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UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We continue our excursion through the gospel of Matthew, here again are Dave and Tom:
In this, our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the gospel of Matthew, Matthew Chapter 3, Verse 1, Dave. We mentioned last week that we’re going to talk a little bit about John the Baptist. “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea,” Let’s just start with that. John the Baptist, definitely an interesting character in the Bible, but what was this all about, John the Baptist, what was he baptizing for?
Dave:
Well of course, he was foretold in the scriptures, this one who would say, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight, the forerunner of the Messiah who would prepare the people to accept the Messiah. And well, it didn’t work, I mean, some people came out and they repented but—
Tom:
And Dave, how did baptism fit into that?
Dave:
Well, it’s a symbol of washing, and it was used in the Old Testament.
Tom:
Mmhmm. Cleansing kind of thing?
Dave:
Right. Yeah, repentance is a tough one. The Bible does—Paul went everywhere preaching repentance toward God, this is Acts 20, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. But—
Tom:
That’s what? Turning to God.
Dave:
Yeah.
Tom:
Growing up as a Roman Catholic, that word was foreign to us, we had the word “penance.”
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
There were certain things that we needed to do to pay for our temporal sin.
Dave:
Right. But even here, Tom, we have a problem because our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. So, when the governor of New York repented, he said he was sorry, you have to ask yourself a question; supposing he hadn’t been caught, was he really sorry for what he did, or was he sorry that he got caught, was he embarrassed by being caught? Same thing would be true of Ted Edgar, Oh he repented, or Jimmy Swaggart, who repented in tears.
Tom:
Because of the sexual things.
Dave:
Right but, if he hadn’t been caught, would he have repented to God? Would they still be doing this? Now we have a problem even with repentance. Is my repentance genuine, or is it just something I feel I have to say because of the embarrassment of getting caught? So, it’s going to take a work of the Holy Spirit to bring someone to repentance, to be real genuine repentance. And, John the Baptist is calling Israel to repentance. They’ve got plenty to repent of, just read the prophets. I was reading some of the so-called minor prophets this morning. Wow! Joel and Amos, and so forth. What Israel did, their rebellion against God, and the sin—the wickedness of these people, they’ve got a lot to repent of. And you can’t just say to the Messiah, O, yeah, we want you to be the King, O sure, come and reign over us. Wait a minute, well God has already said, I don’t want anything to do with you people. So, you can, we can understand that repentance was a necessary procedure to prepare the way for the Messiah, and it didn’t work.
Tom:
Verse 2: “And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
Dave:
Well, I was raised in a very strict group of believers, real believers, and I can tell you in our fellowship you were either saved or lost, and everybody knew who was saved and who was lost, not like churches today. You’ve got an awful lot of people in there who aren’t even saved, who are just coming and pretending to be Christians.
Tom:
How did they know, Dave? Isn’t this a heart thing?
Dave:
Yes, but you knew in your heart, and you would tell it, and people saw a change, I mean, it was like night and day. People were really transformed when they got saved, and they were part—now part of this fellowship. It’s pretty loose today. We were very strict about the Bible but we also—I was just a child in those days. We also had our arguments about the Bible. For example, there were those who saw—it says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and they would say, Now you see, Matthew, he’s presenting the kingdom of heaven. But then the other gospels are talking about the kingdom of God. Now there is a big difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, we’re going to split hairs over this. Well, it’s simple common sense, just look it up in your concordance, read everything that Matthew says about the kingdom of heaven, read everything the other gospels say about the kingdom of God, and there is no difference! It’s a synonym, God dwells in heaven. Okay, but they, wow, they come up with all kinds of nuances about this, and so forth. So, all I brought that up for was to say, I don’t think there’s a difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. Now I’ve offended some people out there, if they’re even listening to us at all, they may have been offended long ago. But, the kingdom of heaven is at hand! Well, in other words, this is being offered to you right now! John the Baptist was preparing the way, here’s the Messiah, and it’s going to bring heaven on earth, the rule of the Messiah. But not just on the throne of David, it will have to be in your hearts! The King has to reign in your heart. Now, in the millennium, this is not the kingdom that’s talked about, it’s not the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. It’s not the kingdom that Jesus said, Except a man be born again he can’t even see the kingdom of God, He’s talking about the kingdom of God now, it’s the same thing. How do we know that? Well because, there will be a lot of people—but the millennium is not this—there will be a lot of people in the millennium who have not been born again. But Jesus said you can’t even see it without being born again. And then Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 15, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You got a lot of flesh and blood people there. So therefore, this is when the scripture will be fulfilled, He will rule them with a rod of iron. You don’t have to rule in heaven with a rod of iron, because they’re there by choice, and He has captured our hearts and we love Him. So, just a little aside about the kingdom of heaven, and what it might be, well, let me put it like this, the Bible promises a new heavens and a new earth. There’s going to be a kingdom of a new heaven and a new earth, and it’s very simple. He’s going to let go, 2 Peter Chapter 3, He’s going to let everything go. We don’t even know, the scientists, what is it, the strong force the weak force, how come you got in the atom, you’ve just got a proton and a neutron. Well, neutron has no charge, protons are positive, all positive charge, the electron with a negative charge is circling the atom. That atom should split! It should tear apart, and scientists today do not, cannot tell you—oh they talk about cosmic glue, and so forth. Why does it hold together? The Bible uses rather a scientific language when it says, In Him all things consist, all things hold together, and Peter tells us He’s going to let go! Well, you’re going to be in the new heavens and the new earth, you will have to be a new creation, and you must have come to God through faith in Christ. There is no other way, you must be born again, that’s why Jesus said it!
Tom:
Verse 4: “And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey.” Now Dave, this is a strange looking character, I would think, but you know what’s interesting is the emphasis in the church today, through the Emerging Church, we’re now seeing a movement back to monasticism, back to the desert fathers, who were, they would say, Hey, this is the way to spiritual holiness. Let’s start eating locusts, and get out, you know, and live in caves. We mentioned Brennan Manning, he did that for eight months, lived in a cave, and so on. That’s not the way to spirituality.
Dave:
No, it’s not, but it shows that John the Baptist was not interested in this world. You couldn’t entice him with riches or luxury, it’s pretty clear from his description.
Gary:
Dave and Tom will take up 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. For nearly 2,000 years the church of Christ has provided comfort and counsel to believers experiencing mental, emotional and behavioral problems by using the teachings of the scriptures, and the power of the Holy Spirit until psychology and psychotherapy arrived on the scene. Contemporary Christianity has embraced this science, so-called. In the last 50 years, multitudes of pastors have added clinical counseling degrees to their theological credentials. Psychological theories have been preached so often from so many pulpits that they are accepted without question by increasing numbers of Christians as Biblical doctrines. The Christian church in the United States has become a major referral service for clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. Is there something wrong with this picture? Join host T. A. McMahon in this new ground-breaking documentary from The Berean Call, Psychology and the Church, Critical Questions, Crucial Answers. Also contributing to this latest TBC production are Dr. Martin Bobgan and Deidre Bobgan from Psychoheresy Awareness Ministries, Dr. Tana Dineen, author of Manufacturing Victims, and Dave Hunt, author of Judgment Day! Executive Director of The Berean Call and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Tom McMahon: For years believers, both pastors and those in the pews, have been intimidated by the pseudo science of psychological counseling, and the result has been they have backed away from their God given mandate to minister to one another. My hope and prayer is that this video will expose the myths of psychology and encourage the church to return to God’s way of counseling: through His Word, by His Holy Spirit, and with the help of fellow believers in Him.
Gary:
This powerful new DVD is now available from The Berean Call, Psychology and the Church, Critical Questions, Crucial Answers. Information on how to order in just a moment. And now, to tell you more about our ministry, here is TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon: The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the Book of Acts, Chapter 17, Verses 10 and 11, 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 in 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:
We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word, from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website and much more. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at PO Box 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708. Call us at our toll-free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org [1]. If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #1708 and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. And if you would like to watch Dave and Tom, our weekly broadcast is available on DVD, ask about a subscription when you contact us. You can also download both audio and video podcast at our website. Get a pen or pencil ready, we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we continue our series of programs based on Dave Hunt’s book, Seeking and Finding God. And, “Is there life after death?” In Religion in the News, “Canada shuts down ministry.” We’ll take a look at that story, and address the question, “How should we celebrate Easter?” 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. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily.