Beyond Questions

Chris Holland

It Is Written Canada

What Is the Meaning of Life

God's book, the Bible, still relevant in today's complex world.

It is written, sharing messages of hope around the world.

Friend, I'm so glad you've made the choice to join us today on It Is Written.

But then there are bigger questions of life.

Philosophers and scholars alike have wrestled with these questions for ages, asking question after question after question.

Yet the challenge they face is often they just continue to ask questions and never find an answer.

But today on It Is Written, we go beyond questions to find answers.

And I am so glad to have joining me today, John Bradshaw, Speaker Director for It Is Written International.

John, so glad to have you here in Canada.

Now, John, you are with It Is Written International and we're going to talk about that in just a moment, but you've been doing a little traveling lately.

Where have you come to and from to get here in Toronto?

Before that in Malaysia, Eastern Malaysia, beautiful place.

Not too long before that we were in parts of Europe.

But the point is not traveling for traveling's sake.

It's to take the Bible and share Jesus and help people find answers.

Now, some of our viewers might be a little confused because It Is Written Canada, It Is Written International.

There's a little bit of history there, John.

How are these ministries similar yet different?

Well, about 60 years ago a man named George Vandermond began an organization called It Is Written and was inspired by God to head north of the border, meet up with a man named Henry Feyerabend, a legend, a giant in the Christian world who then began It Is Written Canada.

So, we're cousins or brothers or something, but I'm glad we're connected.

We operate in Canada for that Canadian audience.

It is written international, has a broader scope by going around the world, but headquartered down in the US, just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, with a distinct mission as well.

And so I'm so glad that we can partner together and work together to spread the good news of the gospel of Jesus.

Now, John, you know, as we talk about pastors and preachers, 1 of the things that's very interesting is there have been a great deal of news stories done on pastors who preach the Gospel but then you find out their life outside of their preaching doesn't match what they've been saying.

And so I want to take just a moment to, and actually part of this show, this show where we ask the question, what is the meaning of life?

I want to take a moment just to get to know you a little bit.

John, did you come from your mom a preacher?

Tell us a little bit about where your beginnings and your start in life.

And you know, so you know, New Zealanders feel a strong kinship to Canada and Canadians.

We're both part of the British Commonwealth and we have some similar terms and frames of reference and we think warmly of Canadians, you know.

So, I was born and raised in New Zealand and had the benefit of being raised in a church going home.

I sense that you're going to make a distinction to help us understand what you mean by church going home.

Yeah, you know, I'd like to be able to say a Bible believing home but that's not really true.

We were religious and we went to church every Sunday and church was a very, very big part of our lives, no question.

And dad led by example, did the very best he could but it wasn't a place that was especially Christian.

You know, we did our thing and church was what you did on Sunday or perhaps on other days.

It was religiosity but it wasn't anything that really went to the heart and converted the heart.

We were followers of the church, no doubt, but I'm not sure we were followers of Jesus.

I think a lot of people can relate to that.

They say, boy, this really isn't anything.

I go through the motions, but that's all.

So, that's where I was, raised in a churchy home.

We were committed to that, but that's all it was.

I grew up in a home where we were also church-going people.

Now, I know at a very young age, I became disillusioned with the church because of some things that had happened.

Where did your course of life take you as you were in this church-going home?

I was an altar boy in my church, which meant that during the church service I assisted the priest.

We never had anything scandalous take place.

And that can happen in any denomination I know.

But we had good priests as far as we knew, good guys, great nuns.

Good people, you know, good salt of the earth people.

But I started having questions about what I was being taught.

We would hear various things spoken from the altar, from what I guess you'd say the pulpit.

But as I thought about them, they didn't seem to ring true, you know, even contradictory things.

And so as a kid I'm saying, this just doesn't add up.

Now, we were taught not to ask questions, but the questions are there.

Anil Kanda

Ceres SDA Church

The Sabbath and Atheism

Today's message is entitled the Sabbath and atheism.

The Sabbath is a very beautiful institution God has given to us.

There was actually a video of a Baptist pastor who still is a Baptist pastor who discovered the beautiful truth about the Sabbath from a young person In fact, you know what he did after he learned these great truths He actually told his Baptist Church.

