cover article
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 tuning in. 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, with verses from the book of John. In “Religion in the News,” “The Pope Blows an Exorcism”. We’ll take a look at that story, and examine the question: “Are Your Kids Lost in a Prayer Labyrinth?” 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 living a good Christian life save you? Along with Dave Hunt, here is Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks, Gary. Dave, last week we started discussing Chapter 9, “What is the Christian life?” which you begin by quoting Habakkuk 2:4, “The just shall live by faith.” Now that statement is repeated in the New Testament three more times in the epistles to the Romans, the Galatians and to the Hebrews. It would seem therefore that this is quite important for us to understand. So can you give us a brief review of what “the just shall live by faith” means?
Dave:
Well, I guess if you take it in the order that it comes—the just—who are the just? Well, the Bible says there is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. So we’re going to have to be justified, being justified freely by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the Bible says, whom He hath set forth to be a propitiation for our sins. So we receive this new life by faith. So now we continue to live the Christian life by the same faith. I like the way Paul puts it in Colossians 2, “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.” Well, how did I receive Him? Well, I came as a helpless, hopeless sinner, wretched, on my way to an eternal hell, separated from God forever by my sin and by my rebellion and I could not do anything to save myself, and He saved me. I just believe in Him and trust in Him. Well then that’s the way I live the Christian life, as a helpless, hopeless, person, I can’t do anything; He has to do it through me. So the just shall live by faith.
Tom:
And He does do it through us, He give us his Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, which we mentioned last week, and that enables us to live a life that’s pleasing to God.
Dave:
Well, we’ve said it many times, and other people have said it as well. The Christian life isn’t difficult, it’s impossible! No one ever lived the Christian life but Christ. Now if I am going to try to imitate Christ in my strength, in my flesh, I am going to try to live up to His standards—Some people think that. Well Buddha set high standards and Confucius set high standards, they couldn’t live up to it, but Jesus set the highest standards. Now we’re going to try to live up to His standards. Well, we would fall even farther short of Christ’s standards than we would a Buddhist or anyone else’s. In fact, sin is defined in the Bible as coming short of the glory of God. Man was made in the image of God, and we have warped and defiled and deformed that image. We have come far short of what God intended for us to be, His glory to be manifest in us as human beings. So, if that is to be restored, then Christ is going to have to do it. That’s, in fact, why He became a man. God became a man, God and man have met together in the person of Jesus Christ, and now He is the perfect man, everything that God wanted a man to be, and His Spirit comes to live within us. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, in Him dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him, Paul says in Ephesians 1. So, Christ, living in us, living in the Christian—see, a Buddhist doesn’t have that, a Muslim doesn’t have that, no one has that promise that God himself has come as a man and that He will live his life through those who put their faith in Him. So, this is wonderful, it’s fantastic, but many Christians don’t realize this, and they are struggling in their own flesh, somehow to live up to a standard that they could never meet, instead of allowing Christ to live His life through them.
Tom:
Dave, I think we find an illustration of this, which I think is a terrific metaphor for what we are talking about, Jesus walked on the water. This was, I think, an analogy for the miraculous Christian life. But somebody else did, that was Peter, and as he stepped out of the boat, walked on the water toward Jesus at Christ’s command, he began to sink. I think the reason he began to sink was he took his eyes off the Lord and began to look at his circumstances and surroundings.
Dave:
Well, and thought that somehow he was the guy who was walking on water, and it was some trick that he had learned, or whatever. And as soon as he looked at the wind the waves and realized, wait a minute, what am I doing walking on water, he began to sink.
