understanding the scriptures

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

UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We resume our excursion through the gospel of Matthew. Here again are Dave and Tom: This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we’re in the gospel of Matthew. We are in Matthew Chapter 3, and we’re going to pick up with Verse 5. Then went out to him (him being John the Baptist), “Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.”

Dave:

Tom, this is quite a passage—Wow! I guess I could discuss this for a long time, but we have very little time. But, what is this, a Billy Graham crusade? I mean, I remember when Billy Graham was in Los Angeles and they had the coliseum, and even the coliseum which, what does it hold, ninety thousand? Or close to that, and they couldn’t get all the people in there. John the Baptist must have been a very popular preacher. Kind of undermines what we were just saying. I mean, he was telling them to come and confess their sins. Why was this so uh, such a popular message? Well, and that raises more questions, Tom. You could say that the Holy Spirit was at work, and was really speaking through, and that Israel was under conviction. And these people were moved by God to come and confess their sins.

Tom:

Dave, isn’t it also the fact that look what his message was, he was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. This is, this was—John was the herald for the Messiah—

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

—the Messiah they were looking for.

Dave:

Right, but they hadn’t confessed their sins. Now Tom, we could think of a few other connections.

Tom:

Oh by the way, Dave, didn’t he sort of pump his promotion up by signs and wonders, healings and—

Dave:

No, you’ve got the wrong preacher, Tom. Now what about these people who came to confess their sins, and looking forward to this Messiah who was coming? Do you think they were all saved? Well, they weren’t saved because Acts 19 tells you that. You remember? There came to Paul some men who, they were passing themselves off as Christians, and Paul was talking about the Holy Spirit. And he says, Have you received the Holy Spirit? And they said, We haven’t even heard whether this—Holy Spirit? We never heard of that! Interesting passage,

Tom:

Mmhmm.

Dave:

…because immediately, what’s Paul’s reaction? To what then were you baptized? And I have in mind, of course, oneness, Pentecostals who say you’re baptized in the name of Jesus. They don’t believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Well, wait a minute, if they were just baptized in the name of Jesus, if the disciples who became true Christians were just baptized in the name of Jesus, well, they wouldn’t have heard of the Holy Spirit, would they? That immediately alerted Paul, something wrong with these guys. Haven’t even heard of the Holy Spirit? Well, you would hear that because you would have been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, okay. So, that’s one of the evidences that baptism was in the name Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And they were not saved, and he preached—Oh, what was your baptism? Oh, the baptism of John. Oh, well you guys have got a little more enlightenment that you need, you haven’t heard the gospel yet. And Paul gives them the gospel, and they receive Christ, and then he baptizes them. But then, Tom, that raises a question, raise it like the Billy Graham Crusade. I saw thousands go forward, because I was in charge of the number of counselors at the, in the coliseum there back in those days. How many of them stuck? How many of them ended up in churches? I have a friend in Paris, and I’m not trying to run Billy Graham down, the pastor. He started quite a few churches in France and that is a tough place, atheist country. And he told me, during the Billy Graham Crusade, Wow, thousands went forward, there in Paris. But he said, I tried, after Billy Graham was gone, I couldn’t find any of them had found their way into Evangelical churches. Billy Graham, I think, says, maybe 10 % stick. I wonder how many of John the Baptist converts stuck? I wonder how many of them were in the crowd that day crying, Crucify Him, Away with Him, We’ll not have this man reign over us. I think a lot of those that Christ had healed, which I guess brings us back to the, one of the main points of our program: Search the Scriptures Daily. Search yourselves, whether you are really in the faith, Paul writes to the Corinthians. Examine yourselves, whether you are really in the faith. So, I’m not discounting, was this just a popular thing to do? Probably, Tom. Some of them saw the crowd, some of them heard, and that raises all kinds of serious questions. When we present the gospel there are techniques, salesmanship techniques. First of all, you get them to raise their hand. Well, that’s easy. And then you get them to stand. Whoa that’s, make another step. And then you get them to come forward. Little techniques you can use to get a lot of false converts, and we have to beware of that.

Tom:

Dave, I’ve also seen people come forward on the basis of renewing their faith, and of course numbers wise, it looks impressive. Wow. I was in a church one time where half the congregation went forward.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

I’m thinking wait a minute, why has happened in this church at this time, what happened weeks and months prior, or years prior to this?

Dave:

Yeah. Well anyway I’m sure that John’s ministry was blessed of the Lord, but in the end there were only 120 gathered in that upper room, there were 500 who met Christ after his resurrection in Galilee. Well, maybe I should not mention such things, Tom, because—but it’s important. I would say to everyone out there now listening, examine yourselves, are you really in the faith? A lot of people who call themselves Christians, and they never personally received Christ as their Saviour and Lord, they never really—somehow it never really got to them that Jesus died for them, and that he bore their sins in his own body on the tree. Well, I just thought of that in relation to John the Baptist because Wow! All Judea, all the region round about Jordan, pretty hard for me to imagine that they all were now looking forward to the Messiah, and yet when the Messiah comes they cry, Away with Him! He’s despised and rejected. He came to his own and his own received him not. That’s something to think about seriously, Tom.

Tom:

Mmhmm. Well, Jesus himself said he wouldn’t turn himself over to the people because he knew what was in their hearts and minds. They were looking for a meal ticket; they were looking for somebody to take the Roman oppression from them.

Dave:

Right. That would remind us of John 8, where it says, As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said Jesus to the Jews that believed on him, If you continue in my Word you are my disciple indeed, you know the scriptures. And then they began to argue with him. And finally, they take up stones to kill him. And yet, it said of them, at first they believed in him. That’s something to think about carefully.

Tom:

Verse 7: “But when he saw many of the Pharasees and Saducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.”

Dave:

You know, Tom, this is a guy who’s been reading, obviously he’s been reading positive thinking or how to win friends and influence people.

Tom:

Yeah, or the Joel Osteen approach.

Dave:

Yeah. No, he’s just telling it to them, I mean they’re a generation of vipers, and, You’re going to have to repent. You guys, you’re phonies, is basically what he’s saying. And we have an awful lot of them on TV, radio. But Tom, I’ve been doing all the talking here, you’d better say a few last words here to close us off.

Tom:

Well Dave, you know, repentance is the thing, we talked about that in the earlier segments. Without conviction of sin, with the appeal of productions, and uh, what this can do for me, we’ve lost the heart of what Christ did, what he came to do, what he did, what he accomplished on the cross, and we can have salvation. It’s not adding some baggage to my—what I already have.

Dave:

Amen.

Dave and Tom will continue their discussion on the topic of salvation next week, we hope you can join us. This is 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 five 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 ready 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 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.

Gary:

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 up-dated 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.

Gary:

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

UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We continue our excursion through the gospel of Matthew, here again are Dave and Tom: 

In this, our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the gospel of Matthew, Matthew Chapter 3, Verse 1, Dave. We mentioned last week that we’re going to talk a little bit about John the Baptist. “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea,” Let’s just start with that. John the Baptist, definitely an interesting character in the Bible, but what was this all about, John the Baptist, what was he baptizing for?

