. And
and uh, the person I interviewed,

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Kenneth Samples, I think there's a
good job in that chapter of bringing all

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the pieces of that together in a
satisfactory way. Well, you know,

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and the thing is, you know, for me, I wake up each

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day, I look out. I
see the skies here in Florida. We

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got geckos and lizards watching the place. Gechoes everywhere in Florida. Yeah,

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I mean, hey, look at
it. If they can be in you

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know, the Bible says that they
they reside in the castles of Kings Florida.

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Well, but you know, it
just it just blows me away.

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I mean, God's handiwork is the
Bible right before you. How do you

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deny that? I just I'm in
awe. And to your point, in

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establishing and developing that relationship, you
become more in awe. It's like when

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you first met your wife, you
thought, wow, you know this is

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a nice person, and as time
went on and his experience, as you've

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developed together, your love for her
just grows deeper and deeper. That's a

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great example. I love that,
Bill, I love that illustration. That's

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a great example of how because we
just had our fifty first anniversary and our

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love is deeper and stronger today than
ever. And you're right, my relationship

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with God continues to grow deeper and
more robust and profound and resilient over the

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years as I continue to relate to
Him personally exactly well. And the other

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thing too, is that you know
you mentioned the passion, you know,

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when the veil was torn and we
go direct to God. I mean,

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that's just hugely significant. You know, it blows me away that with all

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the things, because nothing happens in
God's sphere of who he is, that

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happens by accident. Everything is for
a purpose under the sun, isn't it.

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It really is. And you know
He created us as rational creatures because

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God is rational, and so because
we are rational creatures, it's natural for

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us to look for evidence for God. And that's why I wrote this book

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to say to people, hey,
open your eyes and look at science,

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look at history, look at philosophy. There is compelling and clear, persuasive

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and powerful evidence that not only is
God real, but Jesus is his unique

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son, that Christianity is true.
Yeah, exactly because we you know,

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and as you mentioned, as stiff
neck as the Israelites were, and it's

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a human condition, you know,
we want to have it our way.

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We're the personification of the Book of
Judges. Were just going through this cycle,

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seeing things according to our own manner
and liking and you know, then

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we end up in the middle of
some shaking back in those days where the

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Israelites they were enslaved in a way, here we are spiritually enslaved. Yeah,

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very much. So we may not
understand and discern that quite but because

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you have to be spiritually aware to
realize that you are actually in bondage.

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You're part of the walking wounded,
and you don't even know that you're leaking

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an oil. You know, that's
true. That's true. And you know,

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people sometimes say, well, you
know, I'm honestly seeking God and

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yet I don't find him, And
I say a couple of things to that.

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Number one, just because you haven't
found him yet doesn't mean you won't

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The Bible says in the Old Testament
Jeremiah and the New Testament Hebrew that those

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who sincerely seek God will find Him, so it's not over you. If

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you're sincerely seeking, that's a good
thing. But sometimes people have psychological barriers

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they're not even aware of. I'll
give you an example. I had a

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very difficult relationship with my father.
And when you study the famous atheist of

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history Camu Sart, Nietzsche, Freud, Voltaire, Wells, Feuerbach O'Hare,

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every single one of them either had
a father who died when they were young,

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divorced their mother when they were young, or with whom they had a

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very difficult relationship. And the implication
is that if your earthly father has disappointed

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you or let you down, or
hurt you or abuse you, you don't

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want to know about a heavenly father
because you think he's only going to be

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worse, and so you may not
even some people may not even be aware.

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I wasn't aware of this at the
time that this may have been one

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of the factors that helped lead me
down the path of atheism. But C.

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S. Lewis had a brilliant comeback
for this. He said, you

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know, if you find yourself in
this position, imagine what would the perfect

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father be like? Just imagine what
would the perfect father. Oh, well,

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he'd be loving, he'd be kind, he'd be gracious, he'd embrace

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you, he'd be your biggest cheerleader. That is a picture of your heavenly

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Father. Your heavenly Father is not
just a magnified version of your earthly father.

