Q&A: Collateral Damage, Finis Dake, and Spiritual Warfare

From the Christian Research Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, you're listening to the Bible Answer Man broadcast with Hank Hanegraaff. We're on the air because life and truth matter. The mission of the Christian Research Institute is to equip believers to always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you, to give the reason for the hope that you have with gentleness and respect. For more information, resources, or to donate to CRI.org, Call 888-7000-CRI or go online to equip.org. The following program was pre-recorded. And now, here's Bible Answer Man host, Hank Hanegraaff.

Thank you very much, Randy. Many people hanging on. We'll go right to the phone calls. First up is Chris listening on the web in Michigan. Hi, Chris.

Hi, Hank.

How are you doing today?

I'm well, thank you.

I have a question about God and collateral damage. I have a lot of friends that I talk with, and they don't seem to have a problem with the thought of a baby dying from not an act of God in the sense of natural evil, but like in the Bible when God directly judges humanity for like Sodom and Gomorrah.

and the flood and like the plagues of Egypt. And so, you know, I was curious, I don't recall anywhere remembering reading anywhere in the Bible where it implied that God, you know, judged even babies. But I was just curious how that, you know, how that actually hashes out. Like what is, even at the age of two or three, you know, are we guilty to the point to where there is no such thing as collateral damage when God does direct judgments on humanity, or is there, like, at times where we're not culpable for the sin that we have because we're not old enough to understand it?

Well, you know, war does bring collateral damage, and you bring up the exodus and the babies that are killed, or the firstborn, at least, who are killed within Egypt. And you have to realize that this is after God exercising mercy over and over and and over again. In fact, mercy becomes the occasion for the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.

He hardens his heart. Every time God is willing to remove a plague, he acts in disobedience. So mercy becomes the occasion for the hardening of his heart. And yes, there is collateral damage. Remember what's going on. If you go to the first few chapters of Exodus, the first thing you see is that there are slave masters that are ordered by Pharaoh to oppress the children of Israel with forced labor and to work them ruthlessly to make their lives bitter and hard. And then he gives an order that every boy that is born to the Israelites has to be thrown into the Nile. In other words, he's killing all of the boys. So not only slave labor, but the genocide of all kinds of boys. In contrast to that, God is going to allow those who are

his servants to escape that kind of oppression. And he's going to do that with a sovereign hand. Now, any single person within Egypt, whether they were native-born Egyptians or Israelites, who followed Yahweh, the God of Israel, was considered to be true Israel and would have been able to leave with the Israelites in the Exodus out of Egypt. So we can be certain that Egyptians were spared, very much like Rahab was spared, and her household, in other words, her family, spared because they turned to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and therefore the acts of God's judgment did not fall And again, this is all contextualized by the fact that God gave ample warning to the Egyptians who had enslaved the Israelites. Punishment was the last resort. And

of course, death is not the worst thing that can happen to someone. We see in a biblical sense that God offers his own son so that whosoever believes in him would have eternal life. So the object is always everlasting life. And the mercy of God is shown to be great and deep and bountiful. We see that over and over again, that God gives ample time for repentance, and then finally the acts of God's judgment falls. And just as in any war, if we were going in to liberate, the nations against Nazi occupation, there is going to be collateral damage. But nonetheless, that kind of liberation is necessary. And in this particular case, it's very understandable to anyone, even with modern sensibilities, because you're having the

slaughter of infants. You're having not only that enforced slave labor, and that enforcement is ruthless, making gratuitously the lives of people bitter and hard. And God now moves in, according to the prayers of his people, to liberate them from that kind of bondage and oppression in Egypt.

Well, thank you very much for your answer. It's been very helpful.

You got it. Thank you so much for your call. And I've written about this in various places, including the Complete Bible Answer Book, Collector's Edition. Back to the phone lines, we'll talk next to Vernon, listening... in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Hi, Vernon.

Hi, Hank. It's nice to talk to you. And my question comes from Luke 24, 13 to 35. Was Peter one of the disciples that was on the road to Emmaus?

Well, I really don't know. I mean, I doubt it because of what comes before the account. Before the account, Peter is mentioned where he runs to the tomb, he bends over, he sees strips of linen lying by themselves, and then he went away. wondering to himself what had happened. And then you have the account by Dr. Luke about what happened with respect to two of them, two of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. And only one is mentioned, Cleopas. And I imagine if Peter was involved, he would have been mentioned as well.

And the reason I ask that is that in verse 34, it says, saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. which Simon's not saying that. Somebody is saying that for him. Is that correct?

Yeah, someone would be saying that for Simon.

Right. And it doesn't have to be that he saw him on the road to Emmaus. It could be that he saw him at some other situation.

Am I right?

That's correct. All right.

Thank you, Hank. Thanks a lot.

