Search the Scriptures Daily Program #2302d:
Gary :
Please stay tuned and at the end of the program we will let you know where to send your questions for Dave and Tom to respond to in a future “Contending for the Faith.” You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We continue our exploration of the doctrine of salvation. Here again are Dave and Tom.
Tom:
In this segment of our program we’ve been going through the Gospel of John. We are presently in John 8 and this is a book if you are not familiar with the Bible, the Gospel of John is where we recommend—if you want to start reading the Bible, this is the place to begin. And Dave, let’s go right to where we left off last week. John:8:58Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am., “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Dave:
We have to go back actually to verse 56. He said, “Your father Abraham—
Tom:
That is Jesus said.
Dave:
Right. Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.” That puzzles them and, “Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” And they of course knew what he meant. This was the name with which God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3.
Tom:
The self-existent One. I AM that I AM.
Dave:
Moses said, Look you are telling me to go to Egypt and deliver the people. They are going to say well who sent you? Where’s your authority? So Moses says, “Well what’s your name?” And God says, “My name is Yahweh. I AM that I AM,” as you said Tom. The self-existent One. God has a name, he has a number of names in the Bible, but Yahweh especially and there in Exodus 3 he says this is my name and my memorial thorough out all generations. G-O-D- is not God’s name. G-O-D is a generic term for God in English. So when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was I AM. I AM the self-existent One. No beginning, no end. The existence of all others depends upon me. They know what he’s talking about. He’s claiming to be God, he’s claiming to be—
Tom:
How is that? Because many people do not believe that Jesus is God. They say show me a chapter and verse, show me that Jesus claimed to be God. And it seems here that who Jesus was speaking to—it went right over their head. They missed it completely didn’t they?
Dave:
No, they know he’s claiming to be God and they’re going to stone him. Well here’s another—two chapters later, they take up stones—this is John:10:31Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. which we’ll get to eventually, God willing. “Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” Okay and very clear—
Tom:
And here it is in John 8:59 , “Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” So it was very obvious to them, what he was talking about.
Dave:
Of course.
Tom:
So how do these people miss it today? They just don’t want to recognize it? They don’t want to admit to it?
Dave:
Well Tom there are people who claimed to be Christians who do not go by the Bible. They pick and choose out of the Bible what they want. Or like the Jesus Seminar, oh Jesus didn’t say that, he didn’t do that. We’ll vote with our colored beads and decide—we’ll decide now, 1900 years after the fact what Jesus did and didn’t do. But this is God’s Word, inspired of the Holy Spirit, written by eyewitnesses. Now this verse 59 is an interesting one. “Then took they up stones to cast at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.” Now what do you mean? He ran so fast they couldn’t catch him or what? No, he ran into some little corner where he could hide?
Tom:
He hid behind a pillar or something?
Dave:
Yes, no, no, it says “…going through the midst of them, and so passed by.” So Jesus made himself invisible. That’s all I can say. He walked right through the midst of them. They want to stone him, but they don’t see him and he walks right out of that temple. Walks right through this crowd. Well this is another miracle that Jesus did. One of many because his time was not yet come. It wasn’t time for him to be—well furthermore, he couldn’t be killed by stoning, it had to be by crucifixion because that had been foretold in the Old Testament hundreds of years before crucifixion was even practiced on this earth it was foretold. The psalmist said “They pierced my hands and my feet…” and he describes crucifixion very thoroughly there. So Jesus could not be stoned, he had to be crucified and it was not his time. We read it over and over, “his hour had not yet come.”
Tom:
Dave, I have a little side note. Just a little thing. We receive letters from time to time from people and when they write to us, they’re writing about God, but they spell it G, then an underline, and then a D. What’s with that?
Dave:
Well, it could be Jewish. The Jews—
Tom:
In some cases, that’s right.
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
But Messianic Jews sometimes?
Dave:
See, the Bible said don’t take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Well they took that to the extreme like people often do and they took that to mean you don’t SAY the name of God and you don’t print the name of God. That could be one of the reasons.
