John Bradshaw - Cain's Wife, Dinosaurs, and the Seven Last Plagues
John Bradshaw: Great to see you! This is "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written. This is where we get to answer your Bible questions. Thanks for submitting them, that's if you have, and if you'd like to, email 'em to us: [email protected], [email protected]. I'd like to tell you this from the get-go. If you would like to study the Bible online for free in depth, visit us online at itiswritten.study. You can study all the way through the very excellent It Is Written Bible Study Guides. We have them available in multiple languages, if you'd like to get them. Maybe get them to share with people in your family, in your circle, in your community. Lots of languages, including Arabic and German and Turkish, lots of languages. With me is Wes Peppers, good to have you here.
Wes Peppers: Always good to be here, John, and be able to answer people's questions. It's a blessing.
John Bradshaw: We're gonna start with a fun question.
Wes Peppers: Yes, certainly.
John Bradshaw: Well, I mean, fun question. Gustav asks, "What do you do if you have a spouse who is disrespectful, unsupportive, selfish, and also doesn't want to submit herself to you"? The reason I say this "a fun one" is, I mean, I don't know that this is funny. I've never been asked this question before. Well, I might have, I might've, I might've.
Wes Peppers: I have, actually; I have a friend that asked me that once.
John Bradshaw: Yeah. Well, I hope your wife didn't ask you that question.
Wes Peppers: No, it wasn't my wife.
John Bradshaw: Okay.
Wes Peppers: Well...
John Bradshaw: What do you do? I'll let you take a run at this.
Wes Peppers: Yeah, the first thing I would do is if I perceived that my wife was that way, or my spouse, I would ask myself why. Why are they that way? Maybe it's because I'm also that way. And so I would probably do a healthy dose of self-examination and say, "Maybe she's responding to me in the way that I'm responding to her". The Bible says in Ephesians, the command of Paul, "Husbands, love your wives"...
— Yes.
— ..."[even] as Christ...loved the church and gave Himself for her".
— "And gave Himself for [it]".
— So are you, as a husband, giving yourself to your wife? Are you self-sacrificing for her? Are you loving to her? Are you kind to her? And the Bible is clear that as you reveal that love of Christ to her, then she will begin to respond to that. Now, the Bible does say submit yourselves one to another, and so that's an important thing. But that always has to be wrapped in love and respect and mutual kindness.
— You gotta remember when it comes to marriage too, you know, you're putting two lives together, and very often they're people of two completely different cultures, different backgrounds. What you perceive as disrespect might not be. You may have very different ways of doing things than your spouse does, and of course, you're gonna think that the only right way to do it is the way that you want it done, and your spouse, she, let's say, might feel that the only right way is the way that she wants it done. The Bible says that, "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". So, here's what you do. You die for your spouse; that is, you give of yourself. Now, somebody's gonna say, "Does this mean I oughta get walked all over and treated badly and..."? No, we don't wanna take this to an extreme. So here's what you do. You love as you want to be loved. You pray like crazy. We got a program coming up that we're gonna be doing with a guest. Her husband was just a scoundrel, and she was praying that God would change him. And then she said, "Hang on a minute, look at me". She prayed God would change her. He was so impressed that he changed. He's a minister of the gospel today. So, pray that God would change you. Pray that God would give you a heart of love. And then you ought to think about getting counseling as well. Go to talk to somebody who can walk through some of these challenges with you. You know, some people say, "Just pray; that'll fix it". Well, maybe, but sometimes it's prayer and counseling, prayer and intervention, prayer and talking with other people, and the prayer might lead you to that.
— And you gotta remember that you yourself can't fix that other person. You can't change that person. You can only pray that God'll change you, and you can pray that He'll change them as well, but pray that prayer for yourself first before you're even praying it for them.
— I don't wanna open up a can of worms, but here we go. Many people get married, and they think, "Oh, but she'll change," or, "I can change him". I have news for you. She won't, and you cannot. That's not how this particular cookie crumbles. So, one thing, and I'm not speaking to our questioner's situation here, but think about this on the front end. If less people would make poor decisions when they're getting married, I mean, not all divorces, many people go in with their eyes wide open, and it looks like a great decision, things disintegrate, but many, "Oh, I should never have married her". "He was never the right guy". "This was never gonna work". "We were never really compatible". So, my counsel to anyone planning would be, really plan, really pray, and have the self-control to make a good decision.
— It's important to have preparation before the marriage.
— Oh yeah.
— Many people spend tens of thousands of dollars and hours and hours of preparation for the day itself, the actual event, but you want to do that preparation before and some premarital counseling with a pastor, with somebody who's spiritual and understands the principles of marriage. That can also help you prepare for that or make you realize, "Maybe this isn't the best person for me".
