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Well, Dr. David Jeremiah, it's great to have you on the Charisma News Podcast.
Thank you so much for being here to talk about really why, why the Nativity.
I mean, this is an amazing film that you guys have created to really explain the depths
behind the true meaning of the Nativity story.
Well, we've had so much fun doing it.
It's been a three-year journey for us and having it now being seen by everybody and
even in Spanish, we are so excited about it.
That's awesome.
So just before our interview here, I decided to look on YouTube and I saw that people have
viewed this docudrama, Why the Nativity, over 12 million times.
It's reached far and wide.
So how did you hear that God wanted you to invest your time and money and resources to
explain this amazing docudrama?
Well, I wrote a book back in 2006 called Why the Nativity for a publisher who had asked
me to write the answers to some 25 questions people have about Christmas.
And that book was released and it was read by a lot of folks back then and then Paul
Joyner, who is the head of creative department here and kind of part of the core of Turning
Point, he took that book and began to realize that it had the possibilities to become a
movie script.
So he actually took the book himself and wrote the script and he actually had storyboarded
the whole film before I even knew we were going to do this.
And then when I saw the vision they had and began to learn some of the ideas that everybody
had like building Bethlehem on a farm not too far from our headquarters here, I think
all of us just it was kind of like a groundswell that happened in our hearts and we began to
realize this could be an amazing thing if we can do this right.
And we didn't want it to be compared to other Christian films.
We wanted to do a Hollywood film on the Virgin Birth of Christ and do it at that level if
I can say that.
And that was our vision.
That's what we set out to do.
And this Why the Nativity film, if I can call it that, I mean you guys promote it as a docudrama,
but it's really a film.
It feels like you're at the movies watching it or at least it deserves to be on the big
screen in my opinion.
And you mentioned the set of Bethlehem.
On your website, whythenativity.org for everyone that wants to find out more information about
that, you put some behind the scenes videos and I was so impressed.
I thought this set already existed somewhere and you guys just use it because of your proximity
to Hollywood or other things out in California.
But you guys built this yourselves.
That's amazing.
Well, it was truly an amazing thing.
I heard we were going to do that and I have to honestly tell you, I didn't even know how
you go about doing that and with the set and all of that.
And then I found out you build it around a set of scaffolding and that's, I went out
there when they started to do it and I thought, oh my goodness, I can't believe we're doing
this.
When it was done and we had the Hollywood design on the scaffolding, it really looked
like and felt like you were in Bethlehem.
I've been to Bethlehem four or five times.
So it was pretty realistic.
Yeah.
So one of the things that has inspired me and I love your interpretation or your understanding
really about the Magi coming from afar and how that's portrayed in this film.
And if we were looking for a little litigating scene underneath the Christmas tree, you probably
have just three of them and there's nobody else, but you're talking about, there's like
caravans and families of people.
How did you come to understand that?
And I'm always interested in the Magi and the mystery of these people will.
Well, you know, we have sort of bought into the idea that since there were three gifts,
there could only have been three wise men.
We believe there were many more than that, that people came from the East to find the
answer to this star that God created to lead them.
And I think one of the exciting things for me was the guy who wrote the musical score
for this in that particular part of the movie has music from about five or six different
nations that are woven into the score.
And it is just amazing to see these people coming to worship the Lord.
Yeah.
And it really does demonstrate because you have, it's not just one type of nationality.
You have different nationalities represented there as well with those wise men.
And it really does demonstrate that Jesus came for the whole world.
Yes, he came to the Jewish people and you know that that's where he came from, but his
death and on the cross and his sacrifice and his resurrection was for all mankind, not
just for one people.
Our guys on set here call that the John 3 16 moment of the movie.
And that's kind of what it was.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love that.
That is so beautiful.
Dr. Jeremiah, you have been studying the word of God and preaching the word of God for
so many years and it has impacted my life that listening to your radio teachings from
my parents were listening to that.
So I grew up listening to that in the car from a young age.
Your teaching has really impacted my life.
I want to hear from you, what has impacted you the most as you have studied about the
nativity that you didn't know necessarily before you wrote the original book in 2006?
You know, I think one of the things that really I hope comes through in this movie is the
supernatural thing that happened in a very natural setting.
