December 11, 2025 • 56 mins
Pastors' Perspective is a one-hour call-in program where listeners can call in and get answers to questions about the Bible, Christianity, family, and life. The program is live Monday through Friday from 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Pacific. You can call 888-564-6173 to ask your questions.
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Speaker 1 (00:17):
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. I'm your host, Brian Perez,
and uh look at that, it's 3 o'clock at least
on the Pacific coast. And uh so we're here live
to answer the questions you have about the Bible, the
Christian faith, just about anything that's on your mind on
this Thursday afternoon. The number to call is 888-564.
617-3888-564-6173. If you're watching us on Facebook or YouTube or Instagram,
(00:45):
you can call in to the number's right there on
the bottom of your screen, or you can scan that
QR code and that'll take you to the pastor's perspective
page at Kwave.com, where you can submit your question and
uh we just might answer it here on the radio program,
but we prefer to hear the sound of your voice,
so do call in.
To 888-564-6173. We've got Brian Broderson from Echoesof Mercy.com, the
(01:11):
pastor emeritus of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in the studio.
How are you doing, Brian?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, I'm doing great.
Good to be here with my good friends.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yes, and Phil Metzger's here.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You, Brian Perez, my good friend, you, and Phil Metzger,
my good
Speaker 1 (01:29):
friend. The memo. I didn't get the memo, the black shirt,
black t-shirt memo. Sorry, I failed again. Yeah, but you
look great. Well, thank you.
Is that salmon? That's a salmon shirt, right? I don't know.
Somebody said it was pink, and I'm like, it is
not pink. That's salmon.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It's is salmon,
Speaker 1 (01:43):
yeah, right? That's salmon.
Yeah, it looks good. I was going for red, and no,
you didn't get. I didn't get red. Yeah, yeah, this
is the clothes. Oh, that's red. Oh yeah, yeah, this
is way off. No, it's the reddest thing I have,
so it looks good. I like it. Thank you.
All right, call in 888-564-6173. Let us know what's on
your mind. Maybe you wanna talk about the Grinch. That,
(02:05):
by the way, was a great conversation that, uh, on
Tuesday I wasn't here that day, but somebody told me
about it. I'm like, I've got to go back and
watch this, and, uh.
The whole thing that was a that was great. Look
for it guys. It was the uh it was December
9th
episode
Speaker 2 (02:19):
of more powerful moments on the program
Speaker 1 (02:22):
definitely
Speaker 2 (02:23):
finding out, especially for me. I mean, I was kind
of humbled because, you know, I was all down on
the Grinch and then I found out he became a
Christian and then I felt bad.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Well, I mean, I don't know if he became a Christian,
but he definitely got a bigger heart. His heart grew
5 times, and it was a shock to most of
our listeners to discover Brian's hatred for the Grinch.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, it kind of, like I said, it kind of
goes back to Dr. Seuss. I mean, it, it, it
Speaker 1 (02:49):
kind of annoying.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It transcends the Grinch,
Speaker 1 (02:52):
that same style, you know,
Speaker 2 (02:53):
when I was a kid, I mean, I had to
like read like Green Eggs and Ham and stuff like that,
and I thought, who, who even thought that this was
a good idea to write these books and give them
to kids,
Speaker 1 (03:05):
you know, he, um, lived in San Diego.
La Jolla, his house is still, yeah, you could see
his house. Yeah. Does it look like a Dr. Seuss?
They used to have little things that were doctor, but
then everybody kept stealing it, so not anymore.
Yeah, it is a little weird, but yeah, it was
a fun show. We had a good time.
All right, 888-564-6173 is our number and you can also
(03:27):
send in your questions online and uh that's what Jessica
did from Huntington Beach, going to the uh Kwave.com pastor's
perspective page and uh she asks, how do I know
if I've truly forgiven my mom?
And if reconciliation is the next step, I went no
contact with my mom a few years ago. She raised
us as a single mom and was abusive physically and emotionally.
(03:49):
There's a lot of trauma, and I know she has
unhealed trauma as well from her childhood. Until recently, I
knew I hadn't forgiven her, but would pray every day
to Jesus to help me forgive her and release my
hurt at His feet. I've always missed her and yearned
for that maternal relationship, but I still held on to
the hurt and knew I wasn't ready.
(04:09):
Um, I started therapy a few months ago and it
was helping, but it came full stop when I unexpectedly
lost my insurance. A few days ago, I was watching
a Focus on the Family episode with Doctor Irwin Lutzer.
It was such a blessing to me and I felt
the Holy Spirit was speaking directly to me, and I
felt this overwhelming joy.
And peace come over me. I can't explain it, just
(04:29):
that it had to be Jesus because I felt so
much peace, it brought me to tears. I have sisters
that still speak to her, and from what they tell me,
it seems she's still repeating patterns and cycles that lead
me to going no contact, that led me to going
no contact in the first place. My mother is a
Christian in name, but has no fruit of the spirit.
(04:50):
I don't know if I should at least tell her
I forgive her and move on.
I was opting out of family gatherings and events because
I couldn't bear to be around her. I miss seeing
my sisters, but I'm worried if I see my mom,
it could undo everything, which is why I'm unsure if
I've really forgiven her or not. What do you guys say, Phil? What,
what was her name? Jessica.
(05:12):
Yeah, it's funny, I just had a conversation with somebody
about this idea of forgiveness and reconciliation, and I think
there's this, we talk about it quite a bit on
the show, that there's a, there's a misguided idea that
You know, we, we, we have this like kind of
like um twin phrase of forgive and forget, but that's,
nobody forgets, um, not even God, the concept that God,
you know, forgets is, is more like symbolic of the
(05:36):
fact that he no longer holds that over you. He's
a sovereign lord who knows all things, he's not forgetting anything,
but he's certainly like not holding you accountable to that anymore. So,
so if your metric for forgiveness is that you have
to like forget and
So, my, my point is this, we need to separate
out the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation because forgiveness is
(05:57):
not something that you and I do because the person
deserves the forgiveness. I forgive because God's forgiven me, and
so I choose to no longer give other people power
in my life through my bitterness, through my resentment, through
my
My hurt, I, I choose to say, you know what, Lord,
(06:18):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna release this, and I'm gonna forgive.
The very idea that you would like maybe, you know,
put up some, you know, the idea that I don't
want to be around my mom, she hasn't changed her patterns, she's,
things haven't adjusted in any way, shape or form.
That's not a lack of forgiveness. In many ways we
might even say that's, that's, there's some wisdom to that.
(06:40):
I don't know your circumstance enough, but what you, what
we read is, I, I think there's a lot of
wisdom in, in keeping some, but, but to assume that
that means that you're not forgiving, um, I would, I would,
I would argue that. Now obviously all of us want
to become more gracious, more forgiving.
Sometimes we think we are sometimes we've forgive and I, I,
I see this a lot. I forgive, right? And then
(07:02):
I don't see the person for a while, then I
see them and I'm like, oh, I don't.
That lack of forgiveness comes right back, but I think
that's not that I didn't forgive then, it's that I'm
now being given like a fresh opportunity to learn a
deeper level of forgiveness. So I don't know that I
would tell Jessica to beat herself up anymore that like
she's not forgiving. It's just that um these things, you know,
(07:23):
if your mom's not even wanting forgiveness, there's not, that's,
there's no reconciliation. You can't have that, but you can
say before God, I'm gonna release this and Lord, Lord, I'm,
I'm gonna forgive,
Speaker 2 (07:34):
right?
Yep, I agree 100%, and I, and I, I mean,
you know, like, like Phil said, we have talked about
this a number of times, but I, I do think
that we have to have in our minds that these
are two different things. Sometimes forgiveness and reconciliation go hand
in hand.
(07:56):
But they don't necessarily go hand in hand, and I
think if we, like you're saying with Jessica, you know,
if she's living in condemnation because she's fearful about like
reconciliation because it doesn't seem like there's any chance there's
not really any of that there, uh, that that automatically
means like, oh no, I must not have forgiven. So
(08:18):
like you said, I think, yeah, just, you know, be
free from that and.
Um, you don't have to put yourself in that situation.
God's not calling you to do that.
And you know, if your mother reaches out and says, gosh, honey,
you know, I, I, I really just wanna tell you
that I'm sorry, that's a different story. It sounds like
that has not happened and
Speaker 1 (08:37):
still repeating the same patterns. Yeah, that's like that's wild. Jessica,
thanks for sending in your question. And here's another one
that was sent in online. It's from Robert in Duarte,
who listens to us on AM 11:10 K wave. Robert writes,
Hello gentlemen. If a person doesn't understand God.
Nor understand God's severe and enormous wrath. How can a
(08:59):
person fully understand God's judgment of eternal torture in a
lake of fire? What do you think, Brian?
Well,
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Uh, I mean, I.
I, I kind of don't get the question. Yeah, I'm
trying to think it through here too, but, um,
Speaker 1 (09:16):
which is why we prefer when you guys call in
and ask your question in case we don't. I get
it with when, when you send in your question, you've
only got limited characters or limited words.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I
mean, you know, when you think about eternal.
Torment, eternal conscious torment is um.
The way it's referred to, you know, people actually not
just being separated from God eternally, but, you know, consciously
living with that separation. Um, that's a horrific idea.
(09:46):
But I do think that that is what the Bible
is talking about. It is the destiny of some people,
not because God wants anybody to be in that situation,
but because in the end people will by choice, uh, end,
end up in that situation. Um, but yes, in order to,
to get your head around it, you do have to
(10:07):
understand a couple of things. You have to understand, um.
The sinfulness of sin.
You do have to understand the holiness of God.
And when, when you understand the holiness of God, the
person of God, who God truly is, then, then it.
(10:32):
Then it will make sense.
You know, you think of in in scripture, you think
of Job. Job has all kinds of questions about why
his life is the way it is, why he's suffering,
why is there injustice, how come God's not answering me? He,
he has all these questions and then the Lord appears
(10:53):
to him and Job's like, uh.
OK, uh, no more questions. Thank you. You know, God
doesn't even have to say anything. Just when Job sees
and Job says it, he says, I heard about you before,
but now my eye has seen you and I repent,
meaning like, I, I'm sorry that I even had a doubt.
So yeah, when we get a, uh, some kind of
(11:16):
understanding of who God is, really.
Then that brings everything else into perspective. You're like, oh, well,
of course, this totally makes sense in relation to what
it is to reject God and the consequences of that.
You know, I think in like in Hebrews, you know,
where it talks about, um,
(11:37):
You know those who trample the Son of God underfoot,
they do despite to the spirit of grace they, um,
they count the blood of Christ as unholy those are,
those are serious offenses against a God who demonstrated the ultimate, uh,
act of mercy and.
(11:58):
Grace and love, you know, through the cross.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It's crazy, huh? Yeah, I, I, I think I.
And I, I believe exactly what the Bible says on this,
as much as I understand it, but
The longer that you're a Christian, and I think the
longer I'm a Christian, the harder it is.
The the concept of hell is difficult because it's so final.
(12:23):
And I think that's supposed to make me kingdom minded,
care about people.
Um,
So I don't think that
I, I think it's harder to accept hell the longer
you've been a Christian than it is if you don't
know anything about it at all, because you just say, wow.
This is like, you know, the character of God that
I know is his, you know, I was just reading
(12:44):
the verse in Romans 2:4, that it's the goodness of
God that leads us to repentance. Like I don't dwell on,
I don't live in the space where I'm dwelling on
the idea that of hell, you know, though I know
it's true.
