October 18, 2017 Show with Israel Wayne on “Questions God Asks”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio

platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues

facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one

man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we

converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another

wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear

from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris.

Arnzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity

living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 18th day of

October 2017, and I am delighted to have back on the program

Israel Wayne, a conference speaker, regular columnist for Homeschool Digest,

Homeschool Enrichment, and the Old Schoolhouse Magazines.

He's a site editor for christianworldview .net, an author of a number of books,

including Full -Time Parenting, A Guide to Family -Based Discipleship, Questions God

Asks, Questions Jesus Asks, and Pitching a Fit, Overcoming

Angry and Stressed -Out Parenting.

And today we are going to be discussing the aforementioned book Questions God Asks, and it's my honor

and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Israel Wayne.

Thank you, brother.

It's great to be back on your show.

And in studio with me is my co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

Hello once again.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, c

-h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com, and please give us at least your first name,

your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the USA, and please

only remain anonymous if your question regards a personal and private matter.

But other than that, please give us first name, city and state, and country of residence.

Before we get into the topic at hand, the book that we are discussing,

Questions God Asks, tell us how you got so actively involved in the homeschool

movement.

Well, I was sort.

Of born into

that one.

My mother started homeschooling her after just a couple of months in kindergarten,

and she had had a bad experience with a teacher, and my mom said, you know what, I can

do better than this.

And so she took her out of school.

The problem was in 1978, where we were in Maryland at the time, she didn't realize that

homeschooling was illegal.

It wasn't even a term at that time, but because of compulsory attendance laws, you had to have your children in school.

So she ended up in court trying to defend her right to teach my sister at home,

and it turned out that the judge threw the case out of court, and so she

just continued to homeschool, even though homeschooling didn't really become legal until much later.

I was home -educated, my sister was home -educated, and then I was one of the first homeschool

graduates in the country, and so I started getting invited to speak at conferences on the topic of home education, and

wrote my first book on the topic in 2000, and so I've actually been 25 years now of

writing and speaking on the topic of home education around the country.

So a lot of people know me from that, but I do write other books on other topics, including the

Questions God Asks and Questions Jesus Asks books, the ones that we're going to be talking about today.

Well, I'm looking forward to our discussion, and well, why don't we

start exactly with the question, why did you write this book?

Some Christians may have a knee -jerk reaction to the title.

There's a lot of crazy notions going on in our day and age.

I don't know if you're familiar with the open theism movement.

They teach that God doesn't even know the future, or he doesn't know all that is going to occur

in the future.

They actually believe that God receives new knowledge, and so on,

but I'm certain that's not where you're coming from, that God needs the answers to questions,

and because of the fact that he is lacking in full knowledge, he is not omniscient.

That is obviously not what you're saying, I'm assuming.

I'll give you my background on.

The book.

I have been doing a study through the Old Testament, just in my personal daily Bible reading and

Bible study, and I noticed these frequent questions that God was asking people,

and it did strike me as a little odd that God would ask questions of people.

You know, we always have questions for God, particularly when there are natural disasters

and all these things, that we've even had

recently, shootings.

People ask questions of God, like, well, if God is so good and loving, then why do bad things happen in the

world, or why do bad things happen to good people, and you know, all these questions people have.

But I noticed God was asking questions of individuals, and some of them, you know, seem like

kind of odd questions to me.

Like, God asked Balaam, who are these men with you?

And then he asked Abraham, where is your wife, Sarah?

And I just started wondering, why does God ask these questions?

And one of the doctrines that we know to be true of God is that God knows all things.

God is omniscient, and so I certainly don't buy into the viewpoint of open

theism, that God is still learning and growing and evolving and, you know, all those

kinds of concepts that are embedded within open theism.

But I also thought, you know, for God to be asking these questions, there must be a reason, because Jesus

talked about how we would be judged for every idle word that we speak, and so these questions can't be

idle words.

You know, certainly God doesn't ask things.

There must be a reason.

So that was why I started to dig into these questions in more detail, to find out what the

purpose and the focus was behind the questions.

Well, why don't.

You start with the first question that you addressed that God asks?

Yeah, well,.

The one that I addressed first in the book is the one that God talked

to, asked Job, you know, because when you think about Job, for example, there's this whole litany of questions that

Job is asked.

And, you know, Job's in a situation where he's enduring suffering, and he's just had his whole

world fall apart.

His lost his possessions, you know, health

problems, and he's got these boils that have broken out all over him,

and he has these friends who are accusing him of sin and saying, this is your fault, and the reason these bad

things have happened to you is because somehow you've failed in your spiritual life.

And so he calls to God, and he says, I want an explanation.

I want an answer.

I want you to explain to me why these things have happened to me.

And interestingly, God doesn't really answer his question.

He more answers the question with a question, and asks a litany of

questions that all kind of boil down to, where were you?

Where were you when I formed this earth?

Where were you when I created everything?

And essentially, he's just asking Job, do you realize that there is a God, and you're not

him?

And do you realize that I am all

-knowing, and are you willing to trust that I know what I'm doing?

You know, sometimes that's how God relates to us.

Sometimes God doesn't give us the answer that we hope for our struggle, and for the

difficulty that we're going through.

What he does instead is he gives us himself, and we have to learn how to trust in his sovereignty.

Do you think that one of the reasons why God asks questions is to get us to

really think about why we are asking our own question to begin with?

Absolutely.

Jesus did this in the New Testament as well, but you know, I think when you ask the right kinds of questions,

it can help people to cut past their own biases,

preconceptions, and to help them to assess what

their foundational starting points are, their prime maxims, if you will, that

I think sometimes we have these, prime axioms rather, that we have these

beliefs, and so I

think God asks questions sometimes to cut

past that and help us to really get to the bottom of what the

issue is.

And you know, I think God asks questions of people in the Bible because

he wants them to stop and think about their own presuppositions and

assumptions and.

Biases.

Well we already have a listener from Slovenia who has a question for you.

His name is Joe, and he says, Dear Brothers Chris and Israel, thank you for leading us to

seek deeper and more vibrant relationships with God by seriously contemplating the questions he

asks in Scripture.

