Is Man a Cancer on the Earth?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. If you’re a new listener to our program, let me tell you what to expect. We open with a half-hour or so segment, which is our feature topic, followed by two brief segments, the first usually responding to a religious news item that the secular press has reported; and that’s followed by a question and answer segment, the questions generated by our listeners. We conclude with an on-going verse-by-verse Bible study, and presently we’re in the Book of Acts. So, Dave, did I leave anything out that they should know?

Dave: Well, it sounded good to me, Tom, except we can’t guarantee that we always stick precisely to the schedule, but we do our best.

Tom: No, Dave, we don’t offer any guarantees. You’re right. We don’t. Even if they write in and look for one, we don’t do that. In this first segment, Dave and I have been discussing his latest book Judgment Day! Islam, Israel, and the Nations, and chapter 14 is titled “The World Needs a Messiah.” Yet, Dave, you say that there’s a battle that rages in the human heart that includes all of humanity: Jews, Gentiles, Muslims, and non-Muslims. So how does that work?

Dave: Well, Tom, I’m trying to relate what’s going on in the Middle East to what goes on in the human heart. And as we say at the very beginning of this book, we challenge the reader: Check out the Bible. That’s what we’re doing. And, of course, we go to history, we go to current events, we go to everything that’s happening in the Middle East. God says that these are His people, the Jews. God says that that land belongs to them, and He says that He is going to punish the nations of the world who try to deprive Israel of its land. Now, that doesn’t mean that Israel is in perfect obedience to God, which, in fact, they’re not. Thirty percent of the Israelis claim to be atheists, and a lot of New Agers, and everybody wants to do their own thing. There are people who compromise, but we point out that God said He’s going to bring all the nations of this world to Jerusalem to punish them for dividing His land. Amazing! It never happened before in history, and that land is being divided—has been divided—and every so-called peace proposal: “Israel, give them back some more land.” You know, the disengagement recently from Gaza. And Condoleezza Rice is putting pressure on Israel: “Give up the West Bank,” and so forth, okay? What is the problem? The basic problem in the Middle East is that the leaders of this world and ordinary people are in rebellion against God. If they would only do what God said, there would be peace. 

Now, it’s the same thing in the human heart. So not only do we need a Messiah to intervene in Israel, which He will in the midst of Armageddon, and He will destroy the enemies of Israel. They will also be punished. They’re under His judgment right now because of their disobedience and rebellion in the past. They’ve been scattered out of their land and now they are being brought back, but still under judgment. But not only do we need a Messiah to rescue the situation in the Middle East, the whole world needs a Messiah individually! Every individual person needs a Messiah, because we are all in rebellion against God. 

And we sort of begin this chapter by going to the DNA, and all this nonsense about evolution and so forth, seeking fossils…Tom, it’s a waste of time. You only have to go to the DNA. We all begin life as a single cell about the size of a period at the end of a sentence. How does that cell know how to build trillions of cells? And not only how to build them, but how to operate them? The incredible nano-chemical machinery, microscopic stuff that is in all the cells, we don’t even know how it works. We can’t even imagine how the brain works, which is another problem that we don’t even get into—throwing drugs at the most complex organism in the universe, and not knowing exactly how it’s going to work, but dumbing it down, and so forth. 

So on the DNA, which is on that original tiny cell, which then will be replicated on every cell, that is the Manufacturer’s Instructions, you could say. It contains the instructions for constructing and operating trillions and trillions of cells, thousands of different kinds of cells in a perfect balance in relation to one another to comprise the human body. If you just talked about the eye, the rods and cones and the connections to the brain, and the incredible camera that it is, and electronics, I mean…okay. So if you took the information—we’re talking about information now; this is information how to build a body—if you took the information in a pinhead’s worth of DNA and put it into books, because it is written in words, it would take a stack of books 500 times as high as the distance from here to the moon to contain it. Now, we don’t have computers that can do that. This doesn’t happen by chance. Forget searching for fossils and so forth, that’s ridiculous! You can’t even begin to explain. And Einstein himself said that matter cannot arrange itself into intelligent order, words, thoughts. 

