contending for the faith
Gary:
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still to come, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay tuned. We return now to our program series from 2000 and—
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question. Isaiah 45:7 seems to state that God creates evil. How can this be possible if God is only and totally good? And if he doesn’t create evil what and why would it be?
Tom:
Dave, let me read Isaiah 45:7. “I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” Well, does the person have a point here?
Dave:
This is a verse that, of course, the atheist critics have jumped on. Yes, why does God create evil? I think the verse explains itself. He says: I form light and create darkness. Well, we know that darkness isn’t something that God created literally—darkness is nothing—darkness is the absence of light. So, what He is saying is that the light reveals the darkness in contrast. If you grow up in a cave a hundred yards under the ground, totally dark, you wouldn’t be aware that you were in darkness that would be natural to you. If suddenly somebody came in with a flashlight, then you would recognize the darkness for what it is. So, God is saying that in the same way he creates evil. Evil is not something that God conjured up and then men have somehow fallen into this morass because God made them or God entrapped them in it.
Tom:
Imposed it upon them.
Dave:
Right. Evil is the absence of good, but it is more than the absence of good, it is opposition to good. In other words, the Scripture defines sin as falling short of the glory of God. We were made in the image of God and then the Bible says, “…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” So, sin is anything that is less than God’s perfection. So, this is the way that God creates evil. In other words, he defines evil. His purity, his perfection defines everything else as evil, but evil isn’t something that God created and then entrapped man in.
Tom:
Right, but when we bring—when God allows for free choice, falling short of the glory of God is going to take place, right?
Dave:
Any being that has the power of choice that is less than God, will make less than godly choices, less than perfect choices. And this is what allowed sin to enter into the world. But, on the other hand, if we didn’t have the power of choice we couldn’t love God— we couldn’t love one another—we would be robots created to say, I love you God, I love you God, and it would be meaningless. Therefore, in allowing man the power of choice which man must have in order to know God, in order to love God, and to love one another, that opened the door to the possibility of evil but it’s not that—Well, the Bible says God cannot be tempted neither tempteth he any man. In other words, it’s not God’s desire that anyone should sin. It wasn’t God’s desire that Adam and Eve should sin and you could say that he gave Adam and Eve the easiest, easiest command that He could possibly give them. I don’t know how many trees were in the Garden of Eden, but I think there must have been millions of them. I don’t know what tree this was—I don’t believe that it was a special kind of a tree. It could have been an apricot, or a pear, or a peach, or whatever and there were many other trees I believe, just like this tree. But this particular one—let’s say there’s a thousand apricot trees and God points to one apricot tree and says just don’t eat of that one. You couldn’t ask for an easier commandment and yet we couldn’t keep it. The reason that He gave the commandment was not to entice man into evil, but to reveal the fact that man was capable of evil. I couldn’t say reveal the evil in man’s heart because Adam and Eve were perfect beings when God created them.
Tom:
Yes, but they had to make a choice every day. I mean, we don’t know how long it was from the time the command was given to the time they disobeyed. But that’s how you demonstrate love—this goes back to the point of choice that they loved Him and they were going to obey Him—if there was no condition set up for them to respond. I mean, that’s how—that’s a love response, isn’t it? To obey.
Dave:
That’s right. Jesus said if you love me you will keep my commandments. So, God is literally giving them the easiest test he possibly could give. You know, when you get in the Army, the marines or whatever, they don’t send you off to the battlefield without testing you. You have to go through basic training. You’ve got to be tested and God was simply testing Adam and Eve. It’s like—Tom; we could make a little application for children and their parents. It’s like the little boy that disobeys his mother—let’s say not a little boy, let’s say a teenager—disobeys his mother all year, just disregards her desires, and just grieves her in so many ways but when it comes to Mother’s Day, then he gives her a nice present. Well, if all you knew was that he gave her a nice present on Mother’s Day, you would think what a wonderful son he is. But when you see the rest of the year, then you realize that there is something that isn’t right. So, as you said, it wouldn’t be enough for a man to say “I love you God” but let’s have a test and let’s see whether you really do. This is why God says in Deuteronomy 8 that He led Israel through the wilderness. And, I allowed you to thirst, to be hungry in order to see what was in your heart; whether you would really love me and obey me or not.