We're gonna start worshiping on Sabbath Very interesting The entire church all started worshiping on Sabbath.

In fact, I have a clip of his testimony and we're going to attempt to share it, so hopefully the volume's up and you guys are paying attention.

And he starts sharing to the point, and this is the part of the video where he starts sharing how How he came across?

So let's see if we can get it started doctrinal things But I was polite as a pastor So we sit there and we talked and so forth.

I just listened to her and all along thinking, yeah, that's right.

That those Adventist families that God planted into our school Those Adventist families they loved on me.

They gently guided me They just consistently lived and walked out their faith And I remember 1 1 time we had a basketball game on a Friday evening.

We didn't have a charge of the schedule and the game happened to be on a Friday evening.

And so 1 of our very best players was an Adventist student, and his dad came and we had the Friday it was a Friday afternoon game and I noticed that right about 30-45 minutes before sundown right in the middle of the game the dad come and he took his children and they left.

And I know why he's doing that, because they're going to church.

But the thing I'm trying to say is these families was consistent, they loved their God, they believed their message, and they walked in truth, and they did it with love.

And then 1 day, this very man who I was telling you that took his children out of the game He came to me 1 day and he said pastor Reggie His name is guide you saying for those of you that might would know him.

He said, Pastor Reggie, he said, you know, you and I, we have a great relationship and we have, his children have been in our school 5 or 6 years.

And he said, you know, pastor, he said, I've got the book that I would like for you to read He said now, you know, we've read the book in my family We believe the things that are in this book, but you know, we might have it wrong We might be deceived on something here now, but he was he he was setting me up here Setting me up And he said to me said, you know pastor he said I really appreciate you You've got a PhD in theology and all that he said do you mind reading this book here?

And it was the 10 Commandments, twice removed.

He said, would you just read the book and at the end of the book just tell me what you think about it and if there's anything wrong with the book please love me enough to come and tell me so that I can get it right and boy he was really stroking that ego thing huh and I said well sure brother I'll be glad to read that book and all along I'm thinking here's my chance I'm gonna get it straight with these folks So I took the book and I read it.

I Read through this book the first time and I've got to tell you something.

Even though I had a PhD, I'd never learned this before.

And I said, well, you know, there's got to be more to this.

And so I decided that I would read the book again.

And there it began sinking in and I began thinking, you don't think that maybe I've had it wrong all this time.

And I began learning about Constantine and all the stuff that happened there in the Catholic Church and how that we began following after that tradition.

And then I began thinking, well, maybe I have had it wrong.

And at the end of the third time I was so stirred in my heart I said, I've got to let my wife read this book.

And so I took it home and I had not told her that I'd read the book.

She didn't know the history that you just now know.

I just handed her the book and I said, honey, would you read this book?

And just at the end of it, just tell me what you think about it.

I remember the very moment that she finished the last page because I was waiting to hear what she said.

She closed the book and she looked at me and I said, what do you think?

She said these words, I'm gonna quote you verbatim.

And I said, Honey, I don't know why we're not doing that.

So bottom line is I read this book 5 times.

Actually I've read it more than that, but at that point it was 5 times.

I'm telling you, this is the best book I've ever read.

It's the very best book I've ever read outside the Word of God.

Because this book is personal to me, because this book enlightens me to the truth.

And so after I read it 5 times, she and I, we embraced, and we said, Dear God, we are so sorry that we have never had this truth before.

And for 35 years, I've been teaching people the wrong message.

I did it with the right heart, the right attitude, but I had the wrong message.

And you know, you can have the wrong message and be sweet about it, but it's still wrong.

And so I determined and we determined that God would have us to make a lifestyle change.

I mean I at that point decided I'm going to give up my pork chops, my catfish, my shrimp.

Yes Lifestyle change So we were so excited and happy about this wonderful truth of the Sabbath that we had learned how that it's God's holy day And He told us to keep it holy.

So He just said for us to remember it and not forget it and to keep that day set aside and to give ourselves to Him that day that He would come and visit with us and He would put a blanket of His love on us.

And so we decided, yes Lord, we want that in our life.

And so we decided we would make this lifestyle change.

