Question #1: In Joshua 6:9, we read that “the armed men went before the priests that blew with the trumpets.” In Joshua 6:10, the people were commanded not to shout or to make any noise. What is the spiritual meaning of this silence?
Chris: We read in Joshua 6:9-11:
And the armed men went before the priests that blew with the trumpets, and the rereward came after the ark, the priests going on, and blowing with the trumpets. And Joshua had commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall ye shout. So the ark of JEHOVAH compassed the city, going about it once…
We know that they went around once a day for six days. Then on the seventh day, they went around seven times.
I do not know why, but this is similar to the idea that there was “silence in heaven.” This could or could not be the case, but this is pointing to 1988. The 13,000th year of earth’s history is when the wall of salvation in the churches came down. This is what God has in view with the full 13 times around, as He identifies salvation in a few places in the Bible as a wall. It was then that the wall tumbled and there has been no salvation in the church ever since.
But this does not really seem to fit, because the silence that began in 1988 lasted 2300 evening/mornings, and it is not until May 21st that Christ returns with a shout and it is the end. So I do not really know.
Question #2: Regarding Joshua 6 and Rahab’s household, my question is when Jericho was being destroyed by God and God saved Rahab and all of her household, why is salvation an individual thing if Rahab and her household were saved?
Chris: Well, it is an individual thing and God did spare Rahab and her house. Were all of them actually spiritually saved? It could be. It is an individual thing, but keep in mind that God spared the Ninevites; so this does not mean that God cannot save many at once, even though it is still a one-on-one basis with each individual. There were three thousand saved on the day of Pentecost; and so this is not beyond God.
In our day, He is saving a great multitude. This means that each and every day, He must be saving tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of people. We do not know exactly how He has decided to do this or at what point during these 6100 days that He will save this great multitude. Maybe He is saving much of it to the very end. Maybe He will save millions on the day before. We do not know.
But there is no hindrance with God to save an individual, like the thief on the cross, or to multiply this and to save thousands at one time, as God knows each individual intimately and personally. This is only because He is God.
The interesting thing again here with Rahab is what we read in Joshua 6:23:
And the young men that were spies went in, and brought out Rahab, and her father, and her mother, and her brethren, and all that she had; and they brought out all her kindred, and left them without the camp of Israel.
It was Rahab’s family whom God spared out of the destruction of Jericho. It was Noah and his family whom God spared out of the destruction of the whole world. It was Lot and his family who were spared out of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. From this, we know that God forewarns. Rahab was also forewarned by the spies. This was why she could plead for her family.
So I think that God is also letting us know that we can be encouraged that He does save family members. He is saving a great many. We would love for everyone in our family to be saved, and we can pray about this. We can go to God and beseech Him for each one of our children that He might have mercy. But we do not know. He may save none or He may save one or He might save three. We just do not know.
Question #2 (continued): Along these same lines, let us say that my friend’s dad has five to six family members in his household. He is saved, his daughter becomes saved, his son becomes saved, and his wife becomes saved because they heard the Gospel through the father. Is it possible for the other members of the family to become saved?
Chris: It is possible for anyone in the world to be saved, even people in the church if they come out of the church. It is still possible for God to draw an individual out of the church and then save them. If they stay in the church, then they are not going to be saved. This is guaranteed.
We know how Mr. Camping talks about 1 in 70 being the odds of an individual being saved, and I like this. I like that he is saying this, because many times people are so negative. They are so negative when it comes to salvation by election. Because God does the work of saving, people tend to think, “Oh well, what chance do I have in a world of seven billion?” Yet many will buy lottery tickets. At work, they pool their money together and the whole crew buys a bunch of lottery tickets when the chance is 1 in 5 million or 1 in 10 million, whatever it is. All day long, I have heard this. They tell you what is going to happen when they win the lottery, what they are going to buy with this money.
It surely sounds like real hope that they have when the chance is 1 in 10 million and they are talking all day long about it; but here God has decided to save 200 million out of mankind, in all probability. If we say that mankind will total 14 billion, as we are approaching 7 billion now and we could estimate that 7 billion previously lived, then the odds would be 1 in 70.
But like Gunther mentioned, it gets better than this because we could say that the Lord hardly saved anyone in the previous history of the world. Yes, there were maybe hundreds of thousands or maybe a handful of million whom He saved, but He is saving the best for last. In our day, He is saving a great multitude.