Tom:
Yes, there was a quicker route to the Promised Land, wasn’t there?
Dave:
Yeah.
Gary:
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay tuned. We return now to our program series from 2000.
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question: “Recently, I joined a yoga class at the local YMCA for the exercise and peace of mind. A friend of mine, who is a Christian, doesn’t think it’s a good idea. What do you say?”
Tom:
Before we answer that question, Dave, you know, I have toyed with the idea of starting my own aerobics class at a local YMCA, featuring “Dances to the Demons,” found in the Haitian Voodoo ceremonies. Now, I am sure I could get the YMCA to approve it, after all, more outrageous as it may sound, it’s really no different than the practice of yoga, is it?
Dave:
Tom, I hope you are kidding us when you talk about organizing this dance—
Tom:
Of course, I am. I’m trying to point out how ludicrous—but people would go along and say, wait a minute. I don’t see what the problem is with yoga.
Dave:
Well yes, because, number one, they say it’s scientific, number two, it’s good for health.
Tom:
But if they were aware that we are talking about the same thing they would recognize the dangers of taking a yoga class.
Dave:
You could say what’s wrong with physical fitness? Nothing is wrong with physical fitness, but if you’re interested in physical fitness you should involve yourself in something that was designed for physical fitness. Yoga, in fact, is designed—(well, “yoga” is a Sanskrit word that means: “To yoke”). It’s designed to yoke you with “Brahman”—the goal of yoga is self-realization—to realize that you are God—to realize that “ataman” the individual soul, is identical with Brahman, the universal soul and, in fact, yoga is a technique, not for good health, but for dying. It was brought over here from the East. You say well, but I’m not really going to get—
Tom:
Dave, what do you mean, “Dying?” These people look like good physical specimens to me.
Dave:
Well, you know, one of the things that a yogi can do, I mean the real experts from India. You can confine them to a very—I mean, they can get themselves contorted up into a very small box, very small container and you can shut the thing down so there is no air in there and they can get along without any air for an amazing length of time. Some of them can stop their hearts and just sort of go into a suspended animation—
Tom:
What’s the philosophy for that? What’s the thinking behind it?
Dave:
Okay, the philosophy is that yoga—you see they want to escape the wheel of reincarnation. So, they want to reach what’s called in Hinduism, (nirvana in Buddhism) but in Hinduism, “moksha,” escape from time, sense and the elements because they want to get out of this life.
Tom:
So there is a problem with our physical makeup, right?
Dave:
Yes, but they want to get off the wheel of reincarnation because, according to their philosophy, you keep coming back again and again and again. Who wants to come back again and again and again? Gandhi said reincarnation is a burden too great to bear. It’s like a wheel and you can’t get off. The only way to get off—
Tom:
Same sorrow, the wheel of sorrow.
Dave:
That’s right. So, the only way you can get off of it is through yoga, supposedly. Now, Yoga was taught by Krishna. Shiva, the destroyer in Hinduism, the horrible god, is called Yoga Shwara. He is the teacher of Yoga, so you could say one of the main sources of yoga is from the destroyer. Vishnu, of course, who comes reincarnates, part boar, part man, part fish, you know all these things. In mythology of Hinduism he comes as Krishna and he’s teaching yoga again. But the goal of yoga is self- realization. So you had Yogananda; Paramahansa Yogananda who founded the self realization fellowship and you have various ashrams all over the world and once again the whole idea is to realize that you are God—that there is no reality—that you create your own universe with your own mind. You want to escape maya, this illusion that we have all created for ourselves out of which our suffering comes. So, you are going to return to the void which is where the whole thing began. That’s yoga!
Tom:
Can’t we just sanitize that? Can’t we strip it of its spiritual elements and put it in the Young Man’s Christian Association and say, no problem here?
