We're celebrating Memorial Day weekend. And today here at Openline, we're celebrating Spindle Day, also known as Empty the Inbox Day. It's an all mailbag, all the time episode of Openline. We've got the questions you've sent us about the Bible, God and the spiritual life, and we're getting ready to address them. So hang tight. We're going to get to those in just a moment. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Open Line with Doctor Michael Ray. Dominic. That's me. This is
Moody Radio's Bible study across America. I'm here today and every Saturday to do my best to answer your questions about the scriptures. Normally, the bulk of our program is taking your phone calls, but not so today. Today it's all mailbag all the time and the best way to be in touch with us if you have another question is via our website openline. Radio.com. It has links to anything you might need, whether it's email or Twitter or Facebook.
But mainly there's a link that says Ask Michael a question. You can click on that and post your question right there. Joining me today is a person I turn to when I have a question about the scripture. She's my favorite Bible teacher. Her name is Eva Riedel. She is a colleague of mine on the faculty of Moody Bible Institute. She's a contributor to both the Moody Bible Commentary and the Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy. And she happens to be my wife for all these many, many years. And
we were married on Memorial Day weekend. Oh, I think when Lincoln was still president, he was. Yeah, right. We've been married a long time. I'm so glad you're here with me today to answer the questions.
Oh, it's so much fun to be here.
It's actually easier to do it this way with you here at the table with me. Because usually when I'm in the radio studio, you have to text me the answer. So this way I can just turn to you and you can answer for yourself. Also joining me today is the producer of Open Line, Tricia McMillan. Tricia is here with me every week. You know her from the mailbag, the Febc mailbag. And Tricia, I'm so glad you're with me.
I'm glad to be here.
Yeah. You know, a lot of people think Tricia, she's just like an expert at radio stuff. But she also has a bachelor and master's degree from Moody Bible Institute. And so she is the other person I turn to when I say, where's that verse? She has it instantly. So thank you so much for being with me today. We're going to do our best. Thank you for putting these questions together. You're the one. You are the Malka of the mailbag, the queen of the mailbag. You are
in charge of it. And so, uh, I'm so glad about that. Courtney Young, our our engineer, is with us. She's making us sound good. Thank you so much, Courtney. Well, go get your Bible, get yourself a cup of coffee and head over to the radio kitchen table. And we're going to talk about the scriptures. And so I'm going to turn it right over to you, Tricia, because you've got the mailbag, right?
Yes I do. Yeah. All right. Our first question is from Maria in Illinois. She listens to WNBA. She says I recently joined as a kitchen table partner.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
She said, I also want to thank you for your service. I'm learning so much about the Bible every day by listening to your past programs. In a recent program, you said, um, God created us because we like to worship God, and worshiping him makes us happy. And this was kind of this was a question actually my daughter had asked about, Is Jesus selfish to create us for the purpose of worshiping him? Maria asks, since God knows everything before it occurs and new we are, we would be stubborn and
would continue to sin till the day of our transformation. Transformation. And technically, he doesn't really need us. Why would he make us? And I will even add to that. Why did he create anything? Like why? I mean, he's self contained and self-sufficient and he doesn't need.
And that's exactly right. God is a totally self-sufficient being. He doesn't need us. And if you take it back the way you're thinking, if I give you a reason for our relationship to the world that God created, then we say, well, why did he make the world? And so the first question is, why did God make the world? And I'm going to give you the answer right now. Tell me if I'm right or wrong about this. Eva. We have no idea in terms of what the scriptures say.
The Bible doesn't say why God made the world. It just says that he did. But we can. What do you. What do you think, am I right? Do you have a verse?
You know, I have a thought from one of my favorite biblical thinkers, C.S. Lewis, who in his book miracles says it is the sort of question which God does not answer.
There we go. Yeah, we have that. We have that in Deuteronomy 2929, where it says the things revealed belong to us, but the things that are not revealed belong to God forever. And so it's not revealed to us. But I can speculate. How about this? That God is infinitely creative and therefore sought to make this infinitely wonderful creation. That's a reflection of who he is because he is infinitely creative. And, uh, someone might say, why did Michelangelo sculpt?
