archives
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now, our final segment, Understanding the Scriptures, and we return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
Tom:
If you have been following the program you know that in this segment we deal with major doctrines of biblical Christianity and the most significant of all doctrines is the doctrine of salvation. The gospel which on the one hand is so simple a child can understand it and accept it while on the other hand it’s so profound that not even an eternity will be long enough plum its richness. So what is the biblical doctrine of salvation? Well it covers all that God has done to reconcile mankind to himself as well as what man must do to spend eternity with God. Dave often in Christian settings where unsaved people are present the gospel has been given, but it has been my experience that rarely is the gospel explained. It’s usually a call to receive Jesus as Savior and with a sinner’s prayer added, but I don’t ever remember an explanation that might make sense to someone who has little understanding of biblical Christianity. What I would like to do today is to begin with I Peter 3:18: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit…” I would like to consider that from the perspective of someone who might say okay, so Christ supposedly did all of this, but why? What’s the problem? I think we have to go to Genesis to get right to the problem.
Dave:
Well of course the first question that a person would ask apropos to what you are saying is be saved? Saved from what? Saved from drowning or saved from the stock market crash?
Tom:
Now people may think this is a little ludicrous, but honestly there are un-churched people who have no foundation—remember we have a generation of parents who said oh I am not going to impose anything on my children. Let them just kind of figure it out as they go along. So they are clueless to a lot of this.
Dave:
Hebrews raises this question, chapter 2. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Escape from what? I think every person knows in their conscious that they have violated God’s laws. There’s a penalty to be paid. That’s what we are talking about. The Bible talks about the wrath of God. Romans 1-The wrath of heaven is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. God is holy. The Bible says He is angry with the sinners every day. He doesn’t hate sinners, He loves them, but He doesn’t like their sin and if they persist in it there are consequences. It’s like—Tom you have to have rules for anything even to play a game and the idea that God can’t have any rules for mankind, moral, ethical; I think we recognize that He does. So this is what we are being saved from—God’s judgment.
Tom:
Yes, but let’s go back. Rule—let’s go with the first rule. We know from Genesis going through God creating the world. WE have Him saying it is good; it is good and in Genesis 1:31 the scripture says “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good.” No problem, up to that point.
Dave:
Well, who decides that it’s good? So one thing that we learn from that is that only God can decide what is good.
Tom:
Right, but it is good. Everything that He made was perfect, in other words, there’s no problem—yet.
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
But now for the rule: I think if we are looking for a rule, Genesis 2:17- “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Now here was a rule, here was a condition. Why would God even impose that?
Dave:
If the world, the universe is going to continue to be good and Jesus said only God is good, then we are going to have to be in line with God’s purpose. He created the universe, He must have some idea, you know, He must have some purpose and meaning for this and there must be some parameters within which this thing will function. Just gravity holds—and the atom must be held together—so man now has the power of choice. Whatever man does, it must be in line with God’s will. That makes sense; after all He’s the creator.
Tom:
Well could somebody call this the “law of love” in effect? If love is really going to be love, there has to be volition, there has to be free will, there has to be a condition to see, certainly not in God’s mind, but in the mind of those whom He loves that they are responding to His love.
Dave:
Yes and love does impose regulations. Unfortunately we see in a lot of families where they claim to love their children by letting them run wild and that’s not love, because they’re going to get in trouble. So God knows that the creatures that He has made are going to be in real trouble if they try to be egomaniacs and try to do their own thing. So He’s trying to bring Adam and Eve into line with His will because He loves them and He wants them close to Him. He wants what is best for them. If you love someone, you want what is best for them. Now He gives them the easiest command that He could possibly give. And we have probably talked about this before but there must have been not just thousands but maybe millions of trees in the Garden of every kind of fruit. I don’t believe that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was some special fruit. It could have been an apple tree, pear or whatever. What was wrong with the eating of it was not the quality of fruit or some power that the fruit had within itself. It was an act of disobedience. So God gives man the easiest command He could possibly could just to see if—it’s like putting reins on a horse and when you give the signal or whatever, is the horse going to obey or is it not? If it doesn’t, you’re going to have to put a bit in its mouth or whatever. So just don’t eat of that tree. You can have any other tree in the Garden, but don’t eat of that tree. But when they did, that was rebellion against God.