— That is actually a good realization to come to, if that's the case.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
— You wanna marry the right person or no person.
— That's right.
— All right, Andrew asks us, "Did Paul repeat any of Jesus' teachings or parables in his letters? I could not find [any instances of that being the case]. If yes, ...then let me know where". I don't know of any cases where Paul said, "Hey, about that parable Jesus taught," or, "As Jesus said, I'm elaborating on His teaching". You find many principles.
— Right, that's right. And, you know, Paul didn't specifically quote those things, but he was receiving personal revelations from Christ. So Christ would speak to him directly, and he would write these things out. So, you know, certainly, of course, Paul would've believed in the writings of Jesus, but he may not have quoted them.
— Yeah, he's certainly taught the same. You're not gonna find anything Paul taught and said, "Whoa, this is really different".
— That's right.
— Yeah. Jo asks, "How do I explain the God of the Old Testament versus the God revealed through Jesus in the New Testament to my friend? How do I get him to understand God's wrath and mercy together"? How do you do that?
— Well, a lot of people think the character of God is different in the Old and New Testament.
— But it's the same God.
— But it's the same. One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Deuteronomy, chapter 30...
— Mm-hmm.
— ...where God talks about what He'll do for His people when they stray, He'll bring them back, and He just pours His love out over them in that chapter; it's very powerful. Many people just think of God on Mount Sinai in the Old Testament, but that's not what we find. You find a great balance, a great mix of love and mercy. Even in the New Testament, there were the judgments of God that were falling.
— Hosea, Old Testament, book of Hosea, most people don't even stop there, "I will heal your backslidings, I will love you freely". Ezekiel: "A new heart also will I give you". Isaiah: "You will [search for] me and find me, when you [seek] for me with all your heart". That's Isaiah? Yeah.
— That's right.
— Jeremiah...
— No, it was Jeremiah! I'm sorry. It's Jeremiah.
— Oh, Jeremiah. Jeremiah: "I have loved you with an everlasting love". Oh, the love of God in the Old Testament!
— That's right.
— "The wages of sin is death," Romans 6:23. "If any man worships the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, [he] shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God," in the book of Revelation.
— That's right. If God is not loving in the Old Testament, what's happening to make Him loving in the New Testament?
— That's right.
— Do you understand? He has to be both in both.
— Yeah, yeah, yeah, so let's not try to pretend that God is this two-headed creature.
— That's right.
— He's the one God in each place. Phyllis asks, "When the seven last plagues begin to fall, does [this] signify the end of probation for all humanity or [for] just the righteous"? By end of probation, that's it, no more mercy being extended, done. What is it when the plagues fall?
— Sure, it's for all humanity...
John Bradshaw: And it's over.
— That's right, it's over. Every decision has been made, and God is bringing the judgment, the final judgments, before Jesus returns. And the righteous, though, are protected from the plagues, just like they were in Egypt before they came out of, the Israelites were before they came out of Egypt. And Psalm 91 actually describes that. He talks about the falling of the plagues, but God's people will be carried through with His protection because they have put their love upon Him.
— Yeah, amen. Here's a question from Peggy: "The repentant thief on the cross was never baptized, but Jesus said he would be saved. How is that possible? And would others, like Abraham Lincoln, who also weren't baptized also be saved"? I know nothing about Lincoln's baptism or otherwise, but we'll take Peggy's word for it. Baptism doesn't save a person, so if you weren't baptized, it doesn't mean you're necessarily lost. Having said that, if you know the will of God, you should be baptized, because knowing God's will and telling God to take a hike indicates that you are not really in great relationship with God. Tell me about the thief on the cross.
— Sure, the thief on the cross wasn't baptized. Obviously, he was taking his final breath, and he said, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom". Jesus said, "[Verily], I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise". And so, had the thief been able to come off the cross after he received Jesus, what would've been the first thing he would've done? Likely he would've gone to be baptized, but he wasn't baptized, so how do we reconcile that? Well, Jesus at the beginning of His ministry was baptized, and He was baptized for all those who couldn't be baptized and as an example for those who could and should.
— Yeah, amen to that. Question from Thomas: "Are you totally lost if you don't keep the seventh-day Saturday Sabbath"? I'm gonna ask a question this way: Are you totally lost if you don't keep the commandment that says, "Thou shall not kill"? Ooh! If you don't keep the commandment that says, "Thou shall not commit adultery" or "Don't bow down to graven images"? That sounds like the actions of a lost person.