Why did Leonardo da Vinci paint? They are reflecting the image of God in them, that they are creative. And they had to. They were not that God is compelled to do anything, but they it comes out of them naturally because of their creativity. Well, God as the infinite Creator, he created the world and so.
And being the creator, I think is such a key element of the the thing that God has revealed about himself. We should not fall into the wrong thinking that only Genesis one talks about God being the creator. I challenge anybody to take a green marker and read through their whole Bible, and every place where it identifies God as our creator. Give that a highlight and when you flip those pages, it's just going to be a field of green.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's the first step. And then it says in Genesis one that God created us in his image and according to his likeness. That's why he created humanity. And when we think of a likeness or an image, it actually takes us to what the pagans did. They would make little idols, an image, right? Of a God, and put it in their temple to represent the God in their temples. Right? So God says, this is my creation, and I'm not making you into little idols, but I'm
making you my representative on earth. Which is why he gave Adam and Eve dominion over the creation. And that's why humanity has dominion over the creation. So God creates the world out of his. Creativity. And then he gives us dominion over to represent him, to have dominion over the world. So that's one of the reasons he made us to give us dominion over his creation.
This Dominion word, this is kind of a loaded word. People often think that means that we have the right just to use and destroy to trash.
And well, actually.
It doesn't mean that at all. It means to care for.
To care for.
And to care for.
We have rulership and stewardship of the world, even with the fall. And then, of course, uh, I think now this is highly speculative. God, as a personal being, he is personal. He has mind, heart, will. That's part of the image of God in us. We have mind, heart, will or mind, uh, intellect, emotion and volition. Because of that, Uh. God made us in his image. That's what we are.
And he he wanted chose to have. I should say, I don't think he had a need for it, but he chose to have a relationship because of him being a personal being. So he wanted to have chose to have an eternal relationship with humanity. And that's why he made us.
Okay. Thank you. I hope that helps you. Maria, thank you for that question. Uh, speaking of creation and possibly speculation, not sure. Mary Alice in Florida listens to and says angels were created, but the Bible doesn't talk about which day when seems to be the most logical day that God would have created angels. Or were they before creation, would they have been part of creation in the Bible?
Doesn't say doesn't say, you know, it gives the six days and things that happen in the seventh day of rest, and angels aren't included in any of that. So maybe it was.
Some time afterwards. There's the incident in the garden with Adam and Eve, and there's a fallen angel controlling that serpent. That's Satan. And so he must have been created before then.
Right.
And there's there's the good angels that are that are posted at the gates of the Garden of Eden.
Yeah. And it does say in job, uh, job 38, I believe it is, unless I get it wrong that, uh, that that at creation all the sons of God. Shouted for joy. It says in job 38. Uh, who fixed? Let's see. Uh, where were you when I established the earth? Verse four. Tell me if you have understanding who fixed its dimensions. Certainly you know who stretched a measuring line across it, what supports its foundations, or who laid its cornerstone, while the morning stars sang together and all the sons
of God shouted for joy. That's a reference to the angels, and it's talking about God creating the world. And the angels are celebrating when he did it. So he must have created the angels before he created the world. And, uh, I don't, uh.
I don't know exactly when, but we know it was before.
Yeah, it was before creation of the universe.
Okay.
Yeah. That's right. You know, uh, sometimes. And I really appreciate that people want to know these things. They think, well, is there a verse that tells us, and, you know, we just do our best?
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes there are. And sometimes sometimes it's very clear. Yeah. And sometimes it's not clear. And sometimes it's not mentioned at all.
Exactly.
All right.