You got it.

Thank you so much for your call. Back to the phone line. Shannon, she's listening in Belmont, North Carolina. Hi, Shannon.

Hello, Hank.

I'll make the question quick, and then I'll hang up so I can hear you on the radio.

Okay.

My question is, who is or was Finnis Dake, and what has been his impact on today's Christian landscape?

Well, Finnis Dake is not alive anymore, but his Bible continues to have a pretty significant impact on people. It's called the Dake's Annotated Reference Bible, and I have said in my writings that I think it's perhaps the worst collection of false teachings I've encountered. God goes from place to place in a body like all other persons and is just an ordinary sized being. He wears clothes, he eats, he rests, he dwells in a mansion in a city located in a material planet called heaven. In fact, if you go to the very first page of his New Testament, He writes that Jesus became the Christ or the Anointed One 30 years after he was born of Mary. Of course, even a biblically illiterate person who has only watched the

Charlie Brown Christmas special or sung Christmas carols should be familiar with Luke 2.11, which says, For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. So he is a person, unfortunately, that's gotten a lot of play. with the Dake Sanitated Study Bible in Christian circles, even though what he teaches is more akin to Mormonism sometimes than it is to Christianity.

But there are a lot of things that people like Dake has done which are extraordinarily detrimental to the Christian worldview. I've written about this in my book, Christianity in Crisis, 21st Century, which is available through the ongoing work of the Christian Research Institute. You can order online at equip.org.

or as always, when you pick up the phone, call 888-7000-CRI. Back to the phone lines. We'll talk next to Steve in Seattle, Washington. Hi, Steve.

Hi, Hank.

Thanks for taking my call.

Pleasure.

My question is regarding the resurrection for Christians. I had a pastor, and I heard him say that there's one resurrection for all Christians, and I'm wondering if you believe that, and if you do, How does Revelation chapter 20, verse 6, where it's talking about he that hath part in the first resurrection, you know, like it's more than one resurrection for Christians.

Well, actually it's not. I mean, if you look at the passage, you don't have two resurrections. You have a resurrection, a first resurrection, and that is contrasted with a second death. But overall, there is a sense in which we can talk about two resurrections, the first resurrection and the physical resurrection at the second coming of Jesus Christ. So in that sense, I would agree that there are two resurrections.

You are, as Paul puts it, you are dead in your transgressions and sins, but God made us alive with Christ. Christ, of course, is the one who raises us up. And God is the one who allows us to be resurrected in Christ, as is pointed out again by Paul in Ephesians chapter 2. But Jesus made it clear that there's one resurrection in the sense of the physical resurrection. Now, we're not talking about spiritual resurrection. He said, do not be amazed at this. A time is coming when all who are in the grace will come out. Some will rise to live and some will rise to be condemned.

You're going to have to leave it at that. We're coming to a station break. Be right back. Please don't touch that dial.

To find out more about the materials mentioned on the show, call a CRI resource consultant toll-free at 888-7000-CRI. That's 888-7000-CRI. Our website is also an excellent reference destination to help you. Just go to equip.org and find articles by Hank, books, CDs, and DVDs, Again, that's equip.org. Or write CRI PO Box 8500, Charlotte, North Carolina, ZIP 28271. The Bible Answer Man will continue in just a moment. The Complete Bible Answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive collection of the most often asked questions Hank Hanegraaff has received throughout his four decades as host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast. With more than half a million copies already in print, this newly revised

and expanded Collector's Edition Help seekers and skeptics alike sort through the truth on topics such as reliability of the Bible, religions and cults, the resurrection and afterlife, and many more issues vital to a better understanding of God in Christ and our relationship to Him. To receive your copy of the complete Bible answer book, Collector's Edition, revised and expanded, call 888-7000-CRI. and make a gift to support the Christian Research Institute's life-changing outreaches, 888-7000-CRI, or visit us at equip.org.

Anyone who's been paying attention knows there's a war going on, not just on traditional morality, civility, and decency, but even more fundamentally on historic notions of truth. And the enemy isn't just the onslaught of fake news facilitated by a post-truth culture and turbocharged by growing legions of ideological spin doctors. No, the real enemies of truth range from post-modernist convictions that there is no objective truth to militant scientism that claims that only science can determine truth and religion is little more than primitive superstitions. But CRI support team members are not waving a white flag of surrender. They're holding the fort by undergirding every one of Christian Research Institute's mind-shaping

and life-changing outreaches 24-7. To learn how you can make a difference and enjoy all the benefits of support team membership, simply visit equip.org.

