Shawn Ryan Show - #152 Lee Strobel - Who is Jesus Christ the Son of God?

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

Lee Strobel is a best-selling Christian author, journalist, and apologist known for works exploring evidence for Christianity. Strobel began his professional career as a legal editor for the Chicago Tribune, earning awards for investigative reporting. Once an atheist, he set out to disprove Christianity after his wife became a believer, leading to his conversion in 1981. His most famous book, The Case for Christ, chronicles his journey and has inspired millions to explore faith thoughtfully and thoroughly. Strobel has served as a teaching pastor and founded the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. He has authored over 40 books, including The Case for Faith and The Case for a Creator. A sought-after speaker and filmmaker, Strobel lives in Texas with his wife Leslie, where he continues to equip others to explore and share their faith. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://helixsleep.com/srs https://shopify.com/srs https://bubsnaturals.com/shawn https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner Lee Strobel Links: X - https://x.com/leestrobel IG - https://www.instagram.com/lee_strobel Website - https://leestrobel.com Books - https://leestrobel.com/books Speaking - https://leestrobel.com/speaking Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

the NBA. Bet MGM authorized gaming partner of the NBA has your back all season long from tip off to the final buzzer. You're always taken care of with the sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with Ben MGM and no

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I watch your show and love the way you engage with your guests. So I thought, hey, that sounds like it'd be a fun experience. So I'm glad to be here. Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that. So sorry about the way I get nervous for every one of these interviews. So half the time when I say I'm down there

going through my outline, I'm just procrastinating. But no, seriously though, we've been trying to get a hold of you for over a year now and we finally got you. And so I've been really anticipating this interview and it's just, you've been a major part of my journey to faith. And I know you don't know that,

but as I'm sure you have been for millions and millions of people. And so it is truly an honor to have you here. I appreciate that. It's been a great adventure. If you told me years ago that I would end up not only being a Christian, but telling other people about Jesus, I would have slammed the door in your face.

I would not have anticipated this at all. Yeah. Well, I can't wait to dive into that. So we're gonna release this episode on Christmas. Probably it'll be either Christmas Eve or Christmas, but we haven't decided yet. But I've been wanting to do this, like I said, since last year, and so to have you here in time

to get it edited for Christmas is, I think you're just the perfect guest. Oh, thanks, thanks. So I wanna dive into your backstory, some of the books you've written, especially Case for Christ. Yeah. And so I wanna dive into your backstory, some of the books you've written, especially Case for Christ. And I wanna, I'm learning here.

So I'm a very curious person. I use my curiosity in all of my interviews. And the thing that I'm most curious about more than any of the other stuff that I interview is Jesus Christ and the Bible. So if you can help me, I would like to keep the theme, we're gonna go into some dark places, I'm sure we're gonna go into some rabbit holes,

but overall, I really wanna talk about who is Jesus Christ and what does he mean to you and the rest of Christianity. Yeah, awesome. And so if you could help me. My favorite subject. Good, good, mine too. Good, good. So, and like I said, I'm learning, I'm learning.

We all are, we all are. I read the Bible and most of the time, I'm just being honest, I have no idea what I just learning. Yeah. I'm learning. We all are. We all are. I read the Bible and most of the time, I'm just being honest, I have no idea what I just read. And so I have a bunch of different versions. I've been diving into this one called the, it's called the action Bible. I heard of that one. It's more like a comic.

It's like little comic book sections of it. But they have little snippets that break it down for dummies like me. I like that. And it helps, it helps. But I can't wait to get your perspective on some of this stuff. Sure.

So, but Lee, I know we did this at breakfast, but I would love, I would be honored and I would love to kick this off with a prayer and have you lead it. Yeah, I'd love to. Let me pray. Father, thank'd love to. Let me pray. Father, thank you for Sean. Thank you for you've given him this curiosity

about you, about faith, about issues that really, really matter. Thank you that you've given him a platform where he can take people along with him on that journey and that we can all explore and discover together. We do pray for your blessing on our conversation, that it would be encouraging, that it would be illuminating,

that I don't dare I even pray it, that it be life-changing for some people. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I would like to add just a couple things. I just, you know, it's been a, it's been a, some turbulent times in the world and in the, and in our country, the United States.

And I just, I just want everybody to have a really good Merry Christmas this year and hope it's filled with family and love. And Lee, just some of the things that we spoke about at breakfast in your family, I just hope you guys find some answers and relief. And amen. Amen, thank you.

Thank you. Sure. So everybody starts with an introduction here. So you have quite the background. So we've abbreviated, I hope we got all the important parts here, but Lee Strobel, you are a former atheist, investigative journalist and legal editor turned Christian after investigating the evidence for Christianity.

You are an author of 40 plus books, numerous bestselling books on Christianity, including The Case for Christ, which documents your journey from atheism to Christianity. Your newest book is God Real, Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life Examines, the Evidence for the Existence of God. Your books have sold over 14 million copies

and been translated into multiple languages. Several of your books, including The Case for Christ, have been made into films and documentaries. You are a renowned public speaker and apologist, frequently addressing topics related to faith, and made into films and documentaries. You are a renowned public speaker and apologist, frequently addressing topics related to faith, evidence for God and the resurrection of Jesus. You have become a household name in the Christian community

and very influential in helping skeptics explore Christianity intellectually and spiritually. In addition to all this, you have been married to your wife for 52 years. You're a father of two children and have embraced the role of a grandfather. Congratulations. Thank you. Four grandkids.

Four grandkids. That's amazing. So a couple things here. What is the definition of an atheist? An atheist says there is no God. An agnostic says, I don't think there's a God. So that's kind of the dividing line. A lot of people who call themselves atheists are really agnostic.

Because when you think about it, to say there is no God, you would have to be God to have that, you know, that omniscience to know that God does not exist. So it's kind of a self-refuting definition, but generally people who are atheists say, there is no God. Agnostics say, I just don't know. I'm not sure.

I don't believe it. I'm not there. I'm questioning. I'm doubting. I'm a doubter. But you were a straight atheist. Yeah, I was. So is that, that sounds like a lot of work

to prove that there's nothing. Yeah, it kind of came in stages. So the first step was when I was in middle school and I started asking all those questions that middle schoolers like to ask. Like, well, if there's a God, how can there be suffering in the world? Or if there's a God, how can there be suffering in the world? Or if there's a God, why would he send people to hell?

And nobody wanted to talk about it. And I thought, oh, I get it. They don't wanna talk about this because there are no good answers. That was my first step. Second step into atheism was in high school when I took biology and I was taught that neo-Darwinism explains the origin and diversity of life.

So God's out of a job. You don't need God to be a creator. Science explains it away. And then third and final step in atheism happened in college when I took a course on the historical Jesus from a skeptic. And he taught me, you can't trust anything that the Bible tells you about Jesus. It's all fairy tale, make believe, wishful thinking.

And that kind of was the final nail in the coffin that convinced me that, yeah, God doesn't exist. I tend to be a skeptical person. That's who I am. My background's in journalism and law. So you put those together, you know, you get kind of a jerk and kind of a skeptic. And that's who I was.

So I just thought the mere concept of an all loving, all knowing, all powerful creator of the universe, come on, it's crazy. Wasn't even worth my time exploring. So is it, so it is actually a belief system. It is, oh, definitely, definitely. I believe there is faith involved. That you have to have a certain amount of faith,

not in God, but in your own intellect, in your own ability to discern and figure out that there is no God behind all this stuff. So I think there's faith involved. Faith means trust. You're putting your trust in yourself, that I'm smarter than everybody else. I know that there is no God

and I'm gonna live a life consistent with that. And that's what I did. I lived a life consistent with my atheism. Interesting. So would you spend time trying to disprove God to colleagues, friends, family members, people that you've run into, anybody that brought up the existence of God?

Yeah, I would scoff, I would mock, I didn't spend a lot of time trying to deconstruct their faith, but I certainly didn't buy it and would make fun of it and make light of it. Cause my attitude was, okay, if there is no God, if there is no heaven, if there is no hell, if there is no judgment, if there is no ultimate accountability,

then the most logical way for me to live my life would be as a hedonist, someone who just pursued pleasure. And so that's what I did. I lived a very immoral, drunken, profane, narcissistic, self-absorbed, in some ways self-destructive kind of life. That was my life. What people saw was my success.

I was the legal editor of the Chicago Tribune. I was written books doing television. I mean, they would see the success side. They didn't see, was me literally drunk in the snow in an alley on Saturday night. So they weren't getting the full picture of who I was. But for me, it's like, if there is no judgment, accountability, this is all you get.

You might as well just try to keep yourself happy, live as a hedonist, try to bring as much, quote unquote, happiness into life as you can. And I was the friendliest drunk in the bar. Just try to keep yourself happy, live as a hedonist. Try to bring as much quote unquote happiness into life as you can. And I was the friendliest drunk in the bar. You know, I would be the guy who'd get plastered by midnight and then I'd get pitchers of beer and just go out and fill everybody's glasses up.

And I was the friendliest guy in the bar. And yeah, I could definitely relate to that. Sure, we have definitely relate to that. Sure we have a lot in common. I was also very, very similar for a long, long, long time. But before we get to in the weeds with everything, it is Christmas, so I got you a gift. Oh, come on. No, everybody gets a gift, Lee, everybody gets a gift.

Oh, fine. Should I open Everybody gets a gift, Lee. Everybody gets a gift. Oh, fine. Should I open it? Go ahead. All right. Those are Vigilance League gummy bears. Gummy bears. Made right here in the USA. Nice.

Thank you. What else you got? It's just candy. Oh, two of them. That's it. Awesome. Well, thanks. I appreciate it.

I got a gift for you. Thank you. You know, I have a new book coming out in March of 2025. It's called Seeing the Supernatural. Oh wow. And one of the things, and the subtitle is Investigating Angels, Demons, Mystical Dreams, Near-Death Accounters, and Other Mysteries of the Unseen World.

And so I spent a lot of time on this book and what publishers do is they produce what's called an advanced reader's copy that goes out to reviewers and to the media. The actual book is a jacketed hardcover and everything, but this is the first copy. That's copy number one. This is copy number one.

I signed it to you to show on first copy. I just thought you might like to have it. Oh man, that is, thank you. You're welcome. This is getting framed and put in the studio. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What, we're gonna dive into this more towards the end of the interview a little bit,

but what, I'm just curious, you know, there's a lot of talk about spiritual warfare right now. And so I'm just, I'm always curious, you know, there's a lot of talk about spiritual warfare right now. And so I'm just, I'm always curious, you know, what gets people into, what prompted you to write this book? It's a great question. We live in a scientific age. We live in a technological age.

And there's a lot of people who say that science disproves Christianity, disproves faith, which I disagree with. And they say there's nothing more to reality than what we can see and touch. And I said, that's not true. There is more to reality than what we can see and touch. And I wanted to document it in this book

by looking at things like miracles, God's intervention in his creation in a way that cannot be explained in any other way other than God is entering into our world and creating a miracle. Deathbed visions, people see just before they die often a glimpse of what's to come. Steven in the Bible, just before he died,

he saw a glimpse of heaven. And this is extremely common. So I have a chapter on that. Near death experiences, people who are clinically dead and yet have an experience that's corroborated in one way or the other. Direct encounters from God, how God reaches down and touches lives, mystical dreams.

I believe, and the Bible teaches this, that there is a realm beyond what we can currently see and touch, and it is every bit as real as the realm that we're in and experience day by day. Spiritual warfare comes in because part of that other realm is there is a demonic element. We have angels, literally hundreds of millions of angels that exist, there's spirits, but there's also demons.

And Satan, whose name had been Lucifer, before he fell as an angel and is now in warfare with God's plan, you know, he sometimes reaches into our world and there are, in my book, I document cases of possession, demonic possession, this is real stuff. Now, demons cannot possess a Christian because we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit,

we can't be indwelled at the same time by a demonic spirit, but Satan can hector us. He can harass us. And so spiritual warfare is a way that we protect ourselves through prayer and through vigilance and through reading scripture and understanding why we believe what we believe. These various things we can do to kind of ward off these attacks that we otherwise might experience.

Interesting. When you say hundreds of millions of angels, where do you come up with that? Because there's a passage in scripture where John gets a vision of the post-resurrection Jesus on his throne. And he says there are 10,000 times 10,000 angels there. Well, that's a hundred million angels

just in that setting around the throne of Jesus worshiping him. So we got a minimum of a hundred million angels. I believe that's just the tip of an iceberg. So do we become angels when we die? No, no, we are made in God's image. We have capabilities that angels don't have. They have capabilities we don't have,

but they are a separate creation. What kind of capabilities? That they would have. Both. Well, first of all, they're not embodied. So they're spirits. So they have the ability to move and transport themselves at great speed.

That's why you see many pictures of angels with wings on them. They don't technically have wings generally, but they're able to move a lot faster than we are because they're spirits, they're not encumbered by a human body. They don't grow old, they don't age. So, because there's no physical body to get older and older.

Have they always been? Yeah, no, God at some point created them. This would have probably been before the creation of the world. And he created these legions of angels whose purpose is described in scripture to minister to God's people. And there are indications, this is a bit of a dispute in the Christian world,

but there are indications that we have a guardian angel that is an angel who specifically kind of guards over us and watches over us. That's disputed? It's disputed. There are people who disagree with that. I think there's two passages in scripture that suggest that it's real.

Certain denominations certainly believe in it. The Orthodox Christian church believes at the time of baptism, you are assigned a guardian angel. Others believe that you have one from the time that you're born, the time that you become a Christian. Peter, there's some indication that Peter had a guardian angel. We see that in scripture. When Jesus was talking about little children,

he said, don't disregard these little kids because their angels see the face of God every day. Well, who are their angels? That would, I think guardian angels. Interesting. Watching over them. So there are some, now, there is some scripture that is outside the Protestant Bible

and in the Catholic Bible that talks more about guardian angels. So Catholics may have a little bit stronger view of this than Protestants would, but I think there's sufficient evidence, I talk about this in my think there's sufficient evidence, I talk about this in my new book, sufficient evidence that guardian angels really do exist.

What, we're getting way into it already here, but what evidence is there that they have guardian angels? First, Jesus talking about the fact that the children, their angels see the face of God every day. So who's he referring to? These little children have angels? Yeah, that would be consistent if guardian angels actually existed.

There's another case where Peter escaped from prison and everybody thought he was still locked up. And he goes, he knocks on a house to see his buddies. And the servant hears his voice and says, hey, Peter's here. They say, he can't be here, he's in prison. Maybe it's his angel. Okay, well, is that a guardian angel they're talking about?

Now in Jewish culture in the first century, they believed in guardian angels. And some people will say, oh, well, that's not saying according to the Bible, there are guardian angels. That's just a nod to the Jewish culture of the day. I'm not so sure. I think when you look at these couple of passages and also what is the purpose of angels

but to minister to God's people. I think it's logical that guardian angels may exist. Others disagree. So it is a point of contention. What's the disagreement? I believe it. I believe it. We talked about my 444 experience.

I tell everybody this. Yeah. But it, I think the disagreement comes where people think that the scriptural support for it is not strong enough. That if indeed we did have guardian angels, it would be more explicit, it'd be clearer in the Bible that we've got guardian angels.

And there's no one verse that I can point to that clearly and unequivocally says, oh yeah, everybody has a guardian angel or every follower of God or whoever has a guardian angel. But I think the passages I just mentioned, at least two passages are suggestive that Peter had his angel and these children had their angel.

Who are you talking about there? If it's theirs, that suggests that there would be an angel who was assigned to them. So I lean toward the idea that there is a an angel who was assigned to them. So I lean toward the idea that there is a guardian angel for folks. So would it be safe to say that angels are the arch nemesis, the equivalent of good to a demon? In a sense, I mean, they would certainly be our protectors

against demonic influence and demonic harassment and so forth. We see instances of them as being warriors. I'll give you an example. Billy Graham tells this story. There was a true story of a missionary from Scotland who was in South Pacific Island. And the local tribe got very upset that he was there to talk about Jesus.

And they went to murder him and his family. And they came and surrounded his house. And so him and his family got in there and they, what can we do? We can pray, that's all we can do. This crowd, this mob is intent on killing us. And so they prayed all night, God protect us, God protect us. And so they prayed all night, God protect us,

God protect us. And the mob by dawn dissipated and nothing happened. Well, the leader of that mob later became a Christian and that missionary talked to him and said, hey, by the way, what happened that one night when you came to kill us? And the mob was formed around our house. Why didn't to kill us and the mob was formed around our house, why didn't you kill us?

And he said, well, we couldn't do it with all those men you had guarding the house. He said, what are you talking about? I didn't have any men guarding the house. He said, no, we saw them. There were these men, they had swords that were drawn and they surrounded your house and we figured there's no way we can go in

and attack these people in light of these guards around the house. Well, who are they? They were angels. And God had sent angels to protect them. Well, it's that time of year again. The holiday season is officially here, and we've got an amazing holiday offer

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Visit bubsnaturals.com today and use promo code Sean for 20% off your order. bubsnaturals.com slash Sean. And there's stories like that. I mean, in my book, I document stories where people have experiences with angels. I was talking to a famous theologian, you know how theologians are, they're very kind of buttoned down.

And he was talking about growing up in a Pentecostal church family, Pentecostal church. And he said, yeah, he said, one day, years and years and years ago, this local family from our church was driving in their car and their son was in the back seat. He was like 10 years old. And we didn't have seat belts back then.

And he opened the door and he fell out of the car, going like 70 miles an hour. And they thought, my gosh, our son's been killed. They turned around, they came back and there he was standing there, perfectly fine. And they said, what happened? And he said, you didn't see the man catch me? And this theologian began to weep.