Well thank you. We're we're going to take a little break here. And when we come back, we've got a lot of time for all these mailbag questions that have been sent in. Thank you so much for doing that. Remember check out our website Open Line radio.org. And if you have a question now just click on the Ask Michael a question link. And Trish will put your question in the mailbag. We're going to be right back. This is Michael Melnick, Eva Rae Melnick and Tricia McMillan right
here on Open Line. Biblical literacy is essential for spiritual growth. Many of us struggle with unfamiliar terms and titles in Scripture. The Ultimate Bible Dictionary bridges that gap with clear definitions of hundreds of biblical people, places, and objects. When you give a gift of any size to open line, we want to say thanks by sending you the ultimate Bible dictionary. Call (888) 644-7122 or visit open line radio.org. Welcome back to
Open Line. This is Michael Ray Domenic along with me around the radio kitchen table today is Eva Ray melnick and Tricia McMillan. We're doing an all mailbag all the time program, catching up, clearing the spindle. And I'm so glad you joined us today as well. Around the kitchen table. You know, there's just no way in the world, in my opinion, that open line could be on the air without all the people that work together to accomplish getting these questions out, making sure the phone calls come in,
the the engineering to make it sound right. And, you know, people sometimes think that, oh, Radulovic's got this program. No, no, no, no, we have a team here that that makes this program happen. Even today. We've got a team of people here in the studio. And one of the great things about being on Moody Radio is we have a team of kitchen table partners as well. Those are people who give monthly
to open line. And it's it's just I'm so grateful for them because they help keep us on the air answering people's questions about the Bible, God and the spiritual life every week. And they give monthly so we can answer those questions weekly. And if you are interested in becoming a kitchen table partner, I've got a special benefit for you. Kitchen table partners receive every other week an exclusive Bible study prepared just for our kitchen table partners.
Get an email, click on it and it's about 5 to 7 minute Bible study that you might find helpful and encouraging. At least I hope you do. And if you want to become a kitchen table partner, all you have to do. And here I am. I've lost the phone number. Oh. What in the world has happened? Here it is. If you'd like to become a kitchen table partner, just call 447122. All those numbers in my head and I can't remember them.
Could you go over that one more time?
(888) 644-7122. Or go to Open Line radio.org and click on the link that asks about becoming a kitchen table partner. So appreciate it if you decide to do that. And we're going to go right back to the mailbag now with Tricia. And she's laughing at me because I forgot her phone number.
That's okay. That's okay. You you said it correctly. Which is more important? Okay, good. Um, our next question is from Steven in Illinois. Listens to WNBA. Who did God tell the creation story to? As found in Genesis. And is there any possibility that parts of it are myth in the best sense of the word? Still rich with truth.
Well, let me just say myth is a story that's not true. That teaches a truth. I guess you would say. Uh, but as I understand biblical narrative, biblical history, it is written factually, not mythically. The nature of biblical narrative is to take it at face value. And so it seems to me that when we look at the creation narrative, we need to take it at face value. Uh, now, who did he tell? Obviously, God told Adam and Eve, you know. And then Adam and Eve must have told, uh, Seth.
At least you know their son who passed it on. And the story came down. And likely by the time Noah gets around, he knows it. And then he told it. He and his sons, they told it to people afterwards. And the story just gets carried down orally. Uh, maybe Abraham knew it. He passed it on to Isaac. Isaac passed it on to Jacob. These oral traditions. And then, uh, finally, Jochebed told Moses. Moses wrote it. So, that's one possibility, that it was just an oral tradition that was passed
down from the people of God. Generation by generation. Then the other possibility is that God told Moses. Moses wrote that story in Genesis. He wrote the whole primeval history, Genesis one through 11 based on what God told him. Those are the only two possibilities that I can think of. Maybe Eva has another one, but.
We don't have an oral culture like was part of the of the ancient Jewish culture in the ancient world. So it's hard for us to imagine stories coming down and being accurately retained. But that was not an unusual event.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was an oral culture because they at the maybe they weren't even writing in the times of, of the early days, the earliest days. Right.
And so we do know writing is very, very old, but yeah. You know.
And it was old enough. Some people say Moses couldn't have written it because there was no writing in 1400 B.C. that's been debunked. Oh, yeah. Even earlier, there was writing with letters. So, uh. Yeah, that's that seems to me either there and the oral traditions were maintained almost verbatim, passed on from generation to generation.
And I'll say recently, um, I was amazed, um, did the math and heard my pastor preach on, um, well, we're going through Hebrews 11, but then, because you're going through that, we're going back into Genesis and looking at the people that.
Hebrews.
11 is talking about. And if you do the math on Adam through the generations, if I recall this correctly, Adam would have still been alive when Enoch was taken, was taken up. So so this isn't even like my dad told me. And I told my children because my dad wasn't around anymore. Adam is still alive, and he could still be. This is still like he's.
He could have been the oral tale teller. You know, he could have been the one passing that on.
Right? Like, still to these, you know.
Many generations.