And then we point out that thoughts are not even physical. When I say “justice,” what do I mean? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? How much does it weigh? What’s its texture? There are words that we talk about—ethics, and morals, and so forth—that have nothing to do with the physical universe. You can’t find any characteristics of the physical universe that even begin to approach them, okay? So we are non-physical beings living in a physical body, and we point out that the human brain does not originate its thoughts. If the human brain originated thoughts, we’re the prisoners of our brain, wondering, “Well, what is my brain going to think of next? Whatever my brain thinks up, I guess I have to do it.” No, the brain does not think, we think! We are a non-physical being, each of us, living in a physical body, and we have non-physical thoughts. We use the brain to operate this body. 

There’s an incredible connection which Sir John Eccles, a Nobel prize winner for his research on the brain, and other neuroscientists, neurophysicians, and so forth have tried to investigate. They can’t figure it out! Somehow there is a connection between the spirit and the brain, okay? So when the brain dies, the body dies. The person who lived inside, the thinker who made the choices, who made the decisions, rebelled against God, took his own way, he’s not going to get off scot-free. He’s going to have to face the Creator in judgment. It’s very logical, it’s very scientific, it’s very simple, and it’s biblical, okay? So we kind of begin the chapter that way, and move into the Middle East.

Tom: Well, Dave, you make a comment that might stun some people, but you say, “Man is like a cancer on this earth, refusing to follow God’s instruction for life, His law which He has impressed in every human conscience.”

Dave: Well, Tom, that’s what cancer is. Cancer is a cell that is no longer following the original instructions that it had. You can’t even play a game without rules. Somebody has to make the rules, and of course we’ve got people who say there are no absolutes, absolutely no absolutes. But you follow them around a little while, and they’ll say, “Just do what I say, that’s how it’ll work.” So the people who say there are no rules, they have a rule that there will be no rules, but what they really mean is they want to make the rules to run their own life, and don’t you interfere, because they would like to run your life, as well. 

So a cell that is no longer obeying the original instructions, it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do, it’s not following what the Creator said it should do. This is what we call “cancer,” and man is like a cancer on this globe. 

Again, Tom, it’s very simple, it’s very logical, it is biblical, it is scientific. We can’t deny it, and until we are willing to submit our individual lives—you know, get back in touch with the Creator and allow him to have His way—the family, husband and wife, parents and children, the neighborhood, the business, whatever it is, is not going to work right, and certainly this world is not going to work right. It’s spinning out of control; it’s heading for disaster; it is really heading for Armageddon, and that’s what we get into in the final chapter of the book. 

Now, there is a problem. God has a problem, because God is just. He has made some statements to Adam and Eve. He said, “You rebel against me, I’m throwing you out of this garden. I can’t have rebels in My universe. And you will die; I will take your life from you, because you no longer qualify to live in this universe that I have created.” 

But God loves us. He wants to forgive us. How is He going to do it? You know, a judge can just say, “Well, okay, I’ll let you off this time.” No, the law will not allow that! God cannot go back on His Word; He cannot break His own laws, so what is He going to do? He loves us, He wants to forgive us—how will he do it? And that, from the very beginning—Genesis:3:15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
See All... and on through the Bible—we have the promise of the Messiah. 

Now, many people think the Messiah—and, of course, the Jews, when Jesus came, they wanted a Messiah who would come riding in on a white horse with a flashing sword, leading a big army, and who would deliver them from the Romans, their oppressors. They didn’t know that they needed deliverance from sin and self, their own selfish desires within. They needed to be brought back into contact, in touch and obedience with God who created them and who chose them (they’re the chosen people), gave them this land. But their own Scriptures foretold this. 

You go to Zechariah:9:9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
See All..., for example, it says: “Rejoice, O daughter of Zion; shout for joy: behold, your king cometh.” It doesn’t say He’s on a white horse leading an army, it says, “Riding upon the colt of an ass, meek and lowly, bringing salvation.” What kind of a Messiah is that? That’s not the Messiah that the Jews wanted, not the Messiah that the world wants. And I know Israel is still expecting their Messiah.

Tom: Dave, I really find it fascinating that the world needs a Messiah, they need the true Messiah, but there’s this sense of wanting Messiah in every heart. I did a documentary back in—oh, it must have been in the 70’s, and it had to do with…it was for a missionary group and they were in New Guinea, and it was called The Cargo Cult. It had to do with…during World War II, the allies used the lowlands of New Guinea as a supply depot, and the tribes from the highlands…so, the tribe noticed that these great silver birds would land and drop off all these material goods. And when the allies abandoned their supply fields and moved on, these tribes came down, set up their own mock airfields, you know, with torches and so on, to try and get these great silver birds to supply them. 

So, you know—and it’s not just in the culture of New Guinea, throughout the world there is a sense that somebody’s going to solve our problems, but we want it done on our terms, no matter what the culture is. Yet, as you say, the Jews…the Scripture has laid it out, who this Messiah would be, and on what basis would He come.

Dave: Well, Tom, it’s very clear in the Bible. And of course, all through this book Judgment Day, we have been going not only to history, not only analyzing Islam, proving what it is—the most vicious religion the world has ever seen. We give you all the information about Muhammad; we give you all the information about the history of the Muslims, how they went from France to China slaughtering millions, literally. You can’t say this is a peaceful religion. 

The takeover of India—historians call it the bloodiest story in history, and they killed just in India alone more than Hitler killed, okay? 

So we give you all of this history, and the history of Israel. The history of Israel was all foretold in the Bible, that they would be scattered and hated and persecuted like no other people. But now we’re coming to the solution, and all through the Old Testament you have prophecy after prophecy after prophecy that God himself—He’s going to send a Messiah, but that God himself would be the Messiah, that God himself would come to this earth as a man.

Tom: Yeah, He sets the criteria, and only one Person really qualifies. But go ahead.

Dave: Well, the penalty has to be paid. It’s an infinite penalty. We’re talking about the judgment of God—holy and righteous and pure and just—the judgment of God for the sins of billions and billions of people, everyone who ever lived or ever will live; and that includes Hitler, and Mao, and Stalin, and all of these mass murderers—so wicked. The Bible said that God wanted to forgive even them. But for their sins to be forgiven, the penalty had to be paid. Who could pay it? Only God himself could pay that penalty. He would come as a man through a virgin birth, all foretold. The Bible tells you where He would be born, it even tells the day that he would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, and so forth. And so we go to the prophesies, not only what would happen in the Middle East (and it is happening. What is going on in the Middle East right now is in fulfillment of specific prophecies and we document that in the book), but the Messiah: He was foretold, and in fact, He came! That cannot be escaped! So we go to Daniel 9, for example. Daniel:9:24-25 [24] Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. [25] Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
See All..., the angel Gabriel comes and he speaks to Daniel, and he says: “Seventy weeks of years [490 years] are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, and so forth. And at the end of that time, everything will be wrapped up.” 

Now, why 490 years? And why are these weeks of years and not weeks of days? Because, when God brought the children of Israel into the Promised Land, He warned them. He said, “Look, there will not only be a sabbath every seventh day—there will be a sabbath not only every seventh day, but every seventh year.” And every seventh year, they would let the land lie fallow. They would forgive all debts owed to them by fellow Hebrews, and they would let all fellow Hebrew slaves go free. And for 490 years they never did it once. And God said, “You owe the land 70 sabbaths. I will remove you so you can’t till the soil. You wouldn’t let the slaves go free; I will make you slaves. You wouldn’t forgive debts owed you by your fellow Hebrews; I’ll take everything away from you, and this land will be desolate for 70 years.” 

And Jeremiah prophesied that, and others prophesied that, okay? And then the angel Gabriel comes in Daniel 24, and he says to Daniel: “There’s another 490 years [seventy-sevenths], and at the end of 69 of these weeks [483 years in other words], the Messiah will come.” 

Well, that’s precise. Well, from what date do we begin to count this? And the angel Gabriel said: “From the going forth of the command to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem.” He’s not talking about the temple; that happened under Cyrus, and that was foretold by Isaiah before Cyrus was even born: “And a king named Cyrus will allow the people of Israel to go back and rebuild their temple.” 

So how do we know when this happened? Nehemiah 2 tells us, “It was in the 20th year of Artaxerxes Longimanus that he received the authority to rebuild Jerusalem.” The temple had been rebuilt, but the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, the gates were burned with fire, the temple is sitting there defenseless. 

Well, we know from history that Artaxerxes Longimanus ruled from 465 BC to 425 BC. So the 20th year of his reign was 445 BC. You count (don’t forget it’s a 360-day year of the Jews and Babylonians. Don’t forget Leap Year, and so forth) and you count from Nisan 1, 445 BC, 483 years, and it brings you precisely to April 6, 32 AD. 

Now Tom, I don’t know how any Jewish person is going to escape that. I don’t know how anyone can escape it. It’s there. It tells you the day, the very day, that the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem on the donkey. It tells you how He was riding in, and so forth. Who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey that day? And you know, I have a little subheading there, I guess: “How Many Candidates for a Messiah?” 

And furthermore, it not only said he would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey (surprise! shock!), He would be rejected by his people. After they hailed Him, He would be rejected and crucified. And the Bible foretells crucifixion 500 years before it was even known on this earth. Now, how many men—or women, if you want to include them—how many rode into Jerusalem on the colt of an ass on April 6, 32 AD, were hailed as the Messiah by a crowd of people, and four days later were nailed to a cross exactly as the prophets foretold? I just say, “How many candidates?” You’ve only got one candidate. Now, why are you going to reject Him? 

“Well, I don’t like Him. I mean, I don’t know why they call themselves Christians.” I understand why Jews don’t like Christians, or have a prejudice against it, because Roman Catholics call themselves Christians. They slaughtered Jews all across Europe! They chased the Jews into the synagogue in Jerusalem and set it ablaze! They persecuted Jews down through history, okay? It was the popes who first put the Jews in ghettos. I’m sorry, we’ve talked about it on this program—although they waved the cross, the Crusaders were not Christians! Why are they not Christians? Because they violated everything the Bible says. They did not accept the Messiah, for example, as having paid the penalty for their sins. They offer Him—you know, Tom, you were a Catholic—they offer Him again and again, day after day after day on an altar in their churches, and they say, “This is a propitiatory sacrifice. He is being immolated again,” okay? So don’t blame Christ and don’t blame real Christians for what people who call themselves Christians did.

So I understand the prejudice, but look, we’re only quoting their own prophets. I would be interested if any Jewish people are listening, please write in; tell us. how do you escape these prophecies? I know I’ve had Jewish people say, “Well, the rabbis tell us not to read them.” Well, how can the rabbis tell you to stay away from part of the Bible that God gave to you, the Torah and the Tanakh?

Tom: And their own prophets.

Dave: Absolutely. So anyway, that’s kind of how we began this chapter: “The World Needs a Messiah.” Well, if the world needs a Messiah for many reasons that we haven’t even elaborated, who could that Messiah be? Well, how many candidates are there? And I think the evidence is overwhelming. And I’m not trying to force anything on anybody; I’m not trying to get somebody to join my church, you understand? Our church—we don’t have one, we just want them to know the facts and the truth, and we want them to know the Messiah and what He did, and why He qualifies, and why they need Him, and how easy it is to receive Him into their hearts.