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A Lawyer s CASE for GOD

A Lawyer s CASE for GOD Jim Jacob Esq

Copyright 2009 2011 to Jim Jacob All rights reserved LawyersCaseforGod gmail com To order more books www prophecyrevealed com and amazon com Also available in Hebrew at http ha gefen org il office ha gefen org il ISBN 978 0 615 25482 1 All scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from the New King James Version Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc Used by permission All rights reserved Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION Copyright 1973 1978 1984 International Bible Society Used by permission of Zondervan All rights reserved The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society Scripture quotations marked CJB are taken from the Complete Jewish Bible copyright 1998 by David H Stern Published by Jewish New Testament Publications Inc www messianicjewish net jntp Distributed by Messianic Jewish Resources www messianicjewish net All rights reserved Used by permission Scripture quotations marked NAS are taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright 1960 1962 1963 1968 1971 1972 1973 1975 1977 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission Words within quotes have been italicized by the author for emphasis Words within quotes in brackets have been added by the author The author has compared the translations used in this book with the translation offered by the Jewish Publication Society JPS and have found them to be virtually identical to each other in meaning Feel free to compare them for yourself Sometimes the verse numbers vary slightly

About the Author Since 1979 Jim Jacob has been engaged in the practice of law and has been a senior partner at his law firm Jim holds the highest rating from a prominent company that evaluates lawyers nationwide He has been privileged to represent civic leaders large U S companies and individuals Jim is admitted to practice before the U S Supreme Court He was selected for membership by Outstanding Lawyers of America A major metropolitan newspaper requested him to author a series of articles on legal topics He also has authored articles for a statewide legal publication Jim has been married for 31 years and has four children He and his wife Cathy have served as leaders at their congregation for many years i

Acknowledgment I would like to thank my beloved wife Cathy for her prayers and love throughout our 31 years of marriage I have been blessed beyond measure with a woman who far surpasses my dreams Without her patience and kindness this book would not have been possible Her heartfelt input and prayers were extremely beneficial I also thank my children who have prayed for me inspired me over the years and assisted with this endeavor They are a tremendous blessing I am also grateful to Don and Jackie Goldstein Marvin Aaron Shmuel Wolkenfeld Jack and Liz Kaufman David Belpedio and others who also assisted with this book Lastly I would like to thank God for His protection patience and everlasting love iii

Introduction My anti religious views and the reason for this book I Was a Committed Atheist for 39 Years For the majority of my life I was a deeply committed atheist absolutely certain there was no God I was confident that God was created in the minds of naive human beings to answer questions they could not God was a myth that provided nothing more than false hope I was certain that these crazy Christians religious Jews and other religious fanatics were totally deceived and were hooked on religion like drug addicts were hooked on drugs I was convinced the Bible was simply made up to give us a reason to tolerate all the rotten things in the world like pain suffering death taxes and more taxes not to mention wasteful government spending and virtually non stop political advertising Gullible people simply clung to the hope that everything would be better once they endured the travails of life on earth and entered paradise in heaven 9

A Lawyer s Case for God I was raised in a Jewish home but must admit that I thought Abraham Isaac Jacob Noah Moses and the rest of the supporting biblical cast were nothing more than fictional characters akin to Rumpelstiltskin Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel Anyone with a lick of sense could see right through the fairy tales in the Bible To me spending time and energy on religion was an utter waste of time My attitude closely resembled the sentiments expressed by Bill Gates religion is not very efficient There is a lot more I could do on Sunday morning 1 I was totally convinced my views were correct and that all the rules religious fanatics I thought all religious people were fanatics walked in lock step with were insane and in fact almost comical It grieved me that people squandered money on church buildings mosques and synagogues I could not understand why anyone would pray or live a holy life How unnecessary How boring If it worked for them that was fine but it was definitely not for me and never would be or so I thought Of course I had arrived at these steadfast convictions without examining any of the facts I just somehow almost supernaturally by osmosis felt that religion was all wrong The closest I had even come to reading the Bible was scanning the 23rd Psalm on a recordstore poster Don t talk religion with friends is a well known creed and I clung to it Had I not embraced that axiom I might have realized that I was not simply misinformed I was totally uninformed Now that I have studied and pondered these issues I realize my previous opinions had no factual or rational basis whatsoever I had actually established my own rules and thus had essentially created my own religion in which I was the sole congregant In hindsight what I find so amazing is that I had virtually ignored such an important topic What if I was wrong The consequences were extreme eternity lasts a long time In this book I will respond to many of my own former opinions In fact that is why I have written this book to illuminate some evidence and apply simple logic to issues pertaining to the existence of God validity of the Bible and purpose of life Each chapter 10

Introduction addresses a position I previously held and offers analysis for your consideration Decisions about God of course are yours to make I simply offer the kind of information I wish I had explored many years earlier The chapters build upon one another so I encourage you to read them in order and consider them with an open mind You may wish to say a short prayer right now asking God if He is real to open your heart and reveal Himself to you 11

Chapter 1 Argument Religion is a waste of time and not for me It s Your Decision Many proclaim Religion may work for some people and I am happy for them but to me religion is a total waste of time If you feel this way you certainly are not alone As noted in the Introduction you are in the company of Bill Gates who apparently feels the same But are you correct Have you sufficiently addressed this important decision Fortunately in a free society we are allowed to make our own decisions about God religion and countless other matters We are free to decide whom to marry where to live what to do for a living and so on Typically before making a decision that will significantly impact our well being we very carefully consider the options The more important the matter the more we tend to scrutinize the situation The Decision Making Process In making decisions we weigh the pros and cons and then make a choice Sometimes we believe we have it all figured out only to learn 13

A Lawyer s Case for God later that we miscalculated The puppy that seemed so cute curled up next to his mama can turn out to be a terror who thinks your furniture is his chew stick and your carpet his potty Society has even coined a term for this change of heart buyer s remorse The more important the matter the more we tend to explore and inquire Before choosing a spouse we typically investigate quite extensively Some even choose to live with a potential mate for a while before closing the deal and saying I do or I don t Many of us do extensive background checks before even going out on a first date as we know the wrong choice in that area can result in a challenging evening Decisions Regarding the Afterlife Is There a More Signi cant Decision Many believe that there is an afterlife Others disagree I cannot think of a decision with more upside or downside potential can you What else comes even close New car Sell it if you make the wrong choice Wrong job Quit Wrong spouse That can have long lasting effects but worst case scenario 75 years of aggravation with reprieves when you sleep go to work or engage in other distractions It seems that the issue of whether there is life after death is such a crucial matter that it warrants a thorough investigation carried out with utmost care leaving no stone unturned Yet many of us give this subject little thought I shunned those who wanted to talk about it I steered clear of people I felt were holy rollers Some of these individuals were a little hard to take OK very hard to take and might benefit from a few more semesters at God U or Spreadthe Word College But was it prudent to reject the message merely because the messenger was annoying Before concluding that things of God are a waste of time and not for you I urge you to read on and ponder some evidence that I did not know when I held a similar position Let s follow the evidence and see where it leads And I will try not to be too annoying 14

Chapter 2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists Imagine you are walking along a sandy beach and you stumble upon a robot Would you conclude that someone had assembled the robot and left it there Or would you decide that this robot had assembled by random chance It would clearly take a quantum leap of faith to conclude that the robot just happened by chance even if the robot had many years to assemble Now let s compare a robot to a human being I think we can all agree that there is absolutely no comparison Although a robot is remarkable and many have dreamt of having one to order around human beings are far more complex and are undoubtedly the most amazing machine ever How did humans get here Did God create us To help answer these questions let s briefly and simplistically examine some of the intricacies and complexities of the human body 15

A Lawyer s Case for God Your Brain You have a brain that analyzes recalls calculates communicates comprehends and operates your entire body No computer can come close to that Your brain even equips you with the ability to accept or reject the existence of God Your brain can instantaneously send messages to your tongue mouth and lips instructing them precisely how to contort so you can effortlessly verbalize a word that someone else can comprehend thanks to his or her own brain Do you want to see the amazing versatility and capabilities of a simple part of your body Please open and close your fist How did that happen Your brain sent a signal to your hand instructing it to behave as you desired Your brain did not have to physically touch your hand to make it move Instead it sent an electrical signal through your nerves biological electrical cables and spinal cord to the muscles in your hand and voil the clench of your fist the snap of your fingers or the creation of art The options and features are only limited by the creativity of your brain Your hand also collects sensory information such as touch and temperature which it sends to your spinal cord and back to your brain for processing 2 Your hand has more standard features than a brand new Mercedes Sir Isaac Newton a brilliant discerning scientist concluded the thumb alone would convince me of God s existence 3 While you sleep fortunately your brain does not shut down Instead it continues to work and keep you alive It also allows you to dream You can dream some rather bizarre scenarios that might include talking trees flying pizza mammoth scoops of ice cream and horses in the shape of wagons These remarkable special effects are produced by your incredible brain After a full night of dreaming you typically awake refreshed This replenishing feature is incorporated right into your body Do you know another machine that recharges itself on its own Your brain commands your legs to walk run or ride a bike with ease and even enables your body to multi task Many of us can converse with someone about a complex topic while driving a car or putting away groceries All the while your brain is operating all of your organs and keeping you alive 16

2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists When your brain is in conscious mode it can remember details of birthdays and other special events and occurrences for 80 years or more I can vividly remember events that happened when I was a young child and most likely you can too Your brain also has memory that enables you to effortlessly recall a commercial jingle or hit song you have not heard for decades The capabilities of your brain are something to behold Your Eyes While you were relaxing peacefully in your mother s womb over one million nerve fibers from your brain each matched up flawlessly with the correct stations in your retina and your vision was established 4 Imagine the likelihood of that occurrence The moment you were born your eyes began e mailing three dimensional digital images to your brain that were most likely perfectly in focus Throughout your lifetime your eyelids have instinctively blinked to provide moisture that is essential to the function of your eyeballs Imagine the challenge it would be to sleep without eyelids For optimal performance the pupil of your eye gradually contracts when it is bright and sunny and dilates when it is dark Variations in these automatic setting options for your pupils are virtually infinite Some eyes even change color in the sun The standard features on your eyes are extraordinary Your eye is a highly sophisticated and technologically advanced piece of equipment Did your eyes just happen by chance or did they have a designer Even Charles Darwin the creator of the theory of evolution acknowledged that it was absurd in the highest degree to conclude that the eye happened by chance To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances for admitting different amounts of light and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration could have been formed by natural selection seems I freely confess absurd in the highest degree 5 17

A Lawyer s Case for God Your Digestive System In simple non graphic terms your digestive system includes four component parts mouth throat stomach and intestines You could not survive without any of the four they all had to appear on the scene simultaneously Essentially a complete and highly sophisticated assembly line exists inside of you The assembly line begins with your mouth where teeth tear and grind up food so it can travel down your throat You do not even have to think about swallowing It has been virtually automatic since you were an infant Just before swallowing you are afforded the opportunity to savor the flavor of the food courtesy of about 200 taste buds on your tongue 6 After swallowing your body inexplicably creates and secretes the precise chemicals needed at the appropriate spots to further break down the food This assembly line performs all necessary tasks as the food travels on to its next destination Nothing is out of order All is perfectly fine tuned Numerous parts work in perfect harmony with each other among these are the tongue salivary glands pharynx esophagus sphincters stomach small intestine liver gall bladder pancreas and large intestine 7 At the end of the assembly line nourishment is distributed throughout your body to your muscles skin and other tissues Most of what is not needed is eliminated If this elimination phase in the digestive process did not happen you would explode or be poisoned Simply amazing is it not that all of these components are perfectly placed It is difficult for me to believe that this highly sophisticated system randomly assembled Your Heart and Circulatory System You are equipped with a heart with four distinct chambers which pumps vitally needed oxygen rich blood to each of the 75 trillion cells in your body This is done 24 7 without any conscious effort on your part Your body is capable of replenishing its blood and the blood itself is capable of distributing oxygen throughout your body Your blood is also able to clot Without this special effect most of us would die after our first shave if not sooner 18

2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists To transport blood your heart requires 75 000 miles of intricately woven blood vessels You have three types of blood vessels veins arteries and capillaries which are anatomically distinct and perform different functions Arteries are elastic they expand and contract as they pump the blood away from your heart Veins return the blood back to your heart and contain strategically placed valves which prevent blood from pooling and flowing back to your legs due to gravity Capillaries are merely one cell in diameter and perform various functions depending upon where they are placed in the body 8 Imagine if all of these components did not materialize at the same time I cannot imagine the blueprints or engineering expertise required for such an intricate system Can you Your Body Is this machine brought to you by random chance or by an almighty God who had the power and ingenuity to create the most amazing machine ever King David of David and Goliath fame and one of Israel s greatest kings credited God for our bodies I will praise You God for I am fearfully and wonderfully made Psalm 139 14 Was King David correct Let s ponder that further by briefly examining the miracle of conception and childbirth as well as other features of our bodies At conception two microscopic cells join together and continuously multiply billions of times until a fully functioning human being is formed The unborn child survives in a womb without air until suddenly after passing through the birth canal it begins breathing through developed lungs This life saving procedure is performed by a newborn infant who cannot even crawl or utter a word yet Another vital feature is built into the mother she starts producing milk at just the right moment and then stops until her next child is born 19

A Lawyer s Case for God This newborn develops into a machine that has the ability to create other machines I know of no other machine with that capability My lawn mower cannot do that my car cannot do that my remote control cannot do that even my computer cannot do that Your body if it is like mine has been running non stop for a long time Damaged by cuts bruises and broken bones it repairs itself without any instruction from us No other machine can do that In fact many machines I buy seem to break not fix themselves but that may just be me My wife slipped on ice and fractured her wrist in the winter of 2006 The doctor surgically inserted pins to hold the broken bones together while they healed on their own The nurse informed her that her nerves would regenerate and she would feel twinges as her muscles adapted to the situation and re formed around her new bone How fascinating that our bodies recognize the traumatic situation and respond accordingly to restore us Your body also has certain essential built in response mechanisms such as coughing and perspiring If you did not cough you would have long since choked to death If your body was not programmed to perspire you would have overheated the first time you took a long walk on a warm day Your muscles also have muscle memory Through simple repetition your muscles unconsciously learn to automatically and precisely repeat certain functions You learned to walk when you were about a year old and now do so with virtually no conscious effort Similarly you can probably ride a bike drive a car and type without much thought Strategically placed facial muscles allow you to produce a countless array of facial expressions displaying joy sorrow anger and surprise These expressions and the emotions they reveal are instinctive You can reveal a great deal about your feelings with a perfectly formed facial expression that is stern compassionate guilty embarrassed proud loving shocked or flirtatious Contemplate these additional intriguing facts about the human body l 20 Our DNA carries 3 billion characters nucleotides which establish the code for every characteristic and feature in our unique body 9

2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists l We have 75 trillion cells and each one carries our DNA 10 l If our DNA was unraveled it would reach the moon 11 l l l l l l l The probability that the average gene would form spontaneously is 1 in 419 000 a virtual impossibility 12 On the surface of each of our 75 trillion cells is one of over 10 000 proteins in our body called laminin Laminin is a vital adhesion protein that holds our cells together Without these trillions of laminin proteins our body would fall apart Every laminin protein is in the shape of a lower case letter t 13 Each cell contains more information than 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica and has 100 000 s of complex moving parts functioning in perfect harmony Our feeling sensations are so sensitive we can feel the wing of a bee fall upon our face 14 Our smell sensations are activated through 5 million receptors at the top of each nasal cavity that can differentiate between a freshly baked apple pie and fried chicken In many this smell sensation is keen enough to detect a drop of perfume across the room 15 Our hearing can recognize a familiar voice with the uttering of merely one syllable To hear a sound the parts of our ear perform an intricate mechanical chain reaction transferring vibrating air to a moving piston to fluid waves to chemical impulses to the brain 16 An ear nose and throat doctor recently told me that our hearing system is so intricate that doctors do not understand precisely how it functions and that no one has been able to replicate anything even close to it Is evolution able to randomly produce something far more sophisticated than what can be created by the best and brightest doctors scientists and engineers The simple task of shaking hands requires the precise movement of 200 muscles most of which are unknown to us that 21

A Lawyer s Case for God we instruct based on feedback received simultaneously from our brain and eye as to the position of the other person s hand Hitting a 70 mph tennis ball or baseball is far more complex yet our eye hand coordination can accomplish this as well 17 Reflect upon the interfacing of the mind eye and countless muscles as a gymnast or ballerina gracefully performs We are miracles are we not Programming of Your Body We do not grow forever at least vertically Every person is programmed to attain a certain height Imagine if you kept getting taller throughout life You would constantly outgrow your bed your car and even your home The hair on your head never stops growing yet eyelashes eyebrows and arm hair do Teeth stop growing Fingernails do not How does each body part know this Instincts in Animals Animals possess instincts Instincts are not learned yet they can be complex and life saving Even Charles Darwin expressed concern that instinctive behavior in animals seriously threatened to overthrow his theory of evolution Many instincts are so wonderful that their development will probably appear to the reader a difficulty sufficient to overthrow my whole theory 18 A few examples of invaluable animal instincts are 22 l Geese fly south for the winter in flocks in V formation l Bees and other insects pollinate flowers l Beavers build dams to protect their habitat l Ants join forces to build intricate underground colonies

2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists l Salmon swim upstream to spawn l Mammals mate and care for their newborn l Bears hibernate in the winter l Bees extract nectar from flowers to create honey and even perform a unique dance for other bees that provides them specific directions to the flower 19 The list goes on and on These animals were not trained to do these things they were programmed to do them Those Remarkable Single File Marching Penguins A very intriguing species is the penguin I knew virtually nothing about penguins until I saw the documentary The March of the Penguins The filmmaker captures on film thousands of penguins in a remote area of Antarctica suddenly one day climbing out of the frigid ocean water which their bodies are equipped to withstand one right after the other immediately forming an impressive single file line Who taught them to line up single file It can be quite a challenge to persuade grade school children from our more intelligent species to perform this task It would even be problematic to convince adults to do this year after year without hearing some complaining But not one of the penguins even attempts to cut in line These penguins then proceed to march actually it is more of a waddle single file non stop until they reach their destination approximately 70 miles away the mating area No maps no GPS yet they arrive at their destination without making one wrong turn Upon their arrival all of the penguins instinctively search among the thousands of birds to find a mate They each choose another penguin for this season with barely any fighting among themselves Imagine the likelihood of thousands matching up perfectly The penguins then know how to mate Grade school children require sex education classes or chats with blushing parents to acquire this knowledge yet penguins are programmed with the information After the penguins mate an egg forms inside the mother and as if possessing a built in timer 23

A Lawyer s Case for God at precisely the right moment the egg is expelled into the bone chilling Antarctic temperatures The mother somehow senses the importance of keeping the egg warm After weeks of not eating the mother treks back to the ocean for food and nourishment leaving the father to care for the egg Chaos would have ensued had my wife left me in charge of our newborns especially in Antarctica Fortunately papa penguins are also aware of the need to keep the egg warm while the mama is away Additionally the baby penguins each receive their first food from the mouth of their father The father who has not eaten for literally months is able to regurgitate a partially digested meal reserved just for this moment I find this fascinating The details and timing of these instincts can only be explained by the existence of a creator who designed them Evolution Micro evolution is accepted by many and I do not dispute it It simply claims that small changes occur over time within a species such as a wolf evolving into a dog Macro evolution on the other hand speculates that all life evolved from a speck of matter that a single cell evolved into complex cell structures and that humans evolved from apes This theory is disputed by many and seems comparable to concluding that the robot evolved on the beach by chance Also macro evolution fails to explain how the first matter got here To accept macro evolution as truth we have to presume that the original matter did not decay but rather expanded its horizons and progressed to an amazingly complex human This is contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics often called the law of entropy which was viewed by Albert Einstein as the premier law of science The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that things tend to degenerate or decay metal naturally rusts rusted metal does not naturally un rust To endorse the theory of macro evolution it seems we must also believe that both a male and female gender evolved at precisely the same time in world history and in the exact same place in the world We also have to believe that our compatible male and female reproductive organs just happened by chance 24

2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists Macro evolution must explain how our incredibly intricate DNA developed Our bodies are irreducibly complex Nearly 700 international scientists have expressed their skepticism of macro evolution and have signed their names to the following We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged 20 A similar list of dissenters exists among physicians and surgeons 21 Additionally evolution offers no explanation for the development of our emotions feelings such as love hatred joy grief satisfaction frustration pride and guilt It is baffling to consider that inanimate matter could jump the chasm to engage in complex emotional relationships How do we explain these emotions if we are just rearranged matter This same statistically improbable process had to not only happen with humans but also with monkeys dogs giraffes cows and horses while not accidentally creating cross species such as a half human half horse There is no evidence in the fossil record of any cross species With all due respect to Charles Darwin no way In fact Darwin himself conceded the tenuous nature of his theory of evolution For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I arrived 22 Time magazine has voiced support for creation and criticism of evolution Most cosmologists scientists who study structures and evolution of the universe agree that the biblical account of creation in imagining an initial void may be uncannily close to the truth 23 25

