Search the Scriptures Daily Program #3302a:
Welcome to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael; thanks for joining us. Coming up in today’s broadcast in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will resume their exploration of the Gospel of John, and “Who protects the sheep from the wolves?” In Religion in the News, “Should Lutherans apologize to America?” we’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Are you on a wide path or a narrow one? We hope you can stay with us. Our ministry, The Berean Call, offers many teaching materials including books, tracts, audio and video tapes and copies of our weekly broadcast on tape or compact disc. You may also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which we make available free of charge. We will let you know how to order later in the program. Now, this week’s cover article. We continue with our series of discussions based on Dave Hunt’s book from Harvest House with installment #60 of In Defense of the Faith and along with Dave Hunt, here is T. A. McMahon.
Tom:
Thanks, Gary. You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to him. Now Dave this may shock you.
Dave:
I’ve been shocked before on this program Tom.
Tom:
I know, but this will shock you. Next week, we will be doing our three years of programming.
Dave:
Wow!
Tom:
156 programs. That is amazing.
Dave:
That is amazing!
Tom:
Yes, so after three years what are we all about? What are we trying to do? Let’s say we have, I am sure we have some new listeners and they say okay well three years, but I’ve never heard these guys before. What are we up to?
Dave:
We want to turn people back to the Word of God. Don’t just accept what we say, but you have to use your own common sense and especially the scriptures. Search the scriptures daily. Why? Because this is our authority. Everybody needs an authority. You can’t look to men for authority. That’s one of the problems that I have with doctors for example. They are still practicing! So are lawyers and they do make mistakes. When it comes to eternity you can’t afford a mistake. When you step out into eternity, you can’t get back and if you took the wrong step it’s too late. And I cannot understand Tom, how anyone would just look to a church, I don’t care if it’s the largest or the oldest or the most impressive, or to some orator, to some human being. Jesus took the rabbis to task about that as we’ve talked about before on this program, Matthew 23 and they set up a system of religion that made the people accountable to them. And the people had to go to God through them, that is through their rules and this is religion. Why should I accept the authority of some human being? Does he speak for God? Well how do I know God has spoken? Well I know where God has spoken and that’s in his Word. So let me go there. We have been over this before also. The Bible says you don’t have to be a Greek or Hebrew scholar, you don’t have to be a seminary graduate. Psalm:119:9Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word., “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.” And 2 Timothy:3:15And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Paul says to Timothy, “From a child you have known the holy scriptures that are able to make you wise unto salvation.” So let’s go to the scriptures and that’s why we call this Search the Scriptures Daily and we have a number of segments in it and one of them is exegeting or trying in our feeble way, you and I to just go to the scriptures and see what they say. And in this particular segment we are dealing with some questions of a book that I wrote many years ago.
Tom:
But Dave, for some listening to our program maybe for the first time or maybe they’ve caught a couple of programs. They say wait a minute, you are telling me I can actually know what God says? Now for me personally Dave, I think about that all the time. Wow, I have God’s Word. It claims to be God’s Word.
Dave:
And we can prove it.
Tom:
And as you said, this wasn’t written for scholars, whether it be the New Testament or the Old Testament. These were written for everyday people.
Dave:
That’s right.
Tom:
Do you want to know what God says? Do you know how to read? Even for those who don’t know how to read, it can be read to them and it can speak to their heart.
Dave:
And Tom, this is sensible. Otherwise, I have to look to some expert who is going to tell me what God said. If God has spoken, it must be available. First of all, it is available in our conscience. It is available through the witness of creation. Every human being, Romans 1, knows God created this universe. They can’t possibly believe that a stone or a stick or a piece of wood, or a waterfall, or a tree they hug or whatever, is the creator of this universe, or that there is something called Mother Nature. Mother Nature? Mother Nature has been doing some horrible things. We’ve got floods right now in parts of the world; we’ve got drought in other parts of the world, you have earthquakes, you have hurricanes. Nature is not kind. You have snow storms that kill people. This isn’t nature. You can’t pray to a hurricane, but God has given us the witness in our hearts. We know that he created this universe. We know it for many, many reasons. And then in our consciences we know what is right and what is wrong. We know we shouldn’t lie, steal, murder, commit adultery, and so forth. We know that we are supposed to love God with all our heart and yet we fall short of that.