            Dave:

Well of course, he was foretold in the scriptures, this one who would say, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight, the forerunner of the Messiah who would prepare the people to accept the Messiah. And well, it didn’t work, I mean, some people came out and they repented but—

            Tom:

And Dave, how did baptism fit into that?

            Dave:

Well, it’s a symbol of washing, and it was used in the Old Testament.

            Tom:

Mmhmm. Cleansing kind of thing?

            Dave:

Right. Yeah, repentance is a tough one. The Bible does—Paul went everywhere preaching repentance toward God, this is Acts 20, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. But—

            Tom:

That’s what? Turning to God. 

            Dave:

Yeah.

            Tom:

Growing up as a Roman Catholic, that word was foreign to us, we had the word “penance.”

            Dave:

Right.

            Tom:

There were certain things that we needed to do to pay for our temporal sin.

            Dave:

Right. But even here, Tom, we have a problem because our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. So, when the governor of New York repented, he said he was sorry, you have to ask yourself a question; supposing he hadn’t been caught, was he really sorry for what he did, or was he sorry that he got caught, was he embarrassed by being caught? Same thing would be true of Ted Edgar, Oh he repented, or Jimmy Swaggart, who repented in tears.

            Tom:

Because of the sexual things.

            Dave:

Right but, if he hadn’t been caught, would he have repented to God?  Would they still be doing this? Now we have a problem even with repentance. Is my repentance genuine, or is it just something I feel I have to say because of the embarrassment of getting caught? So, it’s going to take a work of the Holy Spirit to bring someone to repentance, to be real genuine repentance. And, John the Baptist is calling Israel to repentance. They’ve got plenty to repent of, just read the prophets. I was reading some of the so-called minor prophets this morning. Wow! Joel and Amos, and so forth. What Israel did, their rebellion against God, and the sin—the wickedness of these people, they’ve got a lot to repent of. And you can’t just say to the Messiah, O, yeah, we want you to be the King, O sure, come and reign over us. Wait a minute, well God has already said, I don’t want anything to do with you people. So, you can, we can understand that repentance was a necessary procedure to prepare the way for the Messiah, and it didn’t work.  

            Tom:

Verse 2: “And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

            Dave:

Well, I was raised in a very strict group of believers, real believers, and I can tell you in our fellowship you were either saved or lost, and everybody knew who was saved and who was lost, not like churches today. You’ve got an awful lot of people in there who aren’t even saved, who are just coming and pretending to be Christians.

            Tom:

How did they know, Dave? Isn’t this a heart thing?

            Dave:

Yes, but you knew in your heart, and you would tell it, and people saw a change, I mean, it was like night and day. People were really transformed when they got saved, and they were part—now part of this fellowship. It’s pretty loose today. We were very strict about the Bible but we also—I was just a child in those days. We also had our arguments about the Bible. For example, there were those who saw—it says, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and they would say, Now you see, Matthew, he’s presenting the kingdom of heaven. But then the other gospels are talking about the kingdom of God. Now there is a big difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, we’re going to split hairs over this. Well, it’s simple common sense, just look it up in your concordance, read everything that Matthew says about the kingdom of heaven, read everything the other gospels say about the kingdom of God, and there is no difference! It’s a synonym, God dwells in heaven. Okay, but they, wow, they come up with all kinds of nuances about this, and so forth. So, all I brought that up for was to say, I don’t think there’s a difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. Now I’ve offended some people out there, if they’re even listening to us at all, they may have been offended long ago. But, the kingdom of heaven is at hand! Well, in other words, this is being offered to you right now! John the Baptist was preparing the way, here’s the Messiah, and it’s going to bring heaven on earth, the rule of the Messiah. But not just on the throne of David, it will have to be in your hearts! The King has to reign in your heart. Now, in the millennium, this is not the kingdom that’s talked about, it’s not the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. It’s not the kingdom that Jesus said, Except a man be born again he can’t even see the kingdom of God, He’s talking about the kingdom of God now, it’s the same thing. How do we know that? Well because, there will be a lot of people—but the millennium is not this—there will be a lot of people in the millennium who have not been born again. But Jesus said you can’t even see it without being born again. And then Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 15, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. You got a lot of flesh and blood people there. So therefore, this is when the scripture will be fulfilled, He will rule them with a rod of iron. You don’t have to rule in heaven with a rod of iron, because they’re there by choice, and He has captured our hearts and we love Him. So, just a little aside about the kingdom of heaven, and what it might be, well, let me put it like this, the Bible promises a new heavens and a new earth. There’s going to be a kingdom of a new heaven and a new earth, and it’s very simple. He’s going to let go, 2 Peter Chapter 3, He’s going to let everything go. We don’t even know, the scientists, what is it, the strong force the weak force, how come you got in the atom, you’ve just got a proton and a neutron. Well, neutron has no charge, protons are positive, all positive charge, the electron with a negative charge is circling the atom. That atom should split! It should tear apart, and scientists today do not, cannot tell you—oh they talk about cosmic glue, and so forth. Why does it hold together? The Bible uses rather a scientific language when it says, In Him all things consist, all things hold together, and Peter tells us He’s going to let go! Well, you’re going to be in the new heavens and the new earth, you will have to be a new creation, and you must have come to God through faith in Christ. There is no other way, you must be born again, that’s why Jesus said it!

            Tom:

Verse 4: “And the same John had his raiment of camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins: and his meat was locusts and wild honey.” Now Dave, this is a strange looking character, I would think, but you know what’s interesting is the emphasis in the church today, through the Emerging Church, we’re now seeing a movement back to monasticism, back to the desert fathers, who were, they would say, Hey, this is the way to spiritual holiness. Let’s start eating locusts, and get out, you know, and live in caves. We mentioned Brennan Manning, he did that for eight months, lived in a cave, and so on. That’s not the way to spirituality.

            Dave:

No, it’s not, but it shows that John the Baptist was not interested in this world. You couldn’t entice him with riches or luxury, it’s pretty clear from his description.

            Gary:

Dave and Tom will take up their discussion on the topic of salvation next week, we hope you can tune in. This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For nearly 2,000 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 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 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 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 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 is 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. 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:

We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word, from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website and much more. For a complete list of materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at PO Box 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708. Call us at our toll-free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org. If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #1708 and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. And if you would like to watch Dave and Tom, our weekly broadcast is available on DVD, ask about a subscription when you contact us. You can also download both audio and video podcast at our website. Get a pen or pencil ready, we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.

If you have a question for Dave and Tom to address in a future Contending for the Faith, stay with us, we’ll provide our contact information at the end of the program.  You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Now our final segment:

            UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We resume our excursion through the gospel of Matthew.  Here again are Dave and Tom:  This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we’re in the gospel of Matthew chapter 2, and we’re going to pick up with verse 19.  “But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead which sought the young child’s life.  And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel.  But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee.”