Tom:
And I think that’s a good illustration, a good metaphor because that’s what we do a lot. Again, going back to Paul to the Galatians, “O, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?” We began in the spirit, we began trusting Christ. Sometimes I think, as a young Christian—
Dave:
Let’s take a minute for that, Tom. We began in the spirit, what does that mean? Well, God did something miraculous, it’s called, the new birth. This is not some idea that some fundamentalist group came up with, “you must be born again” that’s what Jesus said to Nicodemus, who was a very religious leader of the Jews, You must be born again. Now I can’t “born again myself, you know, born again means, not as a human being over again, as Nicodemus said, “Well, how can a man who is old enter his mother’s womb again and be born?” No, no, Jesus says, you’re going to be born into the family of God; you become a child of God. We are all the children of God, Paul writes to the Galatians, through faith in Christ Jesus. That’s how we become children of God. Until that time, Jesus said, you are of your father the devil, and his works you do. So, this, beginning in the Spirit, it is something that the Spirit of God did for us in our hearts. I can remember 63 years ago when it happened to me, believe it or not, I can remember that long ago, something happened. I was born again, a changed person, and I was a babe in Christ, and I wasn’t mature, I did not know everything, and so forth, but something happened. It is a miracle of God, and the Christian life is miraculous! It has to be because we can’t do it, only God can do it. And so instead of struggling ourselves, let’s allow Christ to live through us. And if we say, Lord, I can’t do it, but I’m willing, would You do it through me? Amazing, what He can do.
Tom:
Now Dave, some people may be listening to this saying, I like what he is saying, but I’m fearful of it because—I’m talking about Christians as well—I like what he is saying but how do I do this practically? Isn’t there a practical side where I just keep waiting to hear, or being moved spiritually, how does that work?
Dave:
Well, let’s say that, here’s a person who has a temper, and he’s always blowing up at his wife. Now you’ve got two choices. Well, I can go to my psychologist, and I can learn some anger control, techniques, and by the way, I remember the article, you probably saw that it of this man who taught anger control seminars and he blew up and killed somebody. I can learn to count to 10, or whatever, or I can say—
Tom:
Need a ventilation therapy, punch a bag.
Dave:
Yeah, work out your frustrations, and so forth ahead of time. Or I can say, Lord, I’m not going to reform, I’m not going to change who I am, I can’t do that. But Lord, I’m trusting You; You have come to live in me. The scripture said, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, it’s no longer I but Christ.” Lord Jesus, I believe that, I know that you’ve come to live in my heart; I want to see this lived out in my life. I’m not going to try to change myself, I can’t do it. I’ve turned over so many new leaves; Lord I’m willing for you to do it.
Tom:
So his heart is there, he desires, he wants to change.
Dave:
Right. Would you, please, begin to manifest your life through me, Lord? And you would be amazed what He can do.
Tom:
The just shall live by faith, he’s taking a step of faith. I think that’s the thing that scares people, although the example that you gave, Dave, it’s a practical, reasonable example, people could apply that. But it has to be by faith, trusting that God will do what He says He will do. Again, we may stumble, we may fall, we may fall back here and there, but God is faithful, I mean, He will stand by what He says.
Dave:
Well, this is the promise of the Christian life, and this is what the Christian life is, and it is totally different that anything that Freud, or Jung, or Rogers offered, from anything from Mohammed, or Buddha or Confucius offered. This is the promise of Christ, He said because I live, you will live also, and He promised to give us a new life, resurrection life. Resurrection life of course is only for dead people. You have to be dead to qualify for it, and we are dead in sins, we are dead unto God, but you who are dead in sins, He has made alive. But it’s not something that happens apart from my faith and trust, it’s not something that just overwhelms me, and now I become a robot or something. No, it requires cooperation, requires trust and willingness on my part, and if I am willing I can say, Lord Jesus, please, I want this life, would you please live your life through me? Do it, Lord, I can’t do it, and He will do it.
Tom:
Yeah, and Dave, I think the reinforcement; the encouragement to this is getting into God’s Word. If the Christian life really is pleasing God, you have to know what pleases Him. I’m not talking about rules and regulations and laws and all of these things, but you find throughout God’s Word things that He wants us to do. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. Now He wasn’t talking about the Ten Commandments per say, He was talking about everything that He wanted us to have. Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. So, how do we find these things? We don’t make them up on our own, we look to God’s Word, and that’s a continual encouragement to know Him and to know what He desires, what pleases Him, and also to know what He will do in our lives to transform our lives.
