Bible Questions with Michael Pearl
Episode 055: What's the right Religion?

Episode Transcription:

Michael Pearl:  There's some tomahawks over there. All right, Jared caught up with me and we're going to do some Bible questions. Now that's not too bad. What's the first question you got there Jared?

Jared:  With the world's many religions why do you believe that your religion is the right religion?

Michael:  OK, that's a good question. I questioned. I questioned the truth. See, it's not a question of truth for me. It's not a question of my truth. It's not a question of what's right for me. It's a question of is it true or is it not. Religion ought to be scientific. In other words, if it's not based on fact then what's it based on? Preference? If it's based on preference then it has no more authority than the here and now.

What I want to know is, has God spoken? Has God revealed himself. Not what I think about God or what somebody else thinks about God, but has God revealed himself? And we have proof that the book that we have, the Bible, is God's word.

I know. I hear it now: Well, everybody else says there book is God's word, too. How do you know that it is? Well, science. You take, for instance, at least half of your bible is prophesy and a very specific, very clear prophecy.

I was thinking about one the other day, the city of Tyre. I noticed the news speaking of Tyre over there in Lebanon. Buy the Bible speaks of Tyre and makes a prophecy about the city of Tyre. And, by the way, this was written well before the fulfillment of it. In the Dead Sea scrolls we found copies of the book of Isaiah dates 200, 250, maybe 350 B.C. Actually, a copper scroll with the book of Isaiah written on it. Plus all the other books of the Bible.

And it's a clear prophesy. God said of Tyre, he said, "I am going to destroy Tyre." And when he said that Tyre was a city that stood right on the sea coast with a cliff overlooking the ocean. And it was an uphill to where it was. There was a multimillion gallon fresh well springing up where the old city stood and it had tremendous fortification. Walls around it. Impregnable city in its day.

But God said, "I'll destroy it." That wasn't unusual. Most every nation gets destroyed sooner or later. But then he said that not one stone will be left standing on another. Now that's unusual. Because when you go to Greece or Corinth or Rome or Babylon you'll find the old ruins covered with sand. You'll find walls, gates, stuff like that.

But only two times did God ever say that in the Bible. One was the old temple in Jerusalem. He said it would be leveled and not one stone left standing on another. And he said this of the whole city of Tyre.

Now, then the prophecy went on to say, there in Isaiah, that the stones would be cast into the sea. Whew! Why would anybody takes stones the size of the bed of a pickup truck, which were nicely carved, squared and throw them into the sea? And hundreds of thousands of stones, stones that would be good for building walls or buildings, to discard them into the sea would be a foolish waste.

Then he said the timber would thrown in the sea. And timber is always valuable. In the old days, if a city were destroyed people would come in and scavenge all the material. Especially the timber. It would be valuable to fires, buildings, whatever.

Then he said the dust would be scraped up off the ground and cast into the sea and the place where Tyre once stood would be as smooth as a rock. And he said fishermen could come and spread their nets there.

Now that was an incredible prophecy. And then he added to that that the city of Tyre would never be rebuild.

Now today they've got a place called Tyre but it's not where the old city stood. And it's not the old city. It's not the old culture. It's not the people who lived there at that time.

Now, what happened is that the city of Tyre was destroyed to several successive wars and battles. But the walls stood. It was just concurred and captured. People still lived in and around the buildings and the ruins and they repaired places. As a civilization it ceased. But it was still occupied.

And then, Alexander the Great came down, third century BC, trying to concur the world and he came across the old city of Tyre. And he attempted to ‑‑ it wasn't difficult ‑‑ to conquer it. But he found that the people had moved to an island about a mile out. So he went with his ships out to the Island. And they had built underground reefs, barriers, kind of a maze to get in and out. And his ships were wrecked on the reefs.

So he went back with his engineers and sat there on the old ruins of Tyre looking down at that island and wondering how he could conquer it. And his engineers came up with the idea, we'll build a causeway out to the island.

So they started shoving these stones, these rock, off of the cliff and into the water. And then they took the timber and laid it horizontally so that they could create a skid, a bed, and put dirt form the city on top of it. And they'd skid the next stone down hill. And they made a projection to go from the elevated place of Tyre down to the water level at the island.

By the time they got through with their slave labor they had removed every single stone, they had removed every single timber, they'd scraped up the dust and used it to fill in and make the roadway and there was nothing left.

Now today, if you go over there to Lebanon to the old city of Tyre you'll find a peninsula with an island creating two bays. And it became the ideal place to park ships to protect them from the weather there in the Mediterranean. And with a fresh well of water springing up, fishermen would park their boats there and then come up and wash their nets.

And the Bible prophecy was, and I think I missed that part, he said that it would be place never rebuild, smooth as a rock, and a place for the spreading of fisherman's nets. So even today, fishermen spread their nets on top of that rock, wash them, wash the salt out of them in the fresh water, and spread them out there in the sun to dry. And that's been now about 2,800 years since the prophecy.

So 2,800 years later that prophesy is still being fulfilled in that the old city of Tyre was never rebuilt. And today, it is a memorial to the God of prophecy who predicted those things would take place.

You see, that's science. That's not what I feel. That's not my preference in religion. That's testimony. That's the fingerprint of God that God was there speaking.

And that's just one prophecy out of the book of Isaiah. I could give you 100 prophecies out of the book of Isaiah. And Isaiah is just one book. You've got Jeremiah, you got Ezekiel, you got Daniel, absolutely full of prophesy. You got Zechariah, Zephaniah, Malachi, full of them. That's all they are is prophesy. Hosea, prophesy. [laughs] You've got prophesies all the way back in Genesis. The book of Deuteronomy. Every book in the Bible has got prophesy in it.

So that is testimony, that is evidence, that that is God's book. You won't find any other holy book on the face of the earth that has ever attempted prophesy like that. Not none. You would prove the human origin of what you did if you attempted to make 500 prophesies and [laughs] they failed to come true. But the Bible made those prophesies and they are being fulfilled. They are fulfilled to this day.

So that is how I know that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ... I am not saying Christianity because Christianity has grown to be a religion like any others with manmade structure, manmade doctrines, without foundation. Kind of a personalized truth thing for many people. So I am not talking about Christianity but I am talking about the God of the Bible. The Lord Jesus Christ. The man who walked the earth who was God and man in flesh.

So I have been studying that book now for 55 years and I find it to be more exciting all the time. As I study it, I study history, I study prophecy, and I study archeology. I even read after atheists and I find them amusing and interesting, as well.

So if you want the truth, get yourself a King James Holy Bible and begin to read it. If you question it, go to the library. Look up the prophecies that it makes. Check them out. See if they've been fulfilled. Like Josh McDowell in his book "Evidence That Demands a Verdict", you will discover evidence there that demands a verdict and the verdict is that we're guilty of not believing God's word that it is God's book.

All right, I'm going to get back to throwing some knives.

Announcer:  If you would like to ask a Bible question, email us at [email protected] or call at 931‑805‑4820.