Jesus didn't show up in any other way.
I like to tell people God sent his son to us and delivered him through the birth canal
of a woman.
He didn't show up as an adult ready to redeem the world.
He showed up as a helpless baby.
And he showed up in that way to demonstrate to us that we're helpless without God, that
we don't have any way to show up before God with any meaning.
God has to come to us just as you come to a little baby.
And the story as it's played out and as I went to the set every day, this is overwhelming
more and more.
This was a real story.
These were real people.
As you mentioned, real animals, real angst in the setting.
One of my favorite moments, for instance, is that moment when Joseph discovers that
Mary is pregnant and that he knows that it's not his baby because they haven't been together.
And I think for the first time when I saw this, when we were finished with it, I realized
what it must have been like for Joseph.
He loved this woman.
He believed she was a pure woman.
And now she's pregnant and he doesn't understand it.
He hasn't heard from the angel yet.
And I think the movie portrays the suffering he went through, actually cries on the set.
And his contemporaries reject him and they ridicule him because he's been so foolish
to believe in this woman.
That's the way it was.
That's what was happening.
I think the reality of that in the way that we see stories was perhaps the most important.
Yeah.
And that's really important for us to be able to understand the human element of a
nativity story.
I mean, Jesus came for all of us.
You have Joseph and Mary looking from the outside like an unwed couple that is expecting
a baby.
That had to be very difficult.
And those are things that we can relate to even now.
You know, it's not hard to think about how many people ask Joseph or Mary about this
and the difficulty that they would have had trying to explain what we now know from Revelation.
But this particular thing that happened to them had never before happened in the history
of the world.
It was the first time God ever allowed a human to be a part of this world in that particular
way.
So there was no precedent for it.
It was just, it was God's miracle moment.
That is something that you point out in so many of those miracle moments in Why the Nativity.
Dr. Jeremiah, I know our time is running short.
And I know that you've got other things that you've got to do to get ready for Christmas.
It's a busy time.
But I just want to give you the opportunity just to talk to our viewers and listeners
here about why they need to watch Why the Nativity.
Well, you know, we have a lot of stories about Christmas these days.
They're everywhere.
We have whole channels that do nothing but play Christmas movies and Christmas stories
are everywhere.
But what I'd like to suggest is that the real story is the best story, not only best because
it's got the best message, best because it is the best story that there is.
No one's ever written a story like this.
This is obviously God's story of redemption.
And the birth of Christ is phase one of our redemption.
God becoming a man so that as the God man, he could represent us at Calvary.
I don't think you can really understand Easter if you don't understand Christmas.
If you don't understand how Christ came to be one of us, how God gave up his own
son and sent him here to this little speck in the universe so that we could be could
be with him.
Someone has put it this way.
God gave us his son so that we could be with him forever.
God wants us to be with him.
He wants our viewers and listeners to be with him.
And the only way we can be with him is if we accept the plan that he's given us.
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except
through me.
So I would say watch this movie and let it draw you to Christ.
Let it bring you to the realization that this is not just some fairy tale that somebody
made up.
This is the reality of history.
God became a man and he did it for you.
Amen.
God became a man and he did it for you.
And Dr. Jeremiah, you said in that in your last answer there that we need to accept the
purpose and the plans that God has for us.
And I just want to thank you for accepting the purpose and plans that God has had for
you as you have taught for so many years.
And your turning point has made this amazing film, Why the Nativity.
Whythenativity.org.
Everybody, go check it out.
Watch that with your family.
It is something that you will be entertained with, you will learn by, and you will feel
closer to Jesus.
The baby, the man, God who came to earth.
God Emmanuel, God with us.
Let me just end our interview with this that we just found out.
The Catholic channel is running this movie on Christmas Day for us.
And it is a good Catholic movie because it is about Jesus, it is about Mary, it is about
the baby.
And I just pray that our friends in the Catholic world will watch it and be blessed with it.
That would be our hope and prayer more than anything else.
Amen.
Well, we will be praying for that too.
Okay, thank you.
Dr. Jeremiah, thank you so much for being here on the Charisma News Podcast.
You're welcome.
God bless you.
This has been John Matarazzo for the Charisma News Podcast.
God bless you.