Search the Scriptures Daily Program #2506d Transcript follows:
Gary :
If you have a question for Dave and Tom to respond to in a future Contending for the Faith, stay with us, we’ll have our contact information at the end of the program. You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We resume our excursion through the Book of Acts. Here again are Dave and Tom:
Tom:
This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment. Dave is here, I’m here, and it’s our privilege to go through the scriptures to give you maybe some teaching. When anyone goes through the scriptures if they know the Lord it’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the teacher, but we are privileged to give some thoughts as we’ve been through the scriptures and I sit here Dave and love listening to you because of how well you know the Word and how long you’ve been in the Word and so on. But in Acts 13, that’s where we are, Paul is on his first missionary journey and where we left off last week Dave, he had gone into a synagogue, the Jews had heard what he had to say, and there were some Gentiles who obviously were converted to Judaism, but the word got out to the Gentiles around. They got excited about it. We left with verse 47 and we can start there. But I just want to go back over verse 46, “Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: (addressing the Jews) but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo we turn to the Gentiles.” Now I am sure that was more upsetting than anything they had to say previously to these Jews.
Dave:
Well Tom, this happened in every city. The gospel is as Paul said in Romans 1:16 , “…to the Jew first…” because as we were talking earlier, Jesus is a Jew. He came to his own to present the gospel to them, to present the kingdom to them and so forth and every town he went to first into the synagogue. He gave the Jews the opportunity; when they rejected it then he said okay guys, we’re going to the Gentiles. But now you’re going to read verse 47 because that says this is nothing new.
Tom:
Right. “For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.”
Dave:
So all nations are going to be blessed as God said.
Tom:
We went over that in our first segment. This is what sets the Jews apart from every other nation.
Dave:
Salvation is for the entire world.
Tom:
Right. Verse 48, “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” There’s a tough one Dave.
Dave:
Well we deal with that in What Love is This? , a book on Calvinism. And of course this is the premiere verse for the Calvinists. Now we don’t have time to go into details, they can—
Tom:
Well why is it, (for some who may not know) why is it the premiere verse?
Dave:
Because Calvinists teach that God chose to save some and let the rest of them go to hell. Or even ordained that they should go to hell. So it has nothing to do with me, my choice, although Jesus does plea, “come unto me.” But God has—and you would have to say arbitrarily, because he has no basis for it. It’s nothing good in me. No reason why—well you quoted it earlier, he is no respecter of persons, so it’s not on that basis.
Tom:
And Calvinists, in particular, teach and emphasize that we are totally depraved.
Dave:
We must be regenerated. So God chooses to regenerate certain ones and then he gives them the faith to believe. That’s not what the Bible teaches. Now this verse is a difficult one because it almost seems to say this, but there are literally hundreds of other verses. The Bible ends, “…whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely.” It doesn’t say well whoever has been ordained by God will of course take of the water of life. We have so many examples, “For God so loved the world…” you quoted earlier, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” So it’s very clear—well Isaiah:1:18-20 [18] Come 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.
[19] If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
[20] But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
, “Come now let reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: But if you refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” I mean the entire Bible lays it out. God pleads with man, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem . Matthew:23:37O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!, “…how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen doth gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not!” God pleads through Jeremiah. It’s all through the scriptures, so I can’t take one verse that says “…as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed,” oh well, that does away with all these other verses.
Tom:
Well it’s still tough Dave, what does that mean, “ordained unto eternal life….”
Dave:
Let’s read verse 48 again. “And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the Word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” So now we’ve got something in here. They rejoiced when they heard the Word. So Peter says that we are born again by the Word of God alright? You are not born again first. You are not regenerated first, that’s very clear here. It was because they believed the Word that they are born again. Now “…ordained to eternal life….” Well, we are ordained or chosen to many things. You know God didn’t have to give you eternal life if you believe on Jesus. He could forgive you your sins and you wouldn’t go to hell. That would be a comfort to know. You could just die quietly and go into oblivion. As it says in a number of places, Ephesians 1 for example, or Romans 8 “whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Always foreknowledge is linked with predestination. Why would we have foreknowledge if God just [went] enny-meny-miny-mo you know, well I’ll take this one and I’ll leave that one to go to hell, I’ll take this one to heaven and I’ll send that one to hell. There’s no reason for it. Why would he have to know anything ahead of time, but always for example if you went to 2 Peter 1, elect by the foreknowledge of God unto eternal life. Well it’s always the foreknowledge—in other words, the ones that God knew would believe, he marked certain blessings out for them.