Dave:
Well, why? Why would you want to do it? In other words, why would you want to take something that is specifically designed for contact with the demonic world, in fact, the people that take it at the YMCA don’t know this and they are not going to learn it from their teacher. But if you want to read the books on Yoga by the great yogis they will warn you that it is very, very dangerous and you should have a teacher along with you monitoring you because, for example, in Transcendental Meditation, which is a form of yoga, (and we probably need to go into that in more detail) and you learn a mantra. Each mantra is the name of a Hindu deity and the repetition of the mantra over and over like, iying, iying, iying, iying, that is literally a call to this spirit entity behind every idol, behind every pagan deity, Paul says there is a devil. And so, the repetition of a name of this pagan deity, this mantra, is a call to this being to possess you. Now, you read this in the major works on yoga by the great yoga teachers and they warn you that it is very dangerous. So, Tom, if fifty years ago I had said you mark my words, in the last days, (we’re heading for the last days), you’re going to have people all over this world who, in the name of science and supposedly for good health, are going to be learning techniques for dying and they will be calling upon demonic entities to come and possess them, you would say that I am out of my mind. It’s exactly what is happening today. So, this yoga that is being taught in YMCAs and YWCAs, maybe has been sanitized to some extent. But if you are interested in good health and physical development, take some exercises that were designed for that.
Gary:
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still to come, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay tuned. We return now to our program series from 2000 and-
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question, “The gospels are silent about the approximately eighteen years between the last time we hear of Jesus in the temple as a boy in Luke 2:41-52, and the beginning of His ministry at about thirty years of age, Luke 3:23. I have come across the report a number of times, not only in the Aquarian Gospel but in newspapers as well, that during those missing years Jesus was in India studying under the gurus. The wisdom he acquired there supposedly became the basis for his ministry. I don’t buy it but how would you respond if someone told you that?”
Tom:
Dave, there are a lot of ideas about Jesus and there is no shortage of books related to the missing years and, you know, the gospel of this, and just recently found gospel of that, and gospel of Thomas, and so on and so forth. They do introduce a lot of information about, supposedly about Jesus that we don’t find in the Bible and people say, well, you know, it could have been. How do we deal with something like that?
Dave:
Well, first of all, I trust the Bible because I can prove that this is God’s Word. Every way you look at it, scientifically, historically, there is absolutely no doubt that the Bible is the Word of God, okay? I do not have any confidence, that kind of confidence, in these other records because they have all kinds of problems, all kinds of flaws in them. So, what does the Bible say? Well, first of all, if Jesus had traveled to India, to Tibet, like some of these would try to say—
Tom:
For the purpose of bringing Eastern religions, the ideas of the East, to demonstrate that really there are lots of different ways to God and sort of putting His stamp of approval on it.
Dave:
Even regardless of what reason he went, if he had done that he would be known as a Jewish Marco Polo. He would have been famous in Israel just on that basis alone. But nobody says that about him. Isn’t this Jesus of Nazareth, the son of a carpenter? Why does—who does he think he is that he can do these great things and teach and so forth. That does not sound like the sort of awe with which you would hold someone who has been off to India and Tibet. So, from that standpoint, it doesn’t make sense. Furthermore, did Jesus ever bring any of these ideas back with Him, you know, if he went on this journey. No, he didn’t! In fact, everything that Jesus says is to the contrary. He was not a vegetarian, he ate the Passover Lamb, He ate fish and so forth. These are all vegetarians. He would have had to study under a guru and every guru has to bring the wisdom of his guru—he never talked about His guru. He talked about his Father in heaven, which the gurus wouldn’t like to hear nor did the rabbis like to hear that. Jesus never said that he was a man who adopted ascetic practices and yoga and meditation and so forth in order to become God. He claimed to be God who had become a man in order to redeem us. The gurus deny that there is sin. Jesus talked about sin. He said that he had come to seek and to save the lost. Jesus washed people’s feet. A guru would never do that. You couldn’t touch him that would contaminate him. I mean, there are just so many ways in which everything that Jesus said and everything that he did denies any possibility that he went to India and to Tibet to study under the gurus. He gives you absolutely the opposite of their philosophy. The Bible gives you absolutely the opposite. There is no reincarnation, there is resurrection. It does not tie in with the Word of God at all.