Many generations later, that it's still a first generation story that's being passed on. Now, that said, that does not negate, um, God, uh, negate it just being an oral tradition that is not biblically inspired. Correct?
Yeah. The inspiration is when the scriptures are written, the Bible is what's inspired, not oral tales, but if it's an accurate story and then when God leads Moses to write it, it's written accurately, because Moses is the author and he was superintended by the Holy Spirit according to Second Peter 121. God moved him to write what what it was. And then we have an inspired text or God breathed text. Okay.
Okay. All right. Thanks for that question. Next question is from Elizabeth in Tennessee. Listens to WNBA. Uh, I look forward to your program every Saturday. She says thank you. What was the battle or war that David killed Goliath in. Why was there a battle and what were the two sides fighting over? And then when did it happen? Well, that's. What year was.
That? It just appears that when the Philistines arrived on the coast of Israel, that they were encroaching into the land of Israel, trying to conquer the whole land, but they actually were mostly coastal. The five cities of the Philistines. Uh, Gath. Ashkelon. I can't remember them all. Ekron. Gaza. Gaza. Yeah. They were all there on the coast, the Mediterranean coast. And, uh, they were encroaching, trying to get into Judea.
And you can when you read the Old Testament, you can see the Philistines were one of the major, ongoing, relentless enemies of Israel.
Yeah. And, uh, and so it was really of who's going to control this land that was called Canaan, or then was called Israel by the time Saul was king. Uh, under Joshua, it gets conquered. And uh, and there was an encroachment trying to conquer it. And so it was that ongoing battle. It was a persistent problem with the Philistines. And then, uh, that's why there was a battle there. This is that's right near, uh, got Goliath of Gath got, uh,
in Hebrew. Uh, so it's right there by it. They actually here's a cool thing, uh, right there near that area where he's supposed to be from, they have uncovered, uh, bully things that that were like.
Little clay seals.
Yeah, that have Goliath's name on it.
And so Goliath might not have been a personal name. It might have been more of a a title. A position like Pharaoh wasn't a personal name. It was a position.
It may have been just a common personal name. I don't think it was. I don't think it was Goliath's. Uh. We can't. It may have been just a common Philistine name so that there were others.
Yeah, like Michael's a common American name.
It doesn't mean if you find something with Michael on it, it means me.
That it's yours. Yeah.
Okay, so. But it does show that there were. There was Goliath. Goliath's. I guess you could say in Philistia. Um. And when did it happen? Uh, Eva.
That's that's kind of that's an interesting thing because they're like, unlike the question we looked at before, like when the angels were created and we don't have any kind of date or anything to help us. Um, in Second Kings five, verse four, where it's talking about David becoming king, it says David was 30 years old when he became king, and he reigned for 40 years. Now we're getting into the deep weeds of math. So how can we determine
if he was 30 when he became king? How does that help us to know when the Battle of David and Goliath happened? And what year might that have been? And I'm just going to give it to our math major here, Michael. Right.
To, uh, well.
To talk about that for a second.
David became king in 1010 BC, and he was 30 years old. Uh, and so he was not yet of age to go to war, which is 20. That's why he was not yet at the battle. Remember, he goes to the battle when his brothers are there, and the age of war, according to the Torah, men went to war when they were 20. And so how old was David? He must have been between 15 and 20, I would say. Let's just guess 15, just for the sake of ease.
And so, uh, since he became king when he was 30, it was 15 years earlier that the battle with Goliath happened. And so that would make it about 1025 BC, that the battle between David and Goliath took place.
Okay. And that was second Samuel five four. Okay. For those who are looking it up. Second Samuel five four. Okay. Thank you. Um, it is when you do actually do the math, it is kind of like, oh, you can figure out some of these things. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Barbara is in Georgia, listens to Wlp. I love the show. When I can listen. And I always learn something new about the Bible. Here's my question. Does anyone know the
tunes or melodies of the Psalms? For example, Psalm 69, the Bible that states it's sung to the tune of lilies. Do we have any idea what these tunes are?
Yeah, there are a lot. When you look at the Psalms, there's a lot of these. Different descriptions of.
What they are. Musical markers? Yeah.