And um but I think it's got to be what
motivates us in some degree to being good witnesses in
the world, right? Like this is an unbearable idea. Yeah
Speaker 2 (13:07):
well, I don't know. I don't know if you know this,
but just like this week, um, Kurt Cameron,
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I think
Speaker 2 (13:12):
we
Speaker 1 (13:12):
just pulled that
up. I
was, so
Speaker 2 (13:15):
yeah, you know, so he's come out and basically that's
a big jump just taken an annihilationist view. Now let's
just
Give a little bit of context. There are theologians before him,
plenty that have taken that view. And the idea there
is that, um, it, it's not an eternal punishment. It
(13:37):
is a, you know, you suffer, it's a temporal thing,
but then at a certain point you just go, you
cease
to cease to
exist. So, which, I, I mean, that still sounds.
Kind of brutal, you know, there, there is some, there
is some suffering, and who knows how long it is.
It's kind of like purgatory. You know, purgatory is the
idea that because, uh, you know, we still sin.
(14:03):
And we'll die with sin. Somehow that sin has to
be purged. That's what purgatory is. So you got to
go and you have to be there for a long time. Yeah,
you gotta work it off,
Speaker 1 (14:12):
yeah, and it's hundreds of years, it seems like, yeah,
Speaker 2 (14:15):
even thousands. I mean, you know, it's like.
It, it varies. I don't know how they determine, you know,
how many years you have to spend in purgatory. Well,
it's
Speaker 1 (14:24):
like inflation. It's like started at 1s and then it
went to 10s and thousands,
Speaker 2 (14:27):
but it, but it's kind of, it's kind of the
same idea, you know, where you're like, OK, yeah, this
is better than the alternative of forever, yeah, forever. So,
so annihilationism is, it's that same kind of an attempt
to say, OK, well, how do we soften this? Yeah,
soften it a little bit, yeah.
And I think that so you like you said, Phil,
(14:48):
you get it. I mean, the longer I'm a Christian,
the more I think about hell as like wow this
is crazy, but it doesn't make me then
Speaker 1 (15:00):
question God's word
Speaker 2 (15:02):
or uh it doesn't make me, uh, cast an aspersion
on his character. How could God do this.
It just makes me realize, uh, there's stuff I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, and
this is serious stuff, yeah, totally, yeah.
Robert, thank you for sending in your question through the
pastor's perspective page at Kwave.com. Now we're gonna go to
the phones. The number to call is 888-564-6173. We've got
pastors Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger here answering your questions
about the Bible and the
(15:34):
Christian faith until 4 o'clock. So call in, grab an
open line, 888-564-6173. We'll talk to Brielle. She is listening
on FM 107.9 Kwave in Temecula. Hi, Brielle, welcome to
Pastor's Perspective.
Hi, hello.
(15:54):
What's your question for us today?
Um, why did God pick Mary to be Jesus' mom?
Pastor Brian, and you have another question too. OK, we'll
do one at a time. OK,
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I'll do the first one.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
he always saves that second one for you whenever it
comes in. I've noticed
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I, I leave him the hard ones. Um, well, Briel,
why did, why did he choose like Mary specifically instead
of choosing some other lady? Is that what you're asking?
Yeah. OK. Well, we don't know exactly, but we do
(16:33):
know this that Mary, uh, had to be descended from
King David because the promise was that the savior would
come through uh David's family. So this young woman Mary
or her name was Miriam actually in her Hebrew.
(16:55):
Uh, context she was, uh, of the family of David,
so she, um.
You know, so she qualified there, but I think also
that she is a um a person who loves God.
She's obviously a person who's committed to God and is
(17:16):
seeking God, but exactly why God chose her. I'm sure
there were other probably other women that were godly, of
course there were, uh, I, but the but the connection
to David.
And at the time that this is going to happen,
you know, perhaps she was the one person at the time.
(17:40):
Who was at the right age, uh, to become the mother, uh,
of the Messiah with a, a historical connection to David.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What would you say, Phil? That was a good answer. Yeah, Brielle,
what do you think? I don't think there's anything else
to it. I'm just the same reason he chooses all
of us too, Briel, is that he loves you. He
chose Mary because he loves her,
Speaker 2 (18:03):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
OK, I know.
Let's hear it.
If God created Jesus, who created God? Oh, good question, Brielle.
How old are you, Brielle?
7 years old, great question. Oh, really good question, Briel,
7 years old, a little scholar here. OK, who created God?
(18:30):
Nobody created God. That's why he's God, because God, the
Bible tells us, always has existed. He was never created,
he's always been here. Before everything, God was still here,
and after everything, God still is, so.
And so, so who created God? Nobody created God because
(18:52):
He is God, and by being God, he was never created.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad it makes sense to a seven
year old because I still don't get that. It's just
like one of those things that, man, it's, we always
think everything has a beginning, yeah, right, but not God, yeah,
just because we have a beginning, we, we center our
(19:13):
thinking and what we know, and we don't know non-beginning. Yes, yes,
it's crazy, but the faith of a child, that's the,
that's what we're hearing here, real.
Any other questions, Brielle?
No, OK, well, next time you think of one, just
call in same number. Great hearing from you. Merry Christmas. Yeah,
have a good Christmas, Brielle.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, it's always so good to hear from the, the,
the young ones, and they had, they do just have
brilliant questions, you know, it's amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
888-564-6173 is our number. And here is David in Rancho Cucamonga.
You are on with Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger. Welcome, David.
Oh hello, I'm 7 also but 67. Hey, you're 6'7.
I think that's a good thing right nowadays it is, yeah, anyways,
(20:07):
my question was, um.
Before Jesus was around, uh, how did people get saved,
the ones before him, um, I'll take my answer over
the radio.
OK, Phil, let me start. Yeah, first I wanna just
um
Say, just for clarity, Jesus was always around, but not
(20:27):
here on earth, um, as the, you know, he didn't
become one of us in the sense of being born
like we're celebrating at Christmas, but he is the second
person of the Trinity, right? God the Father, God the Son, and,
and God the Son is eternal, pre-existing, he's always been here,
just to make that clarity.
In terms of how did people, how did people get
to heaven before Jesus, really in the same way, it
(20:50):
was faith in the promises of God yet to be fulfilled,
whereas we're having faith in the promises of God fulfilled.
So they were believing in the coming Messiah, so they
lived according to what God had revealed to them, they
lived by faith, and now we live by faith in
what has been revealed and the Messiah who already came.
(21:11):
So they believed in a coming Messiah. We believed in
a Messiah who has already come. Same way, by faith.
What do you think, David?
Uh
If he's still there, yeah, yeah, but did he hang up?
Are you still there, David?
I don't know. Brian. Anything to add? He loved it
(21:32):
so much. He's off. He's in awe. He's in awe
Speaker 2 (21:35):
of that. No, I mean that, that is the, you know,
that's obviously the right answer. Um, I, I just, I
think even maybe just a little more of a simplification
would be that people believed the revelation.
That they were given. So, you know, some, uh, because we,
we use this term a lot, we talk about progressive revelation, right? So,
(21:59):
so throughout history, God is revealing more and more about
what he's going to do, but we go back to
the very first two people, and this is where the
promise originates, right? Um, God says God is speaking actually
to the devil who's, you know, tempted Eve and she's.
Uh, eating the fruit and sin has entered in and
(22:20):
everything has now gone completely sideways and, and God is,
you know, pronouncing the consequences of that, but he says
to Satan, uh, the serpent, he says, um, I will
put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed
and her seed.
And he shall crush your head and you shall bruise
(22:41):
his heel. So they call that the proto-Eangelion, meaning this
is the first gospel. So all the way back in
the earliest dawn of history, God gives us promise, and
then the progressive, uh, revealing of it takes place as
we go further into history. So God starts to fill in, um,
(23:04):
the blanks, if you will.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
It's good.
Hope that answers your question. Thanks for calling in today, David,
to 888-564-6173. Phone line's open for another 35 minutes or so.
We'd love to hear from you at 888-564-6173. You can
also send in your question using the messenger on the
pastor's perspective Facebook page. That's how we got this one. Hi, pastors,
(23:29):
this is Gloria from Ontario. Today, me and my co-worker, Alejandra,
were reading and studying Luke chapter 8.
In this chapter, Jesus was told that his mother and
brothers were outside trying to reach Him. Jesus then tells
them that his mother and brothers are the ones who
hear the word of God and do it. This part
of Scripture is the reason why my mom believes that Mary,
(23:52):
mother of Jesus, never had children again. Where will I
find it in the Bible to prove that Jesus did
have half brothers by Mary, his mother?
Brian,
Speaker 2 (24:03):
OK, I, I'm trying to figure out like why, um,
why from that passage does she believe that Mary never had,
I've never heard that before. No, I mean I've heard
it before but not from that, from that passage, right? Yeah,
like that passage seems to.
That passage would seem to say that Jesus did have
(24:24):
brothers and sisters. Um, I mean there is actually a
passage in one of the synoptics. I can't remember if
it's Matthew, Mark, or Luke or maybe two of them
where they ask the question about Jesus. Is this not Jesus,
the um.
The son of
I think, I think it's as the son of Joseph
(24:47):
and are not his brothers and sisters among us. So
it says specifically that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Now
of course some have said, well, that um those were
like relatives. They were like his cousins or something like
that or they were the children of Joseph from a
(25:08):
previous marriage. Well.
And, and some have even said, well, you know, the
word for cousin and brother is the same. Well, actually
it's not the same.
And so there are, there are words for relative.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Um, are you looking at Matthew? You're talking about Matthew 13:55, right?
Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother
called Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas
and his sisters? Are they not all with us? Yeah,
Matthew 13. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (25:35):
so it's, I mean, it's not only says he has brothers,
it tells
Speaker 1 (25:38):
us that and then also and his name, their names,
and then says and sisters. So it wouldn't say his
cousins and his cousins. Like, good point.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
His boy cousins and his
Speaker 1 (25:49):
girlfriends, right, right, we're clarifying gender of cousins now. Yeah,
that's right.
And,
Speaker 2 (25:54):
and of course the New Testament, Paul refers to James
as the
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Lord's
Speaker 2 (26:02):
brother. And so, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So that's it. Hope that answers the question, Gloria, and
uh great to hear that you and your friend are
doing Bible study together. Here's another question that was sent
in online. It's from Michael. It's almost break time, so
uh we'll get to some more questions at 888-564-6173 in
a bit. Here is Michael's question from Highland, California.
(26:26):
My Catholic friend says his Bible has more books than
the Christian Bible. Is that true? And if it is,
how many books are there and why were they omitted?
And then Roger has a similar question. He says, our
Friday night Bible study has been buying Bibles for the
Christian club at a local high school, many of whom
are new to the Christian faith. Recently, there's been a
(26:48):
request from some students for Catholic Bibles. My understanding is
the 10 Commandments are different and there are more books.
Can you explain the differences between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles,
and are there any translations you think would be easier
to understand for young people?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
OK, I think this is an important point to clarify, um,
that the New Testaments are identical. So there's no, there's
no difference. The New Testament in, um, the Catholic Bible
is identical to the New Testament and what maybe you
would call the Protestant Bible. Uh, the differences are in
the Old Testament. And so the Old Testament contains a
(27:28):
number of other books in the Catholic Bible that are
known as the Apocrypha.
Now the apocrypha is Jewish literature that was not um
recognized by the Jews themselves as being on the same
level as scripture. So they saw it as Jewish literature,
(27:50):
but they didn't see it and religious literature, but they
didn't see it as inspired scripture and therefore the Hebrew
text did not include them.