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He is otherworldly. He is different. He is good, he is

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kind, he is compassionate. He
loves you with the love that goes beyond

411
00:29:21.839 --> 00:29:26.720
anything you can imagine. And when
you can imagine, oh that is God,

412
00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:30.079
that's the perfect Father, then sometimes
he can get you out of this

413
00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:36.759
rut of a psychological sticking point that's
keeping you away from God. So I

414
00:29:36.759 --> 00:29:38.799
think sometimes people aren't even aware of
some of the ways, some of the

415
00:29:38.839 --> 00:29:42.400
factors that are pushing them away from
God. And I think the best thing

416
00:29:42.480 --> 00:29:48.880
that people can do if they if
they're not a believer, if they're a

417
00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:55.079
skeptic or someone who just doesn't understand
what Christianity is about, I would say,

418
00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:57.920
you know what, why don't you
take fifteen seconds of your life and

419
00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:02.559
pray a prayer, and in that
prayer say God, I don't believe you're

420
00:30:02.559 --> 00:30:06.880
there. In fact, i'm convinced
you're not. If you are, I

421
00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:08.920
want to know you. Yeah.
I prayed that prayer when I was an

422
00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:12.759
atheist and began my investigation into the
evidence. And guess what, God revealed

423
00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:18.480
himself to me through the evidence that
I encountered, and I thank God that

424
00:30:18.519 --> 00:30:22.119
he did. But I think that's
the kind of prayer that God loves to

425
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:27.160
answer, you know. Hebrew says, God rewards those who sincerely seek him.

426
00:30:27.319 --> 00:30:30.799
Yeah, and we're also told that
we don't have because we don't ask,

427
00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:34.920
right, Yes, that simple.
The other thing too, Lee,

428
00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:37.480
when I'm hearing you talk about this. I had a dear friend of mine

429
00:30:38.039 --> 00:30:45.359
and he had special insight in dealing
with people in his organization, and what

430
00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:52.960
he could discern was that people had
this self evaluation that reduced their significance.

431
00:30:53.000 --> 00:31:00.519
They felt unworthy. And it's amazing
to realize how predominant that's sense of unworthiness

432
00:31:02.200 --> 00:31:07.480
is in hanity. Right absolutely.
I mean think about this. Our self

433
00:31:07.640 --> 00:31:15.759
esteem is based on who the more
most important person is in your life and

434
00:31:15.799 --> 00:31:18.559
what you think he thinks about you. So who's the most important person in

435
00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:22.480
your life? Is it? Your
Is it your father, is it your

436
00:31:22.519 --> 00:31:25.839
boss at work? Is it your
best friend, is it your spouse?

437
00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:30.119
Whoever you're the most important person in
your life is whatever you think they think

438
00:31:30.160 --> 00:31:34.680
about you determines what your self esteem
is. Well, if the most important

439
00:31:34.680 --> 00:31:38.119
person in your life is God,
we know what he thinks about you.

440
00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:41.200
He loves you, he created you, he wants to be in a relationship

441
00:31:41.240 --> 00:31:45.400
with you for eternity. And so
you talk about something that turns around your

442
00:31:45.400 --> 00:31:51.119
self esteem and your your self image. And if the most important person in

443
00:31:51.160 --> 00:31:53.880
your life is God, you know
what he thinks about you. You don't

444
00:31:53.920 --> 00:31:57.640
have to wonder about if it's if
it's your boss at work or something.

445
00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:00.960
If that's the most important person your
life and you think that he thinks you're

446
00:32:01.319 --> 00:32:07.359
a half wit, you're going to
have a poor self esteem when you think

447
00:32:07.400 --> 00:32:10.640
about Lee, he's so committed he
sent his son to bring you back home.

448
00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:15.200
Yeah, it's mind blowing. It's
mind blowing. And you know,

449
00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:17.519
for Jesus to undergo the torture of
the cross, I mean, in my

450
00:32:17.559 --> 00:32:22.640
book The Case for Christ, I
interview a medical doctor about what actually happens

451
00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:27.559
the human body during the crucifixion and
it's it's horrendous. In fact, the

452
00:32:27.880 --> 00:32:31.240
word crucifixion comes from the Latin means
out of the cross. They had to

453
00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:37.279
invent a new word to describe the
torture of the cross. And so why

454
00:32:37.279 --> 00:32:40.640
would he willingly? He willingly did
that. He didn't have to, He

455
00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:45.000
could have come down from across at
any time, and yet he didn't.

456
00:32:45.079 --> 00:32:50.359
Why because he loves us, Because
through his death and the cross as our

457
00:32:50.440 --> 00:32:53.440
substitute, he was paying the sin
for the sins that we've committed. He

458
00:32:53.480 --> 00:32:58.480
was paying the penalty we deserve for
the sins that we've committed, so that

459
00:32:58.480 --> 00:33:01.119
he could offer forgiveness and he turn
life as a free gift of his grace.