And Joe is going to be asking a question that is actually going to be the topic of our next

interview with you, but I'll read it anyway.

His question is, my question specifically is about the questions Jesus asked.

Did he ask questions as requests for knowledge about things that in his human nature he did

not have, or did he simply ask thought -provoking questions to draw

out his hearers and challenge them rhetorically to get them to think more deeply?

Or are there cases of both, lack of knowledge and thought -provoking questions?

If so, please give examples of each and explain the differences between them.

This is a great topic with many practical benefits.

Thanks for sharpening us today.

That is interesting because we know as a very young child the scriptures teach that Jesus did

grow in knowledge, which is a mystery to us because he was the God -man.

He was fully God and fully man at all times.

After his being conceived, he was fully man, that is.

He was always fully God, and there was never a time when he didn't exist.

But when he was conceived in the womb of Mary, he was fully God and fully man at the same time.

So there is a mystery about Jesus and his growing in knowledge.

If you could address that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, there's a doctrine.

That's called the hypostatic union, and what this talks about is this relationship

between the divinity of Christ and the humanity of Christ.

And we're told in Philippians chapter 2 that Jesus was in very nature God, and in

John 1 we're told that the Word was with God and the Word was God.

So there's absolutely no question about the divinity of Jesus.

But there are interesting questions related to that that we'll get into in a future broadcast,

but were there any limits to Jesus' knowledge in the humanity side, like when Jesus was

born when he's two years old, for example, and did he know how to speak every language that could possibly be

spoken on earth?

Did he grow up knowing how to be potty -trained?

Did he automatically know not to touch the hot kettle?

You know, there are things like that that the Scripture doesn't necessarily tell us, as you said in

Luke 2, and in stature and in favor with God and man.

So it certainly does show standing on kind of a human capacity

level.

But on the other hand, we're told frequently in the Scripture that Jesus

knew their thought, and that he had special knowledge, and so he would ask certain questions

based on things that he knew.

There are times in the text where it talks about how

he saw something and he observed something, and he would ask the question based on

something he saw and observed.

And so it's interesting how there are definitely questions that he asks based on prior

knowledge of people and individuals that he couldn't know from a human standpoint.

But then it also seems like there are times where he sees a situation, like with the man

at the pool of Bethesda, because Jesus looked at the man and he saw, and the Greek there gives the

text that it was observational knowledge, that he knew the guy had been there for a while, he could tell by looking.

And so he asks the man, do you want to get well?

So I think in the humanity of Jesus, we have Jesus seeing needs and asking

questions to set a model for us that we could do the same thing.

You know, he gave us an example that we see in many, many cases, you know, like what he tells

Nathanael, you know, I saw

you when you

were under the fig

tree, how that aspect of him growing in wisdom on the

human side worked, but at no point does that call into question his

divinity.

Yeah, one of

the most perplexing.

Statements that Jesus makes is in Matthew 24 verse 36,

but that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son,

but the Father alone.

Can you explain the context of that and what is Jesus talking about?

Is the deity of Jesus somehow,

because he is in human flesh, is his omniscience being

somehow thwarted by the other members of the Trinity?

How is this working, and does the Bible even really give us the answer to that?

There's a doctrine called the communicatio idiomatum, which

is Latin, and it basically means the communicable attributes.

It's easy for you to say.

There are certain attributes that belong to God alone that cannot be

transferred to another person, and these these attributes are

his eternality, his omniscience, his omnipotence, and his omnipresence.

These are things that are unique to God, and he can't transfer those to another person.

You and I cannot take those things on.

And yet in Jesus' humanity, he was not omnipresent.

He was present at one place at one time, and so in human form, Jesus in human

form is not omnipresent in the same way that we think of God being omnipresent.

And so there are questions about, could there have been limitations on his omniscience

during his human life?

Some theologians think in Matthew 24 that he's merely speaking to that small span

of his ministry on earth, that perhaps his knowledge is limited on the date and the

time of the return during that time of his humanity.

Scripture's not abundantly clear on those things.

So we do know that Jesus in a human body,

omnipresent, Scripture's not abundantly clear on the aspect of omniscience, but we

know that he didn't become less God.

I think that's the important thing.

He didn't become less divine in any respect, or less God in any

respect, because of his humanity.

And whatever aspect of limits there may or may not have been there, it would

have been, because he said, I don't do anything except that which

I see the Father doing.

And he lived his life in submission to the.

Well, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia, and thank you also for providing us with an American address where your

daughter lives in Georgia, where we can send the book that you just won.

As a result of submitting your question, you just won a free copy of Questions God Asks, Unlocking

the Wisdom of Eternity by Israel Wayne, and that is a compliments of our

friends at New Leaf Press.

So thank you very much for participating in the show today.

We also have Daniel in San Jose, California, who says,.

Well, I hope I understand the question correctly, but

I would say that, really, before you can answer any question of any significance

in life, you have to know God.

Jesus said in John 17 3, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus

Christ, whom you have sent.

And we also have the admonition in Hebrews 11 6, that without faith, it's

impossible to please God, because whoever comes to God has to acknowledge that God is,

and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.

So even the most basic questions of life really can't be understood outside of

a theistic framework or a belief in God.

I just had this conversation the other night, I was doing a seminar, and we were talking about education, and

somebody brought up the aspect that mathematics, for example, is religiously

neutral.

And I said, Oh, absolutely not, there's no, it's impossible for mathematics to be, and

they said, Well, I don't understand, how could that be

inherently religious in every way?

And they said, I don't get it.

And so what I said was, you know, you have assumptions that you bring into any discussion,

presuppositions that you bring into any conversation.

With mathematics, for example, just even knowing, how can we

know that it won't

be 5 on Tuesday and 13 on Friday and 87 on my birthday?

How do we know that with certainty?

Well, the reason is that math, as a category, exists in

the mind of an infated

math personality,

except in the universe, because it comes from the mind of God.

So the more that we understand, the more we have a framework for

understanding why mathematics makes sense.

