understanding the scriptures
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000 with Dave and Tom:
Tom:
This portion of our program is dedicated to Understanding the Scriptures, especially the major doctrines taught in the Bible. And that’s not only for our sake that we might all grow in the faith which was once delivered to the saints, but also that we might be able to explain and clearly share our faith with others. Today we are continuing our study of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, which holds the key to some very critical questions about the Christian faith, the foremost being, why did God have to become a man and go to the cross to die for the sins of mankind. What problem could have caused such a staggering event? Well, the answer is found in the very first book of the Bible, so if you’re not familiar with what it says, we hope we can be an encouragement to you to search these particular scriptures with us. In verse 17 of Genesis 2, God presented a condition to Adam and Eve telling them that if they ate the fruit of a certain tree in the Garden of Eden, the penalty for their disobedience would be death, spiritual death, which meant spiritual separation from God forever and physical death which would begin to take affect in their bodies. Sometime after that Satan tempted Eve with lies; her response as well as her husband’s is found in Genesis chapter 3:6, she disobeyed God and so did Adam. Dave, we’re going to pick up with verse 8. “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” They sinned; there would be consequences, certainly reactions that they would have never considered prior to sin in their life.
Dave:
Well Tom, you know, some people think, wait a minute, come on, what is this, some kind of a myth, this tree and this talking serpent and so forth is some allegory, or just a fable to illustrate something? No, it actually happened, Genesis is the foundation of the Bible. And it was, as we have said in the past, just to remind our listeners out there, it’s the simplest command God could have given. That’s why it was a tree because they had an abundance of trees and why would they have to eat of this tree? I don’t think it was anything special, I don’t think it had a different kind of fruit than any other tree had. It could have been an apple tree, peach, pear, whatever, I’m sure that they had many other trees with the same kind of fruit. It wasn’t that there was some power in the fruit; it was the act of disobedience, that’s the problem. So He gave them the simplest command and they didn’t obey it, they rebelled, they tried to be little gods themselves, to run their own lives, and that’s the problem that we have in the world today. Now suddenly—
Tom:
Things changed, big time!
Dave:
Yeah, suddenly they are separated from God. They are guilty; they realize they have done wrong. It’s like a little child that’s been stealing cookies while Mommy has been at the store. When she comes back and finds out—uuhhoo you’ve got jam on your mouth, or whatever, you know. So it’s a reaction that has repeated itself all down through history. But this is between the first man and his wife and God, and this is where the separation began, this is why the Bible tells us. There’s a barrier now, and from this point on between God and man there is a chasm, a separation, and it can’t be taken care of just by, okay, that’s all right, pat us on the head, and tell me you’re sorry.
Tom:
It’s not going to work here.
Dave:
Tell me you’re sorry, and then we’ll start over again. No, God is a God of perfect justice. It’s just like the inexorable laws of the universe, laws of gravity. You jump out of a plane and say, Well, Granny says that there is a law of gravity, but I mean, birds can fly, why can’t I? No, there is! This is a moral law and we violated it, we are rebels, we’ve rebelled against God, I mean rebelled against God! That is so unthinkable, it is so horrible!
Tom:
Dave, I want to get on these scriptures, but there’s a thought that I’m sure some people may be troubled some. God is love, God is certainly just, but He is also merciful. Why couldn’t mercy have come into play here? I mean it does, but I’m talking about in terms of sort of smoothing over their sins.
Dave:
Well, there is mercy. You get it in Psalm 85:10, “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” There is no peace without righteousness, and there’s no real mercy without truth. Mercy over what? You know, a lot of parents say don’t tell me what my child has done, don’t tell me that they’re into drugs or into that; I just want to forgive them. No, I have to face the consequences, and then mercy. Mercy rejoices in judgments, mercy must be merciful about something because of something. And if it’s just so simple that God can just say, Well, that’s okay, no problem. No, God made a statement, He said, “You eat of this tree and the day you eat of it you will die.” Now, death came, God can’t go back on His Word. The problem now is how are we going to bring life out of death? I can’t go back and say, Well I’m sorry I said that, you know God says, well I made a mistake; I shouldn’t have really made the consequences so severe. No, the consequences are because of who God is, because of His character, and because of the very nature of the universe that He has made and the relationship that man must have with Him. It’s that basic, and now death has entered the human race. Now we going to have to somehow bring life out of death, a new race out of this old race, how will that happen? That’s what the rest of the Bible is about.
Tom:
And if we’re not understanding that, if we are not taking heed believing this first book of the Bible, I don’t know how you could put together the rest of it, which is why we are going through Genesis.
Dave:
Then we become the authors of scripture and we decide what is true and what is not, and what we like, and we will accept that part of it. No, you have to take it as a package, and we’ve mentioned that before.
Tom:
Picking up with Genesis 3:9: Again, we are looking at the consequences of the first sin committed by mankind. “And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, “Where art thou?” Now, that’s curious, God knew where they were, so this was for them, not for Him.
Dave:
And—where are you? You’re hiding. Why? What’s the problem, Adam? Tell me about it, and we have to confess our sins, we’ve got to admit what went wrong and why.
Tom:
And, picking up with verse 10: “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Here are two reactions that have never taken place in Adam’s heart with regard to God prior to sin. Fear, recognizing—I mean he was always naked, why now is this the problem?
Dave:
Well, it goes beyond physical nakedness, the scripture says, “all things are naked and opened before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”
Tom:
Right.
Dave:
Thou God seeth me, God knows everything about me, He can look right into my heart. But there would be no concern about that if there wasn’t something wrong in my heart.
Tom:
Never happened before, he was always in that state, God saw his heart. But everything he did up to that point pleased God.
Dave:
Right, Now Adam recognizes that there is something wrong.
Tom:
Verse 11: “And he said, (that is, God) who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” Dave, we’re just about out of time, but it’s interesting that God gives questions here that He already knows the answers to, why is that?
Dave:
Because we have to admit it. He knows everything about it, I mean, of course in the very question He’s letting Adam know that he knows. He’s eliciting a response from Adam, a confession, acknowledgment of his sin.
Tom:
Dave, we’re just about out of time. What we want to do as we continue to go through these scriptures in Genesis is identify, not just the problem, but the consequences of the problem at the beginning, because if we don’t, as we said, I know we are repeating ourselves here, but if we don’t understand the problems and the solutions—
Dave:
Absolutely!
Tom:
Absolutely incredible solution that God brings is not going to make sense to us, and even if we have an idea of it, we want to understand it well enough that we can explain and share it with others that they might know the love of God, what He’s done, and that they might respond to it.
Dave:
Amen.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. And now, to tell you more about our ministry here is TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon”
Tom:
The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the Book of Acts Chapter 17, Verses 10 and 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek City of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble, or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they search the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. We want to exhort believers to give greater heed to biblical discernment and truth regarding what they are accepting as spiritual. Our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority, and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary:
In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s, DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #2509, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we will continue our revisit to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and What is the importance of prophesy? In Religion in the News: “Is Yoga for the body or the mind?” We’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Have we found another contradiction in the Bible?” We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael, and for Dave, Tom, and everyone here at The Berean Call I would like to thank you for tuning in and invite you to join us next week. In the meantime, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
Tom:
We’re discussing various aspects of the gospel of salvation, and we’re going through the first chapters in Genesis. Dave, some of our listeners may not be familiar with the Book of Genesis other than knowing that it’s the first book of the Bible, and it says some things about creation. But nevertheless they are of the opinion that it’s not particularly relevant to the gospel. Some theologians have even gone so far as to dismiss the first 11 chapters of Genesis as something the Bible would be better off without. But Genesis was vital enough for Jesus to quote from, wasn’t it?
Dave:
Genesis is the way the Bible begins, and as we’ve said on this program and on other programs if the Bible isn’t all true, then who says that any of it is true, or which part of it is true? And the Bible in fact is, we have been seeing in our study of Genesis, in the book of Genesis it lays out the foundation for everything else. If I can’t believe what the Bible says about the fall of man, why should I believe what it says about his redemption? And in fact we do have it laid out here beautifully and powerfully.
Tom:
Dave, I’ve heard people say, you talk to them about the Bible, you try to bring it up, that’s what this program is about, but they say, oh no, I’m not interested. I say, why is that? They say, well, you know the Bible is wrong right from the beginning. And I say well, how do you figure? And I said “in the beginning God created.” Oh no, no, no, God didn’t create anything. So they take an evolutionary view. But that’s to throw it out, but I’m more concerned about Christians who undermine it because, as you said, it really is the foundation. You know, one thing that we’ve been talking about here, and we’ve been trying to understand better is the gospel has to do with Christ dying for our sins.
Dave:
Tom, can I just interject here for a moment. This unrehearsed program is obviously unrehearsed. Let’s go back to what you just quoted, “in the beginning God.” It’s rather simple, we know that the universe—this is the conclusion that scientists have only come to very recently, that there was a beginning to the universe. It’s obvious if the sun had been here forever, you know we have talked about this; it would have burned up by now. We know that any things made of energy, energy’s 2nd Law of Thermodynamics; it runs down like a clock. So oh, there was a big bang that began it all. Yeah, but where did the energy for the big bang come from? If there had been some energy hanging around it would have worn out before the big bang, you understand? So you are driven to the conclusion that there must have been a time when nothing was here, the universe wasn’t here, it had a beginning, okay, that’s the way the Bible starts, beginning. Well now what was here in the beginning? Nothing? You couldn’t have had some piece of matter hanging around it would have worn out, okay? So there must have been a time when the energy that the universe is comprised of, the matter that is in the universe did not exist! There was nothing, you don’t get something out of nothing. Not some thing couldn’t have been here—some One must have been here. Some One who had the capability of creating everything out of nothing.