A Lawyer s Case for God Scientists concede that their most cherished theories about evolution are based on embarrassingly few fossil fragments and that huge gaps exist in the fossil record 24 A Reality Shredded Papers Will Never Reassemble If you shredded 100 pieces of newspaper do you think you could ever reassemble them I cannot imagine ever being able to do this even if I was incredibly bored and had an enormous amount of time and assistance And if these shredded pages lay dormant for years what are the chances they would somehow reassemble In fact I doubt that one shredded page could even reassemble into one page If a shredded piece of newspaper could not randomly reassemble over time could a human body possibly randomly assemble Renowned Individuals Acknowledge a Creator Albert Einstein a Nobel Prize winner and professor at Princeton University and considered by some to be the brightest person who ever lived acknowledged the existence of a Creator I want to know how God created the world I want to know His thoughts the rest are details 25 Sir Isaac Newton agreed This most beautiful system of the sun planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being 26 Ralph Waldo Emerson renowned American author and poet boldly proclaimed All I have seen has taught me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen 27 26

2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists George Washington Carver a former slave who became an advisor to world leaders and scientists from Thomas Edison to Mahatma Gandhi shared his insight into how God communicates with us I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting system through which God speaks to us every hour if we will only tune in 28 Finally the drafters of the United States Declaration of Independence recognized a Creator when they concluded all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness 29 Let s shift our focus and briefly overview the expanse magnitude order and balance in our universe that also served as an impetus for these conclusions The Universe The Stars The expanse of the universe far exceeds our comprehension Our sun is 93 million miles from earth The Whirlpool Galaxy is 31 million light years away A light year is 5 88 trillion miles So the Whirlpool Galaxy is 31 million x 5 88 trillion miles away That is 182 28 quintillion miles Similarly the magnitude of the universe surpasses our comprehension Each galaxy contains billions of stars and it is estimated there are 130 billion galaxies in our universe 30 After considering the vast multitude of stars in the sky the psalmist concluded The heavens declare the glory of God Psalm 19 1 27

A Lawyer s Case for God The largest star discovered to date is Canis Majoris the Big Dog which is large enough to hold 7 quadrillion earths To help you conceptualize this size mull over that 7 quadrillion seconds is 221 821 300 years The size of this star is unfathomable to me If the earth were the size of a golf ball Canis Majoris could hold enough golf balls to cover the state of Texas 13 times 31 Is the vast expanse of the universe an awesome display of an awesome God or did it just happen The splendor and majesty of the universe seems but a glimpse of the magnificence of its Creator Paul Davies physicist and Templeton Prize laureate has concluded It seems as though somebody has fine tuned nature s numbers to make the Universe The impression of design is overwhelming 32 A Designer s Fingerprints The sun has burned brightly for a long time It is located the perfect distance from the earth so we neither freeze nor melt If the sun were merely 01 closer to the earth its extreme heat would completely destroy us The sun provides another vital function its light enables plants to grow and provides light to an otherwise dark world Thank God we have a sun Try to imagine life without that device The moon is also located the perfect distance from the earth A little closer and ocean tides would flood our planet Order and Balance The earth continually revolves around the sun and rotates on its axis providing us with continual and consistent day night cycles as well as changing seasons These cycles have repeated year after year for millennia and sustain our lives Fruit ripens for harvest and consumption like clockwork each autumn The 23 degree slant of the earth generates these seasons The earth s gravitational force prevents us and our belongings from flying into outer space Where did gravity come from The earth contains order and balance How did it get that way There is not order in my garage unless I devote some serious time to 28

2 Argument There is no evidence that God exists creating it Even my sock drawer does not maintain order unless I give it some attention Mechanisms and structures do not suddenly become orderly unless there is an organizer and designer Even well known evolutionist Stephen Hawking concedes there is evidence for a designer of the universe the universe and the laws of physics seem to have been specifically designed for us If any one of about 40 physical qualities had more than slightly different values life as we know it could not exist Either atoms would not be stable or they wouldn t combine into molecules or the stars wouldn t form the heavier elements or the universe would collapse before life could develop and so on 33 Air Plants provide humans and other animals with oxygen while we return the favor and provide them carbon dioxide Neither could survive without the other If plants had evolved first they would not have survived and vice versa For evolution to be an acceptable proposition plants and animals had to evolve simultaneously in the same part of the world Infinity and Eternity Do space and time go on forever That seems impossible But how can there be a beginning and end to time and space Surely something happened the day before time commenced and something will happen the day after it ends Similarly there must be something beyond the end of the universe These perplexing mysteries tell me that there are concepts in our world that are beyond the grasp of our human minds Not accepting ideas about our world until we understand and agree with them is like refusing to drive a car until we comprehend the intricacies of the internal combustion engine On the contrary most of us simply turn the key and drive by faith trusting in the manufacturer 29

A Lawyer s Case for God Conclusion Is there proof that God exists We have never seen the wind yet none of us doubt its existence We have considered evidence in our universe that strongly points to a designer The decision is yours Louis Pasteur is the father of microbiology He revolutionized the medical field with vaccines for rabies anthrax and chicken cholera developed the process for the Pasteurization of milk and laid the foundation for the control of tuberculosis diphtheria tetanus and many other diseases He examined the evidence and rendered a verdict in favor of a Supreme Being The more I study nature the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator Science brings men nearer to God 34 Does this Creator love us and desire to communicate with us We will explore that in the chapters ahead 30

Chapter 3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true Facts About the Bible The Bible was written on three continents over a 1 600 year period by approximately 40 Jewish people from every walk of life 35 It contains 66 books originally written in three languages Hebrew Aramaic and Greek Despite these incredibly diverse origins the Bible is considered by many scholars to be a masterpiece of unified literature While at first glance some of the Bible may seem outdated and inconsistent upon further reflection many realize that it contains timeless wisdom applicable to our lives today and is congruous when we delve deeper and understand the culture in which it was written and the message being conveyed Some examples of its timeless wisdom include the following advice 31

A Lawyer s Case for God Love your neighbor as yourself Leviticus 19 18 CJB Let love and faithfulness never leave you Proverbs 3 3 NIV Do not devise evil against your neighbor Proverbs 3 29 Hear my children the instruction of a father Proverbs 4 1 Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit Psalm 34 13 A good name is better than precious ointment Ecclesiastes 7 1 In addition woven throughout the Bible are themes of mercy grace and repentance It exhorts us to care for orphans and widows provide for the poor and extend a helping hand to persons in need It includes prohibitions against violence injustice theft and homicide To explore the origin and authenticity of the Bible we will now examine 1 the uncanny accuracy of numerous biblical predictions 2 archaeological discoveries which vouch for the Bible s accuracy and 3 scientific facts the Bible proclaimed centuries before humankind discovered them Perfect Accuracy of Biblical Predictions Concerning Israel With bulls eye accuracy ancient Jewish prophets foretold numerous events in the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures Old Covenant about the history of Israel that have all unfolded precisely as written Not one of the predictions has missed the mark 32

3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true Among these predictions that have already come to pass are l l l l l l The destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in ancient times This was foretold in Amos 9 8 Behold the eyes of the Lord God are on the sinful kingdom Northern Kingdom of Israel and I will destroy it from the face of the earth The scattering of the Jewish people among the nations the Diaspora This was foretold in Jeremiah 9 16 I will scatter them the Israelites also among the gentiles nations Also see Deuteronomy 4 27 The re establishment of the nation of Israel literally in one day This occurred when the United Nations approved the establishment of Israel Independence was officially declared on May 14 1948 This was foretold in Isaiah 66 8 Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day Or shall a nation be born at once The resurrection of Hebrew as an everyday language after being a dead language for almost 2 000 years No other extinct language has ever been revived The return of Hebrew as an everyday language in 1948 was foretold in Zephaniah 3 9 For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language The re gathering of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel in 1948 No other nation has ever re gathered after being dispersed This was foretold in Isaiah 11 12 He will set up a banner for the nations and will assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah Jews from the four corners of the earth The Land of Israel prospering under Jewish control In 1867 Mark Twain described Israel as a desolate country a mournful expanse a desolation 36 Satellite pictures of the 33

A Lawyer s Case for God Mideast today show the entire region to be a barren wasteland except Israel which contains many green and lush areas This prospering was foretold in Ezekiel 36 10 35 T he cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt I will do better for you Jewish people than at your beginnings Then you shall know that I am the Lord I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and increase of your fields so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations So they will say This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden Also see Amos 9 11 14 15 The prophet Isaiah predicted something unthinkable that the desert in Israel would blossom with roses and fruit the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose Isaiah 35 1 Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit Isaiah 27 6 Today Israel is the flower producing superpower in the Mideast exporting 1 5 billion roses annually making it the third leading exporter in the world of roses to the European Union 37 Additionally Israel s leading agricultural product is fruit 38 Since the late 1950s Israel has also been sharing its agricultural expertise with scores of countries 39 The prophet Jeremiah precisely predicted the 70 year Babylonian captivity of Judah the Southern Kingdom of Israel that lasted from 586 BCE to 516 BCE Then it will come to pass when seventy years are completed that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation the land of the Chaldeans for their iniquity says the Lord and I will make it the Babylonian Empire a perpetual desolation Jeremiah 25 12 34

3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true The prophet Daniel foretold the stunning victory of the Maccabees against the sinister and powerful tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes a story commemorated at the Festival of Lights Hanukkah four kingdoms shall arise and a king shall arise who understands sinister schemes He shall destroy fearfully He shall destroy the mighty and also the holy people Through his cunning he shall cause deceit to prosper under his rule And he shall exalt himself in his heart But he shall be broken without human means Daniel 8 22 25 See also Daniel 11 3 4 The pinpoint accuracy of these predictions is unfathomable unless God who transcends time language and location inspired the words in the Bible The Hebrew Scriptures confirm that they are the word of the Lord His way is perfect the word of the Lord is proven 2 Samuel 22 31 Many additional biblical prophecies that have been fulfilled will be discussed in Chapter 12 Archaeological Evidence in Support of the Bible Despite efforts by atheists and skeptics most reputable historians and archaeologists would agree that not one shred of credible evidence has been found to refute any historical event recorded in the Bible In fact the deeper archaeologists dig the more evidence they unearth to corroborate the Bible Rabbi Nelson Glueck a prominent Jewish archaeologist concluded that archaeological discoveries have repeatedly affirmed the validity of the Bible it may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference Scores of archaeological findings have been made which 35

A Lawyer s Case for God confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible And by the same token proper evaluation of biblical description has often led to amazing discoveries They form tesserae in the vast mosaic of the Bible s almost incredibly correct historical memory 40 Influential archaeologist and author Dr Joseph P Free has also confirmed the total void of evidence refuting any of the Bible Archaeology has confirmed countless passages which have been rejected by critics as unhistorical or contradictory to known facts We do not know of any cases where the Bible has been proved wrong 41 Some examples of archaeological discoveries which authenticate events recorded in the Bible are l l l 36 Second Temple The WesternWall where people come to pray in Jerusalem today is actually a portion of the retaining wall for the Second Temple which is discussed extensively in the Bible Additionally in 1985 excavations uncovered a 900 foot tunnel by the Western Wall that unmistakably was the style utilized by King Herod who constructed the Second Temple Tourists to Jerusalem can stroll through this tunnel today at which time they will also see the Warren Gate one of the ancient gates to the Second Temple 42 In 2007 an ancient quarry where King Herod s workers chiseled huge high quality limestone for the construction of the Second Temple was uncovered in Jerusalem 43 Hezekiah s Tunnel King Hezekiah s tunnel see 2 Chronicles 32 which was constructed in 700 BCE to transport water has been discovered and can be waded through today on a visit to Jerusalem 44 Sodom and Gomorrah The ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah have been discovered The Bible records that these cities were destroyed due to their sin 45 Genesis 18 19

3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true l l l l First Temple Evidence of a third gate to King Solomon s Temple was discovered in 1971 The Bible records that King Solomon s Temple was the First Temple constructed in Jerusalem 46 1 Kings 5 6 Baruch Seals In 1982 archaeologists unearthed 51 clay seals bullae of Baruch scribe and devoted friend of the prophet Jeremiah One of the seals contained the name Gemariah and was discovered in the precise location in Gemariah s home where Jeremiah 36 10 records that these parchments were read by Baruch 2 500 years ago 47 Tombs of Abraham and Sarah and their Family Genesis 23 8 20 25 9 and 49 30 record that Abraham bought a tomb in Machpelah for his family after the death of his wife Sarah Abraham and Sarah as well as their son Isaac and grandson Jacob and their wives were buried there This tomb containing their remains can be viewed in Machpelah today 48 House of David Inscription Relics unearthed from the ancient City of David in 1993 confirm that King David lived precisely when and where the Bible reports he lived A piece of basalt containing the inscription House of David was discovered by Professor Avraham Biran director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology of the Hebrew Union College Pottery found in the vicinity seems to confirm that the inscription was made just after King David died in the 9th century BCE Dr Hershel Shanks of Biblical Archaeological Review states The stele brings to life the biblical text in a very dramatic way It also gives us more confidence in the historical reality of the biblical text 49 Archaeologists have uncovered evidence confirming the biblical accounts of the life of Joseph the lives of kings and prophets and the fallen walls of Jericho 50 The ancient stones in Israel indeed cry out and speak to us just as God said they would 37

A Lawyer s Case for God For the stone will cry out from the wall Habakkuk 2 11 The Stones Cry Out by Randall Price as well as the highly respected magazine Biblical Archaeological Review contain additional archaeological evidence that confirms the authenticity of the Bible Perhaps William Foxwell Albright American Dean of Biblical Archaeology summed it up best Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of innumerable details and has brought increased recognition of the Bible as a source of history 51 Would the Bible contain all of these verifiably true stories yet contain fiction in other chapters The Smithsonian Institution s Department of Anthropology a secular institution has acknowledged that much of the Bible in particular the historical books of the old testament are as accurate historical documents as any we have from antiquity and are in fact more accurate than many of the Egyptian Mesopotamian or Greek histories 52 The evidence for the truth of the Bible continues to grow as modern archaeological discoveries continue to validate it The accidental discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran near the Dead Sea which made front page news in the middle of the 20th century confirmed the reliability of Scripture for many scholars The Dead Sea Scrolls were written approximately 1 000 years before the earliest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures at the time yet they are virtually identical to each other The Dead Sea Scrolls confirm the authenticity of current day translations of the Bible William Foxwell Albright hailed the Dead Sea Scrolls as the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times 53 If the Bible were a fraud and not actually the inspired word of God one would expect significant discrepancies between versions written so many years apart A mere product of human invention would assuredly contain error and bias In fact the opposite has proved true the earlier translations vouch for the accuracy of the later manuscripts 38

3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true When these facts are examined together with archaeological evidence it becomes clear that the Bible is an accurate account of historical events Regrettably I was unaware of these facts for the first 39 years of my life when I thought the Bible was a collection of myths and legends The Hebrew Scriptures Report Scienti c Facts Unknown at the Time by Human Beings Did you know that the Bible contains numerous scientific facts unknown to humankind at the time they were written It is true How could the writers repeatedly foreknow this information unless God imparted it to them Below are a few examples of this scientific foreknowledge The Earth is Round and Suspended in Space We all know that before 1492 the earth was believed to be flat This opinion was commonly held about 2 700 years ago when the prophet Isaiah defied conventional wisdom and wrote It is He who sits above the circle of the earth Isaiah 40 22 About that same time Job also described the earth as suspended in space He hangs the earth on nothing Job 26 7 Neither of these facts was known by scientists at the time they were written Yet Isaiah and Job knew the truth Paths of the Sea Psalm 8 8 written by King David some 3 000 years ago refers to underwater ocean currents T he fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas 39

A Lawyer s Case for God However scientists did not know these paths or currents existed until the 1800s when Dr Matthew Fontaine Maury discovered them Today ocean liners follow these currents which were popularized in the Disney film Finding Nemo One of these the Cromwell Current travels more than 13 000 miles through the Pacific Ocean Earthquake Fault Line Through the Mount of Olives The Jewish prophet Zechariah wrote in approximately 520 BCE that one day the Messiah will stand on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and the mountain will split in two His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives which faces Jerusalem to the east And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two Zechariah 14 4 Today we know that Israel sits on the Syria Africa Rift Valley the largest fault line in the world 54 The geological institute in Tel Aviv also uncovered a major earthquake fault line running through the Mount of Olives 55 Circumcision on the 8th Day It is an ancient Jewish practice to circumcise male children on the 8th day This instruction was set forth by Moses 3 900 years ago He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised Genesis 17 12 Medical science has only recently discovered the incredible benefit of circumcising on precisely the 8th day On that day a male s level of prothrombin and vitamin K which promote blood clotting reach their peak 56 Clearly God knew of this phenomenon and thus instructed the Israelites to circumcise on the 8th day In addition it has been found that circumcision protects against infections In 1988 the California Medical Association endorsed circumcision as an effective public health measure Resolution March 1988 57 40

3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true Additional Scienti c Facts Noted in the Bible Air Has Weight The fact that air has weight was only established about 300 years ago yet the Hebrew Scriptures mentioned this in the book of Job written approximately 2 500 years ago From where then does wisdom come And where is the place of understanding It is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the air God understands its way and He knows its place For He looks to the ends of the earth and sees under the whole heavens to establish a weight for the wind Job 28 20 25 Blood Gives Life In 1616 William Harvey discovered that blood circulation is critical for sustaining life confirming what the Bible revealed 3 000 years earlier For the life of the flesh is in the blood Leviticus 17 11 Nuclear Bombs Will Exist One Day Twenty five hundred years ago the prophet Zechariah wrote of weaponry that would cause flesh to burn off of a body Today we understand that nuclear and chemical weapons do precisely that Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet Zechariah 14 12 Water Evaporates Today we understand that water evaporates and returns as rainfall Solomon wrote this centuries ago in the Book of Ecclesiastes All the rivers run into the sea yet the sea is not full to the place from which the rivers come there they return again Ecclesiastes 1 7 41

A Lawyer s Case for God Circuit of the Wind We now understand there is repetition in the processes of the universe including the circuits involved in the way the wind blows Solomon observed this phenomenon three millennia ago The wind goes toward the south and turns around to the north the wind whirls about continually and comes again on its circuit Ecclesiastes 1 6 Germs Can Cause Disease We now understand that germs can be transmitted and cause disease Thousands of years ago in the Hebrew Scriptures we were instructed throughout Leviticus 13 14 and 15 on the importance of washing he shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water and so he will be clean Leviticus 14 9 Mental Health Affects Physical Health Today we understand that we can literally worry ourselves sick and that depression can translate into real physical problems The Hebrew Scriptures revealed this to us 3 000 years ago A sound heart is life to the body but envy is rottenness to the bones Proverbs 14 30 A merry heart does good like medicine but a broken spirit dries the bones Proverbs 17 22 Pork and Shellfish Transport Disease In Leviticus God instructed the Israelites not to eat pork and shellfish T he swine is unclean to you Leviticus 11 7 42

3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true But all in the seas or in the rivers that do not have fins and scales they are an abomination to you Leviticus 11 10 In the 1860s we discovered that infected pigs can spread the disorder known as trichinosis58 and shellfish carry viruses 59 Additionally both of these forbidden animals are scavengers feeding on dead animals an unhealthy practice 60 Perhaps this biblical foreknowledge played a role in many of the greatest scientists of all time vouching for the Bible s authenticity including Sir Francis Bacon Sir Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei a man cannot be too well studied in the book of God s word 61 Sir Francis Bacon Formulator of the scientific method which stressed gathering data from experimentation and induction and a founder of the Royal Society of London I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever 62 Sir Isaac Newton Formulated the theory of gravity and three laws of motion As to the physical propositions which are stated but not rigorously demonstrated anything contrary to the Bible involved in them must be considered undoubtedly false and should be proved so by every possible means 63 Galileo Galilei Physicist and astronomer who developed the concept of the mathematical laws governing the universe Dr Charles H Mayo a surgeon and the son of one of the co founders of the renowned Mayo Clinic concurred In sickness or in health one can find comfort and constructive advice in the Bible 64 43

