God and His Prophets: A verse-by-verse study through the Bible’s major and minor prophets

In 1948, Israel was attacked by a coalition of five nations. The Israelis were outnumbered 2 to 1, outgunned 3 to 1, outclassed in every way, and yet they were victorious against their enemies. In 1967, Israel was attacked again by another coalition of nations. They again were outnumbered 3 to 1, outgunned 4 to 1, outclassed in every way, and yet they were victorious against their enemies. In the...

You might think that there’s been a lot of things going on the world this past week, and this month, and this year- but that’s nothing in comparison to what’s coming in the future.  The Bible has a lot to say about the future. In fact, if you added up all the things the Bible says about future things that haven’t even happened yet, there would be more pages about things yet to come than it even sa...

Many Bible prophecy teachers have incorrectly said something about Gog and Magog’s battle in Ezekiel 38, and I might be one of them. We have incorrectly said that Gog and Magog could happen at any moment.  Upon some careful study of the words here, I no longer think it could happen at literally any moment. I believe there are a few things that need to take place before Gog and Magog can come about...

The Bible has a lot of strange locations thrown at us in Ezekiel 38 and 39.  Persia, Cush, Put, Gomer, Meshech, Tubal, Beth-Togarmah, Mos Eisley, Alderaan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’d need a time machine to know where all these places are.  In fact, you’d need a space ship, too, because some of them only exist in a galaxy far, far away.  Since we don’t have time travel technology all figured out yet, we...

We’re finally here, the most famous section of Ezekiel: chapters 38 and 39. The battle of Gog and Magog. This chapter is about an alliance of nations that band together to attack Israel in the end times. The list of nations includes names like Cush, Put, Togarmah and more, and they’re led by a figure named Gog.  I don’t know about you, but these sound like someone in Scrabble trying to make up wor...

It was the week before Halloween in the fall of 1988 when Bill Scott picked up the phone at his job at a Christian radio station and his life was never the same.  What follows is a story of demonic possession, deliverance, and a long list of what to do and what NOT to do when standing up to the powers of darkness.  I’ve been doing a series on the abilities of demons here on this podcast. Bill join...

I’m going to give you a great Bible Study tip, because some people have a really hard time figuring out what the Bible is saying. So here’s a little tip that always helps me: when the Bible tells you what it’s saying, then you don’t have to try to figure out what it’s saying. You can just go with what the Bible tells you it’s saying. Sound good? Great. Now you can throw out half your commentaries...

There are two chapters of the book of Ezekiel that I feel are most abused when it comes to interpretation. Two chapters that people seem to just want to allegorize and make them mean whatever they want. And one of those chapters is right here. Ezekiel 37. Many Christians try to make this chapter about a future resurrection. That may be the most popular interpretation of this chapter. But Ezekiel 3...

I can't figure out why I keep making everybody mad at me, so I brought in an expert to explain it. Craig of Awaiting Christ ministry and podcast joins me today to explain dispensationalism and how it relates to the modern state of Israel and rapture theology- both hot button issues in today's political and church climate. Craig is a seminary student and also a writer for GotQuestions.org. Find out...

There’s a strange contradiction in God’s promises to the Jewish people.  In Genesis 12, God makes a covenant with Abraham to give him the land of Israel. In Genesis 17:7, God told Abraham that His covenant with him and his descendants would be an everlasting covenant.  But then in Leviticus 26, God warns that if the Jewish people break His commandments, He will kick them out of their land.  And th...

Trying to figure out the next step in your life's journey? Today, I chat with Chris Pace about his new book Level Up. As I tell the story in this episode, I actually met Chris recently while on vacation, and he gave me a copy of his book. This interview will share several insights with you about discovering God's will. Here is a link where you can find more about Chris' book: https://chrispace.org...

Today, I am sharing an episode from my other podcast, Weird Stuff in the Bible. Each week, I dive into a different weird topic regarding bizarre things in scripture. Hear more by subscribing to this podcast as well! And tune back in on Cross References next week to hear an interview with Chris Pace of Messenger International about his new book, Level Up. On a recent episode of this podcast, I was...

