Search the Scriptures Daily Program 3201d:
Gary :
At the end of the program we’ll let you know where to send your questions for Dave and Tom to address 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:
We are going through the gospel of John with a particular emphasis on certainly the gospel, what must we do to be saved? And of course, our salvation that we have in Jesus Christ who is God and as we mentioned in an earlier segment, if you are struggling with that, this would be the book to read through. Jesus does claim, as Dave mentioned earlier, to be God, unequivocally. Dave, last week we left off with John 5, we got through to verse 41, but I want to back up here to verse 38, and just go over that again and then we’ll continue on from there. Verse 38: “And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” Now that’s how we ended the program, I think we got through 40 at least. But this is so critically important. Here we are, we have this radio program, we are talking about the Lord, we are talking about the scriptures, but our talk, I hope for all of our listeners, is an encouragement to search the scriptures for themselves. Here Jesus is chiding the religious Jews of Israel for having the scriptures, but not coming to him.
Dave:
Well, because they don’t know the scriptures. It’s like they on another occasion, they claimed that they were Moses’ disciples. He said well if you were Moses’ disciples you would believe in me because Moses testified of me. And here he is saying these are they, the scriptures testify of me. You don’t have his word abiding in you, for whom he hath sent you believe not. Now if you knew God’s Word, you would know who I am. This is in fact, Tom—
Tom:
But they have a knowledge of it. They study it.
Dave:
Well yes, but they don’t really understand it and they don’t want to understand it unfortunately. This is one of the things we’ve talked about in the past really. Why should someone believe that Jesus is the Christ? Well I give them my testimony, my life was changed, or whatever. [There are] many ways that people go about it, but the way that Paul went about preaching the gospel was from prophecy. He proved from the scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah because he fulfilled the Messianic prophecies. There are several hundred of them back there. Over and over and over and that’s what we must do too. These men did not recognize what God was saying in his Word. They had their interpretation; they had their way of looking at the scriptures. You and I and all of our listeners, we must be very careful that we don’t do that too, that we don’t come to the Bible with preconceived ideas. For example, they were expecting a Messiah who would subdue the Romans, who would take care of their physical enemies, raise a big army and conquer the Romans or whoever was their oppressor at the time.
Tom:
Fulfill their agenda in other words.
Dave:
Right, but what did Zechariah say? (Zechariah:9:9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.), “ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem : behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he [is] just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass . ” It was there, but they were expecting a Messiah on a white horse leading an army, not one who was going to bring salvation—they looked at salvation, salvation from their oppressors. No! The greatest oppressor is sin and self within. This is what Jesus came to deliver them from. So he has to say, you searched the scriptures, you study the scriptures, you recite the scriptures, but you do not know what the scriptures say. He said the same thing to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He said you fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Because they were upset, they were telling him, they are so downcast and discouraged and forlorn and Jesus comes alongside. They don’t expect him for one thing. He says why are you so sad? They said well you must be a stranger around here. You don’t remember? Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in word and deed before God and the people. We supposed he was the one who would deliver Israel (that’s their language) and this is the third day. They killed him so he couldn’t have been the Messiah. Jesus said, “You fools, why don’t you pay attention to all the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? Didn’t you know that the Messiah would come to die for our sins?” And then it says, “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” You would have to say the same for Jewish people today, sadly. There’s a blindness upon them. They can’t see what their own prophets said. If you wrote out Isaiah 53—just typed it out and gave it to a Jewish person and asked them who do you think this is talking about, I can almost guarantee you that 99 out 100 will say that sounds like Jesus. He’s coming, he’s going to suffer and die, and so forth. That’s some Protestant or some Christian writing. No, no that’s what your great prophet Isaiah said. Wait a minute, that’s not the Messiah, that’s something else, that’s the nation, it’s going to suffer and so forth. But it is all through the Old Testament. Daniel 9, the Messiah would come, it tells you the day, it tells you 69 weeks of years from the going forth of the command to rebuild Jerusalem until the coming of the Messiah. You can’t escape it. Nehemiah tells you when he received the authority to rebuild Jerusalem . It was 455 BC, Nissan first. Well count it out! 483 years from that date and they are still looking for the Messiah to come? But Jesus rode in on a donkey the very day that it was prophesied that the Messiah would come. But why can’t you see that? Because they are expecting—well wait a minute! But Jesus didn’t bring peace! Jesus didn’t deliver us from our enemies so he couldn’t have been the Messiah. So they have their own preconceived idea of what the Messiah would be like, what he would accomplish and so forth. That prevents them from seeing what the Bible, what their own prophets had to say.
