cover article

This is a link to our weekly radio program Search the Scriptures Daily. You may listen to the program by clicking on the "mp3" link above. For more listening options, please see our Radio Page

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 joining us.  Coming up in today’s program in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, focusing on the topic, “The Dangers of Biblical illiteracy.”  In Religion in the News,  “The church of Godzilla.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question:  “How many times did the cock crow?” 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 topic, “A Shortcut to the Truth.”  Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:

           

            Tom: 

            Thanks, Gary, and thanks to all of you for joining us for this segment of Search the Scriptures Daily.  Our title by the way comes from the Bible itself, the book of Acts, chapter 17, and verse 11.   The apostle Paul had just answered the city of Berea in the country of Greece and he was preaching among the Jews there who were commended for listening to the apostle’s teaching, and more specifically for searching the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what he had to say was true.  That’s our exhortation and encouragement to our listeners.  There seems to be no end to the religious ideas which one can hear these days whether in the name of Christianity or otherwise, and it’s to everyone’s welfare both temporal and eternal to check things out for themselves.  Which brings us to our topic today: Chapter 5 of Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, is entitled, “Shortcut to Truth.”  Dave, a critical concern of your book is most people don’t put much time, thought or preparation into where they will spend eternity.  Their faith is more like wishful thinking than something based upon reason or evidence.  As a matter of fact, you have a pretty stunning quote in the chapter.  You say, “the beliefs of many religious people are little more than sanctified superstitions.

           

            Dave:

Well, superstition is something for which you have no evidence, it has been passed along.  “They say,” I don’t know who “they” are, but “they” are always saying an awful lot and people bank their hope for eternity on nothing really.  And I often challenge them.  What is the evidence that you have for that?  So this is basically how this book begins the first 5 chapters.

           

            Tom:

One of the reasons, I think people are confused or just kind of lightly look at certain things is that there are a multitude of religious ideas and many possibilities, and the task of checking them all out is really too much for anyone.

           

            Dave:

Yeah.  Tom, I often say that to people, You couldn’t live long enough to become an expert on all the world’s religions, even just to study them all, much less become an expert.  So if you think you’ve got to examine all the options and then decide which one is right, how would you decide that anyway?

           

            Tom:

But you have a shortcut for them.

           

            Dave:

Right, I tell them you can save a lot of time, go to the Bible first, the Bible claims all of them are wrong.  Now if we can prove the Bible is right, is true, then we would save a lot of time.  When you find the truth you don’t have to check out all the lies anymore.

           

            Tom:

Dave, tell us why you are confidence that the Bible is a shortcut to truth, that it is truth.

           

            Dave:

Well, this is a claim that it makes of course, and we can verify it.  Prophecy and we don’t go into great detail about that, I’ve written other books where we deal with prophecy, but I can absolutely prove the Bible is God’s Word.  In Isaiah 46:9 and 10, God says he is the God of prophecy.  He will tell us what’s going to happen before it happens, and when it does happen we will have to acknowledge that He is God, and the book that told us these things is His Word.  We could begin with Israel, and again in this book we don’t go into the details, but God explained it.  He foretold everything that would happen to the Jewish people, and it has come to pass.  They are scattering from their land, the anti-Semitism, the hatred that they have endured, but nevertheless their preservation.  Just the hatred against Jews is astonishing!  There is no race, there is no people that have suffered like this, but He would preserve them, He would bring them back into their land in the last days, and that has occurred in spite of opposition, it’s amazing!  In June 22, 1943, maybe we’ve quoted it before, but you remember Pope Pius the 12^th wrote a letter to Roosevelt.  If the home is desired for the Jewish people it would be a whole lot better to find some place other than Palestine because if you bring them back there that will create great problems for the world.  In 1904, Theodore Hertzel records in his diary when he asked Pope Pius the 10^th for some support for the Zionist movement, the Pope said, “We cannot prevent the Jewish people from returning to Jerusalem, but we could never condone it.”  In 1919, the Secretary of the State of the Vatican said, “The thing that frightens us the most is the return, the possibility of the return of the Jewish people to Palestine.”  Amazing!  The Pope, the Vatican claimed to represent God, and yet they are absolutely opposed to and frightened by the possibility of a fulfillment of God’s promises.  There are hundreds of promises that God said He would bring the nation of these people back to Israel, a nation would be born in a day.  It happened!  And then He said he would make Jerusalem a cup of trembling, you know, we wrote a whole book with that title.  

           

            Tom:

Right, Dave, the thing I find fascinating about what you are saying here is that you started off with prophecy, and people say, well, prophecy—that’s just some ideas that, you know, these men way back when had, kind of spiritual ideas, but then you are giving me history.  So you are talking about prophecy and then you are talking about fulfillment with regard to the truthfulness why we can trust this book.  That’s a testament in itself.

           

            Dave:

This is history written in advance, nobody can explain it away.  These are events that have shaped history, have shaped this world, foretold centuries, even thousands of years before they happened, the whole world has witnessed their fulfillment.  You can’t explain it away that Jerusalem today is a burdensome stone; it is the number one problem around the necks of the nations of this world.  United Nations has spent one-third, amazing, one-third of its time in deliberation and pronouncement about Jerusalem and Israel.  This is a nation that has one, one thousandth of the earth’s population, they spend one –third of their time on that.  Everybody knows if you don’t solve the problem of Jerusalem you’ve got a nuclear holocaust on your hands.  The Jews have got the bomb; they even have submarines now from which they can launch these missiles.  The Arabs are armed to the teeth all around them; Syria has tripled its armament since the Yum Kippur War in 1973.  I just wrote a letter to the Knesset, to the Jews from post and so forth, and I began it like this:  They Syrians have no more right to the return of Golan than a masked murderer to the return of his weapons and freedom.  They have only used the Golan for destruction, that’s why the Israeli’s finally took it from them and put a radar sensor up on top, they’ve got a little buffer zone, and they would get some warning now if the Syrians attack.  And they are planning, in fact secretly negotiating, as far as I know now in Oslo to give this whole thing back.  I talked to one of the leading Orthodox rabbis in the country, and you know, you’ve met him, the other day, and I sent a copy of my letter to the Knesset, I never heard him so down, so low.  He said, Dave, I know the people who are involved in the negotiations, they are going to give it back, there’s nothing we can do.  I said it doesn’t make sense, these people have sworn to exterminate you, and you’re going to give it—well, he said, I don’t want that done, any rational person wouldn’t want it done, but there is so much pressure from the United Nations, from the United Europe, from the United States, and so forth that they are going to do it.  Well again, this is exactly what the Bible foretold, a false peace that would lead to, finally the attack of the whole—  I guess the people that have been, Ezekiel 38, a people  have been restored from being scattered around this—

           

            Tom:

1948.

           

            Dave:

—around this world, and now they are living in safety—they think.  They think they are secure.  I was reading The Jerusalem Post; almost every edition has a large real estate section, beautiful marinas, high rise apartments and condominiums, and so forth.  One of them, I can’t remember, I think it was The Jerusalem Penthouses, the caption on the advertisement said, “As Close To Heaven as You Will Ever Get.”  It’s like they are in a dream, dreaming of peace, and the young people in Israel who didn’t fight in the wars— Israel has changed, their whole mentality, they want peace at any price, and they are willing to believe the lies of people who pride themselves in lying.  In fact, this is a means to an end.  It’s astonishing!  If you wrote a script like that, Tom, nobody would believe it, but the Bible wrote the script, the Bible said it would happen and it’s happening exactly as the Bible said.  Well, you can’t explain it away, so we have to believe that God is the God of the Bible, He’s the God of prophecy, and then when you come to the prophecies about the Messiah—

           

            Tom:

Well Dave, before you get to that I just want to make a comparison here.  How does this stack up, in a sense, with other sacred books?

           

            Dave:

Well, it’s absolutely unique.  There are no prophecies in the Qur’an, no prophecies in the Hindu Vedas, the Bhagavad-Gita, Ramayana Mahabharata; you name them, same as the Buddha, Confucius, and The Book of Mormon.  Or if you wanted to go to some of these people like Ellen G. White—all kinds of false prophecies, the Jehovah’s Witnesses—all kinds of false prophecies.  If they try to prophesy they don’t work out, they are false, but the Bible is absolutely unique.  There are no prophecies for Muhammad, Buddha, and so forth, but only for the Messiah that would come through Israel to the world and of course that is the only explanation for anti-Semitism.  It is so horrible that these people should be hated and persecuted and killed consistently down through the centuries.  Why?  Because the Messiah was promised to come, and if Satan could destroy them no Messiah.

           

            Tom:

Dave, one of he reasons I want to really take some time, not just today but in the weeks to come, to address this—after all, our program is titled, Search the Scriptures Daily, and our heart in this is to encourage people to go to God’s Word for truth. Don’t trust men, don’t trust religious organizations, and so on, not that men can’t be trustworthy and denominations can’t have a sense of trustworthiness, but they cannot be the bottom line.  We’re each accountable to God for what we believe and why we believe it, and He has given us His Word.  And what we are trying to do here for those who may have just joined us, is to talk about the Bible, God’s Word—is just that.  How many times throughout the scriptures, something like 3500, does it say “thus saith the Lord,” or a variation on that?  It claims to be God’s Word.

           

            Dave:

Well, Tom, if it isn’t then let’s close shop, shut down all the churches, forget it, because if God has not spoken to us, and we can’t know that He has spoken to us, and He hasn’t done it in an understandable way to ordinary people, then we have nothing.  Just your idea, my idea, somebody else’s idea, I don’t care what fancy robes they wear, how big the church is, how long they have been—why should I believe a Joseph Smith, who claims that he got a vision and so forth, or why should I believe a Mary Baker Eddy, who claims that she alone can interpret the Bible?  Why should I believe Muhammad, who claims that he got some revelations?  Why should I believe anybody?  Look, I want proof, and I’m not going to take a leap into eternity without absolute proof.  Now the Bible is the only one that gives proof, and we need it, and if God hasn’t spoken to us we’ve got nothing.

