cover article
Welcome to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call with Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael; it’s great to have you with us. Coming up in today’s broadcast in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, and “Why is Jesus called the Lamb of God?” In Religion in the News: “Being sensitive to political correctness.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Is there a difference between hymns and worship songs?” 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 revisit to our 2000 radio series based on Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith. Today we focus on the question: Can love be selected? Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks, Gary, You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage all who desire 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. We’re going through Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, because of its thrust in exhorting believers to search the scriptures, which is the only way we get to know and to develop a personal relationship with the true and living God. Dave, chapter 13 of your book deals with what the Bible itself calls, “The first and greatest commandment.” Let me read that for our listeners. I’m looking to Mark 12:29-30: “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.” Dave, we some times refer to the Bible as the Manufacturers Handbook, and it seems to me that this verse sets forth what our Creator has in mind for all creatures created in His image. Isn’t loving God and loving others man’s whole reason, goal, purpose etc. for living?
Dave:
Well, I don’t know whether you would—yeah, maybe this is true, to glorify God, to love God, and to love one another, certainly the Bible tells us God is love. So His very essence is love, and the very first command then is thou shalt love. I think it’s worth noting that love is a command. It’s not, you fall in love with somebody and you get married and you pledge your undying troth until some cute blonde do us part, till we fall out of love and fall in love again. I have talked with even some Christian leaders who say I can’t love my wife anymore. It’s a command, it’s not some emotion that comes over us, and it involves commitment and we’re commanded even to love our neighbors as ourselves. So, yes, this is something I think that we neglect. You don’t get a Ph.D. in love. I don’t hear of any courses in seminaries about love, how to love, and the urgency of love, the necessity of love. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have this love one to another.” So, I suppose, Tom, as you said, this is our—
Tom:
Our reason for being.
Dave:
Yeah, the essence of what we are supposed to be if we are made in God’s image, and God is love. Could we say then that it’s something that is really neglected? When did you last hear a sermon Sunday morning about love? I feel it very much myself because I often say to the Lord, I have forgotten to tell you I love you. It’s wonderful for husbands and wives to tell one another again and again, I love you, and to really mean it. But how often do we say, Lord, I love you, I love you, Lord, and I love you with my whole heart? And it’s not that He needs me, He doesn’t need my love, but I think He desires my expression of love to Him because this is what He wants me to be. This is what He has created me for, and it’s a blessing to us when we love the Lord, and so He desires that from us.
Tom:
Dave, one of the reasons I used the analogy of the Manufacturers Handbook. I mean, it is a handbook, it tells us how to live a life that’s pleasing to God.
Dave:
You’re talking about the Bible.
Tom:
Exactly.
Dave:
He’s our Creator, so this is the Manufacturers Handbook, the instruction manual.
Tom:
Exactly, there are instructions to this, and I think that’s one of the points you make in this chapter, that you talk about the verses that we just went over. It’s a terrible indictment of Christians reminding us how far we fall short of pleasing God in this. But there are instructions to do this, and I agree with you. I don't remember, even through Sunday school classes and the things I was involved with as a young Christian, being taught how you go about loving God. How do we go about loving God?
Dave:
Sometimes I use the illustration, maybe it’s not a good one, but here’s a young man, and he’s been dating Miss Universe, and he’s not too excited. Let’s say that she’s not only beautiful outwardly, but beautiful inwardly, a wonderful Christian, who really loves the Lord, and how would he go about falling in love with her? Spend a little time with her. If I am going to get to know God, and I’m going to really love Him, God is loveable, is He not? If anyone is worthy of my love it’s God. John in 1 John 4 tells us: we love Him because He first loved us.
Tom:
And that involves understanding. What do we mean, He first loved us? What has He done, how has He demonstrated that? There are lots of solid reasons for that.
Dave:
Right and this is the love of God manifest, that He gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. While we were yet in sin Christ died for us. He has proven His love, that Christ would leave heaven’s glory, that He would become a man. That’s beyond our comprehension as well. And that He would suffer the hatred, the misunderstanding, the false accusations, say nothing of being nailed to a cross, and so forth. He was scourged and spat upon, despised, rejected. Wow, that takes a lot of love to endure that for us! I believe that He even loved those who did that to Him. I believe that He loves all mankind; He loves the whole world, even sinner. I think the hymn says He loved the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. So He doesn’t love us because we’re loveable, or because He finds us attractive and someone that He needs, but it’s because of who He is, He loves us, God is love. And in spite of what we are, and so when I, Tom—
Tom:
And there’s a good reason for that, I think you pointed out even in this chapter 13 or the next one. You talked about, that’s our security, because if God loved us for certain reasons within us, and you know how we change, ups and downs, bad days, good days, and so on. If that was related to how He loved us, particularly, we would be in serious trouble.
Dave:
And yet, amazingly, Tom, is what is being taught by Christian psychologists in particular, that God loves us because we’re loveable, and we shouldn’t think of ourselves as worthless wretches, because then we couldn’t believe that God loves us. We have to have a good self image and we have to have a sense of self worth because God doesn’t love nobodies, He doesn’t love scum, the outcast. Oh He does, he loves us in spite of what we are, and none of us are worthy of God’s love! And to get the impression that, well, the price Christ paid for us upon the cross that shows what we are worth. That is absolutely contrary to the Word of God. You know, Jesus, and I don’t know whether we give this illustration even in this book anywhere, but you remember when Jesus went into the Pharisee’s house, and—
Tom:
Simon, a Pharisee, you do in Chapter 14.
Dave:
That’s a nice chapter, okay, but—
Tom:
But no, let’s get to it, even if we have to go back over these things these are very important, I believe.
Dave:
Well, you know the story and maybe everyone listening to us doesn’t know the story, but if it’s in God’s Word, then it certainly is worth going over again, at least briefly. He comes into the house of Simon the Pharisee, and they are apparently having supper or whatever, and this woman comes and washes His feet with her tears, the feet of Jesus with her tears, and dries His feet with her hair. And Simon is thinking within himself, this man, He couldn’t possibly be a prophet, He couldn’t be a man of God because if He were He would know this woman is a sinner, and He wouldn’t let her near Him. Jesus says Simon, of course He knows what Simon is thinking, He says, Simon, I have something to say to you. Simon says, say on, Master. Jesus says, “There was a creditor and he had two debtors, one owed him a very small amount, and the other owed him a huge amount. When neither of them had anything to pay him he forgave both of them. And then Jesus says to Simon, which one do you think would love him the most? Well, Simon says, I suppose the one to whom he forgave the most. Jesus said, you have well said. I came into your house, you gave me no water to wash my feet, no towel to dry them, you didn’t minister to me, but this woman, she has not ceased to wash my feet with her tears and dry them with her hair, she’s a sinner, her sins which are many are forgiven he. To whom much is forgiven, she loves much, to whom little is forgiven, he loves little. So, going back to your question again, how do we get to love the Lord, how can we encourage our love for the Lord? When we realize how much He has forgiven us.
Tom:
Right. Dave, the amazing thing about that is that it’s just the opposite of the way the world thinks. And now, you know we talked about an indictment of the church, of Christians who don’t take to heart the first commandment of loving the Lord thy God with all their heart and all their soul and might, and all strength, and so on. We also find in the church an erroneous teaching about self love, needing to love ourselves first, along with missing the mark on loving God with all your heart. So it’s really a double indictment, and I’ve fallen into this myself, so I’m not just pointing fingers here, but it’s a fact.
Dave:
The more I realize how unworthy I am of God’s love, and how I really deserve His wrath, His judgment, to be separated from Him forever, the more I will love Him, the more grateful I will be.
Tom:
And you’re emptying the vessel of self to be filled with God’s power, God’s love to minister to others, doesn’t that make sense?
Dave:
It does, Tom, we are accused of being critical and I don’t want to be critical, but we need to be honest about ourselves and about the church. You go into many churches, many meetings, and it’s not God who is being exalted, it’s the preacher, or some great athlete who has become a Christian, or some rock star, some rock group, how wonderful they are. I know that they are trying to glorify God, but we are such self-centered creatures that somehow the focus always comes upon us. You can see the advertisements for conferences, I don’t find any advertisements that Jesus will be there, that Jesus will be glorified, but I see the credentials of the great men and women who will be there, the great musicians who will be there, and this is seemingly the attraction. Again, please, out there if you are listening to us, I’m not trying to be critical, but I want to correct myself, as well as others. Sometimes, Tom, particularly in a debate, and I haven’t had any debates for a long time, but you probably remember the Sungenis debate, a Catholic apologist, and I didn’t want them to read anything about me. What does it matter who I am? Am I going to be true to the Word of God? It’s this God that we’re honoring, but I mean, it took, I don’t know how many minutes to read all his credentials and credits and what he has done, and so forth, but I find this in Christian conferences. Do you have a bio, could we read something about you? What does it matter about me, I’m a sinner saved by grace. What matters is what does God’s Word say, what does God have to say to us, and am I true to his Word? Do I have some understanding of it, and am I prepared to exalt the Lord? Oh, let us exalt the Lord together, the psalmist says, let us praise Him, rather than coming together and parading our degrees and our accomplishments, it’s when I get in the presence of God. So Tom, that’s what made me think of it. It seems in many church services, we’re not really in the presence of God. If we were in the presence God, we wouldn’t be parading ourselves like we do, we wouldn’t be acting the way we do, and we would be on our faces. And when we get in the presence of God, then I begin to realize how little I am, what a nothing I am. Job said, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Perhaps we need a little bit more fear of God. And if we had a little more fear of God, I believe we would love Him more, because we would recognize how great He is, and how puny we are, and what sinners we are, and how much He has loved us.