Tom:
So you’re hinting at it by giving the consonants but not the vowel. Well, or in Hebrew there are no vowels, just consonants and you fill in the vowels, so maybe they feel they’re being more biblical. They’re being really Hebraic, but that’s ludicrous because God is not Hebrew. Tom, I’ve never asked any of these people why, but I presume these are the reasons why.
Tom:
Okay. Well, we are going on to John:9:1And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth., “And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Now this is very appropriate with regard to what we’ve been discussing on prayer, because some of these faith teachers would say well there’s sin in their lives. That’s why they’re not being healed.
Dave:
It was kind of ludicrous. Who did sin? This man? Well, hardly. The sin that he committed after his birth could hardly have caused him to be born blind. I don’t think they know that he was born blind. Jesus knows. He sees a man born blind from his birth. Well that’s from Jesus’ perspective. He knows immediately who this man is and all about him. So they are attributing it to sin. Jesus gives an amazing answer. (John:9:3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.) “Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents:…” now he’s not saying they lived without sin, but that is not the cause of the blindness. It’s not the sin of either the man or his parents. But he is blind in order “that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” So here was a man that could have cried out to God and complained about his blindness and it was all in God’s will, so that he was going to be healed of that blindness by Jesus.
Tom:
Now wait a minute here. Are you saying that he was predestined to be blind so that God could heal him?
Dave:
That’s what Jesus says here, yes. If this blindness came upon him to the glory of God that the works of God should be manifest in him. So now—
Tom:
But Dave, couldn’t God in his permissive will recognizing that—where does sin come about? What does sin do to people? It creates disease and all that and God allowed him to be that way so that he could glorify himself through him.
Dave:
Yes, I appreciate your clarification. I’m not saying that God made him blind so that he could then be healed. The scripture says, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happeneth to them all.” There are things that have been set in motion in this life through Adam and Eve’s sin and are running their course. Now God intervenes at times in specific ways, but God is not always intervening. If he always intervened he wouldn’t let a plane crash, he wouldn’t let a baby fall over a cliff. There are certain natural laws that have natural consequences. So there’s probably some genetic factor that caused this man to be born blind. God is able to have this man on this earth just at the right time at the right place for Jesus to heal him. And that’s what it means when he says “…that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
Tom:
Dave you notice as we go through these verse just—we’ve sort of been kidding one another about how long it’s taking us to go through the Gospel of John, but on the other hand, when you look at each verse, things come alive to you that maybe you didn’t see before, just showing how Jesus—these are miracles here that are happening in lines that maybe we just kind of blow past without really taking time to recognize.
Dave:
Amen.
Tom:
So it’s okay to do that.
Gary :
Dave and Tom will resume their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can tune in. This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. And now to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director, Tom McMahon.
Tom:
The name The Berean Call is taken from the Book of Acts:17:10-11 [10] And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.
[11] These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
, where we find the Apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea , after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically, because they “searched the scriptures daily” to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. We want to exhort believers to give greater heed to biblical discernment and truth regarding what they are accepting as spiritual. We hope to supply those who profess to be biblical Christians with information and materials that will encourage the love of God’s truth. Hopefully, we can help mobilize believers in Christ to action and obedience to the scriptural command to “earnestly contend for the faith,” found in Jude 3. And finally, our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority, and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary :
If you are a serious student of God’s Word, we offer many materials that you’ll find helpful. From books and tracts to video and audio tapes, CD-ROM, our internet website, and much more. And don’t forget about our special offer: A free copy of our new video “Should Christians be concerned about Harry Potter?” (no longer available) to all new subscribers to our free monthly newsletter. Just mention Search the Scriptures Daily when you call or write. If you would like a copy of this broadcast, ask for Program #0562 and please be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Next week, Dave and Tom will continue their series of programs based on Dave Hunt’s book In Defense of the Faith . And, “Do Catholics pray to Mary or not?” “Is the Force really with you?” we will take a look at that story and examine the question “Should we invite cult members into our house?” 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. For more information about The Berean Call and a free subscription to our monthly newsletter, contact us at PO Box 7019 , Bend , Oregon 97708 , call us at 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org .
