Did God Create The World In A Literal Six Days?

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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Camp Pastors Adam Sanders, Colby Houchin, and Art Devos.

Colby Houchin
So, we've been asked this question before and we're going to answer it, or respond to it in this format. So, we were asked the question, "did God create the world in a literal six days?" That was the way that we were asked. So Art, I'm curious about what you want to say.

Art Devos
Yeah, no, absolutely. This is a question that I used to sit in the camp of. "It really doesn't matter, because it's not a salvation issue, if I'm being honest." That was the camp I sat in. I said, "if you want to believe that God used evolution, so be it, as long as you believe God created it and it's not a salvation issue." So that's where I used to sit. And then I actually started studying the Book of Genesis more. I started to understand how that was actually a very flawed way of my thinking. Because, if I could think that about this, I could also think that about other parts of scripture. And that's why I love how you started this out. About this kind of being, the theme of this podcast is, what is your view of scripture? How do you hold it? Because if we don't hold it in a high esteem, if we don't look at it as, this is all God's word, then it's very easy to take a passage like Genesis 1 and it's very easy to turn it around and say, "it's just poetry or it was just," and you could add in whatever you wanted to. You could try to then say, "well, God created it and then let evolution take place over the next couple of millions of years and do that." But there's problems with that way of thinking, because if you want to say that there were millions of years after God created the world, and in between these days, there's a lot of issues with that because evolution is also based on the premise of destruction and death. So that would mean that all had to come before Genesis 3. But you're trying to say that it came before man, but otherwise that would say that then something's wrong in the Bible. Also, when you study the Hebrew and in these passages, and it's, Ken Ham has some great resources on this and there's one in particular that I'll make sure to share. I can't think of it off the top of my head what it's called.

Colby Houchin
Put a link, maybe, in the YouTube notes.

Art Devos
Yeah, I'll make sure that's all on our website as well and with this video. Because he explains it incredibly well. And he's absolutely right, that it's kind of odd that biblical scholars will universally agree throughout all of scripture that when the Hebrew word "Yom" is used, that it represents a 24 hour day. And they agree all the way through the rest of the Old Testament, whenever that word is used for the word 'day,' that's a literal 24 hour day. But then they argue that it can't be in Genesis 1, that there are those that argue that it can be. Well, that's kind of fascinating in and of itself. But then, you go a little bit deeper, anytime that there is a number associated with a day, it always means a literal 24 hour day all through the rest of the scripture. But then people still try to argue that here in Genesis 1:1, it isn't. And then to go even a step further, he also says that there was morning, there was evening. And anytime that that statement is made, it talks about a literal 24 hour day, all throughout the rest of scripture. And Bible scholars agree to this...until it comes to Genesis 1:1. Then there's suddenly all this argument. But yet, it's like God is saying, "I'm going to make sure they understand." There was evening and there was morning, the second day. There was evening and there was morning, the third day. There was evening and morning, the fourth day. And so you start to get into that, and when you really start to look at it, it's like, "okay, I think it's a literal 24 hour day. I think that's what God is trying to get across to me." And oh, by the way, God can do that. Like I said, I really have changed my stance. And I believe to give God His ultimate sovereignty and His all ultimate authority of scripture. And when it goes through Genesis 1 and you see the statement, God said, "and it was so." Then I believe it to be true. So that's where I start on it. That's where I want to start.

Colby Houchin
So I think we talked about this beforehand, just because it's a really important question to be like, "Hey, how are we going to approach this?" We could probably go for about three more hours on this topic, because there's a lot of implications for what Art just said. And there's also a lot of counter arguments that people will throw back in this. And so I wanted to throw it back over to you, Adam, because you had a really interesting perspective or that came up when Art was talking that came to my mind. It's almost a question to ask, and I think it's going to set you up well. A question to ask on this is, what comes first in your mind? Does what you heard in 10th grade biology class come first or does scripture come first? Because what often happens is, people will go, "well, I'm reading Genesis and it says this, but I've heard all of these different things. And because I've heard all these different things, I've got to figure out, what holes do I shove scripture into and anything that I don't like is just not going to be shoved in there. I'm just going to push that aside. I think one temptation that we have is to take things and to flip the hierarchy away. And so, I'm saying this poorly. Scripture is meant to be authoritative. And so, we switch that in our minds. We have a temptation to switch that in our minds where we say, "well, it is authoritative, but not as authoritative as what I read in this one textbook." And so that relationship is kind of important. But what were you going to say? We talked about this at the beginning.

Adam Sanders
Oh yeah, no, I think what you're saying is, I think it's a good question to ask yourself. Especially if the question is probably coming from a Christian perspective. I think something Colby was getting out there is just the question of, why is it in your mind? Do you immediately default the Bible to the lesser authority position that must prove itself while elevating your scientific textbook to the higher authority that demands an answer?

Colby Houchin
Thank you for being smarter than me in your wording.

Adam Sanders
But yeah, and it's a fantastic question. It's something that probably needs to come from us, and starting from a heart issue. And we were talking about earlier, something I found a lot of times is that there is maybe a weakness in another area that kind of gives way for that line of thinking. To where we are maybe unknowingly or knowingly pursuing worldly things. And so as a result of that, we were growing affection for worldly things. And maybe that is causing us to elevate worldly wisdom above godly wisdom as a default position, whether we recognize that we're doing it or not. And I think, so it's a good opportunity to have a heart diagnostic under those circumstances for sure. Part of me goes back to the thought too, kind of what angle are you asking this question from? Is it a personal question or is it something you get asked from a lot of people? I feel a little bit like Art, a little bit like a fire hydrant that's trying to maybe just give a trickle right now and not just kind of let the floodgates open up. One thing I think we've talked about on here before, but something I think bears repeating is that, the world is really not truly broken down into these kind of separate binary categories. Where we have science here, and we have religion here in almost all of these areas. I think the more you study scientific inquiry, and especially a lot of theories like evolution and the age of the earth, and you really are leaving the realm of science. I know we said that before, but it bears repeating over and over again. You're getting into philosophical questions as soon as you start to try to ask things like, "where did the world come from? Why is it here? Why is there purpose?" I think we give a little too much credit to the secular perspective without asking the same degree or even a higher degree of probing and hard questions back towards that.

Colby Houchin
Yeah, I think a way to say that is, the enlightenment is this time period where just thinking through really hard things became very popular. There's a million and one good things that came from that, but there was also a lot of negative things. Where we became very critical as a just human people group. We became incredibly critical of all kinds of things and it ended up leading to a lot of people saying, "Hey, you know what?" Going back to our first question, "maybe marriage isn't that important. Maybe it's okay if I just, maybe a monogamy is not important. So, I could be married, but I can also have people on the side that I sleep with. Or maybe this rigid fundamentalist structure of loving your children and raising them as a husband and wife; maybe that's arbitrary and old and we can throw that out." A lot of these movements are birthed out of a very similar time period, a similar university movement. And when you look at church history, and just history in general, you see a lot of correlations to where a lot of these different societal things changed. And that's also where a big push of questioning scripture, and like you said, questioning scripture where you don't have the same scrutiny of what is said by the scientists. That causes some issues. Did you have anything else you wanted to say before I kind of switch it up a little bit?