For all practical purposes, let us just say that it is 200 million in our day. Then the odds are cut in half to 1 in 35. If you stay out of a church, since there are about 2 billion professing Christians in the world, this means that the 200 million is not coming out of 7 billion but it is coming out of 5 billion. This means that the odds for these 5 billion who are outside of the church would be 1 in 25. This is what it comes down to. I think that this is a good way of looking at it. It is in a more positive light that God is saving this many people.
On top of this, if I happen to be someone who is reading the Bible and placing myself under the hearing of the Bible and I am listening to the true Gospel over Family Radio and I am praying to God for mercy, how many of 1 in 25 are doing this? How many of the 5 billion are actually under the hearing of the true Gospel in a continuous way?
There really is great hope. There is great hope for those of us who are hearing these things and for our families, and so we need to keep praying for them.
Question #3: Can you read 1 Thessalonians 5:2-6?
Chris: I will start in verse 1. We read in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
This passage is very helpful to us because it is telling us that we do not want Jesus to come “as a thief in the night” for us. We really do not want this. Yes, Christ is coming as “a thief in the night”; but if He is coming for you personally as “a thief in the night,” this means that you are going to perish. You are going to be destroyed. This is what this is saying.
The churches have taught that “no man knows the day or hour.” This is one big thing that they convey to their congregations. Another thing is that Christ is coming “as a thief in the night.” Somehow they have taught that when Christ comes as “a thief in the night,” this is a good thing. They think that this is a good thing. They think that He is coming to give them a blessing, right? This is what they are basically saying. He is coming to take them to Heaven, to give them eternal life, and to give them all the fulness of the promises of the Bible; but where do they find this information in the Bible?
The analogy that the church uses is that when a thief is coming, he does not call in advance to tell you when he is coming. This is true, but a thief also does not come with a sack full of goodies to give to the people whom he is visiting in the night, does he? Does a thief come to give gifts, to give blessings?
Let us look at John 10:10, because this verse is very helpful. We read in John 10:10:
The thief cometh not…
God just said it. He is telling us what a thief comes to do:
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…
It is negative, negative, negative. It is nothing good.
What do we read in 1 Thessalonians 5? We read in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3:
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
Where is the good news? It is not there. It is destruction.
John 10:10 again:
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…
Why to steal? This is speaking of Jesus coming on May 21 of next year. What is He going to steal? We cannot call Jesus a thief, can we? Well, in this sense, we can. What is He going to steal from man? He is going to steal everything.
God spoke about this in Matthew 6:19-20 when He said:
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
Let us go to Luke 12:33-34 and read this:
Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
The idea is that if your treasure is in Heaven—if this is where your heart is because God has saved you and given you that hope and expectation of eternal life, which is right around the corner—if this is your treasure, then there is nothing to fear.
On May 21 when Christ comes “as a thief,” He cannot steal this. He cannot steal this. No thief can break in and steal this, because this is total security. This is real peace and safety when you have this salvation from God and He has given you eternal life.
But if your treasure is here, no matter where on earth, if it is here, if it is in your bank account, if it is in your house, if it is in your yacht, if it is in your family, if it is anywhere on earth, if your heart is here or in the church, if it is anywhere on earth, this in an indicator that you were never saved. This means that when Christ comes, He is going to take it all. He is going to take it all and you will lose everything.
On May 21, the whole world is devalued immediately. Stocks and bonds will be worthless. Money will be worthless. Everything becomes worthless, for instance, a change of wardrobe, everything. Everything on earth becomes worthless, because it will be obvious then that God’s Word was true and that there are five months left. The world will be a total mess that it will never recover from.
So Christ came and He stole my inheritance if I am left behind. He took it all. All that I had was in this world, and yet God warned us in 1 John 2:15:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world…
If you say that you do not love the world, but you surely love its things, then you love the world. You love the world and this is an indicator.
This is why God has given the believer advance warning of His coming, because He will not come “as a thief” for the child of God. He is not going to come to take our treasure, but He is coming for a great many people. After removing their treasure, He will kill them and He will ultimately destroy them. They will die an eternal death, an “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.”