460
00:33:01.720 --> 00:33:07.079
And you know what an expression of
love that is? Well, And

461
00:33:07.559 --> 00:33:09.920
the thing is about God. God
wants us to be free. I mean

462
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:16.359
even in our Constitution it denotes it
says our inalienable rights, you know,

463
00:33:16.480 --> 00:33:21.039
life, liberty, the pursuit of
having this they come from God, right,

464
00:33:21.319 --> 00:33:23.519
at least God given rights. Freedom. And that's what Jesus gave us,

465
00:33:23.559 --> 00:33:28.200
gave us freedom from sin and death. On that fraus. Yes,

466
00:33:28.680 --> 00:33:30.960
if that doesn't blow you away,
I don't know what else you need to

467
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:35.480
hear. I know, I know, and you know, Christmas season is

468
00:33:35.519 --> 00:33:38.599
coming up and we sing these great
carols, and one of the great lines

469
00:33:38.680 --> 00:33:45.960
of any Christmas carol is to me
where it says God and sinners reconcile exactly,

470
00:33:46.079 --> 00:33:51.160
that's simple. What is that God
and sinners right for words forwards?

471
00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:53.880
And I hear that, and I
get I tear up when we sing those

472
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:58.599
words, because it says it all. That's what Christmas is, That's what

473
00:33:58.640 --> 00:34:04.440
Easter is. Is God in centers
reconcile Amen. In your book, you

474
00:34:04.480 --> 00:34:08.079
know, this is another question that
people wonder about, and that is,

475
00:34:08.760 --> 00:34:14.679
you know, God is the creator? Yes, yeah, exactly. And

476
00:34:14.840 --> 00:34:17.760
you know what's fascinating about that is
we've had a series of discoveries just in

477
00:34:17.760 --> 00:34:21.960
the last fifty years in this area
of the origin of the universe. Is

478
00:34:21.960 --> 00:34:25.320
he is there a creator of the
universe? And what did we find?

479
00:34:25.719 --> 00:34:30.079
We found that even though for centuries, for centuries, scientists were convinced that

480
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:36.039
the universe was static, it always
existed, it didn't change. And yet

481
00:34:36.039 --> 00:34:39.599
we now know from scientific discoveries about
the expansion of the universe that the universe

482
00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:44.760
began to exist at a point in
time in the past. Well, that's

483
00:34:44.800 --> 00:34:49.960
a profound discovery. Alexander V.
Lincoln, the cosmologist at Toughts University,

484
00:34:50.079 --> 00:34:55.320
said scientists can no longer hide behind
the fact that there is a beginning to

485
00:34:55.360 --> 00:35:00.480
the universe. In other words,
this is significant why because it raises this

486
00:35:00.639 --> 00:35:07.480
argument if whatever begins to exist has
a cause. We now know that the

487
00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:13.440
universe began to exist. Therefore the
universe has a cause behind it exactly.

488
00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:15.519
But then you think, what kind
of a cause can bring a universe into

489
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:21.599
existence? Well, must be transcendent
because he exists apart from creation. Must

490
00:35:21.679 --> 00:35:27.039
be spirit or immaterial because he existed
before the physical world. Must be eternal

491
00:35:27.079 --> 00:35:31.679
because he existed before time was created. Must be powerful given the immensity of

492
00:35:31.719 --> 00:35:36.840
the creation event. Must be smart
given the precision of the creation event.

493
00:35:37.239 --> 00:35:39.840
Must be personal because he had to
make the decision to create. Must be

494
00:35:39.960 --> 00:35:44.719
creative because look at the universe and
the great beauty there. He must be

495
00:35:44.840 --> 00:35:49.119
loving because he crafted a perfect habitat
for us to flourish in. And then

496
00:35:49.159 --> 00:35:52.159
the scientific principle of Oakham's razor tell
us that it'd be just one creator.

497
00:35:52.719 --> 00:35:58.719
So what do we got? Transcendent, spirit, eternal, powerful, smart,

498
00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:04.400
personal, creative, loving, unique. That is a description of the

499
00:36:04.400 --> 00:36:08.440
God of the Bible, and that
comes right out of modern cosmology. Wow.

500
00:36:09.039 --> 00:36:13.480
Well, you know, I got
to tell you one one chapter in

501
00:36:13.519 --> 00:36:16.480
particular, uh was a little bit
of a challenge for me, and that

502
00:36:16.639 --> 00:36:22.159
was, you know, the universe
reflects a fine tuner. And the way

503
00:36:22.199 --> 00:36:27.800
I've always looked at God in terms
of his design and infrastructure was all these

504
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:35.440
laws were set and determined by him, the boundary of the oceans that you

505
00:36:35.480 --> 00:36:38.000
know. That's why for me,
you know, it's it's laughable when people

506
00:36:38.039 --> 00:36:42.480
want to talk about climate just for
me, you know, because I said

507
00:36:42.519 --> 00:36:45.639
early on, I can imagine God, you know, going to Saint Peter