Tom:
This seems to fly in the face of Gandhi. Wasn’t it Gandhi who said that he was both Christian, that he was a Christian, that he was also a Buddhist, that he was also a Muslim and he was also a Hindu?
Dave:
Yes, but you can’t be those, too. It doesn’t make any sense.
Tom:
But that’s the idea from the East; it’s the embrace that smothers.
Dave:
Well, it’s the attempt by people—they don’t like Jesus as he is. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes unto the Father but by me. He talks about the Father. He didn’t talk about Brahman. He didn’t talk about becoming one with the universe but he said, in my Father’s house are many mansions. I’m going to come back and take you there. You don’t get anything like that. Everything that Jesus said and did just contradicts this whole idea. Well then, why do they come up with this idea? Because they don’t like the Jesus of the Bible. They don’t want Him to be the only begotten Son of God. They want Him to be one of the sons of God and we’re all sons of God. No. You only come to the Father by me and Paul said we become the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And, Jesus said to the Jews and as to all of us, you are of your father the devil. So, they don’t like this Jesus so they try to come up with another Jesus, a Hindu Jesus or a Buddhist Jesus—
Tom:
Or a New Age Jesus.
Dave:
Well, basically it’s a New Age Jesus and it won’t work because it will not fit the Bible.
Tom:
Right.
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, please stay with us. We return now to our program series from 2000 and:
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call, here’s this week’s question: Have you read Mind Games by André Cole, the Campus Crusade magician? I saw a review of it in Christian News that had your picture because Cole’s book contradicts what you have written about demonic and satanic power in Occult Invasion, and most of your other books. How do you respond to Cole?
Dave:
You’re asking me? Well, certainly it is—well, you’ve sat in with me, one of my dear friends believes this, and we’ve discussed it with him.
Tom:
Yeah, this is André Cole who’s a Campus Crusade, he’s a good guy.
Dave:
Yeah, I love Andre, he’s a good man, he loves the Lord, but this is his view as a magician. But when Paul warns, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, about this man who’s coming is after the power of Satan with lying signs and wonders and all deceivableness of unrighteousness, it hardly seems like he’s warning us about stage magicians, slight of hand and staged magic. Jesus warns Matthew 24:24 that there will arise false prophets who will show great signs and wonders so convincing that it’s possible even the elect would be deceived. I hardly think that he’s talking about something that any stage magician could say, Now wait a minute here, I’ll explain to you, this is how they do it. When the Scripture tells me that in the temptation in the wilderness Satan took Jesus up to the top of a mountain, and showed Him the kingdoms of this earth in a moment of time. Now that seems like tremendous power to me. I don’t think a stage magician could take Jesus on to the top of a mountain, the wilderness—zip—and there he is, and show Him the kingdoms of this world in a moment of time. Apparently even showing—talking about the kingdoms of this world—the kingdoms to come even, the glory of this. Or could suddenly take Jesus upon the pinnacle of the temple. I mean, if I’m believing the Bible, then it was Satan who transported Jesus onto the pinnacle of the temple and tempted Him to jump off, because then the angels would catch Him and the people would worship Him, and so forth.
Tom:
You know, there’s even a more mundane, if I can use that term in example, and that is the demoniac. Here the Scripture tells us that chains were not able to contain this man. Now, it doesn’t say that this man was like a Houdini, who was able to slip out of these, you know, when he was shackled, but he broke the chains.
Dave:
He broke them.
Tom:
And that’s got to be a super, not supernatural, but a power that we’re not able to do.
Dave:
I could put it like this, just real quickly. Satan is subject to God, he lives in a different dimension. It’s part of this universe, I believe it is, but it’s a non physical dimension, and there are laws that govern, you know, in that dimension just like there are created dimensions.
Tom:
It’s a created dimension.