            Dave:

Tom, you’re reading from the King James, and, “in the room of his father” thither or hither or whatever, I don’t see the problem.  You go to Europe, in the fourth grade they’re studying Latin, and in Switzerland the milk carton is written in French and German and Italian.  They study all kinds of languages, they’re fluent in many languages, why can’t we learn King James English, because it’s the language of Shakespeare, it’s the language of culture, of history and literature, and so forth.  But anyway—

            Tom:

Well, Dave, let’s talk about that for a minute.  This is your Bible of choice; this is what you grew up with, the King James.  I do stumble over it, and as I read most of the verses, my “thithers” get a little problematic from time to time.  But on the other hand, as I mentioned in the previous segment, I like to work with young people, and I hold to the text that the King James is from, certainly as opposed to Vaticanus and Alexandria, and so on.  But when I am teaching young people, as we mentioned, it’s sort of a problem because they’re sort of brought up on entertainment, they have a short attention span, and if I don’t have to explain words that have a different meaning today, then, you know, I think I am in better shape.  For example, things like conversation, any conversation; conversation is what people talk about.  No, the King James means their conduct in their life, so if I don’t have to explain that it just saves me a little bit of time.  When the King James says God is pitiful, well, we know that that means He is full of pity, but that can trip up a young person.  What do you mean, God’s pitiful?  So, there are a number of things like that, that it’s just—I could say it’s more convenient for teaching young people, but I do like the King James.  But for some people that’s not enough, they would take you to task when you correct some of the King James, and some of it needs to be corrected, the translators missed a few things here and there.  But just saying that, we’re going to get letters like you can’t believe!

            Dave:

Well, that’s another big subject, Tom.  But anyway, the complaints that many people give—Well, I can’t understand the King James.  Well, you would understand it if you’re reading Shakespeare, it’s the same kind of language.  Well anyway, I shouldn’t have raised that, Tom; we got off the subject here.

            Tom:

Yeah, but that’s a point.  I think people who, you know, we do get letters that say, well, what versions you use, do you prefer, and so on.  Again, it can become almost a volatile issue, which is really too bad.

            Dave:

Well, Tom, it is true, we are dumbing down education in America.  We have dumbed it down.  I mean, I’ve lived in Europe a couple of times; they are so much ahead of us in Europe as far as education.

            Tom:

The Asian countries as well, Dave.

            Dave:

Oh yeah, the U. S. is down near the bottom of third world countries.  So anyway, all I am saying is, I think it wouldn’t be problem, in fact it might even be helpful to learn a little King James English, but that was a moot point, so we better move on.  They came back to the land of Israel, as the angel had told them to do, and they heard that Archelaus, Herod’s son was really in his stead.  Well, they knew that Herod was dead.  Well, Joseph, I guess made a decision on his own.  It doesn’t say the angel told him or warned him about that, and decided not to go back.  We had a discussion about this, I think last week, or it was the week before.  The wise men—when they came it wasn’t to the stable, but it says they came to the house.  And so it was, maybe at least a year probably, it took them a while to make this journey.  But Herod was going to be safe, so he had all the babies killed from two years and down.  So, they were living, I believe, in Bethlehem up to that point, in a house now.  They have moved out of the stable into a house.  Well, they didn’t go back to the house in Bethlehem; they turned aside and went to Nazareth. 

            Tom:

Verse 23:  “And when he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth:  that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”

            Dave:

Well, I don’t think that it means that Joseph, knowing the prophecy, he then picked Nazareth.  That would be like the skeptics, oh, well, Jesus knew the prophecy, that he was going to be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, and he told Judas about it, and so they conspired.  That was the old film and it didn’t get very far in the book, The Passover Plot, you remember that?  No, I don’t think he did that.  You don’t have to fulfill prophecy by making it happen.  And I think that would kind of ruin it if Joseph even knew that.  The disciples, they didn’t know most of the prophecies.

            Tom:

Well, Dave, that brings another question:  What prophecy says that He shall be called a Nazarene?

            Dave:

Well, Tom, that’s a tough one that the skeptics and atheists raise.  There is no prophecy that says He would be called a Nazarene.  But it doesn’t say prophecy, it says, spoken by the prophets.  So there is no one prophecy that says this in so many words.  Well then, how would we relate that?  Well, can any good thing come out of Nazareth, or search the Scriptures; does a prophet arise out of Nazareth?

            Tom:

So these are objections to that Jesus might be the Messiah.  And the point of the objection was what good thing?  So Nazareth had a bad name, this was a despised place.

            Dave:

Right, and he certainly wasn’t despised.  So I would say there are a number of prophets—David says it in Psalm 22, they have hated me without a cause, and you get crucifixion coming there.  Yeah, but a couple of times at least in Isaiah 53:3, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief—we hid, as it were, our faces from Him.  Well, if Nazareth was a place with a bad reputation, it was kind of like the despised section of Israel that certainly would fit as well.  So, there is no prophecy that says He will be called a Nazarene.  But certainly the prophets agreed that He would be despised like the Nazarenes were.

            Tom:

Dave, we’ll pick up with Chapter 3, I’ll just read the first verse, and we’ve got about a minute and a half.  “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, And saying, Repent ye:  for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

            Dave:

Yeah, the kingdom of heaven is at and, we’ll all ponder that, because it was at hand, the King was there, and had they—well; it’s a good question, if they received Him and put him up as King, then—well, they couldn’t make him their King because the Romans were in charge.  But they rejected Him and the prophets foretold that they would reject him.  But then people say, Well, supposing they had, then He wouldn’t have been crucified.  But the fact is that they were not going to, but He still offered it to them.

            Tom:

The other thing I want to talk about next week is John the Baptist, here is a really interesting Biblical character, and we’ll go over that next week. 

            Dave and Tom will take up their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can join us.  This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website and much more.  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 us at our toll free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #1608, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station.  And if you would like to watch Dave and Tom our weekly broadcast is available on DVD, ask about a subscription when you contact us.  You can also download both audio and video podcast at our website.  Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.              Next week, we continue our new series of programs based on Dave Hunt’s book, Seeking and Finding God, and “Is Man an Eternal Being?”  In Religion in the News: “The Graphic Bible,” we’ll take a look at that story, and address the question:  What is the atheist’s wager?  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.  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, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708.  Call us toll free at our order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, 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.  

If you have a question for Dave and Tom to address in a future Contending for the Faith, stay with us, we’ll provide our contact information at the end of the program.  You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Now, our final segment:

            UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We continue our excursion through the gospel of Matthew.  Here again are Dave and Tom: 

In this, our Understanding the Scriptures, segment, we are in the gospel of Matthew chapter 2.  Dave, pick right up with verse 1:  “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem.”