Tom:
Right, but not of himself.
Dave:
No, and not of things, things couldn’t have been here long enough. We talked a little bit about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith said that matter and intelligence are eternal, they existed forever. No, 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, matter couldn’t have been around. Okay, so how does the Bible begin? In the beginning, the beginning of the universe, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. You are driven to that conclusion by science; you are driven to that conclusion by logic. And this is the way the Bible begins, and then it moves from there and it tells us what God created and the place of man in this creation, man’s relationship to God that God desired to have, man’s rebellion, and the solution that God has for them.
Tom:
Right. We’ve been talking about the problem, the problem found in Genesis is that, as you said, man rebelled and the penalty is in Genesis 2:16 and 17: “In the day that thou eateth thereof thou shalt surely die.” Adam and Eve sinned; God imposed the penalty, separation from him forever.
Dave:
And it wasn’t that there was something about that tree or about that fruit, it was in the eating thereof they had disobeyed God. This was a test to see if they would obey God, and God has to be God. We don’t want God to be God, the God that most people want I kind of a cosmic bellhop, He does our bidding, He answers our prayers, He gives us what we want. But somehow, it’s unreasonable for God to expect us to go along with His plans, we want to make our own and then we want God to bless them. So, this is all laid out in the book of Genesis.
Tom:
Right. We’re going to pick up with Genesis 3:7. Right after Adam and Eve sinned we’re going to discuss the consequences. Verse 7: “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. This is their first response to sin. Before they had no knowledge of evil, but now they recognized things from a mind that was now sinful.
Dave:
Interesting that apron, and I don’t want to get off the track here, Tom, but the Masonic apron the masons want to be buried in. In the temple ceremony, in the Mormon Temple it’s Satan who comes and gives them the apron.
Tom:
But it’s a good thing as far as they are concerned.
Dave:
That’s right.
Tom:
Why is it a good thing?
Dave:
Well, supposedly this is Satan’s solution.
Tom:
Well, they wouldn’t say Satan, they would say Lucifer.
Dave:
Well yeah, Lucifer. Brigham Young says it like this: “The devil told the truth. I do not blame Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit, that’s how we become gods.” So Mormonism is literally based upon the belief that the lie the serpent told that destroyed the human race, according to the Bible, is the truth, and this is starting us out to become gods. Like Lucifer said: “I will be like the most high.”
Tom:
So that’s Joseph Smith’s solution, or so he was told from Moroni, that’s his solution to the problem, that’s not God’s solution.
Dave:
Actually you don’t find that in the Book of Mormon, this is something that he came up with. An inspiration that he got—he burst upon the Mormons in the King Follett Discourse, first of all. But anyway, it’s the old lie, and as you know Tom and I’m sure our listeners would be familiar with; I can’t remember whether we discussed it before but I’m sure we have. And this is the common lie that is everywhere; it’s the goal of all yoga, self-realization, to realize that I am God. This is the message that you get when you are in contact with spirit beings, whether it’s channeling or in a séance, and so forth. It comes through everywhere; you reach cosmic consciousness under drugs, LSD and so forth. So, this is the universal lie, and the Bible lays it out very clearly for us.
Tom:
Dave, back to verse 7, I want to really talk about the reaction of Adam and Eve to their sin. First of all they see that they are naked. Before,—they didn’t have any problem with it. Secondly, this sewing the fig leaves together, that wasn’t just an act of modesty, I think they were trying to hide from God. They were trying to—
Dave:
Well, they did hide behind a tree. Someone has put it very well, an old preacher of previous century said that every sinner is like Adam and Eve hiding behind a tree. But what we have to do is find out what is that tree and chop it down and expose them to God. And that’s what the Word of God does really in our hearts.
Tom:
Verse 8: “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” They didn’t have to do that before, sin has taken its affect in terms of their relationship, now it’s different.
Dave:
There is definitely a separation between God and man, and there is a solution that is needed and man cannot effect it, it has to come from God’s side, no doubt about it. It’s interesting, Tom, “Ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil.” This was the promise of the serpent, and they became like the gods. What were the gods? Well, the head of them was Lucifer, he rebelled. So now Adam and Eve, you could become rebels too, and you can pretend that you’re little gods or you can aspire to your own godhood, to make your way to plan your own life.
Tom:
And self exultation—that’s what caused Lucifer himself to fall, and then Adam and Eve.
Dave:
This is where the self that Christ said must be denied, this is where it had its awful birth. And remember, Satan didn’t tempt Eve with immorality, with drunkenness or anything else; he tempted her with a good self image to become like God with high ambitions, but on her own in rebellion against God. And that’s the problem of the human race and in each of our hearts.
Tom:
And it leads to the destruction which we can—the evidence is all around us. This is not what God intended but this is what sin has—
Dave:
But praise God, He has a solution in Jesus Christ who died for our sins, paid a penalty so that we could be forgiven.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. And now to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:
Tom:
The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the book of Acts, chapter 17: 10 & 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek City of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. We want to exhort believers to give greater heed to biblical discernment and truth regarding what they are accepting as spiritual. We hope to supply those who profess to be Biblical Christians with information and materials that will encourage the love of God’s truth. Hopefully we can help mobilize believers in Christ to action in obedience to the scriptural command to earnestly contend for the faith found in Jude 3. And finally, our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary:
In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #2409, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we’ll continue our revisit to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “Should faith be based on facts?” In Religion in the News, “Toast with the Testaments,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “What is the third secret of our Lady of Fatima?” We hope you can tune in. If you have questions or comments about this program we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call I would to thank you for joining us, and invite you to tune in again next week. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth search the scriptures daily. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
Tom:
In our ongoing series in which we have been exploring the biblical teaching of the gospel of salvation, we’re considering a question which many non-Christians think about, even object to, yet rarely do Christians supply an answer in their presentation of the gospel. The question is this: Why did Jesus go to the cross? In other words, why did He who claimed to be God incarnate have to die? Dave before we get to the vital scripture verses on this, how important is such a question for Christians to be able to answer and for those seeking God to understand?
Dave:
Well I think it is absolutely essential that we have an answer for this because if there is no answer; if this is just a capricious thing, happenstance, just happened to be, that was the way is was, some kind of mythology or something, then what’s the point, you know? We began our program discussing that. Now there are absolutely basic biblical reasons for this beginning right in the very chapter—you know Tom I can’t remember from one week to the next, but I think—are we sort of in Genesis 3 still?
Tom:
Yes, we are going to pick up with Genesis 3:7.
Dave:
Yes, but to answer this question, do you mind if I jump a little ahead in that chapter?
Tom:
Go, yes!
Dave:
When God throws Adam and Eve out of the garden, I mean this is very serious. They only ate of the tree that God said not to eat of. But that was rebellion against God. They had forfeited their right to be in His universe in fact. He didn’t wipe them out totally because He’s going to give them an opportunity to receive His grace and to receive the pardon that He offers through Christ who is yet to come. The other tree that was named for us in the garden, besides the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was the Tree of Life and when God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden because of their rebellion against Him, He kept the way to the Tree of Life with a flaming sword and cherubim it says. They were there with a flaming sword to prevent mankind from getting to the Tree of Life. Now you would say well that seems mean for God to do that. Doesn’t He want them to live? Yes, but He does not want to perpetuate them in their sinful state. That would not be a kindness to us—so that we continue to live on in these sinful bodies of suffering and sickness and so forth? God has something better. He has resurrected, glorified bodies for us, so He kept the way to the Tree of Life. You don’t get to heaven that way. But there was a flaming sword and I love the way a hymn writer put it. He said up to that sword, we all fled that sword—we were talking about the death penalty—we complained against that sword. God said death is the penalty and the human race complains, we fled that sword, our major instinct is self-preservation. One day the second man, the last Adam, Jesus Christ walked up to that sword and took it in His heart for us. And that’s how He became The Way to life for us.
Tom:
You are talking about the cross now.
Dave:
Right, and I like the way the hymn writer put it—if I can remember a few of the words at least, he said “His blood, that flaming blade must quench. His heart its sheath must be….” And this is what we talked about earlier when Christ took the punishment we deserved at the cross. Now if the flaming sword was there from the very beginning, and if God says you will never get life, eternal life, you will never be back in my favor unless you pass that sword that is laid out at the very beginning of the Bible: “the day you eat there of you shall surely die.” Now Tom, an objection—and I don’t remember whether we’ve talked about this before, but and objection that some people have, and I have talked with philosophers and scientists and atheists and skeptics and so forth and one thing that they sometimes bring up is wait a minute it is not just for Jesus to die in my place. If Mr. Brown murders someone, you don’t put Mr. Jones in the electric chair in his place and I think we have talked about Barabas. Jesus died in the place of Barabas, but it didn’t save him, it didn’t change his life. All he did was get out again so that he could live the way he wanted to live. But Paul said “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” So we go through death in Christ accepting His death as our death. We have died in Him. The cross is not some pretty thing you wear around your neck or you put on top of a steeple. But it’s a place where we face the truth about ourselves that we are sinners, that we have forfeited the right to live in God’s universe and we give up life as we would have lived it and we accept the death of Christ as our very own death. We open our hearts to Him become our life. It’s not now from a tree of life. The tree of life is the cross you could say but the life that we now receive is through Jesus Christ living within us as we have accepted Him as our Savior.
Tom:
But Dave take me back to where you were talking about the philosophers. Their objection was that Christ died in our place and how could that satisfy absolute justice, or justice in their minds?