He got tears in his eyes. He had to take his handkerchief out and wipe his eyes. He said, I missed that, that being in a church that really took this other worldly stuff seriously, because I believe it was an angel that saved him. Can I tell you something I don't generally tell people? Absolutely. This is like a confessional,

but I was visited by an angel when I was a child. I was a youngster and I had a dream. It's the only dream I remember from my childhood. It was more vivid, more real, more colorful than any dream I'd ever had. And an angel appeared to me. And I just knew intuitively he was from heaven. He was, and he started telling me about heaven

and the beauty and the wonder and the joy of heaven. And I'm kind of nodding along, we're in the kitchen of our house and I'm kind of nodding along. I said, well, you know, I'm gonna go there someday. And he looked at me and said, how do you know? So what do you mean? How do I know?

I'm a good kid. I obey my parents pretty much. I've been to Sunday school a couple of times. I try to be nice to people. And he looked at me and he said, that doesn't matter. And this cold chill went through me. It's like, how can that not matter? All my efforts to be good, all my efforts to be obedient,

you're telling me they don't matter? And he said, someday you'll understand. And that was the end of the dream. 16 years later, that prophecy came true when my wife dragged me to a church as an atheist, January 20, 1980, and the pastor got up and he talked about heaven. And he talked about heaven is not a place

that we earn our way there and try to achieve something, somehow be good enough to enter into heaven. None of us is good enough to enter into the presence of God in heaven. Forgiveness and eternal life in heaven is a free gift of God's grace, because he loves you. You're made in his image. He wants to spend eternity with you,

offers forgiveness and eternal life as a free gift of His grace. And my first thought was, that's what that angel was talking about 16 years ago, when he said, someday I'll understand. And I got it that day, I didn't believe it, it took a while, but the first day I got, oh, I get it now, that's what Christianity is about.

It's not earning your way to heaven, it's receiving a free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. Oh, I get it now. That's what Christianity is about. It's not earning your way to heaven. It's receiving a free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. Wow. How old were you when that happened? I'd say maybe 10, 11, sometimes 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there. It was funny, my ordination,

when I was being ordained as a pastor years ago, I thought, do I even tell this story? You're gonna think I'm nuts. And I told it and they all, yeah, okay. I mean, that's par for the course. We all have stories like that and not exactly, but we all have experiences of God. But yeah, that was my experience with an angel.

What did the angel look like? It was male. And by the way, I did read some scholarly articles from Jewish writers saying that angels can be female, but in scripture, they're all male. Doesn't mean they couldn't manifest themselves because they're spirits. So they can manifest himself as a male,

I assume as a female, but all of them in scripture are male. He had a soft glow to him. Didn't have wings, didn't look like a cartoon character, but there was a gentle glow to him that just intuitively I knew, oh, this is an angel. I'm talking to an angel. So it looked human. He looked human, exactly.

And even the Bible talks about the fact that sometimes when we provide hospitality to someone, we're really providing hospitality to an angel, unbeknownst to us. And so angels can manifest themselves as people, I know you're an angel, I don't know, but they can manifest themselves as human-like. Well, I told you about my experience in Sedona.

Yeah. You know, with the gate guard. Yeah. I think that's may have been what that was. Could very well be. What do you think? Could very well be. I mean, now we also have instances where demons will,

Bible says Satan can appear as a, some a counterfeit of light. In other words, he can pass himself off as being from God or whatever. So we have to be careful because that's why we have the Bible I think to kind of be a plumb line to test. Is this legit or not? Because demons can, they can possess people, they can influence people, they can harass people,

they can appear in different ways. I think we talk about ghosts. I think ghosts are demons because a technical definition of a ghost is someone who dies and their spirit refuses to enter into the next life. Well, that's not a biblical description of what can happen. So if ghosts are not biblical in that sense,

maybe they're demonic. And I believe they are. I believe that, you know, are ghosts real? Well, there's some instances where we see apparitions that I believe are ghostly apparitions that have been quite real, but I believe they're satanic. I've had encounters with ghosts. Actually, the guy filming this right now,

who's behind the scenes here, had the exact same experience as us in the old Civil War cabin. They had a couple of experiences. We caught it on camera. Wow, yeah. But what are some of the capabilities that humans would have that angels do not?

Well, we have physical mobility in the sense of, we are a body, we are a spirit who has a body. So God created us, it's a dualistic thing. We are spirit, but we're also physical. We also have a physical body. That's an advantage in some ways, I think. We're also, I think in the pecking order, we're actually above angels.

Really? In many ways, yeah, I think. Well, actually in the Psalms it says we're created a little bit lower than the angels, but I think there are ways in which we kind of have capabilities that angels maybe don't have. And I mean, in terms of having a physical body gives us certain advantages that a spirit

that doesn't have a body would not have. Okay, okay. Well, that was a great discussion. Great little warmup. But Lee, I have a Patreon account, that's a subscription account and those are our top supporters. Yeah.

And so one of the things I do, they've been with us since the beginning is I always offer them the opportunity to ask each guest a question. Oh, great. And so we had a ton of questions for you. Yeah. This one is from Jared Russo.

Are Christians guaranteed heaven once they confess with their mouth and believe it in their heart as Jesus, Paul and many others have said? If not, what have Christians done that cause God to say, I never knew you like it says in the Bible? Well, a definition of a Christian would be someone who has done exactly what he said.

In other words, someone who confesses that Jesus is Lord, Jesus is God, that repents of their sin, turns from their sin, admits that, receives this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased for us on the cross when he died as our substitute to pay for all of our sins. receives this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased for us on the cross when he died as our substitute to pay for all of our sins. When that happens, when a person,

the Bible says, it's the verse that brought me to faith, John 1-12, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. So the formula there is believe plus receive equals become. So we believe based on the data of, I believe anyway, based on the data of history that Jesus is who we claim to be.

He proved it by returning from the dead. So I believe that, but I had to take another step. I had to receive. And receiving is confessing that Jesus is who we claim to be. He is God, He is Lord. Admitting my sin, receiving forgiveness from Jesus. When I do that, I become a Christian. Someone who is told someday by Jesus,

be gone, I never knew you, would not have been a Christian. Because a Christian, to be a Christian, would need to receive Jesus as a forgiver and leader through a prayer like that. And once that happens, I believe, once saved, always saved. Once you are adopted as a son of God that way, then he never disowns his children.

And so you're safely in the kingdom of God and way, then he never disowns his children. And so you're safely in the kingdom of God and that when you pass from this world, you'll ultimately end up in heaven. So Jesus is not talking about those, he's talking about those who are hypocrites who claim to be his followers, but who aren't really his followers.

Those are the ones that are in trouble, the ones who profess certain things and claim to be holy and claim to be righteous. And so, Jesus says in the end, I never knew you. Sorry, be gone. Could you give me an example of that? Is there anybody in history that you think that is, I mean, who, I guess what I'm asking is

who claims to be a follower of Jesus but doesn't really follow and or believe. And so this is gonna sound bad and I don't know the right way to put it, but because I do believe in Jesus. And I do, I think about him all the time. And I think about, you know, that old saying, what would Jesus do?

I think about, I have that in my head all the time now. And then when I hear something like that, for whatever reason, I always have my head, shit, is it? Is that me? Am I really okay? Do I really believe that? Do I really believe in Jesus? This is what happened to my wife.

After she came to faith, she kept wondering, am I really okay with God? Am I really saved? Am I really going to heaven? And so she kept praying repeatedly this prayer, God, I believe you are who you claim to be. I believe your Lord come into my life, change my life, change my character, change my values.

I receive this free gift. She kept praying these prayers. And her mentor who had led her to the Lord came up to her one day and said, are you calling God a liar? No, I'm not calling him a liar. Well, the Bible says, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God,

even to those who believe in his name. If you believe and you've received, then you have become a child of God, according to scripture. And you don't need to worry, and you always can go back to that. I can go back to November the 8th of 1981, three o'clock in the afternoon,

after a two year investigation where I try to use my journalism training and legal training to disprove Christianity. And I came to conclusion, no, it's true. Jesus not only claimed to be the son of God, he proved it by returning from the dead and the historical documentation is overwhelming. And that's when I go back to that moment where I realize I'm in deep weeds

because I am a sinner of sinners. I live in immoral, narcissistic, obscene life. And I need God, I confess that. And I admit that and I turn from that. And I want to receive you as my forgiver and as my leader. I want to receive your free gift of forgiveness and eternal life. Sometimes I need to go back to that and say,

did I do that at three o'clock in the afternoon November the eighth in 1981? Yep, I did. I'm okay. Has God changed my life since then? Absolutely. So I have evidence of it. If there's no evidence of a life change,

then you really have to ask, has God really taken root in my life? Have I really received him as my forgiver, but also my Lord? In other words, someone who leads my life. Is he really leading my life? So I can look back and say, God's changed my character, my values, my worldview, my philosophy, my attitude,

my parenting, my marriage, and all these things. Over time, over time, God's changed for the good. So I have evidence that I can look at and say, no, I can see God how, because the Bible says in 2 Corinthians, that when a person receives this free gift of God's forgiveness and grace, they become a new creature. The old is gone, the new has come.

It doesn't mean we become perfect. We're still struggling in a world of sin to try to follow Jesus as best we can. We still make mistakes. We still take one step forward and two steps back sometimes. That's okay. But the general orientation of our life ought to be different.

It ought to be much more pointed toward God as being the leader of my life. And so when you look at that kind of evidence, when you look at that moment I can go back to and say, yep, that's the moment, then it dispels those fears that, oh, somehow this didn't take. Or somehow I don't know that I'm okay.

You know, I think that, well, I don't think I know, because I was one of them. How can a, I think a lot of people always, people that are on the fence, people that don't believe, I think a big question was for me is, how does a good person who lives a honest life filled with integrity and love and all the good virtues,

what if they didn't have the opportunity to learn about Jesus and to believe him? And when I interviewed our mutual friend, John Burke, I didn't even ask him that question, but in interviewing him, I think I learned the answer. And it seems like everybody gets the opportunity to believe.

And he, I remember he was talking about hellish NDEs. Yeah. Hellish near-death experiences where you actually go to hell. Like Howard Storm's case, famous case. Yes. Yeah. And it's, and so even that guy who didn't believe, if this is the correct person,

who didn't believe any of it. He was an atheist. Christ showed up when he was dying. Yeah. And he was in hell. And he did have the opportunity to say that I believe. Yeah, here's my hesitation on that because I know Howard's story and you're right.

He was an atheist, he died physically, he was clinically dead and demons were mauling him. He said, I was like roadkill and he called out to God, save me. And this orb of light came and literally saved him. It was so profound. Then he eventually recovered from his clinical death and he not only renounced his atheism,

he became a pastor. So he's a pastor today. As that's how profound that was to him. But here's the problem. He wasn't clinically, he wasn't dead like he's never returned. He was clinically dead, but he was gonna come back. And so I have a little hesitation in terms of saying

that that's a universal experience. Okay. Here's what I would say based on what I understand best in scripture, especially the Old Testament in Jeremiah, the New Testament in Hebrews. First of all, none of us lives good lives. We're all sinners. We've all screwed up.

We've all made mistakes, not just made mistakes. I could say this, I think, we've all done things. We knew they were wrong before we did them and we did them anyway. I have, you have, right? We all have, we've sinned. And so, yes, we do good things too, but that doesn't negate the sin.

It's like if you rob a bank and then you live a perfect life, do you think the government would come up to you and say, yeah, we're gonna forget about that bank robbery. We got all this evidence you commit. No, you're guilty of that bank robbery. You need to pay the penalty for robbing that bank. Even though you did all these good things,

it doesn't wipe out the bad things that you've done. And so none of us is good. We all, none of us deserves to go to heaven. We're all sinners. That's number one. Number two, I would say that anyone, anywhere, in any culture, at any time, who calls out to the one true God and says,

God help me, save me, like Howard did when he had that near death experience. So God, help me, I can't save myself. I need help, I need you to come to my rescue. I think anybody in any culture who prays a prayer like that to the one true God, God will provide a way for them to find redemption. And I'll give you an example.

I knew a guy later in his life, he grew up in India and in the province in India where he lived, it was illegal to share the Christian message. He was mentored in the Hindu faith by some gurus. He got to be about 17, 18 years old. And he said, wait a minute. I look at these Hindu scriptures, they all contradict each other. They can't all be true.

They contradict. He said, God, I'm at a loss. If you're there, I wanna know you. I wanna meet you. I wanna experience you. God, if you're there, show me. And in a remarkable set of circumstances, God brought a couple of missionaries into his life,

shared the message of Jesus with him. He came to faith in Jesus. He later immigrated to the United States and he became a member of the church where I was a pastor at in Chicago. Wow. So there's an example of how God intervened in the life of this guy.

He probably didn't even know the name of Jesus. He just knew, I'm a mess. I need help. I need rescuing. And God's not playing hide and seek from us. He's not hiding from us. The other phenomenon that's going on that I write about in my new book

is that in the Middle East, in many Middle Eastern countries, it's illegal to share the Christian message. And so what is God doing? He's bringing dreams about Jesus to these people. This is a phenomenon that is sweeping the Middle East. People are not going to sleep as a Muslim, meeting Jesus in a dream, becoming Christians.

That's not how it happens because that could be just a subjective experience. No, there is corroboration to these dreams. So I'll give you an example. So a woman named Noor, mother of eight, Muslim, lives in Cairo. One night she goes to sleep, she has a Jesus dream. It's the most profound, vivid dream,

unlike any other she's ever had. And Jesus appears to her and she feels the love She has a Jesus dream. It's the most profound, vivid dream, unlike any other she's ever had. And Jesus appears to her. And she feels the love and the grace and the forgiveness and the kindness of Jesus, just radiating from him. And she's overwhelmed by it. She's never felt anything like it. And they're walking along a lake.

And she says, Jesus, tell me more about you. And he says, my friend will tell you. And she says, who's your friend? And he gestures to another person. She hadn't even noticed because she was so mesmerized by Jesus, a guy was walking with them along the lakeside. Said, my friend will tell you. She wakes up from the dream.

The next day she goes to the crowded marketplace in Cairo. She's walking in this crowded marketplace. She sees the man from her dream. She goes up to him. You, you were in my dream. He said, whoa, whoa, whoa. He said, what are you talking about? Same face, same clothes, same glass.

You were the man in my dreams. And he said, did you have a dream about Jesus? She said, yes. He was a missionary, undercover in Cairo. He wasn't gonna go to the crowded marketplace on that Friday afternoon, because it's chaotic, but he felt God had a mission for him. And he went that day, he met that woman,

and he took her aside, opened the Bible and shared the message of Jesus to her. So that's external confirmation that it's not just something going on in her head, but this was a special dream that points to something outside that dream. See what I say, me in terms of corroboration. That's how these are happening.

And I'm telling you, Sean, these are so common in the Middle East today that sometimes you see an ad in the Cairo newspaper and it says, call this number and we'll tell you about the man in white that you met in your dream last night. Are you serious? How are you finding this stuff out? Well, Tom Doyle, who was an expert on the Middle East

and travels all over the Middle East, I interviewed him for my new book coming out, Seeing the Supernatural. And he describes this whole thing. He said, Lee, I could pick up the phone right now and call Saudi Arabia, call Jordan and give you five more stories from just this past week.

This is happening all over the Middle East. Well, that tells me something about God. It tells me something. He's seeking us first. That he's not playing hide and seek from us, but that he's reaching out to us. And it's interesting when people say, well, what about the guy who lives on an island,

who never hears the name of Jesus? That always comes from someone who has heard the name of Jesus. You know? And my question to them is, have you responded? Have you responded to what you know about Jesus and received him as your forgiver and your leader? Because that's not an issue for you.

But it is an issue for some people. And I believe that anyone who calls out the one true God saying, God help me, save me, I realize I've messed up things. I want to know you. Are you there? Tell me, show me. I believe God will find a way through a dream,

through a missionary, whatever, to make that happen. When you say this gentleman took this woman and gave her the message of Jesus in one day, what is that message? Yeah, it's a great question. You know, the Bible is almost 800,000 words. And you know, if you try to read the Bible, it can mess your mind up.

I mean, it's difficult. I mean, there's a lot of mean, there's a lot of messages. There's a lot of messages in the Bible. There's a lot there. And to really understand it takes a lot of study and so forth. But I can summarize the central message that God wants us to know from the Bible

in one verse 21 words. And the verse is Romans 6, 23, which says simply, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. So the wages of sin is death. What we've earned, what we deserve, because we've ignored God, we've blasphemed against him, we've violated his commands, we've turned our back on him. The wage, what we've earned because of that is death,

which means eternal separation from God. We'll pay for our own sins separate from God forever. But it says, there's another part to the story. The free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, your Lord. In other words, it is, you can't earn it because if you try to earn a gift, it's not a gift anymore, it's a wage.

No, it's not a wage, it's a gift. The free gift of God is eternal. How do you receive a gift? You know, this is Christmas. You know, there's a bunch of gifts probably under Christmas trees all over the world. They don't become yours until you receive a gift? You know, this is Christmas. You know, there's a bunch of gifts probably under Christmas trees all over the world. They don't become yours until you receive them. And so when we receive that gift,

we become a child of God forever. You know, there's a lot of different religions in the world. They all contradict each other. But Christianity is different from, I think there's 4,200 religions in the world, something like that. Yeah, I think that's right. Every other faith system I've ever explored

and I've looked at thousands. Every other one is spelled D-O. You got to do something to try to earn your way to God. Use it to bit in prayer wheel. go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, give alms to the poor, do good deeds. Do, do, do something and maybe someday, maybe, maybe not, but maybe you'll do enough to earn your way to heaven. That's how every other religion functions.

Christianity is not spelled D-O, it's spelled D-O-N-E. It's done. Jesus said in the cross, it's finished, it's done. He paid the penalty we deserved for the sins that we've committed. In other words, we don't have to pay the penalty, He paid it on the cross, on our behalf. And all we have to do,

and He offers forgiveness as a free gift. We just need to receive it in repentance and face. I'm sorry for how I've lived. I don't wanna be separated from God. I wanna know you personally. How do I do that? I receive this free gift of your grace. That's what grace is.

By definition, it is free. And so that's the difference between every other religion and Christianity because they all contradict each other. by definition it is free. And so that's the difference between every other religion and Christianity because they all contradict each other. I have a good friend who's a Muslim and he comes over to my house and we barbecue and we're buddies.