Tom:
Now Dave, I believe you’re speaking truth according to God’s Word in what you are saying.
Dave:
And simple logic as well.
Tom
Yes, but those who would say, Well, wait a minute, because that’s quite logical because I know such and such and they’re so down on themselves, they’re not fun to be around, they’re kind of depressing and negative, on and on. And if they just had a better view of themselves they could be more fruitful, more productive, and more effective for the world.
Dave:
No, the solution is not to get a better view of themselves, but to get a better view of God, stop looking at themselves.
Tom:
That’s the other part of the problem, they’re focused on self, as Tozer said, “It’s the flip the other side of the other side of the coin, that they are preoccupied with self under the guise of denying self.”
Dave:
I remember saying, Tom, and I probably have it in the wrong order, but I haven’t even thought of this for probably 20 years, if you want to be distracted, look around. If you want to be disgusted, look within. If you want to be delighted, look at Him. So, I think the problem is they are self centered, they are thinking about themselves. And maybe some people feel that that is the way to glorify God is to degrade themselves.
Tom:
By the will of the flesh profits nothing, this is not of the Spirit. You see, when you mentioned about Job, now I will probably get into trouble for this, but I don’t believe anybody can truly hate themselves, truly hate themselves except by God’s grace, because it’s only God’s grace that shows the heart that’s within, which is deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. We know the experience that Job went through. It drew him, he suffered, but in this process he recognized how much, who God was, and how much God loved him, that’s why he came to the end of himself.
Dave:
Yeah, well Isaiah the same. “In the year the king Isaiah died I saw also the Lord high and lifted up his train and filled the temple and the cherubim cried Holy, Holy, Holy. Then said I, woe is me! For I am undone; because I’m a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts.” And the One that he saw was Jesus, because John 12 tells us, it quotes that and says, he spake when he saw Him in His glory. So, perhaps we need to get the focus off of ourselves and onto the Lord, because that’s what love does.
Tom:
Right.
Dave:
And when you have a husband and a wife, for example, and I’m concerned whether my wife is loving me enough, and she’s concerned whether I’m loving her enough, and I’m concerned whether she’s treating me properly, that’s not love. Love is not concerned about itself, love loves the other. And I don’t know, we probably don’t say anything about it in this chapter, even in this book—
Tom:
Well, let’s go to verse 31 in Mark.
Dave:
Well, let me just finish this.
Tom:
I thought that’s where you were going.
Dave:
No, if I had an advice, or advice to give to husbands and wives— Now we just passed our 50th wedding anniversary two months ago. If I had some advice to give to husbands and wives, don’t try to make a fifty-fifty deal out of marriage. Don’t be worried about whether you’re going to get a fair deal. Love your husband, love your wife, and forget yourself, and both of you learn to love God together. That will solve, I think, every problem that could possibly come up.
Tom:
Well, there’s no doubt about it. The reason I wanted to jump to Mark 12:31, we just read 29 and 30, but 31 says, “And the second is like, namely this…
Dave:
Second commandment.
Tom:
Second commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” These two commandments, one flows out of the other, without the love of God and loving Him we’ve got nothing to offer anyone else, but this is his commandment.
Dave:
Yeah, and Tom, that verse is so misused, misunderstood. Love your neighbor as yourself, and so we have seminars literally being taught in the church, you’ve got to learn to love yourself before you could love your neighbor. Well then, Jesus is saying, Love your neighbor like you inadequately love yourself. Oh you love yourself well enough, but love your neighbor you love yourself. No, that doesn’t make sense. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Oh well, I hate myself so I want to do myself in, so I guess I’ll do my neighbor in as well. No, Jesus is correcting self love; he’s saying we already love ourselves. What do you do in the morning when you get up? You brush your teeth, you comb your hair, you feed yourself, and you clothe yourself. Give some of the attention to your neighbor that you are giving to yourself. Jesus is correcting self love, he’s not encouraging it. And that is our problem, we are self centered, and we need to deny self, Jesus says.
Tom:
Now for those who are not agreeing with our interpretation, our understanding of this, it’s really simple math, not only with regard to what you said Dave, but it says, “And the second is like this.” But too many times we find 3 commandments here, the 3rd being erroneous, to love ourselves. No, it’s all part of these first two commandments.
Dave:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and out of that comes loving your neighbor as yourself. Why would that be? Because then I become a participant in God’s love. And how can I take the message of John 3:16 even: “for God so loved the world.” How can I take that message to the lost if I do not have a love, a genuine love that the love of Christ constrains us, Paul says. So, this love that He wants me to have for Him generates a love for others because this is the way God is. God is love. Well Tom, we’ve inadequately handled this, but let’s get to know and love God, and love one another, and maybe we can encourage people to think about this a bit more anyway.
Tom:
Amen.
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, thanks for joining us. Coming up in the next hour in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation and “How did John the Baptist know the Messiah?” In Religion in the News: “Jesus Appears to Muslims,” we’ll take a look at that story and look at “Some of the biggest changes in Christianity in the past century.” We hope you can stay with us. 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 revisit to our 2000 radio series based on Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith. Today we focus on the question: “How do we love God above all else?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks, Gary. Dave, I want to pick up where we left off last week, the last half of chapter 12 in your book. You kind of bring an admonition there to yourself, and to all of us who claim to know Christ; and the admonition has to do with knowing God, and loving God, and doing things that are really in the fear of the Lord. One aspect of this has to do with the awe of God with regard to worship, and we were talking about how, even in our church worship sometimes, it really becomes the rituals and the self-serving practices of men, rather than true worship and a true awe of God.
Dave:
Yeah history, of course, is filled with the techniques, the methods that men have used to try to make God real to them: it’s called idolatry, paganism. If I could just have an image of God, if I could just visualize God. Of course, that’s the teaching today, even among evangelicals, amazingly! Try to visualize God, feel that you are in His presence, or see yourself in the presence of God, of course, that’s an abomination to the true God. God dwells in a light that no man can approach Him, to whom no man has seen, nor can see. So to try to see God, to make a visible image of God is absolutely forbidden. Well then, what shall I do? Try to feel like God is here, try to—no, it’s simply in recognizing who God is, and knowing that He is the Creator of this universe, that He has come to live in my heart, that’s amazing! If I’m a Christian so that we are indwelt and sealed by the Holy Spirit, and just by faith recognizing and bringing to mind who God really is and the greatness of God.
Tom:
Well, Dave, let’s get practical about this. We’re talking about the gathering together of believers to worship God. What can we do, what can help through our service, you know, we have services. What would encourage the worship according to what year we are referring to?
Dave:
It’s not feelings; it’s not very often—
Tom:
But feelings are part of it.
Dave:
Well, but the feelings must come because of God’s presence, not in order to make me think God is present.
Tom:
So we’re not trying to whip ourselves up into a particular state, but if we are seeking after the true and living God, and we’re doing these things that you have been alluding to here, there was going to be an emotional side to it.
Dave:
But yet definitely. Tom, I don’t intentionally offend people, but here we may offend some. A lot of the songs that we have in many of our churches today, and I find this is all denominations: much of it comes out of the Vineyard. We’ve talked about it, I guess before, you could call them 7-11 songs, some of them, 7 words repeated 11 times, shallow, repetitive choruses. We’ve thrown out the old hymns of the faith in many places.
Tom:
But what did the old hymns do, or at least don’t do?
Dave:
Well, let’s quote an old hymn, Charles Wesley: And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood. Died He for me who caused His pain, For me who Him to death pursued. Amazing love! How can it be that thou my God should die for me?
Tom:
So we are talking about content here, content that forces us, well, it doesn’t force us, but encourages us to understand God better, to know Him better, because of content, not just because of something that we are repeating that may make us feel a certain way—
Dave:
You see, the repetition—
Tom:
Almost superficially.