And she and I were so happy, but we had a church full of folks that didn't know.

And we decided, well, we've got to go tell them.

So the very next Sunday, the very next Sunday, it was showdown time.

And they didn't know what I was about to say, and I didn't know what they was about to say.

And I told them, I told them what I've just shared with you And I didn't know what they were gonna do, but I let them know I said listen This is just something that God has spoken to me about to my wife And we have made a determination the commitment to God that our lifestyle is changing, our message is changing, we will honor the Lord, we will keep His Sabbath day holy, and that's the message we're going to begin preaching, and we're going to be changing our worship days to Sabbath day, and if you can join us and you would like to join us, we welcome you.

If you can't, we love you anyway." I didn't know what they were going to say.

Reading Revelation

Shawn Boonstra

Voice Of Prophecy

No Greater Love (Reading Revelation- 3)

Today on the Voice of Prophecy, a greater love than anything you'll ever see on the Hallmark Channel.

Welcome to the Voice of Prophecy, coming to you from the beautiful city of Loveland, Colorado, nestled up against the Rocky Mountains.

I'm your host, Sean Boonstra, and today I'm going to be continuing with a project that's just a few weeks old.

I'm actually reading my way through the book of Revelation and I'm taking enough time to really digest what the author is saying.

So I'm kind of going at a snail's pace, we're moving very slowly, because there's so much depth to the book of Revelation that you really need to slow down and pay attention to details, because this is 1 of those books of the Bible where the details are absolutely critical.

Now I don't think we're gonna study Revelation every single week because there's so much more to the Bible and there's so much more happening in the world that I really want to pay attention to, but from time to time I'll keep coming back to the book of Revelation And what I'm hoping is that over time, we'll cover all, or at least most, of what the book of Revelation says.

We are, after all, the voice of prophecy.

And by the time I'm finished, I want you to be able to download all the podcasts and kind of have this blow-by-blow, detailed study of the whole book.

Now that's my goal and it's kind of a lofty goal and I'm not sure how long it's gonna take but this is what I'm going to work on today.

So you might want to go and grab a Bible and follow along.

I want you to look at the texts as we read them because studying the book of Revelation is kind of like having God pull back the curtains of the universe and show you these things that, well, they defy the imagination.

This is a book that you can actually understand.

Once you put aside all the sensationalistic books and movies, and you go back and look at the original first century context, and once you take Revelation and place it in the broader biblical context, this book is actually fairly easy to grasp.

Of course there's so much depth to it that you might be studying this the rest of your life, but the essential concepts, the basic stuff, it's actually pretty easy to understand.

Now do I understand everything in the book of Revelation?

But I do understand the big broad themes, and I want to give you a chance to understand them as well.

It's just that over the last 200 years or so, the Christian world has kind of abandoned its historic understanding of how we ought to study this.

For 1800 years, there was widespread agreement, almost universal agreement, on the basic approach to Revelation.

But since the early 1800s, we've really seen this tectonic shift that, frankly, has produced an awful lot of confusion.

So what we're going to do with this study is go back to the basics.

We're going to go back to the way people used to read this book.

And I think you're going to see that this approach still makes sense, even in the 21st century.

In fact, it might actually make more sense because some of the stuff described in this book, especially the middle part, chapters 12, 13, and 14, that stuff's actually playing out right now.

Now, if you're just coming in on this study for the first time today, you might want to go to our website, VOP.com, or go to iTunes and look for the Voice of Prophecy and grab the first few studies so you can catch up and then you won't have missed a thing.

Now, today we are part way through chapter 1.

In fact, we are half way through a verse.

In our last study, we looked at these 3 titles John gives Jesus in the first part of verse 5.

He calls him the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and ruler over the kings of the earth.

And then we ran out of time last time and I left off right there in the middle of the verse.

What we saw was this amazing salutation from the real author of Revelation to the 7 churches.

It was a greeting from God to believers and now John pauses to pay respect to God, to give tribute to the author and underline how important this message really is.

So I want to pick up now halfway through Revelation 1 verse 5.

Here's what it says, "...to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

Amen." That brings the salutation to a close.

When you and I write a letter, or at least in the old days when we used to write real letters, we were far more succinct.