Whereas if you take the opposing worldview, which is that everything came into being 4 .6 billion

years ago, because of a cosmic accident, that matter and energy and gas is just

a reason, and that

mathematics

doesn't work, because you never have a consistency

coming out of a system of chaos and randomness and chance.

An explosion never makes anything more orderly.

It only makes it less orderly.

And so our understanding informs absolutely everything that we

believe, and every discussion, not just in religion, not just in morality and

ethics, as important as God is to those topics, not just as important as God is to theology,

but to every perspective we have in life.

Ultimately, it goes of knowing God, because nothing can

be more basic and more foundational than God.

And if you replace God with something else, that other thing becomes your God.

So I agree completely with what I think you're saying.

To really be able to answer any question with certainty, and any question with

accuracy, we have to understand who God is, and how he has revealed himself.

Well, thank you, Daniel, in San Jose, California.

And you have also won a free copy of Questions God Asks, compliments of New Leaf Press.

And thank you for providing your address.

So we'll have that shipped out to you by our friends at cvbbs .com as soon as possible.

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for their faithful support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and for mailing out all of our

winners their free books, Bibles, CDs, DVDs, and other items that they win

for asking a question on the program.

Let's go back to the Garden of Eden again, where we have God

searching for Adam and Eve, asking, where are you?

Which seems an odd thing for an omnipresent God to ask, but if you could give us a fuller

description of what's.

Going on here.

Yeah, you know, one of the questions that I always ask when I was writing these chapters is, who is this question

for?

And so I sort of take a Sherlock Holmes approach of, you know, who is in the situation, who

are the players, what's the scene, and so you have the situation where Adam and Eve have sinned,

and they're hiding from the presence of God.

And God calls out to them and says, where are you?

And I ask myself, who is this question for?

Well, it can't be for God's benefit.

You know, it's not like God is sitting in Heaven wringing his hands, saying, oh no, what has happened?

I built this garden and I put this guy in there to tend it, and he's gone.

And you know, now who's going to take care of the garden?

I'm gonna have to call an angel off of what he's doing and put him in there, messes up the whole celestial

ecosystem, and you know, oh I know, I'll call out to the guy and maybe he'll show himself

and we can solve this little problem.

And certainly that's not the correct context to think of this.

So God knows exactly where Adam is and God knows why Adam is hiding.

So then I say, well, who is the question for?

Well, it has to be for Adam.

So what is it that God wants him to think about?

And so if I'm Adam and I hear this question, where are you, the first thing that comes to my

mind is I start looking around me, trying to find a fixed reference point to

decide where I am geographically, and I probably say, you know, I'm behind a bush.

Right now I am hiding behind a bush.

That's where I am.

Do we think that Adam didn't know where he was?

Well, of course Adam knew where he was.

But the question is actually not a geographical question.

The question is actually a relational question.

Embedded in that question is more inherently, why are you hiding?

Where are you and why are you not...

God walked with Adam in the cool of the day and they had fellowship and they

had a relationship and that was the very purpose for which all of us initially were created.

We were created to know God and to have fellowship with Him and enjoy Him forever.

And so Adam has cut himself off from this.

He's disconnected himself from fellowship, and God knows why, but he's wanting Adam to be

honest and

he's wanting

Adam to be

asked questions, you know,

how evasive.

And so another thing that's super important to think about,

if these questions are recorded in Scripture, they're not merely there for the person who was asked to

speak, it's a

God wants us to think.

Well, I just want to

plug right now a sermon.

That addresses the very thing that you're talking about.

My dear friend Pastor Ed Moore of North Shore Baptist Church of Bayside, Queens, New York,

years ago back in the 1990s preached a sermon titled, Adam where are you?

And eventually in the sermon he switches the focus to, sinner where

are you?

And it's a remarkable sermon, and if you want to get a copy of that sermon, go to

ns -bc .org.

That's ns, which stands for North Shore, dash bc .org.

You can also email them at office at ns -bc .org.

And you could call them at 718 -229 -7223, 718 -229 -7223 at North Shore

Baptist Church, Bayside, Queens.

Tell them that you heard about that sermon from Chris Arnzen on Iron Trapper's Iron Radio.

I just strongly recommend it very much.

It's a powerful message that obviously has been ingrained in my mind since it was

preached in the 1990s.

But we're going to our first break right now.

If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I

-S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And again, please give us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Israel Wayne.

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We are back now with our interview with Israel Wayne, who is

discussing his book Questions God Asks.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and give us your first name, your city and

state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the good old U .S

.A.

And there is a very fancy theological word called epistemology,

and this has to do with the question, who told you?

If you could explain exactly what epistemology means and how it is connected to this question of

God.

Epistemology comes from two Greek words,.

Episteme and logos, and episteme is knowledge, and logos in this

context means the study of something.

So it's really the study of knowledge, and epistemology, if you take a formal course in

philosophy in college or somewhere, you will find that it's usually the introductory course,

and so the concept is that we want to find out how we know the things that we know,

how we know it is true.

And we approach epistemology very differently as Christians than someone

does if they are a non -Christian.

The Protestant Reformation, which you mentioned were coming up on the 500th anniversary

of the Reformation, October 31st, what that did with epistemology was it

brought back the basis and foundation of epistemology as being the revelation of God.

And theologians have said that God has revealed himself in two different ways, they refer

to it as special revelation, general

revelation being how God has revealed himself through the created order, through the laws of the universe,

so we could call that the book of nature, perhaps.

And then special revelation is how God has revealed himself in a special way outside the laws of the

universe, which could include other things, but specifically we usually refer

to special revelation.

So that's how God has revealed himself through Scripture.

So we have two books, the books of nature and the book of Scripture.

And the Enlightenment, which was a time period beginning in the late 17th

century in Western Europe, and then continuing really into about the early

19th century, the Enlightenment was

rediscovered as being

the source of knowledge.

The Enlightenment thinkers, all knowledge coming out,

and that we don't know anything unless God has revealed it to us.

The Enlightenment thinkers said we can know truth through our own reason and rationale,

we don't need God.