           

            Tom:

Dave, I remember after becoming a believer, I don’t know when it hit me, you know, the Lord brings you along and He doesn’t give you everything at once, He just gives you understanding as  you grow and as you walk in faith and  trust  Him.  But I remember one day saying wait a minute, I’m holding the Bible and I’ve been reading it and reading it and I just  had a new hunger for it, a new thirst for it.  It hit me one day; hey this is God speaking to me!  I’d been through college, I’ve got some degrees and read lots of books, but I don’t ever remember reading a book that said thus saith the Lord, that this was indeed God’s communication, His revelation to me.  Not just me but anyone else who was willing to pick it up and search it out.

           

            Dave:

And that can back it up, can be proved.

           

            Tom:

Right, but just the fact that it is, that we do have God’s revelation to us, to me, it’s just an awesome thought and since that time it’s been a great encouragement, you know even when I’m thinking aw, do I really want to, you know it’s a thick book, there’s a lot to do.  The scripture encourages us to diligence in it, to study it and so on.  But that’s the thing that I think that motivates me more than anything is that this is God speaking to me, the Creator of the universe, this is what He wants me to know.  Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments, and His commandments He wasn’t particularly talking about the Ten Commandments, He was talking about everything that He said.  Everything that was uttered, I mean He is the Word, He is the truth, everything that He uttered, that’s what I want to know, because He’s laid it out for me.

           

            Dave:

The truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore Tom.  So the Catholics are dialoguing with the Buddhists, the Southern Baptist are dialoguing with the Catholics, everybody is dialoguing with one another.

           

            Tom:

All their seminars are getting together; they’re trying to create a new image of God for these days and these times, and so on.  Yeah, it is, but on the other hand, God still has His Word for everyone who’s willing to come to Him, to seek out truth.

           

            Dave:

Tom, the point is you don’t dialogue with God, you don’t negotiate with God.  Paul disputed, he disputed on the basis of the scriptures, and if we have God’s Word and He has spoken we had better pay attention to it.  This is what this program is all about, search the scriptures daily.

           

            Tom
Right.  Dave, I want to keep going with the uniqueness, underscore that word, that the Bible is incredibly unique.  First of all, you’ve said this before, we’ve mentioned it before, it’s been written over a period of about 1600 years by 40 different individuals, everything from a king, to a farmer, to a fisherman, and over different cultures throughout that time.

           

            Dave:

They lived in different cultures, right, in different periods of time.

           

            Tom:

Right.  Yet it is amazingly coherent, miraculously coherent.  

           

            Dave:

Absolutely coherent, consistent from beginning to end.

           

            Tom:

And that’s part of its miraculous quality, that’s how we know it was inspired of God, this is His Word.

           

            Dave:

One of the ways and you do not find this superstitious nonsense from the various cultures.  People try to say, oh well, the Bible simply reflects the culture and the time in which these various writers wrote.  No, anybody who says that is speaking from ignorance, they apparently never read the Bible, because one of the great evidences that the Bible is God’s Word is that it does not reflect the culture and the time in which it was written.

           

            Tom:

Now that’s amazing.  Dave, Moses is a great example what you are saying, here it is, he is trained, educated in the court of the Pharaoh.  He’s getting the secular science, the ideas of the time, the superstitions, the religions, I mean it has to be integrated within the education he was given.

           

            Dave:

Those were the studies that he was given I am sure.

           

            Tom:

Right.  So here it is, a man trained in these things.  Why don’t we have any of that in the first five books of the Bible?

           

            Dave:

We don’t, because he’s not giving the opinion of the Egyptians, he’s giving what God has said to him.  And you have, of course, the hygienic laws that were absolutely unique.  Now you’re talking about 1600 BC, and it took the science of this world, medical science several thousand years to catch up to Moses.  In fact, in those days, let’s say the Middle Ages, open sewage running in the gutters in France, in Paris, in the Seine River.  No wonder they had disease, not in the Israeli communities, the little ghettos where they were, they didn’t get the Bubonic Plague, they didn’t get these diseases that swept through Europe and wiped out people because they followed the hygienic laws.  And you remember, I can’t remember the name of the doctor, but this is in the late 1800’s in Vienna, and he gets people to start washing their hands.

           

            Tom:

Isn’t it an amazing thought?

           

            Dave:

Yeah, they didn’t know anything about microbes and so forth.

           

            Tom:

They objected to it at the time, didn’t they?

           

            Dave:

Well, the first thing they would do the doctors could cut into the cadavers to find out why they died, then they would go right to deliver babies or to perform operations with this unwashed instruments, unwashed hands.  He got them to, in his department, in his wing of the hospital, to begin to wash instruments and wash hands.  The mortality rate just took a nose dive.  Well, they hounded him out of that hospital!  I think, as I recall, the man went insane.  You would go insane when you know that you’re right, you can’t prove why you’re right.

           

            Tom:

And you have something so beneficial for mankind and they reject it straight out.

           

            Dave:

Yes, and when they got rid of him they went back to not washing things again and up went the mortality once more.  But the Jews were told to wash, they were given hygienic laws that were way ahead of their time, certainly it was not part of the wisdom of Egypt that Moses was taught.  You can go right through the Bible and see this down through history.

           

            Tom:

Circumcision for example, people would identify that with the genes.  Amazing, science has discovered that, well, what was the law that on the 8^th day the male babies were to be circumcised.  And science has since found out that it’s at that point in time, 8 days that the coagulation of the blood is at its highest.

           

            Dave:

Higher than it will ever be again.

           

            Tom:

Now was that by chance?

           

            Dave:

Well, hardly, but then when you consider the meaning of this, it is only God who made it, it wasn’t because somebody discovered it and decided to do it on the 8^th day, but God had a meaning for that.  Christ was resurrected on the 8^th day; this is symbolic of a new beginning, a new creation, the end of the flesh and the new life in the spirit through the redemption that’s in Christ Jesus, the very day that he was resurrected from the dead.  So it has a powerful meaning, it wasn’t that it just happened that on the 8^th day the coagulating ability of the blood was the highest.

           

            Tom:

Dave, we’ve mentioned in other programs how people who started out to really undermine, to destroy, to discredit in effect the Bible.  Attorneys, people of great, brilliant minds just went after it big time, and many if not most of those individuals were converted because of the uniqueness, because of what God’s Word had to say, they recognized it.  Now here’s my question, Can you do that with other scriptures, with the sacred scriptures of others, has anybody done that, do you know?

 

            Dave:

No, you can’t do it.  Anyone who has an honest heart is willing to face the facts and who examines the Bible, they must come to the conclusion this is God’s Word, they is no way around it.  The problem is the Bible is neglected; people just go by what somebody says, some religious leader.  You ask a Mormon for example, Give me proof—I was just talking with a couple of Mormon missionaries, and I said, look, I can prove the Bible is God’s Word, give me some proof that the Book of Mormon is God’s Word, give me one, I want to know some proof.  Well, they said we prayed about it and we got a feeling, a burning in the bosom, I mean we just feel, we just know inside.  I said, Wait a minute, a Hindu could say that, a Buddhist, a Muslim, let me have some proof.  They couldn’t give me any proof, but I can give them proof for the Bible.

           

            Tom:

Dave, in the programs ahead, we will be comparing the Bible with other books, for example the Book of Mormon, maybe the Bhagavad-Gita, the Qur’an certainly, because this is critical, absolutely critical that people have information that they find because it’s their purpose of wanting to know the truth, that they can explore and come to a conviction of faith, not just wishful thinking, not just some idea that somebody else has that they think sounds good, but they can come to a personal conviction.  And going through God’s Word, addressing some of the aspects of God’s Word is what we want to do in the weeks to come.  

 

This is a link to our weekly radio program Search the Scriptures Daily. You may listen to the program by clicking on the "mp3" link above. For more listening options, please see our Radio Page

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, focusing on the question, “Why Did God Institute the Death Penalty?”  In Religion in the News, “Personhood for Primates” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question:  “What about Those Who’ve Never Heard of Jesus?” We hope you can tune in. 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, “What About Prayer?”  Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:

           

            Tom: 

            Thanks, Gary.  Welcome to our series of discussions about Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith.  As we’ve mentioned in our last few programs the term faith, as it’s viewed today, hardly seems to go with the word serious.  For most people, the word faith is simply another term for “wishful thinking.”  But that’s not the way the Bible describes it.  According to Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.”  In Acts 1:3 we are told that Jesus showed himself alive after His passion by “many infallible proofs,” being seen of the disciples 40 days and so forth.  In this segment of last week’s program we were discussing the connection between prayer and faith, contending that prayer is communion with God.  True prayer involves submitting ourselves to Him; wanting His will more than our own.  It’s really a faith relationship.  That is trusting in Him whom we love and knowing He loves us more than we can fathom.  That’s hardly the perspective we hear today either inside the church or in the religions of the world.  Dave as you well know, many televangelists, particularly those who call themselves Word Faith teachers, have turned faith and prayer into a system for supposedly getting God to do one’s bidding, yet they claim that they get their ideas from the Bible and have convinced millions of their followers that their teachings are scriptural.  Some of the verses they point to seem to confirm their false principles, for example Matthew 21:22, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.”  Dave this verse and I’d like to go through some others because they do seem to get people leaning kind of in the way of a false interpretation. 