            Dave:

Well, we have to comment on that.  Tom, I think we mentioned this last week or the week before, and I will only go over it very briefly.  I mentioned that there is a problem.  The Catholic Church dates, they celebrated the 2000^th birthday of Jesus, they got the wrong day.  Now you would think the Pope would know what was the right day.  And it comes from here:  In the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip being tetrarch of Iturea, (Luke 3:1) and so on.  You could say that it sounds like a begats and begottens, I mean, what is all of this for.  Well, it identifies, first of all it proves that whoever wrote this knew what he was talking about.  He must have been there at that time.  It identifies a specific time, and specific people, and specific offices which you couldn’t have done years later, but yet the skeptics say, oh this was written years later.  But then you have a problem.  Well, if you go to verse 23, Jesus himself began to be about 30 years of age.  So He must have been about 29, let’s say, in the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, and they say well yeah, historians say, Tiberius Caesar, he began to reign in 14 AD, and 15 years later, 29AD, but we’ve got a problem there, because Augustus wasn’t dead.  How are we going to explain this?  Five years before Augustus died, Tiberius—macho guy, he took over, and he began to rule Rome.  So, we’re going to have to move the date of the takeover, or the beginning of the reign of Tiberius.  We’re going to have to move that back 5 years.  Now, another problem was, Herod.  It clearly said, we just read it—In the days of Herod the king there came wise men saying, Where is He that is born King of the Jews?  Well now, we’ve got a real problem, because Herod died in about 4 BC, or was assassinated, I don’t remember which.  Well now, if Jesus was born in the days of Herod the king, and he died in 4 BC, Jesus must have been born sometime before then, that’s not zero.  So, you’ve got the wrong date.  Anyway Tom, the Bible is very precise, and it doesn’t waste words.  But all I’m saying is, it also gives us proof that this was written by men who were there, and who knew what they were talking about, instead of what they will teach you in a postmodern seminary, or whatever you want to call it.  Oh no, this wasn’t written until centuries later—you didn’t have the library facility, you couldn’t look up all of this stuff centuries later.  So, it’s interesting to me, because the Bible just drops these little nuggets here and there as proof of itself.

            Tom:

Dave, there’s another aspect to this that I find interesting in terms of accuracy.  You spelled out something that was terrific—terrific insight, just a matter of checking the record here, and so on.  But it’s amazing how many Christians just kind of go along with things that they’ve heard, and now they can’t tell the difference between what the Bible says, or what they come up with.  For example, three wise men, how do we know there were three?

            Dave:

Well, it doesn’t say so, the Bible doesn’t say so, and you had better stay away from that.

            Tom:

But you get my point here; we just kind of assume some things because we’re mixing.  Now, here’s another point; the wise men showed up at the manger, right?

            Dave:

No.

            Tom:

Well, what do you mean no?  All the displays that we see have the wise men there, why is that?

            Dave:

Not true, because it was some time after the birth of Jesus.  He was back in his home town, Joseph and Mary, and he was in a proper bed, I assume, not in a stable.

            Tom:

But you get my point here.  We just kind of go along with things, and we were at your debate in Toronto—I say, we, — I was there along with one of our board members in Toronto.  And some of the people that you were debating, they had some ideas about the Bible, and as I told you, they were not accurate, but they were persuasive.  And a gentleman, after one of the debates, walked by me, and said we really need to know our Bibles, and that’s true.  So, part of what we’re doing here, Search the Scriptures Daily, we are encouraging people to, don’t take our word for it, we’re trying to encourage people to get into the Word of God, and be accurate about their understanding.

            Dave:

That’s one of the problems of the debate, Tom, because the Muslim can reel off all this false information about the Bible, and people out there in the audience, they don’t know that it’s false.  I do not have time to deal with every one of those false statements.  So, there are some things unsatisfactory about a debate, but I think it stimulates a lot of thinking.

            Tom:

Right, but the point is you’ve got to know the Words along the testimony.

            Dave:

Absolutely, absolutely!

            Tom:

So, verse 2:  “Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him.”  Now Dave, who might these, we said there are not necessarily three of them, could have been, but Scripture doesn’t say, but who would these wise men be?  We know they are from the East, but what would they be about?

            Dave:

Tom, numbers tells us about a man named Baalim, we don’t have time to go into that, but at one time he was in touch with God, and it is literally Baalim who prophesied, and he was from the East you could say in a way, it was Baalim who prophesied the star that would show, a star will arise, and so forth.  And obviously, these men, whoever they were, had been searching the Scriptures, and they were watching for this star.  And they, apparently, I mean, yes, not apparently, they saw a star that they believed was the one.  They are following the star, but it could not have led them to Jerusalem.  They must have somehow—well, when they get close enough—aha, we’re heading in the direction of Jerusalem, this is  the King of the Jews.  So, they don’t have to watch the star anymore, they just go on their camels riding to Jerusalem.  Where was he that is born King of the Jews?  Of course we really upset that cause.  I believe that they were following; they had read the prophecy of Baalim.

            Tom:

Well, Dave, what’s your take on a star?  Do you think this was actually a star as we understand it today, you know, like the North Star?

            Dave:

No, Tom, it had to be something that seemed to them to be a star.

            Tom:

A light of some kind.

            Dave:

But it came down on the earth.

            Tom:

Could this have been an angelic being, or some phenomenon?  I know we are speculating, but I know this trips up people.  Dave, some people say, well, wait a minute, do they use sextants to follow the stars like a ship would use to direct itself?

            Dave:

The Bible doesn’t go into details about that.  It may be because this star, it looked like a star, it’s up in the heavens, you can’t tell, and it seemed to shine right onto the earth, and is moving.  It may be that that is what caused them to think that this must be the star that Baalim talked about, and they began to follow it.

            Tom:

Verse 3:  “When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.”  It must have been an item for them.  Whoa, how is it that these guys from the East know better than we do.

            Dave:

Well, also if there has been a king born, where does that put Herod?  So, I can understand why he would be troubled.

            Gary:

Dave and Tom will take up their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can tune in.  This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word, from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website, and much more.  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 us at our toll free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #1308, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station.  And if you would like to watch Dave and Tom, our weekly broadcast is available on DVD; ask about a subscription when you contact us.  You can also download both audio and video podcast at our website.  Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.

            Next week, we wrap up our series of programs addressing the latest spiritual phenomenon called The Emerging Church, and “How Destructive Is the Emerging Church?”  In Religion in the News: “Knocking Intelligent Design,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question:  Will our next President be appointed by 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.  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, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call us toll-free at our order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, 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.  

If you have a question for Dave and Tom to address in a future Contending for the Faith, stay tuned, we’ll have our contact information at the end of the program.  You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Now, our final segment.

            UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We continue our exploration of the gospel of Matthew.  Here again are Dave and Tom:

 This is our Understanding the Scripture segment, we are in the gospel of Matthew chapter 1.  Dave, last week we got to verse 21, but I’m going to back up just a little bit.  We talked about Joseph, who, again, being the one who Mary was espoused to, finds that she’s with child, and now he’s got some problems here.  How is he going to deal with it?  But what we mentioned last week was—well, I’ll read verse 20.  “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife:  for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” This is the virgin birth.

            Dave:

It’s interesting, Tom, “he appeared in a dream.”  Now, it says, the “angel of the Lord.”  When we find that title, “angel of the Lord,” throughout the Old Testament, this is Jesus himself, in a pre-incarnation appearance.  Now, He’s not appearing consciously to Joseph, but in a dream, that’s interesting.  Now how does Joseph know that this is not just a dream, not just wishful thinking?  Well, there had to be something, I mean, that the conviction of the Holy Spirit, he realizes that this is true and he has misjudged Mary.  I mean, he knew Mary very well, she’s not the kind of a woman who would be having an affair, and, well, anyway, he knows that this is the truth.

