archives
Q & A with Dave Hunt, T. A. McMahon, and Randall Price at the 2007 TBC Conference.
Please note: this is a downloadable video product, you will not receive anything by mail!
About eVideo
Gary:
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, 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 is this week’s question: To whom it may concern: I caught your radio broadcast a few days ago. I thought it sounded good until I heard one of you gentlemen say that Jesus was resurrected on the eighth day. I was shocked! Then I even heard you say it a second time. If you’re going to make statements over the air like that, don’t you think you should explain what you mean? Otherwise you could lose a lot of listeners including me.
Tom:
Dave this is “To Whom It May Concern,” but I think it’s to you. I mean I’m backing off from this, particularly from this irate inquiry here.
Dave:
Well whoever it is Tom raises a good point and how many times has it happened? Sometimes my wife tells me what I said and I say did I say that? And sometimes you’re trying to talk fast and your brain gets ahead of your words or your mouth gets ahead of your brain, one or the other. And I probably said it because this is a well known way of expressing the fact that Jesus rose on the first day of a new week which is the eighth day. Saturday is the seventh day so Sunday must be the eighth day, but I can understand it that it could cause confusion so probably when I said it in my mind I know what I mean, and I think everybody else does or you don’t have time to explain, but it is a good point. So we ought to explain it. In other words, I do believe that Jesus rose on the third day. The third day after he was in the grave three days and three nights and the third day He rose from the dead. It wasn’t eight days, but from another standpoint, even a biblical stand point; He was the firstborn of a new creation, the eighth day that’s referred to in the Bible as a new beginning. This is the new creation and so I’ve been used to expressing it that way also. My apologies to anyone out there that I made imagine that I thought Jesus was in the grave eight days.
Tom:
This brings up another point. There are things that we say and Dave you and I have been not in radio per se but we’ve been working together for a long time and we assume each other understands what we are talking about and we forget there’s a whole new group out there that’s kind of just joined us so we apologize for that. There’s the medium as well. It’s a little bit hard to always repeat, always qualify, always give all the documentation to what you’re saying and I’d have to say well just hang in there with us, eventually we’ll get to it, or if you write to us and voice your concern, we’ll try and respond either on the radio program or if we can get to it, we’ll do it personally.
Dave:
But we really appreciate this.
Tom:
Yes, absolutely!
Dave:
Because if we say something that’s confusing, doesn’t sound right, or God forbid is not biblical, please, please tell us. We would not consider that to be an attack, but a kindness. If we’ve miss spoken or if we really have some wrong idea from the scriptures and you can show it to us we would be grateful for that. We don’t want to continue on in error. But we certainly don’t want to make faux pas—well I don’t think it was a faux pas, it was a true statement. He was resurrected the eighth day, but you do have to explain it and I failed to explain it.
Tom:
Well I do faux pas all the time, but Gary, in editing this he gets some of them, but some of them do get out. The other point of this Dave is, our heart here is that people would search the scriptures, that they would be discerning growing discernment, not just buy what we say. We referred to this earlier, but not buy what we say just because we say it because the heart here is that if we are accurately—if we are not accurate get on us big time. But if we are accurately pointing to underscoring what the Word of God says then, as we have said before, the argument out there is not with us. It’s with the Word of God and we want to do this as accurately as we can so that we can be corrected by the Word of God as well as anybody else who has a problem with it.
Dave:
You know Tom one of the things that I appreciate most about this letter from whomever, whoever sent it—the person that sent it at one point sounds like they’re going to write us off completely as heretics. Well, they say Jesus was eight days in the grave and [they] said they almost did that, but at least they wrote to us for an explanation and I think it’s a good point for us to consider. I don’t want to be too quick jumping on somebody saying oh, the guy’s a heretic, I just heard him say this or that. I want to at least check it out and make sure that I really fully understand what the person said and that’s what I appreciate about this writer and so I would just urge anybody else out there don’t write us off too fast. But if we say something that you think isn’t correct please, write us, give us some help so that we can make an explanation at least, or be corrected. And I do appreciate that very much.
Tom:
Right.
Dave:
We do like to hear from our listeners as well.