Adam Sanders
No, I just think, like I said, I'm kind of trying to refrain maybe from just diving headfirst in. I definitely don't ever want to promote a sense of anti-intellectualism, or causing you to always be very harshly, overly skeptical of all authority figures or that kind of thing. I think there's too much of that in our culture today. I will say, a lot of the ideas that affect the Western world today are born out of, like what Colby was saying, an era and a time where there was a desire first and foremost like, "Hey, we don't want Christianity. How do we get rid of it? Oh, Charles Darwin went to this island and he found these bird beaks. Maybe this is how all of life came about. Oh, Karl Marx has come up with this new system of government in which we don't need to have a higher authority power to tell us how to do things. We can do it on our own through rationale and reasoning." Mind you, when I say this, all of these things have been terribly bad for human beings. The record proves.

Art Devos
Adam, what did you go to school for originally?

Adam Sanders
To be a science teacher.

Art Devos
I mean, let's just say I went to school to be a history teacher.

Colby Houchin
I went to school to be a physical therapist, so it doesn't really help.

Art Devos
No, but knowledge is a good thing. We need to continue to learn and grow, and there is a lot of great things. But as Christians, there is one thing that we are called to do, and that is to test all things by what scripture has to say, which is the importance of knowing God's word from the very beginning. And so when you do sit in that science class that is talking about evolution and things like that too, test it by what scripture has to say first, and you're going to find out it's not the truth. Look, evolutionary theory is just that it's only theory. And they stopped using words like theory because they realized that people are like, "oh, well, it still says theory, so therefore it's not proven." They're trying to now teach it as that it's a proven fact that evolution is true. And they do those kinds of things, because the world is trying to lie to you. Satan is using those things to try to lie to you. Test all things by what the word of God has to say, and you will realize that the word of God actually continues to be proven true over and over and over again. And so a lot of these tools that they try to come up with to prove their theories to be true, sometimes even accidentally prove the Bible to be true. And oh, but what about carbon dating? Carbon dating is actually a very faulty science.

Colby Houchin
It's absurd.

Art Devos
Yeah, it is very faulty. It's like, "well, we've come up with a way to count carbon atoms and figure out the deterioration, and-"

Colby Houchin
It's built on about 15 assumptions. All the assumptions have to be correct for their measurements to be correct.

Art Devos
And if one assumption is false, it completely then throws the whole thing off. And so it is not a factual science in any way, shape, or form. Which is why, again, test all things by scripture. And that's why too, when you can go back through scripture and you can follow the genealogies and you can get back, and you're suddenly like, well, the genealogies, when you add this all up and there's a way to do it and to do it accurately well, the world is just over 6,000 years old. And then you kind of look at it and you're like, even outside of the Bible, when they have done archeological digs and things like that, they continue to find artifacts of people that truly did exist that are biblical figures. And you're like, yeah, because they're real. They're here in the Bible. We can see that it's true. And they find these things and it only emphasizes more and more that the Bible is true. And that's why when we look at, "did God create the world in a literal six days," we can say with confidence, "yes, and this is why."

Colby Houchin
I want to change the perspective and kind of speak directly to you, the listener. Because I've watched people get themselves in trouble on this topic a couple different ways that people can get themselves in trouble. The first thing is my students, and I am sure some of you are listening, and you guys are going to roll your eyes. But you know that if you ask the questions on a Sunday morning of, tell us how to win these arguments or help us learn how to argue these things in school. So when they say this, we can combat it. And what I will never do is just say, "here's your argument." I can't just learn my words and recite them in front of you. Because what's going to happen if you know the words, but you don't actually understand what you're saying or understand the nuances of how we're talking about this. What you're going to do is, you're going to say, "well, 'this,' 'this,' and 'this." And then a educated, informed person on the other side is going to push back and you're going to crumble and you're going to have no idea what to do. And so I encourage kind of a sparring to boxing idea. My job is not to just put a boxing glove on your hand and go, "okay, go hit somebody whenever this comes up." My job is to spar with you. I have my ring at the table. I swung my arm to spar with you, to box with you, to train you and to help you learn how to box so that when you get in the ring, you're not just doing what I tell you, but you know how to do it. And so with these topics, I want to encourage you that you don't, first of all, you don't need to be an expert in all of the nuance of this thing. You don't need to be an expert on Genesis 1-3 in the Hebrew, in the original intent of everything in order to be a good Christian. You don't need to know any of those things. It's good to know, I don't want to say you don't need to know any of it. You don't need to be an expert on all of these things. You don't need to be overwhelmed by these things. But you also don't need to be intimidated by people that are really good at arguing specific elements because I'll find it all the time. I've been a pastor for years. I am about six weeks away from having my master's degree. I feel like I'm pretty knowledgeable on some things, but people will ask me a question even on a topic that I know really well. They'll just ask it in a way that's weird, or they'll catch me at the wrong moment and I'll be like, "oh man." I'm like, "I don't know what to say." And they're like, "ah, you're an idiot. You don't know anything." And I'm like, "that's not true though." And so one thing I want to encourage people, and when I kind of found this out, it just liberated me in a lot of areas. You don't need to answer questions that are not asked in good faith. That's one thing that I have found. Unless you are really solid in where you are at in your knowledge of things. If somebody is asking you a question and you can sense that they're asking me this question, hoping that they can trick me and trap me, you don't have to answer them. You can present a brand new question. That's one thing that I've taught my students. If somebody goes, and I did this at senior camp, some of the students might remember it. We had a counselor kind of test me, ask me a question about, "well, you're telling me about the gospel and you're telling me about all these different things, but I believe," and this was a character he was playing, "I believe that the world is 780 million years old." And I think that disproves scripture. And I went, "okay, well, Adam was created with a history because he was created as an adult. And so maybe the world was created with a history, but here's what I want to tell you about Jesus." And so what I did is, I was like, here, I'm going to sidestep the bullet that you shot at me. I'm going to present my own question, and I'm going to answer that question, because that's a very valid thing to do, to go, "Hey, you know what?" At the end of the day, this is an important topic, but we can recognize that this isn't the evangelistic conversation that's going to change everybody's lives. When we convince people that Genesis 1-3 can stand up against the academic rigors of evolutionary biology, I don't think the church walls are going to be stormed by a bunch of people repenting. It's actually the message of Christ that does that. And so that doesn't mean that this isn't important, but it shows us, "Hey, at the end of the day, you don't need to box yourself into a corner and be afraid of this topic." We can stand on the truth of the gospel. We can lean against the truth of the cross and the resurrection, and that can be our strength.

Art Devos
And if someone is trying to entrap you and to get you into that kind of an argument, give them Colby's number.

Colby Houchin
I'll fight them, like I said. I'll put on my boxing gloves.

Art Devos
This is great. And again, it really boils down to, what is our viewpoint of scripture? Is this the authoritative word of God? And you believe that it is and you should believe that it is, then we should also take it at its value in what it says.

The 12 Books of Christmas - Peace On Earth

The Sound of Sleigh Bells - Beth Hertzler works alongside her beloved Aunt Lizzy in their dry goods store and serves as a contact between Amish craftsmen and Englischer retailers. But remorse and loneliness still echo in her heart every day, and she still wears dark dresses to indicate her mourning of her fiance. When she discovers a large, intricately carved scene of Amish children playing in the snow in an Englischer store, something deep inside Beth’s soul responds, and she wants to help the unknown artist find homes for his work. Lizzy sees the changes in her niece when Beth shows her the woodworking, and after meeting Jonah, the artist, she is determined that Beth come to know this man whose hands create healing art. But it’s not that simple—Beth has cut herself off from any possibility of romance. Will Lizzy’s elaborate plan to reintroduce her niece to love work? Will Jonah be able to offer Beth new hope and a second chance at real love—or just more heartbreak?