            Tom:

Now Dave, we mentioned this last week, but I’d like to go over it again: how important is it?  It says right here in verse 20, “for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”  So this is virgin birth.  How important is it for Christians to believe in that?

            Dave:

Absolutely essential, because otherwise, is Jesus the product of some unfaithfulness on the part of Mary?  It couldn’t be Joseph because he’s not aware of it.  Now, we’ve got a lot of problems if you begin to go down that road.  But Jesus is God, He will not cease to be God, but He must be fully man.  So, the Scriptures, we mentioned last week, it is quoted in Hebrews, “A body hast thou prepared me, quoted from the Psalms.  So, as we, I think we mentioned it last week as well.  The Catholics call Mary the “mother of God.”  Now that was a discussion that was had in the early church—well, it was in, around 315 I think, something like that.

            Tom:

I think the term was, Theodocus—God bearer.

            Dave:

Right, but that’s not what it’s supposed to be, and in fact, the theologians, as I understand it, at the Council of Trent did not accept that.  It was forced upon them by the popular pressure, the popular vote of the people.  So, anyway, Jesus is God and man.  If He were just an ordinary man He could not redeem us.  He had to be infinite to pay the penalty for the sins of the entire world.  Furthermore, He had to be sinless, He had to be pure and holy, and no ordinary man could aspire to that.

            Tom:

Let’s pick up with verse 21:  “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins.”

            Dave:

So this is all told to Joseph in a dream.

            Tom:
“Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shalt bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

            Dave:

Now Tom, as you know, maybe not all of our listeners know this, but this verse has come under a lot of criticism by the skeptics:  What do you mean a virgin?  Now what right does Matthew have to put that in there when in Isaiah 7:14, it says, a young woman.  Well, the Hebrew word used there is Alma.  It doesn’t mean just a young woman; it means a young unmarried woman who must be a virgin.  If she was not a virgin she would be stoned.  So, of course she was a virgin, although there might have been another word for that, this is sufficient.  A young unmarried woman will be found with child. That’s a scandal unless it is exactly as the angel reveals it to Joseph.

            Tom:

Dave, there’s another interesting thing about this.  When we are talking about the Emerging Church, and “ancient-future faith,” supposedly you need to understand the context of the society that you are looking at.  So you have to go back to the 2^nd century and really understand their thinking and how they dealt with things.  Well, this is so contrary to that because God is, through the Holy Spirit, is giving Mary a child.  All right, but this is scandalous, as you said.  Certainly, God wasn’t aware of the customs, or the social context of this, and so on.  You see how ridiculous that is?  God does what He does, and forget about, certainly the social context, and so on.

            Dave:

Well, that was why He let Joseph know the truth that she had not been unfaithful, but that what was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit.  And I would hope that Joseph knew his Scriptures well enough to know, wait a minute!  This is a fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14.

            Tom:

Verse 24:  “Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:  And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son:  and he called his name Jesus.”

            Dave:

They have a plain declaration again that this is a virgin birth.

            Tom:

Right.

            Dave:

Joseph had no sex with Mary until she brought forth her first born.

            Tom:

Now Dave, that’s not what I was taught growing up Roman Catholic, that Mary was not only without sin, but she was a perpetual virgin.  This seems to contradict that.

            Dave:

It certainly does—until she had brought forth her first born.  We talked about that recently, last week, and we said we would come back to it.  Now it very clearly stated, her first born!  Now, you wouldn’t say that unless there were other children who followed.  See, if the Catholic Church is right, why doesn’t it say she continued to be a virgin, this was her only child; she brought forth her only child.  The Bible uses that terminology—God so loved the world He gave his only begotten Son, this is God’s only begotten Son.  But according to the Bible it is not Mary’s only son, this is not her only begotten son.  So, there were brothers and sisters who followed, and we have the names of some of them.  In fact, it tells us of some of them who didn’t believe in Jesus.  They were going up to the feast and, this is John 7, they say, we’re going up to the feast, and Jesus says, no, I’m waiting a while, I’m not going up.  Well, if you want people to believe on you, show yourself openly they say, because neither did His brethren believe in Him.

            Tom:

But then, I guess after the crucifixion two of them at least, came to believe, and this would be Jude and James.

            Dave:

Tom, if you had a computer—we do have a computer, a lot of computers around here—you’ve got the most powerful computers in the world, you’ve got the most brilliant men together, and we’re going to add another book to the Bible.  We have to say some significant, it can’t be just repetition but it’s got to fit in with all of these prophecies, all of the history that has gone before.  Tom, you couldn’t do it on computers.  And I just love the Bible for that reason along with many others.  Wow, how it all is interwoven, and you cannot escape it, this is written by God!

            Tom:

So, that takes us to the end of chapter 1, and Dave, next week, the Lord willing, we’ll pick up with chapter 2, verse 1.

            Dave and Tom will take up their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can join us.  This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.

            Is God hiding from us?  Have you been looking for Him, but have been unsuccessful?  Why should we even bother?  It is astonishing how many millions of otherwise seemingly intelligent people are willing to risk their eternal destiny upon less evidence than they would require for buying a car, or even a low-carb food item.  Where will you spend eternity?  Can you know?  There is no more important question to be faced and answered.  Seeking and Finding God, In Search of the True Faith is the new book from Dave Hunt, published by The Berean Call.  Readers of Dave’s, An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith, will recognize and appreciate that this  handy volume includes revised excerpts from that powerful work.  Lecturer and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Dave Hunt:  “I wrote Seeking and Finding God, because the Lord brings across my path many people who need to know Him and who want to know Him.  I wrote it really for myself, because I think it’s the ideal book to give to people who are seeking.”  A powerful tool for evangelism and discipleship, convenient to carry, and inexpensive to give away.  TBC is also making his book available in case quantities for personal evangelism and ministry use.  Seeking and Finding God, In Search of the Faith, the latest from Dave Hunt is now available, information on how to order in just a moment.  And now, to tell you more about our ministry, here is 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’ 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 material 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:

We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word, from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website, and much more.  For a complete list of m materials, or to get a copy of today’s broadcast, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708.  Call us at our toll free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #1208, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station.  And if you would like to watch Dave and Tom, our weekly broadcast is available on DVD; ask about a subscription when you contact us.  You can also download both audio and video podcast at our website.  Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.

            Next week, we continue our series of programs addressing the latest spiritual phenomenon called, The Emerging Church, and: “What is post modernism?”  In Religion in the News: “The Super Church Bowl,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question:  Why are Evangelicals going Catholic?   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.  In the meantime, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily.  For more information about The Berean Call, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708, call us toll free at our order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.      

If you have a question for Dave and Tom to address in a future “Contending for the Faith,” stay with us; we’ll provide our contact information at the end of the program.  You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Now our final segment:

            UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We continue our excursion through the gospel of Matthew.  Here again are Dave and Tom:  This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in Matthew chapter 1, and last week I went through the genealogy of Jesus, and we got to verse 17.  So we will pick up with verse 17:  “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.”

            Dave:

Now Tom, I don’t know why, I don’t know the significance of fourteen generations, but maybe you do, Tom, but it shows a pattern, it shows that God was in charge, He knows what’s happening.  Now you couldn’t say more than that.