But the Hebrew text was translated into Greek and we
call that the Septuagint and the Septuagint contained the apocrypha
(28:14):
but with a uh kind of a caveat that these
books were not recognized um as a
Inspired and authoritative as the the other books that we have.
So the Jewish Bible, if you, if you have a
Jewish Bible, I have a Jewish Bible at home, and
(28:36):
the Jewish Bible is of course what we would call
the Old Testament.
And in the Jewish version of the Bible there's 22 books.
In our version, there's 39 books. They're the exact same books.
They just, they, yeah, and, and of course, you know, you,
we have 1st and 2nd Kings. They have only Kings.
They have, we have 12 Chronicles, 12 Samuel. They, they
(28:59):
dropped the 2nd and just have 11 book. So that's how.
That's how the numerical difference, um, works out there. But,
but also Jerome, which the Catholic Bible is derived from
the Latin Vulgate. And so Jerome was a 4th century
scholar who translated, uh, the scriptures into Latin, and he
(29:21):
included the apocrypha, but he literally put a note that
these were not considered, um,
Speaker 1 (29:28):
canonical canonical
Speaker 2 (29:29):
inspired, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Who was that? That was, oh, we, we did 2
in 1. Roger and Michael, thanks for sending in your questions.
Michael sent his in on the uh pastor's perspective page
at Kwave.com, which you can easily get to.
By scanning the QR code on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram,
and Roger sent in his question by using Messenger on
the pastor's perspective Facebook page. We'll get to some phone
(29:54):
calls coming up. John, Carmen, everyone else who wants to
talk to Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger, 888-564-6173 is our number.
(30:17):
Hey, hey, hey, we're back on Pastor's Perspective 888-564-6173. Go
ahead and call in till 4 o'clock. We would love
to hear from you. We've got Brian Broderson from Echoesof Mercy.com.
He's also the pastor emeritus of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa.
In fact, are you teaching Sunday night,
or is this the, as a
Speaker 2 (30:37):
matter of fact, this will be the last Sunday night
that we have in 2025.
Yes, January 18th, 2026. So this will be the last day, yeah, yeah.
So what we're gonna do and last week we did
this and we're gonna do it again this week. We
kind of just had a little, uh, Christmas service, you know,
we sang some of the wonderful Christmas hymns and then I, yeah, no,
(31:02):
we're saving that for this, OK, of course Sergio Lopez
is gonna come and perform it for us, so.
Um,
Speaker 1 (31:09):
so we're gonna, I was like, Phil's gonna,
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I'm sure we're going to, I, you know, last week
I took, um, I took Hark the Herald Angels sing,
and I just, I just broke down the, you know,
the theology in it.
And it was really fun. So this week I'm gonna
do kind of a similar thing with some of the
other hymns, you know, some of the Christmas hymns, they
just have some of the greatest lines in it. You're
my
Speaker 1 (31:29):
gosh, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I love that line. Yeah, I wanna,
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I just did, um, Joy to the World. Did you? Yeah,
and I mean this is such beautiful, but he didn't
write it as a Christmas song.
He wrote
Speaker 2 (31:38):
it as
Speaker 1 (31:39):
a second coming. It's a
second coming song, Psalm 98. He didn't even think about Christmas.
I love it. Wait, where did you teach Hark the Herald?
Is it up online somewhere?
Um,
Speaker 2 (31:50):
no, I think it was,
Speaker 1 (31:51):
it was, you know,
send me your notes. I will. I'd be curious. Yeah, OK.
See, if the people I
Speaker 2 (31:56):
literally had a whole sermon, and I, I kind of
talked about Charles Wesley, you know, wrote 9000 hymns and,
you know, kind of a little bit of background for it, but.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I got a kick. I think it was, it was
Isaac Watts was joy to the world, right? And how his,
he's a teenager in church. I made the joke at,
you know, his dad's a pastor, and he's like, Dad,
your music's boring. This is like before they didn't do singing.
They only did like you chanted the psalms. And his
dad said, then write better songs, and he did.
(32:26):
Isn't that great? And
Speaker 2 (32:27):
we're still singing them.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
We're still singing them 300 and some odd years later.
I love that.
Very good. Alright, and, uh, Phil Metzger from Calvary, San Diego,
what are your Christmas plans on, uh, at church? Yeah, well,
we have like a, like a little outreach on the 19th.
We'll have a skate night, roller skating night for people
in South San Diego. This Friday, a women's Christmas thing,
and then on Christmas, Christmas lunch, we, or excuse me,
(32:50):
Christmas Eve we do a luncheon for people in our
church that have kind of nowhere to go.
Um, a lot of military, so a lot of people
are there, can't get home to family, and then at
4 o'clock we'll have our Christmas Eve service. Very nice.
It'd be fun. Calfrey San Diego.
Come, calm to find out I was just testing you.
I was testing. I was testing myself.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
It's it's in it Calvary SD
Speaker 1 (33:11):
CalvarysD.com. What did I say? I
Speaker 2 (33:13):
don't know. You said San Diego.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Oh,
I did. Did I? Yes, you did. Everybody's gonna do
what they normally do. Just Google it. Just Google it. Yes, Johnny, yeah.
Roll the tape back. We should be able to do that.
We could have a roll the tape back moment. Oh,
we could. I'm sure we have the technology to make
it happen. OK, uh, John in, uh, the Inland Empire
listening on FM 107.9 K wave. Thanks for calling in.
(33:37):
How can we help you? What's your question?
Hi, um, so my question is going off of a
question someone else asked earlier, and that was, uh, who
created God, right?
Right, can you guys hear me? Yeah.
OK, perfect. Um, so.
Yeah, I, I get the, I get like your answer that,
(33:59):
you know, God doesn't have a creator because he's God,
but I find it, like, strange that a lot of
Christians say that, but whenever someone says, um, like, why,
or no, like how did this earth come to be? Like,
there has to be, like, there doesn't have to be like,
(34:23):
A creator, but then a lot of Christians turn around
and say, well, everything must come from something, right? Like, mm,
so you're saying everything must come from something. Why doesn't
God come from something?
Yeah, like
I, I just feel like a lot of Christians aren't
consistent with that argument, you know? Because then they say
(34:45):
God didn't need to come from something, but everything else
somehow needs to come from something. Does that, does that
question kind of make sense, or?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Uh, yeah, I mean, yeah, logically we get it, yeah,
you know, why do we say that?
Uh, when we look at the universe that it had
to come from something, but then we look at God
and say, well, he didn't have to come from something, um,
and I think the answer is simply that, you know,
we're talking one, we're talking about a creation and the
other we're talking about, um, the Creator. So, you know, you,
(35:21):
if you.
You know, if you, if you said, OK, well, um, OK,
so the question is, you know, who created God? Well, uh,
A bigger God created God. Who created that God? Uh,
a bigger God than that. So you, you have to go,
it's called an infinite regress. You never can arrive at
(35:43):
the actual answer of who created until you arrive at
an uncreated being. So the Bible tell, I mean, this
is where revelation is what we base our understanding on.
And revelation is, uh, God has told us that he
(36:03):
is eternal. He told us that he made everything. He
told us that he was and is and always will be,
and we believe that some people believe that obviously some
people don't believe that, but we believe that God is
eternal because he.
declared himself to be eternal and we believe that, you know, we,
(36:29):
we live in a created world. We know that the
world had a beginning. We know the universe had a beginning.
We know that scientifically, so we know if it had
a beginning, it had to have, you know, someone.
Who began it and so but then if if we
apply that same thing to God then again like I
(36:51):
said we end up with an infinite regress and either
we never stop and we never come to a conclusion
or we finally stop at OK I guess they're.
Way, way, way, way, way, you know, at some point, they're,
they're an uncreated.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Creator,
yes, right,
Speaker 2 (37:11):
yeah, that's it. The uncaused cause,
Speaker 1 (37:14):
yeah, and it becomes totally illogical at some point, right, exactly.
I couldn't add to that. I
think
Speaker 2 (37:19):
that was that help.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, so what I'm hearing is that you're saying.
That everything that we see and that everything that
Um, exists right now.
Um, has to have a creator, but the only exception
is God. Like God is the one and only thing
(37:44):
that never has.
Wherever needed a creator, a creator,
Speaker 2 (37:48):
yeah, and, and he, and he's revealed himself as that, yes,
we know that because he, he told us that,
Speaker 1 (37:57):
and, and he's not the exception.
Because that would assume he's on the same level.
He, he's the reason we know Earth was created. He's
the reason we know everything that we know about him. So,
it's not the, he's not the exception, he's the rule.
(38:18):
He is the eternal God, and then he tells us
everything there is to know about creation.
If that makes sense, and nobody else has ever made
those claims either.
That they created the universe, not who didn't die and
then isn't risen from the dead. A lot of people
made the claim, but then they died, seriously, you know,
(38:38):
I think like the Shirley MacLaine kind of things, you know,
I am God, you know,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, and I mean, in, you know, in ancient religious traditions,
of course, they do have claims to creation, but the
creation they claim when you read the creation accounts like
some of the ancient Babylonian, like all of that, it's
obvious that this is mythology. It just, it doesn't, you,
you can't compare like
(39:04):
You know, people, people will say like, oh, Genesis one,
you know, it's the same as, uh, the Babylonian story
of creation, and then you read the Babylonian story of creation,
you're like, well, this is not the same. This is
like a
Speaker 1 (39:16):
cartoon. Yeah, like my 5 year old comes up with that,
like the turtles holding up the earth or whatever, you know, yeah, yeah,
I mean the fact that the ancient literature of the
scriptures holds up to 2025 satellite imagery of the universe is.
Uh, I mean, I'd have no words for that.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, I, I, I was, I was listening to a
conversation today and, um, they were, they were breaking down
the Nicene Creed and the Nicene Creed, we, we believe
in one God, the Father Almighty, who created, who the
Creator of heaven and earth, and he's saying, he was
saying an interesting thing. He said, you know, when you
look at the statement, he said, um, and, and then
(39:59):
you look at creation, he said there's so many things
that affirm that this is actually the case because there's
so many.
Uh, there's so many things that are connected that wouldn't.
It couldn't make sense that they just.
Accidentally connected, yeah, like, so not possible, yeah, so John,
(40:22):
are we helping you or are we just getting you
more confused.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Um, no, yeah, that, that clears it up a bit.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Great, good. There's, I, you know, there's some great, great books.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Oh yeah,
Speaker 2 (40:35):
not one I that could think of right now. Yeah,
Phil and I know of a bunch of them. We
just can't think of any titles
Speaker 1 (40:40):
right now. Read a
few, just can't think of. OK, I'm gonna think about it, John. State.
Just keep listening throughout this, and we'll try to find
one before 4 o'clock, or I could just give them
the number for the chapel store at Calvary Chapel close
to Mesa.
have, you know, they're not gonna try to sell you
a book necessarily, but if you just call them and say, hey,
I'm looking for a book that talks about this, and, uh,
you know, they'll give you the title and the author.
(41:03):
Their number is 714-540-2941. But John, why, uh, why are
you asking this question anyway?
Oh, so I do consider myself a Christian, um, have
been a Christian my whole life. I just, I just
have a lot of, I just think a lot about
these theological
(41:25):
Um, questions, you know, because.
You know, I'm, I'm a very logical person and I
wanna be consistent in everything I say, and this was, um,
a question that has been on my mind recently, so
I thought, why not.
Ask you guys, I mean, I was driving to the
(41:45):
gym and I heard you guys talking, answering questions, so
I just thought, why not?