Dave:
That’s right, but when Satan, from the non dimensional world invades our physical world, he seems to be able to do things that, at least by our scientific understanding are not possible and could seem like miracles, but are not. But nevertheless, there is a power, definitely a power to put boils on Job, to take the boils off, and so forth, you read the Book of Job. So, Yes, I believe that Satan has a definite power, but it is limited, he cannot raise the dead, so Antichrist will not be somebody brought back from the dead. He cannot legitimately, genuinely heal; he can’t restore a missing limb, and so forth. But if he could put boils on Job he could put something on someone, and then he could take that off and it would seem to be a healing in order to cause them to follow him.
Tom:
And the other aspect of this, just briefly, is that if André is saying that this is all some kind of a deceit, it’s like a stage magic, well, this is something—I mean—Jannes and Jambres, we have examples where God is condemning this sort of thing. We spent time on divination; there are things that are condemned. Well, if this is stage magic of that sort, doesn’t André have a problem here, isn’t this what he does?
Dave:
Well, Andre should be here to defend himself, but you know, we give you all kinds of examples in Occult Invasion, of things that cannot be duplicated by stage magic.
Gary:
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still to come, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay tuned. We return now to our program series from 2000 and:
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question, which is a composite of several we’ve received: “I’ve been reading books and listening to tapes about the Nephilim in Genesis 6. What is your belief in this regard?”
Tom:
Dave, I want to read first, Genesis 6:4. “There were giants on the earth in those days and also afterwards when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. They were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Now, some Christian writers, or there are some who seem to be pushing views about the Nephilim that go far beyond what the Scriptures can reasonably support. But Dave, can’t we run into trouble in this area?
Dave:
Well, I guess we could run into trouble in any area if we try to go beyond what Scripture says. This is a difficult passage. For example, those who interpret these as being fallen angels, would go to Jude where it says, the angels that kept not their first estate—talks about them going after strange flesh and so forth. And then they would say that there was some kind of a hybrid race and that was the reason for the flood. So, who are these sons of God? Well, in Job it says the sons of God came together and Satan came with them so it doesn’t seem to call Satan a son of God and I would think that then, his underlings wouldn’t be called sons of God. Men are called sons of God—Adam is called a son of God. It could just be saying that men took women as they pleased, it says. Great men of renown were born—they were giants—I mean genetically—this sort of thing that happened. I don’t think that it’s saying that demonic beings or fallen angels, spirit beings could procreate with human beings. If then, why not now? But this is not just some incubus, some incident that occurs, but it says they became their husbands, they took wives and they had families. So, this would be demonic entities or spirit entities somehow taking bodies that are not just an apparition, like the apparition of Mary or whatever, but they have flesh and they remain on this earth for a period of time. I just can’t accept that.
Tom:
Well, Mark 12:25 tells us, for when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven. That seems to indicate that—
Dave:
Angels are sexless—right. They don’t have sex.
Tom:
Or, at least, they don’t get married and this Scripture says they have taken wives so that would be, at least, the Scripture that would make me wonder about some of the speculation.
Dave:
Yes. So, in some of these cases, Tom, I mean, I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers to every difficult scripture out there and in some cases I just have to say, well, I’m not sure what that means but I cannot believe that spirit entities took bodies and became the husbands of women on this earth. Now, there are some other possibilities. Some people say it was the godly seed of Seth who were intermarrying and they shouldn’t have been. There are other possibilities as well. I don’t know, Tom, but I don’t think that there are spirit beings who invaded this earth and that now—I mean some people try to equate it with Goliath. He had four brothers and they were giants and they say that these were some of the Nephilim. Well, but I thought that they were all destroyed in the flood and if they weren’t all destroyed in the flood or if their spirits are still floating about out there and they can do this sort of thing—this is like a virgin birth, you know—why aren’t we having instances of this down through history and we don’t have it. So, it’s a difficult Scripture, Tom, and I’m not prepared to give some definitive answer except, I don’t think it’s spirit beings having sex with women and becoming their husbands.