Christ in the Carols -  “This Christmas will be different.” Every year you tell yourself that. Every December you promise that you’re going to make time for wonder. For pondering the Story of stories. But somehow the crush of holiday activities often leaves us feeling like lonely observers instead of participants in the true meaning of Jesus’ birth. So come closer to Christmas. To Christ. Let this devotional be your guide as it leads you through thirty-one readings guaranteed to leave you awestruck at Jesus, our Emmanuel. Discover little-known stories and meaningful insights about your best-loved carols. And experience the warmth of the songs of the season. This Christmas season really can be different. Let Christopher and Melodie Lane take you on a journey toward the Jesus of Bethlehem. We promise you’ll love every minute you invest in discovering Christ in the Carols.  

Cosmic Christmas - We know the Christmas characters well: the singing angels, the simple teenage girl, the surprised carpenter… We know the Christmas story so well: journey to Bethlehem, no room, stable, shepherds, star, hosts of angels, wise men… But do we know all the characters? Do we know the whole story? What about the hidden happenings that might have led to the Savior’s birth? Was the arrival of Jesus a quietly profound event? Or could it have been the result of heavenly battles, angel armies, and a scheming Satan? Envision a confrontation in heaven between the King of creation and the rebellious Satan. Threats, challenges, a gauntlet laid on the floor of the sky. And then the passage from heaven to earth — “There was a war in heaven” the Bible states (Revelation 12:7). Angels battling Satan’s armies as they transport the essence of heaven itself. Come along as author Max Lucado takes us on a journey into his imagination — pulling back the curtain as we see what might have taken place one “Cosmic Christmas”

The Purpose of Christmas -  Why is Christmas such a big deal? If you stop to think about it, it is astounding that the simple, unassuming birth of a peasant baby boy more than two thousand years ago in the Middle East can today cause traffic jams every December in places like New York City, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro. The night Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a small group of poor shepherds were quietly tending their flocks of sheep in a nearby field, looking up at the stars. Nothing seemed any different from a thousand other nights. But what was about to happen would transform not only their lives but billions of other lives as well. The world would never be the same again. Regardless of your background, religion, problems, or circumstances, Christmas really is the best news you could get. In his powerful yet compassionate voice, Rick Warren explains how God designed Christmas to meet your three deepest needs and how understanding and receiving God’s three Christmas gifts to you will transform your life forever. An instant classic, this book is one to be read every Christmas season and then passed on to friends, family members, and loved ones. 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests.” The famous praise that the shepherds heard the angels proclaim the night of Jesus’ birth, is brought back every Christmas season. Either through home decor or holiday cards, we are presented with the hope of “Peace on Earth.” And in the holiday books that I chose for this week, the characters and authors are all either: hoping for peace, finding peace, fighting for peace, and also proclaiming peace. In The Sound of Sleigh Bells, we find Beth weighed down by grief with the recent loss of her beloved husband. Her Aunt Lizzy longs to help her find peace in this hard time but through this story, that proves to be quite difficult. While Beth’s peace in life is everyone’s hope, authors Christopher and Melodie Lane help us find Christ in the Carols. This holiday devotional gives us a brief history of the carols and also what we can take from their messages. For example, even though it wasn’t technically wasn’t a Silent Night, author Joseph Mohr captures a moment of peace, a holy hush that surely settled over Bethlehem as all of heaven viewed His birth. And speaking of heaven’s view of things, Max Lucado’s Cosmic Christmas gives us an interesting view of Christ’s coming through the eyes of the angels. God asks Gabriel to deliver a couple important things to earth, a message to the virgin Mary and God’s ultimate gift. But the journey from heaven to earth was not going to be easy. The angels knew that the devil would do anything to prevent God’s gift from making it to earth. This battle for everlasting peace put in this perspective reminds me of the song, The Champion by Carman. The Champion represents the fight between Jesus and Satan during the time of the crucifixion. In a very powerful way, this song describes the excruciating pain Jesus underwent in this gruesome battle between good and evil. The song ends with Jesus’ victory and peace on earth finally gained. After all, that is why He is the Prince of Peace, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:6-7. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library and discover some of these amazing holiday reads.

What’s in the Cross Reference Library? New Christmas Books!

The Promise and the Light - It was a time of defeat, of disappointment, of darkness. But one day…one day, the ancient promise said, there would be light. A young carpenter, a teenage girl and an elderly priest find themselves in the middle of one of the greatest adventures in history. They will encounter soldiers and rebels, angry relatives and mysterious visitors. Donkeys will escape, doors will be slammed, and friends will be lost and made. And they will see the light begin to dawn. The promise is coming true. But no one ever thought it would happen quite like this. 

This Christmas Night - Christmas is the most thrilling season of the year. As we look back over the years, memories of many Christmases flood our minds. Christmas cards that we read and reread, the smell of pine drifting through the house, the fireplace crackling—all of these things turn our thoughts to those we love. Most of all, Christmas is when our minds go back to that lowly manger in Bethlehem, and we hear beyond the noise of our materialistic world the soft flutter of angels’ wings. We see the tenderness of a mother with her first-born Son…we feel the softness of a Baby. Amid the glitter and busyness of the season, Billy & Ruth Graham hope that you will experience anew the miracle and meaning of that Christmas night.  

Christmas Quotes From Billy Graham - “Don’t leave Jesus in the manger; don’t remember Him only at Christmas. Instead, learn to walk with Him every day, as you pray and read His Word and ask Him to help you.”

“Mary and Joseph were just as familiar with the facts of life as we are. But they also realized something was happening that had never happened before: God alone would be the child’s father. In other words, this child would be absolutely unique—not only because He would be born of a virgin, but because He would be both fully man and fully God. God was coming to live among us!”

“As this Christmas approaches, I pray you will look at Jesus—as He is revealed in the pages of the New Testament—with an open heart and mind. When you do, you’ll discover not only that God is real, but that He loves you and wants to transform your life.”

“On that first Christmas over 2,000 years ago, God did something that we can barely grasp: He became a man. Think of it: The God who created the universe stooped down from Heaven and became a human being!”

The 12 Books of Christmas! Love is in the Air!

The Bridge - Molly Allen lives alone in Portland, but she left her heart back in Tennessee with a man she walked away from five years ago. They had a rare sort of love she hasn’t found since. Ryan Kelly lives in Nashville after a broken engagement and several years on the road touring with a country music duo. He can still hear Molly’s voice encouraging him to follow his dreams; Molly, whose memory stays with him. At least he can visit The Bridge—the oldest bookstore in historic downtown Franklin—and remember the hours he and Molly once spent there. For thirty year, Charlie and Donna Barton have run The Bridge, providing the people of middle Tennessee with coffee, conversation, and shelves of good books—even through dismal book sales and the rise of digital books. Then in May, the hundred-year flood swept through Franklin and destroyed nearly every book in the store. Now the bank is pulling the lease on The Bridge. Despondent and without answers, Charlie considers the unthinkable. Then tragedy strikes, and suddenly, everything changes. In the face of desperate brokenness and lost opportunities, could the miracle of a second chance actually unfold?

Celebrate His Love - “Keep Christ in Your Christmas.” “Jesus Is The Reason for the Season.” “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” The buttons and bumper stickers make it seem like Christians, of all people, should know and experience what “Christmas is all about” — but it doesn’t always seem to work that way. Sometimes those inside the church are as much at a loss to put their finger on the essential “spirit of Christmas” as are those for whom Christmas is nothing more than credit cards, tinsel, and a long weekend off work. In this study, Dr. David Jeremiah helps us return to the basic essentials of the greatest event in human history: the incarnation of the eternal Son of God as a Baby in Bethlehem. Why then? Why there? And why does the world still celebrate it today? Travel with Dr. Jeremiah to one of the most humble, insignificant towns in ancient Israel to observe and understand the Christmas story like you never have before. Search the Old Testament prophets for their insights into this world-changing event, hundreds of years before it happened. Marvel at the miracle of God in human flesh, and learn the truths that can change your life right now because God chose to redeem mankind in this unique and beautiful way.  