Dave:
Right. It seems to me, and again, I’m an old man, okay, so you could say well, you don’t understand the modern generation. But I think I do understand some things, and as I travel around, and very often, and I’m not trying to be critical, I can learn as well. But it seems to me that much of the choruses we have today, it’s more the melody and the beat than the lyrics, the words. And people kind of want to get into a mood, and it feels good, but it could very much like I could be at a secular concert, or whatever, and people are getting into that mood. What we need are the words, the doctrine, the truth!
Tom:
What would Jesus sing?
Dave:
He would sing the Psalms.
Tom:
Content.
Dave:
Right. Let me give you another old hymn: “In weakness, like defeat, He won—I wish I could sing it for you, but I would drive everybody away—in weakness like defeat, He won the victor’s crown. Tread all our foes beneath His feet, by being trodden down. He, Satan’s power laid low, made sin He sin overthrew, bowed to the grave, destroy it so, and death by dying slew.” This is great stuff! This causes me to bow in wonder and worship before the Lord. Now, that we would throw that out, or at least put it on a shelf, and bring in—I’m sorry, some shallow, repetitive things written by new Christians in many cases, who don’t really know the Lord, don’t have a deep understanding, and there is little doctrinal content, little truth, but just much repetition of shallow words. I find it a tragedy, and I don’t want to offend anyone.
Tom:
But Dave, what we are pursing here is worship, what does worship mean? How can we honor God in our gathering together, how can we grow in our understanding of Him, loving Him more, obeying Him more, because of what we know about Him, what He has done for us?
Dave:
That’s right.
Tom:
Now, this isn’t put a stamp of approval on every old hymn that ever came to light, because we know a lot of bad ideas have come through. But still, I think that ought to be our goal and our objective that everything that we do in our worship ought to be to get to know Him better, not with the emphasis on feeling or emotions, and they are going to come.
Dave;
They will come when we know Him.
Tom:
You quote John Wesley, or Charles Wesley, my heart gets moved because of the words, or the content, because they remind me of what the scriptures say about the true and living God.
Dave:
Right. Jesus said, “This is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hath sent.” Paul cried out, “Oh, that I might know Him, to get to know God.” So I’m not putting down new hymns or new choruses, and exalting old ones; I’m saying, whatever it is, whether it is new or old, let it be something that has some real solid doctrinal, biblical contents that exalts the Lord, that gives me insights into who He is, what He has done that would cause my heart to leap with joy, that would cause me to bow in wonder and worship, not just give me words about worship. I think we are in love with love, we praise praise, we worship worship, and the Lord isn’t in it, unless there is some real content about who He is. Now also, Tom, we have a saying, I’ve heard it so often; I will not separate myself from anyone who names the name of the Lord. If they name Jesus, that’s good enough, anyone who names Jesus—but wait a minute. There are false Christs, there’s a false Jesus’, people have false ideas of Jesus. In this chapter that you’ve referred us to, chapter 12, I give the example, I say, “Any heresy can be made to sound biblical if you use biblical words, and it covers it up.” I give an example of an ad placed at Easter in newspapers across the country by the Mormon Church, and let me read it: “During the Easter season we again rejoice with all of Christendom, and gratefully commemorate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At this sacred season we solemnly testify that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. We know that He lives; we know that because He lives, we too shall live again. Now the reason I quoted that is because it sounds good, the words are certainly there, but what do the words mean? Well God, God, as you know, many of our listeners would know and some of them would not. The Mormon God is a man, has a physical body, he was a sinner on another planet redeemed by another Jesus. And he was not God from the beginning; he’s a man who became God. But the Bible says, “From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.” God is the eternal God; the Bible says, “The eternal God is thy refuge, underneath are the everlasting arms.” The Mormon god cannot be God, he’s not eternal, and He became God. The Bible clearly says, “God is not a man….” and so forth. So you can talk about God, you can use the words, and you don’t have God, the God of the Bible, so we have to have some understanding. In other words, it brings us back to what we were talking about so that we’re saying well, we need some doctrinal content, and so forth. We don’t just need words about God, but we must have words that convey the truth of who God is. Now Christ, the Christ Jesus in Mormonism, he’s not God, he’s the spirit brother of Lucifer, half brother of Lucifer, half brother to all of us in a preexistent state. He came to this earth to get a body in order to become a god. So again, we have a false Christ. Then it says, he’s the Savior and Redeemer of the world, but they have a different meaning for that. Salvation in Mormonism is exaltation to godhood, eternal life, the Bible says, is a gift of God. It comes through Christ paying the penalty on the cross for our sins, and putting our faith and trust in Him. But that’s not the Mormon savior, the Mormon redeemer. He makes it possible for us to earn our way to heaven. In fact, in Catholicism you have a different Christ, Christ is this little wafer. The Bible says that Christ was once offered. Peter, that they say was the first pope said, “Christ was once offered for sin.” Once, once, once in the end of the age, the writer of Hebrews said, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifices, by one sacrifice, He has perfected those forever those that are sanctified! But the Catholic Church says no, this little wafer is Jesus, and He is being offered again and again and again perpetually on our altars. The biblical Jesus was a mature man in His thirties, died on a cross for our sins, He’s in a resurrected, glorified body at the Father’s right hand, never to die again, the scripture says, but the Catholic Christ is dying perpetually. He’s not, well, I don’t know, He’s at the Father’s right hand, I’m sure they believe that, but at the same time He’s a wafer. Not only is He a wafer—
Tom:
He’s immolated on the altars being sacrificed. Immolated means to kill, so He’s being killed on the altar, that’s what the Catholic Church teaches, Christ is immolated on their altar. Anybody who wants to look that word up will see that it has to do with—
Dave:
That’s Vatican II, this is the catechism. But not only is He this little wafer, but He is simultaneously millions of wafers at one time.
Tom:
But Dave, let’s bring this back to worship here.
Dave:
Well, I can’t worship little wafers, that’s what I’m trying to say, Tom, and yet the pope will bow down before this wafer. You know, as a Catholic, they put it in the monstrance, and then it’s in a little tabernacle, it’s with a light read, and people come and they sit in the presence of Christ.
Tom:
It’s called the Eucharistic Hour, it has to do with, and some people prostrate themselves before this wafer.
Dave:
I remember a prayer by Mother Theresa, thanking Jesus for being willing to humble himself to become this little wafer. That’s idolatry, this is not—all it’s saying, Tom, is— look, if I’m going to know God, it has to be the true God. We talked last week, “You will seek for Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart,” not a false God. Well, where do I know about the true God, how do I know who He is? I’m going to go to His Word, where He has revealed himself, not to some church, not to some tradition, but I must go to His Word. And then we are talking about hymns, choruses, they must convey the truth of who this God is, and our worship must be of the true God, not of some symbol of God, and not with an erroneous idea of God, but I must know Him, and this should be the passion of my heart; that this God will reveal himself to me through His Word, and that I will get to know Him, and as I know Him, the awesome of who He is should cause me to bow before Him and worship Him. There is nothing else that could cause me to worship Him in spirit, Jesus says, in spirit and in truth. And very often people want sort of a spirit, the feelings, but that doesn’t work without the truth.
Tom:
Right, and the things that we are going to put together, I mean, God allows this. We have services; you can go to different churches and find different kinds of services, different kind of emphasis on this or on that, whatever it might be. But whatever it is, it has to be, if we are going to worship God in spirit and in truth, it has to be those things that point to the scriptures; point to God’s revelation of himself, because that’s the only way we are going to get to know Him better, grow in the faith, grow in our relationship with Him, and everything else is of man.
Dave:
And what we call the family altar, where the father, mother, with the children gather together, read God’s Word, talk to Him in prayer, or my own private prayers on my knees before the Lord, or when I’m driving in the car talking to the Lord. There has to be the truth in my conscience, in my heart the truth in my understanding of who He is. And the fear, that is, the reverent, awesome sense of the greatness of this God, is the beginning of wisdom, the scripture says; without that there can be no true worship.
Tom:
Dave, I’m quoting from your Chapter 12: “Only fear of the Lord will deliver us from the fear of man, from the deceit of our own hearts, and from the snare of unbiblical alliances.” Now, this fear of the Lord has to do with being in awe of God. I mean, there are so many verses, the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, the fear of the Lord is the fountain of life, better is little with the fear of the Lord and great treasure and trouble herewith. This is really what you’re talking about in this particular chapter.