— Mm-hmm.
— Now, having said that, a person can do those things and repent, not that you should do them, but there's mercy even for sinners.
— That's right.
— Having said that, explain to us how one is saved.
— Sure.
— It's not by what you do and don't do. It's by...?
— It's by receiving by faith Christ and the sacrifice that He made for you, the fact that He died on the cross. He lived a perfect life. He died for you. He took your place on the cross, so when you choose to receive Him into your heart, He gives you a new heart, and you are saved. That is your ticket into heaven.
— Yeah, key thing to remember is this: Not everybody has the light of the Bible. I think the information about the seventh-day Sabbath is as plain as plain, but that's not true for everybody. You're raised a certain way, you see it from of an angle, you read the Bible through a certain lens, and so, maybe for many people, it's just ignorance and not rebellion. But we're not gonna say that somebody goes to church on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday and not Saturday is a lost person; we can't read the heart. Now, maybe you know the will of God, and you are convicted about the will of God. Maybe for you, then, to disobey that commandment would be a matter of salvation versus damnation, sure, but let's not put that on everybody. People aren't saved by this or that. They're saved by one thing: by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. We wanna point people there. Then, obey God, sure. But let's not set up arbitrary tests when we don't read the heart, and we don't understand the experience.
— I think of Acts 17 where the Bible says in times of ignorance, "God winked," but now He's calling all men to repentance. So if you know a truth and you haven't followed it, God gives you the opportunity to repent.
— Yeah, amen.
— And then if you do know it, you want to follow it, and you want to honor God with your life and the choices that you make.
— One more question, Bernie says, "Does God have"... "Does God have many wills? If yes, how would it relate to not changing His mind"? Many wills?
— Yeah, that's a very interesting question.
— Yeah, I don't think He does.
— No, the Bible never says "wills". It always says "will". There's one will, and maybe Bernie here is referring to, if we don't perfectly follow the will of God, how does He respond to that?
— Or maybe Bernie's saying God created the planet, and later on He repented that He had done so. No, God has one will. Encapsulated in that will is, "This is the will of God, even your sanctification". It's the will of God that you be saved. God is "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance". God is not double-minded.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
— Yeah, no, no. You can rely on God and understand His will and know that His heart is always towards you. I hope we answered that question.
— I think we did.
John Bradshaw: Think we did?
— I think we did. If not, send it in again.
— Yeah, yeah, all right. Hey, by the way, you can get questions to us; email 'em: [email protected]. We'll be back in a moment. With Wes Peppers, I'm John Bradshaw. This is "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written.
John Bradshaw: Welcome back to "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written. I'm John Bradshaw, with me Wes Peppers, with us both a whole pile of questions that have been submitted by It Is Written viewers. These are genuine questions from what we think are genuine people. And we're genuinely doing our best to give you a genuine answer to those questions. So let's begin this part of the program with this question, Wes. It's from Thomas, and Thomas writes, "Didn't Jesus say, 'Don't argue about what day is the Sabbath?' I don't belong to any church but agree about Saturday Sabbath, but [I] need this question addressed, please". Did Jesus ever say, "Don't argue about the Sabbath"? What day the Sabbath is?
— Jesus actually says that the Sabbath, that He was the Lord of the Sabbath day, so He made it very clear. Paul says don't argue about which day. He talks about that in Romans, chapter 14.
— But don't know that he's talking about the Sabbath day there, though, is he?
— No, no, he's not. He's talking about feast days. He's talking about fasting days.
— Yeah.
— So the Bible is clear all the way through about the Sabbath. There really isn't any room for argument in the Scriptures about that. And he mentions here, "I don't belong to a church, but agree with the Saturday Sabbath". And so, really, there's not any room for argument. Anybody in the time of Jesus, in the time of Paul, that was never a question.
— Never a question.
— And they would've automatically, in fact, if Jesus would've ever suggested anything other than the Sabbath, they would've tried to stone Him.
— It's really interesting to me. So the Bible says, "The Sabbath was made for man, ...not man for the Sabbath". There's nothing where Jesus said, "Don't argue about it". There was nothing to argue about. It was a given.
Wes Peppers: That's right.
— It was a given. But what I find really interesting about that is this. For some reason, there's some contention today.
— Mm-hmm.
— Right?
— Yes.
— Why?
— Yes.
— The reason why is because for hundreds and hundreds of years people have been following a tradition.
— Tradition.
