Is Living a Good Life Enough

Near Death Experiences
Sin
The Virgin Mary
Is Living a Good Life Enough
Reincarnation

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI on demand.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Steve, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Yeah, how you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm well, Steve. How can I help you?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Okay? I got a couple of questions. One, how do
you feel about new death experiences that people talk about
as far as it relates to the Christian and that and.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
New death or near death near death? Okay?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
And the other one I'll get more to psychology and
how it's crept into the church as far as the
tool used for counseling or stuff for people. Well, and
I have some opinions on the psychology.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
One I would imagine you do. I'm guessing that's that's
part of the call. As far as near death experiences,
I think it's more about the definition of death than
it is about the experience. I think that science and
doctors come at it and they say this technically is death,
these these things, and they say it takes X, Y

(00:59):
and z. But those things are, although accurate, not always
telling of the whole picture. So sometimes they may say
this person is clinically death, dead for three minutes or whatever,
But if you come back to life in that sense,
in that way, you weren't dead. They can say clinically

(01:21):
you did not have a heartbeat, or there wasn't brain activity,
or there wasn't this, or there wasn't that. But ultimately,
if you come back to life in that way, in
that sense, then you weren't dead. It's different than a
resurrection or something like that. You're still there. It's not
like they buried you and then somebody popped up and
said that. So near death, I think is where it
gets a little shady. And there's all kinds of scientific

(01:47):
articles that deal with, well, what is going on and
is the person in a dream state in that sense
once they're in that predicament, and so the things they
come out and they say, oh I saw this or
I did that, No one really knows. But in scripture
it says quite clearly that it is appointed for man
to die once and then the judgment, So there's nothing

(02:09):
about coming back and forth. As far as psychology is
concerned in the church, the church tends to get freaked
out by anything that's new. Now psychology certainly isn't new,
but just like medicine that came before it, there's times
where the church goes, eh, you know, how they're looking
for that literal verse in scripture that says psychology is

(02:32):
okay or psychology is bad and you're not going to
find it. What you can do is understand the principles
of guiding someone or counseling someone, and understanding that there
is just like there's a science to medicine, that there's
a science to wait the way the brain works. It
just is easier Steve, if you've got a compound fracture

(02:53):
in your arm, to go, okay, your bone is broken,
because I can see it. Whereas psychology or things dealing
with the the mind or emotions, people tend to pooh pooh,
including the church and saying, hey, just let go and
let God and get over it, and you know, kind
of take AsSalt tablet and walk it off and pray.

(03:14):
And it's not that praying and those things of God
don't have wonderful power in context. Certainly they do, but sometimes,
like the broken bone, you wouldn't just pray over the
broken bone, you'd get it set. So sometimes psychology, good
psychology and good analysis of emotional and needs like that

(03:37):
can be kind of parsed easiest in that type of setting.
So I think that the whole you know, the church
kind of have relaxed about this and have loosened up
towards the need for those types of things. But still
some of the church push back against it. What about you?

(03:59):
Where do you land on that ste Okay?

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I work in a field where I see it. It's
in the healthcare. And what I see is this, I
see it's uh that what psychology does it kind of?
It's a man It tends to be drastically man centered,
and and and it leads into the twelve Steppers and
all those programs of various and that and what I
see in my experience and also and and and biblically, Okay,

(04:23):
we call in our country we call alcoholism a disease.
The Bible does not call it a disease. I didn't
read anything in there where it did. It calls it drunkenness.
And that's a big one with the psychology movement. And
so we tend to call sin disorders. And and that's
where I have the big problem.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Well is do you think.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
And correct me if I'm wrong? But don't we I mean,
the Bible doesn't say, you know, it doesn't say the
alcoholic airs is a drunkard, and that we don't we
see all, he's alcohol it's a disease and that and
and I don't know. I just have a problem. And
as more as I studied it, the journal and the
DSM that calls it disorders. I mean you're talking about
sexual things. Now everything's called time.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
I understand. And the and the DSM changes all the
time too. They're constantly adding or changing and modifying things
that were problems before and aren't problems now. I get that,
And there is a problem, but I and I'm not
saying that you're wrong. I would say that it's a
healthy dose of the two. That, yes, are there times
that people are doing the reverse of the church. The

(05:24):
church used to pu poo everything and now has learned. No,
there's legitimate concerns. But is everybody bipolar? Does everybody have ADHD?
Does every all these No? Absolutely not. Now as far
as alcoholism being a disease or twelve step programs, twelve
step programs can be a you can't go into a
program and talk yourself out of a disease. But the

(05:47):
twelve step program is a great way to work through, uh,
the kind of the clingings and the oppressions that come
with alcoholism. And we're work through them systematically in a
way that is not contradictory to scripture. But remember, not
everything's going to be in scripture. There's nowhere in scripture

(06:07):
that says Steve, Steve, don't chew glass right, But you
can kind of glean that from scripture if you took
the time. And also the other things there's. Psychology isn't
inherently bad. It doesn't mean that all psychology is good.
There's a lot of pop psychology and garbage out there,
but there's some forms of diabetes that if you lived

(06:30):
your life a different way, you would rid yourself of
them correct well. Likewise with alcoholism and the like. If
somebody calls it a disease, and there are some people
that are arguing that there may be some physiological rece
you know, or birthplaces for things like alcoholism. You know,
you have to be attentive to that. But it's balance

(06:51):
in those things. It's not throwing the baby out with
the bathwater and saying that absolutely it isn't this or
absolutely you know. All you need to do is that
it's a balance. It's between those things, and sometimes it's
going to be quite helpful and sometimes it's going to
be man you know, and his puffery. As far as

(07:14):
sin being a disorder, disorder means out of order, right,
not in the order of It's not unlike sin. With
sin means missing the mark, so you're missing the order
of or you're outside of I get that. It's frustrating
that disorders. You know, people are trying to excuse sin.
That shouldn't be the case. And by no means do

(07:37):
I want to perpetuate that particular lie. But there are
things in your life where you miss the mark that
does tie into psychological reasons as well as sin reasons.
The sin is a manifestation of certain things that have
happened to you, and you've made decisions that are poor,
and those decisions take you off that path. Ah, it's

(08:01):
not about holding psychology up as something greater than the Gospel.
It is not, nor is medicine for that matter, or anything.
But to understand its proper application is important. And I
think that if you get away from that, and if
it becomes just splitting hairs and there's a problem, it's

(08:23):
you know, like people say sin instead of missing the mark,
when missing the mark is really how it translates. Sin
is just kind of a religious word. That people use,
but really the term means to miss the mark, the
mark that God has for you, the path that God
has set out for you, and disorders can be a
part of that as well. People can call them whatever
they want, but there was times where there was legitimate

(08:44):
psychological problems with people in biblical times and those in
the church would deem it demon possession. So it's not
that both sides haven't had a problem at times on
this very topic. It's being balanced and understanding and knowing
that there are some things that good psychological or good
counseling can help, and there can be bad counseling or

(09:07):
bad psychology that can harm like anything else. And understand
the difference and find the balance in those things I
think is important. But certainly when they start putting names
or just saying that it's this or that or kind
of excusing things away, no, of course I have a
problem with that, and that becomes a huge problem because

(09:28):
then people are no longer looking at the issue at hand,
and that absolutely positively needs to be done. Terry, Welcome
to the Jesus Christ Show.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Oh thank you, how can I help you?

Speaker 4 (09:43):
Oh my gosh, last night, my neighbor came over and
got me and said he had a friend over who
was struggling with a very difficult question about the Holy Trinity,
and it said that his friend did not he believed

(10:04):
in No, I'm sorry, he questioned, Uh, the conception was married?
The Holy Spirit coming on? Or he says, it just
doesn't make sense science wise, this and that and that and.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
This and science wise, it doesn't It.

Speaker 4 (10:17):
Doesn't make me really.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, okay, so there's a there's a lot to there's
a lot to consume outside of that.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
I'm sorry. I want to I just want to say
one more thing because I want to hear. I want
I have to hear what you have to say to me.
This is so important. I just want to you one
more thing. I he he, he says, I.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
Believe in God.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
I just I just don't think that this thing could
have happened to the Virgin Mary. I just don't believe
in that whole thing. And I handled it the best
I could. I'm pretty educated. But please tell me what
to tell him.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Well, it's a tough one. I mean, if someone says
they just don't believe it, how do you answer that?
Is that you say, Hey, I just don't believe, you know,
in the color blue. You can show them all the
color blue if you want, and they'll go, yeah, but
I don't.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
Believe that's please makes sense finds a lot, I mean exactly.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
The point is that really it's at the it's at
the end of the wrong in the sense that there
is so many other miracles that you need to be understood.
And if that, if those are understood, he probably doesn't
understand the omniscience of God and the omnipotence of God
any of these things. So it's really about picking and choosing,