Tom:
Yes.
Dave:
And then, what else are we to know? Well if I want to know more about what God has to say to me and his plan for me and so forth, how can I be made right with God? I know that I’ve failed him. We know that we are separated from God by sin. How is that going to be made right? Well I go to the Bible which claims to be the Word of God. It’s unlike any other book out there. It has prophecies. What is happening in the Middle East right now has all been foretold. You don’t find that in the Qur’an, the Hindu Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita, the sayings of Buddha, Confucius, anywhere. The Bible is unique. The Bible is historical. It’s about real people, real events. The Israeli children in public school over in Israel, they study their history out of the Bible. Try to do that from the Book of Mormon. Mormons have scoured North, South, Central America looking for archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon and they can’t find a pin. They can’t even identify the topography, but the Bible—you have mountains of proof, of evidence, of things they have dug up, historical accuracy in museums around the world. Then the Bible really speaks to our hearts. It tells us there is no solution except the penalty has to be paid. You can’t just make up for having broken the law in the past by keeping it in the future. We all know that, but the Bible is the only book that says so. All the rest of them—well for example, in Islam if your good deeds out weigh your bad—that won’t work. That won’t work in a court of law here, and everybody knows it doesn’t make sense. So I murder one guy today, but I save the lives of two people tomorrow. Wouldn’t that outweigh the murder from yesterday? It does not work that way and the Bible is the only book that lays it out clear, that rings true to the common sense that God has given man, and offers the only solution that God himself became a man. He didn’t cease to be God, didn’t cease to be man, that he came to this earth through the virgin birth, that he lived a perfect sinless life, that he paid the penalty for our sins, not just being nailed to a cross. That’s what we did to him. That would only add to our condemnation. But as he hung upon the cross, all through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, Isaiah 53 for example. It pleased Jehovah to bruise him, thou hast put him to grief, thou shalt make his soul and offering for sin. So no matter what way you look at it, the Bible rings true. Prophetically, historically, archaeologically and it meets our conscious. Our conscious verifies this and that’s why we go to the Bible. This is our authority, not you, or me, it’s not a church, it’s not the Pope, it’s not Billy Graham, it’s not some pastor, but it is the Bible. Now if I can’t understand the Bible, if I have to go to some specialist and he is going to tell me what the Bible says, then the Bible is not of any value to me and God is not speaking to me and I’ve got to trust somebody to speak for God.
Tom:
And Dave, as you said it makes many claims. Claims that can be tested. You mentioned prophecy. If prophecies, I’m not thinking about the ones to be fulfilled, but those that were claimed and didn’t come to pass at a time they were supposed to come to pass, well we throw the book out.
Dave:
Yes, there are none of them in the Bible.
Tom:
Right. So the other aspect of the Bible is if it is not the source that we can go to, if God did not speak, then as you said, we are left to men, and we are left to opinions. If we’ve got a thousand people, then we’ve got a thousand different ideas about what it’s about. So again, we are left in confusion and so our encouragement to our listeners is search the scriptures. Get to know God. He speaks to us through them and really what it’s all about is the person of Jesus Christ. We can have a personal, intimate relationship with God. And Dave there are two things. First of all, that God can speak to me and speak to me in an objective way. And also that I can have a personal relationship with him. That’s really what it’s all about.
Dave:
Well Jesus said, John:17:3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent., “This is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” So you do not know God. If you don’t belong to him, then one day Jesus will say and probably most of the people listening know the scriptures, some don’t, but Jesus said, “Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord didn’t we prophesy in your name? In your name we cast out devils, in your name we did miracles and I will say, I never knew you, depart from me..,” so it’s essential to know the true God. It’s essential to know his Word and to have received the pardon that he offers alone through the penalty having been paid through the person of Jesus Christ. His death, burial, and resurrection for our sins. Well Tom, do we have any time left?