And so I've read the Quran. And in the Quran, in Surah four, verse 156, it says Jesus didn't die on the cross and therefore he wasn't resurrected. The Quran also says that God does not have a son. The Quran also says that no one can bear the sins of another. Specifically, the Quran says that, okay, those are three things I need to believe to be a Christian.

Now, maybe the Quran is right. Maybe that's correct. Or maybe Christianity is correct. But they can't both be correct. They conflict. They can't both be correct. And so I look at the evidence that Jesus did die on the cross

and that he was resurrected from the dead. The historical data that convinced me that he not only claimed to be the son of God, he backed it up by returning from the dead. The historical data that convinced me that he not only claimed to be the son of God, he backed it up by returning from the dead. And I look at that and I go, because of that, I can trust that Jesus is who he claimed to be. So I say, his message is the one that I wanna respond to. His message of grace and hope and redemption,

this gift of God that he wants to give all of us. Why was Jesus sent here? I think a couple of reasons. In what, let me, let's start with this. What is Jesus or who is Jesus? Yeah, God has existed from eternity past as the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They have always existed in a perfect love relationship.

And so God, when he decided to create humankind, because they're in this love relationship, he wanted us to experience love. And so he gave us free will. Well, what have we done with the free will? We turned our back on God, we've denied him, we've looked at the world, it's a mess. We've used our free will

and given God the middle finger basically. And so God loves us, he made us in his image. We are made in his image, which means not physically, but our souls are fashioned in the image of God and he loves us. And so he said, I'm gonna send Jesus into the world to be born of a virgin, fully God still and fully man. And his ultimate purpose is Easter.

His ultimate purpose is to die. To die, why? To die as our substitute who says, I'm gonna pay the penalty you deserve because I love you. I'll pay the penalty. You don't have to if you receive this gift of forgiveness as a free gift of grace.

I'll give you an example. There's a story, I don't think it's a true story, it's more of a parable, of a judge. And he's an honest judge. He's a righteous judge. And one day a woman is brought in front of him on a charge of shoplifting. And it's his own daughter. And he says, what is the evidence against my daughter?

And they present the evidence against my daughter? And they present the evidence that she's clearly guilty, clearly guilty. Well, now what does he do? He loves his daughter. It's his only daughter. He loves his daughter, but he's a righteous judge. He can't just wink and say, ah, yeah, nevermind.

I forgive you. Forget the whole thing. He can't do that because if he did that, he would not be a righteous judge. He would not be an honest judge. So what does he do? He looks out at his daughter, says, I find you guilty. I'm sorry, but you're guilty.

And I have to say that, I have to declare it. You are guilty. And I sentence you to jail for 60 days and a fine or a fine of $10,000. Well, he knows she doesn't have $10,000. She's gonna have to be separated from him in jail for 60 days. But what else could he do?

He's an honest judge. You know what he does? He takes off his robe and he walks down in front of the bench and he opens his checkbook and he writes out a check for $10,000 and he rips it off and he says, I want to give this to you

so you can pay the penalty that you deserve, but I'm going to pay it for you. Now she has a choice. She could turn it down, say, no, no, no, I'd rather go to jail. I don't think she'd do that. I think she'd say, thank you, Father, for loving me so much that you paid the penalty I deserve, because I'm guilty.

And she receives that check and she's set free. That is a analogy for what goes on with Jesus. Why Jesus came into the world to die in our place as our substitute, so that our sins could be wiped out because only perfect people can go to heaven. And so we have to be forgiven, completely forgiven. And we have to be clothed in the righteousness of God,

which also happens when we receive him as our forgiver and leader. And then the doors of heaven are flung open for us. But that was the only way, because God is a righteous judge. He is holy. He can't just wink and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, forget it.

I know you've done all these evil things in your life, but yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just forget about it. No, they have to be paid for. If I lend you my car and you're gone for a day and you come back and it's got a big scratch down it, I could say, oh, I just forgive you. But then I gotta pay for the scratch. I gotta pay to have it repaired. Or if I don't, when I sell the car,

I'm gonna take a loss for the amount equivalent to fixing that scratch. I'm gonna have to pay the penalty in one way or the other. I can't just wink and say, forget it. So God can't just wink and say, I'm gonna ignore the fact that you're sinners. No, no just wink and say, forget it. So God can't just wink and say, I'm gonna ignore the fact that you're sinners. No, no, no, no, because that would be a lie.

And he can't lie. So do you see? So the purpose of Christmas ultimately is Easter. Now, along the way, God showed us how to live life. You know, I mean, he talked about how we should care for others, how we should prioritize people who are hurting, how we should reach out in love to people

who are in need of our love and our kindness and so forth. He showed us how to live the perfect life. But you know, if he only did that, none of us would get to heaven. He had to, Easter had to happen. He had to go, he had to not only die on that cross, but then be resurrected from the dead so that when we die, we can be resurrected as well.

So I got a few questions. One is, I wanna rattle them off just so I remember them. One is a difference between Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Another one is, and we'll come back to that, but another one is, and I would like to address this right now, is it who is Jesus or who was Jesus? Who is Jesus? Who is Jesus? He is still alive.

He is still, yeah, he is still with us, so to speak. I talked to him this morning. We talked to him at breakfast when we prayed. So he is still who he is. Now he was united with a human form at the time of his incarnation and born on Christmas of a virgin. And when the Holy Spirit overcame Mary,

it says, therefore the child was born holy. So that process of the Holy Spirit leading to the birth of Jesus made it possible for him to be without sin. He was made holy somehow. We don't understand the entire process. The incarnation is mind boggling. It's the timeless becoming time bound.

It's the eternal becoming time bound. It's the immaterial becoming material. I mean, it's beyond our ability to understand, but clearly scripture says, because of the way the incarnation took place, it means that Jesus was holy, Jesus was without sin. So if God is Jesus' father, then who is Joseph? Joseph would be-

Is he the caretaker? He would be an earthly, quote unquote, father, just like if you adopted a son. You're not the biological father, but you're the father. You're an adopted father. Yeah, be more of that. Yeah. Okay.

And I have another question. I'm learning there are a lot of rules in, how do I say this? And I don't wanna say Christianity. And how do I say this? And I don't wanna say Christianity, I wanna say, there are rules that the other realm has to abide by. It seems like there are rules that good and evil

need to abide by, that demons and angels and God and Jesus and good and evil, the farther I dig into this stuff, it seems like there are a lot of rules that I don't understand. Well, there's certainly God restrains evil to some degree. If there are specific, why are there rules? Well, I wouldn't posture it as rules. I would posture it more as God rules over all.

It seems like there's some kind of law. Okay, I see where you're going. Yeah, there is a moral law that comes from God. Like this morning, I told you, and I don't know the laws, but I told you, I've interviewed an exorcist. Yeah.

I've dug into these things a little bit. A lot of it, I don't understand. Even this morning, I had mentioned right before we had breakfast, we're building that new studio. I went out there, they're pouring the foundation and the footers and me and one of the guys that has worked here, the longest one out, and we wrapped Bibles up

so that they were protected, and then we put them in each corner of the foundation. That's awesome. Because maybe it's superstition, maybe it's not. I think it's a great gesture just to say, we want our foundation to be God. Yeah. I love that.

But what I'm getting at is, you know, I've heard of priests doing that. I've heard of that it may keep demons out and hey, if there's any chance of that, then I'm gonna take advantage of it. And I mean, I do, I do. I mean, it's symbolic and I do think, and it seems there's some sort of law that all of these,

for lack of a better term, entities need to follow. Well, I mean, when you told me about bearing those Bibles in the foundation, I just thought that's a great symbol of the fact that we want our organization as best we can. Yeah, we're gonna make mistakes. We're gonna mess things up time to time, but we want ultimately for God to be honored by what we do.

That's one thing. I don't know and I would, you know, we can get into realm of superstition at some point and say, does that mean that demons cannot somehow penetrate that because the foundation, I think that's more of a superstition than it would be. Now, it could be that if you are declaring to the world that is our hope, is our intention, is our desire

that our organization be honoring to God, that's gonna be deterrent to demonic activity. Let me bring up another example. I had mentioned my friend Eddie Penny at lunch and he was a Christmas episode. And I don't even know if we, he's been somewhat of a mentor to me, not somewhat, he has been a mentor to me in my journey to faith.

And I don't know if he said this on the show or if this was a phone call, I can't remember. Sometimes the lines get blurred here, but and he's not the only one that I've heard say this, but he has talked about demons in his house. We spoke about exorcisms, and people that are levitating and whatnot. And Eddie, I remember him saying,

people say in the name of Jesus Christ, leave my house. And they have to leave your house. So that would be one of the laws. And that goes back to the Bible. That goes back to Jesus casting out. And one of the things that Jesus is best known for are not only miracles, but exorcisms, casting out demons. I think half of Jesus' activity in the gospel of Mark

involves casting out demons and so forth. So how did he do that? It is something that he instructed his followers to do, to challenge and confront the demons in the name of Jesus to depart. So that comes from the Bible. So, I mean, do I believe that demon possession exists? Yes, and in my book coming out in March,

I mean, I deal, I have a whole chapter on that. Yes, I believe it can happen. I don't believe it happens to Christians because we are by definition indwell by the Holy Spirit. So we can't be indwell by a demon at the same time. But Satan can Hector us, he can harass us. And that's why we want to, as the Bible talks about, put on the full armor of God to protect ourselves from that

through understanding and reading the scriptures, through prayer and so forth. So yeah, that's a good example of, and we wanna call it a rule, but it's an action we can take to cast out the demonic as Jesus did in his ministry. So that would be a good example. But I think sometimes, it's hard to draw a line between

what can be a superstitious belief versus what's a biblical belief. And so I can look at that and say, is casting out a demon in the name of Jesus, is that a rule that God approves of? Yeah, because we have examples in scripture of Jesus casting out demons, and we wanna do that in His name.

But if you tell me that, oh, if you wear a crucifix around your neck, that it will ward off the demonic, I don't see that in scripture. So I always go back to, is it in the Bible? Can I trust it? That gives me a plumb line. It gives me something that I can speculate about other stuff, you know,

but that's just me speculating. And what does that really matter? I think the Bible has more weight than that. What version of the Bible do you read? I read several. I think it's healthy to read several sometimes to get a different, a little bit translation difference. I like the NIV.

That's my publisher also publishes that version. It's a great version. The ESV is a good version. The new King James version is a good one. The new, what's it called? The NLT, the new living translation. That's a really good translation. So what people have to understand though,

is there is a difference between a Bible translation and a paraphrase. So a translation goes back to the original, as best we have them, the existing documents in the Greek and in the Hebrew, and translates those into modern language that we can understand. That's a translation.

There are also things like I think all the message, which is a Bible, but it's a paraphrase. It's a well-educated Christian scholar who kind of puts it in vernacular that maybe we can understand better and maybe he takes a little liberty with it and that's okay, because it's consistent with what the Bible says.

So there's a difference there. And I encourage people to use a translation because that is staying true to what was originally written as best we can determine it. By the way, talking about, I want to give you a little anecdote because we talked at breakfast about numbers and how numbers can be really interesting sometimes.

And you know, it's very commonly said that the number of Satan is 666. A friend of mine is named Dr. Daniel B. Wallace. He's a professor at Dallas Seminary. He's probably the world's leading expert on the manuscripts of the New Testament. And his ministry is to probably the world's leading expert on the manuscripts of the New Testament. And his ministry is to travel the world and to go to museums and seminaries

and places that have ancient manuscripts and to take high quality photographs of them for scholars so we can preserve them forever. And I was talking to him once and I said, he said, yeah, I discovered something interesting. I said, what? He said, I took, yeah, I discovered something interesting. I said, what? He said, I took the oldest manuscript we've got

of the book of Revelation and I examined it under a microscope and the number of Satan is not 666, it's 616. I said, really? And it always stuck in my mind. I called him back about a year later. I said, did I understand, really? And it always stuck in my mind. I called them back about a year later. I said, did I understand you right? When you said you examined under a microscope

and the real number is 616? He said, yeah. So, I mean, that's why it's important that we go back to the sources as best we can. You know, the original documents are all lost. They're all reduced to dust because they were made of papyrus and so forth, scrolls. And, but we have reliable documents

because handwritten copies were made. We have thousands of copies that we can compare and contrast and we can come to a conclusion about what the original said. And that's the translations we have. So are all the different versions different translations or is this different or is there more than that? Different versions of what?

The Bible. Of the, that you see in a store, for instance. Yeah, they're all translations, but a translation committee may choose a certain word, say the Greek says this, we're going to translate it this way. And another group might get together of scholars and say, yeah, that's good, but we think it's a little sharper,

a little better to translate it this way. And so they're very careful about that. There's a Bible called the NET Bible. I think it's the New English Translation. Daniel B. Wallace, who I mentioned, is the editor of that. That has thousands, literally thousands of footnotes that explain why they translate the Greek and the Hebrew in the way they did.

So it says, you know, we had a choice here. We could have used this word in English or we could have used this one. This is why we chose this one. But we just want you to know, you know, we could have chosen this other one, but these are the reasons why. So it's really a handy Bible to have.

I've got one, I refer to it all the time. I wanna go back to my other question too about the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. Yeah. What is the difference? There's a relational component to it. In other words, God the Father has existed from eternity past.

God the Son has existed from eternity past. Well, that refers to a relational, how they relate to each other. God the Holy Spirit has existed from eternity past. And so in some ways they have some different functions in the sense that it was Jesus that came and left behind the perks of heaven, was born among us on Christmas,

lived the perfect life, went to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. That is a role that he fulfilled as part of the Godhead with the permission and the leading of the Father and the Holy Spirit. So there's one God, but three persons. And how do I know that? Because if you read scripture, you can see it teaches four things.

The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and there is one God. Those four teachings are clear in scripture. And so how that plays out is kind of a mind bender, but we can know that they are all God, they are God, there is one God, and that is God in three persons. It's been described to me, it's like water, ice, vapor. Yeah, there's a problem with that.

There's a heresy called modalism. Modalism says that there's one God, but he changes. Like he's the father now, but then he changes, like water changes to steam when it's heated, and now he becomes the son sun and then he changes again because water can become ice and becomes a Holy Spirit. That's a heresy. That's not how it works. There are three distinct persons in the Godhead

who are God. So it's not like they change roles or go from water to ice to steam. A lot of people use that illustration and you just have to be careful because that can lead to a heretical belief that God changes from the Father to the Son to the Holy Spirit, depending on the circumstances.

And that's just not what happens. So did you say that they each have different purposes? Well, they can each have different roles. What would those roles be? Well, the role of the Holy Spirit, for instance, in my life is to indwell me, to live in me, to guide me, to be sort of an internal conscience, to help me incrementally over time,

to become more like Jesus, to change my values, to change my character. So one of the roles of the Holy Spirit in our life is to minister to us as we grow in our relationship with God. That's one of the roles that he performs. But there are other roles too, like it was through him, through the Holy Spirit that Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary. And Jesus has the role of being the savior of the world,

but they all have that role in the sense the Holy Spirit was involved. When you look in Genesis, even in early Hebrew writings, you can see the Spirit and you can see the different elements of God, the different elements of God's wrong term. You can see the three persons of the Trinity playing a role in creation. Jesus played a role in creation.

The father played a role in creation. Holy spirit played a role in creation. So they're working together as one Godhead to accomplish all the creation that we have. How did Jesus play a role in creation? There's a scripture in the New Testament says, nothing that was created was created without Jesus. So he played a role from eternity past

in the creation of the world. Wow. Yeah, pretty wild. Fascinating stuff. Yeah. Lee, let's take a quick break. Okay. When we come back, I want to get into what sent you on your journey. Sure. To disprove God and what you found. Okay. Thank you. We all know a good night's sleep is essential to our overall health and wellness. I mean, if you're exhausted from lack of sleep, you're not good for anybody. You can't concentrate, you don't have the energy you need to get through the day. That's where Helix Sleep comes in.

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and two free pillows for all mattress orders. All right, Lee, we're back from the break. Sorry about the mini interrogation there, And I'm just curious, a lot more questions are gonna come up. But I want to do, I want to get into a little bit about, what sent you on the journey to disprove the Bible? Yeah. Or God? Well, I was, you know, I was, I was, I was a Christian, I was a Christian.

I was a Christian. I was a Christian. I was a Christian. a little bit about what sent you on the journey to disprove the Bible or God? Well, I was legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and got married young and I was an atheist. My wife was an agnostic. She didn't know what to believe. And she came up to me one day and gave me the worst news any atheist husband could get. She said, I've become a Christian.

I thought, oh, great. Now she's gonna start judging me. Now she's gonna try to get me not to hang out with my friends. Now she's gonna make the kids think that there's something wrong with me because I don't believe in God. I thought, I just saw trouble on the horizon.

And trouble came because all of a sudden she becomes a devout Christian and I'm an adamant atheist. Well, we're just butt heads and we'd never done that. We met when we were 14, we got married at 19 and 20. You know, we're best friends. And yet for the first time in our marriage, we're at loggerheads, you know, she wants to go to church.

Well, am I gonna stay home with the kids while you go to church? I got other things to do. I remember when she came to me, she said, I'd like to give some money to the church. I said, I got a good idea. Why don't you take the money and flush it down the toilet? Cause that'll have the same effect. So that was what she was up against.

I mean, and I thought, I got to get my marriage back together here. How do I do that? Well, wait a minute, there's an easy way. All I have to do is disprove Christianity. You know, I went to Yale Law School. I understand what evidence is. Take me a long weekend, maybe a three day weekend, You know, I went to Yale Law School. I understand what evidence is.

Take me a long weekend, maybe a three day weekend, and I'm sure I can poke enough holes in Christianity that it would fall apart. What brought your wife to faith? It's interesting. The door, we moved into a condo in suburban Chicago and the doorbell rang and it was a neighbor. It was a woman, she was a nurse and her name was Linda. And she had a child on her hip who was six months old.