A Lawyer s Case for God The Patriarchs in the Scriptures Really Lived The lives of Noah Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph Moses Elijah Solomon and David are discussed in detail in the Hebrew Scriptures Countless historians not only acknowledge that these individuals lived but lived at the time and in the place recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures In fact there is more information corroborating the facts of their lives than the lives of some other historical figures such as Christopher Columbus We readily accept information we read about Columbus life as well we should Why then is there such skepticism about the lives and teachings of the patriarchs recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures Many Renowned Americans Trust in the Bible To trust in the authenticity of the Bible places you in the company of many renowned Americans l l l l l l l 44 It is impossible to govern without God and the Bible 65 George Washington The Bible is the best book in the world It contains more than all the libraries I have seen 66 John Adams The Bible makes the best people in the world 67 Thomas Jefferson That Book Sir is the rock upon which our republic rests 68 Andrew Jackson The Bible is the Anchor of our liberties 69 Ulysses S Grant No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible 70 Theodore Roosevelt The Bible is the best of all books for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and the next 71 John Jay First Chief Justice of the U S Supreme Court

3 Argument There is no evidence that the Bible is true l l l Education is useless without the Bible God s word contained in the Bible has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct 72 Noah Webster The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed 73 Patrick Henry In the formative days of the Republic the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident Our enemies are guided by unholy contempt of the human race We are inspired by a faith that goes back through all the years to the first chapter of the Book of Genesis God created man in His own image 74 Franklin D Roosevelt A final quote is gruesome but poignant I prefer to believe those writers who get their throats cut for what they write 75 Blaise Pascal French philosopher and mathematician who developed the modern theory of probability Skeptics Become Followers Over the years many brilliant authors lawyers and scholars have set out to disprove the Bible In the process something remarkable happened the skeptics themselves became convinced that the Bible is true Former skeptics include l C S Lewis renowned author l Josh McDowell author or co author of over 100 books l Lee Strobel author and host of the TV show Faith Under Fire 45

A Lawyer s Case for God l l l General Lew Wallace author of Ben Hur and Territorial Governor of New Mexico after the U S Civil War Dr Frank Morrision renowned attorney and author of The Book that Refused to be Written Sir William Ramsey English scholar Conclusion I was the chief of skeptics but I have come to believe the authenticity of the Scriptures due to their supernatural knowledge The writers of the Bible glorify God not themselves in their writings They point people to God not themselves as the wise one the judge and the redeemer making the Book all the more credible to me The timeless wisdom historical and prophetic accuracy and scientific foreknowledge reveal its divine inspiration There is nothing quite like this in any other book Perhaps Abraham Lincoln s words most accurately portray what I feel in my heart I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man 76 46

Chapter 4 Argument I am a good person and that s all that really matters Many proclaim I am a good person and that s all that really matters The problem with this line of reasoning is that when we pronounce ourselves good we tend to be extremely lenient on ourselves approving the paths we have chosen What I think is good behavior may not be what you think is good and vice versa All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes Proverbs 16 2 I may think it is good to work late and leave my toddlers with my wife My wife may disagree I may think it is good to speed because it saves time The Highway Patrol and my insurance company would disagree I may think it is good to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day because it calms my nerves and curbs my appetite My physician and loved ones may disagree We can be quite proficient at rationalizing 47

A Lawyer s Case for God and justifying our own behavior Our natural tendency is to elevate our thoughts and views to a God like plane and to judge that we are good How do we know what is truly good There is a standard The Ten Commandments set forth some clear guidelines Lying is wrong Coveting is wrong God establishes the standard in His Word And you know what None of us not even the patriarchs score 100 Abraham Isaac and Jacob all lied about matters so significant they were recorded in the Bible Abraham did not trust God s promise of a son through his elderly wife Sarah so he slept with his maid servant Hagar Joseph s brothers threw him in a pit sold him into slavery and then lied to their father about what had happened Moses killed a man King David committed adultery and lied about it Yet God did not revoke His covenant with these men They repented and God used them mightily The same can be true for you and me God s desire is for us to repent and turn to Him I used to feel that I did not sin much I now know that we all sin For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin Ecclesiastes 7 20 there is no one who does not sin 1 Kings 8 46 NIV The Hebrew prophet Isaiah called the people to repentance for their sins which separated them from God But your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear Isaiah 59 1 2 We each need to turn and receive the forgiveness God offers us Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement discussed in Leviticus 23 reminds us of this On that day Jewish people fast and pray for forgiveness of their 48

4 Argument I am a good person and that s all that really matters sins transgressions Although we may think we are good and may actually be good compared to others we all require God s forgiveness The Hebrew Scriptures speak of God s forgiveness for our sins Come now and let us reason together says the LORD Though your sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow though they are red like crimson they shall be as wool Isaiah 1 18 The Hebrew Scriptures also remind us that God looks at the heart not our outward acts of righteousness that can be perfunctorily performed for self esteem and reputation And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags Isaiah 64 6 I find it interesting that the Bible notes that Adam and Eve s sin was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil Why did God forbid them to eat from this tree filled with succulent fruit in the Garden of Eden I believe it was because God did not want men and women to claim that they knew what was good and what was evil That job is reserved for God and only God He is the judge not us Someone accused of a crime does not get to serve as the judge in the case A defendant cannot even appear before a judge who is a friend or relative but must face someone impartial who will determine whether the law was broken The same applies for our moral and spiritual lives We will all face an impartial supernatural judge who resides in heaven He decides according to His rules He is merciful but the Scriptures repeatedly declare that we must first acknowledge our transgressions as the Jewish prophet Ezekiel admonished us to do around 500 BCE Repent and turn from all your transgressions so that iniquity will not be your ruin Ezekiel 18 30 49

A Lawyer s Case for God None of us measures up to God s standard we need His mercy and forgiveness to receive the gift of everlasting life that Daniel spoke of 2 600 years ago And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake some to everlasting life some to shame and everlasting contempt Daniel 12 2 I recently learned at a weekend seminar that often we do not feel the power of God due to obstructions we place in His path The instructor Craig Hill compared the power of God to the power provided by a car battery The battery might be fully charged but the car will not start if the battery cables are corroded obstructing the transmission of its power We too can restrict the power of God from working in our lives We clean our cables by repenting and turning to God I used to rationalize My good deeds far outweigh the bad Imagine going in front of a traffic judge and pleading Your Honor my good driving far outweighs my bad I stop at most red lights Do you think you would be found not guilty The same is true with the ultimate judge who sits on the throne on high We are all guilty in varying degrees and need His mercy and grace But He is merciful and willing to pardon us if we will simply acknowledge our sins and our need for forgiveness 50

Chapter 5 Argument There are no absolutes Every person can decide what s best for him or her The Bible establishes standards and rules But believe it or not these rules are actually incredibly liberating They provide structure and order Imagine a highway system without a center line You could just drive wherever you wanted What chaos Envision this country without a constitution We would have no legal foundation no benchmark no standards This nation s founding fathers did not allow each citizen to simply choose what behavior he or she considered convenient or appropriate Boundaries were set in place by the government in the form of laws Similarly our Creator established parameters for us We can choose to wander enjoying the exhilaration of momentary freedom or we can stay within the plumb line established by God I used to go through life creating my own rules What a daunting challenge for anyone especially a young person I would create rules at one age and discard them a few years later Would it have been wiser to simply trust in the rules given to us by the Creator of the universe We can 51

A Lawyer s Case for God look for solutions through our limited knowledge or put our confidence in the omniscience of God Truth is not determined by our subjective experiences and opinions but rather by objective reality If there were no absolutes and relativism were true then the earth would contain numerous contradictory conditions and truths based upon our collective views Certain conditions would exist for those who adopted them and would not exist for those who did not Clearly this is not the case The Bible establishes standards and rules that we can choose to either accept or reject but denying their existence can cause adverse consequences just as denying the existence of gravity can result in a somber outcome God s Rules Are for Our Protection Toddlers typically do not see the danger of wandering out into the street However when a youngster honors the instruction of his or her parents the danger of being hit by a 4 000 pound automobile can be avoided The same is true to an even greater degree when we follow the instructions of our heavenly father The Story of Nathan and the Freedom He Desired The story of Nathan illustrates the beauty and blessing of boundaries and guidelines Once there was a young boy named Nathan who lived on a farm enclosed by a wooden fence Nathan s father instructed him to never go beyond the fence alone as dangers lurked beyond it Nathan honored his father s instruction for many years One autumn day as Nathan grew older and more independent he decided to wander outside the fence He saw beautiful fields and began to joyfully frolic through them chasing butterflies turning over rocks and thoroughly enjoying his freedom in these restricted areas 52

5 Argument There are no absolutes Nathan was totally enthralled and began to question why his father had confined him all those years The fence seemed like an unnecessary and arbitrary restraint Nathan grumbled to himself that the fence had been placed too close to his home There was so much fun waiting on the other side After an afternoon of freedom and fun enjoying the broader boundaries he had established Nathan glanced up and realized that he had lost his bearings and had no idea where home was Nightfall was setting in and it was becoming cold and dark He was hungry and thirsty but had no food or water There was no shelter for warmth and protection and he had not thought to bring a jacket To make matters worse he had cut his hand and was bleeding He had no ointment or bandage to put on his gash Nathan began to long for his home and protection He longed for his mother and father to comfort him and nurse his wound But he did not know where they were or even how to find them There were no markers in the wild showing him the way home There he was without food and water and without a bandage jacket or blanket He had no parents to turn to because he had ignored their rules and chosen his own He was lost and scared Oh how he longed for a marker Just like Nathan we are free to roam about enjoying a momentary thrill ignoring boundaries and rules designed to protect us But is that wise The Hebrew Scriptures Do Not Contain Laws They Contain Instructions Did you know that the laws in the Hebrew Scriptures are not really laws Torah is the word used in the Scriptures to describe the 53

A Lawyer s Case for God words given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai Torah is frequently translated as law but it actually means instruction In other words the Hebrew Scriptures contain our Creator s instructions for us the ones He loves I have loved you with an everlasting love Jeremiah 31 3 I would actually be upset if the manufacturer of a product did not include instructions Just recently I could not figure out how to replace a bulb in my car What did I do I pulled out my owner s manual I was so grateful for those instructions God presented us with a training manual to equip and guide us as we sojourn through life We are free to either follow His instructions or ignore them The choice is ours Like King David the Psalmist I have found the way of God to be far superior As for God His way is perfect the word of the Lord is proven He is a shield to all who trust in Him Psalm 18 30 54

Chapter 6 Argument God has not answered my prayers and seems distant Many lose faith because God seems distant Our prayers seem unanswered and our lives can be a struggle However we must remember that God is not a genie in a bottle promising your slightest wish is my command If that were the case we could simply request millions of dollars perfect health exquisite looks and magnetic personalities Our Heavenly Father loves us with an everlasting love and knows what we need more than we do His Word promises that if we delight ourselves in Him He shall give you the desires of your heart Psalm 37 4 God does not always perform according to our wishes When our wills are not aligned with His it may seem as if our requests are not 55

A Lawyer s Case for God being heard Actually the answer from God simply was not Great idea Why didn t I think of that Sometimes a father in his wisdom must answer no not now or wait That is often God s answer as well Parents typically do not supply everything their children request If they did there would be an abundance of junk food a dearth of chores an absence of curfews an endless supply of video games self cleaning rooms with spectacular views and unlimited cell phone minutes But why do our seemingly reasonable prayer requests go unanswered That is a mystery that I have found unravels slowly as we grow in our faith and is revealed to each of us in God s perfect time God knows what we need just as parents know what is best for their beloved children While we may pray that trials and hardships pass quickly difficult times may be just what we need to learn patience and develop character If God answered all my prayers I might love Him simply because He jumped when I said jump Are there things I do not understand about God Absolutely But I trust God and have found that over time I have begun to understand matters I previously questioned It seems that God desires to leave us with a few mysteries Perhaps He planned it that way to humble us and encourage us to rely upon Him King Solomon considered by many to be the wisest man who ever lived wrote Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths Proverbs 3 5 6 God does not perform as we think He should because He is God When we decide how life should be we are in essence playing God It would be similar to teenagers dictating to their parents when and if they will clean their room come down for dinner or return the car Sounds kind of crazy doesn t it Parents would say Not so fast I am still in charge That is similar to God s response when we say If you really loved me you would give me what I want Would He Would you I believe difficult times in our lives cause us to turn to God I do not believe that God causes tragedies but He can work them for good 56

6 Argument God has not answered my prayers Evil men not God caused the horrific events of September 11 2001 However we all remember how cohesive the United States became over the ensuing days Republicans and Democrats gathered together on the steps of Congress and sang God Bless America That was virtually unprecedented unity The 9 11 tragedy seemed to bring out the best in individuals People risked their lives to save others and provided generous financial assistance to those in need The same inspiring response followed Hurricane Katrina in September 2005 A lingering illness painful as it can be can be a time in which broken relationships are healed and we are reminded of what is truly important in life Difficult times remind us that life is unpredictable and temporary but a relationship with God is steadfast and everlasting Many of us have prayed for things years ago that we are now quite thankful did not happen We may have prayed for a job we felt was ideal only to discover later that the company closed or treated its employees unfairly We may have prayed that God send a certain mate our way only to visit with that person years later at a high school reunion and realize that God knew best after all God answers prayers according to His divine plan not human understanding There is a Yiddish saying Man plans and God laughs Our plans are not always His A recent event in my life underscores the blessing of unanswered prayer In the spring of 2007 I began to experience discomfort in my lower back It was so uncomfortable that I was forced to virtually eliminate my exercise routine When my wife and I and two of our children traveled to Yosemite National Park we were unable to hike on the long trails because I could only walk about 100 yards I fervently prayed that God heal my back No response no healing One month later I was diagnosed with coronary artery disease One of my main arteries was 95 blocked and two of my collateral arteries were 100 blocked All told I had 13 blockages Interestingly our bodies sometimes create new collateral arteries as alternative routes for blood travel and fortunately my body did that Nonetheless I needed open heart surgery for six coronary bypasses Had I been able to hike in Yosemite as I desired I may have died right there from a heart attack I feel God was not answering the prayers to heal my back because He had a better plan to save my life and strengthen my faith 57

A Lawyer s Case for God Several weeks after the surgery I was able to walk five miles without the slightest twinge of pain or discomfort in my back God knows exactly what we need for the long haul and His Word promises that He will bless us For the Lord your God will bless you just as He promised you Deuteronomy 15 6 I have learned that I need to trust God in all circumstances His wisdom far surpasses mine 58

Chapter 7 Argument If God spoke audibly or appeared to me I would believe in Him God has revealed Himself through the intricate complexity of the world and the splendor of the Bible Is more information really necessary If he spoke audibly would I want Him to speak again so I could be really sure He parted the Red Sea for the Israelites in order to save them from the pursuing Egyptians a short while later they once again doubted Him Arguments can be crafted that speak against the existence of God However to me the magnificence order and balance of the universe and the intricately complex human body present irrefutable evidence of His existence While additional reminders might be appreciated are they really necessary I concur with the conclusion noted previously of Ralph Waldo Emerson All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen 77 59

A Lawyer s Case for God As Ray Comfort noted when we see a painting we know there was a painter When we see a building we know there was a builder When we read a book we know there was an author The words sentences and paragraphs did not just randomly form on the pages Similarly when we examine the human body and the universe as we briefly did in Chapter 2 we surmise that there had to be a creator A Trial Run with the Afterlife It would be marvelous if we could temporarily die and then return to life That little trial run with the afterlife would certainly help clarify issues pertaining to God similar to receiving a taste sample at the supermarket If you tried dying and noticed a markedly increased temperature and encountered large numbers of unsavory characters with whom you would not want to be caught dead sorry I couldn t resist and then returned to earth your decision about how to live life would be simple But God did not choose to do it that way God chose not to let us witness the afterlife beforehand and has left us with some mysteries If I were God I would not have created a weed However I now realize the weed helps me appreciate lush green grass If orchids abounded everywhere they would be the norm and would no longer be special If I were God I would not have created Canis Majoris the huge star discussed in Chapter 2 that is 7 quadrillion times the size of the earth I would have seen no value in it especially being so far away But God knew that we would marvel at such a massive formation and it would creatively point us to His magnificence Discovering the beauty of God is like holding a crystal at just the right angle so that it sparkles and displays the beautiful prism previously concealed from view God has a depth of understanding that far surpasses mine I have learned to trust His game plan and listen with my heart 60

Chapter 8 Argument As long as you re happy that s all that matters We often hear people say As long as you re happy that s all that matters or God just wants me to be happy Let s stop and ponder the notion that God just wants you and your loved ones to be happy What if stealing cheating excessive drinking or robbery makes you happy Those involved with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9 11 were just doing what made them happy killing infidels Can we really embrace an attitude that allows Nazis to do whatever makes them happy The KKK Gangs Addicts Can you imagine such a world Well you might say I just want to be happy as long as I do not hurt anyone else Would it be OK if I watch TV all day What if every day I eat six fast food triple bacon cheeseburgers with extra sauce because it makes me happy What if I decide not to study or go to class and pay someone to do my homework and write my papers Or suppose I smoke three packs of cigarettes and drink two six packs of 61

A Lawyer s Case for God beer every day because it makes me happy Those things might make some people quite happy and may not appear to harm others You may reply I won t do anything that extreme Or Trust me I will choose behavior that is reasonable no one will be critical of my choices The problem with that approach is we then have over 6 65 billion people on the planet each deciding what is reasonable behavior In an effort to create our personal happiness we often tend to pick and choose the rules to follow and the standards we think should govern life As discussed previously it seems we need an external standard of what is acceptable behavior Our society has many laws defining acceptable behavior We are not permitted free reign to do as we please God does not give us free reign either He too established parameters and put them in the Bible Fame and Fortune Is No Panacea Many feel that the fame and fortune of a movie star would make them incredibly happy and it might for a while In spite of acquiring fame and fortune celebrities are often so discontented that they turn to drugs hoping for a quick fix and happiness Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan join a long list of celebrities who have had to check into alcohol and drug rehabilitation centers 78 The tribulations of Paris Hilton are well documented Robert Downey Jr has been in jail and rehab facilities Wealth and public recognition are not the panacea many of us imagine they are The divorce rate in Hollywood is extremely high Money is no guarantee of lasting contentment and peace as the Scriptures noted millennia ago The eyes of man are never satisfied Proverbs 27 20 My Angst I was a law student from a loving upper middle class family I had a promising career had clerked at a prestigious law firm and was interning in the prosecutor s office I had a wonderful girlfriend who is 62

8 Argument As long as you re happy that s all that matters now my wife Life was fantastic I was quite happy Many would have loved to change places with me However I was obsessed with myself my interests money success and career and this created stress After passing the bar exam I built a successful law practice and my life seemed on the right path I had other lawyers working for me and was earning a very nice living Soon I moved to a larger and nicer office and home thanks to two significant corporate clients that comprised 70 of my business Within a few months one of these clients sold the company and the other went out of business My income dropped dramatically I was filled with anxiety my happiness disappeared and I began to have difficulty sleeping My dreams plans and ambitions were falling apart and I had no control over them I was upset because things were not going as I thought they should and this was impacting someone extremely important to me Jim Jacob I was focused on worldly success which I had always assumed would make me happy I discovered that goals can get derailed suddenly and happiness can vanish instantly My rule had always been Work hard and take care of yourself I did not need God or anyone else Although I was happy for the moment I did not have the kind of everlasting joy that could withstand the setbacks I now encountered I faced those challenging years without the comfort and wisdom provided by God Today when troubles arise I am much better equipped to endure them knowing God is by my side Happiness Is Fleeting and Is Not the Same As Joy The word happy comes from the same root as the word happening it focuses on what is happening at the moment We may even think we are happy right now Life is good decent job nice home committed spouse lots of friends and good health But take any of that away and many of us would become unhappy quicker than we can say that s not fair If what is happening vanishes so too may the happiness Seeking happiness can resemble grasping at the wind Joy on the other hand is contentment that remains despite what is happening Happiness comes from the outside Joy comes from 63

A Lawyer s Case for God within an inner peace provided by the Creator of the universe who loves you and holds you in the palms of His hands Surely they may forget yet I God will not forget you See I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands Isaiah 49 15 16 I have found that the only filling that lasts is the love of God It seems that God made us that way to long for Him The automobile was designed so that gasoline makes it run Caviar and fine wine will not make your car perform In fact they will cause great damage The same is true with our tanks Only one thing fills it properly Trusting in God is like saying I am going to fill up with high octane so I can function properly and be prepared for the challenges on the road of life Howard Hughes at one point one of the wealthiest men in the world seemed riddled with fear and eccentricities Here is one account of how his life ended He was a figure of gothic horror ready for the grave Emaciated only 120 pounds stretched out over his six foot four inch frame thin scraggly beard that reached midway onto his sunken chest hideously long nails in grotesque yellowed corkscrews Many of his teeth were black rotting stumps A tumor was beginning to emerge from the side of his head innumerable needle marks Howard Hughes was an addict A billionaire junkie 79 Hollywood starlet Marilyn Monroe was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world in the 1960s She had fame and fortune and was at the height of her career She was married to Joe DiMaggio perhaps the greatest baseball player in the world at the time Yet it is believed that Marilyn Monroe took her own life It has been reported that J Paul Getty at one time the world s wealthiest person was a very discontented man The same has been 64