Musical markers. And truth to tell. No one knows what they are. That there was like for the choir director and different kinds of things like that. Uh, and and we don't have that. No one recorded it. Uh, so we don't know what it is, what we did get in the Middle Ages and medieval period, like, for example, Psalm five. I'm looking for the choir director with the flutes. Psalm four. For the choir. Director with stringed instruments. And we know that David played the harp. And so maybe he.
The harp, is sort of the guitar of his day. And so here he is. And playing a stringed instrument. And so we don't know what it sounded like. And in the medieval period, to maintain the, uh, the text of the Bible, Jewish, the Hebrew Bible, Jewish scribes called the Masoretes took the traditions of the rabbis and incorporated them by putting vowels in. They also put tropes or accents on the text, and the accents have or tropes have a way of being chanted. And so, uh, today,
if you look at a Hebrew Bible. And you and you know, the tropes you can chant. What, what it sounds like like, for example, when I had my bar mitzvah, my text that I had to read from the prophets was Ezekiel 38, and I didn't just read it verbatim. I chanted it the biome Hahu Biyombo go galat ma Yisrael. That's based on the tropes. So that's the earliest we have of how to chant Hebrew. And it's on the
Hebrew Bible and it's from the medieval period. So then that's the last time I'll ever sing on Open Line.
Okay.
I just wanted people to hear what the medieval tropes sounded like. And Trish is now laughing again. I'm glad I'm keeping her happy. Yeah. So. And now she's coughing. Oh, it's falling apart. We're going to go to a break. That's what we're going to do when we come back. We'll have more of our all mailbag all the time program. Uh, with Tricia McMillan. She'll have pulled herself together by then. And I'm here with Tricia and Eva melnick, and I'm
Michael Riedel. We're answering the questions you sent in on this Memorial Day weekend. Hope you're having a great time. We're going to be right back with more of your questions right here on Open Line. Everyone has questions about God, the Bible, and living out our faith. And that's why we're here on Open Line. We take your questions and provide answers straight from Scripture. But we couldn't do this without you. When you become a kitchen table partner, you're
not only keeping this program on the air. Every weekend, you'll also receive exclusive benefits like personal audio messages from me that offer biblical encouragement. Become a kitchen table partner today by calling 888 644 seven N122 or go to Open Line Radio. Org. Welcome back to Open Line. My name is Michael Ray Dominic. I'm so glad to be with you every week. And joining me this week, uh, for our all mailbag program is Eva melnick. She's a
professor at Moody. And my wife, uh, and also joining me is Tricia McMillan, who's the regular producer of Open Line. And she's the one that's pulled together this all mailbag edition, and she's asking the questions, and we're going to do our best to answer. Let's keep on going.
All right. Next question is from Randy in Kentucky. Listens on the mobile app. I heard a rabbi who said that there was one survivor from the Egyptians at the Red sea. Pharaoh. He later became the king of Nineveh. He said, this is why when Jonah said, repent or be destroyed, he was so quick to command his city to follow Jonah's warning. We have never heard this before, and I was wondering if it was true and if you knew where to find it.
Ah, well, that's a very it's an interesting idea and certainly surprising. However, it is not found in the Bible at all. Okay. Um, it actually is a Jewish tradition, a very old Jewish tradition that, uh, it can be found in the Midrash, which is a collection of Jewish writings. And it's from there. There's a lot of different stories that are interesting, but really are not scripturally based in the midrash.
Yeah, it's basically from a legend, I guess you could call it in Mekhilta. Uh, and uh, there's some other it's a midrash, and the midrash means it really refers to Bible commentaries. There's the Midrash Rabbah, there are midrashim or commentaries on the law, which is what Mekhilta is, uh, and they have many, many, uh, they're called aggadot stories
and they don't have any kind of chronology. You know, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob might have a chat with Moses at some time or, you know, David there, there's no sense of chronology. And that's why even though Pharaoh was drowned in 1400 BC, or if he was drowned, maybe it was just his army. But the Exodus happens 1400 BC and Jonah is from about the eighth century BC, maybe ninth, right there, 500 years apart at least. And
so what do we do with the Midrash? The Midrash is a collection of sermonic illustrations or stories to try and fill in the gaps of biblical narratives. Why did Nineveh repent? Well, we're going to fill it in this way. And they're farfetched, is what I would say. And I love some of the farfetched stories. They're pretty funny or pretty interesting. But here's one of the things that was discovered by a professor. Uh, David, uh, his name's going to come to me in a moment. But anyway, he
teaches at Cambridge. He wrote a book which showed that the rabbis whose commentaries are included in. Uh, in the Midrash from before the destruction of the temple are not far fetched like that. Their commentaries are actually, you can see the principle and the application, because Midrash is only trying to show the contemporary relevance of Scripture. And so there you can see the principle and the application that
they're making. On the other hand, the rabbis who cite from Scripture and give things that they're saying from the periods after the destruction of the temple, they're very far fetched. So you have to be careful when you look at the Midrash to determine when those rabbis were, when they were teaching something, and when they when the and those that are either before ad70 or after A.D. 70.