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Great, good, we love that and we're glad that we
could help. Hey, here's a, here's a book, John, that
I would recommend, and it's, it's actually a small book.
It's one of my favorites though. I love it and
it's called God and Stephen Hawking.
And the author is John Lennox and it's probably like
80 pages or something like that. It's a little paperback,
(42:10):
but it is really, really good and, uh, Doctor Lennox,
who's a mathematics, uh, professor, uh, professor emeritus, uh, Oxford University, um,
he's responding to the idea that Stephen Hawking put forth
that the universe created itself.
(42:33):
And he does a really great job in just showing
why that is a problem. So maybe check that book
out.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yep, God and Stephen Hawking by John Lennox.
John, thanks for calling in today.
Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. You bet.
We're here Monday through Friday from 3 to 40 p.m.
every day. So, um, call in, of course, every day.
That's why I said Monday through Friday. Well, not Saturday
and Sunday, but, uh, call in anytime you've got a question, John.
God bless you, man. Here is Carmen in Anaheim listening
(43:04):
on FM 107.9 K wave. Hello, Carmen.
Hi, good afternoon. How are you? Doing well, thanks.
Yes, um, I have some questions, and it's not only one.
first one is, um, what is the reason to know why,
(43:24):
what is a sin in life? Because as I grow
in faith, I feel that everything I do can be
a sin.
And uh why I feel that I'm always a sinner,
even though I repent.
When I realized that that can be a thing, so
(43:44):
I'm debating.
That right now
So are you're saying maybe it'd be better to not
know something was a sin, or what do you mean?
Yes, I don't know if, um, why I always feel
that I'm a sinner even though I repent. Uh, as
I grow in faith, I think that I, I might
(44:07):
have done something that is not, uh, good, and then
I repent, but I always feel that I'm a sinner.
Yeah, that's a bummer. Um, I mean, Carmen, in one sense, like,
you are correct, it's a bummer how you're feeling, but
it is true, even when we repent, we are still sinners. Um,
(44:30):
that's what the Bible says over and over, I'd really
recommend you read through the book of Romans, with that
in mind, you're gonna really see Paul lay out that
The, the kind of ground zero for all of humanity
is that we're all guilty before God, and that's actually
not the bad news of the Bible, it's the beginning,
it's the kind of, again, ground zero of good news,
(44:52):
that is that Christ died for sinners. So because all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,
we have access, we have the opportunity to by faith,
have Jesus forgive us of our sins and to become
our Lord and Savior. So,
But when I say the bummer part for you, what
I mean is this, I, I think that it's natural
(45:13):
for Christians to always feel bad.
Unless we allow ourselves to become more and more grounded
in the word of God in our relationship with Him,
because when I do that, I realize, yes, it's true
that I am a sinner, but I also become more
and more um comfortable with understanding that I'm also a
(45:36):
child of God, I'm also redeemed, I'm adopted, I recommend
you read Ephesians chapter one. You have been sealed by
the Holy Spirit, like
It's true that I am a sinner, but then there
are other things that are equally and even of greater
value of truth, and I think that um when we
don't ground ourselves, I'm not suggesting you're not grounded, I'm
(45:59):
saying when I let how I feel, uh, drive me,
then yeah, I just feel bad all the time, like
I'm not doing good enough, and then I have to
ground myself in the word and remind myself, oh, I
can't do good enough, I am redeemed by the grace
of God, and I hold on to that truth.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, and I, I think, um, like you're saying, Phil,
I think it sounds like, I mean, obviously, Carmen, we
just want to affirm you, you know, you're a Christian
and God loves you and God's not looking at you
and gosh, Carmen, you're just such a sinner, you know, I, I, I.
I got a lot of kids out there, but, you know,
(46:35):
you're one of the worst. You know, God is not,
God is not doing that. So there is a devil.
He does stuff like that. He kind of wants to
put that in our heads to get us to think
that God's always upset with us, and we can never
expect God to come through for us because after all,
we're such big sinners, you know, and all that.
Um, and, and everything Phil is saying is that's the key,
(46:56):
and I think the way to understand it is you
need to grow in the grace of God. You need
to grow in your understanding of what it means that
you are saved. You're not gonna be saved in the
sense that you're trying to be the best person you
can and hopefully it's all gonna work out in the end.
You are saved already by grace you have been past
(47:18):
tense saved.
And that is not of yourself, it's a gift of God.
So God has given you this gift of salvation, and
you need to grow in your understanding of grace and
like Phil said, the book of Romans, especially, uh, chapters 67,
and 8, that will really shed a lot of light
(47:40):
on God's grace and, and 8 is probably the pinnacle
of it all, chapter 8, and then like Phil said
also Ephesians chapter 1.
Which is different but it's similar to what we read
in Romans 8. So those two would be really good.
And then the final thing I would recommend if you
uh would like to just, you know, get a little
(48:03):
more um.
Uh, just encouraged through the idea of God's graces. My wife,
Cheryl wrote a book called A Woman's Battle for Grace.
And she talks about all of this kind of stuff
in the book, and I would, I would recommend that
you pick up a copy of that book or order
a copy of that book.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
OK, where can I order the book? It's in the
Calvary Chapel, uh, store.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Uh, yeah, I think it is there, but you could
also order it on, um.
Uh, you could get it at Amazon, I think you
could get it. Um, our, I don't know if we
have it on our Echoes of Mercy site yet. Um,
let's see, is there resources up there? Yeah,
Speaker 1 (48:48):
I don't see it. I don't see it on the
Back to Basics site either.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
OK, look at gracious Words.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Oh
yes, gracious words, gracious words.com.
Oh, no, just takes you right to there. OK,
Speaker 2 (49:04):
right
Speaker 1 (49:04):
to there. Well, it's out there somewhere for sure. I'm
almost certain that they have it at the. I will,
I will look into it. Thank you so much
Speaker 2 (49:11):
for. OK, thank you, Carmen, for calling. God bless you.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And again, that book was.
Gracious. A
Speaker 2 (49:18):
woman's battle for a
Speaker 1 (49:19):
woman's battle for grace. There it is. Yeah, it's definitely
on Amazon. But, uh, yeah, if you can come down
to the Calvary the chapel store of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa,
that would be great. 888-564-6173 is our number. Carmen, thank
you for calling in today. God bless you. What are
your plans for the holidays?
Uh, I don't have any plans. I'm just going to
(49:40):
stay home and read my Bible.
OK. Is your family all out of town or?
Um, they are, uh, my daughters are not with me,
so I'm gonna just stay by myself and read my Bible, um,
maybe go to church and come back and have a
(50:01):
little dinner with myself. There you go.
All right, well, I'll be with you this Christmas. Yes,
for sure. All right, uh, let's talk to Michael in
Ventura listening or watching, I should say, on YouTube. Hi there, Michael.
Welcome to the program. Yeah, hello, my brothers. I don't
know if you remember me. I was a first time
(50:21):
caller about 2 months ago asking you if, uh, God, uh,
has predestined people going to heaven, and you answered that
question properly. Oh,
What a relief because we haven't heard, heard from you
for a few months, so we thought, man, you bailed
on a ghosted us there, Michael. No, no, no, no,
I forgot to mention to you that Ventura is the
(50:42):
home of Chuck Smith. He was born here. That's true, yeah.
Yeah. Anyway, I was watching Pastor Jack Hibbs last night
on TV and I like him and I follow him,
but I've been studying the book of Revelation now for
about 2 years and reading a couple of books by others,
and what Pastor Hibbs was saying that he believes that
(51:03):
the false beast in Revelation 13 could possibly be AI
or a statue, and he's the second pastor that I
heard say that in the last month or so.
I wanted your perspective. I don't see a revelation anywhere
where it says artificial or statute, but then again, John
wouldn't know what AI is.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
OK, I'm gonna tell you right now, it is not AI,
and here's how you know, because
At the end of Revelation, it tells us about the
eternal destiny of the beast and the false prophet. They
are to be cast into the lake of fire. So
I don't think throwing a computer into the lake of
(51:47):
fire is what John, right,
Speaker 1 (51:49):
which computer? All computers, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 2 (51:54):
so the false prophet is a, is a person.
And just like the Antichrist is a person, will they
use AI?
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Who knows? I mean, listen, of course, I mean, let's
just say it like, and who, who everybody is to
a certain degree, but yeah, to, yeah, that's John or Michael.
It's not AI is not the false prophet.
Yeah, the other thing that bothered me was in Revelation
specifically space not to take anything or add anything to
(52:21):
the book.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Yeah, but I, I don't think that that I, I mean,
you know, this is just an uh an opinion. I'm
sure if you ask Jack, like, Jack, are you, are
you saying for sure that it's AI, he would say no,
but I think that, um, and in the book of
Revelation when it gives that warning, it's talking about something
much more serious than just, you know, speculating. We all
(52:46):
do that to some degree. We speculate on, you know,
what aspects of the book will mean.
We're not adding to it or we're not taking away
from it. We're trying to interpret it. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
I look at Joshua 8:1. It says take all the
troops with you and go attack AI. So, um, you know,
that just shows right there. I, that's good. That's a
good one.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
AI was already here
Speaker 1 (53:08):
back
Speaker 2 (53:08):
in
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Joshua's back in Joshua's day. Amazing, isn't it? AI, yep, let's, uh,
take another question. This one sent in online. Tim in Prescott,
Arizona writes about Ezra chapter 8, verse 15.
And Tim says this verse states that Ezra found priests,
but no Levites assembled. Why does he differentiate priests as
(53:31):
separate than the Levite tribe as a whole?
The Levites were not all Levites served as priests.
There was different functions and different roles, and worship leaders
and people that caretakers and
Setter uppers for things and it was a bigger group
(53:52):
than the specific group that was the priestly.
Element of the tribe of Levi. So lots of Levites.
A specific group within the Levites were the priests.
All right, Tim, thank you for sending in your question.
That's just one of the ways that you can get
your question to us if you can't call in when
(54:13):
we're here in the studio between 3 and 4 p.m.
Monday through Friday, Pacific time at 888-564-6173. You can uh
send us your question via messenger on the Pastor's Perspective
Facebook page or you can DM us on the pastor's
perspective Instagram, or you can scan.
The QR code, if you're watching on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram,
(54:33):
that'll take you right to that pastor's perspective page at
Kwave.com where you can fill out the form and that
gets your question to us. But our favorite way to
uh hear your question is when you call in so
that we can dialogue with you guys. We get it, some,
some of you work during this time, so you can't
call in, and that's why we have these other ways, but, uh,
I'm just telling
(54:54):
You, we, uh, we take the phone calls as priority.
So call in if you can. Take a day off
of work. And if your boss asks, why are you
taking the day off, just say, because I want to
call Pastor's perspective, and you won't let me call from
my desk. So I'm gonna take the day off and
do it, or take your lunch break at this time.
There's so many ways that you can call us. I'm
just setting you up to,
Speaker 2 (55:12):
um, or just go on vacation and then, you know,
you can just call and
Speaker 1 (55:15):
while
Speaker 2 (55:15):
you're there,
Speaker 1 (55:16):
yeah,
Speaker 2 (55:16):
all day every day.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
I wanna do that, then do it. Yeah, let's go.
All right guys, we'll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listening, and we're gonna archive today's episode on Facebook, YouTube,
Apple Podcasts, and Spotify if you wanna watch it later
or listen to it later or share it with your friends.
God bless you. We'll talk to you next time on
Pastor's Perspective.