Dave:
Amen. So let’s put those things together. The just shall live by faith, and then the Word that you’ve been talking about. Well, that’s what God said to His people in Deuteronomy 8, and that is the verse that Christ quoted to Satan in His temptation in the wilderness: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God shall man live.” Jesus said in John 6: “I am the bread of God that came down from heaven; whosoever eateth of this bread shall live forever.” Now He’s not talking about something physical, He’s obviously talking about this spiritual life that comes by faith. So, eating Christ means believing in Him, and trusting Him, and as you said well, how do we know Christ? We’re going to try to do some research and go back and try to dig up some ancient books? Well, we have His Word, Jesus is called, the living Word, “In the beginning was the Word….” He is the one, He is the Word, and He is the truth. So, we begin to read His Word, we feed on His Word. We allow His Word to begin to transform us. It’s not going to happen instantly, there is an instant transformation in our hearts when we come to Christ, but now Peter of course, says as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby. Now, if you have a baby, and you’re not feeding it anything, it’s not nursing, it’s not getting its mother’s milk, then that baby is not going to grow, obviously. And yet we have Christians who think that they can grow without feeding upon the milk of the Word of God. And then there is strong meat in the Word, too, as we mature, and they’re trying instead therapy, or some psychologist or all kinds of books out there, with techniques, if you follow these principles you can get in control of your life, you can control your anger, you can become more loving or whatever. No, no, this comes through the Word of God, comes through Christ living in us.
Tom:
Yeah, or they are not eating on their own, they’re being spoon fed by somebody and their faith becomes misplaced, it’s in that person or that individual said or this celebrity, or whatever it might be.
Dave:
They are failing to search the scriptures daily, as the Bereans did, to check everybody out.
Tom:
Well, you don’t have a discipline of eating the meals that is—going to God’s Word, taking this bread, devouring it themselves.
Dave:
So, instead of—well, it’s like processed food today, junk food we call it, that’s one of the problems in America, why we have so many, part of why—well, we won’t get into that, but so many people who are flabby, lack of exercise for one thing, we need to exercise our faith as well. But all of the vitamins have been taken out, you know, and it’s processed, and it tastes good, but it won’t sustain life very well, certainly not healthful life, healthy life, and that’s what most people are feeding on. Well, I think we could say most, much if not most of the time they are getting something that’s been watered down, that’s been made palatable, that tastes good. It’s not the sharp edge of God’s Word; it’s not the power—
Tom:
Doesn’t bring conviction.
Dave:
No, it’s not the power that there is in the Word of God, but someone now has sort of refined it and taken the bran out, made it taste a little better, made it more appealing. No, we have to get back, and I’m not criticizing that, I write books myself, but we need to get back to the Word of God, and see what God himself has said, and let God speak to us through His Word. So every book that some Christian author writes shouldn’t stand on its own, it should be based upon the Word of God, and it should point people back to the Word of God.
Tom:
Right. Dave, what’s available in the Christian life it’s called, the fruit of the Spirit. Some people, when they consider those things, and what’s not to consider that you wouldn’t be excited about, love and joy and peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. These are wonderful thing, but some people don’t view them as fruit, in which you have to—they are seeds, they grow, they develop in your life, they see it as kind of gifts, that, oh well, I’ve got that, I ought to be having this. Like a farmer who wants a great crop but doesn’t do anything to help produce that crop.
Dave:
Tom, we’ve known one another for many years, and you probably remember some of my old illustrations that I haven’t used for many years, but you just brought one to my mind here. [We’re] talking about fruit now. It’s not the fruit of therapy; it’s the fruit of the Spirit. I remember using—I used to use the illustration: here’s a crab apple tree, and it wants to become a Golden Delicious apple tree, the Cadillac of the apples, at least I think so anyway, and so what does it do? Well, it tries to strike the stance of the Golden Delicious apple tree, tries to look like one, it buys some Golden Delicious apples and has them pinned on its branches, you know, and so forth. No, it won’t work; you have to change the root to change the fruit. Now, if we know Christ, we’ve opened our hearts to Him, we’ve believed the gospel, the root has been changed, we have a new root, and Jesus calls himself the true vine, we are branches. But now, it’s not by works, living the Christian life is no more by works than being saved was by works. Now I must rely upon Christ, His life to flow through me, that’s how fruit is produced. A grape vine, or an apple tree, whatever it is, can worry and try somehow to produce fruit. It can’t do it; this is some thing that God has to do. God has built this in, of course, and He has built it into us, if we will allow that fruit to be born. And it’s exciting, it’s wonderful, it’s thrilling what God can do.