Well, we had a nine month old daughter. And so Linda introduces herself, brought a plate of cookies and said, hey, you know, let's get together sometime. So they became best friends. Well, Linda was a Christian, a strong Christian, and they would have long conversations about God. And Leslie wasn't hostile like I was. She just had questions like anybody would.

And Linda had answers. And she went to church with her. She checked it out. And then she brought me that news that she had become a Christian. And that just enraged you. Oh my gosh. I just saw this is the last thing I need in my life.

Because I just had this caricature of Christians who were going to be judgmental and going to look down their nose at me. And by the way, I thought I was a man in her life. Now who's this Jesus character? Well, you weren't wrong. Yeah. I do see a lot of those things

that you just described today. I know. And I'd love to chat about that later. I know. There is a lot of that. And that's what I was recoiling against. And so I thought I could disprove it. I ended up spending a year and nine months

taking my journalism training, my legal training and probing the historical data concerning the resurrection of Jesus mainly. Because even as an atheist, I understood everything, everything, everything depends on whether Jesus returned from the dead or not. Because clearly Jesus made transcendent everything, everything depends on whether Jesus returned from the dead or not. Because clearly Jesus made transcendent and messianic

and divine claims about himself. He claimed he was the son of God. At one point he gets up before a group of people and he says, I and the Father are one. And the word in Greek there for one is not masculine, it's neuter, which means Jesus was not saying, I and the Father are the same person. He was saying, I and the Father are the same thing.

We're one in nature, we're one in essence. And the audience got it. They said, oh, you're a man and you're claiming to be God. So they were gonna kill him for claiming to be God. Well, he claimed to be God, but so what? I could claim to be God. Well, he claimed to be God, but so what? I could claim to be God. Well, maybe not you. Anybody could claim that they're God.

But if Jesus claimed to be God, died, and then three days later rose from the dead, that's pretty good evidence he's telling the truth. So even as an atheist, I recognize this is the ballgame. In fact, I just disprove it, I'd be home free. I could rescue her from this cult and go on with our life as it was. Where do you start to disprove something?

It's so funny, yes, because this is back in 1980 or so, when you're at the library with microfiche and microfilm and you're doing interlibrary loans that take four months to get an ancient book out at the library with microfiche and microfilm, and you're doing interlibrary loans that take four months to get an ancient book out of the library. You're going to museums to look at manuscripts. But I was trained to investigate. I was an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

I did major investigations. I did a lot of the original reporting on the Ford Pinto case, which is before your time, but it was a big deal back then. So I knew to pick up the phone and say, call a scholar and say, I'm Lee Strobel from the Chicago Tribune. Oh, he probably thought I'm working on an article.

And say, hey, I got a question for you. What about this? Oh, okay. Well, great, thanks. So I just began calling people, researching history, checking stuff out. And nowadays it's a lot easier. Nowadays it's very easy to investigate this stuff.

One of the greatest scholars, probably the greatest scholar on the resurrection, Dr. Gary Habermas, is writing a four or five volume set, each volume is like 800 pages or so, on the resurrection, all refuting every counter argument out there and presenting the case affirmatively and so forth. And so there's plenty of stuff out there now, if someone wants to check it out.

I ended up writing a book on it called, A Case for Christ. When I did the book, I needed to retrace a lot of these interviews that I did because I wasn't planning to write a book. I didn't keep notes. This is for me, my curiosity, like you. I had a bunch of questions. But then when I wrote the book, of course I had to do in-depth interviews, tape record them, make sure they were accurate and so forth.

And so that book really summarizes the evidence. So earlier you had mentioned there was a passage, I think, did you say John 1-12? Yeah. That did it for you? Is that really, what is John 1-12? Yeah, John 1-12 says it's not enough just to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.

The Bible says demons believe that Jesus is God and they shudder because they know the implications of it for them. It's not enough just to believe it. We have to receive, receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life, this free gift of God's grace. And when we do that, John 1-12 says,

we become a child of God forever. Well, I didn't believe and I didn't, I thought it was fairy tales. I thought it was make believe. I thought Christianity was based on wishful thinking, mythology and legend. That's what I thought. But as I began to investigate the resurrection,

I was stunned because when I was a little kid, I don't know if you had this when you were a kid, my parents for Christmas gave me this punching clown. It was weighted on the bottom, it was about three feet tall, and it was inflated and it was a clown. And you would hit it like a punching bag. And because it was weighted on the bottom, it would go down when you would hit it,

but then it would bounce back up. And then you'd hit it again. It was a toy that I got when I was a kid. That's how I pictured this. I thought I had a knockdown punch. I thought I could disprove Christianity. So I'd hit it with an objection and it would bounce back. There's an answer to that.

Dog gone it. What about this? Bang, I hit it again. And it would bounce back. There's an answer to that. Dog gone it. What about this? Bang, I hit it again. And it would bounce back. There's an answer to that. So I was stunned because I did not expect there to be any historical validity to the fact that Jesus died on a cross

and rose from the dead. But I can summarize it really quickly, what I found using four words that begin with the letter E. That way people can remember. Because remember it's Christmas. The reason Jesus came was easy. And I can summarize it really quickly, what I found using four words that begin with the letter E, that way people can remember. Because remember it's Christmas, the reason Jesus came was Easter,

the resurrection, how do we know it's true? Four words that begin with the letter E, execution. Jesus was dead after being crucified. I thought maybe he survived and the cool damp air of the tomb resuscitated him. That's what I thought. No, and the cool damp air of the tomb resuscitated him. That's what I thought. No, we have no record anywhere of anyone surviving a full Roman crucifixion, anywhere.

Not only do we have multiple accounts in the documents of the New Testament that tell us that Jesus was dead after being crucified, we've got five ancient sources outside the Bible that talk about him being dead. What are those sources? Oh, like Josephus, Tacitus, these are early historians, Mirabar Serapion, Lucian, even the Jewish Talmud

admits that Jesus was executed. So Jesus was clearly dead. In fact, get this, the Journal of the American Medical Association, a secular scientific peer-reviewed medical journal carried an investigation into the death of Jesus. And this was their conclusion, quote, clearly the weight of the historical

and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead even before the wound to his side was inflicted. That's the Journal of the American Medical Association. You could go to an atheist New Testament scholar like Gehr Ludeman, and he will tell you the death of Jesus on the cross by crucifixion is historically indisputable. That's the atheist speaking.

So the first E is for execution, Jesus was dead. The second E stands for early reports that he rose from the dead. In other words, reports that didn't come after decades of legendary development, but go right back to the cross itself. In other words, I used to think as a skeptic, okay, I got to give you the fact Jesus was dead, get it.

But the resurrection is a legend. And I knew it took time for legend to develop in the ancient world. The great historian A.N. Sherwin White of Oxford said, the passage of two generations of time is not even enough for legend to grow up and wipe out a solid core of historical truth. So I knew it took a few generations for legend to develop.

Well, what I learned is that we have a report of the resurrection of Jesus, including named eyewitnesses and groups of eyewitnesses that said he died, why? For our sins, he was buried. And the third day he rose from the dead. And these eyewitnesses, groups of eyewitnesses and individuals, this report has been dated back by scholars

to within months of his death. Within months. Wow. Yeah, wow. That's a news flash. You can see this. It's in the Bible. 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse two. That is a nugget that talks about the resurrection of Jesus.

Who wrote 1 Corinthians? Paul. Paul had been someone who didn't believe in God. He was a Pharisee. He didn't believe in God. He was a Pharisee. He didn't believe in Jesus. He was persecuting Christians. He's on the road to Damascus. Boom, he has this encounter with the risen Christ. He realized that Jesus is God

and he becomes the apostle Paul. 22 years later, he writes his letter to the church in Corinth. That's what we call 1 Corinthians in the Bible. And he includes this report about the resurrection. Where did he get that report? Well, we know that it was one to three years after the death of Jesus,

that he had this experience with the risen Christ and became the apostle Paul. He immediately went into Damascus and he met with some apostles. Many people believe that's when he was given this report about the resurrection. Some people believe it was a few years later, a couple of years later, he went to Jerusalem

and he met for 15 days with two eyewitnesses to the resurrection who were mentioned in that report, Peter and James. And the Greek word that Paul uses to describe that meeting is this is an investigative meeting. They're checking each other out. What did you see? What do you know?

What do you know for sure? What do you experience? Some people believe that's when he was given this report by two people named in the report. But either way, it means within one to six years after the death of Jesus, this creed, this report, is already in existence. And therefore the beliefs that make up this report

go back even earlier, virtually to the cross itself. So there's no huge time gap between the death of Jesus and the later development of a legend that he rose from the dead. We got a news flash and probably the greatest historian on the first century is Dr. James D.G. Dunn of the United Kingdom. He analyzed this report, which comes in the form of a creed of the United Kingdom, he analyzed this report,

which comes in the form of a creed of the earliest church with eyewitnesses to the resurrection. He analyzed it historically and here was his conclusion. He says, we can be entirely confident that this report was written originally within months of the death of Jesus, within months. That is a newsflash from ancient history,

much too quick to be a legend that developed over the generations. So we got an execution, he's dead. We got this early report and we got other early reports right there. First generation, same generation of Jesus and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John comes a little bit later, but also I would say

in the first generation. So we've got these other reports too, but this one that I mentioned. Is it the original report too? What's that? Is it the original documentation? Well, he's reporting it in his letter to the church in Corinth.

Okay. And that's what we have today is what we call it. But it is the original letter. Is it the original letter? Well, the original letter has been turned to dust because it was written in parchment or on scrolls and papyrus and so forth. Okay.

But we have people who copied it. Gotcha. And so we've got multiple copies. So we got an execution, we got the early report, third E is empty tomb. And what's interesting about that is even the enemies of Jesus admitted the tomb was empty. How do we know?

Because we know from history sources inside and outside the Bible that when the disciples began saying, oh, Jesus had been resurrected, what the enemies of Jesus said was, oh, well, the disciples stole his body. Think about that. That's a cover story.

They're admitting the tomb is empty. They're just saying, this is how it got empty, they stole the body. So they're conceding implicitly that the tomb is empty. It's like if you're a student and a teacher comes up, if you're a teacher. You mean the government lied? Yeah, even in the first century.

I can't believe that. But if you're a teacher and a student comes up to you and says, the dog ate my homework, he's admitting he doesn't have his homework, but he's trying to explain what happened to it. It's the same thing. So even the enemies of Jesus admitted the tomb was empty. The disciples didn't have the motive, the means

or the opportunity to steal the body. Nobody did. And then we look at the fourth E, eyewitnesses. Most of what we accept as being true from the ancient world is based on maybe one source or two sources of information. When you get right down to it, we know things about famous people through ancient history because maybe one source or two sources,

for the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the resurrected Jesus, we have no fewer than nine ancient sources inside and outside the New Testament, confirming and corroborating the conviction of the disciples that they encountered the risen Christ. That is an avalanche of historical data. So, I mean, I looked at this kind of stuff

for almost two years. Wow. And I mean, there's much more depth we could go into, but- Let's go into it. Yeah. Let's go into some more. Yeah, well, here's much more depth we could go into, but. Let's go into it. Yeah. Let's go into some more. Yeah, well, here's a fact that,

this was the final fact that convinced me. It was like I was putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I didn't know what the picture was gonna be. And I got this final puzzle piece to go in. And when it went in, I stepped back and I saw it was a picture of Jesus. What was that puzzle piece? People would tell me, oh, the disciples really believe that Jesus appeared to them resurrected

because they were willing to die for that conviction. And I would say, that doesn't convince me, so what? In World War II, kamikaze pilots crashed their airplanes into boats. Why? Because they thought if they died that way, they'd go to died that way, they'd go to heaven.

Today, why would a terrorist crash into the World Trade Center in an airplane and kill himself and a whole bunch of people? Because he sincerely believed with his whole heart, if he dies that way, he's going to paradise. So don't tell me that the disciples willingness to die means anything. And then somebody clarified, they say, wait a minute,

let's use, I'm fast forwarding because this is before September 11th, but we use that as an illustration, the September 11th terrorist attacks. So huge difference between the terror attacks of September 11th and the disciples being willing to die for their convictions. The difference is those hijackers who hijacked the plane

and crashed them into the World Trade Center did not know for a fact if they died that way, they go to heaven. They believed it with all their heart. They were taught it. They believed it. They had faith in it. And having faith in it, they were willing to die that way.

That tells me nothing about the truth of their convictions. Now let's think about the disciples. Of all human beings who've ever lived on the planet, they were in a unique position. They were there. They touched the resurrected Jesus. They talked with them, they ate with them. Of all people who ever lived,

they knew the truth about whether He had returned from the dead and proved He's the Son of God. Because they were there. They knew the truth. Knowing the truth, they were willing to die for it. That's the difference. And I went, a light bulb went on and said, whoa, I get it.

That gives me confidence in what they were saying because they were there, they touched him, they ate with him, they talked to him. They knew whether this was a lie. Somebody said to me, Lee, nobody knowingly and willingly dies for what they know is a lie. They knew if this is true or was a lie. They were willing to die for it.

Why? Because they knew it was true. Wow. That was the last puzzle piece. It was November the 8th of 1981. It was a Sunday afternoon, about three in the afternoon. And I thought, I believe based on the data of history that Jesus claimed to be God and backed it up by returning from the dead.

But now what? Do I just go back to life? Do I just, because remember the demons believe this too. And they shudder. And then my wife Leslie pointed out a verse to me, John 1-12, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.

And I looked at that and I thought, okay, I get the equation, believe, I do, plus receive. Oh, that's what I have to do to become a child of God. So I got on my knees and I poured out a confession of a lifetime of immorality that would absolutely curl your hair. And at that moment, I received complete total forgiveness through Jesus Christ and I became a child of God.

And I remember I went out and I told Leslie that she burst into tears, that she threw her arms around my neck and she said, I almost gave up on you a thousand times. She said, when I was a new Christian, I told some women about you at church. I said, I don't have any hope for my husband. He is the hard-headed, hard-hearted legal editor

of the Chicago Tribune. He's never gonna bend his knee to Jesus. And this one elderly woman named Sylvia put her arm around Leslie's shoulder, pulled her to the side and said, oh, Leslie, no one is beyond hope. And she gave her verse from the Old Testament, Ezekiel 36, 26, that says,

moreover, I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And so what I never knew that whole two years that I'm on this investigative journey, what I never knew at the time is my wife every day on her knees in private prayed that verse for me.

And God on November the 8th of 1981 when I received His free gift of grace became a child of God. That verse became true because he began to change, not overnight, but over time, my values, my character, my morality, my attitudes, my philosophy, my everything about my life. Am I perfect? No, far cry from it.

Do I still sin? Yes, I do. But I grieve when I do now. And I pray for God to help me next time so I won't sin. And so I take a couple of steps forward, a couple of steps back, but I grow a little bit every year in my relationship with God. And he changes me from the inside.

That's the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. Things that I used to do that didn't bother me now, I couldn't, you know, when I was an atheist in college, I helped set up an abortion for a girl I knew who had gotten pregnant, her boyfriend had walked out on her. I said, don't worry about it, we'll just get rid of the baby.

I set up that abortion, we killed that child. Didn't bother me a bit back then. I realized God's forgiven me of that. And now I know, I mean, God's changed my values. If I could go back, of course I wouldn't do that again. So things change, fortunately. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians, you know, when you come to faith like that, the old is gone, the new is come.

Wow. Sorry to get emotional, but I kind of relive it when I tell it. I mean, I go back to that moment and think, gosh, I just poured out my heart of this gross things that I had done in my life, terrible sins, and just laying that all out to God and saying, God, I believe based on what I've learned

that Jesus has paid for all that. He paid the penalty I deserve for the sins that I've committed. And I wanna receive that gift right now. And that sense of being forgiven, of having that washed away, wiped away, was just so liberating. Just so I felt like I was 10 pounds lighter.

And that's the pivotal moment in my life. Pivotal moment I think of my eternity. So you spent two years just to disprove this, just to try to get your wife to quit believing. Yeah. I thought it'd be a lot easier. I really did. I thought, oh my gosh,

you telling me someone rose from the dead? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give me a break. I think I could disprove that overnight. Gosh, it was like hitting that thing and it would just bounce back up. So going back to kind of the laws that we were talking about, you know, that I guess that I had brought up.

Yeah. Why did God need to send Jesus here to suffer to forgive us for our sins? Why didn't he just forgive us? Great question. If he were just to, there's always a payment involved when forgiveness happens. Isn't that part of, wouldn't you consider that

some type of a law that needs to be abided by? In a sense, yeah. In a sense, it's kind of a law of the world in that when you sin against me and you scratch my car or something, I can forgive you and just say, yeah, just walk away, but then I gotta pay for it. I gotta pay to have it fixed

or I'm gonna lose money when I trade it in. So I'm gonna end up paying for it. Someone has to pay the price. And who can pay the price except- But if it's God, then why does somebody need to pay the price? If God can do anything, then why did somebody have to pay the price?

Because the only way that God- Especially himself. The only way that God could forgive all of humankind would be to send the perfect person, that is Jesus who is fully God and fully man who lived the perfect life, who himself was without sin to pay for the sins of others. So it had to be someone who himself was sinless.

Well, who's that? Well, it's only God himself and it's who Jesus is, fully God, fully man. So he lived the sinless life. So he becomes the sacrifice. In fact, the whole sacrificial system in the Old Testament among the Jewish people was pointing toward this. How on the day of atonement, the high priest would go in

and he would sacrifice an animal symbolic of that animal's life being taken to pay for the sins of the Jewish people. You know, how did that work? It worked because it was foreshadowing. It was trying to say, ultimately, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is gonna come. He's gonna be born in Bethlehem on Christmas.

He's gonna live the perfect life and he's gonna be the one who's gonna be sacrificed to pay for the sins of the world. So there's always a payment. It's kind of one of those realities. And Jesus is the only one by virtue of his sinless life and his nature being fully God and fully man, the only one who could be a sacrifice for all of humanity.