And so the whole atheist movement today tends to lean very heavily, we

don't need God to know, we don't need God for ethics, we don't need God

to know how to respond in this life to

the situations around us, we just know this from our own intellect, our own reason and rationality.

So you really have two composing belief systems, and two competing worldviews

between the theistic and the non -theistic approach to knowledge and epistemology,

to understand what the biblical framework is for how we understand knowledge, and how we know what

we know, and how we know what is true.

Yeah, it's interesting that, of course, not every atheist thinks alike,

but the atheists that I have had dialogue with, and in fact, the

atheist that I had involved in a debate that I organized

with Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, David Silverman, who is the president of American Atheists, the

organization founded by Madeleine Murray O 'Hare in the 1960s.

David Silverman basically said that man knows what is

moral, and what is immoral, just by what is the dominant thought,

what is the dominant belief in any geographic region, and any era

of time in history, that's what dictates what is right and wrong.

And when Dr. White posed the question to David Silverman, and keep in mind he is a

Jewish atheist, he's an ethnically Jewish atheist, Dr. White said to him, so if you were

being marched through the gates of a death camp by a Nazi,

would the greatest argument that you would have against what was happening to you be, I

find this personally offensive, is that the most that you could say?

You couldn't blatantly and specifically say that it was out and out wrong, and

David Silverman conceded that Dr. White was right, which is, I remember it sent

chills up my spine.

The atheist really has no business telling anybody what is moral or immoral, do they?

I really don't.

I mean, they've cut their legs out from under them intellectually, you know, with that kind of an argument.

I had an experience a year or two ago, when I was traveling across the country, that caused me to think of

this issue of epistemology in a new way.

I was driving with my family on the way to California, and then on the way back

through Nevada, and we hit this space out there in the desert,

and nothing around for 150 miles, and I said, hey, and I

turned the radio on, and I hit the seek dial, and it would just spin.

The digital dials would just spin, both on FM and AM, and there was no radio out there

at all.

And I asked my children, I said, why is it that we can't listen to the radio?

And they said, well, is the radio broken?

And I said, no, the radio works fine.

Why can't we listen to radio right now?

And finally, one of them said, well, it's because there's no broadcast tower.

And I said, you know, this is exactly like this issue of epistemology, because

God is

day after day, and night after night, they

pour forth speech, and there's no place in all the world where their story hasn't gone out.

So the story of God has gone into the whole universe, and it's constantly being broadcast.

The Apostle Paul refers to this in Romans 1, talking about how the things that can be known about God,

His eternal power, and His divine nature, they're clearly evidenced through the things that have been made, so man is

without excuse.

Everybody has seen the revelation of God,

and I told my children, you are a radio.

You are created with the capacity to receive information, to decode it, to

be able to re -communicate that information.

You're a fabulously created radio, but you have to have a broadcast

tower to receive information.

You have the capacity to receive the information, but if no information is sent, then you

know nothing.

And so I said, basically, general revelation could be like AM, special revelation could be

like FM, and God is constantly sending information through general revelation, sending

information through special revelation, but the atheist basically sits in his car and says,

I am an uncaused radio.

I have always, you know, I have no cause.

I'm just the result of sexually designed in any way, and this

information is coming from nowhere.

There is no God.

There is no broadcast tower.

There's only information, and I only listen to AM because that's all there is.

You know, all there is is the laws of nature, FM, and

we as Christians are trying to tell these atheists, you know what, we

love AM.

We listen to AM just like you do.

We just recognize it comes from a broadcast tower, and oh, by the way, we would love for you to plug into

FM.

There's some amazing things on FM, and they say, no, no, there is no FM.

There is no broadcast tower.

We're just uncaused radios, and there's just random information floating around out there in the.

Universe saying to be an atheist.

Yeah, being an atheist requires a lot more miracles

than being a theist, but

moving on from epistemology, there is a section in your book, uh,

who is your brother in regard to relationships, including the relationship of

Cain and Abel?

Yeah, you know, you think about the commandments that Jesus gave us about loving God and loving our

neighbor, and it's amazing how you don't get very far in human history before

you have conflict and even murder in human relationships, and I think trying to sort

through life, um, those questions of, you know, how do we come

to know God, and how do we have relationship with Him, and then the question of how do

we learn how to have good relationships with other people.

I think those are two of the most pressing, and so, you know, when God asks this question of Cain and says, where is your

brother?

So much meaning and so much application for us,

um, you know, even asking the question, who is my brother in the New Testament?

Who is my neighbor?

Um, there's so much that God wants us to think about in terms of our relationship with other

people, and how we interact with them, uh, and the mentality that

we have.

Do we consider ourselves to be our brother's keeper?

Are we willing to, um, consider other people better than ourselves?

This constant struggle of survival of the fittest

for people on

our way to the top.

Amen, and, uh, let's move on to now, why are you angry?

Another question to Cain.

Yeah, you know, that issue is one that, uh,.

It's really a hard one to get to the bottom of, in a sense.

You know, when you think about Cain and him being so angry that he would kill

him.

James chapter 5, verses 1 through 3,

uh, he asks the question, what causes fights and what causes quarrels among you?

And he says, isn't it this, that you desire something, you want something, and you don't get it.

So you fight, you quarrel,

you, uh, you don't

have, it's not his

brother.

Is it not from desires you have

to betray the fact that we don't have a biblical worldview on the topic of anger by even the

phrases that we say to our co -workers or our family members?

We say, you are making me so angry.

Well, not according to James.

James says that this anger is coming from within you.

It's not originating from outside of you.

It's coming from inside of you.

You have desires, you have longings,

overcoming angry and

stress, systematic and

natural

theology.

So interesting how the Bible has so much to say on the topic

of anger, and yet we're really dismissive of our anger most of the time, and we just think, oh, it's no big deal.

I'm entitled to it.

Danger that ships when anger is unchecked.

Do you think one of the reasons why Kane was so angry is.

Because he had to marry his sister?

I'm only kidding.

Well, probably, probably did have.

Interesting family reunions at that point in time, didn't they?

Well, we're going to our.

Midway break right now.