Tom:
Yes, Dave one more comment along that line and this is the problem with the medium. We have seven minutes maybe in one segment to talk about an issue and some things we could talk about, if people could hang in there with us, we could talk about all day and certainly bring the wealth of documentation, the wealth of research that we’ve done but we can’t always do that. That’s why it isn’t just—the radio program is one medium. We have another one that’s called the newsletter. We’re on the internet at www.thebereancall.org in which we have archives of information, research that we’ve done and people can access that. Or you know if they get impulsive, just write to us and we can at least direct you to where we have more documentation, more information for you.
Dave:
Yes, very good.
Gary:
You’re listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still to 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 #2709, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. We’ll repeat this information at the end of the program. Now, back to 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 Portland, Oregon, Oregonian with the headline: “Medium’s Talk Show Aims to Connect Guests and Deceased Loved Ones.” “Crossing over with John Edwards is a talk show with a difference. The audience is live, but the guests are goners, out of here and into the hereafter, in other words, dead. Host Edwards is on hand to act as a go-between. He’s a grown up version of the boy in The Sixth Sense. What you are about to see is real, we are told at the beginning of the new sci-fi cable channel series. Edwards crisply leads New York audience members and celebrities including Linda Dano and Carmen Electra through heavenly exchanges with late relatives and friends. The host tells one woman that a man, apparently her late husband is reaching out to her. She is unnerved when Edwards relates details of a trip she took to Niagara Falls with the couple’s daughter. “Did you find a feather there and did you tell your daughter that was her daddy?” Edwards asks the woman, who nods weeping. “Is there a husband or brother for you that’s passed?” He asks another woman in the same episode. Yes, she replies. This has got to be an ex-husband we are talking about because he’s removing himself from you Edwards says. He wants to be known as the “ex,” that’s how he’s coming across. Edwards compares his vision of the dead to daydreams in which information is delivered by sight, by sound and feeling. He hasn’t been briefed according to the show. “If someone is into New Age or spiritual programming they have show like ours supervising,” producer Paul Shavelson said. Imagine trying to sell a show like this a decade ago.
Tom:
Well here we are Dave, séances come to cable, and basically that’s what this is. The Bible calls it necromancy. It condemns trying to communicate with the dead, but as the guy says, hey there are people out there who are interested—New Age—but I am also concerned that people who believe they are Christians get into this.
Dave:
Yes, well this has been around since the beginning of course. We get that from the Bible and you quoted from Deuteronomy 18 where it condemns—you are not to try to communicate with the dead—I mean, why?
Tom:
Well, why not?
Dave:
Well yes, good question, because the dead can’t communicate with you. But there are seducing spirits who will pretend to be the dead and who will lead you astray. This has happened; you know we’ve written some books about this. We’ve research it and this has happened down through the ages. Some of the—well, Queen Victoria was very much into this through one of her servants and she thought she was communicating with the dead. Lincoln’s wife wanted very much to communicate with the spirits of their dead sons. You could bring it up to date—the CIA from the information that I have—they may deny it, but the CIA has even consulted some of these people to contact the spirits of dead agents—this is in the days of the Cold War, maybe they still do it, to find out how they were betrayed, what secrets they may have given out when they were tortured, you know and so forth. This has been a common belief of mankind—the desire to look beyond and you know and you probably—maybe some of our listeners would remember James Pike. He was an Episcopal bishop from California.
Tom:
Yes, we’ve mentioned him before.
Dave:
He thought he was in touch with the spirit of his dead son. Always it’s like you have here, the demon who is impersonating can even sometimes put on the voice, but can tell of only the things the deceased and the survivor know about supposedly and that convinces people. Well, it’s got to be because here comes factual evidence.
Tom:
Dave on the one hand we quote the scripture where necromancy—the communicating with the dead is condemned. On the other hand we have the example of Samuel and Saul.
Dave:
Yes, the witch at Endor.
Tom:
Correct.
Dave:
…And here comes Sammy. Did we talk about this before? I can’t remember.
Tom:
We mentioned it, but I think it—related to this—I think we should go over it again.
Dave:
Well first of all you have one example, so that’s not enough to base—well now I am going to do this because it happened once. I believe (and now there are differences), I think Samuel really did appear. The witch was shocked (it says) and here he comes. I believe that God allowed it as an exception, and Samuel in fact, says why have you disturbed me, so obviously he wasn’t flitting about on the astroplane ready to be interviewed by anybody, so that would indicate this is an unusual instance. I believe he came because God allowed him to and he pronounced judgment. He told Saul he was going to die and that’s not the kind of message you want to get from beyond the grave. That wouldn’t encourage too many people.