Tom:
And the speculation along this line and I think that’s part of what we are seeing out there—the speculation that’s built upon speculation and then doctrines form and I don’t think, in many cases, we have a basis for it.
Dave:
Actually we are better off if we leave these kinds of passages alone and stick with what we really know.
Tom:
Dave, as we have been indicating, Genesis 6:4, is really a very difficult passage to understand. It’s not that we’re not to take the time and the effort to search these things out but there can be a real problem with developing something on something that’s too difficult to really understand, developing even the doctrine.
Dave:
There’s a temptation, Tom that we want to be the ones who know something that nobody else knows. We want to have a sort of an esoteric interpretation and I’m not blaming anybody for that but we have to be very careful that we don’t try to build, as you say, build too much. And here’s a Scripture that’s very difficult, then I don’t think that I should try to build some big teaching based around this. I would rather go to those passages of which we are certain and so I would say that that’s the problem and then we can become preoccupied, spend so much time trying to understand this and I think that is dangerous as well. So, what are we saying? We shouldn’t even think about it? No, as you said, it’s worth thinking about but in the final analysis I want to be very careful I don’t build too much on a very shaky foundation.
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay with us. We return now to our program series from 2000.
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: What scripture do you use to support the idea that the soul is a separate entity from the body? Ecclesiastes 9:5, very clearly tells us that the dead know not anything. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, says that the dead in Christ are asleep.
Tom:
Dave, we don’t know whether this individual who wrote to us about this, whether this is something he believes, or he is wrestling with somebody, perhaps an occult that believes in annihilation after death, and so on, but it’s a question that we can come to grips with. First of all, Ecclesiastes 9:5, does that mean the dead know nothing? Are we talking about someone who dies and ceases to exist?
Dave:
Well, let me deal first with the difference between soul and spirit, since that was what they asked first.
Tom:
Sure.
Dave:
The Bible does clearly distinguish. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit—” Sounds like they are different. 1 Thessalonians 5:23, you know, I don’t remember the references but I remember what it says. Paul said, I pray God that your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless until the day of Jesus Christ. So, He’s distinguishing between the spirit, soul and body. We are tri-part beings, like the triune God who created us. So there is no question that the Bible distinguishes between the body, soul and spirit. Now, as far as the dead knowing nothing, the dead bodies don’t know anything. Actually, Solomon is talking about “under the sun” that’s the key phrase.
Tom:
Dave:
“Under the sun, under the sun, under the sun” well, you’re not under the sun anymore, you have no more part on this earth, you have left—a good argument against reincarnation because you don’t come back again, you’re finished with this earth. But as far as the soul and the spirit sleeping and being unconscious, it doesn’t sound like that when Jesus talks about the rich man in hell—he lift up his eyes being in torment, it says. And he’s communing with Abraham, Abraham is there and Lazarus, the beggar. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, Today you will be with Me in paradise. It doesn’t sound like they’re sleeping. It says that Jesus preached to the spirits that were in prison who before were—this is 1 Peter Chapter 3—preached to the spirits who were in prison, who before in the days of Noah had been disobedient. Doesn’t sound to me like they are sleeping. Paul, in Philippians Chapter 1, he said, I am in a strait betwixt two—that means he’s on the horns of a dilemma here—having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better. He’s got a desire to be with Christ, I mean, what’s the point of sleeping next to Christ, is Christ asleep up there? Is Paul going to be asleep?
Tom:
2 Corinthians 5:8, presents the same problem: “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Well, we weren’t talking about an extended presence or an extended time of thoughtlessness or ceasing to exist.
Dave:
So surely Paul didn’t want to just go to sleep, he wants to be with Christ, absent from the body, present with the Lord, I mean, present with the Lord doesn’t mean anything if you’re all unconscious. So this is not a biblical teaching at all.
Tom:
You know, and to me it really flies against, I mean it’s worse than that, it denies the very love relationship that began when we were born again in Christ. How can I look forward to a time in which I will cease to know Christ, cease to know anything? He said, I’ll never leave you nor forsake you, He’s our love, this just does great damage to that, plus, you know, it’s wrong.