Hello and welcome to Pastor's Perspective. I'm your host, Brian Perez,
and uh look at that, it's 3 o'clock at least
on the Pacific coast. And uh so we're here live
to answer the questions you have about the Bible, the
Christian faith, just about anything that's on your mind on
this Thursday afternoon. The number to call is 888-564.
617-3888-564-6173. If you're watching us on Facebook or YouTube or Instagram,
(00:45):
you can call in to the number's right there on
the bottom of your screen, or you can scan that
QR code and that'll take you to the pastor's perspective
page at Kwave.com, where you can submit your question and
uh we just might answer it here on the radio program,
but we prefer to hear the sound of your voice,
so do call in.
To 888-564-6173. We've got Brian Broderson from Echoesof Mercy.com, the
(01:11):
pastor emeritus of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in the studio.
How are you doing, Brian?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, I'm doing great.
Good to be here with my good friends.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yes, and Phil Metzger's here.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You, Brian Perez, my good friend, you, and Phil Metzger,
my good
Speaker 1 (01:29):
friend. The memo. I didn't get the memo, the black shirt,
black t-shirt memo. Sorry, I failed again. Yeah, but you
look great. Well, thank you.
Is that salmon? That's a salmon shirt, right? I don't know.
Somebody said it was pink, and I'm like, it is
not pink. That's salmon.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
It's is salmon,
Speaker 1 (01:43):
yeah, right? That's salmon.
Yeah, it looks good. I was going for red, and no,
you didn't get. I didn't get red. Yeah, yeah, this
is the clothes. Oh, that's red. Oh yeah, yeah, this
is way off. No, it's the reddest thing I have,
so it looks good. I like it. Thank you.
All right, call in 888-564-6173. Let us know what's on
your mind. Maybe you wanna talk about the Grinch. That,
(02:05):
by the way, was a great conversation that, uh, on
Tuesday I wasn't here that day, but somebody told me
about it. I'm like, I've got to go back and
watch this, and, uh.
The whole thing that was a that was great. Look
for it guys. It was the uh it was December
9th
episode
Speaker 2 (02:19):
of more powerful moments on the program
Speaker 1 (02:22):
definitely
Speaker 2 (02:23):
finding out, especially for me. I mean, I was kind
of humbled because, you know, I was all down on
the Grinch and then I found out he became a
Christian and then I felt bad.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Well, I mean, I don't know if he became a Christian,
but he definitely got a bigger heart. His heart grew
5 times, and it was a shock to most of
our listeners to discover Brian's hatred for the Grinch.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Well, it kind of, like I said, it kind of
goes back to Dr. Seuss. I mean, it, it, it
Speaker 1 (02:49):
kind of annoying.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It transcends the Grinch,
Speaker 1 (02:52):
that same style, you know,
Speaker 2 (02:53):
when I was a kid, I mean, I had to
like read like Green Eggs and Ham and stuff like that,
and I thought, who, who even thought that this was
a good idea to write these books and give them
to kids,
Speaker 1 (03:05):
you know, he, um, lived in San Diego.
La Jolla, his house is still, yeah, you could see
his house. Yeah. Does it look like a Dr. Seuss?
They used to have little things that were doctor, but
then everybody kept stealing it, so not anymore.
Yeah, it is a little weird, but yeah, it was
a fun show. We had a good time.
All right, 888-564-6173 is our number and you can also
(03:27):
send in your questions online and uh that's what Jessica
did from Huntington Beach, going to the uh Kwave.com pastor's
perspective page and uh she asks, how do I know
if I've truly forgiven my mom?
And if reconciliation is the next step, I went no
contact with my mom a few years ago. She raised
us as a single mom and was abusive physically and emotionally.
(03:49):
There's a lot of trauma, and I know she has
unhealed trauma as well from her childhood. Until recently, I
knew I hadn't forgiven her, but would pray every day
to Jesus to help me forgive her and release my
hurt at His feet. I've always missed her and yearned
for that maternal relationship, but I still held on to
the hurt and knew I wasn't ready.
(04:09):
Um, I started therapy a few months ago and it
was helping, but it came full stop when I unexpectedly
lost my insurance. A few days ago, I was watching
a Focus on the Family episode with Doctor Irwin Lutzer.
It was such a blessing to me and I felt
the Holy Spirit was speaking directly to me, and I
felt this overwhelming joy.
And peace come over me. I can't explain it, just
(04:29):
that it had to be Jesus because I felt so
much peace, it brought me to tears. I have sisters
that still speak to her, and from what they tell me,
it seems she's still repeating patterns and cycles that lead
me to going no contact, that led me to going
no contact in the first place. My mother is a
Christian in name, but has no fruit of the spirit.
(04:50):
I don't know if I should at least tell her
I forgive her and move on.
I was opting out of family gatherings and events because
I couldn't bear to be around her. I miss seeing
my sisters, but I'm worried if I see my mom,
it could undo everything, which is why I'm unsure if
I've really forgiven her or not. What do you guys say, Phil? What,
what was her name? Jessica.
(05:12):
Yeah, it's funny, I just had a conversation with somebody
about this idea of forgiveness and reconciliation, and I think
there's this, we talk about it quite a bit on
the show, that there's a, there's a misguided idea that
You know, we, we, we have this like kind of
like um twin phrase of forgive and forget, but that's,
nobody forgets, um, not even God, the concept that God,
you know, forgets is, is more like symbolic of the
(05:36):
fact that he no longer holds that over you. He's
a sovereign lord who knows all things, he's not forgetting anything,
but he's certainly like not holding you accountable to that anymore. So,
so if your metric for forgiveness is that you have
to like forget and
So, my, my point is this, we need to separate
out the idea of forgiveness and reconciliation because forgiveness is
(05:57):
not something that you and I do because the person
deserves the forgiveness. I forgive because God's forgiven me, and
so I choose to no longer give other people power
in my life through my bitterness, through my resentment, through
my
My hurt, I, I choose to say, you know what, Lord,
(06:18):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna release this, and I'm gonna forgive.
The very idea that you would like maybe, you know,
put up some, you know, the idea that I don't
want to be around my mom, she hasn't changed her patterns, she's,
things haven't adjusted in any way, shape or form.
That's not a lack of forgiveness. In many ways we
might even say that's, that's, there's some wisdom to that.
(06:40):
I don't know your circumstance enough, but what you, what
we read is, I, I think there's a lot of
wisdom in, in keeping some, but, but to assume that
that means that you're not forgiving, um, I would, I would,
I would argue that. Now obviously all of us want
to become more gracious, more forgiving.
Sometimes we think we are sometimes we've forgive and I, I,
I see this a lot. I forgive, right? And then
(07:02):
I don't see the person for a while, then I
see them and I'm like, oh, I don't.
That lack of forgiveness comes right back, but I think
that's not that I didn't forgive then, it's that I'm
now being given like a fresh opportunity to learn a
deeper level of forgiveness. So I don't know that I
would tell Jessica to beat herself up anymore that like
she's not forgiving. It's just that um these things, you know,
(07:23):
if your mom's not even wanting forgiveness, there's not, that's,
there's no reconciliation. You can't have that, but you can
say before God, I'm gonna release this and Lord, Lord, I'm,
I'm gonna forgive,
Speaker 2 (07:34):
right?
Yep, I agree 100%, and I, and I, I mean,
you know, like, like Phil said, we have talked about
this a number of times, but I, I do think
that we have to have in our minds that these
are two different things. Sometimes forgiveness and reconciliation go hand
in hand.
(07:56):
But they don't necessarily go hand in hand, and I
think if we, like you're saying with Jessica, you know,
if she's living in condemnation because she's fearful about like
reconciliation because it doesn't seem like there's any chance there's
not really any of that there, uh, that that automatically
means like, oh no, I must not have forgiven. So
(08:18):
like you said, I think, yeah, just, you know, be
free from that and.
Um, you don't have to put yourself in that situation.
God's not calling you to do that.
And you know, if your mother reaches out and says, gosh, honey,
you know, I, I, I really just wanna tell you
that I'm sorry, that's a different story. It sounds like
that has not happened and
Speaker 1 (08:37):
still repeating the same patterns. Yeah, that's like that's wild. Jessica,
thanks for sending in your question. And here's another one
that was sent in online. It's from Robert in Duarte,
who listens to us on AM 11:10 K wave. Robert writes,
Hello gentlemen. If a person doesn't understand God.
Nor understand God's severe and enormous wrath. How can a
(08:59):
person fully understand God's judgment of eternal torture in a
lake of fire? What do you think, Brian?
Well,
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Uh, I mean, I.
I, I kind of don't get the question. Yeah, I'm
trying to think it through here too, but, um,
Speaker 1 (09:16):
which is why we prefer when you guys call in
and ask your question in case we don't. I get
it with when, when you send in your question, you've
only got limited characters or limited words.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I
mean, you know, when you think about eternal.
Torment, eternal conscious torment is um.
The way it's referred to, you know, people actually not
just being separated from God eternally, but, you know, consciously
living with that separation. Um, that's a horrific idea.
(09:46):
But I do think that that is what the Bible
is talking about. It is the destiny of some people,
not because God wants anybody to be in that situation,
but because in the end people will by choice, uh, end,
end up in that situation. Um, but yes, in order to,
to get your head around it, you do have to
(10:07):
understand a couple of things. You have to understand, um.
The sinfulness of sin.
You do have to understand the holiness of God.
And when, when you understand the holiness of God, the
person of God, who God truly is, then, then it.
(10:32):
Then it will make sense.
You know, you think of in in scripture, you think
of Job. Job has all kinds of questions about why
his life is the way it is, why he's suffering,
why is there injustice, how come God's not answering me? He,
he has all these questions and then the Lord appears
(10:53):
to him and Job's like, uh.
OK, uh, no more questions. Thank you. You know, God
doesn't even have to say anything. Just when Job sees
and Job says it, he says, I heard about you before,
but now my eye has seen you and I repent,
meaning like, I, I'm sorry that I even had a doubt.
So yeah, when we get a, uh, some kind of
(11:16):
understanding of who God is, really.
Then that brings everything else into perspective. You're like, oh, well,
of course, this totally makes sense in relation to what
it is to reject God and the consequences of that.
You know, I think in like in Hebrews, you know,
where it talks about, um,
(11:37):
You know those who trample the Son of God underfoot,
they do despite to the spirit of grace they, um,
they count the blood of Christ as unholy those are,
those are serious offenses against a God who demonstrated the ultimate, uh,
act of mercy and.
(11:58):
Grace and love, you know, through the cross.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
It's crazy, huh? Yeah, I, I, I think I.
And I, I believe exactly what the Bible says on this,
as much as I understand it, but
The longer that you're a Christian, and I think the
longer I'm a Christian, the harder it is.
The the concept of hell is difficult because it's so final.
(12:23):
And I think that's supposed to make me kingdom minded,
care about people.
Um,
So I don't think that
I, I think it's harder to accept hell the longer
you've been a Christian than it is if you don't
know anything about it at all, because you just say, wow.
This is like, you know, the character of God that
I know is his, you know, I was just reading
(12:44):
the verse in Romans 2:4, that it's the goodness of
God that leads us to repentance. Like I don't dwell on,
I don't live in the space where I'm dwelling on
the idea that of hell, you know, though I know
it's true.