Tom:
But it’s also a fulfillment of the commandment God said don’t do this and the penalty for it was death and Saul indeed died.
Dave:
That’s right. Yes, so definitely there are a lot of phonies out there. I think we mentioned it in one of our books. There’s a whole community of them and they have their networks and they gather information on people and they pass it on to others. You can come out with some pretty impressive things. On the other hand there are those who are really in touch with the spirits of the dead so-called, being impersonated by demons. They are really the dangerous—well they are all dangerous. Part of the problem is Tom and I think in some of our books we’ve given examples of people who have gone to these séances and been led astray and disasters have come into their lives. The scripture says in Isaiah 8:20 “Why consult the dead?” Why is Aunt Jane who wasn’t too bright when she was alive, how come she’s so all wise now? And you want to consult her spirit and get all this information. The Bible says to the law and to the testimony. Let’s go to what God has to say, not to what these deceiving spirits have to say. And if they speak not according to this Word there is no light in them and one of the things this Word says is don’t consult them.
Tom:
Right and one of the sad things Dave is that people are attracted to that because they’ve lost a loved one and they want to be comforted and they want to be counseled, but they’re not going to get truth, they aren’t going to get what they hope for even though it’s a lie that may soothe them for awhile, but that’s what it is, it’s a lie.
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 this week’s program in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, and, “Should the Serpent Be Cursed or Worshiped?” In Religion in the News: “Crossing Over with John Edwards.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Did Jesus Arise on the Eighth Day?” 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 revisit to our 2000 radio series based on Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith. Today we focus on the question, Is Bible Prophecy Accurate? Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks Gary. In our ongoing discussion of Dave Hunt’s book An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, we’ve been addressing just what the title states: a serious faith. And serious faith has content; it is neither wishful thinking nor a baseless hope, but rather a trust that is formed because of factual evidence, because of solid reasons that would motivate us to regard the object of our faith as trustworthy. And of course serious faith can only be placed in God who alone is completely trustworthy. So how do we go about attaining a serious faith in God? Well the way we highly recommend is to go straight to the Bible which is unequivocal in claiming that it is the written Word of God and examine it to see if its claims hold up. The Bible declares itself to be God’s specific revelation to mankind about himself, about His creation, about how things began, where they are going—things we couldn’t figure out without His insights. In previous programs we’ve discussed how the Bible is and must be absolutely accurate in all that it addresses and we gave examples with regard to history, archeology, and to other areas. If the Bible is truly the word of the all-knowing, all powerful Creator, then you would have every right to expect that the Bible reflect God’s supernatural qualities and perfect accuracy is just one of them. However no supernatural aspect of the Bible is more obvious than fulfilled prophecy which is the primary subject for this program. Dave, I want to start off with some verse from the prophet Isaiah. These verses make it as clear as it can be that God is using prophecy to demonstrate that He alone is God. So jump in when you feel you want to make a comment on this. Isaiah 41 starting with verse 22: “Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; for declare us things for to come. 23) Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods….”
Dave:
Yes, well God is saying that if you believe in a lot of gods, you know you’ve got some gods—well let’s have them tell us what’s going to happen before it happens. In Isaiah 48 for example, verse 5, flip over there real fast. He says, “I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.” God says look I told you what’s going to happen, I’m not going to let you give credit to your phony gods, your graven images and so forth, and I am telling you what’s going to happen before it happens. In the very next chapter there Tom—and this is so powerful, so tremendous because prophecy is unique to the Bible. It’s not in the Bhagavad-Gita, the Qur’an—Joseph Smith did a little prophesying and missed every time; Benny Hinn has tried it and (sorry, I don’t want to offend any of his followers out there) but we can document you false prophecy after false prophecy after false prophecy by Benny Hinn. For example he said that the homosexual community—that God would destroy it by fire by ’93 or ’94 at the latest. Benny said there wouldn’t be a place in America in the mid ‘90s that would be safe from earthquakes, I mean I could go on and on, so God says that one of the marks of a false prophet, Deuteronomy 18, when they say something in the name of the Lord and it doesn’t come to pass that is the very thing that I didn’t say God says because He doesn’t make any mistakes, so in Isaiah 42:9 He says, “Behold, the former things are come to pass, (that is the things He has already told you about) and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.” I think you had in mind going over to Isaiah 46.