Dave:
Well they were saying it wasn’t just for someone to die in the place of another and what I am saying is that isn’t exactly the way it happens because we die in Him. His death becomes our death. He is—
Tom:
But not for salvation, in other words you are not adding on something that we would do that would solve the problem of our reconciliation to God.
Dave:
I’m talking about what it means when—it’s nothing that I do, it’s something that I accept. I’m accepting Christ as my Savior. When I accept Him as my Savior having died in my place, I am accepting His death as my death. I’m acknowledging—if I believe that Jesus died for me then I am acknowledging that I deserved to die, otherwise He wouldn’t die. I’m acknowledging that when He took my place He stood between me and a righteous, holy God and the sword of God’s judgment—that He took it for me—that’s what I deserve. If I want a little deeper understanding—it’s not a penalty that I could pay. You see, you park illegally or you speed, you know, there is a penalty within reason that you could pay and then you are cleared in the eyes of the law. But this penalty is eternal death; it’s eternal separation from God. I could never pay that penalty, but God loves me so much that He doesn’t want me to be lost for eternity. So God himself could pay an infinite penalty, but it wouldn’t be just because He’s not one of us. So God became a man and he represented the human race—“…behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world.” He is the second man, you know Adam and the Bible lays it out in Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men…” So by one man, Christ redemption comes, by His, not just by His fulfilling of the Law, well the Law requires the death penalty, His paying the penalty in our place. And God accepts that.
Tom:
Dave can we make a distinction here? Because sometimes I like to say that either Christ pays the penalty or we have to pay it. But the distinction here is that He is paying it to the reconciliation of man to God. Reconciling us with God, but if we pay the penalty in the sense that here’s the penalty you have to go to jail, you have to be separated (I am using that analogy) you have to be separated from God forever. So I don’t mean by us paying the penalty that’s all we have. Either Christ is going to pay it and we are going to be reconciled to God or we’re going to be separated from God forever.
Dave:
That’s right. Now you can try to analyze this any way you want. But the fact is Mohammed didn’t do this, Buddha didn’t do this, nobody did it. There is no way that I can appease God. It isn’t a matter of appeasing God. You remember I had a debate with a Catholic apologist and he kept insisting that the death of Christ appeased God. That’s a pagan term. It’s not appeasing God. God’s justice had to be settled and in Romans 3 for example, Paul argues this and he says the whole world is guilty. How can God—a just, a holy God forgive sinners? He can’t just make a bookkeeping entry—the penalty has to be paid! And so God himself who is infinite could pay an infinite penalty. He became one of us—the second man, the last Adam. The progenitor of a new race and He represented mankind before the bar of justice, God’s justice. He took that penalty for us. Now there’s no other way that man—if you object to this—if someone objects to this there’s no other way. Then it’s totally hopeless, man is separated from God forever in hell paying off an infinite penalty which he can never pay. But God loves us and this is the difference—we talked about it way back there between reincarnation and karma and so forth. The Law of Karma just—you’re finished! But God became a man. The God of the Bible—He took our place, came to where we were—He died in our place. That’s the best news that you can ever hear. Why everybody doesn’t believe it, I can’t imagine.
Tom:
So God is an absolutely just God and He came up with a solution that satisfies absolute perfect justice and He did it through love that’s unimaginable by sending His Son. “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whoever believes upon Him will have eternal life.”
Dave:
Amen.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #2309, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment. Next week, we’ll continue our revisits to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “Does the Bible have historical errors?” In Religion in the News, “Does your psychiatrist have to tell you if he’s crazy?” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “With all the books and movies about the Rapture how could anyone be left behind?” We hope you can tune in. If you have questions or comments about this program we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call I would to thank you for tuning in, and invite you to join us again next week. In the meantime, if you desire to know God’s truth search the scriptures daily. You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures Daily a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. Join us again next week for Search the Scriptures Daily featuring Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now, our final segment, Understanding the Scriptures, and we return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
Tom:
The Book of Genesis, particularly the first few chapters, is foundational to grasping the central message of the Bible. So, in our ongoing series, the purpose of which is to better understand the gospel of salvation, we’re discussing the verses that explain the critical why of Christianity. Why did Jesus have to die? If we don’t understand the necessity of Christ’s death according to the Bible, then we can’t really explain the gospel. And that seems to be a problem which some have perceived as growing, particularly scriptural illiteracy among evangelicals. Dave, I don’t know how anyone can effectively witness without knowing the Book of Genesis. Last week we looked at Verse 17, of Genesis, Chapter 2, in which God presented a condition to Adam and Eve, telling them that if they ate the fruit of a certain tree in the Garden of Eden the penalty for their disobedience would be death, spiritual death, which meant spiritual separation from God forever, and physical death which would begin with their first sin. Some time after that Satan tempted Eve with lies. Her response, as well as her husband’s is found in Genesis 3, beginning with verse 6. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Well, there’s sin, there’s disobedience, there’s the first statement with regard to man’s sinning that we know about.
Dave:
It is an account of sin entering the world, but you know it seemed to be justified. It’s good for food, what could be wrong with eating food? It was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.
Tom:
So it’s good for her, or so she was told, but not by God.
Dave:
No, but God said don’t do it. So the problem was they disobeyed God. They rationalized, of course the serpent told them, but they rationalized, what could be wrong with this? So God doesn’t know. So when man thinks that he knows better than God, he’s in trouble. That’s what we’re talking about in the scriptures, search the scriptures daily. Some people think, well, it’s not all inspired but some of it is inspired so I will decide what part is inspired. So that’s like Eve deciding that God didn’t know what He was saying when He said don’t eat the tree, he made a mistake. I mean, it’s good for food, it will make me wise. Another problem of course is imagining that a physical thing could produce wisdom. Wisdom is not a physical quality, it’s not even a quality of intelligence, but it’s something else. The Bible says if any man lack wisdom let him ask of God, and Eve thought she could get it by eating of this tree. It’s the basis for all ritualism you know, that some physical act will produce spiritual life, spirituality. But the basic problem is that it was just disobedience, plain disobedience and rationalizing it and justifying it from human wisdom.
Tom:
Dave, you’ve mentioned this before; it doesn’t seem like all that big a deal. I can’t even think of something to compare it with, but it’s just taking a piece of fruit, taking a bite and offering it to, I mean, it’s not murder, it’s not rape, it’s not something that we would say today, it’s not genocide of any kind, but it brought about all those things. It was a major change in the universe, in creation.
Dave:
Often people justify their disobedience to the Word of God by saying that very thing—well, it’s not a big thing. Wait a minute, if you would disobey God for not a big thing that’s even worse. Now if there was some real big reason for disobeying God, maybe you could try to justify yourself, but if you’re going to disobey God, you’re going to thumb your nose at Him, you’re going to rebel against Him for something that is inconsequential, why can’t I let that go? And this Garden was full of trees with food that was good to eat, that was pleasant to the eyes. Why not be content with that and why not obey God? So we have — this is the heart of it, rejecting God’s Word, this is what God has said. Now of course Eve had found a guru, I think, and I don’t think there is any doubt about it, she wanted to take that tree. God had told her not to, don’t walk on the grass, well, that’s where people want to walk. Don’t open this package; well that’s then what they want to do, [open] Pandora’s Box. So I think she had always wanted it, and along comes a guru who tells her what she wants to hear. And I think that’s the problem with most people in a cult. They have found someone who is telling them what they want to hear. If you rationally examine it, or you compare it with the Word of God, it isn’t true, but they want it and so when someone tells them, you know, and seemingly justifies it, a religious leader, this is the beginning, you could say of all cults. This is an interpreter of the Bible, oh, you think God said that? Well let me tell you what God really said, and that’s how it all begins, and it’s a tragedy.
Tom:
Now the penalty is death, “the day you eat thereof you will surely die.” We’ve talked about this penalty before. The context here of this segment is why did Jesus have to die? But before we get to that—let’s look at death, it’s separation from God forever, this disobedience. They can say, oh well okay we blew it, God will forgive us, and then we will kind of get back to it, and so on. But that’s not what happened.
Dave:
God takes it very seriously, and we need to take it very seriously as well. We have all the evidence in the universe around us. There are definite physical laws, you know, you jump as high as you can, you do come back to this earth. It would be a strange earth if sometimes when you jumped you just kept going. You put certain chemicals together and you’ve got a definite reaction. There are certain laws, the Law of Thermodynamics, for example. We can count on it because God has prescribed some rules. You can’t even play a game without rules with everybody. You’ve got 2 teams, 11 men in each out there in the football field and they are each following different rules. It isn’t going to work! And then when the referee calls them for a penalty they complain that he’s being narrow-minded. It just wouldn’t work! So God has put rules on this universe, thank God that He has. Well, isn’t it amazing then that people think that—but when it comes to going to heaven, when it comes to eternal life, when it comes to this matter of sin and redemption, there shouldn’t be any rules. You know, you’ve got your religion, I’ve got mine, you’ve got your way to God, let’s be reasonable with one another. Now wait a minute, it’s not with one another, it’s God himself. And as we said earlier, you don’t negotiate with God, you don’t make a deal with God. When God says don’t eat of this tree, He means don’t eat of this tree, and He means that for our good. He wants us to be in fellowship with Him, He wants us to partake of His life. This is something that science can’t explain. We don’t know what life is, but Jesus said a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of fame that he possesses. A man’s life is spiritual, really, in the final analysis and that only comes from God. So now man is separated from God. God cannot tolerate this! I mean what it would be if God allows rebellion in His universe. It’s a horrible world that we have now and God is going to bring an end to this one of these days as he did with Sodom and Gomorrah. So this seems like a very small thing, but they are disobeying God. God has to be God, and in fact they did become little gods, you know, we’ve got about 6 billion little gods running around this world, each one ruling over his own little empire. And because of that we have a clash of egos, husband against wife, parents against children, brother against brothers or sister, and nation against nation, murder, rape, self-centeredness. Eve was very selfish at this point, she didn’t even consult Adam, but all she was interested in was something for herself. As you mentioned earlier, Satan didn’t tempt with immorality, he tempted her with a high self-esteem, he tempted her with becoming god-like, becoming wise, and this is the self-centeredness of this whole thing. This is where self had its awful birth, and this is why Jesus said, Except ye deny self, take up the cross and follow me, you can’t be my disciple. So it’s a very serious thing to disobey God.