Dave:
By the fear of the Lord, I believe it means recognition of how great God is. God is love, the Bible says. “God so loved the world he gave his only begotten Son.” I revel in God’s love. At the same time, when I think, I mean we don’t even know the vastness of this universe, we don’t know what energy is or gravity. We haven’t even found all the subatomic particles of the atom, and to think that God created it all out of nothing, He knows where every subatomic particle of every atom ever was or ever will be. He knows every thought that has ever been thought or ever will be thought by every human being whoever lived or ever will live. And He is eternal! That blows your mind. I often talk to the Lord about that, God how can I believe this? I know it’s true, it must be true. There couldn’t have been a time when there was nothing, and out of nothing came God, and then this universe. God has to be eternal, and this is how He reveals himself in the scriptures to Moses at the burning bush, I AM that I AM. Jesus said to the Jews, Before Abraham was, he didn’t say I was, before Abraham was I AM. He is the ever existent One. You think about that, Tom, it’s beyond me that God has no beginning, he’s always God, he always has been, always will be. He is so great, and we are such nothings, and yet we become proud. We gain some little recognition, a big fish in a little pond, a little puddle, and we think we’re something. And, as you quoted, when we have a sense of the awesomeness of God, and we truly fear Him, we don’t fear men. I will not fear what man can do unto me, what do the opinions of man matter, they will praise you today and curse you tomorrow. On the other hand, we must be sensitive to legitimate criticism. If someone can show us from the Word of God where we’ve gone astray, or in our lives pride, or deceit, or whatever it may be, then we must repent, we must be ready to accept valid criticism. On the other hand, we neither fear the criticism of men, nor love their praise, when we really know God, and fear Him. If God’s approval is upon us, then it doesn’t matter what men say.
Tom:
Dave, this fear of the Lord, I want to bring it back worship, because we’ve said a lot of things, I’m sure we have offended a lot of people, but our heart’s desire here is that we do things in a way that’s pleasing to God, and that’s only going to be by his Word. Proverbs 9:10, says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Now, we have to apply that to everything that we do, and especially when we gather together to worship Him. We’ve got to do it His way, in a way that glorifies Him, and encourages one and all who attend our services to grow in their relationship with Him. This has to be with this content with the things that He desires.
Dave:
And there has to be some understanding. I can’t just worship some higher power, but there must be understanding. If I don’t understand that God, I don’t know Him, how can I really worship Him, because the more I understand the more intimately I know Him, the more true will be my worship.
Tom:
Right. This is not going to be something just and stale, our emotions are going to be caught up in truth in our awe of Him.
Welcome to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call with Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael, thanks for tuning in. Coming up in this week’s broadcast in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, and “Why Did John the Baptist Doubt Jesus?” In Religion in the News: What They Didn’t Teach About Sex in Sunday School.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine yet another paradox in the Bible. We hope you can stay with us. 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 revisit to our 2000 radio series based on Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith. Today we focus on the question: “Can we receive honor from both man and God?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage all who desire 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. We’re going through Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, as a basic outline of biblical content we want to address, and also because of its thrust in exhorting believers to search the scriptures in order to grow in THE faith once and for all delivered unto the saints. Dave, in chapter 12, which you title, “Humility, Accountability, and Awe,” you begin by considering your own life in view of the “staggering reality of eternity” which will encompass you. Now you began your book with a challenge to all who haven’t been reconciled to God through Christ regarding where they will spend eternity. But in this chapter you seem to be challenging those who claim to have salvation in Christ. What’s your concern here for those who eternally secure?
Dave:
If you took a poll, and there are many polls that have been taken, say of college students at Christian universities, it’s shocking that their lives are just about the same as ungodly people at secular universities. Many Christians have the same standards, live for the same ambitions for this world that the ungodly all around them do, and that does not seem realistic if we really believe that this life is very short, eternity is forever, and it looms ahead of us. That we are accountable to God, we want to please Him, not men, and yet very often it seems that we’re performing in order to please others. Not that we should be disagreeable people, we should get along with everyone, you know, live peaceably with all men as much as within you makes that possible, the scripture says. But somehow, I think there’s an eternal perspective that is lacking in many of our lives. I see that myself and I continually remind myself of that and continually talk to the Lord about it. God help me to realize the reality of this universe, of who you are, and why you have created me. And Lord, over and over and over I say, Father, all I want is your will, what do you want from my life? Please protect me from my own folly. We’re such small creatures and we have such small minds, I’m speaking of myself now. One day when we see the Lord I’m sure it’s going to be a bit of a shock to realize how ignorant we were of His Word and of the real joy and the real purpose that we could have had. And how often we have missed the best that God has for us by our own small mindedness, and perspective that is turned to this earth rather than to eternity. That’s what concerns me a bit, for myself and for others.
Tom:
Dave, I’m sure many Bible believers know the verse, 2 Corinthians 5:10, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in His body according to that He has done, whether it be good or bad.” So, we will stand before the Lord, not for salvation, not with regard to salvation, but with regard to rewards and with regard to the things we’ve done, which, you know, many people say oh yeah, I want to please the Lord but I don’t know how seriously we take this verse.
Dave:
Well, I think of rewards, of course, it’s not that we want to accumulate some, I don’t know what it would be, crowns for ourselves, we want to please the Lord, we want to glorify Him, we want Him to be pleased with our lives because we love Him, because He first loved us. And yet, God writes in the Old Testament for his prophets, He says, “my people have forgotten me days without number.” I wonder how many of us go through our lives, we have our plans, our ambitions, and the desires, the hopes and dreams that we’ve set for ourselves, and we’re interacting with other human beings, and so forth. And I wonder how much time we give to the Lord, and how often we tell Him we love Him, and that we are looking forward to being with Him, longing for that, and that we recognize that we are in His hands. And this is His universe, this is His world, although Satan is the god of this world now, but God has created us for a purpose and if we miss the purpose for which he created us we’ve really missed everything, we’ve missed life as it ought to be. I see it in my own heart; I think there is so much forgetfulness of this. Yes, theoretically we believe, and theoretically we believe in God. How real is He in my life? That’s the challenge.
Tom:
Dave you make a number of, or bring about a number of thoughts that are very challenging. One that I alluded to earlier is that we forget that we are going to spend eternity either with God or without God, but we don’t like to think about that. We seem to be focused, even believers, not with regard to salvation but with regard to just spending our life with Jesus, but our focus seems to be on this temporary life.
Dave:
Well Tom, also it’s not just that, as I’ve been saying and you have just now reiterated, our focus on this temporary life. But after all, if you could know, let’s say, the most famous scientist in the world, the greatest astronaut in the world, or greatest athlete, or whatever, in the world’s eyes, the great personality, some wonderful person who is looked up to by so many others and who has accomplished so much, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be that person’s special friend, and know that they really love you and care for you, are concerned and want to share their life with you? That’s tremendous. Most people would think so; in fact we have name droppers. We like to let people know that I know so and so and so forth, and yet not many name droppers about God. We don’t go through life letting the world know that God is my friend, that I know Him, that Jesus Christ is my dearest companion, the lover of my soul. And so we miss out on really the blessings that we could have if Christ was more real to us. He’s come to live in our hearts if we are Christians. We don’t have to call God to come into our meetings, you know, as some people do: Holy Spirit come now, Jesus Christ be here. No, He has come to live in our hearts and He is, in fact, our life. Well then, let’s live as though that were true, let’s live by faith, the just shall live by faith, and let’s enjoy the wonder and the reality of what life could be with Christ as our friend, our companion, the one who guides and directs our lives and the one with whom we have constant fellowship and love and joy. That’s the Christian life. It’s not that we’re trying to live up to a certain standard, don’t do this and don’t do that, you’ve got to do this, and so forth. Jesus said, “Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your soul.” So the Christian life is not supposed to be a struggle and a burden, but it should be a joy. That doesn’t mean we won’t face trials, in fact we will face trials. “In this world you will have tribulation,” Jesus said, “but be of good cheer have overcome the world,” John 17. So, I think there’s an awful lot of joy that Christians are missing our on, plus the opportunities He gives us to be His witnesses. We’re supposed to be His witnesses wherever we go.
Tom:
But Dave, we opt for other things, This is, as I mentioned, you say a few startling things in this book, and not startling because you are trying to create controversy, but startling in its simplicity because they are shocking. For example, you talked about maybe having a friend who was something who was somebody who was highly thought of in the world, president or an athlete so something like that because they are honored, like we want to share in that honor. Here’s one of the things that you refer to the book. It has to do with honor, we want to have honor from God, but we want more to have honor from men. Why can’t we have both, that’s really the question?
Dave:
Are you asking me, I thought you were getting ready to make a closure here?
Tom:
No, it’s real simple, Dave. We love honor, just like we wanted to know a person who gets great honor, we want to share in that with them. But why can’t we not receive honor from men and from God?