Is there a some sort of indication to tell when those are? They're all kind of mixed together.
They're all mixed together. And sometimes it's just the school of a particular rabbi might be saying it, so you don't even know for sure if it was that rabbi. But there's books like the Encyclopedia of the sages, where you look up the rabbi who's saying it. You go in that encyclopedia and that will tell you what era they were from. Okay, okay, okay.
Well, thanks for that question, Randy. Next question is from Adrian in Illinois, listens to WNBA. Uh, me and my mom are big fans of Open Line and the moody commentary, so thank you. Here's my question. In Daniel eight, the circumstances surrounding the defeat of Medo-persia by Greece and the persecution of the Jews are described as using the vision of the goat Ram and Little horn. My question pertains to the interpretation of the vision given in Daniel 517.
It says, Son of Man. Understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.
I think that she made a mistake at Daniel eight 1708 17. Okay. Mhm.
What does the phrase time of the end mean in this context? Why is it not referring to the time of Jesus return and the end times? And are there other ways that time of the end is used similarly in the Old Testament? Thanks so much for huge fans.
Well, I love that they love the moody Bible commentary. Uh, and I happen to have written the commentary on Daniel, and one of our goals was when someone reads a text like this and clearly Daniel eight is talking about Antiochus. He is the little horn of Daniel eight. And so how in the. I think when someone reads this, what question would they have? And I thought the question they might have is, well, why does it say it pertains to the time of the end when it's referring clearly
to Antiochus Epiphanes from a period of about 165 BC? Right. And so, since they love the Moody Bible commentary, how about we give the answer right from the Moody Bible Commentary, right?
This is right from the Moody Bible Commentary. I encourage all of our listeners to get a copy of their own, but there's a great compilation that is of just Daniel and Revelation that's also available. And here's what it says. It says Gabriel also indicated that the vision reference to the time of the end. This might seem unexpected, since the events predicted all took place between the sixth and second centuries BC and do not appear to be in
time events. But chapter seven and eight were intentionally placed next to each other, and both mention a little horn. In this way, the author established a deliberate Liberate typological relationship. Daniel seven, referring to the end time Antichrist and Daniel eight referring to the second century BC Antiochus Epiphanes. While a different character, Antiochus, is similar and deliberately presented as
a type of the future Antichrist. Readers through the ages would identify him as the little Horn of Daniel eight, but also recognize that he would typify the end time Antichrist. So although Daniel eight directly referred to Antiochus, this vision pertains to the end times as a type deliberately intended by the author of Daniel. Gabriel interpreted Daniel's vision of the beast as explained above, to refer to the Medo-persian and Greek empires, as well as to the fourfold division
of Alexander's empire. Now, if we only had a a, a C of radio, I could hold this up and you could see this very cool chart that's included about this, that that compares Antiochus as a type of Antichrist. As you can see through Daniel in Revelation compared to one another. So I encourage you to don't miss the opportunity to use the Moody Bible Commentary to answer really good questions. Like this.
Did you have anything to add?
The guy who wrote that did a terrific job. That's all I want to say.
It's clear.
Very clear. He did? Yeah. Um, well, thank you for that question. Uh, Terry wrote us from Minnesota. Listens on the mobile app. I just read an article written by a Christian theologian that states that the traditional view of hell fails the biblical test. The author stated that what the Bible really teaches is that the unsaved will be resurrected, judged of their works, condemned to hell, suffer torment in
proportion to their sins, and then be destroyed. In other words, they will experience a punishment with eternal consequences, but not eternal punishment. Um. Can you. Is this right or wrong?