And um but I think it's got to be what
motivates us in some degree to being good witnesses in
the world, right? Like this is an unbearable idea. Yeah
Speaker 2 (13:07):
well, I don't know. I don't know if you know this,
but just like this week, um, Kurt Cameron,
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I think
Speaker 2 (13:12):
we
Speaker 1 (13:12):
just pulled that
up. I
was, so
Speaker 2 (13:15):
yeah, you know, so he's come out and basically that's
a big jump just taken an annihilationist view. Now let's
just
Give a little bit of context. There are theologians before him,
plenty that have taken that view. And the idea there
is that, um, it, it's not an eternal punishment. It
(13:37):
is a, you know, you suffer, it's a temporal thing,
but then at a certain point you just go, you
cease
to cease to
exist. So, which, I, I mean, that still sounds.
Kind of brutal, you know, there, there is some, there
is some suffering, and who knows how long it is.
It's kind of like purgatory. You know, purgatory is the
idea that because, uh, you know, we still sin.
(14:03):
And we'll die with sin. Somehow that sin has to
be purged. That's what purgatory is. So you got to
go and you have to be there for a long time. Yeah,
you gotta work it off,
Speaker 1 (14:12):
yeah, and it's hundreds of years, it seems like, yeah,
Speaker 2 (14:15):
even thousands. I mean, you know, it's like.
It, it varies. I don't know how they determine, you know,
how many years you have to spend in purgatory. Well,
it's
Speaker 1 (14:24):
like inflation. It's like started at 1s and then it
went to 10s and thousands,
Speaker 2 (14:27):
but it, but it's kind of, it's kind of the
same idea, you know, where you're like, OK, yeah, this
is better than the alternative of forever, yeah, forever. So,
so annihilationism is, it's that same kind of an attempt
to say, OK, well, how do we soften this? Yeah,
soften it a little bit, yeah.
And I think that so you like you said, Phil,
(14:48):
you get it. I mean, the longer I'm a Christian,
the more I think about hell as like wow this
is crazy, but it doesn't make me then
Speaker 1 (15:00):
question God's word
Speaker 2 (15:02):
or uh it doesn't make me, uh, cast an aspersion
on his character. How could God do this.
It just makes me realize, uh, there's stuff I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, and
this is serious stuff, yeah, totally, yeah.
Robert, thank you for sending in your question through the
pastor's perspective page at Kwave.com. Now we're gonna go to
the phones. The number to call is 888-564-6173. We've got
pastors Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger here answering your questions
about the Bible and the
(15:34):
Christian faith until 4 o'clock. So call in, grab an
open line, 888-564-6173. We'll talk to Brielle. She is listening
on FM 107.9 Kwave in Temecula. Hi, Brielle, welcome to
Pastor's Perspective.
Hi, hello.
(15:54):
What's your question for us today?
Um, why did God pick Mary to be Jesus' mom?
Pastor Brian, and you have another question too. OK, we'll
do one at a time. OK,
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I'll do the first one.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
he always saves that second one for you whenever it
comes in. I've noticed
Speaker 2 (16:12):
I, I leave him the hard ones. Um, well, Briel,
why did, why did he choose like Mary specifically instead
of choosing some other lady? Is that what you're asking?
Yeah. OK. Well, we don't know exactly, but we do
(16:33):
know this that Mary, uh, had to be descended from
King David because the promise was that the savior would
come through uh David's family. So this young woman Mary
or her name was Miriam actually in her Hebrew.
(16:55):
Uh, context she was, uh, of the family of David,
so she, um.
You know, so she qualified there, but I think also
that she is a um a person who loves God.
She's obviously a person who's committed to God and is
(17:16):
seeking God, but exactly why God chose her. I'm sure
there were other probably other women that were godly, of
course there were, uh, I, but the but the connection
to David.
And at the time that this is going to happen,
you know, perhaps she was the one person at the time.
(17:40):
Who was at the right age, uh, to become the mother, uh,
of the Messiah with a, a historical connection to David.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What would you say, Phil? That was a good answer. Yeah, Brielle,
what do you think? I don't think there's anything else
to it. I'm just the same reason he chooses all
of us too, Briel, is that he loves you. He
chose Mary because he loves her,
Speaker 2 (18:03):
yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
OK, I know.
Let's hear it.
If God created Jesus, who created God? Oh, good question, Brielle.
How old are you, Brielle?
7 years old, great question. Oh, really good question, Briel,
7 years old, a little scholar here. OK, who created God?
(18:30):
Nobody created God. That's why he's God, because God, the
Bible tells us, always has existed. He was never created,
he's always been here. Before everything, God was still here,
and after everything, God still is, so.
And so, so who created God? Nobody created God because
(18:52):
He is God, and by being God, he was never created.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad it makes sense to a seven
year old because I still don't get that. It's just
like one of those things that, man, it's, we always
think everything has a beginning, yeah, right, but not God, yeah,
just because we have a beginning, we, we center our
(19:13):
thinking and what we know, and we don't know non-beginning. Yes, yes,
it's crazy, but the faith of a child, that's the,
that's what we're hearing here, real.
Any other questions, Brielle?
No, OK, well, next time you think of one, just
call in same number. Great hearing from you. Merry Christmas. Yeah,
have a good Christmas, Brielle.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, it's always so good to hear from the, the,
the young ones, and they had, they do just have
brilliant questions, you know, it's amazing. I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
888-564-6173 is our number. And here is David in Rancho Cucamonga.
You are on with Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger. Welcome, David.
Oh hello, I'm 7 also but 67. Hey, you're 6'7.
I think that's a good thing right nowadays it is, yeah, anyways,
(20:07):
my question was, um.
Before Jesus was around, uh, how did people get saved,
the ones before him, um, I'll take my answer over
the radio.
OK, Phil, let me start. Yeah, first I wanna just
um
Say, just for clarity, Jesus was always around, but not
(20:27):
here on earth, um, as the, you know, he didn't
become one of us in the sense of being born
like we're celebrating at Christmas, but he is the second
person of the Trinity, right? God the Father, God the Son, and,
and God the Son is eternal, pre-existing, he's always been here,
just to make that clarity.
In terms of how did people, how did people get
to heaven before Jesus, really in the same way, it
(20:50):
was faith in the promises of God yet to be fulfilled,
whereas we're having faith in the promises of God fulfilled.
So they were believing in the coming Messiah, so they
lived according to what God had revealed to them, they
lived by faith, and now we live by faith in
what has been revealed and the Messiah who already came.
(21:11):
So they believed in a coming Messiah. We believed in
a Messiah who has already come. Same way, by faith.
What do you think, David?
Uh
If he's still there, yeah, yeah, but did he hang up?
Are you still there, David?
I don't know. Brian. Anything to add? He loved it
(21:32):
so much. He's off. He's in awe. He's in awe
Speaker 2 (21:35):
of that. No, I mean that, that is the, you know,
that's obviously the right answer. Um, I, I just, I
think even maybe just a little more of a simplification
would be that people believed the revelation.
That they were given. So, you know, some, uh, because we,
we use this term a lot, we talk about progressive revelation, right? So,
(21:59):
so throughout history, God is revealing more and more about
what he's going to do, but we go back to
the very first two people, and this is where the
promise originates, right? Um, God says God is speaking actually
to the devil who's, you know, tempted Eve and she's.
Uh, eating the fruit and sin has entered in and
(22:20):
everything has now gone completely sideways and, and God is,
you know, pronouncing the consequences of that, but he says
to Satan, uh, the serpent, he says, um, I will
put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed
and her seed.
And he shall crush your head and you shall bruise
(22:41):
his heel. So they call that the proto-Eangelion, meaning this
is the first gospel. So all the way back in
the earliest dawn of history, God gives us promise, and
then the progressive, uh, revealing of it takes place as
we go further into history. So God starts to fill in, um,
(23:04):
the blanks, if you will.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
It's good.
Hope that answers your question. Thanks for calling in today, David,
to 888-564-6173. Phone line's open for another 35 minutes or so.
We'd love to hear from you at 888-564-6173. You can
also send in your question using the messenger on the
pastor's perspective Facebook page. That's how we got this one. Hi, pastors,
(23:29):
this is Gloria from Ontario. Today, me and my co-worker, Alejandra,
were reading and studying Luke chapter 8.
In this chapter, Jesus was told that his mother and
brothers were outside trying to reach Him. Jesus then tells
them that his mother and brothers are the ones who
hear the word of God and do it. This part
of Scripture is the reason why my mom believes that Mary,
(23:52):
mother of Jesus, never had children again. Where will I
find it in the Bible to prove that Jesus did
have half brothers by Mary, his mother?
Brian,
Speaker 2 (24:03):
OK, I, I'm trying to figure out like why, um,
why from that passage does she believe that Mary never had,
I've never heard that before. No, I mean I've heard
it before but not from that, from that passage, right? Yeah,
like that passage seems to.
That passage would seem to say that Jesus did have
(24:24):
brothers and sisters. Um, I mean there is actually a
passage in one of the synoptics. I can't remember if
it's Matthew, Mark, or Luke or maybe two of them
where they ask the question about Jesus. Is this not Jesus,
the um.
The son of
I think, I think it's as the son of Joseph
(24:47):
and are not his brothers and sisters among us. So
it says specifically that Jesus had brothers and sisters. Now
of course some have said, well, that um those were
like relatives. They were like his cousins or something like
that or they were the children of Joseph from a
(25:08):
previous marriage. Well.
And, and some have even said, well, you know, the
word for cousin and brother is the same. Well, actually
it's not the same.
And so there are, there are words for relative.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
Um, are you looking at Matthew? You're talking about Matthew 13:55, right?
Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother
called Mary and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas
and his sisters? Are they not all with us? Yeah,
Matthew 13. Yeah,
Speaker 2 (25:35):
so it's, I mean, it's not only says he has brothers,
it tells
Speaker 1 (25:38):
us that and then also and his name, their names,
and then says and sisters. So it wouldn't say his
cousins and his cousins. Like, good point.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
His boy cousins and his
Speaker 1 (25:49):
girlfriends, right, right, we're clarifying gender of cousins now. Yeah,
that's right.
And,
Speaker 2 (25:54):
and of course the New Testament, Paul refers to James
as the
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Lord's
Speaker 2 (26:02):
brother. And so, yes.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
So that's it. Hope that answers the question, Gloria, and
uh great to hear that you and your friend are
doing Bible study together. Here's another question that was sent
in online. It's from Michael. It's almost break time, so
uh we'll get to some more questions at 888-564-6173 in
a bit. Here is Michael's question from Highland, California.
(26:26):
My Catholic friend says his Bible has more books than
the Christian Bible. Is that true? And if it is,
how many books are there and why were they omitted?
And then Roger has a similar question. He says, our
Friday night Bible study has been buying Bibles for the
Christian club at a local high school, many of whom
are new to the Christian faith. Recently, there's been a
(26:48):
request from some students for Catholic Bibles. My understanding is
the 10 Commandments are different and there are more books.
Can you explain the differences between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles,
and are there any translations you think would be easier
to understand for young people?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
OK, I think this is an important point to clarify, um,
that the New Testaments are identical. So there's no, there's
no difference. The New Testament in, um, the Catholic Bible
is identical to the New Testament and what maybe you
would call the Protestant Bible. Uh, the differences are in
the Old Testament. And so the Old Testament contains a
(27:28):
number of other books in the Catholic Bible that are
known as the Apocrypha.
Now the apocrypha is Jewish literature that was not um
recognized by the Jews themselves as being on the same
level as scripture. So they saw it as Jewish literature,
(27:50):
but they didn't see it and religious literature, but they
didn't see it as inspired scripture and therefore the Hebrew
text did not include them.
But the Hebrew text was translated into Greek and we
call that the Septuagint and the Septuagint contained the apocrypha
(28:14):
but with a uh kind of a caveat that these
books were not recognized um as a
Inspired and authoritative as the the other books that we have.