 

            Dave:

Well you have to decide what the Lord meant by “believing”.  He’s talking about faith.  How can I (for example) believe that I can jump 10 feet or that I can run the mile in one minute?  I can’t possibly believe that.  How can I believe that what I am asking God to do, He’s going to do?  Why should I believe that God is going to do what I want Him to do?  Furthermore why should I even want God to do what I want Him to do?  Why wouldn’t I rather have enough sense to ask Him what He wants to do instead of trying to impose my will upon Him?  So believe—what can I believe?  Well, what are you praying for?  Can you really believe that God is going to do that for you?  Why would He do that for you?  In other words, faith is not a power.  You know we’ve talked about this probably a couple of months ago, but faith is not a force that I aim at God to get Him to do what I want Him to do.  Now these positive-confession teachers that you were talking about—they would say, but if you confess it with your mouth, speak it forth, you get what you say.  Kenneth Hagin teaches this for example.  He teaches that we need to have faith in our faith.  He teaches that there are certain laws—laws of faith.  And if we apply these laws—for example in his little booklet Having Faith in Your Faith, he says it used to bother him when unsaved people were getting miracles and his church people were missing out.  And then he realized they were developing God’s Laws of Faith.  Well that’s not faith.  So Tom whenever you ask in faith, believe that you receive it and you will have it.  I’ve got to believe it and I can’t believe what I don’t know is God’s will.  And I think Jesus is calling us to get in a right relationship with the Father so that we are asking according to His will.  When I am asking according to His will then I can believe that it is going to happen.  But He’s not saying that belief is some kind of a force and if I believe it strongly enough that will make it happen.  That’s mind power and I don’t even need God and I don’t even need to pray if that is what Jesus is talking about.  But we know that it isn’t from this and many other verses. 

 

            Tom:

Well Dave I think a problem here for some is that when you look at the verses and these Word Faith teachers are very selective in what they would have you read and if you are just going to read those it can be a problem.  For example, I just read Matthew 21:22 but Mark 11:24 says Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive [them], and ye shall have [them].  But I’ll back up just a little bit—

 

            Dave:

Well Jesus prior to that says “Have faith in God.” 

 

            Tom:

Right.  That’s Mark 11:22.

 

            Dave:

Right.

 

            Tom:

And I know 11:23—see they probably will not point out or underscore verse 22, but 23 they will jump on and it’s a popular verse that they use.  “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.”   So you can see that just by identifying this verse that it sounds like “hey we have the power to move mountains” and whatever we might ask and whatever we might say, just saying those things without vacillating in effect, we are going to have those things. 

 

            Dave:

Well Tom lets go back to verse 22 and here’s how they deal with that.  Jesus said have faith in God.  Now these men are not biblical scholars, they are not Greek scholars.  But they dare to say no, what it really means is have the faith of God—the God kind of faith.  Well wait a minute, what kind of faith does God have?  We’re supposed to have faith in God.  And however they want to twist this verse; all through the Bible it teaches us to have faith in God; to believe in God; to trust God; to commit ourselves totally to Him; to allow Him to direct our paths.   They’re saying that God has faith—in whom does God have faith?  Oh He has faith in His faith.  So they take Hebrews 11:3, we’ve been through this before, again I guess we must deal with this often—

 

            Tom:

—Especially with regard to the subject that we are going over—we are talking about an urgent call to a serious faith.  If that faith is erroneous—if it’s not biblical, we’re dead from the get go here.  

 

            Dave:

If this faith is as Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller say: it’s the power of positive thinking.  Norman Vincent Peale said positive thinking is just another word for faith.  Robert Schuller says the same thing about “possibility thinking”.  Now faith is something that I can control.  All I have to do is think and that will make things happen.  You can be an atheist and teach that kind of seminar and all of these—well in fact, those kinds of seminars are taught in the business world.  Or God is a faith God?  There is something out there called faith.  It is some force innate within this universe and when I know the laws of faith and I learn how to manipulate this thing you know and get in tune with this thing—this is what—Pat Robertson teaches it, Kenneth Copeland teaches it—all of these men teach this.  Now wait a minute, look this is either true or false.  If it is true then I don’t need God.  I can do what God does and this is why they also teach we are little gods.  They take Hebrews 11:3 as we’ve pointed out before, where it says “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God…”  Why do I understand this by faith?  Because I can’t fathom that—that God could speak and create the universe out of nothing?  But by faith I understand this and I believe God.  He has given me enough evidence that I could verify that when He says something that is beyond my comprehension I also believe it.  So by faith we understand that God created this universe out of nothing.  He just spoke it into existence.  Ah, no that’s not what it says.  These men who are not Greek scholars, they are not Hebrew scholars—

 

            Tom:

Dave, but you’ve said over and over again neither are we, but what you are talking about has more to do with logic and understanding of grammar than having anything to do with Greek.

 

            Dave:

Right, but I’m not going to disagree with the translators of the Bible.  I would say these are the Greek scholars, okay?  So Hagin or Copeland or whatever, they say ah no, the men who translated the Bible, they didn’t know Greek well enough and what it really says is we understand that it was by faith that God framed the worlds.  Woe-now we’ve just twisted it around a little bit and we’ve turned faith into a force that even God uses.  How did God create the worlds?  By faith!  Faith in what?  Faith in whom?  Ah no, faith is a power.  It is a force, it is contained in words and when you speak these words it releases this force called faith.  So then they would go to Genesis 1 like verse 3, verse 6, and verse 11, Genesis 1:3 “And God said, let there be light and there was light.”  Ah—look at the power in words!  God said let there be light and boom, there’s light!  Well you try it.  There wasn’t light because God said let there be light.  There was light because it was God who said let there be light.  He could have just thought it or whatever He wanted.  It is the power of God that is innate within Him.  God who exists in and of himself.  He created this entire universe himself.  There is no force out there that God then uses.  There are no laws.  Pat Robertson for example, says God never does a miracle except by the Law of Miracles.  Wait a minute, if it’s a law it’s not a miracle and anything that follows laws is not a miracle.  Where did the Law of Miracles come from?  God must use the Law of Miracles? 

 

            Tom:

Right, so He subjects to it. 

 

            Dave:

Right, He imposed upon himself the Law of Miracles?  Where does this law come from—no!  So they are turning God into some kind of a magician who uses certain forces innate within the universe and certain laws and so forth.  And—now when we know about these laws and when we know about these forces we can do it.  No!  That is not biblical and as you said it isn’t even rational.  And I defy anyone to put this into practice.  They can’t make it work.  So faith is in God and when I’m praying, I’m praying to God.  I’m not trying to get Him to do what I want Him to do.  I’m trying to bring my life into willing submission to His will.  That’s what’s important.  So my faith and trust is in Him and Lord if this isn’t according to your will—what I’m asking—then please, don’t let it happen. 

 

            Tom:

Well see Dave again, I really want to stay with what true faith is, but we have to address some of these other examples.  These teachers that are supposedly teaching about faith, they would say that even to pray Lord, Thy will, not mine is weak faith.  It’s really undermining truth. 

 

            Dave:

Well yes, they say that it destroys your faith. 

 

            Tom:

Yes.

 

            Dave:

Well that’s because they believe that faith is some kind of a force and it isn’t even subject to God’s will.  In fact God has to use this thing and we can use it.  So it’s a tragedy Tom and we’re not trying to criticize these people, we are trying to bring a little biblical truth and reason to bear. 

 

            Tom:

Yes, in one sense we are not trying to criticize, but we have to be critical about it here, because we know in the years that we’ve been doing research in this area, studying what these men teach and others, it’s critical in this sense.  They are destroying the faith of many who are out there who are buying into their erroneous ideas and false teachings to the point where people have died because they were told that their healing depended upon their faith.  Their prosperity depended upon hanging tough and being faithful to the end.

 

            Dave:

Keep confessing it and it will eventually happen.  Now Tom you made a very strong charge.  You said they are destroying people’s faith.  How would that be?  Because they have removed them from a biblical faith into a non-biblical faith and they have told them if they can simply believe it, if they can confess it, if they can speak it forth, then it will happen.  And Tom, you know we’ve gotten letters and talked to many people.  I confessed my Cadillac; I confessed my job; I confessed my health, I confessed this and that, and I believed it, and I tried to make it work and it didn’t work.  I turned my back on God.  I left the church; I didn’t want to have anything to do with this any more because it does work.  And then thank God, somebody loaned me your book and I realized I had been deceived and I’ve come back to the Lord and faith in Him.  That’s how they destroy people’s faith by setting up a false belief that doesn’t work and then people become disillusioned.

 

            Tom:

Right and we don’t say that to promote either The Seduction of Christianity, the book that many have referred to which addresses this as well as other books that you’ve written Dave.  The point is what does God’s Word say about that and the things that we’ve written we try to keep pointing to God’s Word that people would be Bereans and people would check these things out and not follow some man whether it be Dave Hunt, or Kenneth Copeland, or Pat Robertson, whoever it might be.  We want people to have a heart for truth and to grow in discernment.  Dave I—

 

            Dave:

I was just going to say that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. 

 

            Tom:

Right, not by hearing—God raises up teachers, so we are not knocking teachers, people who love the Word of God and God has gifted them in one way or another to teach.  However, they cannot be the bottom line.  They have to be like—remember A. W. Tozer?—He said I want to be nothing more than a signpost.  That’s what we are to be, pointing to God’s Word.  You don’t sit at the foot of a sign post. 

 

            Dave:

Yes, Tom I don’t think we’ve ever done this, at least I certainly haven’t on these programs—do I dare to even read just a brief paragraph? 

 

            Tom:

Go!