Question #4: In your closing prayer this morning, you prayed for our families and for those who will not be able to have a career or be able to raise a family. I have a daughter who is pregnant. She is due at the end of October. I grieve for her. I wondered if you could speak about Matthew 24:19? It says in Matthew 24:19:
And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
Chris: This would certainly apply to Judgment Day itself, but this also has application today, as there are fathers and mothers who are taking their families, their children, and some of them with very young children, into the church Sunday after Sunday.
Why are they going? They are going because they think that it is a blessing. They have been taught this way and they have assumed that they need to go to church to get right with God. They, therefore, are continuing to go, and the pastor, of course, is presenting the Gospel in a way that indicates that they are in the right place and that they are to stay in the church to be blessed.
But none of this is true, because we know that God is not there. Therefore, it is a tragedy that parents are bringing their children into a situation where there is no possibility of salvation. This is why God is pronouncing this woe.
If you recall in Ezekiel 14, God speaks of the condition of the churches today. He also mentions three faithful men, just to emphasize the fact that no one is being saved in the churches. We read in Ezekiel 14:19-20:
Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast: Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith Lord JEHOVAH, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.
This fits in with Matthew 24:19, which is the awful thing about God’s judgment on the churches right now. When told, unless they are God’s elect, they are not going to understand and they are not going to fully comprehend that they have to get out of the church. Like Lot, they should flee as fast as they can and not look back; but many will remain right up until that day.
Question #5: I have a question that has been bothering me for awhile. As we look at Ecclesiastes 3:2, it says:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
Then it says in Psalm 90:10:
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
And Job 14:5 says:
Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
As we look back on a lot of events in the world, a lot of people have come and gone. Let us take one event, like the event in Haiti. I was told that if they had better building codes, a lot of people would not have died. If our days are numbered and appointed, nothing happens without God’s permission. This means that God has set a time for us to be born and for us to die. Am I correct?
Chris: Yes, you are.
Question #5 (continued): So everyone has an appointed amount of days on earth, even though I realize that we do not know when this is. Is this correct?
Chris: From God’s perspective, He knows everything including the day of death for each individual who will die. The thing is, at this point in time, since we have less than ten months to go, the vast majority of people in the world will not die. Even in this room, many of us will not die by the time that this day gets here.
Question #5 (continued): Okay, I understand that the elect have to be saved before they die. I understand all of this. So everyone has an appointed amount of days upon this earth. Is this the bottom line?
Chris: It is all in His hands. He is in complete control. At one point, there might be a child, like the child born to Bathsheba and David, who dies after just a few days. Then there could be someone else like Methuselah who lives to 969 years. Is it unjust? No, it is not. God determines all of this and He can take any individual at any time. “The wages of sin is death,” and so He is entirely just in doing so.
Question #5 (continued): Were the people who died in the earthquake in Haiti meant to die at that time? This is my question.
Chris: Yes. Harry says to look at James 4:15. It says:
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
Everything is under the sovereign will of God. He makes all determinations. God lifts His hand of restraint from off someone like Pharaoh and Pharaoh increases in wickedness. God moves the believers: “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” He also tells us, “Upon the bed,” He “sealeth [man’s] instruction.” He is a guide and He has worked everything out in the lives of His people for good: “All things work together for good to them that love God.”
Certainly, no one can die outside of God’s control. This is not possible. He has obligated Himself to save His elect people. He will save each and every one of them. Not one of them will perish before the day that they are to be saved.
Someone who came the closest to death right before salvation that we know of would be the thief on the cross. He lived his life in a way that was against God’s Law. He had transgressed God’s Law all throughout his lifetime. Even while Jesus was going around ministering for the three-and-a-half-year period, where was the thief? He was probably stealing somewhere with his friends.
Yet even though this man had no interest in Christ and no interest in salvation, God arranged things perfectly so that this man would be arrested at the proper point in time and brought into prison. We do not know about his trial and how quick it might have been, but this thief was condemned and he was to be crucified. Then he finds himself on the cross with just hours to live. He is near death; and at first, he is reviling Christ, but God uses this whole situation to finally save him at the last possible minute.
There are many examples in the Bible of God orchestrating events, like King Ahasuerus. Because this king could not sleep, the Bible says that “he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king.” He read about Mordecai the Jew and the good thing that he had done for the king. He then said, “What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?”
He was asking this exactly at the moment that Haman was entering into the court, but Haman was coming to plead with the king to put Mordecai to death. What a coincidence!
Then when Haman came in, the king said to him, “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?” Then Haman thought within himself, “To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?”