— Now, Sunday, and we say this lovingly, if you're following the tradition that is Sunday, I'm not wanting to beat up on anybody here, but it's a tradition. Sunday worship is a tradition. Now, you're wasting your time if you go to the Bible and say, "Well, I'm gonna prove it to you from the Bible," 'cause you can't. What you have to do is say, "Yes, it's a tradition, and this is why we stand on a tradition". But if it's good enough for you that Sunday is what you ought to do because of tradition, oof! You might want to take a look at your practice because didn't you, as a Christian, believe that the Bible is the rule of faith for a believer? So, there's nothing to argue about or debate. We don't have to defend the Bible. The Bible'll defend itself. But the Word of God indicates very strongly that the seventh day, the Sabbath day is the seventh day, the day that we call Saturday. It would be kept holy from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Sunday? Tradition. If that's okay with you, then, you know, you work that out with God, but it isn't the Sabbath, and there's really nothing to argue about.
— That's right, and Jesus even talks about that we don't want to honor the traditions of men over the commandments of God, and so we wanna be very careful about that, very thoughtful about that.
— I've gotta acknowledge that sometimes questions come in that can only really adequately be answered with maybe an entire program or a documentary series. This might be one of those questions. Errol asks, "What was the time period between the Creation and the birth of Jesus Christ? Did dinosaurs roam the earth during this intervening period"? From a biblical perspective, we would say Jesus was born 4,000 years after Creation or so, I'm not trying to measure that to the second, but I'm calling it 4,000 years. So did dinosaurs walk on the earth during that time?
— Part of that time. The Bible indicates that prior to the Flood that would've been the case, but though they were destroyed in the Flood. Now, there are remnants of dinosaurs. You have crocodiles and all kinds of reptiles, but certainly the dinosaurs that we think of, the ones that my kids love...
— Mm.
— ...you know, brontosaurus and all that, they were very large animals, and the degradation of man was taking place after the Flood, and he was smaller. He was not living as long. And so I think God, in mercy, removed those animals from the earth, and so the Flood would've annihilated them.
— Not so hard to believe, is it, that there were gigantic animals?
— Oh, no, not at all.
— Look at whales in the ocean.
— Yes, that's right.
— Huge! They're still huge things.
— That's right.
— So it's not unreasonable to believe there were great, big things on the earth.
— Well, even men, the Bible says, "There were giants [of men]...in those days". And you look into that, and men were larger than they are now.
— We don't really see any evidence that dinosaurs lived beyond the Flood.
— No, no.
— They certainly lived.
— That's right.
— Madison asks us, "Since Cain's offering wasn't accepted by the Lord, what was he supposed to give instead? If it was a lamb, like...Abel gave, ...how was he supposed to get it since Abel was the one that looked after the sheep"? Madison, commerce. They had commerce in those days.
— That's right.
— He could've bartered. He could've traded. He could've simply gone and purchased one. Being his brother kept the sheep, he might have said, "Brother, may I have one"?
— Yes.
— Wouldn't have been a hard thing.
— No. Or he could have, you know, he was a farmer, so he could've given Abel something for the lamb. And God actually instructed the people later on in the days of Israel that they would purchase the sacrifices, the lambs, the doves, the cows, whatever it was, and so he could have bartered that with his brother. So, they were, the point was there were sheep available. He just had to access it.
— Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're gonna look at a question from Nancy that speaks to James 4:14. Here's Nancy's question: "I read that James 4:14 means that relationships with loved ones are temporary. Is this true? Because I don't see that anywhere in the verse,... I thought we [were] reunited with our loved ones in heaven. Could you please explain"? Here's James 4:14. It says, "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. ...What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away". So, I don't know. I'm with you, Nancy. I don't think it means that relationships with loved ones are temporary, other than everything's kind of temporary.
— Yeah.
— In the grand scheme of things, your life is just a vapor. It's here one minute; it's gone the next.
— Yeah, I think the biblical principle is that relationships are eternal, rooted in God. When we love God, of course that's eternal. When you have loved ones that also love God, our relationships with them will be eternal.
— I'd like you to answer Clayton's question: "Are there any other texts in the Bible that say we will keep the Sabbath in heaven or the new earth, other than Isaiah 66, verses 22 and 23"?
— Oh, that's interesting. There are a number of texts. For instance, in the book of Revelation, I think of Revelation, chapter 22 and verse 14.
— Yeah, that's a good one.
— Yeah, it says this: "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates [of] the city". I don't think that we would keep the commandments up to the point of entering the city, then enter the city and stop keeping them.
— Mm-hmm.
— So that's one text. There are other texts very similar that talk about that. Revelation, chapter 12 and verse 17 speaks about that, especially for God's people at the end of time. But certainly we'll keep the commandments all throughout eternity. There's no doubt about that, but that passage, plus the one in Isaiah, are crystal clear about that.