 

            Dave:

Because I think it expresses this.  Am I going to trust men?  As you said, not Dave Hunt, not Kenneth Hagin, not—or am I going to trust God’s Word?  And this is just a little brief paragraph that addresses that.  “There are many self-professed experts in spiritual matters.  They claim to know about Heaven and Hell, but have never been there.  They generally offer weak reasons for trusting them.  They have degrees from seminary, they have been ordained by some religious body, they’ve been voted into a position of authority by a committee; they’ve written some books; their denomination is the oldest or the largest; their church is the only correct one and outside of it there’s no salvation; they are apostles or prophets and get continuing revelations from God; and so on.  None of these can be the basis of a serious faith.  Where is the evidence that they should be believed and we should therefore follow them into eternity?  We dare not take that trip without absolute certainty.”  We are talking about the eternal destiny of mankind.  We are dealing with God.  He’s the one that decides.  I don’t want to take someone’s word for it and please don’t anyone take my word for it.  But check it out from the Word of God.  You know God is the only one—when it comes to faith, the question is: What do I believe? And whom do I believe?  And God is the only one in whom you can have absolute confidence.  Faith is absolute unwavering trust.  Don’t put that in me or in any human being or any church.  Put that faith only in God and then find out what God has said.  Find out for yourself because when you stand before God you can’t say well I took Dave Hunt’s word for it, or I took Kenneth Hagin’s word for it, I took Billy Graham’s word for it—no, no God says, I spoke to you in my Word and I expected you to heed me, not to filter it through someone else’s ideas and trust someone else to tell you about what I have said.  I couldn’t emphasize that enough Tom. 

 

            Tom:

Right.  Now Dave let’s just go back to Tozer, A.W. Tozer’s example referring to himself as wanting to be nothing more than a signpost.   Dave I really like his symbolism there, because you know as I said, you don’t sit at the foot of a signpost.  A signpost points you in a certain direction and Tozer was pointing us to God’s Word.  The great thing about that is that a signpost—most of them—they tell you what direction to go, how far it is to get there, but if you are a wise pilgrim or traveler you’ll have a map to check even the signposts out.  That’s what God’s Word is.  That’s why it’s such a wonderful encouragement. 

 

            Dave:

Yes, and then Tom when we get to that point, then people try to excuse themselves for not studying the Word of God, for not knowing the Word of God.  They say well it’s so complex. I was talking to a scientist on the plane the other day, and he said well you can get any idea from the Bible that you want.  I said really?  I mean that would make the Bible the most amazing book that was ever written.  Words do have meanings don’t they?  And if you can write a sentence and somebody can get any meaning they want out of that sentence, I would say that’s a miraculous writing that someone has done.  No, the Bible is clear, it is definite.  It doesn’t mean that there aren’t some things hard to be understood.  Because the Bible is written by the Spirit of God, through men, to men who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and who are indwelt by the Spirit of God and then have some understanding through the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of truth.  But so much that the Bible says is very clear.  You can’t explain it away.  When He says “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; neither is there salvation in any other; there’s none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved….”  Now these are very clear statements and you can’t explain it away and God expects me to know His Word for myself, not to take someone else’s word.  Now that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be teachers.  The teacher must be checked out again, as we say it so often, as the Bereans checked Paul out.  They weren’t seminary graduates, they didn’t have Ph.D.s.  They were ordinary people in the city of Berea and they’re commended for “searching the scriptures daily” to see whether what Paul said was true and that’s all we’re trying to get people to do. 

 

            Tom:

Dave we only have a minute or so left in this segment, but I want to read James 1:5-6: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.  But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”  So we will have doubts from time to time, but again our faith, our trust—it’s a personal faith, a personal trust in a personal God and as we get to know Him better and better, that strengthens, that’s the way to have your faith strengthened. 

 

            Dave:

Why should I ask wisdom from God and not waver in my faith?  Because He has promised that!  He hasn’t promised me a Cadillac, He hasn’t promised me all kinds of things that people pray for and try to get somehow the faith to believe it.  But He has made some promises.  He promised wisdom, therefore I can trust God.  I can have unwavering faith when I ask Him, Lord please give me wisdom and please teach me from your Word. 

 

This is a link to our weekly radio program Search the Scriptures Daily. You may listen to the program by clicking on the "mp3" link above. For more listening options, please see our Radio Page

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 along.  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, focusing on the question: “Can you give a reason for the hope that is in you?”  In Religion in the News: “Reaching Dead Saints through the Newspaper.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question:  “Are You Buddies with God?”  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, “Do You Have Plans for Eternity?”  Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:

           

            Tom: 

            Thanks, Gary.  For the last few weeks we’ve been going through Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith.  And by serious faith, Dave does not mean a faith which people cling to simply because they were brought up say, Baptist and are committed to living and dying as Baptists for no particular reason other than the fact that’s what they are.  The serious faith he is calling people to is a faith that is held on the basis of reason, logic and evidence.  Many infallible proofs as the scriptures proclaim.  If you have the book and have been following along, we’re starting chapter four which is titled: “Concerning Prayer.”  But before we get to that Dave, I want you to give an explanation for a statement you made regarding faith.  You write, “Faith can only engage the unseen and eternal and therefore does not mix with works and ritual.  In search of a serious faith, it is folly to look at that which is visible.  Even to look to a visible cross or crucifix is of no merit.  What occurred on the cross for our salvation was invisible and must be accepted by faith.”  Now Dave the reason I would like you to explain that a little more fully is because it may seem to be some a kind of a contradiction.  On the one hand we are looking for evidence, we are looking for logic and reason, on the other hand we are talking about the unseen and the eternal. 

 

            Dave:

Well the Bible does say that faith engages that which is not seen.  That’s Hebrews 11.  Tom we need to take a whole program on that sort of thing, but you could go back to the Garden of Eden and the basic lie even before the four lies of you won’t die and so forth that Eve was deceived by was that a physical fruit could give her wisdom.  Wisdom is different from knowledge, or intelligence.  Job said great men are not always wise.  So she thought that a physical thing could give her something that was spiritual.  You can carry that right on down through to Catholicism where they feel that the best thing they could do is to turn a wafer into Jesus’ body and blood.  So that if we could just have something physical and ingest it into our stomach that is the way to get eternal life whereas Jesus said the flesh profits nothing the words that I speak unto you are spirit and they are life.  All of ritualism and sacramentalism, the robes, the swinging of the censor filled with incense, all of these are physical things which people think that makes it real to me and they think that something must be physical in order to be real, but that’s not what the Bible teaches.  We look not at the things that are seen for they are temporal.  The things that are not seen are eternal and if I have something physical in front of me—if I am doing a chemical reaction in a test tube that is following certain laws, I certainly don’t need faith for that.  But the words that Christ speaks, they involve something not physical.  For example when Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 8 in His temptation in the wilderness, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God—” What are you going to do?  Can we somehow make words physical so we can physically eat them?  Or when Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink—” Well, is He talking about H2O that he is going to give people—some kind of Holy water?  When He said to the woman at the well, “If you drink of this water, you will thirst again, if you drink of the water that I give you, you will never thirst again.”  He’s not speaking of something physical.  So the problem is if we could just get a physical representation of that water then we would have made some advance and it would help our faith.  No it would not!  So faith comes by hearing the Word of God.  I trust God for what He says.  By faith we understand that the things that are seen are not made of things that do not appear.  So I don’t know if I am answering your question Tom—

 

            Tom:

Well you’re moving in that direction.  For example we know that Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  I think that’s the question here that is a little bit hard to resolve.  Because we are talking about a faith based on reason, based on logic, based on evidence, but is that different from the unseen—the invisible? 

 

            Dave:

Well let’s try to get an example.  Well we can give you a negative example.  Many people think that if they could just visualize Jesus, then that increases their faith.  No from the verse that you just quoted that goes against and undermines their faith because it’s the evidence of things NOT seen.  The scripture says we walk by faith not by sight, so sight is put in distinction to faith.  Okay so let’s give an example—you alluded to it when you began.  What  Christ did on the cross is not that He was physically nailed there; it’s not that they physically mocked Him, it’s not what men did to Him that saves us, that would only add to our condemnation.  We’ve discussed that before.  It is that as He hung upon the Cross, He became the sacrifice for our sins.  This is something unseen to man—something between Jesus the Christ and God the Father, I mean Jesus is God and that’s a mystery for us.  How He could cry “my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”  At the same time He is God, He is the Son, He’s not separated from the Father but He is paying the penalty for our sins.  Now when I believe that there is no physical evidence that you could offer me the penalty that God prescribes—that His holiness and His laws prescribe for sin is not something physical that you can point to as evidence and the penalty that Christ paid upon the cross—when Jesus said “Tetelestai-it is finished, paid in full” I can’t give you any physical evidence for that because the payment that He made wasn’t money against a debt.  It wasn’t some physical thing, in fact it wasn’t even the physical sufferings, although His blood had to be shed.  We have redemption in His blood.  He had to physically die and was laid in the grave for three days and physically rose from the dead.  That’s true.  Now I have never seen Him.  Jesus said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  There is so much that I am asked to believe—that which is important—that which is spiritual—that which is eternal is something that you can’t give me physical evidence for.  On the other hand—

 

            Tom:

That’s what I am waiting for—on the other hand…okay?