Was this not prideful, and yet does this not sound familiar? This is the nature of man, is it not? We tend to think this way.
But then, shockingly, Haman finds out that the king was referring to Mordecai the Jew. He then has to walk Mordecai down the street, parading him around and announcing, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.”
This was very, very humbling, and yet perfectly orchestrated. The book of Esther really displays the perfect sovereign will of God and that “all things work together for good” to His people.
By the way, they also had a date in the book of Esther. They had an appointed day to be destroyed, which sounds very familiar to us.
Question #6: Can you read John 14:2-3 and tell me what this means please?
Chris: We read in John 14:2-3:
In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
Jesus had finished the works from the foundation of the world, as far as taking upon Himself the sins of His people and paying the penalty for all of the sins of His elect, but this still had to be worked out in history. Therefore, it was necessary for Him to enter into the world as the “light of the world.”
Why as the “light of the world”? This is because the Bible says, “For whatsoever doth make manifest is light” and Christ came to “make manifest” what He had done from the foundation of the world, to shine the light on it, to reveal it, which is what this word means.
Whatsoever does reveal is light, and so He came to shine the light upon the work that He had finished; but He also had to fulfill the Father’s will and go to the cross and live out this tableau. Then there is also the matter of redeeming God’s people throughout history when the Gospel comes to them.
I think that this is all that is involved in this, and yet some people think that Christ is building mansions, maybe the size of this room or this hotel, for His people; but this is not the idea. There is a house, a spiritual house, and the word “mansion” is better understood as being like a room; and so we are in the house.
This is the most important thing for a child of God. We are in this house of God. We are not in the house of God that is under judgment. We are in the spiritual house that God builds up each time He saves a person.
Question #7: In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul is talking about “a thorn in the flesh.” I have done a lot of reading about this. As we listen to Family Radio, which we have on every day in our house, there are many people calling in with questions for Brother Harold Camping who are very contemptuous. I pray for Harold for patience and for loving the brethren.
Maybe you can give me your thoughts on what you have studied on this, but it seems like this was not just a thing that was relatively sedate for Paul. It was like he was pounded day in and day out by Satan. Could you comment on this?
Chris: Sure. Let me read this. It says in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9:
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee…
The Apostle Paul was constantly under assault. You are right. The previous chapter of 2nd Corinthians lays out how many times he was whipped. Paul says, “Five times received I forty stripes save one,” which is 195. By the way, this would work out to 3 x 5 x 13, as Paul is used as a pattern of the believers.
So, in one sense, as he carried the Gospel and suffered affliction, it is instruction to all of God’s people who follow this pattern. As we share the Word of God in this world, there will be troubling times. There will be affliction, especially at the end. I think that this is why the number 13 is in view as God tells us about the stripes that Paul received.
But Paul also had many other troubles, and most of these troubles came from the Jews or the Old Testament church. They did not understand that God had made a change in program and that He was no longer using Israel, that they no longer were the people of God. This got them angry and made them jealous and envious; and so whenever they had an opportunity, it seemed, they were after the Apostle Paul.
There were also those who especially wanted to keep some of the Law of Moses and mix this in with the grace of God. This is just like today, because there are still people who want to mix grace and works with the Gospel.
So, more than likely, this was the “thorn” that was in his flesh; but God also points out that Paul received an “abundance of the revelations.” Paul said, “By revelation he made known unto me the mystery,” which was that the Gospel would also go to the Gentiles, to the whole world, and that he would be a missionary to the nations, to the Gentiles.
This was a glorious thing and it could make someone proud; and so God balanced this out. He balanced this out and allowed these struggles and these afflictions.
With Mr. Camping, I think that we see from the churches and the congregations that a lot of people are upset with him because of the end of the church age and other teachings that they do not like; and so they are calling up and they can revile and say things of this nature. I do not think that this bothers him any, but it is a form of persecution.
If you look up the word “persecution” in both the Old and the New Testament, it is translated several times as “follow after.” Pharaoh followed after Israel when he let them go out of Egypt. Saul followed after David, which is a good example. They followed after with the intent to harm. It certainly was not a good way that Pharaoh and King Saul were following after the people of God. They meant to do them harm.
There are some people who listen to the “Open Forum” program on Family Radio much more closely than true believers do, much more closely. Do you remember the guy who would say something like, “Mr. Camping, on Wednesday, August 3rd at 8:48, you made the following statement”?
Was he listening because he thought that the program was wonderful and putting forth the truth of the Word of God and because he thought that Mr. Camping was really bringing the true Gospel? No. No, he was not listening for this purpose. He had his ear up against the radio as close as it could be, because he wanted to be critical and to find a mistake; and this is a form of Biblical persecution towards those who “follow after” the true Gospel and those who bring it.
It seems that some people have the idea that their gospel, which is an anti-gospel, is to warn everybody about Family Radio. They have to warn everybody about the heresy that they perceive Family Radio to be.
Where did anyone ever get the idea that God sanctions and honors this kind of activity? God does not honor this type of attitude. Do true believers listen to Jehovah’s Witnesses for the purpose of finding out every error and mistake that they make? Do true believers listen to whatever church that might be speaking in tongues in order to try to pounce on them and say, “You made a wrong statement”? Or do true believers not care?
It is not that we do not care; it is just that we do not want anything to do with this type of activity. Where there is a heresy, where there is a false gospel, well, go ahead; let them continue in it. We will be busy with the truth. We are busy bringing the true Word of God to the people of the world. Nowhere does God sanction reviling something that is perceived to be a heresy.
Jesus would not even bring “a railing accusation” against the devil. It says in Jude 1:9:
Yet Michael the archangel…
“Michael” is Christ, the Chief Messenger. This is what “archangel” means. It continues:
…when contending with the devil…
So Christ was “contending with the devil.” It continues:
…he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
There was no need for Jesus to get involved in railing on even the devil himself. He just simply said, “The Lord rebuke thee.”
This really shows us two things. The number one thing is that people who are so constantly anti Family Radio, which is the first thing that they have to tell you, is that they are not coming in the spirit that God would have His people come. Number two, they are listening so closely, because it is the truth. It is the faithful Gospel. This is why they have their ear to the door. It is because they have been stirred up against it.
It says in 1 Corinthians 16:9:
For a great door and effectual…
“Effectual” is the word “powerful” that we find in the book of Hebrews where it is speaking about the Word of God. It continues:
For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.
They go hand-in-hand when God opens up “a great door” of salvation, of utterance.
Look at the door that is opened to Family Radio all over the world. It is amazing that you can take a study from Family Radio that Mr. Camping has done and it can be broadcast into China, into India, into Africa, all over the world at a time when God says that He is saving a great multitude.
Well, since there is “a great door” and Christ is the Door, today the door is wide open for salvation. On May 21, this door closes. But today, the door is open.
We should, therefore, expect “many adversaries”; and this is what we find in the churches and congregations. There is a constant assault that I think the phone calls to Mr. Camping reveal.
Question #8: My question is, for example, if there is a mother/daughter relationship and they both go to Heaven, will they remember their relationship at all? Is there any possibility of this? Are there any Scriptures that reference this?
Chris: There is one in Isaiah 65:17, which says:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
This covers everything. I do not think that there is going to be knowledge of husband and wife or of mother and son, or anything like this. If we remembered this much, then there would have to be other remembrances involved. God is just simply going to wipe this world’s memory out of the minds of His people. He is going to give us a new spiritual body, and then we will be one whole personality forever and ever into eternity future.
We will know somehow that He has delivered us and saved us, and we will glorify Him for this; but we do not know just how much sin is involved in everything in this life. Sin has immersed itself in so many things. We could have a pleasant thought or memory of our childhood; but if we looked a little closer, it may have actually been a sinful thing.
So God wants nothing more to do with sin. He allowed it for this world only in order to magnify His salvation plan and to show forth His attributes, His glorious attributes, to all the principalities and powers. However, once He is finished here, then the universe, the world, and all of the unsaved people upon it are destroyed and completely gone forever. This is why there will not be a place called “hell,” because it would make no sense to raise people back to life who had died from past generations, people whom the Bible says had thoughts that were “only evil continually.”
We used to think that unsaved man would be raised up and have all of their sinful thoughts restored, which means that they would be just as wicked as they ever were. Then God would judge them and cast them into a place called “hell” to be punished forever and ever and ever. All the while, they would not be rehabilitated at all. They would still be the same sinful person they were on this earth. Only now, according to this teaching, they would live or exist forever and ever, multiplying sin in their ongoing rebellion into eternity where they would be shaking their fists at God and blaspheming His name, because they are being punished without end.