I mean, we used to say, Dear Mike, or Dear Mom, or Dear Grandma, and that was it.

But this message is far too important for a quick greeting.

The content of this letter is really directed at all believers of all time, and the content is so important, so critical, that John goes out of his way to make sure we all understand exactly who wrote this book.

The author is the 1 who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

Now, if you have a Bible with marginal notes, say you have a study Bible, you might notice that the people who translated this particular verse into English have suggested that the word loved might not be the only or even the best translation.

To put it in the present tense, it might be more accurate to speak of Jesus as the 1 who loves us, not who loved us.

Now of course they probably translated this in the past tense because it's talking about the cross, that specific moment when Jesus actually shed his blood to save the human race.

But the reality is that Christ's love for you did not stop that day.

And what Jesus does for you is much bigger than a single moment in time.

Even though Jesus has already paid the entire cost of your salvation, Even though His gift on the cross covers your sins in full and there's nothing you can do to help pay for the debt, the cross is really only part of the picture.

Now, naturally, it's a huge part of the picture.

If it wasn't for the cross, you would not be on your way to the kingdom.

But that is not everything that Jesus does.

It's not as if he rose from the dead, went back to heaven, and now he's taking a well-earned vacation.

He's still doing something to make sure you make it into His kingdom.

Well, you want to keep your finger here in Revelation chapter 1 because we will come back.

But for a moment, go back to Hebrews chapter 9 where The Bible explains exactly what Jesus has been doing for the last 2, 000 years.

Listen to this now in Hebrews 9 verse 24.

It says, For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands.

That's a reference to the earthly temple which no longer exists.

Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands which are copies of the true.

In other words, the earthly temple in Jerusalem was actually a copy of something else, something bigger, something better.

Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us." Now that statement right there might just be 1 of the biggest keys to understanding the book of Revelation.

What it's telling us is that the earthly temple, the earthly sanctuary, was actually pointing forward to the work of Christ in our behalf.

The temple was an object lesson, a teaching tool, designed to show the plan of salvation well in advance of the day that Jesus would actually come and walk the face of this earth.

The little lambs that the Israelites sacrificed, they all pointed forward to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And the priests who carried the blood of sacrificial animals into the temple also pointed forward to Jesus, who is now serving as our great High Priest in front of the throne of the Father.

So Jesus is the Lamb, the sacrificial victim, and He is the priest who offers the sacrifice.

Now I'm up against a break that I'm going to have to take so I'm gonna let you mull that thought over for a moment.

Jesus is the Lamb, the sacrificial victim, and he's the priest who offers the sacrifice.

I want you to think about that and then I'll come back to unpack it just a little bit more.

So don't go away we're about to look at 1 of the biggest keys to understanding the book of Revelation.

Do you feel as if you have more questions than answers in your life?

Are you searching for answers to some of life's biggest questions?

Well, the Discover Bible Guides can help you find the answers you're looking for.

Visit us at BibleStudies.com or call us at 888-456-7933 for your free discover Bible guides.

Visit BibleStudies.com and begin your journey today to discover answers to life's deepest questions.

You are listening to the Voice of Prophecy.

My name is Sean Boonstra and today we are reading our way through the book of Revelation.

Now just before we took a break I was looking at Jesus as both the sacrificial victim for sin, we were looking at the way that the sacrificial lambs in the Old Testament were pointing forward to Jesus, and we were looking at Jesus as the priest who actually offers the sacrifice.

In other words, nobody took Jesus' life from him.

You and I are still guilty of murdering God's Son, but the Bible teaches that nobody forced Jesus into this situation.

The book of Revelation actually calls Jesus the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, which means that God decided on a plan to save us even before He created us.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

What Is the Meaning of Life

29m

The Sabbath and Atheism

1h

No Greater Love (Reading Revelation- 3)

30m

Prophecies of World Events

29m

The Name of Jesus

47m

Laborers Are Few

46m

The Harvest Truly is Great

45m

Seven Candle Sticks

30m

Prophecies of Resurrections

28m

04. Luke: The Call to Discipleship

45m

Who Should be Baptized

27m

Nazi Hunter

42m

Sound Doctrine