And I just. It's mind boggling. It's not, it is. It's, I'm still not, I understand what you're saying. I don't understand why it had to happen if it was God. Was it, was it a message to us? Was he trying to prove something to us? No, I think it's more that he loves us. God is love, the Bible says.

God loves us beyond a love that we can even comprehend. And he knows because we have used our free will to turn our back on him, to violate us to us, we've sinned. And because we have sinned, we can never enter heaven. So what's God to do? You're right, God can't do anything. He can do many things. He's powerful.

He's omniscient, he's omnipotent. He can't do everything, he can't lie. He can't, there's certain things he can't do. But in order for him to accomplish the atonement for our sins, so that, because the choice is this, Sean, you can pay for your sin. The sins that you've committed, you wanna pay for those? Okay, you can do that.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death. You'd be separated from God forever because you can't come into his presence because you're a sinner. If you wanna do that, that's your free will, that's your choice. But God doesn't want want to do that, that's your free will. That's your choice. But God doesn't want you to do that. He loves you.

He wants to spend eternity with you in heaven. And so he said, how can I erase this sin from Sean's life? Jesus, what if Jesus paid for that sin? What if he atoned for that? What if he was the sacrifice who paid the penalty that you deserved for the sins that you've committed? Say, no, no, no, I'm paying for him. Not as some third party,

but he is the God that we sinned against. So he's not some innocent third party. No, he is the God we sinned against. So he is the one who's gonna go to the cross to pay that penalty. Because God loves you. He wants to spend eternity with you. And by wiping out the sin,

in clothing you in the righteousness of God, the doors of heaven are opened up and you can spend eternity with Him forever. So I don't know what else God could have done. How else could he have achieved payment for the sins of the world apart from forcing all of us to pay for our own sins? I don't know how else he could have done it.

I think it was the only path that makes sense to me. only path that makes sense to me. And I think honestly, God has left a trail in history for people like you and me and others who are curious, does this really make sense? Did Jesus really return from the dead and prove he's God and that Christianity is true and therefore we can trust what he says and so forth? I think God intentionally left evidence that leads us,

that can be used to lead us to the conclusion that Jesus is who we claim to be. You know, when I was in law school, one of my heroes was a guy who was the greatest lawyer in the world. He was in the, later I think it was, he was in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most successful defense attorney who ever lived.

His name was Sir Lionel Laku. Get this, you'll appreciate this. He won 247 murder trials in a row as a defense attorney, either before the jury or on appeal. Wow. Yeah, nobody's ever died. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records, greatest lawyer ever lived.

He was a skeptic like I was about the resurrection. He thought, Jesus didn't return from the dead and prove, he says, give me a break. And they'll summon challenge him, Sir Lionel, you're the greatest lawyer, have you ever taken your monumental legal skill and applied it to the historical record

and come to an informed conclusion about whether or not Jesus did return from the dead? He said, no, I haven't, but I will. So he set out, he did what I did. He spent years investigating the evidence. And I'll recite to you one sentence he wrote that summarizes conclusion. He says, I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ

is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt. This is a guy that knows evidence. He could take what looks like an airtight case against his client and find all the flaws. He was knighted twice by Queen Elizabeth. He became a member of the Supreme Court of his country. And that was his conclusion about the evidence.

By the way, I shared that story in California at a church where I just moved back in 2000. And a woman came up to me afterwards and she said, I'm your new neighbor. You just moved into my neighborhood. You haven't met everybody yet. I lived on the block. I said, oh, great to meet you.

She said, yeah, I'm Sir Lionel's sister. Wow. It's his sister. Wow. And I said, did I tell the story accurately? She said, absolutely. She said, in fact, let me show you some of his private papers where he did his research and so forth.

And so she showed me some of his private writings and stuff. He later resigned from practice of law and became an evangelist. But that just shows you. Now, do most people check it out? No, most people don't.? No, most people don't. Most people don't take two years of their life like I did and really delve into it.

But that's why I wrote the case for Christ to say, maybe this is a way. So I just interview scholars and let them present the case in an affirmative way. But I just encourage anybody who's watching to say, if you question, if you doubt it, do what I did. Check it out. There's plenty of evidence out there.

Do the due diligence and come to an informed conclusion about whether Jesus is who we claim to be. Because if He is, then what He says about us, how He says we should live, what He says about heaven, what He says about the eternal condition of our soul and so forth, we can trust it if he is who we claim to be. When we're talking about sin, and that if you get to know Jesus, all sins are forgiven.

I've also heard, I've heard both things, if you get to know Jesus, all sins are forgiven. I've also heard, I've heard both things, that all sins are equal. There is not one that's, stealing is the same as murder, is the same as rape, is the same as all these things. And then rape, is the same as all of these things. And then I also, I've heard there are cardinal sins and what, which is it? I think there are gradations of sin.

I don't think they're all equal. Jesus said a couple of times, for instance, that people in villages that he went into and demonstrated his divinity through his miracles and still rejected God, they will suffer greater punishment than others. The Bible also says- Say that again.

In other words, people who had advanced knowledge of him through his miracles and so forth, and yet reject them anyway, they will be judged more harshly than those who didn't see those miracles and so forth. The Bible also talks about the unforgivable sin, the sin that can't be forgiven. What is that?

And that's the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit. Says that will not be forgiven in this life or the life to come. What exactly does that mean? That's a good question. And here's my best attempt at an answer. The Holy Spirit is who draws us toward Christ. Is God reaching out to us, whispering in our ear,

God loves you, Sean, God made you for him to spend eternity with. He is the one seeking us before we even seek God. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to turn our back on that and say, forget you, don't want anything. And you live your life saying, I don't care about God, and you die in a way that means you're gonna end up paying for your own sin because you didn't accept Jesus' payment on your behalf.

And so I believe that it's blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin is rejecting the God who is calling out to you to come to him. Did you not do that when you were an atheist? I did it, I did it. But the end of my life wasn't there yet. In other words, after that, then I accepted. Okay.

Yeah, so you can, you know, you live a life opposed to God as an atheist or I did. And, but then that turns when you come to faith. You know, I kind of want to, I don't know how to initiate it, but I want to talk a little bit about the, everybody's just so judgmental these days. I know, isn't it true?

Including myself. And I catch myself all the time, but you know, and we're both somewhat active on social media. And it's like it doesn't matter what I post. And I'm never gonna let people's judgment interfere with my curiosity, but I've had all kinds of people on the show.

I've had remote viewers. I've had John Burke. And no matter who it is. Yeah, you push back. Yeah. Yeah. Even today, when I talked about, you know, putting the Bibles in the foundation, I got people judging me for that.

I'm just trying, you know what I mean? I'm just trying to do good. And social media, it's so public and it's so instant and it's so in your face. And it's people who don't know you and don't have the courtesy to call you up and say, hey, why are you doing this? Oh, really?

Oh, okay, I guess I get it. I mean, they judge you based on what they see. There may be a slice of what you've done. And I know it's hard. And there's a lot of churches that have that kind of reputation of being judgmental. Do you think that they realize how many people, you know, I wonder if they, because maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like we're all here to kind of spread

the word, right? And so, and to bring people in. And so, you to bring people in. And so, you know, I hear this and I read it and it really pisses me off, you know, and that it drove me away for a very long time. And I, you know, I have no proof of this, but I would imagine that they push people away from God, from Christ.

If I were a betting man, I would bet that they push way more people away from coming to than they do bring in. I hope not, but I fear you may be right. I mean, it's sad. The Bible says, should we judge? Yes, we are to judge. But the Bible says with gentleness and respect, we should make judgments about things.

That's okay, that's good to do. But a judge- It does say that. Yeah, Bible says that. But it's how we judge. In other words, judgmentalism is a hypocritical, holier than thou, looking down your nose, pushing people away, you're not good enough,

excluding people on whatever basis. That's what chases people away. When we talk about Jesus, it's going to be a natural divide. There are going to be people who are going to say, yep, yep, gotcha, I'm with you. There are going to be people, I don't want to hear that. Or I reject that, or he's making me mad.

I'm not going to shy away from the people who makes mad because there are people who need to hear the message, who want to hear the message, and they're going to respond to the message. So I get all kinds of hate mail, I get people fantasizing about murdering me, I get all kinds of stuff like that. Are you serious? Oh yeah.

Why would they wanna do that? What did you say? I know, I know. Well, look at what happened to Jesus. They killed him. They killed the disciples, or the apostles. So that comes with the territory in a sense.

What do you think about humanity as a whole? I think we are. From the position that you're in, you see thousands of people, million, 14 million copies sold of your books. Yeah. We got a lot your books. Yeah. We got a lot of exposure. Yeah.

What do you think of humanity as a whole? I think we are headed on the wrong path generally, that we are sinners that are manifesting our sins in a variety of different ways. I think there's a lot of good people, I say good, not perfect people, but people who wanna do what's right, who are trying to follow the teachings of scripture,

who wanna love others, who wanna encourage others, who wanna be positive and share this message of hope and grace and love and redemption and eternal life. But the Bible says we're coming to a crisis. We're coming to a conclusion. At some point, history is gonna be consummated and Jesus is gonna come back. And when that happens, it's gonna be too late

for people who haven't made that choice yet to receive Him as their forgiver and leader. So, you know, in a sense, I've read the end of the story. And the end of the story is history will be consummated, Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire, that's metaphorical, but, and Jesus will come back to judge. And, you know, you don't want to be found wanting at that moment, you want to be someone who's safely adopted

as a son or a daughter of God because he won't disown his own children. What does that mean for my one-year-old daughter when he comes back? Yeah, that's a great question. What about children who are too young to really understand right and wrong, who are too young to-

Their brain has not developed enough to make educated decisions or to learn that type of stuff. Exactly. My conviction on this, I've written about this and interviewed scholars about this, that in the case of people below the age of accountability, who don't really have that sense of right and wrong,

who are too young, that they will not be held accountable for the things that they've done that may have been, shouldn't have done, the naughty things that they've done as infants and so forth. So in other words, I think that God will, it's sort of, you know, there's a term, a Latin term, in loco parentis, and it means I act

in the place of your parents. So if my parents are out of the country, if you're a kid and you're injured in an accident and your parents are out of the country, the court can say, I can act in loco parentis, I can act in your parents' place and make decisions about you. I kind of picture this as when you're that young,

Jesus acts in loco parentis. He steps in the place of your parents and in a sense brings redemption to children. There's a scripture that says that David, brings redemption to children. You know, there's a scripture that says that David, who committed sin with Bathsheba and so forth, says that, that child cannot come to me, but I can go to him. So in other words, that child's gonna be in heaven.

I've someday, I'm gonna go to heaven. I will be with that child someday. So yeah, I think that before the age of accountability, children are not responsible. They're not committing a sin because that involves some volition, some choice. And kids are kids. Did Jesus judge when he was on earth?

Definitely, but he did it with gentleness and respect. Did Jesus judge when he was on earth? Definitely. But he did it with gentleness and respect. You know, we're told that in 1 Peter 3.15, all Christians, you know, are to present evidence for the faith, to defend the faith, but do it with gently and respectfully. Well, there's nothing wrong with judging, as long as it's done respectfully and gently.

We make judgments all the time. Now, there's a famous verse that says, do not judge. But you have to keep reading. And when you keep reading, you understand it says, don't judge inappropriately. Don't be judgmental in a way that is hypocritical. It says, I'm better than you. And who are you to call in the name of Jesus?

You're, no, that's being judgmental. We need to make good judgments. We make judgments about everything every day. And that's okay. But to be judgmental is to be sort of like the Pharisees in the New Testament who were, they would make a show of their faith and they would pray on the street corners.

And Jesus said, you know what, you're gonna pray, go to your prayer closet and pray in private. Don't make a show of it the way these hypocrites do. And that's kind of judging others by, I'm better than you. Look at me, I'm praying on a street corner. Boy, I must be really loved by God. No, that's judgmentalism. That's hypocrisy.

You know, we had, you were talking a little bit earlier about, you can't, what did you say? Something about, you can't good deed your way into heaven. Right. You know, and I think about that a lot. Yeah. I've had a lot of bad things that I did in my life.

Yeah. And probably more bad than good, without a doubt. Yeah. And not probably, without a doubt. Yeah. And not probably without a doubt. And so now I feel like I'm trying to make up for a lot of lost time. And I talked to a guy like you and you say, good deeds aren't gonna get you into heaven.

And then, I had a priest on a couple of months ago, I told you, and I've been meeting with him every once in a while and having coffee and kind of picking his brain off camera. And I asked him about that and he didn't necessarily say the opposite but I don't wanna put words in his mouth but he had kind of eluded to the fact

that maybe he does pay attention to some of the good that you're injecting into the world. Oh, definitely. Here's how I would envision it. I'm kind of, I like mathematics. So here's kind of the equation as I see it. And as I believe the Bible presents it, Jesus plus nothing equals eternal life plus good deeds.

Nothing equals eternal life plus good deeds. So in other words, coming to faith in Christ is a gift. We can't earn it, we don't deserve it, we don't merit it. We can only receive it in a prayer of repentance and faith. I'm sorry for my sins, I wanna turn from that. I wanna receive you as my Lord and Savior, my forgiver, my leader. I wanna follow you all the days of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins.

Jesus plus nothing that we can merit equals eternal life. But then there's a other part of the equation. So now you become a Christian. Now you have eternal life. So it's Jesus plus nothing equals eternal life plus good deeds. The good deeds are on the other side of the equation. They don't earn your way to heaven.

They come because now you've become a follower of Jesus and you do good deeds because the Holy Spirit is working in you. And you wanna, you know, like I did this abortion, set up this abortion for this woman when I was an atheist. Now, as a Christian, I do fundraising for crisis pregnancy centers that help women who have a pregnancy that is unwanted

to realize that they could keep their child or they can adopt it out and to help them through that crisis. So am I doing good deeds to earn my way to heaven? No, I'm doing that because God has changed my life. I'm doing that because God has changed my life. I'm doing that because God has changed my values. You're doing good deeds, not in a desperate attempt to claw your way to God.

And I hope I do enough. I hope my balance between good and bad is, no, you're doing good deeds because when you come to Christ as a free gift, now your values change. And now, yes, you do do good deeds. You do serve others. You do live as hopefully with a sense of the way Jesus lived in helping other people who are in need and so forth.

So yes, good deeds have a role in the Christian life, but not a role that contributes in any way to salvation. It comes after salvation. After we've received Christ as our forgiver and leader, then we do good deeds because we're changed. And I do things today I never would have done when I was an atheist. So I didn't give a rip about people.

Now I do, because they're made in the image of God. And so I see that now and God's changed my values. And so now I do hopefully some good things. And does God take cognizance of that? Yeah, he does. Most scholars I interview believe that there will be rewards in heaven based on how we've lived our Christian life.

In other words, our journey to heaven is not based on how good we are. It's based on forgiveness, this free gift of grace. But then how we live our life as Christians, how we serve others, how we do good stuff for others, God will ultimately reward us for that in heaven. How so? Well, that's a good question,

because let's say we both get to heaven and I'm looking at you and going, hey, he's getting treated better than me. He's getting rewarded because Sean, he did a bunch of nice things and I didn't do as many. And so now I feel bad and here I am in heaven and I'm pissed off. I mean, that could happen.

Here's the way I think it happens. Let's say that you're a connoisseur, an expert on classical music. You studied it, you play the violin maybe, you know all the great composers, you love to listen to classical music, it feeds your soul. I don't, I like rock and roll, I'm an average guy, I don't have that sensitivity.

In heaven, where there is incredible music, I will listen to it as someone without much music taste and go, wow, that is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. You will listen to it as a connoisseur of classical music, your appreciation of it will be deeper because you will experience it in a deeper way. I won't know that just being next to you.

We'll sit next to you and go, isn't this music unbelievable? You go, yeah, it's unbelievable. But you're experiencing on a deeper level than I am because I don't have what you have. I didn't spend my life studying classical music. You see what I'm saying? So that way I'm not jealous of you.

I mean, we're both really enjoying this music in heaven, but you're experiencing it at a deeper level. I think that's kind of how it's going to work. So that I don't get jealous and think that I've missed out. And part of it is when you live a lifestyle of serving others, of doing good deeds, of living like Jesus, yes, I think God will reward you for that, but you will resonate so much more

with this perfect place called heaven than maybe I will, who is maybe a pretty good guy, but I didn't quite do much with my life as a Christian, but I made it in because I received Christ and I did some good things, but my rewards are gonna be less. So you believe it will be, you believe the person that ejected more good

into the world may have a more enjoyable consciousness, thought process in heaven than somebody who has not. Jesus himself said, blessed are those when you are persecuted, when people say all kinds of false things about you because of me, because great will your reward be in heaven. So Sean, when you step out and you do things

pointing people toward Jesus through your show and you're criticized for it and people attack you on social media or whatever, God is saying, blessed are you, when you honor me despite the persecution, the arrows of hate that you get, because great will your reward be in heaven. That's one example that he gives in scripture

of how he will reward people who have endured persecution and hatred and social media attacks in this world because of him. Great will they be rewarded in heaven. So I think, yes, I think there will be rewards in heaven. I think it will be, it won't be the same exact experience for everybody. Not every theologian agrees with that,

but I think the evidence is strong that that's true. Have you heard any of the other theories? Yeah, I quote, I did a book called The Case for Heaven. And in that book, I interviewed a scholar and I think he made reference to another scholar who just doesn't believe it. Doesn't believe that anybody's gonna be treated any differently in heaven,

that we'll all be treated exactly the same in heaven. And I'm sure we will be all treated exactly the same, but for some people, because of who they are and how they live their life, it will resonate deeper with them, in my view. And their experience, even though others will not sense it, their experience will be ever deeper than what other people might have.

I think that's biblical. It makes sense. Yeah. It does make sense. Yeah. So good deeds are a good thing. And when they're done for the right purpose, when they're done trying to earn our way to God, they're useless. But when they're done out of a heart of gratitude to God,

and God, I wanna serve you, I wanna honor you, God, you know what I'm gonna do? I know this sounds crazy. I know I'm gonna get attacked for this. I'm gonna bury four Bibles in the cement foundation that we're building. Just as a way of saying, I wanna build what I'm doing on you. I think it'll reward that.