Dave:
Well, then of course it would give courage to the unsaved to believe that they would be annihilated. So, if I don’t accept Christ, I can live any kind of life I want, Hitler is no worse off now than somebody who lived like a saint. Because he has been annihilated, there’s no consciousness any more. Then what are we going to do with the fact that Revelation Chapter 20 says, “I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away?? And the books are open and the dead are standing before, and the dead are judged out of those things in the Book. Well, it sounds to me like dead people can stand before God in judgment. So, everything that I read in the Word of God, Jesus warned people about being cast into hell, He warned them to flee from his at all costs. What does it mean—I wouldn’t flee from it if it just means annihilation. I can’t think, I can’t feel, I’m just finished. The Bible simple does not teach that, and everything the Bible says is to the contrary.
Gary:
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still to come, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation, please stay tuned. We return now to our program series from 2000.
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question: Your newsletter reported that the Vatican justified expenditures for its telescope by saying it would all be worth it if just a single alien is converted. You seem to imply disapproval of that idea. Why? Shouldn’t the gospel be given to extraterrestrials if they are encountered?
Tom:
What are you laughing about, Dave? You know, there are people who take this seriously.
Dave:
I shouldn’t laugh, Tom, but sometimes—
Tom:
But it does stretch things a bit.
Dave:
I find the lack of reasoning, common sense on the part of Christians is just staggering! First of all, Jesus said: God into all the world and preach the gospel. He didn’t say anything about other worlds out there. Secondly, I think we have already alluded to it very briefly; there cannot be extraterrestrials out there. Humanoids with the power of choice, moral beings, who have been created by God, to His glory like man was, and so forth, because if that were the case they would have sinned, I mean, obvious that’s logical. Any creature created by God, who is therefore less than God will make a less than godly choice. And sin is defined in the Bible as coming short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” So every creature that was created by God will come short of the glory of God. That means they are sinners. If God loves them, and He surely would love all creatures that He made, because the Bible says God is love, then He would want to redeem them. Now how is He going to redeem them? I mean, it’s not like God said, Well, we created Adam and Eve on that planet earth and they blew it, now let’s try again, you know, on another planet and maybe we will do better with Adam and Eve Number 2. God knows everything, okay, so He knows that they would all sin. So now we’ve got a problem. We’ve got extraterrestrials out there all over this universe and the only reason anyone would believe that they are out there is if you believed in evolution, and you think life happened by chance on this planet, it can happen by chance out on other planets. But okay, so now if you believe God created them, now what’s He going to do, how is He going to redeem them? Well, to redeem man God had to become one of us, did He not? Therefore to redeem them He would have to become one of them. But the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. He became a man, He didn’t become other creatures out there, He can only be a man, He couldn’t be a man and other creatures. Furthermore, it says that He has appeared once in the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. So the sacrifice of Christ on this earth is the only solution to sin anywhere! Now, we’re going to have a gospel preached on some other planet?
Tom:
Well, what would Bethlehem mean to somebody light years away on another galaxy?
Dave:
Right and it wouldn’t mean anything. See, we have evidence in Scriptures, we have historical evidence, we have archeological evidence, we have the evidence of eye witnesses, and so forth, all of these elements would be missing if this gospel, which is the only gospel there could be were preached to other creatures on another planet. But it couldn’t, the death of Christ could not pay for them because He would have to become one of them. So they’re just simply—they are not out there. The Vatican doesn’t know that.
Tom:
The Vatican, which we are going to discuss later, believes in evolution. They have the basis for developing this and spending money for it. No, it’s not biblical.
Dave:
So, this big telescope is supposedly to find life out there so that we can go out and evangelize them. Furthermore, I mean it’s—Tom, I’m sorry, but it’s a delusion from so many angles, let me just give you one other angle. They are light years away, how are we going to get to them? I mean, it would be worth it if we could just save one soul, how are you going to get there? Come on, our spacecraft are not capable of doing that! So, it’s just a delusion all the way around, but the worst part of it is that it is not biblical.