This is the longer than normal break that we take because Grace Life Radio in Lake City,

Florida requires that we have a 12 -minute break between both segments of our show.

So hold on tight.

We'll be back momentarily after these words from our sponsors.

And please, if you want to join us on the air with a question of your own, send us an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail

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God willing, we'll be right back after these messages with Israel Wayne and Questions God

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And before we return to Israel Wayne, I just have a couple of more announcements to make in regard to special

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And that's also the email address where you can send a question to our guest Israel Wayne, and that is

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If you have a question about Questions God Asks, which is the title of the book we are

addressing, and if you could, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of

residence if you live outside of the USA.

And Israel, let's move on to the question, Where Is Your Wife?

A question to Abraham.

This was probably my favorite, because again, when you

think about who this question is directed to, when God asks

Abraham, where is your wife, Sarah, he responds and says, she's in the

tent.

This is in Genesis chapter 18.

And so my thought was, okay, now does God not know where Sarah is?

Well, of course he knows.

He knows she's in the tent.

And then Abraham responds and says she's in the tent.

So obviously Abraham knows where Sarah is.

Now, Sarah is within hearing, so, you know, obviously she could hear it.

So the question for her, well, she knows she's in the tent, right?

So everyone in this scenario knows exactly where Sarah is.

She's in the tent.

But as I looked at it deeper, I realized that this is not a geographical question, just

like the question God Asked Adam is not a geographical question.

What he's asked, where are you?

This is a relational question.

And this one took me, I would say, several months of deep, in -depth contemplation and

study.

What's here in the text that might be lying a bit beneath the surface.

And I finally came to the conclusion, at least the way that the

answer to solving this,

17.

So in chapter 17, God had come to Abraham and he had appeared to him

in verses 15 and 16.

He tells him that Sarah is going to have a name change to

Sarah, and that he was going to bless her and that he would give her a son.

And Abraham's response to that was that he laughed.

He showed disbelief, lack of faith.

We know he's, he showed a lack of faith in this moment and he laughed.

And so he's told that he's supposed to no longer call his wife Sarah, but he's supposed to have

a new covenant name that reflects and

bring them a child.

So what's interesting about this, Abraham has known

89 years, he's Sarah, and now all of a sudden he's

supposed to start calling her by a different name.

And we are not sure, you know, what that conversation was when he goes to

her and says, look, your name is no longer Sarah.

Every time I speak to you from now on, I'm going to call you by this new covenant name

that will reinforce the fact that you are going to have a child,

faith on his part, and a daily reminder.

But what's interesting is the time lapse between chapter 17 and 18, we're not sure

exactly how much time it is, but it was certainly less than a year, probably a few weeks or more,

when God reappears to him.

And he asks the question, he says, where is your wife Sarah?

He uses that covenant name.

And Abraham says, she's in the tent.

And the next thing that God does is he reiterates that promise,

have a child.

And what was

9 of chapter 18?

He says, where's Sarah, your wife?

In verse 10, he says, I'll return to you this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.

And then we're told that she laughs, that Sarah laughs, and she acts incredulous, like she's never

heard this before.

Like, this is new news to her.

And she says, well, how could I have this pleasure when I'm old?

And it's very interesting because God turns then to Abraham, not to

Sarah, but he turns to Abraham in verse 13 and says, why did Sarah laugh?

Saying, shall I bear a child?

Is anything too difficult for the Lord?

What's interesting is you have no reference or no record between 17 and 18, these two chapters, to

show that Abraham even talked to Sarah, that he ever told her.

I mean, she acts like she...

I think there's a really good reason to believe that either A, Abraham never had the

conversation with her, hasn't been calling her daily by this new name, or that if he

did, he didn't communicate it in faith, because she sounds really incredulous when she hears this, like it's new news

to her.

So this chapter was the most fascinating to me, because his question to Abraham is obviously

not a geographical question.

He knows she's in the tent.

Everybody knows she's in the tent on this

whole covenant promise thing about having a child, and I think it's a

great chapter on marriage, and it really pulls out a

lot.

But

Abraham,

that chapter in context will give people more...

Well, you

actually

kind of

answered the question.

From one of our listeners, but perhaps you could elaborate.

Ronald in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, asked, do you think that God was

really angry with Sarah for laughing?

After all, it was probably an instinctual or guttural reaction to a very

comical notion that any of us might find funny without really meaning to disrespect God.

And do you think that God actually had them name their son Laughter, because that is what

Isaac means, as some kind of a chastisement, or was that something that they could look upon endearingly?

Yeah, those are great questions.

You know, I think his response is that Sarah gets embarrassed at a point, and she says, oh, I didn't laugh.

And God just simply says, yes, you did laugh.

Just like I did.

Yeah, right.

So I think that, you know, in that sense, I think that there's a gentle...

the focus is really not on Sarah and her lack of belief, it's really... the question's

pointed to Abraham.

Abraham, where is your wife, Sarah?

And then, why did your wife, Sarah, laugh?

The responsibility for this is actually put on Abraham, and I think it shows us that Abraham

had not communicated this message in faith as he was supposed to, and he'd had adequate time to

do it, and he didn't do it.

But you know, you think about, if you were told to call your wife a different name, and every time you

spoke that name, it was to be a remembrance of the covenant promise.

I think that's why he said, why did your wife,

Sarah, Abraham a little bit?

And so the name Isaac, you know, was that a

punishment, or was it endearing?

I suppose there's room for disagreement on that.

I tend to think that our frame, he understands that we are but

dust, and, you know, being the father of faith, and

I think this just shows us a human side of Abraham, that he didn't do everything right, he wasn't

perfect, and yet God still used him, and used Sarah, and I think that God,

he disciplines us, but he does it for our good.

Hebrews 12 tells us that.

We've had fathers who discipline us as they thought best.

God disciplines us for our own good, and so I think there was some discipline of the Lord in this, but

it's loving discipline.

He's a loving father, and yeah, he disciplines us, but he does it in love for us.

Well, thank you, Ronald.

You've.