8 Argument As long as you re happy that s all that matters said of Jack Kent Cooke the late owner of the Washington Redskins and a self made billionaire The idiosyncrasies and phobias of pop star Michael Jackson are widely reported One of the United States leading researchers on happiness Dr Ed Diener interviewed 49 of America s wealthiest people and found that 80 of them believe wealth can cause unhappiness Many factors play a role in this from the demands assets place on your time to the stress associated with maintaining your lifestyle 80 Dr Ronnie Janoff Bulaman and her colleagues compared 22 average people to major lottery winners she found that over time the lottery winners reverted to their pre lottery level of happiness or depression and ended up no happier than the average person 81 God s desire is that each of us turn our heart to Him and let Him fill us abundantly Happiness like most highs is fleeting It is nothing more than an illusion a counterfeit of what true peace and joy can be True peace and joy is from God pierces our hearts and is everlasting God can fill you abundantly and happiness will seem shallow by comparison As best selling author John Ortberg stated the condition of our heart is that we need what nobody sells 82 What will bring you joy A relationship with God has brought joy to many including me Amidst the storms of life God can provide a peace that surpasses human understanding Feeling the deep rich love of God is like no other experience I have ever had You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You Isaiah 26 3 It seems like it is worth a try 65

Chapter 9 Argument No one should impose a particular religious view on anyone else Imposing or Sharing If I see someone smoking a cigarette while filling a car with gasoline I would be very tempted to share with that individual the danger that is lurking If I see someone driving without a seat belt I might want to point out the risk he or she is taking Many like to share their latest discovery from a bargain restaurant to a heartwarming movie to the latest fad diet We want others to benefit as we have If I had struggled to lose weight and was suddenly able to effortlessly shed pounds by following the rules in a diet book I would certainly share that book with some friends Those Annoying Religious Folks Those who wish to share beliefs about God and the afterlife are 67

A Lawyer s Case for God imperfect people like you and me They aren t sharing the love of God with you because they get brownie points a finder s fee or 20 off their next purchase They are probably sharing their genuine excitement about God with you because their lives have been miraculously dramatically and sometimes instantaneously changed and they want your life to be changed too Well known atheist Penn Jillette of the illusionist team Penn Teller queried How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that I mean if I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you and you didn t believe it and that truck was bearing down on you there s a certain point where I tackle you And this is more important than that 83 If Eating Pomegranates Could Save Your Life Suppose you read in the newspaper about a study that surveyed hundreds of millions of people The survey revealed that if you eat one pomegranate per day you will generally feel better your problems will not seem as overwhelming and you will experience unimaginable tranquility The survey also reported that after you die you will be transported to a paradise in which there is no pain war taxes commercials deductibles barking dogs lies fatigue calories telephone solicitors housework road rage bills inflation pop quizzes child labor adult labor traffic jams or pollution I guess you now know all of my pet peeves You will live forever in this paradise a land that is so wonderful that no mind can imagine how beautiful and special it is If you had read about these life changing pomegranates would you consider the claims about them Would you do an Internet search on pomegranates and heaven Would you ask friends their opinion of the study Would you listen to someone on a street corner 68

9 Argument No one should impose a particular religious view who offered further information on the study Would you be willing to set aside your preconceived ideas about pomegranates and give them a shot Many who would seriously explore the mysteries of the pomegranate have no interest in exploring the mysteries of God As I have already stated I was a member of this non seeker class for many years Is it possible that something was stifling my curiosity The Hebrew Scriptures promise that if we seek God with all of our heart we will find Him You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all of your heart Jeremiah 29 13 God welcomes with open arms all who seek Him As we search for God mysteries unravel and abundant blessings pour out Once you taste the sweetness of God you will long for more of Him I urge you to open your hearts to learn more about the love of God You will not be disappointed 69

Chapter 10 Argument Religion is corrupt Many reject God because they feel that organized religion is corrupt It is true that there is often corruption pride and ambition associated with organized religion However is it wise to reject the message because you dislike the messenger If you feel that a certain place of worship or religious institution is corrupt then by all means have nothing to do with it But please do not let the actions of disingenuous people cause you to reject the genuine message of love and forgiveness and the free gift of salvation that God offers If I was mugged while playing golf on a certain golf course I may never play golf on that course again However I would not give up golf I would find a new course A rope can be used to rescue someone or it can be twisted to create a hangman s noose or to tie up a hostage The same rope that can save a life can also be misused The same is true of Scripture It 71

A Lawyer s Case for God can be twisted and misused but that does not mean it is evil or dangerous in itself As previously noted truth is not determined by our subjective experiences and opinions but rather by objective reality We can shred an invoice that is sent to us and subjectively believe the debt is gone but the reality is that the debt still exists Similarly what we have subjectively experienced with religious organizations has no bearing on the reality of God Please do not give up on God because you had a bad experience at a synagogue or church Rather focus on God and allow Him to become the source of your joy Conversely the leaders at a particular institution may be fine upstanding individuals and even good role models but they are not the ones in whom we should place our ultimate trust and faith Some dismiss the Bible because they feel that religion causes too much strife and division It is true that proponents of certain religious beliefs use their faith to smugly set themselves above and apart from others However is that a reason to throw out the love of God Certain eating disorders may result in illness or even death but that is certainly not a reason to forego eating Set your gaze upon God not on His imperfect messengers You won t be disappointed 72

Chapter 11 Argument If there is a God why is there so much su ering Many feel that there cannot be a God because God would not have allowed the Holocaust and other atrocities That is an interesting point which at first blush seems to make sense But let s delve into that for a moment Clearly the Holocaust was caused by the choices of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis who supported him Could God have stopped them Yes But had He intervened He would have been interfering with free will Would we want that Probably as long as God was putting a halt to the actions of our enemies But what if God stopped our actions Imagine if God prevented us from pursuing our dream career because it was not His desire for our life Or intercepted any money we earn above the most basic needs because He thinks we should donate the balance to the poor God loves us so much that He gives us free will to make our own decisions Unfortunately we do not always make wise choices But how 73

A Lawyer s Case for God precious it is when we choose right over wrong and when we choose to love God Marriage in the free world is predicated upon people making their own choices as to whom they will marry We cherish this freedom and would greatly resent being instructed as to whom we are to marry In the same way God has graciously granted us the free will to choose whether we will embark upon a relationship with Him History is overflowing with stories of oppressed people fighting for liberty the right to be able to exercise their free will People yearn for this freedom Many have given their lives fighting for it including Sir William Wallace who led a Scottish revolt against the oppression of England Wallace s fight for freedom was dramatized in the 1995 Academy Award winning film Braveheart There will always be people who exercise this free will in a manner that harms others But during even the toughest times we can cling to the Word of God which promises For I know the plans I have for you declares the LORD plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you hope and a future Jeremiah 29 11 NIV The state of Israel rose out of the ashes of the Holocaust God gave the Jewish people a hope and a future by giving them a homeland shortly after the horrors of World War II The suffering that society endures from infirmities is often the result of free will as well We suffer many illnesses and diseases because of bacteria and viruses that have developed due to the choices made by humankind over the centuries For example over the years we have introduced countless chemicals into our environment and food supply that have caused health problems Additionally a lack of proper hygiene and sanitation has created an incubator for the growth of bacteria which rapidly spreads due to increased global travel Illness and suffering befall us despite our best intentions We can work out eat healthy foods and be in great shape and then get hit by a car We can build our dream homes filled with priceless memorabilia and they can all be destroyed by a flood or fire We can build a 74

11 Argument If there is a God why is there so much suffering great reputation and then be falsely accused of a crime The only thing that can withstand life s trials and tribulations is our relationship with God No one can take that from us and it provides peace amidst the challenges of life Corrie ten Boom was able to thank God for the lice in the concentration camps because they kept brutal Nazi guards away As our faith and trust in God grow despite the circumstances so too does our strength and peace But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings like eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint Isaiah 40 31 God works all things for good if we simply trust in Him during difficulties and cling to His promises He does not make all of our troubles vanish but He provides the strength to endure the ordeals that will ultimately refine and strengthen us 75

Chapter 12 Argument The Hebrew Scriptures do not speak of the Messiah coming 2 000 years ago The Hebrew Scriptures Speak Extensively about the Messiah and Were 100 Accurate in Predictions Concerning the First Coming of the Messiah 2 000 Years Ago The Hebrew Scriptures speak extensively about the Messiah who brings salvation to the world In fact there are over 300 predictions prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures about the coming of the Messiah and Yeshua Jesus Hebrew name fulfilled every one of them Imagine the odds In the late 1950s Jeanne Dixon predicted the assassination of the next U S president When the next president John F Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 Ms Dixon received a great deal of notoriety even though she apparently had missed countless other predictions Compare Ms Dixon s success rate with that of the prophets in the Bible The prophets in the Bible were correct literally 100 of the time 77

A Lawyer s Case for God Seven of the 300 Messianic prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures that Yeshua fulfilled approximately 2 000 years ago are 84 1 Prophecy The Messiah would be born in Bethlehem Bethlehem out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel whose origins are from of old from ancient times Micah 5 2 NIV Fact Yeshua was born in Bethlehem See Matthew 2 1 6 Luke 2 1 20 2 Prophecy The Messiah would enter Jerusalem on a donkey Shout Daughter of Jerusalem See your king comes to you righteous and having salvation gentle and riding on a donkey Zechariah 9 9 NIV Fact Yeshua entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey See Matthew 21 1 9 John 12 12 16 3 Prophecy The Messiah would be rejected by His own nation He was despised and rejected by men he was despised and we the Jewish people esteemed him not Isaiah 53 3 NIV The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone Psalm 118 22 Fact Many of the Jewish people rejected Yeshua as the Messiah See Matthew 26 3 4 John 12 37 43 Acts 4 10 12 78

12 Argument Scripture silent on Messiah 2 000 years ago 4 Prophecy The Messiah would heal the blind deaf lame and dumb Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped Then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb sing Isaiah 35 5 6 Fact Yeshua healed many including the blind deaf lame and dumb See Matthew 11 4 6 15 30 31 5 Prophecy The Messiah would die for the sins of the world We all like sheep have gone astray each of us has turned to his own way and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all he was led like a lamb to the slaughter for the transgression of my people he was stricken Isaiah 53 6 8 NIV Fact Yeshua took the punishment for us all and died for the sins of the world I encourage you to read all of Isaiah 53 which is in Appendix B Please decide for yourself whether Isaiah 53 describes Yeshua The Talmud a central text in Rabbinic Judaism acknowledges that Isaiah 53 does refer to the Messiah See Sanhedrin 98a See John 1 29 John 19 1Timothy 1 15 and other passages throughout the Messianic writings New Covenant 6 Prophecy The Messiah would be crucified they have pierced my hands and my feet people 79

A Lawyer s Case for God stare and gloat over me They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing Psalm 22 16 18 NIV But he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed Isaiah 53 5 NIV Just as there were many who were appalled at him his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness Isaiah 52 14 NIV Fact Yeshua was crucified See Matthew 27 35 Luke 24 33 34 39 40 Interestingly Psalm 22 referenced above was written in approximately 1 000 BCE and Isaiah 52 and 53 referenced above were written in approximately 700 BCE yet crucifixion does not appear to have even been invented until 600 BCE or later 7 Prophecy The Messiah would be resurrected because you will not abandon me to the grave nor will you let your Holy One see decay Psalm 16 10 NIV also see Isaiah 53 10 11 Fact Yeshua rose from the dead three days after his death See Acts 2 23 36 13 33 37 Matthew 28 1 20 In addition the ancient Jewish prophet Daniel established that the Messiah would die before the destruction of the Second Temple which occurred in 70 CE Daniel 9 states that the Messiah will be cut off die and then the sanctuary Second Temple would be destroyed 80

12 Argument Scripture silent on Messiah 2 000 years ago Furthermore Daniel 9 specifically states that the Messiah would be cut off at a certain time namely 69 62 7 weeks of years or 69 x 7 years 483 years after the order to rebuild Jerusalem which occurred in approximately 444 BCE See Nehemiah 2 1 So Daniel 9 predicts the death of the Messiah in approximately 39 CE Moreover if the 483 years are converted from the lunar calendar 360 day year used at the time of Daniel to the solar calendar 365 day year the year Daniel prophesied for the Messiah s death becomes 32 CE the approximate year many historians place Yeshua s historic resurrection 483 years x 360 days 173 880 days 365 25 25 to account for leap years 476 years 476 years after 444 BCE is 32 CE Thus the Messiah had to come at the time of Yeshua In this passage Daniel also wrote that after Yeshua s death animal sacrifice offerings would no longer be necessary for the forgiveness of sins The reason animal sacrifices would no longer be necessary is that Yeshua was the full and final atoning sacrifice Daniel 9 prophecies from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty two weeks Then after the sixty two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary And he will make a firm covenant with the many he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering Daniel 9 25 27 NAS Some of the early rabbis also confirm in the Talmud that the Messiah would come during the time of the Second Temple 85 The Second Temple period was from 515 BCE to 70 CE See www hopeoftheworld com for the Rabbinic Mysteries teaching series which discusses other writings of the ancient Rabbis which point to Yeshua as the Messiah tapes 731 745 804 and 860 Also see The Fifty Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters by S R Driver and A D Neubauer 81

A Lawyer s Case for God Additionally prophecies Yeshua fulfilled can readily be found in many books and on the Internet Recall that Chapter 3 contains prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures pertaining to Israel that have also been fulfilled with 100 accuracy Lastly in addition to the Messianic writings there are other ancient writings confirming Yeshua s ministry death and resurrection These include Flavius Josephus 70 CE the Babylonian Talmud 70 200 CE and the Annals of Tacitus 115 117 CE Passages in the Hebrew Scriptures Clearly and Boldly Refer to God s Son The Hebrew Scriptures boldly proclaim that God will have a son and that His son is also God Below are six of the passages that address these matters 1 Proverbs 30 4 unequivocally acknowledges that God the Creator has a son Who has gone up to heaven and come down Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hands Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak Who has established all the ends of the earth What is his name and the name of his son NIV 2 Psalm 2 7 clearly refers to the Lord speaking to His Son I will proclaim the decree of the LORD He said to me You are my Son today I have become your Father NIV 3 Isaiah 9 6 unequivocally mentions a son who is also Mighty God For unto us a child is born to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders And he will be called Wonderful Counselor Mighty God Everlasting Father Prince of Peace NIV 4 Genesis 1 26 records God referring to the Creator as us Let us make man in our image NIV 82

12 Argument Scripture silent on Messiah 2 000 years ago The word us is plural so it has to be referring to God and someone else both of whom have supernatural capabilities as together they create man This passage clearly states that someone else assisted with the creation and that man was made in the image of God and this assistant Who could this supernatural assistant be other than God in the form of a man 5 Isaiah 6 8 again refers to God in the plural Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying Whom shall I send And who will go for us NIV 6 Zechariah 12 10 refers to the One whom the people have pierced who is like a first born son Yeshua was pierced crucified and hung on a cross and was the first born son of God And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication They will look on me the one they have pierced and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son NIV Passages in the Hebrew Scriptures Clearly Refer to God Taking the Form of a Man Many feel that God could not become a man Yet the Hebrew Scriptures repeatedly document God appearing as a man Read these passages and decide for yourself How comforting to recognize that God so loved us that He became a man so He could fellowship with us minister to us and die to atone for our transgressions The following passages depict the pre incarnate before he was embodied in flesh Messiah Yeshua who existed at the time of creation See Genesis 1 26 above 1 Genesis 3 8 describes God walking in the Garden of Eden If God was walking it seems He was a man 83

A Lawyer s Case for God And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day 2 Genesis 18 1 3 clearly mentions that the Lord appeared but Abraham only saw three men one of whom is God and Abraham addresses as My Lord Then the Lord appeared to him by the terebinth trees of Mamre as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day So he lifted his eyes and looked and behold three men were standing by him and when he saw them he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the ground and said My Lord if I have now found favor in Your sight do not pass on by Your servant 3 In Genesis 32 24 30 Jacob wrestles with a man and then says he has now seen God face to face So Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak The man asked him What is your name Jacob he answered Then the man said Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome So Jacob called the place Peniel saying It is because I saw God face to face and yet my life was spared NIV 4 In Exodus 24 9 10 God has feet just like a man Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire clear as the sky itself NIV 5 In Exodus 31 18 God writes the 10 Commandments with His finger He gave Moses two tablets of the Testimony tablets of stone written with the finger of God 84

12 Argument Scripture silent on Messiah 2 000 years ago 6 Psalm 110 1 records that God spoke to God and asked Him to sit so God must be speaking to another being who is also God and can sit The LORD says to my Lord Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet NIV 7 Zechariah 9 9 foretells that the Messiah will come bringing salvation and riding on a donkey Only a human can ride a donkey and this man is extraordinary as He also brings salvation See your king comes to you righteous and having salvation gentle and riding on a donkey NIV 8 Isaiah 48 16 discusses the triune nature plurality of God The speaker in this passage is the Messiah Yeshua who has been sent by the Sovereign LORD We know the speaker is also God as He was there since the first announcement the beginning of time Since the speaker was sent by the Sovereign LORD and is also God there must be at least two forms of God the Sender Sovereign LORD and the One sent Yeshua The third form of God is the Spirit of God referred to in the last sentence Isaiah 48 16 is below I have added brackets to help illuminate the three forms of God mentioned in this passage Come near to me Yeshua and listen to this From the first announcement I Yeshua have not spoken in secret at the time it happens I Yeshua am there And now the Sovereign LORD God has sent me Yeshua with his Spirit Spirit of God NIV Additionally the Zohar a foundational book on Jewish mysticism Kabbalah refers to the mystery of the three forms of one Holy God Come and see the mystery of the word YHVH There are three steps one cannot be separated from the other The Ancient Holy One is revealed with three heads which are united into one and that head is three exalted The Ancient One is described as being three because the other lights emanating from him are included in the three But how can three names be one Are they really one because we call them one 85

A Lawyer s Case for God How three can be one can only be known through the revelation of the Holy Spirit 86 Other writings of the ancient rabbis also refer to the triune nature of God See for example Soncino Zohar Shemoth Raya Mehemna 43b 9 Daniel 7 9 refers to multiple thrones in heaven for God Why would there be a need for more than one throne unless God took on two forms I watched till thrones were put in place 10 Psalm 45 7 again refers to God in two forms God and God s God therefore God your God has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy NIV 11 Zechariah 2 10 11 refers to the LORD declaring that the LORD Almighty has sent the LORD to live among us just as the Messianic writings say Yeshua was sent by the Almighty Heavenly Father to live among us For I am coming and I will live among you declares the LORD and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you NIV 12 Ezekiel 1 26 28 refers to a man above the sky on a God like sapphire throne with brilliant light surrounding him This man is described as having the likeness of the glory of the LORD Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal as if full of fire and that from there down he looked like fire and brilliant light surrounded him Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day so was the radiance around him This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD When I saw it I fell facedown and I heard the voice of one speaking NIV 86

12 Argument Scripture silent on Messiah 2 000 years ago 13 In Joshua 5 13 15 Joshua bows before a man and asks him a question and the LORD replies Now when Joshua was near Jericho he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence and asked him What message does my Lord have for his servant The commander of the LORD s army replied Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy And Joshua did so NIV Verses Describing the Time of Messiah Yeshua s Return The Scriptures state that the Messiah will not return until 1 Control of Jerusalem is returned to the Jewish people and 2 The Jewish people recognize Yeshua as the Messiah Two passages quoted below clearly elucidate this Luke 21 and Matthew 23 The first event occurred in June 1967 when Israel regained control of Jerusalem during the Six Day War The second criterion for the return of Messiah Jews coming to faith in Yeshua is coming true today at a rapid pace Author and Pastor Don Finto believes it is possible that 500 000 Jewish people have come to faith in Yeshua since 1967 Luke a nice Jewish doctor 87 writes that Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles nations for many years and then it will be returned to the Jews this occurred in 1967 This same passage foretells that the generation that sees the Jews regain control of Jerusalem will also see the return of Messiah Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled And there will be signs in the sun in the moon and in the stars and on the earth distress of nations with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring men s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on 87

A Lawyer s Case for God the earth for the powers of heaven will be shaken Then they will see the Son of Man a term often used to describe the Messiah coming in a cloud with power and great glory Now when these things begin to happen look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draws near So you also when you see these things happening know that the kingdom of God is near Assuredly I say to you this generation will by no means pass away till all things take place Luke 21 24 32 We do not know how many years a generation is in God s eyes so we do not know the day or the hour of His return However we can recognize events that indicate we are in the season of His return Among the reasons we know this season has begun is that Yeshua announced that He would not return until the Jewish people recognize Him as the Messiah you the Jewish people shall see Me no more till you the Jewish people say Blessed is He Yeshua who comes in the name of the Lord Matthew 23 39 quoting from Psalm 118 26 So when the Jewish people recognize Yeshua as the Messiah we know we are close to the time of His return Today both criteria have been met Jerusalem is in Jewish control for the first time in nearly 2 000 years and the Jewish people are accepting Yeshua as their Messiah in far greater numbers than ever before What is even more amazing is that the beginning of this outpouring of belief in Yeshua among Jewish people miraculously coincided with the return of Jerusalem to Jewish control in 1967 At that time there were only a handful of Jewish believers in Yeshua and there were barely any Messianic congregations Messianic congregations consist of Jews and Gentiles that worship Yeshua in a Jewish fashion recognizing and celebrating the festivals established in the Hebrew Scriptures These holy days include Pesach Passover Shavuot 88