Tom:
Right, again, the fruit of the Spirit—if I were a psychotherapist out there and I had my shingle out on my door, if I could put these things on my shingle: love, joy, peace, just those three, I’d be the wealthiest individual in the world because this is what everybody wants, but that’s not the way to go about it. It comes from a life that is based upon those who have been justified by Christ and live by faith.
Dave:
It’s miraculous, Tom, we cannot escape it, the Christian life. You have theologians; you have seminaries where they try to deny the miracles that Jesus did, even denying that He was literally raised from the dead. Christianity not only is miraculous, it must be miraculous, it has to be miraculous, [and] there must be miracles involved. Now when you talk like that people think, oh well, I’m going to go to a miracle service, some healing or whatever. We’re talking about something even more wonderful, and that is the miracle that God can do in our hearts, in our lives, in our spirits in transforming an angry, frustrated, selfish person into someone who no longer thinks of themselves, who has taken up the cross, is willing to die with Christ, has died with Christ, and has a new joy, a new outlook on life, a new generosity, a new kindness and compassion and love. This is the life of Christ himself; it’s not what we can do but what He can do for us.
Tom:
Dave, we’re out of time for this segment, but next week we can talk about the other side of the Christian life. You make a statement in your book, “The Christian life is too glorious to be easy, it must involve trials and testing.” That’s what we are going to go over next week.
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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 tune in. 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, “Should the Serpent Be Cursed or Worshiped?” In Religion in the News: “Crossing Over with John Edwards.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Did Jesus Arise on the Eighth Day?” 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, Is Bible Prophecy Accurate? Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:
Tom:
Thanks Gary. In our ongoing discussion of Dave Hunt’s book An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, we’ve been addressing just what the title states: a serious faith. And serious faith has content; it is neither wishful thinking nor a baseless hope, but rather a trust that is formed because of factual evidence, because of solid reasons that would motivate us to regard the object of our faith as trustworthy. And of course serious faith can only be placed in God who alone is completely trustworthy. So how do we go about attaining a serious faith in God? Well the way we highly recommend is to go straight to the Bible which is unequivocal in claiming that it is the written Word of God and examine it to see if its claims hold up. The Bible declares itself to be God’s specific revelation to mankind about himself, about His creation, about how things began, where they are going—things we couldn’t figure out without His insights. In previous programs we’ve discussed how the Bible is and must be absolutely accurate in all that it addresses and we gave examples with regard to history, archeology, and to other areas. If the Bible is truly the word of the all-knowing, all powerful Creator, then you would have every right to expect that the Bible reflect God’s supernatural qualities and perfect accuracy is just one of them. However no supernatural aspect of the Bible is more obvious than fulfilled prophecy which is the primary subject for this program. Dave, I want to start off with some verse from the prophet Isaiah. These verses make it as clear as it can be that God is using prophecy to demonstrate that He alone is God. So jump in when you feel you want to make a comment on this. Isaiah 41 starting with verse 22: “Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen: let them shew the former things what they be, that we may consider them, and know the latter end of them; for declare us things for to come. 23) Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods….”
Dave:
Yes, well God is saying that if you believe in a lot of gods, you know you’ve got some gods—well let’s have them tell us what’s going to happen before it happens. In Isaiah 48 for example, verse 5, flip over there real fast. He says, “I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass I shewed it thee: lest thou shouldest say, Mine idol hath done them, and my graven image, and my molten image, hath commanded them.” God says look I told you what’s going to happen, I’m not going to let you give credit to your phony gods, your graven images and so forth, and I am telling you what’s going to happen before it happens. In the very next chapter there Tom—and this is so powerful, so tremendous because prophecy is unique to the Bible. It’s not in the Bhagavad-Gita, the Qur’an—Joseph Smith did a little prophesying and missed every time; Benny Hinn has tried it and (sorry, I don’t want to offend any of his followers out there) but we can document you false prophecy after false prophecy after false prophecy by Benny Hinn. For example he said that the homosexual community—that God would destroy it by fire by ’93 or ’94 at the latest. Benny said there wouldn’t be a place in America in the mid ‘90s that would be safe from earthquakes, I mean I could go on and on, so God says that one of the marks of a false prophet, Deuteronomy 18, when they say something in the name of the Lord and it doesn’t come to pass that is the very thing that I didn’t say God says because He doesn’t make any mistakes, so in Isaiah 42:9 He says, “Behold, the former things are come to pass, (that is the things He has already told you about) and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.” I think you had in mind going over to Isaiah 46.