Also won a free copy of Questions God Asks, and please make sure

we have your full mailing address, so cvbbs .com, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service,

cvbbs .com can ship that book out to you, and once again, we thank New Leaf Press

for providing us these free copies of this book.

Well, regarding, once again, Abraham and Sarah, the

question that we should all be asking ourselves every time that we become

impatient with God, or we lose hope, or get discouraged, or depressed, is anything too

difficult for the Lord?

If you could address that.

Yeah, well, let me back out for just a minute, I'll take a run at that.

If I was writing down the different questions, I told you this came out of my own personal Bible study through the Old Testament,

I started writing down the questions, it stunned me that most of these questions really dealt

with life.

The questions of origin, epistemology, the nature of God,

faith, and I just started thinking, wow, these are the bigs in life!

Our relationship to God, who He is, our relationship to each other, and so

I was really amazed that it was almost like this is a kind of catechism, if you will, it's

sort of a systematic theology manual that God has given us where He's guiding us

through the main core doctrines of the Christian faith that God asks,

and so there were 19 of them that I covered in this book.

Different topics, and that fascinated me as well, that the topics that Jesus addressed in

the New Testament were completely different topics than the ones God has

addressed here

in the Old

Testament, but

this part is central, by faith,

and you know, I think, I don't want to

get, sometimes we've made

for we're justified by law, and by keeping the law.

Right, that's a major heresy, actually.

Yeah, and today we're justified by grace.

Well, people by faith,

you know, we

really have a great,

to have the

whole

narrative.

Amen, and

that's

justification by faith alone,

as

the

Reformers.

Said.

Yes, if works were required, works

that were pleasing to God were required to justify men in the Old Testament, then

all of our Old Testament heroes would be in hell, because none of them would be able to

perform works that would merit heaven.

No human being could, and that's, isn't that exactly why Jesus Christ had to die on Calvary?

Absolutely, yeah, when we talk about.

Sola fide, you know, faith alone,

and yet, you know, what a, how firm a foundation, right, that we have, that we can completely throw our

entire weight, that we know

that any other foundation,

but on the merits of Christ,

we have in Him, in the purpose of

every reason, in our justification.

Amen, and we have a listener, B .B. in

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, asks, I do not want to broad brush, but are there not

dispensationalist Christians who believe that in the Old Covenant, men were justified by

their works?

Well, you know, I think within evangelicalism.

Today, I think we have cliches that we

embrace, and Sunday School theology that we embrace, and that we

repeat and regurgitate, and sometimes we're not careful, we're not precise

in the way that we explain, explain

the

100 years of the Gospel, and the way that

we've communicated, so it's theology, and I just am disappointed

that more Christians, we

like to,

it's not precise,

it's not, you know, I just, I'm

really not digging into the scripture,

why it shows like this, to learn things, and to continue to grow, and be

willing to change, and you know, sometimes we cling tenaciously to things that we've been taught, that we think,

you know, just like Apollos was taught the way more perfectly, taught

more perfectly to us by Bible teachers on radio,

and I'm grateful for this show, and Chris, I don't know if you're to be commended for this, but

your listeners asked some of the best questions I've been asked so far.

You have some astute listeners.

Yeah, well, I don't know how I could take the credit for that, but other than the fact that the

guests that I select seem to be drawing a intelligent audience.

I think it's encouraging.

It's encouraging to hear people that want to know the Word of God, and to study it deeply.

It's so encouraging, so inspiring.

Amen, and isn't there some misunderstanding regarding the Old

Covenant, because of the fact that, first of all, the

New Covenant is a new and better covenant for a reason, and in the Old Covenant,

which had earthly aspects to it, where someone could be

removed from the physical covenant of Israel because of their disobedience, and

so people often get the wrong understanding of that meaning, that

they perhaps lost their salvation, or perhaps that they needed

those obedient, those acts of obedience, those deeds of obedience, they needed them

as a requirement for salvation, rather than being a part of the physical covenant of

Israel.

Am I on the right track?

Yeah, I think I understand what you're saying.

I think I understand what you're saying.

You know, the fact is, there is a correlation, and James talks about this.

There's a connection, and there's a correlation between faith and works.

There's a correlation between salvational, you know, saving faith and obedience, and

as Christians, when we truly believe, we will have acts that correspond with

that.

But the question is, you know, the horse and the...

And so obedience is really the reflection of our faith.

We love God, and that we want to do what pleases Him.

We obey Him, you know, because we get to.

But I think, you know, the view that we sometimes have of the old covenant is like, you

know, they had to perform, they had to do all these things to earn their way to God, to be good enough, and if

they didn't do all the right things...

You know, the fact is, and

faith with Abraham had to do with him doing

certain...

To have a

son in his

old age,

there

were...

Because

we're

just...

Amen, and we are going to our final break right now.

Oh, and Bibi, you have also won a free copy of Questions God

Asks by Israel Wayne, compliments of our friends at New Leaf Press, and also

compliments of cvbbs .com, who will be shipping that out to you.

That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Israel Wayne, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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And we are back now with our final 25 minutes or so with Israel Wayne, and we are discussing his book,

Questions God Asks.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question before we run out of time, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live

outside the USA, and only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private question.

And now we move on to the question, what is your name in reference to

Jacob, if you could?

This one I think is also.

A favorite of mine, because it's so complex, and there's much more in the chapter than we'll

all have time to deal with here.

But you know, you think about

that, it just

seems, because again, does the angel of the Lord not know who he's

dealing with?

Does he not know who this person is?

You know, I can't conceive of a scenario where this angel of the Lord is just randomly

walking through the woods and stumbles on a guy, and then he's

like, man, who are you?

I don't know who I've tangled with here, right?

No, I mean, he went specific.

Our life had sought a blessing, and he had wanted to be blessed,

but he tended to seek the blessing in his

own flesh, and really met his match with his uncle Laban, who was a very

conniving and cunning manipulator.

And he struggled his whole life trying to gain a blessing, and now at this point where

he's going back to try to make things right with his brother Esau, and he's trying to make a fresh

start, he's met by the angel of the Lord, and he hangs on to this

angel of the Lord, and he says, I won't let you go unless you bless me.