Tom:
So the separation that came about, which we mentioned earlier, it’s spiritual separation, they were separated from God forever. The death process began. Adam lived to 900 and some years, I am not sure how many. So the process of death, separation from God forever began.
Dave:
Well, in fact the spiritual separation from God affected our physical bodies.
Tom:
Verse 7, it says, “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked….” Here was the very thing that God didn’t want, He didn’t want them to know or understand or have anything to do with evil, but now because they had sinned, they had an understanding of evil which, well, the scripture says, “the wages of sin is death.”
Dave:
—“And they sewed fig leaves together” to try to patch it up. You can’t patch it up Tom; we can’t patch up this world.
Tom:
Again, this has to do with self, they were trying to cover themselves, cover their sin with what they were going to do. It’s really in a sense, it’s works righteousness, although it’s hardly righteous at the time.
Dave:
It won’t work.
Tom:
Dave, we’re just about out of time. What we are pursuing here is why Jesus had to die. Death had entered the universe through the sin that we just talked about, and God brings the solution. He brings the only solution that we have to be reconciled to Him after this sin.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. In addition to this radio program, we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon, 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #2209, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment. Next week, we’ll continue our revisits to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “How Do We Know the Bible is True?” In Religion in the News, “The Hate Crimes of Bridget Bardot,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Is God Pro-Death Penalty?” We hope you can tune in. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael, and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for joining us, and invite you to tune in again next week. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily. You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order #1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. Join us again next week for Search the Scriptures Daily, featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
Tom:
Dave picking up where we left off last week, we’re in the book of Genesis searching out the reason why Jesus Christ the eternal God became a man through the virgin birth and died upon a cross in order to pay the infinite penalty for the sins of mankind. One of the reasons we are addressing this question is because too often in presenting the gospel believers fail to explain this important point and most non-Christians and nominal Christians don’t really understand why Jesus had to die. Without truly understanding the necessity of His death the door it seems to me is left wide open for any and all ways of salvation which are patently false. Some are found within professing Christianity and the rest in the religions of the world. Now to the problem: In Genesis 2:16 & 17 God sets are rule for His created beings. Verse 16: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden though mayest freely eat: 17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good an devil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Dave, two questions hit me about this verse in regard to some beliefs which are being popularized in Christianity today. 1) What does this say about God’s unconditional love? Isn’t God setting a condition here to remain in His love? 2) Isn’t God instituting the death penalty in this verse and couldn’t it be viewed as a deterrent? Well let’s go for #1 first.
Dave:
Well to abide in God’s love, I think has a couple of meanings. Christ talked about that in John 15. I believe that God’s love is unconditional to this extent. He loves the sinner. Jesus said Father forgive them, they know not what they do. Now that doesn’t mean that they were forgiven, because you have to accept the forgiveness that God offers. You must believe in Him. But it shows the desire. As you said, God sent His Son. Christ came, He died. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He loved us while we were enemies. So you don’t do anything to abide in that love. But there is also judgment. Is a child that is being disciplined by its father abiding in his love? Well in one sense it still is, but in another sense it is not, because judgment is coming upon him. Now I believe that God gave this command out of love because He made us for himself. He wants us to have a right relationship with us. He has blessings he wants to bestow upon us, but He’s not a sugar daddy. No matter what you do, He just blesses your evil and you know you can just run wild and—
Tom:
See Dave that’s my concern, because more and more today I am hearing about God’s unconditional love and it ends up just as you’ve described. A God who is willing to put up with anything and everything and just don’t worry about it, it’s all going to work out in the end. That’s not what this verse is—you know for Adam and Eve, at that point for our sinless parents as it were. That’s not why He said that to them.
Dave:
Yes, so why did God say this? That they are not to eat of this tree?
Tom:
In saying to Adam and Eve thou shalt surely die—on the one hand we talk about unconditional love, but there is a condition, there is a requirement for them that if they break God’s command, dire circumstances are going to take place which we know.
Dave:
Well life comes from God. And man’s life comes in a relationship with God and you can’t just take the life that God has given me and now I can use it for anything that I want to? I can use this for evil? No! You do that, God says, and you have broken the relationship with me and I can no longer bless you and I’m not going to prolong your life. So although man didn’t instantly die physically that day, he died spiritually and because the spirit of God left him now he begins to die physically. And scientists as far as I know, can’t even explain why we die. You know why we should die.
Tom:
Dave the second question and maybe this is a little bit off the mark here, but is God instituting the death penalty here?
Dave:
Well of course He is. Yes.
Tom:
Well was it a deterrent?
Dave:
No, well but I don’t know that you could argue that therefore—
Tom:
No but they didn’t know what death was so I don’t think they walked in fear of it. But in a sense, what I want to underscore here is that there is a penalty and God lays it out in verse 17—Genesis 2:17. “…The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” There is a penalty that has to be paid. It is a death penalty.
Dave:
Yes, absolutely and the fact that God metes that penalty out is to His credit. Otherwise He would be going back on what He said. And if God went back on what He said in this instance, why would I believe Him in anything else that He said?
Tom:
Right, He wouldn’t this just, fair God that we referred to earlier.
Dave:
Right. So life that God gave man wasn’t just some kind of a bug or some kind of an animal just to swing through trees and so forth. It was to be in a love relationship with God. It was to be intimately involved with God in fellowship with Him and God cannot have fellowship with evil—with sin. And therefore if man is to remain in this relationship with God from which His life comes— A man’s life, Jesus said, consists not in the abundance of things that he possesses. Life for a human being is not just physical, but it involves much more than that. And that life comes from God. That’s why when a person becomes absorbed in themselves—this is not really living—this is not what God intended. And that’s why God will not perpetuate man in that condition. That’s why the teaching of the people who say well we should be healed of every disease. Whatever we ask for God will give it to us. There should be no death. If you are a real Christian—no God is not perpetuating man in his sinful condition. There has to be a new race. There has to be a new creation in Christ Jesus and death says this is the end of this creation. You have rebelled against me. I’m going to have to start again and that can only be through Christ who will come. He will pay the penalty. He will die in your place and if you trust Him, you can be brought into a new life and a new relationship with God. And by the way, Christ’s death upon the cross, His redemption of man through His blood shed upon the cross and His payment of the penalty that God required does not restore what Adam lost. Some people talk about that. Oh well He restored what Adam lost—no, no God only came once in a while—I mean He came in the cool of the evening and talked with Adam. We will be in the presence of God forever. We will never be able to fall away from God again. Christ himself, who is God, lives within us. Adam never had that. So there is a new race—something totally new that can never be broken, it can’t be destroyed by sin ever again and that’s the new creation. The whole new universe that God will make! But man had to be given the opportunity and he had to be put on his—you could say on his own. What is he going to do now? And God gives him the opportunity—now here’s the Garden, but don’t eat of this tree. If you do you will die. And tragically—
Tom:
Yes, well we are getting to that. Sometime following God’s command in Genesis 2:16 & 17, Satan in the form of a serpent appeared to Eve in order to tempt her to break fellowship with God. She bought the lies the adversary offered her and induced Adam to do likewise. Now we are about out of time today Dave, but I do want to go slowly over these verses because again what we are trying to communicate here is we are trying to explain the gospel. The gospel is the solution to man’s problem and we’re trying to get at what the problem is and what took place in history.
Dave:
And I have to take the whole Bible. Genesis is the foundation for everything else and we need to understand that this is God’s Word.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. And now to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:
Tom:
The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the book of Acts, chapter 17: 10 & 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek City of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary:
In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #2109, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we’ll continue our revisits to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “Do You Have Faith in Your Faith?” In Religion in the News, “The Church of Godzilla,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “How Many Times Did the Cock Crow?” We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would to thank you for tuning in, and invite you to join us again next week. In the mean time, if you desire to know God’s truth search the scriptures daily. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
Tom:
Our topic for today in this segment, as it has been for months, is the gospel of salvation. In particular, we are attempting to explain specific aspects of the gospel. One thing I’ve noticed over the years, especially in Christian settings is you know you have children in Christian school and parents, or neighbors, or grandparents come and these may not understand Christianity at all, yet the gospel is given, but Dave it has been my experience that rarely is the gospel explained even briefly. It is usually a call to receive Jesus as Savior and with a sinner’s prayer added, but—
Dave:
Make a decision for Jesus or whatever—
Tom:
Right and I am not doubting that there may be some people there that God has already prepared their hearts, but there are other people there that are (one of my favorite terms) clueless. They were not brought up Christian, they (as I mentioned last week) their parents may have said well let them figure it out as they go along. We are not going to impose our views on them, if those parents indeed had Christian views.
Dave:
They’ve never heard the gospel and now they’re still not getting it.