Tom:
Well before we get to that, because there’s a seduction involved here. But up to that point, there’s no problem. They are walking in fellowship with God and Paradise is still perfect in every way. So there’s no problem yet. But then there’s a test. The test is in Genesis 3 beginning in verse one and we’ll go these verses because there’s a lot here Dave. “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Now it’s posed as a question, but let’s back up to that. I mean here we have a talking serpent. Does that seem reasonable?
Dave:
It’s amazing that Satan really likes to be known as a serpent. That pagans worship serpents. That’s astonishing to me. You would think that Satan would have come in some other form. I don’t like serpents. They are very frightening, they are poisonous, they are deadly, they are sneaky, but that is the way Satan chose. Now of course people today are trying to communicate with porpoises; they are trying to teach the alphabet to chimpanzees; they say that all is one, some of them even hug trees or try to talk to trees.
Tom:
Try to talk to gorillas—
Dave:
Yes, so the idea that a serpent could talk—well shamans, witchdoctors they have as their spirit guides—it could be a coyote, it could be a jaguar, you can see the consistency of this that mankind is still trying to get in touch with the spirit world through such creatures and here is where it began.
Tom:
Yes and Dave couldn’t it be that after the fall mankind was separated from the animals. There was a fear—that was no longer the same relationship. So we really don’t know whether there could have been communication, or whether this was something very unique and very special.
Dave:
No, Tom I am going to disagree with you on that one, we didn’t rehearse this program, but—
Tom:
You think there is too much of Dr. Doolittle in me here?
Dave:
No, animals do not have the capacity to speak. Man alone has the capacity to come up with conceptual ideas and express them in words. I don’t believe that animals lost that capacity during the fall. It does say that—maybe the serpent like a cobra could walk on it’s tail (sort of) and now on your belly will you walk. But Satan is known as the serpent even in Revelation. That old serpent, the devil, the dragon and you go to the East as you know, you got dragons on the temple, and you’ve got serpents and so forth. So this is not a myth, this is history and we can verify it from that standpoint.
Tom:
Dave we are about out of time for today, but we have the problem here, the problem of man’s sin, which is about to take place, man’s first sin know at least on earth.
Dave:
Rebellion.
Tom:
Rebellion and this is important because this is the reason Christ had to become a man to pay the full penalty for our sins. So next week we’ll pick up with the serpent in the Garden. Genesis 3 starting in verse one and we’ll see what happens.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For nearly 2000 years the Church of Christ has provided comfort and counsel to believers experiencing mental, emotional and behavioral problems by using the teaching of the scriptures and by the power of the Holy Spirit until psychology and psychotherapy arrived on the scene. Contemporary Christianity has embraced this science—so called. In the last 50 years multitudes of pastors have added clinical counseling degrees to their theological credentials. Psychological theories have been preached so often, from so many pulpits that they are accepted without question by increasing numbers of Christians as biblical doctrines. The Christian church in the United States has become a major referral service for clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. Is there something wrong with this picture? Join T.A. McMahon in this groundbreaking documentary from the Berean Call. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers. Also contributing to this latest TBC production are Dr. Martin Bobgan and Deidre Bobgan from Psychoheresy Awareness Ministries.
Dr. Tana Dineen, author of Manufacturing Victims and Dave Hunt author of Judgment Day. Executive Director of The Berean Call and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Tom McMahon: For years believers, both pastors and those in the pews have been intimidated by the pseudoscience of psychological counseling and the result has been they have backed away from their God-given mandate to minister to one another. My hope and prayer is that this video will expose the myths of psychology and encourage the church to return to God’s way of counseling through His Word and by His Holy Spirit and with the help of fellow believers in Him.
This powerful new DVD is now available from The Berean Call. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers: information on how to order in just a moment. In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute and wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book format, CDs, DVDs and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #1909, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we will continue our revisits to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “What Are Your Plans for Eternity?” In Religion in the News: “Do the Saints Read the Newspaper?” We’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Can We Be Buddies with God?” We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for tuning in and invite you to join us again next week. In the meantime, if you desire to know God’s truth search, the scriptures daily. You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. Join us again next week for Search the Scriptures Daily featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon.
Gary:
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still to come, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay with us. We return now to our program series from 2000, and
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: I’ve been told that the Doctrine of the Trinity is not all that important for Christians for a number of reason: 1) The word cannot be found in the Bible; 2) The Old Testament doesn’t teach it and certainly the Jews don’t believe it; 3) It is so mysterious a concept that no one can fathom it anyway. What do you think?
Tom:
Well, it’s true the word Trinity is not found in the Bible. It’s not true that the Old Testament doesn’t teach it and it is a concept that is really hard to fully comprehend, but nevertheless it must be logically, rationally and so forth.
Dave:
Before we get to that Tom, listening to this statement—“I’ve been told…” that’s how it starts. Told by whom? What are their credentials? Why would you believe them? “Well, I’ve been told that it’s not in the Bible.” Well have you checked the Bible out? Have you checked the Old Testament out for yourself? That’s what this program is all about. Search the Scriptures for yourself. Don’t take our word for it and don’t take somebody else’s word for it and as you said that statement is wrong. The concept is all through the Old Testament. Now, then he ends by saying—he or she—ends by saying “…and its so mysterious.” Well my gracious, everything is mysterious. We don’t know what gravity is, we don’t know what electricity is, we don’t know what an electron is, we don’t know what space is, we don’t know what time is. So to say that something is mysterious and use that as the reason for not believing it just simply isn’t rational. Can you explain God? Well if God is a trinity, this is part of His character. Now you said there are reasons why it must be. You have polytheism on one end and you have monotheism on the other end. But within monotheism those who believe in the Trinity are monotheistic, but there—
Tom:
But we usually think of the Jews who believe one God and Islam—
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
One god.
Dave:
Right, so we have a problem on both ends of the scale here. On the one end-polytheism-you have diversity but no unity. There are many gods but they don’t agree with one another. There’s no head God; there’s nobody to pull this whole thing together. They even fight wars with one another. On the other end you have a lonely God-Allah. One single individual and what many Jews believe Jehovah-one single individual. And until that god created other beings he was incomplete. He couldn’t fellowship, he couldn’t commune, he could—
Tom:
So He needed us in fact.
Dave:
That’s right. He couldn’t love anyone; he could not experience love. But the God of the Bible is three persons; one God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You have both unity and diversity. You have a God of whom it can be said, “God IS love.” You couldn’t say that about Allah. God IS love—He didn’t need to create us. Before any of us were created Father, Son and Holy Spirit loved one another, fellowshipped and communed with one another. Furthermore, in the Shama-“Hear Oh Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” The very word there is echad—Hear O Israel Yahweh our Elohim (and Elohim is a plural for God); is one Yahweh. And the word for one is echad which means a unity not a singularity, but a unity. Man and woman became “one flesh.” The soldiers became one troop.
Tom:
Right.
Dave:
So it is a unity within diversity, made up of diversity.
Tom:
Right. Now this is Deuteronomy 6:4 that you just quoted.
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
Colossians 2:9 says (in the New Testament) says “…for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” We are talking about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Dave:
Well Tom many years ago, I forget his name, Dr. Wood, very interesting book: The Secret of the Universe. He said if God is a trinity and he created the universe we ought to see His fingerprints in it. Well let’s take a look. The universe is made up of three things. Forget Einstein’s fourth dimension for the moment. The universe is made up of space, matter and time. Three things. Those three things are made up of three things. Space is made up of length, breadth, and height. And each one is separate and distinct, but each one is a whole. Draw enough lines lengthwise through space and you take up all of space. What about time? Well time is made up of three: past, present and future. And here it becomes a little more interesting. Because one is visible, the other two are invisible. Just as the Son is visible; the Father and the Holy Spirit are invisible. Now I won’t go on with that but no analogy is perfect. But man is made in the image of God and is made of body, soul and spirit. Again two are invisible one is visible. I don’t know what a soul is; I don’t know what a spirit is. But I know that the God who is love, the God who is complete in himself and didn’t need to create us—He must be more than—He can’t be a single individual—He is a—and the Bible teaches it— You have Elohim, in fact Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” Well the word there is Elohim. That literally means “Gods” but the created is in the singular. So all through the Old Testament you have a plurality yet a singularity. “Let us make man in our image.” Who is this “us” and this “our”? And at the burning bush it’s Elohim-Gods-who appear to Moses. But Elohim doesn’t say “we are that we are,” but “I am that I am. So you cannot escape it. There is a plurality and yet a singularity all throughout the Old Testament.