            Tom:

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:  When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.”  I think that’s pretty straight forward, it was a virgin birth, that Joseph, her espoused, had nothing to do with it.

            Dave:

Yeah, we have this again in Luke.  The Bible is very clear.  Now, Catholicism-well, Jesus was born of a virgin, but Jesus was the only child that Mary had, and we’ll get there in a minute, but let me just look ahead.  Verse 25, that’s how the chapter ends:  He knew her not—okay, we know what that means.  Joseph had no sex with her—until she had brought forth her only son?  No, the Bible talks about “your only son.”  God tells Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son—this is in Genesis 22—Isaac.  So it tells us Ishmael was not looked upon as a son, your only son is Isaac.  So, it could have very easily said, she brought forth her only son, because we want you to understand she remains a virgin the rest of her life.  No, it says, He knew her not until she brought forth here firstborn son:  and he called his name Jesus.  And of course we know that Jesus had a number of half-brothers, and there were some half-sisters, the brothers are named, and Catholics try to say well, they were cousins, and so forth.  But anyway, I pushed us ahead, Tom, but it’s apropos to what we are talking about here.

            Tom:

Right.  Dave, what about the virgin birth?  I remember you talking about Norman Vincent Peale, way back.  There are some doctrines, some issues that people write off and say well, it’s just not important.  Is the virgin birth all that important, is it essential, or should we just kind of let anybody think what they want?

            Dave:

Well, Peale didn’t seem to think so.

            Tom:

No.

            Dave:

Is it essential?  Well, the Bible tells us, if we went back to Isaiah 9:6 and 7: “…unto us a child is born (that’s the babe born in Bethlehem)…unto us a Son is given.”  Now, Jesus was the eternal Son of God, and he came into this body that was given him.  The Catholics talk about the, mother of God.  Well, isn’t Jesus God?  Yes, but you’re not the mother of God.  He is eternal.  God was around a long time before Mary came on the scene.  She is the mother of the body that was prepared—we go to Hebrews where it quotes the Psalms:  “A body hast thou prepared me.”  Okay?  Now, if Jesus was born, if He were just a man, well, He could be filled with the Holy Spirit like John the Baptist, and so forth, but He has to be infinite, because the penalty for sin that He is going to pay is an infinite penalty.  He has to be God in order to die for the sins of the world, and He couldn’t be a sinless man because it says all have sinned.  Mary confesses that she’s a sinner; Joseph certainly was, so how could we have the spotless Lamb of God, who bears away the sin of the world if He is just a mortal man?  It wouldn’t work.  Furthermore, the Bible is very clear, beginning in Genesis 3:15:  “The seed of the woman…”that’s a rather striking statement—“…the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.”  That’s the first indication of the virgin birth.

            Tom:

And Dave, as you’re indicating here, if you don’t believe that, then you have to throw some things out of the Bible.  I’m looking at Luke chapter 1, verse 34.  This is Mary speaking to the angel:  “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?  And the angel answered and said unto her.  The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”  So, I just have to throw that out if I don’t believe in it.

            Dave:

Well, we have to throw what we just read in Matthew out, and of course we would have to throw salvation out, because no mere man could save us.  And there is no way that any mere man could be kept from sin, although the Catholic Church tries to tell us that about Mary.  No, we’ve got a little problem there, Tom, and I think we can take a minute to deal with it.  They call this the Immaculate Conception.  That’s not, as an ex-Catholic, you know, that’s not talking about the conception of Jesus.

            Tom:

Well, the Catholic Church doesn’t call it that, but many people misunderstand when they hear about the Immaculate Conception, they think that’s what’s being addressed here in Luke.

            Dave:

Absolutely not, the Immaculate Conception was Mary’s Immaculate Conception.  Because the Catholics say, well, she would have to be conceived without sin in order to give birth to Jesus without a sinless being.  But wait a minute!  Now we’ve got a problem.  Well then for her to be without sin, be conceived without sin, here parents would have to be without sin.  Now, all the way back to Adam and Eve—oh, I guess Adam and Eve didn’t really sin?  No, so Tom, why do we talk like this?  Because this is the Bible!  You don’t play fast and loose with the Bible!  It’s such in integrated Book, you move one thing out, move one block out of its spot and the whole thing is going to collapse.  So, we have to be very careful, we handle God’s Word reverently and carefully, and we believe it and it all ties together, and you can’t pull something out and it will not remain intact.

            Tom:

Dave, going back to the question that somebody wrote in: What about guidance in our life?  If this is going to be my map, well, wait a minute, if some things here are in error or some things here we could just dispense with right away, what kind of guidance is this going to give me?  It’s kind of a cafeteria type of thing—yeah, I’ll pick some of this and some of that.  I know you’ve said over and over again, if I’m willing to accept, or disagree with the church in some issues, why am I willing to accept the church—I’m talking about the Roman Catholic Church—why am I willing to accept its offers of salvation and so on when I’m disagreeing with other aspects of it?  But with the Bible, it’s a complete package; you take it as a whole.

            Dave:

Absolutely.

            Tom:

Matthew 1:19, “Then Joseph, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.” 

            Dave:

Well, he has heard from relatives or from someone, hey, this lady’s pregnant, what did you do, and he knows it’s not from him, it must be somebody else.  But, you know, he’s not going to make a public example out of her.  So, he’s going to kind of let this thing go, he’s got a dilemma.  And that’s when the angel appears in verse 20:  “But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”

            Tom:

So Dave, if I don’t believe in the virgin birth, hey, I’m just going to cut that line right out.

            Dave:

Tom, you’ve got to cut everything out, because the Bible is one Book and it all hangs together.

            Dave and Tom will take up their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can tune in.  This is 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:  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 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:

We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website and much more.  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 us at our toll-free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #1108, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station.  And if you would like to watch Dave and Tom, our weekly broadcast is available on DVD; ask about a subscription when you contact us.  You can also download both audio and video podcast at our website.  Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment.

            Next week, we continue our series of programs addressing the latest spiritual phenomenon called, “The Emerging Church” and, “Following Hermits and Mystics.”  In Religion in the News: “Muslims and the Millennium,” we’ll take a look at that story and address the question:  What is A Course in Miracles?  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.  Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the Scriptures daily.  For more information about The Berean Call, write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708.  Call us toll-free at our order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.            

Gary: 

If you have a question for Dave and Tom to address in a future Contending for the Faith, stay tuned, we’ll have our contact information at the end of the program.  You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Now our final segment:

            UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES           

We begin our journey through the gospel of Matthew.  Here again are Dave and Tom:  This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment— we are beginning with the gospels.  We have gone through, for many, many, many weeks the Book of Acts, and now we’re turning to Matthew, the gospel of Matthew, and we’re going to pick right up with Matthew chapter l, verse 1.

Now Dave, normally I would ask you to just make a comment whenever you feel led to do that as I’m reading through these, but this is the genealogy, these are the begets.  So, here’s what you can do for my sake, if I make a wrong pronunciation, jump in and correct my pronunciation.  Sometimes that can be the biggest struggle in going through the genealogies.