I think that's the kind of thing he'll say, you know what, you're gonna get attacked for that. You're gonna get made fun of for that. Blessed are you when you take those insults from me. Great will your reward be in heaven. He sees that stuff. He sees how people live for him. And I don't believe it's a wasted effort great will your reward be in heaven. He sees that stuff. He sees how people live for him.

And I don't believe it's a wasted effort because it comes out of a sincere heart. You're not motivated by anything except I believe sincerely, I want to do this as a way to honor God. And he knows that. Do those attacks bother you when they happen? You know, yeah, of course they do.

You know, to some degree, and I always go back to that verse from Jesus saying, greater is your reward in heaven. Blessed are you when men persecute you and say all kinds of things falsely about you because of me. But it still hurts. You know, you're on social media and 90% of the people I meet on social media

are really nice folks. And then it's that 10% that just love to attack. And 90% of the people I meet on social media are really nice folks. And then it's that 10% that just love to attack. And yeah, it gets you down a bit. I mean, I'm just being honest. Doesn't bother me that much. Really? What bothers me is when it's the Christian crowd.

That bothers me. That would, yes. That really gets to me. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. It's like, man, I feel like I'm doing something good here. What is your problem? Right, right.

Like, is this what you do all day? Yeah. You know? No, I get that. You harass other Christians for like, trying to, like what? And I've had a couple of scholars that have attacked me. That's why I like to interview renowned scholars

in my research so that I'm going to the best possible sources for things. But you'll get other scholars and I don't know, he's wrong and here's why. And I go, I always listen to them. But then I think, this first scholar makes more sense. Yeah, you know, I watched, I think I found John, I gotta thank John too for connecting me.

John Burke, yeah. Thank you, John. You know, that's how I found him in that documentary was the case for heaven. The case for heaven, yeah. And I think it was at the beginning of that, you guys, you were having a conversation about how people are scared of death. Yeah.

And they are, everybody, it seems like a lot of people wanna leave kind of a... Legacy? A legacy behind. Yeah. And it's interesting. I remember when I watched it, I was, I did three and a half years of talk therapy

from combat stress. Yeah. And for my time in service and at the agency. And I remember my doc was asking me what my biggest fear was. And my biggest fear wasn't death. My biggest fear was that nobody will remember me when I die. And then, you know, and then probably damn near 10 years later I'm watching this documentary

that you produced and you're talking about it. And I've never heard anybody else say that. Apparently it's more common than I thought. But I talked to this one professor and he said, I have a large class of students. I always ask this question. How many of you know the first names

of your great, great grandparents? He said, all the years, nobody has known the first name of the great, great grandparents except one guy. He said, we're forgotten. We will be forgotten. And some people will try to write the great American novel or they'll try to paint the most beautiful painting of the world or they'll try to create a skyscraper

so that somehow they'll be to create a skyscraper so that somehow they'll be remembered. But it's a vain attempt. We're gonna be forgotten. Some people remember a little longer than others, but the truth is most people are forgotten pretty quickly. And, but that motivates a lot of people in a negative way too.

Sure, who's the guy that killed John Lennon, Chapman? He told the parole board, I killed him because I wanted a piece of his fame. He wanted to be famous. So he killed John Lennon, the Beatle. People do evil things to be known, to be remembered. Or they try to do great things. Well, it's neither of them work.

I mean, it's a vain attempt. We'll all be forgotten. Do you think about that often? It doesn't bother me as much anymore after I did that movie and wrote that book about heaven. It's like, you know, I know where I'm going after I die. And I don't have to worry about that. I came close to death, we were talking at breakfast

in 2011, and lingered between life and death for several days. And that was maybe the most clarifying experience in my life, because all of a sudden I'm saying, what is really important? What really matters? When you're, you know, I have the doctor look at me and say, you're one step away from a coma, two steps away from dying.

I was on the verge of dying and my wife found me unconscious. And when you're in that situation, nothing is more important. Nothing matters more than what happens when I close my eyes for the last time in this world. That's it. You don't care about a legacy. You don't care, am I going to be remembered or forgotten?

Doesn't matter. What matters is what happens when I close my eyes for the last time in this world. Where do I open them next? That's all that matters. What about family? Yeah, well, that's why we share Jesus with our family, with our grandkids, with our son and daughter,

both Christians. And I think the highest achievement I can attain as a grandfather, as a father, is to see my children come to faith in Jesus. And my son's a PhD in theology, a professor at a seminary, written many books about prayer and so forth. And my daughter is a novelist. She writes fiction,

but she always weaves the gospel into the fiction. They're both serving God, and my little grandchildren are coming to faith one by one. And that becomes the most important thing to me. People say, what are you doing in the later years of your life? You're in your seventies now. I want to see my grandkids come to faith.

I want to see them and they are one by one. And that's thrilling. Is family important to Jesus? Yes. Is family important to Jesus? Yes. It seems like, and I can't, I don't know if it's all or if it's almost all. It seems like in these near death experiences, which you have your new book coming out,

that, and I haven't dove into yours, but talking to John Burke, there's always family lineage. Am I correct on that? What do you mean by family lineage? I mean, a lot of people are seeing past relatives. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, in fact, deathbed visions, I read about deathbed visions,

are different than near-death experience. In near-death experience, a person is clinically dead, maybe no heartbeat, no brain waves, and yet they see things and hear things. Some of them they couldn't see or hear if they didn't have an authentic out-of-body experience, but they're going to come back. They're temporarily dead, so to speak.

Deathbed visions happen when a person is about to die permanently. And it's a fascinating, I interviewed the world's leading expert on these and tens of thousands of these cases have been studied. This is very common. In the Bible, Steven, before he was stoned to death, saw heaven open up and he got a glimpse of what was to come.

And many people before they die get a glimpse of what is to come. It's interesting, Jesus told a story about Lazarus and the beggar. The beggar during his lifetime ignored or was treated poorly by Lazarus. Lazarus was rich and he treated the beggar with disdain. And yet here we have Lazarus now dead,

but in Hades, separated from God. And the beggar is with God. And Jesus said something interesting. He said, the angels carried Lazarus to God. And what's fascinating about these visions, deathbed visions is how many people seeing angels coming for them. visions, deathbed visions, is how many people seeing angels coming for them.

I mean, it is so common at one hospice, which was a huge hospice operation in New York State, they asked people, they said, tell us if you have a vision or a vivid dream before you die that is astounding to you or it gives you a glimpse of what's to come or whatever. 88% had something like that. 88%.

My great grandmother had this. Did she really? Did she? What happened? She saw, I was... I wasn't in a place where I took it seriously at the time, to be honest with you, but I heard my mom talk about it

and I remember going through it and seeing her in there and she saw a lot of relatives and she started calling out people's names that nobody knew who the hell she was talking about. Yeah, it's very common. And here's how we know that they're authentic. Couple of things tell me that these are authentic. Number one, how common they are.

Here we are. What were the chances that you've had direct experience with that through a relative? I just wanna, sorry, I just wanna interject too. I believe, I think my great grandma was a hundred she was 101 or 102 years old. Wow. Sharp as attack.

Wow. Not talking zero dementia. Wow. You got good genes. One side of my family. But seriously sharp as attack. Just like me and you sitting here right now today. And not that I'm sharp as a tack, just like me and you sitting here right now today. And not that I'm sharp as a tack,

but I just wanna, this isn't like some crazy old person. In dementia. It's a good point. This is somebody that was with it all the way until the end. It is, I'm telling you, Sean, it is so common. Billy Graham's pulpit partner, Charles Templeton, who became an atheist and later came back to faith before he died, said to his wife on his deathbed,

Madeline, can you see them? Can you hear, they're here. She said, what are you talking about? The angels, you can't see them. They're here, they're right here in this room. They're coming for me. They're singing, they're so beautiful. I'm going to heaven.

Billy Graham's maternal grandmother, same thing. And they often see people, but here's what's interesting. Children who die. You would think, if this is just something in someone's imagination, subjective experience, a child, if they saw an angel before they died, would think they would have wings, because children's stories always have wings on the angels.

That's not what happens. So there's a case I studied of a child, she was dying, and she said to her mother, mommy, can you see them? Can you see the angels have come for me? They're so beautiful. And her mother didn't wanna deny anything, so she lied and she said,

oh yeah, yeah, I see him, I see him. Oh, the wings are so big. And her daughter said, mommy, they don't have wings. You don't have to lie. They don't have wings. And then she died. And it's just an example of, you know,

seeing something, not what she would have anticipated, but seeing angels without wings. That's very common. So these deathbed visions are powerful, I think, in terms of giving us a glimpse into what's to come. The other example, as a woman who was dying after childbirth in England, and great documentation of her case.

And she's on her deathbed. She sees, can you see these beautiful, wonderful beings? I see them, I see them. And she, oh, here's my father. And her father's name, Ed, I can't remember his name. It's Ed, he's beckoning to me. Yes, I'm going to come, Ed, I'm going to come. Oh, there's Vita.

Why is Vita there? And then she died. Well, Vita was her sister. She didn't know three weeks earlier Vita had died. They didn't tell her because she was so sick. They didn't want to cause her to die from the shock of her sister dying. So they never told her.

Wow. And here she is seeing her in the life to come. I want to cause her to die from the shock of her sister dying. So they never told her. Wow. And here she is seeing her in the life to come. That's another kind of corroboration that I always look for corroboration. How do I know it's not just in your head? And so I think that's a good example of corroboration when people see something

that they could not have anticipated. Like a relative they didn't know had died. Wow, that's pretty profound. Isn't that cool? Yeah, very, very. Let's move into, is God real? Yeah. In the book.

What is some of the evidence that really stood out to you? Well. Talk about DNA. Yeah. The universe. Yeah. What are some of the things that really just stood out to you?

I think one of the most powerful discoveries of modern ages, and this only goes back, what, 50 to 100 years, people used to think that the universe was eternal. It always existed. But now we know from a series of scientific discoveries and philosophical arguments from the last century or so, that the universe had a beginning in the past.

At some point in the past, the universe began to exist. In fact, the great cosmologist, Alexander of Lincoln, him and two other cosmologists, cosmology just means the study of the origin of the universe, came up with a theorem that says that even if our universe turns out to be one small part of a multiverse, the multiverse itself must have had a beginning.

So what does that mean that the universe had a beginning? Well, it hearkens back to an argument for the existence of God that's been popularized by my friend, a philosopher, Dr. William Lane Craig. It goes like this, whatever begins to exist has a cause. We now know that the universe began to exist. Therefore the universe has a cause behind it. What kind of a cause can bring a universe into existence?

Well, it must be transcendent, which means apart from creation. It must be immaterial or spirit because it existed before the physical world. It must be timeless or eternal because it existed before physical time came into being. It must be powerful given the immensity of the creation event. It must be smart given the incredible precision

of the creation event. It must be personal because they had to make the decision to create. It must be caring because he so carefully crafted a habitat that we could exist in. And the scientific principle of Occam's razor tells us there would be just one creator.

So that's a description of the God of the Bible, right there, transcendent, immaterial or spirit, eternal, powerful, smart, personal, caring. It's a description of the God of the Bible. That discovery of the universe having a beginning, I think is probably the single strongest argument from science that God must exist. The second area is physics, the fine tuning of the universe.

The universe is finely tuned on a razor's edge so that life can exist. In other words, the numbers that govern the operation of the universe, if you were to change them just slightly, life would be impossible. So in other words, if you go out on a summer night and look up at the sky,

and instead of seeing a sky full of stars, you saw 50 to 100 giant dials in the sky. And each dial could be calibrated to one of trillions of possible settings. That is a picture of what modern physics tells us our universe is like. 50 to 100 of these dimensions of physics, it'd have to be perfectly calibrated.

I'll give you some examples. We all know what gravity is, right? If I drop my cell phone for the millionth time, if I drop this cell phone, it's going to hit the ground because of gravity. But gravity is finely tuned so that life can exist. How finely tuned? Picture a ruler across the entire known universe,

15 billion light years, and it's broken down in one inch increments. That ruler represents the range along which the force of gravity could have been calibrated anywhere along that ruler, but it happens to be at the exact right place so that life can exist. What if we changed it? Let's change the force of gravity one inch in the right place so that life can exist. What if we changed it?

Let's change the force of gravity one inch compared to 15 billion light year width of the universe. Intelligent life is impossible anywhere in the universe, just with that single change. My favorite example is the ratio between the electromagnetic force and the gravitational force. It has to be finely tuned to one part

in 10,000 trillion, trillion, trillion. So how do we visualize that? That would be like taking a continent the size of North America and piling it with dimes to the moon, 238,000 miles of dimes, and then taking a billion continents, the size of North America,

and piling them with dimes up to the moon. And then taking one dime and spray painting it red. And then mixing it among all the dimes and the billion continents going up 238,000 miles. And then I blindfold you. And I say, you can dig in among all these billion continents, the dimes all the way to the moon, but you can only reach in one time

and pick out one dime. What are the odds you'd get the dime spray painted red? One chance in 10,000 trillion, trillion, trillion. So that shows you how astronomical the odds are against this, it cannot happen by chance. I interviewed one physicist and I said, what are the odds that these numbers are astronomical? What are the odds this could have just happened by chance?

He said, oh, we physicists have a term for that. I said, oh, what is it? He said, ain't gonna happen. The other area of science, and again, this is discoveries just within the last century for sure, maybe within the last 50, 80 years, is DNA. Your body has what, 100 trillion cells in it. Open up any cell, and if you were to unravel

the double helix of DNA from one cell, it would be six feet tall. Hmm. Embedded in that DNA is a four letter chemical alphabet that spells out the precise assembly instructions for every protein out of which you're made. Just like English uses a 26 letter alphabet to spell out words,

DNA uses this four letter chemical alphabet to spell out how. DNA uses this four letter chemical alphabet to spell out how to build you, how to build the proteins that make you. There are more words in one cell in your body than you would find in 200 years of the Sunday New York Times. Wow. Where does that come from? Nature cannot produce information.

It can produce patterns. I live in Houston. If I go down to Galveston and the beach and the sand is wet from overnight and there's ripple marks in the sand, it would be logical for me to say the waves made those ripple marks in the sand because nature can make patterns.

But if I'm walking down the beach and in the wet sand, I see John loves Mary with a heart around it and an arrow through it, I wouldn't say, oh, the waves made that. Why? Because that's information. And without an exception, whenever we see information, whether it's a painting on a cave wall, whether it's a computer code, whether it's a novel,

whenever we see information, there is always an intelligence behind it. Stephen Meyer with a PhD from Cambridge University on origin of life interviewed him for my book, Is God Real? And he looks at every alternative explanation, none of them hold water. The only explanation is there must be a creator

who in a sense signed every cell in our body. He left behind instructions, written instructions, four letter chemical alphabet on how to build you. And I think you take those three areas of science together, cosmology, physics, biochemistry, they make a really strong case that God is real. That mind blowing? It is.

Six feet of DNA in one cell in your body and you have what, a hundred trillion cells or something like that. It's just mind boggling. And to spell it out with precision, I mean, it's just, I mean, the more we study in science, when we learn the universe has an origin, when we learn about the fine tuning of the universe,

it's only in the last 50 years or so we've understood the fine tuning of the universe. And now we understand the DNA more and more. We look at all that and we go, how can anybody today deny that there is a supernatural creator? I don't know. that there is a supernatural creator? I don't know.

And then when you pair it with the resurrection of Jesus, you go, well, which God are we talking about? Now we have Jesus demonstrated through his resurrection that he is who he claimed to be, the unique son of God. And now we have a really strong case for not just the existence of God, but for the truth of Christianity. That is mind blowing.

It's fun stuff, isn't it? It is. I mean, one of the joys of my life, I get to sit down with all these great scholars and just sit there for hours, sometimes days, and just riddle them with questions like you do with folks. And every once in a while, they just blow my mind. Yeah.

Wow. Well, Lee, let's take a break real quick. Sure. When we come back, we'll dig in a little bit on your new book. Great. I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric

that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Sean Ryan Show is we are developing our newsletter.

And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign super bad. She's made two different appearances here on the Sean Ryan Show. And some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind blowing.

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Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Lee, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to dive into your new book. Yeah. And we're going to talk about miracles,

but we're just having a little side conversation about Hugh Hefner. Well, yeah, it came up because I saw on your water bottle you gave me, it says the Sean Ryan show, which is really cool. And I was saying, I used to have a national TV show called Faith Under Fire. And I got an opportunity to interview Hugh Hefner

about his faith. And so we go to the Playboy Mansion and we're sitting there, of course, he's in his silk pajamas and usual outfit. And he had the same kind of water bottle except it had the Playboy symbol on it. And so I'm drinking from this and I said, this isn't from the grotto, is it?

This water? You are definitely not the typical guest I would say is hanging out at the Playboy Mansion. No. How was that experience? He said, you want a tour? No, no, that's all right. I'm fine.

I'll just stay here in the living room. That's fine. What did he say about his faith? It was very interesting. He had kind of a deistic faith. In other words, faith about a vague, all powerful something kind of a deal. But not Jesus and not Christianity.

He said, it's a little too childlike for me. And- A little too childlike? Yeah, yeah. And so it's obvious why, because he was living a very immoral life. a little too childlike for me. And- Little too childlike? Yeah, yeah. And so it's obvious why, because he was living a very immoral life. And if he were to put his trust in Jesus,

all of a sudden that would be out the window. So it's easier to put your trust in a deistic general idea of a God who has no demands on you, who has no moral authority in your life. But then after the cameras turned off, I said, I'd like to give you a gift. And I gave him a copy of my book, The Case for Christ.

And he was fascinated. He said, oh, and he opened it up and he said, so any real evidence for Christianity? I said, yeah. I said, have you ever looked in the resurrection? He said, no. I said, actually there's really good evidence of ever looked in the resurrection? He said, no. I said, actually, there's really good evidence of resurrection.