Tom:
For those who are struggling with this, even in the New Testament we have chapters 14, 15 and 16 of the book of John. Let me just quote one verse John 15:26 “But when the helper (the Holy Spirit) comes whom I (Jesus) shall send to you from the Father (there we have the Father) the spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me. There we have Jesus mentioned, referred to twice, the Father referred to twice and the Holy Spirit referred to three times. That’s the Trinity. How else can you explain it.
Dave:
Well Tom they try to say well these are modes or titles and so forth. A mode or a title doesn’t send another one. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world and it only makes sense if they are real persons, yet one God.
Gary:
You’re listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead in this revisit to our 2000 series, “Religion in the News,” plus answers to your questions in “Contending for the Faith,” and in “Understanding the Scriptures,” Dave and Tom will continue their discussion of God’s salvation. In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials, including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s, DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708. Call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #1909, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. We’ll repeat this information at the end of the program. We continue now with our special revisit to the year 2000. Now:
RELIGION IN THE NEWS
A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from the Birmingham News. Before the first feather appeared November 16th, Pastor Sam said he had been preaching that his interdenominational congregation was on the verge of something big. “God’s fixing to do something that we’ve never seen, he told his flock, and it’s going to blow our mind.” But even the pastor said he got uneasy when the unusual events began. While his church is openly Pentecostal, Sam said he had never veered into “wild, loony stuff.” “When you say you are receiving manifestations of angels, people think you’re crazy,” Sam said. To the natural ear, it sounds foolish. The pastor said he may have the feathers tested, but no matter what the findings, he’ll always believe they came from God. “I’ve had around 15 feathers appear before my eyes,” he said. The evidence is just overwhelming. Sam said, “Miracles shouldn’t seem out of the realm of possibility for a God given credit for such things as parting the Red Sea, crumbling the Walls of Jericho, and raising Jesus from the dead. It’s just amazing how close we walk to the supernatural realm,” he said. “The only thing hindering us from it is our own faith.”
Tom:
Dave, feathers—we’ve had gold dust, we’ve had gold teeth and feathers. That’s interesting.
Dave:
Well Tom, you’re trying to be kind. It’s—oh, I shouldn’t use the word, it is a bit ludicrous. I don’t think angels have feathers on their wings. The Bible very clearly says, “He maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” Hebrews 1. So the idea that angels would have physical form and that they would have physical feathers— I mean you are going to fly to Heaven with wings made out of feathers? It doesn’t compute Tom, it doesn’t make sense.
Tom:
Well Dave, years ago, Pastor Buck, remember Pastor Buck?
Dave:
Sure.
Tom:
Pastor Buck was taken up into the 3rd heaven and he was right there in the throne room of God and when asked how he knew it was the throne room of God he said well there are feathers on the floor. You know and he was quoting what is it—Psalm 91? “He shall cover you with his feathers and under his wings you shall take refuge and his truth shall be your shield and buckler.”
Dave:
Yes, well Tom right there in the portion that you quoted, you have the refutation of—God is some kind of big bird with feathers. “His truth shall be your shield and buckler.” How do you make a shield out of—shield and buckler, that’s what it means, you know the buckler is what you hold on to that shield with. How do you make a shield out of truth? And Paul writes “…taking the shield of faith where with you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.” Now if demons are shooting fiery arrows at us, then I guess angels have wings with feathers, but that’s not what it is talking about and one of the basic errors that man has fallen into is exchanging the spiritual for the physical. We become earthly minded; we become materialistic and we think something isn’t real unless it is physical. So, it doesn’t make sense. I mean what is the point?
Tom:
Dave before you address the point, in the Old Testament we have angels described with feathers, whether it be the cherubim or the seraphim. But it is interesting—
Dave:
Where does it say feathers? It says wings—
Tom:
I’m sorry—wings—I’m sorry. Wings—you’re right, but there they are with wings. All right? Now, what’s interesting is that in the New Testament with all the manifestations of angels, you never hear about wings, you never hear about feathers and we have many manifestations. So now what is the point of this? A man has a church, there are feathers flying down every which way—what does that mean?
Dave:
Tom, as I said, we are trying to have some physical evidence for a spiritual reality. That an angel would leave a feather—what does that mean? Is that going to be the basis of my faith now? And the man says that even though an analysis may show these are chicken feathers—he didn’t use those terms but how are you going to find out whether it was really an angelic feather? Well they will show that those feathers, I can guarantee you, belong to some fowl that lives on this earth. The Bible says that He makes His angels spirits. Flames of fire, ministering spirits to minister to those that shall be heirs of salvation. It tells us to not even try to look into who the angels are, what they may be doing and so forth. That is not our job. Our trust is in God and our faith is not in some feathers. Our faith is in the Word. That is why we call this Search the Scriptures Daily. Our faith is in the Word of God not in some physical manifestation. When Jesus said “I am the Bread of Life,” is He a loaf of bread? You know when He said I am the True Vine you are the branches, is He a grape vine and we are branches? No—so you have this sort of thing all through the Bible. So when it says He will cover you with His feathers and under His wing shalt thou trust, Jesus said, “how often would I have covered you—gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not.” Jesus doesn’t have wings. This is an allegorical statement.
Tom:
These are metaphors that people could relate to and identify. Dave the sad thing about this is that the very things that we’ve been talking about, evidence and faith—this man has, wittingly or unwittingly, has undermined.
Dave:
This is not the kind of evidence the Bible gives us. This is not the evidence upon which I would hang my eternal destiny and whether an angel appeared or not—what does that have to do with Jesus Christ being the Savior of sinners and man’s eternal destiny? So it is a way of side tracking people from what is really important.
Welcome to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael, we’re glad you could tune in. Coming up in today’s program in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, focusing on the question, “If Jesus Is Our Savior…What Is He Saving Us From?” In Religion in the News, “Angelic Feathers All Over the Place.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Must a Christian Believe in a Triune God?” We hope you can stay tuned. Our ministry, The Berean Call, offers a wide variety of teaching materials, including books, tracts, audio and video disks, and copies of our weekly broadcast on compact disk. You may also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which we offer free of charge. We’ll let you know how to order later in the program. Now, this week’s Cover Article. We continue our revisits to our 2000 radio series based on Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith. Today we focus on the question, “Do You Have a Religious Preference?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks Gary. If you have just joined us, I am in the studio with Dave Hunt and we are discussing his book An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and that’s a good title because his book indeed has some terrific questions which everyone should take seriously. First and foremost is, where do you plan on spending eternity? The common response is well I haven’t given it much thought. For those who have thought about it, it is rare for them to go beyond wishful thinking. Certainly, very few have strong reasons for their belief about this subject. Dave, although we know that’s the way it is in the world today, most people do a lot of serious planning let’s say for their 75-85 years on this earth. Yet they seem oblivious to how they will spend their lives beyond what amounts to an incredibly short amount of time that is when we compare it to eternity.
Dave:
Yes, unfortunately that is the case. We are caught up in this world and the plans for this world—I mean just the commercials on television get you hooked chasing materialism and the “good life.” Maybe we don’t have time for it, but one of my favorite authors, William Law many years ago—I don’t agree with everything William Law had to say, but he had some very insightful concepts and amazing ways of saying things and I don’t think we have ever mentioned it on this program, William Law would say well a person that spends as you just said, his life planning the home he is going to retire to, the swimming pool, the tennis court, the sauna and so forth, the beautiful home that he’s going to build and where he is going to retire, and he manages to retire with quite a lot of money and lives comfortably, you would say that he’s been a very wise man. He has done well for himself. Now William Law says what about the man who spends all his life planning a home on Mars that he’s going to retire to with the tennis court and swimming pool and sauna and so forth? You think the guy is crazy! William Law says they are both crazy. The difference between their insanity is just this: One man is planning for a place where he can never be (on Mars) and the other is planning for a place where he cannot stay.
Tom:
That’s an amazing statement especially since William Law lived in the early 1700s and it’s easy to forget that people then were caught up in the materialism just as they are today.
Dave:
Of course I’ve modernized it a bit with the swimming pool and so forth.
Tom:
Right, right. As you know we have five children one of whom is considering college, we have one in college and the oldest in grad school and we are constantly encouraging them to plan for their future with regard to what they will do after graduation. So I can empathize with those who spend most of their time thinking about temporal things. It’s hard to consistently set one’s mind on eternity.