Dave:
Well, Jesus said it impossible, John 5; in fact He said to the rabbis the Pharisees, “How can you believe (what He means is, how can you be men of faith) you who receive honor one of another and seek not the honor that comes from God alone.” If I want the honor of men and the honor of God, I’m not going to have it. You can’t serve both God and men because he would please men cannot be the servant of God. In other words, I can’t serve two masters, the scripture says. If, well, there are so many things Jesus said about it. He talked about the person who gives into the treasury what they are offering to God. It’s amazing, we haven’t seen anything quite like this but maybe in some ways it’s true. He has trumpeters going before as he brings his offering to the temple, so that everyone will know what a great offering he is giving. Well, we have something like that, you know, you get a plaque, get a room named after you in certain retreat centers. Well, we have ways of honoring one another, and Jesus says, they have their rewards, they got their reward from men, don’t expect a reward from God. Now if I am going to receive honor from God, I have to seek honor from God alone, because He’s not going to just join in with the crowd that’s honoring me. The honor that God gives is something entirely different, and it cannot be contaminated, diluted, perverted really with honor that men give us. And that’s very, very difficult for us to comprehend. Very difficult because we are proud people, that’s our besetting sin is pride, not humility, not low self esteem and bad self image. No, we can talk about that as a façade, as a cover for the real pride within. No, our problem is, we want honor from men, and then you can look at it another way as well. What about when people tell lies about you? What about when they cast you out of their society, Jesus said? Someone gives the illustration that somebody came up to this man and said “[Do] you know the horrible things they are telling about you?” And he said, “Why do you want to tell me, you want to see how high I can leap?” Because Jesus said, “blessed are you when men persecute you and speak all manner of evil against you falsely.” Make sure it is falsely, “rejoice exceeding glad, leap for joy,” He says, “for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you.” So, you can’t mix the two.
Tom:
But Dave, doesn’t in the Proverbs, don’t we find something about a good name, aren’t we supposed to live honorable among all men, and is there a difference the two here? Certainly it is not a contradiction.
Dave:
Well, Jesus says what they say against you falsely. And Peter in 1 Peter 4 says, If you suffer as a Christian, happy are you, but if you suffer for your faults, that’s no credit you. So a good name is rather to be chosen than—boy, I used to know the Proverbs by heart—it’s better than ointment poured forth, I know in one place it says this. So, a good name, but it doesn’t mean that men will necessarily give you the good name. They may hate you for Christ’s sake, but I think their thought is they cannot righteously criticize you, they can’t truthfully give you a bad name, and the good name that you want is before the Lord, not before men necessarily. But it is something that we should desire, that we would live uprightly. You know, there are so many scriptures about it, walk in purity and holiness toward those who are without, lest you bring a reproach upon Christ. If I’m a Christian, and people know it, then what I do is going to reflect upon my Lord. So that’s another reason why I don’t want there to be any stain on my character or my conduct that men can point to and then say well, look how this Christian lives. No, we don’t want that. On the other hand, we’re not doing what we do to seek honor from men, but to please our Lord.
Tom:
Dave, again, the title of this chapter is, “Humility, Accountability, and Awe.” Awe has to do with honoring God and worshipping God. One of the points that you are making in this chapter is that even through our church services we tend to do them by rote. We go through little rituals and doing things to, in a sense honor men and what we lose sight of God.
Dave:
Yeah, we do honor men a lot in our church services, I see it all the time, and it’s the person’s degrees or what they’ve done. When I’m introduced where I am speaking somewhere, they want to give a flowery introduction and I say please, don’t say anything, because we’re here to exalt the Lord. If the Lord isn’t here and if this is not His Word, what is the point? I could have 100 degrees or attainments or awards, honors for this world; it means absolutely nothing before God. So, yes we do, we hold…
Tom:
Dave, let me just interject this. It just hit me, I just remember, not too long ago Robert Schuller has Michael Gorbachev in his pulpit. Now here is an atheist. If this isn’t the epitome of what we are talking about in terms of dishonoring God by turning to men, I don’t know what is.
Dave:
Yeah, so someone who is famous in this world, yeah, we try to ride on their coat tails even for God, as though, Wow, if we could just get this person on God’s side, wouldn’t God have a great team now. Why you would have me call Gorbachev in a pulpit, a man who is an atheist, I don’t know. But of course the Pope calls him his dear friend; in fact the Pope says that Michael Gorbachev has spirituality. He calls him, what is the word? He calls him a Crypto-Christian. I don’t quite know what that means, and Gorbachev loves the Pope, they are real friends, and Gorbachev says that the wall could not have come down without the Pope’s efforts, and so forth. But talking about awe, you’re moving us onto that topic. Well, I just came back from Germany and Switzerland, and it’s a place where the Reformation began. Christians were burned at the stake for their faith, and so forth. And yet, some of us were talking about this, and pointing out a contrast between Catholics in a cathedral, where there is silence, where there seems to be reverence, and some of these dear women are walking on their knees around the remains of so-called saints. It’s not biblical, they are doing it in order to earn their salvation, and maybe it’s partly because of the stained glass windows and so forth. But we were contrasting the sense of reverence in Catholic churches with these Protestants. Lot of talking and chattering and it almost seems like the God that we believe in, He’s not very awesome, there’s not much respect for Him, [and] there is no fear of God before their eyes. It doesn’t mean we are terrified by God because we’re afraid He will judge us. It means we stand in His presence, in the presence of the Creator of the universe, who is so awesome, so beyond us, and yet you don’t get much sense of that in many of our churches. We give our testimony, God is on my side, I make a positive confession, I can get God to do this for me, and so forth. And it’s kind of a happy-go-lucky; let’s get with it now, rah, rah, rah. I don’t think you would do that in the presence of God. So, I’m speaking to my own heart, we need a sense of the greatness, the awesomeness of God as well as His love.
Tom:
Dave, we only have about a minute and a half, but this leads us up to worship. In your mind and in your heart, what does true worship consist of? We talked about the problems that are going on. I know we don’t have much time, maybe we will pick it up next week.
Dave:
Well, Tom, you know, I often say, Here’s a guy, the worship leader supposedly, and he’s got the guitar going, I love to worship you, I love to worship you, I love to worship you, and I’m sitting there thinking, Why don’t you worship Him? Worship is not words about worship. Worship would involve thoughts of the greatness of God, His love, His power, His mercy, His attributes, and that should be in the songs, the worship songs. And when I sing about the greatness of God, His love, and what He has done in Christ Jesus, then I am worshipping Him and I don’t even have to use the word worship, because worship is falling before this great God in awe, in solemn respect and wonder and appreciation, of who He is and what He has done.
Tom:
Dave, I know that those who are listening to this, I’m sure there is some conviction about this, I know I’m sitting right across the table from you and there’s some conviction in my heart.
Dave:
Well, there is conviction in mine as well.
Tom:
But this is what we want, and I think when we pick up with this next week we are going to talk more about worship. Some worship is very emotional; some of it is almost mystical, is that wrong, and to what degree? We’re going to get into these things next week.
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 join us. Coming up in this week’s program in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, and “Exactly who was John the Baptist?” In Religion in the News: “Spontaneous Prayer Could Be Unconstitutional.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “How do we pick program topics?” 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: Are the scriptures really sufficient? Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks, Gary. We’re utilizing Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith. Chapter 10 is titled, “The Sufficiency of Scripture,” and Dave, that reminds me of one of my favorite analogies of yours. You liken the evangelical church’s view of the Bible to a three-legged stool, one leg being its inerrancy, another leg being the view that it’s our authority, and the 3rd leg being its sufficiency. Your point as I understood it was that if any leg is weak or rejected, then the whole stool falls down. Well, sufficiency seems to be the weakest leg among today’s evangelicals.
Dave:
Tom, let me reword that slightly. I know what you’re saying, I wouldn’t call it the weakest leg and you don’t mean that. You mean as far as the church is concerned. None of the legs are weak, but let’s say it’s the one that the church neglects. Is it sufficient? Well—
Tom:
But again, sufficient in sense?
Dave:
That’s right, that’s what I was going to say.
Tom:
Okay, I can’t wait, I’m excited here, Dave.
Dave:
It is sufficient for the Christian life. In fact, Peter says in 2 Peter 1: “He has given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” So, the Bible claims to be sufficient for in fact, for the human life. I mean, we’ve been talking for some weeks about the just shall live by faith. That includes my whole life, the very life that I have comes from God. Christ is supposed to be my life, and now His Word is going to describe that life that I should live, and whatever befalls me in this life, the Word of God is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. What problems do you have? Are you upset about circumstances? Are you concerned about your safety? Are you fearful? Are you nervous, you can’t sleep at night? What is the problem? The Bible has the answer because Christ is sufficient for all things. The Bible says in Galatians 5— it doesn’t say the fruit of therapy— it says “…the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, temperance, meekness; against such there is no law.” What more could you want? This is our guide, this is our comfort, and this is all we need. Now one of Christ’s names is Counselor. His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor. Why don’t I go to Him instead of to some psychologist, whether he calls himself a Christian or not? The Bible is sufficient, this is the claim the Bible makes. Then let us take God at His Word. But the problem is a lot of people today say well I tried that—these are Christians now, at least professing Christians—well, I tried that, it just didn’t work. What they mean is that their life didn’t turn out quite like they wanted it to and we talked about that in our last program. Maybe there was a little discipline from God coming into their lives. Maybe He allowed some things to teach them a lesson, and instead of trusting Him and His Word, they ran off to a therapist.