Tom:
So that still allows for free will, volition.
Dave:
Of course. And one of the things that he marked out for people who would believe was eternal life. They are not going to lie in the grave gone forever, but they will live forever with him. So I don’t think on the basis of this verse you could nullify all the verses we that we have [like] John 7:37 , “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” There’s no way you can put in there that God causes you to come. And the whole Bible becomes nonsense if you have Joshua saying, “Choose you this day whom you will serve.” But you can’t choose because you are totally depraved as you said and God must regenerate you before you can possibly believe or choose the right thing. So then God says choose and you don’t choose because he foreordained that you wouldn’t choose and then he punishes you for not doing what he caused you to do because you couldn’t do anything else anyway. Tom, it turns the entire Bible up on its head. Now another favorite verse of the Calvinist’s is John:1:13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God., “Which were born not of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” And the Calvinists say see there, look, look you can’t born-again yourself. You are only born again because God wants you to be born again. Okay, but I’ve never found a Calvinist to acknowledge that John 1:13 is preceded by verses 11 and 12. Verses 11 and 12 say “He came unto his own and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name.” Then it says “Which were born of the will of God….” So it’s when you believe and you receive Christ you are born again and that takes a choice, otherwise we couldn’t even love God and it would all be meaningless.
Tom:
And once you’ve believed you are ordained to eternal life.
Dave:
Exactly.
Gary :
Dave and Tom will resume their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can join us. This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.
Tom:
This is T. A. McMahon inviting you to visit our home town of Bend , Oregon , and take part in a discernment conference titled: “Today’s Seduction of Christianity.” The theme is to alert Christians to beliefs and practices that are undermining the sufficiency of the scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Topics include: Church Growth through Marketing and Purpose Driven Methods; The Psychological Seduction and Corruption of Counseling; The Catholicizing of Evangelical Christianity; The Emerging Church Mystical Movement; The Popular Perversions of the Bible; The Islamic Threat, and much more. Join me, along with Dave Hunt, Greg Durell of Reaching Catholics for Christ, and authors, Dr. Martin and Deidre Bobgan, for a time of great teaching and wonderful fellowship this coming November 3rd, 4th, and 5th. Don’t miss this terrific opportunity to come to beautiful Bend , Oregon , and meet the staff and visit the offices of The Berean Call.
Gary :
We hope you can join us for The Seduction of Christianity Today Conference at the beautiful brand new Riverhouse Hotel and Convention Center here in Bend . The conference will begin Friday morning with an open house at The Berean Call, and will conclude at noon Sunday after worship and a special message from Dave. Make plans to join us for this important seminar, The Seduction of Christianity Today Conference, November 3rd, 4th, and 5th, in Bend , Oregon , sponsored by The Berean Call. For information go to our website at www.thebereancall.org , or call us toll free at 800-937-6638. Space is limited and you can save substantially by registering before August 1st, so please make your reservation soon, call 800-937-6638. And now to tell you more about our ministry here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:
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 search 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 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 :
Would you like to expand your knowledge of God’s Word? We offer a wide variety of items that will greatly assist you from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our internet website and much more. 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 us at our toll free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit out website at www.thebereancall.org . If you would like a copy of this broadcast on tape or compact disc, ask for Program #2506, 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 series of programs based on Dave Hunt’s book, When Will Jesus Come? and “How can there be victory in defeat?” In Religion in the News, “The Dali Lama says Islam is okay.” We’ll take a look at that story, and address the question: “Was the Good Samaritan a Calvinist?” We hope you can tune in. If you have questions of 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 joining us, and invite you to tune in again next week. Until then, 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, write to us at POB 7019, Bend , Oregon 97708 , call us toll free at our order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, 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.