Dave:
Well Tom it’s a problem that we all have. Of course when you’re young you can’t believe that life would ever end. It’s unpleasant to think about death, so people tend to push that out of their minds. Solomon said it’s better to go to a funeral than to a feast because a funeral is the end of all living and maybe the living will lay it to heart. Moses said, “Lord teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” So a wise person realizes how short this life will be. But the scriptures say they named their houses, their fields, their businesses after themselves, as though they will continue on forever, but we won’t. We don’t like to think about it so we go to a funeral and what do they do? They cover the casket with flowers, if it’s not a Christian funeral they make such silly speeches saying a thing of beauty is a joy forever and they live on in our memory and so forth. We are in a conspiracy of trying to cover up the reality of death, but we better face it because it is inevitable. Except for a Christian if the Rapture occurs. We don’t look forward to death, we look forward to being taken to Heaven, but if the Rapture does not occur then we all pass through death’s door. I mean it’s a fact. Then we better prepare for it. We better be in fact absolutely certain. A lot of people have the weakest ideas for their religious beliefs. Oh, I like the pastor you know, the choir is so wonderful, the people are so friendly— Ideas and reasons for their religious faith that wouldn’t be sufficient—you wouldn’t rely on them for buying a refrigerator or a used car. You want to have something more solid than that. I guess they kind of just slough it off or they say well I haven’t lived too bad a life, you know, I guess it’s going to all be okay—
Tom:
Dave, in your book you use three terms as you discuss where one considers they will spend eternity. The three terms are tolerance, preference and conviction. And then you quote (I think) a very insightful Time magazine article which taken in part—I’ll give you part of it—“When it is believed that religion is a breezy consumer preference, religious tolerance flourishes. After all we don’t persecute people for their taste in cars. Why for their taste in gods? Oddly though, there is one form of religious intolerance that does survive. The disdain bordering on contempt for those for whom religion is not a preference, but a conviction.” Now I bring that up because there are certain things that mitigate against people considering these things as though, yes there is a truth out there, there is a reality and it’s not something that I can make up.
Dave:
Well you make a good point Tom; because this is another one of the ways that mankind blinds themselves to this reality. The idea that well it would be narrow-minded and dogmatic to be definite about this. I shouldn’t really say that other people might be wrong and that what I believe is right, or even the thought that there is only one way, which Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father, but by me.” Peter said to the rabbis, neither is there salvation in any other. There is none other name under heaven given among me whereby we MUST (not might or May), MUST be saved. Now if that’s true, we ought to at least check it out. We have to check out what Jesus said. Jesus claimed to be God. He came from the Father. He said to the Jews, You are from beneath, I am from above. Where I am going you cannot come. If you do not believe in me, in fact if you do not believe that I am God—now that’s a pretty heavy thing for Him to say. He’s either an egomaniac, or He’s a liar, or He’s telling the truth. And what Jesus said is too powerful, it is too definite. I mean it is too important for anyone just to slough off and pass by or shrug your shoulders about it. So, I’ve probably said it before but I often tell people, you can’t live long enough to study all the other religions so go to the Bible first because it claims all the others are wrong. And I can prove the Bible is God’s Word and it’s true and we better face up to what it says. Because when you die it’s too late. I think we quote in this chapter I believe Omar Kaiam. He’s walking through the (as he dies), it’s a door into darkness. And then is it Thomas Hobbs who spent his life trying to improve this world? But when he came to die he said “I am about to take a leap into the dark.” You wouldn’t take a leap into the dark on this earth. To take a leap into the dark into eternity doesn’t make sense.
Tom:
Yes, but Dave that’s the mentality of the day and not just in the aspect of tolerance and intolerance, but Alan Bloom as you know is the author of The Closing of the American Mind makes the point that we have become so open minded that our minds have been closed to the idea that something maybe true and something else maybe false.
Dave:
Yes, that’s in his book The Closing of the American Mind. How about that? The closing of the American mind through openness. He says the one virtue in America is openness. Openness to everything. You would dare to say somebody was wrong, this is what we call being “politically correct.” You wouldn’t want to offend anyone. That very term “politically correct” says some devastating things about politics and unfortunately that has come into the area of religion. Now if you come to me as a medical doctor and you’ve got a pain in your stomach or somewhere down there and I examine you and if I know you have a ruptured appendix, if you are not on the operating table within a few minutes, you are dead. But I wouldn’t want to offend you. I wouldn’t want to upset you by telling you the truth. So I say Tom, it’s okay you are going to be alright. If you feel some pain take some aspirin. That’s not love. That is not kindness. I am destroying you in the name of tolerance. Because I wouldn’t want to be so intolerant. You say well doc what’s the diagnosis and the prognosis and I say well I wouldn’t be so narrow minded and dogmatic as to presume to come up with a definite diagnosis. What would you like, you know? Everybody’s entitled to the operation of their choice. You hear people say that everybody’s entitled to the religion of their choice. Of course, they are but we would like to give them some facts and some evidence so they can make an intelligent choice. Because the choice has to do with eternity. The issue is the eternal destiny of souls.