Tom:
Or they just ran off; they just rebel against God.
Dave:
They could—then you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe in His love, you don’t believe in His Word, you don’t believe in what He has said. Now, as I go to the scriptures Tom, I see that the Bible is all about people who have problems. Job certainly had his problems, and I don’t read that any Christian psychologist came in and helped him. In fact, he had three counselors that didn’t do the greatest job. Or you could take Joseph—we’ve probably given this example before—his brethren hated him, his parents didn’t like his dreams, his brothers threw him in a pit, they were going to kill him.
Tom:
Dysfunctional family?
Dave:
Yes, sounds like it, and they sold him into Egypt where as a slave, where he was falsely accused of sexual immorality, ended up in jail. Here the guy is languishing and who is going to rescue him from this? And there were no psychologists from some nearby clinic that came in some Christian psychologist to hold his hand, build up his self-esteem, and so forth. He was trusting God. Or you can go to Hebrews 11, we mentioned that in the last program, look at the trials of these people, and they triumph through faith, faith in God, faith in His Word, faith in His promises, without any help from Freud, Jung, or Rogers. These guys have come along rather late in life, as far as the church is concerned, the church has been here for over 1900 year. I don’t read that Paul, or Timothy, or Spurgeon, or Luther, or Wesley, or Whitfield, or George Muller, or Hudson Taylor men of God.
Tom:
Weren’t these guys very impractical, weren’t they just kind of spiritual and never really got down to business with their lives?
Dave:
Well, I would say they really got down to business.
Tom:
They really did.
Dave:
Yes, George Müller—he fed, housed, and clothed thousands of orphans trusting God. I mean, he must have faced some real trials that would cause him to lack confidence in himself. In fact, he didn’t have confidence in himself, and Paul said he had no confidence in the flesh— our trust is in the Lord.
Tom:
Dave, as I remember the story about George Müller, I want to interject this. Someone came to him and said, George Müller—boy, you must be a man of great faith. He said no, I am a man of little faith, but it’s in a great God. He was a very pragmatic, very practical individual, but his whole life was committed to allowing God to work in his life and bring forth all the fruit that it did.
Dave:
George Müller by the way never sent out a prayer letter to tell anybody that he needed anything. He wanted his life to be a testimony that there is a God who hears and answers prayers. So he talked to God about his problems. There was one year there where China got some bad press, Hudson Taylor got some bad press, and his—the giving, that was supporting him and other missionaries in China dropped 50,000£, and that was a lot of money in those days, 50,000 British pounds. And what do you know, without George Muller knowing anything about this, God laid on his heart, God gave George Müller 50,000£ extra more than he needed to support the orphans, and told him to send it to Hudson Taylor which just exactly made up the deficit. This is how God guides if we will allow Him to. And He will do it in our lives and we have to be willing to trust Him. So, is the Bible sufficient? Well, it’s the Manufacturer’s Handbook. I think the Manufacturer, the God who created us, probably knows more about us than anyone. In fact, He knows us to perfection, completely, and this is our guide. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to my Word.” “The fruitful man…” in Psalm 1, “…in his law does he meditate day and night.” Jesus quotes in his temptation in the wilderness what God said to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 8: “A man doesn’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” That may be part of the problem Tom, if you haven’t read all of the Bible, if you don’t know it well and you haven’t studied it maybe you don’t think it’s efficient. But we don’t live by certain words of God, but by every Word.
Tom:
Yeah, but Dave, there are some things that distract us. Now look, I’ve known you for a long time, and there are a few phrases that I can throw out to you that I know are going to press your hot button. Now get ready for this one because it has to do with our subject. “All truth is God’s truth.” Now, this is worse than “God helps those who help themselves,” I think because it has most Christians, even though the survey that we talked about in our last week’s program, the survey said that some born again Christians bought into that as being part of the Bible. But this one, I would say if somebody did a survey on born again Christians, those who claim they really know the Lord, and they said is all truth God’s truth, is that found in the Bible? I’d say that would be up in the 80-90% mark. Well, what’s wrong with that, Dave?
Dave:
Well, Tom, we have to be careful in our approach to this because all truth is God’s truth if it’s God’s truth. The problem is that people have the wrong idea of truth. They think 2 x 2 = 4, is truth, they think E =MC is truth. They think as they stand before the judge and say “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me, God,” they think that’s truth. Now that is not truth. Jesus said I am the truth. So, the problem is they confuse facts of science, or events of this life with the truth. We’ve quoted a number of times, “You will know THE truth,” Jesus said, “…and THE truth will set you free.” Obviously that is not standing in front of a judge and saying as a witness, “I promise to tell the whole truth,” because that could send people to jail. When Jesus says in John 8:45, “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.” Well, put in there something that you think is the truth. Because I tell you that 2+2=4, you believe me not? No, the truth is something unique, it comes only from the Spirit of truth, it comes to those who know God through His Word by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So, when Jesus stands before—
Tom:
Which are not facts of science.
Dave:
Exactly, even if psychology—see, it’s the psychologists that uses this—even if psychology were scientific, which it is not, and you’ve probably done some programs that, it’s absolutely not scientific. We can give you lots of reasons for it, I mean, it doesn’t work, first of all, and they have hundreds of theories that contradicts one another. These are ideas—
Tom:
Well, the subject matter is not made for scientific scrutiny; I mean we are body, soul and spirit.
Dave:
Right, and you cannot make a science out of human behavior, otherwise we would be robots. Okay, so, even if it were a science, this is not THE truth, and this is why the Christian psychologists have really coined that phrase. They say all truth is God’s truth. What they mean by that is, we can take some of it from Freud, we can take some of it from Rogers, or Maslow, or well, why not take some from Buddha, from Confucius, all truth is God’s truth, let’s look for truth where we can find it. You know, I have often quoted—well, I won’t give the poem, but you know how it ends: “Who would leave the noon day bright to grope mid shadows dim, And who would leave the fountain head to drink the muddy stream, Where men have mixed what God has said with every dreamer’s dream.” Now the fountain head is the Word of God, and to say, Well, I can search through Freud and find something that maybe agrees with the Bible. No, no, let’s go to the Bible itself, okay? But let’s get back to truth, pardon me, Tom, for quoting.
Tom:
No, you’re on track here, Dave.
Dave:
Let’s get back to truth for a moment. He stands before Pilate, John 18, this is Jesus, and He says, everyone who is of THE truth hears my voice. Now, you can’t say every scientist, every archeologist, every biologist, you know, every mathematician hears my voice. That statement in itself rules all of these things out, everyone who is of THE truth. Well, if you were of THE truth you hear Christ’s voice, but we have scientists by the thousands, hundreds of thousands who are atheists, who never heard Christ’s voice, who rejects His voice, therefore, they cannot be of THE truth, they don’t know THE truth, okay. Well, let’s go to—
Tom:
Dave, could you just make a distinction here, because we have just established that scientific facts are not THE truth.
Dave:
They can be true, but they are not THE truth.
Tom:
But what I’m asking here is—give us a sense of the truth that you’re talking about, you are talking about moral truths, spiritual truths, give us some examples.
Dave:
Well, we’re talking about more than that I’m trying to get to it.
Tom:
Okay, I’m too impatient.
Dave:
We don’t rehearse this folks, obviously.
Tom:
No, but I’m really interested, I’m sure our listeners are as well.
Dave:
Go to John 14:17. Jesus says, I’m not going to leave you orphans comfortless, you know, I am going away, He says. I’m going to send the Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth. We talked about the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Truth and then Jesus says this, “Whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him now, neither knoweth Him.” Then you go to John 16:13 Jesus says, “When He, the Spirit of Truth has come, He will lead you into all truth.” Now, we have the Spirit of truth, who leads into all truth, therefore you cannot know the truth, the truth that Jesus is talking about, without the Spirit of Truth, and yet He says, “The world cannot receive Him, it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.” You can go to 1 Corinthians 2, where Paul is writing, and he says, “The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them.” And in chapter 1, he says, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God and the world does not know the things that are of God, you can only know them by the Spirit.” Okay, so now Jesus is talking about specific that is not of this world, it is not part of the wisdom of this world, it is not part of the science, or any of the facts of this world when He says, “You will know THE truth, and THE truth will set you free.” That’s not a mathematical formula, it’s not a scientific truth, it’s not a fact of some event that happened that you would swear to in court. THE truth then is of God. This is THE truth which Jesus said, I am. Now wait a minute, somebody is waiting for me, well now, let’s define it. I can’t define truth, but I know that truth comes only from God, it is THE Word of God, it is communicated only to those who know God, and is communicated by His Spirit, and THE truth sets us free. It’s not therapy, it’s not gritting my teeth, and so forth, The truth of God’s Word, which I live by, this is what I need, this is what I need to absorb into my heart and my mind, this is where I need to meditate upon God’s Word, God’s Truth, and this will change my life, and this will set me free from all the lies, all of the delusions, all of the false doctrines. You know there are so many people that can be deceived, even people who call themselves Christians. Why? Because they don’t know God’s Word. If they knew God’s Word, no matter what it is that comes up, some seductive teaching, a lot of them coming out of psychology, self-esteem. Your problem is, your self esteem is lacking, you need a more positive self-image and so forth. Well, if they knew Philippians 2:3, it says, “In lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself,” or Romans 12 warns us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think; nowhere does the Bible warn us not to think more lowly.