The Christmas Lamp - Roni Elliot loves Christmas in Nativity, Missouri. A lifelong resident, she cherishes every traditional decoration and activity—from the precariously placed town Christmas tree, to the church’s elaborate cantata, to ice-skating at the local rink. To her, these customs are Christmas. The town’s traditions, and the tourists they attract, also pull in half the city’s annual revenue. And it’s all threatened when the new highway bypasses Nativity—diverting much-needed traffic and sending the townspeople into a spirit-crushing panic. Jake Brisco, an outside financial consultant, has been hired to get Nativity back on its feet. Jake comes across as a Scrooge whose only concern seems to be slashing budgets and dashing holiday joy. And sparks fly as Roni’s beloved traditions fall prey to “fiscal responsibility.” Will the spirit of Christmas survive the realities of small-town finance? Or can Jake and Roni negotiate a compromise that saves the day?

The Miracle of Christmas -  John MacArthur’s Miracle of Christmas goes to the heart of what Christmas is really about: “The birth of Jesus —Immanuel, God with us, the promised Messiah—who came to save His people from their sins.” “It may be the biggest and most popular of all our holidays, but Christmas is in jeopardy just the same. A subtle but sure erosion is eating away the season’s true significance.” MacArthur offers this book “as an antidote to two prevailing philosophies that are stealing Christmas”

• An effort to mythologize the Christmas story

• And a tendency to secularize it

With reverence and a contagious sense of wonder, John MacArthur details every biblical fact known about the birth of Jesus, stressing that “Christmas should be a time of real joy and gladness, as opposed to the manufactured sentiment and wild revelry that characterize the way the world observes Christmas.” The simple fact is: That baby in the manger is God. That’s the heart and soul of the Christmas message.”

For lots of people across the country, sitting down for a Christmas movie marathon is a tradition that has become gradually more popular over the past several years. Hallmark Christmas movies are no exception, giving us a fair amount of Christmas spirit and romance. And when I first read the descriptions for The Bridge and The Christmas Lamp, the plots each reminded me of a few Hallmark films I have seen. The main character leaves home for a while, on a journey to find themselves or the job of their dreams, coming back months or years later, at Christmas time. They then find that their hometown hadn’t changed in that time and neither had their first love. In the end, they discover that they didn’t even need to leave home in the first place, and that everything they needed was right in front of them the whole time. Unfortunately, that describes what happens to believers who are led astray for a while. They grow up in a life of faith, family and love, keeping God at the center of their lives. Then out of the blue, something life changing happens (or a distraction orchestrated by the devil occurs). They leave home, believing they are alone and confused. But weeks, months, or even years later they are brought back home, and discover that after all this time, God never left His home in our hearts either. The fact that He will never leave us or forsake us, is better than any Hallmark romance. And that love is exactly what we are celebrating this Christmas season. In Celebrate His Love and The Miracle of Christmas authors Jeremiah and MacArthur express the importance of Jesus’s birth in this magical time of year. Both authors noticed that the purpose of this holiday has been twisted and changed. Children all over the world believe that Santa travels in a sleigh full of gifts drawn by eight reindeer. But the gift they should be looking for isn’t under the tree. The gift they must discover is in the center of the Nativity. The gift God presented to us in His Son Jesus. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library if you want to check out any of these festive books. 

“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

–Luke 2:11-12

What’s in the Cross Reference Library? Our Nativity series!

Why the Nativity? - Every year, millions of people around the world celebrate Christmas. But what does it all mean?

• Why did God choose a young virgin named Mary and a simple carpenter named Joseph to bring his only Son into the world? 

• Why was the Son of God born in a lowly manger in a small town called Bethlehem?

• Who was this infant named Jesus that the prophecies foretold would save the world from sin and suffering? 

• And what does the nativity story mean for us today?

Drawing from both the Old and New Testaments, noted pastor and theologian David Jeremiah provides answers to 25 of the most thought-provoking questions surrounding the most pivotal moment in human history—the birth of Jesus Christ. 

The Nativity Story - In The Nativity Story, developed from the screenplay by Mike Rich, Angela Hunt fleshes out the characters and histories of the people who lived through the miracles and mysteries surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ. This well-researched story is based on the scriptural account. Journey back through time as you relive what they experienced and celebrate the wonder of Immanuel, God with us. 

Why the Nativity? Study Guide - Often in life, we can’t make sense of the events that go on around us. We wonder why certain things happen and simply must trust in God’s sovereignty and authority over all things. But the events and details that lead to the birth of Jesus are so clear and logical that they cannot be speculated to be by mere chance. With God, there are no coincidences. His plans are perfect and before all time He set in motion the people and events that lead to Christ’s birth. In, Why the Nativity? we will discover how the most minute details of His coming were foretold in Old Testament prophecies. We will see that from the Davidic lineage of Jesus and His Virgin birth, to the worship by angelic hosts, common shepherds and wise men, that God was pointing us to the birth of the Messiah. Join Dr. Jeremiah now as we explore this intricate and beautiful story of just how and why God sent Jesus to be born as a child. You will come away seeing that it was for the redemption of man and for the submission of sin, and that it was all for the glory of God. 

Note: The, Why the Nativity? Docudrama can be found on the homepage of the KCMI website if you’d like to watch that along with these amazing books.

The 12 Books of Christmas - Joy to the World!

One Imperfect Christmas - Christmas is the season of miracles, but when blame and guilt keep two people apart, sometimes a miracle needs a helping hand. Natalie Pearce loves Christmas so much she’d gladly make it a year-round celebration—until her mother suffers a massive stroke while taking down the decorations. Natalie’s guilt over not being there to help her mom soon builds a wall that separates her from the rest of her family, including her husband Daniel and their teenage daughter. As the next December approaches, the last thing Natalie wants to be reminded of is another Christmas season. Will her family’s tenacious love and an unexpected Christmas gift from her mother help Natalie mend the broken pieces of their lives?

Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas - Behind the Christmas songs we love to sing, lie fascinating stories that will enrich your holiday celebration. Taking you inside the nativity of over thirty favorite songs and carols, Ace Collins introduces you to people you’ve never met, stories you’ve never heard, and meanings you’d never have imagined. The next time you and your family sing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” you’ll have a new understanding of its message and popular roots. You’ll discover how “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” with its sublime lyrics and profound theology, helped usher in a quiet revolution in worship. You’ll learn the strange history of the haunting and powerful “ O Holy Night,” including the song’s surprising place in the history of modern communications. And you’ll step inside the life of Mark Lowry and find out how he came to pen the words to the contemporary classic “Mary, Did You Know?” Still other songs such as “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” trace back to mysterious origins—to ninth-century monks, nameless clergy, and unknown commoners of ages past. Joining hands with such modern favorites as “White Christmas” and “The Christmas Song,” they are part of the legacy of inspiration, faith, tears, love, and spiritual joy that is Christmas. From the rollicking appeal of “Jingle Bells” to the tranquil beauty of “Silent Night,” the great songs of Christmas contain messages of peace, hope, and truth. Each in its own way expresses a facet of God’s heart and celebrates the birth of his greatest gift to the world—Jesus, the most wonderful Christmas Song of all.