Tom:
Well 45:21 as well. “Tell ye and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have I not told the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.” I mean this is the mark of God and He presents it as a challenge.
Dave:
Over and over He says this is the proof that He is God. Isaiah 46:9-10: “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10) Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:…” Of course Tom it raises a lot of other questions which I don’t know what you have planned for this program, but probably—
Tom:
I plan to follow you where ever you go Dave.
Dave:
No, no I am following you where ever YOU go—
Tom:
Were in trouble!!
Dave:
But it does raise questions, does man have any choice? I mean if God can tell you what’s going to happen before it happens—or is God outside of time? He’s not part of time. We don’t even know what time is. Einstein tried to tell us a few things about time but we don’t really know what time is. It seems to be part of this functioning universe that we have and it is essential if you are going to have movement, you’ve got to have some means of measuring it and so forth. But the Bible doesn’t really explain what time is. But maybe God is outside of time, I don’t know. But He is the only one who can do this. Maybe He can just observe it before it happens. I don’t believe that it means that if God tells me ahead of time
what’s going to happen He makes me do that. In other words, Tom I can play that game a little bit in my feeble way. I know that when this program is done sometime you’re going to walk out that door.
Tom:
Well Gary our producer/engineer, he knows about time. He tells us about time—but that’s a different thing.
Dave:
Yes, so the fact that I know you’re going to walk out that door doesn’t mean that I have determined that you’re going to walk out that door. But anyway from God’s standpoint, however He does it, He knows what is going to happen before it happens. And that is the mark that He says proves that He is God! And now He challenges anybody else to do it, you false Gods, okay. I think that’s a great start to the program here Tom.
Tom:
Well the program—
Dave:
Where are you going to take us now?
Tom:
Well I want to back up just a little bit. The program for our listeners, maybe if for the first time, the heart of the program is to encourage people to read God’s Word.
Dave:
Amen. And the proof that it is God’s Word is just what we are talking about.
Tom:
That’s exactly what we are about.
Dave:
You will not find these prophecies anywhere else. And Tom I often say it—these are not cheap psychic predictions, these are actually—God has foretold the events that have shaped history. And they have been observed by historians, we are observing them today, you cannot deny that this is God’s Word. These are the events that have made history, foretold in advance and there it is laid out in the Bible and no where else.
Tom:
And that is why, I hate to say that we exude confidence, but we are confident. We have read the book and we encourage people not to follow Dave Hunt or T.A. McMahon, but to at least take our encouragement to read the book [and] check it out for yourself and see if— It’s almost as if what we say about the book doesn’t do service to it. You’ve got to do it yourself. God himself will help you to understand the things that we are talking about.
Dave:
This is our standard Tom. This is the guide post, this is our anchor, [and] this is everything. We go by the Bible. Now that doesn’t mean that my interpretation is better than somebody else’s. We must each examine it for ourselves. I think generally we should agree on the interpretation. There are some things hard to be understood the Bible says, but in the final analysis when we each stand before the Lord we can’t say well I took that interpretation because that’s what my concordance said or that’s what my commentary said, or that’s what T.A. McMahon said, you know, or Dave Hunt or Billy Graham or the Pope or anybody. Each one of us is morally accountable to God to understand the Word of God for ourselves. It’s the only way it can be. For God to speak to me He’s got to speak to me and if He can only do it through someone else who must then interpret what God says, I am not in touch with God at all and now I have to rely on someone else—no, God has given us His Word. He has given proof, He has given us evidence and now we go to the Word itself and that’s all we’re trying to do is search the scriptures daily.