Tom:
Yes, we do Dave, but I think it’s good to sort of regroup in terms of explaining what we’re about, what we’re trying to do and like I said we’ve been doing this now for three years, the end of three years is coming up next week—
Dave:
You mean I’m three years older now.
Tom:
Yes, and wiser and grayer, balder—
Dave:
I don’t know about—I can’t get any—
Tom:
I didn’t say bolder Dave, I said balder.
Dave:
Balder, I really haven’t been getting much balder, I’ve lost most of it already so—
Tom:
I see, I see. Well now today and in weeks past, we’ve been going through your book—
Dave:
This is part of the program.
Tom:
Part of the program, we’ve been going through your book In Defense of the Faith . Dave, you wrote that how long ago?
Dave:
I can’t remember.
Tom:
Seven years, something like that?
Dave:
But it comes from files that I have of questions that I’ve been asked by skeptics, critics or by some sincere seekers. Tough questions, I try to take the toughest questions.
Tom:
And the answers come from the scriptures. That’s why we’re using your book as sort of a guide to present some questions that are tough ones so that people can understand that we’re not just saying oh, it’s the Bible, we take it by faith, we don’t check it out, we don’t wrestle with some issues. No, you have to do that with anything that is of value. You want to get into it.
Dave:
Yes, faith is not a leap in the dark. It must have evidence for what you believe.
Tom:
In the last few weeks we have been going over what evil is. So Dave, let’s pick up with the next question from your book and as you said a person that you had some exposure to by correspondence in the past or whatever, and presented this question to you. Here it is: Evil is supposedly not allowed in God’s presence because He is so holy. Yet Satan still appears before the throne of God, according to the book of Job. How can that be? Dave, let me quote Habakkuk:1:13Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? just to reinforce what this person’s concern is, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil—
Dave:
Speaking of God.
Tom:
Yes, “…and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?” So obviously scripture says God can’t look upon evil so we have a contradiction here?
Dave:
Tom, of course that scripture raises al lot of other questions. Why does God even allow wickedness on this earth and that’s part of this whole thing. Satan is called Lucifer and Isaiah 14 tells us of his fall and it’s incredible that evil—as far as we know this was the beginning of evil in the universe. Evil began in the universe where, in some ghetto? By some guy that was abused by his parents or raised in a dysfunctional home? These are the excuses that are given today by psychologists including Christian psychologists. Oh it’s not your fault. No, Jesus said evil is in the heart. He said out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication and so forth. And evil, the first evil we know of began in the heart of Lucifer, who apparently as we read the scripture, the most beautiful, the wisest most powerful creature God ever made. And he knew nothing but the presence of God. Well it shows us that evil comes from within. It didn’t come from without. It didn’t come from his environment. But it came from the ambition of his own desire. His pride. The scripture says he was lifted up with pride. He said “I will be like the most High. I’m going to be God.” How can you be like the most High? How many Most Highs can you have? That’s absurd. But it shows that he is totally deceived by his egomania. Blinded by his pride and instead of one true God, the Most High, I think there could be other gods too. So he initiated polytheism. Which is one of the major lies of paganism today and then he convinced even that she could be one of the gods as well and you know that the ambition of mankind, the whole teaching of evolution, the purpose of it is to prove that there is no God. And that although we are the product of evolutionary forces, we can now take control of these and man can pull himself up by his boot straps and become master of his fate, captain of his destiny. We are going to conquer the atom, we are going to conquer space, we’re going to conquer disease and so forth. So this is an atheistic manifestation of the very same ambition that Satan had that he would be god. Now it came from his heart and the question is why didn’t God throw him out immediately? Well it’s very difficult to understand, but God had given this being certain authority and he seems to retain some of this right to appear. It talks about the sons of God in Job, when the sons of God came before God. I think that would be angelic beings. These are sons not in the sense that he begat them as the scripture says—
Tom:
In the creative sense.