So the Jewish Bible, if you, if you have a
Jewish Bible, I have a Jewish Bible at home, and
(28:36):
the Jewish Bible is of course what we would call
the Old Testament.
And in the Jewish version of the Bible there's 22 books.
In our version, there's 39 books. They're the exact same books.
They just, they, yeah, and, and of course, you know, you,
we have 1st and 2nd Kings. They have only Kings.
They have, we have 12 Chronicles, 12 Samuel. They, they
(28:59):
dropped the 2nd and just have 11 book. So that's how.
That's how the numerical difference, um, works out there. But,
but also Jerome, which the Catholic Bible is derived from
the Latin Vulgate. And so Jerome was a 4th century
scholar who translated, uh, the scriptures into Latin, and he
(29:21):
included the apocrypha, but he literally put a note that
these were not considered, um,
Speaker 1 (29:28):
canonical canonical
Speaker 2 (29:29):
inspired, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Who was that? That was, oh, we, we did 2
in 1. Roger and Michael, thanks for sending in your questions.
Michael sent his in on the uh pastor's perspective page
at Kwave.com, which you can easily get to.
By scanning the QR code on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram,
and Roger sent in his question by using Messenger on
the pastor's perspective Facebook page. We'll get to some phone
(29:54):
calls coming up. John, Carmen, everyone else who wants to
talk to Brian Broderson and Phil Metzger, 888-564-6173 is our number.
(30:17):
Hey, hey, hey, we're back on Pastor's Perspective 888-564-6173. Go
ahead and call in till 4 o'clock. We would love
to hear from you. We've got Brian Broderson from Echoesof Mercy.com.
He's also the pastor emeritus of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa.
In fact, are you teaching Sunday night,
or is this the, as a
Speaker 2 (30:37):
matter of fact, this will be the last Sunday night
that we have in 2025.
Yes, January 18th, 2026. So this will be the last day, yeah, yeah.
So what we're gonna do and last week we did
this and we're gonna do it again this week. We
kind of just had a little, uh, Christmas service, you know,
we sang some of the wonderful Christmas hymns and then I, yeah, no,
(31:02):
we're saving that for this, OK, of course Sergio Lopez
is gonna come and perform it for us, so.
Um,
Speaker 1 (31:09):
so we're gonna, I was like, Phil's gonna,
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I'm sure we're going to, I, you know, last week
I took, um, I took Hark the Herald Angels sing,
and I just, I just broke down the, you know,
the theology in it.
And it was really fun. So this week I'm gonna
do kind of a similar thing with some of the
other hymns, you know, some of the Christmas hymns, they
just have some of the greatest lines in it. You're
my
Speaker 1 (31:29):
gosh, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2 (31:30):
I love that line. Yeah, I wanna,
Speaker 1 (31:31):
I just did, um, Joy to the World. Did you? Yeah,
and I mean this is such beautiful, but he didn't
write it as a Christmas song.
He wrote
Speaker 2 (31:38):
it as
Speaker 1 (31:39):
a second coming. It's a
second coming song, Psalm 98. He didn't even think about Christmas.
I love it. Wait, where did you teach Hark the Herald?
Is it up online somewhere?
Um,
Speaker 2 (31:50):
no, I think it was,
Speaker 1 (31:51):
it was, you know,
send me your notes. I will. I'd be curious. Yeah, OK.
See, if the people I
Speaker 2 (31:56):
literally had a whole sermon, and I, I kind of
talked about Charles Wesley, you know, wrote 9000 hymns and,
you know, kind of a little bit of background for it, but.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I got a kick. I think it was, it was
Isaac Watts was joy to the world, right? And how his,
he's a teenager in church. I made the joke at,
you know, his dad's a pastor, and he's like, Dad,
your music's boring. This is like before they didn't do singing.
They only did like you chanted the psalms. And his
dad said, then write better songs, and he did.
(32:26):
Isn't that great? And
Speaker 2 (32:27):
we're still singing them.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
We're still singing them 300 and some odd years later.
I love that.
Very good. Alright, and, uh, Phil Metzger from Calvary, San Diego,
what are your Christmas plans on, uh, at church? Yeah, well,
we have like a, like a little outreach on the 19th.
We'll have a skate night, roller skating night for people
in South San Diego. This Friday, a women's Christmas thing,
and then on Christmas, Christmas lunch, we, or excuse me,
(32:50):
Christmas Eve we do a luncheon for people in our
church that have kind of nowhere to go.
Um, a lot of military, so a lot of people
are there, can't get home to family, and then at
4 o'clock we'll have our Christmas Eve service. Very nice.
It'd be fun. Calfrey San Diego.
Come, calm to find out I was just testing you.
I was testing. I was testing myself.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
It's it's in it Calvary SD
Speaker 1 (33:11):
CalvarysD.com. What did I say? I
Speaker 2 (33:13):
don't know. You said San Diego.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Oh,
I did. Did I? Yes, you did. Everybody's gonna do
what they normally do. Just Google it. Just Google it. Yes, Johnny, yeah.
Roll the tape back. We should be able to do that.
We could have a roll the tape back moment. Oh,
we could. I'm sure we have the technology to make
it happen. OK, uh, John in, uh, the Inland Empire
listening on FM 107.9 K wave. Thanks for calling in.
(33:37):
How can we help you? What's your question?
Hi, um, so my question is going off of a
question someone else asked earlier, and that was, uh, who
created God, right?
Right, can you guys hear me? Yeah.
OK, perfect. Um, so.
Yeah, I, I get the, I get like your answer that,
(33:59):
you know, God doesn't have a creator because he's God,
but I find it, like, strange that a lot of
Christians say that, but whenever someone says, um, like, why,
or no, like how did this earth come to be? Like,
there has to be, like, there doesn't have to be like,
(34:23):
A creator, but then a lot of Christians turn around
and say, well, everything must come from something, right? Like, mm,
so you're saying everything must come from something. Why doesn't
God come from something?
Yeah, like
I, I just feel like a lot of Christians aren't
consistent with that argument, you know? Because then they say
(34:45):
God didn't need to come from something, but everything else
somehow needs to come from something. Does that, does that
question kind of make sense, or?
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Uh, yeah, I mean, yeah, logically we get it, yeah,
you know, why do we say that?
Uh, when we look at the universe that it had
to come from something, but then we look at God
and say, well, he didn't have to come from something, um,
and I think the answer is simply that, you know,
we're talking one, we're talking about a creation and the
other we're talking about, um, the Creator. So, you know, you,
(35:21):
if you.
You know, if you, if you said, OK, well, um, OK,
so the question is, you know, who created God? Well, uh,
A bigger God created God. Who created that God? Uh,
a bigger God than that. So you, you have to go,
it's called an infinite regress. You never can arrive at
(35:43):
the actual answer of who created until you arrive at
an uncreated being. So the Bible tell, I mean, this
is where revelation is what we base our understanding on.
And revelation is, uh, God has told us that he
(36:03):
is eternal. He told us that he made everything. He
told us that he was and is and always will be,
and we believe that some people believe that obviously some
people don't believe that, but we believe that God is
eternal because he.
declared himself to be eternal and we believe that, you know, we,
(36:29):
we live in a created world. We know that the
world had a beginning. We know the universe had a beginning.
We know that scientifically, so we know if it had
a beginning, it had to have, you know, someone.
Who began it and so but then if if we
apply that same thing to God then again like I
(36:51):
said we end up with an infinite regress and either
we never stop and we never come to a conclusion
or we finally stop at OK I guess they're.
Way, way, way, way, way, you know, at some point, they're,
they're an uncreated.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Creator,
yes, right,
Speaker 2 (37:11):
yeah, that's it. The uncaused cause,
Speaker 1 (37:14):
yeah, and it becomes totally illogical at some point, right, exactly.
I couldn't add to that. I
think
Speaker 2 (37:19):
that was that help.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Yeah, so what I'm hearing is that you're saying.
That everything that we see and that everything that
Um, exists right now.
Um, has to have a creator, but the only exception
is God. Like God is the one and only thing
(37:44):
that never has.
Wherever needed a creator, a creator,
Speaker 2 (37:48):
yeah, and, and he, and he's revealed himself as that, yes,
we know that because he, he told us that,
Speaker 1 (37:57):
and, and he's not the exception.
Because that would assume he's on the same level.
He, he's the reason we know Earth was created. He's
the reason we know everything that we know about him. So,
it's not the, he's not the exception, he's the rule.
(38:18):
He is the eternal God, and then he tells us
everything there is to know about creation.
If that makes sense, and nobody else has ever made
those claims either.
That they created the universe, not who didn't die and
then isn't risen from the dead. A lot of people
made the claim, but then they died, seriously, you know,
(38:38):
I think like the Shirley MacLaine kind of things, you know,
I am God, you know,
yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, and I mean, in, you know, in ancient religious traditions,
of course, they do have claims to creation, but the
creation they claim when you read the creation accounts like
some of the ancient Babylonian, like all of that, it's
obvious that this is mythology. It just, it doesn't, you,
you can't compare like
(39:04):
You know, people, people will say like, oh, Genesis one,
you know, it's the same as, uh, the Babylonian story
of creation, and then you read the Babylonian story of creation,
you're like, well, this is not the same. This is
like a
Speaker 1 (39:16):
cartoon. Yeah, like my 5 year old comes up with that,
like the turtles holding up the earth or whatever, you know, yeah, yeah,
I mean the fact that the ancient literature of the
scriptures holds up to 2025 satellite imagery of the universe is.
Uh, I mean, I'd have no words for that.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, I, I, I was, I was listening to a
conversation today and, um, they were, they were breaking down
the Nicene Creed and the Nicene Creed, we, we believe
in one God, the Father Almighty, who created, who the
Creator of heaven and earth, and he's saying, he was
saying an interesting thing. He said, you know, when you
look at the statement, he said, um, and, and then
(39:59):
you look at creation, he said there's so many things
that affirm that this is actually the case because there's
so many.
Uh, there's so many things that are connected that wouldn't.
It couldn't make sense that they just.
Accidentally connected, yeah, like, so not possible, yeah, so John,
(40:22):
are we helping you or are we just getting you
more confused.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Um, no, yeah, that, that clears it up a bit.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Great, good. There's, I, you know, there's some great, great books.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Oh yeah,
Speaker 2 (40:35):
not one I that could think of right now. Yeah,
Phil and I know of a bunch of them. We
just can't think of any titles
Speaker 1 (40:40):
right now. Read a
few, just can't think of. OK, I'm gonna think about it, John. State.
Just keep listening throughout this, and we'll try to find
one before 4 o'clock, or I could just give them
the number for the chapel store at Calvary Chapel close
to Mesa.
have, you know, they're not gonna try to sell you
a book necessarily, but if you just call them and say, hey,
I'm looking for a book that talks about this, and, uh,
you know, they'll give you the title and the author.
(41:03):
Their number is 714-540-2941. But John, why, uh, why are
you asking this question anyway?
Oh, so I do consider myself a Christian, um, have
been a Christian my whole life. I just, I just
have a lot of, I just think a lot about
these theological
(41:25):
Um, questions, you know, because.
You know, I'm, I'm a very logical person and I
wanna be consistent in everything I say, and this was, um,
a question that has been on my mind recently, so
I thought, why not.
Ask you guys, I mean, I was driving to the
(41:45):
gym and I heard you guys talking, answering questions, so
I just thought, why not?