508
00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:47.159
and saying, hey, I thought
I told you to fix that. You

509
00:36:47.199 --> 00:36:53.320
know, really it was so silly
because all the way, you know,

510
00:36:53.639 --> 00:36:59.760
when when you study the ways of
God, the names of God and appreciate

511
00:37:00.480 --> 00:37:05.480
his magnificence, you know, and
even when you read the Bible everything,

512
00:37:05.639 --> 00:37:08.039
you know with specific detail. Okay, I'm just here, I want you

513
00:37:08.079 --> 00:37:12.480
to build a tent. This is
how everything's going to come better, right,

514
00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:16.360
right exactly, So like He's going
to be willy nilly about the universe,

515
00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:22.760
right, you know, it's it
is fascinating. Here's the illustration I

516
00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:25.039
use. If you go out I'm
in Colorado right now, and if I

517
00:37:25.079 --> 00:37:29.400
were to go up the rocky mountains
on a summer night and look up at

518
00:37:29.400 --> 00:37:32.199
the sky and you see thousands of
stars. What if you went up one

519
00:37:32.280 --> 00:37:36.360
night and you looked up at the
sky and you didn't see thousands of stars.

520
00:37:36.360 --> 00:37:39.639
What if instead you saw fifty to
one hundred giant dials in the universe,

521
00:37:40.159 --> 00:37:45.000
and each dial could be calibrated to
one of trillions or trillions of possible

522
00:37:45.079 --> 00:37:52.239
settings, and yet every dial is
exactly calibrated so that life can exist.

523
00:37:52.519 --> 00:37:58.360
That is the picture that modern physics
gives us of our universe. It defies

524
00:37:58.440 --> 00:38:01.440
the explanation that this could possibly have
happened by chance, because it is so

525
00:38:01.559 --> 00:38:05.440
finely tuned. I'll give you one
of my favorite examples. The law of

526
00:38:05.480 --> 00:38:07.320
gravity. You know, if I
take this pen and drop it, the

527
00:38:07.400 --> 00:38:10.960
law of gravity says it's going to
hit the ground. But the law of

528
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.599
gravity has been set at the exact
right value so that life can exist.

529
00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:22.079
How exact is it if you were
to take the entire universe fifteen billion light

530
00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:28.760
year with of the universe and put
a ruler across the universe, broken down

531
00:38:28.800 --> 00:38:34.039
in one inch increments. This represents
the plausible range along which the force of

532
00:38:34.079 --> 00:38:37.400
gravity could have been set anywhere along
that ruler, and yet it's set at

533
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:42.599
the exact right place so that life
can exist. What if we changed the

534
00:38:42.639 --> 00:38:47.079
force of gravity one inch compared to
the fifteen billion light year with of the

535
00:38:47.199 --> 00:38:52.400
universe, all of a sudden,
intelligent life is impossible anywhere in the universe.

536
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:55.079
That's just one of the dials.
We have fifty to one hundred of

537
00:38:55.119 --> 00:38:59.840
these dials. We have three hundred
and twenty conditions that have to be perfect

538
00:39:00.119 --> 00:39:02.639
so that life could exist on planet
Earth. It is mind bowing. When

539
00:39:02.639 --> 00:39:07.039
I asked a famous physicist, I
said, what are the odds that's going

540
00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:08.679
to just happen by chance? He
looked at me and he said, you

541
00:39:08.679 --> 00:39:10.920
know, we scientists have a term
for that. I said, oh,

542
00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:20.119
what he said ain't going to happen. So you know it demands a creator,

543
00:39:20.679 --> 00:39:23.480
Yeah, without a doubt. In
much the same way as the study

544
00:39:23.519 --> 00:39:29.079
of our DNA. You get these
modern scientists right now, and these doctors

545
00:39:29.119 --> 00:39:31.440
that think that they can, you
know, change sexes and the things that

546
00:39:31.440 --> 00:39:37.199
they're doing to our kids. It's
just horrific. And you know, and

547
00:39:37.239 --> 00:39:39.199
these these kids are realizing. And
of course, Lee, I got to

548
00:39:39.239 --> 00:39:45.679
tell you, I'm shocked at myself
because as I am reading more and more

549
00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:49.079
about it, I go, where
was I? I mean, this has

550
00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:52.719
been going on for you know,
last twenty or so years. It's only

551
00:39:52.760 --> 00:39:55.480
now that we're finding out about it. Yeah, that's true. Where where

552
00:39:55.639 --> 00:39:59.119
was we? All? Yeah?
Yeah, Well, you know. The

553
00:39:59.559 --> 00:40:02.440
fascina thing about DNA, I think
is we have one hundred trillion cells in