Really? And he was very interested. And we had a great conversation. I showed him the evidence. I went through it with him and gave it to him. And he sent me Christmas cards. And I tried to follow up with him a few times, but I don't think I had much.

What does a Christmas card from Hugh Hefner look like? I think, it was not pop-up, so. I mean, I'm just envisioning a big family photo, you know? Let's put it this way, I think I got the G-rated version. Nice. I'm sure there were other ones that went out. I'm surprised they have one. Yeah, yeah, well, that's true.

So anyway, that was a bizarre experience. That's pretty interesting that you went there to interview him about that. But it shows that so many people don't take the time to really ask the kind of questions you've been asking, which is, how do you know this stuff? What evidence is there? And so many people just kind of go through life

and never scratch below the surface to try to determine, could this be true? I think people are scared to ask questions. Maybe that's true. Or embarrassed. But I think a lot of people are conditioned or to ask questions. Maybe that's true. Yeah. Or embarrassed. Yeah. But, and I think a lot of people are conditioned to think that questioning can be rude

and or not welcomed. And I mean, I just think that you should be able to question everything. Yeah, exactly. I feel like we've been conditioned to, I don't know, we kind of, you know, we've seen it a lot the past couple of years, why are you asking questions? You know, and it's like, it's just a question.

Why are you getting pissed off that I'm asking a question? And, but anyway. You know, interestingly, John the Baptist, when he got thrown in prison, started to ask questions about God. He wanted to know, is Jesus really the one we've been waiting for, are we to wait for some other Messiah? And this was a guy that should have known for sure

that Jesus was who he claimed to be, but he had questions. But what did he do? He investigated. He got a couple of friends together, said, go track down Jesus and ask him point blank, are you the one we've been waiting for? We'd have waited for somebody else.

So they tracked down Jesus, they asked him, here's the deal, did Jesus get mad? No, he didn't say, how dare John, of all people, have the temerity to express a hesitation about my identity? No, he said, look, go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard. The blind receive sight, the lame walk,

those who have leprosy receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Now, let's go tell him about the evidence that you've seen that convinces you that I am who I claim to be. So, like you said, there's nothing wrong with questions. Jesus didn't get mad when you ask questions.

It's not like you surprise God and he says, I can't believe he asked that question. You know, God knows. Yeah. But isn't it true though, is a lot of people hesitate to engage, ask questions, they don't want to look dumb maybe, or they don't want to, I don't know what it is,

but they think they're going to offend God in some way, but Jesus didn't get mad at John. It was after this incident that Jesus got up and said, among those born of women, there's no one greater than John. John, the guy who asked the question. You know, I wanted to ask you a question, but sometimes I can't figure out the right, I can't figure out how to articulate it.

I asked, we have, I don't go to church anymore. Actually, I did go to, I went to Mass after I interviewed Father Riel for the first time in a really long time, but decades. And actually not decades, but so in this Bible study that we had, and I could tell it got people a little on edge, probably I maybe articulated it wrong, but I was talking about why doesn't God make himself more visible?

Yeah. And I'll probably butcher this and I'm sure I'll get all kinds of shit from the internet people for asking this. But basically what I was trying to get at is God can be hard to find. I don't, I think that God- The hiddenness of God. Can be hard to find.

He's, I don't know if elusive is the right word, but it's not like I can call his name and he shows up and helps me immediately. And he is the father. Well, I'm a father. And if my son is calling my name and needs help and he's hurt or he needs direction or he needs guidance, advice, anything, comforting, protection.

Yeah. And I don't show up, I'm labeled a shit father. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so why is God so hard to find at times, but he is considered the father of all fathers. He is considered the father of all fathers.

But sometimes he's nowhere to be found, or at least it appears that he's nowhere to be found. It's a great question. I have a whole chapter of that in my book, Is God Real? So I think the two biggest questions that people ask these days are number one, why would loving God allow suffering? And number two, why is God so hidden? And so I did a whole chapter in that book,

is God real addressing that question? And there's several elements to that. I interviewed a guy who had been a, aspired to be a baseball player, professional baseball player, he's a theologian now. And he was a catcher. And he said, I picture this question like a pitcher and a catcher. And he said, I picture this question like a pitcher and a catcher.

He said, Jesus is the pitcher or the catcher. Where does the problem lie in Jesus being quote unquote hidden or God being so hidden? Where does the problem lie in the pitcher or the catcher? And he said, theologically based on what the Bible teaches, the problem lies with the catcher?" And he said, theologically, based on what the Bible teaches, the problem lies with the catcher, it lies with us. It says in Romans 1 verse 20, that based on what we see in nature,

that the existence of God is indisputable. That anyone who honestly looks at nature would walk away saying, without excuse, they would have no excuse for saying, not finding God. So his first point was the real problem lies with us. What the Bible says is that we tend to suppress the evidence. Why?

Because we wanna be gods, we wanna live our own lives. We don't wanna be told how to live. We wanna do what we wanna do and live like we wanna live. And doggone, I like getting drunk. And doggone, if God's gonna tell me not to do that, I'm not so sure I wanna know much about him. The Greek language uses the imagery of a petal.

It's like when the evidence of God begins to become apparent to you, sometimes we push down the petal, we suppress it. We when the evidence of God begins to become apparent to you, sometimes we push down the pedal, we suppress it. We suppress the evidence and we turn the other way. So part of the problem is on us, that we're not looking for God. We don't really want to find God. We want to live the way we want to live.

But secondly, there have been times in history where God has been especially evident. For instance, the parting of the Red Sea, There have been times in history where God has been especially evident. For instance, the parting of the Red Sea, the manna that comes down from heaven that sustained the Israelites in the desert. God's actions in the world were so obvious back then. What happened?

Did they become more devout? No, they fell into apostasy again. So when we look- What is apostasy? Rebellion against God. You know, they're worshiping golden calves and things like that. They turned their back against God, even though he had made his existence obvious to anyone.

I'm parting the Red Sea for goodness sake. I'm providing manna from heaven so you can live for goodness sake. And yet their response is to turn their back and go the other way. So there's no guarantee that if God were to write in the sky, I'm here, that we would respond. Because based on the track record of humans,

last time he made himself so obvious, we've walked the other way. And if he did do that, if he did in the sky, I'm here, I could imagine all the atheist websites talking about, yeah, that's a natural phenomenon that is precipitated by too much moisture in the atmosphere. And it's, you know, I mean, they would come up with any explanation

other than God is real and God is here. They have an interest in not finding him. So, you know, and the other thing I would say is, you know, the Bible says knock and you'll find. The Bible says seek and you'll find. In the New Testament, Hebrews, it says, those who sincerely seek God will find him. In the Old Testament, Hebrews, it says, those who sincerely seek God will find him. In the Old Testament, Jeremiah, it says that

those who seek God will find him. So the fact that someone hasn't found God yet does not mean they won't find him. In fact, the Bible suggests keep knocking, keep seeking. And there might be some lessons along the way that God wants to teach you before you come to meet Him. Lessons about perseverance, lessons about whatever. That could be a possibility.

But the fact that someone has not yet found God does not mean they will not find God. And as I said before, I think anyone, anywhere, has not yet found God does not mean they will not find God. And as I said before, I think anywhere in any culture who calls out to the one true God and seeks him, God will provide a way of making himself known to them and his message known to them. I believe that.

And I've seen miraculous ways in which he's done that. What are some of those ways? Oh. For you personally. Yeah, I mean, I mentioned one earlier miraculous ways in which he's done that. What are some of those ways? Oh. Personally. Yeah, I mean, I mentioned one earlier about the guy in India who was brought up by gurus who's realized that Hinduism had too many contradictions

to be true. And at age 17, he called out, I said, God, if you're real, I want to know you. I don't understand. This is not making sense. I know I wanna know you. I don't understand, this is not making sense. I know I've messed up, I wanna be forgiven. I wanna, you know, and God brings against the laws of the land missionaries to him

who shared the gospel with him. He became a Christian, later immigrated to the United States and we became friends. So there's an example, or we talked earlier about dreams that God would bring to enclosed countries in the Muslim world to people, Jesus dreams. So there are ways in which Jesus, I believe, makes himself more known at certain times.

But I think for most people who say, why doesn't God make himself more known? What else do you wanna know? You know, I've got an 800,000 word book called the Bible that lays out just about everything you need to know. Have you looked at it? That kind of thing. Yeah, I mean.

Obviously we'd like them all to sit here and spend time with it, wouldn't we? And we could ask them all these questions and they'd have much better answers than I would. And we can do that in heaven. But he has given us enough. He's given us enough to act on. And when we do act on that, what's interesting,

when we do take a step of faith in the same direction the evidence is pointing, which is logical and rational to do if the evidence for the resurrection, for the existence of God from cosmology, from physics, from biochemistry, all these streams of evidence that are flowing in a direction. If we respond to that by taking a step of faith

in the same direction the evidence is pointing and receive this free gift of forgiveness through Christ and become a follower of his, he becomes more apparent to us. Because now as we read the Bible as believers, it takes on a whole new dimension, a whole new aspect to it that brings it home more vividly to us than when we were not a believer.

So I think the Holy Spirit, as he takes residence in us as followers of Christ, when I pray to God, I sense his presence in my life stronger today than I did 20 years ago. Doesn't mean I can have lunch with him, but it means that there are times in my life where he has guided me, where he has closed doors that thank God I didn't go through,

but he closed those doors. And I didn't go through, but he closed those doors. And I didn't know it at the time why, but I look back and say, thank you Lord for not letting me go down that path because that would have been a wrong path. And I see his evidence in my life of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the leadings that he gives.

So, I mean, there's a whole chapter in my book for those that are really interested, but it is a legitimate question, and a lot of people are asking it these days, especially among young people. Which book is that in out of the 40 plus that you're reading? Is God Real? It's in Is God Real?

Okay, I will definitely check that out, thank you. Yeah, that's just, you know, when I first asked the question, I could see, and this is a group of very trusted, open-minded people. And that one, I could definitely see, sparked a little something. It's a profound question. And it was, you know, it kind of began with,

yeah, he's always, and I'm like, I get that. I totally get that. But when I'm 12 years old, it's not working like that. But that makes sense. Thank you. Sure. So we wanna get into, I really wanna go into spiritual warfare with you,

but this is Christmas. So seeing the supernatural. Right. And there's a section in here that you had talked about miracles. Yeah. And so let's keep it. Miracles are, I mean, to me,

it's one of the most fascinating topics where God will intervene in our world in a way that is unmistakably Him. A miracle is an event brought about by the power of God that is a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that is a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God has acted in history. So he's intervening.

A lot of people said, well, miracles are not possible. This is what I used to think when I was an atheist. Miracles can't happen, why? Because they violate the laws of nature. You can't violate the laws of nature. David Hume, the famous atheist from Scotland, that was his argument. Well, you're misunderstanding what a miracle is.

If I take this cell phone and I drop it, the law of gravity says it's gonna hit the ground. But if I drop this cell phone and you reach in and grab it before it hits the ground, I'm not violating, you're not violating the law of gravity. You're not overturning the law of gravity. You're intervening. And if God did create the universe, then of course he can intervene at his will

in those laws that he himself created. It's an intervention. He's not overturning anything. It's just an intervention. So I began to look at a couple of questions. How common are miracle claims really? So I hired a public opinions company to do a scientific poll of American adults.

And I asked the question, have you ever had at least one experience in your life that you can only explain as a miracle of God? And 38% of American adults said yes. No kidding. So four out of 10 said yes. Now, let's say hypothetically that 99% of them are wrong. They think it was a miracle,

it was just a big coincidence. Let's wipe out 99%. That would still mean a million miracles just in the United States. So miracles I think are more common than we think. And what's interesting is they cluster. They're not evenly distributed around the planet. Where the gospel is just breaking in,

places like Mozambique, China, Brazil, that's where we see the miraculous taking place. One scholar said to me, 90% of the growth of the church in China is because someone themselves has had a miracle take place, a healing, or they know someone who has happened to. 90% of that is the church growth in China. So God tends to intervene in those places

where the gospel, and often there's societies that don't have Bibles or anything, but they'll respond to the supernatural that way. So how do we know that it's real? I began looking into this and Sean, I found case studies published in medical journals. I'll describe one of them for you. A woman blind, blind for 12 years.

She had juvenile macular degeneration, which is an incurable condition. She learned, she went to a school for the blind. She learned how to read Braille. She walked with a white cane. She married a pastor, Baptist pastor. One night they're getting ready for bed. And he comes up to her with tears in his eyes and he puts his hand on her shoulder

and he begins to pray and he says, God, I know you could heal her. I know you could heal her right now. God, I pray, I ask for right now tonight that you would heal my wife of her blindness. And she opened her eyes to perfect eyesight. Saw her husband for the first time. She said, I was blind and now I see.

It's a miracle. She has been now, she has had perfect eyesight for 47 years, it happened 47 years ago. Been published in a, four researchers researched it, published it as a case study in a secular medical journal. a case study in a secular medical journal. So, you know, so there's a PhD from Harvard. She's a professor at Indiana University, secular university.

She's hearing stuff like this. She says, wait a minute, I'm going to test it. Let's go to Mozambique where there's supposed to be an outbreak of miracles. And she brings a team in, they go into the villages and they say, bring us all your deaf and all your blind. So they bring people who are deaf, blind or severely handicapped in those areas.

And they tested them scientifically. What is your level of vision? What is your level of hearing? They did testing and they determined, could you see at all? Or they got it down. Then they were immediately prayed for in the name of Jesus by people who tend to have a track record

or God using them in healings. And then immediately after that, they were tested again scientifically. Has your vision changed? Has your hearing level changed? And guess what they found? Virtually everyone improved to one degree or the other. In fact, the average improvement

in visual acuity was tenfold. One woman named Martine, when they first met her, could not hear the equivalent of a jackhammer next to her. After 10 minutes of prayer in the name of Jesus, she could hear normal conversations. So they're thinking something's going on here. So they said, let's test it somewhere else. So they went to Brazil where the gospel is breaking in.

They did the same test, they got the same results. This was a scientific study published in a peer-reviewed secular scientific medical journal, the Southern Medical Journal, highly respected medical journal. And I interviewed for my book, Seeing the Supernatural, the woman, PhD, that did this.

I said, what do you make of this? And she said, well, she said, this is not some televangelist going in and trying to create an atmosphere of emotion and tricking people and thinking they're feeling better. This isn't a trickery, it isn't fraud. She said, all I can say is something's going on. And she's right, I think it's something miraculous.

Wow. I interviewed a woman, I do the interview in the book, her name was Barbara. Barbara was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis as a teenager at the Mayo Clinic, have all their medical records, have multiple witnesses to this. So she goes to Mayo Clinic, she's multiple sclerosis.

She began deteriorating rapidly over 16 years, worse and worse and worse and worse. Hospitalized repeatedly with lung collapses and things. Finally, her doctors and her parents got together and said, you know what, next time she gets pneumonia, let's just let her die. I mean, this is ridiculous. She's just gonna suffer this way.

Let's just let her die. So she's in hospice. One lung has collapsed. One lung is at 50%. She's blind. All she can see are shapes, gray shapes. She has a tube in her throat so she can breathe. It goes to oxygen canisters in her garage

so she can be kept alive because she couldn't breathe on her own. She had lost all her muscle tone, hadn't walked in seven years. She lost all her muscle tone. Her fingers were so curled up that her fingers were touching her wrists and her toes were extended like this,

she couldn't wear slippers. And she'd lost control of her bowel and her urination. So she's dying. She's in her bed at home. And somebody called in WNBI, which is the Christian radio station in Chicago, and said, hey, Barbara's dying, this woman, could someone pray for her?

Just ask your audience, pray for her. Well, we documented that 450 people began praying for Barbara because we know, because they wrote letters to Barbara saying, I'm praying for you. Pentecost Sunday comes. She's got two or three of her friends there who are reading these letters and people are praying for it, reading them to Barbara.

And out of nowhere from the corner of the room where there's nobody sitting, she hears the voice of God saying, get up my child and walk. So she's stunned, her friends didn't hear. She said, go get my parents. And she rips the tube from her throat and she jumps out of bed.

So when I'm interviewing her, I said, what's the first thing you noticed? She said, Lee, I jumped out of bed. The first thing I noticed, my feet were flat on the ground. They'd been extended for a couple of years. And then I looked and my hands had opened up. And then she said, the third thing I noticed I could see. Ha ha ha.

She said, you think that'd be the first thing I'd notice? It was actually the third thing I noticed. And her mother comes running in and grabs her calves and said, your muscle tone has returned. Her muscles tone returned to her legs. Her father came in and started waltzing around the room with her. It was Sunday night, Pentecost Sunday,

and they went to a Wesleyan church in Wheaton, Illinois, and they said, let's go to church and tell people there's a service that night. So they came to the service and as they came in, the pastor was up front and he said, does anybody have any announcements? Barbara comes walking down the main aisle. Well, nobody had seen Barbara walk in seven years.

They all knew she was on the verge of dying and the whole place exploded with people singing amazing grace, I once was blind and now I see. She was instantaneously, completely, totally healed of multiple sclerosis in that instant by God. Wow. Totally healed. She had two main doctors.

One doctor, she went to see him that Monday. She went to see her doctor and he said later, he said, when I saw her walking down the corridor, I thought, this must be a ghost. She must've died. Cause this is impossible. This is medically impossible. Two of her doctors wrote books about it.

Because they said, there is no medical explanation for this. I got to know Barbara. We have multiple eyewitnesses. We've got the doctors who knew her and treated her and wrote books about it. We've got records from the Mayo Clinic. She ended up marrying a pastor

and had a little church in Fredericksburg, Virginia. And so you go, what do you do with something like that? What do you do with the guy who was born with gastroparesis, which is a paralysis of his stomach muscles? And as an infant, he's vomiting, he can't keep down food. And they realize this is an incurable condition.

We have to insert tubes into him. So the food can go from his stomach to his intestine. And he had to live with that for 16 years until one day his parents brought him to a church. And the pastor came up and put his hand on his shoulder and prayed for his healing. And the guy said later, it was like an electric shock went from my shoulder to my stomach.