(11:28):
and and the best you could do is to show
this person that what they're doing is picking and choosing
what's comfortable to them because ultimately, because ultimately he's already
consumed other miracles, that's why is this miracle so different
in the scheme of things? Right, Like, so really it's
all on him to prove to you why that particular

(11:50):
miracle was so so much different than every other miracle
that he does accept. For one and two, how does
he deal with the scripture that says it's so right?
Does he just remove that whole thing from the equation.
And once you start doing that, you know how that
goes Terry that just that's you know, then you end
up with a pair of scissors and a Bible with

(12:11):
a lot of holes in it.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Indeed, so that's great. Yeah, it's so true, so true.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
So I think that's the best place to start, my dear,
is just to show him that if let him prove
to you, be this, be the student in this case
and say, okay, I want to learn how come this miracle?
You have a problem with any other miracles?

Speaker 4 (12:28):
You don't and this is such a big miracle. Oh
it is because it's saying really that he really doesn't
believe in Jesus Christ as God, I know.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
And and and make sure that he understands the the
the weight of that part of it as well. And uh,
and then pray. I mean, you know, you can only
you can lead a man to scripture, but you can't
make him think.

Speaker 5 (12:54):
Heart.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.

Speaker 5 (12:57):
Good morning, Hi there, I have a question for you.
A lot of us are discussing the Bible, and there's
some people that have said that the only way to
get through heaven is through you. My question is, there
are so many people that also believe in God, and

(13:18):
from what I understand that there is only one God
for all of us, and he created all of us also,
and that through acts that we should also. This is
my opinion, go to heaven because I'm I'm thinking about, say,
people in our Jewish faith that don't necessarily believe in
Jesus but lead a good life, are they condemned?

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Okay? It's a big question with a lot of nooks
and crannies in it. So first of all, who defines
what a good life is?

Speaker 5 (13:54):
I guess living God's life that you're which which but
which God? Now well, from what I said, there is
only one God. The God that's the Jews is the
same God as the God of the Gentiles.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
Okay, but there's others that don't believe. You've got Muslims,
the Jews, and Christians that are all birthed from the Uh,
you know, the Abrahamic religions, right, so they so they
adhere to. Christians would call it the Old Testament New Testament,
and uh Jews call it the Torah. And then there's

(14:30):
the Quran. And everyone's kind of adding or subtracting, but
they're but they all come from the same origin. Let's
say that's only the three major religions. What about Buddhism
and Hinduism and and uh Zoroastrianism. And I mean, so
now all you're doing is excluding those that are outside

(14:53):
of the big three.

Speaker 5 (14:55):
No, I see, that's the that's that's my quandary.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Okay. So but what I'm saying is that you, even
in trying to define your point about doing good acts
like physical things of kindness or whatever it is, who
defines what's good? And you say, well, you know things
that are glorifying to God, and then you've got to say, well,
which God? And then you're back at square one again.

(15:19):
So the fact that you could do an act a
good act doesn't mean anything unless you know who defines
it as a good act and who's going to argue
over which God gets to define that it's a good act.
You still need to come to the conclusion that there
is one God somewhere in order to make that statement.
And now you've already excluded a bunch of polytheists and

(15:42):
penantheists and henotheists and all these others by saying that
there's one God. So you're kind of well, let's just say,
darned if you do, and darned if you don't. No
matter if you try to define anything in life, you
start excluding others. Any truth statement, by any mathematics anything,

(16:06):
any truth statement is exclusionary by its very definition. So
even when you try to come up with a way
that sounds a little more kind or a little more
loving by kind of being more inclusive, you're still going
to have to exclude somebody Otherwise. There's not going to
be a right way. There's just gonna be ways. But

(16:28):
you don't, you know, you go to the grocery store
and you see all those little those little rug rats
running around. They don't just go home with anybody who
says they're a mom. They go home with their mom
because there's there's only one mom that is their mom.
Everyone else that answers to mom is a false mom
to that child. So this kind of concept that God,