Tom:
Right, so Dave I can imagine somebody sitting there saying so Christ died on the cross—why? I don’t get it—what’s the problem? But rarely is the problem presented so they can understand why they need to accept Christ. And that’s what we are doing today and we started last week. We are trying to explain what the problem is and therefore when people understand that we can give them the solution. And we are going to—we are starting where the problem began. We are starting in Genesis, actually chapter—we are going talk about chapter 3, but the condition is laid out in this sense. I call it good news, bad news, good news. The good news is that when God created everything He said it is good, it is good. He said it is VERY good at the end of the sixth day.
Dave:
Yes, and we have to accept His analysis, or what’s the proper word? We have to accept His evaluation. When He says it’s good, it’s good and only God can decide what is good.
Tom:
Right, but then for His creation He presents a condition and the condition is in, found in Genesis 2:17: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil though shall not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” To me this is a condition of love, a test of love. Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments. So obedience is a part of our love response. So this was a test. But then there was a temptation which is found in Genesis 3 starting in verse 1: Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Yea shall not eat of every tree of the garden? Dave this is subtle as the scripture says. It’s starting off by undermining the truthfulness of God.
Dave:
Well it’s the foundation of every cult. You think God said that? No, let me tell you and so Eve found a guru who could interpret God’s words in the way she wanted them to be interpreted.
Tom:
And verse 2: And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Now I think Eve is kind of padding, really adding to what God said. At least that seems to be the impression here and it’s based on the challenge by the serpent.
Dave:
Well Tom going back to verse 17 of Chapter 2. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. I don’t believe that this fruit, this physical fruit had some peculiar quality that would cause spiritual death. They didn’t die physically immediately, but they began to die physically because the spirit of God left them. I don’t believe that this tree necessarily had a different kind of fruit from any other tree. There must have been what, hundreds of varieties of wonderful and delicious fruit. Maybe it was an apple tree, maybe it was a pear, a peach, I don’t know what it was, but I think it was the easiest command God could give. In other words, God is not robbing them of something, that’s the idea that people get. Well, yeah but God want you to live this straight-laced, sober and sad, self-denying Christian life and if you do that you are going to miss out on all the fun. They weren’t going to miss out on anything. There was an abundance of fruit and I think there were probably a lot of trees that had the same kind of fruit as this; it was just a test of their obedience and their trust in God. It was just this tree—don’t eat this tree! It doesn’t say don’t touch it.
Tom:
Right, now this has always been fascinating to me because Eve did not have the same bent I have. I have the bent of a sinner. She had yet to sin. The environment was perfect. Everything about her life was perfect. Yet Satan introduces this thought and she takes it.
Dave:
She wanted what God told her she was not to have. And He gave her such an abundance of everything so as we said earlier in the program, she was deceived into thinking that this physical-well it goes on…. Let’s read it—When the woman saw (verse 6 of chapter 3)—
Tom:
Before you jump ahead, I want to take this verse by verse because—
Dave:
Well now just a minute now Tom, now I am saying something that relates to back here, okay—
Tom:
Okay, but you’ll let me back up?
Dave:
Oh yes, I’ll let you back up.
Tom:
Okay.
Dave:
“She saw that it was a tree to be desired to make one wise.” She’s thinking that this physical fruit has some capability of making a person wise that none of the other trees have. In fact, it’s a physical fruit; it won’t make you wise—any wiser than any of the other trees. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the wise thing would have been for her to obey God. So she is being deceived and in that act of disobedience she comes to know good and evil. Now she realizes she had done something that is evil. Evil is—well sin is described as coming short of the glory of God. Man—Adam and Eve were made in the image of God and now they have fallen from that image because they have rebelled against God. And the spirit of God departs from them and they begin to die physically.
Tom:
Right. It began with Satan introducing doubt, but then in verse 4 comes the hammer. She had to recognize that now there’s not a doubt here. This adversary of God is saying ye shall not surely die. Now she had to deal with that.
Dave:
Well in one sense. You know Satan doesn’t often come out with outright lies. What he is say is you won’t really die. Well and look she isn’t—and she didn’t instantly die. She died spiritually. God was now separated from her and her physical body begins to die. She doesn’t even know it. So Satan is sort of half-way telling the truth. Oh well you’re not going to die physically, not immediately, you won’t really die.
Tom:
In verse 5: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Now he was right in one sense.
Dave:
Yes, interestingly Tom, referring back to something you alluded to a bit earlier, Satan is not tempting her with immorality. He’s not tempting her with the evils that we have in the world around us which have come as a result like a snowball going downhill as a result of this one sin. Satan is tempting her with a high self image. Self esteem—he’s tempting her to become like the gods. He’s not dragging her into the gutter, into immorality. And in fact that is the great temptation. Pride has been man’s problem ever since and the desire to be like God. Even when we were talking about prayer—the desire to get God to do what I want Him to do. So this is, as you said, subtle. This is a powerful delusion that Satan has introduced to the human race and they have all accepted this ever since.
Tom:
Yes, now Dave I set up this segment by saying there is a problem. Now we are introducing how the problem came about but next week—we are just about out of time now—but next week we will deal with the problem itself. Why Jesus had to die. Why He had to go to the cross, because what Eve is about to do set the condition for man for eternity.
Dave:
Set the condition for man for eternity, yes. We were separated from God—“The day you eat thereof you will surely die.” We are dead in trespasses and in sins and Jesus said I am come that they might have life. So He came not just to—in fact you’ll find out next week I guess—not just to restore the life that Adam and Eve lost, but to give us something even better—a life that cannot be lost.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. And now to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:
Tom:
The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the book of Acts, chapter 17: 10 & 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek City of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. We want to exhort believers to give greater heed to biblical discernment and truth regarding what they are accepting as spiritual. We hope to supply those who profess to be Biblical Christians with information and materials that will encourage the love of God’s truth. Hopefully we can help mobilize believers in Christ to action in obedience to the scriptural command to earnestly contend for the faith found in Jude 3. And finally, our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary:
In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #2009, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we’ll continue our revisit to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call To A Serious Faith, and “What About Prayer?” In Religion in the News, “Personhood for Primates,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “What if You’ve Never Heard of Jesus?” We hope you can tune in. If you have questions or comments about this program we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call I would to thank you for joining us, and invite you to tune in again next week. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth search the scriptures daily. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.orgGary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now, our final segment, Understanding the Scriptures, and we return once again to 2000, with Dave and Tom.
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
Tom:
If you have been following the program you know that in this segment we deal with major doctrines of biblical Christianity and the most significant of all doctrines is the doctrine of salvation. The gospel which on the one hand is so simple a child can understand it and accept it while on the other hand it’s so profound that not even an eternity will be long enough plum its richness. So what is the biblical doctrine of salvation? Well it covers all that God has done to reconcile mankind to himself as well as what man must do to spend eternity with God. Dave often in Christian settings where unsaved people are present the gospel has been given, but it has been my experience that rarely is the gospel explained. It’s usually a call to receive Jesus as Savior and with a sinner’s prayer added, but I don’t ever remember an explanation that might make sense to someone who has little understanding of biblical Christianity. What I would like to do today is to begin with I Peter 3:18: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit…” I would like to consider that from the perspective of someone who might say okay, so Christ supposedly did all of this, but why? What’s the problem? I think we have to go to Genesis to get right to the problem.
Dave:
Well of course the first question that a person would ask apropos to what you are saying is be saved? Saved from what? Saved from drowning or saved from the stock market crash?
Tom:
Now people may think this is a little ludicrous, but honestly there are un-churched people who have no foundation—remember we have a generation of parents who said oh I am not going to impose anything on my children. Let them just kind of figure it out as they go along. So they are clueless to a lot of this.
Dave:
Hebrews raises this question, chapter 2. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? Escape from what? I think every person knows in their conscious that they have violated God’s laws. There’s a penalty to be paid. That’s what we are talking about. The Bible talks about the wrath of God. Romans 1-The wrath of heaven is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. God is holy. The Bible says He is angry with the sinners every day. He doesn’t hate sinners, He loves them, but He doesn’t like their sin and if they persist in it there are consequences. It’s like—Tom you have to have rules for anything even to play a game and the idea that God can’t have any rules for mankind, moral, ethical; I think we recognize that He does. So this is what we are being saved from—God’s judgment.
Tom:
Yes, but let’s go back. Rule—let’s go with the first rule. We know from Genesis going through God creating the world. WE have Him saying it is good; it is good and in Genesis 1:31 the scripture says “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good.” No problem, up to that point.
Dave:
Well, who decides that it’s good? So one thing that we learn from that is that only God can decide what is good.
Tom:
Right, but it is good. Everything that He made was perfect, in other words, there’s no problem—yet.
Dave:
Right.
Tom:
But now for the rule: I think if we are looking for a rule, Genesis 2:17- “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Now here was a rule, here was a condition. Why would God even impose that?
Dave:
If the world, the universe is going to continue to be good and Jesus said only God is good, then we are going to have to be in line with God’s purpose. He created the universe, He must have some idea, you know, He must have some purpose and meaning for this and there must be some parameters within which this thing will function. Just gravity holds—and the atom must be held together—so man now has the power of choice. Whatever man does, it must be in line with God’s will. That makes sense; after all He’s the creator.
Tom:
Well could somebody call this the “law of love” in effect? If love is really going to be love, there has to be volition, there has to be free will, there has to be a condition to see, certainly not in God’s mind, but in the mind of those whom He loves that they are responding to His love.
