Can We All Understand the Word When We Hear It?

Tom:

In this segment we are in the Gospel of John and this is our really our “Understand the Scriptures” very specifically segment, right Dave?I like this of all of our segments, because we are going through God’s Word verse by verse, line by line.

Dave:

Right.Exactly.

Tom:

And we’ve tried to and I hope we have encouraged listeners who maybe haven’t picked up a Bible before.Again the name of the program is “Search the Scriptures Daily.”We want everyone who whether you call yourself a Christian, whether you are seeking after truth, this is the place to begin—God’s Word.And the best place to start, I believe is the Gospel of John.So we are in John:8:43Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
See All..., “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”Now Dave we just encouraged people to read the Bible and then we have this verse.One of the ways that we know the Bible is God’s Word is that Jesus does not speak as men speak.In today’s mentality Jesus would be lowering these people’s self esteem, he’s not positive enough, he doesn’t approach this the way you’re supposed to approach it to convince people and change their minds.

Dave:

Well Jesus is very straightforward and we will get to those passages where it says “there was a division among the Jews,” because of him.Because you have to decide, do you believe in Jesus or don’t you?It’s like the young man I was sitting next to on the plane and he claimed that he had been a born again Christian and he believed in Jesus, but he said I don’t believe anymore.I said well what do you believe about him?Well, he said, I believe he is a good man.You know, we’ve been through this man times.You can’t say he’s a good man.If he is just a man, he’s not a good man because he claimed to be God.He said he would rise from the dead.He said he would judge everyone.A good man doesn’t go around making statements like that.But I said, you can’t escape what Jesus said.We have eyewitnesses.You can’t get around it.Jesus made some statements.Now you have to face them.Either he is a liar or a lunatic or he is who he claimed to be.But you can’t just pass him off as a good man.Jesus said to Pilate (and I am jumping way ahead to chapter 18, but it’s apropos to what he’s saying here.He says, “For this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness unto the truth.Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice.”Now we have Christian psychologists who justify taking from Freud and Jung and Rogers and so forth.They say well all truth is God’s truth.Some of God’s truth is here and some of God’s truth is there. But that’s not what the Bible says.Jesus said I am the truth.Back here in verse 32, 31 he said, “If you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed.You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”Now these are people of verse 30 it says they believed on him.They claim to believe in him.They think he is the Messiah, but they have a wrong idea of who the Messiah is.And Jesus said, “If you were of the truth…” in other words, if you were open to the truth, if you really want to know God, you want to believe the truth, you would know, you would hear my speech.But you can’t hear it because you’re not of God.This is what he’s saying.Tom it is so important and I speak to my own heart now.Do I want to know the truth?You know I’ve been writing books, you’ve been writing.We’re not writers are we?

Tom:

Well sometimes I thought we ought to call central casting and have a writer come over when we’re wrestling over something.

Dave:

Right.I don’t consider myself to be a writer and my wife is my best critic.I remember when I first started writing in a 17^th century castle in Switzerland and Ruth, she was an English major, has taught English, she looked over my shoulder and she said, “You can’t put two sentences together.”Now that was an exaggeration.I couldn’t put three together, but I could put two together.And she encouraged me by saying nobody’s going to read that!Well if you want to get me to try to do something, then tell me I can’t do it.But anyway, the Lord is very gracious.When you write—I can remember when I first met her I was trying to write short stories for magazines, because in those days, this was the late 40s, they would give you $.75 to $1 a word for a short story to a magazine and I thought wow, now that’s the way to make money.

Tom:

Big time.

Dave:

Yes!And I was trying, but you know one of the things every writer needs is a critic.Several critics.Someone who will be honest

Tom:

Editors.

Dave:

Right, an editor who will tell you the truth.And I can tell you Tom, Ruth was—she worked here way through university by scrubbing floors and walls and so forth.One couple that she was working for, they were writers.Successful writers.And she was trying to tell me a few things, but she thought she would give one of my stories to them.I remember what they said was something to the effect that we think he needs to live a little longer, a little more before he starts writing you know.Anyway, the point I am trying to make is you are a little sensitive.You don’t want to hear criticism.I would rather have someone flatter me.There are people who will do that.Oh that’s great stuff!That’s not what you need.What you need is honesty.We need to know the truth.And most people do not want to know the truth.Jesus said if you do not want to know the truth, then you can’t hear what I am saying, because what I am saying is the truth.And Tom, one of the most powerful promises in the Bible:God says, “You will seek for me and find me when you seek for me with your whole heart.”That is a promise you can give to anyone.But the problem is most people don’t want to know the true God, they want a cosmic bellhop, a magic genie who will give them what they want.But God says if you really want to know me, the true and living God, the Creator of this universe because you want to submit yourself to know me and to do my will, I guarantee you I don’t care what society you live in, where in the world, what time in history, I will reveal myself to you if you really truly want to know me.This is what Jesus is saying, “You can’t hear my words because you don’t want the truth, but I am telling you the truth and that’s what you don’t want to hear.”

Tom:

Dave when you mentioned earlier about Christian psychology, so-called, we have words here.First of all, the way Jesus says things—and this would be in conflict with the way psychology would recommend as I mentioned before.For example, they’d say—this self fulfilling prophecy here, “You are of your father the devil and the lusts of your fathers ye will do.”

Dave:

Yes, you are putting them down now.

Tom:

Yes, and they are going to do these things because of your approach.Now, this is Jesus speaking these words.So now if somebody is a psychotherapist, calling themselves a Christian psychotherapist—what do they do with something like this, when it runs counter, contrary, the antithesis of what their therapy teaches.They have to make a decision.

Dave:

Tom, it’s quite simple right here in verse 45, “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”But the Christian psychologist says all truth is God’s truth.We get some from Freud and from here and there.Wait a minute; Jesus says the truth is the very thing that you won’t believe.And we have people who say well the truth like 10 x 10 = 100.That’s part of the truth and the facts of science and so forth.Jesus isn’t saying that because I tell you 10 x 10 =100 you won’t believe me.He is speaking of something very specific.It comes only from His Word.It comes only through the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive.Jesus says that when we get to chapter 14 and when we get to chapter 16 he says, “When he the spirit of truth is come, he will lead you into all truth.So all truth comes by the inspiration of the Spirit of Truth through the Word of God from Jesus who is the Truth.Don’t tell me Freud ever knew anything of the truth, or Fromm, or Jung, or Rogers.These were anti-Christians and yet the Christian psychologist has gone to the world, to take the ideas of the world and to integrate it with the Bible as though the Bible needs some help.And what we need to do is get rid of that and get back to the Word of God.

Tom:

And again Dave, it’s very simple.There are stark contrasts between what the world teaches, what psychology teaches and what the Word of God teaches.

Dave:

But they are trying to integrate it and it won’t work.And why try to integrate something into the Bible.Isn’t the Bible sufficient?Isn’t this God’s Word?Doesn’t this have all we need?