And the response is, what is your name?

So what is it God wants him to think about?

Well, what does what does Jacob mean?

His name means one who grasps at the heel, and figuratively that means one who deceives, or one who

lies, or one who manipulates.

And I think God is wanting to ask Jacob, do you know who you are?

Are you willing to come to grips with your own nature?

You know, you're asking me to bless you, but are you willing to really be honest in

your flesh?

And he finally does.

You know, he says, I'm Jacob.

And when you think about the context of that, the last time

that he had asked his

uncle, he lied, and he said, I am Esau,

your firstborn.

And he got the blessing from his earthly father through manipulation.

And I think what God is trying to communicate to him here is that you're not going to get the blessing from

God through lying and manipulation, because you can't lie to God.

God knows everything.

He knows you.

And so the question is, are you willing to confess who you are and be

honest?

I'm a liar.

I'm a deceiver.

I'm a manipulator.

Then God says, you've struggled with man.

You've struggled with God.

Now your name is going to be changed to no longer be called liar, deceiver, manipulator.

Now you'll be called prince with God.

And he had his name changed.

And I just think it's

that whole in us when we finally come to the end of ourselves,

allow God to change.

What is our name?

You know, the name and

the identity

fundamentally

and

regenerate

you.

That chapter

should be

redemption.

So many life.

Lessons for all of us.

And then, and obviously that whole story of Jacob and

Esau turns on its head, the whole notion that we were talking about earlier of

earning our favor with God by what we do.

You know, it's not like Jacob was the better brother or something.

And yet, Jacob, he loved and.

Esau, he hated.

And what is, what is really the proper response when you realize that God has just

demonstrated his unmerited favor to you?

Not because of who you are, not because of any spite who you are,

terrible wickedness of your heart, but God has chosen to first of all, pray to you and to

save you from the tyranny of yourself.

I think the only proper response to that is gratitude

to just say, God, I don't understand why you've chosen me.

I don't understand why you have selected me and saved me.

Stand it.

I can't even really explain it and articulate it in a way that makes, oh, I'm just

great.

Yeah.

This is Buzz Taylor who has

something to say.

I can see why.

This is also one of your favorite questions, all of them, because his name was changed to Israel.

Exactly.

Yes.

Exactly.

It does kind of play into an extent, because, you know, I've had to, over time, think about the meaning of

my name.

And, you know, another possible definition of that name, Prince of God,

is also one who struggles with God.

And, you know, in my life, I've had, and we all have,

right?

Because I've seen

people who get a lot of answers.

And we move on to another interesting question that God asks of Moses.

What's in your hand?

Yeah.

You know, the staff of God

that, being called Moses, making excuses before God and

saying, oh, I'm not capable.

I'm not qualified to do what God's calling me to do.

God takes something very simple, and he says, okay, this is,

you know, this staff, this rod, this is going to be a symbol of me working through you

to accomplish my purposes.

And it's interesting how the terminology shifts, and it

really, and it's

interesting how he brings plagues

to Egypt, uses

it to bring redemption to his people.

But when, at the end of his life, his hand, and he

uses it for his own self, he strikes the rock when he's not commanded to.

He's told to speak to him, but

that staff, we hear it referred to again in the Bible.

A warning to us in Minnesota, when God calls you to something, and he

takes something insignificant, you know, which, whatever we have,

whatever we have to offer, and God can

take it and make it something powerful, and make it something

that, and

try to

use it.

Even though there's to

be used for

the glory of God and

the

ministry of other

people.

C .J. in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, says,.

I hope this is not too far off topic, but since you mentioned the staff of Moses, I was wondering if

you believe the magicians of Pharaoh actually performed miracles, or

were they merely tricks?

Great question.

You know, I think one thing that, I'll just share this, yesterday as I was driving

home from Massachusetts and New York, I did some seminars out there, I was

listening to, she had a partial on the radio, and she had a guest on there who's written a

book about how we as Christians have tried to dismiss the supernatural, and that we've almost

become Christian rationalists, and trying to explain everything supernatural away

in the Bible with a naturalist explanation.

And I guess I would say that I think that we need to be careful that we don't

try to create a scientific, rationalistic, materialistic explanation

to everything that happens in the Bible.

And it seems to me like, in the context that it's given,

that it's presenting a supernatural phenomenon, a

glide of hand, or an illusion, or something like that.

To me, it doesn't seem like the text reflects that.

Again, I suppose it's a point where Christian scholars may view it differently,

but rationalistic arguments, even on the Red Sea,

I saw a documentary where someone was trying to

say that there

was a sandbar.

Sometimes

there's danger in just

a natural explanation of that.

Yeah, and obviously, though, there's a big.

Difference between a miracle that God is performing and a miracle that a satanic

individual or entity is performing.

And there seems to be disagreement over whether this is the actual

satanic being or person

performing miracles by Satan's power, or is God just allowing this

person to perform a miracle?

You know, there seems to be some disagreement over that kind of thing amongst brethren in Christ.

Yes, but I think the final thing that we can agree.

On, very definitively, is to demonstrate the power

of God.

Yes, and we

should

never

dismiss.

The idea that there are powers of evil going on in this

world.

Obviously, the power of our sovereign God, who is omnipotent,

makes any other power child's play in comparison, but it

doesn't mean that those things don't exist, those supernatural things.

Yeah, I think of the line in Martin Luther's hymn, and again, going back to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, you know,

one of the lines of his famous hymn is, he says,.

And you also bring

up in the book,

who made

your mouth in

reference to Moses?

When I talk

about this, and God, I think, is asking us that, and I think I equated in

that chapter to evangelism, because sometimes we feel like, well, I'm not gifted at evangelism, or

I can't do apologetics, I'm not an eloquent speaker, I don't know how to talk to people, and we make

these excuses, just, who made your mouth?

It's not ultimately us doing, saying all the right things, and

communicating all the perfect arguments, and so forth.

That doesn't save people.

You know, a good argument has never saved anybody.

When people are saved spirits, and does God use

the spoken word, the preached word?