Tom:
Yes. Dave I think that’s a major part of it, but as I look at verse 40, “And ye will not—YE WILL NOT COME TO ME—there’s the heart in this. For example, when we are presenting the information we are on this program to lots of people out there. We know full well that a lot of people have never read the Bible. This is all new to them, some things they find interesting, and some things they reject, but they haven’t studied the scriptures. But when you find some one, like in our earlier segment, you find this biochemist who has a doctorate, who then gets a degree in Divinity; I don’t know what good it did him because he didn’t come very far. I think a lot of it falls back on this, “and ye will not come to me that ye might have life.” There’s the heart.
Dave:
And the reason why, because they don’t see that the scriptures are testifying of him. Verse 39: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” It’s an interesting verse also Tom, in this current debate about Calvinism that’s been going on a bit in various churches and we don’t have to keep that a secret. I mean many people are discussing it and the Calvinist takes this and says you see (and Martin Luther did the same as John Calvin), you see man doesn’t have any will. His will is in bondage. You will not come to me! Now wait a minute, it doesn’t say you cannot come to me, it says, you will not. If they will not, they must will not to come. So that verse that they use to prove that there is not will or that the will is in bondage, it says no, man does have a will. And he’s using that will for his own purpose and he is determined. Tom that brings us to the crux of the problem—self. I’ve got my agenda and I don’t like the agenda of this Messiah. I don’t like this kind of Messiah. This is not the way I thought it ought to be. That’s a problem that we all have and we have to continually—like we were talking about prayer, at the beginning of the program. We have to continually, say not my will but thine be done. Lord I want you to reveal your will to me and I want you to have your way in my life. Now I don’t know if you want to get into the next verse Tom if we have time, but he says “I receive not honor from men.” That’s interesting. We need to spend more time on that, but you know that’s one of the problems. I am going to be speaking at a conference, well I speak at a lot of conferences, and it’s really an embarrassment when they applaud you and they try to tell—I tell them please, just give my name, don’t say anything. But we like to honor one another, and in one sense it is nice, you know, someone has done something, you want to show appreciation, husbands for wives, wives for husbands, and parents to children, but Jesus says look, in the final analysis it doesn’t really matter what men think about you, what men say about you. All that matters is what God says and I am not looking for honor from men. We’re not seeking their plaudits, their well done, but we are seeking God’s approval and the fear of man brings a snare. If you are afraid of what people will say about you, then you aren’t going to be true to God and you can’t serve God and man at the same time. I think that’s what Jesus is saying and it’s a word to my heart as well.
Tom:
Sure, and Dave with regard to searching the scriptures, if we’ve got one eye to men, and the other one to the scriptures we’ve got kind of a double-mindedness that’s not going to be fruitful.
Dave:
That’s right.
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. Books, tapes, CD-ROM, our internet website, and many others items are just some of the materials we make available for you serious students of God’s Word. Now here’s information about one of our latest offering:
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Gary :
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If you would like a copy of this broadcast ask for Program #0851, and please, mention the call letters of this station. Next week, Dave and Tom will continue their series of programs based on Dave’s book In Defense of the Faith , and “How Reliable is the Bible?” and “Psychology, serving the Church,” we’ll look at that story, and examine the question “Should Christians Gamble” 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.
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