Hank Hanegraaff has dedicated his life to defending truth because truth matters. However, his life and ministry were radically transformed by another three-word phrase, life matters more. Truth matters because Christianity is rooted in history and evidence. Life matters more because it is the experience of union with God. The goal of Christian life is union with God. All attempts to understand Christianity from a solely rational perspective put us in danger of devolving into a transactional rather than transformational relationship with God. Truth Matters, Life Matters More will equip you to move beyond intellectually knowing about God to experientially knowing Him in Christ. To receive your copy of Truth Matters,

Life Matters More, call 888-7000-CRI and make a gift to support the Christian Research Institute's life-changing outreaches, 888-7000-CRI, or visit us online at equip.org.

Now back to the Bible Answer Man broadcast and your host, Hank Hanegraaff.

Thank you very much, Randy. And literally thousands have asked me to please broadcast in our area. We need your voice. We need the equipping, the empowerment, the encouragement, the exhortation. We need the Bible Answer Man broadcast and the ministries of the Christian Research Institute. You can be a part of making that happen. We want to reclaim the land so that more and more lives around this world can be impacted in a dynamic, direct fashion. So please be generous.

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Next to the phone is John in Greenville, South Carolina, listening on the web. Hi, John.

Hey, Hank.

Thanks for taking my call. Hey, I got a question about spiritual warfare. Erwin Lutzer and people like Neil Anderson, they say that a Christian can be harassed or tormented by a demon or demons, maybe not Satan himself, but maybe his followers, the other demons. Now, but I hear other people, other books, other authors and preachers say differently, that when you're having a certain thought in your head, every once in a while it pops out, it's really your flesh or your human nature, not necessarily a demon who's tormenting you. And I don't know exactly who to believe, because I read the Scripture, Ephesians 4, and I guess you can interpret things both ways, you know what I mean?

I'm just trying to figure out what your take is on the issue.

Yeah, I think there are a lot of people that greatly overestimate the power of Satan. You mentioned Neil Anderson in his bestseller, The Bondage Breaker. He describes how the forces of darkness targeted him personally for purposing to expose Satan's strategies. He says he stepped out of his shower one day and he found several strange symbols traced on the fogged-up mirror. And then he went down to eat breakfast, and as he was sitting in the kitchen, he felt a slight pain on his hand, and he looked down to see what appeared to be two little bite marks on his hand, and then he said to the demons, is that the best shot? Do you think that symbols on a mirror and a little bite are going to keep me from giving my message in chapel today? Get

out of here! Well, that's an example of having, I guess, a fertile imagination, but also greatly overestimating the power of Satan. Satan can certainly tempt you, but he can't bite you. He can't scrawl messages on a fogged up mirror. He can't cause you to levitate. That is something that Satan has no control over whatsoever. He doesn't have creative power.

So he cannot interact with people in that sense. But what Satan does in the past and what he does today in the present is always the same. He is as it were, sitting on our shoulder, whispering into our ear. The whisper, of course, cannot be heard with the physical ear, because Satan doesn't have vocal cords, but it can penetrate the ear or the mind. And so that's why we're told in spiritual warfare to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against principalities and powers of darkness. If you put on the full armor of God, you're invincible in spiritual warfare. If you don't, you're a guaranteed casualty. If you're a believer, one other thing that's important to note is you cannot

be possessed by a demon. Your temple is the temple of the Holy Spirit. It's not going to be shared with a demon. So you have to get a proper valuation, a true perspective on spiritual warfare. And because there's so much mythology in Christian circles on spiritual warfare, I wrote a book with clarification in this regard that's called The Covering, God's Planned to protect you from evil, and it is available through the Ministry of the Christian Research Institute.

Okay.

I probably should get that book, then. Yeah, because there's a lot of confusion, because Neal Epstein may be a bad sort, but Erwin Lutzer kind of said the same thing in a way, but he didn't say a demon can possess you, he said a demon can torment you, and that's a little different than possessing you.

Yeah, it is different, and I think he's right. A demon can torment you. Again, if you're a child of the king, you have a way of overcoming the principalities and powers of darkness. But yeah, you've got to take your stand. Paul tells you how to do that in Ephesians chapter 6.

Okay, Hank.

Thanks so much, man. Blessings to your ministry.

Thank you. Appreciate your call. I want to go back to the phone lines. We'll talk next to Amber. She's listening in Columbus, Nebraska.

Hi, Amber.

Hi, Hank. Thank you for taking my call.

You got it. My pleasure.

I have a question regarding, well, my uncle committed suicide about two years ago, and it's just been a hard thing. And I was wondering if you could just talk about that and what does that mean? I don't know if he was saved or anything like that, but if he was, what does that mean?

Also, there are two.

Kids that he left behind, and I guess I just don't know how to talk to them about that.

Well, remember, no single act is unforgivable. What ultimately becomes unforgivable is a continuous, ongoing rebellion against the grace and goodness of God. So it's never a single act, even suicide. But remember also that suicide is murder, and that is unthinkable from a Christian standpoint. A life and death of the prerogative of God These are not prerogatives that we can take into our own hands. So a Christian must not contemplate suicide any more than a Christian can contemplate murder, because that is precisely what this is. It's the murder of oneself. Having said that, it's certainly conceivable that someone in a time of darkness and despair and despondency might do something that they wouldn't ordinarily do or do if

they were as it were, in their right mind. And that's why, again, I emphasize the fact that no single sin is unforgivable. The unforgivable sin is a continuous, ongoing, premeditation rebellion against the goodness and grace of God. Amber, I've written about this in several places, and I'd be happy to put the information into your hands if you want to have this in a written form so that you can speak with them with gentleness and respect. Obviously a very difficult circumstance. I'd be happy to put that information into your hands.

That would be great. Thank you.

God bless you. I want to go back to the phone lines and talk to Sandra next. She's listening in West Virginia. Hi, Sandra.

Hi, how are you?

I'm fine, thank you.

Thank you for taking my call.

It's a pleasure.

My question is about Romans 9 and what are your thoughts on predestination? Because I hear a lot of it on the radio by pretty prominent pastors, and they use a lot of scripture that is convincing.

Well, predestination is a biblical term, so you can find predestination in the Bible. For example, if you look at Ephesians, where Paul says, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ, for he chose us in him. So again, what you have in the biblical text is predestination and the subset of predestination involving election. So it's a biblical teaching, so no Christian denies that. there are various views, however, on what it means. And so the meaning poured into the word is different by some Christians than it is by other Christians, and therefore that takes a lot of biblical thought, a lot of biblical knowledge. You take chapters like Romans chapter 9,

you read it very carefully, and then when you get done you say, what question is Paul addressing here? So you have to ask very critical questions of the text, and then also you have to be biblically literate, which is to say, if you read Romans 9 and fail to recognize that the New Testament writers take portions of the Old Testament and truncate them, in other words, they don't give you the whole of the Old Testament text, they give you a portion of the Old Testament text, assuming, hopefully, assuming correctly, that you know the Old Testament, and therefore you know the context of the passages that Paul is quoting.

So again, when he quotes Jeremiah 18 or Isaiah 29, he's not quoting the entirety of those passages, he's only quoting a portion of those passages, and again, assuming that you're aware of the context in which those words, those citations are used in the Old Testament context. So that's what's important in that debate, is what does predestination mean?

How does it apply to me? Is Christ the predestined one? Is he the royal seed of Abraham? And if we are in Christ, are we by virtue of that predestined? All of those questions are relevant questions to ponder on the basis of your study of Scripture. And the reason Christians debate this vigorously, and hopefully don't unnecessarily divide over it, is it's a very difficult issue to grapple with. In fact, if you read an article in the Christian Research Journal, this debate between a Calvinist and a non-Calvinist, you find, wow, these are very sophisticated, difficult issues to grapple with. And that's why we put this debate format together in print so that a person can get it and look at the texts that are used by the Calvinist and the

texts that are used by the non-Calvinist and come to a good understanding of what's going on in terms of the biblical text itself. And you ought to be a Berean in this sense, which is to say the Bereans were counted as more noble by the Apostle Paul because daily they examined the scriptures to see if what the Apostle Paul was saying was actually true. And instead of wrapping them on the knuckles and saying, don't you realize I'm the great Apostle Paul? Don't test me. He counted them as being noble because they were testing him in light of what God had already said. Thanks for tuning in.

We'll see you next time with more of the Bible Answer Man broadcast.

Thanks for tuning in to the Bible Answer Man broadcast. Our website, equip.org, has an abundance of resources to sharpen your discernment skills and help you grow in life and truth. We provide books, videos, and informative articles. You can also listen to the broadcast, download archived programs, get answers to pressing Bible questions, or connect with us via social media.

All this and more at equip.org. Again, the address is equip.org. The Bible Answer Man broadcast is supported by listeners like you. We're on the air because life and truth matter. The Complete Bible Answer Book Collector's Edition is the comprehensive collection of the most often asked questions Hank Hanegraaff has received throughout his four decades as host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast. With more than half a million copies already in print, this newly revised and expanded Collector's Edition Help seekers and skeptics alike sort through the truth on topics such as reliability of the Bible, religions and cults, the resurrection and afterlife, and many more issues vital to a better understanding of God in Christ and our relationship to Him.

To receive your copy of the complete Bible answer book, collector's edition, revised and expanded, call 888-7000-CRI and make a gift to support the Christian Research Institute's life-changing outreaches. 888-7000-CRI or visit us at equip.org.

Q&A: Collateral Damage, Finis Dake, and Spiritual Warfare

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