A Dog Named Christmas - When Todd McCray, a developmentally challenged young man still living on his parents’ Kansas farm, hears that a local animal shelter is seeking temporary homes for its dogs during the days leading to Christmas, he knows exactly what he wants for the holidays. His father objects, but Todd’s persistence quickly wins out. Soon the McCray’s are the short-term foster family for a lovable pooch the young man names Christmas. But what about all the other dogs who will be forced to spend the Yuletide season in cages? In the days that follow, Todd uses his special gifts of persuasion to encourage his hometown to participate in the “Adopt a Dog for Christmas Program.” What follows from his small act of kindness will teach his family, and his community, about peace on earth and good will toward men—and animals. 

A Better December - Combining true stories with pen-and-ink illustrations, this book uncovers our December longings. In bite-sized chapters of Solomon’s advice to frazzled, lonely people at Christmas, Steve Estes presents the ancient sage as penning his own blockbuster Proverbs to help future readers through the year’s shortest days and longest nights. Meant to be shared with all who wish for a better December, it points the way to real comfort and a true home.

As we are winding down to the last four books of Christmas, I would really like to talk about joy. Over these last couple weeks I have talked about how God's promised peace and His love everlasting are very important concepts when thinking about the Christmas story. So when I was deciding on what books to read through this week, joy seemed to be a common Christmas concept in these four books in particular. I guess I probably assumed that due to the key words in the titles: Perfect, Best-loved songs, Dog, and Better. I don’t know about you, but the idea of any of those words in my life usually brings me a whole ton of joy. Little did I know that the people in these books had to go through a long journey of hardship before reaching their point of joy. At the beginning of One Imperfect Christmas the joy that the characters feel goes away faster than the pain. But just like in most stories the character must discover for themselves how to find their joy again(even if it takes 100 pages to get there!). The next book that heightened my Christmas spirit was, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. What I found inside were not the back-stories I was expecting from these classic carols. Many of them were either written during a time of war, sadness, or even a time of great understanding in the writers’ lives. I think my favorite book out of all four of these would have to be A Dog Named Christmas. Not just because there is a dog involved, but also because the story itself is really good. So come on down to Cross Reference and check out some of these joy-filled books. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season and even more well wishes for the new year!!!

How Do We Deal With Temptation In The World?

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Tim Hebbert
Today, the question is, "I think we can all agree that the temptation to sin against God are numerous and in our society there is an overwhelming amount of media, entertainment and suggestive advertisements to lure us into sin. How do we deal with this as believers?" And I'm first of all thinking of that concept that we live, that we're in the world, but we're not of the world. And unless we're living in a plastic bubble, or we've segregated ourselves from society, the reality of it is we're going to be looking face to face into the eyes of temptation, of the allure of sin. And the devil is really good about making it look tenderizing and beautiful. When actually what it is, is it's dark and it's destructive. So I want to talk about a couple things that I always think about with this. And then Brad's going to bring some scripture to underscore a lot of that. But I want to tell you out there today, if you're feeling the temptation of certain sins, the best thing that you can do is run in the other direction. I sometimes think we forget what the word 'repent' really means. It doesn't mean, "say you're sorry." It means, "take another course, move the direction of your life." It's better to avoid the things that are going to tempt you than to think for a second that you can face up to those things over and over and over again and beat the temptation. Because what happens is we begin to obsess about sin and it's one of the great blessings I have. My wife tells me that I don't overthink anything, Brad. So I don't focus on that as much. I really want to focus on my relationship with Jesus Christ. But there are times everybody is tempted. I think that we have bought in, in some Christian circles to this thought that God tests us, but He never puts temptation in front of us. But have you heard that one, Brad? People think that God is putting that temptation in front of you. He is absolutely not ever going to do that to you. Why would he do that? Does he allow us to become tested in our life over things? Yes, but one of the ways to pass a test of temptation is to move completely away from it. I heard Pastor John Maxwell read this at a Promise Keeper event. Brad, this has been like 28 years ago.

Brad Kilthau
Yeah, it's been a while since those happened.

Tim Hebbert
And it stuck with me ever since. And he was speaking that day and in a conference for men about the allure of sexual immorality and adultery and the temptation of those things. And he read this poem, and it was written by a woman by the name of Portia Nelson. I guess it's a poem. It's entitled, There's a Hole in My Sidewalk. And it goes like this, chapter 1, "I walk down the street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk, and I fall in. I'm lost. I'm helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out." Chapter 2, or we could say Day 2. Day two, I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it, I fall in again. I can't believe I'm in the same place, but it isn't my fault. It still takes a long time to get out." Day 3, "I walk down the same street, there is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it, it's there. I still fall in it. It's a habit. Now my eyes are open. I know where I am. It's my fault. I get out immediately." Day 4, "I walk down the same street, there's a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it." Day 5, "I walked down another street." Seems like we ought to learn to take day five and move it up right behind day one. If you're out there today and you're struggling with some sin in your life, I don't know what it is. And sometimes when we're talking about sin, we tend to look at the big sins and ignore the small ones that are actually as destructive as the big ones. But if you're struggling with temptation in this media, sexualized, me first, consumer oriented world we live in, if you're struggling with those things, God's saying, "walk down a different street." And that street, I heard it's a modern telling that somebody wrote of the 23rd Psalm. When it talks about "He leads me in the path of righteousness." The righteousness that He's leading you and I down today friends, is the footsteps of His son Jesus. And when we keep our eyes focused on who Jesus is, what he's done for us, what he wants to continue to do with us, and we keep our eyes focused there, all of a sudden all the allure of the things of this world are in the side mirror. They're not in the front view of where we're at. But when we obsess on those things, it's easy to begin to look on those things. I say, once we examine and see what we're struggling with, it's time to trust God's plan for us. Look to Jesus and move in a different direction.

Brad Kilthau
That's exactly right, Tim. We are to look to Jesus, and to look to Jesus means getting into his word. And we can see that the Lord speaks to us so clearly about this issue and struggle that all of us deal with temptation. Temptation to be led into sin. And one of the passages is, looking at Luke 4:1-13, of that time of when Jesus was in the wilderness and Satan was tempting him. Now, of course we need to know that not all temptation comes from Satan. We can't give him all the credit. Sometimes it just comes from our flesh itself. But we need to recognize the arsenal, the tools of Satan. And in doing so, that'll help us to stand strong against temptation. When we look at that very familiar account, Satan tempted Jesus in three temptations. First of all, he was saying, "well turn that stone into bread." The next time it was, "all the kingdoms of the world can be yours if you just bow down and worship me." And then finally taking him to the top of the pinnacle of the temple and saying, "jump off of this," this 450 drop that you would have. "But the angels are going to catch you up and preserve you and save you." So when we look at those three temptations, we learn some good things again. And that is, first of all, that Satan has three general categories of temptation. The first one is, he tempts us to start to think that the father doesn't love us. That's why he was saying about the stone being turned into bread. He was saying, "Jesus, oh, you're out here in the wilderness. You haven't eaten for 40 days. What kind of father do you have that hasn't provided food for you?" And so that's where that temptation thought comes from. Second of all, he says to just worship me and then all of these kingdoms of the world will be yours. Well, what's he saying? He's saying, "well, don't trust in the plan of the Father. In fact, you don't have to go His way, You don't have to do His plan. Here's a shortcut, just worship me. You don't have to go the way of the cross." And then finally, he has another category, and that is he wants us to doubt the protection of the father. And we can see that in every temptation that he brings against us. You see, Satan is, he's tactical. And we need to learn that, because what Satan will do often is he will attack us after we've experienced a great time of blessing. We find that again in Luke 4, because when you look back in Luke 3, Jesus as we know, was just baptized in the Jordan River. And remember what happened as he came up out of the water? The Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. And the Father spoke from heaven and said, "This is my son in whom I am well pleased, my beloved son." I mean, what a beautiful blessed experience. And then, the next thing that happens is Jesus finds himself in this place of temptation by Satan. That's the tactic of Satan. When there's a blessing or something good that happens in our life, he immediately is there to lead us into sin. Whenever God moves, Satan moves. We also need to know that Satan comes after us when we are vulnerable. Sometimes when we're struggling with an illness in our life, maybe the loss of a loved one, maybe financial woes or whatever. He's watching us, and he knows that when we are in those positions of vulnerability, he recognizes that. And that's when he comes and starts whispering false things and temptations into our ears. And then also you got to know that Satan's very practical. I think we see that in verses 5-6 especially. Satan is logical. Again, telling Jesus, "just take a shortcut. You don't have to do this the hard way. You don't have to go the way of the cross." He's a great theologian. He knows the Bible probably better than any of us. And some people have a hard time believing that. But you got to remember Satan, he graduated from the greatest seminary of all, from heaven, even though he doesn't live by the word of God. But he knows it. And he tries to come down to us and use this logic and practical thinking to lead us astray. And we've got to recognize those things. We've got to recognize that when we're going into those areas, when we see these things happening in our lives, that that's Satan. And we need to call upon the Lord. We need to get close to the Lord. We need to abide in the Lord. We need to study His word. We need to know what the word really says so that Satan is not manipulating the word of God and leading us astray. And here's another thing we need to do as Christians: we need to start standing our ground and quit cowering to the messages of the world that Satan is putting out there. Quit cowering to the immorality of our world. Quit cowering to being afraid that if we speak up for Christ and speak the truth that we're going to be mocked. We've got to keep in mind that greater is He who is living within us as believers than he who is in the world. And we need to stand against the woes of Satan.