554
00:40:02.480 --> 00:40:08.679
our body. If you just open
up one microscopic cell and un plural the

555
00:40:08.840 --> 00:40:15.159
DNA from its double helix is unwounded, it would be six feet tall and

556
00:40:15.320 --> 00:40:21.639
embedded in that DNA is a four
letter chemical alphabet that spells out the precise

557
00:40:21.679 --> 00:40:24.679
assembly instructions for every protein out of
which our bodies are made. So,

558
00:40:24.920 --> 00:40:29.880
just like English uses a twenty six
letter alphabet, God has used a four

559
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.639
letter chemical alphabet to spell out the
instructions for how we are to be constructed.

560
00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:39.079
In fact, get this, there
are more words inside every cell in

561
00:40:39.119 --> 00:40:44.400
your body than we find in two
hundred years of the Sunday New York Times,

562
00:40:45.079 --> 00:40:49.320
more words than the Encyclopedia Britannica.
In every cell in your body,

563
00:40:49.480 --> 00:40:53.440
where does information come from? Whenever
you see information, whether it's a computer

564
00:40:53.519 --> 00:40:57.480
code, whether it's a book,
whether it's a painting on a cave wall,

565
00:40:57.800 --> 00:41:02.239
there is always, always, always
an intelligence behind it, exactly.

566
00:41:02.239 --> 00:41:07.440
And so you know nature can't produce
an information. It can produce patterns.

567
00:41:07.719 --> 00:41:10.280
So if you like, I live
in a lot of my life down with

568
00:41:10.400 --> 00:41:15.000
near my grandkids in Texas, and
if I go down to the Gulf of

569
00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:19.559
Mexico on an early morning and the
sand is wet and I see ripple marks

570
00:41:19.559 --> 00:41:22.679
in the sand, I could say, well, nature made those ripple marks.

571
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:28.079
The waves made those ripple marks,
because nature can create patterns. But

572
00:41:28.119 --> 00:41:31.239
if I go down that beach and
in the sand I see John Loves Mary

573
00:41:31.599 --> 00:41:36.519
with an arrow with a heart around
it and an arrow through it, I

574
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:40.400
would not say, oh, the
waves created that. Why? Because nature

575
00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:47.119
cannot produce information. It always comes
from an intelligence. Where does the information

576
00:41:47.360 --> 00:41:52.000
inside every cell in our body come
from? I believe it comes from a

577
00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:59.960
divine creator. Right in the book
is God real? You address we touch

578
00:42:00.199 --> 00:42:05.440
on Easter, Yes, and it
shows that Jesus is God. Yes,

579
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:10.320
exactly because Jesus may transcendent, messianic
and divine claims about himself. He claimed

580
00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:14.000
to be the son of God.
In fact, in John ten, verse

581
00:42:14.039 --> 00:42:16.440
thirty, he gets up before a
group and he says, I and the

582
00:42:16.519 --> 00:42:22.039
Father are one. And the Greek
word there for one is not masculine's neuter,

583
00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:25.199
which means Jesus was not saying I
and the Father are the same person.

584
00:42:25.480 --> 00:42:29.480
He was saying, I and the
Father are the same thing, were

585
00:42:29.519 --> 00:42:32.039
one in nature, were one in
essence. And the audience understood what he

586
00:42:32.079 --> 00:42:35.880
was saying because they've picked up stones
to kill him. He said, you

587
00:42:35.880 --> 00:42:38.320
you're just a man, and you're
claiming to be God. Jesus claimed to

588
00:42:38.360 --> 00:42:42.039
be God. But Bill, you
could claim to be God. I could.

589
00:42:42.119 --> 00:42:45.840
Anybody could claim to be God.
But if Jesus claimed to be God

590
00:42:45.360 --> 00:42:50.800
died and then three days later rose
from the dead, that's pretty good evidence

591
00:42:50.800 --> 00:42:53.760
he's telling the truth. So the
evidence, you know. The apostle Paul

592
00:42:53.800 --> 00:42:57.400
said, you know, if Christ
has not been raised, your faith is

593
00:42:57.400 --> 00:43:00.119
feudal. You're still in your sins. In other words, this is a

594
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:05.400
ballgame. And so I interviewed in
this book doctor Michael Lacona, one of

595
00:43:05.400 --> 00:43:09.880
the great resurrection scholars in the world
with a PhD from Pratoria in South Africa,

596
00:43:10.840 --> 00:43:15.760
and he builds a case for the
resurrection of Jesus that I believe is

597
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:22.000
clear and compelling and tells us without
doubt that Jesus not only claimed to be

598
00:43:22.039 --> 00:43:24.719
the son of God, he backed
up that claim by returning from the dead.