Dave:
Yes and love does impose regulations. Unfortunately we see in a lot of families where they claim to love their children by letting them run wild and that’s not love, because they’re going to get in trouble. So God knows that the creatures that He has made are going to be in real trouble if they try to be egomaniacs and try to do their own thing. So He’s trying to bring Adam and Eve into line with His will because He loves them and He wants them close to Him. He wants what is best for them. If you love someone, you want what is best for them. Now He gives them the easiest command that He could possibly give. And we have probably talked about this before but there must have been not just thousands but maybe millions of trees in the Garden of every kind of fruit. I don’t believe that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was some special fruit. It could have been an apple tree, pear or whatever. What was wrong with the eating of it was not the quality of fruit or some power that the fruit had within itself. It was an act of disobedience. So God gives man the easiest command He could possibly could just to see if—it’s like putting reins on a horse and when you give the signal or whatever, is the horse going to obey or is it not? If it doesn’t, you’re going to have to put a bit in its mouth or whatever. So just don’t eat of that tree. You can have any other tree in the Garden, but don’t eat of that tree. But when they did, that was rebellion against God.
Tom:
Well before we get to that, because there’s a seduction involved here. But up to that point, there’s no problem. They are walking in fellowship with God and Paradise is still perfect in every way. So there’s no problem yet. But then there’s a test. The test is in Genesis 3 beginning in verse one and we’ll go these verses because there’s a lot here Dave. “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Now it’s posed as a question, but let’s back up to that. I mean here we have a talking serpent. Does that seem reasonable?
Dave:
It’s amazing that Satan really likes to be known as a serpent. That pagans worship serpents. That’s astonishing to me. You would think that Satan would have come in some other form. I don’t like serpents. They are very frightening, they are poisonous, they are deadly, they are sneaky, but that is the way Satan chose. Now of course people today are trying to communicate with porpoises; they are trying to teach the alphabet to chimpanzees; they say that all is one, some of them even hug trees or try to talk to trees.
Tom:
Try to talk to gorillas—
Dave:
Yes, so the idea that a serpent could talk—well shamans, witchdoctors they have as their spirit guides—it could be a coyote, it could be a jaguar, you can see the consistency of this that mankind is still trying to get in touch with the spirit world through such creatures and here is where it began.
Tom:
Yes and Dave couldn’t it be that after the fall mankind was separated from the animals. There was a fear—that was no longer the same relationship. So we really don’t know whether there could have been communication, or whether this was something very unique and very special.
Dave:
No, Tom I am going to disagree with you on that one, we didn’t rehearse this program, but—
Tom:
You think there is too much of Dr. Doolittle in me here?
Dave:
No, animals do not have the capacity to speak. Man alone has the capacity to come up with conceptual ideas and express them in words. I don’t believe that animals lost that capacity during the fall. It does say that—maybe the serpent like a cobra could walk on it’s tail (sort of) and now on your belly will you walk. But Satan is known as the serpent even in Revelation. That old serpent, the devil, the dragon and you go to the East as you know, you got dragons on the temple, and you’ve got serpents and so forth. So this is not a myth, this is history and we can verify it from that standpoint.
Tom:
Dave we are about out of time for today, but we have the problem here, the problem of man’s sin, which is about to take place, man’s first sin know at least on earth.
Dave:
Rebellion.
Tom:
Rebellion and this is important because this is the reason Christ had to become a man to pay the full penalty for our sins. So next week we’ll pick up with the serpent in the Garden. Genesis 3 starting in verse one and we’ll see what happens.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For nearly 2000 years the Church of Christ has provided comfort and counsel to believers experiencing mental, emotional and behavioral problems by using the teaching of the scriptures and by the power of the Holy Spirit until psychology and psychotherapy arrived on the scene. Contemporary Christianity has embraced this science—so called. In the last 50 years multitudes of pastors have added clinical counseling degrees to their theological credentials. Psychological theories have been preached so often, from so many pulpits that they are accepted without question by increasing numbers of Christians as biblical doctrines. The Christian church in the United States has become a major referral service for clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. Is there something wrong with this picture? Join T.A. McMahon in this groundbreaking documentary from the Berean Call. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers. Also contributing to this latest TBC production are Dr. Martin Bobgan and Deidre Bobgan from Psychoheresy Awareness Ministries.
Dr. Tana Dineen, author of Manufacturing Victims and Dave Hunt author of Judgment Day. Executive Director of The Berean Call and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Tom McMahon: For years believers, both pastors and those in the pews have been intimidated by the pseudoscience of psychological counseling and the result has been they have backed away from their God-given mandate to minister to one another. My hope and prayer is that this video will expose the myths of psychology and encourage the church to return to God’s way of counseling through His Word and by His Holy Spirit and with the help of fellow believers in Him.
This powerful new DVD is now available from The Berean Call. Psychology and the Church: Critical Questions, Crucial Answers: information on how to order in just a moment. In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute and wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book format, CDs, DVDs and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #1909, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we will continue our revisits to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “What Are Your Plans for Eternity?” In Religion in the News: “Do the Saints Read the Newspaper?” We’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Can We Be Buddies with God?” We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for tuning in and invite you to join us again next week. In the meantime, if you desire to know God’s truth search, the scriptures daily. You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. Join us again next week for Search the Scriptures Daily featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000 with Dave and Tom. In our ongoing study of the Biblical gospel of salvation we’ve been discussing Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 21. Dave, before we pick up with verse 19, I want to mention some of the, as my kids would say, awesome, verses we have already covered, beginning with verse 6: “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” That’s us, that’s the qualification for heaven. Unless you recognize, well, the verses go on.
Dave:
We went into that some depth. If you are not ungodly you don’t need a savior, your only hope of getting to heaven is if you are a sinner and willing to be saved.
Tom:
And of course verse 8 underscores that: “But God commendeth his love toward us that, while we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us.”
Dave:
We didn’t have to clean up ourselves to be good enough for him to die for us. We had to be bad enough to need him to die for us.
Tom:
And it isn’t just a matter of slipping off into some darkness or extinction, or something like that. Verse 9: “Much more then, being now justified for his blood, (without the shedding of blood, Hebrews says, there is no remission of sin) we shall be saved from wrath through him.”
Dave:
John 3:36, Jesus said, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Romans 1:18: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in righteousness.” God has a right to be angry with sin, and his judgment will come upon sin and the only hope is, if we accept the fact that Christ died in our place and he took the punishment that we deserve.
Tom:
Dave, that’s the amazing thing about it. For those people who are upset, well look, you’ve got a God that’s going to pour out his wrath, but wait a minute. This is the same God who became a man who would die the most horrible of deaths for us.
Dave:
Beyond anything, not just the physical sufferings on the cross, but enduring the wrath, enduring the judgment his own justice decreed. Then why not accept as he has made it available to everyone so no one has a complaint.
Tom:
Right. Dave, verse 10 is something that the world cannot fathom, it’s just so foreign. The verse goes: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son—” Enemies, God died for his enemies.
Dave:
Yes, nobody would do that. We were all his enemies in our minds by wicked works, the scripture says, opposed to God, rebelling against God, self-centered, wanting to build our own little kingdoms. And man would in fact, tear God from His throne if he could and enthrone himself. You see that in some of the things we talked about, the evolutionists, the atheists who refuse in the face of all reason and all evidence to believe in God.
Tom:
And verse 10 goes on with incredibly good news, —much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” You mentioned that we’re going to make through the verses, Jesus has come that we might have life and have it more abundantly.
Dave:
Because I live, you shall live also. He has come to live in us.
Tom:
The problem was verse 12: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Again, going back to verse 6, we’re the ungodly while we were yet sinners; we have to admit that we need a Savior.
Dave:
Amen.
Tom:
Verse 18, “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” Dave, it’s so hard for people to believe that God would do this and it would be a free gift, why is that?
Dave:
Well, part of it, I guess, is pride. We don’t want to accept something for nothing; we don’t want to admit we’re that bad. We want somehow to merit salvation, but it’s a gift. We’ve gone over that a number of times. If I offer you a gift and say it’s worth a hundred million dollars, and you insist on paying me a penny, you have insulted me, you have devalued the gift. Anybody that tries to pay anything to God for the infinite gift, bought with the blood of Christ, the payment of bearing our sins, and you want to pay anything to God, it’s worse that a penny for a hundred million dollar gift, it’s an insult to God. Number 2, you offer me something for this gift, you’ve refused the gift. And so, in man’s self righteous attempt to somehow merit salvation, which is a gift, it must be a gift, then he is rejecting the gift. And all religions, Tom, are an attempt to somehow pay for this gift. Now the priest is paying for it with a ritual. Somehow all religions are men getting involved in this, and it’s a denial that Christ alone could do it, and that Christ paid the penalty in full.
Tom:
We’re in Romans 5, and we’ve finishing—well, we’ve been going through, start with verse 6, and we’re going through 21, so I’ll pick up with verse 19. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” Now, we’ve been talking about faith in our earlier, and reason and so on, but it is a little bit hard to comprehend how we could be made righteous, especially when most people think you’ve got to clean up your own act, you’ve got to do things, you’ve got to be purged, as we’ve mentioned before. Some believe you have to go through purgatory before you finally can make that and be fully purged, completely purged before you can make that step into heaven.
Dave:
Well, even before you get to that, Tom, as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners. Why should I be tagged with the sin of Adam? Well, because Adam was made in the image of God, I believe that the Spirit of God indwelt Adam and Eve, and when they rebelled against God the Spirit of God left the spirit of Adam and Eve. They were dead in trespasses and in sins, their foolish heart was darkened, Ephesians chapter 4 says, and we inherited that. But we also, as the earlier verse says, “By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death passed upon all men for all have sinned.” And we have proved ourselves to be sinners as well. So we have sinned just like Adam sinned, so we can’t blame it on Adam, but he was the one that started this. And so by one man’s obedience, obedience to the Father in the garden, we’ve talked about it a number of times, Jesus wept; if it’s possible that salvation could come any other way don’t make me go through with this, and the Father said no. So Jesus, in obedience to the Father, He bore our sins, it says, in His own body on the tree—He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So this is where our salvation comes from, and this is why Jesus, in fact, is called, not the second Adam but the last Adam, because He’s the progenitor of the new race of born again people, born again by the Spirit of God into the family of God, and this isn’t going to happen a 3rd time, a 4th time, so although He is the second man, it says, He’s the last Adam.