12 Argument Scripture silent on Messiah 2 000 years ago Feast of Weeks or Pentecost Rosh Hashanah New Year Yom Kippur Day of Atonement Sukkot Feast of Tabernacles and Shabbat Sabbath At the beginning of 2008 there were over 150 Messianic congregations in Israel alone and about 650 worldwide 88 In June 2008 Time magazine estimated that there may be as many as 15 000 Messianic Jews living in Israel 89 While most branches of Judaism are experiencing a decline Messianic Judaism is growing and flourishing despite opposition The opposition seems to be declining as people are recognizing that Messianic Jews are not mishugah crazy In 2007 and again in 2011 Israeli television aired an objective and somewhat favorable story about Messianic Judaism 90 I have found that Messianic Jews love God Israel and Jewish people in a powerful way and love to worship God At the congregation my family and I attend about 80 90 of the members show up every week for Shabbat services I actually look forward to Shabbat services It is not something I dread and kvetch complain about Visitors to the congregation I attend often indicate that they experience a love and warmth there they have never felt anywhere They also comment that the music is very uplifting Jews are not only finding their Messiah they are worshiping Him in an exciting and personally meaningful way It seems clear that the significant growth of Messianic Judaism is a prophetic move of God and a sign that the Messiah s return to Israel is near The Jewish people are undergoing a change of heart and accepting the Messiah they had previously rejected precisely as Ezekiel prophesied 2 500 years ago I will bring you into your own land I will sprinkle clean water on you I will give you a new heart for Yeshua and put a new spirit Spirit of God in you I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws Ezekiel 36 24 27 NIV 89

A Lawyer s Case for God Conclusion Yeshua came the first time as a Suffering Servant who was crucified He died for the sins of the world and His death brought salvation forgiveness and eternal life to the world for those who trust in Him His Word promises He will return as an everlasting King Hallelujah all peoples nations and languages should serve Him His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed Daniel 7 14 God is faithful His promises come true We are seeing His promises unfold in the days in which we live He is returning soon 90

Chapter 13 Argument There is no evidence that God had a son who was also God Would the Disciples Lay Down their Lives and Die for an Impostor It is universally accepted that Yeshua walked the earth approximately 2 000 years ago see The World Book Encyclopedia and that He hand picked 12 disciples asking them to give up everything they had and follow Him which they did You may have heard of some of them Matthew John Judas the Betrayer Peter and Doubting Thomas Would these disciples give up everything they owned if Yeshua was an impostor just an ordinary man Perhaps Some have followed impostors but usually these impostors spread strange teachings and offer no witnesses to their miracles This was not the case with Yeshua His miracles were witnessed by thousands of people and His teachings were far from eccentric they illuminated the 91

A Lawyer s Case for God timeless wisdom of the Torah such as love your neighbor as yourself and the Golden Rule Do unto others as you would have others do unto you Leviticus 19 18 Matthew 7 12 Matthew 22 39 What motivated the disciples and countless others to sacrifice everything for this man Why were they willing to be tortured imprisoned and stoned to death for following Him Because they watched with their own eyes Yeshua walk on water and heal the sick They observed Him exhibit love and forgiveness toward those who spoke against Him and those who whipped scourged lashed with a jagged edged metal whip and finally crucified Him Through all of this torment He neither fought back nor complained Events pertaining to Yeshua s life and ministry are documented in secular reference books as well as the Bible 91 There is more evidence for the life of Yeshua than any other person from the ancient world including Julius Caesar and Socrates Even Yeshua s most ardent enemies never claimed He did not live or did not have passionate followers because they knew to do such would be pure folly as thousands had seen Him with their own eyes I know of no human who could exercise such restraint and compassion do you When I get falsely accused I tend to become a little defensive It is human nature to defend oneself especially when wrongfully accused Yeshua was falsely accused of not being the Son of God Did He throw around His weight defend Himself and curse His accusers Not at all He prayed for and blessed His accusers and cried out Father forgive them for they do not know what they do Luke 23 34 He did this after He had been brutally punished nailed to a cross and was near death Would an imposter be in a merciful state of mind and pray for those who had done these cruel things to him Only a special person could possibly demonstrate such grace Like a lamb at Passover Yeshua was led to slaughter A slaughter He did not deserve He was laid in a grave by those He came to save yet He did not complain That is the type of God I wish to serve He laid down His life so that you and I could have everlasting life Hallelujah Baruch HaShem Bless His Name 92

13 Argument There is no evidence that God had a son Yeshua Claimed to be the Son of God and God Manifest in the Flesh Yeshua claimed to be the Son of God Luke 22 70 whose coming the Jewish prophets had predicted At the Festival of Lights Hanukkah in Jerusalem Yeshua also proclaimed that He was God when he proclaimed I and My Father are one John 10 30 I think we can agree that claiming to be God is extremely bold As author C S Lewis eloquently pointed out in the book Mere Christianity a person making the claim that he is God is either a liar lunatic or Lord i e he is who he claims to be Only a liar or lunatic would make such a claim if it were not true There is no evidence whatsoever of Yeshua being either a liar or lunatic None zip nada He interacted intelligently with Jewish scholars and leaders No one ever found fault with His character except those who felt He lied when He claimed to be God Yeshua would not have been motivated to proclaim this for very long if it were not true as it immediately had the religious authorities wanting to torture and kill Him Most Jewish scholars today acknowledge that Yeshua was a stunningly brilliant rabbi and that His teachings were insightful rich and timeless If He is neither a liar nor lunatic and He claimed to be God in the flesh then He must be who He said He was Let s scrutinize other teachings of Yeshua to see if they seem either deceptive or deluded All of His teachings seem to clearly be from a righteous man Here are several Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled Matthew 5 6 Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Matthew 5 7 Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Matthew 5 8 93

A Lawyer s Case for God Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God Matthew 5 9 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven Matthew 5 16 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind Matthew 22 37 Are these the teachings of a lunatic Additional Passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that Refer to God in the Plural When asked what was the most important commandment Yeshua responded that it was the Shema The Shema is perhaps the most wellknown prayer in Judaism This famous prayer from Deuteronomy 6 4 refers to God in the plural in two places Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheynu Adonai echad Hear oh Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one First this passage uses the Hebrew word Eloheynu which literally means our Gods Judaism makes it clear that there is only one God so this cannot be referring to more than one God Perhaps it is referring to three forms of God united as one God the Father in heaven the Son of God on earth Yeshua and the Spirit of God This passage also includes the word echad at the end to describe the oneness of God The use of the word echad also denotes that this prayer is referring to different forms of God united as one Echad is translated as one but literally means complex unity i e the Lord 94

13 Argument There is no evidence that God had a son is a complex unity Scripture also refers to a husband and wife becoming echad when they wed That is they are still two people but they are also united together as one In this prayer the same is being said about the Lord He is a complex unity united as one Yachid could have been chosen for the word one but was not Yachid means singular or only We have already considered that at the time of creation God refers to Himself in the plural Let us make man in our image Genesis 1 26 NIV Also in the well known words of the opening of Genesis Moses writes In the beginning God created the heavens and earth The Hebrew word used for God in this passage is Elohim the plural form of God Isaiah 6 8 NIV again refers to God in the plural when God asks Whom shall I send And who will go for us Further as noted in the preceding chapter the Hebrew Scriptures indeed discuss the triune nature of God Father Son and Spirit of God in Isaiah 48 16 Interestingly after Yeshua s ascension to heaven the third form of God the Ruakh HaKodesh the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit was sent on Shavuot Feast of Weeks or Pentecost to dwell within us Shavuot commemorates the day God gave Moses the Law of God on Mount Sinai written on tablets of stone On this exact same day over a thousand years later the Spirit of God was given to us and is written on our hearts Acts 2 1 4 The Ruakh HaKodesh helps me to love God with my mind and spirit It is analogous to the fuel for a jet airplane But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you Acts 1 8 The Ruakh HaKodesh is my comforter and guide It nurtures my spirit in ways previously unimaginable and helps me understand what God can accomplish in me when I surrender my heart to Him 95

A Lawyer s Case for God At the Beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures Is the Gospel Message of Yeshua Bringing Rest and Comfort God has many interesting messages in His Word One that I find particularly intriguing is that He has placed the gospel message at the beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures Gospel simply means good news and is a term that refers to the first four books of the Messianic writings that record the life of Yeshua written by Matthew Mark Luke and John The gospel message is that sin separates us from God but Yeshua God in the flesh came to earth to die for our sins and restore us to Himself His atoning death brings us comfort and allows us to be made righteous before a holy God God embedded this message in the names given to Adam and his lineal descendants down to Noah The Hebrew names of these descendants in order are Adam Seth Enosh Kenan Mahalalel Yared Enoch Methuselah Lamech and Noah Noah is nine generations removed from Adam If Adam and his lineal descendants are lined up one right after the other the gospel message is revealed to us when their names are translated from Hebrew to English For example Adam is Hebrew for man Seth is Hebrew for appointed Below is a listing of the names of Adam and his descendants in chronological order with their translation Adam Seth Enosh Kenan Mahalalel Yared Enoch Methusaleh Lamech Noah Man Appointed Mortal Sorrow The blessed God Shall come down Teaching His death shall bring The despairing Comfort When you put this together you have a sentence that reads Man appointed mortal sorrow the blessed God shall come down teaching 96

13 Argument There is no evidence that God had a son His death shall bring the despairing comfort So at the very beginning of the Torah God plants the message of salvation the blessed God shall come down and teach and by His death those in despair shall be comforted because His atoning sacrifice cleanses us of our sins and removes our separation from God 92 If we look for Him we will find Him in the Torah as well as in the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures the universe and our lives Evidence and Logic Point to an Empty Tomb After being scourged and crucified by professional Roman executioners a spear was struck into Yeshua s side and blood and water emptied out John 19 34 This provided post mortem evidence of His death which today doctors understand was probably caused by heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart brought on by excess fluid in the pericardium the sac enclosing the heart 93 The crucifixion was performed before countless witnesses who would certainly announce to the world if they believed that Yeshua was not dead It seems abundantly clear to even the highly skeptical mind that He was really dead Yeshua was then laid in a grave that was sealed with a huge stone that took several men to move Surely the Romans guarded the tomb with the utmost care and caution given the hot political climate surrounding this man They certainly did not want Yeshua s body to be tampered with or removed The Romans feared that if Yeshua was believed to be God then His followers might swear allegiance to Him not Rome So they undoubtedly assigned their most reliable guards to this tomb They did not have Deputy Barney Fife of Mayberry on duty 94 These guards understood that they would be killed if anyone was allowed to steal the body of this high profile prisoner Yeshua s enemies had no motive to remove His body and His followers had no access to the tomb Yet three days later the tomb was empty If the tomb was not empty the already decaying body would have been produced and this charade would have ended long ago So what happened Magic Poor reporting by the Gospel writers This was an extremely important event in Israel at the time It seems the writers had to get it right or many skeptics would investigate and 97

A Lawyer s Case for God report the truth Yeshua s resurrection was an event that shook all of Israel If it did not actually occur surely those who opposed Yeshua would have preserved contradictory evidence Yet there is not one shred of contradictory evidence 95 No rebuttal witness was produced not one The body was never found He was seen alive by over 500 witnesses I Corinthians 15 5 8 The only plausible conclusion is that Yeshua was resurrected from the tomb just as was written centuries ago by King David nor will you let your Holy One see decay Psalm 16 10 NIV Notable Scholars Logicians and Historians Dissect the Evidence and Become Followers of Yeshua The book The Resurrection Factor by Josh McDowell provides six powerful testimonies of renowned scholarly individuals who thoroughly scrutinized the evidence of Yeshua s resurrection and concluded it was irrefutable Among the testimonies are those of the following individuals 1 Dr Simon Greenleaf 1783 1853 was born Jewish and became one of the founders of Harvard Law School He wrote a famous threevolume reference book for trial lawyers entitled A Treatise on the Law of Evidence After extensively dissecting the evidence for the resurrection Greenleaf became a follower of Yeshua He became thoroughly convinced that there is more evidence for the resurrection of Yeshua than for virtually any other event in history Greenleaf later authored a scholarly book on the evidence of the resurrection entitled Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Court of Justice In it he stated that he confidently believed that the four gospels are not forgeries and the oldest copies would be admitted into evidence in a court of law as genuine and truthful documents 96 2 Dr Paul L Maier graduated from Harvard in 1954 and is a professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University He concluded 98

13 Argument There is no evidence that God had a son that If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly it is indeed justifiable according to the canons of historical research to conclude that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was actually empty And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered in literary sources epigraphy or archaeology that would disprove this statement 97 3 Lord Charles Darling 1849 1936 a former Chief Justice in England affirmed no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true 98 4 John Singleton Copley 1738 1815 three times the High Chancellor of England and elected High Steward of the University of Cambridge is recognized as one of the greatest attorneys in British history He declared that evidence for the resurrection has never broken down yet 99 World Renowned Scientists and Legendary Individuals Also Become Followers Here is a short list of great thinkers and statesmen who were followers of Yeshua 100 1 Michelangelo Buonarroti One of the greatest artists in history 2 Sir Walter Raleigh Navigator writer courtier and colonizer 3 Sir Francis Bacon Philosopher essayist courtier jurist and statesman 4 Galileo Galilei Mathematician physicist and astronomer credited with conceiving of the idea for the isochronous pendulum and sector compass he developed the concept of mathematical laws governing the universe 5 Sir Isaac Newton Mathematician and natural philosopher who discovered the laws of universal gravitation formulated the three 99

A Lawyer s Case for God laws of motion which aided in advancing the discipline of dynamics and helped develop calculus into a comprehensive branch of mathematics 6 Louis Pasteur Microbiologist and chemist Pasteur developed the process of pasteurization for milk the vaccines for anthrax and chicken cholera 1881 and the rabies vaccine 1885 He revolutionized the medical field by establishing the germ theory of disease organic basis and regulation of fermentation and bacteriology 7 Johannes Kepler One of the founders of modern astronomy Kepler discovered the laws governing planetary motion and pioneered the discipline of celestial mechanics known as Kepler s Laws which aided Newton in his formulation of the theory of gravitation 8 Werner Van Braun Father of the U S space program 9 George Frideric Handel One of the foremost composers of the Baroque era 10 Johann Sebastian Bach One of the foremost composers of the Baroque era 11 John Harvard First benefactor of Harvard College now Harvard University 12 John Locke Philosopher diplomat and educator whose writings profoundly influenced America s Founding Fathers 13 William Penn Founder of Pennsylvania 14 Samuel Adams Revolutionary leader and signer of the Declaration of Independence 15 George Washington First President of the United States 100

13 Argument There is no evidence that God had a son 16 John Adams Second President of the United States 17 Abraham Lincoln Sixteenth President of the United States 18 Patrick Henry American Revolutionary leader and orator remembered for proclaiming Give me liberty or give me death 19 John Hancock An American Revolutionary leader graduate of Harvard and the first to sign the Declaration of Independence 20 General Douglas MacArthur Recipient of Medal of Honor and prominent U S general in World War II 21 Martin Luther King Jr Prominent civil rights leader 22 Sir Francis Scott Key American lawyer who penned The Star Spangled Banner 23 Samuel Morse Inventor of the Morse Code he developed the telegraph and built the first U S camera 24 Jedediah Morse Pioneer American educator and geographer he was dubbed the Father of American Geography 25 Hans Christian Anderson Novelist and story writer He authored many fairy tales including The Ugly Duckling The Emperor s New Clothes and The Tinder Box 26 William Shakespeare English playwright whose works have had an enduring worldwide impact 27 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Renowned American poet 28 Charles Dickens Legendary British author 29 Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi Russian playwright and novelist most famous for writing War and Peace 101

A Lawyer s Case for God 30 Booker T Washington American educator writer and reformer Born a slave he was the first African American to have his picture on a U S postage stamp and his image on a U S coin 31 George Washington Carver Discovered numerous medical uses for the peanut 32 J C Penney Businessman entrepreneur and founder of the J C Penney chain of retail stores 33 Sebastian S Kresge Businessman entrepreneur and founder of the Kmart chain of retail stores formerly S S Kresge Please also consider the following proclamations by prominent individuals who recognize the lasting significance and veracity of the Bible Education is useless without the Bible 101 Noah Webster Compiler of Webster s Dictionary The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty A student s perusal of the sacred volume will make him a better citizen a better father a better husband 102 Thomas Jefferson The existence of the Bible as a book for the people is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity 103 Immanuel Kant Philosopher Men blaspheme what they don t know 104 Blaise Pascal Father of the Science of Hydrostatics who helped develop the barometer 102

13 Argument There is no evidence that God had a son I leave you with the following observation by Christopher Columbus who some historians believe was Jewish from his travel diary He speaks of God giving him the notion to sail to the New World and the inspiration he received from the Holy Spirit It was the Lord who put into my mind I could feel His Hand upon me to sail from here to the Indies There is no question that my inspiration was from the Holy Spirit No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Savior if it is just and if the intention is purely for His Holy service O what a gracious Lord Who desires that people should perform for Him those things for which He holds Himself responsible Day and night moment by moment everyone should express to Him their most devoted gratitude 105 The Creator of the Universe Can Do Supernatural Things The same God who created life can surely resurrect a life especially when it is that of His Son sent to redeem the world Some say they cannot believe that a resurrection of the dead can occur Most of us struggle with supernatural things To me the creation of the universe is far more miraculous than someone being healed or raised from the dead Perhaps God is speaking to your heart right now He wants to bring you into a righteous relationship with Him But He won t force you Does any of this resonate with you If so then ask God right now to assure you that He is real loves you and wants to forgive you for your past Ask Him to come into your life and He will 103

Chapter 14 Argument I do not like organized religion The decision is not whether organized religion is right for you or whether a certain religious group is right for you Religions are created by people The issue has nothing to do with religion or religious practices and customs The issue is whether you wish to follow God Please do not let religion distance you from God God wants a relationship with you This refreshing thought is certainly not something I heard when I was growing up I had no idea that God wanted to be intimately involved in my daily life Is God real Chapter 2 presented evidence that He is indeed real Does He desire for you to follow Him and have a relationship with Him Psalm 73 28 proclaims that He desires for us to draw near to Him But it is good for me to draw near to God If we draw near to Him we can have a relationship with Him He 105

A Lawyer s Case for God instructs us to pray to communicate with Him Communicating helps build relationships Some may hear an audible voice from God I never have I believe that most who have a relationship with God will tell you that God communicates with them through a still small voice they sense in their inner being He then provides confirmation that they have heard from Him For example if they feel God tells them to make peace with a person that person may suddenly cross their path If they feel He has led them to a certain Scripture verse someone may call them and mention the identical verse Frequently God puts someone on my wife s heart When He does this she typically starts praying for them she may even call them Invariably she learns that they were going through a challenging time at that very moment The Lord may even lead my wife to a Scripture that she shares with them that powerfully speaks into their circumstances God is faithful His Word confirms this Therefore know that the Lord your God He is God the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments Deuteronomy 7 9 Job 33 26 explains that our prayers actually cause God to delight in us and to restore us to Him He shall pray to God and He will delight in him he shall see His face with joy for He restores to man His righteousness What a beautiful picture Relationship not religion is God s desire for His children Religion is simply a framework within which people choose to worship an awesome God Human beings have created many different types and branches of religion and more seem to surface every day True there are some corrupt people involved in ministry But I urge you do not let these misguided people prevent you from worshiping your Creator and being fascinated by Him 106

14 Argument I do not like organized religion While considering this please keep in mind that in the Hebrew Scriptures God promises whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved delivered Joel 2 32 When I sought Him and called upon His name I found Him I believe the same can happen for you His Word makes that very promise The most important decision you will ever make is whether you will accept Yeshua as your Messiah If God exists and has a Son who came and died for you then clearly having a relationship with God would be awesome As Creator of the universe God can radically transform your life wipe away tears of bitterness and despair lift you up on eagle s wings to heights you never imagined and give you peace amidst the struggles of life A new life is awaiting you 107

Chapter 15 Argument It s not Jewish to believe in Jesus Jesus was a Jew In fact His real name was Yeshua which is Hebrew for salvation His Jewish mother would shout Yeshua come to dinner Of course He would come without having to be called a second time Yeshua lived a Jewish life He did not attend a church there were no churches 2 000 years ago At that time the only people who believed in the Bible were the Jews and they gathereed in synagogues Yeshua went to synagogue Luke 4 16 He placed tzitziot fringes on the four corners of his garments Matthew 14 36 He was born and lived in Israel He was circumcised on the eighth day Luke 2 21 He referred to Himself as the King of the Jews John 19 21 His mother s name was actually Miryam Yeshua s followers called him Rabbi His coming to Israel to bring salvation to the world had long been foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures 109

A Lawyer s Case for God written by Hebrew prophets with Jewish names such as Isaiah Daniel Ezekiel Jeremiah and Zechariah Zechariah prophesied as recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures that in the last days the Messiah would stand on the Mount of Olives in Israel and everyone on earth would celebrate Sukkot Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives and all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King Lord of hosts and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles Zechariah 14 4 16 Yeshua celebrated the Sabbath from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday and recited Jewish blessings over wine and bread It is interesting that Yeshua condoned the ceremonial drinking of wine and today it is reported that one glass of red wine per day is healthy and may reduce heart disease 106 Yeshua studied and taught from a Torah scroll He was 100 Jewish and loved the Jewish people He celebrated the biblical festivals as instructed in the Hebrew Scriptures As previously noted these festivals include Pesach Passover Shavuot Feast of Weeks or Pentecost Rosh HaShanah Feast of Trumpets Yom Kippur Day of Atonement Sukkot Feast of Tabernacles and Shabbat Sabbath Each one of Yeshua s disciples was Jewish The first followers of Yeshua were also all Jewish In fact it was several years until Cornelius became the first non Jewish follower of Yeshua Acts 10 1 48 Every word in the Messianic writings was recorded by Jewish followers of Yeshua known today as Messianic Jews 107 Paul wrote a good deal of the Messianic writings and is often referred to as St Paul but his name was Rabbi Saul of Tarsus The original followers of Yeshua were all Jewish In fact in those early days there was an issue as to whether Gentiles could be followers of Yeshua 108 Today the issue has turned 180 degrees Now the question is can a Jew believe in Yeshua and still be Jewish The answer is a resounding yes Jews who believe in Yeshua are completed Jews who believe in the complete Bible Messianic Jews believe what Rabbi Saul of Tarsus recorded in Romans 11 that in the 110

15 Argument It s not Jewish to believe in Jesus end all Israel will be saved and that the acceptance of Yeshua by Jewish people will be life from the dead It does not get much better than that now does it For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world what will their acceptance be but life from the dead And so all Israel will be saved as it is written The Deliverer Messiah will come out of Zion Israel and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob Jews for this is My covenant with them Jews when I take away their sins Romans 11 15 26 27 Albert Einstein a Jew Nobel Prize winner and professor at Princeton University acknowledged his intrigue concerning Yeshua As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud I am a Jew but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus His personality pulsates in every word No myth is filled with such life 109 Consider too these comments by other scholarly Jews who acknowledge the Jewishness of Yeshua and His lifestyle Jesus was a Jew and a Jew he remained till his last breath His one idea was to implant within the nation the idea of the coming of the Messiah and by repentance and good works hasten the end In all this Jesus is the most Jewish of Jews more Jewish than Hillel From the standpoint of general humanity he is indeed a light to the Gentiles 110 Joseph Klausner Author and former professor at Hebrew University Jerusalem 111

A Lawyer s Case for God Jesus was utterly true to the Torah as I myself hope to be I even suspect that Jesus was even more true to the Torah than I an Orthodox Jew I accept the resurrection not as an invention of the community of disciples but as an historical event 111 Dr Pinchas Lapide Jewish Orthodox scholar It is a peculiar manifestation of our exile psychology that we permitted even aided in the deletion of New Testament Messianism that meaningful offshoot of our spiritual history It was in a Jewish land that this spiritual revolution was rekindled and Jews were those who had spread it all over the land We must overcome the superstitious fear which we harbor about the Messianic movement of Jesus and place the movement where it belongs namely in the spiritual history of Judaism 112 Martin Buber Author and former professor at Hebrew University Jerusalem Everything He ever said or did has value for us today and that is something you can say of no other man alive or dead Every act and word of Jesus has value for all of us wherever we are He became the Light of the World Why shouldn t I a Jew be proud of it 113 Sholem Asch Yiddish novelist and author Jesus was not only a Jew but he was the Jew the Jew of Jews In that day when history shall be written in the light of truth the people of Israel will be known not as Christ killers but as Christ bearers not as God slayers but as the God bringers to the world 114 Rabbi Stephen S Wise Zionist leader and founder of the Jewish Institute of Religion 112

15 Argument It s not Jewish to believe in Jesus Below is one final quote from Benjamin Disraeli Jewish Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1868 who came to know his Messiah Christians may continue to persecute Jews and Jews may persist in disbelieving Christians but who can deny that Jesus of Nazareth the incarnate Son of the Most High God is the eternal glory of the Jewish race 115 For a listing of prominent Jews who believed in Yeshua see http www messianicassociation org profiles htm This website notes that there are over 200 000 Jewish believers in Yeshua in the United States alone The list includes l Felix Mendelssohn composer l Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein Chief Rabbi of Hungary l Rabbi Leopold Cohn Rabbi in Hungary116 l Rabbi Israel Zolli Chief Rabbi of Rome l Rabbi Daniel Zion Chief Rabbi of Bulgaria during the Holocaust117 l Niels Bohr Nobel Prize for Physics l Henry Bergson Nobel Prize for Literature l John Xeres Talmudic Scholar l Daniel Landsmann Talmudic Scholar l Boris Kornfeld medical doctor hero of the Gulag who led Alexander Solzhenitsyn to faith in the Messiah l Andrew Mark Barron Aerospace Engineer l Mortimer Adler Professor at the University of Chicago l Jay Sekulow attorney and founder of the American Center for Law and Justice 113

A Lawyer s Case for God l Lawrence Kudlow U S Undersecretary of the Office of Management and Budget Time magazine has recognized that a paradigm shift is occurring in rediscovering Jesus the Jew in His Jewish context On March 12 2008 Time magazine noted that one of the great upcoming revolutions will be the re Judaizing of Jesus 118 Additionally the concept of a raising of the dead has Hebraic roots and can be found throughout Jewish literature I kid you not The Shemoneh Esreh or Amidah Eighteen Benedictions or Standing Prayer the central prayer in the Jewish siddur prayer book refers to God reviving the dead when it states Blessed art Thou O Lord who revives the dead In addition a raising of the dead is recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures When Elisha came into the house there was the child lying dead on his bed He went in therefore shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to the Lord And he went up and lay on the child and put his mouth on his mouth his eyes on his eyes and his hands on his hands and he stretched himself out on the child and the flesh of the child became warm then the child sneezed seven times and the child opened his eyes 2 Kings 4 32 35 Furthermore one of the 13 Principles of Jewish Faith of Moses Maimonides Rambam recognizes the validity of a resurrection Maimonides was one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages This principle states I believe with perfect faith that there will be a resurrection of the dead at the time when it will please the Creator 119 114

15 Argument It s not Jewish to believe in Jesus When Jews become followers of Yeshua they are not converting to Christianity They are doing something very Jewish finding the Messiah of Israel who died for the salvation of Jews and Gentiles Lastly consider the significant comments of Rabbi Isaac Lichtenstein 1824 1909 Rabbi Lichtenstein was the Chief Rabbi of Hungary He led congregations for 40 years before he read the Messianic writings for the first time After reading the Messianic writings he became a passionate follower of Yeshua He noted how mistaken he had been and acknowledged From every line from every word the Jewish spirit streamed forth I found in this Book of books comfort for every sorrow healing for every moral hurt renewal of faith and resurrection to a new life well pleasing to God I had thought the New Testament to be impure a source of pride of hatred and of the worst kind of violence but as I opened it I felt myself peculiarly and wonderfully taken possession of by a sudden glory a light flashed through my soul I looked for thorns and gathered roses I discovered pearls instead of pebbles instead of hatred love instead of vengeance forgiveness instead of bondage freedom instead of pride humility instead of enmity conciliation instead of death life salvation resurrection heavenly treasure 120 115

Chapter 16 Argument I don t need to be saved from anything The Hebrew Scriptures Declare that Blood Atones for Our Sins Leviticus 17 11 clearly states that blood makes atonement for our sins For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul Isaiah 59 1 2 Ezekiel 18 30 and Daniel 12 2 which are all discussed in Chapter 4 illustrate that our sins separate us from God and that we must atone for our transgressions to be reconciled with God and have everlasting life saved Before the destruction of the Second Temple in 117

A Lawyer s Case for God 70 CE the blood of a goat atoned for the sins of the people On Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies within the Temple and sprinkled the blood of a goat upon the mercy seat and altar to atone for the sins of the world Leviticus 16 Since the Temple is gone how do we atone for our sins today Just as God provided Abraham the ram caught in a thicket as a substitute for the sacrifice of his only son Isaac Genesis 22 God has provided His Son Yeshua as a substitute sacrifice for us The shedding of Yeshua s blood is the full and final sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world just as Yochanan the Immerser John the Baptist who was actually a Jew proclaimed The next day Yochanan saw Yeshua coming toward him and said Look God s lamb The one who is taking away the sin of the world John 1 20 CJB Yeshua s sacrifice was the fulfillment of the new covenant which was spoken of by the Jewish prophet Jeremiah in the Hebrew Scriptures 2 600 years ago Behold the days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the house of Judah I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be My people No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying Know the Lord for they all shall know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more Jeremiah 31 31 34 There is a God We are accountable to Him He provided a plan for our salvation to repent of our sins and accept the sacrifice of His Son as forgiveness for our transgressions His blood covers our sins and makes atonement for them Hallelujah Yeshua came to us to save us 118

16 Argument I don t need to be saved from anything much like a lifeguard swims to us to save us God has thrown us a life jacket and all we have to do is grab hold of it All you have to do is to reach out and grab hold of Him In the Hebrew Scriptures King David acknowledged that we are all in need of salvation which allows us to escape from death In other words we can have eternal life through God who saves us Our God is a God who saves from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death Psalm 68 20 NIV Do you want to experience major changes in your life The Word of God promises that if you acknowledge publicly with your mouth that Yeshua is Lord and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be delivered saved from your sins Romans 10 9 CJB Won t you join me right now Your salvation is just a prayer away Confess your sins before Him ask His forgiveness and invite Yeshua into your heart 119

Chapter 17 Argument The Bible is outdated and has nothing to do with my life in the 21st century Did you know that many meaningful expressions we use in our every day 21st century life actually come from the Bible In fact you have probably preached the Bible yourself and not even known it Here are some examples of common expressions you may use that originated in the Bible 1 Kiss of death Luke 12 47 48 2 Go the extra mile Matthew 5 4 3 By the skin of my teeth Job 19 20 4 There is nothing new under the sun Ecclesiastes 1 9 5 Turn the other cheek Matthew 5 39 6 The forbidden fruit Genesis 2 16 17 121

A Lawyer s Case for God 7 Patience of Job Job 2 3 8 Blinded by the light Acts 1 1 9 9 Blind leading the blind Matthew 15 14 10 Road to Damascus experience Acts 1 1 9 11 Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth Exodus 21 22 12 Fuel for the fire Ezekiel 21 32 13 Spare the rod and spoil the child Proverbs 13 24 14 Scapegoat Leviticus 16 10 15 Do unto others as you would have others do unto you Leviticus 19 18 Matthew 7 12 16 He who desires to be first shall be last Mark 9 35 17 The truth shall set you free John 8 32 18 Prodigal son Luke 15 11 32 19 Land of milk and honey Exodus 3 8 20 Doubting Thomas John 20 19 31 21 Right hand man Mark 16 19 22 Cross to bear Mark 15 21 23 A three strand cord is not easily broken Ecclesiastes 4 12 24 An olive branch Genesis 8 11 25 Love of money is the root of all evil 1 Timothy 6 10 26 Thorn in my side 2 Corinthians 12 7 27 Idle hands are the devil s workshop Job 10 3 28 O you of little faith Matthew 6 30 29 Feet of clay Genesis 2 7 30 Salt of the earth Matthew 5 13 122

17 Argument The Bible is outdated 31 Spring cleaning from the Passover removal of leaven out of the home Exodus 12 15 32 Am I my brother s keeper Genesis 4 9 33 Apple of His eye Zechariah 2 8 Psalm 17 8 34 Eat drink and be merry Ecclesiastes 8 15 35 Better to give than to receive Acts 20 35 36 Man does not live by bread alone Matthew 4 3 4 37 Don t cast pearls before swine Matthew 7 6 38 Walk on water Matthew 14 22 32 39 A house divided against itself will not stand Matthew 12 25 40 Iron sharpens iron Proverbs 27 17 41 Labor of love 1 Thessalonians 1 3 Clearly the words in the Bible written hundreds of years ago contain timeless wisdom that is relevant to our lives today If any of it does not make sense to you or seems odd I suggest you trust God and ask Him for revelation I have repeatedly found that when I am baffled by a particular passage a short while later God will un package it for me and provide me with understanding In the meantime defer to the One who provided us with the Bible which as noted in Chapter 3 has been 100 accurate with hundreds of prophecies is corroborated by archaeological evidence and contains many pieces of scientific foreknowledge 123

Chapter 18 Argument It is a waste of time to read the Bible Do you ever feel it is you against the world Do you frequently experience frustration dealing with your life Are you searching for peace Then I urge you to read the Bible an instruction manual lovingly prepared for your benefit To help you remember what the Bible is think of the word Bible as an acronym for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth the instruction manual our Manufacturer provided as a guide for life The Bible is a book that millions of people have read over and over throughout their lives Time magazine recognizes the Bible as the most influential book ever Time further notes that not only is the Bible the best selling book of all time it is the best selling book of the year every year 121 The Bible is a unique and miraculous book Perhaps you have read portions and not found this to be the case May I suggest that you try reading it again but before you start ask God to open your heart to receive His timeless wisdom 125

A Lawyer s Case for God I have found that the Bible provides soothing comfort to my mind body soul and spirit Since it is God s living Word it breathes life into my very being In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God He was in the beginning with God All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made In Him was life and the life was the light of men John 1 1 4 However when I was growing up and heard a Bible story I typically found it dry and boring That was partially due to the fact that I did not have someone to assist me Just as would be carpenters apprentice with experienced carpenters many people need someone to guide them as they begin to read the Bible If you have trouble understanding the timeless instructions in the Bible I suggest you find a good Bible study or a friend who can help you To find a good Bible study I would recommend that you contact either a a local Messianic Congregation which can be found in the Yellow Pages under Synagogues or see the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues 866 IAMCS NOW or www iamsc org Tikkun Ministries 307 9773515 or www Tikkunministries org or the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations 800 692 8652 or www umjc org b Bible Study Fellowship a non denominational international Bible study that is in most large U S cities I attended this for several years see www bsfinternational org or c a church that recognizes the significance of Israel today and the Jewish roots of the faith There are a few who can build a car by simply reading an instruction manual Most of us would have an easier less frustrating time with an experienced automotive expert guiding us Perhaps your circle of friends does not include someone with knowledge of the Bible and you cannot find a good Bible study Why not pray for God to send someone to help you and for God to direct your path God will provide 126

Chapter 19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed My Life in the Jewish Community I was born in 1953 and raised in a Jewish home in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods in the suburbs of St Louis Missouri Virtually all of my grade school classmates were Jewish I worked at a Jewish summer camp and frequented the Jewish Community Center I never really knew any Christians intimately occasionally I saw people dressed up on Sunday morning going to church together as a family looking clean and angelic What a wholesome all American apple pie Wally and the Beaver sight and how totally foreign and distant it all seemed to me In my secluded life growing up within the Jewish community I certainly did not discuss spiritual issues Even though I went to Hebrew school and religious school I knew very little about the Hebrew Scriptures I was like many Jews a cultural secular Jew who simply identified with my heritage 127

A Lawyer s Case for God I was proud of my Jewish heritage and the contributions my people made to society from Hollywood to Wall Street Consider the contributions and accomplishments of the following Jewish people Albert Einstein Jonas Salk Irving Berlin Aaron Copeland Leonard Bernstein George Gershwin Johann Strauss Bob Dylan Steven Spielberg Oliver Stone Sam Goldwyn and Louis B Mayer of MetroGoldwyn Mayer Jerry Seinfeld Adam Sandler Groucho Marx each of the Three Stooges George Burns Kirk Douglas Paul Newman Michael Landon Mike Wallace Barbara Walters Harry Houdini David Copperfield Herman Wouk Marc Chagall Calvin Klein Ralph Lauren Levi Strauss Marc Spitz Hank Greenberg Sandy Koufax Bobby Fischer Red Auerbach U S Supreme Court Justices Felix Frankfurter Louis Brandeis Benjamin Cordozo and Abe Fortas Alan Greenspan Henry Kissinger Joseph Pulitzer Ann Landers and Abigail Dear Abby Van Buren Growing up I did not yet understand that these accomplishments were a fulfillment of God s promise to the Jewish people in Genesis 12 1 3 Now the Lord had said to Abram Get out of your country from your family and from your father s house to a land that I will show you I will make you a great nation I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed I now know that this Genesis 12 promise has also been fulfilled by God using the Jewish people to give the world the Bible the prophets and the Messiah Himself God has kept His promise that all the families of the earth will be blessed by Israel Consider these contributions by Israel in its 60 years of existence all while engaged in regular wars with relentless enemies who 128

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed seek its destruction and with an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other country on earth 1 Israelis developed the cell phone at the Motorola lab in Haifa 2 TransChip an Israeli company developed the first high resolution camera for use in cell phones 3 Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed at Microsoft Israel 4 The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel 5 Checkpoint an Israeli company pioneered Internet and network security technology such as Firewall 6 The first PC anti virus software was developed in Israel in 1979 7 Voice mail technology was developed by NICE Systems Amdocs and Comverse all Israeli companies 8 Technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis 9 TEVA the world s largest maker of antibiotics and a world leader in generic drugs is an Israeli company TEVA fills one in every 15 prescriptions in the U S and has developed Azilect rasagiline an FDA approved drug which helps reduce shaking in patients suffering from Parkinson s disease 10 Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized nonradiation diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer 11 Given Imaging an Israeli company developed the first ingestible video camera so small that it fits inside a pill and can be swallowed The camera helps diagnose digestive tract diseases 12 Researchers in Israel developed a device that helps the heart pump blood an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure The new device is synchronized with a camera 129

A Lawyer s Case for God and helps doctors diagnose the heart s mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors 13 Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce per capita with 145 per 10 000 There are 85 10 000 in the U S over 70 10 000 in Japan and less than 60 10 000 in Germany 14 Israel has the highest ratio in the world of university degrees to total population 15 A new acne treatment developed in Israel the Clear Light device produces a high intensity ultraviolet light free narrow band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self destruct all without damaging surrounding skin or tissue 16 Solel an Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large scale solar powered fully functional electricity generating plant in southern California s Mojave desert 17 M Systems an Israeli company developed Disk on Key the first and most powerful portable key chain storage on the market the sales of which broke records selling 250 000 units per month in 2007 18 Israel has the second largest number of companies traded on Wall Street 19 Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem is home to a world renowned burn center that has been used to treat Iraqi children burned in the Iraq war 20 Israelis established a temporary eye clinic for Sudanese Refugees in Kenya 21 A delegation of Israeli volunteers masking their Jewish identity visited a refugee camp in Somalia They risked their lives to save Muslim refugees 22 In 2008 Israel s Zetiq Technologies developed CellDetect a simpler more accurate cancer detection test that dramatically increases the sensitivity of cancer diagnosis 130

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed 23 More than 85 of solid waste in Israel is treated in an environmentally sound manner 24 Israel is home to the largest concentration of high tech industries in the world relative to its population Growing up I did not know the history of my people I knew nothing about God s miraculous protection of the Jewish people over thousands of years or God s plans for the Jewish people whom the Hebrew Scriptures call the apple of God s eye for he who touches you Israel touches the apple of His eye Zechariah 2 8 I did not know that on the first day Israel existed as a nation in 1948 five Arab nations defied the United Nations and simultaneously attacked Israel from all sides Israel did not even have an army at the time yet Israel won this war Israel winning that war is comparable to New Jersey without an army prevailing against an attack by a country the size of the United States This stunning victory was undoubtedly the greatest military upset of all time The only logical explanation for this victory is that God was protecting His people s return to their land just as He said He would For I will take you from among the nations gather you out of all countries and bring you into your own land Ezekiel 36 24 But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their folds and they shall be fruitful and increase Jeremiah 23 3 I was raised as a Reform Jew which is the largest and most liberal branch of Judaism Like most Jews especially Reform Jews I did not even consider reading the Bible It was not on my radar screen or to 131