(16:51):
that being the generic term, that everyone kind of has
access to God. That's not true. God has access to everyone,
but only those that know God have access to God.
And if there is one true God, then only those
that have that have knowledge of that one true God
have access to that one true God. That's not unfair,

(17:14):
that's normal. Who gets into your house? People, you know
or people you don't know.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
But saying that also, that means that if the one
God we're going to believe in one one God, the
Trinity and so on, if he created all people, did
he dot at that point, then create those people that

(17:40):
don't believe in the one God to be doomed right away.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
No, because everyone, everyone has the option to believe. It's
not about ignorance, and people get confused about that. Never
in scripture is it about ignorance. It's about rejection or acceptance.
So it's not about people that don't know. Everyone will
have the opportunity to know God and reject him. So

(18:04):
it's not like God created this group over here, in
this group over here to believe those beliefs and those
beliefs only, and now they're being punished for that. That's
like being punished for having red hair that God created.
That's not the case. It's a choice. Every belief system
is a choice. It may have been passed down from
your family or their family or what have you, but

(18:26):
you still have a choice to accept it or reject it,
just like you do everything else that your parents bring
to you. So it's always going to be an act
of free will. And that people can make a choice
to believe in God or not. But there's no way
even when you start saying these criteria or while just

(18:49):
doing good acts or whatever. Now you've got to bring
in a committee to define what the good acts are?
Is it the populace?

Speaker 5 (18:57):
No.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
In nineteen forties Germany, the populace said it was okay
to kill Jews and Gypsies and blacks and homosexuals and
all kinds of things. Didn't make it right. So where
are you getting that standard from in which you could
even judge what good or bad is to begin with?

Speaker 5 (19:18):
I guess is that? That's my question? A Buddhist that
has been brought up in his religion that knows nothing
other than his religion, is he condemned them? Is he?

Speaker 2 (19:34):
But you you answer this in everything that you do.
For It's strange how when it comes to religion people
tend to go, well, gosh, that doesn't seem fair. But
you have a telephone number and it has a certain
amount of digits depending on where you're calling from. Let's
say ten digits. If I am one digit off from
your proper telephone number, I'm not going to get you correct,

(19:58):
don't I'm not necessarily going to get your neighbor either.
I can get someone clear cross town. With cell phones,
you can get somebody in a whole different state. So
it's so the having a precise phone number is important
if you want to get hold of that person. And
you could say, well, it doesn't matter what person I
get a hold of, I just want to get a
hold of somebody. Well, that's a whole different story. But

(20:21):
everything you do in life has that kind of precision.
You can't just show up to any house and expect
it to be the person you're looking for. You have
to have the address. Everything you do, the equation, the
phone number, the address, the proper part for the car.
That all these things makes sense until it comes to religion.

(20:41):
Then people go, well, you should be able to put
any car part there, or you should be able to
call any phone number or be able to show up
to any address and all be right. And I'm not
sure where that comes from except from rebellion. People don't
desire to follow a particular rule when it comes to religion,
and they think everybody should be right. However, as you

(21:02):
look at them, you'll notice that there are things that
are mutually exclusive or contradictory by nature in different belief systems.
Some say there's multiple gods, some say there's only one god.
Some say there's only one god that you have to
deal with on this planet, but there's other gods you
have to deal with another other planets. They're contradictory, so

(21:23):
they can't all be right. They can all be wrong,
but they can't all be right. And therefore that means
that you need to, like you do with everything else
in life, seek continue to use reason along with faith.
Faith is that small part that comes after reason to

(21:45):
understand and to find the one that makes the most sense.
And there's going to be truth you can find. If
you're really looking for truth, you're going to find it.
But if you just want to believe what your parents
taught you, or you just want to belie what's comfortable,
or you don't want to believe that because you've met
a lot of you know, obnoxious Christians and I don't

(22:07):
want to be a part of that, or if you
just do that, then then you're never going to find
the truth. For truth's sake, you're just gonna do what's
comfortable or uh, what steers you away from being uncomfortable
and that's not what it's about. It's not about a club,
not about a club or a group of people that
have a book that they really like, or it's not
about it's about truth. And so if you kind of