            Dave:

I’m sure my pronunciation would be no better than yours, Tom.

            Tom:

So we want you folks to know, who are following along with us, and we hope you do, we hope you, as we have the Scriptures, that you have your Bible open, not if you’re driving your car, obviously, but if you’re at  home listening to the program, it would be great for you to follow along with us.  So this is Matthew chapter 1, beginning with verse 1:  “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Pharez and Zerah of Tamar; and Pharaz begat Hezron; and Hezron begat Ram; And Ram begat Amminadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon and Nahshon begat Salmon; And Salmon begat Boaz of Rachab; and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Uriah; And Solomon begat Rehoboam; and Rehoboam begat Abijah; and Abijah begat Asa; And Asa begat Jehoshaphat; and Jehoshaphat begat Jehoram; and Jehoram begat Uzziah; And Uzziah begat Jotham; and Jotham begat Ahaz; and Ahaz begat Hezekiah; And Hezekiah begat Manasseh; and Manasseh begat Amon; and Amon begat Josiah; And Josiah begat Jechoniah and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon;  And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechoniah begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zerubbabel; And Zerubbabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor; And Azor begat  Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud; And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob; And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.  Now Dave, it’s easier for me when I read those not out loud, okay.

            Dave:

Yeah, I’m sure.

            Tom:

Here’s my question, why the genealogies? What’s the value of this in Scripture do you believe? 

            Dave:

Well, Tom, you’ve probably heard me say it a few times.  Jesus doesn’t step off of UFO and say voila!  Here I am, I’m the Messiah!  He comes with a pedigree.  He comes with a history.  He comes with a genealogy, very, very important.  Now, this is amazing, Matthew the writer has all of this at hand!  Do each one of these—it’s all in the right order— now scholars today can search the ancient records, and they are not going to improve on this.  So, number one: it is an indication of the accuracy of the Bible.  The Bible pays attention to details.  You get something similar in Luke chapter 3.  Luke says it was in the 15^th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea, and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, and so forth.  Now that sounds like the begats and the begottens—you’ve got all the details—but here you have technical names of Caesar, governor, tetrarch, and so forth.  You’ve got the date and you’ve got the place where they had this office.  The date is in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar.  Now they used to say that Tiberius Caesar began ruling in 14 AD.  So, if you add 15 years to 14, that brings you to 29 AD, and that’s when it says, verse 23:  And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, in other words, 29 going on 30.  So that’s where they got the calendar from.  But that’s not right, because we know that the Scripture tells us, Matthew, in the days of Herod the king that the wise men came from the East, and that’s when Jesus was born, in the days of Herod the king.  But wait a minute!  Herod died in 4 BC, so now we’ve got a problem.  You can’t say Jesus was born in 0 and that’s where the calendar begins.  No, that’s a mistake.  Anyway, Tom, it takes a little more time than we have at the moment, but the Bible is accurate and when you check it out, our calendar is off by about 5 years.  Somehow the Pope didn’t know that, the Catholic Church didn’t know it because they had a big celebration in the year 2000, for what they called the 2000^th birthday of Jesus.

            Tom:

Well, again Dave, this is where tradition fits in.

            Dave:

Right, but anyway, Tom, I did a whole study on this and anyone who wants it can call The Berean Call and I’m sure we will send them a free copy.  But why is this here, why is what I just read from Luke here?  To show that this was not written centuries—you know, you’ve got the critics, the Jesus seminar so-called scholars—oh well, the New Testament was written centuries later.  You couldn’t have all these details, there was no library you could go to and find out that Tiberius succeeded Augustus, or you could find out that Philip was the tetrarch of Ituraea, and so forth and so on.  You couldn’t find that out, but the historians can check it out now as we dig up archeological evidence.  So I think part of it is to show that the Bible is true, it’s accurate, it gives you some details  now and then, also to show that Jesus was not some mysterious spirit being who came to this earth, he is a real man.  He is literally a man but he is God, he the God-man, God and man in one person.  It is very important that we understand that.  He comes with genealogy and it was in fulfillment of promises to David that he would not cease to have someone to rule on is throne and that the Messiah would be descended from David.  It establishes his legal right to the throne.  But that’s a little bit mysterious too, because this is through Joseph the father, and he’s not the son of Joseph, but the legal line passed through the father.  But when you get to Luke it’s now through Joseph’s father-in-law, it’s through Mary.  So, on both sides Jesus was descended from King David.  His mother and His father, who was not really His father, but you could say the one through which His legal title came.

Gary:

Dave and Tom will continue their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can join us.  This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.

It’s on the horizon; it’s almost in view.  Get ready for Judgment Day! Islam, Israel and the Nations, the new book from Dave Hunt and The Berean Call.  Is God about to judge the world over issues related to Israel?  This highly informative and revealing work cuts through the political to the prophetic alerting us to the judgment about to befall this planet.  Hans Kristian, President of the International Sakharov Committee, calls it the most important book on the issues of the Middle East and the Holy Land.  Joseph Farrah, founder of World Net Daily.com says, “Dave Hunt has nailed it.  This book is a wake-up call to a sleep-walking world trying to make sense of events that were foretold in the greatest book ever written, the Bible!”  Lecturer and co-author of The Seduction of Christianity, Dave Hunt: “Judgment Day is the most important book I’ve written.  God’s judgment is coming upon this world.  The leaders of this world are defying what God has said about Israel and about that land that belongs to them and they are taking the sides of people who pretend that that land belongs to them, and it does not.  And God is going to punish this world and we document that in the book.  This treatment of the topic offers no room for political correctness or ecumenical accommodations.  The truth is more devastating than fiction.”  Judgment Day! Islam, Israel and the Nations, the latest by Dave Hunt is now available from The Berean Call in e-book and hard cover.  Information on how to order in just a moment.  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.  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:

We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website and much more.  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 us at our toll-free order number, 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #1008, and be sure to mention the call letters of this station.  And if you would like to watch Dave and Tom, our weekly broadcast is available on DVD; ask about a subscription when you contact us.  You can also download both audio and video podcast at our website.  Get a pen or pencil ready; we’ll repeat our contact information in just a moment. 

Gary:

            If you have a question for Dave and Tom to address in a future Contending for the Faith, stay with us, we’ll provide our contact information at the end of the program.  You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  Now, our final segment:

            UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES

We conclude our epic journey through the Book of Acts.  Here again are Dave and Tom.

            Tom:

This is our Understanding the Scriptures segment, we are in the Book of Acts, actually we are going to complete, the Lord willing, and if we don’t get sidetracked we’re going to complete the Book of Acts today.  So, Acts 28, and we’re going to pick up with verse 28.   “Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it.”  Of course, Paul has just been speaking to some leaders of the Jews in Rome where he is a prisoner, but he has kind of a house arrest thing, he has some liberties there, and he invited the Jewish leaders to come in and hear what he had to say.

            Dave:

And they rejected it—well, some received it and some did not.  Now Tom, without taking too much time, I’ve got to be careful here—be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, why? And they will hear—wow! That just stabbed them in the heart.  No, we’re Jews, it’s only for us!  This was the attitude of the disciples, Peter’s attitude, and the apostles.  But it’s all through the Bible, right?

