The Berean Call Podcast

And many Christians are in a similar situation, where, you know, they can see it all around them. There’s evidence of design, the Bible says that God’s the Creator – so they want to believe that, but they’re more worried about mankind’s approval rather than God’s approval, and Galatians 1:10 says, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?” You know, am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. And, again, we’re so worried about what everyone else is going to think of us, and so you don’t want to be the person who gets laughed at, like, “What? You don’t believe in evolution? Oh, come on! Everybody believes in evolution! We can see change all around us! No one denies that!”

You see, there are people who dedicate their lives to Christ – they come forward; maybe it’s an emotional time. Then what do you know? Pretty soon they’ve got to rededicate, and re-rededicate. The problem with that is, they were the heroes and God was the villain: “Well, okay, God. I’ll knuckle down and I’ll give up everything and I’ll live this sober and sad, self-denying Christian life, and miss out on all the fun, but if I don’t, you’re going to zap me some way or another. So okay, God, I’ll dedicate myself to you.” But the heart is not in it, and God is not being honored. I should surrender myself to Him as the One who loves me, and His way is best. All He wants is what is best for me....

Tom, there are many arguments you could use…many people are arguing, “Does God exist? Does He not exist? Is the Bible His Word?” They can tell you that not all of the manuscripts are accurate and the gospels were not written until centuries afterwards – that’s all baloney, and we can give them factual proof about that. But they just generally brush it off. I’ve mentioned this before: even when you read the creationists’ writings, listen to their talks, they are arguing back and forth with the evolutionists, the atheists, from science. They don’t get anywhere: “Well, this is my science, yeah, that’s your science, that’s your interpretation,” and so forth.

Tom: ...as I mentioned, people avoid prophecy because it just seems too puzzling for many people, and I can understand that. But why prophecy?…You know, you say, “Well, you can prove the Bible by prophecy.” Now, let’s get very simple here – why do you say that? What would be something that would compel me to believe the Bible because of prophecy?...

Biblical Christianity is divine accomplishment. Christ did it all. There is nothing to do, it’s done. He did it all!

This is the second part of our program series on the movie The Shack. My guest is Dave James, who’s been on a number of times, dealing with issues like The Harbinger: Fact or Fiction? He wrote A Biblical Guide to the Shemitah and the Blood Moons, and these are books that have become very popular in the Christian community, in Christendom, and we just lay out – Dave’s just a Berean. We’re just Bereans. We are trying to evaluate what we read and hold it up to the Word of God. We’re trying to be Bereans about this.

Dave, before we begin our discussion of The Shack movie, I want to give our listeners a perspective of movies in general, and really how they work, and I think that might help them understand the medium of film better, especially theatrical movies, and hopefully it will underscore some important aspects of why we're having this discussion. Now, my thoughts are based here as someone who's been trained in the medium of film at the university level, and then I worked in Hollywood as a professional screenwriter for a number of years. So let's begin here.

I have a lead in, which I mentioned at the end of the program last week, and it has to do with bumper stickers. Now, Tim may have the...you know, I’m a little worried about this, because he has 57 bumper stickers on his car – hopefully they’re not on the windshield (all of them), and then, people are going to follow you around town just to...it’s like a reading event. Well, Tim, tell us about some of these...well, for maybe somebody’s who’s joined us for the first time, missed last week’s program, why bumper stickers? What’s that about?

Today and next week I have the privilege of interviewing a man I’ve known for a long time, and this is a very special interview, which you’ll hear. But why would you ask that? Well, because I get to interview someone who has interviewed me a number of times in the past. And now, I don’t want you to think that this is payback. No, there’s not even a thought of that, because Dave Hunt and I have gotten this gentleman into more trouble, and vice-versa, which we’ll talk about in this session and next week. My special guest is Tim Berends. He is the host of Jesus and Tim in Las Vegas, which is broadcast on KKVV 1060 AM and KKVV.com.