Last week I talked about how I did my parental duty and instilled the love of star wars into my child.  Now let me talk about one of the stupidest things in star wars.  And it comes from the same place that all of the stupidest things in star wars come from: the new Disney movies.  This one is flies right into the face of common sense. It comes from the inner turmoil experienced by the villain of...

Poor Nicodemus. That guy really gets a bad rap.  Nicodemus was the Pharisee who famously came to Jesus by night, because he was afraid if he approached Jesus during the day that people might see, and people might talk. He was a wise man, a religious man, a scholar.  And it’s a good thing that he comes to Jesus in the middle of the night like this because if anyone did hear what Nicodemus was sayin...

A lot of people misunderstand the third commandment. The third commandment says, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” Most Christians think that means you shouldn’t say OMG. Now, you probably shouldn’t say OMG, but that’s just one part of what it means to break the third commandment.  The third commandment means to misrepresent God. Now, you may say, how can taking God’s nam...

Is prophecy meant to be taken literally, or is it all symbolic? And if it’s both, then how can you know the difference? That’s the question we’re going to answer today.  Because we Christians find a lot to argue about on the subject of prophecy. How can we know if the Israel of today is the fulfillment of prophecies in Old Testament Scripture? How can we know if the Millennium is something future...

We’re coming up on three years since I started this podcast, and when I started it, I didn’t know that by the time we got done, Israel would be attacked in the largest one-day massacre of Jewish people since WWII. I didn’t know Israel would be engulfed in a literal war with the Palestinian terrorists who have been seeking to overthrow it for decades. And I didn’t know we’d be seeing Ezekiel 35 bei...

Ezekiel has not been the easiest book of the Bible to study. Up until today’s lesson, most of it has been dark, depressing, gloomy and full of judgment and wrath.  But regardless of the past, I have some news about the future: the best is yet to come.  Because the book is making a major turning point in this section we’re in. So far, we’ve just encountered the bad news. But now we’re in a part cal...

A pastor must be a good public speaker, able to draw large crowds with his authority and charisma.  A pastor must be like a CEO, an expert in management and leadership. A pastor must be a skilled fundraiser, and know how to execute a building program. A pastor must be on-call 24/7, even on holidays and vacations. A pastor must be an expert psychologist and counselor, able to diagnose and treat eve...

I have heard all my life about declaring God’s promises. The idea was that certain things in scripture became true in reality as long as you declared them to be so.  Sounds a little bit magical. But is it biblical? We’re going to talk about that today. We’ll also wrap up Ezekiel 33, and for the first time in 30 chapters, Ezekiel is going to be allowed to speak freely. You may have forgotten, but E...

Entire books have been written about the thorny theological issue I want to talk about today. James chapter 2. At face value, James 2 seems hard to reconcile with the rest of the New Testament.  That’s because the rest of the New Testament pretty clearly teaches this doctrine of salvation by grace through faith not of works. That’s a direct quote, actually. Ephesians 2:8-9 says For by grace you ha...

So we’re in this chapter called Ezekiel’s Greatest Hits. That’s my name for it. Ezekiel 33 recaps some of Ezekiel’s earlier lessons; in fact, some of my favorite lessons from earlier in the book. And today we’ll be looking at verses 10 through 20, which recap my favorite chapter of Ezekiel: chapter 18.  This is the chapter on personal responsibility. It was one of my most popular podcast episodes...

I am looking at changing this podcast's name to "The Book of Ezekiel: A Cross References Bible Study."  I hope you will agree that I have a good reason to make this change.

You are probably going to regret listening to today’s episode. I’m just gonna put that out there now.  Why do I say that? Do you ever learn something and you just kind of wish you didn’t know?  Like, I wish I didn’t know about germs. Sometimes I just really wish I didn’t know that there are these tiny little microscopic bacteria all over virtually everything and if you get too many of them you’ll...

Today, I'm just asking for prayer for the family of a friend of mine. Though my heart is heavy right now, I hope you all have a Happy Memorial Day :)