Tim Hebbert
As you're talking about that, Brad, it took me right back to the beginning of Genesis. Adam and Eve in the garden, and Satan comes with a voice of reason. "Did God say that you can't eat these things? No, no, no, no." And then they begin to correct him. "Oh, that's not what He meant. He just doesn't want you to be like Him." And he challenges them. He tries it with Jesus, and he gets the beat down. I refer to him in my sermons a lot as 'the coward,' because he doesn't ever come at us when we're strong and empowered, feeling strong in who we are. He waits till there's a weak, vulnerable moment. And that's where he attacks from.

Brad Kilthau
That's right.

Tim Hebbert
But we have the confidence and hope in Jesus that he's conquered him already. And we don't have to listen.

Brad Kilthau
And to even add to our thoughts here, Tim. I think when you look at that passage and you get to verse 13, it says, "Now, when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Jesus until an opportune time." I think one thing we want to finish up by sharing with our listeners, is that temptation is seasonal. We might have victory over him in one temptation. We might have success and we've got through it. But Satan will be back. He's relentless, just like he came back at Jesus towards the end, as we watched as he's going to the cross. There's Satan working in those scenes behind. And he is relentless. He will continue to come back. He's not going to look at us like, "oh, you're a strong Christian and you know the Bible really well. I'm going to leave you alone." No, he'll just go back and change his tactics, and he'll watch for another place to get us. And he will be back. So anyway, this is something I think when we look at temptation like this, just as you were saying earlier, Tim, with these things that every one of us deal with. We can't escape this, so we need to learn how to deal with it. How to walk in the way that the Lord tells us through those times of temptation.

Tim Hebbert
I think the thing to remind ourselves too, if we falter, don't be like Adam and Eve even hide in the bushes. Bring it to the Lord. He doesn't want us to live in the prison of something that we've done wrong.

Brad Kilthau
That's right. 1 John 1:9, "confess that sin. He is faithful in the small and righteous."

What’s New in the Cross Reference Library? What Are We Fighting For?

Rora - The winds from the valley known as Pelice carried an ominous tale of sorrow and destruction. The army of black-robed Inquisitors had laid siege to the defenseless inhabitants of the valley, burning villages, destroying churches, and killing those who refused to renounce their faith. Yet high on a granite mountain above the land that forms the border between Italy and France stood Joshua Gianavel—one man who held the fate of a nation in his hands. He would not allow the same desolation to reach his home and people in the valley of Rora without a fight. With lionlike courage and a small band of farmers and peasants, he would wage warfare against Europe’s mightiest army with a brilliance the world has never seen. Based upon the true story of the historic stand of the Waldenses in 1655, Rora is a spellbinding tale of a legendary hero, of international intrigue and subterfuge, of cloak-and-dagger tactics, and of a faith that refused to die. 

The Alabaster Cross -  Trapped in a world of anger, 29-year-old Bryan Whittaker cannot move on with his life until he takes a journey into his past…a dangerous journey that will lead him into the heart of the Amazon RainForest. Instead of the revenge he seeks, Bryan finds Diana and through her love he is able to make peace with his past and find redemption. A deeply human story about the complexities of love between a man and a woman, parents and children, a brother and a sister, and ultimately the transforming power of divine love. If you’ve ever struggled to restore a broken relationship you will identify with Bryan’s journey as he strives to make peace with his past.

What’s New in the Cross Reference Library? World War II Fiction

The Winter Rose - Grace Tonquin is an American Quaker who works tirelessly in Vichy France to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis. After crossing the treacherous Pyrenees, Grace returns home to Oregon with a brother and sister who lost their parents during the war. Though Grace and her husband love Elias and Marguerite as their own, echoes of Grace’s past and trauma from the Holocaust tear the fragile new family apart. More than fifty years after they disappear, Addie Hoult arrives at Tonquin Lake, hoping to find the Tonquin family. For Addie, the mystery of what happened to them is a matter of life and death for her beloved mentor Charlie, who is battling a genetic disease. Though Charlie refuses to discuss his ties to the elusive Tonquins, piecing together their story is the only way to save his life—and potentially mend the wounds from his broken past. 

Fun Facts About The Winter Rose - The author, Melanie Dobson, came up with the idea for this WWII novel in the midst of the 2020 pandemic when she had heard about the American and British Quakers in France who helped Jewish children during World War II. According to Dobson, “The Winter Rose is not meant to be a reflection of modern-day Quakerism but a historical account of one woman who devoted her life to Christ and caring for His children. It is also a tribute to the men and women who sacrificed their lives to transport kids of all ages over the Pyrenees. 

The Forgotten Names - Five years after the highly publicized trial of Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," law student Valérie Portheret began her doctoral research into the 108 children who disappeared from Vénissieux fifty years earlier, children who somehow managed to escape deportation and certain death in the German concentration camps. She soon discovers that their rescue was no unexplainable miracle. It was the result of a coordinated effort by clergy, civilians, the French Resistance, and members of other humanitarian organizations who risked their lives as part of a committee dedicated to saving those most vulnerable innocents.

Theirs was a heroic act without precedent in Nazi-occupied Europe, made possible due to a loophole in the Nazi agenda to deport all Jewish immigrants from the country: a legally recognized exemption for unaccompanied minors. Therefore, to save their children, the Jewish mothers of Vénissieux were asked to make the ultimate sacrifice of abandoning them forever. Told in dual timelines, The Forgotten Names is a reimagined account of the true stories of the French men and women who have since been named Righteous Among the Nations, the children they rescued, the stifled cries of shattered mothers, and a law student, whose twenty-five-year journey allowed those children to reclaim their heritage and remember their forgotten names.