 

            Dave:

Right, on the other hand we have historical evidence that the Bible is true.  We have archeological evidence, scientific evidence, we have prophecies fulfilled—they were physically fulfilled in history.  In time, space, history—the disciples had physical evidence of the resurrection.  Jesus said handle me and see—we were not there to handle Him and see.  We have evidence of another kind.  We know that the grave was empty or the Romans would have put the body on display and so forth.  So we do have evidence.  Now that takes us to a certain point and I have enough evidence that the Bible is God’s Word—you can’t be an atheist, you can’t deny it, so I have enough physical and empirical evidence of that, but on the other hand I’ve never been to Heaven, I’ve never seen eternity, I don’t know what God’s justice really involved, I don’t know the payment that Christ really made.  So I have enough physical, historical and logical evidence to know that the Bible is true.  But it also speaks of things that I cannot understand.  So as we said before, I guess maybe a few times, evidence points in a direction.  Faith takes a step beyond, but always in the direction that the evidence is pointed.  Now the atheist takes a leap, really a leap of faith in the opposite direction.  All the evidence says design, design and so forth, but he says well I choose not to believe the evidence.  He takes a step in the opposite direction.  Now when I say I look at the universe around me and you cannot rationally imagine it happened by chance!  So I say this had to be created by someone who is infinite; who always existed; who has the capability of putting the atom together and creating the human brain and so forth.  I have evidence for that, but on the other hand I cannot fully fathom a God who is infinite; who can create out of nothing—I know He had to create it out of nothing because there couldn’t have been something, some material for Him to create everything out of because material things wear out.  So there couldn’t have been some material thing that was around forever.  So I know that, I know that God must have created it out of nothing by His power and His wisdom.  Do you understand that power and wisdom?  That is beyond me.  So God says my thoughts are as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts.  So if I am going to know God, if I am going to walk with Him I am going to have to walk by faith, I am going to have to trust Him.  On the other hand, I have enough evidence to make that faith and that trust thoroughly rational.

 

            Tom:

Dave on the one hand we talk about—well you referred to atheists and their views.  But the sad thing is among many professing Christians there’s the same leap of faith.  That’s why we are talking about your book—“a serious faith”—an urgent call to a serious faith.  We want Christians to know what they believe and why they believe it.  To have not what you might call preferences for what they believe but real conviction.  That’s what is going to make you stand.  Certainly it is the grace of God, but that’s what’s going to help you stand in days of trials, tribulations, things that happen that you couldn’t stand otherwise. 

 

            Dave:

Right and Tom we probably said it before but everywhere I go I meet people who have supposedly lost their faith.  For example, a couple of weeks ago I am sitting next to a MBA from Harvard—a very bright young man.  He’s reading Siddhartha, but he wants to read Siddhartha, you know an Eastern mystical—

 

            Tom:

By Herman Hesse.

 

            Dave:

Yes, by Herman Hesse, you’re right and he told me—these are his words, he said, “When I was in high school, I believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”  But now he doesn’t believe any more.  Now how do we explain that?  I meet people like that everywhere I go.  I don’t believe that you can fully understand the truth, know the truth and ever turn from it.  I think a lot of people have an emotional attachment to Jesus.  They have been talked into it, or they’ve been raised in a Christian home or who knows what, in a youth group and this was the thing to do.  But you couldn’t possibly know the facts and know that this is the truth and ever turn from it.  Why you would be turning from what you know is the truth to a lie!  So that’s why I think it is important.  We need to train our young people in Sunday school, in our homes to understand what they believe, why they believe it, and to have an absolutely solid foundation so they’re not going to be shaken when they get into high school or university or whatever it is by some bright person who says but oh this isn’t true and that’s not true and so forth.  So Peter said as we have quoted him often we must be ready always to give an answer to every one that asks a reason, a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear, so this should be a reasonable faith that we are talking about.  This is a faith based on facts and evidence.  It is true and you cannot refute it and you could never turn from it once you understand it and Jesus emphasizes understanding.  I think we’ve talked about that.

 

            Tom:

You know Dave the same Peter—he slipped up, but he also said when others were leaving Jesus—to whom shall we go?  Thou hast the words of eternal life.  But he did slip up, but he repented. 

 

            Dave:

Tom I don’t think he fully understood at that time, in fact we know that he didn’t because he said though all men forsake thee, oh not I, I’ll die.  And when Jesus was washing his feet, again a physical thing, but it wasn’t physical what Jesus was doing. He was teaching them something.  Jesus said what I do you don’t understand now.  But you will understand later.  And Jesus said you can’t follow me now.  Peter thought he could.  He thought well I’ll take up the cross and I’ll follow Him, but wait a minute, only one could go to the cross, because the cross was more than a physical thing.  So Peter was thinking he would be true to the Lord by enduring a physical death, physical suffering out of loyalty and love for the Lord, but he didn’t have the spiritual stamina, the spiritual strength and understanding to endure it.  In fact he was mistaken because he didn’t realize all that was involved.  So yes, Peter denied the Lord and I am not saying that someone might not even do that out of fear.  But rationally in your heart to sit there coolly now when you’re not being persecuted, there’s no pressure on you and to say well I just don’t believe it anymore.  Like this young man said to me well I still believe in Jesus as a good man.  I said well you can’t believe that he’s a good man when He claims to be God.  He said that he says that He’s the only way.  You can’t say that He’s a good man and at the same time a liar.  So is He who He claimed to be?   And all the evidence will substantiate that. 

 

            Tom:

Dave I think we can get to Chapter 4 now. 

 

            Dave:

Oh my goodness.

 

            Tom:

No, this is great.  In Chapter 4 you start off by stating that the major partner to faith is prayer.  Now what do you mean by that?  This is a serious faith now.

 

            Dave:

Well yes.  I should be in communion with the God in whom I believe.  And this is what prayer is.  Most people think of prayer as begging God for some favor.  Well, we do cry out to God, the psalmist cried out to God, but prayer is communion with God as well.  If I am really trusting the Lord, I am going to talk to Him about everything.  I commit my life to Him and we pray for His will to be done in our lives and prayer is really submitting ourselves to God.  Jesus said, “Have faith in God.”  But a lot of people think prayer is some kind of force that you can aim at God to get Him to do what you want Him to do.

 

            Tom:

Dave what you said was simple, straightforward and biblical.  But that’s not what we are seeing out there and particularly in lots of different movements within Christianity.  It’s the antithesis of that.  For example we find prayer as a technique for getting what you want.  I mean this isn’t just among Christians; we have religious movements, well practically every religion out there.  We find somehow a methodology, a technique, a way of getting from a higher power or God or whatever they would call it—results. 

 

            Dave:

Yes, the Tibetan spin a prayer wheel and think the more times he spins it, the more likely it is he will get what he wants.   Jesus said don’t use vain repetitions as the heathen.  They think they will hear for their much speaking.  There are so many techniques that are offered, or there’s the attempt to make it scientific.  For example, Norman Vincent Peale who taught The Power of Positive Thinking, his most popular book, he said that positive thinking is another word for faith.  No it’s not!  You can be an atheist and teach positive thinking seminars.  Norman Vincent Peale said that prayer—just as there are scientific techniques for releasing the energy in the atom, so prayer is a religious technique for releasing spiritual power.  Well no that’s not what it is.  If I know God, I trust God then I don’t want to somehow manipulate Him into giving me what I want, but I would desire that He would give me what I need.  I am so foolish, I know so little, I don’t even know how to pray as I ought.  Lord please, show me what your will is, what you want to do and help me pray in that direction.  Help me to be submissive to Your will and to be in tune to what You are doing.  But people think no, prayer is a way to get what I want.  Prayer is a means of talking God into giving me what I want.  That is so foolish and it shows a lack of understanding of who God is.  I mean if God really loves us which we must believe and He is wiser than we are, then His way must be best.  So I think the greatest thing about prayer is for me to get in touch with God and submit to Him and say Lord, my life is in Your hands, I want you to guide me.  It is really thrilling Tom to see that happen day after day as God does things that we couldn’t do and He leads us.  I have often given the example but, pardon me again, but so many times a plane breaks down and I have to get on another plane.  I could be praying against God’s will if I pray oh Lord don’t let this plane break down, you know I want to meet this schedule, but there’s somebody on another airplane that the Lord wants me to meet.  So I have to be careful that I don’t pray against God’s will, trying to direct my own life and trying to control my own life.  It is so thrilling to be in God’s hands. 

           

            Tom:

Dave at that point is to me, the point that you just made is the point of the whole chapter.  On the one hand we are talking about serious faith—well the faith we are talking about is trust.  Trust in God and you are putting in through your prayer, you are putting your trust in Him.  He’s the object of your faith and that’s based on—I mean how does trust develop?  Getting to know somebody, developing a relationship with them and so on and if you are fully trusting in an individual on this earthly plain, you are going to let them have their way.  Fully trusting—if you are trusting in God, you are going to fully let God have His way in your life and look to the results as wonderful.  Because a good God is going to do the very best for you.

           

            Dave:

Amen and this knowing Him and trusting Him—while it does say that His Spirit bears witness with our spirit—we are the children of God, so there is an inner experience of God that we do not deny.  On the other hand faith comes by hearing His Word and it is based upon the Word of God.  This is our walk with Him. 

 

            Tom:

Right.  Next week in this segment—we are out of time now, but we are going to pick up on this and pick up with some of the scriptures that seem be a little bit difficult in understanding what true prayer is 

This is a link to our weekly radio program Search the Scriptures Daily. You may listen to the program by clicking on the "mp3" link above. For more listening options, please see our Radio Page

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 today’s program in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, focusing on the question, “If Jesus Is Our Savior…What Is He Saving Us From?”  In Religion in the News, “Angelic Feathers All Over the Place.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question:  “Must a Christian Believe in a Triune God?” 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, “Do You Have a Religious Preference?”  Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:

 

            Tom:

Thanks Gary.  If you have just joined us, I am in the studio with Dave Hunt and we are discussing his book An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and that’s a good title because his book indeed has some terrific questions which everyone should take seriously.  First and foremost is, where do you plan on spending eternity?  The common response is well I haven’t given it much thought.  For those who have thought about it, it is rare for them to go beyond wishful thinking.  Certainly, very few have strong reasons for their belief about this subject.  Dave, although we know that’s the way it is in the world today, most people do a lot of serious planning let’s say for their 75-85 years on this earth.  Yet they seem oblivious to how they will spend their lives beyond what amounts to an incredibly short amount of time that is when we compare it to eternity. 

 

            Dave:

Yes, unfortunately that is the case.  We are caught up in this world and the plans for this world—I mean just the commercials on television get you hooked chasing materialism and the “good life.”  Maybe we don’t have time for it, but one of my favorite authors, William Law many years ago—I don’t agree with everything William Law had to say, but he had some very insightful concepts and amazing ways of saying things and I don’t think we have ever mentioned it on this program, William Law would say well a person that spends as you just said, his life planning the home he is going to retire to, the swimming pool, the tennis court, the sauna and so forth, the beautiful home that he’s going to build and where he is going to retire, and he manages to retire with quite a lot of money and lives comfortably, you would say that he’s been a very wise man.  He has done well for himself.  Now William Law says what about the man who spends all his life planning a home on Mars that he’s going to retire to with the tennis court and swimming pool and sauna and so forth?  You think the guy is crazy!  William Law says they are both crazy.  The difference between their insanity is just this:  One man is planning for a place where he can never be (on Mars) and the other is planning for a place where he cannot stay.    

 

            Tom:

That’s an amazing statement especially since William Law lived in the early 1700s and it’s easy to forget that people then were caught up in the materialism just as they are today. 

 

            Dave:

Of course I’ve modernized it a bit with the swimming pool and so forth.

 

            Tom:

Right, right.  As you know we have five children one of whom is considering college, we have one in college and the oldest in grad school and we are constantly encouraging them to plan for their future with regard to what they will do after graduation.  So I can empathize with those who spend most of their time thinking about temporal things.  It’s hard to consistently set one’s mind on eternity.

 

            Dave:

Well Tom it’s a problem that we all have.  Of course when you’re young you can’t believe that life would ever end.  It’s unpleasant to think about death, so people tend to push that out of their minds.  Solomon said it’s better to go to a funeral than to a feast because a funeral is the end of all living and maybe the living will lay it to heart.  Moses said, “Lord teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”  So a wise person realizes how short this life will be.  But the scriptures say they named their houses, their fields, their businesses after themselves, as though they will continue on forever, but we won’t.  We don’t like to think about it so we go to a funeral and what do they do?  They cover the casket with flowers, if it’s not a Christian funeral they make such silly speeches saying a thing of beauty is a joy forever and they live on in our memory and so forth.  We are in a conspiracy of trying to cover up the reality of death, but we better face it because it is inevitable.  Except for a Christian if the Rapture occurs.  We don’t look forward to death, we look forward to being taken to Heaven, but if the Rapture does not occur then we all pass through death’s door.  I mean it’s a fact.  Then we better prepare for it.  We better be in fact absolutely certain.  A lot of people have the weakest ideas for their religious beliefs.  Oh, I like the pastor you know, the choir is so wonderful, the people are so friendly— Ideas and reasons for their religious faith that wouldn’t be sufficient—you wouldn’t rely on them for buying a refrigerator or a used car. You want to have something more solid than that.  I guess they kind of just slough it off or they say well I haven’t lived too bad a life, you know, I guess it’s going to all be okay—

 

            Tom:

Dave, in your book you use three terms as you discuss where one considers they will spend eternity.  The three terms are tolerance, preference and conviction.  And then you quote (I think) a very insightful Time magazine article which taken in part—I’ll give you part of it—“When it is believed that religion is a breezy consumer preference, religious tolerance flourishes.  After all we don’t persecute people for their taste in cars.  Why for their taste in gods?  Oddly though, there is one form of religious intolerance that does survive.  The disdain bordering on contempt for those for whom religion is not a preference, but a conviction.”  Now I bring that up because there are certain things that mitigate against people considering these things as though, yes there is a truth out there, there is a reality and it’s not something that I can make up. 

 

            Dave:

Well you make a good point Tom; because this is another one of the ways that mankind blinds themselves to this reality.  The idea that well it would be narrow-minded and dogmatic to be definite about this.  I shouldn’t really say that other people might be wrong and that what I believe is right, or even the thought that there is only one way, which Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father, but by me.”  Peter said to the rabbis, neither is there salvation in any other.  There is none other name under heaven given among me whereby we MUST (not might or May), MUST be saved.  Now if that’s true, we ought to at least check it out.  We have to check out what Jesus said.  Jesus claimed to be God.  He came from the Father.  He said to the Jews, You are from beneath, I am from above.  Where I am going you cannot come.  If you do not believe in me, in fact if you do not believe that I am God—now that’s a pretty heavy thing for Him to say.  He’s either an egomaniac, or He’s a liar, or He’s telling the truth.  And what Jesus said is too powerful, it is too definite.  I mean it is too important for anyone just to slough off and pass by or shrug your shoulders about it.  So, I’ve probably said it before but I often tell people, you can’t live long enough to study all the other religions so go to the Bible first because it claims all the others are wrong.  And I can prove the Bible is God’s Word and it’s true and we better face up to what it says.  Because when you die it’s too late.  I think we quote in this chapter I believe Omar Kaiam.  He’s walking through the (as he dies), it’s a door into darkness.  And then is it Thomas Hobbs who spent his life trying to improve this world?  But when he came to die he said “I am about to take a leap into the dark.”  You wouldn’t take a leap into the dark on this earth.  To take a leap into the dark into eternity doesn’t make sense. 

 

            Tom:

Yes, but Dave that’s the mentality of the day and not just in the aspect of tolerance and intolerance, but Alan Bloom as you know is the author of The Closing of the American Mind makes the point that we have become so open minded that our minds have been closed to the idea that something maybe true and something else maybe false. 

 

            Dave:

Yes, that’s in his book The Closing of the American Mind.  How about that?  The closing of the American mind through openness.  He says the one virtue in America is openness.  Openness to everything.  You would dare to say somebody was wrong, this is what we call being “politically correct.”  You wouldn’t want to offend anyone.  That very term “politically correct” says some devastating things about politics and unfortunately that has come into the area of religion.  Now if you come to me as a medical doctor and you’ve got a pain in your stomach or somewhere down there and I examine you and if I know you have a ruptured appendix, if you are not on the operating table within a few minutes, you are dead.  But I wouldn’t want to offend you.  I wouldn’t want to upset you by telling you the truth.  So I say Tom, it’s okay you are going to be alright.  If you feel some pain take some aspirin.  That’s not love.  That is not kindness.  I am destroying you in the name of tolerance.  Because I wouldn’t want to be so intolerant.  You say well doc what’s the diagnosis and the prognosis and I say well I wouldn’t be so narrow minded and dogmatic as to presume to come up with a definite diagnosis.  What would you like, you know?  Everybody’s entitled to the operation of their choice.  You hear people say that everybody’s entitled to the religion of their choice.  Of course, they are but we would like to give them some facts and some evidence so they can make an intelligent choice.  Because the choice has to do with eternity.  The issue is the eternal destiny of souls. 

 

            Tom:

Dave, again like this issue of intolerance which is really—it’s false, it’s just absolutely false.  The phrase that you hear is all roads lead to the same place.  Whatever religious path that you’re going to take—it all ends up in the same place.  Well that’s blatantly false. 

 

            Dave:

Yes, well it’s being dogmatic, because there is more than one destination—

 

            Tom:

So it’s intolerant.

 

            Dave:

It really is intolerant because these people who are so tolerant that they believe in everything, they are very intolerant for evangelical Christians who dare to say that Jesus is right.  And they will not embrace that at all.  So it’s like in the public schools—they are so broad minded anything can come in.  You can bring in witchcraft; you can bring in North American Indian witch doctoring—

 

            Tom:

Shamanism.

 

            Dave:

Right, witch doctoring, and homosexuality and anything.  But dare to bring in Christianity, dare to say we better check the Bible out because evolution maybe isn’t true.  We’re not forcing that on you, but it just could be that God created this universe and nothing else makes sense and we better find out what God has to say about it—I know I am repeating myself, but the program I was on some months ago, “Spiritual Seeker” in Southern California, the talk show host says here we are, we have two hours every Sunday night to talk about God, religion and spirituality.  Well my question was- we’re going to talk about God?  Maybe we had better find out what He has had to say about us.  That’s what we better face.  Now if God didn’t say anything, if the Bible is not God’s Word, if all religious scriptures or writings are on an equal par of maybe there’s a little bit of truth, maybe not, then forget it!  Let’s stop talking about it.  And let’s stop studying them because we are wasting our time.  But if God really did speak to us and the Bible is His Word and again, we can prove that, we better face up to this and find out what He has to say because one day we face Him. 

 

            Tom:

Dave in this chapter you make a very strong point that all religions are in opposition to biblical Christianity. 

 

            Dave:

That’s true.

 

            Tom:

Now why would you say that?

 

            Dave:

Well all religions are basically the same in one way.  In other ways they are very different.  They have different concepts of God for example Buddhism is basically atheism; Hinduism you’ve got 330 million gods, it has been estimated. 

 

            Tom:

So there is diversity among them.

 

            Dave:

There is diversity among them, but when it comes right down to it, they are all trying to work their way to heaven, whatever their concept of heaven is.  Whether it’s the “happy hunting ground” for the Indian, or paradise for Muslim, or—

 

            Tom:

Samiti or moksha for the Hindu—

 

            Dave:

Moksha, whatever it is, they are going to do it through some ritual.  They are going to do it through some sacraments or through good works.

 

            Tom:

Yes, some sacrifices—animal sacrifices and human sacrifices in some cases.

 

            Dave:

And they all think, they all have the idea of appeasing God, as though God could be appeased.  I mean, no, it is a matter of justice.  The penalty has to be paid and we can’t pay it.  We would be separated from God forever.  But anyway, all religions are in opposition to Christianity on that point. 

 

            Tom:

Here’s one verse: Romans 4:5 and as you know there are dozens of other verses but it says:  But to him who worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.  Now what other religion in the world makes that statement? 

 

            Dave:

None.  They can’t possibly make that statement.

 

            Tom:

And they do work.  That’s the point you are making.  They are in opposition; they are contrary to biblical Christianity. 