Tom:
Dave, again like this issue of intolerance which is really—it’s false, it’s just absolutely false. The phrase that you hear is all roads lead to the same place. Whatever religious path that you’re going to take—it all ends up in the same place. Well that’s blatantly false.
Dave:
Yes, well it’s being dogmatic, because there is more than one destination—
Tom:
So it’s intolerant.
Dave:
It really is intolerant because these people who are so tolerant that they believe in everything, they are very intolerant for evangelical Christians who dare to say that Jesus is right. And they will not embrace that at all. So it’s like in the public schools—they are so broad minded anything can come in. You can bring in witchcraft; you can bring in North American Indian witch doctoring—
Tom:
Shamanism.
Dave:
Right, witch doctoring, and homosexuality and anything. But dare to bring in Christianity, dare to say we better check the Bible out because evolution maybe isn’t true. We’re not forcing that on you, but it just could be that God created this universe and nothing else makes sense and we better find out what God has to say about it—I know I am repeating myself, but the program I was on some months ago, “Spiritual Seeker” in Southern California, the talk show host says here we are, we have two hours every Sunday night to talk about God, religion and spirituality. Well my question was- we’re going to talk about God? Maybe we had better find out what He has had to say about us. That’s what we better face. Now if God didn’t say anything, if the Bible is not God’s Word, if all religious scriptures or writings are on an equal par of maybe there’s a little bit of truth, maybe not, then forget it! Let’s stop talking about it. And let’s stop studying them because we are wasting our time. But if God really did speak to us and the Bible is His Word and again, we can prove that, we better face up to this and find out what He has to say because one day we face Him.
Tom:
Dave in this chapter you make a very strong point that all religions are in opposition to biblical Christianity.
Dave:
That’s true.
Tom:
Now why would you say that?
Dave:
Well all religions are basically the same in one way. In other ways they are very different. They have different concepts of God for example Buddhism is basically atheism; Hinduism you’ve got 330 million gods, it has been estimated.
Tom:
So there is diversity among them.
Dave:
There is diversity among them, but when it comes right down to it, they are all trying to work their way to heaven, whatever their concept of heaven is. Whether it’s the “happy hunting ground” for the Indian, or paradise for Muslim, or—
Tom:
Samiti or moksha for the Hindu—
Dave:
Moksha, whatever it is, they are going to do it through some ritual. They are going to do it through some sacraments or through good works.
Tom:
Yes, some sacrifices—animal sacrifices and human sacrifices in some cases.
Dave:
And they all think, they all have the idea of appeasing God, as though God could be appeased. I mean, no, it is a matter of justice. The penalty has to be paid and we can’t pay it. We would be separated from God forever. But anyway, all religions are in opposition to Christianity on that point.
Tom:
Here’s one verse: Romans 4:5 and as you know there are dozens of other verses but it says: But to him who worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Now what other religion in the world makes that statement?
Dave:
None. They can’t possibly make that statement.
Tom:
And they do work. That’s the point you are making. They are in opposition; they are contrary to biblical Christianity.
Dave:
By “they do work” you mean they work, they work at getting to heaven.
Tom:
Right.
Dave:
It’s like the Tower of Babel. They were going to build a tower and it would be high enough that climbing up its steps we can reach heaven. This is the religions of the world. It is man’s effort to come to God. God came down to this earth to meet man and to take his place in judgment. To pay the penalty that his own judgment required. There is not a religion in the world that offers that. There is no one that claimed to do that. Buddha didn’t claim it, Confucius didn’t claim it, Mohammed, you know you name them, Krishna, anybody, none of them. They all offered a philosophy of life by which you could improve yourself and lift yourself by your bootstraps up into heaven and somehow reform yourself and please God enough or make some sacrifices of animals or whatever. Now the Bible does have animal sacrifices, I mean this is in the Old Testament. These were prescribed by God very carefully and as you study the Old Testament they way in which they were to be offered, by whom they were to be offered, the purpose for which they were to be offered—
Tom:
What was the purpose Dave?