And he was instantaneously healed of an incurable condition. The only case of gastroparesis that's been recorded as being healed. Four researchers investigated that case and published it as a case study in a peer-re peer reviewed medical journal. Something's going on, Sean.

And I think what something is, is God from time to time chooses to intervene and to show his power and to show his love and to show his grace in ways that capture the attention of the world. Wow, that's... That awesome. That's amazing.

I mean, Barbara was the sweetest person. When I interview people, because I interview people for books and they're scholars and I'm tapping into their expertise. And so I always pay them because it's only right for me to compensate them for the time. And so at the end of my interview,

I went to Virginia to interview Barbara on camera. I have her old interview on camera, I'll show it to you. And she, so I offered her payment for her time. And so I can't take any, I can't take anything for this. God did this. This is a testimony to him and his power and his grace. I couldn't take anything. That's very sweet.

You're a very sweet woman. So I love stories take anything. I was very sweet. You're a very sweet woman. So I love stories like that. Me too. I really do. And I love stories where, and this is a form of miracle, where God touches someone directly. And I have a whole chapter of that in my book

about people through history and contemporaneously in contemporary world who are touched by God in a supernatural way. I'll give you a quick story, guy named Robert. Robert lived a moral life. He was a drunk, he was a gambler, he was a womanizer. He once got in a dispute with a business partner and beat him up with a baseball bat.

Got sent to prison for it. Took his limo to prison, took a limo home. Had a lot of money, very wealthy. He's standing on the beach in Florida. And he said, God spoke to me, not through my ears, but I heard it inside me. And God said, Robert, I've saved you more times than you'll ever know.

Now you need to come to me through my son, Jesus. And this guy's an atheist. He's, I don't even know who Jesus, I thought Jesus was a swear word. I don't even know who he is, you know? So the only Christian he knew was Frank Gifford. Remember the sportscaster, Frank Gifford? And so he called up Frank, said, Frank, you're a Christian. I just had this experience. God talked to me.

I heard him. He said, who is Jesus? And Frank said, get that book, The Case for Christ, at least, that'll explain everything. So Robert gets my book. Anyway, Robert has a 180 degree radical transformation. 180 degrees, he becomes a devout follower of Jesus. Robert has a 180 degree radical transformation. 180 degrees, he becomes a devout follower of Jesus.

When he is baptized, he gets baptized at the Crystal Cathedral, famous church back then in California. And he tells his story about how God intervened, talked to him and how he came to faith. And he began talking to people. Do you know God? He tells his story about how God intervened, talk to him and how he came to faith. And he began talking to people. Do you know God? Have you met him?

Have you experienced him? And the pastor rips up his sermon and said, you all have heard the gospel. Anybody who wants to come up right now, receive Jesus as a forgiver and leader and be baptized on the spot, come on up. 700 people came up in two services. When he was buried, he died a few years later,

when he was buried up in Montana, where he was from, at his request on his tombstone, it just says, believe in Jesus. Now, and thousands of people came to his funeral and you wonder, well, why? Who was this guy? Well, people didn't know him by Robert. That was his given name.

He was known by his stage name, Evil Knievel. So Evil Knievel, the famous motorcycle daredevil rider who was in the Guinness Book of World Records for more broken bones than any human being. Evil Knievel had God speak to him, transform him. We became friends. I remember he called me for the first time. I answered my phone.

I said, hello. And the voice said, is this Lee Strobel? I said, yeah. He said, this is evil. And I thought Satan has got my phone number. Can he do that? Can Satan do this? What the heck?

And he said, no, no, Evil Knievel. Oh, okay. So we became friends and God radically changed that guy's life. And I go, that Knievel. Oh, okay. So we became friends and God radically changed that guy's life. And I go, that's a miracle. That's a miracle. When God reaches down and just grabs somebody like that. Like Saul of Tarsus becomes Paul the apostle.

Man, I love hearing stuff like that. I do too. It's encouraging, isn't it? You know, I know you asked earlier, you know, what's your view of the state of the world? And yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff going on, but golly, God's still in control. He's still alive.

He's still doing stuff like this. And when I hear stories about his, how he intervenes through dreams, through visions, through near death experiences, through deathbed visions, through direct experiences, all these things, it brings me hope. I don't base my theology on it,

but it tends to bolster my theology because it's consistent with the teachings of the Bible. You know, we're talking about these miracles that you've interviewed people on and it sounds like some of it stems from prayer. And so what I wanna ask you is how do you pray and who do you pray to? Do you pray to Jesus?

Do you pray to God? Do you pray to the Holy Spirit? Do you pray to all three? I kind of follow what Jesus did when he gave the Lord's Prayer as kind of a model. And he prayed to the Father, my Father, who art in heaven. So I tend to pray to the Father.

I don't think it's wrong to pray to Jesus. I don't think it's wrong to pray to the Holy Spirit. I think that's, you could do that. But I pray to the Father. And... Why do you do that? I'm just curious. If you have, if Jesus is the way to the Father.

Yeah, yeah, because... I've always prayed to the Father as well. Yeah. And then I've started kind of switching it. Well, and that's fine. To pray to Jesus is fine, to pray to the Holy Spirit is fine, but because that's how Jesus modeled it.

You know, Jesus, when he gave us the Lord's prayer, said, our Father who art in heaven. So I thought, okay, then that's a good thing to model my own prayer after. If Jesus is praying to the Father, then I'll pray to the Father. But to pray, I think to Jesus is fine. Pray to the Holy Spirit is fine.

What is a little dangerous is some people pray to angels. And you know, was it Paul or Peter? There's an incident in scripture where one of the apostles starts to bow down to worship an angel. And angel, no, no, no, I'm like you. I'm not, you know, you don't worship me. And I think the danger of praying to an angel and angel, no, no, no, I'm like you. I'm not, you don't worship me. And I think the danger of praying to an angel would be,

number one, he's not God. Number two, there's a slippery slope that do we start worshiping angels? And no, I mean, that's not appropriate. But I mean, my son actually wrote a great book on prayer. My son's a theologian. He and John Coe, who's a well-known theologian, wrote a book called When Prayer Gets Real.

And it's something cool about your son writing a book on prayer. I mean, I'm so proud of him and it's such a profound book. I'd encourage anyone who wants to know, how do I pray with authenticity? How do I pray with power and so forth? That's a really good book to read, when prayer gets real.

By my son. Do you ask for things? I do. First of all, I want to spend a time in adoration and worship, so I have a worship time in my prayer where I worship God for who he is and what he's done in my life and others. So I spend time worship time in my prayer where I worship God for who He is and what He's done in my life and others. And so I spent time worshiping Him.

I spent a time of confession. God, I know I shouldn't have done what I did yesterday. I cut that guy off and he just wanted to talk to me and I was rude and I'm sorry. Help me to be more attuned to other people sometimes that maybe sometimes I'm not. And so I confess my sins. Now they've already been forgiven,

but sometimes when we have a pattern of sin in our life, even though we're a Christian, it kind of creates a bit of static in our line in talking to God. You know, it's a little bit of a static and you wanna clear that up. So I think it's good to confess, to spend a time of confession and to say,

God, I'm sorry for this and this that I did yesterday. I knew before I did it, I shouldn't, and I did it anyway. And I just wanna say I'm sorry. So I do a time of confession. Then I do a time of thanksgiving. Thank you, God. I prayed this just the other day. I said, God, I'm 70, almost 73 years old.

I've been driving since I was 16 and I've never hurt anybody driving. Thank you God for protecting me from that horrible experience it would be to be in a traffic accident to hurt somebody. And I've never had that. And I just wanna say thank you for protecting me for all these years, not just from being hurt myself,

but from hurting somebody else. So I wanna thank him for what he's been providing for my family, for ways that he has guided me or opened my eyes to something I needed to see. I just spent a time in thanksgiving. And then I spent a time in what's called supplication, which is asking God, God, I really need your help in this area.

And of course he already knows I do, he's omniscient, but the fact that I come to him with it and am vulnerable and honest about the things I need in my life. You know, we don't have the income to get through next month. And I know you're the great provider. And this happened a lot when I took, I left journalism to go into the church world

at a 60% pay cut. And so we lived on nothing for many years. And there were many times when we would pray, God, we don't have the mortgage money this month, and we need your help. And he always came through one way or the other. But just to be vulnerable and honest about the things that we need in our life.

So that's a simple way to remember. It's the acrostic acts to adore God, spend a time in worship, to confess our sins, to thank Him and then supplication, to ask for those things that we need from Him. Is it ceremonial or is it just, are you just talking? Yeah, I'm just talking. So it could be when you're driving,

it could be when you're walking around. I have a time of prayer that's a little more like built around that ACTS structure. What's ACTS? The Adoration, Confession, that kind of thing, like I just described. So I want to take time out from my day to do that, but I'm constantly praying to God.

I mean, when I'm driving, when I'm, you know, God, I need your help. And sometimes we spiritualize things, you know, like I was in downtown Houston and I needed to find a parking place. And I thought, God, I know this is ridiculous, but I gotta be in this meeting in 10 minutes and there's no parking anywhere.

Would you just, oh, there's a parking place. And you know, I mean, I'm probably just spiritualizing it, but doggone it, it happened. So, you know, I think there's an ongoing conversation we have with God. If you... When you ask for something or you need something, do you, have you ever prayed as if it's already happened?

Oh, in anticipation of him already granting it. I know that's common in some churches. I don't generally do that. I thank him because I know whatever he does for me is gonna be for my best interest. And so if I pray for X and he gives me Y, I think there's gonna be a reason for it. And so I would rather have Y in the end than X.

So I know there's some in the Pentecostal realm who will pray as if God has already granted it. I don't think we have the power to manifest things that way, but my approach is just to be like a father with his child. And I know when you're a child, you got a little kid, when he's older, he's gonna come to you and say, dad, can you buy me a Corvette? And you're gonna say, I love you son,

but there's no way I'm gonna buy you a Corvette. But you need to understand why, it's because I love you. And sometimes I come to God and I say, God, I really need this. And he says, no. I mean, there's an old saying, the biggest curse is getting everything you pray for. Really?

Yeah, because if you pray, you think of the things through your life that you've prayed for and you think, thank God he didn't grant that prayer because it would have been a disaster. You know, we pray for all kinds of stuff. Well, thank goodness he knows best. And it's a good point I've never heard of.

And sometimes when we don't get what we want, and then we find out five years later, oh man, I'm so much better off now than I would have been if God. So God answers every prayer with either a yes or a no or a wait, but sometimes a no is a blessing. Man, you know, I,

that's an interesting perspective that I've not thought of because I started praying as if things have already happened. Yeah. And I, have you ever heard of Greg Braden by chance? No. Listen to Greg. I went on a Greg Braden kick for a while. Oh, okay.

But, and through some of my other interviews and I've talked about manifestation and things like that and I always get a ton of hate when I talk about that. But, you know, and I gave a specific example I always get a ton of hate when I talk about that. And I gave a specific example. By the time this releases, it will have been a couple months ago. But I talked about this time that me and my wife got engaged under the Northern Lights.

And I think I prayed that into existence because it happened in Alaska in August, which is almost impossible. But it's actually the interview that's running right now. And the name of the woman that I interviewed is Angela Ford and I talk about this. Got a ton of hate about it. and, you know, sometimes in the morning I'll get up

and I will just flip to any random page in the Bible just to see what's, I like to randomize it because I feel like he's gonna tell me something rather than if I just read it straight through. And open it up yesterday morning, Sunday morning, and it was a passage, I don't have any scripture memorized. Like I said, I'm new at this. But in fact, you know what? I texted it to somebody. I'm gonna run down and grab my phone, I'll be at this. But in fact, you know what? I texted it to somebody.

I'm going to run down and grab my phone. I'll be right back. Oh, okay. Because I want to read this to you. Okay. Because I would love to hear your perspective. Yeah, that was a great line. I was saying, I used to be able to run downstairs like that.

There's a great quote that said, how to fall asleep in a chair. Number one, be old. Number two, sit in a chair. I got on the airplane yesterday. I was asleep before takeoff. And Les said, how do you do that? And I said, I'm old and I sit in a chair. That's all I need.

Man, I wish I could pull that off. So here it is. Here's the scripture. It's Mark 11, 24. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. So to me, that kind of goes along with what I was just saying, it's 444 right now.

But how do you take that? Well, I have to read it in context with other verses and other teachings of Jesus about prayer, I think, to put it into context. But there's nothing wrong with a sense of anticipation and saying, God, I need this in my life and I know you love me and I know this is something that you want me to have. And so I'm going to receive it

as if you've already given it. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not the posture I generally take. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just love hearing how people do it. Yeah, there's a variety.

And you know, it's interesting, the word denomination comes from the same root as the word denominator. And yeah, there's a hundred and some odd denominations in Christianity, but we all have a common denominator. And that is the gospel. That's the core teachings of Jesus. And then we agree to disagree on some peripheral issues.

How to pray, how to do this? Do you tie? Do you not? core teachings of Jesus. And then we agree to disagree on some peripheral issues. How to pray, how to do this? Do you tie? Do you not? And you know what? It's okay that we have some differences among us as long as we hold tight to the core. So denominator, common denominator,

we have a common denominator, all these denominations, but we have some different practices and we have some different emphases and every church is not the same. But as long as they were a denomination, as long as they agree that Jesus is who we claim to be, the unique son of God who proved to by returning from the dead and so forth and certain non-negotiables,

then it's okay that we view prayer a little differently from one church to another. That's okay. When we get to heaven, we can raise our hand and say, Jesus, would you just clarify this once and for all? Would you just lay this out in a way we can understand it? I'm gonna have my hand in the air. Jesus, how does this Calvinism and Arminian thing

fit together? I'm just curious about that. I can't wait to hear what he says. Me neither, me neither. Well, we were wrapping up the interview here. I wanna kinda close it out with, why do they call Jesus the way, the truth and the light? They call him that because that was the way

he described himself. I am, he said, interestingly, he would take the words I am and apply them to himself. And you think back in the Old Testament, when Moses encountered God in the form of a burning bush and asked for his name, God identified himself as I am. And so we have Jesus using these I am statements, I think seven of them. And one of those I am statements is I am. And so we have Jesus using these I am statements, I think seven of them. And one of those I am statements is I am the way,

the truth and the life. And then the important part comes next. No one comes to the Father except through me. So in other words, it's only through the atoning death of Jesus in the cross, it's only through his resurrection that anybody anywhere has any hope of making it out of this thing and getting to heaven.

That's not to say there might be some people in the world who don't hear the name of Jesus, but who reach out to the one true God and in some way remarkably saved, that could happen, but they're not saved apart from Jesus. It is because of what he did. And I know this is Christmas season and so forth, and it's just a reminder of God's love for us, that he made us in his image, loves us so much that he sent his son into the world to suffer

horrible death on the cross. I mean, I've talked to medical doctors about what happens to you during crucifixion. It is a horrific, horrific death. So bad that the Romans would not even crucify their own citizens. They exempted them because it was too horrific. And yet Jesus, the Bible says in Philippians in the first Christmas carol, that he gave up the perks of heaven

and he came into this world and he lived a life of a servant even to the point of going to the cross. So he willingly gave up the perks of heaven, entered in this world on Christmas and then ultimately on Easter, he is resurrected from the dead after having paid for our sins on the cross. I mean, that, He is the way, the truth and the life.

There is no other path. We're all sinners. The only way we can be forgiven is through receiving the payment He made on our behalf when He died as our substitute to pay for the sins that we've committed. And we receive that, we become a child of God forever. Thank you for sharing that.

My pleasure. Well, Lee, we kick this off with a prayer. Yeah. I think we should end it with a prayer. That'd be awesome. Yeah. Can I start? Absolutely. Lord, thanks for this opportunity to talk about you,

to talk about the hope that you provide through your son, Jesus Christ. The fact that there is redemption, there is eternal life. There is forgiveness. And it is only through the provision that he made on the cross. And when we receive that, we become your child forever. So we thank you for that.

We thank you for your great love, for your provision for us. You could have walked the other way. You could have just snapped your fingers and turned this whole planet into a cinder. But you love us, you want to spend eternity with us. And I do pray that those who are watching, who don't know you personally, and turn this whole planet into a cinder, but you love us, you wanna spend eternity with us. And I do pray that those who are watching,

who don't know you personally, will make today the day that they say, I believe that Jesus is the unique Son of God. He proved it by returning from the dead. I am a sinner. I've fallen short of how God wants me to live. I confess that. I wanna turn from that. And in an attitude of repentance and faith,

I wanna receive this free gift of forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased for me on the cross. I pray many people will make today the day that they take that step. And that we can then reconvene someday in heaven where we won't be constrained by time and we can just extol your grace and your love and tell story after story about how you have made yourself and your ways known in this world

in magnificent and miraculous ways. We pray all this in Jesus' name. And I'd just like to add that, you know, we are seeing this massive wave of people coming to you, Lord, and to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And we just pray that that continues to happen. It is awesome to see that happening. And we just hope that you use this conversation

that I just had with Lee to help be a part of that and to bring more people to you. And last but not least, happy birthday, Jesus. And Merry Christmas. Amen. Amen. Lee. Thanks, Sean, I really enjoyed it.

Thank you. It's a lot of fun. It was an honor. I hope to see you again. I hope so, yeah. I had a lot of fun. And I learned a tremendous of fun and I learned, I learned a tremendous amount of just everything that you're talking about.

So thank you, thank you so much for being here and Merry Christmas. Thank you, you too. God bless you, my friend. Amen. Amen. He named one of the best personal finance podcasts, the Stacking Benjamin Show with Joe and his friends makes financial literacy fun. Draymond Green has a podcast.

He was asking Mark Cuban why at the beginning of 2024, Cuban sold a huge part of his company. He's like, did you see how much money I got? I'm sure there's a more graceful answer than that, but dude, I bought it for 200 million and sold it for 6 billion. I don't think it was that much more graceful than that. Find out more by searching the Stacking Benjamins podcast, wherever you listen.