 

            Dave:

By “they do work” you mean they work, they work at getting to heaven.

 

            Tom:

Right.

 

            Dave:

It’s like the Tower of Babel.  They were going to build a tower and it would be high enough that climbing up its steps we can reach heaven.  This is the religions of the world.  It is man’s effort to come to God.  God came down to this earth to meet man and to take his place in judgment.  To pay the penalty that his own judgment required.  There is not a religion in the world that offers that.  There is no one that claimed to do that.  Buddha didn’t claim it, Confucius didn’t claim it, Mohammed, you know you name them, Krishna, anybody, none of them.  They all offered a philosophy of life by which you could improve yourself and lift yourself by your bootstraps up into heaven and somehow reform yourself and please God enough or make some sacrifices of animals or whatever.  Now the Bible does have animal sacrifices, I mean this is in the Old Testament.  These were prescribed by God very carefully and as you study the Old Testament they way in which they were to be offered, by whom they were to be offered, the purpose for which they were to be offered—

 

            Tom:

What was the purpose Dave?

 

            Dave:

It was all laid out very carefully.  All of these sacrifices looked forward to THE Lamb of God, who would be God himself.  Who would come as a man, He wouldn’t cease to be God, He never will cease to be man.  He’s the one and only God-man and He would be the one who would take upon himself the sins of the world.  As John the Baptist declared when he saw Him: “Behold the Lamb of God who bares away the sin of the world.”  But the sacrificial systems or the works religions, or the rituals, the sacraments of these religions of the world, they do not look forward to God coming as a man. 

 

            Tom:

They are supposed to be efficacious in themselves.

 

            Dave:

Exactly.

 

            Tom:

They are for us to do to manipulate the god out there, or to appease the god so the god, whoever we are sacrificing to will do our bidding in effect. 

 

            Dave:

Yes, we better find out what God has said. 

 

            Tom:

Dave some people may say well okay that is what you guys believe and this is what the other religions believe—our point here is that we want to make that distinction.  People do not have to just take what we say as a belief that they have to adhere to—the point is—

 

            Dave:

We’re not asking them to Tom.

 

            Tom:

No, but we’re making a distinction and there ARE distinctions and the current mentality, religious or otherwise, political or otherwise, is that it is all the same and that it’s not the case and that’s what we are trying to underscore. 

 

            Dave:

God says in Isaiah 1:18, “Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord.  Faith must be reasonable.  It’s not a leap in the dark.  We’ve said that many times, but it is very hard to get the point across.  People think that faith is just something that you believe.  So long as you have a faith—“people of faith—you know even Pat Robertson refers to the members of the Christian Coalition as “people of faith,” whether they are Buddhists or Hindus, Muslims, whether they are Mormons or Roman Catholics or whatever, so long as they are people of faith, then we will all work together.  Well, maybe you can work together against abortion or whatever it is.  Don’t leave these people with the idea that so long as they just have some faith, that’s okay. 

 

            Tom:

Right.

 

            Dave:

We better have THE faith.  And in fact, the Bible tells us that we must earnestly contend for THE faith, that was once for all delivered to the saints.  And the reason is the eternal (as I say it again and again) the reason is the eternal destiny of souls hangs upon what each person believes.  The Bible says you must believe God.  You must believe what He says.  You must come to Him his way.  We don’t negotiate.  We don’t discuss it or dialog about it with God.  We don’t say, God I think this is okay, why can’t this go?  Why would we even want to do that?  We take God’s way.  And why not take God’s way?  Look, you don’t think this is God’s way?  You think some other way is God’s way.  Give me the evidence.  You know I sat with a couple of Mormons—maybe I mentioned it earlier—about 3 weeks ago on an all day train.

 

            Tom:

Yes, you mentioned it last week. 

           

            Dave:

Yes, going from the Czech Republic to Slovakia and one of the questions I asked them was, I said look I can prove that the Bible is God’s Word, give me one proof that the Book of Mormon is God’s Word.  I can prove that Jesus Christ is who He claimed to be, God come as a man coming to die for our sins.  Give me one proof that Joseph Smith is who he claimed to be, the Prophet of God.  In fact, Mormonism contradicts the Bible.  Give me one proof.  Well, they said we prayed about it and we got a feeling inside.  I said, Buddhists have that feeling, Hindus and Muslims have that feeling, give me something better than a feeling.  Now we have objective, factual, historical, prophetic evidence that the Bible is God’s Word and that’s why we say to people “search the Scriptures daily.”   If you have a quarrel with what we are saying, your quarrel is not with us, it is with God’s Word.  We believe the Bible is God’s Word and we can prove it.  And it has the proof.  Please don’t be so proud that you say well this is going against what I have been taught, or my religion, or my church.  Please, we beg of you, consider very carefully what God has said.  Search the Scriptures daily.  That’s all we are asking. 

 

            Tom:

And Dave to bring this around to where we started, the question here is where will I spend eternity?  God’s Word has the answers and it doesn’t take a council or a magisterium or any organization to lay it out for you.  It is right there, very simply in God’s Word. 

 

            Dave:

And Tom when it comes to answering that question, when it comes to that decision, I am not going to trust anybody, no matter what fancy robes they wear, no matter how long they have been around.  Their church may be the largest or the oldest; no matter how convincing they are I want to know what God has to say.  That’s the only thing that is going to matter one day. 

 

This is a link to our weekly radio program Search the Scriptures Daily. You may listen to the program by clicking on the "mp3" link above. For more listening options, please see our Radio Page

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 the next hour in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, focusing on the question, “Who are the ungodly?”  In Religion in the News: “Adding Real Blood to the Mass.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question:  “If your pastor is wrong, how should you correct him?” 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, “Is belief in God logical?”  Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon:  

            Thanks, Gary.  We’re going through Dave Hunt’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith.  For those who have the book and are following along we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the points Dave made in chapter 3, and we’ll see how far today, Dave, we can go with that.  One of the major themes of the book is eternity, and in particular what people think about it, and what plans, if any, are they making for it?  Dave, last week you made some statements which were rather stunning, which I believe would be helpful for our listeners to, maybe develop just a little bit more.  You said that true faith is a reasonable faith; in fact the title of the chapter is, “In Search of a Serious Faith.”  Yet when most people think of faith they don’t think of reason or logic or evidence, it’s just something you do, you just believe with no basis.  So, in a sense faith has almost become an antonym for reason and logic.

            Dave:

Yeah, it shouldn’t be.  You just could ask yourself the question; in fact they talk about faiths, the many faiths on earth.  You are of this faith, and I am of that faith, Buddhism is a faith, Hinduism is a faith, Mormonism is a faith, etc.  In fact, unfortunately, some of our evangelical leaders, at least we presume they are, such as Pat Robertson, uses the term, “people of faith” to encompass everybody that’s involved in his Christian coalition, there are Catholics, and Mormons, and Moonies, and so forth.  Well then, what is the point if you just decide to believe something because you want to believe something?  Then you couldn’t possibly defend that.  It couldn’t have anything to do with right or wrong, it couldn’t have anything to do with truth.  There has to be a reason why you believe what you believe.  We recognize that in every area of life.  If I am going to buy a house, or a car, or even a refrigerator, or whatever, there must be some way of evaluating whether this is a prudent step to take.  And how much more would that be essential when it comes to, as you said, eternity?  Faith, people think of that as your religious belief.  Well, you ought to have a basis for that belief, and to think that faith is just a leap in the dark, well, I’m going to believe this and you’re going to believe that, it just is irrational.  Why would I believe something?  I have to have that foundation for my faith.  Now the Bible, in fact, gives us foundation for faith, it gives us proofs, it gives us evidences.  I was just recently in Europe on the all day train from the Czech Republic to Slovakia, and here are a couple of young Mormon missionaries.  I invited them into our compartment, we had a little discussion, and I said, I can prove that the Bible is God’s Word, I can give you reasons why I believe the Bible, can you prove that the Book of Mormon is God’s Word?  Well, they didn’t know, why do we need proof?  They said, we prayed about it, and we got a burning in the bosom, we got a feeling.

            Tom:

An experience.

            Dave:

Yeah, and we feel so sure about this.  Well, I said, A Buddhist could feel sure about his beliefs, so could a Hindu about his beliefs.  I want some evidence, I want some facts, and in fact the Bible gives it.  For example, it says when Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days after his resurrection, he showed himself alive to them by “many infallible proofs.”  Acts 18:28, we’ve probably quoted it a number of times on this program, speaking of Apollos.  It says: He mightily convinced the Jews, publicly proving from the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ.  If I can’t prove that, then why be a Christian, why not just be a Muslim?  Oh well, it just depends upon how you were raised.  No!  It depends on the facts; there must be some basis for what I believe.  Maybe I belabored that a bit but maybe it needs it because people have the opposite idea.

            Tom:

Well, that was my point, that again when you hear the word “faith” in the common understanding of the word today; it removes itself from logic and evidence.  Even some theologians, or those who would claim to be faith holders, they would say, Well, if you have to see it, if you have to have evidence, if you have to have proof, then it’s not really faith.

            Dave:

Well Tom, rationally, I’ve got to ask myself, why do I believe what I believe?  Why do I believe what I believe about anything?  Faith is an obedient response to God’s revealed truth.  Faith must have a foundation.  I think this is clear rationally, it is in fact, what the Bible teaches, and how can you defend your faith?  I tell God one day well, this is just what I believe because I believed it.  That’s not going to get you anywhere.

            Tom:

And how can we be obedient to Jude’s exhortation to contend for THE faith? If there is not content there, if there is not information that we can test or that it’s objective or it’s anybody’s idea, what do you contend for?

            Dave:

Well, some people would say, Well, I was born a Catholic, I will die a Catholic.  I was born a Methodist—

            Tom:

Or a Baptist.