— Yeah, very good. Marisa asks this question; let's take a look. "Did Adam and Eve have children other than Cain and Abel? What biblical support is there"? Well, yeah, and here's the biblical support. I'll read it to you from Genesis 5, starting in verse 3: "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, [and] after his image; and called his name Seth: and the days of Adam after he'd begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters".
— Mm-hmm. That's right. The Bible... sometimes people get caught up on this type of thing 'cause they only think about the ones that are listed by name, but there were many. It says "sons and daughters," but there were who knows how many that he had that were not named, so don't get caught up on that. When the Bible says that Cain went out and established a city, and there were other people, things were happening that the Bible doesn't record.
— That's right.
— It's doesn't record every detail.
— Yeah, true enough. Okay, one more here, and this would be from Mary. Let me ask you this: "Please explain Matthew 16:18, 'Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'"
— Sure. It's a very interesting question, and people often misunderstand this. You know, sometimes people use this to say that men on earth have the power to forgive sins, and that's certainly not the case. But whenever a sin is forgiven by God, He records that in heaven. So that, I confess that sin on the earth; He forgives it in heaven. It's not to say that I as a pastor, or any other person, has the power of God on earth, but that whatever's happening on the earth in confession and forgiveness, God adheres to in heaven. But we don't have that authority to do that; only He has that authority, so sometimes people misunderstand that. They say the apostles and Peter may have had that power and others today, priests today. It's not the case.
— It's not saying you make a decision and God says, "Oh, okay, we'll do that".
— Right.
— What's happening is when the church is operating like it ought to, it is making decisions here on earth in harmony...
— That's right.
— ...with the decisions in heaven. Bobby asks us this: "Did Abraham teach his son Ishmael about God, so that he also", that's Ishmael, "also could go to heaven"? You'd think he would.
— I think he would have.
— Yeah.
— Ishmael was the firstborn, followed by Isaac, and so, many years passed by that Ishmael was in the house of Abraham before he sent him away. So certainly, and even at that time, Pastor John, Abraham was thinking he was the promised son, you know.
— Yep.
— And so he would've raised him, he would've taught him the ways of God, and then later Isaac came along, and so, surely, he would've known about God.
— Okay, quick question from Joseph: "Where did Cain's wife come from"?
— Dare we say it?
— Yeah, well, I need to give this little piece of advice. Don't try this at home.
— It's illegal today, just so we know.
John Bradshaw: Yeah. We need to be clear about that.
— The answer is that Cain would've married his sister.
— Yeah.
— Why would he do that?
— Well, he had no other options.
— Right.
— One of the reasons why we don't marry within families today is the genetic problems it causes. It's also weird, but I don't know that that's the law. Those genetic problems wouldn't have existed back then.
— Closer to perfection.
— Very close, and I would like to think that back then he probably didn't marry his sister one year younger, they grew up together, he pulling her pigtails... She may have been, there may have been a significant age gap, maybe, and someone he didn't know really, really, really well because of the size of the family, the amount of the kids.
— Sure.
— So, married his sister.
— It seems like a strange thing now, but it wasn't a strange thing then. We can't quite understand that, but that's the way it was.
— On that note, here's Camille's question. We're racing through a few questions.
— We're racing through them quickly.
— "According to 1 Kings 22:21-23, are unholy beings still allowed in heaven, such as Satan and the fallen angels (referring also to Job)"? And this is a two-part question. "When God says He'll create a new heaven, does that include the heaven where He resides"? Well, no, there's no need to re-create, to renovate the heaven where God is.
— The New Jerusalem.
— Yeah, the heavens where the birds fly, the atmosphere and so forth, that'll all be cleaned up. There won't be any junk on Mars or, what do you call these things? Not asteroids, satellites floating around in space.
— Right.
— They'll be... that's the heavens... that'll be taken care of.
— Mm-hmm.
— Back to the first part: unholy beings still allowed in heaven?
— The Bible tells us in Revelation, chapter 12, that the unholy beings were removed from heaven.
— Cast out.
— That's right. And you find in Job, chapter 1, that there was a council that was taking place between God and the sons of God, and Satan kinda came and presented himself there. So whether, how that happened we don't exactly know, but certainly, to dwell in heaven, those beings are not allowed to do that. They were removed because of sin, and they'll be destroyed at the end of time because of sin.
— Amen. We thank you for joining us. It's been fun. It always is. I hope we can do this again. With Wes Peppers, I'm John Bradshaw. This has been "Line Upon Line," brought to you by It Is Written.