Tom:
Well 45:21 as well. “Tell ye and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have I not told the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me.” I mean this is the mark of God and He presents it as a challenge.
Dave:
Over and over He says this is the proof that He is God. Isaiah 46:9-10: “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10) Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:…” Of course Tom it raises a lot of other questions which I don’t know what you have planned for this program, but probably—
Tom:
I plan to follow you where ever you go Dave.
Dave:
No, no I am following you where ever YOU go—
Tom:
Were in trouble!!
Dave:
But it does raise questions, does man have any choice? I mean if God can tell you what’s going to happen before it happens—or is God outside of time? He’s not part of time. We don’t even know what time is. Einstein tried to tell us a few things about time but we don’t really know what time is. It seems to be part of this functioning universe that we have and it is essential if you are going to have movement, you’ve got to have some means of measuring it and so forth. But the Bible doesn’t really explain what time is. But maybe God is outside of time, I don’t know. But He is the only one who can do this. Maybe He can just observe it before it happens. I don’t believe that it means that if God tells me ahead of time
what’s going to happen He makes me do that. In other words, Tom I can play that game a little bit in my feeble way. I know that when this program is done sometime you’re going to walk out that door.
Tom:
Well Gary our producer/engineer, he knows about time. He tells us about time—but that’s a different thing.
Dave:
Yes, so the fact that I know you’re going to walk out that door doesn’t mean that I have determined that you’re going to walk out that door. But anyway from God’s standpoint, however He does it, He knows what is going to happen before it happens. And that is the mark that He says proves that He is God! And now He challenges anybody else to do it, you false Gods, okay. I think that’s a great start to the program here Tom.
Tom:
Well the program—
Dave:
Where are you going to take us now?
Tom:
Well I want to back up just a little bit. The program for our listeners, maybe if for the first time, the heart of the program is to encourage people to read God’s Word.
Dave:
Amen. And the proof that it is God’s Word is just what we are talking about.
Tom:
That’s exactly what we are about.
Dave:
You will not find these prophecies anywhere else. And Tom I often say it—these are not cheap psychic predictions, these are actually—God has foretold the events that have shaped history. And they have been observed by historians, we are observing them today, you cannot deny that this is God’s Word. These are the events that have made history, foretold in advance and there it is laid out in the Bible and no where else.
Tom:
And that is why, I hate to say that we exude confidence, but we are confident. We have read the book and we encourage people not to follow Dave Hunt or T.A. McMahon, but to at least take our encouragement to read the book [and] check it out for yourself and see if— It’s almost as if what we say about the book doesn’t do service to it. You’ve got to do it yourself. God himself will help you to understand the things that we are talking about.
Dave:
This is our standard Tom. This is the guide post, this is our anchor, [and] this is everything. We go by the Bible. Now that doesn’t mean that my interpretation is better than somebody else’s. We must each examine it for ourselves. I think generally we should agree on the interpretation. There are some things hard to be understood the Bible says, but in the final analysis when we each stand before the Lord we can’t say well I took that interpretation because that’s what my concordance said or that’s what my commentary said, or that’s what T.A. McMahon said, you know, or Dave Hunt or Billy Graham or the Pope or anybody. Each one of us is morally accountable to God to understand the Word of God for ourselves. It’s the only way it can be. For God to speak to me He’s got to speak to me and if He can only do it through someone else who must then interpret what God says, I am not in touch with God at all and now I have to rely on someone else—no, God has given us His Word. He has given proof, He has given us evidence and now we go to the Word itself and that’s all we’re trying to do is search the scriptures daily.