What do you think? The reason that this extreme annihilationism is what it's called? Why Annihilationism has come up is because people think the idea of eternal separation from God is too harsh, that a loving God wouldn't do that. Uh, so therefore they come up with, um, with the idea that eternal separation means that a person will ultimately be annihilated, and this way they're eternally separated from God, but they're
not conscious of their separation from God because they've been annihilated. But, uh, in Scripture, if we take it at face value, for example, in Isaiah 66, uh, verses 22 through 24, at the end of it it says, they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh. And that's why it says in Daniel 12 two that some will be resurrected to everlasting life,
and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And there are bunches of verses in the New Testament that that seem to indicate, uh, this same perspective that the Old Testament has. For example, in Mark chapter nine, verses 42 through 48, the Lord Jesus talks about hell, which is an unquenchable fire where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. Quoting from Isaiah. And there are other passages. The punishment of eternal destruction that doesn't mean destroyed for
destroyed and not existing, but in a perpetual state of separation. Uh, that's that's in second Thessalonians one five through ten. Uh, there are. I wrote a bunch of these passages down, uh, and uh, in revelation chapter 14. It talks about that the suffering will be forever and ever. They have no rest day or night and the lake of fire. Also, is there the same kind of suffering for in revelation 2010 and verses 14 and 15 it talks about eternal suffering.
Here's here's what I want to say about that. I would like it if Annihilationism was true. I just can't read the Bible in a plain sense and accept it. I would also like it if it weren't so. It ought to motivate me and anyone else that has ever heard about what the Bible says, to proclaim the good news, that we need to be the best ambassadors we can be, to communicate the the truth that God loves us and wants us to be with him forever and do our best to win people. I think that we ought not
to gloat. Or it should. No one should ever think or talk about this without tears. That's that's what I think is so crucial because this is very serious and it's terrible and it's what people choose. We know that from C.S. Lewis. I think he does a great job in a book called the The Great Divorce, where people, even when an opportunity to get a second chance, will choose to.
Continue on their own way.
Yeah. To continue on their own way. Uh, God. Uh, Lewis said that God asks us to say thy will be done in this life. Or if we choose not to, then he says to us, thy will be done, and we're separated from him. We need to do our best if we know the Lord Jesus to communicate the great truth that, uh, that we can spend eternity with God, forever fellowshipping with him, serving him forever. Uh, if we will put our trust in Jesus who died for us
and rose again, that's what we need to communicate. Anyway, uh, we're going to be back with more questions in just a moment. So stay with us. You're listening to Open Line with Michael Reidel, Nick Everett and Tricia McMillan right here on Moody Radio. So many people have questions about Israel. That's why Chosen People Ministry is one of our partners, is offering a free booklet, Why Israel? This book explores the topic of Israel through the lens of Scripture, bringing
clarity to a controversial topic. Has the church replaced Israel in the plan of God? Does ethnic Israel still have a future? What about Israel today? If you'd like answers to these questions, just go to our website openline. radio.org. Scroll down to the link that says Free Gift from Chosen People Ministries. Click on that and you'll be able to sign up for your own copy of Why Israel? Welcome back to Open Line. My name is Michael Ray Melnick,
and with me today is Eva Ray Melnick. She's a professor at Moody and a contributor to the Moody Bible Commentary and the Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy. Also with us, our producer of Open Line, Tricia McMillan, who keeps us on task. And the task at hand is to keep answering questions, right? Yes.
Yes, indeed. Beverly wrote us from Chicago, listens to WMP. She is looking at Genesis 38 and in the story this is the story of Tamar. And Judah, she says, I knew it was the culture that if your husband died, then you married his brother to produce an heir. And the march today in the word devotional, it stated that the Hittite levirate law stipulated that if her husband's brother died, she was to marry his father. I had never heard this or read this. Can you tell me more? Was this the law?
Well, first of all, I think it's really important that we recognize that levirate law, the the idea, the idea that someone is to marry the brother of the deceased or the family, the relative of the deceased. That's really what brother would mean. It doesn't have to be necessarily only the brother. It could be the relative, but you could see the brother situation going on with Judas sons, right? And in Genesis 38, that's in the law of Moses. And this is way before these events took place, before
the law of Moses was given. So Judah was not practicing the law of Moses. He was practicing prophecy, likely a cultural expression of what to do when when a spouse dies.