(22:28):
shed yourself, you know, from all that, well, these people
they believe that, and they're good people. If you shed
yourself from all of that and just go what is
the truth and continue to look towards that that which
is is more important than that what people believe. I mean,
counterfeit looks, counterfit money looks just like real money. It's not, though,

(22:55):
And of course there's going to be other belief systems
that look good, that sound good. But does that automatically
mean that they're their truth.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
No, I fully believe that, But there's some people that
have never had the opportunity that to believe in Jesus.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Jesus Okay, I understand that, but you have to one,
trust that God says everyone's gonna get the amount of
information they need to believe for one. But two, no
one's ever asked me that question that didn't already know
about Jesus.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
Well I know about it, yeah, but you know.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
What I'm saying. The only people that ever ask that
are the ones that know and should be should be
concerned with their own standing and their own faith, Yet
they're worrying about someone else. People don't even worry about,
you know, people's physical well being that much. So really,
Romans One talks about the difference between special and general revelation,

(23:56):
and I would recommend reading it. It's quite beautiful, but
it talks about the fact that even if there was
somebody who never heard the vowels and consonants that make
up the name Jesus, because remember, it's not about the
name when it says the power the name of Jesus,
or being saved in the name of Jesus or any
of that. It's not about the name Jesus. Not even
my actual name it was Yashua. So it's not even

(24:19):
about the name that way. It's about the power and authority.
Similar to the old movies where they said stop in
the name of the law. It's about the power and authority.
So people can learn. Romans One says that people can
learn through special revelation, which is like God's word and
specific things that you can read and literally learn about
God that way, and then God's general revelation, which is

(24:42):
His creation. So it's like learning about an artist by
looking at their artwork. And both are ways to understand
and to know God. But it still has to be
the same and the right God. But it can be
done without a missionary or anything. Somebody can be in
a mud hut somewhere and still see God and maybe

(25:02):
not call him Jesus or anything, but it would match
up with the word of God. It's only when it
deviates from God's word that the power is the power
and authority of my name is lost. But read Romans
won and explains it more. Vicky, Welcome to the Jesus
Christ Show.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
Oh hello, how are you?

Speaker 2 (25:22):
I'm well, Vicky. How can I help you?

Speaker 1 (25:25):
My question is about reincarnation. There seems to me many
references in the Bible. I understand that at the Council
of Nicee many were stricken. And the reason it touched
my heart was because I pretty much lost my faith

(25:49):
in my early twenties. I just felt that so much
was overkilled in the Bible.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know, all that teaching about doing right and all
it's over well.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
It's just that you know, for your turn to a
pillar of salt because you look back or you eat
an apple and look what happens to you. It reminded
me of limiz Rablus. You know, you do one little
you know, you're still a love for brand and you
go to prison for ten years. I guess the thing
that really put me over the edge was and the

(26:23):
real child advocate and to see little children suffer and
suffer and die, but they die.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
The children die and suffer at the hands of those
that reject the principles in scripture. You can't live the
way scripture now. I say, you know, you're throwing out
caricatures of scripture. You're not even throwing out real scripture.
And it makes it really hard to kind of unravel this,
especially in the time that we have. I will tell
you this, the statements you made at the beginning were false.

(26:56):
The council and I see all that was false, false, false.
The statements about reincarnation being in the Bible false false, false.
It says in Hebrews very clearly Hebrews nine twenty seven,
and in as much as it is appointed for men
to die once and after this comes the judgment, Paul
himself says, to be absent from the body is to

(27:17):
be present with the Lord there's no room for reincarnation. Intellectually,
it doesn't make sense reincarnation and the sum sorrow to
me it okay, But just for the sake of time, Vicky,
I want to make sure I get some of these
things out because you come and you say these things
and their kind of caricatures, and it makes it it's
confusing to people. I will say this. The reason why

(27:37):
it doesn't work deals with the fact that the sumsoraw
and the karmic debt system can't work unless you know.
You can't learn from something you don't know. You smack
a child's hand and he doesn't know why you're smacking it,
he can't learn. So people some people remember their life,
some people don't. It couldn't work and doesn't work, and

(27:57):
it doesn't fit in scripture. Never did, never will, never
was there, never was removed. Just want to make that clear.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Kfi A M six forty on demand