A Lawyer s Case for God do list Like most Reform Jews I rarely went to services and did not practice Judaism While growing up I do not recall ever meeting a Jew who seemed to have read any of the Bible much less studied it or followed it Occasionally I would meet a religious Jew but all I saw in them was a fanatical adherence to monotonous unnecessary rules and rituals I would go to High Holiday services Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and literally count the minutes until the service was over My study of the prayer book consisted of calculating the number of pages that remained until the service would conclude and it was always more than I thought I could easily endure My favorite part of the service was when the rabbi told us to skip the next few pages I had no idea what I was reciting from the prayer book during services I never quite knew what to do during the silent prayer time Uh hello God it s me Jim If you are real uh please do the following things for me I think the rabbi told us to make it a silent prayer because he knew many of us had no idea what to pray and might totally embarrass ourselves if we prayed out loud Even if one of my prayers had seemingly been answered I would have thought it simply a coincidence Like most Reform Jews I left Judaism to the rabbis the religious authorities Who was I to question them However I don t recall any rabbi telling me the Hebrew Scriptures prophesied that the Messiah would come to redeem the Jewish people in approximately 32 CE They never mentioned any of the 300 prophecies concerning the Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures much less that Yeshua had fulfilled them They never mentioned that Yeshua can be found in countless passages in the Hebrew Scriptures Perhaps no one had told them either My First Signi cant Encounters with Christians After my college years at the University of Missouri at Columbia before I started law school in 1975 I backpacked around Western Europe alone for three months Despite some language barriers it was not too challenging to figure out the European buses and trains However before I arrived in Europe I could not figure out how to get from LaGuardia Airport to Kennedy International Airport both in 132

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed New York A discerning priest looked at me outside the airport and noted that I looked lost He put his arm on my shoulder and kindly said Son I am going where you are going Let me show you the way He hailed a taxi for us We had a pleasant discussion along the way and he helped me get acclimated on my journey To this day I vividly remember that brief time with him and what a life saver he was But most notably I recall the peace and joy he had During my travels in Europe I stayed at many Christian youth hostels I was on a meager budget and hostels were economical about 2 or 3 a night For that you got a noisy night s sleep on a lumpy musty mattress in a smelly crowded room and a continental breakfast that was not worth a nickel and tasted like one During my stays at the Christian youth hostels I had a revelation many of the people working at these hostels seemed to possess the same kind of peace and joy as that priest in New York They exuded love and warmth Although relatively poor and facing other challenges in life they seemed to be filled with more joy than I had ever experienced and I was a healthy up and coming lawyer from a caring family How did these people get that way Why was I not like that Instead I was always preoccupied and worried about things not being exactly as I thought they should be As it says in the Messianic writings they were provoking me to jealousy But through their the Jews fall to provoke them the Jews to jealousy salvation has come to the Gentiles Romans 11 11 I wanted the contentment these people had the joy that captures the light of Messiah and brings revival to our souls To my amazement I have it today Thank God One particularly memorable experience in Europe was my excursion to the Vatican It seemed like a holy tranquil place I did not realize at the time that St Peter s Cathedral at the Vatican was named after one of the Jewish disciples chosen by Yeshua I decided to purchase an audio tour so I could learn about the cathedral s history artwork stained glass and statuary I opened the door to a booth with a sign 133

A Lawyer s Case for God on it that said English believing it was the place where I could hear the tour in my native language To my surprise I had walked into a confessional booth for people who spoke English I quickly closed the door Oy vey I thought what a place to do such a thing I knew I should linger for a while and apologize to the priest When the confession was over I apologized and the priest was extremely forgiving and understanding I remember he said No harm done son Whew More Encounters with Christians as I Commenced my Legal Career In 1978 as I began my law career I began to encounter antiSemitism Since I desired success I decided that unless asked I would simply not mention being Jewish so as not to stifle my career Don t ask don t tell was my motto Not many asked and slowly I began to lose my identity as a Jew I also began to meet Christians I was shocked to learn that many of them were very bright people who were not just blindly and naively following some religious doctrine Some in fact were among the best attorneys in town About this time I married Cathy a kind and loving Catholic Her family had that same peace and joy I had sensed in the priest in New York and at the Christian youth hostels in Europe Cathy came from a large loving extended family and they all got along remarkably well That amazed me it seemed that their faith and trust in the Messiah was the source of this remarkable unity One of Cathy s sisters began to pass along books and pamphlets to me about God and the Bible She also patiently responded to questions I posed challenging God and faith These Q A sessions began to chisel away at my hard heart piece by piece God bless her and the rest of Cathy s family for their patience A few years passed before I read any of the literature she had given me Eventually as I began to inquire more I discovered that many Christians had actually thought through these puzzling issues Always an inquisitive sort who could make someone s chin drop to the ground with my probing questions I challenged their beliefs and they would patiently explain To my surprise it began to make sense I could not 134

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed believe my ears Intelligent people had examined these issues of faith and found God and Yeshua to be real I vowed that one day I would read the Bible My intention was that it would be an intellectual pursuit Nonetheless for years I never found the time Instead I allowed other matters to take precedence C S Lewis Book Mere Christianity At the age of 37 I finally began to explore the Bible but I did not start out by reading it A concerned loving person suggested that I read C S Lewis classic Mere Christianity I followed that advice and then commenced my pursuit of learning about God the Bible and salvation C S Lewis was a brilliant analytical man who had been an atheist Setting out to disprove the Bible through extensive study and research he instead became convinced it was true Lewis friend and colleague J R R Tolkien author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was instrumental in opening his heart In Mere Christianity C S Lewis thoroughly analyzes the world in which we live and logically explains why God must exist He presents evidence for Yeshua s resurrection and God s promise of salvation eternal life Lewis meticulously lays out his thought process analysis and logic it all made perfect sense I found his logic to be irrefutable It seemed to be an open and shut case God does exist He has to I was beginning to be transformed mentally The evidence for the resurrection even seemed overwhelming The veil that had prevented my mind from seeing these truths was finally being partially lifted just as it is written For I do not desire brethren fellow Jews that you should be ignorant of this mystery lest you should be wise in your own opinion that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in i e initially most Jews will not recognize Yeshua as Messiah Romans 11 25 What were Lewis arguments I will briefly reiterate three of them 1 Yeshua s followers would not be tortured and killed for a lie 135

A Lawyer s Case for God 2 The tomb was empty 3 It is documented that after His death Yeshua appeared to hundreds While reading Mere Christianity my mind began to process the facts in a way I could understand them A light was flickering Bill Gothard s Institute in Basic Life Principles Reading Mere Christianity had piqued my curiosity I desired to learn more Next I shocked my wife and others by attending a seminar called The Institute in Basic Life Principles www iblp org At his week long seminar Bill Gothard demonstrated repeatedly how the Bible offered simple solutions for life s problems Life was not as complicated as I had tried to make it For example if we are in constant conflict and turmoil with our parents or children it is quite likely we are not following the instructions in the Bible dealing with the parent child relationship Gothard listed example after example of how anxiety and discontentment are usually brought on by failing to follow God s gentle loving instructions These instructions protect us much like an umbrella in the rain until we step outside their covering One of the life changing biblical rules Gothard illustrated was that God instructs us to forgive those who offend us I frequently had ignored this rule and bore a grudge to convey to others not to even think about messing with me again But what happened when I refused to forgive I suffered Why Because bitterness can literally make us physically sick and can harm our bones A merry heart does good like medicine but a broken spirit dries the bones Proverbs 17 22 When I kept silent my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long Psalm 32 3 When we hold on to bitterness it is as if we drink a cup of poison that continues to infect our body and soul 136

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed Similarly when we offend someone and choose to ignore our misdeed we quite likely will feel uneasy whenever we see that person I have found that as soon as I apologize repent and ask for forgiveness I receive mercy and am set free He who covers his sins will not prosper but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy Proverbs 28 13 In 1973 Dr Karl Menninger world renowned psychologist and founder of the Menninger Foundation acknowledged the healing that occurs when we simply receive and offer forgiveness He concluded that if he could help his mental health patients simply receive and deliver forgiveness 75 of them would be healed 122 The Bill Gothard seminar radically ramped up my perspective on God and the Bible I was becoming educated the God given principles of Scripture were making more and more sense How could I have missed it all these years The fog was lifting and my misconceptions were vanishing My hardened heart toward God was softening I hungered to learn more I was developing a peace as I learned that someone upstairs loved me unconditionally and was on my side How liberating I was not in this alone It was no longer Jim versus the world The Creator of the remarkable universe had loved me even before I was born and was watching over me Before I formed you in the womb I knew you Jeremiah 1 5 Messianic Judaism What in the World is That Shortly after the Gothard seminar my precious wife Cathy heard God s still small voice speak to her heart and say we would be Messianic Jews At the time she did not even know what a Messianic Jew was and neither did I Cathy began to inquire and discovered that Messianic Jews are Jews who have found their Messiah 137

A Lawyer s Case for God A short while later Cathy learned of a Messianic synagogue starting in our city a place where Jews and Gentiles worshipped together It seemed like a great compromise on an issue Cathy and I had been struggling with Cathy was Catholic and I was Jewish and we had young children The battle of my religion versus hers would be gone At this point I had been a lawyer for 14 years Lawyers frequently try to settle a dispute by finding common ground that will satisfy both sides a win win situation Messianic Judaism seemed like just that Who had thought of this What a simply awesome idea From the moment I walked in to my first Messianic gathering I felt a tremendous peace It was as if I had come home The people were incredibly warm loving and caring They had a peace and joy about them similar to that I had observed in the priest in New York the Christians in the youth hostels in Europe and the loving members of Cathy s family The music at the Messianic service touched my heart I found it tremendously uplifting and full of life It resonated within me in a powerful way and filled me with a peace I had never felt before I later learned that as I sang worship songs I would draw nearer to God and feel the joy and contentment that He desired for me God was blessing me for following His instruction to praise Him with music and song Come let us sing for joy to the LORD let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song Psalm 95 1 2 NIV For the first time in my life I actually looked forward to going to services There was music dancing joy love and fellowship all filled with richness and depth There were also revelatory and insightful teachings I was being blessed immeasurably Today I frequently hear people share similar comments when they attend a Messianic service They say things such as I felt so much love and unity at the congregation or I can t put my finger on it but I felt at peace when I was there 138

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed The Night I Finally Surrendered and Said Yes to God On May 1 1992 at a Friday night service the Messianic rabbi honored Holocaust Remembrance Day the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps after World War II He played a video on the story of Rose Price a holocaust survivor who accepted Yeshua as her Messiah after being released from the concentration camps 123 Rose shared that upon her release from the camps she was extremely angry and bitter at the Nazis and God for the anguish that had been inflicted upon her She had undergone numerous surgeries over the years for the injuries she received in the camps and no longer believed in God After immigrating to the United States Rose married Charlie Price and settled in Philadelphia to raise a family of four children Rose s daughter and husband became followers of Yeshua This caused great anguish and distress to Rose They told her about Yeshua that He loved her and wanted her to surrender her life to Him and to let God be the Lord of her life After many arguments and much prayer Rose accepted Yeshua as her Messiah and her life was changed forever 124 A few years later Rose felt that God wanted her to return to Germany and forgive the Nazis She struggled and pleaded with God to no avail He had a plan for Rose s life to help deliver people from their separation from God Of course God was not going to back down just because Rose did not understand this plan at the time While in Germany Rose spoke to over 37 000 Germans about forgiveness Rose struggled but God gave her the grace to forgive the Nazis As I had learned at the Bill Gothard seminar by following God s instruction to forgive Rose experienced blessing and healing After forgiving the Nazis her anger bitterness and unrest subsided Surgeries were no longer necessary and she was set free from the bondage of bitterness and unforgiveness The bitter poison was gone from her body Hallelujah When Rose personally forgave individual Nazis the guilt they had been carrying for decades lifted and six of them came to her and repented One of the Nazis had been a guard in a camp in which she had been imprisoned 139

A Lawyer s Case for God After presenting this Rose Price video the Messianic Rabbi asked if anyone wanted to similarly be set free and let Yeshua into their heart I raised my hand thinking Sure I want what Rose has Who wouldn t I silently said a short prayer expressing my desire to know Yeshua as my Messiah My head may not yet have connected with God but my heart had Bolts of lightening did not strike the ground In fact nothing seemed to change but I now know that at that moment God had begun a work in me My act of turning to God and asking for His grace enabled the veil that was blinding me from the truth to be lifted just as was written by Rabbi Saul of Tarsus Paul But even to this day when Moses is read a veil lies on their heart Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord the veil is taken away 2 Corinthians 3 15 16 Previously I had often used swear words around men Starting the very next day I had a new strong conviction that cursing was wrong Curse words would come to my lips but I could not utter them The words would simply stop at my lips I had not consciously made a decision to stop cursing I didn t even have a desire to stop I just stopped I now know that this was God beginning to purify me Over the next few weeks my wife Cathy would periodically ask me if I had accepted Yeshua yet and my response was always Not yet but I still want to know Him As I look back I am astonished I did not recognize that God had done a miracle by convicting me of cursing A short while later our rabbi scheduled a t vilah ceremony water immersion or baptism and I signed up for it I thought this would just be another step in the process On the way to the immersion Cathy pointed out to me that I would have to publicly declare my acceptance of Yeshua as the Son of God who died for my sins I was shocked Oy vey I didn t know I would have to do that When I got out of the car I nervously paced back and forth as I pondered what to do I thought of backing out but our rabbi had printed a flyer with the names of those participating in the water immersion and I was on it If I backed out it would be terribly embarrassing Ladies and gentleman Jim has decided that you guys are insane 140

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed that he does not believe what you believe and has chickened out So I decided to go through with it After making that decision my heart changed and I was finally able to accept Yeshua Accompanied by the rabbi and many observers I stood waist deep in a lake proclaimed my faith in Yeshua and immersed my entire body At that moment I was spiritually cleansed in the waters of the t vilah When I came out of the water it felt as if I jumped five feet in the air it was that exhilarating Cathy was re immersed that day as well and we embraced soaking wet It was a glorious day and is the day I became a follower of Yeshua I felt like a new person I was a new creation I knew Yeshua had transformed me As He promised Whoever confesses Me before men him I will also confess before My father who is in heaven Matthew 10 32 Since that day God has radically changed my life Cathy s life and the lives of our children God has graciously and lovingly continued to refine and purify me little by little over the last 19 years Am I perfect By no means Do I know that I am forgiven for my sins Absolutely Do I know who to turn to during turbulent times and who to thank when things go well Definitely Now I understand that Yeshua s sacrificial death was the final Yom Kippur sacrifice that provided redemption and forgiveness for all people He was the perfect unblemished Passover lamb spoken of in the Torah in the Book of Exodus the one who was slain as a sacrifice for us His blood protects us and delivers us from a spiritual death just as blood on their doorposts protected the Israelites from a physical death in Egypt at the time of Moses Exodus 12 Just as the Afikomen middle matzah is broken on Passover wrapped in a cloth and hidden only to be discovered later on for which the discoverer receives a reward Yeshua was broken wrapped in a burial cloth and sealed in a tomb Whoever finds Him receives an eternal reward Yeshua as Lord Yeshua is the ultimate role model the One who will neither leave you nor forsake you Yeshua went before you and paid the price for 141

A Lawyer s Case for God your sins so that you could be found not guilty by reason of His redemption His sacrifice and His love for us What a mighty deliverer He is Throw yourself upon the mercy of the heavenly court and He will give you peace and free you from sin and guilt Yeshua wants to bring peace to your heart the peace of God which surpasses all understanding Philippians 4 7 How many of you who have rejected Yeshua have never read the Messianic writings I urge you to read them and receive their message of God s love I heard a leading Reform rabbi encourage all Jewish people to read the Messianic writings and Isaiah 53 This amazing chapter found in the Hebrew Scriptures is contained in Appendix B of this book It prophesies the Messiah as the suffering servant and describes Yeshua s life crucifixion death and resurrection all of which are foretold in this compelling prophecy written over 700 years before Yeshua s birth I have heard people say that they believe Yeshua lived and had many followers but do not believe all that is written about Him in the Bible That is they do not believe He is the Son of God who performed miracles came to die for the sins of the world and will come again To me the Bible is either true or not There is no middle ground If we believe parts of it the descriptions of the lives of Abraham Moses and King David and accept portions of the Yeshua accounts then it would follow that the rest is credible as well especially in light of the evidence presented in Chapter 3 If you believe that Yeshua is the prophesied Messiah wouldn t you want to serve Him with all your heart soul mind and strength Imagine saying I believe Superman is in the next room but I am going to just go about my business We would not say that We would want to get to know him We would want to listen and talk to him and be by his side Shouldn t it be the same with God If you believe He exists and is the Creator of the finely tuned universe and our incredibly intricate bodies then I challenge you to learn more about Him to read more about Him to talk to Him in prayer and to follow His instructions All you have to do is surrender to Him and recognize and trust His 142

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed supernatural abilities the same ones that created the universe and formed human life from the dust of the earth The universe is God s creation and it seems clear that He made it for your enjoyment and mine His works are worthy of our highest praise Conclusion I now clearly see the other side to the arguments I previously had made against God Yeshua and the Bible I hope this book has made you ponder these same issues Perhaps your heart has been softened If it hasn t then I would urge you to put this book back on the shelf and read it again at another time or perhaps read another book examining the evidence for God the Bible and Yeshua God knows the time in your life when it is best for you to meet Him My wife and I had to cancel our first date due to a scheduling conflict I did not call her again for a year We have since learned that had we started dating a year earlier it would not have been the right time and we may have never ended up together My prayer is that right now is the time for you to reach out to God Appendix A lists books music and other resources that might assist you Simply examine the ones that seem most appropriate for you I will close with an inquiry Do you have assurance that you will spend eternity in heaven If you have any doubts I urge you to take a step of faith and say the following prayer with an open heart and a sincere desire to know God It is the most important thing you will ever do God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob I thank you that you are willing to carry my burdens and to fill my heart abundantly with peace I invite you into my life to be my Lord and Savior I recognize that I have done wrong in Your sight I repent for my sins and ask for Your forgiveness Thank you that you are a forgiving merciful God I accept Your Son Messiah Yeshua into my heart and life I believe Yeshua rose from the dead and has paid the price for my sins which are now covered by His blood I invite Your Spirit to dwell within me and to be my 143

A Lawyer s Case for God comforter and instructor all the days of my life I pray these things in the name of Yeshua Thank you God for this wonderful gift of salvation that You promised and that I have now received through my Messiah If you said this prayer hallelujah You are a new creation Therefore if anyone is united with the Messiah he is a new creation the old has passed look what has come is fresh and new 2 Corinthians 5 17 CJB May your life be forever changed May I also suggest that you consider the following to assist you with your walk with God Read the Bible Daily Try to read the Bible for at least 10 minutes a day It is spiritual food and light You do not have to read it in the order it is written since it is not in chronological order You may wish to start with the gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John Psalms or Proverbs Find a translation you are comfortable with perhaps without all the thees and thous A particular translation may be better suited for you so look at several before digging in Pray before you read something such as God I love you You are awesome Please illuminate Your Word to me and touch my heart and life in a powerful way You can find Bible study guides in bookstores or online Recognize that you may not understand everything at first but will grow in your knowledge of God through His Word It is amazing how a single verse at the right moment can change your life and the same verses can have different meanings at different times in your life Apply What You Read Act upon what the Bible instructs you to do Forgive your enemies go the extra mile and love your neighbor as yourself Rejoice that you know Him 144

19 My Story How my life was miraculously changed Pray Every Day Pray throughout the day It need not be a ritual It does not have to be eloquent Prayer is simply communicating and spending time with God Try to pray from your heart Cry out to Him either verbally or silently Share your burdens and your heart with Him Praise Him for the things He has done Develop a relationship with Him He may speak to you in a way that almost seems like a thought that is His still small voice that you will come to recognize But remember if this voice is inconsistent with what you read in the Bible it is not from God Find Fellowship Locate a Messianic Congregation or church in your area preferably one that recognizes the significance of Israel today and the Jewish roots of the faith so you can fellowship with other Believers in the Messiah be discipled and grow in your faith For a directory of Messianic Congregations in your area check the Yellow Pages under Synagogues or go online See www iamcs org www umjc org www tikkunministries org or www messianictimes com 125 If you are not ready to say the above mentioned prayer why not simply tell God you sincerely want to know the truth and ask Him to reveal Himself to you As previously noted God is faithful and promises that if you seek Him with all your heart you will find Him you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart Jeremiah 29 13 Abundant blessings to you all 145

Appendix A Resources Books to Help Establish Your Faith I Have a Friend Who is Jewish Do You Don Goldstein A short easy to read book that provides evidence of the existence of God the validity of the Bible and Messiahship of Yeshua 813 655 4220 www prophecyrevealed com read for free on line or order Messianic Answer Book available in English and Russian Sam Nadler Answers questions about the Messiah 704 362 1927 www wordofmessiah org 147