Tom:
Right and the best that we can do is just to keep pointing and urging people to go there. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. If you know Christ, if you are a believer, a true believer in God He will demonstrate through helping you to understand—He’ll demonstrate that. Well Dave in previous programs we’ve talked about the accuracy of the Bible from a scientific standpoint in those areas where it just touches upon science in terms of history, archeology, certainly logic, but now I think we’re at the big enchilada here which is prophecy. Now we’ve talked about these scriptures in which God declares that He alone is the God of prophecy. Now let’s give them some examples, specific scriptures that deal with things to come. Things that is, historically. Things that have been—
Dave:
Yes, well we’ve given a lot of examples, I can’t remember what we’ve talked about, but I like some of the more obscure ones to begin with, but I also, [and] if we have time we need to come to Jerusalem because this is big in the news right now. Exodus 12:14, God says that the Jews will keep the Passover forever. Do they keep it today? They do, most of them—30% of the Israelis claim to be atheists, the rest of them are New Agers, there are very few orthodox—very few who even believe in God, who even believe in the Bible and yet they keep the Passover. I think 99.something percent in Jerusalem kept the last Passover, 96.4% down in Tel Aviv, or whatever. Now that’s amazing and you say well give me some comparisons—well, the prophets of the goddess Vesta in Rome, they said the sacred fires tended by the Vestal Virgins would never ever, ever, ever go out. They went out. The great prophets of the Zoroastrians said the sacred fires in Persia would never go out—the Muslims extinguished them in their invasion in the 7th century. But God said you keep the Passover forever and they do, even though they don’t believe. And then well maybe that’s a lucky hit. Did He ever say something wouldn’t happen? And we can track that—yes! Hosea 3:4-5, God says Israel will be without priesthood, without a sacrificial system, without a king, obviously then without a temple for many, many years. You mean something would prevent the temple from being rebuilt? That’s amazing! And Jesus told us how long it would be. In Luke 21:24 Jesus said that Jerusalem would be destroyed again, the people will be scattered to every nation on this earth and then He said Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Did it happen? It happened! I mean UN Resolution 181 1947 when they partitioned so-called Palestine. UN Resolution 181 says Jerusalem must never be out of the control of the Jews. It must be an international city. Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist Movement—he records in 1904 in his diary [that] he asked Pope Pius X for help for support of the Zionist Movement. Pope Pius X said we cannot prevent the Jews from returning to Jerusalem. We will never support it and in 1919 Secretary of State Karl Gasparri said the thing that frightens us the most is the thought of the Jews returning to Jerusalem. And you know that the UN today, the European Union, this is the big thing right now. Why did the Peace Talks break down in Camp David recently? Because the argument was over Jerusalem and the holy sites and the whole world wants to have control over Jerusalem and they do not want Israel to have authority over Jerusalem. It’s astonishing and the holiest part of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount is under the control of the PLO today. A Jew can’t even pray up there and a Christian can’t pray up there. Isn’t that something? So God said—we have a book about that right out of the prophet Zechariah: “I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling, a burdensome stone around all the necks of the nations of this world.” Who could have foretold that 2500 years ago that prophecy was uttered? Jerusalem had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; it lay in ruins surrounded by wilderness. Today it’s a little nothing place. Why didn’t God say I’ll make Moscow or New York or Paris? He said Jerusalem will be the number one problem the world will face and I think everybody in the world knows that if you don’t solve that problem, you’ve got a nuclear holocaust on your hands.
Tom:
Dave I want to take our listeners all the way back.
Dave:
Okay.
Tom:
I want to go back to Genesis because there are a lot of prophetic ministries out there that and I think an occupational hazard with that is to sort of get into speculation. But my favorite aspect of prophecy has to do with the first coming and all of the prophecies that predicted the coming of the Messiah, the Christ. Because we can look at that and say here are the prophecies, this is where the prophecies came, here’s where it was fulfilled and with regard to what’s going to—prophecies that haven’t been fulfilled yet—hey if you’re 100% so far, then you can put your confidence in the prophecies that have been given—
Dave:
See the reason I mentioned Jerusalem is because it is an ongoing fulfillment of prophecy today and has been for many, many years. What would keep the Temple from being rebuilt? That’s astonishing, the Jews wouldn’t have a sacrificial system and so forth, but anyway let’s get back to Genesis.
Tom:
Well let’s start with Genesis 3:15. I know we’ve been dealing with Genesis in the latter part of our program, but we’ll keep doing that. That has to do with salvation and the gospel. But this is Genesis 3:15 where God declares that there will be conflict down through the ages with those who follow Satan, the one who helped bring about the fall of mankind, and those who would follow the Messiah, the Christ of God. And although Jesus would be bruised by Satan, meaning our Lord’s suffering leading up to the cross, ultimately His death in payment for the sins of mankind would fully destroy the works of Satan. Now this—do you know of a prophecy prior to this? This is the solution to the fall.