 Fun Facts About The Forgotten Names - Spanish author, Mario Escobar, first learned about Valerie Portheret and her work from a French newspaper, discovering how her story has moved French society. Through that, Mario Escobar wrote The Forgotten Names. In the Clarifications From History section of his book, Escobar shares something incredible:

“It is true that Valerie dedicated herself to identifying the names of the 108 children and locating them personally. Thus began a journey that lasted more than twenty-five years, a journey to return to those children their original identities and to listen to their stories. By 1994 she had identified the names of 93 of the 108 children from a list found in the archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, a French organization. In 2003 she uncovered eighty-two of the waivers from the Venissieux camp in which parents signed away their parental rights and entrusted their children to members of Amitie Chretienne. Among the children on the list of those rescued from Venissieux was a girl named Eva Stein. Eva was one of the last children Valerie found, and not until 2018. Altogether, Valerie has identified the names of all 108, has reconstructed the stories of 90 of the children, and has personally met with as many as of the children and the rescue workers as possible.”

My Thoughts - World War II novels are quite possibly my favorite sub-genre in our library, and here’s why: There was so much pain and devastation that came from that time. The concentration camps, the Blitz, countries and families falling apart. It would have been so easy to lose hope in the midst of all that pain and suffering. But as many authors and researchers have found, hope wasn’t lost. Like the people that these two books are based on, there were courageous heroes who helped where they could and never lost faith. And that ‘s why I love World War II books. They remind us that no matter how dark things get, there’s always a light.

Why Is Marrying Someone Who Is Not A Christian A Big Deal?

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Camp Pastors Adam Sanders, Colby Houchin, and Art Devos.

Art Devos
So, let's kick it off right away. "Why is marrying a non-Christian such a big deal to some people?" And that's a question, I think, that gets asked a lot.

Colby Houchin
Yeah, I always like the wording of our questions. And so I look at this one and I'm like, I try to get into the mind of whoever out there asked it. You know, this could be a very innocent question of, "why is it that people care about this?" And this also could be almost like a hostile question of, "why is it that it's such a big deal to some people? Like my mom and everybody else in my life." And I don't know who you are, but I don't know what mentality you have going into this question, but I think I can confidently say, and I'm going to assume that you guys agree, that I'm one of those people that would say, it's a big deal. I'm assuming you guys would agree, right?

Art Devos
Yes, absolutely.

Colby Houchin
It's a really big deal. And I think we need to start this conversation of, why is it such a big deal if Christians marry non-Christians? Or, why is it a big deal that we affirm Christian and Christian marriages, not interfaith marriages? I think we have to ask, what is marriage? That's the first question. And this is sprinkled throughout the scriptures. We see this in Genesis, too. We see this throughout the Old Testament. We see this in the mouth of Jesus. We see this in the teachings of Paul. We see this all over the scripture. But marriage is the union of a man and a woman for life. It is considered a one flesh union. And I think something that we have to highlight, looking at Matthew 17, the words of Jesus. It is what God brings together. This isn't something that we choose to do. Obviously, we have a choice, right? All three of us here are married. We all made a decision, we all asked a question. We all went through that awkward, terrifying moment of going down on one knee and then the shakes of asking a woman to marry us. And then turned around and potentially teared up on the altar as our wife walked down the aisle. We all chose those things, but at the same time, all we did is say some words and put a ring on our finger. God was actually the one that instituted this beautiful covenant at the end of the day. And so, just a theme of this episode, I think, is going to be kind of defining how serious are we going to look at God's word? How serious are we going to look at the things of the Lord? And are we going to take those things seriously, or are we going to kind of throw them to the wayside and say that what we think and what we feel is more important? And I think that as you listen to this episode, you're going to go, "oh yeah, that is kind of a theme for today." So just to start, marriage is something God created. And so we have to start there. I'm curious what you guys want to say.

Adam Sanders
Yeah, definitely. I like the way you used the word covenant there, and I think it doesn't exactly catch the imagery of it, but another way to describe that is, it's a contract. And I think a lot of times when we're in our younger mode, we're thinking of relationships through the vantage point of, how does someone make me feel? The friendship, and the fun component of that. And all those things are important. I think a healthy good marriage incorporates a lot of that, and is able to appreciate that part of it too. But when we think about the contractual part of it, it makes you, especially as you get older as an adult, you kind of think whenever you enter into a serious agreement with someone, that has serious ramifications and serious results that come from that. You begin to ask yourself more serious questions about that person's character. The alignment that you have for vision in the future, and in the present. And you start to realize the significance that comes with having that agreement in accord when it comes to how you're going to conduct life moving forward. And you need someone who's on a similar page as you in order to do that well.

Art Devos
All of that is true. And one of the things I think about too is, even take a spouse out of the equation here for a second, alright? Just look at it as a friendship. So the Bible has a lot to say about, who our friends are and what kind of friends we are to keep, right? We can look at the book of Proverbs and the advice that Proverbs gives us about who we should be hanging out with. And it really is about the company that we are keeping. And so we can look at passages, and I just turned to the first one here that I have on my list, 2 Corinthians 6:14. And this one is very much used in the argument for why you don't marry a nonbeliever. But really, it is here in the context as well of your friends. "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?" And we can continue on there, but really your spouse is going to be your best friend, or should be your best friend. They should be your number one in all things. They should be the first person you go to when something goes wrong. They should be the first person you go to when you want to celebrate something. Like, your spouse should be your best friend. That is the company you are going to keep for life, and that company that you keep is going to be your biggest influence on you. And so, that is why when we start talking about the context of marriage and not marrying an unbeliever, it's because that believer is going to have the biggest influence on your faith. Because, what about when you want to go to church and they don't? What about when you want to start attending a Bible study and they don't?

Colby Houchin
What about if you want to support a missionary and the other one wants to buy a bunch of alcohol on the weekend and party? Because it's often a choice one of those two, like those lifestyle decisions that are one or the other.

Art Devos
Right, it means that, well, "I want to live for God," while they want to live for the world. And that's exactly why that question would come out that way. 1 Corinthians 15:33-34 is another one. It says, "do not deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits. Awake to the righteousness and do not sin. For some do not have the knowledge of God." And so you look at that and it's like, we shouldn't keep close company. It doesn't mean, don't go out and interact with unbelievers. In fact, we're supposed to for the sake of telling them who God is and showing them who God is through our lives. But it's not in a marriage context. It's not, my best friends shouldn't be unbelievers. If you're a believer, your best friend shouldn't be. Because again, that's the greatest influence on your life. And so that's where I go with this argument, as far as why it's that important.

Colby Houchin
Yeah. Another area that, I wanted to bring in Genesis 2 really quick. I think that the language is really important, and this is an NLT. It's not a translation I usually use, but I didn't want to drive back to my office on my day off to grab my usual Bible. But Genesis 2:24, it says, "that explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one." And that again, that just highlights everything that Art said, that the seriousness of marriage is a oneness. There's a unity that is required there. And if looking at Ephesians 5, when I preached through Colossians, you get to the end, it's either at the end of three or, I think it's middle of three. And the end of three into four, it talks about the order of the home. I read the Colossians passage, but then I immediately flipped to the Ephesians 5 passage, because it's the same thing but in more detail. But just to highlight a few parts of Ephesians 5, it says, Ephesians 5:21, "and further submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." Verse 22, "for wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord." Jumping down to verse 25, then there's a couple more things it says, "husbands, this means love your wives just as Christ loved the church. Now, here's what we don't often talk about in the church, and we need to talk about more, is that the model that Ephesians, that Paul is laying out to the church of Ephesus and laying out to all of his churches. It's not like he taught something different to the Corinthians and taught something different to the Thessalonians. This was the model that the Lord called for him to teach, but it was a subversion of the Roman system. And it still is a subversion of our secular current system of family, where the Roman system said, "the husband is all powerful and everybody else is just subject to whatever he wanted." We see a very broken, pleasure-based, like, just do what's best for you. A, "You go live your best life, whatever makes you happy system today." Both of those are completely shattered by what we see here in Ephesians and other places in the New Testament. And really, what this is calling for is a deep and profound submission to Christ where the head of the household is not the husband. It's Christ. Basically, the imagery I like to use is, I like to think of Christ having his arms wrapped around the family, the biblical family. And when hear this language of wives submitting to your husbands, why is that a good thing? Well, it's only good for wives to submit to a husband in this biblical, godly marriage where this man is living the way he's called to. It goes for nine verses of, what does it mean for a husband to be married and to love his wife? It basically describes Christ loving the church.

