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:4:5But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. 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:1:18Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool., “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.