Dave:
In the creative sense, but he created them, right. Adam is called a son of God and human beings created by God are called sons of God in that sense and Satan came with them. As a son, as a created being who had certain position and power that kind of hangs on and he is not going to be thrown out of God’s presence on the basis of power alone. God is all powerful. People often say and the atheist says it. If God is all powerful why doesn’t he stop evil? He must be too weak to stop all the suffering in this world. Why doesn’t he stop with the pain, the sorrow and the suffering and death, but if he’s too weak to stop it, he couldn’t be God. But if he could stop it and he won’t he’s a monster. Now what they have forgotten is that he has given man the power of choice. So that we could love him and that we could love one another. So it’s not just a matter of raw power. Raw power is not going to win someone’s affection. It’s not going to convince someone against his will. There is such a thing as truth. Truth must triumph. Love must triumph and that is being worked out through Jesus Christ coming to this earth to win and woo us and to die for our sins. Ultimately Satan will be cast out through the blood of Christ. We read there in Revelation 12 of those who overcame him.
Tom:
Verse 9.
Dave:
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb by the word of their testimony. They loved not their lives unto death. Here were people who were willing to die for God. Job said, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.” Satan doesn’t have anybody like that. Why would you die for Satan? No, Satan attracts you as his loyal followers by promising you things, pleasure and so forth. But God has followers that say even if you slay me, even if I get nothing out of this, I know that you deserve my love and my affection and that you are God and I want to be true to you. Now Satan has no one like that and ultimately that is what will win and it is on that basis that Satan will be cast out.
Tom:
Dave, but this issue of evil, let me sort of put it in popular theology perspective. There’s a lot of theology going around. One is that those in heaven look down up us. We have cartoons, comic strips and so on in the Sunday paper and so on. I am thinking of Family Circus in which you have beings in heaven interacting, looking down. How could—this is a little bit of an aside, but that couldn’t be and you would still have heaven, I don’t think.
Dave:
Right, but the Catholic Church as you know, you’ve got not only Mary up there, but the saints listening in, we’re talking to them and telling them our troubles and asking them to help us as though we need someone other than God to help us? As though we need someone other than Jesus Christ to intervene on our behalf? That’s a denial of everything that the Bible teaches, but the point that you’re trying to make is it would turn heaven into hell—well maybe it wouldn’t turn into hell, but it certainly would tarnish it. It would ruin the joy.
Tom:
Oh absolutely. I think about on a temporal sense, my children, or you can look at it from a biblical sense, Paul always worrying and anxious over his spiritual children about whether they were walking in truth, about whether they were walking in the faith and so on. That can worry a person. Now to have that for eternity in the presence of God and not only worrying about your loved ones, but seeing them sin commit atrocities, unspeakable evil, how could you sustain yourself in heaven under that basis? It just doesn’t make any sense.
Dave:
It simply isn’t true and the Bible doesn’t teach it whatsoever. Never is there a prayer from this earth to any person in heaven. Only to God through Jesus Christ. So evil is a problem. We have to face up to it. There is suffering. I mean it breaks your heart, even as you just read of the suffering in some of these countries where Muslims are killing little children. They are torturing people, cutting off hands and legs and so forth. Where disease has ravaged so many lives, famine, pestilence, and hurricanes and earthquakes and all of this and you say God, how could you allow this? How could a good God allow this? Well the Bible says in Romans 5, “By one man (that is Adam) sin entered into the world,” when Adam rebelled against God that opened the door for all of the evil that we have in this world. Now God is either going to shut us down, kill us all, or he’s going to allow us to make our own choices and that is what has happened. And choices so that we could love him and we can receive the salvation that he offers through Jesus Christ.
Tom:
And again Dave, this isn’t just your talking here, your Word for it. This is what God’s Word says. So anything that we’ve mentioned, that we’ve talked about different ideas, different theological ideas that some people have. Search the scriptures. See if these things are true.
Dave:
Amen.