Colby Houchin
So okay, women submit to and trust your husband. Husbands, be like Christ to your family. Why is it good to submit? Well, it's the same as us submitting to the Lord. It is God wrapping his arms around the biblical family and saying, "this is I Am at the head. I am the authority figure. I am the person that you're going to turn to." And husband, wife, kids, and everybody we are called to submit to that authority. And that's when marriages work. That's when you go, "oh, I'm not trying to out-compete my spouse, I'm trying to Out-serve my spouse. I'm trying to out-love my spouse. I'm trying to walk in the ways of the Lord with my husband and wife, with my children, building them up." Oh, all of a sudden, family looks really good in that situation. And then you go, okay, throw in a nonbeliever into that context, and it's just not going to work. There is just no way for that model of marriage to work where one submits to the Lord and submits to the other, but the other is not submitting to the ways of the Lord. How can that actually produce the fruit that we're called to produce?

Adam Sanders
Absolutely. Yeah, that was a lot of what I had in mind. Even with that idea of, if the Lord is calling you to this, why would you want to jeopardize that by jumping in with somebody who is not following with the reciprocal value of it. If you're a young lady and you are going to be submitting to someone who is not submitted to Christ, and has no desire to lead your family in godliness, then you have been given an impossible task to submit to something that will only lead to: a stripping of your joy, a stripping of your faith, and leading your family in the wrong way. And likewise for a young man, if you're marrying someone who's not submitted to Christ herself, she's probably not going to submit to you. And as you're laying your life down for this person and they're laying their life down for the world, it's going to build up bitterness and resentment. I know you hear old people like us (I've entered into that category now. I'm officially an old man giving you advice.), but you hear this kind of advice all the time of just imploring you to think with future perspective and not immediate perspective. And I've been in your shoes before, so I know how hard it is to hear that sometimes. But a lot of this really does come down to that. You're investing in something in the future, and the fruit of it will be very bitter if you invest in the wrong way. And so we're asking you to maybe even listen to someone against what your heart, and your emotions, and the time are telling you to do. But maybe trust that these people actually do care about you a little bit. Your parents care about you, and they're not just trying to strip fun from you by saying, "Hey, I know he's cute and he's funny, but I don't think he has the qualities that are going to lead to your flourishing." There's a reason they're saying it.

Art Devos
No, absolutely. And we live in a culture that has damaged marriage significantly. Our culture has looked at marriage as something that is dissolvable and just like, look, if you want out, just be out. That's not what the Bible says. Marriage is in that Genesis 2 passage when it says, "and they shall become one flesh," it is one. It is about loyalty. It is about having the same passion and it is permanent.

Colby Houchin
And what does it say in Matthew 19? "What God brought together, let no man separate," right? It is the hardness of our sinful hearts that leads to broken marriages, but God desires that union forever for life.

Art Devos
Yeah. And so when we look at just the cultural context for marriage, yeah, it's really easy to question why guys like us would say, "don't marry an unbeliever." In fact, we will keep shouting it. Don't marry an unbeliever. If you are dating an unbeliever, you need to break up. We will tell that to you in love. It's not because we don't feel the same way about them, but here's the thing. It is for your-- It is for your, what am I trying to say here? It will do you way better, it'll serve you way better, your life will be better. And I know it's hard to see that, because you're having so much fun probably in that relationship with an unbeliever. Unbelievers are very fun sometimes, and it's very appealing. But the thing about it, is that fun stops. And if your faith is important to you, you'll realize that they're not doing anything to help you and encourage you and build you up in that.

Colby Houchin
And you said something that I want to make sure we say explicitly because we need to hear...we're talking about marriage, but you also said dating. This goes for dating as well. Because dating isn't actually something that like, "Hey, let's go to the dating passage of the Bible." Dating, the way we think about it today, wasn't what was practiced during any of the biblical times. And so we kind of have to apply some practical wisdom to, what does it look like to date because there is no biblical precedent. But what we see is that courtship or those relationships that led to marriage in biblical times. Like, the version today is dating. And they had a very similar standard of, we have these similar values and virtues and goals that we're trying to have. And so in dating, you need to have the perspective that, "Hey, I'm dating." It doesn't mean that we're so serious that we're definitely going to get married, but we need to have a certain seriousness of dating, of like, if we are completely misaligned to where marriage is not going to happen, then that's not a good relationship for believers to pursue. For all the reasons that we've already talked about, it just is not going to work out. So we're talking about marriage, but we're also talking about dating of, do not date unbelievers and also do not date to evangelize. That is a very foolish way to go about relationships. If it's, "I'm going to date this boy and I'm going to bring him to church, and then Jesus is going to change his heart, and then we're going to get married and have lots of babies." That's a really stupid way to do it. And your hearts are going to say, "but we can do it. We got it. We can do this." But it's a very foolish thing.

Art Devos
"This time it'll be different."

Adam Sanders
Yeah, but it won't. I would say this goes beyond just, even the non-believer. But I think as just a general piece of advice towards relationship, as it stands to that point, I think it's unfair to expect someone to drastically change any kind of characteristic or quality upon marriage. Yes, we all grow. I'm sure if our wives were here, they would testify that we're not the same men they married. And probably a lot of those things are for the better. A little

Colby Houchin
Or a little heavier maybe.

Adam Sanders
Growing in maturity, growing in girth, all of those kinds of things. But in a very real sense, if it's a core character value or belief or ideal, if it doesn't align with what you're looking for, don't expect marriage to flip someone around. And this is another, maybe I'm calling someone out here, and if I am, I'm doing so in love, I promise you. But there's also a component, especially when it comes to dating and puppy love. If you're engaging in any kind of flirtatious attention giving, even physical components of relationship (the handholding, the hugging, the bumping up against each other), our bodies are designed in such a way that that's going to knit your heart closer to somebody. And so, if you're doing that, your body is sending signals that says, "this person is the greatest person in the world and there's no one like them." I do promise you, that goes away to a certain extent, and it goes away very quickly. If there is a completely unequal yoking of ideals, purpose, belief, those things no longer cut the mustard, to use an old man phrase, since I'm an old man.

Colby Houchin
So, when I studied psychology and counseling, we tested the idea of, well, absence makes the heart grow fonder. And to go along with what you said, it doesn't. Scientifically, it doesn't. That distance actually, it fades that attraction and that bond, I think would be a good way to say it. But on the flip side, yeah. Being close and flirty and touchy and rubby and just close in proximity, it does bring people together. We are made for relationship, whether that be in romantic relationships or friendships or acquaintanceship. We are created to connect with other people. And so you're very right. That's going to be the natural process that takes place in that.

Adam Sanders
So if you're dating a non-believer, refuse to hold their hand for a long time, your emotions might change.