Yes, of course, and so we're grateful we get to be used in that capacity, but it's God

who saves people.

We don't save people, we don't have the capacity to save people through a clever argument, or the right kind of

evangelistic method.

God's not asking for us to be perfect in terms of our ability to communicate,

but he is wanting us to be

with people.

Now, in the case of Moses, God himself made it clear that he was

choosing Moses for some very important history -making tasks.

Don't you think that we who live in this day and age,

uh, where God is not audibly speaking to us, and appearing to us in visions,

and so on, at least that's where I'm coming from as a cessationist, don't you think we have to be,

we have to recognize what we, what our abilities and gifts are, and not

everybody is called to be a teacher, or a preacher, or, you know, I think that one of the greatest lies

that adults tell children, which seems to be a credo for

our day and age, is you can do anything if you set your mind to it, or if you

believe in it hard enough, or whatever the case is, but that's not true, is it?

Well, of course we all have inclinations.

I have a gifting toward teaching.

I actually don't feel that I have a natural inclination towards evangelism in the same way that I do with

teaching and discipleship.

You know, like Ray Comfort, I think of a guy like that, and I think, oh, he's just wired to do evangelism,

that's just how he's built.

I think there's some truth to that, that we have different inclinations, but at the same time, I think all of

us are called to represent Christ, and when I'm sitting next to somebody on an airplane, or in

a bus, or working next to somebody, I can't let myself off the hook and say,

well, I would share the gospel with them, but it's just not my gift.

You know, I think all of us have an obligation to be willing to

what Christ has done in us, off of us, and

put on us sometimes, is that we have this expectation that we have,

we're responsible for, you know,

make them get...

Yes, and when it

comes to.

Our evangelizing the lost, that is a command to everybody, that's where the difference would be.

Not everybody's going to be called to be a pastor or an evangelist, evangelist in the

sense of the term, that they are a preacher who has been called of

God into the ministry, but we are all

commanded to not be ashamed of the gospel, and to preach the

word, and to evangelize, and to, you know, correct those in error, and

so on.

If we are faithful followers of Christ, this is something that we all have to do, even if we don't think

that we have a oratory gift or anything like that.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Well, I think we have time for one more question before I have you summarize what

you most want our listeners to walk away with today.

We have another question that we have,

why are you on your face?

Yeah, this is a question that was asked to Joshua,.

Because they had gone to Jericho, and they'd had this phenomenal win, you know, where God moved

powerfully, and they saw the walls of Jericho fall down, and then they go out in their next

campaign, and things go really bad when they go to Ai, and they're

terribly beaten in battle, and Joshua turns to God, and he's on his face, and he's crying out

to God, and he's trying to, you know, really understand what's going on here,

and the angel of the Lord comes to him, and he says, what are you doing on your face?

And it's interesting, the Lord reveals to Joshua

that Achan was hiding sin in the tent, and that the blessing was

not flowing, and that they needed to deal with

the sin from God's blessing, and so I

talk in that chapter about the importance of checking our own hearts, and being willing

to deal with sin that God exposes in our lives, and not leave it buried

under the tent, not try to hide it and conceal it, because God's aware of it.

God knows about it in

terms of

lives and our ministries and so forth, and so again, sobering,

you know, it's important, and we need to

be mindful of that, and continue and be strong and spiritually

mindful that we don't open sins

that

God asks

us to even apply them

to.

Petey Amen, and if you could summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before we

go off the air.

I think that God is trying to show us through the questions that He asks that one of the best ways to

teach is not merely to,

and I've learned

a lot, Bible teaching,

in asking questions and really helping them to assess

their ideas and presuppositions

to know Him better.

He wants us to understand Him and have relationship with Him, and relationship with one another, and so we can

learn more about ourselves, we can learn more about God, God and others.

Petey.

Amen.

Well, I want to make sure that all of our listeners have all of your contact

information.

First of all, if anybody wants to order this book,

Questions God Asks, you can get that through CVBBS .com,

CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for BibleBookService .com, and of course you can also go to the publisher's

website, MasterBooks .com, MasterBooks .com.

We want to thank Master Books and New Leaf Press for providing these free

books that we gave away today, and if you could let our listeners know about how they can

personally contact you.

I speak at a lot of conferences and churches.

If you're interested in having me speak at your family camp or other events, please visit

FamilyRenewal .org, and they can

also visit me on Facebook,

Family Renewal, and I'm also on Twitter, at Israel Wayne, and my wife and I have a

podcast that we do where we talk about family issues.

It's called Family Renewal.

You can look it up on Google Play or iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, but we would love to connect with you, and

if you want to join our email list, it's FamilyRenewal .org forward slash subscribe, and we can let you

know when we're going to be speaking in your area.

By the way, just out of curiosity, where did you speak in New York?

I spoke in Brooklyn, at a Baptist church in Brooklyn, and we also did a

seminar in York, Pennsylvania.

So we were kind of doing an out east trip, and then we spoke in a place in Connecticut.

I think it's called Plainville, Connecticut, something like that.

Yeah, yeah, there is, and I think there's a Plainfield in Connecticut, too, but...

Yeah, so we did an east coast trip, and my wife and I are in Chicago right now.

We're going to fly tomorrow to Seattle for the NOAA conference at NOAAconference .org with

Ken Heum, and Way of the Master Ministries, and Emiles Wayne is going to be speaking there, and Kevin

Swanson, and internationally known speakers

at NOAAconf.

Great, yeah, well, I immediately think of a friend of mine out there, Bill Webster, who is a

apologist and author who's written a number of books.

I'll make sure I let him know about that.

He lives in Battleground, Washington, and maybe he can make the trip out there.

Well, I want to thank you so much for being our guest today.

I want to thank everybody who listened to the program today.

Don't forget about the pastor's luncheon next Thursday, October 26th,

11 a .m. to 2 p .m.

That's absolutely free of charge to all men in the ministry, pastors, elders, deacons, power church leaders.

If you'd like to attend this free event, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson

at gmail .com, and you could register that way, put pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

I hope you all always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you

are a sinner.