Dave:
It was all laid out very carefully. All of these sacrifices looked forward to THE Lamb of God, who would be God himself. Who would come as a man, He wouldn’t cease to be God, He never will cease to be man. He’s the one and only God-man and He would be the one who would take upon himself the sins of the world. As John the Baptist declared when he saw Him: “Behold the Lamb of God who bares away the sin of the world.” But the sacrificial systems or the works religions, or the rituals, the sacraments of these religions of the world, they do not look forward to God coming as a man.
Tom:
They are supposed to be efficacious in themselves.
Dave:
Exactly.
Tom:
They are for us to do to manipulate the god out there, or to appease the god so the god, whoever we are sacrificing to will do our bidding in effect.
Dave:
Yes, we better find out what God has said.
Tom:
Dave some people may say well okay that is what you guys believe and this is what the other religions believe—our point here is that we want to make that distinction. People do not have to just take what we say as a belief that they have to adhere to—the point is—
Dave:
We’re not asking them to Tom.
Tom:
No, but we’re making a distinction and there ARE distinctions and the current mentality, religious or otherwise, political or otherwise, is that it is all the same and that it’s not the case and that’s what we are trying to underscore.
Dave:
God says in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Faith must be reasonable. It’s not a leap in the dark. We’ve said that many times, but it is very hard to get the point across. People think that faith is just something that you believe. So long as you have a faith—“people of faith—you know even Pat Robertson refers to the members of the Christian Coalition as “people of faith,” whether they are Buddhists or Hindus, Muslims, whether they are Mormons or Roman Catholics or whatever, so long as they are people of faith, then we will all work together. Well, maybe you can work together against abortion or whatever it is. Don’t leave these people with the idea that so long as they just have some faith, that’s okay.
Tom:
Right.
Dave:
We better have THE faith. And in fact, the Bible tells us that we must earnestly contend for THE faith, that was once for all delivered to the saints. And the reason is the eternal (as I say it again and again) the reason is the eternal destiny of souls hangs upon what each person believes. The Bible says you must believe God. You must believe what He says. You must come to Him his way. We don’t negotiate. We don’t discuss it or dialog about it with God. We don’t say, God I think this is okay, why can’t this go? Why would we even want to do that? We take God’s way. And why not take God’s way? Look, you don’t think this is God’s way? You think some other way is God’s way. Give me the evidence. You know I sat with a couple of Mormons—maybe I mentioned it earlier—about 3 weeks ago on an all day train.
Tom:
Yes, you mentioned it last week.
Dave:
Yes, going from the Czech Republic to Slovakia and one of the questions I asked them was, I said look I can prove that the Bible is God’s Word, give me one proof that the Book of Mormon is God’s Word. I can prove that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, God come as a man coming to die for our sins. Give me one proof that Joseph Smith is who he claimed to be, the Prophet of God. In fact, Mormonism contradicts the Bible. Give me one proof. Well, they said we prayed about it and we got a feeling inside. I said, Buddhists have that feeling, Hindus and Muslims have that feeling, give me something better than a feeling. Now we have objective, factual, historical, prophetic evidence that the Bible is God’s Word and that’s why we say to people “search the Scriptures daily.” If you have a quarrel with what we are saying, your quarrel is not with us, it is with God’s Word. We believe the Bible is God’s Word and we can prove it. And it has the proof. Please don’t be so proud that you say well this is going against what I have been taught, or my religion, or my church. Please, we beg of you, consider very carefully what God has said. Search the Scriptures daily. That’s all we are asking.
Tom:
And Dave to bring this around to where we started, the question here is where will I spend eternity? God’s Word has the answers and it doesn’t take a council or a magisterium or any organization to lay it out for you. It is right there, very simply in God’s Word.
Dave:
And Tom when it comes to answering that question, when it comes to that decision, I am not going to trust anybody, no matter what fancy robes they wear, no matter how long they have been around. Their church may be the largest or the oldest; no matter how convincing they are I want to know what God has to say. That’s the only thing that is going to matter one day.