Tom:
As far as warning goes, we have 2 Timothy 3, “…that in the last days men will be lovers of themselves.” That’s a warning that runs contrary to, not only some of the teachings, but certainly the heart of Christian psychology for the most part is self and self-esteem, and so forth.
Dave:
Well, they’re telling us we have to learn to love ourselves. Let me quote Bruce Narramore for example, a nephew of Clyde Narramore, and these are not my words, and don’t anyone be angry with me, I’m sure Bruce would not be for quoting him, because he put this in writing and this is what he believes. He said it was humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers who first made us aware of the need of self-love and self-esteem. So it didn’t come out of the Bible, this is the wisdom of the world, these were humanistic psychologists who are not believers, in fact they’re anti God. Carl Rogers said, “God grows in you as you, you have to worship the throne of self.” So this is not a biblical idea, this is contrary to the Word of God. So all I’m saying is the Word of God is sufficient, the Word of God is our guide, if we know God’s Word. Immediately if somebody says oh you need to love yourself, you need to esteem yourself—no, and I know that that’s contrary to the Word of God. Someone says what you need is a positive image. Wait a minute! I know that the Bible says man was made in the image of God. What do I think of when I think of an image? Well, you think of the mirror. A mirror has one purpose only to reflect an image other than its own. What would you think of a mirror that tries to develop a good self image? It doesn’t fit; the whole idea of a self image is wrong according to the Bible. I am to reflect His glory, His image. We talked about it in the last program. Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, not myself. And John the Baptist said, He must increase, I must decrease. I like the way, and I don’t like everything that C. S. Lewis said because I think later in life, I mean he seems to believe in evolution at times.
Tom:
And a low view of the Old Testament.
Dave:
I think he gets almost tied up in nature worship, and so forth, but he also said some good things. He said this, he said, “We are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright at all, depends entirely upon the Son that shines upon us.” So we are to reflect the glory of God, and to try to find a good self image goes absolutely contrary to the whole Word of God. If you know the Word of God, you would know that immediately.
Tom:
Right, so again Dave, the sufficiency of scripture, if we know God’s Word, if we’re trusting in God’s Word, you quoted earlier, 2 Peter 1:3 & 4: “According to His divine power, has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises;”
Dave:
“That by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” This is the truth that sets you free from the crutch.
Tom:
Right 2 John, I mean there are so any verses in here. You have one book of the Bible that just pound for pound it has more to say about truth than in any book. But in it, in verse 9 I’m looking at it says, “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.” The doctrine of Christ, those are the teachings that Jesus gives us throughout His Word.
Dave:
People don’t want doctrine today, I mean a lot of them don’t, it’s so boring. Truth is contained in doctrine, this is the framework of truth, this is God’s Word, this is what we need, is to know Him and to know His Word, and this will set us free.
Welcome to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call with Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael, we’re glad you could tune in. Coming up in this week’s broadcast in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, and “Will we ever see God?” In Religion in the News: “Helping those who help themselves.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Should we worship the Holy Spirit?” We hope you can stay with us. 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: “Is it possible to live like a Christian?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks, Gary, You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage all who desire 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. As you know, Dave, last week we discussed some material from Chapter 9 of your book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and that book, I believe, is one of your best. What I particularly like about it is its exhortation to believers to search the scriptures in order to grow in THE faith once and for all delivered unto the saints. We’ve covered some very positive aspects of the Christian life, including the fruit of the spirit, found in Galatians 5:22, 23, that’s love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. However, there’s another aspect of the Christian life which you don’t find heavily promoted today. And Dave, I want to quote from your book, because this underscores it. You say, “The Christian life is too glorious to be easy, it must—and that’s italicized—it must involve trials and testings. Now why is that?
Dave:
Well, I suppose you don’t send a soldier off to battle until you’ve checked him out. You have to go through basic training and some obstacle courses, some conditioning, make sure that he is fit for the battle, and I think we’re in a battle.
Tom:
What battle? Now, that’s a tough idea today where we certainly tend to move away from things that are militant in any way, especially Christianity.
Dave:
Paul says to Timothy that he’s supposed to be a good soldier to Jesus Christ, in fact he says; endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. We are to fight, he tells Timothy; fight the good fight of faith. There is a battle; I see it with young people today in particular. When they get in school, high school, college, there’s a battle to remain faithful to the Lord. They are tempted all around them, not only by immorality, but by criticism for their so-called life style, you know, wanting to be part of the gang, or for even believing in Jesus, the Bible isn’t true, and so forth, so there are trials that come in our lives. Paul said to Timothy again, 2 Timothy 3: All they that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. We talked a little bit about that you know, why don’t we suffer some persecution? When difficulties come, I don’t think it’s realistic to imagine that I am supposed to float to heaven on a pink cloud of glory singing praise the Lord. We’re to praise the Lord, but we lost, a year and a half ago, our youngest grandson. Why did it happen? I just talked with a woman day before yesterday, not only was she raped, her daughter was raped. I talked to another person who came up for some counsel and the man was going into the hospital yesterday for an operation, another man his daughter, 29 years old, two little children dying of cancer. When these trials come, somebody else came up to ask me why is there evil in this world, why does God allow all this suffering, and so forth? So, there are trials that we face, and how am I going to face these?
Tom:
Dave, let me back up just a little bit. So when you started talking about fight the good fight and battles here and there, we’re really not talking about the Crusades, or pushing Christianity on anybody for their own particular reason.
Dave:
No, no.
Tom:
But it really has to do, it’s the battle to please the Lord, to do things that He would have us do, and the opposition to that, either personally in our own lives, or in the lives of situations. In addition, and I think where you’re taking us here is, sin has affected the entire universe, not just people but circumstances. We have floods, natural disasters and so on, that have been created. God is going to be with us through these things, and we’re still to please Him anyway, that’s the battle we’re talking about, isn’t it?
Dave:
Yes, Peter writes and he says your advisory the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We have a real enemy. We are to be representatives of God, of Jesus Christ. We’re to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we’re called, Paul writes again to the Ephesians. Christ says follow Me, and don’t hide your light under a bushel, you know. And we are to represent Him; we are to reflect the life of Christ within us. Now, there will be much opposition to this from our own flesh, from friends, neighbors, let alone enemies, from the world all about us, from Satan himself to try to destroy our testimony. You know, an awful lot of people say yeah sure, I know these Christians, I mean, they go to church on Sunday and they sing these holy hymns and pray these holy prayers, but you try to do business with them on Monday, they are such hypocrites. I was talking to a man yesterday on the airplane concerned about hypocrisy. Well. am I going to be a hypocrite, am I going to succumb to the temptation to take the easy way out, or am I going to stand true to the Lord? So, this is the Christian life, and as we said I think, last program, we can’t do it. I can’t live the Christian life, only Christ can live the Christian life. So, I am supposed to reflect Christ. I remember the old hymn we used to sing many years ago: “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, All His wondrous compassion and purity. Oh, my Savior divine…”—I guess if I sang it I could remember the words, but it’s been years. But you know, let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, and that’s not easy for husbands and wives with one another to let the beauty of Jesus be seen in them; for parents to their children, and children to their parents, and brothers and sisters to one another. But we are new creatures, new creations in Christ. Christ has become our life. So, it doesn’t happen automatically, I’m not a robot now. We talked about that in last program, the just live by faith. I’m going to have to trust the Lord to do this, and the Christian life is going to be miraculous, it has to be miraculous.
Tom:
Dave, I want to go over some of the scriptures, because again, this is a difficult thing even for some Christians that say well why am I suffering? Why has God abandoned me, or has he abandoned me? Why am I going through this? We ask those questions all the time, so let’s look at some of the scriptures. In John 16:33 it says: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” This is Jesus speaking, and He’s telling us, that yes, we are going to go through some things, but good cheer. How can we have good cheer when we’re in the swamp with alligators all around and so on?