So it was already part of the culture to.
Yeah, levirate law was incorporated into the Law of Moses, but it was already part of the culture. And I don't think that we should. And perhaps it is true, it makes sense that the Hittite law stipulates that the husband dies. The wife then marries the father. But I don't think that's what's going on here in Genesis 38. It's not that part of the culture. She wanted to marry his brother. And then the second brother died. And then then he held back. The third brother, Judah did.
And so what she does is she's concerned with carrying, carrying on the lineage of Judah. And so she goes through this elaborate scheme where she pretends to be a prostitute and then deceives Judah into sleeping with her. She gets pregnant because she's she is concerned. Then, of course, when Judah hears that his daughter in law is pregnant, he wants to have her, uh, experience capital punishment, right?
He wants to have her burned. And then, uh, what she does is she says, here's the pledge I receive from whoever. This is, the person who made me pregnant. So this is this seems like, terrible. And yet, what does Judah say? You are more righteous than I. And the reason he says it, not because her deception was right, or because sleeping with her father in law was right, but rather her righteousness was that she was concerned with
the lineage of Judah and he was not. Judah was not concerned with carrying on his family line, which is what he ought to have been concerned with. And so in that sense, she is deemed she's declared righteous by him. And that's what we need to read her, that that was her great concern. And he was not righteous because he didn't care about that. And what happens is then in Genesis 49, you come to the promise. And there in Genesis 49 there's something very special about Judah.
Which is that that the Messiah would come from the Lion of Judah. So that, you know, I think it's so interesting. He says, you are more righteous than I. And then later on, we find out in Genesis 4910 that it says that the Messiah himself is going to be coming from the Lion of Judah. And if she had not done this bold and yet seeming to us outrageous thing that would have not been possible. Yeah.
And then when you read the lineage of Jesus in the Gospels, you see Tamar is even in them.
In Matthew.
Right?
Yeah. That she has she is part of that lineage and mentioned by name.
Mhm. Isn't that amazing?
Yeah. Yeah. It really is.
Yeah.
Um.
Which even shows that even stupid, dumb wrong things people do, God can actually use to advance his purposes.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah. That's amazing too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm going to skip ahead. And, uh, David wrote us from Florida. Listens on the Moody App. I love the show. And I'm studying the gospel of Mark with my small group. Looking at Mark four verses 30 to 32. Uh, it's the parable of the mustard seed. Um, but it talks about the birds of the sky. Are these the same birds that came and devoured the seed in the parable of the sower earlier in Mark four?
I you know, that's he's interesting that he's finding the bird reference, but I don't think that every bird is related to every other bird.
Yeah.
And birds are all over the place in the Bible, and I can't. We don't have a theme of the bird in the Bible means this. And so every time you see bird, it's going to mean.
Parables are sort of standalone stories. And so what does it mean in this? The, the, uh, mustard seed. Is that what the. Yeah, that's a very small seed. It's going to grow and it's referring to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God. God's rulership over humanity is going to grow into a great big tree. And the the people of God will be able to rest in it. And I think that's what the birds represent.
Then he gives that, you know, the parallel. It's so big, it's like the birds of the air can rest in it.
Yeah. Okay.
And so. And the birds that came and devoured the seeds in the parable of the sower. It's it's still talking about birds, but it's using a different point.
Yeah. Yeah. Every story is it's a standalone story. We have to interpret them on their own. Well, that's it. That's the first hour, you guys. Boy, did that fly by. But keep listening, because there's a second hour of open line on most of these stations. If your station doesn't carry Open line second hour, you can always listen on the Moody Radio app. You can listen online. We're going to continue our all mailbag all the time Memorial weekend
edition of Open Line. Uh, when you go to our website, Open Line radio.org, there's our current Bible study resource available there. There's also a way to help you become a kitchen table partner. There's a link to my personal email Michael Ray. Org and it tells you about Israel trips and things like that. Second hour of open lines coming up straight ahead. Open line with Doctor Michael Ray Dolnick is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.