Tom:
Right and the best that we can do is just to keep pointing and urging people to go there. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. If you know Christ, if you are a believer, a true believer in God He will demonstrate through helping you to understand—He’ll demonstrate that. Well Dave in previous programs we’ve talked about the accuracy of the Bible from a scientific standpoint in those areas where it just touches upon science in terms of history, archeology, certainly logic, but now I think we’re at the big enchilada here which is prophecy. Now we’ve talked about these scriptures in which God declares that He alone is the God of prophecy. Now let’s give them some examples, specific scriptures that deal with things to come. Things that is, historically. Things that have been—
Dave:
Yes, well we’ve given a lot of examples, I can’t remember what we’ve talked about, but I like some of the more obscure ones to begin with, but I also, [and] if we have time we need to come to Jerusalem because this is big in the news right now. Exodus 12:14, God says that the Jews will keep the Passover forever. Do they keep it today? They do, most of them—30% of the Israelis claim to be atheists, the rest of them are New Agers, there are very few orthodox—very few who even believe in God, who even believe in the Bible and yet they keep the Passover. I think 99.something percent in Jerusalem kept the last Passover, 96.4% down in Tel Aviv, or whatever. Now that’s amazing and you say well give me some comparisons—well, the prophets of the goddess Vesta in Rome, they said the sacred fires tended by the Vestal Virgins would never ever, ever, ever go out. They went out. The great prophets of the Zoroastrians said the sacred fires in Persia would never go out—the Muslims extinguished them in their invasion in the 7th century. But God said you keep the Passover forever and they do, even though they don’t believe. And then well maybe that’s a lucky hit. Did He ever say something wouldn’t happen? And we can track that—yes! Hosea 3:4-5, God says Israel will be without priesthood, without a sacrificial system, without a king, obviously then without a temple for many, many years. You mean something would prevent the temple from being rebuilt? That’s amazing! And Jesus told us how long it would be. In Luke 21:24 Jesus said that Jerusalem would be destroyed again, the people will be scattered to every nation on this earth and then He said Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Did it happen? It happened! I mean UN Resolution 181 1947 when they partitioned so-called Palestine. UN Resolution 181 says Jerusalem must never be out of the control of the Jews. It must be an international city. Theodor Herzl, founder of the Zionist Movement—he records in 1904 in his diary [that] he asked Pope Pius X for help for support of the Zionist Movement. Pope Pius X said we cannot prevent the Jews from returning to Jerusalem. We will never support it and in 1919 Secretary of State Karl Gasparri said the thing that frightens us the most is the thought of the Jews returning to Jerusalem. And you know that the UN today, the European Union, this is the big thing right now. Why did the Peace Talks break down in Camp David recently? Because the argument was over Jerusalem and the holy sites and the whole world wants to have control over Jerusalem and they do not want Israel to have authority over Jerusalem. It’s astonishing and the holiest part of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount is under the control of the PLO today. A Jew can’t even pray up there and a Christian can’t pray up there. Isn’t that something? So God said—we have a book about that right out of the prophet Zechariah: “I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling, a burdensome stone around all the necks of the nations of this world.” Who could have foretold that 2500 years ago that prophecy was uttered? Jerusalem had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar; it lay in ruins surrounded by wilderness. Today it’s a little nothing place. Why didn’t God say I’ll make Moscow or New York or Paris? He said Jerusalem will be the number one problem the world will face and I think everybody in the world knows that if you don’t solve that problem, you’ve got a nuclear holocaust on your hands.
Tom:
Dave I want to take our listeners all the way back.
Dave:
Okay.
Tom:
I want to go back to Genesis because there are a lot of prophetic ministries out there that and I think an occupational hazard with that is to sort of get into speculation. But my favorite aspect of prophecy has to do with the first coming and all of the prophecies that predicted the coming of the Messiah, the Christ. Because we can look at that and say here are the prophecies, this is where the prophecies came, here’s where it was fulfilled and with regard to what’s going to—prophecies that haven’t been fulfilled yet—hey if you’re 100% so far, then you can put your confidence in the prophecies that have been given—
Dave:
See the reason I mentioned Jerusalem is because it is an ongoing fulfillment of prophecy today and has been for many, many years. What would keep the Temple from being rebuilt? That’s astonishing, the Jews wouldn’t have a sacrificial system and so forth, but anyway let’s get back to Genesis.