Tom:
Well, let me pick up with verse 20: “Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”
Dave:
Well, the law entered that the offense might abound. It’s not that we were perfect before the law, but the law revealed our sin, it showed us God’s standards. And yet, no matter how great sin is God’s grace is even greater. There’s no sin that God’s grace cannot forgive, but it is only through Jesus Christ, we have to keep making that clear. God can’t just make a bookkeeping entry, He just can’t say well I forgive you. No, there has to be a righteous basis for it, the penalty had to be paid.
Tom:
Right, and the penalty was set in the Garden of Eden, “the day you eat thereof you will die.”
Dave:
Right, separation from God forever.
Tom:
Verse 21: “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Dave:
By Jesus Christ our Lord, only through Him. That’s why He said, I am the way, the truth, the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.
Tom:
Dave again, grace reigned through righteousness unto eternal life. This is what our program, each series going through your book; this is what we’ve been talking about, eternal life. What are the options out there? Are they just preferences that people have, or is the view that they take based upon truth? This is all important.
Dave:
And every word is important here, grace reigned through righteousness. Grace must be righteous, otherwise it’s just encouraging sin, and unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. I just need to emphasize that again! It’s only because He paid the penalty! You know we had that back in Romans 3. How could God be just and yet justify sinners? You can’t just look the other way, you can’t just say, Well, I forgive you anyway. No, He has pronounced the penalty that penalty had to be paid, and somehow we’ve got to get men and women to accept what God has said!
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Does God love only some of us? Has he already determined those elect who will live forever with him in heaven? Are you one of the elect, and if not is there anything you can do about it? The Doctrine of Calvinism, it’s 5-points and their implications for the body of Christ are discussed and debated in two powerful books from Dave Hunt and The Berean Call: Debating Calvinism, Five Points, Two Views, features a written debate between Dave Hunt and James White, published by Multnomah in an easy to read format, Hunt and White exchange energetic letters addressing this long argued topic. Co-author of, The Seduction of Christianity, and co-host of Search the Scriptures Daily Radio, Dave Hunt: The influence of Calvinism is growing greatly in the church today, it’s very important that we understand, and we did Debating in Calvinism so that you could have a debate in writing. You can go back and forth and read exactly what each side said, think it over carefully rather than an emotional debate. And in what some are calling the definitive work on this topic don’t miss Dave Hunt’s What Love Is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God. In this recently expanded and updated edition Dave exhaustively documents the unscriptural nature of this doctrine that comes perilously close to blasphemy. Once again, Dave Hunt: We did a new revised updated edition of What Love Is This? because so many Calvinists were criticizing what I had said I went through all of their criticisms and answered them in this new and expanded version. Debating Calvinism, Five Points Two Views, and What Love is This? Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God in e-book or hard cover are both available from The Berean Call, information on how to order in just a moment. In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute and wide variety of teaching materials including books in print, e-book and audio book format, CD’s, DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #1809, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.
Next week, we will continue our revisit to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and what is your religious preference? In Religion in the News: “Cleaning Up Angelic Feathers,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: “Must Christian believe in a triune God?” We hope you can tune in. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for joining us and invite you to tune in again next week. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth search, the scriptures daily. You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. Join us again next week for Search the Scriptures Daily featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000 with Dave and Tom.
Tom:
We’re continuing with our ongoing study of the gospel of salvation and we’re looking at Romans chapter 5, verses 6 through 21. We’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now and I’m going to pick up, Dave, with verse 17. “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” Abundance of grace, gift of righteousness, as we mentioned last week, I think we touched on this a bit, how wonderful these verses compare what we had because of Adam’s sin, what we have and now what we have if we are in Christ. This is staggering!
Dave:
It’s wonderful! It talks about the abundance of grace, and I think that ought to take care of everybody who is trying to work their way to heaven, whether it’s sacraments of the church, church attendance, the gifts to charity, whatever, this is grace, abundance of grace. And Paul says, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. So, this is the grace of God, but it always brings in Jesus Christ. It’s by Jesus Christ, the grace of God through Jesus Christ, because you can’t just be gracious and turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to sin, the penalty had to be paid. So, it is God’s grace, but it is only through Jesus Christ, and to think that we will reign with him—well, first of all, a thousand years in the millennial reign of Christ we will reign over this earth. And then we will be reigning with Him, I don’t understand what that means, for all eternity reigning over the universe, a new universe. What that means I don’t know, but praise God sin will not have dominion over us. So we will certainly be ruling in that sense.
Tom:
Dave, with verse 18 I’ll pick up there: “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation;—People who well whether they’re following this program or whether they are objecting to some things that we say because we’re talking about a lot of times we’ve been talking about God’s justice, and that rankles them. But they forget that He has to be just and they would want it that way, they want a just world. I mean, they cry out, why, you know, there is no justice. Well, He offers justice but it comes with consequences for us. But on the other hand, they are rankled but why don’t they thing about these other things? What about the abundance of grace, the gift of righteousness? Continuing with this verse—even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” Jesus said, I’ve come that they may have life and have it more abundantly, all of this he offers as a free gift. So why are people upset?
Dave:
The man who stands before the judge and says all I want is justice. Well, then he thinks he’s innocent, but we’re not just, we’re not innocent and we dare not demand justice from God because the wages of sin is death. If we got what we deserved we would be sentenced to hell, separated from God forever. Now, a man who complains about the decision of the court—he’s complaining that the court was unjust in its decision. We can’t complain about that with God, God is perfectly just, and furthermore he is just beyond our comprehension. We don’t even know the sins that we’ve been guilt of, “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” Therefore, I can’t complain against God’s justice, I can’t complain that God is unjust, no one can say that. The whole world, Paul has already dealt with this in Romans chapter 3. “He has brought the whole world guilty before God and one day those who reject Christ will stand before him at the great white throne of judgment—“And I saw the great white throne and Him that sat on it,” Revelation 20:11, “…from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away and there was found no place for them.” —and the books are open. The things that they’ve done they are judged out of those books. Everyone’s lips are sealed; they have no complaints against God. Well then why not accept the pardon that God offers, because Christ paid the penalty that we deserve. So, the stubbornness of a person who insists that God is unjust, who insists, I don’t deserve your wrath, who insists that they are going to make heaven their home by their own righteousness. It’s beyond comprehension, Tom, and then on that basis they reject the pardon that God offers. What pride that takes to be unwilling to humble myself, to repent to acknowledge that I’m a sinner, I’m worthy of God’s judgment forever, and then in gratitude to thank Christ and to accept the pardon that he offers. Tom, there is nothing like this in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and you study the Qur’an. Well, they talk about Allah is gracious and forgiving, there’s no basis for his grace or forgiveness. It’s capricious, you never know whether he will forgive you or not and there is no just, righteous basis for it. The same thing is true with those who are involved in sacramentalism. Why would the mass, the offering of this wafer, which they say has been transmuted into the body and blood of Jesus, we are going to offer him perpetually on the altar, but you have to keep doing it again and again and again. What about the one sacrifice of Christ upon the cross? So it is a rejection of the one sacrifice and saying, well, we’re going to do it again and again and again, and finally, hopefully we may have done it enough. It doesn’t work, there is only one way, there’s nothing like this in any religion and not in pseudo Christianity, false Christianity that Christ by one payment upon the cross, he endured the eternal judgment that we deserve. He endured it, he said, it’s finished, Tetelesti, paid in full, and now there’s forgiveness. Tom, I would think that everybody would jump up and down, just so thankful, rejoice, and that they would accept this and believe in Christ and receive the pardon he offers and this abundance of grace, and yet they don’t. I don’t understand it.
Tom:
Well, it has to do with the heart being deceitful, you know, we want what we want. We want to make heaven in our own image and be the ruler of all.
Dave:
Tom, part of it, and I could say this a lot more strongly than I’m going to say it, and that would get a lot of people more angry with me, but I’ll say what Jesus said. In Matthew 23, he said to the rabbis, you scoundrels, not only don’t you enter into heaven but you stand in the way of those who would and you set up a system of religion so complicated it would take a Philadelphia lawyer to unravel this. You know, I’ve said this many times, and I’m only paraphrasing what Jesus said. The people are at the mercy of religious leaders who stand between them and God. This is religion, Tom, and this is churchianity, this is a lot of what’s called Christianity, and they have set up rules and regulations, they would be out of business if everybody believed what the Bible says. These people who transmute this little wafer into the body and blood of Jesus, who claim that they alone can interpret the Bible, who claim that it is through their sacraments, through their hearing of sins and pardoning them. Whether these are Catholics or Protestants, whatever they call themselves, I’d put a lot of the blame on the religious leaders who lead people to believe that the common person can’t understand the Bible, they can’t know what it says, they can’t approach God except through these people who have their collars turned backwards, or wear robes or have certain degrees, and so forth, they stand between the people and God.
Tom:
Right. We mentioned Bishop Tutu. I mean, here you have the scholars, so called, the theologians who are saying, It doesn’t say what you think it says, it doesn’t mean what these people—plain words on paper communicate.