Dave:
No, this is the seed of the woman also, which is the first promise of a virgin birth. The seed of a woman would bruise the serpent’s head, a deadly wound. The serpent would bruise his heel and as you know, you were a Catholic— you remember? I don’t know if we’ve talked about it but Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal appeared to Catherine Labouré in 1830, supposedly in Paris with her heel upon the serpent’s head—mint a medal—millions of Catholics still wear that medal today. I know that some of the—particularly the older Catholic Bibles didn’t say the seed of the woman; it said the woman would bruise the serpent’s head which is not true.
Tom:
Yes, they say she instead of he correct?
Dave:
Right, right but that is the first promise of a virgin born Messiah who would destroy the works of the devil.
Tom:
Then as we go through the Old Testament, we find prophecy after prophecy, not only types of or examples or types of the Messiah to come, but prophecies very specific. For example, you mentioned the virgin birth, Isaiah 7:14- “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” And then we have Luke 1:34-35- “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35) And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
Dave:
Now Tom many of the seminaries today don’t even believe this—a virgin birth? Come on! Part of their problem is that they approach the Bible with the idea that miracles can’t happen. Wait a minute! Miracles must happen for there to be salvation. I don’t know what god they believe in, but whatever god they believe in can’t do miracles. Yes, a virgin birth is a miracle. A virgin birth is a sign and He must be virgin born otherwise He would be an ordinary man and an ordinary man couldn’t pay for the sins of the world. He would have to pay for his own sins and Isaiah 9:6 very clearly says (and I hope that our Jewish listeners out there if we have any will just pay attention here, not to me, but to what your prophet Isaiah said). “For unto us a child is born, (now that’s the babe born in Bethlehem) unto us a son is given: (that’s the Son of God, the eternal Son of God who comes and takes this body, becomes this man) and the government shall be upon his shoulder;…” (you cannot deny then this is the Messiah, because the next verse says, “…of His kingdom and peace there will be no end) but it says His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Everlasting Father. So there is a babe who is going to be born in Bethlehem who is the eternal Son and He is the everlasting Father and when Jesus said I and my Father are one, He didn’t mean one in purpose, intent and meaning and interest and so on like the cults teach—one in essence. And furthermore right where we were reading in Isaiah God says I am the only Savior, beside me there is no Savior. Now the Messiah cannot be Savior unless He is God himself. So we have to take what the Bible says and here is the prophecy that God himself would become a man and pay for the sins of the world. And only He could do it.
Tom:
We’ve got about a minute left and I want to quote from Romans. This is Romans 1:1-3-“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2) (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;….)
Dave:
Declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead.
Tom:
And this is what again—I probably shouldn’t use the phrase this is the big enchilada, but prophecy is so important. It demonstrates so clearly that the Bible is supernatural and that God is speaking to us through it.
Dave:
And Tom this is why I can say with Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because we didn’t make this up. Paul didn’t make it up. He said this is the gospel of God that He promised by His prophets. We can go there; we can prove that this is the truth because the prophets foretold it. The gospel, the very gospel that we preach, they foretold. Praise God! That gives you confidence!
Tom:
Amen!
Please note that you can navigate to different sections of this newsletter by clicking on the links at the right, or at the bottom of this page.
God has called every Christian to a holy life. There are no exceptions to this call. It is not a call only to pastors, missionaries, and a few dedicated Sunday School teachers. Every Christian of every nation, whether rich or poor, learned or unlearned, influential or totally unknown, is called to be holy.
Question: President Obama has recently stated, "If you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we'd be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world." He also seems to be apologizing for America's cultural "arrogance" and no longer refers to the "war on terror." Instead, he speaks about the need to learn about Islam
Question: I heard a pastor/teacher on the radio state that when Joseph refused Potiphar's wife's sexual advance, he was a godly man and honoring God. That makes sense, but he also said that if Joseph had given in to her it would not have been a sin, since this was prior to the Ten Commandments.
Question: In the archival Q&As that you selected for the April newsletter, I can't believe the lack of Scripture references in your response to those who believe there is a Gospel for the Jews and a "Gospel of Grace," as preached by Paul. Those teaching this have gained quite a following in our area.