599
00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:29.679
And then look at all the witnesses
that could yes, right, you

600
00:43:29.719 --> 00:43:34.199
know what's interesting. We have hundreds
of witnesses to the resurrected Jesus. But

601
00:43:34.280 --> 00:43:36.960
what's interesting to me is, you
know, when we look at ancient history

602
00:43:37.039 --> 00:43:40.320
and we say, what are some
facts about ancient history that we believe are

603
00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:46.119
true? Most of the time those
facts that we believe about ancient history are

604
00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:52.199
based on one source of information or
two sources of information. And yet for

605
00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:55.840
the conviction of the disciples that they
encountered the resurrected Jesus, we have no

606
00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:04.320
fewer than nine ancient sources in side
and outside the New Testament confirming and corroborating

607
00:44:04.360 --> 00:44:08.280
the conviction of the disciples that they
encountered the risen Jesus. That is an

608
00:44:08.320 --> 00:44:13.960
avalanche of historical data. And by
the way, these eyewitness accounts they don't

609
00:44:13.960 --> 00:44:17.719
come one hundred years later, when
legend could develop. We have a report

610
00:44:17.800 --> 00:44:22.880
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
including named eyewitnesses and groups of eyewitnesses,

611
00:44:23.119 --> 00:44:28.159
that has been dated back by scholars. Two within months of his death,

612
00:44:28.280 --> 00:44:31.000
within months, far too quick to
write it off as a legend. Yeah,

613
00:44:31.039 --> 00:44:35.079
without a doubt. And then you
had, you know, hundreds of

614
00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:39.239
his disciples, he appeared to his
apostles. We had you know, the

615
00:44:39.320 --> 00:44:45.719
women who, interestingly enough, of
all people who would be the first,

616
00:44:45.199 --> 00:44:49.480
the first of the genders, if
he could put it that way, that

617
00:44:50.079 --> 00:44:54.679
would acknowledge that Jesus was no longer
in the two. This is very significant

618
00:44:54.719 --> 00:45:00.320
because in the ancient world the testimony
of women was not general really considered to

619
00:45:00.360 --> 00:45:05.480
be reliable. They were not generally
allowed to be testifying in courts of law.

620
00:45:05.840 --> 00:45:08.920
They weren't considered to be credible source
of information. And so if the

621
00:45:08.960 --> 00:45:14.519
gospel writers were going to invent the
story of the empty two, if they

622
00:45:14.559 --> 00:45:16.519
were going to make it up,
they would say, well, John discovered

623
00:45:16.519 --> 00:45:21.239
the too empty, Peter discovered the
too empty, some man discover the too

624
00:45:21.239 --> 00:45:24.159
empty. And yet they say it
was women that discovered the too empty,

625
00:45:24.360 --> 00:45:28.559
that hurt their own case. In
fact, we have records in the second

626
00:45:28.559 --> 00:45:32.480
century of opponents of Christianity saying,
well, you can't trust that because women

627
00:45:32.559 --> 00:45:37.480
discover the too empty. You can't
believe that, so it hurt their case.

628
00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:42.000
So why did they say that women
discovered the too empty? Because that's

629
00:45:42.039 --> 00:45:45.599
what happened, and they were committed
to reporting the truth and letting the chips

630
00:45:45.599 --> 00:45:51.039
fall where they may. And any
historian will tell you when a writer from

631
00:45:51.079 --> 00:45:55.400
ancient history includes an embarrassing fact such
as women discovering the too empty, they're

632
00:45:55.440 --> 00:46:00.800
probably telling the truth, because why
would you say that if it weren't true.

633
00:46:00.800 --> 00:46:06.760
It only hurts your case exactly.
Another chapter, you go into detail

634
00:46:06.800 --> 00:46:13.119
about experiencing God. Yes, this
is fascinating to me because I don't know

635
00:46:13.119 --> 00:46:16.119
about you, but you know I
sens God's presence from time to time.