This would make the sinfulness of man that we see in this life, which is a multitude of sins for each one of us, like a tiny, little anthill compared to one of the highest mountains, if someone were permitted to go into eternity future sinning and sinning and sinning.
No, God is going to kill the sinner because “the wages of sin is death.” When man dies, the Bible tells us that “in that very day his thoughts perish.” All of those evil thoughts that were “only evil continually” are then gone, and this is justice. This is justice and this is what God will do in the whole realm of His Kingdom, which is a huge Kingdom that I do not think we know much about.
But there will be no more sin. We can know this for sure, because He says that “there shall be no more death.” If there were sin anywhere, there would be death, but there will not be.
Question #9: Could you please elaborate on the word “holy”? In 2 Peter 1:21, it talks about “holy men of God,” which would include Solomon who appears to not have been a saved person. Also, contrast this with Isaiah 6:3 where it talks about God as “Holy, holy, holy.”
Chris: 2 Peter 1:20-21 says:
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
God is holy and He makes those individuals whom He saves holy. If you remember, He also uses this word “holy” in relation to family members in 1st Corinthians 7, which shows us that He can use this word “holy” in such a way that it does not necessarily mean that the individuals themselves became saved or were “holy” in a pure way.
We read in 1 Corinthians 7:14:
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.
This does not mean that the children are saved but that they are in a family where the Gospel is being proclaimed and that they have an association with God through a believer, whether it be the husband or the wife or the mother, etc.; and so God views this family in a different way.
This is likewise the case when we read in 2 Peter 1:21:
…holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
It would seem, as we look at the Bible, that most of the individuals whom God used to write the Bible were saved men. They were true believers, as far as we know, like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or Daniel, etc.; but there are a few books in the Bible and we do not know who wrote them, like 1st and 2nd Chronicles, etc.
So this verse in 1st Corinthians 7 is giving an allowance that Solomon, for instance, who wrote Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes, did not necessarily have to be saved in order to be called a “holy” man. Solomon had an association because his father was David and he was in the kingdom of Israel. In this sense alone, Solomon could have been considered “holy.”
As far as the relationship to Isaiah 6, God is pure. When He is said to be the “Holy, holy, holy” God, this is a big emphasis that He is without sin of any kind. He is all light, no darkness, and so on.
Question #10: Could you read Matthew 1:6 please? Could you tell me why Urias/Uriah is named in this genealogy?
Chris: We read in Matthew 1:6:
And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;
I do not know why, but one thing that is definite is that God is emphasizing what David did. In many places, He emphasizes the sins of David. In Psalm 51, He emphasizes, “after he had gone in to Bathsheba,” and so forth.
One thing that we can relate to ourselves in relation to David’s sin of falling into adultery with Bathsheba and then murdering her husband, Uriah the Hittite, is that this happened at a time when kings went forth to battle. This happened when David was on his rooftop, which is almost a contradiction because God tells us that the rooftop is a place of intense spiritual activity. He says, “That which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.” We are told to “not go down into the house”; we are to stay “upon the housetops” and continue to bring the Gospel to the world.
So David was apparently in the right place, but God uses this other picture of the time when kings went forth to battle. Historically, this was when the kings went out with their armies to fight, but David stayed behind. He was not where he should have been.
Spiritually, we are all prophets, priests, and kings. Therefore, this is a warning to us if we are not occupying, if we are not going forth to the battle, to this big battle that is going on. Of course, the big battle is going to be Armageddon on May 21, but God is going to take care of that one all by Himself. At that time, we will just be like Jehoshaphat and his army who went to the “watch tower in the wilderness” and saw that they were all dead, and so they then collected the spoil. We will be in this same position as God gives us our inheritance of this world.
However, now is the time that the task is at hand for us to bring the Gospel to the whole world. If we do not, we could get into some big trouble. We should not fail to go forth in this spiritual battle and to bring the Gospel.
Just look at all of the opportunities there are. Family Radio is basically telling us to go ahead and to think of a place, to think of any place in the world, like your homeland or some other place that you might have a concern for. Try to get together a group of people. Family Radio will provide the tracts. They will even help you to make the necessary plans. Go ahead out to battle. Go ahead out and bring the Gospel message to the people of the world. If we do not, God looks that this from a couple of different perspectives. One is that we will be open to falling into sin.
Let us stop here.