Dave:
Well, the Bible is all about that. Paul again wrote in 2 Corinthians 4, he said, “Our light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. While we look not at the things that are seen, for the things that are seen are temporal, but we look at the things that are not seen, because they are eternal.” Or you could go to Hebrews 12- it says of Christ: “Who for the joy set before him endured the cross.” After pain—they even say in the athletic world, “No pain no gain.” If you’re going to strengthen yourselves, you’re going to have some muscles that are going to be sore, and so forth. Well, how much more true would that be of the battle of faith, fight the good fight of faith? So, we’re looking forward in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” If that’s it, forget it, eat, drink and be merry. Just push everybody out of your way, get all you can, and assert yourself. But, if what matters, in fact, all that matters is what God has to say about you in the final analysis, and He’s going to say well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord. And we keep in mind even what the psalmist said, “In thy presence is fullness of joy and at thy right hand our pleasures forevermore.” We’re looking forward to an eternal reward with our Lord. I mean, you can suffer a lot for that, I would think.
Tom:
Yeah. The wonderful thing about Christianity, Jesus is with us, in the midst of our circumstances no matter what they are. So we can have, in a sense, a taste of heaven right there in that situation and circumstance, and that’s a great encouragement to our faith.
Dave:
Amen. I remember a dear bother who was in prison being tortured who said, Sometimes the presence of Christ was so wonderful that he just sang for joy, shouted for joy, that beyond the pain of the torture that he had endured. Now we have to be careful also, when it comes to suffering because sometimes we can suffer for our bad nature.
Tom:
And we can bring it on ourselves.
Dave:
Bring it on ourselves, we’re just hard to get along with, or are self willed, or whatever or we don’t do a good job at the job. And Peter writes about that 1 Peter 4, he says, “If you suffer as an evil doer, you can’t take credit for that, you’ve brought that upon yourselves and you deserve that suffering.” But he says, “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him rejoice.” And Jesus said, “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all manner of evil against you for My sake, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven.” So, I have to be certain I’m really suffering for the Lord. I’m not giving the Lord a bad name, and suffering because I’m just a disagreeable character, or I’m pushing my religion on people on the job, when I ought to be doing the job that I’m being paid for. I have to be very careful that it’s the gentleness and kindness and love of Christ that is being seen in me, and then if I am true to Him, and they hate me, or I face difficulties because of that, then I can rejoice because the Lord is with me in this.
Tom:
Dave, let me take you to another kind of suffering. There are many saints, and I’m not talking about the Catholic saints, I’m talking about brothers and sisters in Christ who really know Christ.
Dave:
We need to quickly explain, Catholic saints are in heaven, they get voted in, which is not biblical—
Tom:
By the whole process of canonization—
Dave:
Right, the Bible is written to saints, the saints of Ephesus, and so forth, but we are called to be saints, we’re supposed to be saints.
Tom:
There are suffering saints, in a sense, on this earth who have diseases, maybe Parkinson’s or bone diseases, or whatever it might be, how is that different? How do you suffer through something like that for Christ?
Dave:
I have a dear friend, who has been a wheelchair for the last 40 years, and he’s a preacher, he was supposed to have died long ago from the disease he has, and yet he’s, I think, about 80 now. The Lord has kept him preaching in a wheelchair, lot of trials for his wife taking care of him in this situation. And yet she has had Bible studies, and children’s work and people in their home, entertaining them, feeding them, sleeping them, and blessing them, and these people are just joyful and cheerful in the Lord because the Lord has given them the opportunity to serve Him and be a testimony for Him, even in this situation. So, that’s how we rejoice, because Christ is with us. Paul says, “In everything rejoice.” Now I don’t think he ever says for everything rejoice. I don’t give thanks for everything, for everything give thanks, I don’t think so, maybe I’m wrong, but at least in every circumstance I can thank the Lord that He has allowed this. I must be in His will, and I think in that Chapter 9, that we quote William Law, something to the effect that if you complain, let’s say you are a real Christian, and you’re complaining about your circumstances, you are either saying that God who allowed it isn’t loving, or you are acknowledging that you are out of God’s will, one or the other. Now if I am in God’s will, and He has allowed this, no matter what it is, then I can trust Him. And it goes so far, the Bible asks us to go so far as Job went. Job said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” That’s not easy to do, and I think that the Bible would indicate that Job came out of his trials a better person. That’s a wrong terminology, the world uses that, what do we mean by a better person? He came out of it as one—well, he said it, he said, “I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, now mine eyes seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” So a better person is a person who realizes he is nothing. God is so great, and when I glorify Him, and come, even as I say these words, I know that the Lord can call upon me to prove it in my life, what circumstances lay ahead for me? And am I going to thank the Lord, and praise Him no matter what it is? And Job said, through the trial, he said, God, I have come to know you, I have come to see you in a way I never did before, and trust in you. This is really what we want.
Tom:
This is the heart of, not just Christianity, this is the heart of life, and this is why we have been created, to know Him and to know Him better. But the battle here [is that] in many parts of the church, people are being taught the opposite.
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
That if you go through trials and tribulations, it’s not just because of sin but it’s because of the lack of faith. Here’s a battle, and even if we didn’t have those teachings, our flesh would cry out along that line.
Dave:
We have so many therapists out there, this is the big thing, and you’re not supposed to suffer. And when I think of, I read Hebrews 11, I read of the suffering of these people. They were torn asunder, they were sawed asunder with the sword, they were thrown to lions, you know, they wandered in sheep skins and goat skins and they were desolate, tormented, afflicted and dwelt in dens and caves of the earth, and they triumphed through faith. When we get some little, somebody crosses us, or we don’t feel enough self-esteem, which we shouldn’t have any anyway, we are to esteem others better than ourselves. But anyway, such petty little problems that we run to, I say we, I don’t, but the church does, many of them, and they are taught to run to the therapist. The therapist will massage your ego, massage you around and help you feel good about yourself, let you know that it wasn’t your fault, it was your parent’s fault, or something that happened to you in your childhood and you’re not really responsible for this. The whole idea is to bring you through without any pain and help you to think positively, that’s not faith, that’s not trust in the Lord, think positively about it. No, if you bring someone through without enduring the pain that the Lord wants us to endure, does that sound like heresy? No, for our good, it was for Job’s good, it wasn’t because God didn’t love Job, it was for his good, and Job could say that he now knew the Lord that he never would have otherwise, to trust God in difficult circumstances, and then to see Him bring you through. See, David didn’t say, I think we deal with that a little bit in the chapter as well. David didn’t say that you will lead me around the valley of the shadow of death. You will give me a detour, Lord, and help me to escape it. David said in Psalm 23, yea, though I walk THROUGH, THROUGH the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me. Wow, that’s wonderful!
Tom:
Dave, let me take that a little bit further. “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Wait a minute, a rod and a staff brings comfort? Wow!
Dave:
Tom, I don’t know whether we’re comforting anyone out there, and some of them are probably turned this off, we want to get a positive channel or a positive station.
Tom:
Dave, you know this, and I know you are kind of leading us on here, but this is God’s comfort. When God says He’s going to do anything, particularly—well, you just quoted Job: Thought He slay me! If God had a purpose for that it would bring glory to Him and would be to our blessing and our benefit, even though it’s hard to recognize it. But what about this, “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me?”
Dave:
Well, the rod and staff, I’m not a shepherd, I never was, and I haven’t seen many shepherds in action. They usually use dogs now, I mean; I’ve seen a lot of them in New Zealand for example. But the old time shepherds had a crook, they would pull the sheep this way and I think it’s saying that God has to maybe change the direction that we are heading. He has to maybe give us a little whack, it’s going to be a gentle one of love, but it may seem hard to us. I sometimes illustrate it like this, Tom. You’ve got a little baby, say a year old in its crib, and somehow someone left a double edged razor blade on a table nearby. It reaches out and it grabs it, and it’s just about to put it in his mouth when mommy grabs its wrist, takes its hand and takes it away. The baby is now screaming, it thinks it’s lost the greatest possession, the greatest toy that you could have. No, Father God knows best. It may seem painful to me, it may seem He’s depriving me. But when I can trust myself in His hands and get to know Him—now this is not fatalism. Paul says it well, in Romans 8, “all things work together for good…”—oops, that’s not what it says, but some people quote it that way, fatalistically, all things work together for good. No, he said, all things work together for good to those who love God. Do you still love God in these circumstances? “To those who love God, who are the called according to his purpose.” So if we really know Him, if we have believed in Christ as our Savior, the one who died for our sins, He’s living his life in us and we love the Lord, even in this circumstance, then He will make it work altogether for our good, and you can praise the Lord for that.
Tom:
Amen.