636
00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:22.360
I did have a prophetic dream as
a child that came true about twenty years

637
00:46:22.440 --> 00:46:29.679
later. But I've never heard the
voice of God. I've never and yet

638
00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:35.400
they are are credible people whose lives
are been transformed because of personal experiences you

639
00:46:35.519 --> 00:46:39.360
had with God. And I'll give
you one example. Evil can Evil Evil

640
00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:45.239
Canievil was the famous motorcycle daredevil rider
who would jump motorcycles over cars and trucks

641
00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:50.920
and canyons and fountains and stuff.
He was a bad dude. Evil Caniva

642
00:46:51.039 --> 00:46:53.400
was a gambler. He was a
womanizer. He was a drunk. He

643
00:46:53.480 --> 00:46:58.280
once beat up a business associated with
a baseball bat and went to prison for

644
00:46:58.360 --> 00:47:00.760
it. He was a bad dude. But in his later years, he

645
00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:06.599
was standing on the beach in Florida
and near Clearwater, I believe, and

646
00:47:07.119 --> 00:47:09.280
he said, God spoke to me
on the inside. He said, I

647
00:47:09.280 --> 00:47:13.960
didn't hear the words, I felt
the words. And God said to me,

648
00:47:14.159 --> 00:47:16.719
Robert, which was his real name, Robert, I've saved you more

649
00:47:16.760 --> 00:47:20.599
times than you'll ever know. Now
you need to come to me through my

650
00:47:20.639 --> 00:47:23.679
son Jesus. And he was rocked
by that because he said, I don't

651
00:47:23.679 --> 00:47:28.039
even know who Jesus is. So
he called the only Christian he knew,

652
00:47:28.079 --> 00:47:30.719
Frank Gifford, the former sports guest, and he said, Frank, I

653
00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:34.880
know you're a Christian. I've had
this experience. Tell me who Jesus is.

654
00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:37.840
And Frank said, read the book
The Case for Christ. That'll explain

655
00:47:37.880 --> 00:47:42.039
it to you. He got in
my book he read it. Evil and

656
00:47:42.159 --> 00:47:46.440
Evil had the most radical born again
conversion of almost anybody I've ever encountered,

657
00:47:46.679 --> 00:47:52.239
one hundred and eighty degree turned in
his morality and his attitudes and his relationships.

658
00:47:52.519 --> 00:47:57.480
Everything was transformed. And when he
was baptized, he told his story,

659
00:47:57.920 --> 00:48:00.599
and then he looked at people he
said, have you men, Jesus

660
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:06.079
has he changed your life? And
it was so sincere and so childlike and

661
00:48:06.159 --> 00:48:10.760
so coming from the heart that the
pastor ripped up his sermon and he said,

662
00:48:10.840 --> 00:48:15.679
y'all have heard the gospel. If
you want to come up right now

663
00:48:15.719 --> 00:48:19.559
and receive Christ be baptized right here
with Evil? Can evil? Then I

664
00:48:19.599 --> 00:48:22.159
want you to get up and come
forward. This church, by the way,

665
00:48:22.159 --> 00:48:27.800
had never had an alter call.
And guess what happened. Seven hundred

666
00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:31.960
people got up, came forward,
received Christ, and were baptized at two

667
00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:36.679
services. Can you imagine what went
through the mind of the pastor when that

668
00:48:36.719 --> 00:48:39.800
happened. Oh my goodness, it
was like Pentecost was breaking out. And

669
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:44.639
then when Evil died about a year
later, at his request, on his

670
00:48:44.719 --> 00:48:50.559
tombstone it says, Robert Evil,
Can evil believe in Jesus Christ? So

671
00:48:51.199 --> 00:48:55.239
there's a guy who had an experience
of God that is more profound than any

672
00:48:55.320 --> 00:48:59.599
experience I've ever had. And yet
because it's credible, because he had no

673
00:48:59.639 --> 00:49:02.039
reason to make that up, because
he has no other way to explain this

674
00:49:02.039 --> 00:49:06.960
one hundred eighty degree turn his life. It bolsters my faith to know that,

675
00:49:07.039 --> 00:49:10.960
you know what, God still speaks
to people. He still does miraculous

676
00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:15.480
things in people's lives. Well,
and as you say, you know,

677
00:49:15.599 --> 00:49:19.360
that's one story, and a lot
of people remember evil can evil. In

678
00:49:19.400 --> 00:49:23.360
fact, I had an opportunity to
interview them when interview him when I was

679
00:49:23.400 --> 00:49:28.400
in Los Angeles radio, and he
was you know, no doubt he was

680
00:49:28.400 --> 00:49:31.679
a character. He was a character, a fun interview. But you know,

681
00:49:31.880 --> 00:49:37.679
for people who think I'm not worthy, why should God worry about me?

682
00:49:37.159 --> 00:49:42.199
And then you hear the stories like
this of evil and evil and maybe

683
00:49:42.199 --> 00:49:47.280
it's somebody that they know personally and
think that, you know, while there's

684
00:49:47.320 --> 00:49:51.880
no way there could be room in
heaven for him, right yep. You

685
00:49:51.920 --> 00:49:54.199
know, sometimes I think we give
up praying on people because we think,

686
00:49:54.280 --> 00:49:58.119
you know what, they're never going
to come to faith, and we kind

687
00:49:58.119 --> 00:50:00.679
of give up on him. I
was in a baptism service once at our

688
00:50:00.760 --> 00:50:04.480
church, and it's going to baptize
a woman. There was a man with

689
00:50:04.519 --> 00:50:07.000
her, and I said you were
husband. He said, yes, I

690
00:50:07.039 --> 00:50:09.679
am. I said, have you
received Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

691
00:50:10.079 --> 00:50:13.320
And he said no, I haven't, but I want to right now.

692
00:50:13.679 --> 00:50:16.360
So I baptized the two of them
together. And afterwards, I'm coming down

693
00:50:16.360 --> 00:50:20.920
off the platform and a woman throws
her arms around my neck and she's sobbing

694
00:50:20.960 --> 00:50:23.280
and crying, and all she could
say is nine years, nine years.

695
00:50:23.360 --> 00:50:27.199
I said, who are you and
what do you mean nine years? That's

696
00:50:27.239 --> 00:50:30.159
my brother who you just led to
the Lord and baptized. I have been

697
00:50:30.239 --> 00:50:36.599
praying for that man for nine long
years, and for nine years I've seen

698
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:40.039
not one glimmer of interest in God. But look what God did today.

699
00:50:40.559 --> 00:50:45.360
And my first thought was there was
a woman who was glad she didn't stop

700
00:50:45.400 --> 00:50:50.599
praying in year eight exactly. Well, Lee, I cannot thank you enough

701
00:50:50.639 --> 00:50:54.639
congratulations on the book Is God Real? Exploring the ultimate question of life.

702
00:50:55.079 --> 00:51:00.559
As we wrap things up, I'm
going to let you summarize what people should

703
00:51:00.599 --> 00:51:04.400
take from your book. Yeah.
I hope my book will deepen the faith

704
00:51:04.440 --> 00:51:07.199
of Christians. It will enrich your
faith. It will give you an understanding

705
00:51:07.199 --> 00:51:10.760
of not just what you believe,
but why you believe it. But even

706
00:51:10.800 --> 00:51:15.760
more than that, I hope it
will motivate Christians to reach out to people

707
00:51:15.039 --> 00:51:21.360
who are far from God, a
family member, a wayward son, a

708
00:51:21.400 --> 00:51:24.519
colleague at work, or somebody,
and to after you read this book,

709
00:51:24.559 --> 00:51:29.199
give it away to them. Say
you know this guy who wrote this book,

710
00:51:29.239 --> 00:51:31.159
he was a skeptic like you.
He didn't believe like you don't.

711
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.519
But you know what, he researched
this for two years and became convinced that

712
00:51:37.639 --> 00:51:39.599
Christianity is true. Would you just
do me a favor? Would you just

713
00:51:39.639 --> 00:51:45.039
read this book and let's talk about
it. I believe that this Christmas is

714
00:51:45.079 --> 00:51:47.719
people give the book to folks like
that, who knows what God might do

715
00:51:47.800 --> 00:51:51.840
in their lives. So I'm an
evangelist at hirt. I want to see

716
00:51:51.920 --> 00:51:53.480
bill like you. I want to
see people come to faith and their lives

717
00:51:53.519 --> 00:51:59.760
transform. And that's my motivation for
write and it's my hope for the exactly

718
00:52:00.119 --> 00:52:04.320
and maybe the best Christmas ever for
you. Oh my goodness, absolutely God

719
00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:08.760
and sinners reconcile that him. That
will mean more to you this Christmas if

720
00:52:08.760 --> 00:52:13.760
you've come to faith in Christ today
a man Lee Strobel, God bless you.

721
00:52:13.800 --> 00:52:15.599
Thank you so much for being with
us. Really enjoyed it. Thank

722
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:21.639
you so much. Here Lee Strobel, the investigative reporter of New Times bestselling

723
00:52:21.679 --> 00:52:28.239
author the book Is God Real,
exploring the ultimate question of life. Our

724
00:52:28.320 --> 00:52:30.559
thanks to Lee for coming on the
show, and thank you for sharing a

725
00:52:30.559 --> 00:52:35.079
part of your day with us.
For more information and how to be a

726
00:52:35.119 --> 00:52:38.639
part of this mighty movement to return
to God, go to Bill Martinezshow dot

727
00:52:38.679 --> 00:52:42.280
com. May God bless you and
keep you, and make his face shine

728
00:52:42.360 --> 00:52:45.679
upon you. May He be gracious
unto you and give you his peace.

729
00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:49.079
Thank you so much for being with
us. God bless