            Dave:

Yeah, or whatever, and I will die—well then that’s really sad because you had better have a reason for what you believe.  I think that that holds true in every area of life, and certainly it ought to hold true in which is most important, is there a God? If so, who is He?  Can he reveal himself to me?  If God is not just sort of a lump of silly putty that you can massage and put it any way you want it, if God has any standards, if He has any morals, if He has any purpose and meaning for His existence and for our existence, then we ought to find out what it is.  And just to say well, I have faith, just so long—well, it’s our Vice President Al Gore says. He said this at the 1993 Presidential Prayer Breakfast, he said “faith in some higher power by whatever name, in my opinion, is essential.”  So, just so long as you believe in some higher power it doesn’t matter who he is or what he is, but just so long as you believe.  That doesn’t make sense.  I am sorry, and I don’t think God is going to be happy with people who call Him a higher power and they think they can make Him in their image and they can decide what kind of a god He is, no, that isn’t going to work!  

            Tom:

No, Dave, it’s ridiculous, but that’s kind of the mentality that’s out there and it’s all wrapped up with—we’re going to get into some of this—intolerance, preference versus conviction.

            Dave:

Another reason for this idea is pride.  I don’t want you to show me that my faith that I was raised in, whatever I believed my religion, is wrong.  So I’m defensive about it.  Don’t try to tell me anything about it; I don’t want to examine the fact.  I’ve seen so many people like this, they have a closed mind because they just want to continue to be loyal to that system of belief, or religion, or whatever it is in which they were born.  This is true I find, of atheists, people who call themselves atheists, or people who believe in evolution, supposedly, they don’t want to face the facts.  In fact, in talked to several people like that, a Ph.D. from Harvard on my last trip in the airplane, and another scientist on the next flight, they weren’t willing to face any evidence to the contrary of their belief.

            Tom:

Dave, last week you laid out some really terrific points with regard to evidence, to proofs that have to do with the universe being created, that there has to be intelligence behind all of this.  There was one statement you made, and I want to go back to it because it sounds like a contradiction of what you’ve just been saying.  For example, you said that God created everything out of nothing.  Now for most people when they hear that they say wait a minute, that doesn’t sound reasonable, rational, logical, but it is.

            Dave:

Well, if He made it out of something, then where did the something come from, what did He make the something out of?  Did He make the something out of something?  So then, something always existed.  Well then I guess it must have existed before God’s creative act.  That doesn’t make sense.  So you are driven to the conclusion that whatever God made He must have made it out of nothing.  If He made it out of himself—

            Tom:

That’s the next question.

            Dave:

—then everything is part of God.  That doesn’t make sense because then God is evil as well as good.  God is pain and sickness and death, or at least He is subject to it.

            Tom:

And God is dying because we know that, obviously he is not dying, but if you take this view you would have to believe that God is dying because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

            Dave:

Right.  If He made everything out of something, then whatever this something is it must have existed as long as God existed.  And we know that things don’t exist forever, you said it, Second Law of Thermodynamics.  Matter, energy does not last forever, that’s how we know the universe hasn’t been here forever, and if it had been all the stars would have burned out by now.

            Tom:

So these are good reasons for why God must be transcendent.  He’s not part of the universe; He’s not part of His own creation.

            Dave:

He’s eternal, he must be eternal.

            Tom:

Yeah, and you can hold that by faith, reasonable faith wit regard to one of the qualities, one of the characteristics of God.

            Dave:

Well, let’s take another step here, Tom.  For example, Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.”  Now, I don’t understand it.  How can God, just by speaking create atoms, molecules, electrons, protons and energy?  I don’t understand it but I am driven to that conclusion.  And the Bible has proved to me that this is God’s Word in so many ways—prophesies—a major way.  So that when it says something that I can’t fully comprehend with my peanut brain, which is what we are if we want to admit it, compared with God, I mean, we are so nothings, then I believe it.  So faith does take a step beyond reason.  It does take a step beyond verification, but it always takes that step in the direction that the evidence has pointed.  In the direction that the evidence God has given me for His veracity and for His infinitude in wisdom and power and so forth, I have all that evidence.  Now when God says well, He created everything out of nothing, I mean I can’t fathom that, but I am driven to that conclusion.  So faith does encompass some things that are beyond my ability to prove or to fully comprehend, but it only takes that step in the direction that the evidence has pointed and after having been given sufficient evidence to warrant such a step.

            Tom:

And it has to be because we’re dealing with an infinite God and we are finite beings, let alone sinners and depraved and we just cannot comprehend an infinite God and what He does.  But He did say, “Come, let us reason together,” and He did reveal himself to us in His Word and He’s not going to lay something out like that if we can’t, to some degree comprehend what He is communicating to us.

            Dave:

Exactly.

            Tom:

Dave, I hope for some of our listeners that this is kind of exciting because as many times as I’ve had the opportunity to speak to groups and so on, one of the things that gets to me a little bit is that a lot of people don’t want to think through these things.  And I’m not a big time thinker, you know, just make it simple, have it make sense and I get really excited.  That’s what I like about your book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith because you do just that.  You lay out some things that people have not thought about, or have not thought through, that’s the premise.  People are facing eternity and most of them are facing it backwards, they are not interested in what proofs there  may be, what evidences there might be for thoughts that they have about how and where they are going to spend eternity.

            Dave:

It’s very important, Tom.  As I’ve said, just in the last few days I’ve run into several PhD’s or MBA’s from Harvard, scientists and so forth, people from all walks of life, from all kinds of beliefs, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims.  So I see you say well, most people don’t have that opportunity, they don’t travel and run into these people like I do.  Okay?  But here’s a person in high school, a young person in high school, or in university, or just in the neighborhood, or just watching TV, and they are confronted with ideas that undermine the truth, and they are confronted with ideas that are so popular and they can easily be swept along with the stream of humanity that is on it’s way to destruction because it has turned its back upon God.  And if you haven’t thought these things through, then you could be swept along. Therefore I try to give—I’ve had so many conversations in my many, many decades.  I’ll be 74 my next birthday, I’ve been dealing with people around the world for a long time.  I think I’ve probably faced every questions that you could face.  So out of that have come some ways of dealing with these things and I think that it’s helpful and young people especially, really need that today.

            Tom:

Dave, along that line there’s a scripture that I’m sure most of our listeners have  heard, at least in some form and it says that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them,” which is Genesis 1:27.  Now, as you consider that verse it’s telling us that we are created in the image of God.  In other words, some people just look at us and say, Well, that’s how we’re created, but it tells us something about the character of God as well, that our Creator must be not some thing, as you point out in the book, but some one.

            Dave:

Right, not the physical image, of course.

            Tom:

Right.

            Dave:

God is not a man, the Bible very clearly says, God is not flesh and bone and blood.  He doesn’t have a body, God is a Spirit.  Jesus himself said that in John chapter 4.  Well then how are we in is image?  I think you can rationally arrive at this conclusion.  We have thoughts of right and wrong, morals, ethics, we have the capacity to love, we have the capacity to have a purpose in life, realize that we need to have a purpose in life.  We are rational beings; we have a sense of justice, although we have never seen real justice on this earth.  We have a sense of truth, as we've mentioned, you read 1 Cor. 13, the love chapter, you are confronted with a love that is beyond anything we have ever seen.  We know that it exists, the most beautiful novels and movies and poems and so forth, are all about love.  There is an ideal that we hold up in our minds that we have never seen but we recognize it.  That can only be because God created us in His image, and it tells us something abut God it tells us He must be perfect in justice.  Surely He is the one from whom we have these standards.  He must be even above the standards that we can imagine in our finite minds.  

            Tom:

Dave, simply as well, it tells us that God is personal.  The only other alternative is the “big bang.” That all of these things that you mentioned are the product of an explosion of matter, all of those elements that have those characteristics those qualities.

            Dave:

They can’t be a force that brought us into existence.  And Richard Dawkins, we’ve mentioned him, one of the world’s leading evolutionists, and he’s written a number of books, we’ve quoted him from The Blind Watchmaker to the effect that the nucleus of every cell has a digitally organized data base larger than the thirty volume set of Encyclopedia Britannica.  Now, you can’t put that together by chance, by some force.  But this man, in his determination to do away with God has destroyed man who was made in God’s image.  You see, if you do away with God, you do away with man as man, as a real being who has purpose and meaning and choice and morals.  So, Richard Dawkins, one of his books is called, The Selfish Gene, and he says, We are simply—our whole body that’s put together, with our eyes, with our brains, everything is just what this selfish gene that began this whole thing back there had done all of this to replicate itself, to protect itself.  He says that what we think is purpose and meaning and choice that we make is just delusions, and the gene has created this illusion in order to further it’s survival and its development—Come on!  How can you possible imagine that?  Okay, but when you reject, when you refuse to believe in God, you become foolish enough to believe in anything.  If man was indeed made in God’s image and we can’t escape that—as you said, we didn’t arrive at what we are from a “big bang,” and the words that I am speaking is simply the result of the antecedent motions of the atoms in my brain, it all began with a “big bang” and it’s all by chance, then what I am saying is meaningless, and all the theories, even his theory about the “selfish gene” is meaningless because that came about by chance.  You can’t believe that, and the only possible explanation for the personality, the sense of truth of right and wrong, of morals and purpose and justice, and so forth, there must be a God, who is all of this and more who gave this capacity to man, we are made in His image and we are accountable to Him, and you cannot possibly escape that rationally.

            Tom:

Dave, what you said just reminds me of two scriptures:  One, The fool has said in his heart there is no God.  The evidences that you’ve laid out?  You have to be a fool to reject it!  Also Romans chapter 1, verse 22:  “Professing themselves to be wise they became fools.”  And that’s to their own peril, in effect.