            Tom:

The prophets said—

            Dave:

I just quoted it earlier, Romans Chapter 1, Paul says he’s an apostle separated unto the gospel of God—how do we know?  What is it—which he promised before by his prophets and the Holy Scriptures.  First Corinthians 15, Paul says, “This is the gospel that I preach, by which you are saved, that you believe wherein you stand, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures—was buried, rose again the third day according to the scriptures!  Now, as for the Gentiles believing this?  Wow!  Jesus said, God into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.  And I’m not going to take the time, but Tom; we can go through all the scriptures.  Isaiah, it’s fantastic!  Psalm 22, where it is describing the crucifixion.  It says, this will be known in all the world, all the world will remember!  This was always in their own prophets.  Let me just read—I want to read just one verse.  I can quote it but I want to make sure that I’m not wrong.  I want to go to Malachi chapter 1, and verse 11, I love this verse.  Well, God is telling the Jews—you have blown it.  I am not going to accept your sacrifices.  You offer me something that isn’t any good, its lame or it’s blind, and that’s what you offer me, a lamb out of the flock.

            Tom:

And of course, this is the last Book of the Old Testament, is it not?

            Dave:

Right and God says, Look, I’ve had enough of your sacrifices.  Listen to what he says, Verse 11—well, let me read Verse 10:  I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.  For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles.  Wow!  What did they think of that?  It’s all through the scriptures, so now Paul is simply telling the Jews what their own prophets have said over and over and over.  But he has to say be it known unto you, because this is going to the Gentiles and they will hear exactly what the prophets have said, this is not something new.  Now Tom, I’ve mentioned it a couple of times, I’ll take it once again.  There are those hyper dispensationalists, whatever you want to call them, and they say, you see, this marked the end of the gospel to the Jews, and now it’s going to the Gentiles.  But as we’ve mentioned—go back to Acts 13, the very first missionary journey that Paul and Barnabas went on together—they take the gospel to the Jews, and then when the Jews reject it Paul says, we’re going to the Gentiles.  They do that in every city, the gospel is to the Jew first, and then to the Greek, Romans 1:16.  All right? So he is saying nothing new in Rome, nothing different, and you can’t say this is the end of an era, okay.  He’s only doing in Rome what he did elsewhere.

            Tom:

And of course, we have again the response of the Jews in Verse:  “And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.”  I’m sure there were some who said, Wait a minute, the prophets, wasn’t there something about this?

            Dave:

Tom, probably a very small minority of them did, but they had great reasoning among themselves.  This was very troubling because one of the Psalms says:  God says to the Jews, The gods of the nations are idols, but you worship the true God.  And they say, yes, of course, of course, it’s only for us, we’re the ones and they follow false gods, it could only be for Jews.  But it isn’t it wasn’t, and it’s all through the Bible.  But we have Jews today who really believe this; it is still only for them.  Well, they depart, and have great reasoning among themselves.  “And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him.  That was a privilege from the Lord to allow him to have his own quarters.

            Tom:

And Dave, there is in Rome, this is the capitol of the world basically at the time, and it’s amazing—not amazing because this is God ordaining this, but he places Paul in a place where the gospel can be exposed throughout the world.

            Dave:

Yeah, people can take it everywhere.  So, he received all that came in unto him.  He apparently didn’t have any restrictions, he had freedom, and you can be sure that Paul is preaching the gospel to everybody.  And we know that Caesar’s household became believers.

            Tom:

That’s what it says, verse 31:  “Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.”

            Dave:

So, in one of his epistles he says and they of Caesar’s household greet you.  So, he’s the prisoner of Jesus Christ, and this same preaching the kingdom of God is a bit of a concern because some people say, Well, that’s the gospel of the kingdom, how come we don’t preach the gospel of the kingdom?    Well, the gospel of the kingdom is Christ has paid the penalty for your sins, and now you are invited to be in his family, become a child of God.  And he’s Lord, King of my life I crown thee now, thine shall the glory be, we sing.  And it’s nothing strange that he would preach the kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God; one day He will rule over all this universe.  Well, can’t He do that now, isn’t God sovereign, isn’t He in charge? People say that all the time.  Well, He’s still on the throne, He’s in charge, as though nothing happens that He doesn’t want to happen?  No, that’s Calvinism, I’m sorry to mention it again.  Are we going to blame all the evil in this world, all the rape and murder and crime?  Oh, I guess that’s God’s doing—well, He’s in charge, isn’t He, isn’t He in control, better rethink that idea.  No, God is not controlling this world—well, 1 John Chapter 5 tells us, the whole world lies in the evil one.  We sing—well, we used to sing, He’s got the whole wide world in his hands.  No, Satan’s got the whole world in his hands.  He’s called the God of this world, but God can intervene at any time, and He watches over His own.  But the kingdom one day, and it won’t even be the millennial reign because there will be rebellion that ends with a war, ends with an uprising against Christ.  It’s hard to believe!  The kingdom that Paul is talking about is the eternal kingdom, and I can prove that very quickly, we’ve got a couple of minutes left here.  Well, where does it say—Jesus said except a man be born again he cannot even see; much less enter into the kingdom of God.  There will be a lot of unborn-again people in the millennium.  The Bible says—well, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says:  Behold, I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep—and so forth—but we will all be changed.  Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  Well, there will be a lot of flesh and blood people in the millennium, but not in the eternal state.  His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom.  Well, but the millennium ends, how does it end?  Well, Isaiah 9:7—of his kingdom and peace there will be no end.  Well, there’s an end to the millennium and it ends with a war.  So, the kingdom Paul is talking about and we are looking forward to, which we have already entered through the new birth, we’ve been born again through faith in Christ, we have come into this kingdom and we’re experiencing in our heart and in our lives as He reigns over us.  But one day it will be the entire universe, and there will never be another rebellion again.

Tom:

Dave that concludes our privilege to take our audience through the Book of

Acts, and we would encourage, you know, when you finish a book, hey, start over again, now, go through it by yourself.

              Dave:

That phrase, Tom, “no man forbidding him” that’s kind of interesting because he was going to be martyred.  But at this moment, God who is in control, who does have his way but not in every heart, he would not allow anyone to forbid Him.  Paul had an amazing liberty at this time.

              Dave and Tom will continue their discussion on the topic of salvation next week when they begin a new study of the gospel of Matthew; we hope you can tune in.  This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  We offer a wide variety of teaching materials that will help you expand your knowledge of God’s Word, from books and tracts to audio and video recordings, CD-ROM, our website and much more.   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 us at our toll free order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.  If you would like a copy of this broadcast on compact disk, ask for Program #0908, 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 continue our series of programs addressing the latest spiritual phenomenon called: The Emerging Church, and “Christianity, from Classical to Postmodern.”  In Religion in the News: “The Stars on Scripture,” we’ll take a look at that story, and address the question:  Were the seven letters written to today’s church?  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.  Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily.  For more information about The Berean Call write to us at POB 7019, Bend, Oregon 97708.  Call us toll free at our order number 877-882-4253, that’s 877-88Bible, or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org.