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Great, good, we love that and we're glad that we
could help. Hey, here's a, here's a book, John, that
I would recommend, and it's, it's actually a small book.
It's one of my favorites though. I love it and
it's called God and Stephen Hawking.
And the author is John Lennox and it's probably like
80 pages or something like that. It's a little paperback,
(42:10):
but it is really, really good and, uh, Doctor Lennox,
who's a mathematics, uh, professor, uh, professor emeritus, uh, Oxford University, um,
he's responding to the idea that Stephen Hawking put forth
that the universe created itself.
(42:33):
And he does a really great job in just showing
why that is a problem. So maybe check that book
out.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yep, God and Stephen Hawking by John Lennox.
John, thanks for calling in today.
Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me. You bet.
We're here Monday through Friday from 3 to 40 p.m.
every day. So, um, call in, of course, every day.
That's why I said Monday through Friday. Well, not Saturday
and Sunday, but, uh, call in anytime you've got a question, John.
God bless you, man. Here is Carmen in Anaheim listening
(43:04):
on FM 107.9 K wave. Hello, Carmen.
Hi, good afternoon. How are you? Doing well, thanks.
Yes, um, I have some questions, and it's not only one.
first one is, um, what is the reason to know why,
(43:24):
what is a sin in life? Because as I grow
in faith, I feel that everything I do can be
a sin.
And uh why I feel that I'm always a sinner,
even though I repent.
When I realized that that can be a thing, so
(43:44):
I'm debating.
That right now
So are you're saying maybe it'd be better to not
know something was a sin, or what do you mean?
Yes, I don't know if, um, why I always feel
that I'm a sinner even though I repent. Uh, as
I grow in faith, I think that I, I might
(44:07):
have done something that is not, uh, good, and then
I repent, but I always feel that I'm a sinner.
Yeah, that's a bummer. Um, I mean, Carmen, in one sense, like,
you are correct, it's a bummer how you're feeling, but
it is true, even when we repent, we are still sinners. Um,
(44:30):
that's what the Bible says over and over, I'd really
recommend you read through the book of Romans, with that
in mind, you're gonna really see Paul lay out that
The, the kind of ground zero for all of humanity
is that we're all guilty before God, and that's actually
not the bad news of the Bible, it's the beginning,
it's the kind of, again, ground zero of good news,
(44:52):
that is that Christ died for sinners. So because all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,
we have access, we have the opportunity to by faith,
have Jesus forgive us of our sins and to become
our Lord and Savior. So,
But when I say the bummer part for you, what
I mean is this, I, I think that it's natural
(45:13):
for Christians to always feel bad.
Unless we allow ourselves to become more and more grounded
in the word of God in our relationship with Him,
because when I do that, I realize, yes, it's true
that I am a sinner, but I also become more
and more um comfortable with understanding that I'm also a
(45:36):
child of God, I'm also redeemed, I'm adopted, I recommend
you read Ephesians chapter one. You have been sealed by
the Holy Spirit, like
It's true that I am a sinner, but then there
are other things that are equally and even of greater
value of truth, and I think that um when we
don't ground ourselves, I'm not suggesting you're not grounded, I'm
(45:59):
saying when I let how I feel, uh, drive me,
then yeah, I just feel bad all the time, like
I'm not doing good enough, and then I have to
ground myself in the word and remind myself, oh, I
can't do good enough, I am redeemed by the grace
of God, and I hold on to that truth.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Yeah, and I, I think, um, like you're saying, Phil,
I think it sounds like, I mean, obviously, Carmen, we
just want to affirm you, you know, you're a Christian
and God loves you and God's not looking at you
and gosh, Carmen, you're just such a sinner, you know, I, I, I.
I got a lot of kids out there, but, you know,
(46:35):
you're one of the worst. You know, God is not,
God is not doing that. So there is a devil.
He does stuff like that. He kind of wants to
put that in our heads to get us to think
that God's always upset with us, and we can never
expect God to come through for us because after all,
we're such big sinners, you know, and all that.
Um, and, and everything Phil is saying is that's the key,
(46:56):
and I think the way to understand it is you
need to grow in the grace of God. You need
to grow in your understanding of what it means that
you are saved. You're not gonna be saved in the
sense that you're trying to be the best person you
can and hopefully it's all gonna work out in the end.
You are saved already by grace you have been past
(47:18):
tense saved.
And that is not of yourself, it's a gift of God.
So God has given you this gift of salvation, and
you need to grow in your understanding of grace and
like Phil said, the book of Romans, especially, uh, chapters 67,
and 8, that will really shed a lot of light
(47:40):
on God's grace and, and 8 is probably the pinnacle
of it all, chapter 8, and then like Phil said
also Ephesians chapter 1.
Which is different but it's similar to what we read
in Romans 8. So those two would be really good.
And then the final thing I would recommend if you
uh would like to just, you know, get a little
(48:03):
more um.
Uh, just encouraged through the idea of God's graces. My wife,
Cheryl wrote a book called A Woman's Battle for Grace.
And she talks about all of this kind of stuff
in the book, and I would, I would recommend that
you pick up a copy of that book or order
a copy of that book.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
OK, where can I order the book? It's in the
Calvary Chapel, uh, store.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Uh, yeah, I think it is there, but you could
also order it on, um.
Uh, you could get it at Amazon, I think you
could get it. Um, our, I don't know if we
have it on our Echoes of Mercy site yet. Um,
let's see, is there resources up there? Yeah,
Speaker 1 (48:48):
I don't see it. I don't see it on the
Back to Basics site either.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
OK, look at gracious Words.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Oh
yes, gracious words, gracious words.com.
Oh, no, just takes you right to there. OK,
Speaker 2 (49:04):
right
Speaker 1 (49:04):
to there. Well, it's out there somewhere for sure. I'm
almost certain that they have it at the. I will,
I will look into it. Thank you so much
Speaker 2 (49:11):
for. OK, thank you, Carmen, for calling. God bless you.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
And again, that book was.
Gracious. A
Speaker 2 (49:18):
woman's battle for a
Speaker 1 (49:19):
woman's battle for grace. There it is. Yeah, it's definitely
on Amazon. But, uh, yeah, if you can come down
to the Calvary the chapel store of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa,
that would be great. 888-564-6173 is our number. Carmen, thank
you for calling in today. God bless you. What are
your plans for the holidays?
Uh, I don't have any plans. I'm just going to
(49:40):
stay home and read my Bible.
OK. Is your family all out of town or?
Um, they are, uh, my daughters are not with me,
so I'm gonna just stay by myself and read my Bible, um,
maybe go to church and come back and have a
(50:01):
little dinner with myself. There you go.
All right, well, I'll be with you this Christmas. Yes,
for sure. All right, uh, let's talk to Michael in
Ventura listening or watching, I should say, on YouTube. Hi there, Michael.
Welcome to the program. Yeah, hello, my brothers. I don't
know if you remember me. I was a first time
(50:21):
caller about 2 months ago asking you if, uh, God, uh,
has predestined people going to heaven, and you answered that
question properly. Oh,
What a relief because we haven't heard, heard from you
for a few months, so we thought, man, you bailed
on a ghosted us there, Michael. No, no, no, no,
I forgot to mention to you that Ventura is the
(50:42):
home of Chuck Smith. He was born here. That's true, yeah.
Yeah. Anyway, I was watching Pastor Jack Hibbs last night
on TV and I like him and I follow him,
but I've been studying the book of Revelation now for
about 2 years and reading a couple of books by others,
and what Pastor Hibbs was saying that he believes that
(51:03):
the false beast in Revelation 13 could possibly be AI
or a statue, and he's the second pastor that I
heard say that in the last month or so.
I wanted your perspective. I don't see a revelation anywhere
where it says artificial or statute, but then again, John
wouldn't know what AI is.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
OK, I'm gonna tell you right now, it is not AI,
and here's how you know, because
At the end of Revelation, it tells us about the
eternal destiny of the beast and the false prophet. They
are to be cast into the lake of fire. So
I don't think throwing a computer into the lake of
(51:47):
fire is what John, right,
Speaker 1 (51:49):
which computer? All computers, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 2 (51:54):
so the false prophet is a, is a person.
And just like the Antichrist is a person, will they
use AI?
Speaker 1 (52:00):
Who knows? I mean, listen, of course, I mean, let's
just say it like, and who, who everybody is to
a certain degree, but yeah, to, yeah, that's John or Michael.
It's not AI is not the false prophet.
Yeah, the other thing that bothered me was in Revelation
specifically space not to take anything or add anything to
(52:21):
the book.
Speaker 2 (52:23):
Yeah, but I, I don't think that that I, I mean,
you know, this is just an uh an opinion. I'm
sure if you ask Jack, like, Jack, are you, are
you saying for sure that it's AI, he would say no,
but I think that, um, and in the book of
Revelation when it gives that warning, it's talking about something
much more serious than just, you know, speculating. We all
(52:46):
do that to some degree. We speculate on, you know,
what aspects of the book will mean.
We're not adding to it or we're not taking away
from it. We're trying to interpret it. So, yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
I look at Joshua 8:1. It says take all the
troops with you and go attack AI. So, um, you know,
that just shows right there. I, that's good. That's a
good one.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
AI was already here
Speaker 1 (53:08):
back
Speaker 2 (53:08):
in
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Joshua's back in Joshua's day. Amazing, isn't it? AI, yep, let's, uh,
take another question. This one sent in online. Tim in Prescott,
Arizona writes about Ezra chapter 8, verse 15.
And Tim says this verse states that Ezra found priests,
but no Levites assembled. Why does he differentiate priests as
(53:31):
separate than the Levite tribe as a whole?
The Levites were not all Levites served as priests.
There was different functions and different roles, and worship leaders
and people that caretakers and
Setter uppers for things and it was a bigger group
(53:52):
than the specific group that was the priestly.
Element of the tribe of Levi. So lots of Levites.
A specific group within the Levites were the priests.
All right, Tim, thank you for sending in your question.
That's just one of the ways that you can get
your question to us if you can't call in when
(54:13):
we're here in the studio between 3 and 4 p.m.
Monday through Friday, Pacific time at 888-564-6173. You can uh
send us your question via messenger on the Pastor's Perspective
Facebook page or you can DM us on the pastor's
perspective Instagram, or you can scan.
The QR code, if you're watching on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram,
(54:33):
that'll take you right to that pastor's perspective page at
Kwave.com where you can fill out the form and that
gets your question to us. But our favorite way to
uh hear your question is when you call in so
that we can dialogue with you guys. We get it, some,
some of you work during this time, so you can't
call in, and that's why we have these other ways, but, uh,
I'm just telling
(54:54):
You, we, uh, we take the phone calls as priority.
So call in if you can. Take a day off
of work. And if your boss asks, why are you
taking the day off, just say, because I want to
call Pastor's perspective, and you won't let me call from
my desk. So I'm gonna take the day off and
do it, or take your lunch break at this time.
There's so many ways that you can call us. I'm
just setting you up to,
Speaker 2 (55:12):
um, or just go on vacation and then, you know,
you can just call and
Speaker 1 (55:15):
while
Speaker 2 (55:15):
you're there,
Speaker 1 (55:16):
yeah,
Speaker 2 (55:16):
all day every day.
Speaker 1 (55:18):
I wanna do that, then do it. Yeah, let's go.
All right guys, we'll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listening, and we're gonna archive today's episode on Facebook, YouTube,
Apple Podcasts, and Spotify if you wanna watch it later
or listen to it later or share it with your friends.
God bless you. We'll talk to you next time on
Pastor's Perspective.
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