A Lawyer s Case for God Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus Parts 1 2 3 4 Michael L Brown Thorough and scholarly responses to the most common objections to faith in Yeshua 800 410 7367 www messianicjewish net They Thought for Themselves Sid Roth Testimonies of Jewish Believers from many walks of life 800 548 1918 www sidroth org Born a Jew Die a Jew Yohanna Chernoff Wife of the late Rabbi Martin Chernoff pioneer of modern Messianic Judaism Yohanna shares the history of the revival of the late 20th century 215 477 2706 www kesherministries org www amazon com Yeshua the Messiah Rabbi David Chernoff Basic discussion of the messiahship of Yeshua from a Messianic rabbi 215 477 2706 www kesherministries org Mere Christianity C S Lewis Evidence of the existence of God the validity of the Bible and that Yeshua is the Messiah 909 793 0949 www amazon com 148

Appendix A Resources Ready With an Answer John Ankerburg and John Weldon Discussion on the authenticity of Scripture and belief in Yeshua 800 805 3030 www amazon com Evidence That Demands a Verdict Josh McDowell Detailed evidence of the existence of God and the Bible s authenticity 866 252 5424 www amazon com The Stones Cry Out Randall Price Archaeological discoveries that verify the history recorded in the Bible 866 604 7322 www amazon com Why Me Jacob Damkani 205 620 4304 Testimony that explains why the author believes that Yeshua is the Messiah www amazon com Once an Arafat Man Taysir Abu Saada Autobigraphy of a former Palestinian sniper for Yasser Arafat who becomes a follower of Yeshua and lover of the Jewish People 660 284 4444 www amazon com Evidence Bible Ray Comfort Provides detailed evidence that God exists the Bible is true and Yeshua is the Messiah and is divine 800 437 1893 www wayofthemaster com 149

A Lawyer s Case for God Books for Building Your Faith Messianic Daily Devotional Kevin Geoffrey Rich daily devotional short daily scripture and two pages of commentary 888 321 PWMI 7964 www messiahwordministries com Following Yeshua available in English and Russian Growing in Messiah available in English and Russian Sam Nadler Discipleship for new and maturing believers 704 362 1927 www wordofmessiah org God s Appointed Times Barney Kasdan Scriptural and traditional study of the biblical festivals and their fulfillment in Yeshua 800 773 6574 www messianicjewish net God s Appointed Customs Barney Kasdan Scriptural and traditional study of Jewish customs and their fulfillment in Yeshua 800 773 6574 www messianicjewish net Growing to Maturity Daniel C Juster Discipling overview of Messianic Jewish life 800 692 8652 www messianicjewish net 150

Appendix A Resources You Bring the Bagels I ll Bring the Gospel Barry Rubin An insightful book to help understand how to share the gospel 800 773 6574 www messianicjewish net Complete Jewish Bible David Stern translator Scriptures translated by a Jewish Bible scholar living in Israel 800 410 7367 www messianicjewish net Jewish New Testament and Commentary David Stern Commentary elucidating the Jewishness of the New Testament 800 410 7367 www messianicjewish net Our Father Abraham Marvin Wilson Discusses Jewish roots of the Christian faith 800 773 6574 www messianicjewish net Epicenter Joel Rosenberg New York Times bestseller A journey through biblical prophecy 800 773 6574 www messianicjewish net Halley s Bible Handbook Henry H Halley Bestselling Bible study guide 800 247 4784 www amazon com 151

A Lawyer s Case for God Websites and Ministries Messianic Jewish Resources Carries many of the books mentioned above and others plus videos and CDs 800 410 7367 www messianicjewish net The Galilee Experience Carries numerous books videos and CDs 888 838 7928 www thegalileeexperience com Hope of the World Free one minute daily devotional and sponsor of humanitarian projects 973 472 4978 www hopeoftheworld com Perfect Word Ministry Messianic website with daily devotional books and literature 888 321 PWMI 7964 www perfect word org Tikkun Ministry Rich free monthly newsletter from Israel 301 977 3515 www tikkunministries org Messianic Jewish Alliance of America Resource for Messianic conferences humanitarian programs and more 800 225 MJAA 6522 www mjaa org 152

Appendix A Resources Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations Resource for Messianic conferences humanitarian programs and more 800 692 8652 www umjc org Jewish Jewels Insightful free monthly newsletter and other resources 800 293 7482 www jewishjewels org Promise Keepers Road to Jerusalem Ministry of peace and reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles 866 PROMISE 866 776 6473 www promisekeepers org Jews for Jesus Evangelistic ministry 800 MESSIAH or 415 864 2600 www jewsforjesus org Jewish Voice Evangelistic and humanitarian projects 602 971 8501 www jewishvoice org Maoz Israel Evangelistic and humanitarian projects www maozisrael org 800 856 7060 Way of the Master Apologetics and evangelism 800 437 1893 www wayofthemaster com 153

A Lawyer s Case for God Messianic Music Messianic Jewish Resources 800 410 7367 www messianicjewish net Galilee of the Nations 877 327 7306 www galileeofthenations com Paul Wilbur 904 565 9909 www wilburministries com Joel Chernoff Lamb 610 338 0451 www lambmessianicmusic com Marty Goetz 616 661 4564 www martygoetz com Ted Pearce 214 693 6464 www tedpearce com Kathy Shooster 215 477 2706 www kathyshooster com Zemer Levav 877 327 7306 www zemerlevav org 154

Appendix B Isaiah 53 From the Hebrew Scriptures written in approximately 700 BCE Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him nothing in his appearance that we should desire him He was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows yet we considered him stricken by God smitten by him and afflicted But he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed We all like sheep have gone astray each of us has turned to his own way and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all He was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth he did not answer his accusers he was led like a lamb to the slaughter 155

A Lawyer s Case for God and as a sheep before her shearers is silent so he did not open his mouth By oppression and judgment he was taken away And who can speak of his descendants For he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my people he was stricken He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death though he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth Yet it was the LORD s will to crush him and cause him to suffer and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering he will see his offspring and prolong his days and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities Therefore I will give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with the strong because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors NIV Comment Some rabbis today say that the he in this passage is referring to Israel To this I have three brief responses 1 Focus on these sentences contained in the first paragraph of Isaiah 53 above He was despised and rejected by men a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not Here the we clearly refers to Israel So the he cannot also refer to the Israel The he must refer to someone else and the only plausible explanation is that he refers to the Messiah Also in Isaiah 52 Isaiah refers to Israel as Zion not he 2 It says he had done no violence yet we know Israel has done violence throughout its many wars 156

Appendix B Isaiah 53 3 It says he poured out his life unto death but we know that Israel is a viable nation Many of the ancient Jewish rabbis wrote that Isaiah 53 describes the Messiah examples Targum of Jonathan on Isaiah 53 11 12 and Babylonian Talmud folio 98b Read Isaiah 53 and decide for yourself It does not seem even remotely to refer to Israel An Orthodox rabbi once told me Isaiah 53 referred to the Messiah but that the Jewish people are waiting for a King Son of David as their Messiah not a Suffering Servant Son of Joseph to which this passage refers A reading of the Hebrew Scriptures seems to refer to the Messiah as both a Suffering Servant and King They will look on me the one they have pierced Zechariah 12 10 NIV he shall be a priest upon his throne Zechariah 6 13 NIV It seems quite implausible that He would come one time as both a Suffering Servant and King Could it be that the Messiah comes once as a Suffering Servant as He did 2 000 years ago and later to reign as a King 157

Endnotes Introduction 1 Isaacson Walter In Search of The Real Bill Gates Time October 20 2005 Chapter 2 2 McCabe Stephen and Stan Goldman Hand Wrist and Arm Sourcebook Chicago NTC Contemporary 2000 3 MacHale Des Wisdom London Prion Books Ltd 2002 4 The Journal of Comparative Neurology 238 Issue 1 2004 92 100 Wadhwa S and V Bijlani Developing human optic nerve in prenatal period changes in the numbers of retinal axons Volume 35 Issue 1 11 16 1987 Giglio Louie How Great is Our God DVD www 268generation com 5 Darwin Charles Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection London J M Dent Sons Ltd 1971 167 Eliot Charles W editor The Harvard Classics New York P F Collier Son Company 1909 Vol 11 190 6 Myers David G Psychology New York Worth Publishers 2007 230 159

A Lawyer s Case for God 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 160 Farabee M J The Digestive System Online Biology Book Avondale 1996 Maricopa Community College http www emc maricopa edu faculty farabee BIOBK BioBookTOC html Freitas Robert A Nanomedicine Volume I Basic Capabilities Georgetown Landes Bioscience 1999 section 8 51 Richards Lawrence O It Couldn t Just Happen Nashville Thomas Nelson Inc 1986 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2001 Press Release October 8 2001 1 Phillips Roger E The Heart and the Circulatory System Burlington Carolina Biological Supply Company Cavalli Sforza L Luca How can one study individual variation for 3 billion nucleotides of the human genome American Journal of Human Genetics April 1990 649 651 Karton Carol Making the Grade Everything Your 6th Grader Needs to Know Hauppauge Barron s Educational Services Inc 2004 How Great is Our God DVD Campbell Mary K and Shawn O Farrell Biochemistry Florence Thomson Brooks Cole 2006 Shormann David E The Exchange of Truth Lincoln iUniverse 2007 Merriam Webster On Line Dictionary Joy Magazine article by Dr Peter Hammond Issue 13 2007 Google Images How Great is Our God DVD Psychology 199 Psychology 199 231 Psychology 217 Psychology 233 and 250 Darwin Charles The Origin of Species New York Random House Modern Library Edition 1993 184 It Couldn t Just Happen 114 DeMar Gary My Introductory Comments at the Dayton to Dothon Creation to Evolution Debate The American Vision November 28 2007 A Scientific Dissent for Darwinisim Biblical Worldview Magazine January February 2008 11 Staff Doubts Over Evolution Mount with Over 300 Scientists Expressing Skepticism with Central Tenet of Darwin s Theory Discovery Institute April 1 2004

Endnotes 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 DeMar Gary My Introductory Comments at the Dayton to Dothon Creation to Evolution Debate The American Vision November 28 2007 Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity Biblical Worldview Magazine January February 2008 11 Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection 2 John Lofton s Journal The Washington Times February 8 1984 Snelling Andrew The Revised Quotebook Brisbane Creation Science Foundation 1990 3 Time December 27 1976 Time November 7 1977 Notre Dame Magazine Winter 2005 06 Banks Stephen L Asklepios Annals of Internal Medicine August 1 1996 Volume 125 Issue 3 253 Chicago Encyclopedia Britannica Commager Henry Steele and Richard B Morris Spirit of SeventySix New York The Bobbs Merrill Co Inc 1958 Marshall Peter and David Manuel The Glory of America Bloomington Garborg s Heart N Home Inc 1991 Anderson Joan Wester Guardian Angels True Stories of Answered Prayer posted at the George Washington Carver National Monument near Diamond Missouri 129 Unanimous declaration of the original 13 states of America July 4 1776 Mackie Glen To See the Universe in a Grain of Taranaki Sand North and South Magazine May 1999 How Great is Our God DVD Davies Paul The Cosmic Blueprint New Discoveries in Nature s Ability to Order the Universe New York Touchstone Books 1989 203 Hawking Stephen Austin American Statesman October 19 1997 Tiner J H Louis Pasteur Founder of Modern Medicine Milford Mott Media 1990 75 Chapter 3 35 Kings military leaders peasants philosophers fishermen tax collectors poets musicians scholars and shepherds Note Some believe that Luke was not Jewish 161

A Lawyer s Case for God 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 162 Twain Mark The Innocents Abroad American Publishing 1869 CNBC European Business News by Boyd Farrow November 2007 Fedler John Focus on Israel Israel s Agriculture in the 21st Century Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs December 24 2002 Focus on Israel Israel s Agriculture in the 21st Century December 24 2002 Price Randall The Stones Cry Out Eugene Harvest House Publishers 1997 323 Glueck Nelson Rivers in the Desert A History of the Negev New York Farrar Strauss and Cudahy 1959 31 and 136 Free Dr Joseph P Archaeology and Bible History Scripture Press Wheaton IL 1969 1 2 134 The Stones Cry Out Lefkovits Etgar Archeologist find 2nd Temple Quary Jerusalem Post September 23 2007 Israel section Online edition Nature News Service Macmillan Magazines Ltd September 11 2003 Wood Bryant G The Discovery of the Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah Bible and Spade Summer 1999 Meadville Allegheny College Alumni Bulletin Fall 1971 The Stones Cry Out 235 237 The Stones Cry Out 102 104 The Stones Cry Out 165 174 interview with Bryant Wood New Orleans November 1996 Wilford John Archaeologists say evidence of House of David found Dallas Morning News August 6 1993 Garstang John The Foundations of Bible History Joshua Judges London Constable 1931 146 The Stones Cry Out 324 325 Albright W F The Archaeology of Palestine London Penguin Books 1954 128 Agard Margaret Historical Proofs of the Bible The Stones Cry Out 277 Another Earthquake Hits Israel Israel Today November 25 2007 Ambraseyes N Historical Earthquakes In Jerusalem Journal of Seismology Volume 9 number 2 July 2005 McMillen S I None of These Diseases Grand Rapids Fleming H Revell 1984 93 Korzybski Alfred Sanity and Science Spring Valley Feldheim Publishers

Endnotes 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 Sanity and Science Cook G C Outbreak of trichinosis trichiniasis contracted in London in 1879 Postgrad Med J 2001 Jan 77 903 62 3 Weinberg Winkler G No Germs Allowed How to Avoid Infectious Diseases at Home and On the Road Piscataway Rutgers University Press 1952 Yancey Philip What s So Amazing About Grace Grand Rapids Zondervan 1997 149 Shormann David E The Exchange of Truth Bloomington iUniverse Inc 2007 chapter 1 Morris Henry H Men of Science Men of God El Cajon Master Books 1988 23 26 Wilmington Harold Wlimington s Guide to the Bible Wheaton Tyndale House Publishers Inc 1981 797 Eidsmoe John Christianity and the Constitution The Faith of Our Founding Fathers Grand Rapids Baker Book House A Mott Media Book 1987 6th printing 1993 48 Wilmington s Guide to the Bible 797 Federer William J America s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations St Louis Amerisearch 1996 660 Wilmington s Guide to the Bible 796 Wilmington s Guide to the Bible 796 Wilmington s Guide to the Bible 796 Wampler Dee The Myth of the Separation Between Church and State Enumclaw Wine Press Publishing 2003 124 Wilmington s Guide to the Bible 796 Wilmington s Guide to the Bible 796 Wilmington s Guide to the Bible 796 Gipp Samuel C For His Pleasure Massillon Friend to Church Ministries America s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations 676 America s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations 289 Federer William J What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur an a History of Islam the United States 235 and 257 Filardo Sonia The Truth Will Set You Free It Will Transform You Las Vegas The Truth Factor 2005 4 http www thetruthfactor com table_of_contents htm 163

A Lawyer s Case for God 76 McCartney Clarence Edward Lincoln and the Bible New York Abington Cokesbury Press 1949 35 Chapter 7 77 Spirit of Seventy Six The Glory of America Chapter 8 78 Kansas City Star July 7 2007 A4 Parade July 29 2007 4 79 Drosnin Michael Citizen Hughes New York Holt Rinehart and Winston 1985 49 Ortberg John When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box Grand Rapids Zondervan 2007 190 80 Seligman Martin Authentic Happiness New York Free Press 2002 186 81 When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box 195 82 When the Game is Over It All Goes Back in the Box 197 Chapter 9 83 Jillette Penn A Gift of a Bible December 8 2008 Chapter 12 84 Throughout this book and chapter I have compared the translations used with the translation offered by the Jewish Publication Society JPS and have found them to be virtually identical to each other in meaning Feel free to compare them for yourself at www mechon mamre org e et et0 htm Sometimes the verse numbers vary slightly I have used the NIV translation in this chapter when other translations capitalize pronouns and other words 85 Babylonian Talmud Soncino version Yoma 39b Neusner Jacob Jerusalem Talmud The Yerushalmi 156 157 86 Zohar Vol 111 288 Vol 11 43 Hebrew editions 87 Again some believe Luke was not Jewish 88 Jamie Cowen President Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations June 18 2008 89 McGirk Ariel Tim Israel s Messianic Jews under Attack Time June 6 2008 164

Endnotes 90 Youtube Messianic Jews Worshipping Yeshua Jesus www youtube com watch v 3sEBAldf4L0 Youtube The Jewish Big Brother www youtube com watch v JIPrhXREm3w Chapter 13 91 Columbia Encyclopedia 6th ed 2001 92 This revelation is discussed in Don Goldstein s book I Have a Friend Who is Jewish Do You a 70 page easy to read book with evidence for God the Bible and the Messiahship of Yeshua It can be read for free on line prophecyrevealed com or purchased for under 10 93 Edwards William D Wesley J Gabel and Floyd E Hosmer On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ Journal of American Medical Association 1986 256 1455 1463 March 21 Davis Truman C The Crucifixion of Jesus Mesa Arizona Medicine March 1965 94 Barney Fife was a bumbling deputy portrayed by the late actor comedian Don Knotts on The Andy Griffith Show which originally aired in the 60s 95 Maier Paul L In Fullness of Time A Historian Looks at Christmas Easter and the Early Church Grand Rapids Kregel 1998 203 96 Ankerberg John and John Weldon The Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Part 2 Could the Evidence Stand Cross Examination in a Modern Court of Law Chattanooga Ankerberg and Burroughs 97 In Fullness of Time A Historian Looks at Christmas Easter and the Early Church 203 98 Green Michael ManAlive Chicago InterVarsity Christian Fellowship 1969 54 99 Smith Wilbur Therefore Stand Christian Apologetics Grand Rapids Baker Book House 1974 54 100 America s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations 101 Our Christian Heritage Letter from Plymouth Rock 5 102 McDowell Stephen and Mark Beliles The Providential Perspective Charlottesville The Providence Foundation January 1994 6 103 Halley s Bible Handbook Grand Rapids Zondervan Publishing House 1965 19 165

A Lawyer s Case for God 104 105 Bartlett John Bartlett s Familiar Quotations Boston Little Brown and Company 1855 1980 300 Columbus Christopher The Book of Prophecies Berkeley University of California Press June 21 1997 Chapter 15 106 In October 2007 researchers at the University of Missouri at Columbia found that red wine defends against cardiovascular disease and tumors and when combined with grape juice can help protect from common food borne disease Red wine has anti microbial properties that defend against food borne pathogens and don t harm useful bacteria Kansas City Star October 12 2007 B1 107 Again some feel Luke was not Jewish 108 Romans 2 26 29 109 Kac Arthur The Messiahship of Jesus Are Jews Changing Their Attitude Toward Jesus Grand Rapids Baker Book House revised edition 1986 Viereck George Sylvester What Life Means to Einstein The Saturday Evening Post October 26 1929 110 The Messiahship of Jesus Are Jews Changing Their Attitude Toward Jesus 111 Lapide Pinchas The Resurrection of Jesus A Jewish Perspective Minneapolis Augsburg Publishing House 1983 112 The Messiahship of Jesus Are Jews Changing Their Attitude Toward Jesus Three Talks on Judaism translated by Paul Levertoff Jewish Opinions About Jesus Der Weg 7 no 1 January February 1933 113 The Messiahship of Jesus Are Jews Changing Their Attitude Toward Jesus 114 The Messiahship of Jesus Are Jews Changing Their Attitude Toward Jesus 115 Disraeli Benjamin Lord George Bentinck A Political Biography written in 1852 published by Archibald Constable Co Ltd London 1905 p 330 116 Rabbi Cohn s journey to faith in Yeshua is told in To An Ancient People The Autobiography of Rabbi Leopold Cohn Rabbi Cohn was 166

Endnotes 117 118 119 120 born into an Orthodox family in 1862 He was a student of the Talmud oral law recorded in ancient books which contain Jewish law customs and history Brown Michael L Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus Grand Rapids Baker Book House 2000 42 Not listed on website but listed as Jewish Believer in Yeshua in this book Van Biema David What s Next 2008 Time March 12 2008 Maimonides commentary on the Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin chapter 10 Gillet Lev Communion in the Messiah Studies in the Relationship Between Judaism and Christianity Cambridge James Clarke Co 2002 206 Einspruch Henry Raisins and Almonds Baltimore The Lewis and Harriet Lederer Foundation 1967 Chapter 18 121 Van Biema David The Case for Teaching the Bible Time March 22 2007 Chapter 19 122 Today In the Word March 1989 8 123 See www rosepriceministries org 124 For a video entitled Survivor Stories on six Holocaust survivors who accepted Yeshua see www jewsforjesus org or call 800MESSIAH or 415 864 2600 125 Most of these suggestions are taken from Jonathan Cahn s teaching tape First Steps which can be obtained by contacting Hope of the World www hopeoftheworld com Box 1111 Lodi New Jersey 07644 phone 973 472 4978 167