Dave:
And Tom, they can’t get it straight themselves, so they’ve got to come up with a new image of God, and yet they tell the people, we will help you get to heaven, we will help you please this god. The Bible says it’s not by works of righteousness that we’ve done, it’s not by religion, it’s not by our deeds, it’s not by our gifts of charity, it’s not by our penance, it is because Christ paid the full penalty on the cross, and God’s grace is abundant. What that means is there is no sinner who has sinned so badly, even Hitler could have been forgiven; Christ paid the penalty for his sins as well. This is an abundant grace that reaches me—I love that song, wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching the most defiled, taking a sinner and making him God’s dear child. Tom, it’s good news, and I hope that there are some out there who are believing it, not because we say it, but because the Bible says it, and search the scriptures daily and see what they tell us.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. And now to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:
The name, The Berean Call is taken from the Book of Acts, chapter 17, verses 10 and 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble, or fair-minded not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. Our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary:
In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials, including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s, DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #1709, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment. Next week we’ll continue our revisit to our 2000 series of programs based on Dave’s book, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “Is Belief in God Logical?” In Religion in the News, “Adding Blood to the Mass,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: If your pastor is wrong how should you correct him? We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael, and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for tuning in, and invite you to join us again next week. In the meantime, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.
Gary:
You are listening to a special presentation of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We return once again to 2000 with Dave and Tom.
Tom:
For the past few weeks, in our ongoing study of the gospel of salvation, we’ve been studying Romans 5 verses 6-21 which we’ve noted the Apostle Paul presents as an advocate before the highest court in the land and of course the logic is compelling. I’ll quickly review verses 6-16 and we’ll pick up with verse 16: 6) “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7) For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8) But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9) Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10) For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 11) And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. 12) Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13) (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14) Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. 15) But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Dave picking up now with verse 16: “And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.” In other words, through Adam’s sin, mankind came under condemnation but through Christ’s sacrificial death came justification. Now we have going back and forth between those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ, this is an interesting parallel here.
Dave:
Well, I think it’s also saying that it was just one sin, in fact a very simple sin, seemingly that brought death and judgment upon all mankind. Just don’t eat of this tree. We’ve talked about it before. I think it was the easiest command God could give. There must have been thousands of trees, maybe millions I don’t know, in this huge garden, the Garden of Eden. I don’t believe there was anything special about that fruit. In other words, physical fruit isn’t going to make you wise. There may have been other trees just like it, with the same fruit all around it, but God said don’t eat of THAT tree. That’s the easiest command He could give Adam and Eve and they failed. So the problem was not that this was some magical fruit. The problem was that they had disobeyed God. But it was only one command, a simple command. I mean you wouldn’t think that would be so serious. Well, okay God, so I did eat that fruit that you told me not to. I ate of that tree that you told me not to. That was rebellion against God and that’s why James says he who offends in one point (talking about the Ten Commandments) is guilty of all. Because to break any one of the Ten Commandments is just as serious as to break any other commandment. It’s simply like thumbing your nose at God. It’s a rebellion against God.
Tom:
Dave, as a former Catholic we had venial sins and mortal sins, but sin is sin.
Dave:
Right, but it’s saying here there was only one sin. But now there are many offences verse 16 says and yet those have been overcome through Christ. You look at this world—the evil in this world is beyond our comprehension and we don’t even know the wickedness of man and what goes on in some cities and houses and secret places and the plans and the heart of man is so wicked and yet all of that, I think this is what this verse is saying—all of that is overcome by the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross who paid the full penalty for every sin.
Tom:
Right, verse 17 amplifies what you are saying: “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; (and death did reign—destroyed the whole universe—nothing like what God had originally designed or—He said it was very good at the end.)
Dave:
Adam and Eve were separated from God, the spirit of God departed from their spirit and their bodies began to die and that was all that they could pass on to their children.
Tom:
“…much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Listen, most people would say wait a minute, what did he just say? What God offers here is not just eternal life with Him, but the gift of righteousness! We’ll have Christ’s righteousness for eternity and all the blessings that flow from that. That’s staggering!
Dave:
It is Tom and it’s the only righteousness that will stand before God. It’s not my own righteousness. If I could become righteous in myself and you know as a Catholic, that’s the teaching. It’s not imputed righteousness, in other words credited to my account that a Catholic strives for, when there’s no striving for that. It’s a gift. But its infused righteousness.
Tom:
We have to, we had to become righteous and expiation of sins was not only what Christ did, it’s what we had to do through suffering here and in purgatory.
Dave:
That’s what purgatory is all about—to purge you, to make you righteous. So you would be able to boast before God, you know. Well, I suffered to get myself here too. So I get part of the credit because I became righteous in and of myself through being purged by those things that I suffered. That is absolutely contrary to the Bible and it undermines the gospel.
Tom:
Dave, it’s not a gift.
Dave:
That’s right. The gift of righteousness it says. Wow, we have been given the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, credited to our account.
Tom
And it’s no small cost…we might think it’s a gift…at no small cost to God. He sent His Son to pay the full penalty for it which is again, staggering.
Dave:
Which we don’t understand.
Tom:
No, but we’re incredibly thankful for.
Dave:
Amen that’s why we would love Him and serve Him out of gratitude. I sometimes say that you know, Jehovah Witnesses—we were just in Europe and we were going on a train from Czech Republic to Slovakia and you know the Lord is gracious and who does He bring to me but two young Mormon missionaries. And…
Tom:
Mormon or JW?
Dave:
No, Mormon missionaries, but it’s similar I’m saying, I often say to Jehovah’s Witnesses or to Mormon—Jehovah’s Witnesses, they are knocking on doors to try to earn their salvation. They even have to pass a test after Armageddon. But I’ve knocked on more doors than, I think, most Jehovah’s Witnesses, probably thousands of them. Back in those days when the Lord gave me time for that sort of thing. But I do it out of love and gratitude to the one who gave me eternal life. That’s a higher motive than doing it to earn eternal life. And so it’s because of this gift, that’s what wins our hearts. And now we love Him, because He first loved us, not because we managed to work this love up within ourselves. We will be in His presence forever because He has credited to us the perfect righteousness of God and is only possible because Christ paid the full penalty for our sins. Tom, that’s something to get excited about. That causes you to really be happy, to rejoice and to anticipate being in the presence of this wonderful God and Savior who loves us so much. It’s going to take eternity for Him to pour out His infinite love upon us.
Tom:
Dave, what really grieves me in this—those who do these kinds of things, whether they be Mormon works or Jehovah Witnesses out working, knocking on doors, putting in all these hours—on the one hand, yes there’s a sincerity there, but the thing that grieves me is that they don’t understand that it’s a rejection of this gift—it’s a rejection of what Christ has accomplished. So it’s grievous in that sense.
Dave:
Yes, and it grieves us because they have a false hope. The writer of the Hebrews says “how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation…” and they are really neglecting the salvation that God has given them as a free gift and they are trying to earn it as you said. You offer to pay anything, you’ve rejected the gift. It’s heartbreaking and Tom it is so difficult to help these dear people understand this, because as the Bible says the god of this world has blinded their minds and he has people trying to earn their salvation and that is an affront, an insult to God.
Tom:
Yes, and please for our listeners out there, don’t take our word for this. What we are trying to do is go through God’s Word to point to the Scriptures. You read them for yourself, let the Holy Spirit bring conviction here first and then understanding of these things and you’ll know. God will reveal these things to you.
Gary:
We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For nearly 2000 years, the church of Christ has provided comfort and counsel to believers experiencing mental, emotional and behavioral problems by using the teachings of the Scriptures and the power of the Holy Spirit until psychology and psychotherapy arrived on the scene. Contemporary Christianity has embraced this science so called. In the last 50 years, multitudes of pastors have added clinical counseling degrees to their theological credentials. Psychological theories have been preached so often from so many pulpits that they are accepted without question by increasing numbers of Christians as biblical doctrine. The Christian church in the United States has become a major referral service for clinical psychologists and psychiatrists. Is there something wrong with this picture? Join host T.A. McMahon in this new ground breaking documentary from The Berean Call: “Psychology and the Church, Critical Questions, Crucial Answers.” Also contributing to this latest TBC production are Dr. Martin Bobgan and Deidre Bobgan from Psychoheresy Awareness Ministries, Dr. Tana Dinien, author of Manufacturing Victims and Dave Hunt, author of Judgment Day. Executive director of The Berean Call and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Tom McMahon:
For years, believers, both pastors, and those in the pews have been intimidated by the pseudo-science of psychological counseling and the result has been they have backed away from their God-given mandate to minister to one another. My hope and prayer is that this video will expose the myths of psychology and encourage the church to return to God’s way of counseling through His Word, by His Holy Spirit and with the help of fellow believers in Him.
Gary:
This powerful new DVD is now available from The Berean Call. “Psychology and the Church, Critical Questions, Crucial Answers”—information on how to order in just a moment. And now to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:
The name, The Berean Call is taken from the Book of Acts, chapter 17, verses 10 and 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble, or fair-minded not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. Our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary:
In addition to this radio program we publish a monthly newsletter which we make available free of charge. We also produce and distribute a wide variety of teaching materials, including books in print, e-book and audio book formats, CD’s, DVD’s and other items to encourage the serious study of God’s Word. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 800-937-6638, that’s 800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of today’s broadcast on compact disk ask for Program #1609, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment. Next week, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, and “Is There Such a Thing as Eternity?” In Religion in the News, “Desmond Tutu’s New Image of God,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question: Do Children Go to Heaven When They Die? We hope you can tune in. If you have questions or comments about this program we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael, and for Dave, Tom and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for joining us and invite you to tune in again next week. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily. For more information about The Berean Call contact us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call our toll free order number 1-800-937-6638, that’s 1-800-937-6638, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.