Tom:
Well let’s start with Genesis 3:15. I know we’ve been dealing with Genesis in the latter part of our program, but we’ll keep doing that. That has to do with salvation and the gospel. But this is Genesis 3:15 where God declares that there will be conflict down through the ages with those who follow Satan, the one who helped bring about the fall of mankind, and those who would follow the Messiah, the Christ of God. And although Jesus would be bruised by Satan, meaning our Lord’s suffering leading up to the cross, ultimately His death in payment for the sins of mankind would fully destroy the works of Satan. Now this—do you know of a prophecy prior to this? This is the solution to the fall.
Dave:
No, this is the seed of the woman also, which is the first promise of a virgin birth. The seed of a woman would bruise the serpent’s head, a deadly wound. The serpent would bruise his heel and as you know, you were a Catholic— you remember? I don’t know if we’ve talked about it but Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal appeared to Catherine Labouré in 1830, supposedly in Paris with her heel upon the serpent’s head—mint a medal—millions of Catholics still wear that medal today. I know that some of the—particularly the older Catholic Bibles didn’t say the seed of the woman; it said the woman would bruise the serpent’s head which is not true.
Tom:
Yes, they say she instead of he correct?
Dave:
Right, right but that is the first promise of a virgin born Messiah who would destroy the works of the devil.
Tom:
Then as we go through the Old Testament, we find prophecy after prophecy, not only types of or examples or types of the Messiah to come, but prophecies very specific. For example, you mentioned the virgin birth, Isaiah 7:14- “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” And then we have Luke 1:34-35- “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35) And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
Dave:
Now Tom many of the seminaries today don’t even believe this—a virgin birth? Come on! Part of their problem is that they approach the Bible with the idea that miracles can’t happen. Wait a minute! Miracles must happen for there to be salvation. I don’t know what god they believe in, but whatever god they believe in can’t do miracles. Yes, a virgin birth is a miracle. A virgin birth is a sign and He must be virgin born otherwise He would be an ordinary man and an ordinary man couldn’t pay for the sins of the world. He would have to pay for his own sins and Isaiah 9:6 very clearly says (and I hope that our Jewish listeners out there if we have any will just pay attention here, not to me, but to what your prophet Isaiah said). “For unto us a child is born, (now that’s the babe born in Bethlehem) unto us a son is given: (that’s the Son of God, the eternal Son of God who comes and takes this body, becomes this man) and the government shall be upon his shoulder;…” (you cannot deny then this is the Messiah, because the next verse says, “…of His kingdom and peace there will be no end) but it says His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the Everlasting Father. So there is a babe who is going to be born in Bethlehem who is the eternal Son and He is the everlasting Father and when Jesus said I and my Father are one, He didn’t mean one in purpose, intent and meaning and interest and so on like the cults teach—one in essence. And furthermore right where we were reading in Isaiah God says I am the only Savior, beside me there is no Savior. Now the Messiah cannot be Savior unless He is God himself. So we have to take what the Bible says and here is the prophecy that God himself would become a man and pay for the sins of the world. And only He could do it.
Tom:
We’ve got about a minute left and I want to quote from Romans. This is Romans 1:1-3-“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2) (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;….)
Dave:
Declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection of the dead.
Tom:
And this is what again—I probably shouldn’t use the phrase this is the big enchilada, but prophecy is so important. It demonstrates so clearly that the Bible is supernatural and that God is speaking to us through it.
Dave:
And Tom this is why I can say with Paul, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because we didn’t make this up. Paul didn’t make it up. He said this is the gospel of God that He promised by His prophets. We can go there; we can prove that this is the truth because the prophets foretold it. The gospel, the very gospel that we preach, they foretold. Praise God! That gives you confidence!
Tom:
Amen!